A Biographical Dictionary of Modern Rationalists/Preface

PREFACE

THE term "Rationalist" first appears in English letters about the middle of the seventeenth century (Clarendon, State Papers, II, App. XL). It denotes a sect who follow " what their reason dictates to them in Church or State." Bacon had a little earlier (Apophthegm, II, 21) applied the term "Rationals" to the philosophers who sought to attain truth by deductions from the first principles which reason was supposed to perceive rather than by induction from the observed facts of nature. In neither sense did the term pass into general currency at the time; but in the course of the nineteenth century it has been adopted as the most fitting name for those who uphold what is vaguely called the supremacy of reason in the discovery and establishment of truth.

The technical use of the term in philosophy is not regarded in the compilation of this Dictionary. It still denotes, in the Baconian sense, those who advocate deductive and transcendental rather than inductive or empirical systems of thought. But, since induction is no less a process of reason than deduction, the distinction is not happily framed, and it does little more than designate the tendency to attach value to metaphysical speculation as distinct from the empirical or scientific study of nature. The modern Rationalist may choose either method or, in separate fields of investigation, both. His characteristic is that in the ascertainment of fact he affirms the predominance and validity of reason over revelation, authority, faith, emotion, or instinct; and general usage has now confined the term to those who urge this predominance of reason in regard to the Christian religion. In matters of State the rights of reason are theoretically admitted.

Rationalism is therefore primarily a mental attitude, not a creed or a definite body of negative conclusions. No uniformity of opinions must be sought in the thousands of men and women of cultural distinction who are here included in a common category. The one link is that they uphold the right of reason against the authority of Church or tradition; they discard the idea of revelation as a source of truth, and they deny the authority of a Church or a creed or tradition to confine the individual judgment. Yet this common link is overlaid in this series of little biographies with so much variety of opinion, and the title to be called Rationalist in this sense is now so frequently claimed by men who linger in some branch of the Christian Church, that a more precise statement is needed.

Rationalism has, like every other idea or institution, evolved; and the earlier phases of its evolution still live, in some measure, side by side with more advanced stages of rebellion. Both from the pressure of environment, the nature of the human mind, and the comparative poverty of positive knowledge in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, it was natural that Rationalism should first take the form of a simple protest against the supernatural and sacerdotal elements of the prevailing faith. The Socinians or early Unitarians were the first Rationalists, in the period which this Dictionary covers. I am not concerned with what we may call the Nationalists of earlier civilizations, and do not propose to include a list of all the thinkers of ancient Greece and Rome, Persia and Arabia. For the same reason I omit entirely the long list of Chinese and Japanese scholars, all of whom are Rationalists, and nearly all of whom are Agnostics. Nor do I propose to include the names of early Rationalizing Christians like Abelard and Arnold of Brescia, the Epicureans and Materialists and Cathari of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, or even the Humanists and Neo-Pagans of the Renaissance. In order to stress the full significance of the modern development, these earlier outbreaks or phases of rebellion are omitted. The period which this Dictionary covers begins at the death of Giordano Bruno in the year 1600.

The Socinians open the modern development, but since they and their successors, the Unitarians, remain a branch of the Christian Church, and retain some measure of the sacerdotal and authoritative element, they do not properly fall into the category of Rationalists, and are not included in this work. Under shelter of their rebellion, or under the stimulation of their large use of reason against faith and authority, there soon appeared the isolated thinkers who herald that more advanced stage of development the Deistic movement. In the seventeenth century, and the early part of the eighteenth century, it was still dangerous to apply the corrosive acid of reason to the bases of the most fundamental of religious doctrines the belief in a Supreme Being. A few ventured already upon that dangerous experiment, and for their brave vindication of the full use of reason, and the horrible penalty they paid at the hands of Protestant or Catholic majorities, their names are honourably inscribed in this work. But, though we have just reason to suspect that some of the early Deists were checked, either in their expressions or their speculations, by the occasional martyrdom of some too candid sceptic and the habitual persecution of "unbelievers," the fact that they generally retained the fundamental religious beliefs is quite intelligible. The Rationalists of the Renaissance had exerted a literary and historical pressure upon the foundations of the Papal system. When the Reformers substituted the Bible for the Papal authority, the next phase of Rationalism was naturally an application of literary and historical criticism to this new foundation of popular belief. The Deists rejected the idea of revelation, miracle, mystery, and priestly authority, yet acknowledged the existence of a Supreme Being, and generally admitted the personal immortality of the human mind. Their chief representatives are assuredly entitled to be included in this volume; and on the same principle of selection those who hold the same position to-day, and are now usually called Theists, must be included.

In the second half of the eighteenth century this movement reached its height. The rights of man, which that generation heatedly discussed, included the rights of reason; and the disintegration of political as well as of priestly authority stimulated criticism by enlarging its liberty. In the new free atmosphere of the United States, in the cultural revival which followed the long period of disturbance in England, in the lax and luxurious condition of French society and Church, and in the "storm and stress" phase which awoke the intellect of Germany, Rationalism spread rapidly and produced an abundant and very candid literature. It was inevitable that many should now pass to a further stage of rebellion, especially when the French Revolution and the Napoleonic disturbance shook the traditional frame of authority. Deism had regarded the Bible as the basis of the Churches and assailed it. Many now sought to concentrate reason upon the basis of Deism itself. Men began to describe themselves as Pantheists, Atheists, and Materialists. A new phase of philosophical development began with Kant in Germany, and, how ever much it wavered in its successive oracles between Theism, Pantheism, and Atheism, it in all cases shattered the foundation of philosophical reasoning on which the Deists had confidently reared their " natural religion."

The French Revolution and the return of reactionary authorities checked or confined for a time these new developments of Rationalism. There was a general tendency to fear that an attack upon authority in religion led to an attack upon the bases of political authority or economic security. In nearly every country of Europe a generation passed without any considerable Rationalist activity. Once more it fell to men of little cultural distinction, of bold and uncompromising character, to articulate the rights of reason against authority and suffer the penalty. The names of these men also are gratefully included in this Dictionary. If their work was at times defective in taste or culture, their courage lays us under a debt. They won freedom for a later generation, and they were almost the first educators of the mass of the people in a rational philosophy of life.

Before the middle of the nineteenth century the third and definitive stage of Rationalist development set in. Of the many causes which contributed toit two only need to be noted: the final shattering of feudal political authority by the revolutionary wave of the forties and the advance of science. On the political side the Churches had linked their fortunes to the last with those of the restored and truculent monarchies; and the new democracy, finally triumphing over its feudal oppressors, was ready to hear that the divine rightof priests had no better foundation than the divine right of kings. Just at this moment science attained maturity and began to attract even popular notice to its marvellous new interpretation of the universe. Rationalism of the more advanced character now spread on every side. In the scientific world it largely assumed the form of Agnosticism, which discredits theology by ignoring it and seeks to interpret the universe without its aid. In popular circles, in England, the same attitude was embodied in Secularism, or the determination to transact all the practical affairs of life without relation toreligious beliefs. A few accept the more emphatic title of Atheists or Materialists. In France and other Latin countries many sought to retain the constructive energy of the old faith, while discarding even its most fundamental beliefs, by founding a Religion of Humanity, or Positivism. In Germany the new spirit has been chiefly embodied in Monism, or the doctrine that one reality only exists, and that therefore there is no Supreme Being distinct from the universe and no soul distinct and detachable from the human body. In all countries the new Rationalism was also incorporated in societies for moral culture without regard to Christian or Theistic beliefs. In continental Socialism, in fine, a blunt rejection of all religious belief s was associated with the aim of improving present human conditions.

The variety of types included in this work, and the principle of selection, thus become intelligible. It includes Theists (when they do not conform to the authority of any branch of the Christian Church), Pantheists, Agnostics,. and the few who prefer to be called Atheists. It includes distinguished Secularists, Positivists, Monists, and Ethicists. But amid this variety there is a steady progression which is obscured by the need to arrange the names in alphabetical order. Only about a hundred names are chosen for the period before the French Revolution, and they are overwhelmingly Deists. Possibly some two hundred names then belong to the period between the French Revolution and the middle of the nineteenth century, and already a material change can be detected in the list. The Deists sink into a minority, while Pantheists and Non-Theists increase. The vast majority of the names in the work belong to this and the last generation, and they are predominantly the names of Agnostics, Positivists, Monists, and others who do not accept any fundamental religious beliefs.

In compiling the list of earlier Rationalists I am indebted to Mr. J. M. Robertson's Short History of Freethought (1915), Mr. J. M. Wheelers Biographical Dictionary of Freethinkers (1889), and Mr. Benn's History of English nationalism in the Nineteenth Century (1906). Mr. Wheeler s principle of selection is somewhat vague, and he seems to have been hampered by the reluctance to declare their opinions of many who were then living. Posthumous publication has largely removed this difficulty, and some readers will be astounded to learn how large a proportion of the distinguished men and women of the last generation were nationalists. There is a foolish theory in English literature that Rationalism was a mere episode of the early triumph of science; that a wave of Materialism temporarily passed over the scientific world and has now subsided. This common and not very conscientious statement is false in all its aspects. There was practically no Materialism among the scientific men of the last generation; scepticism was not in the least confined to, or distinctive of, men of science, but was equally rife among poets, artists, philosophers, historians, and men of letters or of practical affairs; and, instead of shrinking, this body of dissenters has become immeasurably larger in our own generation.

But I still confront the difficulty which Mr. Wheeler encountered. An open avowal of Rationalism by a professional man is regarded by many as either dangerous or superfluous. The great majority of the men and women of our generation who have some cultural distinction will lend their names neither to the Churches nor to a Rationalist organization, nor have they any occasion to declare their convictions. For instance, Professor Leuba tells us, in his Belief in God and Immortality, that, of a thousand teachers of science whom he privately consulted, about one-half declined to make a profession of belief in personal immortality; and Professor Leuba does not tell us whether he included teachers in religious colleges, which would greatly weaken the proportion. It is clear that a man who does not admit personal immortality, a quite basic and inalienable element of Christian belief, is a Rationalist in the fullest sense; yet few of those hundreds of teachers of science are included here, since they make no public profession on the subject. Even death often fails to end the reticence. My friend Sir Leslie Stephen and even the poet Swinburne were both buried with the rites of the Church; yet the one was a well-known Agnostic, and the other had treated the Christian doctrine and ethic with unmeasured scorn in his poetry. That final profession of faith, put upon the lips of a dead man, has in hundreds of cases hidden from the public the thoughts of a distinguished sceptic.

In these circumstances this list of university professors, writers, or eminent men and women of this or the last generation who were or are Rationalists must seem impressive. It indicates a general scepticism, at least in regard to the creeds of the Churches, in the class to which the names belong—the higher world of science, art, history, philosophy, sociology, and culture generally. It is hardly too much to say that a corresponding list of men and women of the same class who, in the same two generations, made or make a profession of explicit belief in Christian doctrines would not fill a quarter of this volume. It is hardly necessary to observe that a man or woman whose name is not included in this list must not therefore be regarded as a Christian. The compiler has made no effort whatever to invite professions of Rationalist belief. He has simply surveyed, as far as one man may do so, a vast biographical and philosophical literature, and culled such expressions of opinion as have been voluntarily given to the world or recorded by biographers. In numbers of cases he has omitted names from lack of positive evidence. In the great majority of cases of men of distinction in recent times there has been no expression of opinion at all. It is enough that, although the Churches have repeatedly sought to elicit expressions favourable to themselves, they have failed signally to compile an impressive list of adherents.

In fine, the compiler has had to confront the difficulty that the Christian and Rationalist worlds, which were once so sharply divided, have enlarged and softened their boundaries until classification seems in some cases to be difficult. Theologians who reject the idea of miracle and revelation, and even the divinity of Christ, as so many eminent theologians do to-day, do not substantially differ from many of the Deists. Rationalists who maintain that the existence of some Power which they may call God survives all rational criticism, and who highly appreciate the moral teaching of Christ and the action of the Christian religion, are freely invited, or even entreated, to describe themselves as Christians. What has happened in our time is, not that some legendary wave of Materialism has subsided, but that the Churches have lowered their qualifications, so as to embrace the less advanced types of Rationalists. In this connection it is only necessary to say that I have not wittingly included the name of any man who professes to belong to some branch of the Christian Church. Indeed, of those living or recent men and women of distinction who make up the great body of the work, scarcely any accept the idea of personal immortality, which I take to be a definite crucial test. But it would have been ridiculous and ungrateful to exclude a few who, like Alfred Russel Wallace and Lombroso (devoted supporters of the general aims of the Rationalist Press Association until their deaths), strongly maintained the supremacy of reason and dissented from the Churches.

This difficulty, however, is restricted to a smaller number of names than one would be disposed to expect, and in the case of these few men I may cite as examples Tennyson, Ruskin, and Lord Coleridge it cannot fail to be of interest to the reader to know what, in their own words, their mature views on religion really were. The classification is a matter of secondary interest. And in most cases there is no room for hesitation. Although the list includes more than half the literary genius of Europe and America of the last one hundred years, as well as a surprising number of eminent artists, statesmen, men of science, philosophers, reformers, and men of affairs, the sentiments quoted under each name are unmistakable. The Dictionary represents a revolt of modern culture against the Churches. In the ethical sense many of the men and women included here have retained to the end an appreciation of Christ and Christianity. Many were opposed to aggressive criticism. These things are duly noted. But the revolt, intellectual and emotional, against the creeds is seen to be overwhelming in the world of higher culture; and in an extraordinary proportion of the more recent cases the revolt extends to every attempt to formulate a religious philosophy. It is a new Götterdämmerung.

For the ordinary biographical details I must express my obligations to a large number of encyclopaedias and works of reference. In particular, I must acknowledge my indebtedness to Who s Who? (and the corresponding works in German, French, Italian, Norwegian, and Swedish, as well as the American Who s Who?) and to our great Dictionary of National Biography. To the soundness and scholarship of the latter, indeed, the compiler must, in passing, yield the tribute which his experience has inspired. The list of works, in many tongues, to which he is indebted would, however, require many pages. Mainly, this compilation is based upon the published biographies .and works of the distinguished men and women who are included in it. It has been quite impossible to mention more than a few of the works written by the authors included in the list. The names of the works actually consulted by the compiler would, in fact, occupy considerably more than a hundred pages of this volume. It may therefore be superfluous, in view of the magnitude of the task, to ask for lenient consideration if any name of apparently obvious relevance is found to have been omitted. Still less is it necessary to disarm criticism in advance if the references to Continental scholars be not actually up to date at times. No countries except England and America have published new editions of their Who s Who? since 1914; nor have the customary academic annuals appeared since the great catastrophe. Many men whom the compiler would have included have on this account been regretfully omitted. Yet this collection of nearly three thousand distinguished names, with a few other names which owe their inclusion to gratitude for their efforts or sacrifices rather than to personal distinction, may give the reader a novel and not unimportant clue to the spirit of the time.

J. M.