A History of Freedom of Thought | Page 9

he was menaced by a prosecution for
blasphemy, the charge being a pretext for attacking one who belonged
to a certain political party. The persecution of opinion was never
organized.

It may seem curious that to find the persecuting spirit in Greece we
have to turn to the philosophers. Plato, the most brilliant disciple of
Socrates, constructed in his later years an ideal State. In this State he
instituted
[36] a religion considerably different from the current religion, and
proposed to compel all the citizens to believe in his gods on pain of
death or imprisonment. All freedom of discussion was excluded under
the cast-iron system which he conceived. But the point of interest in his
attitude is that he did not care much whether a religion was true, but
only whether it was morally useful; he was prepared to promote
morality by edifying fables; and he condemned the popular mythology
not because it was false, but because it did not make for righteousness.
The outcome of the large freedom permitted at Athens was a series of
philosophies which had a common source in the conversations of
Socrates. Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics, the Epicureans, the Sceptics—it
may be maintained that the efforts of thought represented by these
names have had a deeper influence on the progress of man than any
other continuous intellectual movement, at least until the rise of
modern science in a new epoch of liberty.
The doctrines of the Epicureans, Stoics, and Sceptics all aimed at
securing peace and guidance for the individual soul. They were widely
propagated throughout the Greek world from the third century B.C.,
and we may say that from this time onward most
[37] well-educated Greeks were more or less rationalists. The teaching
of Epicurus had a distinct anti-religious tendency. He considered fear to
be the fundamental motive of religion, and to free men’s minds from
this fear was a principal object of his teaching. He was a Materialist,
explaining the world by the atomic theory of Democritus and denying
any divine government of the universe. [2] He did indeed hold the
existence of gods, but, so far as men are concerned, his gods are as if
they were not—living in some remote abode and enjoying a “sacred
and everlasting calm.” They just served as an example of the realization
of the ideal Epicurean life.

There was something in this philosophy which had the power to inspire
a poet of singular genius to expound it in verse. The Roman Lucretius
(first century B.C.) regarded Epicurus as the great deliverer of the
human race and determined to proclaim the glad tidings of his
philosophy in a poem On the Nature of the World. [3] With all the
fervour
[38] of a religious enthusiast he denounces religion, sounding every
note of defiance, loathing, and contempt, and branding in burning
words the crimes to which it had urged man on. He rides forth as a
leader of the hosts of atheism against the walls of heaven. He explains
the scientific arguments as if they were the radiant revelation of a new
world; and the rapture of his enthusiasm is a strange accompaniment of
a doctrine which aimed at perfect calm. Although the Greek thinkers
had done all the work and the Latin poem is a hymn of triumph over
prostrate deities, yet in the literature of free thought it must always hold
an eminent place by the sincerity of its audacious, defiant spirit. In the
history of rationalism its interest would be greater if it had exploded in
the midst of an orthodox community. But the educated Romans in the
days of Lucretius were sceptical in religious matters, some of them
were Epicureans, and we may suspect that not many of those who read
it were shocked or influenced by the audacities of the champion of
irreligion.
The Stoic philosophy made notable contributions to the cause of liberty
and could hardly have flourished in an atmosphere where discussion
was not free. It asserted the rights of individuals against public
[39] authority. Socrates had seen that laws may be unjust and that
peoples may go wrong, but he had found no principle for the guidance
of society. The Stoics discovered it in the law of nature, prior and
superior to all the customs and written laws of peoples, and this
doctrine, spreading outside Stoic circles, caught hold of the Roman
world and affected Roman legislation.
These philosophies have carried us from Greece to Rome. In the later
Roman Republic and the early Empire, no restrictions were imposed on
opinion, and these philosophies, which made the individual the first

consideration, spread widely. Most of the leading men were unbelievers
in the official religion of the State, but they considered it valuable for
the purpose of keeping the uneducated populace in order.