Freethinkers
Sir: Quentin Bell (14 August) criticises Ronald Pearsall for arguing in Public Purity, Private Shame that the decline of religion in Victorian Britain was associated with political radicalism and personal emancipation, and himself argues that, apart from some followers of Charles Bradlaugh and Annie Besant, most freethinkers retained Christian morality even when they rejected Christian faith.
In fact nineteenth-century freethinkers continued to believe in 'morality etc etc' for the same reason that ancient freethinkers had believed in it before the rise of Christi anity and for the same reason that contemporary freethinkers still believe in it after the fall of Christianity—because morality is a natural rather than supernatural phenomenon and is accepted by people of all religions and none. Moreover freethinkers challenged specifically Christian morality long before the Edwardians or even the Victorians, as may be seen in the campaigns on such issues as censorship, slavery, contraception, social equality and sexual liberty. Whatever may be true of 'upperclass scepticism', middle-class and lowerclass freethinkers pioneered virtually every progressive movement throughout the nineteenth (and twentieth) century.
Nicolas Walter Rationalist Press Association, 88 Islington High Street, London Ni
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