A WOMAN’S PLEA FOR FREEDOM OF
THOUGHT. S U P P L E M E N T TO “ T H E L I T E R A R Y G U I D E S O C T O B E R , 18 9 6 .
F r a n c e s W r i g h t was born at Dundee in 1795. When only eighteen, she wrote a philosophic essay entitled “ A Few Days in Athens.” She visited the United States, and delivered outspoken lectures on social and religious subjects. Having bought land to the extent of two thousand acres, she placed on it a number of negro families whose freedom she had purchased. She was a friend and helper of Robert Owen. Her death took place at Cincinnati, in 1S52. The extracts reprinted in the present paper are taken from a series o f lectures given in New York, Philadelphia, Boston, etc., in 1829.
America furnished a fertile soil for the seeds of liberty. Nevertheless, the tares of many a superstition and many an error mingled with the wheat. Out of the frankness of her heart Frances Wright addressed expostulations to the citizens of the beloved country of her adoption. She pleaded for the unfettering of women from the yoke of theology. She denounced the narrow and commercial spirit of the press. Very warmly she reproached America for the neglected state of the female mind. “ This,” she said, “ by placing the most influential half of the nation at the mercy of that worst species of quackery, practised under the name of religion, virtually lays the reins of government, national as well as domestic, in the hands of a priesthood, whose very subsistence depends, of necessity, upon the mental and moral degradation of their fellow creatures.” These words may seem exaggerated to the point of injustice. But Miss Wright’s soul had been roused to intense revulsion by witnessing disgraceful scenes in the churches of Cincinnati. This is her account: “ Last summer, by the sudden combination of the clergy of three orthodox sects,
A R E V IV A L ,
as such scenes of distraction are wont to be styled, was opened in houses, churches, and even on the Ohio river. The victims of this odious experiment on human credulity and nervous weakness were invariably women. Helpless age was made a public spectacle, innocent youth driven to raving insanity, mothers and daughters carried lifeless from the presence of the ghostly expounders of damnation. All ranks shared in the contagion, until the despair of Calvin’s hell itself seemed to have fallen upon every heart, and discord to have taken possession of every mansion.” Against such disorders, committed in the name of religion, Frances Wright vigorously protested. Both in Cincinnati and New York the orthodox newspapers flung copious abuse at her head, and imputed evil motives to her reforming energy. This was the manner of her retort:—
“ I know of none, from the modest Socrates and gentle Jesus, down to the least or the greatest reformers of our own time, who have remembered the poor, the ignorant, or the oppressed, raised their voice in favour of more equal distributions of knowledge and liberty, or dared to investigate the causes of vice and wretchedness, with a view to their remedy : I know of none, I say, who have not been the mark of persecution, drunk the poison of calumny, or borne the cross of martyrdom. What better and wiser have endured I shall not lack courage to meet. Having put my hand to the plough, I will not draw back, nor, having met the challenge so long cast at human nature and human reason, alike by privilege and superstition, will I refuse to meet all hazards in their cause.”
In her lecture on “ The Nature of Knowledge” Miss Wright insisted on the importance of accurate observation and study of natural facts. Bitter scorn she poured out upon the high-sounding theories and pompous disputation which passed for knowledge in the colleges. Her indignation may strike us as harsh ; but we must remember that seventy years ago both America and Europe dreamed little of the wonderful regions which a well-ordered physical science was to open up to the human intellect before the nineteenth century closed. And in urging the preciousness of knowledge she implored women not to be left behind in the noble pursuit. Passionate is her call to women to shake off the sacerdotal bondage :—
“ Oh ! were that worst evil withdrawn which now weighs upon our race, how rapid were its progress in knowledge! Oh 1 were men—
AND Y E T MORE, WOMEN---
absolved from fear, how easily, and speedily, and gloriously would they hold on their course in improvement! The difficulty is not to convince ; it is to win attention. Could truth only be heard, the conversion of the ignorant were easy. And well do the hired supporters of errors [ i.e ., the clergy] understand this fact. Well do they know that, if the daughters of the present, and mothers of the future generation, were to drink of the living waters of knowledge, their reign would be ended— their occupation gone. So well do they know it that, far from obeying to the letter the command of their spiritual leader, Be ye fishers of men, we find them everywhere fishers of women. Their own sex, old and young, they see with indifference swim by their nets ; hut closely and warily are their meshes laid, to entangle the female of every age.”
The Rationalist of to day will not, perhaps, view with such sternness the very natural efforts of the clergy to preserve their influence over the women. Nor is it just to suppose them animated by conscious love of error. Indeed, the time has come when many of the clergy themselves would gladly shake off the burden of a dogmatic creed if only they dared. Women, in their turn, often cling to the church more because it offers them a shrine for the expression of moral aspiration than because they set a deep value upon the supernatural teachings of Christianity. The more earnest and intelligent portion of the priesthood and the brighter minds among the ranks of English and American women will, it is hoped, learn that morality will gain by being detached from theology, and that the noblest church is that which rouses all that is best in human nature without the aid of prayer and without dependence on an ancient Bible.
Most eloquent were Frances Wright’s words on behalf of “ Free Inquiry.” Men, women, high-born, low-born, aristocrat, democrat—on all the duty is laid to open the window of the mind to every breeze of knowledge. “ Let us inquire !” she exclaims with a fervour that might be characterized as religious.
“ L E T US IN Q U IR E .”
“ Oh, words fraught with good to man and terror to his oppressors ! Oh, words bearing glad tidings to the many, and alarm only to the few ! The monarch hears them, and trembles on his throne ! The priest hears them, and trembles in the sanctuary ! The unjust judge—and trembles on the judgment-seat! The nations pronounce them and arise in their strength. Let us inquire—and behold! ignorance becomes wise, vice forsakes its errors, wretchedness conceives of comfort, and despair is visited by hope. Let us inquire ! When all shall whisper these little words, and echo them in their hearts, truly the rough places shall be made smooth and the crooked paths straight. Let us inquire ; and behold, no evil but shall find its remedy, no error but shall be detected, and no truth but shall stand revealed. Let us inquire ! These little words, which presume in nothing, but which promise all things, what ear shall they offend? What imagination shall they affright? Not yours, sons of America ! Not yours. What hold ye of good or great ? What boast ye of rights, of privileges, beyond the rest of the nations, that by inquiry hath not been
