The Theophilanthropists ("Friends of God and Man") were a Deistic sect , formed in France during the later part of the French Revolution .
130-680: Thomas Paine , together with other disciples of Rousseau and Robespierre , set up a deistic religion , in which Rousseau's Deism and Robespierre's civic virtue ( rè de la vertu ) would be combined. Jean-Baptiste Chemin wrote the Manuel des théopanthropophiles or, in English the Manual of the Theoantropophiles [Theophilantropes] , and Valentin Haüy offered his institute for the blind as
260-460: A Corinthian , but a citizen of the world." They held that external differences, such as rank and wealth, are of no importance in social relationships. Instead, they advocated the brotherhood of humanity and the natural equality of all human beings. Stoicism became the most influential school of the Greco-Roman world, and produced a number of remarkable writers and personalities, such as Cato
390-506: A Newtonian worldview and believed that all things in the universe, even God, must obey the laws of nature. Without a concept of natural law , the deists argued, explanations of the workings of nature would descend into irrationality. This belief in natural law drove their skepticism of miracles . Because miracles had to be observed to be validated, deists rejected the accounts laid out in the Bible of God's miracles and argued that such evidence
520-424: A deterministic perspective; in regard to those who lack Stoic virtue, Cleanthes once opined that the wicked man is "like a dog tied to a cart, and compelled to go wherever it goes". A Stoic of virtue, by contrast, would amend his will to suit the world and remain, in the words of Epictetus , "sick and yet happy, in peril and yet happy, dying and yet happy, in exile and happy, in disgrace and happy", thus positing
650-556: A "clear, simple and straightforward" style. Paine outlined "a new vision—a utopian image of an egalitarian republican society" and his language reflected these ideals. He originated such phrases as "the rights of man," "the age of reason," "the age of revolution," and "the times that try men's souls." Foner also maintains that with The Age of Reason Paine "gave deism a new, aggressive, explicitly anti-Christian tone". He did so by employing " vulgar " (that is, "low" or "popular") language, an irreverent tone, and even religious rhetoric. In
780-515: A "completely autonomous" individual will, and at the same time a universe that is "a rigidly deterministic single whole". This viewpoint was later described as " Classical Pantheism " (and was adopted by Dutch philosopher Baruch Spinoza ). Philosopher Julian Baggini has characterized what constitutes one being a Stoic: "To become a stoic is to endorse the truthfulness of its worldview and accept its prescription for how you ought to live, not just to like how it makes you feel." Baggini asserts that
910-532: A French edition of Part I was published in 1793. François Lanthenas, who translated The Age of Reason into French in 1794, wrote that it was first published in France in 1793, but no book fitting his description has been positively identified. Barlow published the first English edition of The Age of Reason, Part I in 1794 in London, selling it for a mere three pence . Meanwhile, Paine, considered too moderate by
1040-410: A Stoic is not just a set of beliefs or ethical claims; it is a way of life involving constant practice and training (or " askēsis "), an active process of constant practice and self-reminder. Epictetus in his Discourses , distinguished between three types of act: judgment, desire, and inclination. which Hadot identifies these three acts with logic, physics and ethics respectively. Hadot writes that in
1170-563: A beginning or end to the Universe. According to the Stoics, the logos was the active reason or anima mundi pervading and animating the entire Universe. It was conceived as material and is usually identified with God or Nature. The Stoics also referred to the seminal reason (" logos spermatikos "), or the law of generation in the Universe, which was the principle of the active reason working in inanimate matter . Humans, too, each possess
1300-410: A belief in human kinship with Nature or God, a sense of the innate depravity—or "persistent evil"—of humankind, and the futility and temporary nature of worldly possessions and attachments. Both encourage Ascesis with respect to the passions and inferior emotions, such as lust, and envy, so that the higher possibilities of one's humanity can be awakened and developed. Stoic influence can also be seen in
1430-443: A certain way; I am the father of my children, the fellow citizen of my fellow citizens, disposed in a certain way in relation to something else. The Stoics propounded that knowledge can be attained through the use of reason . Truth can be distinguished from fallacy —even if, in practice, only an approximation can be made. According to the Stoics, the senses constantly receive sensations: pulsations that pass from objects through
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#17327648397351560-478: A chance of being perused by that class of readers, for whom your work seems to be particularly calculated, and who are the most likely to be injured by it." However, it was not only the style that concerned Watson and others but also the cheapness of Paine's book. At one sedition trial in the early 1790s, the Attorney–General tried to prohibit Thomas Cooper from publishing his response to Burke's Reflections on
1690-491: A clear and unbiased thinker allows one to understand the universal reason ( logos ). Stoicism's primary aspect involves improving the individual's ethical and moral well-being: " Virtue consists in a will that is in agreement with Nature." This principle also applies to the realm of interpersonal relationships; "to be free from anger, envy, and jealousy", and to accept even slaves as "equals of other men, because all men alike are products of nature". The Stoic ethic espouses
1820-603: A disciple of Socrates . Zeno's most influential successor was Chrysippus , who followed Cleanthes as leader of the school, and was responsible for molding what is now called Stoicism. Stoicism became the foremost popular philosophy among the educated elite in the Hellenistic world and the Roman Empire to the point where, in the words of Gilbert Murray , "nearly all the successors of Alexander [...] professed themselves Stoics". Later Roman Stoics focused on promoting
1950-523: A foreigner, and conveying me to the prison of the Luxembourg. I contrived, in my way there, to call on Joel Barlow , and I put the Manuscript of the work into his hands ... According to Paine scholars Edward Davidson and William Scheick, he probably wrote the first draft of Part I in late 1793, but Paine biographer David Hawke argues for a date of early 1793. It is also unclear whether or not
2080-699: A letter to Elihu Palmer , one of his most loyal followers in America, Paine describes part of his rhetorical philosophy: The hinting and intimidating manner of writing that was formerly used on subjects of this kind [religion], produced skepticism, but not conviction. It is necessary to be bold. Some people can be reasoned into sense, and others must be shocked into it. Say a bold thing that will stagger them, and they will begin to think. Paine's rhetoric had broad appeal; his "pithy" lines were "able to bridge working-class and middle-class cultures" and become common quotations. Part of what makes Paine's style so memorable
2210-616: A life in harmony within the universe within which we are active participants. Scholars usually divide the history of Stoicism into three phases: the Early Stoa, from Zeno's founding to Antipater ; the Middle Stoa, including Panaetius and Posidonius ; and the Late Stoa, including Musonius Rufus , Seneca , Epictetus , and Marcus Aurelius . No complete works survived from the first two phases of Stoicism. Only Roman texts from
2340-462: A mountain), or have put him under a mountain, as the former mythologists had done, to prevent his getting again among the women and doing more mischief. But instead of this they leave him at large, without even obliging him to give his parole—the secret of which is that they could not do without him; and after being at the trouble of making him, they bribed him to stay. They promised him ALL the Jews, ALL
2470-486: A person behaved. To live a good life, one had to understand the rules of the natural order since they believed everything was rooted in nature. Stoicism flourished throughout the Roman and Greek world until the 3rd century CE, and among its adherents was Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius . It experienced a decline after Christianity became the state religion in the 4th century CE. Since then, it has seen revivals, notably in
2600-445: A portion of the divine logos , which is the primordial Fire and reason that controls and sustains the Universe. The foundation of Stoic ethics is that good lies in the state of the soul itself, in wisdom and self-control. One must therefore strive to be free of the passions . For the Stoics, reason meant using logic and understanding the processes of nature—the logos or universal reason, inherent in all things. The Greek word pathos
2730-531: A provisional place of meeting. The society did not set out to set up a new religion, but rather a universal religion. The Manual states, "We do not propose to the people, either a new religion, or a new worship. Our religion is the universal religion. We can trace back our worship to the first ages of the world." When, later, the Convention turned over to them the little church of Sainte Catherine, in Paris ,
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#17327648397352860-498: A revolution in religion was the natural corollary, even prerequisite, of a fully successful political revolution." Paine lays out a vision of, in Davidson and Scheick's words, "an age of intellectual freedom, when reason would triumph over superstition, when the natural liberties of humanity would supplant priestcraft and kingship, which were both secondary effects of politically managed foolish legends and religious superstitions." It
2990-542: A second edition of 3,000 copies. Like Williams, he was prosecuted for seditious libel and blasphemous libel . The prosecutions surrounding the printing of The Age of Reason in Britain continued for 30 years after its initial release and encompassed numerous publishers as well as over a hundred booksellers. The Age of Reason is divided into three sections. In Part I, Paine outlines his major arguments and personal creed. In Parts II and III he analyzes specific portions of
3120-650: A secular image of utopia," emphasizing the possibilities of "progress" and "human perfectibility" that could be achieved by humankind, without God's aid. Although Paine liked to say that he read very little, his writings belied that statement; The Age of Reason has intellectual roots in the traditions of David Hume , Spinoza , and Voltaire . Since Hume had already made many of the same "moral attacks upon Christianity" that Paine popularized in The Age of Reason , scholars have concluded that Paine probably read Hume's works on religion or had at least heard about them through
3250-487: A single person limited its explanatory power. Moreover, many found the Christian revelations in particular to be contradictory and irreconcilable. According to those writers, revelation could reinforce the evidence for God's existence already apparent in the natural world but more often led to superstition among the masses. Most deists argued that priests had deliberately corrupted Christianity for their own gain by promoting
3380-499: A snake talk; and the issue of this tête-à-tête is that he persuades her to eat an apple, and the eating of that apple damns all mankind. After giving Satan this triumph over the whole creation, one would have supposed that the Church Mythologists would have been kind enough to send him back again to the pit: or, if they had not done this, that they would have put a mountain upon him (for they say that their faith can remove
3510-597: A speedy end be put to their use of the Catholic churches. Sporadic attempts at reviving Theophilanthropism were made in the course of the nineteenth century. In 1829, Henri Carle founded "L'alliance religieuse universelle", with La libre conscience as its organ, but both society and periodical disappeared during the Franco-Prussian war . In 1882, Décembre and Vallières, through La fraternité universelle and many similar publications, sought directly to reorganize
3640-1173: A system that became known as Stoic logic and included a deductive system, Stoic Syllogistic, which was considered a rival to Aristotle's Syllogistic (see Syllogism ). New interest in Stoic logic came in the 20th century, when important developments in logic were based on propositional logic. Susanne Bobzien wrote, "The many close similarities between Chrysippus's philosophical logic and that of Gottlob Frege are especially striking". Bobzien also notes that, "Chrysippus wrote over 300 books on logic, on virtually any topic logic today concerns itself with, including speech act theory, sentence analysis, singular and plural expressions, types of predicates , indexicals , existential propositions , sentential connectives , negations , disjunctions , conditionals , logical consequence , valid argument forms, theory of deduction , propositional logic, modal logic , tense logic , epistemic logic , logic of suppositions , logic of imperatives , ambiguity and logical paradoxes ". The Stoics held that all beings ( ὄντα )—though not all things (τινά)—are material . Besides
3770-409: A unified account of the world, constructed from ideals of logic , monistic physics and naturalistic ethics. Of these, they emphasized ethics as the main focus of human knowledge, though their logical theories were of more interest for later philosophers. Stoicism teaches the development of self-control and fortitude as a means of overcoming destructive emotions ; the philosophy holds that becoming
3900-434: A virtuous life, such as if they fell victim to severe pain or disease, but otherwise suicide would usually be seen as a rejection of one's social duty. For example, Plutarch reports that accepting life under tyranny would have compromised Cato 's self-consistency ( constantia ) as a Stoic and impaired his freedom to make the honorable moral choices. A distinctive feature of Stoicism is its cosmopolitanism ; according to
4030-577: A work of this kind exceedingly necessary, lest in the general wreck of superstition, of false systems of government and false theology, we lose sight of morality, of humanity and of the theology that is true. Although Paine wrote The Age of Reason for the French, he dedicated it to his "Fellow Citizens of the United States of America", alluding to his bond with the American revolutionaries. It
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4160-481: Is "a rigidly deterministic single whole". This viewpoint was later described as " Classical Pantheism " (and was adopted by Dutch philosopher Baruch Spinoza ). Diodorus Cronus , who was one of Zeno's teachers, is considered the philosopher who first introduced and developed an approach to logic now known as propositional logic , which is based on statements or propositions, rather than terms, differing greatly from Aristotle's term logic . Later, Chrysippus developed
4290-503: Is a fatalistic and naturalistic pantheism : God is never fully transcendent but always immanent , and identified with Nature . Abrahamic religions personalize God as a world-creating entity, but Stoicism equates God with the totality of the universe; according to Stoic cosmology , which is very similar to the Hindu conception of existence , there is no absolute start to time, as it is considered infinite and cyclic. Similarly, space and
4420-405: Is his effective use of repetition and rhetorical questions in addition to the profusion of "anecdote, irony, parody, satire, feigned confusion, folk matter, concrete vocabulary, and .. appeals to common sense". Paine's conversational style draws the reader into the text. His use of "we" conveys an "illusion that he and the readers share the activity of constructing an argument." By thus emphasizing
4550-484: Is it only with kingdoms that his sooty highness has any interest? " After establishing that he would refrain from using extra-Biblical sources to inform his criticism, but would instead apply the Bible's own words against itself, Paine questions the sacredness of the Bible and analyzes it as one would any other book. For example, in his analysis of the Book of Proverbs he argues that its sayings are "inferior in keenness to
4680-439: Is not the author of them; and still further, that they were not written in the time of Moses, nor till several hundred years afterward; that they are no other than an attempted history of the life of Moses, and of the times in which he is said to have lived, and also of the times prior thereto, written by some very ignorant and stupid pretenders to authorship, several hundred years after the death of Moses. ... The books called
4810-472: Is only through reason that we gain clear comprehension and conviction ( katalepsis ). Certain and true knowledge ( episteme ), achievable by the Stoic sage, can be attained only by verifying the conviction with the expertise of one's peers and the collective judgment of humankind. According to the Stoics, the Universe is a material reasoning substance ( logos ), which was divided into two classes:
4940-417: Is our own doing." These suggest a space that is up to us or within our power. A simple example of the Stoic categories in use is provided by Jacques Brunschwig: I am a certain lump of matter, and thereby a substance, an existent something (and thus far that is all); I am a man, and this individual man that I am, and thereby qualified by a common quality and a peculiar one; I am sitting or standing, disposed in
5070-508: Is red, it would be because some part of a universal red body had entered the object. They held that there were four categories : The Stoics outlined that our own actions, thoughts, and reactions are within our control. The opening paragraph of the Enchiridion states the categories as: "Some things in the world are up to us, while others are not. Up to us are our faculties of judgment, motivation, desire, and aversion. In short, whatever
5200-471: Is regarded by many as the father of early versions of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). Stoic philosophy was the original philosophical inspiration for modern cognitive psychotherapy , particularly as mediated by Albert Ellis' Rational-Emotive Behaviour Therapy (REBT), the major precursor of CBT. The original cognitive therapy treatment manual for depression by Aaron T. Beck et al. states, "The philosophical origins of cognitive therapy can be traced back to
5330-415: Is revelation to the first person only, and hearsay to every other, and consequently they are not obliged to believe it." He also points out that the Christian revelations appear to have altered over time to adjust for changing political circumstances. Urging his readers to employ reason rather than to rely on revelation, Paine argues that the only reliable, unchanging, and universal evidence of God's existence
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5460-415: Is sufficient for happiness ", a sage would be emotionally resilient to misfortune. The Stoics also held that certain destructive emotions resulted from errors of judgment, and they believed people should aim to maintain a will (called prohairesis ) that is "in accordance with nature ". Because of this, the Stoics thought the best indication of an individual's philosophy was not what a person said but how
5590-501: Is the natural world. "The Bible of the Deist," he contends, should not be a human invention, such as the Bible, but rather a divine invention—it should be "creation". Paine takes that argument even further by maintaining that the same rules of logic and standards of evidence that govern the analysis of secular texts should be applied to the Bible. In Part II of The Age of Reason , he does just that by pointing out numerous contradictions in
5720-459: Is the only evil; no cause for anger—for others cannot harm you. The Stoics arranged the passions under four headings: distress, pleasure, fear and lust. One report of the Stoic definitions of these passions appears in the treatise On Passions by Chrysippus (trans. Long & Sedley, pg. 411, modified): Two of these passions (distress and delight) refer to emotions currently present, and two of these (fear and lust) refer to emotions directed at
5850-477: Is this vision that scholars have called Paine's "secular millennialism " and it appears in all of his works. He ends the Rights of Man , for example, with the statement: "From what we now see, nothing of reform in the political world ought to be held improbable. It is an age of revolutions , in which everything may be looked for." Paine "transformed the millennial Protestant vision of the rule of Christ on earth into
5980-556: Is this—that you have attempted to lessen the authority of the Bible by ridicule, more than by reason. Paine's Quaker upbringing predisposed him to deistic thinking at the same time that it positioned him firmly within the tradition of religious Dissent . Paine acknowledged that he was indebted to his Quaker background for his skepticism, but the Quakers' esteem for plain speaking , a value expressed both explicitly and implicitly in The Age of Reason , influenced his writing even more. As
6110-412: Is unclear when exactly Paine drafted Part I although he wrote in the preface to Part II: Conceiving ... that I had but a few days of liberty, I sat down and brought the work to a close as speedily as possible; and I had not finished it more than six hours, in the state it has since appeared, before a guard came there, about three in the morning, with an order ... for putting me in arrestation as
6240-482: The Christian Church and criticizes its efforts to acquire political power. Paine advocates reason in the place of revelation , leading him to reject miracles and to view the Bible as an ordinary piece of literature, rather than a divinely-inspired text. In The Age of Reason , he promotes natural religion and argues for the existence of a creator god. Most of Paine's arguments had long been available to
6370-601: The Joseph Johnson circle. Paine would have been particularly drawn to Hume's description of religion as "a positive source of harm to society" that "led men to be factious, ambitious and intolerant." More of an influence on Paine than Hume was Spinoza's Tractatus Theologico-politicus (1678). Paine would have been exposed to Spinoza's ideas through the works of other 18th-century deists, most notably Conyers Middleton . Though these larger philosophical traditions are clear influences on The Age of Reason , Paine owes
6500-569: The Meditations , "Each maxim develops either one of these very characteristic topoi [i.e., acts], or two of them or three of them." Stoicorum Veterum Fragmenta is a collection by Hans von Arnim of fragments and testimonia of the earlier Stoics, published in 1903–1905 as part of the Bibliotheca Teubneriana . It includes the fragments and testimonia of Zeno of Citium , Chrysippus and their immediate followers. At first
6630-461: The Renaissance ( Neostoicism ) and in the contemporary era ( modern Stoicism ). Philosophy does not promise to secure anything external for man, otherwise it would be admitting something that lies beyond its proper subject-matter. For as the material of the carpenter is wood, and that of statuary bronze, so the subject-matter of the art of living is each person's own life. The Stoics provided
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#17327648397356760-638: The Seditious Meetings Act and the Treasonable Practices Act (also known as the "Two Acts" or the "gagging acts"). The 1795 Acts prohibited freedom of assembly for groups such as the radical London Corresponding Society (LCS) and encouraged indictments against radicals for "libelous and seditious" statements. Afraid of prosecution and disenchanted with the French Revolution, many reformers drifted away from
6890-469: The Universe have neither start nor end, rather they are cyclical. The current Universe is a phase in the present cycle, preceded by an infinite number of Universes, doomed to be destroyed (" ekpyrōsis ", conflagration ) and re-created again , and to be followed by another infinite number of Universes. Stoicism considers all existence as cyclical, the cosmos as eternally self-creating and self-destroying (see also Eternal return ). Stoicism does not posit
7020-402: The "Hymne de la fondation de la ré" and the "Hymne a la souverainete du peuple". The same strange combination is found in the feasts where Socrates , Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and St Vincent de Paul are equally honored and in the sermon where political harangues interlard moral exhortations. In Dubroca's funeral oration of George Washington the orator, under cover of the American hero, catered to
7150-548: The Bible to demonstrate that it is not the revealed word of God. At the beginning of Part I of the Age of Reason , Paine lays out his personal belief: I believe in one God, and no more; and I hope for happiness beyond this life. I believe in the equality of man; and I believe that religious duties consist in doing justice, loving mercy, and endeavouring to make our fellow-creatures happy. But, lest it should be supposed that I believe many other things in addition to these, I shall, in
7280-518: The Bible. For example, Paine notes, "The most extraordinary of all the things called miracles, related in the New Testament, is that of the devil flying away with Jesus Christ, and carrying him to the top of a high mountain, and to the top of the highest pinnacle of the temple, and showing him and promising to him all the kingdoms of the World. How happened it that he did not discover America, or
7410-621: The British government indicted him and confiscated the pamphlets. In the late 1790s, Paine fled from France to the United States, where he wrote Part III of The Age of Reason : An Examination of the Passages in the New Testament, Quoted from the Old and Called Prophecies Concerning Jesus Christ . Fearing unpleasant and even violent reprisals, Thomas Jefferson convinced him not to publish it in 1802. Five years later, Paine decided to publish despite
7540-455: The Church regarded Stoicism as a "pagan philosophy"; nonetheless, early Christian writers employed some of the central philosophical concepts of Stoicism. Examples include the terms "logos", " virtue ", "Spirit", and " conscience ". But the parallels go well beyond the sharing and borrowing of terminology. Both Stoicism and Christianity assert an inner freedom in the face of the external world,
7670-588: The Church and the state are a single corrupt institution that does not act in the best interests of the people and so both must be radically altered: Soon after I had published the pamphlet "Common Sense," in America, I saw the exceeding probability that a revolution in the system of government would be followed by a revolution in the system of religion. The adulterous connection of Church and State, wherever it has taken place ... has so effectually prohibited by pains and penalties every discussion upon established creeds, and upon first principles of religion, that until
7800-626: The Evangelists, and ascribed to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, were not written by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John; ... they have been manufactured, as the books of the Old Testament have been by other persons than those whose names they bear. Using methods that would not become common in Biblical scholarship until the 19th century, Paine tested the Bible for internal consistency, questioned its historical accuracy, and concluded that it
7930-489: The French revolution's turn toward secularism and atheism, he composed Part I of The Age of Reason in 1792 and 1793: It has been my intention, for several years past, to publish my thoughts upon religion ... The circumstance that has now taken place in France of the total abolition of the whole national order of priesthood, and of everything appertaining to compulsive systems of religion, and compulsive articles of faith, has not only precipitated my intention, but rendered
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#17327648397358060-431: The Late Stoa survived. Philosophy does not promise to secure anything external for man, otherwise it would be admitting something that lies beyond its proper subject-matter. For as the material of the carpenter is wood, and that of statuary bronze, so the subject-matter of the art of living is each person's own life. Of all the schools of ancient philosophy, Stoicism made the greatest claim to being utterly systematic. In
8190-532: The Revolution in France (1790), had died in 1791, and Joseph Priestley had been forced to flee to America after a Church–and–King mob burned down his home and church . The conservative government, headed by William Pitt , responded to the increasing radicalization by prosecuting several reformers for seditious libel and treason in the famous 1794 Treason Trials . Following the trials and an attack on George III , conservatives were successful in passing
8320-435: The Revolution in France and argued that "although there was no exception to be taken to his pamphlet when in the hands of the upper classes, yet the government would not allow it to appear at a price which would insure its circulation among the people." Paine's style is not only "vulgar" but also irreverent. For example, he wrote that once one dismisses the false idea of Moses being the author of Genesis, "The story of Eve and
8450-451: The Stoic philosophers". A well-known quotation from Enchiridion of Epictetus was taught to most clients during the initial session of traditional REBT by Ellis and his followers: "It's not the events that upset us, but our judgments about the events." This subsequently became a common element in the socialization phase of many other approaches to CBT. The question of Stoicism's influence on modern psychotherapy, particularly REBT and CBT,
8580-421: The Stoic tradition forms one of the major founding approaches to virtue ethics . The Stoics are especially known for teaching that "virtue is the only good" for human beings, and that external things, such as health, wealth, and pleasure, are not good or bad in themselves ( adiaphora ) but have value as "material for virtue to act upon". Many Stoics—such as Seneca and Epictetus —emphasized that because "virtue
8710-410: The Stoics emphasized ethics as the main focus of human knowledge, though their logical theories were of more interest for later philosophers. Stoicism teaches the development of self-control as a means of overcoming destructive emotions ; the philosophy holds that becoming a clear and unbiased thinker allows one to understand the universal reason ( logos ). Stoicism's primary aspect involves improving
8840-531: The Stoics, all people are manifestations of the one universal spirit and should live in brotherly love and readily help one another. In the Discourses , Epictetus comments on man's relationship with the world: "Each human being is primarily a citizen of his own commonwealth; but he is also a member of the great city of gods and men, whereof the city political is only a copy." This sentiment echoes that of Diogenes of Sinope , who said, "I am not an Athenian or
8970-572: The Turks by anticipation, nine-tenths of the world beside, and Mahomet into the bargain. After this, who can doubt the bountifulness of the Christian Mythology? Having thus made an insurrection and a battle in heaven, in which none of the combatants could be either killed or wounded—put Satan into the pit—let him out again—gave him a triumph over the whole creation—damned all mankind by the eating of an apple, these Christian Mythologists bring
9100-463: The Universe acts according to its own nature, and the nature of the passive matter it governs. The souls of humans and animals are emanations from this primordial Fire, and are, likewise, subject to Fate: Constantly regard the universe as one living being, having one substance and one soul; and observe how all things have reference to one perception, the perception of this one living being; and how all things act with one movement; and how all things are
9230-894: The Younger and Epictetus. In particular, they were noted for their urging of clemency toward slaves . Seneca exhorted, "Kindly remember that he whom you call your slave sprang from the same stock, is smiled upon by the same skies, and on equal terms with yourself breathes, lives, and dies." Plotinus criticized both Aristotle's Categories and those of the Stoics. His student Porphyry , however, defended Aristotle's scheme. He justified this by arguing that they be interpreted strictly as expressions, rather than as metaphysical realities. The approach can be justified, at least in part, by Aristotle's own words in The Categories. Boethius ' acceptance of Porphyry's interpretation led to their being accepted by Scholastic philosophy. The Fathers of
9360-430: The acceptance of miracles, unnecessary rituals, and illogical and dangerous doctrines (accusations typically referred to as " priestcraft "). The worst of the doctrines was original sin . By convincing people that they required a priest's help to overcome their innate sinfulness, deists argued, religious leaders had enslaved the human population. Deists therefore typically viewed themselves as intellectual liberators. By
9490-437: The active and the passive. The passive substance is matter, which "lies sluggish, a substance ready for any use, but sure to remain unemployed if no one sets it in motion". The active substance is an intelligent aether or primordial fire , which acts on the passive matter: The universe itself is God and the universal outpouring of its soul; it is this same world's guiding principle, operating in mind and reason, together with
9620-403: The adoration of God, the love of our neighbor, domestic virtues and patriotism. Theophilanthropist worship was at first very simple and meant chiefly for the home: it consisted in a short invocation of God in the morning and a kind of examination of conscience at the end of the day. A plain altar on which were laid some flowers and fruits, a few inscriptions appended to the walls, a platform for
9750-399: The backlash he knew would ensue. Following Williams's sentence of one year's hard labor for publishing The Age of Reason in 1797, no editions were sold openly in Britain until 1818, when Richard Carlile included it in an edition of Paine's complete works. Carlile charged one shilling and sixpence for the work, and the first run of 1,000 copies sold out in a month. He immediately published
9880-417: The believability of miracles and Thomas Chubb had maintained that Christianity lacked morality. All of those arguments appear in The Age of Reason albeit less coherently. The most distinctive feature of The Age of Reason , like all of Paine's works, is its linguistic style. Historian Eric Foner argues that Paine's works "forged a new political language" designed to bring politics to the people by using
10010-504: The cause. The LCS, which had previously unified religious Dissenters and political reformers, fractured when Francis Place and other leaders helped Paine publish The Age of Reason . The society's more religious members withdrew in protest, and the LCS lost around a fifth of its membership. In December 1792, Paine's Rights of Man, part II , was declared seditious in Britain, and he was forced to flee to France to avoid arrest. Dismayed by
10140-417: The common nature of things and the totality that embraces all existence; then the foreordained might and necessity of the future; then fire and the principle of aether; then those elements whose natural state is one of flux and transition, such as water, earth, and air; then the sun, the moon, the stars; and the universal existence in which all things are contained. Everything is subject to the laws of Fate, for
10270-409: The cooperating causes of all things that exist; observe too the continuous spinning of the thread and the structure of the web. Individual souls are perishable by nature, and can be "transmuted and diffused, assuming a fiery nature by being received into the seminal reason (" logos spermatikos ") of the Universe". Since right Reason is the foundation of both humanity and the universe. Stoic theology
10400-446: The correct rational emotions. The Stoics listed the good-feelings under the headings of joy ( chara ), wish ( boulesis ), and caution ( eulabeia ). Thus if something is present which is a genuine good, then the wise person experiences an uplift in the soul—joy ( chara ). The Stoics also subdivided the good-feelings: The Stoics accepted that suicide was permissible for the wise person in circumstances that might prevent them from living
10530-530: The dispute is over class accessibility, not profanity. For example, Paine describes the Fall this way: The Christian Mythologists, after having confined Satan in a pit, were obliged to let him out again to bring on the sequel of the fable. He is then introduced into the Garden of Eden, in the shape of a snake or a serpent, and in that shape he enters into familiar conversation with Eve, who is no way surprised to hear
10660-532: The educated elite, but by presenting them in an engaging and irreverent style, he made deism appealing and accessible to the masses . Originally distributed as unbound pamphlets , the book was also cheap, putting it within the reach of a large number of buyers. Fearing the spread of what it viewed as potentially-revolutionary ideas, the British government prosecuted printers and booksellers who tried to publish and distribute it. Nevertheless, Paine's work inspired and guided many free thinkers . Paine's book followed in
10790-593: The end of the 4th century BC. Unlike the Epicureans , Zeno chose to teach his philosophy in a public space. Stoicism was originally known as Zenonism. However, this name was soon dropped, likely because the Stoics did not consider their founders to be perfectly wise and to avoid the risk of the philosophy becoming a cult of personality . Zeno's ideas developed from those of the Cynics (brought to him by Crates of Thebes ), whose founding father, Antisthenes , had been
10920-619: The endorsement of the truthfulness of the Stoic worldview and the tenets for one's behavior that follow from it, are central to what it means to be a Stoic. The name Stoicism derives from the Stoa Poikile ( Ancient Greek : ἡ ποικίλη στοά), or "painted porch", a colonnade decorated with mythic and historical battle scenes on the north side of the Agora in Athens where Zeno of Citium and his followers gathered to discuss their ideas, near
11050-431: The existing beings they admitted four incorporeals (asomata): time, place, void, and sayable. They were held to be just 'subsisting' while such a status was denied to universals. Thus, they accepted Anaxagoras 's idea (as did Aristotle) that if an object is hot, it is because some part of a universal heat body had entered the object. But, unlike Aristotle, they extended the idea to cover all accidents . Thus, if an object
11180-510: The future. Thus there are just two states directed at the prospect of good and evil, but subdivided as to whether they are present or future: Numerous subdivisions of the same class were brought under the head of the separate passions: The wise person ( sophos ) is someone who is free from the passions ( apatheia ). Instead the sage experiences good-feelings ( eupatheia ) which are clear-headed. These emotional impulses are not excessive, but nor are they diminished emotions. Instead they are
11310-495: The gorgeous display of the so-called national festivals. There even was a Theophilanthropist Mass, which the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia describes as "nearer a Calvinist service than to the Catholic Liturgy." Of the hymns adopted by the sect, some taken from the writings of J. B. Rousseau, Madame Deshoulières , or even Racine , breathe a noble spirit but, side by side with these, there are bombastic lucubrations like
11440-562: The great churches of Paris like Notre Dame de Paris , Saint-Jacques du Haut Pas , St-Médard etc.; it took a conspicuous part in all the national celebrations, and from the metropolis passed into the provinces, chiefly the Department of Yonne . The movement, in spite of a strong opposition on the part of Catholics, was gradually taking hold among the masses when the Directory brought it to an abrupt end. Napoleon Bonaparte suppressed
11570-465: The greatest intellectual debt to the English deists of the early 18th century , such as Peter Annet . John Toland had argued for the use of reason in interpreting scripture, Matthew Tindal had argued against revelation, Middleton had described the Bible as mythology and questioned the existence of miracles, Thomas Morgan had disputed the claims of the Old Testament, Thomas Woolston had questioned
11700-437: The hands of the aristocracy and intellectuals and [brought] it to the people". Paine's rhetorical appeal to "the people" attracted almost as much criticism as his ridicule of the Bible. Bishop Richard Watson , forced to address the new audience in his influential response to Paine, An Apology for the Bible , wrote: "I shall, designedly, write this and the following letters in a popular manner; hoping that thereby they may stand
11830-441: The historian E. P. Thompson has put it, Paine "ridiculed the authority of the Bible with arguments which the collier or country girl could understand." His description of the story of the virgin birth of Jesus demystifies biblical language and is "an account of a young woman engaged to be married, and while under this engagement she is, to speak plain language, debauched by a ghost." Quaker conversion narratives also influenced
11960-565: The history of Christianity as one of corruption and oppression. Paine criticizes the tyrannical actions of the Church as he had those of governments in the Rights of Man and Common Sense , stating that "the Christian theory is little else than the idolatry of the ancient Mythologists, accommodated to the purposes of power and revenue." That kind of attack distinguishes Paine's book from other deistic works, which were less interested in challenging social and political hierarchies. He argues that
12090-460: The individual's ethical and moral well-being: " Virtue consists in a will that is in agreement with Nature". This principle also applies to the realm of interpersonal relationships; "to be free from anger, envy, and jealousy", and to accept even slaves as "equals of other men, because all men alike are products of nature". The Stoic ethic espouses a deterministic perspective; in regard to those who lack Stoic virtue, Cleanthes once opined that
12220-594: The later, more radical, stage of the British political reform movement , which openly embraced republicanism and sometimes atheism and was exemplified by such texts as William Godwin 's Enquiry Concerning Political Justice (1793). (However, Paine and other deists were not atheists.) By the middle of the decade, the moderate voices had disappeared: Richard Price , the Dissenting minister whose sermon on political liberty had prompted Edmund Burke's Reflections on
12350-462: The movement. The constitutional clergy , in the national council at Notre Dame in 1797, protested against the new religion, and Henri Grégoire wrote in his Annales de la Religion (VI, no 5.): Pope Pius VI on 17 May 1800 placed an interdict on the churches that had been used by deists, and Cardinal Consalvi , in the course of the negotiations regarding the Concordat of 1801 , demanded that
12480-565: The nascent sect won a few followers and protectors; still its progress was slow till Louis Marie de La Révellière-Lépeaux , an influential member of the Directory , took up its cause. But it was only after the Revolution of 18 Fructidor , which left La Révellière-Lépeaux master of the situation, that his sympathy bore fruit in the apogee of Theophilanthropism. Blended in a way with the culte décadaire , it came into possession of some of
12610-678: The philosophical position of deism . It follows in the tradition of 18th-century British deism, and challenges institutionalized religion and the legitimacy of the Bible . It was published in three parts in 1794, 1795, and 1807. It was a best-seller in the United States, where it caused a deistic revival . British audiences, fearing increased political radicalism as a result of the French Revolution , received it with more hostility. The Age of Reason presents common deistic arguments; for example, it highlights what Paine saw as corruption of
12740-469: The powerful Jacobin Club of French revolutionaries, was imprisoned for ten months in France. He escaped the guillotine only by accident: the sign marking him out for execution was improperly placed on his cell door. When James Monroe , at that time the new American Minister to France, secured his release in 1794, Paine immediately began work on Part II of The Age of Reason despite his poor health. Part II
12870-409: The practice of virtue is enough to achieve eudaimonia : a well-lived life. The Stoics identified the path to achieving it with a life spent practicing the four virtues in everyday life—wisdom, courage, temperance or moderation, and justice—as well as living in accordance with nature. It was founded in the ancient Agora of Athens by Zeno of Citium around 300 BCE. Alongside Aristotle's ethics ,
13000-409: The presence of the reader and leaving images and arguments half-formed, Paine encourages his readers to complete them independently. The most distinctive element of Paine's style in The Age of Reason is its " vulgarity ". In the 18th century, "vulgarity" was associated with the middling and lower classes and not with obscenity and so when Paine celebrates his "vulgar" style and his critics attack it,
13130-408: The principal feature of the movement, held a middle position between the severity of Stoicism and the laxity of Epicureanism . Its basic principle was good: good is all that tends to preserve and perfect the man; evil is all that tends to destroy or impair him. It is in light of that axiom and not of the Christian standard - in spite of the phraseology - that we should view the commandments concerning
13260-920: The progress of this work, declare the things I do not believe, and my reasons for not believing them. I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish Church, by the Roman Church, by the Greek Church, by the Turkish Church, by the Protestant Church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my own church. All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit. I do not mean by this declaration to condemn those who believe otherwise; they have
13390-690: The proverbs of the Spaniards, and not more wise and economical than those of the American Franklin ." Describing the Bible as "fabulous mythology," Paine questions whether or not it was revealed to its writers and doubts that the original writers can ever be known (for example, he dismisses the idea that Moses wrote the Pentateuch or that the Gospel's authors are known). My intention is to show that those books are spurious, and that Moses
13520-512: The publication of Problems in Stoicism by A. A. Long in 1971, and also as part of the late 20th-century surge of interest in virtue ethics . Contemporary Stoicism draws from the late 20th- and early 21st-century spike in publications of scholarly works on ancient Stoicism. Beyond that, the current Stoicist movement traces its roots to the work of Albert Ellis , who developed rational emotive behavior therapy , as well as Aaron T. Beck , who
13650-412: The readers or speakers, were the only furnishings allowed. The founders were particularly anxious that this simplicity be strictly adhered to. Nevertheless, the progress of the sect led gradually to a more elaborate ceremonial. It is a far cry from the early meetings where the minister or père de famille , presided at prayer or mimicked Christian baptism , First Communion , marriages or funerals , to
13780-558: The rising Napoleon Bonaparte . The first idea of the sect really belongs to David Williams , a Welsh minister who exercised considerable influence in Paris during the Revolution. Chemin consulted the Calvinists before launching his Manuel . The Age of Reason#France The Age of Reason; Being an Investigation of True and Fabulous Theology is a work by English and American political activist Thomas Paine , arguing for
13910-456: The root of each passion. Incorrect judgement as to a present good gives rise to delight, while lust is a wrong estimate about the future. Unreal imaginings of evil cause distress about the present, or fear for the future. The ideal Stoic would instead measure things at their real value, and see that the passions are not natural. To be free of the passions is to have a happiness which is self-contained. There would be nothing to fear—for unreason
14040-465: The same right to their belief as I have to mine. But it is necessary to the happiness of man that he be mentally faithful to himself. Infidelity does not consist in believing, or in disbelieving; it consists in professing to believe what he does not believe. Paine's creed encapsulates many of the major themes of the rest of his text: a firm belief in a creator-God; a skepticism regarding most supernatural claims (miracles are specifically mentioned later in
14170-463: The sect, but the attempt failed and, in 1890, Décembre confessed the impossibility of arousing public interest. Camerlynck's voluminous book, "Théisme", published in Paris in 1900, had a similar aim and met a similar fate. Theophilanthropism was described in the Manuel du théophilanthropie , of which there were new editions made as the work progressed. The governing body consisted of two committees, one called "comité de direction morale", in charge of
14300-511: The senses to the mind , where they leave an impression in the imagination ( phantasiai ) (an impression arising from the mind was called a phantasma). The mind has the ability to judge (συγκατάθεσις, synkatathesis )—approve or reject—an impression, enabling it to distinguish a true representation of reality from one that is false. Some impressions can be assented to immediately, but others can achieve only varying degrees of hesitant approval, which can be labeled belief or opinion ( doxa ). It
14430-486: The serpent, and of Noah and his ark, drops to a level with the Arabian tales, without the merit of being entertaining." Although many early English deists had relied on ridicule to attack the Bible and Christianity, theirs was a refined wit rather than the broad humor that Paine employed. It was the early Deists of the middling ranks, not the educated elite, who initiated the kind of ridicule Paine would make famous. It
14560-504: The slaughter of thousands of boys and women and sanctions the rape of thousands of girls at God's behest, Paine calls the Bible a "book of lies, wickedness, and blasphemy; for what can be greater blasphemy than to ascribe the wickedness of man to the orders of the Almighty!" Paine also attacks religious institutions , indicting priests for their lust for power and wealth and the Church's opposition to scientific investigation. He presents
14690-428: The spiritual, the other styled "comité des administrateurs" in charge of the temporalities . No dogmatic creed was imposed on the adherents of the new religion, the two fundamental tenets, viz. the existence of God and the immortality of the soul , being purely sentimental beliefs ( croyances de sentiment ) deemed necessary for the preservation of society and the welfare of individuals. The moral teaching, considered
14820-502: The style of The Age of Reason . Davidson and Scheick argue that its "introductory statement of purpose, a fervid sense of inward inspiration, a declared expression of conscience, and an evangelical intention to instruct others" resemble the personal confessions of American Quakers. Stoicism Stoicism is a school of Hellenistic philosophy that flourished in Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome . The Stoics believed that
14950-431: The system of government should be changed, those subjects could not be brought fairly and openly before the world; but that whenever this should be done, a revolution in the system of religion would follow. Human inventions and priestcraft would be detected; and man would return to the pure, unmixed and unadulterated belief of one God, and no more. As Jon Mee, a scholar of British radicalism, writes: "Paine believed ...
15080-484: The tenets of ancient Stoicism to the human origin story, environmental education, vegetarianism and the modern challenges of sustainable development, material consumption and consumerism. Seamus Mac Suibhne has described the practices of spiritual exercises as influencing those of reflective practice . Many parallels between Stoic spiritual exercises and modern cognitive behavioral therapy have been identified. According to philosopher Pierre Hadot , philosophy for
15210-457: The text); a conviction that virtues should be derived from a consideration for others rather than oneself; an animus against corrupt religious institutions; and an emphasis on the individual's right of conscience. Paine begins The Age of Reason by attacking revelation . Revelation , he maintains, can be verified only by the individual receivers of the message and so is weak evidence for God's existence. Paine rejects prophecies and miracles: "it
15340-447: The time Part I of The Age of Reason was published in 1794, many British and French citizens had become disillusioned by the French Revolution . The Reign of Terror had begun, Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette had been tried and executed and Britain was at war with France . The few British radicals who still supported the French revolution and its ideals were viewed with deep suspicion by their countrymen. The Age of Reason belongs to
15470-572: The tradition of early 18th-century British deism . Those deists, while maintaining individual positions, still shared several sets of assumptions and arguments that Paine articulated in The Age of Reason . The most important position that united the early deists was their call for "free rational inquiry" into all subjects, especially religion. Saying that early Christianity was founded on freedom of conscience , they demanded religious toleration and an end to religious persecution. They also demanded that debate rest on reason and rationality. Deists embraced
15600-470: The two ends of their fable together. They represent this virtuous and amiable man, Jesus Christ, to be at once both God and Man, and also the Son of God, celestially begotten, on purpose to be sacrificed, because they say that Eve in her longing had eaten an apple. [emphasis Paine's] The irreverent tone that Paine used, combined with the vulgar style, set his work apart from its predecessors. It took "deism out of
15730-445: The view of the Stoics, philosophy is the practice of virtue, and virtue, the highest form of which is utility, is generally speaking, constructed from ideals of logic , monistic physics, and naturalistic ethics. These three ideals constitute virtue which is necessary for 'living a well reasoned life', seeing as they are all parts of a logos, or philosophical discourse, which includes the mind's rational dialogue with itself. Of them,
15860-401: The wicked man is "like a dog tied to a cart, and compelled to go wherever it goes". A Stoic of virtue, by contrast, would amend his will to suit the world and remain, in the words of Epictetus , "sick and yet happy, in peril and yet happy, dying and yet happy, in exile and happy, in disgrace and happy", thus positing a "completely autonomous" individual will and at the same time a universe that
15990-411: The works of Ambrose of Milan , Marcus Minucius Felix , and Tertullian . The modern usage is a "person who represses feelings or endures patiently". The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy ' s entry on Stoicism notes, "the sense of the English adjective 'stoical' is not utterly misleading with regard to its philosophical origins". The revival of Stoicism in the 20th century can be traced to
16120-622: Was Paine's "ridiculing" tone that most angered Churchmen. As John Redwood, a scholar of deism, puts it: "the age of reason could perhaps more eloquently and adequately be called the age of ridicule, for it was ridicule, not reason, that endangered the Church." Significantly, Watson's Apology directly chastises Paine for his mocking tone: I am unwilling to attribute bad designs, deliberate wickedness, to you or to any man; I cannot avoid believing, that you think you have truth on your side, and that you are doing service to mankind in endeavouring to root out what you esteem superstition. What I blame you for
16250-561: Was a wide-ranging term indicating an infliction one suffers. The Stoics used the word to discuss many common emotions such as anger, fear and excessive joy. A passion is a disturbing and misleading force in the mind which occurs because of a failure to reason correctly. For the Stoic Chrysippus , the passions are evaluative judgements. A person experiencing such an emotion has incorrectly valued an indifferent thing. A fault of judgement, some false notion of good or evil, lies at
16380-754: Was described in detail in The Philosophy of Cognitive–Behavioural Therapy by Donald Robertson. Several early 20th-century psychotherapists were influenced by Stoicism, most notably the "rational persuasion" school founded by the Swiss neurologist and psychotherapist Paul Dubois , who drew heavily on Stoicism in his clinical work and encouraged his clients to study passages from Seneca the Younger as homework assignments. Similarities of modern Stoicism and third-wave CBT have been suggested as well, and individual reports of its potency in treating depression have been published. There has also been interest in applying
16510-598: Was first published in a pirated edition by H.D. Symonds in London in October 1795. In 1796, Daniel Isaac Eaton published Parts I and II, and sold them at a cost of one shilling and six pence. ( Eaton was later forced to flee to America after being convicted of seditious libel for publishing other radical works.) Paine himself financed the shipping of 15,000 copies of his work to America. Later, Francis Place and Thomas Williams collaborated on an edition, which sold about 2,000 copies. Williams also produced his own edition, but
16640-407: Was neither sufficient nor necessary to prove the existence of God. Along these lines, deistic writings insisted that God, as the first cause or prime mover , had created and designed the universe with natural laws as part of his plan. They held that God does not repeatedly alter his plan by suspending natural laws to intervene (miraculously) in human affairs. Deists also rejected the claim that there
16770-547: Was not divinely inspired. Paine also argues that the Old Testament must be false because it depicts a tyrannical God. The "history of wickedness" pervading the Old Testament convinced Paine that it was simply another set of human-authored myths. He deplores people's credulity: "Brought up in habits of superstition," he wrote, "people in general know not how much wickedness there is in this pretended word of God." Citing Numbers 31 :13–47 as an example, in which Moses orders
16900-545: Was only one revealed religious truth or "one true faith". Religion had to be "simple, apparent, ordinary, and universal" if it was to be the logical product of a benevolent God. They, therefore, distinguished between "revealed religions", which they rejected, such as Christianity, and "natural religion", a set of universal beliefs derived from the natural world that demonstrated God's existence (and so they were not atheists ). While some deists accepted revelation , most argued that revelation's restriction to small groups or even
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