Heroines of Freethought/Preface
PREFACE.
THE word Freethinker in times past has implied a censure of the person so designated, and especially if the one so called chanced to be a woman. But, in spite of this fact, here and there in the history of Freethought has appeared a woman strong enough of heart and brain to understand and accept Liberal truths, and brave enough to avow publicly her faith in the “belief of the unbelievers.” Among these courageous souls we find the names of some of the most brilliant lights of feminine literature. The Orthodox world could not well afford to reject their valuable contributions to the pleasure and well-being of society, but in accepting them did so with an ungracious protest against the religious conclusions of these daring Thinkers.
To-day we stand at the opening of a grand vista of civil and religious liberty. Science has sealed as the truth many of the hitherto vague questionings of those who, in honest search of the truth, had long ago come to doubt creeds and dogmas. In time to come they who first dared to pioneer the way to perfect freedom of thought will be looked upon as the benefactors of those whom at first they only shocked. Among these benefactors must be counted the isolated women whose life-sketches make up this little volume. In selecting the subjects for these sketches, regard was had only to the thorough Radicalism of the views they held. There are many noble women of Liberal tendencies of thought, whose names are well known, who have done good and effective work for Freethought so far as they understood it; but the most of these have only succeeded in throwing aside creeds and all sectarianism, as belittling and cramping to the human mind, while still clinging to all the essential points of Christian belief.
Many of these women have already found, as they deserve, faithful and loving chroniclers. To introduce their names here would only serve to swell this volume far beyond its present modest dimensions, and would render it useless as a record of the most daring heroines of Freethought; so I have contented myself with sketching these few central female figures in the history of Radical Religion. And my only hope in grouping them thus together is to win for them, from those to whom they are comparatively unknown, save as names only, a little of the admiration and respect which I myself have ever felt for them because of the dignity and moral heroism of their lives.
June, 1876. S. A. U.