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The Term Secularism · The Principles of Secularism

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  Chapter two of the Principles of Secularism by George Holyoake. This LibriVox recording is
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  in the public domain recording by Abayi, Chapter two the term secularism. The
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  adoption of the term secularism is justified by its including a large number of persons
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  who are not atheists and uniting them for action which has secularism for its object
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  and not atheism. On this ground, and because by the adoption of a
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  new term, a vast amount of impediment from prejudice is got rid of,
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  the use of the name secularism is found advantageous. Harriet Martineau, Boston Liberator,
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  letter to Lloyd Garrison, November eighteen fifty three. Every one observant of
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  public controversy in England is aware of its improved tone of late years. This
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  improved tone is part of a wider progress. Increase of wealth has led to
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  improvement of taste, and the diffusion of knowledge to refinement of sentiment. The
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  mass are better dressed, better mannered, better spoken than formerly. A coffee
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  room discussion conducted by mechanics is now a more decorous exhibition than a debate in
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  parliament was in the days of Canning. Boisterousness at the tables of the rich
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  and insolence in the language of the poor are fast disappearing. Good society is
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  now that society in which people practice the art of being genial without being familiar,
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  and in which an invincible courtesy of speech is no longer regarded as timidity
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  or effeminacy, but rather as proof of a disciplined spirit, which chooses to
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  avoid all offense, the better to maintain the right peremptorily punishing wanton insult theologians
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  more inveterate in space each then politicians now observe a respectfulness to opponents before unknown
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  that diversity of opinion, once ascribed to badness of heart, is now with
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  more discrimination referred to defect or diversity of understanding, a change which, discarding
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  invective, recognizes instruction as the agent of uniformity. Amid all this newness of
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  conception, it must be obvious that many old terms of theological controversy are obsolete.
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  The idea of an atheist as one warring against moral restraints, of an
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  infidel as one treacherous to the truth, of a freethinker as a loose thinker,
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  arose in the darkness of past times when men fought by the flickering light
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  of their hatreds, times which tradition has peopled with monsters of divinity as well
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  as of nature. But the glaring colors in which the party names invented by
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  power whist priests were died no longer harmonize with the quieter taste of the present
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  day. The more sober spirit of modern controversy has therefore need of new terms.
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  And if the term secularism was merely a neutral substitute for freethinking, there
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  would be reason for its adoption. The centers might as well continue the designation
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  of schismatics or political reformers that of anarchists, as that the students of positive
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  philosophy should continue the designation atheism, infidelism, or any similar term by which
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  their opponents have contrived to brand their opinions. It is as though a merchant
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  vessel should consent to carry a pirate flag. Freethinker is, however, getting
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  an acceptable term upon the platform. Christian disputants frequently claim it and resent the
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  exclusive assumption of it by others. These new claimants say, we are as
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  much freethinker as yourselves, so that it is necessary to define freethinking. It
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  is fearless thinking based upon impartial inquiry, searching on both sides, not regarding
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  doubt as a crime or opposite conclusions as a species of moral poison. Those
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  who inquire with sinister prepossessions will never inquire fairly. The freethinker fears not to
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  follow a conclusion to the utmost limits of truth, whether it coincides with the
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  Bible or contradicts it. If therefore, any pronounced the term secularism a concealment
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  or a disguise, they can do so legitimately only after detecting some false meaning
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  it is intended to convey, and not on the mere ground of its being
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  a change of name, since nothing can more completely conceal and disguise the purposes
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  of freethought than the old names imposed upon it by its adversaries, which associate
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  with guilt its conscientious conclusions, and impute to it as outrages its act of
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  self defense. Besides the term secularism, there was another term which seemed to
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  promise also distinctiveness of meaning, namely cosmism, under which adherents would have taken
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  the designation of cosmists. But this name scientific men would have understood in a
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  purely physical sense after the great example of Humboldt, and the public would not
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  all have understood it. Besides, it was open to easy perversion in one
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  of its declinations. Next to this as a name stands that of realism intrinsically
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  good. A society of realists would have been intelligible, but many would have
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  supposed it to be some revival of the old realists. Moralism, a sound
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  name in itself, is under evangelical condemnation as mere morality. Naturalism would seem
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  an obvious name, were it not that we should be confounded with naturalists to
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  say, say no more, some name must be taken. As was the
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  case with the Teophilanthropists of Paris. Many of them would rather not have assumed
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  any denomination, but they yielded to the reasonable argument that if they did not
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  choose one for themselves, the public would bestow upon them one which would be
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  less to their liking. Those who took the name of philanthropes found it exposed
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  them to a pun which greatly damaged them. Philanthropes was turned into philux entropes.
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  Historical characteristics, however, seemed to point to a term which expressed the
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  secular element in life, A term deeply engrafted in literature of irreproachable associations,
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  A term found and respected in the dictionaries of opponents, and to which therefore
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  they might dispute our right, but which they could not damage. Instead,
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  therefore, of finding ourselves self branded or caricatured by this designation, we have
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  found opponents claiming it and disputing with us for its possession. End of Chapter two