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  • Chapter 9 - Conclusion

  • Michael Hunter, Birkbeck College, University of London
  • Book:
    Atheists and Atheism before the Enlightenment
    Published online:
    06 July 2023
    Print publication:
    27 July 2023, pp 178-189

  • Summary

    Chapter 9 draws some conclusions from the book. By way of reiterating the assurance of atheists on which stress has been laid throughout, it offers the case of Giulio Cesare Vanini, executed at Toulouse for his active promotion of atheistic ideas in 1619. It compares this with the case of Aikenhead but contrasts it with that of Pitcairne, who was more discreet in his propagation of his irreligious views. After assessing other examples of free-thought in early eighteenth-century Scotland, it then turns to the state of affairs in England, where prosecutions for apostacy were haphazard. It is argued that what is in evidence was a degree of complacency on part of the orthodox, as is illustrated by the examples of Joseph Addison and Edmund Burke, and the Conclusion ends by noting hints of atheist opinion in England in the eighteenth century, suggesting that a non-theistic outlook was becoming thinkable as an alternative to orthodoxy.