Penalties Upon Opinion

Penalties Upon Opinion, by Hypatia Bradlaugh Bonner. This book contains some records of the Laws against Heresy and Blasphemy. Ms. Bonner was the Daughter of Charles Bradlaugh the famous, sometimes called infamous, Freethought Lecturer, member of Parliament, Free Speech and Birth control advocate, and because of that, sometime prisoner. Ms. Bonner followed in her father's footsteps and became a champion of Reform. She opens this well written and necessary book with a quote from her father: “Laws to punish differences of opinion are as useless as they are monstrous. Differences of opinion on politics are denounced and punished as seditious, on religious topics as blasphemous, and on social questions as immoral and obscene. Yet the sedition, blasphemy, and immorality punished in one age are often found to be the accepted, and sometimes the admired, political, religious, and social teaching of a more educated period. Heresies are the evidence of some attempt on the part of men to find opinions for themselves.”
Charles Bradlaugh. Do we need this book today? YES!!! If we had Freedom of speech and press we would not need the Bank of Wisdom.
Emmett F. Fields
  • Model: BONNER
  • Author: Bonner, Hypatia

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