Heroes & Martyrs of Freethought

HEROES & MARTYRS OF FREETHOUGHT, by G. W. Foote & Charles Watts. The Preface of this book so well explains the purpose of the Work that I renders and further description unnecessary, So, saying that I turn you over the: "PREFACE, THE need of a Freethinker’s Plutarch has long been seriously felt. Too often the lives of Freethought worthies have been left to the manipulation of lying partisans of an opposite faith, who have seen in them only so many opportunities of confounding the Infidel, or of perpetrating: pious frauds which shall redound to the glory of God and the Church. Thus the world is grossly deluded from the truth, and the sacred dead are defrauded of their just need of admiration and gratitude. It seems, therefore, desirable -- nay, necessary -- that some account, however brief, of the lives and teachings, the doings and sayings, of great historic Freethinkers, should be given in a spirit of charity and appreciation. Accordingly, we have decided to issue, in fortnightly parts, a work entitled ” Heroes and Martyrs of Freethought,” the words being used in their generic sense so as to include both men and women. This work, of which the present is the first number, will comprise biographies of all the chief luminaries of past ages, who have toiled or suffered in the cause of human progress and freedom of thought, together with as full an account as its limits will permit of their writings and teachings." The short Biographies of these leading Freethinkers of history and today is necessary reading for any honest inquiry of the merits of those who do not believe (foolish things) as compared with those do.
Emmett F. Fields