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HISTORIES OF THE SACRED AND SECULAR, 1700 –2000

Empire and Progress

in the Victorian
Secularist Movement
Imagining a Secular World

Patrick J. Corbeil
Histories of the Sacred and Secular, 1700–2000

Series Editor
David Nash, Department of History, Oxford Brookes University,
Oxford, UK
This series reflects the awakened and expanding profile of the history of
religion within the academy in recent years. It intends publishing exciting
new and high quality work on the history of religion and belief since
1700 and will encourage the production of interdisciplinary proposals and
the use of innovative methodologies. The series will also welcome book
proposals on the history of Atheism, Secularism, Humanism and unbe-
lief/secularity and to encourage research agendas in this area alongside
those in religious belief. The series will be happy to reflect the work of
new scholars entering the field as well as the work of established scholars.
The series welcomes proposals covering subjects in Britain, Europe, the
United States and Oceania.

More information about this series at

https://link.springer.com/bookseries/14868
 Patrick J. Corbeil

Empire and Progress

in the Victorian
Secularist Movement
Imagining a Secular World
Patrick J. Corbeil
Victoria, BC, Canada

Histories of the Sacred and Secular, 1700–2000

ISBN 978-3-030-85201-6 ISBN 978-3-030-85202-3 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-85202-3

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer
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For AM
 Acknowledgements

This book is the product of many years and too many helping hands
to adequately express my full gratitude. Special thanks to Sandra den
Otter, Andrew Jainchill, Callum Brown, Amitava Chowdhury, Jeffrey
Collins, Ana Siljak, Adnan Husain, Harold Mah, Gordon Dueck, and
Aditi Sen-Chowdhury for the support and guidance they provided. I
owe a debt of gratitude to the friendship and intellectual comradery of
my colleagues in the International Society for Historians of Atheism,
Secularism, and Humanism. In particular, Elliot Hanowski, Elizabeth
Lutgendorff, Nathan Alexander, and Anton Jansson. And to Matt Sheedy.
This project would not have been possible without the helpful exper-
tise of the librarians and archivists at Conway Hall, the Bishopsgate
Institute, Senate House Library, the British Library, the National Co-
Operative Archive, and the Cadbury Research Library. My thanks to
Queen’s University and the Ontario Graduate Scholarship for helping to
fund the doctoral thesis this book is based upon.
This book was completed during the COVID-19 lockdowns of 2020
and 2021. I would like to express my sincere thanks to the editorial staff at
Palgrave Macmillan for accepting this manuscript for publication and for
granting me the extra time to complete it in the face of unusually trying
circumstances. I would also like to thank my colleagues and comrades at
the Alberta Advantage Podcast and the Victoria Tenants Action Group
for being hopeful and productive connections through many months of
dreary and anxious isolation.

vii
viii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Thanks also to my friends, and family for their love and support over
the past decade. I owe much to Sadiqa Khan, Luka Khan-Simpson, and
Doug Nesbitt for helping to make Kingston a home to miss. To Ken
Dobie, Sheryl Yu-Dobie, Ollie and James Yu Dobie, Linda Slocombe,
Bonnie Rothwell, my aunts Linda Corbeil and Diane Dippel, and my
cousin Kirsten Corbeil-Saliken and her family for the same in Calgary and
Okotoks. Love and gratitude to my mothers-in-law, Rainey Hopewell and
Margot Johnston. Thank you for being my family.
I owe too much to the love and friendship of Melanie Chernyk to
adequately express my gratitude, so I will stick to our shared passion for
Liverpool F.C. and say You’ll Never Walk Alone.
To my mother, Sam Corbeil, my deepest love, and gratitude for every-
thing. To my father, Frank Corbeil: I miss you immensely and wish I
could share this with you in person.
Thanks to the pets who have travelled all over this country with me as
I have moved for school and work. Bunsen, Tennerman, and Turtle and
the sadly departed Edie, Ilo, Herbie, and Sully have all been the finest
companions anyone could ever hope for.
Finally, this book would have been impossible without the love and
support of my partner, Anne-Marie Bennett. She has been everything.
Partner, companion, editor, and anchor. What is good in this book has
been nurtured and sustained by her love, patience, and skilled criticism.
Any errors or omissions are entirely my own. This book is dedicated to
her.
 Contents

1 Introduction 1
Holyoake and Secularism 4
Chapter Descriptions 11
2 “The Assumption of an Indian or Egyptian Priest is
just as Good, to Our Thinking, as the Assumption
of a Christian Priest”: Secularism and Comparative
Religion, Imagining a Secular World 19
Comparative Religion: Enlightenment Precursors
and Victorian Parallels 22
Freethought and the Historicizing of Christianity 29
Judaism, Freethought and Anti-Semitism 34
Islam, Religious Violence, and Secularization 43
3 Grounding Non-theological Morality: Secular Ethics
and Human Progress 57
A Moral Society of Atheists 59
Articulating the Grounds of Secular Morality 64
Eastern “Secularism” and Grounding Morality in Nature 70
Unity and Disunity in Secular Ethical Discourse 76
Conclusion 83
4 Sceptical Missionaries and Republican Internationalism 91
Secular Internationalism 94
The Secularist View of India 99

ix
x CONTENTS

Secularists and Missionaries 102

The Spectre of Violence and the Importance of Secularism
to India 106
The Oath and Education 111
5 Secularism and the Limits of Universal Progress 129
New Zealand, Emigration, and Colonial Secularism 131
Race, Humanitarianism, and the Limits of Improvement 136
Missionaries, Secularists, and Ideas of Indigenous Extinction 149
Conclusion 156
6 Conclusion 167

Index 179
 CHAPTER 1

Introduction

On the evening of Thursday, 20 January 1853, before an audience of

some one thousand listeners, George Jacob Holyoake and Rev. Brewin
Grant commenced a series of debates on the merits of Secularism versus
Christianity.1 Held on six consecutive Thursdays at the Royal British Insti-
tution on Cowper Street in London, the debates were lively, the printed
report peppered with references to interruptions, laughter, and shouts of
“yes, yes!” and “no, no!” While neither speaker was able to sway the
other’s partisans, the debates were unquestionably a success. Over one
thousand people attended every evening, and the published transcript sold
45,000 copies. The publicity created by the debate thrust Secularism into
the public consciousness.
Holyoake coined the term Secularism in 1851 and was its leading
exponent on the national stage until the mid-1860s. Grant, a Congre-
gationalist minister, was an experienced debater whose career as an
antagonist of religious heterodoxy and Secularism extended from the
1840s to the 1870s. In 1852, following a series of lectures in Brad-
ford, the readers and editors of the British Banner induced Grant to
“commence a general mission against infidelity.”2 Grant took up the
mission and challenged Holyoake on the question of “what advantages
would accrue to mankind generally, and the working classes in partic-
ular, by the removal of Christianity, and the substitution of Secularism

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 1

Switzerland AG 2022
P. J. Corbeil, Empire and Progress in the Victorian Secularist Movement,
Histories of the Sacred and Secular, 1700–2000,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-85202-3_1
2 P. J. CORBEIL

in its place?”3 While Holyoake’s debate with Grant did not win Secu-
larism a host of new converts, it was a turning point for establishing
the movement in the public consciousness. In the six months following
the debate, Holyoake’s periodical The Reasoner increased circulation
by 1,500 copies per issue. Clergymen and religious periodicals increas-
ingly declaimed against Secularism. By 1854, Secularism was widespread
enough to be included as an unremarkable category in Horace Mann’s
report on the census of religious worship. Most importantly, Holyoake’s
performance in the 1851 debates garnered him a reputation of honest
integrity. Non-partisan observers were repelled by Grant’s contempt for
Holyoake’s honest doubt.4
Holyoake, a former tinsmith, an Owenite lecturer, and one of
the leading artisan radicals of his generation, rebranded organized
freethought as Secularism in 1851 and 1852.5 The “leading points”
that Holyoake championed in his debates with Grant offer insight into
what Holyoake meant by Secularism. Secularism held “that attention to
temporal things should take precedence of considerations relating to a
future existence”; “that Science is the providence of Life, and that spiritual
dependency in human affairs may be attended with material destruction”;
and “that there exists (independently from Scriptural Religion) guarantees
of morality in human nature, in intelligence, and utility.”6 In opposi-
tion to theology, Holyoake framed Secularism as truth; the truth of right
conduct and ethical action. In 1896, Holyoake set out a clarified vision of
what made Secularism a departure from simple religious infidelity: “free-
thinkers commonly go no further than saying ‘We search for the Truth’”
while “Secularists say we have found it – at least, so much as replaces the
chief errors and uncertainties of theology.”7 Holyoake’s Secularism was a
scientific and rational guide to a moral life.
Secularism was part of a wider world of Victorian religious scepti-
cism that encompassed a range of religious heterodoxy. It emerged from
a tradition of working-class and artisan radicalism that had its roots
in the revolutionary foment of the 1790s and the ultra-radicalism that
extended from the end of the Napoleonic wars in the 1810s through
to the 1840s. This artisan tradition blended republican politics and early
English socialism with ideals of educational and moral self-improvement,
coupled with a vehement anti-clericalism and atheism.8 Secularist progres-
sivism was built upon a foundation of faith in the improving capacities
of a social science derived from utilitarianism and Comtean positivism,
 1 INTRODUCTION 3

and a commitment to scientific naturalism steeped in the geological and

transmutationist debates of the early nineteenth century.9
This study extends the horizons of scholarship on Victorian Secularism
by bringing needed attention to the role that the imperial world played
in shaping the secularist vision of progressive reform. Secularism was an
outward-looking project of ethical and political reform that was shaped by
an artisan tradition of religious infidelity, republicanism, and civil liber-
tarianism. Secularism was founded upon a system of progressive moral
universalism in which progress, a general human improvement, proceeded
as the inevitable result of properly applying scientific rationalism to civil
life. Organized freethought relied heavily upon a hard dichotomy of
science and religion and the superiority of the former over the latter. This
scientism affected how the freethinkers approached questions of religious,
cultural, and racial difference and the universality of human progress as
they engaged with the ideas and politics of the empire.10
Wedged between early nineteenth-century radicalism and Chartism
and the Fabian and Marxist socialism of the late nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries, Secularism has been marginalized as the less-popular
coda to the former, and the ineffective and minor preface to the latter.11
Recently, historians have begun to reconsider and recover the wider signif-
icance of Secularism. Laura Schwartz has claimed that Secularism played
an important role in the making of nineteenth-century feminism.Michael
Rectenwald has made a strong case for Holyoake’s significance as an
integral influence upon the development of scientific naturalism among
middle-class freethinkers like Huxley and Spencer. Rectenwald argues that
Holyoake’s efforts to make freethought respectable allowed a younger
generation to embrace materialism and, ultimately, to formulate agnos-
ticism, which Rectenwald sees as reflecting many of the values of
Holyoake’s vision of Secularism.13
There has been some effort by historians to engage with how free-
thinkers approached questions of race. John Stenhouse has charted the
role of anti-Maori racism in Charles Southwell’s attacks on “Old Corrup-
tion” following his migration to New Zealand in the 1850s. Stenhouse
challenges what he sees as an inappropriately uncritical and progres-
sive interpretation of Victorian secular thought.14 More recently, Nathan
Alexander has conducted a book-length examination of the role of race in
trans-Atlantic atheist thought between 1850 and 1914. Alexander argues,
4 P. J. CORBEIL

I think correctly, that there was a “profound ambivalence” among athe-

ists and freethinkers concerning Western claims to racial and civilizational
superiority.15
Nash has usefully explored how secularist moral criticism of the South
African War of 1899–1902 was framed by an existing distrust of impe-
rial motives.16 In his wide-ranging study of imperial critics, Gregory
Claeys has shown how Bradlaugh’s role as the parliamentary “Member for
India” led him to sharply criticize Britain’s conduct in India, South Africa,
Burma, and elsewhere. However, as Claeys astutely notes, unlike the Posi-
tivists in the circle around Richard Congreve, Bradlaugh’s critique never
developed into an attack on empire per se.Nash and Claeys have provided
useful insights into the secularist critique of empire. However, the histo-
riography of Secularism has not engaged with how empire informed the
development and articulation of the secularist vision of political and social
reform and progress.
This book treats empire and imperial knowledge creation as part of
the very fabric of the secularist perspective. Holyoake, Bradlaugh, and
the other Victorian freethinkers we will encounter were all participating
in the development of what José Casanova has characterized as a “sec-
ularist secularity.”18 From the outset, this secular secularity was both
conceived and made politically useful by engagement with the empire.
By paying particular attention to the secularist periodical press, I show
how the ambivalence apparent in secularist attitudes towards racial and
cultural difference was a consequence of their vision of a progressive,
secular world.

Holyoake and Secularism

Holyoake was born in Birmingham in 1817. His father was a whitesmith
in the Eagle foundry, and Holyoake followed his father into the trade.
In 1836, the younger Holyoake began his education at the Birmingham
Mechanic’s Institute. A bright student, his education greatly expanded his
view of the world. One of his tutors, Hawkes Smith, introduced Holyoake
to Unitarianism, and this introduction spurred the young Holyoake to
investigate scripture. His studies led him to reject Christian doctrines,
and by 1837, Holyoake had become publicly known as an infidel in
Birmingham. At the same time, he became involved in radical politics
and encountered Owenism.19 Owenism was an important strain of early
English socialism. Initiated by the industrialist and philanthropist Robert
 1 INTRODUCTION 5

Owen in the late 1810s, it grew into a significant working-class move-

ment in the 1830s and 1840s. Owenism was chiefly distinguished by
its emphasis on the moral regeneration of society as a precondition for
political reform. The Owenites pursued reform through the establish-
ment of cooperative communities, where land and goods would be held
in common. The most controversial aspect of Owenite communitarianism
was its emphasis on sexual equality between men and women, and on
communal family life as opposed to traditional marriage.20
In 1839, Holyoake sought an appointment as a tutor at the Birm-
ingham Mechanic’s Institute. He had been an assistant to the previous
tutor and was confident enough in his chances that he quit his job in
anticipation of the appointment. He was denied the position by the direc-
tors due to his political radicalism and religious heterodoxy. However, by
1840 he had acquired a position as an Owenite lecturer, and in 1841
was appointed as lecturer for the Sheffield Hall of Science and became
the teacher in its day school.21 In 1841, the radical atheist and dissident
Owenite lecturer Charles Southwell was arrested and charged with blas-
phemous libel for the vituperative content of his newspaper The Oracle of
Reason: Or, Philosophy Vindicated (1841–1843). After Southwell’s impris-
onment Holyoake was offered the position of editor of the Oracle. He
accepted. The decision was fateful.
On 22 May 1842, Holyoake gave a lecture in Cheltenham titled
“Home Colonization as a means of superseding Poor Laws and Emigra-
tion.” During the question period following the lecture, Holyoake
commented that while Southwell, “the friend of my bosom,” remained
in the Bristol jail on religious grounds, “I wish not to hear the name of
god. I shudder at the thought of religion, I flee the bible as a viper, and
revolt at the touch of a christian – for their tender mercies may next fall
upon my head!”22 This statement was prophetic. The Cheltenham Chron-
icle declared his comments blasphemous and called for his arrest. On June
2, Holyoake returned to Cheltenham from Bristol to face his accusers. He
was arrested and charged with blasphemy. He stood trial on August 15,
and was convicted and sentenced to six months in the Gloucester jail.
During his imprisonment, Holyoake’s two-year-old daughter Madeline,
suffering from a fever compounded by malnutrition, died. This personal
tragedy engendered in Holyoake a profound bitterness towards Chris-
tianity that, despite his later ecumenism, endured for the rest of his life.23
In his anger over Madeline’s death, Holyoake wrote A Short and Easy
Method with the Saints (1843) during his imprisonment. He denounced
6 P. J. CORBEIL

Christianity as “a system clearly hostile to the best interests of humanity,”

and deplored the efforts of his jailers to compel his conversion. He
responded to their requests that he read Paley’s Natural Theology and
inquire into the truth of Christianity by exclaiming that “inquiring into
Christianity … would be like inquiring into the best mode of discovering
the plague, or of taking cholera morbus.”24 As a result of his confinement
and the loss of his daughter, Holyoake became a martyr for freethought
and was soon one of the leading voices of working-class infidelity. In later
years, Holyoake would face criticism for his alliances with middle-class
radicals and his efforts to make artisan freethought respectable by de-
emphasizing theological controversy. However, his critics acknowledged
Holyoake’s sacrifices and did not question his commitment to the cause
of freethought.25
In the summer of 1849, Holyoake published a review of G. H. Lewes’s
biography of Robespierre. Holyoake sent a copy of his review to Lewes,
who approved of his tone and literary acumen.26 This was Holyoake’s
entrée to the world of respectable radicalism. He was soon on familiar
and even intimate terms with a number of leading middle-class heterodox
writers. In addition to Lewes and Hunt, Holyoake soon counted Harriet
Martineau, the French radical émigré Louis Blanc, Herbert Spencer, F.
W. Newman, Francis Place, and W. H. Ashurst—Robert Owen’s lawyer
and an advisor to a number of radicals—as acquaintances and corre-
spondents. He used these new connections to advance both his literary
career and the artisan freethinking movement. In particular, under the
name “Ion,” he contributed as the sole avowed atheist to Lewes’s The
Leader, a major literary radical newspaper in the 1850s. Other contrib-
utors included the Positivist leader Richard Congreve and the painter,
engraver, and republican agitator W. J. Linton.27
Social and professional connections with middle-class radicals gave
Holyoake access to respectability. These connections may also have served
a more substantive end. Edward Royle argues that Ashurst was the
source of Holyoake’s embrace of the term “secular.” In Royle’s telling,
Holyoake wedded the language of the secular with the influence of Francis
Newman’s religious thought and the recently anglicized positivism of
Auguste Comte. This assemblage of ideas provided Holyoake with the key
components for his articulation of Secularism as a moral system distinct
and superior to both Christianity and atheism.However, Holyoake did
not alight upon the term Secularism immediately. He had previously
ventured to articulate his ideas under the names Naturalism, Rationalism,
 1 INTRODUCTION 7

and Cosmism. These earlier ventures shared central principles with what
he now called Secularism: “justification by conduct and sincerity, study
of the order rather than the origin of Nature, trust in science as the
providence of man, and belief in a morality guaranteed by human nature,
utility and intelligence.”29 Throughout this process of conceptualization,
Holyoake sought to wed the critical and the constructive characteris-
tics of early nineteenth-century freethought: Secularism attacked “error”
and superstition while simultaneously proposing a new, positive system
of morality. Without dismissing the importance of Holyoake’s middle-
class connections, many of the ideas that shaped Secularism were already
available to Holyoake and his artisan peers through their debts to a tradi-
tion of working-class radicalism dating from the Paineite radicalism of
the late eighteenth century, extending through the ultra-radicalism of
Richard Carlile in the 1810s and 1820s, and emerging from the imme-
diate milieu of Owenite socialism of the 1830s and 1840s.In Owenism in
particular, Holyoake found a system that emphasized education and moral
improvement instead of constitutional reform as the path to working-class
emancipation. Holyoake would maintain this emphasis on education and
self-improvement for the remainder of his life.31
With Secularism, Holyoake consciously sought to distance organized
freethought from the vituperative atheism of the preceding infidel tradi-
tion and envisioned a move beyond atheistic negation towards a positive
non-theological moral system that could accommodate theists. Holyoake
remained the leading national spokesman for Secularism until the mid-
1860s. In 1866, Charles Bradlaugh established the National Secular
Society (N.S.S.) in an effort to forge a more unified and coherent
secularist movement.32 Bradlaugh was the leading light of the national
movement through the 1880s—during Bradlaugh’s fight to take a seat
in Parliament without swearing a religious oath of office—until his
death in 1891. In contrast to Holyoake’s vision, Bradlaugh’s Secularism
emphasized the importance of atheism to Secularism.
At its peak in the 1880s, the N.S.S. totaled some six thousand
committed members. In other years, there were no more than two or
three thousand.33 Who were these secularists? Based upon obituaries in
the national freethinking press, Royle has shown that the secularists came
primarily from the upper reaches of the artisanal working class and only
a quarter of the membership came from the ranks of semi- and unskilled
labourers. However, in a localized study of the Leicester Secular Society,
David Nash found that 39% of the membership was from the non-artisanal
8 P. J. CORBEIL

stratum of the working classes.34 Regardless of occupational background,

the vast majority of secularists came from a devout religious upbringing.
In the period before 1880, the bulk of the movement was drawn from
Protestant nonconformist denominations, principally Methodism. In the
later decades of the century, a greater number were drawn from Catholi-
cism. Susan Budd suggests this was because of a growing pool of members
of Irish descent.35
Finally, the secularists were disproportionately men. Nash found that
only twelve per cent of the Leicester membership were women.36 Though
they were a minority in the movement, women played prominent roles.
Eliza Sharples, Harriet Law, Sophia Dobson Collet, Annie Besant, and
other women had leading roles as lecturers, writers, and activists.37 The
presence of a minority of prominent women activists within an over-
whelmingly male secularist movement represents a tension identified by
Laura Schwartz between formal gender inclusiveness and an exclusive
masculine culture. Following the lead of the Owenites, secularists opened
their meetings and branches to women. Secularists made no distinctions
between men and women within the movement’s organizational struc-
tures. Women were permitted to run for executive positions in both the
National Secular Society and the later British Secular Union. Despite
these elements of formal gender inclusivity, Schwartz characterizes the
culture of Secularism as exhibiting an intellectual machismo that empha-
sized “rationalist intellectualism and sharp ideological debate, which were
at odds with Victorian and Edwardian constructions of femininity.”38
At the national level, Secularism was a social movement that had
its greatest success as a political pressure group.39 It was a branch of
popular liberalism that took particular interest in questions of religious
and intellectual liberty. This is one of the reasons why, when the great
body of working people were mobilized by a new generation of socialists
at the end of the nineteenth century, the radical, artisan freethinkers—
liberals committed to ideals of respectability and self-improvement—were
marginalized. Politically, this led many secularists to be suspicious of the
revived socialism of the later decades of the century. They feared the loss
of individualism to collectivism, and the religious-like fervour of popular,
mass democracy.40 Bradlaugh in particular was dismissive of socialism and
could not disentangle his faith in self-improvement from his commit-
ment to liberal political economy.41 As a pressure group, Secularism was
most active and found its greatest success around campaigns of individual
 1 INTRODUCTION 9

freedom and liberal reforms of social improvement. The two most impor-
tant campaigns were for mandatory, national, secular primary education,
and the alleviation of legal liabilities for non-believers. In the latter case,
the focus was on legal oath reform that would allow atheists to make
affirmations in court. The problem of oaths was also at the heart of Brad-
laugh’s campaign to be seated as a Member of Parliament after he was
elected for Northampton in 1880.
Holyoake’s entrée into the world of middle-class freethought and his
articulation of Secularism coincided with a general amelioration of social
tensions and a relative decline in the supremacy of a strict, atonement-
oriented evangelicalism within both the Church and broader society.42
Holyoake’s effort to legitimate artisan freethought was, therefore, more
than expedience; it was a reaction to changing circumstances and a
method for advancing an internally coherent artisan ideology of social
improvement through moral and religious reform. The emphasis among
freethinkers on self-improvement made them anxious about the moral
character of proletarianized industrial labourers who they feared did not
share their values.43 Alliance and cooperation with middle-class free-
thinkers and radicals offered an avenue for secularists to legitimize their
programme of liberal reform.44 This programme had distinct limitations.
Because Secularism had, at its core, a programme of social reform and
moral improvement, secularists were eager to separate it from mere irreli-
gion. The secularists actively distinguished themselves from the “masses”
of the religiously indifferent. While Holyoake insisted that Secularism was
distinct from mere atheism, he was challenged on this point by other
freethinkers, first by Thomas Cooper and later, and more effectively,
by Holyoake’s successor as the national leader of Secularism, Charles
Bradlaugh. Cooper and Bradlaugh maintained that atheism was vital to
Secularism.45 Despite this disagreement, all agreed that Secularism was
about more than religious indifference and mere infidelity. It was, rather,
a conscious rejection of religious orthodoxy and theologically grounded
social explanation in favour of an alternative moral system grounded in
the natural and social sciences.
Secularism was a positive ethical system. It coupled a libertarian faith in
the power of free expression with a commitment to an empirical system of
morality rooted in utilitarianism. Its empiricism was built upon an episte-
mological foundation supplied first by Owenite moral reformism and later
informed by Comtean positivism, while its libertarianism was fuelled by
the belief that uninhibited criticism of religion would unshackle humanity
10 P. J. CORBEIL

from superstition. Freedom from superstition would in turn unleash the

progressive character of science, furnishing society with the knowledge
needed to develop a more perfect morality. Holyoake expressed his system
as an affirmation rather than a negation: “The reasoning Affirmist now
occupies ground, the value of which is not yet estimated. Mr. J. S. Mill, in
his great Essays, ‘On Liberty’ and ‘Utilitarianism,’ has taught that Individ-
uality may be a public culture, under conditions which preclude freedom
from licence – and that the capacity of Morality depends upon the extent
and energy of personal intelligence, and not upon the amiable igno-
rance and indolence of faith.”46 Underwriting Secularism was a faith in
humanity as a progressive species. This belief percolated throughout early
British utilitarianism, liberalism, and socialism. Progress was conceived
as an inherent human characteristic, hampered only by superstition and
the tyranny of priests and kings. For Secularism to succeed, its adherents
needed to overcome superstition and replace it with reason and science.
Secularism’s emergence in the 1850s, following Holyoake’s efforts
to synthesize a new, positive freethought through the 1840s, was part
of a wider turn in the second half of the nineteenth century. Darwin’s
ground shaking contributions, developments in scientific naturalism, the
emergence of Broad-Church biblical criticism, and developments in the
comparative science of religion leant a degree of respectability to the
critique of natural theology that had sustained infidel radicalism for
decades. While the scientific culture of the later decades of the century
may have been less hostile to secularist ideas, particularly those of the less
militantly atheistic Holyoake, until very late in the century the movement
remained predominantly working class in membership and orientation. As
we will see in the chapters below, Secularism’s artisan character informed
the belief that science, which Holyoake characterized as humanity’s true
“providence,” was a self-defensive tool for staving off domination by a
god-ridden social hierarchy.47
Scholars of Britain’s empire have done much to show how the
movement of goods, ideas, and people created networks and webs of
relationships that shaped the character of the colonies while simultane-
ously shaping Britain and Britishness.48 This book applies this perspec-
tive to our historical understanding of the development of organized
freethought. In the secularist press, the empire was portrayed as part of
the everyday. The empire was often remarked upon by the secularists and
was at least partially taken for granted. Imperial policy was often sharply
criticized, though its fundamental legitimacy was not seriously challenged.
Another Random Scribd Document
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 Criminology - Summary Sheet
Second 2025 - Faculty

Prepared by: Dr. Johnson

Date: July 28, 2025

Topic 1: Critical analysis and evaluation

Learning Objective 1: Problem-solving strategies and techniques
• Case studies and real-world applications
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
Learning Objective 2: Learning outcomes and objectives
• Practical applications and examples
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
- Note: Important consideration
Learning Objective 3: Best practices and recommendations
• Interdisciplinary approaches
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
- Note: Important consideration
Learning Objective 4: Best practices and recommendations
• Statistical analysis and interpretation
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
- Note: Important consideration
Learning Objective 5: Historical development and evolution
• Ethical considerations and implications
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
- Note: Important consideration
Formula: [Mathematical expression or equation]
Remember: Literature review and discussion
• Assessment criteria and rubrics
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
- Note: Important consideration
Key Concept: Assessment criteria and rubrics
• Historical development and evolution
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
- Note: Important consideration
Remember: Ethical considerations and implications
• Problem-solving strategies and techniques
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
- Note: Important consideration
Formula: [Mathematical expression or equation]
Practice Problem 8: Key terms and definitions
• Assessment criteria and rubrics
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
Formula: [Mathematical expression or equation]
Practice Problem 9: Theoretical framework and methodology
• Theoretical framework and methodology
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
- Note: Important consideration
Formula: [Mathematical expression or equation]
Background 2: Comparative analysis and synthesis
Definition: Fundamental concepts and principles
• Current trends and future directions
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
Formula: [Mathematical expression or equation]
Practice Problem 11: Learning outcomes and objectives
• Research findings and conclusions
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
Practice Problem 12: Statistical analysis and interpretation
• Interdisciplinary approaches
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
- Note: Important consideration
Example 13: Historical development and evolution
• Problem-solving strategies and techniques
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
- Note: Important consideration
Formula: [Mathematical expression or equation]
Practice Problem 14: Literature review and discussion
• Theoretical framework and methodology
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
- Note: Important consideration
Practice Problem 15: Historical development and evolution
• Literature review and discussion
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
- Note: Important consideration
[Figure 16: Diagram/Chart/Graph]
Note: Critical analysis and evaluation
• Learning outcomes and objectives
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
- Note: Important consideration
Remember: Interdisciplinary approaches
• Practical applications and examples
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
- Note: Important consideration
[Figure 18: Diagram/Chart/Graph]
Definition: Comparative analysis and synthesis
• Key terms and definitions
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
- Note: Important consideration
Formula: [Mathematical expression or equation]
Important: Assessment criteria and rubrics
• Interdisciplinary approaches
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
Lesson 3: Study tips and learning strategies
Definition: Statistical analysis and interpretation
• Current trends and future directions
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
- Note: Important consideration
Formula: [Mathematical expression or equation]
Practice Problem 21: Interdisciplinary approaches
• Interdisciplinary approaches
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
- Note: Important consideration
Key Concept: Theoretical framework and methodology
• Learning outcomes and objectives
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
- Note: Important consideration
Formula: [Mathematical expression or equation]
[Figure 23: Diagram/Chart/Graph]
Practice Problem 23: Research findings and conclusions
• Research findings and conclusions
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
- Note: Important consideration
[Figure 24: Diagram/Chart/Graph]
Example 24: Research findings and conclusions
• Interdisciplinary approaches
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
- Note: Important consideration
Remember: Key terms and definitions
• Theoretical framework and methodology
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
- Note: Important consideration
Key Concept: Current trends and future directions
• Interdisciplinary approaches
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
- Note: Important consideration
Definition: Ethical considerations and implications
• Study tips and learning strategies
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
- Note: Important consideration
Formula: [Mathematical expression or equation]
Definition: Current trends and future directions
• Research findings and conclusions
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
- Note: Important consideration
Key Concept: Interdisciplinary approaches
• Critical analysis and evaluation
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
Formula: [Mathematical expression or equation]
Discussion 4: Learning outcomes and objectives
Practice Problem 30: Theoretical framework and methodology
• Key terms and definitions
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
- Note: Important consideration
[Figure 31: Diagram/Chart/Graph]
Practice Problem 31: Assessment criteria and rubrics
• Practical applications and examples
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
[Figure 32: Diagram/Chart/Graph]
Practice Problem 32: Theoretical framework and methodology
• Comparative analysis and synthesis
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
- Note: Important consideration
Formula: [Mathematical expression or equation]
Important: Study tips and learning strategies
• Research findings and conclusions
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
Note: Literature review and discussion
• Assessment criteria and rubrics
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
Formula: [Mathematical expression or equation]
Key Concept: Practical applications and examples
• Ethical considerations and implications
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
- Note: Important consideration
[Figure 36: Diagram/Chart/Graph]
Example 36: Comparative analysis and synthesis
• Research findings and conclusions
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
- Note: Important consideration
Formula: [Mathematical expression or equation]
[Figure 37: Diagram/Chart/Graph]
Remember: Assessment criteria and rubrics
• Theoretical framework and methodology
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
Important: Critical analysis and evaluation
• Critical analysis and evaluation
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
- Note: Important consideration
Definition: Literature review and discussion
• Study tips and learning strategies
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
- Note: Important consideration
Results 5: Practical applications and examples
Remember: Case studies and real-world applications
• Literature review and discussion
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
- Note: Important consideration
Key Concept: Learning outcomes and objectives
• Experimental procedures and results
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
Note: Fundamental concepts and principles
• Key terms and definitions
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
- Note: Important consideration
[Figure 43: Diagram/Chart/Graph]
Important: Learning outcomes and objectives
• Best practices and recommendations
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
- Note: Important consideration
Remember: Learning outcomes and objectives
• Case studies and real-world applications
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
- Note: Important consideration
Formula: [Mathematical expression or equation]
Practice Problem 45: Study tips and learning strategies
• Assessment criteria and rubrics
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
- Note: Important consideration
Practice Problem 46: Ethical considerations and implications
• Problem-solving strategies and techniques
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
- Note: Important consideration
Important: Key terms and definitions
• Case studies and real-world applications
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
Important: Learning outcomes and objectives
• Critical analysis and evaluation
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
- Note: Important consideration
Key Concept: Statistical analysis and interpretation
• Study tips and learning strategies
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
- Note: Important consideration
Module 6: Key terms and definitions
Example 50: Assessment criteria and rubrics
• Problem-solving strategies and techniques
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
- Note: Important consideration
Key Concept: Interdisciplinary approaches
• Best practices and recommendations
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
- Note: Important consideration
[Figure 52: Diagram/Chart/Graph]
Remember: Study tips and learning strategies
• Practical applications and examples
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
- Note: Important consideration
Formula: [Mathematical expression or equation]
[Figure 53: Diagram/Chart/Graph]
Note: Study tips and learning strategies
• Case studies and real-world applications
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
- Note: Important consideration
Key Concept: Key terms and definitions
• Statistical analysis and interpretation
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
- Note: Important consideration
[Figure 55: Diagram/Chart/Graph]
Definition: Practical applications and examples
• Theoretical framework and methodology
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
- Note: Important consideration
Practice Problem 56: Research findings and conclusions
• Fundamental concepts and principles
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
- Note: Important consideration
Formula: [Mathematical expression or equation]
[Figure 57: Diagram/Chart/Graph]
Practice Problem 57: Assessment criteria and rubrics
• Problem-solving strategies and techniques
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
- Note: Important consideration
Definition: Theoretical framework and methodology
• Interdisciplinary approaches
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
Note: Assessment criteria and rubrics
• Key terms and definitions
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
- Note: Important consideration
Formula: [Mathematical expression or equation]
Abstract 7: Best practices and recommendations
Definition: Interdisciplinary approaches
• Assessment criteria and rubrics
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
- Note: Important consideration
Formula: [Mathematical expression or equation]
Remember: Experimental procedures and results
• Fundamental concepts and principles
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
- Note: Important consideration
Formula: [Mathematical expression or equation]
[Figure 62: Diagram/Chart/Graph]
Example 62: Research findings and conclusions
• Fundamental concepts and principles
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
- Note: Important consideration
[Figure 63: Diagram/Chart/Graph]
Important: Experimental procedures and results
• Study tips and learning strategies
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
- Note: Important consideration
[Figure 64: Diagram/Chart/Graph]
Important: Case studies and real-world applications
• Theoretical framework and methodology
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
- Note: Important consideration
Formula: [Mathematical expression or equation]
Example 65: Research findings and conclusions
• Assessment criteria and rubrics
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
- Note: Important consideration
Important: Assessment criteria and rubrics
• Practical applications and examples
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
- Note: Important consideration
Important: Literature review and discussion
• Fundamental concepts and principles
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
- Note: Important consideration
[Figure 68: Diagram/Chart/Graph]
Important: Problem-solving strategies and techniques
• Experimental procedures and results
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
- Note: Important consideration
Practice Problem 69: Current trends and future directions
• Case studies and real-world applications
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
[Figure 70: Diagram/Chart/Graph]
Unit 8: Comparative analysis and synthesis
Remember: Problem-solving strategies and techniques
• Historical development and evolution
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
- Note: Important consideration
Practice Problem 71: Theoretical framework and methodology
• Theoretical framework and methodology
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
- Note: Important consideration
Formula: [Mathematical expression or equation]
Practice Problem 72: Fundamental concepts and principles
• Current trends and future directions
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
Important: Case studies and real-world applications
• Critical analysis and evaluation
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
- Note: Important consideration
Key Concept: Research findings and conclusions
• Fundamental concepts and principles
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
Remember: Critical analysis and evaluation
• Assessment criteria and rubrics
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
- Note: Important consideration
Definition: Historical development and evolution
• Critical analysis and evaluation
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
- Note: Important consideration
Example 77: Critical analysis and evaluation
• Assessment criteria and rubrics
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
- Note: Important consideration
Formula: [Mathematical expression or equation]
Definition: Critical analysis and evaluation
• Research findings and conclusions
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
- Note: Important consideration
[Figure 79: Diagram/Chart/Graph]
Example 79: Research findings and conclusions
• Problem-solving strategies and techniques
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
[Figure 80: Diagram/Chart/Graph]
Quiz 9: Study tips and learning strategies
Key Concept: Case studies and real-world applications
• Statistical analysis and interpretation
- Sub-point: Additional details and explanations
- Example: Practical application scenario
- Note: Important consideration
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