12 PROLOGUE I 



show, that aspirations after intellectual freedom 

 had nothing whatever to do with the movement. 

 Dante, who struck the Papacy as hard blows as 

 Wicliff; WicUff himself and Luther himself, when 

 they began their work ; were far enough from 

 any intention of meddling with even the most 

 irrational of the dogmas of medieval Super- 

 naturalism. From Wicliff to Socinus, or even to 

 Miinzer, Rothmann, and John of Leyden, I fail to 

 find a trace of any desire to set reason free. The 

 most that can be discovered is a proposal to 

 change masters. From being the slave of the 

 Papacy the intellect was to become the serf of the 

 Bible ; or, to speak more accurately, of somebody's 

 interpretation of the Bible, which, rapidly shifting 

 its attitude from the humility of a private judg- 

 ment to the arrogant Csesaro-papistry of a state- 

 enforced creed, had no more hesitation about 

 forcibly extinguishing opponent private judgments 

 and judges, than had the old-fashioned Pontiff- 

 papistry. 



It was the iniquities, and not the irrationalities, 

 of the Papal system that lay at the bottom of the 

 revolt of the laity ; which was, essentially, an 

 attempt to shake off the intolerable burden of 

 certain practical deductions from a Supernatural- 

 ism in which everybody, in principle, acquiesced. 

 What was the gain to intellectual freedom of 

 abolishing transubstantiation, image worship, in- 

 dulgences, ecclesiastical infallibility; if consub- 



