Tlje Rationalist Press 

 Association 



(LIMITED). [Founded 1899. 



Chairman GEORGE JACOB HOLYOAKE. 



Sir LESLIE STEPHEN 

 EDWARD CLODD 

 LEONARD HUXLEY 

 JOHN M. ROBERTSON 



Honorary Associates : 



Prof. ERNST HAECKEL I Prof. ED. A. WESTERMARCK 



W. C. COUPLAND, D.Sc., M.A. PAUL CARUS, Ph.D. 



W. R.WASHINGTON SULLIVAN F. J. GOULD 



STANTON COIT, Ph.D. | Major-Gen. J. G. R. FORLONG 



Bankers The London City and Midland Bank, Ltd., Blackfriars Branch, London, S.E. 



Auditors Messrs. Woodburn Kirby, Page, & Co., Chartered Accountants, I, Laurence Pountney 



Hill, London, E.C. 



Secretary and Registered Office Charles E. Hooper, 17, Johnson's Court, Fleet St., London, E.C. 



Primary Aims. 



The chief objects of the Association 

 are the encouragement and dissemination 

 of literature based upon science and 

 critical research, and tending at once 

 to the liberation of human reason from 

 mere tradition and to its proper exercise 

 on the growing material of knowledge. 

 Truth is infinitely great, and great is 

 that part of truth which has already been 

 brought to light ; but, in order that truth 

 may prevail in the world at large, it 

 needs that the ignorant shall be taught, 

 that the apathetic shall be aroused, 

 that myths shall be analysed, sophisms 

 exposed, and irrational dogmas refuted. 

 It is not enough that new truths be 

 revealed in study or laboratory and dis- 

 cussed in academic precincts or scientific 

 journals. Truth, so far as it bears on 

 the life and aspirations of mankind or 

 on the universe to which common expe- 

 rience introduces us, belongs to all 

 men. Those whose education has been 

 neglected, and those who have been 



educated under a false system which 

 affords no connected view of natural 

 knowledge, have been robbed of their 

 manifest birthright. This the R. P. A. 

 seeks to restore, by making the truth of 

 nature and reason increasingly accessible 

 to all. 



A Definition of Rationalism. 



Those who join the Association do 

 not thereby subscribe to any definite 

 creed, positive or negative. There is 

 breadth enough in Rationalism for all 

 views which do not contradict the ascer- 

 tained truths of science. At the same 

 time, something more is to be understood 

 by Rationalism than a mere rationalistic 

 spirit or tendency. Rationalism repu- 

 diates irrational authority. It takes 

 actual human experience to be the 

 material, and trained human intelligence 

 to be the builder, of the growing edifice 

 of truth. It challenges the believers 

 in miraculous revelation to produce evi- 

 dence for their belief. It demands by 



