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Shaping of American National Character




Changes in the Attitude towards Religion Caused by the Ideas of Enlightenment

 

Religion. Your reason is now mature enough to re­ceive this object. In the first place divest yourself of all bias in favour of novelty and singularity of opinion. In­dulge them in any other subject rather than that of religion. It is too important, and the consequences of error may be too serious. On the other hand shake off all the fears and servile prejudices under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a god; because, if there be one, he must more approve the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear. You will naturally examine first the religion of your own country. Read the bible then, as you would read Livy or Tacitus. The facts which are within the ordinary course of nature you will believe on the authority of the writer, as you do those of the same kind in Livy and Tacitus. The testimony of the writer weighs in their favor in one scale, and their not being against the laws of nature does not weigh against them. But those facts in the bible which contradict the laws of nature, must be examined with more care, and under a variety of faces.

 

(The Portable Thomas Jefferson, Penguin Books, 1977, p.425-427).

Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) – “father of all Yankees”

 

Born in Boston, Massachusetts, the son of a candlemaker, Benjamin Franklin (1706-90) became a printer writer, scientist, and statesman. While apprenticed to his brother James Franklin, a Boston printer, Benjamin began writing ballads and essays. After running away to Philadelphia at the age of seventeen, he gradually became the most successful printer in eighteenth-century America. During the 1730s and 1740s, he wrote numerous essays for his own newspaper, The Pennsylvania Gazette, as well as occasional hoaxes, satires, and bagatelles for the amusement of his friends. During the pre-Revolutionary period, while he was Pennsylvania's agent in England, he produced numerous essays defending America. While minister to France during the Revolution, Franklin nevertheless found time to write such charming bagatelles as "The Ephemera" (1778) and "The Elysian Fields" (1778). His Autobiography (written in 1771, 1784, and 1788-90) is probably the best-known and most widely read autobiography in the world. Even in his old age in Philadelphia, Franklin continued to write in defense of the ideals he had gradually adopted.

 

(An Early American Reader, Washington, D.C., 1992, p.28).

 

 




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