FREETHINKERS, a name first given to the English deists of the 16th and 17th cen turies, and now very often applied indiscriminately to those who for whatever reasons reject Christianity as popularly understood and expounded.. Like the names Quaker, Methodist, and even Christian, it is probable that it was first used as a term of reproach, but accepted afterwards by many of those to whom it was applied as an honorable and truly descriptive term. It is not in general use in the United States, the rejectors of evangelical opinions being more generally called skeptics, rationalists, or infidels. There is, however, a considerable number of people in this country who call themselves free thinkers, and who meet in conventions thus designated for the promotion of certain avowed objects. This class of persons are averse to religion in every form, as an inven tion of priests, and a superstition to be wholly discarded. They are without faith in God or in a future life. They do not take offense when called infidels, professing to regard the name as an honorable one. With some, at least, of this school, freethinking is accompanied by laxity of morals, in practice as well as theory, though the name does not necessarily imply this, and is often used in a different sense. While the various classes of unbelievers have much in common, they are in many respects widely divergent from each other in their views; some being atheists, and some theists; some materialists, and some believers in the spiritual nature of man and in the immortality of the soul; some holding the Bible in contempt as an instrument of priestcraft, and others valuing it highly on moral and spiritual as well as literary and historical grounds; some seeking to free religion from what they hold to be errors and superstitions, and others to destroy it altogether. To call these different classes by any name implying unity of belief on these several topics would be alike misleading and unjust. Of course, Chris tians of whatever sect profess to have formed their opinions in the exercise of true free dom of thought; but the name of freethinkers, in common usage, is not applied to them, but to the class of persons above described. Among the chief English freethinkers
we may name Hobbes, Hume, Bolingbroke, and Herbert. They and their associates were neither atheists nor materialists, but theists or deists (though these two names arc not strictly synonymous). They professed, probably with sincerity, a desire not to destroy religion, but to emancipate it from formalism and dogmatic authority. Lord Herbert, one of the most eminent of their number, avowed his belief iu the existence of one supreme God, the duty of worship, piety, and virtue, the efficacy of repentance and the existence of rewards and punishments in this life and the next. Such men would hardly be called freethinkers now. The freethinkers of France, who were the precursors of the great revolution, were of a somewhat different stamp, less thoughtful and more aggressive, especially towards the despotism of church and state. The most eminent freethinker who has lived and written in the United States was Thomas Paine, author of the Age of Reason,. He is not, however, a fair specimen of the class, morally. See INFIDELITY, RATIONALISM.
FREE-TOWN—a name of the same significance as the Liberia of American origin to the s. of it—the capital of Sierra Leone, a British settlement on the w. coast of Africa. It is situated on the left bank of the Sierra Leone river, about 5 m. from the sea, in lat. 8' 29' n., and long. 13° 9' west. Pop. about 16,000. The town is pleasantly situated, and its wide streets are prettily ornamented with rows of orange, lime, banana, or cocoa nut trees. The temperature, as one may expect from its locality, is tolerably uniform, varying in opposite seasons between the averages of 77°.6 F. and 80°.9. Towards the interior, Free-Town is inclosed by the mountain-chain from which the colony is desig nated, a position to which the proverbial of the climate is partly owing. The population, exclusive of the authorities and the garrison, consists almost exclusively of liberated negroes.