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Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
2
THE AGE OF REASON.
EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION.
Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
3
THE AGE OF REASON.
EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION.
Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
4
THE AGE OF REASON.
EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION.
any question of this kind is left open proves the Age of Reason
fully upon us. Reason alone can determine how many texts are as
spurious as the three heavenly witnesses (i John v. 7), and like it
"serious" enough to have cost good men their lives, and persecutors
their charities. When men interpolate, it is because they believe
their interpolation seriously needed. It will be seen by a note in
Part II. of the work, that Paine calls attention to an
interpolation introduced into the first American edition without
indication of its being an editorial footnote. This footnote was:
"The book of Luke was carried by a majority of one only. Vide
Moshelm's Ecc. History." Dr. Priestley, then in America, answered
Paine's work, and in quoting less than a page from the "Age of
Reason" he made three alterations, -- one of which changed "church
mythologists" into "Christian mythologists," -- and also raised the
editorial footnote into the text, omitting the reference to
Mosheim. Having done this, Priestley writes: "As to the gospel of
Luke being carried by a majority of one only, it is a legend, if
not of Mr. Paine's own invention, of no better authority whatever."
And so on with further castigation of the author for what he never
wrote, and which he himself (Priestley) was the unconscious means
of introducing into the text within the year of Paine's
publication.
Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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THE AGE OF REASON.
EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION.
took in the whole east side of the Faubourg St. Denis, whereas the
present No. 63 is on the west side. After Georgeit (or Georger) had
been arrested, Paine was left alone in the large mansion (said by
Rickman to have been once the hotel of Madame de Pompadour), and it
would appear, by his account, that it was after the execution
(October 31, 1793) Of his friends the Girondins, and political
comrades, that he felt his end at hand, and set about his last
literary bequest to the world, -- "The Age of Reason," -- in the
state in which it has since appeared, as he is careful to say.
There was every probability, during the months in which he wrote
(November and December 1793) that he would be executed. His
religious testament was prepared with the blade of the guillotine
suspended over him, -- a fact which did not deter pious
mythologists from portraying his death-bed remorse for having
written the book.
"I send you a printed copy, which is the only one I have sent
to London. I wish you to make a cheap edition of it. I know not by
what means any copy has got over to London. If any person has made
a manuscript copy I have no doubt but it is full of errors. I wish
you would talk to Mr. ----- upon this subject as I wish to know by
what means this trick has been played, and from whom the publisher
has got possession of any copy.
T. PAINE.
"PARIS, December 4, 1795,"
Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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THE AGE OF REASON.
EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION.
"We are waiting here for news from America of the state of the
federal elections. You will have heard long before this reaches you
that the French government has refused to receive Mr. Pinckney as
minister. While Mr. Monroe was minister he had the opportunity of
softening matters with this government, for he was in good credit
with them tho' they were in high indignation at the infidelity of
the Washington Administration. It is time that Mr. Washington
retire, for he has played off so much prudent hypocrisy between
France and England that neither government believes anything he
says.
"THOMAS PAINE."
Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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THE AGE OF REASON.
EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION.
Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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THE AGE OF REASON.
EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION.
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Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
13