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$27 RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA Secret Discipline
was George Jacob Holyoake [b. in Birmingham Apr. 13, 1817; d. at Brighton Jan. 22, 1906; received his education at the Mechanic's Institution in Birmingham, where he taught until he entered political and literary life; began lecturing in 1841 on Robert Owen's social philosophy, and directed his efforts to the uplift of the laboring classes; in 1842 he was imprisoned for blasphemy], who, in 1846, assisted in starting a periodical called The Reasoner, which soon became the chief organ of English freethought, a movement which was atheistic rather than theistic, but possessed of a marked tendency toward the formation of associations, and characterized by utilitarian aims in the sphere of morals. Although the followers of the school repudiated the designation " atheists " (see ATHEIsnf), and claimed to be simply " non-theists," they were soon termed " secularists " because of their avowed purpose of working " for the welfare of men in this world," ignoring altogether any hypothesis of a future life. The sole ethical principle of the school was utilitarian, and its dogmatic position was entirely negative, denying the justifiability of assuming the existence of God, the divine governance of the world, the reasonableness of prayer, the possibility of a future life, and the like. At the same time this position was primarily not one of absolute denial, but rather of extreme agnosticism, with the assumption that what can not be positively and indubitably known should be ignored, both in theory and in practical life.
Under the guidance of Holyoake secularism was a relatively tame movement, but with the early eighth decade of the nineteenth century its charac ter changed under the leadership of the well-known Charles Bradlaugh (q.v.), and it became not only radical in politics, but bitterly hostile to all forms of religion, even while adopting a sort of religious cere monial drawn up by Bradlaugh's friend, Austin Holyoake, and entitled Rituale Hotyoakense, sive hierurgia secularis. In all this the more vulgar forms of secularism revealed a certain degree of affinity with Positivism (q.v.), while the more cul tured adherents of the movement came to prefer to term themselves " agnostics " (see AONOsTICIsM). Since the closing decades of the nineteenth century secularism as a distinct sect seems more or less to have disappeared or to have been merged in such forms of modern anti-Christian radicalism as so cieties for ethical culture (see ETHICAL CULTURE, SOCIETIES FOR). (O. ZOC$LER.t.)BIBLIOGRAPHY: J. Buchanan, Faith in God and Modern Atheism, ii . 233-291, London, 1857 (records the beginnings of the movement); M. Davies, Heterodox London, i. 364 aqq., ii. 116-209, ib. 1874 (gives the later development); C. Bradlaugh, Autobiography, i b. 1873; J. MacCann, Secularism: unphilosophical, immoral, and anti social, ib. 1881; Christianity and Secularism. A wri ten Debate between Rev. G. Sexton and C. Watts, ib. 1882; J. Foxley, Secularism, ib. 1882; R. G. Ingersoll, Secular Lectures, Manchester, 1882; W. G. Blaikie, Christianity and Secularism Compared, London, 1883; R. Potter, Examination of Secularism, Melbourne, 1883; S. H. Gem, Christianity and Secularism, London, 1890; W. H. Harris, The Secularist Programme, ib. 1891; M. Keibel, Die Religion and ihr Recht pegeniiber d em modernen Aforalismus, pp. 51 sqq., Halls, 1891; R. A. Armstrong, Agnosticism and Theism in the 19th Century, London, 1905; DNB, supplement, i. 248-250 (life of Bradlaugh).
By secularization is meant confiscation of church property by the State and the use of the revenues thus acquired for other than church purposes; or, in the narrower sense of the term, it denotes the transformation of spiritual domains into secular possessions, the first instance of this being the negotiations immediately preceding the Peace of Westphalia (q.v.), particularly in France.
At the very beginning of the Carolingian period there was a comparatively extended secularization in France, and medieval tradition is essentially correct in declaring that Charles Martel
I. Caro- deprived the Church of a great part of lingian and its estates for the benefit of his vassals. Merovingian The reason for this course was the finanAction. cial poverty of the State, especially in view of the exhaustion of the crown lands and the increasing danger of Saracen invasion, while Charles had in addition the personal motive of creating a vassal body rivaling that of his Merovingian predecessors. The estates thus confiscated were not restored under the sons of Charles Martel, but a legal form was devised which, while recognizing the spiritual quality of the confiscated estates and while laying a tax on the church institutions affected, protected the present incumbents, even while further use of church property by the State was rendered possible through new investiture in case of a change of incumbent. Under Henry II. the monasteries were the object of attack, while, following the traditions of his house, he regarded the episcopate as his surest defense against the secular-lords. The emperor availed himself of the pretext of reforming the monasteries to appropriate a large portion of their property, with which he reimbursed both himself and his followers for his golitical generosity toward the episcopate. At the same time, whatever was necessary to the maintenance of the monastery itself was spared.
In the course of the Middle Ages half of the national estates of Germany had come under Mortmain (q.v.), and poverty-stricken peasants, in their blind fury, longed for the secularizas. Tenden- tion of all church property-a desire cies at End ominously echoed in the hearts of
of Middle many who elsewhere had no sympathy Ages. for the lower classes. Roman Catholic princes, the Archduke Ferdinand., among them, vied with Protestants here, and as early as 1525 a general secularization was proposed, which was to be carried out by the Empire, not by the common people. Spiritual princes and prelates were to have so much as was sufficient to proper dignity, and canons were to retain their canonries, but prelacies and canonries were gradually to die