Secularism

Secularism (seculum, "the present world"), a view of man's social duties propounded and named by Mr George Jacob Holyoake (q.v.) about 1846. Secularists maintain that the summum bonum -that which is most desirable for mankind at large - is sufficiently known from experience and that, as vice results merely from error, it needs only an adequate training to make every citizen exert himself successfully for the benefit of his fellow-creatures. Theology and religion cramp and distort the mind by introducldg considerations which have no real bearing on the relation of man to his surroundings in this present life, the only one of which we have any knowledge. The true ethical ideal according to this scbool, is the wise employment of material agencies for the good of the community, and the existence or non-existence of a Divine Being is a matter of no importance at all.