Free Thought in Cambridge: The Aims and Objects of the Society Explained: Under the auspices of the Cambridge University Free Thought Society a lecture entitled “Nietzsche the Imoralist” was given at the Liberal Club last Thursday evening by Mr. A. M. Ludovici. This was the first of two lectures being given, and the lecturer, who has translated several of the works of the celebrated German philosopher, dealt with the philosophy of Nietzsche as opposed to the existing law of morality.
Mr. G. H. S. Pinsent, of Trinity, President of the Society, presided, and in his opening remarks said the Cambridge Free Thought Society had been open to misunderstanding from the beginning. Its name suggested a misunderstanding to people who did not understand what its objects were, and that risk could not be removed until it had got its intentions and objects known. It had been, as he said, under a misapprehension from the beginning. The Dean of one of the colleges had hinted at the impropriety of forming it at all, and in regard to one lecturer in particular, in whom the Society had no personal interest except on the part of a few members. Perhaps the first thing the Society should do was to make itself really and thoroughly comprehensible to all.
It had gradually raised its membership during the past year until it reached the very low figure of 30. At the end of the year a good many went down, and now they had little more than 20 members, among them two Fellows of Trinity. They naturally wished to increase the number.
After detailing the rules of the Society, the speaker said that there had been many instances to show that there were disabilities to freedom of thought in the University. One heard of such cases as a Jewish undergraduate being gated on one occasion because he refused to sign off chapel. One asked, in the first place, why he should be expected to attend chapel, and in the second, why he should be punished for such a small infringement of the rules. Another instance lay in the objection to the lecturer which had already been mentioned.
The Society was willing to welcome as its members anybody who would really tolerate its opinions. It was ready to tolerate other opinions providing that the persons holding them would tolerate its own. One of its fundamental principles was that the members should he agreed not to quarrel on any subject that might be put before them but should allow everyone to accept the evidence that came before him, on the principle that such a practice was the best in which to hold a preponderance of intellectual processes over instinctive ones. If the Society was to put its objects forward in a fashion which could be understood, it had got to grow the number of its members. It had got to grow in a fashion which would make it more comprehensive to those outside it.
He would urge people to join it so far as their sympathies were in accordance with it. He knew of numbers of people who agreed with its ideas more or less, but simply perhaps out of pure inertia did not wish to join it.
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Referenced
GRO0365 Devonport: Gerald Hume Saverie Pinsent: 1888 – 1976