ABSTRACT
Theologizing and dogmatizing did serve to establish and maintain individual "territory" within the freethought movement. But to view these phenomena solely as instruments of powermongering is not to comprehend truly at all. Robert Owen associated with spiritualists toward the end of his life. Holyoake and Barker had, at one point, been Unitarians, and carried with them admiration for that tradition. Annie Besant and Charles Bradlaugh, later in their careers, mingled with Theosophists and others of the Eastern mystical ilk. Social issues were perhaps the most controversial, particularly the questions of teetotalism and Malthusianism. Language is crucial in a movement committed to propagation, for language is the conveyer of the message to be communicated. The "negative" freethinkers argued that, since the establishment was upheld by orthodoxy, and since orthodoxy was false, the shortest root to changing the status quo was to shake the foundation. Secularism seemed to integrate the differing aspirations and the various stages of Holyoake's journey.
