ism relates to the present existence of man, and to actions the
issue of which can be tested by experience.

"It declares that the promotion of human improvement and happiness is the
highest duty, and that morality is to be tested by utility.

"That in order to promote effectually the improvement and happiness of
mankind, every individual of the human family ought to be well placed and
well instructed, and that all who are of a suitable age ought to be
usefully employed for their own and the general good.

"That human improvement and happiness cannot be effectually promoted
without civil and religious liberty; and that, therefore, it is the duty
of every individual to actively attack all barriers to equal freedom of
thought and utterance for all, upon political, theological, and social
subjects.

"A Secularist is one who deduces his moral duties from considerations
which pertain to this life, and who, practically recognising the above
duties, devotes himself to the promotion of the general good.

"The object of the National Secular Society is to disseminate the above
principles by every legitimate means in its power."

At this same Conference of Leeds was inaugurated the subscription to the
statue to be erected in Rome to the memory of Giordano Bruno, burned in
that city for Atheism in 1600; this resulted in the collection of L60.

The Executive appointed by the Leeds Conference made great efforts to
induce the Freethinkers of the country to work for the repeal of the
Blasphemy Laws, and in October 1876 they issued a copy of a petition
against those evil laws to every one of the forty branches of the
Society. The effort proved, however, of little avail. The laws had not
been put in force for a long time, and were regarded with apathy as being
obsolete, and it has needed the cruel imprisonments inflicted by Mr.
Justice North on Messrs. Foote, Ramsey, and Kemp, to arouse the
Freethought party to a sense of their duty in the matter.

The year 1877 had scarcely opened ere we found ourselves with a serious
fight on our hands. A pamphlet written early in the present century by
Charles Knowlton, M.D., entitled "The Fruits of Philosophy", which had
been sold unchallenged in England for nearly forty years, was suddenly
seized at Bristol as an obscene publication. The book had been supplied
in the ordinary course of business by Mr. Charles Watts, but the Bristol
bookseller had altered its price, had inserted some indecent