[FREETHOUGHT] DAVIDSON, John

Testaments No. III: The Testament of an Empire-Builder

London: Grant Richards, 1902. First Edition. Quarto (22cm). Original gray printed wrappers; 81pp. Wrappers lightly toned and soiled, yapp edges chipped in spots; mild scattered foxing to text; Very Good.

Third in Davidson's series of "Testaments," issued between 1901 and 1908 in an attempt to put into verse his rather idiosyncratic personal philosophy which, though staunchly Materialist, rejected the mechanistic precepts of Darwinism. In his later career (beginning with these Testaments) Davidson became an ever-more-strident Freethinker; in 1904 he wrote: "My purpose in these Testaments is to aid in the overthrow of the rotten financial investment called Christendom: I perceive that this can be done only by purging the world of everything that is meant by spirit, soul, 'other' world, though all the literature and art and religion of the past should go with it."

Price: $40.00

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