At a time when the forward-looking peoples of the world are engaged in the mighty task of preserving and enlarging the rights of the Common Man, the ideas of Thomas Paine, the most articulate spokesman of those rights, ought to be better known. Broadly speaking, these ideas are those of The Enlightenment, focused upon contemporary tyrannies, by one who lived in and was devoted to the democratic interests of England, America, and France.

Since Paine's biography has been sympathetically written in much detail, and since some facts regarding his personal life have been used by hostile critics to bring his democratic ideas into discredit, it has seemed best to devote the present Introduction to the development of his ideas - religious, political, economic, humanitarian, educational, and literary, with emphasis on their genetic inter-relationship. It is hoped, however, that those who wish to view him biographically will be assisted by the Chronological Table devoted to his life, by the roughly chronological study of his ideas as they developed, and by the chronological arrangement of the selections. The sources of the texts appear in the notes, which also sketch the circumstances of publication and orient the individual selections in relation to current events. The texts have been slightly modernized in spelling and punctuation, and obvious typo^ graphical errors corrected; otherwise they are faithful reproductions of the originals.

Since it was customary, before the rise of Fascism, for those devoted only to American history to represent die Federalists and the Jeffersonians (with whom Paine was associated) as in sharp conflict, it is perhaps well to remind ourselves that they were both loyally American and, like brothers in one family, differed mainly as to the extent to which the people could be trusted to govern themselves and the extent to which the national government should take precedence over the state governments. Toward tyranny, monarchy, the idea of one politically established church, and the kind of ideas now associated with Fascism, they presented a common front. As the Introduction will show, many of the Federalists were friendly with Paine and honored him, especially before 1793; conversely, Paine was proud of having been a pioneer in 1782 in urging that the Articles of Confederation be supplanted by the Constitution, fathered by the Federalists. Individual members of the two parties differed about theological dogma and sectarian preferences; but it should not be forgotten that Paine agreed with the Federalists to the extent of believing in one God as the Creator, in the human soul, in immortality, in the dignity of the human spirit, in the ideal (however they differed as to the means) of trying to promote and safeguard the good of all classes, and in the fact that the final test of true religion consists in doing good and in furthering the happiness of mankind.

I am grateful to both the Rockefeller Foundation and the Guggenheim Foundation for fellowships which enabled me to make use of rare materials in widely distant libraries not only in this country but in England and France, And I should like to record my indebtedness to Mr. James O'Donnell, especially for assistance in preparing the manuscript.