evidence: Thomas Paine was a writer, freethinker, and revolutionary, whose influence on radicals in 18th century England, France, and America was significant. His famous declaration in Rights of Man, ‘my country is the world and my religion is to do good,’ is a humanist one, and his powerful calls for freedom and equality for all anticipated the efforts of humanists up to the present day. Paine believed that ‘the most formidable weapon against errors of every kind is reason’, arguing for the rights of every individual to make use of it in deciding how best to live. Paine was born in Thetford on 29 January 1737, the only son of a staymaker. He received an elementary education before entering his father’s trade. He tried various occupations before settling in Lewes as an exciseman, where he married a second time, his first wife having died just a year after their marriage. [...] Reformers received Rights of Man with jubilation but the government moved to have it suppressed. Rights of Man is an appeal for the recognition of human rights, and a call for a compassionate society: ideals we would today describe as humanist. Central to his thesis was the belief that governments exist for the greater good the population at large and not that of monarchs. Paine was indicted for seditious libel but fled England to avoid trial.