Thomas Paine stands out in the literature and history of the eighteenth century as one of the luminaries of both the American and the French revolutions. He served in America as a soldier, diplomat and journalist; in France, as a legislator and constitution-maker; then became in both countries, as well as in his native England, a symbol of the rights of man and the struggle for democracy. In a third great revolution -- that in the realm of theology -- he became the most notorious champion of deism the world has ever known and is still a symbol of the rationalistic spirit of his age. - Introduction.

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