A Rake's Progress A Rake's Progress A Rake's Progress is a series of eight paintings by 18th-century English artist William Hogarth. The canvases were produced in 1732–34, then engraved in 1734 and published in print form in 1735. The series shows the decline and fall of Tom Rakewell, the spendthrift son and heir of a rich merchant, who comes to London, wastes all his money on luxurious living, prostitution and gambling, and as a consequence is imprisoned in the Fleet Prison and ultimately Bethlem Hospital (Bedlam). The original paintings are in the collection of Sir John Soane's Museum in London, where they are
Deism in England and France in the 18th century Deism equals atheism. This misunderstanding of Deism is not a contemporary issue but it goes back to the seventeenth century as J. M. Robertson explains: "Before deism came into English vogue, the names for unbelief were simply 'infidelity' and 'atheism'- e.g. Baxter's Unreasonableness of Infidelity (1655) ... Bishop Stillingfleet's Origines Sacrae deals chiefly with deistic views, but calls unbelievers in general 'atheists'... ". So, the term 'atheism' was used as a basis for rational critique before the term 'Deism' being used. But by the first half of the 18th century, when English Deism had explicitly become an intellectual movement, the