E. M. Forster, one of the three figures, receiving an honorary doctorate at Leiden in 1954, with Jean Schlumberger and Victor van Vriesland.
E. M. Forster, one of the three figures, receiving an honorary doctorate at Leiden in 1954, with Jean Schlumberger and Victor van Vriesland.
Nationaal Archief, The Hague, Anefo / Fotocollectie Elsevier Reportage, via Wikimedia Commons (CC0)
The twentieth century

E. M. Forster

1879–1970
Humanist

E. M. Forster came from an evangelical Clapham family and left no record of how or when he lost his faith, only the unfussed unbelief of King's, Cambridge. For thirty years he gave unbelief to his characters: an agnostic Cambridge, a freethinking father, an echo that turned Christianity to "boum". He said it in his own voice only in 1938, "I do not believe in belief", putting personal relationships in place of creed. In old age he lent his name to the humanist movement.

The belief timeline

18791970Faith1879–c.1897 (inferred)Doubt1897–1901 (inferred)Declaration1938-07-16Revision1957–1963
  1. Faith (1879–c.1897 (inferred)) — Anglican baptism; paternal Clapham Sect family; in 1938 he recalls Faith "praised and recommended when I was a boy". No dated devotional or doubting statement found [2][4][36]
  2. Doubt (1897–1901 (inferred)) — King's College, Cambridge, among Dickinson, Wedd and the Apostles; Dickinson's own Cambridge pattern (Christianity "not as it were an inextensible box") and Forster's account of the easier Edwardian unbelief; the loss itself is undated here [8][9][10][11][45]
  3. Declaration (1938-07-16) — "What I Believe": "I do not believe in belief" and the view that Christianity will not cope; fiction had said the same obliquely in 1924 (Passage) and 1927 (Aspects) [26][27][31][33][34][38]
  4. Revision (1957–1963) — From a private "very small" faith to public offices in humanist bodies: Ethical Union vice-president 1957, President of the Cambridge Humanists 1959, Advisory Council of the BHA 1963 (single-source for 1959 and 1963) [40][41][42]
Notes to the timeline (17)
  1. [2] He was registered as Henry Morgan Forster but accidentally baptised Edward Morgan Forster. — Wikipedia, "E. M. Forster", revision 1367005708 (2026-07-31). Map to sources only; fetched via the API (extract and raw), "Early life", citing Moffat p. 26. Reported at second hand; the original has not been seen.
  2. [4] His father's family was strait-laced and religious, with Clapham Sect ancestors; the tension with his doting mother is said to have shaped his themes. — Wikipedia, "E. M. Forster", "Early life" (citing Britannica 2025).
  3. [36] In it he says he has to live in "an age of Faith — the sort of thing I used to hear praised and recommended when I was a boy". This is the only autobiographical hint of a religious upbringing found in a primary text. — E. M. Forster, "What I Believe", The Nation, 16 July 1938; Hogarth Press pamphlet 1939; reprinted in Two Cheers for Democracy (1951). Read in an abridged web transcript (skeptic.ca) saved as texts/what-i-believe-1938-reading-copy.txt (a reading copy only). Not paginated, (reading copy, paragraph 2).
  4. [8] He was at King's College, Cambridge, 1897–1901, and took a BA with second-class honours in classics and history. — Wikipedia, "E. M. Forster", "Early life" and "Career"; Humanist Heritage (Humanists UK), "E. M. Forster (1879–1970)",, (1897).
  5. [9] At King's his influences included Nathaniel Wedd and Dickinson, and he became a member of the secret Apostles (Humanist Heritage adds that he replaced G. E. Moore; single source). — UK), "E. M. Forster (1879–1970)", "Life"; Wikipedia, "E. M. Forster", "Early life" (Apostles).
  6. [10] In his own recollection of Cambridge in 1881–84, Dickinson found it exciting to discover that Christianity "was not as it were an inextensible box" and that "perhaps Jesus was not God but only an exceptional Being"; interest in Jesus then faded and Shelley arrived. This is Dickinson's account of an earlier Cambridge, printed in Forster's book. — E. M. Forster, Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson (London: Edward Arnold, 1934), pp. 33–34 (Dickinson's words in Forster's biography).
  7. [11] Forster writes that Dickinson's struggles over immortality and God were not like the previous generation's "Do I believe?", "Couldn't I believe for my family's sake?", "What will the servants say when they find out I'm an agnostic?"; Dickinson never "got fussed". — Forster, Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson, pp. 119–20 (the page break falls inside the sentence).
  8. [45] An essay "How I Lost My Faith" (The Humanist, 1963), named in the brief, would be his own account of the loss. Neither title nor date was found in any source reached, including Wikipedia, Humanist Heritage and the Internet Archive catalogue. — not found. Not verified.
  9. [26] Passage: when Mrs Moore mentions God to her son Ronny he answers "I don't think it does to talk about these things, every fellow has to work out his own religion"; she feels she "had made a mistake in mentioning God". (Fiction.) — E. M. Forster, A Passage to India (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1924), p. 52.
  10. [27] Passage: after the Marabar echo, Mrs Moore hears the cave say "Pathos, piety, courage — they exist, but are identical, and so is filth. Everything exists, nothing has value", then sees "Religion... poor little talkative Christianity" and knows its divine words "only amounted to 'boum'". (Fiction.) — Forster, Passage to India, pp. 149–50.
  11. [31] Aspects of the Novel (1927, the Clark Lectures at Trinity College, Cambridge) says "Prophecy — in our sense — is a tone of voice" that "may imply any of the faiths that have haunted humanity", and that "Every institution and vested interest is against such a search: organized religion, the State, the family in its economic aspect, have nothing to gain". — E. M. Forster, Aspects of the Novel (text of 1927; the IA scan aspectofnovel0000unse is a New York Harcourt Brace & World reprint, so page numbers may differ from the 1927 Arnold edition). Text texts/aspects-1927-ia.txt; Gutenberg #70492, (reprint) pp. 181 and 244 (page numbers read from the OCR folios; check the 1927 edition); Wikipedia, "E. M. Forster", for the 1927 date.
  12. [33] "What I Believe" was first published in The Nation on 16 July 1938; Hogarth Press (the Woolfs) issued it in 1939; it was reprinted in Two Cheers for Democracy (1951). — Wikipedia, "What I Believe (E. M. Forster essay)", revision 1361646356 (2026-06-29); UK), "E. M. Forster (1879–1970)", "Life" (1939 Hogarth).
  13. [34] In "What I Believe" he writes "I do not believe in belief", says an age of militant creeds forces one "to formulate a creed of one's own", and calls faith "a sort of mental starch". — Forster, Two Cheers for Democracy, (reading copy, paragraph 1).
  14. [38] On Christianity he writes that the orthodox claim only it can reorganise human goodness, that this claim "leaves me cold", that he cannot believe it "will ever cope with the present world-wide mess", that its influence is "due to the money behind it, rather than to its spiritual appeal", and that its spirit would "probably" have to be "restated in a non-Christian form"; he grants that "good", "able and intelligent" people will disagree. — Forster, Two Cheers for Democracy, (reading copy, near the end).
  15. [40] He was President of the Cambridge Humanists from 1959 until his death. — Wikipedia, "E. M. Forster", "Career" and "Key themes".
  16. [41] He was a member of the British Humanist Association's Advisory Council from 1963 until his death (Wikipedia); Humanist Heritage calls him a "longtime Vice President" of the BHA. — Wikipedia, "E. M. Forster", "Key themes"; UK), "E. M. Forster (1879–1970)", "Life". Accounts differ; see the disputed points.
  17. [42] In 1957 he became a Vice-president of the Ethical Union and was active against anti-humanist bias at the BBC; he was one of thirty signatories of a memorandum asking for an advisory council on presenting humanism, and defended Margaret Knight's broadcasts. — UK), "E. M. Forster (1879–1970)", "Life".

Lord, I Disbelieve

In 1924, in a scene of A Passage to India, an elderly Englishwoman, Mrs Moore, comes out of a cave in the Marabar Hills where the echo has answered every sound with the same hollow "boum." She hears it say:

Pathos, piety, courage — they exist, but are identical, and so is filth. Everything exists, nothing has value.12

And then, the narrator says, "Religion appeared, poor little talkative Christianity," and she knew that all its divine words "only amounted to 'boum.'"32 It is a character's panic, not her author's creed. But E. M. Forster spent his life setting such moments in his fiction, and only in 1938, at fifty-nine, did he say in his own voice that he did not believe in belief. This chapter asks what the record shows of how he came to that, and why his unbelief took the shape of a faith in personal relationships.

E. M. Forster, painted by Dora Carrington, 1924–25.
E. M. Forster, painted by Dora Carrington, 1924–25.Dora Carrington, via Wikimedia Commons (public domain)

A Clapham boyhood

He was born in London on 1 January 1879, the only child of an architect who died of tuberculosis before the boy was two.45 His father's family was strait-laced and religious, descended from the evangelical Clapham Sect, and his great-aunt Marianne Thornton left him, when she died in 1887, enough money in trust to live on and become a writer.67 From 1883 to 1893 he and his mother lived at Rooks Nest, near Stevenage, the house he later made into Howards End.8 He was a day boy at Tonbridge School, and unhappy there.9 Looking back in 1938, he said that he had to live in an age of faith, the sort of thing he had heard praised and recommended when he was a boy; it is the only hint of a religious upbringing in his own words found for this chapter.1011 His timeline places his faith here, and the placement is inferred.

Rooks Nest House, near Stevenage, where Forster lived as a boy from 1883 to 1893, the model for Howards End.
Rooks Nest House, near Stevenage, where Forster lived as a boy from 1883 to 1893, the model for Howards End.Photo: AnemoneProjectors, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Tonbridge School, where Forster was an unhappy day boy, in a modern photograph.
Tonbridge School, where Forster was an unhappy day boy, in a modern photograph.Photo: pudupudu, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

King's

From 1897 to 1901 he was at King's College, Cambridge, where his teachers and friends included Nathaniel Wedd and Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson, and he was elected to the secret society of the Apostles.1213 How or when he lost his faith there is not recorded in any source read for this chapter; an essay called "How I Lost My Faith," sometimes attributed to him, has not been found.14 What survives is the climate. In his biography of Dickinson he printed his friend's memory of Cambridge in the 1880s, where it had been exciting to discover that Christianity was not a closed box, and that perhaps Jesus was not God but only an exceptional being.1516 Dickinson's generation, Forster wrote, did not agonise over whether to believe for their families' sake, or what the servants would say on finding them agnostic; Dickinson never "got fussed."17 Of Dickinson's own view of immortality Forster wrote: "He hoped. He had no faith."1819 His timeline places his doubt in the Cambridge years, inferred from their setting rather than from any event.

King's College Chapel, Cambridge. Forster was at King's from 1897 to 1901.
King's College Chapel, Cambridge. Forster was at King's from 1897 to 1901.Photo: Andreas Praefcke, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0)
Nathaniel Wedd, one of Forster's teachers at King's.
Nathaniel Wedd, one of Forster's teachers at King's.King's College, Cambridge, Archive Centre, via Wikimedia Commons (public domain)

The novels

His early novels put unbelief in the mouths of his characters. In The Longest Journey (1907), the novel he is said to have liked best, the young Stephen Wonham overthrows the Mosaic account of creation and points out the discrepancies in the Gospels, and his aunt reports that he had knocked the bottom out of Christianity by half-past four.202122 Her nephew Rickie answers her complaints about the morning service:

If organised religion is anything — and it is something to me — it will not be wrecked by a harmonium and a dull sermon.2324

And when she asks whether agnosticism is not all the thing at Cambridge, he says that nothing is the thing there, and that if a few men are agnostic, "it is for some grave reason, not because they are irritated with the way the parson says his vowels."2524 Whether Rickie speaks for Forster is not established. In A Room with a View (1908) the freethinker Mr Emerson says he has brought up his son

free from all the superstition and ignorance that lead men to hate one another in the name of God.2627

In Howards End (1910), Helen Schlegel says: "Death destroys a man: the idea of Death saves him."2829

The title page of The Longest Journey, 1907.
The title page of The Longest Journey, 1907.Internet Archive, scan of the University of California, Berkeley, Bancroft Library copy (Hearst Corporation gift)
Page 159 of The Longest Journey: "If a few men are agnostic there, it is for some grave reason."
Page 159 of The Longest Journey: "If a few men are agnostic there, it is for some grave reason."Internet Archive, scan of the University of California, Berkeley, Bancroft Library copy (Hearst Corporation gift)
Page 39 of A Room with a View, 1908: Mr Emerson's son, brought up "free from all the superstition and ignorance."
Page 39 of A Room with a View, 1908: Mr Emerson's son, brought up "free from all the superstition and ignorance."Internet Archive, scan of the University of California, Berkeley, Bancroft Library copy (Hearst Corporation gift)

India

In 1912 and 1913 he travelled in India with Dickinson and R. C. Trevelyan, and in his biography of Dickinson he described their landing at Bombay.30 In the First World War he was a conscientious objector and served with the Red Cross in Alexandria.31 In the early 1920s he was private secretary to the Maharajah of Dewas.32 A Passage to India came out in 1924.33 Its Christians are not mocked; they are diminished. Ronny Heaslop tells his mother that it does not do to talk about these things, since every fellow has to work out his own religion.3435 Adela, after years of intellectualism, goes back to her morning prayers as "the shortest and easiest cut to the unseen."3637 And at the Hindu festival in the last part of the book, under a notice that misspells "God si Love," the narrator gives the nearest thing to a verdict:

By sacrificing good taste, this worship achieved what Christianity has shirked: the inclusion of merriment.3839

Bombay's Apollo Bunder and harbour, photographed by Samuel Bourne in the late 1860s. Forster landed at Bombay with Dickinson and Trevelyan in 1912.
Bombay's Apollo Bunder and harbour, photographed by Samuel Bourne in the late 1860s. Forster landed at Bombay with Dickinson and Trevelyan in 1912.Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Martin I. Harman in honor of Sande Harman (M.90.24.8), via Wikimedia Commons (public domain)
Page 150 of A Passage to India, 1924: "poor little talkative Christianity."
Page 150 of A Passage to India, 1924: "poor little talkative Christianity."Internet Archive
Page 289 of A Passage to India: "the inclusion of merriment."
Page 289 of A Passage to India: "the inclusion of merriment."Internet Archive

In his Cambridge lectures of 1927, published as Aspects of the Novel, he wrote that prophecy in fiction is a tone of voice that "may imply any of the faiths that have haunted humanity," and that every institution was against the search for a change in human nature: "organized religion, the State, the family in its economic aspect, have nothing to gain."404142

What I Believe

In July 1938 he published an essay called "What I Believe." He opened by saying that he did not believe in belief, but that an age of militant creeds forced a man to formulate a creed of his own.4344 His lawgivers, he said, were Erasmus and Montaigne, not Moses and St Paul, and his motto was a reversal of the prayer in St Mark's Gospel: "Lord, I disbelieve — help thou my unbelief."454647 Since ignoring evidence was one of the marks of faith, he would proclaim his belief in personal relationships; one must be fond of people and trust them if one is not to make a mess of life.4849

He was fair to the believers. The orthodox, he wrote, held that only Christianity could reorganise human goodness, in God's good time, and that it was presumptuous of man to try; many good, able and intelligent people would deny that Christianity had failed.505152 The claim left him cold. He could not believe that Christianity would ever cope with the present world-wide mess, and he thought that what influence it kept was due to the money behind it, not to its spiritual appeal. Believers, he wrote, had Faith with a large F; his own faith had a very small one.535452 The essay, as he described it, was the reflection of an individualist and a liberal; in the text read for this chapter, the words atheist, agnostic and humanist do not appear.55 His timeline places his declaration here.

Humanist

In 1934 he had become the first president of the National Council for Civil Liberties.56 After the war his unbelief became public in a different way. In 1955, according to Humanist Heritage, he said that the humanist has four leading characteristics: curiosity, a free mind, belief in good taste, and belief in the human race.5758 In 1957 he became a vice-president of the Ethical Union, signed a memorandum against anti-humanist bias at the BBC, and defended Margaret Knight's broadcasts on morals without religion.59 By Wikipedia's account he was president of the Cambridge Humanists from 1959 until his death, and from 1963 on the advisory council of the British Humanist Association; the sources disagree on his exact offices.6061 His timeline places his revision here: from a faith with a small f, kept privately, to public office in the humanist movement.

He died of a stroke at the home of his friends in Coventry on 7 June 1970, aged ninety-one, and his ashes were scattered in the rose garden of the Coventry crematorium.62

E. M. Forster in academic dress at Leiden, 1954.
E. M. Forster in academic dress at Leiden, 1954.Nationaal Archief, The Hague, Anefo / Fotocollectie Elsevier Reportage, via Wikimedia Commons (CC0)

Did his unbelief change shape?

The loss itself left no record that this chapter could find; it happened somewhere between a Clapham family's faith and the easy unbelief of King's. What the record shows is how it was expressed. For thirty years he gave it to his characters: an agnostic Cambridge, a freethinking father, an echo in a cave that turned Christianity to "boum." At fifty-nine he said it in his own voice, and what he put in place of belief was not a creed but other people. In old age he lent his name to the humanists. His unbelief did not change; it came out from behind the fiction.

Virginia Woolf, raised without faith by Leslie Stephen, has her own chapter in this book.

Footnotes

  1. the Marabar echo, heard by Mrs Moore (fiction): E. M. Forster, A Passage to India (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1924), p. 149 (Harcourt, Brace 1924). ↩

  2. Forster, Passage to India, pp. 149–50. ↩ ↩2

  3. narrator on Mrs Moore (fiction): Forster, Passage to India, p. 150. ↩

  4. Wikipedia, "E. M. Forster", revision 1367005708 (2026-07-31). Map to sources only; fetched via the API (extract and raw), "Early life" (rev. 1367005708); Humanist Heritage (Humanists UK), "E. M. Forster (1879–1970)",, "Life" (date, Marylebone, father an architect). Reported at second hand; the original has not been seen. ↩

  5. Wikipedia, "E. M. Forster"; UK), "E. M. Forster (1879–1970)". ↩

  6. Wikipedia, "E. M. Forster", "Early life" (citing Britannica 2025). ↩

  7. Wikipedia, "E. M. Forster", "Early life"; UK), "E. M. Forster (1879–1970)", ("a further inheritance"). ↩

  8. Wikipedia, "E. M. Forster", "Early life". ↩

  9. Wikipedia, "E. M. Forster", "Early life". ↩

  10. E. M. Forster, "What I Believe", The Nation, 16 July 1938; Hogarth Press pamphlet 1939; reprinted in Two Cheers for Democracy (1951). Read in an abridged web transcript (skeptic.ca) saved as texts/what-i-believe-1938-reading-copy.txt (a reading copy only). Not paginated, (1938), second paragraph. ↩

  11. Forster, Two Cheers for Democracy, (reading copy, paragraph 2). ↩

  12. Wikipedia, "E. M. Forster", "Early life" and "Career"; UK), "E. M. Forster (1879–1970)", (1897). ↩

  13. UK), "E. M. Forster (1879–1970)", "Life"; Wikipedia, "E. M. Forster", "Early life" (Apostles). ↩

  14. not found. Not verified. ↩

  15. Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson (recollection of 1881–84, printed by Forster): E. M. Forster, Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson (London: Edward Arnold, 1934), p. 33. ↩

  16. Forster, Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson, pp. 33–34 (Dickinson's words in Forster's biography). ↩

  17. Forster, Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson, pp. 119–20 (the page break falls inside the sentence). ↩

  18. Forster, Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson, p. 121. ↩

  19. Forster, Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson, pp. 120–21. ↩

  20. E. M. Forster, The Longest Journey (Edinburgh and London: Blackwood, 1907), title page (IA metadata, 1907); Wikipedia, "E. M. Forster", "Work" and "Career". ↩

  21. Forster, Longest Journey, pp. 139–40. ↩

  22. Forster, Longest Journey, p. 133. ↩

  23. Rickie Elliot (fiction): Forster, Longest Journey, p. 158 (Blackwood 1907). ↩

  24. Forster, Longest Journey, pp. 158–59. ↩ ↩2

  25. Rickie Elliot (fiction): Forster, Longest Journey, p. 159. ↩

  26. Mr Emerson (fiction): E. M. Forster, A Room with a View (London: Edward Arnold, 1908), p. 39 (Arnold 1908). ↩

  27. Forster, Room with a View, p. 39 (scan IA roomwithview00forsrich); Wikipedia, "E. M. Forster", for the date. ↩

  28. Helen Schlegel (fiction): E. M. Forster, Howards End (New York: Knopf, 1921 printing of the 1910 novel), (Knopf 1921) p. 239. ↩

  29. Forster, Howards End, (Knopf 1921) pp. 239, 325 (odd pages inferred between even running heads); UK), "E. M. Forster (1879–1970)", "Life"; Wikipedia, "E. M. Forster", /HH for 1910. ↩

  30. Wikipedia, "E. M. Forster", "Career"; Forster, Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson, p. 137. ↩

  31. Wikipedia, "E. M. Forster", "Career" and "Relationships"; UK), "E. M. Forster (1879–1970)", "Life". ↩

  32. Wikipedia, "E. M. Forster", "Career". ↩

  33. Forster, Passage to India, title page (IA metadata, 1924); Wikipedia, "E. M. Forster", "Career". ↩

  34. Ronny Heaslop (fiction): Forster, Passage to India, p. 52. ↩

  35. Forster, Passage to India, p. 52. ↩

  36. narrator on Adela Quested (fiction): Forster, Passage to India, pp. 210–11. ↩

  37. Forster, Passage to India, pp. 210–11 (the page break between the two was not captured). ↩

  38. narrator on the Hindu festival (fiction): Forster, Passage to India, p. 289. ↩

  39. Forster, Passage to India, pp. 285, 289. ↩

  40. E. M. Forster, Aspects of the Novel (text of 1927; the IA scan aspectofnovel0000unse is a New York Harcourt Brace & World reprint, so page numbers may differ from the 1927 Arnold edition). Text texts/aspects-1927-ia.txt; Gutenberg #70492, p. 181 (reprint of 1927 text). ↩

  41. Forster, Aspects of the Novel, p. 244. ↩

  42. Forster, Aspects of the Novel, (reprint) pp. 181 and 244 (page numbers read from the OCR folios; check the 1927 edition); Wikipedia, "E. M. Forster", for the 1927 date. ↩

  43. Forster, Two Cheers for Democracy, (1938), opening sentence; reading copy texts/what-i-believe-1938-reading-copy.txt. ↩

  44. Forster, Two Cheers for Democracy, (reading copy, paragraph 1). ↩

  45. Forster, Two Cheers for Democracy, (1938), first paragraph. ↩

  46. Forster, Two Cheers for Democracy, (1938), first paragraph. ↩

  47. Forster, Two Cheers for Democracy, (reading copy, paragraph 1). ↩

  48. Forster, Two Cheers for Democracy, (1938), second paragraph. ↩

  49. Forster, Two Cheers for Democracy, (reading copy, paragraphs 2–3); UK), "E. M. Forster (1879–1970)", quotes the second sentence. ↩

  50. the orthodox Christian reply, stated by Forster himself in order to reject it; not an independent voice: Forster, Two Cheers for Democracy, (1938), near the end (reading copy). ↩

  51. Forster, Two Cheers for Democracy, (1938), near the end (reading copy). ↩

  52. Forster, Two Cheers for Democracy, (reading copy, near the end). ↩ ↩2

  53. Forster, Two Cheers for Democracy, (1938), near the end. ↩

  54. Forster, Two Cheers for Democracy, (1938), near the end. ↩

  55. Forster, Two Cheers for Democracy, (reading copy; grep). ↩

  56. UK), "E. M. Forster (1879–1970)", "Life"; Wikipedia, "E. M. Forster", ("President of the NCCL", no year). ↩

  57. UK), "E. M. Forster (1879–1970)", page; also WP. ↩

  58. UK), "E. M. Forster (1879–1970)", (page text, 1955); Wikipedia, "E. M. Forster", "Key themes" (citing HH). ↩

  59. UK), "E. M. Forster (1879–1970)", "Life". ↩

  60. Wikipedia, "E. M. Forster", "Career" and "Key themes". ↩

  61. Wikipedia, "E. M. Forster", "Key themes"; UK), "E. M. Forster (1879–1970)", "Life". Accounts differ; see the disputed points. ↩

  62. Wikipedia, "E. M. Forster", "Bob Buckingham"; UK), "E. M. Forster (1879–1970)", "Life" (date, Coventry, ashes). ↩

Sources cited in the notes: E. M. Forster, A Passage to India (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1924); Wikipedia, "E. M. Forster", revision 1367005708 (2026-07-31). Map to sources only; fetched via the API (extract and raw).; Humanist Heritage (Humanists UK), "E. M. Forster (1879–1970)",.; E. M. Forster, "What I Believe", The Nation, 16 July 1938; Hogarth Press pamphlet 1939; reprinted in Two Cheers for Democracy (1951). Read in an abridged web transcript (skeptic.ca) saved as texts/what-i-believe-1938-reading-copy.txt (a reading copy only). Not paginated.; E. M. Forster, Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson (London: Edward Arnold, 1934); E. M. Forster, The Longest Journey (Edinburgh and London: Blackwood, 1907); E. M. Forster, A Room with a View (London: Edward Arnold, 1908); E. M. Forster, Howards End (New York: Knopf, 1921 printing of the 1910 novel); E. M. Forster, Aspects of the Novel (text of 1927; the IA scan aspectofnovel0000unse is a New York Harcourt Brace & World reprint, so page numbers may differ from the 1927 Arnold edition). Text texts/aspects-1927-ia.txt; Gutenberg #70492.

In their own words

Pathos, piety, courage — they exist, but are identical, and so is filth. Everything exists, nothing has value.

the Marabar echo, heard by Mrs Moore (fiction) · Passage p. 149 (Harcourt, Brace 1924)

suddenly, at the edge of her mind, Religion appeared, poor little talkative Christianity, and she knew that all its divine words from "Let there be Light" to "It is finished" only amounted to "boum."

narrator on Mrs Moore (fiction) · Passage p. 150

Adela, after years of intellectualism, had resumed her morning kneel to Christianity. There seemed no harm in it, it was the shortest and easiest cut to the unseen, and she could tack her troubles on to it.

narrator on Adela Quested (fiction) · Passage pp. 210–11

By sacrificing good taste, this worship achieved what Christianity has shirked: the inclusion of merriment.

narrator on the Hindu festival (fiction) · Passage p. 289

I don't think it does to talk about these things, every fellow has to work out his own religion

Ronny Heaslop (fiction) · Passage p. 52

If organised religion is anything — and it is something to me — it will not be wrecked by a harmonium and a dull sermon.

Rickie Elliot (fiction) · LJ p. 158 (Blackwood 1907)

Nothing is the 'thing' at Cambridge. If a few men are agnostic there, it is for some grave reason, not because they are irritated with the way the parson says his vowels.

Rickie Elliot (fiction) · LJ p. 159

think how he has been brought up — free from all the superstition and ignorance that lead men to hate one another in the name of God.

Mr Emerson (fiction) · RV p. 39 (Arnold 1908)

Death destroys a man: the idea of Death saves him.

Helen Schlegel (fiction) · HE (Knopf 1921) p. 239

Prophecy — in our sense — is a tone of voice. It may imply any of the faiths that have haunted humanity — Christianity, Buddhism, dualism, Satanism, or the mere raising of human love and hatred to such a power that their normal receptacles no longer contain them

Forster, lecturing · Aspects p. 181 (reprint of 1927 text)

Every institution and vested interest is against such a search: organized religion, the State, the family in its economic aspect, have nothing to gain

Forster, lecturing · Aspects p. 244

I do not believe in belief.

Forster · WIB (1938), opening sentence; reading copy `texts/what-i-believe-1938-reading-copy.txt`

My lawgivers are Erasmus and Montaigne, not Moses and St Paul.

Forster · WIB (1938), first paragraph

My motto is "Lord, I disbelieve — help thou my unbelief."

Forster · WIB (1938), first paragraph

I cannot believe that Christianity will ever cope with the present world-wide mess, and I think that such influence as it retains in modern society is due to the money behind it, rather than to its spiritual appeal.

Forster · WIB (1938), near the end

They have Faith, with a large F. My faith has a very small one

Forster · WIB (1938), near the end

I have, however, to live in an age of Faith — the sort of thing I used to hear praised and recommended when I was a boy.

Forster · WIB (1938), second paragraph

since to ignore evidence is one of the characteristics of faith, I certainly can proclaim that I believe in personal relationships.

Forster · WIB (1938), second paragraph

It was exciting then to conceive that perhaps Jesus was not God but only an exceptional Being.

Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson (recollection of 1881–84, printed by Forster) · GLD p. 33

He hoped. He had no faith.

Forster, on Dickinson · GLD p. 121

The humanist has four leading characteristics — curiosity, a free mind, belief in good taste, and belief in the human race.

Forster (as quoted by Humanist Heritage; original not identified) · HH page; also WP

The other side

clearly the writer had never seen the inside of a Christian home

William Jennings Bryan, American politician and believer, replying to Dickinson's anonymous Letters from John Chinaman (as paraphrased by Forster); about Forster's mentor, not Forster, and not Bryan's own words · GLD p. 143

Such a change, claim the orthodox, can only be made by Christianity, and will be made by it in God's good time: man always has failed and always will fail to organize his own goodness, and it is presumptuous of him to try.

the orthodox Christian reply, stated by Forster himself in order to reject it; not an independent voice · WIB (1938), near the end (reading copy)

Naturally a lot of people, and people who are not only good but able and intelligent, will disagree here; they will vehemently deny that Christianity has failed, or they will argue that its failure proceeds from the wickedness of men, and really proves its ultimate success.

Forster's own fair statement of the believers' case · WIB (1938), near the end (reading copy)

Where accounts differ

PointOne accountAnotherHow the page handles it
Date of "What I Believe"16 July 1938 in The Nation (WPWIB)1939, published by the Hogarth Press (HH)Both are right for different printings: say the essay first appeared in 1938 and was issued as a pamphlet in 1939; confirm against the Nation issue or Nicolas Walter's notes
Which humanist offices and whenPresident of the Cambridge Humanists 1959–1970; BHA Advisory Council 1963–1970 (WP)Vice-president of the Ethical Union 1957; "longtime Vice President" of the BHA (HH); Cambridge Humanists not mentionedName only the offices two sources agree on (none yet) or hedge; seek the BHA annual reports and Cambridge Humanists records
Apostle successionMember of the Apostles (WP; no succession named)Replaced G. E. Moore (HH)Say only that he was elected an Apostle; do not name Moore without another source
Completion of Maurice1914 (WP)1913 (HH)Avoid the year, or say "begun after the 1913 visit to Edward Carpenter" only if a source is found; not central to the belief arc
When and how he lost his faithAt Cambridge (roster line; "How I Lost My Faith" title in the brief)Not stated in any primary text reached; the only autobiographical hint is a 1938 remark that faith was "praised and recommended when I was a boy" (WIB)Do not narrate a date or cause until Furbank, Moffat or the 1963 essay is read; if forced, say the setting, not the event, is Cambridge, citing Dickinson's account of that climate
Page numbers for Passage pp. 210–11, Howards End p. 239, Aspects p. 244read from running heads, one page ambiguous in two casespage break not capturedCite as a page range or check against the scan with `ia-leaf` and `ia-page` before on-screen citation

List of illustrations

This page uses only public-domain and Creative Commons images; each is credited with its source and licence.

  1. E. M. Forster (portrait painting) — Dora Carrington (1893-1932), 1924-25 · Dora Carrington, via Wikimedia Commons (public domain) · Public domain (Wikimedia Commons file page states 'Public domain'; painter died 1932)
  2. Rooks Nest House (Howards), Stevenage — AnemoneProjectors, 2013-03-05 · Photo: AnemoneProjectors, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0) · CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)
  3. View of the front of Tonbridge School in 2008 — pudupudu, 2008-07-03 · Photo: pudupudu, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0) · CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)
  4. King's College Chapel, Cambridge — Andreas Praefcke, 2011-06-18 · Photo: Andreas Praefcke, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0) · CC BY 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)
  5. Nathaniel Wedd, King's College, Cambridge — Unknown photographer (King's College archive), 1883 · King's College, Cambridge, Archive Centre, via Wikimedia Commons (public domain) · Public domain (Wikimedia Commons file page states 'Public domain'; credited to the King's College archive centre page on E. M. Forster)
  6. The Longest Journey, title page (Edinburgh and London: William Blackwood and Sons, 1907) — E. M. Forster, 1907 · Internet Archive, scan of the University of California, Berkeley, Bancroft Library copy (Hearst Corporation gift) · Public domain (US; published before 1931). The Internet Archive item states no rights; status rests on the publication date
  7. The Longest Journey, p. 159 ('If a few men are agnostic there, it is for some grave reason', Q7) — E. M. Forster, 1907 · Internet Archive, scan of the University of California, Berkeley, Bancroft Library copy (Hearst Corporation gift) · Public domain (US; published before 1931). The Internet Archive item states no rights; status rests on the publication date
  8. A Room with a View, p. 39 (Mr Emerson: 'free from all the superstition and ignorance that lead men to hate one another in the name of God', Q8) — E. M. Forster, 1908 · Internet Archive, scan of the University of California, Berkeley, Bancroft Library copy (Hearst Corporation gift) · Public domain (US; published before 1931). The Internet Archive item states no rights; status rests on the publication date
  9. Bombay, Yacht Club, Apollo Bunder and Harbour (LACMA M.90.24.8) — Samuel Bourne (1834-1912), late 1860s · Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Martin I. Harman in honor of Sande Harman (M.90.24.8), via Wikimedia Commons (public domain) · Public domain (Wikimedia Commons file page states 'Public domain'; photographer died 1912; LACMA accession M.90.24.8)
  10. A Passage to India, p. 150 ('poor little talkative Christianity ... only amounted to boum', Q2) — E. M. Forster, 1924 · Internet Archive · Public domain (US; published before 1931). The Internet Archive item states no rights; status rests on the publication date
  11. A Passage to India, p. 289 ('what Christianity has shirked: the inclusion of merriment', Q4) — E. M. Forster, 1924 · Internet Archive · Public domain (US; published before 1931). The Internet Archive item states no rights; status rests on the publication date
  12. E. M. Forster at Leiden, receiving an honorary doctorate (Auteurs, eredoctoraten, kostuums, Forster E.M., Schlumberger J., Vriesland, V. E) — Joop van Bilsen for Anefo, 1954-06-23 · Nationaal Archief, The Hague, Anefo / Fotocollectie Elsevier Reportage, via Wikimedia Commons (CC0) · CC0 (Commons licence template CC0 1.0; Nationaal Archief, Fotocollectie Elsevier Reportage, Anefo)

Sources

Tier 1 — the subject's own words (writings, letters, diaries, trial records)

  • [LJ] E. M. Forster, The Longest Journey (Edinburgh and London: Blackwood, 1907). IA longestjourney00forsrich; text texts/longest-journey-1907-ia.txt; duplicate Gutenberg #2604 texts/longest-journey.txt. Page numbers from the running heads in the OCR. Fiction.
  • [Passage] E. M. Forster, A Passage to India (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1924). IA passagetoindiasyed00fors; text texts/passage-1924-ia.txt; Gutenberg #61221 texts/passage-to-india.txt. Page numbers from the running heads. Fiction.
  • [HE] E. M. Forster, Howards End (New York: Knopf, 1921 printing of the 1910 novel). IA howardsend00fors; text texts/howards-end-1921-ia.txt (the 1910 IA scan howardsend00fors_3 has unreadable OCR and was discarded); Gutenberg #2946. Odd-numbered pages are inferred between even running heads.
  • [RV] E. M. Forster, A Room with a View (London: Edward Arnold, 1908). IA roomwithview00forsrich; text texts/room-with-a-view-1908-ia.txt; Gutenberg #2641.
  • [Aspects] E. M. Forster, Aspects of the Novel (text of 1927; the IA scan aspectofnovel0000unse is a New York Harcourt Brace & World reprint, so page numbers may differ from the 1927 Arnold edition). Text texts/aspects-1927-ia.txt; Gutenberg #70492.
  • [WIB] E. M. Forster, "What I Believe", The Nation, 16 July 1938; Hogarth Press pamphlet 1939; reprinted in Two Cheers for Democracy (1951). Read in an abridged web transcript (skeptic.ca) saved as texts/what-i-believe-1938-reading-copy.txt (a reading copy only). Not paginated.
  • [GLD] E. M. Forster, Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson (London: Edward Arnold, 1934). IA in.ernet.dli.2015.527285 (Digital Library of India scan); text texts/dickinson-1934.txt. Forster's biography of his mentor, partly in Dickinson's own words. UK 1934; assumed US-protected until 2030 (Open question 6).
  • [Abinger] E. M. Forster, Abinger Harvest (1936), IA dli.ernet.286084, texts/abinger-harvest-1936.txt. Read; nothing used (no personal statement of faith found by search for faith, atheist, agnostic, humanist).
  • Not reached (lending-only on the Internet Archive, text download refused with 401): Two Cheers for Democracy (1951), Marianne Thornton (1956), Trilling's E. M. Forster (1943/1967), Furbank's E. M. Forster: A Life; the Commonplace Book (1985) download failed. "How I Lost My Faith" (1963) was not found at all.

Tier 2 — scholarly biographies and encyclopedias

  • [Furbank] P. N. Furbank, E. M. Forster: A Life (London: Secker and Warburg, 1977–78; IA emforsterlife0000furb and others). NOT READ: lending copies, OCR text refused. All Furbank-dependent points are marked unverified.
  • [Moffat] Wendy Moffat, E. M. Forster: A New Life (Bloomsbury, 2010). NOT READ; cited only where Wikipedia cites it (baptism, p. 26).
  • [ODNB] Oxford DNB entry on Forster. NOT READ (paywalled).
  • King's College archive catalogue (archivesearch.lib.cam.ac.uk): returned 403; not read.

Tier 3 — popular biographies and journalism

  • [HH] Humanist Heritage (Humanists UK), "E. M. Forster (1879–1970)", https://heritage.humanists.uk/e-m-forster/, fetched 2026-10-14; text texts/humanist-heritage-forster-page.txt. A reputable institutional page, unsigned; its quotations of Forster are in copyright and are secondhand.

Tier 4 — Wikipedia and similar reference sites (citable; give the article and revision date; prefer a higher tier where one exists)

  • [WP] Wikipedia, "E. M. Forster", revision 1367005708 (2026-07-31). Map to sources only; fetched via the API (extract and raw).
  • [WPWIB] Wikipedia, "What I Believe (E. M. Forster essay)", revision 1361646356 (2026-06-29).
  • Wikipedia, "Cambridge Apostles" (raw text fetched 2026-10-14): does not name Forster in the text reached; not cited.

Opposition sources — contemporary critics and religious responses

  • [GLD] (above) reports William Jennings Bryan's reply to Dickinson's Letters from John Chinaman (OQ1). It concerns Forster's mentor, not Forster.
  • [WIB] (above) states, in Forster's own words, the orthodox Christian reply that he rejects (OQ2).
  • No independent contemporary religious critic of Forster himself has been located (Open question 5).