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The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol. 01 (of 12)

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Title: The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol. 01 (of 12)

Author: Robert Green Ingersoll


        
Release date: February 9, 2012 [eBook #38801]

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/38801

Credits: Produced by David Widger


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WORKS OF ROBERT G. INGERSOLL, VOL. 01 (OF 12) ***




Produced by David Widger






THE WORKS OF ROBERT G. INGERSOLL

"The Destroyer Of Weeds, Thistles And Thorns Is A Benefactor, Whether He
Soweth Grain Or Not."

IN TWELVE VOLUMES, VOLUME I.

LECTURES

1901

THE DRESDEN PUBLISHING CO.


TO

EVA A. INGERSOLL,

MY WIFE,

A WOMAN WITHOUT SUPERSTITION,

THIS VOLUME

IS DEDICATED.

FOR THE LOVE OF GOD.

FOR THE USE OF MAN,




CONTENTS OF VOLUME I.

THE GODS.

(1872.)

An Honest God is the Noblest Work of Man--Resemblance of Gods to
their Creators--Manufacture and Characteristics of Deities--Their
Amours--Deficient in many Departments of Knowledge--Pleased with the
Butchery of Unbelievers--A Plentiful Supply--Visitations--One God's
Laws of War--The Book called the Bible--Heresy of Universalism--Faith
an unhappy mixture of Insanity and Ignorance--Fallen Gods, or
Devils--Directions concerning Human Slavery--The first Appearance of
the Devil--The Tree of Knowledge--Give me the Storm and Tempest of
Thought--Gods and Devils Natural Productions--Personal Appearance
of Deities--All Man's Ideas suggested by his Surroundings--Phenomena
Supposed to be Produced by Intelligent Powers--Insanity and Disease
attributed to Evil Spirits--Origin of the Priesthood--Temptation of
Christ--Innate Ideas--Divine Interference--Special Providence--The
Crane and the Fish--Cancer as a proof of Design--Matter and
Force--Miracle--Passing the Hat for just one Fact--Sir William Hamilton
on Cause and Effect--The Phenomena of Mind--Necessity and Free Will--The
Dark Ages--The Originality of Repetition--Of what Use have the Gods been
to Man?--Paley and Design--Make Good Health Contagious--Periodicity of
the Universe and the Commencement of Intellectual Freedom--Lesson of
the ineffectual attempt to rescue the Tomb of Christ from the
Mohammedans--The Cemetery of the Gods--Taking away Crutches--Imperial
Reason


HUMBOLDT.

(1869.)

The Universe is Governed by Law--The Self-made Man--Poverty generally
an Advantage--Humboldt's Birth-place--His desire for Travel--On what
Humboldt's Fame depends--His Companions and Friends--Investigations
in the New World--A Picture--Subjects of his Addresses--Victory of the
Church over Philosophy--Influence of the discovery that the World is
governed by Law--On the term Law--Copernicus--Astronomy--Aryabhatta--
Descartes--Condition of the World and Man when the morning of Science
Dawned--Reasons for Honoring Humboldt--The World his Monument


THOMAS PAINE.

(1870.)

With his Name left out the History of Liberty cannot be Written--Paine's
Origin and Condition--His arrival in America with a Letter of
Introduction by Franklin--Condition of the Colonies--"Common Sense"--A
new Nation Born--Paine the Best of Political Writers--The "Crisis"--War
not to the Interest of a trading Nation--Paine's Standing at the Close
of the Revolution--Close of the Eighteenth Century in France-The
"Rights of Man"--Paine Prosecuted in England--"The World is my
Country"--Elected to the French Assembly--Votes against the Death of
the King--Imprisoned--A look behind the Altar--The "Age of Reason"--His
Argument against the Bible as a Revelation--Christianity of Paine's
Day--A Blasphemy Law in Force in Maryland--The Scotch "Kirk"--Hanging
of Thomas Aikenhead for Denying the Inspiration of the
Scriptures--"Cathedrals and Domes, and Chimes and Chants"--Science--"He
Died in the Land his Genius Defended,"


INDIVIDUALITY.

(1873.)

"His Soul was like a Star and Dwelt Apart"--Disobedience one of the
Conditions of Progress.--Magellan--The Monarch and the Hermit-Why
the Church hates a Thinker--The Argument from Grandeur and
Prosperity-Travelers and Guide-boards--A Degrading Saying--Theological
Education--Scotts, Henrys and McKnights--The Church the Great
Robber--Corrupting the Reason of Children--Monotony of Acquiescence: For
God's sake, say No--Protestant Intolerance: Luther and Calvin--Assertion
of Individual Independence a Step toward Infidelity--Salute to
Jupiter--The Atheistic Bug-Little Religious Liberty in America--God in
the Constitution, Man Out--Decision of the Supreme Court of Illinois
that an Unbeliever could not testify in any Court--Dissimulation--Nobody
in this Bed--The Dignity of a Unit


HERETICS AND HERESIES.

(1874.)

Liberty, a Word without which all other Words are Vain--The Church, the
Bible, and Persecution--Over the wild Waves of War rose and fell
the Banner of Jesus Christ--Highest Type of the Orthodox
Christian--Heretics' Tongues and why they should be Removed before
Burning--The Inquisition Established--Forms of Torture--Act of Henry
VIII for abolishing Diversity of Opinion--What a Good Christian was
Obliged to Believe--The Church has Carried the Black Flag--For what Men
and Women have been Burned--John Calvin's Advent into the
World--His Infamous Acts--Michael Servetus--Castalio--Spread of
Presbyterianism--Indictment of a Presbyterian Minister in Illinois for
Heresy--Specifications--The Real Bible


THE GHOSTS.

(1877.)

Dedication to Ebon C. Ingersoll--Preface--Mendacity of the Religious
Press--"Materialism"--Ways of Pleasing the Ghosts--The Idea of
Immortality not Born of any Book--Witchcraft and Demon-ology--Witch
Trial before Sir Matthew Hale--John Wesley a Firm Believer in
Ghosts--"Witch-spots"--Lycanthropy--Animals Tried and Convicted--The
Governor of Minnesota and the Grasshoppers--A Papal Bull against
Witchcraft--Victims of the Delusion--Sir William Blackstone's
Affirmation--Trials in Belgium--Incubi and Succubi--A Bishop
Personated by the Devil--The Doctrine that Diseases are caused by
Ghosts--Treatment--Timothy Dwight against Vaccination--Ghosts as
Historians--The Language of Eden--Leibnitz, Founder of the Science
of Language--Cosmas on Astronomy--Vagaries of Kepler and Tycho
Brahe--Discovery of Printing, Powder, and America--Thanks to the
Inventors--The Catholic Murderer and the Meat--Let the Ghosts Go


THE LIBERTY OF MAN, WOMAN, AND CHILD.

(1877.)

Liberty sustains the same Relation to Mind that Space does to
Matter--The History of Man a History of Slavery--The Infidel Our
Fathers in the good old Time--The iron Arguments that Christians
Used--Instruments of Torture--A Vision of the Inquisition--Models of
Man's Inventions--Weapons, Armor, Musical Instruments, Paintings,
Books, Skulls--The Gentleman in the Dug-out--Homage to Genius and
Intellect--Abraham Lincoln--What I mean by Liberty--The Man who cannot
afford to Speak his Thought is a Certificate of the Meanness of the
Community in which he Resides--Liberty of Woman--Marriage and the
Family--Ornaments the Souvenirs of Bondage-The Story of the Garden of
Eden--Adami and Heva--Equality of the Sexes-The word "Boss"--The Cross
Man-The Stingy Man--Wives who are Beggars--How to Spend Money--By
the Tomb of the Old Napoleon--The Woman you Love will never Grow
Old--Liberty of Children--When your Child tells a Lie--Disowning
Children--Beating your own Flesh and Blood--Make Home Pleasant--Sunday
when I was a Boy--The Laugh of a Child--The doctrine of Eternal
Punishment--Jonathan Edwards on the Happiness of Believing Husbands
whose Wives are in Hell--The Liberty of Eating and Sleeping--Water in
Fever--Soil and Climate necessary to the production of Genius--Against
Annexing Santo Domingo--Descent of Man--Conclusion


ABOUT FARMING IN ILLINOIS.

(1877.)

To Plow is to Pray; to Plant is to Prophesy, and the Harvest Answers and
Fulfills--The Old Way of Farming--Cooking an Unknown Art-Houses, Fuel,
and Crops--The Farmer's Boy--What a Farmer should Sell--Beautifying
the Home--Advantages of Illinois as a Farming State--Advantages of the
Farmer over the Mechanic--Farm Life too Lonely-On Early Rising--Sleep
the Best Doctor--Fashion--Patriotism and Boarding Houses--The Farmer and
the Railroads--Money and Confidence--Demonetization of Silver-Area of
Illinois--Mortgages and Interest--Kindness to Wives and Children--How
a Beefsteak should be Cooked--Decorations and Comfort--Let the Children
Sleep--Old Age


WHAT MUST WE DO TO BE SAVED?

(1880.)

Preface--The Synoptic Gospels--Only Mark Knew of the Necessity of
Belief--Three Christs Described--The Jewish Gentleman and the Piece of
Bacon--Who Wrote the New Testament?--Why Christ and the Apostles wrote
Nothing--Infinite Respect for the Man Christ--Different Feeling for
the Theological Christ--Saved from What?--Chapter on the Gospel of
Matthew--What this Gospel says we must do to be Saved--Jesus and the
Children--John Calvin and Jonathan Edwards conceived of as Dimpled
Darlings--Christ and the Man who inquired what Good Thing he should
do that he might have Eternal Life--Nothing said about Belief--An
Interpolation--Chapter on the Gospel of Mark--The Believe or be Damned
Passage, and why it was written--The last Conversation of Christ with
his Disciples--The Signs that Follow them that Believe--Chapter on
the Gospel of Luke--Substantial Agreement with Matthew and Mark--How
Zaccheus achieved Salvation--The two Thieves on the Cross--Chapter
on the Gospel of John--The Doctrine of Regeneration, or the New
Birth--Shall we Love our Enemies while God Damns His?--Chapter on the
Catholics--Communication with Heaven through Decayed Saints--Nuns and
Nunneries--Penitentiaries of God should be Investigated--The
Athanasian Creed expounded--The Trinity and its Members--Chapter on the
Episcopalians--Origin of the Episcopal Church--Apostolic Succession
an Imported Article--Episcopal Creed like the Catholic, with a
few Additional Absurdities--Chapter on the Methodists--Wesley and
Whitfield--Their Quarrel about Predestination--Much Preaching for Little
Money--Adapted to New Countries--Chapter on the Presbyterians--John
Calvin, Murderer--Meeting between Calvin and Knox--The Infamy of
Calvinism--Division in the Church--The Young Presbyterian's Resignation
to the Fate of his Mother--A Frightful, Hideous, and Hellish
Creed--Chapter on the Evangelical Alliance--Jeremy Taylor's Opinion of
Baptists--Orthodoxy not Dead--Creed of the Alliance--Total Depravity,
Eternal Damnation--What do You Propose?--The Gospel of Good-fellowship,
Cheerfulness, Health, Good Living, Justice--No Forgiveness--God's
Forgiveness Does not Pay my Debt to Smith--Gospel of Liberty, of
Intelligence, of Humanity--One World at a Time--"Upon that Rock I
Stand"




PUBLISHER'S PREFACE.

IN presenting to the public this edition of the late Robert G.
Ingersoll's works, it has been the aim of the publisher to make it
worthy of the author and a pleasure to his friends and admirers. No one
can be more conscious than he of the magnitude of the task
undertaken, or more keenly feel how far short it must fall of adequate
accomplishment.

When it is remembered that countless utterances of the author were never
caught from his eloquent lips, it is matter for congratulation that
so much has been preserved. The authorized addresses, arguments and
articles that have already appeared in print and passed the review of
the authors more or less careful inspection, will be readily recognized
as accurate and complete; but in this latest and fullest compilation
are many emanations from his heart and brain that have never had his
scrutiny, were not revised by him, and that yet, by general judgment,
should not be lost to the world.

These unedited sundries consist of fragments of speeches and incompleted
articles discovered amongst the authors literary remains and for
unknown reasons left in more or less unfinished form. It has been the
publisher's ambition to gather these fugitive pieces and place them in
this edition by the side of the saved treasures. Whether the work has
been well or ill done a generous public must decide, while the sole
responsibility must rest with, as it has been assumed by, the publisher.

In carrying out the design of the present edition, the publisher
gratefully acknowledges the assistance of Mr. Ingersoll's family,
who have freely placed at his disposal many papers, inscriptions,
monographs, memoranda and pages of valuable material.

Recognition is also here made of the kind courtesy of the press and of
publishers of magazines who have generously permitted the publication of
articles originally written for them.

Finally, the publisher gives his thanks to all the devoted friends of
the author who in many ways, by suggestion and unselfish labor,
have aided in getting out this work. Of these, none have been more
unremitting in service, and to none is the publisher more indebted, than
to Mr. I. Newton Baker, Mr. Ingersoll's former private secretary, to Dr.
Edgar C. Beall, and to Mr. George E. Macdonald for the fine Tables of
Contents and the very valuable Index to this edition.

C. P. FARRELL.

New York, July, 1900.




THE GODS

An Honest God is the Noblest Work of Man.

EACH nation has created a god, and the god has always resembled his
creators. He hated and loved what they hated and loved, and he was
invariably found on the side of those in power. Each god was intensely
patriotic, and detested all nations but his own. All these gods demanded
praise, flattery, and worship. Most of them were pleased with sacrifice,
and the smell of innocent blood has ever been considered a divine
perfume. All these gods have insisted upon having a vast number of
priests, and the priests have always insisted upon being supported by
the people, and the principal business of these priests has been to
boast about their god, and to insist that he could easily vanquish all
the other gods put together.

These gods have been manufactured after numberless models, and according
to the most grotesque fashions. Some have a thousand arms, some a
hundred heads, some are adorned with necklaces of living snakes, some
are armed with clubs, some with sword and shield, some with bucklers,
and some have wings as a cherub; some were invisible, some would show
themselves entire, and some would only show their backs; some were
jealous, some were foolish, some turned themselves into men, some into
swans, some into bulls, some into doves, and some into Holy Ghosts,
and made love to the beautiful daughters of men. Some were married--all
ought to have been--and some were considered as old bachelors from all
eternity. Some had children, and the children were turned into gods and
worshiped as their fathers had been. Most of these gods were revengeful,
savage, lustful, and ignorant. As they generally depended upon
their priests for information, their ignorance can hardly excite our
astonishment.

These gods did not even know the shape of the worlds they had created,
but supposed them perfectly flat Some thought the day could be
lengthened by stopping the sun, that the blowing of horns could throw
down the walls of a city, and all knew so little of the real nature
of the people they had created, that they commanded the people to love
them. Some were so ignorant as to suppose that man could believe just
as he might desire, or as they might command, and that to be governed
by observation, reason, and experience was a most foul and damning sin.
None of these gods could give a true account of the creation of this
little earth. All were wofully deficient in geology and astronomy. As a
rule, they were most miserable legislators, and as executives, they were
far inferior to the average of American presidents.

These deities have demanded the most abject and degrading obedience. In
order to please them, man must lay his very face in the dust Of course,
they have always been partial to the people who created them, and have
generally shown their partiality by assisting those people to rob and
destroy others, and to ravish their wives and daughters.

Nothing is so pleasing to these gods as the butchery of unbelievers.
Nothing so enrages them, even now, as to have some one deny their
existence.

Few nations have been so poor as to have but one god. Gods were made
so easily, and the raw material cost so little, that generally the god
market was fairly glutted, and heaven crammed with these phantoms. These
gods not only attended to the skies, but were supposed to interfere in
all the affairs of men. They presided over everybody and everything.
They attended to every department. All was supposed to be under their
immediate control. Nothing was too small--nothing too large; the falling
of sparrows and the motions of the planets were alike attended to by
these industrious and observing deities. From their starry thrones they
frequently came to the earth for the purpose of imparting information to
man. It is related of one that he came amid thunderings and lightnings
in order to tell the people that they should not cook a kid in its
mother's milk. Some left their shining abodes to tell women that they
should, or should not, have children, to inform a priest how to cut
and wear his apron, and to give directions as to the proper manner of
cleaning the intestines of a bird.

When the people failed to worship one of these gods, or failed to feed
and clothe his priests, (which was much the same thing,) he generally
visited them with pestilence and famine. Sometimes he allowed some other
nation to drag them into slavery--to sell their wives and children; but
generally he glutted his vengeance by murdering their first-born.
The priests always did their whole duty, not only in predicting these
calamities, but in proving, when they did happen, that they were brought
upon the people because they had not given quite enough to them.

These gods differed just as the nations differed; the greatest and most
powerful had the most powerful gods, while the weaker ones were obliged
to content themselves with the very off-scourings of the heavens. Each
of these gods promised happiness here and hereafter to all his slaves,
and threatened to eternally punish all who either disbelieved in his
existence or suspected that some other god might be his superior; but to
deny the existence of all gods was, and is, the crime of crimes. Redden
your hands with human blood; blast by slander the fair fame of the
innocent; strangle the smiling child upon its mother's knees; deceive,
ruin and desert the beautiful girl who loves and trusts you, and
your case is not hopeless. For all this, and for all these you may
be forgiven. For all this, and for all these, that bankrupt court
established by the gospel, will give you a discharge; but deny the
existence of these divine ghosts, of these gods, and the sweet and
tearful face of Mercy becomes livid with eternal hate. Heaven's golden
gates are shut, and you, with an infinite curse ringing in your
ears, with the brand of infamy upon your brow, commence your endless
wanderings in the lurid gloom of hell--an immortal vagrant--an eternal
outcast--a deathless convict.

One of these gods, and one who demands our love, our admiration and
our worship, and one who is worshiped, if mere heartless ceremony is
worship, gave to his chosen people for their guidance, the following
laws of war: "When thou comest nigh unto a city to fight against it,
_then proclaim peace unto it_. And it shall be if it make thee answer of
peace, and open unto thee, then it shall be that all the people that is
found therein shall be tributaries unto thee, and they shall serve thee.
And if it will make no peace with thee, but will make war against thee,
then thou shalt besiege it.

"And when the Lord thy God hath delivered it into thy hands, thou shalt
smite every male thereof with the edge of the sword. But the women and
the little ones, and the cattle, and all that is in the city, even all
the spoil thereof, shalt thou take unto thyself, and thou shalt eat
the spoil of thine enemies which the Lord thy God hath given thee. Thus
shalt thou do unto all the cities which are very far off from thee,
which are not of the cities of these nations. But of the cities of these
people which the Lord thy God doth give thee for an inheritance, _thou
shalt save alive nothing that breatheth_"

Is it possible for man to conceive of anything more perfectly infamous?
Can you believe that such directions were given by any being except an
infinite fiend? Remember that the army receiving these instructions
was one of invasion. Peace was offered upon condition that the people
submitting should be the slaves of the invader; but if any should have
the courage to defend their homes, to fight for the love of wife and
child, then the sword was to spare none--not even the prattling, dimpled
babe.

And we are called upon to worship such a God; to get upon our knees and
tell him that he is good, that he is merciful, that he is just, that he
is love. We are asked to stifle every noble sentiment of the soul, and
to trample under foot all the sweet charities of the heart. Because we
refuse to stultify ourselves--refuse to become liars--we are denounced,
hated, traduced and ostracized here, and this same god threatens to
torment us in eternal fire the moment death allows him to fiercely
clutch our naked helpless souls. Let the people hate, let the god
threaten--we will educate them, and we will despise and defy him.

The book, called the Bible, is filled with passages equally horrible,
unjust and atrocious. This is the book to be read in schools in order
to make our children loving, kind and gentle! This is the book to
be recognized in our Constitution as the source of all authority and
justice!

Strange! that no one has ever been persecuted by the church for
believing God bad, while hundreds of millions have been destroyed
for thinking him good. The orthodox church never will forgive the
Universalist for saying "God is love." It has always been considered
as one of the very highest evidences of true and undefiled religion to
insist that all men, women and children deserve eternal damnation. It
has always been heresy to say, "God will at last save all."

We are asked to justify these frightful passages, these infamous laws
of war, because the Bible is the word of God. As a matter of fact, there
never was, and there never can be, an argument, even tending to prove
the inspiration of any book whatever. In the absence of positive
evidence, analogy and experience, argument is simply impossible, and at
the very best, can amount only to a useless agitation of the air.

The instant we admit that a book is too sacred to be doubted, or even
reasoned about, we are mental serfs. It is infinitely absurd to suppose
that a god would address a communication to intelligent beings, and yet
make it a crime, to be punished in eternal flames, for them to use their
intelligence for the purpose of understanding his communication. If we
have the right to use our reason, we certainly have the right to act in
accordance with it, and no god can have the right to punish us for such
action.

The doctrine that future happiness depends upon belief is monstrous.
It is the infamy of infamies. The notion that faith in Christ is to
be rewarded by an eternity of bliss, while a dependence upon reason,
observation, and experience merits everlasting pain, is too absurd for
refutation, and can be relieved only by that unhappy mixture of insanity
and ignorance, called "faith." What man, who ever thinks, can believe
that blood can appease God? And yet, our entire system of religion is
based upon that belief. The Jews pacified Jehovah with the blood of
animals, and according to the Christian system, the blood of Jesus
softened the heart of God a little, and rendered possible the salvation
of a fortunate few. It is hard to conceive how the human mind can give
assent to such terrible ideas, or how any sane man can read the Bible
and still believe in the doctrine of inspiration.

Whether the Bible is true or false, is of no consequence in comparison
with the mental freedom of the race.

Salvation through slavery is worthless. Salvation from slavery is
inestimable.

As long as man believes the Bible to be infallible, that book is his
master. The civilization of this century is not the child of faith, but
of unbelief--the result of free thought.

All that is necessary, as it seems to me, to convince any reasonable
person that the Bible is simply and purely of human invention--of
barbarian invention--is to read it Read it as you would any other book;
think of it as you would of any other; get the bandage of reverence
from your eyes; drive from your heart the phantom of fear; push from the
throne of your brain the cowled form of superstition--then read the Holy
Bible, and you will be amazed that you ever, for one moment, supposed a
being of infinite wisdom, goodness and purity, to be the author of such
ignorance and of such atrocity.

Our ancestors not only had their god-factories, but they made devils as
well. These devils were generally disgraced and fallen gods. Some had
headed unsuccessful revolts; some had been caught sweetly reclining in
the shadowy folds of some fleecy cloud, kissing the wife of the god of
gods. These devils generally sympathized with man. There is in regard
to them a most wonderful fact: In nearly all the theologies, mythologies
and religions, the devils have been much more humane and merciful
than the gods. No devil ever gave one of his generals an order to kill
children and to rip open the bodies of pregnant women. Such barbarities
were always ordered by the good gods. The pestilences were sent by the
most merciful gods. The frightful famine, during which the dying child
with pallid lips sucked the withered bosom of a dead mother, was sent by
the loving gods. No devil was ever charged with such fiendish brutality.

One of these gods, according to the account, drowned an entire world,
with the exception of eight persons. The old, the young, the beautiful
and the helpless were remorsely devoured by the shoreless sea. This,
the most fearful tragedy that the imagination of ignorant priests ever
conceived, was the act, not of a devil, but of a god, so-called, whom
men ignorantly worship unto this day. What a stain such an act would
leave upon the character of a devil! One of the prophets of one of these
gods, having in his power a captured king, hewed him in pieces in the
sight of all the people. Was ever any imp of any devil guilty of such
savagery?

One of these gods is reported to have given the following directions
concerning human slavery: "If thou buy a Hebrew servant, six years shall
he serve, and in the seventh he shall go out free for nothing. If he
came in by himself, he shall go out by himself; if he were married, then
his wife shall go out with him. If his master have given him a wife, and
she have borne him sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall be
her master's, and he shall go out by himself. And if the servant shall
plainly say, I love my master, my wife and my children; I will not go
out free. Then his master shall bring him unto the judges; he shall also
bring him unto the door, or unto the door-post; and his master shall
bore his ear through with an awl; and he shall serve him forever."

According to this, a man was given liberty upon condition that he would
desert forever his wife and children. Did any devil ever force upon a
husband, upon a father, so cruel and so heartless an alternative? Who
can worship such a god? Who can bend the knee to such a monster? Who can
pray to such a fiend?

All these gods threatened to torment forever the souls of their enemies.
Did any devil ever make so infamous a threat? The basest thing recorded
of the devil, is what he did concerning Job and his family, and that
was done by the express permission of one of these gods, and to decide
a little difference of opinion between their serene highnesses as to the
character of "my servant Job." The first account we have of the devil is
found in that purely scientific book called Genesis, and is as follows:
"Now the serpent was more subtile than any beast of the field which the
Lord God had made, and he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye
shall not eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden? And the woman
said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the
garden; but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden
God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest
ye die. And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die.
For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall
be opened and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. And when the
woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to
the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the
fruit thereof and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her, and
he did eat.... And the Lord God said, Behold the man is become as one of
us, to know good and evil; and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take
also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever. Therefore the Lord
God sent him forth from the Garden of Eden to till the ground from which
he was taken. So he drove out the man, and he placed at the east of the
Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword, which turned every way to
keep the way of the tree of life."

According to this account the promise of the devil was fulfilled to
the very letter. Adam and Eve did not die, and they did become as gods,
knowing good and evil.

The account shows, however, that the gods dreaded education and
knowledge then just as they do now. The church still faithfully guards
the dangerous tree of knowledge, and has exerted in all ages her utmost
power to keep mankind from eating the fruit thereof. The priests have
never ceased repeating the old falsehood and the old threat: "Ye shall
not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die." From every
pulpit comes the same cry, born of the same fear: "Lest they eat and
become as gods, knowing good and evil." For this reason, religion
hates science, faith detests reason, theology is the sworn enemy of
philosophy, and the church with its flaming sword still guards the hated
tree, and like its supposed founder, curses to the lowest depths the
brave thinkers who eat and become as gods.

If the account given in Genesis is really true, ought we not, after all,
to thank this serpent? He was the first schoolmaster, the first advocate
of learning, the first enemy of ignorance, the first to whisper in human
ears the sacred word liberty, the creator of ambition, the author of
modesty, of inquiry, of doubt, of investigation, of progress and of
civilization.

Give me the storm and tempest of thought and action, rather than the
dead calm of ignorance and faith! Banish me from Eden when you will; but
first let me eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge!

Some nations have borrowed their gods; of this number, we are compelled
to say, is our own. The Jews having ceased to exist as a nation, and
having no further use for a god, our ancestors appropriated him and
adopted their devil at the same time. This borrowed god is still an
object of some adoration, and this adopted devil still excites the
apprehensions of our people. He is still supposed to be setting his
traps and snares for the purpose of catching our unwary souls, and is
still, with reasonable success, waging the old war against our God.

To me, it seems easy to account for these ideas concerning gods and
devils. They are a perfectly natural production. Man has created them
all, and under the same circumstances would create them again. Man has
not only created all these gods, but he has created them out of the
materials by which he has been surrounded. Generally he has modeled them
after himself, and has given them hands, heads, feet, eyes, ears,
and organs of speech. Each nation made its gods and devils speak its
language not only, but put in their mouths the same mistakes in history,
geography, astronomy, and in all matters of fact, generally made by the
people. No god was ever in advance of the nation that created him. The
negroes represented their deities with black skins and curly hair. The
Mongolian gave to his a yellow complexion and dark almond-shaped eyes.
The Jews were not allowed to paint theirs, or we should have seen
Jehovah with a full beard, an oval face, and an aquiline nose. Zeus was
a perfect Greek, and Jove looked as though a member of the Roman senate.
The gods of Egypt had the patient face and placid look of the loving
people who made them. The gods of northern countries were represented
warmly clad in robes of fur; those of the tropics were naked. The gods
of India were often mounted upon elephants; those of some islanders were
great swimmers, and the deities of the Arctic zone were passionately
fond of whale's blubber. Nearly all people have carved or painted
representations of their gods, and these representations were, by the
lower classes, generally treated as the real gods, and to these images
and idols they addressed prayers and offered sacrifice.

In some countries? even at this day, if the people after long praying
do not obtain their desires, they turn their images off as impotent
gods, or upbraid them in a most reproachful manner, loading them with
blows and curses. 'How now, dog of a spirit,' they say, 'we give you
lodging in a magnificent temple, we gild you with gold, feed you with
the choicest food, and offer incense to you; yet, after all this care,
you are so ungrateful as to refuse us what we ask.'

Hereupon they will pull the god down and drag him through the filth
of the street. If, in the meantime, it happens that they obtain their
request, then, with a great deal of ceremony, they wash him clean, carry
him back and place him in his temple again, where they fall down and
make excuses for what they have done. 'Of a truth,' they say, 'we were
a little too hasty, and you were a little too long in your grant. Why
should you bring this beating on yourself. But what is done cannot be
undone. Let us not think of it any more. If you will forget what is
past, we will gild you over brighter again than before.

Man has never been at a loss for gods. He has worshiped almost
everything, including the vilest and most disgusting beasts. He has
worshiped fire, earth, air, water, light, stars, and for hundreds of
ages prostrated himself before enormous snakes. Savage tribes often make
gods of articles they get from civilized people. The Todas worship a
cow-bell. The Kotas worship two silver plates, which they regard as
husband and wife, and another tribe manufactured a god out of a king of
hearts.

Man, having always been the physical superior of woman, accounts for
the fact that most of the high gods have been males. Had woman been the
physical superior, the powers supposed to be the rulers of Nature would
have been women, and instead of being represented in the apparel of
man, they would have luxuriated in trains, lownecked dresses, laces and
back-hair.

Nothing can be plainer than that each nation gives to its god its
peculiar characteristics, and that every individual gives to his god his
personal peculiarities.

Man has no ideas, and can have none, except those suggested by his
surroundings. He cannot conceive of anything utterly unlike what he has
seen or felt. He can exaggerate, diminish, combine, separate, deform,
beautify, improve, multiply and compare what he sees, what he feels,
what he hears, and all of which he takes cognizance through the medium
of the senses; but he cannot create. Having seen exhibitions of power,
he can say, omnipotent. Having lived, he can say, immortality. Knowing
something of time, he can say, eternity. Conceiving something of
intelligence, he can say, God. Having seen exhibitions of malice, he can
say, devil. A few gleams of happiness having fallen athwart the gloom of
his life, he can say, heaven. Pain, in its numberless forms, having been
experienced, he can say, hell. Yet all these ideas have a foundation
in fact, and only a foundation. The superstructure has been reared
by exaggerating, diminishing, combining, separating, deforming,
beautifying, improving or multiplying realities, so that the edifice or
fabric is but the incongruous grouping of what man has perceived through
the medium of the senses. It is as though we should give to a lion the
wings of an eagle, the hoofs of a bison, the tail of a horse, the pouch
of a kangaroo, and the trunk of an elephant. We have in imagination
created an impossible monster. And yet the various parts of this monster
really exist So it is with all the gods that man has made.

Beyond nature man cannot go even in thought--above nature he cannot
rise--below nature he cannot fall.

Man, in his ignorance, supposed that all phenomena were produced by
some intelligent powers, and with direct reference to him. To preserve
friendly relations with these powers was, and still is, the object of
all religions. Man knelt through fear and to implore assistance, or
through gratitude for some favor which he supposed had been rendered. He
endeavored by supplication to appease some being who, for some reason,
had, as he believed, become enraged. The lightning and thunder terrified
him. In the presence of the volcano he sank upon his knees. The great
forests filled with wild and ferocious beasts, the monstrous serpents
crawling in mysterious depths, the boundless sea, the flaming comets,
the sinister eclipses, the awful calmness of the stars, and, more than
all, the perpetual presence of death, convinced him that he was the
sport and prey of unseen and malignant powers. The strange and frightful
diseases to which he was subject, the freezings and burnings of fever,
the contortions of epilepsy, the sudden palsies, the darkness of night,
and the wild, terrible and fantastic dreams that filled his brain,
satisfied him that he was haunted and pursued by countless spirits
of evil. For some reason he supposed that these spirits differed
in power--that they were not all alike malevolent--that the higher
controlled the lower, and that his very existence depended upon gaining
the assistance of the more powerful. For this purpose he resorted to
prayer, to flattery, to worship and to sacrifice.

These ideas appear to have been almost universal in savage man.

For ages all nations supposed that the sick and insane were possessed by
evil spirits. For thousands of years the practice of medicine consisted
in frightening these spirits away. Usually the priests would make the
loudest and most discordant noises possible. They would blow horns,
beat upon rude drums, clash cymbals, and in the meantime utter the most
unearthly yells. If the noise-remedy failed, they would implore the aid
of some more powerful spirit.

To pacify these spirits was considered of infinite importance. The poor
barbarian, knowing that men could be softened by gifts, gave to these
spirits that which to him seemed of the most value. With bursting heart
he would offer the blood of his dearest child. It was impossible for him
to conceive of a god utterly unlike himself, and he naturally supposed
that these powers of the air would be affected a little at the sight of
so great and so deep a sorrow. It was with the barbarian then as with
the civilized now--one class lived upon and made merchandise of the
fears of another. Certain persons took it upon themselves to appease the
gods, and to instruct the people in their duties to these unseen powers.
This was the origin of the priesthood. The priest pretended to stand
between the wrath of the gods and the helplessness of man. He was man's
attorney at the court of heaven. He carried to the invisible world a
flag of truce, a protest and a request. He came back with a command,
with authority and with power. Man fell upon his knees before his own
servant, and the priest, taking advantage of the awe inspired by his
supposed influence with the gods, made of his fellow-man a cringing
hypocrite and slave. Even Christ, the supposed son of God, taught that
persons were possessed of evil spirits, and frequently, according to
the account, gave proof of his divine origin and mission by frightening
droves of devils out of his unfortunate countrymen. Casting out devils
was his principal employment, and the devils thus banished generally
took occasion to acknowledge him as the true Messiah; which was not only
very kind of them, but quite fortunate for him. The religious people
have always regarded the testimony of these devils as perfectly
conclusive, and the writers of the New Testament quote the words of
these imps of darkness with great satisfaction.

The fact that Christ could withstand the temptations of the devil was
considered as conclusive evidence that he was assisted by some god, or
at least by some being superior to man. St. Matthew gives an account of
an attempt made by the devil to tempt the supposed son of God; and it
has always excited the wonder of Christians that the temptation was
so nobly and heroically withstood. The account to which I refer is as
follows:

"Then was Jesus led up of the spirit into the wilderness to be tempted
of the devil. And when the tempter came to him, he said: 'If thou be the
son of God, command that these stones be made bread.' But he answered,
and said: 'It is written: man shall not live by bread alone, but by
every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.' Then the devil
taketh him up into the holy city and setteth him upon a pinnacle of
the temple and saith unto him: 'If thou be the son of God, cast thyself
down; for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning
thee, lest at any time thou shalt dash thy foot against a stone,'Jesus
said unto him: 'It is written again, thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy
God.' Again the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain and
sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them, and
saith unto him: 'All these will I give thee if thou wilt fall down and
worship me.'"

The Christians now claim that Jesus was God. If he was God, of course
the devil knew that fact, and yet, according to this account, the devil
took 'the omnipotent God and placed him upon a pinnacle of the temple,
and endeavored to induce him to dash himself against the earth. Failing
in that, he took the creator, owner and governor of the universe up into
an exceeding high mountain, and offered him this world--this grain of
sand--if he, the God of all the worlds, would fall down and worship
him, a poor devil, without even a tax title to one foot of dirt! Is it
possible the devil was such an idiot? Should any great credit be given
to this deity for not being caught with such chaff? Think of it! The
devil--the prince of sharpers--the king of cunning--the master of
finesse, trying to bribe God with a grain of sand that belonged to God!

Is there in all the religious literature of the world anything more
grossly absurd than this?

These devils, according to the Bible, were of various kinds--some could
speak and hear, others were deaf and dumb. All could not be cast out
in the same way. The deaf and dumb spirits were quite difficult to deal
with. St. Mark tells of a gentleman who brought his son to Christ. The
boy, it seems, was possessed of a dumb spirit, over which the disciples
had no control. "Jesus said unto the spirit: 'Thou dumb and deaf spirit,
I charge thee come out of him, and enter no more into him.'" Whereupon,
the deaf spirit (having heard what was said) cried out (being dumb) and
immediately vacated the premises. The ease with which Christ controlled
this deaf and dumb spirit excited the wonder of his disciples, and they
asked him privately why they could not cast that spirit out. To whom he
replied: "This kind can come forth by nothing but prayer and fasting." Is
there a Christian in the whole world who would believe such a story
if found in any other book? The trouble is, these pious people shut up
their reason, and then open their Bible.

In the olden times the existence of devils was universally admitted. The
people had no doubt upon that subject, and from such belief it followed
as a matter of course, that a person, in order to vanquish these devils,
had either to be a god, or to be assisted by one. All founders of
religions have established their claims to divine origin by controlling
evil spirits and suspending the laws of nature. Casting out devils was
a certificate of divinity. A prophet, unable to cope with the powers
of darkness was regarded with contempt The utterance of the highest
and noblest sentiments, the most blameless and holy life, commanded but
little respect, unless accompanied by power to work miracles and command
spirits.

This belief in good and evil powers had its origin in the fact that man
was surrounded by what he was pleased to call good and evil phenomena.
Phenomena affecting man pleasantly were ascribed to good spirits, while
those affecting him unpleasantly or injuriously, were ascribed to evil
spirits. It being admitted that all phenomena were produced by spirits,
the spirits were divided according to the phenomena, and the phenomena
were good or bad as they affected man.

Good spirits were supposed to be the authors of good phenomena, and evil
spirits of the evil--so that the idea of a devil has been as universal
as the idea of a god.

Many writers maintain that an idea to become universal must be true;
that all universal ideas are innate, and that innate ideas cannot be
false. If the fact that an idea has been universal proves that it
is innate, and if the fact that an idea is innate proves that it is
correct, then the believers in innate ideas must admit that the evidence
of a god superior to nature, and of a devil superior to nature, is
exactly the same, and that the existence of such a devil must be as
self-evident as the existence of such a god. The truth is, a god was
inferred from good, and a devil from bad, phenomena. And it is just as
natural and logical to suppose that a devil would cause happiness as
to suppose that a god would produce misery. Consequently, if an
intelligence, infinite and supreme, is the immediate author of all
phenomena, it is difficult to determine whether such intelligence is the
friend or enemy of man. If phenomena were all good, we might say they
were all produced by a perfectly beneficent being. If they were all bad,
we might say they were produced by a perfectly malevolent power; but,
as phenomena are, as they affect man, both good and bad, they must be
produced by different and antagonistic spirits; by one who is sometimes
actuated by kindness, and sometimes by malice; or all must be produced
of necessity, and without reference to their consequences upon man.

The foolish doctrine that all phenomena can be traced to the
interference of good and evil spirits, has been, and still is, almost
universal. That most people still believe in some spirit that can change
the natural order of events, is proven by the fact that nearly all
resort to prayer. Thousands, at this very moment, are probably imploring
some supposed power to interfere in their behalf. Some want health
restored; some ask that the loved and absent be watched over and
protected, some pray for riches, some for rain, some want diseases
stayed, some vainly ask for food, some ask for revivals, a few ask for
more wisdom, and now and then one tells the Lord to do as he may think
best. Thousands ask to be protected from the devil; some, like David,
pray for revenge, and some implore even God, not to lead them into
temptation. All these prayers rest upon, and are produced by, the idea
that some power not only can, but probably will, change the order of the
universe. This belief has been among the great majority of tribes
and nations. All sacred books are filled with the accounts of such
interferences, and our own Bible is no exception to this rule.

If we believe in a power superior to nature, it is perfectly natural to
suppose that such power can and will interfere in the affairs of this
world. If there is no interference, of what practical use can such
power be? The Scriptures give us the most wonderful accounts of divine
interference: Animals talk like men; springs gurgle from dry bones; the
sun and moon stop in the heavens in order that General Joshua may have
more time to murder; the shadow on a dial goes back ten degrees to
convince a petty king of a barbarous people that he is not going to die
of a boil; fire refuses to burn; water positively declines to seek its
level, but stands up like a wall; grains of sand become lice; common
walking-sticks, to gratify a mere freak, twist themselves into serpents,
and then swallow each other by way of exercise; murmuring streams,
laughing at the attraction of gravitation, run up hill for years,
following wandering tribes from a pure love of frolic; prophecy becomes
altogether easier than history; the sons of God become enamored of the
world's girls; women are changed into salt for the purpose of keeping a
great event fresh in the minds of men; an excellent article of brimstone
is imported from heaven free of duty; clothes refuse to wear out for
forty years; birds keep restaurants and feed wandering prophets free of
expense; bears tear children in pieces for laughing at old men without
wigs; muscular development depends upon the length of one's hair; dead
people come to life, simply to get a joke on their enemies and heirs;
witches and wizards converse freely with the souls of the departed, and
God himself becomes a stone-cutter and engraver, after having been a
tailor and dressmaker.

The veil between heaven and earth was always rent or lifted. The shadows
of this world, the radiance of heaven, and the glare of hell mixed
and mingled until man became uncertain as to which country he really
inhabited. Man dwelt in an unreal world. He mistook his ideas, his
dreams, for real things. His fears became terrible and malicious
monsters. He lived in the midst of furies and fairies, nymphs and
naiads, goblins and ghosts, witches and wizards, sprites and spooks,
deities and devils. The obscure and gloomy depths were filled with
claw and wing--with beak and hoof--with leering looks and sneering
mouths--with the malice of deformity--with the cunning of hatred, and
with all the slimy forms that fear can draw and paint upon the shadowy
canvas of the dark.

It is enough to make one almost insane with pity to think what man in
the long night has suffered; of the tortures he has endured, surrounded,
as he supposed, by malignant powers and clutched by the fierce phantoms
of the air. No wonder that he fell upon his trembling knees--that he
built altars and reddened them even with his own blood. No wonder that
he implored ignorant priests and impudent magicians for aid. No wonder
that he crawled groveling in the dust to the temple's door, and there,
in the insanity of despair, besought the deaf gods to hear his bitter
cry of agony and fear.

The savage as he emerges from a state of barbarism, gradually loses
faith in his idols of wood and stone, and in their place puts a
multitude of spirits. As he advances in knowledge, he generally discards
the petty spirits, and in their stead believes in one, whom he supposes
to be infinite and supreme. Supposing this great spirit to be superior
to nature, he offers worship or flattery in exchange for assistance. At
last, finding that he obtains no aid from this supposed deity--:
finding that every search after the absolute must of necessity end in
failure--finding that man cannot by any possibility conceive of the
conditionless--he begins to investigate the facts by which he is
surrounded, and to depend upon himself.

The people are beginning to think, to reason and to investigate. Slowly,
painfully, but surely, the gods are being driven from the earth. Only
upon rare occasions are they, even by the most religious, supposed to
interfere in the affairs of men. In most matters we are at last supposed
to be free. Since the invention of steamships and railways, so that the
products of all countries can be easily interchanged, the gods have quit
the business of producing famine. Now and then they kill a child because
it is idolized by its parents. As a rule they have given up causing
accidents on railroads, exploding boilers, and bursting kerosene lamps.
Cholera, yellow fever, and small-pox are still considered heavenly
weapons; but measles, itch and ague are now attributed to natural
causes. As a general thing, the gods have stopped drowning children,
except as a punishment for violating the Sabbath. They still pay some
attention to the affairs of kings, men of genius and persons of great
wealth; but ordinary people are left to shirk for themselves as best
they may. In wars between great nations, the gods still interfere; but
in prize fights, the best man with an honest referee, is almost sure to
win.

The church cannot abandon the idea of special providence. To give up
that doctrine is to give up all. The church must insist that prayer
is answered--that some power superior to nature hears and grants the
request of the sincere and humble Christian, and that this same power in
some mysterious way provides for all.

A devout clergyman sought every opportunity to impress upon the mind
of his son the fact, that God takes care of all his creatures; that the
falling sparrow attracts his attention, and that his loving kindness is
over all his works. Happening, one day, to see a crane wading in quest
of food, the good man pointed out to his son the perfect adaptation of
the crane to get his living in that manner. "See," said he, "how his
legs are formed for wading! What a long slender bill he has! Observe how
nicely he folds his feet when putting them in or drawing them out of
the water! He does not cause the slightest ripple. He is thus enabled
to approach the fish without giving them any notice of his arrival."
"My son," said he, "it is impossible to look at that bird without
recognizing the design, as well as the goodness of God, in thus
providing the means of subsistence." "Yes," replied the boy, "I think I
see the goodness of God, at least so far as the crane is concerned; but
after all, father, don't you think the arrangement a little tough on the
fish?"

Even the advanced religionist, although disbelieving in any great amount
of interference by the gods in this age of the world, still thinks,
that in the beginning, some god made the laws governing the universe.
He believes that in consequence of these laws a man can lift a greater
weight with, than without, a lever; that this god so made matter, and so
established the order of things, that two bodies cannot occupy the same
space at the same time; so that a body once put in motion will keep
moving until it is stopped; so that it is a greater distance around,
than across a circle; so that a perfect square has four equal sides,
instead of five or seven. He insists that it took a direct interposition
of Providence to make the whole greater than a part, and that had it not
been for this power superior to nature, twice one might have been more
than twice two, and sticks and strings might have had only one end
apiece. Like the old Scotch divine, he thanks God that Sunday comes at
the end instead of in the middle of the week, and that death comes at
the close instead of at the commencement of life, thereby giving us time
to prepare for that holy day and that most solemn event These religious
people see nothing but design everywhere, and personal, intelligent
interference in everything. They insist that the universe has been
created, and that the adaptation of means to ends is perfectly apparent.
They point us to the sunshine, to the flowers, to the April rain, and
to all there is of beauty and of use in the world. Did it ever occur to
them that a cancer is as beautiful in its development as is the reddest
rose? That what they are pleased to call the adaptation of means to
ends, is as apparent in the cancer as in the April rain? How beautiful
the process of digestion! By what ingenious methods the blood is
poisoned so that the cancer shall have food! By what wonderful
contrivances the entire system of man is made to pay tribute to this
divine and charming cancer! See by what admirable instrumentalities it
feeds itself from the surrounding quivering, dainty flesh! See how it
gradually but surely expands and grows! By what marvelous mechanism
it is supplied with long and slender roots that reach out to the most
secret nerves of pain for sustenance and life! What beautiful colors
it presents! Seen through the microscope it is a miracle of order and
beauty. All the ingenuity of man cannot stop its growth. Think of the
amount of thought it must have required to invent a way by which the
life of one man might be given to produce one cancer? Is it possible to
look upon it and doubt that there is design in the universe, and that
the inventor of this wonderful cancer must be infinitely powerful,
ingenious and good?

We are told that the universe was designed and created, and that it is
absurd to suppose that matter has existed from eternity, but that it is
perfectly self-evident that a god has.

If a god created the universe, then, there must have been a time when he
commenced to create. Back of that time there must have been an eternity,
during which there had existed nothing--absolutely nothing--except this
supposed god. According to this theory, this god spent an eternity, so
to speak, in an infinite vacuum, and in perfect idleness.

Admitting that a god did create the universe, the question then arises,
of what did he create it? It certainly was not made of nothing. Nothing,
considered in the light of a raw material, is a most decided failure. It
follows, then, that the god must have made the universe out of himself,
he being the only existence. The universe is material, and if it was
made of god, the god must have been material. With this very thought in
his mind, Anaximander of Miletus said: "Creation is the decomposition of
the infinite."

It has been demonstrated that the earth would fall to the sun, only for
the fact, that it is attracted by other worlds, and those worlds must
be attracted by other worlds still beyond them, and so on, without
end. This proves the material universe to be infinite. If an infinite
universe has been made out of an infinite god, how much of the god is
left?

The idea of a creative deity is gradually being abandoned, and nearly
all truly scientific minds admit that matter must have existed from
eternity. It is indestructible, and the indestructible cannot be
created. It is the crowning glory of our century to have demonstrated
the indestructibility and the eternal persistence of force. Neither
matter nor force can be increased nor diminished. Force cannot exist
apart from matter. Matter exists only in connection with force, and
consequently, a force apart from matter, and superior to nature, is a
demonstrated impossibility.

Force, then, must have also existed from eternity, and could not have
been created. Matter in its countless forms, from dead earth to the
eyes of those we love, and force, in all its manifestations, from simple
motion to the grandest thought, deny creation and defy control.

Thought is a form of force. We walk with the same force with which we
think. Man is an organism, that changes several forms of force into
thought-force. Man is a machine into which we put what we call food, and
produce what we call thought. Think of that wonderful chemistry by which
bread was changed into the divine tragedy of Hamlet!

A god must not only be material, but he must be an organism, capable of
changing other forms of force into thought-force. This is what we call
eating. Therefore, if the god thinks, he must eat, that is to say, he
must of necessity have some means of supplying the force with which to
think. It is impossible to conceive of a being who can eternally impart
force to matter, and yet have no means of supplying the force thus
imparted.

If neither matter nor force were created, what evidence have we, then,
of the existence of a power superior to nature? The theologian will
probably reply, "We have law and order, cause and effect, and beside all
this, matter could not have put itself in motion."

Suppose, for the sake of the argument, that there is no being superior
to nature, and that matter and force have existed from eternity. Now,
suppose that two atoms should come together, would there be an effect?
Yes. Suppose they came in exactly opposite directions with equal force,
they would be stopped, to say the least. This would be an effect. If
this is so, then you have matter, force and effect without a being
superior to nature. Now, suppose that two other atoms, just like the
first two, should come together under precisely the same circumstances,
would not the effect be exactly the same? Yes. Like causes, producing
like effects, is what we mean by law and order. Then we have matter,
force, effect, law and order without a being superior to nature. Now, we
know that every effect must also be a cause, and that every cause must
be an effect. The atoms coming together did produce an effect, and as
every effect must also be a cause, the effect produced by the collision
of the atoms, must as to something else have been a cause. Then we have
matter, force, law, order, cause and effect without a being superior to
nature. Nothing is left for the supernatural but empty space. His throne
is a void, and his boasted realm is without matter, without force,
without law, without cause, and without effect.

But what put all this matter in motion? If matter and force have existed
from eternity, then matter must have always been in motion. There can
be no force without motion. Force is forever active, and there is, and
there can be no cessation. If, therefore, matter and force have existed
from eternity, so has motion. In the whole universe there is not even
one atom in a state of rest.

A deity outside of nature exists in nothing, and is nothing. Nature
embraces with infinite arms all matter and all force. That which is
beyond her grasp is destitute of both, and can hardly be worth the
worship and adoration even of a man.

There is but one way to demonstrate the existence of a power independent
of and superior to nature, and that is by breaking, if only for one
moment, the continuity of cause and effect Pluck from the endless chain
of existence one little link; stop for one instant the grand procession,
and you have shown beyond all contradiction that nature has a master.
Change the fact, just for one second, that matter attracts matter, and a
god appears.

The rudest savage has always known this fact, and for that reason always
demanded the evidence of miracle. The founder of a religion must be able
to turn water into wine--cure with a word the blind and lame, and
raise with a simple touch the dead to life. It was necessary for him to
demonstrate to the satisfaction of his barbarian disciple, that he
was superior to nature. In times of ignorance this was easy to do. The
credulity of the savage was almost boundless. To him the marvelous
was the beautiful, the mysterious was the sublime. Consequently, every
religion has for its foundation a miracle--that is to say, a violation
of nature--that is to say, a falsehood.

No one, in the world's whole history, ever attempted to substantiate a
truth by a miracle. Truth scorns the assistance of miracle. Nothing but
falsehood ever attested itself by signs and wonders. No miracle ever was
performed, and no sane man ever thought he had performed one, and until
one is performed, there can be no evidence of the existence of any power
superior to and independent of nature.

The church wishes us to believe. Let the church, or one of its
intellectual saints, perform a miracle, and we will believe. We are told
that nature has a superior. Let this superior, for one single instant,
control nature, and we will admit the truth of your assertions.

We have heard talk enough. We have listened to all the drowsy, idealess,
vapid sermons that we wish to hear. We have read your Bible and the
works of your best minds. We have heard your prayers, your solemn groans
and your reverential amens. All these amount to less than nothing. We
want one fact. We beg at the doors of your churches for just one little
fact We pass our hats along your pews and under your pulpits and implore
you for just one fact We know all about your mouldy wonders and your
stale miracles. We want a this year's fact. We ask only one. Give us one
fact for charity. Your miracles are too ancient. The witnesses have
been dead for nearly two thousand years. Their reputation for "truth and
veracity" in the neighborhood where they resided is wholly unknown to
us. Give us a new miracle, and substantiate it by witnesses who still
have the cheerful habit of living in this world. Do not send us to
Jericho to hear the winding horns, nor put us in the fire with Shadrach,
Meshech, and Abednego. Do not compel us to navigate the sea with Captain
Jonah, nor dine with Mr. Ezekiel. There is no sort of use in sending us
fox-hunting with Samson. We have positively lost all interest in that
little speech so eloquently delivered by Balaam's inspired donkey. It
is worse than useless to show us fishes with money in their mouths,
and call our attention to vast multitudes stuffing themselves with five
crackers and two sardines. We demand a new miracle, and we demand it
now. Let the church furnish at least one, or forever after hold her
peace.

In the olden time, the church, by violating the order of nature, proved
the existence of her God. At that time miracles were performed with the
most astonishing ease. They became so common that the church ordered
her priests to desist. And now this same church--the people having found
some little sense--admits, not only, that she cannot perform a miracle,
but insists that the absence of miracle--the steady, unbroken march of
cause and effect, proves the existence of a power superior to nature.
The fact is, however, that the indissoluble chain of cause and effect
proves exactly the contrary.

Sir William Hamilton, one of the pillars of modern theology, in
discussing this very subject, uses the following language: "The
phenomena of matter taken by themselves, so far from warranting any
inference to the existence of a god, would on the contrary ground even
an argument to his negation. The phenomena of the material world are
subjected to immutable laws; are produced and reproduced in the same
invariable succession, and manifest only the blind force of a mechanical
necessity."

Nature is but an endless series of efficient causes. She cannot create,
but she eternally transforms. There was no beginning, and there can be
no end.

The best minds, even in the religious world, admit that in material
nature there is no evidence of what they are pleased to call a god.
They find their evidence in the phenomena of intelligence, and very
innocently assert that intelligence is above, and in fact, opposed to
nature. They insist that man, at least, is a special creation; that
he has somewhere in his brain a divine spark, a little portion of the
"Great First Cause." They say that matter cannot produce thought; but
that thought can produce matter. They tell us that man has intelligence,
and therefore there must be an intelligence greater than his. Why not
say, God has intelligence, therefore there must be an intelligence
greater than his? So far as we know, there is no intelligence apart
from matter. We cannot conceive of thought, except as produced within a
brain.

The science, by means of which they demonstrate the existence of an
impossible intelligence, and an incomprehensible power is called,
metaphysics or theology. The theologians admit that the phenomena of
matter tend, at least, to disprove the existence of any power superior
to nature, because in such phenomena we see nothing but an endless chain
of efficient causes--nothing but the force of a mechanical necessity.
They therefore appeal to what they denominate the phenomena of mind to
establish this superior power.

The trouble is, that in the phenomena of mind we find the same endless
chain of efficient causes; the same mechanical necessity. Every thought
must have had an efficient cause. Every motive, every desire, every
fear, hope and dream must have been necessarily produced. There is no
room in the mind of man for providence or chance. The facts and forces
governing thought are as absolute as those governing the motions of
the planets. A poem is produced by the forces of nature, and is as
necessarily and naturally produced as mountains and seas. You will seek
in vain for a thought in man's brain without its efficient cause.
Every mental operation is the necessary result of certain facts and
conditions. Mental phenomena are considered more complicated than those
of matter, and consequently more mysterious. Being more mysterious, they
are considered better evidence of the existence of a god. No one infers
a god from the simple, from the known, from what is understood, but from
the complex, from the unknown, and, incomprehensible. Our ignorance is
God; what we know is science.

When we abandon the doctrine that some infinite being created matter
and force, and enacted a code of laws for their government, the idea
of interference will be lost. The real priest will then be, not the
mouth-piece of some pretended deity, but the interpreter of nature. From
that moment the church ceases to exist. The tapers will die out upon the
dusty altar; the moths will eat the fading velvet of pulpit and pew;
the Bible will take its place with the Shastras, Puranas, Vedas, Eddas,
Sagas and Korans, and the fetters of a degrading faith will fall from
the minds of men.

"But," says the religionist, "you cannot explain everything; you cannot
understand everything; and that which you cannot explain, that which you
do not comprehend, is my God."

We are explaining more every day. We are understanding more every day;
consequently your God is growing smaller every day.

Nothing daunted, the religionist then insists that nothing can exist
without a cause, except cause, and that this uncaused cause is God.

To this we again reply: Every cause must produce an effect, because
until it does produce an effect, it is not a cause. Every effect must
in its turn become a cause. Therefore, in the nature of things, there
cannot be a last cause, for the reason that a so-called last cause would
necessarily produce an effect, and that effect must of necessity becomes
a cause. The converse of these propositions must be true. Every effect
must have had a cause, and every cause must have been an effect.
Therefore there could have been no first cause. A first cause is just as
impossible as a last effect.

Beyond the universe there is nothing, and within the universe the
supernatural does not and cannot exist.

The moment these great truths are understood and admitted, a belief in
general or special providence become impossible. From that instant men
will cease their vain efforts to please an imaginary being, and will
give their time and attention to the affairs of this world. They will
abandon the idea of attaining any object by prayer and supplication.
The element of uncertainty will, in a great measure, be removed from the
domain of the future, and man, gathering courage from a succession of
victories over the obstructions of nature, will attain a serene grandeur
unknown to the disciples of any superstition. The plans of mankind will
no longer be interfered with by the finger of a supposed omnipotence,
and no one will believe that nations or individuals are protected or
destroyed by any deity whatever. Science, freed from the chains of pious
custom and evangelical prejudice, will, within her sphere, be supreme.
The mind will investigate without reverence, and publish its conclusions
without fear. Agassiz will no longer hesitate to declare the Mosaic
cosmogony utterly inconsistent with the demonstrated truths of geology,
and will cease pretending any reverence for the Jewish Scriptures. The
moment science succeeds in rendering the church powerless for evil, the
real thinkers will be outspoken. The little flags of truce carried by
timid philosophers will disappear, and the cowardly parley will give
place to victory--lasting and universal.

If we admit that some infinite being has controlled the destinies of
persons and peoples, history becomes a most cruel and bloody farce.
Age after age, the strong have trampled upon the weak; the crafty
and heartless have ensnared and enslaved the simple and innocent,
and nowhere, in all the annals of mankind, has any god succored the
oppressed.

Man should cease to expect aid from on high. By this time he should know
that heaven has no ear to hear, and no hand to help. The present is the
necessary child of all the past. There has been no chance, and there can
be no interference.

If abuses are destroyed, man must destroy them. If slaves are freed, man
must free them. If new truths are discovered, man must discover them.
If the naked are clothed; if the hungry are fed; if justice is done;
if labor is rewarded; if superstition is driven from the mind; if the
defenceless are protected and if the right finally triumphs, all must be
the work of man. The grand victories of the future must be won by man,
and by man alone.

Nature, so far as we can discern, without passion and without intention,
forms, transforms, and retransforms forever. She neither weeps nor
rejoices. She produces man without purpose, and obliterates him without
regret. She knows no distinction between the beneficial and the hurtful.
Poison and nutrition, pain and joy, life and death, smiles and tears are
alike to her. She is neither merciful nor cruel. She cannot be flattered
by worship nor melted by tears. She does not know even the attitude of
prayer. She appreciates no difference between poison in the fangs of
snakes and mercy in the hearts of men. Only through man does nature take
cognizance of the good, the true, and the beautiful; and, so far as we
know, man is the highest intelligence.

And yet man continues to believe that there is some power independent
of and superior to nature, and still endeavors, by form, ceremony,
supplication, hypocrisy and sacrifice, to obtain its aid. His best
energies have been wasted in the service of this phantom. The horrors
of witchcraft were all born of an ignorant belief in the existence of
a totally depraved being superior to nature, acting in perfect
independence of her laws; and all religious superstition has had for its
basis a belief in at least two beings, one good and the other bad, both
of whom could arbitrarily change the order of the universe. The history
of religion is simply the story of man's efforts in all ages to avoid
one of these powers, and to pacify the other. Both powers have inspired
little else than abject fear. The cold, calculating sneer of the devil,
and the frown of God, were equally terrible. In any event, man's fate
was to be arbitrarily fixed forever by an unknown power superior to
all law, and to all fact. Until this belief is thrown aside, man must
consider himself the slave of phantom masters--neither of whom promise
liberty in this world nor in the next.

Man must learn to rely upon himself. Reading bibles will not protect
him from the blasts of winter, but houses, fires, and clothing will.
To prevent famine, one plow is worth a million sermons, and even patent
medicines will cure more diseases than all the prayers uttered since the
beginning of the world.

Although many eminent men have endeavored to harmonize necessity and
free will, the existence of evil, and the infinite power and good ness
of God, they have succeeded only in producing learned and ingenious
failures. Immense efforts have been made to reconcile ideas utterly
inconsistent with the facts by which we are surrounded, and all persons
who have failed to perceive the pretended reconciliation, have been
denounced as infidels, atheists and scoffers. The whole power of the
church has been brought to bear against philosophers and scientists
in order to compel a denial of the authority of demonstration, and to
induce some Judas to betray Reason, one of the saviors of mankind.

During that frightful period known as the "Dark Ages," Faith reigned,
with scarcely a rebellious subject. Her temples were "carpeted with
knees," and the wealth of nations adorned her countless shrines. The
great painters prostituted their genius to immortalize her vagaries,
while the poets enshrined them in song. At her bidding, man covered the
earth with blood. The scales of Justice were turned with her gold, and
for her use were invented all the cunning instruments of pain. She built
cathedrals for God, and dungeons for men. She peopled the clouds with
angels and the earth with slaves. For centuries the world was retracing
its steps--going steadily back toward barbaric night! A few infidels--a
few heretics cried, "Halt!" to the great rabble of ignorant devotion,
and made it possible for the genius of the nineteenth century to
revolutionize the cruel creeds and superstitions of mankind.

The thoughts of man, in order to be of any real worth, must be free.
Under the influence of fear the brain is paralyzed, and instead of
bravely solving a problem for itself, tremblingly adopts the solution
of another. As long as a majority of men will cringe to the very earth
before some petty prince or king, what must be the infinite abjectness
of their little souls in the presence of their supposed creator and God?
Under such circumstances, what can their thoughts be worth?

The originality of repetition, and the mental vigor of acquiescence, are
all that we have any right to expect from the Christian world. As long
as every question is answered by the word "God," scientific inquiry is
simply impossible. As fast as phenomena are satisfactorily explained the
domain of the power, supposed to be superior to nature must decrease,
while the horizon of the known must as constantly continue to enlarge.

It is no longer satisfactory to account for the fall and rise of nations
by saying, "It is the will of God." Such an explanation puts ignorance
and education upon an exact equality, and does away with the idea of
really accounting for anything whatever.

Will the religionist pretend that the real end of science is to
ascertain how and why God acts? Science, from such a standpoint would
consist in investigating the law of arbitrary action, and in a grand
endeavor to ascertain the rules necessarily obeyed by infinite caprice.

From a philosophical point of view, science is knowledge of the laws
of life; of the conditions of happiness; of the facts by which we are
surrounded, and the relations we sustain to men and things--by means
of which, man, so to speak, subjugates nature and bends the elemental
powers to his will, making blind force the servant of his brain.

A belief in special providence does away with the spirit of
investigation, and is inconsistent with personal effort. Why should man
endeavor to thwart the designs of God? Which of you, by taking thought,
can add one cubit to his stature? Under the influence of this belief,
man, basking in the sunshine of a delusion, considers the lilies of the
field and refuses to take any thought for the morrow. Believing himself
in the power of an infinite being, who can, at any moment, dash him
to the lowest hell or raise him to the highest heaven, he necessarily
abandons the idea of accomplishing anything by his own efforts. As
long as this belief was general, the world was filled with ignorance,
superstition and misery. The energies of man were wasted in a vain
effort to obtain the aid of this power, supposed to be superior to
nature. For countless ages, even men were sacrificed upon the altar of
this impossible god. To please him, mothers have shed the blood of their
own babes; martyrs have chanted triumphant songs in the midst of flame;
priests have gorged themselves with blood; nuns have forsworn the
ecstasies of love; old men have tremblingly implored; women have sobbed
and entreated; every pain has been endured, and every horror has been
perpetrated.

Through the dim long years that have fled, humanity has suffered more
than can be conceived. Most of the misery has been endured by the weak,
the loving and the innocent Women have been treated like poisonous
beasts, and little children trampled upon as though they had been
vermin. Numberless altars have been reddened, even with the blood of
babes; beautiful girls have been given to slimy serpents; whole races
of men doomed to centuries of slavery, and everywhere there has been
outrage beyond the power of genius to express. During all these years
the suffering have supplicated; the withered lips of famine have prayed;
the pale victims have implored, and Heaven has been deaf and blind.

Of what use have the gods been to man?

It is no answer to say that some god created the world, established
certain laws, and then turned his attention to other matters, leaving
his children weak, ignorant and unaided, to fight the battle of life
alone. It is no solution to declare that in some, other world this god
will render a few, or even all, his subjects happy. What right have we
to expect that a perfectly wise, good and powerful being will ever
do better than he has done, and is doing? The world is filled with
imperfections. If it was made by an infinite being, what reason have we
for saying that he will render it nearer perfect than it now is? If the
infinite "Father" allows a majority of his children to live in ignorance
and wretchedness now, what evidence is there that he will ever improve
their condition? Will God have more power? Will he become more merciful?
Will his love for his poor creatures increase? Can the conduct of
infinite wisdom, power and love ever change? Is the infinite capable of
any improvement whatever?

We are informed by the clergy that this world is a kind of school; that
the evils by which we are surrounded are for the purpose of developing
our souls, and that only by suffering can men become pure, strong,
virtuous and grand.

Supposing this to be true, what is to become of those who die in
infancy? The little children, according to this philosophy, can never
be developed. They were so unfortunate as to escape the ennobling
influences of pain and misery, and as a consequence, are doomed to
an eternity of mental inferiority. If the clergy are right on this
question, none are so unfortunate as the happy, and we should envy only
the suffering and distressed. If evil is necessary to the development
of man, in this life, how is it possible for the soul to improve in the
perfect joy of Paradise?

Since Paley found his watch, the argument of "design" has been relied
upon as unanswerable. The church teaches that this world, and all that
it contains, were created substantially as we now see them; that the
grasses, the flowers, the trees, and all animals, including man, were
special creations, and that they sustain no necessary relation to each
other. The most orthodox will admit that some earth has been washed into
the sea; that the sea has encroached a little upon the land, and that
some mountains may be a trifle lower than in the morning of creation.
The theory of gradual development was unknown to our fathers; the idea
of evolution did not occur to them. Our fathers looked upon the then
arrangement of things as the primal arrangement. The earth appeared
to them fresh from the hands of a deity. They knew nothing of the slow
evolutions of countless years, but supposed that the almost infinite
variety of vegetable and animal forms had existed from the first.

Suppose that upon some island we should find a man a million years of
age, and suppose that we should find him in the possession of a most
beautiful carriage, constructed upon the most perfect model. And
suppose, further, that he should tell us that it was the result of
several hundred thousand years of labor and of thought; that for
fifty thousand years he used as flat a log as he could find, before
it occurred to him, that by splitting the log, he could have the same
surface with only half the weight; that it took him many thousand years
to invent wheels for this log; that the wheels he first used were solid,
and that fifty thousand years of thought suggested the use of spokes
and tire; that for many centuries he used the wheels without linch-pins;
that it took a hundred thousand years more to think of using four
wheels, instead of two; that for ages he walked behind the carriage,
when going down hill, in order to hold it back, and that only by a lucky
chance he invented the tongue; would we conclude that this man, from
the very first, had been an infinitely ingenious and perfect mechanic?
Suppose we found him living in an elegant mansion, and he should inform
us that he lived in that house for five hundred thousand years before
he thought of putting on a roof, and that he had but recently invented
windows and doors; would we say that from the beginning he had been an
infinitely accomplished and scientific architect?

Does not an improvement in the things created, show a corresponding
improvement in the creator?

Would an infinitely wise, good and powerful God, intending to produce
man, commence with the lowest possible forms of life; with the simplest
organism that can be imagined, and during immeasurable periods of time,
slowly and almost imperceptibly improve upon the rude beginning, until
man was evolved? Would countless ages thus be wasted in the production
of awkward forms, afterwards abandoned? Can the intelligence of man
discover the least wisdom in covering the earth with crawling, creeping
horrors, that live only upon the agonies and pangs of others? Can we see
the propriety of so constructing the earth, that only an insignificant
portion of its surface is capable of producing an intelligent man? Who
can appreciate the mercy of so making the world that all animals devour
animals; so that every mouth is a slaughterhouse, and every stomach
a tomb? Is it possible to discover infinite intelligence and love in
universal and eternal carnage?

What would we think of a father, who should give a farm to his children,
and before giving them possession should plant upon it thousands of
deadly shrubs and vines; should stock it with ferocious beasts, and
poisonous reptiles; should take pains to put a few swamps in the
neighborhood to breed malaria; should so arrange matters, that the
ground would occasionally open and swallow a few of his darlings, and
besides all this, should establish a few volcanoes in the immediate
vicinity, that might at any moment overwhelm his children with rivers of
fire? Suppose that this father neglected to tell his children which of
the plants were deadly; that the reptiles were poisonous; failed to say
anything about the earthquakes, and kept the volcano business a profound
secret; would we pronounce him angel or fiend?

And yet this is exactly what the orthodox God has done.

According to the theologians, God prepared this globe expressly for the
habitation of his loved children, and yet he filled the forests with
ferocious beasts; placed serpents in every path; stuffed the world with
earthquakes, and adorned its surface with mountains of flame.

Notwithstanding all this, we are told that the world is perfect; that
it was created by a perfect being, and is therefore necessarily perfect.
The next moment, these same persons will tell us that the world was
cursed; covered with brambles, thistles and thorns, and that man was
doomed to disease and death, simply because our poor, dear mother ate an
apple contrary to the command of an arbitrary God.

A very pious friend of mine, having heard that I had said the world
was full of imperfections, asked me if the report was true. Upon being
informed that it was, he expressed great surprise that any one could
be guilty of such presumption. He said that, in his judgment, it was
impossible to point out an imperfection. "Be kind enough," said he, "to
name even one improvement that you could make, if you had the power."
"Well," said I, "I would make good health catching, instead of disease."
The truth is, it is impossible to harmonize all the ills, and pains,
and agonies of this world with the idea that we were created by, and
are watched over and protected by an infinitely wise, powerful and
beneficent God, who is superior to and independent of nature.

The clergy, however, balance all the real ills of this life with the
expected joys of the next. We are assured that all is perfection in
heaven--there the skies are cloudless--there all is serenity and peace.
Here empires may be overthrown; dynasties may be extinguished in blood;
millions of slaves may toil 'neath the fierce rays of the sun, and the
cruel strokes of the lash; yet all is happiness in heaven. Pestilences
may strew the earth with corpses of the loved; the survivors may bend
above them in agony--yet the placid bosom of heaven is unruffled.
Children may expire vainly asking for bread; babes may be devoured by
serpents, while the gods sit smiling in the clouds. The innocent may
languish unto death in the obscurity of dungeons; brave men and heroic
women may be changed to ashes at the bigot's stake, while heaven is
filled with song and joy. Out on the wide sea, in darkness and in storm,
the shipwrecked struggle with the cruel waves while the angels play
upon their golden harps. The streets of the world are filled with
the diseased, the deformed and the helpless; the chambers of pain are
crowded with the pale forms of the suffering, while the angels float
and fly in the happy realms of day. In heaven they are too happy to have
sympathy; too busy singing to aid the imploring and distressed. Their
eyes are blinded; their ears are stopped and their hearts are turned to
stone by the infinite selfishness of joy. The saved mariner is too happy
when he touches the shore to give a moment's thought to his drowning
brothers. With the indifference of happiness, with the contempt of
bliss, heaven barely glances at the miseries of earth. Cities are
devoured by the rushing lava; the earth opens and thousands perish;
women raise their clasped hands towards heaven, but the gods are too
happy to aid their children. The smiles of the deities are unacquainted
with the tears of men. The shouts of heaven drown the sobs of earth.

Having shown how man created gods, and how he became the trembling slave
of his own creation, the questions naturally arise: How did he free
himself even a little, from these monarchs of the sky, from these
despots of the clouds, from this aristocracy of the air? How did he,
even to the extent that he has, outgrow his ignorant, abject terror, and
throw off the yoke of superstition?

Probably, the first thing that tended to disabuse his mind was the
discovery of order, of regularity, of periodicity in the universe. From
this he began to suspect that everything did not happen purely with
reference to him. He noticed, that whatever he might do, the motions
of the planets were always the same; that eclipses were periodical,
and that even comets came at certain intervals. This convinced him that
eclipses and comets had nothing to do with him, and that his conduct had
nothing to do with them. He perceived that they were not caused for
his benefit or injury. He thus learned to regard them with admiration
instead of fear. He began to suspect that famine was not sent by some
enraged and revengeful deity, but resuited often from the neglect and
ignorance of man. He learned that diseases were not produced by evil
spirits. He found that sickness was occasioned by natural causes,
and could be cured by natural means. He demonstrated, to his own
satisfaction at least, that prayer is not a medicine. He found by
sad experience that his gods were of no practical use, as they never
assisted him, except when he was perfectly able to help himself. At
last, he began to discover that his individual action had nothing
whatever to do with strange appearances in the heavens; that it was
impossible for him to be bad enough to cause a whirlwind, or good enough
to stop one. After many centuries of thought, he about half concluded
that making mouths at a priest would not necessarily cause an
earthquake. He noticed, and no doubt with considerable astonishment,
that very good men were occasionally struck by lightning, while very bad
ones escaped. He was frequently forced to the painful conclusion (and it
is the most painful to which any human being ever was forced) that the
right did not always prevail. He noticed that the gods did not interfere
in behalf of the weak and innocent. He was now and then astonished
by seeing an unbeliever in the enjoyment of most excellent health. He
finally ascertained that there could be no possible connection between
an unusually severe winter and his failure to give a sheep to a priest.
He began to suspect that the order of the universe was not constantly
being changed to assist him because he repeated a creed. He observed
that some children would steal after having been regularly baptized.
He noticed a vast difference between religion and justice, and that
the worshipers of the same god, took delight in cutting each other's
throats. He saw that these religious disputes filled the world with
hatred and slavery. At last he had the courage to suspect, that no god
at any time interferes with the order of events. He learned a few
facts, and these facts positively refused to harmonize with the ignorant
superstitions of his fathers. Finding his sacred books incorrect and
false in some particulars, his faith in their authenticity began to be
shaken; finding his priests ignorant upon some points, he began to
lose respect for the cloth. This was the commencement of intellectual
freedom.

The civilization of man has increased just to the same extent that
religious power has decreased. The intellectual advancement of man
depends upon how often he can exchange an old superstition for a new
truth. The church never enabled a human being to make even one of these
exchanges; on the contrary, all her power has been used to prevent them.
In spite, however, of the church, man found that some of his religious
conceptions were wrong. By reading his Bible, he found that the ideas
of his God were more cruel and brutal than those of the most depraved
savage. He also discovered that this holy book was filled with
ignorance, and that it must have been written by persons wholly
unacquainted with the nature of the phenomena by which we are
surrounded; and now and then, some man had the goodness and courage to
speak his honest thoughts. In every age some thinker, some doubter, some
investigator, some hater of hypocrisy, some despiser of sham, some
brave lover of the right, has gladly, proudly and heroically braved
the ignorant fury of superstition for the sake of man and truth. These
divine men were generally torn in pieces by the worshipers of the
gods. Socrates was poisoned because he lacked reverence for some of the
deities. Christ was crucified by a religious rabble for the crime of
blasphemy. Nothing is more gratifying to a religionist than to destroy
his enemies at the command of God. Religious persecution springs from a
due admixture of love towards God and hatred towards man.

The terrible religious wars that inundated the world with blood tended
at least to bring all religion into disgrace and hatred. Thoughtful
people began to question the divine origin of a religion that made its
believers hold the rights of others in absolute contempt. A few began
to compare Christianity with the religions of heathen people, and were
forced to admit that the difference was hardly worth dying for. They
also found that other nations were even happier and more prosperous than
their own. They began to suspect that their religion, after all, was not
of much real value.

For three hundred years the Christian world endeavored to rescue from
the "Infidel" the empty sepulchre of Christ. For three hundred years the
armies of the cross were baffled and beaten by the victorious hosts
of an impudent impostor. This immense fact sowed the seeds of distrust
throughout all Christendom, and millions began to lose confidence in
a God who had been vanquished by Mohammed. The people also found that
commerce made friends where religion made enemies, and that religious
zeal was utterly incompatible with peace between nations or individuals.
They discovered that those who loved the gods most were apt to love men
least; that the arrogance of universal forgiveness was amazing; that the
most malicious had the effrontery to pray for their enemies, and that
humility and tyranny were the fruit of the same tree.

For ages, a deadly conflict has been waged between a few brave men and
women of thought and genius upon the one side, and the great ignorant
religious mass on the other. This is the war between Science and Faith.
The few have appealed to reason, to honor, to law, to freedom, to the
known, and to happiness here in this world. The many have appealed
to prejudice, to fear, to miracle, to slavery, to the unknown, and
to misery hereafter. The few have said, "Think!" The many have said,
"Believe!"

The first doubt was the womb and cradle of progress, and from the first
doubt, man has continued to advance. Men began to investigate, and the
church began to oppose. The astronomer scanned the heavens, while the
church branded his grand forehead with the word, "Infidel;" and now,
not a glittering star in all the vast expanse bears a Christian name.
In spite of all religion, the geologist penetrated the earth, read her
history in books of stone, and found, hidden within her bosom, souvenirs
of all the ages. Old ideas perished in the retort of the chemist, and
useful truths took their places. One by one religious conceptions have
been placed in the crucible of science, and thus far, nothing but dross
has been found. A new world has been discovered by the microscope;
everywhere has been found the infinite; in every direction man has
investigated and explored and nowhere, in earth or stars, has been found
the footstep of any being superior to or independent of nature. Nowhere
has been discovered the slightest evidence of any interference from
without.

These are the sublime truths that enabled man to throw off the yoke of
superstition. These are the splendid facts that snatched the sceptre of
authority from the hands of priests.

In that vast cemetery, called the past, are most of the religions of
men, and there, too, are nearly all their gods. The sacred temples of
India were ruins long ago. Over column and cornice; over the painted and
pictured walls, cling and creep the trailing vines. Brahma, the golden,
with four heads and four arms; Vishnu, the sombre, the punisher of the
wicked, with his three eyes, his crescent, and his necklace of skulls;
Siva, the destroyer, red with seas of blood; Kali, the goddess;
Draupadi, the white-armed, and Chrishna, the Christ, all passed away and
left the thrones of heaven desolate. Along the banks of the sacred
Nile, Isis no longer wandering weeps, searching for the dead Osiris. The
shadow of Typhons scowl falls no more upon the waves. The sun rises
as of yore, and his golden beams still smite the lips of Memnon, but
Mem-non is as voiceless as the Sphinx. The sacred fanes are lost in
desert sands; the dusty mummies are still waiting for the resurrection
promised by their priests, and the old beliefs, wrought in curiously
sculptured stone, sleep in the mystery of a language lost and dead.
Odin, the author of life and soul, Vili and Ve, and the mighty giant
Ymir, strode long ago from the icy halls of the North; and Thor, with
iron glove and glittering hammer, dashes mountains to the earth no more.
Broken are the circles and cromlechs of the ancient Druids; fallen upon
the summits of the hills, and covered with the centuries' moss, are the
sacred cairns. The divine fires of Persia and of the Aztecs, have died
out in the ashes of the past, and there is none to rekindle, and none to
feed the holy flames. The harp of Orpheus is still; the drained cup of
Bacchus has been thrown aside; Venus lies dead in stone, and her white
bosom heaves no more with love. The streams still murmur, but no naiads
bathe; the trees still wave, but in the forest aisles no dryads dance.
The gods have flown from high Olympus. Not even the beautiful women
can lure them back, and Danae lies unnoticed, naked to the stars. Hushed
forever are the thunders of Sinai; lost are the voices of the prophets,
and the land once flowing with milk and honey, is but a desert waste.
One by one, the myths have faded from the clouds: one by one, the
phantom host has disappeared, and one by one, facts, truths and
realities have taken their places. The supernatural has almost gone, but
the natural remains. The gods have fled, but man is here.

Nations, like individuals, have their periods of youth, of manhood and
decay. Religions are the same. The same inexorable destiny awaits them
all. The gods created by the nations must perish with their creators.
They were created by men, and like men, they must pass away. The deities
of one age are the by-words of the next The religion of our day, and
country, is no more exempt from the sneer of the future than the others
have been. When India was supreme, Brahma sat upon the world's throne.
When the sceptre passed to Egypt, Isis and Osiris received the homage of
mankind. Greece, with her fierce valor, swept to empire, and Zeus put
on the purple of authority. The earth trembled with the tread of Rome's
intrepid sons, and Jove grasped with mailed hand the thunderbolts of
heaven. Rome fell, and Christians from her territory, with the red sword
of war, carved out the ruling nations of the world, and now Christ sits
upon the old throne. Who will be his successor?

Day by day, religious conceptions grow less and less intense. Day by
day, the old spirit dies out of book and creed. The burning enthusiasm,
the quenchless zeal of the early church have gone, never, never to
return. The ceremonies remain, but the ancient faith is fading out
of the human heart. The worn-out arguments fail to convince, and
denunciations that once blanched the faces of a race, excite in us
only derision and disgust. As time rolls on, the miracles grow mean and
small, and the evidences our fathers thought conclusive utterly fail to
satisfy us. There is an "irrepressible conflict" between religion and
science, and they cannot peaceably occupy the same brain nor the same
world.

While utterly discarding all creeds, and denying the truth of all
religions, there is neither in my heart nor upon my lips a sneer for the
hopeful, loving and tender souls who believe that from all this discord
will result a perfect harmony; that every evil will in some mysterious
way become a good, and that above and over all there is a being who, in
some way, will reclaim and glorify every one of the children of men;
but for those who heartlessly try to prove that salvation is almost
impossible; that damnation is almost certain; that the highway of the
universe leads to hell; who fill life with fear and death with horror;
who curse the cradle and mock the tomb, it is impossible to entertain
other than feelings of pity, contempt and scorn.

Reason, Observation and Experience--the Holy Trinity of Science--have
taught us that happiness is the only good; that the time to be happy is
now, and the way to be happy is to make others so. This is enough for
us. In this belief we are content to live and die. If by any possibility
the existence of a power superior to, and independent of, nature shall
be demonstrated, there will then be time enough to kneel. Until then,
let us stand erect.

Notwithstanding the fact that infidels in all ages have battled for
the rights of man, and have at all times been the fearless advocates
of liberty and justice, we are constantly charged by the church with
tearing down without building again. The church should by this time know
that it is utterly impossible to rob men of their opinions. The history
of religious persecution fully establishes the fact that the mind
necessarily resists and defies every attempt to control it by violence.
The mind necessarily clings to old ideas until prepared for the new.
The moment we comprehend the truth, all erroneous ideas are of necessity
cast aside.

A surgeon once called upon a poor cripple and kindly offered to render
him any assistance in his power. The surgeon began to discourse very
learnedly upon the nature and origin of disease; of the curative
properties of certain medicines; of the advantages of exercise, air and
light, and of the various ways in which health and strength could be
restored. These remarks were so full of good sense, and discovered so
much profound thought and accurate knowledge, that the cripple, becoming
thoroughly alarmed, cried out, "Do not, I pray you, take away my
crutches. They are my only support, and without them I should be
miserable indeed!" "I am not going," said the surgeon, "to take away
your crutches. I am going to cure you, and then you will throw the
crutches away yourself."

For the vagaries of the clouds the infidels propose to substitute the
realities of earth; for superstition, the splendid demonstrations and
achievements of science; and for theological tyranny, the chainless
liberty of thought.

We do not say that we have discovered all; that our doctrines are the
all in all of truth. We know of no end to the development of man. We
cannot unravel the infinite complications of matter and force. The
history of one monad is as unknown as that of the universe; one drop of
water is as wonderful as all the seas; one leaf, as all the forests; and
one grain of sand, as all the stars.

We are not endeavoring to chain the future, but to free the present. We
are not forging fetters for our children, but we are breaking those our
fathers made for us. We are the advocates of inquiry, of investigation
and thought This of itself, is an admission that we are not perfectly
satisfied with all our conclusions. Philosophy has not the egotism of
faith. While superstition builds walls and creates obstructions,
science opens all the highways of thought. We do not pretend to have
circumnavigated everything, and to have solved all difficulties, but we
do believe that it is better to love men than to fear gods; that it is
grander and nobler to think and investigate for yourself than to repeat
a creed. We are satisfied that there can be but little liberty on earth
while men worship a tyrant in heaven. We do not expect to accomplish
everything in our day; but we want to do what good we can, and to render
all the service possible in the holy cause of human progress. We know
that doing away with gods and supernatural persons and powers is not an
end. It is a means to an end: the real end being the happiness of man.

Felling forests is not the end of agriculture. Driving pirates from the
sea is not all there is of commerce.

We are laying the foundations of the grand temple of the future--not the
temple of all the gods, but of all the people--wherein, with appropriate
rites, will be celebrated the religion of Humanity. We are doing what
little we can to hasten the coming of the day when society shall cease
producing millionaires and mendicants--gorged indolence and famished
industry--truth in rags, and superstition robed and crowned. We are
looking for the time when the useful shall be the honorable; and when
Reason, throned upon the world's brain, shall be the King of Kings, and
God of Gods.




HUMBOLDT.

The Universe is Governed by Law.

GREAT men seem to be a part of the infinite--brothers of the mountains
and the seas.

Humboldt was one of these. He was one of those serene men, in some
respects like our own Franklin, whose names have all the lustre of a
star. He was one of the few, great enough to rise above the superstition
and prejudice of his time, and to know that experience, observation, and
reason are the only basis of knowledge.

He became one of the greatest of men in spite of having been born rich
and noble--in spite of position. I say in spite of these things,
because wealth and position are generally the enemies of genius, and the
destroyers of talent.

It is often said of this or that man, that he is a self-made man--that
he was born of the poorest and humblest parents, and that with every
obstacle to overcome he became great. This is a mistake. Poverty is
generally an advantage. Most of the intellectual giants of the world
have been nursed at the sad and loving breast of poverty. Most of those
who have climbed highest on the shining ladder of fame commenced at the
lowest round. They were reared in the straw-thatched cottages of Europe;
in the log-houses of America; in the factories of the great cities; in
the midst of toil; in the smoke and din of labor, and on the verge of
want. They were rocked by the feet of mothers whose hands, at the same
time, were busy with the needle or the wheel.

It is hard for the rich to resist the thousand allurements of pleasure,
and so I say, that Humboldt, in spite of having been born to wealth and
high social position, became truly and grandly great.

In the antiquated and romantic castle of Tegel, by the side of the pine
forest, on the shore of the charming lake, near the beautiful city of
Berlin, the great Humboldt, one hundred years ago to-day, was born, and
there he was educated after the method suggested by Rousseau,--Campe,
the philologist and critic, and the intellectual Kunth being his tutors.
There he received the impressions that determined his career; there the
great idea that the universe is governed by law, took possession of
his mind, and there he dedicated his life to the demonstration of this
sublime truth.

He came to the conclusion that the source of man's unhappiness is his
ignorance of nature.

After having received the most thorough education at that time possible,
and having determined to what end he would devote the labors of his
life, he turned his attention to the sciences of geology, mining,
mineralogy, botany, the distribution of plants, the distribution
of animals, and the effect of climate upon man. All grand physical
phenomena were investigated and explained. From his youth he had felt a
great desire for travel. He felt, as he says, a violent passion for
the sea, and longed to look upon nature in her wildest and most rugged
forms. He longed to give a physical description of the universe--a grand
picture of nature; to account for all phenomena; to discover the laws
governing the world; to do away with that splendid delusion called
special providence, and to establish the fact that the universe is
governed by law.

To establish this truth was, and is, of infinite importance to mankind.
That fact is the death-knell of superstition; it gives liberty to every
soul, annihilates fear, and ushers in the Age of Reason.

The object of this illustrious man was to comprehend the phenomena of
physical objects in their general connection, and to represent nature as
one great whole, moved and animated by internal forces.

For this purpose he turned his attention to descriptive botany,
traversing distant lands and mountain ranges to ascertain with certainty
the geographical distribution of plants. He investigated the laws
regulating the differences of temperature and climate, and the changes
of the atmosphere. He studied the formation of the earth's crust,
explored the deepest mines, ascended the highest mountains, and wandered
through the craters of extinct volcanoes.

He became thoroughly acquainted with chemistry, with astronomy, with
terrestrial magnetism; and as the investigation of one subject leads
to all others, for the reason that there is a mutual dependence and a
necessary connection between all facts, so Humboldt became acquainted
with all the known sciences.

His fame does not depend so much upon his discoveries (although he
discovered enough to make hundreds of reputations) as upon his vast and
splendid generalizations.

He was to science what Shakespeare was to the drama.

He found, so to speak, the world full of unconnected facts--all portions
of a vast system--parts of a great machine; he discovered the connection
that each bears to all; put them together, and demonstrated beyond all
contradiction that the earth is governed by law.

He knew that to discover the connection of phenomena is the primary aim
of all natural investigation. He was infinitely practical.

Origin and destiny were questions with which he had nothing to do.

His surroundings made him what he was.

In accordance with a law not fully comprehended, he was a production of
his time.

Great men do not live alone; they are surrounded by the great; they are
the instruments used to accomplish the tendencies of their generation;
they fulfill the prophecies of their age.

Nearly all of the scientific men of the eighteenth century had the same
idea entertained by Humboldt, but most of them in a dim and confused
way. There was, however, a general belief among the intelligent that
the world is governed by law, and that there really exists a connection
between all facts, _or that all facts are simply the different aspects
of a general fact_, and that the task of science is to discover this
connection; to comprehend this general fact or to announce the laws of
things.

Germany was full of thought, and her universities swarmed with
philosophers and grand thinkers in every department of knowledge.

Humboldt was the friend and companion of the greatest poets, historians,
philologists, artists, statesmen, critics, and logicians of his time.

He was the companion of Schiller, who believed that man would be
regenerated through the influence of the Beautiful; of Goethe, the grand
patriarch of German literature; of Weiland, who has been called
the Voltaire of Germany; of Herder, who wrote the outlines of a
philosophical history of man; of Kotzebue, who lived in the world of
romance; of Schleiermacher, the pantheist; of Schlegel, who gave to
his countrymen the enchanted realm of Shakespeare; of the sublime Kant,
author of the first work published in Germany on Pure Reason; of Fichte,
the infinite idealist; of Schopenhauer, the European Buddhist who
followed the great Gautama to the painless and dreamless Nirwana, and
of hundreds of others, whose names are familiar to and honored by the
scientific world.

The German mind had been grandly roused from the long lethargy of the
dark ages of ignorance, fear, and faith. Guided by the holy light of
reason, every department of knowledge was investigated, enriched and
illustrated.

Humboldt breathed the atmosphere of investigation; old ideas were
abandoned; old creeds, hallowed by centuries, were thrown aside; thought
became courageous; the athlete, Reason, challenged to mortal combat the
monsters of superstition.

No wonder that under these influences Humboldt formed the great purpose
of presenting to the world a picture of Nature, in order that men might,
for the first time, behold the face of their Mother.

Europe becoming too small for his genius, he visited the tropics in
the new world, where in the most circumscribed limits he could find the
greatest number of plants, of animals, and the greatest diversity of
climate, that he might ascertain the laws governing the production and
distribution of plants, animals and men, and the effects of climate
upon them all. He sailed along the gigantic Amazon--the mysterious
Orinoco--traversed the Pampas--climbed the Andes until he stood upon the
crags of Chimborazo, more than eighteen thousand feet above the level of
the sea, and climbed on until blood flowed from his eyes and lips.
For nearly five years he pursued his investigations in the new world,
accompanied by the intrepid Bonpland. Nothing escaped his attention. He
was the best intellectual organ of these new revelations of science. He
was calm, reflective and eloquent; filled with a sense of the beautiful,
and the love of truth. His collections were immense, and valuable beyond
calculation to every science. He endured innumerable hardships, braved
countless dangers in unknown and savage lands, and exhausted his fortune
for the advancement of true learning.

Upon his return to Europe he was hailed as the second Columbus; as the
scientific discoverer of America; as the revealer of a new world; as the
great demonstrator of the sublime truth, that the universe is governed
by law.

I have seen a picture of the old man, sitting upon a mountain
side--above him the eternal snow--below, the smiling valley of the
tropics, filled with vine and palm; his chin upon his breast, his eyes
deep, thoughtful and calm--his forehead majestic--grander than the
mountain upon which he sat--crowned with the snow of his whitened hair,
he looked the intellectual autocrat of this world.

Not satisfied with his discoveries in America, he crossed the steppes
of Asia, the wastes of Siberia, the great Ural range, adding to the
knowledge of mankind at every step. His energy acknowledged no obstacle,
his life knew no leisure; every day was filled with labor and with
thought.

He was one of the apostles of science, and he served his divine master
with a self-sacrificing zeal that knew no abatement; with an ardor that
constantly increased, and with a devotion unwavering and constant as the
polar star.

In order that the people at large might have the benefit of his numerous
discoveries, and his vast knowledge, he delivered at Berlin a course
of lectures, consisting of sixty-one free addresses, upon the following
subjects:

Five, upon the nature and limits of physical geography.

Three, were devoted to a history of science.

Two, to inducements to a study of natural science.

Sixteen, on the heavens.

Five, on the form, density, latent heat, and magnetic power of the
earth, and to the polar light.

Four, were on the nature of the crust of the earth, on hot springs
earthquakes, and volcanoes.

Two, on mountains and the type of their formation.

Two, on the form of the earth's surface, on the connection of
continents, and the elevation of soil over ravines.

Three, on the sea as a globular fluid surrounding the earth.

Ten, on the atmosphere as an elastic fluid surrounding the earth, and on
the distribution of heat.

One, on the geographic distribution of organ ized matter in general.

Three, on the geography of plants.

Three, on the geography of animals, and

Two, on the races of men.

These lectures are what is known as the Cosmos, and present a scientific
picture of the world--of infinite diversity in unity--of ceaseless
motion in the eternal grasp of law.

These lectures contain the result of his investigation, observation, and
experience; they furnish the connection between phenomena; they disclose
some of the changes through which the earth has passed in the countless
ages; the history of vegetation, animals and men, the effects of climate
upon individuals and nations, the relation we sustain to other worlds,
and demonstrate that all phenomena, whether insignificant or grand,
exist in accordance with inexorable law.

There are some truths, however, that we never should forget:
Superstition has always been the relentless enemy of science; faith has
been a hater of demonstration; hypocrisy has been sincere only in its
dread of truth, and all religions are inconsistent with mental freedom.

Since the murder of Hypatia in the fifth century, when the polished
blade of Greek philosophy was broken by the club of ignorant
Catholicism, until to-day, superstition has detested every effort of
reason.

It is almost impossible to conceive of the completeness of the victory
that the church achieved over philosophy. For ages science was utterly
ignored; thought was a poor slave; an ignorant priest was master of the
world; faith put out the eyes of the soul; the reason was a trembling
coward; the imagination was set on fire of hell; every human feeling was
sought to be suppressed; love was considered infinitely sinful; pleasure
was the road to eternal fire, and God was supposed to be happy only when
his children were miserable. The world was governed by an Almighty's
whim; prayers could change the order of things, halt the grand
procession of nature, could produce rain, avert pestilence, famine and
death in all its forms. There was no idea of the certain; all depended
upon divine pleasure or displeasure rather; heaven was full of
inconsistent malevolence, and earth of ignorance. Everything was done to
appease the divine wrath; every public calamity was caused by the
sins of the people; by a failure to pay tithes, or for having, even in
secret, felt a disrespect for a priest. To the poor multitude, the earth
was a kind of enchanted forest, full of demons ready to devour, and
theological serpents lurking with infinite power to fascinate and
torture the unhappy and impotent soul. Life to them was a dim and
mysterious labyrinth, in which they wandered weary, and lost, guided by
priests as bewildered as themselves, without knowing that at every step
the Ariadne of reason offered them the long lost clue.

The very heavens were full of death; the lightning was regarded as the
glittering vengeance of God, and the earth was thick with snares for the
unwary feet of man. The soul was supposed to be crowded with the wild
beasts of desire; the heart to be totally corrupt, prompting only to
crime; virtues were regarded as deadly sins in disguise; there was a
continual warfare being waged between the Deity and the Devil, for
the possession of every soul; the latter generally being considered
victorious. The flood, the tornado, the volcano, were all evidences of
the displeasure of heaven, and the sinfulness of man. The blight that
withered, the frost that blackened, the earthquake that devoured, were
the messengers of the Creator.

The world was governed by Fear.

Against all the evils of nature, there was known only the defence of
prayer, of fasting, of credulity, and devotion. _Man in his helplessness
endeavored to soften the heart of God_. The faces of the multitude
were blanched with fear, and wet with tears; they were the prey of
hypocrites, kings and priests.

My heart bleeds when I contemplate the sufferings endured by the
millions now dead; of those who lived when the world appeared to
be insane; when the heavens were filled with an infinite Horror who
snatched babes with dimpled hands and rosy cheeks from the white breasts
of mothers, and dashed them into an abyss of eternal flame.

Slowly, beautifully, like the coming of the dawn, came the grand truth,
that the universe is governed by law; that disease fastens itself
upon the good and upon the bad; that the tornado cannot be stopped by
counting beads; that the rushing lava pauses not for bended knees, the
lightning for clasped and uplifted hands, nor the cruel waves of the sea
for prayer; that paying tithes causes, rather than prevents famine; that
pleasure is not sin; that happiness is the only good; that demons and
gods exist only in the imagination; that faith is a lullaby sung to put
the soul to sleep; that devotion is a bribe that fear offers to supposed
power; that offering rewards in another world for obedience in this, is
simply buying a soul on credit; that knowledge consists in ascertaining
the laws of nature, and that wisdom is the science of happiness. Slowly,
grandly, beautifully, these truths are dawning upon mankind.

From Copernicus we learned that this earth is only a grain of sand on
the infinite shore of the universe; that everywhere we are surrounded by
shining worlds vastly greater than our own, all moving and existing in
accordance with law. True, the earth began to grow small, but man began
to grow great.

The moment the fact was, established that other worlds are governed
by law, it was only natural to conclude that our little world was
also under its dominion. The old theological method of accounting for
physical phenomena by the pleasure and displeasure of the Deity was,
by the intellectual, abandoned. They found that disease, death, life,
thought, heat, cold, the seasons, the winds, the dreams of man, the
instinct of animals,--in short, that all physical and mental phenomena
are governed by law, absolute, eternal and inexorable.

Let it be understood that by the term Law is meant the same invariable
relations of succession and resemblance predicated of all facts
springing from like conditions. Law is a fact--not a cause. It is a
fact, that like conditions produce like results: this fact is Law. When
we say that the universe is governed by law, we mean that this fact,
called law, is incapable of change; that it is, has been, and forever
will be, the same inexorable, immutable Fact, inseparable from all
phenomena. Law, in this sense, was not enacted or made. It could not
have been otherwise than as it is. That which necessarily exists has no
creator.

Only a few years ago this earth was considered the real center of
the universe; all the stars were supposed to revolve around this
insignificant atom. The German mind, more than any other, has done
away with this piece of egotism. Purbach and Mullerus, in the fifteenth
century, contributed most to the advancement of astronomy in their day.
To the latter, the world is indebted for the introduction of decimal
fractions, which completed our arithmetical notation, and formed the
second of the three steps by which, in modern times, the science
of numbers has been so greatly improved; and yet, both of these men
believed in the most childish absurdities, at least in enough of them,
to die without their orthodoxy having ever been suspected.

Next came the great Copernicus, and he stands at the head of the heroic
thinkers of his time, who had the courage and the mental strength to
break the chains of prejudice, custom, and authority, and to establish
truth on the basis of experience, observation and reason. He removed the
earth, so to speak, from the centre of the universe, and ascribed to it
a two-fold motion, and demonstrated the true position which it occupies
in the solar system.

At his bidding the earth began to revolve. At the command of his genius
it commenced its grand flight mid the eternal constellations round the
sun.

For fifty years his discoveries were disregarded. All at once, by the
exertions of Galileo, they were kindled into so grand a conflagration as
to consume the philosophy of Aristotle, to alarm the hierarchy of
Rome, and to threaten the existence of every opinion not founded upon
experience, observation, and reason.

The earth was no longer considered a universe, governed by the caprices
of some revengeful Deity, who had made the stars out of what he had
left after completing the world, and had stuck them in the sky simply to
adorn the night.

I have said this much concerning astronomy because it was the first
splendid step forward! The first sublime blow that shattered the lance
and shivered the shield of superstition; the first real help that
man received from heaven; because it was the first great lever placed
beneath the altar of a false religion; the first revelation of the
infinite to man; the first authoritative declaration, that the universe
is governed by law; the first science that gave the lie direct to the
cosmogony of barbarism, and because it is the sublimest victory that the
reason has achieved.

In speaking of astronomy, I have confined myself to the discoveries made
since the revival of learning. Long ago, on the banks of the Ganges,
ages before Copernicus lived, Aryabhatta taught that the earth is a
sphere, and revolves on its own axis. This, however, does not detract
from the glory of the great German. The discovery of the Hindu had been
lost in the midnight of Europe--in the age of faith, and Copernicus was
as much a discoverer as though Aryabhatta had never lived.

In this short address there is no time to speak of other sciences, and
to point out the particular evidence furnished by each, to establish
the dominion of law, nor to more than mention the name of Descartes, the
first who undertook to give an explanation of the celestial motions,
or who formed the vast and philosophic conception of reducing all the
phenomena of the universe to the same law; of Montaigne, one of the
heroes of common sense; of Galvani, whose experiments gave the telegraph
to the world; of Voltaire, who contributed more than any other of the
sons of men to the destruction of religious intolerance; of August
Comte, whose genius erected to itself a monument that still touches the
stars; of Guttenberg, Watt, Stephenson, Arkwright, all soldiers of
science, in the grand army of the dead kings.

The glory of science is, that it is freeing the soul--breaking the
mental manacles--getting the brain out of bondage--giving courage to
thought--filling the world with mercy, justice, and joy.

Science found agriculture plowing with a stick reaping with a
sickle--commerce at the mercy of the treacherous waves and the
inconstant winds--a world without books--without schools man denying
the authority of reason, employing his ingenuity in the manufacture
of instruments of torture, in building inquisitions and cathedrals.
It found the land filled with malicious monks--with persecuting
Protestants, and the burners of men. It found a world full of fear;
ignorance upon its knees; credulity the greatest virtue; women treated
like beasts of burden; cruelty the only means of reformation.

It found the world at the mercy of disease and famine; men trying to
read their fates in the stars, and to tell their fortunes by signs and
wonders; generals thinking to conquer their enemies by making the sign
of the cross, or by telling a rosary. It found all history full of petty
and ridiculous falsehood, and the Almighty was supposed to spend most
of his time turning sticks into snakes, drowning boys for swimming on
Sunday, and killing little children for the purpose of converting their
parents. It found the earth filled with slaves and tyrants, the people
in all countries downtrodden, half naked, half starved, without hope,
and without reason in the world.

Such was the condition of man when the morning of science dawned upon
his brain, and before he had heard the sublime declaration that the
universe is governed by law.

For the change that has taken place we are indebted solely to
science--the only lever capable of raising mankind. Abject faith is
barbarism; reason is civilization. To obey is slavish; to act from
a sense of obligation perceived by the reason, is noble. Ignorance
worships mystery; Reason explains it: the one grovels, the other soars.

No wonder that fable is the enemy of knowledge. A man with a false
diamond shuns the society of lapidaries, and it is upon this principle
that superstition abhors science.

In all ages the people have honored those who dishonored them. They have
worshiped their destroyers; they have canonized the most gigantic liars,
and buried the great thieves in marble and gold. Under the loftiest
monuments sleeps the dust of murder.

Imposture has always worn a crown.

The world is beginning to change because the people are beginning
to think. To think is to advance. Everywhere the great minds are
investigating the creeds and the superstitions of men--the phenomena
of nature, and the laws of things. At the head of this great army of
investigators stood Humboldt--the serene leader of an intellectual
host--a king by the suffrage of Science, and the divine right of Genius.

And to-day we are not honoring some butcher called a soldier--some
wily politician called a statesman--some robber called a king, nor
some malicious metaphysician called a saint We are honoring the grand
Humboldt, whose victories were all achieved in the arena of thought; who
destroyed prejudice, ignorance and error--not men; who shed light--not
blood, and who contributed to the knowledge, the wealth, and the
happiness of all mankind.

His life was pure, his aims lofty, his learning varied and profound, and
his achievements vast.

We honor him because he has ennobled our race, because he has
contributed as much as any man living or dead to the real prosperity of
the world. We honor him because he honored us--because he labored
for others--because he was the most learned man of the most learned
nation--because he left a legacy of glory to every human being. For
these reasons he is honored throughout the world. Millions are doing
homage to his genius at this moment, and millions are pronouncing his
name with reverence and recounting what he accomplished.

We associate the name of Humboldt with oceans, continents, mountains,
and volcanoes--with the great palms--the wide deserts--the snow-lipped
craters of the Andes--with primeval forests and European capitals--with
wildernesses and universities--with savages and savans--with the lonely
rivers of unpeopled wastes--with peaks and pampas, and steppes, and
cliffs and crags--with the progress of the world--with every science
known to man, and with every star glittering in the immensity of space.

Humboldt adopted none of the soul-shrinking creeds of his day; wasted
none of his time in the stupidities, inanities and contradictions of
theological metaphysics; he did not endeavor to harmonize the astronomy
and geology of a barbarous people with the science of the nineteenth
century. Never, for one moment, did he abandon the sublime standard of
truth; he investigated, he studied, he thought, he separated the gold
from the dross in the crucible of his grand brain. He was never found on
his knees before the altar of superstition. He stood erect by the grand
tranquil column of Reason. He was an admirer, a lover, an adorer of
Nature, and at the age of ninety, bowed by the weight of nearly
a century, covered with the insignia of honor, loved by a nation,
respected by a world, with kings for his servants, he laid his weary
head upon her bosom--upon the bosom of the universal Mother--and with
her loving arms around him, sank into that slumber called Death.

History added another name to the starry scroll of the immortals.

The world is his monument; upon the eternal granite of her hills he
inscribed his name, and there upon everlasting stone his genius wrote
this, the sublimest of truths:

"The Universe is Governed by Law!"




THOMAS PAINE

With His Name Left Out, the History of Liberty Cannot be Written.

TO speak the praises of the brave and thoughtful dead, is to me a labor
of gratitude and love.

Through all the centuries gone, the mind of man has been beleaguered by
the mailed hosts of superstition. Slowly and painfully has advanced the
army of deliverance. Hated by those they wished to rescue, despised
by those they were dying to save, these grand soldiers, these immortal
deliverers, have fought without thanks, labored without applause,
suffered without pity, and they have died execrated and abhorred. For
the good of mankind they accepted isolation, poverty, and calumny. They
gave up all, sacrificed all, lost all but truth and self-respect.

One of the bravest soldiers in this army was Thomas Paine; and for one,
I feel indebted to him for the liberty we are enjoying this day. Born
among the poor, where children are burdens; in a country where real
liberty was unknown; where the privileges of class were guarded with
infinite jealousy, and the rights of the individual trampled beneath the
feet of priests and nobles; where to advocate justice was treason; where
intellectual freedom was Infidelity, it is wonderful that the idea of
true liberty ever entered his brain. .

Poverty was his mother--Necessity his master.

He had more brains than books; more sense than education; more courage
than politeness; more strength than polish. He had no veneration for
old mistakes--no admiration for ancient lies. He loved the truth for
the truth's sake, and for man's sake. He saw oppression on every hand;
injustice everywhere; hypocrisy at the altar, venality on the bench,
tyranny on the throne; and with a splendid courage he espoused the cause
of the weak against the strong--of the enslaved many against the titled
few.

In England he was nothing. He belonged to the lower classes. There was
no avenue open for him. The people hugged their chains, and the whole
power of the government was ready to crush any man who endeavored to
strike a blow for the right.

At the age of thirty-seven, Thomas Paine left England for America,
with the high hope of being instrumental in the establishment of a free
government. In his own country he could accomplish nothing. Those two
vultures--Church and State--were ready to tear in pieces and devour the
heart of any one who might deny their divine right to enslave the world.

Upon his arrival in this country, he found himself possessed of a letter
of introduction, signed by another Infidel, the illustrious Franklin.
This, and his native genius, constituted his entire capital; and he
needed no more. He found the colonies clamoring for justice; whining
about their grievances; upon their knees at the foot of the throne,
imploring that mixture of idiocy and insanity, George the III., by the
grace of God, for a restoration of their ancient privileges. They were
not endeavoring to become free men, but were trying to soften the heart
of their master. They were perfectly willing to make brick if Pharaoh
would furnish the straw. The colonists wished for, hoped for, and prayed
for reconciliation They did not dream of independence.

Paine gave to the world his "Common Sense." It was the first argument
for separation, the first assault upon the British form of government,
the first blow for a republic, and it aroused our fathers like a
trumpet's blast.

He was the first to perceive the destiny of the New World.

No other pamphlet ever accomplished such wonderful results. It was
filled with argument, reason, persuasion, and unanswerable logic. It
opened a new world. It filled the present with hope and the future
with honor. Everywhere the people responded, and in a few months the
Continental Congress declared the colonies free and independent States.

A new nation was born.

It is simple justice to say that Paine did more to cause the Declaration
of Independence than any other man. Neither should it be forgotten that
his attacks upon Great Britain were also attacks upon monarchy; and
while he convinced the people that the colonies ought to separate from
the mother country, he also proved to them that a free government is the
best that can be instituted among men.

In my judgment, Thomas Paine was the best political writer that ever
lived. "What he wrote was pure nature, and his soul and his pen ever
went together." Ceremony, pageantry, and all the paraphernalia of
power, had no effect upon him. He examined into the why and wherefore of
things. He was perfectly radical in his mode of thought. Nothing short
of the bed-rock satisfied him. His enthusiasm for what he believed to
be right knew no bounds. During all the dark scenes of the Revolution,
never for one moment did he despair. Year after year his brave words
were ringing through the land, and by the bivouac fires the weary
soldiers read the inspiring words of "Common Sense," filled with ideas
sharper than their swords, and consecrated themselves anew to the cause
of Freedom.

Paine was not content with having aroused the spirit of independence,
but he gave every energy of his soul to keep that spirit alive. He was
with the army. He shared its defeats, its dangers, and its glory. When
the situation became desperate, when gloom settled upon all, he gave
them the "Crisis." It was a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night,
leading the way to freedom, honor, and glory. He shouted to them, "These
are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier, and the sunshine
patriot, will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country;
but he that stands it now deserves the love and thanks of man and
woman."

To those who wished to put the war off to some future day, with a lofty
and touching spirit of self-sacrifice he said: "Every generous parent
should say, 'If there must be war let it be in my day, that my child
may have peace.'" To the cry that Americans were rebels, he replied: "He
that rebels against reason is a real rebel; but he that in defence of
reason rebels against tyranny, has a better title to 'Defender of the
Faith' than George the Third."

Some said it was not to the interest of the colonies to be free. Paine
answered this by saying, "To know whether it be the interest of
the continent to be independent, we need ask only this simple, easy
question: 'Is it the interest of a man to be a boy all his life?'" He
found many who would listen to nothing, and to them he said, "That to
argue with a man who has renounced his reason is like giving medicine
to the dead." This sentiment ought to adorn the walls of every orthodox
church.

There is a world of political wisdom in this: "England lost her liberty
in a long chain of right reasoning from wrong principles"; and there
is real discrimination in saying, "The Greeks and Romans were strongly
possessed of the spirit of liberty, but not the principles, for at
the time that they were determined not to be slaves themselves, they
employed their power to enslave the rest of mankind."

In his letter to the British people, in which he tried to convince them
that war was not to their interest, occurs the following passage brimful
of common sense: "War never can be the interest of a trading nation any
more than quarreling can be profitable to a man in business. But to
make war with those who trade with us is like setting a bull-dog upon a
customer at the shop-door."

The writings of Paine fairly glitter with simple, compact, logical
statements, that carry conviction to the dullest and most prejudiced. He
had the happiest possible way of putting the case; in asking questions
in such a way that they answer themselves, and in stating his premises
so clearly that the deduction could not be avoided.

Day and night he labored for America; month after month, year after
year, he gave himself to the Great Cause, until there was "a government
of the people and for the people," and until the banner of the stars
floated over a continent redeemed, and consecrated to the happiness of
mankind.

At the close of the Revolution, no one stood higher in America than
Thomas Paine. The best, the wisest, the most patriotic, were his friends
and admirers; and had he been thinking only of his own good he might
have rested from his toils and spent the remainder of his life in
comfort and in ease. He could have been what the world is pleased to
call "respectable." He could have died surrounded by clergymen, warriors
and statesmen. At his death there would have been an imposing funeral,
miles of carriages, civic societies, salvos of artillery, a nation in
mourning, and, above all, a splendid monument covered with lies.

He chose rather to benefit mankind.

At that time the seeds sown by the great Infidels were beginning to bear
fruit in France. The people were beginning to think.

The Eighteenth Century was crowning its gray hairs with the wreath of
Progress.

On every hand Science was bearing testimony against the Church. Voltaire
had filled Europe with light; D'Holbach was giving to the _elite_
of Paris the principles contained in his "System of Nature." The
Encyclopedists had attacked superstition with information for the
masses. The foundation of things began to be examined. A few had the
courage to keep their shoes on and let the bush burn. Miracles began to
get scarce. Everywhere the people began to inquire. America had set an
example to the world. The word Liberty was in the mouths of men, and
they began to wipe the dust from their knees.

The dawn of a new day had appeared.

Thomas Paine went to France. Into the new movement he threw all his
energies. His fame had gone before him, and he was welcomed as a friend
of the human race, and as a champion of free government.

He had never relinquished his intention of pointing out to his
countrymen the defects, absurdities and abuses of the English government
For this purpose he composed and published his greatest political work,
"The Rights of Man." This work should be read by every man and woman.
It is concise, accurate, natural, convincing, and unanswerable. It shows
great thought; an intimate knowledge of the various forms of government;
deep insight into the very springs of human action, and a courage that
compels respect and admiration. The most difficult political problems
are solved in a few sentences. The venerable arguments in favor of
wrong are refuted with a question--answered with a word. For forcible
illustration, apt comparison, accuracy and clearness of statement, and
absolute thoroughness, it has never been excelled.

The fears of the administration were aroused, and Paine was prosecuted
for libel and found guilty; and yet there is not a sentiment in the
entire work that will not challenge the admiration of every civilized
man. It is a magazine of political wisdom, an arsenal of ideas, and an
honor, not only to Thomas Paine, but to human nature itself. It could
have been written only by the man who had the generosity, the exalted
patriotism, the goodness to say, "The world is my country, and to do
good my religion."

There is in all the utterances of the world no grander, no sublimer
sentiment. There is no creed that can be compared with it for a moment.
It should be wrought in gold, adorned with jewels, and impressed
upon every human heart: "The world is my country, and to do good my
religion."

In 1792, Paine was elected by the department of Calais as their
representative in the National Assembly. So great was his popularity in
France that he was selected about the same time by the people of no less
than four departments.

Upon taking his place in the Assembly he was appointed as one of a
committee to draft a constitution for France. Had the French people
taken the advice of Thomas Paine there would have been no "reign of
terror." The streets of Paris would not have been filled with blood The
Revolution would have been the grandest success of the world. The truth
is that Paine was too conservative to suit the leaders of the French
Revolution. They, to a great extent, were carried away by hatred, and
a desire to destroy. They had suffered so long, they had borne so much,
that it was impossible for them to be moderate in the hour of victory.

Besides all this, the French people had been so robbed by the
government, so degraded by the church, that they were not fit material
with which to construct a republic. Many of the leaders longed to
establish a beneficent and just government, but the people asked for
revenge.

Paine was filled with a real love for mankind. His philanthropy was
boundless. He wished to destroy monarchy--not the monarch. He voted for
the destruction of tyranny, and against the death of the king. He wished
to establish a government on a new basis; one that would forget the
past; one that would give privileges to none, and protection to all.

In the Assembly, where nearly all were demanding the execution of the
king--where to differ from the majority was to be suspected, and, where
to be suspected was almost certain death Thomas Paine had the courage,
the goodness and the justice to vote against death. To vote against
the execution of the king was a vote against his own life. This was
the sublimity of devotion to principle. For this he was arrested,
imprisoned, and doomed to death.

Search the records of the world and you will find but few sublimer acts
than that of Thomas Paine voting against the kings death. He, the hater
of despotism, the abhorrer of monarchy, the champion of the rights
of man, the republican, accepting death to save the life of a deposed
tyrant--of a throneless king. This was the last grand act of his
political life--the sublime conclusion of his political career.

All his life he had been the disinterested friend of man. He had
labored--not for money, not for fame, but for the general good. He had
aspired to no office; had asked no recognition of his services, but had
ever been content to labor as a common soldier in the army of Progress.
Confining his efforts to no country, looking upon the world as his field
of action, filled with a genuine love for the right, he found himself
imprisoned by the very people he had striven to save.

Had his enemies succeeded in bringing him to the block, he would have
escaped the calumnies and the hatred of the Christian world. In this
country, at least, he would have ranked with the proudest names. On the
anniversary of the Declaration his name would have been upon the lips of
all the orators, and his memory in the hearts of all the people.

Thomas Paine had not finished his career.

He had spent his life thus far in destroying the power of kings, and
now he turned his attention to the priests. He knew that every abuse had
been embalmed in Scripture--that every outrage was in partnership with
some holy text. He knew that the throne skulked behind the altar, and
both behind a pretended revelation from God. By this time he had found
that it was of little use to free the body and leave the mind in
chains. He had explored the foundations of despotism, and had found them
infinitely rotten. He had dug under the throne, and it occurred to him
that he would take a look behind the altar.

The result of his investigations was given to the world in the "Age of
Reason." From the moment of its publication he became infamous. He was
calumniated beyond measure. To slander him was to secure the thanks of
the church. All his services were instantly forgotten, disparaged or
denied. He was shunned as though he had been a pestilence. Most of his
old friends forsook him. He was regarded as a moral plague, and at the
bare mention of his name the bloody hands of the church were raised in
horror. He was denounced as the most despicable of men.

Not content with following him to his grave, they pursued him after
death with redoubled fury, and recounted with infinite gusto and
satisfaction the supposed horrors of his death-bed; gloried in the fact
that he was forlorn and friendless, and gloated like fiends over what
they supposed to be the agonizing remorse of his lonely death.

It is wonderful that all his services were thus forgotten. It is amazing
that one kind word did not fall from some pulpit; that some one did
not accord to him, at least--honesty. Strange, that in the general
denunciation some one did not remember his labor for liberty, his
devotion to principle, his zeal for the rights of his fellow-men. He
had, by brave and splendid effort, associated his name with the cause
of Progress. He had made it impossible to write the history of political
freedom with his name left out He was one of the creators of light; one
of the heralds of the dawn. He hated tyranny in the name of kings, and
in the name of God, with every drop of his noble blood. He believed in
liberty and justice, and in the sacred doctrine of human equality. Under
these divine banners he fought the battle of his life. In both worlds he
offered his blood for the good of man. In the wilderness of America, in
the French Assembly, in the sombre cell waiting for death, he was the
same unflinching, unwavering friend of his race; the same undaunted
champion of universal freedom. And for this he has been hated; for this
the church has violated even his grave.

This is enough to make one believe that nothing is more natural than for
men to devour their benefactors. The people in all ages have crucified
and glorified. Whoever lifts his voice against abuses, whoever arraigns
the past at the bar of the present, whoever asks the king to show his
commission, or questions the authority of the priest, will be denounced
as the enemy of man and God. In all ages reason has been regarded as the
enemy of religion. Nothing has been considered so pleasing to the Deity
as a total denial of the authority of your own mind. Self-reliance has
been thought a deadly sin; and the idea of living and dying without the
aid and consolation of superstition has always horrified the church. By
some unaccountable infatuation, belief has been and still is considered
of immense importance. All religions have been based upon the idea that
God will forever reward the true believer, and eternally damn the man
who doubts or denies. Belief is regarded as the one essential thing. To
practice justice, to love mercy, is not enough. You must believe in
some incomprehensible creed. You must say, "Once one is three, and three
times one is one." The man who practiced every virtue, but failed to
believe, was execrated. Nothing so outrages the feelings of the church
as a moral unbeliever--nothing so horrible as a charitable Atheist.

When Paine was born, the world was religious, the pulpit was the real
throne, and the churches were making every effort to crush out of the
brain the idea that it had the right to think.

The splendid saying of Lord Bacon, that "the inquiry of truth, which is
the love-making or wooing of it, the knowledge of truth, which is the
presence of it, and the belief of truth, which is the enjoying of it,
are the sovereign good of human nature," has been, and ever will
be, rejected by religionists. Intellectual liberty, as a matter of
necessity, forever destroys the idea that belief is either praise
or blame-worthy, and is wholly inconsistent with every creed in
Christendom. Paine recognized this truth. He also saw that as long as
the Bible was considered inspired, this infamous doctrine of the virtue
of belief would be believed and preached. He examined the Scriptures for
himself, and found them filled with cruelty, absurdity and immorality.

He again made up his mind to sacrifice himself for the good of his
fellow-men.

He commenced with the assertion, "That any system of religion that has
anything in it that shocks the mind of a child cannot be a true system."
What a beautiful, what a tender sentiment! No wonder the church began to
hate him. He believed in one God, and no more. After this life he
hoped for happiness. He believed that true religion consisted in doing
justice, loving mercy, in endeavoring to make our fellow-creatures
happy, and in offering to God the fruit of the heart. He denied the
inspiration of the Scriptures. This was his crime.

He contended that it is a contradiction in terms to call anything a
revelation that comes to us second-hand, either verbally or in writing.
He asserted that revelation is necessarily limited to the first
communication, and that after that it is only an account of something
which another person says was a revelation to him. We have only his word
for it, as it was never made to us. This argument never has been and
probably never will be answered. He denied the divine origin of Christ,
and showed conclusively that the pretended prophecies of the Old
Testament had no reference to him whatever; and yet he believed that
Christ was a virtuous and amiable man; that the morality he taught and
practiced was of the most benevolent and elevated character, and that
it had not been exceeded by any. Upon this point he entertained the
same sentiments now held by the Unitarians, and in fact by all the most
enlightened Christians.

In his time the church believed and taught that every word in the Bible
was absolutely true. Since his day it has been proven false in its
cosmogony, false in its astronomy, false in its chronology, false in its
history, and so far as the Old Testament is concerned, false in almost
everything. There are but few, if any, scientific men who apprehend that
the Bible is literally true. Who on earth at this day would pretend to
settle any scientific question by a text from the Bible? The old belief
is confined to the ignorant and zealous. The church itself will before
long be driven to occupy the position of Thomas Paine. The best minds of
the orthodox world, to-day, are endeavoring to prove the existence of
a personal Deity. All other questions occupy a minor place. You are no
longer asked to swallow the Bible whole, whale, Jonah and all; you are
simply required to believe in God, and pay your pew-rent. There is not
now an enlightened minister in the world who will seriously contend that
Samson's strength was in his hair, or that the necromancers of Egypt
could turn water into blood, and pieces of wood into serpents. These
follies have passed away, and the only reason that the religious world
can now have for disliking Paine is that they have been forced to adopt
so many of his opinions.

Paine thought the barbarities of the Old Testament inconsistent with
what he deemed the real character of God. He believed that murder,
massacre and indiscriminate slaughter had never been commanded by
the Deity. He regarded much of the Bible as childish, unimportant and
foolish The scientific world entertains the same opinion. Paine attacked
the Bible precisely in the same spirit in which he had attacked the
pretensions of kings. He used the same weapons. All the pomp in the
world could not make him cower. His reason knew no "Holy of Holies,"
except the abode of Truth. The sciences were then in their infancy. The
attention of the really learned had not been directed to an impartial
examination of our pretended revelation. It was accepted by most as
a matter of course. The church was all-powerful, and no one, unless
thoroughly imbued with the spirit of self-sacrifice, thought for a
moment of disputing the fundamental doctrines of Christianity. The
infamous doctrines that salvation depends upon belief--upon a mere
intellectual conviction--was then believed and preached. To doubt was
to secure the damnation of your soul. This absurd and devilish doctrine
shocked the common sense of Thomas Paine, and he denounced it with
the fervor of honest indignation. This doctrine, although infinitely
ridiculous, has been nearly universal, and has been as hurtful as
senseless. For the overthrow of this infamous tenet, Paine exerted all
his strength. He left few arguments to be used by those who should come
after him, and he used none that have been refuted. The combined wisdom
and genius of all mankind cannot possibly conceive of an argument
against liberty of thought. Neither can they show why any one should
be punished, either in this world or another, for acting honestly in
accordance with reason; and yet a doctrine with every possible argument
against it has been, and still is, believed and defended by the entire
orthodox world. Can it be possible that we have been endowed with reason
simply that our souls may be caught in its toils and snares, that we may
be led by its false and delusive glare out of the narrow path that leads
to joy into the broad way of everlasting death? Is it possible that
we have been given reason simply that we may through faith ignore its
deductions, and avoid its conclusions? Ought the sailor to throw away
his compass and depend entirely upon the fog? If reason is not to be
depended upon in matters of religion, that is to say, in respect of our
duties to the Deity, why should it be relied upon in matters respecting
the rights of our fellows? Why should we throw away the laws given to
Moses by God himself and have the audacity to make some of our own? How
dare we drown the thunders of Sinai by calling the ayes and noes in a
petty legislature? If reason can determine what is merciful, what is
just, the duties of man to man, what more do we want either in time or
eternity?

Down, forever down, with any religion that requires upon its ignorant
altar the sacrifice of the goddess Reason, that compels her to abdicate
forever the shining throne of the soul, strips from her form the
imperial purple, snatches from her hand the sceptre of thought and makes
her the bond-woman of a senseless faith!

If a man should tell you that he had the most beautiful painting in the
world, and after taking you where it was should insist upon having your
eyes shut, you would likely suspect, either that he had no painting or
that it was some pitiable daub. Should he tell you that he was a most
excellent performer on the violin, and yet refuse to play unless your
ears were stopped, you would think, to say the least of it, that he
had an odd way of convincing you of his musical ability. But would his
conduct be any more wonderful than that of a religionist who asks that
before examining his creed you will have the kindness to throw away your
reason? The first gentleman says, "Keep your eyes shut, my picture
will bear everything but being seen;" "Keep your ears stopped, my music
objects to nothing but being heard." The last says, "Away with your
reason, my religion dreads nothing but being understood."

So far as I am concerned, I most cheerfully admit that most Christians
are honest, and most ministers sincere. We do not attack them; we
attack their creed. We accord to them the same rights that we ask for
ourselves. We believe that their doctrines are hurtful. We believe
that the frightful text, "He that believes shall be saved and he that
believeth not shall be damned," has covered the earth with blood. It has
filled the heart with arrogance, cruelty and murder. It has caused
the religious wars; bound hundreds of thousands to the stake; founded
inquisitions; filled dungeons; invented instruments of torture; taught
the mother to hate her child; imprisoned the mind; filled the world with
ignorance; persecuted the lovers of wisdom; built the monasteries and
convents; made happiness a crime, investigation a sin, and self-reliance
a blasphemy. It has poisoned the springs of learning; misdirected the
energies of the world; filled all countries with want; housed the people
in hovels; fed them with famine; and but for the efforts of a few
brave Infidels it would have taken the world back to the midnight of
barbarism, and left the heavens without a star.

The maligners of Paine say that he had no right to attack this doctrine,
because he was unacquainted with the dead languages; and for this
reason, it was a piece of pure impudence in him to investigate the
Scriptures.

Is it necessary to understand Hebrew in order to know that cruelty is
not a virtue, that murder is inconsistent with infinite goodness, and
that eternal punishment can be inflicted upon man only by an eternal
fiend? Is it really essential to conjugate the Greek verbs before you
can make up your mind as to the probability of dead people getting out
of their graves? Must one be versed in Latin before he is entitled to
express his opinion as to the genuineness of a pretended revelation
from God? Common sense belongs exclusively to no tongue. Logic is not
confined to, nor has it been buried with, the dead languages. Paine
attacked the Bible as it is translated. If the translation is wrong, let
its defenders correct it.

The Christianity of Paine's day is not the Christianity of our time.
There has been a great improvement since then. One hundred and fifty
years ago the foremost preachers of our time would have perished at
the stake. A Universalist would have been torn in pieces in England,
Scotland, and America. Unitarians would have found themselves in the
stocks, pelted by the rabble with dead cats, after which their ears
would have been cut off, their tongues bored, and their foreheads
branded. Less than one hundred and fifty years ago the following law was
in force in Maryland:

"Be it enacted by the Right Honorable, the Lord Proprietor, by and with
the advice and consent of his Lordship's governor, and the upper and
lower houses of the Assembly, and the authority of the same:

"That if any person shall hereafter, within this province, wittingly,
maliciously, and advisedly, by writing or speaking, blaspheme or curse
God, or deny our Saviour, Jesus Christ, to be the Son of God, or shall
deny the Holy Trinity, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, or the Godhead
of any of the three persons, or the unity of the Godhead, or shall utter
any profane words concerning the Holy Trinity, or any of the persons
thereof, and shall thereof be convict by verdict, shall, for the first
offence, be bored through the tongue, and fined twenty pounds to be
levied of his body. And for the second offence, the offender shall be
stigmatized by burning in the forehead with the letter B, and fined
forty pounds. And that for the third offence the offender shall suffer
death without the benefit of clergy."

The strange thing about this law is, that it has never been repealed,
and is still in force in the District of Columbia. Laws like this were
in force in most of the colonies, and in all countries where the church
had power.

In the Old Testament, the death penalty is attached to hundreds of
offences. It has been the same in all Christian countries. To-day, in
civilized governments, the death penalty is attached only to murder and
treason; and in some it has been entirely abolished. What a commentary
upon the divine systems of the world!

In the day of Thomas Paine, the church was ignorant, bloody and
relentless. In Scotland the "Kirk" was at the summit of its power. It
was a full sister of the Spanish Inquisition. It waged war upon human
nature. It was the enemy of happiness, the hater of joy, and the
despiser of religious liberty. It taught parents to murder their
children rather than to allow them to propagate error. If the mother
held opinions of which the infamous "Kirk" disapproved, her children
were taken from her arms, her babe from her very bosom, and she was
not allowed to see them, or to write them a word. It would not allow
shipwrecked sailors to be rescued from drowning on Sunday. It sought to
annihilate pleasure, to pollute the heart by filling it with religious
cruelty and gloom, and to change mankind into a vast horde of pious,
heartless fiends. One of the most famous Scotch divines said: "The Kirk
holds that religious toleration is not far from blasphemy." And this
same Scotch Kirk denounced, beyond measure, the man who had the moral
grandeur to say, "The world is my country, and to do good my religion."
And this same Kirk abhorred the man who said, "Any system of religion
that shocks the mind of a child cannot be a true system."

At that time nothing so delighted the church as the beauties of endless
torment, and listening to the weak wailings of damned infants struggling
in the slimy coils and poison-folds of the worm that never dies.

About the beginning of the nineteenth century, a boy by the name of
Thomas Aikenhead, was indicted and tried at Edinburgh for having denied
the inspiration of the Scriptures, and for having, on several
occasions, when cold, wished himself in hell that he might get warm.
Notwithstanding the poor boy recanted and begged for mercy, he was found
guilty and hanged. His body was thrown in a hole at the foot of the
scaffold and covered with stones.

Prosecutions and executions like this were common in every Christian
country, and all of them were based upon the belief that an intellectual
conviction is a crime.

No wonder the church hated and traduced the author of the "Age of
Reason."

England was filled with Puritan gloom and Episcopal ceremony. All
religious conceptions were of the grossest nature. The ideas of crazy
fanatics and extravagant poets were taken as sober facts. Milton had
clothed Christianity in the soiled and faded finery of the gods--had
added to the story of Christ the fables of Mythology. He gave to the
Protestant Church the most outrageously material ideas of the Deity.
He turned all the angels into soldiers--made heaven a battlefield, put
Christ in uniform, and described God as a militia general. His works
were considered by the Protestants nearly as sacred as the Bible
itself, and the imagination of the people was thoroughly polluted by the
horrible imagery, the sublime absurdity of the blind Milton.

Heaven and hell were realities--the judgment-day was expected--books of
account would be opened. Every man would hear the charges against him
read. God was supposed to sit on a golden throne, surrounded by the
tallest angels, with harps in their hands and crowns on their heads. The
goats would be thrust into eternal fire on the left, while the orthodox
sheep, on the right, were to gambol on sunny slopes forever and forever.

The nation was profoundly ignorant, and consequently extremely
religious, so far as belief was concerned.

In Europe, Liberty was lying chained in the Inquisition--her white bosom
stained with blood. In the New World the Puritans had been hanging
and burning in the name of God, and selling white Quaker children into
slavery in the name of Christ, who said, "Suffer little children to come
unto me."

Under such conditions progress was impossible. Some one had to lead
the way. The church is, and always has been, incapable of a forward
movement. Religion always looks back. The church has already reduced
Spain to a guitar, Italy to a hand-organ, and Ireland to exile.

Some one not connected with the church had to attack the monster that
was eating out the heart of the world. Some one had to sacrifice himself
for the good of all. The people were in the most abject slavery; their
manhood had been taken from them by pomp, by pageantry and power.
Progress is born of doubt and inquiry.

The church never doubts--never inquires. To doubt is heresy--to inquire
is to admit that you do not know--the church does neither.

More than a century ago Catholisism, wrapped in robes red with the
innocent blood of millions, holding in her frantic clutch crowns and
scepters, honors and gold, the keys of heaven and hell, trampling
beneath her feet the liberties of nations, in the proud moment of almost
universal dominion, felt within her heartless breast the deadly dagger
of Voltaire. From that blow the church never can recover. Livid with
hatred she launched her eternal anathema at the great destroyer, and
ignorant Protestants have echoed the curse of Rome.

In our country the church was all-powerful, and although divided into
many sects, would instantly unite to repel a common foe.

Paine struck the first grand blow.

The "Age of Reason" did more to undermine the power of the Protestant
Church than all other books then known. It furnished an immense amount
of food for thought. It was written for the average mind, and is a
straightforward, honest investigation of the Bible, and of the Christian
system.

Paine did not falter, from the first page to the last. He gives you his
candid thought, and candid thoughts are always valuable.

The "Age of Reason" has liberalized us all. It put arguments in the
mouths of the people; it put the church on the defensive; it enabled
somebody in every village to corner the parson; it made the world wiser,
and the church better; it took power from the pulpit and divided it
among the pews.

Just in proportion that the human race has advanced, the church has lost
power. There is no exception to this rule.

No nation ever materially advanced that held strictly to the religion of
its founders.

No nation ever gave itself wholly to the control of the church without
losing its power, its honor, and existence.

Every church pretends to have found the exact truth. This is the end of
progress. Why pursue that which you have? Why investigate when you know?

Every creed is a rock in running water: humanity sweeps by it. Every
creed cries to the universe, "Halt!" A creed is the ignorant Past
bullying the enlightened Present.

The ignorant are not satisfied with what can be demonstrated. Science is
too slow for them, and so they invent creeds. They demand completeness.
A sublime segment, a grand fragment, are of no value to them. They
demand the complete circle--the entire structure.

In music they want a melody with a recurring accent at measured periods.
In religion they insist upon immediate answers to the questions of
creation and destiny. The alpha and omega of all things must be in the
alphabet of their superstition. A religion that cannot answer every
question, and guess every conundrum is, in their estimation, worse than
worthless. They desire a kind of theological dictionary--a religious
ready reckoner, together with guide-boards at all crossings and turns.
They mistake impudence for authority, solemnity for wisdom, and bathos
for inspiration. The beginning and the end are what they demand. The
grand flight of the eagle is nothing to them. They want the nest in
which he was hatched, and especially the dry limb upon which he roosts.
Anything that can be learned is hardly worth knowing. The present is
considered of no value in itself. Happiness must not be expected this
side of the clouds, and can only be attained by self-denial and faith;
not selfdenial for the good of others, but for the salvation of your own
sweet self.

Paine denied the authority of bibles and creeds; this was his crime, and
for this the world shut the door in his face, and emptied its slops upon
him from the windows.

I challenge the world to show that Thomas Paine ever wrote one line,
one word in favor of tyranny--in favor of immorality; one line, one
word against what he believed to be for the highest and best interest
of mankind; one line, one word against justice, charity, or liberty,
and yet he has been pursued as though he had been a fiend from hell. His
memory has been execrated as though he had murdered some Uriah for his
wife; driven some Hagar into the desert to starve with his child upon
her bosom; defiled his own daughters; ripped open with the sword the
sweet bodies of loving and innocent women; advised one brother to
assassinate another; kept a harem with seven hundred wives and three
hundred concubines, or had persecuted Christians even unto strange
cities.

The church has pursued Paine to deter others. No effort has been in
any age of the world spared to crush out opposition. The church used
painting, music and architecture, simply to degrade mankind. But there
are men that nothing can awe. There have been at all times brave spirits
that dared even the gods. Some proud head has always been above the
waves. In every age some Diogenes has sacrificed to all the gods. True
genius never cowers, and there is always some Samson feeling for the
pillars of authority.

Cathedrals and domes, and chimes and chants.--temples frescoed and
groined and carved, and gilded with gold--altars and tapers, and
paintings of virgin and babe--censer and chalice--chasuble, paten
and alb--organs, and anthems and incense rising to the winged and
blest--maniple, amice and stole--crosses and crosiers, tiaras
and crowns--mitres and missals and masses--rosaries, relics and
robes--martyrs and saints, and windows stained as with the blood of
Christ--never, never for one moment awed the brave, proud spirit of the
Infidel. He knew that all the pomp and glitter had been purchased with
Liberty--that priceless jewel of the soul. In looking at the cathedral
he remembered the dungeon. The music of the organ was not loud enough
to drown the clank of fetters. He could not forget that the taper had
lighted the fagot. He knew that the cross adorned the hilt of the sword,
and so where others worshiped, he wept and scorned.

The doubter, the investigator, the Infidel, have been the saviors
of liberty. This truth is beginning to be realized, and the truly
intellectual are honoring the brave thinkers of the past.

But the church is as unforgiving as ever, and still wonders why any
Infidel should be wicked enough to endeavor to destroy her power.

I will tell the church why.

You have imprisoned the human mind; you have been the enemy of liberty;
you have burned us at the stake--wasted us upon slow fires--torn
our flesh with iron; you have covered us with chains--treated us as
outcasts; you have filled the world with fear; you have taken our wives
and children from our arms; you have confiscated our property; you have
denied us the right to testify in courts of justice; you have branded us
with infamy; you have torn out our tongues; you have refused us burial.
In the name of your religion, you have robbed us of every right; and
after having inflicted upon us every evil that can be inflicted in this
world, you have fallen upon your knees, and with clasped hands implored
your God to torment us forever.

Can you wonder that we hate your doctrines--that we despise your
creeds--that we feel proud to know that we are beyond your power--that
we are free in spite of you--that we can express our honest thought, and
that the whole world is grandly rising into the blessed light?

Can you wonder that we point with pride to the fact that Infidelity
has ever been found battling for the rights of man, for the liberty of
conscience, and for the happiness of all?

Can you wonder that we are proud to know that we have always been
disciples of Reason, and soldiers of Freedom; that we have denounced
tyranny and superstition, and have kept our hands unstained with human
blood?

We deny that religion is the end or object of this life. When it is so
considered it becomes destructive of happiness--the real end of life.
It becomes a hydra-headed monster, reaching in terrible coils from the
heavens, and thrusting its thousand fangs into the bleeding, quivering
hearts of men. It devours their substance, builds palaces for God, (who
dwells not in temples made with hands,) and allows his children to
die in huts and hovels. It fills the earth with mourning, heaven with
hatred, the present with fear, and all the future with despair.

Virtue is a subordination of the passions to the intellect. It is to
act in accordance with your highest convictions. It does not consist in
believing, but in doing. This is the sublime truth that the Infidels in
all ages have uttered. They have handed the torch from one to the other
through all the years that have fled. Upon the altar of Reason they have
kept the sacred fire, and through the long midnight of faith they fed
the divine flame.

Infidelity is liberty; all religion is slavery. In every creed man is
the slave of God--woman is the slave of man and the sweet children are
the slaves of all.

We do not want creeds; we want knowledge--we want happiness.

And yet we are told by the church that we have accomplished nothing;
that we are simply destroyers; that we tear down without building again.

Is it nothing to free the mind? Is it nothing to civilize mankind? Is it
nothing to fill the world with light, with discovery, with science?
Is it nothing to dignify man and exalt the intellect? Is it nothing to
grope your way into the dreary prisons, the damp and dropping dungeons,
the dark and silent cells of superstition, where the souls of men are
chained to floors of stone; to greet them like a ray of light, like the
song of a bird, the murmur of a stream; to see the dull eyes open and
grow slowly bright; to feel yourself grasped by the shrunken and unused
hands, and hear yourself thanked by a strange and hollow voice?

Is it nothing to conduct these souls gradually into the blessed light of
day--to let them see again the happy fields, the sweet, green earth, and
hear the everlasting music of the waves? Is it nothing to make men wipe
the dust from their swollen knees, the tears from their blanched
and furrowed cheeks? Is it a small thing to reave the heavens of an
insatiate monster and write upon the eternal dome, glittering with
stars, the grand word--Freedom?

Is it a small thing to quench the flames of hell with the holy tears of
pity--to unbind the martyr from the stake--break all the chains--put
out the fires of civil war--stay the sword of the fanatic, and tear the
bloody hands of the Church from the white throat of Science?

Is it a small thing to make men truly free--to destroy the dogmas of
ignorance, prejudice and power--the poisoned fables of superstition, and
drive from the beautiful face of the earth the fiend of Fear?

It does seem as though the most zealous Christian must at times
entertain some doubt as to the divine origin of his religion. For
eighteen hundred years the doctrine has been preached. For more than
a thousand years the church had, to a great extent, the control of the
civilized world, and what has been the result? Are the Christian nations
patterns of charity and forbearance? On the contrary, their principal
business is to destroy each other. More than five millions of Christians
are trained, educated, and drilled to murder their fellow-christians.
Every nation is groaning under a vast debt incurred in carrying on war
against other Christians, or defending itself from Christian assault.
The world is covered with forts to protect Christians from Christians,
and every sea is covered with iron monsters ready to blow Christian
brains into eternal froth. Millions upon millions are annually expended
in the effort to construct still more deadly and terrible engines of
death. Industry is crippled, honest toil is robbed, and even beggary is
taxed to defray the expenses of Christian warfare. There must be some
other way to reform this world. We have tried creed, and dogma and
fable, and they have failed; and they have failed in all the nations
dead.

The people perish for the lack of knowledge.

Nothing but education--scientific education--can benefit mankind. We
must find out the laws of nature and conform to them.

We need free bodies and free minds,--free labor and free
thought,--chainless hands and fetterless brains. Free labor will give us
wealth. Free thought will give us truth.

We need men with moral courage to speak and write their real thoughts,
and to stand by their convictions, even to the very death. We need have
no fear of being too radical. The future will verify all grand and brave
predictions. Paine was splendidly in advance of his time; but he was
orthodox compared with the Infidels of to-day.

Science, the great Iconoclast, has been busy since 1809, and by the
highway of Progress are the broken images of the Past.

On every hand the people advance. The Vicar of God has been pushed from
the throne of the Caesars, and upon the roofs of the Eternal City falls
once more the shadow of the Eagle.

All has been accomplished by the heroic few. The men of science have
explored heaven and earth, and with infinite patience have furnished
the facts. The brave thinkers have used them. The gloomy caverns of
superstition have been transformed into temples of thought, and the
demons of the past are the angels of to-day.

Science took a handful of sand, constructed a telescope, and with it
explored the starry depths of heaven. Science wrested from the gods
their thunderbolts; and now, the electric spark, freighted with thought
and love, flashes under all the waves of the sea. Science took a tear
from the cheek of unpaid labor, converted it into steam, created a giant
that turns with tireless arm, the countless wheels of toil.

Thomas Paine was one of the intellectual heroes--one of the men to whom
we are indebted. His name is associated forever with the Great Republic.
As long as free government exists he will be remembered, admired and
honored.

He lived a long, laborious and useful life. The world is better for his
having lived. For the sake of truth he accepted hatred and reproach for
his portion. He ate the bitter bread of sorrow. His friends were untrue
to him because he was true to himself, and true to them. He lost the
respect of what is called society, but kept his own. His life is what
the world calls failure and what history calls success.

If to love your fellow-men more than self is goodness, Thomas Paine was
good.

If to be in advance of your time--to be a pioneer in the direction of
right--is greatness, Thomas Paine was great.

If to avow your principles and discharge your duty in the presence of
death is heroic, Thomas Paine was a hero.

At the age of seventy-three, death touched his tired heart. He died
in the land his genius defended--under the flag he gave to the skies.
Slander cannot touch him now--hatred cannot reach him more. He sleeps in
the sanctuary of the tomb, beneath the quiet of the stars.

A few more years--a few more brave men--a few more rays of light, and
mankind will venerate the memory of him who said:

"ANY SYSTEM OF RELIGION THAT SHOCKS THE MIND OF A CHILD CANNOT BE A TRUE
SYSTEM;"

"The world is my Country, and to do good my Religion."




INDIVIDUALITY.

"His Soul was like a Star and dwelt apart."

ON every hand are the enemies of individuality and mental freedom.
Custom meets us at the cradle and leaves us only at the tomb. Our first
questions are answered by ignorance, and our last by superstition. We
are pushed and dragged by countless hands along the beaten track, and
our entire training can be summed up in the word--suppression. Our
desire to have a thing or to do a thing is considered as conclusive
evidence that we ought not to have it, and ought not to do it. At every
turn we run against cherubim and a flaming sword guarding some entrance
to the Eden of our desire. We are allowed to investigate all subjects in
which we feel no particular interest, and to express the opinions of the
majority with the utmost freedom. We are taught that liberty of
speech should never be carried to the extent of contradicting the dead
witnesses of a popular superstition. Society offers continual rewards
for self-betrayal, and they are nearly all earned and claimed, and some
are paid.

We have all read accounts of Christian gentlemen remarking, when about
to be hanged, how much better it would have been for them if they had
only followed a mother's advice. But after all, how fortunate it is for
the world that the maternal advice has not always been followed. How
fortunate it is for us all that it is somewhat unnatural for a human
being to obey. Universal obedience is universal stagnation; disobedience
is one of the conditions of progress. Select any age of the world and
tell me what would have been the effect of implicit obedience. Suppose
the church had had absolute control of the human mind at any time, would
not the words liberty and progress have been blotted from human speech?
In defiance of advice, the world has advanced.

Suppose the astronomers had controlled the science of astronomy; suppose
the doctors had controlled the science of medicine; suppose kings had
been left to fix the forms of government; suppose our fathers had taken
the advice of Paul, who said, "be subject to the powers that be, because
they are ordained of God;" suppose the church could control the world
to-day, we would go back to chaos and old night. Philosophy would be
branded as infamous; Science would again press its pale and thoughtful
face against the prison bars, and round the limbs of liberty would climb
the bigot's flame.

It is a blessed thing that in every age some one has had individuality
enough and courage enough to stand by his own convictions,--some one
who had the grandeur to say his say. I believe it was Magellan who said,
"The church says the earth is flat; but I have seen its shadow on the
moon, and I have more confidence even in a shadow than in the church."
On the prow of his ship were disobedience, defiance, scorn, and success.

The trouble with most people is, they bow to what is called authority;
they have a certain reverence for the old because it is old. They think
a man is better for being dead, especially if he has been dead a long
time. They think the fathers of their nation were the greatest and best
of all mankind. All these things they implicitly believe because it is
popular and patriotic, and because they were told so when they were very
small, and remember distinctly of hearing mother read it out of a book.
It is hard to over-estimate the influence of early training in the
direction of superstition. You first teach children that a certain book
is true--that it was written by God himself--that to question its truth
is a sin, that to deny it is a crime, and that should they die without
believing that book they will be forever damned without benefit of
clergy. The consequence is, that long before they read that book, they
believe it to be true. When they do read it their minds are wholly
unfitted to investigate its claims. They accept it as a matter of
course.

In this way the reason is overcome, the sweet instincts of humanity
are blotted from the heart, and while reading its infamous pages even
justice throws aside her scales, shrieking for revenge, and charity,
with bloody hands, applauds a deed of murder. In this way we are taught
that the revenge of man is the justice of God; that mercy is not the
same everywhere. In this way the ideas of our race have been subverted.
In this way we have made tyrants, bigots, and inquisitors. In this way
the brain of man has become a kind of palimpsest upon which, and over
the writings of nature, superstition has scrawled her countless lies.
One great trouble is that most teachers are dishonest. They teach as
certainties those things concerning which they entertain doubts. They
do not say, "we _think_ this is so," but "we _know_ this is so." They do
not appeal to the reason of the pupil, but they command his faith. They
keep all doubts to themselves; they do not explain, they assert. All
this is infamous. In this way you may make Christians, but you cannot
make men; you cannot make women. You can make followers, but no leaders;
disciples, but no Christs. You may promise power, honor, and happiness
to all those who will blindly follow, but you cannot keep your promise.

A monarch said to a hermit, "Come with me and I will give you power."

"I have all the power that I know how to use" replied the hermit.

"Come," said the king, "I will give you wealth."

"I have no wants that money can supply," said the hermit.

"I will give you honor," said the monarch.

"Ah, honor cannot be given, it must be earned," was the hermit's answer.

"Come," said the king, making a last appeal, "and I will give you
happiness."

"No," said the man of solitude, "there is no happiness without liberty,
and he who follows cannot be free."

"You shall have liberty too," said the king.

"Then I will stay where I am," said the old man.

And all the king's courtiers thought the hermit a fool.

Now and then somebody examines, and in spite of all keeps his manhood,
and has the courage to follow where his reason leads. Then the pious
get together and repeat wise saws, and exchange knowing nods and most
prophetic winks. The stupidly wise sit owl-like on the dead limbs of the
tree of knowledge, and solemnly hoot. Wealth sneers, and fashion laughs,
and respectability passes by on the other side, and scorn points with
all her skinny fingers, and all the snakes of superstition writhe and
hiss, and slander lends her tongue, and infamy her brand, and perjury
her oath, and the law its power, and bigotry tortures, and the church
kills.

The church hates a thinker precisely for the same reason a robber
dislikes a sheriff, or a thief despises the prosecuting witness. Tyranny
likes courtiers, flatterers, followers, fawners, and superstition wants
believers, disciples, zealots, hypocrites, and subscribers. The church
demands worship--the very thing that man should give to no being, human
or divine. To worship another is to degrade yourself. Worship is awe and
dread and vague fear and blind hope. It is the spirit of worship that
elevates the one and degrades the many; that builds palaces for robbers,
erects monuments to crime, and forges manacles even for its own hands.
The spirit of worship is the spirit of tyranny. The worshiper always
regrets that he is not the worshiped. We should all remember that the
intellect has no knees, and that whatever the attitude of the body may
be, the brave soul is always found erect. Whoever worships, abdicates.
Whoever believes at the command of power, tramples his own individuality
beneath his feet, and voluntarily robs himself of all that renders man
superior to the brute.

The despotism of faith is justified upon the ground that Christian
countries are the grandest and most prosperous of the world. At one time
the same thing could have been truly said in India, in Egypt, in Greece,
in Rome, and in every other country that has, in the history of the
world, swept to empire. This argument proves too much not only, but
the assumption upon which it is based is utterly false. Numberless
circumstances and countless conditions have produced the prosperity
of the Christian world. The truth is, we have advanced in spite of
religious zeal, ignorance, and opposition. The church has won
no victories for the rights of man. Luther labored to reform the
church--Voltaire, to reform men. Over every fortress of tyranny has
waved, and still waves, the banner of the church. Wherever brave blood
has been shed, the sword of the church has been wet. On every chain has
been the sign of the cross. The altar and throne have leaned against and
supported each other.

All that is good in our civilization is the result of commerce, climate,
soil, geographical position, industry, invention, discovery, art, and
science. The church has been the enemy of progress, for the reason
that it has endeavored to prevent man thinking for himself. To prevent
thought is to prevent all advancement except in the direction of faith.

Who can imagine the infinite impudence of a church assuming to think for
the human race? Who can imagine the infinite impudence of a church
that pretends to be the mouthpiece of God, and in his name threatens to
inflict eternal punishment upon those who honestly reject its claims and
scorn its pretensions? By what right does a man, or an organization
of men, or a god, claim to hold a brain in bondage? When a fact can be
demonstrated, force is unnecessary; when it cannot be demonstrated, an
appeal to force is infamous. In the presence of the unknown all have an
equal right to think.

Over the vast plain, called life, we are all travelers, and not one
traveler is perfectly certain that he is going in the right direction.
True it is that no other plain is so well supplied with guide-boards. At
every turn and crossing you will find them, and upon each one is written
the exact direction and distance. One great trouble is, however, that
these boards are all different, and the result is that most travelers
are confused in proportion to the number they read. Thousands of people
are around each of these signs, and each one is doing his best to
convince the traveler that his particular board is the only one upon
which the least reliance can be placed, and that if his road is taken
the reward for so doing will be infinite and eternal, while all the
other roads are said to lead to hell, and all the makers of the other
guide-boards are declared to be heretics, hypocrites and liars. "Well,"
says a traveler, "you may be right in what you say, but allow me at
least to read some of the other directions and examine a little into
their claims. I wish to rely a little upon my own judgment in a matter
of so great importance." "No, sir," shouts the zealot, "that is the
very thing you are not allowed to do. You must go my way without
investigation, or you are as good as damned already." "Well," says the
traveler, "if that is so, I believe I had better go your way." And so
most of them go along, taking the word of those who know as little as
themselves. Now and then comes one who, in spite of all threats, calmly
examines the claims of all, and as calmly rejects them all. These
travelers take roads of their own, and are denounced by all the others,
as infidels and atheists.

Around all of these guide-boards, as far as the eye can reach, the
ground is covered with mountains of human bones, crumbling and
bleaching in the rain and sun. They are the bones of murdered men and
women--fathers, mothers and babes.

In my judgment, every human being should take a road of his own. Every
mind should be true to itself--should think, investigate and conclude
for itself. This is a duty alike incumbent upon pauper and prince. Every
soul should repel dictation and tyranny, no matter from what source they
come--from earth or heaven, from men or gods. Besides, every traveler
upon this vast plain should give to every other traveler his best idea
as to the road that should be taken. Each is entitled to the honest
opinion of all. And there is but one way to get an honest opinion upon
any subject whatever. The person giving the opinion must be free from
fear. The merchant must not fear to lose his custom, the doctor his
practice, nor the preacher his pulpit There can be no advance without
liberty. Suppression of honest inquiry is retrogression, and must end in
intellectual night. The tendency of orthodox religion to-day is toward
mental slavery and barbarism. Not one of the orthodox ministers dare
preach what he thinks if he knows a majority of his congregation think
otherwise. He knows that every member of his church stands guard over
his brain with a creed, like a club, in his hand. He knows that he
is not expected to search after the truth, but that he is employed to
defend the creed. Every pulpit is a pillory, in which stands a hired
culprit, defending the justice of his own imprisonment.

Is it desirable that all should be exactly alike in their religious
convictions? Is any such thing possible? Do we not know that there are
no two persons alike in the whole world? No two, trees, no two leaves,
no two anythings that are alike? Infinite diversity is the law. Religion
tries to force all minds into one mould. Knowing that all cannot
believe, the church endeavors to make all say they believe. She longs
for the unity of hypocrisy, and detests the splendid diversity of
individuality and freedom.

Nearly all people stand in great horror of annihilation, and yet to
give up your individuality is to annihilate yourself. Mental slavery is
mental death, and every man who has given up his intellectual freedom
is the living coffin of his dead soul. In this sense, every church is a
cemetery and every creed an epitaph.

We should all remember that to be like other people is to be unlike
ourselves, and that nothing can be more detestable in character than
servile imitation. The great trouble with imitation is, that we are apt
to ape those who are in reality far below us. After all, the poorest
bargain that a human being can make, is to give his individuality for
what is called respectability.

There is no saying more degrading than this: "It is better to be the
tail of a lion than the head of a dog." It is a responsibility to think
and act for yourself. Most people hate responsibility; therefore they
join something and become the tail of some lion. They say, "My party
can act for me--my church can do my thinking. It is enough for me to
pay taxes and obey the lion to which I belong, without troubling myself
a

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