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16 page printout.
Reproducible Electronic Publishing can defeat censorship.
**** ****
This file, its printout, or copies of either
are to be copied and given away, but NOT sold.
Bank of Wisdom, Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
The Works of ROBERT G. INGERSOLL
**** ****
HOW TO REFORM MANKIND.
1896
I.
"There is no darkness but ignorance." Every human being is a
necessary product of conditions, and every one is born with defects
for which he cannot be held responsible. Nature seems to care
nothing for the individual, nothing for the species.
Life pursuing life and in its turn pursued by death, presses
to the snow line of the possible, and every form of life, of
instinct, thought and action is fixed and determined by conditions,
by countless antecedent and co-existing facts. The present is the
child, and the necessary child, of all the past, and the mother of
all the future.
Every human being longs to be happy, to satisfy the wants of
the body with food, with roof and raiment, and to feed the hunger
of the mind, according to his capacity, with love, wisdom,
philosophy, art and song.
The wants of the savage are few; but with civilization the
wants of the body increase, the intellectual horizon widens and the
brain demands more and more.
The savage feels, but scarcely thinks. The passion of the
savage is uninfluenced by his thought, while the thought of the
philosopher is uninfluenced by passion. Children have wants and
passions before they are capable of reasoning. So, in the infancy
of the race, wants and passions dominate.
The savage was controlled by appearances, by impressions; he
was mentally weak, mentally indolent, and his mind pursued the path
of least resistance. Things were to him as they appeared to be. He
was a natural believer in the supernatural, and, finding himself
beset by dangers and evils, he sought in many ways the aid of
unseen powers. His children followed his example, and for many
ages, in many lands, millions and millions of human beings, many of
them the kindest and the best, asked for supernatural help.
Countless altars and temples have been built, and the supernatural
has been worshiped with sacrifice and song, with self-denial,
ceremony, thankfulness and prayer.
Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
1
HOW TO REFORM MANKIND.
During all these ages, the brain of man was being slowly and
painfully developed. Gradually mind came to the assistance of
muscle, and thought became the friend of labor. Man has advanced
just in the proportion that he has mingled thought with his work,
just in the proportion that he has succeeded in getting his head
and hands into partnership. All this was the result of experience.
Nature, generous and heartless, extravagant and miserly as she
is, is our mother and our only teacher, and she is also the
deceiver of men. Above her we cannot rise, below her we cannot
fall. In her we find the seed and soil of all that is good, of all
that is evil. Nature originates, nourishes, preserves and destroys.
Good deeds bear fruit, and in the fruit are seeds that in
their turn bear fruit and seeds. Great thoughts are never lost, and
words of kindness do not perish from the earth.
Every brain is a field where nature sows the seeds of thought,
and the crop depends upon the soil.
Every flower that gives its fragrance to the wandering air
leaves its influence on the soul of man. The wheel and swoop of the
winged creatures of the air suggest the flowing lines of subtle
art. The roar and murmur of the restless sea, the cataract's solemn
chant, the thunder's voice, the happy babble of the brook, the
whispering leaves, the thrilling notes of mating birds, the sighing
winds, taught man to pour his heart in song and gave a voice to
grief and hope, to love and death.
In all that is, in mountain range and billowed plain, in
winding stream and desert sand, in cloud and star, in snow and
rain, in calm and storm, in night and day, in woods and vales, in
all the colors of divided light, in all there is of growth and
life, decay and death, in all that flies and floats and swims, in
all that moves, in all the forms and qualities of things, man found
the seeds and symbols of his thoughts; and all that man has wrought
becomes a part of nature's self, forming the lives of those to be.
The marbles of the Greeks, like strains of music, suggest the
perfect, and teach the melody of life. The great poems, paintings,
inventions, theories and philosophies, enlarge and mould the mind
of man. All that is natural. All is naturally produced. Beyond the
horizon of the natural man cannot go.
yet, for many ages, man in all directions has relied upon, and
sincerely believed in, the existence of the supernatural. He did
not believe in the uniformity of nature; he had no conception of
cause and effect, of the indestructibility of force.
In medicine he believed in charms, magic, amulets, and
incantations. It never occurred to the savage that diseases were
natural.
In chemistry he sought for the elixir of life, for the
philosopher's stone, and for some way of changing the baser metals
into gold.
Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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HOW TO REFORM MANKIND.
In mechanics he searched for perpetual motion, believing that
he, by some curious combinations of levers, could produce, could
create a force.
In government, he found the source of authority in the will of
the supernatural.
For many centuries his only conception of morality was the
idea of obedience, not to facts as they exist in nature, but to the
supposed command of some being superior to nature. During all these
years religion consisted in the praise and worship of the invisible
and infinite, of some vast and incomprehensible power, that is to
say, of the supernatural.
By experience, by experiment, possibly by accident, man found
that some diseases could be cured by natural means; that he could
be relieved in many instances of pain by certain kinds of leaves or
bark.
This was the beginning. Gradually his confidence increased in
the direction of the natural, and began to decrease in charms and
amulets, The war was waged for many centuries, but the natural
gained the victory. Now we know that all diseases are naturally
produced, and that all remedies, all curatives, act in accordance
with the facts in nature. Now we know that charms, magic, amulets
and incantations are just as useless in the practice of medicine as
they would be in solving a problem in mathematics. We now know that
there are no supernatural remedies.
In chemistry the war was long and bitter; but we now no longer
seek for the elixir of life, and no one is trying to find the
philosopher's stone. We are satisfied that there is nothing
supernatural in all the realm of chemistry. We know that substances
are always true to their natures; we know that just so many atoms
of one substance will unite with just so many of another. The
miraculous has departed from chemistry; in that science there is no
magic, no caprice and no possible use for the supernatural. We are
satisfied that there can be no change, that we can absolutely rely
on the uniformity of nature; that the attraction of gravitation
will always remain the same; and we feel that we know this as
certainly as we know that the relation between the diameter and
circumference of a circle can never change.
We now know that in mechanics the natural is supreme. We know
that man can by no possibility create a force; that by no
possibility can he destroy a force. No mechanic dreams of depending
upon or asking for any supernatural aid. He knows that he works in
accordance with certain facts that no power can change.
So we in the United States believe that the authority to
govern, the authority to make and execute laws, comes from the
consent of the governed and not from any supernatural source. We do
not believe that the king occupied his throne because of the will
of the supernatural. Neither do we believe that others are subjects
or serfs or slaves by reason of any supernatural will.
Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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HOW TO REFORM MANKIND.
So, our ideas of morality have changed, and millions now
believe that whatever produces happiness and well-being is in the
highest sense moral. Unreasoning obedience is not the foundation or
the essence of morality. That is the result of mental slavery. To
act in accordance with obligation perceived is to be free and
noble. To simply obey is to practice what might be called a slave
virtue; but real morality is the flower and fruit of liberty and
wisdom.
There are very many who have reached the conclusion that the
supernatural has nothing to do with real religion. Religion does
not consist in believing without evidence or against evidence. It
does not consist in worshiping the unknown or in trying to do
something for the Infinite. Ceremonies, prayers and inspired books,
miracles, special providence, and divine interference all belong to
the supernatural and form no part of real religion.
Every science rests on the natural, on demonstrated facts. So,
morality and religion must find their foundations in the necessary
nature of things.
II
Ignorance being darkness, what we need is intellectual light.
The most important things to teach, as the basis of all progress,
are that the universe is natural; that man must be the providence
of man; that, by the development of the brain, we can avoid some of
the dangers, some of the evils, overcome some of the obstructions,
and take advantage of some of the facts and forces of nature; that,
by invention and industry, we can supply, to a reasonable degree,
the wants of the body, and by thought, study and effort, we can in
part satisfy the hunger of the mind.
Man should cease to expect any aid from any supernatural
source. By this time he should be satisfied that worship has not
created wealth, and that prosperity is not the child of prayer. He
should know that the supernatural has not succored the oppressed,
clothed the naked, fed the hungry, shielded the innocent, stayed
the pestilence, or freed the slave.
Being satisfied that the supernatural does not exist, man
should turn his entire attention to the affairs of this world, to
the facts in nature.
And, first of all, he should avoid waste -- waste of energy,
waste of wealth. Every good man, every good woman, should try to do
away with war, to stop the appeal to savage force. Man in a savage
state relies upon his strength, and decides for himself what is
right and what is wrong. Civilized men do not settle their
differences by a resort to arms. They submit the quarrel to
arbitrators and courts. This is the great difference between the
savage and the civilized. Nations, however, sustain the relations
of savages to each other. There is no way of settling their
disputes. Each nation decides for itself, and each nation endeavors
to carry its decision into effect. This produces war. Thousands of
men at this moment are trying to invent more deadly weapons to
destroy their fellow-men. For eighteen hundred years peace has been
Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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HOW TO REFORM MANKIND.
preached, and yet the Christian nations are the most warlike of the
world. There are in Europe to-day between eleven and twelve
millions of soldiers, ready to take the field, and the frontiers of
every civilized nation are protected by breastwork and fort. The
sea is covered with steel clad ships, filled with missiles of
death. The civilized world has impoverished itself and the debt of
Christendom, mostly for war, is now nearly thirty thousand million
dollars. The interest on this vast sum has to be paid; it has to be
paid by labor, much of it by the poor, by those who are compelled
to deny themselves almost the necessities of life. This debt is
growing year by year. There must come a change, or Christendom will
become bankrupt.
The interest on this debt amounts at least to nine hundred
million dollars a year; and the cost of supporting armies and
navies, of repairing ships, of manufacturing new engines of death,
probably amounts, including the interest on the debt, to at least
six million dollars a day. Allowing ten hours for a day, that is
for a working day, the waste of war is at least six hundred
thousand dollars an hour, that is to say, ten thousand dollars a
minute.
Think of all this being paid for the purpose of killing and
preparing to kill our fellow-men. Think of the good that could be
done with this vast sum of money; the schools that could be built,
the wants that could be supplied. Think of the homes it would
build, the children it would clothe.
If we wish to do away with war, we must provide for the
settlement of national differences by an international court. This
court should be in perpetual session; its members should be
selected by the various governments to be affected by its
decisions, and, at the command and disposal of this court, the rest
of Christendom being disarmed, there should be a military force
sufficient to carry its judgments into effect. There should be no
other excuse, no other business for an army or a navy in the
civilized world.
No man has imagination enough to paint the agonies, the honors
and cruelties of war. Think of sending shot and shell crashing
through the bodies of men! Think of the widows and orphans! Think
of the maimed, the mutilated, the mangled!
III
ANOTHER WASTE.
Let us be perfectly candid with each other. We are seeking the
truth, trying to find what ought to be done to increase the well-
being of man. I must give you my honest thought. You have the right
to demand it, and I must maintain the integrity of my soul.
There is another direction in which the wealth and energies of
man are wasted. From the beginning of history until now man has
been seeking the aid of the supernatural. For many centuries the
wealth of the world was used to propitiate the unseen powers. In
our own country, the property dedicated to this purpose is worth at
Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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HOW TO REFORM MANKIND.
least one thousand million dollars. The interest on this sum is
fifty million dollars a year, and the cost of employing persons,
whose business it is to seek the aid of the supernatural and to
maintain the property, is certainly as much more. So that the cost
in our country is about two million dollars a week, and, counting
ten hours as a working day, this amounts to about five hundred
dollars a minute.
For this vast amount of money the returns are remarkably
small. The good accomplished does not appear to he great. There is
no great diminution in crime. The decrease of immorality and
poverty is hardly perceptible. In spite, however, of the apparent
failure here, a vast sum of money is expended every year to carry
our ideas of the supernatural to other races. Our churches, for the
most part, are closed during the week, being used only a part of
one day in seven. No one wishes to destroy churches or church
organizations. The only desire is that they shall accomplish
substantial good for the world. In many of our small towns -- towns
of three or four thousand people -- will be found four or five
churches, sometimes more. These churches are founded upon
immaterial differences; a difference as to the mode of baptism; a
difference as to who shall be entitled to partake of the Lord's
supper; a difference of ceremony; of government; a difference about
fore-ordination; a difference about fate and free will. And it must
be admitted that all the arguments on all sides of these
differences have been presented countless millions of times. Upon
these subjects nothing new is produced or anticipated, and yet the
discussion is maintained by the repetition of the old arguments.
Now, it seems to me that it would be far better for the people
of a town, having a population of four or five thousand, to have
one church. and the edifice should be of use, not only on Sunday,
but on every day of the week. In this building should be the
library of the town. It should be the clubhouse of the people,
where they could find the principal newspapers and periodicals of
the world. Its auditorium should be like a theater. Plays should be
presented by home talent; an orchestra formed, music cultivated.
The people should meet there at any time they desire. The women
could carry their knitting and sewing; and connected with it should
be rooms for the playing of games, billiards, cards, and chess.
Everything should be made as agreeable as possible. The citizens
should take pride in this building. They should adorn its niches
with statues and its walls with pictures. It should be the
intellectual center. They could employ a gentleman of ability,
possibly of genius, to address them on Sundays, on subjects that
would be of real interest, of real importance. They could say to
this minister:
"We are engaged in business during the week; while we are
working at our trades and professions, we want you to study, and on
Sunday tell us what you have found out."
Let such a minister take for a series of sermons the history,
the philosophy, the art and the genius of the Greeks. Let him tell
of the wondrous metaphysics, myths and religions of India and
Egypt. Let him make his congregation conversant with the
philosophies of the world, with the great thinkers, the great
Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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HOW TO REFORM MANKIND.
poets, the great artists, the great actors, the great orators, the
great inventors, the captains of industry, the soldiers of
progress. Let them have a Sunday school in which the children shall
be made acquainted with the facts of nature; with botany,
entomology, something of geology and astronomy.
Let them be made familiar with the greatest of poems, the
finest paragraphs of literature, with stories of the heroic, the
self-denying and generous.
Now, it seems to me that such a congregation in a few years
would become the most intelligent people in the United States.
The truth is that people are tired of the old theories. They
have lost confidence in the miraculous, in the supernatural, and
they have ceased to take interest in "facts" that they do not quite
believe.
"There is no darkness but ignorance."
There is no light but intelligence.
As often as we can exchange a mistake for a fact, a falsehood
for a truth, we advance. We add to the intellectual wealth of the
world, and in this way, and in this way alone, can be laid the
foundation for the future prosperity and civilization of the race.
I blame no one; I call in question the motives of no person;
I admit that the world has acted as it must.
But hope for the future depends upon the intelligence of the
present. Man must husband his resources. He must not waste his
energies in endeavoring to accomplish the impossible.
He must take advantage of the forces of nature. He must depend
on education, on what he can ascertain by the use of his senses, by
observation, by experiment and reason. He must break the chains of
prejudice and custom. He must be free to express his thoughts on
all questions. He must find the conditions of happiness and become
wise enough to live in accordance with them.
IV
HOW CAN WE LESSEN CRIME?
In spite of all that has been done for the reformation of the
world, in spite of all the inventions, in spite of all the forces
of nature that are now the tireless slaves of man, in spite of all
improvements in agriculture, in mechanics, in every department of
human labor, the world is still cursed with poverty and with crime.
The prisons are full, the courts are crowded, the officers of
the law are busy, and there seems to be no material decrease in
crime.
For many thousands of years man has endeavored to reform his
fellow-men by imprisonment, torture, mutilation and death, and yet
the history of the world shows that there has been and is no
Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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HOW TO REFORM MANKIND.
reforming power in punishment. It is impossible to make the penalty
great enough, horrible enough to lessen crime.
Only a few years ago, in civilized countries, larceny and many
offenses even below larceny, were punished by death; and yet the
number of thieves and criminals of all grades increased. Traitors
were hanged and quartered or drawn into fragments by horses; and
yet treason flourished.
Most of these frightful laws have been repealed, and the
repeal certainly did not increase crime. In our own country we rely
upon the gallows, the penitentiary and the jail. When a murder is
committed, the man is hanged, shocked to death by electricity, or
lynched, and in a few minutes a new murderer is ready to suffer a
like fate. Men steal; they are sent to the penitentiary for a
certain number of years, treated like wild beasts, frequently
tortured. At the end of the term they are discharged, having only
enough money to return to the place from which they were sent. They
are thrown upon the world without means -- without friends -- they
are convicts. They are shunned, suspected and despised. If they
obtain a place, they are discharged as soon as it is found that
they were in prison. They do the best they can to retain the
respect of their fellow-men by denying their imprisonment and their
identity. In a little while, unable to gain a living by honest
means, they resort to crime, they again appear in court, and again
are taken within the dungeon walls. No reformation, no chance to
reform, nothing to give them bread while making new friends.
All this is infamous. Men should not be sent to the
penitentiary as a punishment, because we must remember that men do
as they must. Nature does not frequently produce the perfect. In
the human race there is a large percentage of failures. Under
certain conditions, with certain appetites and passions and with a
certain quality, quantity and shape of brain, men will become
thieves, forgers and counterfeiters. The question is whether
reformation is possible, whether a change can be produced in the
person by producing a change in the conditions. The criminal is
dangerous and society has the right to protect itself. The criminal
should be confined, and, if possible, should be reformed. A
penitentiary should be a school; the convicts should be educated.
So, prisoners should work, and they should be paid a reasonable sum
for their labor. The best men should have charge of prisons. They
should be philanthropists and philosophers; they should know
something of human nature. The prisoner, having been taught, we
will say, for five years -- taught the underlying principles of
conduct, of the naturalness and harmony of virtue, of the discord
of crime; having been convinced that society has no hatred, that
nobody wishes to punish, to degrade, or to rob him; and being at
the time of his discharge paid a reasonable price for his labor;
being allowed by law to change his name, so that his identity will
not be preserved, he could go out of the prison a friend of the
government. He would have the feeling that he had been made a
better man; that he had been treated with justice, with mercy, and
the money he carried with him would be a breastwork behind which he
could defy temptation, a breastwork that would support and take
care of him until he could find some means by which to support
himself. And this man, instead of making crime a business, would
become a good, honorable and useful citizen.
Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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HOW TO REFORM MANKIND.
As it is now, there is but little reform. The same faces
appear again and again at the bar; the same men hear again and
again the verdict of guilty and the sentence of the court, and the
same men return again and again to the prison cell. Murderers,
those belonging to the dangerous classes, those who are so formed
by nature that they rash to the crimes of desperation, should be
imprisoned for life; or they should be put upon some island, some
place where they can be guarded, where it may be that by proper
effort they could support themselves; the men on one island, the
women on another. And to these islands should be sent professional
criminals, those who have deliberately adopted a life of crime for
the purpose of supporting themselves, the women upon one island,
the men upon another. Such people should not populate the earth.
Neither the diseases nor the deformities of the mind or body
should be perpetuated. Life at the fountain should not be polluted.
V
HOMES FOR ALL.
The home is the unit of the nation. The more homes the broader
the foundation of the nation and the more secure.
Everything that is possible should be done to keep this from
being a nation of tenants. The men who cultivate the earth should
own it. Something has already been done in our country in that
direction, and probably in every State there is a homestead
exemption. This exemption has thus for done no harm to the creditor
class. When we imprisoned people for debt, debts were as insecure,
to say the least, as now. By the homestead laws, a home of a
certain value or of a certain extent, is exempt from forced levy or
sale; and these laws have done great good. Undoubtedly they have
trebled the homes of the nation.
I wish to go a step further. I want, if possible, to get the
people out of the tenements, out of the gutters of degradation, to
homes where there can be privacy, where these people can feel that
they are in partnership with nature; that they have an interest in
good government. With the means we now have of transportation,
there is no necessity for poor people being huddled in festering
masses in the vile, filthy and loathsome parts of cities, where
poverty breeds rags, and the rags breed diseases. I would exempt a
homestead of a reasonable value, say of the value of two or three
thousand dollars, not only from sale under execution, but from sale
for taxes of every description. These homes should be absolutely
exempt; they should belong to the family, so that every mother
should feel that the roof above her head was hers; that her house
was her castle, and that in its possession she could not be
disturbed, even by the nation. Under certain conditions I would
allow the sale of this homestead, and exempt the proceeds of the
sale for a certain time, during which they might be invested in
another home; and all this could be done to make a nation of
householders, a nation of land-owners, a nation of home-builders.
I would invoke the same power to preserve these homes, and to
acquire these homes, that I would invoke for acquiring lands for
building railways. Every State should fix the amount of land that
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HOW TO REFORM MANKIND.
could be owned by an individual, not liable to be taken from him
for the purpose of giving a home to another, and when any man owned
more acres than the law allowed, and another should ask to purchase
them, and he should refuse, I would have the law so that the person
wishing to purchase could file his petition in court. The court
would appoint commissioners, or a jury would be called, to
determine the value of the land the petitioner wished for a home,
and, upon the amount being paid, found by such commission, or jury,
the land should vest absolutely in the petitioner.
This right of eminent domain should be used not only for the
benefit of the person wishing a home. but for the benefit of all
the people. Nothing is more important to America than that the
babes of America should be born around the firesides of homes.
There is another question in which I take great interest, and
it ought, in my judgement, to be answered by the intelligence and
kindness of our century.
We all know that for many, many ages, men have been slaves,
and we all know that during all these years, women have, to some
extent been the slaves of slaves. It is of the utmost importance to
the human race that women, that mothers, should be free. Without
doubt, the contract of marriage is the most important and the most
sacred that human beings can make. Marriage is the most important
of all institutions. Of course, the ceremony of marriage is not the
real marriage. It is only evidence of the mutual flames that burn
within. There can be no real marriage without mutual love. So I
believe in the ceremony of marriage, that it should be public; that
records should be kept. Besides, the ceremony says to all the world
that those who marry are in love with each other.
Then arises the question of divorce. Millions of people
imagine that the married are joined together by some supernatural
power, and that they should remain together, or at least married.
during life. If all who have been married were joined together by
the supernatural, we must admit that the supernatural is not
infinitely wise.
After all, marriage is a contract, and the parties to the
contract are bound to keep its provisions; and neither should be
released from such a contract unless, in some way, the interests of
society are involved. I would have the law so that any husband
could obtain a divorce when the wife had persistently and
flagrantly violated the contract; such divorce to be granted on
equitable terms. I would give the wife a divorce if she requested
it, if she wanted it.
And I would do this, not only for her sake, but for the sake
of the community, of the nation. All children should be children of
love. All that are born should be sincerely welcomed. The children
of mothers who dislike, or hate, or loathe the fathers, will fill
the world with insanity and crime. No woman should by law, or by
public opinion, be forced to live with a man whom she abhors. There
is no danger of demoralizing the world through divorce. Neither is
there any danger of destroying in the human heart that divine thing
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HOW TO REFORM MANKIND.
called love. As long as the human race exists, men and women will
love each other, and just so long there will be true and perfect
marriage. Slavery is not the soil or rain of virtue.
I make a difference between granting divorce to a man and to
a woman, and for this reason: A woman dowers her husband with her
youth and beauty. He should not be allowed to desert her because
she has grown wrinkled and old. Her capital is gone; her prospects
in life lessened; while, on the contrary, he may be far better able
to succeed than when he married her. As a rule, the man can take
care of himself, and as a rule, the woman needs help. So, I would
not allow him to cast her off unless she had flagrantly violated
the contract. But, for the sake of the community, and especially
for the sake of the babes, I would give her a divorce for the
asking.
There will never be a generation of great men until there has
been a generation of free women -- of free mothers.
The tenderest word in our language is maternity. In this word
is the divine mingling of ecstasy and agony -- of love and self-
sacrifice. This word is holy!
VI
THE LABOR QUESTION.
There has been for many years ceaseless discussion upon what
is called the labor question; the conflict between the workingman
and the capitalist. Many ways have been devised, some experiments
have been tried for the purpose of solving this question. Profit-
sharing would not work, because it is impossible to share profits
with those who are incapable of sharing losses. Communities have
been formed, the object being to pay the expenses and share the
profits among all the persons belonging to the society. For the
most part these have failed.
Others have advocated arbitration. And, while it may be that
the employers could be bound by the decision of the arbitrators,
there has been no way discovered by which the employees could be
held by such decision. In other words, the question has not been
solved.
For my own part, I see no final and satisfactory solution
except through the civilization of employers and employed. The
question is so complicated, the ramifications are so countless,
that a solution by law, or by force, seems at least improbable.
Employers are supposed to pay according to their profits. They may
or may not. Profits may be destroyed by competition. The employer
is at the mercy of other employers, and as much so as his employees
are at his mercy. The employers cannot govern prices; they cannot
fix demand; they cannot control supply; and at present, in the
world of trade, the laws of supply and demand, except when
interfered with by conspiracy, are in absolute control.
Will the time arrive, and can it arrive, except by developing
the brain, except by the aid of intellectual light, when the
purchaser will wish to give what a thing is worth, when the
Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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HOW TO REFORM MANKIND.
employer will be satisfied with a reasonable profit, when the
employer will be anxious to give the real value for raw material;
when he will be really anxious to pay the laborer the full value of
his labor? Will the employer ever become civilized enough to know
that the law of supply and demand should not absolutely apply in
the labor market of the world? Will he ever become civilized enough
not to take advantage of the necessities of the poor, of the hunger
and rags and want of poverty? Will he ever become civilized enough
to say: "I will pay the man who labors for me enough to give him a
reasonable support, enough for him to assist in taking care of wife
and children, enough for him to do this, and lay aside something to
feed and clothe him when old age comes; to lay aside something,
enough to give him house and hearth during the December of his
life, so that he can warm his worn and shriveled hands at the fire
of home"?
Of course, capital can do nothing without the assistance of
labor. All there is of value in the world is the product of labor.
The laboring man pays all the expenses. No matter whether taxes are
laid on luxuries or on the necessaries of life, labor pays every
cent.
So we must remember that, day by day, labor is becoming
intelligent. So, I believe the employer is gradually becoming
civilized, gradually becoming kinder; and many men who have made
large fortunes from the labor of their fellows have given of their
millions to what they regarded as objects of charity, or for the
interests of education. This is a kind of penance, because the men
that have made this money from the brain and muscle of their
fellow-men have ever felt that it was not quite their own. Many of
these employers have sought to balance their accounts by leaving
something for universities, for the establishment of libraries,
drinking fountains, or to build monuments to departed greatness. It
would have been, I think, far better had they used this money to
better the condition of the men who really earned it.
So, I think that when we become civilized, great corporations
will make provision for men who have given their lives to their
service. I think the great railroads should pay pensions to their
worn out employees. They should take care of them in old age. They
should not maim and wear out their servants and then discharge
them, and allow them to be supported in poorhouses. These great
companies should take care of the men they maim; they should look
out for the ones whose lives they have used and whose labor has
been the foundation of their prosperity. Upon this question, public
sentiment should be aroused to such a degree that these
corporations would be ashamed to use a human life and then throw
away the broken old man as they would cast aside a rotten tie.
It may be that the mechanics, the workingmen, will finally
become intelligent enough to really unite, to act in absolute
concert. Could this be accomplished, then a reasonable rate of
compensation could be fixed and enforced. Now such efforts are
local, and the result up to this time has been failure. But, if all
could unite, they could obtain what is reasonable, what is just,
and they would have the sympathy of a very large majority of their
fellow-men, provided they were reasonable.
Bank of Wisdom
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HOW TO REFORM MANKIND.
But, before they can act in this way, they must become really
intelligent, intelligent enough to know what is reasonable and
honest enough to ask for no more.
So much has already been accomplished for the workingman that
I have hope, and great hope, of the future. The hours of labor have
been shortened, and materially shortened, in many countries. There
was a time when men worked fifteen and sixteen hours a day. Now,
generally, a day's work is not longer than ten hours, and the
tendency is to still further decrease the hours.
By comparing long periods of time, we more clearly perceive
the advance that has been made. In 1860, the average amount earned
by the laboring men, workmen, mechanics, per year, was about two
hundred and eighty-five dollars. It is now about five hundred
dollars, and a dollar to-day will purchase more of the necessaries
of life, more food, clothing and fuel, than it would in 1860. These
facts are full of hope for the future.
All our sympathies should be with the men who work, who toil;
for the women who labor for themselves and children; because we
know that labor is the foundation of all, and that those who labor
are the Caryatides that support the structure and glittering dome
of civilization and progress.
VII
EDUCATE THE CHILDREN.
Every child should be taught to be self-supporting, and every
one should be taught to avoid being a burden on others, as they
would shun death. Every child should be taught that the useful are
the honorable, and that they who live on the labor of others are
the enemies of society. Every child should be taught that useful
work is worship and that intelligent labor is the highest form of
prayer.
Children should be taught to think, to investigate, to rely
upon the light of reason, of observation and experience; should be
taught to use all their senses; and they should be taught only that
which in some sense is really useful. They should be taught the use
of tools, to use their hands, to embody their thoughts in the
construction of things. Their lives should not be wasted in the
acquisition of the useless, or of the almost useless. Years should
not be devoted to the acquisition of dead languages, or to the
study of history which, for the most part, is a detailed account of
things that never occurred. It is useless to fill the mind with
dates of great battles, with the births and deaths of kings. They
should be taught the philosophy of history, the growth of nations,
of philosophies, theories, and, above all, of the sciences.
So, they should be taught the importance, not only of
financial, but of mental honesty; to be absolutely sincere; to
utter their real thoughts, and to give their actual opinions; and,
if parents want honest children, they should be honest themselves.
It may be that hypocrites transmit their failing to their
offspring. Men and women who pretend to agree with the majority,
Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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HOW TO REFORM MANKIND.
who think one way and talk another, can hardly expect their
children to be absolutely sincere.
Nothing should be taught in any school that the teacher does
not know. Beliefs, superstitions, theories, should not be treated
like demonstrated facts. The child should be taught to investigate,
not to believe. Too much doubt is better than too much credulity.
So, children should be taught that it is their duty to think for
themselves, to understand, and, if possible, to know.
Real education is the hope of the future. The development of
the brain, the civilization of the heart, will drive want and crime
from the world. The schoolhouse is the real cathedral, and science
the only possible savior of the human race. Education, real
education, is the friend of honesty, of morality, of temperance.
We cannot rely upon legislative enactments to make people wise
and good; neither can we expect to make human beings manly and
womanly by keeping them out of temptation. Temptations are as thick
as the leaves of the forest, and no one can be out of the reach of
temptation unless he is dead. The great thing is to make people
intelligent enough and strong enough, not to keep away from
temptation, but to resist it. All the forces of civilization are in
favor of morality and temperance. Little can be accomplished by
law, because law, for the most part, about such things, is a
destruction of personal liberty. Liberty cannot be sacrificed for
the sake of temperance, for the sake of morality, or for the sake
of anything. It is of more value than everything else. Yet some
people would destroy the sun to prevent the growth of weeds.
Liberty sustains the same relation to all the virtues that the sun
does to life. The world had better go back to barbarism, to the
dens, the caves and lairs of savagery; better lose all art, all
inventions, than to lose liberty. Liberty is the breath of
progress; it is the seed and soil, the heat and rain of love and
joy.
So, all should be taught that the highest ambition is to be
happy, and to add to the well-being of others; that place and power
are not necessary to success; that the desire to acquire great
wealth is a kind of insanity. They should be taught that it is a
waste of energy, a waste of thought, a waste of life, to acquire
what you do not need and what you do not really use for the benefit
of yourself or others.
Neither mendicants nor millionaires are the happiest of
mankind. The man at the bottom of the ladder hopes to rise; the man
at the top fears to fall. The one asks; the other refuses; and, by
frequent refusal, the heart becomes hard enough and the hand greedy
enough to clutch and hold.
Few men have intelligence enough, real greatness enough, to
own a great fortune. As a rule, the fortune owns them. Their
fortune is their master, for whom they work and toil like slaves.
The man who has a good business and who can make a reasonable
living and lay aside something for the future, who can educate his
children and can leave enough to keep the wolf of want from the
door of those he loves, ought to be the happiest of men.
Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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HOW TO REFORM MANKIND.
Now, society bows and kneels at the feet of wealth. Wealth
gives power. Wealth commands flattery and adulation. And so,
millions of men give all their energies, as well as their very
souls, for the acquisition of gold. And this will continue as long
as society is ignorant enough and hypocritical enough to hold in
high esteem the man of wealth without the slightest regard to the
character of the man.
In judging of the rich, two things should he considered: How
did they get it, and what are they doing with it? Was it honestly
acquired? Is it being used for the benefit of mankind? When people
become really intelligent, when the brain is really developed, no
human being will give his life to the acquisition of what he does
not need or what he cannot intelligently use.
The time will come when the truly intelligent man cannot be
happy, cannot be satisfied, when millions of his fellow-men are
hungry and naked. The time will come when in every heart will be
the perfume of pity's sacred flower. The time will come when the
world will be anxious to ascertain the truth, to find out the
conditions of happiness, and to live in accordance with such
conditions; and the time will come when in the brain of every human
being will be the climate of intellectual hospitality.
Man will be civilized when the passions are dominated by the
intellect, when reason occupies the throne, and when the hot blood
of passion no longer rises in successful revolt.
To civilize the world, to hasten the coming of the Golden Dawn
of the Perfect Day, we must educate the children, we must commence
at the cradle, at the lap of the loving mother.
VIII
WE MUST WORK AND WAIT.
The reforms that I have mentioned cannot be accomplished in a
day, possibly not for many centuries; and in the meantime there is
much crime, much poverty, much want, and consequently something
must be done now.
Let each human being, within the limits of the possible be
self-supporting; let every one take intelligent thought for the
morrow; and if a human being supports himself and acquires a
surplus, let him use a part of that surplus for the unfortunate;
and let each one to the extent of his ability help his fellow-men.
Let him do what he can in the circle of his own acquaintance to
rescue the fallen, to help those who are trying to help themselves,
to give work to the idle. Let him distribute kind words, words of
wisdom, of cheerfulness and hope. In other words, let every human
being do all the good he can, and let him bind up the wounds of his
fellow-creatures, and at the same time put forth every effort, to
hasten the coming of a better day.
This, in my judgment, is real religion. To do all the good you
can is to be a saint in the highest and in the noblest sense. To do
all the good you can; this is to be really and truly spiritual. To
Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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HOW TO REFORM MANKIND.
relieve suffering, to put the star of hope in the midnight of
despair, this is true holiness. This is the religion of science.
The old creeds are too narrow, they are not for the world in which
we live. The old dogmas lack breadth and tenderness; they are too
cruel, too merciless, too savage. We are growing grander and
nobler.
The firmament inlaid with suns is the dome of the real
cathedral. The interpreters of nature are the true and only
priests. In the great creed are all the truths that lips have
uttered, and in the real litany will be found all the ecstasies and
aspirations of the soul, all dreams of joy, all hopes for nobler,
fuller life. The real church, the real edifice, is adorned and
glorified with all that Art has done. In the real choir is all the
thrilling music of the world, and in the star-lit aisles have been,
and are, the grandest souls of every land and clime.
"There is no darkness but ignorance."
Let us flood the world with intellectual light.
**** ****
Reproducible Electronic Publishing can defeat censorship.
The Bank of Wisdom is a collection of the most thoughtful,
scholarly and factual books. These computer books are reprints of
suppressed books and will cover American and world history; the
Biographies and writings of famous persons, and especially of our
nations Founding Fathers. They will include philosophy and
religion. all these subjects, and more, will be made available to
the public in electronic form, easily copied and distributed, so
that America can again become what its Founders intended --
The Free Market-Place of Ideas.
The Bank of Wisdom is always looking for more of these old,
hidden, suppressed and forgotten books that contain needed facts
and information for today. If you have such books please contact
us, we need to give them back to America.
**** ****
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