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911 lines
45 KiB
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14 page printout
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Reproducible Electronic Publishing can defeat censorship.
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Contents of this file page
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"MODERN THINKERS." (PREFACE) 1
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THE REV. DR. NEWTON'S SERMON ON A NEW RELIGION. 11
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**** ****
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This file, its printout, or copies of either
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are to be copied and given away, but NOT sold.
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Bank of Wisdom, Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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The Works of ROBERT G. INGERSOLL
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**** ****
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PREFACE TO
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PROF. VAN BUREN DENSLOW'S
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"MODERN THINKERS."
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IF others who read this book get as much information as I did
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from the advance sheets, they will feel repaid a hundred times. It
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is perfectly delightful to take advantage of the conscientious
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labors of those who go through and through volume after volume,
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divide with infinite patience the gold from the dross, and present
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us with the pure and shining coin. Such men may be likened to bees
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who save us numberless journeys by giving us the fruit of their
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own.
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While this book will greatly add to the information of all who
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read it. it may not increase the happiness of some to find that
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Swedenborg was really insane. But when they remember that he was
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raised by a bishop, and disappointed in love, they will cease to
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wonder at his mental condition. Certainly an admixture of theology
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and "disprized love" is often sufficient to compel reason to
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abdicate the throne of the mightiest soul.
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The trouble with Swedenborg was that he changed realities into
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dreams, and then out of the dreams made facts upon which he built,
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and with which he constructed his system.
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He regarded all realities as shadows cast by ideas. To him the
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material was the unreal, and things were definitions of the ideas
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of God. He seemed to think that he had made a discovery when he
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found that ideas were back of words, and that language had a
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subjective as well as an objective origin; that is, that the
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interior meaning had been clothed upon. Of course, a man capable of
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drawing the conclusion that natural reason cannot harmonize with
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spiritual truth because in a dream, he had seen a beetle that could
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not use its feet, is capable of any absurdity of which the
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imagination can conceive. The fact is, that Swedenborg believed the
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Bible. That was his misfortune. His mind had been overpowered by
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the bishop, but the woman had not utterly destroyed his heart. He
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was shocked by the liberal interpretation of the Scriptures, and
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sought to avoid the difficulty by giving new meanings consistent
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with the decency and goodness of God. He pointed out a way to
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Bank of Wisdom
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Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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1
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"MODERN THINKERS." (PREFACE)
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preserve the old Bible with a new interpretation. In this way
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Infidelity could be avoided; and, in his day, that was almost a
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necessity. Had Swedenborg taken the ground that the Bible was not
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inspired, the ears of the world would have been stopped. His
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readers believed in the dogma of inspiration, and asked, not how to
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destroy the Scriptures, but for some way in which they might be
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preserved. He and his followers unconsciously rendered immense
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service to the cause of intellectual enfranchisement by their
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efforts to show the necessity of giving new meanings to the
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barbarous laws, and cruel orders of Jehovah. For this purpose they
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attacked with great fury the literal text, taking the ground that
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if the old interpretation was right, the Bible was the work of
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savage men. They heightened in every way the absurdities, cruelties
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and contradictions of the Scriptures for the purpose of showing
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that a new interpretation must be found, and that the way pointed
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out by Swedenborg was the only one by which the Bible could be
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saved.
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Great men are, after all, the instrumentalities of their time.
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The heart of the civilized world was beginning to revolt at the
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cruelties ascribed to God, and was seeking for some interpretation
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of the Bible that kind and loving people could accept. The method
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of interpretation found by Swedenborg was suitable for all. Each
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was permitted to construct his own "science of correspondence" and
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gather such fruits as he might prefer. In this way the ravings of
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revenge can instantly be changed to mercys melting tones, and
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murder's dagger to a smile of love. In this way and in no other,
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can we explain the numberless mistakes and crimes ascribed to God.
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Thousands of most excellent people, afraid to throw away the idea
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of inspiration, hailed with joy a discovery that allowed them to
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write a Bible for themselves.
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But, whether Swedenborg was right or not, every man who reads
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a book, necessarily gets from that book all that he is capable of
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receiving. Every man who walks in the forest, or gathers a flower,
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or looks at a picture, or stands by the sea, gets all the
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intellectual wealth he is capable of receiving. What the forest,
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the flower, the picture or the sea is to him, depends upon his
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mind, and upon the stage of development he has reached. So that
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after all, the Bible must be a different book to each person who
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reads it, as the revelations of nature depend upon the individual
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to whom they are revealed, or by whom they are discovered. And the
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extent of the revelation or discovery depends absolutely upon the
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intellectual and moral development of the person to whom, or by
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whom, the revelation or discovery is made. So that the Bible cannot
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be the same to any two people, but each one must necessarily
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interpret it for himself. Now, the moment the doctrine is
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established that we can give to this book such meanings as are
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consistent with our highest ideals; that we can treat the old words
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as purses or old stockings in which to put our gold, then, each one
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will, in effect, make a new inspired Bible for himself, and throw
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the old away. If his mind is narrow, if he has been raised by
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ignorance and nursed by fear, he will believe in the literal truth
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of what he reads. If he has a little courage he will doubt, and the
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doubt will with new interpretations modify the literal text; but if
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his soul is free he will with scorn reject it all.
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Bank of Wisdom
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Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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2
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"MODERN THINKERS." (PREFACE)
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Swedenborg did one thing for which I feel almost grateful. He
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gave an account of having met John Calvin in hell. Nothing
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connected with the supernatural could be more perfectly natural
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than this. The only thing detracting from the value of this report
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is, that if there is a hell, we know without visiting the place
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that John Calvin must be there.
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All honest founders of religions have been the dreamers of
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dreams, the sport of insanity, the prey of visions, the deceivers
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of others and of themselves. All will admit that Swedenborg was a
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man of great intellect, of vast acquirements and of honest
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intentions; and I think it equally clear that upon one subject, at
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least, his mind was touched, shattered and shaken.
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Misled by analogies, imposed upon by the bishop, deceived by
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the woman, borne to other worlds upon the wings of dreams, living
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in the twilight of reason and the dawn of insanity, he regarded
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every fact as a patched and ragged garment with a lining of the
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costliest silk, and insisted that the wrong side, even of the silk,
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was far more beautiful than the right,
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Herbert Spencer is almost the opposite of Swedenborg, He
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relies upon evidence, upon demonstration, upon experience, and
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occupies himself with one world at a time. He perceives that there
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is a mental horizon that we cannot pierce, and that beyond that is
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the unknown -- possibly the unknowable. He endeavors to examine
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only that which is capable of being examined, and considers the
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theological method as not only useless, but hurtful. After all, God
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is but a guess, throned and established by arrogance and assertion.
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Turning his attention to those things that have in some way
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affected the condition of mankind, Spencer leaves the unknowable to
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priests and to the believers in the "moral government" of the
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world. He sees only natural causes and natural results, and seeks
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to induce man to give up gazing into void and empty space, that he
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may give his entire attention to the world in which he lives. He
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sees that right and wrong do not depend upon the arbitrary will of
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even an infinite being, but upon the nature of things; that they
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are relations, not entities, and that they cannot exist, so far as
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we know, apart from human experience.
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It may be that men will finally see that selfishness and self-
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sacrifice are both mistakes; that the first devours itself; that
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the second is not demanded by the good, and that the bad are
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unworthy of it. It may be that our race has never been, and never
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will be, deserving of a martyr. Sometime we may see that justice is
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the highest possible form of mercy and love, and that all should
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not only be allowed, but compelled to reap exactly what they sow;
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that industry should not support idleness, and that they who waste
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the spring and summer and autumn of their lives should bear the
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winter when it comes. The fortunate should assist the victims of
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accident; the strong should defend the weak, and the intellectual
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should lead, with loving hands, the mental poor; but justice should
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remove the bandage from her eyes long enough to distinguish between
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the vicious and the unfortunate.
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Mr. Spencer is wise enough to declare that "acts are called
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good or bad according as they are well or ill adjusted to ends;"
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Bank of Wisdom
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Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
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3
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"MODERN THINKERS." (PREFACE)
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and he might have added, that ends are good or bad according as
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they affect the happiness of mankind.
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it would be hard to over-estimate the influence of this great
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man. From an immense intellectual elevation he has surveyed the
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world of thought. He has rendered absurd the idea of special
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providence, born of the egotism of savagery. He has shown that the
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"will of God" is not a rule for human conduct; that morality is not
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a cold and heartless tyrant; that by the destruction of the
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individual will, a higher life cannot be reached, and that after
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all, an intelligent love of self extends the hand of help and
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kindness to all the human race.
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But had it not been for such men as Thomas Paine, Herbert
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Spencer could not have existed for a century to come. Some one had
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to lead the way, to raise the standard of revolt, and draw the
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sword of war. Thomas Paine was a natural revolutionist. He was
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opposed to every government existing in his day. Next to
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establishing a wise and just republic based upon the equal rights
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of man, the best thing that can be done is to destroy a monarchy.
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Paine had a sense of justice, and had imagination enough to
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put himself in the place of the oppressed. He had, also, what in
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these pages is so felicitously expressed, "a haughty intellectual
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pride, and a willingness to pit his individual thought against the
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clamor of a world."
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I cannot believe that he wrote the letters of "Junius,"
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although the two critiques combined in this volume, entitled
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"Paine" and "Junius," make by far the best argument upon that
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subject I have ever read. First, Paine could have had no personal
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hatred against the men so bitterly assailed by junius. Second, He
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knew, at that time, but little of English politicians, and
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certainly had never associated with men occupying the highest
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positions, and could not have been personally acquainted with the
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leading statesmen of England. Third, He was not an unjust man. He
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was neither a coward, a calumniator, nor a sneak. All these
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delightful qualities must have lovingly united in the character of
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Junius. Fourth, Paine could have had no reason for keeping the
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secret after coming to America.
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I have always believed that Junius, after having written his
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letters, accepted office from the very men he had maligned, and at
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last became a pensioner of the victims of his slander. "Had he as
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many mouths as Hydra, such a course must have closed them all."
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Certainly the author must have kept the secret to prevent the loss
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of his reputation.
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It cannot be denied that the style of Junius is much like that
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of Paine. Should it be established that Paine wrote the letters of
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Junius, it would not, in my judgment, add to his reputation as a
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writer. Regarded as literary efforts they cannot be compared with
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"Common Sense," "The Crisis," or "The Rights of Man."
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The claim that Paine was the real author of the Declaration of
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Independence is much better founded. I am inclined to think that he
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actually wrote it; but whether this is true or not, every idea
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Bank of Wisdom
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Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
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4
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"MODERN THINKERS." (PREFACE)
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contained in it had been written by him long before. It is now
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claimed that the original document is in Paine's handwriting. It
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certainly is not in Jefferson's. Certain it is, that Jefferson
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could not have written anything so manly, so striking, so
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comprehensive, so clear, so convincing, and so faultless in
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rhetoric and rhythm as the Declaration of Independence.
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Paine was the first man to write these words, "The United
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States of America." He was the first great champion of absolute
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separation from England. He was the first to urge the adoption of
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a Federal Constitution; and, more clearly than any other man of his
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time, he perceived the future greatness of this country.
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He has been blamed for his attack on Washington. The truth is,
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he was in prison in France. He had committed the crime of voting
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against the execution of the king. It was the grandest act of his
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life, but at that time to be merciful was criminal. Paine, being an
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American citizen, asked Washington, then President, to say a word
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to Robespierre in his behalf. Washington remained silent. In the
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calmness of power, the serenity of fortune, Washington the
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President, read the request of Paine, the prisoner, and with the
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complacency of assured fame, consigned to the wastebasket of
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forgetfulness the patriot's cry for help.
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"Time hath, my lord, a wallet at his back,
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Wherein he puts alms for oblivion,
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A great-sized monster of ingratitudes.
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Those scraps are good deeds past, which are devour'd
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As fast as they are made, forgot as soon
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As done."
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In this controversy, my sympathies are with the prisoner.
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Paine did more to free the mind, to destroy the power of
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ministers and priests in the New World, than any other man. In
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order to answer his arguments, the churches found it necessary to
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attack his character. There was a general resort to falsehood. In
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trying to destroy the reputation of Paine, the churches have
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demoralized themselves. Nearly every minister has been a willing
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witness against the truth, Upon the grave of Thomas Paine, the
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churches of America have sacrificed their honor. The influence of
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the Hero author increases every day, and there are more copies of
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the "Age of Reason" sold in the United States, than of any work
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written in defence of the Christian religion. Hypocrisy, with its
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forked tongue, its envious and malignant heart, lies coiled upon
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the memory of Paine, ready to fasten its poisonous fangs in the
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reputation of any man who dares defend the great and generous dead.
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Leaving the dust and glory of revolutions, let us spend a
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moment of quiet with Adam Smith, I was glad to find that a man's
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ideas upon the subject of protection and free trade depend almost
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entirely upon the country in which he lives, or the business in
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which he happens to be engaged, and that, after all, each man
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regards the universe as a circumference of which he is the center.
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It gratified me to learn that even Adam Smith was no exception to
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this rule, and that he regarded all "protection as a hurtful and
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ignorant interference," except when exercised for the good of Great
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Britain. Owing to the fact that his nationality quarreled with his
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Bank of Wisdom
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Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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5
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"MODERN THINKERS." (PREFACE)
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philosophy, he succeeded in writing a book that is quoted with
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equal satisfaction by both parties, The protectionists rely upon
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the exceptions he made for England, and the free traders upon the
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doctrines laid down for other countries.
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He seems to have reasoned upon the question of money precisely
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as we have, of late years, in the United States; and he has argued
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both sides equally well. Poverty asks for inflation. Wealth is
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conservative, and always says there is money enough.
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Upon the question of money, this volume contains the best
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thing I have ever read: "The only mode of procuring the service of
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others, on any large scale, in the absence of money, is by force,
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which is slavery. Money, by constituting a medium in which the
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smallest services can be paid for, substitutes wages for the lash,
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and renders the liberty of the individual consistent with the
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maintenance and support of society." There is more philosophy in
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that one paragraph than Adam Smith expresses in his whole work. It
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may truthfully be said, that without money, liberty is impossible.
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No one, whatever his views may be, can read the article or, Adam
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Smith without profit and delight.
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The discussion of the money question is in every respect
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admirable, and is as candid as able. The world will sooner or later
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learn that there is nothing miraculous in finance; that money is a
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real and tangible thing, a product of labor, serving not merely as
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a medium of exchange but as a basis of credit as well; that it
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||
cannot be created by an act of the legislature; that dreams cannot
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be coined, and that only labor, in some form, can put, upon the
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hand of want, Aladdin's magic ring.
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||
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||
Adam Smith wrote upon the wealth of nations, while Charles
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Fourier labored for the happiness of mankind, In this country, few
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||
seem to understand communism. While here, it may be regarded as
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||
vicious idleness, armed with the assassin's knife and the
|
||
incendiary's torch, in Europe, it is a different thing. There, it
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||
is a reaction from Feudalism. Nobility is communism in its worst
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||
possible form. Nothing can be worse than for idleness to eat the
|
||
bread of industry. Communism in Europe is not the "stand and
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||
deliver" of the robber, but the protest of the robbed. Centuries
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||
ago, kings and priests, that is to say, thieves and hypocrites,
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||
divided Europe among themselves. Under this arrangement, the few
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||
were masters and the many slaves. Nearly every government in the
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||
Old World rests upon simple brute force. It is hard for the many to
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||
understand why the few should own the soil. Neither can they
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||
clearly see why they should give their brain and blood to those who
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steal their birthright and their bread. It has occurred to them
|
||
that they who do the most should not receive the least, and that,
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||
after all, an industrious peasant is of far more value to the world
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than a vain and idle king.
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||
The Communists of France, blinded as they are, made the
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||
Republic possible. Had they joined with their countrymen, the
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||
invaders would have been repelled, and some Napoleon would still
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||
have occupied the throne. Socialism perceives that Germany has been
|
||
enslaved by victory, while France found liberty in defeat. In
|
||
|
||
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||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
6
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||
|
||
"MODERN THINKERS." (PREFACE)
|
||
|
||
Russia the Nihilists prefer chaos to the government of the bayonet,
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||
Siberia and the knout, and these intrepid men have kept upon the
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||
coast of despotism one beacon fire of hope.
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||
|
||
As a matter of fact, every society is a species of communism
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||
-- a kind of co-operation in which selfishness, in spite of itself,
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||
benefits the community. Every industrious man adds to the wealth,
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||
not only of his nation, but to that of the world. Every inventor
|
||
increases human power, and every sculptor, painter and poet adds to
|
||
the value of human life.
|
||
|
||
Fourier, touched by the sufferings of the poor as well as by
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||
the barren joys of hoarded wealth, and discovering the vast
|
||
advantages of combined effort, and the immense economy of
|
||
cooperation, sought to find some way for men to help themselves by
|
||
helping each other. He endeavored to do away with monopoly and
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||
competition, and to ascertain some method by which the sensuous,
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||
the moral, and the intellectual passions of man could be gratified.
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||
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||
For my part I can place no confidence in any system that does
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||
away, or tends to do away, with the institution of marriage. I can
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||
conceive of no civilization of which the family must not be the
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||
unit.
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||
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||
Societies cannot be made; they must grow. Philosophers may
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||
predict, but they cannot create. They may point out as many ways as
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||
they please; but after all, humanity will travel in paths of its
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||
own.
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||
|
||
Fourier sustained about the same relation to this world that
|
||
Swedenborg did to the other. There must be something wrong about
|
||
the brain of one who solemnly asserts that, "the elephant, the ox
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||
and the diamond, were created by the sun; the horse, the lily and
|
||
the ruby, by Saturn; the cow, the jonquil and the topaz by Jupiter;
|
||
and the dog, the violet and the opal stones by the earth itself."
|
||
|
||
And yet, forgetting these aberrations of the mind, this lunacy
|
||
of a great and loving soul, for one, I hold in tenderest regard the
|
||
memory of Charles Fourier, one of the best and noblest of our race.
|
||
|
||
While Fourier was in his cradle, Jeremy Bentham, who read
|
||
history when three years old, played on the violin at five, "and at
|
||
fifteen detected the fallacies of Blackstone," was demonstrating
|
||
that the good was the useful; that a thing was right because it
|
||
paid in the highest and best sense; that utility was the basis of
|
||
morals; that without allowing interest to be paid upon money
|
||
commerce could not exist; and that the object of all human
|
||
governments should be to secure the greatest happiness of the
|
||
greatest number. He read Hume and Helvetius, threw away the Thirty-
|
||
nine Articles, and endeavored to impress upon the English Law the
|
||
fact that its ancestor was a feudal savage. He held the past in
|
||
contempt, hated Westminster and despised Oxford. He combated the
|
||
idea that governments were originally founded on contract. Locke
|
||
and Blackstone talked as though men originally lived apart, and
|
||
formed societies by agreement. These writers probably imagined that
|
||
at one time the trees were separated like telegraph poles, and
|
||
finally came together and made groves by agreement. I believe that
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
7
|
||
|
||
"MODERN THINKERS." (PREFACE)
|
||
|
||
it was Pufendorf who said that slavery was originally founded on
|
||
contract. To which Voltaire replied: -- "If my lord Pufendorf will
|
||
produce the original contract signed by the party who was to be the
|
||
slave, I will admit the truth of his statement."
|
||
|
||
A contract back of society is a myth manufactured by those in
|
||
power to serve as a title to place, and to impress the multitude
|
||
with the idea that they are, in some mysterious way, bound,
|
||
fettered, and even benefitted by its terms.
|
||
|
||
The glory of Bentham is, that he gave the true basis of
|
||
morals, and furnished statesmen with the star and compass of this
|
||
sentence: -- "The greatest happiness of the greatest number."
|
||
|
||
Most scientists have deferred to the theologians. They have
|
||
admitted that some questions could not, at present, be solved.
|
||
These admissions have been thankfully received by the clergy, who
|
||
have always begged for some curtain to be left, behind which their
|
||
God could still exist. Men calling themselves "scientific" have
|
||
tried to harmonize the "apparent" discrepancies between the Bible
|
||
and the other, works of Jehovah. In this way they have made
|
||
reputations. They were at once quoted by the ministers as wonderful
|
||
examples of piety and learning. These men discounted the future
|
||
that they might enjoy the ignorant praise of the present. Agassiz
|
||
preferred the applause of Boston, while he lived, to the reverence
|
||
of a world after he was dead. Small men appear great only when they
|
||
agree with the multitude.
|
||
|
||
The last Scientific Congress in America was opened with
|
||
prayer. Think of a science that depends upon the efficacy of words
|
||
addressed to the Unknown and Unknowable!
|
||
|
||
In our country, most of the so-called scientists are
|
||
professors in sectarian colleges, in which Moses is considered a
|
||
geologist, and Joshua an astronomer. For the most part their
|
||
salaries depend upon the ingenuity with which they can explain away
|
||
facts and dodge demonstration.
|
||
|
||
The situation is about the same in England. When Mr. Huxley
|
||
saw fit to attack the Mosaic account of the creation, he did not
|
||
deem it advisable to say plainly what he meant. He attacked the
|
||
account of creation as given by Milton, although he knew that the
|
||
Mosaic and Miltonic were substantially the same. Science has acted
|
||
like a guest without a wedding garment, and has continually
|
||
apologized for existing. In the presence of arrogant absurdity,
|
||
overawed by the patronizing airs of a successful charlatan, it has
|
||
played the role of a "poor relation," and accepted, while sitting
|
||
below the salt, insults as horrors.
|
||
|
||
There can be no more pitiable sight than a scientist in the
|
||
employ of superstition dishonoring himself without assisting his
|
||
master. But there are a multitude of brave and tender men who give
|
||
their honest thoughts, who are true to nature, who give the facts
|
||
and let consequences shirk for themselves, who know the value and
|
||
meaning of a truth, and who have bravely tried the creeds by
|
||
scientific tests.
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
8
|
||
|
||
"MODERN THINKERS." (PREFACE)
|
||
|
||
Among the bravest, side by side with the greatest of the
|
||
world, in Germany, the land of science, stands Ernst Haeckel, who
|
||
may be said to have not only demonstrated the theories of Darwin,
|
||
but the Monistic conception of the world. Rejecting all the puerile
|
||
ideas of a personal Creator, he has had the courage to adopt the
|
||
noble words of Bruno: -- "A spirit exists in all things, and no
|
||
body is so small but it contains a part of the divine substance
|
||
within itself, by which it is animated." He has endeavored -- and
|
||
I think with complete success -- to show that there is not, and
|
||
never was, and never can be the Creator of anything. There is no
|
||
more a personal Creator than there is a personal destroyer. Matter
|
||
and force must have existed from eternity, all generation must have
|
||
been spontaneous, and the simplest organisms must have been the
|
||
ancestors of the most perfect and complex.
|
||
|
||
Haeckel is one of the bitterest enemies of the church, and is,
|
||
therefore, one of the bravest friends of man.
|
||
|
||
Catholicism was, at one time, the friend of education -- of an
|
||
education sufficient to make a Catholic out of a barbarian.
|
||
Protestantism was also in favor of education -- of an education
|
||
sufficient to make a Protestant out of a Catholic. But now, it
|
||
having been demonstrated that real education will make
|
||
Freethinkers, Catholics and Protestants both are the enemies of
|
||
true learning.
|
||
|
||
In all countries where human beings are held in bondage, it is
|
||
a crime to teach a slave to read and write. Masters know that
|
||
education is an abolitionist, and theologians know that science is
|
||
the deadly foe of every creed in Christendom.
|
||
|
||
In the age of Faith, a personal god stood at the head of every
|
||
department of ignorance, and was supposed to be the King of kings,
|
||
the rewarder and punisher of individuals, and the governor of
|
||
nations.
|
||
|
||
The worshipers of this god have always regarded the men in
|
||
love with simple facts, as Atheists in disguise. And it must be
|
||
admitted that nothing is more Atheistic than a fact. Pure science
|
||
is necessarily godless. It is incapable of worship. It
|
||
investigates, and cannot afford to shut its eyes even long enough
|
||
to pray. There was a time when those who disputed the divine right
|
||
of kings were denounced as blasphemous; but the time came when
|
||
liberty demanded that a personal god should be retired from
|
||
politics. In our country this was substantially done in 1776, when
|
||
our fathers declared that all power to govern came from the consent
|
||
of the governed. The cloud-theory was abandoned, and one government
|
||
has been established for the benefit of mankind. Our fathers did
|
||
not keep God out of the Constitution from principle, but from
|
||
jealousy. Each church, in colonial times, preferred to live in
|
||
single blessedness rather than see some rival wedded to the state.
|
||
Mutual hatred planted our tree of religions liberty. A constitution
|
||
without a god has at last given us a nation without a slave.
|
||
|
||
A personal god sustains the same relation to religion as to
|
||
polities. The Deity is a master, and man a serf; and this relation
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
9
|
||
|
||
"MODERN THINKERS." (PREFACE)
|
||
|
||
is inconsistent with true progress. The Universe ought to be a pure
|
||
democracy -- an infinite republic without a tyrant and without a
|
||
chain.
|
||
|
||
Auguste Comte endeavored to put humanity in the place of
|
||
Jehovah, and no conceivable change can be more desirable than this.
|
||
This great man did not, like some of his followers, put a
|
||
mysterious something called law in the place of God, which is
|
||
simply giving the old master a new name. Law is this side of
|
||
phenomena, not the other. It is not the cause, neither is it the
|
||
result of phenomena. The fact of succession and resemblance, that
|
||
is to say, the same thing happening under the same conditions, is
|
||
all we mean by law. No one can conceive of a law existing apart
|
||
from matter, or controlling matter, any more than he can understand
|
||
the eternal procession of the Holy Ghost, or motion apart from
|
||
substance. We are beginning to see that law does not, and cannot
|
||
exist as an entity, but that it is only a conception of the mind to
|
||
express the fact that the same entities, under the same conditions,
|
||
produce the same results. Law does not produce the entities, the
|
||
conditions, or the results, or even the sameness of the results.
|
||
Neither does it affect the relations of entities, nor the result of
|
||
such relations, but it stands simply for the fact that the same
|
||
causes, under the same conditions, eternally have produced and
|
||
eternally will produce the same results.
|
||
|
||
The metaphysicians are always giving us explanations of
|
||
phenomena which are as difficult to understand as the phenomena
|
||
they seek to explain; and the believers in God establish their
|
||
dogmas by miracles, and then substantiate the miracles by
|
||
assertion.
|
||
|
||
The Designer of the teleologist, the First Cause of the
|
||
religious philosopher, the Vital Force of the biologist, and the
|
||
law of the half-orthodox scientist, are all the shadowy children of
|
||
ignorance and fear.
|
||
|
||
The Universe is all there is. It is both subject and object;
|
||
contemplator and contemplated; creator and created; destroyer and
|
||
destroyed; preserver and preserved; and within itself are all
|
||
causes, modes, motions and effects.
|
||
|
||
Unable in some things to rise above the superstitions of his
|
||
day, Comte adopted not only the machinery, but some of the
|
||
prejudices, of Catholicism. He made the mistake of Luther. He tried
|
||
to reform the Church of Rome. Destruction is the only reformation
|
||
of which that church is capable. Every religion is based upon a
|
||
misconception, not only of the cause of phenomena, but of the real
|
||
object of Life; that is to say, upon falsehood; and the moment the
|
||
truth is known and understood, these religions must fall. In the
|
||
field of thought, they are briers, thorns, and noxious weeds; on
|
||
the shores of intellectual discovery, they are sirens, and in the
|
||
forests that the brave thinkers are now penetrating, they are the
|
||
wild beasts, fanged and monstrous. You cannot reform these weeds.
|
||
Sirens cannot be changed into good citizens; and such wild beasts,
|
||
even when tamed, are of no possible use. Destruction is the only
|
||
remedy. Reformation is a hospital where the new philosophy exhausts
|
||
its strength nursing the old religion.
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
10
|
||
|
||
"MODERN THINKERS." (PREFACE)
|
||
|
||
There was, in the brain of the great Frenchman, the dawn of
|
||
that happy day in which humanity will be the only religion, good
|
||
the only god, happiness the only object, restitution the only
|
||
atonement, mistake the only sin, and affection, guided by
|
||
intelligence, the only savior of mankind. This dawn enriched his
|
||
poverty, illuminated the darkness of his life, peopled his
|
||
loneliness with the happy millions yet to be, and filled his eyes
|
||
with proud and tender tears.
|
||
|
||
A few years ago I asked the superintendent of Pere La Chaise
|
||
if he knew where I could find the tomb of Auguste Comte. He had
|
||
never heard even the name of the author of the "Positive
|
||
Philosophy." I asked him if he had ever heard of Napoleon
|
||
Bonaparte. In a half-insulted tone, he replied, "Of course I have,
|
||
why do you ask me such a question?" "Simply," was my answer, "that
|
||
I might have the opportunity of saying, that when everything
|
||
connected with Napoleon, except his crimes, shall have been
|
||
forgotten, Auguste Comte will be lovingly remembered as a
|
||
benefactor of the human race."
|
||
|
||
The Jewish God must be dethroned! A personal Deity must go
|
||
back to the darkness of barbarism from whence he came. The
|
||
theologians must abdicate, and popes, priests, and clergymen,
|
||
labeled as "extinct species," must occupy the mental museums of the
|
||
future.
|
||
|
||
In my judgment, this book, filled with original thought, will
|
||
hasten the coming of that blessed time.
|
||
|
||
|
||
Washington, D.C., Nov. 29, 1879.
|
||
|
||
END
|
||
|
||
**** ****
|
||
|
||
THE REV. DR. NEWTON'S SERMON ON
|
||
|
||
A NEW RELIGION.
|
||
|
||
I HAVE read the report of the Rev. R. Heber Newton's sermon
|
||
and I am satisfied, first, that Mr. Newton simply said what he
|
||
thoroughly believes to be true, and second, that some of the
|
||
conclusions at which he arrives are certainly correct. I do not
|
||
regard Mr. Newton as a heretic or skeptic. Every man who reads the
|
||
Bible must, to a greater or less extent, think for himself. He need
|
||
not tell his thoughts; he has the right to keep them to himself.
|
||
But if he undertakes to tell them, then he should be absolutely
|
||
honest.
|
||
|
||
The Episcopal creed is a few ages behind the thought of the
|
||
world. For many years the foremost members and clergymen in that
|
||
church have been giving some new meanings to the old words and
|
||
phrases. Words are no more exempt from change than other things in
|
||
nature. A word at one time rough, jagged, harsh and cruel, is
|
||
finally worn smooth. A word known as slang, picked out of the
|
||
gutter, is cleaned, educated, becomes respectable and finally is
|
||
found in the mouths of the best and purest.
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
11
|
||
|
||
THE REV. DR. NEWTON'S SERMON ON
|
||
|
||
We must remember that in the world of art the picture depends
|
||
not alone on the painter, but on the one who sees it. So words must
|
||
find some part of their meaning in the man who hears or the man who
|
||
reads. In the old times the word "hell" gave to the hearer or
|
||
reader the picture of a vast pit filled with an ocean of molten
|
||
brimstone, in which innumerable souls were suffering the torments
|
||
of fire, and where millions of devils were engaged in the cheerful
|
||
occupation of increasing the torments of the damned. This was the
|
||
real old orthodox view.
|
||
|
||
As man became civilized, however, the picture grew less and
|
||
less vivid. Finally, some expressed their doubts about the
|
||
brimstone, and others. began to think that if the Devil was, and
|
||
is, really an enemy of God he would not spend his time punishing
|
||
sinners to please God. Why should the Devil be in partnership with
|
||
his enemy, and why should he inflict torments on poor souls who
|
||
were his own friends, and who shared with him the feeling of hatred
|
||
toward the Almighty?
|
||
|
||
As men became more and more civilized, the idea began to dawn
|
||
in their minds that an infinitely good and wise being would not
|
||
have created persons, knowing that they would be eternal failures,
|
||
or that they were to suffer eternal punishment, because there could
|
||
be no possible object in eternal punishment -- no reformation, no
|
||
good to be accomplished -- and certainly the sight of all this
|
||
torment would not add to the joy of heaven, neither would it tend
|
||
to the happiness of God.
|
||
|
||
So the more civilized adopted the idea that punishment is a
|
||
consequence and not an infliction. Then they took another step and
|
||
concluded that every soul, in every world, in every age, should
|
||
have at least the chance of doing right. And yet persons so
|
||
believing still used the word "hell," but the old meaning had
|
||
dropped out.
|
||
|
||
So with regard to the atonement. At one time it was regarded
|
||
as a kind of bargain in which so much blood was shed for so many
|
||
souls. This was a barbaric view. Afterward, the mind developing a
|
||
little, the idea got in the brain that the life of Christ was worth
|
||
its moral effect. And yet these people use the word "atonement,"
|
||
but the bargain idea has been lost.
|
||
|
||
Take for instance the word "justice." The meaning that is
|
||
given to that word depends upon the man who uses it -- depends for
|
||
the most part on the age in which he lives, the country in which he
|
||
was born. The same is true of the word "freedom." Millions and
|
||
millions of people boasted that they were the friends of freedom,
|
||
while at the same time they enslaved their fellow-men. So, in the
|
||
name of justice every possible crime has been perpetrated and in
|
||
the name of mercy every instrument of torture has been used.
|
||
|
||
Mr. Newton realizes the fact that everything in the world
|
||
changes; that creeds are influenced by civilization, by the
|
||
acquisition of knowledge, by the progress of the sciences and arts
|
||
-- in other words, that there is a tendency in man to harmonize his
|
||
knowledge and to bring about a reconciliation between what he knows
|
||
and what he believes. This will be fatal to superstition, provided
|
||
the man knows anything.
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
12
|
||
|
||
THE REV. DR. NEWTON'S SERMON ON
|
||
|
||
Mr. Newton, moreover, clearly sees that people are losing
|
||
confidence in the morality of the gospel; that its foundation lacks
|
||
common sense; that the doctrine of forgiveness is unscientific, and
|
||
that it is impossible to feel that the innocent can rightfully
|
||
suffer for the guilty, or that the suffering of innocence can in
|
||
any way justify the crimes of the wicked. I think he is mistaken,
|
||
however, when he says that the early church softened or weakened
|
||
the barbaric passions. I think the early church was as barbarous as
|
||
any institution that ever gained a footing in this world. I do not
|
||
believe that the creed of the early church, as understood, could
|
||
soften anything. A church that preaches the eternity of punishment
|
||
has within it the seed of all barbarism and the soil to make it
|
||
grow.
|
||
|
||
So Mr. Newton is undoubtedly right when he says that the
|
||
organized Christianity of to-day is not the leader in social
|
||
progress. No one now goes to a synod to find a fact in science or
|
||
on any subject. A man in doubt does not ask the average minister;
|
||
he regards him as behind the times. He goes to the scientist, to
|
||
the library. He depends upon the untrammelled thought of fearless
|
||
men.
|
||
|
||
The church, for the most part, is in the control of the rich,
|
||
of the respectable, of the well-to-do, of the unsympathetic, of the
|
||
men who, having succeeded themselves, think that everybody ought to
|
||
succeed. The spirit of caste is as well developed in the church as
|
||
it is in the average club. There is the same exclusive feeling, and
|
||
this feeling in the next world is to be heightened and deepened to
|
||
such an extent that a large majority of our fellow-men are to be
|
||
eternally excluded.
|
||
|
||
The peasants of Europe -- the workingmen -- do not go to the
|
||
church for sympathy. If they do they come home empty, or rather
|
||
empty hearted. So, in our own country the laboring classes, the
|
||
mechanics, are not depending on the churches to right their wrongs.
|
||
They do not expect the pulpits to increase their wages. The
|
||
preachers get their money from the well-to-do -- from the employer
|
||
class -- and their sympathies are with those from whom they receive
|
||
their wages.
|
||
|
||
The ministers attack the pleasures of the world. They are not
|
||
so much scandalized by murder and forgery as by dancing and eating
|
||
meat on Friday. They regard unbelief as the greatest of all sins.
|
||
They are not touching the real, vital issues of the day, and their
|
||
hearts do not throb in unison with the hearts of the struggling,
|
||
the aspiring, the enthusiastic and the real believers in the
|
||
progress of the human race.
|
||
|
||
It is all well enough to say that we should depend on
|
||
Providence, but experience has taught us that while it may do no
|
||
harm to say it, it will do no good to do it. We have found that man
|
||
must be the Providence of man, and that one plow will do more,
|
||
properly pulled and properly held, toward feeding the world, than
|
||
all the prayers that ever agitated the air.
|
||
|
||
So, Mr. Newton is correct in saying, as I understand him to
|
||
say, that the hope of immortality has nothing to do with orthodox
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
13
|
||
|
||
THE REV. DR. NEWTON'S SERMON ON
|
||
|
||
religion. Neither, in my judgment, has the belief in the existence
|
||
of a God anything in fact to do with real religion. The old
|
||
doctrine that God wanted man to do something for him, and that he
|
||
kept a watchful eye upon all the children of men; that he rewarded
|
||
the virtuous and punished the wicked, is gradually fading from the
|
||
mind. We know that some of the worst men have what the world calls
|
||
success. We know that some of the best men lie upon the straw of
|
||
failure. We know that honesty goes hungry, while larceny sits at
|
||
the banquet. We know that the vicious have every physical comfort,
|
||
while the virtuous are often clad in rags.
|
||
|
||
Man is beginning to find that he must take care of himself;
|
||
that special providence is a mistake. This being so, the old
|
||
religions must go down, and in their place man must depend upon
|
||
intelligence, industry, honesty; upon the facts that he can
|
||
ascertain, upon his own experience, upon his own efforts. Then
|
||
religion becomes a thing of this world -- a religion to put a roof
|
||
above our heads, a religion that gives to every man a home, a
|
||
religion that rewards virtue here.
|
||
|
||
If Mr. Newton's sermon is in accordance with the Episcopal
|
||
creed, I congratulate the creed. In any event, I think Mr. Newton
|
||
deserves great credit for speaking his thought. Do not understand
|
||
that I imagine that he agrees with me. The most I will say is that
|
||
in some things I agree with him, and probably there is a little too
|
||
much truth and a little too much humanity in his remarks to please
|
||
the bishop.
|
||
|
||
There is this wonderful fact, no man has ever yet been
|
||
persecuted for thinking God bad. When any one has said that he
|
||
believed God to be so good that he would, in his own time and way,
|
||
redeem the entire human race, and that the time would come when
|
||
every soul would be brought home and sit on an equality with the
|
||
others around the great fireside of the universe, that man has been
|
||
denounced as a poor, miserable, wicked wretch.
|
||
|
||
New York Herald, December 15, 1888.
|
||
|
||
**** ****
|
||
|
||
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
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||
religion. all these subjects, and more, will be made available to
|
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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.
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||
|
||
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.
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
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Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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||
14
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