Four Hundred Years of Freethought, Part 1 by Samuel Porter Putnam Part 1/3 | Full Audio Book

Preface to 400 years of free thought by Samuel P Putnam published in 1894 this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit librivox.org this recording is by Michelle fry B Rouge Louisiana in August 2023 prom free thought past present and

Future the past Bruno Fair Bruno looking forth with eyes of fire upon the world’s broad scene beyond the sun thy undimmed glance seems to behold the Stars countless and rushing through the endless space with opulence of life as on Earth’s breast thyself a star from out the past

Did burn wakening the darkness with resplendent course a thwart the centuries of Gloom and fear Herald of mour of the Happy Days with freedom breathing in the peaceful Skies with science in the kingly Garb of toil the Green Earth paradised with loving hearts oh Brave Immortal glorious in the robe

Which burned thy body into fruitful dust they knew not that wild horde about thy P who knelt and trembled to a god of hate and crouched to Earth nor saw its wealth of Life they knew not what was in thy dauntless gaze outs sweeping the rude throng and torturing heat the

Winged thoughts that all the desperat power could fet her not nor blast with fiercest Zeal they saw that shuttering and Relentless crowd the frail flesh sink in unconfined Tomb and vainly triumphed or that murdered form for from that blackened spot went forth a word of Wonder joy and Beauty to all time and

Millions greet its power and hope unscathed oh martyred Bruno science’s Fearless path through regions numberless of Earth and Sky makes Laurels for thee and man’s brightest days flow from the moment of thy bitter death in thee the past turns from its darkened course bursts from the jives of

Ignorance and fear smites down the Tyrant from his bloody throne and as the Earth Wheels Round The Golden Sun and as the sun speeds through unmeasured Realms so doth the mind of man Unchained and vast from thy Red Dawn Of Death move radiant on in Paths of Glory broadening to the noon

The present ingersol and now the present answers to the Past genius to genius through the wondrous years Bruno and ingersol and on times Arch what shining names Adorn the pregnant space from Nolan’s silent Ashes to the lips that drop the sweetest words that charm The Ear The eloquence that

Ceases not with speech but is Immortal music to the Mind beloved Master of the art Supreme to language forth the spirit world within to make words flow with new melodious Grace like waves that beaming break on shores of sense from the vast ocean of unbodied thought thy brain hath

Caught all feeling all the light of imageries that fill the poet’s eye the subtlest thoughts of man the dim desires that warm the The Savage breast the dreams that haunt and thrill and glorify the toilers task till Beauty Springs from labor as the sheen of Lily from the sunless water

Spreads thou reads the past not as The Bookworm reads with words and facts strung on a leaden thread but with imagination’s golden Power so that the finest effluence of its life its Heroes Martyrs songs philosophies resurgent in the living present breathe translated in thy Miracle of speech to heavens of thought enriching life

Today thus past and present in one Glory joined to make the Marvel of our future Hope from Bruno’s stake to Vol te’s Radiant Star to Pain’s clear luster in the storms of War to Grace and charm of him who gems this hour with reason wedded to the poet’s strain what light

Has gathered on man’s toysome way what joy and promise as new births Bloom on the future the child oh babe so beautiful Love’s gracious gift the sweetest Jewel of our mortal life the happy Dawn upon our sorrow’s path the only Tyrant that our hearts in Throne the only monarch we

Obey and bless oh heir of AG is and the future’s glass in which we see the splendors yet to be the tiny profet of untraveled years the Royal messenger of new domains embosomed in The Unborn wealth of time tomorrow’s King sceptered in weakness dear we bring to thee the

Treasures of the past thou bringst to us a thousand Treasures more for all the boundless future is thy realm thine eyes are Gates into to the deeps of time far shining in their clear and wondering gaze in thee are all the imprints of the past the million years of man’s evolving

Life a thousand generations toiled for thee poets have sung and Nations have marched on Heroes have died and martyrs starred the heavens the lone Discoverer hath watched the night or toiled across the ocean’s heaving breast or pierced the chambers of the sea and land to make more Splendid thy delightful hour to

Make thy birth the richest of all time in thee the past and present find their goal The Fountain Of The Hope which Jewels life oh what were life without thy helpless Grace the soft in Treaty of thy smiles and tears the beauty Exquisite of dainty flesh flushed with

The rose tins of thy joyous pulse oh crown of all our toils and all our gains bear on the song of life to Future years oh take the blessing of the mighty past oh take the love the glory of today whose face is or thee tender as thy look

Which holds the flower of promise or thy brow grow strong and beautiful and brave and Free Fair child inheritor of sweet Renown make thy bright harvest in the fields of time enrich with reason’s light thy mingling path with those which front with thine the Golden Dawn the great Hereafter in thy beams we

Hail end of poem the past Bruno the present anrol and the future the child chapter 1 of 400 years of free thought by Samuel P Putnam this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit librivox.org chapter 1

Introduction 400 years of free thought from 1492 to 1892 present the most alluring and Brilliant pages of human history only those who stand at the end of these crowded centuries can realize the advancing greatness of humanity never was the picture of Shakespeare so glowingly demonstrated quote what a

Piece of work is man how Noble in reason how infinite in faculties in form and moving how Express and admirable in action how like an angel in apprehension how like a god what l lofty intellects adorn that way what pomp of music is poured forth what radiant discoveries on Earth and in

Heaven are there what vast inventions what gigantic Powers it is like looking upon the splendors of the Dawn ever accumulating as the day advances through darkness and struggle through bloody war Through Torture and Terror through Superstition ignorance and tyranny free thought has steadily pushed onward with true Promethean fire

With the torch of reason with undaunted face with unring step until now it leads the world with Victorious colors but in tracing and unfolding the harmonious Grandeur of these spacious centuries it is necessary first of all that we understand what free thought is not a vague and indeterminate

Coruscation but a distinct radiance a manifold power an intelligence looking before and after a destroyer and a builder free thought is a spirit a method and a result the eternal spirit of free thought is the spirit of Doubt free thought never ceases to inquire to question and to deny it utterly abhor

Faith it makes no terms with a submissive mind doubt says Aristotle is the beginning of wisdom it is indeed doubt is the first step to knowledge it is only through doubt that we can analyze judge and select unless we deny we cannot search belief is ignorance unbelief is

Attainment doubt is sanity faith is insanity the Supreme virtue of Orthodoxy is credulity the Supreme virtue of free thought is skepticism this has been the eternal battle faith on one side doubt against it and doubt has won and gemed the Earth with civilization free thought doubts but

Free thought builds truth is its object but there is only one way to reach truth through facts the scientific method is the one universal method there is no a priori Royal Road to truth there is only the Common Road the toysome common sense path of observation and induction in experience alone are the

Beginnings of knowledge he who starts with ideas and labors to accommodate facts to the ideas is no free thinker for he is bound to come to a certain conclusion not by the force of truth but by the Fiat of an assumption the truth for authority and

Not Authority for truth is the Axiom of free thought and by truth is meant not an image of the mind but a fact of the universe free thought is observation experiment demonstration beyond that nothing it therefore rejects all authority the authority of a book of a

Church of a pope of a philosophy of a scientific Congress even science in itself is not Authority but influence the constant Association of facts with reason not to command but to prove free thought furthermore is a result it is an intellectual attitude it is agnosticism as the term is scientifically understood and also

Secularism as all experience is finite so all knowledge is finite and relative the infinite the absolute are negations of thought not thought itself free thought rejects intuitions Revelations and high sounding Words which which have no meaning it rejects God and immortality as entirely outside of attainable truth free thought

Confesses the limitations of the human mind to go outside of those limits is to become the slave of imperious desire we are not free when we think in obedience to an emotion we are free only when we stick to facts it is folly to assert that free thought means that we

Can believe as we are a mind to we can believe only according to evidence it is not slavery to conform to reality but it is slavery to believe a lie merely because it is attractive free thought is not an intellectual result only but a practical result it is the application of Truth it

Is a selection of facts and a rearrangement of facts it is the conquest of nature it is human happiness and human Improvement ment by law and not by Caprice with free thought there is no such thing as chance it takes nothing on trust it is open eyed and always on the

Lookout it believes in work and is therefore an industrial power it is action it is forethought skill and invention it is not only the illuminated brain but the Deft hand free thought is also Liberty equality and Fraternity in the domain of politics these are not assumptions but varities as free thought recognizes the

Unity of existence it must also recognize the equality of Rights if the King on the throne has any rights at all the peasant in the Hut has exactly the same rights this is not a glittering generality but a scientific induction for rights are not a condition dependent on circumstance and therefore variable

But a quality of life itself the moment there is an individual there are rights as the moment there is form there is relation as well talk of form without relation as to talk of an individual without rights Annihilation is preferable to a personality without Liberty and equality the doctrine of human rights

Has been of slow growth it was scarcely recognized in ancient times it is the result of many experiences many conflicts and many Evolutions it has gradually come to the front it is the chief Glory of modern times its greatest luster has shown since the birth of our Republic in the

Days of Columbus it was remote almost as the islands of the South Pacific modern science affirms fraternity not as a sentiment but as a fact this is an immense gain upon the the Christian Theory we do not inculcate fraternity as a feeling merely but we recognize it as a part of human

Knowledge the race is actually one the same life is in it in every age in every climb there are no chasms in Universal existence no Duality but Unity when therefore I use the word free thought I use it in the most comprehensive sense as an intellectual moral industrial political and Social

Power I mean scientific Freedom not a mere capricious freedom I mean a freedom devoted to high ends I mean doubt for the truth’s sake I mean facts correlated into a vast and Splendid system of noble philosophy I mean Liberty whose expression is law whose spirit is universal equality and Universal Brotherhood

It is this large sense I would picture the triumphs of free thought for the last 400 years in philosophy in science in literature in education and in government I cannot minutely detail the progress of humanity throughout these vast domains of activity it is a mighty Maze and volumes would be required to

Elucidate every current of thought I can only touch upon the main features I can only Ascend a few Mountain Heights and from there record the extensive prospects in passing through a vast country we cannot look upon every scene we cannot wander through every Grove or by every shining rivulet many a hill and

Dale must be neglected we must hurry on and from Sublime eminences here and there behold the Limitless expanse and connect the whole by these radiant glimpses or like the world’s fair day after day we might haunt its treasured halls and if we noted every beautiful exhibit it would take years to exhaust The

Marvelous display we must take a few Central points of observation and from these witness what we can of its multitudinous scenes so must we study the 400 years of free thought by the representative Geniuses the lofty Minds that in themselves contain and express Supreme Tendencies I shall try and interpret

History by personalities rather than by events for it is in personalities that we see the Heights and depths of human life that we witness the trend of civilization I am not giving the daily history of man but the record of His Highest moments of his Transcendent altitudes whence flow the Thousand

Common streams of human advancement many a philosopher poet hero martyr Discoverer and inventor I shall not mention because however shining and Immortal their work there is some Superior mind who is the one grand interpreter of themselves and the age in which they live I shall not follow a strictly chronological course for

Entering upon some great domain of the world’s progress I must outline its history for centuries to the neglect for the time being of other parallel and equally important Departments of man growth theologians in endeavoring to reconcile Moses with geology declare that in regard to creation’s Dawn and its wonderful events

He did not receive a verbally inspired account of the exact process but that the fantasmagoria of those primeval occurrences passed before his mind’s eye and he relates things not with objective accuracy but as they subjectively appeared to him in his entrance State he describes great pictures of the

World Beginnings as they roll upon his imagination he is therefore right in his record from his position what actually occurred what appear to him as he wrote it but if his position had been changed and he had been actually present at the creative period his delineations would have been more scientifically

Correct however true this supposition may be about Moses it exactly illustrates the method of my history of free thought I shall not write it as if I were present at the unfolding of each event so that I could photograph it and reproduce it exactly but standing at the

End of the centuries on the gleaming Heights of the World’s Fair these snowy Alps not cold but warm and effulgent as the golden bosom of the valleys where harvests Shine from these ample scenes and this Central brightness I look back upon the morning and the Shadows of the

Night and paint the pictures as they passed before my mental Vision as Moses might have painted the Panorama of Creation The Misfortune of the theologians is that Moses failed to recorded his method and it was not discovered until 3,500 years after his death and as a consequence many glorious

Intellects have suffered martyrdom who otherwise might have been honored and rewarded by the church I take warning from the tragedy of the mistakes of Moses and state My Method and ask for criticisms on that basis I proposed to give a pictorial representation rather than a narrative interpretations and not

Reports somebody playfully and yet keenly remarked of M’s history that it was indeed his story this might be true and not altogether destroy the worth of M’s labors for a man’s thoughts about history are sometimes as valuable as history itself for truth may be in the thoughts as well as in the events

Themselves end of chapter 1 introduction this recording is by Michelle fry baton Ridge Louisiana in August 2023 chapter 2 of 400 years of of free thought by Samuel P putam this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please

Visit librivox.org recording by Rita Bros chapter 2 the three voyages Columbus Vasco de Gama and mellan everybody knows the history of Columbus that he set sail from Palos with three small ships Etc but what was the influence of that bold adventurous successful and pathetic life upon man’s

Advancement it was a fateful moment when Columbus placed foot upon the soil of the new world not even he could imagine the wonder that would be the magnificence of the future whose golden doors he was opening to eager Millions think of the broad continent that lay before him glittering in the Setting Sun

Think of the amazing Riches of that unknown land stretching for A Thousand Leagues from the Atlantic to the Pacific gold and silver were there in the heart of the mighty mountains virgin’s soil was there ribboned with many a shining stream vast Lakes were there blue as the

Sea itself and boundless to the vision mile wide Rivers flowed from northern zones to tropic splendors untrodden prairies spread in Flowery Billows over spaces more expanded than Europe itself gigantic forests whose Secrets it has taken centuries to unfold extended in verdant Gloom their stately ranks innumerable Hills and Valleys were

Waiting to bloom and harvest rich with the records of an illimitable past a thousand Heights fling challenge to man’s daring step here are buried civilizations and civilizations still living and beautiful as the civilizations of the white invader’s own home and over which shall now fall the

Black PA of slavery and death a whole race roaming over the happy hunting grounds is doomed to destruction freighted with desolation and Glory was the landing of Columbus 15 millions of human beings perished beneath the cross that waved in his silken banner and even though Liberty on

This soil was to win its most dazzling triumphs the church which he represented with drawn sword darkening to a terrible tyny was now to be strengthened by the acquisition of millions of adherence and uncounted wealth it was to own the fairest portions of this new world vastness and Grandeur of physical

Scenery a wide and Universal theater on which to act conduces to freedom of thought and in this respect America has added to man’s hopes and progress but Superstition wins as well as Freedom the vastness and Grandeur that Inspire the lofty mind subdue and crush the weaker

The very amplitude of action in a new world prevents finess of Art delicacy of Genius depth of insight and nicity of achievement these things must grow they must be the result of age the most superb of physical environments must be associated with centuries of national life before it can produce the most

Perfect flower action is apt to banish thought I have met with thousands of shrewd businessmen who are still the slaves of the church they have not time for reflection I have noticed that amidst the grandest forms of nature there is often times the greatest mental weakness and cowardice I have struck

Miners bold Resolute adventurous who obeyed the priest it does not always follow that Sublimity of natural aspect or opportunity for Action conduce to Liberty or intellectual power as a matter of fact in America today there is more Petty interference with personal Liberty than in almost any other portion of the Civilized globe and

This is because Americans are so taken up with the vastness of outward Affairs that they will not concern themselves with fine yet all-important intellectual and moral distinctions it does not happen because we are on a big continent and have immense physical Vitality that there for we are doing and thinking the best

Things we are not and the Very greatness of our physical opportunities does prevent intellectual Acumen not until Americans are crowded together and material advantages are lessened and there is not so much chance for muscle and one must stop and think before he acts will there be in our

Country the greatest poetry the greatest philosophy and the greatest art there is such a thing as having too much room to make the best of a little is of surpassing educational value in compact Greece was produced the brightest civilization of ancient times the vast countries never did give the world a

Genius what did Imperial Rome contribute to Universal literature compared to what one of its little provinces Germany France Britain has contributed and would Rome if she had retained her enormous Dominion have rivaled the glories of modern civilization which seem to be the result of concentration rather than of

Expansion it is not extent of territory that gives the only or greatest element of man’s progress it has its dangers as well as its opportunities the Tyrant avails himself of the unlimited chances and the Very immensity of the continent gives him advantages that he would not otherwise possess the Roman Church is acquiring

More power in America than in any other country the Vatican paling before the luster of Bruno’s statue at Rome is enthroned in the Metropolis of the new world universal suffrage greater than any King is becoming the Ally of this rapacious despotism but Rome is not the only tyranny that flourishes in this Republic

Through its very vastness Upon Our soil today we will find ignorance as dense as that of Africa persecution as bitter as that of Siberia and Superstition as rank as that of the south sea Islands and it is the abundance of territory that makes these things possible if all our Millions were

Crammed into one tenth the space space they now occupy ignorance and Superstition and tyranny would vastly decrease extent of territory is a blessing so far as the bread and butter question is concerned but this very facility of acquiring a living diminishes thought and while populations are so widely scattered so little in

Contact and ever moving it is impossible to reach the highest point of human genius and Excellence therefore while Columbus opened a new world to Freedom he also opened a new world to tyranny and it may be that the greatest and bloodiest conflict of all time will yet take place

Upon this continent even as the greatest Civil War has already taken place which would not have occurred but for the immense area over which our population extended if the people had been in closer contact the sword would not have been necessary the magnitude therefore of the discovery of Columbus makes it an

Uncertain benefit to the human race organized ignorance and Superstition entered upon its Conquest in opposition to Freedom which as yet in 1492 scarcely recognized its powers Justice for the time being was completely overthrown the discovery of Columbus was followed by destruction and cruelty unparalleled in the history of the world

Slavery the most pitus flung its black shadow over these Fair regions bloody wars annihilated a happy people the cross which Columbus bore and in whose name he took possession of this continent guilded the blackest flag of piracy and murder that ever cursed Humanity says Draper those who died not

Under the Lash in a tropical Sun died in the darkness of the mine from sequestered sandbanks where the red Flamingo fishes in the gray of morning from fever stricken Mangrove thickets and the Gloom of impenetrable forests from hiding places in the Cliffs of rocks and the Solitude of invisible

Caves from the Eternal Snows of the Andes where there was no witness but the allseeing son there went up a cry of human despair by millions and millions whole Nations and races were remorselessly cut off from Mexico and Peru a civilization that might have instructed Europe was

Crushed Out Columbus was no free thinker he was a true child of the church though he struck one of the keenest blows at the authority of the church ever inflicted by any skeptic he gave almost undeniable proof that the Earth was not flat as it was declared to be by the

Standard Theology of the church for centuries the dark and passionate Spirit of Austine had ruled the theologians on the question of the antipodes this great man had declared it is impossible there should be inhabitants on the opposite side of the earth since no such race is recorded by scripture among the

Descendants of Adam this unanswerable argument was also made against the sphericity of the earth that in the day of judgment men on the other side of the globe could not see the Lord descending through the air Columbus demolished a cardinal Doctrine when he stepped upon these

Shores it was not so much the discovery of America as what the discovery declared as to the form of the earth that gave such immense significance to The Voyage of Columbus his persistent courage compelled the recognition of a new truth every wind that wafted him Westward rolled back the clouds of a

Dark theology if Columbus was not a heretic in thought he was certainly a heretic in action he could not have done a greater service for free thought devout Catholic as he was his banners were the brightest signals in the broadening dawn of science it certainly must have taken a man of superior genius

To plunge into the unknown waste of waters not only against night and storm but the almost Universal tradition of the church to which he gave Allegiance I wonder sometimes if in the lone watches beneath the stars straining his eyes to the westward to discover some sign of land after days of Hope

Deferred the word words of the Christian father lactantius did not come to his mind and almost make him repent of his audacity is it possible says this voice of the church that men can be so absurd as to believe that the crops and the trees on the other side of the earth

Hang downward and that men have their feet higher than their heads I am really at a loss what to say of those who when they have once gone wrong steadily persevere in their Folly nevertheless Columbus did persevere and he did discover trees that hang downward and men with feet higher

Than their heads and in so doing he set reason above faith and toppled over Theology and although the same ecclesiastical authorities declared that if the Earth were round its rotundity would present a kind of mountain up which it was impossible for him to sail even with the fairest wind and so he

Could never come back yet Columbus did come back not only revealing America but the possibility of the vast Earth with its continents and seas and peoples swinging through the immensities of space it was no longer flat a quadrangular plane enclosed by mountains on which rests the crystalline Dome of

The sky though confuted by the Pento the Psalms the prophecies the gospels the Epistles and the writings of the fathers St christum St Augustine St Jerome St Gregory St basil and St Ambrose the sturdy sailor knocked over the proudest superstructure of the religion which he himself professed I wonder if Columbus

Was at heart a freethinker perhaps he belonged to that wise company of which Disraeli relates men of sense have but one religion what is that is the inquiry men of sense never tell the church however as the final arbitress of all scientific questions had committed itself against the

Globular form of the earth Rome the infallible never retracts anything never recedes unless absolutely comp comp to by overwhelming evidence and even The Voyage of Columbus was not sufficient to convince the Theologian of the error of the ancient geography constructed out of the texts of the Bible possibly the world might still be

Flat only of larger extent than hitherto supposed the four pillars might still be at the Four Corners of the earth Columbus did not settle the question beyond the possibility of dispute other voyages must be made over still unknown Seas Columbus failed in his attempt to reach India by sailing to the West Vasco

Deama succeeded by sailing to the South he doubled the Cape of Good Hope and retraced the track of the ships of pharaoh nicho which had accomplished the same undertaking 2,000 years ago he set sail July 9th 1497 on May 19th 1498 he reached Calicut on the Malibar Coast the consequences of this Voyage

Were to the last degree important the commercial Arrangements of Europe were completely dislocated the front of Europe was changed Britain was put in the van of the new movement and now in consequence of the Rivalry between Spain and Portugal the greatest Voyage of all time was undertaken August 10th 1519 mellan

Sailed from Seville he struck boldly for the Southwest he lost sight of the North Star but held courageously on a mutiny broke out one ship deserted and stole back to Spain his perseverance and resolution were at last rewarded by the discovery of the strait named by him s

Voria in honor of his ship but named Ever After straight of mellin November 20th 1520 he issued from its Western portals into the Great South Sea admiring its illimitable and Placid surface he gave it the name Pacific Ocean having burst through this barrier he steered for the Northwest for 3

Months and 20 days he never saw inhabited land he was compelled by famine to eat the sweepings of the ship yet he resolutely held on his course though his men were dying daily he estimated that he sailed over this unfathomable sea not less than 12,000 miles in the whole history of human

Undertakings says Draper there is nothing that exceeds if there is anything that equals this Voyage of mellin that of Columbus’s dwindles away but though the church hath everm more from holy RIT affirmed that the Earth should be a widespread plane bordered by Waters yet he comforted himself when he

Considered that in the eclipses of the Moon the shadow cast of the Earth is round and as is the shadow such and like manner is the substance it was a stout heart a heart of triple brass which could thus against against such Authority extract unyielding Faith from a

Shadow mellin reached the ladrones he thus grandly accomplished his object but it was not given him to complete the circumnavigation of the globe at an island called zebu he was killed the general his men said was a very brave man and received his death wound in his front melan’s Lieutenant Sebastian

Delano directed his course to the Cape of Good Hope encountering the most fearful hardships he doubled the cape and on September 7th 1522 in the port of St Luca near sevil the Good Ship son Victoria came safely to Anchor she had accomplished the greatest achievement in the history of

The human race she had circumnavigated the globe doubly Immortal and Thrice happy is mellan says the historian for he impressed his name indelibly on the earth and the sky on the straight that connects the two great oceans and on those clouds of Starry worlds seen in the southern Heavens he also imposed a

Designation on the largest portion of the globe it was now altogether useless for the church to bring forward the authority of holy RIT that the Earth was flat it remained only to permit the dispute to pass into Oblivion but this could not be done without discovering the fact that science was

Beginning to display a vast advantage over Bible theology and unmistakable tokens that air long she would destroy her tyrannical antagonist end of chapter 2 the three voyages Columbus Vasco deama and mellan Chapter 3 of 400 years of free thought by Samuel P putam this is a LibriVox recording all

LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit librivox.org recording by Rita Bros chapter 3 before Columbus Draper places these three great voyages as immediately preceding the Age of Reason in Europe they were the Destroyers of ancient Faith they were the illuminators of the morning before

The time of Columbus were the Dark Ages but they were not altogether the Dark Ages and anterior to the discovery of America there were wonderful streaks of light in those obscure times let us try and understand the condition Christianity as it ruled the world in the time of con Constantine was indeed a

Blasting power it was the greatest curse that ever came upon Humanity it destroyed life it destroyed science it destroyed civilization the murder of hypatia was The Logical result both of the teachings of Jesus and St Paul he who preaches any other gospel let him be a cursed those

Mine enemies which would not that I should Reign Over them bring hither and slay them before me in its Inception and progress Christianity is the most cruel religion that has ever blackened the pages of history in the pathetic death of hypatia we behold its Immortal infamy the fate

Of hypatia was a warning to all who would cultivate knowledge henceforth there was to be no freedom of human thought if Christianity prevailed in the 6th Century Muhammad appeared more wonderful and more successful than Jesus himself for today he is the religious guide of onethird of the human race Muhammad overthrew and absolutely

Annihilated the old idolatry the essential dogma of the new Faith there is but one God spread without any adulteration the doctrine of the unity of God is ever an advance upon the doctrine of the Trinity of God it is a step toward the destruction of God in fact as Bishop Huntington shows the

Trinitarian philosophy is absolutely necessary to the permanency of the god idea for Only a triun God is of any possible service to humanity or is comprehensible by Humanity the doctrine of the Trinity is not to satisfy the head but the heart cold as it seems to be it is the outcome

Of a passionate religious sentiment which desires to make God real tangible and accessible which he cannot be under the bare idea of unity the doctrine of the unity of God logically tends to pantheism as it did in the philosophy of avaros and pantheism eventually becomes atheism both in philosophy and science

Muhammadanism surpassed the Christianity of the Middle Ages Watley views it as a Corruption of Christianity it is rather a reformation and Superior in many respects to Luther’s Reformation the Triumph of the sarasan army was marvelous Jerusalem Alexandria Carthage fell before its Victorious colors muhammadanism dominated from the

Alai mountains to the Atlantic Ocean and from the center of Asia to the Western verge of Africa of its advance in Europe Gibbon says a Victorious line of March had been prolonged above a th000 miles from the Rock of Gibralter to the banks of the lir a repetition of an equal

Space would have carried the sarasin to the confines of Poland and the highlands of Scotland the most powerful religious Empire that the world had ever seen thus suddenly came into existence it surpassed in extent the dominions of Imperial Rome Christianity found its Safeguard not in the sword of Charles

Martell or in the prayers of the Pope but in the quarrels of the amadis the fatimatus and the abses the nestorians who were the ancient unitarians and and the Jews exerted great influence in the development of muhammadanism the fanaticism of the sarasin Abad Their Manners became polished their thoughts

Elevated they abandoned the fallacies of vulgar muhammadanism and accepted in their stead scientific truth al- manun on the shores of the Red Sea in the plains of shinar established the truth of the sphericity of the Earth translations of Greek philosophical authors were made into Arabic schools of medicine and law were established great

Libraries were collected it was the boast of the sarasin that they produced more poets than all other nations combined they perceived that science can never be Advanced by mere speculation but only by the Practical interrogation of nature the characteristics of their method are observation and experiment they were The Originators of chemistry

And the inventors of algebra and adopted the Indian enumeration in arithmetic the thousand one Arabian Knights entertainment Bears testimony to the creative fancy of the sarason besides these there were works on History jurist Prudence politics and philosophy they taught Europe the game of chess the empire was dotted all over

With colleges the modern philosophy of evolution was taught the beautiful doctrines of avaros prevailed and even invaded Christendom doctrines which affirmed the indestructibility of matter and force and that the spirit of man was an emanation of the universal intellect however before the time of Columbus the brilliancy of Arabian scholarship had

Declined science and philosophy were and Orthodox theology began to Reign the religion of Muhammad returned to the old anthropomorphic conception of God and of Heaven as a mansion of carnal Pleasures muhammadanism was a tremendous agitator and wide Enlightenment but it did not usher in the Age of Reason

Though for a time it flamed with the colors of free thought AOS in his old age 1198 was expelled from Spain and declared a traitor to religion other philosophers were put to death and the consequence was that Islam like Europe was full of Hypocrites in 1243 the Inquisition was

Introduced its first Duty was that of dealing with the Jews under the sarason rule the Jews were treated with the utmost consideration they became distinguished for wealth and learning their mertile interests LED them to travel all over the world they were the Physicians and bankers of Europe they were proficient

In mathematics and astronomy they were the cause of The Voyage of dama the Orthodox clergy excited popular prejudice against them a bull was issued in 147 8 for the suppression of heresy in 1481 2,000 victims were burnt at Andalusia 177,000 were fined or imprisoned torture was relied upon for

Conviction the families of The Condemned were plunged into irretrievable ruin Tada destroyed Hebrew Bibles wherever he could find them and burnt 6,000 volumes of Orient Al literature then came the banishment of the Jews March 30th 1492 about 6 months before the voyage of Columbus the Edict of expulsion was

Signed all unbaptized Jews were ordered to leave Spain by the end of the following July if they Revisited the realm they would suffer death the Spanish clergy occupied themselves by preaching in the public squares sermons filled with denunciations against their victims who swarmed the roads and filled

The air with cries of Despair even the onlookers wept at the scene of Agony and this was in the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the edict against the Jews was soon followed by one against the Moors in 1502 all unbaptized Moors in the kingdoms of Castile and Leon were

Ordered to leave the country country by the end of April they were forbidden to immigrate to the muhammadan dominions such was the fish intolerance of the Spanish government no faith was kept with the victims after a residence of eight centuries they were driven from the land these instances show what a black

Knight of bigotry and tyranny was over the world in the days of Columbus and yet there were bright and beautiful signs of the age Roger Bacon was born in England in 1214 and was one of the greatest Geniuses of his age or of any age he was familiar with Latin Greek Hebrew and

Arabic of mathematics he truly says it is the first of all the Sciences it precedes all others and disposes us to them he affirmed the principles of inductive philosophy in him as as halum says were many prophetic gleams of the future course of science his life was one of the most

Pathetic and Sublime ever lived upon this planet he struggled against tremendous odds he was in an age of ignorance and his glorious discoveries were little regarded he was hundreds of years in advance of his times how significant was his famous expression the ignorant mind cannot sus aain the

Truth in his letter to Pope Clement he wrote it is on account of the ignorance of those by whom I am surrounded that I cannot accomplish more after a life of noble Devotion to knowledge he was rewarded in old age with 10 years imprisonment and when he died he uttered The Melancholy complaint

I Repent now that I have given myself so much trouble for the love of science of him it might be more fitly sung than of Milton thy Soul was like a star and dwelt apart his lofty genius indeed Shone in isolated Grandeur blazing with a light that it took centuries to appreciate

Brave glorious old man the brightest star upon the forehead of that Dawn which opened to a boundless stay thou shouldst have lived to enjoy the fruits of thy desolate toil today thou wouldst have worn the crown too late too late for thy bruised and martyred Spirit hath star-eyed science

Poured its Glory upon man’s path but Thou shalt not be forgotten though centuries pass before the flowers bloom on thy un laureled grave the Regeneration of Italy began with the Exile of the popes to Aenon 1309 Dante sang his song in that century and had the courage to put some of the

Popes in hell and damn them with melodious verse the illustrious petrarch 1304 to 1374 not only poured forth his own passionate music but endeavored to make his countrymen appreciate Homer according to his own confession the number who read Homer at that time did not exceed 10 VOC IO 13113 to

1375 joined in the same effort he did more however by his own Immortal Productions which will be a part of universal literature as long as the world stands Shelly writes of bachio how much do I admire bachio what descriptions of nature are there in his little introductions to every new day

Bachio seems to me to have possessed a deep sense of the fair ideal of human life he often expresses things lightly too which have serious meanings of a very beautiful kind his is the opposite of the Christian stoical ready-made and worldly system of morals this is the tribute of one

Freethought poet to another across the centuries in petrarch and bachio we see much sweetness and light not withstanding the darkness of their surroundings and the Hideous theology that ruined the world it is in literature that we see the life of a people rather than in any series of

Events however imposing and the tales of bachio So Graceful so fanciful so agreeable even to the imagination and culture of today and sparkling with the affluence of the Breaking Free thought of his own time demonstrate that the spiritual bonds of Rome did not very strictly enclose the wit and Genius of

Man that there was a vast undercurrent of intelligence sweeping far beyond the doctrines of Orthodoxy the tender and solemn enthusiasm as Shelly calls it of petrarch the great representative of Italian humanism ranks him also among the Skeptics of the Renaissance using the word skeptic in its philosophical meaning to denote thinkers of an

Analytic mind who search for truth constantly and are opposed to dogmatism Dante was also among the Skeptics in spite of his cruel Christianity which is an indelible blot upon his otherwise magnificent poem the greatest of Italian literature and the most musical epic ever poured forth from

The brain of man in writing his poem in the Exquisite Italian language the great Dante revolted against the supremacy of the church for as Draper points out the universal use of the Latin tongue was necessary to the absolute Dominion of Rome so long as this was the sole

Language of the educated classes the church possessed an inestimable Advantage the growth of modern languages the Italian German French and English especially with their well of native literature has not only been a vast civilizing and free thought agency but an enduring and insuperable obstacle to the unity of the church and its Universal

Sway language is the most powerful instrumentality either for progress or retrogression and the establishment of the Latin language as the one language of learning and literature did more perhaps than anything else to make Rome Supreme Dante petrarch and bachio by their ennoblement of their native speech

Were the for runners of the new Italy of today another indication of the ocean currents of the human mind was the extraordinary popularity of a work ascribed to Thomas Aus imitation of Christ it is said to have had more readers than any other book except the Bible it’s ESS IAL intention was to

Enable the pious to cultivate devotional feeling without the intervention of the clergy as Draper says such a work written at the present day would find an apt and popular title in every man his own priest the celebrity of the book displays a profound distrust of the ecclesiastics both in morals and in

Intellect this book was a favorite of George Elliot one of the greatest freethought writers of this age and therefore there must be something in it of permanent value to one religiously inclined as George Elliot undoubtedly was but whose vigorous and untrammeled genius would accept only the best of

Human thought in a sense the imitation of Christ was a revolutionary book in that it cultivated self-reliance in religion instead of dependence upon a priesthood in the imitation of Christ we find the breath of the Reformation Thomas Aus was the John the Baptist of Luther but the two greatest freethought

Forces anterior to Columbus was the restoration of Greek to Italy 1395 and the invention of printing 1440 Greek genius worked wonders in religion in philosophy in lit literature think of these Mighty Treasures of the incomparable past poured Upon A people who had already been stirred by the

Songs of Dante of petrarch and bachio who had em bibed the sublime and beautiful ideas of avaros and now discovered their Fountain Head Gibbon in one of his most Splendid passages thus describes the Greek tongue in their lowest depths of servitude and depression the subjects of the Byzantine

Throne were still possessed of a golden key that could unlock the treasures of antiquity of a musical and prolific language that gives a soul to the objects of sense and a body to the abstractions of philosophy CID also with exquisite eloquence says Greek The Shrine of the

Genius of the old world as universal as our race as individual as ourselves El of infinite flexibility of indefatigable strength with the complication and the distinctness of nature herself to which nothing was vulgar from which nothing was excluded speaking to the ear like Italian speaking to the mind like

English with words like pictures with words like the gossamer film of the summer at once the variety and picturesqueness of Homer the gloom and intensity of eelus not compressed to the closest by thiddies not fathomed to the Bottom by Plato not sounding with all its Thunder nor lit up with all its

Arter even under the Promethean Touch of deanes there never was there never will be anything like the Greek world of thought again it shines with peculiar and Immortal loveliness the child of the sweetest climb that ever invigorated and expanded The Genius of man but not only the Greek thought but the Greek language

Is unequaled in its varied and marvelous potency and so long as civilization endures it will be one of the noblest educators of human speech and the church dreaded this illustrious innovator more ancient in its Glory than its own Hy creeds living power before Rome was born no wonder that its influence upon men’s

Minds was a terror to the priest with a quick and jealous suspicion he learned to detect a heretic from his knowledge of Greek and of Hebrew to for the study at that time of Hebrew assailed the foundations of the church’s Faith the discovery of America was not

So great a boon to the race as the discovery of intellectual ual Greece the one was the revelation of physical Grandeur and boundless material opportunity the other of the Sublimity of the Mind the Splendor of art of poetry the Beauty and the grace that must ever Inspire Humanity to its greatest

Deeds but mightier than Greek genius or the Voyages of Columbus dama and mellin was the art of printing without which the civilization of today would be impossible Society in its highest state depends upon its means of communication and records of the past without memory it is impossible to know or to advance

With memory is the first step of progress printing has increased a thousandfold the memory of man and so his possibilities of improvement for one thing it has made insignificant the pulpit which was once the sole means of communication with the people and which thundered its anathemas from which there was no

Appeal the newspaper now is far more potent than the pulpit and will not enslave the race for from its very nature it must ever be the battlefield of opinions the Monopoly of the church was destroyed by the Press but the printing press would be of little value without paper it would be

Like a chained giant there were methods of printing in Rome Babylon and Egypt but no paper books could not be multiplied fortunately with the modern printing press came the manufacturer of paper in illimitable quantities and the first manufacturer of paper in Europe was by the Moors and the Art of printing

Came from China so it seems that modern civilization is indebted to to the Disciples of Confucius and Muhammad for its most fruitful instruments the press and paper as also the Mariners compass and gunpowder what honor is there for Christianity it is interesting to notice the activity of the press at the close

Of the 15th century in all Europe between 1470 and 1500 more than 10,000 editions of books and pamphlets were printed a majority in Italy in Venice there were 2,835 in Rome 925 in Paris 751 and in London only 130 at Oxford 7 and St Albans

4 as late as 1550 but seven Works had been printed in Scotland and among them not a single classic Italy was nearly as far advanced in 1400 as England was in 1500 says Draper I have thus endeavored to give some idea of the state of the world at

The time of Columbus it was by no means a stagnant world it was a world of energy of which Columbus dama and mellan are brilliant representatives for centuries in the Dark Ages amidst the glooms of theology the awful tyrannies of the church the dense ignorance of the

Masses the immorality of the clergy and their hatred and Terror of Greek and science still were their Mighty intellectual movements the great muhammadan Empire sprang up and temporarily Allied itself with learning philosophy and Science and its vast pathway was adorned with the light of poetry of Romance of Glorious Discovery and invention

Though now the Fiat of Orthodoxy was upon it Dante and petrarch had sung bachio had made the shadow of death Sunny with his Immortal fancies the radiant Oriental philosophy of avaros had invaded even the courts of Rome the ancient Treasures of Greece were filling the world with unexpected light and the

Art of printing had scattered millions of books from Italy to England end of chapter 3 before Columbus chapter 4 of 400 years of free thought by Samuel P Pam this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit librivox.org chapter 4 astronomy

After the three great Voyages of Columbus dagama and mellan with their immense results changing the whole face of human history came the still vaster Voyages of the mind of man through the infinite Heavens the Earth was round still it might be stationary in the center of the universe but a more amazing Discovery

Was yet to be made the ponderous Earth itself was to be let loose and flying swifter than the ships of Columbus travel space around the distant sun and the sun itself with its retinue of planets was launched forth upon an endless Journey it was a staggering blow

To the church and no wonder it took centuries for the infallible Pope to accommodate himself to this stupendous Discovery what an enormous Battlefield was now opening upon the range of man for the conflict between intellect and Superstition not simply the solar system itself but vast spaces where and

Millions of orbs millions of times larger than the Earth itself were sweeping with illimitable splendors slowly and timidly began the battle in behalf of the heliocentric theory it was a daring speculation a tremendous and fearful blow against the authority of the church to be most bitterly resented no wonder that cernus

Waited 36 years before he dared to give his Discovery to the world no wonder that he waited until his dying hour before publishing his heretical book that was to change the face of the heavens and give the lie to all the teachings of the Christian fathers cernus died in

1543 on the day of his death a few hours before he expired a copy of his book was placed in his hands he touched it and seemed conscious of what it was and then relapsed into a state of insensibility and passed away he could only thus be

Safe from the hands of the Christian church for publishing the greatest truth yet made known to mankind namely that the Earth was not stationary but was moving around the Sun and worling upon its axis the doctrine of cernus was taken up by the indomitable Bruno and urged with extraordinary force upon the

Attention of Europe Bruno was born in 1548 and died 1600 a martyr to science Bruno was an Enthusiast a fiery Spirit marvelously gifted with a vast imagination and his work on the plurality of Worlds was a most startling production how insignificant it made the Earth appear how insignificant the

Church with its pompous ceremonies its popes and its Cardinals its scheme of redemption its mother of God St Peter and the cross no wonder that bigotry uttered a cry of horror and crushed the night Aaron of philosophy who found no refuge anywhere in the Civilized world he was tried excommunicated and

Delivered over the secular Authority to be punished as mercifully as possible and without the shedding of blood the indomitable formula for burning a man alive with prophetic truth he nobly responded when the sentence was passed upon Him Perhaps it is with greater fear that you pass this sentence upon me then

I receive it his illustrious Monument now confronts the Vatican at Rome the solemn pathos of his death scene is eloquently commemorated by a freethought poet of America in The Smiling land where the Tyber flows on its Winding Way from the mountains down the sun of a far off day

Arose on a seven hilled city of past Renown it Shone on pillar and Tower and Arch on church and Temple and statue Fair on a mauve of black robe priests who march to a chosen spot in a Public Square it sees the man they have brought and bound it sees them driving the

Martyr stake and while they are piling the round their curs and maledictions break we look in the cow and Howling crowd of Roman Ruffians and romish Priests scow dark on their victim angry brow with the brutal passions of savage beasts no friend is present to take his

Part nor Venture the protest of groan or SOB save that some woman of tender heart weeps low at the outskirts of the mob the hands of Assassins have lit the fire but the mar erect unod unbowed looks out from the smoke of his funeral P Serene

As the stars look through a cloud the deed is done and the crowds disperse and Bruno the noble once more is free for the waves of the Tyber a somber hearse flow down with his ashes toward the sea ah this was Rome when the church had

Power and own the soil that the Patriot trod this was the bloom of the Popple flower yeah this was Italy under God but the sun shines still round goes the world and another era has dawned on Rome the vicer of Christ from the throne is hurled and the land of the popes is

The free man’s home on the spot where Bruno died that day a marble statue confronts the eye while the priests in their Cloister curse or prey and bemoan the worth of a Time Gone by and Italy’s son while the Tyber flows will guard that statue from break or fall and

Bruno’s lovers shall Fame disclose as the noblest Romans among them all ah this is Italy free at last from the curse of the sacerdotal clan undoing the crimes of a brutal past Lo this is Italy under man George E McDonald less than a decade after his death a great and fortunate event

Occurred which by increasing the vision of man destroyed the last hopes of the ecclesiastical party this was the invention of the telescope by lierse a Dutchman in 16008 Galileo hearing of the circumstance in the following year invented a form for himself he applied it to celestial objects on turning it to

The moon he found that she had mountains and valleys like those of the earth he discovered a numerable fixed Stars hither to unseen by man an insuperable objection to the fall that they were made to illuminate the Earth by night he discovered the phases of Venus which indubitably established

For her a motion around the Sun and removed one of the weightiest objections to the capern theory in 1611 he wrote a letter for the purpose of showing that the Bible was not intended to be a scientific Authority he thus repeated Bruno’s offense he was summoned to Rome his

Sentence was that he must renounce his heretical opinions and pledge himself that he would neither publish nor defend them for the future he ascended to the required recantation the Inquisition then proceeded to denounce the new system of the universe as that false Pythagorean Doctrine utterly contrary to the holy scriptures this was in

1616 in 1632 the irrepressible Spirit of Galileo burst forth again and he ventured on the publication of his work the system of the world its object being to established more fully the capern doctrine he was again summoned before the Inquisition he was put into solitary confinement an old man in ill health his

Trial completed in penitential garment he received judgment he was made to fall upon his knees before the assembled Cardinals and with his hand on the gospels abjure his heresies he was then committed to prison after 5 years confinement he was permitted to remove to Florence for his health his infirmities and misfortunes now

Increased in 1637 he became totally blind shortly after he became totally deaf he died in 1642 a prisoner of the Inquisition he was denied burial and consecrated ground but the church could not quench The Immortal thought of Galileo anym that it could stop the Stars upon their

Courses it could not make the Earth to stand still and the sun to roll about it it could not make one iota less interminable spaces through which sparkled uncounted Suns the thumb screw could not VI with the telescope suffering might make Galileo blind but not could close that Mighty eye

Increasing in brightness until 200 million suns glittered in its enormous circuit the sublime Kepler with marvelous patience with somewhat Mystic Insight unfolded still further the harmonies and Grandeur of the solar system the mind of Kepler seemed akin to the Motions of the planets he was a splendid guesser but

Every guest was submitted to inexorable computations he himself said I considered and reflected until I was almost mad but he held on with philosophical determination to the Grand idea that there must be some physical interconnection among the parts of the solar system at length he hit upon the

Three great laws he demonstrated them it was an important step to the establishment of the doctrine of the government of all the World by law in the movement of the planets around the Sun there was correlation and Harmony but what was the cause of these Exquisite and beautiful mathematical

Movements it would not do any longer to guess there must be a slow and toysome advance from the mechanics of the Earth to the mechanics of the heavens in the fall of a coin of Golden Feather where to be traced the mighty law of the movements of remotest Worlds Leonardo da Vinci born

1452 was one of the most radiantly gifted minds of his Century he was well acquainted with the Earth’s annual motion he knew the law of friction he described the camera obscura the nature of colored Shadows the use of the iris he occupied himself with the fall of

Bodies on the hypothesis of the Earth’s rotation he treated of the times of descent along inclined Plaines and circular arcs and foreshadowed one of the great discoveries of geology the elevation of continents Leonardo D Vinci is certainly the man whose genius has the best right to be called Universal of any that ever

Lived he was the most accomplished painter of his generation he was sculptor architect musician critic he was mechanician anatomist botanist physiologist astronomer chemist geologist and geographer he set himself to perform tasks and solve problems too arduous and too manifold for the strength of any single life with his

Labors however was the beginning of natural philosophy and his name will always shine in the anals of scientific progress he made possible the principia of Newton along with cernus Bruno Galileo Tao BR and Kepler he helped to reveal the immensities of the starry regions and to place them under law

Galileo and 1638 States the true law of the uniformity and perpetuity of motion the knowledge of which lies at the basis of physical astronomy through the labors of teselli and others the principles of mechanics were solidly established and everyone had become ready to admit that the motion of planetary bodies would

Find an explanation on these principles but it wanted the Mastermind to demonstrate the theory in April 1686 the principia of Newton was presented to the Royal Society as a purely intellectual work it is the greatest that has ever appeared in the world’s history and it probably will never be surpassed as an exhibition

Of the gigantic powers of the human mind Newton not only laid the foundation of physical astronomy but carried the structure very far toward its completion he unfolded the theory of universal gravitation Newton was led to his Discovery by reflecting that at all altitudes gravity appears to be undiminished might not gravity extend to

The Moon in his first calculations Newton found that the Moon is deflected from the tangent 13 ft every minute but if the theory of gravitation were true the deflection should be 15 ft he put aside the subject for several years at length new and more accurate measures of

A degree which affected the estimate of the magnitude of the earth and the distance of the Sun he repeated the calculations as they drew to a a close he became so agitated that he desired a friend to finish them it was demonstrated that the moon revolved around the Earth by the force of

Terrestrial gravity and that its orbit was elliptical and so also must be the orbits of the planets around the sun and the cause of Kepler’s laws was thus made plain thus ended the greatest conflict in history between the church and science it had been most bitterly contested the church disputed every inch

Of ground it imprisoned it tortured and it burned at the stake the Bic system of astronomy was established in the 2 century and it maintained its ground for nearly 1500 years it was the principia of Newton that destroyed it forever that ancient system was necessary to The

Prestige of the church it would not do to declare the Infinity of Worlds it would not do for the earth to be a mere Speck of light in the midst of numberless constellations it would not do to declare that law pervaded the universe and that there was no room for

Any Miracle it would not do for the telescope to penetrate space until the sun itself was but a Mist upon the boundless expanse and no God no Heaven anywhere not a centella of angel or Golden Throne it was a tremendous conflict Hy ages and Hy Superstition the pope with his thunders of

Excommunication the church with its Everlasting hell the dungeon and the and the sword the Inquisition with its awful Horrors all these were mustered against the rising glories of science cernus died before he dared to blazen forth the truth he had through laborious years silently accumulated Galileo bent the knee Bruno imperiously

Perished in the Flames yet the mind of man was unconquerable it would not be chained it would be free it would scale the heavens and how magnificent has been the result what an elevation what a Splendor has been given to human life though the Earth itself shrinks into insignificance

For man finds himself part of an infinite Universe of infinite power of infinite light of infinite law there is no end night after night the amazing spectacle passes before his eyes night after night a thousand telescopes sweep the glittering Plains vast systems extend before the Gaze some in perfect

Order some in the nebular glow of formation and some in the throws of Destruction Stars comets asteroids planets suns in inconceivable and measureless pomp overwhelming imagination with suggestions of still grander spaces and vaster orbs what a Battleground this has been and what an ennobling victory has been won the flag

Of free thought is gemmed with stars and it floats from an impregnable height end of chapter 4 astronomy chapter 5 of 400 years of free thought by Samuel P butam this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit

Librivox.org read by Larry Wilson the Reformation the Reformation lured and destructive marks an Epoch in human progress it soon reached its culmination and ceased to be of any benefit it was a furious protest backed by The Sword and cruel persecutions of its own but it was a stroke for Liberty millions of men

Were struggling for their own rights though careless of the rights of others it is something however for one to have the courage to defend himself rather than to submit the Reformation was as Relentless as Rome in its own way but still it was better and also by its

Opposition made Rome better I doubt if science could have so grandly won its way if the despotic unity of Rome had not been destroyed and its very existence involved in a life and death struggle for political power Luther himself was opposed to science he had no use for cernus he said of this

Astronomer people gave ear to an upstart astrologer who strove to show that the Earth Earth revolves not the heavens or the firmament the Sun and the Moon whoever wishes to appear clever must devise some new system which of all systems is of course the very best this fool wishes to reverse the entire

Science of astronomy but sacred scripture tells us that Joshua commanded the sun and moon to stand still and not the Earth Calvin burnt citus with a refinement of Cruelty that would have rejoiced the heart of the Inquisitor General the gain of the Reformation for science was not in any direct help that

It afforded but by precipitating the world of Europe into a mortal struggle on theological questions for the time being it withdrew the attention of authority to a certain extent from the transactions of science which pursued its way as in the case of Newton somewhat unobtrusively and won its Splendid victories without the church

Apparently realizing their vast significance and when the church did have a chance to turn its attention to these fields and supervise them as of old it was too late the principia had been published the Reformation was an enormous help to the literary activity of the people the printing press was

Used as an engine of War Luther invoked its Aid and was thus enabled to strike a terrific blow at Rome from which it has never recovered Rome would have burned every printing press if it had had had the power Rome wanted no means of communication with the people except the

Pulpit and through an accredited priest the power of the pulpit was the bulwark of Rome on the other hand the printing press was the salvation of Luther he could not have won without it it enabled him to arouse vast masses of people and to give them an opportunity to judge for

Themselves his translation of the Bible into the common language was a master stroke to give of the Bible to the people was an immense advance for liberty no matter what the Bible is in itself its distribution by hundreds of thousands of copies in the time of Luther with an appeal to private

Judgment was the source of a tremendous agitation it brought into play forces of Revolution that Luther and his princes could not control besides Luther made the German language a literary power it took the place of Latin as a vehicle for song and philosophy Luther’s translation was the Fountain Head of the Glorious

Poetry of Schiller and G it showed what the language was capable of doing it was the beginning of a national literature and also as Luther desentedents from Luther it was inevitable that there should be dissent and protest everywhere the era of individuality had set in and Luther could not make its currents move

According to his wishes it swept Beyond him it swept beyond the power of any man or any church to regulate there were numberless sects divisions separations stries quarrels and these indicated that there were plenty of private judgments more than Luther ever bargained for but it was the logic of the situation Luther

Himself might retreat but the tide went on and the waves of controversy multiplied and there was no knowing when the ocean of human thought would end in tumultuous course in fact there is no end no finality as we have found out in these latter days the separation from

Rome once begun has no bounds it goes on infinitely in every direction there is an everlasting breakup not only away from the pope but away from Christianity away from the Bible away from all religions Luther put man upon a vaster voyage of Discovery than Columbus or mellan one can circumnavigate the globe

But who can circumnavigate the truth or map out the intellectual ual reaches of inquiry so Swift was the progress of the Reformation that at the close of Luther’s life it seemed as if the papacy must end in total ruin yet it recovered itself and is now stronger every way

Than before the Reformation did not have in it any universal power it did not represent any universal principle its Chief value was in its destructive Tendencies the Reformation was simply a fight for an opinion it was not a battle for worldwide Freedom hence it was limited in its action and must soon

Reach the Acy of its success after the Colossal political struggle was over when the 30 Years War closed with the peace to Walia and the great potentates laid down their arms came the area of construction on other bases than mere force and in this the papal church had

Superior advantages to that of the Protestant it had age culture art letters the Elegance of the day it was logically the true conservative power and Kings naturally Allied themselves with it rather than with the disintegrations of protestantism that must someday to the farseeing Mind end in democracy and then when the

Reformation became crystallized when it ceased to be dynamic and became static no longer a flowing energy but an institution what was there to choose between it and Rome which had learned lessons from the the struggle was purged on its outward immoralities and through the mighty Spirit of lyola consecrated

Itself as never before to a spiritual dominion over mankind the churches of the Reformation kindled the Flames of persecution they were opposed to science and progress they would blind people by the superstitions of the past they would make a slave of the human mind and they equally with Rome were the instruments

Of Oppression as a result there was nothing nothing to choose between the reformation and the new papacy as we might call it I do not wonder that Scholars and thinkers like arasmus and grus accepted romanism in the place of protestantism intellectually there was no gain in the latter and for a mind

That delighted in Beauty order and learning Rome offered the greater advantages the spirit of protestantism was what made its Chief value but that Spirit after the peace to West Valia was soon banished from the churches of the new faith if there had not been something in the world to reform the

Reformation the Reformation itself would have been as great a curse as Rome fortunately the logic of the Reformation is the irresistible power that will eventually destroy both it and Rome end of chapter 5 the Reformation chapter 6 part 1 of 400 years of free thought by Samuel P putam

This is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit librivox.org read by Larry Wilson philosophy Bruno we are now to consider philosophical Advance represented by Bruno and Spinosa in One Direction and darar lock Hume Kant Hamilton and com in

Another what is a philosophy Bruno defined it to be the search after Unity this certainly was the sense in which Bruno and Spinosa were philosophers this was the goal of their ceaseless effort the unity of the universe the one in the many the harmony of all worlds all life matter and spirit

God and man if they did not solve the problem AR they certainly adorned their age with the brightest Productions of human genius they have given a noble impulse to free thought they have been the source of many a golden stream of poesy over the fields of time the world will

Never cease to be a debtor to these Immortal dreamers Bruno was not a man of science like Galileo or Darwin he was not a plotter infinitely painstaking slow patient wary advancing steps step by step he assimilated the discoveries of his time with wonderful accuracy but rather by genius than by investigation

And he leaped to conclusions far beyond even the daring speculations of Galileo and Kepler philosophy was his domain not science he was not analytic but synthetic he was a Creator a builder out of the facts furnished by others a more active or richly Gifted Man never was on

This Planet he was like a flame he was born for agitation for controversy he called himself the awakener of sleeping Minds he was indeed that he was an intellectual athlete he was armed and equipped for battle at every Point his learning was prodigious and it was rot together like chained lightning no

Wonder the church dreaded this imperious Knight whose armor was always shining whose blows were always telling in and what a glorious philosophy he proclaimed beautiful and enchanting as the sweet poetry of Shelly indeed Shelly is the modern Bruno and the magnificence of the poet’s genius is the twin glory of the

16th century martyr if we desire to realize the spirit of Bruno and the Splendor of his powers we must read Shelly the one interprets the other on the firmament of time they shine with the same intensity one might think that the poor was singing of the philosopher in this glowing

Music he is made one with nature there is heard his voice in all her music from the moan of Thunder to the song of night’s sweet bird he is a presence to be felt and known in darkness and in light from herb and stone spreading itself where that power may move which

Has withdrawn his being to its own which wields the world with never wearied love sustains it it from below and Kindles it above Bruno proclaimed the imminence of God that nature at no point was separate from God but everywhere was his flowing Divinity nature is the universal mother

There was no real Discord there was no creation but constant emanation as gut sings nature is the Garment we see him by God is Not on a throne but is an eternal Pres presence there is no need of any priest only the open Soul Bruno infuses matter with the noblest

Qualities spirit is not degraded by any association with it as I understand Bruno he makes matter and spirit co-eternal both unning and unending they are two different expressions of the same being which being is incomprehensible in itself but matter and spirit however different their expression are one in God

The Universal Soul the word God to Bruno was simply the term for the unity of existence it did not define God or give him any character or personality or any attribute except simply to make him the totality of existence all embracing as good to sings the all

Enfolding the all upholding to head and heart the force still weaving its Eternal secret invisible visible found our life and Pope declares the same see through this air this ocean and this Earth all matter quick and bursting into birth above how high Progressive life may go around how wide how deep extend

Below from Nature’s chain whichever link you strike 10th or 10,000th breaks the chains alike and modern science still Echoes the thought of Tindall I prolong the vision back backward across the boundary of the experimental evidence and discern in that matter which we in our ignorance have hitherto covered with a probium the

Promise and potency of every form and quality of life Bruno does not identify the universe with God it is the expression of God but not God himself withdraw God and the universe would cease to be but Bruno seems to affirm that so long as God is so long must he constantly

Express himself in the universe that is God must in his very nature be action Eternal action he cannot be merely a thought or a dream or a sleep therefore the universe is co-eternal with God the relation of the universe to God is not one of identity but of expression or

Revealing the universe is the constant revealing of God and is one with God in the sense that language is one with the thought of it expresses the universe is the language or the word of God it is best however to give Bruno’s own words so that we may most clearly understand

His pantheistic philosophy he says there is only one absolute possibility one only reality one only activity whether it be form or Soul matter or body it is but one one only being one Soul existence Unity is therefore Perfection as character is impossibility of being comprehended in other words it possesses

Neither limit bound nor definitive determination the one is infinite and immense and therefore immovable it cannot change its place because outside of it there is no space it is not engendered because all existence is only its own existence it cannot perish because it can neither pass into nor

Transform itself into anything else it cannot increase nor diminish because the infinite is susceptible neither of augmentation nor of diminution it is liable to alteration neither from without because nothing exists outside of it nor from within because it is at once and at the same time everything it can

Become its Harmony is an eternal Harmony since it is Unity itself because it is self-identical it cannot form two beings it has not two kinds of existence because it has not two modes of being it has not different parts for it is not composite it is in the same manner the

Whole and parts all in one limited and unlimited formal and informal matter and void animate and inanimate in the universe solid body does not differ from a mathematical Point nor the center from the circumference nor the finite from the infinite nor the infinitely great from the infinitely little the universe

Is only a center or rather its Center is everywhere its circumference nowhere again he explains the Supreme Being is the substance of the universe the pure essence of all life and reality the source of all being the forces of all forces the virtue of all virtues if nature is the outward originating cause

Of all existence Divinity is its deeper foundation and the more profound basis both of Nature and of each individual God being the cause of all causes the ruling principle of all existence may become everything being also perfect he is everything in him existence and power reality and activity are inseparably

United indeed they cannot be conceived separately and apart from him not only is he alone the external cause of all things he is also the inherent principle which maintains them in life by means of his omnipresence and his boundless activity the existence and motion of all things constitute but one sole Life One

Immense and inexhaustible reality the cause of all creation the Supreme Being is at once the formal material efficient and final cause of all that exists he is the nature of all nature being the universal cause and In Perpetual action he is the universal reason in other words the intelligence which conceives

All and produces all being also the Universal Power that which determines and differentiates everything the world contains the Supreme Being is the soul of the world the spirit of the universe the hidden life of every form of existence the Infinity of God his presence and activity in every part of

Creation as well as its immeasurable totality his omnipresence and persistent energy constitute the most wonderful character of his being Bruno not withstanding his mysticism was a born skeptic doubt with him was the starting point of all philosophy and all reasoning this is affirmed again and again in various parts of his works and

Is exemplified in his own career however much the abstractions of the infinite and the one satisfied for the time his intellect and soothed his emotional needs there was a prior stage of Doubt of a sweeping and comprehensive character he who wishes to philosophize says Bruno must begin by doubting all

Things Bruno affirms that the human Mind Is Made for knowledge and freedom he lays it down that thought by its own nature cannot be the subject of punitive Justice for if sincere it can be no offense to God or human law thus political freedom is the outcome of his

Doctrines our opinions he says do not depend upon ourselves evidence the force of circumstance the reason impose them upon us if no man therefore thinks what he wishes nor as he wishes no one has the right of compelling another to think as he does every man ought to tolerate

With patience n with Indulgence the beliefs of his neighbor Toleration that natural Faith Graven upon on All well-born Hearts the fruit of the enlightened reason is an indispensable requirement of logic as well as a precept of morality Bruno was an Ardent worshipper of nature because in nature he saw the

Ever-flowing Divinity of the Supreme Being he describes the charms of nature in the passionate language of a lover nature moving fluctuating changing Instinct with life and energy Bruno was something like Milton rather Furious against personal enemies one of his opponents he calls a pig there was a kind of grim elephanttine

Humor in him a fierce cynical mockery which gives a sort of grotesque light to his otherwise magnificently Earnest Spirit neither Bruno nor Milton was born to be a wet but their efforts at comedy are worthy of preservation Bruno erects Asin into a goddess and sings her Praises thus

O sainted asininity ignorance Most Holy stupidity most sacred devotion most profound thou alone can make us learned good and sound while human thought and study are void of value holy little aileth the search that men so fully employ by every art of science operation little availeth their Skyward

Contemplation to gain the Heavenly seat which is thy object solely what boots then ye curious your persistent exploration the wish to learn the secret of nature’s laws and ways if the stars be water Earth or fiery exhalation holy Asin despises wisdom’s rise folded hands and knees form her sole occupation

Expecting from Providence the luck of better days All Passes nothing stays save the fruition of that Eternal peace which God will give her after her decease in another strain more befitting his Royal nature he afterward sings away from the prison cell narrow and gloomy where so many years error

Closely hath bound me leaving the Fetters and chains which around me my fo’s cruel hand hath entwined to inom me securely to the air my opinions I extend Fearless of all barriers feigned by men of old the heav Heavens I freely cleave to the infinite I tend so leaving this

To other worlds my upward flight i w ethereal Fields I penetrate with dauntless heart and bold and leave behind what others deem a prospect Without End and then wonderfully he seems to predict his own Immortal martyrdom since I my wings to Sweet desire do lend the

More the air uprises Neath my feet the swifter on the Gale my opinions beat and Earth despising toward Heaven I tend nor from the son of deus guilty in feel I dismay they rather buoyant heat his deadly fall I joyfully would meet fear to such death what life could mortal

Spend soaring I hear my trembling Hearts refrain where bearest me oh rash one the fell steep too arduous is not climbed without much pain fear not I answer answer for the Fatal leap Serene I cleave the clouds and death disdain if death So Glorious heaven will that I

Reap such was the magnanimous soul of Bruno a mighty light indeed shining at the beginning of the era of man Maurice says of him grace and beauty of every kind speak to his soul and exercise a dominion over him which one would fear must have often been too much for his

Judgment and loftier aspirations his countenance testifies how mightily he must have been attracted and how he must have attracted Professor berty gives this description of Bruno short in stature agile in frame of meager body a thin and Pad face thoughtful expression a glance both piercing and Melancholy hair and beard

Between black and Chestnut a ready rapid imaginative tongue accompanied by vivacious gestures a manner courteous and gentle sociable amiable and pleasant in conversation like the Italians of the South adapting himself without difficulty to the tastes usages and habits of another open and CED both with friends and foes and as far from anchor

And revenge as he was quickly moved to anger after 15 years wandering over Europe Bruno arrived at Venice about 1591 he paid occasional visits to padwa and gave private lessons to some German students the chronology of Bruno’s life shows that he could have had no personal acquaintance with Galileo who did not

Commence lecturing at padwa until some months after Bruno’s long incarceration had begun on Friday May 22nd 1592 bosano of Infamous memory his former pupil in Patron and now his betrayer forcibly entered the bed chamber where Bruno was asleep accompanied by his servant and five or six gonders of the neighborhood

And on the pretext of wishing to converse with him conducted him to a Garrett and then locked him in he was removed on Saturday the 23rd of May into the prison of the Inquisition with this ends the free life of Bruno before him was a cruel captivity of eight long years

Terminating with the stake he was sent to Rome January 1593 never did malignant Destiny says the historian provide a fate so atrocious and pitiless as that which befell Bruno his whole life had been a Warfare with restriction the limits of Earth itself were too narrow for his soaring

Intellect incarceration in a dark and loome dungeon for a man whose every breath was an aspiration for Freedom whose every thought centered in her Divine attributes and whose Every Act was part of a life long struggle to possess her imparts to his lot A peculiar aspect of intense harshness and

Grim irony what Bruno’s trials were how often his limbs were stretched on the rack what other tortures mental and physical he was compelled to endure what cunning and ruthless efforts were made by his jailers to break down his indomitable Spirit to crush fully and finally his irrepressible yearnings

After freedom to transform The freeth Thinker into a religious slave we shall never know the long duration of his imprisonment seems to imply that unusual pains were taken to convert a heresy Arc whose Fame was European in 1599 Bruno was the only prisoner in charge of the Roman Inquisition whose incarceration commenced in

1593 on Thursday January 14th 1599 Bruno was brought before the congregation of the Holy office when eight heretical proph propositions extracted from his Works were placed before him for recantation another summer in Autumn rolled slowly over his head and on Tuesday December 21st he is again brought before the congregation on this

Occasion Bruno said he neither ought nor wish to recant he had nothing to recant thus past 1599 3 weeks till the new year had gone by and Bruno again stood before his inquisitors once more Bruno refused to rec the resolution was thereupon made that Bruno be delivered over to the secular

Arm this was done on Tuesday the 8th of February he was brought forth to die on Thursday the 17th of February the scene must have been remarkable says the historian the year 1600 was a jubilee year there were then in Rome not less than 50 Cardinals the streets were crowded with pilgrims in

Every direction might be seen troops of strangers dressed in the different costum costumes of their own country winding their way from one Church to another imploring pardon for their sins there was ringing of bells marching of processions singing of penitential Psalms offering of vows and prayers at different shrines from morning till

Night while it might have seemed says berti that all Hearts ought to have been inclined to Mercy and attracted lovingly to the gentle Redeemer of humanity the poor philosopher of Noah preceded and followed by crowds of people accompanied by priest carrying crucifixes and escorted by soldiers was

Wending his way to the compo de Fiora to Die For Freedom and the rights of conscience as the lonely thinker the disciple and worshipper of the infinite passed through the streets clothed in the San Bonito but with head erect and hotty Fearless glance what thoughts must have passed through his mind the feeling

Of utter isolation could not have been felt by him he must have found it was the conclusion of his intellectual career the inevitable Destiny too often of the single-hearted truth Seeker that he was alone in his researches in his passionate Quest For Truth at length he

Comes to the Fatal spot where the stake had been erected he submits himself to be bound and in a few minutes the fire blazes round the Martyr but not a word or moan escapes The Firm set lips no expression of suffering or weakness passes across the W Andale but still

Handsome features one single gesture of impatience he gives way to when his tormentors thrust the crucifix before his dying gaze then he averted his eyes with a threatening glance Bruno died his impassioned words were like Thunderbolts and lightning shafts and his course like that of a comet Prometheus likee he brought the

Vital flame not only from the single son of our own system but from the numberless orbs scattered through space his Perpetual Warfare was with darkness and voluntary blindness the Eagles and birds of daylight were glad in his presence the owls and bats detested him he disappears from Earth in a flame of

Fire giving him new birth and eternal Freedom Bruno was one of those gigantic intellects those Myriad minded men whose multifarious erudition eclectic methods and many sighted sympathies render a summary of their operations very difficult if not impossible like a survey of a widely extended landscape or an enormous building the conspectus will

Only be a piecing more or less rude and imperfect of separate and fragmentary points of view employing his own illustrations of the infinite powers and feelings of the human mind we might also say of his own intellect that its Center is everywhere its circumference nowhere a child of the 16th century

His speculations comprehend and his sympathies Embrace methods of thought current in ancient times on the one hand and in our own day on the other the immense range of his studies is proved by the fact that there is hardly an author certainly not a subject known in

His day to which he does not seem to have paid attention and on which he has not thrown some light Bruno did not reach the unqualified pantheism of Spinosa Spinosa affirmed the absolute identity of the universe with God the universe was God and God was the universe the universe was not the

Expression but the very being of God himself Draper says Bruno may be considered among philosophical writers as intermediate between aoes and Spinosa the latter held that God and the universe are the same that all events happen by an immutable law of nature by an unconquerable necessity that God is

The universe producing a series of necessary movements or acts in consequence of intrinsic unchangeable and irresistible energy end of chapter 6 part 1 philosophy Bruno chapter 6 part two of 400 years of free thought by Samuel P putam this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for

More information or to volunteer please visit librivox.org read by Larry Wilson chapter 6 part two philosophy Spinosa Spinosa was born at Amsterdam November 24th 1632 at an early age he was denounced to the heads of the Jewish synagogue as an apostate from the true Faith he withdrew from the synagogue dreading the the

Force of his example the synagogue offered him an annual pension of a thousand Florin if he would only consent to be silent and assist from time to time in the ceremonies he refused excommunication was pronounced let him be a cursed by day and a cursed by Night read the

Malediction let none hold converse with him or do him any service or abide under the same roof with him it will be seen that the Jewish synagogue could Dam as well as the pope not withstanding all their own sufferings the Orthodox Jews were no more tolerant than their enemies Matthew Arnold says the

Excommunication made Spinosa a child of Europe and not of Israel when he heard of it he said well and good but this shall force me to nothing I should not have been ready to do without it he left his home and native City he devoted him himself entirely to philosophy he

Endured a hard and griping kind of poverty the Heritage which at his father’s death fell to him he resigned to his sisters the pension offered him if he would dedicate a work to Louis the 14th he also declined he desired to be absolutely independent his ordinary

Daily diet consisted of a basin of milk porridge with a little butter costing about 3 half Pence and a draft of beer costing an additional Penny he died in his 45th year in the full Vigor and maturity of his intellect says SL mocker the great spirit of the world penetrated

Him the infinite was his beginning and his end the universe his only and eternal love he was filled with religion and religious feeling and therefore it is that he stands alone unapproachable the master in his art without adherence and without even citizenship to to the common mind there is practically little

Difference between pantheism and Atheism whether one says all God or no God the distinction is intellectual and not moral both were absolutely anti- Orthodox Spinosa Bruno and aaro were called atheists although they were pantheists and Spinosa has been called the god intoxicated one Buddhism has been called an atheistic religion

Although it is pantheistic modern pantheism like atheism is the bitter fo of church and priest it utterly abolishes Heaven and Hell total depravity vicarious atonement a personal God a personal devil and a personal immortality if all the universe is God then there is no need of any special means of communication with him

Pantheism is democratic there is neither High nor low in pantheism all are equally divine all on the same level whatever that level may be Dennison has beautifully expressed the idea of pantheism flower in the crannied wall I pluck you out of the crannies hold you here root and all in my hand Little

Flower but if I could understand what you are root and all and all in all I should know what God and man is pantheism in its spirit is certainly free thought it declares for human worth and human freedom the question is not is it beautiful for it is exceedingly

Beautiful but is it true is the universe God the only difference between pantheism and Atheism is the use of the word god The Atheist affirms that all existence is one he affirms the universality of law he affirms natural morality equally with the pantheist does pantheism mean anything but the use of

The word God and if so what does it it mean the god idea is not simple but complex and in the ordinary conception there are included many human qualities but throwing away as far as possible all anthropomorphic conceptions we must as the ultimate accept swinden Borg’s definition of God namely infinite wisdom

And infinite love it seems to me that you can no more throw out the element of love from the goded idea than the element of intelligence therefore when one calls the universe God he not only gives it the attribute of thought but also of love but the idea of Love brings

In the idea of purpose it is theological and pantheism naturally sings with Tennison of some Far off Divine event to which the whole creation moves I can conceive a pure thought without a purpose pure intelligence expressing itself spontaneously recklessly without a regard of consequences but it cannot

Be so with love if this universe is infinite goodness then there must be a plan in it a choice a desire a hope an effort a final goal if there are gods they must be as Kats describes them with Godlike exercise of influence benign on planets pale of admonitions to the winds

And seas of peaceful sway above men’s harvesting and all those acts which deity Supreme doth ease its heart of love in while atheism affirms laww it does not affirm plan or final purpose orology and that is why it does not use the word god science does not use the

Word God it is a term which expresses a desire but not a truth we may hope that all things will be well but we do not know it and we never can know it Spinosa however excluded the attribute of love from the universe he affirmed only two two attributes of God infinite thought

And infinite extension but we cannot conceive of infinite extension of infinite time or Infinite Space we say infinite time Infinite Space but these are mere words they do not represent ideas try to conceive Infinite Space you cannot do it you can add conception to conception but every conception is a finite conception

If in one mental act you could conceive Infinite Space you could neither add to nor diminish that conception but you can add to or diminish every conception of space possible to the human mind you cannot conceive of any space so large but what you can conceive of a larger we

Have not therefore and cannot have any idea of Infinite Space and cannot affirm it of the universe we can only affirm finite space how much less can we affirm thought to be an infinite and eternal attribute of the universe or God we must admit that space is everywhere in our

Experience but not thought the telescope reveals 200 million suns in enormous Realms of space but it discovers no thought the spectroscope reveals the same colors the same elements the same fire in these millions of stars as in Earth but it reveals no thought we can conceive of matter without thought but

Not of matter without space it is pure assumption to affirm that in the universe is infinite thought it may be so but experience declares that thought only exists in certain conditions it is simply a particular process and not the universal energy Spinosa originated a splendid but Vanishing system of

Philosophy a system however which has exerted a prodigious influence upon the human mind mind he has reared one of the most dazzling intellectual structures in the whole history of human thought and for a time it seemed as if it would command the world however the Majestic struggle with the mysteries of existence

Failed as it always must fail but the struggle demands our warmest approbation and the man our Ardent sympathy Spinosa stands out from the dim past like a tall Beacon whose Shadow is thrown a thwart the sea and whose light will serve to warn The Wanderers from the Sholes and

Rocks on which hundreds of their Brethren have perished a braver a nobler a grander man the Spinosa never lived he was absolutely unselfish he was thoroughly devoted to the truth and while the world is not accept the whole of his magnificent system it does accept many a Priceless Treasure of wisdom

Spinosa did not pursue a beer Phantom in the elaboration of his philosophy he has unfolded a knowledge of nature and man which is of Priceless value in 1670 he put forth anonymously a tretis on Theology and politics in which he examined and criticized the Hebrew scriptures he is called the father of

Biblical criticism from his learned investigating and critical spirit has flowed those scholarly interpretations of the Bible and its inspiration which today are shaking the church to its very center the biblical researches in to the depths of History thus begun by Spinosa have been a vast influence in modern

Development as Matthew Arnold has well stated it the Bible is no longer Dogma it is literature Spinosa gives these reasons for writing the book I am now engaged in the composition of my Treatise on the scriptures moved to undertake the work first by the prejudices of theologians

Which I feel satisfied are the grand obstacles to the general study study of philosophy these prejudices I therefore Expose and do what I can to lessen their influence on the minds of people accessible to reason second by my desire to disabuse the world of the false estimate formed

Of me when I am charged with atheism third by the wish I have to assert our title of free philosophical discussion and to say openly what we think this I maintain in every possible way for here is too much interfered with by the authority and abusiveness of the

Vulgar the ethics of the great work of Spinosa was not published until after his death it has swayed and illuminated the minds of lesing jacobe herder G Fick shellin Shiller sler mocker furbach aach and a host of other philosophers poets and novelists in modern Germany and throughout Europe in Spinosa philosophy

The conception of God Is Fundamental in the first part of the ethics he gives a definition of God as the absolutely infinite being or substance infinite in extension as well as infinite in thought Eternal without beginning or end self-existent uncaused or to use the expression of Spinosa K sui its own

Cause or cause of itself this conception is admirably and clearly set forth in the second part the philosopher treats of the origin and nature of the human mind in the third fourth and fifth Parts the source and nature of the human passions are investigated their power defined and the way pointed out whereby

Their excessive and therefore hurtful action may be controlled so that man may be enabled to live in accordance with the dictates of reason and enjoy that Supreme Felicity which the practice of virtue and the intellectual love of God will surely give SP Osa is almost Shakespearean in his knowledge of human

Nature and in this lies the chief value of his wonderful work it’s description of man not his conception of God says ja Fuda after masterly analysis of the tastes Tendencies and inclinations of our mental composition the most complete by far which has been made by any moral philosopher Spinosa arrives at those

Principles under which unity and consistency can be obtained as the condition upon which a being so composed can look for any sort of Happiness says Dr modley Spinoza’s admirable account of the passions has never yet been surpassed and certainly will not easily be surpassed the identity of Spinosa philosophy with modern scientific

Atheism and agnosticism and his opposition to theology is seen in his definition of Good and Evil he says Perfection and imperfection are in fact merely modes of thought that is Notions which are accustomed to form by comparing individual things of the same genus or species with one another and it

Is for this reason that I have said that by reality and Perfection I understand one and the same thing the terms good and evil as applied to things considered in themselves do not indicate anything positive in their nature for one and the same thing may be at the same time both

Good and evil or it may be indifferent Lively music for example may be good to a Melancholy person and to one who Mourns and neither good nor bad to one who is deaf by good therefore I shall understand that which we know for certain is a means of approaching more

And more closely to the Exemplar we wish to hold up and by evil that which we know for certain to be a hindrance to to the attainment of our Exemplar furthermore we shall speak of men as being more or less perfect and imperfect in the degree that they approach more or

Less to our Exemplar lastly as I have said I shall understand by Perfection reality in general in other words the essence of each particular thing in so far as it exists and acts in certain ways and without reference to its duration for no particular thing can be

Said to be more Perfect by reason of its continuing longer time in existence than another but good I understand that which we know for certain to be useful to us by evil I understand that which we know for certain to be a hindrance to our enjoying something good a passion is

Hurtful only in so far as it prevents the Mind from thinking we can sometimes understand a philosopher’s ideas better through the attacks of his enemies than by any elucidation of our own and the following in dogmatic decrees of the Vatican Council in 1870 directed mainly against the doctrines of Spinosa

Together with the teachings of modern science will give a fair idea of the pantheism which has dominated modern thought and of which the church is in fear Canon 13 if anyone shall say that the substance and essence of God and of all things is one and the same let him be

Anathema four if anyone shall say that finite things both corporeal and spiritual have emanated from the Divine substance or that the Divine Essence by the manifestation and evolution of itself becomes all things or lastly that God is a universal or indefinite being which by determining itself constitutes the universality of things distinct

According to General species and individuals let him be anathema five if anyone confess not that the world and all things which are contained in it both spiritual and material have been in their whole substance created out of nothing or shall say that God created not by his

Will free from all necessity but by a necessity equal to the necessity whereby he loves himself or shall deny that the world was made for the glory of God let him be anatha Canon 42 if anyone shall say that human Sciences are to be so freely treated that their assertions although opposed

To revealed religion are to be held as true and cannot be condemned by the church let him be anathema three if anyone shall assert it to be possible that sometimes according to the progress of science a sense be given to doctrines propounded by the church different from that which the

Church has understood and understands let him be anathema it will thus be seen that the god intoxicated philosopher is as much under the maledictions of the church as the modern agnostic and atheist the church knows that the triumphant pantheism of Bruno and Spinoza would sweep its towers and Steeples and pulpits forever from

Existence end of chapter 6 part two philosophy Spinosa chapter 7 part 1 of 400 years of free thought by Samuel P putam this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit librivox.org recording by Rita buos minor philosophers

Poni pomoni is the philosopher of the Italian Renaissance a movement that must be considered as both philosophical and literary it was not simply an age of Freer and nobler expression of man’s imaginative being it was also an opening into new vistas of thought it was not simply the beginning of modern poetry

But the beginning of modern science and to understand the vastness of that Movement we must not only peruse The Works of Dante petrarch bachio pulsy and arosto but maavi in politics Gardini in history and papazi in philosophy pazi takes us back before Columbus and by a consideration of his

Fervid and active life we discover the immense agitations of that age of which Columbus is but the fruit it is an unworthy conception of those times to regard Columbus as an exceptional man that he did what he did by by the force of an extraordinary genius Columbus did

Not lift himself above his age his age pushed him on and if Columbus had not obeyed the impulse somebody else certainly would the discovery of America was in the air for the mind of man at that time and anteriorly was intensely was volcanically active the discussions of abelard in the 13th century were

Tremendous mind awakeners they were like the surges of the sea they stirred people profoundly and set them to thinking in new channels what Vigor and animation is there displayed the whole scene is Instinct with full fresh and free intellectual life even the turbulence of the students is only an

Expression of mental excitation there never was such a brilliant School of philosophy it was like like a play it was a battle royale between Knights armed with syllogisms and Spears of logic it was an encounter of wit of sarcasm and The Spectators cheered to the echo a certain writer says compare

Such a scene with the dull routine of an English or American University lecture room in our own days and who would not prefer the life and freedom of Paris in the Century to the stayed and respectable but hopelessly apathetic proceedings of a college lecture of our own day moreover what a reflection Upon

Our boasted advance in Liberty and civilization the remark I may say does not apply to German universities which have never given up their prerogative of free trade and teaching that if a modern abelard or pomponazzi were to appear in one of our great seats of learning he

Could not find a room in which to deliver his lectures pomponazzi at Padua in the 14th century was the successor of abelard as a great philosophical debator and agitator and one who dared to dispute accepted authorities pomponazzi was born in 1462 in the town of manua he was a

Student of philosophy and Medicine in the University of Padua in the year 1487 he took his degree when only 26 years of age he was established as extraordinary professor in the University a sufficient testimony to the precocity of his intellect it was the custom in the Italian Universities at that time to

Have public disputations between professors holding different views and these tournaments excited exited great interest among the people they were popular and fashionable in spite of ecclesiastical frowns they seem to have been connected with the municipal rights and privileges of the free town and were not and perhaps could not be legally

Forbidden by the theological Inquisitor to understand the firment the Curiosity the interest of the populace in these debates and as a picture of that Restless age in which Columbus lived it is well to epitomize the Vivid description of one of these scenes by the historian we may imagine ourselves

In Padua on a summer’s day of the year of 1488 time 8 a.m. the narrow streets of the Old Town are crowded with citizens and students who not only fill the arcades but to a considerable extent the middle of the roadways among the students are to be seen men of various

Ages from the beardless Youth of 16 to the man of 35 or 40 years hardly less varied are their nationalities here a group of Englishmen conspicuous by costume language and physiognomy is followed by another of Frenchmen with their National dress and characteristics Spaniards and Germans hungarians and Bohemians not to mention

Natives of smaller European states are discernible among the crowd occasionally a university Professor passes in Broad sleeved gown and long train all seem hastening in the same direction with are they going to the Palace of reason to see the combat a discussion between the renowned aini and Young pomponazzi on

The profound and interesting question of of the Simplicity or multiplicity of the intellect we enter with the crowd into the Great Hall the enormous proportions of which still astonish the visitor to Padua the hall not withstanding its size is crowded with students and citizens and the hubub is almost deafening

Arising mainly from vehement and valuable discussions as to the merits of the two professors intermingled with some want free expression of opinion on current political events never could one have imagined that among such a crowd an interest so passionate could have been evoked by questions so speculative and

Metaphysical the commotion is subdued by the entry of the Rival Champions accompanied by the Rector and a few of the officials of the University this is the signal for an outburst of vociferous Applause partisans on either side clamorously shout the name of their favorite we turn

Our attention to the heroes of the fry who are taking their assigned positions in the center of the hall aalen is a striking looking man of about 30 years of age he is rather tall and stout in proportion though a student’s stoop of the shers detracts somewhat from his

Height he possesses an intellectual countenance which in Repose seems Placid and reflective with large dreamy looking eyes he walks to his desk with a careless slouching gate his professor’s gown is torn in several places and is remarkable by its narrow sleeves and general scanty proportions instead of

Forming a train behind him it scarcely reaches below his knees evidently a man regardless of personal appearance his adversary on the other hand is almost a dwarf with a powerful looking face a broad forehead a hooked nose which imparts a somewhat Jewish cast to his features small piercing black eyes which

As he turns here and there give him a peculiar expression of restless vivacity his thin lips are almost continually curled into a satirical smile he has scarce any hair on his face so there is nothing to hide its sudden and Perpetual change of expression the preparations for the

Combat are characteristic of the men aalen has on the desk before him a row of ponderous folios which an assistant a favorite disciple is marshalling in due order pomponetti has nothing but a few papers containing apparently references and notes at last the moment arrives lives and Usher proclaims silence the

Rector announces the subject to be debated and the wordy battle begins aalen with loud and rather coarse voice but with great deliberation of manner lays down in a short speech the proposition he intends to defend the intellect is simple uniform indecomposable this clearly is the opinion of Aristotle as testified by

Aaro his greatest commentator a storm of Applause greets the speaker but still greater cheering arises when pomponazzi stands forward at his desk and throws his Restless eager glance over the noisy crowd in a tone of voice full loud and clear which makes itself heard in every

Part of the hall he takes exception to aalen’s argument the intellect is not simple but multiple and this he will prove is Aristotle’s real opinion Etc aalen is evidently a man of immense erudition and he seeks to overwhelm his adversary with some formidable and crushing dictum or to ensnare him in the

Meshes of an involved and Insidious argument he is utterly foiled by the caution and vigilance of his foe pomponazzi is too wary to be impaled on the horns of a dilemma or caught in a dialectical trap he is prompt to turn the tables on his powerful but somewhat unwieldy

Antagonist each of his witty sallyes or comic arguments is hailed with boisterous laughter and Applause in which even aalen’s partisans are compelled to join it is an unequal combat like that between a whale and a swordfish or between the ponderous Domin Samson and the fous plel these literary Duels of the century

Of Columbus are significant of the increasing Divergence between ancient and modern thought aalen typifies scholasticism formal ponderous elaborate un elastic pomponazzi represents modern thought Keen eager Restless vivacious caring little for the traditional authorities and much for the clear simple dictates of unfettered human reason the fact that such a debate as

This was possible is a notable indication of the sweep of thought in Italy and throughout the world a century later Bruno engaged in debates of the same nature and proved himself self a formidable antagonist pomponazzi continued his professional labors until 159 in that year owing to the disasters

Which followed upon the league of Cambra and the policy of Pope Julius II the University of Padua was closed and its professors and students scattered throughout Italy pomponazzi found a temporary refuge in Ferrara from Ferrara in 1512 he moved to the University of bolognia which was destined to become

The seat of his greatest literary activity as well as his Abode during the remainder of his life to the magistracy of bolognia and their sympathy for intellectual Liberty and progress pomponazzi was indebted for much kindness and support during the most critical period of his life in 1516 he

Published his famous Treatise on the immortality of the soul the foundation both of his character as a freeth thinker and his Fame as a philosopher in this work says fantino he reveals himself as an original thinker at this time Aristotle was no longer outside the pale of Christianity tacitly and unofficially he

Had been receiv received into the church his Works had been authoritatively reconciled with its dogmas this had been effected by Thomas aquinus and albertus Magnus the most gigantic intellects among the schoolmen doubts about Aristotle therefore were closely akin to doubts about the Christian dogmas pomponazzi dared to doubt even

Aristotle the question of immortality was an all important question Rome had discovered that the future world was the most valuable appendage pertaining to the church it was says the historian the El Dorado whence it was enabled to draw the greater portion of its enormous revenues immortality the reward or rather the necessary outcome

Of virtue and goodness according to Christianity had become a marketable commodity to be sold on the one hand and bought on the other on as favorable terms as buyer or seller could obtain the rewards of the Unseen World were treated just as a European government in our own day sells farms and settlements

In a distant Colony this excessive and interested otherworldliness required men thought to have its foundations closely examined hence arose numberless inquiries as to the nature of the the soul its relation to the physical organization what reasonable grounds existed for predicating its immortality etc for some time this formed the main

Topic of lectures in all the Italian universities we are told that whenever a new professor at any of the seats of learning prepared to address his hearers for the first time no matter what the topic which he had appointed for the purpose he was met by the clamorous

Demand tell us about the soul on Minds so excited the treaties of pomponazzi operated like a spark on a prepared train pomponazzi takes the ground almost of pure materialism the dependence of the intellect upon matter was necessary according to his Philosophy for four principal reasons number one because

Matter undetermined and regarded as a a potentiality is the genetic principle of all forms number two because matter defined and determined as an organic body is the sinanan of the existence of the Soul as its true form number three because there is no plurality of substantial forms in man but a Unity of

Form and nature number four because the necessity of considering the universal in the particular the idea in the imagined picture the intelligible in the sensible proves that the functions of the intellect in themselves spiritual cannot be exercised without the organization it is obvious that this argument amounts to a denial of

Immortality as held by the Christian church that is it is a denial of natural immortality pomponazzi however admits a possible immortality dependent not upon man’s nature but upon circumstances he opposes the pantheism of avaro but at the same time declares his belief in a Divine or abstract intelligence which has no need of

Organism or matter of any kind in the human soul there is something of this abstract intelligence and therefore while the soul is inherently mortal by peculiarity of function or circumstances it might be immortal for instance by the miraculous resurrection of Jesus the doctrine of pomponazzi is somewhat akin

To that of the modern Adventist man is not by Nature Immortal but he may become immortal by an Act of Faith ungrounds of psychology pomponazzi absolutely denies immortality which of course of course was a bold and daring affirmation for the power of the church is based on the

Natural immortality of man not on his accidental immortality the doctrine of pomponazzi abolished at once hell and purgatory and left only a possible Paradise for an indefinite few as the result of his materialistic philosophy pomponazzi is the first writer within the pale of the church who maintains the principle of disinterested and unconditional

Morality and in this lies the radical value of his work in this he is a true free thinker he says the essential reward of virtue is virtue itself the punishment of the vicious is vice than which nothing can be more wretched and unhappy whether the soul be mortal or

Immortal death must be despised and by no means must virtue be departed from no matter what happens after death pomponazzi faced the portentious fact that the doctrine of immortality had not been a moral power in the world that the future rewards and punishments of the church had become utterly ineffectual as

Preservatives of or stimulants to morality among its Chief ministers as well as in the very Citadel of Christendom itself in 1520 he published a noteworthy treaties on the causes of marvelous effects in nature he takes essentially the position of Hume it would be ridiculous and absurd he says

To despise what is visible and natural in order to have recourse to an invisible cause the reality of which is not guaranteed to us by any solid reality he asserts the supremacy of Reason one cannot will his belief and Faith therefore is not a moral act given the premises the consequence follows and

It is not in our power to desent from the conclusion we may do without reasoning altogether but we cannot Grant the antecedent and deny the consequent he also asserts the doctrine of human Liberty he makes it the absolute abolute source and condition of all morality ponti was thoroughly sincere he

Grappled with the problems of the universe with a Zeal which was almost appalling speaking of his attempts to reconcile god with human Liberty and the evils of the world he cries out these are the things which oppress and embarrass me which take away my sleep

And almost my senses so that I am a true illustration of the Fable of Prometheus whom for trying to steal secretly the fire from heaven Jupiter bound to a cian rock and his heart became food for a vulture which gwed continually upon it Prometheus is the true philosopher who

Because he will know the secrets of God is devoured by Perpetual cares and citations he is incapacitated from thirst hunger sleep or from satisfying the most ordinary needs of human life he is derided by all is regarded as a fool and heretic he is persecuted by inquisitors he becomes the laughing

Stock to the multitude these for sooth are the gains of the philosophers this is their wages pazi’s place in the Italian Renaissance says Owen is as an exponent of its profounder and more deeply seated forces he represents the craving of the human mind for Freedom this is the phase

Of the Renaissance which gives it its permanent value and which constitutes the main ground of its kinship with modern thought in this respect there is a considerable difference between petrarch and pomponazzi petrarch may be said to include every phase of the Renaissance not only its free tendance

Es as a new effort of thought but its highest expression as a yearning after ideal beauty but we should not refuse to pomponazzi his due share in the sum total of those forces which make up the composite ho which we call the Renaissance while pomponazzi was peacefully lecturing at Padua Florence

Was under the vehement spell of sarola Luther had already commenced his campaign against the papacy rumors and portents of imminent convulsions were everywhere prevalent these nent forces destined to change the face of Europe seemed to pass unheeded by pomponazzi his whole existence says M Frank was

Taken up by his books his teaching and his studious contemplation so that one might say of him as of Spinosa he was less a man than a thought he died on the 18th of May 1525 Professor fiorentino draws a noble parallel and thus describes the last hours of the philosopher Socrates on the

Approach of death a martyr for the truth did not flee from his fate he did not wish to escape from the prison in which he was confined undisturbed and in all Serenity he fixed his attention on future fut life a most beautiful woman appeared to him in a dream and appointed

Him a place in one of the fortunate Islands 3 days hence Socrates she said to him you will arrive at fertile pythia hence Socrates resisted all the entreaties of crto and contemplated with firmness the poisonous draft and even death itself and he talked with fedo with CES and with Sime

As with men from whom he would be parted only a short time and with whom there would afterwards be a common meeting in a place more beautiful and Serene the Ariel of martyrdom the anticipation of a blissful Futurity soothed the bitterness of parting and gave the dying Socrates a

Foretaste of the Felicity which he expected the reward reserved for his constant virtue let us now look at another picture pomponazzi worn out by years harassed by sickness extended on the bed of pain without the Splendor of martyrdom fought out the battle with his enemy unseen tardy Irresistible unsustained by the hope of

The future he placed before him only austere virtue without reward and without hope as the true and Final End of the human race out of sympathy with the beliefs of his religion and with the traditions of so many centuries mocked by contemporaries and in danger of the

Stake he had no future blessedness to which to turn he was not cheered by the smile of the beautiful woman who invited Socrates to Pia he was soothed neither by homeric fantasies nor by the more spiritual but not less interested Promises of the Christian Paradise and not withstanding all this he was not

Disturbed by his imminent death it behooved him he said to prefer duty to life he sacrificed everything affections pleasure knowledge and the future to rigid virtue was not this a magnanimous and Sublime intellect it may be wondered why so bold and radical a thinker escaped the Inquisition he did so mainly by that

Intellectual maneuver termed the double truth or two-fold truth this at that time was perhaps the only method of Escape for the philosophers who dared to differ from the Christian dogmas it was quite a popular method with those who wanted to think and yet Keep Their Heads upon their shoulders and it is quite

Popular today with those who desire to hold liberal opinions and at the same time enjoy fat salaries in the Pulpit it was a sort of necessary makeshift for pazi Bruno Galileo and others but today it is simply moral cowardice the doctrine of the two-fold truth is that there are two ways of

Finding the truth faith and reason emotion and intellect Theology and philosophy the these two ways May at times Clash they may even be contradictory but nevertheless both are true it is not in the province of the human mind to reconcile them because of the littleness of human knowledge but it

Is assumed that if human knowledge was sufficiently great it could reconcile them however opposite they might seem to be under this assumption one as a theologian might believe what as a philosopher he would be compelled to deny so pomponazzi said I do not deny immortality as a Christian I only deny

As a philosopher what I think as a philosopher has nothing to do with my faith as a theologian Theology and philosophy occupy two different spheres they are different worlds to the human consciousness they may agree or disagree that has nothing to do with the truth or falsity of either philosophy is

Veritable on its own grounds and so is theology on its grounds and the conflict between them Need Not Disturb one there is no necessity for harmony since truth is so infinite that both may be equally right as a Christian pomponazzi professed to accept the miracles of Jesus which as a philosopher he was

Compelled to reject by this distinction between what One Believes as a Christian and knows as a philosopher many a radical thinker has escaped martyrdom let us not condemn pomponazzi for intellectual dishonesty for Galileo Bruno and venini availed themselves of the same distinction can’t and Lessing also John Stewart Mill even declared

That in another heart of the universe two and two might not make four and thus allows the foundation principle of the two-fold truth namely that we really don’t know anything and therefore theology may be just as true as philosophy Manel in his bampton lectures before a modern audience affirmed that

God’s morality might be different from Men’s morality and so our highest conceptions of virtue might not apply to God at all and farad said I do not think it at all necessary to tie the study of the Natural Sciences and religion together and so in my intercourse with

My fellow creatures that which is religion and that which is philosophy have ever been two distinct things of course free thought and science absolutely repudiate two-fold truth truth is one man is one and there is only one way to find out the truth only one way to reach knowledge and that is

The scientific way Faith emotion Revelation Dogma have never given this world one particle of Truth we may forgive pomponazzi Bruno Galileo for resorting to this intellectual leer demain for they were compelled to by the fierce fanaticism of their time and even these men when the real issue came abandoned the subterfuge and stood

Before the world simply as philosophers and suffered martyrdom but I can scarcely in this Century forgive a thinker who resorts to the two-fold truth to save his salary or his popularity or for the sake of mental ease what a shame for Faraday to make such a declaration as he did it is like

The cowardice of a soldier in the front of battle end of chapter 7 part 1 minor philosophers pomponazzi chapter 7 part two of 400 years of free thought by Samuel P putam this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please

Please visit librivox.org read by CLA chapter 7 part 2 minor philosophers tesio Campanella vanini during the lifetime of pomponazzi tesio was born 1509 and while we might say the former was the Forerunner of deart the latter was the Forerunner of bacon he was hostile to both Plato and

Aristotle or rather to these as accepted by the schoolmen he insisted upon nature rather than dialectics upon observation experiment induction he said quote the construction of the world and the magnitude and nature of the bodies in it is not to be sought after by reasoning

As men in former times have done but to be perceived by sense and to be ascertained from the things themselves we use our sense to follow nature which is ever at Harmony with herself and is ever the same in her operations end quote tesio was mainly a natural

Philosopher and freeth thinker he was a oos to dogmatic Authority he incurred the hatred of the monks and the theologians he died in 1596 his Works were placed on the index exporius in honor of which he is welld deserving he gave Noble hints of modern science Campanella compella was born in 1568 at

Stilo in cabria in his 15th year he entered the order of the Dominicans he soon became desirous not only of reading Aristotle but the book of nature an accident drew his attention to the works of tesio he was delighted with its freedom of speech and appeal to reason

And experience rather than Authority his first effort was a defense of tasio in 1591 the boldness of his attacks brought him into disfavor with the clergy he left Naples and proceeded to Rome for seven years he led a Wandering life through Padua bolognia Venice and other towns everywhere attracting attention by

The brilliancy of his talents he returned to his native place in 1598 in the following year he was arrested and committed to prison he had joined himself to those who desired to free Naples from Spanish tyranny and had excited them by his fiery eloquence and Independence of spirit the unfortunate

Philosopher remained in captivity for 27 years he composed sonnets and prepared a complete system of philosophy which was published at a later date in 1626 he was set at Liberty he came to Paris in 16 34 he died on May 26th 1639 the philosophy of Campanella was

Cartisian and bonian he says quote our knowledge begins in doubt we know neither the past nor the future the first proposition is that I myself think the certainty of self-consciousness is the primary Truth The Sciences are not to be constructed from definitions by deduction but proceed by induction to

Definition end quote his view of God is somewhat like that of Bruno pantheistic God he says is the ultimate unit his three manifestations may be called wisdom power and love all things are of the same nature otherwise there could be no Mutual action the soul of man is in

Nature Corporal but is Immortal being endowed with a striving after happiness never attained in this life in politics Campanella was an extreme reformer in his work the city of the sun he sketches an ideal state in which the principles of Communism are fully carried out Campanella was a brave Restless

Indomitable and Truth seeking Spirit a lover of humanity a defender of Liberty a student of nature an honest man a brilliant thinker and an original philosopher venini has won imperishable Renown by his pathetic martyrdom at 34 years of age and though he does not soar to the loftiest heights of the imperian

With Bruno he was one of the most fascinating learned eloquent and gifted men of his time and worthy of all honor for his Splendid life and heroic death vanini was born at tesano in the Southeast extremity of Italy in 1585 he early manifested an extraordinary aptitude for study and

Investigation which induced his father on the completion of his Elementary education to send him to Naples to study Theology and philosophy benini attributes to the writings of bacon thorb and pomponazzi a principal share in the formation of his intellectual conclusions he continued his studies until he graduated as doctor in 1606

When he was only 21 years of age at some time or other he took the vows of a Carmelite frier and in one place he describes himself as preaching as well as having taken Priestly orders he went from Naples to Padua his passionate artor for study he says rendered the

Privations of poverty and even the inclemency of weather comparatively unfelt he devoted himself mainly to physical science and philosophy and regarded the methods and teachings of the schoolmen with Supreme contempt from 1606 to 1615 when he published his first work we have only incidental and Scattered Illusions as to the mode in

Which he passed his time conforming like Bruno to the custom of aant scholarship which then prevailed he wandered from one country to another taking up his Abode for a longer or shorter period in most of the capitals and University towns of Europe he spent two years in England and suffered imprisonment for

The space of nearly 2 months in 1615 at Leon he published the amphitheater in 1616 was issued the dialogues after which he took his ill-fated journey to tulo these are the only works of his now extent out of many others he was a very industrious writer

But his books most of them were utterly destroyed by order of the church Vini was not an atheist although he was condemned as one his first work closes with the following ode of praise and aspiration he addresses a Supreme Being as Bruno would quote of all existing

Things Thou Art both source and ending of thyself art Fountain origin commencement of thyself as well art end and termination yet equally without both ending and beginning end quote it is by the dialogues however that venini is judged by posterity and his real position as a philosopher ascertained but it is pretty difficult

Even in these dialogues to discover the actual opinions of the philosopher as a matter of fact the dialogues were not written by venini himself but by his disciples they are a collection of discursive conversations embodying the Master’s opinions on those points of physical knowledge on which his disciples asked for information they

Were probably written down from memory Vini gave his sanction to the transaction as the authors hoped he would and thus approved the essential correctness of the record in this book we have vini’s most secret thoughts what he poured forth to a few chosen disciples but there is no no systematic

Declaration of his philosophy and only those fully cognizant of his General line of thought could clearly understand his discourse while in his first work venini is a theologian in the second and far greater work he is a student of medicine and of natural philosophy he treats as of secondary importance all those

Questions which pertain to ecclesiastical dogmas his aim is to unravel as far as he can the secrets of nature he treats of the firmament and the atmosphere of water and Earth of the generation of animals and of the religion of the Gentiles vini’s idea seemed to be expressed in Bacon’s words

Quote whatever deserved to exist deserved to be known end quote and some parts of his dialogues today would be regarded as too obscene for publication but benini tsio and physicist of that age thought it not only right but useful to explore every Department of nature manini was one whose eager curiosity and

Passionate love of Liberty made almost every kind of restraint intolerable God in nature only now accepted he acknowledged himself as subject to no law as to Christianity he avoids the issue by avowing what doctrines and opinions he would maintain if he were not a Christian that is he resorts to

The two-fold truth of pomponazzi still there was in Vini an independence of character which made him regardless of popular opinion the calmness with which he met his fate shows that he was not destitute of the solid qualities of intellectual manhood he had no scruple in contradicting the authorities of the

Past even Aristotle himself when his dicum appeared opposed to reason and experience in vinini as in Bruno there was a genuine love of nature of natural sights and sounds and scenery it is a pure spontaneous enjoyment there is the freshness of The Summer’s morning the music of the birds the perfume of the

Roses the fruit trees in the orchard where master and pupil walk together in groves and Gardens overlooking the terrist streets of the Town while at the foot of the declivity and as far beyond as the eye can reach roll the blue Waves of the Mediterranean in 1617 venini went

To tus where he enjoyed an undisturbed existence for 2 years toward the end of 1618 the storm began to gather about his path which in the following year finally overwhelmed him in its mad Fury he was apprehended on the 2nd of August 1618 and suffered on the 9th of February the

Following year the process against him lasted 6 months there are no details of the transaction the Chief evidence against him was oral the dialogues were not put in evidence against him except that in them he had imperiously dared to style nature as the Queen of the Universe the historian gives the

Following picture of his trial quote The Prisoner is brought in mancl and guarded by jailers benini advances slowly to the bar he is in all respects a striking looking man tall rather thin with a student stoop of the shoulders a face of unusual intelligence of which the most

Most noticeable features are a long slightly curved nose and large brilliant eyes which he flashes around him with pretty much the expression of a caged lion he has auburn hair and the olive tint of his skin betrays his Spanish ancestry altogether a model of restless vivacious intelligence as his judges are

Of dogged immobile stolidity venini is questioned as to his belief in God in reply he picks up a piece of straw from the ground near him and exclaims this straw compels me to believe there is a God corn cast into the soil seems at first to languish and

Die presently as if from corruption it begins to whiten then it becomes green and starts from the ground it grows visibly it is nourished with the morning dew it is strengthened by the rain which it receives it arms itself with pointed spicel to keep away the birds it grows

In the form of a stock and puts forth leaves presently it becomes yellow droops its head languishes and dies we thresh it and the grain being separated from the straw the former serves for the nourishment of the man the latter for the nourishment of animals created for

The use of man end quote before these gloomy judges Thus Spoke a thinker of a new type the augury of a future whose Dawn was just becoming discernible on the horizon a man who studied nature clearly the interval between the judges on the bench and the Prisoner at the bar

Though locally measurable by a few yards was in point of time to be meted only by centuries benini was condemned to die on the 9th of February 1619 and the sentence was carried into execution the same day nothing says cousin could save him neither his youth nor his learning

Nor his eloquence this unfortunate martyr to philosophy and free thought was drawn on a hurdle through the streets of too his behavior like that of Bruno was marked to the utmost fortitude on coming forth from prison he exclaimed let us go joyfully to die as becomes a philosopher benini is bound securely to

The stake the Executioner then requests him to put forth his tongue in order that the sentence of its amputation might be carried out venini refuses not perhaps that his human feeling shrank from the torture though this surely would only be natural but he would not by any activ has sanctioned the

Iniquitous proceedings of which he was made a victim alas his refusal avails not his mouth is forcibly wrenched open the shrinking tongue is seized with iron pincers and drawn so far forward that The Executioner’s knife can do its work the stream of blood which followed the brutal operation was accompanied by a

Loud and violent shriek of pain after this the poor martyr to free thought had not long to live when he was dead by strangling his body was consumed to ashes by the fire prepared for the purpose at the stake oh tyranny at once both odious and impotent cries cousin do you think that

It is with pincers you can tear the human mind from airor and do you not see that the Flames which you set blazing by exciting the horror of all generous Minds protect and propagate the doctrines you persecute thus perished venini in the prime of Youth and manly beauty under circumstances of treachery

And barbarity not easy to be paralleled his enemies who scattered his Ashes to the wind did their utmost to exterminate his writings with such success that his works now have become exceedingly rare says Owen the spirit of free thought of Bruno and Vini Rose Like a Phoenix from

The Embers of the murderous Stak fires benini was one of the last instances in modern Europe of a thinker of some being put to death for free philosophical speculation the son of science was already above the Horizon while his disfigured and mangled corpse was being consumed at too bacon and a Freer

Atmosphere had completed a new system of philosophy and natural inquiry much of which coincides in form and substance with venine dialogues Galileo had set on foot a method of direct observation and experiment still more irreconcilable with the claims of ecclesiasticism and deart Was preparing the way for the skeptical philosophy

Which was destined with that of bacon and others to revolutionize the thought of Europe henceforth mental freedom of every kind began to flourish and increase the memory of Vini like that of Bruno is now being cherished by his countrymen with the recovery of her long lost Liberty Italy is turning her

Maternal regards and affectionate regrets to the memories of those Noble Sons pioneers of European freethought to whom she gave birth in the 14th and two following centuries but who as children of a Slave mother were driven from their homes and compelled to seek a precarious subsistence and often to find death in

Foreign lands the attachment of these poor Wanderers to their native country was second only to their passion for Liberty and Truth sometimes as in the case of Bruno it lured them like a wrecker’s light to their destruction venini dwells again and again in his writings on the Beloved tarano of his

Birth he recounts the incidents of his early childhood the stories told him by his mother the people and the events of his youthful and happier life the woods and valleys of that fairest of all lands that precious stone in the ring of the globe as he enthusiastically calls his

Native Province and now the country he so fervently loved after two centuries and a half has begun to reciprocate that affection on the 24th of September 1868 aosta venini was placed in the district Hall of leas the chief town of tarano the house in which he first saw the

Light is still carefully preserved and now tarano has no higher boast and no more valued historical possession than that she was the birthplace of Julius Caesar venini end quote of Bruno of venini we can say as Tennison sings of knowledge itself she sets her forward countenance and leaps into the future

Chance end quot end of chapter 7 part two minor philosophers tesio Campanella Vini chapter eight part one of 400 years of free thought by Samuel Putnam this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit librivox.org read by Michelle fry Baton Rouge

Louisiana in October 2023 chapter 8 part one the critical philosophy Fe decart lock and Hume in the eyes of Bruno and Spinosa the highest aim of philosophy was to discover Unity the one in all Kant gives a different definition to philosophy and I think a wiser one the business of

Philosophy says Kant is to answer three questions what can I know what ought I to do and for what may I hope but it is pretty plain says Huxley that these three resolve themselves in the long run into the first for rational expectation and moral action are alike

Based upon beliefs and a belief is void of justification unless its subject matter lies within the boundaries of possible knowledge and unless its evidence satisfies the conditions which experience imposes as the guarantee of credibility end quote what can we know therefore is the question of all questions which

Philosophy sets itself to answer and wherein philosophy is distinguished from science in another place Kant gives utterance to one of the wisest and most pregnant thoughts in regard to the true sphere of philosophy and in which he expresses the spirit of free thought itself quote the greatest and perhaps

The sole use of all philosophy of pure reason is after all merely negative since it serves not as an organon for the enlargement of knowledge but as a discipline for its delimitation and instead of discovering truth has only the modest Merit of preventing error end quote when

Philosophy is thus modest it is of real service and absolutely necessary to human progress it is not the province of philosophy to soar beyond the stars to discover the secret of all things to unfold the absolute Unity but to sit in Wise humility by the side of vigorous

Science and prevent her from falling into error to define the limits of science so that human energy can be preeminently useful science attains truth philosophy prevents error I do not know of any better distinction between the two so far as intellectual progress is concerned they The Sciences says Huxley

Furnish us with the results of the mental operations which constitute thinking while philosophy in the stricter sense of the term inquires into the foundation of the first principles which these operations assume or imply end quote such is the philosophy of dayart and his successors as contrasted with the philosophy of Bruno and

Spinosa it is the all triumphant philosophy of today before for which even the star of Hegel must pale its ineffectual fire decart 1596 through 1650 the object of deart was certainty how can we be certain that was the Supreme question in order to answer this question in order to arrive at certainty

Deart was the arch Infidel the arch doubter of the human race he doubted until it was no longer possible to doubt he could not doubt that he doubted then he said I think therefore I am doubt is the path to all knowledge affirms dayart we must doubt in order to

Be sure of anything for it is by doubt only that we can examine we travel through doubt to certainty and there is no other road we must doubt even the truth in order to know the truth there principle of doubt in science is directly opposite to the principle of

Religion religion says believe do not question do not deny to do so is a mortal sin in announcing his method therefore deart announced opposition to the Creeds of the past there must be a re-examination a sifting of all that the world had hither to believed in

Accepting the method of deart we do not necessarily accept his results although he added wonderfully to the treasures of human knowledge for doubt is not a temporary expedient it must be constantly applied the truth of yesterday must be demonstrated a new today there is no permanent stamp for truth it must be

Continually fresh coined truth cannot be crystallized it must be flowing truth is not to be gray haired it is to be ever young no truth can be so old is to be accepted on faith it must always give its credentials it must always be ready for proof it must eternally confront the interrogation

Point the Supreme question of philosophy what can we know can only be answered in the way that dayart endeavored to answer it by doubt by doubt is not meant Universal skepticism like that of pyro but what Hume termed mitigated skepticism that is skepticism with a well-defined

Purpose skepticism as a means not as an end as we sail the pathless ocean in order to reach Golden Shores so we enter upon the Sea of doubt in order that every continent of truth may be discovered this is the true free thought philosophy and it could not have had a

More illustrious Advocate than deart nor could anyone give a more brilliant example of its capability the four following rules of dayart are well worthy of consideration by every Searcher after truth and admirably state the essential features of his system of philosophy one never to accept anything

As true but what is evidently so to admit nothing but what so clearly and distinctly presents itself as true that there can be no reason to doubt it two to divide every question into as many separate parts as is possible that each part being more easily conceived the whole may be more

Intelligible three to conduct the examination with order Beginning by that of objects the most simple and therefore the easiest to be known and ascending little by little up to knowledge the most complex four to make such exact calculations and such circumspection as to be confident that nothing essential has been om

Ed Buckle says of the merits of dayart that he was the first who successfully applied algebra to Geometry that he pointed out the important law of the signs that in an age in which Optical instruments were extremely imperfect he discovered the changes to which light is subjected in the eye by the crystalline

Lens that he directed attention to the consequences resulting from the weight of the atmosphere and that he detected the causes of the the rainbow decart says Sant throwing off the swaddling clothes of scholasticism resolved to own to himself alone the acquisition of the truth which he so earnestly desired to possess for what

Else is the methodical doubt which he established as the starting point of his philosophy than an energetic protest of the human mind against all external Authority Hegel describes dayart as the founder of philosophy whose influence upon his own age and modern times it is impossible to

Exaggerate Brad law writes of him it is certain that dayart gave a sharp spur to European thought and mightily hastened the progress of heresy Thomas Hobbs 1588 through 1679 in the same line with dayart was Thomas Hobbs the subtlest dialectician of of his time he was one of the

Earliest English Advocates of the materialistic limitation of the mind he denies the possibility of any knowledge other than that resulting from Sensation whatever we imagine he says is finite therefore there is no idea no conception of anything we call infinite he professed however to admit the authority of the magistrate and the

Scriptures to override argument perhaps perhaps that was the reason why he was protected from his clerical antagonists by the favor of Charles II who had a portrait of the philosopher hung on the walls of his private room at whiteall in this connection it is worthy of note that Hobbs was the first to

Declare the doctrine of equal rights which was so pregnantly emphasized in after Times by The Splendid eloquence of rouso Hobbs was a freeth thinker but he masked his batteries in such a way that the church could not easily attack him he evidently was not born to be a

Martyr he wrote somewhat in Cipher but the church felt and resented the keenness of his logic and in his apparent submission to the powers that be realized the iconoclastic blow of a determined thinker lock 1632 through 1704 John Lock born 1632 carried forward the skeptical philosophy of decart it is an

Interesting fact that Spinosa was born the same year almost the opposite of lock in his philosophical purpose Spinosa endeavored to transcend the limits of human knowledge by pure genius to build an intellectual Temple far beyond the boundaries of experience to solve the problem of the universe by a

Transcendent effort of the will while the whole purpose of Lo was to emphasize the inability of man to do what’s sposa was gigantically laboring to do the critical philosophy of lock cannot be better stated than in his own words and wiser words were never written quote if by this inquiry into

The nature of the understanding I can discover the powers thereof how far they reach to what things they are in any degree proportionate and where they fail us I suppose it may be of use to Prevail with the busy mind of man to be more cautious in meddling with those things exceeding its

Comprehension to stop when it is at the utmost end of its tether and to sit down in quiet ignorance of those things which upon examination prove to be beyond the reach of our capacities we should not then be so forward out of an affectation of universal knowledge to raise questions

And perplex ourselves and others with disputes about things to which our understandings are not suited and of which we cannot frame in our minds any clear and distinct perception or whereof as it has perhaps too often happened we have not any notion at all men may find matter sufficient to busy their hands

With variety delight and satisfaction if they will not boldly quarrel with their own Constitution and throw away the blessings their hands are filled with because they are not big enough to grasp everything we shall not have much to complain of the narrowness of our minds if we will

Employ them about what may be of use to us for of that they are very capable and it will be an unpardonable as well as a childish peevishness if we undervalue the advantages of our knowledge and neglect to improve it to the ends for which it was given us because there are

Some things that are out of the reach of it it will be no excuse to an idle and UNT servant who would not attend to his business by candle light to plead that he had not BR Sunshine the candle that is set up in US shines bright enough for all our

Purposes our business here is not to know all things but those things which concern our conduct end quote no wonder that the clergymen were opposed to lock in this statement he undermines theology for if the human mind is thus limited it cannot affirm any anything concerning God Lock’s argument against innate ideas

Is unanswerable and the chief Reliance of faith is overthrown if the idea of God is Not innate how is it possible to discover him by experience since experience is always limited if all ideas originate in sensation and reflection as luck says must not all those ideas be finite the stream cannot rise higher

Than its source sensation and reflection cannot produce an infinite idea as well say that the Earth could produce a sun that a part can equal the whole or that two and two are more than four Lo did not see and acknowledge the full sweep of his philosophy but in

Conjunction with dayart he made way for the Keener Insight of David Hume end of chapter 8 part one the critical philosophy Bart Hobs and lock chapter 8 part two of 400 years of free thought by Samuel P putam this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for

More information or to volunteer please visit librivox.org read by Ted linhardt chapter 8 part two the critical philosophy Hume Kant Hume 1711 to 1776 in Hume we reach one of the loftiest intellectual Heights of man where there are no Mists and fogs clear Sunshine is all over the landscape it is

A pleasure to view human history from such an elevated and Noble position I do not know of anyone who has exercised a greater influence upon philosophy modern science is much more indebted to Hume than to bacon what we can know was more clearly answered by Hume than by any preceding writer he

Studied nature and the human mind at firsthand he was an original investigator and he was courageous the only point on which he bowed to popular opinion was in the profession of a vague and faint deism while he affirmed the impossibility of proving the existence of substantial mind he did seem to

Affirm the validity of the argument from design but this was simply a ripple the overwhelming stream of his argument was to Pure atheism but he never admitted this logical result but the value of Hume is not in the personal results of his philosophy but in its direction he

Did not map out the human mind with thorough accuracy but he showed how it was to be done he got rid of an immense amount of rubbish he made a revolutionary statement as to the course of human inquiry having stated his principles he says quote when we run

Over our libraries persuaded of these principles what Havoc must we make if we take in our hand any volume of divinity or School of metaphysics let us ask this question does it contain any abstract reason ing concerning quantity and number no does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter

Of fact and existence no commit it then to the Flames for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion end quote what volumes according to this we have the Blessed privilege of burning up volumes of theology volumes of metaphysics that do the world no particle of good what clearing away

There is to the pathway of human knowledge how much time is saved how much vexation and weariness of spirit hume’s argument against Miracles has been so thoroughly triumphant that we might say that from his day Miracles have been practically abandoned the original definition of a miracle is a

Violation of the fixed laws of nature in order to prove a divine revelation but Hume has demonstrated Beyond question that there cannot be a violation of the laws of nature so far as human experience is concerned that it is impossible to demonstrate such a violation for the fixed laws of nature

Are declared by Universal Human Experience itself it is impossible for a violation of the law to have such experimental evidence and as we must judge by evidence we must necessarily reject the miracle for the weight of evidence is always enormously against it if in favor of the miracle you have the

Universal testimony of mankind then the miracle is no longer a miracle according to the definition but a fixed law of nature the very evidence that might prove the miracle Must Destroy its miraculous quality universality of evidence which would be necessary to prove the actual occurrence of a miracle

Would at the same time prove that the miracle would was a part of the course of nature itself Huxley on this point says quote the definition of a miracle as a violation of the laws of nature is in reality an employment of language which on the face of the matter cannot

Be justified for nature means neither more nor less than that which is the sum of the phenomena presented to our experience the totality of events past present and to come every event must be taken as a part of nature until proof to the contrary is supplied and such proof

Is from the nature of the case impossible end quote the old definition of a miracle therefore has been abandoned no Theologian today calls a miracle a violation of the laws of nature a miracle nowadays is an extremely wonderful event extremely wonderful as an event may be it is still

A part of nature nature and therefore cannot demonstrate a divine revelation its validity as proof is gone for it remains that the miracle whatever it is is the result of previous natural conditions it might be true as Huxley says that 5,000 might be fed with Five

Loaves and a few small fishes and 12 baskets full be left if we grant that whatever is distinctly conceivable by the human mind is possible possible but what would be the result it would not prove the Divinity of Jesus that he was a God or supernatural being it would

Only show that he had a peculiar knowledge of the laws of nature it would prove no more than a slate of hand trick it might Amaze the multitude but scientifically it would only show that there were more possibilities in nature than our experience has hitherto Justified the performance would not

Prove the truth of a single saying of Jesus Jesus or justify his claim to the messiahship it would not prove that Jesus was a wise or learned man on any other point than that particular event if a scientific man like Huxley or Tindle were present on such an occasion

He would simply quote set to work to investigate the conditions under which so highly unexpected and occurrence took place and thereby enlarge his experience and modify his hitherto unduly narrow conceptions of nature end quote but he would not think for a moment of ascribing divinity to Jesus anymore than

To Herman or Edison if the old definition is retained it is impossible to prove a miracle if the new definition is admitted then the miracle loses all logical value to the Theologian for it proves nothing on his side of the question every way therefore Hume has demolished the the argument from

Miracles he has conferred an inestimable service upon humanity and scored a permanent victory for free thought of course if a miracle is an extremely wonderful event it must have a vast amount of evidence in its support on this point Hume says quote there is not to be found in all history any Miracle

Attested by a sufficient number of men of such unquestioned goodness educ a and learning as to secure us against all delusion in themselves of such undoubted Integrity as to place them beyond all suspicion of any design to deceive others of such credit and reputation in

The eyes of mankind as to have a great deal to lose in case of their being detected in any falsehood and at the same time attesting facts performed in such a public Manner and in so celebrated a part of the world as to render the detection unavoidable all of

Which circumstances are requisite to give us a full Assurance of the testimony of men end quote in his natural history of religion Hume takes the ground that religion and theology do not originate from man’s intellectual nature but from his hopes and fears and therefore religion is not Universal and

Necessary but arises out of the sentimental conditions of humanity he says quote the first ideas of religion arose not from a contemplation of the works of nature but from a concern with regard to the events of life and from the incessant hopes and fears which actuate the human mind in

Order to carry men’s attention beyond the present course of things or lead them into any inference concerning invisible intelligent Powers they must be actuated by some passion which prompts their thought thought and reflection some motive which urges their first inquiry but what passion shall we have recourse to for explaining an

Effect of such Mighty consequence not speculative curiosity merely or the pure love of truth that motive would be too refined for such gross Natures a subject too large and comprehensive for their narrow capacities no passions therefore can be supposed to work on such barbarians but the ordinary affections of human

Life the anxious concern for happiness Etc agitated by hopes and fears of this nature men scrutinize with a trembling curiosity the course of future causes and examine the various and contrary events of human life and in this disordered scene with eyes still more disordered and astonished they see the

First obscure traces of divinity never was the the history of religion so clearly and truthfully stated it originates with man’s hopes and fears and not from his desire for truth man believes in God for the preservation of his happiness and not from any intellectual demand and those who think

That high and refined theism has no such origin that it has nothing to do with these primitive barbaric feelings will find that monotheism and the sublimest qualities ascribed to God are not the result of pure intellectual processes but really an evolution through the hopes and fears of men from

The first obscure traces of divinity and theism therefore is Tainted with the original disease in fact monotheism instead of being the result of man’s mental Advance is but the logic of his most slavish propensities the more Perfection we ascribe to deity the more he becomes the expression of int intense

Selfishness hume’s masterly reasoning must make the theist squirm he says quote it may readily happen in an idolatrous nation that though men admit the existence of several limited deities yet there is some one God whom in a particular manner they make the object of their worship and adoration they may

Either suppose that in the distribution of power and territory among the gods their ation was subjected to the jurisdiction of that particular deity or reducing Heavenly objects to the model of things below they may represent one God as the prince or Supreme magistrate of the rest who though of the same

Nature rules them with an authority like that which an Earthly Sovereign exerts over his subjects and vassals whether this God therefore be considered as their peculiar Patron or as the general Sovereign of Heaven is voies will endeavor by every art to insinuate themselves into his favor and supposing

Him to be pleased like themselves with praise and flattery there is no eulogy or exaggeration which will be spared in their addresses to him in proportion as men’s fears or distresses become more urgent they still invent new strains of agulation and even he who out does his predecessor in swelling the titles of

His divinity is sure to be outdone by his successor in newer and more pompous epithets of Praise thus they proceed till at last they arrive at Infinity itself Beyond which there is no further progress they are guided to this notion not by reason but by the adulation and

Fears of the most vulgar superstitions end quote the highest attributes of deity are the result of Base human flattery the tribal God becomes the universal God not by the enlightened intellect of his subjects but by their subserviency monotheism is simply the art of the courtier and not the flower of

Philosophy those who read the history of the Jews in the light of modern scholarship will see an illustration of this and the Psalms will not be regarded as the expression of mental elevation but the eloquence of an obious royalist Hume accepted and rigorously applied the idealism of Berkeley and Dem

Demonstrated that if we cannot prove the existence of matter neither can we prove the existence of mind or Soul the reasoning is unanswerable we only know physical phenomena we do not know the substratum of the phenomena no more do we know the substratum of mental phenomena one good

Thing Berkeley did under the sharp guidance of Hume if he knocked out matter he also knocked out Soul matter May recover from the blow it has considerable persistence in spite of metaphysics but the soul is permanently demolished so far as science is concerned the conclusion of the whole question is that physical phenomena

Constitute matter and mental phenomena constitute mind hume’s reasoning was fully adopted by Kant that quote in the case of the Soul as in that of the body the idea of substance is a mere fiction of the imagination end qu says Kant our internal intuition shows no permanent existence for the ego

Is only the consciousness of my thinking end quote Hume every way is one of the most interesting characters in modern times he is almost an ideal philosopher his temper says Adam Smith quote seemed to be more happily balanced than that perhaps of any other man I’ve ever known

The extreme gentleness of his nature never weakened either the firmness of his mind or the steadiness of his resolution gity of temper so agreeable in society was in him certainly attended with the most severe application the most extensive learning the greatest depth of thought and a capacity in every respect the most

Comprehensive upon the whole I have always considered him in his lifetime and since his death as a approaching as nearly to the idea of a perfectly wise and virtuous man as perhaps the nature of human Frailty will permit end quote I cannot help quoting from one of hume’s

Letters it gives such a charming and beautiful picture of the home life the philosopher so iconoclastic so terrible destroying time-honored theories and yet so delightfully contented quote I shall exalt and Triumph to you little that I have now at last being turned off 40 to

My own honor to that of learning and to that of the present age arrived at the Dignity of being a householder about 7 months ago I got a house of my own and completed a regular family consisting of a head viz myself and two inferior

Members a maid and a cat my sister has since joined me and keeps me company with frugality I can reach I find cleanliness warmth light plenty and contentment what would you have more Independence I have it in a supreme degree honor that is not altogether wanting Grace that will come in time a

Wife that is none of the indispensable requisites of Life books that is one of them and I have more than I can use in short I cannot find any pleasure of consequence which I am not possessed of in a greater or less degree and without any great effort of philosophy I may be

Easy and satisfied end quote Kant 1724 to 184 Kant the great successor of Hume in the brilliant line of the critical and really constructive philosophy was peculiarly devoted to his work he lived to a great age says Madame Dale quote and never once quitted the Snows of murky

Kenbury passed a calm and happy existence meditating professing and writing he had mastered all the Sciences he had studied languages and cultivated literature he lived and died the type of the German Professor he rose smoked drank his coffee wrote lectured took his daily walk always at precisely the same

Hour the cathedral clock it is said was not more punctual in its movements than Emanuel Kant he never in the course of his long life traveled above 7 miles from his native City end quote in his critique of pure reason Kant developed in his own original way the skeptical

Philosophy of decart Lock and Hume in answering the question what can we know he added greatly to the answer given by Hume in the simple undecomposed able materials of thought Hume included only Impressions and ideas copies of Impressions by memory K adds to these relations so that in the original

Contents of the Mind are Impressions ideas and relations and thus as Huxley remarks Kant has made one of the greatest advances ever affected in philosophy but the basis of kant’s philosophy is exactly the same as that of Hume quote quote if the details of kant’s criticism differ from those of

Hume they coincide with them in their main result which is the limitation of all knowledge of reality to the world of phenomena revealed to us by experience end quote the ultimates of human thought are matter force and relation relation is neither matter nor force and yet it

Is as much of a reality as either of these there is no matter or Force without relation relation is as fundamental as sensation not inferred from Sensation but immediately known with sensation Kant swept God and immortality forever from the domain of human knowledge he says quote after we

Have satisfied ourselves of the vanity of all the ambitious attempts of Reason To Fly beyond the bounds of experience enough remains of practical value to content us it is true that no one knows that God and a future life exist for if he possesses such knowledge he is just

The man for whom I have long been seeking all knowledge touching an object of mere reason can be communicated and therefore I might hope to see my own knowledge increased to this prodigious extent by his instruction end quote further on Kant says that philosophy and Common Sense are one quote I will not

Here speak of the service which philosophy is rendered to human Reason by the laborious efforts of its criticism but do you ask that the knowledge which interests all men shall transcend the common understanding and be discovered for you only by philosophers the very thing which you make a reproach is the best confirmation

Of the justice of previous conclusions since it shows that which could not at first have been anticipated namely that in those matters which concern all men alike nature is not guilty of Distributing her gifts with partiality and that the highest of philosophy and dealing with the most important concerns of humanity is able

To take us no further than the guidance which she affords to the commonest understanding end quote it is a great gain to know that the highest philosophy after all is but systematized common sense of course Kant is compelled in order to mify the Orthodox party to make God and immortality moral certainties

While they are no longer intellectual certainties not objective moral certainties however but subjective moral certainties for Kant confesses naively I must not even say it is morally certain that there is a God and so on but I am morally certain and so on end quote what Kant means is this though you cannot

Prove the existence of God or the immortality of the Soul yet as the belief in these is very useful for moral purposes you may assume that is for moral purposes you may nay should believe that fiction of the imagination is true Kant did not show much common

Sense in this certainly if morality must be founded on an assumption it must be a very poor thing if Kant had seen more of the world if he had traveled more than seven miles from konigsburg and studied human nature he would have discovered that man’s morality is not founded upon

An assumed belief but upon real knowledge according to Kant we must lie in order to be true we must be Hypocrites in order to be just we must cheat ourselves in order to be honest with others we must play fast and loose with reason in order to enforce the

Moral law upon ourselves Kant is an intellectual giant but he shows what a fool the greatest man may be when he undertakes to compromise with Orthodoxy I think after all that hume’s idea of morality is much better than that of Kant Hume dismisses entirely the belief in God and immortality and says

Quote virtue is an end and is des desirable on its own account without fee or reward end quote and then in one of his most eloquent passages he declares quote what philosophical truths can be more advantageous to society than these here delivered which represent virtue in all her genuine and most engaging charms

And make us approach her with ease familiarity and affection the Dismal dress falls off with which many divines and some philosophers have covered her and nothing appears but gentleness Humanity beneficence affability nay even at proper intervals play Frolic and gayety she talks not of useless austerities and rigors suffering

And self-denial she declares that her sole purpose is to make her voies and all mankind during every period of their existence if possible cheerful and happy nor does she ever willingly part with any pleasure but in the hopes of ample compensation in some other period of their lives the sole trouble she demands

Is that of just calculation and a steady preference of the greater happiness and if any austere Pretenders approach her enemies to joy and pleasure she either rejects them as Hypocrites or deceivers or if she admits them to her train they are ranked however among the least favored of her voies end quote Kant

Certainly did not improve upon genial David Hume as a moral teacher even the Presbyterian Scotch named a street after him St David’s Street and this is one of the best Saints in all the calendar end of chapter 8 part two the critical philosophy Hume Kant ch chapter 8 part three of 400

Years of free thought by Samuel P putam this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit librivox.org read by Ted linhardt the critical philosophy Hamilton the clouds were not altogether Swept Away by kant’s incisive logic since he allowed the moral disposition

Positions to somewhat Mar his judgment it required the brilliant metaphysics of Hamilton to clear the atmosphere entirely I do not know anyone who has done a finer service to free thought than this great writer although he was an orthodox believer and has been a master influence in modern religious

Thought nothing has so troubled and perplexed the human mind as the words infinite and absolute it has been supposed that they contained some meaning though nobody knew what Hamilton has demonstrated Beyond question that they simply mean nothing they are the negations of thought that is no thought

Everything in the sphere of thought must be finite limited and conditioned it is impossible to conceive anything else or anything beyond we talk of Infinite Space and infinite time as if they were real conceptions but they are not as before shown if we conceive think imagine or picture space it must be

Finite space if time it must be finite time there is no such thing to the human mind as Infinite Space or infinite time let one try to think these and he cannot do it now if according to decart there can be no truth to the human mind except what is distinctly conceivable than

Infinite Space and infinite time are not truths for they are not distinctly conceivable if all knowledge arises from experience there can be no possible knowledge of the infinite for it cannot be experienced we cannot experience the infinite in part for the infinite cannot be divided into Parts it is an absolute

Unity that which is divisible is finite the relativity of knowledge as affirmed and demonstrated rated by Hamilton is one of the most fruitful postulates of modern science it takes a great fog from the human mind the whole history of philosophy is a history of the Havoc made by these two terms infinite and

Absolute they have ruled with a rod of iron none dared to deny it was an enthronement of words without ideas they cart lock Hume and Kant submitted to a certain extent to the tyranny of the word god they allowed there might be something in it indeed decart buil up an

Elaborate argument for the existence of God on the basis of the idea of infinite Perfection which he says is in the mind of man as infinite Perfection cannot be infinite perfection without existence therefore this idea of infinite Perfection must represent reality however there is no idea aidea of

Infinite perfection in the mind and decart’s argument is worthless every philosophy which is based on any affirmation of the actual presence in the human mind of ideas corresponding to the words infinite and absolute is a false philosophy all such philosophies have come and gone like Mists in the sky

They have expanded until they have covered the whole Heavens with glorious colors but they have faded away Hegel made the last and most alluring attempt to build these magnificent Castles in the Air and for a while he commanded Europe and exercised a wonderful influence he has done more than any

Other to preserve a religion for thinkers he certainly has constructed a palacial philosophy it opens into enchanting luminous and Far Away perspectives the mind can wander in it and find no end to the dazzling scenario if it were only built upon fact what a preeminent structure it would be how the

Imagination could Revel in it and winged hope never cease its flight and the heart be filled with the Divine fervor of a Bruno or Spinosa but the system of Hegel is not built on fact it does not originate with fact but with pure thought itself thought is the beginning

And the end and the universe is the ever becoming God of which humanity is the noblest Consciousness The Secret of Hegel is not worth striving after for when discovered it will not add one iota to human knowledge Alexander Smith sings the master strain of hegelianism when the

Poet declares that he will begin his mighty theme quote far in God when all the ages and All Sons and worlds and Souls of men and angels lay in him like un born forests in an acorn cup with a soliloquy with which God broke the Silence of the dead eternities at which

Most ancient words so beautiful with showery Tresses like a child from sleep uprose The Splendid Moon and jeweled night end quote and close the measureless Epic quote with God in silence when this great Universe subsides in God even as a moment’s foam subsides again upon the wave that bears it end quote

The philosophy of the conditioned is the true philosophy of modern days we no longer consider the infinite we are no longer baffled by mysteries for we no longer consider Mysteries but facts why trouble about Mysteries whatever is experienced is not a mystery it is a fact Hamilton in the following clearly

States the philosophy of the infinite which he himself so thoroughly repudiated and which science itself must repudiate although such glorious names are its sponsors quote Kant pronounced the philosophy of rationalism that is ideal rationalism exercise of the reason simply without the union of reason with experience which latter is scientific

Rationalism to be a mere fabric of delusion he declared that a science of existence was beyond the compass of our faculties that pure reason as purely subjective and conscious of nothing but itself was therefore unable to evince the truth of ought beyond the phenomena of its personal modifications but scarcely had Kant

Accomplished the recognition of this important principle then from the very Disciples of his school there arose philosophers who despising the contracted limits and humble results of observation re established a bolder and more uncompromising rationalism than any that had ever previously obtained for their country the character of philosophic Visionaries quote Minds mad with

Reasoning and on fancies fed end quot founded by fish but evolved by shelling this Doctrine regards experience as Unworthy of the name of science because as only of the phenomenal the transitory the dependent it is only that which having no reality in itself cannot be established as a valid basis of

Certainty and knowledge philosophy therefore must either be abandoned or we must be able to seize the one the absolute the unconditioned immediately and in itself and this they profess to do by a kind of intellectual Vision in this act reason soaring not only above the world of sense but beyond the sphere

Of personal Consciousness boldly places itself at the very center of absolute being with which it claims to be in fact identified and then surveying existence in itself and in its relations unveils to us the nature of the deity and explains From First to Last the derivation of all created things end

Quote the following is a luminous statement as far as it is possible to give one of this transcendental philosophy which happily today is fast disappearing from even the German mind quote in Every Act of Consciousness we distinguish a self or ego and something different from self a non-ego each

Limited and Modified by the other these together constitute the finite element but at the same instant when we are conscious of these existences plural relative and contingent we are conscious like likewise of a superior unity in which they are contained and by which they are explained a Unity absolute as

They are conditioned substantive as they are phenomenal and an infinite cause as they are finite causes this Unity is God the fact of Consciousness is thus a complex phenomenon comprehending three several terms first the idea of the ego and non-ego is finite second the idea aidea of something else is infinite

Third the idea of the relation of the finite element to the infinite these elements are revealed in themselves and in their Mutual Connection in Every Act of primitive or spontaneous Consciousness end quote the essential Spirit of intolerance and persecution which is in every religious philosophy and which will result in horror and

Bloodshed is also stated by Hamilton as a existing in this philosophy thus quote as in this spontaneous intuition of reason there is nothing voluntary and therefore nothing personal and as the truths which intelligence here discovers come not from ourselves we are entitled up to a certain point to impose these

Truths on others as Revelations from on high end quote it will thus be seen that the sword the fire and are in this transcendental philosophy the ideal rationalism which so disdainfully avoids the ground of common experience and sores to God it is a fact that cousin the last great representative of this

School formulated into ecclesiasticism endeavored to justify partially the execution of vanini on the ground that he was an atheist and an immoral man he labored to blacken the reputation of the Martyr in order to save the Defenders Of God Hamilton compactly States the issue quote philosophical opinions may be reduced to

Four first the uncondition is incognizant inconceivable its notion being only negative of the conditioned which last can only be positively known as conceived second it the infinite is not an object of knowledge but its notion as a regul ative moral principle of the Mind itself is more than a mere negation

Of the conditioned third it the infinite is cognizable but not conceivable it can be known by a sinking back into identity with the infinite absolute but it is incomprehensible by Consciousness and reflection which are only of the relative and different fourth it is cognizable and conceivable by Consciousness and reflection which are

Under relation difference and plurality the first of these opinions says Hamilton we regard as true the second is held by Kant the third by shelling and the last by cousin in our opinion says Hamilton the mind can conceive and consequently can know only the limited and the conditionally limited the unconditionally unlimited or

The infinite the unconditionally limited or the absolute cannot possibly be construed to the mind they can be conceived only by a thinking away from or abstraction of those very conditions under which thought itself is realized consequently the notion of the unconditioned is only negative negative of the conceivable itself for example on

The one hand we can positively conceive neither an absolute whole that is a whole so great that we cannot conceive it as a relative part of a still greater hole nor an absolute part that is a part so small that we cannot also conceive it as a relative whole divisible into

Smaller parts on the other hand we cannot positively represent or realize or construe to the Mind an infinite whole for this could only be done by the infinite synthesis and thought of finite holes which would itself require an infinite time for its accomplishment nor for the same reason can we follow out in

Thought an infinite divisibility of Parts the result is the same whether we apply the process to limitation in space in time or in degree the infinite the absolute are thus equally inconceivable to us thought necessarily supposes condition to think is to condition for as the Greyhound cannot outstrip its

Shadow nor the eagle Outsource the atmosphere in which he floats and by which alone he is supported so the Mind cannot transcend that sphere of limitation within and through which exclusively the possibility of thought is realized all that we know is only known as one from the void and formless

Infinite thought cannot transcend Consciousness Consciousness is only possible under the antithesis of a subject and object of thought known only in correlation and mutually limiting each other while independently of this all that we know either of subject or object either of mind or matter is only

A knowledge in each of the particular or phenomenal we admit that the consequence of this Doctrine is that philosophy if viewed as more than a science of the condition is impossible departing from the particular we admit that we can never in our highest generalizations rise above the finite time time is only

The image or concept of a certain correlation of existences of existence therefore as conditioned it is thus itself only a form of the conditioned is the absolute conceivable in time we can easily represent to ourselves time under any relative limitation of commencement and termination but we are conscious to

Ourselves of nothing more clearly than that it would be equally possible to think without thought as to construe to the Mind an absolute commencement or an absolute termination of time that is a beginning and an end Beyond which time is conceived as not existent go imagination to the utmost it still sinks

Paralyzed within the bounds of Time and Time survives as the condition of the thought itself in which we annihilate the universe is the infinite more comprehensible can we imagine time is unconditionally Ally unlimited we cannot conceive the infinite regress of time for such a notion could only be realized

By the infinite addition in thought of finite times and such an addition would itself require an eternity for its accomplishment if we dream of affecting this we only deceive ourselves by substituting the indefinite for the infinite than which no two Notions can be more opposed the negation of the commencement of time involved

Likewise the affirmation that an infinite time has at every moment already run that is it implies the contradiction that an infinite has been completed for the same reason we are unable to conceive an infinite progress of time while the infinite regress and infinite progress taken together involve the triple contradiction of an infinite

Concluded of an infinite commencing and of two infinites not exclusive of each other other space like time is only the Intuition or the concept of a certain correlation of existence of existence therefore as conditioned it is thus itself only a form of the conditioned but apart from this thought is equally

Powerless in realizing a notion either of the absolute totality or of the infinite immensity of space and while space and time as holes can thus neither be cons perceived as absolutely limited nor as infinitely unlimited so their parts can be represented to the human mind neither as absolutely indivisible

Nor as divisible to Infinity the universe Cannot Be Imagined as a whole which may not also Be Imagined as a part nor an atom Be Imagined as a part which may not also Be Imagined as a whole the unconditioned therefore is not a positive concept nor has is it ever a

Real or intrinsic Unity for it only combines the absolute and the infinite in themselves contradictory of each other into a Unity relative to us by the negative Bond of their inconceivability and quote step Pearl Andrews one of the keenest metaphysicians of modern times has made a distinction which is quite

Helpful between the absolute infinite and the relative infinite the relative infinite is a kind of contradiction in terms yet still it conveys something to the human mind the absolute infinite is that which is so great that it cannot be made greater that is the use of the term

As applied to God but the moment we try to think God we must think of him as less than infinite for we cannot think of any being so great but that we must still think of a greater suppose for instance we say that the universe is infinite that is that the number number

Of Worlds is so great that the number cannot be increased if you say the number of Worlds can be increased that number must be finite Grant the number to be absolutely infinite it must then be admitted that every world is composed of billions of particles and the number

Of particles of course must be infinite we are at once confronted by the absurdity of one infinite number being a billion times greater than another infinite number and yet by the Assumption both numbers are so great that they cannot be increased we can only escape the absurdity by saying that

The number of Worlds is relatively infinite that is so great that we cannot count them time and space are relatively infinite in the sense that we cannot conceive the beginning or the ending of either but in this case it is not the strength of thought but it’s impotence

That is Manifest it is a confession of inability to think not an affirmation of positive knowledge in this sense the word infinite is applied to time space and the universe but it will be easily seen this use of the word expresses the want of a conception not the presence of

It infinite and absolute in the theological sense are therefore entirely without meaning and must be forever abandoned by science Kant through the words God and immortality in into the limbo of faith and Hamilton has tumbled the words infinite and absolute after them and there they lie in undistinguished confusion they are not

Even ghosts or Shadows they are simply nothing end of chapter eight part three the critical philosophy Hamilton chapter eight part four of 400 years of free thought by samil P putam this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit librivox.org

Chapter 8 part four the critical philosophy C so the way is made for positive philosophy which is the true and final answer to the question what can we know we can know phenomena only and the correlations of phenomena the universe is simply the known and the unknown the

Unknown is simply unknown we cannot describe it in any way and as Frederick Harrison says we do not even begin it with a capital the boundaries of the known continually advance but the unknown is always the unknown we cannot name it God immortality thing in itself ninon substratum Soul the infinite the

Absolute or even the unknowable the known is only phenomena but real phenomena and the manifestation of the universe as it is I accept positive philosophy not as a philosophy founded by C but as the grand result of the labors of deat Lo H Kant and Hamilton in their Endeavors to Define human

Knowledge the words positive philosophy Express the result better than any others and why not accept them even though we do not accept altogether the conclusions of K himself this philosopher has exerted a profound and mighty influence upon his age he was a thinker of extraordinary ability and magnificent

Enthusiasm certainly no one has better stated the boundaries of human knowledge his philosophy will suffer many mod ifications in the onward Marge of science but in that Marsh Theology and metaphysics will be forever discarded science will deal with what is positive and not with dreams or fancies

And that is a splendid Triumph for free thought K’s attempt to establish a religion of humanity a religion minus theology with the regalia and ceremonies of the pepal church was a colossal blunder it is a dismal failure you cannot build religion on reason common sense or any intellectual or moral

Grounds as Hume has clearly shown one of the founders of a new religion theop philanthropy the religion which pain professed complained to T wrong that it made but little Headway among the people T wrong replied it is no easy matter to introduce a new religion but there is

One thing I would advise you to do and then perhaps you might succeed go and be crucified then be buried and then rise again on the third day and then work miracles raise the dead heal all manner of disease and cast out devils and then it is possible you may accomplish your

End this was stong’s shrew way of saying the religion was a humbug that it must be founded on a lie the conflict between science and religion always has existed and always will exist K should have banished religion equally with Theology and metaphysics it is folly to talk about

Worshiping Humanity or anything else we should not cultivate a feeling of worship we should not bow or pray self-respect forbids this recognize everyone as your equal honor the truly great but don’t make them gods for the best of them are no better than they should be K’s grandm is simply a fiction

Of the imagination it does not exist there is some analogy between society and the human body but that is all humanity is not like a vast organism we’re not like cells in a stupendous body we’re individuals and supreme in our individuality and as individuals we possess rights

There is no higher existence in quality than individual existence we are not to be absorbed in a figment called Humanity any more than in a figment called God all the millions of human beings massed together cannot make an existence Superior in kind to individual existence and it often happens that one man is

Wiser than all the rest of the world put together K’s grandman seem a pure metaphysical conception like the entities of the schoolman humanity is a combination of individuals but that combination does not create a Supreme Being cons abolishing of Rights and substitution of Duties as fundamental is not for Morality or for

Liberty rights are fundamental and Duties are based upon our rights and if we have no rights then we have no duties the sentiment of self is as original as the sentiment of humanity we are not to be altogether altruistic we must be egoistic live for others is not

The true Maxim but live for all being yourself included the sentiment of humanity should not displace the sentiment of self any more than the sentiment of self should displace the sentiment of humanity I have thus noted the mistakes and failures of K which have lessened

The value of his work but what he has done Still Remains among the greatest achievements of the century he has been a prodigious power and the old superstitions have received no deadlier blow than from this Brave thinker it must be admitted that there is a unity and correlation of the

Sciences a true order and though C may not have succeeded in stating the true order yet his efforts to do so and his affirmation of the unity have been of great service Mr Lewis eloquently says it constructs a series which makes all the separate Sciences organic parts of

One science and it enables the several philosophies to yield a Doctrine which is what no other Doctrine has ever been coextensive with human knowledge and homogeneous throughout its whole extent this then is the positive philosophy the extension to all investigation of those methods which have been proved successful in the physical

Sciences the limitations of human knowledge may be irksome to some impatient spirits but philosophy pretending to no wider sweep than that of human faculty and contented with the certainties of experience declares the search after the first and final causes to be a profitless Pursuit in directing attention to sociology and to the laws

Of human progress in declaring that there are such laws and that there is a science of society H has pushed forward human investigation in a most noble and beneficial Direction col’s great fundamental law of human intelligence the law of the three stages is certainly a very Illuminating criticism of human

History it is in the main correct though by no means applicable to the growth of all the Sciences but Mankind in the search after truth has really pass through these three stages though I do not see that in the nature of things it should always be in this fashion it has

Been so as a matter of fact and K’s law is assment of history but not a fundamental law of Perpetual operation like the law of evolution as given by Herbert Spencer the law of the three stages is thus stated by C each of our leading conceptions each branch of our knowledge

Passes successfully through three different theoretical conditions the theological or fictitious the metaphysical or abstract and the scientific or positive in the theological man suppose all phenomena to be produced by the immediate action of supernatural beings and the Perfection of this stage is reached when all these supposed beings are merged into one that

Is monotheism in a metaphysical stage the Mind substitutes for personal beings abstract forces or laws which are part of the entity or nature of matter and this stage is matured when mankind have substituted one final entity nature for the various minor entities at first opposite in a final the positive stage

The mind has given over the veins search after absolute Notions the origin and destination of the universe and the causes of phenomena and applies itself to the study of their laws that is their invariable relations of succession and resemblance reasoning and observation duly combined are the means of this

Knowledge what is now understood when we speak of an explanation of facts is simply the establishment of a connection between a a single phenomenon and some general unreduced facts the number of which continually diminishes with the progress of science the ultimate Perfection of the positive system would

Be if such Perfection could be hoped for to represent all phenomena as particular aspects of a single general fact this is a luminous philosophy of History it is an admirable explanation of the way things have been and of the goals to be reached no doubt con will be

Vastly modified by such thinkers as Spencer Mill and Huxley for instance K has overlooked too much the value of psychology and as Mill says it should be classified as an independent abstract science it appears that K in his opposition to metaphysics did not sufficiently distinguish between true

And false metaphysics if we take the word metaphysics in its original sense then all metaphysics is false but historically the word has been used in two senses used in a sense that there can be knowledge without experience that is without physical Sensation that we can start from ideas and not from facts

That from Notions in the mind we can deduce truth without consultation with the material world around us that we can phenomena all together and study pure being through intuition metaphysics and this sense the metaphysics of the schoolman is entirely false and Unworthy of the tension of science the metaphysical stage equally

With the theological age is unscientific and entities are as much to be abolished as the gods but it must be ConEd that there are mental phenomena apart from physical phenomena and the physical phenomena do not altogether explain mental phenomena as Huxley States it I cannot conceive how the phenomenon of

Consciousness is such and apart from the physical process by which they are called into existence are to be brought within the bounds of physical science let us suppose the process of physical analysis pushed so far that one could view the last lengths of the chain of molecules watch their movements as if

They were buet balls weigh them measure them and know all that is physically knowable about them well even in this case we should be just as far from being able to include the resulting phenomena of Consciousness within the bounds of physical signs as we are at present it will remain as unlike the

Phenomena we know under the names of matter and motion as it is now the correlation of mental phenomena therefore could not come under the name physics it has come under the name metaphysics physics and is certainly a true science as much as the correlation of physical phenomena in this sense Hume and Kant

And Hamilton are among the greatest metaphysicians and as metaphysicians they have added incalculably to the stores of human knowledge K himself was a metaphysician in this sense for it must be admitted that his statement of positive philosophy is a mental conclusion and not a physical phenomenon however mental phenomena must be studied

In connection with the physical world a true psychology must be based upon a true physiology we cannot understand the action of the Mind unless we understand the action of the brain to study the mind apart from its physical surroundings is again a false metaphysics this no doubt is what Kant

Meant since Louis declares that the science of psychology is included in by biology in a certain sense it is and in a certain sense it is not as Huxley again says with it scientific exactness I doubt not our poor long armed and short-legged friend the alang as he sits meditatively munching his

Durion fruit has something behind that sad Socratic phe of his which is utterly beyond the bounds of physical signs physical signs may know all about his clutching the fruit and munching it and digesting it and how the physical titilation of his pallet is transmitted to some microscopic cells of the gray

Matter of his brain but the feelings of sweetness and satisfaction which for a moment hang out their signal lights in his Melancholy eyes are as utterly outside the bounds of physics as is the Fine Frenzy of a human repist it is evident that K would have been more correct in his classification

If he had included psychology and logic also in the independent abstract Sciences well the grand man in humanity as an organism must be entirely rejected yet the true value of humanity as a mediator between men the individual and nature must not be overlooked and while in form we deny called in spirit we

Accept him as he has been unfolded in a variable manner by TB wakan who I think has given a better interpretation to C than any other writer he has certainly stripped K’s religion of its provincial and Imperial elements and made it as far as possible Cosmopolitan and Democratic no man however great his

Genius can understand Nature by the solitary exercise of his faculties cooperation is as necessary in the intellectual world as in the industrial it is not through man as a single being but through Humanity the universal being not organism that the greatness of nature is revealed and that

We know and use her power Generations have toiled for us the whole human race is constantly endowing us with truth millions are helping to build the cosmos in which we dwell civilization is the result of immense combinations all over the world it is not the individual alone

But the individual plus Humanity the one through the many that jams the Earth with Harvest Fields chains the lightning and counts the multitude of stars in this sense humanity is an amazing power and with this interpretation there is something most nobly inspiring in K’s conception as described by John Stewart Mill Humanity

Ascends into the unknown recesses of the past past Embraces the manifold present and descends into the indefinite and unforeseeable future forming a collective existence without assignable beginning or end appealing to that feeling of the infinite which is deeply rooted in human nature and which seems necessary to the imposing of all our highest

Conceptions K by his magnificent ideas has created what has been called the enthusiasm of humanity through which human progress is enable with music art and poetry K endeavored to cultivate Majestic and enduring sentiments along with clear scientific advancement and in this he has labored in the true Direction although his religion and its

Methods May forever disappear he has been a great intellectual agitator as Van veren Dan L says his work created a consternation akin to the handwriting on the wall at belshazzar’s Feast for a it to theologians and metaphysicians alike many menar it said to all priesthoods and spiritual ministers your occupation was

Necessary for a time as was slavery but the time will come when it will be equally necessary to abolish it the clergy were better prepared for argument than for this out lurry they did not relish being told that to account for things supernaturally was an Inseparable attribute of the infantile

Stage of the human mind and there in all theologies like all fetish workshops of which they are in fact a part like all mythologies like all scandals and indeed like all dogs must have their day and perish the clergy had pretty nearly made man a product of theology they were startled

To find theology a parasite creeping precariously under the outer skull of man they had pleased God in the center of the intellectual system and bid All Souls derived from it their light K deserted that no light emanated from this so-called God except by Reflection from the lar linary

Humanity we have thus traced the philosophical progress of man since the days of Columbus Bruno and Spinosa in the line of transcendental philosophy with The Advocates of men’s freedom and nobility with a splendor of Genius un surpassed but the true father of modern philosophy is deot and from him flows

The brilliant line of L Hume K Hamilton and C what an illustrious pathway this has been what wealth of thought has been expanded in all order to answer the simple question what can we know it took from the card 1596 to con 1857 to fully and satisfactorily answer

That question it has been answered and accepting positive philosophy not as what K was the first to create but as the result of the labors of his great predecessors of which himself is The Interpreter and advancer and whose statements will still undergo many and important modifications we can say with

Lewis Mr Spencer is unequivocably a positive philosopher however he may repeate being considered a disciple of C his object is that of the positive philosophy namely the organization into a harmonious doctrine of all the highest generalities of Science by the application of the positive method and the complete displacement of Theology and

Metaphysics The Peculiar character he impresses on it by his star working out in detail of the law of evolution gives a special value to his system but the positive philosophy will absorb all his discoveries as it will absorb all future discoveries made on its method and in its Spirit rejecting certain a priori

And teleological Tendencies which he sometimes me manifests and disregarding his failures as it disregards the failures of K and every other Seeker end of chapter 8 part four the critical philosophy C read by Tessa lur Singapore December 2023 chapter nine of 400 years of free thought by Samuel P putam this is a

LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit librivox.org recording by Rita butros chapter 9 the final scientific answer monism the last remaining Cloud to be swept from the pathway of modern science is Spencer’s doctrine of the unknowable

This Doctrine is simply a Revival of the old dualistic and Theological conception of the universe and is opposed to the scientific and monistic conception if science today and philosophy affirm anything it is the Oneness of existence as comp says this is the goal of science to explain the

Multitude of facts by one general fact it is the object of science to correlate all phenomena to bind them into Unity if we divide existence into two kinds one knowable and the other unknowable this is dualism it absolutely splits the universe aunder there is an impassible Chasm between existences and

The inevitable result is the old dualism again reason and Revelation science and faith science for the knowable and Faith for the unknowable here is the two-fold truth of pomponazzi and the old philosophers in modern thought no wonder that theologians have welcomed Spencer’s doctrine of the unknowable it saves them

It gives a refuge for all their fallacies a boundless domain for the exercise of credulity since reason cannot penetrate it inspiration from God must must come to man’s Aid and supplement science the monistic philosophy which is the grand result of the critical and positive philosophy must repudiate the

Unknowable so far as science is concerned all existence is identical and therefore all existence is knowable that is intelligible if not why not is there any part of nature unintelligible if a part of universal being is unknowable how does Spencer or anybody else know it when we assert that

Fundamental existence is unknowable do we not in that very affirmation declare that we do know something about it that is we know that it is unknowable a most tremendous Assumption of knowledge this doctrine of the unknowable explains nothing any more than the doctrine of God explains and therefore is

Unscientific it only makes a model Spencer frankly says I hold at the outset and continue to hold that the inscrutable existence stands towards our general conceptions of things in substantially the same relation as does the creative power asserted by Theology and when theology has dropped the last of the anthropomorphic traits ascribed

The foundation beliefs of the two must become identical says Frederick Harrison to invoke the unknowable is to reopen the whole range of metaphysics and the entire apparatus of theology will follow through the breach even the Christian World declares that the words of Spencer might have

Been used by Butler or Paley and are the fitting and natural introduction to inspiration Spencer affirms that the unknowable is the infinite and eternal energy from which all things proceed it is the ultimate the all beinging if it is the unknowable how do spener know that it is infinite and eternal or that

It is an energy or that anything proceeds from it or that it is Ultimate how does he even know that it is a reality Mr Wakeman says Spencer’s system by his doctrine of the unknowable becomes a duality which denies that the ego is a correlate of the known and

Knowable World his philosophy therefore leaves the backbone of the world of causal sequence broken at the vital point where the objective and the subjective unite in humanity but not in any unknowable that is he assumes that everything is only a symbol of reality that every phenomenon is related to a

Nenon and that the consciousness of man is not a correlate of nerve and World changes and so between the world and Man Lies an unaccountable Gulf with an open Gateway through which the clerical and spiritual mediums have brought back the whole ghostly tribe of entities and spirits

And gods and Devils to torture and Rob the human race again the trouble is that Mr Spencer in assuming an infinite and eternal energy back of all things an absolutely unknowable inscrutable unhuman numon has lost his grip on the infinite and eternal causal concatenation of things he has run

Science ashore on the old sand and fog Bank of Superstition there is nothing to do but to pull off and to change our course under the true lights and verifiable methods of the correlation of all things the definition given by Spencer to agnosticism cannot be accepted by science the power which the universe

Manifests to us is utterly inscrutable science will not affirm that anything is inscrutable to do so is suicidal science will never give up the eternal struggle to know to know what a part of things no but all things that is the goal and nothing else will satisfy

The scientific mind it is theology that talks of the inscrutable but not science theology puts up the bars of ignorance but not a true philosophy philosophy nor free thought ever says thus far shalt thou go and no farther science has conquered a thousand inscr bles along the path of progress

And it will not be daunted by even the inscrutable of Herbert Spencer the true agnostic will never be so Gnostic as to assert that anything in this universe is inscrutable Huxley gives the right definition of agnosticism agnosticism is of the essence of science whether ancient or

Modern it simply means that a man shall not say he knows or believes that which he has no scientific grounds for professing to know or believe what are the scientific grounds for knowing or believing that anything is inscrutable nature is not a duality it is as humbold says a living Hall and if

Intelligible at any point why not intelligible throughout understand science does not reject a relative inscrutable for instance it may be impossible for human reason and experience ever to decide the question are other worlds inhabited this is unknowable but not in the spenserian sense for it is granted that if Human

Experience could reach these other worlds then the human reason could decide the question it is the limitation of experience that makes unknowable not the limitation of Reason itself it is because we have not the facts and perhaps may never obtain the facts that makes life on other planets and on the

Distant Stars inscrutable to us it is relatively inscrutable not absolutely and there are thousands of like questions we cannot decide simply because we cannot get at the facts but this is not what Spencer means he affirms that no amount of fact or intelligence can give any knowledge of

The inscrutable it is the external reality about us that we cannot discover we cannot truly know it we are always wrapped in ignorance a million facts would not lessen our intellectual Darkness not one ray of light will ever penetrate our bited minds says one of his disciples our entire world is the

Product of two factors our Consciousness and an objective reality which in itself is inscrutable we may from the connection of Sensations and ideas within us infer a connection of things outside of us but we cannot logically infer any resemblance between the internal and external orders as Spencer says the

Utmost possibility for us is an interpretation of the process process of things as it presents itself to our limited Consciousness but how this process is related to the actual process we are unable to conceive much less to know and Dr modley says after all the world which we apprehend when we are

Awake may have as little resemblance or relation to the external world of which we can have no manner of apprehension through our senses as the dream world has to the world with which our senses make us acquainted nay perhaps less since there is some resemblance in the

Latter case and there may be none whatever in the former the external world as it is in itself may not be in the least what we conceive it through our form of perception and models of thought such of course is the logic of the unknowable we are such stuff as dreams are made

Of is it possible that any such profound and eternal ignorance must be admitted by science all that we know is phenomena subjective and objective this is admitted by all but to assert as K and Spencer do that these phenomena are merely the appearances of things symbols of the reality but not the reality

Itself is simply to drive one into the limbo of theology the phenomena we experience are real phenomena they give us a real knowledge they are nature itself not appearances of nature that might be true or false as Berkeley’s idealism asserts according to him we do not know whether we know anything or not

Our knowledge it is granted may go but a little way but so far as it does go it gives us the universe as it is and not otherwise the issue is plain either phenomena give us the universe as it is or they give us the universe as it is

Not but what an absurdity to say that the phenomena we and the race constantly experience and which experience we constantly act upon and find our judgment correct in millions of instances so that we can actually predict and produce phenomena and discover their laws and use them what an

Absurdity to say that phenomena give us the universe as it is not we are therefore compelled to assert the only other alternative that phenomena give us the universe as it is and if we were swept out of existence the universe as we know it would remain with the same

Qualities and if any mind came into existence again that mind would see the universe as we see it and not differently there would not be another Universe with another mind but the same objective universe as now Draper says that the Criterion of Truth is not and cannot be attained by

Any one man but by the combined experience of millions of men and many generations if I were absolutely solitary I admit that I could not prove the objective reality of the universe or even the existence of myself and I might then accept the transcendentalism of K and admit that I was surrounded by

Appearances but fortunately I can consult the experiences of thousands of other people and the experiences of the race itself and I can collate and compare these experiences and thus discover Beyond question that I am in a real Universe surrounded by real people and that I do not see things simply as

They appear but as they are Draper has given a splendid hint as to the pathway of truth that it is not by individual cogitation simply but by the combined thinking of many minds and thus the objective reality of the universe is demonstrated in and through our associations with others we interpret

Our minds through the minds of others and as we must recognize that these minds are objective realities and not modes of our own Consciousness so we must recognize the universe as an objective reality and the veracity of the phenomena which we perceive this is common sense and the

Vast problems of existence cannot be solved in any other way they must be solved by Universal experience and not by isolated individual experience es only what is knowledge is differently answered by idealism and science according to idealism all we know are our thoughts our modes of Consciousness

Which are the beginning and the end of the universe to us therefore to think is to know and ignorance is simply not thinking but science which affirms that we observe not ourselves only but an external universe and that in knowing ourselves we know the not ourselves likewise science

Affirms that knowledge is Right thinking and ignorance is wrong thinking and therefore our thoughts are valueless unless they discover and arrange real facts and with self-observation there must be World observation and the ego must be correlated with the outward realities or else there is not valid attainment science affirms reality that

The phenomena within and without are not symbols of some unknown and unknowable existence from which we are forever excluded by an impassible chm but phenomena are facts events changes processes realities and are veritable revealers of the world in which we live there is no need of substratum to

Phenomena or thing in itself or numon if there is anything in these terms that the human mind can cognize then they are in the phenomena and not outside or beneath them the whole idealistic philosophy vanishes away like a dream and we tread The Firm ground and are not

Lost Dr Abbott States the case clearly between idealism and science since no form of philosophy has ever maintained that the individual does not know his own conscious states it is as clear as day that the only distinctive principle of idealism is a merely negative one and lies nowhere but

In its absolute assertion that the individual can never know an external World further since self-consciousness or self- knowledge is simply self-observation and since therefore observation alone is knowledge as distinguished from inference assumption postulation deduction or faith it follows that the whole essence of idealism is summed up in the short but

Perfectly intelligible statement the individual can never observe an external world the whole activity of idealism has been an attempt forever hopeless as it is to reconcile this statement with universal human knowledge for it is precisely at this point that idealism comes into deadly collision with science and the scientific method the whole

Essence of science is summed up in this equally short and intelligible statement man both individual and generic can and does observe an external World idealism declares that such observation is impossible and the therefore cannot be actual science declares that such observation is actual and therefore must be possible idealism

Culminating in the Canan theory of knowledge declares that man has no faculty by which he can observe an external world and therefore knows none science culminating in the scientific method declares that man already knows an external world and therefore for must have some faculty by which he can observe it this is the

Exact issue between the two and it turns on the essential nature of knowledge and ignorance is knowledge nothing but thought Consciousness self-observation is ignorance nothing but a mere ceasing to think or is it ceasing to think according to known facts and laws of a known real universe if phenomena were disconnected

Arbitrary uncorrelated then it might be affirmed that phenomena are only appearances and not realities and in that case truth would be impossible to the human mind but the sublime result of modern philosophy and Science in the doctrine of monism gives through phenomena a compact body of knowledge phenomena are unified reality is

Attained and true knowledge that is right thinking established monism is the necessary outcome of the critical and positive philosophy and the last answer to what can we know knowledge we might say is impossible without correlation if I see things but do not see the relations of

Things then I do not see the reality of things Brad law says nature is with me the same as Universe the the same as existence I mean by it the totality of all phenomena and of all that has been is or may be necessary for The Happening of each and every

Phenomenon it is from the very terms of the definition self-existent I cannot think of Nature’s commencement discontinuity or creation I am unable to think backward to the possibility of existence not having been I cannot think forward to the possibility of existence ceasing to be origin of the universe is to me

Absolutely Unthinkable Sir William Hamilton affirms that when aware of a new appearance we are utterly unable to conceive there has originated any new existence that we are utterly unable to think that the complement of existence has ever been either increased or diminished that we can neither conceive nothing becoming something or something

Becoming nothing as an atheist I affirm one existence and deny the possibility of more than one existence this existence I know in its modes each mode being distinguished in thought by its qualities by mode I mean each cognized condition that is each phenomenon or aggregation of phenomena by quality I

Mean each characteristic by which in the act of thinking I distinguish with the unknowable conceited all scientific teaching would be illusive every scientist teaches without reference to the unknowable God and the unknowable are equally opposed to the affirmations of atheism to me any pretense of theism seems impossible if monism be true for

Theism affirms at least two existences that is the Theos and that which the Theos has created and rules I rest content therefore in affirming one existence if monism be true and Atheism be monism then atheism is necessarily the true theory of the Universe I submit that there cannot be more than one

Ultimate explanation of the universe that any tracing back to two or more existences is illogical and that as it is only by reaching Unity that we can have a reasonable conclusion it is necessary that every form of dualism should be rejected as a theory of the universe if every form of dualism be

Rejected monism that is atheism alone remains and is therefore the true and only doctrine of the universe Dr Lewis Buckner says I should like best to designate the philosophy of materialism as manistic philosophy or philosophy of unity and the cosmology founded upon it as monism in accordance with the suggestion of Professor hekel

But I should not like to call our manistic philosophy a system since this word always suggests the idea of something finished concluded permanently established while the realistic philosophy can and must change constantly in accordance with the changing progress of Science and the better insight into facts for that reason I should raise my

Voice of warning against any attempt to have this new philosophy made a new Idol only the manistic principle should be firmly adhered to while the rest for the present should be only provisionally accepted as truth and to be held as such only as long as progressing science does not teach anything better or

Different Mr Wakeman says let us be thankful then that there is one complete evolutionist Heckel who knows that there is a causal sequence of phenomena from the farthest star up to and including the mind of man and that phenomena are not metaphysical appearances or symbols but facts events changes processes

Realities this avowal of the universality of the law of equivalence and correlation in the works of Professor Heckel renders them epic making books and philosophy as well as science according to that law which has no limit no exception the world is one all its changes are held together by

This law from our mind that thinks ever on in boundless space and time says Dr Abbott the present age has witnessed the establishment of two great principles in scientific investigation the principle that whenever Force disappears in one form its reappearance must be looked for in some other form and the principle

That no matter what changes or events or determinations take place in the universe their causes must be sought within nature and not outside or above it the the first of these great principles is implied in the great discovery of the conservation and correlation of forces through the labors

Of Rumford Grove jeel mayor helmholtz Tindall Carpenter and other powerful minds whose combined genius has brought to light this grandest of all known laws of nature the great truth long held by philosophy as a speculation has been in inductively established by science as a fact various as may be its

Manifestations there is but one power in nature incapable of augmentation or diminution appearing and disappearing and reappearing the one in the many the other great principle is implied in the law of evolution the Luminous Vindication of the universality of natural law which science owes to the labors of Darwin has been the heaviest

Blow struck of late years at the epit theologies of the past thus the history of the universe becomes a connected whole it will thus be seen that monism is the natural outcome of modern philosophy whether one is atheist materialist agnostic as Huxley defines the word or positivist it is the result of the

Critical and skeptical philosophy it It Is by doubting that man has reached this Sublimity of knowledge all forms of theism are dualistic and therefore must be rejected pantheism is monistic but it asserts infinite attributes to existence which is contrary to the agnostic and scientific principles laid down by

Huxley there is not a particle of proof that existence has infinite attributes as Brad law stated we only cut cognize modes of existence and distinguish these modes by qualities but modes and qualities must be finite therefore modern scientific monism differs from that of Bruno and Spinosa in that it is not

Pantheistic what can we know the problem has been solved the career of science Hereafter is open and Brilliant the darkness of the past has fled and the bats and owls that haunted and made it hideous Superstition has received its death wound Theology and the metaphysics of the schools must vanish the

Foundations of the church are destroyed faith is overthrown facts and not fictions will Hereafter sway the mind of man a noble conclusion to the immense and magnificent labors of human genius philosophy beginning in Humble doubt has achieved a the most glorious Triumph through honest disbelief man has entered

Upon a shining and Progressive Way what can we know only phenomena and only through reason and experience all else is nothing God immortality the infinite the absolute the unknowable all these are swept forever from the human mind phenomena only can we observe but phenomena subject I and objective that

Are real manifestations of a real world that give the universe as it is not disconnected phenomena but phenomena correlated into a living Hall so that we can understand their laws and use them for human progress thus science builds a cosmos every new fact becomes related to known facts and falls into

Line and AIDS in the discovery of some other fact it is is not phenomena only but the unity of phenomena that becomes a part of human knowledge mind and matter are not separated by an impassible Chasm but are correlated in one existence thus by the very limitation affirmed of human knowledge

Has human knowledge been increased and power attained and enthusiasm and hope for the future by induction by facts by verification by laborious toil the sublime conclusions of Bruno and Spinosa have been reached not by a leap of imagination but by patient observation and experiment but the universe of science

Though one is by no means the universe of these God intoxicated philosophers for the Gods in every shape have disappeared there is no particular nor Universal God there is Simply Life overflowing life potent wonderful luminous everchanging throbbing in the tiny amoeba and then resplendant in the

Brain of man the same life and not different how beautiful nature is when we realize our identity with her and that in sea and sky forest and Mountain insect and Bird Star and flower vibrates the same Universal movement go where we will backward to the immeasurable fire Mist forward to the constellated glory

Of the cosmos upward and onward until we have passed a million flaming orbs deep down into the central darkness and illuminated Chambers we are not a separate strange and unrelated being we are not outside anywhere a stranger asking for admittance we are ever within ever on the tide ever inj a position

With Kindred being sweeping ing to the same music of the unning and unending Rhythm a glorious a marvelous world is thus revealed to us by the Stepping Stones of simple facts and all the flights of imagination or splendors of poetic intuition have not equaled this array of correlated phenomena with its

Magnificence of light and color its Grandeur of form its Exquisite harmonies its delightful movement ments its gigantic forces its boundless realm of sun and stars what self-sacrifice there has been what martyrdom what surrender of cherished opinions what toils in darkness and isolation what anguish of Mind as some dear faith has passed

Forever away that we now might look upon the fair face of Nature and enjoy the opulent fruits of science it has been a painful Journey Through the centuries a journey of blood and torture through the dungeon the path of fire beneath the heel of desperate and Thunders of the

Church but how sweet and Noble is the flower of these bitter years how precious is the knowledge we have attained and with what unconquerable mind we can enter upon the boundless future end of chapter N9 the final scientific answer monism chapter 10 part one of 400 years of free thought by Samuel P

Putam this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit librivox.org read by Ki Burns education and ethics bacon 1561 to 1626 the bonian method is supposed to be a radically revolutionary method in the attainment of human knowledge when as a

Matter of fact this method was in existence 2,000 years before bacon was born in Theory it was the method of Aristotle and other Greek philosophers it was insisted upon by Roger Bacon D Vinci and toso as vigorously as by Francis Bacon himself in fact it is the universal method of

Human reasoning and has been pursued by every great Discoverer it is the inductive method that is reasoning from Facts to ideas it is observation of facts rigid experiments with facts and a reaching of conclusion from Facts it is opposed to the theologic or platonic method which Reasons from ideas to facts

Which would make facts conform to ideas and not ideas to facts which makes an idea born of the inner Consciousness the Supreme thing and facts are only corroborative Witnesses theology or platonism begins with a preconceived notion of just How the Universe ought to be and then the Theologian or philosopher like a lawyer

Defending his case seeks for facts to support his theory and facts are accepted only as they support the theory if the facts do not support the theory so much the worse for the facts this method it may be said results only in Barren speculations in Dreamland if

The mind of Plato ruled Europe for 2,000 years that period included the Dark Ages when there was scarcely any Discovery or any invention and one of the great problems discussed was how many angels might dance on the point of a needle it was against this that bacon contended

With all the batteries of his wit he riddled theology with many a sparkling epigram the scientific method is exactly the opposite of the theologic method it begins with observation and not with imagination the first thing the man of science does is to open his eyes and

Look around see all that he possibly can see gather facts whether ugly or beautiful whether agreeable or disagreeable and then by classification of these facts by understanding their relations one with the the other and by theories and hypothesis he travels to a demonstration and thus reaches valid

Ideas and indisputable truth and this is the only possible way to attain knowledge the platonic method is absolutely valueless it gives no gifts it unfolds only a world of fiction as against this the bonian method is supreme it is the only method of attaining knowledge and the only method

Of human progress but why call it the bonian method it is equally the Aristotelian method it is the cartisian method if we call it the bonian why not go back to Roger Bacon who illuminated the world in the 14th century with Rays as great as ever flashed from the brain

Of Lord verum and who died a martyr to a scientific devotion the later bacon was a splendid rhetorician a man of the world a brilliant lawyer who knew how to win his case and having adopted the scientific method he defended it with eclat and made it the popular method as against

Theology and metaphysics but to say that he originated this method is a falsification of scientific history he simply endorsed it and Illustrated its merits with surpassing literary Power Bacon is not Supreme in philosophy like decart and Hume he is not a man of science like Roger Bacon or Galileo or

Newton or Darwin in the application even of the inductive method he was at fault with the audacity of ignorance and with superb conceit as Draper remarks he thus disparaged the Great cernus bacon says in the system of cernus there are many and Grave difficulties for the three-fold motion

With which he encumbers the Earth is a serious inconvenience and the separation of the Sun from the planets with which he has so many affections in common is likewise a harsh step and the introduction of so many immovable bodies in nature nature as when he makes the sun and stars

Immovable the bodies which are peculiarly lucid and radiant and is making the moon adhere to the Earth in a sort of epicycle and some other things which he assumes are proceedings which Mark a man who thinks nothing of introducing fictions of any kind into nature provided as calculations turn out

Well bacon also opposed the physiology of Harvey he was ignorant of mathematics and presumed that they were useless in science Bacon’s Chief admirers declares Draper have been persons of a literary turn bacon never produced any practical result himself no great physicist has ever made any use of his method of all important physical

Discoveries there is not one which shows that its author made it by the B ponan instrument Newton never seems to be aware that he was under any obligations to bacon Archimedes and the alexandrians and the Arabians and Leonardo da Vinci did very well before he was born the discovery of America by

Columbus and the circumnavigation of the globe by mellan can hardly be attributed to him and yet they were the result of a truly philosophical reasoning Huxley also says the attempt of bacon was just such a magnificent failure as might have been expected from a man of great endowments who was so singularly devoid

Of scientific Insight that he could not understand the value of the work already achieved by the true inators of physical science it is not easy to discover satisfactory evidence that the novin organ had any direct beneficial influence on the advancement of natural knowledge as a matter of fact Bacon’s

Via has proved to be hopelessly impracticable that trans Dental Alchemy the super inducement of new forms on matter which bacon declares to be the Supreme aim of science has been wholly ignored by those who have created the physical knowledge of the present day it will thus be seen that bacon is not the

Founder of of a new philosophy and we might inquire why he is sometimes called the father of the new age wend Del Phillips says the world and Affairs have shown me that one half of history is loose conjecture and much of the rest is the writer’s opinion we can

Only hope to discover the great currents and massive forces which have shaped our lives all else is trying to solve a problem of whose elements we know nothing this might apply to Bacon’s case to what he is popularly thought to have done and what he really did bacon was a

Brilliant genius and he seems to have suffered the fate of a brilliant genius there seems to be no clear idea of what he really was or what he really accomplished not in the domain of Science and philosophy shall we we find the Supreme work of francen spaken but in the domain of

Education his true successors are not Hume and Kent and compy not Newton and Darwin but comenius frobel and Herbert Spencer it is not so much the method of the attainment of human knowledge that bacon expended as genius upon as the application of knowledge he did not answer the first question of philosophy

Is propounded by K what can we know but the second question what ought we to do it is in the marriage of thought with action that bacon has magnificently benefited the world and wherein we might say he is at the beginning of a new era mere knowledge is not after all the

Main thing but life is the main thing as Emerson says we must know in order to do it was not knowledge simply as knowledge that bacon aimed for but a certain kind of knowledge that is fruitful knowledge knowledge available for human Earthly purposes immediate practical benefit

That is what bacon was aiming for good to man’s estate the Gathering of fruits the the word fruit says malach is what potentially expresses the matter of Bacon’s philosophy it was to train man for Action to equip him for the conquest of nature so that he might be Lord of this

World bacon did not care for truth in the abstract he wanted truth productive by which he could build houses sew the seed and reap the Harvest and live in Comfort bacon not only excluded Theology and metaphysics but mathematics and astronomy he went to extremes but what he did with such learning and eloquence

Was of incalculable advantage to modern education the direction of knowledge as well as its attainment is of the first importance maay thus describes the ancient philosophy the ancient philosophy disdained to be useful and was content to be stationary it dealt largely in theories of moral perfection which were

So Sublime that they never could be more than theories in attempts to solve insoluable enigmas in exhortations to the attainment of unattainable frames of mind it could not condescend to the humble office of ministering to the comfort of human beings all the schools condemned that as degrading some censured it as

Immoral once indeed posidonius a distinguished writer of the age of cisero and Caesar so far forgot himself as to enumerate among the humbler blessings which mankind owed to philosophy the discovery of the principle of the arch and the introduction of the use of metals this eulogy was considered as an affront

And was taken up with proper Spirit senica vehemently disclaims these insulting compliments philosophy according to him has nothing to do with teaching men to rear arched roofs over their heads the true philosopher does not care whether he has an arched roof or any roof philosophy has nothing to do with

Teaching men the use of Metals she teaches us to be independent of all material substances of all mechanical contrivances the wise man lives according to Nature instead of attempting to add to the physical Comforts of his species he regrets that his lot was not cast in that golden age

When the human race had no protection against the cold but the skins of wild beasts no scream from the Sun but a Cavern to impute to such a man any share in the invention or Improvement of a plow a ship or a mill is an insult in my own time says senica there

Have been inventions of this sort transparent Windows tubes for diffusing warmth equally through all parts of a building shorthand which has been carried to such Perfection that a writer can keep Pace with the most rapid speaker but the invention of such things is drudgery for the lowest slaves

Philosophy lies deeper it is not her office to teach men how to use their hands the object of her lessons is to form the soul we shall next be told senica exclaims that the first shoem maker was a philosopher for our own part if we were forced to make our choice between the

First shoe maker and the author of the three books on anger we pronounce for the shoe maker it may be worse to be angry than to be wet but shoes have kept Millions from being wet and we doubt if senica ever kept anybody from being angry assuredly if the tree planted by

Socrates and watered by Plato is to be judged by its flowers and leaves it is the noblest of trees but if we take the homely test of bacon if we judge of a tree by its fruits our opinion of it may perhaps be less favorable when we sum up all the

Useful truths which we owe to that philosophy to what do they amount we find indeed abundant proofs that some of those who cultivated it were men of the first order of int we find among their writings incomparable specimens both of dialectical and rhetorical art we have no doubt that the ancient controversies

Were of use in so far as they serve to exercise the faculties of the disputants for there is no controversy so idle that it may not be of use in this way but when we look for something more for something which adds to the the Comforts or alleviates the calamities of

The human race we are forced to own ourselves disappointed we are forced to say with bacon that this celebrated philosophy ended in nothing but disputation that it was neither a Vineyard nor an olive ground but an intricate wood of Briars and thistles from which those who lost themselves in

It brought back many scratches and no food to sum up the whole we should say that the aim of the platonic philosophy was to exalt man into a God the aim of the bonian philosophy was to provide man with what he requires while he continues

To be a man the aim of the platonic philosophy was to raise us far above vulgar wants the aim of bonian philosophy was to supply our vulgar wants Plato drew a good bow but he aimed at the stars his Arrow was indeed followed by a track of dazzling Radiance but it struck

Nothing bacon fixed his eye on a mark which was placed on the earth and hid it in the white the philosophy of Plato began in words and ended in words the philosophy of bacon began in observation and ended in arts the true education of man is one of the

Greatest problems of civilization and to this problem bacon devoted the energies of his extraordinary genius before the time of bacon there was not much education it was mainly instruction not a development of Faculty but rather a repression it was a putting on of harness and not an exercise of native genius

The colleges and universities were training schools for idiots rather than for men what is education says Wendel Phillips of course it is not book learning book learning does not make 5% of the common sense that runs the world transacts its business secures its progress trebles its power over nature

Works out in the long run a rough average Justice wears away the world’s restraints and lifts off its burdens the ideal yany who has more brains in his hand than others have in their skulls is not a scholar and twoth thirs of the inventions that enable France to double the world’s sunshine

And make Old and New England the workshops of the world did not come from colleges or from Minds trained in the schools of science but struggled up forcing their way against giant obstacles from the irrepressible Instinct of untrained natural power her workshops and not her colleges made

England for a while the Mistress of the world and the hardest job her workmen had was to make Oxford willing he should work his wonders it was this kind of education that and emphasized the education that is for human Improvement an education gotten from life from affairs from

Earning one’s bread from necessity the mother of invention and from responsibility which teaches prudence and a respect for right the condition of the scholarly and learned world is pretty well indicated by Jeremy Taylor who writes I cannot but think as Aristotle did of thees and anex

Aorus that they may be learned but not wise or wise but not prudent when they are ignorant of such things as are profitable to them for suppose they know the Wonders of Nature and the subtleties of metaphysics and operations mathematical yet they cannot be prudent who spend themselves wholly upon unprofitable and ineffective

Contemplation of course there is another side to the matter and bacon was not thoroughly comprehensive he would exclude Newton’s principia and Darwin’s Origin of Species from a system of education for what is the use of these he would say truth must often times be pursued for its own own

Sake and no more its benefits are not appreciable its Glory alone is attractive to quote from husley the middle of the 18th century is illustrated by a host of great names and science English French German and Italian especially in the fields of chemistry geology and biology but the deepening and broadening

Of natural knowledge produced next to no immediate practical benefits even if at this time Francis Bacon could have returned to the scene of his greatness he must have regarded the philosophic world which praised and disregarded his precepts with great disfavor If ghosts are consistent he would have said these people are all

Wasting their time just as Gilbert and Kepler and Galileo and my worthy physician Harvey did in my day where are the fruits of the restoration of science which I promised this accumulation of bare knowledge is all very well but what good not one of these people is doing

What I specially told him to do and seeking that secret of the cause of forms which will enable men to deal at will with nature and superinduce new Natures upon old foundations and Huxley eloquently continues the history of physical science teaches that the Practical advantages attainable through its agency

Never have been and never will be sufficiently attractive to men inspired with the inborn genius of The Interpreter of nature to give them courage to undergo the toils and make the sacrifices which that calling requires from its voies that which stirs their pulses is the love of knowledge and the joy of

Discovery of the causes of things sung by the old poets the Supreme Delight of extending the realm of Law and Order ever farther toward the unattainable goals of the infinitely great and the infinitely small between which our little race of life is run in the course of this work the physical philosopher sometimes

Intentionally much more often unintentionally lights upon something which proves to be of practical value great is the rejoicing of those who are benefited thereby and for the moment science is the Diana of all the Craftsmen but even while the cries of Jubilation ReSound and this flatsome and

Jetsam of the tide of Investigation is being turned into the wages of workmen and the wealth of the capitalist the crest of the wave of scientific investigation is far away on its course over the illimitable ocean of the unknown on the other hand to note the

Influence of common life the life of the unlearned people the life of action upon the pure scholarly and scientific life read the Magnificent words of Wendell Phillips anac carsus went into the archon’s court at Athens heard a case argued by the Great Men of that City and saw the vote by 500

Men walking in the street someone asked him what do you think of Athenian Liberty I think said he wise men argue cases and fools decide them just what that timid scholar said 2,000 years ago in the streets of Athens that which calls itself scholarship here today says

Of popular agitation that it lets wise men argue questions and fools decide them but that same Athens where fools decided the gravest questions of policy and of right and wrong or property you had we gathered today might be rung from you by the Caprice of the mob tomorrow that very Athens probably

Secured for its era the greatest amount of human happiness and nobleness invented art and sounded for us the depths of philosophy it flashes today the torch that gilds yet the mountain peaks of the old world while Egypt the Hunker conservative of antiquity where nobody dared differ from the priest or

To be wiser than his grandfather where men pretended to be alive though swaddled in the grave clothes of creed and custom as close as their mummies were in linen that Egypt is hidden in the Tomb it inhabited and the intellect Athens has trained for us digs today

Those Ashes to find out how dead and buried Hunker ISM lived and acted and Huxley also confesses if science has rendered the Colossal development of modern industry possible beyond a doubt industry has done no less for modern science the demand for technical education is reacting upon science in a

Manner which will assuredly stimulate its future growth to an incalculable extent it has become obvious that the interests of Science and of Industry are ident identical that science cannot make a step forward without sooner or later opening up new channels for industry and on the other hand that every advance of

Industry facilitates those experimental investigations upon which the growth of science depends we may hope that at last the weary misunderstanding between the Practical men who profess to despise science and the high and dry philosophers who profess to despise practical results is at an end it was the high and dry philosophers

That bacon did despise and it was industry that he was in favor of practical result food shelter and clothing dwellings Harvest Fields easy means of conance wealth and comfort in fact utilitarianism and in this he did indeed inaugurate a new and Splendid era of human Improvement when we rightly understand

Bacon he is worthy of all the praise that is showered upon him but his real Point of Departure was not in the acquisition of knowledge but in the uses of knowledge the tree of knowledge may be in itself a very good thing but the fruits of the tree of knowledge are much

Better bacon did plant the tree but he did tell us how to gather the fruits and to increase the fruits maay well illustrates the position of bacon in history likening him to the prophet who from his lonely elevation looks on an infinite expanse behind him a Wilderness

Of dreary Sands and bitter Waters in which successive Generations have sojourned always moving yet never advancing reaping no Harvest and building no abiding City before him a goodly land a land of promise a land flowing with milk and honey while the multitude below see only the flat

Sterile desert in which they had so long wandered bounded on every Side by a near horizon or Diversified only by some deceitful Mirage he was gazing from a far higher stand on a far Lovelier country following with his eye the long course of fertilizing Rivers through ample pastures and under the bridges of

Great capitals measuring the distances and portioning out these wealthy regions for man’s benefit in the following extract the genius literary excellence and philosophic insight of bacon are exhibited it shows the man it is an index of the whole scope of his work crafty men contem studies simple men admire them

And wise men use them for they teach not their own use that is a wisdom without them and one by observation read not to contradict or to believe but to weigh and consider some books are to be tasted others to be swallowed and a few to be chewed and

Digested reading maketh a full man conference a ready man and writing an exact man and therefore if a man write little he need have a great memory if he confer little have a present wit and if he read little have much cunning to seem to know what he doth not histories make

Men wise poets witty the mathematics subtle natural philosophy deep morals grave logic and rhetoric able to contend it is seldom that so much good sense is crammed into so few sentences for the guidance of life and the attainment of real happiness end of chapter 10 part one education and ethics

Bacon chapter 10 part two of 400 years of free thought by Samuel P putam this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunte please visit librivox.org recording by Rita butros education and ethics Kus pesoli Kus 1592 to

1671 commenius seemed to be the first great original mind who caught the real fire of Bacon’s genius and flung it over Europe with the intensity of an Enthusiast Kus desired an entirely new intellectual era he proposed to revolutionize all knowledge to make complete wisdom accessible to all

Language was to be an instrument not an end in itself and many living languages instead of one dead language of the old school a knowledge of things instead of words the free use of our eyes and ears upon the nature that surrounds us intelligent apprehension instead of

Loading the memory all the doctrines now the doctrines of rational reform were first promulgated over Europe by numerous pamphlets about 90 and all of this slavonic reformer comenius of bohemia Bohemia might be said in the time of Kus to be the center of literary activity although commenius himself was

An exile almost all his life from that Fair land certainly in Bohemia first flamed the learning of modern times a university was established at Prague the capital of bohemia in 1348 from 10 to 15,000 students attended it from all parts of Europe including England and France it was here that

Copernicus and Tao brahi located the history of bohemia in the Middle Ages is full of illustrious names and deeds the period from 1526 to 1620 is regarded as the Golden Age of its literature at that time the Bohemian language and arts reached a high point of cultivation through the discovery of

Valuable remnants of old literature the history of this beautiful land where the resources of nature have been made the most of by the skill and industry of the people for centuries this history has been one of great struggle almost every field has been a scene of conflict for more than 10

Centuries it has been the battleground of the nations of Europe out of this land came one of the greatest philosophers of the world a practical philosopher who 300 years ago declared the foundation principles of the education of today for nearly 200 years his name sank Into Obscurity but

Now his memory is being celebrated on two continents and his glorious and indomitable genius recognized if anyone is a benefactor to mankind it is he who tells us how to rightly train the human faculties especially in childhood’s pregnant hour in which are infolded so much of the

Destinies of the man says cominius do we not dwell in the Garden of Eden as well as our predecessors should we not use our eyes and ears and noses as well as they and why need we other teachers than these in learning to know the works of

Nature why should we not instead of these dead Books open to the children the living book of nature why not open their understanding to the things themselves so that from them them as from Living Springs May streamlets flow the object of study must be a real true useful thing capable of making an

Impression upon the senses and the apprehension this is necessary that it may be brought into communication with the senses if visible with the eyes if Audible with the ears if odorous with the nose if sapit with the taste if tangible with the touch the beginning of knowledge must be with the senses youth

Has been occupied for years with prolix and Confused grammatical rules and at the same time crammed with the names of things without knowing the things themselves the studies of a lifetime must be so ordered that they may form a single ho in which everything has sprung from a single root comenius among the

Very first and against the Theology of the churches advocated the higher education as well as Elementary training for women these are somewhat remarkable words for 300 years ago why indeed should women be excluded from the study of wisdom whether in the Latin tongue or in German translations for they are

Equally created in the image of God equally endowed with an active recipient spirit often even more highly endowed than our own sex why then should we admit them to the ABC and afterward refuse them access to books let no one say how would it be if mechanics peasants laboring men women and made

Servants were learned and initiated into philosophy I say that we would all have cause to Rejoice at it the old theological dictum declared that woman was a monstrosity and really had no soul that she was not capable of education and must be a household drudge the imperfection of the fair sex was

Extended even to Nature Bruno puts the following into the mouth of one of his peripatetic pedants that Nature’s imperfect is doubtful to no man the reason is clear she is only a woman commenius was greatly in advance of his age he believed in wom’s equality as well as man’s commenius insisted upon a

Physical education A sound mind and a sound body was one of his favorite maxims he advised running jumping wrestling Ball nine pins long walks and other amusements during the waking hours he said some portion of the time should be spent in music plays humorous conversation and whatever is easy and

Agreeable to the mind commenius was a great lover of children and anticipated fral by publishing the first picture book for children this famous book the first effort in fact to teach children by means of pictures is the progenitor of a long line of varied and Illustrated

Textbooks in our own day in a letter to his publisher Kus says it may be observed that many of our children grow weary of their books because these are overfilled with things which have to be explained by the help of words things which the boys have never seen and of

Which the teachers know nothing the nobility of the motive which actuated commenius is thus declared in one of his books by the same right that one member of a family come comes to another for help ought we to be helpful to our fellow men Socrates died rather than not

Teach goodness and senaka says that if wisdom were to be given him for himself only and he not communicated it to others he would rather not have it it is curious to note that the ideas of Kus found fruitful soil in the youthful mind of Milton to whom the

Bohemian philosopher was made known by Samuel hartlip the champion of school reform in England Milton himself wrote an essay entitled of Education strongly marked with the poet’s individuality he denounces the system of Cambridge and the many mistakes which have made learning generally so unpleasing and so unsuccessful the alumni of the

Universities he says carry away with them them a hatred and contempt of learning and sink into ignorantly zealous clergymen or mercenary lawyers while the men of Fortune betake themselves to feasts and jolity this is Milton’s definition of Education I call a complete and generous education that which fits a man to

Perform justly skillfully and magnanimously all the offices both public and private of peace and War and again he breaks out though a linguist should Pride himself to have all the tongues that Babel clefted the world into yet if he had not studied the solid things in them as well as the words and

Lexicons he were nothing so much to be esteemed a learned man as any yman competently wise in his mother dialect only again Milton says I will point you out the right PA path of a noble and virtuous education laborious indeed at first Ascent but else so smooth and

Green and full of goodly prospects and melodious sounds on every side that the harp of orus is not more Charming there must be outdoor training the poet philosopher continues in those Vernal seasons of the year when the air is calm and pleasant it were an injury and a sullenness against nature not to

Go out and see her riches and partake in her rejoicing with Heaven and Earth I should not be a Persuader to them of studying much then after 2 or 3 years that they have well laid their grounds but to ride out in companies to all quarters of the land I cannot praise a

Fugitive and cled virtue unexercised and un breathed that never sallyes out and seeks her adversary but sulks out of the race where that Immortal Garland is to be run for not without dust and heat in 1762 was published the Emil of rouso which has had more influence on

Education than any other book of later times the burden of Russo’s message was nature he revolted against the false civilization he saw around him the Shams of government and Society he laid great stress on the earliest education the first year of life is in every respect the most important the naughtiness of

Children comes from weakness make the child strong and he will be good children’s destructiveness is a form of activity do not insist so much on the duty of obedience as on the necessity of submission to Natural laws the chief moral principle is to do no one harm one

Must be taught by the real things of Life by observation and experience we must first make one a man and that chiefly by athletic exercise educate the child’s sight to measure count and weigh accurately teach him to draw tune his ear to time and Harmony give him simple

Food but let him eat as much of it as he desires teach some handicraft teach history the Machinery of society the world as it is and as it might be let useless and burdensome knowledge be avoided much of the heroism of the French Revolution was due to these Noble ideals flashed forth by

Rouso pesoli 1746 to 1827 pesoli was born at Zurich in 1746 his earli years were spent in schemes for improving the condition of the people afterwards he left politics and devoted himself entirely to education his Masterpiece is Leonard and Gertrude where a whole Community is gradually reformed by the efforts of a

Good and devoted woman the French invasion of Switzerland in 1798 brought forth his truly heroic character and The Splendid principles of his philosop opy a number of children were left on the shores of Lake lucern without parents home food or shelter pesoli collected them into a deserted

Convent and formed a school I was he says from morning till evening almost alone in their midst everything which was done for their body or mind proceeded from my hand my hand lay in their hand my eye rested on their eye my tears flowed with theirs and my laughter

Accompanied theirs they were out of the world with me and I was with them their soup was mine their drink was mine I had no housekeeper no friend no servants around me I had them alone were they well I stood in their midst were they

Ill I was at their side I was the last who went to bed at night and the first Who Rose in the morning peso’s method was to begin with observation to pass from observation to Consciousness from Consciousness to speech then came measuring drawing writing numbers and so Reckoning among his pupils was

Frobel he adopted the principles of comenius and rouso he has exerted a wide influence upon educational methods Herbert Spencer has Amplified and Illustrated his philosophy end of chapter 10 part two education and ethics Kus pesoli chapter 10 part three of 400 years of free thought by Samuel P putam

This is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit librivox.org read by Ted linhardt education and ethics freeable and col freeable 1782 to 1852 Kus as already noted published the first picture book for children and here

We have the beginning of the beautiful philosophy of freeable and surely no one has so benefited the human race as this wonderful genius who animated by the sublime ideas of Bruno would Express the life of humanity in correspondence with the Universal Life Would by a natural

Education unfold the unity of man and of nature not only childhood but manhood and old age should be a garden to be cultivated not by external forces but by that which is within for as Bruno says matter or nature is not the mere naked empty capacity which philosophers have

Pictured her to be but the universal mother who brings forth all things as the fruit of her own womb end quote this was the animating doctrine of Freel as he wandered amidst the thorian forest and from Stone and leaf cobweb and insect sought The Secret of man’s intellectual development for the same

Radiant law could be everywhere observed as Wordsworth says and I have felt a presence that disturbs me with a Joy of elevated thoughts a sense Sublime of something far more deeply interfused whose dwelling is the light of setting Suns and the round Ocean and the living

Air and the blue sky and in the mind of man a motion and a spirit that impels all thinking things all objects of all thought and rolls through all things therefore am I still a lover of The Meadows and the woods and mountains and quote freeable rounds out makes deeper

And broader the philosophy of bacon without freeable the philosophy of bacon would become as dry and cold as the school metaphysics we should be nothing but Gad grinds and Beauty would vanish bacon said educate in order to do Freel said do in order to educate bacon said train for Action freeable said train

Through action bacon said fruits freeable would say fruits and flowers bacon was right but freeo was more so as Gerta says of beauty it is truth and something more with bacon it was simply usefulness with freeble it was the joy of usefulness It Was Not Mere work but

The Delight of work bacon was a man of the world freeo was a Mystic and through the two with the inexhaustible energy of commus there is given to the world the grandest fly phos ophy of Education Without which a permanent civilization is impossible to develop the man through

The child to recognize the child nature to behold in the child the man that is to be and to see in the very Sports of childhood the creative faculties of the larger life which battles and wins this was indeed a magnificent Discovery surpassing we might say the discovery of

Columbus for hitherto as the new world had been separated from the old world so childhood was separated from manhood it was a forgotten and Faded thing but fredel linked the Glorious poetry of childhood to the stern realities of manhood childhood is not to be forgotten its sports are not to be despised its

Hopes and dreams are not useless we need to preserve childhood as long as we live to keep glowing its beautiful impulses to labor even as our children play and so cease from drudgery and attain the greatest wisdom and power the play impulse says Schiller is the divinest

Impulse of humanity says Freel it is the creative impulse how different this from the old theologies the mere mannequin religions of the past in which the child and the woman had no part how miserable childhood was under the ancient systems how neglected how contorted how repressed and the child was supposed to

Be totally depraved and its natural inclinations therefore must be crushed there was nothing good in it and therefore it must not be educated it must be instructed it must be put in harness to unfold the child’s nature to lead forth what was within to teach it

To express itself to bloom like a flower why this was all wrong the child must be made into a Christian into a theologian into a Saint into an angel it must be made abnormal unnatural artificial but it must not be a child a playful child a

Natural human child St Paul said I put away childish things poor St Paul how much he missed of human life no wonder he has cursed the world with a gloomy theology the wiser and the gentler Jesus said according to the record suffer little children to come on to me for of

Such as the Kingdom of Heaven to interpret this by freel’s philosophy is to say that the highest development of the child’s life is necessary to the highest development of the man’s life that the child must be a child and act the child before it can act theand and

The child and the man are to be made harmonious and he who has no sympathy with the child’s life with its toys and joys and pleasures and plays is not the fully and splendid developed man he is only half a man he who keeps his childhood always with him is the one who

Grows old gracefully who retains his faculties and makes the best of them always to avoid the imbecilities of second childhood let the first childhood be perfectly natural and a delightful influence and presence throughout mature life let the child garden bloom perennially GTA has beautifully pictured the child grow growth and the following

When eagerly a child looks round in his father’s house his shelter is found his ear beginning to understand em bibes the speech of his native land whatever his own experiences are he hears of other things afar example affects him he grows strong and steady yet finds the world

Complete and ready this is prized and that praised with Much Ado he wishes to be somebody too how can he work and woo how fight and frown for everything has been written down nay worse it has appeared in print the youth is baffled but takes the hint

It Dawns on him now more and more he is what others have been before end quote the function of Education says Freel is to develop the faculties by arousing voluntary activity again he says the starting point of all that appears of all that exists and therefore of all intellectual

Conception is act action from the act from action must therefore start true human education the developing education of the man in action in acting it must be rooted and it must spring up living acting conceiving these must form a triple chord within every child of man

Though the sound now of this string now of that May preponderate and then again of two together end quote freeble affirmed that education should begin with earliest infancy with birth itself but as pointed out by Dr EB foot and others who have deeply studied into the laws of heredity it begins even before

Birth the child is educated in the mother’s womb through the mother’s eyes and heart and healthful body surrounded with beautiful and Noble objects sweet influences can come to the softly beating life Victor Hugo wittily says if you want to reform a man you must begin with his grandmother Gera expresses it

Stature from father and the mood Stern views of Life compelling from mother I take the joyous heart and the love of Storytelling grandfather’s passion was for the fair what if I still reveal it grandmothers pump and gold and show and in my bones I feel it and Whitman says

There was a child went forth every day and the first object he looked upon that object he became and that object became part of him for the day or a part of the day or for many years or stretching cycles of years the early lilacs became

Part of the child the family usages the language the furniture the yearning and swelling heart affection that will not be gainsay the sense of of what is real the thought that if after all it should prove unreal the doubts of daytime the doubts of nighttime the Curious whether

And how whether that which appears so is so or is it all flashes and specks men and women crowding fast in the streets if they are not flashes and specks what are they The Horizon’s Edge the flying sea Crow the fragrance of salt marsh and Shore mud these became part of that

Child who went forth every day and who now goes and will always go forth every day end of quote this was the direction of freel’s work the unity of man with nature is also the unity of man with man past and present and so one generation educates

That which comes after it and this education must become a science it must not be halfhazard and incidental left to chance but philosophic and continuous what wisely directed and universally applied Freel devoted himself to the instruction of mothers and certainly there must be education and motherhood

To give birth to a child is the greatest act of a human being maternity is the crown of humanity to be a mother is to be a queen indeed to inoble the mother is to inoble the child the birth of every child should be a royal event and

Wise men must bring gifts to the helpless King of the world’s expanding future make the mother’s life beautiful and a beautiful child will be born and Freel says if the infant is what he should be as an infant and the child as a child he will be what he should be as

A boy and as a man just as naturally as new chots spring from the healthy plant every stage must be cared for and tended in such a way that it attains its own Perfection give children employment in agreement with their whole nature to strengthen their bodies to exercise

Their senses to engage their Awakening mind and through their senses to bring them acquainted with nature and their fellow beings especially guide a right the heart and the affections and lead them to the original ground of all life to Unity with themselves end quote col 1788 to

1858 col has exerted quite a remarkable influence in educational theory and practice especially by means of his great work the constitution of man in relation to external objects in a fragment of his autobiography written a short time before his death he complains of the irksomeness of the Sunday

Observances and tasks imposed on his father’s household they rendered the church Sunday and catechism sources of weariness and Terror to him his mind became largely occupied with the current the ological theories and in time with doubts of their truth proceeding to investigate phenology after two years of study and investigation he became

Satisfied that the fundamental principles were true namely that the brain is the organ of the mind that the brain is an aggregate of several parts each subserving a distinct mental faculty and that the size of the cerebral organ is other things being equal an index of power or energy of

Function his essays gave an extraordinary impulse to the new science the principles announced in the constitution of man were like those of cenus and freeable namely that all the laws of nature are in harmony with one another and that man will attain the greatest Happiness by discovering and

Obeying them he believed that this supplied a philosophical basis to religion when however the book was published 1828 he was charged by by the church party with being a materialist and atheist he gave time labor and money to help educate the people he established the first Infant School in Edinburg and

Originated a series of evening lectures on chemistry physiology history and moral philosophy the lectures on the latter subject being given by himself he studied the criminal classes and the problem how to reform as well as to punish them and he strove to introduce into lunatic asylum a Humane system of treatment no less

Than 500,000 copies of the Constitution of man have been sold it has been translated into several languages as an exponent of the universality of law and the fallacies of special Providence and the efficacy of prayer it is a most excellent and stimulating book his ideas of Education are thoroughly in harmony

With those of Herbert Spencer with a different method of illustration and scientific results the harmony of man with nature and the Art of man through nature is the meaning of his message as of all great Educators since bacon Shakespeare expresses it nature is made better by no mean but nature makes

That mean so or that art which you say adds to Nature is an art that nature makes end quote end of chapter 10 part three education and ethics freeable and col chapter 10 part four of 400 years of free thought by Samuel P putam this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox

Recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit librivox.org education and ethics Herbert Spencer and Huxley Herbert Spencer 1820 to 1893 after Fel no man has exerted a vaster influence in the domain of Education than Herbert Spencer ranked as the greatest of philosophers he is

Certainly one of the noblest teachers of humanity a braver Searcher after truth never lived a better equipped writer there is not in the English language as an organizer of human knowledge perhaps there is not as equal his classification of facts especially in descriptive sociology is one of the greatest

Contributions to human science and to education silven Dre has clearly stated the relation of religion to morality from the spencerian point of view he says from Spencer’s point of view it is obvious that religion and morality are quite distinct in their nature and purpose religion aims at keeping alive

Sentiments of all aw and reverence for that incomprehensible power which everywhere manifests itself through the working of the universe morality on the other hand has solely to do with the conduct of men it has for its object to determine what courses of action are most conducive to personal and social

Well-being goodness derives its inestimable value from its intrinsic worth not for the purpose of gaining The Good Will of the unknown cause of things not for the purpose of being rewarded in a possible life to come but because the welfare of all is dependent upon the moral behavior of each we know nothing

Indicative of any relation between morality and the inscrutable source of things whether wickedness can in any way affect the higher power or whether we are punished after death for sins committed in this life are questions about which we are superlative relatively ignorant but we are absolutely sure that wrongdoing causes

Sorrow and pain in this world and that the wrongdoer himself often suffers Untold pangs on account of his transgressions Spencer himself says I am not concerned to show what effect religious sentiment is Hereafter thus modified will have as a moral agent discarding therefore the doctrine of the unknowable and the Ghost of a

Religion for which Mr Spencer has received so many encomiums from the Christian World Small Favors thankfully received when Once the theologians would have burned him we take up the truly valuable work of this great philosopher working along the line of bacon commenius Milton pestal Loi and Freel in

This regard Two Worlds combined to honor the name of Herbert Spencer because they find in his Works a really unequal grass grasp in the coordination of ideas a positive method which rarely stumbles a vast fertility of illustration and a supreme gift for perceiving the harmonies between nature and Society he

Has given this age a massive philosophic suggestion says Frederick Harrison in grappling with a great problem of the future education of humanity Mr Spencer says how to live that is the essential question for us not how to live in the mere material sense only but in the widest sense the

General problem which comprehends every special problem is the right ruling of Conduct in all directions under all circumstances in what way to treat the body in what way to treat the mind in what way to manage our Affairs in what way to bring up a family in what way to

Behave as a citizen in what way to utilize all those sources of of Happiness which nature supplies how to use all our faculties to the greatest advantage of ourselves and others how to live completely and this being the great needful thing for us to learn is by Consequence the great thing which

Education has to teach to prepare us for complete living is the function which education has to discharge and the only rational mode to judge of any educational course is to judge in what degree it discharges such function before there can be a rational curriculum we must settle which things

It most concerns us to know or to use a word of bacon we must determine the relative values of knowledges had we time to master all subjects we need not be particular to quote the old song could a man be secure that his days would endure as of old a

Thousand years what things might he know what Deeds might he do and all without hurry or care but we that have but span long lives must ever bear in mind our limited time for acquisition end quote it is plain to any wise man that in the selection of knowledge we must take it

In the order of usefulness we must learn first self-preservation secondly the means of living thirdly the duties of parentage fourthly the duties of citizenship and lastly means for the gratification of the tastes and feelings this is the order which according to Spencer should constitute the new education of the race

And fit it for complete life not exhaust of cultivation in anyone says Spencer but attention to all greatest where the value is greatest less where the value is less and least where the value is least and here we see distinctly the vice of our educational system it neglects the

Plant for the sake of the flower in anxiety for Elegance it forgets substance while it gives no knowledge conducive to self-preservation while of knowledge that facilitates gaining a livelihood it gives but the rudiments and leaves the greater part to be picked up anyhow in afterlife while for the discharge of

Parental functions it makes not the slightest provision and while for the duties of citizenship It prepares by imparting a mass of facts most of which are irrelevant and the rest without a key it is diligent in everything that adds to refinement polish a clot end quote what a drudgery the attainment of

Knowledge was in the old Orthodox ways the child had no choice it must take what was given it good bad and indifferent and stumble along the best way he could there was an iron system to which everyone must submit there was no recognition of the nature of the learner

The more the scholar disliked his task the better it was supposed to be for him the pursuit of knowledge was indeed a thorny path new and wiser ideas now Prevail of all the changes taking place says Spencer the most significant is the growing desire to make the acquirement of knowledge pleasurable rather than

Painful a desire based on the more or less distinct perception that at each age the intellectual action which a child likes is a helpful one for it and conversely there is a spreading opinion that the rise of an appetite for any kind of knowledge implies that the unfolding mind has become fit to

Assimilate it and needs it for the purpose of growth and that on the other hand the disgust felt toward any kind of knowledge is a sign either that it is prematurely presented or that it is presented in an indigestible form hence the efforts to make Early Education amusing and all education interesting

Hence the lectures on the value of play asceticism is disappearing out of education is out of life and the usual test of political education it’s t tcy to promote happiness is beginning to be in a great degree the test of legislation for the school and Nursery self-development should be

Encouraged to the fullest extent children should be led to make their own investigations and draw their own inferences they should be told as little as possible and induced to discover as much as possible who indeed can watch the ceaseless observation and inquiry and inference going on in a child’s mind

Or listen to its acute remarks on matters within the range of its faculties without perceiving that these Powers which it manifests if brought to bear systematically upon any studies within the same range would readily Master them without help the need of Perpetual telling is the result of our

Stupidity not the child’s we drag it away from Facts in which it is interested and we put before it facts far too complex for it to understand we thrust them into its Mind by threats and Punishment cramming it with knowledge and producing a morbid state of its faculties whoever sees this will see

That we may safely follow the method of nature throughout and make the Mind always self-developing and that only by doing this can we produce the highest power and activity end quote in all sorts and conditions of men Walter bassant has pictured the beautiful Ideal World which will Bloom amidst the fields of Labor

Itself when Fel and Spencer’s Noble system of Education shall Prevail a system which recognizes the worth of joy as a vast and radiant element of human progress says the novelist philosopher life is full overflowing with all kinds of delights it is a mistake to suppose only rich people can

Enjoy these things they may buy them but everybody May create them they cost nothing you shall learn music and forth with all the world shall be transformed for you you shall learn to paint to carve to model to design and the day shall be too short to contain the

Happiness you will get out of it you shall learn to dance and know the Rapture of the Walts you shall learn the greater art of acting and give each other the pleasure which rich men buy you shall even learn the Great art of writing and learn the magic of a Charmed

Phrase all these things which make the life of rich people happy shall be yours and they shall cost you nothing what the heart of man can desire shall be yours and for nothing I will give you a house to shelter you and rooms in which to

Play you have only to find the rest enter in my friends forget the squalled past here are great halls and lovely corridors they are yours fill them with sweet Echoes of dropping music Let the walls be covered with your works of art let the girls laugh and the boys be

Happy Within These Walls I give you the shell fill it with a spirit of content and happiness end quote Huxley on education quote education is the greatest work of all those which lie ready to a man’s hand just at present suppose it were perfectly certain that

The life and Fortune of of every one of us would one day or other depend upon his winning or losing a game at chess do you not think that we should all consider it to be a primary duty to learn at least the names and the moves

Of the pieces to have a notion of a Gambit and a Keen Eye for all the means of giving and getting out of check do you not think that we should look with a disapprobation amounting to scorn upon the father who allowed his son or the state which allowed its members to grow

Up without knowing a pawn from a night yet it is a very plain and Elementary truth that the life the fortune and the happiness of every one of us and more or less of those who are connected with us do depend upon our knowing something of the rules of a game infinitely more

Difficult and complicated than chess it is a game which has been played for Untold ages every man and woman of us being one of the two players in a game of his or her own the chessboard is the world the pieces are the phenomena of the universe the rules of the game are

What we call the laws of nature the player on the other side is hidden from us we know that his play is always fair just and patient but also we know to our cost that he never overlooks a mistake or makes the smallest allowance for ignorance to the man who plays well the

Highest Stakes are paid with that sort of overflowing generosity with which the strong shows Delight in strength and one who plays ill is checkmated without haste but without remorse my metaphor will remind some of you of the famous picture in which wretch has depicted Satan playing at chess with man for his

Soul substitute for the mocking fiend in that picture a calm strong angel who is playing for love as we say and would rather lose than win and I should accept it as an image of human life quote well what I mean by education is learning the

Rules of this Mighty game in other words education is the instruction of the intellect in the laws of nature under which name I include not merely things and their forces but men and their ways and the fashioning of the affections and of the will into an Earnest and loving

Desire to move in harmony with those laws for me education means neither more nor less than this anything which professes to call itself education must be Tried by this standard and if it fails to stand the test I will not call it education whatever may be the force

Of Authority or of numbers upon the other side that man I think has had a liberal education who has been so trained in youth TR that his body is the ready servant of his will and does with ease and pleasure all the work that as a mechanism it is capable of whose

Intellect is a clear cold logic Engine with all its parts of equal strength and in smooth working order ready like a steam engine to be turned to any kind of work and spin the gossamers as well as Forge the anchors of the Mind whose mind is stored with a knowledge of the great

And fundamental truths of Nature and of the laws of her operations one who no stunted aesthetic is full of life and fire but whose passions are trained to come to heal by a vigorous will the servant of a tender conscience who has learned to love all Beauty whether of

Nature or of art to hate all vess and to respect others as himself in an ideal University as I conceive it a man should be able to obtain instruction in all forms of knowledge and discipline in the use of all the methods by which knowledge is obtained in such a

University the force of living example should fire the student with a noble ambition to emulate the learning of learned men and to follow in the footsteps of the explorers of new fields of knowledge and the Very air he breathes should be charged with that enthusiasm for truth that fanaticism of

Veracity which is a greater possession than much learning a nobler gift than the power of increasing knowledge by so much greater and nobler than these as the moral nature of man is greater than the intellectual for veracity is the heart of morality but the man who is all morality

And intellect although he may be good and even great is after all only half a man there is Beauty in the moral world and in the intellect ual world but there is also a beauty which is neither moral or intellectual the beauty of the world

Of art there are men who are devoid of the power of seeing it as there are men who are born deaf and blind and the loss of those as of these is simply infinite there are others in whom it is an overpowering passion happy men born with the productive or at lowest the

Appreciative Genius of the artist but in the mass of mankind the aesthetic faculty like the reasoning power and the moral sense needs to be roused directed and cultivated and I know not why the development of that side of his nature through which man has access to a perennial spring of ennobling pleasure

Should be omitted from any comprehensive scheme of University education I am ashamed to repeat here what I have said elsewhere in season and out of season respecting the value of science as knowledge and discipline but the other day I met with some passages in the address to another Scottish

University of a great thinker John Stewart Mill recently lost to us which expressed so fully and yet so turly the truth in this matter that I am Fain to quote them to question all things never to turn away from any difficulty to accept no Doctrine either from ourselves

Or from other people without a rigid scrutiny by negative criticism letting no fallacy or incoherence or confusion of thought step by unperceived above all to insist upon having the meaning of a word clearly understood before using it and the meaning of a proposition before assenting to it these are the lessons we

Learn from workers in science with all this vigorous management of the negative element they Inspire no skepticism about the reality of Truth or indifference to its Pursuit the noblest enthusiasm both for the search after truth and for applying it to its highest uses pervades those writers in cultivating therefore science

As an essential ingredient in education we are all the while laying an admirable foundation for ethical and philosophical culture the passages I have quoted were uttered by John Stewart Mill institutions do not make men any more than organization makes life and even the ideal University we have been

Dreaming about will be but a superior piece of mechanism unless each student strive after the ideal of the scholar and that ideal it seems to me has never been better embodied than by the great poet who though lapped in luxury the favorite of a court and the idle of his

Countrymen remained through all the length of his honored years a scholar in art in science and in life quote wouldst shape a noble life then cast no backward glances toward the past and though somewhat be lost and gone yet do thou act as one newborn what each day needs

That shalt thou ask each day will set its proper task give others work just share of Praise not of thine own the merits raise beware no fellow man thou hate and so in God’s hands leave thy fate gera’s idea of God was thus expressed in his own words quote what

Were a God who sat outside to scan the Spheres that Neath his finger circling ran God dwells in all and moves the world and molds himself and nature in one form and Folds end quote end of chapter 10 part four education and ethics Herbert Spencer and

Huxley chapter 10 part five of 400 years of free thought by Samuel P putam this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit librivox.org recording by Rita BOS education and ethics Holio George Jacob Holo 1817 George Jacob Holio more

Distinctively than anyone else has gathered into free thought principles the philosophy of modern education announced from bacon to Spencer that is an education for life for practical purposes for fruit for the good of man’s estate Mr Holio has been enable industrious and devoted exponent of secularism in secularism is found the

Educational science of free thought free thought is a method of finding out the truth secularism is a method of applying the truth it is free thought made purposeful in lines Of Human Action secularism abandons Theology and everything above and beyond man as sources of moral motives in man and his

Surroundings exist these motives morality is natural and not supernal it needs no God no heaven and no hell it needs no church no Bible and no priest it needs simply that man shall know himself and his environments Mr Holio originated the name secularism and he thus defines it in his admirable

Work the trial of theism secularism is a recognition of causation in nature in science in mind morals and manners in electing its own sphere however it will combat without condemning others it may also omit much that it respects as well as that which it Rejects but to Omit is not to ignore the

Solution of the problem of Union can only be affected by narrowing the ground of profession and widening that of action it requires to collect sympathies without dictating modes of manifestation secularism teaches the good of this life to be a rightful object of primary Pursuit inculcates the Practical sufficiency of natural

Morality apart from atheism theism or the Bible and selects as its method of procedure the promotion of human Improvement by material means secularism holds that the Protestant right of private judgment includes the moral innocency of that judgment whether for or against received opinion provided it be conscientiously arrived at that the

Honest conclusion is without guilt that though all sincere opinion is not equally true nor equally useful it is yet equally without sin that it is not sameness of belief but sincerity of belief which justifies conduct whether regard be had to the esteem of men or the approval of

God with respect to the service of humanity deliverance from sorrow or Injustice is before consolation doing well is doing higher than meaning well work is worship to those who accept theism and duty to those who do not as security that the principles of Nature and the habit of reason may prevail

Secularism uses itself and maintains for others these rights of reason the free search for truth without which it is impossible the free utterance of the result without which the increase of truth is limited the free criticism of alleged truth without which conscience will be impotent on practice a secularist sees clearly upon

What he relies as a secularist to him the teaching of nature is as clear as the teaching of the Bible and since if God exists nature is certainly his work while it is not so clear that the Bible is the teaching of nature will be preferred and followed

Where the teaching of the Bible appears to conflict with it all pursuit of good objects with pure intent is religiousness in the best sense in which this term appears to be used the distinctive peculiarity of the secularist is that he seeks that good which is dictated by nature which is

Attainable by material means and which is of immediate service to humanity a religiousness to which the idea of God is Not essential nor the denial of the idea necessary going to a distant town to mitigate some Calamity there will illustrate the principle of action prescribed by secularism one man will go

On this errand from Pure sympathy with the unfortunate this is goodness another goes because his priest bids him this is obedience another goes because the 25th chapter of Matthew tells him that all such persons will pass to the right hand of the father this is calculation another goes because he

Believes God commands him this is piety another goes because he perceives that the neglect of suffering will not answer this is utilitarianism but another goes on the errand of Mercy because it is an errant of Mercy because it is an immediate service to humanity and he goes with a view to attempt material

Amelioration rather than spiritual consolation this is secularism which teaches that goodness is sanctity that nature is guidance that reason is Authority that service is Duty that materialism is help speaking mainly on the part of secularists it is sufficient to observe man does not live by egotism hopes and Comforts but rather by self-renunciation

By service and endurance it is asked will secularism meet all the wants of human nature to this we reply every system meets the wants of those who believe it else it would never exist we desire to know and not to hope we have no wants and wish to have none which

Truth will not satisfy we would realize this life we would also deserve another but without the selfishness which craves it or the presumption which expects it or the discontent which demands it Mr Charles Watts who adopts the principles of secularism as expounded by Holio thus defines its morality secular morality is based upon

The principle that happiness is the chief end and aim of mankind and although there are doubtless persons who would warmly dispute this fundamental principle it is very questionable whether their objection is not more verbal than anything else that all men desire happiness is certain the doctrine enunciated in the well-known line of

Pope is frequently quoted and generally with approval oh happiness our beings end and aim when we meet with persons who profess to despise this aspiration it will be generally found that it is only some popular conception of Happiness of which they are careless while they really pursue a happiness of

Their own in their own way with no less ardor than other people a definition of Happiness itself is not easy to give each person would were he asked to Define it in all probability furnish a somewhat different explanation but the true meaning of all would be very much the same to refer

Again to Pope what truth there is in the following couplet who can Define it say they more or less than this that happiness is happiness with one it is the culture of the intellect with another the exercise of the emotions with a third the practice of Deeds of philanthropy and

Charity and with yet another we regret to say the gratification of the lower propensities in each case it is the following of the pursuit which most Accords with the disposition of the individual and wherever this course does not interfere with the happiness of others and is not more than

Counterbalanced by any results that may arise from from it afterwards it is not only legitimate but moral broadly then secular efforts for the attainment of Happiness may be said to consist in endeavoring to perform those actions which entail no ill effects upon General society and leave no injurious effects upon the

Actors such conduct as is here intimated involves the practice of Truth self-discipline fidelity to conviction and the avoidance of knowingly acting unjustly to others secularism adopts utilitarianism as the foundation of morals and is thus defined by John Stewart Mill the Creed which accepts as the foundation of morals utility or the

Greatest happiness principle holds that actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness wrong as as they tend to produce the reverse of Happiness by happiness is intended pleasure and the absence of Pain by unhappiness pain and the privation of pleasure to give a clear view of the

Moral standard set up by this Theory much more requires to be said in particular what things it includes in the ideas of pain and pleasure and to what extent this is left an open question but these supplementary explanations do not affect the theory of life upon which this theory of morality is grounded

Namely that pleasure and Freedom From Pain are the only things desirable as ends and that all desirable things which are as numerous in the utilitarian as in any other scheme are desirable either for the pleasure inherent in themselves or as a means to the promotion of pleasure pleasure and the prevention of

Pain Mr Mill points out and herein he differs from Bentham that not only must the quantity of the pleasure of Happiness be taken into consideration but the quality likewise he remarks it would be absurd that while in estimating all other things quality is considered as well as quantity the estimation of

Pleasure should be disposed to depend on quantity alone ingol also thus defines secularism secularism has no Mysteries no mummies no priests no ceremonies no falsehoods no Miracles and no persecutions it is a protest against theological oppression against theological tyranny against being the surf subject or slave of any Phantom or

The priest of any Phantom it is a protest against wasting this life for the sake of one we know not of it proposes to let the gods take care of themselves it means the destruction of the business of those who trade in fear it proposes to give Serenity and content

To the human soul it will put out the fires of Eternal pain it is striving to do away with violence and vice with ignorance poverty and dis disase it lives for the everpresent today and the ever coming tomorrow it does not believe in praying and receiving but in earning and

Deserving it regards work as worship labor as prayer and wisdom as the savior of mankind it is for this wise attainable morality through which only is there any real advancement for man whether sought consciously or unconsciously for many of the oldtime saints were at heart secularist in spite

Of their theology it is for this that Mr Holio has labored in a busy and widely influential career he was born at Birmingham in 1817 he worked for 13 years in an iron Foundry in that town with his father and The Impressions he there received of the

Petty tyranny of Masters and the apathy and helplessness of workmen played no small part in shaping his career on reaching manhood he abandoned the Evangelical views under which he had been brought up for the theories of Robert Owen and thereafter devoted himself to secularism and Industrial cooperation he was imprisoned for 6

Months in Gloucester jail as an atheist his straightforward conduct on this occasion gave a stimulus to the free expression of honest conviction after his release he came to London his publishing office on Fleet Street was a meeting place for advanced thinkers and liberal politicians as editor of the Reasoner he

Did much to promote freedom and open-mindedness and toleration of all opinions he was a personal friend of mazini and garabaldi he gave his Ardent support to the Italian struggle he took a warm interest in the exiled Hungarian Patriots and the Republicans who were driven from France on the establishment

Of the third Empire Robert G ingersol has given the following tribute to Holio there is not in this world a nobler braver man in England he has done as much for the great cause of intellectual Liberty as any other man of this generation he has done as much for the

Poor for the children of toil for the homeless and wretched as any other living man he has attacked all abuses all tyranny and all forms of hypocrisy his weapons have been reason logic facts kindness and above all example he has lived his Creed he has won the admiration and respect of his bitterest

Antagonists he has the Simplicity of child the enthusiasm of Youth and the wisdom of age he is not abusive but he is clear and conclusive he is intense without violence firm Without Anger he has the strength of perfect kindness he does not hate he pies he does not attack men and

Women but dogmas and Creeds and he does not attack them to get the better of people but to enable people to get the better of them he gives the light he has he shares his intellectual wealth with the Orthodox poor he assists without insulting guides without arrogance and enlightens without

Outrage besides he is eminent for the exercise of plain Common Sense he knows that there are wrongs besides those born of superstition that people are not necessarily happy because they have renounced the 39 articles and that the priest is not the only enemy of mankind he has for 40 years been

Preaching and practicing industry economy self-reliance and kindness he has done all within his power to give the Working Man a better home better food better wages and better opportunities for the education of his children he has demonstrated the success of cooperation of intelligent combination for the common good as a

Rule his methods have been perfectly legal in some instances he has knowingly violated the law and did so with the intention to take the consequences he would neither ask nor accept a pardon because to receive a pardon carries with it the implied promise to keep the law and an admission

That you were in the wrong he would not agree to desist from doing what he believed on to be done neither would he stain his past to brighten his future nor imprison his soul to free his body he has that happy mingling of gentleness and firmness found only in the highest

Type of moral Heroes he is an absolutely just man and will never do an act that he would condemn in another he admits that the most bigoted Churchman has a perfect right to express his opinions not only but that he must be met with argument couched in kind and candid

Terms Mr Holio is not only the enemy of a theological hierarchy but he is also opposed to mental mobs he will not use the bludgeon of epithet whoever is opposed to mental bondage to the shackles wrought by cruelty and worn by fear should be the friend of this heroic and unselfish

Man industrial IM ipation and Industrial cooperation are necessary to the complete education of the race and therefore it was but logical as the advocate of secularism and utilitarianism that Mr Holio should devote himself to the welfare of the working people for in their happiness and Improvement lies the True Glory of the world’s

Progress from Robert Owen Holio learned the doctrine that men are are what they are by virtue of their surroundings and that the Improvement of these is the only possible means of raising the individual in one important point he differs from his predecessor Mr Holio is no believer in paternal government he

Holds that the true method of bettering the condition of the Working Man is to put him in the way of helping himself this idea lies at the root of Mr hok’s scheme of cooperation in which both production and distribution are carried on in self-supporting industrial cities where mutual help and Joint

Responsibility take the place of rivalry and competition end of chapter 10 part 5 education and ethics hoolio chapter 10 part six of 400 years of free thought by Samuel P putam this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please

Visit librivox.org read by Ted linhardt chapter 10 part 6 education and ethics Owen and Heckle Robert Owen 1777 71 to 1858 and this brings us to the educational and ethical value of Robert owens’s noteworthy reform for Education as commenius pointed out must not be aristocratic but Democratic and must not

Be an education from work but in work modern education recognizes the value of work that the true man or woman is a worker and must be a worker the gospel of doing something so br brilliantly proclaimed by Carlile is the gospel of Education work is not a curse but a

Means of growth and happiness Everybody Must Be a worker in some way and in work he and she must find the real Delight of Life the noblest development the most Splendid faculties the paradise of the future is not the paradise of priest or King but the paradise of working people

Whose labor is not drudgery but poetry art and romance this is the golden beautiful future of humanity When the harvests Shine for everyone when every Fireside shall gleam with loveliness and on every table shall glow the fruits of toil in Industry itself is to be the sublimest education of the race through

The hand itself trained and supple the brain shall attain its most magnificent ardors not the brain alone as hitherto the intellect flashing over solitary wastes but the intellect and the bronny muscle cooperating blending giving and taking and so building creating adorning removing both Palace and Hut and

Flowering forth a home for all toward this happy consummation who has labored more splendidly more generously than Robert Owen an extraordinary man not to be forgotten for if he failed he failed like a glorious star that illuminates the night he failed like a brimming fountain that sinks into the sand but

Makes the flowers to grow thereafter and the fruits to glisten we will hold this man in memory for with a noble recklessness he labored for others and not himself he prided over 4,000 operatives in his employ with patriarchal care and benevolence he built schools and dwellings his

Management of the mill and Farm F the school and the ballroom of his successive establishments in Scotland England and America display his rare economic and administrative faculties the lanarch Mills were set up in 1784 by arcrite when Owen was a boy 10 years after he became the manager of them and

While all the world was expecting his ruin from new fangled schemes he bought out his partner for £84,000 during the next four years years he realized 150,000 in spite of his notorious infidelity Statesmen preets and clergymen dissenters and bigots came to inspect his schools territories were freely offered him in various parts of

The world in which to try his scheme on a large scale he was brought into terms of intimacy with all the European celebrities of his time in 1823 he came to the United States where he purchased a large tract of land in Indiana on the banks of the Wabash and founded a

Community called by him New Harmony where he carried The Cooperative Theory into effect on the 4th of July 1826 he delivered his celebrated Declaration of Independence quote I now declare to you and to the world that man up to this hour has been in all parts of the earth

A slave to a trinity of the most monstrous evils that could be combined to inflict mental and physical evil upon his whole race I refer to private or individual property absurd and irrational systems of religion and marriage founded on individual property combined with some of these irrational

Systems of religion end quote Mr Holio thus pathetically describes his last hours he wanted to go to his native place he said I will lay my bones when I dered them quote when he came to the borderline which separates England from Wales he knew it again it was more than

70 years since he had passed over it he raised himself up in his carriage and gave a cheer he was in his own native land once more it was the last cheer the old man ever gave with brightened eyes the Aged Wanderer looked around the old mountains stood there in their ancient

Grandeur the grand old trees under whose Shadow he passed his youth waved their branches in welcome what scenes The Wanderer had passed through since last he gazed upon them manufacturing days crowning success philanthropic experiments Continental travel interviews with Kings Mississippi valleys Indiana forests Journeys labors agitations honors calumnies hope and

Toil never resting what a world what an age had intervened since last he passed his native border it was about 7 in the morning as his son held his hand and a friend stood near him that he said relief has come I am easy and comfortable and he passed away death

Which commonly beautifies the features reprinted his perennial smile upon his face his lips appeared as though parting to speak and he slipped as sleep of death like one whose life had been a victory end quote Heckle 1834 the first impression might be that Heckle should be ranked in the world of

Science rather than in that of education and ethics but Heckle is preeminently a teacher of humanity and his vast scientific equipments and Brilliant discoveries only fit him to be a nobler teacher Darwin is a purely scientific man he discovers without any regard to con consequences there is no purpose in

His work except simply to reach the truth truth good or bad that is the Supreme Spirit of Science and surely there can be nothing greater than this it is the noblest kind of moral action although there is no kind of conscious moral purpose in it to make truth

Subservient to morality is the most rotten kind of immorality to refuse to accept any truth or any evidence of a truth truth on account of some supposed immoral tendency is simply treason to the truth and treason to humanity had Darwin looked to moral consequences and been Guided by that he certainly never

Would have made the Magnificent and epic creating discoveries that he did what a shock it was to the moral sensibilities of the Civilized man to be told that he descended from an ape what an awfully degrading and immoral idea but the only question with Darwin was is

It true and he did not try to Sherk the ape in favor of morality he accepted the ape whatever the consequences it needed just such a man as Darwin to make the doctrine of evolution what it is it needed a man to whom truth was all in all who Allowed no

Ethical impulse whatsoever to deter or sway him who did not ask what good will this do but what is the evidence of its reality Darwin was terribly in Earnest he moved we might say with the massive coldness of an iceberg to his conclusions gentle and brave and beautiful in his character

His brain was as Stern as a rock set to the truth and nothing but the truth even if morality was overthrown what a martyrdom that was for the truth’s sake when the Divine and golden dreams of humanity the source of poetry and romance must be swept away forever Darwin could have

Been no other than he was had he not like nature and Shakespeare been thoroughly impartial as to morality simply ignoring morality for as the great poet sought only life in every form with no ethical desire so the naturalist sought only to find the truth even if that truth destroyed the noblest

Aspirations of mankind he who seeks for truth and morality rather than for Morality and Truth is a traitor to science morality cannot be greater than the truth it must be ever more Bound by the truth and have no other basis but the truth Darwin therefore is deserving of the supremist

Laurels in that he sought for the truth with unflinching Allegiance it is after the truth is actually discovered that the ethical purpose comes in and in this lies the Grandeur of heckel’s work accepting the truth as demonstrated by Darwin in modern science he stands by it without reserve and asserts that because

It is the truth it is of moral value to mankind hecko would tell the truth and shame the devil of Orthodoxy even if it was clothed in the Garb of Heaven that was a noble combat when virtuo flung Down The Gauntlet and would have falsehood taught in our school

Rather than science because the falsehood was popular and supposed to be moral while science was shaking the foundations of virtue with what Splendid courage Heckle accepted the issue and said to the Cowardly virtuo teach the truth teach science teach that man did come from the ape for there is no doubt

That he did so originate as Darwin declares Heckle accepts the facts without prevarication and asserts that facts and not fictions contain the true moral impulse if we did descend from the ape that makes us no worse nor diminishes the value of life or the Splendor of virtue or the glory of

Heroism Heckle thus brings Evolution into the domain of education and ethics where entirely abolishing the old Theology and thology it will give to man a greater moral power than ever hecko makes it a religion the word self may not be acceptable but all that is meant

In that word by Heckle and wakan and Caris is acceptable but the word itself is so saturated with ancient superstitions and falsehoods that it is best to reject it in behalf of morality all that the word religion can mean at the best is morality or right

Conduct and why not use the words that to the common mind make no confusion of thought the religion of humanity as defined by Harrison is simply morality fused with social devotion and enlightened by sound philosophy that is right but why call it religion when this

Word has been used and is used today by millions of the human race to denote something entirely different what is the need of this word Matthew Arnold says that morality touched by emotion is religion but why label this religion why not use the words moral it touched by

Emotion which all can understand and not be fog it with a word as to whose origin and meaning there is no agreement even among philosophers and Scholars to get at the real meaning of heckel’s religion of monism which is indeed a most noble and Splendid conception let us simply

Look at morality in its threefold motive and expression there is first of all plain simple morality individual moral morality which is cool judgment and conduct followed simply because it is the best because it is common sense and makes happiness to ourselves and others this certainly is the gist of all right

Conduct which fundamentally must be a judgment and not an emotion a matter of reason and not a matter of sentiment a large part of human conduct is of this sort there is no emotion about it it is simply reasonable conduct as a man pay is debts there is no emotion no poetry

About that nevertheless the paying of debts is moral conduct and that clear judgment in the dry light of reason is what is at the basis of moral conduct but secondly there is morality touched by emotion in which love of father and mother brother and sister and child and

Friend flows with the action and beautifies but does not change its nature but the affection extends no farther than to the individual to the associates of daily life it is intense but not Broad and high so thirdly there is philosophical morality that morality which is infused with a Sublime and

Beautiful conceptions that glow in the enlightened mind in consideration of all truth attainable when one reads the history of man of the planet when the treasures of science are revealed in Earth and Heaven when the million stars flash upon the view not separate but linked with our

Own Burning Heart and brain when the distant ages are connected with our own age when we see that Generations have toiled for us and given their fruit to us and that we ourselves are not isolated but are bound with the grandeurs of the human race and partakers of its glory and can

Contribute to its advancement in the endless future that our little stream of life mingles with countless other streams which do not run to waste and water but the desert but flow into the magnificence of universal progress then plain simple everyday morality becomes wonderfully illuminated then it is

Touched by an emotion which makes Duty Joy indeed and the hard Paths of Labor become radiant with hopes and ineffable dreams then the Horizon broadens the moment of today mingles with the illimit itable past and the Glorious future the might and wonder of the universe Jewels each fleeting hour and home itself

Becomes a shining spot in the infinite Palace of nature this is what Gera Heckle and others mean by the word religion but why not use the word morality with philosophy and science then there is no confusion no Darkness visible then we are entirely separate from the errors of the past and can walk

Along the Luminous Paths of Truth with a lofty and Clear Vision do we not however accept the ideas of Heckle and the ethical value which he gives to the truths of evolution and while he stands head in front in the Realms of science a great Discoverer is he not also a

Teacher does he not give the literature of inspiration and not only the literature of knowledge does he not add to our Motive Power as well as to our understanding does he not given a new and radiant impulse to our judgment does he not lift life from the level of

Common place without ignoring a single fact into the vastness and ravishing beauty of the whole truth is great truth and Beauty are greater still but truth beauty and action are greatest of all in these unfolds our complete humanity and for these Heckle has given the best word

Of modern science and the noblest wisdom of philosophy we Walk On Solid ground but the heights are one upon which no Theologian or prophet of the past has ever stood the priest vanishes But the teacher stands in his place the schoolhouse obliterates the church industry shines where Barren learning

Toiled and in the place of words things correlated and serviceable gave man a world of beauty and Delight the conquest of nature the luster of art cities and harvest Fields the obedience lightning the Thunder of the locomotive and the ship majestically plowing A Thousand Leagues of sea and Emerson sings the

Song not of God but of man in his rhythmical Pros quote the fossil strata show us that nature began with rudimental forms and Rose to the more complex as fast as the Earth was fit for their dwelling place and that the lower perish as the higher appear very few of

Our race can be said to to be finished men we still carry sticking to us some remains of the preceding inferior quadruped organization the age of the quadruped is to go out the age of the brain and of the heart is to come in and if one shall

Read the future of the race hinted in the organic effort of nature to mount and murate and the corresponding impulse to the better in the human being we shall dare affirm that there is nothing he will not overcome and convert until at last culture shall absorb the chaos

In gehenna he will convert the furies into Muses and the hells into benefit end quote and Gera joins the antheme the future hides in it gladness and sorrow we press still thorough not that abides in it daunting us onward and solemn before us veiled the dark portal

Goal of all Mortal Stars silent rest over us Graves under us silent but heard are the voices heard are the sages the worlds in the ages choose well your choices brief and yet endless your eyes do regard you in eternity’s Stillness here is all fullness ye Brave to reward

You work and despair not end quote and where more fittingly in the interest of free thought can we place the hymn of George Elliot quote Oh may I join the choir invisible of those Immortal Dead who live again in Minds made better by their presence live in pulses stirred to generosity in Deeds

Of Daring rectitude in scorn for miserable aims that end with self in thoughts Sublime that pierce the night like stars and with their mild persistence urge Man’s Search to vaster issues so to live is he heaven to make undying music in the world breathing a beest order that controls with growing

Sway the growing life of man so we inherit that sweet Purity for which we struggled failed and agonized with widening retrospect that bred despair rebellious flesh that would not be subdued a vicious parent shaming still its child poor anxious penitence is quickly dissolved its discords quenched by meeting harmonies die in the large

And charitable air and all our rarer better truer self that sobbed religiously in yearning song that watched to ease the burden of the world laboriously tracing what must be and what may yet be better saw within a worthier image for the sanctuary and shaped it forth before the multitude

Divinely human raising worship so to higher reverence more mixed with love that better self shall live till human time shall fold its eyelids and the human Sky be gathered like a scroll within the tomb unread Forever This Is The Life to Come which martyred men have

Made more glorious for us who strive to follow may I reach that purest Heaven be to other Souls the cup of strength in some great Agony and Kindle generous ardor feed pure love beget the smiles that have no cruelty be the sweet presence of a good diffused and in

Diffusion ever more intense so shall I join the choir invisible whose music is the gladness of the world end quote is it not wonderful what man has attained through simple devotion to the truth through the facts of nature itself that at first seem so meaningless and disconnected beginning with humblest

Observation seeking the attainable and the useful studying the rock the ins in the worm the dust linking man with the beasts of the field and with lowliest life in the depths of the sea disdaining nothing combining all what a marvelous result and what may we not hope for in

The future there is no backward step we have begun right and the way is onward thus the labors of heckle complete the vast and Splendid labors of the world’s illustrious Educators bacon commus Milton rouso pastasi Freel col Spencer Hoke Owen and 10,000 others noble men and women School masters of the race to

Whom all honor is due for what is knowledge unless it can be translated into action unless thought can become a deed the mind of man of the child must be trained in Truth for the truth and for work in character and the noblest enjoyment the two great questions the

Fundamental questions of free thought of humanity have thus been answered and not answered until within the last four centuries and answered wisely fearlessly successfully what can we know what ought we to do what a victory has been obtained over ignorance false science false philosophy barbaric theology a cruel church and a desperate

Priesthood and end of chapter 10 part six education and Ethics

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