IN the 6th century a monk by the name of Cosmas wrote a kind of orthodox
geography and astronomy combined. He pretended that it was all in
accordance with the Bible. According to him, the world was composed,
first, of a flat piece of land and circular; this piece of land was
entirely surrounded by water which was the ocean, and beyond the strip
of water was another circle of land; this outside circle was the land
inhabited by the old world before the flood; Noah crossed the strip of
water and landed on the central piece where we now are; on the outside
land was a high mountain around which the sun and moon revolved; when
the sun was behind the mountain it was night, and when on the side next
us it was day. He also taught that on the outer edge of the outside
circle of land the firmament or sky was fastened, that it was made of
some solid material and turned over the world like an immense kettle.
And it was declared at that time that anyone who believed either more or
less on that subject than that book contained was a heretic and deserved
to be exterminated from the face of the earth. This was authority until
the discovery of America by Columbus. Cosmas said the earth was flat; if
it was round how could men on the other side at the day of judgment see
the coming of the Lord? At the risk of being tiresome, I have said
what I have, to show you the productions of the mind when enslaved--the
consequences of abandoning judgment and reason--the effects of wide
spread ignorance and universal bigotry.
I want to convince you that every wrong is a viper that will sooner or
later strike with poisoned fangs the bosom that nourishes it. You will
ask what has produced this wonderful change in only three hundred
years. You will remember that in those days it was said that all
ghosts vanished at the dawn of day; that the sprites, the spooks,
the hobgoblins and all the monsters of the imagination fled from the
approaching sun. In 1441, printing was invented. In the next century it
became a power, and it has been flooding the world with light from that
time to this. The Press has been the true Prometheus.
It has been, so to speak, the trumpet blown by the Gabriel of Progress,
until, from the graves of ignorance and superstition, the people have
leaped to grand and glorious life, spurning with swift feet the dust of
an infamous past.
When people read, they reason, when they reason they progress. You must
not think that the enemies of progress allowed books to be published
or read when they had the power to prevent it. The whole power of the
church, of the government, was arrayed upon the side of ignorance.
People found in the possession of books were often executed. Printing,
reading and writing were crimes. Anathemas were hurled from the Vatican
against all who dared to publish a word in favor of liberty or the
sacred rights of man. The Inquisition was founded on purpose to crush
out every noble aspiration of the heart. It was a war of darkness
against light, of slavery against liberty, of superstition against
reason. I shall not attempt to recount the horrors and tortures of the
Inquisition. Suffice it to say that they were equal to the most terrible
and vivid pictures even of Hell, and the Inquisitors were even more
horrid fiends than even a real Perdition could boast. But in spite of
priests, in spite of kings, in spite of mitres, in spite of crowns, in
spite of Cardinals and Popes, books were published and books were read.
Beam after beam of light penetrated the darkness. Star after star arose
in the firmament of ignorance. The morning of Freedom began to dawn.
Driven to madness by the prospect of ultimate defeat, the enemies of
light persecuted with redoubled fury.
People were burned for saying that the earth was round, for saying that
the sun was the center of a system. A woman was executed because she
endeavored to allay the pains of a fever by singing. The very name of
Philosopher became a title of proscription, and the slightest offences
were punished by death. About the beginning of the sixteenth century
Luther and Jerome, of Prague, inaugurated the great Reformation in
Germany, Ziska was at work in Hungary, Zwinglius in Switzerland. The
grand work went forward in Denmark, in Sweden and in England. All this
was accomplished as early as 1534. They unmasked the corruption and
withstood the tyranny of the church.
With a zeal amounting to enthusiasm, with a courage that was heroic,
with an energy that never flagged, a determination that brooked no
opposition, with a firmness that defied torture and death, this sublime
band of reformers sprang to the attack. Stronghold after stronghold
was carried, and in a few short but terrible years, the banner of the
Reformation waved in triumph over the bloody ensign of Saint Peter. The
soul roused from the slumbers of a thousand years began to think. When
slaves begin to reason, slavery begins to die. The invention of powder
had released millions from the army, and left them to prosecute the arts
of peace. Industry began to be remunerative and respectable.
Science began to unfold the wings that will finally fill the heavens.
Descartes announced to the world the sublime truth that the Universe is
governed by law.
Commerce began to unfold her wings. People of different countries began
to get acquainted. Christians found that Mohammedan gold was not the
less valuable on account of the doctrines of its owners. Telescopes
began to be pointed toward the stars. The Universe was getting immense.
The Earth was growing small. It was discovered that a man could be
healthy without being a Catholic. Innumerable agencies were at work
dispelling darkness and creating light. The supernatural began to be
abandoned, and mankind endeavored to account for all physical phenomena
by physical laws. The light of reason was irradiating the world, and
from that light, as from the approach of the sun, the ghosts and spectres
of superstition wrapped their sheets around their attenuated bodies and
vanished into thin air. Other inventions rapidly followed. The wonderful
power of steam was made known to the world by Watts and by Fulton.
Neptune was frightened from the sea. The locomotive was given to mankind
by Stephenson; the telegraph by Franklin and Morse. The rush of
the ship, the scream of the locomotive, and the electric flash have
frightened the monsters of ignorance from the world, and have left
nothing above us but the heaven's eternal blue, filled with glittering
planets wheeling through immensity in accordance with _Law_. True
religion is a subordination of the passions and interests to the
perceptions of the intellect. But when religion was considered the
end of life instead of a means of happiness, it overshadowed all other
interests and became the destroyer of mankind. It became a hydra-headed
monster--a serpent reaching in terrible coils from the heavens and
thrusting its thousand fangs into the bleeding, quivering hearts of men.