"The mind of man would die if it were not for Thought, and were
Thought suppressed, God would rule over a world of idiots.
"Nature feeds Thought, day and night, with a million hands.
"To think is a duty, because it is a man's duty not to be a fool.
"If man does not think himself, he is an intellectual pauper, living
upon the truth acquired by others, and making no contribution
himself in return. He has no ideas but such as he obtains by 'out-
door relief,' and he goes about the world with a charity mind.
"The more thinkers there are in the world, the more truth there is
in the world.
"Progress can only walk in the footsteps of Conviction.
"Coercion in thought is not progress, it reduces to ignominious
pulp the backbone of the mind.
"By Religion I mean the simple creed of deed and duty, by which a
man seeks his own welfare in his own way, with an honest and fair
regard to the welfare and ways of others.
"In these thinking and practical days, men demand a religion of
daily life, which stands on a business footing."
I think nothing could be much better than the following, which
shows the exact relation that orthodox religion sustains to the
actual wants of human beings:
"The Churches administer a system of Foreign Affairs.
"Secularism dwells in a land of its own. It dwells in a land of
Certitude.
"In the Kingdom of Thought there is no conquest over man, but over
foolishness only."
I will not quote more, but hope all who read this will read the
address of Mr. Holyoake, who has, in my judgment, defined Secularism
with the greatest possible clearness.
_Question_. What, in your opinion, are the best possible means to
spread this gospel or religion of Secularism?
_Answer_. This can only be done by the cultivation of the mind--
only through intelligence--because we are fighting only the monsters
of the mind. The phantoms whom we are endeavoring to destroy do
not exist; they are all imaginary. They live in that undeveloped
or unexplored part of the mind that belongs to barbarism.
I have sometimes thought that a certain portion of the mind is
cultivated so that it rises above the surrounding faculties and is
like some peak that has lifted itself above the clouds, while all
the valleys below are dark or dim with mist and cloud. It is in
this valley-region, amid these mists, beneath these clouds, that
these monsters and phantoms are born. And there they will remain
until the mind sheds light--until the brain is developed.
One exceedingly important thing is to teach man that his mind has
limitations; that there are walls that he cannot scale--that he
cannot pierce, that he cannot dig under. When a man finds the
limitations of his own mind, he knows that other people's minds
have limitations. He, instead of believing what the priest says,
he asks the priest questions. In a few moments he finds that the
priest has been drawing on his imagination for what is beyond the
wall. Consequently he finds that the priest knows no more than
he, and it is impossible that he should know more than he.
An ignorant man has not the slightest suspicion of what a superior
man may do. Consequently, he is liable to become the victim of
the intelligent and cunning. A man wholly unacquainted with
chemistry, after having been shown a few wonders, is ready to
believe anything. But a chemist who knows something of the
limitations of that science--who knows what chemists have done and
who knows the nature of things--cannot be imposed upon. When no
one can be imposed upon, orthodox religion cannot exist. It is an
imposture, and there must be impostors and there must be victims,
or the religion cannot be a success.
Secularism cannot be a success, universally, as long as there is
an impostor or a victim. This is the difference: The foundation
of orthodox religion is imposture. The foundation of Secularism
is demonstration. Just to the extent that a man knows, he becomes
a Secularist.
_Question_. What do you think of the action of the Knights of
Labor in Indiana in turning out one of their members because he
was an Atheist, and because he objected to the reading of the Bible
at lodge meetings?
_Answer_. In my judgment, the Knights of Labor have made a great
mistake. They want liberty for themselves--they feel that, to a
certain extent, they have been enslaved and robbed. If they want
liberty, they should be willing to give liberty to others. Certainly
one of their members has the same right to his opinion with regard
to the existence of a God, that the other members have to theirs.
I do not blame this man for doubting the existence of a Supreme
Being, provided he understands the history of liberty. When a man
takes into consideration the fact that for many thousands of years
labor was unpaid, nearly all of it being done by slaves, and that
millions and hundreds of millions of human beings were bought and
sold the same as cattle, and that during all that time the religions
of the world upheld the practice, and the priests of the countless
unknown gods insisted that the institution of slavery was divine--
I do not wonder that he comes to the conclusion that, perhaps,
after all, there is no Supreme Being--at least none who pays any
particular attention to the affairs of this world.
If one will read the history of the slave-trade, of the cruelties
practiced, of the lives sacrificed, of the tortures inflicted, he
will at least wonder why "a God of infinite goodness and wisdom"
did not interfere just a little; or, at least, why he did not deny
that he was in favor of the trade. Here, in our own country,
millions of men were enslaved, and hundreds and thousands of
ministers stood up in their pulpits, with their Bibles in front of
them, and proceeded to show that slavery was about the only
institution that they were absolutely certain was divine. And they
proved it by reading passages from this very Bible that the Knights
of Labor in Indiana are anxious to have read in their meetings.
For their benefit, let me call their attention to a few passages,
and suggest that, hereafter, they read those passages at every
meeting, for the purpose of convincing all the Knights that the
Lord is on the side of those who work for a living:--
"Both thy bondsmen and thy bondsmaids which thou shalt have, shall
be of the heathen round about you; of them shall ye buy bondsmen
and bondmaids.
"Moreover, of the children of the strangers that do sojourn among
you, of them shall ye buy, and of their families which are with
you, which they begat in your land; and they shall be your
possession.
"And ye shall take them as an inheritance, for your children after
you to inherit them for a possession. They shall be your bondsmen
forever."
Nothing seems more natural to me than that a man who believes that
labor should be free, and that he who works should be free, should
come to the conclusion that the passages above quoted are not
entirely on his side. I don't see why people should be in favor
of free bodies who are not also in favor of free minds. If the
mind is to remain in imprisonment, it is hardly worth while to free
the body. If the man has the right to labor, he certainly has the
right to use his mind, because without mind he can do no labor.
As a rule, the more mind he has, the more valuable his labor is,
and the freer his mind is the more valuable he is.
If the Knights of Labor expect to accomplish anything in this world,
they must do it by thinking. They must have reason on their side,
and the only way they can do anything by thinking is to allow each
other to think. Let all the men who do not believe in the inspiration
of the Bible, leave the Knights of Labor and I do not know how many
would be left. But I am perfectly certain that those left will
accomplish very little, simply from their lack of sense.
Intelligent clergymen have abandoned the idea of plenary inspiration.
The best ministers in the country admit that the Bible is full of
mistakes, and while many of them are forced to say that slavery is
upheld by the Old Testament they also insist that slavery was and
is, and forever will be wrong. What had the Knights of Labor to
do with a question of religion? What business is it of theirs who
believes or disbelieves in the religion of the day? Nobody can
defend the rights of labor without defending the right to think.
I hope that in time these Knights will become intelligent enough
to read in their meetings something of importance; something that
applies to this century; something that will throw a little light
on questions under discussion at the present time. The idea of
men engaged in a kind of revolution reading from Leviticus,
Deuteronomy and Haggai, for the purpose of determining the rights
of workingmen in the nineteenth century! No wonder such men have
been swallowed by the whale of monopoly. And no wonder that,
while that are in the belly of this fish, they insist on casting
out a man with sense enough to understand the situation! The
Knights of Labor have made a mistake and the sooner they reverse
their action the better for all concerned. Nothing should be taught
in this world that somebody does not know.
--_Secular Thought_, Toronto, Canada, August 25, 1888.