Note the use of the co-ordinate conjunctions _and_, _but_, _or_ and
_nor_, in the following quotation. Mark especially the use of _and_ as
an introductory conjunction, introducing a new sentence, but connecting
it with that which has gone before.
In my judgment slavery is the child of ignorance. Liberty is born of
intelligence. Only a few years ago there was a great awakening in the
human mind. Men began to inquire, "By what right does a crowned robber
make me work for him?" The man who asked this question was called a
traitor.
They said then, and they say now, that it is dangerous for the mind of
man to be free. I deny it. Out on the intellectual sea there is room
for every sail. In the intellectual air, there is space enough for
every wing. And the man who does not do his own thinking is a slave,
and does not do his duty to his fellow men. For one, I expect to do my
own thinking. And I will take my oath this minute that I will express
what thoughts I have, honestly and sincerely. I am the slave of no man
and of no organization. I stand under the blue sky and the stars,
under the infinite flag of nature, the peer of every human being.
All I claim, all I plead is simple liberty of thought. That is all. I
do not pretend to tell what is true nor all the truth. I do not claim
that I have floated level with the heights of thought, nor that I have
descended to the depths of things; I simply claim that what ideas I
have, I have a right to express, and any man that denies it to me is
an intellectual thief and robber.
Every creed that we have today has upon it the mark of the whip or the
chain or the fagot. I do not want it. Free labor will give us wealth,
and has given us wealth, and why? Because a free brain goes into
partnership with a free hand. That is why. And when a man works for
his wife and children, the problem of liberty is, how to do the most
work in the shortest space of time; but the problem of slavery is, how
to do the least work in the longest space of time. Slavery is poverty;
liberty is wealth.
It is the same in thought. Free thought will give us truth; and the
man who is not in favor of free thought occupies the same relation to
those he can govern that the slaveholder occupied to his slaves,
exactly. Free thought will give us wealth. There has not been a
generation of free thought yet. It will be time to write a creed when
there have been a few generations of free-brained men and splendid
women in this world. I don't know what the future may bring forth; I
don't know what inventions are in the brain of the future; I don't
know what garments may be woven, with the years to come; but I do
know, coming from the infinite sea of the future, there will never
touch this "bank and shoal of time" a greater blessing nor a grander
glory, than liberty for man, woman and child.
Oh, liberty! Float not forever in the far horizon! Remain not forever
in the dream of the enthusiast and the poet and the philanthropist.
But come and take up thine abode with the children of men
forever.--_Ingersoll_.