Image provided by: Silverton Country Historical Society; Silverton, OR
About Torch of reason. (Silverton, Oregon) 1896-1903 | View Entire Issue (April 15, 1897)
ft t VOL. 1. SILVERTON, OREGON, THURSDAY, APRIL 15, ¡897. Balm. You know not w hat a h e a rt ache is Unless you’ve had a tria l: You cannot feel a n o th e r’s woe W ithout a h e a rt’s denial. You canno^know w hat sickness is, If alw ays you’ve had h ealth : Nor do you know a poor m a n ’s lot If yours has been of w ealth. You know not w hat it is to have The wolf howl at th e door; If you have alw ays had your m eals And never have been poor. You know not if a n o th e r’s shoe A brase th e toe or heel— U nless you’ve had a corn yourself; I t ’s pain you do no t feel. A cringing w retch before th e bar W hom all th e people blam e W ould be as nice as you ap p ear If he were bred th e sam e. Before a n o th e r you condem n, Or slim e him w ith disgrace, T h ink w hat, perhaps, you m ight have been H ad you been in his place. All m en, and I th in k wom en, too, Do ju st th e best they can ; For brain s am i th e ir en v iro n m en ts C ontrol th e race of m an. T h en give a th o u g h t of sy m p ath y , For each lorn wail of w oe; For you, no doubt, w ould be as lie, W ere you surrounded so. —G. H. W alser. Nature. B. F . UN D ERW O O D . By Nature is commonly under stood the totallity of material phenomena, worlds and all the physical forms and activities that belong to them. This view com prises in the natural domain the bodily organization, the intelligence and instincts of all the creatures below man, and even the physical structure, the appetites and pass ions of the human race. From this classification the mind of man is excluded. The body returns to the dust whence it came, the spirit, the divine spark in man, to the God who gave it. A larger view would recognize in the entire animal world, especially in the intelligence and affection of the higher brutes, for instance, the dog and the horse, something akin to the mind of man, and therefore entitled to rank above purely material phenomena; for it would be as difficult to show that the preceptive power, the consciousness and the incipient moral nature of the dog are the result of the action of material atoms, as that the more developed mental powers and ethical qualities of man are merely the functions of physical or ganization. The modern scientific conception of evolution, according to which the higher organic forms have l>een evolved from lower forms, and the higher intelligences from lower in the means he used to lure men to telligences corresponding with the destruction. To forsake family and less developed structures, is that i friends, to withdraw from society, there is a genetic relationship, a to go into the monastery or the primordial kinship between man desert, was the hightest duty of and the despised brutes, and that, man. To despise the world and all although he is immeasurably above its natural enjoyments was them, he and they belong to a com necessary to regain God’s favor, mon order of existence and to th e1 and to escape torture beyond the same great domain of being; and if grave as horrible as omnipotence we recognize the instinct of the bee could inflict and as lasting as eter and the faithfulness of the dog as nity. “A hidious, sordid and well as the mind and heart of man emaciated maniac’” says Lecky, as but different manifestations and “without knowledge, without products of the Universal Energy! patriotism, without natural affect immanent in all phenomena, ma- i ion, passing his life in a long routine terial and mental alike, we shall of useless and atrocious self-torture, find no difficulty in viewing man, and quailing before the ghastly even as a spiritual being, as part phantoms of his delirious brain, of the natural order in which a r e had become the ideal of the nations also included brute life and all ma which had known the writings of terial phenomena, from the move Plato and Cicero and the lives of ment of a cloud of dust to the won Socrates and Cato.” derful revolution of a planet in its Hundreds of years later when orbit. Nature-hatred and asceticism and The ancient Greek have elevated pessimism had found their foe in views of Nature which they glorified industrial life—the condition and deified. They sang its praises of a porgressive civilization and aimed to imitate its methods. philosophers arose who taught that Natural beauty, natural symmetry, the^jjath to -perfection'led back to natural harmony, was the object of Nature from * which man had their strivings, and their art and departed, and that in savage life, sculptures, their poetry and oratory unperverted by the artificialities of and their language with its marvel civilization, was to be found the ous beauty, finish and flexibility, method of living required to restore remain to attest the success with man to his first estate. Of this which they cultivated the study of view Rousseau was the most bril lant and accomplished advocate. Nature. The view of today is, among In later times, under the influ ence of theological pessimism, men progressive thinkers, that the earth came to look upon Nature as essen and man are in a process of growth, tially evil, something corrupt and of evolution, and that Nature is vile, because accursed of God. Al neither depraved nor perfect, but though the Creator had originally modifiable and improvable. Man pronounced the works of his hand is the highest product of the good, the devil had thwarted his universal energy that lias appeared plans by successfully tempting the j upon this mundane sphere, and first human being to sin and there having arrived at a condition in by introducing evil into the world, which he can discern the general all Nature became corrupt and de trend of evolution he is able to co praved; the earth was made to operate with the forces of the bring forth thorns and thistles universe, and in some degree, to ac where before bloomed roses of rar celerate progress. Recognizing his est beauty and sweetest perfume; own race as the highest form upon the frown of God was upon all the planet, yet imperfect, he can things and ‘‘Nature, from her seat, aim at higher conditions, help the sighing through all her works, gave least perfect, and make the con ditions for general advancement signs of woe that all was lost.” It is still believed that in man more favorable than would be there was something of the divinity possible without his intervention. Thus Nature makes her highest which should war against Nature, crush and overcome it even though product instrumental in accomplish the struggle involved a life of pain, ing her ends. Man sees the imper wretchedness and horrible death. fection in the undeveloped con To follow the promptings of Nature ditions about him, and these he was a sin to be mourned over, to can change in adaptation to his l»e expiated only by prayer and requirements. He can drain the fastings and self-inflicted pain. swamps, ami improve the natural The natural instincts and passions products of the ground, converting were regarded as the promptings of wild and almost worthless fruits Satan, and all pleasures of life were and plants into nutritious and NO. 24. delicious food. Himself a part of Nature, he can assist in improving it and making the world better for his having lived. His own volition and co-operative methods replace, in the action of his own race, the process of natural selection which played so important a part in the early history of man and which prevails now generally throughout the animal and vegetable world. Man’s wisest efforts are but Na ture’s methods, for in the light of the highest science Nature includes the entire universe, pervaded and permeated with the universal energy which embraces the life and heart of all humanity. In a large sense Nature comprises all the heights and depths o f being. And as Emerson wrote: “ O ut from th e h e art of N atu re rolled The burden o f th e Bible old, The litan ies of nations cam e Like th e volcano’s tongue of tlam e, U p from th e b u rn in g core lielow, T he can ticles of love and woe. T he tem ples grew as grow th e grass ; A rt m ig h t obey, b u t not su rp a ss.” Oh, Death, W here Is Thy S tin g? Manifestly, annihilation of one’s personality can, by no possibility, be any worse than would have been a failure 4>f his parents to have made the acquaintence of each other; and surely such a failure would have been nothing of which any one could have reasonably complained. If one’s next sleep should be dreamless, what would it matter if it lasted nine hours instead of eight, or ten instead of nine, or twenty instead of ten, or or twenty days, or months, or years, or centuries? Or what if, after he had remained asleep, unconscious and inexistent for a million centuries, or years, would one be harmed by continuing this through all of the succeeding eternity any more than by having been non-existent through all of the eternity that preceded his advent into existence? If a dreamless sleep is good for the sleeper for any length of time, why should it be bad for him for any other length of time, or for time without end? If dream less, endless sleep—that is to say, death as conceived of by rational ists—deprives us of all of the enjoyments of life, it likewise de prives us of all memory thereof and of all regret in respect thereto, and protects us from every pain, saves us from every sorrow and defends us against every danger and dread. So t h a t it is the rationalist and not the religionist (and especially the religionist who believes in a hell of a hereafter) that can apostrophize: “Oh, death, where is thy sting?”— Independent Pulpit.