Torch of reason. (Silverton, Oregon) 1896-1903, June 22, 1899, Image 1

Below is the OCR text representation for this newspapers page. It is also available as plain text as well as XML.

    T ob cn of
R eason .
SILVERTON, OREGON, THURSDAY, JUNE 22, 1899.
VOL. 3.
NO. 24.
rected and strengthened by intelli­ constituted which contemplates the The innkeepers of Palermo obey
gent intercourse; they can advance progress of human knowledge as a their church and spite heretics by
only by degrees—can attain to no matter of regret or fear? The wid­ selling meat in June, but not in
SERVICE.
Small service is tru e service w hile it state of knowledge hut by a pro­ er the diffusion of knowledge, the March. The innkeepers of El Me­
Insts *
Of friends, how ever h u m b le , scorn no t gression more or less slow. After better the people are informed, the dina spite unbelievers and honor
many defective attempts they are more they undeistand— the more the Koran by selling meat in
one:
.
The daisv, bv th e shadow th a t it casts,
Protects th e lingering dew d ro p from enabled to distinguish, by com­ likely they are to see and compre­ March, but not in June. The
the sun.
—[W ordsw orth.
parison, that which is well or ill of hend what is for their good, and Buddhist innkeepers of Lassa sell
of every kind; so that what is call­ the means by which that good is to only salt meat, imported from
LIFE.
ed an art is but the result of reas­ be attained, the more likely they China, and spite Infidels by refus­
We live in deeds, n o t y e a r s ; in th o u g h ts,
on and experience reduced to a are to abstain from such means as ing to kill a cow under any cir­
not b r e a t h ;
In feelings, not in figures on a dial.
method. Whatever savors of relig­ would be prejudicial in their oper­ cumstances. But Sicilians, Thi­
We should co u n t tim e by h e a rt-th ro b s .
ious superstition, either in the arts ation, and calculated rather for the betans and Arabs would agree that
He m ost lives
Who th in k s m o st; feels th e n o b le st; or in speculative science, can only prevention than the attainment of no innkeeper should be permitted
acts th e best.
—[Bailey.
sebserve the purpose of their re­ that good.—[Occasional Thoughts. to spite a personal enemy by salt­
ing his meat with arsenic. Na­
striction, and impede their course
PERSUASION.
tions that totally disagree in their
The reason
Justice.
There is a wav of w inning, m ore bv love, and their progress.
notions of propriety, in matters of
And urging of th e modteety, th a n fe a r;
why the sciences have not advanc-
IN FIVE PARTS.
Force works on servile n a tu re s, not th e
taste and in their bias of religious
ed more is that scholars have been
free.
— [Jo n so n .
prejudice will, nevertheless, be
afraid to depart from the ideas en­
BY F. L. OSWALD.
found to agree on the essential
tertained by the schools, lest they
THE TOUCH OF TIME.
standards of humanity and jus­
T im e ’s g radual touch
should sacrifice their prospects or
PART I,----LESSONS OF INSTINCT.
Has m ouldered in to b e au ty m any a draw down upon them the ire of
tice. The “instinct of equity,” as
tow er
ORAL philosophers have Leibnitz calls the sense of natural
W hich when it frow ned.w ith all its b a t­ old-fashioned professors; and if a
tlem en ts
long conjectured the dis­ justice, has been still better de­
man dare to advance a sentiment
Was only te rrib le . So creeds th a t once
tinction between natural fined as the “instinct of keeping
Shook m onarchs on th e ir th ro n e , c ru m ­ with regard to morals or religion
ble to form
at variance with the doctrines and conventional duties, and only contracts.” A state of Nature is
Our c h ild re n ’s gam es. T h e B eautiful
whipped into his grandfather a the full recognition of that dis- not always a state of equal rights.
an d T rue
Live th ro u g h all th e ages, w hile th e hundred and fifty years ago, it is distinction can reconcile the con­ Skill, strength and knowledge en­
False dies o u t.
—M oore.
immediately said: “He is wise be­ flicting views on the natural basis joy the advantage of superior
ethics. On the other hand, the power in the form of manifold
yond what is written,” and he is
VANITY OF PRAYER.
We deem th is life too narrow for our represented as that terrible mon­ defenders of the theory of “Intui­ privileges, but the expediency of
needs,
tive morality” claim the existence “keeping contracts” naturally re­
And so dem and h e a v e n ’s high felicity. ster—an Infidel.
Y et of an after-life w hat sign have we?
While authority, prejudice and of an innate moral conscience com­ commends itself as the only safe
In vain m an pravs and tells his futile
power have pertinaciously contend­ mon to all nations and all stages of basis of social intercourse. Those
beads.
*
—M a rtin .
ed that it is necessary to restrict social development, while, on the contracts need not always be speci­
Im provem ent of M ankind.
freedom of inquiry; that there other hand, we hear it as confi­ fied by written laws. They need
might be too much boldness of dently asserted that the standards not even be formulated in articu­
opinion, and too much liberty of of virtue are mere standards of ex­ late speech. Their obligations are
BY HORACE 8EAVER.
intellectual enterprise—the strong pedience, gfcd vary with circum­ tacitly recognized as a preliminary
stances as fashions vary with sea­ of any sort of social cooperation, of
O attempt to improve man­ necessities and genuine interests of
sons and climates. There is no any sefrt of social concomitance.
kind on any other prin­ mankind have slowly and steadily
doubt, for instance, that religious “Give every man his due;” “ Pay
ciple than by a close, ac­ urged them onward to an indefin’te
bigotry has begot a sort of fao your debts;” “Give if you would
curate and undeviating attention perception of their rights and a
titious conscience, shrinking from receive,” are international maxims,
to facts, is as absurd and unavail­ corresponding assertion of claims
the mere idea of devoting the sev­ founded on the earliest impressions
ing as to expet that man, immersed to tb© natural exercise of their
enth day of the week to physical of social instinct, rather than on
in ignorance and surrounded by privileges. It is much to be la­
recreations, while the devotees of the lessons of social science or of
every vicious temptation, shall be mented that too many people even
the joy-loving gods of paganism preternatural revelation. The first
better, wiser and happier than yet conceive that there are some
thought it a solemn duty to cele­ discoverers of the South Sea
when trained to be intelligent and opinions which ought not to be tol­
brate their holidays with festive Islands were amazed by a license
active amid circumstances only erated, as they imagine that the
revels. Marriage between persons of sexual intercourse that seemed
which would perpetually unit** his free expression of them would tend
of adventitious relationship (such to exceed the grossest burlesques of
interest, his duty and his feelings. to disorganize society by subverting
as widows and their surviving French fiction, but they were al­
The state of the world will never what they believe to be the founda­
brothers-in-law) is prohibited by most equally surprised by the
he materially improved until tion of virtue. How can danger
the statutes of one creed, and not scrupulous exactness of commercial
knowledge shall be more generally possibly arise from the unrestrain­
only sanctioned, but distinctly en­ fair-dealing observed by those in­
diffused and the multitude are ed expression of any opinion what­
joined, by those of another. Specu­ continent children of nature. An
taught to act from a just sense of ever, where reason and truth are
lative dogmas that would deeply islander, who had agreed to pay
their own interest, rather than left free to combat it? It is time
shock the followers of Abd el Wa- three bagsful of yam roots for a
from passion and prejudice. Hith­ the world had done with such ap­
hab are tolerated in Constanti­ common pocket knife, delivered
erto, mankind have scarcely come prehensions: they have been sourc­ nople and venerated in Rome.
two bagsful (all his canoe would
to the investigation of the con­ es of infinite mischief in all ages
But such contrasts dimmish, and hoi) before the evening of the next
dition of their being, with half of and in every country. Such peo­
at last disappear, as we turn our day and received his knife, as the
their reasoning powers; the residue ple appear to breathe the very
attention from conventional to es­ sailors had about all the provisions
have been absorbed by a legitima­ spirit of despotism, and act as if
sential duties. A Mussulman bigot, they could use. But the next
tized superstition, begotten in they want to communicate it. It is
who would slay his son for drink­ morning, in trying to leave the
youth on their ignorance, matured impossible not to infer from their
ing wine in honor of a supplement­ coast by tacking against a fitful
by precept and example and con­ apprehensions that as men increase
in knowledge they must see reas­ ary god, would agree with the wor­ breeze, they were overtaken by a
firmed by surrounding bigotry.
shippers of that god that theft is a canae, containing a desperately-
1 he ideas of men are acquired, ons to disapprove the systems es­
Continued on 6th page.
and these ideas are enlarged, cor- tablished. How can that mind be crime and benevolence a virtue.
Qem s.
M
T