Torch of reason. (Silverton, Oregon) 1896-1903, July 13, 1899, Image 1

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    R eason .
SILVERTON, OREGON, THURSDAY, JULY 13, 1899.
VOL. 3.
For the Torch of Reason.
ural justice, civil rights and the!
laws of hum anity had no place in I
th at code of revealed ethics.
Such teachings bore their fruit in
. , the horrors of insurrection. In the
NO, 27.
This World.
anxieties of life, we have recourse
Freethought is an Ocean.
to the excitem ents of religion,
BY HORACE S E A V E R .
shall we not be sim ilarly situated?
BY MRS. R. A . BELL.
Let us hope for the tim e when know ­
ne world at a time is quite ledge shall dispel the worst miseries
reethocght is an ocean th at wil1 n
, ,.r
,
,
.
spread from pole to pole,
Peasants’ W ar thousands of con-
enough to atten d to, nor of life.— [Occasion 1 T houghts.
And the tides of evolution th ro ’ vents and castles were rent as bv
does there seem to be any
'
its
vast
domains
ro
ll;
!
..*i
.
.
.
.
r
i.
•
a
It9 broad expanse of crystal waves will ¡th e o u tb u rst of a hurricane, and good reason for attending to a n ­
widen evermore
their dwellers had to learn the in- other, since it m ust be self-evident
Evolution vs. Design.
I’ntil it reaches every clime and spreads convenience of having to subm it to
that when m ankind know how to
from shore to shore.
the powers th a t happened to be, by live properly on the earth, they are
BY H E R B E R T SPE N C E R .
Freethought is the ocean where narrow
being torn lim b from limb, or fiay- prepared to live in heaven, if there
creeds are tending—
Thev’re drifting toward this mighty sea ed and roasted alive,
be any such place in reserve for
uring
the first phase of
unconscious of the blending;
An old A rabian proverb says, them . But w ithout this indispens­
But on it flows—increasing power— a
developm ent, the m am m al­
mighty tidal wave,
‘‘If justice is disregarded, it is just able preparation, it will not he a
ian em bryo circulates its
Each sparkling drop to thirsty minds
th at everything perish”— a doom verv desirable residence, even when blood through a system of vessels
gives power ourselves to save.
outrages they arrive there, and hence we distributed over w hat is called the
Freethought is the ocean to which act­ which the intolerable
ive minds must tend,
against hum an rights and h u m an i­ may say, th a t whether in regard to area vasculoea—a system of vessels
And when within its loving arms all an­
ty a t last experienced in the cata- this world or another, our Infidel homologous with one which, am ong
cient discords end,
Don’t stay an inland, stagnant pool, a clysm of the French Revolution, doctrine is the only proper one for fishes, serves for a e ratin g the blood
source of death to be—
* ‘
In knowledge grow ami onward flow to There, too, the despieers of n atu ral either.
until the p erm an en t respiratory
Freedom’s boundless sea!
justice had to eat their own doc­
It is tru e th at men are seldom so organs come into play. After a
Freethought is the ocean of liberty and trine, the strongholds of absolutism absorbed in thoughts of heaven as time, there buds out from the m am ­
light,
th a t had withstood the tears of so to be w ithout care or interest for m alian em bryo, a vascular m em ­
And on its deep, broad bosom the foes of
m any generations were swept away the good things of earth, and th a t brane called the allantois, homo­
Truth we’ll flght;
We’ll spread the flag of Truth and Love: by a torrent of blood, and the
if the first day of the week belong logous with one which, in birds and
with Reason’s mighty chain
We’ll hind the gods of myth and crime priests and princes whose in h u m an ­ to God, the other six are consid- reptiles, replaces the first as a
and set their ships aflame!
ity had turned their serfs into wild ered ashelonging to Mammon. But breathing ap p a ratu s. But while in
beasts learned the significance of
this only proves th a t men are as the higher oviparous vertebrates,
Justice.
their m istake when th eir own
inconsistent in following out their the allan to is serves the purpose of
IN F IV E PA RTS.
th ro ats were m angled by the fangs principles, as they are irrational in a lung during the rest of em bryonic
of those beasts.
adopting thorn.
If heaven be a life, it does not do so in the m am ­
BY F . L. OSW ALD.
The doctrine of salvation by reality, as we are told it is, it ought m alian em bryo.
In irnplacental
grace had substituted favor and to absorb our thoughts, and to con­ m am m als, it aborts, having no
PART IV . — PE N A L T IE S OF N EG LEC T.
caprice for the rights of natural ju s­ stitu te the sob* end and aim of our function to discharge; and in the
eed we wonder th a t the con­ tice, and for a series of centuries
higher m am m als, it becomes “ plac­
actions.
verts of th a t creed believ­ the consequences of its teachings
We shall perhaps be told, th a t ent iferous, and serves as the means
ed in the m erit of passive were seen in the treatm ent of nearly
of intercom m unication between the
submission to the caprices of e a rth ­ every benefactor of m ankind. The m an would faint and sink under parent and the offspring”— becomes
ly despots, and scorned the appeals prince who devoted the fruits of his tem poral afflictions, hut for the an organ of nu tritio n more th an of
of justice in th eir dealings with conquests to the feeding of count­ consolations derived from heavenly respiration.
Now since the first
Pagans and F reethinkers? W hy less convent drones, let scholars or sp iritu al hopes. We adm it th a t system of external blood-vessels,
anticipations of a heaven of bliss
should men try to he better than starve, and loaded the discoverer of
excite and give pleasure for the not being in contact with a directly-
their god? The worshiper of a god a New W orld with chains.
His
m om ent. Perhaps the opium -eater, oxygenated m ed iu m ,can n o t be very
who doomed the souls of u n b ap ­ successors who lavished the trea-
serviceable to the m am m alian em ­
tized children and honest dissent- sures of their vast em pire on pimps in his ecstatic reveries, was never bryo as a lung; and since the
more perfectly blessed than some
ers, n atu rally had no hesitation in and clerical m ountebanks, let Cer-
second system of external blood­
assailing the bodies of their unbe­ vantes perish in penury. The sove­ enthusiasts have been in their vessels is, to the irnplacental em ­
dream s of paradise. But. opium ,
lieving fellow-men, and princes who reign protector o f a thousand stall-
bryo, of no greater avail than the
loaded fawning sycophants with fed prelates refused to relieve the though it offers a seducing mode of first; and since the com m unication
escaping from present pain, is yet
favors which they denied to honest Jagt distress of John Kepler. The exceedingly pernicious in its after (belween the <‘m bry,> and tbe Pla ’
patriots, could appeal to the sane- m oralists who th o u g h t it a griev- effects. Depression succeeds to un- cen,a am onS P,acental m am m als,
tion of a divine precedent.
Every a nce th a t the church should be de- n atu ra l excitem ent, and m om ents mi8h t aR we" or bctter bave bpe"
petty “ sovereign of six faithful n jed the right of tith in g the lands of bliss are followed by days of n,ade ‘Hrectly, instead of by m eta­
square miles” accordingly became a | of southern S pain, had no pity for misery. Visions of another world m orpbosis of the allan to is; these
■ aw unto himself. A m an’s m ight the sufferings of the men whose seem to ns to act as a sort of moral
a PP8ar unaccountable
was the measure of his right; the iabor had m ade those lands blos­ opium , often no less injurious to
re8U' t8 of de8i8"- Bul they £ire
“ first law’’ of iron-clad bullies som like the gardens of paradise, the C hristian than his favorite *luite c,,ne raoU8 « ¡th >b« supposi-
reigned suprem e from the Baltic to and who were exiled by thousands
tion, lh a t the m am m alian type
the M editerranean, and the judges for t he crime of preferring the solace is to the Turk.
arose out of lower vertebrate types.
But
men
m
ust
be
wrêtched
in-
of ( the only independent) ecclesias- u n h a ry God of the K oran to the
~ ~
M
For in such case, the m am m alian
tic courts Confined their attention trin ita ry Gods of the New
Testa- deed, if to save them selves from
to ferocious punishm ents of neglect
m ent.
despair, they m ust resort to arti- embryo, passing through states re­
F
o
D
N
in the paym ent of tithes and the
performance of socage duties and
ceremonies. 1'he belief in the di-
vine right of potentates, and pas-
sive submission to the most out-
rageous abuse of th a t power, were
assiduously inculcated as prim ary
duties of a C hristian citizen. Nat-
--------------------
ficial stim uli, physical or m oral;
Let any man inquire
of himself and we believe th a t in every case
w hether he has certainty of any- the rem edy is worse than the
thirTg th at is not conveyed to him disease. Nay, more; the remedy
by his senses, and whether the de- perpetuates the disease. If a m an,
sire of obtaining pleasure and to escape his cares, sesorts to the
avoiding pain is not the first mo- b o ttk , his cares will soon increase,
title of all his actions.— Ex.
and ruin him. And if, to quiet the
presenting, more or less d istin ctly ,
those which its remote ancestors
bad
com m on with the lower
y ertebrata> developes thege g a W d i.
t
.
a rY o r?ans ,n ,ke
with the
lower V ertebrata. [S ynthetic Phil-
osophy.