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About Torch of reason. (Silverton, Oregon) 1896-1903 | View Entire Issue (Sept. 14, 1899)
R eason . OECII “TRUTH BEARS THE TORCH IN THE SEARCH FOR TRUTH.” — Lucretius VOL. 3. SILVERTON, OREGON, THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 1899. floral Worth. th e m an who scorns to be, To nam e or sect, a slave; W hose h e a rt is like th e su n sh in e— free— F ree as th e ocean w ave; W ho, w hen he sees oppression, w rong, Speaks out in th u n d e r to n e s ; W ho feels w ith tru th th a t he is strong To g rapple e ’en w ith th ro n es. I love I love th e m an who scorns to do An action m ean o r low ; W ho will a nobler course pursue, T o stra n g e r, friend, or foe; W ho seeks for justice, good to gain, Is m erciful and kind ; W ho will not cause a needless pain In body or in m ind. —[Selected. The Fundamental Fallacy. BY W. H. MAPLE. T is admitted, as it must be, that particular things and events have causes; but, in the op inion of the writer, the great mis take in the reasoning that gives to the great whole of things a “begin ning,” lies simply in viewing this totality, this aggregation of all things, as a thing or event. The reasoning of the world that has resulted in the almost univer sal belief in a first cause may all be condensed into the following brief syllogism:— Major premise: Every event or thing has a cause. Minor premise: The uni verse—the totality of things— is a thing or event. Conclusion: Therefore, the totality of things had a cause. That this may clearly be seen to embrace the substance of all men tal processes lying back of the pop ular belief in question, let the read er again be reminded that the idea of the relation of cause and effpet underlies all judgments on the sub ject of the origin of things. It is not meant, of course, that every believer in a first cause con sciously constructs just this formal argument; but whenever the in quiry, whence came things? has occurred to the miud, and the mind has acted at all in giviug an answer to the query, it has, necessarily, used, in substance, this same intel lectual process; for the best possible reason, to wit, that there was no other method to use. If it was not known that bodies have extension, no one would ever attempt to measure a body. And it is only because substances gen erally have size that the mind thinks of extension in connection with them. And it is equally evi dent, as has before been shown, that it is only because certain par I ticular things have causes that causes are sought for other things. As well try to compute the size or distance of some far-away heav enly body, without employing the fundamental principles of arithme tic, as to seek for the origin of things as a whole, without having recourse to the fundamental idea that is made the first premise in this syllogism. But is there fallacy in this argu ment? Is the conclusion of the syllogism correct and necessary? If both of the premises are really true there is, of course, no escaping the full force of the conclusion. It is in such case a true statement be yond question. And the first premise being ad mitted, it follows, that if there is fault in the argument it lies in the second or minor premise, which de clares the totality of things to be a “thing or event.” Now, in order to make a valid argument the words ‘•thing” and “event” must be used in the same sense in both premises—they must represent the same mental concep tion. But the writer asserts that the “totality of things” is not and can not be a ‘‘thing” or “event” in the same sense and meaning that these words necessarily have in the first premise; and that the argument is, therefore, defective and the conclu sion worthless. lie will proceed to prove this statement in the following manner: By the word thing, event, phen omenon or similar word, that might be used in the major premise is meant a particular thing, as com pared with other things; one thing out of more or many; a part, an in dividual. The idea of relation and condi tion, and, hence, of something out side the thing considered, is a part of the very conception on which is based the judgment, “every event or thing has a cause.” This is so evident that the propo sition, “every event or thing has a cause,” may, without any violence to its meaning, be stated as follows: Every event or thing is the result of, and exists only because there are, other things or events. And, therefore, the words “thing” and “event,” used in the major pre mise, mean a part only of the total ity of things. But these words can not have this meaning in the minor premise. It requires no argument to prove that the totality of things is not a part of any thing. The whole of things can never be at the same time a part of those things. Therefore, it is most evident that this argument is fallacious, in that it assumes that the great whole of things is a thing in the same sense in which this word is used in the first premise. And it is equally evident that the totality of things does not de mand *a cause, because particular things must have and do htve causes. Again, all arguments based on such a syllogism for the purpose of proving a beginning for things or of succession, are absurd; for the rea son that if the universe as a whole is regarded as a thing or event, the argument seeks to establish the truth of the proposition: “All things —the totality of things included as one thing—have causes.” The an swer can not then be: There is one and only one uncaused cause—a first cause.—[No Beginning. NO. 36. The Church and Woman. BY H. M. TABER. “fathers” of the Christian Church, drawing their in spiration, doubtless, from the writings of the Old and New Testaments, have given their opin ion of woman, which, I submit, is not quite as flattering to her as the opinion of some who do not believe in the fathers. Mrs. Mary A. Livermore says: “Theearly Church fathers denounc ed women as noxious animals, nec essary evils and domestic perils.” Lecky says: “ Fierce invectives against the sex form a conspicuous and grotesque portion of the writ ings of the fathers.” Mrs. Stanton says that holy books and the priesthood teach that “wo man is the author of sin, who (in collusion with the devil) effected the fall of man.” Gamble says that “in the fourth century holy men gravely argued The Infidel. the question, ‘ought women to be called human beings?’” BY R. G. INGERSOLL. But let the Christian fathers speak for themselves. Tertulian, in o effort has been spared in the following flattering manner, ad any age of the world to dresses woman: “You are the gateway; the un sealer o f th e i crush out opposition. devil’s The forbidden tree; the first deserter Church used painting, music and from the divine law. You are she architecture, simply to degrade who persuaded him whom the devil mankind. But there are men that was not valiant enough to attack. nothing can awe. There have been You destroyed God’s image—man.” Clement, of Alexandria, says: at all times brave spirits that dared “ I t brings shame, to reflect of what even the gods. Some proud head nature woman is.” has always been above the waves. Gregory Thaumaturgus says : In every age some Diogenes has “One man among a thousand may sacrificed to all the deities. True be p u r e ; a woman, never.” “ Woman is the organ of the de genius never cowers, and there is vil.”—St. Bernard. always some Samson feeling for the “Her voice is the hissing of the pillars of authority. serpent.”—St. Anthony. “Woman is the instrument which Cathedrals and domes, and the devil uses to get possession of chimes and chants; temples fres our souls.”—St. Cyprian. coed and groined and carved, and “ Woman is a scorpion.”—St. Bou- gilded with gold; altars and tapers, aventura. “The gate of the devil, the road and paintings of virgin and babe; censer and chalice, chasuble, paten of iniquity.”—St. Jerome. “ Woman is a daughter of false and alb; organs and anthems and hood, a sentinel of hell; the enemy incense rising to the winged and of peace.”—St. John Damascene. blest; maniple, anice and stole; “Of all wild beasts, the most dan crosses and crosiers, tiaras and gerous is woman.”—St. John Chry crowns; mitres and missals and sostom. “ Woman has the poison of an masses; rosaries, relics and robes; i asp, the malice of a dragon.”—St. martyrs and saints, and windows i Gregory-the-Great. stained as with the blood of Christ— Is it surprising, with such in never for one moment awed the structions from the fathers, that the brave, proud spirit of' the Infidel. children of the Christian church He knew that all the pomp and should not “look up to women, and glitter had been purchased with consider them men’s equal?” Liberty—that priceless jewel of the The following lines of Milton re soul. In looking at the cathedral flect the estimate of woman, which he remembered the dungeon. The the teachings of Christianity has music of the organ was not loud inculcated: enough to drown the clank of fet “ O h, w hy did God, ters. He could not forget that the C reato r wise, th a t peopled highest h e a ven taper had lighted the fagot. He W ith sp irits asculine, create at last knew that the cross adorned the T his novelty m on e a rth , th is fair deiect hilt of the sword, and so where ■ Of n a tu re , and not fill the world a t once others worshipped, he wept.—[Prose i W ith m an as angels, w ith o u t fem in in e?’’ I —[Faith or Fact. Poems and Selections. N T he