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