R eason .
OF
“ TRUTH BEARS THE TORCH IN THE SEARCH FOR TRUTH.”
VOL. 3.
Lucretius
SILVERTON, OREGON, THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 1899.
The Coward.
I
NO. 47.
asm has dazzled the human mind, come through the same process.
had sunk into the grave like the
and the progress of error has been
Without mental activity, without beasts surrounding them and to
BY HATTIE TYNO GRISWOLD.
so great that few men have courage the mixing and compounding of force upon him, as jt were’ the nec-
HO fails to strik e w hen m a n 's *° 8 e a rc h f o r l r l , t h - If by Atheists
ideas, no individual could gain any essity of advancing in civilization
assailed,
are meant those who, guided by ex- great knowledge — could not, cer-
Among impulses of this kind I
W ho w e a k ! ^ ™ ^ ^ R K T h T i V n . “ j '
and ,h* evidenCes °f their i
»"Z general truth, reckon prominent natural pheno
U pon th e proud w orld’s heavy cro ss; senses, see nothing in nature but law, or rule of action; and it
ls mena, geographical or climatic
Who fails to speak th e splen d id word
what really exists; if by Atheists equally certain that without the changes, the immigration of old or
Of bold defiance to a lie ;
are meant natural philosophers, free interchange of thoughts be- irruption of foreign
Whose voice for tru th is fain tly h eard
races, wars,
W hen p arty passions m o u n t o n-high— who think everything may be ac
tween
individuals
the
greatest
pos
T h at m a n ’s a cow ard; and no deeds
famines, expulsions from dwelling
counted for by the laws of motion, sible progress can not be made by
Of valor done on fields of strife
places, migrations, the commence
Can prove his courage. B a ttle m eeds
without having recourse to a chim collective man. And it should al ment of relations of traffic and com
Are n au g h t beside a tested life.
erical power; if by Atheists are ways be borne in mind that it is
merce, the gradual improvement of
Who dallies w ith te m p ta tio n ’s lu re,
meant
those
who
knowr
not
what
a
only in the aggregate that man language, etc., and especially the
Nor hurls his te m p te r to th e ground ;
Who cham pions no t the w eak, th e poor, spirit is. and who reject a phantom is great or does great things.
rise of certain highk m 7 nved in
W hom power an d stre n g th w ith cords
whose
opposite
qualities
only
dis
The greatest individual, alone, is dividuals who possessed themselves
have b o u n d ;
Who crouches ’n eath o p in io n ’s lash ,
turb mankind—doubtless there are narrowly limited, both in power of a political or spiritual sove
Nor dares his own tru e th o u g h t pro
many Atheist»; and their number and time for action. He is “of reignty.
claim ;
Who never, w ith an im pulse rash ,
would be greater, were the knowl few days and full of trouble”
He
W ithout any such impulses it is
Ran on liefore nis tim e, is tam e,
edge
of
physics
and
sound
reason
thinks a few thoughts, adds a trifle possible that the savage state in
Is cow ard, and no work u p rears
W hich lasts. T ru th ’s edict from on more generally disseminated.
to the knowledge of the race, and which our oldest ancestor lived,
high
An Atheist does not believe in passes away. Mankind, however, might have persisted to the present
Says courage shall o u tlast th e years,
But every cow ard soul shall die.
the existence of a god. No man as a whole, is an organism that en day. It is true that many people
—[The C om m onw ealth.
can be certain of the existence of circles the world; is million-eyed, talk about the existence of an iu-
an inconceivable being, in whom looking out into the universe in all nate and necessary instinct of pro
W ho Is An A theist?
inconsistent qualities are said to be directions at the same time; lives gress in human nature, and believe
united. In this sense many theo for ages—possibly for a number of • hat this instinct must always and
BY HORACE SEAVER.
logians would be Atheists, as well years so great as to be incompre necessarily produce its due effect.
as those credulous beings who pros hensible by a single mind. He But in the presence of so many elo
en tremble at the very name trate themselves before a being of
builds cities,establishes goverments,
of an Atheist. But who whom they have no other idea than creates systems of philosophy, quent facts which testify to the con
trary, it will be difficult for anv one
is an Atheist? The man that given them by men, avowedly
weighs the earth and the other with an unprejudiced judgment to
who brings mankind back to reason
comprehending nothing of him planets as in a balance, measures believe in such a necessity. Thus
and experience, by destroying the themselves.—[Occasional Thoughts.
the distances of the more remote not only are there people who have
prejudices inimical to their happi
heavenly bodies, and calculates remained stationary at the same
ness; who has no need of resorting
Need of Toleration,
their positions in space a thousand degree of culture from the very
to supernatural powers in explain
years ahead—utilizes nature’s forc dawn of history, hut there are oth
ers, such as the Chinese, who have
ing the phenomena of nature.
BY W. H. MAPLE.
es, discovers her laws, and is fast certainly attained a certain stage of
It is madness, say the theolo
finding out the hitherto “secret progress, but have then remained
gians, to suppose incomprehensible
he only infallible criterion of ways of God”.—[No Beginning.
without alteration, whilst we can
motives in nature. Is it madness
only find one comparatively small
right action, and the only
to prefer the known to the un
group of nations which has hitherto
Im pulses To Progress.
true foundation of human
been constantly engaged in a course
known? to consult experience and legislation, is natural law. To dis
of progress and improvement. But
the evidence of our senses? to ad cover what that underlying law of
BY DR. LUDWIG BUCHNER.
even this progress in them has not
dress ourselves to reason, and pre nature is, should be the great aim
always proceeded spontaneously
fer her oracles to the decision of of every legislator and ethical
from
within, hut the impulse to
8 may easily be imagined it
wards it has come in historic times
sophists who even confess them teacher.
is precisely the first step in only from without. We also see
selves ignorant of the God they an The writer would not leave ques
the path of civilization that those nations which were formerly
nounce?
tions as to what is or what is not must have been the most difficult the greatest and most powerful and
When we see priests so angry in conformity with natural law, to and therefore the slowest. On the endowed with the most advanced
with Atheistical opinions, should individual judges or courts; but contrary, with every fresh advance, civilization, such as the Egyptians,
we not suspect the justice of their would crystalize into legislation the both the means and the desire to Assyrians, Jews, Greeks, Romans,
cause? Spiritual tyrants! ’tis ye aggregate wisdom of the body of overcome the difficulties or obsta etc., now in a state of almost com
who have defamed the divinity by the people, and recognize and en cles in the wa’y must have been in plete decay, whilst their place in
the scale of progress has been taken
besmearing him with the blood of force this, as the governing law, creased. With regard to the ex by quite different peoples in other
the wretched! You are the truly until changed by the people, ternal obstacles to progress no lands. Thus it is quite conceiv
impious! Impiety consists in in through peaceable and established doubt the large and powerful ani able that the European primitive
man would perhaps never have
sulting the God in whom it be methods.
mals of the Diluvial period must emancipated himself from his state
lieves. He who does not believe in , It is right for individual men to have disappeared and the mighty of rude servitude to nature, if im
a god cannot injure him, and can- djffer in opinion. Such difference geological catastrophes of that age pulses from without, and especially
not of course be impious.
is natural, unavoidable and neces- must have run their course, before the occasional immigration of for
On the other hand, if piety con sary. Friction between mind and man could obtain sufficient space eign races of a higher degree of cul
sists in serving our country, in be- mind, occasioned by the expression and opportunity for the develop- ture, had not been brought to bear
upon him. Whether a complete
ing useful to our fellow-creatures, I conflicting thoughts, brightens roent of his powers and the wider displacement or destruction of the
aD ln
^ ‘e laws of nature, and pOijshes such minds as certain- diffusion of his race upon the earth. aborigines by the new comers took
111 - t eist is pious, honest and \ir-
ag frictjon polishes pieces of met- And even after all this had taken place under these circumstances, or
uous when his conduct is regulat- aj wjjen rubbed together. Human- place, impulses of some particular only a mixture and consequent
hy the laws which reason and
" J ity at large owes its past progress kind would be required to rouse the ennoblement of the native race, is
a question which can hardly be an
virtue prescribe to him.
in knowledge wholly to such fric- primeval savage from that sluggish, swered directly,
w ..j, but the second case
t is true, the number of Atheists tion; and if better things are to be inactive and unintellectual state in is certainly by far the most pro
's inconsiderable, because enthusi- attained in the future they must which one generation after another bable.
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