T orch
S u .■
GHT
f ■»
Ih i
R eason .
••TRUTH BEARS THE TORCH IN THE SEARCH FOR TRUTH.” - Z u c r e ^
.
VOL. 4.
NO. 4.
The Present.
ethics, declare that the ultimate in every one’s power to increase the
flatter.
test of logical truth is its “ccnduc- spiritual treasure of human soul-
BY ADELAIDE A. PROCTOR.
iveness to happiness.” Those logic life which he has received. The
BY G. W. MOREHOUSE.
al arguments, he might say, which question: Is life worth living? ac
o not crouch today and w orship
cause pleasurable sensations are cordingly, depends exclusively on
The old P a st, whose life is fled ;
x
H ush y o u r voice with ten d e r rev
y the word matter we desig
correct, those which have pain giv the purpose to which life ¡8 devoted.
erence ;
nate the substance that con
C row ned he lies, butcold and dead. ing effects are incorrect; and the Life is not worth living if a man
For the P re se n t reigns o u r m onarch,
stitutes the world-building
same holds good for all the depart seeks his own, if he uses his rich
W ith an added w eight of h o u r s ;
material of the Universe. It is
ments of human activity and the inheritance like the prodigal son
H onor h e r, for she is m ighty !
H onor h e r, for she is o u r s !
truths of scientific inquiry. But and wastes his substance to get as evident to our senses, exists all
See th e shadow of his heroes
who would maintain that the solu much pleasure as possible out of the about us, and in our own bodies.
G irt aro u n d h e r cloudy th ro n e ;
tion of a mathematical problem is treasures that his fathers have All are more or less familiar with
Every day th e ran k s are' stren g th en ed
By g rea t h e a rts to him unknow n ;
right in so far and because it gives gathered. However, life is worth its properties, and its wonderful
Noble things th e g reat P ast pro m ised ;
pleasure to him who has solved it? living if but the aim of life is high combinations and varieties. Its
Holy d ream s both strange a n d new •
But th e P resen t shall fulfil th em ,
I know of circle squarers who derive enough to give value to the work of usefulness and beauty are recog
W hat he prom ised, she shall do.
nized and admired in the mineral,
a greater satisfaction from their life.
the vegetable and the animal king
She in h e rits all his treasu res,
most ridiculous blunders than any
Pessimism has taught that life doms. Volumes, yea, whole libra
She is h eir to all his fa m e ;
discoverer or inventor possibly can from the standpoint of a pleasure-
And the lig h t th a t lightens round h er
Is th e lu ste r of his nam e.
attain by most important and use , - k e r has no value; if we expect a ries would be inadequate to do jus
She is wise w ith all his wisdom ,
ful discoveries. Yet a moral act, satisfaction of our egoistic desires, tice to the grand subject. I can
Living on his grave she s ta n d s;
On h er brow she bears his laurels,
we are told, is good solely because life will not be worth its own trou only indicate a few facts and con
And his h a rv e st in h e r hands.
and in so far as it produces pleasur bles. Life can acquire value only clusions w;th which we are at pre
sent most concerned.
( oward can sh e reign and conquer
able sensations.
If we th u s h er glory dim ;
by the use to which it is put. If
Matter exists in at least three
Let us fight for h e r as nobly
Goethe, who, like Aristotle, de our days are empty of any action
As o ur fath ers fought for h im .
fines happiness in terms of virtue, worthy to be done, then they are forms solid, liquid and gaseous.
God [M an] crow ns th e dying ages,
Bids her rule an d us obey;
objects most strongly against any indeed spent as a tale that is told, Its solid form is due to the absence
Bids us cast our lives before h e r;
other kind of happiness. In the although they may be four-score of heat, and on the application of
Bids us serve th e g reat Today.
second part of Faust the young years or more. Our actions only heat it becomes liquid. A still
emperor is described not as vicious, can and must give value to the higher temperature vaporizes. It
M anliness, th e Basis of Lite.
hut as a man desirous to enjoy him days of our life. Yet is their then fills more space, but on cooling
self; and Faust pronounces a very strength labor and sorrow; for a life it resumes its original form and size.
BY DR. PAUL CARUS.
Chemical action also changes the
severe judgment about a tendency worth being lived is one that is full
forms of matter, decomposing com
r . H erbert S pencer builds of finding virtue in happiness in of active aspirations for something binations and forming new ones,
his system of ethics upon stead of happiness in virtue. He better and higher.
liberating the component gases of
savs:
The ethical life accordingly af substances, i nd dissolving minerals
the supposition that “con
fords indeed the only salvation for or other solids or restoring them.
duciveness to happiness is the ulti E n jo y m en t m akes us gross,
solid substance becomes an in
G eniessen m ac h t gem ein.
man, and the old religions have The
mate test of perfection in a man’s
visible gas, or the reverse. Color
been
religions
of
salvation
to
the
nature.” He quotes Aristotle’s
If pleasurable sensations were the
less solutions when combined may
'iew, that the proper work of man standard according to which we extent that they have helped man produce beautifully colored precip
consists in the active exercise of have to gauge the ethical worth of to raise himself above his egotism. itates. It would be impossible to
the mental capacities conformably actions, they would form the quin The old religions are not wrong; give much more than a hint of the
varieties found in Nature.
to reason,” and that “the supieme tessence of ethics and a saying like they contain all of them this all-
Notwithstanding all the changes
good of man will consist in perform that of Goethe’s would he extremely important truth. Yet the truth is of form, and the many complex
ing this work with excellence or immoral. A et it is not so! Is there wrapped in myths; and the time chemical combinations that matter
virtue; herein he will obtain happi any one who denies that enjoyment has come that we are no longer has undergone in Nature, in the
ness.” Mr. Spencer blames Aris and the hankering after enjoyment satisfied with myths. The apostle laboratory of the chemist, and in
the seemingly destructive heat of
totle for “seeking to define happi- weaken the character? To measure says:
the furnace, or of the sun, not one
n-ss in terms of virtue instead of the ethical worth of actions by
‘When I was a child I spoke as a particle has ever been destroyed.
defining virtue in terms of happi- pleasurable sensations is not super child, I understood as a child, I However changed it may have been,
ness, - and he seriously attempts to ficial; it is radically erroneous. We thought as a child, but when I be every ounce, and every grain and
fraction of a grain, may be account
justify the opinion, that if immoral might just as well let the judge came a man, I put away childish ed
for.
acts caused agreeable sensations, we give his decisions in court accord things.”
It has come to pass that the doc
would not call them crimes.
ing to the principle that his sen Mankind has passed through the trine of the indestructibility of mat
1 here is a great difference between tence must produce a surplus of phase of childhood in which it ter is established beyond a doubt.
pleasures and the peace of soul that pleasurable feelings in all the par could he taught only by myths and Matter may be divided and sub
divided, and separated into micro
a good conscience alone can give. ties concerned.
parables. As says 8t. Paul;
scopic particles and these into
^ r- Spencer classes both as “plea-
Nature has not intended man to
“And I, brethren, could not speak smaller molecules, and those again
8urable sensatious” and makes live for the mere enjoyment of life. unto you as unto spiritual, but as into indivisible atoms, thousands of
them the test of ethics. The hap All egotism will in the end defeat unto carnal, even as unto babes in times more minute than the mole
cules, yet, not one of the atoms can
piness of which Aristotle speaks itself. Man’s life has a meaning Christ.
consists in the satisfaction of hav- only if he lives the higher life of “ I have fed you with milk, and he destroyed. It takes its place
again, and performs its part in the
lng done one’s duty, which has super-individual aspirations. The not with meat; for hitherto ye were shifting scene of the Universe, in
"'-’thing in common with any “plea individual must cease to consider not able to bear it, neither yet now accordance with the economy of
Nature.
surable sensation;” for it is no sen- himself as an individual; he must are ye able.”
Matter then, being indestructible,
n and has as little to do with consider himself as a steward of the
We do not intend to abolish the its creation out of nothing becomes
'“ ■activity as for instance has soul-life of mankind.
truth of the old religions, but to most emphatically unthinkable,
satisfaction at the correctness
Every one of us has at his birth purify them from their mythologic and as a matter of course unbeliev
h'gical judgment. Mr. Spencer and through his education received al character. We do not come to able. It has always existed and
^'ght with the very same argu a rich and most valuable inherit destroy, hut to fulfil.— [The Ethical always will. Like time and space
it is without beginning or end.—
ments he uses for his theory of, ance from his fathers, and ¡islands Problem.
[Wilderness of Worlds.
D
M
B