T orch
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VOL. 4.
of
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R eason .
^ R - r w - i ï r ^ ¿ • - ?7.(.i S i i ./ .
SILVERTON, OREGON, THURSDAY, MAY 31, E, M. 300 (A. D. 1900.)
Brotherhood.
NO. 21.
fiable to suppose that, having cre sense it is immortal, since not the whether we call to our aid experi
ated such various moral soil and smallest particle of it can be anni ment or reflexion. When the dis
brother man, fold to thy heart thy climates and germs, the unknown
hilated. On the other hand we see covery of the microscope or the
brother!
First Cause might love to watch the that what we call spirit, soul, con juxtaposition of magnifying glasses,
Where pity dwells, a heavenly peace
different growths of soul and cher sciousness, disappears with the opened up worlds unknown before,
is th e re ;
To worship rightly is to love each other, ish the diversity of his spiritual cessation of the individual combin
and revealed to the gaze of the in
Each smile a hymn, each kindly deed garden?
ation of matter; and it must ap vestigator a fineness and minute
a prayer.
If
all
philosophical
progress
pear to the unprejudiced mind that ness of organic life and organic
Follow with reverent steps each great
unites in thinking, if it is true that this action having been brought form-elements undreamed of until
example
Of all whose holy work was doing good; all that we know we can know only
about by peculiar and very compli then, man cherished the audacious
So shall the wide earth seem a sacred
in terms of our senses and our or cated unions, must come to an end hope of coming on the track of the
temple,
Each loving life a psalm of gratitude. ganic intellectual necessities, then
with its cause, that is to say, with final organic element, perhaps on
I hen shall all shackles fall; the stormy must the objective First Cause re the cessation of those peculiar com
the very basis of existence.
clangor
main
for
ever
hopelessly
holding
binations.
Of wild w ar-m usico’er the world shall
T he remarkable wheel-animal
cease;
from our knowledge, and the god
Today the indestructibility or cule, formerly mistakenly classed
Love shall tread on the baleful fire of
whatever
he
be,
ivhom
we
worship,
permanence of matter is a scientific among the Infusoria, which mea
anger,
And in its ashes plant the tree of we hope for or deny must be an fact firmly established and no long
sures from 1—120th to 1—240th of
peace.
idol
of
our
own
making,
an
idol
er to be denied. It is interesting to an inch, has a gullet, toothed jaws,
—[W hittier.
the more potent that he is part of observe that former philosophers stomach, intestine, glands, ovaries,
ourselves; but an idol in judging of and thinkers also possessed a know eyes, blood, vessels and nerves. A
The Need to Believe.
whose qualities and possibilities we ledge of this important truth, al drop of sea-water contains a crowd
are only judging our own thoughts, though in an incomplete form and of the most various and most curi
e are all of us grouper dreams and desires; and the ob
rather as a presentiment than as a ous forms, as balls, crosses, baskets,
into creeds or schools jective Real Cause might, had he
scientifically known and established screws, stars,chesslike figures, horns,
allowed in such matters qualities or form, rebuke us as the
certainty.
caps, helmets, etc., and each of
as God, the soul, immortality,
Spirit of the Earth did Faust;
Equally uncreatable, equally in these forms represents a perfectly
and all the transcendental ques “ Dei gleichst dew Geist den du beguifst,
delible, equally imperishable, equal developed independent living crea
tions, to express our preferences
nicht m ir !”
ly immortal as Matter is the Force ture, endued with eeusation aud
and our requirements as we
—[Vernon Lee in Fortnightly
bouud up with it. United in infinite power of movement.
should never dare express them in Review.
au.junt to the infinite mass of Mat
As the microscope guides us in the
physics or chemistry, or the most
ter, in most intimate union there
rudimentary of house wife’s science. Immortality and Infinity of flat with, and like matter, it runs in an world of the minute, so does the
telescope direct us in the world of
This difference shows, as apologists
ter and Force.
unresting never-ending circle and the vast. Here also astronomers
have often remarked, that belief in
emerges from each mode or union
things spiritual conforms to differ BY PROF. LUDWIG BUCHNER, M. D. exactly the same in amount as audaciously dreamed of penetrating
to the very limits of the universe,
ent rules from belief in things tem
when it entered in. As it is an in but the more they perfected their
poral. And therein I agree com
atter as such is indestruct dubitable fact that Matter can be instruments, the more immeasur
pletely. But if religious thought
ible, it cannot be annihil neither newly created nor annihil ably did the worlds expand before
can thus dispense with the kind of
ated; no grain of dust in ated, but only changed in form, so their astonished gaze. The light
certainty required for even the sim
the universe can vanish from,
and it be accepted as an absolute white mists seen by the naked eye
must
plest practical affairs, this must none can enter it. It is the great ly certain experience that there is
in the vault of heaven were resolved
surely be only because no practical est service rendered to us bv chem not a single instance in which a
by the telescope into myriads of
decisions are really based upon it; istry that for the last hundred years force has been brought out of no
stars, of worlds, of suns, of planet
it is not a means to an end, but an it has taught us this indubitable thing nor reduced to nothing, in
ary systems; and the earth with its
end, even like art itself. If, there fact, that the unceasing changes other words born nor annihilated.
inhabitants, so fondly and proudly
fore, will can enter into belief, it is and transformations of phenomena, In all cases in which forces make
deemed the very crown and centre
only to my mind, as an expression which pass daily before our eyes, their appearance they can be traced
of existence, fell from its fancied
of need , of the cravings of this part the formation and destruction of back again to their sources, that is
exaltation to a mere atom moving
of our constitution. And in so far organic and inorganic forms and it can be shewn out of what other
in immeasurable space. “All our
as the needs of different men differ, figures, do not consist of the forma forces or energies a given amount of
experiments yield us not the slight
and the needs of different histoiical tion of matter previously non force has been obtained directly or
est trace of a limit; each increased
periods and racial types differ still existent, nor of the destruction of through transmutations.
This power of the telescope only opens
more, it is not surprising that while matter then present, as was gener transmutation does not proceed ar
to our gaze new realms of stars and
Science and the practical operation ally thought in earlier times, but bitrarily, but according to definite
nebula?, which, if not consisting of
thereof, have tended to that ever that this change consists in nothing equivalents or weight-numbers, so
galaxies of stars, are self-illumin
greater unity which we associate save in a continual and unbroken that the minutest amount of force
ing matter.” (Grove) “ With each
"ith the notion of objective truth, rotation of the same substance, of can no more be lost than the sharpening of our tools which bear
the creation of the religious instinct, which the m; ss and the quality re minutest amount of matter in the our gaze into the waves of light of
the furthest starry realms, new
the expressions of the will not to main unalterable and identical transformation of matter.
waves of sun break forth from the
know nor to succeed but to believe, for all ages.
As matter is endless in time or limitless ocean of the stars.” (\V.
have been as various as the product
The phrases “mortal body” and eternal, so it is no less without be Meyer.) “Even with the most
of the aesthetic faculty.
“immortal spirit,” which have been ginning or end in space; in its real powerful telescopes we see so many
should there really exist, im repeated ad nauseam, are misno existence it withdraws itself from faintly-shining stars that we are
manent and hidden in this world mers altogether. Exact thought the limitations imposed on our unable to doubt that on the further
of phenomena, of humanly per might possibly reverse the adject finite mind by the conceptions of side of these there are yet others
ceived and interpreted appearances, ives. The b)dy in its individual time and space, conceptions from which will become visible by larger
instruments.” (G. J. Klein.) “From
an Lus Realissi mum in any way form or shape is indeed mortal, but which itcannot free itself in thought. all these experiments we conclude
resembling the creatures who wor it is not so in its constituent parti U hether we enquire about or in that the depth of celestial space can
ship and burn, turn about, the cles. Not in death only but throug- vestigate the extension of matter in not be sounded, and that we
image they have made of him, if out life it changes unceasingly, as the minutest or the greatest, we shall never succeed in reaching its
(Secchi.) — [Force and
there be such an one, is it not justi we have seen; but in the wider nowhere find an end or a final form, * bounds.”
Matter.
O
W
M