THE TORCH OF REASON, SILVERTON, OREGON, JUNE 7, 1900.
9
ensign is the flag and inscription on who know”, could not be admitted,
this pointer- b. u. v. m at
roe except in the preparatory class, in
this pointer: L. U. O. That is the
Greek verb meaning “I set free,” any High School of today. The
and its letters mean that the Lib- laws of Science were not; nor any
eral University, Oregon, if set free conception of progress, which is the
from the supernatural gods and I Sun of our world. Indeed, it is
♦heir nril-ts revelations, churches, wonderful how,without some belter
creeds and d’ogmMJrf
and knowledge of wbat “Earth, Water,
.to incub’utr
Aa.r anu u an r
as to every important thing which an infinity ol gune, towards the
theologians made the basis of life,
work, hope, aspiration or educa-
tion. As Prof. Lester F. Ward
points out in the beginning of his
“Dynamic Sociology”, not a single
item has escaped reversal. Inquiry
show, that there wa
lu n y »«»,
A
‘
star Lyra, at the rate of 10 miles a
second, or 300 millions ol miles a
year (See our astronomer, . w
comb, in McClure s Magasine,
July, 1899.)
Nor is there any reason to he-
? *
,
, _
_
uuxar uj
culture, and the higher life and as and women ever got along and iiv- ,noou ; no ui&ptueion in languages ever grou <ess on anj
pirations of mankind upon the ed as well as they did. But mil- nor. races — all of which were old pothesis” on his travels, or that he
lions of them perished out of sheer Chaldean myths: no chosen Patri- will have to stop in collision be-
knowable basis of Science — its
ignorance of the necessity and prop- arch people, or Moses or old Jewish ; cause Lyra will ever be“at home”to
methods and results.
priety of air and water,and the dif- history or empire: no Christ as God receive him, or that Infinity will
But we have been told by the
ference between protoplasm and the or man, crucifixion or ascent to ever run short of space.
prayer-makers over and over again
Earths. Prior to our New Era,300 heaven: no miracle, no providence,
In view of the awful sublimity
that there cannot be any high cul
years ago, mankind, aside from a no revelation, no day of judgment and infinity of these world views,
ture with its learning and wisdom
little misunderstood mathematics within his generation—as he was which are the basis of modern Sci-
without their gods and religions.
and astronomy, were the victims of said to declare, nor since, nor is ence, how childish to talk, except
We insist to the contrary, and we
Theological Babblement about this such ever possible or conceivable. historically, about what the Egypt
are completing this Liberal Univer
Well, my friends, it is worse than iaus, Chaldeans, Greeks, Hebrews
sity and educating these young peo werld which now discloses nothing
or Christians knew? Science now
ple in answer to this objection. but ignorance of it. There was no useless to cry over this old vanished builds and founds us upon Bruno’s
This celebration, this day, is a part knowledge of correlation and law, world worse than to cry over the “ Infinity of Space, Stars and
tomb of Adam. It is hopelessly
of our answer made vocal. We and so, no basis or idea of progress.
Truth and Progress, ir any real, gone. A.ll the Sun of Science can Worlds.” Let us rejoice in that
have concluded that the time has
conception of Infinity, for it is the
come for the more intelligent pa it true or scientific sense, are hardly now do is to play over it the rain guarantee of endless progress to our
bows of myth, poetry, symbolisms,
of the human race to determine 300 years old. Before that their
with tender memories and imagina S un and Earth, and to our race
whether its future, for such is the world was simply a very small,
tions, while it cloudily floats away and I ntellect ! We shall never be
meaning of the education of the three-story “tenement houoe”. Its
into Shakespeare’s “dark Back run ashore, never exhausted. This
young, shall rest upon the revela basement below the Earth’s surface
InfiniteFoundation of theTowER of
ward and Abysm of Time.”
tions, inspirations, commands and was the Purgatory and Hell, the
“Now, since these things are so,” S cience realizes for us the Eternity
undiscoverable heavens of supposed Earth’s surface was the place of
as our Ciceronian scholars say, it of space, time and existence as our
but unprovable supernatural be “ human probation”, the valley of
behoves us to turn our eyes to the boundless Liberty!
ings, or upon the Infinite World as humiliation, or “the vale of tears”.
Now coming in from the starry
dawning light of our New World,
we discover it to be, its facts and Therein our luckless race was to
which entirely destroys, replaces Infinite of Astronomy, the founda
laws, and the history, science and await a day of judgment, and a sud
tion of our Tower, we find our glor
glorious and ever more glorious evo den drop into the Hells below,or fit and reverses the old. You have but
aloft into the sky-parlor Heaven a few minutes in which to do that ious planet, the Earth, as a
lution of our race.
Sun-planet. It forms the first
We meet that question squarely above. But in any event at some —so here that New World is given
story of our Tow’er, seen to be
—here and now. Are not all com time this world was to end and stop, on this upper wall of this our Uni
the Science of P hysics , or mat
pelled to admit that the ages of cre and .-o the idea of Progress,or of an versity daigramed into the “ Power
ter in bulk or masses, and
ations, miracles and “providences”, “Earthly Paradise”, was to them of Science” and the “Temple of
the properties, qualities and laws
special or other,are hopelessly gone, unthought and unthinkable. The Humanity;” that is the True Class
thereof. From the fact that our
if ihey ever existed? Is not the result was that the condition of the ification of the scientific order and
Earths and elements are the same
knowable world, of w’hich we are a human race was one of “sin and domains of the word and of the
with,or similar to those of the Sun
part, proved to be a process of con misery unspeakable,” or equally Epochs of man s history upon il,
and other coelestial bodies, and are
stant changes, which are discovered miserable, childish and silly was until now . Let this true structure
moving under the same laws, we
by us to he sequent, coexistent and the exaltation and rapture about a of Science for ever take the place iu
find our material or first story of
concomitant — ever equivalently sky-Heaven above the “firmament” your minds of that childish old
earthly matter, firmly resting upon
continuing and determining each and “in the spheres,” all of which babblement of “ The Tower of
and rivetted into that infinite
other, without beginning or end, or the telescope now shows, to every Babel,” and its immovable three-
foundation. We are coelestial be
knowable pupose, except as the hu one to be an illusion, of the old as- story Tenement with revolving “fir-
man race may develope its own will trouomy, and absolutely non - mameut.” ihus at a glance you cause we are Earth-born! We, too,
existent .
can see that instead of this old are born in Heaven!—what we have
and purposes on this planet?
Does this little old, stationary, fixed world around the mediter - to do is to realize it.
We recognize the laws of this
_________ ____ tenement,
______ , ranean
,
After an outline of Astronomy in
limitless, yet ever more knowable, four-cornered,three-story
, we have our ~ planet, the
world as the true basis of knowl house-world, created and run by whole Mother Earth, in its rotation our curriculum, we are then ready
edge, thence of wisdom, thence of Gods and Devils, still exist? Then alternating “Paradise brightness of for enlightenment as to this ebrys-
culture, thence of beneficent life, let us pray to and obey those Gods, day with deep and dreadful night;” taline, inorganic or colloid matter;
»„aw
e n c e of o the
i.n .r realizable
« .!,» ™ ,.«
..™ exorcise and fight those Devils.trem- and then in its sweeping annual and thereupon we discover the
and
thence
Heaven
of aspiration. S cience has become ble before their hells, and trim our orbit about the sun it passes the great D ynamics — motion, sound,
tbp onlv interpreter of our world wings for flight to their heaven. If twelve constellations of the Zodiac, heat, light, electricity, magnetism,
since Bru"o made known its new not-t>otl
and so gives the year, as the moon chemical affinity, attraction and
Copernican Astronomy in 1G00 A.
D and sealed his announcement of
ils’oonsequencee in fire and blood.
He then dated our new Era of
Science and Man— making this our
year E. M. 300. Now before that,
what did mankind know, clearly
know;—notwithstanding their mil-
lenuiums of time, their god and
gods and saviors and ghosts, and
revelations and Bibles—all?—what
did they really and connectedly
know? Practically a little empir-
ical knowledge — in fact almost
nothing! A few Greek minds gath-
ered and carried it all, and even
Aristotle, “the Prince of all those
In a word, if the human race is
still living in that old Theological
World, let us pray and educate our
young people for its environment,
duties, obligations and joys—and if
not, not ?
Does that world exist? Science
answers, No! Bruno brought the
Heliocentric Astronomy of an Infi-
nite Space to prick that old world
bubble, and when the smoke from
the altar of his sacrifice by Chris-
tians rolled away, a new world was
plainly seen taking its place.
That new world is here now, and
the Light of Science shows that it
is exactly the reverse of the old; so
does the twelve months. As far as repulsion.
How we wonder at,
we can see we have the best, the and then use them as the great Mo
picked, place iu the Infiuity of tions and imponderable agents of
Worlds. We are in the centre of everything! The creative process' -
the Solar System, with its more of the All!
than splendid electric sunlight,
C hemistry then becomes the Sec
only 93 millions of miles distant, end Story of our Tower of Science,
making our orbit diameter twice There we enter the domain of
that, or 186 millions of miles, the analysis, composition, affiniti s
and our orbit circumference 558 and properties of the elements of,
millions of miles!
What more matter. The forms of matter we
of a splendid rotatory and moving find extended from three to five;
observatory in the infinity of space, thus: solid, viscid, fluid, gaseous,
suns and worlds than that could ethereal: or concretely: earth',
there he? But as if that were not plasms, liquids, airs, ethers. I he
enough we learn that our Solar: imponderable agents, forces
System is piercing the Milky W ay, | Dynamic powers, are the play *