Torch of reason., April 09, 1903, Page 2, Image 2

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T H E TO R C H O F REASON, KANSAS CITY . M ISS O U R I, A P R IL 9, E. M. 303 (1903.)
great number of component sub- especially common, I had almost formerly, because pecuniary con­ can we have knowledge that tran ­
jects, and if it is carefully looked said fashionable, to question or tributions and conformity to ser­ scends knowledge? The idea is
into, it will be found that most of deny its claim to the rank of a vile ceremonies are no longer en­ absurd. Then why indulge in
the subordinate subjects can be science. Some, of course, will forced by im prisonm ent and their such predication without knowl­
arranged in a series of logically have nothing of it. M athem aticians repudiation by death
edge? The idea in transcend is
connected ideas or facts. The first and astronomers, who deal with
Poor, old, tim id, abused, ignor­ always a contradiction of terms,
duty of educationalists should be the most exact of all the sciences, ant, human nature! You have no m atter how many have in h erit­
to arrange all the branches to be usually have no patience with any- been ridden like a jackass through ed and defended it for power or
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pelf or through* ‘ ignorance or fear
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liieir natural order. A g l a n c e at m at hemal ical precision. i once bruie ' fnaVcohni get astride your Some priest originated the notion
tin; curriculum of any school sys- heard an em inent astronom er sneer back; fed on thistles; derided and away back in prim itivism as an
tern or institution of learning will at meteorology because the Weath- treated disrespectfully, simply, lie- excuse for passing the hat for his
show that this is not only the last er Bureau often fails to predict the cause you lacked the brains to support and aggrandizement in
th in g to be thought of, but that it weather for any particular place, think for yourself. Some knave (piasi-idleness and domination.
has probably never been thought of. Yet it may be questioned which of , has told you that his intellection
I he philosophy of the church
A science is a great complex these two sciences is the more use- “transcended” yours, and you have has transcended the knowledge of
subject composed of many subor- bd to man. There has always been fool enough to believe it, the laity; its ceremonies and ob­
dinate or component subjects, and ls*en a large num ber who deny while he has taken your purse servances have transcended their
these latter may, by the proper t h a t h i s t o r y is a science. Among first, and your life afterwards, if spiritual needs; while its demand
effort, be arranged in logical, i. e., t h e s e a r e historians, such as you failed to go at a “two-forty” for “tithes” has transcended their
causal order, and the science taught Froude, and historical economists gait in his direction.which involved rights of property. If it is sug­
in this order. A treatise on any like Dilthey. Some even who be­ his riding and your walking. This gested that the writer having like-
science is easy or hard in propor­ lieve in sociology and teach it, is conceded to be the case as to the ened the church to an old grand­
tion as this is done. The work of think that it differs generically hundreds of other faiths except m other is hardly polite in taking
a methodical investigator can be in this respect from other sciences. our own, which admission is quite such liberties with her name, it
instantly distinguished by this Dr. Ludwig Stein, for example, enough for a rationalist as to the may be answered, that he is sup­
mark. A large proportion of the m aintains that we can only arrive general tru th of the proposition. posed to except his own ecclesi­
scientific specialists in all depart at probability or moral certainty, Will it always be thus? Perhaps astical grandm other, and only in­
ments are innocent of the use o and that there are no laws, only not in some favored place and in clude the ninety and nine other
some far off time.
method. They plunge into their rules.
grandm others, not of his own fam­
subject at any point and treat those
Of all the words in the language ily. As thus explained, every
SCIENCE A N D “ B E L IE F ” —
subjects first that first present
which have cursed life and intelli spiritist will agree to it, This
themselves, regardless of order or
gence of every grade the wort disengenuousness we learned from
Faith
and
the
Transcendental.
of the relation of parts. Such
transcend surpasses them all in the theologues. They assume their
work, however able, is difficult to
infamy. This metaphysic of al own religion to be the only true
BY .7. K. HAYWARD.
use and entails great effort on al
others has been the Iliad of un­ one, no m atter how »mall a speck
who labor in their field. Once, in
Note as a co n trast to the learning, utterable woes. Transcend means on the atlas of faith, nor how feeble
conversation with Prof. .Joseph Le
style and m ethod of Prof. W ard, we som ething beyond the conceivable a flame in the light of reason. All
I a" d eTO-> the would-be intelligent other faiths are “senseless,” “hea­
Conte some years before his death
I spoke of his continued fruitful
ward’s “ R ebuttal of S p iritism ,” ju st lack sense to realize that it is only thenish,” “superstitious,” “debas­
o
u t (P eter E ckler, Publisher, N. Y.
c o n tra d ic tio n o f t e r m s to w -
labors and asked him if he was able
Price 82.) Notice our E ditorial on | a conlraGiction ot terms (oxy- ing,” and “cruel.” This is the
to accomplish as much as when he the T ranscendental.—[E d . T orch .
moron), in other words, positing language of a cult always wrong­
was younger. He replied that he
F aith has been said to be “be-1 som ething as known beyond the fully aggressive concerning others
could accomplish more, because lief in things we know to be un- knowable. If this only concerned never so.
what he might have lost in strength true.” At any rate, it is belief in metaphysics, it would m atter less,
When we informed our friend
and endurance was more than what we do not know to be fact. but it concerns life at every point from Saturn, that of all the people
made up in method.
In other words, it is subjective Religion is treated as transcendent, whom God had created to worship
The need of method increases truth in contradistinction from OB- an<l this transcendence has been him, not one in ten ever heard his
with the complexity of a science. JECTIVE fact. McCosh’s definition the excuse for sucking the life- name, he smiled and said that it
Sociology, as the most complex of boiled down amounts to this: that blood out of society since the dawn was unkind to criticise intellection
all the sciences, has the greatest faith is belief in hearsay rather
spiritism . The church purports so near the border line of idiocy.
need of it. In the first place it is than in memorized or present cog-1 to have inform ation, which tran-
No Beer B o ttle C o m m un io n .
necessary to recognize that it is a nition. Faith of the highest de- scends positive knowledge, that is,
science. Very few seem to treat gree is the result of epileptoidism. I sensuous knowledge, and pray
There was another hopeful sign
it as if it was a true science, and It is traditionary from the nature iwliat knowledge have we other
the sociologists themselves are of the case. When spirits where i than that? Caspar H auser is the about one of the late meetings that
largely responsible for the opinion in vogue it was normal, but now i nearest approach to a genuine in ­ came in the dispatches from H ar­
that so widely prevails that soci­ hat they are exorcised, it is a hold- tuitionist I wot of, and what did risburg, Pa. The German Bap-
ology is not a science. A true over. There are two grades of he know when dropped in the ists were in convention there, and
• science is a field of phenomena faith, static and exstatic; the for- streets of N urem burg. W hy did hey solemnly decided that it was
occurring in regular order as the mer is inherited, while the latter his “insight” functionate to so against religion and good order to
effects of natural or efficient causes, las no new dogma, but reproduces little advantage, while growing up ieep the communion wine in beer
Kittles. So the world moves—it
such that a knowledge of the he old, that is, that of the envir- iin his lonely cell?
causes renders it possible to predict onment. I)r. Stokes' converts at
The Germans who fought Caesar •annot stop. There is change and
the effects. The causes are always )cean Grove are never Buddhists were not troubled with religious ransformation everywhere, but
natural forces that obey the New­ nor U nitarians, nor even Roman- scruples, neither were those who here is no loss—nothing is de­
tonian laws of motion. The order ists, but always orthodox in lia r-1 captured Paris in 1870; but what stroyed. God is not offended;
in which the phenom ena occur mony with their epileptoidal en- a record between these two periods! N ature does not despair. All that
constitutes the law that govern vironment, according to the laws W hy was it necessary for a race las ever been to make genius, or
the science. These laws must be of suggestion . The faith of the em erging from barbarism to go ability, or prophetic zeal; all the
studied until they are understood, crowd “in situ ” controls the creed through twenty centuries of such power that ever was to write bibles
the same as the laws o f gravitation, of the novice. This is a neuro-j useless ceremonies, such idiotic or formulate religions is in the
heat, light, etc., in physics have logical law, which rebuts F r e e ' metaphysics, such cruel anti ig- world still. It is not a world grow­
been studied.
Will. In so much, Neurology is a nominious proselytism ? The rea- ing poorer every day, poorer in
In sociology there is a disposi­ science. Faith is unable to reason, son is inscrutable on any theory, potency, in inspiration, in daring
tion to deny that there are any and brings in no new thought, but but that of haphazard. It could and in power; it is the old world
such laws,forces, or efficient causes. rests content with the old. T h e , hardly have been designed to ex­ leld and guided as from eternity
There are always paradoxers in all subordination of society to faith ploit Romanism and the Luther- jy the shaping hand of the Infinite,
we sometimes call N ature and some-
sciences, but in social science it is is now only less reprehensible than ism. to reach Agnosticism. How imes God.—[D r. J. E. Roberts.
xa