New views on old subjects, social, scientific and political

Part I

In this volume it has been my chief aim to keep alive what I have already presented in other works and to have my readers treasure up and remember what I have all along considered to be most valuable and serviceable truths. I have never felt inclined to argue with my readers. I am not fond of controversies — besides, I always bear in mind how difficult, and how utterly impossible in practice it is to make people see and understand what they do not wish to see and do not care to understand. I am not fond of making converts, and whether others decide to see things as I see them or do not, never gives me the slightest concern. Whether people believe or do not believe, I have always considered it to be their matter rather than mine. I have always regarded it as my prerogative to believe as I please, and why should I not be willing to grant to others the same privilege! I might remark that I have taken great pains and I have gone to considerable expense in various ways and at different times, to return to the world the light that had been given to me; and having done this to the best of my ability, it has seemed to me that there, so far as the public is concerned, my obligations end.

Whether I shall have due credit or not for what I have said and done is a trifling matter hardly worth considering. Such things are never equitably adjusted in the affairs of this world. There is a great deal of chance, and sometimes there is artifice, in manipulating the scales when reputations are weighed. Some men get too much credit, and others not enough. However, the world goes round just as well in either case. It is some satisfaction, it may be added, to have people know what we have said, even if no thanks are rendered.

No writer is ever permitted to know at last just what impression he has made upon the public, or how far his doctrines have been accepted or followed by his readers. , That is one satisfaction that is denied necessarily to all authors, simply because this fact which they would most like to know is one that is not ascertainable. It is something that cannot be measured or defined, and therefore it can never be individualized. But a writer is generally able to perceive what progress has been made, and is still being made in the world, by the doctrines which perhaps he has himself long advocated and to the study of which his whole life has been mainly devoted. And that is the very happy and consoling experience of the author of this book.

In my first work, published in Errors of 185g j took for consideration and

Grammar. 7 *

discussion the "Errors of Grammar. ' The study of grammar at that time, a full half century ago, received some attention in schools, but when the writers themselves had such crude notions of language and its office, how could we expect the teachers and pupils in the schools of that day to make any more satisfactory progress than they did ? The prevailing system followed at that time was the one found in Kirkham 's Grammar, a work based mainly on Murray 's Grammar, a wellknown English production of that period. This was followed by Brown's Grammar, a larger and more complete work than Kirkham 's, but not essentially different from it in theory and plan. The first grammar in which a new departure was taken in this country was that of Professor Clark, of Cortland, N. Y.

According to Murray's system, Kirkham's adop ted by Kirkham, words were

Grammar. r 17 . , ' , .

treated as material things, instead of being as they really are, simply developments of thoughts and mere signs of things. The nomenclature of grammar fifty years ago, and for a long period before and after, gave striking evidence of the materialistic view of language that was accepted by the scholars and writers of that day. The words of a sentence were treated as separate and distinct individuals. They were " parsed' ' by the pupils of that early time — a very amusing pastime to say the least. There were objective oases and nominative cases; there were transitive and intransitive verbs; there were indicative and subjunctive moods, and an imperative mood besides. Words were tacked or pasted upon other words, and thus we had what are called adjectives ; there were interjections, or words thrown in, and conjunctions, by which words were tied or joined together.

When we come to examine the Ex^stonT g rammars of early days, we find, in the definitions given, such language as the following: ' i Nouns have three genders/ 9 when it is known that animals alone have gender, and usually there is but one gender to one animal. Again, ' ' Person is a property that varies the verb." How does it vary the verb? Can any word, can anything be varied? 4 4 The objective case expresses the object of an action or relation. 9 9 How does it express anything of the kind 1 Do words have any expression? "An adverb is a word used to modify the sense of a verb. 9 9 But it it well known that no word can restrict or modify the meaning of another word. And still the imagination runs on, and language as absurd as this, on all subjects, is being written and published every day. Of course when people start on the basis of a wrong belief, the farther they proceed, the deeper in error they find themselves at last.

"Errors of Grammar" presented

a New a LigM. lan g ua £ e in a new li % ht A sentence was treated as a simple growth, a complete whole, and words were conceived to be mere signs of ideas, as they really are. What the sentence expresses is one idea, or thought, and not as many ideas as it happens to contain words. This conception of language was comparatively new at that time, but it is coming to be accepted very generally as the true one at the present day. However, the study of language, or of the philosophy of language, does not receive the attention that it deserves even to-day, either in Europe or America, and hence, speaking comparatively, the advancement made in this department of literature is limited. As has been so often observed, this is a commercial age, and what progress could we expect in the philosophy of language at such a time as this?

About the time that "Errors of New views Grammar" appeared, or a little ear-

of Truth. .

lier, an article was published in the New York Teacher giving the writer's views of Truth. The position which was then taken, and which is still held by him, is that truth is not eternal, but merely for the time being; that it is not general in its nature, but is largely local in its habitat; that what is truth for one people is not necessarily truth for other people living in other lands; that it is something that changes even for the same people at certain periods in their history; that truth is not something to contend over, but something to inquire into and to endeavor to understand; that truth, finally, is a matter of mere opinion and belief, and that what people think and come to believe is wholly a personal affair of theirs, with which other people have no right to meddle in any manner or at any time. I am glad to note that this view of truth is getting to be very common among thinking and reflecting men at the present day. If we read the current literature of the day, containing our advanced thought as a nation, we shall find that there is a growing tendency to form new conceptions of truth. The belief in everlasting truth is visibly waning. The truth that intelligent people believe in nowadays is sensible truth, truth that is at the same time rational and beneficial. People now do not rely so much upon authority as they do upon their own good judgment. A new name that has developed of late has come to be applied to those who are accustomed to view truth in a new light. They are called "Pragmatists." Most of them seem to accept Max Stirner's view that "My truth is the truth"; or, in other words, what I believe and what seems good for me, is my truth.

Some fifty years ago or more, my Aurora views on the true source of Northern

Boreahs.

Lights were first published. Those views attracted no great amount of attention, for the reason that people then, as they are now, were so busy with their own affairs that they had no time to consider the true origin of what is commonly known as the Aurora Borealis. An unfounded explanation, as often happens, would seemingly answer all purposes quite as well as one that was based upon fact, and so, as it appears to be more convenient all around, the unfounded theory has come to be generally accepted in this instance as the true one. Not only in this case, but in all the affairs of everyday life, the easy and comfortable career of fiction is usually preferred to one that requires more labor and greater sacrifice. Fiction and falsehood comes unsolicited and it demands no effort; while to attain the exact truth implies both inquiry and exertion.

As to the Aurora in question, it has been commonly supposed to be due to electricity or magnetism — but just how or why, has never yet been satisfactorily explained. However, as it was not easy to prove such a thing true, it was also difficult to prove that it was false, and so the matter has remained unsettled down to the present moment. In the theory advanced by myself, it was assumed that the auroral display was due chiefly to light and shadows thrown upon the sky, after the sun had sunk below the horizon.

In the first place, auroras properly so-called are seen only at night, when the sun has set, or is setting, and when its light strikes the upper atmosphere, being reflected finally from the under surfaces of clouds. It will be remembered that the clouds reflect light like a mirror, and at the same time uniformly cast shadows like all opaque bodies. The Northern Lights move and maneuver like shadows, and that is clearly what they are — light and shadows combined, the sun, from which the light emanates, being at rest, and the clouds, which cast the shadows and reflect the light, being usually in motion. These lights and shadows are observed mostly in the early evening, while the sun is not far below the horizon and there is more or less twilight. As a phenomenon, they are most striking in the Arctic regions, where the sun is never far below the horizon. This is the view of the phenomenon that I formed many years since, and I have never had the slightest reason to doubt its correctness. It is my view still. The phenomenon has nothing more to do with electricity and magnetism than the sun's light has ordinarily.

It will be remembered that peo-

really believed in witches and witchcraft for hundreds of years ; indeed, they believed in some kind of sorcery till they took it into their heads to believe in something different. People as a rule pay little attention to reason — they simply take a notion, and that is all. And many people, quite intelligent people, believe in demons and sorcery still. Is it an uncommon thing for truth to make slow progress in this world? Is it really any wonder that people generally fall back upon electricity and magnetism, of which they really know nothing, when they wish to explain mysterious things and they can think of nothing more plausible ? This is akin to the habit of attributing everything to God, of whom again nobody knows anything. No doubt it will be some centuries yet before the people — the great mass of people — come to see what a simple and natural phenomenon the Aurora Borealis actually is. Any one thing in this world is just as simple as another, if you only understand it. It is easy to do any trick — if you know how — and it is just as easy to lift a ton as it is to lift fifty pounds, if you only have the strength. There is no radical difference in things any way.

Everybody knows that it is not such a great while since superstitious people were frightened at the appearance of an eclipse. Many nice, sensible people to-day would not be one of a party of thirteen for anything! Something awful would be sure to happen, for thirteen is generally reckoned to be a fatal number. To make the venture safe, great pains would always be taken to make the number either one more or one less — anything but thirteen ! Do you see ?

The subject that gave me most The Rehgious concern a ft er reaching mature age,

Question. 1 ° ° '

and even before, and to which I turned my most serious thoughts and devoted attention, was the religious question. Of course in my youth, like all good little boys, I took the course as it was served up to me. Literally, I swallowed everything that was set before me. I read my catechism, I learned verses in the Bible, I went to Sabbath School, as everybody that is anybody is supposed to do in his younger days. Indeed, I had the full benefit of religious instruction — there can be no question on that matter. I read Pilgrim's Progress, Baxter's Saint's Eest, and books of that order. They were in my father's library, and were almost the only books that I could find in the family mansion. Of course there was a Bible and a hymn book, but that is implied. I listened to what the pastor said, and I remembered what my earnest Christian parents taught me. Pious people were quite common in those days — but that is a good many years ago. I really believed there was a God — somewhere in the wilderness, or in the clouds above. I believed that he was good to good people and bad to the other kind always; and for that reason I uniformly tried to be as good as I possibly could be, under the circumstances. I wanted to be on the safe side, and that is the natural desire of almost everybody, even at this late and very advanced period of the world. Nobody knows exactly what might happen, especially when he reached the other side of Jordan. If he had an honorable discharge, he would naturally want to show it, and therefore he should have it with him.

I do certainly think that religion ^^ g y is a good thing, particularly for people

in the early stages of their existence. After people pass their childhood days, perhaps it does not make so much difference. When people do not happen to know much, it is a good plan to place themselves under the protection and follow the guidance of some one who really does know something. But when people become older, and perhaps wiser withal, it is natural to begin to look around and see if they cannot find an opportunity to start business on their own account. That is the way I did, and I am willing to recommend the plan. Such a course is good for almost any one, especially one with an inquiring mind. There is nothing quite so nice as to have a will and a way of our own, even if there are some people with a will and a way that is presumably better than ours.

However, it might be remembered, that when a person becomes older and feels strong enough to assert his manhood at all times, he will find that he has little use for either God or the Bible. They will not help him in an emergency to any great extent ; two or three thousand years ago they might, but we are speaking about matters in the twentieth century. We can find plenty of chances to help the Lord at any time, but when it comes to the question of the Lord's helping us in return, that is another thing entirely. I have heard a great deal about the Lord's helping people, but while I have lived to a good age, with quite a varied experience, I have never yet seen or heard of a single well authenticated case of the Lord's helping anybody.

The old Romans had household

Gods eh ° ld goc * s * n abidance (spelled with a small g), but they found them a great burden. They had to be fed, the gods did, and they had to be worshipped. They demanded a world of care and attention, often when it was quite inconvenient — and finally, wherever the family went, like Mary's lamb, the household gods were sure to go! This was merely a custom that prevailed two or three thousand years ago, and the people thought they were in duty bound to follow it to the letter. Like so many others, they wanted to be on the safe side, wherever that might be. But they made a great mistake and wasted a deal of time and patience — to say nothing of the animals slaughtered for the sacrifices. It is worthy of notice that people do not have any household gods now; they seldom or never read the Holy Book; they do not keep the fire burning on the family altar — in fact, they do not have any family altar to begin with. And yet, seemingly, things go along just as well as they did in old Roman times, when as history informs us, the people were abnormally devoted to the gods. They had the gods, as we have the poor, with them always.

What is the use of worshipping

Worshipping Qod and going tQ the Church> and

making sacrifices daily, when evidently it is not productive of the slightest good? I do not see any use — though others may. However, that is exclusively their affair. I shall not undertake to dictate, should any question arise on this point. I like to see people have their own way. Indeed, I like to have my own way myself, occasionally at least.

For many long years, both in R^ii^on 11 print and out of print, I have spoken

very plainly and pertinently on this very important topic. I have uniformly spoken the truth on the subject, as I aim to do on all topics, and now when I am very near the close of a long life, I have not one word to retract nor any statement to modify of all that I have said or written in this connection. People cannot help what they believe, I admit that, and I am sure I cannot help what I believe. Of course, I am not certain that I am right on this matter, but I am as sure as I care to be. I have from my youth down to the present studied this question in all its bearings, and I have finally reached conclusions that satisfy me, if they do not satisfy any one else.

I am glad to note that there has Remarkable been a remarkable change in the

Change. . .

sentiments of people within the last twenty-five years on this great problem of God, Christianity and the Bible. We have, it is true, the Bible still, but it is by no means the sacred book that it was formerly. It is not an inspired volume in any extraordinary or unnatural sense. A few people turn to it occasionally, and even then it is more for diversion than instruction. The Church has ceased to be the house of God, the holy temple. It has become a place merely of rest, recreation and enjoyment. The short sermon is eminently perfunctory; but usually the exercises are varied and interesting. Even the Sabbath can hardly be called the Lord's day, as things are now. The minister himself has to a certain extent been affected by the spirit of the age. His sermon is not only brief but harmless. He is careful uniformly to wound nobody's feelings. Things that were the burden of his prayer in other days are not even mentioned now. He sends nobody to Hell, and he turns no one from the Church door. He finds that the Church is in constant need of pecuniary assistance, and a small contribution from the heathen is just as acceptable as if it came from the hands of some professing Christian. A moderate donation in the way of help to the Church is known to cover a multitude of sins. The subject of saving men's souls is one that is never mentioned, under the new order of things. Every man is expected to make his salvation his own private affair, and the idea undoubtedly is a good one. But, really, what are churches for, under the new dispensation? This In this commercial age, when all

commercial the interest there is in any project lies Age - in "what there is in it," people seem

to find very little use for God. Naturally enough, the God of other days, whom our fathers knew and worshipped, is now very much out of date, and people are busy trying to hunt up some suitable substitute. It is hard indeed for any people to get along for any great length of time without having some thing or some being to idolize. People, even grown people, always continue to be children on many points. They are of a very loving disposition and they are most happy when they find something to embrace. The bump of reverence is the most important bump on most people's heads. They must have somebody to love and adore, somebody to fear, somebody to protect them, some one to lean upon for safety and support.

No, people want a God — but it is

Wanted a HeW ^ ev are after just

now, a young God, a popular and talented God, and a fashionable and up-to-date God withal. Of course people will be some little time looking after just such a God. There are not many in market. Ten chances to one, if the critics should happen to come across the right God, they would not be able to recognize him. People are so absurdly particular, and so very hard to suit! Old Eome, and old Greece, had gods (small g) by the thousands and thousands, but it is very doubtful if they had one who would meet the wishes of our church-goers at the present day. Even if we accepted a goddess in place of our Supreme Euler — Venus, Juno or Diana for instance — we do not believe it would be ten days before the Church would be clamoring for a divorce, on the ground of incompatibility of temper! Venus would be too handsome, Juno too much of a scold, Diana too fond of hunting, and so on throughout the list. It would not do at all to have a goddess. I apprehend things will settle down at last, and people will decide to keep the God they have, for some little time at least. Anti _ What is most remarkable about

Religious this religious, or rather anti-religious, sentiment. movement to which we have been referring, is that it is not confined to any one country, though of course there is less of it to be noticed in Catholic and Mahometan countries than in others. There is a strong and rapidly increasing anti-religious sentiment in America, and one still stronger and much better developed in Germany. England is perhaps less inclined to be revolutionary on religious creeds than France,

IS but the English as a rule, since they abandoned Catholicism, have never seemed to take Christianity very seriously, especially for every-day use. As a rule, the English consider it a good idea to be enrolled on the books of the established church, not because it is the Lord's church, but because it is the King's church. In France, religious sentiment never gets far below the surface, and many of the best thinkers of the country have an idea that the best religion a man can have after all is simply no religion at all. For at least a hundred years or over, the people of France have not been noted by any means for their love of piety.

In countries where people think German most, and where they are most in-

Sentiment. 7 . J

clmed to have views of their own, we shall always find the smallest evidence of a devotional spirit. This is especially true of the Germans. In their country we find the greatest number of industrious students and profound thinkers, and there, in Germany, we shall find infidelity in its most positive form. The Germans began long since to study the subject of religion from the standpoint of the critic — not as a source of redemption or as a means of saving their souls, but as a natural growth and development which had its origin exclusively in the mind of man. If the reader is anxious to learn the most advanced views on the subject of religion, he would be most apt to find what he was searching for in some late German work like that of Hartmann. The Germans take hold of a question of philosophy or history as no other people do. They uniformly go to the bottom in their investigations, and the statements they make can be relied on. They take hold of a problem as if they are in earnest, and in order to reach the true solution, they spare neither time nor effort.

The results attained by late German authors in the field of religious inquiry are quite remarkable, and they have attracted the attention of thinking men throughout the civilized world. That the trend of German thought is and long has been in the direction of unbelief, admits of no question. Even those Germans who keep up the form of religion do so in a half-hearted way that indicates unmistakably that they have no great interest in the business. They give to God a more ethereal or vapory character than formerly, and they are constantly removing him farther and farther from the abodes of man. To the Bible they give a new interpretation, and as a book it has come to be treated like any ordinary product of the human brain.

In 1907, in order to ascertain ^ 07 more definitely the sentiments of the

leading German thinkers on this religious problem, a circular was sent out with a set of questions formulated with a view to ascertaining the position of these thinking men on the leading religious questions of the day. There were eighty answers received, and these were subsequently published in book form, under the title of "Beligious Instruction — Eighty opinions.' ' These thinkers were nearly unanimous in the opinion that Christianity had no claims to being an ' ' absolute' ' religion. It is merely one of the creeds, among the many creeds of the day. According to the views of these men, Christ takes a place among the heroes, teachers and reformers of the world. They deny the claim that Christianity should be regarded as a religion of redemption. They discard the doctrines of Christian self-denial and self-sacrifice. In their opinion, the world should be taken as it is, and people must simply make the best of it. Instead of continually sacrificing for others, they believe that it is the best way for each one to sacrifice for himself. In their view, religion is not something to be taught and learned, but something to be felt and experienced. Finally, according to the replies under consideration, 44 The dogmas of Christianity are to a large extent a contradiction of the modern researches of natural science. ' '

Following a radical change in our religious belief, we must necessarily have a corresponding change on all other questions, and particularly in our views on social, moral and political problems. Religious belief is always fundamental. The belief which a man has formed in regard to God, Christ and the Bible, determines to a very large extent what he shall believe on other questions, especially those of a moral or political nature. If we believe in a God who is not only a father, but a lord over us, we should naturally carry out this idea of a master in all the affairs of life. And this is precisely what we have done. We have kings and rulers simply because we have a God. If God is a monarch, he must have instruments, he must have satraps and vicegerents, as kings always have, and such instruments are uniformly ordinary men.

People having lost their faith in Less Faith q q a as a master and protector, natu-

in Kings. , r

rally lose faith also m governors and kings. The divine right of masters is an idea that is pretty generally discarded now by intelligent men both in Europe and America. For many long years I have written and published against the right of any one man to be the master of other men under any possible conditions. I have denied not only the right of one man to rule another, but I also deny most emphatically any one's right to judge or condemn another; and likewise I deny his right to torture and punish another, whether in accordance with law or against law. I have no high regard for law in any form, no matter whence it emanates. An act may be legitimate, and still be decidedly improper. It is time for people to cease worshipping law, or those rather who make law for their own use and convenience. Law is simply the measure of some man's power, or of the power of some political party. It has nothing at all to do with right or justice in the yyroper sense of the terms. As a rule, in practice,