How to Reform Mankind
There is no darkness but ignorance.

by Robert G. Ingersoll
(1896)

From The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll (Dresden Edition, 1900–1902), Volume 4.
Source: https://thegreatagnostic.com/works/how-to-reform-mankind/
Public domain. CC0 / Public Domain Mark 1.0.

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• This address was delivered before the Militant Church at
    the Columbia Theatre, Chicago, Ills., April 12, 1896.

I.

"THERE is no darkness but ignorance." Every human being is a necessary
product of conditions, and every one is born with defects for which
he cannot be held responsible. Nature seems to care nothing for the
individual, nothing for the species.

Life pursuing life and in its turn pursued by death, presses to the snow
line of the possible, and every form of life, of instinct, thought and
action is fixed and determined by conditions, by countless antecedent
and co-existing facts. The present is the child, and the necessary
child, of all the past, and the mother of all the future.

Every human being longs to be happy, to satisfy the wants of the body
with food, with roof and raiment, and to feed the hunger of the mind,
according to his capacity, with love, wisdom, philosophy, art and song.

The wants of the savage are few; but with civilization the wants of the
body increase, the intellectual horizon widens and the brain demands
more and more.

The savage feels, but scarcely thinks. The passion of the savage is
uninfluenced by his thought, while the thought of the philosopher is
uninfluenced by passion. Children have wants and passions before they
are capable of reasoning. So, in the infancy of the race, wants and
passions dominate.

The savage was controlled by appearances, by impressions; he was
mentally weak, mentally indolent, and his mind pursued the path of least
resistance. Things were to him as they appeared to be. He was a natural
believer in the supernatural, and, finding himself beset by dangers and
evils, he sought in many ways the aid of unseen powers. His children
followed his example, and for many ages, in many lands, millions and
millions of human beings, many of them the kindest and the best, asked
for supernatural help. Countless altars and temples have been built,
and the supernatural has been worshiped with sacrifice and song, with
self-denial, ceremony, thankfulness and prayer.

During all these ages, the brain of man was being slowly and painfully
developed. Gradually mind came to the assistance of muscle, and thought
became the friend of labor. Man has advanced just in the proportion that
he has mingled thought with his work, just in the proportion that he has
succeeded in getting his head and hands into partnership. All this was
the result of experience.

Nature, generous and heartless, extravagant and miserly as she is, is
our mother and our only teacher, and she is also the deceiver of men.
Above her we cannot rise, below her we cannot fall. In her we find
the seed and soil of all that is good, of all that is evil. Nature
originates, nourishes, preserves and destroys.

Good deeds bear fruit, and in the fruit are seeds that in their turn
bear fruit and seeds. Great thoughts are never lost, and words of
kindness do not perish from the earth.

Every brain is a field where nature sows the seeds of thought, and the
crop depends upon the soil.

Every flower that gives its fragrance to the wandering air leaves
its influence on the soul of man. The wheel and swoop of the winged
creatures of the air suggest the flowing lines of subtle art. The
roar and murmur of the restless sea, the cataract's solemn chant, the
thunder's voice, the happy babble of the brook, the whispering leaves,
the thrilling notes of mating birds, the sighing winds, taught man to
pour his heart in song and gave a voice to grief and hope, to love and
death.

In all that is, in mountain range and billowed plain, in winding stream
and desert sand, in cloud and star, in snow and rain, in calm and storm,
in night and day, in woods and vales, in all the colors of divided
light, in all there is of growth and life, decay and death, in all that
flies and floats and swims, in all that moves, in all the forms and
qualities of things, man found the seeds and symbols of his thoughts;
and all that man has wrought becomes a part of nature's self, forming
the lives of those to be. The marbles of the Greeks, like strains of
music, suggest the perfect, and teach the melody of life. The great
poems, paintings, inventions, theories and philosophies, enlarge
and mould the mind of man. All that is is natural. All is naturally
produced. Beyond the horizon of the natural man cannot go.

Yet, for many ages, man in all directions has relied upon, and sincerely
believed in, the existence of the supernatural. He did not believe in
the uniformity of nature; he had no conception of cause and effect, of
the indestructibility of force.

In medicine he believed in charms, magic, amulets, and incantations. It
never occurred to the savage that diseases were natural.

In chemistry he sought for the elixir of life, for the philosopher's
stone, and for some way of changing the baser metals into gold.

In mechanics he searched for perpetual motion, believing that he, by
some curious combinations of levers, could produce, could create a
force.

In government, he found the source of authority in the will of the
supernatural.

For many centuries his only conception of morality was the idea of
obedience, not to facts as they exist in nature, but to the supposed
command of some being superior to nature. During all these years
religion consisted in the praise and worship of the invisible and
infinite, of some vast and incomprehensible power, that is to say, of
the supernatural.

By experience, by experiment, possibly by accident, man found that some
diseases could be cured by natural means; that he could be relieved in
many instances of pain by certain kinds of leaves or bark.

This was the beginning. Gradually his confidence increased in the
direction of the natural, and began to decrease in charms and amulets,
The war was waged for many centuries, but the natural gained the
victory. Now we know that all diseases are naturally produced, and that
all remedies, all curatives, act in accordance with the facts in nature.
Now we know that charms, magic, amulets and incantations are just
as useless in the practice of medicine as they would be in solving
a problem in mathematics. We now know that there are no supernatural
remedies.

In chemistry the war was long and bitter; but we now no longer seek
for the elixir of life, and no one is trying to find the philosopher's
stone. We are satisfied that there is nothing supernatural in all the
realm of chemistry. We know that substances are always true to their
natures; we know that just so many atoms of one substance will
unite with just so many of another. The miraculous has departed from
chemistry; in that science there is no magic, no caprice and no possible
use for the supernatural. We are satisfied that there can be no change,
that we can absolutely rely on the uniformity of nature; that the
attraction of gravitation will always remain the same; and we feel
that we know this as certainly as we know that the relation between the
diameter and circumference of a circle can never change.

We now know that in mechanics the natural is supreme. We know that man
can by no possibility create a force; that by no possibility can he
destroy a force. No mechanic dreams of depending upon or asking for
any supernatural aid. He knows that he works in accordance with certain
facts that no power can change.

So we in the United States believe that the authority to govern, the
authority to make and execute laws, comes from the consent of the
governed and not from any supernatural source. We do not believe that
the king occupied his throne because of the will of the supernatural.
Neither do we believe that others are subjects or serfs or slaves by
reason of any supernatural will.

So, our ideas of morality have changed, and millions now believe that
whatever produces happiness and well-being is in the highest sense
moral. Unreasoning obedience is not the foundation or the essence of
morality. That is the result of mental slavery. To act in accordance
with obligation perceived is to be free and noble. To simply obey is to
practice what might be called a slave virtue; but real morality is the
flower and fruit of liberty and wisdom.

There are very many who have reached the conclusion that the
supernatural has nothing to do with real religion. Religion does not
consist in believing without evidence or against evidence. It does not
consist in worshiping the unknown or in trying to do something for the
Infinite. Ceremonies, prayers and inspired books, miracles, special
providence, and divine interference all belong to the supernatural and
form no part of real religion.

Every science rests on the natural, on demonstrated facts. So, morality
and religion must find their foundations in the necessary nature of
things.

II. How Can We Reform the World?

IGNORANCE being darkness, what we need is intellectual light. The most
important things to teach, as the basis of all progress, are that the
universe is natural; that man must be the providence of man; that, by
the development of the brain, we can avoid some of the dangers, some of
the evils, overcome some of the obstructions, and take advantage of some
of the facts and forces of nature; that, by invention and industry,
we can supply, to a reasonable degree, the wants of the body, and by
thought, study and effort, we can in part satisfy the hunger of the
mind.

Man should cease to expect any aid from any supernatural source. By this
time he should be satisfied that worship has not created wealth, and
that prosperity is not the child of prayer. He should know that the
supernatural has not succored the oppressed, clothed the naked, fed
the hungry, shielded the innocent, stayed the pestilence, or freed the
slave.

Being satisfied that the supernatural does not exist, man should turn
his entire attention to the affairs of this world, to the facts in
nature.

And, first of all, he should avoid waste—waste of energy, waste of
wealth. Every good man, every good woman, should try to do away with
war, to stop the appeal to savage force. Man in a savage state relies
upon his strength, and decides for himself what is right and what is
wrong. Civilized men do not settle their differences by a resort to
arms. They submit the quarrel to arbitrators and courts. This is the
great difference between the savage and the civilized. Nations, however,
sustain the relations of savages to each other. There is no way of
settling their disputes. Each nation decides for itself, and each
nation endeavors to carry its decision into effect. This produces war.
Thousands of men at this moment are trying to invent more deadly weapons
to destroy their fellow-men. For eighteen hundred years peace has been
preached, and yet the civilized nations are the most warlike of the
world. There are in Europe to-day between eleven and twelve millions of
soldiers, ready to take the field, and the frontiers of every civilized
nation are protected by breastwork and fort. The sea is covered with
steel clad ships, filled with missiles of death.

The civilized world has impoverished itself, and the debt of
Christendom, mostly for war, is now nearly thirty thousand million
dollars. The interest on this vast sum has to be paid; it has to be paid
by labor, much of it by the poor, by those who are compelled to deny
themselves almost the necessities of life. This debt is growing year by
year. There must come a change, or Christendom will become bankrupt.

The interest on this debt amounts at least to nine hundred million
dollars a year; and the cost of supporting armies and navies, of
repairing ships, of manufacturing new engines of death, probably
amounts, including the interest on the debt, to at least six million
dollars a day. Allowing ten hours for a day, that is for a working day,
the waste of war is at least six hundred thousand dollars an hour, that
is to say, ten thousand dollars a minute.

Think of all this being paid for the purpose of killing and preparing to
kill our fellow-men. Think of the good that could be done with this vast
sum of money; the schools that could be built, the wants that could
be supplied. Think of the homes it would build, the children it would
clothe.

If we wish to do away with war, we must provide for the settlement of
national differences by an international court. This court should be
in perpetual session; its members should be selected by the various
governments to be affected by its decisions, and, at the command and
disposal of this court, the rest of Christendom being disarmed, there
should be a military force sufficient to carry its judgments into
effect. There should be no other excuse, no other business for an army
or a navy in the civilized world.

No man has imagination enough to paint the agonies, the horrors and
cruelties of war. Think of sending shot and shell crashing through the
bodies of men! Think of the widows and orphans! Think of the maimed, the
mutilated, the mangled!

III. Another Waste.

LET us be perfectly candid with each other. We are seeking the truth,
trying to find what ought to be done to increase the well-being of man.
I must give you my honest thought. You have the right to demand it, and
I must maintain the integrity of my soul.

There is another direction in which the wealth and energies of man are
wasted. From the beginning of history until now man has been seeking the
aid of the supernatural. For many centuries the wealth of the world was
used to propitiate the unseen powers. In our own country, the property
dedicated to this purpose is worth at least one thousand million
dollars. The interest on this sum is fifty million dollars a year, and
the cost of employing persons, whose business it is to seek the aid
of the supernatural and to maintain the property, is certainly as much
more. So that the cost in our country is about two million dollars a
week, and, counting ten hours as a working day, this amounts to about
five hundred dollars a minute.

For this vast amount of money the returns are remarkably small. The good
accomplished does not appear to be great. There is no great diminution
in crime. The decrease of immorality and poverty is hardly perceptible.
In spite, however, of the apparent failure here, a vast sum of money
is expended every year to carry our ideas of the supernatural to other
races. Our churches, for the most part, are closed during the week,
being used only a part of one day in seven. No one wishes to destroy
churches or church organizations. The only desire is that they shall
accomplish substantial good for the world. In many of our small
towns—towns of three or four thousand people—will be found four
or five churches, sometimes more. These churches are founded upon
immaterial differences; a difference as to the mode of baptism; a
difference as to who shall be entitled to partake of the Lord's
supper; a difference of ceremony; of government; a difference about
fore-ordination; a difference about fate and free will. And it must be
admitted that all the arguments on all sides of these differences have
been presented countless millions of times. Upon these subjects nothing
new is produced or anticipated, and yet the discussion is maintained by
the repetition of the old arguments.

Now, it seems to me that it would be far better for the people of a
town, having a population of four or five thousand, to have one church,
and the edifice should be of use, not only on Sunday, but on every day
of the week. In this building should be the library of the town.
It should be the clubhouse of the people, where they could find the
principal newspapers and periodicals of the world. Its auditorium
should be like a theatre. Plays should be presented by home talent; an
orchestra formed, music cultivated. The people should meet there at any
time they desire. The women could carry their knitting and sewing; and
connected with it should be rooms for the playing of games, billiards,
cards, and chess. Everything should be made as agreeable as possible.
The citizens should take pride in this building. They should adorn
its niches with statues and its walls with pictures. It should be the
intellectual centre. They could employ a gentleman of ability, possibly
of genius, to address them on Sundays, on subjects that would be of real
interest, of real importance. They could say to this minister:

"We are engaged in business during the week; while we are working at our
trades and professions, we want you to study, and on Sunday tell us what
you have found out."

Let such a minister take for a series of sermons the history, the
philosophy, the art and the genius of the Greeks. Let him tell of the
wondrous metaphysics, myths and religions of India and Egypt. Let him
make his congregation conversant with the philosophies of the world,
with the great thinkers, the great poets, the great artists, the
great actors, the great orators, the great inventors, the captains of
industry, the soldiers of progress. Let them have a Sunday school in
which the children shall be made acquainted with the facts of nature;
with botany, entomology, something of geology and astronomy.

Let them be made familiar with the greatest of poems, the finest
paragraphs of literature, with stories of the heroic, the self-denying
and generous.

Now, it seems to me that such a congregation in a few years would become
the most intelligent people in the United States.

The truth is that people are tired of the old theories. They have lost
confidence in the miraculous, in the supernatural, and they have ceased
to take interest in "facts" that they do not quite believe.
    "There is no darkness but ignorance."
    There is no light but intelligence,

As often as we can exchange a mistake for a fact, a falsehood for a
truth, we advance. We add to the intellectual wealth of the world, and
in this way, and in this way alone, can be laid the foundation for the
future prosperity and civilization of the race.

I blame no one; I call in question the motives of no person; I admit
that the world has acted as it must.

But hope for the future depends upon the intelligence of the present.
Man must husband his resources. He must not waste his energies in
endeavoring to accomplish the impossible.

He must take advantage of the forces of nature. He must depend on
education, on what he can ascertain by the use of his senses, by
observation, by experiment and reason. He must break the chains of
prejudice and custom. He must be free to express his thoughts on all
questions. He must find the conditions of happiness and become wise
enough to live in accordance with them.

IV. How Can We Lessen Crime?

IN spite of all that has been done for the reformation of the world, in
spite of all the inventions, in spite of all the forces of nature that
are now the tireless slaves of man, in spite of all improvements in
agriculture, in mechanics, in every department of human labor, the world
is still cursed with poverty and with crime.

The prisons are full, the courts are crowded, the officers of the law
are busy, and there seems to be no material decrease in crime.

For many thousands of years man has endeavored to reform his fellow-men
by imprisonment, torture, mutilation and death, and yet the history
of the world shows that there has been and is no reforming power in
punishment. It is impossible to make the penalty great enough, horrible
enough to lessen crime.

Only a few years ago, in civilized countries, larceny and many offences
even below larceny, were punished by death; and yet the number of
thieves and criminals of all grades increased. Traitors were hanged and
quartered or drawn into fragments by horses; and yet treason flourished.

Most of these frightful laws have been repealed, and the repeal
certainly did not increase crime. In our own country we rely upon the
gallows, the penitentiary and the jail. When a murder is committed, the
man is hanged, shocked to death by electricity, or lynched, and in a few
minutes a new murderer is ready to suffer a like fate. Men steal; they
are sent to the penitentiary for a certain number of years, treated
like wild beasts, frequently tortured. At the end of the term they are
discharged, having only enough money to return to the place from which
they were sent. They are thrown upon the world without means—without
friends—they are convicts. They are shunned, suspected and despised.
If they obtain a place, they are discharged as soon as it is found that
they were in prison. They do the best they can to retain the respect of
their fellow-men by denying their imprisonment and their identity. In
a little while, unable to gain a living by honest means, they resort
to crime, they again appear in court, and again are taken within the
dungeon walls. No reformation, no chance to reform, nothing to give them
bread while making new friends.

All this is infamous. Men should not be sent to the pentitentiary as a
punishment, because we must remember that men do as they must. Nature
does not frequently produce the perfect. In the human race there is a
large percentage of failures. Under certain conditions, with certain
appetites and passions and with a certain quality, quantity and shape of
brain, men will become thieves, forgers and counterfeiters. The question
is whether reformation is possible, whether a change can be produced
in the person by producing a change in the conditions. The criminal
is dangerous and society has the right to protect itself. The
criminal should be confined, and, if possible, should be reformed. A
pentitentiary should be a school; the convicts should be educated. So,
prisoners should work, and they should be paid a reasonable sum for
their labor. The best men should have charge of prisons. They should be
philanthropists and philosophers; they should know something of
human nature. The prisoner, having been taught, we will say, for five
years—taught the underlying principles of conduct, of the naturalness
and harmony of virtue, of the discord of crime; having been convinced
that society has no hatred, that nobody wishes to punish, to degrade,
or to rob him; and being at the time of his discharge paid a reasonable
price for his labor; being allowed by law to change his name, so that
his identity will not be preserved, he could go out of the prison a
friend of the government. He would have the feeling that he had been
made a better man; that he had been treated with justice, with mercy,
and the money he carried with him would be a breastwork behind which he
could defy temptation, a breastwork that would support and take care of
him until he could find some means by which to support himself. And this
man, instead of making crime a business, would become a good, honorable
and useful-citizen.

As it is now, there is but little reform. The same faces appear again
and again at the bar; the same men hear again and again the verdict of
guilty and the sentence of the court, and the same men return again and
again to the prison cell. Murderers, those belonging to the dangerous
classes, those who are so formed by nature that they rush to the crimes
of desperation, should be imprisoned for life; or they should be put
upon some island, some place where they can be guarded, where it may
be that by proper effort they could support themselves; the men on
one island, the women on another. And to these islands should be sent
professional criminals, those who have deliberately adopted a life
of crime for the purpose of supporting themselves, the women upon one
island, the men upon another. Such people should not populate the earth.

Neither the diseases nor the deformities of the mind or body should be
perpetuated. Life at the fountain should not be polluted.

V. Homes for All.

THE home is the unit of the nation. The more homes the broader the
foundation of the nation and the more secure.

Everything that is possible should be done to keep this from being
a nation of tenants. The men who cultivate the earth should own it.
Something has already been done in our country in that direction, and
probably in every State there is a homestead exemption. This exemption
has thus far done no harm to the creditor class. When we imprisoned
people for debt, debts were as insecure, to say the least, as now. By
the homestead laws, a home of a certain value or of a certain extent,
is exempt from forced levy or sale; and these laws have done great good.
Undoubtedly they have trebled the homes of the nation.

I wish to go a step further. I want, if possible, to get the people
out of the tenements, out of the gutters of degradation, to homes where
there can be privacy, where these people can feel that they are in
partnership with nature; that they have an interest in good government.
With the means we now have of transportation, there is no necessity for
poor people being huddled in festering masses in the vile, filthy and
loathsome parts of cities, where poverty breeds rags, and the rags breed
diseases. I would exempt a homestead of a reasonable value, say of
the value of two or three thousand dollars, not only from sale under
execution, but from sale for taxes of every description. These homes
should be absolutely exempt; they should belong to the family, so that
every mother should feel that the roof above her head was hers; that
her house was her castle, and that in its possession she could not be
disturbed, even by the nation. Under certain conditions I would allow
the sale of this homestead, and exempt the proceeds of the sale for a
certain time, during which they might be invested in another home; and
all this could be done to make a nation of householders, a nation of
land-owners, a nation of home-builders.

I would invoke the same power to preserve these homes, and to acquire
these homes, that I would invoke for acquiring lands for building
railways. Every State should fix the amount of land that could be owned
by an individual, not liable to be taken from him for the purpose of
giving a home to another, and when any man owned more acres than the law
allowed, and another should ask to purchase them, and he should refuse,
I would have the law so that the person wishing to purchase could file
his petition in court. The court would appoint commissioners, or a
jury would be called, to determine the value of the land the petitioner
wished for a home, and, upon the amount being paid, found by such
commission, or jury, the land should vest absolutely in the petitioner.

This right of eminent domain should be used not only for the benefit
of the person wishing a home, but for the benefit of all the people.
Nothing is more important to America than that the babes of America
should be born around the firesides of homes.

There is another question in which I take great interest, and it ought,
in my judgment, to be answered by the intelligence and kindness of our
century.

We all know that for many, many ages, men have been slaves, and we all
know that during all these years, women have, to some extent been the
slaves of slaves. It is of the utmost importance to the human race that
women, that mothers, should be free. Without doubt, the contract of
marriage is the most important and the most sacred that human beings can
make. Marriage is the most important of all institutions. Of course, the
ceremony of marriage is not the real marriage. It is only evidence
of the mutual flames that burn within. There can be no real marriage
without mutual love. So I believe in the ceremony of marriage, that it
should be public; that records should be kept. Besides, the ceremony
says to all the world that those who marry are in love with each other.

Then arises the question of divorce. Millions of people imagine that the
married are joined together by some supernatural power, and that they
should remain together, or at least married, during life. If all who
have been married were joined together by the supernatural, we must
admit that the supernatural is not infinitely wise.

After all, marriage is a contract, and the parties to the contract are
bound to keep its provisions; and neither should be released from such
a contract unless, in some way, the interests of society are involved.
I would have the law so that any husband could obtain a divorce when the
wife had persistently and flagrantly violated the contract; such divorce
to be granted on equitable terms. I would give the wife a divorce if she
requested it, if she wanted it.

And I would do this, not only for her sake, but for the sake of the
community, of the nation. All children should be children of love. All
that are born should be sincerely welcomed. The children of mothers
who dislike, or hate, or loathe the fathers, will fill the world with
insanity and crime. No woman should by law, or by public opinion,
be forced to live with a man whom she abhors. There is no danger of
demoralizing the world through divorce. Neither is there any danger of
destroying in the human heart that divine thing called love. As long as
the human race exists, men and women will love each other, and just so
long there will be true and perfect marriage. Slavery is not the soil or
rain of virtue.

I make a difference between granting divorce to a man and to a woman,
and for this reason: A woman dowers her husband with her youth and
beauty. He should not be allowed to desert her because she has grown
wrinkled and old. Her capital is gone; her prospects in life lessened;
while, on the contrary, he may be far better able to succeed than when
he married her. As a rule, the man can take care of himself, and as a
rule, the woman needs help. So, I would not allow him to cast her off
unless she had flagrantly violated the contract. But, for the sake of
the community, and especially for the sake of the babes, I would give
her a divorce for the asking.

There will never be a generation of great men until there has been a
generation of free women—of free mothers.

The tenderest word in our language is maternity. In this word is the
divine mingling of ecstasy and agony—of love and self-sacrifice. This
word is holy!

VI. The Labor Question.

HERE has been for many years ceaseless discussion upon what is called
the labor question; the conflict between the workingman and the
capitalist. Many ways have been devised, some experiments have been
tried for the purpose of solving this question. Profit-sharing would
not work, because it is impossible to share profits with those who are
incapable of sharing losses. Communities have been formed, the object
being to pay the expenses and share the profits among all the persons
belonging to the society. For the most part these have failed.

Others have advocated arbitration. And, while it may be that the
employers could be bound by the decision of the arbitrators, there has
been no way discovered by which the employees could be held by such
decision. In other words, the question has not been solved.

For my own part, I see no final and satisfactory solution except
through the civilization of employers and employed. The question is so
complicated, the ramifications are so countless, that a solution by law,
or by force, seems at least improbable. Employers are supposed to
pay according to their profits. They may or may not. Profits may
be destroyed by competition. The employer is at the mercy of other
employers, and as much so as his employees are at his mercy. The
employers cannot govern prices; they cannot fix demand; they cannot
control supply; and at present, in the world of trade, the laws of
supply and demand, except when interfered with by conspiracy, are in
absolute control.

Will the time arrive, and can it arrive, except by developing the brain,
except by the aid of intellectual light, when the purchaser will wish to
give what a thing is worth, when the employer will be satisfied with a
reasonable profit, when the employer will be anxious to give the real
value for raw material; when he will be really anxious to pay the
laborer the full value of his labor? Will the employer ever become
civilized enough to know that the law of supply and demand should not
absolutely apply in the labor market of the world? Will he ever become
civilized enough not to take advantage of the necessities of the
poor, of the hunger and rags and want of poverty? Will he ever become
civilized enough to say: "I will pay the man who labors for me enough to
give him a reasonable support, enough for him to assist in taking care
of wife and children, enough for him to do this, and lay aside something
to feed and clothe him when old age comes; to lay aside something,
enough to give him house and hearth during the December of his life, so
that he can warm his worn and shriveled hands at the fire of home"?

Of course, capital can do nothing without the assistance of labor. All
there is of value in the world is the product of labor. The laboring man
pays all the expenses. No matter whether taxes are laid on luxuries or
on the necessaries of life, labor pays every cent.

So we must remember that, day by day, labor is becoming intelligent.
So, I believe the employer is gradually becoming civilized, gradually
becoming kinder; and many men who have made large fortunes from the
labor of their fellows have given of their millions to what they
regarded as objects of charity, or for the interests of education. This
is a kind of penance, because the men that have made this money from
the brain and muscle of their fellow-men have ever felt that it was not
quite their own. Many of these employers have sought to balance their
accounts by leaving something for universities, for the establishment
of libraries, drinking fountains, or to build monuments to departed
greatness. It would have been, I think, far better had they used this
money to better the condition of the men who really earned it.

So, I think that when we become civilized, great corporations will make
provision for men who have given their lives to their service. I think
the great railroads should pay pensions to their worn out employees.
They should take care of them in old age. They should not maim and
wear out their servants and then discharge them, and allow them to be
supported in poorhouses. These great companies should take care of the
men they maim; they should look out for the ones whose lives they have
used and whose labor has been the foundation of their prosperity. Upon
this question, public sentiment should be aroused to such a degree that
these corporations would be ashamed to use a human life and then throw
away the broken old man as they would cast aside a rotten tie.

It may be that the mechanics, the workingmen, will finally become
intelligent enough to really unite, to act in absolute concert. Could
this be accomplished, then a reasonable rate of compensation could be
fixed and enforced. Now such efforts are local, and the result up to
this time has been failure. But, if all could unite, they could obtain
what is reasonable, what is just, and they would have the sympathy of a
very large majority of their fellow-men, provided they were reasonable.

But, before they can act in this way, they must become really
intelligent, intelligent enough to know what is reasonable and honest
enough to ask for no more.

So much has already been accomplished for the workingman that I have
hope, and great hope, of the future. The hours of labor have been
shortened, and materially shortened, in many countries. There was a time
when men worked fifteen and sixteen hours a day. Now, generally, a day's
work is not longer than ten hours, and the tendency is to still further
decrease the hours.

By comparing long periods of time, we more clearly perceive the advance
that has been made. In 1860, the average amount earned by the laboring
men, workmen, mechanics, per year, was about two hundred and eighty-five
dollars. It is now about five hundred dollars, and a dollar to-day will
purchase more of the necessaries of life, more food, clothing and fuel,
than it would in 1860. These facts are full of hope for the future.

All our sympathies should be with the men who work, who toil; for the
women who labor for themselves and children; because we know that labor
is the foundation of all, and that those who labor are the Caryatides
that support the structure and glittering dome of civilization and
progress.

VII. Educate the Children.

EVERY child should be taught to be self-supporting, and every one should
be taught to avoid being a burden on others, as they would shun death.

Every child should be taught that the useful are the honorable, and that
they who live on the labor of others are the enemies of society. Every
child should be taught that useful work is worship and that intelligent
labor is the highest form of prayer.

Children should be taught to think, to investigate, to rely upon the
light of reason, of observation and experience; should be taught to
use all their senses; and they should be taught only that which in some
sense is really useful. They should be taught the use of tools, to use
their hands, to embody their thoughts in the construction of things.
Their lives should not be wasted in the acquisition of the useless, or
of the almost useless. Years should not be devoted to the acquisition of
dead languages, or to the study of history which, for the most part, is
a detailed account of things that never occurred. It is useless to fill
the mind with dates of great battles, with the births and deaths of
kings. They should be taught the philosophy of history, the growth of
nations, of philosophies, theories, and, above all, of the sciences.

So, they should be taught the importance, not only of financial, but of
mental honesty; to be absolutely sincere; to utter their real thoughts,
and to give their actual opinions; and, if parents want honest children,
they should be honest themselves. It may be that hypocrites transmit
their failing to their offspring. Men and women who pretend to agree
with the majority, who think one way and talk another, can hardly expect
their children to be absolutely sincere.

Nothing should be taught in any school that the teacher does not
know. Beliefs, superstitions, theories, should not be treated like
demonstrated facts. The child should be taught to investigate, not to
believe. Too much doubt is better than too much credulity. So, children
should be taught that it is their duty to think for themselves, to
understand, and, if possible, to know.

Real education is the hope of the future. The development of the brain,
the civilization of the heart, will drive want and crime from the world.
The schoolhouse is the real cathedral, and science the only possible
savior of the human race. Education, real education, is the friend of
honesty, of morality, of temperance.

We cannot rely upon legislative enactments to make people wise and good;
neither can we expect to make human beings manly and womanly by keeping
them out of temptation. Temptations are as thick as the leaves of the
forest, and no one can be out of the reach of temptation unless he is
dead. The great thing is to make people intelligent enough and strong
enough, not to keep away from temptation, but to resist it. All the
forces of civilization are in favor of morality and temperance. Little
can be accomplished by law, because law, for the most part, about
such things, is a destruction of personal liberty. Liberty cannot be
sacrificed for the sake of temperance, for the sake of morality, or for
the sake of anything. It is of more value than everything else. Yet some
people would destroy the sun to prevent the growth of weeds. Liberty
sustains the same relation to all the virtues that the sun does to life.
The world had better go back to barbarism, to the dens, the caves and
lairs of savagery; better lose all art, all inventions, than to lose
liberty. Liberty is the breath of progress; it is the seed and soil, the
heat and rain of love and joy.

So, all should be taught that the highest ambition is to be happy,
and to add to the well-being of others; that place and power are not
necessary to success; that the desire to acquire great wealth is a kind
of insanity. They should be taught that it is a waste of energy, a waste
of thought, a waste of life, to acquire what you do not need and what
you do not really use for the benefit of yourself or others.

Neither mendicants nor millionaires are the happiest of mankind. The man
at the bottom of the ladder hopes to rise; the man at the top fears to
fall. The one asks; the other refuses; and, by frequent refusal, the
heart becomes hard enough and the hand greedy enough to clutch and hold.

Few men have intelligence enough, real greatness enough, to own a
great fortune. As a rule, the fortune owns them. Their fortune is their
master, for whom they work and toil like slaves. The man who has a good
business and who can make a reasonable living and lay aside something
for the future, who can educate his children and can leave enough to
keep the wolf of want from the door of those he loves, ought to be the
happiest of men.

Now, society bows and kneels at the feet of wealth. Wealth gives power.
Wealth commands flattery and adulation. And so, millions of men give
all their energies, as well as their very souls, for the acquisition of
gold. And this will continue as long as society is ignorant enough and
hypocritical enough to hold in high esteem the man of wealth without the
slightest regard to the character of the man.

In judging of the rich, two things should be considered: How did they
get it, and what are they doing with it? Was it honestly acquired? Is
it being used for the benefit of mankind? When people become really
intelligent, when the brain is really developed, no human being will
give his life to the acquisition of what he does not need or what he
cannot intelligently use.

The time will come when the truly intelligent man cannot be happy,
cannot be satisfied, when millions of his fellow-men are hungry and
naked. The time will come when in every heart will be the perfume of
pity's sacred flower. The time will come when the world will be anxious
to ascertain the truth, to find out the conditions of happiness, and to
live in accordance with such conditions; and the time will come when
in the brain of every human being will be the climate of intellectual
hospitality.

Man will be civilized when the passions are dominated by the intellect,
when reason occupies the throne, and when the hot blood of passion no
longer rises in successful revolt.

To civilize the world, to hasten the coming of the Golden Dawn of the
Perfect Day, we must educate the children, we must commence at the
cradle, at the lap of the loving mother.

VIII. We Must Work and Wait.

THE reforms that I have mentioned cannot be accomplished in a day,
possibly not for many centuries; and in the meantime there is much
crime, much poverty, much want, and consequently something must be done
now.

Let each human being, within the limits of the possible be
self-supporting; let every one take intelligent thought for the morrow;
and if a human being supports himself and acquires a surplus, let him
use a part of that surplus for the unfortunate; and let each one to the
extent of his ability help his fellow-men. Let him do what he can in the
circle of his own acquaintance to rescue the fallen, to help those
who are trying to help themselves, to give work to the idle. Let him
distribute kind words, words of wisdom, of cheerfulness and hope. In
other words, let every human being do all the good he can, and let him
bind up the wounds of his fellow-creatures, and at the same time put
forth every effort, to hasten the coming of a better day.

This, in my judgment, is real religion. To do all the good you can is to
be a saint in the highest and in the noblest sense. To do all the good
you can; this is to be really and truly spiritual. To relieve suffering,
to put the star of hope in the midnight of despair, this is true
holiness. This is the religion of science. The old creeds are too
narrow, they are not for the world in which we live. The old dogmas lack
breadth and tenderness; they are too cruel, too merciless, too savage.
We are growing grander and nobler.

The firmament inlaid with suns is the dome of the real cathedral. The
interpreters of nature are the true and only priests. In the great creed
are all the truths that lips have uttered, and in the real litany will
be found all the ecstasies and aspirations of the soul, all dreams
of joy, all hopes for nobler, fuller life. The real church, the real
edifice, is adorned and glorified with all that Art has done. In the
real choir is all the thrilling music of the world, and in the star-lit
aisles have been, and are, the grandest souls of every land and clime.
    "There is no darkness but ignorance."
    Let us flood the world with intellectual light.
