E.—REFORM.
That work of redemption should include an emphatic repudiation of the natural depravity dogma. Our children should be taught that steadfast loyalty to the counsels of their natural reason is sufficient to insure the promotion of their welfare in the only world thus far revealed to our knowledge. The [[123]]traditional concomitance of perseverance and mediocrity should be refuted by the explanation of its cause. For a long series of centuries the predominance of insane dogmas had actually made science a mere mockery, and application to the prescribed curriculum of the monastic colleges a clear waste of time—clear to all but the dullest minds. The neglect of such studies, of the disgusting sophistry of the patristic and scholastic era, was, indeed, a proof of common sense, since only dunces and hypocrites could muster the patience required to wade through the dismal swamp of cant, pedantry, and superstition which for thirteen centuries formed the mental pabulum of the priest-ridden academics. During that era of pseudo-science and pseudo-morality, of fulsome rant centered on a monstrous delusion, the eccentricity of genius was more than pardonable, being, in fact, the only alternative of mental prostitution. The ideas of waywardness and mental superiority became thus associated in a way which in its results has wrought almost as much mischief as in its cause. The delusions of that idea have wrecked as many promising talents as indolence and intemperance.
The pupils of Secularism should be instructed to observe the benefits of perseverance in the pursuit of minor projects, and encouraged to apply that experience to the higher problems of life. Perseverance should be recognized as the indispensable ally of loftiest genius as well as of the lowliest talent.
Failure in secular enterprises should cease to be regarded as a symptom of divine favor; and for [[124]]those who insist on claiming the protection of supernatural agencies, Goethe’s grand apostrophe to the Genius of Manhood[1] should be condensed in the motto that “Heroic perseverance invokes the aid of the gods.”
Weibisches Klagen, bängliches Zagen
Wendet kein Unglück, macht dich nicht frei:
Allen Gewalten zum Trotz sich erhalten,
Nimmer sich beugen, kräftig sich zeigen
Rufet die Arme der Götter herbei.