MORAL MAXIMS.
| XI. | [Justice], | 137 |
| XII. | [Truth], | 148 |
| XIII. | [Humanity], | 160 |
| XIV. | [Friendship], | 172 |
| XV. | [Education], | 182 |
OBJECTIVE MAXIMS.
| XVI. | [Forest Culture], | 194 |
| XVII. | [Recreation], | 203 |
| XVIII. | [Domestic Reform], | 212 |
| XIX. | [Legislative Reform], | 221 |
| XX. | [The Priesthood of Secularism], | 231 |
[[9]]
THE BIBLE OF NATURE; OR, THE PRINCIPLES OF SECULARISM.
INTRODUCTION.
From the dawn of authentic history to the second century of our chronological era the nations of antiquity were beguiled by the fancies of supernatural religions. For fifteen hundred years the noblest nations of the Middle Ages were tortured by the inanities of an antinatural religion. The time has come to found a Religion of Nature.
The principles of that religion are revealed in the monitions of our normal instincts, and have never been wholly effaced from the soul of man, but for long ages the consciousness of their purpose has been obscured by the mists of superstition and the systematic inculcation of baneful delusions. The first taste of alcohol revolts our normal instincts; nature protests against the incipience of a ruinous poison-vice; but the fables of the Bacchus priests for centuries encouraged that vice and deified the genius of intemperance. Vice itself blushed to mention the immoralities of the pagan gods whose temples invited the worship of the heavenly-minded. Altars were erected to a goddess of lust, to a god of wantonness, to a god of thieves. [[10]]