Go forth, little book, to destroy fear,
prejudice and superstition, and help to install
Reason in the minds of the human race
to be its guide in the affairs of life and its living.
PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION
The most eloquent testimony given this little book is the fact that a second edition is made necessary only a few months after the publication of the first edition.
Favorable comments and letters of recommendation from men and women eminent in literary and scientific realms, and commendatory reviews in periodicals of high standard are, I think, sufficient cause for the belief that "The Tyranny of God" forms a necessary cog in the machinery of intellectual thought and progress.
Even those who bitterly oppose the book admit that it possesses the power to make its readers think.
Of the many opposing reviews and adverse criticism of "The Tyranny of God," not a single one offers an argument in answer to it. For the most part, their characterization has been that it is "pessimistic." As if by calling it "pessimistic," they refute its claims!
If to tell a man the true nature of a disease from which he is suffering, with the hope that he will seek a cure for his malady, is pessimism, then I am a pessimist. Is the use of a danger signal at a hazardous crossing, for the purpose of preventing disaster, pessimism?
If to literally "hold the mirror up to Nature," disclosing Nature's utter disregard for the life and feelings of man, as a warning against the extravagant and useless propagating of life, is pessimism, then surely I am a pessimist.