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.