The inventor is the emancipator of mankind from the oppressive burden of toil, and hence the philanthropist should ever look with interest to the progress of invention, should ever be ready to cooperate with inventive genius. The Journal should be the inventor’s friend, and it hopes to see the time when the national institution that I have proposed shall be established, to bring blind, but all powerful, capital into co-operation with the wise, but often powerless, inventor.
Invention is the physical, as philosophy is the intellectual power, to complete the emancipation of mankind from slavery and suffering. “No,” would the theologian say, “your false philosophy ends in nothing. The world has been full of philosophies from Democritus to Hegel, and they have never lifted a single straw’s weight from the burden that oppresses all humanity. The real burden is sin, and religion alone can remove that, and bring in the kingdom of heaven on earth.”
Most true, Oh theologian, it is, that the false philosophies, from Democritus to Hegel, have done nothing for mankind but to becloud, bewilder, and enfeeble their intelligence, for the philosophies were born of empty vanity, which essayed to conquer the universe by cogitation without science, and not from any loving impulse to make life wiser and better. But your theologies have been almost as false as the philosophies. You have inverted the simple and pure religion of Jesus. You have taught the world that its governing power was not an infinite love, but an infinite hate, and that the chief purpose of creation was to furnish an unlimited amount of human agony, in eternal progress, to gratify the infinite tyrant, and, at the same time, please a few humble vassals whom terror alone had driven into his service. You have taught mankind, all too successfully, to imitate this superhuman monster, by the banishment, imprisonment, murder, or torture, of all who did not accept your insane and heartless teachings; and the bloody drama, which has been in full progress for at least fifteen centuries without one interval of pity or remorse, is coming to its end now, Oh theologians, simply because your power has waned, and mankind have partially outgrown their superstitious ignorance. Tennyson in his last poem has expressed the truth:
“‘Love your enemy, bless your haters,’ said the Greatest of the great,
Christian love among the churches looked the twin of heathen hate.
From the golden alms of blessing, man had coined himself a curse;
Rome of Cæsar, Rome of Peter,—which was crueler, which was worse?”
You are beginning, Oh theologians, to be ashamed of the history of your tribe, and to doubt in your own hearts the horrid creeds you are still teaching; and a few have even thrown them off entirely and joined in the movement of emancipation,—even Andover is uneasy beneath its old yoke. But the chief problem of progress is still to get rid of your creeds, and return to that simple, universal religion, of which Jesus was the most powerful teacher,—a religion that had no church, no creed, no intolerance, and which dealt only in that universal love to which all human souls respond when they receive it.
Yet never has this simple religion of Jesus appeared, nor any effort towards its imperfect realization, without provoking orthodox hostility; and never has science taken one bold step in advance to understand the Bible of creation, or the Divine wisdom embodied in the constitution of man, without finding all orthodox power arrayed against each step of progress, and your orthodox anathemas ready for each fearless seeker of the truth.
Never had astronomy, never had geology, never had phrenology, never had anthropology, one smile from the organized theological guardians of the ancient falsehood called orthodoxy. Neither had political liberty any better treatment than mental liberty. Neither the white man, the red man, nor the black man found friendship or protection until very recently in any orthodox church, for the church was invariably the ally of the despot. Witness all European history, witness the history of Mexico and South America,—witness the history of the United States,—witness the present condition of Europe, groaning under the mountain load of taxation to pay war debts, to sustain the cannon foundries, forts, ships, barracks, and, in a word, the armament of hell, for it is but a grand, prearranged plan for further homicide and devastation; and all—all, alas! established and sustained by a government inspired by the church, which falsely claims to represent the principles of Christ in its terribly apostate career!