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The Principles of Secularism - George J Holyoake · Classic Philosophy Library

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  Speaker 1: Chapter one, introductory. If you think it right to differ
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  Speaker 1: from the times, and to make a stand for any
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  Speaker 1: valuable point of morals, do it, however rustic, however antiquated,
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  Speaker 1: however pedantic it may appear. Do it not for insolence,
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  Speaker 1: but seriously as a man who wore a soul of
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  Speaker 1: his own in his bosom, and did not wait till
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  Speaker 1: it was breathed into him by the breath of fashion.
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  Speaker 1: The Reverend Sidney Smith canon of Saint Paul's, in a
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  Speaker 1: passage of characteristic sagacity, Doctor J. H. Newman has depicted
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: a partisan aimlessness more descriptive of the period when this
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  Speaker 1: little book first appeared sixteen years ago than it is now.
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  Speaker 1: But it will be long before its relevance and instruction
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  Speaker 1: have passed away. I therefore I take the liberty of
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  Speaker 1: still quoting his words. When persons for the first time
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: look upon the world of politics or religion, all that
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  Speaker 1: they find their meets their mind's eye as a landscape
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  Speaker 1: addresses itself for the first time to a person who
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  Speaker 1: has just gained his bodily sight, one thing is as
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  Speaker 1: far off as another. There is no perspective the connection
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  Speaker 1: of fact with fact, truth with truth, the bearing of
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  Speaker 1: fact upon truth, and truth upon fact. What leads to what?
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  Speaker 1: What are points primary? And what secondary? All this they
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  Speaker 1: have yet to learn. It is all the new science
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  Speaker 1: to them, and they do not even know their ignorance
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  Speaker 1: of it. Moreover, the world of to day has no
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  Speaker 1: connection in their minds with the world of yesterday. Time
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  Speaker 1: is not a stream, but stands before them, round and full,
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  Speaker 1: like the moon. They do not know what happened ten
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  Speaker 1: years ago, much less the annals of a century. The
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  Speaker 1: past does not live to them in the present. They
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  Speaker 1: do not understand the worth of contested points. Names have
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  Speaker 1: no associations for them, and persons kindle no recollections. They
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  Speaker 1: hear of men and things, and projects and struggles and principles.
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  Speaker 1: But everything comes and goes like the wind. Nothing makes
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  Speaker 1: an impression, nothing penetrates, nothing has its place in their minds.
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  Speaker 1: They locate nothing. They have no system. They hear and
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  Speaker 1: they forget, or they just recollect what they have once heard.
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  Speaker 1: They cannot tell where. Thus they have no consistency in
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  Speaker 1: their arguments. That is, they argue one way to day,
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  Speaker 1: and not exactly the other way tomorrow, but indirectly the
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  Speaker 1: other way at random. Their lines of argument diverge, nothing
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  Speaker 1: comes to a point. There is no one center in
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  Speaker 1: which their minds sits on which their judgment of men
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  Speaker 1: and things proceeds. This is the state of many men
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  Speaker 1: all through life, and miserable politicians or churchmen they make
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  Speaker 1: unless by good luck they are in safe hands and
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  Speaker 1: ruled by others, or apledged to a course. Else they
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  Speaker 1: are at the mercy of the wind and waves. And
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  Speaker 1: without being radical, weak Tory or conservative, high Church or
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  Speaker 1: low Church. They do weak acts, story acts, Catholic acts,
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  Speaker 1: and heretical acts as the fit takes them, or as
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  Speaker 1: events or parties drive them, and sometimes when their self
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  Speaker 1: importance is hurt, they take refuge in the idea that
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  Speaker 1: all this is a proof that they are unfettered, moderate, dispassionate,
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  Speaker 1: that they observe the mean that they are no party men,
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  Speaker 1: when they are in fact the most helpless of slaves.
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  Speaker 1: For our strength in this world is to be the
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  Speaker 1: subjects of the reason, and our liberty to be captives
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  Speaker 1: of the truth. Footnote loss and gain ascribed to the
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  Speaker 1: Reverend Father Newman, and footnote how the organization of ideas
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  Speaker 1: has fared with higher class societies. Others can tell the
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  Speaker 1: working class have been left so much in want of
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  Speaker 1: initiative direction that almost everything has to be done among them,
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  Speaker 1: and an imperfect and brief attempt to direct those interested
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  Speaker 1: in free thought may meet with some acceptance to clamor
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  Speaker 1: for objects without being able to connect them with principles,
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  Speaker 1: too smart, under contumely, without knowing how to protect themselves,
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  Speaker 1: to bear some lofty name, without understanding the manner in
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  Speaker 1: which character should correspond to profession. This is the amount
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  Speaker 1: of the popular attainment in this new edition. I find
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  Speaker 1: little to alter and less to add. In a passage
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  Speaker 1: on page twenty seven, the distinction between secular instruction and
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  Speaker 1: secularism is ext explained in these words quote, secular education
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  Speaker 1: is by some confounded with secularism, whereas the distinction between
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  Speaker 1: them is very wide. Secular education simply means imparting secular
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  Speaker 1: knowledge is separately by itself, without admixture of theology with it.
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  Speaker 1: The advocate of secular education may be, and generally is,
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  Speaker 1: also an advocate of religion, but he would teach religion
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  Speaker 1: at another time and treat it as a distinct subject,
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  Speaker 1: too sacred for course. If admixture into the hard and
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  Speaker 1: vexatious routine of a school. He would confine the inculcation
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  Speaker 1: of religion to fitting seasons and chosen instruments. He holds
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  Speaker 1: also that one subject at a time is mental economy
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  Speaker 1: in learning, secular education is the policy of a school.
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  Speaker 1: Secularism is the policy of life to those who do
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  Speaker 1: not accept theology. Very few persons admitted that these distinctions
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  Speaker 1: existed when this passage was written in eighteen fifty four.
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  Speaker 1: This year eighteen seventy, they have been substantially admitted by
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  Speaker 1: the legislature in concession made in the National Education Bill.
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  Speaker 1: It only remains to add that the whole text has
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  Speaker 1: been revised and re arranged in an order which seems
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  Speaker 1: more consecutive. The portion on secular organizations has been abridged
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  Speaker 1: in part rewritten, explaining particulars as to the Secular Guild.
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  Speaker 1: A distinctive summary of secular principles may be read under
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  Speaker 1: the article secularism in Chambers's Cyclopedia, end of chapter one,
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  Speaker 1: Chapter two. The term secularism. The adoption of the term
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  Speaker 1: secularism is justified by its including a large number of
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  Speaker 1: persons who are not atheists and unite them for action
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  Speaker 1: which has secularism for its object and not atheism. On
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  Speaker 1: this ground, and because by the adoption of a new term,
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  Speaker 1: a vast amount of impediment from prejudice is got rid of,
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  Speaker 1: the use of the name secularism is found advantageous. Harriet Martineau,
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  Speaker 1: Boston Liberator, letter to Lloyd Garrison, November eighteen fifty three.
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  Speaker 1: Everyone observant of public controversy in England is aware of
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  Speaker 1: its improved tone of late years. This improved tone is
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  Speaker 1: part of a wider progress. Increase of wealth has led
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  Speaker 1: to improvement of taste, and the diffusion of knowledge to
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  Speaker 1: refinement of sentiment. The mass are better dressed, better mannered,
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  Speaker 1: better spoken than formerly. A coffee room discussion conducted by
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  Speaker 1: mechanics is now a more decorous exhibition than a debate
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  Speaker 1: in Parliament. Within the days of Canning, boisterousness at the
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  Speaker 1: tables of the rich and insolence in the language of
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  Speaker 1: the poor are fast disappearing. Good society is now that
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  Speaker 1: society in which people practice the art of being genial
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  Speaker 1: without being familiar, and in which an invincible courtesy of
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  Speaker 1: speech is no longer regarded as timidity or effeminacy, but
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  Speaker 1: rather as proof of a disciplined spirit, which chooses to
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  Speaker 1: avoid all offense, the better to maintain the right peremptorily
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  Speaker 1: punishing wanton insult. Theologians more inveterate in speech than politicians,
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  Speaker 1: now observe a respectfulness to opponents. Before unknown that diversity
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  Speaker 1: of opinion, once ascribed to badness of heart, is now
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  Speaker 1: with more discrimination referred to defect or diversity of understanding,
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  Speaker 1: a change which, discarding invective, recognizes instruction as the agent
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  Speaker 1: of uniformity. Amid all this newness of conception, it must
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  Speaker 1: be obvious that many old terms of theological controversy are obsolete.
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  Speaker 1: The idea of an atheist as one warring against moral restraints,
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  Speaker 1: of an infidel as one treacherous to the truth, of
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  Speaker 1: a freethinker as a loose thinker, arose in the darkness
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  Speaker 1: of past times, when men fought by the flickering light
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  Speaker 1: of their hatreds, times which tradition has peopled with monsters
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  Speaker 1: of divinity as well as of nature. But the glaring
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  Speaker 1: colors in which the party names invented by past priests
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  Speaker 1: were died no longer harmonized with the quieter taste of
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  Speaker 1: the present day. The more sober spirit of modern controversy
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  Speaker 1: has therefore need of new terms, And if the term
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  Speaker 1: secularism was merely a neutral substitute for freethinking, there would
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  Speaker 1: be reason for its adoption. The centers might as well
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  Speaker 1: continue the designation of schismatics or political reform us that
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  Speaker 1: of anarchists, as that the students of positive philosophy should
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  Speaker 1: continue the designation atheism, infidelism, or any similar term by
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  Speaker 1: which their opponents have contrived to brand their opinions. It
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  Speaker 1: is as though a merchant vessel should consent to carry
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  Speaker 1: a pirate flag. Freethinker is, however, getting an acceptable term
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  Speaker 1: upon the platform. Christian disputants frequently claim it and resent
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  Speaker 1: the exclusive assumption of it by others. These new claimants say,
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  Speaker 1: we are as much freethinkers as yourselves, so that it
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  Speaker 1: is necessary to define freethinking. It is fearless thinking based
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  Speaker 1: upon impartial inquiry, searching on both sides, not regarding doubt
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  Speaker 1: as a crime or opposite conclusions as a species of
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  Speaker 1: moral poison. Those who inquire with sinister prepossessions will never
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  Speaker 1: inquire fairly. The freethinker fears not to follow a conclude
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  Speaker 1: usion to the utmost limits of truth, whether it coincides
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  Speaker 1: with the Bible or contradicts it. If therefore, any pronounced
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  Speaker 1: the term secularism a concealment or a disguise, they can
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  Speaker 1: do so legitimately only after detecting some false meaning it
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  Speaker 1: is intended to convey, and not on the mere ground
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  Speaker 1: of its being a change of name, since nothing can
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  Speaker 1: more completely conceal and disguise the purposes of free thought
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  Speaker 1: than the old names imposed upon it by its adversaries,
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  Speaker 1: which associate with guilt its conscientious conclusions and impute to
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  Speaker 1: it as outrages its act of self defense. Besides the
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  Speaker 1: term secularism, there was another term which seemed to promise
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  Speaker 1: also distinctiveness of meaning, namely cosmism, under which adherents would
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  Speaker 1: have taken the designation of cosmists. But this name scientific
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  Speaker 1: men would have understood in a purely physical sense, after
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  Speaker 1: the great example of Humboldt, and the public would not
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  Speaker 1: all have understood it. Besides, it was open to easy
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  Speaker 1: perversion in one of its declinations. Next to this as
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  Speaker 1: a name stands that of realism intrinsically good. A society
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  Speaker 1: of realists would have been intelligible, but many would have
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  Speaker 1: supposed it to be some revival of the old realists. Moralism,
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  Speaker 1: a sound name in itself, is under evangelical condemnation as
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  Speaker 1: mere morality. Naturalism would seem an obvious name, were it
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  Speaker 1: not that we should be confounded with naturalists. To say
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  Speaker 1: no more, some name must be taken. As was the
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  Speaker 1: case with the teophilanthropists of Paris. Many of them would
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  Speaker 1: rather not have assumed any denomination, but they yielded to
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  Speaker 1: the reasonable argument that if they did not choose one
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  Speaker 1: for themselves, the public would bestow upon them one which
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  Speaker 1: would be less to their liking. Those who took the
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  Speaker 1: name of philanthropes found it exposed them to a pun
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  Speaker 1: which greatly damaged them. Philanthropes was turned into philu entropes.
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  Speaker 1: Historical characteristics, however, seemed to point to a term which
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  Speaker 1: expressed the secular element in life, a term deeply engrafted
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  Speaker 1: in literature of irreproachable associations, a term found and respected
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  Speaker 1: in the dictionaries of opponents, and to which therefore they
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  Speaker 1: might dispute our right, but which they could not damage. Instead, Therefore,
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  Speaker 1: of finding ourselves self branded or caricatured by this designation,
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  Speaker 1: we have found opponents claiming it and disputing with us
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  Speaker 1: for its possession. End of Chapter two. Chapter three. Principles
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  Speaker 1: of secularism defined one. Secularism is the study of promoting
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  Speaker 1: human welfare by material means, measuring human welfare by the
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  Speaker 1: utilitarian rule, and making the service of others a duty
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  Speaker 1: of life. Secularism relates to the present existence of man
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  Speaker 1: and to action, the issues of which can be tested
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  Speaker 1: by the experience of this life, having for its objects
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  Speaker 1: the development of the physical, moral, and intellectual nature of
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  Speaker 1: man to the highest perceivable point, as the immediate duty
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  Speaker 1: of society, inculcating the practical sufficiency of natural morality, apart
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  Speaker 1: from atheism, theism or Christianity, engaging its adherents in the
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  Speaker 1: promotion of human improvement by material means, and making these
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  Speaker 1: agreements the ground of common unity for all who would
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  Speaker 1: regulate life by reason and ennoble it by service. The
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  Speaker 1: secular is sacred in its influence on life, for by
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  Speaker 1: purity of material conditions, the loftiest natures are best sustained,
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  Speaker 1: and the lower the most surely elevate. Secularism is a
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  Speaker 1: series of principles intended for the guidance of those who
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  Speaker 1: find theology indefinite or inadequate or deem it unreliable. It
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  Speaker 1: replaces theology, which mainly regards life as a sinful necessity,
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  Speaker 1: as a scene of tribulation through which we pass to
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  Speaker 1: a better world. Secularism rejoices in this life and regards
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  Speaker 1: it as the sphere of those duties which educate men
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  Speaker 1: to fitness for any future and better life should such transpire. Two.
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  Speaker 1: A secularist guides himself by maxims of positivism, seeking to
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  Speaker 1: discern what is in nature, what ought to be in morals,
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  Speaker 1: selecting the affirmative in exposition, concerning himself with the real,
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  Speaker 1: the right, and the constructive. Positive principles are principles which
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  Speaker 1: are provable. A positive precess, says Bishop Butler, is a precept,
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  Speaker 1: the reason of which we can see positivism is policy
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  Speaker 1: of material progress. Three. Science is the available providence of life.
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  Speaker 1: The problem to be solved by a science of society
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  Speaker 1: is to find that situation in which it shall be
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  Speaker 1: impossible for a man to be depraved or poor mankind
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  Speaker 1: are saved by being served. Spiritual sympathy is a lesser
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  Speaker 1: mercy than that forethought, which anticipates and extirpates the causes
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  Speaker 1: of suffering. Deliverance from sorrow or injustice is before consolation.
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  Speaker 1: Doing well is higher than meaning well. Work is worshiped
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  Speaker 1: to those who accept theism, and duty to those who
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  Speaker 1: do not. Four. Sincerity, though not errorless, involves the least
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  Speaker 1: chance of error, and is without moral guilt. Sincerity is
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  Speaker 1: well informed. Conscientious conviction arrived at by intelligent examination, animating
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  Speaker 1: those who possess that conviction to carry it into practice
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  Speaker 1: from a sense of duty. Virtue, in relation to opinion,
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  Speaker 1: consists neither in conformity nor nonconformity, but in sincere beliefs
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  Speaker 1: and in living up to them. Five Conscience is higher
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  Speaker 1: than consequence. Footnote vida mister Haldreth's papers and footnote six.
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  Speaker 1: All pursuit of good objects with pure intent is religiousness
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  Speaker 1: in the best sense in which this term appears to
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  Speaker 1: be used. A good object is an object consistent with truth, honor, justice, love.
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  Speaker 1: A pure intent is the intent of serving humanity. Immediate
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  Speaker 1: service of humanity is not intended to mean instant gratification,
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  Speaker 1: but immediate in contradistinction to the interest of another life.
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  Speaker 1: The distinctive peculiarity of the secularist is that he seeks
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  Speaker 1: that good which is dictated by nature, which is attainable
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  Speaker 1: by material means, and which is of immediate service to humanity.
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  Speaker 1: A religiousness to which the idea of God is not essential,
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  Speaker 1: nor the denial of the idea necessary. Seven. Nearly all
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  Speaker 1: inferior natures are susceptible of moral and physical improvability. This
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  Speaker 1: improvability can be indefinitely secured by supplying proper material conditions.
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  Speaker 1: These conditions may one day be supplied by a system
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  Speaker 1: of wise and fraternal cooperation, which primarily entrenches itself in
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  Speaker 1: common prudence, which enacts service according to industrial capacity and
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  Speaker 1: distributes wealth according to rational needs. Secular principles involve for
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  Speaker 1: mankind a future where there shall exist unity of condition,
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  Speaker 1: with infinite diversity of intellect, where the subsistence of ignorance
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  Speaker 1: and selfishness shall leave men equal and universal purity enable
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  Speaker 1: all things noble society, the treasures of art, and the
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  Speaker 1: riches of the world to be had in common. Eight.
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  Speaker 1: Since it is not capable of demonstration whether the inequalities
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  Speaker 1: of human condition will be compensated for in another life,
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  Speaker 1: it is the business of intelligence to rectify them in
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  Speaker 1: this world. The speculative worship of superior beings who cannot
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  Speaker 1: need it seems a lesser duty than the patient's service
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  Speaker 1: of known inferior natures and the mitigation of harsh destiny
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  Speaker 1: so that the ignorant may be enlightened. And the low
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  Speaker 1: elevated end of Chapter three, Chapter four Laws of secular
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  Speaker 1: Controversy one rights of reason as a means of developing
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  Speaker 1: and establishing secular principles, and the security that the principles
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  Speaker 1: of nature and the habit of reason may prevail. Secularism
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  Speaker 1: uses itself and maintains for others as rights for reason
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  Speaker 1: the free search for truth, without which its full attainment
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  Speaker 1: is impossible, The free utterance of the result, without which
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  Speaker 1: the increase of truth is limited. The free criticism of
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  Speaker 1: alleged truth, without which its identity must remain uncertain. The
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  Speaker 1: fair action of conviction, thus attained, without which conscience will
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  Speaker 1: be impotent. On practice two standard of appeal. Secularism accepts
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  Speaker 1: no authority but that of nature, adopts no methods but
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  Speaker 1: those of science and philosophy, and respects in practice no
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  Speaker 1: rule but that of the conscience illustrated by the common
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  Speaker 1: sense of mankind. It values the lessons of the past
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  Speaker 1: and looks to tradition as presenting a storehouse of raw
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  Speaker 1: materials to thought, and in many cases results of high
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  Speaker 1: wisdom for our reverence. But it utterly disowns tradition as
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  Speaker 1: a ground of belief, whether miracles and supernaturalism be claimed
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  Speaker 1: or are not claimed. On its side, no sacred scripture
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  Speaker 1: or ancient church can be made a basis of belief,
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  Speaker 1: for the obvious reason that their claims always need to
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: be proved, and cannot, without absurdity, be assumed. The association
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: leads to its individual members to yield whatever respect their
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: own good sense judges to be due to the opinions
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  Speaker 1: of great men, living or dead, spoken or written, as
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  Speaker 1: all also to the practice of ancient communities, national or ecclesiastical,
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  Speaker 1: But it disowns all appeal to such authorities as final
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  Speaker 1: tests of truth. Footnote Program of Freethought Societies by F. W. Newman,
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  Speaker 1: Reasoner number three hundred eighty eight and footnote three. Sphere
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: of controversy. Since the principles of secularism rest on grounds
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  Speaker 1: apart from theism, atheism, or Christianism, it is not logically
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  Speaker 1: necessary for secularists to debate the truth of these subjects
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  Speaker 1: in controversy. Secularism concerns itself with the assertion and maintenance
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  Speaker 1: of its own affirmative propositions, combating only views of theology
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  Speaker 1: and Christianity so far as they interfere with, discourage or
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  Speaker 1: disparage secular action, which may be done without digressing to
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  Speaker 1: the discussion of the truth of theism or divine origin
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  Speaker 1: of the Bible. Four Personal controversy. A secularist will avoid
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  Speaker 1: indiscriminate disparagement of bodies or antagonism of persons, and will
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  Speaker 1: place before himself simply the instruction and service of an opponent,
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  Speaker 1: whose sincerity he will not question, whose motives he will
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  Speaker 1: not impune, always holding that a man whom it is
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  Speaker 1: not worthwhile confuting courteously is not worthwhile confuting at all.
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  Speaker 1: Such disparagements are as included in the explicit condemnation of
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: erroneous principles, are we believe all that the public defense
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  Speaker 1: of opinion requires, and are the only kind of disparagement
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  Speaker 1: as secularist proposes to employ. Five Justification of controversy. The universal,
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  Speaker 1: fair and open discussion of opinion is the highest guarantee
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  Speaker 1: of public truth. Only that theory which is submitted to
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: that ordeal is to be regarded since only that which
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  Speaker 1: endures it can be trusted. Secularism encourages men to trust
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  Speaker 1: reason throughout, and to trust nothing that reason does not establish.
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  Speaker 1: To examine all things hopeful, respect all things probable, but
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  Speaker 1: rely upon nothing without precaution which does not come within
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  Speaker 1: the range of science and experience. End of Chapter four,
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: Chapter five, Maxims of association. It is the duty of
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: every man to regulate his personal and family interests, so
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: as to admit of some exertions for the improvement of society.
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: It is only by serving those beyond ourselves that we
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: can secure for ourselves protection, sympathy, or honor. The neglect
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: of home for public affairs in dangerous philanthropy, by making
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: it the enemy of the household to suffer, on the
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: other hand, the interests of the family to degenerate into
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: mere selfism is a dangerous example to rulers. Two. No
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: man or woman is accountable to others for any conduct
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: by which others are not injured or damaged. Footnote d
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: in the Leader eighteen fifty, who as a correspondent, first
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: expressed this aphorism. Thus, and footnote three. Social freedom consists
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: in being subject to just rule and to none other.
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: Four service and endurance are the chief personal duties of man. Five.
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: Secularism holds it to be the duty of every man
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: to reserve a portion of his means and energies for
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: the public service, and so to cultivate and cherish his powers,
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: mental and physical, as to have them ever ready to
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: perform service as efficient as possible to the well being
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: of humanity. No weakness, no passion, no wavering should be
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: found among those who are battling for the cause of
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: human welfare, which such errors may fatally injure. Self control,
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: self culture, self sacrifice are all essential to those who
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: would serve that cause and would not bring discredit upon
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: their comrades in that service. Footnote Mister L. H. Haldreth,
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: Religion of duty and footnote six. To promote, in good
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: faith and good temper the immediate and material welfare of
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: humanity in accordance with the laws of nature is the
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: study and duty of a secularist. And this is the
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: unity of principle which prevails amid whatever diversity of opinion
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: may subsist in a secure society, the bond of union
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: being the common convictions of the duty of advancing the
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: secular good of this life. Of the authority of natural
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: morality and of the utility of material effort in the
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: work of human improvement. In other words, secularist union implies
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: the concerted action of all who believe it right to
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: promote the secular good of this life, to teach morality
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: founded upon the laws of nature, and to seek human
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: improvement by material methods, irrespective of any other opinions held,
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: and irrespective of any diversity of reason for holding these.
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: End of Chapter five, Chapter six. The Secular Guild, several
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: expositors of secular principles, able to act together, have for
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: many years endeavored by counsel, by aid, and by publication
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: to promote secular organization. At one time they conducted a
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: Secular Institute in Fleet Street, London, in eighteen fifty four.
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: The object was to form secular societies for teaching the
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: positive results of freethought. In the first edition of this work,
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: it was held to be desirable that there should be
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: a center of reference for all inquirers upon secular principles
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: at home and abroad. Attention should be guaranteed to distant
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: correspondents and visitors, so that means of communication and publication
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: of all advanced opinions in sociology, theology, and politics might
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: exist and be able to command publicity when expressed dispassionately, impersonally,
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: and with ordinary good taste. It has been generally admitted
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: that the operations at that time conducted helped to impart
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: a new character to freethought advocacy, and many of its
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: recommendations have since been copied by associations subsequently formed. The
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: promoters of secularism alluded to have not seized in The
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: Reasoner and other publications by lectures, by statements, by articles,
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: by pamphlets to urge a definite and consistent representation of
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: secular and freethought principles, as many mistake merely mechanical association
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: for the organization of ideas. The promoters in question have
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: since adopted the form of action of a Secular Guild
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: and continue The Reasoner, of which there is now issued
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: a review series as their organ The objects of a
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: Council of the Guild is to promote, as far as
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: means may permit, or a council prevail organization of ideas.
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: One to train advocates of secular principles. Two to advise
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: an impersonal policy of advocacy which seeking to carry its
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: ends by force of experts position, rather than of denunciation,
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: shall command the attention and respect of those who influence
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: public affairs. Three to promote solution of political, social, and
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: educational questions on secular and unsectarian grounds. Four to point
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: out new books of secular relevance, and, where possible, to
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: accredit advocates of secularism, that the public may have some guidance,
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: and the party be no longer liable to be judged
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: by whoever may appear to write or speak on the subject.
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: Five To assist in the protection and defense of those
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: injured or attempted to be injured on account of free
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: thought or secularist opinion. Six To provide for the administration
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: of property bequeathed for secular purposes, of which so much
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: has been lost through the injustice of the law and
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: machinations of persons opposed to liberal Seven. When a member
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: has been honorably counted on the side of secularism, has
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: been a subscriber or a worker for a term of years,
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: the guild, keeping a record of such service, proposes to
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: give a certificate of it, which, among friends of freethought,
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: may be a passport to recognition and esteem to constitute
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: some such freemasonry in free thought may elevate association in England.
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: A certificate of illuminism or of carbonarism in Italy was
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: once handed down from father to son as an heirloom
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: of honor, while in England you have to supplicate men
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: to join a society of progression, instead of membership being
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: a distinction which men shall covet. At present, a man
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: who has given the best years of his life to
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: the public service is liable if from any necessity he
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: ceases to act, to be counted a renegade by men
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: who have never rendered twelve months consecutive or costly service themselves.
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: There ought to be a fixed term of service, which,
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: if honorably and effectively rendered, should entitle a man to
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: be considered free as a soldier after leaving the army,
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: and his certificate of having belonged to the order of
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: Secularism should entitle him to distinction and to authority when
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: his opinion was sought, and to exemption from all but
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: voluntary service. At present, the soldiers of progress, when no
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: longer able to serve, are dismissed from the public eye
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: like the racehorse to the cab stand to obscurity and neglect.
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: This needs correction before men can be counted upon in
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: the battle of truth. A man is to be estimated
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: according to the aims of the party to which he
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: is allied. He is to be esteemed in consequence of
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: sacrifices of time and discipline of conduct, which he contributes
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: to the service and reputation of his cause. In foreign countries,
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: many persons reside interested in secularism. In Great Britain, indeed,
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: many friends reside where no secular society is formed, and
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: in these cases membership of the Guild would be advantageous
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: to them, affording means of introduction to publicists of similar views.
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: And even in instances of towns where secular societies do exist,
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: persons in direct relation to the Secular Guild would be
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: able to furnish secular direction where the tradition and usage
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: of a secular society are unknown or unfamiliar. End of
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: Chapter six, Chapter seven organization indicated as the aim of
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: the Guild is not to fetter independent sort, but to
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: concert practical action. It is mainly required of each member
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: that he undertakes to perform in good faith the duties
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: which he shall conc sent to have assigned to him,
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: and generally so to comport himself that his principles shall
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: not be likely to suffer if judged by his conduct.
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: He will be expected to treat every colleague as equal
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: with himself in veracity, in honor, and in loyalty to
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: his cause. And every form of speech which casts a
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: doubt upon the truth, or imputes or assumes a want
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: of honor on the part of any member will be
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: deemed the breach of order. If any member intends such
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: an accusation of another, it must be made the matter
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: of a formal charge, after leave obtained to prefer it.
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: What it is desirable to know about new members is this?
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: Do they, in their conception of secularism see in it
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: that which seeks not the sensible, but the good, and
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: the good which the conscience can be engaged in pursuing
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: and promoting. A moralism in accordance with the laws of
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: names nature and capable of intrinsic proof, a materialism which
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: is definite without dogmatism or grossness, and the unity on
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: the ground of these common agreements for convictions which imply
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: no apostolate are neither earnest nor generous. No one ought
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: to be encouraged to take sides with secularism unless his
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: conscience is satisfied of the moral rightfulness of its principles
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: and duties, both for life and death. It is not
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: desirable to accept persons of that class who decry parties,
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: who boast of being of no party, who preach up
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: isolation and lament the want of unity, who think party
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: the madness of the many for the gain of the few.
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: Seek rather the partisan who is wise enough to know
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: that the disparagement of party is the madness of the few,
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: leading to the utter impotence of the many. A party,
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: in an associative and defensible sense is a class of
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: persons taking sides upon some definite question and acting together
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: for necessary ends, having principles, aims, policy, authority, and discipline.
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: With respect to proposed members, it may be well to
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: ascertain whether neglect or rudeness, or insult or unfairness from colleagues,
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: or overwork being imposed upon him, or incapacity of others,
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: would divert him from his duty. These accidents or necessities
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: might occur, but if a society is to be strong,
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: it must be able to count upon its members, and
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: to be able to count upon them, it must be
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: known what they will bear without insubordination, and what they
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: will bear will depend upon the frankness and completeness of
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: information they receive as to the social risks all run
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: who unite to carry out any course of duty or
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: public service. Always assuming that the candidate cares for the
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: objects for which he proposes to associate, and that it
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: is worth while knowing whom it is with whom you
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: propose to work them out. Answers to such inquiries as
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: the following would tend to impart a working knowledge and
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: quality to the society. Is he a person previously or
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: recently acquainted with the principles he is about to profess?
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: Does he understand what is meant by taking sides with
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: a public party? Would he be faithful to the special
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: ideas of secularism so long as he felt them to
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: be true? Would he make sacrifices to spread them and
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: vindicate them, or enable others to do so? Would he
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: conceive of secularism as a cause to be served loyally,
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: which he would support as well as he was able,
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: if unable to support it as well as he could wish.
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: Is he of decent moral character and tolerably reliable as
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: to his future conduct? In presenting his views to others?
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: Would he be likely to render them in an attractive
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: spirit or to make them disagreeable? To others? Is he
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: of an impulsive nature, ardent for a time and then
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: a pathetic or reactionary, likely to antagonize to morrow the
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: persons he applauds to day? Is he a person who
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: would commit the fault of provoking persecution? Would ridicule a
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: persecution chill him if it occurred? Is he a man
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: to stand by an obscure and friendless cause, or a
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: notoriety success applause and a company of others indispensable to
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: his fidelity? Is he a man of any mark of
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: esteem among his friends? A man whose promise is sure,
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: whose word has weaged? Is his idea of obedience? Obedience
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: simply to his own will? Would he acquiesce in the
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: authority of the laws of the society or the decision
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: of the society where the laws were silent? Would he
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: acknowledge in democracy the despotism of principles self consented to,
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: or as an arena for the assertion of individualism, before
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: winning the consent of colleagues to the discussion of special views.
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: The membership sort may be granted, provided the actual knowledge
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: of secular principles be satisfactory and evident, earnestness to practice
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: them be apparent. The purport of the whole of the
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: questions is to enable a clear opinion to be formed
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: as to what is to be expected of the new member,
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: how far he is likely to be reliable, how long
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: he is likely to remain with us, under what circumstances
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: he is likely to fail us, what work may be
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: assigned him, what confidences he may be entrusted with, and
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: in what terms he should be introduced to colleagues and
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: spoken of to others. The membership he had described would
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: and should be no restricted and exclusive society where only
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: one pattern of efficiency prevails, but a society where all
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: diversities of capacity, energy and worth may be found, so
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: far as it is honest and trustworthy. A society like
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: the state, requires the existence of the people as well
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: as public officers, men who can act as well as
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: men who can think and direct. Many men who lack
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: refinement and even discretion, possess courage and energy, and will
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: go out on the inevitable, forlorn hopes of progress, which
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: the merely prudent avoid, and from which the cultivated too
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: often shrink. Our work requires all orders of men, but
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: efficiency requires that we know which is which, that none
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: may be employed in the dark. In every public organization
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: there are persons who promote and aid unconnected with the society.
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: Active members are those who engaged to perform specific duties,
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: such as reporting lectures, sermons, and public meetings so far
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: as they refer to secularism. To give notice of meetings
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: and sermons about to be held or delivered for or
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: against secularism. To note and report passages in books, newspapers, magazines,
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: and reviews referring to secularism. Each active member should possess
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: some working efficiency or be willing to acquire it. To
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: be able to explain his views by tongue or pen
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: with simple directness, To observe carefully, to report judiciously, to
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: reason dispassionately, to put the best construction on every act
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: that needs interpretation are desirable accomplishments in a propagandist. In
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: all public proceedings of the society, written speeches should be
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: preferred from the young, because such speeches admit of preconsidered brevity, executiveness,
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: and purpose, and exist for reference in the deliberations and
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: discussions of any society. It might usefully be deemed a
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: qualification to make a contribution to the subject in speeches.
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: Brief and direct non reliableness in discharge of duties, or
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: moral disqualification shall be a ground of a nulling membership,
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: which may be done after the member objected to has
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: had a fair opportunity of defending himself from the specific
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: disqualifications alleged against him and communicated to him, and has
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: failed therein. The duties assigned to each member should be
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: such as are within his means, as respects power and opportunity,
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: such indeed does interfere neither with his social nor civil obligations.
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: The intention being that the membership of the society shall not,
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: as a rule, be incompatible with the preservation of health
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: and the primary service due to to family and the state.
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: Any persons acquainted with the principles of secularism here given,
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: who shall generally agree therein and associate under any name,
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: to promote such objects, and to act in concert with
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: all who seek similar objects, and will receive and take
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: into official consideration the instructions of the Guild, and to
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: make one subscription yearly among its members and friends on
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: behalf of its propagandist funds, shall be recognized as a
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: branch of it. End of Chapter seven, Chapter eight. The
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: place of secularism. We do, not, however, deny that false
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: as the whole theory of secularism appears to us, it
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: is capable of attracting the belief of large numbers of people,
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: and of exercising considerable influence over their conduct. And we
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: should admit that the influence so exercised is considerably better
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: than no influence at all. Saturday Review, July second, eighteen
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: fifty nine. This first step is to win from public
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: opinion a standing place for secularism. So long as people
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: believe secularism not to be wanted, indeed impossible to be wanted,
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: that it is error, wickedness, and unmitigated evil, it will
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: receive no attention, no respect, and make no way, but
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: show that it occupies a vacant place, supplies a want,
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: is a direction where no other party supplies any and
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: it at once appears indispensable. It is proved to be
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: a service to somebody and from that moment it is tolerated.
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: If not respected, it may be like war, or medicine,
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: or work, or a law disagreeable or unpalatable, but when
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: seen to be necessary, it will have recognition and support.
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: We are sure this case can be made out for secularism.
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: It is not only true, but it is known. It
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: is not only known, but it is notorious. That there
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: are thousands and tens of thousands of persons in every
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: district of this and most European countries, who are without
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: the pale of Christianity. They reject it, they disprove it,
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: they dislike it, or they do not understand it. Some
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: have vices and passions which Christianity, as preached around them,
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: condemns as devils are said to do. They believe and tremble,
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: and so disown what they have not the virtue to
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: practice faith does not touch them, and reason is not tried. Indeed,
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: reason is decried by the evangelically religious, so that not
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: being converted in one way, no other way is open
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: to them. Others are absorbed or insensate. They are busy
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: or stupid, or defiant, and regard Christianity as a waste
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: of time or as monotonous or offensive. It bores them
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: or threatens them. They are already dull. Therefore it does
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: not attract them. They have some rude sense of independence
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: and some feeling of courage, and they object either to
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: be snubbed into conformity or kicked into heaven. Another and
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: a yearly increasing portion of the people have, after patiently
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: and painfully thinking over Christianity, come to believe it to
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: be untrue, unfounded, historically, wrong morally, and a discreditable imputation
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: upon God. It outrages their affections, It baffles their understandings.
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: It is double tongued. Its expounders are always multiplying, and
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: the more they increase, the less they agree, and hence skeptics.
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: The more abound these believers therefore exist, they augment. They
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: can neither be convinced, converted, nor conciliated, because they will
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: yield no allegiance to a system which has no hold
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: on their conscience. It is, we repeat more than known.
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: It is notorious that these persons live and die in skepticism.
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: These facts are the cry of the pulpit, the theme
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: of the platform, the burden of the religious tract. Now
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: is nothing to be done with these people. You cannot
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: exterminate them. The Church cannot direct them. The Bible is
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: no authority to them. The will of God, as the
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: clergy call it in their eyes, is mere, arbitrary, capricious,
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: dogmatical assumption, sometimes indeed wise precept, but oftener a cloak
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: for knavery, or a pretext for despotism. To open the
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: eyes of such persons to the omnipresent teachings of nature,
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: to make reason and authority with them, To inspire them
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: with precepts which experience can verify, to connect conscience with
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: intell dilligence, right with interest, duty with self, respect, and
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: goodness with love, must truly be useful if secularism accomplishes
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: some such work. Where Christianity confessedly accomplishes nothing, it certainly
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: has a place of its own. It is no answer
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: to it to claim that Christianity is higher, more complete, better.
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: The advocates of every old religion say the same. Christianity
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: may be higher, more complete, better for somebody else, but
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: nothing can be high, complete, or good for those who
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: do not see it, accept it, want it, or act
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: upon it. That is first, which is fit, that is supreme,
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: which is most productive of practical virtue. No comparison, which
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: would be as irrelevant as offensive, between secularism and Christianity
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: is set up here. The question is kularism useful or
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: may it be useful to anybody? The question is not
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: does it contain all truth? But does it contain as
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: much as may be serviceable to many minds otherwise uninfluenced
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: for good arithmetic is useful, though algebra is more compendious.
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: Mensuration performs good offices in hands ignorant of eucleid. There
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: may be logic without Whatly, and melody without Beethoven. And
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: there may be secular ethics which shall be useful without
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: the pretension of Christianity. End of Chapter eight. Chapter nine.
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: Characteristics of Secularism, Part one one. Secularism means the moral
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: duty of man in this life, deduced from considerations which
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: pertain to this life alone. Secular education is by some
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: confounded with secularism, whereas the distinction between them is very wide.
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: Secular education simply means imparting secular knowledge separately by itself,
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: without the admixture of theology with it. The advocate of
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: secular education may be, and generally is, also an advocate
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: of religion. But he would teach religion at another time
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: and treat it as a distinct subject, too sacred for course.
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: If ad mixture into the heart and vexatious routine of
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: a school, he would confine the inculcation of religion to
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: fitting seasons and chosen instruments. He holds also that one
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: subject at a time is mental economy in learning. Secular
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: education is the policy of a school. Secularism is a
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: policy of life. To those who do not accept theology.
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: Secularity draws the line of separation between the things of
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: time and the things of eternity, that is secular, which
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: pertains to this world. The distinction may be seen in
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: the fact that the cardinal propositions of theology are provable
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: only in the next life, and not in this. If
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: I believe in a given creed, it may turn out
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: to be the true one, but one must die to
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: find that out. On this side of the grave, all
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: is doubt. The truth of biblical creeds is an affair
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: of hope and anxiety, while the truth of things secular
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: becomes apparent in time. The advantages arising from the practice
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: of veracity, justice, and temperance can be ascertained from human experience.
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: If we are told to fear God and keep his
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: commandments lest his judgment overtake us, the indirect action of
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: this doctrine on human character may make a vicious, timid
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: man better in this life, supposing the interpreter of the
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: will of God and the commandments selected to be enforced
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: are moral. But such teaching is not secular because its
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: main object is to fit men for eternity. Pure secular
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: principles have for their object to fit men for a time,
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: making the fulfillment of human duty here the standard of
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: fitness for any accruing future. Secularism proposes to regulate human
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: affairs by considerations purely human. Its principles are founded upon nature,
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: and its object is to render man as perfect as
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: possible in this life. Its problem is this, supposing no
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: other life to be before us, what is the wisest
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: use of this? As the Reverend Thomas Binney puts it,
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: I believe that even if there were really no God
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: over him, no Heaven above, or eternity in prospect, things
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: are so constant that man may turn the materials of
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: this little life poem, if not always into a grand epic,
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: mostly into something of interest and beauty, and it is
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: worth his while doing so, even if there should be
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: no sequel to the peace. Chalmers, Archbishop Whatley, and earlier
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: distinguished divines of the Church of England, the most conspicuous
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: of whom is Bishop Butler, have admitted the independent existence
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: of morality. But we hear assigned mister Binny's words, because
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: among dissenters this truth is less readily admitted. A true
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: secular life does not exclude any from supplementary speculations, not
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: until we have fulfilled our duty to man. As far
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: as we can ascertain that duty, can we consistently pretend
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: to comprehend the more difficult relations of man to God.
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: Our duties to humanity, understood and discharged to the best
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: of our ability, will in no way unfit us to
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: reverently meditate on things far beyond us, on power unlimited,
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: on space unfathomed, on time uncounted, on whence we came
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: and whither we go. The leading ideas of secularism are humanism, moralism, materialism,
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: utilitarian unity. Humanism the physical perfection of this life. Moralism
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: founded on the laws of nature as the guidance of
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: this life. Materialism as the means of nature for the
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: secular improvement of this life, unity of thought and action.
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: Upon these practical grounds, Secularism teaches that the good of
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: the present life is the immediate concern of man, and
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: that it should be his first endeavor to raise it.
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: Secularism inculcates a morality founded independently upon the laws of nature.
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: It seeks human improvement through purity and suitableness of material conditions,
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: as being a method at once moral, practical, universal, and sure. Two.
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: The province of positivism is not speculation upon the origin,
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: but study of the laws of nature. Its policies to
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: destroy error by superseding it. August Kand quotes as a
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: cardinal maxim of scientific progress the words nothing is destroyed
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: until it is replaced, a proverbial form of a wise
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: saying of Monsieur Nica that in political progress, nothing is
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: destroyed for which we do not find a substitute. Negations
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: useful in their place, are iconoclastic, not constructive. Unless substitution
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: succeeds destruction, there can be no sustained progress. The secularist
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: is known by setting up and maintaining affirmative propositions. He
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: replaces negations by affirmations and substitutes demonstration for denunciation. He
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: asserts truths of nature and humanity, and reverses the position
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: of the priests, who appears as the skeptic, the denial,
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: the disbeliever in nature and humanity. Statesmen not otherwise eager
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: for improvement, will regard affirmative proposals. Lord Palmerston could say,
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: show me a good and I will realize it. Not
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: an abuse to correct. Three. All science, says Monsieur Comte,
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: has provision for its end, an axiom which separates science
• 56:38
  Speaker 1: from airy udition, which relates to events of the past
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: without any regard to the future. No accumulation of facts
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: can effect provision until the facts are made the basis
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: of reasonings. A knowledge of phenomena leads to provision, and
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: provision to action, or in other words, when we can
• 56:59
  Speaker 1: foresee what will happen under given circumstances, we can provide
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: against it. It by no means follows that every secularist
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: will be scientific. But to discern the value of science,
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: to appreciate and promote it may be possible to most.
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: Science requires high qualities of accurate observation, close attention, careful experiment, caution, patience, labor.
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: Its value to mankind is inestimable. One physician will do
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: more to alleviate human suffering than ten priests. One physical
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: discovery will do more to advance civilization than a generation
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: of prayer makers. To get acquaintance with the usual course
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: of nature, which science alone can teach us is a
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: kind of knowledge which pays very good interest. The value
• 57:51
  Speaker 1: of this knowledge becomes more apparent the longer we live.
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: There may be a general, superintending providence. There may be
• 57:59
  Speaker 1: a special providence, but the first does not interfere in
• 58:03
  Speaker 1: human affairs, and the interpositions of the second are no
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: longer to be counted upon. The aid of prayer for
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: temporal deliverance has confessedly passed away. But without disputing these points,
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: it is clear that the only help available to man,
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: the sole dependence upon which he can calculate, is that
• 58:23
  Speaker 1: of science. Nothing can be more impotent than the fate
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: of that man who seeks social elevation by mere faith.
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: All human affairs are a process, and he alone who
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: acts upon this knowledge can hope to control results. Loyola
• 58:39
  Speaker 1: foresaw the necessity of men acting for human purposes as
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: though there were no God, let us pray, said he,
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: as if we had no help in ourselves. Let us
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: labor as if there was no help for us in heaven.
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: Society is a blunder, not a science, until it is should
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: as good sense and competence for the many. Why this
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: process is tardy is that credists get credit for hoping
• 59:07
  Speaker 1: and meaning well. Creedests of good intent who make no
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: improvement and attempt none are very much in the way
• 59:15
  Speaker 1: of human veterans. The spiritualist regards the world theoretically as
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: a gross element which he is rather to struggle against
• 59:23
  Speaker 1: than to work with. This makes human service a mortification
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: instead of pure passion. We would not defy the world
• 59:32
  Speaker 1: that is set up the sensualism of the body, as
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: spiritualism is set up as the sensualism of the soul.
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: Secularism sees the material purity of the present life, which
• 59:43
  Speaker 1: is at once the means and end of secular endeavor.
• 59:47
  Speaker 1: The most reliable means of progress is the improvement of
• 59:51
  Speaker 1: material condition, and purity implies improvement, for there can be
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: no improvement without it. The aim of all the improvement
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: is higher purity. All power, art, civilization, and progress are
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: summed up in the result purer life, strength, intellect, love
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: are measured by it, duty, study, temperance. Patients are but
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: ministers to this. There is that, says Ruskin, to be
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: seen in every street and lane of every city, that
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: to be found and felt in every human heart and countenance,
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: that to be loved in every roadside, weed and moss
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: grown ball, which in the hands of faithful men may
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 1: convey emotions of glory and sublimity, continual and exalted. Four.
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: It is necessary to point out that sincerity does not
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 1: imply infallibility. There is a truth which, could it be
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 1: stamped on every human mind, would exterminate all bigotry and persecution.
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 1: I mean the truths that worth of character and true integrity,
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 1: and consequently God's acceptance, are not necessarily connected with any
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: particular set of opinions. If you admit that Mark and
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 1: Paul were honest, most Christians take that to be an
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: admission of the truth of all related under their names.
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 1: Yet if a man, in defending his opinions, affirm his
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 1: own sincerity, Christians quickly see that is no proof of
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: their truth, and proceed to disprove them. Sincerity may account
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 1: for a man holding his opinions, but it does not
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 1: account for the opinions themselves. Nothing is more common than uninformed, misinformed, mistaken,
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 1: or self deluded honesty. But sincere error, though dangerous enough,
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 1: has not the attribute of crime about it personal intention
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: of mischief, because human nature is frail and fallible. The
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 1: ground of our acceptance with God under the Gospel is sincerity.
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 1: A sincere desire to know and do the will of
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: God is the only condition of obtaining the Christian salvation.
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 1: Every honest man will be saved. But sincerity, if the
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: reader recurs to our definition of it, includes a short
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: intellectual and moral education with respect to it. Those worthy
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 1: of the high descriptive sincere are those who have thought, inquired, examined,
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 1: are in earnest, have a sense of duty with regard
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 1: to their conviction, which is only satisfied by acting upon it.
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: These processes may not bring a man to the truth,
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 1: but they bring him near to it. The chances of
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 1: error are reduced hereby as far as human care can
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 1: reduce them. Secularism holds that the Protestant right of private
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 1: judgment includes the moral innocency of that judgment when consciently formed,
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 1: whether for or against received opinion. That though all, sincere
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: opinion is not equally true nor equally useful, it is
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 1: yet equally without sin. That it is not sameness of belief,
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 1: but sincerity of belief which justifies conduct, whether regard be
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 1: had to the esteem of men or the approval of God. Sincerity,
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: we repeat, is not infallibility. The conscientious are often as
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 1: mischievous as the false, But he who acts according to
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 1: the best of his belief is free from criminal intention.
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 1: The sincerity commended by the fortuitous insipid a pathetic, inherited consent,
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 1: which so often passes for honesty because too indolent or
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 1: too cowardly to inquire and too stupid to doubt. The
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 1: man who holds merely ready made opinions is not to
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 1: be placed on the same level with him whose conviction
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: are derived from experience. Through sincerity, is an educated and
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 1: earnest sentiment. Secularist is an active sentiment, seeking the truth
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 1: and acting upon it. Five. In the formation and judgment
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 1: of opinions, we must take into account the consequences to
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 1: mankind involved in their adoption. But when an opinion seems
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 1: true in itself and beneficial to society, the consequences in
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 1: the way of inconvenience to ourselves is not sufficient reason
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 1: for refusing to act upon it. If a particular time
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: of enforcing it seems to be one when it will
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 1: be disregarded or misunderstood, or put back, and the sacrifice
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 1: of ourselves on its behalf produce no adequate advantage to society.
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 1: It may be lawful to seek a better opportunity. We must, however,
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 1: take care that this view of the matter is not
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 1: made a pretext of coward or evasion of duty. And
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 1: in no case is it justifiable to belie conscience or
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 1: profess a belief the contrary of that which we believe
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 1: to be true. There may, in extreme cases be neutrality
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 1: with regards to truth, but in no case should there
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 1: be complicity in falsehood, so much with respect to this life,
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 1: with respect to deity or another life. We may in
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 1: all cases rely upon this that in truth alone is
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 1: safety with God. Conscience can have no penal consequences. Conscience
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 1: is the voice of honesty, and honesty with all its errors.
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 1: A God of truth will regard we have, says Blanco White,
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 1: no revealed rule which will ascertain with moral certainty which
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 1: doctrines are right and which are wrong. That is as
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 1: they are known to God. Salvation therefore cannot depend on
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 1: orthodox It cannot consist in abstract doctrines about which men
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 1: of equal abilities, virtue and sincerity are and always have
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 1: been divided. No error on abstract doctrines can be heresy
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 1: in the sense of a wrong belief which endangers the soul.
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 1: The Father of the universe accommodates not his judgment to
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 1: the wretched wranglings of pedantic theologians, but every one who
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 1: seeks truth, whether he findeth it or not, and work
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 1: with righteousness, will be accepted of him. Thomas Carlyle was
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 1: the first English writer having the ear of the public,
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 1: who declared in England that sincere doubt is as much
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 1: entitled to respect as sincere belief. Six going to a
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 1: distant town to mitigate some calamity there will illustrate the
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 1: principle of action prescribed by secularism. One man will go
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 1: on this errand from pure sympathy with the unfortunate. This
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 1: is goodness. Another goes because his priests bid him. This
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 1: is obedience. Another goes because the twenty fifth chapter of
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 1: Matthew tells him that all such persons will pass to
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 1: the right hand of the father. This is calculation. Another
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 1: goes because he believes God commands him. This is piety.
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 1: Another goes because he believes that the neglect of suffering
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 1: will not answer. This is utilitarianism. But another goes on
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 1: the errand of mercy because it is an errand of mercy,
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 1: because it is an immediate service to humanity, and he
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 1: goes to attempt material amelioration rather than spiritual consolation. This
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 1: is secularism, which teaches that goodness is sanctity, that nature
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 1: is guidance, that reason is authority, that service is duty,
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 1: and that materialism is help. The policy of secular controversy
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 1: is to distinguish and assert its own affirmative propositions. It
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 1: is the policy of secularism not so much to say
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 1: to error it is false, as to say of truth
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 1: this is true. Thus, instead of leaving to the popular
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 1: theology the prestige of exclusive affirmation accorded to it by
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 1: the world, although it is solely employed in the incessantry
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 1: assertion of error, secularism causes it to own and publish
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 1: its denial of positive principle. When the popular theology proves
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 1: itself to be but an organized negation of the moral
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 1: guidance of nature and its tendencies to progress. A secularist
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 1: sees clearly upon what he relies as a secularist. To him,
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 1: the teaching of nature is as clear as the teaching
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 1: of the Bible, and since if God exists, nature is
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 1: certainly his work. While it is not so clear that
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 1: the Bible is, the teaching of nature will be preferred
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 1: and followed where the teaching of the Bible appears to
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 1: conflict with it. A secular society contemplating intellectual and moral
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 1: progress must provide for the freest expression of opinion on
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 1: all subjects which its members may deem conducive to their
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 1: common objects. Christianism, theism, materialism, and atheism will be regarded
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 1: as open questions subject to unreserved discussion. But these occasions
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 1: will be the opportunity of the members, not the business
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 1: of the society. All public proceedings accredited by the society
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 1: should relate to topics consistent with the common principles of secularism.
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 1: In necessary things, unity in doubtful things, liberty in all things, charity.
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 1: The destruction of religious servitude may be attempted in two ways.
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 1: It may be denounced, which will irritate it, or it
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 1: may be superseded by the servitude of humanity, attacking it
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 1: by denunciation generally inflames and precipitates the persecution of the
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 1: many upon the view when the weak are liable to
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 1: be scattered, the cowardly to recant, and the brave to perish.
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 1: End of Chapter nine, Part one eight. The essential rule
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 1: upon which personal association can be permanent or controversy be
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 1: maintained in the spirit in which truth can be evolved
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 1: is that of never imputing evil motives nor putting the
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 1: worst construction on any act. Free inquiry has no limits
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 1: but truth. Free speech no limits but exactness. Policy here
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 1: the law of speech no limits but usefulness. Unfettered and uncompromising.
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 1: Are they who pursue free inquiry throughout measured and impassable.
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 1: May those become who hold to a generous veracity, far
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 1: both from outrage or civility, too proud to court and
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 1: too strong to hate. Are those who learn to discard
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 1: all arts but that of the austereous service of others,
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 1: exacting no thanks and pausing at no curse. Wise words
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 1: of counsel to theological controversialists have been addressed in a
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 1: powerful quarter of public opinion. Religious controversy has already lost
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 1: much of its bitterness. Open abuse and exchange of foul
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 1: names are exploded, and even the indirect imputation of unworthy
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 1: motives is falling into disuse. Another step will be made
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 1: when theologians have learned to extend their intellectual as well
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 1: as their moral sympathies, to feel that most truths are
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 1: double edged, and not to wage an unnecessary war against
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 1: opinion which, strange, incongruous, and unlovely as they may at
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 1: first appear, are built perhaps on as firm a foundation,
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 1: and are held with equal sincerity and good faith as
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 1: their own. This is advice which both sides should remember. Nine.
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 1: No society can be in a healthy state in which
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 1: eccentricity is a matter of reproach. Conventionality is the tyranny
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 1: of the average man, and the despicable tyranny it is.
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 1: The tyranny of genius is hard to be borne. That
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 1: of mediocrity is humiliating. That idea of freedom, which consists
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 1: in the absence of all government is either mere lawlessness
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 1: or refers to the distant period when each man, having
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 1: attained perfection, will be a law unto himself. Just rule
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 1: is indispensable rule, and none other. The fewer laws consistent
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 1: with the public preservation, the better there is, then, as
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 1: mister Mill has shown in his Liberty, the more room
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 1: for that ever recurring originality which keeps intellect alive in
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 1: the world towards law kept within the limits of reason.
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 1: Obedience is the first of virtues, order and progress, says Qante,
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 1: which we should express thus, order without which progress is impossible,
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 1: progress without which order is tyranny. The world is clogged
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 1: with men of dead principles. Principles that cannot be acted
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 1: upon are probably either obsolete or false. One certain way
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 1: to improvement is to exact consistency between profession and practice.
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 1: And the way to bring this about is to teach
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 1: that the highest merit consists in having earnest views and
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 1: in endeavoring to realize them. And this, whether the convictions
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 1: be contained within or without accredited creeds, there will be
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 1: no progress except within the stereotyped limits of creeds unless
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 1: means are found to justify independent convictions to the conscience.
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 1: To the philosopher, you have merely to show that a
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 1: thing is true to the statesman, that it is useful,
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 1: but to a Christian that it is safe. The grace
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 1: of service lies in its patients. To promote the welfare
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 1: of others, irrespective of their gratitude or claims, is to
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 1: reach the nature of the gods. It is a higher
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 1: sentiment than is ascribed to the deity of the Bible.
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 1: The abiding disposition to serve others is the end of
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 1: all philosophy. The vow of principle is always one of
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 1: poverty and obedience, and few are they who take it,
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 1: and fewer who keep it. If hate obscure for a
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 1: period the path of duty, let us remember nothing should
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 1: shake our it. Attachment to that supreme thought which at
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 1: once stills human anger and educates human endeavor, the perception
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 1: that the sufferings and errors of mankind arise out of
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 1: want of knowledge, rather than defect of goodness. Ten. A
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 1: leading object of secularism is the promotion of the material
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 1: purity of the present life, material purity which includes personal
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 1: as well as external condition. The question of spiritualism, without
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 1: employing it and without disparaging it, it regards as a
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 1: distinct question, and hence the methods by which secularists attempt
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 1: improvement will be material as being the most reliable. The
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 1: tacit or expressed aim of all freethinking has ever been
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 1: true thinking and pure thinking. It has been a continued
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 1: protest against the error's theology has introduced and the vicious
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 1: relations it has conserved and sanctified. It is necessary to
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 1: mark this, and it can be done by insisting and
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 1: keeping distinctly evident that the aim of secularism is the
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 1: purity of material influences. This precludes the possibility of secularism
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 1: being charged either with conscious grossness or intentional sin. Secularism
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 1: concerns itself with the work of today. It is always
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 1: yesterday or tomorrow, and never today is a fair description
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 1: of life according to theologies. Secularism, on the contrary, concerns
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 1: itself with the things of today. The cardinal idea of
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 1: the popular theology is the necessity of revelation. It believes
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 1: that the light of nature is darkness, that reason affords
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 1: no guidance, that the scriptures are the true chart, the
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 1: sole chart, and the sufficient chart of man. And it
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 1: regards all attenmempt to delineate a chart of nature as impious,
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 1: as impracticable, and as a covert attack upon the biblical
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 1: chart in possession of the churches, knowing no other guidance
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 1: than that of the Bible, and disbelieving the possibility of
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 1: any other. Theology denounces doubt, which inspires it with a
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 1: sense of insecurity. It fears inquiry, which may invalidate its trust,
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 1: and deprecates criticism which may expose it if deficient. Having
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 1: nothing to gain, it is reluctant to incur risk. Having
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 1: all to lose. It dreads to be disturbed, having no
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 1: strength but in faith, it fears those who reason, and
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 1: less from ill will than from the tenderness of its position,
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 1: it persecutes in self defense. Such are the restrictions and
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 1: the logic of theology eleven. On the other hand, rationalism,
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 1: which is the logic of nature, is an attitude and
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 1: spirit quite the reverse. It observes that numbers are unconvinced
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 1: of the fact of revelation, and feel the insufficiency for
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 1: their guidance of that offered to them. To them, the
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 1: pages of nature seem clearer than those of the apostles. Reason,
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 1: which existed before all religions, and decides upon all else.
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 1: The false can never be distinguished from the true, seems
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 1: self dependent and capable of furnishing personal direction. Hence, rationalism,
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 1: instructed by facts, winning secrets by experiments, establishing principles by reflection,
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 1: is assured of a morality founded upon the laws of nature.
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 1: Without the advantage of inductive science to assist discoveries or
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 1: the printing press to record corroborations of them, the pre
• 1:18:53
  Speaker 1: Christian world created ethics, and Socrates and Epictetus and Zoroaster
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 1: and conf Yustus delivered precepts to which this age accords
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 1: a high place. Modern rationalists therefore sought, with their new advantages,
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 1: to augment and systematize these conquests. They tested the claims
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 1: of the Church by the truths of nature. That freethought,
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 1: which had won these truths, applied them to creeds, and
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 1: criticism became its weapon of propagandism. Its consciousness of new
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 1: truth stimulated its aggression on old error. The pretensions of
• 1:19:32
  Speaker 1: reason being denied as false, and rationalists themselves persecuted as dangerous,
• 1:19:38
  Speaker 1: they had no alternative but to criticize in order to
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 1: vindicate their own principles and weaken the credit and power
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 1: of their opponents. To attack the misleading dogmas of theology
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 1: was to the early freethinkers well understood self defense. In
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 1: some hands, and under the provocations of vindictive bigotry, this work,
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 1: no doubt became wholly antagonistic. But the main aspiration of
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 1: the majority was the determination of teaching the people to
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 1: be a law unto themselves. They found prevailing a religion
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 1: of unreasoning faith. They sought to create a religion of
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 1: intelligent conviction, whose uniformity consisted in sincerity. Its believers did
• 1:20:23
  Speaker 1: not all hold the same tenets, but they all sought
• 1:20:26
  Speaker 1: the same truth and pursued it with the same earnestness.
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 1: It was this inspiration which sustained Vanini, Hammond, luz ket Legate,
• 1:20:36
  Speaker 1: and white men at the stake, and which armed Cervitus
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 1: to prefer the fires of Calvin to the creed of Calvin,
• 1:20:44
  Speaker 1: which supported Anni in the pillory, and Woolston and Carlyle
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 1: in their imprisonments. It was no capricious taste for negations
• 1:20:53
  Speaker 1: which dictated these deliberate sacrifices, but a sentiment purer than
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 1: interest and stronger than self love. It was the generous
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 1: passion for unfriended truth. Twelve. The intellectual no less than
• 1:21:10
  Speaker 1: the heroic characteristics of freethought, have presented features of obvious unity. Tyndall, Shaftesbury, Voltaire,
• 1:21:19
  Speaker 1: Pain and Bentam all vindicated principles of natural morality. Shelley
• 1:21:25
  Speaker 1: struggled that the pure and lofty ideal of life should prevail,
• 1:21:29
  Speaker 1: and Byron had passionate words of reverence for the human
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 1: character of Christ. The distrust of prayer for temporal help
• 1:21:38
  Speaker 1: was accompanied by trust and science, and all saw in
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 1: material effort and available deliverance from countless ills which the
• 1:21:47
  Speaker 1: Church can merely deplore. Those who held that a future
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 1: life was unproven taught that attention to this life was
• 1:21:55
  Speaker 1: of primary importance, at least highly serviceable to humanity, even
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 1: if a futures fear be certain. All strove for free inquiry.
• 1:22:05
  Speaker 1: Rationalism owed its existence to it all required free speech.
• 1:22:10
  Speaker 1: Rationalism was diffused by it all vindicated free criticism. Rationalism
• 1:22:16
  Speaker 1: established itself with it all demanded to act out their opinions.
• 1:22:21
  Speaker 1: Rationalism was denuded of conscience without this right. In all
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 1: its mutations and aberrations and conquests, free thought has uniformly
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 1: sought the truth and shown the courage to trust the truth.
• 1:22:36
  Speaker 1: Free thought uses no persecution, for it fears no opposition,
• 1:22:40
  Speaker 1: for opposition is its opportunity. It is the cause of
• 1:22:44
  Speaker 1: enterprise and progress, of reason and duty, and now seeking
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 1: the definite and the practical, it selects for its guidance
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 1: the principle that human affairs should be regulated by considerations
• 1:22:57
  Speaker 1: purely human. These the characteristics which the term secularism was
• 1:23:03
  Speaker 1: designed to express, are therefore not inventions, not assumptions, but
• 1:23:09
  Speaker 1: the general agreements of the freethought party, inherent, traditional, and historic.
• 1:23:15
  Speaker 1: That which is new and of the nature of a
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 1: development is the perception that the positivism of freethought principles
• 1:23:22
  Speaker 1: should be extended, should be clearly distinguished and made the
• 1:23:26
  Speaker 1: subject of energetic assertion, that the freethought party, which has
• 1:23:31
  Speaker 1: so loudly demanded toleration for itself, should be able to
• 1:23:35
  Speaker 1: exercise it towards all earnest thinkers, and especially towards all
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 1: co workers. That those who have protested against the isolation
• 1:23:44
  Speaker 1: of human effort by sectarian exclusiveness should themselves set the
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 1: example of offering in good faith practical conditions of unity,
• 1:23:54
  Speaker 1: not for the glory of sects or coteries or schools,
• 1:23:58
  Speaker 1: but for the immediate service of humanity. Thirteen. The relation
• 1:24:05
  Speaker 1: of secularism to the future demands a few words to
• 1:24:09
  Speaker 1: seek after the purity and perfection of the present life.
• 1:24:13
  Speaker 1: Neither disproves another life beyond this, nor disqualifies man for it.
• 1:24:19
  Speaker 1: Nor is secularism opposed to the future, so far as
• 1:24:22
  Speaker 1: that future belongs to the present world. To determine which
• 1:24:26
  Speaker 1: we have definite science susceptible of trial and verification. The
• 1:24:31
  Speaker 1: conditions of a future life being unknown, and there being
• 1:24:34
  Speaker 1: no imaginable means of benefiting ourselves and others in it,
• 1:24:39
  Speaker 1: except by aiming after present goodness, we shall confessedly gain
• 1:24:43
  Speaker 1: less towards the happiness of a future life by speculation
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 1: than by simply devoting ourselves to the energetic improvements of
• 1:24:51
  Speaker 1: this life. Men have a right to look beyond this world,
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 1: but not to overlook it. Men, if they can, may
• 1:25:00
  Speaker 1: connect themselves with eternity, but they cannot disconnect themselves from
• 1:25:05
  Speaker 1: humanity without sacrificing duty. Secular knowledge relates to this life.
• 1:25:11
  Speaker 1: Religious knowledge to another life. Secular instruction teaches the duties
• 1:25:16
  Speaker 1: to man. Religious instruction the duties to God apart from man.
• 1:25:22
  Speaker 1: Religious knowledge relates to celestial creeds. Secular knowledge relates to
• 1:25:27
  Speaker 1: human duties to be performed. The religious teacher instructs us
• 1:25:32
  Speaker 1: how to please God by creeds, the secular teacher how
• 1:25:36
  Speaker 1: to serve man by sympathy and science. Archbishop Whatly tells
• 1:25:42
  Speaker 1: the story of a lady at Bath who, being afraid
• 1:25:46
  Speaker 1: to cross a tottering bridge lest it should give way
• 1:25:49
  Speaker 1: under her. Fortunately, bethought herself of the expedient of calling
• 1:25:53
  Speaker 1: for a sedan chair, and was carried over in that conveyance.
• 1:25:58
  Speaker 1: Some of our critics say that we shall resemble this
• 1:26:01
  Speaker 1: ingenious lady. But those who fear to trust themselves to
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 1: the ancient and tottering biblical bridge will hardly get into
• 1:26:09
  Speaker 1: the sedan chair of obsolete orthodoxy, and add the weight
• 1:26:13
  Speaker 1: of that to the danger. They prefer going round by
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 1: the way of reason and fearless private judgment. Fourteen. Secularism,
• 1:26:25
  Speaker 1: we have said, concerns itself with four rights. One the
• 1:26:31
  Speaker 1: right to think for one's self, which most Christians now admit,
• 1:26:35
  Speaker 1: at least in theory. Two the right to differ, without
• 1:26:39
  Speaker 1: which the right to think is nothing worth. Three the
• 1:26:43
  Speaker 1: right to assert difference of opinion, without which the right
• 1:26:47
  Speaker 1: to differ is of no practical use. Four the right
• 1:26:51
  Speaker 1: to debate all vital opinion, without which there is no
• 1:26:54
  Speaker 1: intellectual equality, no defense against the errors of the state
• 1:26:59
  Speaker 1: or the pulpit. It is of no use that the
• 1:27:02
  Speaker 1: Protestant concedes the right to think unless he concedes the
• 1:27:06
  Speaker 1: right to differ. We may as well be Catholic unless
• 1:27:10
  Speaker 1: we are free to dissent. Rome will concede our right
• 1:27:13
  Speaker 1: to think for ourselves, provided we agree with the Church.
• 1:27:17
  Speaker 1: When we have done, and when Protestantism affects to award
• 1:27:21
  Speaker 1: us the right of private judgment and requires us to
• 1:27:24
  Speaker 1: agree with the thirty nine articles in the end, or
• 1:27:27
  Speaker 1: when evangelical ministers tell us we are free to think
• 1:27:30
  Speaker 1: for ourselves, but must believe in the Bible. Nevertheless, both
• 1:27:35
  Speaker 1: parties reason on the papist principles, but mock us with
• 1:27:39
  Speaker 1: a show of freedom and impose the reality of mental
• 1:27:42
  Speaker 1: slavery upon us. It is mere irony to say search
• 1:27:46
  Speaker 1: the scriptures, when the meaning is you must accept the scriptures,
• 1:27:51
  Speaker 1: whether they seem true or not. Of the temper in
• 1:27:54
  Speaker 1: which theological opinions ought to be formed, we have the
• 1:27:58
  Speaker 1: instruction of one as eminent as he was capable. Jefferson remarks,
• 1:28:03
  Speaker 1: in considering this subject, divest yourself of all bias, shake
• 1:28:08
  Speaker 1: off all fears and servile prejudices under which weak minds crouch.
• 1:28:13
  Speaker 1: Fix reason in her seat. Firmly question with boldness even
• 1:28:17
  Speaker 1: the existence of God, because if there be one, he
• 1:28:21
  Speaker 1: must approve the homage of reason more than that of
• 1:28:24
  Speaker 1: blindfolded fear. Read the Bible as you would Tacitus or Livy.
• 1:28:30
  Speaker 1: Those facts in the Bible which contradict the laws of
• 1:28:33
  Speaker 1: nature must be examined with care. The New Testament is
• 1:28:37
  Speaker 1: the history of a person called Jesus. Keep in your
• 1:28:40
  Speaker 1: eye what is related? They say he was begotten by God,
• 1:28:44
  Speaker 1: but born of a virgin. How reconcile this? That he
• 1:28:48
  Speaker 1: was crucified to death and buried, that he rose and
• 1:28:52
  Speaker 1: descended bodily into heaven, thus reversing the laws of nature.
• 1:28:57
  Speaker 1: Do not be frightened from this inquiry by any fear. Fear,
• 1:29:00
  Speaker 1: And if it ends in a belief that the story
• 1:29:03
  Speaker 1: is not true, or that there is no God, you
• 1:29:06
  Speaker 1: will find other incitements to virtue and goodness in fine
• 1:29:11
  Speaker 1: lay aside all prejudices on both sides. Neither believe nor
• 1:29:16
  Speaker 1: reject anything because others have rejected or disbelieved it. Your
• 1:29:21
  Speaker 1: reason is the only oracle given you by Heaven. And
• 1:29:24
  Speaker 1: you are answerable not for the rightness, but for the
• 1:29:28
  Speaker 1: uprightness of your opinion. And never mind evangelists or as
• 1:29:32
  Speaker 1: pseudo evangelists who pretend to inspiration. It is in vain
• 1:29:38
  Speaker 1: the Christian quotes to Pauline injunction, prove all things, hold
• 1:29:42
  Speaker 1: fast that which is good, if we are to hold
• 1:29:45
  Speaker 1: fast to His good, which may be evil to us.
• 1:29:50
  Speaker 1: For a man to prove all things needful and hold
• 1:29:53
  Speaker 1: fast to that which he considers good is the true
• 1:29:56
  Speaker 1: maxim of freedom and progress. Secularism therefore proclaims and justifies
• 1:30:02
  Speaker 1: the right to differ and the right to assert conscientious
• 1:30:06
  Speaker 1: difference on the platform, through the press, in civil institutions,
• 1:30:11
  Speaker 1: in parliament, in courts of law, where it demands that
• 1:30:15
  Speaker 1: the affirmation of those who reject Christianity shall be as
• 1:30:18
  Speaker 1: valid as the oath of those who accept it. End
• 1:30:24
  Speaker 1: of Chapter nine, Part two fifteen. Yet some opponents have
• 1:30:31
  Speaker 1: professed that secular cannot be distinguished from Christian rights. Is
• 1:30:36
  Speaker 1: this so? The right to think for ourselves has been
• 1:30:40
  Speaker 1: emphatically and reiterately declared to be a Christian right. It
• 1:30:45
  Speaker 1: belongs essentially to Christianity. Now, Christianity has no such right
• 1:30:51
  Speaker 1: it has the right to think the Bible true and
• 1:30:54
  Speaker 1: nothing else. The Christian has no right to think Christianity untrue.
• 1:30:59
  Speaker 1: How however untrue it may appear. He dare not think
• 1:31:03
  Speaker 1: it false. He dare no more think it false than
• 1:31:06
  Speaker 1: the Catholic dare differ from the dictum of the Church,
• 1:31:10
  Speaker 1: or the Mahommedan, differ from the text of the Qoran,
• 1:31:13
  Speaker 1: or the Hindu differ from the precepts of the Brahmin. Therefore,
• 1:31:18
  Speaker 1: the Christian's right to think for himself is simply a
• 1:31:21
  Speaker 1: compulsion to believe. A right implies relative freedom of action,
• 1:31:27
  Speaker 1: but the Christian has no freedom. He has no choice
• 1:31:30
  Speaker 1: but to believe or perish, everlastingly. The Christian right to
• 1:31:35
  Speaker 1: think for himself is therefore not the same as the
• 1:31:39
  Speaker 1: secular right. We mean by the right to think what
• 1:31:42
  Speaker 1: the term right always implies freedom and independence and absence
• 1:31:48
  Speaker 1: of all crime or danger of penalty. Through the honest
• 1:31:52
  Speaker 1: exercise of thought and maintenance of honest conclusions. Whether in
• 1:31:57
  Speaker 1: favor of or against Christianity, our assertion is that private
• 1:32:03
  Speaker 1: judgment is free and guiltless. The Christian is good enough
• 1:32:07
  Speaker 1: to say we have a right to think, provided we
• 1:32:11
  Speaker 1: think rightly. But what does he mean by rightly? He
• 1:32:16
  Speaker 1: means that we should think as he thinks. This is
• 1:32:20
  Speaker 1: his interpretation of rightly. Whoever does not fall in with
• 1:32:24
  Speaker 1: his views is generally, in his vocabulary, a dishonest perverter
• 1:32:29
  Speaker 1: of scripture. Now, if we really have the right to differ,
• 1:32:33
  Speaker 1: we have the right to differ from the minister or
• 1:32:36
  Speaker 1: from the Bible, if we see good reason to do
• 1:32:39
  Speaker 1: so without being exposed to the censure of our neighbors
• 1:32:43
  Speaker 1: or disapprobation of God. The question is not does men
• 1:32:47
  Speaker 1: give us the right to think for ourselves? But does
• 1:32:51
  Speaker 1: God give it to us? If we must come to
• 1:32:55
  Speaker 1: a given opinion, our private judgment is unnecessary. Let us
• 1:32:59
  Speaker 1: know it once what we are to believe, that we
• 1:33:02
  Speaker 1: may believe it at once and secure safety. If possible,
• 1:33:06
  Speaker 1: disbelief in Christianity will lead to eternal perdition. The right
• 1:33:11
  Speaker 1: of private judgment is a snare. We had better be
• 1:33:14
  Speaker 1: without that perilous privilege. And we come to regard the
• 1:33:18
  Speaker 1: Roman Catholic as penetrative when he paints private judgment as
• 1:33:22
  Speaker 1: the suggestion of Satan, and the Roman Catholic no less
• 1:33:26
  Speaker 1: merciful than consistent when he proscribes it altogether. We must
• 1:33:31
  Speaker 1: feel astonishment at him who declares the secular right to
• 1:33:34
  Speaker 1: be essentially a Christian right, when it is quite a
• 1:33:37
  Speaker 1: different thing, is understood in an entirely different sense, and
• 1:33:42
  Speaker 1: has an application unknown and unadmitted by Christianity. This is
• 1:33:47
  Speaker 1: not merely loose thinking. It is reckless thinking. Sixteen. It
• 1:33:55
  Speaker 1: has been asserted that the second right, the right to differ,
• 1:33:59
  Speaker 1: is also a Christian right. Christianity recognizes the claim to
• 1:34:04
  Speaker 1: difference of opinion. Christians are not careful to maintain uniformity
• 1:34:08
  Speaker 1: at the expense of private judgment. This is omitting a
• 1:34:12
  Speaker 1: part of the truth. Christians often permit difference of opinion
• 1:34:16
  Speaker 1: upon details, but not upon essentials, and this is the
• 1:34:20
  Speaker 1: suppression made. The Christian may differ on points of church discipline,
• 1:34:26
  Speaker 1: but if he differ upon the essential articles of his creed,
• 1:34:29
  Speaker 1: the minister at once warns him that he is in
• 1:34:32
  Speaker 1: danger of the judgment that any minister tried himself and
• 1:34:37
  Speaker 1: his congregation will soon warn him to depart, and also
• 1:34:41
  Speaker 1: warn him of that higher power who will bid him
• 1:34:43
  Speaker 1: depart into outer darkness, where there will be wailing and
• 1:34:47
  Speaker 1: gnashing of teeth. With respect to the third right, the
• 1:34:53
  Speaker 1: right of asserting difference of opinion. This is declared to
• 1:34:57
  Speaker 1: be not peculiar to secularism that Christian churches, chapels, literature,
• 1:35:02
  Speaker 1: and services are so many confirmations of the statement that
• 1:35:06
  Speaker 1: Christians claim the right of speaking what they think, whether
• 1:35:10
  Speaker 1: it be affirmative or negative. Yes, so long as what
• 1:35:15
  Speaker 1: they speak agrees with the Bible. This is the Christian limit.
• 1:35:19
  Speaker 1: Yet this is the limit which secularism expressly passes and discards.
• 1:35:26
  Speaker 1: It is the unfettered right which makes Secularism to differ
• 1:35:29
  Speaker 1: from Christianity and to excel it. Seventeen The right of
• 1:35:36
  Speaker 1: private judgment, always in said terms conceded to us, means
• 1:35:41
  Speaker 1: nothing unless it leads to a new understanding as to
• 1:35:44
  Speaker 1: the terms in which we are to be addressed in
• 1:35:48
  Speaker 1: the Bible and the people. It is described as an
• 1:35:51
  Speaker 1: insolence to ignore Christianity. We do not understand this language.
• 1:35:57
  Speaker 1: It would be insolence to Deity to ignore a message
• 1:36:00
  Speaker 1: which we can recognize as coming from Him. But it
• 1:36:03
  Speaker 1: may rather imply reverence for God to reject the reports
• 1:36:06
  Speaker 1: of many who speak in his name. Were we to
• 1:36:10
  Speaker 1: require Christians to read our books or think as we think,
• 1:36:14
  Speaker 1: they would resent the requirement as an impertinence, and we
• 1:36:18
  Speaker 1: have yet to learn that it is less an impertinence
• 1:36:20
  Speaker 1: when Christians make these demands of us. If Christians are
• 1:36:25
  Speaker 1: under no obligation to hold our opinions, neither are we
• 1:36:29
  Speaker 1: under obligation to hold theirs by our own act or
• 1:36:33
  Speaker 1: at their solicitation. We may study sacred writings, but at
• 1:36:38
  Speaker 1: dictation never, so long as secularists obey the laws enacted
• 1:36:43
  Speaker 1: for the common security, so long as they perform the
• 1:36:46
  Speaker 1: duties of good citizens. It is nothing to Christians what
• 1:36:50
  Speaker 1: opinions they hold. We neither seek their counsel nor desire
• 1:36:55
  Speaker 1: their sentiments, except they concede them on terms of equality.
• 1:37:00
  Speaker 1: The light by which we walk is sufficient for us.
• 1:37:03
  Speaker 1: And as at the last day of which Christians speak,
• 1:37:07
  Speaker 1: we shall there have, according to their own showing to
• 1:37:10
  Speaker 1: answer for ourselves. We prefer to think for ourselves. And
• 1:37:15
  Speaker 1: since they do not propose to take our responsibility, we
• 1:37:18
  Speaker 1: decline to take their doctrines. Where we are to be responsible.
• 1:37:23
  Speaker 1: We will be free, and no man shall dictate to
• 1:37:27
  Speaker 1: us to opinions we shall hold. We shall probably know
• 1:37:30
  Speaker 1: as well as any Christian how to live with freedom
• 1:37:33
  Speaker 1: and to die without fear. It is in vain for
• 1:37:37
  Speaker 1: Christians to tell us that Newton and Locke differed from us.
• 1:37:42
  Speaker 1: What is that to us? Unless Newton and Locke will
• 1:37:44
  Speaker 1: answer for us. The world may differ from a man,
• 1:37:49
  Speaker 1: but what is the world to him unless it will
• 1:37:51
  Speaker 1: take his place at the judgment day? Who is Paul
• 1:37:55
  Speaker 1: or Apollus, or Matthew or Mark that we should venture
• 1:37:59
  Speaker 1: our eternal salvation on his word any more than on
• 1:38:03
  Speaker 1: that of a Mahomedan prophet or a Buddhist priest. Where
• 1:38:07
  Speaker 1: the danger is our own, the faith shall be our own.
• 1:38:11
  Speaker 1: Secularism is not an act conceived in the spirit of
• 1:38:15
  Speaker 1: pride or vanity, or a self will or eccentricity, or
• 1:38:20
  Speaker 1: a singularity or stiff nakedness. It is simply well understood
• 1:38:25
  Speaker 1: self defense. If men have the right of private judgment,
• 1:38:29
  Speaker 1: that right has set them free. And we own no
• 1:38:32
  Speaker 1: law but reason, no limits but the truth, and have
• 1:38:36
  Speaker 1: no fear but that of guilt. We may say we
• 1:38:40
  Speaker 1: believe in honor, which is respecting the truth, in morality,
• 1:38:44
  Speaker 1: which is acting the truth, in love, which is serving
• 1:38:48
  Speaker 1: the truth, and in independence, which is defending the truth.
• 1:38:55
  Speaker 1: Eighteen Confucius declared that the foundation of all religion was
• 1:39:01
  Speaker 1: reverence and obedience. The religious sentiment is the intentional reverence
• 1:39:06
  Speaker 1: of God. The Christian is ever persuaded that there is
• 1:39:10
  Speaker 1: only one way of doing this, and he arrogantly assumes
• 1:39:14
  Speaker 1: that he has that way, whereas the ways are as
• 1:39:18
  Speaker 1: diverse as human genius. That those who deny that secular
• 1:39:23
  Speaker 1: truth meets the emotional part of their nature settle what
• 1:39:27
  Speaker 1: is the nature of the emotions they desiderate? The miser
• 1:39:30
  Speaker 1: wants money, the sensualist wants to cook, the scholar one's knowledge,
• 1:39:35
  Speaker 1: and the mother desires the life, growth, and happiness of
• 1:39:39
  Speaker 1: her child. But what can man want in a rational
• 1:39:43
  Speaker 1: sense which nature and humanity may not supply? Do we
• 1:39:47
  Speaker 1: not meet the demand of the many? When we show
• 1:39:50
  Speaker 1: that secularism is sufficient for progress, that it is moral
• 1:39:54
  Speaker 1: and therefore sufficient for trust, that it builds only upon
• 1:39:58
  Speaker 1: the known and is therefore reliable. It is the highest
• 1:40:02
  Speaker 1: and most unpresumptuous form of unconscious worship. It is practical
• 1:40:07
  Speaker 1: reverence without the arrogance of theoretical homage. We at least
• 1:40:12
  Speaker 1: feel confidence of this that the future, if it come,
• 1:40:16
  Speaker 1: will not be miserable. There may be a future. This
• 1:40:21
  Speaker 1: remains to awaken interest and perennial curiosity. If nature be conscious,
• 1:40:27
  Speaker 1: it will still design the happiness of man which it
• 1:40:30
  Speaker 1: now permits. This assurance remains still in fear and teaching
• 1:40:35
  Speaker 1: trust nineteen. In surveying the position of Christianism in Great Britain,
• 1:40:44
  Speaker 1: there is found to exist a large outlying class daily
• 1:40:48
  Speaker 1: increasing who, for conscientious reasons, reject its cardinal tenets. Hence
• 1:40:54
  Speaker 1: arises the question our good citizenship and virtuous life on
• 1:40:59
  Speaker 1: secular princess possible to these persons. Secularism answers yes to
• 1:41:06
  Speaker 1: these excluded by the letter of scripture, by the narrowness
• 1:41:10
  Speaker 1: of churches, by the intrinsic error and moral repulsiveness of doctrine.
• 1:41:15
  Speaker 1: Secularism addresses itself to these. It is the word of
• 1:41:19
  Speaker 1: recognition of concert and morality. It points them to an
• 1:41:24
  Speaker 1: educated conscience as a security of morals, to the study
• 1:41:28
  Speaker 1: of nature as a source of help, and seeks to
• 1:41:31
  Speaker 1: win the indifferent by appeals to the inherent goodness of
• 1:41:34
  Speaker 1: human nature and the authority of reason, which Christianism cannot
• 1:41:40
  Speaker 1: use and they are not trust. If, however, the secularist
• 1:41:44
  Speaker 1: elects to walk by the light of nature, will he
• 1:41:47
  Speaker 1: be able to see. Is the light of nature a
• 1:41:50
  Speaker 1: fitful lamp, or a brief torch, which accident may upset
• 1:41:55
  Speaker 1: or agust extinguish. On the contrary, the light of names
• 1:42:00
  Speaker 1: nature may burn steady, clear and full over the entire
• 1:42:04
  Speaker 1: field of human life. On this point we have the
• 1:42:07
  Speaker 1: testimony of an adversary who was understood to address us,
• 1:42:12
  Speaker 1: a testimony as remarkable for its quality as for its
• 1:42:15
  Speaker 1: felicity of expression. There is the ethical mind, calm, level
• 1:42:20
  Speaker 1: and clear, chiefly intent on the good ordering of this life,
• 1:42:25
  Speaker 1: judging all things by their tendency to this end, and
• 1:42:29
  Speaker 1: impatient of every oscillation of our nature that swings beyond it.
• 1:42:35
  Speaker 1: There is nothing low or unworthy in the attachment which
• 1:42:38
  Speaker 1: keeps this spirit close to the present world and watchful
• 1:42:42
  Speaker 1: for its affairs. It is not a selfish feeling, but
• 1:42:46
  Speaker 1: often one intensely social and humane, not any mean fascination
• 1:42:51
  Speaker 1: with mere material interests, but a devotion to justice and right,
• 1:42:56
  Speaker 1: and an assertion of the sacred authority of human duties
• 1:42:59
  Speaker 1: and effects. A man thus tempered deals chiefly with this
• 1:43:04
  Speaker 1: visible life and his comrades in it, because as nearest
• 1:43:08
  Speaker 1: to him they are better known. He plants his standard
• 1:43:12
  Speaker 1: on the present as on advantage ground, where he can
• 1:43:16
  Speaker 1: survey his field and maneuver all his force, and compute
• 1:43:20
  Speaker 1: the battle he is to fight, whatever his bearings fervors
• 1:43:24
  Speaker 1: towards beyond his range. He has no insensibility to the
• 1:43:28
  Speaker 1: claims that fall within his acknowledged province, and that appeal
• 1:43:33
  Speaker 1: to him in the native speech of his humanity. He
• 1:43:36
  Speaker 1: so reverences veracity, honor, and good faith as to expect
• 1:43:41
  Speaker 1: them like the daylight, and he is of their violation
• 1:43:44
  Speaker 1: with a flush of scorn. His word is a rock,
• 1:43:47
  Speaker 1: and he expects that yours will not be a Quicksand
• 1:43:51
  Speaker 1: if you are lax, you cannot hope for his trust.
• 1:43:54
  Speaker 1: But if you are in trouble, you easily move his
• 1:43:57
  Speaker 1: pity and the sight of a real oppression. Though the
• 1:44:00
  Speaker 1: sufferer be no ornamental hero, but black, unsightly and disreputable,
• 1:44:06
  Speaker 1: suffices perhaps to set him to work for life, that
• 1:44:10
  Speaker 1: he may expunge the disgrace from the records of mankind.
• 1:44:14
  Speaker 1: Such man as he constitute for our world its moral
• 1:44:18
  Speaker 1: center of gravity. And whoever would compute the path of
• 1:44:21
  Speaker 1: improvement that has brought it thus far on its way,
• 1:44:25
  Speaker 1: or trace its sweep into a brighter future must take
• 1:44:29
  Speaker 1: account of their steady mass. The effect of this style
• 1:44:33
  Speaker 1: of thought and taste on the religion of its possessor
• 1:44:36
  Speaker 1: is not difficult to trace. It may, no doubt stop
• 1:44:41
  Speaker 1: short of avowed and conscious religion. Altogether, its basis being
• 1:44:45
  Speaker 1: simply moral, and its scene temporal, its conditions may be
• 1:44:50
  Speaker 1: imagined as complete without any acknowledgment of higher relations. Twenty.
• 1:44:58
  Speaker 1: Nature is that which is is the primary subject of study.
• 1:45:05
  Speaker 1: The study of nature reveals the laws of nature. The
• 1:45:08
  Speaker 1: laws of nature furnish safe guidance to humanity. Safe guidance
• 1:45:13
  Speaker 1: is to help available in daily life, to happiness self contained,
• 1:45:19
  Speaker 1: to service which knows how to labor and to wait
• 1:45:23
  Speaker 1: for authority. Nature refers us to experience and to reason
• 1:45:28
  Speaker 1: for help. To science the nearest available help of man.
• 1:45:33
  Speaker 1: Science implies disciplined powers on the part of the people
• 1:45:36
  Speaker 1: and concert in their use to realize the security and
• 1:45:40
  Speaker 1: sufficiency necessary to happiness. Happiness depends on moral no less
• 1:45:46
  Speaker 1: than on physical conditions. The moral condition is the full
• 1:45:51
  Speaker 1: and fearless discharge of duty. Duty is devotion to the right.
• 1:45:56
  Speaker 1: Right is that which is morally expedient. That is morally expedient,
• 1:46:02
  Speaker 1: which is conducive to the happiness of the greatest numbers.
• 1:46:06
  Speaker 1: The service of others is the practical form of duty,
• 1:46:10
  Speaker 1: and endurance in the service of others the highest form
• 1:46:13
  Speaker 1: of happiness. It is pleasure, peace, security, and desert. Twenty one.
• 1:46:23
  Speaker 1: We believe there is sufficient soundness in secular principles to
• 1:46:27
  Speaker 1: make way in the world. All that is wanted is
• 1:46:30
  Speaker 1: that advocates of them shall have clear notions of the
• 1:46:33
  Speaker 1: value of method in their work. To the novice in advocacy,
• 1:46:38
  Speaker 1: policy seems a crime, at least many so describe it.
• 1:46:43
  Speaker 1: Unable himself to see his way, the tyroh fights it
• 1:46:47
  Speaker 1: everything and everybody equally, and too vain to own his failure.
• 1:46:52
  Speaker 1: He declares that the right way, not knowing that progress
• 1:46:56
  Speaker 1: is an art, and an art requiring the union of
• 1:47:00
  Speaker 1: many qualities. He denies all art, cries down policy, and
• 1:47:05
  Speaker 1: erectsplundering into a virtue. Compare the way which Havelock reached
• 1:47:10
  Speaker 1: lucknow and the way in which Sir Colin Campbell performed
• 1:47:14
  Speaker 1: the same feat and you see the difference between courage
• 1:47:17
  Speaker 1: without and courage with strategy. It was because magnitude existed
• 1:47:23
  Speaker 1: which were inaccessible and incapable of direct measurement that mathematics arose.
• 1:47:29
  Speaker 1: Finding direct measurements so often impossible, men were compelled to
• 1:47:34
  Speaker 1: find means of ascertaining magnitude and distance indirectly. Hence mathematics
• 1:47:40
  Speaker 1: became a scientific policy. Mathematics is but policy of measurement.
• 1:47:46
  Speaker 1: Grammar but the policy of speech, Logic but the policy
• 1:47:49
  Speaker 1: of reason, Arithmetic but the policy of calculation. Temperance but
• 1:47:55
  Speaker 1: the policy of health. Trigonometry but the policy of navigation,
• 1:48:00
  Speaker 1: roads but the policy of transit, Music but the policy
• 1:48:04
  Speaker 1: of controlling sound. Art but the policy of beauty. Law
• 1:48:08
  Speaker 1: but the policy of protection. Discipline but the policy of strength,
• 1:48:13
  Speaker 1: Love but the policy of affection. An enemy may object
• 1:48:18
  Speaker 1: to our having a policy because it suits his purpose.
• 1:48:22
  Speaker 1: That we should be without one, But that a friend
• 1:48:24
  Speaker 1: should object to our having a policy is one of
• 1:48:27
  Speaker 1: those incredible infatuations which converts partisans into unconscious traitors. The
• 1:48:34
  Speaker 1: policy adopted may be a bad policy, and no policy
• 1:48:38
  Speaker 1: at all is idiocy. If a policy be bad, criticize
• 1:48:43
  Speaker 1: and amend it. But to denounce all policy is to
• 1:48:46
  Speaker 1: commit your cause to the providence of bedlam. If therefore,
• 1:48:51
  Speaker 1: throughout all intelligent control of nature and humanity, policy is
• 1:48:55
  Speaker 1: the one supreme mark of wisdom, Why should it be
• 1:48:59
  Speaker 1: dishonorable to study the policy of opinion? He who consistently
• 1:49:04
  Speaker 1: objects to policy would build railway engines without safety valves
• 1:49:09
  Speaker 1: and dismiss them from stations without drivers. He would abolish
• 1:49:13
  Speaker 1: turnpike roads and streets and leave us to find our
• 1:49:16
  Speaker 1: way at random. He would recommend that vessels be made
• 1:49:20
  Speaker 1: without helms and sail without captains, that armies fight without discipline,
• 1:49:25
  Speaker 1: and artillery men should fire before loading, and when pointing
• 1:49:29
  Speaker 1: their guns should aim at nothing in fine. A man
• 1:49:33
  Speaker 1: without policy, honestly and intelligently opposed to policy, would build
• 1:49:39
  Speaker 1: his house with the roof downwards and plant his trees
• 1:49:42
  Speaker 1: with the roots in the air. He would kick his
• 1:49:45
  Speaker 1: friend and hug his enemy. He would pay wages to
• 1:49:48
  Speaker 1: servants who would not work. Govern without rule, speak without thought,
• 1:49:53
  Speaker 1: think without reason, act without purpose. Be a knave by
• 1:49:58
  Speaker 1: accident and a fool by design. End of Chapter nine,
• 1:50:04
  Speaker 1: Part three, End of the Principles of Secularism by George
• 1:50:10
  Speaker 1: Jacob Holyoake