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Title: Tyranny of God
Author: Joseph Lewis
Release Date: January 9, 2010 [EBook #30900]
Language: English
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"THE TYRANNY
of GOD"
By
JOSEPH LEWIS
The new and daring book on the
Philosophy of Atheism
CLARENCE DARROW
=eminent lawyer, noted philosopher, and humanitarian, says=:
"Your book, 'The Tyranny of God,' is well done. It is a very clear
statement of the question, bold and true beyond dispute. I am glad that
you wrote it. It is as plain as the multiplication table, which doesn't
mean that everyone will believe it. I thank you for writing it. I wish I
were the author."
[Illustration: JOSEPH LEWIS]
_A special edition of "The Tyranny of God," consists of two hundred and
fifty copies, printed on Utopian paper, bound in limp leather, gilt top,
stamped in gold. Each copy is autographed and numbered by the author._
Second edition, May, 1921
Third edition, April, 1922
Fourth edition, January, 1928
Fifth edition, April, 1930
Sixth edition, October, 1939
Seventh edition, November, 1943
THE TYRANNY OF GOD
THE TYRANNY
OF GOD
BY
JOSEPH LEWIS
THE FREETHOUGHT PRESS ASSOCIATION
NEW YORK
COPYRIGHTED, 1921, BY
FREETHOUGHT PRESS ASSOCIATION
_All Rights Reserved_
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
DEDICATED
TO
FAY
MY DEAR WIFE AND COMRADE,
WHOSE LOYAL AND
DEVOTED COMPANIONSHIP
HAS MADE LIFE LIVABLE.
FOREWORD
Go forth, little book, to destroy fear, prejudice and superstition, and
help to install Reason in the minds of the human race to be its guide in
the affairs of life and its living.
PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION
The most eloquent testimony given this little book is the fact that a
second edition is made necessary only a few months after the publication
of the first edition.
Favorable comments and letters of recommendation from men and women
eminent in literary and scientific realms, and commendatory reviews in
periodicals of high standard are, I think, sufficient cause for the
belief that "The Tyranny of God" forms a necessary cog in the machinery
of intellectual thought and progress.
Even those who bitterly oppose the book admit that it possesses the
power to make its readers think.
Of the many opposing reviews and adverse criticism of "The Tyranny of
God," not a single one offers an argument in answer to it. For the most
part, their characterization has been that it is "pessimistic." As if by
calling it "pessimistic," they refute its claims!
If to tell a man the true nature of a disease from which he is
suffering, with the hope that he will seek a cure for his malady, is
pessimism, then I am a pessimist. Is the use of a danger signal at a
hazardous crossing, for the purpose of preventing disaster, pessimism?
If to literally "hold the mirror up to Nature," disclosing Nature's
utter disregard for the life and feelings of man, as a warning against
the extravagant and useless propagating of life, is pessimism, then
surely I am a pessimist.
If a fervent desire to help Man, instead of wasting time in prayer to
"God," is pessimism, I am a pessimist.
If to think, to investigate, to express one's thoughts courageously in
the face of centuries old dogma is pessimism, then I must confess I am a
pessimist.
If to expose sham, hypocrisy and fraud; if to open the mind and free it
from fear; if to stimulate the intellect, and work for the Here instead
of the "Hereafter"--if all these are classified as pessimism, then truly
may I be called an arch pessimist.
"The Tyranny of God" was written to express the truth as I see it--to
portray life, not as we would like to have it, but as it actually is.
Millions are still like frightened children, afraid of their own
shadows. Fear of the truth is the greatest deterrent to its acceptance.
JOSEPH LEWIS
_April 14, 1922_
PREFACE TO THE FOURTH EDITION
I am indeed gratified to send forth the fourth edition of "The Tyranny
of God."
I wish, however, to say to the reader that my book deals with life
philosophically and not individually. It was from the viewpoint of life
in general and the universe as a whole that the sentiments herein were
expressed.
To love God is not the duty of man and one of the most important tasks
to be accomplished for the human race is to destroy the Theistic
conception of Life and the Universe.
The sentiments I expressed at a memorial meeting in honor of Luther
Burbank last May best illustrate my convictions. I said:
"The religious person loves God so vehemently that he has no love left
for Man."
May "The Tyranny of God" do much to accomplish the purpose of its
author.
JOSEPH LEWIS
_January 10, 1928_
INTRODUCTION
_Where did we come from?
What are we doing here?
Whither are we going?_
These questions have puzzled thinking people since consciousness first
dawned in the brain. Many have sought to answer them, so why not
I?--with the hope that the reading of this book will arouse in the minds
of the readers thoughts that will enable them to answer these questions
for themselves.
Were you suddenly to find yourself living on another planet, and you
were a thinking being, one anxious for knowledge, you would naturally
investigate the conditions under which you found yourself, and seek, if
possible, a solution for your existence there. Surely it is equally
appropriate, situated as we are on this earth, endowed with brains and
possessing senses and nerves, to inquire into and investigate the
conditions under which we live, and the purpose, if any, of our
existence here.
The peculiarity of this existence warrants such analysis. It is certain,
from our understanding as well as from all visible scientific facts,
that we did not make ourselves, and that we never had a former
existence; and we are led to conclude, in view of lack of credible
evidence to the contrary, from those who have passed on, that the
future, so far as our individual life is concerned, is an eternal void.
It is also certain, as science has indubitably shown, that we do not
make our offspring, that we are not creators, but are instruments merely
in producing life.
Furthermore, we did not make any portion of the globe which we inhabit
and of which we are a part, and, so far as we are able to determine, all
the natural conditions and "raw materials" of our environment are
something separate and distinct from anything which we ourselves
possess sufficient power to accomplish.
Therefore, since among the organs of my body, there is a _thinking_
portion, I am within the bounds of sanity when I investigate and express
such thoughts, opinions and findings as my reason and understanding
dictate. No one can truthfully say that he possesses sufficient
knowledge to account for or to explain the peculiar and mystifying
rules, conditions and surroundings which we are _forced_ to accept,
abide by and live under. And, therefore, the result of one person's
findings is worthy the same consideration as those of another.
Upon such basis I submit an honest attempt to express logically my
convictions upon this vital and puzzling condition of our existence, and
shall endeavor to aid those who read this book to see conditions in what
I believe to be their true light, and to stimulate the readers to think
for themselves. It is only through the exchange of the results of
investigations, and of honest opinions, that we have been able to add
improvement to improvement, and make easier the routine of our lives.
The conditions and elements that compose Nature, for the sake of
clearness, I will ofttimes call "God." I shall be more easily
understood, and at times the term "God" will express more succinctly the
thoughts or ideas I wish to express.
THE TYRANNY OF GOD
I
Lest I be misunderstood, I will say at the outset that I do not believe
in a God.
The belief in a God is still generally accepted, not because of the
existence of one, but for the reason that it is the easiest way to
account for our condition. But in the light of scientific discoveries
and demonstrations, such a belief is unfounded and utterly untenable
to-day. Yet the word "God," and even the word "Nature," must often be
used to describe that condition which the brain of man has not yet been
able to analyze fully and scientifically. One ridiculous conception of
God that is believed by a multitude of people, is that of a massive
being, sitting in a marble chamber studded with gold and lighted with
glistening crystals. Do those who believe in such a creature ever
consider him taking a bath--and in what? Or of eating his breakfast--and
of what it consists?
If there were a God, and the world were governed with stern justice,
tempered to our feeble intelligence, existence might become tolerable,
but as it is, with a so-called God "ruling above," the earth is an
abominable place and life a long series of terrifying torments. If I
were to advocate a belief, or faith, in a God, I would seek the
embodiment of those things diametrically opposite to the attributes of
the popular God of to-day. Such a creature is not worthy the sacrifice
of ourselves and our thoughts.
Let us examine and investigate the system and arrangement of the
world--that is, that portion of which we are a part and which so vitally
concerns us.
The result of our most extensive study and labor shows us that the
earth, after an illimitable duration of time, has gradually attained its
present peculiar development. In other words, Nature has taken millions
of years to produce the earth as it is now formed; and if it were made
particularly for human beings it is not yet completed, for we still find
spots, aye, vast areas, where human life is incapable of subsisting. The
climate is either too hot or too cold; there is too much water or too
little moisture; the means of cultivation are too meager or utterly
unobtainable.
In short, after eons of labor, Nature has failed to be able to present
to every one of us, for our habitation, a parcel of earth commodious and
comfortable enough to be perfectly desirable for life and its living.
Surely, if the earth were made for our benefit, Nature has been not only
a very poor provider, but a very thoughtless parent.
Some say that man is Nature's best product, that the earth was made for
us, that we are particularly selected by God, and that a certain race is
his chosen people. But that is not true. The Jews are no more God's
chosen people than the jay is his chosen bird, or the mosquito his
chosen insect.
It is not true that Nature particularly works for us--facts prove the
contrary.
Facts prove that we are nothing but an undesirable by-product, to make
our way and to live our life as best we can within a cruelly turbulent
space, imprisoned by invisible, impenetrable walls of limitation.
No, it is not true that our life is favored by Nature. After we build
our homes, make our cities and add improvements, what happens? Nature,
with her forceful winds, blows them down; her cruel storms and rising
floods wash them away as so much refuse, and a tremor of the earth
destroys not only our homes but ourselves also, leaving no traces of our
efforts, treasures and sacred ties.
Even as individuals we "curse God" for the shortcomings with which we
are afflicted. The exceedingly stout person, one who is "in his own way"
curses God for making him so stout. The thin person has a similar
grievance. Those who are too large and those who are too small are
equally dissatisfied. The shape of an eye, the curve of the mouth, a
blemish here, an impediment there, is the direct cause of poignant
embarrassment. Organs or dimensions too unsightly and unsatisfactory are
productive of continual worry and torment throughout our lives. The
blind, the deaf, the dumb and the crippled have forever a curse for God
upon their lips.
We inhabit the air, with a density of fifteen pounds to the square inch,
a mixture of dirt and water, in the same manner that the fish inhabits
the water and the worm the earth. Were we beings of a superior type,
Nature would have made us so versatile that we should be able to
accustom ourselves to any condition, and survive in any climate. But
despite all our improvements, despite all man's efforts to avoid and
escape the conditions of Nature, many of us freeze to death in winter
and become prostrate from the heat of summer. If it were true that the
earth were purposely made and existing for us there would be "no flowers
born to blush unseen and waste their sweetness on the desert air."
We, ourselves, scientists tell us, are the result of a long series of
evolutionary development. They tell us that Nature started with a single
cell of protoplasm, a single cell of living organism, and produced the
present human species after the life and death of an illimitable number
of forms through the stages of countless ages, not exempting those lives
from the fear, torture and misery that are still so essential a part of
the scheme of life. Why impose so cruel and wasteful a condition upon
those numberless billions that have lived before us, since nothing but
eternal death was gained by their existence?
Surely, Nature is a poor architect and builder, after taking so much
material and so much time, to make such an incomplete place for such an
outlandish form to rule and occupy. If we were given the same
opportunity (that is, you and I), with all the power and resources of
Nature, to build a habitable place, and mold a living something to
inhabit it, our results would be ten thousand times better than that
which circles the scope and boundary of our lives, with the
incomprehensible physical form with which we breathe and manifest life.
Truthfully, and without the slightest element of egotism, I should be
ashamed of my efforts were I to present as my handiwork nothing better
than the level and plane which Nature has attained.
II
We come into this world a tiny bundle and mass of helpless, feeble
flesh, utterly unprepared to meet the requirements and fearful
conditions that lie in wait for us. We are in need of immediate, urgent
and constant help from those who were responsible for our birth,
imperatively so from our mother.
The child does not ask to come, and knows absolutely nothing about its
welfare. And the mother often does not want to bear it, as she knows
absolutely nothing about maternal cares. And yet that mother must go
through the "shadow of the valley of death" before she can deliver this
tiny bundle and helpless mass of feeble flesh. And how often, aye, only
too often, does the mother _enter_ the valley of death when making
delivery of this living form, never to see the face of the child that
Nature imposed upon her to bear!
What a despicable arrangement!
What an unfair bargain!
Can you imagine a more outlandish, ridiculous, awkward, complicated,
cruel and fearful system of reproduction than that which we are under
yoke to pursue? Without the elaborate details of the perilous stages of
life's development, this is the method of incubation Nature imposes upon
us. Before the birth of a human being, one male and one female--that is,
one man and one woman--must have sexual intercourse. Whether this
intercourse is prompted by all the finer impulses of life or is
accomplished by the savageness of rape makes no difference to Nature's
purpose. To Nature the end justifies the means, and she continues to go
about her business.
The male--that is, the man of this pair--can strut and parade with the
utmost freedom from his responsibility for the result of his act that
Nature has made to be pre-eminent among his desires. But the
female--that is, the woman of this pair--_must for nine months_ (just
think of it!) carry and develop the germ of this child in the fertile
field of her womb, and be subjected to the innumerable terrifying
dangers accompanying such a carriage, and then suffer a superhuman
torture to make the delivery, through a very meager channel of her body,
of this living plant which she has never seen, does not know and quite
often does not want, _but must absolutely bear_!
Provided Nature has not made the creature too deformed and mutilated and
unable to survive, the mother must, during a period of constant care and
_outward carriage_, bear this feeble infant for another period of nine
months or more!--suckling at her breast for _food_!
So you see that woman is not only a human being, but a fertile ground
and pasture.
I have not gone into the misery of child bearing and caring, nor of the
ingratitude that is so often received. I ask for what reason has Nature
imposed this terrible penalty upon woman? _Why?_
Would you, reader, were it in your power, formulate such a method of
reproduction?
I'll answer for you:
No!
But that is not all. For years to come, this child that for nine months
was carried inwardly and for a much longer period outwardly, by its
mother, must now be fed, washed and clothed for an indefinite number of
_years_, and guided through a thousand perils and dangers that Nature
has set before it, with disease as Nature's agent, crouching and ready
to destroy the child's life, not in open combat, but invisibly concealed
by the limitation of our senses. This is one of Nature's unspeakable
crimes; one of God's despicable impositions.
It is not sufficient that a mother should subject herself to such a
dangerous and perilous mission, but she must also withstand the cruel
savageness, the cold, callous death piercings, of Nature's invisible
tyrants and destroyers. Life holds but one real attraction, one instance
that can be classified above all others. Without this attraction it
would be a blessing to choke the life breath from us all. With it we are
helped to bear the _Tyranny of God_.
There comes a time to some of us when the heart of the one man beats for
the one woman, and there alights and resides in their breasts that spark
of devotion that we call "love." When there is born to that union a
child, even though in Nature's stupid way, then a bond is created more
precious than anything else in this world. Without this little circle of
loving joy, the earth is a prison and life a grave injustice for those
who must bear it. But think of the damnable rule of Nature that strives
and delights in working destruction of the only condition worthy of
life's living!
Oh, if only the life of our offspring were more stable, more secure!
If only the bosom of our family were guaranteed to us! Just think! The
child the parents would not harm, Nature tortures and God kills!
Looking back upon the path we have trodden, with its continual fight
against disease, its manifold combats with obstacles of life, and with
its inevitable portion of sorrow we all must bear, we should think
seriously and consider the result of our act before we deliberately
bring another human being into this life.
You, yourself, do not consider your life worthy of reliving, so why
bring a human being here to go through the same, if not more, suffering
and misery than you have borne with no resultant good?
III
Up to this point I have been speaking of human beings only, living under
improved conditions that man has made. What must be the horror, darkness
and emptiness of those living substances that are "inferior" to us? Do
you know and realize the suffering that we endure? Then let me, in
passing, urge this: Be also kind and considerate to our less fortunate
inhabitants of this earth, the "dumb" animals. Their feelings are quite
similar to ours. They have gone through the rougher parts of evolution
that gave to us our more useful organs and limbs. They are allied to us
in much the same manner as the members of our own species. They have
their painful aches and periods, their hardships and tortures, their
broken family ties and fearful abhorrence of death; their flesh is
tender and their skin is as delicate to them as ours is to us.
So let us "think twice," dear readers, before we deliberately harm any
of our humbler brothers and sisters that must inhabit this cold and
callous earth and live their lives under a great deal more tyranny and
injustice than we live ours.
We deliberately enslave and brutally treat the gentle horse.
We tyrannically imprison birds and fishes as "pets."
We keep, breed, kill and eat a variety of animals for our own selfish
purposes, and yet some persons still have the audacity to say that we
are "chosen people," "God's children," "divine beings." Bah!
You know what painful inconvenience there is in losing an arm or a leg.
Well, the winged and footed beings that must bear this life suffer a
great deal more than we do when one of their limbs becomes dismembered.
Man has to a degree remedied or replaced his crippled limbs, but I do
not think any other of the higher animals have advanced so far, and as
a result these creatures must endure their pain and distressing
annoyance to the end.
Recently I watched a common house fly caught upon "fly paper," and
studied intently every visible movement of it. Immediately upon
alighting upon the sticky substance, its first thought, almost
instantaneously, was to make an effort to free itself. At once I thought
of the fly's instinct of "self-preservation," and contrasted it with the
human's.
The fly must have had intelligence, since it knew that its life was in
danger. And, since Nature does not deal in "fly paper," the fly's
reasoning power told it of its peril. With unabated determination it
vibrated its wings with lightning-like rapidity, and worked its legs
unceasingly, _breaking them in the attempt_, in its efforts to pull
itself away to freedom!
As I watched this fly in its labor, this thought came to me: Is the fly
unlike the human being in its desire to live? Is it afraid of death and
of the mystery of dissolution? Has it, too, all the agony of fear of
passing to the "Great Beyond"? Has it, too, an imaginary God in the form
of a Big Fly? And is it also afraid of that God's supposed wrath?
If the fly's desire to live is so great, what interest does it have in
life?
Does it love? Does it derive happiness when it is able to labor to make
happy its fly Juliet?
Does it want to live because it is ambitious and is trying to excel
other flies?
Does it really think to better its species and solve the problem of its
kind?
Is there a fly family to mourn its death?
While watching that fly and asking myself these questions, I was
convinced of the following _truths_:
That the force that we call life is the same that animates the fly. That
it, too, has control of its muscles and nerves in the same proportion
as we have control of ours. That it, too, possesses the five senses and
adds to its tiny brain more intelligence through its experiences. Within
the movements and actions of that fly was wrapped up the secret of
"Whence did I come, and whither am I going?"
As I released my attention from that fly, I muttered to myself: "The
more I look at insects, the more I think I am one."
For what purpose do _we_ arise in the morning, fill our stomachs with
food, till the fields, and perform labor in exchange for nourishment, in
the evening fall into a sleep from exertion, arise the next day, and
perform the same routine, day in and day out, week in and week out, year
in and year out, and at the age and in the heyday of physical
development seek an outlet in the opposite sex for the strongest impulse
that Nature has implanted in us?
This impulse forces us to commit rape and murder, robbery and assault,
and to violate every principle of honor that man has tried to establish
for the betterment and advancement of the race.
With the dissipation of this mighty sex force, we subside and decline
into weakness and decay, only to pass into death and oblivion.
What a fearful, wasted effort is this life!
IV
The system of nourishment that Nature has imposed upon the world is not
only stupid and malicious, but also of a cannibalistic character.
We, as frail human beings, are horrified and shocked to think that our
ancestors trafficked in and delighted in eating the flesh of their race,
and even to-day we are making a strenuous effort to discourage the
barbarous custom of killing animals to eat their flesh, yet it seems a
dictate of Nature that forces us to uphold that custom. Just think of
it! Nourishment and life-sustaining forces are derived from eating the
cooked flesh of a dead animal, the unborn fowl, the bowels of the lamb,
and the eggs of the fish!
Can you imagine the wildness of life in such a jungle of cannibalism? No
wonder the savage instinct is so deeply implanted in us.
To get a fair idea of the food we eat to sustain life and to please and
satisfy our palates, we need but take a casual glance at any of our
modern butcher shops. Although to-day you will not see human limbs on
display and for sale, as they were years ago, you will be impressed with
the following morsels put there to tempt your appetite: In our modern
butcher shops you will find pigs' feet, calves' brains, ox tongues,
breasts and legs of lamb, chicken livers, dogs ground to bits and sold
as sausages, live and dead fish of all kinds and varieties and
innumerable other portions of animal flesh.
Fortunately we have got beyond the point where we eat the entrails of
these animals, although we use their hoofs to make glue, their bones for
powder, and we string our delicate musical instruments with their
vitals.
The things we consume, in turn consume the living forms that they
capture and subdue.
The lion, the tiger and the leopard will devour us more quickly, and
with less ceremony and with more delight, than we devour other animals.
We, being "civilized," boil the animal's flesh and season it with weeds
that Nature allows to grow, to give it zest and flavor, while our wilder
brothers eat us in the raw, natural manner, only removing our civilized
clothes.
Really, if getting nearer to God is getting back to Nature, the beasts
of the fields have an advantage over us. And we know to-day that even
the living things in the vegetable kingdom suffer alike from the fearful
tortures and penalties of the world. They follow almost the identical
routine of life that we follow. Birth, life, reproduction, and death are
their lot as well as ours; so that, if man were only to practice the
idealism of his cramped and feeble brain he would starve to death!
V
If the world is the result of an established plan, as some say, it must
be the conception of a hideous monster whose three cardinal principles
are Disease, Despair and Death. But this much we can say: Though God
created us a savage, fortunately man is civilizing Nature's brute and is
making him a Man.
Disease is one of Nature's cardinal forces. So, to attain health, we
struggle against disease; but health only means the guarding of it
through fear. "With all the ills the flesh is heir to," true health is a
chimera, an existing state unknown to man.
To be "well" is such a precious condition, that Nature cautions us
against expecting to retain health too long, by instructing us, through
experience, to prepare for a siege of illness. Thus, disease and illness
would seem to be the natural states, and health the artificial
condition under which Nature permits us to live. No one goes to his
grave without suffering the tortures of some disease and paying the
penalty of living. No one is exempt from the inflictions Nature imposes.
The greater portion of our life consists in devising means and
medication to relieve us of our states of ill health and disease.
Sanitation and all the methods we are capable of discovering and
inventing are becoming universally applied to kill and to destroy the
menacing germs that God causes to inhabit the air, and that breed and
multiply in the fertile flesh of our bodies.
And finally, we are so utterly ignorant of how even to eat, sleep, walk,
breathe, stand or sit, that the slightest infringement of the simplest
rules of life can, and does, cause us irreparable harm.
If we did not move to help ourselves, Nature would have us live in filth
and stagnation.
We seek, discover, or invent all kinds of methods to build health and
to remain perfectly strong throughout our lives, and yet, despite it
all, we are puny and sickly beings. In fact, I do not think there is
such a thing as perfect health. What we may do to correct, insure or
perfect our healthy tissues will have a detrimental effect upon some
other part of our body. What we do to build up must also tear down. What
we do to produce health will, after a certain point, produce disease.
This, it seems, is the law not only of life, but also of the universe.
It is regrettable that God did not possess the magnanimity of an
Ingersoll and make health contagious instead of disease.
Physical pain and mental suffering are the mysterious sorrows that we
must experience and pay to a tyrant God for the existence we bear. It is
incontrovertible that no realization is given us by Nature of the
fearful pains and tortures that we are capable of suffering and still
sustain ourselves, only to repeat over and over again the unending
torment in exchange for the consciousness of a worthless life.
We, with our limited intellects, with our puny strength, with our
inability to utilize all the materials in our possession, are still
superior to the workmanship and the justice of God.
Tyrant is no name for such a God, who creates a living organism
purposely and maliciously to torment and torture it.
A poor creature is a God who makes his suffering playthings more
powerful than "he," and compels them to bear their existence under the
lash of inexorable laws of sorrow and suffering, pain and penalty.
And yet we are satisfied with so little. We ask for a crumb only. We are
pleased with the slightest favor. A toy delights us; a little trinket
elicits from us warm gratitude; a breath of balmy air is drunken with
keen and pleasurable delight; a "fine" day is celebrated with
exultation!
But what a mockery is life!
We writhe in pain and bear the brunt of an arrogant tyranny from
whatever force that created and controls us. We must daily bathe our
bodies, wash our hair, brush our teeth, change our clothes and perform
other necessary physical functions to feel freedom from the filthy
conditions that Nature imposes upon us and surrounds us with.
If Nature saw fit to give us eyes, she should have given us perfect
ones; not those which, upon the slightest contact with a minute foreign
substance, cause unutterable pain and possible loss of sight, in a world
where sight is so imperative!
If Nature saw fit to give us ears, she should have given us perfect
ones; not those which are capable of such frightful pain, with the
possibility of becoming totally deaf, when it is so necessary to hear!
If Nature saw fit to give us a nose, she should have given us a perfect
one; not one that causes such miserable torture and unbearable suffering
from the slightest defect!
If Nature saw fit to give us a mouth, she should have given us a perfect
one; one that would perform all the functions of perfect speech; not one
that is so liable to harm and so susceptible to dumbness, when speech is
of such paramount importance to Life!
If Nature saw fit to give us teeth, she should have given us perfect
ones; not those which ache and pain with such fearful intensity that the
mind is almost distracted!
If Nature saw fit to give us arms, legs, and organs, she should have
given us perfect ones; not a body whose tenderness makes it an
instrument of such menacing torture; not a body of crippled bones and
crippled joints, where suffering results from everything it does!
If Nature saw fit to give us a brain, she should have given us one
strong enough to withstand all the rebuffs of life, and one capable
enough to utilize all the forces under command. Each person should be a
mental Hercules capable of solving his own problems and directing all
matter to its greatest material uses.
Instead of the human body being the marvelously constructed instrument
we are wont to believe it, we now find it to be nothing but a common
machine, imperfectly made, and subject to innumerable changes and
radical improvements.
Every person acquainted with the anatomy of the body can give you a list
of imperative improvements that it needs, and without which it will
continue to function imperfectly and continue to cause pain and
suffering to its possessor.
It were a great deal better, after a full summary of life, were we to be
created utterly devoid of feeling, equally impervious to joy and sorrow,
pleasure and pain. We should be manifestly benefited, for the greater
part of our life is now full of sorrow, anxiety, fear, pain,
disappointment and worry.
A small portion of our life is a matter of indifference. A portion
might be termed satisfaction, and a minute balance, an infinitesimal
part, termed--if there is such a thing in life--joy.
And yet, the joy we may experience to-day will not be present to-morrow
to cheer and comfort us, but the pain that we feel to-day will pinch us
more strongly to-morrow, and will remain as an ever-poignant memory.
Joy and pleasure are of a transitory nature only, while pain and sorrow
are of a permanent and accumulative character. Is _all_ of life worth
the sorrow, the agony and fear of death?
Just think of giving a life so full of grief that those who have it do
not want it and quite often destroy it! No wonder that drugs more
powerful than our minds, used to numb the pains of life, are so much in
demand and so universally used.
What a ridiculous assumption it is to think that a soul, separate and
distinct from the body, would imprison itself in such a miserable
confinement!
Instead of life's being a privilege, it is a prison, wherein we must
suffer fearful pains and still more fearful thoughts. Physical pain
registers a high degree of intense feverish suffering, but mental
torture is fired with the scorch of hell.
VI
Human life is the cheapest thing that God makes! No consideration is
given to the feelings, pains and sorrows it must bear and endure.
No wonder that ridicule, shame, hatred and other forms of mental
suffering cannot be withstood by some frail minds, and cause them to
seek relief from their torment.
Under the red-hot brand of mental torture, the jealous husband sees his
wife violate every rule and principle and vow of virtue. He sees her
reveling in the arms and embrace of him that he despises, committing
trespass upon the one he so loves.
The husband suffers more mentally in a few moments of these imaginings,
than the actual performance, with his full knowledge, could cause him to
suffer.
Losses, mistakes, discouragements and disappointments scorch with
burning blisters the lining of our lives.
I once thought it was cowardly to make destruction of oneself, but I
must say that more mature thought, supported by actual scenes and
experiences, has caused me to alter my view.
But before I go farther, let me make my thought clear so as to avoid any
misunderstanding.
I do not mean that a person should shirk his or her duty in the face of
hardship, discouragement or rebuke. On the contrary, the mettle of the
man is best tested by such adverse forces, and some of the most
inspiring moments of life lie in overcoming these conditions and
triumphing over unjust, undue and seemingly impossible odds. What I do
mean is, when life no longer holds any attraction, when the ravages of
disease have torn and mutilated your body, when pain and torture are
raking your mind, and your daily companions are these miseries, with no
possible hope of their relief or change, then by all means, by whatever
agency you desire to accomplish it, save yourself the terrible agony of
living, and defeat one of the tyrant impositions of God.
VII
The child suffers the sharpest pains, the crudest poignancy that could
possibly be inflicted upon its body, through the stupid, frightening and
monstrous tales that are continually told to it to make it "good," to
make it "obey."
To think that a child cannot bear to enter the dark, cannot bear to be
alone, cannot bear to be separated from its loving and protecting
parents, and yet must suffer in a few moments from a fatal disease--the
agony of all this, in the face of death, is the crime of crimes, too
damnable and horrible for words.
I remember once seeing a little lost child. It cried for its mother. Hot
tears were streaming down its burning cheeks. Its face portrayed the
severest form of suffering that life is capable of experiencing. If
Nature ever made a frail article, it is our tender offspring, so
bewildered, so utterly helpless, so agonizingly delusioned, so
pitifully searching for some familiar face; something to make it
discover its lost self. Oh, what power ever made us so tender, so
incapable of self-help, as to have us undergo and feel such terrific
suffering! It is injustice enough when adults are made to suffer mental
and physical ills, without inflicting such a painful decree upon mere
infants.
At least an adult has some conception of his suffering. He can make
provision for some remedy. He can seek others to ask them to render
help. He knows, he feels, he understands the situation, and can adjust
himself as best he can to obtain some relief.
But not so with the child. Its mind is not capable of comprehending the
condition which makes its suffering so sharp. Its little brain is too
feeble, hardly strong enough to direct its awkward and bulky body, much
less to solve such an incredible predicament as being utterly destitute
of help, in a world fashioned upon such an unsatisfactory plan.
There is not, nor can there be, a sadder, more distressing sight, than
to see a little lost child overcome with fright.
If it were in my power to abolish any of Nature's cruel laws, I would
take from the little child its feeling of pain.
Let me ask, would man, were it in his power, send a helpless creature,
utterly unable to sustain itself, without power of thought,
understanding or expression, so dependent upon loving care, kindness,
help and comprehension, into a world that is a wilderness, a world
reeking with pestilence and populated with shrieking beasts and brutal
and savage people?
As a passing word regarding the child, let me say this:
Do not judge your child as an ordinary mechanical instrument, as if he
could be wound up to a certain degree and gradually, as if by clockwork,
tick away each moment of the day. The child is a combustible force, and,
although there are certain rules by which you may obtain the greatest
degree of improvement, you cannot rigidly adhere to them. There are
numberless instances when the propensity or inclination of the child may
appear to you to be aggravating and annoying; nevertheless, you must not
let _your_ irritability interfere with the development of that trait
preëminent to the child's character.
Look upon your child, encourage your boy or girl, to be a pioneer and a
soldier in the march of progress. Instruct it with the knowledge of the
miserable conditions of our past history, and bring it forcibly to
understand that efforts only are repaid, and that we must work in order
to accomplish.
Prayers are only wasted words on the desert air. The greatest mental
crime ever committed is that of teaching a child, "while still upon its
mother's knee," its duty and obedience to God. It would appear that for
the amount of suffering it must endure, and in the face of its
unconsulted coming, we should at least disregard God for his insolence,
and impress upon the child the peculiar conditions of life. We should
instruct it, that from time immemorial, Nature has been laboring through
the most awkward process of reproduction, and has finally brought the
child into existence, not to enjoy the benefits, or eat of the fruits of
the earth, but to bear a life of continual strife and suffering. Not of
God should we speak to our child, but of the importance of being
prepared to do all in its power to help others to escape the torture,
misery and hardships it must so painfully overcome. Is it any wonder
that we grow up to be serfs and slaves? Before we are able to know or
understand the very rudest fundamentals of life, our entire mental
machinery is corrupted by unshakable fears and dedicated to the vilest
and most sickening submission. Would that we were left alone, and free
to follow the thoughts of our own minds, regarding the great problems
of life. What a mighty, unhampered power we would possess to find the
proper course of action, and possibly the real solution to the mystery
of the _Tyranny of God_!
To love and to reverence our tormentor is repulsive and despicable, and
since we refuse to allow man to tyrannize over man, what degradation it
is for the human race to cringe and bow down unconditionally to the
imagination in the great realm of uncertainty!
Do not hurt your child. Do not strike it. Do not cause it any
unnecessary pain. Before it is able to walk, before it is able to talk,
before it is old enough to tell of its pain and suffering, Nature makes
it endure enough.
Remember, the only language of the babe is the cry of pain.
Imagine yourself under the lash of suffering, utterly speechless and
incapable of conveying your wants and feelings to an absolutely strange
surrounding, and you will have a slight picture of the growing child in
your household. Did you ever stop to consider that the child, when born,
does not know that you are its parent? It does not know that you are its
father, or that you are its mother. It does not know what prompted its
birth, or why it must live--and above all, what it has done to be sent
to such a miserable prison place as the planet upon which we live. We
must demonstrate all this as well as we can to the child.
This much we can be sure of: kindness, tenderness and love should
forever be our guide in our dealings and contact with children.
The child is brought into this world from the insuppressible passion of
two people, and surely without its consent, and it is absolute tyranny
and barbarity to torment its mind or to punish its body, regardless of
the result its action may have upon us.
To the little children that have suffered the horrible punishment so
generally followed in that cruel and false book--the Bible--my heart
goes out in pity, since words fail me to describe those savage
characters that visit inhuman, tormenting and torturous treatment upon
their unwelcome offspring.
If we were forced to perform the thousand tyrannies that are directed
against the child during the day by cruel and thoughtless parents, the
lunatic asylum would soon be our place of refuge. Such trivial things as
a spot on the shoe, a speck of dirt upon the clothes, a mere tip of the
hat, a slight turn of the scarf often give rise to such violent
reprimand, and very often brutal punishment, that the savageness of
barbarians is mild compared to such displays of temper.
My heart again goes out to you, little children, when and wherever you
are, that must bear the brunt of brutal actions from stupid and
thoughtless parents and guardians. These people seem to classify
children in the matter of discipline as grown ups, thinking (or,
rather, not thinking) that children's undeveloped minds should be as
strong as theirs, when they themselves are unable to practice the
self-denial that they expect from mere infants.
How often does a child receive a slap in the face from a parent for the
asking of only a simple question, when the parent is not in the "humor"
to "bother" with him?
What a painful and terrifying beating does a child often get for
disobeying some arbitrary command uttered by the one over him. To the
child, "Don't do this," "Don't go there," "Stand up straight," and "Say
this" are commands that carry with them court martial and its severe and
unrelenting punishment.
Remember this: The child will respond to kindness and love more readily
and directly than to force and unwarranted discipline. It is purely a
question of whether your feelings are actuated by these impulses.
If you have become mentally strong enough to restrain your impulses to
strike your child, do not substitute other means to "punish" him.
Changing the method of brutally inflicting physical pain upon your child
to some other means, though less repulsive, is still obnoxious and
harmful.
If you are unable to convince your child, by persuasion, example or
otherwise, that you are right and that the child should follow your
instruction, then by all means, let it become the victor in the contest.
Fear--fear of pain, fear in every form--controls our lives, and shapes
the courses of our puny destinies.
VIII
The mind, through fear of death, is capable of suffering, within a few
moments, the tortures of an eternity, although to accomplish death,
Nature may require only a few minutes. The extent of the mind's
capability for suffering is beyond compare.
Nature has been distinctly conspicuous in imbuing us not only with grave
doubts and uncertainties, but also with an unshakable fear regarding
death. In the deepest moments of despair, when living has absolutely no
attraction and life becomes a burden and a menace, we fight desperately,
and without abatement, for this narrow, worthless thread of existence.
Possibly the fear that we have in the face of death is caused by the
fact that we must suffer pain before death is accomplished. And a great
deal of the theory of "self-preservation" is due merely to our great
horror of pain.
The indisputable fact that thousands "take their lives" by choosing the
least possible painful method demonstrates, with a firm conviction, my
thought that it is the avoidance of pain, rather than the retaining of
life, that prompts our efforts to live.
It is only too true, and heard from the lips of thousands, that if they
"could only lie down and never awake, what a blessing it would be." We
speak in terms of "having lived too long," "being tired of living,"
"life not worth living," etc., as if life were a prison sentence, and,
often, rather than continue the servitude, we surmount and overcome the
deterrent of pain and destroy the life.
Very often our desire to keep on living is prompted by our baser
impulses. We "live" sometimes to "get even" with someone--to spite
someone. We "live" sometimes to be able to "show" what we can or cannot
do. Were it not for these baser impulses, what an unlimited number of
people would refuse to continue this monotonous, painful and non-paying
life!
The foregoing expressions of life, at one time or another, represent the
feelings of all humanity. In the United States alone during the year
1920 it has been conservatively estimated that more than twelve thousand
persons committed suicide. These persons were engaged in all kinds of
pursuits and came from ALL walks of life. They ranged from social
outcasts to society leaders; from poverty stricken unfortunates to
persons of great wealth; from illiterate men and women to editors and
college professors; from laborers and layman to physicians and
ministers. The youngest suicide was a mere infant of five years, the
oldest, a centenarian of 106! Among the suicides of last year were two
evangelists and twelve clergymen. It would appear that those who had
devoted their thoughts and services to God would at least be spared the
agony of such suffering as to force them to prefer death and to take
their lives. I say with Ingersoll, it is a wonder God does not at least
protect his friends and defenders.
The reluctance we have to die is due in a large degree to the
possibility of securing a few more moments of joy from an already too
much troubled world, with the hope that a little compensation will be
derived from the pain and sorrow we have endured.
And yet those things that we may live to enjoy to-day and to-morrow may
likewise be present to thrill us at some future date, away and beyond
the limitation we are capable of surviving. It is from this desire that
we unconsciously "feel" that we would like to "live" always, to get our
full measure of return; and since such is neither the lot nor the
privilege of our possession, it really makes no difference when we die
as far as personal satisfaction is concerned.
The fear that possesses us now in the matter of death will likewise and
with equal force possess us later, when we actually and without
ceremony must submit to the inevitable.
The desire that possesses a person to live now will, with equal
attraction, obsess him later.
Our desires and aspirations are never satisfied. What we may cherish to
accomplish to-day may be consummated and achieved, yet to-morrow another
something will demand our energies to be spent for further desires to be
accomplished.
When we are babies we desire to walk; when we walk, we desire to talk;
when we talk, we desire to grow; after we grow, we want to learn; after
we learn, we want to do and to expand--and our performance and expansion
are only curtailed by insolent death!
IX
The only justification there is to live, once conscious of the damnable
scheme of life, is the burning desire to do something to help mankind
bear the conditions and to make easier the burden of life for those who
are here and for those who are to come; for very often the greatest
benefactors of the race are so maligned and persecuted in their day that
only the future can render a just appreciation of their labor and their
value.
For without the improvement bestowed on life by the world's benefactors,
over the crudity of Nature, it were better that we remain in the bosom
of our wilder brothers, and hang from the trees by the length and the
strength of our tails. Aye, back and back and back, down every degree of
life until the time before the first cell of protoplasm from an
inanimate into an animate state started.
Why must we be made to suffer such dreadful torment before death, since
by eternal decree it is the common lot all must endure?
Death, puzzling, eternal death, is Nature's final stamp upon our fearful
struggle through life.
And the agony of death is more poignantly mental than physical, since
the mind, reviewing the acts of the past, anticipates with anxiety and
with picturesque vividness the wrongs, scandals, terrors, fears and
injustice of the future.
Since life is so replete with physical pains, no wonder our picture of
death is so horrible.
We see upon the lifeless form the cast of its agonizing pain, and augur
from that an eternity of sorrow. But fortunately, in reality we can only
feel pain as long as we possess "life." In a sense, therefore, death is
a blessing.
After all, the severest pains of death lie in the brains of the living.
The mind is capable of suffering in one moment all that a lifetime can
repay with pleasure, and no joy is sufficient in value to compensate you
for enduring an irreparable loss.
The conditions that existed before our birth are identical with the
conditions that will exist at our death. As we knew no life and felt no
pain before our birth, we shall know no life and feel no pain after our
death.
Death is no longer the enigma of life. Living is its problem. The sting
of death has been removed. We know death's destiny, and no longer fear
its consequences. The only suffering attached to death now is the
injustice of its time of coming, the reluctance of parting with loved
ones, and the loss of the opportunity to attain. Well might I say with
Shakespeare, that:
"Cowards die many times before their death;
The valiant never taste of death but once.
Of all the wonders that I yet have heard,
It seems to me most strange that men should fear;
Seeing that death, a necessary end,
Will come when it will come."
The most despicable characters of human life are those who prey upon
credulous persons when in the face of death and shrouded with the fear
of its uncertainty, picturing to those persons horrible and frightening
tales of an eternity of torture.
What unspeakable misery must those whose religious conviction has so
terrified death and its aftermath, especially when it is intensified and
horrified through the mouthpiece of ignorant priests, suffer in
consequence of death.
Oh, what a fearful sting must be there!
Just think what this poor, vast, credulous multitude pay, with the sweat
of their brows and the bend of their backs, to enrich these moral beasts
in exchange for their ignorant and terrifying mumblings, that rob the
deluded ones of every fiber of courage and every thought of perfect
peace and rest.
It is while living that death possesses its sting and anguish. Anyone
that seeks tribute from the dying, or from the living for services on
behalf of the dead, is a damnable moral scoundrel and a cunning rascal.
To those whose minds have been poisoned from childhood with this
religious conviction, this most awful of beliefs, I cry: "Throw off
these tyrants of the mind. Emancipate yourselves from this fearful
ignorance and mental bondage!" What a burden will be lifted from their
lives and what a glorious freedom they will experience!
If we are to die, let us die in perfect calmness and in perfect peace.
Let us become firmly convinced that, once we are dead, no thought, no
act, can possibly harm us. We are beyond the pale of Nature's pangs. We,
the individuals that we were, are free from everything. We are at rest,
and forever.
X
But after this life with all our pains and sorrows, what then? What is
there to repay us for living?
I answer:
_Nothing!_
I have no misgivings about the "future." I am firmly convinced that
there is no "after life," that when we "breathe our last" we arrive at
our eternity. We are "one with yesterday's seven thousand years." We are
like the flower which, "once blown, forever dies."
I firmly believe that life as now manifested in our bodies is a
combustible force identical with that of any other form of life. No less
so than the "seed" of the flower is different from the "germ" of the
wheat.
Both are forces!
So are we!
They may be different manifestations, but fundamentally they are the
same.
In fact, the very force that manifests itself in a mechanical instrument
made by man is the identical substance that rules the organs, and
charges the brain of our being. In the same manner that the force
dissipates itself in the mechanical instrument made by man, and no
longer gives motion to its parts, so the force that animates our being
dissipates itself and is no longer capable of giving motion to our parts
and organs.
As man's instruments are dependent upon many channels for their complete
performance, so the human brain and body have their many dependencies
that must fully and properly be nourished to maintain their power.
Each day science draws another veil from the mystery of life.
Our eye is but a chemical camera, that we have not only reproduced, but
even improved upon.
Our voice is nothing but a vibration, that we have not only reproduced
and improved upon, but whose minutest modulations we have recorded in
innumerable duplications.
Our ear is but a drum, that carries and conveys to the brain the
vibrations of our voice, and that function we have reproduced and even
improved upon by the instrument we call the telephone.
The telegraphic system of the human body that communicates to the brain
the conditions that the senses perceive, is no other than that which man
has even improved upon by the transmission of an intelligible message to
a far-distant land without the use of any apparent conductor. With the
marvelous instrument, the telephone, man sends his voice around the
world.
Man's greatest inventions, the phonograph, the camera and the telephone,
both wire and wireless, make the work of Nature, as manifested in our
bodies, a simple, childish affair, fit only for the kindergarten of
things.
When Edison invented the incandescent light and reproduced the human
voice in the phonograph he pulled aside the veil of secrecy and
penetrated the infinite.
_He proved and demonstrated man to be greater than God._
Our limbs carry our bodies in the direction our brains dictate, and
_that_ function we have reproduced and even improved upon in all the
means of locomotion that we daily use and which we now consider as a
"matter of fact" among the ordinary things of life. "Comparisons are
odious" when we compare the awkward motion of Nature with the rapid
locomotion of man.
Man progresses far too rapidly for the accommodation of Nature, and as a
result adapts for his use and benefit vital essentials that Nature in
her laziness has either failed to utilize, or will not utilize.
Although we have not yet completely discovered all the material and
mechanical elements that compose life, we are sure and certain of their
origin.
We hear ourselves talk; we decide upon our destination and direct our
motion; we eat when we are hungry; sleep when we are tired; cry when we
are in pain; and laugh when we are tickled. Our whole being from start
to finish is mechanical, and the element of something "spiritual,"
something separate and distinct from a purely material sense, is
absolutely illogical and ill-founded in view of the illimitable
illustrations that are being demonstrated every day.
It is a thing easily understood, if we logically, and intelligently,
without blindness, preference or prejudice, analyze the problem.
It may sound better and more desirable to say that we possess a
"soul"--that this life is but a "stepping stone to a higher plane"--but
it is not true.
We cannot observe the true, actual facts of life by coloring our
subject. If we want to determine the _truth_ we must be mentally
prepared to accept the _truth_.
A painted face, brightened eyes, blackened eyelids, Marcelled hair, and
a form draped in all the splendor of the finest silks do not make a
woman possess the sweetness and charm that all this "dope" is intended
to make us believe.
As much as man wants to have the end of this life attain certain
benefits and destinations, this desire does not make them real.
The implicit confidence in a faithless wife does not make her loyal and
virtuous. A wife's confidence in a profligate husband does not make him
stanch and true.
Life calls for a cold analysis. It must be stripped of all its
artificial colorings and superfluities. It must be measured and weighed
for what it actually is, not for what we would like it to be. It must be
determined in the unwavering scales of science.
The proper study of mankind is not the man in the white starched collar,
with trimmed hair, shaven face and polished shoes, but the man recently
from the forest, with coarse, grizzly hair upon his back, brutal and
violent passion dominating his body, and savageness and hatred in his
startled and terrifying eyes.
The sooner we come to the realization of this vital fact, the sooner we
become acquainted with the basic origin of life, the sooner we shall
understand life, with its achievements, with its aspirations and hopes.
XI
It is an absolute fact and certainty, impossible of refutation, that
when animation ceases in the body and no effort is made to revive it,
life ceases and the processes of decay and decomposition set in.
Yet it is permanently established and has been successfully demonstrated
innumerable times, that certain methods of artificial stimulation have
revivified and resuscitated the delicate organs that cause the heartbeat
and give consciousness to the brain.
Recently my local newspaper contained the following item:
"DEAD" BUT SAW NO SPIRITS
_Oklahoma City, Okla._, February 7th--Neal Dillingham doesn't
believe in after-death communication with the living. Dillingham
was "dead" for twenty minutes recently, and he says he ought to
know.
Doctors said Dillingham's blood circulation was stopped by a clot
of blood. His heart stopped beating, and he did not breathe.
Insertion of a saline solution into his artery just above the
heart caused the clot to dissolve, and Dillingham came back to
life.
"I did not return to earth after I left it," said Dillingham. "I
had no knowledge of anything that took place, but I must have been
pretty dead, as I do know I didn't recognize several persons I had
known all my life, after I was myself again. If I had any talks
with anybody while I was 'dead' I don't remember anything about
them."
Believing that the publicity that this case received would make the
party known to the postal authorities, I sat down and wrote him a
letter, hoping that, if fortunate enough to have a letter delivered to
him, he might be kind enough to write me personally of his experience.
After a lapse of several days I received from him a letter
substantiating in detail all that was mentioned in the newspaper
clipping quoted above.
In the instance of this man Dillingham, he was "dead," so to speak, and
as far as his "soul" was concerned it had "left" the body; yet the
injection of a material solution, compounded by man, in conjunction
with artificial respiration, caused the beating of the heart and gave
back to the brain its power of consciousness.
If it is the "soul" that causes the functioning of the body, where is it
when such an action takes place?
If it is the "soul" that gives us "life," how is it that we can
materially and mechanically destroy it?
We are born and nourished by material means.
We live our life by material means.
We reproduce our kind by material means.
And we can destroy ourselves by material means.
Everything that touches and concerns our life is purely material, and it
should be incumbent upon those who believe in the "Soul" or the
"Spiritual Element" of man to produce the proof of their contention.
We are nothing but a continual propagating instrument, without
spiritual, moral, lasting or ultimate value. We are here to reproduce
our kind and for nothing more. What man secures for himself within the
narrow circle of his existence here is all that he gains for the life
that Nature forces him to live.
Everything man has, man has made. Nothing has been given to him by
Nature. God has been a miser!
If man possessed a "soul" the thousand deformities of the brain would
not exist. Insanity would be impossible, and all the forms of petty
vices that so miserably afflict us would be totally unknown.
That which gives us the power of life is a combination of the material
forces of Nature, and the elements that compose the brain are of a
chemical substance. The difference between a "live" person and a "dead"
one can be summarized by a great many instances about us, and because of
their commonplaceness, we do not observe them.
There are many apples falling to the ground, but we are not inspired
with the knowledge that the actuating force is gravity.
One of the best illustrations, to show the difference between a "live"
and a "dead" person, can be had from that excellent invention called the
"film" or "plate," and which is so remarkably used in the camera.
When that sensitive composition of chemicals that forms the "film" and
which produces such a vivid and lasting likeness of ourselves is freshly
made, it possesses that vital something we call "life."
But allow this film to remain unused for a period of time, and it will
no longer be able to perform its remarkable work. It will not possess
the "life" to take a picture or to record an impression.
If a premature "exposure" of the film is made, it loses its vital
quality because of the mixture with other elements, or because of the
evaporation of its constituent parts.
It is not necessary to analyze all the properties of that film to show
the principle whereby it performs its wonderful work. The general
principle, showing its marvelous use while intact and its utter
uselessness when its composition is no longer the same, should be
sufficient to illustrate the comparison.
This illustration can with force and conviction be applied to the
peculiar quality and nature of our "soul" and brain. As long as the
brain is incased within our skull, and fully protected from contact with
any other substance to alter or to change its integrity, it will perform
all that is warranted of it. In the case of our brain, though, besides
the importance of keeping it protected from outside chemical action, the
vital element concerned in its continuity of life lies in the importance
of keeping it constantly nourished and supplied with the remarkable
qualities of the vital substance of blood.
The moment the blood supply to the brain is stopped, our brain loses its
most important constituent, with the ultimate and inevitable result of
inertia, decomposition and decay. When this condition happens we are
then "dead" and, like the proverbial egg, "all the King's horses and all
the King's men cannot put Humpty Dumpty together again."
If we possessed a soul, and it were of a permanent and special quality,
it would maintain its impressions and remember its existence.
It could pass through innumerable periods and know its many and varied
journeys.
Even memory, so unreliable in our short life, bespeaks the utter
impossibility of such a thing as a soul with a permanent and lasting
existence.
That which we call the "soul" is nothing but a chemical composition,
that can and _does_ lose its permanency while we are still alive.
We are acquainted with a number of chemical compositions that must
remain in a pacific state to maintain their identity, so those chemical
forces that compose our "soul" must perforce maintain their
equilibrium.
If we are stunned, or suffer any of the many conditions that upset
chemical compounds and compositions, we, for the time being, suffer
either "unconsciousness" or some other form of mental disability.
If we are shocked too severely, we become totally and permanently
impaired, and suffer violent fits and fearful rages, insanity or
imbecility.
Different shocks, and even forms of disease, result in certain action
upon our chemical brain, which causes it to lose only part of its
ability. Extreme high fever is only one form of illness which causes the
brain to lose its stability and run rampant and unbridled.
If I were fully cognizant of all forms and degrees of disease, I could
recite exactly how they act and in what degree they harm the delicate
organism of our brain. In many instances shocks or diseases too powerful
for our brain to withstand, cause that portion of our brain that may
control our speech, our sight, our hearing, our limbs or other organs to
lose its power, with the consequence that we must suffer and be
handicapped with what is properly called "a great affliction."
Science to-day has discovered that great truth, and has not only
catalogued the different portions of the brain in their individual
departments or capacities, but, by a master stroke of surgery, can
correct and remedy those impaired parts, and give back to the human
being the use of those valuable organs that the invisible agents of
Nature had taken away.
So, instead of the brain's possessing a "soul," we find it, only in a
more delicate degree, a mechanical formation such as we discovered our
body to be.
But if we possess a soul and it is capable of passing through the many
and varied stages that life suffers, what becomes of its impressions?
What and where are the benefits of its retention?
Where is the soul when we are in a state of unconsciousness? Surely, if
the soul were ever present to guard and maintain life, it would be
standing by and using its power when it is most needed. We have no
occasion for help when we are not in danger. It is when power can be
used and exercised that it should be manifested.
Even love, the great compelling force of our life, is subject to the
variations of our chemical "soul," its attractions and repulsions.
If two form the unit of reproduction, and love is the great mating
medium of Nature, then once it is animated, once it is brought into
existence, it should endure permanently, and the possessors should at
least enjoy their blissful companionship until the end. But no. Nature
would entice, and then destroy, this most consuming feeling of life.
Two persons can start life with the most irresistible attraction and
irrepressible love and within a very short time, unless they guard their
love with every means and weapon of advanced thought and reason, Nature,
through her duplicity, will provide searching eyes to alienate their
affection, causing a wretchedness unparalleled in the mental miseries of
mankind's life.
The saddest state of all is when two persons, with the sacred devotion
of love, cohabit and the happy result is loving children, and yet
while this happy family, free from Nature's pitfalls and snares, are
living in a peaceful and blissful state, there exists the ever-menacing
"devil" who tempts the loving wife and mother to follow the
will-o'-the-wisp--and thereby undoes and destroys the greatest kingdom
of life.
The devoted husband and father, by the flash of an eye, and the charm of
a face, can forsake his sacred ties of devotion and become a degenerate
and outcast, with death as his only salvation. In either case Nature
stands by with a sneer upon her lips, and God forgets his obligation to
his children. But the final analysis proves beyond doubt that the
physical attraction is responsible for this action; and who can deny
that it is the chemical attraction of two forces that produced this
irresistible desire?
XII
If the life we live be a kindergarten or infancy of a larger and better
life somewhere else, Nature defeats her own ends, because myriads pass
on, leave here, with the most dwarfed intellects, utterly unprepared to
live here, and much less prepared to live in a higher state and on a
more lofty plane.
Were such a condition true, that this is but a transitory existence, we
should all have to go through the same schooling of life, and be
indelibly impressed with its lesson, with conviction and understanding
that the same mistakes would never be repeated, or the acquired
knowledge would be constantly and forever used.
There would be no deaths in infancy, as each child born would be
purposely sent here; neither would there be premature deaths, as no one
could leave without "learning his lesson."
There would be a fixed standard of knowledge and development that we
would be required to attain. Knowledge, or whatever condition Nature
imposed, would be our destiny, and we would devote our entire life to
its acquirement.
As it is, we bend our efforts and use our strength to avoid and to
escape the acquisition of knowledge.
If our life were given to us in order to pass through a school of
experience, the simplest truths would immediately manifest themselves to
our minds, and conviction would be instant and permanent.
But how sadly untrue is this premise!
For thousands, aye, for millions of years, the people have been
stupefied with the most ignorant and foolish superstition. An instance
that will present with great force an illustration of the utter folly of
the contention that we are living on this planet as a lesson in school,
lies in the fact that for thousands of years people not only believed
but religiously guarded the belief that the earth was flat.
Even to-day, with irrefutable demonstrations of the truth, there are
some people who either cannot, or will not, accept it.
As desirable as this theory of a transitory state may be, it is even
contrary to Nature herself. The entire scheme of Nature seems to be
fashioned upon the same principle as our life. The fearful struggle of
the elements involved squares identically with our own existence. Even
the gigantic constellations, flying with an incalculable velocity,
leaving destruction and desolation in their tracks, meet in their
ignorant and blind journey the same fate as we meet. Recent astronomical
discoveries speak of a struggle constantly taking place in those areas.
The belief of an existence after death is so untenable in the face of
many scientific discoveries of to-day, and of the irrefutable facts
that are constantly staring us in the face, that an instance or two are
all that are necessary to prove the fallacy of such a belief.
Under many circumstances we are unable to recognize our own blood
relations after a lapse of a certain length of time. Parents fail to
know their children; and children their parents. This is equally true in
every comparison and degree of relationship. Features and
characteristics undergo such a decided change and transformation that
recognition is ofttimes even impossible. Even the law courts are
continually called upon to determine the proper identity of persons, to
establish the ownership of property by other means than by personal
identification. Most remarkable of all, under new conditions, we do not
recognize ourselves within the interval of only a few seconds!
Try this if you would seek proof, and convince yourself that recognition
of your own personality is momentarily impossible, and that you must
resort to other senses than that of sight to identify yourself.
Put a wig upon your head, blacken your face, "make up" your features,
and when you have finished and are completely unaware of your changed
appearance, look into the mirror for your reflection and feel the
sensation of the startling fact that you know not yourself.
We speak of changes so radical in a person's appearance that we often
say we could not recognize him "in a thousand years."
What a ridiculous presumption it is, then, to maintain that we live
after death when _all_ senses are gone and perception is dead!
Again, how anyone can say that when we die we go to "heaven" is too
childish to consider, because when we die, instead of going up and to
heaven, we are put deep into the ground to moulder and to rot away.
What a far-fetched conclusion it is to assume that we live after death,
minus all the physical characteristics and under conditions utterly
incomprehensible to our minds! Even if, at death, the body turned into
invisible gases it would mean and prove absolutely nothing.
If we live after death, by what means can one person communicate with
another?
We cannot feel, because we have no hands.
We cannot see, because we have no eyes.
We cannot smell, because we have no nose.
We cannot hear, because we have no ears.
We cannot taste, because we have no mouth, no stomach.
But, with it all, these five mediums of sense are dependent upon a
_living brain_.
The fact that we suffer the loss of our senses even before death,
because of the complications in the make-up of our body, should be
sufficient proof of the nonexistence of a soul and the utter
impossibility of a life after death.
Unless we retain and maintain our sacred ties after death, another life
is valueless and void, useless and unnecessary. It is a fearful sadness
to think that the ones you love are to pass away into nothingness and be
no more; that the sparkling eyes will be dim forever; that the rosy
cheeks will no longer glow with radiant health; that the ruby lips will
fade into a deathly blue, motionless and forever still; that dimpled
hands and loving arms will never encircle you again, and the supremacy
and tenderness of your love must be crushed with a cold and callous
ferocity.
But, sad and mournful as it is, with the human heart beating hopelessly
against hope for only one more chance to kiss and caress and love the
one you so dearly cherish, it is nevertheless only too poignantly true
that death ends all.
Death means nothing to the affairs of the world.
To be taken from amid the world in such an ever-living condition as now
exists, is like taking a cup of water from an ever-full pail. The gap is
immediately filled, and the level of the water simultaneously adjusted,
leaving absolutely no trace of what has been withdrawn. Only the
individual suffers. What a mighty burst of heart there would be if we
all could feel and suffer at the same time!
Nature makes no difference and knows no distinction between the living
and the dead. The warm and tender rays of the sun, and its blistering
heat, fall alike upon the crying, innocent babe and the lifeless,
unfeeling corpse.
The sun does not shine to give us its necessary heat, without also
bringing to light some new problem and pain for our over-troubled hearts
to bear.
Murder, rape and greed look no different to Nature than goodness, virtue
and unselfishness.
Tears were made for the things that God causes, laughter is the result
of man's efforts.
XIII
It is man's labor, man's work, man's achievement, that gives us the
little desire that we have to live. How often do we prefer _death_ to
living life in our former condition, after our efforts have brought us
to a point of vantage and comfort!
Death is always preferable to the living of a "dog's life!" And yet,
with it all, the little improvement we have to-day, with the still
remaining cruel conditions of Nature left to endure and fight, has not
been worth the struggle through the black and bleak past. The price has
been entirely too severe for the little that has been gained.
God gives man nothing; man gives man everything!
What sublime courage it was that made the pathfinders of the past
sacrifice their lives, in order that their principles of truth might
triumph, so that another link might be made in the chain of progress
that is endeavoring to break the spell of a tyrant power.
You must be made to know that for whatever desirable condition we have
to-day we are indebted to heroic men and women of the past, who, in the
days of infant progress, achieved a moral, physical and intellectual
triumph.
The chair you sit on, the cup you drink from, the fork you eat with, the
light you read by, the bed you sleep in, the heat that warms you, the
shoes on your feet, the clothes upon your back, the hat upon your head,
and every part and particle of improvement that has enriched the world
with a little touch of human comfort are the result of the heroic labors
of the men and women of the past, who victoriously fought the accursed
and chaotic forces of Nature, so as to make life and living a little
better.
But at every step and stage of progress the dogmatists have exerted
their influence toward retardation. What these dogmatists were unable
to accomplish through fear and suppression, they accomplished through
ostracism, and death. Human advancement and progress are foreign to the
"believing" mind. The dogmatists are concerned only with the
"supernatural." They want not the comforts of life here if they can
secure those benefits "hereafter."
It is the attitude of the religious to belittle anything that is
designed for human betterment. Their philosophy is, the more you suffer
here, the less you will suffer "hereafter." Their humility to and fear
of this "unseen" power is the most degrading trait in human beings. It
is a frame of mind not only despicable and a hindrance in the face of
progress, but even antagonistic to and destructive of all things worth
while.
To them, the insanity of belief is of paramount importance, and is more
sacred and holy than human life. Aye, human life has been so
subordinated to this superstitious belief that it meant death in the
past to those who rejected it.
Rather observe some "holy day" than perform "work" to help some fellow
human being in distress. Murder, rather than eat meat on a "forbidden
day"! This frame of mind is one of the mental mysteries that science has
yet to solve.
XIV
The rotundity of the earth was discussed and its circumference
scientifically measured hundreds of years before the supposed birth of
Christ, and had not the "God believers" been so persistent in forcing
their belief upon others, and had not Christianity been born, I can see
how the discovery of America would have been accomplished about a
thousand years before the discovery by Columbus; and the incalculable
progress which would have been the consequence would have carried
mankind beyond the boldest imagination of to-day, and placed us a
thousand years nearer civilization.
Hero, a mathematician, who lived at the time when the Greek minds were
the marvel of the world, invented a steam engine, which was used in
experiments and was rapidly nearing completion and perfection, when,
unfortunately, ignorant and destructive Religion, that was madly
trampling upon everything of value, destroyed the famous Alexandrian
Library wherein was kept a model of this engine. It also swept away the
incalculable wealth of knowledge that had required ages to accumulate,
and thereby completely annihilated the most priceless possessions that
the human race ever owned.
But that is not all; it is only a fragment. For history at every stage
of life shows the continual strife between the forces of progress and
the religious fanatic and God believer.
What is that strange form of insanity that prompts people to torture and
to destroy those who seek to emancipate them from the _Tyranny of God_
and from the deluded belief in a hereafter?
The attitude of all, each and every one of us, should ever be the desire
and willingness to greet a new idea, to support a new thought, to try a
new proposal, to do all in our power to uphold the forces of progress,
to lend our help and to devote our energies in any direction that will
ultimately lead us from the cruel forces and narrow limitations that are
our lot to share.
To those who have no thought for these things, who care not what forces
and conditions man must face, who take without thought and give only
through compulsion, whose self-satisfied condition (made possible only
by the heroic work of the martyrs of progress) make of them personal
heroes, whose life is wrapped within the flicker of a day, who do not
know, do not realize, and do not care about the fearful suffering of the
world--I say to them to strut their intoxicated hour and pass away. The
sooner they live their lives and the sooner they die, the better for the
earth. It needs fertilization.
Were we as mentally progressive as we are materially advanced, what a
wonderful and magnificent improvement over the present living conditions
we would be enjoying! Every new invention, every new improvement, would
be immediately and universally installed, and every old and antiquated
instrument and method would be discarded and destroyed. That which now
seems only within the command of the households of the immensely
wealthy, would be as popularly used and enjoyed as the now commonly used
articles in the poorest households.
Think of existing to-day in a predominant percentage of dwellings for
human beings where there is not found the essential bathtub, or the
still more essential toilet room!
Governments are instituted for the people's benefit, and shame upon such
a government, in an enlightened age like to-day, that tolerates such a
condition, when that government possesses the men, the means, the
intellect and the materials to electrify the world!
The first and foremost essential in higher development is the comfort
and conveniences in a home.
These are some of the conditions that the progressive minds of the world
are trying to solve and remedy. It is only a question of how much
longer the majority of people will pay homage to an imaginary God for
imaginary benefits in an imaginary life after death.
XV
It is the antagonism of the dogmatic world, and the apathy of the rest,
that is the cause of the mental progress of the world's not keeping pace
with the material progress.
Better still, the universal application of the material progress has
been far in advance of the universal acceptance of mental achievement.
The automobile, the gigantic ocean liner, the talking machine, the
electric fan, the elevator, the telephone and the other marvelous
achievements of man are being used by the greater portion of the people,
whose mental status belongs to the wheelbarrow, the simple chair, the ox
cart and the tallow candle.
Slight is the realization by the users and beneficiaries of science's
modern methods, of the heroic struggles and battles that the great men
and women of the past suffered to make possible these accomplishments.
Oh, how many suffered torture and death at the hands of the very people
they were striving to benefit!
This same fate has been met by all the brave and courageous, during the
past, who have made any attempt to broaden the life and to ease the pain
of the troubled heart of humanity.
The unselfish endeavors of man have made it possible to take the dumb
matter of earth and mold it so the voices of the present can be heard by
the ears of the future; so that several generations may hear and know,
with a touch of human affection, the traits, features and
characteristics of their ancestors. Language gives us their thoughts,
the camera gives us their natural, life-like features and the phonograph
their actual, living voices!
Nature never did so much. As far as Nature is concerned, bastardy may
rule the world!
One of the comforts of life is that we live again in actions and scenes,
which, although they are apart from our own lives, really belong to the
past or future races. But Nature sees to it that the births and deaths,
the knowledge and acquaintance of each and every generation, are so
closely allied that none of us is allowed to escape the suffering of the
world and the agony of life and death. No person can avoid the pain and
the terrible fear that all must endure.
No one person can live, move about and possess the varied improvements
of the earth's materials all by himself. He is indebted to others for
their accomplishments, and they in turn are indebted to him for the
improvements he renders. In short, we are all so closely allied with the
actions and lives of one another that there should be a mutual
appreciation and a common understanding among all.
The farmer may know nothing about manufacturing; the manufacturer may
know nothing about farming; the artist, the explorer, the thinker, the
inventor and the scientist may know nothing about any field of endeavor
other than his own, yet all are inter-dependent.
With such a condition existing, and with the uncertainty of life forever
staring us in the face, and _no one exempt_ from its terrible enactment,
it is a _marvelous_ wonder to me why there exist so tenaciously in the
human heart all the petty and aggravating tempers, prejudices and
jealousies.
What man has done with the forces of Nature are inspiring deeds. What
progress has been made in opposing the forces of Nature is marvelous.
What man will accomplish in the future with the arrogant forces of
Nature stimulates our hearts with the sweet satisfaction of a victory of
the first magnitude.
But in the final analysis, what does it avail us?
Geologists tell us that the greater portion of the materials that we
have taken from the field of Nature consists of the buried bones and
bodies of our ancient ancestors, who passed through greater periods of
agony, torment, disease and death than we are finally and eventually to
meet!
What sort of crust in the earth's formation are we to make? What will be
the product of the future living forces that will utilize the materials
that our bodies will make? What will be the future living forces?
It is fearfully sad to contemplate that life must continue and be
subject to the miserable laws that now govern it.
Insect man, with his almost tireless industry, makes clothes to cover
his ugly and awkward body; builds houses to shelter him from the winds
and the torrents of Nature; fashions glittering palaces of amusement to
cheer his troubled heart; compounds anæsthetics to ease his pain; carves
wood to replace his broken limbs; molds metal to take the place of those
things that Nature has made inadequate for his use. In short, man has
improved upon Nature to uphold his frail body, to strengthen his weak
bones, and to soothe his tender heart.
That man, fighting the forces of Nature, has been able to accomplish so
much is simply glorious, and this progress is an achievement of such
wonderful magnitude that we are thrilled at the thought, and bow in
grateful recognition for the benefits derived and the relief enjoyed.
But why did not God institute all the benefits for the immediate use of
man, so they could be enjoyed upon the first manifestation of his
understanding?
Why was it necessary to go through the fearful period of past history
and gain, only after a most gigantic struggle, the few things that we
now use for our comfort?
That these things could have been done is proved by the fact that man
has done them. Fundamentally they always existed. Man has only
discovered and applied them. And these things that we have gained
to-day, from the struggles of the past, would have been equally enjoyed
by those who lived before us, with the same degree of benefit, just as
the future will find, use and enjoy those things that we do not possess,
and without which we shall be pinched, and pained, through the
helter-skelter of this troublesome life.
I brand as brutal tyranny this scheme of life, that forces us to be a
link in a long series of lives to produce something for the benefit of
the far-distant future, that we, ourselves, imperatively need but shall
not possess.
I cry and denounce and plead, in behalf of future humanity, to
circumvent and to defeat this "sorry scheme of life," that uses us as an
instrument to produce something that we cannot use, do not know about
and have not the understanding to comprehend.
XVI
"In God We Trust," on coins that represent our labor and our endeavor,
is an insult to the intelligence, courage and independence of the
people, and a stinging rebuke to those responsible for our progress.
A motto that more truthfully represents our material progress and
intellectual development would be: "In Science We Trust;" or, "Humanity
and Justice Our Aim."
The more we eliminate God from us, the more we are _one without him_,
the better for us all, the better for humanity, the better for all the
world. The less we "know" of God, the less God that is "in us," the more
_human_ we become.
The greatest, most frightful and destructive wars of all time have been
those which were started in "defense" of God, as if "he" cared what man
says or does.
The most frightful and torturous instruments ever conceived by man are
those that were made to force people to "believe in" God.
The history of religious persecution and torture is the horror of the
world.
May I ask, where was God, and what did he do, to stop this frightful
nightmare of torture committed in "his" name?
And may I answer for you, that he was where Moses was when the light
went out?
Remember this: There will never be a solution to any of our fundamental
problems, and mankind will never, in the full sense of the word, be
free, as long as there exists in the human mind the insanity of
religious belief. As long as God occupies a portion of our thoughts,
mankind must be content to suffer the hatred and antagonism of man.
Let us make up our minds now, let us resolve now, to stop fighting one
another, and fight God by helping one another.
Let us stop fighting our fellow prisoners and fellow sufferers, and
fight God.
Let us help our fellow prisoners and fellow sufferers.
Let us cleanse our minds of this superstitious poison of an "after
life," and work and labor for the good and welfare of Here and Now.
We possess the knowledge and the means and, within the span of only one
day, could bring about the much-longed-for "Brotherhood of Man."
We could eliminate hatred from our hearts, and instill Justice as our
guide. We could eradicate poverty from our midst and bring happiness to
sorrowing mankind. We could blot out tyranny among men and exchange it
for the priceless legacy of freedom and make the relation between man
and man bear some semblance of humanity.
But--and I say this with redoubled conviction, and with all the power,
force, energy and vehemence that I possess--if we are Nature's best
endeavor, if man is Nature's best product, if the Natural world is
incapable of any improvement, and life will forever be made to submit to
the tyrannical conditions of Nature, then it were better ten thousand
times over, that life were never called into existence, and that the
universe were null and void!
THE END
EDISON LETTER TO JOSEPH LEWIS
* * * * *
_From the Laboratory of Thomas A. Edison, Orange, N.J._
August 18, 1921.
Mr. Joseph Lewis, c/o The Truth Publishing Co., 1400 Broadway, New
York City.
Dear Sir:--
I received your book--"The Tyranny of God"--and have read it
through. I think as you do that death ends all, yet I do not feel
certain, because there are many facts that seem to show that the
real units of life are not the animal mechanism itself, but groups
of millions of small entities living in the visible cells. The
animal being their mechanism for navigating the environment, and
when the mechanism fails to function, i.e. die, the groups go out
into space to go thru another cycle. The entities are each highly
organized and perform their allotted task. If there is anything
like this we still have a fighting chance. You have doubtless read
interviews I have given lately on this subject. They appeared in
the Scientific Monthly for October 30, 1920 and the Cosmopolitan
for May, 1920.
Yours very truly,
Thos A Edison
Famous Inventor Gives Views of Death and Immortality in Correspondence
with Author of "The Tyranny of God."
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