The Martyrdom of Man - Winwood Reade (golden son ebook txt) 📗
- Author: Winwood Reade
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which exists in the highest circles of society in Europe. But
if we take the whole people through and through, we find them
the most civilised nation on the earth. They, preserve in a
degree hitherto without example the dignity of human nature
unimpaired. Their nobleness of character results from
prosperity; and their prosperity is due to the nature of their
land. Those who are unable to earn a living in the east, have
only to move towards the west.
This then is the reason that the English race in America is more happy,
more enlightened, and more thriving, than it is in the motherland.
Politically speaking, the emigrant gains nothing; he is as free in England
as he is in America; but he leaves a land where labour is
depreciated, and goes to a land where labour is in demand. That
England may become as prosperous as America, it must be placed
under American conditions; that is to say, food must be cheap,
labour must be dear, emigration must be easy. It is not by
universal suffrage, it is not by any Act of Parliament that
these conditions can be created. It is Science alone which can
Americanise England; it is Science alone which can ameliorate
the condition of the human race.
When Man first wandered in the dark forest, he was Nature’s
serf; he offered tribute and prayer to the winds, and the
lightning, and the rain, to the cave-lion, which seized his
burrow for its lair, to the mammoth, which devoured his scanty
crops. But as time passed on, he ventured, to rebel; he made
stone his servant; he discovered fire and vegetable poison; he
domesticated iron; he slew the wild beasts or subdued them; he
made them feed him and give him clothes. He became a chief
surrounded by his slaves; the fire lay beside him with dull red
eye and yellow tongue waiting his instructions to prepare his
dinner, or to make him poison, or to go with him to the war,
and fly on the houses of the enemy, hissing, roaring, and
consuming all. The trees of the forest were his flock, he
slaughtered them at his convenience; the earth brought forth at
his command. He struck iron upon wood or stone and hewed out
the fancies of his brain; he plucked shells, and flowers, and
the bright red berries, and twined them in his hair; he cut the
pebble to a sparkling gem, he made the dull clay a transparent
stone. The river which once he had worshipped as a god, or
which he had vainly attacked with sword and spear, he now
conquered to his will. He made the winds grind his corn and
carry him across the waters; he made the stars serve him as a
guide. He obtained from salt and wood and sulphur a destroying
force. He drew from fire, and water, the awful power which
produces the volcano, and made it do the work of human hands.
He made the sun paint his portraits, and gave the lightning a
situation in the post-office.
Thus Man has taken into his service, and modified to his use,
the animals, the plants, the earths and the stones, the waters
and the winds, and the more complex forces of heat,
electricity, sunlight, magnetism, with chemical powers of many
kinds. By means of his inventions and discoveries, by means of
the arts and trades, and by means of the industry resulting
from them, he has raised himself from the condition of a serf
to the condition of a lord. His triumph, indeed, is
incomplete; his kingdom is not yet come. The Prince of Darkness
is still triumphant in many regions of the world; epidemics
still rage, death is yet victorious. But the God of Light, the
Spirit of Knowledge, the Divine Intellect, is gradually
spreading over the planet and upwards to the skies. The
beautiful legend will yet come true; Ormuzd will vanquish
Ahriman; Satan will be overcome; Virtue will descend from
heaven, surrounded by her angels, and reign over the hearts of
men. Earth, which is now a purgatory, will be made a paradise,
not by idle prayers and supplications, but by the efforts of
man himself, and by means of mental achievements analogous to
those which have raised him to his present state. Those
inventions and discoveries which have made him, by the grace of
God, king of the animals, lord of the elements, and sovereign
of steam and electricity, were all of them founded on
experiment and observation. We can conquer Nature only by
obeying her laws, and in order to obey her laws we must first
learn what they are. When we have ascertained, by means of
Science, the method of Nature’s operations, we shall be able to
take her place and to perform them for ourselves. When we
understand the laws which regulate the complex phenomena of
life, we shall be able to predict the future as we are already
able to predict comets and eclipses and the planetary
movements.
Three inventions which perhaps may be long delayed, but which
possibly are near at hand, will give to this overcrowded island
the prosperous conditions of the United States. The first is
the discovery of a motive force which will take the place of
steam, with its cumbrous fuel of oil or coal; secondly, the
invention of aerial locomotion which will transport labour at a
trifling cost of money and of time to any part of the planet,
and which, by annihilating distance, will speedily extinguish
national distinctions; and thirdly, the manufacture of flesh
and flour from the elements by a chemical process in the
laboratory, similar to that which is now performed within the
bodies of the animals and plants. Food will then be
manufactured in unlimited quantities at a trifling expense; and
our enlightened posterity will look back upon us who eat oxen
and sheep just as we look back upon cannibals. Hunger and
starvation will then be unknown, and the best part of the human
life will no longer be wasted in the tedious process of
cultivating the fields. Population will mightily increase, and
the earth will be a garden. Governments will be conducted with
the quietude and regularity of club committees. The interest
which is now felt in politics will be transferred to science;
the latest news from the laboratory of the chemist, or the
observatory of the astronomer, or the experimenting room of the
biologist will be eagerly discussed. Poetry and the fine arts
will take that place in the heart which religion now holds.
Luxuries will be cheapened and made common to all; none will be
rich, and none poor. Not only will Man subdue the forces of
evil that are without; he will also subdue those that are
within. He will repress the base instincts and propensities
which he has inherited from the animals below; he will obey the
laws that are written on his heart; he will worship the
divinity within him. As our conscience forbids us to commit
actions which the conscience of the savage allows, so the moral
sense of our successors will stigmatise as crimes those
offences against the intellect which are sanctioned by
ourselves. Idleness and stupidity will be regarded with
abhorrence. Women will become the companions of men, and the
tutors of their children. The whole world will be united by the
same sentiment which united the primeval clan, and which made
its members think, feel, and act as one. Men will look upon
this star as their fatherland; its progress will be their
ambition; the gratitude of others their reward. These bodies
which now we: wear belong to the lower animals; our minds have
already outgrown them; already we look upon them with contempt.
A time will come when Science will transform them by means
which we cannot conjecture, and which, even if explained to us,
we could not now under stand, just as the savage cannot
understand electricity, magnetism, steam. Disease will be
extirpated; the causes of decay will be removed; immortality
will be invented. And then, the earth being small, mankind will
migrate into space, and will cross the airless Saharas which
separate planet from planet, and sun from sun. The earth will
become a Holy Land which will be visited by pilgrims from all
the quarters of the universe. Finally, men will master the
forces of Nature; they will become themselves architects of
systems, manufacturers of worlds.
Man then will be perfect; he will then be a creator; he will
therefore be what the vulgar worship as a god. But even then,
he will in reality be no nearer than he is at present to the First
Cause, the Inscrutable Mystery, the GOD. There is but a difference in
degree between the chemist who to-day arranges forces in his
laboratory so that they produce a gas, and the creator who
arranges forces so that they produce a world; between the
gardener who plants a seed, and the creator who plants a
nebula. It is a question for us now to consider whether we have
any personal relations towards the Supreme Power; whether there
exists another world in which we shall be requited according to
our actions. Not only is this a grand problem of philosophy; it
is of all questions the most practical for us, the one in which
our interests are most vitally concerned. This life is short;
and its pleasures are poor; when we have obtained what we
desire, it is nearly time to die. If it can be shown that, by
living in a certain manner, eternal happiness may be obtained,
then clearly no one except a fool or a madman would refuse to
live in such a manner. We shall therefore examine the current
theory respecting the nature of the Creator, the design of
Creation; and the future destiny of Man. But before we proceed
to this inquiry, we must first state that we intend to separate
theology from morality. Whatever may be the nature of the
Deity, and whether there is a future life or not, the great
moral laws can be in no way changed. God is a purely scientific
question. Whether he is personal or impersonal, definable or
undefinable, our duties and responsibilities remain the same.
The existence of a heaven and a hell can affect our
calculations, but, cannot affect our moral liabilities.
The popular theory is this: — the world was made by a Great
Being; he created man in his own image; and therefore his mind
is analogous to that of man. But while our minds are imperfect,
troubled by passions, stained with sin, and limited in power,
his mind is perfect in beauty, perfect in power, perfect in
love. He is omnipotent and omnipresent. He loves men whom he
has made, but he sorrows over their transgressions. He has
placed them on earth as a means of probation; those who have
sinned and repent, those who are contrite and humble, he will
forgive, and on them he will bestow everlasting happiness.
Those who are wicked, and stubborn, and hard of heart, those
who deny and resist his authority, he will punish according to
his justice. This reward is bestowed, this punishment is
inflicted on the soul, a spirit which dwells within the body
during life. It is something entirely distinct from the
intellect or mind. The soul of the poorest creature in the
streets and the souls of the greatest philosopher or poet are
equal before the Creator; he is no respecter of person; souls
are measured only by their sins. But the sins of the ignorant
will be forgiven; the sins of the more enlightened will be more
severely judged.
Now this appears a very reasonable theory as long as we do not
examine it closely, and as long as we do not carry out its
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