That Cruelest Of Tyrants - Public Opinion.

When Science Shall Have Effectually Demonstrated To Us The Origin Of Matter, And Proved The Fallacy Of The Occultists And Old Philosophers Who Held (as Their Descendants Now Hold) That Matter Is But One Of The Correlations Of Spirit, Then Will The World Of Skeptics Have A Right To Reject The Old Wisdom, Or Throw The Charge Of Obscenity In The Teeth Of The Old Religions.

The Possible Truths, Hazily Perceived In The World Of Abstraction, Like Those Inferred From Observation And Experiment In The World Of Matter, Are Forced Upon The Profane Multitudes, Too Busy To Think For Themselves, Under The Form Of Divine Revelation And Scientific Authority. But The Same Question Stands Open From The Days Of Socrates And Pilate Down To Our Own Age Of Wholesale Negation: Is There Such A Thing As Absolute Truth In The Hands Of Any One Party Or Man?

We Cut These Numerous Windings In Our Destinies Daily With Our Own Hands, While We Imagine That We Are Pursuing A Track On The Royal High Road Of Respectability And Duty, And Then Complain Of Those Ways Being So Intricate And So Dark. We Stand Bewildered Before The Mystery Of Our Own Making, And The Riddles Of Life That We Will Not Solve, And Then Accuse The Great Sphinx Of Devouring Us.

The Whole Order Of Nature Evinces A Progressive March Towards A Higher Life.

The Christians Were The First To Make The Existence Of Satan A Dogma Of The Church. What Is The Use In A Pope If There Is No Devil ?