101. Mule Equality
Suppose there was a great horse-race here to-day, free to every horse in the world, and to all the mules, and all the scrubs, and all the donkeys. At the tap of the drum they come to the line, and the judges say "it is a go." Let me ask you, what does the blooded horse, rushing ahead, with nostrils distended, drinking in the breath of his own swiftness, with his mane flying like a banner of victory, with his veins standing out all over him, as if a net of life had been cast around him--with his thin neck, his high withers, his tremulous flanks--what does he care how many mules and donkeys run on the track? But the Democratic scrub, with his chuckle-head and lop-ears, with his tail full of c.o.c.kle-burs, jumping high and short, and digging in the ground when he feels the breath of the coming mule on his c.o.c.kle-bur tail, he is the chap that jumps the track and says, "I am down on mule equality." My friends, the Republican party is the blooded horse in this race.
102. Room for Every Wing.
There is room in the Republican air for every wing; there is room on the Republican sea for every sail. Republicanism says to every man: "Let your soul be like an eagle; fly out in the great dome of thought, and question the stars for yourself."
103. The Republican Platform.
I am a Republican because it is the only free party that ever existed.
It is a party that had a platform as broad as humanity, a platform as broad as the human race, a party that says you shall have all the fruit of the labor of your hands, a party that says you may think for yourself; a party that says no chains for the hands, no fetters for the soul.
104. Our Government the best on Earth
We all want a good government. If we do not we should have none. We all want to live in a land where the law is supreme. We desire to live beneath a flag that will protect every citizen beneath its folds. We desire to be citizens of a government so great and so grand that it will command the respect of the civilized world. Most of us are convinced that our government is the best upon this earth.
105. Will the Second Century of America be as good as the First?
Standing here amid the sacred memories of the first, on the golden threshold of the second, I ask, Will the second century be as good as the first? I believe it will because we are growing more and more humane; I believe there is more human kind-ness and a greater desire to help one another in America, than in all the world besides. We must progress. We are just at the commencement of invention. The steam engine--the telegraph--these are but the toys with which science has been amusing herself. There will be grander things. There will be higher and wider culture. A grander standard of character, of literature and art. We have now half as many millions of people as we have years.
We are getting more real solid sense. We are writing and reading more books. We are struggling more and more to get at the philosophy of life--trying more and more to answer the questions of the eternal Sphinx. We are looking in every direction. We are investigating, thinking, working! The second century will be grander than the first.
SCIENCE
106. The Glory of Science.
Science found agriculture plowing with a stick--reaping with a sickle--commerce at the mercy of the treacherous waves and the inconstant winds--a world without books--without schools--man denying the authority of reason, employing his ingenuity in the manufacture of instruments of torture, in building inquisitions and cathedrals.
It found the land filled with malicious monks--with persecuting Protestants, and the burners of men. The glory of science is, that it is freeing the soul--breaking the mental manacles--getting the brain out of bondage--giving courage to thought--filling the world with mercy, justice, and joy.
107. The Tables Turned
For the establishment of facts, the word of man is now considered far better than the word of G.o.d. In the world of science, Jehovah was superseded by Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler. All that G.o.d told Moses, admitting the entire account to be true, is dust and ashes compared to the discoveries of Des Cartes, La Place, and Humboldt. In matters of fact, the Bible has ceased to be regarded as a standard.
Science has succeeded in breaking the chains of theology. A few years ago, science endeavored to show that it was not inconsistent with the Bible. The tables have been turned, and now, religion is endeavoring to prove that the Bible is not inconsistent with science. The standard has been changed.
108. Science Better than a Creed
It seems to me that a belief in the great truths of science are fully as essential to salvation, as the creed of any church. We are taught that a man may be perfectly acceptable to G.o.d even if he denies the rotundity of the earth, the Copernican system, the three laws of Kepler, the indestructibility of matter and the attraction of gravitation. And we are also taught that a man may be right upon all these questions, and yet, for failing to believe in the "scheme of salvation," be eternally lost.
109. The Religion of Science
Every a.s.sertion of individual independence has been a step toward infidelity. Luther started toward Humboldt,--Wesley, toward John Stuart Mill. To really reform the church is to destroy it. Every new religion has a little less superst.i.tion than the old, so that the religion of science is but a question of time.
110. Science not Sectarian
The sciences are not sectarian. People do not persecute each other on account of disagreements in mathematics. Families are not divided about botany, and astronomy does not even tend to make a man hate his father and mother. It is what people do not know, that they persecute each other about. Science will bring, not a sword, but peace.
111. The Epitaph of all Religions
Science has written over the high altar its mene, mene, tekel, UPHARSIN--the old words, destined to be the epitaph of all religions?
112. The Real Priest
When we abandon the doctrine that some infinite being created matter and force, and enacted a code of laws for their government, the idea of interference will be lost. The real priest will then be, not the mouth-piece of some pretended deity, but the interpreter of nature. From that moment the church ceases to exist. The tapers will die out upon the dusty altar; the moths will eat the fading velvet of pulpit and pew; the Bible will take its place with the Shastras, Puranas, Vedas, Eddas, Sagas and Korans, and the fetters of a degrading faith will fall from the minds of men.
113. Science is Power
From a philosophical point of view, science is knowledge of the laws of life; of the conditions of happiness; of the facts by which we are surrounded, and the relations we sustain to men and things--by means of which, man, so to speak, subjugates nature and bends the elemental powers to his will, making blind force the servant of his brain.