10. Bitter experience shows that we cannot adhere to former conditions of life and must therefore find new conditions suitable to modem needs; but instead of using their reason for the determination and the establishment of these conditions they employ their reason to detain life in the condition which characterized it centuries back.
11. Falsehood hides from us the spirit of God that dwelleth in us and in others, and therefore there is nothing more precious than truth which brings us back to the love of God and of our neighbors.
12. There is no greater misfortune than when man begins to avoid truth for fear it will show him how bad he is. Pascal
13. The most certain mark of the truth is simplicity and clearness. Falsehood is always complex, fanciful and verbose.
14. It is possible to be lonely in one's private temporary environment, but our every thought and sentiment will finds its echo in humanity. In the case of a few men whom the greater part of mankind recognizes as its leaders, reformers and illuminators this echo is tremendous and reverberates with exceptional power. But there does not exist a man whose thoughts do not produce a similar though correspondingly weaker effect. Each genuine manifestation of the soul, each expression of personal conviction is helpful to someone or in some way, even if you are not aware of it yourself, even if your mouth is silenced or the strangling rope is tightened around your neck. A word spoken to another retains its indestructible effect; like all motion it is indestructible but is merely changed into another form.
Amiel,
III. On What Rests Superstition?
1. The greater veneration surrounds objects, customs or laws the more carefully must we examine their claims to veneration.
2. There are many ancient truths that appear to us credible merely because we have never gfiveti them any serious thought.
3. Reason is the greatest sanctuary in the world, and therefore it is the greatest sin to abuse it through employing it either to conceal or to corrupt the truth.
4. Surveying the history of manldnd we observe every now and then that the most obvious absurdities p^sed among men as indubitable truths, that entire nations fell victims to the most savage superstitions and humbled themselves before other mortals, frequently before idiots or libertines. And the cause of these absurdities and sufferings has always been the same: accepting as an article of faith things that even infants could recognize as irrational.
Henry George.
5. Our age is the true age of criticism. Everything accepted as an article of faith is subjected to criticism.
Reason respects only that which is capable of passing its free and public test. Kant.
6. Do not fear the destruction wrought by reason amcmg the traditions established by men. Reason can not destroy anything without replacing it by the truth. This is its characteristic.
IV.
Religious Superstitiohe
1. It is bad if people do not know God, but it is worse if they acknowledge as God that which is not God.
Lactantius.
2. We have no more religion. The eternal laws of God with their eternal paradise and hell have been transformed into rules of practical philosophy based on adroit calcula* tions of profit and loss, with a weak remainder of respect for the jojrs furnished by virtue and lofty morality. Using the language of our ancestors we have forgotten God, and making use of the modem method of expression we must say that we falsely interpret the life of the world. We calmly close our eyes and refuse to see the eternal substance of things and regard only their seeming and illusory appearance.
We calmly regard the universe as a gigantic unintelligible accident; judging by its external appearance it appears to us fairly plainly as an immense cattle pen or a workhouse with spacious kitchens and dining tables which have room only for prudent people.
No, we have no God. The laws of God have been replaced by the principle of maximum profit. Carlyle.
3. God gave us His reason that we might serve Him; but we use this reason to serve self.
4. "Beware of the scribes, which desire to walk in long robes, and love greetings in the markets, and the highest seats in the synagogues, and the chief rooms at feasts;
"Which devour widows' houses, and for a shew make long prayers: the same shall receive greater damnation."
Luke XX. 46-47.
5. "But be not ye called Rabbi: for one is your Master, even Christ; and all ye brethren. And call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven,
"Neither be ye called masters: for one is your Master, even Christ." Matthew XXH, 8-10.
6. Without purity o£ soul why worship God? Why say: I will go to Benares. How shall he reach the true Benares who has done evil ?
Holiness is not in the forests, nor in heaven, nor in earth, nor in sacred rivers. Purify yourself, and you shall see Him. Transform your body into a temple, cast oS evil thoughts and behold Him with your inner eye. When we recognize Him, we recognize ourselves. Without personal experience Scripture alone will not banish our fears, even as darkness is not dispelled by pictured fire. What ever your faith and your prayers, while there is no truth in you, you will not attain the path of blessedness. He who recog* oizes the truth is born again.
The source of true blessedness is the heart. He is a madman who seeks it elsewhere. He is like a shepherd who goes abroad to seek the lamb which is sheltered in his bosom.
Why do you gather stones and build great temples? Why torture yourselves while God dwelleth in you constantly ?
The dog in your courts is better than a lifeless idol in your house, and better than all the demigods is the great God of the universe.
The light which dwelleth in the heart of every man like unto the momii^ star, that light is your refuge.
Vemana.
7. How strange is it that the world tolerates and receives from among the highest revelations of truth only the most ancient and those which no longer benefit the age, but belittles and even hates all direct revelation, all original thought Thoreau.
8. The religious consciousness of humanity is not immobile, but changes continuously, becoming ever clearer and purer.
9. The correction of the existing evils cannot commence in any other way but with the exposure of religious falsehood and the establishment of religious truth by every individual in his own inner self.
V.
The Rational Principle in Man
1. What is reason? Whatever we define is defined by our reason. And therefore by what shall we define reason ?
If we define all things by reason, by the same token we cannot define reason. Yet we all not only recognize reason, but recognize only reason without doubt and we recognize it all equally well.
2. The true worth of man is in that spiritual principle which we sometimes call reason and sometimes conscience. This principle rising above the local and temporal contains positive truth and eternal righteousness. In midst of the imperfect it sees the perfect. This principle is general, dispassionate and always contrary to all that is prejudiced and selfish in human nature. This principle imperiously tells each one of us that our neighbor is as precious as our own self, and that his rights are as sacred as ours. It commands us to receive the truth no matter how repugnant it be to our pride, and to be just no matter how unprofitable It Ъ^
for us. This same principle calls upon us to rejoice in love, in all that is beautiful, holy and blessed, no matter in whom we may find these qualities. This principle is a ray of the Divine in пгап. Cht^ning.
3. All that we know we know through our reason. Therefore do not trust those who say that we should not follow our reason. Those who speak thus are like men who would advise us to extinguish the only light which guides us through darkness.
4. We must trust our reason. This is a truth which we can not and must not conceal. We can not believe in God if we belittle the importance of that faculty through which we know God. Reason is that faculty to which revelation is addressed. Revelation could be understood only by reason. If after a conscientious and unbiased appeal to our best faculties a certain religious teaching appears to us to be contrary to and out of harmony with the main principles of which we have no doubt, we must decline to have faith in such a teachii^. I am more convinced that my reasonable nature is of God than any book is an expression of His will. Channing.