The Martyrdom of Man, Winwood Reade [best book club books TXT] 📗

in America have not that exquisite refinement

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