John Stewart

“ England has lately given birth to a monster, who singled out the most beautiful and best works of Nature, handsome, innocent women, who wantonly stabbed several in their thighs to gratify an infernal passion of seeing the blood run, and hearing the groans and agonies of fair and innocent victims. Ireland sent forth an assassin to murder a philosopher who had dared to censure the vice of that island; and with a head as depraved as his heart, the ruffian by that atrocious intent to crush the germ of happiness by extinguishing the light of thought, confirmed the testimony he intended to confute. ”

“ As honor, wealth, and nobleness of blood;
'Tis plain, they likewise do our mind no good.
⁠But now I'll sing, do you attend, how seed
Doth move to make, and to dissolve things made.
'Tis certain now no seed to seed adheres,
Unmov'd, and fixt; for every thing appears
Worn out and wasted by devouring years;
Still wasting, till it vanishes away,
And yet the mass of things feels no decay.
For whence those bodies part, those things grow less,
And old, and those do flourish and increase
To which they join, thence too they fly away;
So things by turns increase, by turns decay ”

“ I am sensible that men of learning and erudition would reverse the dispensation of rewards; and I would, therefore, propose, that the study of the sciences be suspended universally—over the whole globe—that the human mind, freed from the blandishments of the Syrens of science and arts, might be able to return to its home, and invert all the force of its faculties upon self. Rousseau treated all science as an evil; but in that he was wrong; for science is a good, as procuring pleasure and utility if it did not precede or expel the science of Nature, or knowledge of self. ”

“ But that the souls are born, increase, and grow,
And rise mature, as all their bodies do.
⁠Besides, come tell mo why a soul should grow,
And rise mature, as all the members do,
If 'twere not born? When feeble age comes on,
Why is't in haste, and eager to be gone?
What does it fear, it makes such haste away,
To be imprison'd in the stinking clay?
What doth it fear the aged heap's decay?
⁠'Tis fond to think, that whilst wild beasts beget,
Or bear their young, a thousand souls should wait,
Expect the falling body, fight and strive,
Which first shall enter in, and make it live. ”

“ I have censured most; those nations whose individuals I most love, and with whom I most live; I mean the Irish and the French, whose urbanity, facility, joyous and liberal characters, are as pleasing and necessary to society, as the joys of sexual love are to animal existence. Not so the moroseness and spleen of the English, whose thought, however powerful, if not directed by wisdom, may claim esteem, as it shows human nature in a progress to intellectuality, but does not seduce my love, though it obtains all my admiration and praise. ”

“ So neither can this soul, this mind perceive,
Without these hands, these eyes, these ears, nor live.
⁠Besides, our vital sense is spread o'er all;
The whole composure makes one animal:
So that if sudden violent strokes divide
This whole, and cast the parts on either side,
The soul and mind too suffer the same fate,
And part remains in this, and part in that.
Now what can be divided, what can lie
And waste in several parts, can likewise die.
⁠Besides, were souls immortal, ne'er began,
But crept into the limbs to make up man,
Why cannot they remember what was done
In former times? ”

“ The great enemy to happiness is the fear that every individual nation has of adopting the theory and practice of truth, lest if its neighbors should not also adopt it, its own safety would be exposed. Every one fears to throw the pebble of truth into any part of the lake of humanity, lest the resistance of the circumjacent waters, increasing the violent agitation on the centre self, should overwhelm and destroy it; whereas it would but give that energy of concussion necessary to carry its undulations upon the shore of all sensitive Nature. ”

“ It rises from, and makes up things again.
⁠Besides, the sun, that constant spring of light,
Still cuts the heaven with streams of shining white,
And the decaying old, with new supplies,
For every portion of the beam that flies;
Nor should we see, but all lie blind in night,
Unless new streams flow'd from the spring of light.
⁠Again, the strongest rocks, and towers do feel the rage
Of powerful time, e'en temples wast by age;
Nor can the gods themselves prolong their date,
Change Nature's law, or get reprieve from fate.
E'en tombs grow old and waste, by years o'rethrown ”

“ O Self! component part of thy great integer, Nature—incomprehensible in thy cause and essence—comprehensible in thy ever-changing modes of existence—comprehensible in thy eternal connection with Nature, which all the powers of thought cannot separate—comprehensible motion in the volition of man—comprehensible in thought, the guide and guardian of that volition, to direct man to happiness, or to procure well-being to matter in its eternal revolution—comprehensible in sympathy, which unites the various links of beings in the great chain of Nature. ”

“ Let the proud and ignorant tyrants of the earth, called kings, reflect that portions of the pompous body of royalty, carried in the coach of state, in the revolutions of a few moments, hours, days or years, may be in the humble body of the horse drawing some other proud and ignorant human identity; and that the incomprehensible, though avowed and conscious connection of identity and Nature is eternally changing its position, and the matter in human identity, the source and cause of moral motion, is capable of rendering that position happy or miserable to all sensitive Nature. ”

“ Violence has given so dreadful a concussion and vibration to the universal chain of existence, that policy has invented institutions, calculated solely to give tenacity to the links, in order to preserve, the whole from destruction or annihilation.
To wave figurative speech; Man has totally changed the idea of well-being into strong or durable being. To constitute happiness, repose is the greatest component part; but the violence of nations demands a sacrifice of it to labor, which procures population and riches, upon which the strength and competition of nations and individuals are founded. ”

“ The moment the beacon of wisdom, or universal truth in the system of self and Nature, is elevated, the rocks of relative truth, mistaken as havens, are discovered, and the pilot, Reason, instead of casting anchor thereon, passes on with the gentle breeze of reform, to approximate the glorious and eternal haven of happiness to all sensitive Nature.
While the moral horizon is dark with error and prejudice, the rocks of relative truth are undiscovered, and the absurd and destructive truths, institutions of mankind, are sanctified. ”

“ Animal sensibility would find an asylum in its congenial rays, which could not fail to bring all humanized matter into the happy state of universal sympathy, and, rising above the horizon of humanity, would mark the aurora of intellectual existence, or well-being of all sensitive Nature.
All mankind are agreed in their lamentations for the miseries of human nature, and all do, or must agree, that the only remedy is to be found in the intellectual faculties of man. ”

“ To erect the glorious fabric of natural religion, it is by no means necessary to clear away the rubbish of prejudice and priest-craft, which become mere dust when the ponderous stones of truth, of which this fabric is composed, are collected, and the foundation is laid; but lest this dust should embarrass weak eyes, one single observation, like a torrent from the clouds, will condense it to a palpable mud, and wash it all into the common sewer of ignorance. ”

“ O teach man to cultivate this inestimable faculty of thought, without which, the actions of brutes are as consequential as those of men! Establish thy holy temple on the liberty of the press, and though knaves and fools may unite in rebellion against thy majesty, lest its effulgence discover the atrocity of their privacy, thought, if free to act, will produce partizans of virtue to uphold thy throne (whose light reflects honor on their actions which seek no concealment,) to triumph over the rebellious ignorance of thoughtless men. ”

“ What a melancholy prospect is furnished by the hostile operations of this universal enemy to human nature, Ignorance.
All men are in pursuit of the same two objects—happiness and truth; and ignorance is constantly employed to conceal them from the pursuers.
"Moral truth," says ignorance, or its advocates, priests and false philosophers, "is incomprehensible or imaginary, and happiness is unattainable in this life." They hold the language of folly and falsehood. ”

“ Memory thus becomes a mere copy of absolute archetype, and judgment is so much overwhelmed, by the learned rubbish with which the mind is crammed, that it has neither room nor power to exert itself; and should the wisdom of others, by exposing the contents of this lumber room, offend the vanity, memory flies, as the substitute of judgment, to its aid, and with its usual weapons, impertinent syllogism and false conclusion, blinds the weak eyes of the ignorant, without casting the least shade over the bright sun of truth. ”

“ The present situation of mankind in society, recals to mind, the fable of two inimical, ferocious beasts, who continued in combat so long, each watching the assault of its antagonist, that inanition consumed both on the field of battle, as they neglected to feed, while fury and suspicion rivetted their attention on their visible enemy, till death, by famine, triumphed over both.
So it is with mankind. They combat nation against nation for existence, and sacrifice the end to the means, or well-being and happiness to the security of existence. ”

“ The fly in committing an act of violence on my body, agitates the chain of Nature: it is useful to remove this cause, but utility does not demand the annihilation of it by death, because it disproportions the means to the end, and infects, by a motive of resentment, the disposition of the mind for universal sympathy and benevolence. The destruction of the tiger and lion, when brought to the standard of utility, may be justified in proportion to the violence they cause the human species, which, as being the most happy existence of matter, is to be preferred to the brute. ”

“ O give to parents wisdom, to assimilate by persuasion, and not to force the will of children by violence! Teach them the importance of an intellectual being. Show them that children have a more sacred relation than that of birth; that they are identities or ducts, through which an indefinite quantity of matter passes, to enjoy the consciousness of existence, the sensation of pleasure; that this forms a paramount relation between it and Nature as its integer, and as such, is to be adored, revered, and rendered happy; which can only be done by holding its defensive will sacred ”

“ Nations tremble, therefore, at this effect of truth, and dread the revolution or innovation, which may change its acorns into oaks, though these latter must ultimately vegetate over all Nature, and shade it from the injuries of ignorance and violence.
The innovations that truth must naturally bring about, would not appal strong minds, if they reflected, that the agitation which the falling pebble of truth causes in the centre of the lake, subsides into easy undulations, which spread themselves to the extremities, without injuring the waters. The innovations of error are alone to be dreaded. ”

“ The code of ethics has so closely connected sympathy and probity, the all of virtue, with the abstinence from pleasure or the means of happiness, that a glance of desire or lascivious eye being cast on beauty, where Nature is bursting the cobweb barriers of illusive morality, the Rubicon of virtue is passed, and the whole chain of virtue is dissolved, and the extreme sensibility of an honest sympathetic soul is abandoned to one common sink of infamy, along with inhumanity and falsehood. ”

“ Of what little value is the present period of existence, compared to eternity?—how important is that reform which promises eternal happiness to our immortal connections with Nature, when this essence dissolves, and breaks our present form of connection with Nature. Since the elements in motion may convey our connections to the climes of Africa, some members of the British senate, not yet arrived at a state of intellectual existence, who vote the continuation of African slavery and misery, no doubt perpetuate that injustice and cruelty to their own connections, or future essence in Nature. ”

“ If, in the first institutions of society, its collective force of coercion had been employed only against the violators of personal freedom, there would have been no moral evil at this day upon the face of the globe. But the torrent of violation has now gained a dreadful extent, and the rugged rocks of coercion, in attempting to stop the destructive current of this enormous cataract, turn the inundation upon the peaceful meadows, and involve all Nature in the same calamity. ”

“ Virtue having hitherto been placed upon a false basis, men of letters and not of ideas, vulgarly dubbed philosophers, have accumulated error upon error to prop it up. Some have invented the most impious and atrocious personifications, to torment and torture those who bow not in adoration to the demon of their corrupted and unprincipled imaginations. These dogmatic and systematic fools mistook the semblance for the principles of virtue, and by this error they have confined mankind in a moral labyrinth, which demands the clue of pure and enlightened, though simple reason, to extricate them. ”

“ The relative state of mankind may justify practice or action by necessity; but speculation, or the free operations of human thought to extricate the being from wretchedness or moral evil, can never be controlled by relation while it soars to an eminence to take an unobstructed view of the moral world; but in its descent, or the approximation of practice to speculation, then reason allows sympathy and probity, to be temporized with, and to cast a veil over the effulgence of wisdom, that the intellect may not be confounded by its dazzling splendor. ”