John William Draper

“ Will modern civilization consent to abandon the career of advancement which has given it so much power and happiness? Will it consent to retrace its steps to the semi-barbarian ignorance and superstition of the middle ages? Will it submit to the dictation of a power, which, claiming divine authority, can present no adequate credentials of its office; a power which kept Europe in a stagnant condition for many centuries, ferociously suppressing by the stake and the sword every attempt at progress; a power that is founded in a cloud of mysteries; that sets itself above reason and common-sense ”

“ But the universe is nothing more than such a cloud—a cloud of suns and worlds. Supremely grand though it may seem to us, to the Infinite and Eternal Intellect it is no more than a fleeting mist. If there be a multiplicity of worlds in infinite space, there is also a succession of worlds in infinite time. As one after another cloud replaces cloud in the skies, so this starry system, the universe, is the successor of countless others that have preceded it—the predecessor of countless others that will follow. There is an unceasing metamorphosis, a sequence of events, without beginning or end. ”

“ But let us who are the servants of Science, who have dedicated ourselves to her, take courage. Day by day the number of those who hold her in disfavor is diminishing. We can disregard their misrepresentations and maledictions. Mankind has made the great discovery that she is the long-hoped-for civilizing agent of the world. Let us continue our labor unobtrusively, conscious of the integrity of our motives, conscious of the portentous change which is taking place in the thought of the world, conscious of the irresistible power which is behind us! ”

“ A nation, like a man, hides from itself the contemplation of its final day. It occupies itself with expedients for prolonging its present state. It frames laws and constitutions under the delusion that they will last, forgetting that the condition of life is change. Very able modern statesmen consider it to be the grand object of their art to keep things as they are, or rather as they were. But the human race is not at rest; and bands with which, for a moment, it may be restrained, break all the more violently the longer they hold. No man can stop the march of destiny. ”

“ In this the affinity of Zeno to Aristotle is plainly seen. Every appetite, lust, desire, springs from imperfect knowledge. Our nature is imposed upon us by Fate, but we must learn to control our passions, and live free, intelligent, virtuous, in all things in accordance with reason. Our existence should be intellectual, we should survey with equanimity all pleasures and all pains. We should never forget that we are freemen, not the slaves of society. “I possess,” said the Stoic, “a treasure which not all the world can rob me of—no one can deprive me of death.” ”

“ Your hours with toil-wrought pain. Rush on, rush on
Upon your prizeless race. Where is your gain
In luxury, or seas of swimming gold,
Or starry ether chained to conquerdom?
You do but add new wheels, new chains to man's
Machine to govern man. You build a tower
More high than Babel's, hoping for earthly heaven
Upon this structure formed of luxuries,
And squander here stored-up celestial bliss
Which your poor Wills would mortgage before gained.
Your little lives were never made for racks
And fettered strainings of this new-wrought world
That quivers your nerves with life-intensity. ”

“ Never in the world before was there such a system. From her central seat at Rome, her all-seeing eye, like that of Providence itself, could equally take in a hemisphere at a glance, or examine the private life of any individual. Her boundless influences enveloped kings in their palaces, and relieved the beggar at the monastery gate. In all Europe there was not a man too obscure, too insignificant, or too desolate for her. ”

“ An accused man sinks or swims when thrown into a pond of water; he is burnt or escapes unharmed when he holds a piece of red-hot iron in his hand; a champion whom he has hired is vanquished or vanquishes in single fight; he can keep his arms outstretched like a cross, or fails to do so longer than his accuser, and his innocence or guilt of some imputed crime is established! Are these criteria of truth?
Is it surprising that all Europe was filled with imposture miracles during those ages?—miracles that are a disgrace to the common-sense of man! ”

“ During a third part of our life, in sleep, we are withdrawn from external influences; hearing and sight and the other senses are inactive, but the never-sleeping Mind, that pensive, that veiled enchantress, in her mysterious retirement, looks over the ambrotypes she has collected—ambrotypes, for they are truly unfading impressions—and, combining them together, as they chance to occur, constructs from them the panorama of a dream.
Nature has thus implanted in the organization of every man means which impressively suggest to him the immortality of the soul and a future life. ”

“ Instead of troubling themselves with inquiries after absolute truth, philosophers sought support in the opinions of the ancient times, and the real or imputed views of Pythagoras, Plato, or Aristotle were received as a criterion. In this, the old age of philosophy, men began to act as though there had never been such things as original investigation and discovery among the human race, and that whatever truth there was in the world was not the product of thought, but the remains of an ancient and now all but forgotten revelation from heaven—forgotten through the guilt and fall of man. ”

“ WHEN ON THE SHORE GRATES MY BARGE'S KEEL Weariness, weariness, unending weariness, cease—
Break thou the heart thou canst not heal!
Bitterness, bitterness, undying bitterness, peace—
On shore bring to rest my barge's keel,
On that shadowy shore, we seek at life's release;
For thy soul, belovèd, bears Death's seal.
Restlessness, restlessness, wandering restlessness haunts me;
Lacking thy smile, all life's brooklets congeal
Into one image emotional, fearful which daunts me—
Life's frozen image without an ideal.
Ceaselessly, ceaselessly, ceaselessly, mocking, life taunts me ”

“ The book of Nature! shall not we chemists, and all our brother-students, whether they be naturalists, astronomers, mathematicians, geologists, shall we not all humbly and earnestly read it? Nature, the mother of us all, has inscribed her unfading, her eternal record on the canopy of the skies, she has put it all around us on the platform of the earth! No man can tamper with it, no man can interpolate or falsify it for his own ends. She does not command us what to do, nor order us what to think. ”

“ It is, therefore, for us to submit to Destiny, cultivating, as the things necessary to virtue, knowledge, temperance, fortitude, justice. We must remember that every thing around us is in mutation; decay follows reproduction, and reproduction decay, and that it is useless to repine at death in a world where every thing is dying. As a cataract shows from year to year an invariable shape, though the water composing it is perpetually changing, so the aspect of Nature is nothing more than a flow of matter presenting an impermanent form. The universe, considered as a whole, is unchangeable. ”

“ As a cloud, which is composed of myriads of separate and isolated spherules of water, so minute as to be individually invisible, on a summer's afternoon changes its aspect and form, disappearing from the sky, and being replaced in succeeding hours by other clouds of a different aspect and shape, so the universe, which is a cloud of suns and worlds, changes in the immensity of time its form and fashion, and that which is contemporary with us is only an example of countless combinations of a like kind, which in ancient times have one after another vanished away. ”

“ Though Guizot’s affirmation that the Church has always sided with despotism is only too true, it must be remembered that in the policy she follows there is much of political necessity. She is urged on by the pressure of nineteen centuries. But, if the irresistible indicates itself in her action, the inevitable manifests itself in her life. For it is with the papacy as with a man. It has passed through the struggles of infancy, it has displayed the energies of maturity, and, its work completed, it must sink into the feebleness and querulousness of old age. Its youth can never be renewed. ”

“ We do not wonder; on the contrary, we thank God for it. It is time that the human race had rest. The sighing of the prisoner, the prayer of the captive, are heard at last. Yet the judgment has been tempered with mercy. Had the pagan Rhadogast taken Rome, not a life would have been spared, no stone left on another. The Christian Alaric, though a Goth, respects his Christian brethren, and for their sakes you are saved. As to the gods, those dæmons in whom you trust, did they always save you from calamity? How long did Hannibal insult them? ”

“ No accuser was named; but the thumb-screw, the stretching-rope, the boot and wedge, or other enginery of torture, soon supplied that defect, and, innocent or guilty, he accused himself!
Notwithstanding all this power, the Inquisition failed of its purpose. When the heretic could no longer confront it, he evaded it. A dismal disbelief stealthily pervaded all Europe,—a denial of Providence, of the immortality of the soul, of human free-will, and that man can possibly resist the absolute necessity, the destiny which envelops him. ”

“ Who could have foreseen that the twitching of a frog's leg in the Italian experiments would establish beyond all question the compound nature of water, separating its constituents from one another? would lead to the deflagration and dissipation in a vapour of metals that could hardly be melted in a furnace? would show that the solid earth we tread upon is an oxide? yield new metals light enough to swim upon water, and even seem to set it on fire? produce the most brilliant of all artificial lights, rivalling if not excelling, in its intolerable splendour the noontide sun? ”