Elbert Hubbard

“ Science is a search for truth, but theology is a clutch for power.
Nothing is so distasteful to a priest as freedom: a happy, exuberant, fearless, self-sufficient and radiant man he both feared and abhorred. A free soul was regarded by the Church as one to be dealt with. The priest has ever put a premium on pretense and hypocrisy. Nothing recommended a man more than humility and the acknowledgment that he was a worm of the dust. ”

“ Every man who builds up such a work as did Sir Humphry Davy is appalled, when he finds Time furrowing his face and whitening his hair, to think how few indeed there are who can step in and carry his work on after he is gone.
The love of Davy for the young bookbinder was almost feverish: he clutched at this bright, impressionable and intent young man who entered so into the heart and soul of science; nothing would do but he must become his assistant. "Give up all and follow me!" And Faraday did. ”

“ THOMAS H. HUXLEY
That man, I think, has a liberal education whose body has been so trained in youth that it is the ready servant of his will, and does with ease and pleasure all that, as a mechanism, it is capable of; whose intellect is a clear, cold, logic engine, with all its parts of equal strength and in smooth running order, ready, like a steam-engine, to be turned to any kind of work and to spin the gossamers as well as forge the anchors of the mind; whose mind is stored with the knowledge of the great fundamental truths of Nature and the laws of her operations ”

“ The portraits of Copernicus reveal a man of most marked personality: proud, handsome, self-contained, intellectual. The head is massive, eyes full, luminous, wide apart, his nose large and bold, chin strong, the mouth alone revealing a trace of the feminine, as though the man were the child of his mother. This mother had a brother who was a bishop, and the mother's ambition for her boy was that he should eventually follow in the footsteps of this illustrious brother who was known for a hundred miles as a preacher of marked ability. ”

“ Huxley once wrote this terse sentence of Gladstone: "It is to me a serious thing that the destinies of this great country should at present be to a great extent in the hands of a man who, whatever he may be in the affairs of which I am no judge, is nothing but a copious shuffler in those that I do understand." Gladstone crossed swords with Huxley, Spencer and Robert Ingersoll, and in each case his blundering intellect looked like a raft of logs compared with a steamboat that responds to the helm. ”

“ Nations with a controlling desire to absorb, annex and exploit are still to that degree savages. Creation is still going on, and this earth is becoming better and more beautiful as men work in line with reason and allow science to become the handmaid of instinct.
Humboldt, above all men, prepared the way for Darwin, Spencer and Tyndall—all of these built on him, all quote him. ”

“ The theologians, rudely awakened from comfort and repose, swarmed out angry, wrathful and confused. The air was charged with challenges; and soggy sermons, books, pamphlets, brochures and reviews, all were flying at the head of poor Darwin. The questions that he had anticipated and answered at great length were flung off by men who had neither read his book nor expected an answer. The idea that man had evolved from a lower form of animal especially was considered immensely funny, and jokes about "monkey ancestry" came from almost every pulpit, convulsing the pews with laughter. ”

“ Charles Darwin was not only the greatest thinker of his time (with possibly one exception) , but in his simplicity and earnestness, in his limpid love for truth—his perfect willingness to abandon his opinion if he were found to be wrong—in all these things he proved himself the greatest man of his time.
Yet it is absurd to try to separate the scientist from the father, neighbor and friend. Darwin's love for [Pg 212] truth as a scientist was what lifted him out of the fog of whim and prejudice and set him apart as a man. ”

“ The stupidity of George the Third was a necessary factor in the evolution of freedom for America. All is one; all is Good; and all is God.
The Marxians will eventually win, but by Fabian methods, and Socialism will come under another name. As opposed to Herbert Spencer, Haeckel does not admit the Unknowable, although, of course, he realizes the unknown. No man ever had a fuller faith, and if there is any such thing as a glorious deathbed it must come to men of this type who believe not only that all is well for themselves, but for every one else. ”

“ We associate the name of Humboldt with oceans, continents, mountains, volcanoes—with towering palms—the snow-lipped craters of the Andes—the wide deserts—with primeval forests and European capitals—with wilderness and universities—with savages and savants—with the lonely rivers of unpeopled wastes—with peaks, pampas, steppes, cliffs and crags—with the progress of the world—with every science known to man and with every star glittering in the immensity of space. ”

“ Isolation is a great aid to the thinker. Some of the best books the world has ever known were written behind prison-bars; exile has done much for literature, and a protracted sea-voyage has allowed many a good man to roam the universe in imagination. Some of Macaulay's best essays were written on board slow-going sailing-ships that were blown by vagrant winds from England to India. Darwin, Hooker and Huxley, all got their scientific baptism on board of surveying-ships, where time was plentiful and anything but fleeting, and most everything else was scarce. ”

“ This way of putting the matter was most attractive to Darwin—Fitz-Roy became a hero in his eyes at once. The Captain's manner inspired much confidence—he was a man who did not have to be amused or cajoled. "You will be left alone to do your work," said Fitz-Roy to Darwin, "and I must have the cabin to myself when I ask for it." And that settled it. Life aboard ship is like life in jail. ”

“ College education was not for that goodly brood—a living was the first thing, so after a good drilling in the three R's, Thomas Huxley was apprenticed to a pharmacist who paid him six shillings a week, a sum that the boy conscientiously gave to his mother.
Oh, if in our schoolteaching we could only teach this one thing: a great thirst for knowledge! But this desire we can not impart: it is trial, difficulty, obstacle, deprivation and persecution that make souls hunger and thirst after knowledge. Young Huxley wanted to know. ”

“ When Church and State separated it was well, but when Science and Religion joined hands it was better. Science stands for the head; Religion for the heart. All things are dual, and through the marriage [Pg 435] of these two principles, one the masculine and the other the feminine, will come a renaissance of advancement such as this tired old world on her zigzag journeys has never seen. Sociology is the religious application of economics. Demonology has been replaced by psychology, and the betterment of man's condition on earth is now fast becoming the chief solicitude of the Church. ”

“ When the astrologers attacked Copernicus he tried to explain that the heavens were under the reign of natural law, and that so far as he knew there was no direct relationship between the stars and the men upon earth. The answer was, "You yourself foretell the eclipse, and assume to know when a star will be in a certain place a hundred years in advance; now, if you can prophesy about stars, why can't we foretell a man's future?"
Copernicus proudly declined to answer such ignorance, but went on to say that alchemy was a violence to chemistry as much as astrology was to astronomy. ”

“ A true Monist would rather be in Hell asking for water than in Heaven denying it.
He loves humanity because he is Humanity, and he loves God because he is God. As a single drop of water mirrors the globe, so does a single man mirror the race. And the evolution, biological and sociological, of the man mirrors the evolution of the species. ”

“ Our duties lie in service to ourselves, and we best serve self by serving humanity. This is the only religion that pays compound interest to both borrower and lender. Worship Humanity and you honor yourself.
And the world has ever dimly perceived this, for history honors no men save those who have given their lives that others might live. The saviors of the world are only those who loved Humanity more than all else. All men who live honest lives are saviors—they live that others may live. ”

“ It was the work of Herschel to discover that it was not a fixed star, but had a defined and distinct orbit that could be calculated. To look up at the heavens and pick out a star that could only be seen with a telescope—pick it out of millions and ascertain its movement—seems like finding the proverbial needle in a haystack. ”

“ But when enveloped in the fog of ignorance every phenomenon of Nature causes man to quake and tremble—he wants to know! Fear prompts him to ask, and Greed—greed for power, place and pelf—answers.
To succeed beyond the average is to realize a weakness in humanity and then bank on it. The priest who pacifies is as natural as the fear he seeks to assuage—as natural as man himself. ”

“ There was no resentment in Darwin's nature.
Only love is immortal—hate is a negative condition. It is love that animates, beautifies, benefits, refines, creates. So firmly was this truth fixed in the heart of Darwin that throughout his long life the only things he feared and shunned were hate and prejudice. "They hinder and blind a man to truth," he said—"a scientist must only love." [Pg 213] ”

“ The education of the young has been monopolized by priests in order to perpetuate the fallacies of theology, and all endeavor to put education on a footing of usefulness and utility has been fought inch by inch.
Andrew D. White, in his book, "The Warfare of Science and Religion," has calmly and without heat sketched the war that Science has had to make to reach the light. Slowly, stubbornly, insolently, theology has fought Truth step by step—but always retreating, taking refuge first behind one subterfuge, then another. ”

“ Carlyle had written of the man it symboled: "Reader, to thee, thyself, even now, he has one counsel to give, the secret of his whole poetic alchemy. Think of living! Thy life, wert thou the pitifullest of all the sons of earth, is no idle dream, but a solemn reality. It is thine own; it is all thou hast with which to front eternity. Work, then, even as he has done—like a star, unhasting and unresting." [Pg 368]
t Marburg, Tyndall was on good terms with the great Bunsen, and used to act as his assistant in making practical chemical experiments before his classes. ”

“ Huxley spoke of how very often men who were gentle and charming in their homes were capable of great crimes, and of how, on the other hand, a man might pass in the world as a philanthropist, and yet in his household be a veritable autocrat and tyrant.
Fiske then incidentally mentioned the case of Doctors Parker and Webster of Harvard—men of intellect and worth. These men brooded over a misunderstanding that grew into a grudge and eventually hatched murder. One worthy professor killed the other, cut up the body, and tried to burn it in a chemist's retort. ”

“ When he travels he travels alone, without companion or secretary. Travel to him means intense work; and intense work means to him intense pleasure. Solitude seems necessary to close, consecutive thinking; and in the solitude of travel, through jungle, forest, crowded city, or across wide oceans, Haeckel finds his true and best self. Then it is that he puts his soul in touch with the Universal and realizes most fully Goethe's oft-repeated dictum, "All is one." And, indeed, to Goethe must be given the credit of preparing the mind of Haeckel for Darwinism. ”

“ His grandfather on his father's side was Doctor Erasmus Darwin, a poet, a naturalist, and a physician so discerning that he once wrote: "The science of medicine will some time resolve itself into a science of prevention rather than a matter of cure. Man was made to be well, and the best medicine I know of is an active and intelligent interest in the world of Nature." ”

“ During his work out of doors on surveying trips he had studied the strata; gotten on good terms with birds, bugs and bees; he knew the flowers and weeds, and loved all the animate things of Nature, so that he recognized their kinship to himself, and he hesitated to kill or destroy.
Education is a matter of desire, and a man like Tyndall is getting an education wherever he is. All is grist that comes to his mill.
Robert Owen had but recently started "Queenswood College" in Hampshire, and nothing would do but Tyndall should go there as a teacher of science. ”

“ As for Darwin himself, he stood the storm of misunderstanding and abuse without scorn or resentment. [Pg 242]
"Truth must fight its way," he said; "and this gauntlet of criticism is all for the best. What is true in my book will survive, and that which is error will be blown away as chaff." He was neither exalted by praise nor cast down by censure. For Huxley, Lyell, Hooker, Spencer, Wallace and Asa Gray he had a great and profound love—what they said affected him deeply, and their steadfast kindness at times touched him to tears. ”

“ There is no outside force or energy; no god or supreme being that looks on, interferes, dictates and decides. To admit that there is an outside power, something uncorrelated, is to invite fear, apprehension, uncertainty and terror. This undissolved residuum is the nest-egg of superstition. The man who believes that God is the Whole, and that every man is a necessary part of the Whole, has no need to placate or please an intangible Something. All he has to do is to be true to his own nature, to live his own life, to understand himself. ”