Richard Carlile

“ It is the bounden duty of every man openly to avow whatever his mind conceives to be the truth. If he shrinks from this he is a coward—a slave to the opinions, of other men. Shall the enemies of mankind boldly tell us that they perceive truth in their mysterious and incomprehensible dogmas, and shall we shrink from the publication and support of those truths which we perceive to have an evident foundation in Nature! Shall we shrink from the avowal of truths because despotism and ignorance have granted stipends to the propagators of falsehood, and because those stipends might be endangered? ”

“ Science has made sufficient progress in this country, and has a sufficient number of followers and admirers, to enable them by a single breath to dissipate all the bigotry in the country, or, at least, to silence all the idle clamour of the bigoted and interested about blasphemy and atheism, or any of their nonsense. Is the progress of Science to be submitted to an Excise, and are all discoveries to be treated like contraband goods, lest the trade and the tithes of the priest be injured? Shame on that man who can tacitly submit to such a system. ”

“ There is no one part of the Arts and Sciences, but to which Chemistry has relation, and even the most important relation. In all manufactures, whether wood or metal—clay or stone—wax or glass—paper or cloth, or what not, the knowledge of Chemistry is essential. It is to the science of Chemistry that we owe all our artificial productions, it is to the science of Chemistry that we owe all our knowledge and comprehension of natural productions, and their adaption to our several uses. ”

“ The science of Chemistry has so far explored the properties of matter in all its variety, and has so far ascertained all its powers, purposes, and combinations, as to banish the idea of its having been formed from any chaotic state into its present form and fashion. The Chemist would smile at such a notion in the present day, even if he feared to encounter the Priest and his dogmas about the world having been created out of nothing. Creation is an improper word when applied to matter. Matter never was created—matter never can be destroyed. ”

“ I would bring the whole race of mankind back to a conviction that they exist to no other purpose, and by no other cause than every other animal and vegetable. Let mankind be once sensible of this important fact, and they will cease to persecute, to harass, to rob, and to destroy each other. They would then make the best use of their time, and view their animal existence but as a moment in the space of eternity. ”

“ Neither will it become me here to lay down the elements of Astronomy, my appeal is to the Astronomer, and I have merely to remind him, that, if he supports the dogmas of the Priest, or the astronomical blunders of any holy book, he is a corrupt and wicked hypocrite, and a disgrace to the science which he studies, practises, or teaches. Science and truth ought to be synonymous terms, and neither the one or the other ought, upon any consideration whatever, to pay the least respect or deference to established error. ”

“ I have shewn that Men of Science, either from having their minds tinged with superstition, or from the fear of offending those who might labour under that malady, have deprived society of many of those benefits which it was their bounden duty to have conferred upon it. They have withheld from the public the most important discoveries, because, as the Christian Inquisition said to Galileo, such discoveries, or such doctrines, were contrary to those of the Holy Bible. Shame upon such dastardly principles, say I—they are a disgrace to mankind, which assumes a superiority over all other animals. ”

“ It is the interested hypocrite alone, that is alarmed at the progress and power of truth, he whose very trade is the known propagation of falsehood and delusion, the tyrants tool and scourge. All tyranny, oppression, and delusion, have been founded upon the ignorance and credulity of mankind. Knowledge, scientific knowledge, is the power that must be opposed to those evils, and be made to destroy them. Come forward, ye Men of Science, ye must no longer remain in the back ground as trembling cowards, ye must no longer crave protection from, and creep at the pleasure of, your direst foes ”

“ It displays scarce any thing but the ignorance and brutality, the massacres and superstitions, which have been so common to mankind hitherto. It is rare indeed to find a sketch of a virtuous character. I am of opinion that we could not do better than draw a veil as close as possible over the past, and endeavour to start upon a system that our posterity shall not blush to read when impartially stated. Who can read the history of the past, without blushing and pitying the madness of that animal man, for making so bad a use of his gift of speech and its consequent reason? ”

“ Man has nothing but the dogmas of superstition in support of his future sensible existence—these dogmas are false and wicked impostures. No appeal can be made to Nature in support of them. Man, as a part of a whole, or as an atom of matter, is immortal, but with whatever he might amalgamate after his frame has passed its dissolution, and has evaporated like a dunghill, or a bed of rotten vegetables, that atom can retain no sense of a former existence. ”

“ I aspire to nothing more than to become the humble instrument of sounding and resounding their sentiments. I am anxious to sound a loud blast in the cause of Truth, of Reason, of Nature and her laws. I will give every Man of Science an opportunity of publishing his sentiments without any direct danger to himself: I will fill the gap of persecution for him, if a victim be still necessary to satisfy the revenge of dying Priestcraft. ”

“ No part of matter would then escape the scrutinizing disposition of man, he would explore the ocean and the rivers, the mountain and the valley, the forest and the plain, the bowels of the earth and its atmosphere, and even the surface and atmosphere of other orbs to gratify his scientific and laudably insatiate curiosity. The blade of grass, the leaf, the tree, its fruit, the flower-bed with all its vivid tints and animating effluvia, with all the infinite variety both in the vegetable and animal world, would alike form matter for his scientific research, and objects for him to explore. ”

“ I have introduced the names of Bacon, Newton, and Locke, under this part of my address, not as practical Chemists, which I believe they were not, or if they knew any thing of the elements of Chemistry, that knowledge is not now worthy of mention, but because they are now claimed as the patrons of Superstition. Newton certainly deserves to be called a great astronomer, but as he endeavoured to make even his knowledge in Astronomy subservient to his bigotry, I have thought proper to treat him as a wavering and dishonest fanatic, rather than as a Man of Science. ”

“ This twelve millions of money is spent for the very worst of purposes, for it does not civilize society, but rather brutalizes it, by setting its members one against the other, upon different points of belief, all of which are proved to be erroneous and to have no foundation in Nature.
The Man of Science ought not to look at, or respect, any thing but the discovery and propagation of truth. Instead of respecting mischievous and erroneous establishments, he, of all men, is bound, by every honourable tie, to make an exposure of them, and to teach the people right from wrong. ”

“ What avail the dogmas of the priest about an end to the world, about a resurrection, about a day of judgment, about a Heaven and Hell, or about rewards and punishments after this life, when we assert that matter is imperishable and indestructible—that it always was what it now is, and that it will always continue the same. Answer this, ye Priests. Come forward, ye Men of Science, and support these plain truths, which are as familiar to your mind, as the simplest demonstration in mathematics is to the experienced and accomplished mathematician. ”

“ What other system of education can be so well calculated for a proper expansion of the juvenile mind? How much more advantageous to society would such a system of education be, connected with a knowledge of Chemistry, Astronomy, Geography, Geometry, and the Mathematics, than all that lying and stupifying lore about religion and its offspring; for the support of which mankind are so excessively robbed? ”

“ I have kept much within bounds in noticing the advanced state of Science, and I feel assured that what I have recommended can be easily and immediately reduced to practice. The breath of Philosophy is now sufficiently strong to puff out the glimmering superstition of Priestcraft. The Philosopher should no longer bend the knee to this or any other corrupt power. There is a keen public appetite for philosophical truths. I feel satisfied that I have the daily thanks of thousands for rescuing their minds from the horrible dogmas of Superstition and Priestcraft. ”

“ Instead of viewing ourselves as the particular and partial objects of the care of a great Deity, or of receiving those dogmas of the priest which teach us that every thing has been made for the convenience and use of man, and that man has been made in the express image of the Deity, we should consider ourselves but as atoms of organized matter, whose pleasure or whose pain, whose existence in a state of organization, or whose non-existence in that state, is a matter of no importance in the laws and operations of Nature ”

“ We are of no more importance in the scale of Nature than those myriads of animalcules whose natural life is but for the space of an hour, or but a moment. We come and pass like a cloud—like a shower—those of us who possess a brilliancy superior to others, are but as the rainbow, the objects of a momentary admiration, and a momentary recollection. Man has been most aptly compared to the seasons of the year, in our own climate, the spring, is his infancy ”

“ I would banish from our school-books every word about God or Devil—Heaven or Hell, as hypocritical and unmeaning words, mere words of sound, and confine the attention of children and youth to such subjects, as an every day's experience shall evince to them to have a foundation in Nature. Moral precepts might, be necessary and useful but even morality might, in my opinion, be taught much better by example than by precept. ”

“ It is from such a system of education that true genius has become so very scarce, and is so seldom seen: it blunts and stupifies the mind, and obscures that radiance to which the system I now propose would have given energy and opportunity to display itself. Many of Nature's Nobles have passed through life unknown and unheeded entirely from the influence of a superstitious and genius-destroying education! ”

“ I am ever pleased at the extensive circulation of those publications to which mine are exposed, as it is of the first consequence to stimulate mankind to read, to examine, and to discuss the pretensions of all principles. The Bible Society might circulate its millions of books, and not a member of that society shall feel more pleasure at the circumstance than myself. I do not wish that any of my publications should fall into the hands of any individual, but he who can read the Bible, and who is fully acquainted with its contents, and all the dogmas which the priests of this country teach. ”

“ I have contrasted the conduct of Whiston and Newton, and have made my observations on the latter to shew that even his name carries no weight with it in the support of superstition, I trust I have sufficiently shown that superstition and science can never amalgamate, which also justifies the inference that, morality and religion never can amalgamate. Superstition corrupts and deteriorates all the human passions: science alone is qualified to amend and moralize them. ”

“ If you were to instruct a child in the elements of Chemistry, you would find that it would be constantly amusing itself with such simple chemical experiments as its childhood could practise and comprehend: it would feel an interest in all the little experiments it could make, and that interest would lead on to a self-importance, to industry, to a knowledge and due comprehension of the value of time, about which children think so little, or rather think nothing at all, under the present system of education. ”

“ The very books which are called holy and divine are filled with descriptions of human monsters, and scarce any set off or contrast to exhibit the benefits and beauties of moral virtue among mankind.
I am sensible that at present no books exist, such as I point out for the use of schools, embracing the elements of the Arts and Sciences, and free from allusion to all kinds of mythology and superstition, among which I wish to be understood as including the mythology and superstition of the Christians, but no task can be more simple than for a few Men of Science to compile them. ”

“ If religion be a word that has any substantial definition, or if it be a proper word, and can be made applicable to Nature in its meaning, or the action it indicates, I have no hesitation to say, that the System of Education which I now propose forms the basis of the only true, the only rational religion. The word religion implying a fixed faith or belief, and having its etymology in the Latin verb religo, to bind fast, there can be no true, no just, no rational religion, but that which applies to something we can comprehend, and which has its foundation in Nature and her laws. ”