{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_30758/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_30758","id":"gutenberg_30758","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/30758","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Politics","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Category: Sociology","Christian socialism","Communism","Communism and Christianity"],"text":"E-text prepared by Peter Vachuska, Matt Whittaker, Chuck Greif, and the\nProject Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team\n(http://www.pgdp.net)\n\n\n\nNote: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this\n      file which includes the original illustrations.\n      See 30758-h.htm or 30758-h.zip:\n      (https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/30758/pg30758-images.html)\n      or\n      (https://www.gutenberg.org/files/30758/30758-h.zip)\n\n\n\n\n\nCOMMUNISM AND CHRISTIANISM\n\n      *      *      *      *      *      *\n\nTO THE PURCHASER:\n\nLying Supernaturalism is going; robbing Capitalism is falling; saving\nLaborism is rising, and leveling Unionism is coming.\n\nThis booklet, Communism and Christianism, is a contribution by Bishop\nand Mrs. Wm. M. Brown, of Galion, Ohio, towards the furtherance of these\ndownward, upward and forward movements, the most fortunate events in the\nwhole history of mankind. We hope that you will read, mark, learn and\ninwardly digest its extremely revolutionary, comprehensive and salutary\nteachings concerning both religion and politics with the happy result of\nbecoming an apostle of its illuminating and inspiring interpretation of\nthe scientific gospel of Marx and Engels to wage slaves, the only gospel\nwhich points the way to redemption from their body and soul destroying\nslavery.\n\nYou may become a missionary of this gospel in your neighborhood, and as\nsuch do more good than all its orthodox preachers, teachers, editors and\npoliticians together at no financial cost to yourself by ordering\nbooklets at our special rates: six copies, $1.00; twenty-five copies,\n$3.00, prepaid, and selling them to workers at our retail price, 25\ncents for one copy. As we make no profit and do no bookkeeping, cash\nshould accompany all orders.\n\nTo organizations working for bail, defense, liberation or unemployment\nfunds, Bishop and Mrs. Brown donate twenty-five copies for each\ntwenty-five ordered with remittance.\n\nThe Bradford-Brown Educational Company, Inc. Publishers--Galion, Ohio\n\n\n\nEditions and Their Dates.\n\nFirst Edition, 10,000 copies, October 11th, 1920.\n\nSecond Edition, 10,000 copies, revised and enlarged from 184 to 204\npages, February 15th, 1921.\n\nThird Edition, 10,000 copies, March 2nd, 1921.\n\nFourth Edition, 10,000 copies (2,000 in cloth binding), revised and\nenlarged from 204 to 224 pages, April 9, 1921.\n\n[Illustration: Rt. Rev. William Montgomery Brown, D. D.\n\nFifth Bishop of Arkansas, Resigned; Member House of Bishops Protestant\nEpiscopal Church; Sometime Archdeacon of Ohio and Special Lecturer at\nBexley Hall, the Theological Seminary of Kenyon College. Now Episcopos\nin partibus Bolshevikium et Infidelium.]\n\n      *      *      *      *      *      *\n\n\nCOMMUNISM AND CHRISTIANISM\n\nAnalyzed and Contrasted from the Marxian and Darwinian Points of View\n\nby\n\nWILLIAM MONTGOMERY BROWN\n\nBanish the Gods from the Skies and Capitalists from the Earth and make\nthe world safe for Industrial Communism.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nThe Bradford-Brown Educational Company, Inc. Publishers ... Galion, Ohio\n\nFortieth Thousand\n\n\n\n\nDEDICATION\n\n\nThis booklet is gratefully dedicated to the Proletariat from whom Bishop\nand Mrs. Brown are sprung, and to whose unrequited labors (not to the\ngood providence of a divinity) they owe their wealth, leisure and\nopportunities.\n\n\n\n\nPROLEGOMENA[A]\n\n     Religion is the opium of the people. The suppression of religion as\n     the happiness of the people is the revindication of its real\n     happiness. The invitation to abandon illusions regarding its\n     situation is an invitation to abandon a situation which has need of\n     illusions. Criticism of religion is therefore the germ of a\n     criticism of the vale of tears, of which religion is the holy\n     aspect.\n\n     --Marx.\n\n\nNot only, indeed, is the struggle against religion intellectually\nuseful, but it cannot conscientiously be avoided, for religion is used\nagainst the Socialist movement by the possessing class in every country.\n\nBut to abolish religion is not to abolish exploitation, because only one\nof the enemy's guns will have been silenced. The workers have, above\nall, to dislodge the capitalist class from power. The religious\nquestion, and indeed all else, is secondary to this.\n\nThe test of admission to a Socialist Party must be neither more nor less\nthan acceptance of the following seven working principles and the policy\nof Socialism as a class movement:\n\n     1. Society as at present constituted is based upon the ownership of\n     the means of living (i. e., land, factories, railways, etc.) by the\n     capitalist or master class, and the consequent enslavement of the\n     working class, by whose labor alone wealth is produced.\n\n     2. In society, therefore, there is an antagonism of interests,\n     manifesting itself as a class struggle, between those who possess\n     but do not produce and those who produce but do not possess.\n\n     3. This antagonism can be abolished only by the emancipation of the\n     working class from the domination of the master class by the\n     conversion into the common property of society of the means of\n     production and distribution, and their democratic control by the\n     whole people.\n\n     4. As in the order of social evolution the working class is the\n     last to achieve its freedom, the emancipation of the working class\n     will involve the emancipation of all mankind without distinction of\n     race or sex.\n\n     5. This emancipation must be the work of the working class itself.\n\n     6. As the machinery of capitalist government, including the armed\n     forces of the nation, conserves the monopoly by the capitalist\n     class of the wealth taken from the workers, the working class must\n     organize consciously and politically for acquiring the powers of\n     government, national and local, in order that this machinery,\n     including these forces, may be converted from an instrument of\n     oppression into the agent of emancipation and the overthrow of\n     privilege, aristocratic and plutocratic.[B]\n\n     7. As all political parties are but the expression of class\n     interests, and as the interest of the working class is\n     diametrically opposed to the interests of all sections of the\n     master-class, the party seeking working-class emancipation must be\n     hostile to every other party.\n\nIf a man supports the church, or in any respect allows religious ideas\nto stand in the way of the foregoing seven essential principles of\nsocialism or the activity of a Party, he proves thereby that he does not\naccept Socialism as fundamentally true and of the first importance, and\nhis place is outside.\n\nNo man can be consistently both a Socialist and a Christian. It must be\neither the socialist or the religious principle that is supreme, for the\nattempt to couple them equally betrays charlatanism or lack of thought.\nThere is, therefore, no need for a specifically anti-religious test.\n\nSo surely does the acceptance of Socialism lead to the exclusion of the\nsupernatural, that the Socialist has little need for such terms as\nAtheist, Free-thinker, or even Materialist; for the word Socialist,\nrightly understood, implies one who, on all such questions, takes his\nstand on positive science, explaining all things by purely natural\ncausation, Socialism being not merely a politico-economic creed, but\nalso an integral part of a consistent world philosophy.\n\nSo long as the anarchy of modern competitive society exists, the\naccompanying obscurity and confusion in social life will continue to\nshelter superstition. This point is illustrated in the following\nreference by Marx to the United States:\n\n     When we see in the very country of complete political emancipation\n     not only that religion exists, but retains its vigour, there is no\n     need, I hope, for other proofs in order to show that the existence\n     of religion is not incompatible with the full political maturity of\n     the State. But if religion exists it is because of a defective\n     social organization, of which it is necessary to seek the cause in\n     the very essence of the State.\n\nClass domination is the essence of the modern State. It is based on\ncompetitive anarchy and parasitism--the evidences of a defective social\norganization. It still leaves room for religion, because it maintains\nignorance and confusion by its structure and contradictions, and because\nreligion is fostered as a handmaiden of class rule.\n\nNevertheless, the growth of the social forces of production within\nmodern society, and the better knowledge the workers obtain of their\ntrue relations to each other and to Nature, loosen the chains of ghost\nworship and mysticism from their limbs and lessen the power of religion\nas a political weapon in the hands of the ruling class, while they form,\nat the same time, the material and intellectual preparation for an\nintelligently organized society. The matter has been put in a nutshell\nby Marx in the chapter on \"Commodities\" in \"Capital,\" volume I.\n\n     The religious reflex of the real world can, in any case, only then\n     finally vanish, when the practical relations of every-day life\n     offer to man none but perfectly intelligible and reasonable\n     relations with regard to his fellow men and to nature.\n\n     The life process of society, which is based on the process of\n     material production, does not strip off its mystical veil until it\n     is treated as production by freely associated men, and is\n     consciously regulated by them in accordance with a settled plan.\n\n     This, however, demands for society a certain material groundwork or\n     set of conditions of existence which in their turn are the\n     spontaneous product of a long and painful process of development.\n\nIt is, therefore, a profound truth that Socialism is the natural enemy\nof religion. Through Socialism alone will the relations between men in\nsociety, and their relations to Nature, become reasonable, orderly, and\ncompletely intelligible, leaving no nook or cranny for superstition. The\nentry of Socialism is, consequently, the exodus of religion.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[A] From the Official Manifesto by the Socialist Party of Great Britain,\nshowing the Antagonism between Socialism and Religion.\n\n[B] This section has been slightly changed to make sure of guarding\nagainst the advocacy of armed insurrection. Socialists throughout the\nworld want a peaceful evolution from capitalism into socialism; but\nwhether or not it will be so in the case of any country is, as Lenin\nprophesies, to be determined by the dealings of its capitalists with its\nlaborers. In reply to an inquiry on this vexed subject by an English\nauthor, Lenin said, in effect, that in England, as elsewhere, the\ntactics of the capitalist class will determine the program of the labor\nclass.\n\n\n\n\nTHE INTERNATIONAL PARTY.\n\n\n  Arise, ye prisoners of starvation!\n      Arise, ye wretched of the earth,\n  For justice thunders condemnation,\n      A better world's in birth.\n  No more tradition's chains shall bind us,\n      Arise, ye slaves! no more in thrall!\n  The earth shall rise on new foundations,\n      We have been naught, we shall be all.\n\n  We want no condescending saviors.\n      To rule us from a judgment hall.\n  We workers ask not for their favors,\n      Let us consult for all.\n  To make the thief disgorge his booty,\n      To free the spirit from its cell,\n  We must ourselves decide our duty,\n      We must decide and do it well.\n\n  The law oppresses us and tricks us,\n      Taxation drains the victim's blood;\n  The rich are free from obligations,\n      The laws the poor delude.\n  Too long we've languished in subjection,\n      Equality has other laws:\n  \"No rights,\" says she, \"without their duties.\n      No claims on equals without cause.\"\n\n  Toilers from shops and fields united,\n      The party we of all who work;\n  The earth belongs to us, the people,\n      No room here for the shirk.\n  How many on our flesh have fattened!\n      But if the noisome birds of prey\n  Shall vanish from the sky some morning,\n      The blessed sunlight still will stay.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\n                                                       Page\nPROLEGOMENA                                               5\n\nPART I.\n\nCOMMUNISM: THE NATURALISTIC THIS-WORLDLY\nGOSPEL FOR THE COMING AGE OF CLASSLESS EQUALITY\nAND ECONOMIC FREEDOM                                     13\n\n\nPART II.\n\nCHRISTIANISM: A SUPERNATURALISTIC OTHER-WORLDLY\nGOSPEL FOR THE PASSING AGE OF CLASS INEQUALITY\nAND ECONOMIC SLAVERY                                     85\n\nAPPENDIX                                                157\n\n\n\n\n     Hitherto, every form of society has been based on the antagonism of\n     oppressing and oppressed classes. But in order to oppress a class,\n     certain conditions must be assured to it under which it can, at\n     least, continue its slavish existence. The serf, in the period of\n     serfdom, raised himself to membership in the commune, just as the\n     petty bourgeois, under the yoke of feudal absolutism, managed to\n     develop into a bourgeois. The modern laborer, on the contrary,\n     instead of rising with the progress of industry, sinks deeper and\n     deeper below the conditions of existence of his own class. He\n     becomes a pauper, and pauperism develops more rapidly than\n     population and wealth. And here it becomes evident that the\n     bourgeoisie is unfit any longer to be the ruling class in society,\n     and to impose its conditions of existence upon society as an\n     over-riding law. It is unfit to rule, because it is incompetent to\n     assure an existence to its slave within his slavery, because it\n     cannot help letting him sink into such a state that it has to feed\n     him, instead of being fed by him. Society can no longer live under\n     this bourgeoisie, in other words, its existence is no longer\n     compatible with society.--Marx and Engels.\n\n\n\n\nCOMMUNISM AND CHRISTIANISM\n\nANALYZED AND CONTRASTED FROM THE MARXIAN AND DARWINIAN POINTS OF VIEW\n\n\n\n\nPART I.\n\n\nCommunism: The Naturalistic This-worldly Gospel for the Coming Age of\nClassless Equality and Economic Freedom--An Open Letter to a Brother\nBishop and a Christian Socialist Comrade.\n\n     Come over and help us. Abandon Christian Socialism for Marxian\n     Communism.\n\n\n\n\nFOREWORD[C]\n\n\nThe concept of God, as an explanation of the Universe, is becoming\nentirely untenable in this age of scientific inquiry. The laws of the\npersistence of force and the indestructibility of matter, and the\nunending interplay of cause and effect, make the attempt to trace the\norigin of things to an anthropomorphic God who had no cause, as futile\nas is the Oriental cosmology which holds that the world rests on an\nelephant, and, as an afterthought, that the elephant stands on a\ntortoise.\n\nThe inflexible laws of the known universe cannot logically be held to\ncease where our immediate experience ends, to make way for an\nunscientific concept of an uncaused and creating being. The Creation\nidea is unsupported by evidence, and is in conflict with every\nscientific law.\n\nSocialism is consistent only with that monistic view which regards all\nphenomena as expressions of the underlying matter-force reality and as\nparts of the unity of Nature which interact according to inviolable\nlaws.\n\nSocialism is the application of science, the archenemy of religion, to\nhuman social relationships; and just as the basic principle of the\nphilosophy of Socialism finds itself in conflict with religion, so does\nit, as a propagandist movement, find religion acting against it.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[C] From the Official Manifesto by the Socialist Party of Great Britain,\nshowing the Antagonism between Socialism and Religion.\n\n\n\n\nCOMMUNISM: THE NATURALISTIC THIS-WORLDLY GOSPEL FOR THE COMING AGE OF\nCLASSLESS EQUALITY AND ECONOMIC FREEDOM.\n\n     Make the World safe for Industrialism by turning it upside down\n     with Workers above and Owners below.\n\n\nMy dear Brother and Comrade:\n\nYour letter of June 13th[D] relative to the meeting called for the 27th,\nin the interest of a more radical socialist movement in our church, came\nduly to hand, and its invitation to attend, or at least write, was\nhighly appreciated.\n\nMy days for attending things are, I fear, past. I did not feel able to\ngo to the Annual Convention of the Socialist Party of Ohio, which met\nmuch nearer here on the same date, June 27th, and ended on the 29th with\na great picnic--a communion, as real and holy, as was ever celebrated. I\ncannot even be sure of being with you in the House of Bishops during the\nmeeting of the General Convention in October.\n\nHowever, I intended you to have a letter and set the 26th aside for the\nwriting of it, but I work slowly now and its hours slipped away while I\nwas making notes until only one was left. It was spent in trying to\ncondense all I wanted to say in the letter into a telegram. What I\nregard as the best of these efforts was taken to the office at seven\np. m. on that day:\n\nMake world safe for democracy by banishing Gods from sky, and\ncapitalists from earth.\n\nHere are four of the many other efforts: (1) Come over and help us.\nAbandon Christian Socialism for Marxian Communism; (2) Make world safe\nfor democracy by turning it upside down with workers above and owners\nbelow; (3) Revolutionize capitalism out of state and orthodoxy out of\nchurch; (4) Come over and help us. Abandon reformatory for revolutionary\nsocialism.\n\nWhat I wanted you to understand is that, in my judgment, there can be no\ndeliverance for the world from the troubles by which it is overwhelmed\nso long as theism holds the religious field and capitalism the political\nfield.\n\n\nI.\n\nReligion and politics are the two halves of the sphere in which humanity\nlives, moves and has its social being. Religion is the ideal and\npolitics the practical half of this sphere. Both halves naturally exist\nas the result of the same natural law of necessity: the matter-force law\nwhich makes it necessary for a man to feed, clothe and shelter his body\nin order to preserve it and its life.\n\nMarxian socialism is at once this religion and politics, all there is of\nboth of them which is for the good of the world as a whole.\n\nMarxian socialism is a revolutionary movement towards doing away with\nthe existing competitive system for producing and distributing the basic\nnecessities of life (foods, clothes and houses) for the profit of a few\nparasites, and substituting a system for making and distributing them\nfor the use of all workers.\n\nSo far some competing, lying, robbing, enslaving system for the\nproduction and distribution of these necessities has been the basis of\nevery religion and politics--of none more than the Christian and\nAmerican, and they with the rest have been tried in the balance of\nexperience and found utterly wanting. Indeed, they are making a hell,\nnot a heaven, of the earth in general and of our country in particular.\n\nChristianism as a religion has collapsed. It promised to secure to the\nworld peace and good will, but it has never had more of strife and hate.\nThe tremendous English-German (or if you prefer German-English) war was\na conflict at arms between the most outstanding among Christian nations\nand it was solemnly alleged to have been fought for the high purpose of\nending such conflicts; but in reality it scattered the hot coals of war\nthroughout the world, several of which were fanned into blazing by its\nso-called peace conference and others are ominously smouldering.\n\nAmericanism as a politics has collapsed. It promised a classless\ngovernment of all the people, by all the people, for all the people, but\nhas instead given a government of a class, by a class, for a class. This\nclass, comprising not more than one out of every ten of the population,\nis the capitalist class, which owns the means and machines for the\nproduction of the necessities of life and for their distribution, a\nclass which, as such, though bearing no necessary relationship to either\none of the branches of this business, yet realizes enormous profits from\nboth, profits which are wholly at the expense of the large class, at\nleast nine out of every ten, which does all the work connected with the\nmaking of the machines and the operating of them.\n\nThis government was to make the country safe for democracy by securing\nto it the privilege of free speech and free assemblage, the existence of\nan independent press and the right of appeal for the redress of\ngrievances; but our fathers did not have any too much of these\nliberties, we have had less and, if the competitive system for the\nproduction and distribution of commodities for the profit of the small\nowning class is to continue, our children are to have none.\n\nIndeed, this is already true of the overwhelming majority, the working\nclass. Its representatives have little if any real part in the\ngovernment. They are completely subjected to the rule of the owning\nclass. There never has been a body, mind and soul destroying slavery\nwhich equaled theirs, either as to the number of men, women and children\ninvolved in it, or as to the degrees of misery to which it doomed its\nvictims.\n\nNor is the end yet. The world war certainly has taken American slavery\nout of the frying pan into the fire rather than into the water.\n\nAmerican slaves appeal to their government as Jewish slaves appealed to\none of their kings for relief and receive the same answer, not in words\nbut in deeds which speak louder:\n\n     Thy father made our yoke grievous; now therefore make thou the\n     grievous service of thy father, and his heavy yoke which he put\n     upon us, lighter, and we will serve thee. And he said unto them,\n     Depart yet for three days, then come again to me. And the people\n     departed. So all the people came the third day as the king had\n     appointed and the king answered them roughly, saying: My father\n     made your yoke heavy, and I will add to your yoke: My father also\n     chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you with scorpions.\n     So when all Israel saw that the king harkened not unto them, the\n     people answered the king, saying, What portion have we in David?\n\nAs to details history does not exactly repeat itself and, therefore, I\ndo not believe that the other planets of the universe, of which no doubt\nthere are many billions, are inhabited by human beings of the same type\nas those of the earth, nor that its men, women and children are to have\ntheir bodies reconstructed and resurrected, after they have been\ndisintegrated by death. Such beings on other planets and such\nreconstructions on this planet would in every case involve a detailed\nrepetition of infinitely numerous processes of evolution which had\nextended through an eternal past.\n\nYet in every part of the universe and throughout all eternity, like\ncauses ever have produced and ever shall produce like effect. If,\ntherefore, the course of the Judean masters towards their slaves led to\na successful revolt of ten out of twelve tribes, there is every reason\nfor believing that the parallel course which the American masters are\npursuing against their slaves will sooner or later issue in a\nrevolution--a revolution which shall do away with both masters and\nslaves, leaving us with a classless America and a government concerned\nwith the making of provisions for enabling all the people who are able\nand willing to work to supply themselves in abundance with the\nnecessities of life and with the most desirable among the luxuries,\nrather than a government which provides that they who produce nothing\nshall have the cream and top milk of every necessity and the whole\nbottle of every luxury, leaving of the necessities only the blue milk\nfor the producers of them and of the luxuries, not even the dregs.\n\nUnder this government those who can but will not work will be allowed to\nstarve themselves into a better mind and out of their laziness. The\nyoung and the old, the sick and crippled will have their rightful\nmaintenance from the state and out of the best of everything.\n\nThe deliverance of the world from commercial imperialism and the making\nof it safe for industrial democracy would prevent most of its\nunnecessary suffering and this great salvation is above all else\ndependent upon a knowledge of the truth. \"Ye shall know the truth and\nthe truth shall make you free\"--free from all the avoidable ills of\nlife, among them the diabolical trinity of evils, war, poverty and\nslavery.\n\nThe happiness of the world will be promoted in extent and degree in\nproportion as the knowledge of the truth is disseminated by a twofold\nrevelation: (1) the truth as it is revealed by history according to the\nMarxian interpretation thereof, a revelation of the truth which is\nsaving the world from the robbing impositions of the capitalistic\ninterpretation of politics, and (2) the truth as it is revealed by\nnature, according to the Darwinian interpretation thereof, a revelation\nwhich is saving the world from the robbing impositions of the\nsupernaturalistic interpretations of religion.\n\nMan has always had as a basis for his thought, belief and action, a\nsystem for the production and distribution of the necessities of life.\nThis is the discovery of Karl Marx which is known as the scientific or\nmaterialistic interpretation of history.\n\nAccording to the scientific interpretation of history which is taught by\nnaturalistic socialism, man is what he is, and his institutions are what\nthey are, because he has fed, clothed and housed himself as he has.\n\nAccording to the traditional interpretation of history, which is taught\nby supernaturalistic Christianism, man is what he is because of his\nthinking, believing and acting with reference to a revelation of a god,\nas it has been interpreted by his inspired representatives, the great\nprophets and statesmen, like Isaiah and Luther, Moses and Washington.\n\nPerhaps the best proof of the correctness of the scientific or\nnaturalistic explanation of the career of man and of the incorrectness\nof the traditional or supernaturalistic one is afforded by the history\nof morals, the soul of both religion and politics, without which neither\ncould have any existence.\n\nBefore the discovery of the art of agriculture, man was dependent for\nhis food upon fruits and nuts, game and fish. When these sources of\nsustenance failed, the tribes living in the same neighborhood fought\nwith each other in order that the victorious might eat the vanquished.\n\nDuring this period cannibalism was morally right, and it probably\nextended through at least two hundred thousand years, even into the Old\nTestament times. So righteous and holy was it that, in the course of\ntime, the victims were recognized as saviour gods and the drinking of\ntheir blood and eating of their flesh constituted a Lord's Supper in\nwhich the god was eaten.\n\nCannibalism is the basis of our sacrament of the holy communion of bread\nand wine. As a connecting link between these extremes there was the form\nof communion which consisted in the eating of animal sacrifices.\n\nBy a sacrament with such an origin, you and I render our highest act of\nworship, though yours is still directed towards one among the\nsupernaturalistic divinities and mine is now directed towards humanity.\nYou say of a divinity: Thou, Lord, hast made me after thine own image\nand my heart cannot be at rest until I find rest in thee. I say of\nhumanity: Thou, Lord, hast made me after thine own image and my heart\ncannot be at rest until it find rest in thee.\n\nWithin the social realm humanity is my new divinity, and your divinity\n(my old one) is a symbol of it, or else, so I think, he is at best a\nfiction and at worst a superstition.\n\nYou will be surprised, and I do not expect you to understand me, when I\ntell you that by translating the services and hymns from the language of\nmy old literalism into that of my new symbolism, I am getting as much\ngood out of them as ever and indeed more. I love the services,\nespecially that great one, the Holy Communion, and the hymns, especially\nthose great ones, Guide Me O Thou Great Jehovah; Lead, Kindly Light;\nAbide With Me; and Jesus, Lover of My Soul.\n\nMy experience has convinced me that the sentimental and poetical\nelements in religion, to which I attach as much importance as ever, are\nas readily excited and securely sustained by fixing thought and sympathy\nupon the martyred human savior, the working class, as upon a crucified\ndivine saviour, who after all, as the suffering son of God, is but a\nsymbol of the suffering sons and daughters of man, the workers, from\nwhom all good things come.\n\nIf grace at dinner means anything, it is addressed to a god who is the\nsymbol of the many workers who did the innumerable things necessary to\nthe producing and serving of it, without whom there would be nothing of\nall the good things on the table.\n\nIn the representation about my pleasure in the services of the church\nand their value to me, and in many representations scattered throughout\nthis letter, I have in mind the question of an unanswered letter of\nyours, bearing date, February 25th, 1919, the one in which you ask, in\neffect, by what right a man can remain in an institution after he has,\nas I have, abandoned its chief doctrines and aims as they are\nauthoritatively interpreted.\n\nThe right of revolution is the one by which I justify my course, and\nsurely no consistent Protestant Christian or American citizen will doubt\nthe solidity of this ground; for Protestantism and Americanism had their\norigin in revolutions.\n\nOur national declaration of independence contains this famous\njustification of political revolutions, and it is equally applicable to\nreligious ones, for religion and politics are but the ideal and\npractical halves of the same social reality:\n\n     We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created\n     equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain\n     inalienable rights; that among these, are life, liberty, and the\n     pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are\n     instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent\n     of the governed: that, whenever any form of government becomes\n     destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter\n     or to abolish it, and to institute a new government, laying its\n     foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such\n     form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and\n     happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long\n     established, should not be changed for light and transient causes;\n     and, accordingly, all experience hath shown, that mankind are more\n     disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right\n     themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.\n     But, when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing\n     invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under\n     absolute despotism, it is their right--and it is their duty--to\n     throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their\n     security.\n\nJesus was nothing if he was not a revolutionist. Anyhow, his alleged\nmother is authoritatively represented as believing him to have been\nforeordained as one, for this song is put into her mouth:\n\n     He hath showed strength with his arm: he hath scattered the proud\n     in the imagination of their hearts.\n\n     He hath put down the mighty from their seat: and hath exalted the\n     humble and meek.\n\n     He hath filled the hungry with good things: and the rich he hath\n     sent empty away.\n\nThis Christian socialism, like Bolshevik socialism, turns the idle rich\nempty away; but, whereas the Christian gives them no chance to get\nanything to eat, the Bolshevik allows them to have as much as the poor,\nif they will work as hard.\n\nAssuming for the sake of argument, that there may have been an\nhistorical Jesus who taught some of the doctrines, in accordance with\nthe representations of the gospel, which are attributed to him, I am\nnevertheless justified in claiming that he was quite as heretical\ntouching the faith of orthodox Judaism as I am touching that of orthodox\nChristianism.\n\nAs to the Jewish faith he said, in effect, of himself what I say of\nmyself: I have all of the potentialities of my own life within myself. I\nand my god are one. He dwells in me and I in him, and we are on the\nearth, not in the sky.\n\nAs to the Jewish church and state, Jesus taught that they had become\nutterly antiquated and that it was the mission of himself and disciples\nto establish a new heaven, that is to remodel the church; and a new\nearth, that is, to remodel the state; both remodelings being with\nreference to the service of humanity by enlightening its darkness and\nalleviating its misery here and now, rather than teaching it to look for\nlight and happiness elsewhere and elsewhen.[E]\n\nAs for the faith and church of orthodox Christianism there is no reason\nfor believing that he would be any more loyal to either than am I. His\nloyalty was to the truth and to the proletarian, and they (this faith\nand church) are disloyal to both, being ever on the side of tradition\nagainst science, and on the side of the owner against the worker.\n\nJesus remained in the Jewish church, in spite of his many and great\nheresies, until he was put out by death.\n\nMy contention is that in view of this example, whether it be, as you\nthink, of an historical or, as I think, of a dramatic character, there\nis no reason why I should voluntarily go out of the Christian church.\n\nReligion in general and Christianity in particular are nothing unless\nthey are embodiments of morality, and morality does not consist in\nprofessions of belief in a god and his revelations as they are recorded\nin a bible and condensed in a creed, but in a desire and effort to\nacquire a knowledge of the laws of nature in order that, by conformity\nto them, life may be made longer and happier.\n\nWhen this desire exists and this effort is made with reference to one's\nown self, they constitute morality; when with reference to one's own\nfamily and associates, they constitute religion, and when with reference\nto all others of contemporary and future generations, they constitute\nChristianity.\n\nBut in making such distinctions the fact should not be lost sight of\nthat at bottom there is no difference between morality, religion and\nChristianity. They are synonyms for the same virtues, the desire and\neffort to know and live the truth as it is revealed in the doings of\nnature. There are no other revelations of the truth, nor is there any\nother morality, religion or Christianity.\n\nSocialism is for me the one comprehensive term which is a synonym at\nonce of morality, religion and Christianity. Marxian and Bolshevikian\nsocialism are two halves of one thing, the theoretical half and the\npractical half. Marxism is socialism in theory. Bolshevism is (perhaps\nimperfectly as yet) socialism in practice.\n\nAs long as gods dominate the sky and capitalists prevail upon the earth,\nthe world will be safe for commercial imperialism, having a small heaven\nfor the few rich masters and a large hell for the many poor slaves.\n\nCome over and help us make the world safe for industrial democracy by\nbanishing the personal, conscious gods from the sky and the lying,\nrobbing capitalists from the earth.\n\nBut in coming there is no need for leaving your church any more than\nthere is for leaving your state. During the short time which is for me,\nbefore the night cometh in which no man can work, I shall remain in both\nas long as the powers that be allow it, and do what little I can to\nrevolutionize them--revolutionize the church into a school for the\nteaching of truth instead of lies, and revolutionize the state into a\nhive for the making of commodities for the use of all instead of for the\nprofit of a few. In doing this I shall be following in the very\nfootsteps of the human Jesus.\n\nAfter it was discovered that the ground, by planting and cultivating,\nwould produce the necessities of life, when a tribe found that it had\ntoo little of it for its growing population, it would go to war with the\nweaker among adjacent tribes for the purpose of securing its territory;\nbut from this on the vanquished were not eaten, and it was morally wrong\nto eat them. They were kept alive and put to work at raising harvests\nfor their conquerors, hence arose the institution of slavery, and hence\nits moral rightness even in this country of the free, down to the\nbeginning of the generation to which I belong.\n\nHowever, human slavery has never ended, nor will it ever end while the\ncompetitive system for the production of the necessities of life for\nprofit rather than use continues. Human slavery is, so to speak, the\nbasic ingredient of this system.\n\nSpeaking broadly, there have been three forms of human slavery--the\nchattel, feudal and wage slaveries--the third much worse than the first,\nand the second intermediary between them.\n\nThe chattel slave, as the adjective signifies, was the property of his\nmaster, as much so as were the horse or the mule with which he worked,\nand he was cared for in much the same way and for about the same reason.\n\nThe feudal slave was as really a chattel as was his predecessor, only he\nhad to look out for himself to a greater extent; and, more was expected\nfrom him of accomplishment for the opulence and glory of the master,\nespecially insofar as these depended upon the success of his wars.\n\nThe wage slave is, likewise, as really owned by his master as was the\nchattel or the feudal slave; but, if the master has no need for his\nservice, he is altogether down and out, as the feudal slave was not and\nstill less the chattel, and he has accomplished at least ten times more\nfor his master than did either of his predecessors.\n\nSo far man has produced and distributed the necessities of life by a\ncompetitive system. The existing form of this competition is known as\ncapitalism. It has supplanted, or at least overshadowed, every other\nform and is, so to speak, monarch of all it surveys.\n\nThe system as it now stands divides the world into two spheres--a small\none, in which a few live surfeitingly by owning, and a large one, in\nwhich the many live starvingly by working; and, yet, ultimately,\nabsolutely everything for both depends upon the worker and nothing at\nall on the owner.\n\nYes, the worker is indispensable to the owner, as much so as (to use the\nclassical illustration) the dog to the flea; but the owner is no more\nindispensable to the worker than a flea to a dog. As dogs would be much\nbetter off without fleas, so would workers without owners.\n\nThe discovery that the itch is caused by a parasite was of an epoch\nmaking character because it led to the discovery that many, if not most\nof the diseases by which mankind and also animal kind are afflicted are\nof a parasitical character. This is as true of the social organism as of\nthe physical. Capitalism is the tape worm of society.\n\nThe existence of the master and slave classes inevitably gives rise to\nfour struggles: (1) the struggle of the slaves with the master for\nbetter conditions, issuing in rebellions; (2) the struggle between\nmasters for advantages in markets, issuing in wars; (3) the struggle\nbetween the slaves for jobs, issuing in a body and soul destroying\npoverty; and (4) the struggle of the slaves with the master for a\nreversal of conditions, issuing in revolutions.\n\nAll this struggling between the classes and within them tends towards\ntwo results with both classes.\n\nIn the case of the master class, these results are the making of the\nrich fewer and the remaining few richer.\n\nIn the case of the slave class, these results are the making of the\nmiserable poor more numerous and all less happy.\n\nWhile capitalism stands, all talk about peace on earth and good will\namong men will be so much hypocrisy; for, until it falls, the world will\nbe divided into the slave and master classes and these four contentions\nwith these results will continue to fill it with hatred and strife.\n\n\nII.\n\nThe overthrow of capitalism in Russia is the greatest event in the\nhistory of the world and it has converted International Socialism (the\nMarxian revolutionary kind) from a theory into a condition.\n\nTheories come and go. Conditions remain and work. From this on\nrevolutionary socialism will be working, night and day, with might and\nmain, here and there, everywhen and everywhere, and its three herculean\ntasks are: (1) to dethrone the great imperialist, competitive\ncapitalism; (2) to enthrone the great democrat, co-operative\nindustrialism; and (3) to make the world safe for an industrial\nclassless democracy.\n\nIn less than three years revolutionary socialism in Russia has\naccomplished more of these three tasks for the world, than all the\nstates and all the churches with all their wars have done in the whole\ncourse of man's career, extending through at least two hundred thousand\nyears. Indeed they never did anything to these ends. On the contrary,\nwhat progress has been made towards them was made in spite of their\nstrenuous opposition at every step.\n\nRevolutionary socialism is a world movement towards the deliverance of\nthe producing slave from the non-producing master who has robbed him of\nthe fruits of his toil and left him half dead on the wayside--the only\neffective movement to this humanitarian end.\n\nRevolutionary socialism is the Good Samaritan of the despoiled and\nwounded laborer. The reformatory kinds of socialism are so many priests\nand Levites who pass by on the other side.\n\nOf no reformatory socialism is this more true than of the Christian\nkind. Christian socialism is absolutely worthless, and its utter\nworthlessness is due to the essentially parasitic character of\nsupernaturalistic or orthodox Christianity.\n\nUntil the reformation, Christianity was dominated by monks--parasites\nwho lived by begging, lying, and persecuting; and since then by\ncapitalists--parasites who live by robbing, lying and warring.\n\nMonks and capitalists have this in common, that they are natives of the\nrealm of parasitism.\n\nWe shall never have peace on earth and good will among men until we have\na parasiteless humanity, and we must wait for this until we have a\nclassless world. Parasitism is a boon companion of classism.\n\nNor can the earth ever be rid of its parasites until the celestial world\nis rid of the class gods which capitalists have made in their own image\nand likeness, nor until the terrestrial world is rid of the class states\nand codes, churches and gospels which their respective class kings or\npresidents and their class priests or preachers have had the gods of\ntheir making impose upon this world, in accordance with their interests\nand in the furtherance of their lying, robbing, warring schemes for the\npromotion of them.\n\nNeither capitalism nor Christianism is anything except insofar as it is\na system of parasitism and as parasitic systems they have striking\nresemblances, nearly as many and close as indistinguishable twins.\n\nBoth have gods, churches and priesthoods and these are in each case\nnothing but symbols.\n\nHowever, the god of capitalism, though only a symbol, is nevertheless\nreal gold, below a real vault, and nearly all the world sincerely\nworships it.\n\nBut the god of Christianism, though none the less symbolic, but rather\nmore so, is an unreal imaginary spirit, a magnified man without a body,\nabove an imaginary vault, and only a very small part of the world\nsincerely worships him.\n\nInternational socialism of the Marxian or Russian type, is for those who\nstarvingly live by working, the most uplifting thing in the world, and\nfor those who surfeitingly live by owning, it is the most depressing\nthing in the world.\n\nWise people consider theories without losing too much, if any, sleep on\ntheir account, but they study conditions and lie awake nights over them.\n\nMillions of wise Americans have, in the past, been studying socialism as\na theory but, in the future, they will study it as a condition, in the\nonly way by which it can rightly and adequately be studied--the way of\nreading its official documents, accredited periodicals and books. Of all\nsuch, the most notable is the Communist Manifesto by Marx and Engels.\n\nThis Manifesto is the Marxian gospel. I read two pages in it every day\nas faithfully as ever I read a chapter in the Jesuine gospel, and with\nmuch greater profit; for, whereas the gospel of Marx is exclusively\nconcerned with this terrestrial world, about which I know much and for\nwhich I can do a little, the gospel of Jesus is as exclusively concerned\nwith a celestial world, about which I know nothing and for which I\ncannot do the least. Here, as a sample of this gospel, I give half of\nyesterday's reading and most of today's:\n\n     The immediate aim of the Communists (Socialists) is the same as\n     that of all the other proletarian parties; formation of the\n     proletariat into a class, overthrow of the bourgeois supremacy,\n     conquest of political power by the proletariat.\n\n     The theoretical conclusions of the Communists are in no way based\n     on ideas or principles that have been invented, or discovered, by\n     this or that would-be universal reformer.\n\n     They merely express, in general terms, actual relations springing\n     from an existing class struggle, from a historical movement going\n     on under our very eyes. The abolition of existing property\n     relations is not at all a distinctive feature of Communism.\n\n     All property relations in the past have continually been subject to\n     historical change consequent upon the change in historical\n     conditions.\n\n     The French Revolution, for example, abolished feudal property in\n     favor of bourgeois property.\n\n     The distinguishing feature of Communism is not the abolition of\n     property generally, but the abolition of bourgeois property. But\n     modern bourgeois private property is the final and most complete\n     expression of the system of producing and appropriating products,\n     that is based on class antagonism, on the exploitation of the many\n     by the few.\n\n     In this sense, the theory of the Communists may be summed up in the\n     single sentence: Abolition of private property.\n\n     We Communists have been reproached with the desire of abolishing\n     the right of personally acquiring property as the fruit of a man's\n     own labor, which property is alleged to be the groundwork of all\n     personal freedom, activity and independence.\n\n     Hard-won, self-acquired, self-earned property! Do you mean the\n     property of the petty artisan and of the small peasant, a form of\n     property that preceded the bourgeois form? There is no need to\n     abolish that; the development of industry has, to a great extent,\n     already destroyed it, and is still destroying it daily.\n\n     Or do you mean modern bourgeois private property?\n\n     But does wage-labor create any property for the laborer? Not a bit.\n     It creates capital, i. e., that kind of property which exploits\n     wage-labor, and which cannot increase except upon condition of\n     getting a new supply of wage-labor for fresh exploitation.\n     Property, in its present form, is based on the antagonism of\n     capital and wage-labor. Let us examine both sides of this\n     antagonism.\n\n     To be a capitalist, is to have not only a purely personal, but a\n     social status in production. Capital is a collective product, and\n     only by the united action of many members, nay, in the last resort,\n     only by the united action of all members of society, can it be set\n     in motion.\n\n     Capital is therefore not a personal, it is a social power.\n\n     When, therefore, capital is converted into common property, into\n     the property of all members of society, personal property is not\n     thereby transformed into social property. It is only the social\n     character of the property that is changed. It loses its\n     class-character.\n\n     Let us now take wage-labor:\n\n     The average price of wage-labor is the minimum wage, i. e., that\n     quantum of the means of subsistence, which is absolutely requisite\n     to keep the laborer in bare existence, as his labor merely suffices\n     to prolong and reproduce a bare existence. We by no means intend to\n     abolish this personal appropriation of the products of labor, an\n     appropriation that is made for the maintenance and reproduction of\n     human life, and that leaves no surplus wherewith to command the\n     labor of others. All that we want to do away with is the miserable\n     character of this appropriation, under which the laborer lives\n     merely to increase capital, and is allowed to live only insofar as\n     the interest of the ruling class requires it.\n\n     In bourgeois society, living labor is but a means to increase\n     accumulated labor. In Communist society, accumulated labor is but a\n     means to widen, to enrich, to promote the existence of the laborer.\n\n     In bourgeois society, therefore, the past dominates the present; in\n     Communist society, the present dominates the past. In bourgeois\n     society capital is independent and has individuality, while the\n     living person is dependent and has no individuality.\n\n     And the abolition of this state of things is called by the\n     bourgeois, abolition of individuality and freedom! And rightly so.\n     The abolition of bourgeois individuality, bourgeois independence,\n     and bourgeois freedom is undoubtedly aimed at.\n\nThe version of the Marxian gospel which we have in the Manifesto is\namong the first of its versions. It was published about the middle of\nthe last century. Within the short period which has intervened, it has\nchanged nearly all of the ideas of a large and rapidly growing part of\nevery nation about almost everything social; and before the middle of\nthe present century, it will revolutionize all nations as it has Russia.\n\nLudendorff, the greatest among the military authorities in Germany, saw\nand terribly feared this, and called Europe to arms to prevent it. In\nhis almost frantic appeal he said:\n\n     Bolshevism is advancing now and in a gradual progress from east to\n     west and is crushing everything between the midland sea and the\n     Atlantic ocean. It was easy to foresee that the Bolshevist armies\n     would attack toward the middle of May and defeat the Poles, as they\n     have now done. The world at large must, therefore, figure with a\n     Bolshevist advance in Poland toward Berlin and Prague.\n\n     Poland's fall will entail the fall of Germany and Czecho-Slovakia.\n     Their neighbors to the north and south will follow. Fate steps\n     along with elementary force. Let no one believe it will come to a\n     stand without enveloping Italy, France and England. Not even the\n     Seven Seas can stop it.\n\nUnder the capitalist system most people are and must continue to be\nslaves. If you are a slave (all wage earners, as such, are slaves) the\nsocialist literature, the greatest of all literatures, will thrill you\nwith the hope of liberty. Read, note and inwardly digest it. No wage\nearner who does this will ever again vote either the Democratic or the\nRepublican ticket. As a whole this literature is a brilliantly\nilluminating and almost resistlessly persuasive explanation of the most\nsane, the most salutary and withal the most promising movement towards\nthe freeing of all toiling men, women and children (nine of every ten)\nfrom their body and soul destroying slavery.\n\nBoth Socrates and Jesus are recorded as teaching that the saviour of the\nworld is truth. Among saving truths (there is no truth without some\nsaving efficacy) the greatest is the one which was discovered and\nformulated concurrently by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels and it is in\nsubstance this: all which makes for the good of mankind ultimately\ndepends wholly upon the laborious constructors and operators of the\nmachines for the cultivation, production and distribution of the\nnecessities of life, not at all upon the owners of these machines, who\nat best are idlers and at worst schemers, and in any case parasites.\n\n     In the beginning was Work. All things were made by it; and without\n     it was not anything made that was made. In it was life; and the\n     life was the light of men.\n\nThe opening verses of the gospel according to John have been thus\ninterpreted. The commentator acknowledges that they do not read so now,\nbut contends for good and sufficient reasons, that, if there ever was\nany truth in them, something to this effect must have been their\noriginal reading. Certainly there is no truth in them as they have come\ndown to us.\n\nThis representation to the effect that productive labor is the saviour\nof the world, its real god, the divinity in which we live, move and have\nour being, is the great truth, the gospel of International Socialism,\nthe greatest of all movements, the movement which carries the only\nrational hope for the freeing of mankind from all its unnecessary\nsuffering--and the most poignant sufferings, those imposed by the great\ntrinity of evils: (war, poverty and slavery) are not necessary.\n\nCapitalism and Christianism are alike not only in having gods which are\nsymbols, but also in having great buildings set apart for the\nworshipping of them.\n\nThe representatives of the god below the vault worship him in banks\nunder the leadership of a threefold ministry: presidents, cashiers and\nbookkeepers.\n\nThe representatives of the god above the vault worship him in churches\nunder the leadership of a threefold ministry: bishops, priests and\ndeacons.\n\nSpeaking particularly of Christianity and America the trouble is not at\nall with our Brother Jesus and Uncle Sam divinities, but wholly with\nwhat they symbolize, capitalism--the god of liars, robbers and\nwarriors.\n\nWhat our Brother Jesus and Uncle Sam should alike symbolize are the\nclassless divinities: (1) law, the king of the physical realm, and (2)\ntruth, the queen of the moral realm.\n\nLaw is what nature does. There is no other law, and this law is the god\nof the physical realm. The gods of the supernaturalistic interpretations\nof religion (Jesus, Jehovah, Allah, Buddha, and all the rest) are\npersonifications, or symbols, of this god, or else they are\nsuperstitions.\n\nThis representation is proved in practice to be true, on the one hand,\nby the fact that no one needs to live with reference to any among those\ngods, not even the god, Jesus; and, on the other hand, by the fact that\nnone who fail to live with reference to this god, law, lives at all.\n\nEvery act of nature, that is, every physical and psychical phenomenon\nwhich enters into the constitution of the universe, is a word of the\nrevelation of this god, and there is no other revelation. All men must\nconstantly live with reference to it or else immediately die.\n\nTruth is the interpretation of this law in the light of human\nexperience, reason and investigation with the view of making human life,\nthat of self and of all who come or can be brought within the range of\none's influence, as long and happy as possible.\n\nAny one who desires and endeavors rightly to learn, interpret and live\nthis law to these ends is moral. In everything is he wholly good and in\nnothing at all bad.\n\nReligion is not anything good, except only as it is a synonym of such\nmorality, and this is equally true of politics.\n\nWar shortens much life and fills more with misery, hence it is utterly\nimmoral, and this is equally true of poverty and slavery.\n\nIn what I say here and in some other places about war being essentially\nevil, the wars referred to are those by which the world has been cursed\nthrough all the ages--wars between different groups of owners with\nconflicting interests, not the war between owners and workers which is\nnow on. This war will bless, not curse, the world, because it is for the\nemancipation of the slave class, not for the enrichment of one group of\nthe masters at the expense of another group, at the cost of increased\nmisery to all the slaves on both sides.\n\nIf there is any truth in the representation that real religion and real\npolitics alike consist in desiring and endeavoring to make terrestrial\nlife (there is no celestial life of which aught is known) long and\nhappy, the advocate of war is the worst of heretics against Christianism\nand the worst of traitors against Americanism.\n\nWar is a necessary characteristic of vegetables and animals, because\nthey cannot make and operate machines for the supplying of their needs.\n\nPeace is the necessary characteristic of humans, because they can make\nand operate machines for the supplying of their needs.\n\nWars between capitalists are inevitabilities, as much so as the wars\nbetween two hungry dogs, when one has a bone upon which the lives of\nboth depend. The only difference between capitalists and dogs is, that\ndogs do their own fighting, whereas capitalists first rob the laborers\nwho produce their commodities, and then persuade or compel them to fight\ntheir battles with fellow capitalists in their competitive efforts to\ndistribute them.\n\nOn the one hand it is true that a few capitalists do lose money in wars,\nand still fewer their lives, but on the other hand it is equally true\nthat the majority of them are made richer and that producing and\ndistributing laborers ultimately bear every cent of the enormous\nfinancial burden, and that for every machine owning master who is killed\nor wounded there are a hundred wage earning slaves.\n\nYet neither the making nor operating of machines constitutes a man a\nhuman. It is co-operation which does this. Nor will co-operation in\nitself suffice. Bees and ants co-operate and even capitalists do so, yet\nwith all their co-operating bees and ants remain animals and so do\ncapitalists. The co-operation which converts animals into humans is the\none which is purposely inaugurated and sustained with the view of\nsecuring to each one the fruits of his labor while at the same time\nincreasing them for all--that deliberate co-operation which consists in\nconscious living, letting live and helping to live.\n\nIt is this co-operation which constitutes the most essential difference\nbetween the animal and the human. Only animalism can exist and flourish\non a competitive basis, yet this is the basis upon which men who falsely\nclaim to be humans are living.\n\nUntil mankind begins the construction of a civilization on a foundation\nof co-operation in the production and distribution of the necessities of\nlife, it should not set up a claim to humanism for itself, because\nmeantime it cannot sustain such a claim.\n\nIt is perfectly natural and absolutely necessary for dogs to have\nbelligerent contentions for bones, because they cannot peacefully\nco-operate in the making of them; and yet men who can do this are more\nfierce by far in their competitive struggles for the bones which are\nnecessities to their lives.\n\nRevolutionary socialists of the Marxian or Bolshevikian type offer the\nonly solution of the two great questions of the world at this time: (1)\nhow to save it from its intermittent and lesser hell of suffering by the\nbloody wars between rival sets of capitalists, and (2) how to save it\nfrom its perpetual and greater hell of suffering by the bloodless wars\nbetween the machine owning masters and the machine operating slaves,\nwhich wars, if less excruciating, are yet more destructive of both life\nand happiness.\n\n1. As to the bloody wars, a league of nations could prevent them only\nwhile the dogs are sleeping off their exhaustion.\n\nNor could government ownership be depended upon for protection. It would\nincrease the armies and navies, making it next to impossible that more\nthan a decade or two should pass before our children must suffer as much\nas, or more than, we have by the recent war between the bull dog and the\nblood hound.\n\nWe are not at all indebted to the victory of the bull dog (England) over\nthe blood hound (Germany) for what we have in the way of a guarantee\nagainst future wars, but wholly to the presumption of the Newfoundland\ndog (Russia) which has quietly walked off with the bone of contention\nwhile the belligerents were scrapping over it.\n\nNotwithstanding all appearances and impressions to the contrary, this\nbone never was really Paris or Berlin, but first one and then another\ncountry--the Balkan States, Mexico, Persia, Morocco and Russia.\n\nOf late Russia has been the chief bone of contention. Hence all the\nsnarling against Russian Bolshevism, one of a large litter of puppies\nborn to the Newfoundland since the beginning of the war, representatives\nof which have already made their way to several countries of Europe, and\nthe prospects are that they or their offspring will soon be in evidence\neverywhere throughout the world.\n\nWhen all these Bolsheviki are grown-ups, they will make the world safe\nfor democracy sure enough--not the competitive democracy of the bull\ndogs and blood hounds, but the co-operative democracy of the\nNewfoundland dog. Then, and not before, will the world be safe against\nwar.\n\nSince the beginning of the armistice there has been, every now and then,\na widespread fear that it might not be permanent, because of a\nsuccessful effort on the part of the bull dog to put over another war on\naccount of the Russian bone; but for many this fear has now been almost\nquieted by the total collapse of the Kolchak, Denikin, Yudenich and\nWrangel uprisings from within, which were strongly supported by the\nAllies; and by the repulsion of the Polish invasion which had England,\nFrance and the United States behind it.\n\nAn astonishing illustration of the truth of the Marxian theory\nconcerning the materialistic or economic determination of history, is\nfurnished by the melancholy fact that the representatives of big\nbusiness in the allied countries would gladly respond to Gen.\nLudendorff's call to join the junkers, against whom they so recently\nfought, in a war against Russia, of which war Germany would be the\nbattle field. A concerted effort was made to organize such a war, but\nthe wisdom learned in the school of the world war by the working-men of\nall the countries to which the call was made and their consequent\nopposition to the effort caused it to fail.\n\n2. But great as the suffering of the world is on account of the bloody\nwars of capitalists with each other, it is but a drop in the bucket of\nsorrow as compared with its suffering on account of the bloodless wars\nbetween masters and slaves--between the machine owners and operators.\nWhen this bloodless war ceases, as it will with the triumph of\ninternational socialism, the bloody wars will cease and not until then.\n\nUnder the capitalist system every institution (state, church, school,\nlegislature, court, business, yes, even charity) is necessarily a\nrobbing instrumentality by which a small class of non-producers, fat\nmasters, rob a large class of producers, lean slaves, and rob them\ntwice, each time thrice:\n\n1. The master non-producers rob the slave producers of the three great\nnecessities of physical (body) life--food, clothing and houses.\n\nEven in the United States of America, \"the land of plenty,\" at this time\nand at all times, seventy-five out of every one hundred are\ninsufficiently fed, clothed and housed.\n\n2. The master non-producers rob the slave producers of the necessities\nof psychical (soul) life--the liberty to learn the facts of nature, the\nliberty to humanly interpret and live them and the liberty to teach\ntheir discoveries and interpretations.\n\nEven in the United States of America, \"the home of political and\nreligious freedom,\" there is not one who can learn, live and teach the\ntruth without danger of being put out of a synagogue and into a\npenitentiary; and this will continue until imperialistic capitalism and\nsupernaturalistic Christianism, the father and mother of the whole brood\nof robbers, liars, persecutors and warriors, have been dethroned.\n\nThe gods of the capitalistic interpretations of politics and the gods of\nthe supernaturalistic interpretations of religion, symbolize the same\nreality, parasitic robbery.\n\nYet within the religious realm the trouble is not with the Jehovahs any\nmore than within the political realm it is with the Sams, but only with\nwhat they symbolize.\n\nFor one I should feel that both the religious and political realms,\nwhich are but halves of the same realm--religion the ideal half, and\npolitics the practical half--would be poorer without their respective\nJehovahs and Sams, even as the realm of childhood would be without its\nSanta Claus.\n\nIf symbols are not absolute necessities to the religious and political\nrealms, nevertheless they always have been, now are and probably ever\nshall be ornaments of them; I hope for their continuance, but as\nsubjectivities, not objectivities.\n\nAll the imperialistic interpretations of politics and all the\nsupernaturalistic interpretations of religion must be overthrown, else\nthe world will be lost. The omnipotent, omnipresent saviour who can and\nwill deliver us from them is already in the world. His name is\nInternational Communism, the greatest and holiest name which has ever\nbeen framed and pronounced; and the gospel of this saviour as it is\ntranslated by Thomas Carlyle is written on every wall so that it may be\nread by all:\n\n     Understand that well, it is the deep commandment, dimmer or\n     clearer, of our whole being, to be freed. Freedom is the one\n     purpose, wisely aimed at, or unwisely, of all man's struggles,\n     toilings, and sufferings, on this earth.\n\nMorality is the greatest thing in the world because without it human\nlife would not be worth the living, or even possible; but, paradoxical\nas the assertion may seem, freedom or liberty is greater because without\nit morality would be an impossibility.\n\nOne can attain to the very highest standard of morality, religion and\nsainthood without the least necessity of the slightest reference to what\nthe gods of the supernaturalistic religions said or did, and this is\nquite as true of Jesus as of any other among such gods, but no man can\nreach even the lowest standard of morality, and so of course not of\nreligion or sainthood, without constant reference to the god of truth.\n\nYet there is a difference between a law and a truth. The law is a doing\nor act of nature, and as such it is a fact or revelation. There are no\nother facts or revelations.\n\nAccording to the traditional superstitious conception, a truth is the\nrevelation of the will of a god, involving a service to be rendered\ndirectly or indirectly to him, and morality consists in a fulfillment of\nit.\n\nAccording to the modern scientific conception, a truth is the\ninterpretation of a fact involving a service to be rendered to men. On\nthe scientific theory each man must have what truth he has, either by\nhis own interpretation or by the adoption for himself of another's\ninterpretation.\n\nNo man can live the moral part of his psychical (soul) life on the truth\nof another any more than he can live his physical (body) life on the\nmeals of another. Every one must have his own truths, even as he must\nhave his own meals.\n\nHence the necessity of freedom to morality. Hence, too, the\nimpossibility of the moral life under restraint, such as is imposed by\northodox churches in their official dogmas, and such as is imposed by\nbelligerent states in their espionage laws.\n\nCapitalism is essentially competitive and therefore necessarily\nbelligerent in character: hence a complete, an ideal moral life is an\nutter impossibility under it, but even the little of moral life which\notherwise might be possible is lessened to one-half by official dogmas\nand espionage laws; if, then, the governments of churches and nations\nhave any regard for the morality of their memberships and citizenships\nthey will at once repeal them, and never enact others.\n\nThe democracy which means freedom to learn the laws of the physical\nrealm of nature and to interpret them into laws for the regulation of\nhuman life (a democracy which will secure to each one the longest and\nhappiest life which, under the most favorable of conditions, would be\nwithin the range of possibilities for him) must wait until the\ncompetitive system of capitalism for the production and distribution of\nthe necessities has been universally and completely supplanted by the\nco-operative system of socialism.\n\nThe conclusion of the whole matter, as it is well put by an able\ncontributor to the excellent Proletarian, is this:\n\n     What is needed is a complete revolution of the economic system.\n     Private ownership of the tools of wealth production stands in the\n     way of further peaceful social development and private ownership\n     must be eliminated. The capitalists themselves will not eliminate\n     it. That is certain. It remains for the working class to do so. In\n     order to accomplish this task it will be necessary for the workers\n     to take control of the institution by which the capitalists\n     maintain their ownership of the tools of production--the political\n     state. That is the historic mission of the working class. The\n     mission of the Socialist is to organize and train the workers for\n     this \"conquest of political power.\"\n\nAmong the signs of the times which unmistakably point to the great day\nof the happy consummation of the movement towards the proletarian\nrevolution, and the glorious sky is full of them, is the fact that the\nworld has recently learned from the great war that man must work out his\nown salvation without the least help from the gods of the\nsupernaturalistic interpretations of religion:\n\n  And that inverted Bowl they call the Sky,\n  Whereunder crawling coop'd we live and die,\n  Lift not your hands to It for help--for It\n  As impotently moves as you or I.\n\n  --Omar.\n\nYes, and a god moves more impotently than a man; for, whereas the god is\ndriven hither and thither by the laws of matter and force, according to\nwhich they co-exist and co-operate through evolutionary processes to the\nmaking of the universe what it is, and the god cannot help himself by\nmaking it or conditioning himself otherwise, the man, if only he will\nlearn those laws, may combine, guide and ride them to almost any\npredetermined destination, even out of the class hell of competitive\ncapitalism to the classless heaven of co-operative socialism.\n\n\nIII.\n\nThe salvation of the world from its unnecessary sufferings is dependent\nupon such an equitable sharing of the labor involved in the making and\noperating of the machines of production and distribution, and upon such\nan equitable sharing of the products as shall issue in a classless\nmankind by doing away, through a revolution, with the class which lives\nby owning the means and machines of production and distribution.\n\nIt is this advocacy of classless levelism which constitutes the\ntheoretical core of revolutionary socialism. Those who oppose this\nsocialism proceed upon the assumption of the permanency of existing\nreligious and political institutions, the most ruinous of all heresies.\n\nWhat this heresy is and the fatal policy to which it gives rise has its\nclassic expression, so far as religion is concerned, in the\nexhortation--\"earnestly contend for the faith once for all delivered to\nthe saints\"--and, so far as politics is concerned, in the\nrepresentation--\"the laws of the Medes and Persians which altereth not.\"\n\nThere is no such faith in religion, and cannot be, for as a creed\nbecomes stereotyped it loses the religious character and degenerates\ninto superstition.\n\nThere are no such laws in politics, and cannot be, for as a law becomes\nstereotyped it loses the political character and degenerates into\ntyranny.\n\nReligion, which is the ideal half, and politics, which is the practical\nhalf, of the same reality, human socialism, are like all else in the\nuniverse, constantly changing, and necessarily so, because life and\nprogress are dependent upon change.\n\nOrthodoxy in religion and politics is the blight of the ages, because of\nits assumption that the great institutions, the family, state and church\nwith their customs, laws and doctrines, as they exist for the time\nbeing, constitute the foundation of society, without which it could not\nexist; that these institutions are almost if not altogether what they\nshould be, and that, therefore, the welfare of society, if not indeed\nits existence, is dependent upon their continuance with but little if\nany change.\n\nBut the foundation of society always has been a system for the\nproduction and distribution of the necessities of life, and hence social\ninstitutions, customs, laws and creeds are what they are at any time\nbecause an economic system is what it is.\n\nIf we compare an economic system for the production of the primary\nnecessities of life (foods, clothes and houses) to a king or bishop (we\nmay well do so, for in all ages such systems have been the power behind\nevery regal and episcopal throne) we shall see that states, with their\nrulers, codes and police, armies and jails; and churches, with their\ngods, revelations, heavens and hells, are but so many expediencies for\nthe protection of the system from change.\n\nWhat is true in this respect of the state and church is equally so of\nthe family, the school, the press, the lodge, the club, the library, the\ntheater, the chautauqua and, in short, every institution.\n\nWhy all these age-long safeguards against change? Because, so far, every\neconomic system has divided society into two classes, a comparatively\nsmall class who own things and a large one who make things, and if the\nfew honest owners are to hold their own as divinely favored\n\"grab-it-alls,\" they must be protected at every point against the many\ndishonest makers who are diabolically tempted to be \"keep-somes!\"\n\nThese rounded out children of god have nothing in common with these\ncaved in imps of the devil, no more than the flea and the dog, or the\ntapeworm and the man.\n\nDavid hastily said: All men are liars. He might leisurely have said this\nof every representative of any religious or political orthodoxy, for\nthey insist that their religion and politics are the permanent elements\nin social truth which remain unchanged from generation to generation\nthrough all ages, whereas no religion or politics continues the same\nduring one decade, nor even a single year.\n\nOrthodox Christians say that Jesus founded their sectarian churches,\nthough each sect insists that he had to do with only one church, theirs.\nI doubt that he lived. In any case, I am certain that if he did live and\nfounded a church in the first century and were to come to earth again in\nthis twentieth century, he could not if he would and would not if he\ncould become a member of it, because of its changes.\n\nOur own country is different by the width of the whole space of the\nheavens from what it was before the war, and it is destined to a much\nwider change.\n\nSo far are churches with their doctrines, and states with their laws\nfrom being changeless, that they are more or less modified by every\ndevelopment in the economic system to which they owe their existence\nand of which they are servants.\n\nIn the case of every nation its king, the economic system, has always\nbeen a robber and enslaver of the overwhelming majority of the people,\nand the church and state have been the hands by which he accomplished\nthe robbing and enslaving.\n\nInsofar as they differ, Roman orthodoxy is what it is because of its\nstarting out as the religious product of the feudal system of economics;\nand Protestant orthodoxy is what it is because of its starting out as\nthe religious product of the capitalistic system of economics.\n\nProtestantism is preferred before Romanism by most of the leading people\nin the financial world, because it is the child of capitalism, their\nsister, so to speak, whereas its rival is only a cousin.\n\nAs to the Roman and Protestant orthodoxies they are on the same footing.\nI would not turn my hand over for the difference between them. If\nliterally interpreted in the light of modern science, both are utterly\nantiquated and irrational.\n\nOrthodox Romanists and Protestants have essentially the same bible and\ncreed. In my opinion, as in that of all Marxian and Darwinian\nsocialists, every supernaturalistic representation in both must be\nregarded as having either a figurative or a superstitious character, for\nthere is not one among them which can endure a scientific and rational\nanalysis; yet, this is an age of science and reason.\n\nThe difference between Romanism and Protestantism is not at all a\nquestion of relative supernaturalism, nor of rightness and wrongness,\nbut wholly one of the difference between the systems of economics which\ngave them birth.\n\nIf you ask, is not this difference at least partly a question of the age\nin which they took their rise, I reply, yes; but the age itself depends\nupon the system.\n\nHowever, it is a fact that while an economic system does constitute the\nfoundation of every religious and political superstructure, yet below\nthe foundation itself there is always a bed rock upon which it\nultimately rests, and this is a question of machinery by which the\nnecessities of life are produced and distributed.\n\nThe age of feudalism was essentially traditional or theoretical in its\ncharacter.\n\nThe age of capitalism is essentially scientific or experimental in its\ncharacter.\n\nThis difference between these ages is due to the fact that during the\nearlier age things were made with hand tools, and during the later one\nwith machine tools.\n\nMachinery in a theoretical or traditional age would be an anachronism.\nIt must have an experimental or scientific age for its development, and,\nparadoxical as it may seem, this the machinery must make for itself.\nEvery period in human history has had its determining character from the\ntools which brought it into being.\n\nSupernaturalism has no place in the observations, investigations or\nexperimentations which are necessary to the invention, construction and\noperation of a great machine and, hence, the machines have banished the\ngods from the roof of the earth and the devils from its cellar, leaving\nit to us to make of it what we please, a heaven or a hell without\nreference to them. In his brilliant work entitled \"Social and\nPhilosophical Studies\", translated by Charles H. Kerr, Paul Lafargue\nwrites:\n\n     The labour of the mechanical factory puts the wage-worker in touch\n     with terrible natural forces unknown to the peasant, but instead of\n     being mastered by them he controls them. The gigantic mechanism of\n     iron and steel which fills the factory, which makes him move like\n     an automaton, which sometimes clutches him, bruises him, mutilates\n     him, does not engender in him a superstitious terror as the thunder\n     does in the peasant, but leaves him unmoved, for he knows that the\n     limbs of the mechanical monster were fashioned and mounted by his\n     comrades, and that he has but to push a lever to set it in motion\n     or stop it. The machine, in spite of its miraculous power and\n     productiveness, has no mystery for him. The labourer in the\n     electrical works, who has but to turn a crank on a dial to send\n     miles of motive power to tramways, or light the lamps of a city,\n     has but to say, like the God of Genesis, \"let there be light,\" and\n     there is light. Never sorcery more fantastic was imagined, yet for\n     him this sorcery is a simple and natural thing. He would be greatly\n     surprised if one were to come and tell him that a certain god\n     might, if he chose, stop the machines and extinguish the lights\n     when the electricity had been turned on; he would reply that this\n     anarchistic god would be simply a misplaced gearing or a broken\n     wire, and that it would be easy for him to seek and find this\n     disturbing god. The practice of the modern factory teaches\n     scientific determinism to the wage-worker, without it being\n     necessary for him to pass through the theoretic study of the\n     sciences.\n\nEarth must be a hell as long as we allow the capitalist system to\ncontinue on it and to enslave the vast majority of its inhabitants.\nMarxian socialism will ring out the old era with its hell of human\nslavery and ring in the new era with its heaven of machine slavery.\n\nOne point must be grasped and held by all who would understand the\nchanges which take place within the social realm and it is this: they\nare due to the differences in the instrumentalities or machines by which\nthe necessities of life are produced.\n\nMan has risen above the lower animals which have common ancestors with\nhis own, because of the superiority of the hand by which he does things\nto the hands by which they do things. If a man's body in general and\nhand in particular were not a great improvement over the bodies and\nhands of the apes, his mind and morality would differ but little from\ntheirs.\n\nThe superiority of the civilization of this age over its predecessors is\na question of instrumentalities by which the efficiency of the hand is\nincreased.\n\nIf all the modern machinery were taken from this generation and replaced\nby the implements of the stone age the civilization of the next\ngeneration would begin to sink, and within a century it would reach the\nancient level.\n\nStrong expression is also given to the great truth upon which we are\nhere dwelling by the Socialist Party of Great Britain in its noteworthy\nManifesto:\n\n     Obviously, in order that there may be ideas and human history, two\n     material things must first be present: human beings, and food and\n     shelter for them. And the fundamental fact that is so seldom\n     realized is, that where, by what means, and how much, food and\n     shelter can be obtained, determines if, where, and how, man shall\n     live, and the forms his social institutions and ideas shall take.\n\n     It is, indeed, the very basis of Socialist philosophy that, in the\n     words of Frederick Engels:\n\n     \"In every historical epoch the prevailing mode of economic\n     production and exchange, and the social organization necessarily\n     following from it, form the basis upon which is built up, and from\n     which, alone can be explained, the political and intellectual\n     history of that epoch.\"\n\n     This materialist concept is the Socialist key to history. It is the\n     first principle of a science of society, and, being directly\n     antagonistic to all religious philosophy, it is destined to drive\n     this \"philosophy\" and all its superstitions from their last ditch.\n\nCivilization will not die with the death of the capitalist system of\nproduction any more than it did with the feudal system. It improved\nunder capitalism, because of the improvement in the machinery of\nproduction, and it is destined to continue its progress so long as new\nand better machines are made and this will be to the end.\n\nMarxian socialism is a machine optimism. Under this socialism the number\nand efficiency of machines would increase more rapidly than they have\nunder capitalism and feudalism, because its aim will be the production\nof commodities for use within the shortest time by the least exertion at\nthe slightest risk of injury.\n\nUp to the point of over production, that is, of glutting the markets, it\nis to the interest of capitalism to encourage improvements in machinery,\nbut the ability to do this has been reached, as is evident from what we\nhear at increasingly frequent intervals about an over production of\ncommodities.\n\nWhat machinery we now have renders it possible to produce more\ncommodities than can be sold without employing all the labor power. But\nthe idle, starving slave is a danger to the idle, surfeiting master.\nHence, under capitalism there can be no further development of\nmachinery, at least not on a large scale.\n\nAn industrial government would have for its aim to produce enough of\neverything for all with the least expenditure of energy and time. Hence,\nthe greatest benefactors and heroes under socialism would be the\ninventors of labor saving, leisure giving machinery.\n\nWe hear much about the mental superiority of the representatives of the\nmaster class over those of the slave class, but there is little or no\ntruth in it.\n\nOn the contrary, it can be shown that the invention of a great labor\nsaving, rapid-producing machine is, upon the whole, the greatest triumph\nof the human mind and that nearly all among such machines are invented,\nmade, operated, kept in order and improved by the laborer.\n\nMasters may be more cunning than slaves, but cunningness is not an\nevidence of a high order of intellectual power. Many of the lower\nanimals are quite the equals, if not indeed the superiors, of\ncapitalists in this quality, but no animal is the equal of any man, not\nto speak of the exceptionally skilled laborer, in the power to produce\nefficient machines for the production and distribution of the\nnecessities of life.\n\nRomanism began its career as a child of the feudal system for the\nproduction and distribution of commodities for the profit of the owners\nof the land and the means for its cultivation. The mission to which it\nwas born was the assistance of its father, feudalism, in robbing and\nenslaving the workers who tilled the soil, and never did a servant more\nfaithfully or efficiently perform a task during a longer period.\n\nProtestantism began its career as a child of the capitalistic system for\nthe production and distribution of commodities for the profit of the\nowners of the means and machines for their manufacturing. The mission to\nwhich it was born was the assistance of its father, capitalism, in\nrobbing and enslaving the workers, who make and operate the machines,\nand never did a servant more faithfully and efficiently perform a task\nin a larger or more fruitful field.\n\nHitherto all systems of economics have had the same soul, competition;\nand, because of it, every one among them has been a diabolical trinity\nof which lying is the father; robbing is the son, who proceeds from the\nfather; and murder is the spirit, who proceeds from the father and the\nson.\n\nLabor, \"the certain man\" of every nation, is half dead lying in the\nditch by the wayside, despoiled and wounded, the victim of capitalism,\nthe greatest liar, robber and murderer of all the ages.\n\nThe church is the archangel or prime minister through which this\nBeelzebub, capitalism, has done most of his lying, though within the\nlast hundred years the business has become so great that the office of\ncoadjutor to this archangel was created, and the press appointed to it.\n\nThe state is the archangel or prime minister through which this prince\nof devils, capitalism, has done most of his robbing and killing, though\nthe church has often taken a helpful hand in these departments of the\ndevil's work, the great work of converting earth into a hell.\n\nNearly all of the backwardness of the world and more than half of its\nunnecessary sufferings have been due to efforts to prevent changes in\nreligion and politics. Our nation is passing through the darkest period\nof its history because of such efforts on the part of the powers which\nbe in the state, and they are supported by those in the church.\n\nSpeaking of the change with which we are here especially concerned, the\none involved in the supplanting of an old economic system by a new,\nthere have been several revolutions due to such changes, and another is\ninevitable and imminent.\n\nWhen an economic system fails, as the capitalistic one is failing, to\nfeed, clothe and house the workers of the world who produce all foods,\nclothes and houses, the time when it must give place to another is\nmanifestly near at hand.\n\nCapitalism is failing in this, the only legitimate mission of an\neconomic system. It has indeed over-supplied the needs of about one in\nten, but in doing this it has shown partiality, for the remaining nine\nare left more or less foodless, clotheless and houseless, and this\nnotwithstanding they have done all the feeding, clothing and housing.\nThose favored by the system will not be able to prevent its overthrow by\nthose who are wronged.\n\nWith our materials, factories, railroads and skill, all should have\nenough and to spare of every necessity, but so far is this from being\nthe case that millions are insufficiently fed, clothed, housed and\nwarmed, and are doomed to a perpetual and exhaustive drudgery which\nleaves neither leisure nor energy for the cultivation of their soul\nlife.\n\nThe economical and statistical experts of our government's Department of\nLabor represent that the bare necessities of a comfortable and efficient\nlife for a family of five require an annual income of $1,500, and that\nthe simple luxuries, which are next to being indispensable, require an\nadditional $1,000, in all $2,500, per year.\n\nHow many American families of five have even the smaller of these sums\nat their disposal? The overwhelming majority have less than $1,000. Let\nus be honest with the peoples of other nations by ceasing to speak of\nour country as \"the land of plenty and the home of the free,\" until\nthere is a great change for the better.\n\nWage slavery may be prolonged by a military coercion but it cannot have\na successor in any other form of human slavery. Military coercion\nprolonged chattel slavery, and by so doing brought what is known as the\ndark ages upon the world. If wage slavery is to be prolonged by military\ncoercion the world must pass through a second dark age. The league of\nnations is fixing for this; but let us hope that this coalition will not\nstand and that wage slavery will soon be followed by machine slavery,\nthe form of slavery which will end human slavery; not until then shall\nwe have peace on earth and good will among men.\n\nThen they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into\npruning hooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither\nshall they learn war any more.\n\nDo you not now see with me that the christ of the world is not a\nconscious, personal god, but an unconscious, impersonal machine? It is\nthe machine of man, not a lamb of god, to which we may hopefully look\nfor the taking away of the sins of the world.\n\nIgnorance is the great misfortune of the world, its devil, and slavery\nis his hell. The machine is the redeemer who shall save man from this\ndevil and hell.\n\nYes, strange, even blasphemous, as the representation may seem, it is\nnevertheless true, the machine is the only name given under heaven\nwhereby the world can be saved.\n\nCivilization is salvation. The civilization which is salvation depends\non leisure and it on slavery, but so long as leisure is dependent upon\nthe slavery of man, civilization must be limited to a diminishing few.\n\nMarxian socialism is a movement towards the equalization and\nuniversalization of leisure by doing away with the master and slave\nclasses, through transference of slavery from man to machine.\n\nIf there is any truth in my naturalistic representation about the\ndependence of morality upon a system for the production of the\nnecessities of life, there is none in the supernaturalistic one, which\nmakes it dependent on any among the gods; and, what is true of the realm\nof morality is equally so of the realm of history, and this whether it\nbe the history of the universe in general or man in particular.\n\nLavoisier and Mayer showed that no god (Jesus, Jehovah, Allah, Buddha)\ncreated the universe out of nothing, for the matter and force which\nenter into its constitution are eternalities and universalities.\n\nKant and Laplace showed that the earth and the heavenly bodies were not\ncreated by any god at all, but evolved from gaseous nebulae.\n\nKepler and Newton showed that these bodies were not governed in their\nmotions by a god but by the law of gravitation.\n\nDarwin and Wallace showed that the species of animal and vegetable life\nwere not created by any among the gods, but evolved from a common\nprotoplasm.\n\nMarx and Engels showed that man's career has not been determined by any\namong the gods, but by his systems for producing and distributing the\nnecessities of life.\n\nThese ten men are the greatest teachers the world has had, and this is\nthe sum of all their great teachings: The universe is self-existing,\nself-sustaining and self-governing, having all the potentialities of its\nown life within itself, and what is true of it in general is equally so\nof all the phenomena which enter into its constitution, including man;\nwho, though he is the highest among them, is only a phenomenon, on a\nlevel with all the rest, not excepting the lowest. A microbe and a man\nare on the same footing, both as to their origin and destiny, and as to\ntheir having within themselves all power which is available for making\nthe most of their respective lives.\n\n  \"We are part\n  Of every rock and bird and beast and hill,\n  One with the things that prey on us,\n  And one with what we kill.\"\n\nDarwinism and Marxism constitute one gospel, the only true,\ncomprehensive and sufficient gospel which the world has ever had or can\nhave, and there is no hope for the future of mankind except in it. If it\nfails the world is lost, but it shall not and indeed cannot fail, for\nits words are so many acts or facts of nature.\n\nThere is no fact which is not such an act, and every such fact is a part\nof the one only law upon the knowing and doing of which terrestrial life\nand its happiness are wholly and solely dependent.\n\nYes, life, long life, happy life, all there is of such human life, or\ndivine life, (if there be any), depends entirely upon a knowledge of and\nconformity to this law which is the doing of nature, and not at all upon\nany law which is the willing of a god, if indeed there is such a law.\n\nNeither the religion nor the politics which enters into the constitution\nof Marxian or proletarian socialism is at all concerned about the heaven\nabove or the hell below the earth, if there are such places: but the\nconcern of both is wholly to ring out a hell from the earth and to ring\nin a heaven upon it.\n\nNor have the religion and politics which constitute this socialism the\nleast concern about the service of a celestial divinity (Jesus, Jehovah,\nAllah, Buddha or any other) by doing his will; but both are much\nconcerned with the service of humanity, which consists in rightly\nlearning, interpreting and using the laws of nature, wholly for the\npurpose of making the terrestrial lives of men, women and children as\nlong and happy as possible, and with absolutely no reference to any\ncelestial life which may be either above or below the earth.\n\nReligion and politics are the complementary and inseparable halves of\nthe social sphere, religion being its idealism and politics its\npracticalism.\n\nReligious idealism is a social soul of which the church should be the\nembodiment.\n\nPolitical practicalism is a social soul of which the state should be the\nembodiment.\n\nContrary to the representations of orthodox Christianism it is\nimpossible for any soul to exist without an embodiment.\n\nIn truth the body produces the soul, not the soul the body. We must have\nthe church and state in order that we may have their souls, idealism and\npracticalism.\n\n  Why, if the Soul can fling the Dust aside\n  And naked on the Air of Heaven ride,\n  Were't not a Shame--were't not a Shame for him\n  In this clay carcass crippled to abide?\n\n  --Omar.\n\n\nIV.\n\nThe church and the state are on the same level as to their origin and\nimportance. Both are human institutions and each is indispensable to the\nother. It is not at all desirable or possible to rid the world of\neither, but it is absolutely necessary that both should be\nrevolutionized, the church by having its bible and creed rewritten or at\nleast reinterpreted, on the basis of truth as it is revealed by nature,\nand the state by having its institutions reorganized on the basis of\nservice to all instead of only to those of a small class, the owner or\nmaster class.\n\nAll the idealistic aims of churches and all the practical undertakings\nof states should be directly concerned with the answer to three\nquestions: (1) the question as to how to reach the goal where\nterrestrial life shall in the case of each man, woman and child be as\nlong and happy as it is within the range of possibilities to make it, by\nthe fullest of attainable knowledge concerning the laws of nature; (2)\nthe question as to how to make the most successful endeavor universally\nto disseminate such knowledge, and (3) the question as to how\nresistlessly to persuade to the living of it.\n\nThese are the only concerns and aims of Marxian socialism and they\ncannot be promoted or even avowed by Christian socialists.\n\nThe great crime of the ages is the robbing of the producer of the basic\nnecessities of human life by the non-producer.\n\nCapitalism is the robber, and the politics and religion of the old\nstates and churches are the right and left hands by which he has been\nand is doing the robbing.\n\nMarxian socialism is an undertaking which has for its task the overthrow\nof the system which makes it possible for those who produce nothing to\nlive surfeitingly, and renders it necessary for those who produce\neverything to live starvingly.\n\nPoverty is a disease caused by the unjust wage system of competitive\ncapitalism for producing and distributing the necessities of life (food,\nclothing and shelter) for the profit of capitalists, the few who live by\nowning the materials and machines of production and distribution; and\nthis blighting malady cannot be cured by charity, but it will spread\nuntil this system is supplanted by the just one of co-operative\nindustrialism, a system by which these necessities shall be produced\nand distributed for the use of laborers, those who live by making and\noperating the machines.\n\nEvery gift to charity by a rich man is a robbery of a poor man. You will\nnot see this at once, if ever, and I shall not blame you for the failure\nto do so. It was not seen by me until I was much older than you; but I\nam now seeing it as clearly as I ever saw the sun on a cloudless\nnoonday, and this is true of rapidly growing millions who are resolutely\nresolved to do away with the prevailing conception of charity, according\nto which capitalists may rob laborers of the fruit of their toil, giving\nthem of it barely enough to keep body and soul together and to raise up\nchildren who are doomed to follow in their footsteps; and then, when the\nstrength of their victim fails, to make amends for the robberies, by\ngiving the most highly favored among them beds in hospitals, poor-houses\nin which to die prematurely, and nameless graves in potter's fields in\nwhich to await hopefully a resurrection and ascension to an inheritance\nof happiness in a sky, which was denied them on the earth.\n\nThe time is at hand when everywhere the unemployed and the underpaid\nshall begin a resistless march towards the goal of economic levelism\nunder a banner containing this slogan: We want no charity but the right\nto work and the fruits of our labors that we and our helpless dependents\nmay have every necessity to the fullest life for body and soul.\n\nDuring more than a whole generation Mrs. Brown and I have not produced a\nspoonful of any food, a thread of any garment or a shingle of any house;\nand yet we have had foods, garments and houses in abundance with some to\nspare, while their producers have had them in scarcity with much to\nwant.\n\nWhile the world war was on, an ill wind for the producers blew a\nthousand dollars to us and an ill wind for us blew it into the hands of\na committee, ostensibly for investment on behalf of a hospital of which\nwe approved, but really for the purchase of a bond in the interest of a\nwar of which we disapproved.\n\nThe fathers of the present generation of producers and distributors of\nthe necessities of life were robbed in order that we might inherit the\nproperty from which our income is derived; the sons and daughters are\nbeing robbed over and over again and again, year after year, in order\nthat the property may continue to yield this income to us.\n\nWe therefore paid nothing of our own for this bond. What we gave for it\nwas of the spoils which the great robber, capitalism, has bestowed upon\nus, its favorite children, from what it has taken from its unfortunate\nvictims.\n\nThe same persons or their children and successors were or shall be\nrobbed first to create our property, then to pay the income of it, next\nto buy the bond, and now they are being robbed to meet the interest on\nit and finally they will be robbed to pay its face value. If capitalism\nstands, of course the victims of the last of these robberies will\nbelong, probably, to a remote generation; but this delay is a misfortune\nin store for many of all intervening generations.\n\nIf the robbery connected with this bond were limited to its original\ncost, one thousand dollars, and to its accruing interest, which is\nlikely in time to aggregate several thousand dollars, it would indeed\nbe bad enough, yet not nearly as much so as it is under the melancholy\ncircumstances; for the money paid on account of the bond goes towards\nkilling or wrecking its producers, if not those who produced this\nparticular thousand dollars, yet others of their class to whom the world\nowes all of its wealth; therefore the thousand dollars which went into\nthis bond has been devoted to the robbery of those who were robbed of it\nand of the most precious of all things: life and limb.\n\nYou will ask: how can you and Mrs Brown, in the face of your theory,\naccording to which all who live by owning are robbers of those who live\nby working, consistently receive and expend the income of your\ninheritance?\n\nThe answer was given to a friend who asked us why we did not follow the\nheroic example of a young American who had recently renounced what had\nbeen inherited by him, and this is, in effect, what we said:\n\nAs we look at the question, our course is more rational than his,\nbecause the wealth which he renounces may go to some one who is without\nhis sympathy for the proletariat. We prefer to receive our inheritance\nand use it to overthrow the economic system which makes it possible for\nus to do nothing and have everything, and for those who do everything to\nhave nothing.\n\nCapitalists, as such, people who live by the owning of the machines of\nproduction and distribution, instead of by the making and operating of\nthem, have much to say against the alleged anarchism of socialists and\nyet they are necessarily what they accuse anarchism of being, robbers\nand murderers. Every cent of profit, interest and rent is so much\nrobbing, and all wars are so many conflicts between the capitalistic\nbandits or robbers in the countries involved, and the peace conferences,\nwhich follow them, are so many attempts of the bandits on the successful\nside to have the spoils as large as possible, and to satisfactorily\ndivide them.\n\nIt is Holy Week 1921. The week in which during all the years of many and\nlong ages benighted people sacrificed their Christs to Shylock gods. If\nJesus lived and was a Christ, unhappily He was neither the first nor the\nlast, for there were many both before and after Him. Were they who\nsuperstitiously led these victims to their Golgothas greater sinners\nagainst humanity than those who did avariciously during the war drive\nlarge armies of young men to the terrible trenches, a wholesale\nsacrifice of the lords of power and wealth and who do now drive the vast\nmajority of the nations involved in that war to a terrible body and soul\ndestroying poverty and slavery? No. The modern robbers even more than\nthe ancient ones are in need of the prayer: Forgive them for they know\nnot what they do.\n\nCommunism and Christianism have, indeed, this in common, that their\nobject is to promote life, long life, and happy life, both lives in a\nlarge and full measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over.\n\nYet, with this sameness in the gospels of Communism and Christianism\nthere is this difference in the aims of the christs who preached them,\nwhich separate them as widely as the east is from the west, leaving a\ngreat and impassable gulf between them.\n\nMarx, the christ of the Communist gospel, said: I am come that the\nworld might have terrestrial life for body, mind and soul, and have it\nfor each in the fullest of possible measures by co-operation with each\nother in the discovery of the laws of nature and in making them serve\nmen, women and children by securing for them food, clothing, shelter,\nhealth and comfort for the body, and leisure for the mind to think and\nfor the soul to grow.\n\nJesus, the christ of the Christian gospel, according to orthodoxy, said:\nI am come that ye might have celestial life for mind, body and soul and\nhave it for each in the largest and fullest possible measure by\nco-operation in persuading each other in particular and the world in\ngeneral to receive a revelation of the will of a conscious, personal\nGod, made through prophets, preserved in the bible and interpreted by\nthe church.\n\nWith me it is a melancholy but resistless and deepening conviction,\nthat, if orthodox Christianism should become associated with Marxian\nsocialism, as Kingsley and you would associate them, we should soon have\na glaring illustration of the truth of two proverbs: a house divided\nagainst itself cannot stand; and no man can serve two masters.\n\nMoreover, I believe that if Christian socialism were to become a door to\nMarxian socialism, through which orthodox Christianism could enter and\nmake itself at home, the revolutionary aims of the slave class would be\nthwarted and the world would enter upon a new dark age, as it did when\nConstantine was converted to Christianity and Christians became the most\nloyal citizens and valiant soldiers of the Empire.\n\nAt that time chattel slavery had run its course as wage slavery has\nnow; and, if it had not been prolonged by a military despotism, as I\nfear this may be, the world would have had something of the feudal\nslavery, but nothing of the dark age. This age was the baneful fruit of\nChristianism. Christianity has held the world back from civilization\ninstead of advancing it towards civilization.\n\nThe Christianization of Marxian communism, in accordance with the\nprogram of Kingsley and our Church Socialist League, would spell another\nmilitary despotism for the prolongation of a second system of slavery,\nwhich has run its course and is in a fair way of being overthrown; but\nif the revolutionists fail, as the result of being trampled under the\niron heel, we are at the threshold of a second dark age and shall soon\nbe passing through all the miseries of it.\n\nMy interest in the movement within our church looking towards a\nChristian socialism of a more radical and revolutionary type would be\ngreat, if only I could feel as I should so much like, that the Christian\nsocialism to which you have consecrated the whole prime of your life,\nand the Marxian socialism, to which I have consecrated all of the little\nthat remains of mine, the fag-end, are not utter incompatibilities, so\nmuch so that it is absolutely impossible that they can co-exist and\nco-operate to any good purpose.\n\nThe irreconcilable incompatibility of Christian socialism and Marxian\nsocialism is due to the fact that, whereas the Christian is essentially\nimperialistic in its character, the Marxian is as essentially\ndemocratic. The reason for this fundamental and ineradicable difference,\nand the consequent incompatibleness, is the fact that orthodoxism,\nwhether Christian, Jewish, Mohammedan or Buddhistic, is nothing unless\nit is supernaturalistic and traditional; and Marxism is nothing unless\nit is naturalistic and scientific, as much so as is Darwinism.\n\nIn order that you may see the reason, as I understand it, for this wide,\ndeep and bridgeless difference, I draw the following contrasts between\nthe essential beliefs of Marxian socialists and orthodox Christians:\n\n1. Marxian socialism is essentially naturalistic. Orthodox Christianism\nis essentially supernaturalistic. The consistent socialist says: I have\nall the potentialities of my own life within myself. The consistent\nChristian says: My strength is from God.\n\n2. Marxian socialism is essentially classless. Orthodox Christianism is\nessentially a class system by which the world is divided into two\nclasses, saints and sinners. The consistent socialist says: Every man is\nmy brother. The consistent Christian (like the theist of every\nname--Jew, Mohammedan, Buddhist and the rest) says: Every true believer\nis my brother, but those who are not are only potential brethren.\n\n3. Marxian socialism is essentially terrestrial. Orthodox Christianism\nis essentially celestial. The consistent socialist says: Earth is my\nhome. The consistent Christian says: Heaven is my home.\n\n4. Marxian socialism is essentially materialistic. Orthodox Christianism\nis essentially spiritualistic. The consistent socialist says: The basic\nnecessities of life, and therefore its first concern, are foods,\nraiments, shelters, comfort and leisure. The consistent Christian says:\nTake no primary thought for these, but only for faith in and obedience\nto God, regarding all else of secondary importance.\n\n5. Marxian socialism is essentially proletarian. Orthodox Christianism\nis essentially bourgeois. The consistent socialist says: I am, by reason\nof my antecedents, a man, a woman, a child of nature on an essential\nlevel as to my origin and destiny with every other representative of\nhumanity and indeed animality. The consistent Christian, like the theist\nof every name, says: I am (by reason of my faith, baptism or conversion)\na prince or princess, the son or daughter of a king, God.\n\n6. Marxian socialism is essentially democratic. Orthodox Christianism is\nessentially imperialistic. The consistent socialist says: I live with\nreference to the will of the majority. The consistent Christian says: I\nlive with reference to the will of a God.\n\n7. Marxian socialism is essentially pacific.[F] Orthodox Christianism is\nessentially belligerent. The consistent socialist says: Since you are a\nman, I co-operate with you. The consistent Christian says: Since you\nare not a believer, I contend with you.\n\n8. Marxian socialism is essentially non-sectarian. The consistent\nsocialist says: All the world is my home and the desire and effort to\nrender service to men, women and children is my religion. The consistent\nChristian says: Only Christendom is my home and the desire and effort to\nserve a God is my religion.\n\n9. Marxian socialism is, as to the source of knowledge and the means of\nattaining it, essentially scientific. Orthodox Christianism is\nessentially traditional. The consistent socialist says: The salvation of\nthe world is dependent upon what is learned by natural experience,\nobservation and investigation about the doings of a matter-force-law,\nnature. The consistent Christian says: This salvation depends upon what\nis learned by revelation, tradition and inspiration about the willings\nof a father-son-spirit, God.\n\n10. Marxian socialism explains the history of mankind on the\nnaturalistic theory that it has been determined during every period by\nthe existing system for supplying the materialistic necessities of life.\nOrthodox Christianism explains this history on the supernaturalistic\ntheory that it is determined by the providential directions of a triune\ndivinity. The consistent socialist says: If you will tell me of the\neconomic system by which a people have fed, clothed and housed\nthemselves, I will tell you, at least in general outline, what has been\ntheir history. The consistent Christian says: If you will tell me what\nthe providences of my God have been towards a people, I will tell you\ntheir history.\n\n11. Marxian socialism has inscribed on one of its banners: Liberty.\nOrthodox Christianism has this inscription on its corresponding banner:\nObedience. The consistent socialist says: This Liberty-banner is the\nsymbol of my freedom as a son of man to be progressively learning,\nliving and teaching the unfolding revelations of nature--to know and to\nlive which is to have life, terrestrial life in an ever increasing\nmeasure, all the life there is here and now or elsewhere and elsewhen,\nif there is to be a conscious, personal life anywhere or anywhen else.\nThe consistent Christian says: This Obedience-banner is a symbol of my\nslavery as a son of God by which I am bound to receive, live and teach\nthe faith once for all delivered to the saints in the Old and New\nTestaments or else lose the permanent life in the sky which is to follow\nthis temporary one on the earth.\n\n12. Marxian socialism has inscribed on another of its banners: Justice\nto Man. Orthodox Christianism has on its corresponding banner: Love to\nGod. The consistent socialist says: It is my aim to do unto others as I\nwould have them do unto me if our circumstances were reversed. The\nconsistent Christian says: It is my aim to love God with all my heart,\nmind and soul.\n\nAnd if there be any further contrast between this Christianism and\nSocialism, it is briefly comprehended in these three statements,--in\nthemselves sufficient to show how absolutely impossible it is for a\nconsistent Jesuine Christian to be a consistent Marxian Socialist:\n\n1. Marx seeks to save by doing away with both the master and slave\nclasses--Jesus by exalting the slave class above the master class.\n\n2. Marx exhorts the slave class to look to itself for\ndeliverance--Jesus taught it to look to a God for this.\n\n3. Marx promises salvation for this world here and now, a world about\nwhich everybody knows much--Jesus promised it for another world\nelsewhere and elsewhen, a world about which nobody knows anything.\n\nThe world has never had a gospel which is at all comparable in its\nexcellency to that of Marxian Socialism. The gospel of Jesuine\nChristianism, according to the orthodox interpretation of it, is no\nexception; for, granting it to be superior to the Mosaic, Buddhistic,\nMohammedan and other gospels, it is, nevertheless, almost infinitely\ninferior to the Marxian gospel. Gospels are for the purpose of saving\nthe world from its suffering. The Jesuine and Marxian gospels are alike\nin having for their object the salvation of the proletarian world.\n\n\nV.\n\nAbout three years ago I discovered that I had spent a long, strenuous\nand open-handed ministry in preaching lies to the permanent ruin of my\nhealth and the temporary embarrassment of my purse; therefore I had the\nunhappy experience of being forced to see that all this part of my life,\nits prime, had been mostly, if not wholly wasted and worse. What was to\nbe done?\n\nMy friends told me as plainly as they could, and some succeeded in\nmaking it brutally plain, that in losing my faith in the\nsupernaturalistic dogmas of traditional Christianism, as they are\nliterally interpreted in the doctrinal standards of the orthodox\nchurches, I had lost the pearl of great price.\n\nMy soul told me that I had never possessed this jewel, but that, even\nwith the little time and enfeebled strength that remained to me, I might\nyet find it, if only I should cease looking for it in the field of\nsupernaturalism, under the direction of divine authority, and begin\nlooking for it in the field of naturalism, under the direction of human\nreason.\n\nHappily, where faith went out courage came in, and it increased with my\ndesperation until (though standing on the shore of death where the deep\nand unknown stream lies darkly between the present and future) I could\nand I did undertake the supreme task of my life--the breaking of the\nchains by which I was bound as a slave to the degrading superstition\nthat I was, both by an inherited and cultivated disposition, a doomed\nman, and by an inherent weakness, a helpless one with no power to\nemancipate myself.\n\nOf such enslaving chains I mention three among the strongest, the\nsevered parts of which, with those of all the rest, now lie scattered\nabout me: (1) the chain of the fear of God; (2) the chain of the fear of\nthe devil, and (3) the chain of the fear of man.\n\nHitherto I had been a child, thinking as a child, understanding as a\nchild and speaking as a child.\n\nHenceforth I was to be a man, the greatest, conscious, personal being\nwho has anything to do with this world; and as a man, I put away the\nthings of a child, especially the most childish of all things, fear, the\nfear of God, the fear of devil and the fear of man.\n\nPreachers of the supernaturalistic interpretations of religion say that\nthe fear of God is salvation. It is damnation. No one who has fear of\nany conscious, personal master whomsoever or wheresoever, God in heaven,\ndevil in hell or man on earth, is free or other than a slave. Nor has\nany such attained to the full stature of manhood.\n\nThere is only one fear which saves and that is the fear of ignorance.\nThe world's destroyer-god is ignorance. There is no other devil on earth\nor in hell below it, and this one lives, moves and has his being in the\nfear of knowledge.\n\nThe world's saviour-god is knowledge. There is no other Christ on earth\nor in any heaven above it, and this one lives, moves and has his being\nin the fear of ignorance.\n\nHappily, I listened to my soul and I have found the pearl of great\nprice, yes, a whole bed of them, so that I am now in position to\nsubstitute in my preaching a truth for every lie I used to preach, and\nthus save myself; but woe unto me unless I make the substitution by\nringing out the lie and ringing in the truth.\n\nWithin the last three years I have learned that, as I have not been,\nsince the beginning of my Christian ministry, more than a generation\nago, a producer, I have nothing of my own to give to charity, and what\nis true of me is true of Mrs. Brown.\n\nNo one is a producer who does not grow things on the farm, make things\nin a shop, discover things in a laboratory or render some necessary or\nhelpful service to those who do such things. I have done nothing of the\nkind. If I had been preaching truths I might have rendered such\nservice, but I preached lies.\n\nEvery possession rightfully belongs to the productive worker and nothing\nto the unproductive idler. This is one of the two greatest and most\nsalutary among all the truths known to mankind. Recently I made\nacknowledgment of it on the pledges to a good cause, that of the Red\nCross, by writing on their upper left hand corners: \"The gift of Unknown\nLaborers through Bishop and Mrs. Brown, whose possessions are the fruits\nof their enforced toil and sacrifices.\"\n\nBy this acknowledgment I rang out a great lie--the lie which makes the\nsalvation of the world depend upon the capitalists with their servants,\nthe preachers on the right and the politicians on the left hand.\n\nSalvation or, what is the same reality, civilization, always has been\nand always will be dependent upon the producer. It will never be\nattained until the laboring class has done away with the capitalist\nclass. The ideal civilization (which is the salvation of the world from\nits unnecessary sufferings, especially the overwhelming ones due to the\ngreat trinity of evils, war, poverty and slavery) is in the very nature\nof things an impossibility on the basis of class sectarianism, such as\nwe have even in our Anglo-American Christianity, the best interpretation\nof traditional religion, and in our American democracy, the best\ninterpretation of traditional politics.\n\nAmong the pathetic things about war, there is this, the laboring class\nmakes by far the greater sacrifices, not only of life and limb, but also\nof money.\n\nQuite contrary to the general impression, capitalists, as such, pay no\npart of the enormous and ruinous pecuniary cost of war. When Mr.\nRockefeller pays out three million dollars in war taxes he is disposing\nof what rightfully belongs to laborers, because they, not he, earned it.\nCapitalists, as such, neither earn nor pay anything, in time of either\nwar or peace.\n\nSo much for one of the two great truths. The other, which is the greater\nbecause it includes its companion, is this: Man has within himself all\nthe potentialities of his own life. This is true of the universe as a\nwhole, and, therefore, necessarily so of all that therein is.\n\nThe sum of both truths is that the salvation of the world is wholly\ndependent upon productive laborers and that they must look individually\nonly to the exertion of their own mental and physical powers and\ncollectively to co-operation with each other for the accomplishment of\ntheir mission.\n\nThrough the whole of my past ministry in the field I rang out these\ngreat truths and rang a great lie in by representing that the salvation\nof the world depends upon a potentiality which is in the sky and not in\nman, that heaven is above the earth and hell below it, not on it.\n\nWhen I commenced my present ministry in the study,\n\n  I sent my Soul through the Invisible,\n  Some letter of that After-life to spell;\n  And by and by my Soul return'd to me,\n  And answer'd 'I Myself am Heaven and Hell!'\n\nOmar, the poetic astronomer, might have added a stanza which would have\nclosed. \"I myself am God.\" This is, in effect, what Jesus did say: \"I\nand my Father are one.\" This is as true of you and me and of every man,\nwoman and child as it was of Jesus.\n\nAnd Jesus represented that God, both as Father and Son, dwells in the\nhearts of believers. But every relevant fact which has been\nscientifically established as such (and there is a whole mountain of\nsuch facts) points to the conclusion that Christians are no more divine\nthan other people, and that, as to his essential nature, no man would be\nless divine than he is if Jesus had never been born.\n\nGods in the skies (Jesus, Jehovah, Allah, Buddha) are all right as\nsubjective symbols of human potentialities and attributes and of natural\nlaws, even as the Stars and Stripes on a pole, Uncle Sam in the capitol\nand Santa Claus in a sleigh are all right as such symbols; but such gods\nare all wrong, if regarded as objective realities existing independently\nof those who created them as divinities and placed them in celestial\nhabitations.\n\nWhat is true of the gods is equally so of all the supernaturalistic\ndogmas of the several traditional interpretations of religion. Insofar\nas they are not pure superstitions they are symbols of imaginary events\nwhich people think should or must have occurred in the past or should or\nmust occur in the future; not statements of historical events which have\noccurred or are to occur.\n\nSo far I have not found it necessary to renounce the Christian God or\nany of the things which go with him and I have no idea of doing this,\nany more than I have of renouncing the American Uncle Sam and the things\nwhich go with him, but I place the Brother Jesus of the Christian\nreligion and the Uncle Sam of the American politics on the same footing\nwith each other and with others of their kind as subjective realities. I\ncould be a Jew and an Englishman as conscientiously as a Christian and\nan American. Many of the early Christians were also Pagans, worshippers\nof other Gods than Jesus.\n\nNor is this all or even much more than half of my religious and\npolitical levelism.\n\nOn the one hand as a religionist I can be any and everything but an\northodox sectarian. This orthodoxy is a libel against humanity. The\nworld owes to it a great part of all its unnecessary troubles--those\nwhich are brought about by the triune devil of persecution, ignorance\nand superstition.\n\nOn the other hand as a politician I can be any and everything but a\nnationalistic sectarian. This nationalism is a libel against humanity.\nThe world owes to it a great part of all its unnecessary troubles--those\nwhich are brought upon it by the triune devil of war, poverty and\nslavery.\n\nHoping that you will abandon Jesuine socialism for Marxian communism and\njoin me in an effort to banish the fictitious, superstitious gods from\nthe skies and the lying, robbing capitalists from the earth, I am with\nevery good wish,\n\nVery cordially yours,\nWM. M. BROWN.\n\nBrownella Cottage,\nGalion, Ohio.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[D] This letter was written in July, 1919, and sent to the press in\nSeptember, 1920. In the interim several of its representations and\narguments were made more complete: therefore, some among the additions\nbear the marks of dates belonging to later months.\n\n[E] According to the showing of the science of biblical criticism there\nis more than one Jesus of whom we have an account in the New Testament:\n(1) a naturalistic, this-worldly, pacific, human Jesus, and (2) a\nsupernaturalistic, other-worldly, belligerent, divine Jesus, the Jesus\nof orthodox Christians.\n\n[F] This shall be true of Marxian socialism when it is triumphant, but\nit will not be so while it is persecuted. Socialist Russia has asked for\npeace after every war which the capitalist nations (England, France,\nItaly and America) have waged against her, not because she could no\nlonger defend herself, but for the reason that her socialism, being\nco-operative in its character, necessarily imposes humaneness; yet they\ncould not grant it, because their capitalism, being competitive in its\ncharacter, as necessarily imposes inhumaneness. The hand of the\ncapitalist world is aggressively against socialist Russia, and must be,\nbecause the life of capitalism depends upon her death: and her hand is\ndefensively against all the capitalist nations. Capitalism and socialism\ncannot occupy the earth together. Either the one or the other must have\nall of it. Mankind in general is illustrating the truth of the proverb\nwhich has been illustrated by so many families in particular--a house\ndivided against itself cannot stand.\n\n\n\n\nTHE GRAND MARCH\n\nBy Helen Keller\n\n\nThe hour has struck for the Grand March! Onward, Comrades, all together!\nFall in line! Start the New Year with a cheer! Let us join the world's\nprocession marching toward a glad tomorrow. Strong of hope and brave in\nheart the West shall meet the East! March with us, brothers every one!\nMarch with us to all things new! Climb with us the hills of God to a\nwider, holier life. Onward, Comrades, all together, onward to meet the\nDawn!\n\nLeave behind you doubts and fears! What need have we for \"ifs\" and\n\"buts\"? Away with parties, schools and leagues! Get together, keep in\nstep, shoulder to shoulder, hearts throbbing as one! Face the future,\nout-daring all you have dared! March on, O Comrades, strong and free,\nout of darkness, out of silence, out of hate and custom's deadening\nsway! Onward, Comrades, all together, onward to the wind-blown Dawn!\n\nWith us shall go the New Day, shining behind the dark. With us shall go\nPower, Knowledge, Justice, Truth. The time is full! A new world awaits\nus. Its fruits, its joys, its opportunities are ours for the taking!\nFear not the hardships of the road--the storm, the parching heat or\nwinter's cold, hunger or thirst or ambushed foe! There are bright lights\nahead of us, leave the shadows behind! In the East a new star is risen!\nWith pain and anguish the Old Order has given birth to the New, and\nbehold, in the East a man-child is born! Onward, Comrades, all together!\nOnward to the camp-fires of Russia! Onward to the coming Dawn!\n\nThrough the night of our despair rings the keen call of the New Day. All\nthe powers of darkness could not still that shout of joy in far-away\nMoscow! Meteor-like through the heavens flashed the golden words of\nlight, \"Soviet Republic of Russia\". Words sun-like piercing the dark,\njoyous radiant love-words banishing hate, bidding the teeming world of\nmen to wake and live! Onward, Comrades, all together, onward to the\nbright, redeeming Dawn!\n\nWith peace and brotherhood make sweet the bitter way of men! Today, and\nall the days to come, repeat the Word of Him who said, \"Thou shall not\nkill\". Send on psalming winds the angel-chorus, \"Peace on earth,\ngood-will to men\". Onward march, and keep on marching until His Will on\nearth is done! Onward, Comrades, all together, onward to the life-giving\nfountain of Dawn!\n\nAll along the road beside us throng the peoples sad and broken, weeping\nwomen, children hungry, homeless like little birds cast out of their\nnest. With their hearts aflame, untamed, glorying in martyrdom they hail\nus passing quickly, \"Halt not, O Comrades, yonder glimmers the star of\nour hope, the red-centered dawn in the East! Halt not, lest you perish\nere you reach the Land of Promise\". Onward, Comrades, all together,\nonward to the sun-red Dawn!\n\n[Illustration: KARL MARX]\n\n[Illustration: CHARLES DARWIN]\n\n\n\n\nCOMMUNISM AND CHRISTIANISM\n\nANALYZED AND CONTRASTED FROM THE MARXIAN AND DARWINIAN POINTS OF VIEW\n\n\n\n\nPART II.\n\n\nChristianism: A Supernaturalistic Other-worldly Gospel for the Passing\nAge of Class Inequality and Economic Slavery--An Open Letter to a\nChristian Theologian and Brother Churchman.\n\n     Revolutionize capitalism out of state and orthodoxy out of church.\n\n\n\n\nFOREWORD[G]\n\n\nThe contradiction in terms known as the Christian Socialist is\ninevitably antagonistic to working-class interests and the waging of the\nclass struggle. His policy (that of the Christian Socialist) is the\nconciliation of classes, the fraternity of robber and robbed, not the\nend of classes. His avowed object, indeed, is usually to purge the\nSocialist movement of its materialism, and this means to purge it of its\nSocialism and to divert it from its material aims to the fruitless\nchasing of spiritual will-o'-the-wisps. A Christian Socialist is, in\nfact, an anti-Socialist.\n\nClearly, then, the basis of Socialist philosophy is utterly incompatible\nwith religious ideas; indeed, the latter have been reduced to their\nlogical absurdity in what is called \"Christian Science.\"\n\nMoreover, the consistent Christian, if such exists, could look upon the\nexisting world only as an essential part of God's plan, to be accounted\nfor only through God, and modified at God's pleasure. He could regard\nthose who sought the explanation of social conditions in purely natural\ncauses, and who also sought to take advantage of economic development in\norder to turn this vale of tears into a pleasant garden, only as men who\ndenied by their acts the very basis of his faith.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[G] From the Official Manifesto by the Socialist Party of Great Britain,\nshowing the Antagonism between Socialism and Religion.\n\n\n\n\nCHRISTIANISM: A SUPERNATURALISTIC OTHER-WORLDLY GOSPEL FOR THE PASSING\nAGE OF CLASS INEQUALITY AND ECONOMIC SLAVERY.\n\n     Come over and help us. Abandon Reformatory for Revolutionary\n     Socialism.\n\n\nMy Dear Brother:\n\nYour letter (April 1st, 1920) enclosing an essay, entitled, Is There a\nGod, came duly to hand and I thank you warmly for it. The essay is a\nmasterpiece and I hope you can let me keep this copy, or make another\nfor myself, for reference when I am writing or conversing on its lines,\nas is frequently the case.\n\n\nI.\n\nIn the dispute between yourself and friend of which you speak, you are\naltogether right and he is entirely wrong. In the last analysis it is a\ndisputation as to whether or not the Jewish-Christian bible contains an\ninfallible revelation from an omniscient being, a triune god, Father,\nSon and Spirit. It does not.\n\nAs an objectivity there is no such divinity. He is a subjectivity\nexisting in the imagination of orthodox Christians. You do not agree\nwith me in this, but every day of thought and study deepens the\nconviction that it is true. None among the gods of the supernaturalistic\ninterpretations of religion are objectivities. The lesser ones are\ngenerally ghosts of dead men, and the greater ones are as generally\nversions of the sun-myth.\n\nThe one god of the Jews and the triune god of the Christians, if taken\nseriously, are superstitions; and the bible revelations of their\nwillings and records of their doings, if taken literally, are lies.\n\nBoth the Old and New Testaments are utterly worthless as history. The\ntwelve patriarchs of the Jewish God, Jehovah, are not historical\npersonages, but myths, and this is true of the twelve apostles of the\nChristian God, Jesus.\n\nYes, the Old Testament is the Jewish version of the immemorial and\nuniversal sun-myth, rewritten several times for the purpose, not of\ntelling any truth, but of imposing the fiction that Jehovah and his\npeople constitute the greatest procession that ever came down the pike\nof supernaturalism. The New Testament is the Christian version of the\nsame myth, only with the view of showing that Jehovah and the Jews were\nnot, but Jesus and Christians are, this procession.\n\nIn itself, the sun-myth, as symbolism, is not only poetically beautiful,\nbut also scientifically true; yet, as literalism, it is in the case of\nthe ignorant, superstition, and in the case of the educated,\nself-deception.\n\nThe sun is, in a very literal and real sense, the creator-god in whom\nthis world lives, moves and has its being; and he is the saviour-god who\nwas born of a virgin nebula, and every winter descends into hell and\nrises from the dead (the southern solstice) by a new birth and ascends\ninto heaven to be seated at the right hand of the father (the sky) at\nthe northern solstice, and finally he is the illuminator god who\nlighteth every man that cometh into the world.\n\nAnd the apostles who preached the gospel of the redemption of the world\nare the twelve signs of the zodiac through which the sun apparently\npasses in its annual ascension to the summer solstice and descension to\nthe winter solstice.\n\nNor is this all: \"the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the\nworld\" is the sign of the zodiac, Aries (sheep, ram) through which the\nsun passes towards the end of March, when all the saviour-gods annually\ndied and rose again. The rising symbolizes the return of the sun towards\nthe northern solstice from the southern one, upon which return seed-time\nand harvest are dependent, without which the world would perish, not\nindeed by sin but by starvation.\n\nJehovah is the sun-myth rewritten to fit in with the ideals and hopes of\nthe owning, master class of the Jews.\n\nJesus is the sun-myth rewritten to fit in with the ideals and hopes of\nthe owning master class of the Christians.\n\nThe Christian god, Jesus, is an improvement upon the Jewish god,\nJehovah, because of the division of labor. The task of the owning master\nclass is a twofold one, the robbing of the weak owners by the strong\nones in wars, and the robbing of the slaves by the masters which under\nthe capitalist system is done in surplus profits.\n\nJehovah serves Christians as the god of war. In his name they wage wars,\neither as groups within a nation having different commercial interests,\nas in the case of the Civil War of the United States, or as nations\nagainst nations with different commercial interests, as in the case of\nthe Revolutionary war of the Colonies with England, or the World War of\nthe Allied countries with the Central ones.\n\nJesus serves Christians as the god of slavery. When they have\nsuccessfully waged a war of conquest, as the Pilgrim Fathers did against\nthe Indians of America, or when they have appropriated all the means and\nmachines of production, as the capitalists have everywhere, they\nreconcile the propertyless to a terrestrial hell of toil, want, sorrow\nand slavery by preaching the Jesuine gospel of hope for a celestial\nheaven of eternal rest, joy, plenty and freedom.\n\n  \"Some for the Glories of This World; and some\n  Sigh for the Prophet's Paradise to come;\n  Ah, take the Cash, and let the Credit go,\n  Nor heed the rumble of a distant Drum.\"\n\nIn remaking the Jewish god to suit their purposes of robbing and\nenslaving, the Christian owning master class provided for a further\ndivision of his work by creating the Holy Ghost, who devotes himself to\nthe giving of new revelations of the will of Jehovah and interpreting\nthe earlier ones as they are recorded in the bible.\n\nIt is generally supposed that the masters are the strong people of the\nworld, but they are not. Labor is really the giant, the Samson, and it\nwould be impossible for the pigmy, capital, to rob him, but for his lack\nof knowledge. The Holy Ghost sees to it that the slave class is kept in\nignorance.\n\nThe English-German, or if you prefer, the German-English war has been an\neye-opener to the giant, labor, and capital is ruined unless he can get\nhim to sleep again.\n\nCapital knows that Marx was right in characterizing the orthodox\ninterpretations of religion, including the Christian one, and especially\nit, as a sleeping potion.\n\nThe churches were the dormitories in which the slaves slept through the\nnight of the dark ages of traditionalism, but the light of the age of\nscientism is breaking upon the world and most of the slaves have left\nthe churches and are now beyond the reach of their care-takers, the\npreachers.\n\nWhen I wrote the Level Plan for Church Union, I believed that the coming\ntogether of the churches would prove to be a blessing to the world, but\nI am now persuaded that it would be a curse, because the league of\nchurches would co-operate with the league of nations in its robbing and\nenslaving schemes, the churches doing the lying and the nations the\ncoercing.\n\nWe are living in the age of scientism and, in the case of its true sons\nand daughters, only scientifically demonstrated facts count in any\nargumentation.\n\nFrom the scientific point of view it is seen that there is but one\nuniversal Kingdom of Life, Nature. This kingdom may be divided into\nthree, perhaps four, states constituting the United States of Life: the\nmineral, the vegetable, the animal and the human.\n\nBeginning with the highest, each of these states, except the lowest, is\ndependent upon the next lower. The only independent autonomous state in\nthe kingdom is the mineral. This is the greatest both as to its extent\nand importance. It is the common source of every supply of all the\nstates of life, and the seat of each of their governments.\n\nAll theologians and some metaphysicians postulate a fifth state of\nlife, the divine, placing it above the rest as their source.\n\nComte, who preceded Marx as a social philosopher, and who is the founder\nof modern socialism of the reformatory type, as Marx is of the\nrevolutionary one, had this to say about the theologians, metaphysicians\nand scientists, and he was right:\n\n     From the study of the development of human intelligence, in all\n     directions, and through all times, the discovery arises of a great\n     fundamental law, to which it is necessarily subject, and which has\n     a solid foundation of proof, both in the facts of our organization\n     and in our historical experience. This law is this: that each of\n     our leading conceptions--each branch of our knowledge--passes\n     successively through three different theoretical conditions: the\n     theological, or fictitious; the metaphysical, or abstract; and the\n     scientific, or positive. In other words, the human mind, by its\n     nature, employs in its progress three methods of philosophizing,\n     the character of which is essentially different and radically\n     opposed: viz., the theological method, the metaphysical and the\n     positive. Hence arise three philosophies, or general systems of\n     conceptions on the aggregate of phenomena, each of which excludes\n     the others. The first is the necessary point of departure of the\n     human understanding; the third is its fixed and definite state. The\n     second is merely a state of transition.\n\nIn order for a man who has reached the scientific stage in his\nintellectual development to make anything out of the reasonings of those\nwho are still in the stage of theological childhood or in that of\nmetaphysical adolescence, it is necessary for him to use their\ninsubstantialities as symbols of his substantialities.\n\nThe only difference that I can see between a theologian and a\nmetaphysician is that, whereas the former personifies a generality\nwhich is the creation of his imagination, calling it a god, the latter\nobjectifies a particularity which is the creation of his imagination\ncalling it an entity; but all such personifications and objectifications\n(gods, things-in-themselves, vital entities, souls) are alike\nfictitious, because the childish theologians and metaphysicians proceed\non the basis of philosophically assumed realities, not on scientifically\nestablished facts which pave the way on which an adult proceeds.\n\nComte analyzes the difference between the intellectuality of theological\nchildren, metaphysical youths and scientific adults as follows:\n\n     In the theological state, the human mind, seeking the essential\n     nature of beings, the first and final causes (the origin and\n     purpose) of all effects--in short, absolute knowledge--supposes all\n     phenomena to be produced by the immediate action of supernatural\n     beings.\n\n     In the metaphysical state, which is only a modification of the\n     first, the mind supposes, instead of supernatural beings, abstract\n     forces, veritable entities (that is, personified abstractions)\n     inherent in all beings, and capable of producing all phenomena.\n     What is called the explanation of phenomena is, in this stage, a\n     mere reference of each to its proper entity.\n\n     In the final, the positive state, the mind has given over the vain\n     search after absolute notions, the origin and destination of the\n     universe, and the causes of phenomena, and applies itself to the\n     study of their laws--that is, their invariable relations of\n     succession and resemblance. Reasoning and observation, duly\n     combined, are the means of this knowledge. What is now understood\n     when we speak of an explanation of facts is simply the\n     establishment of a connection between single phenomena and some\n     general facts the number of which continually diminishes with the\n     progress of science.\n\n     There is no science which, having attained the positive stage, does\n     not bear the marks of having passed through the others. Some time\n     since it was (whatever it might be now) composed, as we can now\n     perceive, of metaphysical abstractions: and, further back in the\n     course of time, it took its form from theological conceptions. Our\n     most advanced sciences still bear very evident marks of the two\n     earlier periods through which they passed.\n\n     The progress of the individual mind is not only an illustration,\n     but an indirect evidence of that of the general mind. The point of\n     departure of the individual and the race being the same, the phases\n     of the mind of men correspond to the epochs of the mind of the\n     race. How each of us is aware, if he looks back upon his own\n     history, that he was a theologian in his childhood, a metaphysician\n     in his youth and a natural philosopher in his manhood. All men who\n     are up to their age can verify this for themselves.\n\nAccording to the scientific classification, there are only three\nkingdoms or states of life, the mineral, the vegetable and the animal.\n\nThe life of the vegetable kingdom has arisen out of the life of the\nmineral kingdom and is sustained by it.\n\nThe distinguished scientist, Professor Lowell, says, \"there is now no\nmore reason to doubt that plants grew out of chemical affinity than to\ndoubt that stones did,\" and nearly all outstanding zoologists would say\nas much of animals.\n\nSir J. Burdon Sanderson, one of the most eminent among biologists,\ninsists that \"in physiology the word life is understood to mean the\nchemical and physical activities of the parts of which the organism\nconsists.\" The renowned Sir Ray Lankester strenuously holds that\n\"zoology is the science which seeks to arrange and discuss the phenomena\nof animal life and form, as the outcome of the operation of the laws of\nphysics and chemistry,\" and goes so far as to say that he knows of no\nleading biologist who is of a different opinion. The prince of\nbiologists, the late Professor Haeckel, occupied this position and\nimpregnably fortified it in several great books, especially in his\n\"Riddle of the Universe.\"\n\nThere is no force that is not life, nor life which is not force; and\nthere is no life or force, about which we know anything, without a body\nor chemical laboratory.\n\nSo far as is known, there is only one life--force. The difference\nbetween lives is a question of the organism, the laboratory, which gives\nembodiment to force.\n\nThe life that enables the wheels of a locomotive to go, the sap of a\ntree to flow, the heart of an animal to beat and the brain of a man to\nthink is the same chemical potentiality differently organized.\n\nDuring all historical time and over all the earth, under one name or\nanother, the whole world has kept days of rejoicing for life, especially\nThanksgiving, Christmas, New Year and Easter.\n\nNothing is so wonderful as life and perhaps the greatest of its wonders\nis that all of it is of the same kind.\n\nEverything and every being is alive with the same life. The Thanksgiving\nday sheaf of wheat, the Christmas day Son of Man and the Easter day Son\nof God (if there are conscious, personal gods and they have sons) are\nalive and their life is the same, the difference being wholly in the\nform and degree, not at all in kind.\n\nA proof of the oneness and sameness of all life, notwithstanding its\nwidely different forms and degrees, is the fact that a bar of iron, a\nstick of wood, a piece of flesh and a section of brain respond alike to\nthe same electrical stimulus, and all may be poisoned or otherwise\nkilled so that they will make no response to it. Perhaps even a more\nconclusive evidence is that the eggs (every form of both vegetable and\nanimal life develops from an egg) of some animals rather high in the one\ntree of mundane life, which has a common root and a stump, but two\nstems, the vegetable and the animal, can be mechanically fertilized by\nchemical processes.\n\nEven Sir Oliver Lodge, the most conspicuous among the comparatively few\nmen of science who hold to the theory that life comes to the earth as\nvital entities of celestial origin and destination, makes this fatal\nadmission: \"There is plenty of physics and chemistry and mechanics about\nevery vital action.\" On the theory of traditional Christianity there was\nno physics, chemistry or mechanics connected with the vital actions\nwhich originally brought the universe and all that therein was,\nincluding the earth with its vegetable, animal and human kingdoms, into\nexistence.\n\nEvery representative of each form of life in these kingdoms (in the\nvegetable: a grass blade, a wheat stalk, an oak tree; or in the animal:\nan insect, a horse, a man) is a chemical laboratory for the production,\nsustentation, advancement and procreation of a particular type of one\nuniversal life. These laboratories have all the potentialities of their\nrespective lives within themselves,--no laboratory, no chemistry; no\nchemistry, no life.\n\nWhat life is, both as to its manifestation and character, is determined\nby the form of organization through which force, all there is of life,\nbecomes a particular and differentiated vital phenomenon. This is as\ntrue of states and churches as it is of trees and men, for a church or a\nstate is a vital phenomenon as really so as a tree or a man.\n\nThe trouble with every reformatory socialism of modern times is that it\nundertakes the impossibility of changing the fruit of the capitalistic\nstate into that of the communistic one, without changing the political\norganism; but to do that is as impossible as to gather grapes from\nthorns or figs from thistles. Hence an uprooting and replanting are\nnecessary (a revolution not a reformation) which will give the world a\nnew tree of state.\n\nCapitalism no longer grows the fruits (foods, clothes and houses) which\nare necessary to the sustenance of the world. Hence it encumbers the\nground and must be dug up by the roots in order that a tree which is so\norganized that it will bear these necessities may be planted in its\nplace.\n\nThe people of Russia have accomplished this uprooting and replanting\n(this revolution) in the case of their state, and those of every nation\nare destined to do the same in one way or another, each according to its\nhistorical and economic development, some perhaps with violence, most, I\nhope, peaceably. The Russian Bolsheviki occupy the highest peak in man's\nhistory; and while they stand, the world will be safe for industrial\ndemocracy. This democracy is the tree of life whose fruits are for the\nsustenance of the nations and whose very leaves are for their healing.\n\nThe only lives of which we need know aught are those that we shall live\nin our bodies by chemical processes and in the race by conscious or\nunconscious influences; for, if there is another, it will take care of\nitself, if we take care of these.\n\nSince, therefore, all life is on a level and since morality, religion\nand Christianity are but manifestations of it, do you not see how\nprofoundly and incontrovertibly true is my levelism?\n\nAccording to this levelism all interpretations of Christianity\n(protestant and catholic--congregational, presbyterian, episcopalian and\npapal) and all the interpretations of religion (Christian, Jewish,\nMohammedan, Buddhistic and the rest) are essentially on the same\nfooting, the difference between them being wholly a question of natural\nexcellencies, not at all of supernatural uniqueness.\n\nThe science of biology establishes my levelism by proving that animal\nand human life are on a level as to their origin, character and destiny.\n\nThe science of sociology establishes my levelism by proving that animal\nand human institutions are on a level, and that therefore, there is\nnothing more supernatural about a human state or church than about an\nant hill or a bee hive.\n\nThe science of literary criticism establishes my levelism by proving\nthat the bibles of the several interpretations of religion are on a\nlevel as to their entirely human origin and authority.\n\nThe science of the comparative interpretations of religion establishes\nmy levelism by proving that all the conscious, personal creator-gods,\ndestroyer-gods, saviour-gods and illuminator-gods, with all their\nangels, heavens and hells, are so many myths--creations of the human\nimagination, subjective fictions, not objective realities.\n\nUntil comparatively recent times, through all the theological history of\nmankind, the sun was almost universally regarded as a god. Manifestly\nwithout it there could be no life on earth, and its annually recurring\nmotions are such as to give the impression of birth and death--of birth\nby ascension into the heaven of the summer solstice--of death by\ndescension into the hell or grave of the winter solstice. Not only is\nthe sun the giver and sustainer of life, but it is also the light that\nlighteth every man that cometh into the world.\n\nModern science justifies this ancient conception as to the dependence of\nthe earth, and all that thereon is, upon the sun for its being. By a\nslight adaptation men of science and scientific philosophers could use\nthe very words of the apostle John at the opening of his version of the\nChristian gospel, where he says of Jesus, what they say of the sun:\n\nAll things were made by him and without him was not anything made that\nwas made. In him is life; and the life is the light of men.\n\nThe birth, death, descension, resurrection and ascension of all the\nSaviour-gods, not excepting Jesus, are versions of the sun-myth.\n\nYet the naturalness, the universalness, the beautifulness and withal the\nprofound truthfulness of this myth are such as to render it almost as\nundesirable as it is next to impossible to relegate it to the realm of\nsuperstition, to which it should undoubtedly be assigned if a literal\ninterpretation is a necessity.\n\nThe more science advances, the more of precious poetry and pathos, and\nof deep verity, too, is seen in the Saviour-gods, who are essentially\nthe same mythical personifications of the glorious sun and of the happy\nevents of its annual career, because from it the earth with its brother\nand sister planets had their origin, and because from it the earth, not\nto speak of the other planets, has the heat, light and force which make\nits life a possibility.\n\nThere is no reason for believing that any one among the gods of the four\nold supernaturalistic interpretations of religion (Jehovah, Jesus,\nAllah, Buddha) or that either of the gods of the two new interpretations\nby the renowned physicist, Sir Oliver Lodge, and the distinguished\nsociologist, Mr. H. G. Wells, has had more to do in creating, sustaining\nand governing this world than another, that is to say, there is no\nground for believing that the personal, conscious gods in the skies\neither individually or collectively have had anything at all to do with\nit.\n\nScience, as it is understood by the great majority of its exponents,\nteaches that the earth (with all things, physical and psychical, which\ncontribute to make its world what it has been, is, and is to be) was\noriginally in the sun, and would quickly disappear into its original,\nunorganized elements but for the sun.\n\nThis is as true of man as of all else. He with his brain and its\nthought, with his hand and its skill; with his homes, farms, cities,\nmines, shops, stores, trains, ships, schools, hospitals and churches;\nwith his hate, bestiality and barbarism, and with his love, humaneness\nand civilization, was in the sun, billions of years before his\nappearance on the earth.\n\nSpeaking of things appertaining to the world war: there in the sun,\nbefore it had thrown off the earth, were the kaiser on the throne, the\npresident in the white house, the millions of soldiers, the uniforms,\nthe rations, the forts, the cannons, guns, powder and shot, the\ntrenches, the barbed wire, the dreadnoughts, the submarines, the\naeroplanes, the wireless telegraph stations, the wounded, their\nsufferings and groans, the doctors and nurses, the corpses, the\ncripples, the broken hearts; yes, and all the things connected with that\nterrible war; the bereaved mothers, the widowed wives, the outraged\ngirls, the ruined country, the wrecked cities, were in the sun from its\nbeginning, indeed while it was yet a nebula, many thousands of millions\nof years previous to the birth of the earth.\n\nIf we except intruders into our solar system, such as comets and their\ncomparatively inconsiderable effects, we may say that every physical or\npsychical reality which at any time has entered into the history of this\nplanet and that of its brothers and sisters was in that vast flowing,\nswirling, revolving globe of gases which is known to have been at one\ntime at least five billion miles in diameter, or fifteen billions in\ncircumference.\n\nOf course no phenomenon, such as Jesus hanging on the cross, if He lived\nand was crucified, was in the sun as an actuality, but only as a\npotentiality. Nevertheless He, with His doctrine and His suffering, was\nthere, else He would never have been anywhere, not in the realm of\nhistory, not even in the realm of imagination.\n\nThe universe is ever all that it can be, and every potentiality which\ncontributes to make it so is within itself. What is true in this respect\nof the universe as a whole is equally so of every part of it, including\nman, and especially him, because he is exceptionally capable of\ncontrolling his own destiny, being able not only to preserve life by a\ndiscovery of and conformity to the laws upon which it is dependent, but\nalso to enlarge and enrich its content by making these laws co-operative\nservants.\n\nThe time cannot be far off when it will be seen by all educated,\nthoughtful men and women that if the traditional, supernaturalistic\ninterpretation of Christianity is the only possible one, its message is\nnot a gospel, because its teaching touching three fundamentals is, in\neach case, contrary to that of three relevant sciences:\n\n1. The sciences of astronomy, geology and biology teach that the\nrepresentation of traditional supernaturalistic interpretation of\nChristianity to the effect that the universe, including the earth with\nits physical and psychical life, was supernaturally created out of\nnothing by a conscious, personal god is not true and therefore can be no\npart of any gospel; for, according to the teaching of these three\nsciences, the truth is: the universe with all that therein is, not\nexcepting mankind and civilization, was naturally evolved out of a\nself-existing matter by a self-existing force co-operating in accordance\nwith the necessity of their nature.\n\n2. The sciences of biology, physiology and embryology teach that the\nrepresentation of the traditional, supernaturalistic interpretation of\nChristianity to the effect that man and woman are unique beings, who\nhave supernaturally derived their physical form, vital and psychical\npotentialities directly from a conscious, personal creator with whom are\ntheir natural affiliations, is not true, and therefore can be no part of\nany gospel; for, according to the teaching of these three sciences, the\ntruth is: man and woman as to their whole beings (body and mind, life\nand soul) were naturally evolved from pre-existing animal life, not\nsupernaturally created respectively out of the dust and a rib, so that\nthey owe their existence to and natural affinities with a terrestrial\nand bestial parentage, not a celestial and divine one.\n\n3. The sciences of anthropology, sociology and comparative\ninterpretations of religion teach that the representation of the\ntraditional, supernaturalistic interpretation of Christianity to the\neffect that man and woman were supernaturally created in the image and\nlikeness of a conscious, personal god, sinless and deathless beings with\nideal environments, but that they fell from this happy estate, through a\nserpentine incarnation of a supernatural devil, and are being restored\nto it, through a human incarnation of a supernatural saviour, is not\ntrue, and therefore can be no part of any gospel; for, according to the\nteaching of these three sciences, the truth is: during many ages man and\nwoman, in both appearance and predilection, were much more animal than\ndivine and that gradually, without any supernatural assistance, they\nhave worked themselves out of a state of bestial barbarism into one of\nhuman civilization.\n\nIt follows therefore that the representations of both the Old and New\nTestaments, concerning the origin and history of man are largely\nfictitious impositions, not historical compositions, so much so, that no\nconfidence can safely be reposed in any of them.\n\nThere is no rational doubt about the fictitious character of the divine\nJesus. Some think that the human Jesus may have been an historical\npersonage; but, none among outstanding scholars believes that we have a\nconnected account of his life and work, and most of them insist that we\ndo not certainly know any saying or doing of his.\n\nNo religious doctrine or institution of which we have an account in the\nNew Testament is peculiar to Christianity and this is equally true of\nmoral precepts.\n\nThe gods of all the supernaturalistic interpretations of religion are so\nmany creations of the dominant or master class, and their revelations\nwere put into their mouths by the makers for the purpose of keeping the\nslave class ignorant and contented.\n\nOrthodox Christians earnestly contend that this naturalistic doctrine\nmakes for immorality. Heretical socialists rationally answer that the\nlife which men, women and children live with reference to their\nterrestrial influence, rather than to celestial rewards or punishments,\nis the only one which is lived to any moral purpose.\n\nAccording to socialism, morality, religion and Christianity are but\nsynonyms of one and the same reality, which consists wholly in the\ndesire and effort of a man to learn the laws or doings of nature, and to\nconform his thoughts and words to them, in order to make his present\nlife on earth, and that of others, as long and happy as possible, and\nnot at all in a desire and effort to learn what the will of a conscious,\npersonal god is and to conform to it, in order to avoid a hell and gain\na heaven for a future life in the sky.\n\n  O threats of Hell and Hopes of Paradise!\n  One thing at least is certain--This Life flies;\n  One thing is certain and the rest is Lies;\n  The Flower that once has blown forever dies.\n\nIf you object that this is a representation of a sceptical poet, I reply\nthat it is in alignment with a representation of a scriptural preacher:\n\n  For that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts;\n  Even one thing befalleth them;\n  As the one dieth, so dieth the other;\n  Yea, they have all one breath;\n  So that a man hath no pre-eminence above a beast;\n  For all is vanity.\n  All go unto one place;\n  All are of the dust,\n  And all turn to dust again.\n\nDarwin showed that each man in his physical development from the\nembryonic cell to birth passes through, by short cuts, the different\nforms of life from say, the worm, fish and lemur with all that went\nbefore, intervened between and followed after, and Romanes showed that\nthis is as true of the mind as of the body; that, in fact, all the\nrepresentatives of the animal kingdom are physically and psychically\nrelated, and therefore on the same level as to their origin and destiny.\n\nIn his illuminating book entitled, \"The Universal Kinship,\" Professor\nMoore says:\n\n     The embryonic development of a human being is no different from the\n     embryonic development of any other animal. Every human being at the\n     beginning of his organic existence is a protozoan, about 1-125\n     inch in diameter; at another stage of development he is a tiny\n     sac-shaped mass of cells without blood or nerves, the gastrula; at\n     another stage he is a worm, with a pulsating tube instead of a\n     heart, and without a head, neck, spinal column, or limbs; at\n     another stage he has as a backbone, a rod of cartilage extending\n     along the back, and a faint nerve cord, as in the amphioxus, the\n     lowest of the vertebrates; at another stage he is a fish with a\n     two-chambered heart, mesonephric kidneys, and gill-slits, with gill\n     arteries leading to them, just as in fishes; at another stage he is\n     a reptile with a three-chambered heart, and voiding his excreta\n     through a cloaca like other reptiles; and finally, when he enters\n     upon post-natal sins and actualities, he is a sprawling, squalling,\n     unreasoning quadruped. The human larva from the fifth to the\n     seventh month of development is covered with a thick growth of hair\n     and has a true caudal (tail) appendage, like the monkey. At this\n     stage the embryo has in all thirty-eight vertebrae, nine of which\n     are caudal, and the great toe extends at right angles to the other\n     toes, and is not longer than the other toes, but shorter, as in the\n     ape.\n\nSurely no argument is needed to convince you that Darwinism corroborates\nthe representation of our ancient heretical poet and scriptural preacher\nconcerning a life beyond the grave rather than the representations of\nmodern orthodox theologians.\n\n  Strange, is it not? that of the myriads who\n  Before us pass'd the door of Darkness through,\n  Not one returns to tell us of the Road,\n  Which to discover we must travel, too.\n\n  --Omar.\n\n\nII.\n\nIn history slavery stands out as a huge mountain range traversing the\nwhole of a continent. During long ages it was supposed that these\nphenomena of the human and physical worlds were due to the will of a god\n(Jesus, Jehovah, Allah or Buddha) but the vanguard of humanity has now\nreached a viewpoint from which it sees that both are alike due to a law,\nthat a law is what nature does, not what a god has willed, and that a\nsystem of slavery and a range of mountains are due to the same law.\n\nThe matter-force law is everywhere the same, and it is as omnipotent and\nimmutable in a social order as in a solar system.\n\n  \"The very law that moulds a tear,\n  And bids it trickle from its source,\n  That law preserves the earth a sphere,\n  And guides the planets in their course.\"\n\nMost of the time, and especially just now, our world is very full of\ntears, almost as much so as space is full of spheres, but there would\nnot be half so many tears at any time, if the laws of states were so\nmany correct interpretations of the laws of nature.\n\nIn every age, nearly all the hot tears which deluge the world flow, like\nstreams of springs, from their deep sources as the result of unnecessary\nsuffering by grinding poverty, by hopeless slavery, by avoidable\ndiseases and by premature deaths; and by far the most of these and of\nall sufferings may be traced to man-made laws which not only have no\ncorrespondence with those of nature but are contrary to them--laws of\nwhich both the civil codes and religious bibles are too full.\n\nYou will agree with me that society should punish none of its members by\nthe slightest fine or shortest imprisonment, not to speak of death,\nexcept on the basis of justice. So far, and it is a long way, we\ncertainly walk together. We part company, if at all, on the question as\nto the basis of justice, but come together again in the conclusion that\nit is right, not might.\n\nWhat, then, is this right? If you answer: the law of the state as it is\ninterpreted by a competent court, I reply: no legal enactment, and so,\nof course, no interpretation of one, can really constitute a right,\nunless it is an embodiment of a truth containing an indispensable stone\nin the foundation which is necessary to the superstructure of the ideal\ncivilization, under the roof of which every man, woman and child shall\npossess the greatest of possible opportunities to make life for self as\nlong and happy as it can be, and to help others in an ever widening\ncircle to do this for themselves.\n\nLaws are not made. All social laws (domestic, civil, commercial, yes,\neven the moral and religious ones) are matter-force realities, as much\nso as is any other among all the physical or psychical realities\nentering into the constitution of the universe; which realities are but\nthe expressions of the processes necessarily resulting from the\nnecessary co-existence and co-operation of this matter and force;\ntherefore, laws are so many eternal necessities and, this being the\ncase, it is not possible that men in states or churches should make\nthem, no, not even gods in heavens.\n\nMan would, then, have progressed much further with the superstructure of\nan ideal civilization, if only in his efforts to rightly regulate his\nlife, he had happily searched out the laws of nature as they are\nrevealed through its phenomena and interpreted by experience and reason,\ninstead of looking for direction to the laws of the gods (Jehovah,\nAllah, Buddha or even Jesus) as they are revealed through prophets and\ninterpreted by kings or presidents, by priests or preachers and by other\n\"powers that be of God\" in states and churches--institutions which exist\nin the interest of the capitalist class and against that of the labor\nclass. The world owes by far the greater part of its most poignant\nsufferings to this fatal mistake of looking to gods in heavens and their\nrepresentatives on earth for direction instead of to nature and reason.\n\nLife in the physical realm is dependent upon living in harmony with the\nmatter-force law. The representative of any form of life (mineral,\nvegetable, animal, human) which either through ignorance, accident or\nwillfulness does not conform to it, is destroyed or at least injured.\n\nLife in the moral part of the psychical realm consists in a disposition\nand effort to learn the matter-force law, and to fulfill in thought,\nword and deed the individual obligations to self and the social\nobligations to others imposed by it when it has been humanely\ninterpreted by a man for himself.\n\nReligion and Christianity are but wider extensions of one and the same\ngreat all-inclusive virtue, morality, without which human life would not\nbe worth living, indeed not even a possibility, for without morality a\nman is a beast, not a human.\n\nMorality is the greatest thing in the world. Yet, paradoxical as the\nrepresentation may seem, there is one greater thing, freedom--the\nliberty to think, speak and act in accordance with one's own convictions\nas to what is the law and as to what are its requirements. Without this\nliberty there could be no morality, and therefore, freedom is greater\nthan the greatest thing in the world, morality.\n\nBut liberty, the greatest and most indispensable necessity to morality,\nreligion and Christianity, indeed, to the existence of a human being, is\nmanifestly impossible on the theory that a man must be guided by the\nwill of a conscious, personal God in the sky as it is interpreted by the\nkings and priests, presidents and preachers on earth.\n\nYou will note that I am not contending for the liberty to live without\nreference to an external authority. If this were my contention you would\nrightly insist (as some among my friends do) that I am an atheist in\nreligion and an anarchist in politics; but I am neither, for I recognize\nthe fact that I must live with reference to the existence of an external\nauthority, matter-force law, and there is no other, upon which anything\ngood in religion or politics is dependent.\n\nNo one is an atheist in religion, an anarchist in politics or anything\nbad, who, in the physical realm of life, tries to live with reference to\nthe law of nature, and who, in the moral realm of life, tries to live\nwith reference to a truth which is that law humanely interpreted by\nhimself in accordance with his own experience, observation,\ninvestigation and reason. In the nature of things, the interpretation\ncannot be by some one else, because one man cannot live the moral life\non another's ideals any more than he can live the physical life on\nanother's meals.\n\nSince this is the case, it follows that the whole conception of a law\nwhich is willed by a god and revealed or formulated by his\nrepresentatives (prophets, kings, priests, legislators) to which a man\nmust have reference, if he would live the moral life, is, at best, a\nharmless fiction and at worst a hurtful superstition.\n\nThere is no one (man or god) with whom people can stand in the moral\nrealm except themselves alone, and if they are not within this realm\nthey are not men and women.\n\nManhood is dependent upon standing alone with matter-force nature and\nwith human reason, and it is manhood which really counts everywhere in\nthe social realm, for without manhood one is nothing anywhere in that\nrealm.\n\nNature is my God. The gods of the several supernaturalistic\ninterpretations of religion (Jesus, Jehovah, Allah, Buddha) are so many\nsymbols of this divinity. The words of this God are the facts of nature.\nMy religion and politics, worship and patriotism consist in a desire and\neffort to discover these facts and to interpret and live them humanely.\n\nMy God, Nature, is a triune divinity--matter being the Father, force the\nSon, and law the Spirit.\n\nNature is the sum of the matter-force-law phenomena of which the\nuniverse is constituted. Man with his barbarism and civilization is but\none among such phenomena, on a level with the rest, as to his beginning\nand ending, and as to the dependence of his life and its fullness upon\nconformity to the matter-force law, without necessary or, indeed,\npossible reference to any divine-human system of laws as set forth by a\ncatholic or protestant church or by an imperialistic or democratic\nstate.\n\nUnless states and churches persuade, encourage and help man to more\nfully discover, more correctly interpret and more perfectly live the\nmatter-force law they are worthless; and indeed worse, if in the long\nrun and on the whole they hinder him; and undoubtedly they have done\nthis in the case of the slave class--a class which, ever since the rise\nof private property in the means of producing the necessities of life,\nhas comprehended the vast majority of the human race.\n\nWhether then man is barbarous or civilized is really and truly, wholly\nand entirely a question of the knowledge of and conformity to the\nmatter-force law, that is, of whether or not the articles of his\nreligious creed and political code are so many ideal embodiments and\npractical interpretations of facts or realities as they are revealed by\nthe doings of my god, Nature.\n\nThere is no other creed, belief in the articles of which, and there is\nno other code, obedience to the articles of which, will advance mankind,\nindividually or collectively, so much as one step in the long, rugged\nand steep way towards the goal of a perfect civilization--a civilization\nwhich will secure to every man, woman and child the greatest of possible\nopportunities to make the most of life that is within the range of\npossibilities.\n\nMy god, Nature (the triune divinity, matter-force-motion) the doings of\nwhich god are so many words of the only gospel upon which the salvation\nof the world is to any degree dependent, is an impersonal, unconscious,\nnon-moral being.\n\nFor me, this god, Nature, rises into personality, consciousness and\nmorality in myself, and in no other does nature do this for me, though\nwhat is true of me is of course equally so of every representative of\nmankind.\n\nJesus (either as an historical or dramatic personage, and it does not\nmatter which he was) said, \"I and my Father (god) are one,\" and in\nsaying this he gave expression in one form to the most revolutionary and\nsalutary of all truths. The other form of the same truth as taught by\nDarwin and Marx is: man has all the potentialities of his own life\nwithin himself. Every representative of the human race can and should\nsay with Jesus, \"I and my Father, God, are one.\"\n\n  Stop man! where dost thou run?\n  Heav'n lies within thy heart,\n  If thou seek'st God elsewhere\n  Misled, in truth, thou art.\n\n  --Angelus Silensius.\n\nThis truth constitutes the most ennobling and inspiring part of man's\nknowledge, and it was naturally discovered by him, not supernaturally\nrevealed to him. It is the foundation of socialism and the justification\nof optimism.\n\nThe universe moves, with all that therein is. The vanguard of mankind is\nmoving to a viewpoint from which rapidly increasing numbers will see\nthat a revolution which is necessary on the part of a slave to free\nhimself from a master is not only justified but required by the great,\nfirst law of the biological realm, the law of self-preservation--a\nnature-made law on behalf of freedom. This nature-made law will\nultimately nullify all class laws, every law which is in favor of the\nenslaving capitalist class and against the enslaved labor class.\n\nEvery state with its executive, legislative, judiciary, military and\neducative systems is founded on capitalism. Since this is the case and\nsince human nature is what it is, all political institutions, the\nAmerican with the rest, are of the capitalist, by the capitalist, for\nthe capitalist, and each to the end that the capitalist may keep the\nlaborer in poverty and slavery.\n\nEvery modern church with its ministry, bible, creed, heaven and hell is\nfounded on capitalism. Since this is the case, and since human nature is\nwhat it is, all religious institutions, the Christian with the rest, are\nof the capitalist, by the capitalist, for the capitalist and each to the\nend that the capitalist may keep the laborer in ignorance and slavery.\n\nWhether Jesus was an historical or a dramatic person, the morality\ninvolved in his trial, condemnation and execution is the same. Assuming\nthe historicity, he was put to death by Pilate because a class of the\npeople said: We have a law and by it, according to its official\ninterpretation, he should die. The Governor, finding that the legal\nenactment and the judicial decision were in accordance with the\nrepresentation of the Jews, turned Jesus over to the executioners for\ncrucifixion, and the world condemns him because he knew that the law was\nthe embodiment of a fiction instead of a truth, because he interpreted\nit in the interest of a sect instead of a people, and because he basely\nacted with reference to his own political interests without regard to\njustice for an heroic but helpless champion of slaves in their struggle\nagainst the masters.\n\nPhilosophic anarchy differs by the space of the whole heavens from\npractical anarchy, and it is the latter that I always have in mind. The\ngreat essential of philosophic anarchy is individualistic freedom. The\ngreat essential of practical anarchy is imperialistic slavery.\n\nCapitalism is the outstanding, overshadowing imperialist, the father of\nall the kaisers by which the world has been cursed, not only of the\nterrestrial ones such as Wilhelm II, Nicholas II, Woodrow I, but also of\nthe celestial ones such as Jehovah, Allah, Buddha.\n\nThe occupants of regal thrones have no more responsibility for the\nexistence of imperialism than those of presidential chairs, nor they any\nmore than I, and I have none. The truth is that the responsibility for\nthis blight of all the ages is now at last, if indeed it has not always\nbeen, wholly with the representatives of the working class. They have\nthe great majority in numbers and all of the revolutionary incentives\nand power; therefore they, and only they can do away with imperialism,\nand they can rid themselves of it whenever they choose. Prince\nKropotkin, the philosophic anarchist, a great soul, would agree to this\nrepresentation, for he says:\n\n     The working men of the civilized world and their friends in the\n     other classes ought to induce their Governments entirely to abandon\n     the idea of armed intervention in the affairs of Russia--whether\n     open or disguised, whether military or in the shape of subventions\n     to different nations.\n\n     Russia is now living through a revolution of the same depth and the\n     same importance as the British nation underwent in 1639-1648 and\n     France in 1789-1794; and every nation should refuse to play the\n     shameful part that Great Britain, Prussia, Austria and Russia\n     played during the French Revolution.\n\nSince death ends all of consciousness, the most inhuman of all\ninhumanities and the most immoral of all immoralities is the shortening\nof human life; and next to it is the diminishing of its happiness.\n\nWar shortens many lives and fills more with misery; hence its essential\ninhumanity and immorality.\n\nA large part of the world has just passed through the furnace of war--a\nwar between the German and English nations with their respective\nnational allies. All international wars are contests for supremacy in\nthe markets of the world, or at least for advantage in some among them.\nThis one was no exception.\n\nThe furnace of this war was seven times larger and seven times hotter\nthan any other has been. According to the latest estimates (September,\n1920) its fierce flames directly and indirectly killed thirty million\nyoung men and wrecked totally twice and partially thrice as many more.\n\nYet the fire by which the world upon the whole and in the long run\nsuffers most is not the intermittent, flaming one of the hell of\ninternational war, which is always kindled and sustained by the\ncapitalists of the belligerent nations for the purpose solely of\nsecuring commercial advantages over each other; but the greater\nsuffering is by the permanent, smoking fire of the hell of the\ninter-class war which is always kindled and sustained by the capitalist\nclass in each nation for the purpose solely of robbing the labor class\nof the fruit of their toil.\n\nThese national and class wars (hells, flaming and smouldering) are due\nto the same matter-force law, the law of self-preservation, and,\nparadoxical as it may seem, this law is equally operative on both sides\nin each war.\n\nBoth hells exist as the result of the working out of the same law of\nanimal preservation by competition--the law of capitalism, and both\nhells will be done away with as the result of the working out of the\nsame law of human preservation by co-operation--the law of socialism.\n\nOne proof of the rightness of the co-operative system is the fact that\nit necessarily operates for the whole people and not for a class,\nwhereas the competitive system as necessarily operates for a class and\nnot for the whole people.\n\nStill another proof, and it is in itself almost if not quite conclusive,\nof the rightness of the co-operative system is the fact that its\ncompetitive rival breaks down in every great emergency. It broke down\ncompletely in all the belligerent countries (in none more than the\nUnited States) immediately upon their entrance into the world war. Our\ngovernment was obliged to assume control of the railroads, coal mines\nand food products.\n\nIf a class government, such as ours is, can provide during a war by the\nco-operative system, and only by it, for the wants of a country, and\nbetter, too, than during the time of peace, what may we expect in the\nway of plenty, comfort and leisure, when under the classless\nadministration there shall be no more war with its wholesale waste, and\nwhen there shall be one vast army of producers?\n\nAll the days which the fifty millions of soldiers spent in idleness will\nthen be so many holidays for toilers who are in need of them for rest\nand self-improvement; and every dollar which is now wasted will then be\ntwo dollars saved, so that the pecuniary prosperity of war times will be\nincreased, rather than diminished, and made continuous. Under a\nclassless administration the world would soon become comparatively rich\nand happy.[H]\n\nRepresentatives of the capitalist class are trying to create the\nimpression that the co-operative system which our government temporarily\nestablished as a military necessity is socialism, and that the labor\nclass should seek no more than its restoration and continuance: but this\nsystem is the same old wolf in sheep's clothing.\n\nThe rickety house in which we are living is a competitive structure and\nit cannot be made into a co-operative one, at least not upon its present\nfoundation, the sand of capitalistic classism. Industrialism must take\nit down and rebuild it upon the rock of classless labor. Neither this\ndemolition nor this reconstruction constitutes any part of the\ngovernment program. Its socialism is a mirage, not a reality, and the\nmatter-force law renders it necessarily so.\n\nMarxian socialism is simplicity itself. It requires only three\nconditions, each of which is perfectly intelligible; but no one of them\never has existed or could exist under any capitalist government, because\nall such governments, not excepting our own, especially not it, are\norganized in the interest of parasitic profiteers, not productive\nlaborers. The three indispensable yet simple prerequisites to this real\nsocialism or communism are:\n\n     First, that the people within a municipality, either town or city,\n     own and control the utilities within the area occupied by that\n     municipality, which have to do with the immediate comfort of the\n     people who live there.\n\n     Second, that the people in each state own and control the utilities\n     that come in contact with the people on a state-wide scale.\n\n     Third, that the people within the nation own collectively and\n     control democratically the utilities which affect us on a national\n     scale.\n\n     Should we desire to go into more detail, we might say that the\n     things necessary to the individual be owned and controlled by the\n     individual, that the home be controlled by the family, and so on.\n     To go into the question on an international scale we might also add\n     that utilities mutually necessary to all the nations be owned by\n     the nations, as the Panama Canal, for instance.--Higgins.\n\nPrince Kropotkin, though not a bolshevik, says approvingly of the\nRussian revolution that it is trying to build up a society where the\nwhole produce of the joint efforts of labor by technical skill and\nscientific knowledge should go entirely to the commonwealth; and he\ndeclares that for the unavoidable reconstruction of society, by pacific\nor any other revolutionary means, there must be a union of all the trade\nunions of the world to free the production of the world from its present\nenslavement to capitalism.\n\nHiggins and Kropotkin have here put co-operative socialism or communism\nin a nutshell both as to its aim and program.\n\nThe law of self-preservation is ever the same, but whether its salvation\nis for a part of the people by competition--capitalist salvation, or for\nthe whole people by co-operation--socialist salvation, depends upon\nwhether it rides or is ridden.\n\nSo long as the law of self-preservation was supposed to be the will of a\nconscious, personal god whose earthly representatives were kings and\npriests or presidents and preachers, the law did the riding within the\nlarge domain of animal competition--the domain of capitalism. War is the\nnormal, indeed necessary evil of this domain, and hence the world must\nhave wars so long as it remains within it, and it will remain there so\nlong as it has celestial divinities with terrestrial representatives in\nstates and churches for its governors.\n\nNow that the law is known to be a matter-force necessity, not a divine\ndecree, the time may rationally be hoped for when the people will do the\nriding within the small domain of human co-operation--the domain of\nsocialism. Peace is the normal, indeed necessary, state of this domain,\nand hence the world must cease to have war when it enters it, and is\ngoverned by itself instead of by a god and the powers of state and\nchurch alleged to have been ordained by him.\n\nCapital punishment should not be administered, if at all, except to a\nmurderer whose guilt has been established to the satisfaction of the\ngreat majority of the people in the community to which he belongs, and\nnever in the case of a suspected murderer of whom this is not true.\n\nIf William II were really the devil behind the European war by which\nmany millions of the young men of the world have lost their lives, and\nif Thomas Mooney were really the devil behind the San Francisco\nexplosion by which ten citizens of California lost their lives, their\npunishment by death might be urged with much show of reason as a social\nnecessity. But if both were hung on the same gallows the world would go\non suffering by the ever recurring and closely related misfortunes of\nwar and riot as if nothing had happened. The real devil behind all wars\nand riots is the capitalist system. There will never be an end of wars\nand riots until this devil is overthrown.\n\nThe so-called Kaiser-war and the so-called Mooney riot are on the same\nfooting, both having the character of an insurrection and both having\nthe aim of self-preservation. The insurrection of the Kaiser was a riot\non behalf of the capitalist class of Germany and for the purpose of\nprotecting it against the capitalist class of England. The insurrection\nof Mooney (assuming his guilt, merely for illustration) was a riot on\nbehalf of the labor class of California and for the purpose of\nprotecting it against the capitalist class of that state.\n\nIncidentally, both riots have secondary aims of world-wide extent. The\nKaiser had two of these: to overthrow the commercial supremacy of\nEngland that Germany might have it, and to overthrow industrial\nrepublicanism (socialism) everywhere. Mooney had this: the overthrow of\ncommercial imperialism (capitalism) everywhere.\n\nAs rioters, there is this in common between Kaiser William and Thomas\nMooney, that though moving in opposite directions, they are nevertheless\ncarried by the same matter-force law which manifests itself in the same\nriotous system, capitalism--a system which, under one form or another,\nhas ever produced international wars and class revolutions; and, so long\nas it is allowed to exist, never will cease the production of them.\n\nHence the interests of the world require not that these rioters, Kaiser\nWilliam and Thomas Mooney, should be hung, but that the capitalist\nsystem, which by the operation of the law of self-preservation by animal\ncompetitions, produced both of the riots with which they are\nrespectively credited, should be overthrown by the labor system, which,\nby the operation of the same law of self-preservation by human\nco-operation, will put an end to all bloody conflicts.\n\nBut taking the popular view concerning the responsibility for this\ncommercial war and labor riot and assuming that they should be charged\nrespectively to Kaiser William and Thomas Mooney, why should the\npromoter of the little riot die, or worse, suffer imprisonment during\nlife, and the promoter of the big war live?\n\nYet, if the Kaiser were captured even by England there is no probability\nthat he would be turned over to a court constituted of representatives\nof the allied nations, tried, found guilty and put to death. Why not?\nBecause, like all wars, his war, no matter which side won the victory,\nhas been upon the whole, or will be in the long run, in the interest of\nthe capitalists of every nation on both sides, at least of the great\nones.\n\nIf Kaiser William would not be sent to the gallows by such a court why\nshould the court which tried Thomas Mooney be allowed to send him to it;\nand, especially why, since California is part of a republic, and the\nKaiser's war was on behalf of imperialism and a small minority, while\nMooney's riot was on behalf of republicanism and the overwhelming\nmajority?\n\nJust now the human part of the world is especially afflicted by\nunnecessary and therefore unjustifiable deaths. The Governor of\nCalifornia has the opportunity to prevent one such death. I say to him,\ndo it. In the name of Justice and in the name of Humanity, I with\nmillions of others solemnly call upon him to save Mooney, the\nrevolutionist, as Pilate, the Governor of Judea, according to the\nverdict of all right-thinking men and women, should have saved Jesus,\nthe revolutionist.\n\n\nIII.\n\nYou say in effect that we must postulate a divine consciousness to\naccount for human consciousness; but, on your theory, how could human\nconsciousness come out of a divine consciousness; and, anyhow, contrary\nto your implication, we know of no consciousness which has come, except\nby inheritance, from another consciousness, but only of consciousnesses\nwhich have come from unconsciousnesses.\n\nYour contention, in this connection, is to the effect that nothing can\ncome out of nothing, and this is the core of a book, \"A Short Apology\nfor Being a Christian in the Twentieth Century,\" by the learned\nex-president of Trinity College, Hartford, Dr. Williamson Smith, with\nwhom you have had, I think, some correspondence.\n\nThis Apology was written against a letter of mine to the House of\nBishops, entitled, \"A Natural Gospel for a Scientific Age,\" which has\nnever seen the light, partly because the ex-President convinced me that\nif I must give up the orthodox conception of God, I could not hold to\nthe one which I had worked out in the letter.\n\nIf you have not seen the ex-President's book, you will, I am sure, enjoy\nit more than I did, but I doubt whether you will profit as much by it,\nfor it verges towards your lines and away from mine; and so it set me to\nstudying as it will not you, with the result of rejecting the new\nconception of God which I had worked out for myself, but with it I threw\nover the old one and ceased to believe in the existence of a conscious,\npersonal divinity. Of course, my faith in the existence of a spiritual\nworld and hope for a future life in it went with the god.\n\nDr. Williamson Smith and you are entirely correct in the contention that\nsomething cannot come out of nothing: but I no longer pretend that it\ncan and I now see that the stones which have been thrown at me by you\nboth and others have come from glass houses; for this is really the\npretension of orthodox theologians. They affirm that the universe was\ncreated by God out of nothing, but produce no scrap of evidence for His\nexistence, and even if they could prove that He exists, they would have\nto admit that He came out of nothing, or at least from something which\ndid so.\n\nIt is indeed true that I am unable to tell what matter, force and motion\ncame from, or if I agree with most physicists that they arose from\nether, I cannot give its derivative; but, granting that I am as\nincapable of proving their existence as you are of proving the existence\nof the Christian trinity, nevertheless I have this immense advantage\nover you, that I can prove that everything both physical and psychical\n(including man and his civilization) entering into the constitution of\nthe universe, lives, moves and has its being in my divine\ntrinity--matter, force and motion: whereas you cannot prove that\nanything is indebted for what it is to your divine trinity--Father, Son\nand Spirit: therefore I insist that your trinity is a symbol of mine.\n\nWhat is true of the Christian trinity is true of all the divinities of\nthe supernaturalistic interpretations of religion. The Jews live with no\nreference to the Christian God, or at least not with any to his second\nand third persons, and neither Christians nor Jews do so in the case of\neither the Mohammedan or Buddhistic divinity, and so on, all around the\nwhole circle of gods.\n\nBut no representative of any god lives without constant reference to\nmine, of which yours and all the others are, as I think, symbols, if\nthey are anything better than fetishes.\n\nIf you and ex-President Smith mean by your fundamental thesis, that a\nthing which is essentially different from that from which it came is an\nimpossibility, you are certainly wrong, for the world is full of such\nthings. In the tree of life there are millions of examples, since (using\nlanguage in its general significance) everything above the amoeba must\nbe regarded as essentially different from it, though all, including man,\ncame out of it.\n\nGoing back as far as we safely can on solid ground, we come to the\nnebulae from which the solar systems of the universe have evolved, and\nsurely a solar system is as essentially different from the nebula as a\nman is from an amoeba. Coming to our earth when its primeval, flaming,\nswirling gases had been condensed into inorganic matter, the protoplasm\nwhich is organic matter, arose from it, and so something which grows\nfrom within out, comes from something which grows from without in.\n\nThe large hoofed horse came from a small five-toed animal, not much\nlarger than a rabbit. The piano and the gun are brother and sister, born\nof the bow and arrow, yet how different the children from the parent.\n\nAn infant is unconscious at birth and what it has of consciousness as a\nchild and an adult is dependent upon the development of its body.\n\nMoreover, as the human body is a development through animal bodies, we\nmay logically conclude that human consciousness is ultimately dependent\nupon and inherited from animal consciousness rather than a divine one.\n\nJesus is represented as saying that God is a spirit; and the fathers of\nthe English part of the Christian reformation said that there is but one\nliving and true God without body, parts or passions. This is their\nexplanation of his conception of God.\n\nWhen the Jesuine definition of God and the Anglican explanation of it\nwere framed, the Divine Spirit was supposed to be an objective\npersonality.\n\nModern psychology teaches that no spirit, divine, human or otherwise, is\na personality. According to this science, spirit and soul are synonyms\nfor the subjective content of a conscious life, which content consists\nof feelings, aspirations, ideals, convictions and determinations.\n\nPsychologists know of no spirit or soul without a body constituted of\nparts any more than physicists know of a force without matter\nconstituted of molecules, atoms, electrons and ions.\n\nGods represent the religious ideals of people and are symbols of what\nthey think they should be as religionists. They are symbolic,\nemblematic, parabolic, allegoric devices of the imagination, and contain\nnothing but the ideal, imaginary things which are put into them by\npeople for themselves, and they do nothing except what the people\nperform through them in their names for themselves.\n\nMatter and force constitute a machine, an automatic one, which produces\nthings, everything which enters into the constitution of the cosmos, by\nevolutionary processes, or rather all such things, and there are no\nothers, are the result of one universal and eternal process of\nevolution.\n\nWhat is known as nature is the aggregation of the products of this\nmachine by this process. The machine is unconscious and its workings are\nmechanical, yet some of its products rise into self-consciousness with\nthe power of self-determination, but both the consciousness and the\ndetermination are limited. The infinite consciousness, personality and\ndetermination which are postulated of gods are contradictions.\n\nOf all beings man possesses most of consciousness, personality and\ndetermination. What he has of these is not dependent upon gods, but all\nthey have of them is dependent upon him. Divine beings are, as to their\nself-consciousness, personality and determination, human beings\npersonified and placed in the sky. Man does everything for gods. They do\nnothing for him.\n\nSuch are the facts and arguments based upon them, which have forced me\nstep by step over the long way from the position of supernaturalistic\ntraditionalism in its Christian form, still occupied by you, to that of\nnaturalistic scientism in its socialist form which I am now occupying,\nas tentatively as possible, pending further study in the light of\nadditional facts, for which (some six years ago, when I was desperately\nbattling to prevent the shipwreck of my faith in the god and heaven of\northodox Christianity) I appealed to about 800 outstanding theologians,\namong them yourself, representing all parts of christendom and every\ngreat church, including of course all our bishops among the theologians,\nand the Anglican communion among the churches.\n\nYou may remember how much of correspondence we had at that time, though\nneither you nor any one who kindly tried to reach me with the rope of\nthe new scientific apologetics for which I appealed, can realize how\neagerly I looked for the replies to my questions, nor the sickness of\nheart which I experienced when I saw that, in spite of every possible\neffort of my own and help of others, I was slowly but surely drifting\ntowards what I then thought to be the fatal whirlpools and rocks, but\nwhat I now regard as a sheltered port--the golden gate of that\ndelectable country, Marxian socialism, the only heaven that I am now\nhoping to behold.\n\nYou earnestly contend that I am wrong in representing that the majority\nof outstanding men of science and scientific philosophers do not believe\nin the existence of a conscious, personal divinity, who created,\nsustains and governs the universe, or in a conscious, personal life for\nman beyond the grave, and that none among such scientists and\nphilosophers are orthodox Christians.\n\nProf. Leuba, the Bryn Mawr psychologist, is one among my authorities for\nthese representations. In his \"Belief in God and Immortality\" (1916) he\nexhibits the results of a recent and thorough-going investigation in a\nchart from which it appears that, taking the greater and lesser\nrepresentatives of the scientists together, they fall below 50 per cent\nas to their belief in God, and below 55 per cent in their belief in\nimmortality.[I]\n\nThe showing for the scientists who are especially concerned with the\norigin and destiny of life, biologists and psychologists, is much less\nfavorable to you; for, taking the greater and lesser together, only 31\nper cent of the biologists believe in God and 35 per cent in\nimmortality; and only 25 per cent of the psychologists believe in God,\nand 20 per cent in immortality.\n\nBut the worst by far, is yet to come; for, taking the greater biologists\nand psychologists, those who count most, of the former 18 per cent\nbelieve in God, and 25 per cent in immortality; and of the latter, the\ngreatest of all authorities, only 13 per cent believe in God, and only 8\nper cent in immortality.\n\nThe greater psychologists are comparatively consistent in that fewer\namong them believe in a conscious, personal life for humanity beyond the\ngrave than in the conscious, personal life of divinity beyond the\nclouds. Human immortality is an absurdity without divine existence. The\noverwhelming majority of great psychologists (the greatest of all\nauthorities, as to whether or not gods \"without bodies, parts or\npassions\" can consciously exist in the skies, and disembodied men, women\nand children in celestial paradises) see this and limit the career of\nman to earth. In their judgment his heaven and hell are here, and the\ngods who make and the devils who unmake civilizations are humans, not\ngood or bad divinities.\n\nThis is the conclusion of a rapidly increasing number of educated\npeople. A century ago only a few men of science and scientific\nphilosophers had reached it, not twenty five per cent, but now the\npercentage is nearly ninety and it will soon be ninety-nine. The time is\ncoming, and in the not distant future, when no educated man shall look\nto the god of any supernaturalistic interpretation of religion for light\nor strength, and when none shall hope for a heaven above the earth or\nfear a hell below it.\n\n  Heav'n but the Vision of fulfill'd Desire,\n  And Hell the Shadow from a Soul on fire\n  Cast on the Darkness into which Ourselves,\n  So late emerg'd from, shall so soon expire.\n\n  --Omar.\n\nJoseph McCabe and Chapman Cohen are among the most brilliant of present\nday writers on scientific and philosophic subjects. They are not\nsocialists, but both see that modern socialism and orthodox Christianism\nare utterly irreconcilable incompatibilities.\n\n     \"How is it that on the Continent democratic bodies are so\n     sceptical, or sceptical bodies so democratic? Precisely because\n     they doubt (or reject altogether) the Christian heaven. They want\n     to make this earth as happy as it can be, to make sure of happiness\n     somewhere. Having taken their eyes from the sky, they have\n     discovered remarkable possibilities in the earth. Having to give\n     less time to God, they have more time to give to man. They think\n     less about their heavenly home, and more about their earthly home.\n     The earthly home has grown very much brighter for the change. The\n     heavenly home is just where it was.\n\n     \"The plain truth is, of course, that the sentiment which used to be\n     absorbed in religion is now embodied in humanitarianism. Religion\n     is slowly dying everywhere. Social idealism is growing everywhere.\n     People who want to persuade us that social idealism depends on\n     religion are puzzled by this. It is only because they are\n     obstinately determined to connect everything with Christianity, in\n     spite of its historical record. There is no puzzle. We have\n     transferred our emotions from God to man, from heaven to\n     earth.\"--Joseph McCabe.\n\n     \"Socialists who have one eye on the ballot box may assure these\n     people that Socialism is not Atheistic, but few will be convinced.\n     The statement that Socialism has nothing to do with religion, or\n     that many professedly religious people are Socialist, is quite\n     futile. A thoughtful religionist would reply that the first point\n     concedes the truth of all that has been said against Socialism,\n     while the second evades the question at issue. No one is specially\n     concerned with the mental idiosyncracies of individual Socialists;\n     what is at issue is the question whether Socialism does or does not\n     take an Atheistic view of life? He might add, too, that a Socialism\n     which leaves out the belief in God and a future life, which does\n     not, in even the remotest manner, imply these beliefs, which does\n     not make their acceptance the condition of holding the meanest\n     office in the State, and, at most, will merely allow religious\n     beliefs to exist so long as they do not threaten the well-being of\n     the State, is, to all intents and purposes, an Atheistical\n     system.\"--Chapman Cohen.\n\nIn summing up the results of his investigations Prof. Leuba observes\nthat:\n\n     In every class of persons investigated, the number of believers in\n     God is less and in most classes very much less than the number of\n     non-believers, and that the number of believers in immortality is\n     somewhat larger than in a personal God; that among the more\n     distinguished, unbelief is very much more frequent than among the\n     less distinguished; and finally that not only the degree of\n     ability, but also the kind of knowledge possessed, is significantly\n     related to the rejection of these beliefs.\n\nIn another connection Prof. Leuba speaking of Christian dogmatism as a\nwhole says:\n\n     Christianity, as a system of belief, has utterly broken down, and\n     nothing definite, adequate, and convincing has taken its place.\n     There is no generally acknowledged authority; each one believes as\n     he can, and few seem disturbed at being unable to hold the tenets\n     of the churches. This sense of freedom is the glorious side of an\n     otherwise dangerous situation.\n\nYour conception of the origin, sustenance and governance of the universe\nis burdened, as are all interpretations of religion which are hinged\nupon the existence of conscious, personal divinities, with two\ndifficulties: (1) its physical impossibility, and (2) its moral\nimpossibility.\n\n1. Physical Impossibilities. The atomic and molecular movements required\nfor the thinking of a single man would be beyond the capacity of all the\ngods of the supernaturalistic interpretations of religion together.\n\nSome idea of the number of such motions which are taking place in every\nhuman brain, will be derived from the conservative representations of\nHofmeister as exhibited in the following condensed form by McCabe in his\nbook, \"The Evolution of Mind:\"\n\n     We have reason to believe that there are in each molecule of\n     ordinary protoplasm at least 450 atoms of carbon, 720 atoms of\n     hydrogen, 116 of nitrogen, 6 of sulphur, and 140 of oxygen.\n     Nerve-plasm is still more complex.\n\n     Recent discoveries have only increased the wonder and potentiality\n     of the cortex. Each atom has proved to be a remarkable\n     constellation of electrons, a colossal reservoir of energy. The\n     atom of hydrogen contains about 1,000 electrons, the atom of carbon\n     12,000, the atom of nitrogen 14,000, the atom of oxygen 16,000, and\n     the atom of sulphur 32,000. These electrons circulate within the\n     infinitesimal space of the atom at a speed of from 10,000 to 90,000\n     miles a second. It would take 340,000 barrels of powder to impart\n     to a bullet the speed with which some of these particles dart out\n     of their groups. A gramme of hydrogen--a very tiny portion of the\n     simplest gas--contains energy enough to lift a million tons more\n     than a hundred yards.\n\n     Of these astounding arsenals of energy, the atoms, we have, on the\n     lowest computation, at least 600 million billion in the cortex of\n     the human brain.\n\n     Scientists, says Professor Olerich, in his book, \"A Modern Look at\n     the Universe,\" estimate that the chemical atom is so\n     infinitesimally small that it requires a group of not less than a\n     billion to make the group barely visible under the most powerful\n     microscope, and a thousand such groups would have to be put\n     together in order to make it just visible to the naked eye as a\n     mere speck floating in the sunbeam.\n\n     The microscope reveals innumerable animalcules in the hundredth\n     part of a drop of water. They all eat, digest, move and from all\n     appearances of their frolics, they are endowed with sensation and\n     ability of enjoyment. What then shall we say of the minuteness of\n     the food they eat; of the blood that surges through their veins; of\n     their nervous system that thrills and guides them? Their minutest\n     organs must be composed of molecules, atoms, ions and electrons\n     inconceivably smaller than are the organs themselves.\n\nIs there any god in a celestial field who could care for the movements\nwhich occur in the molecules constituting a hundredth part of a drop of\nwater, not to speak of those which occur in the bodies of its myriads of\ninhabitants? And what shall we say of all the inorganic and organic\nmovements in a small cup of whole drops of water, let alone those of a\ngreat ocean of them?\n\nBut why go further into this subject? Is not the utter childishness of\nthe orthodox representative of a supernaturalistic interpretation of\nreligion, who credits his god with the governance of the motions\noccurring in the mineral, vegetable and animal kingdoms of this globe,\nleaving out of account those of its solar system, and of other systems\nwhich constitute the universe, sufficiently manifest?\n\nIf you say that the motions which issue in the phenomena of the universe\nare regulated by a law which was once for all willed by the god of the\nChristian interpretation of religion, I ask why the law should be\ncredited to the willing of this god rather than to that of the god of\nJewish, Mohammedan or Buddhistic interpretation.\n\nNewton took the first of the six initiatory steps in the long way which\nled to the conclusion that the universe is self-existing,\nself-sustaining and self-governing, by showing that all the movements of\nthe solar systems were necessarily what they have been by reason of a\nmatter-force law, gravitation. This discovery is the most momentous\nevent in the whole history of mankind.\n\nLaplace took the second step by showing that the cosmic nebulae contain\nwithin themselves all the potentialities necessary to the formation of\nsolar systems.\n\nLavoisier took the third step by showing that the matter which enters\ninto the constitution of the universe is an eternality.\n\nMayer took the fourth step by showing that the force which enters into\nthe constitution of the universe is an eternality.\n\nDarwin took the fifth step by showing that the protoplasm contains all\nthe potentialities of every form of physical and degree of psychical\nlife from the moneron to man; that all representatives of both the\nvegetable and animal kingdoms, including man, are related and so on a\nlevel as to their origin and destiny, and that the different species are\nthe natural results of the necessary struggle with rivals and with\nadverse environments for existence.\n\nMarx took the sixth step by showing that the essential difference\nbetween humans and beasts is primarily a question of the hand and\nsecondarily of the machines by which its efficiency is immeasurably\nincreased; that slavery has been and must continue to be the means of\nadvancement towards the ideal civilization; that the kinds of human\nslavery were what they have been because machines have been what they\nwere, and that the time is coming when the slaves will no longer be men,\nwomen and children, but machines which will be exploited for the good of\nthe many, not the profit of the few--then, and not until then, rapid\nadvance shall be made towards the goal where the whole world shall be\none great co-operative family, every member of which shall have the\ngreatest of possible opportunities to make the most of terrestrial life\nby having it as long and happy as possible.\n\n2. Moral Impossibilities. The moral impossibility of the assumptions of\nthese apologies is seen by all who have eyes for seeing things as they\nare in the fact that if God is credited with the good He must also be\ndebited with the evil. If for example, He endowed the human body with\nits useful and necessary parts. He also endowed it with its harmful and\nunnecessary parts.\n\nExperts in the field of anatomy tell us that there are in our bodies at\nleast 180 useless parts, some among which are the occasion of much\nsuffering and many premature deaths, the vermiform appendix alone\ncausing many thousands of such cases annually.\n\nDo you not see that these useless structures, all of which are inherited\nfrom the lower animals, are so many evidences of the truth of Darwinism\nand the untruthfulness of Mosaism? Eleven of these wholly useless and\nmore or less harmful inheritances have been of no use to any of our\nancestors from the fish up and four are inherited from our reptilian and\namphibian forefathers, but according to Moses we have no such\nprogenitors.\n\nAdmitting the fact of the existence of evil there is no escaping from\nthe logical conclusions of dear, old sensible Epicurus:\n\n     Either God is willing to remove evil from this world and cannot, or\n     he can and is not willing, or finally he can and is willing. If he\n     is willing and cannot, it is impotence, which is contrary to the\n     nature of God. If he can and is unwilling, it is wickedness, and\n     that is no less contrary to the nature of God. If he is not willing\n     and cannot, there is both wickedness and impotence. If he is\n     willing and can, which is the only one of these suppositions that\n     can be applied to God, how happens it that there is evil on earth?\n\nOh, if only the world had been influenced by this logic instead of by\nthe metaphysics of the supernaturalistic interpretations of religion, it\nwould have been so far on the way towards the ideal civilization as to\nhave long since passed the point where it would have been possible to\nhave the world war which has recently deluged the earth with blood and\ntears, or to make the Versailles treaty which is destined to issue in\none war after another, ever filling the world fuller with the tyranny,\npoverty, slavery and misery which are the inevitable concomitants of all\nwars.\n\nIn my opinion the fascinating essayist, Mallock, has written the best of\nall apologies for theism. I cannot imagine a better one. He, however,\nmakes no more attempt than Sir Oliver Lodge does to establish\nChristianity, or any other supernaturalistic interpretations of\nreligion. Like Kant and yourself, Mallock takes his stand on the ground\nthat a belief in a celestial God, and in the immortality which goes with\nit, is necessary to morality, the basic virtue upon which civilization\nrests. As Kant admits that the existence of God cannot be inferred from\npure reason, so Mallock admits and even strongly contends that it cannot\nbe established on scientific grounds. I quote a striking passage:\n\n     We must divest ourselves of all foregone conclusions, of all\n     question-begging reverences, and look the facts of the universe\n     steadily in the face.\n\n     If theists will but do this, what they will see will astonish them.\n     They will see that if there is anything at the back of this vast\n     process, with a consciousness and a purpose in any way resembling\n     our own--a Being who knows what he wants and is doing his best to\n     get it--he is, instead of a holy and all-wise God, a\n     scatter-brained, semi-powerful, semi-impotent monster. They will\n     recognize as clearly as they ever did the old familiar facts which\n     seemed to them evidences of God's wisdom, love and goodness; but\n     they will find that these facts, when taken in connection with the\n     others, only supply us with a standard in the nature of this being\n     himself by which most of his acts are exhibited to us as those of a\n     criminal madman. If he had been blind, he had not had sin; but if\n     we maintain that he can see, then his sin remains. Habitually a\n     bungler as he is, and callous when not actively cruel, we are\n     forced to regard him, when he seems to exhibit benevolence, as not\n     divinely benevolent, but merely weak and capricious, like a boy who\n     fondles a kitten and the next moment sets a dog at it. And not only\n     does his moral character fall from him bit by bit, but his dignity\n     disappears also. The orderly processes of the stars and the larger\n     phenomena of nature are suggestive of nothing so much as a\n     wearisome court ceremonial surrounding a king who is unable to\n     understand or to break away from it; whilst the thunder and\n     whirlwind, which have from time immemorial been accepted as special\n     revelations of his awful power and majesty, suggest, if they\n     suggest anything of a personal character at all, merely some\n     blackguardly larrikin kicking his heels in the clouds, not perhaps\n     bent on mischief, but indifferent to the fact that he is causing\n     it.\n\n     But we need not attempt to fill in the picture further. The truth\n     is, as we consider the universe as a whole, it fails to suggest a\n     conscious and purposive God at all; and it fails to do so not\n     because the processes of evolution as such preclude the idea that\n     God might have made use of them for a definite purpose, but because\n     when we come to consider these processes in detail, and view them\n     in the light of the only purposes they suggest, we find them to be\n     such that a God who could deliberately have been guilty of them\n     would be a God too absurd, too monstrous, too mad to be credible.\n\nThe god who had any part in bringing upon the world the English-German\nwar, the Versailles peace, the Russian blockade, is for me a devil not a\ndivinity. If you say that the Christian god had nothing to do with\nthem, I reply that these are among the greatest of all curses wherewith\nmankind has been afflicted in modern times; and if he could not or would\nnot prevent them, what ground is there for looking to him for help in\nany time of need?\n\n     How can I adequately express my contempt for the assertion that all\n     things occur for the best, for a wise and beneficent end? It is the\n     most utter falsehood, and a crime against the human race.... Human\n     suffering is so great, so endless, so awful, that I can hardly\n     write of it.... The whole and the worst, the worst pessimist can\n     say is far beneath the least particle of the truth.... Anyone who\n     will consider the affairs of the world at large ... will see that\n     they do not proceed in the manner they would do for our happiness\n     if a man of humane breadth of view were placed at their head with\n     unlimited power. A man of intellect and humanity could cause\n     everything to happen in an infinitely superior manner. But that\n     which is ... credited to a non-existent intelligence (or cosmic\n     \"order,\" it is just the same) should really be claimed and\n     exercised by the human race. We must do for ourselves what\n     superstition has hitherto supposed an intelligence to do for\n     us.--Richard Jeffries.\n\n  Would but some winged Angel ere too late\n  Arrest the yet unfolded Roll of Fate,\n  And make the stern Recorder otherwise\n  Enregister, or quite obliterate!\n\n  Ah Love! could you and I with Him conspire\n  To grasp this sorry Scheme of Things entire,\n  Would not we shatter it to bits--and then\n  Remold it nearer to the Heart's Desire!\n\n  --Omar.\n\nYou frequently intimate that my doctrine concerning the origin and\ndestiny of the universe with all that therein is, including man, is not\nthat of the majority of men of science and scientific philosophers, but\nthat yours is. It will therefore be of interest to you to know that I\nhave submitted the most radical of my materialistic pieces to three men\nof science, all great authorities, one of whom replied, that he was in\nsubstantial agreement with me, but thought me to be 400 years ahead of\nour time; another, that he found nothing to criticize unless it might be\nmy failure to give greater prominence to the fact that the gods of the\nredemptive interpretations, of religion were so many versions of the\nsun-myth, and the other, that the essay would pass any world congress of\nscientists by a large majority.\n\nYou think that I am wrong in quoting Newton and Darwin on my side,\nbecause they believed in the existence of a conscious, personal god. I\nam persuaded that such was not the case with Darwin at his death; but,\nhowever this may be, it is in neither of these cases, nor in that of any\nother scientist, a question of what he philosophically believed\nconcerning a god, but of what he scientifically established as a fact.\n\nNewton established the fact that the movements of the stars in their\ncourses are naturally regulated by the law of gravitation, not\nsupernaturally by the will of a god.\n\nDarwin established the fact that all living species of animal and\nvegetable life exist as the natural results of evolutionary processes,\nnot as the supernatural results of creative acts.\n\nIf Newton were to stand by his theological writings, he would fall in\nyour estimation, for his work on the book of Daniel would be regarded by\nyou as an absurdity. He considered Daniel to be the great revelation of\na God, Jehovah, but you know it to be the purest fiction of a man, quite\nas much the work of the imagination of its author as Don Quixote is that\nof Cervantes.\n\nAmong the many theological authorities whom you quote against me, the\ngreatest, in my estimation, is Dr. Inge, Dean of St. Paul's, London,\nwhose utterances I have been noting with great interest of late; partly,\nno doubt, because he seems to be giving up your orthodox side and coming\nover, slowly but surely, to my heterodox one. In a London paper which\nhas just reached me, the Literary Guide, this is said of the Dean:\n\n     The theological opinions of Dean Inge, one of the official\n     mouthpieces of the Church of England, and probably the most\n     distinguished spokesman for the more liberally minded of the\n     clergy, have now reached an interesting stage, both for those\n     without the Church as well as for those within it. Although he does\n     not feel called upon to state his own private conclusions on such\n     debatable questions, he no longer regards the doctrines of the\n     Immaculate Conception and the Bodily Resurrection as essential\n     prerequisites of Christianity and would consider fit for ordination\n     any candidate who rejected them, provided such a person still\n     acknowledged the divine nature of Jesus Christ--that is, he would\n     not exclude him from the Church's ministry.\n\nIf I understand Dean Inge as he is reported in the article of which this\nis the opening paragraph, he bases his faith in the divinity of Jesus\nupon the uniqueness of his character and teachings, not on the\nmiraculousness of his birth and healings.\n\nBut Dean Inge has no authentic or reliable account of the life and\nteachings of Jesus; and so, as a theologian, like all theologians, he\nlives, moves and has his being in the realm of fiction, the difference\nbetween him and yourself being that he is in that part of it where the\nimagination sits enthroned, and you in the region where metaphysics is\nmonarch of all it surveys.\n\nAn outstanding theologian who, as it seems to me, overshadows Dean Inge,\ncommenting upon a piece of my writing which is quite as radical as any\npart of this letter goes even further than he.\n\n     \"I have,\" he says, \"just read the Chapter of your Natural Gospel\n     for a Scientific Age, which you have kindly sent me, with the\n     greatest interest. Indeed I have come so heartily to share your\n     point of view that I can find no points for criticism; I can only\n     say how grateful I am to have had an opportunity of seeing your\n     uncompromising and clear expression of the only kind of Modernism\n     that has any promise for the future. I am beginning to feel more\n     and more uncomfortable in our Christian movement because so many of\n     our leaders here are attempting an impossible compromise with\n     dogma. Men like Dr. Rashdall have no place in the movement for men\n     who cannot accept their 'fullblooded theism.' In fact they are\n     Harnackians with their one or two unalterably fixed dogmas.\"\n\n\nIV.\n\nIf you ask why I continue to be a member of an orthodox church and its\nministry, the answer is, there is no reason why I should not for (if\nthey may be interpreted by myself, for myself, spiritually) I accept\nevery article of the creed of catholic orthodoxy; but if the articles of\nthis creed must be interpreted literally there is no one in our church\n(the Episcopal) or in any among the churches, who believes all of them.\nFor example, who believes, that God created the heavens and the earth\nout of nothing in six days, as he is represented to have done in his\nalleged revelation of which the creed is a condensation? All in this\nchurch, or at least all the ministers of it, who have obeyed its\nrequirement respecting the devotion of themselves to study, as I have,\nknow that the firmament or heaven of which the revelation speaks has no\nsubstantial existence, only an imaginary one. What was supposed to be\nit, is but the reflection of light upon the dust of the atmosphere. As\nfor the earth it was not made out of nothing; and, indeed, it was not\nsupernaturally made at all but naturally evolutionized out of matter and\nforce, and even they were not created by a god, for they are co-existing\neternalities; nor were their evolutionary processes directed by him, for\nthey have eternally, automatically and necessarily co-operated in such\nprocesses to the production of every phenomenon which has contributed to\nmake both the physical and psychical parts of the universe what they\nhave been at any time, including the divine, diabolical and angelic\nfictions which men have made and placed above and below the earth.\n\nIf you ask whether I am still a professing Christian, I will answer:\nyes, yet the Brother Jesus of the New Testament, catholic creed and\nprotestant confessions, is not for me an historical personage, but only\na symbol of all that is for the good of the world, even as the Uncle Sam\nof American literature is not an historical personage but only a symbol\nof all which is for the good of the United States.\n\nIf you ask whether I am a praying Christian, I shall answer: yes, yet\nwhen I pray, as I do every day, my prayer is an appeal to a real\ndivinity within my heart, the better self, of which self all the unreal\ndivinities in the skies including the Christian trinity, Father, Son and\nSpirit, are but poetic symbols, and I no longer expect this God to\nanswer otherwise than the symbol of parents, Santa Claus, answers the\nprayers of children, or the symbol of the United States, Uncle Sam,\nanswers the prayers of Americans.\n\nIf you ask whether I am a communing Christian, I shall answer: yes, yet\nwhen I go to the Lord's Supper, as I do every month, the strength which\nI receive is derived from the feeling that through it I place myself in\ncommunion with my human brethren on earth, not with a divine brother in\nthe sky, particularly with the members of my church and the citizens of\nmy town and its neighborhood, but generally with all men, women and\nchildren throughout the whole world, of which real brethren the brother\ngod in the sky, Jesus, is but a poetic symbol; nor do I now regard the\ncommunion of this supper as being essentially different from that of any\nordinary family-meal, lodge-banquet, or socialist-picnic, with each of\nwhich repasts the informal Lord's Supper of the apostolic church had\nmuch more in common than it has with the formal celebrations of the\nsacrament in any among the sectarian churches.[J]\n\nMany critics represent that, in view of the changes in my theological\nopinion, if I am an honest man, not a hypocrite, I will leave the\nministry and communion of the Episcopal Church. But why should I go\nwhile any of my brother clergymen remain? I give a symbolic or\nallegorical interpretation to every article of the whole system of\nChristian supernaturalism and uniqueism; yet as symbols, allegories,\nparables, or myths, I do not reject any, and no member of our House of\nBishops literally accepts all.\n\nWho among influential preachers of any rank in any church believes: (1)\nthat the world was made about six thousand years ago by a personal,\nCreator-God out of nothing; or that it was made at any time out of\nanything? (2) that such a God formed Adam out of dust and Eve out of a\nrib; that they left His hands as perfect physical and moral images of\nHimself, and fully civilized representatives of the human race; or that\nthere was any first man and woman? (3) that He planted a Garden of Eden\nand placed them therein under ideal conditions, and that He walked in it\nand talked with them; or that there ever was any such garden? (4) that a\npersonal destroyer-Devil, incarnated in a talking serpent, tempted them\ninto disobedience; or that there ever was any such Devil? (5) that but\nfor this Devil's influence and their sin, labor and suffering, physical\ndeath and moral degradation would have been unknown on earth, and that\nit would have been the permanent abode of mankind, as indeed of all\nsentient creatures; or that any of the higher forms of life would have\nbeen possible without death? and (6) that to repair the evils\naccomplished by this Destroyer-Devil it was necessary for a personal\nRestorer-God to become incarnated in a man, in order that he might shed\nthis blood as a sufficient sacrifice for the satisfaction of the\noffended Creator-God; also, in order that the resurrection of the\nbodies (bones, flesh, blood and animal organism) of all deceased men,\nwomen and children and the rehabitation of them by their respective\nsouls could be accomplished, to the end that a few, on account of their\nfaith, might be transferred to a permanent home in a heaven on a\nfirmament above the earth, and the many, because of their lack of faith,\nto a permanent home in a hell below; or that there ever was any such\nincarnation for these purposes; or that there are any such firmament,\nheaven, and hell, or that there will be any such resurrection, ascension\nor descension?\n\nIf other bishops, priests and deacons can, as they must, bring in their\nsymbolism or allegorism touching any or all of these six fundamentals,\nwhich constitute the basis of the supernaturalism of traditional\nChristianity, and yet not leave the church, why may not I bring in mine\nand remain?\n\nAttention is called by several critics to Sir Oliver Lodge, as an\nexample of an outstanding man of science who accepts supernaturalism.\nWhile I was desperately trying to retain my conception of a\nsupernaturalistic God and of all the supernaturalism that goes with it\n(revelation of truth, answer to prayer, guidance by providence,\nresurrection of the dead and their ascension, eternal consciousness and\nhappiness) I at one time centered a great deal of hope in him, and\neagerly studied his works as indeed I did those of most apologists for\nsupernaturalism among them the greatest, Flammarion, Balfour, Bergson\nand Hudson, but my careful study of his many writings convinced me that\nhe does not hold any of the supernaturalistic doctrines which are\ndistinctively Christian.\n\nHowever, it is my doctrine concerning Jesus, rather than that of\nChristian traditionalism, that is in exact alignment with that of this\nrenowned physicist. We agree that Jesus, if historical, was a Son of God\nand the Christ to men in no other sense, and therefore in no higher\ndegree, than all representatives of the human race may be sons or\ndaughters of God, if there are gods and christs, to the men, women and\nchildren with whom they come in contact.\n\nMost critics think that I am wrong in representing that the great\nmajority of the leading men of science are naturalistic, not\nsupernaturalistic, but Sir Oliver Lodge represents that among such\nscientists it is generally believed that the universe is\n\"self-explained, self-contained and self-maintained;\" and speaking on\nhis own behalf of its creation out of nothing he says: \"The\nimprobability or absurdity of such a conception, except in the symbolism\nof poetry, is extreme, and it is unthinkable by any educated person.\"\n\nAll these gods were created, endowed and located by man, and then he had\nthem make revelations, create churches, institute sacraments and appoint\npriesthoods for his redemption from devils whom he also created, endowed\nand located.\n\nThis is why people of the same country and time have such different gods\nand revelations. Jehovah is the god and the Old Testament the revelation\nof the kings and plutocrats who are responsible for wars; Jesus is the\ngod and the New Testament is the revelation of the doctors and nurses\nwho do what they can to alleviate the misery of them.\n\nThe gods, not excepting Jehovah and Jesus, are as mythical as Santa\nClaus and answer their suppliants not otherwise than he answers his,\nthrough human representatives. If the suffering, needy or afflicted do\nnot get help and sympathy from men, women and children they get none\nfrom the gods and angels.\n\nWhile on the one hand the great majority of scientists, scientific\nphilosophers and educated people generally doubt that any god ever\nanswered a prayer or exercised a providence, on the other, no one doubts\nthat men, women and children answer millions of prayers daily and that\nevery person's career is wholly different from what it would have been\nbut for human providence; that, indeed, life would be impossible without\nthe providence which all people exercise in the hearing and answering of\nprayers.\n\nRepresentatives of many of the interpretations of religion strewed every\nbattle-field of the European war. The celestial saviours did not care\nfor one of their devotees. The terrestrial saviours (doctors and nurses)\ndid everything for the desperately wounded and saved millions who would\nhave miserably perished but for them. These were the real christs and\nangels of whom the celestial ones are but symbols. The celestials always\nhave passed by on the other side. The terrestrials are the Good\nSamaritans when there are any.\n\nSceptics infer from this negligence that the gods and angels have no\nreal objective existence. Believers contend that they really exist\nobjectively and excuse the neglect on account of preoccupation. For\nexample, the God of traditional Christianity is supposed to spend much\ntime counting hairs on the heads of His people and watching sparrows\nfall to the ground. Sceptics are reverently but earnestly asking: Why\ndoes He not keep the sparrows from falling? Why does He not let the\nhairs remain unnumbered, until He has put a stop to wars and promoted\ngood will among men to a degree which will render it impossible that\nthe world should any longer be cursed by them?\n\nIf believers say that we have no knowledge of the ways of God, sceptics\nreply: Since all which is known about any objective reality is\nconcerning the ways thereof, what the action is under given\ncircumstances, how do you know that your God has anything to do with\neither sparrows or men, or even that He exists?\n\nAs to their philosophy concerning the origin, sustenance and governance\nof the universe, socialists of the school of Marx, are almost to a man\nmaterialists; but, as to their philosophy concerning life, they are as\ngenerally idealists. There is, I feel sure, as much idealism in my\nthinking and living now as there was in the days of my orthodoxy, but I\nwill let you judge for yourself after reading the following confession\nof faith:\n\nMy early life was blighted as the result of the premature death of my\nfather by the Civil War and the consequent breaking up of his family and\nmy bondage to a German who made a slave of me, broke my health by\noverwork and exposure, and, worst of all, kept me in ignorance, so that\nwhen, at the age of twenty-one, I began my education, I was assigned to\nthe fourth grade of a public school.\n\nThe prime of my life has been wasted in preaching as truths the dogmas\nof the Christian theology, the representations of which I now believe,\nwith the overwhelming majority of educated people, to be at best so many\nsymbols and at worst superstitions.\n\nBut though I do not now and probably never shall again believe in the\nexistence of a conscious, personal god, a knowledge of and obedience to\nwhose will is necessary to salvation, yet an injustice is done me by\nthose who say I have abandoned god and religion.\n\nEvery one who desires and endeavors to fulfill the requirements of a law\nwhich is independent of his will and beyond his control has a god and a\nreligion. I desire and endeavor this in the case of two such laws and so\nhave two gods and two religions. Both of my divinities are trinities.\nOne is in the physical realm and the other in the moral one.\n\nIn the physical realm my triune god is: matter, the father; force, the\nson, and motion, the spirit.\n\nIn the moral realm, my triune god is: fact, the father; truth, the son,\nand life, the spirit.\n\nFor me the triune divinity of Christianity is a symbol of these\ntrinities and it is my desire and effort to discover and fulfill what\nthey require of me, in order that I may make my own physical, psychical\nand moral life as long, happy and complete as possible and help others\nin doing this for themselves. This desire and effort is at once my\nmorality and religion, my politics and patriotism, and they are\nspiritual realities.\n\nOn account of the first of these sets of spiritual virtues (morality and\nreligion) I claim to be a Christian of the highest type, and that any\naccusation which is raised against me because of alleged disloyalty to\nany essential of Christianism is an injustice.\n\nOn account of the second of these sets of spiritual virtues (politics\nand patriotism) I claim to be an American of the highest type, and that\nany accusation which is raised against me because of alleged disloyalty\nto an essential of Americanism is an injustice.\n\nFrom the viewpoint of the self-styled one hundred per cent Christians,\nI am a betrayer of Brother Jesus because I do not believe that he ever\nhad any existence as a god and that, if he was at any time a man, the\nworld does not now and never can know of one thing that he did or of one\nword that he said.\n\nFrom the viewpoint of the self-styled one hundred per cent Americans, I\nam a traitor to Uncle Sam, because I did oppose his going into the\nEnglish-German war, and because I do object to the partiality which he\nshows to his rich nephews and nieces.\n\nStill Jesus and Uncle Sam are as dear to me as ever and indeed dearer,\nyet not as objective, conscious personalities, but as symbols, ideals or\npatterns.\n\nHowever, though I love my Brother Jesus and Uncle Sam all the time, as a\nchild does Santa Claus at Christmas time, I am no longer childish enough\nat any time to look to either of them to do anything for me, because I\nknow that what is done for me must be done either by myself or by men,\nwomen and children, and that as objective, conscious personalities, my\nBrother Jesus and Uncle Sam have had no more to do with my life than the\nman-in-the-moon.\n\nYour observation concerning the American government as being the\nstandard to which all governments will ultimately conform challenges an\nearnest word of friendly dissent.\n\nOur government is what all the governments of the world are (with the\nsingle exception of the Russian) a government in the interest of a small\nclass, the representatives of which own the means and machines of\nproduction and distribution and who produce and distribute things for\nprofit, each for himself.\n\nThe representatives of one class produce things socially, and those of\nanother class appropriate them individually. This is capitalistic\nanarchy, the worst of possible anarchism, and it must have an end soon\nor the world will be lost.\n\nRobbery is the essence of anarchy and Marx showed that every cent of\nprofit made under the existing system of economics (and in the United\nStates it amounts to several billions of dollars every year) is so much\nrobbery of the many who make and operate the machines, because they are\npaid less in wages than the value of the products made and distributed\nby them.\n\nWe are hearing much in these days about the anarchy of those who are\ndissatisfied with the capitalistic governments, but the governments\nthemselves and those in whose interests they exist are the real\nanarchists. The flesh and blood of anarchism are robbery and lying, and\nthese are the meat and drink of capitalism.\n\nThe English-German war was the most flagrant act of anarchy in the whole\nhistory of mankind. The peace of Versailles and the blockade of Russia\nwere outrageous acts of anarchy, and so also are the terrorism and\ntyranny of which every capitalistic country is so full, our own with the\nrest.\n\nMorality is the very heart of civilization and of all that really makes\nfor it; but morality is impossible on a capitalistic basis, for it is\nfounded on the most immoral things in the world, robbery, lying, murder,\nignorance, poverty and slavery.\n\nIf I am right in the conviction that the United States is more wholly\ngiven over to capitalism than any other nation, not excepting even\nEngland, it is the greatest robber, liar and murderer on earth. How\nthen, can the United States become the standard for the governments of\nthe nations?\n\nIf the government of Russia holds its own, it, rather than that of the\nUnited States, will become the standard to which all governments must\nmeasure up or else go down.\n\nYes, not the government of the United States but that of Russia is\ndestined to become the standard of all peoples, for the aim of our\ngovernment is money, more money, and then some, for the few, while the\ninfinitely higher aim of theirs is life, more life, fuller life for\nevery man, woman and child.\n\nWithin my generation the vanguard of humanity has passed from the age of\ntraditionalism to that of scientism and this transition is the greatest\nand most salutary event in the whole history of humanity. It is\nimpossible to exaggerate its importance. It marks the time when man\nbegan consciously to realize that he must look to himself rather than to\nany god for salvation.\n\nFrom time immemorial man has realized that ignorance is his ruin and\nknowledge his salvation, but during the too many and too long ages of\ntraditionalism he made the fatal mistake of supposing that he was\ndependent upon a supernatural revelation by an unconscious, personal god\nfor the necessary knowledge. But now the leading people of the world,\nthe shepherds of the sheep, are seeing with increasing clearness that\nman has naturally inherited his knowledge and must naturally acquire by\nhis own experience, reason and investigation every addition to it.\n\nThe world is indeed passing through a long, dark night, but neither the\nlongest nor the darkest, and since at last a great and rapidly\nincreasing multitude happily realize that humanity must work out its own\nsalvation through the living of its own knowledge by its own inherited\nand increased strength, not by a supernatural grace, we of this\ngeneration may rationally hope, as those of no other did or could, for\nthe dawning of the longest and brightest of all days.\n\nAs an old year dies into a new one, and as flourishing generations die\ninto rising ones, so the old traditional ages, when nations and sects\nlooked to their rival gods in the skies for help, are happily dying into\nthe new scientific age, when all sensible and good men, relying upon the\nstrength of a common divinity which is within themselves, will unite in\nan all-inclusive brotherhood for the promotion of the ideal\ncivilization, a universal reign of righteousness.\n\nIt is night,--midnight. The clock is striking twelve. But this is the\nvery hour and the very minute, when all the saviours of mankind have\nalways been and ever will be born. Then it is that the Virgin, Nature,\ncomes to this dark world with her new born Son, Truth, whom to know and\nfollow is morality, religion, politics and life. It is then that those\nwho give expression to the highest ideals and deepest longings of\nmankind, hear the angels, Reason and Hope, sing: On earth peace and good\nwill towards men.\n\nVery cordially and gratefully yours,\nWM. M. BROWN.\n\nBrownella Cottage,\nGalion, Ohio.\n\n[Illustration: FREDERICK ENGELS]\n\n[Illustration: NIKOLAI LENIN]\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[H] The difference between a political republic, such as America has\ndeveloped, and an industrial republic, such as Russia is developing, is\nthat the administrators of the former are elected from the geographical\ndivisions and those of the latter from the productive divisions into\nwhich the population is divided.\n\nIf we liken states to fruit trees, the American tree may be said to have\nbeen evolutionized for the purpose of producing the fruit of commodities\nfor the profit of the owning class, and the Russian, the fruit of\ncommodities for the use of the working class.\n\n[I] See appendix.\n\n[J] Nevertheless I consider church-going to be a bad habit, and if I\ncould live my life over, I would not allow myself to become addicted to\nit.\n\n\n\n\nCOMMUNISM AND CHRISTIANISM\n\nANALYZED AND CONTRASTED FROM THE MARXIAN AND DARWINIAN POINTS OF VIEW\n\n\n\n\nAppendix.\n\n\nI Scientific Socialism.\n\nII God and Immortality.\n\nIII Mythical Character of Old and New Testament Personages.\n\nIV Would Socialism Change Human Nature?\n\nV What Will be the Form of the Workers' State?\n\nVI Withdrawal of Prize Offer.\n\nVII Afterword.\n\n     Morality is the greatest thing in the world; but paradoxical as it\n     may seem, there is one greater thing, liberty--the liberty which is\n     freedom to learn, interpret, live and teach the truth as it is\n     revealed by the facts or acts of nature. Without this freedom there\n     can be no morality, and of course no true religion, politics or\n     civilization.\n\n\n\n\nSURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST.\n\n\n  In northern climes, the polar bear\n  Protects himself with fat and hair,\n  Where snow is deep and ice is stark,\n  And half the year is cold and dark;\n  He still survives a clime like that\n  By growing fur, by growing fat.\n  These traits, O bear, which thou transmittest\n  Prove the Survival of the Fittest.\n\n  To polar regions waste and wan,\n  Comes the encroaching race of man,\n  A puny, feeble, little bubber,\n  He has no fur, he has no blubber.\n  The scornful bear sat down at ease\n  To see the stranger starve and freeze;\n  But, lo! the stranger slew the bear,\n  And ate his fat and wore his hair;\n  These deeds, O Man, which thou committest\n  Prove the Survival of the Fittest.\n\n  In modern times the millionaire\n  Protects himself as did the bear:\n  Where Poverty and Hunger are\n  He counts his bullion by the car:\n  Where thousands perish still he thrives--\n  The wealth, O Croesus, thou transmittest\n  Proves the Survival of the Fittest.\n\n  But, lo, some people odd and funny,\n  Some men without a cent of money--\n  The simple common human race\n  Chose to improve their dwelling place;\n  They had no use for millionaires,\n  They calmly said the world was theirs,\n  They were so wise, so strong, so many,\n  The Millionaires?--there wasn't any.\n  These deeds, O Man, which thou committest\n  Prove the Survival of the Fittest.\n\n  --Mrs. Charlotte Stetson.\n\n\n\n\nI. SCIENTIFIC SOCIALISM.\n\n\n     The working class and the employing class have nothing in common.\n     There can be no peace so long as hunger and want are found among\n     millions of working people and the few, who make up the employing\n     class, have all the good things of life.\n\n     Between these two classes a struggle must go on until the workers\n     of the world organize as a class, take possession of the earth and\n     the machinery of production, and abolish the wage system.\n\n     We find that the centering of management of the industries into\n     fewer and fewer hands makes the trade unions unable to cope with\n     the ever growing power of the employing class. The trade unions\n     foster a state of affairs which allows one set of workers to be\n     pitted against another set of workers in the same industry, thereby\n     helping defeat one another in wage wars. Moreover, the trade unions\n     aid the employing class to mislead the workers into the belief that\n     the working class have interests in common with their employers.\n\n     These conditions can be changed and the interest of the working\n     class upheld only by an organization formed in such a way that all\n     its members in any one industry, or in all industries if necessary,\n     cease work whenever a strike or lockout is on in any department\n     thereof, thus making an injury to one an injury to all.\n\n     Instead of the conservative motto, \"A fair day's wage for a fair\n     day's work\", we must inscribe on our banner the revolutionary\n     watchword, \"Abolition of the wage system\".\n\n     It is the historic mission of the working class to do away with\n     capitalism. The army of production must be organized, not only for\n     the every-day struggle with capitalists, but also to carry on\n     production when capitalism shall have been overthrown. By\n     organizing industrially we are forming the structure of the new\n     society within the shell of the old.--Preamble of the Industrial\n     Workers of the World.\n\nThe following Synopsis of Scientific Socialism will serve both as a\nsummary of and supplement to my little book. It is the introductory part\nof a catechism (a series of questions and answers) entitled \"Scientific\nSocialism Study Course\" published by Charles H. Kerr & Company, 341\nEast Ohio Street, Chicago, and is reprinted here by their consent, with\ncertain changes in the interests of brevity and perspicuity. As a whole\nthis short Study Course of only thirty small pages in large type is the\ngreatest piece of catechetical literature of which I have any knowledge.\nEven the synopsis as given here contains more of the education which\nmakes for the good of the world than all the catechisms of all the\nchurches. The Catechism was published in 1913.\n\n1. How do you explain the phenomena of History?\n\nAns.: History, from the capitalist point of view, is a record of\npolitical and intellectual changes and revolutions of so-called great\nmen, wherein the economic causes for these acts and changes are ignored\nor concealed; but, from the socialist view point, history reveals a\nseries of class struggles between an exploited wealth-producing class\nand an exploiting ruling class over the wealth produced.\n\n2. What effect have \"great men\" had on history?\n\nAns.: Great men were simply ideal expressions of the hopes of some class\nin society that was becoming economically powerful. They formed a\nnucleus around which a class gathered itself in attaining economic\nconquests in its own interest, and in establishing social institutions\nin harmony with, and for the perpetuation of, such class interests.\nThese men had to embody some vital principles from the economic\nconditions of their time and represent some class interest. The same men\nwith the same ideas would not be great men under a different mode of\nproduction when the time for their ideas was not ripe.\n\n3. What great factor is responsible for the rise of \"great men?\"\n\nAns.: The fact that the ideas of these men coincided with the class\ninterests of some class in society that was becoming economically\npowerful. Therefore economic conditions must exist or be developing\nwhich find their highest expression in the ideas of such men.\n\n4. Why do social institutions change and not remain fixed?\n\nAns.: Because the process of economic evolution will not permit them to\nremain fixed. The development and improvement of the means of production\nand distribution produce economic changes, therefore social institutions\n(the state, church, school and even the family) are forced to change to\nconform with changing economic conditions. These are due to evolutionary\nand revolutionary processes connected with the means of production and\ndistribution.\n\n5. What is responsible for the birth of new ideas, and do they occur to\nsome one individual only?\n\nAns.: New ideas, theories and discoveries emanate from material\nconditions, and such conditions act upon individuals. The same idea or\ndiscovery may be brought out by different individuals independently and\napart from each other. This proves that it is not great men who are\nresponsible for material conditions, but that material conditions (modes\nof production and distribution) produce the men best able to marshal the\nfacts and express the idea; usually in the interest of some class.\n\n6. What single great idea occurred to both Darwin and Wallace\nindependently?\n\nAns.: The theory of \"Natural Selection\" which showed that the closely\nallied ante-type was the parent stock from which the new form had been\nderived by variation.\n\n7. What single great idea occurred to both Marx and Engels\nindependently?\n\nAns.: The \"Materialistic Conception of History.\"\n\n8. Name the three great ideas developed by Marx and Engels which now\nform the bed-rock basis for the socialist philosophy.\n\nAns.: (1) the Materialistic Conception of History, or, the law of\neconomic determinism, (2) the Law of Surplus Value, and (3) the Class\nStruggle.\n\n9. Explain, briefly, the \"materialistic conception of history.\"\n\nAns.: \"In every historical epoch, the prevailing mode of economic\nproduction and exchange and the social organization necessarily\nfollowing from it forms the basis upon which is built up and from which\nalone can be explained, the political and intellectual history of that\nepoch.\" The laws, customs, education, religion, public opinion and\nmorals are in the long run controlled and shaped by economic conditions;\nor, in other words, by the dominant ruling class which the economic\nsystem of any given period forces to the front.\n\n10. What is the most important question in life?\n\nAns.: The problem of securing food and shelter.\n\n11. What bearing does this have on the materialistic conception of\nhistory?\n\nAns.: It gives us the only key by which we can understand the history of\nthe past, and within limits, predict the course of future development.\n\n12. What effect does the prevailing mode of production and exchange in\nany particular epoch, have on the social organization and political and\nintellectual history of that epoch?\n\nAns.: \"Anything that goes to the roots of the economic structure and\nmodifies it (the food and shelter question in life) will inevitably\nmodify every other branch and department of human life, political,\nethical, religious and moral. This makes the social question primarily\nan economic one and all our thought and effort should be concentrated on\nit.\"\n\n13. Do the ideas of the ruling class, in any given epoch, correspond\nwith the prevailing mode of economic production?\n\nAns.: They correspond exactly, as all connective institutions, civil,\nreligious, legal, educational, political and domestic have been moulded\nin the interest of the economically dominant class who control these\ninstitutions in a manner to uphold their class interests where their\nideas find expression.\n\n14. What effect do these ideas of the ruling class have on the interests\nof the subject class?\n\nAns.: The effect is detrimental to the interests of the subject class as\nthe different class interests conflict. Therefore the ruling class finds\nthe institutions mentioned very useful in either persuading or forcing\nthe so-called \"lower classes\" to submit to the economic conditions that\nare absolutely against their interest, even though they are the wealth\nproducing class.\n\n15. Distinguish natural environment from man-made environment.\n\nAns.: Natural environment which consisted of the fertility of the soil,\nclimatic conditions, abundance of fruits, nuts, game and fish was\nall-important in the early stage of man's development. With the progress\nof civilization this nature-made environment loses its supreme\nimportance and the man-made economic environment becomes equally\nimportant.\n\n16. Explain, briefly, the law of Surplus Value.\n\nAns.: It is the difference between what the working class as a whole\ngets for its labor power at its value in wages, say an average of five\ndollars per day, for producing commodities, and what the employing class\nas a whole gets, say an average of twenty-five dollars, for the same\ncommodities when sold at their value. According to this conservative\nestimate capital is upon the whole and in the long run robbing labor of\nfour-fifths of the value of its productive power. Capitalism is\ntherefore the great robber, the Beelzebub of robbers.\n\n17. Since the economic factor is the determining factor, what does the\nlaw of Surplus Value furnish us?\n\nAns.: \"Surplus Value is the key to the whole present economic\norganization of society. The end and object of capitalist society is the\nformation and accumulation of surplus value; or in other words, the\nsystematic, legal robbery of the subject working class.\"\n\n18. Define value and state how measured.\n\nAns.: Value is the average amount of human labor time socially, not\nindividually, necessary under average, not special, conditions for the\nproduction or reproduction of commodities.\n\n19. What determines the value of labor power?\n\nAns.: It is determined precisely like the value of every other\ncommodity, i. e., by the amount of labor time socially necessary for its\nproduction or reproduction by the raising and support of children to\nsucceed their parents as wage-earning slaves.\n\n20. Since labor power is a commodity, what condition is it subject to?\n\nAns.: It is subject to the same conditions that all other commodities\nare subject to without regard to the fact that it is the source of all\nsocial value. The worker in whom the commodity labor power is embodied,\ndoes not get the value of the product of his labor, but only about\none-fifth of it, enough to keep him in working order and reproduce more\nlabor power in his children. If the worker received the value of the\nproduct of his labor he would receive much more than enough to keep him\nin working order and to raise his family. Such an economic condition\nwould abolish all forms of surplus value or profit, also the wage\nsystem, by substituting economic and social organization in the interest\nof the working class. No other class could remain in existence and the\nclass struggle would be ended.\n\n21. In what economic system, past or present, does surplus value appear?\n\nAns.: It is the root of all social systems since the rise of the\ninstitution of private property, but only under the present system\n(capitalism) has labor power assumed the commodity form. Labor power is\na commodity with a two fold character: it has a use and an exchange\nvalue. Its use value consists in its being capable of producing values\nover and above its own needs for sustenance and reproduction. Its\nexchange value consists in the amount of socially necessary labor time\nrequired for its production and reproduction.\n\nThe chattel and feudal systems of slavery were not directly concerned\nwith the production of commodities for the profit of the masters, but\nrather with the producing of the necessities of life for all, masters\nand slaves, and the luxuries for some, the masters. That which was not\nproduced for immediate consumption was sold, if opportunities presented\nthemselves, and occasionally the professional traders developed, for\nexample, the Phoenicians; but they were an exception to the rule. The\nsame holds good for feudalism, except that during the latter stages of\nthat system commercialism arose; but this commercialism was no feature\nof feudalism--it was the rising capitalism that began to unfold and\nassert itself.\n\n22. Name the three great systems of economic organization upon which the\nstructure of past history and social institutions have their basis.\n\nAns.: (1) Chattel slavery, (2) serfdom, or feudal slavery and (3) wage\nslavery.\n\n23. Explain, briefly, how the subject class was exploited under each of\nthese economic systems.\n\nAns.: 1. Under chattel slavery the laborer was a chattel (possession or\nproperty) the same as a mule or horse, and only received his \"keep,\"\nthat is, enough food, clothing and shelter to keep him in working order\nand to reproduce labor power by raising children. All he produced (use\nvalues and children) was taken by his master. The body of the slave was\nthe property of his master. 2. Under serfdom or feudal slavery, the\nworker produced what was necessary to keep him in working order and to\nraise a family of slaves, and then the balance of his time produced use\nvalues for his feudal lord. The body of the slave was his own, though he\ncould not go about with it from one place to another; for it was bound\nto the land of his master. 3. Under the wage slavery, the worker\nreceives wages which again equals only the amount necessary to keep him\nin working order and to reproduce more labor power in his children. His\nentire product belongs to the capitalist, and out of this resource he\npays the wages for the commodity labor, also for other commodities such\nas raw materials, and appropriates all of the balance and converts it\ninto capital with which he not only continues but increases the\nexploitation of his workers. The body of the capitalist's slave is\nindeed his own as under the feudal system but with this difference, that\nif he does not like his master, or he is disliked by him, he can or must\ngo abroad with it from one place to another looking for a job--a liberty\nor necessity which is to the advantage of the owning class and the\ndisadvantage of the working class. Unemployment is necessary to the\nexistence of capitalism, but this necessity is a danger to the system\nand will ultimately destroy it in all countries as it has in Russia.\n\n24. Define the \"Class Struggle.\"\n\nAns.: It is the direct clash between two hostile class interests wherein\nthe employing class makes every effort to appropriate more of the wealth\nproduced by the working class, and the working class ever struggles to\nretain more of the wealth which it produces. The capitalist class\nstrives to get more surplus value and the working class strives to get\nmore wages.\n\nThe class consciousness of those who live by working has found one of\nits best expressions in the following paragraphs:\n\n     \"The world stands upon the threshold of a new social order. The\n     capitalist system of production and distribution is doomed;\n     capitalist appropriation of labor's product forces the bulk of\n     mankind into wage slavery, throws society into the convulsions of\n     the class struggle, and momentarily threatens to engulf humanity in\n     chaos and disaster.\n\n     Since the advent of civilization human society has been divided\n     into classes. Each new form of society has come into being with a\n     definite purpose to fulfill in the progress of the human race. Each\n     has been born, has grown, developed, prospered, become old,\n     outworn, and, has finally been overthrown. Each society has\n     developed within itself the germs of its own destruction as well\n     as the germs which went to make up the society of the future.\n\n     The capitalist system rose during the seventeenth, eighteenth and\n     nineteenth centuries by the overthrow of feudalism. Its great and\n     all-important mission in the development of man was to improve,\n     develop, and concentrate the means of production and distribution,\n     thus creating a system of co-operative production. This work was\n     completed in advanced capitalist countries about the beginning of\n     the 20th century. That moment capitalism had fulfilled its historic\n     mission, and from that moment the capitalist class became a class\n     of parasites.\n\n     In the course of human progress mankind has passed (through class\n     rule, private property, and individualism in production and\n     exchange) from the enforced and inevitable want, misery, poverty,\n     and ignorance of savagery and barbarism to the affluence and high\n     productive capacity of civilization. For all practical purposes,\n     co-operative production has now superseded individual production.\n\n     Capitalism no longer promotes the greatest good of the greatest\n     number, It no longer spells progress, but reaction. Private\n     production carries with it private ownership of the products.\n     Production is carried on, not to supply the needs of humanity, but\n     for the profit of the individual owner, the company, or the trust.\n     The worker, not receiving the full product of his labor, can not\n     buy back all he produces. The capitalist wastes part in riotous\n     living; the rest must find a foreign market. By the opening of the\n     twentieth century the capitalist world--England, America, Germany,\n     France, Japan, China, etc.--was producing at a mad rate for the\n     world market. A capitalist deadlock of markets brought on in 1914\n     the capitalist collapse popularly known as the World War. The\n     capitalist world can not extricate itself out of the debris.\n     America today is choking under the weight of her own gold and\n     products.\n\n     This situation has brought on the present stage of human\n     misery--starvation, want, cold, disease, pestilence, and war. This\n     state is brought about in the midst of plenty, when the earth can\n     be made to yield a hundredfold, when the machinery of production is\n     made to multiply human energy and ingenuity by the hundreds. The\n     present state of misery exists solely because the mode of\n     production rebels against the mode of exchange. Private property in\n     the means of life has become a social crime. The land was made by\n     no man; the modern machines are the result of the combined\n     ingenuity of the human race from time immemorial; the land can be\n     made to yield and the machines can be set in motion only by the\n     collective effort of the workers. Progress demands the collective\n     ownership of the land on and the tools with which to produce the\n     necessities of life. The owner of the means of life today partakes\n     of the nature of a highwayman; he stands with his gun before\n     society's temple; it depends upon him whether the million mass may\n     work, earn, eat, and live. The capitalist system of production and\n     exchange must be supplanted if progress is to continue.\n\n     In place of the capitalist system we must substitute a system of\n     social ownership of the means of production, industrially\n     administered by the workers, who assume control and direction as\n     well as operation of their industrial affairs.\"\n\n25. Define \"class consciousness.\"\n\nAns.: Class consciousness of the workers means that they are conscious\nof the fact that they, as a class, have interests which are in direct\nconflict with the interests of the capitalist class.\n\n26. What function does the state perform in the class struggle?\n\nAns.: \"The state is a class instrument, and is the public power of\ncoercion created and maintained in human societies by their division\ninto classes, a power which, being clothed with force, makes laws.\" It\nis, therefore, used by the dominant class to keep the subject working\nclass in subjection in accordance with the interests of the ruling and\nowning class. It is also used to prevent the workers from altering the\neconomic structure of society in the interests of the working class.\n\nAs the author of the catechism, of which these twenty-six questions and\nanswers constitute a small part, says:\n\n\"Society is a growth subject to the laws of evolution. When evolution\nreaches a certain point, revolution becomes necessary in order to break\nthe bonds of the old and bring in the new. As the chicken grows through\nevolution until it reaches the point where it must break its shell (the\nrevolution) in order to continue its growth, so do classes of people\ncome to the point in their evolution where revolution is necessary in\norder to continue their growth, bring in the new society and consummate\nthe next step in civilization.\"\n\nSince 1913, when the foregoing catechism was published, we have had the\nwar to end war and to make the world safe for democracy--a fateful and\nmournful war in which millions of lives were lost and other millions\nwrecked with the result of multiplying wars and increasing imperialism.\n\nIt was a war between national groups of capitalists with conflicting\ninterests for commercial advantages, which is unexpectedly issuing in\nthree great crises: (1) the imminent bankruptcy of capitalism; (2) the\ncommunist revolution in Russia, and (3) the imminent taking over of the\nworld by the revolutionary proletariat.\n\nHitherto, the sons and daughters of capitalism have owned the earth with\nall that thereon and therein is. Henceforth, the sons and daughters of\nthe useful workers shall be the owners.\n\nThe future belongs to the workers, but not until they organize\nthemselves into one big revolutionary union. What ideas and aims are\ninvolved in the faith and endeavor of Revolutionary Unionism will appear\nfrom this passage in Comrade Philip Kurinsky's Industrial Unionism and\nRevolution, a brilliant pamphlet, published by The Union Press, Box 205,\nMadison Square, New York City:\n\n     \"Slavery is not abolished. It is merely a change in the struggle\n     which throws itself hither and thither like the waves of the seas.\n     In ancient times chattel slavery existed. Feudalism then took its\n     place. Feudalism in its turn was overthrown by capitalism which at\n     present reigns supreme. As the immortal Tolstoy explained, 'The\n     abolition of the old slavery is similar to that which Tartars did\n     to their captives. After they had cut up their heels they placed\n     stones and sand in the wounds and then took the chains off. The\n     Tartars were sure that when the feet of their prisoners were\n     swollen, that they could not run away and would have to work even\n     without chains. Such is the slavery of wages'.\n\n     Of this slavery does revolutionary unionism speak in the name of\n     the revolutionary worker. It analyzes the present society and shows\n     that it is divided into two economic classes. One class, the\n     capitalist class, is the master class which controls all the\n     factories, mills, mines, railroads, lands and fields and all the\n     finished and raw materials. This class possesses all the natural\n     riches of the world and this economic supremacy gives it control of\n     the state, of the church, and of all educational institutions. In\n     short, this class owns everything and controls the whole social and\n     political life of each country. The other class, the working class,\n     owns nothing. It produces all and enjoys little. It uses the\n     machines and tools but does not possess them, and is therefore\n     forced to sell its only possession, its labor power, to the master\n     class. And the latter uses the opportunity to buy that wonderful\n     power like any raw material or some other commodity (some of the\n     representatives of craft unionism wish to deny this but\n     unsuccessfully). For the commodity which the worker is compelled to\n     sell in order that he might live, he receives a wage which is\n     determined as is the price of every other commodity. The price is\n     always smaller than the value of the product which the worker\n     produces for the capitalist.\n\n     Between these two classes there must, naturally, exist a\n     tremendous struggle which often has the character of actual war. No\n     one urges the workers to this war--not the terrible I. W. W.'s nor\n     the political socialist, neither the Bolsheviks nor the Anarchists,\n     but the war naturally and inevitably arises from existing\n     conditions.\n\n     On the one hand, the capitalists are continually chasing after\n     higher profits which results in the employment of cheap labor under\n     the worst conditions. Naturally the ideal of the capitalist class\n     is to keep the workers in a condition of slavery. If the workers\n     attempt to revolt, as they do daily, their masters try to suppress\n     the revolt with all the power at their command. On the other hand,\n     the workers struggle with all their power to lighten their burdens.\n     They strive to get better conditions, higher wages and shorter\n     hours, and in general the ideal of the working class is to throw\n     off the yoke of capitalism.\n\n     No one rightfully can say that this struggle is merely a theory. We\n     can see this struggle in the attempts of the capitalist class to\n     destroy the victorious Russian Proletariat. It is mirrored before\n     our eyes in the continual strikes. Nothing can stop this struggle\n     except the abolition of exploitation.\n\n     No matter how hard the Citizens' Committees, Boards of Arbitration,\n     of Conciliation and of Mediation, with their so-called impartial\n     members try to convince the world that it is possible to bring the\n     warring classes into closer relations, their attempts are doomed to\n     failure. At best their success is only temporary and their efforts\n     succeed only in blinding the eyes of the working masses. And if at\n     some time these boards claim a victory, the credit is not due to\n     them, but to the force exerted by the workers. It is the\n     strike-weapon, held in reserve by the toilers, that brings victory\n     to the workers--not the efforts of the philanthropic gentlemen.\n     Furthermore the efforts of these gentlemen greatly harm the\n     workers, for at times when the workers can attain success through\n     the use of the strike, these philanthropists interfere, and deaden\n     the initiative and aggressiveness of the strikers. Often this\n     causes strife between the strikers themselves. They lose confidence\n     in one another, and the existence of the organizations which the\n     workers succeeded in building up through their efforts and\n     sacrifices are jeopardized.\n\n     The \"Conciliation,\" however, can bring no conciliation between the\n     employers and workers, because that is unnatural. On the contrary,\n     the hatred of one side to the other is intensified and war breaks\n     out oftener and assumes a more bitter and more obstinate character.\n\n     Thus viewing the two struggling classes of capitalist society,\n     revolutionary industrial unionism comes to the logical conclusion\n     that between capital and labor there exists nothing in common, that\n     the struggle must go on and peace can come only when economic\n     oppression will cease, which is possible only when the program of\n     revolutionary unionism will be realized; namely, when the workers\n     will take over the means of production and abolish the system of\n     private ownership. The autocratic control of industry, the unequal\n     division of products will then disappear and society will be built\n     on a socialist foundation, where the industries will be owned and\n     operated by the workers, organized in a truly democratic manner,\n     and where the individual will receive the full product of his\n     labor.\n\n     These are the principles of revolutionary unionism, the principles\n     of the international proletariat. They are the true expressions of\n     the class struggle and because of that, revolutionary unionism\n     attracts more and more followers whose ideal is to develop within\n     the working masses a consciousness of their historic mission.\"\n\nIn the words of an eloquent representative of the organized workers in\nthe United States, I exhort the working men and working women of\nAmerica: Keep your eyes on Russia. Watch what is going on there and what\nthe capitalist plunderbund will try to do. Do not be misled by the lies\nand slanders that are daily dished up to you. Bear in mind that those\nwho tell you these yarns have an interest to mislead you. They want to\nuse you as a makeweight in their game of wresting from the Russian\nworkers their dearly-won liberty. It is of no use to enumerate the lies\nthat have already been punctured because they will invent new ones\nfaster than one can write and print. Let your reason guide you. Think\nyourselves into the shoes of your Russian fellow workers. Think how you\nwould act if placed in the same position and then draw the conclusion\nthat they act about the same way that you would, because they are like\nyou moved by the same emotions, the same desires, the same aspirations.\nYou, too, would like to keep for yourselves the fruits of your toil, if\nyou only knew how to go about it, if you had the organization that would\nmake it possible. But as yet you do not know and you have not that\norganization. In politics you still vote against one another in the\nRepublican or Democratic camp. You will have to wait until you do know\nand until you do have the means--the Industrial Unions of the entire\nworking class that will be able to take and hold and administer industry\nfor the reason that it will have the might, the power to do so. And when\nyou have expressed through the ballot your will for that new society,\nwhich will guarantee to you the full fruits of your labor, remember the\nslogan of revolutionary Russia: \"All power to the Soviets,\" and let your\nslogan then be: \"All power to the Industrial Unions!\"\n\nThese are prophetic words written fifty years ago by Frederick Engels:\n\n     Since the historical appearance of the capitalist mode of\n     production, the appropriation by society of all the means of\n     production has often been dreamed of, more or less vaguely, by\n     individuals, as well as by sects, as the ideal of the future. But\n     it could become possible, could become a historical necessity, only\n     when the actual conditions for its realization were there. Like\n     every other social advance, it becomes practicable, not by men\n     understanding that the existence of classes is in contradiction to\n     justice, equality, etc., not by the mere willingness to abolish\n     these classes, but by virtue of certain new economic conditions....\n     So long as the total social labor only yields a produce which but\n     slightly exceeds that barely necessary for the existence of all; so\n     long, therefore, as labor engages all or almost all the time of the\n     great majority of the members of society--so long, of necessity,\n     this society is divided into classes....\n\n     But if, upon this showing, division into classes has a certain\n     historical justification, it has this only for a given period, only\n     under given social conditions. It was based on the insufficiency of\n     production. It will be swept away by the complete development of\n     modern productive forces. And, in fact, the abolition of classes in\n     society presupposes a degree of historical evolution, at which the\n     existence, not simply of this or that particular ruling class, but\n     of any ruling class at all, has become an obsolete anachronism....\n\n     With the seizing of the means of production by society, production\n     of commodities is done away with, and, simultaneously, the mastery\n     of the product over the producer. Anarchy in social production is\n     replaced by systematic, definite organization. The struggle for\n     individual existence disappears. Then for the first time man, in a\n     certain sense, is finally marked off from the rest of the animal\n     kingdom, and emerges from mere animal conditions into really human\n     ones.... It is the ascent of man from the kingdom of necessity to\n     the kingdom of freedom.\n\nThe capitalist countries are ruled through banks, and a bank is\nnecessarily an institution of the owning class.\n\nRussia is ruled through Soviets, and a soviet is necessarily an\ninstitution of the working class.\n\nBanks and Soviets are so many headquarters for big unions. In capitalist\ncountries the banks are such for the one big union of the owners, and in\nRussia the soviets are this for the one big union of the workers. These\nbig unions cannot co-exist and flourish in the same country.\n\nAll owners everywhere see the necessity for their one big union and in\nall capitalistic countries, nowhere more than in the United States, they\nhave the advantage of being on the ground floor and indeed on all the\nfloors of all the sky scrapers with their union which is the most\nuniversally inclusive and the most relentlessly efficient organization\non earth.\n\nSome workers everywhere see the necessity for their one big union, but\nnowhere is it seen as generally and clearly as in Russia,--the only\ncountry in which the workers have held the ground floor for any\nconsiderable time against all comers.\n\nIn all countries a beginning has been made by the workers in laying the\nfoundation for their one big union, but in only one country, Russia, has\nprogress been made with the superstructure, and here as everywhere the\nowners have hindered the workers so that they must defend themselves\nwith their right hand while they build with their left. Nevertheless\nwonderful progress is being made and when the industrial structure has\nbeen completed, as it soon must be, else the world is doomed to\ndestruction, it shall tower above its capitalist rival as a mountain\nover a foot hill.\n\nAfter all, the power of the owner is money and it is not a real\npotentiality, for within the social realm there is in reality only one\npotentiality, the power of productivity which exclusively belongs to the\nworker.\n\nIn the sky there is no god, and on earth there is no king or priest like\nunto Labor, the lord of gods, the tzar of kings and the pope of priests.\n\nLabor is high above all potentialities. The motto, \"All Power to the\nWorkers,\" which the class-conscious proletarians inscribe on their\nbanners, is not the expression of an ideal fiction, but the declaration\nof a practical reality, the greatest among all realities, that reality\nin which the whole social realm lives, moves and has its being.\n\nDown with the one big union of the owners. Long live the one big union\nof the workers.\n\n\n\n\nII. GOD AND IMMORTALITY.\n\n  We have done with the kisses that sting,\n  With the thief's mouth red from the feast,\n  With the blood on the hands of the king,\n  And the lie on the lips of the priest.\n\n  --Swinburne.\n\n\nMany critics contend that socialism and supernaturalism are not, as I\nrepresent, incompatibilities; but they lose sight of four facts: (1)\nthis is a scientific age; (2) Marxian socialism is one of the sciences;\n(3) the vast majority of men of science reject all supernaturalism,\nincluding of course the gods and devils with their heavens and hells,\nand (4) only in the case of one of the sciences, psychology, is this\nmajority greater than in the science of sociology.\n\nThe truth of the last two of these representations will be\noverwhelmingly evident from the chart on the next page. It and its\nexplanation given in the following quotation is taken with the kind\nconsent of the author and also of the publishers of a book entitled God\nand Immortality, by Professor James H. Leuba, the Psychologist of Bryn\nMawr College. This book is having a great influence and I strongly\nrecommend it to all who think that I am wrong in the contention that\nconscious, personal existence is limited to earth; that, therefore, we\nare having all that we shall ever know of heaven and hell, here and now,\nand that whether we have more of heaven and less of hell depends\naltogether upon men and women, not at all upon gods and devils. The\nsecond edition of Professor Leuba's book is now in the press of The Open\nCourt Publishing Company, 122 South Michigan Ave., Chicago, Ill. Here is\nthe quotation in support of our contentions:\n\n[Illustration: Chart XI\n\nPARTIAL SUMMARY OF RESULTS]\n\n     What, then, is the main outcome of this research? Chart XI, Partial\n     Summary of Results, shows that in every class of persons\n     investigated, the number of believers in God is less, and in most\n     classes very much less than the number of non-believers, and that\n     the number of believers in immortality is somewhat larger than in a\n     personal God; that among the more distinguished, unbelief is very\n     much more frequent than among the less distinguished; and finally\n     that not only the degree of ability, but also the kind of knowledge\n     possessed, is significantly related to the rejection of these\n     beliefs.\n\n     The correlation shown, without exception, in every one of our\n     groups between eminence and disbelief appears to me of momentous\n     significance. In three of these groups (biologists, historians, and\n     psychologists) the number of believers among the men of greater\n     distinction is only half, or less than half the number of believers\n     among the less distinguished men. I do not see any way to avoid the\n     conclusion that disbelief in a personal God and in personal\n     immortality is directly proportional to abilities making for\n     success in the sciences in question.\n\n     A study of the several charts of this work with regard to the kind\n     of knowledge which favors disbelief shows that the historians and\n     the physical scientists provide the greater; and the psychologists,\n     the sociologists and the biologists, the smaller number of\n     believers. The explanation I have offered is that psychologists,\n     sociologists, and biologists in very large numbers have come to\n     recognize fixed orderliness in organic and psychic life, and not\n     merely in inorganic existence; while frequently physical scientists\n     have recognized the presence of invariable law in the inorganic\n     world only. The belief in a personal God as defined for the purpose\n     of our investigation is, therefore, less often possible to students\n     of psychic and of organic life than to physical scientists.\n\n     The place occupied by the historians next to the physical\n     scientists would indicate that for the present the reign of law is\n     not so clearly revealed in the events with which history deals as\n     in biology, economics, and psychology. A large number of\n     historians continue to see the hand of God in human affairs. The\n     influence, destructive of Christian beliefs, attributed in this\n     interpretation to more intimate knowledge of organic and psychic\n     life, appears incontrovertibly, as far as psychic life is\n     concerned, in the remarkable fact that whereas in every other group\n     the number of believers in immortality is greater than that in God,\n     among the psychologists the reverse is true; the number of\n     believers in immortality among the greater psychologists sinks to\n     8.8 per cent. One may affirm it seems that, in general, the greater\n     the ability of the psychologist, the more difficult it becomes for\n     him to believe in the continuation of individual life after bodily\n     death.\n\nWithin the generation to which I belong Darwin and Marx, the greatest\nteachers that the world has had, went over the top of entrenched\nignorance with the greatest books of the world, worth infinitely more to\nit than all its bibles together. Darwin did this in 1859 with his Origin\nof Species by Natural Selection and Marx in 1867 with his Capital, a\nCritique of Political Economy.\n\nDarwin with his book is driving the Christian church out of its trench\nof supernaturalism and uniqueism by showing that the different kinds of\nvegetable and animal life are not, according to the representation of\nits bible, so many separate creations by a personal, conscious divinity,\nbut interrelated evolutions by an impersonal, unconscious nature, the\nhigher out of the lower, and that, therefore, man is so far from being a\nspecial creation, having his most vital relationships with a celestial\ndivinity and his most glorious prospects in a heavenly place with him,\nthat he is really more or less closely related to every living thing on\nearth, and is as hopelessly limited to it, as an elephant, a tree or\neven a mountain.\n\nMarx with his book is driving the states out of the trench of\nimperialism and capitalism.\n\nAs Darwin is driving the conscious, personal gods out of the realm of\nbiology, placing all animal and human life of body, mind and soul on\nessentially the same footing, so Marx is driving all such divinities out\nof the realm of sociology, placing all life of family, state, church,\nlodge, store and shop on essentially the same level.\n\nAccording to Darwin, all animal life is what it is at any time by reason\nof the effort to accommodate the physical organism to its environment.\n\nAccording to Marx, human civilization is what it is at any time because\nof the economic system by which people feed, clothe and house\nthemselves.\n\nThis Darwinian-Marxian interpretation of terrestrial life in general,\nand of the human part of it in particular, is known as materialism. It\nis the materialistic, naturalistic, levelistic interpretation of\nhistory, and differs fundamentally from the spiritualistic,\nsupernaturalistic, uniqueistic interpretation of Christian preachers.\nThe contrast between these interpretations is especially strong in the\ncase of human history.\n\nOn the one hand the Christian preacher says, man's history is what it is\nbecause of the directing providence of a God, the Father, Son and\nSpirit, and because of His directing inspiration of great leaders, such\nas Washington, Luther, Caesar and Moses.\n\nOn the other hand Darwin and Marx agree in saying that both the triune\ngod and the inspired leader are what they are, because society is what\nit is; that, again, the character of society depends upon the economic\nsystem by which it feeds, clothes and houses itself, and that finally\nall such systems owe their existence to the machinery in use for the\nproduction of the basic necessities of life, the primal machine being\nthe human hand to which all other machines are auxiliaries.\n\nThe most insatiable and universal among all human longings is for\nfreedom--freedom from economic want, social inequality and imperialistic\ntyranny, also freedom to learn, think, live and teach truths.\n\nSocialism of the Marxian type is the gospel of freedom, because a\nclassless god, nature, reveals it in the interest of a classless world:\ntherefore, it is true, and slavery, of which there never was so much\nbefore on the earth, and nowhere is there more than in the United\nStates, is utterly incompatible with truth, and classless interests.\n\nAll the supernaturalistic gospels are revealed by a class god (Jesus,\nJehovah, Allah, Buddha) in the interest of the capitalist class:\ntherefore, they are false and freedom is utterly incompatible with\nfalsehood and class interest.\n\nIgnorance is the destroyer-god and capitalism is the diabolical scourge\nby which he afflicts the wage-earner with many unnecessary sufferings,\nespecially the crushing ones arising from the great trinity of evils,\nwar, poverty and slavery.\n\nKnowledge is the saviour-god and Marxism is his divine gospel of freedom\nfrom these capitalistic sufferings.\n\n\n\n\nIII. MYTHICAL CHARACTER OF OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT PERSONAGES.\n\n     What man of sense will agree with the statement that the first,\n     second, and third days, in which the evening is named and the\n     morning, were without sun, moon and stars? What man is found such\n     an idiot as to suppose that God planted trees in Paradise like an\n     husbandman? I believe that every man must hold these things for\n     images under which a hidden sense is concealed.--Origen.\n\n\nOne of the critics of Communism and Christianism whose representations\nare in alignment with several others says:\n\n     While the Bishop speaks in the language of scholarship, he entirely\n     ignores all the findings of modern scholars on the literature of\n     the Bible.\n\nThe failure to show more clearly that my representations concerning the\nuntenableness of the basic doctrines of Christian supernaturalism are in\nalignment with the conclusions of outstanding authorities in the newly\ndeveloped sciences of historical and biblical criticisms is indeed a\ndefect and an attempt will here be made to remove it by a short but\nfaithful and, as I think, convincing summary of what such authorities in\nthese sciences have to say on the subject.\n\nMy summary is summarized from a pamphlet by Charles T. Gorham, published\nby Watts and Company, 17 Johnson's Court, Fleet St., E. C. 4, London,\nEngland, which is itself an able summarization of the relevant facts\nwhich have been scientifically established as they are given in the\ngreatest of all the Bible Dictionaries, the Encyclopedia Biblica.\n\nIt will be seen that all except one among my contentions concerning the\nbaselessness of the supernaturalism of orthodox Christians are well\nsustained. This exception is the contention that Jesus is not an\nhistorical personage, but a fictitious one. However the great critics\nare unanimously with me even in this, for two crushing facts are\nadmitted by them: (1) the Old Testament affords no scientifically\nestablished data from which a reliable history of the Jews can be\nwritten, and (2) the New Testament has no such data for a biography of\nJesus.\n\nThe illuminating summary which is a large part of my answer to the\ncriticism under review follows, and it is as far as possible in the\nlanguage of Mr. Gorham:\n\n     Once upon a time there was a system of Christian Theology. It was a\n     wonderful though a highly artificial structure, composed of fine\n     old crusted dogmas which no one could prove, but very few dared to\n     dispute. There was the \"magnified man\" in the sky, the Infallible\n     Bible, dictated by the Holy Spirit, the Trinity, the Fall, the\n     Atonement, Predestination and Grace, Justification by Faith, a\n     Chosen People, a practically omnipotent Devil, myriads of Evil\n     Spirits, an eternity of bliss to be obtained for nothing, and\n     endless torment for those who did not avail themselves of the\n     offer.\n\n     Now the house of cards has tumbled to pieces, or rather it is\n     slowly dissolving, as Shakespeare says, \"like the baseless fabric\n     of a vision\". The Biblical chronology, history, ethics, all are\n     alike found to be defective and doubtful. Divine Revelation has\n     become discredited; a Human Record takes its place. What has\n     brought about this startling change? The answer is, Knowledge.\n     Thought, research, criticism, have shown that the traditional\n     theories of the Bible can no longer be maintained. The logic of\n     facts has confirmed the reasonings of the independent thinker, and\n     placed the dogmatist in a dilemma which grows ever more acute. The\n     result is not pleasant for the believer; but it is well that the\n     real state of things should be known, that the kernel of truth\n     should be separated from the overgrown husk of tradition.\n\nDuring the last few years a work has been issued which sums up the\nconclusions of modern criticism better than any other book. It is called\nthe Encyclopedia Biblica, and its four volumes tersely and ably set\nforth the new views, and support them by a mass of learning which\ndeserves serious consideration. And the most significant thing about it\nis not merely that the entire doctrinal system of Christianity has\nundergone a radical change, but that this change has largely been\nbrought about by Christian scholars themselves. A rapid glance at this\nstore-house of the heresy of such scholars will give the reader some\nidea of the extent of the surrender which Christianity has made to the\nforces of Rationalism. It must be premised that space will permit of the\nconclusions only being given, without the detailed evidence by which\nthey are supported.\n\nLet us begin with our supposed first parents. Is the story of Adam and\nEve a true story? There are, we are told, decisive reasons why we cannot\nregard it as historical, and probably the writer himself never supposed\nhe was relating history.[K]\n\nThe Creation story originated in a stock of primitive myths common to\nthe Semitic races, and passed through a long period of development\nbefore it was incorporated in the book of Genesis. If, then, it is the\nfact, as Christian scholars assert, that this story of the Creation\noriginated in a pagan myth, and was shaped and altered by unknown hands\nfor nearly a thousand years, it is nothing more nor less than\nsuperstition to hold that it is divinely true.\n\nAs for the Old Testament patriarchs, we now learn that their very\nexistence is uncertain. The tradition concerning Abraham is, as it\nstands, inadmissible; he is not so much a historical personage as an\nideal type of character, whose actual existence is as doubtful as that\nof other heroes. All the stories of the patriarchs are legendary.\n\nThe whole book of Genesis, in fact, is not history at all, as we\nunderstand history. Exodus is another composite legend which has long\nbeen mistaken for history.\n\nThe historical character of Moses has not been established, and it is\ndoubtful whether the name is that of an individual or that of a clan.\nThe story of his being exposed in an ark of bulrushes is a myth probably\nderived from the similar and much earlier myth of Sargon.[L]\n\nTurning to the New Testament, we find that modern critical research only\nbrings out more clearly than ever the extraordinary vagueness and\nuncertainty which enshroud every detail of the narrative. From the\narticle on \"Chronology\" we learn that everything in the Gospels is too\nuncertain to be accepted as historical fact. There are numerous\nquestions which it is \"wholly impossible to decide\". We do not know when\nJesus was born, or when he died, or who was his father, or what was the\nduration of his ministry. As these are matters on which the Gospel\nwriters purport to give information, the fact of their failure to do so\nsettles the question of their competency as historians.\n\nThe supposed supernatural birth of Jesus has of late exercised the minds\nof theologians. It is not surprising that some of them should reject the\nnotion, for it is one without a shred of evidence in its favor. Setting\naside the well-known fact that many other religions assume a similar\norigin for their founders, we may note the New Testament accounts are in\nsuch hopeless conflict with each other that reconciliation is\nimpossible.\n\nThe important subject of the \"Resurrection\" is treated by Professor P.\nW. Schmiedel, of Zurich, who tells us that the Gospel accounts \"exhibit\ncontradictions of the most glaring kind\".\n\nThe article on the Gospels by Dr. E. A. Abbott and Professor Schmiedel\nis crammed with criticism of a kind most damaging to every form of the\northodox faith. The view hitherto current, that the four Gospels were\nwritten by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and appeared thirty or forty\nyears after the death of Jesus, can, it is stated, no longer be\nmaintained.\n\nThe alleged eclipse of the sun at the Crucifixion is impossible. One of\nthe orthodox shifts respecting this phenomenon is that it was an eclipse\nof the moon!\n\nModern criticism decides that no confidence whatever can be placed in\nthe reliability of the Gospels as historical narratives, or in the\nchronology of the events which they relate. It may even seem to justify\na doubt whether any credible elements at all are to be found in them.\nYet it is believed that some such credible elements do exist. Five\npassages prove by their character that Jesus was a real person, and that\nwe have some trustworthy facts about him. These passages are: Matthew\nxii. 31, Mark x. 17, Mark iii. 21, Mark xiii. 32, and Mark xv. 34, and\nthe corresponding passage in Matthew xxvii. 46, though these last two\nare not found in Luke. Four other passages have a high degree of\nprobability--viz., Mark viii. 12, Mark vi. 5, Mark viii. 14-21, and\nMatthew xi. 5, with the corresponding passage in Luke vii. 22. These\ntexts, however, disclose nothing of a supernatural character. They\nmerely prove that in Jesus we have to do with a completely human being,\nand that the divine is to be sought in him only in the form in which it\nis capable of being found in all men.[M]\n\nThe four Gospels were compiled from earlier materials which have\nperished, and the dates when they first appeared in their present form\nare given as follows:--Mark, certainly after the destruction of\nJerusalem in the year 70; Matthew, about 119 A. D.; Luke, between 100\nand 110; and John, between 132 and 140.\n\nThe question of the genuineness of the Pauline Epistles, is now far from\nbeing so clear as was once universally supposed. Advanced criticism,\nProfessor Van Manen tells us in his elaborate article on \"Paul\", has\nlearned to recognize that none of these Epistles are by him, not even\nthe four generally regarded as unassailable. They are not letters to\nindividuals, but books or pamphlets emanating from a particular school.\nWe know little, in reality, of the facts of Paul's life, or of his\ndeath: all is uncertain. The unmistakable traces of late origin indicate\nthat the Epistles probably did not appear till the second century.\n\nThe strange book of Revelation is not of purely Christian origin.\nCriticism has clearly shown that it can no longer be regarded as a\nliterary unit, but it is an admixture of Jewish with Christian ideas and\nspeculations. Ancient testimony, that of Papias in particular, assumed\nthe Presbyter John, and not the Apostle, as its author or redactor.\n\nThe Epistles of Peter, James and Jude are none of them held to be the\nwork of the Apostles. They probably first saw the light in the second\ncentury; the second Epistle of Peter may even belong to the latter half\nof that period.\n\nAll the above conclusions are summarized, as nearly as may be, in the\nwords of the authors of the respective articles. Their significance is\nsurely enormous. Right or wrong, eminent Christian scholars here\nproclaim results in complete antagonism to the ideas usually accepted as\nforming the true basis of the Christian faith. They amount, in fact, to\na complete and unconditional surrender of the whole dogmatic framework\nwhich has hitherto been held as divinely revealed, and therefore\ndivinely true.\n\nThomas Paine was a Deist. As such he believed that nature may be\ncompared with a clock and God with its maker. As the clock maker, under\nnormal conditions, has but little to do with his handiwork, so it has\nbeen with the Creator and his universe. The theists of every name\n(Christian, Jew, Mohammedan and Buddhist), not to speak of others,\nbelieve that the universe, with all which therein is, lives, moves and\nhas its being as the result of the willings of their respective gods.\n\nThough I have my god, indeed two gods, one god in the world of my\nphysical existence--a trinity: matter, force and motion, and another god\nin the world of my moral existence--a trinity: fact, truth and life, yet\nif the rejection of both deism and theism is atheism, I am an atheist.\n\nBut assuming for the sake of argument that there is a conscious personal\nbeing who has had and is having something to do with making things what\nthey are, I set my seal to this arraignment:\n\n     Of all the systems of religion that were ever invented, there is\n     none more derogatory to the Almighty, more unedifying to man, more\n     repugnant to reason, and more contradictory in itself, than this\n     thing called Christianity. Too absurd for belief, too impossible to\n     convince, and too inconsistent for practice, it renders the heart\n     torpid, or produces only atheists and fanatics. As an engine of\n     power, it serves the purpose of despotism and as a means of wealth,\n     the avarice of priests; but for the good of mankind it leads to\n     nothing here or hereafter.\n\n     --Thomas Paine.\n\nWilliam Rathbone Greg in his Creed of Christendom says that much of the\nOld Testament which Christian divines, in their ignorance of Jewish\nlore, have insisted on receiving and interpreting literally, the\ninformed Rabbis never dreamed of regarding as anything but allegorical.\nThe literalists they called fools.\n\nOrigen and Augustine, the two greatest men which Christianity has\nproduced, would agree with Greg in this. We have already quoted the\nmotto of this section from Origen, and we will now quote this from\nAugustine:\n\n     It very often happens that there is some question as to the earth\n     or the sky, or the other elements of this world, respecting which\n     one who is not a Christian has knowledge derived from most certain\n     reasoning or observation, and it is very disgraceful and\n     mischievous and of all things to be carefully avoided, that a\n     Christian, speaking of such matters as being according to the\n     Christian Scriptures, should be heard by an unbeliever talking such\n     nonsense that the unbeliever, perceiving him to be as wide from the\n     mark as east from west, can hardly restrain himself from laughing.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[K] But if Adam and Eve are not historical personages there is no\ndoctrine of supernaturalistic Christianism resting on the solid ground\nof facts and the whole of its immense dogmatic structure is floating in\nthe air of theories and myths.--Author.\n\n[L] It is questionable whether such persons as Samson, Jonah and Daniel\never lived, but it is certain that their adventures are as mythical as\nanything in Aesop's Fables.--Author.\n\n[M] But these nine texts which for some years were often triumphantly\npointed to as the pillars upon which securely rested the historicalness\nof Jesus as a man are now lying in the dust where the learned and\nbrilliant Professor William Benjamin Smith of Tulane University put them\nby his great contribution to the Christological problem in a book,\nentitled Ecce Deus in which he, as I think, proves conclusively that the\nJesus of the New Testament never was a real man but always an imaginary\ngod, the Christian recasting of the Jewish God, a new Jehovah.--Author.\n\n\n\n\nIV. WOULD SOCIALISM CHANGE HUMAN NATURE?\n\n  Fear not the tyrants shall rule for ever,\n  Or the priests of the bloody Faith:\n  They stand on the brink of that mighty river\n  Whose waves they have tainted with death,\n  It is fed from the depths of a thousand dells,\n  Around them it foams and rages and swells,\n  And their swords and their scepters I floating see\n  Like wrecks in the surge of eternity.\n\n  --Shelley.\n\n\nMy revolt against the existing capitalist system of economics and the\ncapitalized political and religious systems which support it is\ncomplete, and the end which I have in view in this booklet is that of\nprimitive Christianism, as it is taught by Mary in the Magnificat, the\nputting down of the owning masters of the world and the exaltation of\nthe working slaves, only that I do not recommend, as she did, that the\nmasters should be banished to starve but rather that they should be\nallowed to become producers and to live then as such, not as robbers, as\nthey now live.\n\nThis is bolshevism. It is not anarchy, but a new dictatorship instead of\nthe old, that of the proletariat in place of the bourgeoisie. But this\ndictatorship (though necessary during the period of transition from the\ncapitalist system, by which commodities are made only for the profit of\na few to an industrial system by which they will be made only for use of\nthe many) is not the goal of socialism. Its goal is a classless world--a\nworld in which all who are able to work shall directly or at least\nindirectly contribute their due proportion, according to their abilities\nand opportunities, towards feeding, clothing, housing and educating it.\n\nPerhaps the truest thing in the Bible relates to the utterly corrupt\ncondition of civilization, nor was it ever truer than now, and it always\nmust be equally true while the world is divided into master and slave\nclasses under the dictatorship of the masters:\n\n     The whole head is sick and the whole heart faint. From the sole of\n     the foot even unto the head, there is no soundness in it, but\n     wounds and bruises, and putrifying sores: they have not been\n     closed, neither bound up, neither mollified with ointment.\n\nCapitalism and Socialism differ fundamentally in that the former always\nhas sought and always will seek to exercise a permanent dictatorship,\nwhereas that of the latter is to constitute the temporary bridge over\nwhich the world is to pass from the economic system under which\ncommodities are competitively made for the profit of the few, to the\neconomic system under which they will be co-operatively made for the use\nof the many.\n\nIt is contended with much show of reason that the dictatorship of the\nproletariat will not lead to the goal, because human nature being what\nit is the slaves will automatically develop into another class of\nmasters.\n\nBut those who raise this contention proceed upon the assumption that\nhuman nature is a constant quantity so that it cannot be essentially\nchanged and that it has made the economic systems, what they have been.\n\nThis is not the case. Human nature, like animal nature, is constantly\nchanging and neither the one nor the other voluntarily changes itself,\nbut both are forced to change by the development of new and external\nconditions and by the necessity of conformity to them.\n\nProfessor Joseph McCabe, not a socialist, observes that these\ndevelopments and conformities were so many revolutions and that the man\nwho says, the secret of progress is evolution, not revolution, may be\ntalking very good social philosophy but he is not talking science, as he\nthinks. In every modern geological work you read of periodical\nrevolutions in the story of the earth, and these are the great ages of\nprogress--and, I ought to add, of colossal annihilation of the less fit.\n\nDarwin discovered that animal nature changed (for example snake nature\nchanged into bird nature) because of changed physical environments and\nthe necessity of life to adaptation to them.\n\nMarx discovered that human nature changed from what it was during the\nperiod of chatteldom to what it was during serfdom and from that to what\nit is under capitalism by reason of the difference in the economic\nsystems of these periods by which the world fed, clothed and housed\nitself and that these differences are in turn accounted for by the\ndifferences in the machines by which the necessities of life are\nproduced.\n\nThus Darwin explained the history of animal life without the hypothesis\nof a divine creator, and Marx explained the history of mankind without\nthe hypothesis either of a divine ruler or human leaders. These\nDarwinian and Marxian explanations constitute what is known as the\nmaterialistic explanation of history.\n\nMarx represented that capitalism would end the class struggle and issue\nin a classless world because its profiteering system of production and\ndistribution could not be succeeded by another, since it divides mankind\ninto masters who are ever growing less numerous and slaves who are ever\ngrowing more numerous, without the possibility of those who are half\ncapitalists and half workers rising out of their nondescript condition\ninto a new master class, as did the bourgeoisie under feudalism. For\nthese reasons he contended the proletarian slaves would become the grave\ndiggers for the bourgeois masters and so end capitalism with the burial\nof its representatives.\n\nBut with the complete and sustained triumph of the proletarian class the\nbourgeois class will rapidly pass away, as is now the case with it in\nRussia, and a classless world will be born to live on a co-operative\ninstead of a competitive basis, in a heaven instead of a hell.\n\n\n\n\nV. WHAT WILL BE THE FORM OF THE WORKERS' STATE.\n\n     Hail Soviet Russia, the first Communist Republic, the land of, by\n     and for the common people. We greet you, workers and peasants of\n     Russia, who by your untold sacrifices, by your determination and\n     devotion, are transforming the Russia of black reaction, of the\n     domination of a few, into a land of glorious promise for all.\n     Comrades in America, watch the bright dawn in the East; you have\n     but your chains to lose, and a world to gain!--The Workers'\n     Council.\n\n\nIn general outline the form of the workers' state will be that of the\nRussian Soviet Republic, and what it is will appear from the following\nsemi-official description, the briefest and clearest of any which I have\nseen. Its authorship is unknown to me but I know it to be the work of a\ncommittee of which Zinoviev, one of the directing and inspiring minds of\nthe proletarian movement in Russia, was a member, and it may be that he\nis the author. Anyhow it is a recently published, authoritative classic\ncontaining the information for which a large part of the world has been\nwaiting:\n\n     We have before us the example of the Russian Soviet Republic, whose\n     structure, in view of the conflicting reports printed in other\n     countries, it may be useful to describe briefly here.\n\n     The unit of government is the local Soviet, or Council, of\n     Workers', Red Army, and Peasants' Deputies.\n\n     The city Workers' Soviet is made up as follows: Each factory elects\n     one delegate for a certain number of workers, and each local union\n     also elects delegates. These delegates are elected according to\n     political parties--or, if the workers wish it, as individual\n     candidates.\n\n     The Red Army delegates are chosen by military units.\n\n     For the peasants, each village has its local Soviet, which sends\n     delegates to the Township Soviet, which in turn elects to the\n     County Soviet, and this to the Provincial Soviet.\n\n     Nobody who employs labor for profit can vote.\n\n     Every six months the City and Provincial Soviets elect delegates to\n     the All-Russian Congress of Soviets, which is the supreme governing\n     body of the country. This Congress decides upon the policies which\n     are to govern the country for six months, and then elects a Central\n     Executive Committee of two hundred, which is to carry out these\n     policies. The Congress also elects the Cabinet--The Council of\n     People's Commissars, who are heads of Government Departments--or\n     People's Commissariats.\n\n     The People's Commissars can be recalled at any time by the Central\n     Executive Committee. The members of all Soviets can be recalled\n     very easily, and at any time, by their constituents.\n\n     These Soviets are not only Legislative bodies, but also Executive\n     organs. Unlike your Congress, they do not make the laws and leave\n     them to the President to carry out, but the members carry out the\n     laws themselves; and there is no Supreme Court to say whether or\n     not these laws are \"constitutional.\"\n\n     Between the All-Russian Congresses of Soviets the Central Executive\n     Committee is the supreme power in Russia. It meets at least every\n     two months, and in the meanwhile, the Council of People's\n     Commissars directs the country, while the members of the Central\n     Executive Committee go to work in the various government\n     departments.\n\n     In Russia the workers are organized in Industrial Unions all the\n     workers in each industry belonging to one Union. For example, in a\n     factory making metal products, even the carpenters and painters are\n     members of the Metal Workers' Union. Each factory is a local\n     Union, and the Shop Committee elected by the workers is its\n     Executive Committee.\n\n     The All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the federated Unions\n     is elected by the annual Trade Union Convention. A Scale Committee\n     elected by the Convention fixes the wages of all categories of\n     workers.\n\n     With very few exceptions, all important factories in Russia have\n     been nationalized, and are now the property of all the workers in\n     common. The business of the Unions is therefore no longer to fight\n     the capitalists, but to run industry.\n\n     Hand in hand with the Unions works the Department of Labor of the\n     Soviet Government, whose chief is the People's Commissar of Labor,\n     elected by the Soviet Congress with the approval of the Unions.\n\n     In charge of the economic life of the country is the elected\n     Supreme Council of People's Economy, divided into departments, such\n     as, Metal Department, Chemical Department, etc., each one headed by\n     experts and workers, appointed, with the approval of the Union by\n     the Supreme Council of People's Economy.\n\n     In each factory production is carried on by a committee consisting\n     of three members: a representative of the Shop Committee of the\n     Unions, a representative of the Central Executive of the Unions,\n     and a representative of the Supreme Council of People's Economy.\n\n     The Unions are thus a branch of the government--and this government\n     is the most highly centralized government that exists.\n\n     It is also the most democratic government in history. For all the\n     organs of government are in constant touch with the working masses,\n     and constantly sensitive to their will. Moreover, the local Soviets\n     all over Russia have complete autonomy to manage their own local\n     affairs, provided they carry out the national policies laid down by\n     the Soviet Congress. Also, the Soviet Government represents only\n     the workers, and cannot help but act in the workers' interests.\n\nThe motto of this section is the conclusion of a good article in the\nfirst number of one among the best of the periodicals devoted to the\npromotion of Marxism, The Workers' Council, published by the\nInternational Educational Company, New York City. This article is so\nshort and lends itself so naturally as a supplement to the foregoing\nexplanation of the new economic system which has been established and is\nbeing developed in Russia that I quote the rest as the conclusion of\nthis section about Sovietism.\n\n     Communist Russia, the Russia of the common people, marks a new\n     epoch in the world's history. It marks a basic change in the\n     structure of human society. Up to this time society lived under the\n     rule of the few, under the rule of the class which possessed the\n     wealth of the country. The methods were different at different\n     periods in the world's history, but the results were the same:\n     riches and power for the few, a bare existence and endless toil for\n     the many. The slaves, the serfs, or the wage workers of today, who\n     compose the masses of the people, have ever been the hewers of wood\n     and the carriers of water, the beasts of burden on whose backs\n     sported and fattened kings and nobles, landlords and capitalists.\n     They who possessed wealth had the power. And they passed laws to\n     protect that power, to make the possession of wealth a social\n     institution. Private property was enthroned and every striving of\n     mankind was subjected to the rule of property. Thence grew the\n     exploitation of man by man for private profit, and all abuses\n     resulting therefrom; fear of loss of property, care of possession,\n     dread of the future, fear of loss of employment, envy and greed.\n     Human society was ruled by property grabbers; masters, kings,\n     capitalists, providing toil, disease, war for the masses of\n     mankind. That is the rule of capitalism, and cannot be otherwise.\n\nBut under communism, profit is abolished, and with it the exploitation\nof man by man; private property is no longer a factor in the life of\nman; property becomes universal, all natural and created wealth belong\nto society, to every member of the community, as secure a birth right as\nair and sunlight. Everybody's measured work provides a common fund of\nthings to satisfy material needs, today, tomorrow and in years to come.\nThere can be no fear of losing one's job, of seeing one's children\nstarve, of the poor-house in old age. As sure as the sun will rise on\nthe morrow, man is secure of his bread, his shelter and clothing. Man is\nfreed from animal cares, free to develop his human qualities, his\nintelligence, his brain and heart.\n\nRussia points the way. Russia is now one huge corporation, every man,\nwoman and child an equal shareholder. The state is administered as a\nbusiness; the benefit of the stockholders being the object of the\ncorporation. The individual contributes his labor, whatever it may be:\nmanual, mental, artistic. This labor is applied to available materials:\nthe soil of the farm, the natural resources, the mines, and mills and\nfactories. The finished product is distributed through the agencies of\nthe corporation, in the shape of food and clothes and shelter, of\neducation and amusement, of protection to life and limb, of literature\nand art, of inventions and improvements: to every man, woman and child\nof the nation.\n\nTo be sure this ideal of a human brotherhood is not yet realized in\nRussia. No sane person would expect so tremendous a change to be\nconsummated in three years, in the face of universal aggression,\nintrigues and blockades. It may take ten years, perhaps a generation.\nWhat of it! Russia is past the most difficult period of transition from\nthe capitalist state to a communist state, while other capitalist\ncountries must still face the period of revolution. Therefore let Russia\nlead the way. Let the American workers realize that Russia's fight is\ntheir fight, that Soviet Russia's success is the success of the laboring\npeople the world over!\n\n  Have you ever been to Crazy Land,[N]\n    Down on the Looney Pike?\n  There are the queerest people there--\n    You never saw the like!\n  The ones that do the useful work\n    Are poor as poor can be,\n  And those who do no useful work\n    All live in luxury.\n  They raise so much in Crazy Land\n    Of food and clothes and such,\n  That those who work don't have enough\n    Because they raise too much.\n  They're wrong side to in Crazy Land,\n    They're upside down with care--\n  They walk around upon their heads,\n    With feet up in the air.\n\n  --T.\n\n\n\n\nVI. WITHDRAWAL OF PRIZE OFFER.\n\n     Never have anything to do with those who pretend to have dealings\n     with the supernatural. If you allow supernaturalism to get a\n     foothold in your country the result will be a dreadful\n     calamity.--Confucius.\n\n\nMrs. Brown and I hereby withdraw, for the present at least, our prize\noffer, and for two reasons:\n\n1. We are convinced that it is as necessary to the welfare of the world\nto smite supernaturalism in religion as capitalism in politics, but\nwhile many are able and willing to attack the octopus of capitalism,\nthis is true of only a few in the case of the dragon of supernaturalism.\nSome hesitate because they feel with one of the critics of Communism and\nChristianism that revolutionary forces are coming to the surface in the\nchurches.\n\n\"Where,\" he asks, \"shall we classify the stand of the Catholic Church\nagainst the open shop? What shall be said of the Interchurch report on\nthe steel strike? What of the attitude of the combined commission in\nDenver of Catholics, Protestants and Jews on the street car strike?\"\n\nWe have no desire to belittle such efforts nor to discourage their\npromoters; but (though they may afford some local and temporary\nalleviation to the miseries of far the greater part of the\nworld--miseries growing out of its division into two classes, a small\nclass of owning masters and a large class of working slaves) we center\nno hope in them, because the whole history of the supernaturalistic\ninterpretations of religion, not excepting the Christian, show these\nefforts to be only reformatory and temporary bubbles which sooner or\nlater are always pricked by the masters of what little revolutionary air\nthey contain, and so never issue in any general or permanent improvement\nof the sad lot of the overwhelming majority of the slaves.\n\nHow little the church serves the working slaves, and how much the owning\nmasters, will appear from the following representations of Roger W.\nBabson, the well-known financial expert and adviser:\n\n     The value of our investments depends not on the strength of our\n     banks, but rather upon the strength of our churches. The underpaid\n     preachers of the nation are the men upon whom we really are\n     depending, rather than the well-paid lawyers, bankers and brokers.\n     The religion of the community is really the bulwark of our\n     investments. And when we consider that only 15 per cent of the\n     people hold securities of any kind and less than 3 per cent hold\n     enough to pay an income tax, the importance of the churches becomes\n     even more evident.\n\n     For our sakes, for our children's sakes, for the nation's sake, let\n     us business men get behind the churches and their preachers. Never\n     mind if they are not perfect. Never mind if their theology is out\n     of date. This only means that were they efficient they would do\n     very much more. The safety of all we have is due to the churches,\n     even in their present inefficient and inactive state. By all that\n     we hold dear, let us from this very day give more time, money and\n     thought to the churches, for upon these the value of all we own\n     ultimately depends.\n\nWhat our critics say about the recent efforts of the American churches\nbeing in the right direction is interesting to Mrs. Brown and me, but we\nare much more impressed by the observation of a writer in a late issue\nof Soviet Russia. In speaking of the baneful influence of the Russian\nchurch through all the ages he says:\n\n     Out of the shadows of antiquity, from the morning of man's cupidity\n     and avarice, two sinister figures have crawled with crooked talons\n     through history, leaving a trail of blood and fear most horrible\n     which has not halted yet. These are the monarch and the priest. The\n     one is symbolical of despotic or oligarchic power, the other\n     typifies the sordid ignorance and fearful superstition of the\n     credulous masses which maintains the power of the first. High in\n     the streets of Moscow, where one may see the pallid, long-haired,\n     degenerate-looking venders of holy lies and pious impositions\n     shuffle along like spectres from a remoter age, there hangs a woven\n     streamer of scarlet hue with huge white lettering, which defiantly\n     proclaims that religion is the opium of the people.\n\n     Though many still cross themselves a score of times daily on\n     passing the church, yet nevertheless the people are rapidly\n     assimilating the knowledge which elevates and enlightens, and\n     learning to reject that which terrorizes and deforms the mind, and\n     just so sure as the last filthy tyrant has been placed for ever\n     beyond mischief, so will the last priest soon vanish from the land\n     once contemptuously known as \"Holy Russia\".\n\nThe foregoing is from a revolutionary sympathizer with soviet Russia and\nthe following is from a reactionary criticizer of it, but both are to\nthe same effect, that orthodox Christianity is wholly against the\ninterest of the proletariat and entirely for that of the bourgeoisie:\n\n     One of the most striking characteristics of Bolshevism is its\n     pronounced hatred of religion, and of Christianity most of all. To\n     the Bolshevik, Christianity is not merely the theory of a mode of\n     life different from his own; it is an enemy to be persecuted and\n     wiped out of existence.\n\n     To understand this is not difficult. The tendency of the Christian\n     religion to hold before the believer an ideal of a life beyond\n     death is diametrically opposed to the ideal of Bolshevism, which\n     tempts the masses by promising the immediate realization of the\n     earthly paradise. From that point of view Christianity is not only\n     a false conception of life; it is an obstacle to the realization of\n     the Communist ideal. It detaches souls from the objects of sense\n     and diverts them from the struggle to get the good things of this\n     life. According to the Bolshevist formula, religion is opium for\n     the people: and serves as a tool of capitalist domination.\n\nThis influence of the churches, in the long run and on the whole has\nbeen and will continue to be the same throughout christendom everywhere\nand everywhen, not excepting these United States in the twentieth\ncentury.\n\nNor is it to any convincing purpose that the representatives of the\nowning class contend that kings and priests have lost their supremacy to\npresidents and preachers, for it is imperialism in politics which\nenthralls and supernaturalism in religion which degrades. The world is\ngreatly afflicted with both, none of it much, if any, more than our\ncountry.\n\nIt seems to us that we see two fundamentally important facts more\nclearly than our critics see them: (1) the first step in the way of\nsalvation for the proletariat is class consciousness, and (2) the\nChristian interpretation of supernaturalistic religion has been, and\nuntil it is discredited will continue to be the most efficient among the\nmany preventives to this consciousness.\n\nLet me show this to be the case by an experience which I had some years\nago when Mr. Pierpont Morgan, Senior, was at the height of his glory, as\nthe king of the great realm of big business, receiving homage on the one\nhand from the Rockefellers and Rothschilds, and on the other hand from\nthe Blockheads and Henry Dubbs of all the world.\n\nAt that time I made a confirmation visitation for my sick episcopal\nbrother, the Bishop of New York, to what was popularly known as Pierpont\nMorgan's church (St. George's, one of the downtown churches for working\npeople.) He was the senior warden of this great parish having nearly\n5,000 communicants. He went with the collecting procession out through\nthe great congregation and back to the chancel where each collector\nceremoniously emptied the contents of his basket into the great gold\nalms basin held by the Rector.\n\nWhile the famous financier was collecting contributions from obscure\ntoilers, how could any, brought up as I was and as nearly all of the\ngreat congregation were, see that capitalism has divided humanity into\ntwo conflicting classes which \"have nothing in common, the working class\nand the employing class, between which a struggle must go on until the\nworkers organize, take possession of the earth and the machinery of\nproduction and abolish the wage system!\"\n\nBy the light of what I had been taught all along and of what I was then\nseeing with my own eyes from the bishop's chair such a representation\nwould have seemed preposterous and what was true of me was equally so of\nall present, rector, wardens, vestrymen, members and visitors.\n\nThere were not many I. W. W.'s. in those days, but if one had been there\nand upon leaving the church had made a representation to this effect to\na fellow-worker who was a member of St. George's would not the reply\nhave been something as follows:\n\nSee what Pierpont Morgan and I have in common: the same God; the same\nreligion; the same church; the same services for worship; the same\ncollection basket in which he puts a $100.00 bill and I a ten cent\npiece; the same Lord's Supper where we eat and drink together; and,\nbesides all this, there is the same hell where he will go unless he\ngives me a fair day's wage and where I will go unless I do a fair day's\nwork, and the same heaven where both will go to equally glorious\nmansions, if we are alike 100 percenters in church and state, and if he\npays me liberally for my work and I slave hard enough for his money.\n\nAssuming the truth of the Christian interpretation of religion this\nconclusion is correct. But this Christian religion is not true.\nChristianism offers nothing to either the owners or workers in the sky\nfor its god and heaven, devil and hell are lies. And neither religious\nChristianism nor political Republicanism or Democracy, not to speak of\nthe other isms of religion and politics, offers the workers aught on\nearth.\n\nCapitalism is the god of this world, of no part of it more than of these\nUnited States, and capitalism is to the laborer a robbing, lying,\nmurderous devil, not a good divinity.\n\n2. The recall of the prize offer is also occasioned and justified, we\nthink, by a demand, which was as unexpected as it is gratifying, for our\nlittle propagandist in foreign countries, and we have been persuaded\nthat it should be met by securing to him the gift of tongues. We propose\nto do this by devoting the money which was set aside for the prizes to\nthe encouragement of making and publishing translations.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[N] The capitalist countries of the world constitute the United States\nof Crazy Lands.\n\n\n\n\nVII. AFTERWORD.\n\n  \"So many Gods, so many Creeds,\n    So many ways that wind and wind,\n  When all this sad world really needs\n    Is just the art of being kind.\"\n\n  --Ella Wheeler Wilcox.\n\n\nI.\n\nMy title, given in Latin on the picture page, is bestowed upon me by\nsome in jest and by others in reproach, and I am accepting it from both\nas compliments, because they prove that I have at least succeeded in\nmaking clear the general outlines of my religious and political\nposition.\n\nThe use of this title is due to the desire that those who pick up the\nbooklet should not buy it, much less undertake to read it, under a\nmistaken impression as to its doctrinal trends. In English the Latin\ntitle is, \"Bishop of the Countries belonging to the Bolsheviki and the\nInfidels.\"\n\nCertain friends greatly fear that some things said in this booklet may\nfall foul of the criminal-syndicalism laws. I have carefully read those\nof Ohio and believe that the booklet contains nothing which is not\nsafely within them.\n\nAnyhow, I have spoken the truth about supernaturalistic religion and\ncapitalistic politics as I understand it, and I believe that I have\nadequately supported all my representations on bases of relevant facts\nwhich cannot be gainsaid or, at any rate, upon sound arguments which\nhave such facts for their foundations.\n\nHowever, I am trying to hold myself open to conviction; and, this being\nthe case, if \"the powers that be\" in state or church feel that they must\nproceed against me, I beg that, in justice to all the persons and\ninterests concerned, they will come with their resources of persuasion,\nnot coercion.\n\nMy appeal to the religious and political rulers to do this shall be in\nthe burning words of a celebrated defender of the capitalistic system of\neconomics, John Stuart Mill, words which constitute the most remarkable\npassage in his powerful essay on Liberty:\n\n     No argument, we may suppose, can now be needed, against permitting\n     a legislature or an executive, not identified in interest with the\n     people, to prescribe opinions to them, and determine what doctrines\n     or what arguments they shall be allowed to hear.\n\n     Speaking generally, it is not, in constitutional countries, to be\n     apprehended, that the government, whether completely responsible to\n     the people or not, will often attempt to control the expression of\n     opinion, except when in doing so it makes itself the organ of the\n     general intolerance of the public.\n\n     Let us suppose, therefore, that the government is entirely at one\n     with the people, and never thinks of exerting any power of coercion\n     unless in agreement with what it conceives to be their voice.\n\n     But I deny the right of the people to exercise such coercion,\n     either by themselves or by their government. The power itself is\n     illegitimate. The best government has no more title to it than the\n     worst. It is as noxious, or more noxious, when exerted in\n     accordance with public opinion, than when in opposition to it.\n\n     If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person\n     were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in\n     silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be\n     justified in silencing mankind.\n\n     Were an opinion a personal possession of no value except to the\n     owner; if to be obstructed in the enjoyment of it were simply a\n     private injury, it would make some difference whether the injury\n     was inflicted on only a few persons or on many. But the peculiar\n     evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is\n     robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing\n     generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than\n     those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of\n     the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose,\n     what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and\n     livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error.\n\nThis passage should be inscribed in letters of gold on the doors of\nevery church and court house in the world. It was written in\ncondemnation of the persecution by majorities of minorities in states,\nbut it applies equally to all intolerance of dissentient opinions.\n\nIt is utterly impossible in a printed discussion of the length of this\nbooklet to weed out every word capable of misconstruction; and equally\nso to furnish a definition or limitation to every doubtful word or\nphrase. Nevertheless I call attention to a few:\n\nThe word \"revolution\" as used here should not be taken as implying armed\ninsurrection or violence, unless expressly so described. These are not\nnecessary features of revolution. There have been both political and\nindustrial revolutions entirely unattended by violence or bloodshed; for\nexample, the political revolution of 1787 when the old Articles of\nConfederation were abolished and the federal Constitution imposed upon\nthe United States; also the political and industrial revolution of 1919\nin Hungary when for a time a soviet system was established, with Bela\nKun as premier.\n\nThe bloodshed which often attends revolutions comes almost invariably\nfrom the lawless counter-revolutionary efforts of the deposed ruling\nclass to maintain themselves in power or regain power by terrorism and\nmurder.\n\nWhen I eulogize the Bolsheviki and their system in Russia, I am not to\nbe taken as advocating for the United States the employment of the\nbloody tactics for gaining power, which the capitalist press of America\npersists in describing--and as I believe, falsely. I deal in this\nbooklet not with tactics but with facts. I concern myself here not with\nthe ways by which the Bolsheviki of Russia gained power, but with what\nthey did with the power after gaining it.\n\nAs I was trained in theology, I am certain that my religious position\nhas been so clearly outlined that no mistake as to where I stand will be\nmade by the rulers in my church; but, having had no training in the law,\nI am less certain that my political position will be as unmistakably\nunderstood by the rulers in my state. Therefore, to avoid\nmisinterpretation of certain words and phrases in this booklet, I here\nexpressly disclaim any intention of violating the criminal-syndicalism\nstatute of Ohio, following as closely as may be its phraseology in these\nmy denials of criminal intention:\n\n     Nothing herein is to be understood as advocating or teaching the\n     duty, necessity, or propriety of crime, sabotage, violence or\n     unlawful methods of terrorism as a means of accomplishing\n     industrial or political reform. This booklet is not issued for the\n     purpose of advocating, advising, or teaching the doctrine that\n     industrial or political reform should be brought about by crime,\n     sabotage, violence or unlawful methods of terrorism; nor of\n     justifying the commission or the attempt to commit crime, sabotage,\n     violence or unlawful methods of terrorism with intent to exemplify,\n     spread or advocate the propriety of the doctrines of criminal\n     syndicalism; nor of organizing any society, group or assemblage of\n     persons formed to teach or advocate the doctrines of criminal\n     syndicalism. If any such meaning shall be read into any passage of\n     this booklet by any reader, it will be a wrong meaning, not what I\n     intended to convey.\n\nA revolution by which a new industrial democracy--the freedom to make\nthings for the use of workers--will supplant the old capitalist\ndemocracy--the freedom to make things for the profit of owners--is an\ninevitable event in the history of every country within the twentieth\ncentury.\n\n\nII.\n\nMy object in this booklet is not the promotion of class hatred and\nstrife. Far from it. It is to persuade to the banishment of gods from\nskies and capitalists from earth.\n\nTheism and capitalism are the great blights upon mankind, the fatal ones\nto which it owes, more than to all others together, the greatest and\nmost unnecessary of its suffering, those arising from ignorance, war,\npoverty and slavery.\n\nThis recommendation as to banishments and this representation in support\nof it stand out on nearly every page of the booklet, and in order to\nmake sure of special prominence for them on its last pages, I quote the\nfollowing from an article by G. O. Warren (a major in the British army,\nI think) an occasional contributor of brilliant articles to rationalist\npublications on sociological lines:\n\n     If there be a God who rules men and things by His arbitrary will,\n     it is an impertinence to attempt to abolish poverty, because it is\n     according to His will. But if there be no such God, then we know\n     that poverty is caused by men and may be removed by men. If there\n     be a God who answers prayers, the remedy for social injustice is to\n     pray. But if there be no such God, the remedy is to think and act.\n\n     If men go to heaven when they die, and if heaven is a place in\n     which everybody will be made perfectly happy, then there is no need\n     to struggle against poverty in this world, because a few years of\n     trouble, or even degradation, in this world are of no consequence\n     when compared with an eternity of happiness that must be ours by\n     simply following the directions of the clergy. But if there be no\n     such heaven, then it becomes a matter of first importance that we\n     make our condition as happy as possible in this world, which is the\n     only one of which we are certain.\n\n     I maintain that there is no God who rules men and things by His\n     arbitrary will and who answers prayers, and that there is no heaven\n     of everlasting bliss to which we are to be wafted after death. And\n     I maintain this not only because I think that these religious\n     beliefs are erroneous, but because I know that they are most potent\n     to make men docile and submissive to the most degrading conditions\n     imposed on them. I feel sure that the doctrine that obedience to\n     rulers and contentment in poverty are according to the will of God,\n     and the doctrine that the poor and the oppressed will be\n     compensated in heaven are the chief causes of slums, prisons,\n     lunatic asylums and poor-houses.\n\n     All political tyranny is backed up and made possible by belief in\n     an arbitrary God, and all poverty is endured because of the belief\n     that after death everlasting happiness and wealth await us. Two\n     conditions are necessary to human happiness: personal freedom and\n     general wealth. But we never can be free as long as we believe that\n     it is the will of an infinite heavenly ruler that we should submit\n     to a finite earthly ruler, whether he gets upon the throne by\n     hereditary succession or by the votes of a majority; and wealth\n     will never be justly, and therefore, generally, distributed as long\n     as most of the people believe that because they are poor in this\n     world they will be rich in the world to come.\n\n     The apostle Paul says that political rulers are ordained by God and\n     must be obeyed, from the King to the constable, from the President\n     to the policeman. He says that if you are refractory, \"the\n     minister of God\" will use his sword, and will not use it \"in vain.\"\n     He says that the sword-bearer is God's minister.\n\n     Christ himself recites a parable about a rich man who went to hell\n     because he was rich and a poor man who went to heaven because he\n     was poor. Rich Christians are told by the clergy that the surest\n     way for them to get to heaven is by being rich; but they use this\n     parable to console the poor with the idea that the surest way for\n     them to get to heaven is by being poor. And this idea is confirmed\n     by the saying of Christ: 'Blessed are the poor, for theirs is the\n     kingdom of heaven.'\n\n     I claim that it is impossible to prove that any being exists who\n     can do, or ever does, anything outside of the regular processes of\n     Nature, and therefore that the word \"God,\" which has always meant\n     such a being, should be dropped. I would have no objection to the\n     current use of the word \"God\" if that use were harmless, but it is\n     very far from that. It is a word that every despot conjures with to\n     keep the people in ignorance and subjection. It is a word that\n     crafty politicians use in carrying out their schemes of bribery and\n     plunder.\n\n     The same thing applies to the word \"heaven.\" It is impossible to\n     show that there is any such place, and the word is used as a bribe\n     to the poor to keep them quiet under injustice. I do not see how\n     there can be a life after death, but if there is it will not be any\n     better because we are poor and undeveloped in this world, and\n     therefore immortality should be a reason rather for discontentment\n     among the poor than for submission to injustice.\n\n     As an atheist, I object to a God who is for every tyrannical ruler\n     and against the rebels that he imprisons, tortures and slays; who\n     is for the idle landlord and usurer and against the workers; who is\n     for the purse-proud prelate and against the people; who is for the\n     boodle politician and against the happiness of the many; who is\n     for the white exploiter and against the simple colored man; who is\n     for the rich profiteer and against the petty burglar and\n     pickpocket.\n\n     If I am told there is no such God as this, I reply that there is,\n     or there is none. The God of every Christian creed is the God of\n     the rulers, the God of the idle rich. There never has been any\n     other God known to the world. This is the God that the church now\n     worships and always has worshiped.\n\n     There are forces in Nature that we do not yet understand, and\n     therefore should not name. But they can only help us as we learn\n     what they are and how to use them. It is therefore neither our duty\n     nor our privilege to pray, nor can any good be thus achieved. It is\n     for us to observe, to think, and to examine the pretensions of the\n     privileged. It is for us to understand that there is no God to\n     raise our wages, and no heaven to compensate us for our poverty and\n     all the misery it entails in this world.\n\n  \"Said the parson, 'Be content;\n  Pay your tithes due, pay your rent;\n  They that earthly things despise\n  Shall have mansions in the skies,\n  Though your back with toil be bent,'\n  Said the parson, 'be content.'\n\n  \"Then the parson feasting went\n  With my lord who lives by rent;\n  And the parson laughed elate\n  For my lord has livings great,\n  They that earthly things revere\n  May get bishop's mansions here.\n\n  \"Be content! Be content!\n  Till your dreary life is spent,\n  Lowly live and lowly die,\n  All for mansions in the sky!\n  Castles here are much too rare,\n  All may have them--in the air!\"\n\n\nIII.\n\nAccording to Marxian socialism, the history of man arose from the need\nof his body for food, raiment and shelter. This is the materialistic\nexplanation of history, and the following is one of the passages in\nwhich Marx clearly shows that it is true and reasonable:\n\n     In the social production which men carry on they enter into\n     definite relations that are indispensable and independent of their\n     will; these relations of production correspond to a definite stage\n     of development of their material powers of production. The sum\n     total of these relations of production constitutes the economic\n     structure of society--the real foundations, on which rise legal and\n     political superstructures and which correspond to definite forms of\n     social consciousness. The mode of production in material life\n     determines the general character of the social, political and\n     spiritual processes of life. It is not the consciousness of men\n     that determines their existence but, on the contrary, their social\n     existence determines their consciousness. At a certain stage of\n     their development, the material forces of production in society\n     come in conflict with the existing relations of production,\n     or--what is but a legal expression for the same thing--with the\n     property relations within which they had been at work before. From\n     forms of development of the forces of production these relations\n     turn into their fetters. Then comes the period of social\n     revolution.\n\nMarx and his followers are justified in their contention that the\nphysical necessities of man (not gods or great men) constitute the key\nto his history by the fact that there was no mind of man before the\nhuman body nor will there be any mind when the body has been\ndisintegrated; for the mind was made by the body, for the body, not the\nbody by the mind, for the mind. This very remarkable fact, when duly\nconsidered, will change nearly all the ideas of most men and women about\nalmost everything.\n\nA leader is but a mouthpiece of a people through which they give\nexpression to their deepest convictions and highest aspirations. Early\nin my life Lincoln was the great leader of the people in the United\nStates, and late in it Lenin is the great leader of the people of the\nworld. The earlier of these was at least a rationalist and the latter is\nan atheist, so that the first probably did not suppose himself to have\nbeen inspired by a divinity, and the second certainly does not.\n\nI claim, said Lincoln, not to have controlled events, but confess\nplainly that events have controlled me.\n\nIn Lenin's Birthday Anniversary number of the magazine, Soviet Russia,\nthe Editor says:\n\n     At the very outset, we must clearly state that much of Lenin's\n     powerful position in present-day history is made by the history\n     itself,--by the fact that we are living at the moment when the\n     entire life of the race is vindicating in a most emphatic manner\n     the theoretical position occupied by Lenin for many years. After\n     all, Lenin, like Trotsky, was an unknown man, except to certain\n     political circles, and the mass of Russian revolutionists, even as\n     late as 1916. And yet, he was the same Lenin; had not the\n     opportunity come to put into practice the system for which he and\n     his associates had been laboring and suffering for many years, no\n     doubt the circle of his admirers and readers would not be much\n     wider in 1920 than it was in 1916. Lenin would probably be the\n     first to admit--nay, insist--that the material circumstance that\n     enables a certain individual to assert himself is the prime element\n     in building his reputation. So that, if the Russian Revolution had\n     not taken the course it did take, Lenin, with exactly the same\n     mental and idealogical preparation, might have remained a\n     relatively unknown man.\n\nThose who on the one hand interpret life from the naturalistic or\nmaterialistic point of view, and those who on the other hand interpret\nit from the supernaturalistic viewpoint need not and generally do not\ndiffer as widely as is commonly supposed.\n\n     Materialism is the name for two totally different things, which are\n     constantly confused. There is, in the first place, materialism as a\n     theory of the universe--the theory that matter is the source and\n     the substance of all things. That is (if you associate \"force\" or\n     \"energy\" or \"motion\" with your \"matter,\" as every materialist does)\n     a perfectly arguable theory. It has not the remotest connection\n     with the amount of wine a man drinks or the integrity of his life.\n\n     But we also give the name of materialism to a certain disposition\n     of the sentiments, which few of us admire, and which would kill the\n     root of progress if it became general. It is the disposition to\n     despise ideals and higher thought, to confine one's desires to\n     selfish and sensual pleasure and material advancement. There is no\n     connection between this materialism of the heart and that of the\n     head.\n\n     For whole centuries of Christian history whole nations believed\n     abundantly in spirits without it having the least influence on\n     their morals; and, on the other hand, materialists like Ludwig\n     Buchner, or Vogt, or Moleschott, were idealists (in the moral\n     sense) of the highest order. Look around you and see whether the\n     belief or non-belief (for the Agnostic is in the same predicament\n     here) in spirit is a dividing-line in conduct. There is no ground\n     in fact for the confusion, and it has wrought infinite\n     mischief.--McCabe.\n\nAs to their philosophy concerning the origin, sustenance and governance\nof the universe, communists are almost to a man materialists; but, as to\ntheir philosophy concerning life, they are as generally idealists. There\nis, I feel sure, as much idealism in my thinking and living now as there\nwas in the days of my orthodoxy.\n\nMany of the representations of the Jewish-Christian Bible are\nmaterialistic in a high, if not gross, degree. This is true of the\naccount of the creation according to which the god, Jehovah, with hands\nmoulded a man out of dust; performed a surgical operation upon him for\nthe purpose of securing a rib out of which he carved a woman; made a\ngarden; and provided worship for himself by a system of material\nsacrifices. The ark of the covenant was a wooden chest, and its contents\n(a pot, some manna, and Aaron's rod) were materialities.\n\nThe conception, birth, death, descension, resurrection, ascension and\nsession of the god, Jesus, were (if they occurred) material realities.\nAnd the eating of the flesh and drinking of the blood of the god sounds\nlike materialism, especially according to the explanation of the Greek,\nRoman, Lutheran and Anglican churches.\n\n\nIV.\n\nA nutshell summary of this booklet is contained in these confessions of\nmy religious and political faith:\n\nI. My religious faith is summed up in the following creed of twelve\nArticles:\n\n(1) The chief end of every man should be to make the most of his own\nlife by having it as long and as happy as possible and to help others in\ndoing this for themselves.\n\n(2) Though parents live unconsciously in their children and all do so in\nthose over whom they have had any influence, yet all there is of\nconscious, personal life for man is of a terrestrial character, none\ncelestial.\n\n(3) Knowledge is the Christ of the World. The saviour-gods of the\nsupernaturalistic interpretations of religion are symbols of this one.\n\n(4) Ignorance is the devil of the world. The destroyer-gods of the\nsupernaturalistic interpretations of religion are symbols of this one.\n\n(5) Knowledge consists in knowing facts and truths. Every real fact and\ntruth is a word of the only gospel which the world possesses.\n\n(6) A fact is something which matter, force and motion have\nunconsciously done, not what a god has consciously willed. There are no\nother facts.\n\n(7) A truth is a fact so interpreted that if it is lived it will\ncontribute towards making the most of life. There are no other truths.\n\n(8) Hence the greatest people in the world are the scientists who\ndiscover facts, and the preachers who interpret them and persuade to\ntheir living. If you contend that mothers are greater than teachers, I\nshall agree with you on condition that you will admit that a mother is\nnot really great unless she is a teacher.\n\n(9) The desire and effort to learn facts, interpret and live them\nconstitute morality.\n\n(10) Morality is the greatest thing in the world, because it is all\nthere is of real religion and politics.\n\n(11) But, paradoxical as it may seem, there is one thing which is\ngreater than the greatest thing in the world--freedom.\n\n(12) And the freedom which is greater than morality consists in the\nliberty to learn, interpret, live and teach facts, without which liberty\na man may be a non-moral child, or an immoral hypocrite, but he cannot\nbe the possessor of the pearl of great price--morality, without which\nhuman life is not worth the living or even possible.\n\nII. My political faith is summed up in the following creed of twelve\narticles:\n\n(1) As the universe in general is self-existing, self-sustaining and\nself-governing, so man in particular, who is but one among the\ntransitory, cosmic phenomena, has all of the potentialities of his own\nlife within himself, so that every man can say of himself what the\nmakers of Jesus had him say: I and my Father are one.\n\n(2) Man has set a far-off and high-up goal of an ideal civilization for\nhimself, and is finding the way to it by his own discoveries, and is\nwalking therein by his own strength, so that he is not in the least\nindebted to any of the gods of the supernaturalistic interpretations of\nreligion, either for the setting of the goal, or for what progress he\nhas made towards it.\n\n(3) Nor is humanity indebted to its outstanding representatives for the\nadvance in the way of civilization, as is evident from the fact that,\nbut for the gods, it would have long since been far beyond the point\nwhere the English-German war would have been within the range of\npossibilities, and these gods are the gifts to a blind humanity by its\nblind leaders.\n\n(4) Humanity is not indebted to its physical scientists any more than to\nits spiritual prophets for its advance in the way of civilization,\nbecause the scientists have always worked, as the prophets have\npreached, in the interests of the profiteers of the existing system of\neconomics. Economic systems have been the chief, if not indeed, the only\npromoters of war, and the world war with its tremendous horrors would\nnot have been possible but for science.\n\n(5) So, then, the history of civilization has been what it is because of\nthe economic systems by which the material necessities of life (foods,\nraiments and houses) have been produced, not because gods have made\nspiritual revelations, nor yet because men have made great discoveries\nand persuasively taught them. According to Marx, who discovered the key\nto the door of history, it is constituted neither by the gods in the\nskies, nor the great men on earth; but by economic systems. These create\nthe divinities and the leaders, not they them.\n\n(6) Thus far in the history of mankind every civilization has rested\nupon the institution of slavery and there have been, speaking broadly,\nthree different forms of it, with their correspondingly different\ncivilizations, chattel, feudal and capital. Each of these forms of\nslavery has been the foundation for a superstructure of a civilization\npeculiar to a distinct period of history. Chattel, feudal and capital\nslaveries respectively constituted the foundations for the\nsuperstructures of ancient, mediaeval and modern civilizations. The\nsecond of the two great discoveries by Marx was that the wage slavery of\ncapitalism, by far the worst of all slaveries, is due to surplus\nprofits.\n\n(7) Since civilizations have their embodiments in religious and\npolitical institutions (churches and states with what goes with them) so\nclearly as to justify the contention that religion and politics are the\nhalves of one and the same reality--civilization--it follows that I am\nright in carrying my materialism over from the realm of religion into\nthat of politics.\n\n(8) A system of economics is about the most materialistic thing in the\nworld, yet it is the only key which will open the door to the temple of\nhuman history. Having opened it with this key, the first thing to be\nseen is a world divided into two classes, one class whose\nrepresentatives live by owning the material means and the machines for\nproduction and distribution; and another class whose representatives\nlive by working in making and operating these machines, with the result\nof producing and distributing the material commodities by which the\nworld is fed, clothed and housed, but to the surfeiting of the owners\nwho as such produce nothing and have everything and the starving of the\nworkers who produce everything and have nothing.\n\n(9) Capitalists and communists agree that when the goal of humanity has\nbeen reached the world will find itself to be one all inclusive\nco-operating family.\n\n(10) Capitalists say that then the co-operating will be between the\nowners as fathers, and the workers as children. The capitalists will\nrecognize every laborer who does a fair day's work as a good son or\ndaughter, and the laborer will recognize every owner who gives a fair\nday's wage as a good father.\n\n(11) But communists say that then the co-operating will be between men,\nall of whom are on the same footing as laborers, since, when the goal is\nreached, the world will no longer be divided as it has been, from time\nout of mind, into a small owning or master class and a large working or\nslave class; but it will constitute one great all inclusive family,\nevery member of which will be on the same footing with all others,\nexcept that the older members will regard the younger as sons and\ndaughters, and they in turn will be regarded as fathers and mothers, and\nall of the same generation will look upon each other as brothers and\nsisters.\n\n(12) Civilization always has been and ever will be impossible without\nslavery, because leisure and opportunity for study, social intercourse\nand travel are necessary to it, but under capitalism, as it works out,\nonly representatives of the owning or master class have these\nprerequisites, and those of the working or slave class must be deprived\nof them. When communism supplants capitalism all will have their equal\nparts in both the labor necessary to the sustenance of the physical\n(body) life, and also the leisure necessary to the development of the\npsychical (soul) life. There will still be slavery, indeed much more of\nit than the world has hitherto known, but machines, not men, women and\nchildren will be the slaves. Of course there will remain much work\nconnected with the making and operating of the machines, but the time\nand energy required for it will more and more decrease with the\ninevitable increase in the number and efficiency of the machines until,\naccording to conservative estimates, three or four hours per day of\ncomparatively light and pleasant employment will be quite sufficient to\nprovide the necessities of life in abundance for every worker and his\ndependents, so that, then, all will have as much of them as the few have\nnow; and this without any sense of slavery because when one is working\nfor the benefit of himself and his own in particular, and the public to\nwhich he belongs in general, not for the profit of a class of which he\nis not a representative, there is no feeling of irksome servitude.\n\n\nV.\n\nA world-wide revolution has begun and is rapidly spreading over the\nearth. Why? Because a world-wide economic system for feeding, clothing\nand housing the people has broken down so that it must be supplanted by\na new system, else mankind will perish for the lack of food, raiment and\nshelter.\n\nThis revolutionary war is between the working class whose\nrepresentatives live starvingly, though they produce and distribute all\nthe necessities of life and the capitalist class whose representatives\nlive surfeitingly, though taking no part in the production and\ndistribution of these necessities.\n\nNearly one hundred years ago our fourth President, James Madison, saw\npartly and dimly what nearly every one now sees fully and clearly:\n\n     We are free today substantially, but the day will come when our\n     Republic will be an impossibility. It will be an impossibility\n     because wealth will be concentrated in the hands of a few. A\n     republic cannot stand upon bayonets, and when that day comes, when\n     the wealth of the nation will be in the hands of a few, then we\n     must rely upon the wisdom of the best elements in the country to\n     readjust the laws of the nation to the changed conditions.\n\nThe laborers of Russia have turned the country right side up so that\nthey themselves are above and the capitalists below, having the\nprivilege of remaining down to idle and starve or else to crawl up to\nwork and live, but not to rob, war and enslave.\n\nAs I lay down my pen the working man's government of Russia is fighting\na double war, the Poland-Crimea war, to prevent its overthrow by the\ncapitalist governments of the world, especially England, France, Japan\nand the United States, which in this war are surreptitiously\nconfederated against it, and the victory seems assured to it, largely\nbecause of the sympathy and help of their fellow workers throughout the\nworld.\n\nMarx though dead yet speaketh. He is speaking more widely and\npersuasively in death than in life. Russia is the megaphone from which\nhis voice goes out through every land and over every sea.\n\nNever man nor god spake with as much power as he speaks. His gospel is\nto the slave, and this is its thrilling appeal--workers of the world\nunite, and this is its inspiring assurance--you have nothing to lose but\nyour chains and a world to gain.\n\nWM. M. BROWN.\n\nBrownella Cottage, Galion, Ohio.\nSeptember 24th, 1920.\n\n\n\n\n      *      *      *      *      *      *\n\n\n\n\nTranscriber's note:\n\nThe typographical error \"overwhelmlingly\" was changed to\n\"overwhelmingly.\" All other spelling, capitalization, and\npunctuation was retained.","title":"Communism and Christianism: Analyzed and Contrasted from the Marxian and Darwinian Points of View","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":60988}