An Address to Men of Science: Calling Upon Them to Stand Forward and Vindicate the Truth.... — John Shaqi
An Address to Men of Science: Calling Upon Them to Stand Forward and Vindicate the Truth....Carlile, Richard
Religion
An Address to Men of Science: Calling Upon Them to Stand Forward and Vindicate the Truth....
Carlile, Richard
Science; Superstition
Away then with the ridiculous idea, and the priestly dogma of
immortality. Away with the contemptible notion that our bones, our
muscles, and our flesh shall be gathered together after they are rotted
and evaporated for a resurrection to eternal life. Away with the idea
that we have a sensible soul which lives distinct from and after the
dissolution of the body. It is all a bugbear, all a priestly imposture.
The Chemist can analyse the body of man, and send it into its primitive
gaseous state in a few minutes. His crucible and fire, or his galvanic
battery, will cause it to evaporate so as not to leave a particle
of substance or solid matter, and this chemical process is but an
anticipation, or a hastening, of the workings of Nature; for the whole
universe might be aptly termed a great chemical apparatus, in which
a chemical analysis, and a chemical composition is continually and
constantly going on. The same might be said of every organized body,
however large, or however minute; its motions produce a constant
chemical analysis and composition, a continual change; so that the
smallest particle of matter is guided by the same laws, and performs the
same duties, as the great whole. Here is an harmony indeed! Man alone
seems to form an exception by his vicious conduct and demoralizing
character. By assuming to himself a character or a consequence to which
he is not entitled, and by making a pretension to the possession of
supernatural powers, he plays such fantastic tricks as to disturb every
thing within his influence, and carries on a perpetual war with Nature
and her laws.
After those few observations upon the properties of matter either
organized or inert, (to which I know every Chemist in the country,
whose science has conquered the bigotry of his education, will give his
assent) I would call upon them all and every one to stand forward and
teach mankind those important, those plain truths, which are so clear
and so familiar to their own minds. It is the Man of Science who is
alone capable of making war upon the Priest, so as to silence him
effectually. It is the duty of the Man of Science to make war upon
all error and imposture, or why does he study? Why does he analyse
the habits, the customs, the manners, and the ideas of mankind, but to
separate truth from falsehood, but to give force to the former, and to
extinguish the latter? Why does he search into Nature and her laws,
but to benefit himself and his fellow man by his discoveries, by the
explosion of erroneous ideas, and by the establishment of correct
principles? Science must be no longer studied altogether as an amusement
or a pastime, which has been too much the case hitherto; it must be
brought forward to combat the superstitions, the vices, and the too long
established depravities among mankind, whence all their present and
past miseries have emanated, and unless the former can be destroyed, the
latter will still ensue, as a regular cause and effect.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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