“Why, you are stupid, Doctor. All activity, whether called vicious or criminal, is good, for it aids progress. But nothing is vicious, criminal, or sinful, except that which represses the free activity of individuals, and thus hinders the development and growth of the race. It was, therefore, not a friend, but an enemy, that imposed upon our first parents the prohibition to eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. It was a friend, not an enemy, that inspired Eve with the thought and the courage to disregard that prohibition, to reach forth her hand and pluck the fruit, and having eaten thereof, to give it also unto her husband. The fable was invented by priests and governors as a means of imposing their system of restraints, of establishing their restrictive policy, to which they have adhered, as old fogie politicians adhere to protection. They have always had a horror of free trade, as incompatible with their monopoly, and have made it their study to repress our native activity, to keep us cabined, cribbed, and confined, within the narrow enclosure of their hidebound systems, of their immoral, contracted, galling, and senseless conventionalism. They will not allow nature, humanity, fair play. They brand, as from the enemy of souls, all free activity. The heart must move according to their rules, and love or hate as they bid; the mind must run only in the grooves which they have hollowed out, and never dare search beneath their solemn shams, or send sharp and piercing glances into the artificial world they have built up around us. We must repress our purest and noblest instincts, and crucify our sweetest and holiest affections. Everywhere restraint, repression, tyranny. The church tyrannizes over the state; the state tyrannizes over man and society; man and society tyrannize over woman, making her a puppet, a toy, or a drudge. Here, my dear, dear friend, behold your work, and that of your fellow-reformers. Go forth and break down this vast system of tyranny. Emancipate the state from the church, man and society from the state, and woman from man and society.” “But some government, some restraint is necessary to keep our appetites, passions, and lusts within bounds, and to maintain peace and order in the community.” “Alas! my friend, how hard it is for you to cease to be an egotist, and to learn to be a philanthropist. Know, that philanthropy seeks no individual, no exclusive good, and does not consist in loving and seeking the welfare of our fellow men and women. It is the love of man, not men, and seeks the welfare of the race, not of individuals. The welfare of the race consists in progress, which is effected only by free activity. All free activity is good, virtuous, right. Virtue is in action, not in non-action, which is death, the wages of sin. The only good is free activity, and every conceivable good is included in that one word, LIBERTY.”