TENDENCIES AND PROPHECIES OF THE PRESENT AGE.

[Revised from the American Workman of October 9, 1869.]

NO. I.

It is eminently proper, before approaching the future of any subject, to make strictest inquiry and most diligent search in and around its present—to look with retrospective glance upon the convergent paths of the past that have led to its present, and to catch the indices pointing onward; and, having found them, to judge whether such as Time’s unfolding calendar has left here and there along the pathway of passing events were reliable prophecies of what was to come—were truthful indications of what was to follow. In the judgment determined and warranted by the evidences obtained, a certain basis may be found upon which to predicate the prophecies of the living present.

The existing present is the absolute result of the eternal past; the sum total of all that has gone before; the product of God’s everlasting workings, by and through unchangeable law upon the elemental material universe; nor can there be extracted from this result, this sum total, this product, one simple separate effect which is not the legitimate offspring of the operation of immutable law, co-extensive with the universe, and co-existent with God.

A proposition that there are powers within God’s realm which did not spring from Him, or that the Original Cause has, in the economy of Nature, found it necessary to amend and change the original law, in order to accomplish His original purpose, or that contingencies have arisen which have demanded special enactments on the part of the Divine 224Ruler, presupposes that God did not know the end from the beginning, or, knowing it, was incompetent to provide therefor. Such a proposition, entertained by the human mind, destroys within it the God of the universe, and leaves the world, to it, a mere toy in the hands of its master, subject, at all times, to the caprices of his infinite rule, to be led here and there by circumstances he knew not of previous to their external development.

It may be said, that reasoning upon the character of God’s government, or the mode through which he manifests himself to the world, is not pertinent to the subject in view; to those who think thus the query should be propounded—What of the future without a reliable present? and what of the effects that must follow, if the operating, existing general laws of the universe be not the same in a thousand years as now? It becomes, then, extremely important that some permanent, unchangeable basis be found before proceeding to predicate the future; and unless God is the same yesterday, to-day and forever, we can find no certain basis upon which to stand and from which we can start.

We have but to question the earth whether or not, from its incipiency onward through countless ages, it has obeyed the one great command, Progress? and in answer received, determine if, in the past, God has found it necessary to change the great fundamental laws of the universe. Geology tells in unmistakable writings what the earth was; we have but to look about us to see what it is. At no time since it was can we learn that the law of progressive unfoldment has been inverted, and the world turned backward toward its commencing point. Since this has not occurred in the past, we may safely assume that it will not occur in the future; the law of progress may be accepted as one of God’s immutable decrees. The universe to-day, in all its variety and beauty, is no more in essence than it was millions of years ago, when it first assumed its orbital movements; the same elements exist in the exact quantity—nothing added—nothing taken away. Progress is simply a new arrangement of elementary principles.

Simple elements are indestructible; when two or more are combined, and produce an effect, the combination may be destroyed, and the elements separated and returned to their natural condition. This process is not one of destruction, but simply of change of the relations of the elements that formed the combination. An acorn deposited in the earth attracts to itself such elements as produce growth; after years of labor, the mighty oak is the result. Although in its formation it has taken from the earth and air certain properties, the same 225quantity of such proportions still exists—nothing new has been created, a new form only has been produced by Nature, testifying that she never rests. Now, suppose a power were applied to the oak to dissolve it, the oak only would be destroyed, not the properties that entered into its composition.

It is supposed there are a certain number of elementary principles contained in and that make up the material universe; were these principles simple units, incapable of divisibility, we could, by applying the rule of geometrical progression, soon arrive at the exact number of different combinations, and consequently the exact number of different forms they are capable of producing; but, being infinite in quantity and divisibility, infinitude of form and effect is possible. The power of arrangement being infinite, infinitude of association and combination is the legitimate result.

Combination and association began in the simplest forms! When God, by his omnipotent voice, spoke the earth into existence, as an individual planet, it contained exactly the same elements of which it is now composed; but they were simply in elemental form, without organization, and, consequently, without variety of manifestation in form; motion being an inherent quality, constant agitation brought the elements into relations and combinations, simple at first; but by constant change they arose from the simple to the complex, and from the complex toward the infinite, and in the sum total of them we have the living present.

The argument does not require that minute examination of geological science be made, following, one by one, the rise and fall, the organization and destruction of each of its classified periods, nor of the specific results by and through each; but only to recognize the law by which these results are arrived at. It is possible to so trace and classify these results as to show a continuous chain of progression, link by link, from the simplest form of combination, to the most complex and perfect, wherein all the original elements were first represented—man! Having arrived at perfection of form, wherein all the properties of the material world find themselves forming a part, it might reasonably be accepted that progression in formation would cease; while it has ceased so far as producing higher types is concerned, it has not in the quality of the types already produced; and in this proposition lies the greatest problem of life; the one most difficult for the human mind to grasp. Man, representing in form all that has gone before, is the result of the grand chain of progressive material formations; and, having combined 226within his physical form a portion of every element contained in the world, he may be likened in his infancy to the infancy of the earth. God, in spirit, pervades all material nature, and the union—if union it may be called—forms a perfect whole, and man being an epitome of all things contained in the material world, receives into his organization the spirit of each of its representative constituent parts, and consequently is endowed with all the spiritual attributes of the universe, the attributes of God! and, as God is eternal, man, created in His image, must likewise be eternal.

As the earth, in its first efforts at organization, combined but few of its principles, and presented the crudest form, and as time rolled on and its combinations continued to include more and more of the several principles, so with man; in his infancy his spiritual manifestations were crude in the extreme, but there has constantly been brought into co-operative combination, more and more of the spiritual principles, and higher and higher types of spiritual manifestations have been the result.

If man, as a unit, were analyzed to-day, he would be found to be made up spiritually of the elements corresponding to that age of the development of the physical world of which he is now the representative; that is to say, in his manifestations spiritually, he exhibits the same ratio of spiritual elements that the earth did in her manifestations in material elements at the time in her growth corresponding with the present condition and growth of man.

If cool and deliberate reason, unbiased by mythological and theoretical dogmas, be applied to the correspondence between the material and spiritual elements, the conclusion can scarcely fail to be arrived at, that each primary element of the material universe is the external expression and representative of a spiritual attribute of God; and as there are a definite number of elements in nature, forming the perfect material whole, so there are an equal number of analagous spiritual elements that constitute the spiritual whole.

As the elements and their corresponding interior principles are susceptible of infinite combinations and associations, the varied manifestations of nature and man are readily accounted for. Nor should it be forgotten that each of the manifestations is the legitimate and inevitable result of the combination out of which it springs; and, as the combination is not self-creative, but the result of the action of progressive law, so the effect of the combination is but the outward expression of the 227purposes contained within the law, behind the formation of the combination, and is thus the result of God’s operative law of progress.

Having argued thus far to show that the present age, material, mental and spiritual, is the legitimate result of the law of progressive development, the following propositions are deduced therefrom, forming a basis or platform from which to ask of the present—What of the future? Whither doth it lead?

First—All power, wherever manifested, is a unit.

Second—God is the source of all power, and the elements the subject of its application.

Third—Each attribute of God has its corresponding material element.

Fourth—All the material elements constitute the material world; all the spiritual elements, God.

Fifth—There is nothing contained in creation outside of the power of God, on the one hand, and the elementary principles on the other—the first positive, the last negative.

Sixth—Nothing can be added to what was; nothing taken away from what is.

Seventh—All the diversities in nature are the legitimate effect of the power of God, operating through and upon different elements, and different proportions of different elements, contained in nature, the diversity being infinite, because the material and producing power are infinite.

Eighth—Man, collectively, being the representative of all the material and spiritual elements, the individual diversities observed in him are the legitimate result of the different relative proportions of these elements contained in his organization.

Ninth—The present is the result of spiritual principles acting upon and through the material elements during the eternal past.

Giving a comprehensive glance at the world it will be seen that government of some kind is everywhere established, which purports to rule the people embraced within certain geographical boundaries. An analysis of each form, from the crudest and most barbarous up through all the modifications of civilized government, will discover that each government was a true exponent of the character of the people by or over whom it was established. Every country, as it advances in intellectual and moral development, demands modifications in its government adapted to the improved capacity of the people. Hence, as the character of the governed progresses, so must that of the government 228keep pace with that of the governed, else the power behind it will rise to its might, and sweep it away.

There is but little doubt that the government of this country is the highest form now in existence on the earth; but to show how crude and even barbarous it is, reference only has to be made to the terrible conflict it has just survived, which became inevitable and necessary as the only practical demonstration of the power of the principles upon which it purports to have been founded—that all men are born free and equal, and entitled to certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. This proposition was made fundamental by great and good men, the representative lights of the country at that time, standing far in advance of the general mind. Liberty and equity had burst upon their souls under the sway of tyranny and oppression, which became so odious that anything was preferable to them, to longer enduring its injustice. In this land, far removed from that where freedom could not lift its head—with a mighty ocean rolling between, they felt they had found a secure asylum from further oppression, and a land where their new-born hopes could be realized. But, unfortunately, all who came to the New World had not these hopes and anticipations; some there were who still desired the strong hand of the tyrant to sway; and, thus invoked, it reached even across the mighty deep, and sought anew to enslave these new-born sons of freedom. Submission they never thought of—resistance was their only theme; and most thoroughly did they resist; through the long conflict that ensued, carried on by them under every conceivable disadvantage, their hopes never completely died out; and at last—triumphant over the crown—freedom reigned!

It cannot be wondered at that souls rising from such a conflict as the Revolution, triumphant, should assert so broad a proposition in behalf of equality as they did at the commencement of the struggle; nor is it wonderful that the great majority of the people did not understand, or did not have a full perception of the principle for which their representatives periled their lives and fortunes and pledged their sacred honor; but principles which were but partially discerned by the Fathers of the Republic have now grown into rules of action enforced by the sanctions of fundamental law; slavery of the body is no longer possible; the verdict of the majority of the people proclaimed it “behind the age.”

The South, recognizing this fact, knew that separation from the progressive mind of the North was the only chance for the continuance 229of a system which furnished so many excuses for physical, mental and moral lethargy; and in their attempt to separate, they precipitated a conflict in which history repeated itself, and freedom came out triumphant; thus what sprung from the seeds of tyranny and oppression, left scattered here and there by those who made that broad declaration, have been finally uprooted, and never more can take root and flourish under the scorching blaze of freedom’s noontide sun.

That physical, mental and spiritual lethargy was the condition of the South under the system of slavery all statistics touching this point indisputably attest; and the verdict of fifty years will pronounce the abolition of their system the greatest blessing God has yet vouchsafed them; it has opened the door of progress for all things, material and spiritual, and has rescued from the barbaric chains of the past a country more favored by God, in the bestowal of natural advantages, than any other on the face of the globe.

The general love of freedom, because it is an inherent right, is one of the first evidences the soul presents that it is growing from the boundaries and control of the material, from which it sprang, into those of the spiritual toward which it tends. When this love first takes root the soul has attained that degree of development wherein the spiritual has the superior control of the individual, resulting from the predominance of the spiritual over the material.

The fact that the general sentiment of the country demanded that slavery should no longer exist within its boundaries, is a very significant one, when considered in connection with the tendencies and prophecies of the present; it shows that the capacity and desire for freedom is being rapidly developed in the human soul; it indicates that the mind begins to appreciate what freedom really guarantees to its votaries in its broadest signification; it begins to recognize the glorious truth that every soul will, sooner or later, demand and receive all its rights.

The demands of public sentiment, which have already resulted in modifications of the constitution of the country, will not stop at the door of African slavery, which it has thrown wide open; there are many other systems of slavery still left to be abolished; while they do not all enslave the body, they so fetter the soul and the mind, that their influence is even more pernicious and galling than the enslavement of the body.

The African slave, toiling under the burning sun in the cotton, rice and sugar plantations of the South, was virtually in possession of more freedom of soul than are many of the white race, even in our own 230midst. Look into these things, and see if, while you have “cast the mote out of your brother’s eye,” you have not a “beam” in your own; these, however numerous, will in turn and time demand of the people and of the government, when in its province, such attention as may be required to extend freedom in all directions where “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” legitimately lead.

The history of the past as well as the tendencies of the present prophecy with distinctness and positiveness that the demand will soon go out, not only for a government founded on equal rights to all, but whose laws shall be administered with justice and equity, guaranteeing freedom of body, mind and soul to every living intelligence.

From evidences rapidly accumulating, it is believed that this country is ripening for such a form and administration of government; but in the present condition of society and of servitude to its customs, the imperfect and partial manner of arriving at representation, and of making and administering law, such a reform cannot be inaugurated; that is to say, although such a reform would be acceptable to and welcomed by the country, and will soon be demanded by it, as yet it is impossible to organize an effort, strictly within itself, that could effect it, because there is not a sufficient concentration of understanding upon the requirements to be met, nor of wisdom enough to draft for these requirements adequate laws and forms of administration. Were such a code prepared and submitted to the people, do you think it would be rejected?

In the earlier days of the republic legislation seems to have been conducted upon constitutional principles; but in these latter days it has so far departed from its seeming mainsprings of action that it is safe to assert that legislation, founded strictly upon considerations of principles of justice and right, is unknown in the land. If sometimes a great principle is demonstrated through legislation, it will invariably be found upon strict investigation, that the legislation was not predicated upon the principle, but upon some personal or party benefit expected to flow therefrom; the principle, therefore, stands under obligation to the expected benefit, and to the party needing it, and will doubtless, in its impartial operations, remember them. While this condition is a perfectly legitimate one, flowing from adequate producing causes, there are individual minds and souls, by thousands, who rise in their capacities for government out of it, and demand reform and the essential truth of Principle.

Government may be compared to an individual who, having committed some infringement upon the law of justice, is impelled, by the position it forces him into, to continue the practice to sustain himself 231from falling; but as a system of injustice cannot be perpetual, fail he must, sooner or later; and the longer it is delayed, the more complete will be the wreck and ruin when it comes;—as with the individual, so it must be with the State. Once started upon a system of law-making and executing not founded upon principles of justice and right, the course must be pursued and sustained by further enactments, either to cover the deformities of the previous proceeding or hide its purposes, and unless righteous judgment come to the rescue before the course has led to wide-spread and apparent corruption throughout all its channels of administration, it must eventually culminate in the downfall of the government, if not in the destruction of the nation.

Policy, not principle, is the ruling power behind all present legislation. Policy, inevitably and indiscriminately, leads to corruption. Corruption, obeying the inherent laws of its own nature, untouched by and beyond the control of the enactments that first gave it life and afterward fostered its growth, must culminate in certain destruction to all parts involved, whether it be within the body human, the body corporate or the body politic.

Did the Republican party, as a party, desire the freedom of the negro simply and solely because it was one of his natural rights? Would freedom have been extended to him by that party had it been positively known that all his influence would be used against it? Or would the Democratic party, as a party, have opposed the enfranchisement of the negro had it been known that he would become its political ally?

Judging from the indices of the past, it is fair to suspect, at least, if not to conclude, that the Republican party is expecting another such exigency as existed when it was found politic to extend freedom and suffrage to the negro; and in the question of female suffrage, for which the demand is now being earnestly made, there is but little doubt that it sees another means of salvation in the future, and seeks to postpone the question until the exigency shall become more imminent and dangerous. It may be argued that the Republican party was organized upon the principles of freedom. If this were wholly true, it would be also true that it had no sooner become a party in power than it resolved itself into a tribunal to define the limits for the application of the very principles that had placed it in power; thereby endeavoring to prostitute the principle to subserviency to the policy of its leaders, instead of calmly and firmly following where it would legitimately lead; like all 232parties and sects, of previous origin, it built upon a principle, and then, instead of wisely following, recklessly attempted to guide it.

With all the prestige of possession, and of being the acknowledged representative of the principle which had carried it into power, the result of the late elections began to be feared by the party, because its leaders knew they had driven it from its birthright, and led it after strange gods; and, had the opposing party been actuated by true progressive principles of justice, no man, however popular in himself, could have saved it from destruction.

Conscious of having departed from the principles that gave it power, the Republican party is even now seeking every means within its grasp to fortify itself behind measures looking solely to success in ’72; but it is prophesied that ere that time there will have sprung into existence another party that will not be the mere professed representative of freedom and equal rights to all, but the actual, living, moving, irresistible incarnation of those principles.

The lines of policy pursued by party leaders, and the channels of corruption opened by the executive officers of the government, have produced a result so wide-spread in its influence and ramifications that, instead of their being under the control of the government, they exert a vast if not controlling power over all its actions; it is not necessary to go beyond its own records to establish this fact; every newspaper in the country teems with evidence in point; the clergy have deemed the situation dangerous enough to hurl the anathemas of the Church against it; the dramatist and the artist, the poet and the philosopher, have each dealt his blow, while the “toiling millions” everywhere cry for reform.

So general and earnest has the demand for reform become that something must be done; the gathering masses of corruption all over the body will soon have ripened to bursting; and who can tell how much the body itself has become involved. May it not be feared that it does not possess sufficient recuperative purity and strength to stand the shock? Could the enlightened mental, moral and spiritual elements of the country which are possessed by those who stand in the front ranks of the advancing column of progress be combined into organized action, they might be able to arrest the abnormal growth of corruption, and, by strengthening and stimulating the sound members of the body to co-operative action, restore the whole system to its normal condition.

The machinery of the government has become so complex and unwieldy—so full of departmental and petty offices—that it is utterly beyond 233the power of one man, though he be “a great and mighty President,” to understand and control it.

The tendencies of the government being dangerous to the liberties of the people, their demand for reform is earnest, and must be heeded. But where will reformation begin? To whom must we look for relief? If we go to Congress with the Constitution in our hands, and demand such legislation as would give practical efficiency to the preamble and charter of freedom, they may possibly pay sufficient attention to the subject to pass a joint resolution setting forth that, while certain inalienable rights seem to be guaranteed to all, still Congress must be the dispensing power and judge of its application; and that it has decided that the negro shall be the first on the list—next, perhaps, the Indian may come in—next the Chinaman, and all the ends of the earth—except woman. Yes, go to Congress for relief from onerous taxes, wrung from the blood and bones of the laboring poor to fill the coffers of government vampires, and they will answer you by passing some new Revenue Act, in whose cunningly prepared articles will be found traps set for the people’s money, which the trained bands of political party secretly manage on joint account for themselves and their party leaders; it will answer you by granting new subsidies to corporations already grown rich from the fruits of the labor of the people; by granting to powerful monopolies still further privileges increasing their power through bribery and corruption to make subordinate the welfare of the country to their own selfish purposes, and by favoring all schemes for the centralization of power. Such being the answers to your demands, there is still a tribunal to which you can appeal, which in all time past has heard and answered the demands of the age.

In the system of special and class legislation causes of corruption and the downfall of governments may always be found; it is the bane of the nations, whence flows that subtle, entrancing poison that permeates all the arteries and veins of a country—so quietly and alluringly to the people, that, before its effects are suspected, the vital principle of the government is destroyed, and the lifeless form finally falls to rise no more forever; or, if the spiritless form be still upheld by the usurper, it is only retained as “a cheat and a delusion” to shield the person of the tyrant who has enslaved his victims in the name and under the guise of liberty.

234

TENDENCIES AND PROPHECIES OF THE PRESENT AGE.

[Revised from the American Workman of Oct. 16, 1870.]

NO. II.

The subject of government and the solution of all its difficulties seem to hinge upon the question, Where does God’s government drop its sway (if it does so at all), and where does man take it up, on his own account, by inherent natural right, guaranteed to him by the law that gave him being? The only modification of this question required to be considered is, How far man is or can be the authorized, competent agent of the Almighty in working out His purposes? To solve all these questions it becomes necessary to determine what the fundamental principles of government must be, to be in harmony with the laws of God, and to adopt them and to follow them out to all their legitimate conclusions and results, discarding everything else. In such government and legislation the eternal principles of right, which are God’s laws, are in full force and effect, and man, thus far, an authorized competent agent in the administration of His decrees in the material world.

Whether a government founded or administered upon any other basis than the eternal principles of right and justice can or cannot be enduring, is a proposition the simplest mind may solve. Progress is from the lower to the higher; in its certain and irresistible march all systems and things that have risen out of the circumstances of the times to which they belong will be swept away to make room for the new and the better; but principles and self-evident truths that were contained in such systems will endure to be incorporated into all future systems.

There can be no higher form of expression than that life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are “inalienable” rights to all; and, being such, it is safe to assume that it will always remain as a fundamental proposition in the organic law of this country; and legislation will be required to guide itself by it, instead of being its exponent.

235Change upon change will come in the future, as it has in the past, until government will become so simplified as to have for its foundation nothing but an annunciation of general principles of justice and equity, as self-evident truths upon which all legislation must be based.

Passing, for a time, the consideration of the principles of government, it may be well to inquire into the injustice of some of its present details. All men, and women, too, are born free and equal, entitled to certain natural rights, which no government has the right to take from them. While every man and woman is a result of the general law of procreation, there are distinguishing points peculiar to each, which renders every one different from every other; thus no two persons can be so precisely alike as to make their individuality the same; consequently no two persons are governed by the same internal and external mainsprings of action and influence. Let the same power and influence be exerted upon different individuals, no matter how nearly they may resemble each other, different results will flow from each, the character of which will be absolutely determined by the status of the development of, and the relations between the material, and spiritual elements represented in the individuals acted upon. No argument is needed to prove this proposition; and the legitimate deduction to be drawn from it is, that no judgment of the action of the individual, by others, is just that does not take into consideration all the various points in character and influence under which action is produced.

It must not be forgotten that all thought and action on the part of an individual is the legitimate result of some competent producing cause, operating by natural law. The cause being competent, the law of operation natural, and the result consequently legitimate, can another’s idea of right step in to sit in judgment over the action, and render a verdict of justice to the actor? Or, can any number of individuals determine what the demands of justice are which God himself has declared by the mouth of all His holy prophets, material and spiritual. “Judgment is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.”

No one can hope to escape the judgments of the eternal law, or to hide himself from God’s officers of justice; but must by them be brought before its stern, undeviating bar, to receive its unpardonable sentence. But, says the objector, this does not satisfy me, who have suffered from the offence. What if it does not satisfy you? God is satisfied; and are you greater than He, that you may question His justice? If you are not yet satisfied, God will most surely satisfy you in His own good time.

236Look into your statutes, and within them, find their own stultification. They assert that no criminal shall be subjected to two trials and penalties for the same offence; but, in the face of this righteous rule, and with the positive knowledge that God has already tried, convicted and sentenced the murderer, the courts of the country take possession and control of the criminal, proceed to try, convict, condemn and hang him by the neck until he is dead. Rest assured God will not overlook this attempt of yours to forestall his judgments.

We stop here to make a broad assertion: For man to affix certain definite penalties as punishment for so-called crime is to arrogate to himself what alone belongs to God!

Stumbling-blocks are constantly found in the path of progress, against which the earnest traveler finds himself precipitated; these consist of the ideas of the past, clothed with form and expression, and which were set up by their conceivers as “guides and lights” of their times, for those who groped their way by such assistance. The earnest seeker after light finds these set up all along his path, declaring “thus far shalt thou go, and no farther;” but he, catching a glimpse of the light so bright beyond, clears the obstruction by a single bound, and goes on his way rejoicing, seldom deeming it his duty to turn upon and cast what to him was but a hindrance from the path of progress, so that others coming that way should not encounter it, who perhaps might lack the power to surmount it. “Let your light shine” so that those who come after you may be aided thereby.

A single argument upon the question of the relations between debtor and creditor, which is maintained by the present laws, will be sufficient to illustrate the whole subject of customs, authorities and laws, which are obstructions in the path of progress. The time was when imprisonment for debt was authorized by law in all the States of this land of freedom (?); but the spirit of progressive justice has been at work until but few of the States now retain this libel upon Christian civilization to disgrace their statutes. Imprisonment for debt! What good ever resulted from it? The malignity of the creditor may have satisfied itself by still further humiliating the broken spirits of the debtor; but the creditor, by such action, places it still further beyond the power of the unfortunate debtor to satisfy the demand. It is asserted, without fear of successful contradiction, that the same deleterious effects generally flow from all similar laws. All kinds of crime are but species of debt, and the same rule applies with about the same force to its laws and penalties. Imprisonment for debt has been 237pretty generally abolished, but still our statute books are laden with laws to enforce collection.

A philosopher and economist, not long ago, fully investigated the relations between debtor and creditor, and the practical results of the laws now in force, and arrived at the “deliberate conclusion” that the costs attending the attempts to collect debts by legal process were three times the amount collected; not a very flattering commentary upon the policy of the law, and certainly not a paying investment to the crediting part of our community. This conclusion may at first thought appear fallacious; but when the expensiveness of courts, and the immense incomes of lawyers who practice at their bars, are considered, the afterthought will fully sustain the conclusion. It is believed by many that if there were no laws at all to enforce collection, there would be many less bad debts; even now a debt of honor is held by public opinion to have precedence of those which the law claims the right to enforce.

The thinker of ordinary capacity will see at a glance that an immense amount of labor would be withdrawn from the courts, which now bears heavily upon the people, not only in the form of taxes to pay for court-houses, jury-rooms and judges’ salaries, but in the waste of time employed in jury-boxes by men dragged from their inevitable toil, and held as prisoners, while their wives and children are often suffering, and even dying, from the want of their care and attention at home. Contracts should be so well defined as to admit of no misunderstanding; and if there was no method of collection and enforcement, there would be very many less disagreements; hence, in no light in which it can be viewed, does our present system commend itself to the wisdom and justice of the reflecting; on the contrary, it throws open the door for cunning and knavery to enter to test their strength through technical evasions and blind inferences, practiced, on the unwary and ignorant by the “Quirks, the Gammons and the Snaps,” who, as vampires of the time-honored profession they disgrace, feed and fatten upon the misfortunes of the deluded, long-forbearing, long-suffering children of toil.

It may be safely asserted that a very large part of all law contained within the statutes of the world, when analyzed, will present about the same deleterious results in practice and in the opportunities presented for infringement and subsequent evasion of their penalties that inevitably flow from all laws for the collection of debts.

The time has probably not yet come for the abolishment of all such laws, but the time has come when the relations of individual debtors and creditors should be left to the control of general principles of justice, 238which declare that a contract once fairly made, an obligation once fairly incurred, can never be discharged until satisfaction shall have been entered upon the record by divine justice.

TENDENCIES AND PROPHECIES OF THE PRESENT AGE.

[Revised from the American Workman of Oct. 30, 1870.]

NO. III.

When it is considered, how much the useful portion of life is dependent upon the preparatory part, the character of the influences brought to bear during that part, and the manner of their application, become a subject of deep importance. Education has received the most special attention from scholars, savants and professors; but they seem to have forgotten or to have ignored the fact that within the mind is contained the germ of all acquirements, and that teaching by rule merely what others have said or written, cramps and dwarfs the mind which, under a more natural system, would more rapidly and more healthfully develop its latent powers, through its stimulated efforts to evolve ideas connected with such facts and phenomena as may be exhibited to it, and thus become a part of the mind itself.

Instead of training the mind to rely upon method, books and authorities as rules, it should be encouraged to form methods of its own. The mind should be questioned, and its answers listened to, instead of being furnished by the teacher.

The mode proposed has many decided advantages. It inspires self-reliance, disciplines the mind to think for itself, accustoms it to express its own conclusions in its own chosen language, leads to clear and comprehensive forms of expression, gives decision and confidence, and tends to produce individuality of thought and character.

The Children’s Progressive Lyceum, instituted upon this idea, has already been inaugurated, and should receive the careful and unprejudiced 239attention of all interested in educational reform. Children who have been under this system but a few months are able to stand before an audience, and, in a clear and comprehensive manner, speak without embarrassment upon any subject comprehended by their minds. The coming generations will acknowledge a debt of gratitude to the founder of this system which no depth of respect or reverence could fully express.

No proposition can be made which will be more readily accepted by the general progressive mind than that, as the world advances in knowledge and wisdom, its general welfare becomes more and more dependent upon reciprocal interests; that is to say, as persons and nations become more and better individualized, their reliance upon interests outside of themselves becomes more positively and distinctly defined; thus a system of mutual dependence and reciprocal interests is every day being more widely inaugurated, which will continue to spread until the whole world will be brought into harmonious co-operation. This is commerce! Commerce, to the material world, is what thought is to the spiritual—interchange and exchange of material product in the one and of spiritual in the other—hence no restrictions or embargoes should be placed on the one which would not be legitimate if placed upon the other. The dependence and independence of each is mutual and general.

Restrictions upon commerce is a system of commercial slavery, flowing from politic and special legislation, and is in violation of the eternal principles of right, because it renders equality in interchange impossible. If it is the right principle to restrict commerce between nations, it extends to States, to cities and to individuals as well.

Under the rule of an unrestricted commercial intercourse throughout the world, the principle of supply and demand would control the movements of commerce without the aid of legislation; and, when once fully established, it would give stability and security to production everywhere. The products of the world entering into commerce would localize themselves where they naturally belong—where most could be produced with the least labor; and, population obeying the laws of equalization, would adjust itself to the demands of the respective interests of productive labor. This is a vast problem, in the solution of which the whole world is vitally interested, and one which, sooner or later, must be solved. If its solution were possible now, coming generations would look back and bless us for the solving. An international congress should be called to consider the subject, and to take proper 240measures for the inauguration of a system of general economy in production and consumption. The prophecies of the age point to this as a reform of sufficient magnitude to demand the immediate attention of the nations, and to call for a Christ to rise up for their salvation more powerful than the Democratic Party.

The political, national or personal advantages which are supposed to flow from restraints upon commerce, have nothing to do with the question of general reform. While it is the duty of every nation and every individual person to press forward the work of reform upon general principles, each nation and person must always keep in view the law of self-preservation, otherwise individuality will be lost in the struggle for supremacy, which has hitherto characterized the legislation of nations and the conduct of individual persons. The great principle of unrestricted universal commerce can only be practically established by universal acquiescence in its wisdom and justice. When legislation shall conform itself to general principles, instead of sectional, local or personal policy, and when its course shall be shaped by such broad action, it may be safely prophesied that the government it represents will be perfect and perpetual. Commerce will then obey the law of progress, and rise from the petty policies of nations, which strangle its development and limit its benefits: it will rise to be conducted upon the dignity of principle, untrammeled by policy; and on this platform the world will unite in harmonious prosperity under a universal government, not limited even by the boundaries between the material and the spiritual world.

Underlying all advancement and prosperity, material and spiritual, is action—motion—which, guided by intellect, results in labor, without which the world would be as though man had never been; for no form of creature below him has ever left permanent artificial beauty, systems of economy or usefulness as the result of its workings, except in so far as the form itself may be accounted such.

What, in two hundred years, has so changed the face of this country from the wilderness it was to the teeming garden it is, dotted all over with the habitations of men? What has produced the floating palaces that everywhere walk its deep waters “like a thing of life?” What has united all its distant parts by iron bands, along whose guiding lines those other representatives of art and motion speed, almost outstripping the wind? What has overcome time and space, and is now extending its arms to embrace the globe, that we may speak, and that the ends of the earth answer our call? Marvelous demonstration of 241the rapidly growing mutual and reciprocal dependence of the children of men! What has made the wilderness to blossom as the rose? What has achieved all these glorious, god-like results? Labor! labor! labor! physical, mental and spiritual labor!

Labor, therefore, is the fulcrum of the great lever of progress, lifting humanity from the material up to the spiritual realm. One short century ago nearly all physical labor was performed by the hands of man. Since then the mind has come up to the work, and rescued the body from the laborious servitude of former times; and now a single mind, directing a single machine, produces an hundred-fold more than it could when acting through its own personal machine. The inventive powers of the mind will continue to produce more labor-saving machines until labor directly with the hand will be almost, perhaps entirely, superseded.

The products of the mind, when compared with purely physical labor, are of inestimable value, and the great distinction everywhere recognized in their relative compensations is still too limited. No argument is needed to establish the dignity of labor; it has established itself in becoming the architect of the great future, by building the past and the present.

Out of the multiform phases of labor, questions will arise which will require for their adjustment equitable rules of compensation; the best talent in the world can find ample scope for useful employment in the solution of the numerous problems growing out of this vast subject. Labor—physical, mental and spiritual—finding itself in a position of injustice, is in a state of constant irritation and discontent, and legitimately seeks redress through the organization of associations to control its price; but it is at least questionable whether such combinations have been productive of any permanently beneficial results. If it could be perceived and comprehended, there must be, in the nature of things, perfect and complete harmony in the practical operation of all the working elements or agencies, not only in this world, but in the boundless universe.

This problem may find a practical solution in co-operative labor associations, in which the members share equally the profits upon what they produce.

Suppose the entire labor of the country were conducted upon this just principle, what would be the result? The rapidly accumulating wealth of the country is the result of labor; if the united labor of the country, producing this increase, should henceforward share it equally, 242the result, in time, would be the equalization of the wealth of the country, which is now rapidly growing into a necessity, to modify the luxurious habits of the rich on the one hand, and the crying evils of poverty on the other, which are rapidly engendering an antagonism, which will continue to increase in volume and intensity until it will culminate in a storm that will consume the elements of discord in the same manner (and upon the same immutable principles) by which African slavery was abolished in the Southern States of this Union.

A careful investigation of the co-operative principle will show that it is not only possible, but perfectly simple and practicable, and that it is full of glorious prophecy to the vast numbers who are now “ground to the earth” by the condition of actual slavery to the ordinary demands of nature which is entailed upon them from generation to generation, through the operations of false systems, which were founded upon and which are sustained by injustice and usurpation.

While viewing this subject in its practical aspects, it must not be forgotten that it, too, is intimately connected with progress, and subject to its decrees.

It is a well-established fact that the powers of endurance of the physical system are growing less, generation after generation, while the mental power is increasing in about the same ratio; the legitimate deduction from this fact is in perfect harmony with the general progressive tendency of all things leading from the purely physical to the spiritual, from which we may safely prophecy that the time will come when all labor will be performed by the mind, and when it shall have acquired perfect dominion over the material. The necessity for physical endurance will then have ended. The tendency to such a condition, though it has been, is, and may continue to be gradual, is nevertheless positive and well-defined.

Intimately connected with the subject of labor, and the tendency to perform by the agency of inventions what still devolves upon the direct application of physical strength, is that of supplying the demands of the body. The food used now is very different from that of a hundred years ago. Some who recognize this fact argue that the change of diet has produced the change in the physical condition; but reasoning from analogy, and applying the general rules of progress, leads to the conclusion that the changes in the relative conditions of the physical and mental, by which the latter asserts superior control, have rendered a corresponding change of diet necessary; hence it is fair to conclude that the change grows out of the necessities of the consumer, and 243is not the producing cause in the premises; in other and general terms, the physical system demands and should receive appropriate supplies.

Hundreds of people who once made use of the flesh of swine have entirely discarded it from their boards, instinctively feeling that it does not meet their present demands, and there is a growing distaste for it. Common observation shows that all kinds of flesh are gradually falling into disfavor, especially among those who labor mentally or are devoted to spiritual things.

As the physical system is gradually being relieved of labor and the consequent waste of its energies, the character of food it requires necessarily changes, and in the place of physical strength to be supplied is that upon which the brain can draw to replenish its wasting stock; the failure to recognize these demands causes very much of the dyspepsia from which those who lead sedentary lives suffer so generally; these should discard those articles of diet that principally contribute to build up the material, and use such as will impart strength to the mind.

There are quite a number of well-authenticated cases of the actual subsistence of the body upon the elements contained in the atmosphere a sufficient length of time to show that it could be continued indefinitely if the proper conditions were preserved. One of these cases in the State of Kentucky has remained seventeen years in this condition; one in Chicago nearly four years; there is one in Brooklyn of three years’ duration; and a number of others from ten to sixty days. In this condition the physical system becomes entirely renovated, purified, and almost transparent, and the spiritual faculties intensified many fold.

TENDENCIES AND PROPHECIES OF THE PRESENT AGE.

[Revised from the American Workman of Nov. 20, 1870.]

NO. IV.

Arguing from the fact that the character of food subsisted upon is gradually changed from the purely physical to the more refined and 244rare, in connection with that of exceptional cases having existed, in which supplies were drawn from entirely different sources than digested food, leads toward the conclusion, at least, that the time will come when men will have grown out of the necessity of supplying the wasting energies of the body and mind by the use of food, and into that refined spiritual condition in which he can draw directly upon the elements which the atmosphere does or will furnish to supply all his demands. All the arguments nature furnishes point to this condition. All know how very important it is to have a plentiful supply of pure air; but how far this goes toward furnishing the elements of supply demanded by the body, the deepest inquiries have not decided.

In a given case, the actual amount in weight that is furnished the body can be determined; deducting the weight of the excretions and palpable secretions, it is supposed the difference is consumed by some undefined process within the body; but who can tell how much and what the system takes directly from the atmosphere, or how much it gives up to it, that we have no means of defining by weight or otherwise? We also know that the atmosphere maintains an immense pressure upon the body, and that it involuntarily resists this pressure; this could not happen were there not some well defined and intimate relations between the two upon which man, as the object, must be greatly dependent.

Another strong and pointed argument is to be found in the process sometimes resorted to to sustain life: in cases of great prostration of the physical system, under exhaustive disease, when the means cannot be supplied through the medium of the stomach and digestion, they are furnished by being absorbed into the system through the pores of the skin.

The constant death and decay of all the materials upon which we feed, besides all that vast amount not drawn upon directly, is continually giving off to the atmosphere the same kind of elements which the body retains and uses from supplies of food; as they exist in the atmosphere in the form of elements, and there is a demand within the body for them, it is only necessary to create and maintain the means of supply to solve the problem. A glorious prophecy comes forth from the tendencies of labor toward the mental, and the accompanying necessity for modifications of diet, adapted to the many gradations man must pass through to reach a purely spiritual condition.

The physical system has been the accredited medium through which the spirit within it—the real man—has wrought, and still is, in 245all individuals who are not beyond the point where spirit becomes the predominant and governing characteristic. In the present, however, there are scattered here and there among the masses individuals who have passed—are passing—or are approaching that point in which the spirit, at times, acts independently of its material machine in which it has been fostered and cultured, and gives positive proofs of an existence within the body of an individualized life, which can and does act without the agency of the body, and performs functions before impossible. There are a thousand persons, at least, in this country who have a sight entirely independent of the physical eye, which overleaps the boundaries of physical vision; penetrates the barriers of external sense, tears off the mask of hypocrisy and deceit, detects the motives and mainsprings of action, and lays bare the heart of man. While comparatively but few have attained this, all are approaching it. What does Paul mean but this when he says, “Now we see, as through a glass, darkly; but then face to face”? When the spirit-eye shall have fully pierced its barriers of flesh, when the body shall have become subservient to the spirit, instead of the spirit being dependent upon the body, when we “shall see as we are seen, and know as we are known,” how radical the changes, and how rapid the strides of advancement will then be!

Reason for a moment upon the effect that would be produced were every tenth person suddenly endowed with spirit-sight, and compelled to demonstrate it by exposing the hearts and the lives of all the rest. Where could oppression hide itself? Where could the lusts of the flesh plot their treason against the sovereignty of the spirit, beyond the range of spirit vigilance—this new safeguard of human society, the eternal law of progress, which is now unfolding? In such a condition of things, courts of justice, with all their attendant judges, bailiffs and attorneys-at-law, would find their occupation gone. Prisons would be converted into asylums and workshops for the weak and unfortunate, and their keepers into superintendents and teachers. Churches would be converted into lecture-rooms; and preachers, now hurling their anathemas against unrepentant sinners, would become professors of the great principles through and by which the world, and all things, have been brought from the primary condition thus far on their march toward the perfect.

Many individuals know that they are under the surveillance of this spirit-sight, and demonstrate in conduct its beneficent influence; but the capacity has not yet become sufficiently general to compel the recognition of its efficacy by the public mind. As the rising sun first 246gilds the mountain’s loftiest peak, next the hill-top, then glides along the inviting slope to the universal plain, where all creation rejoices under the refulgence of its noonday glories—so comes this rising light, to illumine the hearts and souls of all when it shall have reached the zenith of its mid-day glory. As the beams reflected from the mountain top are of the sun, and not the mountains, so are these spiritual rays of the spiritual sun, and not of the individual reflecting them, or through whom they may chance to shine. Verily, verily, I say unto you, this people vaunteth and puffeth itself with knowledge, but wisdom hath surely departed to the lowly ones of earth! Religion, clad in its robes “of purple and fine linen,” faring “sumptuously every day,” forgetting that Christ was cradled in a manger, and that His disciples were fishermen, continually cries, as did the “Pharisees and hypocrites” of old: “Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?”

The time is not far distant when the possession of spirit-sight will be accounted of the first importance, not to those only who possess it, but to the public generally, and will be sought for and made practical to the honor of its possessors and to the inestimable benefit of all. The time will come in the not far distant future when those who now cry out, “Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?” will bow, with becoming humility, before the later-day fishermen; for these will then occupy the places of public trust, and spirit-telegraphy, having superseded material wires, will convey the commands of God’s accredited ministers from the central seat of Power throughout the world.

Where are all the great of the past; its orators, philosophers and statesmen; Confucius, Zoroaster, Moses, David, Solomon, Lycurgus, Demosthenes, Cicero, Bonaparte, Washington, and many others, of all nations and climes, to whom history points as having stood hundreds of years in advance of their times? Do they still live? and, living, are they idle? Are their minds withdrawn from subjects to which they were devoted in this primary school-house of the children of God? Are not their minds expanded to the comprehension of the great principles of governmental justice? Are they not better qualified to direct legislation now than the wisest among us? If they still live as spirits, if they have had better opportunities of obtaining wisdom and knowledge pertaining to earth-life than we—can this world avail itself of their assistance to establish on earth the government of heaven? If the angel in the bush were possible, why may not angels manifest the wisdom, power, and justice of God in our legislative halls? Who will dare to assert that they are not even now seeking another Moses to lead “His people” 247up out of Egypt? Then will the prophecies of the present have reached consummation; then will commence the earthly reign of the King of kings and Lord of lords, as prophesied by all the holy prophets of the world; then old things shall pass away and all things become new; then the Christ shall sit upon the throne, and from his inexhausted fountain of love, justice shall continually flow over all the earth, “as the waters cover the sea.”

As vanish the heavy mists of the morning before the radiance of the rising sun, so will vanish the clouds that hang around the minds of man, and shut out the rising spiritual sun, for whose “star in the East” wise men are continually watching; the sun that will rise higher and higher, and extend its rays wider and wider, until it shall enlighten the minds of all mankind, until the icebergs of ignorance, tradition and superstition are dissolved which now float in the ocean of progress—society, with its cankered, festering heart; commerce robbed of its legitimate function; labor of its recompense, and religion of its spirituality; education lacking wisdom, marriages forming “disunions,” and women without rights.

All the false forms of the present must yield their sway to God’s command—“Let there be light.” The laws of God are never changed—though old as creation—they are ever new, ever sufficient for all the vicissitudes of life; they are ever full of wisdom, justice and love; they are written all over the face of creation, in the bosom of the earth and in the heart of man; they are uttered by the raging tempest that rocks the mighty ocean; in the terrible mutterings of the earthquake; in the fury of destructive battle, when hosts are hurled on hosts in fraternal strife; through all these the voice of God proclaims—“Let there be light,” and there is light.

We also hear its whispers in the gentle zephyrs that stir the bursting buds and in the blooming flowers that lift their heads to drink the falling dew; in the hum of busy nature; in the gushing fountain; we see it in the gambols of the bubbling brook; in the mother’s love for the new-born life; in the father’s pride; in the unspoken joy of the maiden’s soul, listening to the first sweet tones of love; in the magnetic ties of human sympathy which bind all mankind in a common brotherhood, and in the dawning light of heaven brought to earth by the angelic hosts to usher in the reign of universal justice, peace and love.

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

Silently corrected obvious typographical errors and variations in spelling.

Retained archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings as printed.