 The Economic Tendency of Free Thought. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Economic Tendency of Free Thought by Volterine DeClaire. Friends, on page 286, Belford Clark edition of The Rights of Man, the words which I propose as the text for this discourse may be found. Alluding to the change in the condition of France brought about by the Revolution of 93, Thomas Paine says, the mind of the nation had changed beforehand and a new order of things had naturally followed a new order of thoughts. Two hundred and eighty-nine years ago, a man, a student, a scholar, a thinker, a philosopher was roasted alive for the love of God and the preservation of the authority of the church. And as the hungry flames curled around the crisping flesh of martyred Bruno, licking his blood with their wolfish tongues, they shadowed forth the immense vista of a new order of things. They lit the battleground where freedom fought her first successful revolt against authority. That battleground was eminently one of thought. Religious freedom was the rankling question of the day. Liberty of conscience. Liberty of conscience. Non-interference between worshipper and worshipped. That was the voice that cried out of dungeons and dark places, from under the very foot of Prince and ecclesiastic. And why? Because the authoritative despotisms of that day were universally ecclesiastic despotisms because church aggression was grinding every human right beneath its heel and every other minor oppressor was but a tool in the hands of the priesthood because tyranny was growing towards its ideal and crushing out of existence the very citadel of liberty. Individuality of thought. Ecclesiasticism had a corner on ideas. But individuality is a thing that cannot be killed. Quietly it may be, but just as certainly, silently, perhaps as the growth of a blade of grass, it offers its perpetual and unconquerable protest against the dictates of authority. And this silent, unconquerable, menacing thing that balked God provoked him to the use of rack, thumbscrew, stock, hanging, drowning, burning, and other instruments of infinite mercy. In the 17th century, fought a successful battle against that authority which sought to control this fortress of freedom. It established its right to be. It overthrew that portion of government which attempted to guide the brains of men. It broke the corner. It declared and maintained the anarchy or non-rulership of thought. Now, you who so fear the word of anarch, remember, the whole combat of the 17th century, of which you are justly proud, and to which you never tire of referring, was waged for the sole purpose of realizing anarchism in the realm of thought. It was not an easy struggle. This battle of the quiet thinkers against those who held all the power and all the force of numbers and all of the strength of tortures. It was not easy for them to speak out of the midst of faggot flames. We believe differently and we have the right, but on their sides stood truth, and there lies more inequality between her and error, more strength for truth, more weakness for falsehood, than all the fearful disparity of power that lies between the despot and the victim. So theirs was the success, so they paved the way for the grand political combat of the 18th century. Mark you. The 17th century made the 18th possible, for it was the new order of thoughts which gave birth to a new order of things. Only by deposing priests, only by rooting out their authority, did it become logical to attack the tyranny of kings. For under the old regime, kingcraft had ever been the tool of priestcraft, and in the order of things, but a secondary consideration. But with the downfall of the latter, kingcraft rose into prominence as the preeminent despot, and against the preeminent despot, revolt always arises. The leaders of that revolt were naturally those who carried the logic of their free thought into the camp of the dominant oppressor, who thought, spoke, wrote freely of the political fetish, as their predecessors had of their religious mockery, who did not waste their time hugging themselves in the camps of dead enemies, but accepted the life issue of the day, pursued the victories of religions martyrs, and carried on the war of liberty in those lines most necessary to the people at the time and place. The result was the overflow of the principle of kingcraft. Not that all kingdoms have been overthrown, but find me one in a hundred of the inhabitants of a kingdom who will not laugh at the farce of the divine appointment of monarchs. So wrought the new order of thoughts. I do not suppose for a moment that Giordano Bruno or Martin Luther foresaw the immense scope taken in by their doctrine of individual judgment. From the experience of men up to that date it was simply impossible that they could foresee its tremendous influence upon the action of the 18th century, much less upon the 19th. Neither was it possible that those bold writers who attacked the folly of hereditary government should calculate the effects which certainly followed as their thoughts took form and shape in the social body. Neither do I believe it possible that any brain that lives can detail the working of a thought into the future, or push its logic to an ultimate. But that many who think or think they think do not carry their syllogisms even to the first general conclusion I am also forced to believe. If they did, the free thinkers of today would not be digging mold-like through the substratum of dead issues. They would not waste their energies gathering the ashes of fires burnt out two centuries ago. They would not lance their shafts at that which is already bleeding at the arteries. They would not range battalions of brains against a crippled ghost that is laying itself as fast as it decently can. While a monster, neither ghostly nor yet like the rugged Russian bear, the armed rhinoceros or the hierarchy tiger, but rather like a terrible anaconda, steeled muscled and iron jawed, is winding its horrible folds around the human bodies of the world and breathing its devouring breath into the faces of children. If they did, they would understand that the paramount question of the day is not political, is not religious, but is economic. That the crying out demand of today is for a circle of principles that shall forever make it impossible for one man to control another by controlling the means of his existence. They would realize that unless the free thought movement has a practical utility in rendering the life of man more bearable, unless it contains a principle which worked out will free him from the all-oppressive tyrant, it is just as complete democracy and mockery as the Christian miracle or pagan myth. Eminently is this the age of deutility and the free thinker who goes to the hovel of poverty with metaphysical speculations as to the community of life, the transformation of matter, etc. who should say my dear friend your Christian brother is mistaken you are not doomed to an eternal hell your fortune here is your misfortune and can't be helped but when you are dead there's an end of it is of as little use in the world as the most irrational religionist to him with the hovel just to reply unless you can show me something in free thought which commends itself to the needs of the race something which will adjust my wrongs put down the mighty from his seat and go sit with priest and king and wrangle out your metaphysical opinions with those who mocked our misery before the question is does free thought contain such a principle and right here permit me to introduce a sort of supplementary text taken I think from a recent letter of cardinal manning but if not cardinal manning then some other of the various dunce-capped gentlemen recently over the Bruno monument says the cardinal free thought leads to atheism to the destruction of social and civil order and to the overthrow of government I accept the gentleman's statement I credit him with much intellectual acumen for perceiving that which many free thinkers have failed to perceive accepting it I shall do my best to prove it then endeavour to show that this very iconoclastic principle is the salvation of the economic slave and the destruction of the economic tyrant first does free thought lead to atheism free thought broadly defined is the right to believe as the evidence coming in contact with the mind forces it to believe this implies the admission of any and all evidence bearing upon any subject which may come up for discussion among the subjects that come up for discussion the moment so much is admitted is the existence of a God now the idea of God is in the first place an exceeding contradiction the sign God was invented to express the inexpressible the incomprehensible and infinite then they immediately set about defining it these definitions prove to be about as self-contradictory and generally conflicting as the original absurdity but there is a particular set of attributes which form a sort of common ground for all these definitions they tell us that God is possessed of supreme wisdom supreme justice and supreme power in all the catalog of creeds I never yet heard of one that had not for its nucleus unlimited potency now let us take the deist upon his own ground and prove to him either that his God is limited as to wisdom or limited as to justice or limited as to power or else there is no such thing as justice first then God being all just wishes to do justice being all wise knows what justice is being all powerful can do justice why then injustice either your God can do justice and won't or doesn't know what justice is or he cannot do it the immediate reply is what appears to be injustice in our eyes in the sight of omniscience may be justice God's ways are not our ways oh but if he is the all wise pattern they should be what is good enough for God ought to be good enough for man but what is too mean for man won't do in a God else there is no such thing as justice or injustice and every murder every robbery every lie every crime in the calendar is right in premise of supreme authority you have set every fact in existence what right have you to condemn a murderer if you assume him necessary to God's plan what logic can command the return of stolen property or the branding of a thief if the almighty decreed it yet here again the deus finds himself in a dilemma for to suppose crime necessary to God's purpose to teach his wisdom or deny his omnipotence by limiting him as to means the whole matter then hinges upon the one attribute of authority of the central idea of God but you say what has all this to do with the economic tendency of free thought everything for upon that one idea of supreme authority is based every tyranny that was ever formulated why? because if God is no human being no thing that lives ever had a right he simply had a privilege bestowed, granted, conferred gifted to him for such a length of time as God sees fit this is the logic of my text data the logic of Catholicism the only logic of authoritarianism the Catholic church says you who are blind be grateful that you can hear God could have made you deaf as well you who are starving be thankful that you can breathe God could deprive you of air as well as food you who are sick be grateful that you are not dead God is very merciful to let you live at all under all times and circumstances take what you can get and be thankful these are the beneficences the privileges given by authority note the difference between a right and a privilege a right in the abstract is a fact it is not a thing to be given, established or conferred it is of the exercise of a right power may deprive me of the right itself never exist there is no such thing rights recognized privilege is destroyed but in the practical the moment you admit a supreme authority you have denied rights practically the supremacy has all the rights and no matter what the human race possesses it does so merely at the caprice of that authority the exercise of the respiratory function is not a right but a privilege granted by God the use of the soil is not a right but a gracious allowance of deity the possession of product as the result of labor is not a right but a boon bestowed and the fevery of pure air the withholding of land from use the robbery of toil are not wrongs for if you have no rights you cannot be wronged but benign blessings bestowed by the giver of all good upon the air thief the landlord and the labor robber hence the free thinker who recognizes the science of astronomy the science of mathematics and the equally positive and exact science of justice is logically forced to the denial of supreme authority for no human being who observes and reflects can admit a supreme tyrant and preserve his self-respect no human mind can accept the dogma of divine despotism and the doctrine of eternal justice at the same time they contradict each other and it takes two brains to hold them the cardinal is right free thought does logically lead to atheism if by atheism he means the denial of supreme authority I will now take his third statement leaving the second for the present free thought he says leads to the overthrow of government I am sensible that the majority of you will be ready to indignantly deny the cardinal's a separation I know that the most of my professively atheistic friends shrink sensitively from the slightest illusion that sounds like an attack on government I am aware that there are many of you who could eagerly take this platform to speak upon the glorious rights and privileges of American citizenship to expatiate upon that noble bulwark of our liberties the constitution to defend that peaceful weapon of redress the ballot to soar off rhapsodically about that banner that floats over the land of the free and the home of the brave we are so free and so brave we don't hang brunos at the stake anymore for holding heretical opinions on religious subjects no but we imprison men for discussing the social question and we hang men for discussing the economic question we are so very free and so very brave in this country ah we say in our 19th century freedom and bravery it was a weak god a poor god a miserable quaking god whose authority had to be preserved by the torturous death of a creature I the religious question is dead and the stake is no longer fashionable but it is a strong state a brave state a conscious proud state demands the death of five creatures is the scaffold better than the faggot is it a very free mind which will read the infamous editorial in the chicago herald it is not necessary to hold that parson's was legally rightfully or wisely hanged he was mightily hanged the state the sovereign need give no reasons the state need abide by no law the state is the law to read that and applaud and sit the cainlake curse upon your forehead and the red damned spot upon your hand do you know what you do craven you worship the fiend authority again true you have not the ghost the incantations the paraphernalia and memory of the church but you have the coincidence the be it enacted the red tape the official uniforms of the state and you are just as bad a slave to statecraft as your irish catholic neighbor is to popcraft your government becomes your god from whom you accept privileges and in whose hands all rights are vested once more the individual has no rights once more intangible irresponsible authority assumes the power of deciding what is right and what is wrong once more the race must labor under just such restricted conditions as the law the voice of the authority the governmentalist bible shall dictate once more it says you who have not meet be grateful that you have bread many are not allowed even so much you who work sixteen hours a day be glad it is not twenty many have not the privilege to work you who have not fuel be thankful that you have shelter many walk the street and you street walkers be grateful that there are well lighted dens of the city in the country you might die upon the roadside goaded human race be thankful for your goad be submissive to the lord and kiss the hand that lashes you once more misery is the diet of the many while the few receive in addition to their rights those rights of their fellows which government has rested from them once more the hypothesis is that the government or authority or god in his other form owns all the rights and grants privileges according to its sweet will the free thinker who should determine to question it would naturally suppose that one difficulty in the old investigation was removed he would say at least this thing government possesses the advantage of being of the earth earthy this is something I can get hold of argue reason discuss with god was an indefinable arbitrary irresponsible something in the clouds to whom I could not approach nearer than to his agent the priest but this dictator surely I shall be able to meet it on something like possible ground vain delusion government is as unreal as intangible as unapproachable as god try it if you don't believe it seek through the legislative halls of America and find if you can the government in the end you will be doomed to confer with the agent as before why? you have the statutes yes but the statutes are not the government where is the power that made the statutes oh the legislators yes but the legislator per se has no more power to make the law for me than I for him I want the power that gave him the power I shall talk with him I go to the White House I say Mr. Harrison are you the government no madam I am its representative well where is the principal who is the government the people of the united states the whole people the whole people you then are the representative of the people of the united states may I see your certificate of authorization well no I have none I was elected elected by whom the whole people oh no by some of the people some of the voters Mr. Harrison being a pious presbyterian he would probably add the majority vote of the whole then you are the representative of the electoral college not of the whole people nor the majority of the people nor even a majority of the voters but suppose the largest number of ballots cast had been for you you would represent the majority of the voters I suppose but the majority sir is not a tangible thing it is an unknown quantity an agent is usually held accountable to his principals if you do not know the individuals who voted for you then you do not know for whom you are acting nor to whom you are accountable if any body of persons has delegated to you any authority the disposal of any right or part of a right supposing a right to be transferable you must have received it from the individuals composing that body and you must have some means of learning who those individuals are or you cannot know for whom you act and you are utterly irresponsible as an agent furthermore such a body of voters cannot give into your charge any rights but their own by no possible jugglery of logic can they delegate the exercise of any function which they themselves do not control if any individual on earth has a right to delegate his powers to whomsoever he chooses then every other individual has an equal right and if each has an equal right then none can choose an agent for another without that others consent therefore if the power of government resides in the whole people and out of the whole all but one elected you as their agent you would still have no authority whatever to act for the one the individuals composing the minority who did not appoint you have just the same rights and powers as those composing the majority who did and if they prefer not to delegate them at all then neither you nor anyone has the authority whatever to coerce them into accepting you or anyone as their agent for upon your own basis the coercive authority resides not in majority not in any proportion of the people but in the whole people hence the overthrow of government as a coercive power thereby denying God in another form upon this overthrow follows the cardinal says the disruption of social and civil order oh it is amusing to hear those fellows rave about social order I could laugh to watch them as they repeat the cry great is Deanna of the Ephesians down on your knees and adore this beautiful statue of order but that I see this hideous brainless disproportion idle come rolled out on the wheels of juggernaut over the week and the helpless the sourful and the despairing hate burns then where laughter dies social order not long ago I saw a letter from a young girl to a friend a young girl whose health had been broken behind the counter where she stood eleven and twelve hours a day six days in the week for the magnificent sum of five dollars the letter said can you help me to a position my friends want me to marry a man I do not like because he has money can't you help me I can sell or keep books I will even try clerking again rather than that social order when the choice for a young girl lies between living by inches and dying by yards at manual labor or becoming the legal property of a man she does not like because he has money walk up fifth avenue in New York some hot summer day among the magnificent houses of the rich hear your footsteps echo for blocks with the emptiness of it look at places going to waste space furniture draperies elegance all useless then take a car downtown go among the homes of the producers of that idols blender find six families living in a five room house the sixth dwelling in the cellar space is not wasted here these human vermin rub each other's elbows in the stifling narrows furniture is not wasted these sit upon the floor no echoing emptiness no idol glories no but wasting strangling choking vicious human life dearth of vitality there dearth of space for it here this is social order next winter when the annual output of coal has been mined when the workmen are clenching their hard fists with impotent anger when the coal on the ground lies useless hark to the cry that will rise from the freezing western prairies while the shortened commodity goes up up eight nine ten eleven dollars a ton and while the syndicate's pockets are filling the graveyards fill and fill moralize on the preservation of social order go back to president grant's administration that very pure republican administration see the settlers of the muscle slow compelled to pay thirty five dollars an acre for the land reclaimed from almost worthlessness by hard labor and to whom to a corporation of men who never saw it whose grant lay a hundred miles away but who for reasons of their own saw fit to hire the servants of the people to change it see those who refuse to pay it shot down by order of the state watch their blood smoke upward to the heavens sealing the red seal of justice against their murderers and then watch a policeman rest a shoeless tramp for stealing a pair of boots say to yourself this is civil order and must be preserved go talk with political leaders big or little on methods of making the slate and railroading it through the ward caucus or the national convention muse on that peaceful weapon of redress the ballot consider the condition of the average American sovereign and of his official servant and pray then of civil order subvert the social and civil order I I would destroy to the last vestige this mockery of order this travesty upon justice break up the home every home that rests on slavery every marriage that represents the sale and transfer of the individuality of one of its parties to the other every institution social or civil that stands between man and his right every tie that renders one a master another a surf every law every statute every be it enacted that represents tyranny everything you call American privilege that can only exist at the expense of international right now cry out nihilist disintegrationist say that I would isolate humanity reduce society to its elemental state make men savage it is not true but rather than see this devastating cankering enslaving system you call social order go on rather than help to keep alive the accursed institution of authority I would help to reduce every fabric in the social structure to its native element but is it true that freedom means disintegration only to that which is bad only to that which ought to disintegrate what is the history of free thought is it not so that since we have anarchy there since all the children of the brain are legitimate that there has been less waste of intellectual energy more cooperation in the scientific world truer economy in utilizing the mentalities of men than there ever was or ever could be under authoritative dominion of the church is it not true that with the liberty of thought truth has been able to prove herself without the aid of force does not error die from wants of vitality when there is no force to keep it alive is it not true that natural attractions have led men into associative groups who can best follow their chosen paths of thought and give the benefit of their studies to mankind with better economy than if some coercive power had said you think in this line you in that or what the majority had by ballot decided it was best to think about I think it is true follow your logic out can you not see that true economy lies in liberty whether it be in thought or action it is not slavery that has made men unite for cooperative effort it is not slavery it has produced the means of transportation communication production and exchange and all the thousand and one economic or what ought to be economic contrivances of civilization no nor is it government it is self-interest and would not self-interest exist if that institution which stands between man and his right to the use of the soil were annihilated could you not see the use of a bank if the power which renders it possible for the national banks to control land production and everything else were broken down do you suppose the producers of the east and west couldn't see the advantage of a railroad if the authority which makes a systematizer like Gould or Vanderbilt a curse were swept away do you imagine that government has a corner on ideas now that the church is overthrown and that the people could not learn the principles of economy if this intangible giant which is robbed and slaughtered them waste their resources and distributed opportunities so unjustly were destroyed I don't think so I believe the legislators as a rule have been monuments of asinine stupidity whose principal business has been to hinder those who were not stupid and get paid for doing it I believe that the so-called brainy financial men would rather by the legislators than be the legislators and the real thinkers the genuine improvement of society have as little to do with law and politics as they conveniently can I believe that liberty is rather not the daughter of order but someone will say what are the criminals suppose a man steals in the first place a man won't steal ordinarily unless that which he steals is something he cannot as easily get without stealing in liberty the cost of stealing would involve greater difficulties than producing and consequently he would not be asked to steal but suppose a man steals today you go to a representative of that power which has robbed you of the earth of the right of free contract of the means of exchange taxes you for everything you eat or wear the meanest form of robbery you go to him for redress from a thief it is about as logical as the Christian lady whose husband has been removed by divine providence and who thereupon pray to said providence to comfort the widow and the fatherless in freedom we would not institute a wholesale robber to protect us from petty larceny each associative group would probably adopt its own methods of resisting aggression that being the only crime for myself criminals should be treated as sick people but suppose you have murderers brutes all sorts of criminals are you not afraid to lose their straining influence of the law first I think it can be shown that the law makes ten criminals where it restrains one on that basis it would not as a matter of policy merely be an economical institution second this is not a question of expediency but of right in antebellum days the proposition was not are the blacks good enough to be free but have they the right so today the question is not will outrages result from fearing humanity but has it the right to life the means of life the opportunities of happiness in the transition epoch surely crimes will come did the seed of tyranny ever bear good fruit and can you expect liberty to undo in a moment what oppression has been doing for ages criminals are the crop of despots as much unnecessary expression of the evil in society as an ulcer is of disease in the blood and so long as the taint of the poison remains so long there will be crimes for it must needs that offenses come but woe to him through whom the offense cometh the crimes of the future are the harvest sown of the ruling classes of the present woe to the tyrant who shall cause the offense sometimes I dream of this social change I get a streak of faith in evolution and the good in man I paint a gradual slipping out of the now to that beautiful then where there are neither kings presidents landlords national bankers stockbrokers railroad magnets patent right monopolists or tax entitled collectors where there are no overstocked markets or hungry children idle counters and naked creatures splendor and misery waste and need I am told this is far fetched idealism to paint this happy poverty less crime less disease less world I have been told I ought to be behind the bars for it remarks of that kind rather destroy the white streak of faith I lose confidence in the slipping process and enforce to believe that the rulers of the earth are sowing a fearful wind to reap the most terrible whirlwind when I look at this poor bleeding wounded world this world that has suffered so long struggled so much been scourged so fiercely thorn pierced so deeply crucified so cruelly I can only shake my head and remember the giant is blind but he's thinking and his locks are growing fast end of the economic tendency end of selected essays by Volterine DeClaire