 The Call to Arms by Patrick Henry The Call to Arms by Patrick Henry This speech was delivered March 20, 1775 in the Virginia Convention. Although the measures he advocated sent a shock of concernation through the conservative assembly and caused them to oppose the resolution with all their power, yet all objections were swept away and the measures were adopted. Mr. President, it is natural for a man to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth and listen to the song of that siren till she transforms us into beasts. Is this the part of wise men engaged in a great and arduous struggle for liberty? Are we disposed to be of the number of those who having eyes see not, and having ears hear not, the things which so nearly concern their temporal salvation? For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the whole truth, to know the worst, and to provide for it. I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided, and that is the lamp of experience. I know of no way of judging of the future but by the past. And judging by the past, I wish to know what there has been in the conduct of the British Ministry for the last ten years to justify those hopes with which gentlemen have been pleased to solace themselves and the house. Is it that insidious smile with which our petition has been lately received? Trust it not, sir. It will prove a snare to your feet. Suffer not yourselves to be betrayed with a kiss. Ask yourselves how this gracious reception of our petition comports with those warlike preparations which cover our waters and darken our lands. Are fleets and armies necessary to a work of love and reconciliation? Have we shown ourselves so unwilling to be reconciled that force must be called in to win back our love? Let us not deceive ourselves, sir. These are the implements of war and subjugation, the last arguments to which kings resort. I ask, gentlemen, sir, what means this martial array? If its purpose be not to force us to submission, can gentlemen assign any other possible motive for it? Has Great Britain any enemy in this quarter of the world to call for all this accumulation of navies and armies? No, sir. She has none. They are meant for us. They can be meant for no other. They are sent over to bind and rivet upon us those chains which the British Ministry have been so long forging. And what have we to oppose them? Shall we try argument? Sir, we have been trying that for the last ten years. Have we anything new to offer upon the subject? Nothing. We have held the subject up in every light of which it is capable. But it has been all in vain. Shall we resort to entreaty and humble supplication? What terms shall we find which have not been already exhausted? Let us not, I beseech you, sir, deceive ourselves longer. Sir, we have done everything that could be done to avert the storm that is now coming on. We have petitioned. We have remonstrated. We have supplicated. We have prostrated ourselves before the throne and have implored its interposition to arrest the tyrannical hands of the ministry and parliament. Our petitions have been slighted. Our remonstrances have produced additional violence and insult. Our supplications have been disregarded. And we have been spurned with contempt from the foot of the throne. In vain, after these things, may we indulge the fond hope of peace and reconciliation. There is no longer any room for hope. If we wish to be free, if we mean to preserve, inviolate those inestimable privileges for which we have been so long contending, if we mean not basely to abandon the noble struggle in which we have been so long engaged, and which we have pledged ourselves never to abandon until the glorious object of our contest shall be obtained. We must fight. I repeat it, sir. We must fight. An appeal to arms and to the God of hosts is all that is left to us. They tell us, sir, that we are weak, unable to cope with so formidable an adversary. But when shall we be stronger? Will it be next week, or the next year? Will it be when we are totally disarmed and when a British guard shall be stationed in every house? Shall we gather strength by irresolution and inaction? Shall we acquire the means of effectual resistance by lying supinely on our backs, and hugging the delusive phantom of hope, until our enemies have bound us hand and foot? Sir, we are not weak, if we make a proper use of those means which the God of nature hath placed in our power. Three millions of people, armed in the holy cause of liberty, and in such a country as that which we possess, are invincible by any force which our enemy can send against us. Besides, sir, we shall not fight our battles alone. There is a just God who presides over the destinies of nations, and who will raise up friends to fight our battles for us. The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone, it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave. Besides, sir, we have no election. If we were base enough to desire it, it is now too late to retire from the contest. There is no retreat, but in submission and slavery. Our chains are forged. Their clanking may be heard on the plains of Boston. The war is inevitable, and let it come. I repeat it, sir, let it come. It is vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry peace, peace, but there is no peace. The war is actually begun. The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms. Our brethren are already in the field. Why stand here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, almighty God. I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death. End of The Call to Arms by Patrick Henry Recording by Robert Scott MojoMove411.com September 9, 2007 A Free Man's Worship by Bertrand Russell This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. To Dr. Faustus in his study, Mephistopheles told the history of the creation, saying, The endless praises of the choirs of angels had begun to grow wearisome. For after all, did he not deserve their praise? Had he not given them endless joy? Would it not be more amusing to obtain undeserved praise to be worshipped by beings whom he tortured? He smiled inwardly and resolved that the great drama should be performed. For countless ages, the hot nebula whirled aimlessly through space. At length it began to take shape. The central mass threw off planets. The planets cooled. Boiling seas and burning mountains heaved and tossed. From black masses of cloud, hot sheets of rain deluged the barely solid crust. And now the first germ of life grew in the depths of the ocean, and developed rapidly in the fructifying warmth into vast forest trees, huge ferns springing from damp mold, sea monsters breeding, fighting, devouring, and passing away. And from the monsters, as the play unfolded itself, man was born, with the power of thought, the knowledge of good and evil, and the cruel thirst for worship. And man saw that all is passing in this mad monstrous world, and that all is struggling to snatch at any cost a few brief moments of life before death's inexorable decree. And man said, there is a hidden purpose, could we but fathom it? And the purpose is good. For we must reverence something, and in the visible world there is nothing worthy of reverence. And man stood aside from the struggle, resolving that God intended harmony to come out of chaos by human efforts. And when he followed the instincts which God had transmitted to him from his ancestry of beats of prey, he called it sin, and asked God to forgive him. But he doubted whether he could be justly forgiven, until he invented a divine plan by which God's wrath was to have been appeased. And seeing the present was bad, he made it yet worse, that thereby the future might be better. And he gave God thanks for the strength that enabled him to forego even the joys that were possible. And God smiled, and when he saw that man had become perfect in renunciation and worship, he sent another son through the sky, which crashed into man's son, and all returned again to Nebula. Yes, he murmured, it was a good play. I will have it performed again, such an outline. But even more purposeless, more void of meaning is the world which science presents for our belief. Amid such a world, if anywhere, our ideals henceforward must find a home. That man is the product of causes which had no provision of the end they were achieving, that his origin, his growth, his hopes and fears, his loves and his beliefs are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms. That no fire, no terrorism, no intensity of thought and feeling can preserve an individual life beyond the grave. That all the labors of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness of human genius are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system. And that the whole temple of man's achievement must inevitably be buried beneath the debris of a universe in ruins. All these things, if not quite beyond dispute, are yet so nearly certain that no philosophy which rejects them can hope to stand. Only within the scaffolding of these truths, only on the firm foundation of unyielding despair can the soul's habitation, be safely built. How, in such an alien and inhuman world, can so powerless a creature as man preserve his aspirations untarnished? A strange mystery it is that nature, omnipotent but blind, in the revolutions of her secular hurrings through the abysses of space, has brought forth at last a child, subject still to her power but gifted with sight, with knowledge of good and evil, with the capacity of judging all the works of his unthinking mother. In spite of death, the mark and seal of the parental control, man is yet free during his brief years to examine, to criticize, to know, and in imagination to create. To him alone, in the world with which he is acquainted, this freedom belongs, and in this lies his superiority to the restless forces that control his outward life. The savage, like ourselves, feels the oppression of his impudence before the powers of nature. But having in himself nothing that he respects more than power, he is willing to prostrate himself before his gods, without inquiring whether they are worthy of his worship. Pathetic and very terrible is the long history of cruelty and torture, of degradation and human sacrifice, endured in the hope of placating a deal as gods. Surely the trembling believer thinks, when what is most precious has been freely given, their lust for blood must be appeased and more will not be required. The religion of Malach, as such creeds may be generically called, is in essence the cringing submission of the slave, who dare not, even in his heart, allow the thought that his master deserves no adulation. Since the independence of ideals is not yet acknowledged, power may be freely worshiped and receive an unlimited respect, despite its wanton infliction of pain. But gradually, as morality grows bolder, the claim of the ideal world begins to be felt and worshiped, if it is not deceased, must be given to gods of another kind than those created by the savage. Some, though they feel the demands of the ideal, will still consciously reject them, still urging that naked power is worthy of worship. Such is the attitude inculcated in God's answer to Job out of the whirlwind, that divine power and knowledge are paraded, but of divine goodness there is no hint. Such also is the attitude of those who, in our day, base their morality upon the struggle for survival, maintaining that the survivors are necessarily the fittest, but others, not content with an answer so repugnant to the moral sense, will adopt the position which we have become accustomed to regard as specifically religious, maintaining that, in some hidden manner, the world of fact is really harmonious with the world of ideas. Thus, man creates God, all powerful and all good, the mystic unity of what is and what should be. But the world of fact, after all, is not good, and, in submitting our judgment to it, there is an element of slavishness from which our thoughts must be purged, by freeing him as far as possible from the tyranny of non-human power. When we have realized that power is largely bad, that man with this knowledge of good and evil is but a helpless atom in a world which has no knowledge, the choice is again presented to us. Shall we worship force, or shall we worship goodness? Shall our God exist and be evil, or shall he be recognized as the creation of our own conscience? The answer to this question is very momentous and affects profoundly our whole morality. The worship of force to which Carlisle and Nietzsche and the creed of militarism have accustomed us is the result of failure to maintain our own ideals against the hostile universe. It is itself a prostrate submission to evil, a sacrifice of our best to malach. If strength indeed is to be respected, let us respect rather the strength of those who refuse that false, quote, recognition of facts, which fails to recognize that facts are often bad. Let us admit that in the world we know there are many things that would be better otherwise, and that the ideals to which we do and must adhere are not realized in the realm of matter. Let us preserve our respect for truth, for beauty, for the ideal of perfection which life does not permit us to attain, though none of these things meet with the approval of the unconscious universe. If power is bad, as it seems to be, let us reject it from our hearts. In this lies man's true freedom, in determination to worship only the God created by our own love of the good, to respect only the heaven which inspires the insight of our best moments. In action, in desire, we must submit perpetually to the tyranny of outside forces, but in thought, in aspiration, we are free, free from our fellow men, free from the petty planet on which our bodies impotently crawl, free even while we live from the tyranny of death. Let us learn then that the energy of faith which enables us to live constantly in the vision of the good, and let us descend in action into the world of fact with that vision always before us. When first the opposition of fact and ideal grows fully visible, a spirit of fiery revolt of fierce hatred of the God seems necessary to the assertion of freedom. To defy with Promethean constancy a hostile universe to keep its evil always in view, always actively hated to refuse no pain that the malice of power can invent appears to be the duty of all who will not bow before the inevitable. But indignation is still a bondage, for it compels our thoughts to be occupied with an evil world, and in the fierceness of desire from which rebellion springs there is a kind of self-assertion which it is necessary for the wise to overcome. Indignation is a submission of our thoughts, but not of our desires. The stoic freedom in which wisdom consists is found in the submission of our desires, but not of our thoughts. From the submission of our desires springs the virtue of resignation, from the freedom of our thoughts springs the whole world of art and philosophy, and the vision of beauty by which at last we have reconquered the reluctant world. But the vision of beauty is possible only to unfettered contemplation, to thoughts not weighted by the load of eager wishes, and thus freedom comes only to those who no longer ask of life that it shall yield them any of those personal goods that are subject to the mutations of time. Although the necessity of renunciation is evidence of the existence of evil, yet Christianity in preaching it has shown a wisdom exceeding that of the Promethean philosophy of rebellion. It must be admitted that of the things we desire some, though they prove impossible, are yet real goods. Others, however, as ardently long for, do not form part of a fully purified ideal. The belief that what must be renounced is bad, though sometimes false, is far less often false than untamed passion supposes, and the creed of religion by providing a reason for proving that it is never false has been the means of purifying our hopes by the discovery of many austere truths. But there is, in resignation, a further good element, even real goods when they are unattainable ought not to be fretfully desired. To every man comes sooner or later the great renunciation. For the young there is nothing unattainable. A good thing desired with the whole force of a passionate will, and yet impossible, is to them not credible. Yet by death, by illness, by poverty, or by the voice of duty we must learn, each one of us, that the world was not made for us, and that however beautiful may be the things we crave for, fate may nevertheless forbid them. It is the part of courage when misfortune comes to bear without repining the ruin of our hopes, to turn away our thoughts from vain regrets. This degree of submission to power is not only just in right. It is the very gate of wisdom. But passive renunciation is not the whole wisdom. For not by renunciation alone can we build a temple for the worship of our own ideals. Haunting foreshadowings of the temple appear in the realm of imagination, in music, in architecture, in the untroubled kingdom reason, and in the golden sunset magic of lyrics, where beauty shines and glows, remote from the touch of sorrow, remote from the fear of change, remote from the failures and disenchantments of the world of fact. In the contemplation of these things, the vision of heaven will shape itself in our hearts, giving at once a touchstone to judge the world about us, and an inspiration by which to fashion to our needs whatever is not incapable of serving as a stone in the sacred temple. Except for those rare spirits that are born without sin, there is a cavern of darkness to be traversed before that temple can be entered. The gate of the cavern is despair, and its floor is paved with the gravestones of abandoned hopes. There self must die. There the eagerness, the greed of untamed desire must be slain, for only so can the soul be freed from the empire of fate. But out of the cavern of the gate of renunciation leads again to the daylight of wisdom, by whose radiance a new insight, a new joy, a new tenderness, shine forth to gladden the pilgrim's heart. When, without the bitterness of impotent rebellion, we have learned both to resign ourselves to the outward rule of fate and to recognize that the non-human world is unworthy of our worship, it becomes possible at last so to transform and refashion the unconscious universe, so to transmute it in the crucible of imagination, that a new image of shining gold replaces the old idol of clay. In all the multi-form facts of the world, in the visual shape of trees and mountains and clouds, in the events of the life of man, even in the very omnipotence of death, the insight of creative idealism can find the reflection of a beauty which its own thoughts first made. In this way, mind asserts its subtle mastery over the thoughtless forces of nature. The more evil the material with which it deals, the more thwarting to untrained desire. The greater is its achievement in inducing the reluctant rock to yield up its hidden treasures, the prouder its victory in compelling the opposing forces to swell the pageant of its triumph. Of all the arts, tragedy is the proudest, the most triumphant, for it builds its shining citadel in the very center of the enemy's country, on the very summit of its highest mountain. From its impregnable watchtowers, his camps and arsenals, his columns and forts are all revealed. Within its walls the free life continues, while the legions of death and pain and despair, and all the servile captains of tyrant fate afford the burgers of that dauntless city new spectacles of beauty. Happy those sacred ramparts, thrice happy the dwellers on that all-seeing eminence. Honored to those brave warriors who, through countless ages of warfare, have preserved for us the priceless heritage of liberty, and have kept undefiled by sacred religious invaders the home of the unsubdued. But the beauty of tragedy does not but make visible a quality which, in more or less obvious shapes, is present always and everywhere in life. In the spectacle of death, in the endurance of intolerable pain, and in the irrevocableness of a vanished past, there is sacredness, an overpowering awe, a feeling of the vastness, the depth, the inexhaustible mystery of existence, in which, as by some strange marriage of pain, the sufferer is bound to the world by bonds of sorrow. In these moments of insight we lose all eagerness of temporary desire, all struggling and striving for petty ends, all care for the little trivial things that, to a superficial view, make up the common life of day to day. We see, surrounding the narrow raft illuminated by the flickering light of human comradeship, the dark ocean on whose rolling raves we toss for a brief hour. From the great night without, a chill blast breaks in upon our refuge. All the loneliness of humanity amid hostile forces is concentrated upon the individual soul, which must struggle alone with what of courage it can command against the whole weight of a universe that cares nothing for its hopes and fears. Victory, in this struggle with the powers of darkness, is the true baptism into glorious company of heroes, the true initiation into the overmastering beauty of human existence. From that awful encounter of the soul with the outer world, renunciation, wisdom and charity are born, and with their birth a new life begins. To take into the inmost shrine of the soul the irresistible forces whose puppets we seem to be, death and change, the irrevocableness of the past, and the powerless of man before in the blind hurry of the universe from vanity to vanity, to feel these things and know them is to conquer them. This is the reason why the past has such magical power. The beauty of its motionless and silent pictures is like the enchanted purity of late autumn, when the leaves, though one breath would make them fall, still glow against the sky in golden glory. The past does not change or strive. Like Duncan, after life's fitful fever it sleeps well. What was eager and grasping, what was petty and transitory, has faded away. The things that were beautiful and eternal shine out of it like stars in the night. Its beauty to a soul not worthy of it is unendurable, but to a soul which has conquered fate it is the key of religion. The life of man viewed outwardly is but a small thing in comparison with the forces of nature. The slave is doomed to worship time and fate and death because they are greater than anything he finds in himself and because all his thoughts are of things which they devour. But great as they are to think of them greatly, to feel their passions and splendor is greater still. And such thought makes us free men. We no longer bow before the inevitable and oriental subjection but we absorb it and make it a part of ourselves. To abandon the struggle for private happiness to expel all eagerness of temporary desire to burn with passion for eternal things this is emancipation and this is the free man's worship. And this liberation is affected by a contemplation of fate for fate itself is subdued by the mind which leaves nothing to be purged by the purifying fire of time. United with his fellow men by the strongest of all ties the tie of a common doom the free man finds that a new vision is with him always shedding over every daily task the light of love. The life of man is a long march through the night surrounded by invisible foes tortured by weariness and pain towards a goal that few can hope to reach and where none may tarry long. One by one as they march our comrades vanish from our sight seized by the silent orders of onipotent death. Very brief is the time in which we can help them in which their happiness or misery is decided be it hours to shed sunshine on their path to lighten their sorrows by the balm of sympathy to give them the pure joy of a never-tiring affection to strengthen failing courage to instill faith in hours of despair. Let us not weigh in grudging scales their merits and demerits but let us think only of their need of the sorrows the difficulties perhaps the blindnesses that make the misery of their lives. Let us remember that they are fellow sufferers in the same darkness actors in the same tragedy with ourselves. And so when their day is over when their good and their evil have become eternal by the immortality of the past be it hours to feel that where they suffered where they failed no deed of ours was the cause but wherever a spark of the divine fire kindled in their hearts we were ready with encouragement with sympathy with brave words in which high courage glowed brief and powerless is a man's life. On him and all his race the slow sure doom falls pitiless and dark blind to good and evil reckless of destruction on nippinant matter rolls on its relentless way for man condemned today to lose his dearest tomorrow himself to pass through the gate of darkness it remains only to cherish area at the blow falls the lofty thoughts that ennoble his little day disdaining the coward terrors of the slave of fate to worship at the shrine that his own hands have built undismayed by the empire of chance to preserve a mind free from the wanton tyranny that rules his outward life proudly defined of the irresistible forces that tolerate for a moment his knowledge and his condemnation to sustain alone a weary but unyielding atlas the world that his own ideals have fashioned despite the trampling march of unconscious power and a free man's worship by Bertrand Russell read by M.L. Cohen www.mojomove411.com Cleveland, Ohio, August 2007 Funeral oration of Pericles excerpt from Chapter 6 History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides translated by Richard Crawley This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org In the same winter the Athenians gave a funeral at the public cost to those who had first fallen in this war It was a custom of their ancestors and in the manner of it as follows Three days before the ceremony the bones of the dead are laid out in a tent which has been erected and their friends bring to their relatives such offerings as they please In the funeral processions Cyprus coffins are born in cars one for each tribe The bones of the deceased being placed in the coffin of their tribe Among these is carried one empty beer deck for the missing that is for those whose bodies could not be recovered Any citizen or stranger who pleases joins in the procession and the female relatives are there to wail at the burial The dead are laid in the public sepulcher in the beautiful suburb of the city in which those who fall in war are always buried with the exception of those slain at Marathon who, or their singular and extraordinary valor were interred on the spot where they fell After the bodies have been laid in the earth a man chosen by the state of approved wisdom and eminent reputation pronounces over them an appropriate panjiric after which all retire such is the manner of the burying and throughout the whole of the war whenever the occasion arose the established custom was observed Meanwhile, these were the first that had fallen and Pericles, son of Xanthippus was chosen to pronounce their eulogium When the proper time arrived he arrived from the suburb to an elevated platform in order to be heard by as many of the crowd as possible and spoke as follows Most of my predecessors in this place have commented him who had made this speech part of the law telling us that it is well that it should be delivered to the memorial of those who fall in battle For myself, I should have thought that the worth which had displayed itself in deeds would be sufficiently rewarded by honors also shown by deeds such as you now see in this funeral prepared at the people's cost And I could have wished that the reputations of many brave men were not to be imperiled in the mouth of a single individual to stand or fall according as he spoke well or ill For it is hard to speak properly upon a subject where it is even difficult to convince your hearers that you are speaking the truth On the one hand, the friend who is familiar with every fact of the story may think that some point has not been set forth with that fullness which he wishes and knows it to deserve On the other, he who was a stranger to the matter may be led by Envy to suspect exaggeration when he hears anything above his own nature For men can endure to hear others praised only so long as they can severally persuade themselves of their own ability to equal the actions recounted When this point is passed, Envy comes in and with it, incredulity However, since our ancestors have stamped this custom with their approval, it becomes my duty to obey the law and try and satisfy your several wishes and opinions as best I may I shall begin with our ancestors It is both just and proper that they should have the honor of the first mention on occasion like the present They dwelt in the country without breaking the succession from generation to generation and handed it down free to the present time by their valor And if our more remote ancestors deserve praise much more to our own fathers their inheritance the empire which we now possess and spared no pains to be able to leave their acquisitions to us of the present generation Lastly, there are few parts of our dominions that have not been augmented by those of us here who are still more or less in the vigor of life while the mother country has been furnished by us with everything that can enable her to depend on her own resources whether for war or for peace That part of our history which tells of the military achievements of us, our several possessions or of the ready valor with which either we or our fathers stemmed the tide of Hellenic or foreign aggression is a theme too familiar to my hearers for me to dilate on and I shall therefore pass it by But what was the road by which we reached our position What the form of government under which our greatness grew What the national habits out of which it sprang These are the questions which I may try to solve before I proceed to my pangyric upon these men Since I think this to be a subject upon which on the present occasion a speaker may properly dwell and to which the whole assemblage whether citizens or foreigners may listen with advantage Our constitution does not copy the laws of neighboring states We are rather a pattern to others than imitators ourselves Its administration favors the many instead of the few This is why it is called a democracy If we look to the laws they afford equal justice to all in their private differences If no social standing, advancement in public life falls to reputation for capacity Class considerations not being allowed to interfere with merit nor again does poverty bar the way if a man is able to serve the state he is not hindered by the obscurity of his condition The freedom which we enjoy in our government extends also to our ordinary life There Far from exercising a jealous surveillance over each other we do not feel called upon to be angry with our neighbor for doing what he likes or even to indulge in those injurious looks which cannot fail to be offensive although they inflict no positive penalty But all this ease in our private relations does not make us lawless as citizens Against this fear is our chief safeguard teaching us to obey the magistrates and the laws particularly such as regard to protection of the injured whether they are actually on the statute book or belong to that code which although unwritten yet cannot be broken without acknowledged disgrace Further We provide plenty of means for the mind to refresh itself from business We celebrate games and sacrifices all the year round and the elegance of our private establishments forms a daily source of pleasure and helps to banish the spleen while the magnitude of our city draws the produce of the world into our harbor So that to the Athenian the fruits of other countries are as familiar a luxury as those of his own If we turn to our military policy there also we differ from our antagonists We throw open our city to the world and never by alien acts exclude foreigners from any opportunity of learning or observing although the eyes of an enemy may occasionally profit by our liberality trusting less in system and policy than to the native spirit of our citizens while in education where our rivals from their very cradles by a painful discipline seek after manliness at Athens we live exactly as we please and yet are just as ready to encounter every legitimate danger In proof of this it may be noticed that the Lacedemonians do not invade our country alone but bring with them all their confederates while we Athenians advanced unsupported into the territory of a neighbor and fighting upon a foreign soil usually vanquished with ease men were defending their homes Our united force was never yet encountered by any enemy because we have at once to attend to our marine and to dispatch our citizens by land upon a hundred different services so that wherever they engage some such fraction of our strength a success against its attachment is magnified into a victory over the nation and a defeat into a reverse suffer that the hands of our entire people and yet if with habits not of labor but of ease and courage not of art but of nature we are still willing to encounter danger we have the double advantage of escaping the experience of hardships in anticipation and of facing them in the hour of need as fearlessly as those who are never free from them nor are these the only points in which our city is worthy of admiration we cultivate refinement without extravagance and knowledge without effeminacy wealth we employ more for use than for show and place the real disgrace of poverty not in owning to the fact but in declining to struggle against it our public men have besides politics their private affairs to attend to and our ordinary citizens though occupied with the pursuits of industry are still fair judges of public matters for unlike any other nation regarding him who takes no part in these duties not as unambitious but as useless we Athenians are able to judge at all events if we cannot originate and instead of looking on discussion as a stumbling block in the way of action we think it an indispensable preliminary to any wise action at all again in our enterprises we present the singular spectacle of daring and deliberation each carried its highest point and both united in the same persons although usually decision is the fruit of ignorance hesitation of reflection but the palm of courage would surely be a judge most justly to those who best know the difference between hardship and pleasure and yet are never tempted to shrink from danger in generosity we are equally singular acquiring our friends by conferring not by receiving favors yet of course the doer of the favor is a firmer friend of the two in order by continued kindness to keep the recipient in his debt while the debtor feels less keenly from the very consciousness that the return he makes will be a payment not a free gift and it is only the Athenians who fearless of consequences can further benefits not from calculations of expediency but in the confidence of liberality in short I say that as a city we are a school of hellish while I doubt if the world can produce a man who where he has only himself to depend upon is equal to so many emergencies and graced by so happy of versatility as the Athenian and that this is no mere boast thrown out for the occasion but a plain matter of fact the power of the state acquired by these habits proves for Athens alone for Athens alone of her contemporaries is found when tested to be greater than her reputation and alone gives no occasion to her salience to blush that the antagonist by whom they have been worsted or to her subjects to question her title by merit to rule rather the admiration of the present and succeeding ages will be ours since we have not left our power without witness but have shown it by mighty proofs and far from needing a homer for our pangyrists or other of his craft whose verses might charm for the moment only for the impression which they gave to melted to touch a fact we have forced every sea and land to be the highway of our daring and everywhere whether for evil or for good have left imperishable monuments behind us such is the Athens for which these men in the assertion of their resolve not to lose her nobly fought and died and well may every one of their survivors be ready to suffer in her cause indeed if I have dwelt at some length upon the character of our country it has been to show that our stake in the struggle is not the same as there is who have no such blessings to lose and also that the pangyric of the men over whom I am now speaking might be by definite proofs established that pangyric is now in a great measure complete for the Athens that I have celebrated is only what the heroism of these and their like have made her men whose fame unlike that of most Helenes will be found to be only commensurate with their desserts and if a test of worth be wanted it is to be found in their closing scene and this not only in cases in which it set the final seal upon their merit but also in those in which it gave the first intimation of their having any for there is justice in the claim that steadfastness in this country's battle should be a cloak to cover a man's other imperfections since the good action has blotted out the bad and his merit as a citizen more than outweighed his demerits as an individual but none of these allowed either wealth with its prospect of future enjoyment to unnerve his spirit or poverty with its hope of a day of freedom and riches to tempt him to shrink from danger no holding the vengeance upon their enemies was more to be desired than any personal blessings and reckoning this to be the most glorious of hazards they joyfully determined to accept the risk to make sure of their vengeance and to let their wishes wait and while committing to hope the uncertainty of final success and the business before them they thought fit to act boldly and trust in themselves thus choosing to die resisting rather than to live submitting they fled only from dishonor but met danger face to face and after one brief moment while at the summit of their fortune escaped not from their fear but from their glory so died these men as became Athenians you, their survivors must determined to have as unfaltering a resolution in the field though you may pray that it may have a happier issue and not contented with ideas drive only from words of the advantages which are bound up with the defense of your country though these would furnish a valuable text to a speaker even before an audience so alive to them as the present you must yourselves realize the power of Athens and feed your eyes upon her from day to day till love of her fills your hearts and then when all her greatness shall break upon you you must reflect that it was by courage sense of duty and a keen feeling of honor and action that men were unable to win all this and that no personal failure in an enterprise could make them consent to deprive their country of their valor but they laid it at her feet as the most glorious contribution that they could offer for this offering of their lives made in common by them all they each of them individually received that renown which never grows old and for a sepulcher not so much that in which their bones have been deposited but that noblest of shrines wherein the glorious laid up to be eternally remembered upon every occasion on which the deed or story could call for its commemoration for heroes have the whole earth for their tomb and in lands far from their own where the column with its epitaph declares it there is enshrined in every breast a record unwritten with no tablet to preserve it except that of the heart these take as your model and judging happiness to be the fruit of freedom and freedom of valor never decline the dangers of war for it is not the miserable that would most justly be unsparing of their lives these have nothing to hope for it is rather they to whom continued life may bring reverses as yet unknown and to whom a fall if it came would be most tremendous in its consequences and surely to a man of spirit the degradation of cowardice must be a majorly more grievous than the unfelt death which strikes him in the midst of his strength and patriotism comfort therefore not condolence is what I have to offer to the parents of the dead who may be here numberless are the chances to which as they know of man is subject but fortunate indeed are they who draw for their lot a death so glorious as that which has caused your mourning and to whom life has been so exactly measured as to terminate in the happiness in which it has been passed still I know that this is a hard saying especially when those are in question of whom you will constantly be reminded by seeing in the homes of others blessings of which once you also boast it for grief is felt not so much for the want of what we have never known as for the loss of that to which we have been long accustomed yet you who are still of an age to be get children must bear up in the hope of having others in their stead not only will they help you to forget those whom you have lost but will be to the state at once a reinforcement and a security for never can a fair or just policy be expected and who does not like his fellows bring to the decisions the interest and apprehensions of a father while those of you who have passed your prime must congratulate yourselves with the thought that the best part of your life was fortunate and that the brief span that remains will be cheered by the fame of the departed for it is only the love of honor that never grows old and honor it is not gain as someone have it that rejoices the heart of age and helplessness turning to the sons or brothers of the dead I see an arduous struggle before you when a man is gone all are want to praise him and should your merit be ever so transcendent you will still find it difficult not merely to overtake but even to approach their renown the living have envy to contend with while those who are no longer in our path are honored with a good will into which rivalry does not enter on the other hand if I must say anything on the subject of female excellence to those of you who will now be in widowhood it will be all comprised in this brief exhortation great will be your glory and not falling short of your natural character and greatest will be hers who is least talked of among the men whether for good or for bad my task is now finished I have performed it to the best of my ability and in word at least the requirements of the law are now satisfied if deeds be in question those who are here interred have received part of their honors already and for the rest their children will be brought up till manhood and public expense the state thus offers a valuable prize as the garland of victory in this race of valor for the reward both of those who have fallen and their survivors and where the rewards for merit are greatest there are found the best citizens and now that you have brought to a close your lamentations for your relatives you may depart and funeral oration of Pericles from Thucydides history of the Peloponnesian War read by M.L. Cohen MojoMove411.com that's MojoMove.411.com Cleveland, Ohio, September 2007 Miseries from Autumn Leaves by various authors edited by Anne Wales Abbott read by Brian Ness this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Misery number one did you ever try to eat a peach elegantly and gracefully? of course you have show me a man who has not tried the experiment when under the restraint of human surveillance and I shall look upon him as a curiosity there is no fruit certainly which has so fair and alluring and exterior but few content themselves with feasting their eyes upon it how fresh and ripe it looks as it lies upon the plate with its rosy cheek turned temptingly upward how cool and soft is the downy skin to the touch and the fragrance so suggestive of its rich delicious flavor who can resist ah unhappy white bitterly you shall repent your rashness any other fruit can be eaten with comparative ease and politeness a peach was evidently intended only to be looked at or enjoyed beneath your own tree where no eye may watch and criticize your motions I see you, in imagination, at a party standing in the middle of the room plate in hand regarding your peach as if it were some great natural curiosity a sudden jog of your elbow compels you to a succession of most dexterous balancing as your heavy peach rolls from side to side knocks down your knife and threatens to plunge after it when you stoop to regain it you look distractedly round you look distractedly round for a table but all are occupied even the corner of the mantel shelf holds a plate and you enviously see the owner thereof leaning carelessly against the chimney and looking placidly round upon his less fortunate companions you glance at the different groups to see if anyone else is in your most unenviable predicament ah yes yonder stands a gentleman worse off yet for in addition to your perplexities he is talking with a young laughing girl who is watching his movements with a merry twinkle in her bright eyes he evidently wishes to astonish her by his dexterity and disappoint her roguish expectations he holds his plate firmly in his left hand and proceeds at once to cut his peach in halves deuce take the blunt silver knife the tough skin resists its pressure the knife and plate clash loudly together the peach is bounding and rolling at the very feet of the young lady who is in an ecstasy of laughter ah she herself has no small resemblance to a peach fair beautiful and attractive without and I sadly fear with a hard heart beneath are you yet more miserable than before turn then to yonder sober looking gentleman who certainly seems sufficiently composed to perform the difficult maneuver he has the advantage of a table to be sure but that is not everything he begins right by deliberately removing the woolly skin now he lays the slippery peach in his plate and makes a plunge at it with his knife a sharp prolonged screech across the plate salutes the ears of all the bystanders and a fine slice of the juicy pulp is flung unceremoniously into the face of the gentleman opposite who certainly does not look very grateful for the unexpected gift everyone of course has seen the awkward accident oh no that pretty animated girl upon the sofa is much too pleasantly engaged that is evident to be watching her neighbors playing carelessly with her fan and casting many sparkling glances upward at the two gentlemen who are vying with each other in their gallant attentions she has enough to do without noticing other people she is happily unconscious of the mortification which is in store for her or willfully shuts her eyes to the peril alas her hand is resting even now upon the destroyer of all her present enjoyment the beautiful fragrant treacherous peach with a nonchalance really shocking to the anxious beholder she raises it and breaks it open talking the while and scarcely bestowing a thought upon what she is about dexterously done but a whole luckless maiden the fruit is ripe and rich and juicy and the running drops fall not into her plate but upon the delicate folds of her dress the merry ripartee dies away upon her lips as she becomes conscious of the catastrophe it is with a forced smile that she declares it is nothing oh not of the slightest consequence that unlucky peach how many blunders, how many pauses how many absent-minded remarks at occasions she makes the most frenzied attempts to regain her former gaiety but in vain her gloves are stained and sticky with the flowing juice and she is oppressed by the conviction that all her partners for the rest of the evening will hate her most heartily an expression of real vexation steals over her pretty face and she gives up her plate to one of those with not so much as a wish that he will return to her where are the arch smiles the lively tones the quick and ready response now her spirit is quenched her manner has become subdued depressed shall I say yes even sulky ah I see your courage will not brave laughter you steal to the table half ashamed of yourself as you set down your untasted peach to relieve those ladies of their plates serves as a very good excuse for the relinquishment of your own you have rescued yourself very well from your dilemma this time remember my advice for the future never accept a peach in company miseries number two a dark night there are some people who seem to have the faculty which horses and dogs are said to possess of seeing in the dark alas I am blind and blundering as a beetle I never can find my way about house in the evening without a lamp to illumine my path many smarting remembrances have I of bruised nose and black eyes the consequences of attempting to run through a partition under the full conviction that I have arrived at an open door my most prominent feature has been rudely assailed doors standing ajar unexpectedly which I have embraced with both outstretched arms crickets, tables, chairs especially chairs with very sharp rockers and other movable articles of furniture have stationed themselves as it would seem with malicious intent to trip me up some murderous contusion makes me suddenly conscious of their presence then a feeling of complete bewilderment and helplessness and timidity comes over me I have not the least idea in what part of the room I am I am oppressed with a sense of chairs scattered about in improbable places I long most ardently for a lamp or only for one gleam from a neighbor's window it is no rare thing for me to discover by a thrilling touch upon the cold glass that I have been feeling my way exactly in the opposite direction from what I imagined strange how ideas of direction and distance are lost when the sight is powerless touch may find out mistakes but cannot always prevent them touch may convince me that I have arrived at my bureau but it is too careless to perceive what the poor straining eyes would have discovered at a glance the open upper drawer that salutes my forehead as I stoop hastily to grasp the handles beneath touch is clumsy it only serves to upset valuable plants, ink stands, solar lamps, etc. with an appalling crash and then leaves me standing aghast in utter uncertainty as to the extent of the catastrophe in such emergencies a rush for the stairs is the first impulse ah, but those stairs I will pass over the startling plunge which begins my descent the frantic snatch for the banisters and the strange momentary doubt as to which foot moves first like what a child may feel when learning to walk all this only serves to render me so over-careful that when I actually arrive at the foot of the staircase I cannot believe it until a loud scuff and the shock that follows the interruption of my expected descent assure me be on to doubt there is nothing more exasperating than this unless it may be the corresponding disappointment in running upstairs when you raise your foot high in air and bring it down with an emphatic stamp exactly upon a level with the other but these are mere household experiences, sad though they are I esteem them as nothing in comparison with my adventures out of doors in a dark night and especially in a night both dark and stormy I feel myself one of the most wretched beings in existence imagine a vessel lost in the wide ocean and without compass and you will have some faint idea of my perplexity, discouragement and loneliness at such a time I have a strange propensity for shooting off into the gutter or for shouldering the fences under the impression that I am pursuing a straight course I go quite out of my way to trip over chant stones or to pick out choice bits of slippery ice I splash recklessly through deep puddles, stumble over unfortunate scrapers, walk unexpectedly into open cellars and lay my length upon wet stone doorsteps I start back at visions of posts looming up in the darkness and whitewashed fences and trees all of which would be quite unlikely to be standing in the middle of the sidewalk and which disappear at the first reasonable thought I run into harmless passengers as if I would knock the breath of life out of them and tangle our umbrellas together so fearfully they spin round and round sometime after their separation oh that umbrella of mine sometimes I hook it in the drooping branches of trees and losing my hold in the suddenness of the shock have the gratification of feeling it tip up and go down over my shoulder into the mud behind me its bone tips tap and scratch at the windows as I go by and scrape against the tall fences like fingers trying to catch something to hold on by and stop my progress it hits a low branch and its varnished handle slips through my woolen gloves knocking my hat over my eyes and extinguishing me for the time being as if the night were not dark enough without my friends I could go on much longer with my complaints but I feel that I have drawn upon your sympathy sufficiently for the present you will be as glad to leave me at my own house door as I am miseries number three twine under the general head of string I might enumerate a long list of the world's miseries shoe strings alone comprehend an amount of wretchedness which is but feebly described in the tragical story of jemmy string bonnet strings and apron strings dicky strings and watch guards curtain cord, bed cord, and codline each and all have furnished enough discomfort to make out a long grumbling article but I cannot linger to describe their treacherous disertions when their services are most needed their unexpected weakness and their obstinate entanglements when time presses a certain pudding bag string is commemorated in one of the beautiful couplets of mother goose's melodies I am sure you cannot have forgotten it nor the staring spotted cat that is there represented racing away with her booty that limited pudding bag string is but a type of strings in general there are fleeting possessions always hiding always misplaced never in order you fit up a string drawer perhaps with a fine assortment and pride yourself upon its nice arrangement go to it a week after and see if you can find one ball where you left it can you lay your hand upon a single piece that you want no indeed twine is considered common property if anyone has a use for it he takes it without leave or license without even inquiring who is the owner and you may be sure he will never bring any of it back again oh the misery endured for the want of an errant piece of twine when you are in a nervous hurry to do up a parcel someone waiting at the door meanwhile after an immense deal of pains you have it at last folded to your liking with every corner squared and even every wrinkle smooth then clasping tightly with one hand the stiff wrapper you search distractedly with the other for a ball of twine which you distinctly remember tossing into the paper drawer only the day before in vain you surround yourself with newspaper and brown paper and useless rubbish tumbling your whole drawer into confusion in vain you relinquish your nicely packed parcel and see its contents scattered in all directions in vain you grumble and scold the ball is not forthcoming your little brother has seized it to fly his kite or your sister is even now tying up her trailing morning glories or sweet peas with the stolen booty you plunge your hand exploringly into the drawer and bring up a long roll wound thickly with twine of all kinds and colors your eyes sparkle at the prize but alas the first energetic pole leaves in your hand a piece about four inches long and a quantity of dangling ends and rough knots convince you that you have nothing to hope in that quarter a second plunge brings up a handful of odds and ends strong pieces clumsy and rough coarse red quill cord delicate two colored bits far too short cotton twine breaking it a touch fine long pieces hopelessly tangled together so that not even an end is visible the more you touch at the loops the more desperate is the snarl poor mortal your pride gives way before the urgency of haste you send off your nice package miserably tied together by two kinds of twine all the rest of the day you are tormented by a super fluidity of the very thing you needed so much it was impossible to get it when you wanted it but now it is pertenaciously in your way when you do not want it you almost break your neck tripping a firm cord which proves to be a pair of reins left hanging on a chair by some careless urchin the carpet and furniture are strewed with long straggling pieces of packed thread you find a white end dangling conspicuously from your waistcoat pocket as you walk the streets you see twine flying from fences or lying useless on the sidewalk black with dust and age to crown the whole a friend comes with a piece of twine extending his arms and asks you to help him twist and double it into a cord it is a very entertaining process you amuse yourself with watching one little rough place that whirls swiftly round stops with a jerk turns hesitatingly one side and the other then yielding to a new impulse flies round and round again till you are dizzy you look with great complacency at the tightening twist now brought almost to perfection you turn it in your fingers scarcely noticing its convulsive starts for freedom ah your imprudent friend without any warning gives it a final pull to stretch it into shape the twine slips from your grasp springs away across the room curls itself into a succession of snarls and twisted loops and then lies motionless your friend looks thunderstruck with a hasty apology you step forward and tightly clasp the recreational end you are in nervous expectation of dropping it again your fingers are benumbed at the tips with their tight compression and the constant twitching they give a sudden jerk you make an involuntary clutch after the cord but in vain it is rapidly untwisting at the very feet of your companion who looks at it and despair again you make an attempt with no success at all the refractory twine eluding your utmost endeavors to hold it once more your fellow twister walks off at last with a wretchedly rough affair which he good-humoredly says will do very well miseries number four I believe the world has gone quite crazy on the subject of fresh air in the next century people will think they must sleep on the housetops I suppose or camp out in tents in primitive style nothing is talked about but ventilators and air tubes and water pots one would suppose that fireplaces were invented expressly for cooling and airing a room instead of heating it there was no such fuss when I was young in those good old times these airy notions had not come into fashion where the loose window sashes rattled at every passing breeze and the wind chased the smoke down the wide-mouthed chimney nobody complained of being stifled in the house no indeed we ran shivering through the long windy entries all wrapped in shawls and hugging ourselves to retain the friendly warmth of the fire as long as possible far from devising ways of letting in the air we tried hard to keep it out by stuffing the cracks with cotton and closely curting the windows in bed even then the ice in the washbasin and the electricity which made our hair literally stand on end in the process of combing and the gradual transformation of fingers into thumbs showed but too plainly that the wintry air had penetrated our defenses when we crowded joyfully around a crackling sparkling wood fire even while our faces glowed with the intense heat cold shivers were creeping down our backs and sudden draughts from an opening door set our teeth chattering I often wished myself on a spit to revolve slowly through the fire until thoroughly roasted not from any want of air I assure you we children were always breaking pains of glass in the bitterest days and the glacier was never known to come under a week to replace them why people should wish to revive and live through again the miseries of such a frost-nipped childhood I cannot imagine I for one love a snug house even a warm house I am of a chilly temperament and subject to rheumatism colds etc fresh air is my bane I banish all books on the subject from my table I studiously avoid all notorious fresh air lovers or try in every way to bring over the poor misguided mortals to my views but it is of no use fresh air is the fashion and is run to extremes as all fashions must be I call in a physician low fresh air is recommended as a tonic I give a party of course my windows are all thrown open and foolish young girls in the thinnest of white muslins are standing in the draught and such a whirlwind is raised by the flirting of fans in the rush of the dancers that I am blown like a dry leaf into a corner where I stand shivering and making rueful attempts to appear smiling and hospitable I go out to pass a social afternoon with a friend and I'm set down in a room just above the freezing point a little crack opened in the window and all the doors flying to change the air I ride in the omnibus and am almost choked with my bonnet strings such a furious draught meets me in the face and then with infinite pains I have secured the only tolerably warm corner my next neighbor becomes very faint and must have the window open even the poor babies are not safe from this popular insanity you may see the little victims any day with their little red noses and watery eyes peeping forth from under the caps and feathers the old fashioned blanket in which the baby was done up head and all like a bundle is thrown aside the child is now quite so often carried upside down I suppose under the new system but what difference does it make whether the poor thing is smothered or frozen to death I never shall forget a long journey I took once with a friend fresh air and cold water every morning the windows were thrown wide open and the blinds flung back with an energetic bang while a stiff wintry wind whirled everything about the room and flapped the curtains against the ceiling and there she stood declaring herself exhilarated while her nose and lips turned from red to blue and the tears ran down her cheeks I always took to flight afterwards the poor auto-martyr went out to walk before breakfast scornfully rejecting all offers of furs and extra wrappings oh dear no, she never thought of muffs, tippets, snow boots but as encumbrances fit for extreme old age and infirmity she always walked fast and the more the wind blew the warmer she felt I might be assured as soon as she had gone I established myself in comfort by the sight of a glowing grate happy but for dreading her return dreadfully fresh and breezy from the outer air very energetic very noisy and fully bent upon stirring me up and making me take exercise after snapping the door open and slamming it behind her with a clap that greatly disturbed my nerves she exclaimed in a stentorian voice oh dear me, I shall die in such an oven my dear child, you have no idea how hot it is and the first thing I knew up would go a window with a crash it might rain or shine weather made no difference to this inveterate air seeker many a time has she come in all dripping and tracking the carpet brushed carelessly against me with her wet garments and finally enveloped me with the steam arising from them as they hung around my fire it roused my indignation that she should make herself and everybody else so uncomfortable and then glory in the deed as if it were indubitably and indisputably praiseworthy she was so good natured however and so happy in her delusion that I could not find it in my heart to remonstrate very vehemently except when she would make me listen to her interminable lectures upon the importance the necessity of fresh air and the effect of a snug cozy room upon the blood the heart the lungs the head and as I verily believe she hinted the temper I know I lost control of mine long before she finished but whether it was the one to fresh air and practice or too much of it in theory I leave you to imagine my friend always carried a small thermometer in her trunk which she consulted a dozen times an hour in order to regulate the temperature of the room alas for me if the quick silver rose above sixty I devoutly hoped she would leave it behind in some of our numerous stopping places and with an eye to that possibility I must confess I hung it in the most out of the way corners I could find but it seemed to be in her mind continually she never forgot it and always packed it very carefully too I asked her two or three times to let me put it in my trunk where I had slyly arranged a nice little place full of hard surfaces and sharp corners but she always had plenty of room I believe my zealous friend is now residing at the seashore freezing in the cold sea winds every morning in the briny wave under the strange illusion that she is improving her health end of miseries from autumn leaves by various authors edited by Anne Wales Abbott the oath in law of Hippocrates by Hippocrates this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Leon Meyer the oath in law of Hippocrates introductory note by Charles W. Eliot Hippocrates the celebrated Greek physician was a contemporary of the historian Herodotus he was born in the island of Kos between 470 and 460 BC and belonged to the family that claimed descent from the mythical esculapius son of Apollo there is already a long medical tradition in Greece before his day and this he is supposed to have inherited chiefly through his predecessor Herodotus and he enlarged his education by extensive travel he is said though the evidence is unsatisfactory to have taken part in the efforts to check the great plague which devastated Athens at the beginning of the Peloponnesian war he died at Larissa between 380 and 360 BC the works attributed to Hippocrates are the earliest extant Greek medical writings but very many of them are certainly not his some five or six however are generally granted to be genuine and among these is the famous oath this interesting document shows that in his time physicians were already organized into a corporation or guild with regulations for the training of disciples and with an esprit decor and a professional ideal which with slight exceptions can hardly yet be regarded as out of date one saying occurring in the words of Hippocrates has achieved universal currency though a few who quote it today are aware that it originally referred to the art of the physician it is the first of his aphorisms quote life is short in the art long the occasion fleeting experience fallacious and judgment difficult the physician must not only be prepared to do what is right himself but also to make the patient the attendance and externals cooperate unquote the oath of Hippocrates I swear by Apollo the physician and esculapius and health and all heal and all the gods and goddesses that according to my ability and judgment I will keep this oath in this stipulation to reckon him who taught me this art equally dear to me as my parents to share my substance with him and relieve his necessities if required to look upon his offspring in the same footing as my own brothers and to teach them this art if they shall wish to learn it without fee or stipulation and that by precept lecture and every other mode of instruction I will impart the knowledge of the art to my own sons and those of my teachers and to disciples bound by a stipulation and oath according to the law of medicine but to none others I will follow that system of regimen which according to my ability and judgment I consider for the benefit of my patients and abstain from whatever is deleterious and mischievous I will give no deadly medicine to anyone if asked nor suggest any such counsel and in like manner I will not give to a woman a pessary to produce abortion with purity and with holiness I will pass my life and practice my art I will not cut persons laboring under the stone but will leave this to be done by men who are practitioners of this work into whatever houses I enter I will go into them for the benefit of the sick and will abstain from every voluntary act of mischief and corruption and further from the seduction of females or males of freemen and slaves whatever in connection with my professional practice or not in connection with it I see or hear in the life of men which ought not to be spoken of abroad I will not divulge as reckoning that all such should be kept secret while I continue to keep this oath unviolated may it be granted to me to enjoy life in the practice of the art respected by all men in all times but should I trespass and violate this oath may the reverse be my lot the law of Hippocrates 1 Medicine is of all the arts the most noble but owing to the ignorance of those who practice it and those who inconsiderately form a judgment of them it is at present far behind all the other arts their mistake appears to me to arise principally from this that in the cities there is no punishment connected with the practice of medicine and with it alone except disgrace and that does not hurt those who are familiar with it such persons are like the figures which are introduced in tragedies for as they have the shape and dress and personal appearance of an actor so also physicians are many in title but very few in reality 2 whoever is to acquire a competent knowledge of medicine ought to be possessed of the following advantages a natural disposition instruction a favorable position for the study early tuition love of labor leisure first of all a natural talent is required for when nature leads the way to what is most excellent instruction in the art takes place which the student must try to appropriate to himself by reflection becoming an early pupil in a place well adapted for instruction he must also bring to the task a love of labor and perseverance so that the instruction taking root may bring forth proper and abundant fruits 3 instruction in medicine is like the culture of the productions of the earth instruction is as it were the soil the tenets of our teacher are as it were the seed instruction in youth is like planning of the seed in the ground at the proper season the place where the instruction is communicated is like the food imparted to vegetables by the atmosphere diligent study is like the cultivation of the fields and it is time which in part strength to all things and brings them to maturity 4 having brought all these requisites to the study of medicine and having acquired a true knowledge of it we shall thus in traveling through the cities be esteemed physicians not only in name but in reality but in experience is a bad treasure and a bad fun to those who possess it whether in opinion or reality being devoid of self reliance and contentedness in the nurse both of timidity and audacity for timidity betrays a want of powers and audacity and lack of skill they are indeed two things knowledge and opinion of which the one makes its possessor really to know the other to be ignorant 5 those things which are sacred are to be imparted only to sacred persons and it is not lawful to impart them to the profane until they have been initiated in the mysteries of the science and of the oath and law 6 obstacle cause by frederick bostia taken from sophisms of the protectionists this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org 2 obstacle cause the obstacle mistaken for the cause scarcity mistaken for abundance the sophism is the same it is well to study it under every aspect man naturally is in a state of entire destitution between this state and the satisfying of his wants there exists a multitude of obstacles which it is the object of labor to surmount it is interesting to seek how and why he could have been led to look even upon these obstacles to his happiness as the cause of it I wish to take a journey of some hundred miles but between the point of my departure and my destination there are interposed mountains rivers swamps forests robbers in a word obstacles and to conquer these obstacles it is necessary that I should bestow much labor and great efforts in opposing them or what is the same thing if others do it for me I must pay them the value of their exertions it is evident that I should have been better off had these obstacles never existed through the journey of life in the long series of days from the cradle to the tomb man has many difficulties to oppose him in his progress hunger, thirst sickness, heat cold are so many obstacles scattered along his road in a state of isolation he would be obliged to combat them all by hunting, fishing agriculture, spinning weaving, architecture etc and it is very evident that it would be better for him that these difficulties should exist to a less degree or even not at all in a state of society he is not obliged personally to struggle with each of these obstacles but others do it for him and he in return must remove some one of them for the benefit of his fellow men again it is evident that considering mankind as a whole it would be better for society that these obstacles should be as weak and as few as possible but if we examine closely and in detail the phenomena of society and the private interests of men as modified by exchange of produce we perceive without difficulty how it has happened that wants have been founded with riches and the obstacle with the cause the separation of occupations which results from the habits of exchange causes each man instead of struggling against all surrounding obstacles to combat only one the effort being made not for himself alone but for the benefit of his fellows who in their turn render a similar service to him now it hence results that this man looks upon the obstacle which he has made it his profession to combat for the benefit of others as the immediate cause of his riches the greater the more serious the more stringent may be his obstacle the more he is renumerated for the conquering of it by those who are relieved by his labors a physician for instance does not busy himself in baking his bread or in manufacturing his clothing and his instruments others do it for him and he in return combats the maladies with which his patients are afflicted the more dangerous and frequent these maladies are the more others are willing the more even are they forced to work in his service disease then which is an obstacle to the happiness of mankind becomes to him the source of his comforts the reasoning of all producers is in what concerns themselves the same as the doctor draws his profits from disease so does the ship owner from the obstacles called distance the agriculturalist from that named hunger self manufacturer from cold the school master lives upon ignorance the jeweler upon vanity the lawyer upon quarrels the notary upon breach of faith each profession has then an immediate interest in the continuation even in the extension of the particular obstacle to which its attention has been directed theorists hence go on to found a system upon these individual interests and say wants are riches labor is riches the obstacle to well being is well being to multiply obstacles is to give food to industry then comes the statesman and as the developing and propagating of obstacles is the developing and propagating of riches what more natural than that he should bend his efforts to that point he says for instance if we prevent a large importation of iron we create a difficulty in procuring it this obstacle severely felt obliges individuals to pay in order to relieve themselves from it a certain number of our citizens giving themselves up to the combating of this obstacle will thereby make their fortunes in proportion to as the obstacle is great and the mineral scares inaccessible and of difficult and distant transportation in the same proportion will be the number of laborers maintained by the various branches of this industry the same reasoning will lead to the suppression of machinery here are men who are at a loss how to dispose of their wine harvest this is an obstacle which other men set about removing for them by the manufacture of casks it is fortunate say our statesman that this obstacle exists since it occupies a portion of the labor of the nation and enriches a certain number of our citizens but here is presented to us an ingenious machine which cuts down the oak squares it makes it into staves and gathering these together forms them into casks the obstacle is thus diminished and with it the profits of the coopers we must prevent this let us proscribe the machine to sift thoroughly this sophism it is sufficient to remember that human labor is not an end but a means it is never without employment if one obstacle is removed it seizes another and mankind is delivered from two obstacles by the same effort which was at first necessary for one if the labor of coopers becomes useless it must take another direction but with what it may be asked will they be renumerated precisely with what they are at present renumerated for if a certain quantity of labor becomes free from its original occupation to be otherwise disposed of a corresponding quantity of wages must thus also become free to maintain that human labor can end by wanting employment it would be necessary to prove that mankind will cease to encounter obstacles in such a case labor would be not only impossible it would be superfluous we should have nothing to do because we should be all-powerful and our fiat alone would satisfy at once our wants and our desires and of obstacle cause by frederick bastiat recording by robert scott mojo move 411.com mojo move 411.com september the first 2007 our children and great discoveries by mark twain this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org our children and great discoveries a speech by mark twain delivered at the authors club new york our children yours and mine they seem like little things to talk about our children but little things often make up the sum of human life that's a good sentence i repeat it little things often produce great things now to illustrate take Sir Isaac Newton i presume some of you have heard of Mr. Newton well once Sir Isaac Newton a mere lad got over into a man's apple orchard i don't know what he was doing there i didn't come all the way from Hartford to question Mr. Newton's honesty but when he was there in the main orchard he saw an apple fall and he was attracted toward it and that led to the discovery not of Mr. Newton but of the great law of attraction and gravitation and there was once another great discoverer i've forgotten his name i don't remember what he discovered but i know it was something very important and i hope you will all tell your children about it when you get home well when the great discoverer was once loafing around down in Virginia and a puttin in his time flirting with Pocahontas oh Captain John Smith that was the man's name and while he and Pocah were sitting in Mr. Po-Honton's he accidentally put his arm around her and picked some simple weed which proved to be tobacco and now we find it in every Christian family shedding its civilizing influence broadcast throughout the whole religious community now there was another great man i can't think of his name either he used to loaf around and watch the great chandelier in the cathedral at Pisa which set him to thinking about the great law of gunpowder and eventually led to the discovery of the cotton gin now i don't say this as an inducement for our young men to loaf around like Mr. Newton and Mr. Galileo and Captain Smith but they were once little babies two days old and they show what little things have sometimes accomplished and of our children and great discoveries by Mark Twain recording by Robert Scott mojo move 411.com mojo move 411.com August 25th 2007