es. The belief that mankind should by
nature tend to evil, he considered absurd and unscientific, for the
strongest instinct in all creation is self-preservation; and that
certain men should love darkness rather than light was mainly because
governments and religions have warped man's nature through oppression
and coercion until it no longer acts normally. "Normal man seeks the
light, just as the flowers do. Man, if not too much interfered with,
will make for himself the best possible environment and create for his
children right conditions because the instinct for peace and liberty is
deeply rooted in his nature. Control by another has led to revolt, and
revolt has led to oppression, and oppression occasions grief and
deadness: hence bruises and distortion follow. When we view humanity, we
behold not the true and natural man, but a deformed and pitiable
product, undone by the vices of those who have sought to improve on
Nature by shaping his life to feed the vanity of a few and minister to
their wantonness. In our plans for social betterment, let us hold in
mind the healthy and unfettered man, and not the cripple that
interference and restraint have made."

Godwin, like Robert Ingersoll, was the son of a clergyman, which reminds
me that liberal thought is under great obligations to the clergy, since
their sons, taught by antithesis, are often shining lights of
radicalism. Godwin was a non-resistant, philosophic anarchist. He was
the true predecessor of George Eliot, Walt Whitman, Henry Thoreau and
Leo Tolstoy, and the best that is now being expressed from advanced
Christian pulpits harks back to him. All that the foremost of our
contemporary thinkers have written and said was suggested and touched
upon by William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft, with like conclusions.

* * * * *

Carnegie is credited with this: "There is only one generation between
shirt-sleeves and shirt-sleeves." Now, the grandfather of Mary
Wollstonecraft was an employing-weaver who did his work so well that his
wares commanded a price.

He grew rich, and when he died he left a fortune of some thirty thousand
pounds, not being able to take it with him. This fortune descended to
his eldest son.

Samuel Johnson thought the law of primogeniture a most excellent thing,
since it insured there being only one fool in the family. The
Wollstonecraft boys who had no money went to work, and in taking care of
themselves becam