t one means of escape--intellectual
development. Upon the back of industry has been the whip. Upon the brain
have been the fetters of superstition. Nothing has been left undone
by the enemies of freedom. Every art and artifice, every cruelty and
outrage has been practiced and perpetrated to destroy the rights of man.
In this great struggle every crime has been rewarded and every virtue
has been punished. Reading, writing, thinking and investigating have all
been crimes.

Every science has been an outcast.

All the altars and all the thrones united to arrest the forward march of
the human race. The king said that mankind must not work for themselves.
The priest said that mankind must not think for themselves. One forged
chains for the hands, the other for the soul. Under this infamous
_regime_ the eagle of the human intellect was for ages a slimy serpent
of hypocrisy.

The human race was imprisoned. Through some of the prison bars came a
few struggling rays of light. Against these bars Science pressed its
pale and thoughtful face, wooed by the holy dawn of human advancement.
Bar after bar was broken away. A few grand men escaped and devoted their
lives to the liberation of their fellows.

Only a few years ago there was a great awakening of the human mind. Men
began to inquire by what right a crowned robber made them work for him?
The man who asked this question was called a traitor. Others asked by
what right does a robed hypocrite rule my thought? Such men were called
infidels. The priest said, and the king said, where is this spirit
of investigation to stop? They said then and they say now, that it is
dangerous for man to be free. I deny it. Out on the intellectual sea
there is room enough for every sail. In the intellectual air there is
space enough for every wing.

The man who does not do his own thinking is a slave, and is a traitor to
himself and to his fellow-men.

"Every man should stand under the blue and stars, under the infinite
flag of nature, the peer of every other man."

Standing in the presence of the Unknown, all have the same right to
think, and all are equally interested in the great questions of origin
and destiny. All I claim, all I plead for, is liberty thought and
expression. That is all. I do not pretend to tell what is absolutely
true, but what I think is true. I do not pretend to tell all the truth.
I do not claim that I have floated level with the heights of thought, or
that I have des