ean. We will hold you
back and down to the ancient level we made for you just as long as the
life is in us; and if you ever receive recognition as a human being, it
must be at the hands of those who defy the Church and hate creeds that
are not big enough to go all round. Our creeds are only large enough to
give each sex half. But we won't be stingy, we only want our share. You
are entirely welcome to all the degradation here and all the damnation
hereafter; and any man who attempts to deprive you of these blessings is
a heretic and a sinner. Let us pray."

EDUCATION.

In dealing with this point the humor of the situation is too plain to
require comment, and I need only cite a few facts in order to place the
beautiful little fiction where it belongs.*

* See Appendix T.

As to general education it is well known that the Church has fought
investigation and persecuted science. From the third century to Bruno,
and from Bruno to Darwin and Tyndall there is an unbroken chain of
evidence as to her position in these matters and her opposition to the
diffusion of knowledge. When, however, it became impossible for her to
resist the demand of the people for education; when she could no longer
retard liberty and prevent the recognition of individual rights; then
she modestly demanded the right to do the teaching herself and to
control its extent and scope.*

With a brain stultified by faith** she proposed to regulate
investigations in which the habit of faith would necessarily prove fatal
to the discovery of truth.*** She proposed to teach nothing but the dead
languages and theology, and to confine knowledge to these fields, and
she succeeded for many generations in so doing. Every time she found a
man who had discovered something, or who had a theory he was trying to
test by some little scientific investigations, she cried "heretic" and
suppressed that man. She stuck to the dead languages, and the only
thing she is not afraid of to-day is something dead. Any other kind of
knowledge is a dangerous acquaintance for her to make. ****

If you meet a clergyman to-day who has devoted his time to the dead
languages you need not be afraid that he is a heretic; but if he is
studying the sciences, arts, literature, and history of the living world
in earnest you can get your fagot ready. His orthodoxy is a dead doxy.
It is only a question of time and bravery when he will swear off.*****

* See Appendix G, 1-4.