The further the spiritual evolution of mankind advances, the more certain it seems to me that the path to genuine read more

The further the spiritual evolution of mankind advances, the more certain it seems to me that the path to genuine religiosity does not lie through the fear of life, and the fear of death, and blind faith, but through striving after rational knowledge.

Or ever the knightly years were gone
With the old world to the grave,
I was a read more

Or ever the knightly years were gone
With the old world to the grave,
I was a king in Babylon
And you were a Christian slave.

Till o'er the wreck, emerging from the storm,
Immortal Nature lifts her changeful form:
Mounts from her read more

Till o'er the wreck, emerging from the storm,
Immortal Nature lifts her changeful form:
Mounts from her funeral pyre on wings of flame,
And soars and shines, another and the same.

Evolution ever climbing after some ideal good
And Reversion ever dragging Evolution in the mud.

Evolution ever climbing after some ideal good
And Reversion ever dragging Evolution in the mud.

And hear the mighty stream of tendency
Uttering, for elevation of our thought,
A clear sonorous voice, read more

And hear the mighty stream of tendency
Uttering, for elevation of our thought,
A clear sonorous voice, inaudible
To the vast multitude.

There was an ape in the days that were earlier,
Centuries passed and his hair became curlier;
read more

There was an ape in the days that were earlier,
Centuries passed and his hair became curlier;
Centuries more gave a thumb to his wrist--
Then he was a Man and a Positivist.

Children, behold the Chimpanzee;
He sits on the ancestral tree
From which we sprang in ages gone.
read more

Children, behold the Chimpanzee;
He sits on the ancestral tree
From which we sprang in ages gone.
I'm glad we sprang: had we held on,
We might, for aught that I can say,
Be horrid Chimpanzees to-day.

All evolution in thought and conduct must at first appear as heresy and misconduct.

All evolution in thought and conduct must at first appear as heresy and misconduct.

The rise of every man he loved to trace,
Up to the very pod O!
And, in read more

The rise of every man he loved to trace,
Up to the very pod O!
And, in baboons, our parent race
Was found by old Monboddo.
Their A, B, C, he made them speak,
And learn their qui, quae, quod, O!
Till Hebrew, Latin, Welsh, and Greek
They knew as well's Monboddo!