o
about liberty as opposed to the present state of society in our country?
Free thought belongs to all. You can't chain the mind. What is it that
they want? Will they be so kind as to inform us? Is Calvin Blanchard a
representative of the liberty sought for? Then may we long live to keep
our heels upon it.

DID THE RACE ASCEND FROM A LOW STATE OF BARBARISM?

The fact that the human mind abhors a contradiction is an evidence of the
Godlike nature of man, and an objection to the old tenet of total
depravity; it is also the secret of the effort, upon the part of
errorists, to systematize. One assumption creates a demand for another,
and thus men who start wrong, in science or religion, labor under great
disadvantages. When an idea is once consecrated to science or religion in
the human heart it is hard to eradicate. When you find that you have made
a wrong start remember that it is the part of true manhood to make a frank
surrender, and start anew.

The assumption of the "evolution of species" lays all its advocates under
the necessity of assuming that a low state of barbarism lies behind the
civilization known in the history of the race as the primitive or first
condition of intellect. Now, as this is a question of fact, an examination
of the evidence pertaining to this second assumption is a matter of
primary importance. What are the facts bearing upon the question? With
Darwinians the "primeval savage" is a stereotyped idea, finding expression
in every-day language; and an idea that some scientists (rather sciolists)
never get tired of promulgating. With them primitive man was little
removed from the brute beasts, devoid of knowledge, art, and language--a
creature in a small degree above; and in a great degree below, the
anthropoid apes, from whom it is claimed he has descended by evolution. Is
there any proof of this primitive inferiority, or savagery, as opposed to
civilization? How does the voice of history speak? It doubtless shows many
instances of improvement, of an advance from a low condition to a higher
one; but what does the earliest history say as respects the _primitive
condition of mankind_? Waiving an examination of the Bible history, we
will at once proceed to other sources. In Egypt there are no indications
of an early period of barbarism. All authorities agree that we find no
rude or heathenish time in the far off history of Egypt out of which
civilization was evolved. The first king known i