aving caught a glimpse of the beauty of Truth, deem the
possession of her worth more than all the world beside; who have made
up our minds to do our work ungrudgingly, asking for no reward beyond
the results which spring up from our labour--we will spread the Gospel
of Freethought among men, until the sad minor melodies of Christianity
have sobbed out their last mournful notes on the dying evening breeze,
and on the fresh morning winds shall ring out the chorus of hope and
joyfulness, from the glad lips of men whom the Truth has at last set
free."[20]

The intellectual comprehension of the sources of evil and the method
of its extinction was the second great plank in my ethical platform.
The study of Darwin and Herbert Spencer, of Huxley, Buechner and
Haeckel, had not only convinced me of the truth of evolution, but,
with help from W.H. Clifford, Lubbock, Buckle, Lecky, and many
another, had led me to see in the evolution of the social instinct the
explanation of the growth of conscience and of the strengthening of
man's mental and moral nature. If man by study of the conditions
surrounding him and by the application of intelligence to the subdual
of external nature, had already accomplished so much, why should not
further persistence along the same road lead to his complete
emancipation? All the evil, anti-social side of his nature was an
inheritance from his brute ancestry, and could be gradually
eradicated; he could not only "let the ape and tiger die," but he
could kill them out." It may be frankly acknowledged that man inherits
from his brute progenitors various bestial tendencies which are in
course of elimination. The wild-beast desire to fight is one of these,
and this has been encouraged, not checked, by religion.... Another
bestial tendency is the lust of the male for the female apart from
love, duty, and loyalty; this again has been encouraged by religion,
as witness the polygamy and concubinage of the Hebrews--as in Abraham,
David, and Solomon, not to mention the precepts of the Mosaic
laws--the bands of male and female prostitutes in connection with
Pagan temples, and the curious outbursts of sexual passion in
connection with religious revivals and missions. Another bestial
tendency is greed, the strongest grabbing all he can and trampling
down the weak, in the mad struggle for wealth; how and when has
religion modified this tendency, sanctified as it is in our present
civilisation? All these bestial tende