to the dependence of his life and its fullness upon
conformity to the matter-force law, without necessary or, indeed,
possible reference to any divine-human system of laws as set forth by a
catholic or protestant church or by an imperialistic or democratic
state.

Unless states and churches persuade, encourage and help man to more
fully discover, more correctly interpret and more perfectly live the
matter-force law they are worthless; and indeed worse, if in the long
run and on the whole they hinder him; and undoubtedly they have done
this in the case of the slave class--a class which, ever since the rise
of private property in the means of producing the necessities of life,
has comprehended the vast majority of the human race.

Whether then man is barbarous or civilized is really and truly, wholly
and entirely a question of the knowledge of and conformity to the
matter-force law, that is, of whether or not the articles of his
religious creed and political code are so many ideal embodiments and
practical interpretations of facts or realities as they are revealed by
the doings of my god, Nature.

There is no other creed, belief in the articles of which, and there is
no other code, obedience to the articles of which, will advance mankind,
individually or collectively, so much as one step in the long, rugged
and steep way towards the goal of a perfect civilization--a civilization
which will secure to every man, woman and child the greatest of possible
opportunities to make the most of life that is within the range of
possibilities.

My god, Nature (the triune divinity, matter-force-motion) the doings of
which god are so many words of the only gospel upon which the salvation
of the world is to any degree dependent, is an impersonal, unconscious,
non-moral being.

For me, this god, Nature, rises into personality, consciousness and
morality in myself, and in no other does nature do this for me, though
what is true of me is of course equally so of every representative of
mankind.

Jesus (either as an historical or dramatic personage, and it does not
matter which he was) said, "I and my Father (god) are one," and in
saying this he gave expression in one form to the most revolutionary and
salutary of all truths. The other form of the same truth as taught by
Darwin and Marx is: man has all the potentialities of his own life
within himself. Every representative of the human race can and should
say with Jesus, "I and my Fa