not;
now I admit they are. No man has ever been restrained from the
commission of a real crime, but from an artificial one he has. There
was a man who committed murder. They got the evidence, but he
confessed that he did it. "What did you do it for?" "Money." "Did
you get any money?" "Yes." "How much?" "Fifteen cents." "What kind
of a man was he?" "A laboring man I killed." "What did you do with
the money?" "I bought liquor with it." "Did he have anything else?"
"I think he had some meat and bread." "What did you do with that?" "I
ate the bread and threw away the meat; it was Friday." So you see it
will restrain in some things.

Just to the extent that man has freed himself from the dominion of
ghosts he has advanced; to that extent he has freed himself from the
tyrant's poison. Man has found that he must give liberty to others in
order to have it himself. He has found that a master is a slave; that
a tyrant is also a slave. He has found that governments should be
administered by men for men; that the rights of all are to be
protected; that woman is at least the equal for man; that men existed
before books; that all creeds were made by men; that the few have a
right to contradict what the pulpit asserts; that man is responsible to
himself and to others. True religion must be free; without liberty the
brain is a dungeon and the mind the convict. The slave may bow and
cringe and crawl, but he cannot worship, he cannot adore. True
religion is the perfume of the free and grateful air. True religion is
the subordination of the passions to the intellect. It is not a creed;
it is a life. The theory that is afraid of investigation is not
deserving of a place in the human mind.

I do not pretend to tell what all the truth is. I do not pretend to
have fathomed the abyss, nor to have floated on outstretched wings
level with the heights of thought. I simply plead for freedom. I
denounce the cruelties and horrors of slavery. I ask for light and air
for the souls of men. I say, take off those chains--break those
manacles--free those limbs--release that brain. I plead for the right
to think--to reason--to investigate. I ask that the future may be
enriched with the honest thoughts of men. I implore every human being
to be a soldier in the army of progress. I will not invade the rights
of others. You have no right to erect your toll-gates upon the
highways of thought. You have no right to leap from