from that club to
the boomerang, to the sword, to the cross-bow, to the blunderbuss, to
the flintlock, to the caplock, to the needle-gun, up to a cannon cast
by Krupp, capable of hurling a ball weighing two thousand pounds
through eighteen inches of solid steel. I saw too, the armor from the
shell of a turtle that one of our brave ancestors lashed upon his
breast when he went to fight for his country, the skin of a porcupine,
dried with the quills on, which this same savage pulled over his
orthodox head, up to the shirts of mail that were worn in the middle
ages, that laughed at the edge of the sword and defied the point of the
spear; up to a monitor clad in complete steel. And I say orthodox not
only in the matter of religion, but in everything. Whoever has quit
growing, he is orthodox, whether in art, politics, religion,
philosophy--no matter what. Whoever thinks he has found it all out he
is orthodox. Orthodoxy is that which rots, and heresy is that which
grows forever. Orthodoxy is the night of the past, full of the
darkness of superstition, and heresy is the eternal coming day, the
light of which strikes the grand foreheads of the intellectual pioneers
of the world. I saw their implements of agriculture, from the plow
made of a crooked stick, attached to the horn of an ox by some twisted
straw, with which our ancestors scraped the earth, and from that to the
agricultural implements of this generation, that make it possible for a
man to cultivate the soil without being an ignoramus.

In the old time there was but one crop; and when the rain did not come
in answer to the prayer of hypocrites a famine came and people fell
upon their knees. At that time they were full of superstition. They
were frightened all the time for fear that some god would be enraged at
his poor, hapless, feeble and starving children. But now, instead of
depending upon one crop they have several, and if there is not rain
enough for one there may be enough for another. And if the frosts kill
all, we have railroads and steamship--enough to bring what we need from
some other part of the world. Since man has found out something about
agriculture, the gods have retired from the business of producing
famines.

I saw at the same time their musical instruments, from the tomtom--that
is, a hoop with a couple of strings of rawhide drawn across it--from
that tom-tom, up to the instruments we have today, that make the common
air blossom with me