In
the world's childhood, knowledge seems divine, and those who first acquire
its rudiments claim, and are believed, to have received it by revelation
from the gods. In an archaic age the priest is likewise the law-giver and
the physician, for all erudition is concentrated in one supremely favored
class--the sacred caste. Their discoveries are kept profoundly secret, and
yet to perpetuate their mysteries among their descendants they found
schools which are the only repositories of learning; but the time must
inevitably come when this order is transformed into the deadliest enemy of
the civilization which it has brought into being. The power of the
spiritual oligarchy rests upon superstitious terrors which dwindle before
advancing enlightenment; hence the clergy have become reactionary, have
sought to stifle the spirit of free inquiry, and have used the schools
which they have builded as instruments to keep alive unreasoning
prejudice, or to serve their selfish ends. This, then, has been the
fiercest battle of mankind; the heroic struggle to break down the
sacerdotal barrier, to popularize knowledge, and to liberate the mind,
began ages before the crucifixion upon Calvary; it still goes on. In this
cause the noblest and the bravest have poured forth their blood like
water, and the path to freedom has been heaped with the corpses of her
martyrs.
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