APOPHTHEGMATIZATIONS.

NZ Truth, Issue 88, 23 February 1907, Page 1

APOPHTHEGMATIZATIONS.

NO. VI.

(By JOHN NORTON.)

- PRQBHETS FALSE. Placing Paine among the prophets has caused a whole clutch of correspondents to come' forward and point out io me* that I have produced no evidence of Paine's power of prophecy, either with* regard to Napoleon or -any other person or thing. To these 'I reply; ."Patience, perpend; I'll propend; and, anon, will produce : the pro oL" Meanwhile, let It be perfectly understood what is precisely.: meant • by ' prophecy . By prophecy -is- -meant' forecasting the future fate of men ..and . things and; matters mundane, coming within the ..scope and ' grasp of ; ; human : intellect. Such, prophesy docs not' concern it-, self w.Mh, . cabalistic ..■charlatanjs'm, mesmeric .-mystery. 'spiritualistic sub- . teri'jge, [ or- ' telega tljic/' trickery, but j simply with,' iihe probabilities of the future ajj '-they.,', a£ect -mankind, ' and are defltfcible rrpaii or preferable to actual c I rci. m stances and ascertained conditions- Mother -..Ship-ton,' Zad-l-ici or Taoses,' y/bether- prophesying j ncr medium -of' 'Shakespeare, Old • ■Moore's-.'-'Alm'snac, or the Bible, do not .conic , wij|^i_|U_..#ur, . a -S.pns}e_pli, .. of., a polTf iCffifyToflipt--' or r sbcial^ seer. ■■' '•■ •_•■''■«• * .-•'.'■■• ' PROPHETS TRUE* '- Our modem prophets concern themselves not with tilings celestial or infernal. They/ deal . not -with beings angelical- or,;! demoniacal ; and presume not tO - interpret to -man the ways oft-sternal God, or everlasting devil. v They simply see' and think, reflecting. raU'oii&l.y. and, pronouncing plausibly upon what they have seen end thought m. ."'.tlie' present. Their predictions, based .'on a comparison of past and nresenf?,-. from which are drawn deductions' "concerning the character aud conduct of men, and the- condition of the '; communities which they control. There is nothing oracular Or divine m their utterances, which are prompted and gi.idedby.the lirht of experience and i nouledge. There is no piety v cr presumption ". m their 'prophesying. Thc only inspiration they acknowledge is that conveyed' m the admonition of -Aristotle. "Man know thyself," and by the well-known saying -of the celebrated, French philosopher, Char ron, m his work, "On Wisdom ("De la Sagesse"), "La vraye science et le vray etude de I'homme, e'est. Thomme.'; These, two admirable . aphorisms, Pope has cleverly conjoined m the following couplet : "Know then thyself, presume . not God to scan • The proper study of 'mankind is man." . . i * ■ *. . • ' PAINE AS A PROPHET. Coming now to the proof of Pained i power of prophecy, as above defined, it is somewhat significant that men who criticise hie on the;; strength of their assumed acquaintance with Paine, and his life and writings, should challenge his. claim to be considered as a prophet. A moment's reflection on the matter must convince all ' impartial students of Paine's career, and of his contributions to the political and theological controversies of his centurv v that he is pre-emirfentlv entitled to a prominent place among the prophets of his time. - Paine is peculiarly the prophet of posterity. He not only predicted the •earanciipation of the human soul from the shackles of superstition, but he; with equal prescience, foretold the freeing of men's minds from the fetters of political bondage and social slavery. But Paine was something more than a Prophet ; he was a Pioneer whose labors on behalf of humanity did more than anything . else to promote and prepare the way for the realisation of his prophecies. In that errand triolosy of books, "Common Sense," "The Crisis," and "The Righls of Man," Paine both predicted and promoted■•' American Independence, the •French Revolution, and English Reform. America and France acknowledged, though they did not reward, his labors on their behalf ; Enclaml is yet to acknowledge the dei)th of her indebtedness to Paine for the larse me^ur© ■of political freedom which she at present enjoys, and is so soon td enlarge. In "The A fre of Reason," Paine played the part of Hercules in -cleansing the Augean staMe of relition free from tl-e'trs^rmcls i of theology, the ban of bigo*-'' and , tine- s*ti rma of superstition. Paine is one of tke InHuor-

talsof the World, the Inspired prophet of a New Heaven and a "New ! Earth, whose fit/ting monument can- ; not be made by hand * it has been erected m the heart of Humanity, where it will ever remain, to receive the worthy worship of ihe Emancipated Human Mind. N s ."■* ' ' - if PAINE ON NAPOLEON. . " • It is on the authority, of Walter I Savage Lan dor, that we have to regard -Paine' as the • most powerful prophet of his century."* This'- he proved himself to be concchung the most powerful and >vonderf ul man of all the centuries of' whom 'we have accurate knowledge. In his.-"lmae;i-_ nary ' Conversations," Landor attriibuted the following . . remarkable apj preciation of Napoleon, and the French . nation .-. to , Paine, whom he first met at the house of General Dum ouriez m Paris. : . '■( ' The Whole nation may be nia^e . as : enthus'iatic about a .salad as_ | about a constitution; about the color of a cockade, as about a Con- j su'l or a King. You will shortly • see the real^s.trepgt-h and figure ""orf r Bonaparte. He" is wilful, .headstrong, . ■proud , morose, presumptuous '.; he will .be guided no longer- ; he has • pulled the pad from his forehead, and will break his nose or bruise his .cranium against every table, chair, and brick m the room, until at last he must be sent to the hospital. In the light of subseouent events, this forecast assumes the aspect of prophecy. „-': • , .' : j * * •f- '*-.-*'■. ;-, ,'< j PAINE'S PRESCIENCE. \ That Paine did not regard Napoleon as being merely one, of thc many I military mediocrities or political pretenders, by whom France was numerically infested and politically impestered, and whose "little day" came "swift to its close," either oh thc guillotine, or m sudden oblivion, is proved by the following passage from Moncure Conway's "Life bf Thomas Paine" : Paine prophesies that Napoleon will make himself Emperor, and that by , his imtemperate use of power and thirst .of . dominion he will cause the people to "wish for their old kings, forgetting ■ what beasts they were}" • This was not a prophecy Csuoocted. after the event, because, as Moncure Conway points out, Landor, who has preserved this remarkable prophecy; to posterity— -to whom, m fact, Paine uttered it,, at /the house of General Dumourie?. ;in Paris— must have met" Paine m Paris m 1793 : "An interview with Paine at the house of'Dumouriez could only have occurred when the General was m Paris, m 1793." That Landor was not iii vent n*-- this prophecy, and palming it on to Paine ih order to ensure popular acceptance— that he was not perfidiously posing as Paine's prophetical proxy before posterity— is shown ; >v the- peculiarly -are Paineian pith anu point, the virile force and felicitous phrasing of the abovecited passages quoted from Landor's "Converstions" by Conway, m his "Life of Paine." Conway certifies tb the authenticity of t^he prophecy m his short, sharp, succinct style ; "Not even such an artist as Landor could invent the language- ascribed to Paine concerning the' French and Napoleon." "Vates nascitur, \non fit-;"— the prophet (like the. poet)' is born, not made. Nature, not study, must form poet and prophet alike. Learning and experience make wise, men ; but it is intuition and inspiration alone that can confer and confirm the gifts of poetry and pronhecy. » a « PAINE'S POWER AS A PROPAGANBIST. There never was a more powerful propagandist than Paine. Never m the hand of any other man, ancient or modern, was the pen proved to be so much mightier than the sword. Bulwer Lytton, who makes his "Richelieu" declare that, Beneath thc rule of men entirely great The pen is mightier than the sword, also makes his hero m the same play exclaim : Take away . the ' sword : States can be saved without it ; bring .the pen ! ... It is' the privilege of the poet, and ypxv cftai the practice of the his-

torian, who is often only : a clumsy imitator oi the uoet m prose, to ascribe to tlie characters. . of his , creation^ .-._ ths* - tltojughfciSj > -ttnfl .'- ,: ii fe^ei*4- : ■atit.es ... bf ; '^a^lici^ or 'later times than those m- which they "live, and move, and h&ve. Vtheir 'being." This is legitimate literary license. But there was . very .ylittlc done for modern liberty byxthe pen prior to the days of Voltaire;. Rousseau. Piclerot, andthe rest of the glorious -army of Encyclopedists. Their pens prospected,' planned, and partly pioneered, the path of' 'popular liberty..' what they commenced, Paine,. continued and completed A generation or more elapsed after -that m which Lytton's hero' is supposed .to eulogise the power of the pen over the sword. Before the pen really began to be the instrument of individual liberty, and of... tli© political and social salvation of States, the rule, of a Richelieu: had to be succeeded by that • of a King. The Great Cardinal, onh/s demise, ceded his power, to Mazarin. and Marie de Meflici, a. flagitious pair of Italian fornicators, who, , m their turn,, had to cede/it to Louis XIV., be Roi Soleil. . c . -» ' . » A CROWNED CUCKOLD. - ' This Grand Monardue was a contemptible compound of cuckold,: concupiscence, and. absurd assumption.- While he was breeding batches' of- bastards by ever- hiPh-born bawd or low-bred cocott©*. to whom? -v his. libidinous lust temporarily attached him, he w& s beinf '.'horned" by that; .pious, prostitute and.. stale strumpet,' Madame de Mainteno.n, ' tho wife- of : the bed-ridden poet Scarron. It was' tbis. contcmpti.Jle erowne'd cuckold i who, while being' bilked m his 'own J bed, and bossed , by a, bed-ridden-' bard-'s bawd, and cuckold -by' 'every cocotte who _ caught his feculent, ! feverish fa,ncy," claimed, as a ri^lvti divine", to rule the nation— to dohu-'l nate,* decimate 'and devastate -by ;dis- ; astrjous warf^-thc Fren'eb;na'tioi.:' .He.-! it wfl s' who' stalked into the "Par- ! "lenient de Paris," m riding costume, j •'aiid, ,•: arrogantly - ftiddfig liis""" •jafclt* boots with his riding whin, declared,; .. "L'etat, ' Ves.t '.moi :!'"■; "I iaim' th.*) State ! " And" to a p re i Cy pass' tills' "cuckold of courtesans brought the State. He, by his wanton, wasteful' wars, prepared the way 'for thc Revolution. The work which he had so well begun v/as comnletcd by' his successor, Louis XV. . "the W.ellBelOved," whose chief claims to infamy, are that he. was the projector of the ' 'Pare aux Cerfs," a per- i manent pen or paddock for prostitu- i tes, at the Trianon, s in the Royal i Park of Versailles. It was under his reign that Prance lost Canada . and her other colonies. This lecher died of a dirty disease that was- decently described as^ small-nox. These .were the predecessors nf the stupid Louis XVI. and his sluttish spouse, Marie Antoinette, whose useless heads wpre cruelly chopped ofi by an outraged democracy, which punished 'm their persons the crimes of their even guiltier and more pontic predecessors. •'» c . PAINE'S TASK. It was against the political apathy and the moral abasement, the. tolcr^ aticn of thd brutalities and bestialities, the arrogant assumptions, and awful oppressions cf these crowned concupiscences, that "The Right • of Man" had to make headway. By "Common Sense" and "Tlie Crisis," Pahie had .prepared the way m America. ' Frenchmen did hot conceive- the Revolution, as had the Americans : they were imitators.. They had assisted America by force of arms to become free ; but they knew not how to free France from even more terrible tyranny. They could save others, but themselves they could riot save, until America had shown them the way. Americans and Frenchmen having revolted, and released themselves from the dcm*ading despotism of kings, vi'ho claimed to rule by Divine Right, -Englishmen began to be restive and -agitate for reformation or revolution • one :or the other— preferably both. The part played by Paine m arousing his own countrymen m England out of their boorish, besotted apathy, has already been noticed. c « • PAINE AND BURKE.

In referring to Paine's controversy with that masked Irish pensioner, Edmund Burke, hired by George 111., and that port-wine, pork-nied :.rodigy Pitt le Petit, the Little Pitt (as a French pamphleteer of the day christened him, when comparing him with his father, the Great Commoner), it was shown how he sought to decry tlie French Revolution and to malitrn thc Revolutionists. - Not only did this hired Hibernian helot and bathetic boodler, Burke, do this, but he prostituted the pen to the putrid purposes of praising the "graces" and "virtues" of such a graceless gambler and shameless, strumpet as Marie Antionette. Paine, m "The Rights of Man." made short work of this "sublime and beautiful" barrackcr for bawds and boodle. The effect of tlie publication of that immortal, iconoclastic work was as sudden and sweeping as it was lasting and -salutary. It aroused the masses— the v lower mid-dle-class and the half-starved wageearners of England— to a determination to demand reform, and, if need

be, to obtain it by revolution m .imitation of Americans and FrenchmefoOii*o'L^ ■>■■■■ -r-^ ■■■ytiit'XXVvjO- 1 :' ;>iv*-i — >^''o£\r : - : 3>Vw o*y?l£fyVO'jt PAINE'S yPOIjITiCAL' MATERIAL.

Unfortunately, . Paine '' had poor material to- work upon.: ■ Englishmen of that day— th'e oppressed 'rh aj or ity— were, too starved and -superstitious ,to work-out thoir own salvation. Their ignorance, aiid the insular position of "".their, country, made them "apd maintained them a- degraded, -diffident, people, ■desirous, but * incapable, of ' stretching hands across the narrow seas to • join bands with the Friends; of : /(Freedom v m France, although Paine had already, pointed out .the", way. The degenerate, duped\ desppedj' jdemocracv,. of those dark ■day4^^E4g)an(l only succeeded m j getting^ a ,v . gjlimpse of Political Free- j dom')/.// Like Moses, \ they paid the ; penalty of •• their distrust and di'fii- j dence, by dying 'without -being permitted to e'nter>tlie Promised Land. They died, leaving to' nosterity a .protracted and, pa inf iii -political struggle- to he waged fi^bfbii&.i.*: 'The .Rights Of Man. ;in .Ehglaiid^were eve.ii recognised: '.. .Instead;; of 'achieving -them- for themselves" by.oiie bold revolutionary stroke, 1 m .the "Libbrtv 'or' : -Death" spirit which "animated 'the Americans and Frenchmen;, of .'that-, day, ; tliey per-i .rnitted 'themfeelv.es to ; ' be -c&icled by promises and !. choused "by. eomprom-; ises. . ■';' ■ "' . '• . ; • L ..: ■' • o, : oO- '.'• , ■' ■•; • .-.,.. ."'•••, '■■''•' _V_- -vVv ■ THE DAYS' OF''MIN&. : AND DIS- .- .-■_ o .:-.;V.-;iiA;ftLT-. : ;'-'- ■•■■'■:. ■The "result , of this. ; criminp.l com-^ pliance - . '.w.iillh _" • custom --and cowardly; complaisance- to vZai;d .-tyranny, .has' .been to leave, England. wv_ci:e and •.what-' .she is. to-day; theVmarionette ot •iiiiportefT"' alien 'moh.-irfihy ■ -''.which is al;.tcruately- manipulated. :hv YvMiig plu- ' i tdcratsV- and" Tdrv arii'to'efats . resj pectivcly led. hy a .G-la'dstojic- or a j-Roricbery, • a- ,I>eri_v or- a .Disraeli. "Sic semper Vsvcophanta-"3 !" Fancy;the- blu£H]}iooded; ; - aristocracy^ of -Old inJiiglan'd -'" - b era g' discipline-d., ' . 'drilled , .MSXX? d . v '*>y;.aa^j&%',^^ v'f.dly 'despi.seiF .suelf^'aespicabrs-' dc-sra-erates. -.'■'.' Sharps;; -vof ,;. Langton, Mont-fort, •FortesOue/ Morton,, x Moore,. Wolsev,-' Raleigh, 'Burleigh. Essex," and ' Cromwell,! What an ' ineffable, inexpiable shame ! v ,.y But what shall be said for ""those -.b01d,, bad, blatant, beefy, .beery boys '"■ of y the bull-dog breed ' who^in .. this . oliinc- at ' aerate—"clime 1 to have raide old England's cime," who. adore "Dizzy"and his dubious,, desperate... doinn-s and make of his name .and memory a' s fetish. ■'./; Haft' Paine '■' been alive m '''Dizzy's" day, his nen , wox.ld nrobably'have put:, -that- 1 "Asian Mystery promptly 'and painlessly out of his misery. .... .«;■- --■' • v '• •'■"'• « . PAINE PROSCRIBED. Despite .the debasement and degeneracy of his coiintrvmen. Paine did much to arouse them to a truc^ensc of their wrongs and rights. He succeeded an -stirring up," such an agitation that/ a revolution was feared. This is shown by the - cowardly conduct of the authorit es;-toward him. Like .-all' tyrants, they 'tried to nuiii sh "the champion of popular freedom •by putting him m prison as "being a . wicked, .'malicious,'- seditious, and ill— disposed person." Royal proclamations against' seditious writings wore put forth . maiTi;ly r 'against "Tho Rights of- Man';" and for the purpose of silencing Paine. Although Paine was prepared tor stand his ground against Pitt and -his prosecutions, he' accedpd 'to- the request of his friends to avoid .ftrrcst; the more readily that he had just been elected by no less'- thatv-; three "Departments", a Member, of ihe •French Cour vtntion; and one of them across the Channel, the Pas de Calais, was calling upon him to come over and .take his seat. He did so ; and. m doing so he served Humanity better than he could have done by rotting m an English prison, or as au exile transported to Australia to slave m the Chain Gang of Botany Bay. * * ■ ■ a PAINE'S POWER. Paine was prosecuted, found guilty by a loyal, packed . jiirv, and outlawed, m his absence. His outlawry >vus a tribue to the power of the I>en. With it he not only pioneered the path of freedom for America and France m his own day, but he prepared the minds of Enelishmen for those sacred ( seeds of sedition from which divine 1 discontent snrings, and without which no revolution or reform was ever wrought. Englishmen would have placed him m a felop's cell, to rot and die. Frenchmen -enthroned him m the : Convention as one of the friends of French freedom, and the chief amoncr 'her constitution makers. Politicians might projsecute, prelates persecute, and the j moi. malign, but Paine's nowcr was , felt over all. He accomplished much Un the present, and prophesied much [more for the future. He was "i:eI eminently a pioneer-prophet, and had [the neculiar fclicitv of seeine; some of his prophesies realised m his lifetime, and of liviriG. long enough to •certainly know that the future would see all his principal predictions f nl— , filled— as, indeed, they have been m | a most signal manner. The existence lof thc tv.*o great Republics of: France and America, the gathering storm of ■ intelligent insurrection, airainst noli-r tical prescription and proscrintion, 'and the rumblings of rational revolt

'against social savagery and superstitip.us ...sh^ver.jr ; - ar© . the '•''. ■ihbnuatients?.'---6f Paihe's power ': as ,. __ publicist ani his Jiresejiehce as 4 prophet/- Of him, as of all iconoclastic innovators, it may truly be said : Never yet Share of truth was vainly set, . -Ih the world's wide fallow ■ After harids have sown the seed, . Other hands from .Hill and mead Reap the harvest- yellow. S.S; "Mongol ieS'ky \ -O ■ (At sea), , ..-.'■ Suridav. Feb. 3, 1907,