Gerald Massey's Lectures - Society in evolution - Awardspace

eighteen centuries, but the ignorant believers in it as a book of revelation have tried to
strangle every science at its birth. There could be and was but little or no progress in
astronomy, geology, biology, or sociology until its teachings were rejected by the more
enlightened among men--the free thinkers and demonstrators of the facts. The progress
has been in proportion to the repudiation; and, for myself, the nearer I draw towards
death the more earnestly--nay, vengefully--do I resent the false teachings that have
embittered my life--not for myself only, but more for others, and most of all for the
children. Remember, the education of English children to-day is chiefly in the hands of
the orthodox teachers, who still give the Bible all the preference over nature and science,
and who will go on deluding the innocent little ones as long as ever they are paid or
permitted to do so. But what a dastardly shame it is for us to allow the children to be
taught that which we know to be false, or do not ourselves believe to be true! The present
calls upon you with an appealing voice to protect the unborn future against this terrible
tyranny of the past. Do not any longer let the winding-sheet of death be the swaddlingbands
put on the helpless little ones for life at their intellectual birth. It is appalling to
think of the populations that have already passed on victimized, the lives that have been
wrecked, the brains that have been bruised, and the hearts broken of those who have
dashed themselves against these barriers to human progress and the freedom of thought,
which were ignorantly erected and then made sacred in the name of God, by means of
this Hebrew Book of the Beginnings; in short, by a literalisation of mythology.
That should inspire one effort more,
Mightier than any made before.
The barrier-wall at last shall fall;
The future must be free for all!