heartless have ensnared and enslaved the simple and innocent, and
nowhere, in all the annals of mankind, has any god succored the
oppressed.

Man should cease to expect aid from on high. By this time he should
know that heaven has no ear to hear, and no hand to help. The present is
the necessary child of all the past. There has been no chance, and
there can be no interference.

If abuses are destroyed, man must destroy them. If slaves are freed,
man must free them. If new truths are discovered, man must discover
them. If the naked are clothed; if the hungry are fed; if justice is
done; if labor is rewarded; if superstition is driven from the mind,
if the defenseless are protected, and if the right finally triumphs, all
must be the work of man. The grand victories of the future must be won
by man, and by man alone.

Nature, so far as we can discern, without passion and without intention,
forms, transforms, and retransforms forever. She neither weeps nor
rejoices. She produces man without purpose, and obliterates him without
regret. She knows no distinction between the beneficial and the
hurtful. Poison and nutrition, pain and joy, life and death, smiles and
tears are alike to her. She is neither merciful nor cruel. She cannot
be flattered by worship nor melted by tears. She does not know even the
attitude of prayer. She appreciates no difference between poison in the
fangs of snakes and mercy in the hearts of men. Only through man does
nature take cognizance of the good, the true, and the beautiful; and,
so far as we know, man is the highest intelligence.

And yet man continues to believe that there is some power independent of