The Dallas daily herald. [volume] (Dallas, Tex.) 1873-1887, 1881-10-30

tlIut ItiuoTSc 81 luFklSu woman VINO mas
committed the objectionable crime of ex-
posing her face to the public gaze, a crime
equal to that of murder in America; the
Chinaman who suicides by hari-kari for an
insult offered him by some Que the Ben
galese who, in similar folly, brushes himself
under the car of Jaggernaut, are all defensi
bic, yea, commendable acts. The con
science of Turkey and India APP
proves as right, polygamy, but
the English conscience makes it mortal
sin. The conscience of one age is not that
ofanother the moral faculty of Plato and
Aristotle, endorses, as marriages, for in
stance, what we of to-day look upon
with adherence. If on the other hand con-
science is wholly due to education, as it
would seem ii those positions be correct,
there being nothing natural, nothing
primitive in these feelings of right and
wrong, and they being the dictates of self
interest or sympathy, then we have other
results, which we may call the pruden-
lial. Amy action which incites our dsap-
probation flows from wounded selfinterest
or the putting Of another to pain, and in
spires to resentment or punishment.
Now, an action that becomes thus
associated with punishment, with
degradation, leads by the operation of the
association of ideas to feelings of aversion;
then comes disinterested repugnancc to it.
TiN
comes the law, and thus we have another
view of the reason to be assigned
why an action is right or is wrong.
Hence, see in that one question alone
of perception as relates to exter-
nal or objective realities, or to the
internal and subjective states, how much
we are at sea, the sea of doubt, the sport ofits
troubled waves under the breath of conflict
ing philosophers; and there comes to us, the
exploring mariners fromthe shore-line ofin-
quiry, no rainbow of hope to fling its cheer
ing arch across the limitless expanse and
preside in beauty at the retreating tempest
OF the storm-tosscd mind as helpless with
out faith as q Persian soufi,
as wretched as an Indian mount
Who, then shall undertake to answer any
of these questions with contemptous smile
ut their seeming simplicity
by ignorance is soothing pride increased
Always they most assume who know the least,
While knowledge like the lunar beam Affords
Light but not heat and careful, modest words"
This is an age of progress, day of free
dom, and not Of procrustean creeds, spirit
sitting, and Chinese foot-bandages.
We are growing and room must
be permitted Tor the due expansion
or n disastrous bursting will be upon us.
AS some writer expresses it, the question
about the barrel is not how many hoops it
has or how much moss they have gathered,
but whether it will hold water. No, no, let
| freedom Of honest thought and freedom of
honest expression, no matter how errone-
Gus, in our judgments, or. whether they be
of religious or political or other nature and
complexion, be as untrammeled as the
brcc2es Let government never interfere
in all this matter The cradle of human
liberty was first unexpectedly rocked by
the kick of tyraut, and the car of progress
was set in motion by the hot brcathings OF
religious intolerance More the velocity
of its advance be stayed by the cxpedients
of prejudice or arrested by the tolls that
are imposed at the gates of utterancc, or the
threats of the sleepless sentinel spy at the
citadel of thought. The little spark that set
on frethc papers of Copernicus, Bruno and
Calico because they respectively asserted
| the "blasphemes" that the world moved
that it was round, and that there were other
worlds than ours, lit the whole horizon
of thought until, like an avonging phTniy
from the irowning base, where one of those
men was burned for his "heresy,"
arose Il flame that while it enlightened the
world, engulGed those who ordered the act
We have put forth these things not to ex.
press any opinions or belief OF our own on
the vcXcd questions but merely to show
that when so many matters apparently SO
clear to some arc involved in doubt, that
we should be liberal and generous in our
actions toward any and all who may dis
agree with us. The teachings of Him cru.
Gifted that have stood the assaults of eighteen
centuries need have no fear of detrimental
results, unless those who claim to espouse
them are guilty of the folly of the at.
tempted intolerant suppression of others
| -te-
WANTED, A UNION DEPOT.