Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Stephen Pearl Andrews hits it right on the nose

"There are mainly three ways of effecting changes in human habits: first, maternal force directly applied; secondly, legislative injunction or prohibition, with its moral sway first exerted and then backed by an ulterior appeal to force; and, thirdly, what is loosely named and conceived of at present as moral suasion.  This last subdivides, however, into, first, mere unorganized, unscientific and individual appeal, and, secondly, scientifically-founded opinion taught and morally enforced through a competent special organization to that effect."

"Let science decide on and distinctly define what ought to be; let, then, the religious sentiment of mankind, the most universal and powerful of our sentiments, be converged on the persuasion and conscientious devotion of the whole people in behalf of the truth so defined; and let the Church be re-organized into the potent instrument for so converging the religion of the world upon that conduct, the necessity or desirableness of which science may have determined.
Religion is able, to-day, to keep millions of ignorant men and women from eating meat on Friday."

This of course leads to the prediction of cloning:
“Desirable as it might be to see the programme of Mr. Andrews carried out, we have no faith in its voluntary adoption. If it be deemed advantageous to stirpicultivate the human race up to the highest point of physical and mental excellence, it is folly to rely on moral suasion. Surgery is surer. If man and woman are to be bred like [sic] the farmer breeds cattle, then we must deal with our scrub men as the farmer deals with his scrub pigs. If the question were left open, every man would deem himself “physically and mentally” qualified for the work of improving the stock, whatever he might think of his neighbor.”

http://www.spirithistory.com/stirps.html for more

Great stuff, really

1 comment:

dannyras said...

I love how we're bloggers now. hehe