Frances Wright

Man has been adjudged a social animal.

Our religious belief usurps the place of our sensations, our imaginations of our judgment. We no longer look to actions, trace their consequences, and then deduce the rule; we first make the rule, and then, right or wrong, force the action to square with it.

Know why you believe, understand what you believe, and possess a reason for the faith that is in you.

A necessary consequent of religious belief is the attaching ideas of merit to that belief, and of demerit to its absence.

Surely it is time to examine into the meaning of words and the nature of things, and to arrive at simple facts, not received upon the dictum of learned authorities, but upon attentive personal observation of what is passing around us.

Look into the nature of things. Search out the grounds of your opinions, the for and against.

All that I say is, examine, inquire. Look into the nature of things. Search out the grounds of your opinions, the for and against. Know why you believe, understand what you believe, and possess a reason for the faith that is in you.

Speak of change, and the world is in alarm. And yet where do we not see change?

If they exert it not for good, they will for evil; if they advance not knowledge, they will perpetuate ignorance.

But while human liberty has engaged the attention of the enlightened, and enlisted the feelings of the generous of all civilized nations, may we not enquire if this liberty has been rightly understood?

We have seen that no religion stands on the basis of things known; none bounds its horizon within the field of human observation; and, therefore, as it can never present us with indisputable facts, so must it ever be at once a source of error and contention.

These will vary in every human being; but knowledge is the same for every mind, and every mind may and ought to be trained to receive it.