The essence of religion is inertia; the essence of science is change. It is the function of the one to preserve, it is the function of the other to improve. If, as in Egypt, they are firmly chained together, either… — William Winwood Reade Copy Share Image
The philosophic spirit of inquiry may be traced to brute curiosity, and that to the habit of examining all things in search of food.… — William Winwood Reade Copy Share Image
And then, the Earth being small, mankind will migrate into space, and will cross the airless Saharas which separate planet from planet and sun… — William Winwood Reade Copy Share Image
Reade was an emancipating writer because he seemed to speak as man to man to resolve history into an intelligible pattern in which there… — William Winwood Reade Copy Share Image
What a state of society is this in which freethinker is a term of abuse, and in which doubt is regarded as sin? — William Winwood Reade Copy Share Image
If Christianity were true religious persecution would become a pious and charitable duty: if God designs to punish men for their opinions it would be an act of mercy to mankind to extinguish such opinions. By burning the bodies of those who diffuse them many souls would be saved that would otherwise be lost, and so there would be an… — William Winwood Reade Copy Share
Open the book of universal history at what period we may, it is always the India trade which is the cause of internal industry… — William Winwood Reade Copy Share Image
It is a sure criterion of the civilisation of ancient Egypt that the soldiers did not carry arms except on duty, and that the… — William Winwood Reade Copy Share Image
A day will come when the European god of the nineteenth century will be classed with the gods of Olympus and the Nile. — William Winwood Reade Copy Share Image
To cultivate the intellect is therefore a religious duty; and when this truth is fairly recognized by men, the religion which teaches that the… — William Winwood Reade Copy Share Image
Christians believe themselves to be the aristocracy of heaven upon earth, they are admitted to the spiritual court, while millions of men in foreign… — William Winwood Reade Copy Share Image
As a single atom man is an enigma: as a whole he is a mathematical problem. As an individual he is a free agent,… — William Winwood Reade Copy Share Image
