The progress of humanity has been like that of an individual
climbing the paths of a steep mountain. At every turn there are
fresh dangers and difficulties to be overcome, fresh
complications for which the traveler is prepared only by his
courage and determination.
But every step takes the traveler higher up, out of the dark
valley, toward the light at the top, and every danger overcome
makes it easier to deal with the dangers to follow.
In its long fight the human race has encountered many enemies.
At one time in Europe one single epidemic destroyed half of
all the population. But we have struggled on; through science we
have almost conquered disease, and the plagues of the past are
unknown among us.
In olden times brutal superstition, disguised as religion,
dwarfed men's minds, punishing, with atrocious cruelty, the crime
of independent thought and apparently making impossible any
mental growth in the face of bigotry and monstrous persecutions.
But to-day bigotry begins to give place to true religion; the
burning alive and protracted torture which disgraced all the
religions of Europe until recently have ceased, probably forever.
Mankind in its travels has progressed as far as the stage of
independent thought. If a creature still lives that would take
the life of another because that other thinks differently from
himself he dares not confess his criminal thought.
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