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The Word (Princeton, Mass.), October:2
The Union Reform League, Third Annual ConventionThe Union Reform League.
Its Third Annual Convention met in the Town Hall, Princeton, August 28, 29, 30; Stephen Pearl Andrews presided, made the opening speech, and offered the following series of resolutions on Science:
Resolved, That the discovery of the facts of any subject, and of their laws and principles constitutes the science of that subject.
Resolved, That we are, in this age, in the midst of the evolution of the newest and highest of the sciences, namely, the Science of Man (Anthropology), and especially of collective Man (Sociology), and that this last, the science of Society, is now sufficiently unfolded for it to begin to be understood by the people.
Resolved, That, from now on, Reform should, more and more, cease to be merely iconoclasm, aspiration, agitation, and blind experiment, and should, more and more, become scientific, systematic, and constructive, replacing old and defective conditions and institutions by new and superior ones; under the guidance of the best knowledge and the wisest direction which society can, at any given period, command.
Resolved, That while individuality and the Sovereignty of the Individual (and hence, in the etymological sense, anarchy) must be the basis of all future social constructions, that a basis or foundation is not the complete edifice, and that future society must and will be the aggregate of all such beneficent arrangements and institutions of social order as shall prove to be the fitting erection of the Temple of Humanity—in a word, the Pantarchy.
Resolved, That Union Reform is the legitimate vestibule to the Pantarchal Edifice, for the organization of which specific movement we are chiefly indebted to Mr. and Mrs. Heywood, while they, in turn, credit the first public suggestion of it to the venerable seer and leader of Practical Spiritualism, John M. Spear.
Resolved, While all the sciences constitute a grand pyramid, of which Mathematics is the basis and Sociology the apex, as shown by Auguste Comte, the founder of “Positivism,” with further elaboration by Thaddeus B. Wakeman, that the appropriate name for the whole pyramid and especially for the discovery that the same laws and principles rule through it, from mudsill to capstone, making all sciences into one science, is Universology, or the Science of the Universe.
Resolved, That it results that the study of Sociology necessarily rests upon the study of Universology; or the right knowledge of Society, upon the right knowledge of the world at large.
Resolved, That every science must have its own complement of technicalities; that is to say, of accurately defined scientific terms, to prevent confusion and error in the use of words and the communication of ideas; that technicalities in science are precisely what tools, instruments and machinery are in work; and that the unlearned and unskilled, if they would be taken into intellectual and practical partnership with the learned and skilled, must conquer their prejudice against technicalities, and come to delight in them, as the only means of handling big masses of thought, as derricks and enginery enable us to handle big masses of matter.
Resolved, That Alwato, the universal scientific language, is, at bottom, the universal body of the technicalities of all the sciences and arts, and is absolutely essential to the best method of presenting or teaching them; and that, consequently, the people should begin, at once, to gain some apprehension of the new language and its limitless capacity for expressing and also for exciting thoughts as illustrated in the following resolutions.
Resolved, That Evolution (the great word in science at the present day) is of two kinds: first, Evolution in Time, or the successive periods of existence, also called Continuity, or the Continuity of Being (History); and secondly, Evolution in Space, the description of the world at any one time, its departments, branches, &c.; also called Solidarity, or the Solidarity of Being.
Resolved, The sound l, signifying elongation, slowness, dullness, long periods and distances, &c., and the sound of the trill r meaning the opposite idea, namely, brokenness and therefore shortness, quick repetitions, rapidity, energy, short periods and distances; that the combination lr is the natural and appropriate one to denote volution, rotation, &c., (or, for the present purpose, we may say e-volution)—similar analysis of other sounds furnishing along with this combination the new word lrauio (pronounced l rah oo-ee-o) for this idea (evolution); that ulrauio then means Evolution in Time, or Continuity, and olrauio Evolution in Space, or Solidarity; that bolrauio then means the mundane world or sphere of evolution; that holrauio means the breathy or spirit-world or sphere of evolution; that yolrauio means any single world, one at a time; and that wolrauio means two worlds or systems of evolution, compared, or collateral to each other, &c.
Resolved, That the rallying cry recently adopted by positivists, materialists, physicists, &c. of “One world at a time,” to excuse themselves from all attention to spiritist phenomena is unphilosophical (except for temporizing purposes, which may be justifiable) and, if there are more worlds than one, as unwise as would be the conduct of a charioteer when driving a team of two or more horses in the dark, should resort for safety to the plan of guiding one horse only, and who pulling upon one rein continuously, should move in a circle, with no genuine progress.
Resolved, That the teachers and leaders of mankind are the charioteers of the world, somewhat in the dark, and that it behooves them to know, as far as may be, from all indications, how many worlds there really are, involved in the complex web of human destiny, and how to conduct themselves with reference to the possible conjunction of different worlds.
Resolved, That there are noteworthy indications that the team which they are required (in a modified sense) to drive is at least a span—the mundane and spiritual, with perhaps a tandem or third world—the eternal soul world—in advance of both; and that it is the business of science to settle these fundamental questions by attention, in part to all phenomena and indications of fact, and in part through the analogies of Universology, as the final umpire, in the intellectual sphere, for all conceivable spheres of Being.
Mr. Andrews offered the following special Resolutions on Obscenity:
Resolved, That precisely in the spirit of the utterances quoted by Dr. Swain, from my early Discussion with Horace Greeley and Henry James on Love, Marriage and Divorce, (see appendix) Mrs. Heywood has been irresistibly propelled by a genuine inspiration to rebuke, in the most radical and effective way, by the audacious use, in utter and genuine purity, on her part, of so-called vulgar words and phrases the pretentions and false or bogus virtue, the prurient fastidiousness and the hypocritical and insulting claim of purity of the “grand” world of fashionable snobs, on the one hand, and of the unco guid on the other hand, who, as she sees clairvoyantly, actually live in, continually think of, and revel, both ideally and practically, in the practice of the things, the names of which must never soil their delicate or saintly lips; and that she has had a true mission laid upon her, for which she is entitled to all honor, to expose the rotten hypocrites of society to themselves and to others, by naming for their ears, offensively and ad nauseum, those very acts and objects, in which and with which, as realities, their minds are habitually versed and associated.
Resolved, That words which have become degraded by vulgar associations need to be redeemed in the same manner as unfortunate people do, who have fallen into bad habits of all kinds, namely, by being washed clean, lifted into better society and dedicated to clean and useful occupations; and that the only way of escaping obscenity, in words, will be so to purify all words that there shall remain no possibility of expressing obscene ideas; or, otherwise, since “to the pure all things are pure,” that if our ideas are wholly purified, there can be no place in language for words which shall not be also pure; since, again, words are the signs merely of our ideas.
Resolved, That since there is no obscenity in Nature, no obscenity in science, and no obscenity in art, there seems to be no place left for obscenity, but in the defilement of our own imaginations; and that, therefore, when our thoughts and imaginations are freshened to the naturalness of nature, used to the clean-cut precision of science, and to the gracious sweetness of artistic beauty, obscenity will cease to exist among us; in other words, that obscenity is mainly to be sought for and found in the minds of the very persons who complain of its existence.
A friend gave this true view of Free Rum:
Resolved, That since compulsive statutes invade Natural Rights, increase taxation, produce criminals, courts, jails, and are hostile to personal virtue and public morality, we seek the repeal of all license and prohibitory liquor laws.
Mr. Andrews, A. H. Wood, J. H. Swain, Angela T. Heywood, Lyman A. Wiley, A. D. Wheeler, E. H. Heywood, L. K. Joslin, Henry Appleton, and others addressed the Convention; messages were received from John M. Spear, Moses and Mattie Hull, E. C. Walker, Juliet H. Severance, Col. J. H. Blood, Dr. B. F. Clarke, R. W. Hume, Mrs. E. M. Beckwith, Mrs. A. C. McDonald, C. M. A. Twitchell, A. Briggs Davis, E. M. Davis, Dr. E. B. Foote, Frank Howard, Anna M. Twiss.
The following are the officers this year: President, Mr. Andrews of New York Pantarch; Vice Presidents, L. K. Joslin, J. H. Swain, A. H. Wood, Lucy M. Tilton, L. A. Wiley, Mass.; E. C. Walker, Ia.; Juliet H. Severance, Wis.; John M. Spear, Jay Chaapel, Pa.; Martha Williams, Conn.; Frank Howard, Texas; W. N. Slocum, Cal.; Secretary, E. H. Heywood; Treasurer, Henry N. Stone; Executive Committee, Josephine R. Stone, E. W. Stuart, M. A. Warren, Angela T. Heywood, Mary S. Dike, A. D. Wheeler, E. H. Heywood.
Though not largely attended, it was, as Mr. Andrews said, “a great Convention” in ideas, purposes and consolidating power; its nine sessions all doing wholesome work on great problems of Life; the subtle principles of associative philosophy receiving due attention, while free interchange of opinion found members of the League unanimously favoring the following practical measures of reform, viz.: Woman Suffrage; repeal of obscenity statutes and all other restrictions on thought and speech; a new cosmopolitan language; abolition of poll-tax qualifications for voting; repeal of license and prohibitory liquor laws; repeal of laws taxing citizens to support war, or compelling them to do military service; abolition of land and money monopolies, and removal of all other restrictions on production and exchange. The vicious and antagonisms and restrictive policies, too prevalent among reformers, were discouraged and liberation favored as the natural method of improvement in all phases of growth. Among the new persons attending, all were glad to see Messrs. Fisher of N. H., Joslin and Reynolds of R. I. and Sparrell of West Groton, Mass. Guests at the hotels, from distant cities and states, were enjoying their brief sojourn in the realm of Ideas on Princeton Heights; the Union Reformers, quickened by clearer views of Truth and fresh vigor for Service, returned to their varied and distant fields of activity, to meet again next year.