The freethinkers' manual Author:John Baur Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: THE FOUNDING OP THE KINGDOMS. LEAVING the Jews aside for a moment we will now begin to develop the natural system. We must first of all remember that the prim... more »itive men, descendants of the woolly ape and another species of the ape family, lived in tribes more or less numerous, having as their chief and commander the most robust and hearty of their tribe. Later they chose the most sage and prudent. But as soon as they came to believe in spectres and spirits the choice of the chiefs was confided to men calling themselves the friends of the spirits. Later the spirits were changed into idols and gods. About this time the chiefs began to use a trick which even to-day is successful in Europe and Asia; that is to say they claimed to be the friends and representatives of God and that they alone could choose a good chief and commander. In this way they gradually arrived at the point of dynasties "by the grace of God," and then they began to make conquests in foreign countries to increase the number of their so-called " subjects." Thus the free man was changed into a " subject" who only had the right to hold his tongue or to hang himself. Notwithstanding this slavery, the " subjects " called their kings and tyrants sometimes by glorious names, such as the " Great," the " Conqueror," or by ridiculous nicknames. In fact there can be no " grace of God," because there is no such thing; countries must therefore be governed by the community, choosing their chiefs in accordance with the natural or artificial development of the land and the greater or less wisdom of the free man and woman. It is clear that the welfare of every nation and of the human race in general must be the foremost principle of every government. But it is still clearer that the most able and disinterested of t...« less