Author: | Victoria Claflin Woodhull | ISBN: | 9781465581112 |
Publisher: | Library of Alexandria | Publication: | March 8, 2015 |
Imprint: | Language: | English |
Author: | Victoria Claflin Woodhull |
ISBN: | 9781465581112 |
Publisher: | Library of Alexandria |
Publication: | March 8, 2015 |
Imprint: | |
Language: | English |
MOST of the ideas which permeate our social, religious, and political institutions of to-day arise from misconceptions of the human body. These institutions which are the outcome of civilization define laws to regulate and control the actions of human beings; and yet, the proper understanding of the growth and development of man individually was, and is, considered of secondary importance in adjusting these laws. My philosophy has been on the lines of Aristotle, "The nature of everything is best seen in its smallest portions." My efforts were for the individual or ontogenic development of humanity as the only basis upon which to frame any laws--that by understanding and giving the proper attention to this the quality of the whole must of necessity ultimately reach a higher standard. And as the influence of woman is vital, no advance could be made until the co-operation of woman was properly understood and insisted upon as essential to any ideal society, to any true realization of religion, to any perfect government. Active not passive aid is what I demanded from woman. She must be appreciated as the architect of the human race. Men are what their mothers make them. Their intelligence or ignorance has the power to teach them to revere or desecrate womanhood. Night after night throughout the United States I pleaded for the intellectual emancipation and the redemption of womanhood from sexual slavery--insisting that social evils could only be eliminated by making your daughters the peers of your sons--that the greatness of a nation depends upon its mothers. I denounced as criminal the ignorant marriages which were filling the world with their hereditary consequences of woe, shame, and every manner of crime. The theme of my public work was that I would make it a criminal offence to allow persons to marry in ignorance of parental responsibility. I realized that the Bible was little understood, but had in it the germ of a great and divine truth--that is the redemption of the body. A part of this truth regarding the "Garden of Eden," &c., I gave in my extemporaneous lectures. It was afterwards put into consecutive biblical articles and pamphlets. I did not then give the whole truth with which my soul had become illuminated; for I knew the fulness of time was not yet. I considered the work I was then doing as a necessary part of the evolution of thought--as initiatory to my reformatory work. In a book that I am at present writing, it is my intention to give the entire truth of all Bibles, which was only partially understood by primeval religious sects through their ignorance of the phenomena of life. V. C. W. M., 17, Hyde Park Gate, London. "BUT IN THE DAYS OF THE VOICE OF THE SEVENTH ANGEL, WHEN BE SHALL BEGIN TO SOUND, THE MYSTERY OF GOD SHALL BE FINISHED."
MOST of the ideas which permeate our social, religious, and political institutions of to-day arise from misconceptions of the human body. These institutions which are the outcome of civilization define laws to regulate and control the actions of human beings; and yet, the proper understanding of the growth and development of man individually was, and is, considered of secondary importance in adjusting these laws. My philosophy has been on the lines of Aristotle, "The nature of everything is best seen in its smallest portions." My efforts were for the individual or ontogenic development of humanity as the only basis upon which to frame any laws--that by understanding and giving the proper attention to this the quality of the whole must of necessity ultimately reach a higher standard. And as the influence of woman is vital, no advance could be made until the co-operation of woman was properly understood and insisted upon as essential to any ideal society, to any true realization of religion, to any perfect government. Active not passive aid is what I demanded from woman. She must be appreciated as the architect of the human race. Men are what their mothers make them. Their intelligence or ignorance has the power to teach them to revere or desecrate womanhood. Night after night throughout the United States I pleaded for the intellectual emancipation and the redemption of womanhood from sexual slavery--insisting that social evils could only be eliminated by making your daughters the peers of your sons--that the greatness of a nation depends upon its mothers. I denounced as criminal the ignorant marriages which were filling the world with their hereditary consequences of woe, shame, and every manner of crime. The theme of my public work was that I would make it a criminal offence to allow persons to marry in ignorance of parental responsibility. I realized that the Bible was little understood, but had in it the germ of a great and divine truth--that is the redemption of the body. A part of this truth regarding the "Garden of Eden," &c., I gave in my extemporaneous lectures. It was afterwards put into consecutive biblical articles and pamphlets. I did not then give the whole truth with which my soul had become illuminated; for I knew the fulness of time was not yet. I considered the work I was then doing as a necessary part of the evolution of thought--as initiatory to my reformatory work. In a book that I am at present writing, it is my intention to give the entire truth of all Bibles, which was only partially understood by primeval religious sects through their ignorance of the phenomena of life. V. C. W. M., 17, Hyde Park Gate, London. "BUT IN THE DAYS OF THE VOICE OF THE SEVENTH ANGEL, WHEN BE SHALL BEGIN TO SOUND, THE MYSTERY OF GOD SHALL BE FINISHED."