ethan
allen homestead history
Reason the Only Oracle of Man
|
ETHAN ALLEN, Selections from: CONTENTS
With the help of my family and many friends, I have made these selections. Many of them are applicable to the problems of our world today. Reason is available from the Bank of Wisdom (1) as a CD-ROM. The publisher has given his permission to use the selections without more specific reference. In the original publication of Reason: the Only Oracle there are many distracting misspellings and much confusing punctuation. Many single sentences are over 200 words in length. These have been somewhat revised in the quotations cited, and some have been pruned of redundant parts.
|
|
|||||||
There is inevitably considerable bias in the choosing of selections, as everyone is influenced by their personal beliefs. Ethan wrote in the Preface to Reason, “I ask no favors at the hands of philosophers, divines, or critics, but I hope that they will severely chastize me for my errors and mistakes.” We will appreciate any suggestions. I can be reached at 100 Wake Robin Drive, Shelburne, VT 05481. 802-985-5319.
INTRODUCTION Toward the end his eventful life Ethan wrote Reason the Only Oracle of Man and its Appendix describing his questions regarding the world of nature and how they related to his religious beliefs. They are both very lengthy and somewhat difficult to understand. In 1762 Ethan married Mary Bronson, the daughter of a well-to-do farmer. She was illiterate, and Ethan spent long periods away from her. They had five children. She died of tuberculosis in 1783. In 1784 Ethan married the 24-year old Frances (Fanny) Montresor Buchanan. Willard Randall (2) writes that she was “the daughter of a Swiss military engineer, Captain John Montresor, who built fortifications in America for the British Army between the French and Indian war and the end of the Revolution.” Many years later Ethan obtained the notes written by Dr. Young, from his estate after he died. Toward the end of his active career Ethan wrote Reason the Only Oracle of Man. In the interval he had collected some books on philosophy and writing. During his last years at Sunderland, he had revised his thinking and in 1785 wrote the Appendix to the Oracle: An Essay on the universe plenitude of Being, In it he struggles with the problems of defining the soul and immortality and the nature of the Universe. It was not published until after his death. In 1785 Reason the Only Oracle was finally published. As John Pell (3) describes in his biography, “The free-thinkers were enthusiastic, the skeptics amused, and the clergy furious. When lightning hit the attic of the publishers house starting a fire, half of the first edition was destroyed. Some attributed this to “Divine intervention”. In 1787 the family moved to the house on the bank of the Winooski River in Chittenden County overlooking the Intervale.
His Reason, the Only Oracle is a product of the thoughtful, philosophical side of this unique person. In contrast, he also had an aggressive personality resulting in physical and verbal fights. He “would drink pretty hard at times”. He once wrote during his military years “I Ethan Allen do declare that I will give no quarter to the man woman or child who shall oppose me and unless the inhabitants of Guilford peacefully submit to the authority of Vermont I swear that I will lay it as desolate as Sodom and Gomorrah.” Hearsay suggests that Ethan hired a young college student to be his transcriber. While Ethan dictated, walking up and down the room, waving his cane, the young man would occasionally interrupt with a suggestion that a word was misplaced or the sense was not clear. Ethan would sometimes lose his temper, swearing and threatening with his stick until the youth put down what he wanted him to do.
HIS PHYSICAL APPEARANCE AND HIS VERBOSITY In Henry DePuy’s (3) book on the title page there is an drawing of Ethan, a robust person with uniform and epaulets and of Kinney’s heroic statue of the general.
The Bennington Historical Museum had an etching that further supports this appearance. However, Stephen Perkins, Curator of the museum, has recently reviewed all the evidence, and concludes that we cannot be sure that this etching was an actual portrait. Ethan was said to have been able to grasp a heavy sack of grain with his teeth and toss it backwards over his head.
EXCERPTS FROM REASON THE ONLY ORACLE OF MAN
ETHAN ALLEN’S PREFACE TO REASON, THE ONLY ORACLE “An apology appears to me to be impertinent in writers who venture their works to public inspection, for this obvious reason, that if they need it, they should have been stifled in the birth, and not permitted a public existence. I therefore offer my composition to the candid judgment of the impartial world without it taking for granted that I have as good a natural right to expose myself to public censure, by endeavoring to subserve mankind, as any of the species who have published their productions since the creation; and I ask no favor at the hands of philosophers, divines or critics, but hope and expect that they will severely chastize me for my errors and mistakes, lest they may have a share in perverting the trust, which is very far from my intention.
During the ill-fated attack on Montreal: “It cut me to the heart to see the Canadians in so hard a case, in consequence of their having been true to me, they were wringing their hands and expected immediate death. I therefore stepped between the executioners and the Canadians, opened my cloths, and told General Prescott to thrust his bayonet into my breast for I was the sole cause of the Canadians taking up arms.”
HIS REVERENCE FOR LIFE AND RELIGIOUS BELIEFS “When we consider our solar system, attracted by its fiery center, and moving in its several orbits, with regular majestic, and periodical revolutions, we are charmed at the prospect and contemplation of those worlds of motions and adore the wisdom and power by which they are attracted, and their velocity regulated and perpetuated. And when we reflect that the blessings of life are derived from, and dependent on, the properties, qualities, constructions, proportions and movements of that stupendous machine, we gratefully acknowledge the divine beneficence. When we extend our thoughts (through our external sensations) to the vast regions of the starry heavens, we are lost in the immensity of God?s works. Some stars appear fair and luminous, and others scarcely discernible to the eye, which by the help of glasses make a brilliant appearance, bringing the knowledge of others far remote within the verge of our feeble discoveries. If it were possible that any of us could be transported to the farthest extended star, which is perceptible to us here, we should from thence survey worlds as distant from that as that is from this, and so on indefinitely”. This is now confirmed by the Hubble telescope. “Furthermore, it is altogether reasonable to conclude that the heavenly bodies, are inhabited by some intelligent agents or other, however different their sensations or manners communicating their ideas may be from ours. “All matter is governed by the almighty influence of fate in its various and, and well it is that it is thus regulated extended, the beating of our pulse and gravitation of our bodies and made subservient to rational nature. The natural palpitations of the heart, with the other laws of animal nature, are as mechanical as the movement of the solar system. Everything therefore is subject to the laws of fate, except the actions and exertions of moral beings only, which are by nature free and which by intuition we know to be so.” “It is nevertheless to be regretted, that the bulk of mankind, even in those nations which are most celebrated for learning and wisdom, are still carried down the torrent of superstition, and entertain very unworthy apprehensions of the BEING, PERFECTIONS, CREATION, and PROVIDENCE of GOD, and their duty to him”. “And as the Christian, and Mohametan countries have been overwhelmed with a multiplicity of revelations diverse from each other, and which are said to have been inspired into their souls by the spirit of God, and as those revelations have been received and credited, it fully evinces their imposture and authorizes us to determine with certainty that not more than one of any of them had their original from God, which is ground for high probability against the authogenicity of each of them.” Ethan implies here that he is not a Christian. He does not mention the Buddhists, particularly Zen Buddhists who emphasize that we are all part of a continuum of humanity, and that we must forget the self and consider whether the other person (or religion) stands. If he did, he would not ignore the beautiful aspects of these religions. For a brief introduction to Buddhism, see reference no. 6. “God cannot control the actions of free beings, since, if he did, it would be a contradiction to their being free. Necessity and freedom are in their diversity of their natures diametrically opposed to each other.” He wrestles with his definition of God in a very complicated discussion, which John Pell(3) describes in his book as follows: ‘We know but little of things, yet with candor, application, and a sincere desire after truth, we may improve our understanding of the knowledge of nature, much farther than at our commencing study we could have imagined.’. And: There are many contradictions in Ethan’s writing on this subject. He is determined to defeat Calvinism by means of his two books, and attacks many religions and their beliefs along the way. All of us long to solve the mysteries of what supports the universe, of the origin of the laws of physics, and of our consciousness. He states that God, whom he refers to as “he”, created and controls the smallest details of nature, but makes an exception of the “actions and exertions of moral beings, which are by nature free.” This John Pell (3) writes: is the rock on which Ethan’s boat breaks to pieces.
“Comets, earthquakes, volcanoes, and northern lights (in the night) with many other extraordinary phenomenae or appearances, intimidate weak minds and by them are thought to be miraculous, although they undoubtedly have their proper and or adequate natural causes, which have been in great measure discovered”.
“To pray for any thing, which we can obtain by the due application of our natural powers, and neglect the means of procuring it, is impertinence and laziness in the abstract, and to pray for that which God in the course of his providence has put out of our power to obtain, is only murmuring against God, and finding fault with his providence, or acting the inconsiderate part of a child.”
His discussion of the role of the Divinity in government is complicated, but two statements stand out: “It is from the knowledge of right and wrong, good and evil that we are capable of moral government” and “a government which does not admit of reformation and repentance must unavoidably involve its subjects in misery, for the weakness of creatures will always be a source of error and inconstancy”. This applies to many governments, including our own current government.
“Thus it appears from Moses?s representation of the state of man?s innocency, that Adam was commanded by God to labor, and to replenish the earth, and that to him was given the dominion over the creatures, and that several times he was licensed by God himself to eat of every of the fruit of the trees and of the herbage, except of the tree of knowledge of good and evil; and because it was not good that the man should be alone, but that he might multiply and replenish the earth, our amorous Mother Eve, it seems, was formed, who I dare say well compensated Father Adam for the loss of his rib.” “One of the Indians in this country being asked what the soul was, gave for answer, ‘It is my think.’ This was both laconic and pertinent; and with respect to our liberty, it is impossible for us to obtain a greater certainty that we are free agents.”
SELECTIONS FROM THE APPENDIX TO THE ORACLE :
ETHAN'S INTRODUCTION TO THE APPENDIX “The volume to which this is an appendix was written and printed, previous to the composition of this addition, in which I have altered my opinion, of the essence of the soul. In the said volume I considered the soul as not capable of occupying space, in which opinion (with many others) for the reasons hereafter exhibited, I conclude that I was mistaken. The soul, with entity in general, must occupy space in some sense or other.”
“Let us observe the rays of light shining into a house through a breach or window, and in the limit of their direction we may discover a countless number of attorns or particles of matter, which out of the limit of the sunshine (in the room), could not be perceived by the eye, furthermore, human invention in constructing microscopes, telescopes and other kinds of glasses discover to us, a numerous succession of mites and attorns in the airy region, which without the help of glasses escape the notice of the eye, and opens to our view an astonishing variety of Worlds in the expanse of heaven, which the unassisted eye could not have discovered. But when we reflect within the limit of our own atmosphere, what a wonderful succession of creatures, really possessed of animal life are brought into view, merely by the use of those artificial instruments. How surprisingly small to our gross conception of little, (which we compute merely by the eye,) are those animals; whose existence to our coarse senses are made perceptible by the feeble efforts of human art, and how much smaller still must be the component parts of those animals, whose circumference escapes the natural perception of human sight, and yet occupy such a considerable part of space, as to have a competency of room, to exert all the functions of an animal body. Furthermore, the globules of blood which impart to these animals vital heat and strength, must every of them be compounded of an inconceivable number of still smaller particles of blood, which are still compounded of others, and so on we know not how far in the imperceptible degrees of small.” Did he ever note the splitting of the light into its different wavelengths in a rainbow or when formed by a crystal? “When we contemplate on the orbs of the solar system, and others in the expanse of heaven that are visible merely to the eye, and others still more remote, which are discovered by the instrumentality of telescopes, and also contemplate the Eternity and Infinity of God we are naturally apt to conclude that the Author of that stupendous part of Creation that falls under our observation, has extended his Creation co-extensive with the Infinity of his nature and absolute Perfection. . . .”
“The introduction of arts and sciences, have been attended with their advantages and disadvantages, the same learning or art that teaches logical reasoning, teaches sophistry, and the learned have hitherto been able to obtain more wealth and power from the great mass of the vulgar by deluding them than by informing their understandings. Hence arises the numerous sectaries and party disputes, which to a person of good understanding are almost equally nonsensical. Probably we are the most selfish, oddest, and cunningest medly of human beings of our size in the universe. However to complete the general shale of being, it seems to have been requisite that the link of being called man must have been, and since under the Divine government we have a positive existence, we cannot fail of being better than not to have been.”
|
||||||||
