Fanaticism Will Be Banished from the Earth

The highest intellectual joy consists in the discovery of truth;

a knowledge of this truth will constantly tend to the practice of an

exalted virtue; this virtue will serve as the stable foundation of

human happiness, the immortal guarantee of the felicity of the

intelligent world. Reason anticipates a progress, which all the

powers of superstition can never arrest. Let reason then perform her

faithful duty, and ignorance, fanaticism, and misery, will be

banished from the earth. A new age, the true millennium will then

commence; the standard of truth and of science will then be erected

among the nations of the world, and man, the unlimited proprietor of

his own person, may applaud himself in the result of his energies,

contemplate with indescribable satisfaction the universal improvement

and happiness of the human race.

 --Elihu Palmer (1764-1806), Principles of Nature; or, A Development of the Moral Causes of Happiness and Misery Among the Human Species