Rensselaer Republican, Volume 18, Number 35, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 May 1886 — Scapegoats. [ARTICLE]

Scapegoats.

A contributor to the Popular Science Monthly attempts to prove that the debasement of raaukiad during the darkness of the middle ages was due to the “adaption of tho horse to warfare, and the development of defensive armor." The enigma of the long night has defied more plausible theories. Prof von Bnnke, who recently celebrated his ninetieth birthday, ascribes it to tho flnnkyism inherited from tho bond-liouse of dying Borne; Condoriret and Hume to the influence of a system of ethics inculcating the duties of selfabasement and passive obedience. Despots have certainly been fond of moralizing on tho enforcement of those duties, just as ignorance gloried in the neglect of worldly science and indolence in the neglect of worldly industry. At all events, one should think that horses and hardware are not necessary concomitants of slavery. Thessalian war-horses and Corinthian armor did not prevent Greece from worshiping freedom for seven hundred years.