Boston Investigator Archives - The Libertarian Labyrinth

Calvin Blanchard, “Religion Made Intelligible” (1866)

March 5, 2020 Shawn P. Wilbur

Mr. Editor:—I was once, as you know, a mere sceptic, or unbeliever. But for many years past I have been a Positivist, certainly foreknowing, or claiming to foreknow, that, by means of Nature, including her cunning method, Art, the world will be populated from pole to pole by human beings, all of whom will be as far better developed than any that now exist, as the best of the present ones are superior to the ourang outang. Here is my Creed, if that which is positively known can properly be called a mere creed:—

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Josiah Warren, “On Education and Re-Education” (1865)

March 4, 2020 Shawn P. Wilbur

The grand secret of Education is to make the learner feel an interest in the thing to be learned. The founders of the prevailing systems not knowing any other way of interesting children in their studies, have sought to create an interest by the hope of factitious rewards and the fear of punishments; the one intending to stimulate a blind self-conceit, and the other destroying all self-respect, both of which may be equally fatal in after life.

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Calvin Blanchard in the Boston Investigator (1861–1866)

February 5, 2019 Shawn P. Wilbur

[one_third padding=”0 10px 0 0px”][/one_third][two_third_last padding=”0 0px 0 10px”] A STATEMENT AND PROPOSITION. Mr. President:—If it is not out of order, I should like to make a short communication for the consideration of the meeting over which you have the honor to preside. I presume that the object of the Infidel Association is to eradicate superstition. Superstition is but the form which man’s ignorance takes. The Bible, the great bugbear of “Infidels,” is not a cause of superstition, or of ignorance; it is but one of the manifestations of it, Is there no superstition where man is so savage that […]

Paul Brown in the “Boston Investigator” (1832–1847)

February 4, 2019 Shawn P. Wilbur

[one_third padding=”0 10px 0 0px”] B, “The Radical—No. III,” Boston Investigator 2 no. 1 (March 30, 1832): 1. B, “The Radical…No. 4,” Boston Investigator 2 no. 4 (April 20, 1832): 1. B, “The Radical…No. 5,” Boston Investigator 2 no. 5 (April 27, 1832): 1. B, “The Radical…No. 6,” Boston Investigator 2 no. 6 (May 4, 1832): 1. B, “The Radical…No. 7,” Boston Investigator 2 no. 7 (May 11, 1832): 1. B, “The Radical…No. 8,” Boston Investigator 2 no. 8 (May 18, 1832): 1. B, “The Radical…No. 9,” Boston Investigator 2 no. 9 (May 25, 1832): 1. B, “The Radical…No. 10,” […]

Equitable Commerce in 1849

July 29, 2018 Shawn P. Wilbur

[two_third padding=”0 10px 0 0px”] January 17, 1849 Lecture by Josiah Warren. People’s Sunday Meeting.—The usual discussion next Sunday will be suspended in order to allow Mr. Josiah Warren, lately of New Harmony, (Ind.,) an opportunity to deliver a lecture on the subject of “Equitable Commerce.” This new mode of Social Reformation is one that Mr. Warren has paid much attention to for several years, and from the very favorable manner in which we have seen him noticed in Western papers, we have no doubt of his being a gentleman of considerable ability and well-qualified to give an interesting and […]

Lewis & Ann Masquerier in the “Boston Investigator” (1834-1888)

June 19, 2018 Shawn P. Wilbur

INTRODUCTION January 5, 2026. — I have stood on the top of Mount Moosilauke, on the western end of New Hampshire’s White Mountains, and looked down over the Connecticut River valley. It’s a spectacular spot, which I wish I had been able to visit more often. These days, that view to the west has gained a surprising significance, as I have gradually come to think of a twenty-mile stretch, between Wells River, Vermont, in the north, and Orford, New Hampshire, in the south, as something of a hotbed, in the years when anarchism was emerging, of the kind of thought […]

Dyer D. Lum in the “Boston Investigator”

April 4, 2018 Shawn P. Wilbur

[two_third] To A. C. Middleton:—I have read your communication in the Investigator of the 13th inst., requesting information about Meslier, other than that given by Voltaire, and will relate what has fallen in my reach. Naigeon, in his “Ancient and Modern Philosophy,” under the head “Meslier,” after giving a brief account of his life and an extract from his “Testament,” blames Voltaire for not publishing the whole of Meslier’s work. Your remark, that “this extract is Deistical,” refers only to the first part of his work. The second part, that Naigeon accused Voltaire of suppressing, was Atheistical. “Nobody had ever […]

Voltairine de Cleyre, “The Gilded Edge of Hell” (1890)

July 25, 2017 Shawn P. Wilbur

Voltairine de Cleyre [main page] THE GILDED EDGE OF HELL Mr. Editor:–The broad roll of the Delaware flashed back a white water-glisten at the full moon. Fifteen or twenty vessels spread their white wings to the slow breeze, or sent the black vomit from their whistling throats upward to the night sky. Splash, splash! fell the water from the sides of the “John A. Warner” as she cut the flowing current, that ran like long, waving hair, away from the white line in her wake. Upon her decks two thoughtful women gazed at the dark banks, lifted their eyes to […]

Voltairine de Cleyre, “The Gilded Edge of Hell” (1890)

July 25, 2017 Shawn P. Wilbur

THE GILDED EDGE OF HELL Mr. Editor:–The broad roll of the Delaware flashed back a white water-glisten at the full moon. Fifteen or twenty vessels spread their white wings to the slow breeze, or sent the black vomit from their whistling throats upward to the night sky. Splash, splash! fell the water from the sides of the “John A. Warner” as she cut the flowing current, that ran like long, waving hair, away from the white line in her wake. Upon her decks two thoughtful women gazed at the dark banks, lifted their eyes to the soft sky and occasionally […]

Eliphalet Kimball’s “Thoughts”

February 12, 2012 Shawn P. Wilbur

I’ve finished transcribing Eliphalet Kimball’s 1867 Thoughts on Natural Principles, which is about a defense of anarchism, in articles that originally appeared in The Boston Investigator. The rest is frequently inspired medical and culinary crankery, which should be read carefully for the analogies presented between it and the political thought. Analogy was, after all, all the rage in the 19th century, even, apparently, if you were a radical New England doctor. I’m now working on transcribing a couple of additional essays and some responses, so I can reissue the book in expanded form this spring.