The Life of Thomas Paine

The American Revolution of 1776, of which Thomas Paine was the author-hero, was the prelude to that far more sanguinary struggle against oppression and wrong which overturned, or irreparably shook, every throne in Western Europe; including, in the category, even the chair of St. Peter; and of which struggle the most prominent author-hero was Jean Jacques Rousseau.This is generally understood. But a truth incalculably more important has hitherto been either wholly overlooked, or but glimmeringly perceived; it is this: -- Both the American and French Revolutions were but prominent incidents, or crisis-stages, in the irrepressible struggle for human rights which commenced when nature implanted in her highest organism, man, that instinct which points to the goal of development; that unconquerable desire for perfect and sufficiently-lasting or "eternal" happiness, which indicates the common aim and attainable end of science, of art, and of all natural, materialistic, or intelligible activities: -- that thirst for liberty which can be satisfied by nothing short of the revolution which will remove all constraint--which will accomplish revolution --and thus justify Luther, Rousseau, Paine, Fourier, and all other revolutionists. Of this crowning revolution, the text-book is "The Positive Philosophy" of Auguste Comte.Had Thomas Paine been seconded as valiantly when he made priestcraft howl, as he was when he hurled defiance against kings, despotism by this time would 'really,' instead of only nominally, have lain as low as did its minions at Trenton and Yorktown. The land over which the star-spangled banner waves would not have become the prey of corrupt, spoil-seeking demagogues, nor would Europe now tremble at the nod of a military dictator.