Wednesday, February 18, 2015

"Science, the partisan of no country ..." Thomas Paine.

"Letters, the tongue of the world, have in some measure brought all mankind acquainted, and by an extension of their uses are everyday  promoting new friendship. Through them, distant nations become capable of conversation, and losing by degrees the awkwardness of strangers, and the moroseness of suspicion, they learn to know and understand each other. Science, the partisan of no country, but  the beneficent patroness of all, has liberally opened a temple where all may meet. Her influence on the mind, like the sun on the chilled earth, has long been preparing it for higher cultivation and further improvement. The philosopher in one country sees not an enemy in the philosopher of another; he takes his seat in the temple of science, and asks not who sits beside him ..."

Thomas Paine
Letter to the Abbé Raynal

One wishes that Mort Zuckerman and Benjamin Netanyahu would take Paine's words to heart.