“There can be no public or private virtue unless the foundation of action is the practice of truth.”

Truth, but one of the foundational requisites of virtue.

Make the practice of truth in all you think, say, and do, your New Years resolution - have a great new year everyone

Knowing Holyoake's views as a secularist, that religious considerations should be excluded from civil affairs and public education, it is easy to understand what he meant by the quote. Without it, it could be ambiguous and vague. Truth to him meant truth, not dogma.

Truth, Love, and Courage -- three virtues that spawn all the rest.

I like it Jack, Green.OH. Pealing back the layers of why, we have secular humanism, and its growth. Religious dogma domination from a Threskeia religion. Can you imagine a church, demanding of a king or ruler to tax the citizens for their support? Cause and effect. These lines of thought and leadership from Issac Asimov, president of the American Humantist Association. Atheist prefer the term Secularist. Isaiah Berlin, a secularist and founder of analytical philosophy, a critic of enlightenment. as also opposed to Rene Descartes, ( Cartesian ) A leader of enlightenment through mathematics, reason and logic, of which our founding fathers embraced. George Holyoake, a follower of Robert Owen, and Augusti Comte. The quest for a Utopian Socialism and the cooperative movement by Owen with the doctrine of positivism by Comte. This type of leadership within the universities, Oxford and the like, have run the United States of America in the ground. Which brings me back to Descartes, an extreme individual with discovery of the truth. Analytical Geometry, and those three visions Descartes declares the formulation to be of Divine origin. Very Platoian thought. Secular humanist in Syria today seeking to separate themselves from threskeia religious wars. There is a thread of truth to the quote, but I find no conflict between Liberty and social justice. You cannot have one without the other. leading socialist today are Eu-A-Mousoi, happily without the muses. Some would say Descartes was Aristotlian, but to the contrary, very Platoian in observation and experience ! The virtues of honor, self reliance, courage, moral integrity, and hospitality are a result of the direct contact with nature. " Farmers are the most valuable citizens and the truest Republicans " Thomas Jefferson.

I would like to add that Rene Descartes observation that the " non-material, mind, is not subject to the laws of nature, concurs with Our Apostle Paul, " The carnal mind is not subject to the laws of God neither indeed can be." The Free Will of man, a living soul is a perishable product. Now is the time of a ripening fruit. The harvest is approaching quickly ! We seek to harvest the spirit and the inner man for Liberty's sake.