Science & Tech Quote by Ethan Allen

Allen lands the jab with a revolutionary’s confidence: miracles don’t disappear because God gets quieter; they vanish when people get harder to fool. The line is engineered as a cultural sorting mechanism. “Learning and science” aren’t just tools for understanding the world, they’re badges of modern legitimacy. “Barbarous and ignorant” isn’t merely descriptive, it’s a moral verdict meant to embarrass superstition into retreat. He’s not debating theology so much as weaponizing enlightenment rationality as social pressure.

The subtext is political. In the late 18th century, “miracles” often functioned as authorization: claims of divine intervention propped up clerical authority, justified inherited hierarchies, and lubricated obedience. Allen, writing in the wake of revolutionary agitation and the broader Deist current, wants power to look man-made and therefore revisable. If wonders are “in vogue,” they’re fashion, not fact. That word choice matters: it recasts religious belief as trend-following, something a self-respecting modern citizen should outgrow.

There’s also a sharp colonial edge. By mapping miracle-belief onto “barbarous” places, Allen turns rationalism into a geography of superiority: civilized centers versus backward peripheries. It flatters his audience while setting a standard for the new republic’s identity. The implied task isn’t to wait for providence; it’s to build institutions - schools, presses, experiments, public debate - that make miracles unnecessary because explanations, and accountability, are finally available.