Part 1

Produced by David Widger

THE WORKS OF ROBERT G. INGERSOLL

"The Destroyer Of Weeds, Thistles And Thorns Is A Benefactor, Whether He Soweth Grain Or Not."

IN TWELVE VOLUMES, VOLUME I.

LECTURES

1901

THE DRESDEN PUBLISHING CO.

TO

EVA A. INGERSOLL,

MY WIFE,

A WOMAN WITHOUT SUPERSTITION,

THIS VOLUME

IS DEDICATED.

FOR THE LOVE OF GOD.

FOR THE USE OF MAN,

CONTENTS OF VOLUME I.

THE GODS.

(1872.)

An Honest God is the Noblest Work of Man--Resemblance of Gods to their Creators--Manufacture and Characteristics of Deities--Their Amours--Deficient in many Departments of Knowledge--Pleased with the Butchery of Unbelievers--A Plentiful Supply--Visitations--One God's Laws of War--The Book called the Bible--Heresy of Universalism--Faith an unhappy mixture of Insanity and Ignorance--Fallen Gods, or Devils--Directions concerning Human Slavery--The first Appearance of the Devil--The Tree of Knowledge--Give me the Storm and Tempest of Thought--Gods and Devils Natural Productions--Personal Appearance of Deities--All Man's Ideas suggested by his Surroundings--Phenomena Supposed to be Produced by Intelligent Powers--Insanity and Disease attributed to Evil Spirits--Origin of the Priesthood--Temptation of Christ--Innate Ideas--Divine Interference--Special Providence--The Crane and the Fish--Cancer as a proof of Design--Matter and Force--Miracle--Passing the Hat for just one Fact--Sir William Hamilton on Cause and Effect--The Phenomena of Mind--Necessity and Free Will--The Dark Ages--The Originality of Repetition--Of what Use have the Gods been to Man?--Paley and Design--Make Good Health Contagious--Periodicity of the Universe and the Commencement of Intellectual Freedom--Lesson of the ineffectual attempt to rescue the Tomb of Christ from the Mohammedans--The Cemetery of the Gods--Taking away Crutches--Imperial Reason

HUMBOLDT.

(1869.)

The Universe is Governed by Law--The Self-made Man--Poverty generally an Advantage--Humboldt's Birth-place--His desire for Travel--On what Humboldt's Fame depends--His Companions and Friends--Investigations in the New World--A Picture--Subjects of his Addresses--Victory of the Church over Philosophy--Influence of the discovery that the World is governed by Law--On the term Law--Copernicus--Astronomy--Aryabhatta-- Descartes--Condition of the World and Man when the morning of Science Dawned--Reasons for Honoring Humboldt--The World his Monument

THOMAS PAINE.

(1870.)

With his Name left out the History of Liberty cannot be Written--Paine's Origin and Condition--His arrival in America with a Letter of Introduction by Franklin--Condition of the Colonies--"Common Sense"--A new Nation Born--Paine the Best of Political Writers--The "Crisis"--War not to the Interest of a trading Nation--Paine's Standing at the Close of the Revolution--Close of the Eighteenth Century in France-The "Rights of Man"--Paine Prosecuted in England--"The World is my Country"--Elected to the French Assembly--Votes against the Death of the King--Imprisoned--A look behind the Altar--The "Age of Reason"--His Argument against the Bible as a Revelation--Christianity of Paine's Day--A Blasphemy Law in Force in Maryland--The Scotch "Kirk"--Hanging of Thomas Aikenhead for Denying the Inspiration of the Scriptures--"Cathedrals and Domes, and Chimes and Chants"--Science--"He Died in the Land his Genius Defended,"

INDIVIDUALITY.

(1873.)

"His Soul was like a Star and Dwelt Apart"--Disobedience one of the Conditions of Progress.--Magellan--The Monarch and the Hermit-Why the Church hates a Thinker--The Argument from Grandeur and Prosperity-Travelers and Guide-boards--A Degrading Saying--Theological Education--Scotts, Henrys and McKnights--The Church the Great Robber--Corrupting the Reason of Children--Monotony of Acquiescence: For God's sake, say No--Protestant Intolerance: Luther and Calvin--Assertion of Individual Independence a Step toward Infidelity--Salute to Jupiter--The Atheistic Bug-Little Religious Liberty in America--God in the Constitution, Man Out--Decision of the Supreme Court of Illinois that an Unbeliever could not testify in any Court--Dissimulation--Nobody in this Bed--The Dignity of a Unit

HERETICS AND HERESIES.

(1874.)

Liberty, a Word without which all other Words are Vain--The Church, the Bible, and Persecution--Over the wild Waves of War rose and fell the Banner of Jesus Christ--Highest Type of the Orthodox Christian--Heretics' Tongues and why they should be Removed before Burning--The Inquisition Established--Forms of Torture--Act of Henry VIII for abolishing Diversity of Opinion--What a Good Christian was Obliged to Believe--The Church has Carried the Black Flag--For what Men and Women have been Burned--John Calvin's Advent into the World--His Infamous Acts--Michael Servetus--Castalio--Spread of Presbyterianism--Indictment of a Presbyterian Minister in Illinois for Heresy--Specifications--The Real Bible

THE GHOSTS.

(1877.)

Dedication to Ebon C. Ingersoll--Preface--Mendacity of the Religious Press--"Materialism"--Ways of Pleasing the Ghosts--The Idea of Immortality not Born of any Book--Witchcraft and Demon-ology--Witch Trial before Sir Matthew Hale--John Wesley a Firm Believer in Ghosts--"Witch-spots"--Lycanthropy--Animals Tried and Convicted--The Governor of Minnesota and the Grasshoppers--A Papal Bull against Witchcraft--Victims of the Delusion--Sir William Blackstone's Affirmation--Trials in Belgium--Incubi and Succubi--A Bishop Personated by the Devil--The Doctrine that Diseases are caused by Ghosts--Treatment--Timothy Dwight against Vaccination--Ghosts as Historians--The Language of Eden--Leibnitz, Founder of the Science of Language--Cosmas on Astronomy--Vagaries of Kepler and Tycho Brahe--Discovery of Printing, Powder, and America--Thanks to the Inventors--The Catholic Murderer and the Meat--Let the Ghosts Go

THE LIBERTY OF MAN, WOMAN, AND CHILD.

(1877.)

Liberty sustains the same Relation to Mind that Space does to Matter--The History of Man a History of Slavery--The Infidel Our Fathers in the good old Time--The iron Arguments that Christians Used--Instruments of Torture--A Vision of the Inquisition--Models of Man's Inventions--Weapons, Armor, Musical Instruments, Paintings, Books, Skulls--The Gentleman in the Dug-out--Homage to Genius and Intellect--Abraham Lincoln--What I mean by Liberty--The Man who cannot afford to Speak his Thought is a Certificate of the Meanness of the Community in which he Resides--Liberty of Woman--Marriage and the Family--Ornaments the Souvenirs of Bondage-The Story of the Garden of Eden--Adami and Heva--Equality of the Sexes-The word "Boss"--The Cross Man-The Stingy Man--Wives who are Beggars--How to Spend Money--By the Tomb of the Old Napoleon--The Woman you Love will never Grow Old--Liberty of Children--When your Child tells a Lie--Disowning Children--Beating your own Flesh and Blood--Make Home Pleasant--Sunday when I was a Boy--The Laugh of a Child--The doctrine of Eternal Punishment--Jonathan Edwards on the Happiness of Believing Husbands whose Wives are in Hell--The Liberty of Eating and Sleeping--Water in Fever--Soil and Climate necessary to the production of Genius--Against Annexing Santo Domingo--Descent of Man--Conclusion

ABOUT FARMING IN ILLINOIS.

(1877.)

To Plow is to Pray; to Plant is to Prophesy, and the Harvest Answers and Fulfills--The Old Way of Farming--Cooking an Unknown Art-Houses, Fuel, and Crops--The Farmer's Boy--What a Farmer should Sell--Beautifying the Home--Advantages of Illinois as a Farming State--Advantages of the Farmer over the Mechanic--Farm Life too Lonely-On Early Rising--Sleep the Best Doctor--Fashion--Patriotism and Boarding Houses--The Farmer and the Railroads--Money and Confidence--Demonetization of Silver-Area of Illinois--Mortgages and Interest--Kindness to Wives and Children--How a Beefsteak should be Cooked--Decorations and Comfort--Let the Children Sleep--Old Age

WHAT MUST WE DO TO BE SAVED?

(1880.)

Preface--The Synoptic Gospels--Only Mark Knew of the Necessity of Belief--Three Christs Described--The Jewish Gentleman and the Piece of Bacon--Who Wrote the New Testament?--Why Christ and the Apostles wrote Nothing--Infinite Respect for the Man Christ--Different Feeling for the Theological Christ--Saved from What?--Chapter on the Gospel of Matthew--What this Gospel says we must do to be Saved--Jesus and the Children--John Calvin and Jonathan Edwards conceived of as Dimpled Darlings--Christ and the Man who inquired what Good Thing he should do that he might have Eternal Life--Nothing said about Belief--An Interpolation--Chapter on the Gospel of Mark--The Believe or be Damned Passage, and why it was written--The last Conversation of Christ with his Disciples--The Signs that Follow them that Believe--Chapter on the Gospel of Luke--Substantial Agreement with Matthew and Mark--How Zaccheus achieved Salvation--The two Thieves on the Cross--Chapter on the Gospel of John--The Doctrine of Regeneration, or the New Birth--Shall we Love our Enemies while God Damns His?--Chapter on the Catholics--Communication with Heaven through Decayed Saints--Nuns and Nunneries--Penitentiaries of God should be Investigated--The Athanasian Creed expounded--The Trinity and its Members--Chapter on the Episcopalians--Origin of the Episcopal Church--Apostolic Succession an Imported Article--Episcopal Creed like the Catholic, with a few Additional Absurdities--Chapter on the Methodists--Wesley and Whitfield--Their Quarrel about Predestination--Much Preaching for Little Money--Adapted to New Countries--Chapter on the Presbyterians--John Calvin, Murderer--Meeting between Calvin and Knox--The Infamy of Calvinism--Division in the Church--The Young Presbyterian's Resignation to the Fate of his Mother--A Frightful, Hideous, and Hellish Creed--Chapter on the Evangelical Alliance--Jeremy Taylor's Opinion of Baptists--Orthodoxy not Dead--Creed of the Alliance--Total Depravity, Eternal Damnation--What do You Propose?--The Gospel of Good-fellowship, Cheerfulness, Health, Good Living, Justice--No Forgiveness--God's Forgiveness Does not Pay my Debt to Smith--Gospel of Liberty, of Intelligence, of Humanity--One World at a Time--"Upon that Rock I Stand"

PUBLISHER'S PREFACE.

IN presenting to the public this edition of the late Robert G. Ingersoll's works, it has been the aim of the publisher to make it worthy of the author and a pleasure to his friends and admirers. No one can be more conscious than he of the magnitude of the task undertaken, or more keenly feel how far short it must fall of adequate accomplishment.

When it is remembered that countless utterances of the author were never caught from his eloquent lips, it is matter for congratulation that so much has been preserved. The authorized addresses, arguments and articles that have already appeared in print and passed the review of the authors more or less careful inspection, will be readily recognized as accurate and complete; but in this latest and fullest compilation are many emanations from his heart and brain that have never had his scrutiny, were not revised by him, and that yet, by general judgment, should not be lost to the world.

These unedited sundries consist of fragments of speeches and incompleted articles discovered amongst the authors literary remains and for unknown reasons left in more or less unfinished form. It has been the publisher's ambition to gather these fugitive pieces and place them in this edition by the side of the saved treasures. Whether the work has been well or ill done a generous public must decide, while the sole responsibility must rest with, as it has been assumed by, the publisher.

In carrying out the design of the present edition, the publisher gratefully acknowledges the assistance of Mr. Ingersoll's family, who have freely placed at his disposal many papers, inscriptions, monographs, memoranda and pages of valuable material.

Recognition is also here made of the kind courtesy of the press and of publishers of magazines who have generously permitted the publication of articles originally written for them.

Finally, the publisher gives his thanks to all the devoted friends of the author who in many ways, by suggestion and unselfish labor, have aided in getting out this work. Of these, none have been more unremitting in service, and to none is the publisher more indebted, than to Mr. I. Newton Baker, Mr. Ingersoll's former private secretary, to Dr. Edgar C. Beall, and to Mr. George E. Macdonald for the fine Tables of Contents and the very valuable Index to this edition.

C. P. FARRELL.

New York, July, 1900.

THE GODS

An Honest God is the Noblest Work of Man.

EACH nation has created a god, and the god has always resembled his creators. He hated and loved what they hated and loved, and he was invariably found on the side of those in power. Each god was intensely patriotic, and detested all nations but his own. All these gods demanded praise, flattery, and worship. Most of them were pleased with sacrifice, and the smell of innocent blood has ever been considered a divine perfume. All these gods have insisted upon having a vast number of priests, and the priests have always insisted upon being supported by the people, and the principal business of these priests has been to boast about their god, and to insist that he could easily vanquish all the other gods put together.

These gods have been manufactured after numberless models, and according to the most grotesque fashions. Some have a thousand arms, some a hundred heads, some are adorned with necklaces of living snakes, some are armed with clubs, some with sword and shield, some with bucklers, and some have wings as a cherub; some were invisible, some would show themselves entire, and some would only show their backs; some were jealous, some were foolish, some turned themselves into men, some into swans, some into bulls, some into doves, and some into Holy Ghosts, and made love to the beautiful daughters of men. Some were married--all ought to have been--and some were considered as old bachelors from all eternity. Some had children, and the children were turned into gods and worshiped as their fathers had been. Most of these gods were revengeful, savage, lustful, and ignorant. As they generally depended upon their priests for information, their ignorance can hardly excite our astonishment.

These gods did not even know the shape of the worlds they had created, but supposed them perfectly flat Some thought the day could be lengthened by stopping the sun, that the blowing of horns could throw down the walls of a city, and all knew so little of the real nature of the people they had created, that they commanded the people to love them. Some were so ignorant as to suppose that man could believe just as he might desire, or as they might command, and that to be governed by observation, reason, and experience was a most foul and damning sin. None of these gods could give a true account of the creation of this little earth. All were wofully deficient in geology and astronomy. As a rule, they were most miserable legislators, and as executives, they were far inferior to the average of American presidents.

These deities have demanded the most abject and degrading obedience. In order to please them, man must lay his very face in the dust Of course, they have always been partial to the people who created them, and have generally shown their partiality by assisting those people to rob and destroy others, and to ravish their wives and daughters.

Nothing is so pleasing to these gods as the butchery of unbelievers. Nothing so enrages them, even now, as to have some one deny their existence.

Few nations have been so poor as to have but one god. Gods were made so easily, and the raw material cost so little, that generally the god market was fairly glutted, and heaven crammed with these phantoms. These gods not only attended to the skies, but were supposed to interfere in all the affairs of men. They presided over everybody and everything. They attended to every department. All was supposed to be under their immediate control. Nothing was too small--nothing too large; the falling of sparrows and the motions of the planets were alike attended to by these industrious and observing deities. From their starry thrones they frequently came to the earth for the purpose of imparting information to man. It is related of one that he came amid thunderings and lightnings in order to tell the people that they should not cook a kid in its mother's milk. Some left their shining abodes to tell women that they should, or should not, have children, to inform a priest how to cut and wear his apron, and to give directions as to the proper manner of cleaning the intestines of a bird.

When the people failed to worship one of these gods, or failed to feed and clothe his priests, (which was much the same thing,) he generally visited them with pestilence and famine. Sometimes he allowed some other nation to drag them into slavery--to sell their wives and children; but generally he glutted his vengeance by murdering their first-born. The priests always did their whole duty, not only in predicting these calamities, but in proving, when they did happen, that they were brought upon the people because they had not given quite enough to them.

These gods differed just as the nations differed; the greatest and most powerful had the most powerful gods, while the weaker ones were obliged to content themselves with the very off-scourings of the heavens. Each of these gods promised happiness here and hereafter to all his slaves, and threatened to eternally punish all who either disbelieved in his existence or suspected that some other god might be his superior; but to deny the existence of all gods was, and is, the crime of crimes. Redden your hands with human blood; blast by slander the fair fame of the innocent; strangle the smiling child upon its mother's knees; deceive, ruin and desert the beautiful girl who loves and trusts you, and your case is not hopeless. For all this, and for all these you may be forgiven. For all this, and for all these, that bankrupt court established by the gospel, will give you a discharge; but deny the existence of these divine ghosts, of these gods, and the sweet and tearful face of Mercy becomes livid with eternal hate. Heaven's golden gates are shut, and you, with an infinite curse ringing in your ears, with the brand of infamy upon your brow, commence your endless wanderings in the lurid gloom of hell--an immortal vagrant--an eternal outcast--a deathless convict.

One of these gods, and one who demands our love, our admiration and our worship, and one who is worshiped, if mere heartless ceremony is worship, gave to his chosen people for their guidance, the following laws of war: "When thou comest nigh unto a city to fight against it, _then proclaim peace unto it_. And it shall be if it make thee answer of peace, and open unto thee, then it shall be that all the people that is found therein shall be tributaries unto thee, and they shall serve thee. And if it will make no peace with thee, but will make war against thee, then thou shalt besiege it.

"And when the Lord thy God hath delivered it into thy hands, thou shalt smite every male thereof with the edge of the sword. But the women and the little ones, and the cattle, and all that is in the city, even all the spoil thereof, shalt thou take unto thyself, and thou shalt eat the spoil of thine enemies which the Lord thy God hath given thee. Thus shalt thou do unto all the cities which are very far off from thee, which are not of the cities of these nations. But of the cities of these people which the Lord thy God doth give thee for an inheritance, _thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth_"

Is it possible for man to conceive of anything more perfectly infamous? Can you believe that such directions were given by any being except an infinite fiend? Remember that the army receiving these instructions was one of invasion. Peace was offered upon condition that the people submitting should be the slaves of the invader; but if any should have the courage to defend their homes, to fight for the love of wife and child, then the sword was to spare none--not even the prattling, dimpled babe.

And we are called upon to worship such a God; to get upon our knees and tell him that he is good, that he is merciful, that he is just, that he is love. We are asked to stifle every noble sentiment of the soul, and to trample under foot all the sweet charities of the heart. Because we refuse to stultify ourselves--refuse to become liars--we are denounced, hated, traduced and ostracized here, and this same god threatens to torment us in eternal fire the moment death allows him to fiercely clutch our naked helpless souls. Let the people hate, let the god threaten--we will educate them, and we will despise and defy him.

The book, called the Bible, is filled with passages equally horrible, unjust and atrocious. This is the book to be read in schools in order to make our children loving, kind and gentle! This is the book to be recognized in our Constitution as the source of all authority and justice!

Strange! that no one has ever been persecuted by the church for believing God bad, while hundreds of millions have been destroyed for thinking him good. The orthodox church never will forgive the Universalist for saying "God is love." It has always been considered as one of the very highest evidences of true and undefiled religion to insist that all men, women and children deserve eternal damnation. It has always been heresy to say, "God will at last save all."

We are asked to justify these frightful passages, these infamous laws of war, because the Bible is the word of God. As a matter of fact, there never was, and there never can be, an argument, even tending to prove the inspiration of any book whatever. In the absence of positive evidence, analogy and experience, argument is simply impossible, and at the very best, can amount only to a useless agitation of the air.

The instant we admit that a book is too sacred to be doubted, or even reasoned about, we are mental serfs. It is infinitely absurd to suppose that a god would address a communication to intelligent beings, and yet make it a crime, to be punished in eternal flames, for them to use their intelligence for the purpose of understanding his communication. If we have the right to use our reason, we certainly have the right to act in accordance with it, and no god can have the right to punish us for such action.

The doctrine that future happiness depends upon belief is monstrous. It is the infamy of infamies. The notion that faith in Christ is to be rewarded by an eternity of bliss, while a dependence upon reason, observation, and experience merits everlasting pain, is too absurd for refutation, and can be relieved only by that unhappy mixture of insanity and ignorance, called "faith." What man, who ever thinks, can believe that blood can appease God? And yet, our entire system of religion is based upon that belief. The Jews pacified Jehovah with the blood of animals, and according to the Christian system, the blood of Jesus softened the heart of God a little, and rendered possible the salvation of a fortunate few. It is hard to conceive how the human mind can give assent to such terrible ideas, or how any sane man can read the Bible and still believe in the doctrine of inspiration.

Whether the Bible is true or false, is of no consequence in comparison with the mental freedom of the race.

Salvation through slavery is worthless. Salvation from slavery is inestimable.

As long as man believes the Bible to be infallible, that book is his master. The civilization of this century is not the child of faith, but of unbelief--the result of free thought.