Part 1

Produced by David Widger

THE WORKS OF ROBERT G. INGERSOLL

By Robert G. Ingersoll

"EVERY BRAIN IS A FIELD WHERE NATURE SOWS THE SEEDS OF THOUGHT, AND THE CROP DEPENDS UPON THE SOIL."

In Twelve Volumes, Volume VII.

DISCUSSIONS

Dresden Edition

1900

CONTENTS OF VOLUME VII.

MY REVIEWERS REVIEWED.

(1877.)

Answer to San Francisco Clergymen--Definition of Liberty, Physical and Mental--The Right to Compel Belief--Woman the Equal of Man--The Ghosts--Immortality--Slavery--Witchcraft--Aristocracy of the Air--Unfairness of Clerical Critics--Force and Matter--Doctrine of Negation--Confident Deaths of Murderers--Childhood Scenes returned to by the Dying--Death-bed of Voltaire--Thomas Paine--The First Sectarians Were Heretics--Reply to Rev. Mr. Guard--Slaughter of the Canaanites--Reply to Rev. Samuel Robinson--Protestant Persecutions--Toleration--Infidelity and Progress--The Occident--Calvinism--Religious Editors--Reply to the Rev. Mr. Ijams--Does the Bible teach Man to Enslave his Brothers?--Reply to California _Christian Advocate_--Self-Government of French People at and Since the Revolution--On the Site of the Bastile--French Peasant's Cheers for Jesus Christ--Was the World created in Six Days--Geology--What is the Astronomy of the Bible?--The Earth the Centre of the Universe--Joshua's Miracle--Change of Motion into Heat--Geography and Astronomy of Cosmas--Does the Bible teach the Existence of that Impossible Crime called Witchcraft?--Saul and the Woman of Endor--Familiar Spirits--Demonology of the New Testament--Temptation of Jesus--Possession by Devils--Gadarene Swine Story--Test of Belief--Bible Idea of the Rights of Children--Punishment of the Rebellious Son--Jephthah's Vow and Sacrifice--Persecution of Job--The Gallantry of God--Bible Idea of the Rights of Women--Paul's Instructions to Wives--Permission given to Steal Wives--Does the Bible Sanction Polygamy and Concubinage?--Does the Bible Uphold and Justify Political Tyranny?--Powers that be Ordained of God--Religious Liberty of God--Sun-Worship punishable with Death--Unbelievers to be damned--Does the Bible describe a God of Mercy?--Massacre Commanded--Eternal Punishment Taught in the New Testament--The Plan of Salvation--Fall and Atonement Moral Bankruptcy--Other Religions--Parsee Sect--Brahmins--Confucians--Heretics and Orthodox.

MY CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS.

(1879.)

Rev. Robert Collyer--Inspiration of the Scriptures--Rev. Dr. Thomas--Formation of the Old Testament--Rev. Dr. Kohler--Rev. Mr. Herford--Prof. Swing--Rev. Dr. Ryder.

TO THE INDIANAPOLIS CLERGY.

(1882.)

Rev. David Walk--Character of Jesus--Two or Three Christs Described in the Gospels--Christ's Change of Opinions--Gospels Later than the Epistles--Divine Parentage of Christ a Late Belief--The Man Christ probably a Historical Character--Jesus Belittled by his Worshipers--He never Claimed to be Divine--Christ's Omissions--Difference between Christian and other Modern Civilizations--Civilization not Promoted by Religion--Inventors--French and American Civilization: How Produced--Intemperance and Slavery in Christian Nations--Advance due to Inventions and Discoveries--Missionaries--Christian Nations Preserved by Bayonet and Ball--Dr. T. B. Taylor--Origin of Life on this Planet--Sir William Thomson--Origin of Things Undiscoverable--Existence after Death--Spiritualists--If the Dead Return--Our Calendar--Christ and Christmas-The Existence of Pain--Plato's Theory of Evil--Will God do Better in Another World than he does in this?--Consolation--Life Not a Probationary Stage--Rev. D.O'Donaghue--The Case of Archibald Armstrong and Jonathan Newgate--Inequalities of Life--Can Criminals live a Contented Life?--Justice of the Orthodox God Illustrated.

THE BROOKLYN DIVINES.

(1883.)

Are the Books of Atheistic or Infidel Writers Extensively Read?--Increase in the Number of Infidels--Spread of Scientific Literature--Rev. Dr. Eddy--Rev. Dr. Hawkins--Rev. Dr. Haynes--Rev. Mr. Pullman--Rev. Mr. Foote--Rev. Mr. Wells--Rev. Dr. Van Dyke--Rev. Carpenter--Rev. Mr. Reed--Rev. Dr. McClelland--Ministers Opposed to Discussion--Whipping Children--Worldliness as a Foe of the Church--The Drama--Human Love--Fires, Cyclones, and Other Afflictions as Promoters of Spirituality--Class Distinctions--Rich and Poor--Aristocracies--The Right to Choose One's Associates--Churches Social Affairs--Progress of the Roman Catholic Church--Substitutes for the Churches--Henry Ward Beecher--How far Education is Favored by the Sects--Rivals of the Pulpit--Christianity Now and One Hundred Years Ago--French Revolution produced by the Priests--Why the Revolution was a Failure--Infidelity of One Hundred Years Ago--Ministers not more Intellectual than a Century Ago--Great Preachers of the Past--New Readings of Old Texts--Clerical Answerers of Infidelity--Rev. Dr. Baker--Father Fransiola--Faith and Reason--Democracy of Kindness--Moral Instruction--Morality Born of Human Needs--The Conditions of Happiness--The Chief End of Man.

THE LIMITATIONS OF TOLERATION.

(1888.)

Discussion between Col. Robert G. Ingersoll, Hon. Frederic R. Coudert, and ex-Gov. Stewart L. Woodford before the Nineteenth Century Club of New York--Propositions--Toleration not a Disclaimer but a Waiver of the Right to Persecute--Remarks of Courtlandt Palmer--No Responsibility for Thought--Intellectual Hospitality--Right of Free Speech--Origin of the term "Toleration"--Slander and False Witness--Nobody can Control his own Mind: Anecdote--Remarks of Mr. Coudert--Voltaire, Rousseau, Hugo, and Ingersoll--General Woodford's Speech--Reply by Colonel Ingersoll--A Catholic Compelled to Pay a Compliment to Voltaire--Responsibility for Thoughts--The Mexican Unbeliever and his Reception in the Other Country.

A CHRISTMAS SERMON.

(1891.)

Christianity's Message of Grief--Christmas a Pagan Festival--Reply to Dr. Buckley--Charges by the Editor of the Christian Advocate--The Tidings of Christianity--In what the Message of Grief Consists--Fear and Flame--An Everlasting Siberia--Dr. Buckley's Proposal to Boycott the Telegram--Reply to Rev. J. M. King and Rev. Thomas Dixon, Jr. Cana Day be Blasphemed?--Hurting Christian feelings--For Revenue only What is Blasphemy?--Balaam's Ass wiser than the Prophet--The Universalists--Can God do Nothing for this World?--The Universe a Blunder if Christianity is true--The Duty of a Newspaper--Facts Not Sectarian--The Rev. Mr. Peters--What Infidelity Has Done--Public School System not Christian--Orthodox Universities--Bruno on Oxford--As to Public Morals--No Rewards or Punishments in the Universe--The Atonement Immoral--As to Sciences and Art--Bruno, Humboldt, Darwin--Scientific Writers Opposed by the Church--As to the Liberation of Slaves--As to the Reclamation of Inebriates--Rum and Religion--The Humanity of Infidelity--What Infidelity says to the Dying--The Battle Continued--Morality not Assailed by an Attack on Christianity--The Inquisition and Religious Persecution--Human Nature Derided by Christianity--Dr. DaCosta--"Human Brotherhood" as exemplified by the History of the Church--The Church and Science, Art and Learning----Astronomy's Revenge--Galileo and Kepler--Mrs. Browning: Science Thrust into the Brain of Europe--Our Numerals--Christianity and Literature--Institution's of Learning--Stephen Girard--James Lick--Our Chronology--Historians--Natural Philosophy--Philology--Metaphysical Research--Intelligence, Hindoo, Egyptian--Inventions--John Ericsson--Emancipators--Rev. Mr. Ballou--The Right of Goa to Punish--Rev. Dr. Hillier--Rev. Mr. Haldeman--George A. Locey--The "Great Physician"--Rev. Mr. Talmage--Rev. J. Benson Hamilton--How Voltaire Died--The Death-bed of Thomas Paine--Rev. Mr. Holloway--Original Sin--Rev. Dr. Tyler--The Good Samaritan a Heathen--Hospitals and Asylums--Christian Treatment of the Insane--Rev. Dr. Buckley--The North American Review Discussion--Judge Black, Dr. Field, Mr. Gladstone--Circulation of Obscene Literature--Eulogy of Whiskey--Eulogy of Tobacco--Human Stupidity that Defies the Gods--Rev. Charles Deems--Jesus a Believer in a Personal Devil--The Man Christ.

SUICIDE OF JUDGE NORMILE.

(1892.)

Reply to the _Western Watchman_--Henry D'Arcy--Peter's Prevarication-Some Excellent Pagans-Heartlessness of a Catholic--Wishes do not Affect the Judgment--Devout Robbers--Penitent Murderers--Reverential Drunkards--Luther's Distich--Judge Normile--Self-destruction.

IS SUICIDE A SIN?

(1894.)

Col. Ingersoll's First Letter in _The New York World_--Under what Circumstances a Man has the Right to take his Own Life--Medicine and the Decrees of God--Case of the Betrayed Girl--Suicides not Cowards--Suicide under Roman Law--Many Suicides Insane--Insanity Caused by Religion--The Law against Suicide Cruel and Idiotic--Natural and Sufficient Cause for Self-destruction--Christ's Death a Suicide--Col. Ingersoll's Reply to his Critics--Is Suffering the Work of God?--It is not Man's Duty to Endure Hopeless Suffering--When Suicide is Justifiable--The Inquisition--Alleged Cowardice of Suicides--Propositions Demonstrated--Suicide the Foundation of the Christian Religion--Redemption and Atonement--The Clergy on Infidelity and Suicide--Morality and Unbelief--Better injure yourself than Another--Misquotation by Opponents--Cheerful View the Best--The Wonder is that Men endure--Suicide a Sin (Interview in The New York Journal)--Causes of Suicide--Col. Ingersoll Does Not Advise Suicide--Suicides with Tracts or Bibles in their Pockets--Suicide a Sin (Interview in The New York Herald)--Comments on Rev. Alerle St. Croix Wright's Sermon--Suicide and Sanity (Interview in The York World)--As to the Cowardice of Suicide--Germany and the Prevalence of Suicide--Killing of Idiots and Defective Infants--Virtue, Morality, and Religion.

IS AVARICE TRIUMPHANT?

(1891.)

Reply to General Rush Hawkins' Article, "Brutality and Avarice Triumphant"--Croakers and Prophets of Evil--Medical Treatment for Believers in Universal Evil--Alleged Fraud in Army Contracts--Congressional Extravagance--Railroad "Wreckers"--How Stockholders in Some Roads Lost Their Money--The Star-Route Trials--Timber and Public Lands--Watering Stock--The Formation of Trusts--Unsafe Hotels: European Game and Singing Birds--Seal Fisheries--Cruelty to Animals--Our Indians--Sensible and Manly Patriotism--Days of Brutality--Defence of Slavery by the Websters, Bentons, and Clays--Thirty Years' Accomplishment--Ennobling Influence of War for the Right--The Lady ana the Brakeman--American Esteem of Honesty in Business--Republics do not Tend to Official Corruption--This the Best Country in the World.

A REPLY TO THE CINCINNATI GAZETTE AND CATHOLIC TELEGRAPH.

(1878.)

Defence of the Lecture on Moses--How Biblical Miracles are sought to be Proved--Some _Non Sequiturs_--A Grammatical Criticism--Christianity Destructive of Manners--Cuvier and Agassiz on Mosaic Cosmogony--Clerical Advance agents--Christian Threats and Warnings--Catholicism the Upas Tree--Hebrew Scholarship as a Qualification for Deciding Probababilities --Contradictions and Mistranslations of the Bible--Number of Errors in the Scriptures--The Sunday Question.

AN INTERVIEW ON CHIEF JUSTICE COMEGYS.

(1881.)

Charged with Blasphemy in the State of Delaware--Can a Conditionless Deity be Injured?--Injustice the only Blasphemy--The Lecture in Delaware--Laws of that State--All Sects in turn Charged with Blasphemy--Heresy Consists in making God Better than he is Thought to Be--A Fatal Biblical Passage--Judge Comegys--Wilmington Preachers--States with Laws against Blasphemy--No Danger of Infidel Mobs--No Attack on the State of Delaware Contemplated--Comegys a Resurrection--Grand Jury's Refusal to Indict--Advice about the Cutting out of Heretics' Tongues--Objections to the Whipping-post--Mr. Bergh's Bill--One Remedy for Wife-beating.

A REPLY TO REV. DRS. THOMAS AND LORIMER.

(8882.)

Solemnity--Charged with Being Insincere--Irreverence--Old Testament Better than the New--"Why Hurt our Feelings?"--Involuntary Action of the Brain--Source of our Conceptions of Space--Good and Bad--Right and Wrong--The Minister, the Horse and the Lord's Prayer--Men Responsible for their Actions--The "Gradual" Theory Not Applicable to the Omniscient--Prayer Powerless to Alter Results--Religious Persecution--Orthodox Ministers Made Ashamed of their Creed--Purgatory--Infidelity and Baptism Contrasted--Modern Conception of the Universe--The Golden Bridge of Life--"The Only Salutation"--The Test for Admission to Heaven--"Scurrility."

A REPLY TO REV. JOHN HALL AND WARNER VAN NORDEN.

(1892.)

Dr. Hall has no Time to Discuss the subject of Starving Workers--Cloakmakers' Strike--Warner Van Norden of the Church Extension Society--The Uncharitableness of Organized Charity--Defence of the Cloakmakers--Life of the Underpaid--On the Assertion that Assistance encourages Idleness and Crime--The Man without Pity an Intellectual Beast--Tendency of Prosperity to Breed Selfishness--Thousands Idle without Fault--Egotism of Riches--Van Norden's Idea of Happiness--The Worthy Poor.

A REPLY TO THE REV. DR. PLUMB.

(1898.)

Interview in a Boston Paper--Why should a Minister call this a "Poor" World?--Would an Infinite God make People who Need a Redeemer?--Gospel Gossip--Christ's Sayings Repetitions--The Philosophy of Confucius--Rev. Mr. Mills--The Charge of "Robbery"--The Divine Plan.

A REPLY TO THE NEW YORK CLERGY ON SUPERSTITION.

(1898.)

Interview in the New York Journal--Rev. Roberts. MacArthur--A Personal Devil--Devils who held Conversations with Christ not simply personifications of Evil--The Temptation--The "Man of Straw"--Christ's Mission authenticated by the Casting Out of Devils--Spain--God Responsible for the Actions of Man--Rev. Dr. J. Lewis Parks--Rev. Dr. E. F. Moldehnke--Patience amidst the Misfortunes of Others--Yellow Fever as a Divine Agent--The Doctrine that All is for the Best--Rev. Mr. Hamlin--Why Did God Create a Successful Rival?--A Compliment by the Rev. Mr. Belcher--Rev. W. C. Buchanan--No Argument Old until it is Answered--Why should God Create sentient Beings to be Damned?--Rev. J. W. Campbell--Rev. Henry Frank--Rev. E. C.J. Kraeling on Christ and the Devil--Would he make a World like This?

MY REVIEWERS REVIEWED.

* This lecture was delivered by Col. Ingersoll in San Francisco Cal., June 27, 1877. It was a reply to various clergymen of that city, who had made violent attacks upon him after the delivery of his lectures, "The Liberty of Man, Woman and Child," and "The Ghosts."

I.

AGAINST the aspersions of the pulpit and the religious press, I offer in evidence this magnificent audience. Although I represent but a small part of the holy cause of intellectual liberty, even that part shall not be defiled or smirched by a single personality. Whatever I say, I shall say because I believe it will tend to make this world grander, man nearer just, the father kinder, the mother more loving, the children more affectionate, and because I believe it will make an additional flower bloom in the pathway of every one who hears me.

In the first place, what have I said? What has been my offence? What have I done? I am spoken of by the clergy as though I were a wolf that in the absence of the good shepherd had fattened upon his innocent flock. What have I said?

I delivered a lecture entitled, "The Liberty of Man, Woman and Child." In that lecture I said that man was entitled to physical and intellectual liberty. I defined physical liberty to be the right to do right; the right to do anything that did not interfere with the real happiness of others. I defined intellectual liberty to be the right to think right, and the right to think wrong--provided you did your best to think right.

This must be so, because thought is only an instrumentality by which we seek to ascertain the truth. Every man has the right to think, whether his thought is in reality right or wrong; and he cannot be accountable to any being for thinking wrong. There is upon man, so far as thought is concerned, the obligation to think the best he can, and to honestly express his best thought. Whenever he finds what is right, or what he honestly believes to be the right, he is less than a man if he fears to express his conviction before an assembled world.

The right to do right is my definition of physical liberty. "The right of one human being ceases where the right of another commences." My definition of intellectual liberty is, the right to think, whether you think right or wrong, provided you do your best to think right.

I believe in Liberty, Fraternity and Equality--the Blessed Trinity of Humanity.

I believe in Observation, Reason and Experience--the Blessed Trinity of Science.

I believe in Man, Woman and Child--the Blessed Trinity of Life and Joy.

I have said, and still say, that you have no right to endeavor by force to compel another to think your way--that man has no right to compel his fellow-man to adopt his creed, by torture or social ostracism. I have said, and still say, that even an infinite God has and can have no right to compel by force or threats even the meanest of mankind to accept a dogma abhorrent to his mind. As a matter of fact such a power is incapable of being exercised. You may compel a man to say that he has changed his mind. You may force him to say that he agrees with you. In this way, however, you make hypocrites, not converts. Is it possible that a god wishes the worship of a slave? Does a god desire the homage of a coward? Does he really long for the adoration of a hypocrite? Is it possible that he requires the worship of one who dare not think? If I were a god it seems to me that I had rather have the esteem and love of one grand, brave man, with plenty of heart and plenty of brain, than the blind worship, the ignorant adoration, the trembling homage of a universe of men afraid to reason. And yet I am warned by the orthodox guardians of this great city not to think. I am told that I am in danger of hell; that for me to express my honest convictions is to excite the wrath of God. They inform me that unless I believe in a certain way, meaning their way, I am in danger of everlasting fire.

There was a time when these threats whitened the faces of men with fear. That time has substantially passed away. For a hundred years hell has been gradually growing cool, the flames have been slowly dying out, the brimstone is nearly exhausted, the fires have been burning lower and lower, and the climate gradually changing. To such an extent has the change already been effected that if I were going there to-night I would take an overcoat and a box of matches.

They say that the eternal future of man depends upon his belief. I deny it. A conclusion honestly arrived at by the brain cannot possibly be a crime; and the man who says it is, does not think so. The god who punishes it as a crime is simply an infamous tyrant. As for me, I would a thousand times rather go to perdition and suffer its torments with the brave, grand thinkers of the world, than go to heaven and keep the company of a god who would damn his children for an honest belief.

The next thing I have said is, that woman is the equal of man; that she has every right that man has, and one more--the right to be protected, because she is the weaker. I have said that marriage should be an absolutely perfect partnership of body and soul; that a man should treat his wife like a splendid flower, and that she should fill his life with perfume and with joy. I have said that a husband had no right to be morose; that he had no right to assassinate the sunshine and murder the joy of life.

I have said that when he went home he should go like a ray of light, and fill his house so full of joy that it would burst out of the doors and windows and illumine even the darkness of night. I said that marriage was the holiest, highest, the most sacred institution among men; that it took millions of years for woman to advance from the condition of absolute servitude, from the absolute slavery where the Bible found her and left her, up to the position she occupies at present. I have pleaded for the rights of woman, for the rights of wives, and what is more, for the rights of little children. I have said that they could be governed by affection, by love, and that my heart went out to all the children of poverty and of crime; to the children that live in the narrow streets and in the sub-cellars; to the children that run and hide when they hear the footsteps of a brutal father, the children that grow pale when they hear their names pronounced even by a mother; to all the little children, the flotsam and jetsam upon the wide, rude sea of life. I have said that my heart goes out to them one and all; I have asked fathers and mothers to cease beating their own flesh and blood. I have said to them, When your child does wrong, put your arms around him; let him feel your heart beat against his. It is easier to control your child with a kiss than with a club.

For expressing these sentiments, I have been denounced by the religious press and by ministers in their pulpits as a demon, as an enemy of order, as a fiend, as an infamous man. Of this, however, I make no complaint. A few years ago they would have burned me at the stake and I should have been compelled to look upon their hypocritical faces through flame and smoke. They cannot do it now or they would. One hundred years ago I would have been burned, simply for pleading for the rights of men. Fifty years ago I would have been imprisoned. Fifty years ago my wife and my children would have been torn from my arms in the name of the most merciful God. Twenty-five years ago I could not have made a living in the United States at the practice of law; but I can now. I would not then have been allowed to express my thought; but I can now, and I will. And when I think about the liberty I now enjoy, the whole horizon is illuminated with glory and the air is filled with wings.

I then delivered another lecture entitled "Ghosts," in which I sought to show that man had been controlled by phantoms of his own imagination; in which I sought to show these imps of darkness, these devils, had all been produced by superstition; in which I endeavored to prove that man had groveled in the dust before monsters of his own creation; in which I endeavored to demonstrate that the many had delved in the soil that the few might live in idleness, that the many had lived in caves and dens that the few might dwell in palaces of gold; in which I endeavored to show that man had received nothing from these ghosts except hatred, except ignorance, except unhappiness, and that in the name of phantoms man had covered the face of the world with tears. And for this, I have been assailed, in the name, I presume, of universal forgiveness. So far as any argument I have produced is concerned, it cannot in any way make the slightest difference whether I am a good or a bad man. It cannot in any way make the slightest difference whether my personal character is good or bad. That is not the question, though, so far as I am concerned, I am willing to stake the whole question upon that issue. That is not, however, the thing to be discussed, nor the thing to be decided. The question is, whether what I said is true.

I did say that from ghosts we had obtained certain things--among other things a book known as the Bible. From the ghosts we received that book; and the believers in ghosts pretend that upon that book rests the doctrine of the immortality of the human soul. This I deny.

Whether or not the soul is immortal is a fact in nature and cannot be changed by any book whatever. If I am immortal, I am. If am not, no book can render me so. It is no mure wonderful that I should live again than that I do live.