Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - Latest

by Robert Green Ingersoll

I saw there their musical instruments, from the tomtom (that is a hoop with two strings of rawhide drawn across it) to the instruments we have that make the common air blossom with melody. I saw their ideas on ornaments, from a string of the claws of a wild beast that once ornamented the dusky bosom of some savage belle, to the rubies and sapphires and diamonds with which civilization today is familiar. I saw the books, written upon the shoulder-blades of sheep, upon the bark of trees, down to the illustrated volumes that are now in the libraries of the world. I saw their ideas of paintings, from the rude daubs of yellow mud, to the grand pictures we see in the art galleries of today. I saw their ideas of sculpture, from a monster god with several legs, a good many noses, a great many eyes, and one little, contemptible, brainless head, to the sculpture that we have, where the marble is clothed with such personality that it seems almost impudence to touch it without an introduction. I saw all these things, and how men had gradually improved through the generations that are dead. And I saw at the same time a row of men's skulls—skulls from the Bushmen of Australia, skulls from the center of Africa, skulls from the farthest islands of the Pacific, skulls from this country—from the aborigines of America, skulls of the Aztecs, up to the best skulls, or many of the best of the last generation; and I noticed there was the same difference between the skulls as between the products of the skulls, the same between that skull and that, as between the dugout and the man-of-war, as between the dugout and the steamship, as between the tomtom and an opera of Verdi, as between those ancient agricultural implements and ours, as between that yellow daub and that landscape, as between that stone god and a statue of today; and I said to myself, "This is a question of intellectual development; this is a question of brain." The man has advanced just in proportion as he has mingled his thoughts with his labor, and just in proportion that his brain has gotten into partnership with his hand. Man has advanced just as he has developed intellectually, and no other way. That skull was a low den in which crawled and groped the meaner and baser instincts of mankind, and this was a temple in which dwelt love, liberty and joy.

Why is it that we have advanced in the arts? It is because every incentive has been held out to the world; because we want better clubs or better cannons with which to kill our fellow Christians; we want better music, we want better houses, and any man who will invent them, and any man who will give them to us we will clothe him in gold and glory; we will crown him with honor. That gentleman in his dugout not only had his ideas of mechanics, but he was a politician. His idea of politics was, "Might makes right;" and it will take thousands of years before the world will be willing to say that, "Right makes might." That was his idea of politics, and he had another idea—that all power came from the clouds, and that every armed thief that lived upon the honest labor of mankind had had poured out upon his head the divine oil of authority. He didn't believe the power to govern came from the people; he did not believe that the great mass of people had any right whatever, or that the great mass of people could be allowed the liberty of thought—and we have thousands of such today.

They say thought is dangerous—don't investigate;* don't inquire; just believe; shut your eyes, and then you are safe. You trust not hear this man or that man or some other man, or our dear doctrines will be overturned, and we have nobody on our side except a large majority; we have nobody on our side except the wealth and respectability of the world; we have nobody on our side except the infinite God, and we are afraid that one man, in one or two hours, will beat the whole party.

[* There is no method of reasoning more common, or more blamable, than in philosophical disputes, to endeavor the refutation of any hypothesis, by a pretense of its dangerous consequences to religion and morality."—David Hume]

This man in the dugout also had his ideas of religion—that fellow was orthodox, and any man who differed with him he called an infidel, an atheist, an outcast, and warned everybody against him. He had his religion—he believed in hell; he was glad of it; he enjoyed it; it was a great source of comfort to him to think when he didn't like people that he would have the pleasure of looking over and seeing them squirm upon the gridiron. When any man said he didn't believe there was a hell this gentleman got up in his pulpit and called him a hyena. That fellow believed in a devil too; that lowest skull was a devil factory—he believed in him. He believed he had a long tail adorned with a fiery dart; he believed he had wings like a bat, and had a pleasant habit of breathing sulphur; and he believed he had a cloven foot—such as most of your clergymen think I am blessed with myself. They are shepherds of the sheep. The people are the sheep—that is all they are, they have to be watched and guarded by these shepherds and protected from the wolf who wants to reason with them. That is the doctrine. Now, all I claim is the same right to improve on that gentleman's politics, as on the dug-out, and the same right to improve upon his religion as upon his plough, or the musical instrument known as the tomtom—that is all.

Now, suppose the king and priest, if there was one, and there probably was one, as the farther you go back the more ignorant you find mankind and the thicker you find these gentlemen—suppose the king and priest had said: "That boat is the best boat that ever can be built; we got the model of that from Neptune, the god of the seas, and I guess the god of the water knows how to build a boat, and any man that says he can improve it by putting a stick in the middle with a rag on the end of it, and has any talk about the wind blowing this way, and that, he is a heretic—he is a blasphemer." Honor bright, what, in your judgment, would have been the effect upon the circumnavigation of the globe? I think we would have been on the other side yet. Suppose the king and priests had said: "That plow is the best that ever can be invented; the model of that was given to a pious farmer in a holy dream, and that twisted straw is the ne plus ultra of all twisted things, and any man who says he can out-twist it, we will twist him." Suppose the king and priests had said: "That tomtom is the finest instrument of music in the world—that is the kind of music found in heaven. An angel sat upon the edge of a glorified cloud playing upon that tomtom and became so entranced with the music that in a kind of ecstasy she dropped it and that is how we got it, and any man who talks about putting any improvement on that, he is not fit to live." Let me ask you—do you believe if that had been done that the human ears ever would have been enriched with the divine symphonies of Beethoven?

All I claim is the same right to improve upon this barbarian's ideas of politics and religion as upon everything else, and whether it is an improvement or not, I have a right to suggest it—that is my doctrine. They say to me, "God will punish you forever, if you do these things." Very well. I will settle with Him. I had rather settle with Him than any one of His agents. I do not like them very well. In theology I am a granger—I do not believe in middle-men, what little business I have with heaven I will attend to thyself. Our fathers thought, just as many now think, that you could force men to think your way and if they failed to do it by reason, they tried it another way. I used to read about it when I was a boy—it did not seem to me that these things were true; it did not seem to me that there ever was such heartless bigotry in the heart of man, but there was and is tonight. I used to read about it—I did not appreciate it. I never appreciated it until I saw the arguments of those gentlemen. They used to use just such arguments as that man in the dug-out would have used to the next man ahead of him. This low, miserable skull—this next man was a little higher, and this fellow behind called him a heretic, and the next was still a little higher, and he was called an infidel. And, so it went on through the whole row—always calling the man who was ahead an infidel and a heretic. No man was ever called so who was behind the army of progress. It has always been the man ahead that has been called the heretic. Heresy is the last and best thought always. Heresy extends the hospitality of the brain to a new idea; that is what the rotting says to the growing; that is what the dweller in the swamp says to the man on the sun-lit hill; that is what the man in the darkness cries out to the grand man upon whose forehead is shining the dawn of a grander day; that is what the coffin says to the cradle. Orthodoxy is a kind of shroud, and heresy is a banner—orthodoxy is a frog and heresy a star shining forever above the cradle of truth. I do not mean simply in religion, I mean in everything, and the idea I wish to impress upon you is that you should keep your minds open to all the influences of nature; you should keep your minds open to reason. Hear what a man has to say, and do not let the turtle-shell of bigotry grow above your brain. Give everybody a chance and an opportunity; that is all.

I saw the arguments that those gentlemen have used on each other through all the ages. I saw a little bit of thumbscrew not more than so long (illustrating), and attached to each end was a screw, and the inner surface vas trimmed with little protuberances to prevent their slipping; and when some man doubted—when a man had an idea—then those that did not have an idea put the thumbscrew upon him who did. He had doubted something. For instance, they told him, "Christ says you must love your enemies;" he says, "I do not know about that;" then they said, "We will show you!" "Do unto others as you would be done by," they said is the doctrine. He doubted. "We will show you that it is!" So they put this screw on; and in the name of universal love and universal forgiveness—"pray for those who despitefully use you"—they began screwing these pieces of iron into him—always done in the name of religion—always. It never was done in the name of reason, never was done in the name of science—never. No man was ever persecuted in defense of a truth—never. No man was ever persecuted except in defense of a lie—never.

This man had fallen out with them about something; he did not understand it as they did. For instance he said, "I do not believe there ever was a man whose strength was in his hair." They said: "You don't? We'll show you!" "I do not believe," he says, "that a fish ever swallowed a man to save his life." "You don't? Well, we'll show you!" And so they put this on, and generally the man would recant and say, "Well, I'll take it back." Well I think I should. Such men are not worth dying for. The idea of dying for a man that would tear the flesh of another on account of an honest difference of opinion—such a man is not worth dying for; he is not worth living for, and if I was in a position that I could not send a bullet through his brain, I would recant. I would say: "You write it down and I will sign it—I will admit that there is one God, or a million—suit yourself; one hell or a billion; you just write it—only stop this screw. You are not worth suffering for, you are not worth dying for and I am never going to take the part of any Lord that won't take my part—you just write it down and I'll sign it."

But there was now and then a man who would not do that. He said, "No, I believe I am right, and I will die for it," and I suppose we owe what little progress we have made to a few men in all ages of the world who really stood by their convictions. The men who stood by the truth and the men who stood by a fact, they are the men that have helped raise this world, and in every age there has been some sublime and tender soul who was true to his convictions, and who really lived to make men better. In every age some men carried the torch of progress and handed it to some other, and it has been carried through all the dark ages of barbarism, and had it not been for such men we would have been naked and uncivilized tonight, with pictures of wild beasts tattooed on our skins, dancing around some dried snake fetish.