The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. / Interviews

by Robert Green Ingersoll

Answer. In the old times punishment was the only means of reformation. If anybody did wrong, punish him. If people still continued to commit the same offence, increase the punishment; and that went on until in what they call "civilized countries" they hanged people, provided they stole the value of one shilling. But larceny kept right on. There was no diminution. So, for treason, barbarous punishments were inflicted. Those guilty of that offence were torn asunder by horses; their entrails were cut out of them while they were yet living and thrown into their faces; their bodies were quartered and their heads were set on pikes above the gates of the city. Yet there was a hundred times more treason then than now. Every time a man was executed and mutilated and tortured in this way the seeds of other treason were sown.

So in the church there was the same idea. No reformation but by punishment. Of course in this world the punishment stopped when the poor wretch was dead. It was found that that punishment did not reform, so the church said: "After death it will go right on, getting worse and worse, forever and forever." Finally it was found that this did not tend to the reformation of mankind. Slowly the fires of hell have been dying out. The climate has been changing from year to year. Men have lost confidence in the power of the thumbscrew, the fagot, and the rack here, and they are losing confidence in the flames of perdition hereafter. In other words, it is simply a question of civilization.

When men become civilized in matters of thought, they will know that every human being has the right to think for himself, and the right to express his honest thought. Then the world of thought will be free. At that time they will be intelligent enough to know that men have different thoughts, that their ways are not alike, because they have lived under different circumstances, and in that time they will also know that men act as they are acted upon. And it is my belief that the time will come when men will no more think of punishing a man because he has committed the crime of larceny than they will think of punishing a man because he has the consumption. In the first case they will endeavor to reform him, and in the second case they will endeavor to cure him.

The intelligent people of the world, many of them, are endeavoring to find out the great facts in Nature that control the dispositions of men. So other intelligent people are endeavoring to ascertain the facts and conditions that govern what we call health, and what we call disease, and the object of these people is finally to produce a race without disease of flesh and without disease of mind. These people look forward to the time when there need to be neither hospitals nor penitentiaries.

—New York World, August 5, 1888.

WOMAN'S RIGHT TO DIVORCE.

Question. Col. Robert G. Ingersoll, the great Agnostic, has always been an ardent defender of the sanctity of the home and of the marriage relation. Apropos of the horrible account of a man's tearing out the eyes of his wife at Far Rockaway last week, Colonel Ingersoll was asked what recourse a woman had under such circumstances?

Answer. I read the account, and I don't remember of ever having read anything more perfectly horrible and cruel. It is impossible for me to imagine such a monster, or to account for such an inhuman human being. How a man could deprive a human being of sight, except where some religious question is involved, is beyond my comprehension. We know that for many centuries frightful punishments were inflicted, and inflicted by the pious, by the theologians, by the spiritual minded, and by those who "loved their neighbors as themselves." We read the accounts of how the lids of men's eyes were cut off and then the poor victims tied where the sum would shine upon their lifeless orbs; of others who were buried alive; of others staked out on the sands of the sea, to be drowned by the rising tide; of others put in sacks filled with snakes. Yet these things appeared far away, and we flattered ourselves that, to a great degree, the world had outgrown these atrocities; and now, here, near the close of the nineteenth century, we find a man—a husband—cruel enough to put out the eyes of the woman he swore to love, protect and cherish. This man has probably been taught that there is forgiveness for every crime, and now imagines that when he repents there will be more joy in heaven over him than over ninety and nine good and loving husbands who have treated their wives in the best possible manner, and who, instead of tearing out their eyes, have filled their lives with content and covered their faces with kisses.

Question. You told me, last week, in a general way, what society should do with the husband in such a case as that. I would like to ask you to-day, what you think society ought to do with the wife in such a case, or what ought the wife to be permitted to do for herself?

Answer. When we take into consideration the crime of the man who blinded his wife, it is impossible not to think of the right of divorce. Many people insist that marriage is an indissoluble tie; that nothing can break it, and that nothing can release either party from the bond. Now, take this case at Far Rockaway. One year ago the husband tore out one of his wife's eyes. Had she then good cause for divorce? Is it possible that an infinitely wise and good God would insist on this poor, helpless woman remaining with the wild beast, her husband? Can anyone imagine that such a course would add to the joy of Paradise, or even tend to keep one harp in tune? Can the good of society require the woman to remain? She did remain, and the result is that the other eye has been torn from its socket by the hands of the husband. Is she entitled to a divorce now? And if she is granted one, is virtue in danger, and shall we lose the high ideal of home life? Can anything be more infamous than to endeavor to make a woman, under such circumstances, remain with such a man? It may be said that she should leave him—that they should live separate and apart. That is to say, that this woman should be deprived of a home; that she should not be entitled to the love of man; that she should remain, for the rest of her days, worse than a widow. That is to say, a wife, hiding, keeping out of the way, secreting herself from the hyena to whom she was married. Nothing, in my judgment, can exceed the heartlessness of a law or of a creed that would compel this woman to remain the wife of this monster. And it is not only cruel, but it is immoral, low, vulgar.