The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll Volume VII Part 14

So in the great realm of religion, there can be no force. No one can be compelled to pray. No matter how you tie him down, or crush him down on his face or on his knees, it is above the power of the human race to put in that man, by force, the spirit of prayer. You cannot do it. Neither can you compel anybody to wors.h.i.+p a G.o.d. Wors.h.i.+p rises from the heart like perfume from a flower. It cannot obey; it cannot do that which some one else commands. It must be absolutely true to the law of its own nature. And do you think any G.o.d would be satisfied with compulsory wors.h.i.+p? Would he like to see long rows of poor, ignorant slaves on their terrified knees repeating words without a soul--giving him what you might call the shucks of sound? Will any G.o.d be satisfied with that? And so I say, we must be as free in one department of thought as another.

Now, I take the next step, and that is, that the rights of all are absolutely equal.

I have the same right to give you my opinion that you have to give me yours. I have no right to compel you to hear, if you do not want to. I have no right to compel you to speak if you do not want to. If you do not wish to know my thought, I have no right to force it upon you.

The next thing is, that this liberty of thought, this liberty of expression, is of more value than any other thing beneath the stars. Of more value than any religion, of more value than any government, of more value than all the const.i.tutions that man has written and all the laws that he has pa.s.sed, is this liberty--the absolute liberty of the human mind. Take away that word from language, and all other words become meaningless sounds, and there is then no reason for a man being and living upon the earth.

So then, I am simply in favor of intellectual hospitality--that is all.

You come to me with a new idea. I invite you into the house. Let us see what you have. Let us talk it over. If I do not like your thought, I will bid it a polite "good day." If I do like it, I will say: "Sit down; stay with me, and become a part of the intellectual wealth of my world."

That is all.

And how any human being ever has had the impudence to speak against the right to speak, is beyond the power of my imagination. Here is a man who speaks--who exercises a right that he, by his speech, denies. Can liberty go further than that? Is there any toleration possible beyond the liberty to speak against liberty--the real believer in free speech allowing others to speak against the right to speak? Is there any limitation beyond that?

So, whoever has spoken against the right to speak has admitted that he violated his own doctrine. No man can open his mouth against the freedom of speech without denying every argument he may put forward. Why? He is exercising the right that he denies. How did he get it? Suppose there is one man on an island. You will all admit now that he would have the right to do his own thinking. You will all admit that he has the right to express his thought. Now, will somebody tell me how many men would have to emigrate to that island before the original settler would lose his right to think and his right to express himself?

If there be an infinite Being--and it is a question that I know nothing about--you would be perfectly astonished to know how little I do know on that subject, and yet I know as much as the aggregated world knows, and as little as the smallest insect that ever fanned with happy wings the summer air--if there be such a Being, I have the same right to think that he has simply because it is a necessity of my nature--because I cannot help it. And the Infinite would be just as responsible to the smallest intelligence living in the infinite s.p.a.ces--he would be just as responsible to that intelligence as that intelligence can be to him, provided that intelligence thinks as a necessity of his nature.

There is another phrase to which I object--"toleration." "The limits of toleration." Why say "toleration"? I will tell you why. When the thinkers were in the minority--when the philosophers were vagabonds--when the men with brains furnished fuel for bonfires--when the majority were ignorantly orthodox--when they hated the heretic as a last year's leaf hates a this year's bud--in that delightful time these poor people in the minority had to say to ignorant power, to conscientious rascality, to cruelty born of universal love: "Don't kill us; don't be so arrogantly meek as to burn us; tolerate us." At that time the minority was too small to talk about rights, and the great big ignorant majority when tired of shedding blood, said: "Well, we will tolerate you; we can afford to wait; you will not live long, and when the Being of infinite compa.s.sion gets hold of you we will glut our revenge through an eternity of joy; we will ask you every now and then, 'What is your opinion now?'"

Both feeling absolutely sure that infinite goodness would have his revenge, they "tolerated" these thinkers, and that word finally took the place almost of liberty. But I do not like it. When you say "I tolerate," you do not say you have no right to punish, no right to persecute. It is only a disclaimer for a few moments and for a few years, but you retain the right. I deny it.

And let me say here to-night--it is your experience, it is mine--that the bigger a man is the more charitable he is; you know it. The more brain he has, the more excuses he finds for all the world; you know it.

And if there be in heaven an infinite Being, he must be grander than any man; he must have a thousand times more charity than the human heart can hold, and is it possible that he is going to hold his ignorant children responsible for the impressions made by nature upon their brain? Let us have some sense.

There is another side to this question, and that is with regard to the freedom of thought and expression in matters pertaining to this world.

No man has a right to hurt the character of a neighbor. He has no right to utter slander. He has no right to bear false witness. He has no right to be actuated by any motive except for the general good--but the things he does here to his neighbor--these are easily defined and easily punished. All that I object to is setting up a standard of authority in the world of art, the world of beauty, the world of poetry, the world of wors.h.i.+p, the world of religion, and the world of metaphysics. That is what I object to; and if the old doctrines had been carried out, every human being that has benefited this world would have been destroyed.

If the people who believe that a certain belief is necessary to insure salvation had had control of this world, we would have been as ignorant to-night as wild beasts. Every step in advance has been made in spite of them. There has not been a book of any value printed since the invention of that art--and when I say "of value," I mean that contained new and splendid truths--that was not anathematized by the gentlemen who believed that man is responsible for his thought. Every step has been taken in spite of that doctrine.

Consequently I simply believe in absolute liberty of mind. And I have no fear about any other world--not the slightest. When I get there, I will give my honest opinion of that country; I will give my honest thought there; and if for that I lose my soul, I will keep at least my self-respect.

A man tells me a story. I believe it, or disbelieve it. I cannot help it. I read a story--no matter whether in the original Hebrew, or whether it has been translated. I believe it or I disbelieve it. No matter whether it is written in a very solemn or a very flippant manner--I have my idea about its truth. And I insist that each man has the right to judge that for himself, and for that reason, as I have already said, I am defending your right to differ with me--that is all. And if you do differ with me, all that it proves is that I do not agree with you.

There is no man that lives to-night beneath the stars--there is no being--that can force my soul upon its knees, unless the reason is given. I will be no slave. I do not care how big my master is, I am just as small, if a slave, as though the master were small. It is not the greatness of the master that can honor the slave. In other words, I am going to act according to my right, as I understand it, without interfering with any other human being. And now, if you think--any of you, that you can control your thought, I want you to try it. There is not one here who can by any possibility think, only as he must.

You remember the story of the Methodist minister who insisted that he could control his thoughts. A man said to him, "n.o.body can control his own mind." "Oh, yes, he can," the preacher replied. "My dear sir," said the man, "you cannot even say the Lord's Prayer without thinking of something else." "Oh, yes, I can." "Well, if you will do it, I will give you that horse, the best riding horse in this county." "Well, who is to judge?" said the preacher. "I will take your own word for it, and if you say the Lord's Prayer through without thinking of anything else, I will give you that horse." So the minister shut his eyes and began: "Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done,"--"I suppose you will throw in the saddle and bridle?"

I say to you to-night, ladies and gentlemen, that I feel more interest in the freedom of thought and speech than in all other questions, knowing, as I do, that it is the condition of great and splendid progress for the race; remembering, as I do, that the opposite idea has covered the cheek of the world with tears; remembering, and knowing, as I do, that the enemies of free thought and free speech have covered this world with blood. These men have filled the heavens with an infinite monster; they have filled the future with fire and flame, and they have made the present, when they have had the power, a perdition. These men, these doctrines, have carried f.a.gots to the feet of philosophy. These men, these doctrines, have hated to see the dawn of an intellectual day.

These men, these doctrines, have denied every science, and denounced and killed every philosopher they could lay their b.l.o.o.d.y, cruel, ignorant hands upon.

And for that reason, I am for absolute liberty of thought, everywhere, in every department, domain, and realm of the human mind.

REMARKS OF MR. COUDERT.

_Ladies and Gentlemen and Mr. President_: It is not only "the sense of the church" that I am lacking now, I am afraid it is any sense at all; and I am only wondering how a reasonably intelligent being--meaning myself--could in view of the misfortune that befell Mr. Kernan, have undertaken to speak to-night.

This is a new experience. I have never sung in any of Verdi's operas--I have never listened to one through--but I think I would prefer to try all three of these performances rather than go on with this duty which, in a vain moment of deluded vanity, I heedlessly undertook.

I am in a new field here. I feel very much like the master of a s.h.i.+p who thinks that he can safely guide his bark. (I am not alluding to the traditional bark of St. Peter, in which I hope that I am and will always be, but the ordinary bark that requires a compa.s.s and a rudder and a guide.) And I find that all these ordinary things, which we generally take for granted, and which are as necessary to our safety as the air which we breathe, or the suns.h.i.+ne that we enjoy, have been quietly, pleasantly, and smilingly thrown overboard by the gentleman who has just preceded me.

Carlyle once said--and the thought came to me as the gentleman was speaking--"A Comic History of England!"--for some wretch had just written such a book--(talk of free thought and free speech when men do such things!)--"A Comic History of England!" The next thing we shall hear of will be "A Comic History of the Bible!" I think we have heard the first chapter of that comic history to-night; and the only comfort that I have--and possibly some other antiquated and superannuated persons of either s.e.x, if such there be within my hearing--is that such things as have seemed to me charmingly to partake of the order of blasphemy, have been uttered with such charming bonhomie, and received with such enthusiastic admiration, that I have wondered whether we are in a Christian audience of the nineteenth century, or in a possible Ingersollian audience of the twenty-third.

And let me first, before I enter upon the very few and desultory remarks, which are the only ones that I can make now and with which I may claim your polite attention--let me say a word about the comparison with which your worthy President opened these proceedings.

There are two or three things upon which I am a little sensitive: One, aspersions upon the land of my birth--the city of New York; the next, the land of my fathers; and the next, the bark that I was just speaking of.

Now your worthy President, in his well-meant efforts to exhibit in the best possible style the new actor upon his stage, said that he had seen Victor Hugo's remains, and Voltaire's, and Jean Jacques Rousseau's, and that he thought the niche might well be filled by Colonel Ingersoll.

If that had been merely the expression of a natural desire to see him speedily annihilated, I might perhaps in the interests of the Christian community have thought, but not said, "Amen!" (Here you will at once observe the distinction I make between free thought and free speech!)

I do not think, and I beg that none of you, and particularly the eloquent rhetorician who preceded me, will think, that in anything I may say I intend any personal discourtesy, for I do believe to some extent in freedom of speech upon a platform like this. Such a debate as this rises entirely above and beyond the plane of personalities.

I suppose that your President intended to compare Colonel Ingersoll to Voltaire, to Hugo and to Rousseau. I have no retainer from either of those gentlemen, but for the reason that I just gave you, I wish to defend their memory from what I consider a great wrong. And so I do not think--with all respect to the eloquent and learned gentleman--that he is ent.i.tled to a place in that niche. Voltaire did many wrong things.

He did them for many reasons, and chiefly because he was human.

But Voltaire did a great deal to build up. Leaving aside his n.o.ble tragedies, which charmed and delighted his audiences, and dignified the stage, throughout his work was some effort to ameliorate the condition of the human race. He fought against torture; he fought against persecution; he fought against bigotry; he clamored and wrote against littleness and fanaticism in every way, and he was not ashamed when he entered upon his domains at Fernay, to erect a church to the G.o.d of whom the most our friend can say is, "I do not know whether he exists or not."

Rousseau did many n.o.ble things, but he was a madman, and in our day would probably have been locked up in an asylum and treated by intelligent doctors. His works, however, bear the impress of a religious education, and if there be in his works or sayings anything to parallel what we have heard tonight--whether a parody on divine revelation, or a parody upon the prayer of prayers--I have not seen it.

Victor Hugo has enriched the literature of his day with prose and poetry that have made him the Shakespeare of the nineteenth century--poems as deeply imbued with a devout sense of responsibility to the Almighty as the writings of an archbishop or a cardinal. He has left the traces of his beneficent action all over the literature of his day, of his country, and of his race.

All these men, then, have built up something. Will anyone, the most ardent admirer of Colonel Ingersoll, tell me what he has built up?

To go now to the argument. The learned gentleman says that freedom of thought is a grand thing. Unfortunately, freedom of thought exists. What one of us would not put manacles and fetters upon his thoughts, if he only could? What persecution have any of us suffered to compare with the involuntary recurrence of these demons that enter our brain--that bring back past events that we would wipe out with our tears, or even with our blood--and make us slaves of a power unseen but uncontrollable and uncontrolled? Is it not unworthy of so eloquent and intelligent a man to preach before you here to-night that thought must always be free?

When in the history of the world has thought ever been fettered? If there be a page in history upon which such an absurdity is written, I have failed to find it.

Thought is beyond the domain of man. The most cruel and arbitrary ruler can no more penetrate into your bosom and mine and extract the inner workings of our brain, than he can scale the stars or pull down the sun from its seat. Thought must be free. Thought is unseen, unhandled and untouched, and no despot has yet been able to reach it, except when the thoughts burst into words. And therefore, may we not consider now, and say, that liberty of word is what he wants, and not liberty of thought, which no one has ever gainsaid, or disputed?

Liberty of speech!--and the gentleman generously tells us, "Why, I only ask for myself what I would cheerfully extend to you. I wish you to be free; and you can even entertain those old delusions which your mothers taught, and look with envious admiration upon me while I scale the giddy heights of Olympus, gather the honey and approach the stars and tell you how pure the air is in those upper regions which you are unable to reach."

Thanks for his kindness! But I think that it is one thing for us to extend to him that liberty that he asks for--the liberty to destroy--and another thing for him to give us the liberty which we claim--the liberty to conserve.

Oh, destruction is so easy, destruction is so pleasant! It marks the footsteps all through our life. The baby begins by destroying his bib; the older child by destroying his horse, and when the man is grown up and he joins the regiment with the latent instinct that when he gets a chance he will destroy human life.

This building cost many thousand days' work. It was planned by more or less skillful architects (ignorant of ventilation, but well-meaning).

Men lavished their thought, and men lavished their sweat for a pittance, upon this building. It took months and possibly years to build it and to adorn it and to beautify it. And yet, as it stands complete tonight with all of you here in the vigor of your life and in the enjoyment of such entertainment as you may get here this evening, I will find a dozen men who with a few pounds of dynamite will reduce it and all of us to instant destruction.

The dynamite man may say to me, "I give you full liberty to build and occupy and insure, if you will give me liberty to blow up." Is that a fair bargain? Am I bound in conscience and in good sense to accept it?

Liberty of speech! Tell me where liberty of speech has ever existed.

There have been free societies, England was a free country. France has struggled through crisis after crisis to obtain liberty of speech. We think we have liberty of speech, as we understand it, and yet who would undertake to say that our society could live with liberty of speech?

We have gone through many crises in our short history, and we know that thought is nothing before the law, but the word is an act--as guilty at times as the act of killing, or burglary, or any of the violent crimes that disgrace humanity and require the police.

A word is an act--an act of the tongue; and why should my tongue go unpunished, and I who wield it mercilessly toward those who are weaker than I, escape, if my arm is to be punished when I use it tyrannously?

Whom would you punish for the murder of Desdemona--is it Iago, or Oth.e.l.lo? Who was the villain, who was the criminal, who deserved the scaffold--who but free speech? Iago exercised free speech. He poisoned the ear of Oth.e.l.lo and nerved his arm and Oth.e.l.lo was the murderer--but Iago went scot free. That was a word.

"Oh," says the counsel, "but that does not apply to individuals; be tender and charitable to individuals." Tender and charitable to men if they endeavor to destroy all that you love and venerate and respect!

Are you tender and charitable to me if you enter my house, my castle, and debauch my children from the faith that they have been taught? Are you tender and charitable to them and to me when you teach them that I have instructed them in falsehood, that their mother has rocked them in blasphemy, and that they are now among the fools and the witlings of the world because they believe in my precepts? Is that the charity that you speak of? Heaven forbid that liberty of speech such as that, should ever invade my home or yours!

We all understand, and the learned gentleman will admit, that his discourse is but an eloquent apology for blasphemy. And when I say this, I beg you to believe me incapable of resorting to the cheap artifice of strong words to give point to a pointless argument, or to offend a courteous adversary. I think if I put it to him he would, with characteristic candor, say, "Yes, that is what I claim--the liberty to blaspheme; the world has outgrown these things; and I claim to-day, as I claimed a few months ago in the neighboring gallant little State of New Jersey, that while you cannot slander man, your tongue is free to revile and insult man's maker." New Jersey was behind in the race for progress, and did not accept his argument. His unfortunate client was convicted and had to pay the fine which the press--which is seldom mistaken--says came from the pocket of his generous counsel.