The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll Volume XII Part 4

Is it to obey without question, or is it to act in accordance with perceived obligation? Is it something with which intelligence has nothing to do? Must the ignorant child carry out the command of the wise father--the rude peasant rush to death at the request of the prince?

Is it impossible for morality to exist where the brain and heart are in partners.h.i.+p? Is there no foundation for morality except punishment threatened or reward promised by a superior to an inferior? If this be true, how can the superior be virtuous? Cannot the reward and the threat be in the nature of things? Can they not rest in consequences perceived by the intellect? How can the existence or non-existence of a deity change my obligation to keep my hands out of the fire?

The results of all actions are equally certain, but not equally known, not equally perceived. If all men knew with perfect certainty that to steal from another was to rob themselves, larceny would cease. It cannot be said too often that actions are good or bad in the light of consequences, and that a clear perception of consequences would control actions. That which increases the sum of human happiness is moral; and that which diminishes the sum of human happiness is immoral. Blind, unreasoning obedience is the enemy of morality. Slavery is not the friend of virtue. Actions are neither right nor wrong by virtue of what men or G.o.ds can say--the right or wrong lives in results--in the nature of things, growing out of relations violated or caused.

Accountability lives in the nature of consequences--in their absolute certainty--in the fact that they cannot be placated, avoided, or bribed.

The relations of human life are too complicated to be accurately and clearly understood, and, as a consequence, rules of action vary from age to age. The ideas of right and wrong change with the experience of the race, and this change is wrought by the gradual ascertaining of consequences--of results. For this reason the religion of one age fails to meet the standard of another, precisely as the laws that satisfied our ancestors are repealed by us; so that, in spite of all efforts, religion itself is subject to gradual and perpetual change.

The miraculous is no longer the basis of morals. Man is a sentient being--he suffers and enjoys. In order to be happy he must preserve the conditions of well-being--must live in accordance with certain facts by which he is surrounded. If he violates these conditions the result is unhappiness, failure, disease, misery.

Man must have food, roof, raiment, fireside, friends--that is to say, prosperity; and this he must earn--this he must deserve. He is no longer satisfied with being a slave, even of the Infinite. He wishes to perceive for himself, to understand, to investigate, to experiment; and he has at last the courage to bear the consequences that he brings upon himself. He has also found that those who are the most religious are not always the kindest, and that those who have been and are the wors.h.i.+pers of G.o.d enslave their fellow-men. He has found that there is no necessary connection between religion and morality.

Morality needs no supernatural a.s.sistance--needs neither miracle nor pretence. It has nothing to do with awe, reverence, credulity, or blind, unreasoning faith. Morality is the highway perceived by the soul, the direct road, leading to success, honor, and happiness.

The best thing to do under the circ.u.mstances is moral.

The highest possible standard is human. We put ourselves in the places of others. We are made happy by the kindness of others, and we feel that a fair exchange of good actions is the wisest and best commerce. We know that others can make us miserable by acts of hatred and injustice, and we shrink from inflicting the pain upon others that we have felt ourselves; this is the foundation of conscience.

If man could not suffer, the words right and wrong could never have been spoken.

The Agnostic, the Infidel, clearly perceives the true basis of morals, and, so perceiving, he knows that the religious man, the superst.i.tious man, caring more for G.o.d than for his fellows, will sacrifice his fellows, either at the supposed command of his G.o.d, or to win his approbation. He also knows that the religionist has no basis for morals except these supposed commands. The basis of morality with him lies not in the nature of things, but in the caprice of some deity. He seems to think that, had it not been for the Ten Commandments, larceny and murder might have been virtues.

IV.

SPIRITUALITY.

What is it to be spiritual?

Is this fine quality of the mind destroyed by the development of the brain? As the domain wrested by science from ignorance increases--as island after island and continent after continent are discovered--as star after star and constellation after constellation in the intellectual world burst upon the midnight of ignorance, does the spirituality of the mind grow less and less? Like morality, is it only found in the company of ignorance and superst.i.tion? Is the spiritual man honest, kind, candid?--or dishonest, cruel and hypocritical? Does he say what he thinks? Is he guided by reason? Is he the friend of the right?--the champion of the truth? Must this splendid quality called spirituality be retained through the loss of candor? Can we not truthfully say that absolute candor is the beginning of wisdom?

To recognize the finer harmonies of conduct--to live to the ideal--to separate the incidental, the evanescent, from the perpetual--to be enchanted with the perfect melody of truth--open to the influences of the artistic, the beautiful, the heroic--to shed kindness as the sun sheds light--to recognize the good in others, and to include the world in the idea of self--this is to be spiritual.

There is nothing spiritual in the wors.h.i.+p of the unknown and unknowable, in the self-denial of a slave at the command of a master whom he fears.

Fastings, prayings, mutilations, kneelings, and mortifications are either the results of, or result in, insanity.

This is the spirituality of Bedlam, and is of no kindred with the soul that finds its greatest joy in the discharge of obligation perceived.

V.

REVERENCE.

What is reverence?

It is the feeling produced when we stand in the presence of our ideal, or of that which most nearly approaches it--that which is produced by what we consider the highest degree of excellence.

The highest is reverenced, praised, and admired without qualification.

Each man reverences according to his nature, his experience, his intellectual development. He may reverence' Nero or Marcus Aurelius, Jehovah or Buddha, the author of Leviticus or Shakespeare. Thousands of men reverence John Calvin, Torquemada, and the Puritan fathers; and some have greater respect for Jonathan Edwards than for Captain Kidd.

A vast number of people have great reverence for anything that is covered by mould, or moss, or mildew. They bow low before rot and rust, and adore the worthless things that have been saved by the negligence of oblivion.

They are enchanted with the dull and fading daubs of the old masters, and hold in contempt those miracles of art, the paintings of to-day.

They wors.h.i.+p the ancient, the shadowy, the mysterious, the wonderful.

They doubt the value of anything that they understand.

The creed of Christendom is the enemy of morality. It teaches that the innocent can justly suffer for the guilty, that consequences can be avoided by repentance, and that in the world of mind the great fact known as cause and effect does not apply.

It is the enemy of spirituality, because it teaches that credulity is of more value than conduct, and because it pours contempt upon human love by raising far above it the adoration of a phantom.

It is the enemy of reverence. It makes ignorance the foundation of virtue. It belittles the useful, and cheapens the n.o.blest of! the virtues. It teaches man to live on mental alms, and glorifies the intellectual pauper. It holds candor in contempt, and is the malignant foe of mental manhood.

VI.

EXISTENCE OF G.o.d.

Mr. Fawcett has shown conclusively that it is no easier to establish the existence of an infinitely wise and good being by the existence of what we call "good" than to establish the existence of an infinitely bad being by what we call "bad."

Nothing can be surer than that the history of this world furnishes no foundation on which to base an inference that it has been governed by infinite wisdom and goodness. So terrible has been the condition of man, that religionists in all ages have endeavored to excuse G.o.d by accounting for the evils of the world by the wickedness of men. And the fathers of the Christian Church were forced to take the ground that this world had been filled with briers and thorns, with deadly serpents and with poisonous weeds, with disease and crime and earthquake and pestilence and storm, by the curse of G.o.d.

The probability is that no G.o.d has cursed, and that no G.o.d will bless, this earth. Man suffers and enjoys according to conditions. The sun s.h.i.+nes without love, and the lightning blasts without hate. Man is the Providence of man.

Nature gives to our eyes all they can see, to our ears all they can hear, and to the mind what it can comprehend. The human race reaps the fruit of every victory won on the fields of intellectual or physical conflict. We have no right to expect something for nothing. Man will reap no harvest the seeds of which he has not sown.

The race must be guided by intelligence, must be free to investigate, and must have the courage and the candor not only to state what is known, but to cheerfully admit the limitations of the mind.

No intelligent, honest man can read what Mr. Fawcett has written and then say that he knows the origin and destiny of things--that he knows whether an infinite Being exists or not, and that he knows whether the soul of man is or is not immortal.

In the land of--------, the geography of which is not certainly known, there was for many years a great dispute among the inhabitants as to which road led to the city of Miragia, the capital of their country, and known to be the most delightful city on the earth. For fifty generations the discussion as to which road led to the city had been carried on with the greatest bitterness, until finally the people were divided into a great number of parties, each party claiming that the road leading to the city had been miraculously made known to the founder of that particular sect. The various parties spent most of their time putting up guide-boards on these roads and tearing down the guide-boards of others.

Hundreds of thousands had been killed, prisons were filled, and the fields had been ravaged by the hosts of war.

One day, a wise man, a patriot, wis.h.i.+ng to bring peace to his country, met the leaders of the various sects and asked them whether it was absolutely certain that the city of Miragia existed. He called their attention to the facts that no resident of that city had ever visited them and that none of their fellow-men who had started for the capital had ever returned, and modestly asked whether it would not be better to satisfy themselves beyond a doubt that there was such a city, adding that the location of the city would determine which of all the roads was the right one.

The leaders heard these words with amazement. They denounced the speaker as a wretch without morality, spirituality, or reverence, and thereupon he was torn in pieces.

PREFACE TO "FAITH OR FACT."

I LIKE to know the thoughts, theories and conclusions of an honest, intelligent man; candor is always charming, and it is a delight to feel that you have become acquainted with a sincere soul.

I have read this book with great pleasure, not only because I know, and greatly esteem the author, not only because he is my unwavering friend, but because it is full of good sense, of accurate statement, of sound logic, of exalted thoughts happily expressed, and for the further reason that it is against tyranny, superst.i.tion, bigotry, and every form of injustice, and in favor of every virtue.