The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll Novel Chapters
List of most recent chapters published for the The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll novel. A total of 512 chapters have been translated and the release date of the last chapter is Apr 02, 2024
Latest Release: Chapter 1 : The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll.Vol. 1.by Robert G. Ingersoll.PREFACE.IN presenting to
The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll.Vol. 1.by Robert G. Ingersoll.PREFACE.IN presenting to the public this edition of the late Robert G.Ingersoll's works, it has been the aim of the publisher to make it worthy of the author and a pleasure to his friends
- 1 The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll.Vol. 1.by Robert G. Ingersoll.PREFACE.IN presenting to the public this edition of the late Robert G.Ingersoll's works, it has been the aim of the publisher to make it worthy of the author and a pleasure to his friends
- 2 The rudest savage has always known this fact, and for that reason always demanded the evidence of miracle. The founder of a religion must be able to turn water into wine--cure with a word the blind and lame, and raise with a simple touch the dead to life.
- 3 According to the theologians, G.o.d prepared this globe expressly for the habitation of his loved children, and yet he filled the forests with ferocious beasts; placed serpents in every path; stuffed the world with earthquakes, and adorned its surface wit
- 4 His fame does not depend so much upon his discoveries (although he discovered enough to make hundreds of reputations) as upon his vast and splendid generalizations.He was to science what Shakespeare was to the drama.He found, so to speak, the world full o
- 5 Next came the great Copernicus, and he stands at the head of the heroic thinkers of his time, who had the courage and the mental strength to break the chains of prejudice, custom, and authority, and to establish truth on the basis of experience, observati
- 6 At the close of the Revolution, no one stood higher in America than Thomas Paine. The best, the wisest, the most patriotic, were his friends and admirers; and had he been thinking only of his own good he might have rested from his toils and spent the rema
- 7 England was filled with Puritan gloom and Episcopal ceremony. All religious conceptions were of the grossest nature. The ideas of crazy fanatics and extravagant poets were taken as sober facts. Milton had clothed Christianity in the soiled and faded finer
- 8 We need men with moral courage to speak and write their real thoughts, and to stand by their convictions, even to the very death. We need have no fear of being too radical. The future will verify all grand and brave predictions. Paine was splendidly in ad
- 9 We should all remember that to be like other people is to be unlike ourselves, and that nothing can be more detestable in character than servile imitation. The great trouble with imitation is, that we are apt to ape those who are in reality far below us.
- 10 To which I retorted, "Your answer conveys no information to me. You may be following your own advice. You told me to suppress my opinions. Of course a man who will advise others to dissimulate will not always be particular about telling the truth him
- 11 The revengeful spirit of Calvin took possession of the Puritans, and caused them to redden the soil of the New World with the brave blood of honest men. Clinging to the five points of Calvin, they too established governments in accordance with the teachin
- 12 Surely it is a kind of bliss to feel that every woman and child in the wide world, with the exception of those who believe the five points, or some other equally cruel creed, and such children as have been baptized, ought at this very moment to be dashed
- 13 Once she wore upon her hollow breast false gems, supposing them to be real. They have been shown to be false, but she wears them still. She has the malice of the caught, the hatred of the exposed.We are told to investigate the Bible for ourselves, and at
- 14 This work was re-published in Albany, New York, in 1816. No wonder the clergy of that city are ignorant and bigoted even unto this day.In 1716, Mrs. Hicks and her daughter, nine years of age, were hanged for selling their souls to the devil, and raising a
- 15 So in England, persons charged with crime could appeal to the corsned.The corsned was a piece of the sacramental bread. If the defendant could swallow this piece he went acquit. G.o.dwin, Earl of Kent, in the time of Edward the Confessor, appealed to the
- 16 In 1441 printing was discovered. At that time the past was a vast cemetery with hardly an epitaph. The ideas of men had mostly perished in the brain that produced them. The lips of the human race had been sealed. Printing gave pinions to thought. It prese
- 17 He was asked why he killed his fellow-man.He replied: "For money.""Did you get any?""Yes.""How much?""Fifteen cents.""What did you do with this money?""Spent it.""What for?"&q
- 18 Standing in the presence of the Unknown, all have the same right to think, and all are equally interested in the great questions of origin and destiny. All I claim, all I plead for, is liberty of thought and expression. That is all. I do not pretend to te
- 19 A few years ago the people were afraid to question the king, afraid to question the priest, afraid to investigate a creed, afraid to deny a book, afraid to denounce a dogma, afraid to reason, afraid to think.Before wealth they bowed to the very earth, and
- 20 Happiness is the legal tender of the soul.Joy is wealth.A little while ago, I stood by the grave of the old Napoleon--a magnificent tomb of gilt and gold, fit almost for a dead deity--and gazed upon the sarcophagus of rare and nameless marble, where rest
- 21 Let your children have freedom and they will fall into your ways; they will do substantially as you do; but if you try to make them, there is some magnificent, splendid thing in the human heart that refuses to be driven. And do you know that it is the luc
- 22 No farmer can afford to raise corn and oats and hay to sell. He should sell horses, not oats; sheep, cattle and pork, not corn. He should make every profit possible out of what he produces. So long as the farmers of Illinois s.h.i.+p their corn and oats,
- 23 Where industry creates and justice protects, prosperity dwells.Let me tell you something more about Illinois. We have fifty-six thousand square miles of land--nearly thirty-six million acres. Upon these plains we can raise enough to feed and clothe twenty
- 24 Ignorance has been the refuge of the soul. For thousands of years the intellectual ocean was ravaged by the buccaneers of reason. Pious souls clung to the sh.o.r.e and looked at the lighthouse. The seas were filled with monsters and the islands with siren
- 25 Good!"Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy." Good! Whether they belonged to any church or not; whether they believed the Bible or not?"Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy." Good!"Blessed are the
- 26 Luke certainly did not hear it. May be he forgot it. Perhaps he did not think that it was worth recording. Now, it is the most important thing, if Christ said it, that he ever said.Then I turn to John, and he gives an account of the last conversation, but
- 27 "Whoso eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day."For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed."He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in hi
- 28 And Mr. Wesley also believed in the actual existence of the devil. He believed that devils had possession of people. He talked to the devil when he was in folks, and the devil told him that he was going to leave; and that he was going into another person.
- 29 "Well, then, good-by, for you are no company for man or beast."I believe in the gospel of Cheerfulness, the gospel of Good Nature; the gospel of Good Health. Let us pay some attention to our bodies. Take care of our bodies, and our souls will ta
- 30 The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll.Vol. 2.by Robert G. Ingersoll.PREFACE.For many years I have regarded the Pentateuch simply as a record of a barbarous people, in which are found a great number of the ceremonies of savagery, many absurd and unjust laws, an
- 31 Let us in this spirit examine the Pentateuch; and if anything appears unreasonable, contradictory or absurd, let us have the honesty and courage to admit it. Certainly no good can result either from deceiving ourselves or others. Many millions have implic
- 32 If the Rev. Morey would depend a little less on "refraction" and a little more on "reflection," he would conclude that the whole story is simply a barbaric myth and fable.It hardly seems reasonable that G.o.d, if there is one, would ei
- 33 If the Mosaic account is true, we know how long man has been upon this earth. If that account can be relied on, the first man was made about five thousand eight hundred and eighty-three years ago. Sixteen hundred and fifty-six years after the making of th
- 34 5. Fishes, fowls, and great whales.6. Beasts, cattle, every creeping thing, man and woman.Order of creation in the second account: 1. The heavens and the earth.2. A mist went up from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground.3. Created a man out
- 35 I am from the world too.Did you belong to any church?Yes, sir, and to the Young Men's Christian a.s.sociation besides.What was your business?Cas.h.i.+er in a Savings Bank.Did you ever run away with any money?Where I came from, a witness could not be
- 36 Here then is the "connecting link" between man and the lower creation.The serpent was simply an orang-outang that spoke Hebrew with the greatest ease, and had the outward appearance of a perfect gentleman, seductive in manner, plausible, polite,
- 37 And right here allow me to ask a question. If the flood was simply a partial flood, why were birds taken into the ark? It seems to me that most birds, attending strictly to business, might avoid a partial flood.There are at least sixteen hundred and fifty
- 38 For about seven months the ark, with its cargo of men, animals and insects, tossed and wandered without rudder or sail upon a boundless sea. At last it grounded on the mountains of Ararat; and about three months afterward the tops of the mountains became
- 39 We must not forget that during all these years there has been pouring into our country a vast stream of emigration, and that this, taken in connection with the fact that our country is productive beyond all others, gave us only four doubles in one hundred
- 40 When it was told Pharaoh that the people had fled, he made ready and took six hundred chosen chariots of Egypt, and pursued after the children of Israel, overtaking them by the sea. As all the animals had long before that time been destroyed, we are not i
- 41 XXIV. CONFESS AND AVOID The scientific Christians now admit that the Bible is not inspired in its astronomy, geology, botany, zoology, nor in any science. In other words, they admit that on these subjects, the Bible cannot be depended upon. If all the sta
- 42 Whoever imagines himself a favorite with G.o.d, holds other people in contempt.Whenever a man believes that he has the exact truth from G.o.d, there is in that man no spirit of compromise. He has not the modesty born of the imperfections of human nature;
- 43 If there is anything of value, it is liberty--liberty of body, liberty of mind. The liberty of body is the reward of labor. Intellectual liberty is the air of the soul, the suns.h.i.+ne of the mind, and without it, the world is a prison, the universe a du
- 44 "Never will I seek nor receive private individual salvation; never enter into final peace alone; but forever and everywhere will I live and strive for the universal redemption of every creature throughout all worlds. Never will I leave this world of
- 45 The Religion of Reciprocity.Supernatural religion will fade from this world, and in its place we shall have reason. In the place of the wors.h.i.+p of something we know not of, will be the religion of mutual love and a.s.sistance--the great religion of re
- 46 In the Episcopalian creed G.o.d is described as follows: "_There is but one living and true G.o.d, everlasting, without body, parts or pa.s.sions_."Think of that!--without body, parts, or pa.s.sions.I defy any man in the world to write a better
- 47 This church tells us that men under the guidance of the Holy Spirit upheld the inst.i.tution of polygamy--I deny it; that under the guidance of the Holy Spirit these men upheld wars of extermination and conquest--I deny it; that under the guidance of the
- 48 If it is important for us to know that he was the Son of G.o.d, I say, then, that it devolves upon G.o.d to give us the evidence. Let him write it across the face of the heavens, in every language of mankind. If it is necessary for us to believe it, let i
- 49 Matthew did not see the men in white apparel, did not see the ascension.Mark forgot the entire transaction, and Luke did not think the men in white apparel worth mentioning. John had not confidence enough in the story to repeat it. And yet, upon such evid
- 55 The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll.Vol. 3.by Robert G. Ingersoll.SHAKESPEARE I.WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE was the greatest genius of our world. He left to us the richest legacy of all the dead--the treasures of the rarest soul that ever lived and loved and wrought
- 56 The author of "Romeo and Juliet" never wrote that.It seems certain that the author of the wondrous Plays was one of the n.o.blest of men.Let us see what sense of honor Bacon had.In writing commentaries on certain pa.s.sages of Scripture, Lord Ba
- 57 Of all the poets--of all the writers--Shakespeare is the most original.He is as original as Nature.It may truthfully be said that "Nature wants stuff to vie strange forms with fancy, to make another."VIII.THERE is in the greatest poetry a kind o
- 58 Hamlet saw the ghost of his father and heard again his fathers voice, and yet, afterward, he speaks of "the undiscovered country from whose bourne no traveler returns."In this there is no contradiction. The reason outweighs the senses. If we sho
- 59 And _Hamlet_--thought-entangled--hesitating between two worlds.And _Macbeth_--strange mingling of cruelty and conscience, reaping the sure harvest of successful crime--"Curses not loud but deep--mouth-honor--breath."And _Brutus_, falling on his
- 50 I think it is better to love your children than to love G.o.d, a thousand times better, because you can help them, and I am inclined to think that G.o.d can get along without you. Certainly we cannot help a being without body, parts, or pa.s.sions!I belie
- 51 So, Red Riding-Hood is the history of a day. Little Red Riding-Hood--the morning, touched with red, goes to visit her kindred, a day that is past. She is attacked by the wolf of night and is rescued by the hunter, Apollo, who pierces the heart of the beas
- 52 Our fathers thought that everything had been made for man, and that demons and G.o.ds gave their entire attention to this world. The people believed that they were the sport and prey, the favorites or victims, of these phantoms. And they also believed tha
- 53 The church taught that those who believed, counted beads, mumbled prayers, and gave their time or property for the support of the gospel were the good and that all others were traveling the "broad road" to eternal pain. According to the theologi
- 54 Yes, all for you. I wanted to save some, I wanted to protect the young and the weak minded."Did you believe the Bible, the miracles--that I was G.o.d, that I was born of a virgin and kept money in the mouth of a fish?"Yes, I believed it all. My
- 60 NOTHING is more difficult than a definition--a crystallization of thought so perfect that it emits light. Shakespeare says of suicide: "It is great to do that thing That ends all other deeds, Which shackles accident, and bolts up change."He defi
- 61 "I 'gin to be aweary of the sun."Richard the Second feels how small a thing it is to be, or to have been, a king, or to receive honors before or after power is lost; and so, of those who stood uncovered before him, he asks this piteous ques
- 62 Poetry must rest on the experience of men--the history of heart and brain. It must sit by the fireside of the heart. It must have to do with this world, with the place in which we live, with the men and women we know, with their loves, their hopes, their
- 63 His first poem was addressed to Nellie Kilpatrick, daughter of the blacksmith. He was in love with Ellison Begbie, offered her his heart and was refused. She was a servant, working in a family and living on the banks of the Cessnock. Jean Armour, his wife
- 64 "We are na fou, we're no that fou, But just a drappie in our ee; The c.o.c.k may craw, the day may daw, And aye we'll taste the barley bree."Here are we met, three merry boys, Three merry boys, I trow, are we; And monie a night we'
- 65 "A vast, unbottom'd, boundless pit, Fill'd fou o' lowin' brunstane, Wha's ragin' flame an' scorchin' heat Wad melt the hardest whun-stane!The half asleep start up wi' fear, An' think they hear it roar
- 66 Tennyson was what is called religious. He believed in the divinity of decorum, not falling on his face before the Eternal King, but bowing gracefully, as all lords should, while uttering thanks for favors partly undeserved, and thanks more fervid still fo
- 67 One a.s.sociated his name with the enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of labor, with the emanc.i.p.ation of millions, with the salvation of the Republic. He is known to us as Abraham Lincoln.The other broke the chains of superst.i.tion and filled the world with intellec
- 68 This situation and its consequences he pointed out to absolute perfection in these words: "Can aliens make treaties easier than friends can make laws? Can treaties be more faithfully enforced between aliens than laws among friends?"After having
- 69 Not a very elevated sentiment--but English.Some of their statesmen declared that the subjugation of the South by the North would be a calamity to the world.Louis Napoleon was another enemy, and he endeavored to establish a monarchy in Mexico, to the end t
- 70 There was doubt about the legality of the trial, and thousands in the North denounced the whole proceeding as tyrannical and infamous. At the same time millions demanded that Vallandigham should be punished.Lincoln's humor came to the rescue. He disa
- 71 Hundreds of people are now engaged in smoothing out the lines of Lincoln's face--forcing all features to the common mould--so that he may be known, not as he really was, but, according to their poor standard, as he should have been.Lincoln was not a
- 72 VOLTAIRE.I.THE infidels of one age have often been the aureoled saints of the next.The destroyers of the old are the creators of the new.As time sweeps on the old pa.s.ses away and the new in its turn becomes old.There is in the intellectual world, as in
- 73 To the Catholic every Protestant was possessed by a devil; to the Protestant every Catholic was the home of a fiend. All order, all regular succession of causes and effects were known no more; the natural ceased to exist; the learned and the ignorant were
- 74 And yet for more than a hundred and fifty years the Christian world has fought this man and has maligned his memory. In every Christian pulpit his name has been p.r.o.nounced with scorn, and every pulpit has been an a.r.s.enal of slander. He is one man of
- 75 A few Protestants, mild because in the minority, lived among these jackals and tigers.One of these Protestants was Jean Calas--a small dealer in dry goods.For forty years he had been in this business, and his character was without a stain. He was honest,
- 76 The sentence was carried out on the first day of July, 1766.When Voltaire heard of this judicial infamy he made up his mind to abandon France. He wished to leave forever a country where such cruelties were possible.He wrote a pamphlet, giving the history
- 77 Now and then a man of genius, of sense, of intellectual honesty, has appeared. Such men have denounced the superst.i.tions of their day. They have pitied the mult.i.tude. To see priests devour the substance of the people--priests who made begging one of t
- 78 They have no idea of an honest, pure pa.s.sion, glorying in its strength--intense, intoxicated with the beautiful, giving even to inanimate things pulse and motion, and that transfigures, enn.o.bles, and idealizes the object of its adoration.They do not w
- 79 There is in Whitman what he calls "The boundless impatience of restraint," together with that sense of justice which compelled him to say, "Neither a servant nor a master am I."He was wise enough to know that giving others the same rig
- 80 "When the psalm sings instead of the singer, When the script preaches instead of the preacher, When the pulpit descends and goes instead of the carver that carved the supporting desk, When I can touch the body of books by night or day, and when they
- 81 "Have you thought there could be but a single supreme?There can be any number of supremes--one does not countervail another anymore than one eyesight countervails another."Upon the great questions, as to the great problems, he feels only the ser
- 82 In this poem the dramatic unities are perfectly preserved, the atmosphere and climate in harmony with every event.Never will he forget the solemn journey of the coffin through day and night, with the great cloud darkening the land, nor the pomp of inloope
- 83 The king said to the people: "G.o.d made you peasants, and he made me king. He made rags and hovels for you, robes and palaces for me. Such is the justice of G.o.d." And the priest said: "G.o.d made you ignorant and vile. He made me holy an
- 84 They say these things in spite of the fact that the Jewish nation was one of the weakest and most barbaric of the past; in spite of the fact that the civilization of Egypt and India had commenced to wane before that of Palestine existed. To account for al
- 85 The great Empire was crumbling to its fall. The literature of the world was being destroyed by priests. The G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses were driven from the earth and sky. The paintings were torn and defaced. The statues were broken. The walls were left desola
- 86 He wrote upon all conceivable subjects, that he might have bread. He even wrote sermons, and regretted it all his life. He and D'Alembert were the life and soul of the Encyclopaedia. With infinite enthusiasm he helped to gather the knowledge of the w
- 87 He tried to solve the problem of existence. To him, the universe was One. The Infinite embraced the All. The All was G.o.d. According to his belief, the universe did not commence to be. It is; from eternity it was; to eternity it will be.He was right. The
- 88 Kant: That immortal man who said: "Whoever thinks that he can please G.o.d in any way except by discharging his obligations to his fellows, is superst.i.tious."And that greatest and bravest of thinkers, Ernst Haeckel.Humboldt.Italy:--Mazzini. Ga
- 89 II.ALL Christians know that all the G.o.ds, except Jehovah, were created by man; that they were, and are, false, foolish and monstrous; that all the heathen temples were built and all their altars erected in vain; that the sacrifices were wasted, that the
- 90 We find that other races and peoples have sacred books and prophets, priests and Christs; we find too that their sacred books were written by men who had the prejudices and peculiarities of the race to which they belonged, and that they contain the mistak
- 91 As a matter of fact it is impossible to tell what the "great" men really thought. We only know what they said. These "great" men had families to support, they had a prejudice against prisons and objected to being burned, and it may be
- 92 Liberty is a word hated by kings--loathed by popes. It is a word that shatters thrones and altars--that leaves the crowned without subjects, and the outstretched hand of superst.i.tion without alms. Liberty is the blossom and fruit of justice--the perfume
- 93 If anything is, or can be, certain, the writers of the Bible were mistaken about creation, astronomy, geology; about the causes of phenomena, the origin of evil and the cause of death.Now, it must be admitted that if an Infinite Being is the author of the
- 94 "And he turned back and looked at them, and cursed them in the name of the Lord. And there came forth two she-bears out of the wood and tore forty and two children of them."This was the work of the good G.o.d--the merciful Jehovah!THE STORY OF D
- 95 Is there anything in Exodus calculated to make men generous, loving and n.o.ble?Is it well to teach children that G.o.d tortured the innocent cattle of the Egyptians--bruised them to death with hailstones--on account of the sins of Pharoah?Does it make us
- 96 In this book is recorded the absurdest of all miracles. The shadow on the dial is turned back ten degrees, in order to satisfy Hezekiah that Jehovah will add fifteen years to his life.In this miracle the world, turning from west to east at the rate of mor
- 97 VII. THE NEW TESTAMENT.WHO wrote the New Testament?Christian scholars admit that they do not know. They admit that, if the four gospels were written by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, they must have been written in Hebrew. And yet a Hebrew ma.n.u.script of
- 98 Matthew gives the particulars of about twenty-two miracles, Mark of about nineteen, Luke of about eighteen and John of about seven.According to the gospels, Christ healed diseases, cast out devils, rebuked the sea, cured the blind, fed mult.i.tudes with f
- 99 No man has the right to protect himself, his property, his wife and children. Government becomes impossible, and the world is at the mercy of criminals. Is there any absurdity beyond this?_Love your enemies_.Is this possible? Did any human being ever love
- 100 Why did he go dumbly to his death, leaving the world to misery and to doubt?I will tell you why. He was a man, and did not know.XI. INSPIRATION NOT before about the third century was it claimed or believed that the books composing the New Testament were i