INGERSOLLIA

INTRODUCTION

Colonel Robert G. Ingersoll occupies a unique position. He is to a large extent the product of his own generation. A man of the times, for the times. He has had no predecessor, he will have no successor.

Such a man was impossible a hundred years ago; the probabilities are that a century hence no such man will be needed. His work needs only to be done once. One such "voice crying in the wilderness" is enough to stir the sluggish streams of thought, and set the reeds of the river trembling. It was said of Edward Irving, when he went to preach in that great wilderness of London, that he was "not a reed to be shaken by the wind, but a wind to shake the reeds." It would not be flattery in any sense if similar words were spoken concerning the man who has uttered the words of this book.

Daring to stand alone, and speak all the thought that is in him, without the miserable affectation of singularity, Colonel Ingersoll has reached a point from which he wields an influence both deep and wide over thoughtful minds. For the last few years he has been sowing strange seeds, with unsparing hand, in many fields; and probably no one is more surprised than he is himself to find how thoroughly the ground was prepared for such a seed-sowing.

Time is much too precious to discuss the mere methods of the sowing. No doubt many who have listened to this later Gamaliel, have been startled and shocked by his bold, and sometimes terrific utterances; but after the shock—when the nerves have regained their equilibrium—has come serious, calm-questioning thought. And whoever sets men to asking earnest questions, whoever provokes men to sincere enquiry, whoever helps men to think freely, does the Man and the State and the Age good service. This good service Colonel Ingersoll has rendered. He has sent the Preachers back to a more careful and diligent study of the Bible; he has spoken after such a fashion that Students in many departments of learning have been compelled to reconsider the foundations on which their theories rest. Above all, he has awakened thousands of thoughtless people to the luxury of thinking, and he has inspired many a timid thinker to break all bonds and think freely and fearlessly for himself.

In referring some time ago to the subject matter of Colonel Ingersoll's teachings, Prof. David Swing, of Chicago, laid special emphasis on the point, that the man speaking and the thing spoken were entirely separable, and that no wise criticism of these words could proceed, unless this fact was kept in view. This word of caution is as timely as it is wise. We are too much prone to judge the music by the amount of gilding on the organ-pipes; we are too apt to forget that gold is gold, whether in the leathern pouch of a beggar or the silken purse of a king. The doubts expressed, the truths uttered, the questions proposed by the so-called Infidel, demand of us that for their own sakes we give them generous, patient audience. The point of supreme importance is, not whether Mr. Ingersoll is an authority on the grave questions with which he is pleased to deal, but are these teachings truth? "There's the rub." If we are wise we shall judge the teachings rather than the teacher.

Affrighted orthodox Christians are perpetually warning their young friends against Mr. Ingersoll. He is portrayed as a very terrible personage, going up and down to work sad havoc amongst the unsuspecting youth of the Time. Orthodoxy would prove itself wiser, it would be bolder, and it would give some slight guarantee for honesty, if it left the man alone, and addressed itself seriously to the grave questions at issue. Colonel Ingersoll shares with Huxley, Darwin and Herbert Spencer the high distinction of being criticized most vehemently by those who have never heard his voice, and have never carefully read a page of his published works; and as is always the case in such circumstances, the most absurd and exaggerated statements of what Mr. Ingersoll never said have become current, and the speaker has been transformed into a very Gorgon of horror!

But this is nothing new, this is one of the many tolls that every man must be willing to pay who marches on the grand highway of freedom.

The pages of this book deserve a careful study, and if it be true that "out of the fullness of the heart the mouth speaketh," we may judge from what sort of a heart-fountain these streams have flowed.

One purpose steadily kept in view in the editing of these pages has been to present in compact and reasonable space, a thoroughly representative consensus of the opinions and beliefs of Mr. Ingersoll. Ha has been known chiefly by his severe attacks on theological orthodoxy; but there are a thousand other questions on which he has spoken wise and impressive words. There are few things in heaven and earth that his "philosophy" has not embraced, The quiet life of the farm; the romance and sanctity of home; the charm of childhood; the profound secrets of philosophy; the horrors of slavery; the dreadful scourge of war; the patriotism and valor of the soldiers of the Republic; the high calling of statesmanship, churches and priests; infidels and christians; gods and devils; orthodox and hetrodox; heaven and hell;—these, and a thousand other questions have been discussed with wit, and wisdom and matchless eloquence. This volume might have been increased to twice or thrice its present size, and then there would have been material to spare. But in these busy days economy of time is of great importance. This is a book for busy men in a very busy generation.

It is matter of some little surprise that Mr. Ingersoll should have yielded—without protest—to the conventional use of the term "Infidel." The general sense in which the word is used is a gross misrepresentation of its accurate meaning. "Infidel," is the last word that ought to be applied to any man who is loyal to his mind; whether that mind summer in the light of steadfast belief, or wander through the mazy fields of doubt. "What is Infidelity?" There is no man more able, none more suitable than Col. Robert Ingersoll to rise and explain.

Mr. Ingersoll has been called the Apostle of Unbelief. But the title is a misnomer. His mouth is full to the lips of positive statements of strong conviction. His creed has a thousand articles. He is above all things the Apostle of Freedom. Freedom for Nations, for Communities, for Men. Freedom everywhere! Freedom always! the zeal with which he blows the trumpet of Liberty, the enthusiasm with which he waves the banner of Freedom, reminds one of Tennyson's fine words:—

THE ROMANCE OF FARM LIFE

1. Ingersoll as a Farmer

When I was a farmer they used to haul wheat two hundred miles in wagons and sell it for thirty-five cents a bushel. They would bring home about three hundred feet of lumber, two bunches of shingles, a barrel of salt, and a cook-stove that never would draw and never did bake.

In those blessed days the people lived on corn and bacon. Cooking was an unknown art. Eating was a necessity, not a pleasure. It was hard work for the cook to keep on good terms even with hunger. We had poor houses. The rain held the roofs in perfect contempt, and the snow drifted joyfully on the floors and beds. They had no barns. The horses were kept in rail pens surrounded with straw. Long before spring the sides would be eaten away and nothing but roofs would be left. Food is fuel. When the cattle were exposed to all the blasts of winter, it took all the corn and oats that could be stuffed into them to prevent actual starvation. In those times farmers thought the best place for the pig-pen was immediately in front of the house. There is nothing like sociability. Women were supposed to know the art of making fires without fuel. The wood-pile consisted, as a general thing, of one log, upon which an axe or two had been worn out in vain. There was nothing to kindle a fire with. Pickets were pulled from the garden fence, clap-boards taken from the house, and every stray plank was seized upon for kindling. Everything was done in the hardest way. Everything about the farm was disagreeable.

2. The Happy Life of the Farm

There is a quiet about the life of a farmer, and the hope of a serene old age, that no other business or profession can promise. A professional man is doomed some time to find that his powers are wanting. He is doomed to see younger and stronger men pass him in the race of life. He looks forward to an old age of intellectual mediocrity. He will be last where once he was the first. But the farmer goes as it were into partnership, with nature—he lives with trees and flowers—he breathes the sweet air of the fields. There is no constant and frightful strain upon his mind. His nights are filled with sleep and rest. He watches his flocks and herds as they feed upon the green and sunny slopes. He hears the pleasant rain falling upon the waving corn, and the trees he planted in youth rustle above him as he plants others for the children yet to be.

3. The Ambitious Farmer's Boy

Nearly every farmer's boy took an oath that he would never cultivate the soil. The moment they arrived at the age of twenty-one they left the desolate and dreary farms and rushed to the towns and cities. They wanted to be book-keepers, doctors, merchants, railroad men, insurance agents, lawyers, even preachers, anything to avoid the drudgery of the farm. Nearly every boy acquainted with the three R's—reading, writing and arithmetic—imagined that he had altogether more education than ought to be wasted in raising potatoes and corn. They made haste to get into some other business. Those who stayed upon the farm envied those who went away.

4. Never Be Afraid of Work!

There are hundreds of graduates of Yale and Harvard and other colleges who are agents of sewing machines, solicitors for insurance, clerks and copyists, in short, performing a hundred varieties of menial service. They seem willing to do anything that is not regarded as work—anything that can be done in a town, in the house, in an office, but they avoid farming as they would leprosy. Nearly every young man educated in this way is simply ruined.

Boys and girls should be educated to help themselves; they should be taught that it is disgraceful to be seen idle, and dishonorable to be useless.

5. Happiness the Object of Life

Remember, I pray you, that you are in partnership with all labor—that you should join hands with all the sons and daughters of toil, and that all who work belong to the same noble family.

Happiness should be the object of life, and if life on the farm can be made really happy, the children will grow up in love with the meadows, the streams, the woods and the old home. Around the farm will cling and cluster the happy memories of the delight-ful years.

6. The Sunset of the Farmer's Life

For my part, I envy the man who has lived on the same broad acres from his boyhood, who cultivates the fields where in youth he played, and lives where his father lived and died. I can imagine no sweeter way to end one's life than in the quiet of the country, out of the mad race for money, place and power—far from the demands of business—out of the dusty highway where fools struggle and strive for the hoi ow praise of other fools. Surrounded by these pleasant fields and faithful friends, by those I have loved, I hope to end my days.

7. Farmers, Protect Yourselves!

The farmers should vote only for such men as are able and willing to guard and advance the interests of labor. We should know better than to vote for men who will deliberately put a tariff of three dollars a thousand upon Canada lumber, when every farmer in the States is a purchaser of lumber. People who live upon the prairies ought to vote for cheap lumber. We should protect ourselves. We ought to have intelligence enough to know what we want and how to get it. The real laboring men of this country can succeed if they are united. By laboring men, I do not mean only the farmers. I mean all who contribute in some way to the general welfare.

8. Roast the Beef, Not the Cook.

Farmers should live like princes. Eat the best things you raise and sell the rest. Have good things to cook and good things to cook with. Of all people in our country, you should live the best. Throw your miserable little stoves out of the window. Get ranges, and have them so built that your wife need not burn her face off to get you a breakfast. Do not make her cook in a kitchen hot as the orthodox perdition. The beef, not the cook, should be roasted. It is just as easy to have things convenient and right as to have them any other way.

9. Cultivated Farmers.

There is no reason why farmers should not be the kindest and most cultivated of men. There is nothing in plowing the fields to make men cross, cruel and crabbed. To look upon the sunny slopes covered with daisies does not tend to make men unjust. Whoever labors for the happiness of those he loves, elevates himself, no matter whether he works in the dreary shop or the perfumed field.

10. The Wages of Slovenly Farming.

Nothing was kept in order. Nothing was preserved. The wagons stood in the sun and rain, and the plows rusted in the fields. There was no leisure, no feeling that the work was done. It was all labor and weariness and vexation of spirit. The crops were destroyed by wandering herds, or they were put in too late, or too early, or they were blown down, or caught by the frost, or devoured by bugs, or stung by flies, or eaten by worms, or carried away by birds, or dug up by gophers, or washed away by floods, or dried up by the sun, or rotted in the stack, or heated in the crib, or they all ran to vines, or tops, or straw, or cobs. And when in spite of all these accidents that lie in wait between the plow and reaper, they did succeed in raising a good crop and a high price was offered, then the roads would be impassable. And when the roads got good, then the prices went down. Everything worked together for evil.

11. The Farmer's Happy Winter

I can imagine no condition that carries with it such a promise of joy as that of the farmer in early winter. He has his cellar filled—he had made every preparation for the days of snow and storm—he looks forward to three months of ease and rest; to three months of fireside content; three months with wife and children; three months of long, delightful evenings; three months of home; three months of solid comfort.

12. The Almighty Dollar

Ainsworth R. Spofford—says Col. Ingersoll—gives the following facts about interest: "One dollar loaned for one hundred years at six per cent., with the interest collected annually and added to the principal, will amount to three hundred and forty dollars. At eight per cent, it amounts to two thousand two hundred and three dollars. At three per cent, it amounts only to nineteen dollars and twenty-five cents. At ten per cent, it is thirteen thousand eight hundred and nine dollars, or about seven hundred times as much. At twelve per cent, it amounts to eighty-four thousand and seventy-five dollars, or more than four thousand times as much. At eighteen per cent, it amounts to fifteen million one hundred and forty-five thousand and seven dollars. At twenty-four per cent, it reaches the enormous sum of two billion, five hundred and fifty-one million, seven hundred and ninety-five thousand, four hundred and four dollars!" One dollar at compound interest, at twenty-four per cent., for one hundred years, would produce a sum equal to our national debt.

13. The Farmer in Debt

Interest eats night and day, and the more it eats the hungrier it grows. The farmer in debt, lying awake at night, can, if he listens, hear it gnaw. If he owes nothing, he can hear his corn grow. Get out of debt, as soon as you possibly can. You have supported idle avarice and lazy economy long enough.

14. Own Your Own Home

There can be no such thing in the highest sense as a home unless you own it. There must be an incentive to plant trees, to beautify the grounds, to preserve and improve. It elevates a man to own a home. It gives a certain independence, a force of character that is obtained in no other way. A man without a home feels like a passenger. There is in such a man a little of the vagrant. Homes make patriots. He who has sat by his own fireside with wife and children, will defend it. Few men have been patriotic enough to shoulder a musket in defense of a boarding-house. The prosperity and glory of our country depend upon the number of people who are the owners of homes.

15. What to do with the Idlers

Our country is filled with the idle and unemployed, and the great question asking for an answer is: What shall be done with these men? What shall these men do? To this there is but one answer: They must cultivate the soil. Farming must be more attractive. Those who work the land must have an honest pride in their business. They must educate their children to cultivate the soil.

16. Farm-Life Lonely

I say again, if you want more men and women on the farms, something must be done to make farm-life pleasant. One great difficulty is that the farm is lonely. People write about the pleasures of solitude, but they are found only in books. He who lives long alone, becomes insane.

17. The Best Farming States

The farmer in the Middle States has the best soil—the greatest return for the least labor—more leisure—more time for enjoyment than any other farmer in the world. His hard work ceases with autumn. He has the long winters in which to become acquainted with his family—with his neighbors—in which to read and keep abreast with the advanced thought of his day. He has the time and means of self-culture. He has more time than the mechanic, the merchant or the professional man. If the farmer is not well informed it is his own fault. Books are cheap, and every farmer can have enough to give him the outline of every science, and an idea of all that has been accomplished by man.

18. The Laborers, the Kings and Queens

The farmer has been elevated through science, and he should not forget the debt he owes to the mechanic, to the inventor, to the thinker. He should remember that all laborers belong to the same grand family—that they are the real kings and queens, the only true nobility.

HOME AND CHILDREN

19. The Family the Only Heaven in this World

Don't make that poor girl play ten years on a piano when she has no ear for music, and when she has practiced until she can play "Bonaparte Crossing the Alps," you can't tell after she has played it whether Bonaparte ever got across or not. Men are oaks, women are vines, children are flowers, and if there is any Heaven in this world it is in the family. It is where the wife loves the husband, and the husband loves the wife, and where the dimpled arms of children are about the necks of both.

20. The Far-Seeing Eyes of Children.

I want to tell you this, you cannot get the robe of hypocrisy on you so thick that the sharp eye of childhood will not see through every veil.

21. Love and Freedom in a Cabin

I would rather go to the forest far away and build me a little cabin—build it myself and daub it with mud, and live there with my wife aud family—and have a little path that led down to the spring, where the water bubbled out day and night, like a little poem from the heart of the earth; a little hut with some hollyhocks at the corner, with their bannered bosoms open to the sun, and with the thrush in the air, like a song of joy in the morning; I would rather live there and have some lattice work across the window, so that the sunlight would fall checkered on the baby in the cradle; I would rather live there and have my soul erect and free, than to live in a palace of gold and wear the crown of imperial power and know that my soul was slimy with hypocrisy.

22. The Turnpike Road of Happiness

Whoever marries simply for himself will make a mistake; but whoever loves a woman so well that he says, "I will make her happy," makes no mistake; and so with the woman who says, "I will make him happy." There is only one way to be happy, and that is to make somebody else so, and you can't be happy cross-lots; you have got to go the regular turnpike road.

23. Love Paying Ten Per Cent

I tell you to-night there is on the average more love in the homes of the poor than in the palaces of the rich; and the meanest hut with love in it is fit for the gods, and a palace without love is a den only fit for wild beasts. That's my doctrine! You can't be so poor but that you can help somebody. Good nature is the cheapest commodity in the world; and love is the only thing that will pay ten per cent, to borrower and lender both. Don't tell me that you have got to be rich! We have all a false standard of greatness in the United States. We think here that a man to be great must be notorious; he must be extremely wealthy or his name must be between the lips of rumor. It is all nonsense! It is not necessary to be rich to be great, or to be powerful to be happy; and the happy man is the successful man. Happiness is the legal-tender of the soul. Joy is wealth.

24. A Word to the Cross-Grained

A cross man I hate above all things. What right has he to murder the sunshine of the day? What right has he to assassinate the joy of life? When you go home you ought to feel the light there is in the house; if it is in the night it will burst out of the doors and windows and illuminate the darkness. It is just as well to go home a ray of sunshine as an old, sour, cross curmudgeon, who thinks he is the head of the family. Wise men think their mighty brains have been in a turmoil; they have been thinking about who will be alderman from the Fifth ward; they have been thinking about politics; great and mighty questions have been engaging their minds; they have bought calico at eight cents or six, and want to sell it for seven. Think of the intellectual strain that must have been upon a man, and when he gets home everybody else in the house must look out for his comfort. Head of the house, indeed! I don't like him a bit!

25. Oh! Daughters and Wives be Beautiful

I am a believer in fashion. It is the duty of every woman to make herself as beautiful and attractive as she possibly can. "Handsome is as handsome does," but she is much handsomer if well dressed. Every man should look his very best. I am a believer in good clothes. The time never ought to come in this country when you can tell a farmer's daughter simply by the garments she wears. I say to every girl and woman, no matter what the material of your dress may be, no matter how cheap and coarse it is, cut it and make it in the fashion. I believe in jewelry. Some people look upon it as barbaric, but in my judgment, wearing jewelry is the first evidence the barbarian gives of a wish to be civilized. To adorn ourselves seems to be a part of our nature, and this desire, seems to be everywhere and in everything. I have sometimes thought that the desire for beauty covers the earth with flowers. It is this desire that paints the wings of moths, tints the chamber of the shell, and gives the bird its plumage and its song. Oh! daughters and wives if you would be loved, adorn yourselves—if you would be adorned, be beautiful!

26. A Wholesome Word to the Stingy

I despise a stingy man. I don't see how it is possible for a man to die worth fifty millions of dollars or ten millions of dollars, in a city full of want, when he meets almost every day the withered hand of beggary and the white lips of famine. How a man can withstand all that, and hold in the clutch of his greed twenty or thirty millions of dollars, is past my comprehension. I do not see how he can do it. I should not think he could do it any more than he could keep a pile of lumber where hundreds and thousands of men were drowning in the sea. I should not think he could do it. Do you know I have known men who would trust their wives with their hearts and their honor, but not with their pocketbook; not with a dollar. When I see a man of that kind I always think he knows which of these articles is the most valuable.

27. The Boss of the Family

If you are the grand emperor of the world, you had better be the grand emperor of one loving and tender heart, and she the grand empress of yours. The man who has really won the love of one good woman in this world, I do not care if he dies a beggar, his life has been a success. I tell you it is an infamous word and an infamous feeling—a man who is "boss," who is going to govern in his family; and when he speaks let all the rest of them be still; some mighty idea is about to be launched from his mouth. Do you know I dislike this man?

28. Be Honor Bright!

A good way to make children tell the truth is to tell it yourself. Keep your word with your child the same as you would with your banker. Be perfectly honor bright with your children, and they will be your friends when you are old.

29. The Opera at the Table

I like to hear children at the table telling what big things they have seen during the day; I like to hear their merry voices mingling with the clatter of knives and forks. I had rather hear that than any opera that was ever put upon the stage. I hate this idea of authority.

30. A Child's laugh sweeter than Apollo's lyre

I said, and I say again, no day can be so sacred but that the laugh of a child will make the holiest day more sacred still. Strike with hand of fire, oh, weird musician, thy harp, strung with Apollo's golden hair; fill the vast cathedral aisles with symphonies sweet and dim, deft toucher of the organ keys; blow, bugler, blow, until thy silver notes do touch the skies, with moonlit waves, and charm the lovers wandering on the vine-clad hills: but know, your sweetest strains are discords all, compared with childhood's happy laugh, the laugh that fills the eyes with light and every heart with joy; oh, rippling river of life, thou art the blessed boundary-line between the beasts and man, and every wayward wave of thine doth drown some fiend of care; oh, laughter, divine daughter of joy, make dimples enough in the cheeks of the world to catch and hold and glorify all the tears of grief.

31. Don't Wake the Children

Let your children sleep. Do not drag them from their beds in the darkness of night. Do not compel them to associate all that is tiresome, irksome and dreadful with cultivating the soil. Treat your children with infinite kindness—treat them as equals. There is no happiness in a home not filled with love. When the husband hates his wife—where the wife hates the husband; where the children hate their parents and each other—there is a hell upon earth.

32. How to Deal with Children

Some Christians act as though they thought when the Lord said, "Suffer little children to come unto me," that he had a rawhide under his mantle—they act as if they thought so. That is all wrong. I tell my children this: Go where you may, commit what crime you may, fall to what depths of degradation you may, I can never shut my arms, my heart or my door to you. As long as I live you shall have one sincere friend; do not be afraid to tell anything wrong you have done; ten to one if I have not done the same thing. I am not perfection, and if it is necessary to sin in order to have sympathy, I am glad I have committed sin enough to have sympathy. The sterness of perfection I do not want. I am going to live so that my children can come to my grave and truthfully say, "He who sleeps here never gave us one moment of pain." Whether you call that religion or infidelity, suit yourselves; that is the way I intend to do it.

33. Give a Child a Chance

Do not create a child to be a post set in an orthodox row; raise investigators and thinkers, not disciples and followers; cultivate reason, not faith; cultivate investigation, not superstition; and if you have any doubt yourself about a thing being so, tell them about it; don't tell them the world was made in six days—if you think six days means six good whiles, tell them six good whiles. If you have any doubts about anybody being in a furnace and not being burnt, or even getting uncomfortably warm, tell them so—be honest about it. If you look upon the jaw-bone of a donkey as not a good weapon, say so. Give a child a chance. If you think a man never went to sea in a fish, tell them so, it won't make them any worse. Be honest—that's all; don't cram their heads with things that will take them years to unlearn; tell them facts—it is just as easy. It is as easy to find out botany, and astronomy, and geology, and history—it is as easy to find out all these things as to cram their minds with things you know nothing about.

34. The Greatest Liars in Michigan

I was over in Michigan the other day. There was a boy over there at Grand Rapids about five or six years old, a nice, smart boy, as you will see from the remark he made—what you might call a nineteenth century boy. His father and mother had promised to take him out riding for about three weeks, and they would slip off and go without him. Well, after a while that got kind of played out with the little boy, and the day before I was there they played the trick on him again. They went out and got the carriage, and went away, and as they rode away from the front of the house, he happened to be standing there with his nurse, and he saw them. The whole thing flashed on him in a moment. He took in the situation, and turned to his nurse and said, pointing to his father and mother: "There go the two biggest liars in the State of Michigan!" When you go home fill the house with joy, so that the light of it will stream out the windows and doors, and illuminate even the darkness. It is just as easy that way as any in the world.

35. Forgive the Children!

When your child confesses to you that it has com mitted a fault, take the child in your arms, and let it feel your heart beat against its heart, and raise your children in the sunlight of love, and they will be sunbeams to you along the pathway of life. Abolish the club and the whip from the house, because, if the civilized use a whip, the ignorant and the brutal will use a club, and they will use it because you use the whip.

36. A Solemn Satire on Whipping Children

If there is one of you here that ever expect to whip your child again, let me ask you something. Have your photograph taken at the time, and let it show your face red with vulgar anger, and the face of the little one with eyes swimming in tears. If that little child should die I cannot think of a sweeter way to spend an Autumn afternoon than to take that photograph and go to the cemetery, where the maples are clad in tender gold, and when little scarlet runners are coming, like poems of regret, from the sad heart of the earth; and sit down upon that mound, I look upon that photograph, and think of the flesh, made dust, that you beat. Just think of it. I could not bear to die in the arms of a child that I had whipped. I could not bear to feel upon my lips, when they were withering beneath the touch of death, the kiss of one that I had struck.

37. The Whips and Gods are Gone!

Children are better treated than they used to be; the old whips and gods are out of the schools, and they are governing children by love and sense. The world is getting better; it is getting better in Maine. It has got better in Maine, in Vermont. It is getting better in every State of the North.

INDIVIDUALITY

38. Absolute Independence of the Individual

What we want to-day is what our fathers wrote. They did not attain to their ideal; we approach it nearer, but have not yet reached it. We want, not only the independence of a state, not only the independence of a nation, but something far more glorious—the absolute independence of the individual. That is what we want. I want it so that I, one of the children of Nature, can stand on an equality with the rest; that I can say this is my air, my sunshine, my earth, and I have a right to live, and hope, and aspire, and labor, and enjoy the fruit of that labor, as much as any individual, or any nation on the face of the globe.

39. Saved by Disobedience

I tell you there is something splendid in man that will not always mind. Why, if we had done as the kings told us five hundred years ago, we would all have been slaves. If we had done as the priests told us, we would all have been idiots. If we had done as the doctors told us, we would all have been dead. We have been saved by disobedience. We have been saved by that splendid thing called independence, and I want to see more of it, day after day, and I want to see children raised so they will have it. That is my doctrine.

40. Intellectual Tyranny

Nothing can be more infamous than intellectual tyranny. To put chains upon the body is as nothing compared with putting shackles on the brain. No god is entitled to the worship or the respect of man who does not give, even to the meanest of his children, every right that he claims for himself.