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             INGERSOLL, A BIOGRAPHICAL APPRECIATION

                           CHAPTER 10.

                  THE PHILOSOPHICAL FOUNDATION
                      UPON WHICH HE STOOD.

     Before attempting an estimate of those views the dissemination
of which constituted the life-work of Ingersoll, let us carefully
and candidly examine the foundation upon which he stood. Let us
ascertain, if possible, whether, of frail and flimsy fancy, it
rests on the sands of sophistry, or whether, hewn by logic from the
granite of intellect, it lies deep and unshakable in the hard-pan
of reason.

     There have been applied to Ingersoll numerous theological and
philosophical epithets and designations. He has been styled a
heretic, an unbeliever, a skeptic, a liberal, a rationalist, a
materialist, a Freethinker, an infidel, an iconoclast, a
disbeliever, an atheist, and an Agnostic. It is essential, to
rightful understanding and just appreciation of his opinions and
arguments, that we here determine which of these terms, if any,
have been applied to him with propriety, and which, if any, with
total impropriety, and that we define such of them, in connection
with their proper application to him, as are frequently
misunderstood.

     Now, all who are tolerably familiar alike with the English
language and the tendency of Ingersoll's thought will agree that,
as concerns Christianity and the other alleged supernatural
religions he was a heretic, an unbeliever, a skeptic, a liberal and
a rationalist, using those words in their generally accepted sense;
that he was a materialist using that word in its generic
philosophical sense; and that he was a Freethinker and an infidel,
using those words minus, of course, their usual odium theologicum.

     Leaving the application of the term "iconoclast" to be
considered in a later chapter, let us next ascertain whether
Ingersoll was a "disbeliever." Briefly, a disbeliever, according to
dictionaries and theologians, is one who refuses to believe. Of
course, it would be just as reasonable to speak of one's refusing
to like a certain article of food, for example, as to speak of
one's refusing to believe a certain thing. Both belief and unbelief
unavoidably result from the consideration of testimony. If in the
testimony there is sufficient evidence, the reason accepts, and
belief results; if in the testimony there is insufficient evidence,
the reason does not accept, and unbelief results. The will is not
a factor in the process. In the vocabulary of the really
intelligent, there is no such word as "disbeliever," in the
theological sense. Ingersoll, therefore, was not a disbeliever.

     This brings us to the terms "atheist" and "Agnostic." Numerous
well-meaning individuals, many of them sincere admirers of
Ingersoll, have attempted to rescue his memory from the theological
abyss of unbelief by saying that he did not deny, that he only
failed to believe. They have strongly emphasized the assertion that
he was not an atheist, that he was merely an Agnostic. What would
they think if they knew that Ingersoll himself declared the beliefs
of the atheist and the Agnostic to be the same? But let us see for
ourselves. A theist is one who believes in the existence of God. An

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atheist, the opposite of the theist, is one who does not believe in
the existence of God. Ingersoll did not believe in the existence of
God. Ingersoll was therefore an atheist. "But," you will object,
"Ingersoll did not deny." True; but an atheist is not an atheist
because he denies: he is an atheist because he does not believe.
The atheist who denies, -- and there are such, -- may be a worse
philosopher, but he is not a better atheist. On the other hand, the
atheist who refrains from denying, on the ground that the nature
and the limitations of the human mind are such that he has, and can
have, no positive evidence on the subject, requires, in fairness,
and for the sake of philosophical accuracy, to be distinguished
alike from the atheist who does deny, and from the theist who
claims to know. Such an atheist was Ingersoll, -- "an agnostic-
atheist -- an atheist because an agnostic."

     An adequate knowledge of the intellectual foundation upon
which Ingersoll stood involves an understanding of the origin and
the more precise meaning and limitations of the latter word. In the
first century of our era, there arose in the Roman Empire,
simultaneously with what is now called Christianity, several widely
different sects whose members claimed to possess knowledge of the
being and the providence of God, and of the creation and the
destiny of man. Collectively known as Gnostics, they were not mere
believers, they were knowers.

     In 1869, in England, the Metaphysical Society was formed, with
Huxley as a member. Then in his forty-fourth year, he was not only
one of the most distinguished of scientists: he was master of
nearly everything of value in the realms of history and philosophy.
From the cradle, he had been a philosopher. When a mere boy, he had
read such works as Guizot's History of Civilization and Sir William
Hamilton's essay On the Philosophy of the Unconditioned. In the
fertile fields of thought, he had toiled with all the ardor that
youth can know, and though the autumn's mellowing days were yet to
come, he already stood among the golden sheaves, and watched the
purpling grapes. With all, and above all, he was mentally veracious
-- honest with himself and others -- absolutely faithful to his
ideal of truth. Upon his thoughtful brow, Candor, with firm and
fearless hand, had placed a wreath; and the more Huxley thought,
the greener it grew.

     The Metaphysical Society numbered among its members many other
able and variously distinguished men, including Tennyson, Tyndall,
Clifford, Sidgwick, Carpenter, Ruskin, Gladstone, the Duke of
Argyll, Harrison, Morley, and Stephen. Like the "secular leagues"
and "liberal clubs" of America to-day, it was, as Huxley himself
described it, a "confraternity of antagonists." There were theists,
pantheists, atheists, idealists of all shades, materialists,
Freethinkers, and Christians. Like the Gnostics of old, they were
not mere believers, they were knowers.

     Huxley, the intellectual chemist, examined one by one the
divers specimens which these modern Gnostics placed in the crucible
of his brain, and he found that they were all "unknowns." He could
not make even a qualitative analysis. That which to the theist or
the dogmatic atheist or the idealist was pure gold was, to Huxley,
evidently a compound of many inferior elements. Just what those
elements were, how united, and in what proportions, he could not

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say. Far from having revealed any new truth, his analyses,
conducted with all the acumen and candor of which he was capable,
had developed this solitary fact, that, except his being a
Freethinker, he was philosophically unlike every other member of
the Metaphysical Society. But he did not become egotistic and vain,
and, after the manner of the Pharisee, give thanks that he was not
as other men. Rather did he regret his unlikeness to them -- the
unique loneliness of his position. Indeed, in at least one respect,
he longed to resemble his fellows -- to have a name. He saw that,
while the minds of those about him were clad in gorgeous robes, the
warp and woof of which had been wrought in the loom of theological
tradition and metaphysical fancy, he was "without a rag" to cover
the nakedness of his candor. And so he became meditative,
introspective, -- began to contemplate himself and his associates.
He perceived that they "had attained a certain 'gnosis,'" and that,
consequently, they were his exact opposites, like the Gnostics. He
therefore concluded that he was an "Agnostic," and that the
application of his principle, or method, in the ascertainment of
truth was "Agnosticism." He says: --

     "Positively the principle may be expressed: In matters of the
intellect, follow your reason as far as it will take you, without
regard to any other consideration. And negatively: In matters of
the intellect, do not pretend that conclusions are certain which
are not demonstrated or demonstrable." [From Science and Christian
Tradition. Essays by Thomas Huxley.]

     Thus was coined, and thus is defined, Agnosticism, -- one of
the most useful, one of the most universal, one of the noblest
words that ever fell from human lips. Its birth was one of the
really important and significant events of the nineteenth century.
It is one of the milestones on the mental highway. It means honest
intelligence -- candor wedded to intellect. It represents a great,
a sublime principle -- a method for avoiding mental mistakes. Says
Kant: --

     "The greatest and perhaps the sole use of all philosophy of
pure reason is, after all, merely negative, since it serves not as
an organon for the enlargement [of knowledge], but as a discipline
for its delimitation; and, instead of discovering truth, has only
the modest merit of preventing error."

     But Agnosticism, as is shown by my first quotation, from
Huxley, is as positive as it is negative. It represents the
psychological state in which one declines, or to he strictly
accurate, fails, to assent to, or to assert the truth of, a
proposition in the absence of sufficient evidence.

     Agnosticism is a Pasteur filter in the great stream of human
thought. The filtrate, that is, the clear and sparkling liquid
which passes through, is what we believe. The turbid slush, the
pathogenic sediment and scum which does not pass through, is what
we do not believe: we cast it out. Ingersoll had one of these
filters, and in its infinitesimal meshes he found all of the
theologies of mankind. But he did not either construct or select
the filter: it was given to him before he was born.



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     Let us now go a little deeper; for we have not quite reached
the bed-rock of truth. Having shown how the word Agnosticism came
into use, what it means, and something of what it does not mean,
let us candidly try to ascertain whether it represents a mental
vanity, -- a principle existing in the immutable necessity of
things.

     We have what is called the science of metaphysics. It deals
with the contents and operations of mind, the so-called
metaphysical, in contradistinction to physics, which deals with
certain phases of substance and energy, -- matter in motion. This
sublime science of metaphysics originated far back among those
wonderful peoples who gave to us most of our present philosophy and
theology, including of course, Christianity, and to whom we have
given the title of "heathen." Many individuals, more especially
dogmatic materialistic Freethinkers, are wont to discredit the
science; but as Huxley wisely says: --

     "Sound metaphysics is an amulet which renders its possessor
proof alike against the poison of superstition and the counter-
poison of shallow negation; by showing that the affirmations of the
farmer and the denials of the latter alike deal with matters about
which, for lack of evidence, nothing can be either affirmed or
denied." [from Hume]

     Of course, a comprehensive consideration of the logical
relations of the agnostic principle to metaphysics would involve a
presentation of the relevant views of nearly all of the great
ancient and modern thinkers, including Xenophanes, Heraclitus,
Anaxagoras, Democritus, Protagoras, Aristotle, Parmenides, Pyrrho,
Epicurus, Arcesilaus, Bacon, and especially those of Descartes,
Locke, Berkeley, Hume, Kant, Hamilton, Mansel, Comte, Mill, Huxley,
Tyndall, and Spencer. But it is hoped that the immeasurably briefer
consideration of the relations just mentioned which space here
affords will not prove wholly inadequate.

     To realize the latter, -- to trace the agnostic principle to
its origin, -- it is necessary that we became oblivious of the
physical, or outer, world and enter, for a few moments, the world
of mind. Although it may seem egotistic, I shall here write in the
first person singular. I shall do this for the sake of simplicity
and perspicuity, if not from logical necessity, -- rather the
latter; for the attentive reader will presently perceive that I
could not consistently employ either the second or the third
person.

     Now, I examine my own mind, and I find that I know two things.
First, I know that I exist. How do I know this? Because "I
examine." How could I examine if I did not exist? In other words,
I am conscious; therefore, I exist -- "I think, hence I am."
Second, I perceive that my stream of consciousness is subject to
continuous interruptions, or changes; and these interruptions, or
changes, I call phenomena. Now, these two things, -- the perception
of my existence and the perception of phenomena, -- in other words,
these states of consciousness, or "psychoses," -- are what I know.
To put it more briefly still, I know phenomena. Above, below,
behind these phenomena, I cannot logically and honestly go. Whether


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the multitudinous divergent phenomena manifest in my subjective
consciousness, through the five senses, are mere seemings; whether
they represent objective realities, and, if so, whether those
realities are different from, or greater or less than, the
phenomena themselves, I do not and can not know. Whether the paper
on which I write, my limbs, my body, are objective realities, and,
if so, whether they are precisely what they seem to be, I do not
and can not know. Why can I not know? Because everything concerning
them must reach my consciousness through one or more of the senses,
and be perceived as phenomena. Hence I am where I started. The
circle shows no break. Like Archimedes, my lever is without a
fulcrum. What then, shall be my attitude? Shall I either assent to
or deny the assertion of the idealist, that, back of subjective
phenomena, there is no objective reality, no material substance?
Shall I either assent to or deny the assertion of the dogmatic
materialist, that, back of subjective phenomena, there is an
objective reality, an eternal material substance which is the cause
of those phenomena? Shall I either assent to or deny the assertion
of the theist, that back of subjective phenomena is God, their
"Great First Cause"? What shall be my attitude? "Whoso has mastered
the elements of philosophy knows that the attribute of
unquestionable certainty appertains only to the existence of a
state of consciousness so long as it exists; * * *." "For any
demonstration that can be given to the contrary effect, the
`collection of perceptions' which makes up our consciousness may be
an orderly phantasmagoria generated by the Ego, unfolding its
successive scenes on the background of the abyss of nothingness; as
a firework, which is but cunningly arranged combustibles, grows
from a spark into a coruscation, and from a coruscation into
figures, and words, and cascades of devouring fire, and then
vanishes into the darkness of the night.

     "On the other hand, it must no less readily be allowed that,
for anything that can be proved to the contrary, there may be a
real something which is the cause of all our impressions; that
sensations, though not likenesses, are symbols of that something;
and that the part of that something, which we call the nervous
system, is an apparatus for supplying us with a sort of algebra of
fact, based on those symbols. A brain may be the machinery by which
the material universe becomes conscious of itself." What, then, I
ask again, shall be my attitude? Shall I either assent to or deny
the assertion of the idealist, of the dogmatic materialist, or of
the theist? I shall do none of these. I shall say, with Ingersoll,
"I do not know."

     Now, this one sublime truth, that all we positively know, or
can positively know, is phenomena; that the pneumonia, the things
(if any things) back of phenomena, "the things in themselves," the
ultimate realities, the "Absolute," or "Unconditioned," are unknown
and inscrutable, is the truth which I had in view when, at the
beginning of this chapter, I proposed to examine the philosophical
foundation upon which Ingersoll stood. It is, I repeat, the one
sublime truth; and until it shall have been blotted out, the
attitude of the Agnostic, it seems to me, must be recognized as the
only tenable attitude of the human mind. Says Ingersoll: --




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     "Let us be honest with ourselves. In the presence of countless
mysteries; standing beneath the boundless heaven sown thick with
constellations; knowing that each grain of sand, each leaf, each
blade of grass, asks of every mind the answerless question; knowing
that the simplest thing defies solution; feeling that we deal with
the superficial and the relative, and that we are forever eluded by
the real, the absolute, -- let us admit the limitations of our
minds, and let us have the courage and candor to say: We do not
know."

     Anxious to hear at first hand his views on so vital a point,
I once asked Ingersoll why he had accepted Agnosticism, instead of
either theism or dogmatic atheism. Be replied, in effect, that he
possessed, as his only guide in this and all other matters, a brain
capable of certain things: there were limits within which its
processes were confined. Under given conditions, it reached given
conclusions -- we will say beliefs. These beliefs unavoidably
resulted from evidence, as that which is called "weight" results
from the gravitation of matter placed upon a scale. As far as he
could see, his beliefs, -- his weights, -- were right, but he did
not affirm that they were right; for he recognized the fact that,
after all, his brain, -- his mental scales, -- might be wrong. To
him, the assertion that an infinitely wise and powerful Being
created and governs this world was a monstrous absurdity; but he
did not deny, because, as already stated, he realized that the
mental scales in which he was obliged to weigh the evidence for and
against might be wrong, -- might have erroneously tipped to the
negative side. And so he never claimed to know the right weight: he
simply read the scale. Moreover, he knew that there were millions
of other "scales," every one differing from his own, and that,
consequently, in spite of themselves, they would all give different
weights to the same matter. This is the golden kernel of
Ingersollism -- every mind its own "sealer of weights and
measures." He knew that the theist and the dogmatic atheist alike
must, too, have weighed the matter in their scales, and must have
reached, unavoidably, their respective conclusions. He did not
blame them for their conclusions: he simply demanded that they,
like himself, tell them as conclusions, not as facts.

     By many, Agnosticism is looked upon as a sort of philosophical
system or anti-theological creed. It is regarded as collectively
representing all the ideas and doctrines that are more or less
antagonistic to supernaturalism, particularly the supernaturalism
of Christendom. Its opponents, evidently unable to cope with it on
fair and logical grounds, would confound it with "infidelity" in
general, thereby charging it with such weaknesses as they may be
pleased to find in the latter. Moreover, they would limit it to the
theological field. Of course, nothing could be more unjust and
unreasonable. Agnosticism is not infidelity, though it is often
practiced by persons to whom religionists have applied the epithet
"infidel." Nor is Agnosticism either a philosophical system or an
anti-theological creed. Indeed, it is no more a system or a creed
of any sort than a smelter is a goldbrick, or than a threshing-
machine is a loaf of bread; and it is no more limited to theology
than gravitation is to apples.




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     Is it not evident that Agnosticism is simply a principle,
which may be either positively or negatively employed? and that it
is universally applicable? Is it not true that, in all questions
not theological, the theist and the atheist are themselves
Agnostics? Will any Christian who happens to be a scientist deny
that the practice of withholding judgment pending the solution of
a problem is the very bulwark of modern science? Will anybody say
that this is not the Agnosticism of Ingersoll?

     Take the very water that we drink. Prior to 1781, most
chemists believed it to be composed of one atom of hydrogen and one
atom of oxygen to the molecule. Cavendish, however, was not
satisfied, -- had not reached a conclusion; and not long after the
year mentioned, water was shown to consist of two atoms of hydrogen
and one of oxygen. Therefore, oar knowledge of the molecular
structure of water is a result of an application of the agnostic
principle in the science of chemistry.

     Now, the suspension of judgment on the part of Cavendish must
have been due to the fact that his knowledge in the particular
branch concerned was greater than that of those who believed the
composition of water to have been determined. If this means
anything, it means that the difference between his (agnostic)
attitude and the (theistic) attitude of his contemporaries in
chemistry was simply a difference of knowledge. Cavendish knew
enough to know that he did not know, and that no one else did.

     Again, if a layman possessing a smattering of bacteriology
should enter the laboratory of some justly renowned bacteriologist,
and positively but candidly assert that there is no such thing as
an infectious disease, and that, moreover, bacteria are invariably
a blessing to mankind, and thereupon the bacteriologist should
disagree with his visitor, the disagreement would surely be due to
a difference of knowledge. Similar examples might be drawn from
every other science.

     Let us go further. What is the source of the Agnosticism
manifested in matters about which nothing is known by anybody? It
cannot be a difference of knowledge; for there is no knowledge. If
one person declares that the center of the earth is a huge diamond,
and another declines, from lack of knowledge on the subject, either
to affirm or to deny the assertion what causes the disagreement?
What is the source of the Agnosticism manifested by the person who
declines either to affirm or to deny? There can be but one answer
to this question. It is candor -- "the courage of the soul."

     Some will claim that this application of the principle of
Agnosticism is unjust; that the question chosen is not analogous to
the one over which the Great Agnostic waged so many battles. Can
such an objection be sustained? Is the alleged evidence of the
theist, in support of the supernatural, superior to that which
might be deduced to prove that a huge diamond lies where
gravitation is naught? With his crucible for a weapon, the
scientist has driven from the field the followers of the "Great
First Cause," and has blotted from every language the words
"create" and "annihilate." Extending to the stars his inquiring
gaze, he has found no "New Jerusalem"; and from that mystic realm


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in which all roads converge is still to come the first authentic
word. We have no evidence. We may hope; but on this question of
questions, the savage is the equal of the sage. Perhaps nothing
else illustrates this better than the following story, which
Ingersoll himself used to tell in his inimitable way:

     A missionary was trying to convince an Indian of the wonderful
truths of Christianity. The red man listened attentively, then
stooped and, with a stick, drew a little circle in the sand.
"This," said he, "is what Indian knows." Then, tracing a very large
circle around the first, he added, "and this is what white man
knows; but out here [Pointing outside both circles] Indian knows
just as much as white man."

     But while Ingersoll kept constantly in mind the vast
difference between knowledge and belief, -- while he was ever
faithful to the ethical and intellectual agnostic principle, "that
it is wrong for a man to say that he is certain of the objective
truth of any proposition unless he can produce evidence which
logically justifies that certainty," he believed a great many
things. It is with his belief on the subject of a Creator, that we
are next concerned. Satisfied with nothing that did not rest upon
the bed-rock of reason, Ingersoll attacked the problem chiefly from
two standpoints, the scientific and the philosophical. Starting
with the scientifically demonstrated truths embraced in "the law of
substance" and "the law of the conservation of energy," namely,
that not the minutest imaginable atom of matter, nor the least of
the total sum of force, or energy, can be annihilated, he reached
the conclusion that neither could have been created, and that,
therefore, both must have always existed, and will forever continue
to exist. Or, to state the same facts in a different way: As there
can be no force without matter, no matter without force, -- the two
whenever and wherever cognizant to the mind being inseparable, --
the idea of a creator is an absurdity. Because, a being who could
create must have derived from matter his energy to create, in which
case he was not a creator. To put it even more plainly: If he had
energy, he was inseparable from matter -- was matter, or a phase of
matter -- and could not have created matter, that is, could not
have created himself. It is here that Deism and Theism, with their
"First Cause," or "Creator," meet their "Waterloo" on the
battlefield of science.

     Just as great a difficulty -- precisely the same difficulty,
in reality -- is encountered when the problem is approached from a
purely philosophical standpoint. For (according to the theist
himself) nothing uncaused ever existed. Now, a first cause, if it
occurred, was uncaused, which is a contradiction, and therefore
absurd. Further, before we can logically speak of a First
(uncaused) Cause, we must trace somewhere in the universe a last
effect -- a "Great Last Effect." Let us, as a test, apply this
reasoning to some everyday phenomenon. Suppose that a child is
suffering from an incurable congenital disease which has produced
certain structural changes in the brain or other part of the
nervous system. These changes will surely give rise to symptoms, --
will cause the conduct of the individual to deviate from what is
called "normal." Imagine, now, that some theistic sociologist,
eager to establish the falsity of Ingersoll's position, is to


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undertake a conception of the last effect that the lesion in the
nervous system of this child will have upon society! Would he not
press the snow-line of common sense? And yet theologians, lawyers,
statesmen, scientists, physicians (who, above all, should be
wiser), babble about a First Cause as glibly as a merchant gossips
over a commodity.

     The cardinal conclusion to which Ingersoll was forced by these
scientific and philosophical truths was, of course, that neither
the God of the Bible, nor of any other so-called sacred book,
created the universe. And this conclusion he urged. In the place of
the theological view, he put the mechanical, or monistic. To him,
the universe, of which we ourselves are a part, was one eternal
and, so far as can be known, planless and purposeless machine,
which, by virtue of its composition, could not be otherwise than as
it is; every part, from atom to planet, obeying the law of
necessity, without the possibility of miracle, chance, or accident.
In this sublime yet awful mechanism, the sum of matter and energy
must remain forever the same, though forms change and
manifestations vary. A heap of coal might be converted into heat,
the heat into steam, the steam into motion, the motion arrested and
changed back to heat, and so forth; but the totality of matter and
energy would not be affected. A molecule of iron, liberated by
chemical action from one of its chlorides, entering the blood, and
uniting with the coloring matter (hemoglobin) of the red blood-
cells, might so modify the force of thought as to assist in the
production of a grander poem. In such a case, the total amount of
chloride of iron would be lessened, but the total amounts of iron
and chlorine would remain the same. And this same iron, centuries
after the poet's death, might be gathered up by the roots of
plants, to course again through human veins.

     That intellects capable of a universal view should adopt the
monistic theory of the universe, could excite no wonder in a mind
like Ingersoll's. Rather did the wonder lie in the spectacle of
thinking men and women, in this age of thought and scientific
generalization, attempting to displace infinite necessity, "the
mother of the world," by that which, examined in the light of pure
reason, is, at best, only a useless and superfluous conception. In
other words, the belief that behind the totality of objective
sensations which we call the universe lies no independent power,
was not wonderful, nor even "radical." But the opposite belief,
that the universe, in which substance and energy are inseparable
and eternal; in which not the mentally highest and morally best,
but the physically fittest, survives -- the ignorant and vicious
often triumphing over the intellectual and innocent; in which, from
the astronomical to the microscopical, -- from wheeling Neptune to
bacterial spore, -- Necessity reigns omnipotent, is the sport and
prey of some capricious, immaterial nothing -- this, to Ingersoll,
was the real cause for wonder.

     From the preceding, it of course follows, that, contrary to
his superficial theological critics, Ingersoll did not and could
not entertain even the faintest idea of "accident," or "chance," in
relation to universal phenomena. Such an idea can he held by those
only who fail to recognize the unity of things. Ingersoll believed
that the universe is the one infinite and eternal fact, and he


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could not, therefore, believe that it had ever been, or would be,
the subject of "accident," or "chance," or "happening." He knew
that nothing can "happen" to one. He knew that all such terms imply
plurality. "Accidents" and "happenings" occur with reference to two
or more, but never with reference to one.

     The simple and logical truth of the matter is, that the charge
of postulating the accidental with reference to cosmogonic
processes is justly to be laid, not at Ingersoll's door, but at the
door of his theological critics. Chance and accident are implied,
not by belief in the infinite and eternal existence and persistence
of substance and energy, but by such words as "creation" and
"annihilation." Indeed, to believe in the possibility of the
phenomena which these words indicate, is to believe in chance and
accident, and in nothing else. He who believes in substance and
energy, believes in necessity; he who believes in creation,
believes in caprice: necessity means order; caprice, accident.
Perhaps nothing else more clearly demonstrates Ingersoll's
philosophic grasp and insight, than his conception of natural law.
In that conception, he did what most of his critics, and even many
scientific writers, fail to do: he distinguished law from cause. He
recognized, with the clarity of a technical scientist, that a
deduction based upon an observation of a phenomenon is one thing;
the cause of the phenomenon, quite another. As to a given
phenomenon, he knew that the cause was behind, and that the law,
with its human creator, was in front. He knew that he himself, like
this creator, was limited to the observation of only this side of
the phenomenon, and that even should he ascertain the cause, the
cause of that cause would logically demand an explanation.
Confronted with these insuperable difficulties, he did not seek
relief in a vain confusion of terms. He did not confound a man-made
law, -- that is, a mental perception of phenomenal sequence, --
with its cause, and announce that he had discovered God. He did not
build him a philosophical palace of "fool's gold" mined in a
muddled brain. He chose to stand modestly and candidly in the open
light of reason. He said: --

     "Let it be understood that by the term law is meant the same
invariable relations of succession and resemblance produced of all
facts springing from like conditions. Law is a fact -- not a cause.
it is a fact, that like conditions produce like results: this fact
is law. When we say that the universe is governed by law, we mean
that this fact, called law, is incapable of change; that it is, has
been, and forever will be, the same inexorable, immutable Fact,
inseparable from all phenomena. Law, in this sense, was not enacted
or made. It could not have been otherwise than as it is. That which
necessarily exists has no creator."

     And yet writers and speakers of the dualistic theological
school, -- the critics of Ingersoll, -- constantly use the term
"natural law" as though the latter were an entity, a force, a cause
of phenomena. Evidently their conception of natural law differs in
no essential respect from their conception of civil law. Frequently
are they chargeable with such expressions as: "Evolution unfolds
itself in regular order, in obedience to natural laws"; "The law of
gravity holds the planets in their orbits," and so forth.



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     The truth is, that nothing occurs in nature because of, or in
obedience to, law. Evolution obeys no law or laws. If it obeys
"natural laws" now, what did it obey before there were any natural
laws? and what would it obey if those laws should be forgotten? All
we can truthfully say is, that evolution is a universal and orderly
phenomenon of what we call substance and energy. Its cause or
causes are within, behind, or beneath the latter; its laws are in
the human mind, and on paper. As to the next proposition, if "the
law of gravity holds the planets in their orbits," what held them
before Newton's time? What held him to the earth while he was
discovering that law? It would be a safe wager, that the law of
gravity could not "hold" a mustard-seed.

     "But what about this confusion of ideas and terms? -- what
harm is done by confounding natural law with cause? "will be asked.
In the consideration of the ultimate world-problems, with which
Ingersoll dealt, the greatest harm, I reply. It misleads the
uninformed and uncritical. It contributes to the dissemination of
pseudo-science, and, therethrough, to the predominance of pseudo-
philosophy. It tends to denial of the integrity of nature, thereby
affording standing-room for the supernatural. How? In this way:
Socialized individuals are accustomed to obeying civil law. To the
extent that they obey unwillingly, they come to regard law as
force. The less intelligent they are, the more will they so regard
it. Furthermore, these individuals know that laws have not always
existed; that they have had makers, creators. Now, if we use the
term law in the sense of force, or cause, -- if, for example, we
speak of a falling stone's obeying the law of gravity, as a person
obeys a law of the state, -- we establish in the mind of the
uncritical, through the inevitable association of ideas, the
necessity for a creator of the law which the stone is said to obey;
because it is unthinkable that a law, in the usual sense, could
create itself. No other thinker understood this more clearly than
Ingersoll.

     Convinced by his earnest studies in physical science, and by
careful observation of sociological phenomena, that the scientific,
or monistic, conception of nature, already mentioned, is the only
tenable one, and possessing that mental poise which enables one to
view things, not as pictured by the sentiments, but as they really
are, Ingersoll naturally and necessarily spurned every idea that
savored of "design" or of "special providence." He saw that these
are fancies of which only the provincial mind is capable. To him,
the teleological view was, at best, a sort of mental emetic. His
intellectual horizon was too broad for the sort of special
providence that, for example, acknowledged the necessity of raising
up a Lincoln who should break the fetters of an enslaved race,
while a nation's soil ran red with innocent blood, and who should
then, untimely, find a martyr's grave, through the medium of an
assassin's bullet. Ingersoll could see no reason for having
permitted the race to be enslaved in the first place.

     He read with scorn and pity the various "Christian evidences,"
the" fundamental truths," the "analogies." Examining Paley's
wonderful "watch," he found that it did not keep time with the
logic of this age, and that it afforded no greater degree of
conviction than Aladdin's wonderful lamp. He possessed, to a rare


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degree, the faculty of universal sight. Recognizing the law of
correlatives, a knowledge of a part implied, with him, a knowledge
of the whole; and, as he saw that the human mind is limited, he
knew that to assert design for any thing or phenomenon in nature is
illogical. He knew that we must understand causes and effects --
children of necessity -- before asserting purpose. This rule had
been applied in every other branch of human effort, where
perfection is not claimed; and he supplied it in theology, where
perfection is claimed.

     Of course, the "evidences" of "design" were as apparent to
Ingersoll as to any one else; that is, they were superficially
apparent. They never took him farther on the turnpike of teleology
than where the path of Agnosticism branches off. He said: --

     "In nature I see, or seem to see, good and evil --
intelligence and ignorance -- goodness and cruelty -- care and
carelessness -- economy and waste. I see means that do not
accomplish the ends -- designs that seem to fail."

     For example, although recognizing apparent design, as far as
the welfare of the microbe itself is concerned, he could not
believe that any wise and beneficent purpose is subserved by the
bacterium which thrives in dust and soil, and, fortuitously
entering the tissues of man, or of some lower mammal, causes the
horrible disease called "lockjaw." Considering all the known facts
regarding this micro-organism, he could not think otherwise than
that the part played by it is, to say the least, a most useless
one. But he would not attempt to account for the existence of this
germ. He was satisfied that, like all other things, it necessarily
exists -- that it is -- and that the deplorable phenomena which it
excites are, for want of a better word, accidental.

     He understood, as only minds of the widest range and keenest
insight can understand, that the forces of nature are everywhere
immutable, inexorable, implacable. In him were combined, as in very
few, the grasp and penetration of the physical scientist, and the
instinct of the poet. He was therefore able to realize the utter
helplessness, the insignificance, the nothingness, of man in the
midst of an infinite environment that has neither malice to gratify
nor mercy to bestow. He felt the pathos of human existence. Of
this, nothing could make us more certain than the following: --

     "A man heart breaks, a man dies, a leaf falls in the far
forest, a babe is born, and the great world sweeps on."

     It would be difficult to find in literature a more tragically
pathetic line.

     Upon whatever of nature's phenomena Ingersoll looked, whatever
of them he contemplated, he intuitively saw how little she does
with reference to man. He saw that whatever brings woe to one
brings weal to another, -- and that it brings both without
intention. He knew that the ocean tempest, in whitecapper horror
raging, -- lashing with implacable fury the helpless ship on reef
and rock, -- strewing the pallid corpses on the shore, -- might
also hasten to a mother's arms her long-lost child and that


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somewhere, its fury spent, it would repentant grow, and soothe with
cool and fragrant breath the invalid's fevered brow.

     Scientist and poet, he knew that the electric force invariably
takes the easiest why, whether it fires the only shelter of the
noblest and the best, and leaves lifeless and charred the forms of
wife and babe, or whether, freighted with love, it flashes through
vague, mysterious depths, -- through wrecks of vessels manned by
fleshless crews, -- over craters whose fiery hearts long since were
quenched, -- across the sightless valleys where foldage waves
without a flower through all the ceaseless years, -- onward still,
to thrill some distant soul with joy.

     Not the most entrancing feature of nature's endless panorama
could make him forget, that, notwithstanding the blessings which we
experience, -- the few fleet moments when Joy, with rosy lips,
defying, mocks at Fate, -- this life is a heartless maelstrom in
which millions of mankind are caught. When he saw the dawn, -- saw
the somber granite bastille of the east, trembling, change to
rubied gold and topple down, -- saw the sun, the unprisoned god,
walk scornful the fallen ruins into a palace with sapphire domed
and with diamonds strewn, -- he thought of what had just occurred
on the other side of the globe. He was not content to know that
this sun had come to weave for another day a robe of verdure for
the fields and hills; to vie with its old companion in building
fairy forms where babbling brooks are canopied with leaves, nor yet
to gild the billowy seas, and weight with red the bending boughs,
for Autumn's tawny arms. He knew that it had just furnished light
for man to murder hundreds of his fellows; that its chemic rays had
just distilled countless gallons of poison for the destruction of
mankind; that every step of its glorious march had crushed the life
from millions of animal and vegetable forms; and that, in the
Orient, it had been shooting its arrows of thirsting fire into
waterless wells beside which Famine sat with hollow cheeks and
vacant eyes.

     Thus convinced of the relativity of everything in nature,
Ingersoll naturally believed that there is nothing absolutely good,
nothing absolutely bad, and that, outside the planless, ever-
changing cycle of the universe, there is no watchful power to curse
or bless mankind. He held that man's ideas of good and evil had
been inferred from natural phenomena; those things tending to
happiness being called good; those to unhappiness, bad. He once
illustrated this phase of his belief, and especially the egotism of
man, with the following fable: --

     A colony of red ants lived at the foot of the Alps. It
happened one day that an avalanche destroyed the hill; and one of
the ants was heard to remark: 'Who could have taken so much trouble
to destroy our home?'"

     Ingersoll was wise enough to see that nature neither rejoices
nor regrets, and that the so-called rewards and punishments which
she bestows and inflicts are but ephemeral phases of the eternal
panorama of antecedents and consequence.




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     I once visited a home in which the husband and father had died
of an acute illness. He lay in a room adjoining that in which I
stood, the door between the two being closed. It was a summer
morning; and the sun streamed through a window and fell against the
closed door, imparting, as it passed, a fairer gold to the careless
locks of a little girl, who thought her papa "asleep." I recalled
these words of Ingersoll: "The sun shines as gladly on coffins as
on cradles."

     Unlike his two distinguished predecessors, Voltaire and Paine,
Ingersoll was not, in the strictest sense, a pioneer in the
struggle for intellectual freedom. In justice to him, however, it
should be remembered that, although he came at a later date, and
consequently possessed better tools with which to do his work, his
opportunities were not so great.

     In addition to the influence exerted by the reformers
mentioned, and by such thinkers and writers as Buckle, Draper,
Lecky, Buchner, and Spencer, modern physical science was, at the
beginning of Ingersoll's anti-theological crusade, rapidly becoming
the handmaid of rationalism. The great masters, -- the real Titans
and Hercules, -- were hurling thunderbolts of truth at all the
monsters of superstition.

     One of the most splendid achievements was that of Rudolph
Virchow, who, in 1858, published his cellular pathology, placing
our knowledge of morbid processes upon a firm scientific basis,
demonstrating that disease is as natural as health, and removing it
forever from the domain of the supernatural. The ample significance
of this discovery can be better realized in no other way than by
recalling, that, for more than six hundred years of Christian
darkness, mental disease was believed to be the work of evil
spirits. I need not here draw upon the sad annals of mental
therapeutics.

     In 1859 Charles Darwin, "the Newton of organic science," after
whom Ingersoll himself declared that the last century should be
named, established the theory of descent, relegating forever to the
ignorant past all "special creation" myths.

     Next came Kirchoff and Bunsen, who began, in 1860, a series of
investigations which was to demonstrate, by spectral analysis,
through millions upon millions of miles of space, the existence in
all other planets of the same chemical elements that are found in
our earth and its atmosphere.

     Three years later Huxley, "Darwin's Bulldog," declared
unmistakably, in Man's Place in Nature, his opinion that man
descended from the apes. Huxley supported his beliefs by most
important biological facts.

     Tyndall also -- he of the "prayer-gauge," which demonstrated
alike the credulity of Christendom and the immutability of natural
laws -- was busy; for he crowned with a master hand, in his Heat
Considered as a Mode of Motion (1863), the splendid work of Mayer,
Joule, Thomson, Helmholtz, and others, by presenting in popular
form "the law of the conservation of energy."


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             INGERSOLL, A BIOGRAPHICAL APPRECIATION

     Thoroughly familiar with these great scientific achievements;
profound in history, and a master of literature; with personal and
political experience that had not tended to increase his affection
for orthodoxy; and with his mind still alive to the vivid
impressions of the struggle for physical freedom, Robert G.
Ingersoll, -- "like an armed warrior, like a plumed knight," --
entered the mental lists and shook "his shining lance" at the
enemies of intellectual liberty.









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