The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll Volume VI Part 37

After reading this philosophic dissertation on the dealings of Providence, I doubt if the Archdeacon will still remain of the opinion that Mr. Bancroft is one of the leading prose writers of America. If the Archdeacon will read a few of the sermons of Theodore Parker, and essays of Ralph Waldo Emerson, if he will read the life of Voltaire by James Parton, he may change his opinion as to the great prose writers of America.

My argument against miracles is answered by reference to "Dr. Lightfoot, a man of such immense learning that he became the equal of his successor Dr. Westcott." And when I say that there are errors and imperfections in the Bible, I am told that Dr. Westcott "investigated the Christian religion and its earliest doc.u.ments _au fond_, and was an orthodox believer." Of course the Archdeacon knows that no one now knows who wrote one of the books of the Bible. He knows that no one now lives who ever saw one of the original ma.n.u.scripts, and that no one now lives who ever saw anybody who had seen anybody who had seen an original ma.n.u.script.

VI.

Is it possible for the human mind to conceive of an infinite personality?

THE Archdeacon says that it is, and yet in the same article he quotes the following from Job: "Canst thou by searching find out G.o.d?" "It is as high as Heaven; what canst thou do? deeper than h.e.l.l; what canst thou know?" And immediately after making these quotations, the Archdeacon takes the ground of the agnostic, and says, "with the wise ancient Rabbis, we learn to say, _I do not know_."

It is impossible for me to say what any other human being cannot conceive; but I am absolutely certain that my mind cannot conceive of an infinite personality--of an infinite Ego.

Man is conscious of his individuality. Man has wants. A mult.i.tude of things in nature seems to work against him; and others seem to be favorable to him. There is conflict between him and nature.

If man had no wants--if there were no conflict between him and any other being, or any other thing, he could not say "I"--that is to say, he could not be conscious of personality.

Now, it seems to me that an infinite personality is a contradiction in terms, says "I."

VII.

THE same line of argument applies to the next statement that is criticised by the Archdeacon: _Can the human mind conceive a beginningless being?_

We know that there is such a thing as matter, but we do not know that there is a beginningless being. We say, or some say, that matter is eternal, because the human mind cannot conceive of its commencing. Now, if we knew of the existence of an Infinite Being, we could not conceive of his commencing. But we know of no such being. We do know of the existence of matter; and my mind is so, that I cannot conceive of that matter having been created by a beginningless being. I do not say that there is not a beginningless being, but I do not believe there is, and it is beyond my power to conceive of such a being.

The Archdeacon also says that "s.p.a.ce is quite as impossible to conceive as G.o.d." But n.o.body pretends to love s.p.a.ce--no one gives intention and will to s.p.a.ce--no one, so far as I know, builds altars or temples to s.p.a.ce. Now, if G.o.d is as inconceivable as s.p.a.ce, why should we pray to G.o.d?

The Archdeacon, however, after quoting Sir William Hamilton as to the inconceivability of s.p.a.ce as absolute or infinite, takes occasion to say that "s.p.a.ce is an ent.i.ty." May I be permitted to ask how he knows that s.p.a.ce is an ent.i.ty? As a matter of fact, the conception of infinite s.p.a.ce is a necessity of the mind, the same as eternity is a necessity of the mind.

VIII.

THE next sentence or statement to which the Archdeacon objects is as follows:

_He who cannot harmonize the cruelties of the Bible with the goodness of Jehovah, cannot harmonize the cruelties of Nature with the goodness or wisdom of a supposed Deity. He will find it impossible to account for pestilence and famine, for earthquake and storm, for slavery, and for the triumph of the strong over the weak._

One objection that he urges to this statement is that St. Paul had made a stronger one in the same direction. The Archdeacon however insists that "a world without a contingency, or an agony, could have had no hero and no saint," and that "science enables us to demonstrate that much of the apparent misery and anguish is transitory and even phantasmal; that many of the seeming forces of destruction are overruled to ends of beneficence; that most of man's disease and anguish is due to his own sin and folly and wilfulness."

I will not say that these things have been said before, but I will say that they have been answered before. The idea that the world is a school in which character is formed and in which men are educated is very old.

If, however, the world is a school, and there is trouble and misfortune, and the object is to create character--that is to say, to produce heroes and saints--then the question arises, what becomes of those who die in infancy? They are left without the means of education. Are they to remain forever without character? Or is there some other world of suffering and sorrow?

Is it possible to form character in heaven? How did the angels become good? How do you account for the justice of G.o.d? Did he attain character through struggle and suffering?

What would you say of a school teacher who should kill one-third of the children on the morning of the first day? And what can you say of G.o.d,--if this world is a school,--who allows a large per cent, of his children to die in infancy--consequently without education--therefore, without character?

If the world is the result of infinite wisdom and goodness, why is the Christian Church engaged in endeavoring to make it better; or, rather, in an effort to change it? Why not leave it as an infinite G.o.d made it?

Is it true that most of man's diseases are due to his own sin and folly and wilfulness? Is it not true that no matter how good men are they must die, and will they not die of diseases? Is it true that the wickedness of man has created the microbe? Is it possible that the sinfulness of man created the countless enemies of human life that lurk in air and water and food? Certainly the wickedness of man has had very little influence on tornadoes, earthquakes and floods. Is it true that "the signature of beauty with which G.o.d has stamped the visible world--alike in the sky and on the earth--alike in the majestic phenomena of an intelligent creation and in its humblest and most microscopic production--is a perpetual proof that G.o.d is a G.o.d of love"?

Let us see. The scientists tell us that there is a little microscopic animal, one who is very particular about his food--so particular, that he prefers to all other things the optic nerve, and after he has succeeded in destroying that nerve and covering the eye with the mask of blindness, he has intelligence enough to bore his way through the bones of the nose in search of the other optic nerve. Is it not somewhat difficult to discover "the signature of beauty with which G.o.d has stamped" this animal? For my part, I see but little beauty in poisonous serpents, in man-eating sharks, in crocodiles, in alligators. It would be impossible for me to gaze with admiration upon a cancer. Think, for a moment, of a G.o.d ingenious enough and good enough to feed a cancer with the quivering flesh of a human being, and to give for the sustenance of that cancer the life of a mother.

It is well enough to speak of "the myriad voices of nature in their mirth and sweetness," and it is also well enough to think of the other side. The singing birds have a few notes of love--the rest are all of warning and of fear. Nature, apparently with infinite care, produces a living thing, and at the same time is just as diligently at work creating another living thing to devour the first, and at the same time a third to devour the second, and so on around the great circle of life and death, of agony and joy--tooth and claw, fang and tusk, hunger and rapine, ma.s.sacre and murder, violence and vengeance and vice everywhere and through all time. [Here the ma.n.u.script ends, with the following notes.]

SAYINGS FROM THE INDIAN.

"The rain seems hardest when the wigwam leaks."

"When the tracks get too large and too numerous, the wise Indian says that he is hunting something else."

"A little crook in the arrow makes a great miss."

"A great chief counts scalps, not hairs."

"You cannot strengthen the bow by poisoning the arrows."

"No one saves water in a flood."

ORIGEN.

Origen considered that the punishment of the wicked consisted in separation from G.o.d. There was too much pity in his heart to believe in the flames of h.e.l.l. But he was condemned as heretical by the Council of Carthage, A. D., 398, and afterwards by other councils.

ST. AUGUSTINE.

St. Augustine censures Origen for his merciful view, and says: "The church, not without reason, condemned him for this error." He also held that h.e.l.l was in the centre of the earth, and that G.o.d supplied the centre with perpetual fire by a miracle.

DANTE.

Dante is a wonderful mixture of melancholy and malice, of religion and revenge, and he represents himself as so pitiless that when he found his political opponents in h.e.l.l, he struck their faces and pulled the hair of the tormented.

AQUINAS.

Aquinas believed the same. He was the loving gentleman who believed in the undying worm.

IS CORPORAL PUNISHMENT DEGRADING?

* This unfinished and unrevised article was found among Col.

Ingersoll's papers, and is here reproduced without change.-- It is a reply to the Dean of St Paul's Contribution to the North American Review for Dec., 1891, ent.i.tled: "Is Corporal Punishment Degrading?"

THE Dean of St. Paul protests against the kindness of parents, guardians and teachers toward children, wards and pupils. He believes in the gospel of ferule and whips, and has perfect faith in the efficacy of flogging in homes and schools. He longs for the return of the good old days when fathers were severe, and children affectionate and obedient.

In America, for many years, even wife-beating has been somewhat unpopular, and the flogging of children has been considered cruel and unmanly. Wives with bruised and swollen faces, and children with lacerated backs, have excited pity for themselves rather than admiration for savage husbands and brutal fathers. It is also true that the church has far less power here than in England, and it may be that those who wander from the orthodox fold grow merciful and respect the rights even of the weakest.