The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll Volume XII Part 3

I HAVE read, this story, this fragment of a life mingled with fragments of other lives, and have been pleased, interested, and instructed. It is filled with the pathos of truth, and has in it the humor that accompanies actual experience. It has but little to do with the world of imagination; certain feelings are not attributed to persons born of fancy, but it is the history of a heart and brain interested in the common things of life. There are no kings, no lords, no t.i.tled ladies, but there are real people, the people of the shop and street whom every reader knows, and there are lines intense and beautiful, and scenes that touch the heart. You will find no theories of government, no hazy outlines of reform, nothing but facts and folks, as they have been, as they are, and probably will be for many centuries to come.

If you read this book you will be convinced that men and women are good or bad, charitable or heartless, by reason of something within, and not by virtue of any name they bear, or any trade or profession they follow, or of any creed they may accept. You will also find that men sometimes are honest and mean; that women may be very virtuous and very cruel; that good, generous and sympathetic men are often disreputable, and that some exceedingly worthy citizens are extremely mean and uncomfortable neighbors.

It takes a great deal of genius and a good deal of selfdenial to be very bad or to be very good. Few people understand the amount of energy, industry, and self-denial it requires to be consistently vicious. People who have a pride in being good and fail, and those who have a pride in being bad and fail, in order to make their records consistent generally rely upon hypocrisy. The people that live and hope and fear in this book, are much like the people who live and hope and fear in the actual world. The professor is much like the professor in the ordinary college.

You will find the conscientious, half-paid teacher, the hopeful poor, the anxious rich, the true lover, the stingy philanthropist, who cares for people only in the aggregate,--the individual atom being too small to attract his notice or to enlist his heart; the sympathetic man who loves himself, and gives, not for the sake of the beggar, but for the sake of getting rid of the beggar, and you will also find the man generous to a fault--with the money of others. And the reader will find these people described naturally, truthfully and without exaggeration, and he will feel certain that all these people have really lived.

The reader of this story will get some idea as to what is encountered by a girl in an honest effort to gain her daily bread. He will find how steep, how devious and how difficult is the path she treads.

There are so few occupations open to woman, so few things in which she can hope for independence, that to be thrown upon her own resources is almost equivalent to being cast away. Besides, she is an object of continual suspicion, watched not only by men but by women. If she does anything that other women are not doing, she is at once suspected, her reputation is touched, and other women, for fear of being stained themselves, withdraw not only the hand of help, but the smile of recognition. A young woman cannot defend herself without telling the charge that has been made against her. This, of itself, gives a kind of currency to slander. To speak of the suspicion that has crawled across her path, is to plant the seeds of doubt in other minds; to even deny it, admits that it exists. To be suspected, that is enough. There is no way of destroying this suspicion. There is no court in which suspicions are tried; no juries that can render verdicts of not guilty. Most women are driven at last to the needle, and this does not allow them to live; it simply keeps them from dying.

It is hard to appreciate the dangers and difficulties that lie in wait for woman. Even in this Christian country of ours, no girl is safe in the streets of any city after the sun has gone down. After all, the sun is the only G.o.d that has ever protected woman. In the darkness she has been the prey of the wild beast in man.

Nearly all charitable people, so-called, imagine that nothing is easier than to obtain work. They really feel that anybody, no matter what his circ.u.mstances may be, can get work enough to do if he is only willing to do the work. They cannot understand why any healthy human being should lack food or clothes. Meeting the unfortunate and the wretched in the streets of the great city, they ask them in a kind of wondering way, why they do not go to the West, why they do not cultivate the soil, and why they are so foolish, stupid, and reckless as to remain in the town. It would be just as sensible to ask a beggar why he does not start a bank or a line of steamships, as to ask him why he does not cultivate the soil, or why he does not go to the West. The man has no money to pay his fare, and if his fare were paid he would be, when he landed in the West, in precisely the same condition as he was when he left the East.

Societies and inst.i.tutions and individuals supply the immediate wants of the hungry and the ragged, but they afford only the relief of the moment.

Articles by the thousand have been written for the purpose of showing that women should become servants in houses, and the writers of these articles are filled with astonishment that any girl should hesitate to enter domestic service. They tell us that nearly every family needs a good cook, a good chambermaid, a good sweeper of floors and washer of dishes, a good stout girl to carry the baby and draw the wagon, and these good people express the greatest astonishment that all girls are not anxious to become domestics. They tell them that they will be supplied with good food, that they will have comfortable beds and warm clothing, and they ask, "What more do you want?" These people have not, however, solved the problem. If girls, as a rule, keep away from kitchens and chambers, if they hate to be controlled by other women, there must be a reason. When we see a young woman prefer a clerkship in a store,--a business which keeps her upon her feet all day, and sends her to her lonely room, filled with weariness and despair, and when we see other girls who are willing to sew for a few cents a day rather than become the maid of "my lady," there must be some reason, and this reason must be deemed sufficient by the persons who are actuated by it. What is it?

Every human being imagines that the future has something in store for him. It is natural to build these castles in Spain. It is natural for a girl to dream of being loved by the n.o.ble, by the superb, and it is natural for the young man to dream of success, of a home, of a good, a beautiful and loving wife. These dreams are the solace of poverty; they keep back the tears in the eyes of the young and the hungry. To engage in any labor that degrades, in any work that leaves a stain, in any business the mention of which is liable to redden the cheek, seems to be a destruction of the foundation of hope, a destruction of the future; it seems to be a crucifixion of his or her better self. It a.s.sa.s.sinates the ideal.

It may be said that labor is n.o.ble, that work is a kind of religion, and whoever says this tells the truth, But after all, what has the truth to do with this question? What is the opinion of society?--What is the result? It cures no wound to say that it was wrongfully inflicted.

The opinion of sensible people is one way, the action of society is inconsistent with that opinion. Domestic servants are treated as though their employment was and is a degradation. Bankers, merchants, professional men, ministers of the gospel, do not want their sons to become the husbands of chambermaids and cooks. Small hands are beautiful; they do not tell of labor.

I have given one reason; there is another. The work of a domestic is never done. She is liable to be called at any moment, day or night. She has no time that she can call her own. A woman who works by the piece can take a little rest; if she is a clerk she has certain hours of labor and the rest of the day is her own.

And there is still another reason that I almost hate to give, and that is this: As a rule, woman is exacting with woman. As a rule, woman does not treat woman as well as man treats man, or as well as man treats woman. There are many other reasons, but I have given enough.

For many years, women have been seeking employment other than that of domestic service. They have so hated this occupation, that they have sought in every possible direction for other ways to win their bread.

At last hundreds of employments are open to them, and, as a consequence, domestic servants are those who can get nothing else to do.

In the olden time, servants sat at the table with the family; they were treated something like human beings, harshly enough to be sure, but in many cases almost as equals. Now the kitchen is far away from the parlor. It is another world, occupied by individuals of a different race. There is no bond of sympathy--no common ground. This is especially true in a Republic. In the Old World, people occupying menial places account for their positions by calling attention to the laws--to the hereditary n.o.bility and the universal spirit of caste. Here, there are no such excuses. All are supposed to have equal opportunities, and those who are compelled to labor for their daily bread, in avocations that require only bodily strength, are regarded as failures. It is this fact that stabs like a knife. And yet in the conclusion drawn, there is but little truth. Some of the n.o.blest and best pa.s.s their lives in daily drudgery and unremunerative toil--while many of the mean, vicious and stupid reach place and power.

This story is filled with sympathy for the dest.i.tute, for the struggling, and tends to keep the star of hope above the horizon of the unfortunate. After all, we know but little of the world, and have but a faint conception of the burdens that are borne, and of the courage and heroism displayed by the unregarded poor. Let the rich read these pages; they will have a kinder feeling toward those who toil; let the workers read them, and they will think better of themselves.

PREFACE TO "AGNOSTICISM AND OTHER ESSAYS."

I.

EDGAR FAWCETT--a great poet, a metaphysician and logician--has been for years engaged in exploring that strange world wherein are supposed to be the springs of human action. He has sought for something back of motives, reasons, fancies, pa.s.sions, prejudices, and the countless tides and tendencies that const.i.tute the life of man.

He has found some of the limitations of mind, and knows that beginning at that luminous centre called consciousness, a few short steps bring us to the prison wall where vision fails and all light dies. Beyond this wall the eternal darkness broods. This gloom is "the other world" of the supernaturalist. With him, real vision begins where the sight fails. He reverses the order of nature. Facts become illusions, and illusions the only realities. He believes that the cause of the image, the reality, is behind the mirror.

A few centuries ago the priests said to their followers: The other world is above you; it is just beyond where you see. Afterward, the astronomer with his telescope looked, and asked the priests: Where is the world of which you speak? And the priests replied: It has receded--it is just beyond where you see.

As long as there is "a beyond," there is room for the priests' world.

Theology is the geography of this beyond.

Between the Christian and the Agnostic there is the difference of a.s.sertion and question--between "There is a G.o.d" and "Is there a G.o.d?" The Agnostic has the arrogance to admit his ignorance, while the Christian from the depths of humility impudently insists that he knows.

Mr. Fawcett has shown that at the root of religion lies the coiled serpent of fear, and that ceremony, prayer, and worship are ways and means to gain the a.s.sistance or soften the heart of a supposed deity.

He also shows that as man advances in knowledge he loses confidence in the watchfulness of Providence and in the efficacy of prayer.

II.

SCIENCE.

The savage is certain of those things that cannot be known. He is acquainted with origin and destiny, and knows everything except that which is useful. The civilized man, having outgrown the ignorance, the arrogance, and the provincialism of savagery, abandons the vain search for final causes, for the nature and origin of things.

In nearly every department of science man is allowed to investigate, and the discovery of a new fact is welcomed, unless it threatens some creed.

Of course there can be no advance in a religion established by infinite wisdom. The only progress possible is in the comprehension of this religion.

For many generations, what is known under a vast number of disguises and behind many masks as the Christian religion, has been propagated and preserved by the sword and bayonet--that is to say, by force. The credulity of man has been bribed and his reason punished. Those who believed without the slightest question, and whose faith held evidence in contempt, were saints; those who investigated were dangerous, and those who denied were destroyed.

Every attack upon this religion has been made in the shadow of human and divine hatred--in defiance of earth and heaven. At one time Christendom was beneath the ignorant feet of one man, and those who denied his infallibility were heretics and Atheists. At last, a protest was uttered. The right of conscience was proclaimed, to the extent of making a choice between the infallible man and the infallible book. Those who rejected the man and accepted the book became in their turn as merciless, as tyrannical and heartless, as the followers of the infallible man. The Protestants insisted that an infinitely wise and good G.o.d would not allow criminals and wretches to act as his infallible agents.

Afterward, a few protested against the infallibility of the book, using the same arguments against the book that had formerly been used against the pope. They said that an infinitely wise and good G.o.d could not be the author of a cruel and ignorant book. But those who protested against the book fell into substantially the same error that had been fallen into by those who had protested against the man. While they denounced the book, and insisted that an infinitely wise and good being could not have been its author, they took the ground that an infinitely wise and good being was the creator and governor of the world.

Then was used against them the same argument that had been used by the Protestants against the pope and by the Deists against the Protestants.

Attention was called to the fact that Nature is as cruel as any pope or any book--that it is just as easy to account for the destruction of the Canaanites consistently with the goodness of Jehovah as to account for pestilence, earthquake, and flood consistently with the goodness of the G.o.d of Nature.

The Protestant and Deist both used arguments against the Catholic that could in turn be used with equal force against themselves. So that there is no question among intelligent people as to the infallibility of the pope, as to the inspiration of the book, or as to the existence of the Christian's G.o.d--for the conclusion has been reached that the human mind is incapable of deciding as to the origin and destiny of the universe.

For many generations the mind of man has been traveling in a circle. It accepted without question the dogma of a First Cause--of the existence of a Creator--of an Infinite Mind back of matter, and sought in many ways to define its ignorance in this behalf. The most sincere worshipers have declared that this being is incomprehensible,--that he is "without body, parts, or pa.s.sions"--that he is infinitely beyond their grasp, and at the same time have insisted that it was necessary for man not only to believe in the existence of this being, but to love him with all his heart.

Christianity having always been in partnership with the state,--having controlled kings and n.o.bles, judges and legislators--having been in partnership with armies and with every form of organized destruction,--it was dangerous to discuss the foundation of its authority. To speak lightly of any dogma was a crime punishable by death. Every absurdity has been bastioned and barricaded by the power of the state. It has been protected by fist, by club, by sword and cannon.

For many years Christianity succeeded in substantially closing the mouths of its enemies, and lived and flourished only where investigation and discussion were prevented by hypocrisy and bigotry. The church still talks about "evidence," about "reason," about "freedom of conscience"

and the "liberty of speech," and yet denounces those who ask for evidence, who appeal to reason, and who honestly express their thoughts.

To-day we know that the miracles of Christianity are as puerile and false as those ascribed to the medicine-men of Central Africa or the Fiji Islanders, and that the "sacred Scriptures" have the same claim to inspiration that the Koran has, or the Book of Mormon--no less, no more.

These questions have been settled and laid aside by free and intelligent people. They have ceased to excite interest; and the man who now really believes in the truth of the Old Testament is regarded with a smile-- looked upon as an aged child--still satisfied with the lullabys and toys of the cradle.

III.

MORALITY.

It is contended that without religion--that is to say, without Christianity--all ideas of morality must of necessity perish, and that spirituality and reverence will be lost.

What is morality?