[* It was at his own law office in New York City that I had
my talk with that very notable American, Col. Robert G.
Ingersoll. "Bob" Ingersoll, Americans call him
affectionately; in a company of friends it is "The Colonel."
A more interesting personality it would be hard to find, and
those who know even a little of him will tell you that a
bigger-hearted man probably does not live. Suppose a well-
knit frame, grown stouter than it once was, and a fine,
strong face, with a vivid gleam in the eyes, a deep,
uncommonly musical voice, clear cut, decisive, and a manner
entirely delightful, yet tinged with a certain reserve.
Introduce a smoking cigar, the smoke rising in little curls
and billows, then imagine a rugged sort of picturesqueness
in dress, and you get, not by any means the man, but, still,
some notion of "Bob" Ingersoll.
Colonel Ingersoll stands at the front of American orators.
The natural thing, therefore, was that I should ask him--a
master in the art--about oratory. What he said I shall give
in his own words precisely as I took them down from his
lips, for in the case of such a good commander of the old
English tongue that is of some importance. But the
wonderful limpidness, the charming pellucidness of Ingersoll
can only be adequately understood when you also have the
finishing touch of his facile voice.]
_Question_. I should be glad if you would tell me what you think
the differences are between English and American oratory?
_Answer_. There is no difference between the real English and the
real American orator. Oratory is the same the world over. The
man who thinks on his feet, who has the pose of passion, the face
that thought illumines, a voice in harmony with the ideals expressed,
who has logic like a column and poetry like a vine, who transfigures
the common, dresses the ideals of the people in purple and fine
linen, who has the art of finding the best and noblest in his
hearers, and who in a thousand ways creates the climate in which
the best grows and flourishes and bursts into blossom--that man is
an orator, no matter of what time, of what country.
_Question_. If you were to compare individual English and American
orators--recent or living orators in particular--what would you say?
_Answer_. I have never heard any of the great English speakers,
and consequently can pass no judgment as to their merits, except
such as depends on reading. I think, however, the finest paragraph
ever uttered in Great Britain was by Curran in his defence of Rowan.
I have never read one of Mr. Gladstone's speeches, only fragments.
I think he lacks logic. Bright was a great speaker, but he lacked
imagination and the creative faculty. Disraeli spoke for the clubs,
and his speeches were artificial. We have had several fine speakers
in America. I think that Thomas Corwin stands at the top of the
natural orators. Sergeant S. Prentiss, the lawyer, was a very
great talker; Henry Ward Beecher was the greatest orator that the
pulpit has produced. Theodore Parker was a great orator. In this
country, however, probably Daniel Webster occupies the highest
place in general esteem.
_Question_. Which would you say are the better orators, speaking
generally, the American people or the English people?
_Answer_. I think Americans are, on the average, better talkers
than the English. I think England has produced the greatest
literature of the world; but I do not think England has produced
the greatest orators of the world. I know of no English orator
equal to Webster or Corwin or Beecher.
_Question_. Would you mind telling me how it was you came to be
a public speaker, a lecturer, an orator?
_Answer_. We call this America of ours free, and yet I found it
was very far from free. Our writers and our speakers declared that
here in America church and state were divorced. I found this to
be untrue. I found that the church was supported by the state in
many ways, that people who failed to believe certain portions of
the creeds were not allowed to testify in courts or to hold office.
It occurred to me that some one ought to do something toward making
this country intellectually free, and after a while I thought that
I might as well endeavor to do this as wait for another. This is
the way in which I came to make speeches; it was an action in favor
of liberty. I have said things because I wanted to say them, and
because I thought they ought to be said.
_Question_. Perhaps you will tell me your methods as a speaker,
for I'm sure it would be interesting to know them?
_Answer_. Sometimes, and frequently, I deliver a lecture several
times before it is written. I have it taken by a shorthand writer,
and afterward written out. At other times I have dictated a lecture,
and delivered it from manuscript. The course pursued depends on
how I happen to feel at the time. Sometimes I read a lecture, and
sometimes I deliver lectures without any notes--this, again,
depending much on how I happen to feel. So far as methods are
concerned, everything should depend on feeling. Attitude, gestures,
voice, emphasis, should all be in accord with and spring from
feeling, from the inside.
_Question_. Is there any possibility of your coming to England,
and, I need hardly add, of your coming to speak?
_Answer_. I have thought of going over to England, and I may do
so. There is an England in England for which I have the highest
possible admiration, the England of culture, of art, of principle.
--_The Sketch_, London, Eng., March 21, 1894.
CATHOLICISM AND PROTESTANTISM. THE POPE, THE A. P. A., AGNOSTICISM
AND THE CHURCH.
_Question_. Which do you regard as the better, Catholicism or
Protestantism?
_Answer_. Protestantism is better than Catholicism because there
is less of it. Protestantism does not teach that a monk is better
than a husband and father, that a nun is holier than a mother.
Protestants do not believe in the confessional. Neither do they
pretend that priests can forgive sins. Protestantism has fewer
ceremonies and less opera bouffe, clothes, caps, tiaras, mitres,
crooks and holy toys. Catholics have an infallible man--an old
Italian. Protestants have an infallible book, written by Hebrews
before they were civilized. The infallible man is generally wrong,
and the infallible book is filled with mistakes and contradictions.
Catholics and Protestants are both enemies of intellectual freedom
--of real education, but both are opposed to education enough to
make free men and women.
Between the Catholics and Protestants there has been about as much
difference as there is between crocodiles and alligators. Both
have done the worst they could, both are as bad as they can be,
and the world is getting tired of both. The world is not going to
choose either--both are to be rejected.
_Question_. Are you willing to give your opinion of the Pope?
_Answer_. It may be that the Pope thinks he is infallible, but I
doubt it. He may think that he is the agent of God, but I guess
not. He may know more than other people, but if he does he has
kept it to himself. He does not seem satisfied with standing in
the place and stead of God in spiritual matters, but desires temporal
power. He wishes to be Pope and King. He imagines that he has
the right to control the belief of all the world; that he is the
shepherd of all "sheep" and that the fleeces belong to him. He
thinks that in his keeping is the conscience of mankind. So he
imagines that his blessing is a great benefit to the faithful and
that his prayers can change the course of natural events. He is
a strange mixture of the serious and comical. He claims to represent
God, and admits that he is almost a prisoner. There is something
pathetic in the condition of this pontiff. When I think of him,
I think of Lear on the heath, old, broken, touched with insanity,
and yet, in his own opinion, "every inch a king."
The Pope is a fragment, a remnant, a shred, a patch of ancient
power and glory. He is a survival of the unfittest, a souvenir of
theocracy, a relic of the supernatural. Of course he will have a
few successors, and they will become more and more comical, more
and more helpless and impotent as the world grows wise and free.
I am not blaming the Pope. He was poisoned at the breast of his
mother. Superstition was mingled with her milk. He was poisoned
at school--taught to distrust his reason and to live by faith.
And so it may be that his mind was so twisted and tortured out of
shape that he now really believes that he is the infallible agent
of an infinite God.
_Question_. Are you in favor of the A. P. A.?
_Answer_. In this country I see no need of secret political
societies. I think it better to fight in the open field. I am a
believer in religious liberty, in allowing all sects to preach
their doctrines and to make as many converts as they can. As long
as we have free speech and a free press I think there is no danger
of the country being ruled by any church. The Catholics are much
better than their creed, and the same can be said of nearly all
members of orthodox churches. A majority of American Catholics
think a great deal more of this country than they do of their
church. When they are in good health they are on our side. It is
only when they are very sick that they turn their eyes toward Rome.
If they were in the majority, of course, they would destroy all
other churches and imprison, torture and kill all Infidels. But
they will never be in the majority. They increase now only because
Catholics come in from other countries. In a few years that supply
will cease, and then the Catholic Church will grow weaker every
day. The free secular school is the enemy of priestcraft and
superstition, and the people of this country will never consent to
the destruction of that institution. I want no man persecuted on
account of his religion.
_Question_. If there is no beatitude, or heaven, how do you account
for the continual struggle in every natural heart for its own
betterment?
_Answer_. Man has many wants, and all his efforts are the children
of wants. If he wanted nothing he would do nothing. We civilize
the savage by increasing his wants, by cultivating his fancy, his
appetites, his desires. He is then willing to work to satisfy
these new wants. Man always tries to do things in the easiest way.
His constant effort is to accomplish more with less work. He
invents a machine; then he improves it, his idea being to make it
perfect. He wishes to produce the best. So in every department
of effort and knowledge he seeks the highest success, and he seeks
it because it is for his own good here in this world. So he finds
that there is a relation between happiness and conduct, and he
tries to find out what he must do to produce the greatest enjoyment.
This is the basis of morality, of law and ethics. We are so
constituted that we love proportion, color, harmony. This is the
artistic man. Morality is the harmony and proportion of conduct--
the music of life. Man continually seeks to better his condition
--not because he is immortal--but because he is capable of grief
and pain, because he seeks for happiness. Man wishes to respect
himself and to gain the respect of others. The brain wants light,
the heart wants love. Growth is natural. The struggle to overcome
temptation, to be good and noble, brave and sincere, to reach, if
possible, the perfect, is no evidence of the immortality of the
soul or of the existence of other worlds. Men live to excel, to
become distinguished, to enjoy, and so they strive, each in his
own way, to gain the ends desired.
_Question_. Do you believe that the race is growing moral or
immoral?
_Answer_. The world is growing better. There is more real liberty,
more thought, more intelligence than ever before. The world was
never so charitable or generous as now. We do not put honest
debtors in prison, we no longer believe in torture. Punishments
are less severe. We place a higher value on human life. We are
far kinder to animals. To this, however, there is one terrible
exception. The vivisectors, those who cut, torture, and mutilate
in the name of science, disgrace our age. They excite the horror
and indignation of all good people. Leave out the actions of those
wretches, and animals are better treated than ever before. So
there is less beating of wives and whipping of children. The whip
in no longer found in the civilized home. Intelligent parents now
govern by kindness, love and reason. The standard of honor is
higher than ever. Contracts are more sacred, and men do nearer as
they agree. Man has more confidence in his fellow-man, and in the
goodness of human nature. Yes, the world is getting better, nobler
and grander every day. We are moving along the highway of progress
on our way to the Eden of the future.
_Question_. Are the doctrines of Agnosticism gaining ground, and
what, in your opinion, will be the future of the church?
_Answer_. The Agnostic is intellectually honest. He knows the
limitations of his mind. He is convinced that the questions of
origin and destiny cannot be answered by man. He knows that he
cannot answer these questions, and he is candid enough to say so.
The Agnostic has good mental manners. He does not call belief or
hope or wish, a demonstration. He knows the difference between
hope and belief--between belief and knowledge--and he keeps these
distinctions in his mind. He does not say that a certain theory
is true because he wishes it to be true. He tries to go according
to evidence, in harmony with facts, without regard to his own
desires or the wish of the public. He has the courage of his
convictions and the modesty of his ignorance. The theologian is
his opposite. He is certain and sure of the existence of things
and beings and worlds of which there is, and can be, no evidence.
He relies on assertion, and in all debate attacks the motive of
his opponent instead of answering his arguments. All savages know
the origin and destiny of man. About other things they know but
little. The theologian is much the same. The Agnostic has given
up the hope of ascertaining the nature of the "First Cause"--the
hope of ascertaining whether or not there was a "First Cause." He
admits that he does not know whether or not there is an infinite
Being. He admits that these questions cannot be answered, and so
he refuses to answer. He refuses also to pretend. He knows that
the theologian does not know, and he has the courage to say so.
He knows that the religious creeds rest on assumption, supposition,
assertion--on myth and legend, on ignorance and superstition, and
that there is no evidence of their truth. The Agnostic bends his
energies in the opposite direction. He occupies himself with this
world, with things that can be ascertained and understood. He
turns his attention to the sciences, to the solution of questions
that touch the well-being of man. He wishes to prevent and cure
diseases; to lengthen life; to provide homes and raiment and food
for man; to supply the wants of the body.
He also cultivates the arts. He believes in painting and sculpture,
in music and the drama--the needs of the soul. The Agnostic believes
in developing the brain, in cultivating the affections, the tastes,
the conscience, the judgment, to the end that man may be happy in
this world. He seeks to find the relation of things, the condition
of happiness. He wishes to enslave the forces of nature to the
end that they may perform the work of the world. Back of all
progress are the real thinkers; the finders of facts, those who
turn their attention to the world in which we live. The theologian
has never been a help, always a hindrance. He has always kept his
back to the sunrise. With him all wisdom was in the past. He
appealed to the dead. He was and is the enemy of reason, of
investigation, of thought and progress. The church has never given
"sanctuary" to a persecuted truth.
There can be no doubt that the ideas of the Agnostic are gaining
ground. The scientific spirit has taken possession of the intellectual
world. Theological methods are unpopular to-day, even in theological
schools. The attention of men everywhere is being directed to the
affairs of this world, this life. The gods are growing indistinct,
and, like the shapes of clouds, they are changing as they fade.
The idea of special providence has been substantially abandoned.
People are losing, and intelligent people have lost, confidence in
prayer. To-day no intelligent person believes in miracles--a
violation of the facts in nature. They may believe that there used
to be miracles a good while ago, but not now. The "supernatural"
is losing its power, its influence, and the church is growing weaker
every day.
The church is supported by the people, and in order to gain the
support of the people it must reflect their ideas, their hopes and
fears. As the people advance, the creeds will be changed, either
by changing the words or giving new meanings to the old words.
The church, in order to live, must agree substantially with those
who support it, and consequently it will change to any extent that
may be necessary. If the church remains true to the old standards
then it will lose the support of progressive people, and if the
people generally advance the church will die. But my opinion is
that it will slowly change, that the minister will preach what the
members want to hear, and that the creed will be controlled by the
contribution box. One of these days the preachers may become
teachers, and when that happens the church will be of use.
_Question_. What do you regard as the greatest of all themes in
poetry and song?
_Answer_. Love and Death. The same is true of the greatest music.
In "Tristan and Isolde" is the greatest music of love and death.
In Shakespeare the greatest themes are love and death. In all real
poetry, in all real music, the dominant, the triumphant tone, is
love, and the minor, the sad refrain, the shadow, the background,
the mystery, is death.
_Question_. What would be your advice to an intelligent young man
just starting out in life?
_Answer_. I would say to him: "Be true to your ideal. Cultivate
your heart and brain. Follow the light of your reason. Get all
the happiness out of life that you possibly can. Do not care for
power, but strive to be useful. First of all, support yourself so
that you may not be a burden to others. If you are successful, if
you gain a surplus, use it for the good of others. Own yourself
and live and die a free man. Make your home a heaven, love your
wife and govern your children by kindness. Be good natured,
cheerful, forgiving and generous. Find out the conditions of
happiness, and then be wise enough to live in accordance with them.
Cultivate intellectual hospitality, express your honest thoughts,
love your friends, and be just to your enemies."
--_New York Herald_, September 16, 1894.