_Question_. Do you believe that there is such a thing as a miracle,
or that there has ever been?
_Answer_. Mr. Locke was in the habit of saying: "Define your
terms." So the first question is, What is a miracle? If it is
something wonderful, unusual, inexplicable, then there have been
many miracles. If you mean simply that which is inexplicable, then
the world is filled with miracles; but if you mean by a miracle,
something contrary to the facts in nature, then it seems to me that
the miracle must be admitted to be an impossibility. It is like
twice two are eleven in mathematics.
If, again, we take the ground of some of the more advanced clergy,
that a miracle is in accordance with the facts in nature, but with
facts unknown to man, then we are compelled to say that a miracle
is performed by a divine sleight-of-hand; as, for instance, that
our senses are deceived; or, that it is perfectly simple to this
higher intelligence, while inexplicable to us. If we give this
explanation, then man has been imposed upon by a superior intelligence.
It is as though one acquainted with the sciences--with the action
of electricity--should excite the wonder of savages by sending
messages to his partner. The savage would say, "A miracle;" but
the one who sent the message would say, "There is no miracle; it
is in accordance with facts in nature unknown to you." So that,
after all, the word miracle grows in the soil of ignorance.
The question arises whether a superior intelligence ought to impose
upon the inferior. I believe there was a French saint who had his
head cut off by robbers, and this saint, after the robbers went
away, got up, took his head under his arm and went on his way until
he found friends to set it on right. A thing like this, if it
really happened, was a miracle.
So it may be said that nothing is much more miraculous than the
fact that intelligent men believe in miracles. If we read in the
annals of China that several thousand years ago five thousand people
were fed on one sandwich, and that several sandwiches were left
over after the feast, there are few intelligent men--except, it
may be, the editors of religious weeklies--who would credit the
statement. But many intelligent people, reading a like story in
the Hebrew, or in the Greek, or in a mistranslation from either of
these languages, accept the story without a doubt.
So if we should find in the records of the Indians that a celebrated
medicine-man of their tribe used to induce devils to leave crazy
people and take up their abode in wild swine, very few people would
believe the story.
I believe it is true that the priest of one religion has never had
the slightest confidence in the priest of any other religion.
My own opinion is, that nature is just as wonderful one time as
another; that that which occurs to-day is just as miraculous as
anything that ever happened; that nothing is more wonderful than
that we live--that we think--that we convey our thoughts by speech,
by gestures, by pictures.
Nothing is more wonderful than the growth of grass--the production
of seed--the bud, the blossom and the fruit. In other words, we
are surrounded by the inexplicable.
All that happens in conformity with what we know, we call natural;
and that which is said to have happened, not in conformity with
what we know, we say is wonderful; and that which we believe to
have happened contrary to what we know, we call the miraculous.
I think the truth is, that nothing ever happened except in a natural
way; that behind every effect has been an efficient cause, and that
this wondrous procession of causes and effects has never been, and
never will be, broken. In other words, there is nothing superior
to the universe--nothing that can interfere with this procession
of causes and effects. I believe in no miracles in the theological
sense. My opinion is that the universe is, forever has been, and
forever will be, perfectly natural.
Whenever a religion has been founded among barbarians and ignorant
people, the founder has appealed to miracle as a kind of credential
--as an evidence that he is in partnership with some higher power.
The credulity of savagery made this easy. But at last we have
discovered that there is no necessary relation between the miraculous
and the moral. Whenever a man's reason is developed to that point
that he sees the reasonableness of a thing, he needs no miracle to
convince him. It is only ignorance or cunning that appeals to the
miraculous.
There is another thing, and that is this: Truth relies upon itself
--that is to say, upon the perceived relation between itself and
all other truths. If you tell the facts, you need not appeal to
a miracle. It is only a mistake or a falsehood, that needs to be
propped and buttressed by wonders and miracles.
_Question_. What is your explanation of the miracles referred to
in the Old and New Testaments?
_Answer_. In the first place, a miracle cannot be explained. If
it is a real miracle, there is no explanation. If it can be
explained, then the miracle disappears, and the thing was done in
accordance with the facts and forces of nature.
In a time when not one it may be in thousands could read or write,
when language was rude, and when the signs by which thoughts were
conveyed were few and inadequate, it was very easy to make mistakes,
and nothing is more natural than for a mistake to grow into a
miracle. In an ignorant age, history for the most part depended
upon memory. It was handed down from the old in their dotage, to
the young without judgment. The old always thought that the early
days were wonderful--that the world was wearing out because they
were. The past looked at through the haze of memory, became
exaggerated, gigantic. Their fathers were stronger than they, and
their grandfathers far superior to their fathers, and so on until
they reached men who had the habit of living about a thousand years.
In my judgment, everything in the Old Testament contrary to the
experience of the civilized world, is false. I do not say that
those who told the stories knew that they were false, or that those
who wrote them suspected that they were not true. Thousands and
thousands of lies are told by honest stupidity and believed by
innocent credulity. Then again, cunning takes advantage of ignorance,
and so far as I know, though all the history of the world a good
many people have endeavored to make a living without work.
I am perfectly convinced of the integrity of nature--that the
elements are eternally the same--that the chemical affinities and
hatreds know no shadow of turning--that just so many atoms of one
kind combine with so many atoms of another, and that the relative
numbers have never changed and never will change. I am satisfied
that the attraction of gravitation is a permanent institution; that
the laws of motion have been the same that they forever will be.
There is no chance, there is no caprice. Behind every effect is
a cause, and every effect must in its turn become a cause, and only
that is produced which a cause of necessity produces.
_Question_. What do you think of Madame Blavatsky and her school
of Theosophists? Do you believe Madame Blavatsky does or has done
the wonderful things related of her? Have you seen or known of
any Theosophical or esoteric marvels?
_Answer_. I think wonders are about the same in this country that
they are in India, and nothing appears more likely to me simply
because it is surrounded with the mist of antiquity. In my judgment,
Madame Blavatsky has never done any wonderful things--that is to
say, anything not in perfect accordance with the facts of nature.
I know nothing of esoteric marvels. In one sense, everything that
exists is a marvel, and the probability is that if we knew the
history of one grain of sand we would know the history of the
universe. I regard the universe as a unit. Everything that happens
is only a different aspect of that unit. There is no room for the
marvelous--there is no space in which it can operate--there is no
fulcrum for its lever. The universe is already occupied with the
natural. The ground is all taken.
It may be that all these people are perfectly honest, and imagine
that they have had wonderful experiences. I know but little of
the Theosophists--but little of the Spiritualists. It has always
seemed to me that the messages received by Spiritualists are
remarkably unimportant--that they tell us but little about the
other world, and just as little about this--that if all the messages
supposed to have come from angelic lips, or spiritual lips, were
destroyed, certainly the literature of the world would lose but
little. Some of these people are exceedingly intelligent, and
whenever they say any good thing, I imagine that it was produced
in their brain, and that it came from no other world. I have no
right to pass upon their honesty. Most of them may be sincere.
It may be that all the founders of religions have really supposed
themselves to be inspired--believed that they held conversations
with angels and Gods. It seems to be easy for some people to get
in such a frame of mind that their thoughts become realities, their
dreams substances, and their very hopes palpable.
Personally, I have no sort of confidence in these messages from
the other world. There may be mesmeric forces--there may be an
odic force. It may be that some people can tell of what another
is thinking. I have seen no such people--at least I am not acquainted
with them--and my own opinion is that no such persons exist.
_Question_. Do you believe the spirits of the dead come back to
earth?
_Answer_. I do not. I do not say that the spirits do not come
back. I simply say that I know nothing on the subject. I do not
believe in such spirits, simply for the reason that I have no
evidence upon which to base such a belief. I do not say there are
no such spirits, for the reason that my knowledge is limited, and
I know of no way of demonstrating the non-existence of spirits.
It may be that man lives forever, and it may be that what we call
life ends with what we call death. I have had no experience beyond
the grave, and very little back of birth. Consequently, I cannot
say that I have a belief on this subject. I can simply say that
I have no knowledge on this subject, and know of no fact in nature
that I would use as the corner-stone of a belief.
_Question_. Do you believe in the resurrection of the body?
_Answer_. My answer to that is about the same as to the other
question. I do not believe in the resurrection of the body. It
seems to me an exceedingly absurd belief--and yet I do not know.
I am told, and I suppose I believe, that the atoms that are in me
have been in many other people, and in many other forms of life,
and I suppose at death the atoms forming my body go back to the
earth and are used in countless forms. These facts, or what I
suppose to be facts, render a belief in the resurrection of the
body impossible to me.
We get atoms to support our body from what we eat. Now, if a
cannibal should eat a missionary, and certain atoms belonging to
the missionary should be used by the cannibal in his body, and the
cannibal should then die while the atoms of the missionary formed
part of his flesh, to whom would these atoms belong in the morning
of the resurrection?
Then again, science teaches us that there is a kind of balance
between animal and vegetable life, and that probably all men and
all animals have been trees, and all trees have been animals; so
that the probability is that the atoms that are now in us have
been, as I said in the first place, in millions of other people.
Now, if this be so, there cannot be atoms enough in the morning of
the resurrection, because, if the atoms are given to the first men,
that belonged to the first men when they died, there will certainly
be no atoms for the last men.
Consequently, I am compelled to say that I do not believe in the
resurrection of the body.*
[* From notes found among Colonel Ingersoll's papers.]