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 v. 
 
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 nsrii^TE: rBXDiTionsr. 
 
 Notes oa^ vI;- 
 
 ^'r Ingersoll 
 
 BY 
 
 REV. L.A.LAMBERT, 
 
 One Hundred and Twenty-Fifth Thousand. 
 
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 OijiOALor 
 
 AX'^^ 
 
 BL 2727 .L3 1886 
 Lambert, L. A. 1835-1910 
 Notes on Ingersoll 
 
NOTES ON INGERSOLL 
 
 EY 
 
 REV. L. A. LAMBERT 
 
 OF WATERLOO, N. Y. 
 
 PREFACE BY 
 
 REV. PATRICK CRONIN 
 
 NINTH EDITION. 
 
 BUFFALO. N. Y. : 
 
 BUFFALO CATHOLIC PUBLICATION COMPANY. 
 
 1886. 
 
Copyright, 1883. 
 
 Buffalo Catholic Publication Co. 
 All Rights Reserved. 
 
 Excelsior 
 
 Electrotype Foundry. 
 
 Wf.st Sbneca, N. Y. 
 
St. Stephen s Hall, 
 Buffalo, N. Y., Feb. \c.th, 1886. 
 
 TO THIS NINTH edition of "Notes" is added a 
 very fait'nfnl portrait and a brief though rather 
 imperfect, sketcli of_ the author's life. 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR. 
 
 Father Lambert lias been the pastor of St. Mary's 
 Church, in Waterloo, for over sixteen years, having been 
 appointed to that parish October i8th, 1869. He still 
 holds the position, and isenslirined in the affections of his 
 people. His genial, gentlemanly, and courteous ways, 
 win the friendship of those witli whom he associates, 
 while his sciiolarly attainments, good judgment in matters, 
 both public and private, and his genuine Christian char- 
 acter, command the respect and admiration of all. His 
 "Notes on IngersoU," in which he meets the bold blas- 
 phemer on his own grounds, and shows up the absurdity 
 and hollow falsity of his reasoning, have pricked the 
 bubble of infidelity until there is nothing more to argue 
 This work of Father Lambert has broken down the bar- 
 riers of sectarianism, until those who were brought up in 
 
iV THE AUTHOR. 
 
 a different religious faith, take him cordially by the hand 
 as a vigorous and successful defender of Christianity, 
 They strike the key-note of popular interest and find a 
 response in the cordial welcome they receive. 
 
 Rev. Father Lambert was born in Allenport, Washington 
 County, Pennsylvania, February nth, 1835. His father 
 came to America in 181 1, from Inniscorthy, Wexford 
 County, Ireland, in company with his uncle, the Right 
 Reverend Dr. Lambert, second Bishop of St. John's, New 
 Foundland. His mother, Lydia Jones, was of English 
 descent, her ancestors coming to this countrj^with the 
 Colony of William Penn. She was a member of the 
 Society of Friends, until her conversion to the Catholic 
 Faith. 
 
 In 1854 Louis A. Lambert, then 19 years of age, began 
 his classical studies at St. Vincent's College, Westmore- 
 land County, Pa., .and finished his ecclesiastical studies 
 in the Archdiocesan Seminary of St. Louis, at Carondelet, 
 Missouri. In 1859 he was ordained a priest for the Dio- 
 cese of Alton, Illinois. Immediately thereafter he was 
 appointed assistant pastor of Cairo, 111., fron> which place 
 he attended the wants of the Catholics scattered through 
 the southern tier of counties bordering on the Ohio 
 River, and extending from the Mississippi to the Wabash. 
 Shortly after, Father Lambert was appointed pastor of 
 liie Cathedral of Alton. P>om there he was sent to the 
 mission of Shawneetown, in Southeastern Illinois, which 
 included the counties of Gallatin, White. Hamilton, Sa- 
 line, Pope and Johnson. 
 
 While in the faithful discharge of his duties, the war 
 of the rebellion broke out, and a commission was issued 
 to Father Lambert from the authorities at headquarters 
 in Springfield, 111., signed by Richard Yates, Governor 
 
THE AUTHOR. Y 
 
 of the State; A. C. Fuller, Adjutant General, and O. M. 
 Hatcli, Secretary of State. This official document was 
 issued to him as Chaplain of the Eighteenth Regiment of 
 Illinois Infantry Volunteers, to rank as Captain of Cav- 
 alry from July ist, 1861. He remained with the reg- 
 iment through their campaigns in Missouri, Kentucky, 
 Tennessee and Mississippi, sharing the perils and hard- 
 ships of soldier life with other members of the regiment. 
 He was in the terrible battle of Shiloh, or Pittsburgh 
 Landing, and other engagements, ministering to the 
 spiritual and temporal wants of the soldiers, and encourag- 
 ing and sustaining them in the duties that try men's souls, 
 After about two years' service in the army, he was ap- 
 pointed pastor of Cairo, 111., where he remained until 
 1868. On leaving Cairo, he taught Moral Theology and 
 Philosophy at the Paulist Novitiate, in Fifty-Ninth street. 
 New York City. From there he went to Seneca Falls, 
 where he remained but a short time, when he was ap- 
 pointed pastor of St. Mary's Church, Waterloo. 
 
 In 1877 he founded the Catholic Times at Waterloo, 
 N. Y., a journal devoted to Catholic interests. The pa- 
 per at once took rank as a leader amongst Catholic jour- 
 nals, was edited with marked ability, and, in a very short 
 lime, secured a large circulation in Central, Southern, and 
 Western New York. Early in 1880, finding the work 
 growing on him, the Catholic Times Publishing Company, 
 of Rochester, was organized, and the paper removed to that 
 city. Father Lambert relinquishing the editorial chair to 
 Mr. Francis O'Connor. In the fall of '81 the Titnes was 
 consolidated with the Union of Buffalo, and is now known 
 as The Catholic Union atid Times, Father Lambert always 
 retaining a friendly interest in his journalistic offspring. 
 
 Among his literary works is a very valuable book en- 
 
s'\ THE AUTHOR. 
 
 litled "Thesaurus Biblicus; or Hand-book of Scripture 
 Reference," which is a mountain of scholarly research 
 and patient toil. The nature of the work does not make 
 it in such popular demand as his "Notes on Ingersoll," 
 but it is none the less profound, and is most highly prized 
 by all scholars and students of Scripture. Another work 
 is a translation from the German, entitled "The Christian 
 Father." In these, and in the many articles for the press, 
 from Father Lambert's pen, there shines forth the intel- 
 lectual brightness of the author, while their tone and 
 sentiment impress the reader with his goodness of heart. 
 It is no flattery to say that he Tanks high in the priest- 
 hood and in the community, that he is widely and most 
 favorably known as one who lives in the serene enjoy- 
 ment of a well-balanced mind, a sound body, a healthful, 
 well-cultivated intellect, and a calm, dignified conscious- 
 ness of living an exemplary life in the faithful discharge 
 of his duties to his fellow-men and to his God. It is the 
 wish of the people, amongst whom he resides, that he may 
 long be retained as pastor of St. Mary's Church, and 
 that his health, strength, and usefulness, may not be im- 
 paired for many years to come. 
 
 We are largely indebted for the above to the Seneca 
 
 County News. 
 
 Buffalo Catw^i.ic Publication Co 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 THESE '* Notes on Ingersoll/' by the Reverend 
 Louis A. Lambert, of Waterloo, New York, have 
 already appeared in the columns of the Buffalo Union and 
 Ti?nes, much to the delight of readers of that journal; 
 they have also been extensively copied and commented 
 upon by the Catholic press throughout the country. They 
 are, unquestionably, the most crushing reply yet made 
 to that notorious little fraud — IngersoU — who so loves 
 to pose as a profoundly original thinker; and who lives, 
 moves, and has his being, m the laughter and applause 
 which his fescennine buffoonery provokes. Regarding 
 them as a complete annihilation of the pretentious 
 scoffer, and desirous that they should reach a much larger 
 public than could be secured by any newspaper, however 
 widely circulated, the present writer pointed out to the 
 author the advisability of having just such writings as the 
 " Notes" spread broadcast in the interest of Religion, 
 especially at this time; and earnestly urged their publica- 
 tion in tlie present form. 
 
 Would that those, whose minds have been poisoned by 
 the specious pen and brilliant rhetoric of our American 
 arch-blasphemer, could read these " Notes"! They would 
 then see how untruthful in statement, illogical in reason- 
 ing, dishonest in inference, vile in innuendo, and malev- 
 olent in purpose, is the man upon whose every utterance 
 
Vin PREFACE. 
 
 they hung with delight. With cold, relentless cruelty, 
 Father Lambert pursues Ingersoll, in these pages, step by 
 step, piercing him with keen Damascus blade at every 
 turn; — aye, dissecting him to the very marrow of his 
 bones— and then holds him up, like another unmasked 
 Mokanna, to the contempt and scorn of mankind. 
 
 Herein, too, is sliown that this profoundly original 
 thinker is the veriest of plagiarists, palming off, as his 
 own, the worn-out objections of the infidels of other days, 
 which have been answered hundreds of times. Yea, verily, 
 this valiant knight, of the theological tourn^.ment, is noth- 
 ing but a fraudulent peddler of old infidel junk. He 
 pretends to bring to the polemical market, jewels rich and 
 rare, but they are only well-worn paste, which, even when 
 new, were worthless. 
 
 Oh! that we had to-day more Father Lamberts, es- 
 pecially in these United States, to give us opportune 
 pamphlets like this; and thus make short work of the 
 blatant revilers of all revealed truth, who, like a reptile 
 brood, hiss forth their venom against Christ and his Church. 
 Liberty, honor, heroism, self-sacrifice, and similar high- 
 sounding phrases, are continually on the lips of these 
 sophists; whilst they would fain persuade the world that 
 the Christian religion is something that enslaves and de- 
 grades. But there is no slavery so galling as the slavery 
 of unbelief. It is the truth that makes us free. Neither 
 is there intolerance like unto the intolerance of Infidelity. 
 And as for honor, self-sacrifice, heroism, and those other 
 natural virtues that ennoble human nature — destroy the 
 belief in a Hereafter, deny future rewards and punish- 
 ments — and how long will they flourish? Infidelity knows 
 
PREFACE- IX 
 
 ne standard of Right and Wrong; and such standard is 
 the corner-stone upon which society rests. 
 
 As may be observed, these ''Notes" are written from 
 the broadest Christian standpoint; so that they ought to 
 be as welcome to all who believe in Jesus Christ, and in 
 the revelation He has made, as to Catholics. We need 
 scarce add the hope that they may have a large circula- 
 tion; and we ask all, who glory in the triumph of Chris- 
 tian truth, to aid in spreading this pamphlet. 
 
 Patrick Cronin. 
 
 Office OF THE Catholic Union and Times, ) 
 Buffalo, N. Y., January 5th, 1883. ) 
 
NOTES ON INGERSOLL 
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 THE North American Review for August, 1881, pub- 
 lished an article on the Christian Religion, by Robert 
 G. Ingersoll, together with a reply to it by Jeremiah S. 
 Black of Washington city. In the November number of 
 the same Rem'eiv, Mr. Ingersoll replied to Black's defence, 
 and there the controversy came to an abrupt end. 
 
 This sudden termination of the debate caused no little 
 surprise. Mr. Ingersoll's admirers rejoiced at what they 
 considered Black's defeat, and those Christians who took 
 an interest in this passage-at-arms between the two law- 
 yers were disappointed at Mr. Black's silence. They be- 
 gan to think that he had entered into a field of action for 
 which he was not well equipped by education and men- 
 tal structure. They were not, however, left long in doubt 
 as to the reason of his silence. This reason he gives, in 
 a letter addressed to the American Christian Review^ a 
 weekly religious paper published in Cincinnati. 
 
 "From the beginning," says Mr. Black, "it was dis- 
 tinctly understood that my defence was to be published 
 with the accusation. * * * At the time of the publica- 
 tion I agreed that if Mr. Ingersoll had any fault to find 
 
J 2 NOTES ON INGERSOLL. 
 
 with the result, it might seem cowardly to refuse him an- 
 other chance on the same terms. I was not afraid of any 
 new assault he might make, if he was not afraid of my 
 defence. 
 
 '^ Three months afterwards fifty pages of the foulest 
 and falsest libel that ever was written against God or man, 
 was sent to me. I was entirely willing to treat it as I had 
 treated the other; that is, give it the answer I thought it 
 deserved, and let both go together. But it came when I 
 was disabled by an injury from which I could not hope 
 to get well for some weeks, and I so notified the editor. 
 To my surprise I was informed that no contradiction, 
 correction, or criticism of mine, or anybody else, would be 
 allowed to accompany this new effusion of filth. It was 
 to be printed immediately and would occupy so much 
 space that none could be spared for the other side. I pro- 
 posed that if its bulk could not be reduced so as to ad- 
 mit of an answer in the same number, it should be post- 
 poned until a reply could be made ready for publication 
 in the next succeeding number. This and divers other 
 offers were rejected, for the express reason that "Mr. 
 IngersoU would not consent." Finding the Review con- 
 trolled by him to suit himself, I do not think I was bound 
 to go further." 
 
 This explanation puts the affair in a light which re- 
 flects little credit on Mr. IngersoU and the North Amer- 
 ican Revie^if. If Mr. IngersoU had perfect confidence in 
 the strength of his position there is no conceivable rea- 
 son why he should consent to take this snap judgment 
 on the counsel for the defence. If his purpose had been 
 tolstop^the controversy, on finding himself in an intei- 
 
INTRODUCTORY. t^ 
 
 lectual combat with a strong man, he could not have de- 
 vised a better method. Mr. Black was certainly not 
 bound to go further and trust himself or his case to a 
 Revieiv that had outraged his rights, or to a man who had 
 taken advantage of an accident which had temporarily 
 disabled his antagonist. 
 
 Mr. Ingersoll, in his reply, indignantly accuses Judge 
 Black of personal detraction, and says, very justly, that 
 "The theme (the Christian Religion) is great enough to 
 engage the highest faculties of the human mind, and, in 
 the investigation of such a subject, vituperation is singu- 
 larly and vulgarly out of place." 
 
 Nothing can be truer than this, but is it not a new de- 
 parture for Mr. Ingersoll? Vituperation of an individual, 
 or of a class, of the living or of the dead, is unrelieved 
 vulgarity, and singularly out of place when treating of a 
 subject that demands the exercise of the highest facul- 
 ties of the intellect, and which involves the destiny of 
 man. Man's life is a tragedy, his first utterance is a cry 
 of pain, his last, the groan of death. It is indeed no sub- 
 ject to make merry over. Be man's future what it may, 
 it is an awful subject, from whatever point of view we 
 may consider it. It has occupied the attention of the 
 greatest intellects that ever lit on this earth, and it 
 arouses anxiety in every heart, from the palace of the 
 king to the cottage of the peasant. 
 
 But does not Mr. IngersoU's protest against Mr. Black 
 sound strangely, coming, as it does, from one who, foryears 
 past, has been making the Christian Religion, its doctrines, 
 institutions, and sacred personages, the butt of his vitu- 
 peration and ridicule? Judaism and Christianity have 
 
14 NOTES ON INGERSOLL. 
 
 been burlesqued by him on the stage of the lecture-hall. 
 The ministers of the Old and the New Covenant have 
 been exhibited as cunning and unprincipled tricksters, 
 vicious knaves and tyrants. Everything held sacred by 
 every Christian heart has been made the subject of his 
 gibes, and of laughter for his audiences. And all this 
 time, while he has b^^en combining the professions of the 
 philosopher, the humorist and the ghoul, he has talked 
 sweetly of delicacy, refinement, sentiment, feeling, honor 
 bright, etc. All this time he has delighted in tearing and 
 wounding and lacerating the hearts and faith and feel- 
 ings of those by whose tolerance he is permitted to out- 
 rage the common sense and sentiment of Christendom. 
 Truly, a protest against vulgarity and vituperation, coming 
 from such a source, is a surprise— a case of Iucks a 7ion 
 hicendo. 
 
 What is the cause of this sudden change? 
 
 The orator of " laughter and applause" is unexpectedly 
 confronted by a lawyer like himself, who deals with 
 him unceremoniously, but who yet treats him with more 
 consideration and decency than he treats the great 
 Hebrew lawgiver, Moses, and what is the result? He 
 stops his clatter, and pauses in his ribaldry, to give his 
 opponent a lecture on delicacy, propriety and politeness! 
 If Black has had the bad taste to make use of Inger- 
 soll's methods, IngersolJ should be the last person to 
 complain. 
 
 You may outrage Christian sentiment, you may laugh 
 at and burlesque Moses and Christ, but you must be 
 genteel and polite and ''nice" when you speak of Mr. 
 IngersoU. Judge Black forgot this, and hence the in- 
 dignant protest. 
 
INTRODUCTORY. 15 
 
 "The theme," says Mr. Ingersoll, " is great enough to 
 engage the highest faculties of the human mind." 
 
 It may be well asked: What faculties of his mind has 
 he thus far employed on this great theme? Has it been 
 the faculty of reason, or the faculty of ridicule? 
 
 Our great American wits have been content to allow 
 their peculiar faculties to play on those subjects proper 
 for the exercise of them, and, in doing this, they afford 
 us amusement and lighten the burdens of life. The best 
 of them have carefully observed the proprieties, and never 
 passed the boundary line that separates the sacred from 
 the profane. Mr. Ingersoll found the legitimate field of 
 wit and drollery pre-occupied by Artemus Ward, Mark 
 Twain, and others with whom he could not compete. He 
 sought new fields, and, with indecent audacity, selects that 
 which the civilized world has always held as sacred — 
 Religion. In this new line (new at least for an American 
 humorist) he is not content with trying to be a wii; he 
 pretends to be a philosopher, a moralist, a theologian 
 learned in the scriptures, a hermeneutist, and a historian. 
 If his claims to all these qualifications can be made good, 
 he is certainly well equipped for business. But he lacks 
 the intense earnestness and masculine vigor of Tom 
 Paine, the learning and wit of Voltaire, the philosophical 
 penetration of Hobbes and Bolingbroke, the analytical 
 faculty of Herbert Spencer, the industry of Tyndall and 
 Huxley, and the comprehensiveness and incisive logic of 
 John Stewart Mill. All these are masters in their way, 
 whom Mr. Ingersoll has not succeeded in imitating or 
 understanding. Wanting in originalty, he draws liberally 
 from the writings of Paine, Voltaire, Bolingbroke and 
 
l6 NOTES ON INGERSOLL. 
 
 Others for his points and arguments. He has not suc- 
 ceeded in advancing anything new against Christianity. 
 Perhaps it is doing him injustice to expect it of him. 
 Infidels, from the time of Celsus, Porphyry and Julian, 
 have exhausted, in vain, the resources of human invention 
 to discover implements to undermine the sublime fabric 
 of Christianity. We must, therefore, not expect anything 
 new from a modern infidel or atheist. All we can reason- 
 ably look for, is a revamping of the old and often-refuted 
 sophistries of the past. By means of a ready tongue and 
 a grotesque imagination, Mr. IngersoU succeeds in gal- 
 vanizing these sapless corpses into a momentary appear- 
 ance of life, but they will sink, as they sank before, into 
 oblivion, as the Christian world moves on. 
 
 If Mr. Black has been guilty of personal detraction, as Mr. 
 IngersoU insinuates, he has done wrong; but in attack- 
 ing a live man, like Mr. IngersoU, he has shown more cour- 
 age and manliness than the latter has exhibited in his 
 detractions of Moses, dead. The living can retort; the 
 dead, can only listen and be silent. He who attacks the 
 dead need not look for an answer in the next Rmiew. If 
 Black had outraged the character and misrepresented the 
 words of IngersoU, as the latter has outraged the character 
 and misrepresented the words of Moses, he would have 
 disgraced the cause he defended, and no condemnation 
 would be severe enough for the unchristian offence. 
 Black attacked a living foe, with shield and spear in rest; 
 that was at least brave. IngersoU strikes at the great and 
 honored dead, the leader and lawgiver of the most re- 
 markable nation that ever rose and flourished and feU. 
 The jackal can gnaw, in safety, the tongue of the dead 
 
INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 17 
 
 lion, and the field-mouse play its antics in his footsteps 
 on the plain. 
 
 The character and moral code of Moses are as imper- 
 vious to his attacks as are the pyramids of Egypt, to the 
 javelin of the wandering Arab, who strikes their base as 
 he passes and disappears, while they remain the objects 
 of wonder to future generations. 
 
 The proper way to meet Mr. Ingersoll is, not to defend 
 Christianity against his scattering, inconsequent, illogical 
 and unphilosophical attacks, but to make his article the 
 subject to be considered; to analyze, with careful scrutiny, 
 every statement he makes, every argument he adduces, 
 every inference he draws; to grant nothing, and take 
 nothing for granted. 
 
 The Christian is not bound, at the call of Mr. Inger- 
 soll or any one else, to reprint the proofs of Christianity 
 that are to be found in the writings of the great Chris- 
 tian philosophers and theologians. These proofs are on 
 record, and Mr. Ingersoll's ancestors in atheism and un- 
 belief, from Anaximander, Epicurus, and Lucretius, down 
 to d'Holdach, Laland, Cabanis, Hobbes, and Paine, have 
 never answered them. 
 
 It will be time to think of new defences when the old 
 have been captured. Mr. Ingersoll's ignorance of those 
 arguments is not sufficient reason why they should be re- 
 peated. I do not propose to repeat them, as it is not 
 Christianity that is on trial, but Mr. Ingersoll's article. 
 It is to be examined with analytical care, and then left 
 to the reader to determine what it is worth. 
 
 It has been well said by some keen observer, that, 
 whatever else a man writes, he always writes himself. 
 
1 8 NOTES ON INGERSOLL. 
 
 This is conspicuously true of Mr. Ingersoll. His writ- 
 ings are a mere evolution of himself on paper. The 
 glitter, sophistry, the bad faith, verbal leger-de-main, the 
 pervading egotism, the assumed infallibility, and the 
 brazen audacity of statement, so conspicuous in his writ- 
 ings, are the full bloom and blossom of his character. 
 
 In these notes I shall follow him through his tortuous 
 windings as closely as possible. And, that I may not mis- 
 represent him, or fall, even unintentionally, into unfair- 
 ness, I intend that Mr. Ingersoll shall always speak for 
 himself in his own very words. From this out, then, it 
 will be a dialogue between him and his commentator. 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 MR. INGERSOLL's " IDEA," AND WHAT COMES OF IT. 
 
 INGERSOLL — '' The universe, according to my idea, 
 is, always was, and forever will be. * * It is the one 
 eternal being — the only thing that ever did, does, or can 
 exist." 
 
 Comment — When you say ''according to my idea," you 
 leave the inference that this theory of an eternal uni- 
 verse never occurred to the mind of man until your brain 
 acquired its full development. Of course you did not 
 intend to mislead or deceive; you simply meant that your 
 '* idea" of the universe is, like most of our modern plays, 
 adapted from the French, or elsewhere. Your philos- 
 ophy, like those plays, wants the freshness and flavor of 
 originality, and suffers from bad translation. The old 
 originals, from whom you copy, thought it incum- 
 bent on them to give a reason, or, at least, a show of rea- 
 son, "for their idea." In this enlightened age you do not 
 deem this necessary. It is sufficient for you to formulate 
 your "idea". To attempt to prove it would be beneath 
 you. Is this the reason why you do not advance one 
 single argument to prove the eternity of matter? Have, 
 you got so far as to believe that your "idea" has the force 
 of an argument, or that the science of philosophy must 
 be re-adjusted because you happen to have an "idea"? 
 
 When you say: The universe is the one eternal being, 
 
 19 
 
20 ' NOTES ON INGERSOLL. 
 
 you, of course, mean this visible, material, ever-changing 
 universe of matter. Inasmuch as you have given your 
 " idea" without any reason or argument to support it, it 
 would be a work of supererogation lo attempt to refute 
 it. It is sufficient to oppose my idea to yours. But I 
 will go further and see if your idea of eternal matter does 
 not involve a contradiction. Of course you know that a 
 statement or proposition, that involves a contradiction, 
 cannot be true. You affirm the eternity of matter. On 
 this I reason thus: 
 
 That which is eternal is infinite. It must be infinite, 
 because, if eternal, it can have nothing to limit it. 
 
 But that which is infinite must be infinite in every way. 
 If limited in any way, it would not be infinite. 
 
 Now, matter is limited. It is composed of parts, and 
 composition is limitation. It is subject to change, and 
 change involves limitation. Change supposes succession, 
 and there can be no succession without a beginning, and, 
 therefore, limitation. Thus far we are borne out by 
 reason, experience, and common sense. 
 Then- 
 Matter is limited, and, therefore, finite; and if finite in 
 anything, finite in everything; and if finite in everything, 
 therefore finite in time, and, therefore, not eternal. 
 
 The idea of an eternal, self-existent being, is incompat- 
 ible, in every point of view, with our idea of matter. The 
 former is essentially simple, unchangeable, impassible, and 
 one. The latter is composite, changeable, passible, and 
 multiple. To assert that matter is eternal, is to assert that 
 all these antagonistic attributes are identical — a privilege 
 granted, by sane men, to lunatics only. 
 
MR. INGERSOLL'S idea AND WHAT COMES OF IT. 21 
 
 Ingersoll—" The universe, according to my idea, is, 
 always was, and forever will be." 
 
 Comment— We have seen that this " idea" involves a 
 dontradiction as absurd as to say that parallel lines can 
 meet, or that a thing can be, and not be, at the sam time. 
 But other, important consequences follow from your 
 " idea." 
 
 If this universe of matter alone exists, the mind, in- 
 tellect or soul must be matter, or a form of matter. Sub- 
 limate or attenuate matter to an indefinite extent, it yet 
 remains matter. Now, if the mind is matter, it must obey 
 the forces that govern and regulate the action of matter. 
 
 The forces that govern matter are invariable. From 
 this it follows that every thought of the philosopher, 
 every calculation of the mathematician, every imagination 
 and fancy of the poet, are mere results of material force, 
 entirely independent of the individuals conceiving them! 
 
 The sublime conceptions and creations of Shakespeare 
 and Milton, the wonderful discoveries of Newton, Arago, 
 and Young, the creations of Raphael and .Angelo, are 
 nothing more than the flowering and blooming of carnal 
 vegetation. Are all the externs of lunatic asylums pre- 
 pared to accept this philosophy? 
 
 But let us go a little further: You are. proud of your 
 philosophy and your wisdom. But why should you be 
 so if your ideas are the mere results of the forces that 
 govern matter. And why should you try to convert the 
 world to your way of thinking if the world must be gov- 
 erned by the unalterable laws of matter? I believe in 
 the Holy Scriptures. Is that the result of material forces? 
 If so, why try to persuade me to the contrary? If your 
 
22 NOTES ON INGERSOLL. 
 
 maierialistic theory is true, how can 1 help being a Chris- 
 tian? If I am the victim of unalterable forces or laws, 
 why try to convince or persuade me? Do these material 
 forces compel you to try to persuade me to assent to your 
 notions, and, at the same time, compel me to reject them? 
 Why condemn kings as tyrants, and priests as hypocrites, 
 if they are the helpless victims of the unalterable forces 
 of matter? 
 
 You are an apostle of liberty. If there is anything of 
 value in this world it is liberty. You thrum this tune 
 till your readers get tired of it Now, if there is nothing 
 but matter, and if matter is governed by invariable laws, 
 there can be no liberty whatever. Materialism destroys 
 human liberty and free agency, leaving man the victim 
 of physical forces. You who prize liberty so highly should 
 repudiate a theory that destroys it. If man is not free, 
 and he cannot be, according to your materialistic doc- 
 trine, you are inconsistent when you appeal to his intelli- 
 gence. You are equally inconsistent if you expect your 
 reasonings to convince him, since his conviction must 
 depend on material forces independent of him and you. 
 If you understand your principles, you are bound, by the 
 force of logic, to be silent and wait in patience the out- 
 come of those forces which are unalterable, irresistible, 
 and unavoidable. If m^n's thoughts are the result of 
 mere physical forces it is insanity to reason with them. 
 As well might you reason with a clock for running 
 too fast, with fire for burning, or with a tree for growing. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 5.OMETHING ABOUT THE LAWS OF NATURE, AND HOW 
 
 MR. INGERSOLL "gATHERS" AN IDEA HIS IDEA OF 
 
 HYDRAULICS. 
 
 INGERSOLL — '* We know nothing of what we call 
 the laws of nature, except as we gather the idea of 
 law from the uniformity of phenomena springing from 
 like conditions. To make myself clear: Water always 
 runs down-hill." 
 
 Comment — We acquire a knowledge of the laws of na- 
 ture by observing the effects of the forces of nature; but 
 we do not gather "an idea of law" from the study of 
 these forces and their effects. The idt-a of law, in gen- 
 eral, is, and must be, prior to the idea of particular laws. 
 
 We cannot assert a law in a given case without having 
 an idea of law in general. We say a particular law is 
 a law because it corresponds with the norm of law which 
 exists intuitively in the mind. The idea of law, then, does 
 not come from observing phenomena. These phenomena 
 enable us to acquire a knowledge of particular laws, but 
 not of law. The laws of nature, in the last analysis, are 
 that intimate and invariable connection which exists be- 
 tween natural causes and effects. This idea of cause and 
 effect, or the principle of causality, as it is called, is the 
 
 23 
 
24 NOTES ON INGERSOLL. 
 
 basis on which we make our deductions from phenomena. 
 A stone, thrown up, falls to the ground. The mind, re- 
 ferring to its own intuition of causality, asks : What 
 caused it to rail ? The experiment is repeated with a like 
 result. The mind here does not "gather an idea of law" 
 but begins instinctively to seek the law in the case. To 
 seek for a law presupposes the idea of law, for we do not 
 seek for that of which we have no idea. 
 
 To talk about " gathering an idea of law from phe- 
 nomena' is unphilosophical. We conclude or deduce 
 laws from phenomena, but we cannot ''gather an idea of 
 law ' from anything. To gather an idea is like gathering 
 a huckleberry, ©r an Ingersoll. It is not customary to 
 gather a unit You confound idea with judgment or de- 
 duction. 
 
 The illustration you give, t® make j^ourself clear, is un- 
 fortunate. You say: 
 
 Ingersoll — " To make myself clear: Water always 
 runs down-hill." 
 
 Comment — How, then, did it get up hill ? Or is there 
 a perennial spring up there ? Water does not always run 
 down hill. To run down hill is an exception to the gen- 
 eral *iiode of the action of water. In the present condi- 
 tion of the physical world, the tendency of water is up- 
 ward and outward. This will be admitted of water in the 
 form ot steam or vapor. The water that falls as rain 
 has been first taken up by the sun's heat. Water runs up 
 in the capillary tubes of every vegetable that grows. 
 More water ascends in the capillaries of the vegetable 
 world in one day than falls over Niagara in a year. Water 
 runs up in all rivers that run toward the equator. The 
 
MR. INGERSOLL S IDEA AND WHAT COMES OF IT. 25 
 
 Mississippi river carries its waters up an inclined plane, a 
 perpendicular distance of about four miles. The same 
 is true of a portion of the Nile. This earth on which we 
 live and play the wise and the foolish, is not a sphere, 
 but a spheroid. It is flattened at the poles. The lowest 
 places on the earth are the regions about the North and 
 South poles. The equator, all around the earth, is a inoun- 
 tain thirteen miles higher than the surface at the poles. 
 The polar regions are vast sunken valleys. Now I ask: 
 If "water always runs down-hill," why do not the waters 
 of all the vast oceans flood with impetuosity toward the 
 poles? Why do not those waters seek their level equi- 
 d»*=*"nt from the centre and make the earth a perfect 
 sphere? Two-thirds of the earth's surface consists of 
 water. These multitudinous waters do not run down- 
 hills— do not how down towards the valleys of the poles. 
 On the contrary, they remain on a vast slope, that rises 
 toward the equator, a perpendicular height of thirteen 
 miles. They remain there on that inclined plane — on that 
 hill-side forever. You may say this is caused by the ro- 
 tation of the earth. I do not care what causes it. The 
 fact of it disproves your statement that water always runs 
 down-hill What you wanted to say was this: Water, like 
 matter in all its other forms, yields to the stronger force. 
 In the present case the centrifugal force is the stronger, 
 and hence the waters of the earth tend up-hill towards 
 the equator. 
 
 You saw, somewhere, a bit of water running down a 
 hill, and you ''gathered the idea'* that it always does so. 
 Your view was too narrow and local. It wanted breadth 
 and comprehensiveness. You misinterpreted nature as 
 
 A 
 
26 . NOTES OIJ mOERSOLL. 
 
 you misunderstood and misinterpreted Moses and revealed 
 religion. You have proved yourself an incompetent in- 
 terpreter of nature, and you cannot be relied on when 
 you presume to interpret, criticise, condemn, or deny that 
 which is above nature. 
 
 Ingersoll — " The theist says this (water runs down 
 hill) happens because there is behind the phenomenon an 
 active law." 
 
 Comment — We have seen that you misunderstand 
 nature, and from what you now say it is evident that you 
 do not understand what the theist means. The theist 
 does not say there is behind the phenomenon an active 
 law. He repudiates the stupidities you attribute to him. 
 V/hat the theist does say is this: Behind, prior to, and 
 concomitant with the phenomenon, there is a static or 
 permanent force which is manifested when the proper 
 conditions are placed. A stone, thrown up, falls. The 
 power or force that brought it down was there before it 
 was thrown up, and continues, afier it has fallen, to keep 
 it down. The relation between the stone and the force 
 is constant and permanent. This force asserts itself 
 permanently, but is manifested to us only under certain 
 conditions. This force, sometimes improperly called a 
 law, is what we understand by gravitation. It was pro- 
 jected into nature; when God created nature. 
 
 Ingersoll — " As a matter of fact, law is this side of 
 the phenomenon." 
 
 Comment — That depends on what you mean by law. 
 If by the word you mean that force which actuates the 
 phenomenon, your statement is not correct, and your 
 play on the word " law" is beneath the dignity of a 
 philosopher. 
 
MR. INGERSOLL'S IDEA AND WHAT COMES OF IT. 27 
 
 Ingersoll — " Law does not cause the phenomenon, 
 but the phenomenon causes the idea of law in our minds." 
 
 Comment — If, by law, you mean the force I have spoken 
 of, it does cause the phenomenon. If you mean, by law, 
 a mere verbal formula, or statement of wliat a given force 
 will do, under given circumstances, you are trifling with 
 the intelligence of your readers. Phenomena may enable 
 us to acquire the knowledge of a law, but, as we have 
 already seen, they cannot cause or originate the idea of 
 law in our minds. You confound the idea of law with 
 the knowledge of laws. A philosopher should not write 
 with looseness of expression and indeterminateness of 
 thought. Law, in our language, has more than one 
 meaning. When speaking of nature, \l may mean the 
 action of. natural forces, or it may mean a verbal formula 
 or statement of what that action is or will be in given 
 circumstances. Your purpose required that these two 
 meanings should be confounded, and you, accordingly, 
 confounded them. 
 
 Phenomena do not cause the idea of law. The mental 
 faculty of associating like events and referring them to a 
 common cause, together with the faculty of generaliza- 
 tion, enables us to formulate laws. A series of like 
 phenomena may suggest a law to the mind already pos- 
 sessed of the idea of law, but it does not and cannot, in 
 the nature of things, ''cause the idea of law." The idea 
 of law must precede the knowledge of a law. 
 
 Ingersoll — " This idea (of law) is produced from 
 (by?) the fact that, under like circumstances, the same (a 
 like?) phenomenon always happens." 
 
 Comment — A series of like phenomena suggests the 
 
28 NOTES ON INGERSOLL. 
 
 existence of force, not the idea of law; and when like phe- 
 nomena always happen under like circumstances, we are 
 led to conclude that it is the saine force that is acting in 
 each case. Further observation of this force's manifesta- 
 tion — and all phenomena are the manifestation of force 
 — enables us to distinguish it from other forces, to iden- 
 tify it by its invariable act, and to associate it with its 
 effects. Having arrived at this degree of familiarity with 
 a force and its act, we formulate in words what it will do 
 under given circumstances. These formulas are called 
 laws of nature. In this sense these laws are purely sub- 
 jective, that is to say, they exist only in the mind appre- 
 hending them, and not in nature. Tliere is an inherent 
 principle in the forces of nature which causes them to act 
 in the same manner under the same circumstances. 
 This, however, is not a law, but the nature of the forces 
 themselves. The laws of nature, then, as commonly un- 
 derstood, are the uniform action of natural forces ex- 
 pressed in words. When physicists speak of the laws of 
 nature, they refer to the forces of which the laws are but 
 the verbal expression. They suppose philosophers have 
 sufficient intelligence to understand this fact; and yet it 
 appears that they are sometimes mistaken. In all you 
 say on this subject you confound law \\\\\\ force; whether 
 this is done intentionally, or through ignorance, I need not 
 stop to consider. 
 
 Ingersoll — " Mr. Black probably thinks that the dif- 
 ference in the weight of rocks and clouds was created 
 by law." 
 
 Comment — God indirectly created natural effects when 
 he created the natural forces which cause them. When 
 
MR. INGERSOLL's IlJEA AND WHAT COMES OF IT. 39 
 
 God created the forces of nature he, by his will, gave 
 them their modes of action — or laid down laws for them. 
 Hence the difference in the weight of rocks and clouds 
 arises from the action of those forces to which God gave 
 modes or laws of action, and hence, again, this difference 
 in weight is truly caused by the law, or will of God. So 
 what you imagined to be a patent absurdity is an un- 
 deniable truth. If God had not given to the force, called 
 gravitation, its known mode of action there would and 
 could be no difference in the weight. of rocks and clouds 
 — for weight is nothing more than the measure of gravi- 
 tation's force. Eliminate this force from your rocks and 
 clouds and their weight would be 7iil; and as they would 
 have no weight they would, of course, have no difference 
 in weight. But to return: the difference between the 
 weight of rocks and clouds arises from the fact that, al- 
 though the same force acts on both of them at the same 
 time and in the same manner, it does so under different, 
 and not like, circumstances. Density is a circumstance 
 in the case, and that of the rock is greater than that of 
 the cloud. Thus, while the same force is acting on both, 
 an(^ -.1 the same manner, it does so under different cir- 
 cumstances, and hence the difference in weight. This 
 difference is to be traced back to the will oi God when 
 he gave modes of action to nature's forces. 
 
 Ingersoll— " Mr. Black probably thinks that parallel 
 lines fail to unite only because it is illegal.'* 
 
 Comment — Mr. Black " probably thinks" that, when 
 you trifle in this way, you are not exercising the higher 
 faculties of your mind to any great extent. You speak 
 much of ** candor" and ** honor bright." Do you intend 
 
30 NOTES ON INGERSOLL. 
 
 what you have said here as an illustration of those 
 virtues ? 
 
 Ingersoll — " It seems to me that law cannot be the 
 cause of phenomena, but is an effect produced in our 
 minds by their succession and resemblance." 
 
 Comment — It would seem that it seems so to you, 
 since you have repeated that idea three times in half a 
 page of your article. But granting that it seems so to 
 you; are you so simple as to advance that as an argu- 
 ment! Your quibbles on the word " law" have been al- 
 ready exposed. Force is the cause of phenomena. The 
 law is tlie mere statement of what the force will do in a 
 given case. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 A TOUCH OF metaphysics; with a tail-piece about 
 "honest thought." 
 
 INGERSOLL— " To put a God back of the universe, 
 compels us to admit that there was a time when noth- 
 ing existed except this God." 
 
 Comment — It compels us to admit nothing of the kind. 
 The eternal God can place an eternal act. His creative 
 act could, therefore^ be co-eternal with his being. The 
 end of the act, that is, creation, could be co-existent with 
 the eternal act, and, therefore, eternal. To deny this is 
 to affirm that there could be a moment when the eternal 
 and omnipotent God could not act, which is contrary to 
 Christian teaching. Cliristianity does not teach that the 
 universe was actually created from eternity, but reason 
 teaches that it could have been so created. But, grant- 
 ing that the universe is not an eternal creation, your 
 conclusion would not follow. For in this hypothesis, as 
 time began with creation and is the measure of its en- 
 durance, it follows that before creation was, time was 
 not. Hence, God did not exist in time before creation. 
 God IS. To him there is neither past, present, nor 
 future — only eternity. God is alone before creation 
 was. But granting that God is alone before creation was, 
 what follows? 
 
 31 
 
32 NOTES ON INGERSOLL. 
 
 Ingersoll — " That this God lived from eternity in infi- 
 nite vacuum and absolute idleness." 
 
 Comment — If God lived in it, it could not have been 
 vacuum. A vacuum is that in which nothivg is. In the 
 hypothesis that God is, he is something; he is infinite, 
 and hence an infinite vacuum is infinite nonsense. But 
 the word has a gross, material sense, and you used it for 
 a purpose. 
 
 Ingersoll — "And in absolute idleness." 
 
 Comment — Christian philosophy teaches us that God 
 is pure act^ the source of origin of all activity and life. 
 To say that such a being can, under any circumstance, be 
 in absolute idleness, or non-action, is simply an expression 
 of human ignorance. 
 
 You may say this theory of Christian philosophy is 
 erroneous. But that is nothing to the purpose until you 
 have demonstrated the error of it, which is what you un- 
 dertook to do. You attack that philosophy, and you 
 must meet its oppositions as they are, not as you would 
 make them appear, and overthrow them if you can. 
 
 Ingersoll — "The mind of every thoughtful man is 
 forced to one of two conclusions: Either that the uni- 
 verse is self-existent, or that it was created by a self-ex- 
 istent being. To my mind there is far more difficulty 
 in the second hypothesis than in the first." 
 
 Comment — It is to be regretted that you did not take 
 the time and space to show the difference in the weight 
 of those difficulties — to show how the existence of an 
 eternal self-existent Creator presents more difficulties to 
 the mind than does the existence of eternal matter. 
 The existence of an eternal Creator is not contrary to 
 
A TOUCH OF METAPHYSICS. 33 
 
 reason. While the existence of eternal matter, as we 
 have seen, involves the co-existence of mutually destruc- 
 tive attributes in the same subject at the same time, and 
 is, therefore, contradictory to reason. 
 
 There have been many men of thoughtful minds who 
 did not see that they were forced to adopt either of your 
 two conclusions. The pantheists of ancient and modern 
 times, of India and Europe, hold that the universe was 
 neither eternal nor created, but that it was an emanation 
 from God, having no real existence of its own — a mere 
 transient mode of God's being. These philosophers 
 were more radical than you. They believed that God 
 alone is real, and that all else is phantasm. In believing 
 that God is more immediately cognizable to the intellect 
 than the material upiverse is, they showed a more pro- 
 found philosophical sense than is exhibited by your school. 
 The Gnostics, two thousand years ago, held this same 
 doctrine of emanation. The Neo-platonists, like some of 
 our German philosophers, denied the objective reality of 
 the universe. Spinosa held that God alone has real ex- 
 istence, and that things are but forms of his extension. 
 Kant held that we can have absolute certainty of noth- 
 ing; which is equivalent to a denial of both God and the 
 universe. Fichte taught that nothing exists but the me 
 — individual consciousness — and that all things else are 
 but the forms or manifestations of this me. Schelling, 
 Hegel, and other philosophers of the Gerpnan pantheistic 
 school, held the same as Fichte. The French eclectics, 
 led by Cousin, denied the creation, and held that the 
 universe is a mere apparition by which the divine Being 
 is exteriorly manifested-^the mere ghost of the Infinite. 
 
34 NOTES ON INGERSOLL. 
 
 All these ^re pantheists, some holding emanatiotiy others 
 divine evolution, or Das IVerden, as Spinosa called it, 
 and others still, idealism. Now, none of these are in- 
 cluded in either of your two necessary conclusions. You 
 will see that thoughtful men have pondered long on this 
 subject before you directed your attention to it, and that 
 they did not come to the conclusion you did. They wrote 
 many books to elucidate what you dismiss in a half a 
 dozen lines. They erred in denying the reality of mat- 
 ter: you err in asserting its eternal existence. To assert 
 God and deny matter shows a higher philosophical cul- 
 ture than to assert matter and deny God. The ontolog- 
 ical conceptions of the Hindoos and Chinese of 3,000 
 years ago, were, therefore, profound, and more in keeping 
 with Christian philosophy than are the ill-digested no- 
 tions of our modern infidels. The former grasped the 
 idea of necessary being, but failed to recognize the real 
 in the universe. The latter have the ability to apprehend 
 the reality of the visible, tangible world, but cannot rise 
 above it — to a conception of necessary being. 
 
 Ingersoll — "Of course, upon questions like this, 
 nothing can be absolutely known." 
 
 Comment — To know anything absolutely is to know 
 it in all its relations with the universe and with God, 
 with the necessary and the contingent. The infinite in- 
 telligence alone can know things in this way, and, there- 
 fore, on "questions like these," or any other questions, 
 we cannot have absolute Tcnowledge, because our minds 
 are finite. But this does not prevent us from knowing 
 with certainty what we do know. We know not God ab- 
 solutely, but we know, with certainty, that he is. 
 
HONEST THOUGHT. 35 
 
 Ingersoll — "What we know of the infinite is almost 
 infinitely limited, but little as we know, all have an equal 
 right to give their honest thought." 
 
 Comment — Has any man the right, common sense be- 
 ing the judge, to talk about that of which his knowledge 
 is almost infinitely limited? All may have an equal right 
 to give their honest thought, but none have the right to 
 give their honest thought on all subjects and under all 
 circumstances. Common sense and decency forbid it. 
 The honesty of a thought does not give weight or im- 
 portance or truth to it. If so, lunatics would be the best 
 of reasoners, for none are more honest in their thoughts 
 than they. Thought must be judged with reference to 
 its truth, and not with reference to the honesty of him 
 who thinks it. This plea of honesty in thinking is a 
 justification of every error and crime, for we must, in the 
 very nature of the case, take the thinker's word for the 
 honesty of his thought. Guiteau, if we can believe him, 
 expressed his honest thought by means an English bull- 
 dog revolver, and, if your theory be true, he had a right 
 Xo do it. 
 
 The right to give an honest thought implies the right 
 to realize that thought in action and habit. If it means 
 less than this, it means simply the right to gabble like an 
 idiot. I assume that it is not this latter right you claim. 
 Then, in claiming the right to give your honest thought, 
 you claim the right to realize that thought in act and 
 practice, and cause it, as far as you can, to permeate, and 
 obtain in human society. If your claim for liberty of 
 thought means less than this, it is the veriest delusion. 
 
 I take it, then, that, in claiming the right to give your 
 
36 NOTES ON INGERSOLL. 
 
 honest thodght, you claim ihc right to promulgate that 
 thought, and to put it in practice in the affairs of life. 
 Now, in view of this claim of yours, I ask, by what right 
 do you interfere with the slave-holder's honest thought, 
 or the Mormon's honest thought? Your plea for the right 
 of expressing honest thought is a miserable pretense, or 
 else by it you mean that those only who agree with you 
 have the right of expressing it in word or action. The 
 doctrines of our loquacious liberals, when analyzed, will 
 be found to mean precisely this and nothing more. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 SOMETHING ABOUT THE DESIGN OF THE UNIVERSE; AND 
 
 INGERSOLL's " CURIOUS AND WONDERFUL THING 
 
 MR. INGERSOLL next proceeds to show that the 
 argument for the existence of God drawn from 
 the plan or design of the universe is not conclusive. As 
 Mr. Black did not advance this argument I am at a loss 
 to understand why it was introduced by Mr. Ingersoll, 
 unless it was to give us a specimen of his ability in the 
 way of metaphysical skyrocketing. Let us hear him. 
 
 Ingersoll— " It will not do to say that the universe 
 was designed, and, therefore, there must be a designer." 
 
 Comment— Why not, if all have a right to give their 
 honest thought? 
 
 Ingersoll — "There must be psoof that it was de- 
 signed." 
 
 Comment — Certainly, and that proof is to be found in 
 every work on theology and philosophy that treats of the 
 subject. As a lawyer, you know that proofs are not to be 
 thrown out of court by a mere stroke of the pen. It was 
 incumbent on you to examine those proofs and show that 
 they are not conclusive, or accept them. Instead of this 
 you very cunningly leave the inference that no such proofs 
 exist. If you knew of those proofs you should in all 
 candor, have met them fairly ; if you were ignorant ot 
 
 37 
 
38 NOTES ON INGERSOLL. 
 
 them, you should have informed yourself of the argu- 
 ments on the other side before you undertook to answer 
 them. You have said ** candor is the courage of the 
 soul." Let us have courage. 
 
 The proofs given by theologians and Christian philos- 
 ophers that evidences of plan and design exist in this 
 physical universe have never been met by you. Accord- 
 ing to the rules of logic they are good until you meet and 
 overthrow them. This you must do by reason, and not 
 by bald assertion. 
 
 Ingersoll — '* It will not do to say that the universe 
 has a plan, and then assert that there must have been an 
 infinite maker." 
 
 Comment — Of course it will not do to merely say it 
 without any proofs to back the statement, as you say so 
 many things, and, therefore, Christian scholars invariably 
 supply those proofs. The proofs being good until re- 
 futed, it does and must follow that there is an infinite 
 planner," designer, Creator. 
 
 Ingersoll — *' The idea that a design must have a be- 
 ginning, and that a designer need not, is a simple ex- 
 pression of human ignorance." 
 
 Comment — On the contrary, it is one of the highest 
 reaches of human reason. But you have evidently lost 
 the thread of the argument you are trying to refute. 
 Christian philosophy does not assert that the plan or de- 
 sign of the universe had a beginning. On the contrary, 
 it teaches that the plan or design existed in the mind of 
 God from all eternity, and is the elernal archtype of all 
 created things. The universe is the eternal idea of God 
 realized in time and space by the creative act. To say 
 
DESIGN OF THE UNIVERSE^ 39 
 
 that the design of this universe had a beginning, is truly 
 a simple expression of human ignorance. As the design 
 is eternal, the designer must be eternal; as the design 
 had no beginning, the designer has none. The designs 
 of finite minds must have a beginning, because they par- 
 take of the nature of their designer, but we must not 
 measure God's capacity -by man's incapacity, an error you 
 seem incapable of avoiding. 
 
 Ingersoll — '' We find a watch, and we say: So curious 
 and wonderful a thing must have had a maker." 
 
 Comment- -The Christian does not assert that it had a 
 maker because it is curious and wonderful, but because it 
 shows evidence of having been 7tiade. The curiousness 
 and wonderfulness of the watch suggests the idea of an 
 intelligent maker. A mud-pie will suggest the idea of a 
 maker equally as well as a gold chronometer. 
 
 Ingersoll — *' We find the watchmaker and we say: 
 So curious and wonderful a thing as man must have had 
 a maker." 
 
 Comment — Yes, but not because he is curious and 
 wonderful, but because he is, and is finite. Verily, it 
 would be unfortunate for Christianity if you were per- 
 mitted to present its case. 
 
 Ingersoll — "We find God, and we then say: He is 
 so wonderful that he must not have had a maker." 
 
 Comment — You say this, but " we" don't. When we 
 find God, we find the self-existent Being, infinite and 
 eternal, and therefore we say, he must not have had a 
 maker. This is the way the Christian reasons, and it is 
 somewhat \iifferent from the childish nonsense you would 
 put into his mouth. 
 
46 NOTES ON INGERSOLL. 
 
 Ingersoll — "In other words, all things a little won- 
 derful must hav.e been created." 
 
 Comment — You use that word ** wonderful" as a boy 
 uses a toy drum, to the disgust of all who hear it. All 
 r.ungs have been created, not because they are curious 
 and wonderful, but because they exist and are finite. 
 The microscopic grain of sand that is wafted by ll.« 
 winds and the waves proves the existence of a Creato; 
 as clearly as does this vast and wonderful univG^.-e. It 
 is not, then, as you say, the wonder of the thing that 
 suggests the idea of creation, but the existence of the 
 thing. 
 
 Ingersoll — "One would suppose that just as the won 
 der increased, the necessity for a creator increased." 
 
 Comment — The one who would so suppose must \a 
 suppesed to have a very limited knowledge of philosoph\» 
 or a very limited intellect. If Christian philosophy were 
 as silly as you have represented, or rather misrepresented 
 it above, it would, indeed, be contemptible. Candor and 
 honor require that when you attack a system or an in- 
 stitution, you should attack it in its own position, and 
 not make fictitious and absurd positions for it, and then 
 proceed with show of logic to demolish the nonsense en- 
 gendered in your own brain and presented to the public 
 as the principles of Christian philosophy. To misrepre- 
 sent Christian philosophy is a confession of weakness, 
 an admission that it must be misrepresented before it can 
 be successfully assailed. 
 
 Ingersoll — " Is it possible that a designer exists from 
 all eternity without a design?" 
 
 Comment — Yes, the idea of a self-existent, eternal de- 
 
A CURIOUS AND WONDERFUL THING. 41 
 
 signer excludes the idea of a design prior to or independ- 
 ent of him. This is so self-evident that it needs only to 
 be stated. The philosopher who asks such an absurd 
 question is like his watchmaker, a " curious and wonder 
 ful thing." 
 
 Ingersoll — "Was there no design in having an infinite 
 designer ?" 
 
 Comment — None whatever, since there cannot be any- 
 thing back of the infinite and eternal designer. There 
 can be nothing more infinite than tlie infinite, nothing 
 prior to the eternal. It is as if you should ask: Is there 
 anything more circular than a circle, or anything squarer 
 than a square? 
 
 Ingersoll — " For me it is hard to see the plan or de- 
 sign in earthquakes and pestilences." 
 
 Comment — This is not surprising, since you have, with 
 commendable humility, admitted that what you know 
 about questions like these is almost infinitely limited. 
 Until you see or understand the design, it is inconsistent 
 in you to condemn it. A boy stood near the railway gaz- 
 ing philosophically at a passing train. A burning cinder 
 from the smoke-stack struck him in the eye. He mused 
 on the incident in this way: '* For me it is liard to see 
 what design or plan this great corporation could have 
 had in spending vast sums of money to throw that cindei 
 in my eye. It is somewhat difficult to discern design or 
 benevolence in it." Who will say that boy was not a 
 philosopher and an egotist, or that a fortune does not 
 await him when he is old enough to take the lecture- 
 field ? 
 
 Ingersoll — *' It is somewhat difficult to discern the 
 
42 NOTES ON INGERSOLL. 
 
 design or the benevolence in so making the world that 
 billions of animals live only on the agonies of others." 
 
 Comment — Until you prove that God so made the 
 world that billions of animals live on the agonies of 
 others, you are not called upon to discern design or be- 
 nevolence in this agonizing state of things. It does not 
 follow because agony and suffering exist, that God de- 
 signed it to be so. It is for you to prove that God de- 
 signed this suffering before you attribute it to him. You 
 should be just — even to God. 
 
 Whence, then, the sufferings of this world ? 
 
 Crime is the result of human liberty — though not a 
 necessary result — and suffering is the result of crime. 
 Physical evil is the result of moral evil, and moral evil 
 is the result of a perverse use of liberty, which is good 
 in itself. God made man a free agent, not that he 
 might abuse his freedom, but that he might use it to as- 
 sist him in his beneficent design, which is the happiness 
 of his creatures. But man abused the gift of liberty, and, 
 in doing so, produced discord in universal harmony. 
 The free agent man proved himself untrue to his trust. 
 He betrayed it, and thus became a victim of the disorder 
 he himself produced. The agent is responsible to his 
 principal, and a failure to perform the duties assigned 
 him brings upon him punishment and disgrace. The 
 pagan philosopher Plato understood this when he wrote: 
 "He (the wrongdoer) is not able to see that evil (suffer- 
 ing), ever utiiied to each act of wrong, follows him in 
 his insatiate cravings for what is unholy, and that he 
 has to drag along with him the long chain of his wrong- 
 doings, both while he is moving along upon this earth, 
 
"a curious and wonderful thing." 43 
 
 and when he shall take, under the earth, (in hell we 
 would say), an endless journey of dishonor and frightful 
 miseries." 
 
 Evils, that are the results of man's perversion of liberty, 
 cannot be attributed to the design of God; and those 
 who so attribute them are as reasonless as the ship- 
 wrecked mariners who condemn the captain for the suf- 
 ferings which they brought upon themselves by their dis- 
 obedience to his commands, or as the criminal who at- 
 tributes his punishment to the judge, when it is the re- 
 sult of his own crime. 
 
 While admitting the existence of evils and sufferings in 
 the world, the Christian does not, and is not bound, by 
 his principles, to admit that they are the result of the 
 design or plan of God in creating the universe. 
 
 To those who see in man's nature and destiny nothing 
 higher than that of the grasshopper or the potato-bug, 
 who believe that man's life ends with the death or de- 
 composition of his outer shell, there must be something 
 inexplicable in the sufferings of this life. 
 
 But to the Christian who looks upon this life and its 
 vicissitudes as a mere phase of man's immortal career, 
 who considers this world of time as the womb of the 
 eternal years, the sufferings of this life are but the tem- 
 porary inconveniences of the weary traveller on his home- 
 ward voyage. Their weight is lightened and their sharp- 
 ness blunted by the thought of home with its comforts 
 and its rest. He suffers with patience and resignation 
 to the will of his eternal Father, with the consoling hope 
 that, when he is freed from the body of this death, he 
 will pass into the eternal day where death and pain are 
 
44 NOTES ON INGERSOLL. 
 
 known no more forever. Buoyed up by faith and 
 hope he says in his inmost soul: 
 
 'Beyond the parting and the meeting 
 
 I shall be soon; 
 Beyond the farewell and the greeting, 
 Beyond the pulse's fever beating 
 
 I shall be soon. 
 
 Beyond the frost chain and the fever 
 
 I shall be soon; 
 Beyond the rock- waste and the river, 
 Beyond the ever and the never, 
 
 I shall be soon. 
 
 Love, rest, and home ! 
 
 Sweet home ! 
 
 Lord, tarry not, but come." 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 ON THE JUSTICE OF GOD — A FUTURE STATE — SOME SPECI- 
 MENS OF THE colonel's *' HONEST" METHODS. 
 
 INGERSOLL— '' The justice of God is not visible to 
 me in ilie history of this world." 
 Comment — Might not this strange circumstance arise 
 from intellectual Staphyloma? Grant that it is not visi- 
 ble to you, does it follow that it is not in this world? 
 Does your failure to see it demonstrate that it is not? 
 When you make your limited vision the measure of God's 
 justice you usurp the attributes of the infinite, put your 
 judgment above his, and attempt to assume his place. 
 Men have been kindly, but firmly consigned to insane 
 asylums for such philosophy; and curious visitors meet 
 with them almost every day. It is in the last analysis 
 a question of God's existence, for if there is an infinite 
 self-existent Being, he must, from his very nature, be in- 
 finite in everything, and if in everything, infinite in his 
 justice. To assert that lie is not infinitely just is to deny 
 his existence. But your statement supposes his existence 
 and therefore grants his infinite justice. If then that jus- 
 tice which exists by the logic of your position, is not 
 visible to you, you should doubt, not it, but the powers 
 of your vision. This is difficult to a man of almost in- 
 finite self-assertive capacity, but it is wisdom. 
 
 45 
 
46 NOTES ON INGERSOLL. 
 
 Ingersoll — " When I think of the suffering and death, 
 of the poverty and crime, of the cruelty and malice, of 
 the heartlessness of this ' plan' or * design' where beak 
 and claw and tooth tear and rend the quivering flesh of 
 weakness and despair, I cannot convince myself that it 
 is the result of infinite wisdom, benevolence, and justice." 
 
 Comment — As you are not required by Christian phil- 
 osophy to believe that the evils you describe were a part 
 of God's plan or design in creating the universe, you are 
 not called upon to reconcile those evils with God's 
 wisdom, benevolence or justice. If you have been labor- 
 ing under the notion that God planned and designed the 
 miseries of this world, and under that delusion have tried 
 to reconcile the original plan of this infinitely just God 
 with the facts of life, you have been exhausting your en- 
 ergies in a very foolish piece of business. Your very 
 effort in that direction proves that you have not grasped 
 the situation. In the article of yours that I am now 
 commenting on, you confess your ignorance of the divine 
 plan or design, and yet you presume to atiribn^e suffer- 
 ing, death, crime, cruelty and malice to that plan. Above 
 all things it behoveth a pfiilosopher to be consistent. It 
 is unphilosophical to attribute to a plan objectional 
 features when you confess ignorance of that plan. 
 
 Ingersoll — ** Most Christians have seen and recog- 
 nized this difficulty (that of reconciling the miseries of 
 this life with the justice of God), and have endeavored to 
 avoid it by giving God an opportunity in another world 
 to rectify the seeming mistake of this." 
 
 Comment — When the position of " most Christians" is 
 properly and truthfully stated there is no difficulty to see 
 
THE JUSTICE OF GOD. 47 
 
 or avoid. The other world exists without, reference to 
 man's innocence or guilt, happiness or misery in this. 
 Your insinuation that Christians invented the future 
 state shows either discreditable ignorance of the history 
 of human thought, or a desire to misrepresent. There 
 is no middle way out of the dilemma for you. Ignor- 
 ance is a crime in one who assumes the office of a teacher 
 of his fellow-men, and misrepresentation is, as you would 
 say, "singularly and vulgarly out of place" in treating of 
 a subject that requires the exercise of the highest facul- 
 ties of the human mind. 
 
 The doctrine of a future state of existence has been 
 universally believed, especially by the well-informed of 
 mankind in all ages and places. History clearly shows 
 that the united voice of ancient nations proclaimed this 
 doctrine. The Egyptians, the Persians, the Hindoos, 
 both Brahmists and Buddhists, the Chinese, whether the 
 followers of Lao Tzue, Confucius, or Gautama; the Phoe- 
 nicians, Assyrians, Scythians, Celts and Druids, as well 
 as the Greeks and the Romans, believed in a future state. 
 There is not an ancient nation or tribe of which history 
 furnishes an account, which did not, with greater or less 
 clearness, believe in a future state. The notions of 
 many of them were very obscure and unsatisfactory, em- 
 bracing much that was ridiculous and absurd; but still, 
 though shadows and and darkness and clouds rested upon 
 their minds, their hopes penetrated the gloomy future, 
 giving evidence of an internal consciousness of the in- 
 sufficiency of the present world to satisfy the ardent as- 
 pirations of their souls. Our American Indians believe 
 in a future state. The human race, then, in all times, has 
 
48 NOTES ON INGERSOLL. 
 
 believed in a future state, and yet, in the face of this 
 Mississippi current of human thought, you have the un- 
 utterable audacity or ignorance to say that Christians 
 invented it to give God a chance to rectify the mistakes 
 of this! Are these the kind of weapons you hope to des- 
 troy the Christian religion with? Can you afford thus to 
 play with the credulity of your readers, and with your 
 own reputation? Honor bright! 
 
 Ingersoll — '*Mr. Black, however, avoids the ques- 
 tion by saying: We have neither jurisdiction nor capac- 
 ity to rejudge the justice of God." 
 
 Comment — To state a truth is not to avoid the ques- 
 tion. You, however, avoid the question by not admit- 
 ting Black's proposition, or disproving it. It is the hinge 
 on which the argument turns, and you should not have 
 avoided it. If Mr. Black's statement is true then you 
 are wrong in attempting to judge of God's justice. If 
 his statement is false, then you are right in so judging. 
 
 The statement of Mr. Black, instead of avoiding the 
 question, brought it to a direct issue. His proposition, 
 reduced to its simplest form, is this: The finite cannot be 
 the measure of the infinite. God's justice is infinite; ^^ «» 
 human mind is finite; hence the latter cannot be the 
 measure of the former — in other words, we have not the 
 capacity, and, for a stronger reason, not the jurisdiction 
 to rejudge the justice of God. This is the clear issue 
 Mr. Black made with you, but, instead of meeting it 
 squarely, as candor would dictate, you proceed to avoid it 
 by misstating it. Thus you say: 
 
 Ingersoll — " In other words, we have no right to 
 think upon this subject — " 
 
 Comment — This is neatly done. But it will not sue- 
 
THE JUSTICE OF GOD. 49 
 
 ceed. Mr. Black did not say we have no right to ihifik. 
 He said we have no right to Judge, and it seems to me 
 that any adult, whose intellect is not below the averag- , 
 will see a difference between thinking 2.x\A judging. You 
 honor the truth in Mr. Black's proposition when you try 
 to torture it out of shape before you attempt to answer it. 
 
 Ingersoll — " — no right to examine the questions vitally 
 affecting human kind." 
 
 Comment — Here you are again. This is the pettiest 
 kind of verbal thimble-rigging. Mr. Black did not say 
 we have no right to examine these questions. He said 
 we have no right to rejudge the justice of God. You need 
 not be told that there is a difference between examining 
 zx\di judging. I cannot believe, in view of your knowledge 
 of the English language, that you change these words 
 without a purpose, even though you hold that " candor is 
 the courage of the soul." 
 
 Ingersoll — *'We have simply to accept the ignorant 
 statements of the barbarian dead." 
 
 Comment — We accept neither the ignorant statements 
 of tlie barbarian dead, nor the ignorant statements of the 
 atheistic living. We are averse to accepting ignorant 
 statements from any man, be he an ancient barbarian or 
 modern pagan. The question between you and Mr. Black, 
 as to whether the finite can be the measure of the infinite, 
 is one that cannot be settled by the statements of anyone, 
 ignorant or otherwise. It is a question of pure reason, 
 and anyone gifted with the use of reason, who compre- 
 hends the meaning of the terms Jinite and injinite will 
 know that the former cannot include the latter — in other 
 words, that the finite mind has not the capacity or juris- 
 diction to rejudge the ways of the infinite intelligence. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 TIffi EXISTENCE OF GOD — LOGIC AND LEGAL TENDERS — 
 QUEER ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON. 
 
 INGERSOLL— "This question cannot be settled by 
 saying that it weiild be a mere waste of time and space 
 to enumerate the proofs which show that the universe was 
 created by a pre-existent and self-conscious being. The 
 time and space should have been wasted, and the proofs 
 should have been enumerated. These proofs are what 
 the wisest and greatest are trying to ^nd." 
 
 Comment — It is true, nevertheless, that it would be a 
 waste of time and space to reproduce those proofs that 
 have never been answered. It would appear that you are 
 ignorant of those proofs, but your ignorance of them does 
 not justify JMr. Black in exhausting the limited space given 
 himi to reply to you, in reprinting what you and every 
 man who makes any pretensions to a knowledge of 
 philosophy and theology are supposed to know. The 
 wisest and greatest of mankind have known, studied, and 
 pondered those proofs and have been convinced by them.' 
 They and the world do not agree with you. It is a seri- 
 ous mistake on your part to imagine that, because these 
 proofs are unknown to you, they are unknown to scholars 
 in this line of thought, or that tlie ** wisest and greatest" 
 are tryinc: to find them because you have not found them. 
 50 
 
THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 5 1 
 
 YoLi do yourself honor overmuch, in supposing that the 
 wisest and greatest are iu the same boat with you. Is it 
 your misfortune or theirs that the best thinkers, in ancient 
 and modern times, cannot see things in the light you see 
 them? If you had taken Mr. Black's kind hint and 
 studied those proofs so well-known in current philoso- 
 pliical literature, you would have been less profligate of 
 statement; and you would have learned that there are 
 many things worth knowing, not dreamt of in your 
 philosophy. 
 
 I have some advantages of Mr. Black. I am not deal- 
 ing with the North American Review, and it is not in your 
 power to shut me off as you did him when you wanted to 
 stop. I can, therefore, afford to spend some space and 
 time in trying to familiarize your mind with the proof of 
 a supreme, self-existent, and infinitely wise Being. I skall 
 produce tlie argumsnt of a philosopher f®r the existence 
 of God. I do not deem it necessary or logically called 
 for, just l«ere, to do this; but as it may pr@ve instructive 
 to you I give it. It runs in this way: 
 
 I allow you to doubt all things if you wish, till you 
 come to the point where doubt denies itself. • Doubt is an 
 act of intelligence; only an intelligent agent can doubt. 
 It as much demands intellect to doubt as it does to be- 
 lieve, — to deny as it does to affirm. Universal doubt is, 
 therefore, an impossibility, for doubt cannot, if it wouM, 
 doubt the intelligence that doubts, since to doubt that 
 would be to- doubt itself. You cannot doubt that you 
 doubt, and- then, if you doubt, you know that you doubt, 
 and there is one thing, at least, you do not doubt, namely, 
 that you doubt. To doubt the intelligence that doubts, 
 
52 
 
 NorES ON INGERSOLL. 
 
 would be to doubt that you doubt, for, without intelligence, 
 there can be no more doubt than belief. Intelligence, 
 then, you must assert, for without intelligence you cannot 
 even deny intelligence, and the denial of intelligence by 
 intelligence contradicts itself, and affirms intelligence in 
 the very act of denying it. Doubt, then, as much as you 
 will, you must still affirm intelligence as the condition of 
 doubting, or of asserting the possibility of doubt, for 
 what is not, cannot act. 
 
 This much, then, is certain, that however far you may 
 be disposed to carry your denials, you cannot carry them 
 so far as to deny intelligence, because that v/ould be 
 denial of denial itself. Then you must concede intelli- 
 gence, and then whatever is essential to the reality of 
 intelligence. In conceding anything, you concede neces- 
 sarily all that by which it is what it is, and without 
 which it could not be what it is. Intelligence is incon- 
 ceivable without the intelligible, or some object capa- 
 ble of being known. So, in conceding intelligence, you 
 necessarily concede the intelligible. The intelligible is, 
 therefore, something which is, is being, real being too, 
 not merely abstract or possible being, for without the 
 real, there is and can be no possible or abstract. The 
 abstract, in that it is abstract, is nothing, and therefore 
 unintelligible, that is to^ay, no object of knowledge or of 
 the intellect. The possible, as possible, is nothing but 
 the power or ability of the real, and is apprehensible only 
 in that power or ability. In itself, abstracted from 
 the real, it is pure nullity, has no being, no existence, is 
 not, and therefore is unintelligible, no object of intelli- 
 gence or of intellect, on the principle that what is not is 
 
THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 53 
 
 not intelligible. Consequently, to the reality of intelli- 
 gence, a real intelligible is necessary, and since the reality 
 of intelligence is undeniable, the intelligible must be as- 
 serted, and asserted as real, not as abstract or merely 
 possible being. You are obliged to assert intelligence, 
 but you cannot assert intelligence witliout asserting the 
 intelligible, and you cannot assert tiie intelligible without 
 asserting something that really is, that is, without assert- 
 ing real being. The real being thus asserted is either 
 necessary and eternal being, being in itself, subsisting by 
 and from itself, or it is contingent and therefore created 
 being. One or the other we must say, for being 
 which is neither necessary nor contingent, or which is 
 both at once, is inconceivable, and cannot be asserted or 
 supposed. 
 
 Whatever is, in any sense, is either necessary and eter- 
 nal, or contingent and created — is either being in itself, 
 absolute being, or existence dependent on another for its 
 being, and therefore is not without the necessary and 
 eternal, on which it depends. If you say it is necessary 
 and eternal being, you say it is God; if you say it is con- 
 tingent being, you still assert the necessary and eternal, 
 therefore God, because the contingent is neither pos- 
 sible nor intelligible without the necessary and eternal. 
 The contingent, since it is or has its being only in the 
 necessary and eternal, and since what is not, is not in- 
 telligible, is intelligible as the contingent, only in neces- 
 sary and eternal being, the intelligible in itself, in which 
 it has its being, and therefore its intelligibility. So in 
 either case you cannot assert the intelligible without as- 
 serting necessary and eternal being; and therefore, since 
 
54 NOTES ON INGERSOLL. 
 
 necessary and eternal being is God, without asserting 
 God, or that God is; and since you must assert intelli- 
 gence even to deny it, it follows that in every act of in- 
 telligence God is asserted, and that it is impossible with- 
 out self-contradiction to deny his existence.* 
 
 Ingersoll — '' Logic is not satisfied with assertion." 
 
 Comment — Then it is not satisfied with your assertion 
 in reference to it. But you are evidently ignorant of what 
 logic means. Logic as a science deals with principles, 
 not assertions; and logic as an art deals with assertions 
 only. Assertions are the subject matter on which it acts. 
 It simply d:-duces conclusions from assertions or proposi- 
 tions called premises, and cares not whether these premises 
 are true or false. Hence the very reverse of what you 
 say is true. Logic is satisfied with assertions, and knows 
 and deals with nothing else. Your blunder arose from 
 your confounding reason with logic. Reason deals with 
 principles and truths, logic with assertions. That reason 
 is not satisfied with assertions becomes more apparent the 
 more your article on the Christian Religion is subjected 
 to careful analysis. 
 
 Ingersoll — " It (logic) cares nothing for the opinion 
 of the great." 
 
 Comment — If those opinions are formulated into as- 
 sertions, it does care for them, because it deals with 
 nothing else. You meant to say: Reason cares nothing, 
 etc. This careless use of words and confounding of terms 
 in licates a confused and imperfect method of thinking. 
 He who thinks with clearness and precision, will express 
 his thought with clearness and precision, while a slovenly 
 
 ♦Brownson's Quarterly Review. 
 
LOGIC AND LEGAL TENDERS. 55 
 
 tiiinker leaves the reader in a state of chronic doubt as to 
 wiiat is meant. 
 
 Ingersoll — " In the world of science a fact is a legal 
 tender." 
 
 Comment— Then, before you can assert a legal tender, 
 yo^i must demonstrate a fact. A fact must be established 
 as such, before it is legal tender. Now the question be- 
 tween you and the Christian is this: What are the facts.? 
 The wliole controversy rests on the answer to this ques- 
 tion. What you offer as facts, the Christian may reject 
 as fallacies and sophistries, and what he offers as facts 
 you may reject. It follows, therefore, that until both 
 parties agree as to what are the facts, they cannot agree 
 as to what is legal tender. X^iat you intended, then, as a 
 wise saying has no practical sense in it. But for those 
 who like that sort of thing, it is about the sort of thing 
 they will like. 
 
 Ingersoll— ^* A fact is a legal tender." 
 
 Comment — A counterfeit is a fact; is it legal tender? 
 O! no. Well then a fact is not a legal tender until it is 
 known to be a fact. What is a legal tender.? It is a 
 promise to pay which may not be worth ten cents on a 
 dollar, but which the law compels you to accept when 
 offered. Is this your idea of what facts are? And do 
 you intend the facts offered by you to be received in that 
 light? If so, perhaps you are right. 
 
 Ingersoll — "Assertions and miracles are base and 
 spurious coins." 
 
 Comment — If this be true, then the assertion you have 
 just made is base and spurious coin. You say all asser- 
 tions are base and spurious. Is it because they are as- 
 
56 
 
 NOTES ON INGERSOLL. 
 
 sertions, or because they are false? If all assertions are 
 base and spurious, we cannot believe anything whatever 
 that is asserted, simply because it is asserted. I assert 
 that two and two make four. This is an assertion. Is 
 it false? It must be, if what you say is true. From this 
 it appears that you again failed to say what you meant; 
 for you will certainly admit that some assertions are true — 
 your own, for instance. 
 
 Perhaps you meant to S2iy false assertions are base and 
 spurious. If so, this is on a par with your legal tender 
 sophism and involves the same amount of meaningless 
 verbiage. The truth or fallacy of an assertion must be 
 established before you can assert it to be base and spu- 
 rious. But the truth or fallacy of an assertion is the 
 question in debate. Let me illustrate: I make the asser- 
 tion that the Christian religion is of divine origin. You 
 will observe that the truth or fallacy of this assertion is 
 the point in debate, and to assert either one or the other 
 without proof, is to beg the question. This you do when 
 you assert that assertions are base and spurious. 
 
 But perhaps I have misunderstood you all this time. 
 You "probably think" that all assertions favoring Chris- 
 tianity are base and spurious, while all those against it 
 have the true ring. If you meant this you should have 
 had the "courage of the soul" to say it, and not hide 
 your insinuation under a meaningless, commonplace 
 phrase. I notice you are fond of making curt little 
 maxims, which on examination mean nothing, unless 
 when they cover a fallacy. They are scattered through 
 your article so liberally as to lead one to believe you in- 
 tended them for argument. But: 
 
QUEER ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON. 57 
 
 Ingersoll— '* Miracles are base and spurious coins." 
 
 Comment — That depends. And here 1 must make the 
 same distinction I made in regard to assertions. If a 
 miracle is a fact, it is not base and spurious. Now the 
 fact or fallacy of a miracle is the point in debate. Un- 
 til that point is settled, not by assertions, but by valid 
 arguments, you cannot say that it is spurious, for when 
 you make that assertion you simply beg the question. 
 To beg the question in argument is like asking a knight 
 or a castle of your opponent in a game of chess. It is a 
 sign of conscious weakness, 
 
 Ingersoll — " We have the right to rejudge the justice 
 even of a god." 
 
 Comment — If by '*a god" you mean some deity of 
 heathen mythology, I cannot stop to consider it. If you 
 mean the infinite Being, whom Christians call God, I deny 
 your right or competency to rejudge his justice, for rea- 
 sons which I have already given, and which I need not 
 here repeat. It is sufficient to .say that the finite cannot 
 be the measure of the infinite. 
 
 Ingersoll — "No one should throw away his reason — 
 the fruit of all experience." 
 
 Comment — Your purpose here is to leave the impres- 
 sion that, to be a Christian, a man must throw away his 
 reason. Man's reason is a gift of God, and God requires 
 him to exercise and use it, and not throw it away. And 
 he will one day ask him to give a strict account of the 
 use he has made of it. While telling us not to throw 
 away our reason, you give a good illustration of how it 
 can be thrown away. Thus you say: 
 
 Ingersoll — " Reason is the result of all experience." 
 
58 NOTES ON INGERSOLL. 
 
 Comment — When you make reason the result of expe- 
 rience you destroy its proper entity. Experience is im- 
 possible without something that experiences. What is it 
 that experiences? Reason? No; for if reason is the re- 
 suit of experience it cannot exist until after the expe- 
 rience has been completed. What then is it that experi- 
 ences? The individual? But the individual minus reason 
 is incapable of apprehending experience. What then is 
 it that experiences? There must be some being that ex- 
 periences, for experience cannot exist without a subject. 
 The mind? But mind and reason are identical. Reason 
 is the mind, in action. The fact is, human reason, or 
 conscious mind is that which experiences; it is therefore 
 prior to experience, and since it is prior to experience, it 
 cannot be a result of it. Without reason experience is im- 
 possible, and therefore when you make reason the result 
 of experience you throw away both reason and experi- 
 ence. This is the logical result of your proposition. 
 Again you say: 
 
 Ingersoll—" Reason is the fruit oi all experience." 
 Comment — By this "all" you mean, I suppose, the 
 experience of all mankind together with your own. But 
 you have barred yourself from the right to benefit by the 
 experience of others, for that experience can be made 
 known to you only by assertions or propositions. Now, 
 you have declared ex cathedra that assertions are base 
 and spurious coins, and rejected with contempt the state- 
 ments of the dead past, by which alone the experience of 
 the human race €an be known. You have sawed off the 
 limb on which you sit, and deprived yourself of all expe- 
 rienoe except your own. 
 
QUEER ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON. 59 
 
 Ingersoll — "It (reason) is the intellectual capital of 
 the soul, the only light, the only guide^." 
 
 Comment — Reason is the soul or intellect itself in con- 
 scious action; hence it cannot be its own intellectual 
 capital, or its only light and guide. You se*m to forget 
 what you have said before, namely, that reason is the re- 
 sult of experience. Now, to say that reason is the only 
 light and guide of the soul, and at the same time the re- 
 sult of experience, is to contradict yourself. What lights 
 and guides the soul while it is experiencing? Reason? 
 No; for you have told us that reason is the result of that 
 experience. A result is an effect, and an effect cannot 
 be prior to its cause. It follows, then, from your own defi- 
 nition, that reason is not and cannot be the only light or 
 guide of the soul. But even if you had not contradicted 
 yourself egregiously, your assertion that reason is the only 
 light, etc., cannot be accepted, for it is a pitiable begging of 
 the whole question at issue — a denial of revelation as a 
 guide to reason, and this you will see is the point between 
 you and the Christian. Your statement thus cunningly 
 assumes, as proved, that which you set out to prove. This 
 is one of the peculiarities of your method in debate. It 
 is on this account that I am under the necessity of an- 
 alyzing almost every assertion you make. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 ox THE TEN commandments; AND ART THE WIFE AND 
 
 OTHER VALUABLE PROPERTY. 
 
 INGERSOLL— " Of course it is admitted that most 
 of the Ten Commandments are wise and just." 
 
 Comment — Most? Why this indefinite limitation? Is 
 it candid to make a limitation so indefinite as to leave 
 you room to dodge? Why not specify which, if any, are 
 not wise and just? Christians are bound and ready to 
 defend them all. Why not point out an unwise or unjust 
 Commandment, that we may come to a direct issue? 
 
 Ingersoll — " In passing, it may be well enough to 
 say that the commandment, * Thou shalt not make unto 
 thee any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is 
 in the heaven above, or that is in tlie eartli beneath, or 
 that is in the waters under the eai th,* was the absolute 
 death of art, and that not until the destruction of Jeru- 
 salem was there a Hebrew painter or sculptor." 
 
 Comment — There are two assertions here. First, that 
 the Commandment quoted was the absolute death of art, 
 and second, that before the destruction of Jerusalem 
 there was no Hebrew painter or sculptor. The first in- 
 volves a question of interpretation, the second, a question 
 of history. 
 
 Now, I deny both these assertions, and hold that they 
 have no foundation in fact. Here is a direct issue. 
 60 
 
tHE TEN COMMANDMENTS. 6 1 
 
 As to the Commandment, it could not have been the 
 absolute death of art unless it forbade art. But it did not 
 forbid or condemn art, therefore it was not the death of 
 art. Was it candid or honorable in you to suppress that 
 part of the Commandment which explains and makes 
 clear the meaning of that which you quoted? If you 
 garbled the law in quoting it in a court of justice, would 
 not the judge look upon you as an unprincipled shyster? 
 Would he not be justified in debarring you for contempt, 
 in trying to deceive and mislead the court? You are 
 fond of preaching candor and honor bright. Was it can- 
 did or honorable to leave out of your quotation that sen- 
 tence which would have left your assertion without truth, 
 force or point? But you were determined to make your 
 point even if you had to garble the law you quoted, in 
 making it. The sentence you so uncandidly suppressed 
 is this: '* Thou shall not adore them (i. e. images) nor 
 serve them." This clause, suppressed by you, explains 
 the meaning of what goes before, showing that it was 
 not the making of images, but the making gods of them, 
 that was forbidden. That this is the meaning of the Com- 
 mandment is evident from the fact that the same God 
 who spoke in the First Commandment subsequently 
 ordered images to be made. Moses explains the meaning 
 still further when he says: (Exodus, 20-23) "You shall 
 not make gods of silver, nor shall you make gods of 
 gold." Again, the great Hebrew lawgiver was com- 
 manded to place two cherubim on the very ark in which 
 the Commandments were kept. He was also commanded 
 to make the brazen serpent, (Numbers 21-6 to 8). In 
 the description of Solomon's temple we read of that 
 
62 NOTES ON INGERSOLL. 
 
 prince, not only that he made, in the oracle, two cherubim 
 of olive-tree, of ten cubits high (i Kings 6-23), but that 
 "all the walls of the temple round about he ca rued with 
 divers figures and carvings." (i Kings 6-29 and following 
 verses. This whole chapter abounds with descriptions of 
 works of art.) When David imposed upon Solomon the 
 injunction of building the house of the Lord, he delivered 
 to him a description of the porch and temple and con- 
 cluded by saying: " All these things came to me, written 
 by the hand of the Lord, that I might understand all the 
 works of the pattern." (i Chronicles 28-11, 19.) Thus we 
 see that God not only commanded the making of images 
 but that He actually exhibited the pattern. And yet you 
 sniffle that He killed art. 
 
 Now God who gave the Commandment, and the Jew- 
 ish people who received it, had a better knowledge of 
 its meaning than you dare pretend to have. David and 
 Solomon understood the law, and it did not occur to them 
 that they were breaking it when they made cherubim and 
 other images for adornment and ornamenlalion. 
 
 But this commandment, you say, was the death — and 
 not only the death, but the absolute death of art. What 
 infatuation has taken possession of you to say this in the 
 face of that magnificent temple of Jerusalem and all the 
 works of art it contained ? Was not the temple itself a 
 work of art ? And those images, were they not works 
 of art ? Since the commandment as interpreted by its 
 maker — not by you — did not forbid the making of im- 
 ages, it could not have affected art, unless you claim for 
 art the right to worship false gods and idols. If, there- 
 fore, the Jews were not artists you must seek the reason 
 
VALUABLE PROPERTY. 6^ 
 
 elsewhere than in this First Commandment. But if you 
 condemn the Jews for not cultivating art why is it that 
 you have no words of commendation for Christianity un- 
 der whose inspiration and influence art was brought to 
 its highest development ? 
 
 Ingersoll — "Not until the destruction of Jerusalem 
 was there a Hebrew sculptor or painter." 
 
 Comment — Well then who " sculped" the cherubim 
 and other ornamentations for the temple of Jerusalem ? 
 Who made the cherubim to ornament the ark of the cove- 
 nant ? Who made the golden calf and the brazen ser- 
 pent ? Surely, it requires all the brass of the brazen ser- 
 pent to say, in the face of all this, that " there was no He- 
 brew sculptor before the destruction of Jerusalem." 
 
 Ingersoll — **Surely a commandment is not inspired 
 that drives from earth the living canvas and the breath- 
 ing stone — leaves all walls bare, and all the niches deso- 
 late." 
 
 Comment- -Surely the inventor of this curious crite- 
 rion of inspiration deserves recognition of some kind. 
 But this lachrymose ejaculation is entirely uncalled for, 
 since the Commandment, when not garbled by you, does 
 not forbid the living canvas or the breathing stone, the 
 frescoed wall or ornamented niche. As we have seen, the 
 First Commandment'has nothing to do with art, one way 
 or the other. But even if it did banish the living canvas 
 etc., from the earth, it would not follow that it is not in- 
 spired. Your "surely it is not inspired" is no proof against 
 inspiration. One who worships reason and logic should 
 exhibit more of both. 
 
 From what you say about Art, it is evident that you do 
 
64 NOtES ON INGERSOLL. 
 
 not know its meaning and scope. You limit it to sculp- 
 ture and painting because you imagine these two forms of 
 art are forbidden by the Commandment. Art is broader 
 than that. I will give you a definition of art, which will, 
 if you study it well, prevent you in future from showing 
 your ears to quiet, thoughtful men who have gone somewhat 
 deeper than you have into philosophy and theology. Art 
 is the expression or manifestation of the Beautiful. It is 
 an appeal by symbolism to the senses. It treats of color 
 and form which are an appeal to vision; letters and other 
 outlines which are an appeal to the intellect through the 
 medium of sight; vibratory motion which appeals to the 
 sense of hearing — called music; tangible forms which talk 
 to the sense of feeling; and combinations which appeal to 
 the taste. 
 
 Now, the death of Art is the destruction of all these 
 methods of expression. Do you pretend to say that the 
 First Commandment destroys or forbids all these methods 
 of expressing or manifesting the Beautiful ? No. Well 
 then the First Commandment is not the death of Art, even 
 if I should grant all you claim, which of course I do not. 
 Poetry is an art — and where can you find more sublime 
 specimens of it than in the psalms of David, the Book of 
 Job, the majestic flights of Isaiah, and the soul-piercing 
 threnodies of Jeremiah ? Here we have the highest genius 
 and the highest art. And yet because they did not daub 
 lecherous pictures on canvas, or cut naked Venuses out 
 of stone, they were not artists. The commandment was 
 the death of art! — trash. 
 
 Ingersoll — " In the Tenth Commandment we find 
 women placed on an exact equality with other property, 
 
VALUABLE PROPERTY. 65 
 
 which, to say the least of it, has never tended to the amel- 
 ioration of her condition." 
 
 Comment — The relative nature of persons and things 
 protected by law is not measured by the law that protects 
 them. A law may forbid murder and theft at the same 
 time without placing these two crimes on the same plane, or 
 an exact equality. As a lawyer you should be familiar with 
 this fact. This Tenth Commandment forbids to covet a 
 neighbor's wife, and at the same time it forbids to covet 
 his property. This prohibition, you will admit, is wise and 
 just when it refers to that which is most beloved of and 
 sacred to man. It is equally wise and just when it pro- 
 tects that which is of les¥ value or importance to him. 
 Now, do you pretend to say that these two objects cannot 
 be at the same time forbidden without putting them on an 
 exact equality? If the Commandment had not mentioned 
 a wife you would have taken advantage of the ommission 
 and held that it left the wife at the mercy of the profli- 
 gate, or that it placed a higher estimate on the husband's 
 horse or ox than on the wife of his bosom, or that it pro- 
 tected the one wliile it failed to protect the other. So, 
 whether the command forbids to covet a neighbor's wife, 
 or is silent on the subject, you are not satisfied. You are 
 like the Frenchman who was to be hanged, neither a long 
 nor a short rope would suit him. 
 
 But again: as a lawyer you should know that the dis- 
 tinction between objects protected or forbidden by law 
 is not to be found in the law, but in the punishment in- 
 flicted by the law. The civil law forbids alike the steal- 
 ing of fifty cents and one hundred dollars. Does the law 
 put these sums on an exact equality? No; for it sends 
 
66 NCFES ON INGERSOLL. 
 
 the fifty-cent thief to jail, while it sends the more am- 
 bitious fellow to State's prison. In the same way the 
 Jewish criminal code condemned the wife-stealer to death, 
 while he who stole an ox was required to return it and 
 pay a heavy fine. From the difference of punishment 
 you can see that the Commandment, as understood by 
 those to whom it was given, made a distinction between 
 a wife and an ox, and did not place them on an " exact 
 equality." 
 
 You argue like a man who places much confidence in 
 the credulity or gullibility of his readers, and imagines 
 that while a few may investigate and know the truth, the 
 larger number will take his word for it, and inquire no 
 further. This policy shows a good knowledge of human 
 nature, for the average man is not overburdened with 
 the faculty of discrimination. He is apt to place too much 
 confidence in the ignorant statements of that monumental 
 bore of modern times, the roving lecturer — admission 
 fifty cents. 
 
CHAPTER VTTT. 
 
 ONMURDER— CAN A ANITES- CAPTIVE MAIDENS— MARAUD- 
 ING— LYING SPIRITS AND FALSE PROPHETS. 
 
 INGERSOLL—" He (God) ordered the murder of 
 millions." 
 Comment— He never authorized or ordered the mur- 
 der oi any one, from Abel to Garfield. God is the author 
 and giver of life, and those he places on this earth he 
 can remove at his will. No man has a right to live one 
 instant longer in this world than his Crea:or wills him to 
 remain, be he yet unborn, or innocent, or guilty. As 
 creatures of God we are absolutely his, and can have no 
 rights whatever as against him. To God the death of 
 man is but the passing from one state of exi-stence to an- 
 other, from one department to another in the same uni- 
 verse. Death is not annihilation, or reabsorption into the 
 elements of matter, but a transportation from one state 
 to another in which man retains his individuality and 
 conscious identity as truly and really as does he who 
 passes from one room to another in the same house. 
 Physical death, therefore, is a trifling circumstance in 
 man's immortal career. Now, he who has the absolute 
 right to transpose man from one state of being to another, 
 has equally the right to select the method of his removal, 
 
68 NOTES ON INGERSOLL. 
 
 whether by old age, disease, the deluge, the sword, or by 
 what we call accidents. By whatever method man is 
 withdrawn from life's fitful fever, his death is in pursuance 
 of the original sentence passed on the race by an infinitely 
 just Judge. This sentence awaits you, and your philos- 
 ophy will not obtain you a stay of proceedings or an ex- 
 emption. 
 
 But to return. He who has the absolute right to take 
 Mfe, cannot be guilty of murder in taking it, for murder 
 is an unjust killing, and there is no unjust killing in the 
 taking of life by him who has the absolute right to lake 
 it. There is no escape from this reasoning except by 
 denying the absolute right, and you cannot dt ny this but 
 by denying God's existence; for on the hypothesis that 
 he exists, he is Creator, and being Creator, the absolute 
 right of dominion over his creatures" necessarily follows. 
 Then in the last analysis, to deny this right is to deny 
 God's existence. But you cannot logically deny his ex- 
 istence, since you say in your lecture on " Skulls" that 
 you do not know whether he exists or not. 
 
 It follows from what has been said that when God or- 
 dered the execution of the guilty Canaanites it was not a 
 command to murder. Nor was it a violation of his own 
 Commandment, for it was unjust killing that he forbade, 
 and the destruction of that guilty people was just, be- 
 cause ordered by him who had the absolute right to order 
 it, whether they were guilty or not. 
 
 I have dwelt at some length on the absolute right of 
 dominion of the Creator over his creatures, because you 
 harp on what you call his murders through your whole 
 article. That which one has an absolute right to take at 
 
ON MURDER. 69 
 
 any and all times, one cannot be unjust in taking when 
 he pleases. 
 
 As to the Canaanites, they were guilty of death, al- 
 though they vvere not put to death, but driven from Pal- 
 estine in about the same manner that tlie Whites are 
 driving the Indians from the homesj)f their forefathers. 
 The unparelleled wickedness and filtliy abominations of 
 the seven nations of Palestine, commonly called Canaan- 
 ites, were such as to make their national expulsion or ex- 
 termination a just punishment and a useful lesson to 
 other nations. The nature of their crimes may be found 
 in the eighteenth chapter of Leviticus. Read that chap- 
 ter, and you will understand why Jehovah held these 
 beastly people in abiiorrence. The Mormons and Oneida 
 Communists are as pure as the driven snow in compari- 
 son with them. To give the reader an idea of their in- 
 credible debasement, I quote some verses from the end 
 of the chapter wherein God warns the Hebrews not to 
 imitate their example: 
 
 "Defile not yourselves with any of these things with 
 which all the nations have been defiled, which I will cast 
 out before you. And with which the land is defiled; the 
 abominations of which I will visit; that it may vomit out 
 its inhabitants. Keep ye my ordinances and judgments, 
 and do not any of these abominations. * * For all 
 thesci detestable things, the inhabitants of the land (Ca- 
 naanites, Amhorites) have done that were before you, and 
 have defiled it. Beware of them lest in like manner it 
 vomit you also out, if you do like things, as it vomited 
 out the nation that was before you. Every soul that shall 
 commit any of these abominations, shall perish from the 
 midst of his people." 
 
70 NOTES ON INGERSOLL. 
 
 These abominations are described in the first part of 
 the chapter. Read it carefully that you may know the 
 abominable wretches you sympathize with. 
 
 The author of the Book of Wisdom describes some of the 
 sins of those people, and justifies their punishment in 
 words tliat I cannot do better than quote: 
 
 "Thou chastisest them that err, by little and little; and 
 admonishest them, and speakest to them, concerning the 
 things wherein they offend; liiat leaving their wickedness 
 they may believe in thee. For those ancient inhabitants 
 of the holy land, whom thou didst abhor, because they 
 did works hateful to thee by their sorceries and wicked 
 sacrifices, and those merciless murderers of their own 
 children, and eaters of man's bowels, and devourers of 
 blood from the midst of thy consecration; and those pa- 
 rents sacrificing with their own hands helpless souls, it 
 was thy will to destroy by the hands of our parents. * * 
 Yet even those, thou sparedst as men, and did send wasps 
 forerunners of thy host, to destroy them little by little. 
 Not that thou wast not able to bring the wicked under 
 the just by war, or by cruel beasts, or with one rough 
 word to destroy them at once. But executing thy judg- 
 ment by degrees thou gavest them a place of repentance, 
 not being ignorant that they were a wicked generation 
 and their malice natural, and that their thought could 
 never be changed. * * Neither didst thou, for fear of any 
 one, give pardon to their sins. For who shall say to thee: 
 What hast thou done ? or who shall withstand thy judg- 
 ments ? or who shall come before thee to be a revenger 
 of wicked men ? or who shall accuse thee if the nations 
 perish, which thou hast made ? For there is n© other God 
 
ON MURJJER. 71 
 
 but th©u, who hast care of all, tkat thou shouldst show 
 that thou dost not give judgment unjustly. Neither shdl 
 king nor tyrant in tliy sight inquire about them, wliom thou 
 hast destroyed. For so much then as thou art just, thou 
 orderest all things justly; thinking it not agreeable to thy 
 power to condemn him who deservest not to be punished. 
 For thy power is the beginning of justice, and because 
 thou art Lord of all, thou makest thyself gracious to all. 
 For thou showest thy power, when men will not believe 
 thee to be absolute in power, and thou convincest the 
 boldness of them that know thee not. But thou, being mas- 
 ter of power, judgest with tranquillity, and with great 
 favor disposest of us, for thy power is at hand when thou 
 wilt. * * Tliou hast made thy children to be of good hope, 
 because in judging, ihou givest place for repentance for sins. 
 For if thou didst punish the enemies of thy servants, and 
 them that deserved to die, with so great deliberation, 
 giving them time and place whereby they might be changed 
 from tJieir wickedness, with what circumspection hast thou 
 judged thy own children, * * therefore whereas thou 
 chastisest us, thou scourgest our enemies in very many 
 ways, to the end that when we judge tve may think on thy 
 goodness, when we may be judged, we may hope for thy mercy. 
 Wherefore thou hast also greatly tormented them who in 
 their life haye lived foolishly and ungodly, by the same 
 things which they worshipped. For they went astray for 
 a long time in the ways of error, holding those things for 
 gods which are the most worthless among beasts, livmg 
 after the manner of children without understanding. 
 Therefore thou hast sent a judgment upon them. * * But 
 they that were not amended by mockeries and reprehen- 
 
n 
 
 NOTES ON INGERSOLL. 
 
 sions, experienced the worthy fudgment of God." (Wis- 
 dom, Chapter xii.) 
 
 Here we find that those people, whom you beslaver 
 with your gushing sympathy, were sorcerers, murderers 
 of their own children, offering them with their own hands 
 in sacrifice to idols, and man-eaters. On the other hand 
 we learn the merciful way in which Jehovah warned 
 them and gave them time and place for repentance. 
 When they rejected his mercy he punished tliem with 
 justice, and, for doing this, you accuse him of murder. 
 Those who, knowing the crimes of these people, condemn 
 the punishment inflicted on ihem are as guilty as they. 
 You condemn Mormonism and Oneida communism, and 
 yet you volunteer to advocate those bestial Sodomites of 
 Canaan whose unnatural crimes disgraced the race to 
 which they belonged, and contaminated the land which 
 God liad given them to dwell in. 
 
 '*A fellow-feeling makes us wondrous kind." 
 
 Ingersoll — "He (God) gave captive maidens to grat- 
 ify the lust of captors." 
 
 Comment — If I were an infidel or an atheist zealous 
 for the success of the cause, I would counsel you to be 
 less reckless in your statements. Every cause, good or 
 bad, suffers from injudicious advocates. The most in- 
 judicious of all advocates is he who makes a baseless as- 
 sertion or an appeal to ignorance, because he excites 
 suspicion apd brings discredit on the cause he advocates. 
 I flatly deny the truth of your statement given above, and 
 appeal to the only record that can give us any informa* 
 
MARAUDING. 73 
 
 tion on the subject, namely, the Old Testament. The 
 Hebrew military laws did not abandon captive women to 
 the insolence or brutality of captors. On the contrary, 
 they made special provision forbidding the first familiar- 
 ities of the soldier with his captives. If you study the 
 twenty-first chapter of Deuteronomy, verses lo to 14, you 
 will learn that the soldier was obliged to make the captive 
 his wife, or to respect her person and honor. Instead of 
 tolerating that licentiousness which the customs and laws 
 of other nations autliorized, the laws of the Hebrews kept 
 the soldier in restraint. They show that the Hebrews 
 were far in advance of other nations in all those regula- 
 tions that mitigate the horrors of war. The pagan nations 
 of that time allowed every familiarity with captives, and 
 afterwards they were sold as slaves, or given to the lust 
 of slaves. This was strictly and specifically forbidden by 
 the Hebrew law. And yet in the face of all this, you 
 have tlie effrontery to charge the Almighty witli permit- 
 ting the Jews to do that which he forbade, and which 
 they alone, of all ancient nations, prohibited by strict and 
 specific laws. What will honest men of common sense 
 think of a philosophy that has to be propped and bol- 
 stered up by sucli shameless misrepresentations of history? 
 
 Ingersoll — " He (God) gave to Jewish marauders the 
 flocks and herds of others." 
 
 Comment — Those marauders, as you call them, could 
 not possibly have had a better title. God, as Creator of 
 all, has absolute dominion over all things, and against his 
 title there is none. The right to confiscate property is 
 recogn>2ed as existing in all civil societ} ; now civil 
 society -.annot possess and exercise a higher right than its 
 
y^ NOTES ON INGERSDLL. 
 
 Creator. Our government confiscated millions of dollars' 
 worth of property during the late war, yet it never oc- 
 curred to any one but a simian philosopher that such 
 confiscation was stealing. The cause that justifies the 
 war justifies the confiscation. 
 
 After the battle of Shiloh, I saw hundreds of wagon- 
 loads of cottoii passing North towards Pittsburg Landing. 
 It belonged to the Southern people, and the government 
 had taken it and sold it to Northern speculators, or ma- 
 rauders as you would call them. It was the Southman's 
 flock and herd. The government had confiscated it and 
 given it away for a consideration. You vindicate this 
 measure, and you are .right in doing so. But on what 
 principle can you justify our government in confiscating 
 the property of its enemies while you condemn the same 
 measure when practised by the Hebrew government? 
 Confiscation is a war measure, and it is a merciful one, 
 because it tends to end war. 
 
 Ingersoll — " He (God) sent abroad lying spirits to 
 deceive his own prophets.'* 
 
 Comment — I will give one hundred dollars to the poor 
 of this village if you or any of your disciples will make 
 good your statement. I am familiar with the texts in 
 Kings and Ezechiel which you probably imagine will bear 
 you out, but if you carefully compare those texts with 
 your statement you will find that your zeal has run away 
 with your discretion, and that your hatred of your Maker 
 is more intense than your love for the truth. 
 
 God abhors lying spirits, false prophets, false philos- 
 ophers and deceivers of all kinds, ancient and modern, 
 and yet he permits them to exist because he cannot make 
 
LYING SPIRITS AND FALSE PROPHETS. 
 
 75 
 
 them impossible without destroying free will or human 
 liberty. There were laws enacted condemning these false 
 prophets and other popular seducers, but these laws were 
 not enforced because the false, prophets, etc., flattered 
 the passions of the people, telling them pleasant things. 
 They were popular lecturers in their day, and they did 
 not die without issue. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 RELIGIOUS TOLERATION — FREE THOUGHT, AND TREASON. 
 
 INGERSOLL— " The religious intolerance of tiie Old 
 Testament' is justified upon the ground that 'blasphemy 
 was a breach of political allegiance,' and that idolatry 
 was an act of overt treason, and that ' to worship the gods 
 of the hostile heathen was deserting to the public enemy, 
 and giving him aid and comfort.*" 
 
 Comment — If these positions of Mr. Black are well 
 taken it is difficult to see how you can escape their logical 
 consequence. For you must admit that overt treason, 
 breach of political allegiance, and giving aid and comfort 
 to the enemy, are crimes that merit severe punishment. 
 If you were a logician you would have known that to re- 
 fute Mr. Black you should have shown that blasphemy 
 and idolatry were not overt acts of treason. This you 
 did not even attempt to do. Hence, so far as argument 
 is concerned, Mr. Black has justified what you call the in- 
 tolerance of the Old Testament. Is a government intol- 
 erant because it will not tolerate treason? If not, then 
 the Jewish government was not intolerant, and the fact 
 that God was its direct ruler does not change the nature 
 of the case. Every government that is wort3^y of the 
 name must be intolerant of all those things that touch its 
 supreme authority, majesty and honor. The Southern 
 76 
 
RELIGIOUS TOLERATION. 77 
 
 revolt was no more treason against the United States 
 government, tlian were idolatry and blasphemy against 
 the Jewish government. You became a Colonel to assist 
 the government to punish that attack on its supreme 
 authority, majesty and honor. What new light has pene- 
 trated your skull that you now defend treason in Tudea? 
 Is it because God, against whom you seem to have a per- 
 sonal grudge, was the direct ruler there? If you should 
 carry out your theories of toleration to their logical con- 
 clusion and realize them in overt acts in this country you 
 would find yourself in due time dangling from a gibbet. 
 It does not seem to have occurred to you that it was 
 necessary to disprove Mr. Black's statement, that idolatry 
 was treason, before you could drive him from his position. 
 If you grant that idolatry was treason against the Jewish 
 state you give away your case, and justify the punish- 
 ment which that state inflicted on the idolater. No man 
 with an atom of sense will attempt to deny this. To meet 
 Mr. Black squarely and logically you should have proved 
 that idolatry was not treason, and if you could not do 
 this, as most certainly you could not, you should have 
 " walked up like a man" and admitted that the Jews were 
 right, and not only right, but were bound to punish idol- 
 atry and blasphemy with de^th, as treason is punished in 
 all times and by all nations, whether God is the immedi- 
 ate head of the government or not. 
 
 Ingersoll — "According to Mr. Black, we should all 
 have liberty of conscience except when directly governed 
 by God." 
 
 Comment — If by " liberty of conscience" you mean 
 liberty to commit overt acts of treason, you should not 
 
78 NOTES ON INGERSOLL. 
 
 need to be told that such liberty of conscience is not, and 
 should not be, permitted to exist anywhere, not even in 
 badly-regulated lunatic asylums. 
 
 The slave-holder's conscience told him that secession 
 was right. As long as his conscience was purely specu- 
 lative the government of the United States allowed him 
 to amuse himself with it. But when he formulated that 
 conscience of his into overt acts, such as firing on Fort 
 Sumpter, the government sent Col. Ingersoll and other 
 embryo Caesars down to interview and inform him that 
 liberty of conscience was a good thing in its way — a 
 something to keep his mind busy — but if he was such a 
 consummate ass as to imagine that the United States 
 government intended him \o practise that liberty publicly 
 he would have to readjust his ideas about it on a more 
 solid basis. 
 
 Just so with idolatry and blasphemy under the Jewish 
 government. A man might be an idolater in his heart, 
 lie might think "damn" to any extent, without becoming 
 amenable to the Jewish criminal code, but when he for- 
 mulated his conscience into overt acts of treason the sword 
 of Gideon was unsheathed. 
 
 The Mormon heard of this " liberty of conscience," 
 and "freedom of thought. 'e And taking you at your 
 word, and thinking that vour motto of *^honor bright" 
 meant something, he believed he was conscience free. 
 He concluded to take unto him two wives. Judge of his 
 astonishment when he heard your denunciations of him. 
 He concluded, as every man possessing even a suspicion 
 of brains will conclude, that all your talk about liberty 
 of conscience and liberty of thought is mere misleading 
 
RELIGIOUS TOLERATION. 79 
 
 twaddle. It appears that " liberty of conscience" means, 
 according to you, only the right to do what you approve 
 of. You condemn polygamy. Do you not make your 
 judgment the limit of the Mormon's liberty of con- 
 science? Jehovah made his judgment the limit of liberty 
 for tiie Jew, and you condemn him for it, while you draw 
 a circle of limitation around the Mormon. You should 
 try to be consistent. 
 
 Ingersoll — " In that country where God is king 
 liberty cannot exist." 
 
 Comment — This is your conclusion, not Mr. Black's. 
 Grant society or government, and it is of no consequence 
 whether X, Y, or Z is its king; the principli? of its action 
 must be the same in reference to those things which touch 
 its Authority. 
 
 The most perfect liberty exists where the most perfect 
 government exists — that you will admit. The most per- 
 fect government is that which is directed by the most 
 perfect wisdom and judgment, which are attributes of 
 the most perfect being only. God is the most perfect 
 being; that you must admit if you admit his existence. 
 Then it follows that where God directs the government, 
 there the most perfect liberty exists. By liberty I, of 
 course, mean the right to do right. The right or liberty 
 to do wrong is claimed by no civilized government on 
 earth that assumes to decide between right and wrong; 
 nor does any government admit such right in those sub- 
 ject to its authority. There are individuals, of course, 
 who claim the liberty to do wrong, but they are com- 
 paratively few. Some of them have died suddenly and 
 prematurely by dislocation of the neck, and some others 
 
So NOTES ON INGERSOLL. 
 
 are in the penitentiary. Poor encouragement for disciples 
 of liberty of license and heroes of free thought. 
 
 Ingersoll — '* Within the Old Testament was no such 
 thing as religious toleration." 
 
 Comment — Certainly not, and for the very sufficient 
 reason given by Mr. Black. Religious toleration meant 
 liberty of treason". Mr. Black told you that idolatry was 
 treason against the state and against its recognized ruler. 
 The Jewish nation could no more tolerate treason than 
 any other government can tolerate it. 
 
 Ingersoll — " Within that volume can be fouiid no 
 mercy for the unbeliever." 
 
 Comment — If unbelief culminates in persistent trea- 
 son, it finds no mercy under any government worthy of 
 the name. • 
 
 Ingersoll — " For all who think for themselves, there 
 are threatening curses and anathemas." 
 
 Comment — This I deny. Thinking for oneself is not 
 forbidden. Thinking is an act of which from its nature 
 government can take no cognizance. The punishment 
 inflicted by the Jewish law was for over^ acts. Thought 
 was punished only when it was treasonable, and when 
 put forth in overt act. There is a huge fallacy in all this 
 cant about freedom of thought, thinking as we please, etc. 
 The intellect — I mean, of course, a sane intellect — is gov- 
 erned by motives and principles of reason, not by the 
 whims of the will. Will to think that two and two make 
 five, or that paralled lines will meet, and see if your rea- 
 son will tolerate it. 
 
 Ingersoll — "Think of an infinite Being who is so 
 cruel, so unjust, that he will not allow his children liberty 
 of thought." 
 
FREE THOUGHT. 8l 
 
 Comment — It is because he is infinite that he cannot 
 saaction error, idolatry, and other moral evils. Because 
 he is infinite, he cannot permit his children to disobey his 
 known will, or to reject his teachings as if he were a liar. 
 The only liberty of thought which he does not allow is 
 the liberty to think error, to meditate evil, to plan crime. 
 Do you insist on this kind of thinking? If so, be wise 
 and keep it carefully in your thought, for if you reduce 
 this liberty to act it may lead to the penitentiary, where 
 there are many philosophers of liberty of thought. 
 
 Ingersoll — ''Think of an infinite God aciing as the 
 direct governor of a people, and yet not able to command 
 their love !" 
 
 Comment — It is, indeed, a subject worthy of careful 
 thought. God freed that people from the bondage of Egypt 
 by a series of most wonderful miracles, fed them, for 
 nearly half a century, in the desert, gave them the land of 
 Palestine to live in, and blessed them in a thousand ways, 
 and yet he could not command their love! Verily they 
 were a stiff-necked people. This want of appreciation 
 of the divine beneficence is one of the most convincing 
 proofs of man's original fall. 
 
 Ingersoll — " Think of the author of all mercy im- 
 bruing his hands in the blood of helpless men, women 
 and children simply because he did not ftirnish them ivith 
 intelligence e?iough to understand his law/'* 
 
 Comment — Think of a man who is always talking about 
 " honor bright," manhood, and truth, making such a false 
 and groundless statement to intelligent readers. I have 
 italicized the words in the above quotation which contain 
 a blasphemous fallacy. On what evidence or authority 
 
82 NOTES ON INGERSOLL. 
 
 do you assert that men, etc., were punished simply because 
 they had 7iot intelligence enough to understand the law? 
 What evidence have you that they did not understand the 
 law? Did those who were punished ever make this plea 
 in extenuation of their crimes ? This calumny against 
 your Creator and Judge is an invention of your own, pure 
 and simple. It is a principle of revealed ethics that 
 those who have not intelligence enough to understand 
 the law are not bound by the law, and that idiots and 
 the insane are not judged by the law. 
 
 You quote a passage from Deuteronomy xiii., wherein 
 death is decreed against those who entice others to cooi'^ 
 mit idolatry, and you add: 
 
 Ingersoll— " This is the religious liberty of the Bible." 
 
 Comment — Now, as we have seen, idolatry was treason 
 against the state. Do you mean by religious liberty the 
 right to commit treason? If so, religious liberty is in- 
 compatible with social order, making all forms of gov- 
 ernment impossible. We have a case in point. Major 
 Andre enticed Arnold to commit treason. Was Wash- 
 ington an enemy of liberty because he hung fhe spy? 
 
 Ingersoll — " If you had lived in Palestine, and if the 
 wife of your bosom, dearer to you than your own soul, 
 had said: * I like the religion of India better than that of 
 Palestine/ it would have been your duty to kill her." 
 
 Comment — This is not true, for the law forbids the en- 
 ticing to idolatry, to acts of treason. And the mere ex- 
 pression of an opinion, although it showed bad taste and 
 worse judgment on the part of the wife, yet her silly say- 
 ing was not what was forbidden by the law. 
 
TREASON. B$ 
 
 Ingersoll — "If she had said: 'Let us worship the 
 sun,' it was your duty to kill her." 
 
 Comment — Here we have a clear case of enticing to 
 treason, which is itself treason. Idolatry was treason 
 against the sovereign of the Jewish state. The laws of 
 all nations punish treason with death, and we cannot see 
 that it makes any difference whether the traitor be a man 
 or a woman. The traitor should be removed from the 
 body politic as you would remove a cancer from your 
 jaw, your mawkish sentimentalism to the contrary not- 
 withstanding. 
 
 Ingersoll— " Is it possible that a being of infinite 
 mercy ordered a husband to kill his wife for the crime 
 of having expressed an opinion on the subject of re- 
 ligion?" 
 
 Comment — The law you quoted from Deuteronomy 
 says nothing about expressing an opinion on the subject 
 of religion. It says: " If thy brother, tl^y son, thy 
 daughter, or the wife of thy bosom * * eniice thee 
 secretly, saying: Let us go and serve other gods'' It seems 
 that there is something more here than the mere expres- 
 sion of an opinion on the subject of religion. 
 
 Ingersoll — " Has there been found upon the records 
 of the savage world anything more perfectly fiendish than 
 this commandment of Jehovah?" 
 
 Comment — I do not know much about the records of 
 the savage world, or that savages were given to keeping 
 records, but I do know that the law which punishes treason 
 with death is to be found upon the records of all civilized 
 nations on earth. 
 
 Ingersoll — "This is justified on the ground that bias- 
 
84 NOTES ON INGF.RSOLL. 
 
 phemy was a breach, of political allegiance, and idolatry 
 an act of overt treason." 
 
 Comment — And if you were possessed of average log- 
 ical acumen you would see that, until you overthrow that 
 position, tlie justification is complete. There are only 
 two ways by wliicli Mr. Black's position can be over- 
 thrown. First, by denying his statement as a historical 
 fact, or, second, by proving that treason is not a crime, 
 and should not be punished with death. You do not at- 
 tempt eiiiier of these modes of refutation. You content 
 yourself with giving a half-page of the softest and sflliest 
 kind of gus:i, in which you exhibit, to a remarkable degree 
 the faculty of Goldsmith's schoolmaster who, although 
 beaten , could argue still. Here is a-specimen of your style 
 of argument: 
 
 Ingersoll — "We can understand how a human king 
 stands in need of the services of his people. We can 
 understand how the desertion of any of his soldiers 
 weakens his army; but were the king infinite in power, 
 his strength would still remain the same, and, under no 
 conceivable circumstance, could the enemy triumph." 
 
 Comment — While you are understanding so many 
 things it would be well to understand that God does not 
 inflict punishment because he fears the loss of power, 
 but because he must insist upon respect and obedience 
 to his supreme authority — he cannot permit himself to be 
 treated as an idiot king or as a liar. You should also un- 
 derstand that the guilt of treason does not depend on its 
 success. Is treason any the less criminal because it is 
 committed against God ? or must he refrain from the ex- 
 ercise of power to compel obedience simply because he 
 is all-powerful ? 
 
TREASON. 85 
 
 Ingersoll — " His strength would still remain the 
 same." 
 
 Comment — Undoubtedly, but it is not a question of 
 strength, it is a question of authority. You should un- 
 derstand that the strength of a king or government is not 
 the measure or criterion of treason. Treason is an attack 
 on authority, or the right and title to rule. In this, and 
 not in its failure or success, consists its malice. God 
 does not stand in need of his people, but he insists on 
 obedience and respect to his supreme authority. He 
 who has the right to make law has the right to insist on 
 obedience to law by punishing the law-breaker. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 SOME GUSH METHODS OF WARFARE — CHEEK THE COLO- 
 NEL ON INFANTRV TACTICS, BABIES, AN^ DRY-NURSING. 
 
 INGERSOLL— " I insist that if there is an infinitely 
 good and wise God, he beholds with pity the misfor- 
 tunes of his children." 
 
 Comment — I insist on the same, but we must distin- 
 guish between misfortune and crime, misfortune and 
 wickedness. 
 
 Ingersoll — '* I insist that such a God would know the 
 mists, the clouds, the darkness enveloping the human 
 mind." 
 
 Comment — He does know and take into account 
 these disadvantages in dealing with his creatures. But 
 are you not a little inconsistent? Some pages back you 
 exalt the human mind, and claim for it the right to re- 
 judge the justice of God, and now you deplore the clouds 
 and mists and darkness that enshroud it. The highest 
 wisdom as well as duty of the human mind, suffering 
 under the v/eaknesses you deplore, is to hear the words 
 of God and obey th§m, and not misuse the little light it 
 has left it in denying his existence, or making him the 
 s«bject of its blasphemous jests. 
 
 Ingersoll — " His pity, not his wrath, would be ex- 
 cited by the effort of his blind children, groping in the 
 
 night to find the cause of things." 
 86 
 
METHODS OF WARFARE. 87 
 
 Comment — And yet you would make these blind chil- 
 dren the judges of his justice ! God does pity those who 
 grope in darkness, or who are misled by false philos- 
 ophers, and in proof of it he offers them the light of his 
 revelation to enlighten the night and dissipate tlie clouds; 
 but those who shut their eyes to it and disobey his laws, 
 he punishes. God requires us not only to worship him, 
 but to worship him alone, and in the manner he pre- 
 scribes. 
 
 Ingersoll — " An infinitely good Being, had he the 
 power, would answer the reasonable prayer of an honest 
 savage even when addressed to wood and stone." 
 
 Comment — God is infinitely just and merciful. He 
 knows the hearts of men, and judges them according to 
 their lights, opportunities and circumstances. It would 
 be in keeping with his infinite goodness to hear the 
 reasonable prayer of the hone'st but mistaken savage and 
 answer it by enlightening his mind, making known to him 
 his will, and forbidding him to worship idols. If this 
 savage should persist in his idolatry, after being forbid- 
 den, he would be no longer an honest savage, but a diso- 
 bedient cliild deserving punishment, 
 
 Ingersoll — "Tlie atrocities of the Old Testament, the 
 threatenings, maledictions and curses of the * inspired 
 book,' are defended on the ground that the Jews had a 
 rigiU to treat their enemies as their enemies treated 
 them." 
 
 Comment — Here, with your usual facility, you confound 
 and jumble together things of different natures. Mr. 
 Black defended what you call the atrocities of the Jews 
 recorded in the Old Testament, on the principle r^cog- 
 
88 NOTES ON INGERSOLL. 
 
 nized by all peoples and nations, pagan philosophers and 
 Christian apostles, that the right to exist implies the right 
 to repel the opposing force that threatens destruction. If 
 enemies come to conquer, a nation has a right to conquer 
 them; if they give no quarter, they have a right to none; 
 if the death of the whole population be their purpose, it 
 is riglU to defeat it by putting them all to the sword if it 
 be necessary. These principles are self-evident, and are 
 recognized by all nations, and practised by all except 
 Christian nations; and if the latter do not practise them 
 it is because the benign influence of Christianity has re- 
 fined the sentiments and softened the harsher features of 
 man's nature, in which, however, something of the savage 
 and the ghoul always remains. 
 
 As to the threatenings, maledictions, etc., they are de- 
 fended on very different grounds, although you pretend 
 to ignore the fact for the purpose of placing your op- 
 ponent in a false position. God is the Creator and Su- 
 preme Ruler of the universe and of all men. As such, 
 man owes liim allegiance and obedience. The threaten- 
 ings and miiedictions are for those who disobey, for 
 traitors, blasphemers, and idolaters. The threatenings, 
 etc., are only the formal announcements of punishments 
 which will be inflicted on the transgressor. Our own 
 government threatens death to the murderer and im- 
 prisonment to the thief. The form of threat may be 
 different, but tlie substance is the same. These threats 
 have no terrors for the law-abiding citizen. 
 
 Mr. Black in his reply to you said: " In your treatment 
 of hostile barbarians you not only may lawfully, you must 
 nece'T.sarily, adopt their mode of warfare: if they give no 
 
INFANTRY TACTICS. . 89 
 
 quarter, they are entitled to none," etc. With your usual 
 '* candor" you evade the principle involved in this prop- 
 osition. If the principle is true, it is true for all, boih 
 Christian and pagan. If it is false or unjust or barbarous 
 you should have shown it to be so. This was the only 
 course left to you as a logician. You do not attempt to 
 do this, but try to meet it in this way: 
 
 Ingersoll — "For one who follows the Master who 
 said that, when smitten on one cheek, you must turn the 
 other, and again and again enforced the idea that you 
 must overcome evil with good, it is hardly consistent to 
 declare that a civilized nation must, of necessity, adopt the 
 warfare of savages." 
 
 Comment — And this is the only reply to your oppo- 
 nent's self-evident proposition! Let us examine it, such 
 as it is. First, then, the Master did not say, as you re- 
 port him, that, when smitten on one cheek, you must turn 
 the other, or that you w«.y/ overcome evil with good. He 
 recommended his followers individually to return good 
 for evil, but he did not forbid them to repel unjust ag- 
 gression by exercising the necessary force, nor did he in- 
 tend his children to be spittoons and footballs for the rest 
 of mankind. Neither did he intend that Christian peoples 
 or governments should lodge murderers, thieves, and 
 savages in palaces and feed them on chicken-pie. He 
 meant that, as individuals, we should be kind, patient, 
 forbearing, charitable, and forgiving. He did not mean 
 that nations as such should be so weak or imbecile as to 
 fail to maintain their own existence, dignity and authority. 
 Nations, however, do sometimes overcome evil by good — 
 that is, by a good thrashing, judiciously administered to 
 
90 NOTES ON INGERSOLL. 
 
 their enemies. Evil-doers, murderers, and thieves are 
 overcome by good wlien the law and punishment are 
 properly applied. 
 
 Ingersoll — " It is hardly consistent (in a follower of 
 the Master) to declare tliat civilized nations must, of ne- 
 cessity, adopt the warfare of savages." 
 
 Comment — Do you imagine that when your opponent 
 said this, he meant the details or incidents of war? Do 
 you believe he intended that we must, of necessity, throw- 
 away our Remington rifles, take to bows and arrows, 
 go to wearing breech -clouts and eating raw dog, when 
 fighting Indians? Your opponent distinctly staled what 
 he meant by "mode of warfare," when he said: "If the 
 enemy come to conquer you, you may conquer them: if 
 they give no quarter, they are entitled to none; if the 
 death of the whole population be their purpose, j-ou may 
 defeat it by exterminating theirs." You do not deny or 
 refute this position, but you pretend to believe he meant 
 ravishment for ravishment, mutilation for mutilation, 
 scalping for scalping, baby-braining for baby-braining. 
 This gave you an opportunity for a display of your 
 rhetoric, and it must not be lost. Speaking of braining 
 babies reniinds me that infants stand you to good pur- 
 pose, and are made to do considerable duty in all your 
 writings and lectures. You trot them out on all occa- 
 sions, and in all conditions of deshabille. Those infants 
 waddle and crawl — and so forth, through your article so 
 promiscuously as to remind one of a foundling asylum, 
 with yourself as peripatetic dry-nurse in ordinary. By 
 the way, wer^ you not once a colonel of infantry? The 
 old soldier loves to dwell on the reminiscences of the 
 
INFANTRY TACTICS. 9I 
 
 past. But heaven help you if those infants ever live to 
 take revenge for your worse than Herodian cruelty. 
 When you want to reason with men on great questions, 
 you should send the children to the nursery, with orders 
 to have them well supplied with what the old Dutch 
 woman used to call "bread and milk ''poultice." This 
 will keep them in good condition until you want to trot 
 them out again in your next lecture on Christianity. 
 
 Ingersoll — -" Is it possible that in fighting, for in- 
 stance, the Indians of America, if they scalp our soldiers 
 we should scalp theirs?" 
 
 Comment — Civilized nations look more to the killing 
 than to the manner of it, because they understand that 
 viciory depends more on the number killed than on the 
 metiiod of killing. This knowledge gives the civilized 
 nation the advantage over the savage. A soldier who 
 pays strict attention to business during battle will send 
 ten Indians to the happy hunting-ground for every scalp 
 that is taken. To stop to take a scalp is to lose precious 
 time; and this is the reason, the only reason, why the 
 soldier should prefer his own tactics to those of the sav- 
 age. If experience proved that scalping would produce 
 greater intimidation on the mind of the savages and cause 
 them to stop their aggression and offer terms of peace 
 and guarantees for good behavior in future, it would be 
 good generalship, good policy, and good mercy, to throw 
 aside the rifle and take to scalping as soon as possible. 
 Civilized people go to war to make peace. If that peace 
 can be procured quicker by taking a few scalps than by 
 taking lives, it should be done without hesitation. It is 
 merely a question of policy as to the conduct of the war, 
 
92 NOTES ON INGERSOLL. 
 
 to bring it to a speedy termination. As long as the In- 
 dian actually loses by his scalping tactics it is wise to 
 leave to him that field of enterprise. 
 
 Ingersoll — "If tiiey kill the babes in our cradles 
 must we brain I heirs?" 
 
 CoMMEN r — Here they are again — yes, by all means, 
 brain them, tear them limb from limb, salt ihem, ship 
 them to the Cannibal islands, make them read your article 
 on the Christian Religion, or your lecture on "Skulls" — 
 do anything with them to keep them from muddling your 
 brains when you are reasoning with men on subjects that 
 require all your attention. 
 
 Ingersoll — " If they should take our captives, bind 
 them to trees, and if their squaws fill their quivering flesh 
 with sharpened fagots and set them on fire, that they may 
 die clothed in flame, must our wives, our mothers, and 
 our daughters follow their fiendish example?" 
 
 Comment — No, and for several reasons. There is a 
 cheaper and quicker method of getting rid of those fiend- 
 ish squaws. It is much easier to shoot them on the spot 
 than to pack off to the wilderness of the far west "our 
 wives, mothers and daughters" to stick sharpened fagots 
 into them. Civilization, among other things, teaches us 
 the science of economy; that, when killing must be done, 
 it should be done quickly and cheaply, that the burden 
 of the tax payer may not be increased more than neces- 
 sary. 
 
 Let us suppose a case. A hundred of " our captives" 
 are about to be bound, to undergo the death-torture in- 
 flicted by these squaws. The sharpened fagots are ready. 
 Now, if the braining of an Indian babe would so terrorize 
 
BABIES AND DRY-NURSING. 93 
 
 these maternal squaws as to cause them to desist from 
 their wicked purpose would the braining of that infant be 
 barbarous? Put yourself in the place of one of those 
 trembling captives and answer. Will you save the lives 
 of those hundred captives by taking one life? If you 
 think on this for a few moments you will understand what 
 your opponent meant when he said: "We must, of neces- 
 sity, adopt their mode of warfare." 
 
 Ingersoll — " Is this the conclusion of the most en- 
 lightened Christianity?" 
 
 Comment — Yes, sir; and the conclusion is of the most 
 enlightened common sense, too. Life is practical, it is 
 neither poetry nor effeminate philosophy. The passions 
 of human nature, civilized or barbarous, make stern al- 
 ternatives necessary and lugubrious cant will not change 
 man's nature or tlie necessities that arise from it. If 
 tliose fiendisli squaws had lived in Palestine in the days 
 of Jcsue and had been put to the sword by tlie Jews, you 
 would have accused the latter of murder and made God 
 an abettor of the crime. Much depends on the point of 
 view from which we look at a thing. 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 WARS — SLAVERY — SOME OF THE COLONEL'S MISREPRESENT 
 TATIONS. 
 
 INGERSOLL— "Mr. Black justifies the wars of exter- 
 mination and conquest because the American peo- 
 ple fvought for the integrity of their own country, fought 
 to do away with tlie infamous institution of slavery, fought 
 to preserve the jewels of liberty and justice for themselves 
 and for their children." 
 
 Comment — I submit this ebullition of eloquence to the 
 reader for the purpose of informing him that it is a mis- 
 representation of Mr. Black, a misrepresentation which 
 it is hard to imagine to have been accidental or uninten- 
 tional. It is not true that Black justifies v/ars of exter- 
 mination because the American people fought for the in- 
 tegrity of their country. Here is the way he justifies 
 wars of extermination: " If they (the enemy) come to con- 
 quer you, they may be conquered by you; if they give 
 no quarter, they are entitled to none; if the death of your 
 whole population be their purpose, you may defeat it by 
 exterminating theirs." You could not have been ignorant 
 of this principle, for you quoted these very words in your 
 article. Nor did Black justify wars of conquest because 
 the American people fought for the integrity of their coun- 
 try. He quoted you as saying; " A war of conquest is 
 94 
 
WARS. 
 
 95 
 
 simply murder." To meet this statement of yours he said: 
 "To show how inefficacious for all practical purpose a mere 
 sentiment is, when substituted for a principle, it is only 
 necessary to recollect that Mr. Ingersoll is himself a war- 
 rior who stood not behind the mighty men of his tribe 
 when they gathered themselves together for a war of con- 
 quest. He took the lead of a regiment as eager as him- 
 self to spoil the Philistine, * and out he went a-coloneling.' " 
 As you do not seem to have understood your opponent's 
 argument I will put it in a more simple form. It was what 
 is called an argumeniuin ad hoitiinem^ and syllogistically 
 stands thus: 
 
 According to Mr. Ingersoll: " A war of conquest is sim- 
 ply murder." 
 
 But the war with the South was a war of conquest. 
 Therefore, the war against the South was simply murder. 
 Now Mr. Ingersoll participated in that war, therefore 
 Mr. Ingersoll was a party to the crime of murder. 
 
 This was your opponent's argument in logical form. 
 You evidently saw its force. You could not extricate 
 yourself except by misrepresentation, and you did not 
 hesitate a moment. Therefore you said: "Mr. Black 
 justifies the wars of extermination and conquest, because 
 the American people fought for the integrity of their own 
 country." 
 
 You perpetrated this misrepresentation to make a way 
 to escape from the trap in which you were caught, and to 
 afford you a field for a little cheap sentimental gush about 
 " slavery" and the *' jewels of liberty," hoping, with the 
 instinct of the cuttle-fish, you might get away in the 
 muddinsss you had created. But, my dear sir, it will not 
 
96 NOTES ON INGERSOLL. 
 
 do, for society is not entirely made up of fools, {jar war 
 with the South was a war of conquest, for a war of con- 
 quest is a war to conquer, and that is what we meant 
 when we sent armies to the South. If conquest is mur- 
 der then you are guilty of murder in proportion to your 
 importance in that war. But you have said a war of 
 conquest is simply murder. Then according to the ada- 
 mantine rules of logic you are simply a murderer. That 
 is where your opponent landed you. 
 
 You justify the war with the South by saying that it 
 was to maintain the integrity of the country, etc. The 
 justification is complete; but what follows from it.' Why, 
 it follows that wars of conquest are sometimes justifiable, 
 which is the very thing you denied when you said that 
 "a war of conquest is murder." When you said that your 
 mind was on the Jew; you wanted to lay down a princi- 
 ple that would surely condemn him and his God, and you 
 did not see that you were making a murderer of yourself. 
 Ex parte philosophy is poor philosophy. You are a stu- 
 dent of the infidel philosophers of the last and present 
 centuries, but you have not caught their genius or com- 
 prehended their bulk. You take their points here and 
 there and depend for the rest on your wit and faculty of 
 drollery. Men laugh with you or at you, but, after all, 
 life is a serious affair, and when the play is over the clown 
 »s tlie first to be forgotten. 
 
 Ingersoll — "Not satisfied with having slavery in this 
 world, Mr. Black assures us that it will last through 
 eternity." 
 
 Comment — There is but one reply to this. It consists 
 of a vigorous English word of three letters. It is suffi- 
 
SUPERIORITY. 97 
 
 cient to say that Mr. Black never assured us of anything 
 from which such an inference could be drawn. On what 
 principle of moral rectitude do you justify this gross mis- 
 representation ! Certainly not on that divine law which 
 forbids you to bear false witness against your neighbor. 
 If you had said the above under oath would it not have 
 been perjury? Did you say it in view of the fact that 
 you had made arrangements to prevent your opponent from 
 replying to you ? 
 
 Ingersoll — "And that forever and forever inferiors 
 must be subordinate to superiors. 
 
 Comment — This Mr. Black did say, but it is very dif- 
 ferent from the assurance you attribu!-. d to him just now. 
 To say inferiors must always be subordinate to superiors, 
 is simply to say that the inferior must always be inferipr 
 to the superior, which is a self-evident truth. You should 
 not need to be told that to be subordinate does not mean 
 to be enslaved. The soldier is subordinate to his superior 
 officer, but he io n his slave. To say that your intel- 
 lect is suborr'inat or inf rior to that of Moses, St. Paul, 
 Napoleon, Newton, or Milton is not to make a slave of 
 you. 
 
 Ingersoll — **Who is the superior man ?" 
 
 Comment — He who does not lie, or misrepresent, or 
 blaspheme his Maker, is morally superior to him who 
 does. 
 
 Ingersoll — ''According to Mr. Black, he is superior 
 who lives on the unpaid labor )f the inferior." 
 
 Comment — Here you are again disregarding that law 
 which requires us to make our words correspond to the 
 truth. It is not at all pleasant to be constantly impeaching 
 
98 NOTES ON INGERSOLL. 
 
 your veracity, but your wanton use of language makes it 
 necessary. Your opponent said nothing of the kind. 
 
 Ingersoll — " With me, the superior man is one who 
 uses his superiority in bettering the condition of the in- 
 ferior." 
 
 Comment — Here you admit ihQ fad of inferiority and 
 superiority, and therefore subordination. The man who 
 uses his superiority must be superior prior to us use. 
 According to your own words, the superiority is a fact 
 prior to the use of it. Therefore, his superiority does 
 not depend on the use of it. Now, as the use of it in 
 bettering the condition of the inferior is subsequent to 
 the superiority, it cannot be the note or criterion by which 
 superiority is affirmed. To do good to others is a sign 
 of moral superiority, but not the reason of it. If to do 
 good were the reason of superiority, all men could be 
 superior by a mere act of the will, but superiority is a fact 
 prior to the act of the will, and therefore, independent of 
 it. This definition, then, like most of your definitions, 
 means nothing when analyzed. 
 
 Ingersoll — "The superior man is strength for the 
 weak." 
 
 Comment — Then he is superior because he is stronger, 
 and he is good because he uses that strength to assist the 
 weak. Here again the superiority is prior to the use of 
 it, and, therefore, the use of it is not the criterion of it. 
 You confound superiority with goodness. The ability to 
 help the weak constitutes superiority; the actual helping 
 of the weak constitutes goodness. 
 
 Ingersoll — The superior man " is eyes for the blind." 
 
 ComI^ent — His superiority does not consist in seeing 
 
SLAVERY. 99 
 
 for the blind, but in \\\s abiitty to see. His disposition to 
 see for the blind is evidence of his goodness. I note these 
 small points to show that you are not an adept in the 
 proper use of words, and that your definitions are un- 
 trustworthy. 
 
 Ingersoll— '* For my part, I would rather be the slave 
 than the master." 
 
 Comment — For my part, I would rather be the master 
 than the slave; for being the master, I would have it in 
 my power to free the slave and cease to be the master. 
 He who prefers weakness to strength, or inability to 
 ability, when he has the choice, is an intellectual imbecile 
 or a consummate hypocrite. He who prefers to be a 
 slave has the instincts of a slave. It is more manly to 
 will to be tlie master with the power of manumission, that, 
 by a voluntary act of the will, one may reach the helping 
 hand to the lowly and unfortunate and raise them to 
 freedom and equality. Perhaps, in view of the proneness 
 of man to domineer and play the tyrant, it were better to 
 be neither the slave nor the master. 
 
 Ingersoll — *' Any man who helps another to gain and 
 retain his liberty is. superior to any infallible God who 
 authorized slavery in Judea." 
 
 Comment — Then why do you not advocate the throw- 
 ing open of our prison-doors that the murderers and 
 thieves cruelly shut up there may gain and retain the 
 liberty they sigh for? Ah! that would be dangerous. 
 Well then, it is not always right to help others gain and 
 retain their liberty. It is hard for you to say anything 
 without saying too much or too little. You are fond of 
 making general propositions, but they are dangerous tools 
 and should be handled with care. 
 
TOO NOTES ON INGERSOLL. 
 
 Ingersoll — "According to Mr. Black, there will be 
 slavery in heaven." 
 
 Comment — I must again call your attention to that 
 divine law which puts a discount on false witnesses. 
 Your opponent never said anything that justifies your 
 statement. Whatever else you may be you are certainly 
 not a Christian. 
 
 Ingersoll — "If some good republican would catch 
 Mr. Black, 'incorporate liim into his family, tame him, 
 teach him to think, and give him a knowledge of the 
 true principles of human liberty and government, he would 
 confer on him a beneficent boon," 
 
 Comment — Why did you not catch him and teach him 
 when you had a chance? Your opponent could retort 
 thus: If some good Christian would catch Mr. Ingersoll, 
 teach him to think a little deeper than the surface, give 
 him a knowledge of the true principles of pjobity, im- 
 part to him a proper sense of the importance of veracity, 
 and induce him to forego buffoonery when dealing with 
 great questions, he vn^ouM confer on him a most beneficent 
 boon. 
 
 Ingersoll — "Slavery includes all other crimes. It 
 is the joint product of the kidnapper, pirate, thief, mur- 
 derer, and hypocrite." 
 
 Comment — How does it include all other crimes if it 
 be the joint product of them? A product is an effect. 
 If slavery be a product of-crimes it cannot include those 
 crimes; for to include them it must exist prior to fhem, 
 and if it exist, prior to them, it cannot be a product of 
 them. You should not contradict yourself. It shows 
 that you have a bad memory, or that there is a screw 
 loose in your logical machine. 
 
THE COLONEL S MISREPRESENTATIONS. lOI 
 
 Ingersoll — " To lacerate the naked back, to sell wives, 
 to steal babes, to^breed blood-hounds, to debauch your 
 own soul — this is slavery." 
 
 CoMMENr — No, it is poetry, poor poetry of course, 
 but nevertheless poetry, for it is a product of the im- 
 agination. You do not seem to understand the meaning 
 of the word. Consult Webster's Dictionary, or your law 
 books, or any books that pretend to give definitions of 
 things, and you will find that the definition of slavery 
 given by you is not found in any of them. You may find 
 something like it in the frothy ravings of lunatics, or the 
 rhapsodies of poets, but when pure reason is appealed to 
 we must not quote the moutiiings of lunatics and poets. 
 To lacerate the naked back is a cruelty or a punishment 
 incident to, but not confined to the condition of slavery. 
 To sell wives is a practice common to human society in 
 all its stages, and not peculiar to slavery. To breed 
 blood-hounds is no more wrong than to breed canary 
 birds or poodles, and as to debauching your soul, that is 
 done with facility where slavery is unknown except in 
 name. Then slavery is none of these, although all of 
 them may be incident to that abnormal relation between 
 labor and capital. 
 
CHAPTER XIL 
 
 LIBERTY — POLYGAMY — ROUSSEAU's OPINION OF INFIDEL 
 PHILOSOPHERS. 
 
 INGERSOLL— ''With me, liberty is not merely a 
 means — it is an end." 
 
 Comment — This is too vague. We are all in favor of 
 liberty, as we understand it, but we do not agree as to 
 what it is or ought to be. It is a foolish loss of time to 
 caw over the word until we have a common idea or un- 
 derstanding of the thing. Do you mean by the word, the 
 liberty Guiteau exercised, or that of the Nihilists, or that 
 of the Mormons, or that of the thief, the robber or the 
 murderer? All these appeal to liberty as vociferously as 
 you do. Do you not see that this word "liberty" must 
 be defined and limited — in other words, that it must be- 
 come a known quantity before it can become a legitimate 
 object of debate. If there is anything thoroughly detes- 
 ted and abhorred by logicians it is a word, or the use of 
 a word, that has no fixed, clear and clean-cut meaning to 
 it. You use the word "liberty" with what Shakespeare 
 would call " damnable iteration," and in all your multi- 
 farious uses of it you have never, so far as I have seen, 
 given a definition of it. 
 
 Ingersoll — " Without that word all other words are 
 empty sounds." 
 
 Comment — And that word without a definition — a clear 
 
 102 
 
LIBERTY. 103 
 
 and fixed meaning, intelligible and comprehensible to all 
 in common, is the emptiest and most misleading sound 
 that ever echoed in time and space. It is a pet word of 
 lunatics, fools and philosophers so-called. It is like a 
 piece of gum elastic, short or long, at the will of him who 
 fingers ir. "Oh, liberty!" said Madame Roland, as she 
 was carted to the guillotine, "what crimes are committed 
 in thy name!" The Christian loves liberty as dearly as 
 you do. He would soar from planet to planet, and from 
 star tb star, and drink in the immensity of the universe. 
 He would dive into the centre of our world and know its 
 secrets. He would penetrate to the ultimate molecule of 
 matter and know its essence. ^He would introvert him- 
 self and know the mystery of his own being, but the lib- 
 erty to do these things evades his grasp as the ever- reced- 
 ing rainbow eludes the grasp of the innocent child who 
 hopes to bathe his dimpled fingers in its rays by crossing 
 over a field or two. Tlie physical and the moral law stand 
 watch on the limits of liberty and cry " halt" when we 
 even think to go beyond our sphere. 
 
 As there are fixed laws of matter, so there are fixed 
 laws of mind. The intellect is governed in its movements 
 by the laws of its action, and when it acts in defiance of 
 those laws, experts call it insanity. Besides the physical 
 and the intellectual, there is a moral world. Man is the 
 link between these three worlds because he partakes of the 
 nature of all of ihem, and he is the only being who does. 
 As a physical being man is subject to the laws of physi- 
 cal nature, as an intellectual being he is subject to the 
 laws of mind, as a moral being he is governed by the in- 
 flexible laws of morals, and if he acts in defiance of these 
 
104 
 
 NOTES ON INGERSOLL. 
 
 laws theologians call it sin. Sin, in the moral world, is 
 what insanity is in the intellectual world — a departure 
 from normal action. There are then three laws that act 
 in parallels on man — the physical, the intellectual and the 
 moral, and all are equally binding. The two former bind 
 him in such a way that he has no liberty whatever, and there- 
 fore he is, in no way, responsible for their results. The 
 moral law remains, and it is to this law alone that every 
 sane individual is responsible, for it is through and by this 
 law, only, that he can possibly antagonize God's will as in- 
 tellect against intellect. Man, then, is no more free in the 
 moral order than he is in the physical or intellectual order. 
 The difference is only thi|: he has it in his power to con- 
 fuse the moral order, to make discord. To do this is to 
 antagonize God's will, and to do this is to sin, and in this 
 consists moral evil. • 
 
 Ingersoll — "We are informed by Mr. Black that 
 polygamy is neither commanded nor prohibited in the 
 Old Testament — that it is only discouraged. It seems to 
 me a little legislation on that subject might have tended 
 to its discouragement. But where is tins legislation?" 
 
 Comment — In your first article on the Christian re- 
 ligion you said that the Bible upheld polygamy as the 
 highest form of virtue. Your opponent met your as- 
 sertion with a denial that the Bible so held or taught. 
 Here a di/ect issue was made, a question of veracity 
 raised. And how did you meet it? Did you stand by 
 your statement and proceed to prove it? Not at all; you 
 reply by saying that the Bible did not legislate against it. 
 This is an admission that your statement could not be 
 sustained — a raising of the white flag. 
 
POLYGAMY. 105 
 
 Ingersoll — " In the moral code (of the Old Testa- 
 ment) not one word is found on the subject of polygamy." 
 
 Comment — Then why did you say that the Bible 
 tauglu polygamy as the highest form of virtue? If you 
 look in Genesis, Chap. II., verse 24, you will find the fol- 
 lowing words: " Therefore shall a man leave his father 
 and his mother, and shall cleave unto his zcv/^, (not wives), 
 and they shall be fwo in ofitr flesli." This is the law in 
 the case, is it not against polygamy? This one text is 
 sufficient to upset all your talk about the Bible teaching 
 polygamy. 
 
 But on what principle do you condemn polygamy? 
 Christians say and believe it is wrong because God has 
 forbidden it. But by what right do you say it is wrong? 
 You ignore God and teach *' if there is anything of value 
 it is liberty. Liberty is th^ air of the soul, the sunshine 
 of life; without it the world is a prison and the universe 
 an infinite dungeon. Liberty is not only a means — it is 
 an end. Without that word, all other words are empty 
 sounds." Now, in the light of this doctrine of liberty, 
 how do you dare to obtrude yourself and your notions 
 between any man and woman? By what right do you 
 limit a yoman in her selection of a man, even though that 
 man be the husband of other wives? If liberty is what 
 you say it is, why do you persist in playing Paul Pry, 
 and inserting your nose into other people's business? 
 Deny God and assert unlimited liberty, and where is the 
 wrong in polygamy? Why should not a man have all the 
 wives he wants, if there is no God to forbid it, and no 
 woman to refuse? If man is only an animal destined to 
 perish like the beasts of the forest, why should he not 
 
lo6 NOTES ON INGERSOLL. 
 
 follow his instincts as they do? You rob him of every 
 reason of self-denial, rob him of his immortal soul and 
 his God, reduce him to the level of the beast, and then 
 try to j];overn him by frothy sentimentalism! Eliminate 
 Christian teaching and divine revelation from human 
 tliought, and where is the wrong in polygamy? Find a 
 principle outside of revelation that forbids it. There is 
 none. Take God away, and his moral law, and there is 
 no reason left why we should not exercise every passion 
 and faculty, we possess, to their fullest extent. If men do 
 not use this unlimited liberty which you preach, it is be- 
 cause God's Moral Code permeates Christian thought, 
 and makes a healthy public opinion which governs even 
 those who deny tiiat code. It is this healtiiy Christian 
 sentiment you appeal to when you condemn polygamy. 
 You steal the weapons of Christians to combat that which 
 cannot be combatted by your infidel principles. 
 
 Ingersoll — "All languages of the world are not suffi- 
 cient to express the filth of polygamy." 
 
 Comment — Until you produce argument for this state- 
 ment, your opinion is no better than that of the Mormon, 
 the Turk, or the Hindoo. In fact the opinion of these is 
 preferable, since they have had experience. Your, idea 
 is derived from Christian teaching, by which you are un- 
 consciously influenced. In opposing polygamy from an 
 infidel point of view you have no right to make use of 
 that popular sentiment or judgment which is the result 
 of a religion you repudiate. Having rejected the Chris- 
 tian religion you cannot consistently or logically make use 
 of its weapons in opposing polygamy. You cannot ap- 
 propriate the triumphs of Christianity as victories of in- 
 
LYING SPIRltS AND FALSE PROPHETS. IO7 
 
 fidelity, or unenlightened human reason. If Christians 
 are disposed to accept your statement it is on account of 
 their convictions, founded on Christian teaching, and not 
 because of any argument you have or can produce, from 
 an infidel point of view, against polygamy. 
 
 Ingersoll — "It (polygamy) makes man a beast and 
 woman a slave." 
 
 Comment — Here again you appeal to a sentiment or 
 public opinion which is produced by and founded on 
 Christian principles which you reject. This is illogical. 
 Your infidel position requires you, in opposing polygamy, 
 to use arguments that would convince a Turk or a Mor- 
 mon. But polygamy makes a man a beast, you say. 
 Then it is as bad but no worse than your modern infidel 
 philosophy. This philosophy makes man a beast by deny- 
 ing the immortality of his soul and asserting that he is 
 evolved from the monkey or protoplasm. If he is a de- 
 scendant of the monkey or the goat where is the impro- 
 priety of his imitating the propensities of his ancestors? 
 You tell him there is nothing above or beyond him, 
 neither a God nor a future. Why then should he aspire 
 when there is no object worthy of his aspirations? You 
 point to the oyster or to the libidinous ourang-outang as 
 his origin, and tell him his future is a blank. Why, then, 
 should he curb his passions or limit his impulses? Is it 
 worth the effort? You make man a beast when you make 
 his origin and destiny the same as that of the beast. 
 Polygamy can do no more than this. And if man is a 
 beast, and there is no future, what is to prevent him from 
 following the instincts of his animal nature? Reason? 
 Reason must forbid polygamy if it can be shown that 
 
jo8 NOTES ON INGERSOLL. 
 
 there is anything in it contrary to the first principles of 
 nature. By first principles of nature I mean the object, 
 end, and purpose of marriage, the continuance of human 
 life on earth, etc. Does polygamy antagonize any of these 
 objects? When you prove it does, you will have proved 
 that it is contrary to reason — not till then. 
 
 Ingersoll — "Certainly, Jehovah had time to instruct 
 Moses as to the infamy of polygamy." 
 
 CoM^fENT — There is no sense in this, except on the as- 
 sumption that you know more about the subject than 
 Jehovah — that your crude notions of virtue and propriety 
 should govern his actions. 
 
 Rousseau, an infidel like yourself, but an honester and 
 abler man, has given a description of the class of philos- 
 ophers to which you belong, and it is highly worthy of 
 attention just here. He says: 
 
 " I have consulted our philosophers, I have perused 
 their books, I have examined their several opinions, I 
 have found them all proud, positive and dogmatizing even 
 in their pretended scepticism, knowing everything^ prov- 
 ince nothing, and ridiculing one another, and this is the 
 only point in which they concur, and in which they are 
 right. Daring when they attack, they defend themselves 
 without vigor. If you consider their arguments, they 
 have none but for destruction. Where is the philosopher 
 who, for his own glory, would not willingly deceive the 
 whole human race ? Where is he who, in the secret of 
 his heart, proposes any other object than his own distinc- 
 tion? Provided he can raise himself above the com- 
 monalty, provided he can eclipse his competitors, he has 
 reached the summit of his ambition. The great thing for 
 
INFIDEL PHILOSOPHERS. lOp 
 
 him is to think differently from other people. Among 
 believers he is an atheist, among atheists he is a believer. 
 Shun, shun, then, those wiio, under preiense of explain- 
 ing nature, sow in the hearts of men the most dispiriting 
 doctrines, whose scepticism is far more affirmative and dog- 
 matical than the decided tone of their adversaries. Under 
 pretense of being themselves the only people enlightened, they 
 imperiously subject us to their magisterial decisions, and 
 would fain palm upon us, for the true causes of things^ the 
 unintelligible systems they have erected in their own heads; 
 whilst they overturn, destroy and trample under foot all 
 that mankind reveres, snatch from the afflicted the only 
 comfort left them in their misery, from the rich and great 
 the only curb that can restrain their passions; tear from 
 the heart all remorse of vice, all hopes of virtue; they 
 still boast themselves benefactors of mankind. 'Truth,' 
 they say, 'is never hurtful to man,' — I believe that as well 
 as they, a?id the same, in my opinion, is proof that what they 
 teach is not the truth." — Rousseau, as quoted by Gandolphy 
 in his defence of the Ancient Faith. 
 
 This quotation is somewhat long, but it is so true, so 
 apt to the present occasion, that I have given it place 
 here. You infidels have not changed much since Rous- 
 seau's time, and his description fits you so perfectly that 
 one might imagine he liad you in his mind's eye when he 
 penned the above eloquent and truthful passage. 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 woman's rights — MOTHERHOOD WOMAN's CONDITION 
 
 AMONG JEWS AND PAGANS — SOME OF MR. INGERSOLl's 
 MISSTATEMENTS, ETC 
 
 INGERSOLL— " Where will we find, in the Old Tes- 
 tament, t'ne rights of wife, mother and daughter de- 
 fined ? ' 
 
 Comment — They are found in the warp and woof of 
 the whole book. But, before particularizing, it is nec- 
 essary to know what you mean by these " rigiits" and if 
 your notions on the subject are correct. What you may 
 affirm as " rights'' I may deny. Until these rights are 
 determined rigluly and independently of your or my sen- 
 timents or feelings, the question as to what the Bible 
 says on the subject cannot be intelligently discussed. 
 
 Ingersoll — "Even in the New Testament she (woman) 
 is told to 'learn in silence and all subjection.'" 
 
 COxMMENT — Most excellent advice for man, woman 
 and child. How can you learn otherwise? Would you 
 have the learner pjrt and impertinent ? 
 
 According to the Christian idea, the husband and wife 
 are two in one flesh. They are united by an intimate 
 and mutual love in God, and ^should edify each other in 
 peace, in fidelity, and mutual support. The husband is 
 the head of the wife, wh©m he should love, esteem, and 
 iio 
 
WOMAN S RIGHTS. Ill 
 
 respect as himself, and protect. The wife is, within the 
 circle of her duties, at the side of the man, not subject 
 to liim as the child is to its fatiier, or as the slave to the 
 master, but as the mother, side by side with the father, 
 having, no less than he, sacred and imprescriptable 
 rights. But as in every company or corporation it is 
 necessary that some hold superior rank and authority 
 that order and peace may prevail, so in that association 
 of man and woman called marriage, in which the parties 
 are bound one to the other, there must be a superior, 
 while each, according to rank, has necessities, duties and 
 rights. The woman thus raised above that condition ©f 
 absolute subjection and low esteem which she occupies 
 outside of Christendom, takes honorable and imposing 
 rank by the side of her husband. Nevertheless, she is, 
 in certain respects, subject to his authority. She should, 
 according to Christian law, obey her husband as a su- 
 perior, not as if in slavery, but freely, in the same way 
 that the Church obeys Christ, her head. A loving, pious, 
 moral, interior, laborious life is the glory of the woman. 
 The duties of the husband are described by St. Paul: 
 "But yet neither is the man without the woman: nor 
 the woman without the man in the Lord. For as the 
 woman is of the man, so also is the man by the woman: 
 but all things of God." (I. Cor. ii, 12.) Again: "Hus- 
 bands, love your wives, as Christ also loved the Church, 
 and delivered himself up. for it. * * So also ought 
 men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that 
 loveth his wife loveth himself. For no man ever hateth 
 his own flesh: but nourisheth and cherisheth it, as also 
 Christ doth the Church. Because we are members of 
 
1I2 ,^NOTES ON INGERSOLL. 
 
 his body, of his flesh, and of his bones. For this cause 
 shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave 
 to his wife, and they shall be two in one flesh. * * 
 Nevertlieless, let every one of you in particular love his 
 wife as himself." (Ephesians v. 25 to 33.) These are the 
 doctrines that have liberated woman. 
 
 Ingersoll — ''According to the Old Testament, woman 
 had to ask pardon, and had to be purified for the crime 
 of having borne sons and daughters." 
 
 Comment — No race on earth ever held motherhood 
 in higher esteem than the Jewish race. This you must 
 have known unless you are utterly ignorant of the his- 
 tory of that remarkable people as it is recorded in the 
 Bible. Motherhood was the glory of the matrons of 
 Israel, and the childless wife mourned her unhappy fate, 
 and wept, and prayed the God of Abraham to take away 
 her reproach. Read the Canticle of Anna at the birth 
 of her son Samuel (Samuel, ii.), and you will learn what 
 you seem not to know, that to become a mother in Tudea 
 gave occasion for thanksgiving and rejoicing, and to 
 be childless was considered an affliction and a judgment 
 of an angry God. When the mother of Samuel came to 
 offer the sacrifice of purification she placed him in the 
 hands of Heli, the high-priest, and said: " For this child 
 did I pray, and the Lord hath granted me my petition, 
 which I asked of him. Therefore I also have lent him to 
 the Lord. And they adored the Lord there. And Anna 
 prayed ^and said: My heart hath rejoiced in the Lord. 
 
 * * There is none holy as the Lord is, for there is 
 none other beside thee, and there is none strong like our 
 God." 
 
woman's condition among jews and pagans. 113 
 
 Here is a subject for a painter. These sweet, joyful, 
 grateful words come from a happy mother's heart. Does 
 she ask pardon for having borne a son ? Is there any- 
 thing here to suggest that she had been guilty of a crime ? 
 Compare this prayer of an Israelite mother with your 
 untruthful words, and how coarse and vulgar you appear 
 in her sacred presence. You taint the atmosphere of 
 sacredness and mystery with which God has surrounded 
 motherhood. 
 
 Ingersoll — "According to the Old Testament, 
 woman had to ask pardon for the crime of having borne 
 sons and daughters." 
 
 Comment — This is an untruth. I leave you to say 
 whether it was intentional, or made through ignorance. 
 Ingersoll — But *' woman had to be purified." 
 Comment — Yes, but this purification had no reference 
 to crime or guilt. There were many purifications required 
 in the Jewish ritual. To be ritually unclean was no 
 crime or disgrace. A physician who touched his patient, 
 for instance, to count his pulse, became unclean by that 
 act. (Lev. xv. 7.) He who performed the charitable act 
 of burying a dead body became unclean, as did he also 
 who served in some of the sacred offices. When, there- 
 fore, you imagine that ** unclean" means guilt or crime, 
 and talk about the crime of bearing sons and daughters, 
 you simply show your ignorance of what you so flip- 
 pantly talk about. Pope was right when he said: 
 
 A little learning is a dangerous thing." 
 
 Ingersoll — " The doctrine that womin is the slave, 
 or serf, of man — is savagery, pure and simple." 
 
114 NOTES ON INGERSOLL. 
 
 Comment — No, it is not savagery; it is a false doctrine, 
 pure and simple. But, as neither Jew nor Christian be- 
 lieves that woman is a slave or a serf, I cannot see the 
 purpose of your remark. 
 
 Ingersoll — " In no country in the world had woman 
 less liberty than in the Holy Land." 
 
 Comment — It depends on what you mean by " liberty." 
 It is true, women in Judea had not the liberty to do 
 many things that were permitted to the women of pagan 
 nations, just as virtuous women have not the liberty of 
 the depraved and fallen. It is tliis fact that gives the 
 laws of Moses a pre-eminence over the laws of pagan 
 nations. The honor of wives and tlie modesty of daugh- 
 ters were protected in Judea. The women of Egypt, 
 Chaldea, Persia, Greece, etc., had the liberty to marry 
 their uncles, brothers, fathers, and even mothers were 
 free to marry their own sons. How cruel in Moses to 
 forbid these liberties to the women of Judea! Pagan 
 women had the liberty to sacrifice their virtue at the 
 lewd altars of Venus and Cybele. A description of the 
 wickedness and impurity the worship of these heathens 
 involved can be read by no virtuous Christian without 
 a shudder. Moses forbade these abominations, in honor 
 of God and human nature, and for this you accuse him 
 of taking away the '' rights" of women. It is to the 
 honor of Hebrew women that they did not practise such 
 "liberties," and to Hebrew legislation that they were 
 not permitted. If you had read and studied the historians 
 Herodotus and Strabo in reference to the condition of 
 women in Babylon, Lydia, Thrace. Armenia, Medea, 
 India, Egypt and Greece, you would have less to say 
 
MISSTATEMENTS, ETC. II5 
 
 about their '* liberties." I refer you to these authors, as 
 it would not be proper to quote their descriptions of 
 life, manners, and worship in those countries, in a book 
 intended for modern civilized readers. The lives of 
 mother and child were protected in Judea. In those 
 countries I have mentioned they were at the mercy of 
 the husband who was master. This was also the case in 
 ancient Rome. 
 
 Ingersoll — " The position of woman was far better in 
 Egypt than in Palestine." 
 
 Comment — This is one of those bold, reckless state- 
 ments which characterize all your lectures and writings. 
 According to Strabo, who travelled in Egypt before the 
 Christian era, women were the toilers and tillers of the 
 soil. Their condition vv<is somewhat analogous to that 
 of the squaws among the Indians of our western territo- 
 ries. 
 
 Egypt is the land of silence and of mystery. Its origin, 
 ancient religion, customs and laws are at the best matters 
 of conjecture to the hieroglyphic archaeologist. The 
 stone-lipped sphinx is its true symbol. Beyond the 
 seventeenth dynasty of Manetho, when Joseph was pre- 
 mier of the land, there is no reliable or intelligible his- 
 tory. Egyptologists, from Clement ef Alexandria down 
 to ChampoUion, Young, and Wilkinson, have exhausted 
 their learning and genius in vain to unravel the mystery 
 of the silent valley of the Nile, to make the footprints of 
 that mysterious people tell us something of their past — 
 whence they came, their laws, social customs and habits. 
 The sphinx smiles a rigid, stony smile, the sands of ages 
 gather about the bases of the pyramids, and man is about 
 
Il6 NOTES ON INGERSOLL. 
 
 to give up the mystery in despair, when suddenly and 
 unexpectedly the long-lost light breaks fonli in all its 
 brilliancy — Ingersoll speaks, and all is light. "The 
 position of woman was far better in Egypt than in Pales- 
 tine," says he. But, dear sir, how or wiiere do you learn 
 this? The history of Egypt before the time of the 
 Ptolemais is mere conjecture. The writings of Hermes 
 Trismegisius are apochryphal. Manetho is fragmentary. 
 You have then nothing left but the Old Testament, Her- 
 odotus and Strabo, and the two last only echo the dying 
 agonies, the death sighs of a once powerful people as 
 they sunk before the rising glories of Greece and Rome. 
 These writers only record the last act in the drama of 
 old Egypt. But what they do record contradicts your 
 statement. 
 
 Ingersoll — " Upon ancient tombs husband and wife 
 are represented as seated in the same chair." 
 
 Comment — This is of no consequence whatever; but 
 I quote it for the purpose of asking you how you know 
 they were represented as hisband and wife i 
 
 Ingersoll — '* In Persia women were priests." 
 
 Comment — Yes, but a woman-priest meant one who, 
 if she lived in New York at the present day, would be 
 sent to Blackwell's Island. 
 
 Ingersoll— *' At the advent of Christianity, in all 
 pagan countries, women officiated at the sacred altars." 
 
 Comment — Yes. Strabo relates that there was a tem- 
 ple of Venus at Corinth so rich that it maintained above 
 a thousand harlots, sacred to her service. That is the 
 way they " officiated." It was high time for the advent 
 of Christianity — or hell. 
 
MISSTATEMENTS. Uy 
 
 Ingersoll— "They guarded the eternal fire." 
 Comment— And they will probably continue to do so. 
 Ingersoll— "From their lips came the oracles of 
 fate." 
 
 Comment— Just as they continue to come from the 
 lips of female mediums of quesiionabie reputation, for- 
 tune-tellers, gypsies, etc. 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 MORE ABOUT V/OMEN — BIBLE AND KEVELATION — MORI 
 MISREPRESENTATION. 
 
 INGERSOLL— "Under the domination of the Chris 
 tian Cluirch woman became tlie merest slave for a 
 least a thousand years." 
 
 Comment — This is loo general and indefinite. Genera 
 statements can be met only by general denials and a cal 
 for proofs and specifications. Christianity found womai 
 in the pagan world at man's feet, and it raised her u^ 
 and placed her at his side as a companion, where she be 
 longs, and from whence she came. 
 
 Ingersoll — " It was claimed that through woman the 
 race had fallen." 
 
 Comment — Claimed by whom } Christianity does not 
 hold that the race fell through woman or the disobe- 
 dience of Eve, for Eve was never the responsibleagent of 
 humanity, as Adam was. It was through him, as St. 
 Paul informs us, that the race fell. **Byone man, sir. 
 entered into the world, and by sin, deat-l^." 
 
 I believe your father was a Presbyterian, and he, no 
 doubt, taught you the Presbyterian distich: 
 
 "In Adam's fall 
 We sinned all." 
 
 There is no mention of woman here. I quote this, 
 ii8 
 
BIBLfi AND REVELATION. II9 
 
 not to adopt its doctrine, but to show that you were 
 not taught that the race fell through woman. Eve was 
 the occasion not the cause of the fall, just as Mary was 
 the occasion or instrument of man's redemption. Adam 
 fell, and humanity fell with and by him; Christ rose, and 
 humanity rose again with and by him. This is the 
 ^Christian doctrine on the subject in a nutshell. 
 
 Ingersoll — " And that her loving kiss had poisoned 
 all the springs of life." 
 
 CoMMLNT — Fudge. 
 
 Ingersoll — "Will Mr. Black have the kindness to 
 state a few of his objections to the devil." 
 
 Comment — He is the prince of liars, full of sophistry 
 and deceit, misleading and unreliable — a purveyor of 
 Dead Sea apples. 
 
 Ingersoll — " Again I ask, why were the Jewish peo- 
 ple as wicked, cruel and ignorant, with a revelation from 
 God, as other nations were without?" 
 
 Comment — This question is based on a false hypothesis. 
 I deny that tlie Jews were as wicked, cruel and ignorant 
 as other nations of their time. They were angels in com- 
 parison with the diseased, rotten and pestiferous races 
 about them. 
 
 Ingersoll — ** Why were the worshippers of false deities 
 as brave, as kind, and generous as those who knew the 
 only true and living God?" 
 
 Comment — Because they were not. If the Canaanites 
 were as brave as the Jews why did they permit the latter, 
 hungry and exhausted from the desert, to kick them out 
 of Palestine at the toe of their sandals? 
 
 Ingersoll — ''Will you tell me why God failed to give 
 the Bible to the whole world?" 
 
 Comment — God did not fail to give his revelation to 
 the whole world. In the beginning, he revealed himself 
 and his will to man, who afterwards to a great extent for- 
 
I20 NOTES ON INGERSOLL. 
 
 got that revelation. Man began on this earth with a true 
 knowledge of the true God, but subsequently fell into 
 idolatry. The wise sayings and moral precepts of the 
 philosophers in the remoter ages were but the echoes of 
 that original divine revelation. The nearer we approach 
 to the origin of the human race the purer we find both 
 doctrine and morals. This has been demonstrated by 
 Thebaud in hfs remarkable work on Gentilism, 
 
 God then gave mankind originally a revelation, but 
 man, in the course of time, failed to keep it in his memory 
 and fell into ignorance, idolatry and barbarism. He 
 became a victim, not of evolution, but of devilution. 
 
 Ingersoll — "If Jeliovah was in fact God he knew 
 the end from the beginning. He knew that his Bible 
 would be a breastwork behind which tyranny and hypoc- 
 risy would crouch." 
 
 Comment— Granted. What then ? Because he knew 
 that his revelation would be abused, misrepresented and 
 ridiculed by some, must he therefore refuse it to the 
 world ? Every gift of God — food, life, health, ability, 
 reason, are abused by some. Must he deny to man, 
 groping in error, the light of revelation because he knew 
 the hypocrite would deny it and blaspheme ? 
 
 Ingersoll — God knew " tliat it would be the defence 
 of robbers called kings, and hypocrites called priests." 
 
 CoMMENT^He knew that it would be misquoted in 
 defence of tyranny, and that it would be misrepresented 
 by hypocrites called infidels, but that is no reason why 
 he should not give his revelation to man. 
 
 Ingersoll — " He knew that he taught the Jewish 
 people but little of importance." 
 
MISREPRESENTATION. 121 
 
 . Comment — You only imagine that you know this. 
 You must not confound your knowledge with that of 
 Jeliovah. How do you know what he knew ? You evi- 
 dently do not need to pray the old Scotch dominie's 
 prayer: "O Lord, gie us a gude conceit o' oursel'." 
 
 Ingersoll — "He knew that he found them free and 
 left them captives." 
 
 Comment — He knew that he found them in Egyptian 
 slavery and made them a powerful nation. 
 
 Ingersoll — " He knew that he had never fufilled the 
 promises made to them." 
 
 Comment — He knew that the promises made to tb.e 
 Jews were expressly and distinctly conditional on their 
 obedience to his commands and laws, and that they had 
 disregarded those commands and broken those laws. 
 They disobeyed him and in cousequence fell again into 
 bondage — the sceptre passed from the hands of Israel. 
 
 Ingersoll — *' I here take occasion to thank Mr. 
 Black for having admitted that Jehovah gave no com- 
 mandment against the practice of polygamy, that he 
 established slavery, waged wars of extermination, and 
 persecuted for opinion's sake even unto death." 
 
 Comment — First. You must have been in a very 
 gushing humor when you so formally thanked your 
 opponent for admitting what no Christian ever dreamt 
 of denying. Your opponent said tliat " if you were a 
 statesman instead of a mere politician you would see 
 good and sufficient reasons for the forbearance to legis- 
 late directly on this subject (polygamy)," and that '* it 
 would be improper for him to set them forth" in an article 
 intended for the general reader. Not being a statesman, 
 
12 2 NOTES ON INGERSOLL. 
 
 a moralist, or a physician, you, of course, do not see thosq 
 things to which your opponent delicately directs you at- 
 tention^ 
 
 Second. When you say Mr. Black admitted that Jehovah 
 established slavery, you say what is not true. It is the 
 height of unwisdom to make a statement that is so easily 
 refuted. Your thanks were premature, as Mr. Black 
 never, at least in the article you reply to, admitted any- 
 thing of the kind. He said: " Jehovah perinitied his 
 chosen people to hold the captives they took in war or 
 purchased from the heathen as servants for life." That 
 is, he permitted the Jews to follow the customs of the 
 times in this matter. Is this an admission that Jehovah 
 established slavery? Like a lawyer more *' cute" or cun- 
 ning than able, you change the word permitted to es- 
 tablished. You do not need to be told that there is a 
 difference between to permit and to establish. It is very 
 unbecoming in the great apostle of " candor" and '' honor 
 bright" to thus misrepresent his antagonist, and it must 
 bring the blush of shame even ioyour cheek to be caught 
 in such petty chicanery. 
 
 Third. To exterminate, from ex and terminus, means 
 to drive from the border, to expel, to drive,. out. This 
 the Jews did to the Canaanites, just as we are exterminat- 
 ing the Indians from this continent. It is the logic of 
 migration, the law of human movement. The race in its 
 movements on the surface of the earth is governed by laws 
 of social dynamics of which individuals and nations are 
 unconscious. Some gushing philosopher of the future 
 will condemn us of the nineteenth century as bitterly for 
 exterminating the Indian, as you condemn the Israelite 
 
MISREPRESENTATION. I23 
 
 for dispossessing the Canaanite. And he will have as 
 much influence on his age as you have on yours — and no 
 more. 
 
 Fourth. When you say your opponet admitted that 
 Jehovah persecuted " iox opiniori s sake even unto death," 
 you again misrepresent him. God, a* God, holds his in- 
 telh'gent creatures responsible for every thought, but God 
 as the temporal monarch of Judea inflicted punishment 
 only for overt acts. There is no punishment mentioned 
 in the Jewish criminal law for sins of thought, or mere 
 opinions. Therefore it is not true to say that God pun- 
 ished or persecuted for opinion's sake. Crimes cogniza- 
 ble to the Jewish criminal code were acts capable of 
 proof — subjects of evidence. Thoui^hts and opinions, un- 
 less made overt, are not capable of being evidenced or 
 proved. Therefore no one was punislied in Judea for 
 opinion's sake. 
 
 Ingersoll — ** Most theologians endeavor to putty, 
 patch and paint the wretched record of inspired crime, 
 but Mr, Black has been bold enough and honest enough 
 to admit the truth." 
 
 Comment — Here you transfer your misrepresentations 
 from Mr. Black to the theologians; and Mr. Black will 
 doubtless appreciate your compliment at its true value 
 when he reflects that the admissions, for which you are 
 so anxious to credit him at the expense of the theologians, 
 were never made by him. True, your opponent has been 
 bold enough and honest enough to admit the truth, but he 
 has not been so stupid or so asinine as to admit what you 
 attribute to him, while you have not been true enough or 
 honest enough to correctly state what he does, in fact, ad- 
 
124 NOTES ON INGERSOLL. 
 
 mit. Mr. Black is evidently not a theologian. He has 
 made some admissions, not of fact, but of principle, 
 which he should not have made, and taken certain posi- 
 tions which he cannot hold successfully; and singular as 
 it may seem to him and you, those positions are the very 
 ones that are not Christian. One instance will suffice. 
 Mr. Black says that the creation was a miracle. Theo- 
 logians do not agree with him in this. 
 
 Now as to the theologians, at wliom you take your fling 
 over Mr. Black's shoulders, I will say this of them: If they 
 were guilty of as much ])uttying and patching, misrepre- 
 sentation, low trickery, cunning, deceit, flattering of 
 popular passions and errors, as you have perpetrated in 
 this one article of yours, I would be disposed to look upon 
 them as sharpers of the meanest order who were inspired, 
 not by the genius of Christianity, but by the spirit of in- 
 fidelity. 
 
 You deem it no offence against decency to accuse theo- 
 logians of intention to perpetrate and perpetuate fraud, to 
 call them hypocrites, etc., and yet if they turn on you and 
 call you a speculator who turns falsehood into dollars, a 
 fraud, and a liar, you begin to whimper about the Master 
 who tells them to turn the other cheek. You are a brave 
 man. You challenge to mortal combat, and on the field you 
 seriously tell your antagonist that he cannot, and must not, 
 according to his principles, blow your brains out; while 
 you claim the right to shoot him through the heart, if you 
 can. There is no epithet in your vocabulary low or ven- 
 omous enough to fling at priests and theologians, but when 
 a '* policeman" like Mr. Black ventures to catalogue you, 
 you are up in indignation, and whine and whimper about 
 decency and the etiquette of debate. 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENTS — SLAVERY AND CHRISTIANITY 
 — THE APOSTLES NEITHER LUNATICS NOR IMPOSTORS. 
 
 INGERSOLL — ** In tliis age of fact and demonstration 
 it is refreshing to find a man who believes so thor- 
 oughly in the monstrous and miraculous, the impossible 
 and immoral." 
 
 Comment — Here you assume to determine what is 
 monstrous, miraculous, impossible and immoral. It is 
 refreshing in this age of general education to see an infidel 
 offering his crude notions as ultimate principles or axioms. 
 To say your opponent believes in the monstrous, impos- 
 sible and immoral, is to decide the question in your own 
 favor — to play the counsel for the prosecution and the 
 judge at the same time — a thing not permissible. 
 
 The words " fact" and " demonstration" are to you 
 what the red flag is to the Spanish matadore; you flout 
 them in the face of the people as the matadore flouts the 
 red flag in the face of his intended victim, and you ima- 
 gine they will throw down their heads, shut their eyes and 
 rush at them — and be taken in. You are mistaken. You 
 may deceive some — but the people on the average are not 
 fools. 
 
 Ingersoll — "Mr. Black comes to the conclusion that 
 the Hebrew Bible is in exact harmony with the New 
 Testament." 
 
 125 
 
126 NOTES ON INGERSOLL. 
 
 Comment — Mr. Black came to no such conclusion. It 
 is no doubt true that the Old and New Testaments " are 
 so connected together that if one is true the other can- 
 not be false." This is your opponent's statement and it 
 is very different from what you represent him as saying.- 
 
 Ingersoll — " It hardly seems possible to me that there 
 is a right-minded, sane man, except Mr. Black, who 
 believes that a God of infinite kindness and justice ever 
 commanded one nation to exterminate another." 
 
 Comment — It, no doubt, appears strange and hardly 
 possible to you, after your prodigal use of deceit and 
 sophistry, that any one should believe anything at all. 
 When God commands one nation to exterminate another 
 the Christian believes that there is very serious reason for 
 it. He believes that God knows more than he; and does 
 not think that to be a philosopher it is necessary to ex- 
 haust the resources of his lachrymal glands on every 
 guilty wretch and law-breaker whom the God of justice 
 deems it proper to lash or exterminate. God makes in- 
 struments of nations to punish nations. 
 
 Ingersoll — " In his (Black's) efforts to show that the 
 infallible God established slavery in Judea, he takes oc- 
 casion to say that ' the doctrine that slavery is a crime 
 under all circumstances was first started by the adherents 
 of a political faction in this country less than forty years 
 ago.'" 
 
 Comment — First. Mr. Black never made any efforts to 
 prove that God establisiied slavery in Judea, notwith- 
 standing your inverted commas. 
 
 Second. In your blundering haste to reply you fail to" 
 catch your opponent's meaning. Black says: *' The 
 
SLAVERY AND CHRISTIANITY. I27 
 
 doctrine that slavery is a crime under all circumstances, 
 was first started, etc., less than forty years a-go." When 
 Black made this statement he took it for granted that you 
 knew the difference between that which is wrong in itself, 
 and that which is wrong by circumstances — inaluvi in se 
 and malum per accidens. Your opponent is too good a 
 historian to say that the anti-slavery movement began only 
 forty years ago. 
 
 Since the advent of Christianity, slavery has been con- 
 sidered a social and circumstantial evil, an improper re- 
 lation between labor and capital, but it was never con- 
 sidered by men of healthy brains an evil per se, an evil in 
 its nature or essence. This is what Mr. Black meant by 
 *' all circumstances," but you were in such a hurry you 
 did not see it. This distinction takes the pith out of all 
 your eloquence on this point. The anti-slavery move- 
 ment is as old as Christianity. The councils of the 
 Christian Church have, age after age, labored to abolish 
 it, or to mitigate its severities. It did not begin forty 
 years ago. Mr. Black does not say it did. He says that 
 the doctrine that slavery was wrong under all circumstances, 
 was first started forty years ago. In this he is, for all 
 practical purposes, correct. With this distinction in view, 
 your argument on this point loses its wind. The Chris- 
 tian Church, during eighteen centuries, has fought against 
 slavery, and taught that all men are equal before God. 
 It was this teaching that in part brought about the per- 
 secutions of Christians in the Roman Empire. The law- 
 makers of Rome at that time were slave holders. They 
 did not relish the doctrine preached by the Apostles, that 
 all men are equal, and they enacted laws of coercion and 
 
128 NOTES ON INGERSOLL. 
 
 repression. But the genius of Christian liberty smiled at 
 their imbecile efforts, knowing that slie would live to look 
 back through centuries at the forgotten urns of these 
 law-makers, and consider their acts as matters of ancient 
 hislory. 
 
 When I say Christianity antagonized slavery I do not 
 mean that it was by a general, indefinite sentiment, but 
 by actual legislation. I will, in proof of this, give some 
 of the councils which legislated to protect the slave. 
 The council of Elvira, held in the year 305; the coun- 
 cil of Epaon, year 517; the council of Toledo, year 
 694; the fifth council of Aries, year 549; Emerita, 666; 
 the eleventh of Toledo, year 675; Worms, 868; second 
 of Macon, 585; the fifth of Paris, 614; the third of 
 Toledo, 589; fourth of Toledo, 633; of Agde, 506; 
 Rheims, 625; the third of Lyons, 583; the council of St. 
 Patrick, celebrated in Ireland in 450, required church 
 property to be used in redeeming captives; tlie second 
 council of Vernenil, 844, did the same. The second 
 council of Lyons excommunicated those who enslaved 
 others. A council held in 922, declared that he who sold 
 another into slavery was guilty of homicide. A council 
 held in London in the year 1102 forbade the selhng of 
 men in that city, and called it an infamous traffic. Pope 
 Gregory XVL in 1839, published Apostolic letters against 
 the slave trade. I might mention many other councils, 
 but I have given enough to show the spirit and tendency 
 of Christianity on the subject of slavery, and that anti- 
 slavery is a Christian thought. 
 
 Ingersoll — " It will not do to take the ground that 
 the rapid rise and spread of a religion demonstrates its 
 divine character," 
 
RISE AND SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY. 120 
 
 Comment — Certainly not, and that is the reason why 
 Mr. Black did not take that ground, although you labor 
 to make your readers believe he did. Theologians do 
 not teach that rapidity of rise and spread, taken alone, 
 is evidence of the divine character of Christianity. 
 Hence your several pages devoted to show the unsound- 
 ness of that position are just so much waste paper. It 
 is a loss of time, as well, to overthrow a position that no 
 one holds — that has no existence except in your vivid im- 
 agination. 
 
 That it may be seen that your adversary does not hold 
 the position you ascribe to him, I will here quote his ar- 
 gument in its completeness: 
 
 " When Jesus of Nazareth announced himself to be 
 Christ, the Son of God, in Judea, many thousands of 
 persons who heard his words and saw his works believed 
 in his divinity without hesitation. Since the morning 
 of creation, nothing has occurred so wonderful as the 
 rapidity with which this religion has spread itself abroad. 
 Men who were in the noon of life when Jesus was put to 
 death as a malefactor lived to see him worshipped as God 
 by organized bodies of believers in every province of the 
 Roman empire. In a few more years it took complete 
 possession of the general mind, supplanted all other reli- 
 gions, and wrought a radical change in human society." 
 
 This is a succinct statement of the facts in the case. 
 Mr. Black next proceeds to give the remarkable circiim- 
 stdfices under which this rapid change took place; and 
 these circumstances are an integral part of the argument, 
 for it is by them that the rapid rise of Christianity is dis- 
 tinguishable from that of other religions. It is the rise of 
 
130 NOTES ON INGERSOLL. 
 
 Cliiistianity in the face of these circumstances that con- 
 stitutes the evidence of its divine origin. Mr Black con- 
 linues: 
 
 " It did this in the face of obstacles which, according 
 to every luinian calculation, were insurmountable. It 
 was antagonized by all tiie evil propensities, the sensual 
 wickedness, and liie vulgar crimes of the multitude, as 
 well as tile poiisiied vices @f the luxurious classes; and 
 was most violently opposed even by those sentiments and 
 habits of tliought which were esteemed virtuous, such as 
 patriotism and military heroism. It encountered not only 
 the ignorance and superstition, but the learning and phil- 
 osophy of the time. Barbarism and civilization were alike 
 its deadly enemies. The priesthood of every established 
 religion and the authority of every government were ar- 
 rayed against it. All these combined together and roused 
 to furious hostility, were overcome, not by the enticing 
 words of man's wisdom, but by the simple presentation 
 of a pure and peaceful doctrine, preached by obscure 
 strangers, at the daily peril of their lives. Is it Mr. In- 
 gersoll's idea that this happened through chance.? If not, 
 there are but two other ways to account for it; either the 
 evidence by which the Apostles were able to prove that 
 the supernntural origin of the Gospels was overwhelming 
 and irresistable, or else its propagation was provided for 
 and carried on by the direct aid of the Divine Being him- 
 self. Between these two infidelity may take its choice." 
 
 This, Mr. Ingersoll, is your adversary's argument in 
 full, and the reader will see why you try to twist it out 
 of shape before you attempt to answer it, and why you 
 notice one part and ignore the other. 
 
RISE AND SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY. 131 
 
 Your reply is, that other religions arose and spread 
 with equal rapidity. Granted, for argument's sake. But 
 did they arise under like circumstances, and did they 
 meet and overcome like obstacles? Christianity met 
 and overcame obstacles "which, according to every human 
 calculation, were insurmountable," says Mr. Black. You 
 do not deny this, and you cannot assert it of other 
 religions. 
 
 Ingersoll — "Imagine a Mohammedan answering an 
 infidel; would he not use the argument of Mr. Black, 
 simply substituting Mohammed for Christ, just as effect- 
 ually as it has been used against me?" 
 
 Comment — No, because a Mohammedan could not use 
 it with truth or force. It would be equally groundless 
 in the mouth of a Brahmin or a priest of Isis and Osiris, 
 for the rise and spread of these false religions have 
 nothing in common with the rise and progress of Chris- 
 tianity, except perhaps rapidity, and this is not given 
 by Mr. Black as a proof of the divine origin of Chris- 
 tianity. You evidently set about answering his argu- 
 ment before you got a good hold of its full force and 
 meaning. 
 
 Ingersoll — " Do you not see that your argument 
 proves too much, and that it is equally applicable to all 
 the religions of the world?" 
 
 Comment — No; the flickering and uncertain glare of 
 your light does not enable me to see it. A better light, 
 that of reason, together with a little knowledge of the 
 facts in the case, will convince your readers that it is ap- 
 plicable to Christianity alone of all religions that ever 
 claimed the attention of man. Your efforts to make the 
 
132 
 
 KOT£S ON INGERSOLL. 
 
 argument fit Buddhism, Brahminism. and Mohammedan- 
 ism can succeed only by misrepresenting it, which, by the ■ 
 way, you have not hesitated to do. 
 
 Ingersoll — "The old argument that if Christianity is 
 a human fabrication, its authors must have been either 
 good men or bad men, takes it for granted that there are 
 but two classes of persons — the good and the bad. There 
 is at least one other class — the mistaken. 
 
 CoiMMENT— Then you must belong to this newly-in- 
 vented class. The mistaken must be either good or bad. 
 If they are honestly mistaken, they are good so far as the 
 subject of the mistake goes; if they are dishonestly mis- 
 taken they are bad. Don't you see we must come back 
 to the two classes which " the old argument takes for 
 granted"? 
 
 Ingersoll — "The history of the world is filled with 
 instances where men have honestly supposed that they 
 had received communications from angels and gods." 
 
 Comment — How do you know that they honestly sup- 
 posed? Must you not, from the nature of the case, take 
 their words for the honesty of their supposition? Then 
 it is their claim to have received communications that 
 constitutes the instances with which you say history is 
 filled. Now, a claim is something tangible, something 
 that can be tested. When a man claims to have received 
 a communication from God, Christians and all other sen- 
 sible people require some evidence in proof of the truth 
 of his claim, and it is this test that enables us to distin- 
 guish between real and imaginary, true and pretended 
 communications. History is full of instances where men 
 have claimed to have received divine communications; it 
 
The Apostles not impostors. 133 
 
 is also full of instances where these claims were rejected 
 for want of sufficient evidence of their truth. 
 
 Ingersoll — ** What we must say is tiiat, being good 
 men, they were mistaken." 
 
 Comment — Then you know more about events that 
 transpired nearly two thousand years ago than those who 
 were eye-witnesses to them! Whatever else a modern 
 infidel may lack, he is never found wanting in assurance. 
 It is his strong point. 
 
 The Apostles claimed a divine communication and mis- 
 sion. They worked miracles in proof of tlieir claim. 
 These miracles proved both to themselves and to those 
 who witnessed them that there could be no mistake about 
 their claim. 'HVliat we must say is, that you are mis- 
 taken," when you assume to be a better judge, a more re- 
 liable witness, of events that transpired nineteen hundred 
 years ago in Judea than those were who then lived, and 
 saw those events with their own eyes, or heard them with 
 their own ears. Would your statements, under the cir- 
 cumstances, be taken against theirs in any court of jus- 
 tice.** 
 
 It is true that there have been insane people and fanat- 
 ical enthusiasts who imagined that they had amission from 
 God, but this does not prove that sane men have not had 
 real commissions and missions from God. A false prophet 
 does not destroy the possibility of recognizing a true one, 
 as a counterfeit note does not destroy the value of a genuine 
 note. There are many presidents of the United States 
 and Queen Victorias in our insane asylums. Do their 
 hallucinations vitiate the real president's title or prove that 
 there is no such person as Queen Victoria? Or does the 
 
134 NOTES ON INGERSOLL. 
 
 delusion of Guiteau destroy the claims of a Moses or a 
 St. Paul to a divine commission ? Yet this is the assump- 
 tion and drift of your argument against the mission of 
 the Apostles! Your reasoning stated in form is this: 
 
 Some men have been mistaken. 
 
 Therefore the founders of Christianity were mistaken. 
 
 A boy who could reason no better than this ought to 
 have his ears boxed — if boxes large enough could be 
 found. 
 
CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 WHO WROTE THE GOSPELS? — CHARACTER OF THE EVAN- 
 GELISTS — MIRACLES OF CHRIST — LAZARUS, COME FORITI. 
 
 INGERSOLL— ** We are told that ' there is no good 
 reason to doubt that the statements of the Evangelists, 
 as we have them now, are genuine.' The fact is, no one 
 knows who made the * statements of the Evangelists.* " 
 
 Comment — The fact is, there can be no reasonable 
 doubt whatever that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John 
 wrote the Gospels attributed to them. Your statement 
 to the contrary has not a particle of evidence to rest on. 
 You have as good reason, and no better, to say that no 
 one knows who wrote Sl;akespeare, Paradise Lost of 
 Milton, the Divine Comedy of Dante, Caesar, Livy, 
 Tacitus, Josephus or Homer. No one ever doubts that 
 those books were written by the authors to whom they 
 are attributed. The same kind of evidence that estab- 
 lishes the authenticity of these, proves the authenticity 
 of the Gospels in a higher degree. Historical evidence, 
 common tradition, and a concatenation of circumstances, 
 are all we have to prove the genuineness of Hamlet 
 and Othello, Paradise Lost, Livy, Tacitus, and Josephus. 
 And they are abundantly sufficient. Now this historical 
 evidence, common tradition and concatenation of cir- 
 cumstances are equally strong for the authors of the four 
 Gospels. They are stronger; for th# facts treated of in 
 
 135 
 
136 . NOTES ON INGERSOLL. 
 
 the Gospels have changed the course of human history, 
 and in consequence the attention of mankind has been 
 more particularly directed to them. The more important 
 the contents of a book are to mankind, the more surely 
 will its genuineness be admitted or denied from the be- 
 ginning. It is a remarkable fact that the authenticity or 
 genuineness of the four Gospels was never brought in ques- 
 tion until modern times, and then only by a few infidels; 
 and even these confine themselves to bold, naked, ground- 
 less statements. These Gospels were received in the 
 earliest times as genuine, and were quoted by the earliest 
 Christian writers as the works of Matthew, Mark, Luke, 
 and John. All the enemies of Christianity, Jew, Pagan, 
 or heretic, who wrote against the Christian religion, 
 admitted without a shadow of hesitation or doubt the 
 genuineness of these Gospels. 
 
 Celsus, who lived in the second century, and was as 
 rabid an enemy of the Christian religion as you are, not 
 only mentions by name, but also quotes passages from 
 the books of the New Testament, so that it is certain we 
 have the identical books to which he referred. In all his 
 writings extant he never suggests the slightest doubt of 
 the genuineness of the books he quotes from, and whose 
 doctrines he opposes. Porphyry (A. D. 233), another 
 ami-Christian writer, in his objections takes for granted 
 the genuineness of the Gospels. Julian the Apostate, 
 (A. D. 363), another enemy of the Church, calls the 
 Gospels by the name they now bear, and nowhere ques- 
 tions their genuineness or authenticity. Neither Celsus 
 in the second century, Porphyry in the third, nor Julian 
 in the fourth, doubted the authenticity of these books, or 
 
WHO WROTE THE GOSPELS? 
 
 137 
 
 ever insinuated that Christians were mistaken in the 
 authors to whom they ascribed tliem. Not one of them 
 expressed an opinion on this subject that was different 
 from that held by the early Christians. There is much 
 more evidence that could be adduced for the authenticity 
 of ^the Gospels and the other books of the New Testa- 
 ment, but it is needless. Those who wish to read them 
 in full can consult Horn's Introduction to the Holy 
 Scriptures, vol. I., Chapters III. and IV., and DuClot's 
 Sainte Bible Vengee, vol. III. Those who will examine 
 these books may see what value is to be placed on your 
 statement that " no one knows who made the statements 
 of the Evangelists." 
 
 Ingersoll — "There are three important manuscripts 
 upon which the Christian world relies, * * the Codex 
 Vatican, * * the Codex Alexandrine, * * and the 
 Sinaitic Codex. 
 
 Comment — These Codices are simply the oldest known 
 manuscripts of the Sacred Scriptures. They are not 
 original manuscripts; only the completest copies extafii, 
 and they are all more or less imperfect. These manu- 
 scripts are venerable and useful, but it is not true to say 
 the Christian world relies or depends on them. If they 
 were all swept out of existence to-morrow, it would not 
 have any effect whatever on Christianity, which existed 
 before them, and will survive them. 
 
 Black — " Nothing was said by the most virulent ene- 
 mies against the personal honesty of the Evangelists." 
 Ingersoll — " How is this known.?" 
 Comment — It is known from the fact that neither in 
 tr<^dition nor history is there anything directly or indi- 
 
138 NOTES ON INGERSOLL. 
 
 rectly throwing the least suspicion or shadow of doubt on 
 their honesty, integrity, and holiness of life. The Apostles 
 certainly have a right to the same protection that you 
 claim for your own character. You will not deny them 
 this. Now, suppose a friend of yours said: "Nothing is 
 said by the most virulent enemies against the personal 
 honesty and virtue of Mr. Ingersoll." What would you 
 think of the man who would reply by saying: "How is 
 this known?" You would say he was a coward and a con- 
 temptible sneak, with the heart of an assassin without his 
 courage. Is not yo^r honesty and virtue to be taken for 
 granted until there is evidence to the contrary? Is not 
 that man a criminal who .attempts to rob you of your 
 character by hints or winks or insinuating questions? 
 Christianity teaches that he is, whatever you may think, 
 with your code of morals. The world, after nearly twenty 
 centuries, has found nothing but holiness in the character 
 of the Apostles, and they have lived during all that time 
 in the calcium light of history. The infidels and Christ- 
 haters of all times have found nothing against them, and 
 yet, after this long trial, when their personal honesty is 
 asserted, you, the apostle of fair play and " honor bright," 
 ask: *' How is this known?" How small men can become 
 when led by one overmastering passion or delusion. 
 
 Ingersoll — '* If Clirist performed the miracles recorded 
 in the New Testament, why would the Jews put to death 
 a man able to raise the dead?" 
 
 Comment — The miracles of Christ recorded in the New 
 Testament were admitted by the Jews. It never occur- 
 red to Jew, Gentile or Pagan to doubt the fact of those 
 miracles. Celsus, Porphyry and Julian admitted them 
 
MIRACLES OF CHRIST. I39 
 
 and tried to deprive them of their significance and force 
 by saying that Christ was a magician who had learned the 
 black art in Egypt while he dwelt with Mary his mother 
 on the banks of the Nile. The Jews also accounted for 
 his power, which they admitted, by saying he had stolen 
 the unspeakable word from the temple; and some of them 
 said he worked miracles by the power of the devil. These 
 explanations of his miracles are the strongest evidence of 
 their reality. Porphyry (A. D. 270) said: " Jesus, having 
 been raised obscurely, went to Egypt, where having learned 
 to perform some miracles, he returned to Judea, and pro- 
 claimed himself to b? God." 
 
 Julian the Emperor and Apostate (361) said: ** He 
 (Christ) did not do anything worth speaking of, unless we 
 consider it a great thing to have cured the deaf and blind 
 and to have expelled the demons from those who were 
 possessed in the villages of Bethsaida and Bethany." The 
 miracles of Christ were so striking and so public that the. 
 anti-christian philosophers were driven to the necessity 
 of admitting them and trying to explain them away. 
 Thus, Hierocles, a pagan philosopher, and governor of Al- 
 exandria under the Emperor Dioclesian, was not satisfied 
 with persecuting the Christians, but he must, to prove his 
 loyalty, no doubt, write a book in which he compared the 
 pretended miracles of ApoUonius Thyanseus to those of 
 Christ. There were no lecture-bureaus at the time, and 
 no North American Review^ so Hierocles had to write a 
 book. He wrote his book in which he said as follows, 
 and in which the reader will recognize a certain Ingersol- 
 lian twang: 
 
 *' The Christians make a great ^oise and give great 
 
T40 NOTES ON INGERSOLL. 
 
 praise to Jesus because he gave sight to the blind, and did 
 other wonders. * * We have better reason in attributing 
 like works to many great men, such as Aristeus, Pytha- 
 goras, Apollonius." 
 
 After having described the wonders worked by Apol- 
 lonius, this pagan philosopher continues: 
 
 " I speak of these wonders to show that we think more 
 wisely than the Christians; we do not regard as a God, 
 but as a friend of the gods, a man who has worked such 
 great wonders; the Christians, on the contrary, publish 
 that Jesus is God 0)1 account of the trifling prodigies he 
 performed. Peter, Paul, and some, others of that sect, 
 liars, ignorants, and magicians, have boasted of ti^e ac 
 tions of Jesus, but Maximus Degeus, the philosophe/ 
 Darius, Piiilostratus, wise men and lovers of truth, have 
 told us of the miracles of Apollonius." 
 
 According to Arnobius the pagans held that Jesus had 
 stolen from the sanctuary of the Egyptians the names of 
 the powerful genii, and the secrets by which he performed 
 his wonders. 
 
 Now, Mr. Ingersoll, do not all these attempts of ancient 
 philosophers to belittle and explain away the works of 
 Jesus Christ prove that those works were real — that they 
 were, known and admitted? These men knew the facts 
 belter than you do, and instead of denying them as 
 you do, they tried* to make little of them or explain them 
 away. 
 
 Ingersoll— "If Christ performed the miracles re- 
 corded in the New Testament, why would the Jews put 
 to death a man able to raise their dead?" 
 
 Comment — The argument of this question is, that be- 
 
MIRACLES OF CHRIST. I4I 
 
 cause the Jews put Christ to death, they did not believe 
 in his miracles as recorded in the Gospels. But this con- 
 clusion is false. The Jews believed that God had for- 
 bidden them to abandon the law of Moses, even if a pro- 
 phet performing miracles required llieni lo do so. From 
 ' the time of Christ down to the present, the Jews have 
 always and uniformly believed in the reality of the 
 miracles of Christ. If you do not believe this, consult their 
 Talmuds. 
 
 Well, then, you will ask, if they admitted the fact of 
 his miracles, why did they not accept him as the Messiah.? 
 While they admitted the miracles, they did not believe 
 that they proved him to be the Messiah. Their propliets 
 had performed miracles under the Mosaic law. Tiiey 
 had even raised the dead. The Jews in the time of Christ 
 could not understand how miracles could be worked to 
 abrogate that law. Fixed habits and prejudices, then, 
 caused them to reject the evidence of his miracles while 
 they admitted the /^^/ of them. They attributed them to 
 Beelzebub. Again, they believed that the promised Son 
 of David was to be a great temporal prince, that he was 
 to free the Jewish people and establish a great Jewish 
 empire, restore the Jewish nobility, and raise the Aaronic 
 priesthood to its ancient preeminence and glory. His 
 preaching and humble life gave no encouragement to 
 these hopes, and they refused to believe in him as the 
 promised Messiah, even while they admitted his miracles. 
 And they put him to death, as they had put to death their 
 acknowledged prophets. 
 
 Ingersoll—*' Why should they attempt to kill the 
 master of death.?" 
 
142 NOTES ON INGERSOLL. 
 
 Comment — To prove that he was not master of death. 
 
 Ingersoll — ' How did it happen that a man who 
 had done so many miracles was so obscure, so unknown, 
 that one of his disciples had to be bribed to point him 
 out?" 
 
 Comment — If he was so obscure and unknown why was* 
 Judas bribed to point him out at all? That was not an 
 age of weekly pictorials, by which the faces of public men 
 are made familiar to the people. If you were to be ar- 
 rested to-morrow for murder, the law requires that some 
 one formally identify you. 
 
 Ingersoll — "Is it not strange that the ones he had 
 cured were not his disciples?" 
 
 Comment — It would be strange if true; but how do 
 you happen to know they were not? Is it not strange 
 that you should know more about those who were cured 
 than history knows? Where did you get your informa- 
 tion? How do you know that the son of the widow of 
 Naim was not a disciple of Christ? or Lazarus, or the 
 deaf, the blind, and the lame? You simply know nothing 
 whatever about it. And yet with your infidel brass you 
 say they were not! 
 
 Ingersoll — "Can we believe, on the testimony of those 
 about whose character we know nothing, that Lazarus was 
 raised from the dead?" 
 
 Comment — Yes, we can, and must, just as we believe 
 the facts of all history. We believe that Caesar was as- 
 sassinated by Brutus; that Philip was king of Macedon; 
 that Alexander his son wss a great conqueror; that 
 Homer lived and wrote a book on the Trojnn wars; that 
 Virgil wrote the adventures of ^neas; thai Demosthenes 
 
LAZARUS, COME FORTH. I43 
 
 thundered against Philip, and that Cicero tore the veil 
 of hypocrisy from the brow of Cateline and aroused the 
 Romans to the dangers of his conspiracy; that the Roman 
 empire existed and fell, and that Christian nations rose 
 out of its ruins. All these and a thousand other facts we 
 do and must believe, and yet what do we know about the 
 character of the witnesses who testify to them? The 
 principle that destroys the credibility of the Gospel his- 
 tories destroys at the same time the credibility of all 
 history and the credibility of the human race. 
 Ingersoll — ' What became of Lazarus?" 
 Comment — It is probable that he lived an honest life, 
 and did not spend his time in asking foolish questions. 
 Ingersoll — " We never hear of him again." 
 Comment — The world has not ceased to hear of him to 
 good purpose for the last nineteen hundred years. 
 
 Ingersoll — '* It seems to me he would have been an 
 object of great interest." 
 
 Comment — So it has proved, although he was not the 
 first man who was raised from the dead, as we learn from 
 the Old Testament. 
 
CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 MIRACLES OF CHRIST — JOSEPHUS. 
 
 INGERSOLL — " How is it known that it was claimed, 
 during the life of Christ, that he had wrought a 
 miracle?" 
 
 Comment — It is known from four histories written by 
 four well-known historians who were contemporaries of 
 the Jewish historian Josephus. Their names are Matthew, 
 Mark, Luke, and John. These historians, whom the 
 world has always believed, tell us that the Jews accused 
 Christ of working miracles by the power of Beelzebub, 
 and that Christ reasoned with them to prove that his 
 miracles were not wocked by such power. This is the 
 way it is known that it was claimed and admitted, during 
 the life of Christ, that he wrought miracles. These 
 historians give many other instances that I might adduce, 
 but it is not necessary. 
 
 Ingersoll— " And if the claim was made, how is it 
 known that it was not denied?" 
 
 Comment— There is contemporary evidence that the 
 claim was made and admitted, and there is no evidence 
 whatever that it was ever denied. On the contrary, all 
 history takes those miracles as facts that have been passed 
 upon as no longer legitimate subjects of dispute. 
 
 As you have adduced no ancient historian who denies 
 the mirarles of Christ, it must be taken for grantee^ 
 144 
 
MIRACLES OF CHRIST. 145 
 
 that there is none. If there was a single line of Jew 
 or Pagan denying these miracles, you infidels would 
 hammer on it as persistently as the gentlemanly waiter 
 hammers on the Chinese gong at the railroad depot — 
 twenty minutes for refreshments. FaiHng to find any 
 evidence of this kind what do you do? It is almost in- 
 credible, but nevertheless true; you actually call on 
 Ciiristians to prove that no such evidence ever existed! 
 You say: "How is it known that it was not denied?" 
 The Devil himself, in the highest flight of his genius, never 
 surpassed this piece of supreme impertinence. You are 
 a lawyer, and as such you are supposed to know sometliing 
 about legal logic at least. Now what would you say of 
 the counsel for the prosecution in the star route cases if, 
 after failing to find any evidence of the guilt of the ac- 
 cused, they should require you to prove that no such 
 evidence ever existed? Suppose Merrick, your able 
 opponent in the star route suit, should, after failing to 
 produce evidence of guilt, say: "How is it known that 
 such evidence does not exist?" What would you feel like 
 saying of him? What would the court think of him? This 
 is the predicament you place yourself in when you ask: 
 How is it known that the miracles of Christ were never 
 denied? 
 
 . Ingersoll — *' Did the Jews believe that Christ was 
 clothed with miraculous power ?" 
 
 Comment — They did. And they believed that their 
 prophets were also clothed with miraculous power, even 
 that of raising the dead, and this was the reason why the 
 miracles of Christ did not convince them that he was 
 God or the Messiah, 
 
146 NOTES ON INGERSOLL. 
 
 Ingersoll — " Is it not wonderful that Josephus, the 
 best historian the Hebrews produced, says nothing about 
 the life or death of Christ ?" 
 
 Comment — Nothing? Here is what he says: — 
 
 " Now^ there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if 
 it be lawful to call him a man: for he performed many 
 wonderful works. He was a teacher of such men as re- 
 ceived the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him 
 many of the Jews, and also many Gentiles. This man 
 was the Christ. And when Pilate, at the instigation of 
 the principal men among us, had condemned him to the 
 cross, those who had loved him from the first did not 
 cease to adhere to him. For he appeared to them alive 
 again on the third day; the divine prophets having fore- 
 told these and ten thousand other wonderful things con- 
 cerning him. And the tribe of the Christians, so named 
 from him, subsists to this time." — Antiquities of the Jews, 
 Book 18, chap. 3. 
 
 This is something about the life and death of Christ, is 
 it not? 
 
 Ingersoll — '* The paragraph in Josephus is admitted 
 to be an interpolation." 
 
 Comment — Admitted by whom ? By you, and Paine, 
 and Voltaire, and other infidels, Tooley street tailors. 
 The paragraph is so strong and direct that the infidel 
 fraternity cannot get over its force except by denying its 
 genuineness. And tins they do accordingly. After this 
 denial, which in itself is of no weight whatever, they pro- 
 ceed to the next step in infidel tactics and say, "it is ad- 
 mitted." Now, sir, it is not admitted that this paragraph 
 is an interpolation. On the contrary, it is held to be 
 
JOSEPHUS. 147 
 
 genuine, and for the best of reasons. It is found in all 
 the copies of Josephus's works now extant, whether printed 
 or manuscript; in a Hebrew translation preserved in 
 the Vatican Library, and in an Arabic version preserved 
 by the Maronites of Mount Libanus. It is cited by 
 Eusebius, tlie most ancient of Church liistorians, by St. 
 Jerome, Rufinus, Isidore of Pelusium, Sozomen, Cassio- 
 dorus, Nicephorus, and many others. Eusebius was the 
 first to quote this passage, and it is morally impossible 
 tliat he could have forged it without being detected. 
 No objection was made to this passage in the early ages 
 by any of the opponents of the Christian faith. The 
 paragraph is then genuine, according to all rules of evi- 
 dence and all the canons of sound criticism. 
 
 Ingersoll — " Is it not wonderful that no historian 
 ever mentioned any of these prodigies ?" 
 
 Comment — The prodigies you refer to are, ist, the 
 massacre of the infants by Herod; 2nd, the Star of Beth- 
 lehem; 3rd, the darkness at the time of the crucifixion, etc. 
 
 The first is referred to by Macrobius, a heathen histo- 
 rian, in such a manner as to leave no doubt as to the 
 universal belief in the fact. 
 
 The second is mentioned by Chalcidus, a Platonic phil- 
 osopher, who attests the fact in almost the same words as 
 the gospel: 
 
 This Platonist says: "There is another history most 
 worthy of our religious veneration, which notes the ap- 
 parition of a star destined to announce to men, not dis- 
 ease or some terrible mortality, but the advent of a God 
 who came down for the salvation and happiness of the 
 human race." Julian the Emperor and Apostate admit- 
 
148 NOTES ON INGERSOLL. 
 
 ted the truth of the account of this star which led the 
 wise men, by saying that it was the star Asaph, observed 
 by the Egyptians as making its appearance every four 
 hundred years. 
 
 The third (the darkness) is mentioned by Phlegon of 
 Trallium, a pagan who lived in the middle of the second 
 century, /. e., about the year of oar Lord 150. He says: 
 "The fourth year of the two luindred and second Olym- 
 piad, there was an eclipse of the sun, the grandest tliat 
 had ever been hitherto. About the sixth hour of the day 
 a night so obscured that the stars in the heavens became 
 visible. A great earthquake took place, which overturned 
 many houses in the city of Nice in Bythania." This 
 ■202d Olympiad, year 4, corresponds with the 33d year of 
 the Christian era. That is the year and time of the cruci- 
 fixion. But let us go back a little. You say: "Josephus 
 is the best historian the Hebrews produced." Now, I 
 ask you, on what principle do you accept the works of 
 Josephus as genuine, while you reject the works of Mat-' 
 thew, Mark, Luke and John? They v/ere contempora- 
 ries. If the evidence for the authenticity or genuineness 
 of the histories attributed to the Evangelists is not suffi- 
 cient to give them the stamp of veracity, what more 
 evidence have you for the genuineness and veracity of 
 Josephus? Why do you reject the works of the Evange- 
 lists and admit the works of Josephus? It is useless to 
 ask the question and expect an answer. The real answer 
 is this: You imagine Josephus does not antagonize your 
 infidel theories, and the Evangelic historians do. This 
 accounts for your enmity for the one and your admira- 
 tion for the other. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 MR. INGERSOLL AS A HERMENEUTIST — JOSEPHUS AGAIN — 
 THE ASCENSION — 1.AST WORDS OF CHRIST — GENEALOGY. 
 
 INGERSOLL — " Is it not more amazing than all the 
 rest, that Christ" himself concealed from Matthew 
 Mark and Luke the dogma of Atonement, the necessity 
 of belief, and the mystery, of the second birth?" 
 
 Comment — First. Atonement is the expiation of sin 
 by the obedience and personal sufferings of Christ — re- 
 demption. Now, Matthew says: " Even as the son of 
 Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and 
 to give his life a redeviption for 7najiy.'' — xx. 28. Mark 
 makes the same statement word for word. — x. 45. Luke 
 says: *' But those things which God had foretold by the 
 mouth of all the prophets, that his Christ should suffer, 
 he hath so fulfilled." — Acts iii. 18. In the face of these 
 facts how can you say that Christ concealed this dogma 
 from these Evangelists? 
 
 Second. The necessity of belief. 
 
 On this Mark says: " He that /^^to^^M not shall be con- 
 demned." — xvi. 15. Luke, in his book called The Acts 
 of the Apostles, says: ''Believe in the Lord Jesus: and 
 thou shalt be saved, and thy house." — xv. 31. Why did 
 you say Christ concealed the necessity of belief from 
 Mark and Luke? 
 
 Third. The mystery of the second birth. 
 
 149 
 
ISO 
 
 NOTES ON INGERSOLL. 
 
 On this Matthew says: " Go ye, therefore, and teach 
 all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and 
 of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." — xxviii. 19. Mark 
 teaches: " He that believeth, and is baptized, shall be 
 saved." — xvi. 16. It does not appear that this doctrine 
 was concealed from these Evangelists, 
 
 Ingersoll — " When we remember that eighteen hun- 
 dred years ago there were but few people who could 
 write, and that a manuscript did not become public in 
 any modern sense, it was possible for the Gospels to 
 have been written with all the foolish claims in reference 
 to miracles without exciting comment or denial." 
 
 Comment — The Gospels and the other writings of the 
 New Testament were better known in the age in which 
 they were written than any other books, sacred or pro- 
 fane. Other books were written for the few, the learned; 
 the books of the New Testament were written for the 
 people. They were read every Sunday to the people, 
 and their teaching became their rule of conduct and life, 
 while the writings of philosophers and profane historians 
 were known only to the student; they did not enter into 
 the lives and habits of the people. This is one reason 
 why so few of these historians have survived the lapse of 
 ages, while the writings of Apostles have come down to 
 us in all their completeness. They were therefore pub- 
 lic, and the miracles recorded in them did excite com- 
 ment and caused the conversion of thousands of both 
 Jews and Gentiles. 
 
 Ingersoll — " There is not, in all the contempora- 
 neous literature of the world, a single word about Christ 
 and his Apostles." 
 
MR. INGERSOLL AS A HERMENEUTIST. 151 
 
 Comment — Whatever it may have been, there is little 
 of the literature of that time now extant. But little as 
 it is, we have enough to prove your statement false. Jo- 
 sephus was a contemporary of the Apostles. He was born 
 in the year 37. In my last article I quoted his testimony 
 in reference to Christ: " Now, there was about this time 
 Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man * * 
 He drew over to him many of the Jews, and also many 
 of the Gentiles. This man was the Christ," etc. 
 
 Ingersoll — " The paragraph in Joseplius is admitted 
 to be an interpolation." 
 
 Comment — No, sir, it is not admitted, nor even claimed, 
 except by a few interested critics like yourself. Learned 
 critics have demonstrated that this paragraph is genuine, 
 and that it could not have been interpolated. But there 
 is still another passage in Josephus, the genuineness of 
 which has never been questioned or even suspected. 
 
 In his Antiquities, Book 20, chap. 9, sec. i, he says: 
 " Ananus assembled the Jewish Sanhedrim, and brought 
 before it James, the brother of Jesus who is called Christ, 
 with some others, whom he delivered over to be stoned 
 as infractors of the law." The James. here spoken of was 
 the first bishop of Jerusalem, and an Aj^jostle. 
 
 The writings of Suetonius are contemporary literature. 
 This author was born in the year 72. He refers to Clirist 
 when he says that Claudius Caesar expelled the Jews from 
 Rome, because they raised continual tumults at the in- 
 stigatioti of Christy — /// Claudio, chap. 25. 
 
 The historian Tacitus, born in the year 56, says: *' The 
 author of that sect (Christians) was Christ, who, in the 
 reign of Tiberius, was punished with death as a criminal 
 
1^2 NOTES ON INGERSOLL. 
 
 by the procurator Pontius Pilate." — Tacitus, Annah^ 
 Book 15, chap. 44. 
 
 Pliny the younger, born in the year 62, in his celebrated 
 letter to the Emperor Trajan, says that Jesus was wor- 
 shipped by his followers as God — " They sing among 
 themselves, alternately, a hymn to Christ as to God." 
 
 Now, sir, in view of these testimonies, what are we to 
 think of your assertion that *' there is not, in all the con- 
 temporaneous literature of the world, a single word about 
 Christ and his Apostles?" And what will the reader 
 think of your character for veracity? 
 
 Ingersoll — " Neither will it do to say that 'the state- 
 ments made by the Evangelists are alike upon every im- 
 portant point.' " 
 
 Comment — It will do to say it, because it is true, and 
 because you have given no evidence to the contrary, as 
 we shall see. 
 
 Ingersoll—'* If there is anything of importance in the 
 New Testament, from a theological stand-point, it is the 
 ascension of Christ." 
 
 Comment — Granted. 
 
 Ingersoll—" Are the statements of the inspired wit- 
 nesses alike on this point?" 
 
 Comment — Yes. But your opponent does not say 
 "inspired witnesses." Christians do not teach that the 
 Apostles were inspired witnesses of the events they nar- 
 rate. It does not require inspiration to witness a fact. 
 This is an illustration of your art in changing words to 
 introduce into the question false ideas. The Ap9stles 
 witnessed the events in the life of Christ, as others wit- 
 nessed thern. But unlike others, they were inspirea to 
 
THE ASCENSION. 153 
 
 give a narration of the events they witnessed. You are 
 fond of words of double meaning. They give room for 
 sophistry. A witness may mean one who has seen an 
 event take place, or it may mean one who gives testimony 
 of what he has seen. The Evangelists were the inspired 
 narrators of what they witnessed. I mention this merely 
 to show how carefully you are to be watched. The state- 
 ments, then, of the "inspired witnesses" are alike on the 
 ascension. 
 
 Ingersoll — "Let us see." 
 
 Comment — Certainly, your desire for information is 
 praiseworthy. 
 
 Ingersoll — "Matthew says nothing upon the subject." 
 
 Comment — Your opponent said the statements made 
 by the Evangelists were alike, etc. He said nothing of 
 stitements that were riot made by this or that Evangelist. 
 Matthew's history ends with the resurrection and the com- 
 mission of the Apostles, and does not extend to the as- 
 cension. 
 
 Ingersoll — "To this wonder of wonders Mark de- 
 votes one verse: ' So then, after the Lord had spoken 
 unto them, he was received up into heaven, and sat on 
 the right hand of God.' " 
 
 Comment — Is not one verse sufficient to state an im- 
 portant fact? You, no doubt, would have devoted many 
 words to this fact, but that was not Mark's style — he was 
 not a romancer. The difference between him and you is 
 this: He was inspired to write the truth, while you are 
 not — at least your writings give no evidence of it. 
 
 Ingersoll — "Luke, another of the witnesses, says: 
 'And it came to pass, while he blessed them, lie was parted 
 from them and carried up into heaven.' " 
 
154 NOTES ON INGERSOLL. 
 
 Comment — Well, is not this statement and that of 
 Mark alike? 
 
 Ingersoll — '*John corroborates Matthew, by saying 
 nothing on the subject." 
 
 Comment — John "corroborates" St. Matthew by say- 
 ing: "And no man hath ascended into heaven, but he 
 that descended from heaven, the Son of Man, who is in 
 heaven." — John iii. 13. This is saying something on the 
 subject, is it not? Why did you overlook this text? 
 
 Ingersoll — *' Now, we find that the last chapter of 
 Mark, after the eighth verse, is an interpolation." 
 
 Comment — Where do you find that? You have said 
 assertions are spurious coins, and yet you would palm 
 your *' we find" on your reader as genuine truth. Now, 
 " we find" nothing of the kind, and when you say you 
 have found it, you simply take a dishonest advantage of 
 your ignorant admirers. That they deserve no better 
 treatment at your hands is no excuse for you. The 
 verses in the last chapter of St. Mark, which you say are 
 interpolated, are found in almost all the ancient manu- 
 scripts. The most ancient of the fathers admit them, as 
 St. Irenseus, Tertullian, St. Clement, St. Ambrose, St. 
 Augustine, and others. All the oldest Latin, Syriac, and 
 Arabic copies have them. They must, therefore, be con- 
 sidered genuine until we have some better reason for re- 
 jecting them than your "we find." 
 
 Let us now sum up: 
 
 Ingersoll — "(i) Either the ascension of Christ must 
 be given up, or (2) it must be admitted that the witnesses 
 do not agree, and (3) that three of theiu r.eveC h«ard of 
 that stupendous event." 
 
THE ASCENSION. I55 
 
 Comment — First. The ascension of Christ will not be 
 given up. It should never have been believed if it could 
 be overthrown by the silly trash which you advance as 
 arguments. 
 
 Second. The evidence of the three Evangelists whom I 
 have quoted does agree, and no man of sense and unbi- 
 assed judgment will pretend to the contrary. They all 
 bear unequivocal and uncontradictory evidence to the 
 fact of the ascension. 
 
 Third. There are only four Evangelists. Three of 
 them speak of the ascension, as is seen by the above 
 quotations. Now where do you find your other three 
 who never heard of it? 
 
 But you contradict yourself. According to your reas- 
 oning only one of the Evangelists mentions the ascension; 
 the rest are silent, or never heard of that stupendous 
 event. Now, if only one of four witnesses speak, 
 how can they contradict each other? There is such a 
 thing as being too smart. You should not let your zeal 
 for godlessness run away with your judgment. The con- 
 clusion from all this is that the Evangelists do not con- 
 tradict each other, and that their testimony is alike on 
 the ascension. 
 
 Ingersoll — "Again, if anything could have left its 
 * form and pressure on the brain,' it must have been the 
 last words of Christ." 
 . Comment — No doubt of it. What then? 
 
 Ingersoll — " The last words, according to Matthew, 
 are: *Go ye, therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing 
 them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of 
 the Holy Ghost; teaching them to observe all things 
 
156 NOTES ON INGER^OLL. 
 
 whatsoever I have commanded you: and lo, I am with 
 you always, even to the end of the world.'" 
 
 Comment — Now, these are not the last words of Christ 
 according to Matthew, and Matthew does not say they 
 were the last words. Why do you interpolate into the 
 gospel of Matthew a statement he never made? Is it 
 through stupidity, or ignorance, or a desire to deceive ? 
 You must excuse me, but I must talk according to the 
 facts: your statement is absolutely false. Matthew does 
 not pretend to give the last words of Christ. The words: 
 Go ye, etc., are simply the last words reported by Mat* 
 thew. 
 
 Ingersoll — *' The last words, according to the inspired 
 witness known as Mark, are: 'And these signs shall fol- 
 low them that believe: in my name they shall cast out 
 devils,'" etc. 
 
 Comment — What I have said above in reference to the " 
 last words of Matthew are equally applicable here. St. 
 Mark does not report these words as the last utterances 
 of Christ. They are simply the last words he (Mark) re- 
 ports. You can be excused from bad faith here only at 
 the expense of your intelligence. 
 
 Ingersoll — '* Luke tells us that the last words uttered 
 by Christ, with the exception of a blessing, were: ' And 
 behold I send forth the promise of my Father upon 
 you,' " etc. 
 
 Comment — Luke tells us nothing of the kind; and it 
 is hard to believe that you did not know you were mis- 
 representing Luke^when you said so. You must have an 
 unlimited faith in the credulity of this age, and in the 
 bottomless ignorance ©f the class to wlwch you appeal 
 
LAST WORDS OF CHRIST. I57 
 
 when you make such a statement. It is not at all sur- 
 prising that great and learned Christian theologians do 
 not care to meet you. The reason of their silence is evi- 
 dent to men of sense. It is not their duty or business to 
 turn aside to meet every blatant blasphemer who wags his 
 tongue against Christianity for dollars, under the pre- 
 tence of being a philosopher. They decline to talk with 
 you about theology on the same principle that a Marshall, 
 a Taney, or an Evarts would decline to discuss Common 
 Law or the Code Justinian with a mountebank. 
 
 Ingersoll — ''The last words according to John, were: 
 * Peter, seeing him, saith to Jesus: Lord, and what shall 
 this man do?' " etc. 
 
 Comment — It is needless to tell the reader, aftef what 
 I have said in reference to your falsifications of the other 
 Evangelists, that your assertion as to what St. John says 
 is utterly false and without a shadow of foundation. You 
 are squandering your reputation too cheaply. 
 
 Ingersoll — *' An account of the ascension is also given 
 in the Acts of the Apostles; and the last words of Christ, 
 according to that inspired witness, are: 'But ye shall re- 
 ceive power,'" etc. 
 
 Comment— This is equally as false as what you have 
 said about the Gospels. 
 
 Ingersoll — *' Lake testifies that Christ ascended on 
 the very day of his resurrection." 
 
 Comment — l,uke nowhere testifies that Christ ascended 
 on the very day of his resurrection. On the contrary, he 
 tells us in his Ac^s of the Apostles, that " He (Christ) 
 showed himself alive after his passion, by many proofs, 
 for forty days appearing to them and speaking of the 
 
T58 NOTES ON INGERSOLL, 
 
 kingdom of God." — i. 3. Here Luke testifies explicitly 
 as to the time of the ascension, whereas in his Gospel 
 he specifies no time. 
 
 Ingersoll — " These depositions do not agree." 
 
 Comment — It is your travesty of them tliat does not 
 agree. The depositions are alike when fairly and truth- 
 fully represented. 
 
 Ingersoll — " Two of the witnesses, Matthew and Luke, 
 give the genealogy of Christ. Matthew says that there 
 were forty-two generations from Abraham to Christ. 
 Luke insists that there were forty-two from Cnrist to 
 David, while Matthew gives the number as twenty-eight. 
 It may be said that this is an old objection. An objec- • 
 tion remains young until it has been answered." 
 
 Comment — It is indeed an old objection, and in this 
 it is like all the objections you have made. They are all, 
 thus far, merely the old, oft-repeated, and oft-answered 
 ones varnished and revamped into modern parlance. 
 They lose some of their force in the translation, but 
 what they lose that way is made up by flippancy and ver- 
 bal flummery. 
 
 Your objection is that Matthew and Luke contradict 
 each other in the number of generations. Generation has 
 two meanings. It means first, the actual number of per- 
 sons in direct line, as father, son, grand-son, great-grand- 
 son, etc. Generation in this sense gives us no measure of 
 time, since every individual in the above series may have 
 lived from twenty to five hundred years or more. This 
 kind of generation is therefore of no use whatever in cal- 
 culcating time or historical epochs. It is too indefinite. 
 It is, however, of use to prove legitimacy, and the right of 
 
GENEALOGY. 159 
 
 inheritance. It is generation in this sense that St. Luke 
 traces, because it was his purpose to show that Christ was 
 of the direct line of the elder branch of the royal family, 
 and that he was the person who, if royalty had continued 
 in the family of David, would have legally inherited the 
 throne. Luke was dealing with the question in reference 
 to legitimacy and inheritance — and with no reference to 
 historical times or epochs. 
 
 The second meaning of generation has reference to 
 time and denotes the average life of man, which at present 
 is supposed to be thirty-three years. As men lived longer 
 in the early history of the race than now, the average life 
 or generation was much longer. Now Matthew uses the 
 word generation in reference to time — to the average dura- 
 tion of life when the prophecies concerning the coming 
 of Christ were written — to prove that those prophecies 
 were verified. His purpose was to show two things; first, 
 that the time announced by the prophets had been com- 
 pleted at the advent of Christ, and second, to show that 
 Christ was of the royal line of David. Generations of 
 time then, in the sense used by Matthew, rnight contain 
 two, three, or four generations of individuals \\\ the sense 
 of Luke. It follows then, that as these two Evangelists 
 were writing about two different things they did not con- 
 tradict each other. Luke spoke of individual life, Matthew 
 of average life. 
 
 Ingersoll — " Is it not wonderful that Luke and 
 Matthew do not agree on a single name of Christ's an- 
 cestors for thirty-seven generations?" 
 
 Comment — It is wonderful only to those who are 
 ignorant of the fact that Matthew gives the ancestors 
 
l6o NOTES ON INGERSOLL. 
 
 of Joseph, wliile Luke gives the ancestors of Mary, the 
 Mother of God. 
 
 Are your ancestors on your mother's side all Ingersolls? 
 Must your maternal and paternal ancestors necessarily 
 have the same name? A careiul study of Christian writers 
 on these subjects would save you a good deal of ignorant 
 blundering. 
 
 Ingersoll — " There *is a difference of opinion among 
 the * witnesses' as to what the Gospel of Christ is." 
 
 Comment — I think the reader has discovered by this 
 time that it is not safe to accept your statements without 
 proof of some kind to verify them. Experience has 
 proved that something more than your word is necessary. 
 You must specify these differences of opinion, quote the 
 conflicting texts, and give their references. After you 
 have done this it will be time to consider your statement. 
 We have had enough of loose, indefinite declamation. 
 
 Ingersoll — *' According to these witnesses, Christ knew 
 nothing of the doctrine of Atonement." 
 
 Comment — In the preceding chapter I quoted from 
 those three witnesses texts referring to Atonement. This 
 was in answer to your statement that those Evangelists 
 knew nothing about that dogma. You now repeat the 
 same idea in another dress. This time it is Christ him- 
 self who knows nothing about it, and you give as evidence 
 of this the three Evangelists, whom you assert never 
 mentioned the subject!! Now, if it were true (as it is 
 not) that these Evangelists never referred to the doctrine 
 of Atonement, how can you quote them as witnesses that 
 Christ knew nothing of that doctrine.'* Your statement 
 is false, and without a shadow of evidence of any kind 
 
ATONEMENT. l6l 
 
 whatever to give it even the appearance of truth. Is this 
 the kind of stuff you expect the Christian scholar to stoop 
 to meet? 
 
 Ingersoll — '' To my mind the failure of the Evange- 
 lists to agree as to what is necessary for man to do to in- 
 sure the salvation of his soul, is a demonstration that they 
 were not inspired." 
 
 Comment — It would be a demonstration to the mind of 
 the Christian as well, if there was any such failure to 
 agree as you assert. 
 
 If the Evangelists disagreed, or conflicted in their tes- 
 timony, it would follow that they were not all inspired. 
 But thus far your effort to prove that they disagree is a 
 miserable failure. If you have nothing better to offer 
 than what you have already given to prove disagreement 
 among these Evangelists, your case is in a bad way in- 
 deed. 
 
 Ingersoll — " Neither do the witnesses agree as to the 
 last words of Christ, when he was crucified." 
 
 Comment — You are positive about this. Now let us 
 see. 
 
 Ingersoll—** Matthew says that he cried: * My God, 
 my God, why hast thou forsaken me?*" 
 
 Comment — Does Matthew say that these were the last 
 words of Christ ? The words are the last reported by 
 Matthew, but he does not report them as the last words 
 of Christ. 
 
 Ingersoll — "Mark agrees with Matthew." 
 
 Comment — Then, as Matthew reports no words as the 
 last spoken by Christ, it follows that Mark did not. So 
 much for your "last words" thus far. 
 
l62 NOTES ON INGERSOLL. 
 
 Ingersoll — '' Luke testifies that his last words were: 
 * Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit.'" 
 
 Comment — Luke " testifies" to nothing of the kind. 
 These are the last words reported by Luke, but he does 
 not report them as the last words of Christ. 
 
 Ingersoll — "John states that he cried: "It is fin- 
 ished.' " 
 
 Comment — True, but he does not state that these were 
 his last words. The fact is, none of the Evangelists re- 
 port any words as the last words of Christ. It is at best 
 a matter of inference what the last words were. There- 
 fore when you quote the Evangelists as reporting the 
 last words of Christ, you misrepresent them; and the 
 contradictions, which you pretend were made by them, 
 exist only in your ignorant or unprincipled misrepresen- 
 tations of the Gospels. It would be interesting to know 
 by what code of morals you are governed, if any. Gau- 
 tama, Confucius, or Koang~Foo-Tzee, Zoroaster, Lao- 
 Tzsu, Hermes Trismegistus, Moses and Mahomet, all 
 forbid lying in their moral codes. What code do you 
 follow, anyhow? 
 
 Ingersoll — " John says that Christ, on the day of his 
 resurrection, said to his disciples: 'Whosesoever sins ye 
 remit, they are remitted unto them, and whosesoever sins 
 ye retain, they are retained.' The other disciples do not 
 record this monstrous passage." 
 
 Comment — Tlie other disciples do not record this pas- 
 sage, eh? Matthew was an apostle and a disciple was he 
 not? Well, Matthew says: "Verily, I say unto you, what- 
 soever ye shall bind on earth sliall be bound in heaven, 
 and whatsoever ye shall loose upon earth shall be loosed 
 
MISSION OF THE APOSTLES. 1 63 
 
 in heaven." — xxviii. 18. And again: "I will give unto 
 thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatsoever 
 thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven," etc. — 
 xvi. 19. 
 
 This is enough to prove you ignorant or dishonest, and 
 you may take your choice of position. You should not 
 forget that you are not only sacrificing your own dignity 
 and veracity, but are sacrificing and huml)ling in the 
 dust, so far as one man can do it, the dignity of our 
 common manhood, by your false, foolish, and reckless 
 statements. 
 
 Ingersoll — " They (the Apostles) were not present 
 when Christ placed in tiieir hands the keys of heaven and 
 hell, and put a world beneath the feet of priests." 
 
 Comment — When you say, "They were not present 
 when he placed in their hands the keys," etc., you intended 
 to perpetrate one of those side-splitting jokes which are 
 wont to set your audience in a roar. The idea of their 
 not being present when he placed in their hands the keys, 
 is droll, when we come to think of it. But the subject 
 is very serious, and the joke is out of place. When we 
 want to enjoy such things we go to the circus or to the 
 minstrels. But let us return. You say that that com- 
 mission which Christ gave to his Apostles to pardon 
 sinners "puts a world beneath the feet of priests." Does 
 the power of pardoning criminals, which is reposed in the 
 hands of the governor, place the people of this State at 
 his feet? Reflect on this for a moment, and you will learn 
 that there is more sound than sense in your observation. 
 
CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 CONTRADICTIONS — INGERSOLL's METHOD OF ACCOUNTING 
 FOR THEM — HOW TO BE SAVED — INGERSOLL's NEW 
 PATENT. 
 
 INGERSOLL — "It is very easy to account for the 
 differences and contradictions in these 'depositions* 
 by saying that eacli one told the story as lie remembered 
 it, or as he heard it, or that the accounts have been 
 changed, but it will not do to say that the witnesses were 
 inspired of God." * • 
 
 Comment — It is easy to account by *' saying." — Yes, 
 that is the way you account for almost everything. It 
 is easy indeed, but it has this disadvantage, it does not ac- 
 count for everything. It has been the misfortune of 
 your theological career that you have placed too much 
 reliance on " saying" and too little on proving. 
 
 It will be time to account for the contradictions of the 
 Evangelists when those contradictions are made appar- 
 ent. Thus far you have not made them visible. Hence 
 your cunning method of accounting for them by** saying" 
 is gratuitous, uncalled for, and entirely inconsistent with 
 Cliristian principles. Christianity must be defended by 
 straight, true, and correct methods, or none. It cannot 
 afford to be defended in the spirit in which you attack 
 it. It must not use sophistry, or cunning, or wit, or jokes, 
 164 
 
Ii 
 
 CONTRADICTIONS. 165 
 
 or lies. Its platform is truth, and if that ground sinks it 
 must go under with it. 
 
 Ingersoll — '* Why should there be more than one in- 
 spired Gospel ?" 
 
 Comment — The fad that there were four inspired 
 Gospels written is sufficient evidence that there was 
 reason for four. God does not act without reason. But 
 your question shows that you do not understand what is 
 meant by inspiration. Kw inspired history is not neces- 
 sarily a complete history. The inspiration has reference 
 to what is said by an inspired writer, and not to what is 
 not safd by him. 
 
 While the four Gospels are inspired histories, they are 
 not complete. and full narrations of all the events and 
 circumstances of Christ's life on earth. While inspira- 
 tion impelled the Evangelists and other authors of the 
 New Testament to write, and protected them from error 
 in writing, it did not impel any of them to write every- 
 thing that could be possibly said on every subject of 
 which they treated. If inspiration meant this latter 
 there would be no need for more than one Gospel, and 
 there would be some sense in your question: but as it 
 does not mean this, your question shows that while you 
 talk glibly about inspiration you do not know what it 
 means. 
 
 A history of the United States, written for the Chinese, 
 for instance, must be different from one written for the 
 American reader. I say different, not contradictory. 
 The history for the Chinese must take no common Ameri- 
 can or Anglo-Saxon tradition as granted. It must state 
 facts and circumstances in such a way as to meet their 
 
l66 NOTES ON INGERSOLL. 
 
 thoughts. To do this requires much explanation. Many 
 things must be said that need not be said in a history- 
 written for the American reader. This is so evident that 
 further illustration is unnecessary. Now carry that idea 
 into sacred history, and you will see a sufficient and 
 satisfactory reason for four instead of one inspired Gospel. 
 A Gospel written for the Jews would merely refer to facts, 
 traditions, prophecies, customs, and habits of life, etc., 
 all perfectly familiar to them. A Gospel written for the 
 use of the Gentiles would have to explain many things of 
 which tliose people were ignorant. Again, if disputes 
 arose as to certain points, the historian would naturally 
 devote more attention to those points than he would have 
 done had the disputes not arisen. The inspired writers 
 were governed by these considerations. They wrote under 
 different circumstances and for different purposes; and 
 in writing, each was inspired to write what he wrote, and 
 nothing more. 
 
 Matthew wrote for the Jews, and he devoted himself 
 to applying to Christ the prophecies of the Old Testa- 
 ment in order to convince the Jews, who believed them, 
 that Christ was the Messiah — that in his person the pre- 
 dictions of their prophets had been accomplished. St. 
 Mark wrote his Gospel for the Gentile converts at 
 Rome. His object was to prove that Christ was the 
 Sovereign Master of all things, and he therefore devotes 
 almost all his chapters to a recital of the works of Christ, 
 which show his divine power. St. Luke wrote his Gospel 
 more particularly for Theophilus, a pagan convert. His 
 design was to prove that Jesus of Nazareth is the true 
 Saviour of men, as the facts and circumstances of his life 
 
CONTRADICTIONS. 167 
 
 prove. For this purpose he makes known certain facts 
 omitted by Matthew and Mark. St. John wrote his 
 Gospel to refute the heresies of the Corinthians, Ebionites, 
 and Valentinians who attacked the divinity of Christ and 
 denied many of his acts and words wliich the otlier 
 Evangelists had omitted. His primary object was to 
 prove the divinity of Christ, and for this purpose he be- 
 gins his Gospel with these sublime words: " In the be- 
 ginning was the Word, and ihe Word was witli God, and 
 the Word was God." The Evangelists then differ in 
 their recitals according to the different circumstances in 
 which they wrote and the objects in view. 
 
 Ingersoll — "There can be only one true account of 
 anything." 
 
 Comment — Tliere can be as many true accounts of an 
 event as there are points of view to consider the event, or 
 circumstances that surround it. You confound true with 
 complete or adequate. A history that does not give all 
 the events and circumstances of a man's life, and their 
 relations with others, is true history if its statements are 
 true, although it may be incomplete, inadequate, and de- 
 fective. The four Gospels are true histories, although 
 none of them are complete, for none of them give ^//the 
 events in the life of Christ — in fact, all of them taken 
 together do not. They are all true, different, yet not 
 contradictory. The truth of a history depends on what 
 it says, not on what it does not say. When I say: "Wash- 
 ington was born, lived, and died," I give a true account. 
 It is not as full, complete and adequate as that of Irving 
 or Spark?, but it is as true, what their is of it. You may 
 object that it is short, which I^ will not deny, but you 
 
l68 NOTES ON INGERSOLL. 
 
 cannot say it is not true. You simply confound true vtth 
 complete or adequate. A school-boy writing his first 
 composition might be excused for an improper use of 
 adjectives, but a philosopher should be more carefjal — or 
 more honest. 
 
 Ingersoll — "That which is a test of truth as to or- 
 dinary witnesses is a demonstration against their inspira- 
 tion." 
 
 Comment — The test of truth in the case of ordinary 
 witnesses is the fact of their agreement. The fact that 
 the Evangelists agree in the statements made by them 
 is evidence of their truth, just as it is in the case of 
 ordinary witnesses. Now, how the evidence of their ver- 
 acity can be a demonstration against their inspiration is 
 difficult to understand. You have said if they disagree 
 they cannot be inspired, and you are right. But you are 
 not satisfied; you now try to prove that if they agree they 
 cannot be inspired. Any remarks of mine on this reason- 
 ing of yours would only draw the reader from a con- 
 templation of its sublimity. So wg will pass in silence to 
 other points. 
 
 Ingersoll — "My doctrine is that there is only one 
 way to be saved, and that is to act in harmony with your 
 surroundings — to live in accordance with the facts of 
 your being." 
 
 Comment — Then you have changed your ^'doctrine" 
 considerably since you began your article. Your " doc- 
 trine" in the first part of it was that there is no God, or 
 at least that we cannot know whether there is or not; 
 that a future life was " invented" by Christians to give 
 God a chance to rectify the mistakes of this, Your 
 
HOW TO BE SAVED. 169 
 
 "doctrine" now is that there is one way at least, to be 
 saved — it is " to act in harmony with your surroundings." 
 Well, your surroundings are certainly Christian. If you 
 lived' among Mormons you should be a Mormon; if in 
 Turkey you should have a harem and sit cross-legged 
 like a tailor; if among Thugs you should be a Thug; if 
 among assassins, an assassin; if among thieves, a thief! 
 This theory ha^^ the advantage of being in harmony with 
 the '•' elastic cord of human feeling." 
 
 But you explain. To live in harmony with your sur- 
 roundings is to live — " in accordance with the facts of 
 your being." Good. This is precisely what Christianity 
 demands of us. But what are the facts of our being? 
 There's the rub. This question brings the whole con- 
 troversy back to the starting-point. It is time you should 
 understand that the whole question between you and the 
 Christian, as well as between the heathen, the pagan, the 
 barbarian, and the Christian, is: What are the facts of our 
 being? This question is the root or foundation of all the 
 difference of opinion that ever existed in the world as to 
 man, his duties and his obligations. It is the question 
 that philosophers in all ages have tried in vain to solve, 
 and which the Christian believes unaided reason cannot 
 solve. 
 
 What am I? Whence came I? Whither am I drifting? 
 Your answer to these questions is: I do not know. Your 
 reply is true, although no answer. 
 
 It is a common understanding among men of sense that 
 when a man confesses ignorance of a subject, he should 
 not force himself to the front and confuse investigation 
 by his ignorant, garrulous talk. If he confessedly knows 
 
lyo NOTES ON INGERSOLL. * 
 
 nothing of the subject under investigation, it is incum- 
 bent on him, as a man of sense, to hold his tongue. Ig- 
 norance is no disgrace where it is not one's own fault, 
 but there is nothing so admirable in an ignorant man as 
 a quiet tongue and an attentive ear: and there is nothing 
 more pitiable and detestable in God's universe than an 
 ignorant man trying to play the role of a teacher of man- 
 kind. 
 
 What are the facts of our being? 
 
 It is the mission of the true religion to answer this ques- 
 tion. And by God's help it has been answering it and 
 dinning it into the ears of humanity, as it surges by, gen- 
 eration after generation, from the time of Adam down 
 to the year of our Lord 1884, and it will continue to do 
 so until the angel of eternity calls the muster-roll of time. 
 Voltaires,. Frerets, Gibbons, Diderots, Paines and Inger- 
 solls will appear from time to time to curse the moral 
 world, as plagues, small-pox, leprosy, and insanity have 
 cursed the physical world. But Christianity is destined 
 to survive the one, as the human race survived the other. 
 
CHAPTER XX. 
 
 THE HONEST INFIDEL — THE UPRIGHT ATHEIST — LUNATICS 
 AND IDIOTS — JUDAS ISCARIOT — HOW? 
 
 INGERSOLL — " For the honest infidel, according to 
 the American Evangelical pulpit, there is no heaven." 
 
 Comment — The cook-book says: The first step in 
 cooking a hare is to catch it. I do not believe any in- 
 fidel will ever be damned for his honesty. I have no 
 authority to speak for the American Evangelical pulpit, 
 but I suppose if it could be convinced o*f the ''honesty" 
 of an infidel, and his decency in the other respects, it 
 would check him through as a victim of defective phrenal 
 development. 
 
 Ingersoll — " For the upright atheist there is nothing 
 in another world but punishment." 
 
 Comment — The upright or downright atheist will no 
 doubt be treated as the upright rebel or traitor is treated 
 by the government whose laws he defies, and whose au- 
 thority he rejects. Christianity teaches that God loves 
 the honest man, that he will never punish him for his 
 honest convictions; it teaches also that God, who is in- 
 finitely wise, knows the difference between an honest man 
 and a loquacious demagogue. Christianity teaches that 
 honesty is an affair of the heart and conscience, and not 
 
 a matter of word-spinning or gush. 
 
 171 
 
172 . NOTES ON INGERSOLL. • 
 
 Ingersoll — " Mr. Black admits that lunatics and idiots 
 are in no danger of hell." 
 
 Comment — That should be consolation to many, for we 
 are told that the number of fools is infinite. 
 
 Ingersoll — "This being so, his God should have 
 created only lunatics and idiots." 
 
 Comment — He has in his inscrutable ways created more 
 than we poor finite creatures can understand the reason 
 for, and he permits them to play their antics before high 
 heaven to an extent that can be explained only by refer- 
 ence to his infinite patience. 
 
 Ingersoll — " Why should the fatal gift of brain be 
 given to any human being, if such gift renders him liable 
 to eternal hell?" 
 
 Comment — Reason was given to man to be used, not 
 to be abused. According to your theory no man should 
 be allowed to possess anything that could render him 
 liable to pain, suffering or misfortune of any kind. Reflect 
 for a moment and see where this leads. You should 3iot 
 be trusted with a pistol, or a razor, or a knife, for you 
 might blow your brains out with one, or cut your throat 
 with the others. A man should not be permitted to learn 
 to write because it renders him liable to commit forgery; 
 his hands should be cutoff because they render him liable 
 to steal or murder, and to the consequent punishment. 
 You should not have the dangerous liberty of eating, lest 
 you might eat too much and be sick; and your tongue 
 should be dumb, lest you might be liable to talk nonsense 
 or commit perjury. What would you think or say of (lOd 
 if, to free us from all possible danger, he should deprive 
 us of every faculty that may be abused, of everything that 
 
• LUNATICS AND IDIOTS. 1 73 
 
 constitutes us men — everything that makes life worth 
 living? 
 
 Ingersoll — " Better be an idiot in this world, if you 
 can be a seraph in the next." 
 
 Comment — Better be an idiot saved than a philosopher 
 damned. But fortunately for men of common average 
 sense, there is a middle course. Idiots and philosophers 
 are extremes — phenomenal and exceptional. The major- 
 ity of mankind are neither, while they are sometimes the 
 victims of both. 
 
 Ingersoll — "A being of infinite wisdom has no right 
 to create a person destined to everfesting pain." 
 
 Comment — Passing the question of right, which is to 
 no purpose here, who holds that God created any being 
 to be damned? God created man to enjoy happiness 
 forever, and no man will be damned but he who damns 
 himself. 
 
 Ingersoll — " For nearly two thousand years Judas 
 Iscariot has been execrated by mankind; and yet, if the 
 doctrine of the Atonement is true, upon his treachery 
 hung the plan of salvation." 
 
 Comment — Judas is justly execrated because he was a 
 traitor and gave away his friend. His treason has noth- 
 ing to do with the doctrine of Atonement. Judas was a 
 free agent. The plan of salvation involved the death of 
 Christ, but not by the treason of Judas. 
 
 Ingersoll — "Suppose Judas had known of this plan — 
 known that he was selected by Christ for that very pur- 
 pose, that Christ was depending on him." 
 
 Comment — Suppose that he was not selected for this 
 very purpose; that Christ was 7iot depending on him. 
 
174 NOTES ON INGERSOLL. 
 
 Where did you learn that Judas was selected for this very 
 purpose, or that Christ depended on him? 
 
 Ingersoll — "And suppose." 
 
 Comment — No, sir; we must suppose nothing. I want 
 facts, and not suppositions or guesses. 
 
 Ingersoll — "Are you willing to rely upon an argu- 
 ment that justifies the treachery of that wretch (Judas)?" 
 
 CoMMEr^T — No, I am not, any more than I am ready 
 to rely upon your assertions. Judas was a bad man, but 
 there are worse men living than he. He did not go lectur- 
 ing about Judea, boasting of his crime, and ridiculing the 
 Christ whom he had betrayed — he went and hanged him- 
 self. I do not commend his desperate act, because suicide 
 is murder, but the fellow showed some respect for the 
 opinions of his fellow-men by ridding them of his detesta- 
 ble presence. He loved money, but in this he was not 
 alone. There were no lecture bureaus in those days, and 
 he felt that his career was at an end. Had he known 
 that others would come to continue his work he might 
 have been terrified, and perhaps repented, but not fore- 
 seeing this he only hanged himself. 
 
 Ingersoll — " I insisted upon knowing how the suffer- 
 ings of an innocent man could satisfy justice for the sins 
 of the guilty." 
 
 Comment — It would have been wiser to have insisted 
 upon knowing \.V.q fact than upon knowing the how of it. 
 There are many facts that you know and admit, and yet 
 if you were asked the ho7u of them you could not answer. 
 How do you think? How do you apprehend a thought? 
 How do you know that you are, or that you are Ingersoll? 
 Would it be just to infer that you know nothing because 
 
JUSTICE. 175 
 
 you cannot explain "how" you know! This is precisely 
 what you expect of your opponent. You ask, how can 
 the sufferings of the innocent satisfy for the sins of the 
 guilty? Your opponent replies by saying that the answer 
 involves a question of metaphysics. He is, in my opinion, 
 wrong in this, because he confounds the supernatural 
 with the metaphysical. These terms are not synonyms. 
 To answer your question he had no need to appeal to 
 metaphysics; in doing so he appealed to the wrong court. 
 His appeal should have been to reason; he should have 
 confined himself to the fact, or the possibility of it, and 
 not to the how of it. We don't know the "how" of any- 
 thing; and the phitesopher who asks it and expects an 
 adequate answer is nothing better than an end man in a 
 minstrel show. Conundrums are associated with tam- 
 bourine and burnt cork. Lecturers who make pretensions 
 to philosophy should not infringe on the amusing trade 
 of honest minstrelsy. 
 
 Ingersoll— " I insisted upon knowing how the suffer- 
 ings of an innocent man can satisfy justice for the sins 
 of the guilty." 
 
 Comment — Logicians tell us that most disputes and 
 misunderstandings arise from an abuse or misuse of words 
 — the common symbols of thought. Honest words are 
 often drafted into the service of sophistry and made to 
 do duty under false colors. The art of refuting fallacies 
 consists mainly in liberating these words from enforced 
 service. The only difficulty in your question arises from 
 the use or misuse of the word justice. Until that word 
 is made to express a definite idea common to your mind 
 and mine, your question is unintelligible, and not sus- 
 
176 NOTES ON INGERSOLL. 
 
 ceptible of an intelligent answer. If I should give an 
 answer based on some one of the many meanings of the 
 word, it might not be the meaning which you attach to it, 
 and hence my answer, right or wrong, could not meet 
 your thought, or the difficulty as it exists in your mind. 
 This shows with what great care intelligent men should 
 use words. 
 
 What then do you mean by the word justice as used 
 in your question? Do you mean justice in the abstract? 
 Justice in abstract is a mere abstraction, having no entity 
 of its own. A pure abstraction can induce no obligations, 
 no duties, no sufferings of innocent or guilty. 
 
 Do you mean what theologians call original justice? 
 Original justice is the subjection of the body to the mind, 
 the subjection of the will to reason, and the subjection 
 of reason to God. This is the justice that was lost by 
 Adam's fall and restored by the sufferings of Christ. 
 
 Do you mean divine justice.^ That, so far as creatures 
 are practically concerned, is the will of God, and he is 
 free to determine the nature of atonement. 
 
 Do you mean justice in its theological sense? In that 
 sense it is a moral virtue or influence constantly inclining 
 the will of man to render to every one his own. This 
 meaning can have no application to your question. 
 
 Do you mean legal justice? Legal justice is that which 
 co-orders the parts or individuals of a community in refer- 
 ence to the whole, and inclines the individual to render 
 to the community what is necessary for the common good. 
 
 Do you mean distributive justice? This directs the whole 
 in reference to its parts — the community in its action to- 
 wards the individual; 
 
JUSTICE. iyf 
 
 There remain commuiaiive justice, which regulates the 
 actions of the citizen to his fellow-citizen, and vindicative 
 justice, by which the superior visits punishment on the 
 guilty. You see the word justice has many meaninj^s. 
 As you are a theologian, philosopher, and lawyer, you 
 should be able to say in what sense you use the word, and 
 you must not imagine your opponent t® be fool enough 
 to commit himself to any answer till he knows what you 
 ask. 
 
 The fallacy of your question consists in this: It sup- 
 poses justice to be a thing existing independent of God 
 and man, whereas it is an attribute, in different degrees, 
 of both God and man, and has no existence outside of 
 them. 
 
 But I am not done with your question yet. You ask: 
 How can the sufferings of the innocent satisfy for the sins 
 of the guilty? What do you mean by " satisfy?" Do 
 you mean it in the sense of an equivalent? If so, no suf- 
 ferings of the innocent or the guilty can satisfy for sin; 
 for suffering, whether voluntary or enforced, is not an 
 equivalent or an equation of sin. The murderer does 
 not "satisfy" either God or man by yielding up his life 
 at the end of a rope; nor would a volunteer substitute 
 "satisfy." His death is no equivalent for his crime. If 
 sufferings were an equation of crime, crime would cease 
 to be crime to him who accepts the punishment. The 
 murderer would' cease to be a murderer, the thief cease 
 to be a thief on the infliction of punishment. If suffer- 
 ing alone could " satisfy" for sin, there would and could 
 be no eternal hell, for a time would necessarily come 
 when the suffering wowld square with the offence. Mere 
 
1^8 NOTES ON INGERSOLL. 
 
 suffering, then, of innocent or guilty, does not satisfy 
 for sin; and this fact takes the bottom out of your ques- 
 tion. 
 
 Again. You ask: How can the sufferings of the innocent 
 satisfy for the sins of the guilty? The mere sufferings alone 
 of the innocent do not satisfy for the sins of the guilty, 
 They can, however, satisfy for the sufferings due the sins 
 of the guilty, which is quite another thing. You can pay 
 a fine of five dollars for a loafer who has committed an 
 assault, and save him the sufferings of six months in the 
 workhouse; but while your vicarious sufferings to the 
 extent of five dollars remit the punishment, they do not 
 "satisfy" for the offence. I think by this time the reader 
 sees that the question upon which you " insisted" means 
 nothing when cleared and cleaned of its sophistry and 
 words of double meaning. Mr. Black was wrong when 
 he said it raised a "metaphysical question." He should 
 have said it raised a psychological or phrenological ques- 
 tion involving the condition of your mind or brain, when 
 you asked it. 
 
 Ingersoll — "To answer an argument, is it only neces- 
 sary to say that it raises a metaphysical question?" 
 
 Comment— No; but a question, to deserve an answer, 
 should have some sense in it. 
 
CHAPTER XXr. 
 
 MULISH STUBBORNNESS VERSUS RATIONAL OBEDIENCE — 
 
 STANDARD OF RIGHT AND WRONG, WHAT IS IT? MR. 
 
 INGERSOLL's FOOT-LIGHT DEFINITIONS WORTHLESS — IS 
 MURDER A CRIME OR A VIRTUE? 
 
 INGERSOLL — " The idea of non-resistance never oc- 
 curred to a man who had the power to protect him- 
 self. This doctrine is the child of weakness, born when 
 resistance was impossible." 
 
 Comment — This is one of your soft, indefinite gener- 
 alities. Let us see what it means and what it is worth 
 practically. 
 
 Non-resistance to what? Resistance or non-resistance 
 has place only where there is aggression. Aggression 
 may be just or unjust, and the lawfulness of resistance 
 to it depends on this distinction. Aggression is any 
 infringement whatever on your natural rights. Your 
 natural rights are necessarily limited or infringed on by 
 society. The individual must yield to society many of 
 his natural rights for the common good. Without this, 
 society would be impossible. Society is necessary for 
 human life, for man is a social being, and cannot live 
 out of society. Therefore the aggression which society 
 makes on the natural rights of the individual is just, and 
 therefore the individual vields them up, not because he 
 
 179 
 
l8o NOTES ON INGERSOLL. 
 
 must^ but because he ought to. It is a question of duty. 
 Now society aggresses on your natural rights for the 
 common good. You yield because you consider the 
 benefit you derive from living in society a fair set-off to 
 the rights which you give up. You do not resist, because 
 common sense tells you you would be wrong if you did. 
 Then the idea of non-resistance must have occurred to 
 you, otherwise you would not consent to the arrangement. 
 Again. Society, to exist, must have government, which 
 costs money. To meet the expenses the tax collector ag- 
 gresses on you. You feel that the demand is just, and 
 you yield and pay, not because you know you can be 
 made to pay, but because you know you ought to — here 
 again the idea of non-resistance. 
 
 The idea of non-resistance occurs to every honest man 
 who lives in society, and who believes it his duty to obey 
 the laws and support his government. Woe to that 
 government whose citizens obey only because they must, 
 or because they cannot protect themselves against the 
 power that enforces law. Such citizens cannot be trusted 
 in time of danger. They are latent rebels, every one of 
 them. Resistance to the just requirements of law is sin- 
 ful, and non-resistance a duty. Hence the idea of it 
 should and does occur to every honest, loyal citizen. 
 
 You will say that you meant non-resistance to unjust 
 power or tyranny. Probably you did. But you did not 
 say it, and a man of your power of talk is expected to say 
 what he means. 
 
 Ingersoll— " I do not believe in the doctrine of non- 
 resistance." 
 
 Comment — Non-resistance to what? As you reject the 
 
TtiE STANDARD OF RIGHT AND WRONG. t3l 
 
 doctrine of non-resistance without limitation, it follows 
 that you hold the opposite doctrine without limitation, 
 which is that you believe in resistance to everything. But 
 you are not original in this. The world is familiar with 
 men of this kind, and has provided for them as comforta- 
 bly as circumstances will permit. 
 
 Ingersoll — "Mr. Black insists that without belief in 
 God there can be no perception of right and wrong 
 and that it is impossible for an atheist to have a con- 
 science." 
 
 Comment — Mr. Black makes no such statement — in- 
 sists on neither of the things which you attribute to him. 
 Why this persistent misrepresentation? To give the reader 
 an idea of your sense of "honor bright," and your method 
 of meeting an opponent, I will here quote Mr. Black's 
 words on this point. He says: " Here let me call atten- 
 tion to the difficulty of reasoning about justice with a man 
 who has no ack7iowledged standard of right and wrong. 
 What is justice? That which accords with law; and the 
 supreme law is the will of God. But I am dealing with 
 an adversary who does not admit that there is a God; 
 then for him there is no standard at all; one thing is as 
 right as another, and all things are equally wrong. . With- 
 out a sovereign ruler there is no law, and where there is 
 no law there can be no transgression. It is the misfortune 
 of the atheistic theory that it makes the moral world an 
 anarchy, it refers all ethical questions to that confused 
 tribunal where chaos sits as umpire, and * by decision 
 more embroils the fray.' But through the whole of this 
 (Ingersoll's) paper there runs a vein of presumptuous 
 egotism which says as plainly as words can speak it that 
 
l82 NOTES ON INGERSOLL. 
 
 the author holds hwiself to be the ultimate judge of all 
 good and evil; what he approves is right, and what he 
 dislikes is certainly wrong. Of course I concede nothing 
 to a claim like that." — North American Review for Augusty 
 \%Z\,page 135. 
 
 This is the only paragraph in your opponent's article 
 referring to this subject. Where does he insist that with- 
 out a belief in God there can be no perception of right 
 and wrong, or that it is impossible for an atheist to have 
 a conscience? There is no mention of perception of right 
 and wrong — no mention of conscience in the whole 
 paragraph. He says that you, denying God, have no 
 standard of right and wrong. Now it does not require 
 much brains or education to distinguish between a per- 
 ception of right and a standard of right. A perception 
 of right is as different from the standard of right as the 
 perception of length is from a yardstick by which length 
 is measured. Your next statement illustrates this: 
 
 Ingersoll — " Mr. Black, the Christian, the believer in 
 God, upholds wars of extermination. I denounce such 
 wars as murders." 
 
 Comment — Now how is this difference of opinion be- 
 tween you and Mr. Black to be determined? Your con- 
 science tells you that such wars are murders; his con- 
 science tells him the contrary. Whose conscience teaches 
 the right? His opinion of right and wrong is evidently 
 different from you-f>= Which of you is right? And how 
 is it to be determined? He will net y'^^ld his judgment 
 to yours; you will not yield yours to his. What is to Hie 
 done? Will you appeal to reason? But his reason ana 
 yours have already drawn their conclusions, and they are 
 
THE STANDARD OF RIGHT AND WRONG. 183 
 
 opposed to each other. Will you appeal to force? Then 
 might makes right. Then slavery is right as long as it 
 can be enforced: and polygamy is right in Turkey, and 
 in Utah, since it prevails in those places, and that which 
 prevails has, for the time at least, the superior force be- 
 hind it. Do you appeal to popular sentiment? If so, 
 polygamy is right in Turkey and Utah, since popular 
 sentiment is in its favor; and for the same reason slavery 
 was right in the south. All these appeals failing to solve 
 the difficulty, you and your opponent must fix upon a 
 standard or measure, or norm of right and wrong. 
 
 To illustrate Black's idea more clearly, let us suppose 
 that the difference of opinion between you and him is in 
 reference to the length of a piece of cloth. You hold it 
 is fifty yards long; he that it is only ten. It cannot be 
 determined by loud talk or eloquent denunciation. You 
 must both appeal to a common measure known to and 
 admitted by both of you — a yardstick, for instance. The 
 measure is applied to the cloth, and its actual length is 
 determined. It was the want of a common measure or 
 standard like this that Mr. Black called attention to as 
 an insurmountable obstacle in debating ethical questions 
 with you. He had a standard, the will of God; you 
 have none. Between him and you, then, there is no 
 common standard, and hence the difficulty of arguing with 
 you. 
 
 Ingersoll — *' Yet I am told that I have no knowledge 
 of right and wrong." 
 
 Comment — Until you have a criterion, or standard of 
 right and wrong, you cannot determine what is right or 
 what is wrong; and as long as you cannot do this, you 
 
1^4 NOTES ON INGEl^SOLt. s 
 
 cannot claim knowledge on the subject. You may have 
 "notions" or "opinions," but knowledge you cannot 
 claim. 
 
 Ingersoll — "What is right, or what is wrong?" 
 
 Comment — That cannot be determined without a stand- 
 ard or common measure, no more than the question, 
 what is lawful, can be answered without a knowledge of 
 ■what is law. 
 
 Ingersoll — " Everything is right that tends to the 
 happiness of mankind." 
 
 Comment — Granted. But who is to determine what 
 tends to the happiness of mankind? Is every action of 
 your life governed by that vague rule? Do you, before 
 performing an act, pause to reflect whether that act, in 
 the long run, in all the eventualities of human existence 
 here and hereafter, will tend in the general sum to the 
 happiness of mankind? Of course you don't. Such a 
 calculation is beyond the power of man, hence your defini- 
 tion of right is vain and profitless. 
 
 Ingi!rsoll — " And everything is wrong that increases 
 the sum of human misery." 
 
 Comment — Certainly, But who is to determine which 
 of all and every act of his increases the sum of human 
 misery? Your definition of wrong is as vague and un- 
 satisfactory as your definition of right. 
 ■ Ingersoll — "What is conscience?" 
 
 Comment — From the answer you give to your own 
 question it is evident that you do not know what it is, and 
 I will therefore give you a definition of it as understood 
 by Christians. Conscience is a practical judgment which 
 passes on each and every act of our life, and determines. 
 
HIS DEFINITIONS WORTHLESS. 185 
 
 before we perform the act, whether it is right or wrong. 
 It does not determine what is right or wrong in the ab- 
 stract — that is the ofifice of the moral intellect. It is not 
 the power of realizing vividly the sufferings of others, as 
 you dogmatically state. The word for that is sympathy^ 
 or philanthropy, not conscience. 
 
 Jngersoll — " Consequences determine the quality of 
 an action." 
 
 Comment — This then is your standard by which to 
 determine whether a human act is good or evil, wicked 
 or holy. It is a remarkable coincidence that the assassin 
 of President Garfield justified his act on this very prin- 
 ciple. His last words on the scaffold were: ''Only good 
 has come from it." 
 
 Let us examine this standard and see what it means, 
 and what it is practically worth. According to this stand- 
 ard or criterion, the quality of a human act cannot be 
 determined until all its consequences are known. But 
 the full and ultimate consequences of no act can be known 
 by man, for the consequences of an act become in their 
 turn the causes of other acts, whose consequences are the 
 causes of other acts still, and thus on indefinitely. To 
 determine the quality of an act, one must know whether 
 the sum of all these consequences is good or bad; or, if 
 any one consequence can indicate the nature of the act, 
 it is necessary to know which of this almost limitless 
 multitude of effects is the one which does so. Now, 
 •no man can know this; and hence, according to your 
 criterion, no man can know the nature of any given act. 
 Your standard then affords man no practical information 
 as to the nature of any act which he may be called upon 
 to perform. It is, therefore, utterly worthless. 
 
1 86 NOTES ON INGERSOLL. 
 
 Again: even if it were granted that consequences de- 
 termine the quality of an action, the difificuity still remains, 
 for what or who is to determine the quality of these con- 
 sequences themselves? 
 
 Ingersoll — "If consequences are good, so is the 
 action." 
 
 Comment — According to this dictum, you cannot saj 
 a cold-blooded murder or an assassination is good or bad 
 until you have learned the consequences of it! The con- 
 sequences of Garfield's taking off can never be known to 
 man. Then, according to your philosophy, it can never 
 be known whether his murder was a crime or a virtue! 
 Are you not afraid that your philosophy may put a bee 
 into the head of some religious fanatic, who, misled by 
 your teachings, might consider his killing pf you a virtu- 
 ous and holy act, foolishly imagining that the result of it 
 might, in its consequences, prove beneficial to society and 
 religion? I, as a Christian, condemn that act beforehand, 
 as a crime deserving the eternal torments of hell; but you 
 cannot consistently condemn it, because, according to 
 your infidel theory, the act cannot be said to be evil or 
 wicked till its consequences are known. As the conse- 
 quences of your death cannot be known, it follows that 
 your murder might be a good or bad act! This is the 
 result or consequence of your philosophy. From a Chris- 
 tian point of view it is a very bad consequence, and there- 
 fore, if there is any virtue in logic, your philosophy is bad. 
 The Christian holds not only that murder is a crime, but 
 that even the intention, determination or unactuated re- 
 solve is a crime, deserving of hell. It is thus that the 
 Christian religion strikes at the very root of this murder- 
 
IS MURDER A CRIME? 787 
 
 ous propensity in man, and kills the dragon before he 
 issues from his innermost den i-n the human heart. The 
 doctrine that acts take their nature and quality from their 
 results is a logical and necessary consequence of the 
 denial of God. It destroys individual responsibility and 
 is subversive of all government and social order. It 
 denies all appeal to right, and destroys not only justice^ 
 but the very idea of it. It contemplates nothing but re- 
 sults — physical, cognizable results. 
 
CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 ACTIONS AND THEIR CONSEQUENCES — EXPERIENCE NO 
 STANDARD OF RIGHT AND WRONG — SOME OF MR. INGER- 
 SOLL's PLAUSIBLE NONSENSE — HIS CHARACTER IN A 
 FOCUS — A CHALLENGE TO THE GLIB LITTLE WHIFFETS 
 OF THE INGERSOLL SCHOOL. 
 
 INGERSOLL — " If actions had no consequences, they 
 would be neither good nor bad." 
 
 Comment — Whicli is the same assaying if actions were 
 not actions they would not be actions. Actions are as 
 inseparable from consequences as they are from their 
 actors. You can no more imagine an act witliout a con- 
 sequence than you can an act without an actor. In fact, 
 the consequences of acts are simply the acts themselves 
 continued under new forms. But while every act has 
 consequences, it does not follow, as we have seen, that it 
 takes its quality from those consequences. 
 
 Ingersoll — "Man did not get his knowledge of con- 
 tsequences of actions from God, but from experience and 
 reason." 
 
 Comment — As man has not an adequate knowledge of 
 
 all the consequences of actions, it follows that he did not 
 
 get it from experience and reason; and no Christian ever 
 
 held that man g^ets his knowledge of consequences of 
 
 i88 
 
ACTIONS AND THEIR CONSEQUENCES. 189 
 
 all acts from God. Our knowledge of results even of 
 physical acts is limited to a very narrow circle. As there 
 are two orders of acts, physical and intellectual, so there 
 are two orders of results, physical and intellectual, or 
 moral. Man cannot tell the ultimate result of the simplest 
 purely physical act. Cast a pebble into the ocean, and 
 what are the consequences? If we apply Newton's law 
 of gravitation to this simple, physical act we find that in 
 time it will change the relative positions of every atom 
 of all the waters on the face of the globe. Not only 
 this, it will change the relations of every molecule of 
 matter in the universe, change the course of the moon, 
 which recognizes the event by an actual and real, though 
 immeasurable, perturbation. These changes will con- 
 tinue as long as matter and its law last, for the arrange- 
 ment of the molecules of matter will never again be the 
 same as they would have been if that pebble had not 
 been cast. This is a mere general outline of the limit- 
 less results of that act. Now, who can tell or know, but 
 God, these results in detail? 
 
 The results of moral or human acts are still more diffi- 
 cult to know, for a human act, that is an intellectual act, 
 has its countless effects in the intellectual world in time 
 and eternity. A false principle taught to a child will 
 grow with it and spread from it to others, and from these 
 others to yet others, and thus on through the ages, and 
 when time ceases it will continue into eternity and affect 
 heaven and hell. Thus this one act of a false teacher 
 changes the current and harmony of the world. This is a 
 general outline; but who can tell us the nature of each 
 individual result — of each link in the endless chain? To 
 
IQO NOTES ON INGERSOLL. 
 
 know all these consequences by experience we must ac- 
 tually experience them; we must not only experience 
 them individually and in detail, but we must also experi- 
 ence their united and combined result. This is a task be- 
 yond the power of the human race combined. Hence to 
 talk of learning results by experience is to babble nonsense 
 like an infant. That man did not get all his knowledge 
 of the consequences of phy^sical acts from God directly 
 we admit, with astonishment that a man of your calibre 
 should deem it necessary to state it. We must, however, 
 assert that man cannot associate facts with prior facts, in 
 the relation of cause and effect, without an intuition or 
 primary revelation of that relation between two events 
 which is called cause and effect. In other words, the 
 human mind could never associate two events in the re- 
 lation to each other of cause and effect unless the idea of 
 this relationship had been revealed by God in some man- 
 ner. As the fashion of denying everything is so popular 
 we may as well join in the rout and deny that there is any 
 such relation as cause and effect, or cause and consequence. 
 And as long as you deny the existence of the first cause 
 we must deny in toto that sequence of events known as 
 cause and effect. Then until you prove that there are 
 such things as causes and effects, the standard of morality 
 which you deduce from them is but the baseless fabric 
 of a dream. Denial, you will observe, is a two-edged 
 sword. You seem to have taken it in your head that 
 Christians admit anything and everything that brings grist 
 to your infidel mill, and that anything you "admit" needs 
 no further proof. In this you are mistaken. The Chris- 
 tian grants you nothing— absolutely nothing. And unless 
 
EXPERIENCE NO STANDARD. I9I 
 
 you admit a first cause, God, he denies the existence of 
 all causes whatsoever, and therefore of all effects. If you 
 deny God you deprive yourself of the right to base a 
 standard of morals on causes and effects, because without 
 God, the first cause, they are inconceivable. 
 
 Ingersoll — *' If man by actual experience discovered 
 the right and wrong of actions, is it not utterly illogical 
 to declare that they who do not believe in God can have 
 no standard of right or wrong?" 
 
 Comment — As man cannot by actual experience dis- 
 cover the right and wrong of actions, it follows that he 
 must learn it in some other way, and as there is no other 
 way left but to learn it from God, it is most logical to de- 
 clare that they who do not believe in God cannot have the 
 true standard of right and wrong. Man cannot learn the 
 right and wrong of actions by experience, for all human 
 experience is necessarily incomplete, and all knowledge 
 derived from incomplete experience must be incom- 
 plete also. Hence a standard of right and wrong that 
 is derived from incomplete experience must neces- 
 sarily be incomplete, imperfect, defective — in a word, 
 worthless. 
 
 We may learn some things from the experience of the 
 past, but if you deny divine teaching how can you know 
 that the experience of the future may not cause us to re- 
 ject all those things which you imagine the experience of 
 the past has taught us? How do you know but that the 
 experience of the future may demonstrate that polygamy 
 and slavery and wars are right, because in the long run 
 they may prove beneficial to society? How can you as- 
 sert, with any show of consistency, that these are wrong, 
 
192 NOTES ON INGERSOLL. 
 
 since experience has not as yet spoken its last words about 
 them? 
 
 Ingersoll — " Consequences are the standard by which 
 actions are judged." 
 
 Comment — Then since the consequences of acts cannot, 
 be known, this standard cannot be known. Philosophers 
 heretofore held that effects took their nature from their 
 cause, and not the cause from the effects. They could 
 not see how that which is could take its nature from that 
 which is not, or how an effect could be the cause of its 
 own cause's nature. They were keen-sighted enough to 
 see that this involved the dogma of Lord Dundreary, that 
 the tail wags the dog. 
 
 Ingersoll — "God or no God, larceny is an enemy of 
 industry." 
 
 Comment — To say an act is a larceny is to determine 
 its nature — its quality. You have said that the quality 
 of an action is determined by its consequences. How 
 then can you assert that any given act is a larceny till 
 its consequences are known? To assert larceny, you 
 must assert it of particular acts, for larceny in the ab- 
 stract is simply nothing, and can have none but abstract 
 consequences, which are no consequences at all, and there- 
 fore cannot bean enemy of industry, unless it be industry 
 in the abstract, which again is no industry at all. Lar- 
 ceny, to injure industry, must be larceny in act and po-ac- 
 tice— the act of A., B. or C But how can you assert that 
 the act of A., B. or C. is evil or larcenous till its conse- 
 quences are known? for, according to your philosophy, 
 the nature of the act of A , B. or C. can be known and 
 judged only by its consequences. 
 
PLAUSIBLE NONSENSE. I93 
 
 Ingersoll — -" Industry is the mother of prosperity." 
 
 Comment — Industry, aside from industrious acts, is 
 an abstraction, having no more reality than larceny aside 
 from a larcenous act. Industry, to exist, must exist as 
 the acts of A., B. or C. But here you are again met by 
 your philosophy that " consequences determine the quality 
 of actions," and you cannot assert that the actions of 
 A., B. or C. are industrious or idle till you know the con- 
 sequences. 
 
 Ingersoll — " Prosperity is good." 
 
 Comment — According to your standard prosperity is 
 good only when .its consequences are good. But the 
 philosophy of history teaches that prosperity leads to 
 the downfall of nations as well as of individuals. What 
 did prosperity do for Egypt, Greece, and Rome? It 
 made the people luxurious, voluptuous and imbecile, and 
 buried the monuments of hardier ages in ruins. It was 
 the siren that led Hannibal, Alexander and Csesar to un- 
 timely graves, and Napoleon to Moscow and Waterloo. 
 Prosperity leads to decay, national, individual, intellectual, 
 moral and physical. When prosi)«rity is at its zenith, 
 decay is at the door; when the tree is in full bloom there 
 is but one step to the sere" and yellow leaf. Prosperity 
 has evil consequences; and if, as you say, consequences 
 determine the quality of actions, how can prosperity be 
 good? 
 
 Again. Prosperity, aside from those who prosper, is 
 an abstraction, nothing, and therefore the good you assert 
 of it is equally an abstraction, a dehision and a snare. 
 
 Ingersoll — " God or no God, rnurder is a crime." 
 
 Comment — It is a bad thing for one to forget one's 
 
t94 NOTES ON INGERSOLL. 
 
 own principles. You have said that *' consequences de- 
 termine the quality of actions." How then can you as- 
 sert that murder is a crime until you know the conse- 
 quences of it? Murder in the abstract is at best only a 
 crime in the abstract, which is no crime at all. Murder, 
 to exist, must be the act of A., B. or C. Bui how can 
 you assert that the act of A., B. or C. is murder, or a 
 crime, until you know its consequences? According to 
 the new standard of right and wrong set up by you, I have 
 the same right to assert that murder is a virtue as you 
 have to assert it is a crime, until all the consequences of 
 the so-called murderous act are known, since these con- 
 sequences must determine the nature of the act. 
 
 Ingersoll — "There has always been a law against 
 larceny." 
 
 Comment — Yes, but the law is unjust if larceny be a 
 virtue. And you cannot assert it is not, as long as all 
 the consequences of the larceny are not known, since they 
 are, according to you, the standard by which the act is to 
 be judged. If there is no God the law against larceny 
 has no moral or binding obligations, for if made by man 
 it must have been made by those who had, against those 
 who had not. 
 
 But those who have not are in the majority in the world, 
 and a minority have no right to impose laws on the 
 majority. If there is no God, the real thieves are those 
 who have and hold the goods of this world from the great 
 majority who have not. This is in fact the doctrine of 
 your infidel confreres, the communists of France. Proud- 
 hon, a prophet of infidelity, lays it down as a maxim that 
 " property is robbery." The differenoe between you and 
 
HIS CHARACTER l^ A FOCUS. I95 
 
 Proudhon is this: he denies God and carries that denial 
 to its logical consequences, while yon, without an atom 
 of logic in your head, deny God and yet assert the 
 sacredness of property. If there be no God, Proudhon 
 is right; but God or no God, you are wrong. 
 
 IngersOll — " As long as men object to being killed, 
 murder will be illegal." 
 
 Comment — Convicted murderers object to being killed; 
 is it therefore murder or illegal to execute them? But 
 here again you show a bad memory. Only five lines above 
 you say: "Consequences are the standard by which ac- 
 tions are judged," and now you tell us that the objection 
 of men to being killed constitutes the illegality of murder! 
 Now, which of these statements do you intend us to be- 
 lieve? Of course we cannot believe them both, since 
 they are contradictory. This is the consequence of try- 
 ing to reason without a standard of truth and morality. 
 
 Ingersoll — "According to Mr. Black, the man who 
 does not believe in a Supreme Being acknowledges no 
 standard of right and wrong." 
 
 Comment — You ought to be ashamed to misrepresent 
 an honorable antagonist. Mr. Black never said that, nor 
 anything like it, nor anything from which such an infer- 
 ence could be drawn. He complained of the difficulty 
 of arguing with a man like you who had no acknowledged 
 standard of right and wrong. That his complaint was 
 just is evident from the fact that in your reply to him 
 you give half a dozen different standards^ and all contra- 
 dictory, as we have just seen. 
 
 Ingersoll — " Is it possible that only those who be- 
 lieve in the God who persecuted for opinion's sake have 
 any standard of right and wrong?" 
 
196 NOTES ON INGERSOLL. 
 
 Comment — Only those who believe in the true God, 
 whom you falsely accuse of persecuting, can have the true 
 standard of right and wrong. That those who do not be- 
 lieve in him may have so?ne standard is evident from the 
 fact that you have laid down half a dozen standards, such 
 as they are; and no doubt you could give more if the ex- 
 igencies of your argument required it. But when Mr. 
 Black spoke of a standard he did not mean India rubber 
 strings. Every man has, or ought to have, some one 
 standard by which to regulate his conscience and his acts, 
 but you have half a dozen worthless ones; hence the 
 difficulty of knowing where to find you. Mr. Black's 
 complaint is that you have no standard that holds you, 
 or that prevents you from acting like the little joker in 
 the game of thimble — now you see it, and now you don't. 
 
 Ingersoll — "Were the greatest men of all antiquity 
 without this standard?" 
 
 Comment — Which standard? Do you refer to \\\^irye 
 standard, or to some standard? These great men had a 
 standard — the will of the gods. They thus recognized a 
 very important truth; namely, that the standard of morals 
 should be a will superior to the human will. They erred 
 in locati?ig this superior or supreme will, but they recog- 
 nized its necessity somewhere. In doing this these great 
 men paid a magnificent tribute to the true God and to 
 human reason. These men whose genius the world honors 
 were too great to be atheists. They believed in the ex- 
 istence of God, and failed only to identify him, or under- 
 stand his nature. They honored the true God when by 
 mistake they accepted a false one, as you would honor a 
 genuine United States bond by accepting a counterfeit 
 
INFINITE IxXlELLlGENCE. 197 
 
 through ignorance. They had then a standard of right 
 and wrong, and although it was not the true one, yet 
 they were consistent and held themselves amenable to it 
 in their lives and in their logic. Their philosophy and 
 theology began where yours end. It is your misfortune 
 that you never studied them profoundly, as they deserve 
 to be studied, for they were giants, these men of old. 
 
 Ingersoll — "In the eyes of the intelligent men of 
 Greece and Rome, were all deeds, whether good or evil, 
 morally alike?" 
 
 Comment — No, sir. As we have seen, they had a 
 standard — the will of the gods — and therefore all deeds 
 were not, in their eyes, morally alike. Their standard, 
 not being the true one, did not enable them to correctly 
 distinguish the right from the wrong, but it taught them 
 that there was a right and a wrong. In this their stand- 
 ard was superior to any you have advanced; for your 
 denial of God destroys all difference between right and 
 wrong, and leaves the words crime and virtue without 
 a meaning. These men of Greece and Rome were not so 
 stupid as to believe your tiieory that consequences deter- 
 mine the nature of actions. They never stole the truths, 
 beauties and magnificent results of the Christian religion 
 and tried to make believe they were the fruits of Pagan- 
 ism, as modern infidels try to make it appear that those 
 magnificent results are the fruits of reason and experi- 
 ence. These intelligent men of Greece and Rome had 
 their faults, but they were not given to that kind of lying. 
 
 Ingersoll — " Is it necessary to believe in the existence 
 of an infinite intelligence, before you have any standard 
 of right and wrong?" 
 
198 • NOTES ON INGERSOLL. 
 
 Comment — Yes. Deny the infinite intelligence, or 
 God, and all deeds are morally alike; there is no right, 
 no wrong, and of course no distinction between them. 
 Where there is no right or wrong there can be no stand- 
 ard of right and wrong. Where there is no standard 
 there cannot be any standard. It will not do to say that 
 Christians admit a difference between right and wrong, 
 for they do not admit it, if there is no God; on the con- 
 trary, they deny it. 
 
 Ingersoll — " Is it possible that a being cannot be just 
 and virtuous unless he believes in some being infinitely 
 superior to himself.?" 
 
 Comment — You have constructed this question very 
 adroitly — to catch gudgeons. It is not necessary for every 
 being to believe in some being infinitely superior to him- 
 self, but it is necessary for every created, finite being to 
 so believe, in order to know what justice and virtue are 
 and conform his life to them. 
 
 Ingersoll — "If this doctrine be true, how can God 
 be just and virtuous?" 
 
 Comment — Ah! Precisely. This question supposes 
 you caught a gudgeon. Is this play upon words worthy 
 the subject you are treating of? Is it worthy a philosopher 
 whose motto is " honor bright' ? As your answer does 
 not contain the doctrine you thought your prior question 
 would necessarily elicit, your last question is simply 
 ridiculous. God is just because he h Justice; and justice 
 and virtue are justice and virtue because He is, and with- 
 out Him there is neither justice nor virtue, nor anything 
 else. I merely indicate here Ciirislian principles; to 
 enter into a discussion of their metapiiysical basis with 
 
FINITE AND INFINITE. I99 
 
 you would be to degrade a magnificent science, of which 
 you manifest an ignorance which is only commensurate 
 with your brazen egotism. 
 
 Ingersoll — "Does he (God) believe in some being in- 
 finitely superior to himself?" 
 
 Comment — It is not at all necessary. After the trickery 
 of your former question has been exposed, there is not 
 timber enough in this last one to nail an answer to. 
 
 Ingersoll — '' If there is a God, infinite in power and 
 wisdom, above him, poised in eternal calm, is the figure 
 of justiee." 
 
 Comment — It is no pleasant task to reason with a man 
 who talks in this way. The man who can talk only in 
 this manner, has no idea whatever of God. He is too 
 intellectually blind to see that to place an abstraction^ 
 QdWtGi justice, above God, is to destroy God. Justice has 
 no existence of its own. To exist, it must exist as a 
 quality, or mode, or form, of something. Aside from 
 that which is just, justice is a pure abstraction — a 
 nonentity. This needs only to be said. And yet you 
 would have us believe that a 7node is superior to the real^ 
 without which mod-es are impossible. 
 
 Ingersoll — "There is no world, no star, no heaven, 
 no hell, in which gratitude is not a virtue, and where 
 slavery is not a crime." 
 
 Comment — Let us confine ourselves to this world. It 
 is the only one you professedly know anything about, 
 You have given a standard of right and wrong, to which 
 I hold you. You say: "Consequences deterraine the 
 quality of actions." As long as you hold yourself bound 
 by this standard, your talk about virtue and crime is un- 
 
200 NOTES ON INGERSOLL. 
 
 mitigated hypocrisy; for, until the consequences of acts 
 are known, there is no difference whatever between virtue 
 and crime. 
 
 Ingersoll — "I have insisted, and still insist, that it is 
 impossible for a finite man to commit a crime deserving 
 infinite punislmient." 
 
 Comment — A little more reason and a little less asser- 
 tion would be more becoming ^^n a philosopher. What 
 you insist on here is correct, however, and no Christian 
 ever thought of asserting the contrary. Finite man can 
 no more experience infinite suffering than he can experi- 
 ence infinite happiness, for between the finite and the in- 
 finite there can be no equation. We have had occasion 
 to call your attention to this patent fact before. You 
 will no doubt be astonished to learn that what you insist 
 on so vigorously is asserted with equal vigor by Christian 
 philosophy. But you had a purpose and a meaning in 
 your statement. You are arguing against everlasting 
 punishment; and you begin by stating a self-evident 
 proposition. This being admitted, you proceed to juggle 
 in another, and very different idea. Here is your argu- 
 ment in short: Finite man cannot suffer infinite punish- 
 ment; therefore he cannot suffer everlasting punishment. 
 Why do you confound these terms? Was it through 
 ignorance or design? If through ignorance, you are to be 
 pitied; if through design, you are not honest. Infinite 
 and everlasting are not convertible terms. Man cannot, 
 because he is finite, suffer infinite punishment; but it does 
 not follow, as you seem to think, that he cannot suffer 
 everlasting punishment. With this distinction your whole 
 argument on this point collapses like a punctured balloon. 
 
A FALSIFIER. 20I 
 
 Happiness and misery are limited by the capacity of the 
 receiver; 2i finite receiver cannot receive infinite happiness 
 or punishment, but an everlasting receiver can receive 
 everlasting happiness or misery. Man is everlasting, and 
 therefore capable of everlasting happiness or punishment; 
 and all your "insisting" to the contrary is of no conse- 
 quence. 
 
 Ingersoll — ** Of the supernatural we have no con- 
 ception." 
 
 Comment — If you have no conception of it, how can 
 you afifirm or deny anything about it? To admit that you 
 have no conception of the supernatural after having talked 
 about it through thirty-five pages of the North A??ierican 
 Review is to advertise yourself a thoughtless gabbler. A 
 moment's reflection should show you that it is absolutely 
 impossible to think or say anything whatever — even non- 
 sense — about that of which you have no conception. 
 That of which we have no conception is to us as that 
 which is not, and that which is not, is not, and cannot 
 be, the object of human thought or intelligence. It is 
 not surprising then, under the circumstances, that you 
 have said many curious and wonderful things in your 
 reply to Mr. Black. 
 
 Ingersoll — " Mr. Black takes the ground that if a 
 man believes in the creation of the universe * * he 
 has no right to deny anything." 
 
 Comment — This is mere trifling, and shows what an 
 infidel philosopher is capable of when put to the stretch. 
 There is not a word of truth in what you say, and you 
 kneiv it when you said it. Mr. Black takes no such ground 
 as you, in utter disregard of the obligations of veracity, 
 attribute to him. 
 
 k 
 
202 NOTES ON INGERSOLL. 
 
 Ingersoll — "We should remember * * that the 
 early Christians believed everything but the truth, and 
 that they accepted Paganism, admitted the reality of all 
 the Pagan miracles." 
 
 Comment — In making and printing this statement you 
 lose all claim to respectful consideration. We must brand 
 it in the whole and in all its parts as a falsehood; and he 
 who made it is ignorant or malicious, or both. And yet 
 this falsifier talks glibly of " honesty" and " honor bright!" 
 IV£ charge Mr. Ingersoll with falsehood in making the 
 above statement. We call on him to verify it, or stand 
 as a convicted falsifier. A falsifier cannot be trusted; 
 his glib talk of honesty and virtue must be looked upon 
 as a snare, like that of the profligate wlio talks of virtu© 
 to his intended victim. We can respect an enemy, but 
 when we find deceit and falsehood in his methods, we 
 relegate him to that disreputable class which affords 
 remunerative employment to detectives and policemen. 
 A falsifier is a manufacturer of base coin, a cownterfeiter, 
 a fraud. 
 
 We here conclude these notes, believing we have ac- 
 complished what we undertook to do. We have said 
 enough to convince our readers that Mr. Ingersoll is pro- 
 fligate of statement; that he is not to be trusted; that he 
 is unscrupulous; that as a logician and metaphysician he 
 is beneath contempt; that he is a mere galvanizer of old 
 objections long ago refuted; that he is ignorant and 
 superficial — full of gas and gush, in a word, that he is a 
 philosophical charlatan of the first water, who mistakes 
 curious listeners for disciples, and applause for approval. 
 
 Of course we do not expect him to reply to us, and 
 
A FALSTFTER. 263 
 
 for several reasons. First, he will not want to; second, 
 lie cannot; third, he can pretend not to notice an obscure 
 country pastor. Very well. Then let some of his dis- 
 ciples or admirers try to rehabilitate his smirched char- 
 acter. We hold ourselves responsible to him, and to all 
 the glib little whiffets of his shallow school. 
 
 Note to Ninth Edition.—As I anticipated Mr. Ingersoll 
 has publicly declined to reply. 
 
1 
 
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