THE LIMITATIONS OF TOLERATION.
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
Ingersoll, Robert Green and Widger, David
* A discussion between Col. Robert G. Ingersoll, Hon. Frederic R. Coudert, Ex-Gov. Stewart L. Woodford, before the Nineteenth Century Club of New York, at the Metropolitan Opera House, May 8, 1888. The points for discussion, as submitted in advance, were the following propositions:
Colonel Ingersoll's Opening.
Ladies, Mr. President and Gentlemen:
I AM here to-night for the purpose of defending your right to differ with me. I want to convince you that you are under no compulsion to accept my creed; that you are, so far as I am concerned, absolutely free to follow the torch of your reason according to your conscience; and I believe that you are civilized to that degree that you will extend to me the right that you claim for yourselves.
First. Thought is a necessary natural product—the result of what is called impressions made through the medium of the senses upon the brain, not forgetting the Fact of heredity.
Second. No human being is accountable to any being-human or divine—for his thoughts.
Third. Human beings have a certain interest in the thoughts of each other, and one who undertakes to tell his thoughts should be honest.
Fourth. All have an equal right to express their thoughts upon all subjects.
Fifth. For one man to say to another, "I tolerate you," is an assumption of authority—not a disclaimer, but a waiver, of the right to persecute.
Sixth. Each man has the same right to express to the whole world his ideas, that the rest of the world have to express their thoughts to him.
Courtlandt Palmer, Esq., President of the Club, in introducing Mr. Ingersoll, among other things said:
"The inspiration of the orator of the evening seems to be that of the great Victor Hugo, who uttered the august saying, 'There shall be no slavery of the mind.'
"When I was in Paris, about a year ago, I visited the tomb of Victor Hugo. It was placed in a recess in the crypt of the Pantheon. Opposite it was the tomb of Jean Jacques Rousseau. Near by, in another recess, was the memorial statue of Voltaire; and I felt, as I looked at these three monuments, that had Colonel Ingersoll been born in France, and had he passed in his long life account, the acclaim of the liberal culture of France would have enlarged that trio into a quartette.
"Colonel Ingersoll has appeared in several important debates in print, notably with Judge Jeremiah S. Black formerly Attorney-General of the United States: lately in the pages of The North American Review with the Rev. Dr. Henry M. Field, and last but not least the Right Hon. William E Gladstone, England's greatest citizen, has taken up the cudgel against him in behalf of his view of Orthodoxy To-night, I believe-for the first time, the colonel has consented to appear in a colloquial discussion. I have now the honor to introduce this distinguished orator."
I admit, at the very threshold, that every human being thinks as he must; and the first proposition really is, whether man has the right to think. It will bear but little discussion, for the reason that no man can control his thought. If you think you can, what are you going to think to-morrow? What are you going to think next year? If you can absolutely control your thought, can you stop thinking?
The question is, Has the will any power over the thought? What is thought? It is the result of nature—of the outer world—first upon the senses—those impressions left upon the brain as pictures of things in the outward world, and these pictures are transformed into, or produce, thought; and as long as the doors of the senses are open, thoughts will be produced. Whoever looks at anything in nature, thinks. Whoever hears any sound—or any symphony—no matter what—thinks. Whoever looks upon the sea, or on a star, or on a flower, or on the face of a fellow-man, thinks, and the result of that look is an absolute necessity. The thought produced will depend upon your brain, upon your experience, upon the history of your life.
One who looks upon the sea, knowing that the one he loved the best had been devoured by its hungry waves, will have certain thoughts; and he who sees it for the first time, will have different thoughts. In other words, no two brains are alike; no two lives have been or are or ever will be the same. Consequently, nature cannot produce the same effect upon any two brains, or upon any two hearts.
The only reason why we wish to exchange thoughts is that we are different. If we were all the same, we would die dumb. No thought would be expressed after we found that our thoughts were precisely alike. We differ—our thoughts are different. Therefore the commerce that we call conversation.
Back of language is thought. Back of language is the desire to express our thought to another. This desire not only gave us language—this desire has given us the libraries of the world. And not only the libraries; this desire to express thought, to show to others the splendid children of the brain, has written every book, formed every language, painted every picture, and chiseled every statue—this desire to express our thought to others, to reap the harvest of the brain.
If, then, thought is a necessity, "it follows as the night the day" that there is, there can be, no responsibility for thought to any being, human or divine.
A camera contains a sensitive plate. The light flashes upon it, and the sensitive plate receives a picture. Is it in fault, is it responsible, for the picture? So with the brain. An image is left on it, a picture is imprinted there. The plate may not be perfectly level—it may be too concave, or too convex, and the picture may be a deformity; so with the brain. But the man does not make his own brain, and the consequence is, if the picture is distorted it is not the fault of the brain.
We take then these two steps: first, thought is a necessity; and second, the thought depends upon the brain.
Each brain is a kind of field where nature sows with careless hands the seeds of thought. Some brains are poor and barren fields, producing weeds and thorns, and some are like the tropic world where grow the palm and pine—children of the sun and soil.
You read Shakespeare. What do you get out of Shakespeare? All that your brain is able to hold. It depends upon your brain. If you are great—if you have been cultivated—if the wings of your imagination have been spread—if you have had great, free, and splendid thoughts—'r you have stood upon the edge of things—if you have had the courage to meet all that can come—you get an immensity from Shakespeare. If you have lived nobly—if you have loved with every drop of your blood and every fibre of your being—if you have suffered—if you have enjoyed—then you get an immensity from Shakespeare. But if you have lived a poor, little, mean, wasted, barren, weedy life—you get very little from that immortal man.
So it is from every source in nature—what you get depends upon what you are.
Take then the second step. If thought is a necessity, there can be no responsibility for thought. And why has man ever believed that his fellow-man was responsible for his thought?
Everything that is, everything that has been, has been naturally produced. Man has acted as, under the same circumstances, we would have acted; because when you say "under the circumstances," it is the same as to say that you would do exactly as they have done.
There has always been in men the instinct of self-preservation. There was a time when men believed, and honestly believed, that there was above them a God. Sometimes they believed in many, but it will be sufficient for my illustration to say, one. Man believed that there was in the sky above him a God who attended to the affairs of men. He believed that that God, sitting upon his throne, rewarded virtue and punished vice. He believed also, that that God held the community responsible for the sins of individuals. He honestly believed it. When the flood came, or when the earthquake devoured, he really believed that some God was filled with anger—with holy indignation—at his children. He believed it, and so he looked about among his neighbors to see who was in fault, and if there was any man who had failed to bring his sacrifice to the altar, had failed to kneel, it may be to the priest, failed to be present in the temple, or had given it as his opinion that the God of that tribe or of that nation was of no use, then, in order to placate the God, they seized the neighbor and sacrificed him on the altar of their ignorance and of their fear.
They believed when the lightning leaped from the cloud and left its blackened mark upon the man, that he had done something—that he had excited the wrath of the gods.
And while man so believed, while he believed that it was necessary, in order to defend himself, to kill his neighbor—he acted simply according to the dictates of his nature.
What I claim is that we have nov-advanced far enough not only to think, but to know, that the conduct of man has nothing to do with the phenomena of nature. We are now advanced far enough to absolutely know that no man can be bad enough and no nation infamous enough to cause an earthquake. I think we have got to that point that we absolutely know that no man can be wicked enough to entice one of the bolts from heaven—that no man can be cruel enough to cause a drought—and that you could not have infidels enough on the earth to cause another flood. I think we have advanced far enough not only to say that, but to absolutely know it—I mean people who have thought, and in whose minds there is something like reasoning.
We know, if we know anything, that the lightning is just as apt to hit a good man as a bad man. We know it. We know that the earthquake is just as liable to swallow virtue as to swallow vice. And you know just as well as I do that a ship loaded with pirates is just as apt to outride the storm as one crowded with missionaries. You know it.
I am now speaking of the phenomena of nature. I believe, as much as I believe that I live, that the reason a thing is right is because it tends to the happiness of mankind. I believe, as much as I be-believe that I live, that on the average the good man is not only the happier man, but that no man is happy who is not good.
If then we have gotten over that frightful, that awful superstition—we are ready to enjoy hearing the thoughts of each other.
I do not say, neither do I intend to be understood as saying, that there is no God. All I intend to say is, that so far as we can see, no man is punished, no nation is punished by lightning, or famine, or storm. Everything happens to the one as to the other.
Now, let us admit that there is an infinite God. That has nothing to do with the sinlessness of thought—nothing to do with the fact that no man is accountable to any being, human or divine, for what he thinks. And let me tell you why.
If there be an infinite God, leave him to deal with men who sin against him. You can trust him, if you believe in him. He has the power. He has a heaven full of bolts. Trust him. And now that you are satisfied that the earthquake will not swallow you, or the lightning strike you, simply because you tell your thoughts, if one of your neighbors differs with you, and acts improperly or thinks or speaks improperly of your God, leave him with your God—he can attend to him a thousand times better than you can, He has the time. He lives from eternity to eternity. More than that, he has the means. So that, whether there be this Being or not, you have no right to interfere with your neighbor.
The next proposition is, that I have the same right to express my thought to the whole world, that the whole world has to express its thought to me.
I believe that this realm of thought is not a democracy, where the majority rule; it is not a republic. It is a country with one inhabitant. This brain is the world in which my mind lives, and my mind is the sovereign of that realm. We are all kings, and one man balances the rest of the world as one drop of water balances the sea. Each soul is crowned. Each soul wears the purple and the tiara; and only those are good citizens of the intellectual world who give to every other human being every right that they claim for themselves, and only those are traitors in the great realm of thought who abandon reason and appeal to force.
If now I have got out of your minds the idea that you must abuse your neighbors to keep on good terms with God, then the question of religion is exactly like every question—I mean of thought, of mind—I have nothing to say now about action.