Part 1 (1/2)
Individuality.
by Robert G. Ingersoll.
INDIVIDUALITY
”HIS SOUL WAS LIKE A STAR AND DWELT APART.”
ON every hand are the enemies of individuality and mental freedom.
Custom meets us at the cradle and leaves us only at the tomb. Our first questions are answered by ignorance, and our last by superst.i.tion. We are pushed and dragged by countless hands along the beaten track, and our entire training can be summed up in the word--suppression. Our desire to have a thing or to do a thing is considered as conclusive evidence that we ought not to have it, and ought not to do it. At every turn we run against cherubim and a flaming sword guarding some entrance to the Eden of our desire. We are allowed to investigate all subjects in which we feel no particular interest, and to express the opinions of the majority with the utmost freedom. We are taught that liberty of speech should never be carried to the extent of contradicting the dead witnesses of a popular superst.i.tion. Society offers continual rewards for self-betrayal, and they are nearly all earned and claimed, and some are paid.
We have all read accounts of Christian gentlemen remarking, when about to be hanged, how much better it would have been for them if they had only followed a mother's advice. But after all, how fortunate it is for the world that the maternal advice has not always been followed. How fortunate it is for us all that it is somewhat unnatural for a human being to obey. Universal obedience is universal stagnation; disobedience is one of the conditions of progress. Select any age of the world and tell me what would have been the effect of implicit obedience. Suppose the Church had had absolute control of the human mind at any time, would not the words liberty and progress have been blotted from human speech?
In defiance of advice, the world has advanced.
Suppose the astronomers had controlled the science of astronomy; suppose the doctors had controlled the science of medicine; suppose kings had been left to fix the forms of government; suppose our fathers had taken the advice of Paul, who said, ”be subject to the powers that be, because they are ordained of G.o.d;” suppose the Church could control the world to-day, we would go back to chaos and old night. Philosophy would be branded as infamous; Science would again press its pale and thoughtful face against the prison bars, and round the limbs of liberty would climb the bigot's flame.
It is a blessed thing that in every age some one has had individuality enough and courage enough to stand by his own convictions,--some one who had the grandeur to say his say. I believe it was Magellan who said, ”The Church says the earth is flat; but I have seen its shadow on the moon, and I have more confidence even in a shadow than in the Church.”
On the prow of his s.h.i.+p were disobedience, defiance, scorn, and success.
The trouble with most people is they bow to what is called authority; they have a certain reverence for the old because it is old. They think a man is better for being dead, especially if he has been dead a long time. They think the fathers of their nation were the greatest and best of all mankind. All these things they implicitly believe because it is popular and patriotic, and because they were told so when they were very small, and remember distinctly of hearing mother read it out of a book.
It is hard to over-estimate the influence of early training in the direction of superst.i.tion. You first teach children that a certain book is true--that it was written by G.o.d himself--that to question its truth is a sin, that to deny it is a crime, and that should they die without believing that book they will be forever d.a.m.ned without benefit of clergy. The consequence is, that long before they read that book, they believe it to be true. When they do read it their minds are wholly unfitted to investigate its claims. They accept it as a matter of course.
In this way the reason is overcome, the sweet instincts of humanity are blotted from the heart, and while reading its infamous pages even justice throws aside her scales, shrieking for revenge and charity, with b.l.o.o.d.y hands, applauds a deed of murder. In this way we are taught that the revenge of man is the justice of G.o.d; that mercy is not the same everywhere. In this way the ideas of our race have been subverted. In this way we have made tyrants, bigots, and inquisitors. In this way the brain of man has become a kind of palimpsest upon which, and over the writings of nature, superst.i.tion has scrawled her countless lies.
One great trouble is that most teachers are dishonest. They teach as certainties those things concerning which they entertain doubts. They do not say, ”we _think_ this is so,” but ”we _know_ this is so.” They do not appeal to the reason of the pupil, but they command his faith. They keep all doubts to themselves; they do not explain, they a.s.sert. All this is infamous. In this way you may make Christians, but you cannot make men; you cannot make women. You can make followers, but no leaders; disciples, but no Christs. You may promise power, honor, and happiness to all those who will blindly follow, but you cannot keep your promise.
A monarch said to a hermit, ”Come with me and I will give you power.”
”I have all the power that I know how to use,” replied the hermit ”Come,” said the king, ”I will give you wealth.”
”I have no wants that money can supply,” said the hermit ”I will give you honor,” said the monarch.
”Ah, honor cannot be given, it must be earned,” was the hermit's answer.
”Come,” said the king, making a last appeal, ”and I will give you happiness.”
”No,” said the man of solitude, ”there is no happiness without liberty, and he who follows cannot be free.”
”You shall have liberty too,” said the king.
”Then I will stay where I am,” said the old man.
And all the king's courtiers thought the hermit a fool.
Now and then somebody examines, and in spite of all keeps his manhood, and has the courage to follow where his reason leads. Then the pious get together and repeat wise saws, and exchange knowing nods and most prophetic winks. The stupidly wise sit owl-like on the dead limbs of the tree of knowledge, and solemnly hoot. Wealth sneers, and fas.h.i.+on laughs, and respectability pa.s.ses by on the other Side, and scorn points with all her skinny fingers, and all the snakes of superst.i.tion writhe and hiss, and slander lends her tongue, and infamy her brand, and perjury her oath, and the law its power, and bigotry tortures, and the Church kills.
The Church hates a thinker precisely for the same reason a robber dislikes a sheriff, or a thief despises the prosecuting witness. Tyranny likes courtiers, flatterers, followers, fawners, and superst.i.tion wants believers, disciples, zealots, hypocrites, and subscribers. The Church demands wors.h.i.+p--the very thing that man should give to no being, human or divine. To wors.h.i.+p another is to degrade yourself. Wors.h.i.+p is awe and dread and vague fear and blind hope. It is the spirit of wors.h.i.+p that elevates the one and degrades the many; that builds palaces for robbers, erects monuments to crime, and forges manacles even for its own hands. The spirit of wors.h.i.+p is the spirit of tyranny. The wors.h.i.+per always regrets that he is not the wors.h.i.+ped. We should all remember that the intellect has no knees, and that whatever the att.i.tude of the body may be, the brave soul is always found erect Whoever wors.h.i.+ps, abdicates. Whoever believes at the command of power, tramples his own individuality beneath his feet, and voluntarily robs himself of all that renders man superior to the brute.
The despotism of faith is justified upon the ground that Christian countries are the grandest and most prosperous of the world. At one time the same thing could have been truly said in India, in Egypt, in Greece, in Rome, and in every other country that has, in the history of the world, swept to empire. This argument proves too much not only, but the a.s.sumption upon which it is based is utterly false. Numberless circ.u.mstances and countless conditions have pro-duced the prosperity of the Christian world. The truth is, we have advanced in spite of religious zeal, ignorance, and opposition. The Church has won no victories for the rights of man. Luther labored to reform the Church--Voltaire, to reform men. Over every fortress of tyranny has waved, and still waves, the banner of the Church. Wherever brave blood has been shed, the sword of the Church has been wet. On every chain has been the sign of the cross. The altar and throne have leaned against and supported each other.
All that is good in our civilization is the result of commerce, climate, soil, geographical position, industry, invention, discovery, art, and science. The Church has been the enemy of progress, for the reason that it has endeavored to prevent man thinking for himself. To prevent thought is to prevent all advancement except in the direction of faith.