Part 12 (1/2)
[* There is no method of reasoning more common, or more blamable, than in philosophical disputes, to endeavor the refutation of any hypothesis, by a pretense of its dangerous consequences to religion and morality.”--David Hume]
This man in the dugout also had his ideas of religion--that fellow was orthodox, and any man who differed with him he called an infidel, an atheist, an outcast, and warned everybody against him. He had his religion--he believed in h.e.l.l; he was glad of it; he enjoyed it; it was a great source of comfort to him to think when he didn't like people that he would have the pleasure of looking over and seeing them squirm upon the gridiron. When any man said he didn't believe there was a h.e.l.l this gentleman got up in his pulpit and called him a hyena. That fellow believed in a devil too; that lowest skull was a devil factory--he believed in him. He believed he had a long tail adorned with a fiery dart; he believed he had wings like a bat, and had a pleasant habit of breathing sulphur; and he believed he had a cloven foot--such as most of your clergymen think I am blessed with myself.
They are shepherds of the sheep. The people are the sheep--that is all they are, they have to be watched and guarded by these shepherds and protected from the wolf who wants to reason with them. That is the doctrine. Now, all I claim is the same right to improve on that gentleman's politics, as on the dug-out, and the same right to improve upon his religion as upon his plough, or the musical instrument known as the tomtom--that is all.
Now, suppose the king and priest, if there was one, and there probably was one, as the farther you go back the more ignorant you find mankind and the thicker you find these gentlemen--suppose the king and priest had said: ”That boat is the best boat that ever can be built; we got the model of that from Neptune, the G.o.d of the seas, and I guess the G.o.d of the water knows how to build a boat, and any man that says he can improve it by putting a stick in the middle with a rag on the end of it, and has any talk about the wind blowing this way, and that, he is a heretic--he is a blasphemer.” Honor bright, what, in your judgment, would have been the effect upon the circ.u.mnavigation of the globe? I think we would have been on the other side yet. Suppose the king and priests had said: ”That plow is the best that ever can be invented; the model of that was given to a pious farmer in a holy dream, and that twisted straw is the ne plus ultra of all twisted things, and any man who says he can out-twist it, we will twist him.”
Suppose the king and priests had said: ”That tomtom is the finest instrument of music in the world--that is the kind of music found in heaven. An angel sat upon the edge of a glorified cloud playing upon that tomtom and became so entranced with the music that in a kind of ecstasy she dropped it and that is how we got it, and any man who talks about putting any improvement on that, he is not fit to live.” Let me ask you--do you believe if that had been done that the human ears ever would have been enriched with the divine symphonies of Beethoven?
All I claim is the same right to improve upon this barbarian's ideas of politics and religion as upon everything else, and whether it is an improvement or not, I have a right to suggest it--that is my doctrine.
They say to me, ”G.o.d will punish you forever, if you do these things.”
Very well. I will settle with Him. I had rather settle with Him than any one of His agents. I do not like them very well. In theology I am a granger--I do not believe in middle-men, what little business I have with heaven I will attend to thyself. Our fathers thought, just as many now think, that you could force men to think your way and if they failed to do it by reason, they tried it another way. I used to read about it when I was a boy--it did not seem to me that these things were true; it did not seem to me that there ever was such heartless bigotry in the heart of man, but there was and is tonight. I used to read about it--I did not appreciate it. I never appreciated it until I saw the arguments of those gentlemen. They used to use just such arguments as that man in the dug-out would have used to the next man ahead of him. This low, miserable skull--this next man was a little higher, and this fellow behind called him a heretic, and the next was still a little higher, and he was called an infidel. And, so it went on through the whole row--always calling the man who was ahead an infidel and a heretic. No man was ever called so who was behind the army of progress. It has always been the man ahead that has been called the heretic. Heresy is the last and best thought always. Heresy extends the hospitality of the brain to a new idea; that is what the rotting says to the growing; that is what the dweller in the swamp says to the man on the sun-lit hill; that is what the man in the darkness cries out to the grand man upon whose forehead is s.h.i.+ning the dawn of a grander day; that is what the coffin says to the cradle. Orthodoxy is a kind of shroud, and heresy is a banner--orthodoxy is a frog and heresy a star s.h.i.+ning forever above the cradle of truth. I do not mean simply in religion, I mean in everything, and the idea I wish to impress upon you is that you should keep your minds open to all the influences of nature; you should keep your minds open to reason. Hear what a man has to say, and do not let the turtle-sh.e.l.l of bigotry grow above your brain. Give everybody a chance and an opportunity; that is all.
I saw the arguments that those gentlemen have used on each other through all the ages. I saw a little bit of thumbscrew not more than so long (ill.u.s.trating), and attached to each end was a screw, and the inner surface vas trimmed with little protuberances to prevent their slipping; and when some man doubted--when a man had an idea--then those that did not have an idea put the thumbscrew upon him who did. He had doubted something. For instance, they told him, ”Christ says you must love your enemies;” he says, ”I do not know about that;” then they said, ”We will show you!” ”Do unto others as you would be done by,”
they said is the doctrine. He doubted. ”We will show you that it is!”
So they put this screw on; and in the name of universal love and universal forgiveness--”pray for those who despitefully use you”--they began s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g these pieces of iron into him--always done in the name of religion--always. It never was done in the name of reason, never was done in the name of science--never. No man was ever persecuted in defense of a truth--never. No man was ever persecuted except in defense of a lie--never.
This man had fallen out with them about something; he did not understand it as they did. For instance he said, ”I do not believe there ever was a man whose strength was in his hair.” They said: ”You don't? We'll show you!” ”I do not believe,” he says, ”that a fish ever swallowed a man to save his life.” ”You don't? Well, we'll show you!” And so they put this on, and generally the man would recant and say, ”Well, I'll take it back.” Well I think I should. Such men are not worth dying for. The idea of dying for a man that would tear the flesh of another on account of an honest difference of opinion--such a man is not worth dying for; he is not worth living for, and if I was in a position that I could not send a bullet through his brain, I would recant. I would say: ”You write it down and I will sign it--I will admit that there is one G.o.d, or a million--suit yourself; one h.e.l.l or a billion; you just write it--only stop this screw. You are not worth suffering for, you are not worth dying for and I am never going to take the part of any Lord that won't take my part--you just write it down and I'll sign it.”
But there was now and then a man who would not do that. He said, ”No, I believe I am right, and I will die for it,” and I suppose we owe what little progress we have made to a few men in all ages of the world who really stood by their convictions. The men who stood by the truth and the men who stood by a fact, they are the men that have helped raise this world, and in every age there has been some sublime and tender soul who was true to his convictions, and who really lived to make men better. In every age some men carried the torch of progress and handed it to some other, and it has been carried through all the dark ages of barbarism, and had it not been for such men we would have been naked and uncivilized tonight, with pictures of wild beasts tattooed on our skins, dancing around some dried snake fetish.
When a man would not recant, these men, in the name of the love of the Lord, screwed them down to the last thread of agony and threw them into some dungeon, where, in the throbbing silence of darkness, they suffered the pangs of the fabled d.a.m.ned; and this was done in the name of civilization, love and order, and in the name of the most merciful Christ. There are no thumbscrews now; they are rusting away; but every man in this town who is not willing that another shall do his own thinking and will try to prevent it, has in him the same h.e.l.lish spirit that made and used that very instrument of torture, and the only reason he does not use it today is because he cannot. The reason that I speak here tonight is because they cannot help it.
I saw at the same time a beautiful little instrument for the propagation of kindness, called ”The Scavenger's Daughter.” (The lecturer here described and ill.u.s.trated construction of the instrument.) The victim would be thrown upon that instrument and the strain upon the muscles was such that insanity would sometimes come to his relief. See what we owe to the civilizing influence of the gentlemen who have made a certain idea in metaphysics necessary to salvation--see what we owe to them.
I saw a collar of torture which they put about the neck of their victim, and inside of that there were a hundred points; so that the victim could not stir without the skin being punctured with these points, and after a little while the throat would swell and suffocation would end the agony, and they would have that done in the presence of his wife and weeping children. That was all done so that finally everybody would love everybody else as his brother. I saw a rack.
Imagine a wagon with a windla.s.s on each end, and each windla.s.s armed with leather bands, and a ratchet that prevented slipping. The victim was placed upon this.
Maybe he had denied something that some idiot said was true; may be he had a discussion--a division of opinion with a man, like John Calvin.
John Calvin said Christ was the Eternal Son of G.o.d and Michael Servetus said that Christ was the son of the Eternal G.o.d. That was the only difference of opinion. Think of it! What an important thing it was!
How it would have affected the price of food! ”Christ is the Eternal Son of G.o.d,” said one; ”No,” said the other, ”Christ is the Son of Eternal G.o.d”--that was all, and for that difference of opinion Michael Servetus was burned at a slow fire of green wood, and the wind happening to blow the flames from him instead of towards him; he was in the most terrible agony, writhing for minutes and minutes, and hours and hours, and finally he begged and implored those wretches to move him so that the wind would blow the flames against him and destroy him without such h.e.l.lish agony, but they were so filled with the doctrine of ”love your enemies” that they would not do it. I never will, for my part, depend upon any religion that has ever shed a drop of human blood.*
[* Speaking of the Inquisition, Prof. Draper says: ”With such savage alacrity did it carry out its object of protecting the interests of religion, that between 1480 and 1808 it had punished 340,000 persons, and of these nearly 32,000 had been burnt!”--Conflict between Religion and Science]
Upon this rack I have described, this victim was placed, and those chains were attached to his ankles and then to his waist, and clergymen--good men! pious men! men that were shocked at the immorality of their day! They talked about playing cards and the horrible crime of dancing! Oh, how such things shocked them; men going to theaters and seeing a play written by the grandest genius the world ever has produced. How it shocked their sublime and tender souls! But then commenced turning this machine, and they kept on turning until the ankles, knees, hips, elbows, shoulders and wrists were all dislocated and the victim was red with the sweat of agony, and they had standing by a physician to feel the pulse, so that the last faint flutter of life would not leave his veins. Did they wish to save his life? Yes.
In mercy? No! Simply that they might have the pleasure of racking him once again. That is the spirit, and it is a spirit born of the doctrine that there is upon the throne of the universe a being who will eternally d.a.m.n his children, and they said: ”If G.o.d is going to have the supreme happiness of burning them forever, certainly he ought not to begrudge to us the joy of burning them for an hour or two.” That was their doctrine, and when I read these things it seems to me that I have suffered them myself. When I look upon those instruments I look upon them as though I had suffered all these tortures myself. It seems to me as though I had stood upon the sh.o.r.e an exile and looking with tear-filled eyes toward home and native land. It seems as though my nails had been plucked out and into bleeding flesh needles had been thrust; as though my eyelids had been torn away and I had been set out in the ardent rays of the sun; as though I had been set out upon the sands of the sea and drowned by the inexorable tide; as though I had been in the dungeon waiting for the coming footsteps of relief; as though I had been upon the scaffold arid seen the glittering axe falling upon me; and seen bending above me the white faces of hypocrite priests; as though I had been taken from my wife and children to the public square, where f.a.ggots had been piled around me and the flames had climbed around my limbs and scorched my eyes to blindness; as though my ashes had been scattered by all the hands of hatred; and I feel like saying, that while I live I will do what little I can to preserve and augment the rights of men, women arid children; while I live I will do a little something so that they who come after me shall have the right to think and express that thought. The trouble is those who oppose us pretend they are better than we are. They are more mortal, they are kinder, they are more generous. I deny it. They are not. And if they are the ones that are to be saved in another world, and if those who simply think they are honest, and express that honest thought, are to be d.a.m.ned, there will be but little originality, to say the least of it, in heaven. They say they are better than we are--and to show you how much better they are I have got at home copies of some letters that pa.s.sed between gentlemen high in the church several hundred years ago, and the question was this: ”Ought we to cut out the tongues of blasphemers before we burn them?” And they finally decided that they ought to do so, and I will tell you the reason they gave: They said if they were not cut out that while they were being burned, they might, by their heresies, scandalize the gentleman who would bring the wood; they were too good to hear these things and they might be injured; and the same idea appears to prevail in this world now that they are too good and they must not be shocked.
They say to us: ”You must not shock us, and when you say there is no h.e.l.l we are shocked. You must not say that.” When I go to church and they tell me there is a h.e.l.l I must not get shocked; and if they tell me that there is not only a h.e.l.l, but that I am going to it, I must not be shocked. Even if they take the next step and act as though they would be glad to see me there, still I must not be shocked. I will agree to keep from being shocked as long as anybody in the world--they can say what they please; I will not get shocked, but let me say it.
You send missionaries to Turkey and tell them that the Koran is a lie.
You shock them. You tell them that Mahomet was not a prophet. You shock them. It is too bad to shock them. You go to India and you tell them that Vishnu was nothing, Puranas was nothing, that Buddha was n.o.body, and your Brahma, he is nothing. Why do you shock these people?
You should not do that; you ought not to hurt their feelings. I tell you no man on earth has a right to be shocked at the expression of an honest opinion when it is kindly done, and I don't believe there is any G.o.d in the universe who has put a curtain over the fact and made it a crime for the honest hand of investigation to endeavor to draw that curtain.
This world has not been fit to live in fifty years. There is no liberty in it--very little. Why, it is only a few years ago that all the Christian nations were engaged in the slave trade. It was not until 1808, that England abolished the slave trade, and up to that time her priests in her churches, and her judges on her benches, owned stock in slave s.h.i.+ps, and luxuriated on the profits of piracy and murder; and when a man stood up and denounced it, they mobbed him as though he had been a common burglar or a horse thief. Think of it! It was not until the 28th day of August, 1833, that England abolished slavery in her colonies; and it was not until the first day of January, 1863, that Abraham Lincoln, by direction of the entire North, wiped that infamy out of this country; and I never speak of Abraham Lincoln but I want to say that he was, in my judgment, in many respects the grandest man ever president of the United States. I say that upon his tomb there ought to be this line--and I know of no other man deserving it so well as he: ”Here lies one who, having been clothed with almost absolute power, never abused it except on the side of mercy.”
Just think of it! Our churches and best people, as they call themselves, defending the inst.i.tution of slavery. When I was a little boy I used to see steamers go down the Mississippi river with hundreds of men and women chained hand to hand, and even children, and men standing about them with whips in their hands and pistols in their pockets in the name of liberty, in the name of civilization and in the name of religion! I used to hear them preach to these slaves in the South and the only text they ever took was ”Servants, be obedient unto your masters.” That was the salutation of the most merciful G.o.d to a man whose back was bleeding, that was the salutation of the most merciful G.o.d to the slave mother bending over an empty cradle, to the woman from whose breast a child had been stolen--”Servants, be obedient unto you masters.” That was what they said to a man running for his life and for his liberty through tangled swamps and listening to the baying of bloodhounds, and when he listened for them the voice came from heaven: ”Servants, be obedient unto your masters.”
That is civilization. Think what slaves we have been! Think how we have crouched and cringed before wealth even! How they used to cringe in old times before a man who was rich--there are so many of them gone into bankruptcy lately that we are losing a little of our fear.
We used to wors.h.i.+p the golden calf, and the worst you can say of us now, is, we wors.h.i.+p the gold of the calf, and even the calves are beginning to see this distinction. We used to go down on our knees to every man that held office; now he must fill it if he wishes any respect. We care nothing for the rich, except what will they do with their money? Do they benefit mankind? That is the question. You say this man holds an office. How does he fill it?--that is the question.
And there is rapidly growing up in the world an aristocracy of heart and brain--the only aristocracy that has a right to exist. We are getting free. We are thinking in every direction. We are investigating with the microscope and the telescope. We are digging into the earth and finding souvenirs of all the ages. We are finding out something about the laws of health and disease. We are adding years to the span of human life and we are making the world fit to live in. That is what we are doing, and every man that has an honest thought and expresses it, helps, and every man that tries to keep honest thought from being expressed is an obstruction and a hindrance.
Now if men have been slaves what shall we say of women? They have been the slaves of slaves. The meaner a man is, the better he thinks he is than a woman. As a rule, you take an ignorant, brutal man--don't talk to him about a woman governing him, he don't believe it--not he; and nearly every religion of this world has been gallant enough to account for all the trouble and misfortune we have had by the crime of woman.