The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll Volume VIII Part 50

_Answer_. I see no difference. Believing as I do that all persons act as they must, it makes not the slightest difference whether the person so acting is what we call inebriated, or sane, or insane --he acts as he must.

There should be no such thing as punishment. Society should protect itself by such means as intelligence and humanity may suggest, but the idea of punishment is barbarous. No man ever was, no man ever will be, made better by punishment. Society should have two objects in view: First, the defence of itself, and second, the reformation of the so-called criminal.

The world has gone on fining, imprisoning, torturing and killing the victims of condition and circ.u.mstance, and condition and circ.u.mstance have gone on producing the same kind of men and women year after year and century after century--and all this is so completely within the control of cause and effect, within the scope and jurisdiction of universal law, that we can prophesy the number of criminals for the next year--the thieves and robbers and murderers --with almost absolute certainty.

There are just so many mistakes committed every year--so many crimes --so many heartless and foolish things done--and it does not seem to be--at least by the present methods--possible to increase or decrease the number.

We have thousands and thousands of pulpits, and thousands of moralists, and countless talkers and advisers, but all these sermons, and all the advice, and all the talk, seem utterly powerless in the presence of cause and effect. Mothers may pray, wives may weep, children may starve, but the great procession moves on.

For thousands of years the world endeavored to save itself from disease by ceremonies, by genuflections, by prayers, by an appeal to the charity and mercy of heaven--but the diseases flourished and the graveyards became populous, and all the ceremonies and all the prayers were without the slightest effect. We must at last recognize the fact, that not only life, but conduct, has a physical basis. We must at last recognize the fact that virtue and vice, genius and stupidity, are born of certain conditions.

_Question_. In which way do you think the reformation or reconstruction of the inebriate is to be effected--by punishment, by moral suasion, by seclusion, or by medical treatment?

_Answer_. In the first place, punishment simply increases the disease. The victim, without being able to give the reasons, feels that punishment is unjust, and thus feeling, the effect of the punishment cannot be good.

You might as well punish a man for having the consumption which he inherited from his parents, or for having a contagious disease which was given to him without his fault, as to punish him for drunkenness. No one wishes to be unhappy--no one wishes to destroy his own well-being. All persons prefer happiness to unhappiness, and success to failure, Consequently, you might as well punish a man for being unhappy, and thus increase his unhappiness, as to punish him for drunkenness. In neither case is he responsible for what he suffers.

Neither can you cure this man by what is called moral suasion.

Moral suasion, if it amounts to anything, is the force of argument --that is to say, the result of presenting the facts to the victim.

Now, of all persons in the world, the victim knows the facts. He knows not only the effect upon those who love him, but the effect upon himself. There are no words that can add to his vivid appreciation of the situation. There is no language so eloquent as the sufferings of his wife and children. All these things the drunkard knows, and knows perfectly, and knows as well as any other human being can know. At the same time, he feels that the tide and current of pa.s.sion are beyond his power. He feels that he cannot row against the stream.

There is but one way, and that is, to treat the drunkard as the victim of a disease--treat him precisely as you would a man with a fever, as a man suffering from smallpox, or with some form of indigestion. It is impossible to talk a man out of consumption, or to reason him out of typhoid fever. You may tell him that he ought not to die, that he ought to take into consideration the condition in which he would leave his wife. You may talk to him about his children--the necessity of their being fed and educated --but all this will have nothing to do with the progress of the disease. The man does not wish to die--he wishes to live--and yet, there will come a time in his disease when even that wish to live loses its power to will, and the man drifts away on the tide, careless of life or death.

So it is with drink. Every nerve asks for a stimulant. Every drop of blood cries out for a.s.sistance, and in spite of all argument, in spite of all knowledge, in this famine of the nerves, a man loses the power of will. Reason abdicates the throne, and hunger takes its place.

_Question_. Will you state your reasons for your belief?

_Answer_. In the first place, I will give a reason for my unbelief in what is called moral suasion and in legislation.

As I said before, for thousands and thousands of years, fathers and mothers and daughters and sisters and brothers have been endeavoring to prevent the ones they love from drink, and yet, in spite of everything, millions have gone on and filled at last a drunkard's grave. So, societies have been formed all over the world. But the consumption of ardent spirits has steadily increased.

Laws have been pa.s.sed in nearly all the nations of the world upon the subject, and these laws, so far as I can see, have done but little, if any, good.

And the same old question is upon us now: What shall be done with the victims of drink? There have been probably many instances in which men have signed the pledge and have reformed. I do not say that it is not possible to reform many men, in certain stages, by moral suasion. Possibly, many men can be reformed in certain stages, by law; but the per cent. is so small that, in spite of that per cent., the average increases. For these reasons, I have lost confidence in legislation and in moral suasion. I do not say what legislation may do by way of prevention, or what moral suasion may do in the same direction, but I do say that after man have become the victims of alcohol, advice and law seem to have lost their force.

I believe that science is to become the savior of mankind. In other words, every appet.i.te, every excess, has a physical basis, and if we only knew enough of the human system--of the tides and currents of thought and will and wish--enough of the storms of pa.s.sion--if we only knew how the brain acts and operates--if we only knew the relation between blood and thought, between thought and act--if we only knew the conditions of conduct, then we could, through science, control the pa.s.sions of the human race.

When I first heard of the cure of inebriety through scientific means, I felt that the morning star had risen in the east--I felt that at last we were finding solid ground. I did not accept--being of a skeptical turn of mind--all that I heard as true. I preferred to hope, and wait. I have waited, until I have seen men, the victims of alcohol, in the very gutter of disgrace and despair, lifted from the mire, rescued from the famine of desire, from the grasp of appet.i.te. I have seen them suddenly become men--masters and monarchs of themselves.

MIRACLES, THEOSOPHY AND SPIRITUALISM.

_Question_. Do you believe that there is such a thing as a miracle, or that there has ever been?

_Answer_. Mr. Locke was in the habit of saying: "Define your terms." So the first question is, What is a miracle? If it is something wonderful, unusual, inexplicable, then there have been many miracles. If you mean simply that which is inexplicable, then the world is filled with miracles; but if you mean by a miracle, something contrary to the facts in nature, then it seems to me that the miracle must be admitted to be an impossibility. It is like twice two are eleven in mathematics.

If, again, we take the ground of some of the more advanced clergy, that a miracle is in accordance with the facts in nature, but with facts unknown to man, then we are compelled to say that a miracle is performed by a divine sleight-of-hand; as, for instance, that our senses are deceived; or, that it is perfectly simple to this higher intelligence, while inexplicable to us. If we give this explanation, then man has been imposed upon by a superior intelligence.

It is as though one acquainted with the sciences--with the action of electricity--should excite the wonder of savages by sending messages to his partner. The savage would say, "A miracle;" but the one who sent the message would say, "There is no miracle; it is in accordance with facts in nature unknown to you." So that, after all, the word miracle grows in the soil of ignorance.

The question arises whether a superior intelligence ought to impose upon the inferior. I believe there was a French saint who had his head cut off by robbers, and this saint, after the robbers went away, got up, took his head under his arm and went on his way until he found friends to set it on right. A thing like this, if it really happened, was a miracle.

So it may be said that nothing is much more miraculous than the fact that intelligent men believe in miracles. If we read in the annals of China that several thousand years ago five thousand people were fed on one sandwich, and that several sandwiches were left over after the feast, there are few intelligent men--except, it may be, the editors of religious weeklies--who would credit the statement. But many intelligent people, reading a like story in the Hebrew, or in the Greek, or in a mistranslation from either of these languages, accept the story without a doubt.

So if we should find in the records of the Indians that a celebrated medicine-man of their tribe used to induce devils to leave crazy people and take up their abode in wild swine, very few people would believe the story.

I believe it is true that the priest of one religion has never had the slightest confidence in the priest of any other religion.

My own opinion is, that nature is just as wonderful one time as another; that that which occurs to-day is just as miraculous as anything that ever happened; that nothing is more wonderful than that we live--that we think--that we convey our thoughts by speech, by gestures, by pictures.

Nothing is more wonderful than the growth of gra.s.s--the production of seed--the bud, the blossom and the fruit. In other words, we are surrounded by the inexplicable.

All that happens in conformity with what we know, we call natural; and that which is said to have happened, not in conformity with what we know, we say is wonderful; and that which we believe to have happened contrary to what we know, we call the miraculous.

I think the truth is, that nothing ever happened except in a natural way; that behind every effect has been an efficient cause, and that this wondrous procession of causes and effects has never been, and never will be, broken. In other words, there is nothing superior to the universe--nothing that can interfere with this procession of causes and effects. I believe in no miracles in the theological sense. My opinion is that the universe is, forever has been, and forever will be, perfectly natural.

Whenever a religion has been founded among barbarians and ignorant people, the founder has appealed to miracle as a kind of credential --as an evidence that he is in partners.h.i.+p with some higher power.

The credulity of savagery made this easy. But at last we have discovered that there is no necessary relation between the miraculous and the moral. Whenever a man's reason is developed to that point that he sees the reasonableness of a thing, he needs no miracle to convince him. It is only ignorance or cunning that appeals to the miraculous.

There is another thing, and that is this: Truth relies upon itself --that is to say, upon the perceived relation between itself and all other truths. If you tell the facts, you need not appeal to a miracle. It is only a mistake or a falsehood, that needs to be propped and b.u.t.tressed by wonders and miracles.

_Question_. What is your explanation of the miracles referred to in the Old and New Testaments?

_Answer_. In the first place, a miracle cannot be explained. If it is a real miracle, there is no explanation. If it can be explained, then the miracle disappears, and the thing was done in accordance with the facts and forces of nature.

In a time when not one it may be in thousands could read or write, when language was rude, and when the signs by which thoughts were conveyed were few and inadequate, it was very easy to make mistakes, and nothing is more natural than for a mistake to grow into a miracle. In an ignorant age, history for the most part depended upon memory. It was handed down from the old in their dotage, to the young without judgment. The old always thought that the early days were wonderful--that the world was wearing out because they were. The past looked at through the haze of memory, became exaggerated, gigantic. Their fathers were stronger than they, and their grandfathers far superior to their fathers, and so on until they reached men who had the habit of living about a thousand years.

In my judgment, everything in the Old Testament contrary to the experience of the civilized world, is false. I do not say that those who told the stories knew that they were false, or that those who wrote them suspected that they were not true. Thousands and thousands of lies are told by honest stupidity and believed by innocent credulity. Then again, cunning takes advantage of ignorance, and so far as I know, though all the history of the world a good many people have endeavored to make a living without work.

I am perfectly convinced of the integrity of nature--that the elements are eternally the same--that the chemical affinities and hatreds know no shadow of turning--that just so many atoms of one kind combine with so many atoms of another, and that the relative numbers have never changed and never will change. I am satisfied that the attraction of gravitation is a permanent inst.i.tution; that the laws of motion have been the same that they forever will be.

There is no chance, there is no caprice. Behind every effect is a cause, and every effect must in its turn become a cause, and only that is produced which a cause of necessity produces.

_Question_. What do you think of Madame Blavatsky and her school of Theosophists? Do you believe Madame Blavatsky does or has done the wonderful things related of her? Have you seen or known of any Theosophical or esoteric marvels?

_Answer_. I think wonders are about the same in this country that they are in India, and nothing appears more likely to me simply because it is surrounded with the mist of antiquity. In my judgment, Madame Blavatsky has never done any wonderful things--that is to say, anything not in perfect accordance with the facts of nature.

I know nothing of esoteric marvels. In one sense, everything that exists is a marvel, and the probability is that if we knew the history of one grain of sand we would know the history of the universe. I regard the universe as a unit. Everything that happens is only a different aspect of that unit. There is no room for the marvelous--there is no s.p.a.ce in which it can operate--there is no fulcrum for its lever. The universe is already occupied with the natural. The ground is all taken.

It may be that all these people are perfectly honest, and imagine that they have had wonderful experiences. I know but little of the Theosophists--but little of the Spiritualists. It has always seemed to me that the messages received by Spiritualists are remarkably unimportant--that they tell us but little about the other world, and just as little about this--that if all the messages supposed to have come from angelic lips, or spiritual lips, were destroyed, certainly the literature of the world would lose but little. Some of these people are exceedingly intelligent, and whenever they say any good thing, I imagine that it was produced in their brain, and that it came from no other world. I have no right to pa.s.s upon their honesty. Most of them may be sincere.

It may be that all the founders of religions have really supposed themselves to be inspired--believed that they held conversations with angels and G.o.ds. It seems to be easy for some people to get in such a frame of mind that their thoughts become realities, their dreams substances, and their very hopes palpable.

Personally, I have no sort of confidence in these messages from the other world. There may be mesmeric forces--there may be an odic force. It may be that some people can tell of what another is thinking. I have seen no such people--at least I am not acquainted with them--and my own opinion is that no such persons exist.

_Question_. Do you believe the spirits of the dead come back to earth?

_Answer_. I do not. I do not say that the spirits do not come back. I simply say that I know nothing on the subject. I do not believe in such spirits, simply for the reason that I have no evidence upon which to base such a belief. I do not say there are no such spirits, for the reason that my knowledge is limited, and I know of no way of demonstrating the non-existence of spirits.

It may be that man lives forever, and it may be that what we call life ends with what we call death. I have had no experience beyond the grave, and very little back of birth. Consequently, I cannot say that I have a belief on this subject. I can simply say that I have no knowledge on this subject, and know of no fact in nature that I would use as the corner-stone of a belief.