Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - LatestIngersoll, Robert Green
Religion
Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - Latest
Ingersoll, Robert Green
Free thought
A little while ago I saw models of everything man has made for his use
and for his convenience. I saw all the models of all the watercraft,
from the dug-out, in which floated a naked savage--one of our
ancestors--a naked savage, with teeth two inches long, with a spoonful
of brains in the back of his head; I saw the watercraft of the world,
from that dug-out up to a man-of-war that carries a hundred guns and
miles of canvas; from that dug-out to the steamship that turns its
brave prow from the port of New York through 3,000 miles of billows,
with a compass like a conscience, that does not miss throb or beat of
its mighty iron heart from one shore to the other. I saw at the same
time the weapons that man has made, from a rude club, such as was
grasped by that savage when he crawled from his den, from his hole in
the ground, and hunted a snake for his dinner--from that club to the
boomerang, to the sword, to the cross-bow, to the blunderbuss, to the
flint-lock, to the cap-lock, to the needle-gun, up to the cannon cast
by Krupp, capable of hurling a ball of 2,000 pounds through eighteen
inches of solid steel. I saw, too, the armor from the turtle-shell
that our ancestor lashed upon his skin when he went out to fight for
his country, to the skin of the porcupine, with the quills all
bristling, which he pulled over his orthodox head to defend himself
from his enemies--I mean, of course, the orthodox head of that day--up
to the shirts of mail that were worn in the middle ages, capable of
resisting the edge of the sword and the point of the spear; up to the
iron-clad, to the monitor completely clad in steel, capable only a few
years ago of defying the navies of the globe.
I saw at the same time the musical instruments, from the tomtom, which
is a hoop with a couple of strings of rawhide drawn across it--from
that tomtom up to the instruments we have today, which make the common
air blossom with melody. I saw, too, the paintings, from the daub of
yellow mud up to the pieces which adorn the galleries of the world.
And the sculpture, from the rude gods, with six legs and a half dozen
arms, and the rows of ears, up to the sculpture of now, wherein the
marble is clad with such loveliness that it seems almost a sacrilege to
touch it; and in addition I saw there ideas of books--books written
upon skins of wild beasts, books written upon shoulder-blades of sheep;
books written upon leaves, upon bark, up to the splendid volumes that
adorn the libraries of our time. When I think of libraries, I think of
the remark of Plato, "The house that has a library in it has a soul."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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