Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - LatestIngersoll, Robert Green
Religion
Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - Latest
Ingersoll, Robert Green
Free thought
I ask you what effect would that have had upon music? I ask you, honor
bright, if that course had been pursued, would the human ears ever have
been enriched with the divine symphonies of Beethoven? That is the
question. And suppose the king, if there was one, and the priest had
said: "That crooked stick is the best plow we can ever have invented.
The pattern of that plow 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 make an improvement, we will twist him." Honor
bright, what, in your judgment, would have been the effect upon the
agricultural world?
Now, you see, the people said, "We want better weapons with which to
kill our enemies;" so the people said, "we want better plows;" the
people said, "we want better music;" the people said, "we want better
paintings;" and they said, "whoever will give us better plows, and
better arms, and better paintings, and better music, we will give him
honor; we will crown him with glory; we will robe him in the garments
of wealth;" and every incentive has been held out to every human being
to improve something in every direction. And that is the reason the
club is a cannon; that the reason the dugout is a steamship; that the
reason the daub is a painting, and that is the reason that that piece
of stone has finally become a glorified statue.
Now, then, this fellow in the dug-out had a religion. That fellow was
orthodox. He had no doubt; he was settled in his mind. He did not
wish to be insulted. He wanted the bark of his soul to lie at the
wharf of orthodoxy, and rot in the sun. He wanted to hear the sails of
old opinions flap against the mast of old creeds. He wanted to see the
joints in the sides open and gape, as though thirsty for water, and he
said: "Now don't disturb my opinions; you'll get my mind unsettled; I
have got it all made up, and I don't want to hear any infidelity,
either." As far as I am concerned, I want to be out on the high sea; I
Want to take my chance with wind and wave and star; and I had rather go
down in the glory and grandeur of the storm than to rot at any orthodox
wharf. Of course I mean by orthodoxy all that don't agree with my
doxy. Do you understand?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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