Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - LatestIngersoll, Robert Green
Religion
Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - Latest
Ingersoll, Robert Green
Free thought
I don't believe man ever came to any high station without woman. There
has got to be some restraint, something to make you prudent, something
to make you industrious. And in a country where you don't need any bed
quilt but a cloud, revolution is the normal condition of the people.
You have got to have the fireside; you have got to have the home, and
there by the fireside will grow and bloom the fruits of the human race.
I recollect a while ago I was in Washington when they were trying to
annex Santo Domingo. They said: "We want to take in Santo Domingo."
Said I: "We don't want it." "Why," said they, "it is the best
climate the earth can produce. There is everything you want." "Yes,"
said I, "but it won't produce men. We don't want it. We have got soil
enough now. Take 5,000 ministers from New England, 5,000 presidents of
colleges, and 5,000 solid business men, and their families, and take
them to Santo Domingo; and then you will see the effect of climate. The
second generation, you will see barefooted boys riding bareback on a
mule, with their hair sticking out of the top of their sombreros, with
a rooster under each arm, going to a cock-fight on Sunday."
You have got to have the soil; you have got to have the climate, and
you have got to have another thing--you have got to have the fireside.
That is one excuse I have for us.
The next excuse is that I think we came up from the lower animals.
Else how can you account for all this snake and hyena and jackal in
man? Now, when I first heard that doctrine, I didn't like it. I felt
sorry for people who had nothing but ancestors to be proud of. It
touched my heart to think that they would have to go back to the Duke
Orangutan or the Duchess Chimpanzee. I was sorry, and I hated to
believe it. I don't know that it is the truth now. I am not satisfied
upon that question; I stand about eight to seven. I thought it over.
I read about it. I read about these rudimentary bones and muscles. I
didn't like that. I read that everybody had rudimentary muscles coming
from the ear right down here (indicating); that the most intellectual
people in the world have got them. I say, "What are they?"
"Rudimentary muscles." "What kind of muscles?" "Muscles that your
ancestors used to have fully developed." "What for?" "To flap their
ears with."
Well, whether we ever had them or not, I know of lots of men who ought
to have them yet. And finally I said, "Well, I guess we came up from
the lower animals." I thought it all over; the best I could, and I
said, "I guess we did." And after a while I began to like it, and I
like it better now than I did before.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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