The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol. 04 (of 12): Dresden Edition—LecturesIngersoll, Robert Green
Religion
The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol. 04 (of 12): Dresden Edition—Lectures
Ingersoll, Robert Green
Free thought
Movable types were invented, paper was borrowed from the Moors, books
appeared, and it became possible to save the intellectual wealth so that
each generation could hand it to the next. History began to take the
place of legend and rumor. The telescope was invented. The orbits of the
stars were traced, and men became citizens of the universe. The steam
engine was constructed, and now steam, the great slave, does the work
of hundreds of millions of men. The Black Art, the impossible, was
abandoned, and chemistry, the useful, took its place. Astrology became
astronomy. Kepler discovered the three great laws, one of the greatest
triumphs of human genius, and our constellation became a poem, a
symphony. Newton gave us the mathematical expression of the attraction
of gravitation. Harvey discovered the circulation of the blood. He gave
us the fact, and Draper gave us the reason. Steamships conquered the
seas and railways covered the land. Houses and streets were lighted with
gas. Through the invention of matches fire became the companion of
man. The art of photography became known; the sun became an artist.
Telegraphs and cables were invented. The lightning became a carrier of
thought, and the nations became neighbors. Anaesthetics were discovered
and pain was lost in sleep. Surgery became a science. The telephone was
invented--the telephone that carries and deposits in listening ears the
waves of words. The phonograph, that catches and retains in marks and
dots and gives again the echoes of our speech.
Then came electric light that fills the night with day, and all the
wonderful machines that use the subtle force--the same force that leaps
from the summer cloud to ravage and destroy.
The Spectrum Analysis that tells us of the substance of the sun; the
Röntgen rays that change the opaque to the transparent. The
great thinkers demonstrated the indestructibility of force and
matter--demonstrated that the indestructible could not have been
created. The geologist, in rocks and deposits and mountains and
continents, read a little of the story of the world--of its changes, of
the glacial epoch--the story of vegetable and animal life.
The biologists, through the fossil forms of life, established the
antiquity of man and demonstrated the worthlessness of Holy Writ. Then
came evolution, the survival of the fittest and natural selection.
Thousands of mysteries were explained and science wrested the sceptre
from superstition. The cell theory was advanced, and embryology was
studied; the microscope discovered germs of disease and taught us how
to stay the plague. These great theories and discoveries, together with
countless inventions, are the children of intellectual liberty.
X.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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