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
We can have the luxuries of every climate. A majority of the people now
live better than the king used to do. Poor Solomon with his thousand
wives, and no carpets, his great temple, and no gas light! A thousand
women, and not a pin in the house; no stoves, no cooking range, no
baking powder, no potatoes--think of it! Breakfast without potatoes!
Plenty of wisdom and old saws--but no green corn; never heard of
succotash in his whole life. No clean clothes, no music, if you except a
jew's-harp, no ice water, no skates, no carriages, because there was not
a decent road in all his dominions. Plenty of theology but no tobacco,
no books, no pictures, not a picture in all Palestine, not a piece of
statuary, not a plough that would scour. No tea, no coffee; he never
heard of any place of amusement, never was at a theatre, or a circus.
"Seven up" was then unknown to the world. He couldn't even play
billiards, with all his knowledge, never had an idea of woman's rights,
or universal suffrage; never went to school a day in his life, and cared
no more about the will of the people than Andy Johnson.
The inventors have helped more than any other class to make the world
what it is; the workers and the thinkers, the poor and the grand; labor
and learning, industry and intelligence; Watt and Descartes, Fulton
and Montaigne, Stephenson and Kepler, Crompton and Comte, Franklin and
Voltaire, Morse and Buckle, Draper and Spencer, and hundreds more that I
could mention. The inventors, the workers, the thinkers, the mechanics,
the surgeons, the philosophers--these are the Atlases upon whose
shoulders rests the great fabric of modern civilization.
LANGUAGE.
IN order to show you that the most abject superstition pervaded every
department of human knowledge, or of ignorance rather, allow me to give
you a few of their ideas upon language. It was universally believed that
all languages could be traced back to the Hebrew; that the Hebrew was
the original language, and every fact inconsistent with that idea was
discarded. In consequence of this belief all efforts to investigate the
science of language were utterly fruitless. After a time, the Hebrew
idea falling into disrepute, other languages claimed the honor of being
the original ones.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account