The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol. 11 (of 12): Dresden Edition—MiscellanyIngersoll, Robert Green
Religion
The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol. 11 (of 12): Dresden Edition—Miscellany
Ingersoll, Robert Green
Free thought
Count Tolstoi objects to music--not the ordinary kind, but to great
music, the music that arouses the emotions, that apparently carries us
beyond the limitations of life, that for the moment seems to break the
great chain of cause and effect, and leaves the soul soaring and free.
"Emotion and duty," he declares, "do not go hand in hand." All art
touches and arouses the emotional nature. The painter, the poet, the
sculptor, the composer, the orator, appeal to the emotions, to the
passions, to the hopes and fears. The commonplace is transfigured;
the cold and angular facts of existence take form and color; the
blood quickens; the fancies spread their wings; the intellect grows
sympathetic; the river of life flows full and free; and man becomes
capable of the noblest deeds. Take emotion from the heart of man and
the idea of obligation would be lost; right and wrong would lose their
meaning, and the word "ought" would never again be spoken. We are
subject to conditions, liable to disease, pain, and death. We are
capable of ecstasy. Of these conditions, of these possibilities, the
emotions are born.
Only the conditionless can be the emotionless.
We are conditioned beings; and if the conditions are changed, the result
may be pain or death or greater joy. We can only live within certain
degrees of heat. If the weather were a few degrees hotter or a few
degrees colder, we could not exist. We need food and roof and raiment.
Life and happiness depend on these conditions. We do not certainly know
what is to happen, and consequently our hopes and fears are constantly
active--that is to say, we are emotional beings. The generalization of
Tolstoï, that emotion never goes hand in hand with duty, is almost the
opposite of the truth. The idea of duty could not exist without emotion.
Think of men and women without love, without desires, without passions?
Think of a world without art or music--a world without beauty, without
emotion.
And yet there are many writers busy pointing out the loathsomeness of
love and their own virtues. Only a little while ago an article appeared
in one of the magazines in which all women who did not dress according
to the provincial prudery of the writer were denounced as impure.
Millions of refined and virtuous wives and mothers were described as
dripping with pollution because they enjoyed dancing and were so well
formed that they were not obliged to cover their arms and throats to
avoid the pity of their associates. And yet the article itself is far
more indelicate than any dance or any dress, or even lack of dress. What
a curious opinion dried apples have of fruit upon the tree!
Count Tolstoï is also the enemy of wealth, of luxury. In this he follows
the New Testament. "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a
needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven." He gathers
his inspiration from the commandment, "Sell all that thou hast and give
to the poor."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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