The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol. 12 (of 12): Dresden Edition—MiscellanyIngersoll, Robert Green
Religion
The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol. 12 (of 12): Dresden Edition—Miscellany
Ingersoll, Robert Green
Free thought
MUSIC.--The savage enjoys noises--explosion--the imitation of thunder.
This noise expresses his feeling. He enjoys concussion. His ear and
brain are in harmony. So, he takes cognizance of but few colors. The
neutral tints make no impression on his eyes. He appreciates the flames
of red and yellow. That is to say, there is a harmony between his brain
and eye. As he advances, develops, progresses, his ear catches other
sounds, his eye other colors. He becomes a complex being, and there has
entered into his mind the idea of proportion. The music of the drum no
longer satisfies him. He sees that there is as much difference between
noises and melodies as between stones and statues. The strings in
Corti's Harp become sensitive and possibly new ones are developed.
The eye keeps pace with the ear, and the worlds of sound and sight
increase from age to age.
The first idea of music is the keeping of time--a recurring emphasis at
intervals of equal length or duration. This is afterward modified--the
music of joy being fast, the emphasis at short intervals, and that of
sorrow slow.
After all, this music of time corresponds to the action of the blood and
muscles. There is a rise and fall under excitement of both. In joy the
heart beats fast, and the music corresponding to such emotion is quick.
In grief--in sadness, the blood is delayed. In music the broad division
is one of time. In language, words of joy are born of light--that which
shines--words of grief of darkness and gloom. There is still another
division: The language of happiness comes also from heat, and that of
sadness from cold.
These ideas or divisions are universal. In all art are the light and
shadow--the heat and cold.
*****
OF COURSE ENGLAND has no love for America. By England I mean the
governing class. Why should monarchy be in love with republicanism, with
democracy? The monarch insists that he gets his right to rule from
what he is pleased to call the will of God, whereas in a republic the
sovereign authority is the will of the people. It is impossible that
there should be any real friendship between the two forms of government.
We must, however, remember one thing, and that is, that there is an
England within England--an England that does not belong to the titled
classes--an England that has not been bribed or demoralized by those
in authority; and that England has always been our friend, because that
England is the friend of liberty and of progress everywhere. But the
lackeys, the snobs, the flatterers of the titled, those who are willing
to crawl that they may rise, are now and always have been the enemies of
the great Republic.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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