The Ghosts
Let them cover their eyeless sockets with their fleshless hands and fade forever from the imagination of men.

by Robert G. Ingersoll
(1877)

From The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll (Dresden Edition, 1900–1902), Volume 1.
Source: https://thegreatagnostic.com/works/ghosts/
Public domain. CC0 / Public Domain Mark 1.0.

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<section class="work-preface">

<span class="work-preface-kicker">Author's Front Matter</span>
<h2 class="work-preface-heading">Preface</h2>

These lectures have been so maimed and mutilated by orthodox malice;
have been made to appear so halt, crutched and decrepit by those who
mistake the pleasures of calumny for the duties of religion, that in
simple justice to myself I concluded to publish them.

Most of the clergy are, or seem to be, utterly incapable of discussing
anything in a fair and catholic spirit. They appeal, not to reason,
but to prejudice; not to facts, but to passages of Scripture. They can
conceive of no goodness, of no spiritual exaltation beyond the horizon
of their creed. Whoever differs with them upon what they are pleased
to call "fundamental truths," is, in their opinion, a base and infamous
man. To re-enact the tragedies of the sixteenth century, they lack only
the power. Bigotry in all ages has been the same. Christianity simply
transferred the brutality of the Colosseum to the Inquisition. For the
murderous combat of the gladiators, the saints substituted the _auto de
fe_. What has been called religion is, after all, but the organization
of the wild beast in man. The perfumed blossom of arrogance is heaven.
Hell is the consummation of revenge.

The chief business of the clergy has always been to destroy the joy of
life, and multiply and magnify the terrors and tortures of death and
perdition. They have polluted the heart and paralyzed the brain; and
upon the ignorant altars of the Past and the Dead, they have endeavored
to sacrifice the Present and the Living.

Nothing can exceed the mendacity of the religious press. I have had some
little experience with political editors, and am forced to say, that
until I read the religious papers, I did not know what malicious and
slimy falsehoods could be constructed from ordinary words. The ingenuity
with which the real and apparent meaning can be tortured out of
language, is simply amazing. The average religious editor is intolerant
and insolent; he knows nothing of affairs; he has the envy of failure,
the malice of impotence, and always accounts for the brave and generous
actions of unbelievers, by low, base and unworthy motives.

By this time, even the clergy should know that the intellect of the
nineteenth century needs no guardian. They should cease to regard
themselves as shepherds defending flocks of weak, silly and fearful
sheep from the claws and teeth of ravening wolves. By this time they
should know that the religion of the ignorant and brutal Past no
longer satisfies the heart and brain; that the miracles have become
contemptible; that the "evidences" have ceased to convince; that the
spirit of investigation cannot be stopped nor stayed; that the church
is losing her power; that the young are holding in a kind of tender
contempt the sacred follies of the old; that the pulpit and pews no
longer represent the culture and morality of the world, and that the
brand of intellectual inferiority is upon the orthodox brain.

Men should be liberated from the aristocracy of the air. Every chain
of superstition should be broken. The rights of men and women should
be equal and sacred—marriage should be a perfect partnership—children
should be governed by kindness,—every family should be a
republic—every fireside a democracy.

It seems almost impossible for religious people to really grasp the idea
of intellectual freedom. They seem to think that man is responsible for
his honest thoughts; that unbelief is a crime; that investigation is
sinful; that credulity is a virtue, and that reason is a dangerous
guide. They cannot divest themselves of the idea that in the realm of
thought there must be government—authority and obedience—laws and
penalties—rewards and punishments, and that somewhere in the universe
there is a penitentiary for the soul.

In the republic of mind, one is a majority. There, all are monarchs,
and all are equals. The tyranny of a majority even is unknown. Each one
is crowned, sceptered and throned. Upon every brow is the tiara, and
around every form is the imperial purple. Only those are good citizens
who express their honest thoughts, and those who persecute for opinion's
sake, are the only traitors. There, nothing is considered infamous
except an appeal to brute force, and nothing sacred but love, liberty,
and joy. The church contemplates this republic with a sneer. From the
teeth of hatred she draws back the lips of scorn. She is filled with the
spite and spleen born of intellectual weakness. Once she was egotistic;
now she is envious.

Once she wore upon her hollow breast false gems, supposing them to be
real. They have been shown to be false, but she wears them still. She
has the malice of the caught, the hatred of the exposed.

We are told to investigate the Bible for ourselves, and at the same time
informed that if we come to the conclusion that it is not the inspired
word of God, we will most assuredly be damned. Under such circumstances,
if we believe this, investigation is impossible. Whoever is held
responsible for his conclusions cannot weigh the evidence with impartial
scales. Fear stands at the balance, and gives to falsehood the weight of
its trembling hand.

I oppose the church because she is the enemy of liberty; because her
dogmas are infamous and cruel; because she humiliates and degrades
woman; because she teaches the doctrines of eternal torment and the
natural depravity of man; because she insists upon the absurd, the
impossible, and the senseless; because she resorts to falsehood and
slander; because she is arrogant and revengeful; because she allows men
to sin on a credit; because she discourages self-reliance, and laughs
at good works; because she believes in vicarious virtue and vicarious
vice—vicarious punishment and vicarious reward; because she regards
repentance of more importance than restitution, and because she
sacrifices the world we have to one we know not of.

The free and generous, the tender and affectionate, will understand me.
Those who have escaped from the grated cells of a creed will appreciate
my motives. The sad and suffering wives, the trembling and loving
children will thank me: This is enough.

<p class="work-preface-sign">Robert G. Ingersoll<small>Washington, D.C. · April 13, 1878</small></p>

</section>

The Ghosts

LET THEM COVER THEIR EYELESS SOCKETS WITH THEIR FLESHLESS HANDS AND FADE
FOREVER FROM THE IMAGINATION OF MEN.

THERE are three theories by which men account for all phenomena,
for everything that happens: First, the Supernatural; Second, the
Supernatural and Natural; Third, the Natural. Between these theories
there has been, from the dawn of civilization, a continual conflict. In
this great war, nearly all the soldiers have been in the ranks of the
supernatural. The believers in the supernatural insist that matter
is controlled and directed entirely by powers from without; while
naturalists maintain that Nature acts from within; that Nature is not
acted upon; that the universe is all there is; that Nature with infinite
arms embraces everything that exists, and that all supposed powers
beyond the limits of the material are simply ghosts. You say, "Oh, this
is materialism!" What is matter? I take in my hand some earth:—in this
dust put seeds. Let the arrows of light from the quiver of the sun smite
upon it; let the rain fall upon it. The seeds will grow and a plant will
bud and blossom. Do you understand this? Can you explain it better than
you can the production of thought? Have you the slightest conception of
what it really is? And yet you speak of matter as though acquainted with
its origin, as though you had torn from the clenched hands of the rocks
the secrets of material existence. Do you know what force is? Can you
account for molecular action? Are you really familiar with chemistry,
and can you account for the loves and hatreds of the atoms? Is there not
something in matter that forever eludes? After all, can you get beyond,
above or below appearances? Before you cry "materialism!" had you not
better ascertain what matter really is? Can you think even of anything
without a material basis? Is it possible to imagine the annihilation of
a single atom? Is it possible for you to conceive of the creation of an
atom? Can you have a thought that was not suggested to you by what you
call matter?

Our fathers denounced materialism, and accounted for all phenomena by
the caprice of gods and devils.

For thousands of years it was believed that ghosts, good and bad,
benevolent and malignant, weak and powerful, in some mysterious way,
produced all phenomena; that disease and health, happiness and misery,
fortune and misfortune, peace and war, life and death, success and
failure, were but arrows from the quivers of these ghosts; that shadowy
phantoms rewarded and punished mankind; that they were pleased and
displeased by the actions of men; that they sent and withheld the snow,
the light, and the rain; that they blessed the earth with harvests or
cursed it with famine; that they fed or starved the children of men;
that they crowned and uncrowned kings; that they took sides in war; that
they controlled the winds; that they gave prosperous voyages, allowing
the brave mariner to meet his wife and child inside the harbor bar, or
sent the storms, strewing the sad shores with wrecks of ships and the
bodies of men.

Formerly, these ghosts were believed to be almost innumerable. Earth,
air, and water were filled with these phantom hosts. In modern times
they have greatly decreased in number, because the second theory,—a
mingling of the supernatural and natural,—has generally been adopted.
The remaining ghosts, however, are supposed to perform the same offices
as the hosts of yore.

It has always been believed that these ghosts could in some way be
appeased; that they could be flattered by sacrifices, by prayer, by
fasting, by the building of temples and cathedrals, by the blood of
men and beasts, by forms and ceremonies, by chants, by kneelings and
prostrations, by flagellations and maimings, by renouncing the joys of
home, by living alone in the wide desert, by the practice of celibacy,
by inventing instruments of torture, by destroying men, women and
children, by covering the earth with dungeons, by burning unbelievers,
by putting chains upon the thoughts and manacles upon the limbs of
men, by believing things without evidence and against evidence, by
disbelieving and denying demonstration, by despising facts, by hating
reason, by denouncing liberty, by maligning heretics, by slandering
the dead, by subscribing to senseless and cruel creeds, by discouraging
investigation, by worshiping a book, by the cultivation of credulity,
by observing certain times and days, by counting beads, by gazing at
crosses, by hiring others to repeat verses and prayers, by burning
candles and ringing bells, by enslaving each other and putting out the
eyes of the soul. All this has been done to appease and flatter these
monsters of the air.

In the history of our poor world, no horror has been omitted, no infamy
has been left undone by the believers in ghosts,—by the worshipers of
these fleshless phantoms. And yet these shadows were born of cowardice
and malignity. They were painted by the pencil of fear upon the canvas
of ignorance by that artist called superstition.

From these ghosts, our fathers received information. They were
the schoolmasters of our ancestors. They were the scientists and
philosophers, the geologists, legislators, astronomers, physicians,
metaphysicians and historians of the past. For ages these ghosts were
supposed to be the only source of real knowledge. They inspired men to
write books, and the books were considered sacred. If facts were found
to be inconsistent with these books, so much the worse for the facts,
and especially for their discoverers. It was then, and still is,
believed that these books are the basis of the idea of immortality; that
to give up these volumes, or rather the idea that they are inspired, is
to renounce the idea of immortality. This I deny.

The idea of immortality, that like a sea has ebbed and flowed in the
human heart, with its countless waves of hope and fear, beating against
the shores and rocks of time and fate, was not born of any book, nor of
any creed, nor of any religion. It was born of human affection, and it
will continue to ebb and flow beneath the mists and clouds of doubt
and darkness as long as love kisses the lips of death. It is the
rainbow—Hope shining upon the tears of grief.

From the books written by the ghosts we have at last ascertained that
they knew nothing about the world in which we live. Did they know
anything about the next? Upon every point where contradiction is
possible, they have been contradicted.

By these ghosts, by these citizens of the air, the affairs of government
were administered; all authority to govern came from them. The emperors,
kings and potentates all had commissions from these phantoms. Man was
not considered as the source of any power whatever. To rebel against the
king was to rebel against the ghosts, and nothing less than the blood of
the offender could appease the invisible phantom or the visible tyrant.
Kneeling was the proper position to be assumed by the multitude.
The prostrate were the good. Those who stood erect were infidels and
traitors. In the name and by the authority of the ghosts, man was
enslaved, crushed, and plundered. The many toiled wearily in the storm
and sun that the few favorites of the ghosts might live in idleness.
The many lived in huts, and caves, and dens, that the few might dwell in
palaces. The many covered themselves with rags, that the few might
robe themselves in purple and in gold. The many crept, and cringed, and
crawled, that the few might tread upon their flesh with iron feet.

From the ghosts men received, not only authority, but information of
every kind. They told us the form of this earth. They informed us that
eclipses were caused by the sins of man; that the universe was made
in six days; that astronomy, and geology were devices of wicked men,
instigated by wicked ghosts; that gazing at the sky with a telescope
was a dangerous thing; that digging into the earth was sinful curiosity;
that trying to be wise above what they had written was born of a
rebellious and irreverent spirit.

They told us there was no virtue like belief, and no crime like doubt;
that investigation was pure impudence, and the punishment therefor,
eternal torment. They not only told us all about this world, but about
two others; and if their statements about the other worlds are as true
as about this, no one can estimate the value of their information.

For countless ages, the world was governed by ghosts, and they spared no
pains to change the eagle of the human intellect into a bat of darkness.
To accomplish this infamous purpose; to drive the love of truth from the
human heart; to prevent the advancement of mankind; to shut out from
the world every ray of intellectual light; to pollute every mind with
superstition, the power of kings, the cunning and cruelty of priests,
and the wealth of nations were exhausted.

During these years of persecution, ignorance, superstition and slavery,
nearly all the people, the kings, lawyers, doctors, the learned and the
unlearned, believed in that frightful production of ignorance, fear, and
faith, called witchcraft. They believed that man was the sport and prey
of devils. They really thought that the very air was thick with these
enemies of man. With few exceptions, this hideous and infamous belief
was universal. Under these conditions, progress was almost impossible.

Fear paralyzes the brain. Progress is born of courage. Fear
believes—courage doubts. Fear falls upon the earth and prays—courage
stands erect and thinks. Fear retreats—courage advances. Fear is
barbarism—courage is civilization. Fear believes in witchcraft, in
devils and in ghosts. Fear is religion—courage is science.

The facts, upon which this terrible belief rested, were proved over
and over again in every court of Europe. Thousands confessed themselves
guilty—admitted that they had sold themselves to the devil. They gave
the particulars of the sale; told what they said and what the devil
replied. They confessed this, when they knew that confession was death;
knew that their property would be confiscated, and their children left
to beg their bread. This is one of the miracles of history—one of the
strangest contradictions of the human mind. Without doubt, they really
believed themselves guilty. In the first place, they believed in
witchcraft as a fact, and when charged with it, they probably became
insane. In their insanity they confessed their guilt. They found
themselves abhorred and deserted—charged with a crime that they could
not disprove. Like a man in quicksand, every effort only sunk them
deeper. Caught in this frightful web, at the mercy of the spiders
of superstition, hope fled, and nothing remained but the insanity of
confession. The whole world appeared to be insane.

In the time of James the First, a man was executed for causing a storm
at sea with the intention of drowning one of the royal family. How could
he disprove it? How could he show that he did not cause the storm?
All storms were at that time generally supposed to be caused by
the devil—the prince of the power of the air—and by those whom he
assisted.

I implore you to remember that the believers in such impossible things
were the authors of our creeds and confessions of faith.

A woman was tried and convicted before Sir Matthew Hale, one of the
great judges and lawyers of England, for having caused children to
vomit crooked pins. She was also charged with having nursed devils. The
learned judge charged the intelligent jury that there was no doubt as
to the existence of witches; that it was established by all history, and
expressly taught by the Bible.

The woman was hanged and her body burned.

Sir Thomas More declared that to give up witchcraft was to throw away
the sacred Scriptures. In my judgment, he was right.

John Wesley was a firm believer in ghosts and witches, and insisted upon
it, years after all laws upon the subject had been repealed in England.
I beg of you to remember that John Wesley was the founder of the
Methodist Church.

In New England, a woman was charged with being a witch, and with having
changed herself into a fox. While in that condition she was attacked and
bitten by some dogs. A committee of three men, by order of the court,
examined this woman. They removed her clothing and searched for "witch
spots." That is to say, spots into which needles could be thrust without
giving her pain. They reported to the court that such spots were found.
She denied, however, that she ever had changed herself into a fox. Upon
the report of the committee she was found guilty and actually executed.
This was done by our Puritan fathers, by the gentlemen who braved the
dangers of the deep for the sake of worshiping God and persecuting their
fellow-men.

In those days people believed in what was known as lycanthropy—that is,
that persons, with the assistance of the devil, could assume the form
of wolves. An instance is given where a man was attacked by a wolf. He
defended himself, and succeeded in cutting off one of the animal's paws.
The wolf ran away. The man picked up the paw, put it in his pocket and
carried it home. There he found his wife with one of her hands gone. He
took the paw from his pocket. It had changed to a human hand. He charged
his wife with being a witch. She was tried. She confessed her guilt, and
was burned.

People were burned for causing frosts in summer—for destroying crops
with hail—for causing storms—for making cows go dry, and even for
souring beer. There was no impossibility for which some one was not
tried and convicted. The life of no one was secure. To be charged,
was to be convicted. Every man was at the mercy of every other. This
infamous belief was so firmly seated in the minds of the people, that to
express a doubt as to its truth was to be suspected. Whoever denied the
existence of witches and devils was denounced as an infidel.

They believed that animals were often taken possession of by devils, and
that the killing of the animal would destroy the devil. They absolutely
tried, convicted, and executed dumb beasts.

At Basle, in 1470, a rooster was tried upon the charge of having laid
an egg. Rooster eggs were used only in making witch ointment,—this
everybody knew. The rooster was convicted and with all due solemnity was
burned in the public square. So a hog and six pigs were tried for having
killed and partially eaten a child. The hog was convicted,—but the
pigs, on account probably of their extreme youth, were acquitted. As
late as 1740, a cow was tried and convicted of being possessed by a
devil.

They used to exorcise rats, locusts, snakes and vermin. They used to go
through the alleys, streets, and fields, and warn them to leave within
a certain number of days. In case they disobeyed, they were threatened
with pains and penalties.

But let us be careful how we laugh at these things. Let us not pride
ourselves too much on the progress of our age. We must not forget that
some of our people are yet in the same intelligent business. Only a
little while ago, the governor of Minnesota appointed a day of fasting
and prayer, to see if some power could not be induced to kill the
grasshoppers, or send them into some other state.

About the close of the fifteenth century, so great was the excitement
with regard to the existence of witchcraft that Pope Innocent VIII.
issued a bull directing the inquisitors to be vigilant in searching
out and punishing all guilty of this crime. Forms for the trial
were regularly laid down in a book or a pamphlet called the "Malleus
Maleficorum" (Hammer of Witches), which was issued by the Roman See.
Popes Alexander, Leo, and Adrian, issued like bulls. For two hundred
and fifty years the church was busy in punishing the impossible crime of
witchcraft; in burning, hanging and torturing men, women, and children.
Protestants were as active as Catholics, and in Geneva five hundred
witches were burned at the stake in a period of three months. About one
thousand were executed in one year in the diocese of Como. At least one
hundred thousand victims suffered in Germany alone: the last execution
(in Wurtzburg) taking place as late as 1749. Witches were burned in
Switzerland as late as 1780.

In England the same frightful scenes were enacted. Statutes were passed
from Henry VI. to James I., defining the crime and its punishment. The
last act passed by the British parliament was when Lord Bacon was a
member of the House of Commons; and this act was not repealed until
1736.

Sir William Blackstone, in his Commentaries on the Laws of England,
says: "To deny the possibility, nay, actual existence of witchcraft
and sorcery, is at once flatly to contradict the word of God in various
passages both of the Old and New Testament; and the thing itself is
a truth to which every nation in the world hath in its turn borne
testimony, either by examples seemingly well attested, or by prohibitory
laws, which at least suppose the possibility of a commerce with evil
spirits."

In Brown's Dictionary of the Bible, published at Edinburg, Scotland, in
1807, it is said that: "A witch is a woman that has dealings with Satan.
That such persons are among men is abundantly plain from Scripture, and
that they ought to be put to death."

This work was re-published in Albany, New York, in 1816. No wonder the
clergy of that city are ignorant and bigoted even unto this day.

In 1716, Mrs. Hicks and her daughter, nine years of age, were hanged
for selling their souls to the devil, and raising a storm by pulling off
their stockings and making a lather of soap.

In England it has been estimated that at least thirty thousand were
hanged and burned. The last victim executed in Scotland, perished in
1722. "She was an innocent old woman, who had so little idea of her
situation as to rejoice at the sight of the fire which was destined
to consume her. She had a daughter, lame both of hands and of feet—a
circumstance attributed to the witch having been used to transform her
daughter into a pony and getting her shod by the devil."

In 1692, nineteen persons were executed and one pressed to death in
Salem, Massachusetts, for the crime of witchcraft.

It was thought in those days that men and women made compacts with the
devil, orally and in writing. That they abjured God and Jesus Christ,
and dedicated themselves wholly to the devil. The contracts were
confirmed at a general meeting of witches and ghosts, over which the
devil himself presided; and the persons generally signed the articles of
agreement with their own blood. These contracts were, in some instances,
for a few years; in others, for life. General assemblies of the witches
were held at least once a year, at which they appeared entirely naked,
besmeared with an ointment made from the bodies of unbaptized infants.
"To these meetings they rode from great distances on broomsticks,
pokers, goats, hogs, and dogs. Here they did homage to the prince of
hell, and offered him sacrifices of young children, and practiced all
sorts of license until the break of day."

"As late as 1815, Belgium was disgraced by a witch trial; and guilt was
established by the water ordeal." "In 1836, the populace of Hela, near
Dantzic, twice plunged into the sea a woman reputed to be a sorceress;
and as the miserable creature persisted in rising to the surface, she
was pronounced guilty, and beaten to death."

"It was believed that the bodies of devils are not like those of men and
animals, cast in an unchangeable mould. It was thought they were like
clouds, refined and subtle matter, capable of assuming any form and
penetrating into any orifice. The horrible tortures they endured
in their place of punishment rendered them extremely sensitive to
suffering, and they continually sought a temperate and somewhat moist
warmth in order to allay their pangs. It was for this reason they so
frequently entered into men and women."

The devil could transport men, at his will, through the air. He could
beget children; and Martin Luther himself had come in contact with one
of these children. He recommended the mother to throw the child into the
river, in order to free their house from the presence of a devil.

It was believed that the devil could transform people into any shape he
pleased.

Whoever denied these things was denounced as an infidel. All the
believers in witchcraft confidently appealed to the Bible. Their mouths
were filled with passages demonstrating the existence of witches and
their power Over human beings. By the Bible they proved that innumerable
evil spirits were ranging over the world endeavoring to ruin mankind;
that these spirits possessed a power and wisdom far transcending the
limits of human faculties; that they delighted in every misfortune that
could befall the world; that their malice was superhuman. That they
caused tempests was proved by the action of the devil toward Job; by the
passage in the book of Revelation describing the four angels who held
the four winds, and to whom it was given to afflict the earth. They
believed the devil could carry persons hundreds of miles, in a few
seconds, through the air. They believed this, because they knew that
Christ had been carried by the devil in the same manner and placed on a
pinnacle of the temple. "The prophet Habakkuk had been transported by a
spirit from Judea to Babylon; and Philip, the evangelist, had been the
object of a similar miracle; and in the same way Saint Paul had been
carried in the body into the third heaven."

"In those pious days, they believed that Incubi and Succubi were
forever wandering among mankind, alluring, by more than human charms,
the unwary to their destruction, and laying plots, which were too often
successful, against the virtue of the saints. Sometimes the witches
kindled in the monastic priest a more terrestrial fire. People told,
with bated breath, how, under the spell of a vindictive woman, four
successive abbots in a German monastery had been wasted away by an
unholy flame."

An instance is given in which the devil not only assumed the appearance
of a holy man, in order to pay his addresses to a lady, but when
discovered, crept under the bed, suffered himself to be dragged out,
and was impudent enough to declare that he was the veritable bishop. So
perfectly had he assumed the form and features of the prelate that those
who knew the bishop best were deceived.

One can hardly imagine the frightful state of the human mind during
these long centuries of darkness and superstition. To them, these things
were awful and frightful realities. Hovering above them in the air, in
their houses, in the bosoms of friends, in their very bodies, in all the
darkness of night, everywhere, around, above and below, were innumerable
hosts of unclean and malignant devils.

From the malice of those leering and vindictive vampires of the air,
the church pretended to defend mankind. Pursued by these phantoms, the
frightened multitudes fell upon their faces and implored the aid of
robed hypocrisy and sceptered theft.

Take from the orthodox church of to-day the threat and fear of hell, and
it becomes an extinct volcano.

Take from the church the miraculous, the supernatural, the
incomprehensible, the unreasonable, the impossible, the unknowable, and
the absurd, and nothing but a vacuum remains.

Notwithstanding all the infamous things justly laid to the charge of the
church, we are told that the civilization of to-day is the child of what
we are pleased to call the superstition of the past.

Religion has not civilized man—man has civilized religion. God improves
as man advances.

Let me call your attention to what we have received from the followers
of the ghosts. Let me give you an outline of the sciences as taught by
these philosophers of the clouds.

All diseases were produced, either as a punishment by the good ghosts,
or out of pure malignity by the bad ones. There were, properly speaking,
no diseases. The sick were possessed by ghosts. The science of medicine
consisted in knowing how to persuade these ghosts to vacate the
premises. For thousands of years the diseased were treated with
incantations, with hideous noises, with drums and gongs. Everything was
done to make the visit of the ghost as unpleasant as possible, and they
generally succeeded in making things so disagreeable that if the ghost
did not leave, the patient did. These ghosts were supposed to be of
different rank, power and dignity. Now and then a man pretended to have
won the favor of some powerful ghost, and that gave him power over the
little ones. Such a man became an eminent physician.

It was found that certain kinds of smoke, such as that produced by
burning the liver of a fish, the dried skin of a serpent, the eyes of
a toad, or the tongue of an adder, were exceedingly offensive to the
nostrils of an ordinary ghost. With this smoke, the sick room would be
filled until the ghost vanished or the patient died.

It was also believed that certain words,—the names of the most powerful
ghosts,—when properly pronounced, were very effective weapons. It was
for a long time thought that Latin words were the best,—Latin being a
dead language, and known by the clergy. Others thought that two sticks
laid across each other and held before the wicked ghost would cause it
instantly to flee in dread away.

For thousands of years, the practice of medicine consisted in driving
these evil spirits out of the bodies of men.

In some instances, bargains and compromises were made with the ghosts.
One case is given where a multitude of devils traded a man for a herd
of swine. In this transaction the devils were the losers, as the swine
immediately drowned themselves in the sea.

The contortions of the epileptic, the strange twitchings of those
afflicted with chorea, the shakings of palsy, dreams, trances, and the
numberless frightful phenomena produced by diseases of the nerves, were
all seized upon as so many proofs that the bodies of men were filled
with unclean and malignant ghosts.

Whoever endeavored to account for these things by natural causes,
whoever attempted to cure diseases by natural means, was denounced by
the church as an infidel. To explain anything was a crime. It was to the
interest of the priest that all phenomena should be accounted for by the
will and power of gods and devils. The moment it is admitted that all
phenomena are within the domain of the natural, the necessity for a
priest has disappeared. Religion breathes the air of the supernatural.
Take from the mind of man the idea of the supernatural, and religion
ceases to exist. For this, reason, the church has always despised the
man who explained the wonderful. Upon this principle, nothing was
left undone to stay the science of medicine. As long as plagues and
pestilences could be stopped by prayer, the priest was useful. The
moment the physician found a cure, the priest became an extravagance.
The moment it began to be apparent that prayer could do nothing for the
body, the priest shifted his ground and began praying for the soul.

Long after the devil idea was substantially abandoned in the practice
of medicine, and when it was admitted that God had nothing to do with
ordinary coughs and colds, it was still believed that all the frightful
diseases were sent by him as punishments for the wickedness of the
people. It was thought to be a kind of blasphemy to even try, by any
natural means, to stay the ravages of pestilence. Formerly, during the
prevalence of plague and epidemics, the arrogance of the priest was
boundless. He told the people that they had slighted the clergy, that
they had refused to pay tithes, that they had doubted some of the
doctrines of the church, and that God was now taking his revenge. The
people for the most part, believed this infamous tissue of priestcraft.
They hastened to fall upon their knees; they poured out their wealth
upon the altars of hypocrisy; they abased and debased themselves; from
their minds they banished all doubts, and made haste to crawl in the
very dust of humility.

The church never wanted disease to be under the control of man.
Timothy Dwight, president of Yale College, preached a sermon against
vaccination. His idea was, that if God had decreed from all eternity
that a certain man should die with the small-pox, it was a frightful sin
to avoid and annul that decree by the trick of vaccination. Small-pox
being regarded as one of the heaviest guns in the arsenal of heaven,
to spike it was the height of presumption. Plagues and pestilences were
instrumentalities in the hands of God with which to gain the love and
worship of mankind. To find a cure for disease was to take a weapon from
the church. No one tries to cure the ague with prayer. Quinine has been
found altogether more reliable. Just as soon as a specific is found
for a disease, that disease will be left out of the list of prayer. The
number of diseases with which God from time to time afflicts mankind,
is continually decreasing. In a few years all of them will be under the
control of man, the gods will be left unarmed, and the threats of their
priests will excite only a smile.

The science of medicine has had but one enemy—religion. Man was afraid
to save his body for fear he might lose his soul.

Is it any wonder that the people in those days believed in and taught
the infamous doctrine of eternal punishment—a doctrine that makes God a
heartless monster and man a slimy hypocrite and slave?

The ghosts were historians, and their histories were the grossest
absurdities. "Tales told by idiots, full of sound and fury, signifying
nothing." In those days the histories were written by the monks, who, as
a rule, were almost as superstitious as they were dishonest. They wrote
as though they had been witnesses of every occurrence they related. They
wrote the history of every country of importance. They told all the
past and predicted all the future with an impudence that amounted to
sublimity.

The ghosts were the authors of all law. They also enforced it, and
they presided over courts of justice. Our fathers were their slaves and
messengers. The ghosts set over themselves kings and princes and popes,
and there was but one idea, and that was obedience, tame and slavish
obedience to the ghosts and their agents.

I have given you these things simply to show you what has been done to
man by the ghosts of the air. They have filled the world with terror and
weakness; they have made man a slave; they have taught him to spend his
life in fear; they have filled his heart with superstition; they have
chained his hands and manacled his feet; they have taught him to kneel
before imaginary powers; they have taught him that to use his reason is
the greatest of all sins; they have made hypocrisy respectable; they
have put a premium upon ignorance; they have rewarded mental slavery and
have punished mental independence. They have sought in every way to
humiliate and degrade the human mind and to destroy the conscience and
candor of our race.

Happily, the ghosts are now dying. The hand of Science has at last torn
the veil of superstition. Science has made man free. Science has taught
him to depend upon himself; to trust the light of his own reason; to
use his own brain; to be governed by the facts by which he is surrounded;
to believe only that for which there is evidence; to respect only that
which can substantiate itself. Science has taught him to love truth, to
love liberty, to love his fellow-men, to make this world better and
happier, to see that right and wrong exist in the nature of things, and
that reward and punishment are but the natural consequences of the acts
we do.

Let the ghosts go. Let them go with the theologies of the past. Let
them go with the devils and the inquisitions, the fagots and flames.
Let them go with the infinite cruelties of the Old Testament and with
the dogmas of the New. Let them go and let us be forever free from the
degrading influence of superstition. Let us now rely upon ourselves. Let
us find out the laws of nature and then conform our lives to those laws.
Let us be just to each other. Let us rely upon reason as the only guide.
Let us build homes of love and kindness where pity and charity shall
dwell; where man shall treat his wife as the sovereign of his heart, and
not as his slave; where the children shall be governed by love, and
where labor shall be an honor and idleness a disgrace.

Let us see that the world shall grow better and that men shall love one
another. Let us be the friends of progress, of liberty, of justice, of
truth. Let us be friends of man. Let us cease to quarrel about unknown
worlds, about impossible gods, and let us join hands for the
improvement of this. Let us cease to dispute about the nature of
angels, and about the meaning of ancient texts, and let us endeavor
to make our fellow-men happy here and now. Let us drive out the
ghosts of all the ages. Let us have the living and not the dead for our
companions. Let us drive out the ghosts from every home, from every
heart, from every brain, and let the light of liberty, of reason, and of
science shine upon every hearth, and over all the world.

Humanity, I believe, is greater than all the ghosts that ever were.
The rights of man are more sacred than the dictates of any creed. The
affections of the human heart are worth more than all the myths of
all the religions. Let us trust in the future, and let us build it upon
the sacred foundations of truth, of liberty, and of love.

Let the ghosts go. Let them cover their eyeless sockets with their
fleshless hands and fade forever from the imaginations of men.
