A Look Backward and a Prophecy
Ingersoll's last essay.

by Robert G. Ingersoll
(1899)

From The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll (Dresden Edition, 1900–1902), Volume 11.
Source: https://thegreatagnostic.com/works/a-look-backward-and-a-prophecy/
Public domain. CC0 / Public Domain Mark 1.0.

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• Written for the Twenty-fifth Anniversary Number of  the
    New York Truth Seeker, September 3, 1898.

I CONGRATULATE The Truth Seeker on its twenty-fifth birthday. It has
fought a good fight. It has always been at the front. It has carried the
flag, and its flag is a torch that sheds light.

Twenty-five years ago the people of this country, for the most part,
were quite orthodox. The great "fundamental" falsehoods of Christianity
were generally accepted. Those who were not Christians, as a rule,
admitted that they ought to be; that they ought to repent and join the
church, and this they generally intended to do.

The ministers had few doubts. The most of them had been educated not
to think, but to believe. Thought was regarded as dangerous, and the
clergy, as a rule, kept on the safe side. Investigation was discouraged.
It was declared that faith was the only road that led to eternal joy.

Most of the schools and colleges were under sectarian control, and the
presidents and professors were defenders of their creeds. The people
were crammed with miracles and stuffed with absurdities. They were
taught that the Bible was the "inspired" word of God, that it was
absolutely perfect, that the contradictions were only apparent, and
that it contained no mistakes in philosophy, none in science. The great
scheme of salvation was declared to be the result of infinite wisdom and
mercy. Heaven and hell were waiting for the human race. Only those could
be saved who had faith and who had been born twice.

Most of the ministers taught the geology of Moses, the astronomy of
Joshua, and the philosophy of Christ. They regarded scientists as
enemies, and their principal business was to defend miracles and deny
facts. They knew, however, that men were thinking, investigating in
every direction, and they feared the result. They became a little
malicious—somewhat hateful. With their congregations they relied
on sophistry, and they answered their enemies with epithets, with
misrepresentations and slanders; and yet their minds were filled with a
vague fear, with a sickening dread. Some of the people were reading and
some were thinking. Lyell had told them something about geology, and in
the light of facts they were reading Genesis again. The clergy called
Lyell an Infidel, a blasphemer, but the facts seemed to care nothing
for opprobrious names. Then the "called," the "set apart," the "Lord's
anointed" began changing the "inspired" word. They erased the word "day"
and inserted "period," and then triumphantly exclaimed: "The world was
created in six periods." This answer satisfied bigotry, hypocrisy, and
honest ignorance, but honest intelligence was not satisfied.

More and more was being found about the history of life, of living
things, the order in which the various forms had appeared and the
relations they had sustained to each other. Beneath the gaze of
the biologist the fossils were again clothed with flesh, submerged
continents and islands reappeared, the ancient forest grew once more,
the air was filled with unknown birds, the seas with armored monsters,
and the land with beasts of many forms that sought with tooth and claw
each other's flesh.

Haeckel and Huxley followed life through all its changing forms from
monad up to man. They found that men, women, and children had been on
this poor world for hundreds of thousands of years.

The clergy could not dodge these facts, this conclusion, by calling
"days" periods, because the Bible gives the age of Adam when he died,
the lives and ages to the flood, to Abraham, to David, and from David to
Christ, so that, according to the Bible, man at the birth of Christ had
been on this earth four thousand and four years and no more.

There was no way in which the sacred record could be changed, but of
course the dear ministers could not admit the conclusion arrived at by
Haeckel and Huxley. If they did they would have to give up original sin,
the scheme of the atonement, and the consolation of eternal fire.

They took the only course they could. They promptly and solemnly, with
upraised hands, denied the facts, denounced the biologists as irreverent
wretches, and defended the Book. With tears in their voices they talked
about "Mother's Bible," about the "faith of the fathers," about the
prayers that the children had said, and they also talked about the
wickedness of doubt. This satisfied bigotry, hypocrisy, and honest
ignorance, but honest intelligence was not satisfied.

The works of Humboldt had been translated, and were being read; the
intellectual horizon was enlarged, and the fact that the endless chain
of cause and effect had never been broken, that Nature had never been
interfered with, forced its way into many minds. This conception of
nature was beyond the clergy. They did not believe it; they could not
comprehend it. They did not answer Humboldt, but they attacked him with
great virulence. They measured his works by the Bible, because the Bible
was then the standard.

In examining a philosophy, a system, the ministers asked: "Does it agree
with the sacred book?" With the Bible they separated the gold from the
dross. Every science had to be tested by the Scriptures. Humboldt did
not agree with Moses. He differed from Joshua. He had his doubts about
the flood. That was enough.

Yet, after all, the ministers felt that they were standing on thin
ice, that they were surrounded by masked batteries, and that something
unfortunate was liable at any moment to happen. This increased their
efforts to avoid, to escape. The truth was that they feared the truth.
They were afraid of facts. They became exceedingly anxious for morality,
for the young, for the inexperienced. They were afraid to trust human
nature. They insisted that without the Bible the world would rush to
crime. They warned the thoughtless of the danger of thinking. They knew
that it would be impossible for civilization to exist without the Bible.
They knew this because their God had tried it. He gave no Bible to the
antediluvians, and they became so bad that he had to destroy them.
He gave the Jews only the Old Testament, and they were dispersed.
Irreverent people might say that Jehovah should have known this without
a trial, but after all that has nothing to do with theology.

Attention had been called to the fact that two accounts of creation are
in Genesis, and that they do not agree and cannot be harmonized, and
that, in addition to that, the divine historian had made a mistake as
to the order of creation; that according to one account Adam was made
before the animals, and Eve last of all, from Adam's rib; and by the
other account Adam and Eve were made after the animals, and both at the
same time. A good many people were surprised to find that the Creator
had written contradictory accounts of the creation, and had forgotten
the order in which he created.

Then there was another difficulty. Jehovah had declared that on Tuesday,
or during the second period, he had created the "firmament" to divide
the waters which were below the firmament from the waters above the
firmament. It was found that there is no firmament; that the moisture
in the air is the result of evaporation, and that there was nothing to
divide the waters above, from the waters below. So that, according to
the facts, Jehovah did nothing on the second day or period, because the
moisture above the earth is not prevented from falling by the firmament,
but because the mist is lighter than air.

The preachers, however, began to dodge, to evade, to talk about
"oriental imagery." They declared that Genesis was a "sublime poem,"
a divine "panorama of creation," an "inspired vision;" that it was
not intended to be exact in its details, but that it was true in a far
higher sense, in a poetical sense, in a spiritual sense, conveying a
truth much higher, much grander than simple, fact. The contradictions
were covered with the mantle of oriental imagery. This satisfied
bigotry, hypocrisy, and honest ignorance, but honest intelligence was
not satisfied.

People were reading Darwin. His works interested not only the
scientific, but the intelligent in all the walks of life. Darwin was the
keenest observer of all time, the greatest naturalist in all the world.
He was patient, modest, logical, candid, courageous, and absolutely
truthful. He told the actual facts. He colored nothing. He was anxious
only to ascertain the truth. He had no prejudices, no theories, no
creed. He was the apostle of the real.

The ministers greeted him with shouts of derision. From nearly all the
pulpits came the sounds of ignorant laughter, one of the saddest of all
sounds. The clergy in a vague kind of way believed the Bible account
of creation; they accepted the Miltonic view; they believed that all
animals, including man, had been made of clay, fashioned by Jehovah's
hands, and that he had breathed into all forms, not only the breath of
life, but instinct and reason. They were not in the habit of descending
to particulars; they did not describe Jehovah as kneading the clay or
modeling his forms like a sculptor, but what they did say included these
things.

The theory of Darwin contradicted all their ideas on the subject, vague
as they were. He showed that man had not appeared at first as man, that
he had not fallen from perfection, but had slowly risen through many
ages from lower forms. He took food, climate, and all conditions into
consideration, and accounted for difference of form, function, instinct,
and reason, by natural causes. He dispensed with the supernatural. He
did away with Jehovah the potter.

Of course the theologians denounced him as a blasphemer, as a dethroner
of God. They even went so far as to smile at his ignorance. They said:
"If the theory of Darwin is true the Bible is false, our God is a myth,
and our religion a fable."

In that they were right.

Against Darwin they rained texts of Scripture like shot and shell.
They believed that they were victorious and their congregations were
delighted. Poor little frightened professors in religious colleges sided
with the clergy. Hundreds of backboneless "scientists" ranged themselves
with the enemies of Darwin. It began to look as though the church was
victorious.

Slowly, steadily, the ideas of Darwin gained ground. He began to be
understood. Men of sense were reading what he said. Men of genius were
on his side. In a little while the really great in all departments of
human thought declared in his favor. The tide began to turn. The smile
on the face of the theologian became a frozen grin. The preachers began
to hedge, to dodge. They admitted that the Bible was not inspired for
the purpose of teaching science—only inspired about religion, about the
spiritual, about the divine. The fortifications of faith were crumbling,
the old guns had been spiked, and the armies of the "living God" were in
retreat.

Great questions were being discussed, and freely discussed. People
were not afraid to give their opinions, and they did give their honest
thoughts. Draper had shown in his "Intellectual Development of Europe"
that Catholicism had been the relentless enemy of progress, the bitter
foe of all that is really useful. The Protestants were delighted with
this book.

Buckle had shown in his "History of Civilization in England" that
Protestantism had also enslaved the mind, had also persecuted to the
extent of its power, and that Protestantism in its last analysis was
substantially the same as the creed of Rome.

This book satisfied the thoughtful.

Hegel in his first book had done a great work and it did great good in
spite of the fact that his second book was almost a surrender. Lecky in
his first volume of "The History of Rationalism" shed a flood of
light on the meanness, the cruelty, and the malevolence of "revealed
religion," and this did good in spite of the fact that he almost
apologizes in the second volume for what he had said in the first.

The Universalists had done good. They had civilized a great many
Christians. They declared that eternal punishment was infinite revenge,
and that the God of hell was an infinite savage.

Some of the Unitarians, following the example of Theodore Parker,
denounced Jehovah as a brutal, tribal God. All these forces worked
together for the development of the orthodox brain.

Herbert Spencer was being read and understood. The theories of this
great philosopher were being adopted. He overwhelmed the theologians
with facts, and from a great height he surveyed the world. Of course he
was attacked, but not answered.

Emerson had sowed the seeds of thought—of doubt—in many minds, and
from many directions the world was being flooded with intellectual
light. The clergy became apologetic; they spoke with less certainty;
with less emphasis, and lost a little confidence in the power of
assertion. They felt the necessity of doing something, and they began to
harmonize as best they could the old lies and the new truths. They tried
to get the wreck ashore, and many of them were willing to surrender if
they could keep their side-arms; that is to say, their salaries.

Conditions had been reversed. The Bible had ceased to be the standard.
Science was the supreme and final test.

There was no peace for the pulpit; no peace for the shepherds. Students
of the Bible in England and Germany had been examining the inspired
Scriptures. They had been trying to find when and by whom the books of
the Bible were written. They found that the Pentateuch was not written
by Moses; that the authors of Joshua, Judges, Ruth, Samuel, Kings,
Chronicles, Esther, and Job were not known; that the Psalms were
not written by David; that Solomon had nothing to do with Proverbs,
Ecclesiastes, or the Song; that Isaiah was the work of at least three
authors; that the prophecies of Daniel were written after the happening
of the events prophesied. They found many mistakes and contradictions,
and some of them went so far as to assert that the Hebrews had never
been slaves in Egypt; that the story of the plagues, the exodus, and the
pursuit was only a myth.

The New Testament fared no better than the Old. These critics found that
nearly all of the books of the New Testament had been written by unknown
men; that it was impossible to fix the time when they were written; that
many of the miracles were absurd and childish, and that in addition
to all of this, the gospels were found filled with mistakes, with
interpolations' and contradictions; that the writers of Matthew, Mark,
and Luke did not understand the Christian religion as it was understood
by the author of the gospel according to John.

Of course, the critics were denounced from most of the pulpits, and the
religious papers, edited generally by men who had failed as preachers,
were filled with bitter denials and vicious attacks. The religious
editors refused to be enlightened. They fought under the old flag. When
dogmas became too absurd to be preached, they were taught in the Sunday
schools; when worn out there, they were given to the missionaries;
but the dear old religious weeklies, the Banners, the Covenants, the
Evangelists, continued to feed their provincial subscribers with known
mistakes and refuted lies.

There is another fact that should be taken into consideration. All
religions are provincial. Mingled with them all and at the foundation of
all are the egotism of ignorance, of isolation, the pride of race, and
what is called patriotism. Every religion is a natural product—the
result of conditions. When one tribe became acquainted with another,
the ideas of both were somewhat modified. So when nations and races come
into contact a change in thought, in opinion, is a necessary result.

A few years ago nations were strangers, and consequently hated each
other's institutions and religions. Commerce has done a great work in
destroying provincialism. To trade commodities is to exchange ideas.
So the press, the steamships, the railways, cables, and telegraphs
have brought the nations together and enabled them to compare their
prejudices, their religions, laws and customs.

Recently many scholars have been studying the religions of the world
and have found them much the same. They have also found that there is
nothing original in Christianity; that the legends, miracles, Christs,
and conditions of salvation, the heavens, hells, angels, devils, and
gods were the common property of the ancient world. They found that
Christ was a new name for an old biography; that he was not a life, but
a legend; not a man, but a myth.

People began to suspect that our religion had not been supernaturally
revealed, while others, far older and substantially the same, had been
naturally produced. They found it difficult to account for the fact that
poor, ignorant savages had in the darkness of nature written so well
that Jehovah thousands of years afterwards copied it and adopted it as
his own. They thought it curious that God should be a plagiarist.

These scholars found that all the old religions had recognized the
existence of devils, of evil spirits, who sought in countless ways to
injure the children of men. In this respect they found that the sacred
books of other nations were just the same as our Bible, as our New
Testament.

Take the Devil from our religion and the entire fabric falls. No Devil,
no fall of man. No Devil, no atonement. No Devil, no hell.

The Devil is the keystone of the arch.

And yet for many years the belief in the existence of the Devil—of
evil spirits—has been fading from the minds of intelligent people. This
belief has now substantially vanished. The minister who now seriously
talks about a personal Devil is regarded with a kind of pitying
contempt.

The Devil has faded from his throne and the evil spirits have vanished
from the air.

The man who has really given up a belief in the existence of the Devil
cannot believe in the inspiration of the New Testament—in the divinity
of Christ. If Christ taught anything, if he believed in anything, he
taught a belief in the existence of the Devil..His principal business
was casting out devils. He himself was taken possession of by the Devil
and carried to the top of the temple.

Thousands and thousands of people have ceased to believe the account in
the New Testament regarding devils, and yet continue to believe in the
dogma of "inspiration" and the divinity of Christ.

In the brain of the average Christian, contradictions dwell in unity.

While a belief in the existence of the Devil has almost faded away, the
belief in the existence of a personal God has been somewhat weakened.
The old belief that back of nature, back of all substance and force, was
and is a personal God, an infinite intelligence who created and
governs the world, began to be questioned. The scientists had shown
the indestructibility of matter and force. Buechner's great work had
convinced most readers that matter and force could not have been
created. They also became satisfied that matter cannot exist apart from
force and that force cannot exist apart from matter.

They found, too, that thought is a form of force, and that consequently
intelligence could not have existed before matter, because without
matter, force in any form cannot and could not exist.

The creator of anything is utterly unthinkable.

A few years ago God was supposed to govern the world. He rewarded the
people with sunshine, with prosperity and health, or he punished with
drought and flood, with plague and storm. He not only attended to the
affairs of nations, but he watched the actions of individuals. He sank
ships, derailed trains, caused conflagrations, killed men and women with
his lightnings, destroyed some with earthquakes, and tore the homes and
bodies of thousands into fragments with his cyclones.

In spite of the church, in spite of the ministers, the people began to
lose confidence in Providence. The right did not seem always to triumph.
Virtue was not always rewarded and vice was not always punished. The
good failed; the vicious succeeded; the strong and cruel enslaved the
weak; toil was paid with the lash; babes were sold from the breasts of
mothers, and Providence seemed to be absolutely heartless.

In other words, people began to think that the God of the Christians and
the God of nature were about the same, and that neither appeared to take
any care of the human race.

The Deists of the last century scoffed at the Bible God. He was too
cruel, too savage. At the same time they praised the God of nature. They
laughed at the idea of inspiration and denied the supernatural origin of
the Scriptures.

Now, if the Bible is not inspired, then it is a natural production, and
nature, not God, should be held responsible for the Scriptures. Yet the
Deists denied that God was the author and at the same time asserted the
perfection of nature.

This shows that even in the minds of Deists contradictions dwell in
unity.

Against all these facts and forces, these theories and tendencies, the
clergy fought and prayed. It is not claimed that they were consciously
dishonest, but it is claimed that they were prejudiced—that they were
incapable of examining the other side—that they were utterly destitute
of the philosophic spirit. They were not searchers for the facts,
but defenders of the creeds, and undoubtedly they were the product of
conditions and surroundings, and acted as they must.

In spite of everything a few rays of light penetrated the orthodox mind.
Many ministers accepted some of the new facts, and began to mingle
with Christian mistakes a few scientific truths. In many instances they
excited the indignation of their congregations. Some were tried for
heresy and driven from their pulpits, and some organized new churches
and gathered about them a few people willing to listen to the sincere
thoughts of an honest man.

The great body of the church, however, held to the creed—not quite
believing it, but still insisting that it was true.

In private conversation they would apologize and admit that the old
ideas were outgrown, but in public they were as orthodox as ever. In
every church, however, there were many priests who accepted the new
gospel; that is to say, welcomed the truth.

To-day it may truthfully be said that the Bible in the old sense is
no longer regarded as the inspired word of God. Jehovah is no longer
accepted or believed in as the creator of the universe. His place
has been taken by the Unknown, the Unseen, the Invisible, the
Incomprehensible Something, the Cosmic Dust, the First Cause, the
Inconceivable, the Original Force, the Mystery. The God of the Bible,
the gentleman who walked in the cool of the evening, who talked face to
face with Moses, who revenged himself on unbelievers and who gave laws
written with his finger on tables of stone, has abdicated. He has become
a myth.

So, too, the New Testament has lost its authority. People reason about
it now as they do about other books, and even orthodox ministers
pick out the miracles that ought to be believed, and when anything is
attributed to Christ not in accordance with their views, they take the
liberty of explaining it away by saying "interpolation."

In other words, we have lived to see Science the standard instead of the
Bible. We have lived to see the Bible tested by Science, and, what is
more, we have lived to see reason the standard not only in religion,
but in all the domain of science. Now all civilized scientists appeal to
reason. They get their facts, and then reason from the foundation.
Now the theologian appeals to reason. Faith is no longer considered a
foundation. The theologian has found that he must build upon the truth
and that he must establish this truth by satisfying human reason.

This is where we are now.

What is to be the result? Is progress to stop? Are we to retrace our
steps? Are we going back to superstition? Are we going to take authority
for truth?

Let me prophesy.

In modern times we have slowly lost confidence in the supernatural
and have slowly gained confidence in the natural. We have slowly lost
confidence in gods and have slowly gained confidence in man. For
the cure of disease, for the stopping of plague, we depend on the
natural—on science. We have lost confidence in holy water and religious
processions. We have found that prayers are never answered.

In my judgment, all belief in the supernatural will be driven from the
human mind. All religions must pass away. The augurs, the soothsayers,
the seers, the preachers, the astrologers and alchemists will all lie
in the same cemetery and one epitaph will do for them all. In a little
while all will have had their day. They were naturally produced and
they will be naturally destroyed. Man at last will depend entirely upon
himself—on the development of the brain—to the end that he may take
advantage of the forces of nature—to the end that he may supply the
wants of his body and feed the hunger of his mind.

In my judgment, teachers will take the place of preachers and the
interpreters of nature will be the only priests.
