The Liberty of Man, Woman, and Child
Liberty sustains the same Relation to Mind that Space does to Matter.

by Robert G. Ingersoll
(1877)

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

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THERE is no slavery but ignorance. Liberty is the child of intelligence.

The history of man is simply the history of slavery, of injustice and
brutality, together with the means by which he has, through the dead and
desolate years, slowly and painfully advanced. He has been the sport
and prey of priest and king, the food of superstition and cruel might.
Crowned force has governed ignorance through fear. Hypocrisy and
tyranny—two vultures—have fed upon the liberties of man. From all
these there has been, and is, but one means of escape—intellectual
development. Upon the back of industry has been the whip. Upon the brain
have been the fetters of superstition. Nothing has been left undone
by the enemies of freedom. Every art and artifice, every cruelty and
outrage has been practiced and perpetrated to destroy the rights of man.
In this great struggle every crime has been rewarded and every virtue
has been punished. Reading, writing, thinking and investigating have all
been crimes.

Every science has been an outcast.

All the altars and all the thrones united to arrest the forward march of
the human race. The king said that mankind must not work for themselves.
The priest said that mankind must not think for themselves. One forged
chains for the hands, the other for the soul. Under this infamous
regime the eagle of the human intellect was for ages a slimy serpent
of hypocrisy.

The human race was imprisoned. Through some of the prison bars came a
few struggling rays of light. Against these bars Science pressed its
pale and thoughtful face, wooed by the holy dawn of human advancement.
Bar after bar was broken away. A few grand men escaped and devoted their
lives to the liberation of their fellows.

Only a few years ago there was a great awakening of the human mind. Men
began to inquire by what right a crowned robber made them work for him?
The man who asked this question was called a traitor. Others asked by
what right does a robed hypocrite rule my thought? Such men were called
infidels. The priest said, and the king said, where is this spirit
of investigation to stop? They said then and they say now, that it is
dangerous for man to be free. I deny it. Out on the intellectual sea
there is room enough for every sail. In the intellectual air there is
space enough for every wing.

The man who does not do his own thinking is a slave, and is a traitor to
himself and to his fellow-men.

Every man should stand under the blue and stars, under the infinite flag
of nature, the peer of every other man.

Standing in the presence of the Unknown, all have the same right to
think, and all are equally interested in the great questions of origin
and destiny. All I claim, all I plead for, is liberty of thought and
expression. That is all. I do not pretend to tell what is absolutely
true, but what I think is true. I do not pretend to tell all the truth.

I do not claim that I have floated level with the heights of thought, or
that I have descended to the very depths of things. I simply claim
that what ideas I have, I have a right to express; and that any man who
denies that right to me is an intellectual thief and robber. That is
all.

Take those chains from the human soul. Break those fetters. If I have no
right to think, why have I a brain? If I have no such right, have three
or four men, or any number, who may get together, and sign a creed, and
build a house, and put a steeple upon it, and a bell in it—have they
the right to think? The good men, the good women are tired of the whip
and lash in the realm of thought. They remember the chain and fagot
with a shudder. They are free, and they give liberty to others. Whoever
claims any right that he is unwilling to accord to his fellow-men is
dishonest and infamous.

In the good old times, our fathers had the idea that they could make
people believe to suit them. Our ancestors, in the ages that are gone,
really believed that by force you could convince a man. You cannot
change the conclusion of the brain by torture; nor by social ostracism.
But I will tell you what you can do by these, and what you have done.
You can make hypocrites by the million. You can make a man say that
he has changed his mind; but he remains of the same opinion still. Put
fetters all over him; crush his feet in iron boots; stretch him to the
last gasp upon the holy rack; burn him, if you please, but his ashes
will be of the same opinion still.

Our fathers in the good old times—and the best thing I can say about
them is, that they have passed away—had an idea that they could force
men to think their way. That idea is still prevalent in many parts, even
of this country. Even in our day some extremely religious people say,
"We will not trade with that man; we will not vote for him; we will not
hire him if he is a lawyer; we will die before we will take his medicine
if he is a doctor; we will not invite him to dinner; we will socially
ostracise him; he must come to our church; he must believe our
doctrines; he must worship our god or we will not in any way contribute
to his support."

In the old times of which I have spoken, they desired to make all men
think exactly alike. All the mechanical ingenuity of the world cannot
make two clocks run exactly alike, and how are you going to make
hundreds of millions of people, differing in brain and disposition, in
education and aspiration, in conditions and surroundings, each clad in
a living robe of passionate flesh—how are you going to make them think
and feel alike? If there is an infinite god, one who made us, and wishes
us to think alike, why did he give a spoonful of brains to one, and a
magnificent intellectual development to another? Why is it that we
have all degrees of intelligence, from orthodoxy to genius, if it was
intended that all should think and feel alike?

I used to read in books how our fathers persecuted mankind. But I never
appreciated it. I read it, but it did not burn itself into my soul. I
did not really appreciate the infamies that have been committed in the
name of religion, until I saw the iron arguments that Christians used.
I saw the Thumbscrew—two little pieces of iron, armed on the inner
surfaces with protuberances, to prevent their slipping; through each end
a screw uniting the two pieces. And when some man denied the efficacy of
baptism, or may be said, "I do not believe that a fish ever swallowed
a man to keep him from drowning," then they put his thumb between these
pieces of iron and in the name of love and universal forgiveness, began
to screw these pieces together. When this was done most men said, "I
will recant." Probably I should have done the same. Probably I would
have said: "Stop; I will admit anything that you wish; I will admit that
there is one god or a million, one hell or a billion; suit yourselves;
but stop."

But there was now and then a man who would not swerve the breadth of a
hair. There was now and then some sublime heart, willing to die for
an intellectual conviction. Had it not been for such men, we would be
savages to-night. Had it not been for a few brave, heroic souls in every
age, we would have been cannibals, with pictures of wild beasts tattooed
upon our flesh, dancing around some dried snake fetich.

Let us thank every good and noble man who stood so grandly, so proudly,
in spite of opposition, of hatred and death, for what he believed to be
the truth.

Heroism did not excite the respect of our fathers. The man who would not
recant was not forgiven. They screwed the thumbscrews down to the last
pang, and then threw their victim into some dungeon, where, in the
throbbing silence and darkness, he might suffer the agonies of the
fabled damned. This was done in the name of love—in the name of
mercy—in the name of the compassionate Christ.

I saw, too, what they called the Collar of Torture. Imagine a circle
of iron, and on the inside a hundred points almost as sharp as needles.
This argument was fastened about the throat of the sufferer. Then he
could not walk, nor sit down, nor stir without the neck being punctured,
by these points. In a little while the throat would begin to swell, and
suffocation would end the agonies of that man. This man, it may be, had
committed the crime of saying, with tears upon his cheeks, "I do not
believe that God, the father of us all, will damn to eternal perdition
any of the children of men."

I saw another instrument, called the Scavenger's Daughter. Think of a
pair of shears with handles, not only where they now are, but at the
points as well, and just above the pivot that unites the blades, a
circle of iron. In the upper handles the hands would be placed; in the
lower, the feet; and through the iron ring, at the centre, the head of
the victim would be forced. In this condition, he would be thrown prone
upon the earth, and the strain upon the muscles produced such agony that
insanity would in pity end his pain.

This was done by gentlemen who said: "Whosoever smiteth thee upon one
cheek turn to him the other also."

I saw the Rack. This was a box like the bed of a wagon, with a windlass
at each end, with levers, and ratchets to prevent slipping; over each
windlass went chains; some were fastened to the ankles of the sufferer;
others to his wrists. And then priests, clergymen, divines, saints,
began turning these windlasses, and kept turning, until the ankles, the
knees, the hips, the shoulders, the elbows, the wrists of the victim
were all dislocated, and the sufferer was wet with the sweat of agony.
And they had standing by a physician to feel his pulse. What for? To
save his life? Yes. In mercy? No; simply that they might rack him once
again.

This was done, remember, in the name of civilization; in the name of law
and order; in the name of mercy; in the name of religion; in the name of
the most merciful Christ.

Sometimes, when I read and think about these frightful things, it seems
to me that I have suffered all these horrors myself. It seems sometimes,
as though I had stood upon the shore of exile and gazed with tearful
eyes toward home and native land; as though my nails had been torn from
my hands, and into the bleeding quick needles had been thrust; as though
my feet had been crushed in iron boots; as though I had been chained in
the cell of the Inquisition and listened with dying ears for the coming
footsteps of release; as though I had stood upon the scaffold and had
seen the glittering axe fall upon me; as though I had been upon the rack
and had seen, bending above me, the white faces of hypocrite priests;
as though I had been taken from my fireside, from my wife and children,
taken to the public square, chained; as though fagots had been piled
about me; as though the flames had climbed around my limbs and scorched
my eyes to blindness, and as though my ashes had been scattered to the
four winds, by all the countless hands of hate. And when I so feel, I
swear that while I live I will do what little I can to preserve and to
augment the liberties of man, woman, and child.

It is a question of justice, of mercy, of honesty, of intellectual
development. If there is a man in the world who is not willing to give
to every human being every right he claims for himself, he is just so
much nearer a barbarian than I am. It is a question of honesty. The man
who is not willing to give to every other the same intellectual rights
he claims for himself, is dishonest, selfish, and brutal.

It is a question of intellectual development. Whoever holds another man
responsible for his honest thought, has a deformed and distorted brain.
It is a question of intellectual development.

A little while ago I saw models of nearly everything that man has made.
I saw models of all the water craft, from the rude dug-out in which
floated a naked savage—one of our ancestors—a naked savage, with
teeth two inches in length, with a spoonful of brains in the back of
his head—I saw models of all the water craft of the world, from that
dug-out up to a man-of-war, that carries a hundred guns and miles of
canvas—from that dug-out to the steamship that turns its brave prow
from the port of New York, with a compass like a conscience, crossing
three thousand miles of billows without missing a throb or beat of its
mighty iron heart.

I saw at the same time the weapons that man has made, from a club, such
as was grasped by that same savage, when he crawled from his den in
the ground and hunted a snake for his dinner; from that club to the
boomerang, to the sword, to the cross-bow, to the blunderbuss, to the
flint-lock, to the cap-lock, to the needle-gun, up to a cannon cast by
Krupp, capable of hurling a ball weighing two thousand pounds through
eighteen inches of solid steel.

I saw, too, the armor from the shell of a turtle, that one of our brave
ancestors lashed upon his breast when he went to fight for his country;
the skin of a porcupine, dried with the quills on, which this same
savage pulled over his orthodox head, up to the shirts of mail, that
were worn in the Middle Ages, that laughed at the edge of the sword and
defied the point of the spear; up to a monitor clad in complete steel.

I saw at the same time, their musical instruments, from the
tom-tom—that is, a hoop with a couple of strings of raw hide drawn
across it—from that tom-tom, up to the instruments we have to-day, that
make the common air blossom with melody.

I saw, too, their paintings, from a daub of yellow mud, to the great
works which now adorn the galleries of the world. I saw also their
sculpture, from the rude god with four legs, a half dozen arms, several
noses, and two or three rows of ears, and one little, contemptible,
brainless head, up to the figures of to-day—to the marbles that genius
has clad in such a personality that it seems almost impudent to touch
them without an introduction.

I saw their books—books written upon skins of wild beasts—upon
shoulder-blades of sheep—books written upon leaves, upon bark, up to
the splendid volumes that enrich the libraries of our day. When I
speak of libraries, I think of the remark of Plato: "A house that has a
library in it has a soul."

I saw their implements of agriculture, from a crooked stick that was
attached to the horn of an ox by some twisted straw, to the agricultural
implements of this generation, that make it possible for a man to
cultivate the soil without being an ignoramus.

While looking upon these things I was forced to say that man advanced
only as he mingled his thought with his labor,—only as he got into
partnership with the forces of nature,—only as he learned to take
advantage of his surroundings—only as he freed himself from the bondage
of fear,—only as he depended upon himself—only as he lost confidence
in the gods.

I saw at the same time a row of human skulls, from the lowest skull
that has been found, the Neanderthal skull—skulls from Central Africa,
skulls from the Bushmen of Australia—skulls from the farthest isles of
the Pacific sea—up to the best skulls of the last generation;—and I
noticed that there was the same difference between those skulls that
there was between the products of those skulls, and I said to myself,
"After all, it is a simple question of intellectual development." There
was the same difference between those skulls, the lowest and highest
skulls, that there was between the dug-out and the man-of-war and the
steamship, between the club and the Krupp gun, between the yellow daub
and the landscape, between the tom-tom and an opera by Verdi.

The first and lowest skull in this row was the den in which crawled the
base and meaner instincts of mankind, and the last was a temple in which
dwelt joy, liberty, and love.

It is all a question of brain, of intellectual development.

If we are nearer free than were our fathers, it is because we have
better heads upon the average, and more brains in them.

Now, I ask you to be honest with me. It makes no difference to you what
I believe, nor what I wish to prove. I simply ask you to be honest.
Divest your minds, for a moment at least, of all religious prejudice.
Act, for a few moments, as though you were men and women.

Suppose the king, if there was one, and the priest, if there was one,
at the time this gentleman floated in the dug-out, and charmed his ears
with the music of the tom-tom, had said: "That dug-out is the best boat
that ever can be built by man; the pattern of that came from on high,
from the great god of storm and flood, and any man who says that he can
improve it by putting a mast in it, with a sail upon it, is an infidel,
and shall be burned at the stake;" what, in your judgment—honor
bright—would have been the effect upon the circumnavigation of the
globe?

Suppose the king, if there was one, and the priest, if there was
one—and I presume there was a priest, because it was a very ignorant
age—suppose this king and priest had said: "That tom-tom is the most
beautiful instrument of music of which any man can conceive; that is the
kind of music they have in heaven; an angel sitting upon the edge of
a fleecy cloud, golden in the setting sun, playing upon that tom-tom,
became so enraptured, so entranced with her own music, that in a kind of
ecstasy she dropped it—that is how we obtained it; and any man who
says that it can be improved by putting a back and front to it, and
four strings, and a bridge, and getting a bow of hair with rosin, is a
blaspheming wretch, and shall die the death,"—I ask you, what effect
would that have had upon music? If that course had been pursued, would
the human ears, in your judgment, ever have been enriched with the
divine symphonies of Beethoven?

Suppose the king, if there was one, and the priest, had said: "That
crooked stick is the best plow that can be invented: the pattern of that
plow was given to a pious farmer in a holy dream, and that twisted straw
is the ne plus ultra of all twisted things, and any man who says he
can make an improvement upon that plow, is an atheist;" what, in your
judgment, would have been the effect upon the science of agriculture?

But the people said, and the king and priest said: "We want better
weapons with which to kill our fellow-Christians; we want better plows,
better music, better paintings, and whoever will give us better weapons,
and better music, better houses to live in, better clothes, we will robe
him in wealth, and crown him with honor." Every incentive was held out
to every human being to improve these things. That is the reason the
club has been changed to a cannon, the dug-out to a steamship, the daub
to a painting; that is the reason that the piece of rough and broken
stone finally became a glorified statue.

You must not, however, forget that the gentleman in the dug-out,
the gentleman who was enraptured with the music of the tom-tom, and
cultivated his land with a crooked stick, had a religion of his own.
That gentlemen in the dug-out was orthodox. He was never troubled with
doubts. He lived and died settled in his mind. He believed in hell; and
he thought he would be far happier in heaven, if he could just lean
over and see certain people who expressed doubts as to the truth of his
creed, gently but everlastingly broiled and burned.

It is a very sad and unhappy fact that this man has had a great many
intellectual descendants. It is also an unhappy fact in nature, that the
ignorant multiply much faster than the intellectual. This fellow in the
dug-out believed in a personal devil. His devil had a cloven hoof, a
long tail, armed with a fiery dart; and his devil breathed brimstone.
This devil was at least the equal of God; not quite so stout but
a little shrewder. And do you know there has not been a patentable
improvement made upon that devil for six thousand years.

This gentleman in the dug-out believed that God was a tyrant; that he
would eternally damn the man who lived in accordance with his highest
and grandest ideal. He believed that the earth was flat. He believed in
a literal, burning, seething hell of fire and sulphur. He had also his
idea of politics; and his doctrine was, might makes right. And it will
take thousands of years before the world will reverse this doctrine, and
believingly say, "Right makes might."

All I ask is the same privilege to improve upon that gentleman's
theology as upon his musical instrument; the same right to improve upon
his politics as upon his dug-out. That is all. I ask for the human soul
the same liberty in every direction. That is the only crime I have
committed. I say, let us think. Let each one express his thought. Let us
become investigators, not followers, not cringers and crawlers. If there
is in heaven an infinite being, he never will be satisfied with the
worship of cowards and hypocrites. Honest unbelief, honest infidelity,
honest atheism, will be a perfume in heaven when pious hypocrisy, no
matter how religious it may be outwardly, will be a stench.

This is my doctrine: Give every other human being every right you claim
for yourself. Keep your mind open to the influences of nature. Receive
new thoughts with hospitality. Let us advance.

The religionist of to-day wants the ship of his soul to lie at the wharf
of orthodoxy and rot in the sun. He delights to hear the sails of old
opinions flap against the masts of old creeds. He loves to see the
joints and the sides open and gape in the sun, and it is a kind of bliss
for him to repeat again and again: "Do not disturb my opinions. Do not
unsettle my mind; I have it all made up, and I want no infidelity. Let
me go backward rather than forward."

As far as I am concerned I wish to be out on the high seas. I wish to
take my chances with wind, and wave, and star. And I had rather go down
in the glory and grandeur of the storm, than to rot in any orthodox
harbor whatever.

After all, we are improving from age to age. The most orthodox people in
this country two hundred years ago would have been burned for the crime
of heresy. The ministers who denounce me for expressing my thought would
have been in the Inquisition themselves. Where once burned and blazed
the bivouac fires of the army of progress, now glow the altars of the
church. The religionists of our time are occupying about the same ground
occupied by heretics and infidels of one hundred years ago. The church
has advanced in spite, as it were, of itself. It has followed the army
of progress protesting and denouncing, and had to keep within protesting
and denouncing distance. If the church had not made great progress I
could not express my thoughts.

Man, however, has advanced just exactly in the proportion with which he
has mingled his thought with his labor. The sailor, without control
of the wind and wave, knowing nothing or very little of the mysterious
currents and pulses of the sea, is superstitious. So also is the
agriculturist, whose prosperity depends upon something he cannot
control. But the mechanic, when a wheel refuses to turn, never thinks of
dropping on his knees and asking the assistance of some divine power.
He knows there is a reason. He knows that something is too large or too
small; that there is something wrong with his machine; and he goes to
work and he makes it larger or smaller, here or there, until the wheel
will turn. Now, just in proportion as man gets away from being, as it
were, the slave of his surroundings, the serf of the elements,—of the
heat, the frost, the snow, and the lightning,—just to the extent that
he has gotten control of his own destiny, just to the extent that he has
triumphed over the obstacles of nature, he has advanced physically and
intellectually. As man develops, he places a greater value upon his own
rights. Liberty becomes a grander and diviner thing. As he values his
own rights, he begins to value the rights of others. And when all men
give to all others all the rights they claim for themselves, this world
will be civilized.

A few years ago the people were afraid to question the king, afraid to
question the priest, afraid to investigate a creed, afraid to deny a
book, afraid to denounce a dogma, afraid to reason, afraid to think.
Before wealth they bowed to the very earth, and in the presence of
titles they became abject. All this is slowly but surely changing. We
no longer bow to men simply because they are rich. Our fathers worshiped
the golden calf. The worst you can say of an American now is, he
worships the gold of the calf. Even the calf is beginning to see this
distinction.

It no longer satisfies the ambition of a great man to be king or
emperor. The last Napoleon was not satisfied with being the emperor of
the French. He was not satisfied with having a circlet of gold about his
head. He wanted some evidence that he had something of value within
his head. So he wrote the life of Julius Cæsar, that he might become
a member of the French Academy. The emperors, the kings, the popes,
no longer tower above their fellows. Compare King William with the
philosopher Haeckel. The king is one of the anointed by the most high,
as they claim—one upon whose head has been poured the divine petroleum
of authority. Compare this king with Haeckel, who towers an intellectual
colossus above the crowned mediocrity. Compare George Eliot with Queen
Victoria. The Queen is clothed in garments given her by blind fortune
and unreasoning chance, while George Eliot wears robes of glory woven in
the loom of her own genius.

The world is beginning to pay homage to intellect, to genius, to heart.

We have advanced. We have reaped the benefit of every sublime and heroic
self-sacrifice, of every divine and brave act; and we should endeavor
to hand the torch to the next generation, having added a little to the
intensity and glory of the flame.

When I think of how much this world has suffered; when I think of how
long our fathers were slaves, of how they cringed and crawled at the
foot of the throne, and in the dust of the altar, of how they abased
themselves, of how abjectly they stood in the presence of superstition
robed and crowned, I am amazed.

This world has not been fit for a man to live in fifty years. It was not
until the year 1808 that Great Britain abolished the slave trade. Up to
that time her judges, sitting upon the bench in the name of justice,
her priests, occupying her pulpits, in the name of universal love, owned
stock in the slave ships, and luxuriated upon the profits of piracy and
murder. It was not until the same year that the United States of
America abolished the slave trade between this and other countries, but
carefully preserved it as between the States. It was not until the 28th
day of August, 1833, that Great Britain abolished human slavery in
her colonies; and it was not until the 1st day of January, 1863, that
Abraham Lincoln, sustained by the sublime and heroic North, rendered our
flag pure as the sky in which it floats.

Abraham Lincoln was, in my judgment, in many respects, the grandest
man ever President of the United States. Upon his monument these words
should be written: "Here sleeps the only man in the history of the
world, who, having been clothed with almost absolute power, never abused
it, except upon the side of mercy."

Think how long we clung to the institution of human slavery, how long
lashes upon the naked back were a legal tender for labor performed.
Think of it. The pulpit of this country deliberately and willingly, for
a hundred years, turned the cross of Christ into a whipping post.

With every drop of my blood I hate and execrate every form of tyranny,
every form of slavery. I hate dictation. I love liberty.

What do I mean by liberty? By physical liberty I mean the right to do
anything which does not interfere with the happiness of another. By
intellectual liberty I mean the right to think right and the right to
think wrong. Thought is the means by which we endeavor to arrive at
truth. If we know the truth already, we need not think. All that can
be required is honesty of purpose. You ask my opinion about anything;
I examine it honestly, and when my mind is made up, what should I tell
you? Should I tell you my real thought? What should I do? There is a
book put in my hands. I am told this is the Koran; it was written by
inspiration. I read it, and when I get through, suppose that I think in
my heart and in my brain, that it is utterly untrue, and you then ask
me, what do you think? Now, admitting that I live in Turkey, and have
no chance to get any office unless I am on the side of the Koran, what
should I say? Should I make a clean breast and say, that upon my honor
I do not believe it? What would you think then of my fellow-citizens if
they said: "That man is dangerous, he is dishonest."

Suppose I read the book called the Bible, and when I get through I make
up my mind that it was written by men. A minister asks me, "Did you read
the Bible?" I answer, that I did. "Do you think it divinely inspired?"
What should I reply? Should I say to myself, "If I deny the inspiration
of the Scriptures, the people will never clothe me with power." What
ought I to answer? Ought I not to say like a man: "I have read it; I do
not believe it." Should I not give the real transcript of my mind? Or
should I turn hypocrite and pretend what I do not feel, and hate myself
forever after for being a cringing coward. For my part I would rather
a man would tell me what he honestly thinks. I would rather he
would preserve his manhood. I had a thousand times rather be a manly
unbeliever than an unmanly believer. And if there is a judgment day,
a time when all will stand before some supreme being, I believe I will
stand higher, and stand a better chance of getting my case decided in my
favor, than any man sneaking through life pretending to believe what he
does not.

I have made up my mind to say my say. I shall do it kindly, distinctly;
but I am going to do it. I know there are thousands of men who
substantially agree with me, but who are not in a condition to express
their thoughts. They are poor; they are in business; and they know that
should they tell their honest thought, persons will refuse to patronize
them—to trade with them; they wish to get bread for their little
children; they wish to take care of their wives; they wish to have homes
and the comforts of life. Every such person is a certificate of the
meanness of the community in which he resides. And yet I do not blame
these people for not expressing their thought. I say to them: "Keep your
ideas to yourselves; feed and clothe the ones you love; I will do
your talking for you. The church can not touch, can not crush, can not
starve, cannot stop or stay me; I will express your thoughts."

As an excuse for tyranny, as a justification of slavery, the church has
taught that man is totally depraved. Of the truth of that doctrine, the
church has furnished the only evidence there is. The truth is, we are
both good and bad. The worst are capable of some good deeds, and the
best are capable of bad. The lowest can rise, and the highest may fall.
That mankind can be divided into two great classes, sinners and saints,
is an utter falsehood. In times of great disaster, called it may be, by
the despairing voices of women, men, denounced by the church as totally
depraved, rush to death as to a festival. By such men, deeds are done
so filled with self-sacrifice and generous daring, that millions pay
to them the tribute, not only of admiration, but of tears. Above all
creeds, above all religions, after all, is that divine thing,—Humanity;
and now and then in shipwreck on the wide, wild sea, or 'mid the rocks
and breakers of some cruel shore, or where the serpents of flame writhe
and hiss, some glorious heart, some chivalric soul does a deed
that glitters like a star, and gives the lie to all the dogmas of
superstition. All these frightful doctrines have been used to degrade
and to enslave mankind.

Away, forever away with the creeds and books and forms and laws and
religions that take from the soul liberty and reason. Down with the idea
that thought is dangerous! Perish the infamous doctrine that man can
have property in man. Let us resent with indignation every effort to put
a chain upon our minds. If there is no God, certainly we should not bow
and cringe and crawl. If there is a God, there should be no slaves.

Liberty of Woman

Women have been the slaves of slaves; and in my judgment it took
millions of ages for woman to come from the condition of abject slavery
up to the institution of marriage. Let me say right here, that I regard
marriage as the holiest institution among men. Without the fireside
there is no human advancement; without the family relation there is no
life worth living. Every good government is made up of good families.
The unit of good government is the family, and anything that tends to
destroy the family is perfectly devilish and infamous. I believe in
marriage, and I hold in utter contempt the opinions of those long-haired
men and short-haired women who denounce the institution of marriage.

The grandest ambition that any man can possibly have, is to so live, and
so improve himself in heart and brain, as to be worthy of the love of
some splendid woman; and the grandest ambition of any girl is to make
herself worthy of the love and adoration of some magnificent man. That
is my idea. There is no success in life without love and marriage. You
had better be the emperor of one loving and tender heart, and she the
empress of yours, than to be king of the world. The man who has really
won the love of one good woman in this world, I do not care if he dies
in the ditch a beggar, his life has been a success.

I say it took millions of years to come from the condition of abject
slavery up to the condition of marriage. Ladies, the ornaments you
wear upon your persons to-night are but the souvenirs of your mother's
bondage. The chains around your necks, and the bracelets clasped upon
your white arms by the thrilled hand of love, have been changed by the
wand of civilization from iron to shining, glittering gold.

But nearly every religion has accounted for all the devilment in this
world by the crime of woman. What a gallant thing that is! And if it
is true, I had rather live with the woman I love in a world full of
trouble, than to live in heaven with nobody but men.

I read in a book—and I will say now that I cannot give the exact
language, as my memory does not retain the words, but I can give the
substance—I read in a book that the Supreme Being concluded to make a
world and one man; that he took some nothing and made a world and one
man, and put this man in a garden. In a little while he noticed that
the man got lonesome; that he wandered around as if he was waiting for
a train. There was nothing to interest him; no news; no papers; no
politics; no policy; and, as the devil had not yet made his appearance,
there was no chance for reconciliation; not even for civil service
reform. Well, he wandered about the garden in this condition, until
finally the Supreme Being made up his mind to make him a companion.

Having used up all the nothing he originally took in making the world
and one man, he had to take a part of the man to start a woman with. So
he caused a sleep to fall on this man—now understand me, I do not say
this story is true. After the sleep fell upon this man, the Supreme
Being took a rib, or as the French would call it, a cutlet, out of this
man, and from that he made a woman. And considering the amount of raw
material used, I look upon it as the most successful job ever performed.
Well, after he got the woman done, she was brought to the man; not to
see how she liked him, but to see how he liked her. He liked her, and
they started housekeeping; and they were told of certain things they
might do and of one thing they could not do—and of course they did it.
I would have done it in fifteen minutes, and I know it. There wouldn't
have been an apple on that tree half an hour from date, and the limbs
would have been full of clubs. And then they were turned out of the park
and extra policemen were put on to keep them from getting back.

Devilment commenced. The mumps, and the measles, and the whooping-cough,
and the scarlet fever started in their race for man. They began to have
the toothache, roses began to have thorns, snakes began to have poisoned
teeth, and people began to divide about religion and politics, and the
world has been full of trouble from that day to this.

Nearly all of the religions of this world account for the existence of
evil by such a story as that!

I read in another book what appeared to be an account of the same
transaction. It was written about four thousand years before the other.
All commentators agree that the one that was written last was the
original, and that the one that was written first was copied from the
one that was written last. But I would advise you all not to allow your
creed to be disturbed by a little matter of four or five thousand years.
In this other story, Brahma made up his mind to make the world and a man
and woman. He made the world, and he made the man and then the woman,
and put them on the island of Ceylon. According to the account it was
the most beautiful island of which man can conceive. Such birds, such
songs, such flowers and such verdure! And the branches of the trees
were so arranged that when the wind swept through them every tree was a
thousand Æolian harps.

Brahma, when he put them there, said: "Let them have a period of
courtship, for it is my desire and will that true love should forever
precede marriage." When I read that, it was so much more beautiful and
lofty than the other, that I said to myself, "If either one of these
stories ever turns out to be true, I hope it will be this one."

Then they had their courtship, with the nightingale singing, and the
stars shining, and the flowers blooming, and they fell in love. Imagine
that courtship! No prospective fathers or mothers-in-law; no prying and
gossiping neighbors; nobody to say, "Young man, how do you expect to
support her?" Nothing of that kind. They were married by the Supreme
Brahma, and he said to them: "Remain here; you must never leave this
island." Well, after a little while the man—and his name was Adami, and
the woman's name was Heva—said to Heva: "I believe I'll look about a
little." He went to the northern extremity of the island where there was
a little narrow neck of land connecting it with the mainland, and the
devil, who is always playing pranks with us, produced a mirage, and when
he looked over to the mainland, such hills and vales, such dells and
dales, such mountains crowned with snow, such cataracts clad in bows of
glory did he see there, that he went back and told Heva: "The country
over there is a thousand times better than this; let us migrate." She,
like every other woman that ever lived, said: "Let well enough alone; we
have all we want; let us stay here." But he said "No, let us go;" so she
followed him, and when they came to this narrow neck of land, he took
her on his back like a gentleman, and carried her over. But the moment
they got over they heard a crash, and looking back, discovered that this
narrow neck of land had fallen into the sea. The mirage had disappeared,
and there were naught but rocks and sand; and then the Supreme Brahma
cursed them both to the lowest hell.

Then it was that the man spoke,—and I have liked him ever since for
it—"Curse me, but curse not her, it was not her fault, it was mine."

That's the kind of man to start a world with.

The Supreme Brahma said: "I will save her, but not thee." And then she
spoke out of her fullness of love, out of a heart in which there was
love enough to make all her daughters rich in holy affection, and said:
"If thou wilt not spare him, spare neither me; I do not wish to live
without him; I love him." Then the Supreme Brahma said—and I have liked
him ever since I read it—"I will spare you both and watch over you and
your children forever."

Honor bright, is not that the better and grander story?

And from that same book I want to show you what ideas some of these
miserable heathen had; the heathen we are trying to convert. We send
missionaries over yonder to convert heathen there, and we send soldiers
out on the plains to kill heathen here. If we can convert the heathen,
why not convert those nearest home? Why not convert those we can get at?
Why not convert those who have the immense advantage of the example of
the average pioneer? But to show you the men we are trying to convert:
In this book it says: "Man is strength, woman is beauty; man is courage,
woman is love. When the one man loves the one woman and the one woman
loves the one man, the very angels leave heaven and come and sit in that
house and sing for joy."

They are the men we are converting. Think of it! I tell you, when I read
these things, I say that love is not of any country; nobility does not
belong exclusively to any race, and through all the ages, there have
been a few great and tender souls blossoming in love and pity.

In my judgment, the woman is the equal of the man. She has all the
rights I have and one more, and that is the right to be protected. That
is my doctrine. You are married; try and make the woman you love happy.
Whoever marries simply for himself will make a mistake; but whoever
loves a woman so well that he says "I will make her happy," makes no
mistake. And so with the woman who says, "I will make him happy." There
is only one way to be happy, and that is to make somebody else so, and
you cannot be happy by going cross lots; you have got to go the regular
turnpike road.

If there is any man I detest, it is the man who thinks he is the head
of a family—the man who thinks he is "boss!" The fellow in the dug-out
used that word "boss;" that was one of his favorite expressions.

Imagine a young man and a young woman courting, walking out in the
moonlight, and the nightingale singing a song of pain and love, as
though the thorn touched her heart—imagine them stopping there in the
moonlight and starlight and song, and saying, "Now, here, let us settle
who is 'boss!'" I tell you it is an infamous word and an infamous
feeling—I abhor a man who is "boss," who is going to govern in his
family, and when he speaks orders all the rest to be still as some
mighty idea is about to be launched from his mouth. Do you know I
dislike this man unspeakably?

I hate above all things a cross man. What right has he to murder the
sunshine of a day? What right has he to assassinate the joy of life?

When you go home you ought to go like a ray of light—so that it will,
even in the night, burst out of the doors and windows and illuminate
the darkness. Some men think their mighty brains have been in a turmoil;
they have been thinking about who will be alderman from the fifth ward;
they have been thinking about politics; great and mighty questions have
been engaging their minds; they have bought calico at five cents or six,
and want to sell it for seven. Think of the intellectual strain that
must have been upon that man, and when he gets home everybody else in
the house must look out for his comfort. A woman who has only taken care
of five or six children, and one or two of them sick, has been nursing
them and singing to them, and trying to make one yard of cloth do the
work of two, she, of course, is fresh and fine and ready to wait upon
this gentleman—the head of the family—the boss!

Do you know another thing? I despise a stingy man. I do not see how
it is possible for a man to die worth fifty million of dollars, or ten
million of dollars, in a city full of want, when he meets almost every
day the withered hand of beggary and the white lips of famine. How a man
can withstand all that, and hold in the clutch of his greed twenty or
thirty million of dollars, is past my comprehension. I do not see how he
can do it. I should not think he could do it any more than he could keep
a pile of lumber on the beach, where hundreds and thousands of men were
drowning in the sea.

Do you know that I have known men who would trust their wives with their
hearts and their honor but not with their pocketbook; not with a dollar.
When I see a man of that kind, I always think he knows which of these
articles is the most valuable. Think of making your wife a beggar! Think
of her having to ask you every day for a dollar, or for two dollars or
fifty cents! "What did you do with that dollar I gave you last week?"
Think of having a wife that is afraid of you! What kind of children do
you expect to have with a beggar and a coward for their mother? Oh,
I tell you if you have but a dollar in the world, and you have got to
spend it, spend it like a king; spend it as though it were a dry leaf
and you the owner of unbounded forests! That's the way to spend it! I
had rather be a beggar and spend my last dollar like a king, than be a
king and spend my money like a beggar! If it has got to go, let it go!

Get the best you can for your family—try to look as well as you can
yourself. When you used to go courting, how elegantly you looked! Ah,
your eye was bright, your step was light, and you looked like a prince.
Do you know that it is insufferable egotism in you to suppose a woman
is going to love you always looking as slovenly as you can! Think of
it! Any good woman on earth will be true to you forever when you do your
level best.

Some people tell me, "Your doctrine about loving, and wives, and all
that, is splendid for the rich, but it won't do for the poor." I tell
you to-night there is more love in the homes of the poor than in the
palaces of the rich. The meanest hut with love in it is a palace fit for
the gods, and a palace without love is a den only fit for wild beasts.
That is my doctrine! You cannot be so poor that you cannot help
somebody. Good nature is the cheapest commodity in the world; and love
is the only thing that will pay ten per cent, to borrower and lender
both. Do not tell me that you have got to be rich! We have a false
standard of greatness in the United States. We think here that a man
must be great, that he must be notorious; that he must be extremely
wealthy, or that his name must be upon the putrid lips of rumor. It is
all a mistake. It is not necessary to be rich or to be great, or to be
powerful, to be happy. The happy man is the successful man.

Happiness is the legal tender of the soul.

Joy is wealth.

A little while ago, I stood by the grave of the old Napoleon—a
magnificent tomb of gilt and gold, fit almost for a dead deity—and
gazed upon the sarcophagus of rare and nameless marble, where rest at
last the ashes of that restless man. I leaned over the balustrade and
thought about the career of the greatest soldier of the modern world.

I saw him walking upon the banks of the Seine, contemplating suicide.
I saw him at Toulon—I saw him putting down the mob in the streets of
Paris—I saw him at the head of the army of Italy—I saw him crossing
the bridge of Lodi with the tri-color in his hand—I saw him in Egypt in
the shadows of the pyramids—I saw him conquer the Alps and mingle the
eagles of France with the eagles of the crags. I saw him at Marengo—at
Ulm and Austerlitz. I saw him in Russia, where the infantry of the snow
and the cavalry of the wild blast scattered his legions like winter's
withered leaves. I saw him at Leipsic in defeat and disaster—driven by
a million bayonets back upon Paris—clutched like a wild beast—banished
to Elba. I saw him escape and retake an empire by the force of his
genius. I saw him upon the frightful field of Waterloo, where Chance and
Fate combined to wreck the fortunes of their former king. And I saw him
at St. Helena, with his hands crossed behind him, gazing out upon the
sad and solemn sea.

I thought of the orphans and widows he had made—of the tears that
had been shed for his glory, and of the only woman who ever loved him,
pushed from his heart by the cold hand of ambition. And I said I would
rather have been a French peasant and worn wooden shoes. I would rather
have lived in a hut with a vine growing over the door, and the grapes
growing purple in the kisses of the autumn sun. I would rather have been
that poor peasant with my loving wife by my side, knitting as the day
died out of the sky—with my children upon my knees and their arms about
me—I would rather have been that man and gone down to the tongueless
silence of the dreamless dust, than to have been that imperial
impersonation of force and murder, known as "Napoleon the Great."

It is not necessary to be great to be happy; it is not necessary to
be rich to be just and generous and to have a heart filled with divine
affection. No matter whether you are rich or poor, treat your wife as
though she were a splendid flower, and she will fill your life with
perfume and with joy.

And do you know, it is a splendid thing to think that the woman you
really love will never grow old to you. Through the wrinkles of time,
through the mask of years, if you really love her, you will always see
the face you loved and won. And a woman who really loves a man does not
see that he grows old; he is not decrepit to her; he does not tremble;
he is not old; she always sees the same gallant gentleman who won her
hand and heart. I like to think of it in that way; I like to think that
love is eternal. And to love in that way and then go down the hill
of life together, and as you go down, hear, perhaps, the laughter of
grandchildren, while the birds of joy and love sing once more in the
leafless branches of the tree of age.

I believe in the fireside. I believe in the democracy of home. I believe
in the republicanism of the family. I believe in liberty, equality and
love.

The Liberty of Children

If women have been slaves, what shall I say of children; of the little
children in alleys and sub-cellars; the little children who turn pale
when they hear their fathers' footsteps; little children who run away
when they only hear their names called by the lips of a mother; little
children—the children of poverty, the children of crime, the children
of brutality, wherever they are—flotsam and jetsam upon the wild, mad
sea of life—my heart goes out to them, one and all.

I tell you the children have the same rights that we have, and we ought
to treat them as though they were human beings. They should be reared
with love, with kindness, with tenderness, and not with brutality. That
is my idea of children.

When your little child tells a lie, do not rush at him as though the
world were about to go into bankruptcy. Be honest with him. A tyrant
father will have liars for his children; do you know that?

A lie is born of tyranny upon the one hand and weakness upon the other,
and when you rush at a poor little boy with a club in your hand, of
course he lies.

I thank thee, Mother Nature, that thou hast put ingenuity enough in the
brain of a child, when attacked by a brutal parent, to throw up a little
breastwork in the shape of a lie.

When one of your children tells a lie, be honest with him; tell him that
you have told hundreds of them yourself. Tell him it is not the best
way; that you have tried it. Tell him as the man did in Maine when his
boy left home: "John, honesty is the best policy; I have tried both." Be
honest with him. Suppose a man as much larger than you as you are larger
than a child five years old, should come at you with a liberty pole in
his hand, and in a voice of thunder shout, "Who broke that plate?" There
is not a solitary one of you who would not swear you never saw it,
or that it was cracked when you got it. Why not be honest with these
children? Just imagine a man who deals in stocks whipping his boy for
putting false rumors afloat! Think of a lawyer beating his own flesh and
blood for evading the truth when he makes half of his own living that
way! Think of a minister punishing his child for not telling all he
thinks! Just think of it!

When your child commits a wrong, take it in your arms; let it feel your
heart beat against its heart; let the child know that you really and
truly and sincerely love it. Yet some Christians, good Christians, when
a child commits a fault, drive it from the door and say: "Never do you
darken this house again." Think of that! And then these same people will
get down on their knees and ask God to take care of the child they
have driven from home. I will never ask God to take care of my children
unless I am doing my level best in that same direction.

But I will tell you what I say to my children: "Go where you will;
commit what crime you may; fall to what depth of degradation you may;
you can never commit any crime that will shut my door, my arms, or my
heart to you. As long as I live you shall have one sincere friend."

Do you know that I have seen some people who acted as though they
thought that when the Savior said "Suffer little children to come unto
me, for of such is the kingdom of heaven," he had a raw-hide under his
mande, and made that remark simply to get the children within striking
distance?

I do not believe in the government of the lash, if any one of you ever
expects to whip your children again, I want you to have a photograph
taken of yourself when you are in the act, with your face red with
vulgar anger, and the face of the little child, with eyes swimming
in tears and the little chin dimpled with fear, like a piece of water
struck by a sudden cold wind. Have the picture taken. If that little
child should die, I cannot think of a sweeter way to spend an autumn
afternoon than to go out to the cemetery, when the maples are clad
in tender gold, and little scarlet runners are coming, like poems of
regret, from the sad heart of the earth—and sit down upon the grave and
look at that photograph, and think of the flesh now dust that you beat.
I tell you it is wrong; it is no way to raise children! Make your home
happy. Be honest with them. Divide fairly with them in everything.

Give them a little liberty and love, and you can not drive them out of
your house. They will want to stay there. Make home pleasant. Let them
play any game they wish. Do not be so foolish as to say: "You may roll
balls on the ground, but you must not roll them on a green cloth. You
may knock them with a mallet, but you must not push them with a cue.
You may play with little pieces of paper which have 'authors' written
on them, but you must not have 'cards.'" Think of it! "You may go to a
minstrel show where people blacken themselves and imitate humanity below
them, but you must not go to a theatre and see the characters created
by immortal genius put upon the stage." Why? Well, I can't think of any
reason in the world except "minstrel" is a word of two syllables, and
"theatre" has three.

Let children have some daylight at home if you want to keep them there,
and do not commence at the cradle and shout "Don't!" "Don't!" "Stop!"
That is nearly all that is said to a child from the cradle until he is
twenty-one years old, and when he comes of age other people begin saying
"Don't!" And the church says "Don't!" and the party he belongs to says
"Don't!"

I despise that way of going through this world. Let us have
liberty—just a little. Call me infidel, call me atheist, call me what
you will, I intend so to treat my children, that they can come to my
grave and truthfully say: "He who sleeps here never gave us a moment of
pain. From his lips, now dust, never came to us an unkind word."

People justify all kinds of tyranny toward children upon the ground that
they are totally depraved. At the bottom of ages of cruelty lies this
infamous doctrine of total depravity. Religion contemplates a child as a
living crime—heir to an infinite curse—doomed to eternal fire.

In the olden time, they thought some days were too good for a child to
enjoy himself. When I was a boy Sunday was considered altogether too
holy to be happy in. Sunday used to commence then when the sun went down
on Saturday night. We commenced at that time for the purpose of getting
a good ready, and when the sun fell below the horizon on Saturday
evening, there was a darkness fell upon the house ten thousand times
deeper than that of night. Nobody said a pleasant word; nobody laughed;
nobody smiled; the child that looked the sickest was regarded as the
most pious. That night you could not even crack hickory nuts. If you
were caught chewing gum it was only another evidence of the total
depravity of the human heart. It was an exceedingly solemn night.

Dyspepsia was in the very air you breathed. Everybody looked sad and
mournful. I have noticed all my life that many people think they have
religion when they are troubled with dyspepsia. If there could be found
an absolute specific for that disease, it would be the hardest blow the
church has ever received.

On Sunday morning the solemnity had simply increased. Then we went to
church. The minister was in a pulpit about twenty feet high, with a
little sounding-board above him, and he commenced at "firstly" and went
on and on and on to about "twenty-thirdly." Then he made a few remarks
by way of application; and then took a general view of the subject, and
in about two hours reached the last chapter in Revelation.

In those days, no matter how cold the weather was, there was no fire in
the church. It was thought to be a kind of sin to be comfortable while
you were thanking God. The first church that ever had a stove in it in
New England, divided on that account. So the first church in which they
sang by note, was torn in fragments.

After the sermon we had an intermission. Then came the catechism with
the chief end of man. We went through with that. We sat in a row with
our feet coming in about six inches of the floor. The minister asked
us if we knew that we all deserved to go to hell, and we all answered
"Yes." Then we were asked if we would be willing to go to hell if it was
God's will, and every little liar shouted "Yes." Then the same sermon
was preached once more, commencing at the other end and going back.
After that, we started for home, sad and solemn—overpowered with the
wisdom displayed in the scheme of the atonement. When we got home, if we
had been good boys, and the weather was warm, sometimes they would take
us out to the graveyard to cheer us up a little. It did cheer me. When
I looked at the sunken tombs and the leaning stones, and read the
half-effaced inscriptions through the moss of silence and forgetfulness,
it was a great comfort. The reflection came to my mind that the
observance of the Sabbath could not last always. Sometimes they would
sing that beautiful hymn in which occurs these cheerful lines:
    "Where congregations ne'er break up,
    And Sabbaths never end."

These lines, I think, prejudiced me a little against even heaven. Then
we had good books that we read on Sundays by way of keeping us happy
and contented. There were Milners' "History of the Waldenses," Baxter's
"Call to the Unconverted," Yahn's "Archaeology of the Jews," and
Jenkyns' "On the Atonement." I used to read Jenkyns' "On the Atonement."
I have often thought that an atonement would have to be exceedingly
broad in its provisions to cover the case of a man who would write a
book like that for a boy.

But at last the Sunday wore away, and the moment the sun went down we
were free. Between three and four o'clock we would go out to see how the
sun was coming on. Sometimes it seemed to me that it was stopping from
pure meanness. But finally it went down. It had to. And when the last
rim of light sank below the horizon, off would go our caps, and we would
give three cheers for liberty once more.

Sabbaths used to be prisons. Every Sunday was a Bastile. Every Christian
was a kind of turnkey, and every child was a prisoner,—a convict. In
that dungeon, a smile was a crime.

It was thought wrong for a child to laugh upon this holy day. Think of
that!

A little child would go out into the garden, and there would be a tree
laden with blossoms, and the little fellow would lean against it, and
there would be a bird on one of the boughs, singing and swinging, and
thinking about four little speckled eggs, warmed by the breast of its
mate,—singing and swinging, and the music in happy waves rippling out
of its tiny throat, and the flowers blossoming, the air filled with
perfume and the great white clouds floating in the sky, and the little
boy would lean up against that tree and think about hell and the worm
that never dies.

I have heard them preach, when I sat in the pew and my feet did not
touch the floor, about the final home of the unconverted. In order to
impress upon the children the length of time they would probably stay if
they settled in that country, the preacher would frequently give us the
following illustration: "Suppose that once in a billion years a bird
should come from some far-distant planet, and carry off in its little
bill a grain of sand, a time would finally come when the last atom
composing this earth would be carried away; and when this last atom was
taken, it would not even be sun up in hell." Think of such an infamous
doctrine being taught to children!

The laugh of a child will make the holiest day more sacred still.
Strike, with hand of fire, O weird musician, thy harp strung with
Apollo's golden hair; fill the vast cathedral aisles with symphonies
sweet and dim, deft toucher of the organ keys; blow, bugler, blow, until
thy silver notes do touch and kiss the moonlit waves, and charm the
lovers wandering 'mid the vine-clad hills. But know, your sweetest
strains are discords all, compared with childhood's happy laugh—the
laugh that fills the eyes with light and every heart with joy. O
rippling river of laughter, thou art the blessed boundary line between
the beasts and men; and every wayward wave of thine doth drown some
fretful fiend of care. O Laughter, rose-lipped daughter of Joy, there
are dimples enough in thy cheeks to catch and hold and glorify all the
tears of grief.

And yet the minds of children have been polluted by this infamous
doctrine of eternal punishment. I denounce it to-day as a doctrine, the
infamy of which no language is sufficient to express.

Where did that doctrine of eternal punishment for men and women and
children come from? It came from the low and beastly skull of that
wretch in the dug-out. Where did he get it? It was a souvenir from the
animals. The doctrine of eternal punishment was born in the glittering
eyes of snakes—snakes that hung in fearful coils watching for their
prey. It was born of the howl and bark and growl of wild beasts. It
was born of the grin of hyenas and of the depraved chatter of unclean
baboons. I despise it with every drop of my blood. Tell me there is a
God in the serene heavens that will damn his children for the expression
of an honest belief! More men have died in their sins, judged by your
orthodox creeds, than there are leaves on all the forests in the wide
world ten thousand times over. Tell me these men are in hell; that these
men are in torment; that these children are in eternal pain, and that
they are to be punished forever and forever! I denounce this doctrine as
the most infamous of lies.

When the great ship containing the hopes and aspirations of the world,
when the great ship freighted with mankind goes down in the night of
death, chaos and disaster, I am willing to go down with the ship. I
will not be guilty of the ineffable meanness of paddling away in some
orthodox canoe. I will go down with the ship, with those who love me,
and with those whom I have loved. If there is a God who will damn his
children forever, I would rather go to hell than to go to heaven and
keep the society of such an infamous tyrant. I make my choice now. I
despise that doctrine. It has covered the cheeks of this world with
tears. It has polluted the hearts of children, and poisoned the
imaginations of men. It has been a constant pain, a perpetual terror to
every good man and woman and child. It has filled the good with horror
and with fear; but it has had no effect upon the infamous and base. It
has wrung the hearts of the tender; it has furrowed the cheeks of the
good. This doctrine never should be preached again. What right have you,
sir, Mr. clergyman, you, minister of the gospel, to stand at the portals
of the tomb, at the vestibule of eternity, and fill the future with
horror and with fear? I do not believe this doctrine: neither do you.
If you did, you could not sleep one moment. Any man who believes it, and
has within his breast a decent, throbbing heart, will go insane. A man
who believes that doctrine and does not go insane has the heart of a
snake and the conscience of a hyena.

Jonathan Edwards, the dear old soul, who, if his doctrine is true, is
now in heaven rubbing his holy hands with glee, as he hears the cries
of the damned, preached this doctrine; and he said: "Can the believing
husband in heaven be happy with his unbelieving wife in hell? Can the
believing father in heaven be happy with his unbelieving children
in hell? Can the loving wife in heaven be happy with her unbelieving
husband in hell?" And he replies: "I tell you, yea. Such will be their
sense of justice, that it will increase rather than diminish their
bliss." There is no wild beast in the jungles of Africa whose reputation
would not be tarnished by the expression of such a doctrine.

These doctrines have been taught in the name of religion, in the name of
universal forgiveness, in the name of infinite love and charity. Do not,
I pray you, soil the minds of your children with this dogma. Let them
read for themselves; let them think for themselves.

Do not treat your children like orthodox posts to be set in a row. Treat
them like trees that need light and sun and air. Be fair and honest
with them; give them a chance. Recollect that their rights are equal to
yours. Do not have it in your mind that you must govern them; that they
must obey. Throw away forever the idea of master and slave.

In old times they used to make the children go to bed when they were not
sleepy, and get up when they were sleepy. I say let them go to bed when
they are sleepy, and get up when they are not sleepy.

But you say, this doctrine will do for the rich but not for the poor.
Well, if the poor have to waken their children early in the morning it
is as easy to wake them with a kiss as with a blow. Give your children
freedom; let them preserve their individuality. Let your children eat
what they desire, and commence at the end of a dinner they like. That is
their business and not yours. They know what they wish to eat. If they
are given their liberty from the first, they know what they want better
than any doctor in the world can prescribe. Do you know that all the
improvement that has ever been made in the practice of medicine has
been made by the recklessness of patients and not by the doctors?
For thousands and thousands of years the doctors would not let a man
suffering from fever have a drop of water. Water they looked upon as
poison. But every now and then some man got reckless and said, "I had
rather die than not to slake my thirst." Then he would drink two or
three quarts of water and get well. And when the doctor was told of
what the patient had done, he expressed great surprise that he was still
alive, and complimented his constitution upon being able to bear such a
frightful strain. The reckless men, however, kept on drinking the water,
and persisted in getting well. And finally the doctors said: "In a
fever, water is the very best thing you can take." So, I have more
confidence in the voice of nature about such things than I have in the
conclusions of the medical schools.

Let your children have freedom and they will fall into your ways; they
will do substantially as you do; but if you try to make them, there is
some magnificent, splendid thing in the human heart that refuses to be
driven. And do you know that it is the luckiest thing that ever happened
for this world, that people are that way. What would have become of the
people five hundred years ago if they had followed strictly the advice
of the doctors? They would have all been dead. What would the people
have been, if at any age of the world they had followed implicitly
the direction of the church? They would have all been idiots. It is a
splendid thing that there is always some grand man who will not mind,
and who will think for himself.

I believe in allowing the children to think for themselves. I believe
in the democracy of the family. If in this world there is anything
splendid, it is a home where all are equals.

You will remember that only a few years ago parents would tell their
children to "let their victuals stop their mouths." They used to eat as
though it were a religious ceremony—a very solemn thing. Life should
not be treated as a solemn matter. I like to see the children at table,
and hear each one telling of the wonderful things he has seen and heard.
I like to hear the clatter of knives and forks and spoons mingling with
their happy voices. I had rather hear it than any opera that was ever
put upon the boards. Let the children have liberty. Be honest and fair
with them; be just; be tender, and they will make you rich in love and
joy.

Men are oaks, women are vines, children are flowers.

The human race has been guilty of almost countless crimes; but I have
some excuse for mankind. This world, after all, is not very well adapted
to raising good people. In the first place, nearly all of it is water.
It is much better adapted to fish culture than to the production of
folks. Of that portion which is land not one-eighth has suitable soil
and climate to produce great men and women. You cannot raise men and
women of genius, without the proper soil and climate, any more than you
can raise corn and wheat upon the ice fields of the Arctic sea. You must
have the necessary conditions and surroundings. Man is a product; you
must have the soil and food. The obstacles presented by nature must
not be so great that man cannot, by reasonable industry and courage,
overcome them. There is upon this world only a narrow belt of land,
circling zigzag the globe, upon which you can produce men and women of
talent. In the Southern Hemisphere the real climate that man needs falls
mostly upon the sea, and the result is, that the southern half of our
world has never produced a man or woman of great genius. In the far
north there is no genius—it is too cold. In the far south there is no
genius—it is too warm. There must be winter, and there must be summer.
In a country where man needs no coverlet but a cloud, revolution is his
normal condition. Winter is the mother of industry and prudence. Above
all, it is the mother of the family relation. Winter holds in its icy
arms the husband and wife and the sweet children. If upon this earth we
ever have a glimpse of heaven, it is when we pass a home in winter, at
night, and through the windows, the curtains drawn aside, we see the
family about the pleasant hearth; the old lady knitting; the cat playing
with the yarn; the children wishing they had as many dolls or dollars or
knives or somethings, as there are sparks going out to join the roaring
blast; the father reading and smoking, and the clouds rising like
incense from the altar of domestic joy. I never passed such a house
without feeling that I had received a benediction.

Civilization, liberty, justice, charity, intellectual advancement, are
all flowers that blossom in the drifted snow.

I have still another excuse. I believe that man came up from the lower
animals. I do not say this as a fact. I simply say I believe it to be
a fact. Upon that question I stand about eight to seven, which, for all
practical purposes, is very near a certainty. When I first heard of that
doctrine I did not like it. My heart was filled with sympathy for those
people who have nothing to be proud of except ancestors. I thought, how
terrible this will be upon the nobility of the Old World. Think of their
being forced to trace their ancestry back to the duke Orang Outang, or
to the princess Chimpanzee. After thinking it all over, I came to the
conclusion that I liked that doctrine. I became convinced in spite of
myself. I read about rudimentary bones and muscles. I was told that
everybody had rudimentary muscles extending from the ear into the cheek.
I asked "What are they?" I was told: "They are the remains of
muscles; that they became rudimentary from lack of use; they went into
bankruptcy. They are the muscles with which your ancestors used to flap
their ears." I do not now so much wonder that we once had them as that
we have outgrown them.

After all I had rather belong to a race that started from the skull-less
vertebrates in the dim Laurentian seas, vertebrates wiggling without
knowing why they wiggled, swimming without knowing where they were
going, but that in some way began to develop, and began to get a little
higher and a little higher in the scale of existence; that came up by
degrees through millions of ages through all the animal world, through
all that crawls and swims and floats and climbs and walks, and finally
produced the gentleman in the dug-out; and then from this man, getting
a little grander, and each one below calling every one above him a
heretic, calling every one who had made a little advance an infidel or
an atheist—for in the history of this world the man who is ahead has
always been called a heretic—I would rather come from a race that
started from that skull-less vertebrate, and came up and up and up and
finally produced Shakespeare, the man who found the human intellect
dwelling in a hut, touched it with the wand of his genius and it became
a palace domed and pinnacled; Shakespeare, who harvested all the fields
of dramatic thought, and from whose day to this, there have been only
gleaners of straw and chaff—I would rather belong to that race that
commenced a skull-less vertebrate and produced Shakespeare, a race that
has before it an infinite future, with the angel of progress leaning
from the far horizon, beckoning men forward, upward and onward
forever—I had rather belong to such a race, commencing there, producing
this, and with that hope, than to have sprung from a perfect pair upon
which the Lord has lost money every moment from that day to this.

Conclusion

I have given you my honest thought. Surely investigation is better than
unthinking faith. Surely reason is a better guide than fear. This world
should be controlled by the living, not by the dead. The grave is not a
throne, and a corpse is not a king. Man should not try to live on ashes.

The theologians dead, knew no more than the theologians now living.
More than this cannot be said. About this world little is known,—about
another world, nothing.

Our fathers were intellectual serfs, and their fathers were slaves. The
makers of our creeds were ignorant and brutal. Every dogma that we have,
has upon it the mark of whip, the rust of chain, and the ashes of fagot.

Our fathers reasoned with instruments of torture. They believed in the
logic of fire and sword. They hated reason. They despised thought. They
abhorred liberty.

Superstition is the child of slavery. Free thought will give us truth.
When all have the right to think and to express their thoughts, every
brain will give to all the best it has. The world will then be filled
with intellectual wealth.

As long as men and women are afraid of the church, as long as a minister
inspires fear, as long as people reverence a thing simply because
they do not understand it, as long as it is respectable to lose your
self-respect, as long as the church has power, as long as mankind
worship a book, just so long will the world be filled with intellectual
paupers and vagrants, covered with the soiled and faded rags of
superstition.

As long as woman regards the Bible as the charter of her rights, she
will be the slave of man. The Bible was not written by a woman. Within
its lids there is nothing but humiliation and shame for her. She is
regarded as the property of man. She is made to ask forgiveness for
becoming a mother. She is as much below her husband, as her husband is
below Christ. She is not allowed to speak. The gospel is too pure to be
spoken by her polluted lips. Woman should learn in silence.

In the Bible will be found no description of a civilized home. The free
mother surrounded by free and loving children, adored by a free man, her
husband, was unknown to the inspired writers of the Bible. They did not
believe in the democracy of home—in the republicanism of the fireside.

These inspired gentlemen knew nothing of the rights of children. They
were the advocates of brute force—the disciples of the lash. They knew
nothing of human rights. Their doctrines have brutalized the homes of
millions, and filled the eyes of infancy with tears.

Let us free ourselves from the tyranny of a book, from the slavery of
dead ignorance, from the aristocracy of the air.

There has never been upon the earth a generation of free men and
women. It is not yet time to write a creed. Wait until the chains are
broken—until dungeons are not regarded as temples. Wait until solemnity
is not mistaken for wisdom—until mental cowardice ceases to be known
as reverence. Wait until the living are considered the equals of the
dead—until the cradle takes precedence of the coffin. Wait until what
we know can be spoken without regard to what others may believe. Wait
until teachers take the place of preachers—until followers become
investigators. Wait until the world is free before you write a creed.

In this creed there will be but one word—Liberty.

Oh Liberty, float not forever in the far horizon—remain not forever in
the dream of the enthusiast, the philanthropist and poet, but come and
make thy home among the children of men!

I know not what discoveries, what inventions, what thoughts may leap
from the brain of the world. I know not what garments of glory may be
woven by the years to come. I cannot dream of the victories to be won
upon the fields of thought; but I do know, that coming from the infinite
sea of the future, there will never touch this "bank and shoal of time"
a richer gift, a rarer blessing than liberty for man, for woman, and for
child.
