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Reader's Companion

Glossary

An A–Z reader's companion. Entries marked Ingersoll's vocabulary are words and phrases he charged with particular meaning across the canon — honest god, robust soul, liberty of thought. The rest are the nineteenth-century figures, places, and idioms he worked with. Both surface as tooltips throughout the site.

67 entries total

A

Abolitionist
A 19th-century reformer who worked to end slavery in the United States; the cause Ingersoll grew up alongside as the son of an antislavery preacher.

Also: abolitionism.

Agnostic
Coined by Thomas Henry Huxley in 1869, agnosticism is the position that the truth of metaphysical claims, the existence of a god, an afterlife, the supernatural, is unknown or inherently unknowable. Ingersoll preferred this label to 'atheist' because it described his epistemology rather than a fixed denial.

Also: agnosticism.

Anarchist
Used in the 1880s for the Haymarket defendants; Ingersoll defended their right to a fair trial even as he disagreed with their politics.

Also: chicago anarchists, haymarket.

Atheist
One who denies the existence of any god; Ingersoll preferred 'agnostic' but was routinely labeled an atheist by clergy.

Also: atheism.

B

Beecher
Henry Ward Beecher (1813–1887): the most famous American preacher of his day, gradually liberalizing in his later years; a personal admirer of Ingersoll.

Also: henry ward beecher.

Bismarck
Otto von Bismarck (1815–1898): Prussian statesman and architect of the unified German Empire; a frequent point of comparison in Ingersoll's political talks.

Also: otto von bismarck.

Blaine
James G. Blaine (1830–1893): Maine senator, Speaker of the House, and Republican presidential nominee in 1884; close friend of Ingersoll.

Also: james g. blaine, james blaine.

Blasphemy Ingersoll's vocabulary
In Ingersoll's mouth, almost always ironic. He defended C. B. Reynolds in 1887 against blasphemy charges and treated blasphemy laws as the last legal residue of state-enforced orthodoxy.
Burns
Robert Burns (1759–1796): Scottish national poet; Ingersoll visited his cottage in Ayr in August 1878 and delivered a tribute oration there.

Also: robert burns.

C

Calvinist
A Protestant tradition emphasizing predestination, original sin, and the absolute sovereignty of God; the doctrine of Ingersoll's father's church.

Also: calvinism, calvinistic.

Carnegie
Andrew Carnegie (1835–1919): Scottish-American steel magnate and philanthropist; a personal friend and admirer of Ingersoll in his later years.

Also: andrew carnegie.

Chautauqua
A summer educational and lecture movement, beginning in 1874 at Chautauqua Lake, New York; offered an alternative venue to the secular lyceum.
Civil rights bill
The 1875 federal law guaranteeing equal access to public accommodations regardless of race; Ingersoll defended it against the Supreme Court's 1883 nullification.

Also: civil rights act.

Conkling
Roscoe Conkling (1829–1888): senator from New York and Stalwart Republican boss; Ingersoll delivered a celebrated tribute at his death.

Also: roscoe conkling.

Creed Ingersoll's vocabulary
In Ingersoll's usage, almost always pejorative: a fixed doctrinal formula imposed on the mind. He treats creeds as substitutes for thought and as instruments of clerical authority.

D

Darwin
Charles Darwin (1809–1882): English naturalist whose theory of evolution by natural selection Ingersoll defended from American pulpits as 'the great liberator of the human mind.'

Also: charles darwin.

Deism
Deism holds that reason and observation of nature, not revelation, are the proper grounds for religion. It was widespread among the Enlightenment generation, Paine, Jefferson, Franklin, and Ingersoll often invoked it to recover Paine's reputation from sectarian slander.

Also: deist, deists.

Douglass
Frederick Douglass (c. 1818–1895): formerly enslaved orator, abolitionist, and statesman; a fellow champion of human liberty whom Ingersoll appeared with on the lecture circuit.

Also: frederick douglass.

Dresden edition
The twelve-volume collected works of Robert G. Ingersoll, edited by C. P. Farrell and published 1900–1902 — the standard edition cited throughout this site.

Also: dresden ed., dresden ed.

E

Ebon clark ingersoll
Robert's older brother (1831–1879), a Republican U.S. Representative from Illinois; the subject of Ingersoll's most famous funeral oration.

Also: ebon ingersoll, ebon.

Edison
Thomas Edison (1847–1931): inventor and admirer of Ingersoll, who said 'Ingersoll had the greatest mind I ever encountered in the form of man.'

Also: thomas edison.

Evolution
The Darwinian theory that species change over time through natural selection; in Ingersoll's century, the leading scientific challenge to literal scriptural creation.

F

Field
Henry M. Field (1822–1907): Presbyterian minister and editor whose 1887 open letter to Ingersoll triggered the famous 'Field-Ingersoll Discussion.'

Also: henry m. field, henry field.

Freethinker Ingersoll's vocabulary
Movement label of the late 19th-century lyceum circle Ingersoll headed. A freethinker, in his usage, was one whose conclusions about religion were reached by reason rather than imposed by authority.
Freethought
Freethought was the loose intellectual movement, peaking in the late 1800s, that opposed religious dogma in favor of reason, science, and individual conscience. Its house newspaper was The Truth Seeker; its great American voice was Ingersoll.

Also: freethinker, freethinkers, free thought.

G

Ghosts
Title of Ingersoll's 1877 lecture on superstition, the 'ghosts' being inherited religious fears that haunt the modern mind even after their theological basis has dissolved.
Gladstone
William E. Gladstone (1809–1898): four-time British Prime Minister; entered the Field-Ingersoll debate from London in 1888.

Also: william e. gladstone, william gladstone.

Grant
Ulysses S. Grant (1822–1885): Civil War general, two-term president, and personal friend of Ingersoll, who delivered a celebrated tribute at his memorial.

Also: ulysses s. grant, ulysses grant.

Greenback
The Greenback movement (1870s–80s) advocated keeping paper currency unbacked by gold; a major political issue Ingersoll addressed throughout the era.

Also: greenbacks, greenback question.

H

Happiness Ingersoll's vocabulary
Central to Ingersoll's ethics: "Happiness is the only good. The time to be happy is now. The place to be happy is here. The way to be happy is to make others so." Volume XII, 1900.
Henry george
Henry George (1839–1897): economist and author of 'Progress and Poverty'; Ingersoll discussed his single-tax proposal in several interviews.
Heretic
Originally one who chooses a doctrine contrary to church teaching; in Ingersoll's hands, a badge of intellectual independence, see his 1874 lecture 'Heretics and Heresies.'

Also: heretics, heresy, heresies.

Honest doubt Ingersoll's vocabulary
Ingersoll's preferred epistemic stance — better to admit not knowing than to profess belief in what cannot be known. The phrase echoes Tennyson's "In Memoriam" but Ingersoll meant it as a moral obligation.
Honest god Ingersoll's vocabulary
Drawn from the opening of "The Gods" (1872): "An honest God is the noblest work of man." Ingersoll inverts Alexander Pope's line from the Essay on Man to argue that the deities humans worship are themselves human creations, dignified or debased depending on the moral imagination of the worshippers.
Human spirit Ingersoll's vocabulary
Ingersoll's positive ideal — the capacity for reason, generosity, and self-direction in human nature. He treated it as the proper object of reverence after the gods are dismissed.
Humboldt
Alexander von Humboldt (1769–1859): Prussian polymath naturalist; subject of Ingersoll's 1869 oration that launched his freethought career.

Also: alexander von humboldt.

Hume
David Hume (1711–1776): Scottish philosopher whose skepticism about miracles and natural religion deeply influenced 19th-century freethought.

Also: david hume.

I

Infidel
In Ingersoll's century, 'infidel' was the standard pulpit slur for anyone who publicly rejected Christian orthodoxy. He embraced the term, arguing that the great infidels of history, Paine, Voltaire, Hume, Bruno, had done more to advance human freedom than any saint.

Also: infidelity, infidels.

Infidel Ingersoll's vocabulary
A label Ingersoll wore proudly. Where clergy used 'infidel' as an accusation, he reclaimed it for anyone willing to think honestly about religion regardless of social cost.

J

Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826): U.S. president and author of the Declaration; Ingersoll cited his deism and Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom as foundational.

Also: thomas jefferson.

L

Liberty of thought Ingersoll's vocabulary
Ingersoll's keystone value — the right to think as one will and to express the result, free of clerical, governmental, or social coercion. Frames "The Liberty of Man, Woman, and Child" (1877) and dozens of later lectures.
Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865): the 16th president and Ingersoll's political hero, often the moral exemplar invoked in his Civil War orations.

Also: abraham lincoln.

Lyceum
The 19th-century American lecture circuit: thousands of small-town halls hosting paid speakers on science, religion, politics, and reform; Ingersoll's bread and butter.

M

Manning
Henry Edward Manning (1808–1892): English Roman Catholic Cardinal-Archbishop of Westminster; a Catholic counterweight to Gladstone in the 1880s religious debates.

Also: henry edward manning, cardinal manning.

O

Oration
A formal speech delivered as performance, the dominant form of public entertainment and persuasion in 19th-century America; Ingersoll was its most celebrated practitioner.

Also: orator, oratory.

Orthodoxy
The body of doctrine considered correct or established within a religion, for Ingersoll, almost always meaning Calvinist or evangelical Protestantism.

Also: orthodox.

P

Paine
Thomas Paine (1737–1809): English-American revolutionary and deist; Ingersoll's greatest intellectual hero, whose reputation he rescued in his 1870 oration.

Also: thomas paine, tom paine.

Plumed knight
Ingersoll's 1876 nominating speech for James G. Blaine at the Republican National Convention; the phrase made Blaine a national figure overnight.
Predestination
The Calvinist doctrine that God has eternally decided who will be saved and who will be damned, irrespective of their conduct; one of Ingersoll's most frequent targets.
Presbyterian
A Calvinist Protestant denomination governed by elders; many of Ingersoll's clerical opponents (Field, Hall, Plumb) were Presbyterian ministers.

Also: presbyterianism.

R

Reconstruction
The 1865–1877 federal effort to rebuild the South and integrate freed slaves into civic life; Ingersoll was an unwavering Reconstruction Republican.
Republican
In Ingersoll's lifetime, the antislavery party of Lincoln, Reconstruction, and civil rights, the political home Ingersoll defended throughout his career.

Also: republican party.

Robust soul Ingersoll's vocabulary
Ingersoll's ideal of vigorous, life-affirming character — fearless, generous, intellectually free; the antithesis of the cowed and creed-bound believer.

S

Secularism
The principle that civic and political life should be conducted without reference to religion; advocated by Ingersoll as essential to liberty of conscience.

Also: secular.

Spalding
John Lancaster Spalding (1840–1916): Roman Catholic Bishop of Peoria, Illinois, Ingersoll's own city, and one of his most articulate Catholic critics.

Also: bishop spalding, john lancaster spalding.

Spiritualism
The 19th-century belief that spirits of the dead can communicate with the living through mediums; a movement Ingersoll repeatedly dissected on rationalist grounds.

Also: spiritualist.

Stanton
Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815–1902): leading suffragist and freethinker; a personal friend of Ingersoll and author of 'The Woman's Bible.'

Also: elizabeth cady stanton.

Superstition Ingersoll's vocabulary
Ingersoll's standing category for any belief he considered indefensible by reason and harmful in effect — orthodox theology, ghost stories, fortune-telling, and any creed treated as exempt from inquiry.
Susan b. anthony
Susan B. Anthony (1820–1906): suffrage leader; an ally of Ingersoll's despite their different stances on religion (Anthony was a Quaker).

T

Talmage
T. DeWitt Talmage (1832–1902): wildly popular Brooklyn preacher whose sermons attacking Ingersoll prompted the 'Six Interviews on Talmage' (1882).

Also: thomas dewitt talmage, t. dewitt talmage.

The gods
Title of Ingersoll's 1872 lecture comparing the gods of every nation and concluding none can be shown to deserve worship; one of his foundational works.
The hereafter Ingersoll's vocabulary
Ingersoll's term for the afterlife. He treated the hereafter as unknown rather than denied — agnostic ground, not atheist negation. "The dead do not suffer" was as far as he would go.

Also: hereafter.

Tilden
Samuel J. Tilden (1814–1886): Democratic governor of New York and 1876 presidential candidate, who lost the disputed election to Rutherford B. Hayes.

Also: samuel tilden, samuel j. tilden.

Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910): Russian novelist whose later religious writings Ingersoll discussed in interviews with characteristic candor.

Also: leo tolstoy.

Twain
Mark Twain (1835–1910): novelist, humorist, and close friend of Ingersoll, who called him 'the most brilliant speaker I ever heard.'

Also: mark twain, samuel clemens.

V

Voltaire
François-Marie Arouet (1694–1778): French Enlightenment philosopher whose campaign against ecclesiastical authority Ingersoll claimed as his own intellectual lineage.

W

Whitman
Walt Whitman (1819–1892): American poet whose 'Leaves of Grass' Ingersoll publicly defended; he gave the funeral oration at Whitman's grave.

Also: walt whitman.

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