{
  "schema": "tga.work.v1",
  "identifier": "dresden:vol-11:inspiration",
  "slug": "inspiration",
  "title": "Inspiration",
  "subtitle": "Essay.",
  "excerpt": "A short essay on the meaning and limits of the word \\\"inspiration\\\" — its use by the orthodox, and its proper use among human beings.",
  "year": 1887,
  "volume": 11,
  "category": "Essay",
  "author": {
    "name": "Robert G. Ingersoll",
    "wikidata": "Q360326",
    "viaf": "44331023"
  },
  "isPartOf": {
    "title": "The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll",
    "edition": "Dresden Edition",
    "publisher": "C. P. Farrell",
    "year": 1900
  },
  "license": "https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/",
  "url": "https://thegreatagnostic.com/works/inspiration/",
  "wordCount": 1386,
  "body": "WE are told that we have in our possession the inspired will of God.\nWhat is meant by the word \"inspired\" is not exactly known; but whatever\nelse it may mean, certainly it means that the \"inspired\" must be the\ntrue. If it is true, there is in fact no need of its being inspired—the\ntruth will take care of itself.\n\nThe church is forced to say that the Bible differs from all other books;\nit is forced to say that it contains the actual will of God. Let us then\nsee what inspiration really is. A man looks at the sea, and the sea\nsays something to him. It makes an impression upon his mind. It awakens\nmemory, and this impression depends upon the man's experience—upon\nhis intellectual capacity. Another looks upon the same sea. He has a\ndifferent brain; he has had a different experience. The sea may speak\nto him of joy; to the other of grief and tears. The sea cannot tell the\nsame thing to any two human beings, because no two human beings have had\nthe same experience.\n\nAnother, standing upon the shore, listening to what the great Greek\ntragedian called \"The multitudinous laughter of the sea,\" may say: Every\ndrop has visited all the shores of the earth; every one has been frozen\nin the vast and icy North; every one has fallen in snow, has been\nwhirled by storms around mountain peaks; every one has been kissed to\nvapor by the sun; every one has worn the seven-hued garment of light;\nevery one has fallen in pleasant rain, gurgled from springs and laughed\nin brooks while lovers wooed upon the banks, and every one has rushed\nwith mighty rivers back to the sea's embrace. Everything in Nature tells\na different story to all eyes that see, and to all ears that hear.\n\nOnce in my life, and once only, I heard Horace Greeley deliver a\nlecture. I think the title was \"Across the Continent.\" At last he\nreached the mammoth trees of California, and I thought, \"Here is an\nopportunity for the old man to indulge his fancy. Here are trees that\nhave outlived a thousand human governments. There are limbs above his\nhead older than the pyramids. While man was emerging from barbarism\nto something like civilization, these trees were growing. Older than\nhistory, every one appeared to be a memory, a witness, and a prophecy.\nThe same wind that filled the sails of the Argonauts had swayed these\ntrees.\" But these trees said nothing of this kind to Mr. Greeley. Upon\nthese subjects not a word was told him. Instead, he took his pencil, and\nafter figuring awhile, remarked: \"One of these trees, sawed into inch\nboards, would make more than three hundred thousand feet of lumber.\"\n\nI was once riding in the cars in Illinois. There had been a violent\nthunder storm. The rain had ceased, the sun was going down. The\ngreat clouds had floated toward the west, and there they assumed most\nwonderful architectural shapes. There were temples and palaces domed\nand turreted, and they were touched with silver, with amethyst and gold.\nThey looked like the homes of the Titans, or the palaces of the gods.\nA man was sitting near me. I touched him and said, \"Did you ever see\nanything so beautiful?\" He looked out. He saw nothing of the cloud,\nnothing of the sun, nothing of the color; he saw only the country, and\nreplied, \"Yes, it is beautiful; I always did like rolling land.\"\n\nOn another occasion I was riding in a stage. There had been a snow, and\nafter the snow a sleet, and all the trees were bent, and all the boughs\nwere arched. Every fence, every log cabin, had been transfigured,\ntouched with a glory almost beyond this world. The great fields were a\npure and perfect white; the forests, drooping beneath their load of gems,\nmade wonderful caves, from which one almost expected to see troops of\nfairies come. The whole world looked like a bride, jeweled from head to\nfoot. A German on the back seat, hearing our talk, and our exclamations\nof wonder, leaned forward, looked out of the stage window, and said,\n\"Y-a-a-s; it looks like a clean table cloth!\"\n\nSo, when we look upon a flower, a painting, a statue, a star, or a\nviolet, the more we know, the more we have experienced, the more we\nhave thought, the more we remember,—the more the statue, the star,\nthe painting, the violet, has to tell. Nature says to me all that I am\ncapable of understanding—gives all that I can receive.\n\nAs with star or flower or sea, so with a book. A man reads Shakespeare.\nWhat does he get from him? All that he has the mind to understand. He\ngets his little cup full. Let another read him who knows nothing of the\ndrama, nothing of the impersonations of passion, and what does he get?\nAlmost nothing. Shakespeare has a different story for each reader. He\nis a world in which each recognizes his acquaintances—he may know a\nfew—he may know all.\n\nThe impression that Nature makes upon the mind, the stories told by sea\nand star and flower, must be the natural food of thought. Leaving out\nfor the moment the impression gained from ancestors, the hereditary\nfears and drifts and trends—the natural food of thought must be the\nimpression made upon the brain by coming in contact, through the medium\nof the five senses, with what we call the outward world. The brain is\nnatural. Its food is natural. The result—thought—must be natural. The\nsupernatural can be constructed with no material except the natural. Of\nthe supernatural we can have no conception.\n\n\"Thought\" may be deformed, and the thought of one may be strange to, and\ndenominated as unnatural by, another; but it cannot be supernatural.\nIt may be weak, it may be insane, but it is not supernatural. Above\nthe natural, man cannot rise. There can be deformed ideas, as there are\ndeformed persons. There can be religious monstrosities and misshapen,\nbut they must be naturally produced. Some people have ideas about\nwhat they are pleased to call the supernatural; what they call the\nsupernatural is simply the deformed. The world is to each man according\nto each man. It takes the world as it really is, and that man to make\nthat man's world, and that man's world cannot exist without that man.\n\nYou may ask, and what of all this? I reply: As with everything in\nNature, so with the Bible. It has a different story for each reader. Is\nthen, the Bible a different book to every human being who reads it? It\nis. Can God, then, through the Bible, make the same revelation to two\npersons? He cannot. Why? Because the man who reads it is the man who\ninspires. Inspiration is in the man, as well as in the book. God should\nhave \"inspired\" readers as well as writers.\n\nYou may reply, God knew that his book would be understood differently\nby each one; really intended that it should be understood as it is\nunderstood by each. If this is so, then my understanding of the Bible\nis the real revelation to me. If this is so, I have no right to take the\nunderstanding of another. I must take the revelation made to me through\nmy understanding, and by that revelation I must stand. Suppose, then,\nthat I do read this Bible honestly, carefully, and when I get through I\nam compelled to say, \"The book is not true!\"\n\nIf this is the honest result, then you are compelled to say, either that\nGod has made no revelation to me, or that the revelation that it is not\ntrue is the revelation made to me, and by which I am bound. If the book\nand my brain are both the work of the same infinite God, whose fault\nis it that the book and the brain do not agree? Either God should have\nwritten a book to fit my brain, or should have made my brain to fit his\nbook.\n\nThe inspiration of the Bible depends upon the ignorance of him who\nreads.—The Truth Seeker Annual, New York, 1885.\n"
}