The Lecture
First delivered in 1877, this lecture became one of Ingersoll’s most beloved — remarkable for its personal warmth as much as its philosophical argument. Where many of his lectures are argumentative and combative, this one is lyrical and tender, culminating in one of the most celebrated passages of Victorian-era prose.
On Liberty
Liberty, above all things, is my creed. Not the liberty of a nation, not the liberty of a class, not the liberty of the rich to exploit the poor — but the liberty of every human being to think for themselves, to live by their own conscience, and to pursue their own happiness without the interference of church or state.
Liberty is not a gift. It is a conquest. And it must be conquered anew by every generation, against the always-renewing forces of authority that would take it back.
On the Liberty of Man
The man who is free — truly free — is the man who thinks for himself. He reads all books, but he is chained to none. He hears all arguments, but he judges them by reason, not by the authority of those who make them.
The great enemies of man’s liberty are: first, the dogma that he must believe what the church commands; second, the assumption that his government has the right to tell him what he may or may not think; and third — most insidious — the laziness of his own mind that prefers to accept whatever it is told rather than go to the trouble of thinking for itself.
A free man does not ask: “What am I permitted to believe?” He asks: “What is true?” He does not ask: “What is safe?” He asks: “What is right?”
On the Liberty of Woman
I believe in the absolute equality of woman with man. I believe she has the same right to think, to vote, to own property, to practice any profession, to pursue any happiness that any man has.
I am not afraid of educated women. I am not afraid of women who think. I am not afraid of women who vote. I am only afraid of the man who fears these things, because he betrays, by his fear, his conviction that his own position cannot survive a fair examination.
The home is not the woman’s prison. The home should be, and can be, the scene of her highest freedom — but only if she chooses it, and only if the man beside her regards her as his equal and not his property.
“It is a magnificent thing to be the master of your fate, to be the one who gives your word and keeps it.”
On the Liberty of the Child
This is the part of my lecture that I care about most.
Children are not the property of their parents. Children are not the raw material from which dogmas are manufactured. Children are not born sinners, not born enemies of God, not born with a debt to be paid in suffering and submission.
Children are the most wonderful thing in the world.
When I see a child, I see a mind in its morning. I see curiosity that has not yet been extinguished. I see trust that has not yet been betrayed. I see a capacity for joy so immediate and so total that no adult has it anymore, or can have it, because the adult has lived long enough to know that joy can end.
What do we owe the child?
We owe the child truth. Not comfortable myths — truth. We owe the child the honest acknowledgment that there are things we do not know, and that not knowing is respectable.
We owe the child liberty — the liberty to form their own opinions, to question the received wisdom, to come to their own conclusions by their own road.
We owe the child love — not the conditional love that says “I will love you if you believe what I believe,” but the unconditional love that says “I love you, whatever you believe, and I will be here.”
And we owe the child, above all, the right to be happy. Not happy in another world — happy now.
The Dream of Home
I have a dream of what a home should be.
I dream of a home where there is no fear. Where the child comes to the father with its question, and the father says “I do not know — let us find out together.” Where the mother reads aloud from books that open doors, not from books that close them.
I dream of a home where husband and wife are genuine companions — where they discuss their thoughts, share their doubts, debate their opinions, and respect each other’s conclusions even when they differ.
I dream of a home filled with music and laughter and honest conversation and the warmth of people who genuinely care for one another.
I dream of a home where no child is frightened into faith, and no child is punished for honest doubt.
I dream of a home where the religion practiced is the religion of kindness, and the god worshipped is the god of love.
The Only Heaven
Let me tell you the only heaven I know.
It is a winter night. The house is warm. The children are asleep. The fire is low. My wife is reading, and I am watching her read, and thinking how beautiful she is, and how fortunate I am to be alive and to know her.
That is heaven.
It is not eternal. Nothing is. But it is real, and it is good, and it is here, and it is now.
“The time to be happy is now. The place to be happy is here. The way to be happy is to make others so.”
This is my creed. I have no other.
The complete text of “The Liberty of Man, Woman and Child” is available at Project Gutenberg.