The Lecture
Delivered in 1898, one of the last years of Ingersoll’s life, “Superstition” represents his mature thinking on the hold that irrational belief maintains over human societies — and his undimmed faith that reason and education will eventually prevail.
The Definition of Superstition
Superstition is a belief held without evidence, maintained in spite of contrary evidence, and defended against examination by appeals to authority, tradition, or fear.
By this definition, much of what passes for religion in the world is superstition. Not all of it — there is much in religion that is genuinely wise, genuinely beautiful, genuinely humane. But a very great deal of it is the residue of ancient fear and ancient ignorance, preserved by institutions that benefit from its preservation.
The Cost of Superstition
Superstition has cost the human race incalculable suffering.
It has justified torture — the torture of witches, of heretics, of those who dared to think differently from the authorities of their time.
It has justified slavery — by citing Noah’s curse on the sons of Ham, by teaching that the existing social order was divinely ordained and therefore not to be questioned.
It has opposed every medical advance — vaccination, anesthesia, surgery, the germ theory of disease — on the grounds that the suffering it relieves is the will of God and therefore not to be interfered with.
It has kept women in subjection — by citing St. Paul’s commands for female silence and submission, by teaching that the subordination of women was part of the divine order.
It has opposed every form of intellectual progress — by condemning Copernicus, Galileo, Darwin, and a thousand others for finding facts that did not fit the received doctrine.
The bill that superstition has presented to the human race is enormous. We are still paying it.
Science as the Antidote
I believe that the antidote to superstition is science — not merely the facts of science, but the scientific method, the scientific habit of mind.
The scientific mind asks: “What is the evidence?” It does not ask: “What does the tradition say?” or “What do the authorities command?” or “What would I like to be true?”
It asks: “What is the evidence?” And it is willing to accept the answer, even if the answer is uncomfortable.
This habit of mind — cultivated widely, applied generally — is the most powerful force for human improvement in the history of the race.
“Science has done more for the liberation of the human mind than any other force in history.”
The End of Superstition
I believe that superstition is dying. Slowly, painfully, unevenly — with fierce resistance from those who benefit from its survival — but dying.
Every school that teaches science is a blow to superstition. Every book that explains the natural world in natural terms is a blow to superstition. Every honest conversation in which a person says “I don’t know, and neither do you” is a blow to superstition.
The process is slow because superstition has powerful allies: fear, tradition, and the natural human desire for comfort and certainty. These are not easy enemies to defeat.
But they will be defeated. They are already, in many places, retreating.
The day will come — I believe it will come — when no child will be frightened by the threat of eternal punishment for honest doubt. When no one will be persecuted for following the evidence of their reason. When the liberty of conscience will be as fundamental and uncontested as any other human right.
I will not live to see that day. But it is coming.
A Vision of the Future
I see a world where every school teaches the best that human knowledge has accumulated — honestly, without the distortions of doctrine. Where every child is taught to ask “How do we know?” rather than “What are we told to believe?”
I see a world where governments are made by the people and answerable to the people, and where no priest or prelate claims the right to direct the consciences of citizens.
I see a world where the liberty of thought — the most fundamental of all liberties — is treated as sacred and inviolable.
I see a world where human beings, freed from the fog of superstition, turn their full energies to the conquest of poverty, disease, and ignorance — and actually make progress.
“The man who does not doubt is on the road to becoming a barbarian.”
I do not know if this world will come. I hope it will. I work toward it as best I can. And I find, in the hoping and the working, a kind of happiness that no superstition has ever given me.
The complete text of “Superstition” appears in Volume 4 of the Dresden Edition.