 Individualism, a Reader, edited by George H. Smith and Marilyn Moore, narrated by James Foster. 23. From Individuality, Robert G. Ingersoll, The Gods and Other Lectures, Washington, D.C., C. P. Ferrell, 1879. Robert Green Ingersoll, 1833-1899, an icon of American free thought, was an attorney, abolitionist, Republican politician, and orator who served in the Illinois Volunteer Cavalry during the Civil War. Ingersoll defended the absolute separation of church and state and freedom in matters of conscience. He promoted the acceptance of agnosticism and became known as the Great Infidel. Ingersoll was a renowned orator, and most of his works were originally delivered as speeches. In the following passage Ingersoll argues for the importance of individuality to civilization. It is a blessed thing that in every age someone has had individuality enough and courage enough to stand by his own convictions, someone who had the grandeur to say his say. I believe it was Magellan who said, The church says the earth is flat, but I have seen its shadow on the moon, and I have more confidence even in a shadow than in the church. On the prow of his ship were disobedience, defiance, scorn, and success. Whoever believes that the command of power tramples his own individuality beneath his feet and voluntarily robs himself of all that renders man superior to the brute. All that is good in our civilization is the result of commerce, climate, soil, geographical position, industry, invention, discovery, art, and science. The church has been the enemy of progress for the reason that it has endeavored to prevent man thinking for himself. To prevent thought is to prevent all advancement except in the direction of faith. Who can imagine the infinite impudence of a church assuming to think for the human race? Who can imagine the infinite impudence of a church that pretends to be the mouthpiece of God and in his name threatens to inflict eternal punishment upon those who honestly reject its claims and scorn its pretensions? By what right does a man or an organization of men or a god claim to hold a brain in bondage? When a fact can be demonstrated, force is unnecessary. When it cannot be demonstrated, an appeal to force is infamous. In the presence of the unknown all have an equal right to think. Over the vast plain called life we are all travelers and not one traveler is perfectly certain that he is going in the right direction. True it is that no other plain is so well supplied with guideboards. At every turn and crossing you will find them and upon each one is written the exact direction and distance. One great trouble is, however, that these boards are all different and the result is that most travelers are confused in proportion to the number they read. Thousands of people are around each of these signs and each one is doing his best to convince the traveler his particular board is the only one upon which the least reliance can be placed and that if his road is taken the reward for so doing will be infinite and eternal while all the other roads are said to lead to hell and the makers of the other guideboards are declared to be heretics, hypocrites and liars. Well, says a traveler, you may be right in what you say but allow me at least to read some of the other directions and examine a little into their claims. I wish to rely a little upon my own judgment in a matter of so great importance. No, sir, shouts the zealot, that is the very thing you are not allowed to do. You must go my way without investigation or you are as good as damned already. Well, says the traveler, if that is so I believe I had better go your way and so most of them go along taking the word of those who know as little as themselves. Now and then comes one who in spite of all threats calmly examines the claims of all and as calmly rejects them all. These travelers take roads of their own and are denounced by all the others as infidels and atheists. In my judgment every human being should take a road of his own. Every mind should be true to itself, should think, investigate and conclude for itself. This is a duty alike incumbent upon pauper and prince. Every soul should repel dictation and tyranny no matter from what source they come, from earth or heaven, from men or gods. Besides every traveler upon this vast plain should give to every other traveler his best idea as to the road that should be taken. Each is entitled to the honest opinion of all and there is but one way to get an honest opinion upon any subject whatever. The person giving the opinion must be free from fear. The merchant must not fear to lose his custom, the doctor his practice, nor the preacher his pulpit. There can be no advance without liberty. Suppression of honest inquiry is retrogression and must end in intellectual night. The tendency of orthodox religion today is toward mental slavery and barbarism. Not one of the orthodox ministers dare preach what he thinks if he knows a majority of his congregation think otherwise. He knows that every member of his church stands guard over his brain with a creed like a club in his hand. He knows that he is not expected to search after the truth but that he is employed to defend the creed. Every pulpit is a pillory in which stands a hired culprit defending the justice of his own imprisonment. Is it desirable that all should be exactly alike in their religious convictions? Is any such thing possible? Do we not know that there are no two persons alike in the whole world? No two trees, no two leaves, no two anythings that are alike. Infinite diversity is the law. Religion tries to force all minds into one mold, knowing that all cannot believe the church endeavors to make all say they believe. She longs for the unity of hypocrisy and detests the splendid diversity of individuality and freedom. Nearly all people stand in great horror of annihilation and yet to give up your individuality is to annihilate yourself. Mental slavery is mental death and every man who has given up his intellectual freedom is the living coffin of his dead soul. We should all remember that to be like other people is to be unlike ourselves and that nothing can be more detestable in character than servile imitation. The great trouble with imitation is that we are apt to ape those who are in reality far below us. After all, the poorest bargain that a human being can make is to give his individuality for what is called respectability. There is no saying more degrading than this. It is better to be the tale of a lion than the head of a dog. It is a responsibility to think and act for yourself. Most people hate responsibility, therefore they join something and become the tale of some lion. They say, my party can act for me, my church can do my thinking. It is enough for me to pay taxes and obey the lion to which I belong without troubling myself about the right, the wrong, or the why or the wherefore of anything whatever. These people are respectable. They hate reformers and dislike exceedingly to have their minds disturbed. They regard convictions as very disagreeable things to have. They love forms and enjoy beyond everything else telling what a splendid tale their lion has and what a troublesome dog their neighbour is. Besides this natural inclination to avoid personal responsibility is and always has been the fact that every religionist has warned men against the presumption and wickedness of thinking for themselves. The reason has been denounced by all Christendom as the only unsafe guide. The church has left nothing undone to prevent man following the logic of his brain. The plainest facts have been covered with the mantle of mystery. The grossest absurdities have been declared to be self-evident facts. The order of nature has been, as it were, reversed that the hypocritical few might govern the honest many. The man who stood by the conclusion of his reason was denounced as a scornor and hater of God and his holy church. From the organisation of the first church until this moment to think your own thoughts has been inconsistent with membership. Every member has borne the marks of collar and chain and whip. No man ever seriously attempted to reform a church without being cast out and hunted down by the hounds of hypocrisy. The highest crime against a creed is to change it. Reformation is treason. There can be nothing more utterly subversive of all that is really valuable than the suppression of honest thought. No man worthy of the form he bears will, at the command of church or state, solemnly repeat a creed his reason scorns. It is the duty of each and every one to maintain his individuality. This, above all, to thine own self be true, and it must follow as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man. It is a magnificent thing to be the sole proprietor of yourself. It is a terrible thing to wake up at night and say there is nobody in this bed. It is humiliating to know that your ideas are all borrowed, that you are indebted to your memory for your principles, that your religion is simply one of your habits, and that you would have convictions if they were only contagious. It is mortifying to feel that you belong to a mental mob and cry, Crucify him, because the others do, that you reap what the great and brave have sown, and that you can benefit the world only by leaving it. Surely every human being ought to attain to the dignity of the unit. Surely it is worth something to be one, and to feel that the senses of the universe would be incomplete without counting you. Surely there is grandeur in knowing that in the realm of thought, at least, you are without a chain, that you have the right to explore all heights and all depths, that there are no walls nor fences nor prohibited places, nor sacred corners in all the vast expanse of thought, that your intellect owes no allegiance to any being human or divine, that you hold all in fee and upon no condition and by no tenure whatever, that in the world of mind you are relieved from all personal dictation and from the ignorant tyranny of majorities. Surely it is worth something to feel that there are no priests, no popes, no parties, no governments, no kings, no gods to whom your intellect can be compelled to pay a reluctant homage. Surely it is a joy to know that all the cruel ingenuity of bigotry can devise no prison, no dungeon, no cell in which for one instant to confine a thought, that ideas cannot be dislocated by racks nor crushed in iron boots, nor burned with fire. Surely it is sublime to think that the brain is a castle and within its curious bastions and winding halls the soul in spite of all worlds and beings is the supreme sovereign of itself. This has been Individualism a Reader, edited by George H. Smith and Marilyn Moore, narrated by James Foster. Copyright 2015 by the Cato Institute. Production copyright 2015 by the Cato Institute.