 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Lectures of Colonel Robert Green Ingersoll, Volume 1. Chapter 1. Ingersoll's Lecture on Gods Ladies and gentlemen, an honest God is the noblest work of man. Each nation has created a God, and the God has always resembled His creators. He hated and loved what they hated and loved, and He was invariably found on the side of those in power. Each God was intensely patriotic and detested all nations but His own. All these gods demanded praise, flattery, and worship. Most of them were pleased with sacrifice, and the smell of innocent blood has ever been considered a divine perfume. All these gods have insisted upon having a vast number of priests, and the priests have always insisted upon being supported by the people, and the principal business of these priests has been to boast about their God and to insist that He could easily vanquish all the other gods put together. These gods have been manufactured after numberless models, and according to the most grotesque fashions. Some have a thousand arms, some a hundred heads, some are adorned with necklaces of living snakes, some are armed with clubs, some with sword and shield, some with bucklers, and some with wings as a cherub. Some were invisible, some would show themselves in tire, and some would only show their backs. Some were jealous, some were foolish, some turned themselves into men, some into swans, some into bulls, some into doves, and some into holy ghosts, and made love to the beautiful daughters of men. Some were married, all ought to have been, and some were considered as old bachelors from all eternity. Some had children, and the children were turned into gods and worshipped as their fathers had been. Most of these gods were revengeful, savage, lustful, and ignorant. As they generally depended upon their priests for information, their ignorance can hardly excite our astonishment. These gods did not even know the shape of the worlds they had created, but supposed them perfectly flat. Some thought the day could be lengthened by stopping the sun, that the blowing of horns could throw down the walls of a city, and all knew so little of the real nature of the people they had created, that they commanded the people to love them. Some were so ignorant as to suppose that man could believe just as he might desire or as might command, and to be governed by observation, reason, and experience was a most foul and damning sin. None of these gods could give a true account of the creation of this little earth. All were woefully deficient in geology and astronomy. As a rule, they were most miserable legislators, and as executives, they were far inferior to the average of American presidents. The deities have demanded the most abject and degrading obedience. In order to please them, man must lay his very face in the dust. Of course, they have always been partial to the people who created them, and they have generally shown their partiality by assisting those people to rob and destroy others and to ravish their wives and daughters. Nothing is so pleasing to these gods as the butchery of unbelievers. Nothing so enrages them even now as to have someone deny their existence. Few nations have been so poor as to have but one god. Gods were made so easily and the raw material cost so little that generally the god market was fairly glutted, and heaven crammed with these phantoms. These gods not only attended to the skies but were supposed to interfere in all the affairs of men. They presided over everybody and everything. They attended to every department. They were supposed to be under their immediate control. Nothing was too small, nothing too large. The falling of sparrows and the motions of planets were alike attended to by these industrious and observing deities. From their starry thrones they frequently came to the earth for the purpose of imparting information to man. It is related of one that he came amid thunderings and lightnings in order to tell the people they should not cook a kid in its mother's milk. Some left their shining abode to tell women that they should or should not have children, to inform a priest how to cut and wear his apron and to give directions as to the proper manner for cleaning the intestines of a bird. When the people failed to worship one of these gods or failed to feed and clothe his priests, which was much the same thing, he generally visited them with pestilence and famine. Sometimes he allowed some other nation to drag them into slavery, to sell their wives and children, but generally he glutted his vengeance by murdering their firstborn. The priests always did their whole duty, not only in predicting these calamities, but in proving, when they did happen, that they were brought upon the people because they had not given quite enough to them. These gods differed just as the nations differed. The greatest and most powerful had the most powerful gods, while the weaker ones were obliged to content themselves with the very off-scourings of the heavens. Each of these gods promised happiness here and hereafter to all his slaves and threatened to eternally punish all who either disbelieved in his existence or suspected that some other god might be his superior. But to deny the existence of all gods was and is the crime of crimes. Redden your hands with human blood, blast by slander the fair fame of the innocent, strangle the smiling child upon its mother's knees, deceive, ruin and desert the beautiful girl who loves and trusts you, and your case is not hopeless. For all this and for all these you may be forgiven. For all this and for all these that bankrupt court established by the gospel will give you a discharge. Deny the existence of these divine ghosts, of these gods, and the sweet and tearful face of mercy becomes livid with eternal hate. Heaven's golden gates are shut, and you, with an infinite curse ringing in your ears, with the brand of infamy upon your brow, commence your endless wanderings in the lurid gloom of hell, an immortal vagrant, an eternal outcast, a deathless convict. One of these gods, and one who demands our love, our admiration and our worship, and one who is worshiped, if mere heartless ceremony is worship, gave to his chosen people for their guidance the following laws of war. When thou comest nigh unto a city to fight against it, then proclaim peace unto it, and it shall be, if it make the answer of peace, and open unto thee, then it shall be that all people that is found therein shall be tributaries unto thee, and they shall serve thee, and if it will make no peace with thee, but will make war against thee, then thou shalt be siege it, and when the Lord thy God hath delivered it into thine hands, thou shalt smite every male thereof with the edge of the sword, but the women and the little ones, and the cattle and all that is in the city, even all the spoil thereof, shalt thou take unto thyself, and thou shalt eat the spoil of thine enemies which the Lord thy God hath given thee. Thus shalt thou do unto all the cities which are very far off from thee, which are not of the cities of these nations, but of the cities of these people which the Lord thy God doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth. Is it possible for man to conceive of anything more perfectly infamous? Can you believe that such directions were given by any except an infinite fiend? Remember that the army receiving these instructions was one of invasion. Peace was offered on condition that the people submitting should be the slaves of the invader, but if any should have the courage to defend their home to fight for the love of wife and child, then the sword was to spare none, not even the prattling dimpled babe. And we are called upon to worship such a God, to get upon our knees and tell him that he is good, that he is merciful, that he is just, that he is love. We are asked to stifle every noble sentiment of the soul and to trample underfoot all the sweet charities of the heart, because we refuse to stultify ourselves, refuse to become liars. We are denounced, hated, traduced and ostracised here, and this same God threatens to torment us in eternal fire the moment death allows him to fiercely clutch our naked helpless souls. Let the people hate, let the God threaten. We will educate them and we will despise and defy him. The book called the Bible is filled with passages equally horrible, unjust and atrocious. This is the book to read in schools in order to make our children loving, kind and gentle. This is the book recognised in our constitution as the source of authority and justice. Strange that no one has ever been persecuted by the church for believing God bad, while hundreds of millions have been destroyed for thinking him good. The Orthodox Church will never forgive the Universalist for saying God is love. It has always been considered as one of the very highest evidence of true and undefiled religion to insist that all men, women and children deserve eternal damnation. It has always been heresy to say God will at last save all. We are asked to justify these frightful passages, these infamous laws of war, because the Bible is the word of God. As a matter of fact there never was and there never can be an argument even tending to prove the inspiration of any book whatever. In the absence of positive evidence, analogy and experience, argument is simply impossible and at the very best can only amount to a useless agitation of the air. The instant we admit that a book is too sacred to be doubted or even reasoned about, we are mental serfs. It is infinitely absurd to suppose that a God would address a communication to intelligent beings and yet make it a crime to be punished in eternal flames for them to use their intelligence for the purpose of understanding his communication. If we have the right to use our reason, we certainly have the right to act in accordance with it. And no God can have the right to punish us for such action. The doctrine that future happiness depends upon belief is monstrous. It is the infamy of infamies. The notion that faith in Christ is to be rewarded by an eternity of bliss while a dependence upon reason, observation and experience merits everlasting pain is too absurd for refutation and can be relieved only by that unhappy mixture of insanity and ignorance called faith. What man, whoever thinks, can believe that blood can appease God and yet our entire system of religion is based upon that belief. The Jews pacified Jehovah with the blood of animals and according to the Christian system the blood of Jesus softened the heart of God a little and rendered possible the salvation of a fortunate few. It is hard to conceive how the human mind can give ascent to such terrible ideas or how any sane man can read the Bible and still believe in the doctrine of inspiration. Whether the Bible is true or false is of no consequence in comparison with the mental freedom of the race. Salvation through slavery is worthless. Salvation from slavery is inestimable. As long as man believes the Bible to be infallible that is his master. The civilization of this century is not the child of faith but of unbelief the result of free thought. All that is necessary as it seems to me to convince any reasonable person that the Bible is simply and purely of human invention of barbarian invention is to read it. Read it as you would any other book. Think of it as you would any other. Get the bandage of reverence from your eyes. Drive from your heart the phantom of fear. Push from the throne of your brain the cowled form of superstition. Then read the Holy Bible and you will be amazed that you ever for one moment supposed a being of infinite wisdom, goodness and purity to be the author of such ignorance and of such atrocity. Our ancestors not only had their guard factories but they made devils as well. These devils were generally disgraced and fallen guards. Some had headed unsuccessful revolts. Some had been caught sweetly reclining in the shadowy folds of some fleecy clouds kissing the wife of the God of guards. These devils generally sympathized with man. There is in regard to them a most wonderful fact. In nearly all the theologies mythologic and religious the devils have been much more humane and merciful than the guards. No devil ever gave one of his generals an order to kill children and to rip open the bodies of pregnant women. Such barbarities were always ordered by the good guards. The pestilences were sent by the most merciful guards. The frightful famine during which the dying child with pallid lips sucked the withered bosom of a dead mother was sent by the loving guards. No devil was ever charged with such fiendish brutality. One of these guards, according to the account, drowned an entire world with the exception of eight persons. The old, the young, the beautiful and the helpless were remorselessly devoured by the shoreless sea. This the most fearful tragedy that the imagination of ignorant priests ever conceived was the act not of a devil but of God so called. Then ignorantly worship unto this day. What a stain such an act would leave upon the character of a devil. One of the prophets of one of these guards, having in his power a captured king, hewed him in pieces in the sight of all the people. Was ever any imp of any devil guilty of such savagery? One of these guards is reported to have given the following directions concerning human slavery. If thou by a Hebrew servant six years shall he serve, and in the seventh he shall go out free for nothing. If he came in by himself he shall go out by himself. If he were married, then his wife shall go out with him. If his master have given him a wife, and she have borne him sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall be her masters, and he shall go out by himself. And if the servant shall plainly say, I love my master, my wife, and my children, I will not go out free, then his master shall bring him unto the judges. He shall also bring him unto the door or unto the doorpost, and his master shall bore his ear with an all, and he shall serve him for ever. According to this a man was given liberty upon condition that he would desert for ever his wife and child. Did any devil ever force upon a husband, upon a father, so cruel and so heartless an alternative? Who can worship such a God? Who can bend the knee to such a monster? Who can pray to such a fiend? All these guards threatened to torment forever the souls of their enemies. Did any devil make so infamous a threat? The basest thing recorded of the devil is what he did concerning Job and his family, and that was done by the express permission of one of these guards, and to decide a little difference of opinion between their serene hynuses as to the character of my servant Job. The first account we have of the devil is found in that purely scientific book called Genesis and is as follows. Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made, and he said unto the woman, Ye hath God said ye shall not eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden, and the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden, but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God had said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it lest ye die, and the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die, for God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil, and when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her, and he did eat. And the Lord God said, Behold the man has become as one of us to know good and evil, and now lest ye put forth his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat and live for ever. Therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the Garden of Eden to till the ground from which he was taken, so he drove out the man, and he placed at the east of the Garden of Eden cherubims and a flaming sword, which turned every way to keep the way of the tree of life. According to this account the promise of the devil was fulfilled to the very letter. Adam and Eve did not die, and they did become as gods, knowing good and evil. The account shows, however, that the gods dreaded education and knowledge then, just as they do now. The church still faithfully guards the dangerous tree of knowledge, and has exerted in all ages her utmost power to keep mankind from eating the fruit thereof. The priests have never ceased repeating the old falsehood and the old threat, ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it lest ye die. From every pulpit comes the same cry, born of the same fear, lest they eat and become as gods, knowing good and evil. For this reason religion hates science. Faith detests reason. Theology is the sworn enemy of philosophy. And the church, with its flaming sword, still guards the hated tree. And like its supposed founder, curses to the lowest depths the brave thinkers who eat and become as gods. If the account given in Genesis is really true, ought we not, after all, to thank this serpent? He was the first schoolmaster, the first advocate of learning, the first enemy of ignorance, the first to whisper in human ears the sacred word liberty, the creator of ambition, the author of modesty, of inquiry, of doubt, of investigation, of progress, and of civilization. Give me the storm and the tempest of thought and action rather than the dead calm of ignorance and faith. Banish me from Eden when you will, but first let me eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge. Some nations have borrowed their gods, of this number we are compelled to say is our own. The Jews, having ceased to exist as a nation and having no further use for a god, our ancestors appropriated him and adopted their devil at the same time. This borrowed god is still an object of some adoration, and this adopted devil still excites the apprehensions of our people. He is still supposed to be setting his traps and snares for the purpose of catching our unwary souls and is still, with reasonable success, waging the old war against our god. To me it seems easy to account for these ideas concerning gods and devils. They are a perfectly natural production. Man has created them all and under the same circumstances will create them again. Man has not only created all these gods, but he has created them out of the materials by which he has been surrounded. Generally he has modeled them after himself and has given them hands, heads, feet, eyes, ears, and organs of speech. Each nation made its gods and devils speak its language, not only, but put in their mouths the same mistakes in history, geography, astronomy, and in all matters of fact, generally made by the people. No god was ever in advance of the nation that created him. The Negroes represented their deities with black skins and curly hair. The Mongolian gave to him a yellow complexion and dark almond-shaped eyes. The Jews were not allowed to paint theirs, or we should have seen Jehovah with a full beard, an oval face, and an aquiline nose. Zeus was a perfect Greek, and Jove looked as though a member of the Roman Senate. The gods of Egypt had the patient face and placid look of the loving people who made them. The gods of northern countries were represented warmly clad in robes of fur. Those of the tropics were naked. The gods of India were often mounted upon elephants. Those of some islanders were great swimmers, and the deities of the Arctic zone were passionately fond of whale's blubber. Nearly all people have carved or painted representations of their gods, and these representations were by the lower classes generally treated as the real gods, and to these images and idols they addressed prayers and offered sacrifice. In some countries, even at this day, if the people after long praying do not obtain their desires, they turn their images off as impotent gods, or upbraid them in a most reproachful manner, loading them with blows and curses. How now, dog of a spirit they say, we give you lodging in a magnificent temple, we gild you with gold, feed you with the choicest food, and offer incense to you, yet after all this care you are so ungrateful as to refuse us what we ask. Hereupon they will pull the god down, and drag him through the filth of the street. If in the meantime it happens that they obtain their request, then with a great deal of ceremony they wash him clean, carry him back, and place him in his temple again, where they fall down and make excuses for what they have done. Of a truth they say, we were a little too hasty, and you were a little too long in your grant. Why should you bring this beating on yourself? But what is done cannot be undone. Let us not think of it any more. If you will forget what is past, we will gild you over brighter again than before. Man has never been at her loss for gods. He has worshiped almost everything, including the vilest and most disgusting beasts. He has worshiped fire, earth, air, water, light, stars, and for hundreds of ages prostrated himself before enormous snakes. Savage tribes often make gods of articles they get from civilized people. The Todas worship a cowbell. The Kotas worship two silver plates which they regard as husband and wife, and another tribe manufactured a god out of a king of hearts. Man having always been the physical superior of woman accounts for the fact that most of the high gods have been males. Had woman been the physical superior, the power supposed to be the rule of nature would have been woman, and instead of being represented in the apparel of man they would have luxuriated in trains, low-necked dresses, laces, and back hair. Nothing can be planer than that each nation gives to its god its peculiar characteristics and that every individual gives to his god his personal peculiarities. Man has no ideas and can have none except those suggested by his surroundings. He cannot conceive of anything utterly unlike what he has seen or felt. He can exaggerate, diminish, combine, separate, deform, beautify, improve, multiply, and compare what he sees, what he feels, what he hears, and all of which he takes cognizance through the medium of the senses, but he cannot create. Having seen exhibitions of power he can say omnipotent. Having lived he can say immortality. Knowing something of time he can say eternity. Conceiving something of intelligence he can say god. Having seen exhibitions of malice he can say devil. A few gleams of happiness having fallen a thwart the gloom of his life he can say heaven. Pain in its numberless forms having been experienced he can say hell. Yet all these ideas have a foundation in fact and only a foundation. The superstructure has been reared by exaggerating, diminishing, combining, separating, deforming, beautifying, improving, or multiplying realities, so that the edifice or fabric is but the incongruous grouping of what man has perceived through the medium of the senses. It is as though we should give to a lion the wings of an eagle, the hoofs of a bison, the tail of a horse, the pouch of a kangaroo, and the trunk of an elephant. We have in imagination created an impossible monster, and yet the various parts of this monster really exist, so it is with all the gods that man has made. Beyond nature man cannot go even in thought. Above nature he cannot rise, below nature he cannot fall. Man in his ignorance suppose that all phenomena were produced by some intelligent powers, and with direct reference to him. To preserve friendly relations with these powers was, and still is, the object of all religions. Man knelt through fear and to implore assistance, or through gratitude for some favour which he supposed had been rendered. He endeavoured by supplication to appease some being who, for some reason, had, as he believed, become enraged. The lightning and thunder terrified him. In the presence of the volcano he sank upon his knees. The great forests filled with wild and ferocious beasts, the monstrous serpents crawling in mysterious depths, the boundless sea, the flaming comets, the sinister eclipses, the awful calmness of the stars, and more than all, the perpetual presence of death convinced him that he was the sport and prey of unseen and malignant powers. The strange and frightful diseases to which he was subject, the freezings and burnings of fever, the contortions of epilepsy, the sudden palsies, the darkness of night, and the wild, terrible and fantastic dreams that filled his brain, satisfied him that he was haunted and pursued by countless spirits of evil. For some reason he supposed that these spirits differed in power, that they were not all alike malevolent, that the higher controlled the lower, and that his very existence depended upon gaining the assistance of the more powerful. For this purpose he resorted to prayer, to flattery, to worship, and to sacrifice. These ideas appear to have been almost universal in Savage Man. For ages all nations supposed that the sick and insane were possessed by evil spirits. For thousands of years the practice of medicine consisted in frightening these spirits away. Usually the priests would make the loudest and most discordant noises possible. They would blow horns, beat upon rude drums, clash, symbols, and in the meantime utter the most unearthly yells. If the noise remedy failed they would implore the aid of some more powerful spirit. To pacify these spirits was considered of infinite importance. The poor barbarian, knowing that men could be softened by gifts, gave to these spirits that which to him seemed of the most value. With bursting heart he would offer the blood of his dearest child. It was impossible for him to conceive of a God utterly unlike himself, and he naturally supposed that these powers of the air would be affected a little at the sight of so great and so deep a sorrow. It was with the barbarian then as with the civilized now. One class lived upon and made merchandise of the fears of another. Certain persons took it upon themselves to appease the gods and to instruct the people in their duties to these unseen powers. This was the origin of the priesthood. The priest pretended to stand between the wrath of the gods and the helplessness of man. He was man's attorney at the court of heaven. He carried to the invisible world a flag of truce, a protest, and a request. He came back with a command, with authority, and with power. Man fell upon his knees before his own servant, and the priest, taking advantage of the awe inspired by his supposed influence with the gods, made of his fellow man a cringing hypocrite and slave. Even Christ, the supposed son of God, taught that persons were possessed of evil spirits, and frequently, according to the account, gave proof of his divine origin and mission by frightening droves of devils out of his unfortunate countrymen. Casting out devils was his principal employment, and the devils thus banished, generally took occasion to acknowledge him as the true messiah, which was not only very kind of them, but quite fortunate for him. The religious people have always regarded the testimony of these devils as perfectly conclusive, and the writers of the New Testament quote the words of these imps of darkness with great satisfaction. The fact that Christ could withstand the temptations of the devil was considered as conclusive evidence that he was assisted by some God, or at least by some being superior to man. St. Matthew gives an account of an attempt made by the devil to tempt the supposed son of God, and it has always excited the wonder of Christians that the temptation was so nobly and heroically withstood. The account to which I refer is as follows. Then was Jesus led up of the spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil, and when the tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the son of God, command that these stones be made bread. But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. Then the devil taketh him up into the holy city, and seteth him upon a pinnacle of the temple and saith unto him, If thou be the son of God, cast thyself down, for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee, lest at any time thou shalt dash thy foot against a stone. Jesus said unto him, It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God. Again the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and showeth him all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them, and saith unto him, All these will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me. The Christians now claim that Jesus was God. If he was God, of course, the devil knew that fact, and yet according to this account the devil took the omnipotent God and placed him upon a pinnacle of the temple, and endeavored to induce him to dash himself against the earth. Failing in that he took the creator, owner and governor of the universe up into an exceeding high mountain, and offered him this world, this grain of sand, if he, the God of all the worlds, would fall down and worship him, a poor devil, without even a tax title to one foot of dirt. Is it possible the devil was such an idiot? Should any great credit be given to this deity for not being caught with such chaff? Think of it! The devil, the prince of sharpers, the king of cunning, the master of finesse, trying to bribe God with a grain of sand that belonged to God. Is there in all the religious literature of the world anything more grossly absurd than this? These devils, according to the Bible, were various kinds. Some could speak and hear, others were deaf and dumb. All could not be cast out in the same way. The deaf and dumb spirits were quite difficult to deal with. Saint Mark tells of a gentleman who brought his son to Christ. The boy, it seems, was possessed of a dumb spirit over which the disciples had no control. Jesus said unto the spirit, Thou dumb and deaf spirit, I charge thee come out of him and enter no more into him. Whereupon the deaf spirit, having heard what was said, cried out, being dumb, and immediately vacated the premises. The ease with which Christ controlled this deaf and dumb spirit excited the wonder of his disciples, and they asked him privately why they could not cast that spirit out, to which he replied, This kind can come forth by nothing but prayer and fasting. Is there a Christian in the whole world who would believe such a story if found in any other book? The trouble is these pious people shut up their reason and then open their Bible. In the olden times the existence of devils was universally admitted. The people had no doubt upon that subject, and from such belief it followed as a matter of course that a person in order to vanquish these devils had either to be a God or to be assisted by one. All founders of religions have established their claims to divine origin by controlling evil spirits and suspending the laws of nature. Casting out devils was a certificate of divinity. A prophet unable to cope with the powers of darkness was regarded with contempt. The utterance of the highest and noblest sentiments, the most blameless and holy life, commanded but little respect, unless accompanied by power to work miracles and command spirits. This belief in good and evil powers had its origin in the fact that man was surrounded by what he was pleased to call good and evil phenomena. Phenomena affecting man pleasantly were ascribed to good spirits, while those affecting him unpleasantly or injuriously were ascribed to evil spirits. It being admitted that all phenomena were produced by spirits, the spirits were divided according to the phenomena and the phenomena were good or bad as they affected man. Good spirits were supposed to be the authors of good phenomena and evil spirits of the evil, so that the idea of a devil has been as universal as the idea of a God. Many writers maintain that an idea to become universal must be true, that all universal ideas are innate and that innate ideas cannot be false. If the fact that an idea has been universal proves that it is innate and if the fact that an idea is innate proves that it is correct, then the believer in innate ideas must admit that the evidence of a God superior to nature and of a devil superior to nature is exactly the same and that the existence of such a devil must be as self-evident as the existence of such a God. The truth is, a God was inferred from good and a devil from bad phenomena and it is just as natural and logical to suppose that a devil would cause happiness as to suppose that a God would produce misery. Consequently, if an intelligence, infinite and supreme, is the immediate author of all phenomena, it is difficult to determine whether such intelligence is the friend or enemy of man. If phenomena were all good, we might say they were all produced by a perfectly beneficent being. If they were all bad, we might say they were produced by a perfectly malevolent power. But as phenomena are, as they affect man, both good and bad, they must be produced by different and antagonistic spirits, by one who is sometimes actuated by kindness and sometimes by malice, or all must be produced of necessity and without reference to their consequences upon man. The foolish doctrine that all phenomena can be traced to the interference of good and evil spirits has been and still is almost universal, that most people still believe in some spirit that can change the natural order of events is proven by the fact that nearly all resort to prayer. Thousands at this very moment are probably imploring some supposed power to interfere in their behalf. Some want health restored, some ask that the loved and absent be watched over and protected, some pray for riches, some for reign, some want diseases stayed, some vainly ask for food, some ask for revivals, a few ask for more wisdom, and now and then one tells the Lord to do as he thinks best. Thousands ask to be protected from the devil, some, like David, pray for revenge, and some implore even God not to lead them into temptation. All these prayers rest upon and are produced by the idea that some power not only can, but probably will, change the order of the universe. This belief has been among the great majority of tribes and nations. All sacred books are filled with the accounts of such interferences and our own Bible is no exception to this rule. If we believe in a power superior to nature, it is perfectly natural to suppose that such power can and will interfere in the affairs of this world. If there is no interference, of what practical use can such power be? The scriptures give us the most wonderful accounts of divine interference. Animals talk like men, springs gurgle from dry bones, the sun and moon stop in the heavens in order that General Joshua may have more time to murder. The shadow on a dial goes back ten degrees to convince a petty king of a barbarous people that he is not going to die of a boil. Fire refused to burn, water positively declined to seek its level, but stands up like a wall. Grains of sand become lice, common walking sticks to gratify a mere freak twist themselves into serpents and then swallow each other by way of exercise. Mermoring streams laughing at the attraction of gravitation run uphill for years following wandering tribes from a pure love of frolic. Prophecy becomes altogether easier than history. The sons of God become enamored of the world's girls. Women are changed into salt for the purpose of keeping a great event fresh in the minds of man. An excellent article of Brimstone is imported from heaven free of duty. Clothes refuse to wear out for forty years. Birds keep restaurants and feed wandering prophets free of expense. Bears tear children in pieces for laughing at old men without wigs. Muscular development depends upon the length of one's hair. Dead people come to life simply to get a joke on their enemies and heirs. Witches and wizards converse freely with the souls of the departed and God himself becomes a stone cutter and engraver after having been a tailor and dressmaker. The veil between heaven and hell was always rent or lifted. The shadows of this world, the radiance of heaven and the glare of hell mixed and mingled until man became uncertain as to which country he really inhabited. Man dwelt in an unreal world. He mistook his ideas, his dreams for real things. His fears became terrible and malicious monsters. He lived in the midst of furies and fairies, nymphs and niads, goblins and ghosts, witches and wizards, sprites and spooks, deities and devils. The obscure and gloomy depths were filled with claw and wing with beak and hoof with leering look and sneering mouths, with the malice of deformity, with the cunning of hatred and with all the slimy forms that fear can draw and paint upon the shadowy canvas of the dark. It is enough to make one almost insane with pity to think what man in the long night has suffered of the tortures he has endured surrounded as he supposed by malignant powers and clutched by the fierce phantoms of the air. No wonder that he fell upon his trembling knees, that he built altars and reddened them even with his own blood. No wonder that he implored ignorant priests and impudent magicians for aid. No wonder that he crawled groveling in the dust to the temple's door and there in the insanity of despair besought the deaf gods to hear his bitter cry of agony and fear. The savage as he emerges from a state of barbarism gradually loses faith in his idols of wood and stone and in their place puts a multitude of spirits. As he advances in knowledge he generally discards the petty spirits and in their stead believes in one whom he supposes to be infinite and supreme. Supposing this great spirit to be superior to nature he offers worship or flattery in exchange for assistance. At last finding that he obtains no aid from this supposed deity, finding that every search after the absolute must of necessity end in failure, finding that man cannot by any possibility conceive of the conditionless. He begins to investigate the facts by which he is surrounded and to depend upon himself. The people are beginning to think, to reason and to investigate. Slowly, painfully, but surely the gods are being driven from the earth. Only upon rare occasions are they even by the most religious supposed to interfere in the affairs of men. In most matters we are at last supposed to be free. Since the invention of steamships and railways so that the products of all countries can be easily interchanged the gods have quit the business of producing famine. Now and then they kill a child because it is idolized by its parents as a rule they have given up causing accidents on railroads exploding boilers and bursting kerosene lamps. Cholera, yellow fever and smallpox are still considered heavenly weapons but measles, itch and ague are now attributed to natural causes. As a general thing the gods have stopped drowning children except as a punishment for violating the Sabbath. They still pay some attention to the affairs of kings, men of genius and persons of great wealth but ordinary people are left to shirk for themselves as best they may. In wars between great nations the gods still interfere but in prize fights the best man with an honest referee is almost sure to win. The church cannot abandon the idea of special providence. To give up that doctrine is to give up all. The church must insist that prayer is answered, that some power superior to nature hears and grants the request of the sincere and humble Christian and that this same power in some mysterious way provides for all. A devout clergyman sought every opportunity to impress upon the mind of his son the fact that God takes care of all his creatures that the falling sparrow attracts his attentions and that his loving kindness is over all his works. Happening one day to see a crane wading in quest of food the good man pointed out to his son the perfect adaptation of the crane to get his living in that manner. See, said he, how his legs are formed for wading, what a long slender bill he has. Observe how nicely he folds his feet when putting them in or drawing them out of the water. He does not cause the slightest ripple. He is thus enabled to approach the fish without giving them any notice of his arrival. My son, said he, it is impossible to look at that bird without recognizing the design as well as the goodness of God in thus providing the means of subsistence. Yes, replied the boy, I think I see the goodness of God at least so far as the crane is concerned. But after all, Father, don't you think the arrangement is a little tough on the fish? Even the advanced religionist, although disbelieving in any great amount of interference by the gods in this age of the world, still thinks that in the beginning some God made the laws governing the universe. He believes that in consequence of these laws a man can lift a greater weight with than without a lever, that this God so made matter and so established the order of things that two bodies cannot occupy the same space at the same time, so that a body once put in motion will keep moving until it is stopped, so that it is a greater distance around than across a circle, so that a perfect square has four equal sides instead of five or seven. He insists that it took a direct interposition of providence to make the whole greater than a part, and that had it not been for this power superior to nature, twice one might have been more than twice two, and sticks and strings might have had only one end apiece. Like the old scotch divine, he thanks God that Sunday comes at the end instead of in the middle of the week, and that death comes at the close instead of at the commencement of life, thereby giving us time to prepare for that holy day and that most solemn event. These religious people see nothing but design everywhere and personal intelligent interference in everything. They insist that the universe has been created and that the adaptation of means to ends is perfectly apparent. They point us to the sunshine, to the flowers, to the April rain, and to all there is of beauty and of use in the world. Did it ever occur to them that a cancer is as beautiful in its development as is the reddest rose, that what they are pleased to call the adaptation of means to ends is as apparent in the cancer as in the April rain? How beautiful the process of digestion. By what ingenious methods the blood is poisoned so that the cancer shall have food. By what wonderful contrivances the entire system of man is made to pay tribute to this divine and charming cancer. See by what admirable instrumentalities it feeds itself from the surrounding, quivering, dainty flesh. See how it gradually but surely expands and grows by what marvellous mechanism it is supplied with long and slender roots that reach out to the most secret nerves of pain for sustenance in life. What beautiful colours it presents seen through the microscope it is a miracle of order and beauty. All the ingenuity of man cannot stop its growth. Think of the amount of thought it must have required to invent a way by which the life of one man might be given to produce one cancer. Is it possible to look upon it and doubt that there is design in the universe and that the inventor of this wonderful cancer must be infinitely powerful, ingenious and good? We are told that the universe was designed and created and that it is absurd to suppose that matter has existed from eternity but that it is perfectly self-evident that a God has. If a God created the universe then there must have been a time when he commenced to create. Back of that time there must have been an eternity during which there had existed nothing, absolutely nothing except this supposed God. According to this theory this God spent an eternity, so to speak, in an infinite vacuum and in perfect idleness. Admitting that a God did create the universe the question then arises of what did he create it? It certainly was not made of nothing, nothing considered in the light of a raw material is a most decided failure. It follows then that a God must have made the universe out of himself, he being the only existence. The universe is material and if it was made of God the God must have been material. With this very thought in mind Anaximander of Miletus said, creation is the decomposition of the infinite. It has been demonstrated that the earth would fall to the sun only for the fact that it is attracted by other worlds and those worlds must be attracted by other worlds still beyond them and so on without end. This proves the material universe to be infinite. If an infinite universe has been made out of an infinite God, how much of the God is left? End Part 1 of Robert G. Ingersoll's lecture on Gods. This is a LibriVox recording read by Ted DeLorm in Fort Mill, South Carolina during April 2007. This recording is in the public domain.