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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Individuality, by Robert G. Ingersoll
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Individuality
+       From 'The Gods and Other Lectures'
+
+Author: Robert G. Ingersoll
+
+Release Date: November 22, 2011 [EBook #38098]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK INDIVIDUALITY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+
+INDIVIDUALITY
+
+By Robert G. Ingersoll
+
+
+
+
+INDIVIDUALITY
+
+"HIS SOUL WAS LIKE A STAR AND DWELT APART."
+
+ON every hand are the enemies of individuality and mental freedom.
+Custom meets us at the cradle and leaves us only at the tomb. Our first
+questions are answered by ignorance, and our last by superstition. We
+are pushed and dragged by countless hands along the beaten track, and
+our entire training can be summed up in the word--suppression. Our
+desire to have a thing or to do a thing is considered as conclusive
+evidence that we ought not to have it, and ought not to do it. At every
+turn we run against cherubim and a flaming sword guarding some entrance
+to the Eden of our desire. We are allowed to investigate all subjects in
+which we feel no particular interest, and to express the opinions of the
+majority with the utmost freedom. We are taught that liberty of
+speech should never be carried to the extent of contradicting the dead
+witnesses of a popular superstition. Society offers continual rewards
+for self-betrayal, and they are nearly all earned and claimed, and some
+are paid.
+
+We have all read accounts of Christian gentlemen remarking, when about
+to be hanged, how much better it would have been for them if they had
+only followed a mother's advice. But after all, how fortunate it is for
+the world that the maternal advice has not always been followed. How
+fortunate it is for us all that it is somewhat unnatural for a human
+being to obey. Universal obedience is universal stagnation; disobedience
+is one of the conditions of progress. Select any age of the world and
+tell me what would have been the effect of implicit obedience. Suppose
+the Church had had absolute control of the human mind at any time, would
+not the words liberty and progress have been blotted from human speech?
+In defiance of advice, the world has advanced.
+
+Suppose the astronomers had controlled the science of astronomy; suppose
+the doctors had controlled the science of medicine; suppose kings had
+been left to fix the forms of government; suppose our fathers had taken
+the advice of Paul, who said, "be subject to the powers that be, because
+they are ordained of God;" suppose the Church could control the world
+to-day, we would go back to chaos and old night. Philosophy would be
+branded as infamous; Science would again press its pale and thoughtful
+face against the prison bars, and round the limbs of liberty would climb
+the bigot's flame.
+
+It is a blessed thing that in every age some one has had individuality
+enough and courage enough to stand by his own convictions,--some one
+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.
+
+The trouble with most people is they bow to what is called authority;
+they have a certain reverence for the old because it is old. They think
+a man is better for being dead, especially if he has been dead a long
+time. They think the fathers of their nation were the greatest and best
+of all mankind. All these things they implicitly believe because it is
+popular and patriotic, and because they were told so when they were very
+small, and remember distinctly of hearing mother read it out of a book.
+It is hard to over-estimate the influence of early training in the
+direction of superstition. You first teach children that a certain book
+is true--that it was written by God himself--that to question its truth
+is a sin, that to deny it is a crime, and that should they die without
+believing that book they will be forever damned without benefit of
+clergy. The consequence is, that long before they read that book, they
+believe it to be true. When they do read it their minds are wholly
+unfitted to investigate its claims. They accept it as a matter of
+course.
+
+In this way the reason is overcome, the sweet instincts of humanity
+are blotted from the heart, and while reading its infamous pages even
+justice throws aside her scales, shrieking for revenge and charity, with
+bloody hands, applauds a deed of murder. In this way we are taught that
+the revenge of man is the justice of God; that mercy is not the same
+everywhere. In this way the ideas of our race have been subverted. In
+this way we have made tyrants, bigots, and inquisitors. In this way the
+brain of man has become a kind of palimpsest upon which, and over the
+writings of nature, superstition has scrawled her countless lies.
+One great trouble is that most teachers are dishonest. They teach as
+certainties those things concerning which they entertain doubts. They
+do not say, "we _think_ this is so," but "we _know_ this is so." They do
+not appeal to the reason of the pupil, but they command his faith. They
+keep all doubts to themselves; they do not explain, they assert. All
+this is infamous. In this way you may make Christians, but you cannot
+make men; you cannot make women. You can make followers, but no leaders;
+disciples, but no Christs. You may promise power, honor, and happiness
+to all those who will blindly follow, but you cannot keep your promise.
+
+A monarch said to a hermit, "Come with me and I will give you power."
+
+"I have all the power that I know how to use," replied the hermit
+"Come," said the king, "I will give you wealth."
+
+"I have no wants that money can supply," said the hermit "I will give
+you honor," said the monarch.
+
+"Ah, honor cannot be given, it must be earned," was the hermit's answer.
+
+"Come," said the king, making a last appeal, "and I will give you
+happiness."
+
+"No," said the man of solitude, "there is no happiness without liberty,
+and he who follows cannot be free."
+
+"You shall have liberty too," said the king.
+
+"Then I will stay where I am," said the old man.
+
+And all the king's courtiers thought the hermit a fool.
+
+Now and then somebody examines, and in spite of all keeps his manhood,
+and has the courage to follow where his reason leads. Then the pious
+get together and repeat wise saws, and exchange knowing nods and most
+prophetic winks. The stupidly wise sit owl-like on the dead limbs of the
+tree of knowledge, and solemnly hoot. Wealth sneers, and fashion laughs,
+and respectability passes by on the other Side, and scorn points with
+all her skinny fingers, and all the snakes of superstition writhe and
+hiss, and slander lends her tongue, and infamy her brand, and perjury
+her oath, and the law its power, and bigotry tortures, and the Church
+kills.
+
+The Church hates a thinker precisely for the same reason a robber
+dislikes a sheriff, or a thief despises the prosecuting witness. Tyranny
+likes courtiers, flatterers, followers, fawners, and superstition wants
+believers, disciples, zealots, hypocrites, and subscribers. The Church
+demands worship--the very thing that man should give to no being,
+human or divine. To worship another is to degrade yourself. Worship is
+awe and dread and vague fear and blind hope. It is the spirit of worship
+that elevates the one and degrades the many; that builds palaces for
+robbers, erects monuments to crime, and forges manacles even for its
+own hands. The spirit of worship is the spirit of tyranny. The worshiper
+always regrets that he is not the worshiped. We should all remember that
+the intellect has no knees, and that whatever the attitude of the
+body may be, the brave soul is always found erect Whoever worships,
+abdicates. Whoever believes at the command of power, tramples his own
+individuality beneath his feet, and voluntarily robs himself of all that
+renders man superior to the brute.
+
+The despotism of faith is justified upon the ground that Christian
+countries are the grandest and most prosperous of the world. At one time
+the same thing could have been truly said in India, in Egypt, in Greece,
+in Rome, and in every other country that has, in the history of the
+world, swept to empire. This argument proves too much not only, but
+the assumption upon which it is based is utterly false. Numberless
+circumstances and countless conditions have pro-duced the prosperity
+of the Christian world. The truth is, we have advanced in spite of
+religious zeal, ignorance, and opposition. The Church has won no
+victories for the rights of man. Luther labored to reform the
+Church--Voltaire, to reform men. Over every fortress of tyranny has
+waved, and still waves, the banner of the Church. Wherever brave blood
+has been shed, the sword of the Church has been wet. On every chain has
+been the sign of the cross. The altar and throne have leaned against and
+supported each other.
+
+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 guide-boards. 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 that 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 all the makers of the other
+guide-boards 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.
+
+Around all of these guide-boards, as far as the eye can reach, the
+ground is covered with mountains of human bones, crumbling and bleaching
+in the rain and sun. They are the bones of murdered men and
+women--fathers, mothers and babes.
+
+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 to-day 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 mould. 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. In this sense, every church is a
+cemetery and every creed an epitaph.
+
+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
+tail 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 tail 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 tail their lion
+has, and what a troublesome dog their neighbor 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 scorner and hater of God and his holy Church.
+From the organization 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.
+
+Thousands of young men are being educated at this moment by the various
+Churches. What for? In order that they may be prepared to investigate
+the phenomena by which we are surrounded? No! The object, and the only
+object, is that they may be prepared to defend a creed; that they may
+learn the arguments of their respective churches, and repeat them in
+the dull ears of a thoughtless congregation. If one, after being thus
+trained at the expense of the Methodists, turns Presbyterian or Baptist,
+he is denounced as an ungrateful wretch. Honest investigation is utterly
+impossible within the pale of any Church, for the reason, that if you
+think the Church is right you will not investigate, and if you think it
+wrong, the Church will investigate you. The consequence of this is,
+that most of the theological literature is the result of suppression, of
+fear, tyranny and hypocrisy.
+
+Every orthodox writer necessarily said to himself,
+
+"If I write that, my wife and children may want for bread. I will be
+covered with shame and branded with infamy; but if I write this, I will
+gain position, power, and honor. My Church rewards defenders, and burns
+reformers."
+
+Under these conditions all your Scotts, Henrys, and McKnights have
+written; and weighed in these scales, what are their commentaries worth?
+They are not the ideas and decisions of honest judges, but the sophisms
+of the paid attorneys of superstition. Who can tell what the world has
+lost by this infamous system of suppression? How many grand thinkers
+have died with the mailed hand of superstition upon their lips? How many
+splendid ideas have perished in the cradle of the brain, strangled in
+the poison-coils of that python, the Church!
+
+For thousands of years a thinker was hunted down like an escaped
+convict. To him who had braved the Church, every door was shut, every
+knife was open. To shelter him from the wild storm, to give him a crust
+when dying, to put a cup of water to his cracked and bleeding lips;
+these were all crimes, not one of which the Church ever did forgive;
+and with the justice taught of her God, his helpless children were
+exterminated as scorpions and vipers.
+
+Who at the present day can imagine the courage, the devotion to
+principle, the intellectual and moral grandeur it once required to be an
+infidel, to brave the Church, her racks, her fagots, her dungeons, her
+tongues of fire,--to defy and scorn her heaven and her hell--her
+devil and her God? They were the noblest sons of earth. They were
+the real saviors of our race, the destroyers of superstition and the
+creators of Science. They were the real Titans who bared their grand
+foreheads to all the thunderbolts of all the gods.
+
+The Church has been, and still is, the great robber. She has rifled not
+only the pockets but the brains of the world. She is the stone at the
+sepulchre of liberty; the upas tree, in whose shade the intellect of man
+has withered; the Gorgon beneath whose gaze the human heart has turned
+to stone. Under her influence even the Protestant mother expects to be
+happy in heaven, while her brave boy, who fell fighting for the rights
+of man, shall writhe in hell.
+
+It is said that some of the Indian tribes place the heads of their
+children between pieces of bark until the form of the skull is
+permanently changed. To us this seems a most shocking custom; and yet,
+after all, is it as bad as to put the souls of our children in the
+strait-jacket of a creed? to so utterly deform their minds that they
+regard the God of the bible as a being of infinite mercy, and
+really consider it a virtue to believe a thing just because it seems
+unreasonable? Every child in the Christian world has uttered its
+wondering protest against this outrage. All the machinery of the Church
+is constantly employed in corrupting the reason of children. In every
+possible way they are robbed of their own thoughts and forced to accept
+the statements of others. Every Sunday school has for its object the
+crushing out of every germ of individuality. The poor children are
+taught that nothing can be more acceptable to God than unreasoning
+obedience and eyeless faith, and that to believe God did an impossible
+act, is far better than to do a good one yourself. They are told that
+all religions have been simply the John-the-Baptists of ours; that all
+the gods of antiquity have withered and shrunken into the Jehovah of the
+Jews; that all the longings and aspirations of the race are realized in
+the motto of the Evangelical Alliance, "Liberty in non-essentials;" that
+all there is, or ever was, of religion can be found in the apostles'
+creed; that there is nothing left to be discovered; that all the
+thinkers are dead, and all the living should simply be believers; that
+we have only to repeat the epitaph found on the grave of wisdom; that
+grave-yards are the best possible universities, and that the children
+must be forever beaten with the bones of the fathers.
+
+It has always seemed absurd to suppose that a god would choose for his
+companions, during' all eternity, the dear souls whose highest and only
+ambition is to obey. He certainly would now and then be tempted to make
+the same remark made by an English gentleman to his poor guest. The
+gentleman had invited a man in humble circumstances to dine with him.
+The man was so overcome with the honor that to everything the gentleman
+said he replied "Yes." Tired at last with the monotony of acquiescence,
+the gentleman cried out, "For God's sake, my good man, say 'No,' just
+once, so there will be two of us."
+
+Is it possible that an infinite God created this world simply to be the
+dwelling-place of slaves and serfs? simply for the purpose of raising
+orthodox Christians? That he did a few miracles to astonish them; that
+all the evils of life are simply his punishments, and that he is finally
+going to turn heaven into a kind of religious museum filled with Baptist
+barnacles, petrified Presbyterians and Methodist mummies? I want no
+heaven for which I must give my reason; no happiness in exchange for
+my liberty, and no immortality that demands the surrender of my
+individuality. Better rot in the windowless tomb, to which there is no
+door but the red mouth of the pallid worm, than wear the jeweled collar
+even of a god.
+
+Religion does not, and cannot, contemplate man as free. She accepts only
+the homage of the prostrate, and scorns the offerings of those who stand
+erect. She cannot tolerate the liberty of thought. The wide and sunny
+fields belong not to her domain. The star-lit heights of genius and
+individuality are above and beyond her appreciation and power. Her
+subjects cringe at her feet, covered with the dust of obedience.
+
+They are not athletes standing posed by rich life and brave endeavor
+like antique statues, but shriveled deformities, studying with furtive
+glance the cruel face of power.
+
+No religionist seems capable of comprehending this plain truth. There
+is this difference between thought and action: for our actions we
+are responsible to ourselves and to those injuriously affected; for
+thoughts, there can, in the nature of things, be no responsibility to
+gods or men, here or hereafter. And yet the Protestant has vied with
+the Catholic in denouncing freedom of thought; and while I was taught to
+hate Catholicism with every drop of my blood, it is only justice to
+say, that in all essential particulars it is precisely the same as every
+other religion, Luther denounced mental liberty with all the coarse and
+brutal vigor of his nature; Calvin despised, from the very bottom of his
+petrified heart, anything that even looked like religious toleration,
+and solemnly declared that to advocate it was to crucify Christ afresh.
+All the founders of all the orthodox churches have advocated the same
+infamous tenet. The truth is that what is called religion is necessarily
+inconsistent with free thought.
+
+A believer is a bird in a cage, a free-thinker is an eagle parting the
+clouds with tireless wing.
+
+At present, owing to the inroads that have been made by liberals and
+infidels, most of the churches pretend to be in favor of religious
+liberty. Of these churches, we will ask this question: How can a man,
+who conscientiously believes in religious liberty, worship a God who
+does not? They say to us: "We will not imprison you on account of your
+belief, but our God will." "We will not burn you because you throw away
+the sacred scriptures, but their author will." "We think it an infamous
+crime to persecute our brethren for opinion's sake,--but the God,
+whom we ignorantly worship, will on that account, damn his own children
+forever."
+
+Why is it that these Christians not only detest the infidels, but
+cordially despise each other? Why do they refuse to worship in the
+temples of each other? Why do they care so little for the damnation of
+men, and so much for the baptism of children? Why will they adorn their
+churches with the money of thieves and flatter vice for the sake of
+subscriptions? Why will they attempt to bribe Science to certify to
+the writings of God? Why do they torture the words of the great into an
+acknowledgment of the truth of Christianity? Why do they stand with hat
+in hand before presidents, kings, emperors, and scientists, begging,
+like Lazarus, for a few crumbs, of religious comfort? Why are they so
+delighted to find an allusion to Providence in the message of Lincoln?
+Why are they so afraid that some one will find out that Paley wrote an
+essay in favor of the Epicurean philosophy, and that Sir Isaac Newton
+was once an infidel? Why are they so anxious to show that Voltaire
+recanted; that Paine died palsied with fear; that the Emperor Julian
+cried out "Galilean, thou hast conquered"; that Gibbon died a Catholic;
+that Agassiz had a little confidence in Moses; that the old Napoleon
+was once complimentary enough to say that he thought Christ greater
+than himself or Cćsar; that Washington was caught on his knees at Valley
+Forge; that blunt old Ethan Allen told his child to believe the religion
+of her mother; that Franklin said, "Don't unchain the tiger," and that
+Volney got frightened in a storm at sea?
+
+Is it because the foundation of their temple is crumbling, because the
+walls are cracked, the pillars leaning, the great dome swaying to its
+fall, and because Science has written over the high altar its mené,
+mené, tekel, upharsin--the old words, destined to be the epitaph of
+all religions?
+
+Every assertion of individual independence has been a step toward
+infidelity. Luther started toward Humboldt,--Wesley, toward John Stuart
+Mill. To really reform the Church is to destroy it. Every new religion
+has a little less superstition than the old, so that the religion of
+Science is but a question of time I will not say the Church has been an
+unmitigated evil in all respects. Its history is infamous and glorious.
+It has delighted in the production of extremes. It has furnished
+murderers for its own martyrs. It has sometimes fed the body, but
+has always starved the soul. It has been a charitable highwayman--a
+profligate beggar--a generous pirate. It has produced some angels and a
+multitude of devils. It has built more prisons than asylums. It made a
+hundred orphans while it cared for one. In one hand it has carried the
+alms-dish and in the other a sword. It has founded schools and endowed
+universities for the purpose of destroying true learning. It filled the
+world with hypocrites and zealots, and upon the cross of its own Christ
+it crucified the individuality of man. It has sought to destroy the
+independence of the soul and put the world upon its knees. This is its
+crime. The commission of this crime was necessary to its existence. In
+order to compel obedience it declared that it had the truth, and all the
+truth; that God had made it the keeper of his secrets; his agent and
+his vicegerent. It declared that all other religions were false
+and infamous. It rendered all compromise impossible and all thought
+superfluous. Thought was its enemy, obedience was its friend.
+Investigation was fraught with danger; therefore investigation was
+suppressed. The holy of holies was behind the curtain. All this was upon
+the principle that forgers hate to have the signature examined by an
+expert, and that imposture detests curiosity.
+
+"He that hath ears to hear, let him hear," has always been the favorite
+text of the Church.
+
+In short, Christianity has always opposed every forward movement of the
+human race. Across the highway of progress it has always been building
+breastworks of bibles, tracts, commentaries, prayer-books, creeds,
+dogmas and platforms, and at every advance the Christians have gathered
+together behind these heaps of rubbish and shot the poisoned arrows of
+malice at the soldiers of freedom.
+
+And even the liberal Christian of to-day has his holy of holies, and in
+the niche of the temple of his heart has his idol. He still clings to a
+part of the old superstition, and all the pleasant memories of the old
+belief linger in the horizon of his thoughts like a sunset. We associate
+the memory of those we love with the religion of our childhood. It
+seems almost a sacrilege to rudely destroy the idols that our fathers
+worshiped, and turn their sacred and beautiful truths into the fables of
+barbarism. Some throw away the Old Testament and cling to the New, while
+others give up everything except the idea that there is a personal God,
+and that in some wonderful way we are the objects of his care.
+
+Even this, in my opinion, as Science, the great iconoclast, marches
+onward, will have to be abandoned with the rest The great ghost will
+surely share the fate of the little ones. They fled at the first
+appearance of the dawn, and the other will vanish with the perfect
+day. Until then the independence of man is little more than a dream.
+Overshadowed by an immense personality, in the presence of the
+irresponsible and the infinite, the individuality of man is lost, and
+he falls prostrate in the very dust of fear. Beneath the frown of the
+absolute, man stands a wretched, trembling slave,--beneath his smile
+he is at best only a fortunate serf. Governed by a being whose arbitrary
+will is law, chained to the chariot of power, his destiny rests in the
+pleasure of the unknown. Under these circumstances, what wretched object
+can he have in lengthening out his aimless life?
+
+And yet, in most minds, there is a vague fear of the gods--a shrinking
+from the malice of the skies. Our fathers were slaves, and nearly all
+their children are mental serfs. The enfranchisement of the soul is
+a slow and painful process. Superstition, the mother of those hideous
+twins, Fear and Faith, from her throne of skulls, still rules the world,
+and will until the mind of woman ceases to be the property of priests.
+
+When women reason, and babes sit in the lap of philosophy, the victory
+of reason over the shadowy host of darkness will be complete.
+
+In the minds of many, long after the intellect has thrown aside as
+utterly fabulous the legends of the Church, there still remains a
+lingering suspicion, born of the mental habits contracted in childhood,
+that after all there may be a grain of truth in these mountains of
+theological mist, and that possibly the superstitious side is the side
+of safety.
+
+A gentleman, walking among the ruins of Athens, came upon a fallen
+statue of Jupiter; making an exceedingly low bow he said: "O Jupiter!
+I salute thee." He then added: "Should you ever sit upon the throne of
+heaven again, do not, I pray you, forget that I treated you politely
+when you were prostrate."
+
+We have all been taught by the Church that nothing is so well calculated
+to excite the ire of the Deity as to express a doubt as to his
+existence, and that to deny it is an unpardonable sin. Numerous
+well-attested instances are referred to of atheists being struck dead
+for denying the existence of God. According to these, religious people,
+God is infinitely above us in every respect, infinitely merciful, and
+yet he cannot bear to hear a poor finite man honestly question his
+existence. Knowing, as he does, that his children are groping in
+darkness and struggling with doubt and fear; knowing that he could
+enlighten them if he would, he still holds the expression of a sincere
+doubt as to his existence, the most infamous of crimes. According to
+orthodox logic, God having furnished us with imperfect minds, has a
+right to demand a perfect result.
+
+Suppose Mr. Smith should overhear a couple of small bugs holding a
+discussion as to the existence of Mr. Smith, and suppose one should have
+the temerity to declare, upon the honor of a bug, that he had examined
+the whole question to the best of his ability, including the argument
+based upon design, and had come to the conclusion that no man by the
+name of Smith had ever lived. Think then of Mr. Smith flying into an
+ecstacy of rage, crushing the atheist bug beneath his iron heel, while
+he exclaimed, "I will teach you, blasphemous wretch, that Smith is a
+diabolical fact!" What then can we think of a God who would open the
+artillery of heaven upon one of his own children for simply expressing
+his honest thought? And what man who really thinks can help repeating
+the words of Ennius: "If there are gods they certainly pay no attention
+to the affairs of man." Think of the millions of men and women who have
+been destroyed simply for loving and worshiping this God. Is it possible
+that this God, having infinite power, saw his loving and heroic children
+languishing in the darkness of dungeons; heard the clank of their chains
+when they lifted their hands to him in the agony of prayer; saw them
+stretched upon the bigot's rack, where death alone had pity; saw the
+serpents of flame crawl hissing round their shrinking forms--saw all
+this for sixteen hundred years, and sat as silent as a stone?
+
+From such a God, why should man expect assistance? Why should he waste
+his days in fruitless prayer? Why should he fall upon his knees and
+implore a phantom--a phantom that is deaf, and dumb, and blind?
+
+Although we live in what is called a free government,--and politically
+we are free,--there is but little religious liberty in America.
+Society demands, either that you belong to some church, or that you
+suppress your opinions. It is contended by many that ours is a Christian
+government, founded upon the bible, and that all who look upon that book
+as false or foolish are destroying the foundation of our country. The
+truth is, our government is not founded upon the rights of gods, but
+upon the rights of men. Our Constitution was framed, not to declare and
+uphold the deity of Christ, but the sacredness of humanity. Ours is the
+first government made by the people and for the people. It is the only
+nation with which the gods have had nothing to do. And yet there are
+some judges dishonest and cowardly enough to solemnly decide that this
+is a Christian country, and that our free institutions are based upon
+the infamous laws of Jehovah.
+
+Such judges are the Jeffries of the Church. They believe that decisions,
+made by hirelings at the bidding of kings, are binding upon man forever.
+They regard old law as far superior to modern justice. They are what
+might be called orthodox judges. They spend their days in finding out,
+not what ought to be, but what has been. With their backs to the sunrise
+they worship the night. There is only one future event with which they
+concern themselves, and that is their reelection. No honest court ever
+did, or ever will, decide that our Constitution is Christian. The bible
+teaches that the powers that be, are ordained of God. The bible teaches
+that God is the source of all authority, and that all kings have
+obtained their power from him. Every tyrant has claimed to be the agent
+of the Most High. The Inquisition was founded, not in the name of man,
+but in the name of God. All the governments of Europe recognize the
+greatness of God, and the littleness of the people. In all ages,
+hypocrites, called priests, have put crowns upon the heads of thieves,
+called kings.
+
+The Declaration of Independence announces the sublime truth, that all
+power comes from the people. This was a denial, and the first denial of
+a nation, of the infamous dogma that God confers the right upon one man
+to govern others. It was the first grand assertion of the dignity of the
+human race. It declared the governed to be the source of power, and
+in fact denied the authority of any and all gods. Through the ages of
+slavery--through the weary centuries of the lash and chain, God was the
+acknowledged ruler of the world. To enthrone man, was to dethrone Him.
+
+To Paine, Jefferson, and Franklin, are we indebted, more than to all
+others, for a human government, and for a Constitution in which no God
+is recognized superior to the legally expressed will of the people.
+
+They knew that to put God in the Constitution was to put man out. They
+knew that the recognition of a Deity would be seized upon by fanatics
+and zealots as a pretext for destroying the liberty of thought. They
+knew the terrible history of the Church too well to place in her
+keeping, or in the keeping of her God, the sacred rights of man. They
+intended that all should have the right to worship, or not to worship;
+that our laws should make no distinction on account of creed. They
+intended to found and frame a government for man, and for man alone.
+They wished to preserve the individuality and liberty of all; to prevent
+the few from governing the many, and the many from persecuting and
+destroying the few.
+
+Notwithstanding all this, the spirit of persecution still lingers in our
+laws. In many of the States, only those who believe in the existence of
+some kind of God, are under the protection of the law.
+
+The supreme court of Illinois decided, in the year of grace 1856, that
+an unbeliever in the existence of an intelligent First Cause could not
+be allowed to testify in any court. His wife and children might have
+been murdered before his very face, and yet in the absence of other
+witnesses, the murderer could not have even been indicted. The atheist
+was a legal outcast. To him, Justice was not only blind, but deaf. He
+was liable, like other men, to support the government, and was forced to
+contribute his share towards paying the salaries of the very judges
+who decided that under no circumstances could his voice be heard in any
+court. This was the law of Illinois, and so remained until the
+adoption of the new Constitution. By such infamous means has the Church
+endeavored to chain the human mind, and protect the majesty of her God.
+The fact is, we have no national religion, and no national God; but
+every citizen is allowed to have a religion and a God of his own, or
+to reject all religions and deny the existence of all gods. The Church,
+however, never has, and never will understand and appreciate the genius
+of our government.
+
+Last year, in a convention of Protestant bigots, held in the city of New
+York for the purpose of creating public opinion in favor of a religious
+amendment to the federal constitution, a reverend doctor of divinity,
+speaking of atheists, said: "What are the rights of the atheist? I would
+tolerate him as I would tolerate a poor lunatic. I would tolerate him as
+I would tolerate a conspirator. He may live and go free, hold his lands
+and enjoy his home--he may even vote; but for any higher or more
+advanced citizenship, he is, as I hold, utterly disqualified." These are
+the sentiments of the Church to-day.
+
+Give the Church a place in the Constitution, let her touch once more
+the sword of power, and the priceless fruit of all the ages will turn to
+ashes on the lips of men.
+
+In religious ideas and conceptions there has been for ages a slow and
+steady development. At the bottom of the ladder (speaking of modern
+times) is Catholicism, and at the top is Science. The intermediate
+rounds of this ladder are occupied by the various sects, whose name is
+legion.
+
+But whatever may be the truth upon any subject has nothing to do with
+our right to investigate that subject, and express any opinion we may
+form. All that I ask, is the same right I freely accord to all others.
+
+A few years ago a Methodist clergyman took it upon himself to give me a
+piece of friendly advice.
+
+"Although you may disbelieve the bible," said he, "you ought not to say
+so. That, you should keep to yourself."
+
+"Do you believe the bible," said I. He replied, "Most assuredly."
+
+To which I retorted, "Your answer conveys no information to me. You may
+be following your own advice. You told me to suppress my opinions.
+Of course a man who will advise others to dissimulate will not always be
+particular about telling the truth himself."
+
+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 ownself 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 census 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 that within its curious
+bastions and winding halls the soul, in spite of all worlds and all
+beings, is the supreme sovereign of itself.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Individuality, by Robert G. Ingersoll
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+  <head>
+    <title>
+      Individuality, by Robert G. Ingersoll
+    </title>
+    <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve">
+    
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+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Individuality, by Robert G. Ingersoll
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Individuality
+       From 'The Gods and Other Lectures'
+
+Author: Robert G. Ingersoll
+
+Release Date: November 22, 2011 [EBook #38098]
+Last Updated: January 25, 2013
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK INDIVIDUALITY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+    <div style="height: 8em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h1>
+      INDIVIDUALITY
+    </h1>
+    <h2>
+      By Robert G. Ingersoll
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      INDIVIDUALITY
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      "HIS SOUL WAS LIKE A STAR AND DWELT APART."
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      ON every hand are the enemies of individuality and mental freedom. Custom
+      meets us at the cradle and leaves us only at the tomb. Our first questions
+      are answered by ignorance, and our last by superstition. We are pushed and
+      dragged by countless hands along the beaten track, and our entire training
+      can be summed up in the word&mdash;suppression. Our desire to have a thing
+      or to do a thing is considered as conclusive evidence that we ought not to
+      have it, and ought not to do it. At every turn we run against cherubim and
+      a flaming sword guarding some entrance to the Eden of our desire. We are
+      allowed to investigate all subjects in which we feel no particular
+      interest, and to express the opinions of the majority with the utmost
+      freedom. We are taught that liberty of speech should never be carried to
+      the extent of contradicting the dead witnesses of a popular superstition.
+      Society offers continual rewards for self-betrayal, and they are nearly
+      all earned and claimed, and some are paid.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We have all read accounts of Christian gentlemen remarking, when about to
+      be hanged, how much better it would have been for them if they had only
+      followed a mother's advice. But after all, how fortunate it is for the
+      world that the maternal advice has not always been followed. How fortunate
+      it is for us all that it is somewhat unnatural for a human being to obey.
+      Universal obedience is universal stagnation; disobedience is one of the
+      conditions of progress. Select any age of the world and tell me what would
+      have been the effect of implicit obedience. Suppose the Church had had
+      absolute control of the human mind at any time, would not the words
+      liberty and progress have been blotted from human speech? In defiance of
+      advice, the world has advanced.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Suppose the astronomers had controlled the science of astronomy; suppose
+      the doctors had controlled the science of medicine; suppose kings had been
+      left to fix the forms of government; suppose our fathers had taken the
+      advice of Paul, who said, "be subject to the powers that be, because they
+      are ordained of God;" suppose the Church could control the world to-day,
+      we would go back to chaos and old night. Philosophy would be branded as
+      infamous; Science would again press its pale and thoughtful face against
+      the prison bars, and round the limbs of liberty would climb the bigot's
+      flame.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is a blessed thing that in every age some one has had individuality
+      enough and courage enough to stand by his own convictions,&mdash;some one
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The trouble with most people is they bow to what is called authority; they
+      have a certain reverence for the old because it is old. They think a man
+      is better for being dead, especially if he has been dead a long time. They
+      think the fathers of their nation were the greatest and best of all
+      mankind. All these things they implicitly believe because it is popular
+      and patriotic, and because they were told so when they were very small,
+      and remember distinctly of hearing mother read it out of a book. It is
+      hard to over-estimate the influence of early training in the direction of
+      superstition. You first teach children that a certain book is true&mdash;that
+      it was written by God himself&mdash;that to question its truth is a sin,
+      that to deny it is a crime, and that should they die without believing
+      that book they will be forever damned without benefit of clergy. The
+      consequence is, that long before they read that book, they believe it to
+      be true. When they do read it their minds are wholly unfitted to
+      investigate its claims. They accept it as a matter of course.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In this way the reason is overcome, the sweet instincts of humanity are
+      blotted from the heart, and while reading its infamous pages even justice
+      throws aside her scales, shrieking for revenge and charity, with bloody
+      hands, applauds a deed of murder. In this way we are taught that the
+      revenge of man is the justice of God; that mercy is not the same
+      everywhere. In this way the ideas of our race have been subverted. In this
+      way we have made tyrants, bigots, and inquisitors. In this way the brain
+      of man has become a kind of palimpsest upon which, and over the writings
+      of nature, superstition has scrawled her countless lies. One great trouble
+      is that most teachers are dishonest. They teach as certainties those
+      things concerning which they entertain doubts. They do not say, "we <i>think</i>
+      this is so," but "we <i>know</i> this is so." They do not appeal to the
+      reason of the pupil, but they command his faith. They keep all doubts to
+      themselves; they do not explain, they assert. All this is infamous. In
+      this way you may make Christians, but you cannot make men; you cannot make
+      women. You can make followers, but no leaders; disciples, but no Christs.
+      You may promise power, honor, and happiness to all those who will blindly
+      follow, but you cannot keep your promise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A monarch said to a hermit, "Come with me and I will give you power."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I have all the power that I know how to use," replied the hermit "Come,"
+      said the king, "I will give you wealth."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I have no wants that money can supply," said the hermit "I will give you
+      honor," said the monarch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Ah, honor cannot be given, it must be earned," was the hermit's answer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Come," said the king, making a last appeal, "and I will give you
+      happiness."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No," said the man of solitude, "there is no happiness without liberty,
+      and he who follows cannot be free."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You shall have liberty too," said the king.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Then I will stay where I am," said the old man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And all the king's courtiers thought the hermit a fool.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now and then somebody examines, and in spite of all keeps his manhood, and
+      has the courage to follow where his reason leads. Then the pious get
+      together and repeat wise saws, and exchange knowing nods and most
+      prophetic winks. The stupidly wise sit owl-like on the dead limbs of the
+      tree of knowledge, and solemnly hoot. Wealth sneers, and fashion laughs,
+      and respectability passes by on the other Side, and scorn points with all
+      her skinny fingers, and all the snakes of superstition writhe and hiss,
+      and slander lends her tongue, and infamy her brand, and perjury her oath,
+      and the law its power, and bigotry tortures, and the Church kills.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Church hates a thinker precisely for the same reason a robber dislikes
+      a sheriff, or a thief despises the prosecuting witness. Tyranny likes
+      courtiers, flatterers, followers, fawners, and superstition wants
+      believers, disciples, zealots, hypocrites, and subscribers. The Church
+      demands worship&mdash;the very thing that man should give to no being,
+      human or divine. To worship another is to degrade yourself. Worship is awe
+      and dread and vague fear and blind hope. It is the spirit of worship that
+      elevates the one and degrades the many; that builds palaces for robbers,
+      erects monuments to crime, and forges manacles even for its own hands. The
+      spirit of worship is the spirit of tyranny. The worshiper always regrets
+      that he is not the worshiped. We should all remember that the intellect
+      has no knees, and that whatever the attitude of the body may be, the brave
+      soul is always found erect Whoever worships, abdicates. Whoever believes
+      at the command of power, tramples his own individuality beneath his feet,
+      and voluntarily robs himself of all that renders man superior to the
+      brute.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The despotism of faith is justified upon the ground that Christian
+      countries are the grandest and most prosperous of the world. At one time
+      the same thing could have been truly said in India, in Egypt, in Greece,
+      in Rome, and in every other country that has, in the history of the world,
+      swept to empire. This argument proves too much not only, but the
+      assumption upon which it is based is utterly false. Numberless
+      circumstances and countless conditions have pro-duced the prosperity of
+      the Christian world. The truth is, we have advanced in spite of religious
+      zeal, ignorance, and opposition. The Church has won no victories for the
+      rights of man. Luther labored to reform the Church&mdash;Voltaire, to
+      reform men. Over every fortress of tyranny has waved, and still waves, the
+      banner of the Church. Wherever brave blood has been shed, the sword of the
+      Church has been wet. On every chain has been the sign of the cross. The
+      altar and throne have leaned against and supported each other.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 guide-boards. 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 that 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 all the makers of the other guide-boards 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Around all of these guide-boards, as far as the eye can reach, the ground
+      is covered with mountains of human bones, crumbling and bleaching in the
+      rain and sun. They are the bones of murdered men and women&mdash;fathers,
+      mothers and babes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In my judgment, every human being should take a road of his own. Every
+      mind should be true to itself&mdash;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&mdash;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 to-day 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 mould. 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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. In this sense, every church is a cemetery
+      and every creed an epitaph.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There is no saying more degrading than this: "It is better to be the tail
+      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 tail of some lion. They say, "My party can act
+      for me&mdash;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 tail their lion has, and what a troublesome
+      dog their neighbor 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 scorner and hater of
+      God and his holy Church. From the organization 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thousands of young men are being educated at this moment by the various
+      Churches. What for? In order that they may be prepared to investigate the
+      phenomena by which we are surrounded? No! The object, and the only object,
+      is that they may be prepared to defend a creed; that they may learn the
+      arguments of their respective churches, and repeat them in the dull ears
+      of a thoughtless congregation. If one, after being thus trained at the
+      expense of the Methodists, turns Presbyterian or Baptist, he is denounced
+      as an ungrateful wretch. Honest investigation is utterly impossible within
+      the pale of any Church, for the reason, that if you think the Church is
+      right you will not investigate, and if you think it wrong, the Church will
+      investigate you. The consequence of this is, that most of the theological
+      literature is the result of suppression, of fear, tyranny and hypocrisy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Every orthodox writer necessarily said to himself,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "If I write that, my wife and children may want for bread. I will be
+      covered with shame and branded with infamy; but if I write this, I will
+      gain position, power, and honor. My Church rewards defenders, and burns
+      reformers."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Under these conditions all your Scotts, Henrys, and McKnights have
+      written; and weighed in these scales, what are their commentaries worth?
+      They are not the ideas and decisions of honest judges, but the sophisms of
+      the paid attorneys of superstition. Who can tell what the world has lost
+      by this infamous system of suppression? How many grand thinkers have died
+      with the mailed hand of superstition upon their lips? How many splendid
+      ideas have perished in the cradle of the brain, strangled in the
+      poison-coils of that python, the Church!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For thousands of years a thinker was hunted down like an escaped convict.
+      To him who had braved the Church, every door was shut, every knife was
+      open. To shelter him from the wild storm, to give him a crust when dying,
+      to put a cup of water to his cracked and bleeding lips; these were all
+      crimes, not one of which the Church ever did forgive; and with the justice
+      taught of her God, his helpless children were exterminated as scorpions
+      and vipers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Who at the present day can imagine the courage, the devotion to principle,
+      the intellectual and moral grandeur it once required to be an infidel, to
+      brave the Church, her racks, her fagots, her dungeons, her tongues of
+      fire,&mdash;to defy and scorn her heaven and her hell&mdash;her devil and
+      her God? They were the noblest sons of earth. They were the real saviors
+      of our race, the destroyers of superstition and the creators of Science.
+      They were the real Titans who bared their grand foreheads to all the
+      thunderbolts of all the gods.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Church has been, and still is, the great robber. She has rifled not
+      only the pockets but the brains of the world. She is the stone at the
+      sepulchre of liberty; the upas tree, in whose shade the intellect of man
+      has withered; the Gorgon beneath whose gaze the human heart has turned to
+      stone. Under her influence even the Protestant mother expects to be happy
+      in heaven, while her brave boy, who fell fighting for the rights of man,
+      shall writhe in hell.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is said that some of the Indian tribes place the heads of their
+      children between pieces of bark until the form of the skull is permanently
+      changed. To us this seems a most shocking custom; and yet, after all, is
+      it as bad as to put the souls of our children in the strait-jacket of a
+      creed? to so utterly deform their minds that they regard the God of the
+      bible as a being of infinite mercy, and really consider it a virtue to
+      believe a thing just because it seems unreasonable? Every child in the
+      Christian world has uttered its wondering protest against this outrage.
+      All the machinery of the Church is constantly employed in corrupting the
+      reason of children. In every possible way they are robbed of their own
+      thoughts and forced to accept the statements of others. Every Sunday
+      school has for its object the crushing out of every germ of individuality.
+      The poor children are taught that nothing can be more acceptable to God
+      than unreasoning obedience and eyeless faith, and that to believe God did
+      an impossible act, is far better than to do a good one yourself. They are
+      told that all religions have been simply the John-the-Baptists of ours;
+      that all the gods of antiquity have withered and shrunken into the Jehovah
+      of the Jews; that all the longings and aspirations of the race are
+      realized in the motto of the Evangelical Alliance, "Liberty in
+      non-essentials;" that all there is, or ever was, of religion can be found
+      in the apostles' creed; that there is nothing left to be discovered; that
+      all the thinkers are dead, and all the living should simply be believers;
+      that we have only to repeat the epitaph found on the grave of wisdom; that
+      grave-yards are the best possible universities, and that the children must
+      be forever beaten with the bones of the fathers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It has always seemed absurd to suppose that a god would choose for his
+      companions, during' all eternity, the dear souls whose highest and only
+      ambition is to obey. He certainly would now and then be tempted to make
+      the same remark made by an English gentleman to his poor guest. The
+      gentleman had invited a man in humble circumstances to dine with him. The
+      man was so overcome with the honor that to everything the gentleman said
+      he replied "Yes." Tired at last with the monotony of acquiescence, the
+      gentleman cried out, "For God's sake, my good man, say 'No,' just once, so
+      there will be two of us."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Is it possible that an infinite God created this world simply to be the
+      dwelling-place of slaves and serfs? simply for the purpose of raising
+      orthodox Christians? That he did a few miracles to astonish them; that all
+      the evils of life are simply his punishments, and that he is finally going
+      to turn heaven into a kind of religious museum filled with Baptist
+      barnacles, petrified Presbyterians and Methodist mummies? I want no heaven
+      for which I must give my reason; no happiness in exchange for my liberty,
+      and no immortality that demands the surrender of my individuality. Better
+      rot in the windowless tomb, to which there is no door but the red mouth of
+      the pallid worm, than wear the jeweled collar even of a god.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Religion does not, and cannot, contemplate man as free. She accepts only
+      the homage of the prostrate, and scorns the offerings of those who stand
+      erect. She cannot tolerate the liberty of thought. The wide and sunny
+      fields belong not to her domain. The star-lit heights of genius and
+      individuality are above and beyond her appreciation and power. Her
+      subjects cringe at her feet, covered with the dust of obedience.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They are not athletes standing posed by rich life and brave endeavor like
+      antique statues, but shriveled deformities, studying with furtive glance
+      the cruel face of power.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No religionist seems capable of comprehending this plain truth. There is
+      this difference between thought and action: for our actions we are
+      responsible to ourselves and to those injuriously affected; for thoughts,
+      there can, in the nature of things, be no responsibility to gods or men,
+      here or hereafter. And yet the Protestant has vied with the Catholic in
+      denouncing freedom of thought; and while I was taught to hate Catholicism
+      with every drop of my blood, it is only justice to say, that in all
+      essential particulars it is precisely the same as every other religion,
+      Luther denounced mental liberty with all the coarse and brutal vigor of
+      his nature; Calvin despised, from the very bottom of his petrified heart,
+      anything that even looked like religious toleration, and solemnly declared
+      that to advocate it was to crucify Christ afresh. All the founders of all
+      the orthodox churches have advocated the same infamous tenet. The truth is
+      that what is called religion is necessarily inconsistent with free
+      thought.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A believer is a bird in a cage, a free-thinker is an eagle parting the
+      clouds with tireless wing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At present, owing to the inroads that have been made by liberals and
+      infidels, most of the churches pretend to be in favor of religious
+      liberty. Of these churches, we will ask this question: How can a man, who
+      conscientiously believes in religious liberty, worship a God who does not?
+      They say to us: "We will not imprison you on account of your belief, but
+      our God will." "We will not burn you because you throw away the sacred
+      scriptures, but their author will." "We think it an infamous crime to
+      persecute our brethren for opinion's sake,&mdash;but the God, whom we
+      ignorantly worship, will on that account, damn his own children forever."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Why is it that these Christians not only detest the infidels, but
+      cordially despise each other? Why do they refuse to worship in the temples
+      of each other? Why do they care so little for the damnation of men, and so
+      much for the baptism of children? Why will they adorn their churches with
+      the money of thieves and flatter vice for the sake of subscriptions? Why
+      will they attempt to bribe Science to certify to the writings of God? Why
+      do they torture the words of the great into an acknowledgment of the truth
+      of Christianity? Why do they stand with hat in hand before presidents,
+      kings, emperors, and scientists, begging, like Lazarus, for a few crumbs,
+      of religious comfort? Why are they so delighted to find an allusion to
+      Providence in the message of Lincoln? Why are they so afraid that some one
+      will find out that Paley wrote an essay in favor of the Epicurean
+      philosophy, and that Sir Isaac Newton was once an infidel? Why are they so
+      anxious to show that Voltaire recanted; that Paine died palsied with fear;
+      that the Emperor Julian cried out "Galilean, thou hast conquered"; that
+      Gibbon died a Catholic; that Agassiz had a little confidence in Moses;
+      that the old Napoleon was once complimentary enough to say that he thought
+      Christ greater than himself or Cćsar; that Washington was caught on his
+      knees at Valley Forge; that blunt old Ethan Allen told his child to
+      believe the religion of her mother; that Franklin said, "Don't unchain the
+      tiger," and that Volney got frightened in a storm at sea?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Is it because the foundation of their temple is crumbling, because the
+      walls are cracked, the pillars leaning, the great dome swaying to its
+      fall, and because Science has written over the high altar its mené, mené,
+      tekel, upharsin&mdash;the old words, destined to be the epitaph of all
+      religions?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Every assertion of individual independence has been a step toward
+      infidelity. Luther started toward Humboldt,&mdash;Wesley, toward John
+      Stuart Mill. To really reform the Church is to destroy it. Every new
+      religion has a little less superstition than the old, so that the religion
+      of Science is but a question of time I will not say the Church has been an
+      unmitigated evil in all respects. Its history is infamous and glorious. It
+      has delighted in the production of extremes. It has furnished murderers
+      for its own martyrs. It has sometimes fed the body, but has always starved
+      the soul. It has been a charitable highwayman&mdash;a profligate beggar&mdash;a
+      generous pirate. It has produced some angels and a multitude of devils. It
+      has built more prisons than asylums. It made a hundred orphans while it
+      cared for one. In one hand it has carried the alms-dish and in the other a
+      sword. It has founded schools and endowed universities for the purpose of
+      destroying true learning. It filled the world with hypocrites and zealots,
+      and upon the cross of its own Christ it crucified the individuality of
+      man. It has sought to destroy the independence of the soul and put the
+      world upon its knees. This is its crime. The commission of this crime was
+      necessary to its existence. In order to compel obedience it declared that
+      it had the truth, and all the truth; that God had made it the keeper of
+      his secrets; his agent and his vicegerent. It declared that all other
+      religions were false and infamous. It rendered all compromise impossible
+      and all thought superfluous. Thought was its enemy, obedience was its
+      friend. Investigation was fraught with danger; therefore investigation was
+      suppressed. The holy of holies was behind the curtain. All this was upon
+      the principle that forgers hate to have the signature examined by an
+      expert, and that imposture detests curiosity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He that hath ears to hear, let him hear," has always been the favorite
+      text of the Church.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In short, Christianity has always opposed every forward movement of the
+      human race. Across the highway of progress it has always been building
+      breastworks of bibles, tracts, commentaries, prayer-books, creeds, dogmas
+      and platforms, and at every advance the Christians have gathered together
+      behind these heaps of rubbish and shot the poisoned arrows of malice at
+      the soldiers of freedom.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And even the liberal Christian of to-day has his holy of holies, and in
+      the niche of the temple of his heart has his idol. He still clings to a
+      part of the old superstition, and all the pleasant memories of the old
+      belief linger in the horizon of his thoughts like a sunset. We associate
+      the memory of those we love with the religion of our childhood. It seems
+      almost a sacrilege to rudely destroy the idols that our fathers worshiped,
+      and turn their sacred and beautiful truths into the fables of barbarism.
+      Some throw away the Old Testament and cling to the New, while others give
+      up everything except the idea that there is a personal God, and that in
+      some wonderful way we are the objects of his care.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Even this, in my opinion, as Science, the great iconoclast, marches
+      onward, will have to be abandoned with the rest The great ghost will
+      surely share the fate of the little ones. They fled at the first
+      appearance of the dawn, and the other will vanish with the perfect day.
+      Until then the independence of man is little more than a dream.
+      Overshadowed by an immense personality, in the presence of the
+      irresponsible and the infinite, the individuality of man is lost, and he
+      falls prostrate in the very dust of fear. Beneath the frown of the
+      absolute, man stands a wretched, trembling slave,&mdash;beneath his smile
+      he is at best only a fortunate serf. Governed by a being whose arbitrary
+      will is law, chained to the chariot of power, his destiny rests in the
+      pleasure of the unknown. Under these circumstances, what wretched object
+      can he have in lengthening out his aimless life?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And yet, in most minds, there is a vague fear of the gods&mdash;a
+      shrinking from the malice of the skies. Our fathers were slaves, and
+      nearly all their children are mental serfs. The enfranchisement of the
+      soul is a slow and painful process. Superstition, the mother of those
+      hideous twins, Fear and Faith, from her throne of skulls, still rules the
+      world, and will until the mind of woman ceases to be the property of
+      priests.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When women reason, and babes sit in the lap of philosophy, the victory of
+      reason over the shadowy host of darkness will be complete.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the minds of many, long after the intellect has thrown aside as utterly
+      fabulous the legends of the Church, there still remains a lingering
+      suspicion, born of the mental habits contracted in childhood, that after
+      all there may be a grain of truth in these mountains of theological mist,
+      and that possibly the superstitious side is the side of safety.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A gentleman, walking among the ruins of Athens, came upon a fallen statue
+      of Jupiter; making an exceedingly low bow he said: "O Jupiter! I salute
+      thee." He then added: "Should you ever sit upon the throne of heaven
+      again, do not, I pray you, forget that I treated you politely when you
+      were prostrate."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We have all been taught by the Church that nothing is so well calculated
+      to excite the ire of the Deity as to express a doubt as to his existence,
+      and that to deny it is an unpardonable sin. Numerous well-attested
+      instances are referred to of atheists being struck dead for denying the
+      existence of God. According to these, religious people, God is infinitely
+      above us in every respect, infinitely merciful, and yet he cannot bear to
+      hear a poor finite man honestly question his existence. Knowing, as he
+      does, that his children are groping in darkness and struggling with doubt
+      and fear; knowing that he could enlighten them if he would, he still holds
+      the expression of a sincere doubt as to his existence, the most infamous
+      of crimes. According to orthodox logic, God having furnished us with
+      imperfect minds, has a right to demand a perfect result.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Suppose Mr. Smith should overhear a couple of small bugs holding a
+      discussion as to the existence of Mr. Smith, and suppose one should have
+      the temerity to declare, upon the honor of a bug, that he had examined the
+      whole question to the best of his ability, including the argument based
+      upon design, and had come to the conclusion that no man by the name of
+      Smith had ever lived. Think then of Mr. Smith flying into an ecstacy of
+      rage, crushing the atheist bug beneath his iron heel, while he exclaimed,
+      "I will teach you, blasphemous wretch, that Smith is a diabolical fact!"
+      What then can we think of a God who would open the artillery of heaven
+      upon one of his own children for simply expressing his honest thought? And
+      what man who really thinks can help repeating the words of Ennius: "If
+      there are gods they certainly pay no attention to the affairs of man."
+      Think of the millions of men and women who have been destroyed simply for
+      loving and worshiping this God. Is it possible that this God, having
+      infinite power, saw his loving and heroic children languishing in the
+      darkness of dungeons; heard the clank of their chains when they lifted
+      their hands to him in the agony of prayer; saw them stretched upon the
+      bigot's rack, where death alone had pity; saw the serpents of flame crawl
+      hissing round their shrinking forms&mdash;saw all this for sixteen hundred
+      years, and sat as silent as a stone?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From such a God, why should man expect assistance? Why should he waste his
+      days in fruitless prayer? Why should he fall upon his knees and implore a
+      phantom&mdash;a phantom that is deaf, and dumb, and blind?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Although we live in what is called a free government,&mdash;and
+      politically we are free,&mdash;there is but little religious liberty in
+      America. Society demands, either that you belong to some church, or that
+      you suppress your opinions. It is contended by many that ours is a
+      Christian government, founded upon the bible, and that all who look upon
+      that book as false or foolish are destroying the foundation of our
+      country. The truth is, our government is not founded upon the rights of
+      gods, but upon the rights of men. Our Constitution was framed, not to
+      declare and uphold the deity of Christ, but the sacredness of humanity.
+      Ours is the first government made by the people and for the people. It is
+      the only nation with which the gods have had nothing to do. And yet there
+      are some judges dishonest and cowardly enough to solemnly decide that this
+      is a Christian country, and that our free institutions are based upon the
+      infamous laws of Jehovah.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Such judges are the Jeffries of the Church. They believe that decisions,
+      made by hirelings at the bidding of kings, are binding upon man forever.
+      They regard old law as far superior to modern justice. They are what might
+      be called orthodox judges. They spend their days in finding out, not what
+      ought to be, but what has been. With their backs to the sunrise they
+      worship the night. There is only one future event with which they concern
+      themselves, and that is their reelection. No honest court ever did, or
+      ever will, decide that our Constitution is Christian. The bible teaches
+      that the powers that be, are ordained of God. The bible teaches that God
+      is the source of all authority, and that all kings have obtained their
+      power from him. Every tyrant has claimed to be the agent of the Most High.
+      The Inquisition was founded, not in the name of man, but in the name of
+      God. All the governments of Europe recognize the greatness of God, and the
+      littleness of the people. In all ages, hypocrites, called priests, have
+      put crowns upon the heads of thieves, called kings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Declaration of Independence announces the sublime truth, that all
+      power comes from the people. This was a denial, and the first denial of a
+      nation, of the infamous dogma that God confers the right upon one man to
+      govern others. It was the first grand assertion of the dignity of the
+      human race. It declared the governed to be the source of power, and in
+      fact denied the authority of any and all gods. Through the ages of slavery&mdash;through
+      the weary centuries of the lash and chain, God was the acknowledged ruler
+      of the world. To enthrone man, was to dethrone Him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To Paine, Jefferson, and Franklin, are we indebted, more than to all
+      others, for a human government, and for a Constitution in which no God is
+      recognized superior to the legally expressed will of the people.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They knew that to put God in the Constitution was to put man out. They
+      knew that the recognition of a Deity would be seized upon by fanatics and
+      zealots as a pretext for destroying the liberty of thought. They knew the
+      terrible history of the Church too well to place in her keeping, or in the
+      keeping of her God, the sacred rights of man. They intended that all
+      should have the right to worship, or not to worship; that our laws should
+      make no distinction on account of creed. They intended to found and frame
+      a government for man, and for man alone. They wished to preserve the
+      individuality and liberty of all; to prevent the few from governing the
+      many, and the many from persecuting and destroying the few.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Notwithstanding all this, the spirit of persecution still lingers in our
+      laws. In many of the States, only those who believe in the existence of
+      some kind of God, are under the protection of the law.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The supreme court of Illinois decided, in the year of grace 1856, that an
+      unbeliever in the existence of an intelligent First Cause could not be
+      allowed to testify in any court. His wife and children might have been
+      murdered before his very face, and yet in the absence of other witnesses,
+      the murderer could not have even been indicted. The atheist was a legal
+      outcast. To him, Justice was not only blind, but deaf. He was liable, like
+      other men, to support the government, and was forced to contribute his
+      share towards paying the salaries of the very judges who decided that
+      under no circumstances could his voice be heard in any court. This was the
+      law of Illinois, and so remained until the adoption of the new
+      Constitution. By such infamous means has the Church endeavored to chain
+      the human mind, and protect the majesty of her God. The fact is, we have
+      no national religion, and no national God; but every citizen is allowed to
+      have a religion and a God of his own, or to reject all religions and deny
+      the existence of all gods. The Church, however, never has, and never will
+      understand and appreciate the genius of our government.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Last year, in a convention of Protestant bigots, held in the city of New
+      York for the purpose of creating public opinion in favor of a religious
+      amendment to the federal constitution, a reverend doctor of divinity,
+      speaking of atheists, said: "What are the rights of the atheist? I would
+      tolerate him as I would tolerate a poor lunatic. I would tolerate him as I
+      would tolerate a conspirator. He may live and go free, hold his lands and
+      enjoy his home&mdash;he may even vote; but for any higher or more advanced
+      citizenship, he is, as I hold, utterly disqualified." These are the
+      sentiments of the Church to-day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Give the Church a place in the Constitution, let her touch once more the
+      sword of power, and the priceless fruit of all the ages will turn to ashes
+      on the lips of men.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In religious ideas and conceptions there has been for ages a slow and
+      steady development. At the bottom of the ladder (speaking of modern times)
+      is Catholicism, and at the top is Science. The intermediate rounds of this
+      ladder are occupied by the various sects, whose name is legion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But whatever may be the truth upon any subject has nothing to do with our
+      right to investigate that subject, and express any opinion we may form.
+      All that I ask, is the same right I freely accord to all others.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A few years ago a Methodist clergyman took it upon himself to give me a
+      piece of friendly advice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Although you may disbelieve the bible," said he, "you ought not to say
+      so. That, you should keep to yourself."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Do you believe the bible," said I. He replied, "Most assuredly."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To which I retorted, "Your answer conveys no information to me. You may be
+      following your own advice. You told me to suppress my opinions. Of course
+      a man who will advise others to dissimulate will not always be particular
+      about telling the truth himself."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 ownself 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Surely every human being ought to attain to the dignity of the <i>unit</i>.
+      Surely it is worth something to be <i>one</i>, and to feel that the census
+      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 that within its curious bastions and winding halls the soul,
+      in spite of all worlds and all beings, is the supreme sovereign of itself.
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 6em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+
+
+
+
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+</pre>
+  </body>
+</html>
diff --git a/38098.txt b/38098.txt
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Individuality, by Robert G. Ingersoll
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Individuality
+       From 'The Gods and Other Lectures'
+
+Author: Robert G. Ingersoll
+
+Release Date: November 22, 2011 [EBook #38098]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK INDIVIDUALITY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+
+INDIVIDUALITY
+
+By Robert G. Ingersoll
+
+
+
+
+INDIVIDUALITY
+
+"HIS SOUL WAS LIKE A STAR AND DWELT APART."
+
+ON every hand are the enemies of individuality and mental freedom.
+Custom meets us at the cradle and leaves us only at the tomb. Our first
+questions are answered by ignorance, and our last by superstition. We
+are pushed and dragged by countless hands along the beaten track, and
+our entire training can be summed up in the word--suppression. Our
+desire to have a thing or to do a thing is considered as conclusive
+evidence that we ought not to have it, and ought not to do it. At every
+turn we run against cherubim and a flaming sword guarding some entrance
+to the Eden of our desire. We are allowed to investigate all subjects in
+which we feel no particular interest, and to express the opinions of the
+majority with the utmost freedom. We are taught that liberty of
+speech should never be carried to the extent of contradicting the dead
+witnesses of a popular superstition. Society offers continual rewards
+for self-betrayal, and they are nearly all earned and claimed, and some
+are paid.
+
+We have all read accounts of Christian gentlemen remarking, when about
+to be hanged, how much better it would have been for them if they had
+only followed a mother's advice. But after all, how fortunate it is for
+the world that the maternal advice has not always been followed. How
+fortunate it is for us all that it is somewhat unnatural for a human
+being to obey. Universal obedience is universal stagnation; disobedience
+is one of the conditions of progress. Select any age of the world and
+tell me what would have been the effect of implicit obedience. Suppose
+the Church had had absolute control of the human mind at any time, would
+not the words liberty and progress have been blotted from human speech?
+In defiance of advice, the world has advanced.
+
+Suppose the astronomers had controlled the science of astronomy; suppose
+the doctors had controlled the science of medicine; suppose kings had
+been left to fix the forms of government; suppose our fathers had taken
+the advice of Paul, who said, "be subject to the powers that be, because
+they are ordained of God;" suppose the Church could control the world
+to-day, we would go back to chaos and old night. Philosophy would be
+branded as infamous; Science would again press its pale and thoughtful
+face against the prison bars, and round the limbs of liberty would climb
+the bigot's flame.
+
+It is a blessed thing that in every age some one has had individuality
+enough and courage enough to stand by his own convictions,--some one
+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.
+
+The trouble with most people is they bow to what is called authority;
+they have a certain reverence for the old because it is old. They think
+a man is better for being dead, especially if he has been dead a long
+time. They think the fathers of their nation were the greatest and best
+of all mankind. All these things they implicitly believe because it is
+popular and patriotic, and because they were told so when they were very
+small, and remember distinctly of hearing mother read it out of a book.
+It is hard to over-estimate the influence of early training in the
+direction of superstition. You first teach children that a certain book
+is true--that it was written by God himself--that to question its truth
+is a sin, that to deny it is a crime, and that should they die without
+believing that book they will be forever damned without benefit of
+clergy. The consequence is, that long before they read that book, they
+believe it to be true. When they do read it their minds are wholly
+unfitted to investigate its claims. They accept it as a matter of
+course.
+
+In this way the reason is overcome, the sweet instincts of humanity
+are blotted from the heart, and while reading its infamous pages even
+justice throws aside her scales, shrieking for revenge and charity, with
+bloody hands, applauds a deed of murder. In this way we are taught that
+the revenge of man is the justice of God; that mercy is not the same
+everywhere. In this way the ideas of our race have been subverted. In
+this way we have made tyrants, bigots, and inquisitors. In this way the
+brain of man has become a kind of palimpsest upon which, and over the
+writings of nature, superstition has scrawled her countless lies.
+One great trouble is that most teachers are dishonest. They teach as
+certainties those things concerning which they entertain doubts. They
+do not say, "we _think_ this is so," but "we _know_ this is so." They do
+not appeal to the reason of the pupil, but they command his faith. They
+keep all doubts to themselves; they do not explain, they assert. All
+this is infamous. In this way you may make Christians, but you cannot
+make men; you cannot make women. You can make followers, but no leaders;
+disciples, but no Christs. You may promise power, honor, and happiness
+to all those who will blindly follow, but you cannot keep your promise.
+
+A monarch said to a hermit, "Come with me and I will give you power."
+
+"I have all the power that I know how to use," replied the hermit
+"Come," said the king, "I will give you wealth."
+
+"I have no wants that money can supply," said the hermit "I will give
+you honor," said the monarch.
+
+"Ah, honor cannot be given, it must be earned," was the hermit's answer.
+
+"Come," said the king, making a last appeal, "and I will give you
+happiness."
+
+"No," said the man of solitude, "there is no happiness without liberty,
+and he who follows cannot be free."
+
+"You shall have liberty too," said the king.
+
+"Then I will stay where I am," said the old man.
+
+And all the king's courtiers thought the hermit a fool.
+
+Now and then somebody examines, and in spite of all keeps his manhood,
+and has the courage to follow where his reason leads. Then the pious
+get together and repeat wise saws, and exchange knowing nods and most
+prophetic winks. The stupidly wise sit owl-like on the dead limbs of the
+tree of knowledge, and solemnly hoot. Wealth sneers, and fashion laughs,
+and respectability passes by on the other Side, and scorn points with
+all her skinny fingers, and all the snakes of superstition writhe and
+hiss, and slander lends her tongue, and infamy her brand, and perjury
+her oath, and the law its power, and bigotry tortures, and the Church
+kills.
+
+The Church hates a thinker precisely for the same reason a robber
+dislikes a sheriff, or a thief despises the prosecuting witness. Tyranny
+likes courtiers, flatterers, followers, fawners, and superstition wants
+believers, disciples, zealots, hypocrites, and subscribers. The Church
+demands worship--the very thing that man should give to no being,
+human or divine. To worship another is to degrade yourself. Worship is
+awe and dread and vague fear and blind hope. It is the spirit of worship
+that elevates the one and degrades the many; that builds palaces for
+robbers, erects monuments to crime, and forges manacles even for its
+own hands. The spirit of worship is the spirit of tyranny. The worshiper
+always regrets that he is not the worshiped. We should all remember that
+the intellect has no knees, and that whatever the attitude of the
+body may be, the brave soul is always found erect Whoever worships,
+abdicates. Whoever believes at the command of power, tramples his own
+individuality beneath his feet, and voluntarily robs himself of all that
+renders man superior to the brute.
+
+The despotism of faith is justified upon the ground that Christian
+countries are the grandest and most prosperous of the world. At one time
+the same thing could have been truly said in India, in Egypt, in Greece,
+in Rome, and in every other country that has, in the history of the
+world, swept to empire. This argument proves too much not only, but
+the assumption upon which it is based is utterly false. Numberless
+circumstances and countless conditions have pro-duced the prosperity
+of the Christian world. The truth is, we have advanced in spite of
+religious zeal, ignorance, and opposition. The Church has won no
+victories for the rights of man. Luther labored to reform the
+Church--Voltaire, to reform men. Over every fortress of tyranny has
+waved, and still waves, the banner of the Church. Wherever brave blood
+has been shed, the sword of the Church has been wet. On every chain has
+been the sign of the cross. The altar and throne have leaned against and
+supported each other.
+
+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 guide-boards. 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 that 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 all the makers of the other
+guide-boards 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.
+
+Around all of these guide-boards, as far as the eye can reach, the
+ground is covered with mountains of human bones, crumbling and bleaching
+in the rain and sun. They are the bones of murdered men and
+women--fathers, mothers and babes.
+
+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 to-day 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 mould. 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. In this sense, every church is a
+cemetery and every creed an epitaph.
+
+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
+tail 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 tail 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 tail their lion
+has, and what a troublesome dog their neighbor 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 scorner and hater of God and his holy Church.
+From the organization 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.
+
+Thousands of young men are being educated at this moment by the various
+Churches. What for? In order that they may be prepared to investigate
+the phenomena by which we are surrounded? No! The object, and the only
+object, is that they may be prepared to defend a creed; that they may
+learn the arguments of their respective churches, and repeat them in
+the dull ears of a thoughtless congregation. If one, after being thus
+trained at the expense of the Methodists, turns Presbyterian or Baptist,
+he is denounced as an ungrateful wretch. Honest investigation is utterly
+impossible within the pale of any Church, for the reason, that if you
+think the Church is right you will not investigate, and if you think it
+wrong, the Church will investigate you. The consequence of this is,
+that most of the theological literature is the result of suppression, of
+fear, tyranny and hypocrisy.
+
+Every orthodox writer necessarily said to himself,
+
+"If I write that, my wife and children may want for bread. I will be
+covered with shame and branded with infamy; but if I write this, I will
+gain position, power, and honor. My Church rewards defenders, and burns
+reformers."
+
+Under these conditions all your Scotts, Henrys, and McKnights have
+written; and weighed in these scales, what are their commentaries worth?
+They are not the ideas and decisions of honest judges, but the sophisms
+of the paid attorneys of superstition. Who can tell what the world has
+lost by this infamous system of suppression? How many grand thinkers
+have died with the mailed hand of superstition upon their lips? How many
+splendid ideas have perished in the cradle of the brain, strangled in
+the poison-coils of that python, the Church!
+
+For thousands of years a thinker was hunted down like an escaped
+convict. To him who had braved the Church, every door was shut, every
+knife was open. To shelter him from the wild storm, to give him a crust
+when dying, to put a cup of water to his cracked and bleeding lips;
+these were all crimes, not one of which the Church ever did forgive;
+and with the justice taught of her God, his helpless children were
+exterminated as scorpions and vipers.
+
+Who at the present day can imagine the courage, the devotion to
+principle, the intellectual and moral grandeur it once required to be an
+infidel, to brave the Church, her racks, her fagots, her dungeons, her
+tongues of fire,--to defy and scorn her heaven and her hell--her
+devil and her God? They were the noblest sons of earth. They were
+the real saviors of our race, the destroyers of superstition and the
+creators of Science. They were the real Titans who bared their grand
+foreheads to all the thunderbolts of all the gods.
+
+The Church has been, and still is, the great robber. She has rifled not
+only the pockets but the brains of the world. She is the stone at the
+sepulchre of liberty; the upas tree, in whose shade the intellect of man
+has withered; the Gorgon beneath whose gaze the human heart has turned
+to stone. Under her influence even the Protestant mother expects to be
+happy in heaven, while her brave boy, who fell fighting for the rights
+of man, shall writhe in hell.
+
+It is said that some of the Indian tribes place the heads of their
+children between pieces of bark until the form of the skull is
+permanently changed. To us this seems a most shocking custom; and yet,
+after all, is it as bad as to put the souls of our children in the
+strait-jacket of a creed? to so utterly deform their minds that they
+regard the God of the bible as a being of infinite mercy, and
+really consider it a virtue to believe a thing just because it seems
+unreasonable? Every child in the Christian world has uttered its
+wondering protest against this outrage. All the machinery of the Church
+is constantly employed in corrupting the reason of children. In every
+possible way they are robbed of their own thoughts and forced to accept
+the statements of others. Every Sunday school has for its object the
+crushing out of every germ of individuality. The poor children are
+taught that nothing can be more acceptable to God than unreasoning
+obedience and eyeless faith, and that to believe God did an impossible
+act, is far better than to do a good one yourself. They are told that
+all religions have been simply the John-the-Baptists of ours; that all
+the gods of antiquity have withered and shrunken into the Jehovah of the
+Jews; that all the longings and aspirations of the race are realized in
+the motto of the Evangelical Alliance, "Liberty in non-essentials;" that
+all there is, or ever was, of religion can be found in the apostles'
+creed; that there is nothing left to be discovered; that all the
+thinkers are dead, and all the living should simply be believers; that
+we have only to repeat the epitaph found on the grave of wisdom; that
+grave-yards are the best possible universities, and that the children
+must be forever beaten with the bones of the fathers.
+
+It has always seemed absurd to suppose that a god would choose for his
+companions, during' all eternity, the dear souls whose highest and only
+ambition is to obey. He certainly would now and then be tempted to make
+the same remark made by an English gentleman to his poor guest. The
+gentleman had invited a man in humble circumstances to dine with him.
+The man was so overcome with the honor that to everything the gentleman
+said he replied "Yes." Tired at last with the monotony of acquiescence,
+the gentleman cried out, "For God's sake, my good man, say 'No,' just
+once, so there will be two of us."
+
+Is it possible that an infinite God created this world simply to be the
+dwelling-place of slaves and serfs? simply for the purpose of raising
+orthodox Christians? That he did a few miracles to astonish them; that
+all the evils of life are simply his punishments, and that he is finally
+going to turn heaven into a kind of religious museum filled with Baptist
+barnacles, petrified Presbyterians and Methodist mummies? I want no
+heaven for which I must give my reason; no happiness in exchange for
+my liberty, and no immortality that demands the surrender of my
+individuality. Better rot in the windowless tomb, to which there is no
+door but the red mouth of the pallid worm, than wear the jeweled collar
+even of a god.
+
+Religion does not, and cannot, contemplate man as free. She accepts only
+the homage of the prostrate, and scorns the offerings of those who stand
+erect. She cannot tolerate the liberty of thought. The wide and sunny
+fields belong not to her domain. The star-lit heights of genius and
+individuality are above and beyond her appreciation and power. Her
+subjects cringe at her feet, covered with the dust of obedience.
+
+They are not athletes standing posed by rich life and brave endeavor
+like antique statues, but shriveled deformities, studying with furtive
+glance the cruel face of power.
+
+No religionist seems capable of comprehending this plain truth. There
+is this difference between thought and action: for our actions we
+are responsible to ourselves and to those injuriously affected; for
+thoughts, there can, in the nature of things, be no responsibility to
+gods or men, here or hereafter. And yet the Protestant has vied with
+the Catholic in denouncing freedom of thought; and while I was taught to
+hate Catholicism with every drop of my blood, it is only justice to
+say, that in all essential particulars it is precisely the same as every
+other religion, Luther denounced mental liberty with all the coarse and
+brutal vigor of his nature; Calvin despised, from the very bottom of his
+petrified heart, anything that even looked like religious toleration,
+and solemnly declared that to advocate it was to crucify Christ afresh.
+All the founders of all the orthodox churches have advocated the same
+infamous tenet. The truth is that what is called religion is necessarily
+inconsistent with free thought.
+
+A believer is a bird in a cage, a free-thinker is an eagle parting the
+clouds with tireless wing.
+
+At present, owing to the inroads that have been made by liberals and
+infidels, most of the churches pretend to be in favor of religious
+liberty. Of these churches, we will ask this question: How can a man,
+who conscientiously believes in religious liberty, worship a God who
+does not? They say to us: "We will not imprison you on account of your
+belief, but our God will." "We will not burn you because you throw away
+the sacred scriptures, but their author will." "We think it an infamous
+crime to persecute our brethren for opinion's sake,--but the God,
+whom we ignorantly worship, will on that account, damn his own children
+forever."
+
+Why is it that these Christians not only detest the infidels, but
+cordially despise each other? Why do they refuse to worship in the
+temples of each other? Why do they care so little for the damnation of
+men, and so much for the baptism of children? Why will they adorn their
+churches with the money of thieves and flatter vice for the sake of
+subscriptions? Why will they attempt to bribe Science to certify to
+the writings of God? Why do they torture the words of the great into an
+acknowledgment of the truth of Christianity? Why do they stand with hat
+in hand before presidents, kings, emperors, and scientists, begging,
+like Lazarus, for a few crumbs, of religious comfort? Why are they so
+delighted to find an allusion to Providence in the message of Lincoln?
+Why are they so afraid that some one will find out that Paley wrote an
+essay in favor of the Epicurean philosophy, and that Sir Isaac Newton
+was once an infidel? Why are they so anxious to show that Voltaire
+recanted; that Paine died palsied with fear; that the Emperor Julian
+cried out "Galilean, thou hast conquered"; that Gibbon died a Catholic;
+that Agassiz had a little confidence in Moses; that the old Napoleon
+was once complimentary enough to say that he thought Christ greater
+than himself or Caesar; that Washington was caught on his knees at Valley
+Forge; that blunt old Ethan Allen told his child to believe the religion
+of her mother; that Franklin said, "Don't unchain the tiger," and that
+Volney got frightened in a storm at sea?
+
+Is it because the foundation of their temple is crumbling, because the
+walls are cracked, the pillars leaning, the great dome swaying to its
+fall, and because Science has written over the high altar its mene,
+mene, tekel, upharsin--the old words, destined to be the epitaph of
+all religions?
+
+Every assertion of individual independence has been a step toward
+infidelity. Luther started toward Humboldt,--Wesley, toward John Stuart
+Mill. To really reform the Church is to destroy it. Every new religion
+has a little less superstition than the old, so that the religion of
+Science is but a question of time I will not say the Church has been an
+unmitigated evil in all respects. Its history is infamous and glorious.
+It has delighted in the production of extremes. It has furnished
+murderers for its own martyrs. It has sometimes fed the body, but
+has always starved the soul. It has been a charitable highwayman--a
+profligate beggar--a generous pirate. It has produced some angels and a
+multitude of devils. It has built more prisons than asylums. It made a
+hundred orphans while it cared for one. In one hand it has carried the
+alms-dish and in the other a sword. It has founded schools and endowed
+universities for the purpose of destroying true learning. It filled the
+world with hypocrites and zealots, and upon the cross of its own Christ
+it crucified the individuality of man. It has sought to destroy the
+independence of the soul and put the world upon its knees. This is its
+crime. The commission of this crime was necessary to its existence. In
+order to compel obedience it declared that it had the truth, and all the
+truth; that God had made it the keeper of his secrets; his agent and
+his vicegerent. It declared that all other religions were false
+and infamous. It rendered all compromise impossible and all thought
+superfluous. Thought was its enemy, obedience was its friend.
+Investigation was fraught with danger; therefore investigation was
+suppressed. The holy of holies was behind the curtain. All this was upon
+the principle that forgers hate to have the signature examined by an
+expert, and that imposture detests curiosity.
+
+"He that hath ears to hear, let him hear," has always been the favorite
+text of the Church.
+
+In short, Christianity has always opposed every forward movement of the
+human race. Across the highway of progress it has always been building
+breastworks of bibles, tracts, commentaries, prayer-books, creeds,
+dogmas and platforms, and at every advance the Christians have gathered
+together behind these heaps of rubbish and shot the poisoned arrows of
+malice at the soldiers of freedom.
+
+And even the liberal Christian of to-day has his holy of holies, and in
+the niche of the temple of his heart has his idol. He still clings to a
+part of the old superstition, and all the pleasant memories of the old
+belief linger in the horizon of his thoughts like a sunset. We associate
+the memory of those we love with the religion of our childhood. It
+seems almost a sacrilege to rudely destroy the idols that our fathers
+worshiped, and turn their sacred and beautiful truths into the fables of
+barbarism. Some throw away the Old Testament and cling to the New, while
+others give up everything except the idea that there is a personal God,
+and that in some wonderful way we are the objects of his care.
+
+Even this, in my opinion, as Science, the great iconoclast, marches
+onward, will have to be abandoned with the rest The great ghost will
+surely share the fate of the little ones. They fled at the first
+appearance of the dawn, and the other will vanish with the perfect
+day. Until then the independence of man is little more than a dream.
+Overshadowed by an immense personality, in the presence of the
+irresponsible and the infinite, the individuality of man is lost, and
+he falls prostrate in the very dust of fear. Beneath the frown of the
+absolute, man stands a wretched, trembling slave,--beneath his smile
+he is at best only a fortunate serf. Governed by a being whose arbitrary
+will is law, chained to the chariot of power, his destiny rests in the
+pleasure of the unknown. Under these circumstances, what wretched object
+can he have in lengthening out his aimless life?
+
+And yet, in most minds, there is a vague fear of the gods--a shrinking
+from the malice of the skies. Our fathers were slaves, and nearly all
+their children are mental serfs. The enfranchisement of the soul is
+a slow and painful process. Superstition, the mother of those hideous
+twins, Fear and Faith, from her throne of skulls, still rules the world,
+and will until the mind of woman ceases to be the property of priests.
+
+When women reason, and babes sit in the lap of philosophy, the victory
+of reason over the shadowy host of darkness will be complete.
+
+In the minds of many, long after the intellect has thrown aside as
+utterly fabulous the legends of the Church, there still remains a
+lingering suspicion, born of the mental habits contracted in childhood,
+that after all there may be a grain of truth in these mountains of
+theological mist, and that possibly the superstitious side is the side
+of safety.
+
+A gentleman, walking among the ruins of Athens, came upon a fallen
+statue of Jupiter; making an exceedingly low bow he said: "O Jupiter!
+I salute thee." He then added: "Should you ever sit upon the throne of
+heaven again, do not, I pray you, forget that I treated you politely
+when you were prostrate."
+
+We have all been taught by the Church that nothing is so well calculated
+to excite the ire of the Deity as to express a doubt as to his
+existence, and that to deny it is an unpardonable sin. Numerous
+well-attested instances are referred to of atheists being struck dead
+for denying the existence of God. According to these, religious people,
+God is infinitely above us in every respect, infinitely merciful, and
+yet he cannot bear to hear a poor finite man honestly question his
+existence. Knowing, as he does, that his children are groping in
+darkness and struggling with doubt and fear; knowing that he could
+enlighten them if he would, he still holds the expression of a sincere
+doubt as to his existence, the most infamous of crimes. According to
+orthodox logic, God having furnished us with imperfect minds, has a
+right to demand a perfect result.
+
+Suppose Mr. Smith should overhear a couple of small bugs holding a
+discussion as to the existence of Mr. Smith, and suppose one should have
+the temerity to declare, upon the honor of a bug, that he had examined
+the whole question to the best of his ability, including the argument
+based upon design, and had come to the conclusion that no man by the
+name of Smith had ever lived. Think then of Mr. Smith flying into an
+ecstacy of rage, crushing the atheist bug beneath his iron heel, while
+he exclaimed, "I will teach you, blasphemous wretch, that Smith is a
+diabolical fact!" What then can we think of a God who would open the
+artillery of heaven upon one of his own children for simply expressing
+his honest thought? And what man who really thinks can help repeating
+the words of Ennius: "If there are gods they certainly pay no attention
+to the affairs of man." Think of the millions of men and women who have
+been destroyed simply for loving and worshiping this God. Is it possible
+that this God, having infinite power, saw his loving and heroic children
+languishing in the darkness of dungeons; heard the clank of their chains
+when they lifted their hands to him in the agony of prayer; saw them
+stretched upon the bigot's rack, where death alone had pity; saw the
+serpents of flame crawl hissing round their shrinking forms--saw all
+this for sixteen hundred years, and sat as silent as a stone?
+
+From such a God, why should man expect assistance? Why should he waste
+his days in fruitless prayer? Why should he fall upon his knees and
+implore a phantom--a phantom that is deaf, and dumb, and blind?
+
+Although we live in what is called a free government,--and politically
+we are free,--there is but little religious liberty in America.
+Society demands, either that you belong to some church, or that you
+suppress your opinions. It is contended by many that ours is a Christian
+government, founded upon the bible, and that all who look upon that book
+as false or foolish are destroying the foundation of our country. The
+truth is, our government is not founded upon the rights of gods, but
+upon the rights of men. Our Constitution was framed, not to declare and
+uphold the deity of Christ, but the sacredness of humanity. Ours is the
+first government made by the people and for the people. It is the only
+nation with which the gods have had nothing to do. And yet there are
+some judges dishonest and cowardly enough to solemnly decide that this
+is a Christian country, and that our free institutions are based upon
+the infamous laws of Jehovah.
+
+Such judges are the Jeffries of the Church. They believe that decisions,
+made by hirelings at the bidding of kings, are binding upon man forever.
+They regard old law as far superior to modern justice. They are what
+might be called orthodox judges. They spend their days in finding out,
+not what ought to be, but what has been. With their backs to the sunrise
+they worship the night. There is only one future event with which they
+concern themselves, and that is their reelection. No honest court ever
+did, or ever will, decide that our Constitution is Christian. The bible
+teaches that the powers that be, are ordained of God. The bible teaches
+that God is the source of all authority, and that all kings have
+obtained their power from him. Every tyrant has claimed to be the agent
+of the Most High. The Inquisition was founded, not in the name of man,
+but in the name of God. All the governments of Europe recognize the
+greatness of God, and the littleness of the people. In all ages,
+hypocrites, called priests, have put crowns upon the heads of thieves,
+called kings.
+
+The Declaration of Independence announces the sublime truth, that all
+power comes from the people. This was a denial, and the first denial of
+a nation, of the infamous dogma that God confers the right upon one man
+to govern others. It was the first grand assertion of the dignity of the
+human race. It declared the governed to be the source of power, and
+in fact denied the authority of any and all gods. Through the ages of
+slavery--through the weary centuries of the lash and chain, God was the
+acknowledged ruler of the world. To enthrone man, was to dethrone Him.
+
+To Paine, Jefferson, and Franklin, are we indebted, more than to all
+others, for a human government, and for a Constitution in which no God
+is recognized superior to the legally expressed will of the people.
+
+They knew that to put God in the Constitution was to put man out. They
+knew that the recognition of a Deity would be seized upon by fanatics
+and zealots as a pretext for destroying the liberty of thought. They
+knew the terrible history of the Church too well to place in her
+keeping, or in the keeping of her God, the sacred rights of man. They
+intended that all should have the right to worship, or not to worship;
+that our laws should make no distinction on account of creed. They
+intended to found and frame a government for man, and for man alone.
+They wished to preserve the individuality and liberty of all; to prevent
+the few from governing the many, and the many from persecuting and
+destroying the few.
+
+Notwithstanding all this, the spirit of persecution still lingers in our
+laws. In many of the States, only those who believe in the existence of
+some kind of God, are under the protection of the law.
+
+The supreme court of Illinois decided, in the year of grace 1856, that
+an unbeliever in the existence of an intelligent First Cause could not
+be allowed to testify in any court. His wife and children might have
+been murdered before his very face, and yet in the absence of other
+witnesses, the murderer could not have even been indicted. The atheist
+was a legal outcast. To him, Justice was not only blind, but deaf. He
+was liable, like other men, to support the government, and was forced to
+contribute his share towards paying the salaries of the very judges
+who decided that under no circumstances could his voice be heard in any
+court. This was the law of Illinois, and so remained until the
+adoption of the new Constitution. By such infamous means has the Church
+endeavored to chain the human mind, and protect the majesty of her God.
+The fact is, we have no national religion, and no national God; but
+every citizen is allowed to have a religion and a God of his own, or
+to reject all religions and deny the existence of all gods. The Church,
+however, never has, and never will understand and appreciate the genius
+of our government.
+
+Last year, in a convention of Protestant bigots, held in the city of New
+York for the purpose of creating public opinion in favor of a religious
+amendment to the federal constitution, a reverend doctor of divinity,
+speaking of atheists, said: "What are the rights of the atheist? I would
+tolerate him as I would tolerate a poor lunatic. I would tolerate him as
+I would tolerate a conspirator. He may live and go free, hold his lands
+and enjoy his home--he may even vote; but for any higher or more
+advanced citizenship, he is, as I hold, utterly disqualified." These are
+the sentiments of the Church to-day.
+
+Give the Church a place in the Constitution, let her touch once more
+the sword of power, and the priceless fruit of all the ages will turn to
+ashes on the lips of men.
+
+In religious ideas and conceptions there has been for ages a slow and
+steady development. At the bottom of the ladder (speaking of modern
+times) is Catholicism, and at the top is Science. The intermediate
+rounds of this ladder are occupied by the various sects, whose name is
+legion.
+
+But whatever may be the truth upon any subject has nothing to do with
+our right to investigate that subject, and express any opinion we may
+form. All that I ask, is the same right I freely accord to all others.
+
+A few years ago a Methodist clergyman took it upon himself to give me a
+piece of friendly advice.
+
+"Although you may disbelieve the bible," said he, "you ought not to say
+so. That, you should keep to yourself."
+
+"Do you believe the bible," said I. He replied, "Most assuredly."
+
+To which I retorted, "Your answer conveys no information to me. You may
+be following your own advice. You told me to suppress my opinions.
+Of course a man who will advise others to dissimulate will not always be
+particular about telling the truth himself."
+
+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 ownself 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 census 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 that within its curious
+bastions and winding halls the soul, in spite of all worlds and all
+beings, is the supreme sovereign of itself.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Individuality, by Robert G. Ingersoll
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