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Maps, plates, charts, etc., may be filmed at different reduction ratios. Those too large to be entirely included in one exposure are filmed beginning in the upper left hand corner, left to right and top to bottom, as many frames as required. The following diagrams illustrate the method: Les cartes, planches, tableaux, etc., peuvent §tre filmds d des taux de reduction diff^rents. Lorsque le document est trop grand pour dtre reproduit en un seul clich6, il est filmd d partir de Tangle sup^rieur gauche, de gauche d droite, et de haut en bas, en prenant le nombre d'images ndcessaire. Les diagrammes suivants illustrent la mdthode. 1 2 3 1 2 3 4 5 6 Hon. in. "E-. Gladsl-oi^c. c / THE Gladstone Ingersoll Controversy. OXXi TORONTO: PUBLISHED BY THE SEOUL Ai; PUBLISHING CO. 1888. I (2ol. 2i7gcP2oll on Chrisl'ian^^S By the Ut. Hon. W. E. CIi-aikstone, M. P. Sonne Remarks on his repbj to Dr. F'uid. As a listener t'rum across the broail Athuitic to tlie clash of arms in the combat between Colonel In;;ersoll and Dr. FicM on tlu' most momentous of all subjects, I have nut the jMi-suiuil know K-tlnrt; which assisted these dou<^dity champiMns in niiikiiiL,^ )-eci}>i-i)c-al acknow- ledgments, as broad as couM Im- desii(Ml, with i"et"t ri iice to pt;rs(jnal character and motivt.'. Such acknuwledi^ments an- of hinh value in keeping the issue clear, it not always of all adventitious, yet of all venomous matter. Destitute of tlie experience on which to found them as original testimonies, still, in attempting j)artiii!ly to criticise the remarkable Ht'ply of Colonel Ingrrsoll, 1 eui b(»tli .icecpt in good faith what has iteen said l»y Dr. Field, and ;i,dd vhat it seems to me consonant with the strain of tlu' pages I hnv.- set bef(jre me. Having said this, I shall allow myself the utmost fi-eedom in remarks, which will be addressed exclusively to the matter, not the niiui. Let me begin by makin iXriiipt IVoiii iiiiNC'liii I's, wliith lie nt the root ot" the Imiiuin C'on>titiiti(jn in its Wiirpccl, ini[>aiiv(i, Jinre .systematically used as if it had been available and legitimate argument against the whole, than in the Reply before us. C\)lonel Inger.soll writes with a rare and enviable Virillancy, but also with an imjx'tus which he seems unable to courrol. Denunciation, .sarcasm, and invective, may in ciaise- quenee Ik- .said to constitute the stapli> of his work; and, if argu- ment or >ome favorable admission here ami there peeps out for a monient. the wi-iter .soon leaves the dry and barren heights for his favorite amlniore luxurious galloping grounds beneath. Thus, when th.- Reply has consecrated a line (N. A. R., No. 372, p. 47.*^) to the plen-^ing contemplation of his oppoiuMit as " maidy, candicb and geneious.' it inunewl\- ji 1ii;mi"'1i'i1 ainl 1 ilt'ctlilic I'rusf ii iii . For tile l:i>s]m'1 teuclics tliat the faith wliich saxes is a li\ iiii,^ anil eiierun/iiiiT taith. ami that the nictst jii'eciy. Kes'((i-e tliis ethical element to the iii)cti-ine t*n»ni which the h'ej.ly has ruilely (lispha'ed it, ami tlu,- whole force of tlie assault is gone, for there is now fi total ahsenci- of point in the accusation ; it comes only to this, that "mercy anil juil^^nient are met to^t-ther,' ami that '• I'inhteousness ami ])eace ha\-e Uisseij cacli other " (l*s. Ixxw. 10). I'erhajts, as we juocreil, there will he sup]»lieil ampler mean> of juili^ini;' whethei" I am waii'anteil in saving' that the in-.t.'.nce 1 ha\e here n-ix-cii is a normal in-^taner of a [tractice .so larL,n'ly ('i)lli.we(l a> to liixest the eiitii'e Ih'idy of that calmuess aii'l .soli|-ii't\' of move- nient which are essential to the just exercisi' of the reasoning' power in .-^ultject matti'r not only grave, l.nt solemn. Pascal has sujiplied us, in the " i'l'tixincial Lettei's." with an iiiiii(Ui' e\am[)le of ea.sy, lirilliant, and fascinating treatm.iit "fa theme hoth profound and complex. Hut where shall we lind another Pascal ( An«l, if we had found him. he would he entitled to j>oint out to lis that the famous wo)-k was not less close and logical tiian it was witt\'. In this rii->e, all attem[»t at continuous ;;rguiiient appears to In; deliber- ately ahjured. not only as to ])ages, hut, as may almost l»e .said, even as to lines. The pa]>er, noteworth\' as it is, leaves on m\' mind the imju't'ssion of a l)attle-iTeld \''here every man sti'ikt'.> at fVcvy man, and all is noise, hurry, and confusion. Hettei', sui'cly had it ]»een. and woi'thier of the great weight and el-'vation of the suhji-ct, if tlie controxei-.sy jiaii heen waged after the pattei*n of those engage- ments where a chosen champion on eitlu-r sidi;, in a sjiace carefully limited and resei'\-ed, does hattle on hehalf (»f each silent and expectant host. The pi'onn'scuous crowds reju'esent all the lower elements whicli entei" into human ci>ntlicts : the chosen champion.s, and the order of their })roceeiling, signify the dominion of rea.son over force, and its just place as the .sovereign arhiter of the great rpiestions that involve the main destiny of man. I will give another instance of the tumultuous method in which the Reply conducts, not, indeed, its argument, hut its case. ])r. Field had exhihited an exam])le of what he thought superstition, and had drawn a distinction l»etween superstition and religion. P)Ut to the author of the Keply all religion i.s bupei-stitiou, and, •iccordingly, he writes as foUow.s (p. 475): OuL. INCiKKSOLL ON CHUISTIAMIY " Yuli are sli(»ck»'^l at the Hindoo mother, when slie ■It'iith at the supposed coinmaiid of her God. What d<» y«»u think uf Ahraham ? of Jephthah ? What is your opinion of JchoN ah himself ? " Taking thfse three Jippoals in th(> reverse order to that in whi«*h they are written, 1 will hrieliy ask, a,s to the closint^' ehalleiige, " Whnt do you think of Jehovah himself?" whether this is the tone in which controversy ont d«-ny that a per.-^on who deems a f,dven religion to be wicked may I>f led onwai'd by loeical (•on>istfncy to impugn in strong terms thf characti-r of the Author and ()bi(ct C)f that religion, liut he is sur»'ly ixunid by the laws of social morality and decency to C(»nsid«r wtll the term.s and the maiuur of his indictment. If lie founds it upon allegations of fact, these allegations should be care- fullv -tated, so {IS to give his antaiionists reasonable evidence that it is tj'uth and not temper which wrings from him a sentence of ctiudeuniation, delivered in sobi-icty and sadm-ss. and not without a duf commiseration b>r those, whom lie is attempting to undecei\-e, who t!iink he is himself hoth n is in process of decision, to r-eijuire that He whom they adore should at least be treated witli th<»sf de<*ent n-srrves which are deemed essential when a human being, say a parent, wife, or sister, is in (piestion. But here a contemptuous reference to Jehovah follows, not upon a careful invt'Stigation of the cases of Ahraham and of J.phthah, V>ut upon a int'ie sunmiarv citation of them to surrender themselves, so to speak, as cul|»rits; that is to say, a summons to accept at once, on the authority ()f the Reply, the vivw which the writer is pleased to take of those eases. It is true that he assuivs us in another part of hi- paper that he has read the Scriptures with care ; any a amonical writer as an object of praise. lUit of praise on what account ? Why should the Re[)ly assume that it is on accranit of the sacrifice of his child ? Tlie writer of the Reply has given us no reason, and no rag of a reason, in support of such a propcisition. But this was thi' very thing he was bound by every consideration to prove, upon making his indictment again.st the Almighty. In my opinion, he could have one reason only for not giving a reason, and that was that no reason could be found. The matter, however, is so full of interest, as illustrating both the method of the Reply and that of the Apostolic writer, that I shall enter farther into it, and draw attention to the very remark- able structure of this noble chapter, which is to Faith what the thirteenth of Cor. I. is to Charity. From the first to the thirty- \ H • •(i|. IMiKUsiH.I. <»N I Ill;|-.'llA\n'V first Verse, It eiiiimieiiiorjifes the Hcliieveliiellts of lilitll iu tctl liersnilS Aliel, I'Jlncll, .NoJlll, AI'TJllmill, Sai'ull, IsjUlC. .Inciili -InSejlh, \|(»ses(iii '^Teiiter <|etiiil than any <>iie rlsi-). an«l finally Walialt, in wilt an, I olist'i'vc ill passinLT. it will liartjly lie jirfti'n»> •feet were shod with the j)re|iaration of the eo>j,,.l of |ieace. Seems with a tender instinct to a\oi(| anythini; like stress on the exploits (»f warriois. ( )f the twelve perstais havin.i' a share in tlie detailed e\|tositi()ns. I)a\ iil is the only warrior, and his eliaia<-ter as a iiiaii of war is eclipsed hy his eriater attri- hutcs as a prophet, or declarer of the l)ivine c(anisels. Jt is yet more noteworthy tliat .loshua, who lia.riAMTV 9 1 Hiivinj^ now answcn-d tin- cliullfni^c us to .Ifphtliali, I procvoil to tlif ciisi; ()t' AltniluMii. Jt woulil in»t Im- fjiir to siiriiilv t'roiu touching it in its tt'ndci't'st |>'.iiit. That point is nowhi-ic t\j)i'fssly tcuchfu )iy the connMt'ndations hcsttiwrd upon Ahniiiani in Scripture. I speak now of the special I'orni, of the \vorefoi-e conted. Yet the intiMition of ohedience had heen fornted ami certified hy a series of acts. Tt may ha\e heen (jualified l>y a reser\-e of hope that (Jod would interpose before the final act. hut of this wi' Iuinc no distinct statement, and it can only >tanly us with a com))lete stateUi -nt of particu- lars. That heini;' .so, it hehoves us to ti'ead cautiously in appi-oachin^ it. Thus nnich, lunvever, I think, may furthei- he .said : the com- mand was adilre.s.seii f^) Ahraham und<'r conchfions ei-s were regarde. I\(;KHS(>LL on CHKISJ-IAXITV. knowlt'dirc of good and evil. Duty lay for tlu-in in following the cv)nunanil of the Most Hii,di. Itefoiv and until tlu-y.or their descend- ants, should iK'Come capaMe of appreciating it by an ethical staudarf the race. The Almighty, in His mediate intercourse with Israel, deigns to appeal to an indepemlently conceived criterion, {is to an arbiter hetween Mis jieople and Himself, "Come, now, and let us reason together, .saith the Lord' (Isaiah i. IS). "Yet ^^e st.'.y the way of the Lord is not e(pial. Hear now, O house of Isi-ael, is not my way e(|ual. are not your ways unequal?" (Ezekiel .Kvii. 25). Between these two epochs how wide a space of moral teaching has been t]'a\tised ! But Ahraham, so far as w^e may judge from the pages of Scripture, belongs I'ssentially to the Adamic pt.'riod. far more than to the prophetic. The notiiai of righteousness and sin was not indeed hidden from, hiui : transgression itself had opened that cha])ter. and it was ne\"er to be closed; but as yet they lay wrapped up, so to speak, in Divine command and prolubition. And what (lod connnanderahani. with respect to this supreme trial, ap- pears to have been centred in this, that he would trust God to all extremities, and in despite of all appearances. The connuand re- ceived was obviously inconsistent with thepronnses which had pre- ceded it. It was also inconsistent with the moralitv iicknowlede-ed in later times, and perhaps too definitely reflected in our minds, by an anachronism easy to conceive, on the da}^ of Abraham. There can be little doubt, as between these two points of view^ that the strain upon his faith was felt mainly, to say the least, in connection with the first mentioned. This faith is not wholly unlike the faith of Job; for Job believed, in des]tiie of what was to the eye of flesh, an unrighteous government of the world. If we mav still trust the Authorized Version, his cry was, "though he .slay me, yet will I trust iu him " (Job xiii. 15). This cry was, how^ever, the expres.sion of one who did not expect to be slain : and it may be that Abraliam, when he said, " My son, God will provide Himself a lamb for a i I k COL IXCJERSOLL ON CHHISTIANITV. 11 il, ap- t(» all <\ IV- l [11 V- ;, I.y here It the t ctiori faith tlesh 1st the will I vssiuu •ahum, tor a I I liTinit oflerini;', " not only believed ex])licitly that God would do what was I'i^'ht, but, nit in'over, believed implicitly that a way of rescue would be found for his son. I do not say that this case is like the case of Jephtha.h, where the intrudiiction of diHicnlty is only i,n-atuitous. 1 confine myself to these proi)ositions. Thonu,h the law of moral action is the same everywhere and always, it is variously applicable to the human being, as we knt.nv froiu experi- ence, in the various stages of his development; and its iirst form is that of simple obedience to a supri'ior whom there is every ground to trust. And further, if the few straunling ravs of our knowledire in a case of this kinund us than dispel it, we do not even know all that was in the mind of Abraham, and arc not in a condition to pronounce upon it, and cannot, without departure from sound reason, abandon that anchor- age by which he probaltly held, that the law of Nature wa-; safe in the hands of the Author of Nature though the means of the recon- ciliation between the law and the appearances have not Ijeen fully placed within our reach. But the Reply is not entitled to so wide an answer as that which I have given. In the parabel with the casc> of the Hindoo widow, it sins against first principles. An established and habitual practice; of child-slauc'hter, in a country of an old and Itarncd civili/ation. presents to us a case totally ditierent from the issue of a command which was not designiMJ to beol)eyed, an years of manhood were associated in great part with the character that appertains to childhood. It will already have been seen that the method of this Reply is not to argue seriously froui point to point but to set out in masses, without tlie labor of proof, crowds of imputations, which may over- whelm an opp(.)nent like balls from a iiiUrailltiisr. As the chaiges lightly run over in a line or two require pages for exhibition and confutation, an exhaustive answer to the Reply within the just limits of an article is on this account out of the question : and the only proper course left open seems to be to make a selection .»f what appears to be tlu' favorite, or the most formidal)le and telling, assertions, and to deal with these in the serious way which the grave interests of the theme, not the manner of their presentati<.>r», may deserve. It was an observation of Aristotle that weight attaches t(» the undemonstrated propositions of those who ai-e able to speak in any given subject matter from experience. The Reply abounds in undemonstrated propositions. They appear, however, to be delivered I 12 COL. IN'CiEHSOLL OX CHRISTIAN II' V. without any senso of a necessity tliat eitiier experience or reasoning ai'e rcMjuired in order to crive tluMii a title to acceptance. Tims, for ('xani|)l<\ the system of .Mi\ Darwin is hui'lcd ;iL;ainst Christianity as a (lai't whieh cannot hut lie fatal (p. 475): " His (liseoveries. earricil to thcii' legitimate conelnsion. destroy tlie creeds and sacri'ei\ from tin; random language of the Keply. "whether the st-heme of J)arwin is to .sweep away all thei.-.m, or is to l)e content with extinguishing i'( N'eaKyl ivligion. If the latter is meant, 1 should reply that the moi'al historx' of man, in its [irineip-iJ stream, ha^ heen (■ shown without nuieh detail, the Keply reduces irie to the necessity (jf following its own unsatisfactory example in the hald f ' .rm of an a^sertlot;, that then,' is n(j coloi'ahje gi'-'Uiid for a.^^suminn' evohitiou and revelation to he at variance with one another. If, howtnt'i', the meaning l»e that theism is swe])t away hy Dar- winism. I oh.serve that, as hefore, we have oidv an uni'easoned rlogma or dictum to deal with, and, dealing pel-force with the iinknown. we are in dang<'r of stiiking at a will of the wis]i. Still, I venture on renuirking that tluMloctrine of Evolution has ac(|uired hoth })raise an first j of tlie ilea, hut gressicjii But, as nces me (' ill the nii'l i'ov itli one hy ]^ar- •fasoned rith tlie ). Still, leijuired < landed ! shock- it is as ught to i, and to i I give emphasis to the relationship between them. But hmg hefore the day either of Mr. Darwin or his grandfather, Dr. Erasmus Darwin, this relationship had been state* I, perhaps even more emphatically by one whom, were it not that I have small title to deal in undemonstrated a.ssertion, 1 sliould venture to call the most cautious, the most robust, and the most com])rrhensive of ou.' philosophers. Siippo.se, says Bishop Butler (Analogy, I'art 2, Chap. 2), that it was implied in tlu- natural immoi'tality of brutes, that they nuist arrive at great attainments, and become (like us) rational and moivil agents : even tliis would be no difficulty, since we know not what latent powers and capacities they may he endowed with. And if pride causes us to deem it an indignity that our rac(> should have proceeded by propagation from an ascending scale of inferior organisms, why should it be a more repulsive idea to have sprung immediately from soTju'thini!' h-ss than man in brain and bod v, than to have been fashioned acco)'ding to the expression in Genesis (Cliap. II., V. 7) " out of the dust of the ground " ? There are halls and galleries of introihiction in a palacf. but none in a cottage ; and this arrival of the creative work at its climax through an ever aspiring preparatory series, rather than I»y transition at a step from the inanimate mould of earth, may tend rather to mairnifv than to lower the creation (»f man on its physical side. But if belief hcus (as connncmly) been premature in its alarms, has non-belief been more rel^iective in its exulting anticipations, and its pagans on the assumed disappearance of what are strangely enough ternieil sudden acts of creation from the sphere of our study and contemplation^ One strikinir eti'ect of the Darwinian theory of descent is, so far as I understand, to reduce the breadth of all intermctliate distinctions in the scale of animated life. It does not bring till creatures into a single lineage, but all diver.sities are to be traced back, at some point in the scale and bv stai^es indefinitely miinite. to a common ancestry. All is done by steps, nothinu' bv striiles, leaps, or boun Reply ought sundy to dispose of these, and proViably many more arguments in the case, before assuming so absolutely the rights of dictatorship, and laj'ing it down that Darwinism, carried to its legitimate conclusion (and 1 have nowhere endeavored to cut short its career), destr(jys tlie creeds and scriptures of mankind. That I may be the more definite in my challenge, I would, with all respect, ask the author of the Reply to set about confuting the succinct and clear argument of his countryman, Mr. Fiske, who, in t]\o earlier part of the small work, entitled " Man's Destiny " (Macmillan, Mondon, IS87) has given what seems to me an admissible and also striking interpreta- tion of the leading Darwinian idea in its bearings on the theistic argument. To this very partial treatment of a great subject I must at present confine myself : and I proceed to another of the notions, as confident as they seem to be crude, which the Reply has drawn into its widecasting net (p. 475) ; I t COL. INGERSULL OX (JHIILSTIANITY. l& "Why should God dcTiiaud a sacrifice from iiuin ? Wiiy sliould the infinite ask anvthin<^ from the finite ? Siiould the sun lu'ir of the glow-worm, and should the momentary spark excite the envy of the source of light ^ " This is one of tliti cases in which happ}' or showy illustratioii io, in the Reply before me, set to cai'ry with n rush the position which argument would have to approach more lal)oriously and more slowly. The case of the glow-worm with the sun cannot but move a reader's pity, it seems so very hai*d. But let us suppose for a moment that the glow-worm was so constituted, and so related to the sun that an interaction between them was a fundamental condition of its health and life ; that tiie glow-worm must, by the law of its nature, like tlu; moon, refiect upon the sun, according to its strength and measure, the light which it receives, and that only by a process involving that refiection its own store of vitality could be upheld ? It will be said that this is a very large ■petlfio to in. port into the glow-worm's case. Yes, Ijut it is the very petiiio which is absolut«'ly n.'ijuisite in order to make it parallel to the case of the Christian. Tlic argument which the Reply has to destroy is and must be the Cln-istian argument, and not sonie fiffure of straw, fabi'icated at will. It is needless, pei'haps, but it is refreshing, to (piote tlu- nob]*' Psalm (Ps. 1. 10, 12, 14, 15), in which this assumption of the Reply is rebuked. " xVll the beasts of the forest are mine ; an 1 s(j are the cattle upon a th(;usan(.l hills. . . If I be hungry I will not tell thee ; for the whole world is mine, and all that is therein. . . . Oti'er unto God thanksgiving ; and pay thy \'ows unto the Most Highest, and call upon Me in the time of trouble; so will I hear thee, and thou slialt piviise Me." Let me try my hand at a counter-illusti-atiou. if the Infinite is to make no demand upon the finite, by parity of reasoning the great and strong should scarcely make them on the weak and small. Why then should the father make demands of love, obedience, and sacrifice, from his young child ? Is thei'e not some favor of the sun and eflow-worm here ? But every man does so make them, if he is a man of sense and feeling ; and he makes them for the sake and in the interest of the son himself, whose nature, expanding in the warmth of afiection and pious care, requires, by an inward law, to return as well jis to receive. And so God asks of us, in order thai what we give to Him may be far more our own than it ever was liefore the giving, or than it could have been unlass first rendered lip to Him, to become a part of what the gospel calls our treasure in heaven. \\ Ki OoJ,. INf;r:!l.S(»LL i)N (;HLtI.>T!ANilV H ' Altli()',i<^^li tlu; Reply is not careful to supply us with ivhys, it ecomecareful,and,becomingcarefuL they would become W(althy. It was a just and sober forecast, and it represented with truth the general rule of life, although it be a rule perplexed with exceptions. But, if this be too narrow a sphere of oliservation, let us take a wider one, the widest of all. It is compri.sed in the brief statement that Christendom rules the world, and rules it, perhaps it should be added, by the possession of a vast :".irplus of material as well as moral force. Therefore the assertions carried by implication in the queries of the Reply, which are I I •'1 CUL. IXUEUSOLL OS CHRISTIANITY. 17 whyi-i, it itrov the ike here. y '-liouM roytMl l»y •\ iiig, ill*- I down to A/><>l(>;/ievone a a sphere ,11. It is le world, of a vast assertions hich are i i general, arc because general untrue, although they might have been true within those prudent limitations which the method of this Reply appears especially to eschew. Taking, tlien, these challenges as they ought to have been given, I admit that great believers, who have been also great masters of wisd(»m and kiKnvledge, are not able to explain the inequalities of adjustment between Imman beiiii^s and the conditions in which they have been set down to work out their destiny. Th»' climax of these ineijualities is perhaps to be found in the fact that, whereas rational belief, viewed at large, founds the Providential government of the world upon the hypothesis of free agency, there are so many cases in which the overbearing mastery of circumstance appears to reduce it to extinction or paralysis. Now, in one. sense, without doubt, these difficulties are matter for our legitimate and necessary cognizance. It is a duty incumlient up(»n us respectively, according to our means and opportunities, to assume an original and tirst hand knowledge of all })(j.ssible kinds of things. I will take an instance, all the easier to deal with because it is outside the inmiediatfi sphere of controversy. In one of those pieces of tine writing with which the Reply abounds, it is determined obiter by a backhanded stroke (N. A. R., p. 4!)1) that Shakespeare is " by far the greatest of the human race." I do not feel entitled to assert that he is not ; but how va.st and com])le.K a question is here determined for us in this airy manner! Has the writer of the Rejdy really weigh(,'d the force, and measured the sweep of his own words ^ \\'h(»ther Shakespeai-e has ov b.is not tl.ie primacy of genius o\-er a very few other names which might be placed in competition with his, is a question which has not yet Ijeen determined bv the ijeneral or deliberate iudmnent of lettere(l man- kind. But lK>hind it lies another (juestion, inex[)ressibly ditlicult, ■vriXce))L for the Re])ly, to solve. That (juestion is, what is the relation of human genius to human greatness. Is genius the sole /Constitutive element of grt;atne.ss, or with what other elements, and in what relations to them, is it condnned ? Is everv man great in pro))ortion to his genius ? Was (Jioldsmith, or was Sheridan, or wtis Burns, <:)!• was Byron, or was Goi'the, or was Napoleon, or was Alcibiades, no smallei", and was John.scai, or was Howard, or was Washington, or was Phocion oi- Leonidas no greater, than in propor- tion to his genius properly so called ? How ar we to finy. In one 'onnds, it is X 4!)1) that I dt) not coin])l<'X a ! Has the 'asuriMl the ())• has n(»t h might he >t vet Ijeen Itt'ied man- y ditlicult, hat is the lis the sole iients, and In great in Ian, or was \\\. or was li'd. or was in propor- |iine the princi))les declared in the GospeJ. Is not, then, the hiatib>i, which the Reply has discovered in the teaching of oui' Lord, an imaginaiy h idiu.s f Nay, are the suggested improvements of that teaching really gross dt'tei'ioiations ? Where would have been the wisdom of d(,'li\ering to an uninstructe<.l popu- lation of a particular age a c(xlitie(l religion, whicli was to serve for all nations, all ages, all states of civilization ? Why was not room to be left bn* the career of human thought in Hnding out, and in workinir out, the ada])tation of (^'lu-istianitv to the ever varvincf movement of the world? And how is it that thev who will not admit that a iTvelation is in place when it has in view the great and necessary work of conflict against sin, are so free in recom- mending enlai'gements of that Revelation tor purposes, as to which no such necessity can be pknuled ? I have known a pt^rson who, after studj'ing the old classical or Olympian religion for the third part of a century, at length began to hope that he had some partial comprehension of it, some inkHng of what it meant. Woe is him that he was not conversant either 20 COL. IN0EU80LL ON CHUISTIANITV. with tlio faculties or with the motliods of tlie Reply, which a])par- ently can dispose in half an lujur of any problem, doi^Muatic, hist'ti-iciil, (»r moral ; and which accordin^^dy takes occasion to assure us that l^uddha was " in nuiny respects the greatest reli;.;i()Us teacher this wui'ld has ever known, the broadest, the most intellectual of them all" (]>. VM). (Jn this I shall only say that an attempt to brinii' Buddha and Buddhism into line together is far beyond my reach, but that every Christian, knowing in some degree what Christ is. and what he has done for the world, can only be thu more thankful if IJuddha, or Confucius, or any other teache,r has in any point, and in any nu'asure, come near to the outskirts of His I ineffable greatness and glory. It is my fault or my misfortune to remark, in this Reply, an inaeeuracy of refel'enc(^ which would of itself suthce to render it remarkable. Christ, we are told (pp. 4!)2, 500), denounced the chi».sen people of God as "a generation of viper.s." This phrase is applied by the Baptist to the crowd who came to seek baj)tism from him; but it is only applied by our Lord to Scribes or Pharisees (Luke iii. 7, ^bltthew xxiii. 33, and xii. 34), who are so connnonly plact'd by Him in contrast with the people. The error is repeatcil in the mention of whited sepulchres. Take again the version of the story of Ananias and .Sa})phira. We are told (p. 494) that the Apostles conceived the idea " of having all things in common." In the narrative there is no statement, no suggestion of the kind ; it is a pure interpolation (Acts iv. 32-7). Motives of a reasonable pru- dence are staged as matter of fact to have influenced the offending cou[)le — another pure interpolation. After the catastrophe of Ananias " the Apostles sent for his wife " — a third interpolation. I refer only to these points as exhibitions of an hal)itual and dangerous inaccunicy, and without any attempt at present to discuss the case, in which the ju'lgments of God are exhibited on their severer side, and iu whieh I eammt, like the Reply, undertake sununarily to detei'inine for what cans > the Almighty should or should not take life, or delegate the po^w ci- to take it. Airain, Ave have (p. 4.S(; ) these words given as a quotation from the Bible : " They who believe and are baptized shall be saved, and they who lielieve not shall be damned ; and these shall go away into everla.sting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels." The second clause thus reads as if applicable to the persons men- tioned in the first ; that is to say, to those who reject the tidings of the Gospel. But instead of it being a continuous passage, the i COL. INTJERSOLL ON (?HUISTIAKITY. 21 » appar- Dt^iiiatic, <) assure ; teacluT actual of ciiipt to '^oiul my )e wliat he more s in any of His pply, an vnder it iced the )hrase is ba])tism 'harisees niinonly Lvpcated n of tlie ;hat the )n." In i( hnini hniK.sf, m' ili.shdiii ■-/, ill tin' fni'iiiittiiin of an oj^finioii. The conclusit)U is. j entirely indejx'ndent of desire." j The reji.sonini: faculty is. ther«'fore, whollv extrinsic to our tiioi-jil « nature, and no intlueiice is or can he received or iinparted hetween % tlit'iii. 1 know not whetliej- the iiieanin*.; is that all the I'ji iiltiis of | our nature are like S(» jimny .st'pnrate departments in one of the ' modei-n shojf^ that su|>|>ly all hnnuin wants; that will, Miemoi-y, j iuiauinatit)!!, affection, p.-u^sion. i-ach has its own separate domain, .^ aii«l that they Uieet only for a compai'ison of results, just to tell one another what they have severally U'cn doini,^ It is ditlicult to conceive, if this l»e so, wherein consists the ])ersonality, or individu- ality, or oi-;x'H>ic unity of man. It is not ditlicult to see that whiUi tile He])ly aims at ujilil'tiiiii' human natuic. it in reality ]>luni;es us (]x 47')) into tlie ahys,^ of degradation hy the destruction uf moral freedom, responsihility. and lunty. For we are Justly told that " rea.son is tlie snpreiiM' and final test." Action n)ay he niei-ely instincti\'e and hahitual, or it may l>e consciously founde»l on for- mulated thouuht ; hut, in the cases whei'e it is instinctix'e and hahitual, it passes over, so soon Jis it is challenged, into the other category, and finds a hasis fV>r itself in .some form of opinion. LUit, pays the Ke]dy,we havt^ no i-esponsihility for onr opiidons: we can- not help forming- them acco)-(lin<; U) the evidence as it presents itst'lf to us. ()hse)-\'e, the (itK-trine em'n'aces every kind of opinion, and end>races all alike, opinion on suhjects where we like or dislike, as well as upon .suhjects where we merely athrm or deny in some medium ahsolutolv colourless. For, if a distinction be taken between the ct)lourle.ss and the coloured medium, between conclu- sions to which passion or propensity or imau^ination inclines us, and conclusions to which these have nothini^ to say, then the whole ground will \xi cut away from under the feet of the Reply, and it will have to build aijain ah initio. Let us try this by a test case. A father who has believed his son to have been throui;h life upright, suddenly iinds that charges are made from various ([uarters against his integrity. Or a friend, greatly dependent for tlie work of his life on the co-operati(,>n of another friend, is told that that comrade' is counterworking and betraying him. I make no assumption now,- COL. INliEKSOLL ON UUlilSTIAMl Y 2^ ^ the t'uli; ■licvc, oi- su;t It. 1 .s[)iti' of lusioii is III' tliol'jil tiltiis of (' of tlu' iiiciiioiy, • loiiiain, I U'll one licult to ii(li\ i<]u- at while lllL^t'S lis jf iiiorul 1 tliut mi'J't'ly on for- \t' and V other But, \\v can- ts itself ti, and like, as 1 some taken conelu- us, and whole and it st case. })right, lii'ainst of his )nirade ■)!! nov".- ns to the eviileiH'e or tlie n>sult: l»ut T a>k which of them couU ap{»niach the in\estiLrati(»n without ft'elin^'" a desir*' to he ahle t<» ae(|uit !' And what shall we say of tin- dcsir-e to cond'-itin ■ WoiiM Klizaheth have had no leaning; towards tiiatin^ Mary Siuai-t impli- cated in a coiiMpifacy !* I>id Knulish judices and jurir> aj>|)idaeli witli an unhiassed mind the trials for the l'ojii>li jilot ' \\\iv the- opinions fornn'tj hy tlu- KnL;'lish I'ar-Iiament on tlir 'I'rraty <> Limerick foi'inrd without tlu- ititcr\ I'Ution of tie' will' Did Napoleon Jutl^•<' according to the fvidcncc when lie acipiitted hini- self in the matter of tla- Due dKni^diien <" Does the intellect sit in a solitai'y clwunKer, like (Jalilco in the palace of tie Vatican, and pu;siie celestial obser\ation all untouched, while tiie turmoil of earthly Imsiness is rayini; t'V(>r-yvvher<' around f Accoi'dini^' to the IJfply, it ust he a mistake to suppose that there is anywlnre in the woi'M such a thint;- as hias, or pi'ejudice, oi- |)repo>^rssion : tliey ai'e words without naanin;:;' in re^^ard to our judpnent^, for. eveu if they coultl raise a clamor from w ithout, the intellect sits within, ill an atmosphere of serenity, and, like Justice, is deaf and lilitul, as well as calm. In addition to all other fanlts. I hold ihat this philosophy, or pliantasm of philoso[)hy, is emintiity retro(,^ressive. Human natur<', in its compound of ilesh and spiiit, hecomes more complex with the proj,(r«'ss of civilization: with the steady multi])lica,tion (»f wants, and of means f(,)r tlu'ii- sii])ply. With complication, introspection has larg'ely extended, and 1 liclieve that, as olise)\ation extends its field, so far from isolatin;.^ the intelliifeiice and makin;. an' how Wu-y open and ^a'ow, or dry up and dwini''onizin wIkm'Is can sto|> tin' mo\'emeiit or the noise.* The doctrine tar.ght in the Kt'})ly, that htdief is, as a general, nay, nni\-ersal, l;iw, independent of the will, surely proves, when t'xamiiifd, tn he a jiliiusihility of the shallowest kind. Even in arirhiiu'tie. if a hoy, thi'ougii dislike of his employment, and conse- (jUi'iit l.ick of attention, ln-ings out a wrong result for Jiis sum, it can hanily hi' said that his conclusii^n is ahsoluttdy and in all res])ects independent of his will. Moving onward, point hy point, towai-d till' cfuti-i' of the argument, I will JH'xt take an illustraticai froiii ni;ilhrniatics. It has (1 apprehmd) hcvn demonstrated that the I'elation of the di.niKftei' to the circumference of a circle is not su.sceptil le of full nuiiiei'ical ex])i"ession. Yet, from time to tinic, trcatiso aie lailmsneO w /ncii ooiUlv announce thai thi-v set forth the >|na(lrature of the circle. 1 'lo not deny tlini this may he purely 'i)t"nectn;il "iTor ; li'U would it )"ot, on the othei* hfuidjie hfizai-ilous to assi.'i't tha,t no gi'aiii of egotism oi'and>ition has e\(>r entered into the compo>ition of any one of such treatises { I have selected these in^taners a>, perhaps, the most laNnrahle that can he found to the pi'oach to its sublimity. Such, in givuii circumstances, is the eti'ect of moral agony oil mental power. L'OJ.. INTJERSOLL <)X CHIUSTIaNITY 2o )WS US, llOW laiy natural ■r the three a continue*] e trials wn^s IS elevation, the R.q)ly (•suits of an 1,(1 no share, niing down, ;lusion than ; a s^eneral. ■oves, when Even in , and conse- his sum, it and in all it hy [)oint, illustratif)n trated that ?ircle is not ne to time. ft forth tilt' he purely liMzai'dous ntcred iiitu eeted these mud to the ' set aside man JtiMu- nd dislilves ink. in IH.'U. jell p.'issod in rkhousb !is ;i ion i)r(i(luc6i1 liL' time. He in the night 'F. net fi'iiin e. The oen tied strongly I>ro;ieh to its d agony on more or le.ss lareelv enters. I admit. indee(l, that the illative faculty works under rules upon which choice and incli)iation (tuj^ht to exercise no influence wliatever, But even if it wvn- o-j-anted that in fact the faculty of discxnirse is exenijited from all such inriueiices within its Own province, yet we come no nearer to the mark, bccau.se that faculty has to work u})on materials sujiplied to it by other faculties; it draws conclusions aceordino' to premises, and the question has to be determiuisd whethei' our conceptions .set forth in those premises are or are not iriHuenced liy moral causes. For, if they be so influenced, then in vain will be the jjroof that the understandintr has dealt loyally and exactly with the materials it has to work u])on ; inasmuch jxs, althouoli the intellectual process 1)0 normal in itsidf, the operation may have b(?cn tainte. If it wa.s not. then the swc ,)ing doctrine of the pi-e.seiit writer on the nece.'-- s;ii'\- l)lamelessness of erroneous conclusions tumliles to the ground like a liou.se of cards at the breath of the cliild who built it. In truth, tlu' pages of tiie Reply, and the Letter w liieli lias nioje i-ecentl}' followed it,* themselves demonsii'are that what the writer has jisserted wJiolesale he overthrows and denii'S in detail. ' Vou will admi^," says the Re])ly (]). 477), " tliat he who now pevsrcuti's for opinions sake is infamous."' Hut why ( Supi»ose he thinks that by persecution he can brijig a man from soul-(lestr(,iying falsehood to .soul-saving truth, this opinion may reflect (»n his intellectual debilitv : but that is his misfortune, not his fault. His ln-ain has thought without asking his consent ; he has believed or disbeli<'ved without an ellbrt of the will (p. 47()). Yet the mmt writer, who has thus estal)lished his title to think, is the first to hurl at him an anathema for thinking. And again, in the Lettei- to Dr. Fi
this doctrine, the American written Constitution, and the entire American tradition, teach the right of a nation to self-go\'ernment. And these propositions, which have dividrd and still divide the world, (^pen up resju'ctively into vast systems of in-econeilable ideas and laws, practices and habits of mind. Will any rational man. above all will any Anu'rican, contend that the.se contlicting system -^ have been adopted, ujdield, and enforced on one side and the othei'. in the daylignt of pure reasoning only, and that moral, or innnoral. causes have nothing to do with their adoption ? That the intellect has worked im])artially, like a steam-engine, and that seltislnu-ss. love of fame, love of money, love of power, envy, wratli. and malice. or again bias, in its least noxicnis form, have never had anythinii'to do with generating the opposing movements, or the frightful collisions in which they have resulted ? If we say that they have not, we contradict the universal judgment of mankind. If we say they have, then mental processes are not automatic, but may be influenced bj'- the will and by the passions, affections, habits, fancies, that sway the will ; and this writer will not have advanced a step towards proving the universal innocence of error, until lu' has shown that propo.sitions of religion are t'sscntially unlike almost all other propositions, anosition t.) th(.' entire N'l'nuiifnt. lividu thf lablc idt.'Us onal man. i.LT system > the othel', ' immoral. <• intellect ■eifishness. <1 malice. ythinLi' t(; frightful tliey have If we say may 1 le s. fancies, :ed a step il he has dmost all from tht; nature of the ease can be, affected in their acceptance or rejection. by moral causes.* To sum up. There are many passages in these notewoi-thy^ papers, which, taken by themselves, are calculated to command warm sympathy. Towards the clo.^e of his iinal, or latest letter, the writer expresses himself as follows (N. A. R., vol. 14(5, p. 4()): " Neither in the interest of truth, nor for the benefit of man, is it necessary to assert what we «io not know. No cruise is great enough to demand a sacrilice of candor. The mysteries of life and death, of good and evil, have never yet been solved." How good, how wise are these words ! But coming at the close of the controversy, have they not some of the inefl'ectual features of a death-bed n^pentance ? They can hardly be said to represent in all points the rules under which the pages preceding them have been composed ; or he, who so justly says that we ought not to assert what we do not know, could hardly have laid down the law as we find it a few pages earlier (ibid, p. 40) when it is pronounced that " an infinite God has no excuse for leaving his children in doubt and darkness." Candor and upright intention are indeed everywhere manifest amidst the flashing coruscations which really compose the staple of the articles. Candor and upright intenti(m also impose upon a commentator the duty of fornmlating his anim- adversions. I sum them up under two heads. Whereas we are placed in an atmosphere of mj^stery, relieved only by a little sphere of light round each of us, like a clearing in an American forest ■ (which this writer has so well described), and rarely cjin see fartlier than is necessary for the directiv.in of our own conduct fr(>m day to day, we find here, assumed by a particular person, the character of an univei'sal judge wdthout appeal. And whereas the highest self- restraint is necessary in these dark but, therefore, all the more exciting inquiries, in order to maintain the ever quivering balance of our faculties, this writer cliooses to ride an unbroken horse, and to throw the reins upon his neck. I have endeavoured to give a sample of the results. I W. E. Gladstone. j *The chief part of these observations were written before I had received the § January number of the .Review, with Ool. IngersoU's additional letter to Dr. I Field. Much of this letter isspecially pointed at Dr. Field, who can defend himself, and at Calvin, whose ideas I certainly cannot undertake to defenelieve in the degeneracy' of man, and that ciir unt'ortunati; race, starting at perfection, has travelled down- wai'd thr(^ngh all the wasted years. It is hardly possible that our ancestors were perfect. If histoiy proves anything, it establishes the fact that civilization was n(jt first, and savagery afterwards. Certainly the tendency of man is not now toward Itarbai'ism. There nuist luive been a time when language was unknown, when lips had never formed a word. That which man knows, man must have learned. The victories of our race ha\e l)een slowly and painfully won. It is a long distance from the gibberish of the sa\age to the sonnets of Shakespeare — a long and weary road fi'om the pi])e of Pan to the great oi'chestra voiced with every tone fi'om the glad warble of a niated bird to the lionrse thundt-r of the sea. The road is long that lies between the discordant cries uttered by the bar1)Hrian over the gashed boily of his foe and the marvelous music of AVagnt-r and Beethoven. It is hardly ])ossible to conceive of the years tliat lie between the caves in which crouched our naked ancestors crunching the lujnes of wild beasts, and the home of a civilized man with its comforts, its articles of luxury and use, — with its works of art, with its enriched and illuminated walls. Think of the billowed years that must have rolley tho weakness of human nature, or by reason .of some defect or vice in the religion taught. — cjr by l)oth. * Is there anvthino- in the Christian reliijion — anvthini,^ in what ;■ you are pleased to call the " Sacred Scriptures," tending to cause 4 the crimes and atrocities that have boon connnitted by the Church ? It seems to be natiu'al for a man to defend hiniself and the ones he loves. The father sla3^s the man who would kill his child — he eace liavo kissed ••ac'li other" !* or will those words bo spoken ))y tlic n.'dcnnt'd as tlioy Joyously contemplate the writliini^s of the lost ;" No ont! will disjmt*' " that in the discussion ol' imj)ortaiit (]uostion> <*almness and sohriety art- essential." I»ut sol(>mnity ne( d not he carried to the N'ei'n'e of mental pai'aly>is. Inthe>eai'eh for truth, - that e\ erythini^'" in nature seems to hide, — man iieeils the assistance of all his faculties. All the souses shouM he awake. Humoi should carry a toi'ch, Wit should uiNc its suddi'U liu'ht, Candoi- should hold tlie scales, Keason, the final arhiti'r, should put his I'oyal stani]) on eveiy fact, and Memory, with a miser's care, should keep and euai-d the mental ^old. The chnrch has always despised the man of huimr, hated lauehtei and eucoui'aef'd the lethargy of solenniity. It is not willini;' thai the mind should suhject its creed to everv test of trutli. It wislu- to ovei-awe. it does not say, "He that hath aniind to think lei liim thi]d\ ' ; hut, '■ He that hath ears to hear let him hear." The church has always ahhoi-re*! wit, — that i" to say, it does not en joy lieing struck hy the lightning of the soul. The foundation of wit is logic, aud it has always heen the enemy of the supernatural the solenni and alisurd. You express great i-egi-et tliat no one at the present day is able to write like Itasca! You admire his wit and temlerness, and the uuiriue. brilliant, and fascinating manner in which he ti'eate(l tlu ])rof'auidt'st and nio>t comjilex themes. Shai-ing mi ymii' admiration and regret, 1 call your attention to what inigfit be called one ol iiis religious generaliziitions . " Di.sease is tlie Uritural .state of n Christian." Certainly it e-iunot be sairahani, of Jephthah ? What is your opinion of .)eln)vah him.self ?" These sim})le ({Uestions seem to liave excited you to an unusual deore(\ and \'ou ask in woi-ds of some scN^eritv : " Whether this is the tone in which controversies caight to be carrierl on ?" And you say that — "not only is the name of Jehovah encircled in the heart tl n I't in tl "B e — 4 11 Jl CUL. I\ ll('( (I not lie t'oi' truth,- i(^ assistatici' :('. IIiiiiioi .U'lit, Camldi' >iil to think let hcai'.'" Tlic l(jt's not I'D- •niiilation of ipfi'uaturai "lay is ultli L'ss, and tlif treated tin admiration ailed one oi' 1 state ol' ii er mingled r. in whicli I ion and re doo mothei' nand oK liei' ? Wliat i.s an unusual ther this is And yoii u the heart of OVnry heiievel* witll tlie |)l'ot'oUnut Jehovah and, at the 3 the Gon- ial on the :)ers of an e looking her side. IS at the esoliition, Llod liold ^ ? tSave, K'lll witli ie a wild e rayless k: at the ? Your 3ld them inders of in honor COL. IXCJEKSOLL TO MR. GLADSTv XE. SO of him wlio liad dishonored thoni. Does a kind father mock his deformed child ^ What would you tliiuk uf a mother who would deride and taunt her misliapen babe ? There is another test. How does a man use power ? Is he gentle, or cruel ? Does he defend the weak, succor the oppressed, or trample on the fallen ? If you will road again the twenty-eiglitii clia])ter of Deuteronomy, you will find how Jehovah, th(^ com})assionate, whose name is onslu'ined in so many hearts, threatened to use Ids power. "The Lord shall smite thee with a coiisumi)ti()ii, and with a fever, and with an inflauiniatiun, and with an extreme burning, and with the sword, and with blasting and mildew. And thy heaven that is over tliy head .shall be brass, and the earth that is under thee shall be iron. The Lord shall UKike the rain of thy land powder and dust." .... " And thy carcass shall be meat unto all the fowls of tiio air and unto the beasts < if the earth." .... " Tlu- Lord shall smite thue witli madness and blindiu-ss. And thou shalt eat of tlu' fruit of thine own body, the Heali of thy sons and thy daughters. The tendei- and delicate women among you, . . her eye shall l)e evil . . toward her voung one and toward her children which she shall bear ; for she shall eat theiu." Should it ]>e found that these curses were in fact uttered hy the God of hell, and that the translators had made a mistake in attributing them to Jehovah, could you say tluit the sentiments expre.'^pod are inconsistent witli the supposed character of the Infinite Fiend ? A nation is judged ^y its law.s — by the punishment it inflicts. The nation that ouv slies ordinary offences with de^.th is regarded as barbarous, ana one nation that tortures before it kills is f](mounced o' ' •^vao'e. What can you say of the government of Jehovah, in which death was the penal y lor liundre him, ntjr hearken inito him ; neither shall thine eyes \nty him, neither slialt thou s])are. neither shalt thou conceal him : but thou shalt surely kill him ; thine iiand shall be hrst upon him to put him to djath, and afterwartls the hand of all tlie people. And thou shalt stone liim with stones, that he die." Is it possible for you to find in the literature of "this world more awfid passages than these ^ Did ever savagery, with strange and uncouth marks, with awkward forms of benst and bird, pollute the dri]~>])ing walls of ca^•es with such connnands ? Ai-o thesi' the words of iiitinite luercv ? When 'hey wei'e uttered, did " riohteousness and peace kiss each other?" How can any loving man or woman "encircle the name of Jehovah" — author of these words — "with profoundest reverence and love i' " Do I rebel because my "consti- tution is warped, impaired and dislocated ? " Is it because of " total depravity " that I denounce the bi'utality of Jehovah ^ If my heart were only good — if I loved my neighbor as myself— would I then isee infinite mercy in these hideous words ? Do I hick " reverential calm /" Tliese frightful passages, like coiled adders, w re in tlie hearts o£ Jehovah's chosen people when they crucified " ihe Sinless Man." Jehovah did not tell the husl)and to reason wl'h his wife. She was to be an.swered only with death. She w^as to be bruised and ma brc th( wi th to m CUL. IXGERSOLL TO MK. (_.LAJ).ST( >NE. 41 lie witli tile ty temple gion tliat t destruc- >tli rs the iberty of rice sake. liberty lyranny shriveled y • Was • .ct, God, worship " by any lii'teeiith ter, or the iitice thoe It not con- Ill, neither iurely kill ifterwarcls It he die." 1"1<1 lUUiC Liiii'e and llnte the le ^vo^ds :;ousness ' woman — " with "coiisti- if " total ly heart 1 1 then erential (^arts of fan." t'. She sell and mangled to a bleeding, >^liapeless mass oi quivering tlesh. for ha\ing breathed an honest thouu:ht. If there is arivthitiir <'f importance in this world, it is the faniilv, the home, the marriage w to be ke]")t, while fianies devoured thr daughter's fiesh ? 8t. Paul is not authority. He praises Samuel, the man who hewed Agag in piec(.»s; l)a\id, who compelloil hundreds to pass •under the saws and harrows of deatli. and many others who shed ;tJie blood of the innocent and helpless. Paul is an unsafe guide. i\ Jl ii] CI el COL. IXGEHSULL TO MR. GLAi).STOXE. 49 shall devour d the tongue the poison of mg man and the Most ifit to live lovali, t]ic 'hy did he ^s? Why poor and and crime ose whom s to slio\v h, M-as as when she unication the Lord ine hands, se to meet >lv be the intended • C( )metli beino- — r to tJie I — came d allow ^ughter loM^ the n who bo pass »o shed .iruido. t He who commends the brutalities of the past, sows the seeds of future crimes. If "believers are not oblic^ed to approve of the conduct of Jephthah," are tli<'y free to condenni the conduct of JehoNah ^ If you will read the account, you will se« that the "'spirit of the Lord was upon Jephthah" when lu,' made the cruel vow. If Paul did not connnend Jephthah for keeping this vow, what was the act that excited his admiration ? Was it because .]e}»hthah sjrw on the banks of the Jordan "forty and two thousand" of the sons ( say "that Adam and Eve had no moral sen^e. How, under sue!, ^'rcumstances, could they have the sense of guilt, or of ohliii'ation ? And whv should such i)ersons l)e puni.shed ? *• *• '111 And why should th ' .'''hole human race liecome tanited by the offence of those ^\ilo had no moral sense ? Do you intend to be uuilerstood as saving that Jehovah allowed his children to en.slave each other because "duty lay for them in following the connnand of the Most High ?" Was it for this rcas moral history of man, in its principal stream, has been distinctly an evolution from the first until now.'' It is hard to see how tliis statement agrees with the one in the beginning of your Renuxrks, in which you speak of the human con- stitution in its " warpi'd, impaired and dislocated " condition. When you wrote that line, you were certainly a theologian — a believer in the Episcopal creed — and yoxw mind, by mere force of habit, was at that moment contemplating man as he is supposed to ha\'e been cieated — perfect in every })art. At that time you. w^ere endeavor- ing to account for the unbelief now in the world, and you did this by stating that the human constitution is " wai'ped, impaired and dislocated ; " but the moment you are brought face to ^sxr/i with the great truths uttered by Dai-win, you admit " that the mora, history of man has l)een distinctly an tn'olution from the first until now." Is not this a fountain that brings forth sweet and bitter waters? I insist, that tlie discoveries of Darwin do away absolutely with the inspiration of the Scriptures — with the account of creation in Genesis, and demonstrate, not simply the falsity, not simply the wickedness, but the foolishness of the " sacred volume." There is nothing in Darwin to show that all has been evolved from " primal niglit and from chaos." There is no evidence of -t 4U COL. INGERSOLL TO MR. GLAD.STOXE. ** rM»l »-»! rt 1 iiJrYiV^i- " T'U/-iT..-> ic -no IM-/ ./ >V ,\( llTllT'OVGnl pllfinS Did vonr u Jehovali .spend an eternity in " primal niglit," with no companion but cha(j.s { It makes no difference how loni^^ a lower form may recjuire to reach a hii^her. It makes no dilirrence whether forms can be simply modified or absohitely clianm'.l. These facts have not the slightest tendency to throw the slightest light on the beginning or on the destiny of things. I mo.st cheerfully athnit that gods have the right to create swiftly or slowly. The reptile may becouu' a bird in one day, or in a thou- sand l>illion year.s — this fact has nothing to do witli the existence or non-existence of the first cause, but it lias .something to do with the truth of the Bible, and with the existence of a personal God of infinite power and wisdom. Does not a gradual improvement in the thing ci-eated show a corresponding improvenuiut in the creator ? The church demon- strated the falsity and folly of Darwin's theories by showing that they contradicted the Mosaic account of creation, and now the theories of Darwin having been fairly established, the church says that the Mosaic account is true, because it is in harmony with Darwin. Now, if it should turn out that Darwin was mistaken, what then ? To me. it is somowhnf difficult to understand the mental processes of one who really feels tlint " the gap between man and the inferior animals or their relationship was stated, perhaps, even more em])hatically by Bishop Butler than by Darwin." Butler answered deists, who objected to the cruelties of the Bible, and yet lauded the God of Nature by showing tliat the God of Nature is as cruel as the God of the Bible. That is to .say, he succeeded in .showing that both Gods are bad. He had no possible conce})tion of the splendid generalizations of Darwin — the great truths that have re^•6lutionized the thought of the world. But there was one question asked by Bishop Butler that throws a Hame of light upon the probable origin of most, if not all, reli- gions : "Why might not whole communities and public bodies be seized with hts of insanity as well as individuals ? " If you are convinced that Moses and Darwin are in exact accord, will you be good enough to tell who, in your judgment, were the parents: of Adam and Eve? Do j^ou find in Darwin any theory that satisfactorily accounts for the " in.spired fact " that a Rib, commencing with Monogonic Propagation— falling into halves by a COL. INGEKSOLL TO MR. CJLADvSTOXE. 4r contraction in the middle — rencliing, after many a^es of Evolution, the Ampliigonic stage, and then, by the Survival of the Fittest, assisted by Natural Selection, moulded and modilied by Environ- ment, became at last the mother of the human race ? Here is a world in which there are countless varieties of lif(! — these varieties in all probability related to each other — all living upon each other — everything devouring something, and in its turn devoured by something else — everywhere claw and beak, hoof and tooth, — everything seeking the life of something else — ever}- drop of water a battle Held, every atom being for some wild beast a jungle — every place agolgotha — and such a world is declared to be the work of the infinitely wise and compassionate. According to your idea, Jehovah prepared a home for his children — first a garden in which they should be tempted and from which they should be driven ; then a world filled with briers and thorns and wild and poisonous beasts — a world in which the air should be filled wnth the enemies of human life — a world in which disease should be contagious, and in which it was impossi- ble to tell, except by actual experiment, the poisonous from the nutritious. And these children were allowed to live in dens and holes and fight their way amongst monstrous serpents and crouching beasts — were allowed to live in igfnorance and fear — to iiave false ideas of this good and loving Cod — ideas so false that they made of him a fiend — ideas so false that they sacrificed their wives and babes to appease the imaginary wrath of this monster. And this God gave to difierent nations different ideas of himself, knowing that in consequence of that these nations would meet upon count- less fields of battle and drain each «)ther's veins. Would it not have been better had the world been so that par- ents would transmit only their virtues — only their perfections, physical and mental, — allowing their diseases and their vices to perish with them? In my reply to Dr. Field I had asked : Why should God demand a sacritice from man ? Why .should the infinite ask anything from the finite '? Should the sun beg from the glow-worm, and should the momentary spark excite the envy of the source of light ? Upon which you remark, " that if the infinite is to make no de- mand upon the finite, by parity of reasoning, the great and strong should scarcely make them on the weak and small." Can this be called reasoning? Why should the infinite de- mand a sacrifice from man ? In the first place, the infinite ia 48 COL. INGERSOLL TO Mil. GLADSTONE. conditionles.s — the intinito cannot want— the infinite has. ^ A con- ditioned being may want; but the irratihcation of a want involves a change of condition. If Goil be conditionle.s.s he can have no wants — consequently, no human being can gratify the infinite. But you insist that " if the inhnite is to make no demands upon the finite, by parity "of reasoning the great and strong should scarcely make them on the weak and small." The great have wants. The strong are often in need, in peril, and the great and strong often need the services of the small and weak. It WHS the mouse that freed the lion. England is a great and powerful nation — yet she may need the assistance of the weak- est of her citizens. The worhl is tilled with illustrations. The lack of logic is in this : The infinite cannot want anything ; the strong and the great may, and as a fact always do. The great and the strong cannot help the intinite — they can help the small and the weak, and the small and the weak can often help the great and strong. You ask : " Why then should the father make demands of love, obedience and sacriiice from his young child ? " No sensible fcithev ever demanded love from his child. Every civilized fcicher knows that love rises like the perfume from a flower. You cannot command it by simply authority. It can- not oV^ey. A father demands obedience from a child for the good of the child and for the good of himself. i3ut suppose the father to be infinite — why should the child sacrifice anything for him ■? But it may be that you answer all these questions, all these dif- ficulties, by admitting, as you have in your Remarks, " that these proV^lems are insoluble by our understanding." Why, then, do you accept them ? Why do you defend that which you cannot understand ? Why does your reason volunteer as a soldier under the flag of the incomprehensible? I asked of Dr. Field, and I ask again, this question : Why should an intinitely wise and pov.erful God destroy the good and preserve the vile ? What do I mean by this question ? Simply this : The earth- quake, the lightning, the pestilence, are no respecters of persons The vile are not always destroyed, the good are not always saved. I asked ; Why should God treat all alike in this world, and in another make an intinite difi'erence 1 This I suppose, is " insoluble to our understanding." COL. INOEUSOLL TO MU. Ol.ADSTONE. •).!> Why should Jehovah allow his worshipers, his adorers, to \n- •destroyed by his enemies ? Can you by any poasidility answer tliis question ? You nmy account for all these inconsistencies, these cruel contra- dictions, as John Wesley accounted for .arthijuakes when he insisted that they were produced l>y the wicKedne^s of ni'-n. and that the only way to prevent them was for everybody to believ(>on the Lord Jesus Christ. And you may have some way of show mi: that Mr. Wesley's idea is entirely consistent with the theories of Mt. Darwin. You seem to think that as loni; as there is more ixoodness than evil in the world — as long as there is more joy than sadness — we are compelled to infer that the author of the world is infinitely <,'Ood, powerful, and wise, and that as long as a majority are out of gut- ters and prisons, the " divinity scheme " is a succe.ss. According to this S}'stem of logic, if there were a few more un- fortunates — if there was just a little more evil than good — tlien we would be driven to acknowledge that the world was created by an intinitely malevolent being. As a matter of fact, the history of the world has been such that not only your theologians but your apostles, and not only your apostles but your pro[)h('ts, and not only your prophets but your Jeliovah, have all been forced to account for the evil, the injustice and the sutl'cring, by the wdckedness of man, the natural depravit}' of the human heart and the wiles and machinations of a malevolent being second only in power to Jehovah himself. Again and again you have called me to account for "mere sug- gestions and assertions without proof " ; and yet your remarks are tilled with assertions and mere suggestions without proof. You admit that " great believers are not ab 3 explain the inequalities of adjustment between human beings and the conditions in which they have been set down to work out their destiny." How do you know " that they have been set down to work out their destiny " ? If that was, and is, the purpose, then the being who settled the " destiny," and the means by which it was to be "worked out," is responsible for all that happens. And is this the end of your argument, *' That you are not able to explain the inequalities of adjustment between human beings " ? Is the solution of this problem beyond yoar power ^ Dol>, the bible shed no light ? Is the Christian in the presence of this ques- tion as dumb as the agnostic? Wlien the injustice of this world .50 COL. INGERSOLL TO MR. OLA I)> TONE. is SO flaorrant tliat you cannot harmonize that awful fact with the wi.sdom and jroodness of an infinite (;}od, do you not see that you have surrendered, or at least that you have raised a flacj of truce beneath which your adversary accepts as final your statement that you do not know and that your imagination is not sufficient to frame an excuse for God ? It gave me great pleasure to find that at last even you have been driven to say that: " it is a duty incuml)ent upon us respectively accortling to our means and opportunities, to decide by the use of the faculty of reason given us, the great (question of natuial and revealed religion." You admit " that I am to decide for myself, by the use of my reason," whether tlie bible is the word of God or not — whether there is any revealed religion — and whether there be or be not an, infinite being who created and governs this world. You also admit that we are to decide these questions according to the balance of the evidence. Is this in accordance with the doctrine of Jehovah ? Did Jehovah say to the husband that if his wife became convinced, according to her means and her opportunities, and decided according to her reason, that it was better to worship some other God than Jehovah, then that he was to say to her : " You are entitled to decide according to the balance of the evidence as it seems to you " ? Have you abandoned Jehovah ? Is man more just than he ? Have you appealed from him to the standard of reason ? Is it possible that the leader of the English Liberals is nearer civilized than Jehovah ? Do you know that in this sentence you demonstrate the exist- ence of a dawn in your mind ? This sentence makes it certain that in the East of the midnight of Episcopal superstition there is the herald of the coming day. And if this sentence shows a dawn, what shall I say of the next : " We are not entitled, either for or against belief, to set up in this province any rule of investigation except such as common sense teaches us to use in the ordinary conduct of life " ? This certainly is a morning star. Let me take this statement, let me hold i<- as a torch, and by its light I beg of you to read the bible once agait. Is it in accordance with reason that an infinitely good and lov- ing God would drown a world that he had taken no means to civilize — to whom he had given no bible, no gospel, — taught no- COL. IN'«;KR.S0LL to MR. QLADSTONE. 61 le? [s it ized tist- bain |e is Iwn, in ion lent, [the lov- to no scicntitic fact and in which the .sceils of art had not Von sown ; that lie would creatf a world that oui^ht to bo drowiu'd ? That a beint,' of inUnite wisdom wtmld creati; a rival, knowinij that tlio rival vvonld iill perdition with countleHs souls destined to sutitT eteriiid pain ? Is it aceonlin;^ to coiiinion Henns than an intinitdy orooil (lod would order some of his children to kill others:* That he would command soldiers to ri]) open with the sword of war the liodies of women — wreaking vengeance on babes unborn i* Is it according to reason that a gooil. loving, compassionate, and just (lod would establisli slavery among men, and that a pure (Jod would upholil polygamy ? Is it accortling to common ^ense that he who wislied to make men mereifid and lovinij would demand the sacri- Hce of animals, so that his altar would be wet with the blood of oxen, sheep and doves ? is it accoftiling to reason that a good (Jod would iiitlict tortures upon his ig? ^rant children — that he won d torture animals to death — and is it in accordance with com- mon senst:! and reason tliat this God would create countless billions of people knowing that they would be eternally damned ? What is conuuon sense ? Is it the result of observation, reason and experience, or is it the child of credulity *? There is this curious fact : The far past and the far future seem to helong to the nnraculous and tlie monstrous. The present, as a rule, is the reihn of common sense. If you say to a man : " lii^^hteeu hundred vea's aijo the dea I were raised," he will re- ply: •' Ves^ I ka^w that." Aud if you say: "A hundred thou- sand years from now all the dead will be raised," he will probably reply : " I ])resume so." But if you tell him : " I .'^aw a dead man raised to-day," he will ask, " From what madhouse have you escaped ?" The moment we decide "acconliiig to reason," "according to the balance of evidence," we are charged with " having violated the laws of social morality and decency," and the defender of the miraculous and the incomprehensible takes another position. The theologian has a city of refuge to which he tiit-s — an old breastwork i ehind winch he kneels— a ritle pit into which he crawls. You have described this city, this breastwork, this rifle- pit and also the leaf under which tiie ostrich of theology thrusts its head. Let me quote : " Our demands for evidence must be limited by the general reason of the case. Does that general reason of the case make it probable that a finite being, witli a finite place in a comprehen- ' ■ ;d and administered by a being who is infinite. sive scheme de^ m COL. INGERSOLL TO MR. GLADSTONE. .1 would be able even to embrace within his view, or rightly to ap- preciate all the motives or aims that there may have been in the mind of the divine disposer ?" And this is what you call " deciding by the use of the faculty •of reason," '' according to the evidence," or at least " according to •the balance of evidence." This is a conclusion reached by a *' rule of investigation such as common sense teaches us to use in the ordinary conduct of life." Will you have the kindness to ex- plain what it is to act contrary to evidence, or contrary to com- mon sense ? Can you imagine a superstition so gross that it can- not be defended by that argument ? Nothing, it seems to me, could have been easier than for ■Jehovah to have reasonably explained his scheme. You may answer that the human intellect is not sutEcient to understand the explanation. Why then do not theologians stop explaining ? Why do they feel it incumbent upon them to explain that which they admit God would have explained had the human mind been capable of understanding it ? How much better would it have been if Jehovah had said a few ' things on these subjects. It always seemed wonderful to me that he spent several days and nights on Mount Sinai explaining to Moses how he could detect the presence of leprosy, without once thinking to giv^e him a prescription for its cure. There were thousands and thousands of opportunities for this God to withdraw from these questions the shadow and the cloud. When Jehovah out of the whirlwind asked questions of Job, how much better it would have been if Job ha.d asked and Jehovah had answered. You say that we should be governed by evidence and hy common ■sense. Then you tell us that the questions are beyond the reach ■oi' reason' and with which common sense has nothing to do. If we then ask for an explanation, you reply in the scornful challenge of Dante. You seem to imagine that everyman who gives an opinion, takes ihis solemn ooth that tr.e opinion is the absolute end of all investi- jgation on that subject. In my opinion, Shakespeare was, intellectually, the greatest of ■the human race, and my intention was simply to express that view. It never occurred to me that anyone would suppose that I thought Shakespeare a greater actor than Garrick, a more wonderful com- p)3er than Wagner, a better violinist than Remenyi, or a heavier COL. INGEilSOLL TO Mil. GLADSTONE. 53 Inon kach we le o£ ikes isti- It of liew. ight jom- Lvier •man thp.n Daniel Lambert. It is to be re<:^retted that you were mis- led by my words and really supposed that I intended to say that •Shakespeare was a greater general than Caesar. But, after all, your criticism has no possible bearing upon the point at issue. Is it an effort to avoid that which cannot be met ? The real question is this : If we cannot account for Christ without a miracle, how can we account forSiiakespeare ? .13r. Field took the ground that Christ himself was a miracle ; that it was impossible to account for such a being in any natural way ; and, guided by conmion sense, guided by the rule of investigation such as common sense teaches, I called attention to Buddha, IMohamiHed, Confucius, and Shakespeare. In another place in your Remarks, when my statement about Shakespeare was not in your mind, you say : " All is done l»y steps— nothmg by str'des, leaps or bounds — all from protoplasm up to Shakespeare." Why did you end the series with Shakespeare ? Did you intend to say Dante, or Bishop Butler ? It is curious to see how much ingenuity a great man exercises when guided by what he calls " the rule of investigation as sug- gested by common sense." I pointed out some things that Christ did not teach — among others, that he sairl nothing with regard to the family relation, nothing against slavery, nothing about educa- tion, nothing as to tlie rights and duties of nations, nothing as to any scientitie truth. And this is answered by saying that " I am quite able to point out the way in which the Saviour of the world might have been much greater as a teacher than he actually was." Is this an answer, or is it simply taking refuge behind a name ? Would it not have been better if Christ had told his disciples that they must not persecute ; that they had no right to destroy their fellow men ; that they must not put heretics in dungeons, or de- stroy them with flames ; that they must not invent and use instru- ments of torture ; that they must not appeal to brutality, nor en- deavour to sow with bloody hands the seeds of peace ? Would it not have been far better had he said : " I come not to bring a sword, but peace"? Would not this have saved countless cruelties and countless lives ^ You seem to think that you have fully answered my objection when you say that Christ taught the absolute indissolubility of marriage. Why should a husband and wife be compelled to live with each other after love is dead ? Why should the wife still be bound in indissoluble chains to a husband who is cruel, infamous, and false ? Why should her life be destroyed because of his ? Why should I r.'S 54 COL. INGERSOLL TO MR. GLADSTONE. she be chained to a criminal and an outcast ? Nothing can be more unphilosophic than this. Why fill the world with the chil- dren of inditierence and hatred ? The marriage contract is the most important, the most sacred, that human beings can make. It will be sacredly kept by good men and by good women. But if a loving woman — tender, noble, and true — makes this contract with a man whom she believed to be worthy of all respect and love, and who is found to be a cruel, worthless wretch, why should her life be lost ? Do you not know that the indissolubility of the marriage con- tract leads to its violation, forms an excuse for immorality, eats out the very heart of truth, and gives to vice that which alone belongs to love ? But in order that you may know why the objection was raised, I call your attention to the fact that Christ offered a reward, not only in this world 1 utin another, to any husband who would de- sert his wife. And do you know that this hideous offer caused millions to desert their wives and children ? Theologians have the habit of using names instead of argu- ments — of appealing to some man, great in some direction, to es- tablish their creed ; but we all know that no man is great enough to be an authority, except in that particular domain in which he won his eminence ; and we all know that great men are not great in ail directions\ Bacon, died a believer in the Pltolemaic system of astronomy. Tycho Brahe kept an imbecile in his service, put- ting down with great care the words that fell from the hanging lip of idiocy, and then endeavoured to put them together in a way to form pi'opliecies. Sir Matthew Uale believed in witchcraft not only, but in its lowest and most vulgar forms; and some of the greatest men of antiijuity examined the entrails of birds to find the secrets of the future. It has always seemed to me that reasons are better tlian names. After taking the ground that Christ could not have been a greater teacher than he actually was, you ask: "Where would have been the wisdom of delivering to an uninstructed population of a particular age a codiiiod religion which was to serve for all nations, all ages, all states of civilization ?" Does not this question admit that the teacliings of Christ will not serve for all nations, all ages and all states of civilization ? But let rue ask : " If it was necessary for Christ " to deliver to an uninstructed population of a particular age a certain religion COL. IXGEllSOLL TO MR. GLADSTONE. 55 con- suitod only for that particular an^o," why should a civilized and scientific aije eij^/hteen hundred years afterwards be absolutely bound by that religion ? Do you not see that your position can- not be defended, and that you have provided no way for retreat 1 If the religion of Christ was for that age, is it for this ? Are you willing to admit that the Ten Commandments are not for all time ? If, then, four thousand years before Christ, commandments were given not simply for ''nan uninstructed population of a particular age, but for all time," can you give a reason why the religion of Christ should not have been of the same character ? In the first place you say that God has revealed himself to the world — that he has revealed a religion ; and in the nest place, that " he has not revealed a perfect religion, for the reason that no room would be left for the career of human thounfht." Why did not God reveal this imperfect religion to all people instead of to a small and insignificant tribe, a tribe without com- merce and without influence among the nations of the world ? Why did he hide this imperfect light under a bushel ? If the light was necessary for one, was it not necessary for all ? And why did he drown a world to whom he had not even given that light? According to your reasoning, would there not have been left greater ro:>m for tlic carucr of human thought, hail no roveiatiou been made ? You say that " you have known a person who after studying the old clrtssicalor Olympian religion for a third part of a century, at length began to hope that he had some partial comprehen^sion of it — some inkling of wdiat is meant." You say tins for tlie purpose of showing how impossible it is to understand the bible. If it is so difhcult why do you call it a revelation ? And yet, according to your creed, the man who does not understind the revelation and believe it, or who does not believe it, whether he underst;;uds it or not, is to reap the harv^est of everlasting pain. Ought not the revelation to be revealed ? In order to escape from the fact that Christ denounced the chosen people of God as "a generation of vipers" and as '• whited sepulchres," you take the ground that the scribes and pharisees were not the chosen people. Of what blood were they ? It will not do to say that they were not the people. Can you deny that Christ addressed the chosen people when he said: "Jerusalem, which killest the prophets and stonest them that are sent unto thee " ? 56 COL. INGERSOLL TO MR. GLADSTONE. You have called me to an account for what I said in regard ta Ananias and Sapphira. First, I am charged with having said that the apostles conceived the idea of having all things in com- mon, and you denounce this as an interpolation ; second, " that motives of prudence are stated as a matter of fact to have influ- enced the offending couple " — and this is charged as an interpola- tion ; and, third, that I stated that the apostles sent for the wife of Ananias — and this is characterized as a pure invention. To me it seems reasonable to suppose that the idea of having all things in common was conceived by those who had nothing, or had the least, and not by those who had plenty. In the last verses of the fourth chapter of the Acts, you will find this : " Neither was there any among them that lacked, for as many as weie pos- sessed of lands or houses sold them, and brought the prices of the things that were sold, and laid them down at the apostles' feet ; and distribution was made unto every man according as he had need. And Joses, who by the apostles was surnamed Barnabas (which is, being interpreted, the son of consolation), a Levite and of the country of Cyprus, having land, sold it, and brought the money, and laid it at the apostles' feet." Now, it occurred to me that the idea was in all probability sug- gested by the men at whose feet the property was laid. It never entered my mind that the idea originated with those who had land for sale. There may be a different standard by which human nature is measured in your country, than in mine ; but if the thing had happened in the United States, I feel absolutely positive that it would have been at the suggestion of the apostles. " Ananias, with Sapphira, his wife, sold a possessiun and kept back part ot the price, his wife also being privy to it, and brought a certain part and laid it at the apostles' feet," In my Letter to Dr. Field I stated — not at the time pretend- ing to quote from the New Testament — that Ananias and Sap- phira, after talking the matter over, not being entirely satisfied with the collaterals, probably concluded to keep a little — just enough to keep them from starvation if the good and pious bankers should abscond. It never occurred to me that any man would imagine that this was a quotation, and I feel like asking your pardon for having led you into this eiror. We are informed in the bible that " they kept back a part of the price." It occurred to me, "judging by the rule of investigation according to common-sense," that there was a reason for this, and I could think of no reason e»'C*»pt that they did not care to trust the COL. INCEKSOLL TO Mil. GLADSTONE. 57 apostle.s with all, and that they kept back just a little, thinking it might be useful if the rest should be lost. According to the account, after Peter had made a few remarks to Ananias, " Ananias fell down and gave up the 'jrhost ; . . . . and the young men arose, wound him up, and carried him out, and buried him. And it was about the space of three hours after, when his wife, not knowing what was done, came in. Whereupon Peter said : " ' Tell me whether ye sold the land for so much ? ' And she said, ' Yea, for so much.' Then Peter said unto her, ' How is it that ye have agreed together to tempt the spirit of the Lord ? Behold, the feet of them which have buried thy husband are at the door, and shall carry thee out.' Then fell she down straightway at his feet, and yielded up the ghost ; and the young men came in» and found her dead, and, carrying her forth, buried her by her husband." The only objection found to this is, that I inferred that the apostles had sent for her. Sending for her was not the offence. The failure to tell her what had happened to her husband was the offence — keeping his fate a secret from her in order that she might be caught in the same net that had been set for her husband by Jehovah. This was the offence. This was the mean and cruel thing to which I objected. Have you answered that ? Of course, I feel sure that the thing never occurred — the prob- ability being that Ananias and Sapphira never lived and never died. It is probably a story invented by the early church to make the collection of subscriptions somewhat easier. And yet, we find a man in the nineteenth century, foremost of his fellow citizens in the affairs of a great nation, upholding this barbaric view of God. Let me beg of you to use your reason " according to the rule suggested by common sense." Let us do what little we can to rescue the reputation, even of a Jewish myth, from the calumnies of Ignorance and Fear. So, again, I am charged with having given certain words as a quotation from the bible in which two passages are combined — " They who believe and are baptised shall be saved, and they who believe not shall be damned. And these shall go away into ever- lasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels." They were given as two passages. No one for a moment sup- posed that they would be read together as one, and no one imagined that any one in answering the argument would be led to believe 5nly by people who lack intellectual capacity ? I stated that the idea of immortality was born of love. You reply, " The Egyjitians believed it, but the}" were not intellectual." Is not this a non sequitur ? The (question, is : Were they a loving people ? Does history show that there is a moral governor of the world ? What witnesses shall we call ? The l»il]i(ms of slaves who were paid with blows ? — the countless mothers whose bal)es were sold ? Have we time to examine the Waldenses, the Covenanters of Scotland, the Catholics of Ireland, the victims of vSt. Bai-tholomew, of the iS])anish Inquisition, all those who liav(! died in tlames '. Shall we liear the storv of Bruno ? Shall we ask Servetus ? Shall we ask the millions slaughtered by Christian swords in America — all the A'ictims of amliition, of perjurv, of ignorance, of superstition and revenge, of storm and earthquake, of famine, flood and fire ? COL. INGEKSOLL Tu Mil. (JI.A I )ST()XE. 59 Can all the agonies and criinos, can all the inoijuaHties ol' tlio world 1 10 answered by reading the " noblt,- Psahu " in which are found the words: " Call ui)on me in the day oi trouble, so I will hear tliee, and thou shalt praise nie ?'' Do you prove the truth of these fine words, tliis honey of Trebizond, by t)ie victims of religious persecution? Shall we hear the sighs and sobs of tSilifi'ia? Another thing. Why .should you, from the page of Greek his- tory, with the .spongt^ of your judgnicnt, wipe out all names but one, and tell us that the most powerful mind of the (Jrt'ck philoso- phy was that of .A.ristotle ? How did you ascertain this fact ? Is it not fair to suppose that you merely intended to say that, acc(jrding to your \iew, Aristotle had the most powerful mind aincjng all the philoso])h(M-sof Greece ? I should not call attention to this, except for ytau" criticism on a like remark of mine as to tin* intellectual sup(;riority of Shakti.speare. But if you knew the trouble I liave had in finding out your meaning, from your words, ^•uu would iiai'don me for callin^■ attention to a simj-le line from An.stotle : "Cleare.ss is the virtue of style." To me. Epicurus seems far greati/r than Aristotle. He had clearer vision. His che^ek was closer to the breast of nature, and he planted his philosophy nearer to the bed-rock of fact. He was prnr-fcipal enough to know thai: virtue is the means, and happiness the end : that the highest philosophy is the art of living. He was wise enough to say that nothing is of the slightest value to man that does not increase or preserve his well-being, and he was grt/at enough to know, and courageous enough to dechu'i', th;it all the gods and ghosts were monstrous phantoms boi'n of ignorance and fear. I still insist, that human arl'ection is the foundation of the idea, of innnortality ; thai love was the first to speak that woi-d, no matter whether they who spoke it were savage or civil ize< I, Egyptian or Greek. But if we are innnortal — if there be another world — why was it not clearly set forth in the Old Tc'stainent ? Certaiidy, the authors of that book had an opportunity to learn it from the Egyptians. Why was it not revealed hy Jehovah { Wliy diil lie waste his time in giving ordei's for the consecration of priests — in saying that they nuist have sheep's blooil ])Ut on thidr right ears, and on their right tlnnnbs, and on their right big toes? Ciadd a God Avith any sense of humour give such directions, or watch, with- out huge laughter, the ptM'formance of such a ceremony ;' In order to see the beauty, the depth and tenderness of such a consecration, essential to be in a state of "reverential calm ;'" IS CO COL. IXGEllSOLL TO MR. GLADSTONE. m ri Is it not strange that Christ did nijt tell of another world dis- tinctly, clearly, without parable, and without the mist of meta- phor ? The fact is that the Hindoos, the Egyptians, the Greeks, and the Romans taught the innnortality of the soul, not as a glittering guess — a possible perhaps — but as a clear and demonstrated truth for many centuries before the birth of Christ. If the Old Testament proves anything, it is that death ends all. And the New Testament, by basing immortality on the resurrection of tlie body, but " keeps the word of promise to our ear and breaks it to our hope." In my Reply to Ur. Field, I said : " The truth is, that no one can justly he held responsible for his thoughts. Tlie brain thinks with- out asking our consent ; we believe, or disbelieve, without an effort of the will. Belief is a result. It is the effect of evidence upon the mind. The scales turn in spite of him who watches. There is no opportunity of being honest or dishonest in th(3 formation of an opinion. The conclusion is entirely independent of desire. We must believe, or we must doubt, in spite of what we wish." Does the brain think without our consent ? Can we control our thought ? Can we tell what we are going to think to-morrow ? Can we stop thinking ? Is belief the result of that which to us is evidence, or is it a product of the will ? Can the scali s in which reason weighs evidence be turned by the will ? Why, then, should evidence be weighed ? If it all depends on the will, what is evidence ? Is there any opportunity of being dishonest in tho. formation of an opinion ? Must not the man who forms the opinion know what it is ? He cannot knowingly cheat himself. He cannot bo deceived with dice that he loads. He cannot play unfairly at solitaire without knowing that he has lost the game. He cannot knowinolv weiu'h with false scales and believe in the correctness of the result. You have not even attempted to answer my arguments upon these points, but you have unconsciously avoided them. You did not attack the citadel. In military parlance, you proceeded to " shell the woods." The noise is precisely the same as though every shot had been directed against the enemy's position, but the result is not. You do not seem willing to implicitly trust the correctness of your aim. You prefer to place the target after the shot. The Question is whether the will knowinijlv can chano;e evi- denee, and whether there is any opportunity of being dishonest COL. IN(ii:US()LL TO MR. GLADSTONE. 01. in the formation of an opinion. You have changed the issue. You have erased the word formation and interpolated the word expression. Let us suppose that a man has given an opinion, knowing that it is not based on any fact. Can you say that he has given his opiniiju ? The moment a prejudice is known to be a prejudice, it disappears. Ignorance is the soil in which prejudice must grow. Touched by a ray of light, it dies. The judgment of man may be warjjed by prejudice and passion, but it cannot be consciously warped. It is impossible for any man to be influenced by a known i:)rejudice, because a known prejudice cannot exist. I am not contending that all opinions have been honestly expressed. What I contend is, that when a dishonest opinion has been expressed, it is not the opinion that was formed. The cases suggested by you are not in point. Fathers are hon- estly swayed, if really swayed, by love ; and queens and judges have pretended to be swayed by the highest motives, by the clear- est evidence, in order that they might kill rivals, reao rewards, and gratify revenge. But what has all this to do with the fact that he who watches the scales in which evidence is weighed knows the actual result ? Let us examine your case : If a father is consciously swayed by his love for his son, and for that reason says that his son is inno- cent, then he has not expressed his opinion. If he is unconsciously swayed and says that his son is innocent, then he has expressed, his opinion. In both instances, his opinion was independent of his will ; but in the first instance, he did not express his opinion. You will certainly see this distinction between the formation and the expression of an opinion. The same argument applies to the man who con.sciously has a desire to condemn. Such a conscious desire cannot affect the testimony — cannot affect the opinion. Queen Elizabeth undoubt- edly desired the death of Mary Stuart, but this conscious desire could not have been the foundation on which rested Elizabeth's opinion fis to the guilt or innocence of her rival. It is barely pos- sible that Elizabeth did not express her real opinion. Do you believe that the English judges, in the matter of the Popish Plot, gave judgment in accordance with their opinions ? Are you sat- isfied' that Napoleon expressed his real opinion when he justified himself for the assassination of the Due d'Enghien ? If you answer these questions in the affirmative, you admit that I am right. If you answer in the negative, you admit that you are wrong, The moment you admit that the opinion formed cannot be 02 cor.. IXGEllSOLL TO MR. GLADSTONE. changed by expres.sinf]f a pretendod opinion, your argument is turned against yourself. It is admitted that prejudice strengthens, weakens and colors evidence ; but prejudice is honest. And when one M,cts knowingly against the evidence, that is not by reasun of prejudice. According to my views of propriety, it would be unbecoming for me to say that your argument on these questions is " a piece of plausible ahallowness." Such language might be regarded as lack- ing " reverential calm," and I therefore refrain from even charac- terizing it !is plausible. Is it not perfectly apparent that you have changed the issue, and that instead of showing that opinions are creatures of the will, you have discussed the quality of actions? Whnt have corrupt and cruel judgments pronounced by corrupt and cruel judges to do with their real opinions ? When a judge forms one opinion and renders another he is called corrupt. The corruption doos not con- sist in forming his opinion, but in rendering one that he did not form. Does a dishonest creditor, who incorrectly adds a number of items, making the aggregate too large, necessarily change his opinion as to the relations of numbers ? When an error is known, it is not a mistake ; but a conclusion reached by a mistake, or by a prejudice, or by both, is a necessary conclusion. He who pretends to couie to ii coiiclasiori by a mistake wliich he knrv/s is not a mis- take, knows that he has not expressed his real opinion. Can anythinqr be more illoprical than the assertion that because a boy reaches, through negligence in adding h'gures, a wrong result, that he is accountable for his opinion of the result'? If he knew he was negligent what must his opinion of the result have been ? So with the man who boldly announces that he has discovered the numerical expression of the relation sustained by the diametei' to the circumference of a circle. If he is honest in the an/iounre- ment, then the announcement was caused not bv his will but b^,- his ignorance. His will cannot make the announcement true, aiul he could not by any possibility have supposed that his will could ati'ect the correctness of his announcement. The will of one who thinks that he has invented or discovered what is called perpetual motion, is not at fault. The man, if honest, has been misled ; if not honest, he endeavours to mislead others. There is prejudice, and prejudice does raise a clamour, and the intellect is atiected and the judgment is darkened and the opinion is deformed; but the preju- dice is real and the clamour is sincere and the judgment is upright and the opinion is honest. . ^ \i\'- COL. INGERSOIJ, TO MH. (iLADSTONE. 6.^ The intelleet is not always .supreme. It is surrounded by clouds. It sometimes sits in darkness. It is often misled—sometimes, in superstitious fear, it alxlieates. It is not always a white lij^ht. The passions and prejudices are prisi iatic---tht'y colour tliou^lits. Desires betray the judj^ment and cunnin<:(ly mislead the will. You soem to think that tlie fact of rosponsil)ility is in dan<,'i r unless it rests upon the will, and this will you regard as >om(thing without, a cause, sprinij^inpf into being in some mysterious way with- out father or mother, without seed or soil, or rain or light. You musu admit that man is a conditioned being---that ho has wants, olijff.'ts, ends, and aims, and that these are gratified ami attained only l>y the use of mean^^. Do not these wants and these oi)iects have something to do with the will, and does not the intellect have something to do with the means ? Is not the will a product ? In- dependently of conditions, can it exist ? Is it not necessarily pro- duced ? Behind every wish and thought, every dream and fancy, every fear and hope, are there not countless causes ? Man feels shame. What does this prove ? He pities himself. What does this demonstrate ? The dark continent of motive and desire has never been explored. In the brain, that wondrous world with one inhabitant, there are recesses dim and dark, treacherous sands and dangerous shores, where seeming sirens tempt and fade; streams that rise in unknown lands from hidden springs, strange seas with ebb and flow c^f tides, resistless billows urged by storms of tiame, profound and awful depths hidden by mist of dreams, obscure and phan om realms where vague and fearful thing -s are half revealed, jungles where passion's tigers crouch, and skies of cloud and blue where fancies tly with painted wings that dazzle and mislead ; and '.he poor sovereign of this pictured world is led by old desires and ancient hates, and stained by crimes of many vanished years, and pushed by hands that long ago were dust, until he feels like some bewil- dered slave that Mockery has throned and crowned. No one pretends tlia^ the mind of man is perfect— that it is not affected by desires, colored by hopes, weakened by fears, ! Were they hone.st ? But what has all this to do with the point at iasuo ? Society has the right to protect itself, even from honest mur- derers and conscientious thieve.s. The belief of the criminal does not disarm society ; it protects itself from him as from a poisonous serpent, or from a beast that lives on human tlesh. We are under no obligation to stand still and allow ourselves to be murdered by one who honestly thinks that it is his duty to take our lives. And yet, according to your argument, we have no right to defend our- selves from honest Thugs. Was Saul of Tarsus a Thug when he persecuted Christians ''even unto strange cities"? Is the Thug of India more ferocious than Torquemada, the Thug of Spain ? If belief depends upon the will, can all men have correct opinions who will to have them ? Acts are good, or bad, according to their consequences, and not according to the intentions of the actors. Honest opinions may be wrong, and opinions dishonestly expressed may be right. Do you mean to say that because passion and prejudice, the reckless " pilots 'twixt the dangerous sh(jres of will and judgment," sway the mind, that the opinions which you have expres.sed in your Remarks to me are not your opinions ? Certainly you will admit that in all probability you have prejudices and passions, and if so, can the opinions that you have expressed, according to your argu- ment, be honest ? My lack of confidence in your argument give:j me perfect confidence in your candor. You may remember the philosopher who retained his reputation for veracity, in spite of the fact that he kept saying : " There is no truth in man." Are only those opinions honest that are formed without any interference of passion, aliection, habit or fancy ? What would the opinion of a man without passions, atfection or fancies be wo'th The alchemist gave up his search for an universal solvent u being asked in what kind of vessel he expected to keep it wi. u found. It may be admitted that Biel "shows us how the life of Dantf^ co-operated with his extraordinary natural gifts and capabilities to make him whvit he was," but does this tend to .show that Daite changed his opinions by an act of his will, or that he reached honest opinions by knowingly using false weights and measures ? You must admit that the opinions, habits and religions of men depend, at least in some degree, on race, occupation, training and capacity. Is not every thoughtful man compelled to agree with H ^**K li / COL. IX(}K11S()I,I> TO MU. OLADSTONK. ().') h-^ II Edpjar Faw(«;tt, in whoso l>min are unitetl tho beauty of tlio poet iiiul tliu subtlety of the loj^iciaii, " Who sees how vice her vpmm wreaks On the frail babe before it speaks, And how heredity enslaves With phostly hands that reach from graves " r Why do you hold the intellect eriniinally responsible for opin- ions, when you admit that it is controlliMl by the will ? And why do you hold the will rasponsible, when you insist that it is swayed by the passions and affections i* But all this has nothin, Torotito.