The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1878-05-08
INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT.
Ingersolls Lecture on the Democracy OF the
Fireside-A Large Audience Most
Thoroughly Entertained.

One of the largest and most intelligent
audiences that have assembled in the Grand
opera house this season last night listened
for two hOuTstO the wit and eloQuence ofCoi.
r. g. Ingersoll, of Peoria, Ill. The large turn
out a marked tribute to the brilliant res
utation he has achieved public speaker.
A few minutes after 8 o'clock the curtain
rose and a neshy, but well made man, in full
evening dress with a round, smooth face
and a bald head came hastily upon the
stage, saluted his audience, and before the
applause had died away, began to talk, and
at once eliclting the interests of his hearers
held il unwearied until he closed. The
title of the lecture was intellectual De-
velopment, or The Democracy of the Fire
SIDE" and throughout it was a plea for
the largest liberty of thought. he said
that liberty bears the same relation to
thought that space does to matter. The less
q man knows the more willing he is TO swear
it Is that way. The more he knows the
more charity he has He characterized our
fathers as mental serfs and their fathers as
intellectual slaves. There never was time
in the world when men and women could
express their honest thoughts Every man
was entitled to the honest thoughts oil all
others, and he could not see why any man
should be afraid to say his say. He had
started out to test whether this is
really q free country, and whether
people had a right to speak as they thought.
It seemed TO him to be question of intel
lectual development. Mans condition de-
pended somewhat upon his surroundings,
but chiefly upon his intellect Colonel
Ingersoll said he might guess the space
across the house, but would not say
that he would hit it exactly. No God
would damn man for guessing
wrong il he does his level best. de
characterized intellectual liberty as the
right to think right and to think wrong,
provided you do the best you can.
Our dear fathers thought they could force
people to believe. Colonel Ingersoll, in his
characteristic way, here described the way
they used the thumbscrew, the collar of tor
ture and the rack, to sharpen the minds OF
those who differed with them. This was
done in the name of infinite love and good
ness. Any man who would ostracise another
because he does not believe IN the same
church is equally guilty. He plead for abso-
lutte intellectual liberty and denied that
any man could rightfully punish another
for investigating for himself.
1t is question of brain.
colonel Ingersoll then proceeded to illus
trate his thought by picIuriDg the progress
of lnvention.from the dugout of the savage
to the steamship, from the heather idol to
the piece of modern statuary, from the
twisted stick with which the ancients
plowed TO the agricultural implements OF
to-day Then he told of having seen col.
lection of skulls from those of the mandrill
and the bushmen up to those of our fathers,
showing a corresponding gradual increase in
intellectually. He spoke of the savage in
his dugout, and said that low skull had had
his ideas of politics and religion and be-
lieved in personal devil. 1t was the joy of
his life. He supposed that the priests of mis-
day said that the dugout was the best ever
invented and any one that might have
suggested putting a stick in the mid
die aud talked about wind would have been
declared an infidel. We have improved on
that gentlemans dugout; why not improve
upon his politics? 1t is always said that the
religion of that gentleman suits us. You
must let that devil alone. There has been no
oatentable improvement on him in 6 600
wears. So In the history of the world every
man who has taken a step In
advance has been a hereto. Heresy
grows: orthodoxy rots- So in churches the
man who is nearest an infidel has the largest
congregation The best men are the liberal
men. Colonel Ingersoll said that now there
is a little liberty; men could say mean
things, and he never knew how mean things
could be said until he had read the religious
press. He spoke of the solemnlty OF min
listers, when he could not tell what there
was to be grave about and said think of how
the wrath of the Infinite must kindle when
He sees q couple OF children playing seven
up. He pictured the horrors OF the days OF the
| inQuisition; and said that as long as be
lived he should do what he could to preserve
and augment the liberty OF man, woman