Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1880-06-05
BOOK RsVIEWs.


We presume that it is unnecessary to intro
duce Colonel Ingersoll to our readers, for we
have been informed by booksellers that these
lectures of his have already had quite
enormous SALE and that the demand for them
is constant. Their purpose is no doubt well
understood. They are directed against the
absurdities, the impossibilities, thesavageries,
the immoralities, with which the Pentateuch
abounds. They are pleas for higher reli-
gion than is anywhere taught in those books.
They are protests against and arraignments
of the priestly policy which for so many CEN
turtles mas sought to compel men to accept
these gross and incredible fctions, and which
has checked civilization and prevented use
universe was fully explained through these
old fancies and guesses of ignorant barba-
rians. Colonel Ingersoll is both eloquent and
shrewd. His humor is contagious, his sa-
tire is keen, his inveotive is whitening, his
philosophy is genial. He breaches reli-
gion which is as pure and wholesome as the
unbiased human mind can conceive,
and which has the advantage over all
sacerdosal theories of being entirely in har-
mony with the world as it is. He is no
doubt more inclined to Optimism than is
justified by the actual order of things but
that tendency is the necessary bent of his
sunny nature, and he can no more help it
than bird can help singing in fine weather.
Al l.
sion, falsehood, superstition, intolerance,
cruelty and he sees il the systems OF theol-
ogy which have come down TO US nothing
more than methods of enchanting the minds
of men, of making them subservient to
priesthoods, of warping their minds and
poisoning their intelligence. Heis aggressive,
and therefore those whom he assails hasten
to accuse him of being merely sensational
orator of atheistie proclivities. But though
his enemies have now been railing for some
time against these lectures, and though not
a few of them have attempted to reply to
him. no successful reioinder has been made,
and what is more, no such rejoinder will
be made. For though Colonel Ingersoll
does not pretend to any special erudition,
and though he takes his authorities at second
hand, the statements he makes in regard to
the g mistakes of Moses are in every case
based on the ripest conclusions of the most
advanced school of biblical criticism school
which has already completely demonstrated
every position taken in these lectures. The
lecturer has clothed these results of the
soundest scholarship in rhetorical langr age.
but it is the hand of steel in the glove of
velvet. There is no parade of authorities,
and therefore foolish and ignorant ecclesiastics
have in several instances been tempted to
tilt against the central assertions of the lee
turer, thinking that it must be easy to over
throw one who exhibited no support for his
statements But Colonel Ingersoll knew
what he was about. He did not undertake
to expose the mistakes of Moses" without
having verified those mistakes, and she con-
sequence is that he has triumphed over all
his antagonists, and their feeble and futile
attacks upon him have fallen still.born.
To those who have followed modern bibi-
cal criticism with any care there will be
nothing new in these lectures. They do not
attempt to put forward any novel theories,
but MIRAGE merely the best established con-
illusions of the most thorough and conscien-
tious critics. The duality of the Genesiacal
account of the Creation, the error Of regard
ing Moses as the author of the Pentateuch,
the common impossibiities of early Jewish
history, the fabulous character of the miracu-
lous portions of the story, the revolving indie
cencies and brutalities which disfgure the
Pentateuch, are in turn examined and COM
mented on by the lecturer, in his character
stically striking and pungent manner. The
moral of the discussions, enforced carefully
and at every opportunity, is, that free and
| enlightened and progressive people cannot
afford to fetter their intellects and dull their
perceptions and warp their sense of justice
and their perception of humane requirements,
by taking for their guide book which was
written by semi-savages in an early
stage of civilization, which embodies
coarse and brutal anthropomorphism,
which incu,cates principles abhorrent to every
rightly constituted mind, which represents
the Supreme Being as very strong, fierce.
passionate, vindictive, partial, capricious,
cruel, false and tyrannical, idealized Man,
and which can therefore only degrade the
| minds Of those who are taught to believe in
it, and give them pernicious ideas of justice
| and reverence and right. The advocates Of
theology have but one defense against such
| assaults, and this defense has ceased to de-
| fend. They denounce Colonel Ingersol as
| an atheist, but the word no longer stigma
ties, no longer hurts. Agnosticism has
| become the state of mind professed by the
| foremost intelligence of the age. Those
| who have inquired most deeply into the
causes Of things affirm that with regard to
any superhuman existence or powers or con-
ditions it is impossible to know anything,
and that therefore the state of not knowing
| anything, or agnosticism, is the only
| one which intelligent and conscientious
people can assume in connection with
everything outside of natural phenomena. 1t
| will be observed that agnosticism does
not take any account of the theological
claims on behalf of the Bible The fact is
that philosophy rejects all such claims as
untenable, and simply asserts that human
beings do not and cannot obtain any infor-
nation concerning things which transcend
experience. There may be another world.
There may be Supreme Being. But as re-
CARDS the theological systems of this world
there is no doubt that they are the work of
human intelligences, and that they are there
fore entitled to no more reverence than peo-
pie may choose to give them. Wisdom and
truth are of course to be revered wherever
found, bat folly and falsehood are equally to
be rejected wherever found. This is the
spirit Of the age, and this is the spirit against
which all charges of atheism and inidelity
fall harmless. There is no room for question
as to the infidelity of Colonel Ingersoll, from