The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1899-08-05

spoken more eloquently on this subject
than he. But he did not see that an
other principle of his destroyed utterly
liberty, freedom of thought and of will
We quote from his lecture on "The
Gods" this doctrine of his that makes
liberty of thought or action an impossi-
bility: "In the phenomena of mind we
find the same endless chain of efficient
causes. The same mechanical necessity.
Every thought must have an efficient
cause. Every motive, every de-
sire, every fear, hope and dream must
have been necessarily produced. The
facts and forces governing thought are
as absolute as those governing the mo-
tons OF the planets. A poem is pro-
duced by the forces of nature, and is as
necessarily and naturally produced as
mountains and seas. Every mental oper-
alton is the necessary result of certain
facts and conditions"
This doctrine, uttered so dogmatical-
ly, is OF course the death OF all liberty.
And yet he who proclaimed it believed
himself to be champion of liberty of
thought and condemned Christianity as
all enemy of free thought. Christian
ity," he said, certainly has not been the
advocate of free thought and what is
free thought, and what is freedom worth
if the mind be enslaved?' This is an
instance where 1ngersoll took doctrine
from system of philosophy that advo-
Gates free thought and then took con-
trary doctrine from another system that
denies the possibility Of free thought or
freedom of any kind. How the same
mind could hold these two essentially
antagonistic doctrines at the same time
as true is very interesting psychologi-
cal question.
Such inconsistencies are enough to
show why Ingersoll, in the role of a
philosophical teacher, was ceasing to be
a man of interest to the general public.
He was equally inconsistent in his oppo-
sition to Christianity. He did not under
stand it as a whole. 1t may be that he
was not conscious of his many incon-
sistencies, just as man who is color
blind is not conscious Of the fact and
persists in calling red object blue, be-
cause, by reason of his detective vision,
he cannot see it otherwise. There is such
thing as intellectual color blindness.
His antipathy to Christ ianity did not
arise from his intellectual perceptions,
but from his imagination, emotions and
sentiment. These had been wounded to
an insufferable degree by false pre-
sentation of Christianity in his early
youth. Puritan extremcism that gave a
false philosophy OF life and false idea
OF the benefcent Creator, gave his
young imagination and emotional ma
ture a shock that it never recovered
from, shock that lett no alternative
but despair or revolt, and he chose the
latter. The Christianity he hated was
not true Christianity as it is, but the
Christianity that had been burned and
scalded ;no his consciousness and men,
ory. His feverish animosity to the Chris
tianity of his imagination-the only
Christianity he knew-was the result OF
pain from the wound that had cicatrized
his very soul. This anmosity grew with
his growth and increased until it became
the monomania OF his life. This mono
mania accounts for much that he has
said that will not stand the cold test OF
calm reason and common sense. In
stead of being a curb his intellect be-
came the slave of his emotions and mis-
imagination, which accounts for its fit
fulness and inconsistencies and for its
perverted vision of truth and facts.
What of his responsibility for the evil
he has done? God alone knows, for He
alone knows whether the early shock
to his faculties left him that liberty OF
soul which is essential 10 accountability.
He alone knows how far he was free,
and therefore how far he was response
BILE, and will judge him with infinite jus
tice. 1t is becouse no man has or can
have all the data to the problem of an
other mans life, and because no man
can put himself in another mans place,
that God has said "judge not He has
reserved judgment to Himself, because
His knowledge is infinite and therefore
adequate. God alone knows whether
Ingersolls intellectual color blindness
was great enough to free him from