The Worcester spy. [volume] (Worcester, Mass.) 1898-1904, 1899-07-24
EPIGRAM MAKER.
IngersolPs Speeches Were
Full of Brilliant
Thoughts.

The late Robert G. Ingersoll was GER
tainly not great thinker a close
scholar, or a calm and dispassionate
logician. But he was a great maker of
epigrams, master of ornate poetical
imagery and telling phrase His meth
DDS were the methods of the bar and
the platform. His task was to convince
the jury or the audience before him.
He had to strike the iron hot at the first
blow, and follow this up with blow af-
ter blow as calorically potent. Hence,
his speeches and lectures were a sue
cession of flashes rather than a con-
Itinuous conflagration.
And 1t is for this very reason-get-
ting down from metaphor to plain prose
that he is one Of the most Quotable
of men. You detach epigram or sar-
casm from it's context without injuring
its integrity.
Unfortunately, some of his most eff
fective sayings were too decorating to
the sensibilities of Christians to be
fitted for general circulation. Others,
while they may shock, leave no perma-
nent wound behind. And still others
are so perfectly wise, humane and true
that they bless, rather than ban, for
they might have fallen as worthily
from the lips of any clergyman as
DIllldHIllIODlSl,
who was not always an iconoclast.
In order to present a fair picture of
the man, it is a necessity to quote
from at least the second class into
which | have grouped his sayings, and
1t is a pleasure to quote from the third.
Nothing can express better the atti-
tude of the great free thinker than this
famous phrase from one of the earliest
of his lectures, the "Oration on the
ha or 10,
pest Of thought and action, rather than
the dead calm of ignorance and faith!
Danish me from Eden when you will,
but first let me eat of the fruit Of the
tree of knowledgei"
In another of these early lectures,
that on the "Arraignment of the
church" he made use of this ingenious
conceit: "A believer is a songless bird
in cage, a free thinker is an eagle
parting the clouds with tireless wing"
A little later on he cries: Surely,
there Is grandeur in knowing that in
the realm of thought at least, YOU are
without chain; that you have the right
to explore all nights and all depths;
that there are no walls nor fences nor
prohibited places nor sacred corners in
all the vast expanse of thought; that
your intellect owes no allegiance to any
being, human or divine: that you hold
all in fee and upon no condition and by
no tenure whatever; that in the world
of mind you are relieved from all per-
sonal dictation, and from the ignorant
tyranny of majorities."
Col. 1ngersoll, like Lincoln, was espe-
cially happy in weaving an illustrative
anecdote into an argument Thus, in
speaking of the necessity of freedom
and truth of speech, he said. "a few
years ago Methodist minister took it
upon himself to give me a piece of
friendly advice. Although you may
disbelieve the Bible said he, you ought
not to say so. That you should keep
to yourself. DO you believe the
Bible?' said l. Most assuredly.'
To which I retorted, Your an
swer conveys no information to
me. You may be following your
own advice. You told me to suppress
my opinions OF course, a man who
will advise others to dissimulate will
not always be particular about telling
the truth himself"
Some Of his neatest bits Of agnostic
epigram were the following:
The spirit of worship is the spirit
Of tyranny. The intellect has no
knees"
THE first doubt was the womb and
cradle of progress
But atheism Of this somewhat crude
and garish sort was only one side of
Ingersolls character. He could be
solemn and emphatic and dignified
when explaining his own creed. This
was, briefly, an unbounded faith in hu-
man nature. He said:
1t is not true that man was once per-
fectly pure and innocent, and became
degenerate by disobedience. The real
truth is and the history of man shows
that he has advanced. Events, like
the pendulum of a clock, have swung
forward and backward, but after ali.
man, like the hands, has gone steadily
on. Man Is growing grander He Is
not degenerating. Nations and indi-
viduals fail and die and make room for
higher forms. The intellectual horizon
Of the world widens as the Centuries
pass. Ideals grow stronger and purer;
the difference between justice and
mercy becomes less and less; liberty
enlarges. and love intensities as the