INGERSOLL, A BIOGRAPHICAL APPRECIATION

                           CHAPTER 14.

                   WAS HE 'A MERE ICONOCLAST'?
                           (concluded)

       Did He Endeavor To Destroy the Hope of Immortality?

     In dealing with the specific charges of iconoclasm that have
been so insistently pressed by the theological indicters of
Ingersoll, there yet remain to be considered his views of at least
one other subject, -- the immortality of the soul. Holding as they
do so prominent and so essential a place in his life-work, --
running like threads of gold through the very warp and woof of his
philosophy, -- their presentation is not merely desirable: it
constitutes a task which no conscientious reviewer could avoid.

     It is asserted by Ingersoll's critics, that his monistic and
agnostic teachings, in general, and his rejection of supernatural
purpose and design and the bodily resurrection and ascension of
Christ, in particular, utterly destroy the hope of immortality,
leaving mankind without the shadow of a consolation that the
unspeakable wrongs of this life will be righted in another.

     Now, clearly to understand Ingersoll's views concerning the
immortality of the soul, that is, concerning the mind after the
death of the body, it is first absolutely necessary to understand
his views concerning the mind before the death of the body. What
were they?

     Reiterating so much only of his philosophy as is essential to
a comprehensive presentation of the views in question, and avoiding
the "double words" of the metaphysician and the psychologist, I may
state that Ingersoll believed in what is called the natural; that
the universe is the uncreated and indestructible, the infinite and
eternal, all. Without pretending either to define or to distinguish
them, he believed that this all consists of what are called
substance and force. He did not believe that there is any power,
force, or essence behind the universe, because, even to think of
such power, force, or essence, he would have been necessitated to
think of some form or phase of substance or force, that is, of some
part or phase of the universe. In other words, he would have been
necessitated to think of something as existing behind itself. This
being impossible, the supernatural was excluded from his belief.
Incapable of conceiving of anything but the natural, he believed
that every phenomenon is a natural phenomenon. Though the original
development of organic life from inorganic substance and force was
to him an insoluble problem, he believed that, from the monera or
some even more simple protoplasmic mass, through countless ages,
had evolved by a series of purely natural, interrelated chemical,
physical, and psychological processes. He held that by no
conceivable possibility could the human organism have become
different from what it is. Confident that there was no more
trustworthy informant concerning that organism, he accepted the
conclusions of the representative biological and anthropological
scientists of his day. He believed, for example, that, without what
are termed the voluntary muscles, it would be absolutely impossible
for an individual voluntarily to exert force; that, were it not for
the heart and the rest of the circulatory mechanism, it would be
impossible either to supply with food the several tissues of the 
body or to remove from them the various deleterious products of
waste; that, in the absence of certain nerve-tissues, there would
be no sensation. He was satisfied as to the inevitable and
invariable functional integrity of these structures. He believed,
that, between the highly specialized and widely differentiated
tissues or organs just mentioned, there is no vicarious action;
that voluntary motion is invariably effected through the muscles;
circulation, through the heart; sensation, through the nerves. He
was convinced that the quality and the degree of functional
activity in the organs concerned depend absolutely and inevitably
upon their own physiological condition, plus the conditions of
their environment. In short, he believed that the organs of motion,
circulation, and sensation naturally developed, under natural
conditions, and are natural organs, acting in a natural way.

     Did he believe to the contrary concerning any other organ --
concerning the brain? In my judgment, there is no better way of
initiating a reply to this question than by asking another -- than
by asking simply this: Could he?

     To him, the brain was either natural or supernatural: it could
not be both. It was either a purely natural organ, manifesting the
purely natural phenomena called mind, or it was a purely
supernatural organ, manifesting the purely supernatural phenomena
called mind. Which of these would he declare it to be? Holding, as
already indicated, that every other organ is purely natural, could
he declare that the brain, chemically the most complex, and
anatomically and physiologically the most wonderful, of all, is
purely supernatural, manifesting purely supernatural phenomena?

     He knew that the source and origin of thought had been removed
by modern science from the maze of metaphysics to the domain of the
physical, the natural. He knew, that, superseding the theories of
such dualistic thinkers as Plato and Descartes, according to the
last of whom the ego sat an inexorable autocrat on its throne in
the pineal gland, we have a physicochemical mechanism within whose
wondrous substance is an epitome of all the past and a hint of all
the future -- an organ constantly reacting to external stimuli,
like all other organs, and subject to the same immutable forces or
conditions -- an organ whose function is the production and
manifestation of thought. And he knew, that, were there no such
organ, there would be no thought, -- just as he knew, that, were
there no muscles, heart, nor nerves, there would be no motion,
circulation, nor sensation. He knew, that, if this were not the
case, -- if that marvelous organ called the brain were merely a
sort of play-ground for some "absolute" immaterial essence, --
mental vigor would not increase directly (pari passu) with
physiological vigor, as revealed by the scalpel and the microscope,
nor wane like a fading flower with the progress of disease. He saw,
that, if the brain be not the real and only source of mental
phenomena, there is no reason why, when a part or all of its
essential cells and fibers are destroyed by accident, experiment,
disease, or age, the individual concerned should not continue to
think with as much facility as he did before, -- to think with some
other organ, -- with the spleen, for example.

     Of course, Ingersoll was well aware that so-called scientists
had produced many volumes to show, that, although a certain more or
less definite connection between the mind and the brain must be
admitted, there is no absolutely necessary and inevitable relation
between the physicochemical constitution of that organ and either
the quality or the quantity of the phenomena it manifests. He was
perfectly familiar with such arguments, all of which amount to no
more than this, namely, that the relation between brain and mind
is, at best, only a parallel relation, that is, the relation
between the natural and the supernatural! So the assertions of the
dualist made upon him no impression, save that they were, for the
most part, untrue: --

     "Thought is a form of force. We walk with the same force with
which we think. Man is an organism, that changes several forms of
force into thought-force. Man is a machine into which we put what
we call food, and produce what we call thought. Think of that
wonderful chemistry by which bread was changed into the divine
tragedy of Hamlet!"

     It must not be inferred, however, that Ingersoll regarded mind
and consciousness as solved problems; -- that he was chargeable
with the crudity usually attributed to materialistic psychology.
For he was not a pure materialist. Nor was he a pure "energist":
rather was he what I venture to term an agnostic monist. He said:

     "I believe there is such a thing as matter. I believe there is
a something called force. The difference between force and matter
I do not know. So there is a something called consciousness.
Whether we call consciousness an entity or not makes no difference
as to what it really is. There is something that hears, sees and
feels, a something that takes cognizance of what happens in what we
call the outward world. No matter whether we call this something
matter or spirit, it is something that we do not know, to say least
of it, all about. We cannot understand what matter is. It defies
us, and defies definitions. So, with what we call spirit, we are in
utter ignorance of what it is. We have some little conception of
what we mean by it, and of what others mean, but as to what it
really is no one knows. It makes no difference whether we call
ourselves Materialists or Spiritualists, we believe in all there
is, no matter what you call it. If we call it all matter, then we
believe that matter can think and hope and dream. If we call it all
spirit, then we believe that spirit has force, that it offers a
resistance; in other words, that it is in one of its aspects, what
we call matter. I cannot believe that everything can be accounted
for by motion or by what we call force, because there is something
that recognizes force. There is something that compares, that
thinks, that remembers; there is something that suffers and enjoys;
there is something that each one calls himself or herself, that is
inexplicable to himself or herself, and it makes no difference
whether we call this something mind or soul, effect or entity, it
still eludes us, and all the world we have coined for the purpose
of expressing our knowledge of this something, after all, expresses
only our desire to know, and our efforts to ascertain."

     Believing, then, that mind, in some unknown way, is, like
physiological motion, circulation, and sensation, a function or 
manifestation of the organ with which it is related, could
Ingersoll logically accept the popular view, that it shares at
death a different fate than they? Since to reply in the negative
would be entirely gratuitous, let us pass, at once, to the
paramount question, Did he deny that it shares a different fate?
And let us have the answer in the Great Agnostic's own words: --

     "I have said a thousand times, and say again, that we do not
know, we cannot say, whether death is a wall or a door -- the
beginning, or the end, of a day -- the spreading of pinions to
soar, or the folding forever of wings -- the rise or set of a sin,
or an endless life, that brings rapture and love to every one."

     In a letter to Mr. David S. Geer, president of the Oakland
Literary Club, Chicago, the same conviction is reiterated, and its
foundation concisely stated. Mr. Geer had addressed to Dr. E. B.
Foote, Sr., of New York, a birthday greeting that contained, among
other things, a positive assurance of immortality: --

                                "117 East Twenty-first Street,
                                 "Gramercy Park, April 24, '99

"My Dear Mr. Geer:

     "What you said to Dr. Foote is beautiful and for all I know it
may be all true. Still, I have no evidence that human beings are
immortal. Neither have I any evidence that 'there is any wise and
beneficent power back of all creation.' In fact, I have no evidence
of creation. I believe that all matter and all force have existed
from, and will exist, to eternity. There is to me no evidence of
the existence of any power superior to Nature. In my opinion the
supernatural does not exist. Still, we can wish in spite of, or
against, evidence, and we can hope without it.

                                        "Yours always,

                                          "R.G. Ingersoll."

     And elsewhere: --

     "* * * it is no more wonderful that we should live again than
that we do live. Sometimes I have thought it not quite so wonderful
for the reason that we have a start. But upon that subject I have
not the slightest information. Whether man lives again or not I
cannot pretend to say. * * *

     "My opinion of immortality is this:

     "First. -- I live, and that of itself is infinitely wonderful.
Second. -- There was a time when I was not, and after I was not, I
was. Third. -- Now that I am, I may be again; and it is no more
wonderful that I may be again, if I have been, than that I am,
having once been nothing."

     "It is natural to shun death, natural to desire eternal life.
With all my heart I hope for everlasting life and joy * * * ."

     As indicated in the beginning of this chapter. it has often
been asserted by his critics, that the destruction of the Bible and
the Christian religion, through the universal acceptance of
Ingersoll's teachings, would blot out of the human heart the hope
of immorality. Passing over the fact that, as has just been shown,
Ingersoll, far from denying the possibility of a future life,
himself ardently hoped for it, it must be noted that the assertion
in question (doubtless unwittingly, but nevertheless unavoidably)
implies, that, had it not been for that book and that religion,
there would now be no such hope. Ingersoll, as would be expected,
clearly perceived this unfortunate corollary of his adversaries;
and we accordingly find him dwelling with insistence upon the fact
that the hope of immortality existed, not only thousands of years
before Christ is supposed to have been born, but thousands of years
before the time of Moses; that, for many thousands of years, the
very cross itself has been a symbol of the life to come; that it
has been found carved in stone above the graves of a people who
lived and loved and hoped and dreamed beneath the same "sunny
skies" long before either the Romans or the Etruscans -- carved in
the walls of the ruined temples of Central America -- carved upon
Babylonian cylinders. He further declares, with undoubted
consternation to many, that, although the doctrine of a future life
was taught in Egypt, India, and China thousands of years before
either Christ or Moses is supposed to have been born, and is still
taught there, it is not taught in the Old Testament. He insists
that, as a matter of fact, while the Old Testament tells us how man
lost immortality through Jehovah's preventing Adam from eating of
the tree of life, there came from the top of Sinai no hope of a
hereafter; that no one in the Old Testament "stands by the dead and
says, 'We shall meet again.' "And, finally, he declares that,
notwithstanding the "one little passage in Job which commentators
have endeavored to twist into a hope of immortality," the Old
Testament does not contain, "from the first mistake in Genesis to
the last curse in Malachi," a burial service, nor even a single
word about another world. Indeed, he goes even further when he
asserts, that, "if we take the Old Testament for authority, man is
not immortal."

     To present just here, in what might seem to be natural and
logical sequence, Ingersoll's views as to whether the doctrine of
immortality is taught in the New Testament, and if so, the kind of
immortality there contemplated, would be premature, if not
altogether irrelevant. The fact, as pointed out by him, that the
hope of another life, although not recorded in the Old Testament,
was held among many nations of antiquity, thousands of years before
either Christ or Moses is supposed to have been born, and is now
held in heathen and other non-Christian countries, is a sufficient
refutation of the assertion, that, since in the absence of the
Bible and of Christianity there would have been, and would be, no
such hope, universal unbelief in them as divine institutions, in
accordance with his teachings, would destroy it. And this
refutation is at the same time a demonstration, -- a demonstration
of the fact, that, contrary to the apparent understanding of his
Christian critics, the hope of immortality is something with which
neither the Bible nor Christianity necessarily has anything
whatever to do. That hope is not dependent upon either. As a matter
of fact, the relation is precisely the other way. Take from the New
Testament and Christianity their teachings of immortality, and the
Bible and Christianity would perish; but destroy every copy of the
Bible, and erase from the tablet of memory the last trace of
Christian thought, and the hope of immortality would still 'spring
eternal in the human breast.' And what is true of the Bible and
Christianity in this regard is true of every other so-called sacred
book and supernatural religion.

     The weakness -- the falsity -- of the criticisms of
Ingersoll's views of immortality lies in their failure to
distinguish between terms. His critics confound hope with belief,
and regard belief as equivalent to realization, or as a force
capable of bringing about realization. It is therefore natural that
they should place the utmost importance in belief, which, by a
strangely erroneous consistency, they consider to be a mere puppet
of caprice, -- a result of the so called will. They seem to think
that even feigned belief is better than none; and so, ignoring the
natural operations of the mind, they say to the rationalist: "The
doctrines of Ingersoll may be good enough to live by, but they are
poor doctrines to die by. Whatever your doubts, if you desire
immortality you would better believe and be 'on the safe side.' "As
though a chemist should say to a navigator who occupied an agnostic
attitude toward the theories of chemistry: "If on your next voyage
you wish the hydrogen and the oxygen which form the sea-water to
remain united as such, not to spurn each other, and, returning to
dissociate gases, allow your ship to fall to the ground, you would
better believe in chemical affinity."

     To such reasoning, -- to the sophistical theological assertion
that belief can change the fact, -- the Great Agnostic, never
doubting the uniformity of nature, replied: --

     "If we are immortal it is a fact in nature, and we are not
indebted to priests for it, nor to bibles for it, and it cannot be
destroyed by unbelief."

     And again: --

     "Is man Immortal?

     "I do not know.

     "One thing I do know, and that is, that neither hope, nor
fear, belief, nor denial, can change the fact. It is as it is, and
it will be as it must be."

     A question of profound interest here presents itself. As
indicated in the preceding pages, it was apparent to Ingersoll,
although he was far from either affirming or denying, that mind,
like every other organic function, ceases at the death of the organ
in which it is manifest. He was not aware that any mind had
survived the death of the brain. Of one fact he was aware, however
-- that in the idea of immortality there is something fundamentally
human -- that, in every age, it had been almost universal to
mankind. How did he account for this? Did he conceive it to be a
gift from the supernatural? I have shown that he held it to be
the idea was an a priori one, as Kant believed some ideas to be? To
hold that an idea is a priori is merely one way of saying that it
is supernatural. Besides, Ingersoll specifically declared that all
of man's ideas are a posteriori; that they were born of experience
here in this world. How, then, did he account for the idea of
another life?

     Like all other individuals of genius, Ingersoll possessed a
profound knowledge of human nature. With him, despite his stern and
sometimes implacable logic, two factors entered into all mental
operations, -- heart and brain. He declared that whoever came to a
conclusion without consulting his heart would make a mistake. And
it was because he followed his own advice -- it was because "his
brain took counsel of his heart" -- that his conclusions were
almost never wrong. He knew that those who have suffered most have
thought most; that those who have lain in the lowest dungeons of
despair and gloom have soared to the loftiest, sunniest, most
ecstatic heights. In endeavoring, therefore, to account for that
loftiest of ideas, he consulted not only reason but feeling.
Finding that the brain could give no satisfactory explanation, he
looked in the heart; and he found that human affection, the
foundation of nearly everything else of value, is no less the
foundation here. He said: --

     "The idea of immortality, that like a sea ebbed and flowed in
the human heart, with its countless waves of hope and fear beating
against the shores and rocks of time and fate, was not born of any
book, nor of any creed, nor of any religion. It was born of human
affection, and it will continue to ebb and flow beneath the mists
and clouds of doubt and darkness as long as love kisses the lips of
death. It is the rainbow -- Hope, shinning upon the tears of
grief."

     Were it possible to doubt that this exquisite paragraph
contains the very kernel of the Great Agnostic's convictions on the
subject concerned; were it possible to doubt that it came
ingenuously, spontaneously, from his heart and brain together, --
not from his brain alone, as an artful attack upon theology, -- our
questioning would be instantly silenced by the last clause of the
following passage, which was delivered many years later at the bier
of a brother (as indicated in Chapter 5), and which, I may remark
in passing, has been frequently misrepresented and misunderstood.
I have italicized the particular clause: --
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