e believes in vicarious virtue and vicarious
vice--vicarious punishment and vicarious reward; because she regards
repentance of more importance than restitution, and because she
sacrifices the world we have to one we know not of.

The free and generous, the tender and affectionate, will understand me.
Those who have escaped from the grated cells of a creed will appreciate
my motives. The sad and suffering wives, the trembling and loving
children will thank me: This is enough.

Robert G. Ingersoll.

Washington, D. C,

April 13, 1878.

THE GHOSTS.

Let them cover their Eyeless Sockets with their
Fleshless Hands and fade forever from the imagination of Men.

THERE are three theories by which men account for all phenomena,
for everything that happens: First, the Supernatural; Second, the
Supernatural and Natural; Third, the Natural. Between these theories
there has been, from the dawn of civilization, a continual conflict. In
this great war, nearly all the soldiers have been in the ranks of the
supernatural. The believers in the supernatural insist that matter
is controlled and directed entirely by powers from without; while
naturalists maintain that Nature acts from within; that Nature is not
acted upon; that the universe is all there is; that Nature with infinite
arms embraces everything that exists, and that all supposed powers
beyond the limits of the material are simply ghosts. You say, "Oh, this
is materialism!" What is matter? I take in my hand some earth:--in this
dust put seeds. Let the arrows of light from the quiver of the sun smite
upon it; let the rain fall upon it. The seeds will grow and a plant will
bud and blossom. Do you understand this? Can you explain it better than
you can the production of thought? Have you the slightest conception of
what it really is? And yet you speak of matter as though acquainted with
its origin, as though you had torn from the clenched hands of the rocks
the secrets of material existence. Do you know what force is? Can you
account for molecular action? Are you really familiar with chemistry,
and can you account for the loves and hatreds of the atoms? Is there not
something in matter that forever eludes? After all, can you get, beyond,
above or below appearances? Before you cry "materialism!" had you not
better ascertain what matter really is? Can you think even of anything
without a material basis? Is it possible to imagine the annihilation of
a sin