the ignorant tyranny of majorities.

Surely it is worth something to feel that there are no priests, no
popes, no parties, no governments, no kings, no gods to whom your
intellect can be compelled to pay a reluctant homage.

Surely it is a joy to know that all the cruel ingenuity of bigotry can
devise no prison, no lock, no cell, in which for one instant to confine
a thought; that ideas cannot be dislocated by racks, nor crushed in
iron boots, nor burned with fire.

Surely it is sublime to think that the brain is a castle, and that
within its curious bastions and winding halls the soul, in spite of all
worlds and all beings, is the supreme sovereign of itself.

INGERSOLL'S LECTURE ON HUMBOLDT

Ladies and Gentlemen: Great minds seem to be a part of the infinite.
Those possessing them seem to be brothers of the mountains and the seas.

Humboldt was one of these. He was one of the few great enough to rise
above the superstition and prejudice of his time, and to know that
experience, observation and reason are the only basis of knowledge.

He became one of the greatest of men in spite of having been born rich
and noble--in spite of position. I say in spite of these things,
because wealth and position are generally the enemies of genius, and
the destroyers of talent.

It is often said of this or that man that he is a self-made man--that
he was born of the poorest and humblest parents, and that with every
obstacle to overcome he became great. This is a mistake. Poverty is
generally an advantage. Most of the intellectual giants of the world
have been nursed at the sad but loving breast of poverty. Most of
those who have climbed highest on the shining ladder of fame commenced
at the lowest round. They were reared in the straw-thatched cottages
of Europe, in the log-houses of America, in the factories of the great
cities, in the midst of toil, in the smoke and din of labor, and on the
verge of want. They were rocked by the feet of mothers whose hands, at
the same time, were busy with the needle or the wheel.

It is hard for the rich to resist the thousand allurements of pleasure,
and so I say that Humboldt, in spite of having been born to wealth and
high social position, became truly and grandly great.

In the antiquated and romantic castle of Tegel, by the side of the pine
forest, on the shore of the charming lake, near the beautiful city of
Berlin, the great Humboldt, one hundred years ago to-day, w