When I
became convinced that the Universe is natural --that all the ghosts
and gods are myths, there entered into my brain, into my soul,
into every drop of my blood, the sense, the feeling, the joy of
freedom. The walls of my prison crumbled and fell, the dungeon
was flooded with light, and all the bolts, and bars, and manacles
became dust. I was no longer a servant, a serf, or a slave. There
was for me no master in all the wide world--not even in infinite
space. I was free--free to think, to express my thoughts--free
to live to my own ideal--free to live for myself and those I loved--free
to use all my faculties, all my senses- -free to spread imagination's
wings--free to investigate, to guess and dream and hope--free
to judge and determine for myself--free to reject all ignorant
and cruel creeds, all the "inspired" books that savages
have produced, and all the barbarous legends of the past--free
from popes and priests--free from all the "called" and
"set apart"--free from sanctified mistakes and holy
lies--free from the fear of eternal pain--free from the winged
monsters of the night--free from devils, ghosts, and gods. For
the first time I was free. There were no prohibited places in
all the realms of thought--no air, no space, where fancy could
not spread her painted wings--no chains for my limbs--no lashes
for my back--no fires for my flesh--no master's frown or threat--no
following another's steps- -no need to bow, or cringe, or crawl,
or utter lying words. I was free. I stood erect and fearlessly,
joyously, faced all worlds.
And then my heart was filled with gratitude, with thankfulness,
and went out in love to all the heroes, the thinkers who gave
their lives for the liberty of hand and brain--for the freedom
of labor and thought--to those who fell in the fierce fields of
war, to those who died in dungeons bound with chains--to those
who proudly mounted scaffold's stairs--to those whose bones were
crushed, whose flesh was scarred and torn--to those by fire consumed
--to all the wise, the good, the brave of every land, whose thoughts
and deeds have given freedom to the sons of men. And then I vowed
to grasp the torch that they had held, and hold it high, that
light might conquer darkness still.
Robert G. Ingersoll (1833-1899)
See Also: Heros and Role models, and My view of Life.