e a belief on this subject. I can simply say that
I have no knowledge on this subject, and know of no fact in nature
that I would use as the corner-stone of a belief.

_Question_. Do you believe in the resurrection of the body?

_Answer_. My answer to that is about the same as to the other
question. I do not believe in the resurrection of the body. It
seems to me an exceedingly absurd belief--and yet I do not know.
I am told, and I suppose I believe, that the atoms that are in me
have been in many other people, and in many other forms of life,
and I suppose at death the atoms forming my body go back to the
earth and are used in countless forms. These facts, or what I
suppose to be facts, render a belief in the resurrection of the
body impossible to me.

We get atoms to support our body from what we eat. Now, if a
cannibal should eat a missionary, and certain atoms belonging to
the missionary should be used by the cannibal in his body, and the
cannibal should then die while the atoms of the missionary formed
part of his flesh, to whom would these atoms belong in the morning
of the resurrection?

Then again, science teaches us that there is a kind of balance
between animal and vegetable life, and that probably all men and
all animals have been trees, and all trees have been animals; so
that the probability is that the atoms that are now in us have
been, as I said in the first place, in millions of other people.
Now, if this be so, there cannot be atoms enough in the morning of
the resurrection, because, if the atoms are given to the first men,
that belonged to the first men when they died, there will certainly
be no atoms for the last men.

Consequently, I am compelled to say that I do not believe in the
resurrection of the body.*

[* From notes found among Colonel Ingersoll's papers.]

TOLSTOY AND LITERATURE.

_Question_. What is your opinion of Count Leo Tolstoy?

_Answer_. I have read Tolstoy. He is a curious mixture of simplicity
and philosophy. He seems to have been carried away by his conception
of religion. He is a non-resistant to such a degree that he asserts
that he would not, if attacked, use violence to preserve his own
life or the life of a child. Upon this question he is undoubtedly
insane.

So he is trying to live the life of a peasant and doing without
the comforts of life! This is not progress. Civilization should
not endeavor to bring about equality by making the rich poor