The Gods and Other Lectures, by American writer, orator, and proponent of Freethought and agnosticism, Robert Green Ingersoll was originally published in 1892. The work is a series of lecture-essays that capture Ingersoll's anti-clerical, pro-agnostic and rationalistic attitudes at his best. In the essay "On Gods" he looks at religion and its connection to the happiness and misery of mankind. The essay "Humboldt" examines the scientific genius of the great enlightenment thinker Alexander von Humboldt. In the essay "Thomas Paine", Ingersoll examines Paine's contribution to the discourse of free will. The essay "Individuality" delineates the importance of reason, rationality, and why it trumps blind faith. The final essay "Heretics and Heresies", analyses the church, the Bible and religious persecution.