Robert Green Ingersoll's examination of organized religion and angnosticism was first published in 1890. Ingersoll was a lawyer, a Civil War veteran, a political leader, and Walt Whitman called him "the greatest orator of our time." He was a staunch defender of agnosticism. From the book - "Is it possible for the human mind to conceive of an infinite personality? Can it imagine a beginningless being, infinitely powerful and intelligent? If such a being existed, then there must have been an eternity during which nothing did exist except this being; because, if the universe was created, there must have been a time when it was not, and back of that there must have been an eternity during which nothing but an infinite personality existed. Is it possible to imagine an infinite intelligence dwelling for an eternity in infinite nothing? How could such a being be intelligent? What was there to be intelligent about? There was but one thing to know, namely, that there was nothing except this being. How could such a being be powerful? There was nothing to exercise force upon. There was nothing in the universe to suggest an idea. Relations could not exist - except the relation between infinite intelligence and infinite nothing."