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SUNDAY LECTURE SOCIETY,
ST. GEORGE’S HALL, LANGHAM PLACE.
SUNDAY AFTERNOON, NOVEMBER 9th, 1879,
AT FOUR o’clock
precisely,
On “EASTERN RELIGIONS,”
By MONCURE
D. CONWAY, M.A.
SYLLABUS.
The humanity of Religions.
Missionary misrepresentations.
Intermarriages and migrations of Religions.
Evolution of Religion in China.
Aryan Religion generally.
The Indian Job.
Iranian Religion.
Buddhism.
Indian Sects.
Mahommedanism.
The Moslem liberals of Persia.
The Religion of Humanity.
The Lecture on Sunday, November 14th, will be by C. PFOUNDES
Esq. (Sec. to the Nipon (Japan) Institute), ou “Japan, and its
People.”
______________________
Payment at the Door; —
ONE PENNY;—SIXPENCE;—and Reserved Seats ONE SHILLING.
3—1,000.
�
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Victorian Blogging
Description
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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On "eastern religions" by Moncure D. Conway [lecture syllabus]
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Sunday Lecture Society
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 1 p. ; 19 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway.
Date
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[1879]
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G5708
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Lectures
Moncure Conway
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<img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /><br /><span>This work (On "eastern religions" by Moncure D. Conway [lecture syllabus]), identified by </span><span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk">Humanist Library and Archives</a></span><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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Text
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English
Conway Tracts
Moncure Conway
Religion-Philosophy
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THE
CRIMINAL’S ASCENSION
A DISCOURSE
Given March 2nd 1879.
BY
MONCURE D. CONWAY, M.A.
MINISTER OF SOUTH PLACE SOCIETY, AND AT THE
ATHENASUM, CAMDEN ROAD.
FRIGE TWOPENCE.
��THE CRIMINAL’S ASCENSION
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To a rational eye it would be difficult to picture a
more startling, scene than a man with the hangman on
one side preparing to strangle him, and a clergyman
on the other promising him bliss at God’s right hand.
But no eye can rationally take in at once a scene so
familiar. It requires patient analysis to discover the
full significance of a situation in which human society
by one officer decides that a man is unfit to live on
-earth, by another officer pronounces him quite fit for
the society of the beings it worships. In the majority
of modern executions, the gallows has been looked
upon by the criminals as a stepping-stone to eternal
glory; and no clerical voice have I ever heard denying
their probable ascension to Heaven. Theology still
represents a Christ saying to the malefactor, “ This
day shalt thou be with me in Paradise.” The old
story was recently repeated when an exceptionally
base criminal exclaimed, “ I am going to Heaven/’
�4
and the chaplain said, “Lord Jesus receive his soul.”
I am glad to observe that the public conscience is
shocked, and common sense recoils.
Such ever-recurring facts reveal a fearful chasm
dividing the practical needs of man from the alleged
requirements of God. They disclose the awful fact
that “religion” and morality use totally different
weights and measures. The vilest scoundrel to one
may be a saint to the other. What moral laws pro
nounce a life of villainy outraging man and woman,
“ religion ” says may be outweighed by a few moments
of prayer to God and compliments to Jesus.
I think it is not going too far to say that it is
impossible for the masses of a community to obtain
any apprehension of the real nature of crime, so longas the religious instruction provided for them teaches
that the supreme rewards of existence are attainable
without reference to life and character. It does not
materially affect the case that the Ten Commandments
are solemnly repeated. The power of any law to
control human passions depends on the sanctions it
carries; and these sanctions are penalties. A whole
code of mere remonstrances against theft were vain.
The Decalogue, so far as it is enacted law, is powerful
simply because a punishment is affixed to each com
mand. But if the Legislature should provide that
every individual violating any law might escape its.
�5
< penalty by kneeling before the Queen, it would be
equivalent to abrogation of the law. Society could
not exist under such conditions.
The moral sentiment of a community is not repre
sented by its lawyers, but chiefly by its religious
teachers. The law-books represent certain practical
interests of society which may be of moral importance,
but may not. One law preserves the life of a pheasant,
-another the life of a man; the same code punishes
fictitious offences, like fishing out of season, and
immoralities. It is a business-like matter, and, were
there no moral or religious sentiment, a man might
take his day of sport out of season, or his neighbour’s
property, and run his risk, and feel no worse morally
for either.
There are indeed moral forces that can supplement
social laws, forces that for some wield heavy rewards
and punishments. There are men and women who
live lives of honour, honesty, and virtue with as little
reference to the law-books as to any future world.
But, unfortunately, for the less refined but more
tempted masses of the world, all the moral induce
ments to self-control are rendered nugatory by a
sacred system which transfers the sanctions, the
■rewards or penalties, from moral action to a ceremony,
to a motion of the lips, to that last abjectness of
.arrested villainy called repentance.
�6
The voice most authentic to the masses says tothem,—In the name of God we declare to you that
no merits of your own are of any importance in His
eyes. He sees not as man seeth. Your thefts, murders,
adulteries, cruelties, and general baseness, may be to
man of vast importance; but to God the one question
is, do you believe in his Son or not ? If you do, the
crimes, scarlet to men, are to Him white as snow.
Shew by kneeling, praying, accepting Christ as your
' Saviour, that you are all square towards God, and it
matters little what the world says and does to you. What
need one care for men if God is for him, and Jesuswaiting to take him to His bosom ? Fear not them
that kill the body and after that have no more that
they can do, but fear Him who is able to cast both
soul and body into hell fire 1
Those who have been liberally instructed mayimagine
that I am stating too strongly the voice that goes forth
to the masses in the name of religion; but, in truth, I
am stating not only what is largely taught, but what is
the necessary sense of all teaching, however interlarded
with morality, which gives man as his highest end and
aim something unconnected with morality. However
disguised by and for the cultivated, to the masses it
must mean that at last. There is in every mind in the
country which has not out-grown it a formula called
the Plan of Salvation.
It is declared by every
�.7
church, every sect—substantially the same, under
superficial variations—to be a scheme formed by God
for raising man to angelic perfection, divine virtue,
eternal joy. And in this Plan of Salvation no provision
is made for morality. Not one item in it refers to
morality. Morality is not made a condition, nor im
morality a disqualification, for its full enjoyment. Its
conditions are confined to repentance for an ancient
personal offence—not a moral offence—committed by
Adam to his Maker, and an acceptance of a human
and divine sacrifice offered for that sin. It is a corol
lary of that Plan that no amount of crime can prevent
him who uses the charm from summoning the Holy
Ghost to his side, and enjoying all the favours which
God can bestow.
This Plan of Salvation may appear to you so irra
tional and immoral as to excite wonder how any one
can believe it, and doubt whether any human lives are
really practically guided by it. And this, indeed, is
the vital point. Our question is not whether this
notion of Salvation be really true, but whether it is
genuinely believed by those most tempted to evil, and
least surrounded by refined restraints. My own con
viction is that no system could be conceived more
exactly adapted to the rudimentary reason of the
ignorant, to the pauper sense of justice, and none can
so readily explain to the suffering masses the hard lot
�8
in which they are cast. In their hereditary disease
and despair, they have daily proof of hereditary sin;
the pedigree of their sorrow may as well go back to
Adam as to their grandfathers; they suffer for sins
' they never committed. And how shall they be saved?
Is it reasonable to say they can only be saved by being
moral, virtuous, honest, self-denying, truthful? Would
it be just in God to set on Heaven a price they cannot
pay ? By his decree their lot is amid ignorance, vice,
temptation, grossness; how then can he demand a
harvest where he has not sown ? The so-called Plan
of Salvation is an evolution out of ages of superstition
to meet just that low state of mind, that hard lot of
the ignorant and suffering, of which the intelligent and
the happy have little conception. High ethical science
has no meaning for them; but it appeals to their sense
: of right that their Maker should make Heaven as cheap
as earthly happiness is dear. It seems but fair to them
that one of the Godhead should bear the guilt of all
their sins, which grow out of that vile lot which the
Godhead arranged. They did not choose a life down
in the social mire. They do not feel the guilt of the
immoralities besetting that lot; and they listen favour: ably to the preaching which tells them they will go,
: like the penitent thief, straight from the prison or the
scaffold to the side of Jesus, there to be equals of the
proudest and greatest who despised them on earth.
�9
So runs a hymn—
“ Let the world despise and leave me,
Once they left my Saviour, too.”
In the course of its long experience, Roman
Catholicism had found the danger of this notion, and
the necessity of modifying the bold dogma of salvation
by faith alone, and had devised a purgatory. It said
to the evil man that he might be saved eventually,
however wicked, but in proportion to his bad conduct
would be the length and severity of his purification
after death. In the course of time, this dogma of
purgatory lost its value, deliverance from its pains
being offered for money, and Protestantism threw
away not only the theory but the experience of ages
which underlay it Protestantism offered the whole
world of men the indentical salvation, irrespective
of their merits or demerits.
Nay, we cannot disguise from ourselves, however
divines around us may try to disguise it from them
selves and us, that the logic of Protestant Christianity
goes even farther, and necessitates the position that
mere morality is a danger to the soul. The man of
cultivated reason has been found likely to trust his
reason ; the man of good works has a tendency to trust
to his good works ; and such have been proved less
amenable to the plan of trusting solely to the divine
scheme above reason and to the merits of Christ.
Under pressure of this experience, the sects have been
�IO
reduced to the necessity of building up their strength
from those less addicted to reason and to good works,
and have evolved the doctrine that God looks with
special favour on the mind that fancies itself humble
when it is only uninquiring, and the character which
confuses its weakness with dependence on Christ.
This positive discouragement of the formation of
. self-reliant and moral character has, unhappily, found
a means of diffusing itself which theology could not
command,—namely, by hymns. Those especially of |
sects that deal with the masses are pervaded with I
contempt of good works.
The Wesleyans sing—
‘ ‘ Let the world their virtue boast
Their works of righteousness;
*•
I, a wretch undone and lost,
Am freely saved by grace.
Other titles I disclaim ;
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This, only this, is all my plea—
I the chief of sinners am,
But Jesus died for me.”
This special claim to Jesus’s favour—that one. is L
the chief of sinners—has passed to many hymns, from I t
the Bible. Unhappily, there is much in the New
Testament, when detached from its own time and
place, to confirm the faith of the coarse and ignorant
in their miserable conceit. Their teachers have perverted the liberalism of Christ and Paul to these
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meanest ends. Christ, in trying to do away with the
bigotry around him, seeking to expand Jewish minds
so as to include Samaritans, Greeks, Romans, as
children of a divine Father, sought to win them to
charity by sweet parables. He told them of the mer
chant who paid so largely for the pearl ; and what
- pearl was more beautiful than Greece ? He told them
of how the woman rejoiced when she found the lost
coin, the shepherd when he found the lost lamb, the
father when his prodigal son returned. All these
were pictures of the hated Gentiles. They are our
lost sheep, taught Christ, our wandering brother; if
they will mingle with us, let us not repel them—rather
we will kill the fatted calf and make merry, because
the lost is found. And in his enthusiasm he may
have said, 11 There should be more joy in our new
kingdom over one such returning wanderer—one
fraternal Gentile—than over ninety-nine that never
went astray from the true God after images.” When
these poetic metaphors were written down in the
doctrinal period—in the Gospels—Jesus was more
than a hundred years dead, Jerusalem was destroyed,
the parables had lost their special point, and so the
moral was made universal and false by saying,“ There
is joy among the angels over one sinner that repenteth
more than over ninety-nine just persons who went
not astray,” a text either absurd, or a direct encourage
ment of vice.
�12
According to that text the roughs of England may
not only behold in that chief of sinners, who ascended
at Sheffield, a hero bold, who long defied Great
Britain, and, when overpowered, died happy, but they
may also see him causing an equal commotion among
the angels, though one of delight, as they leave the
humdrum souls who never went astray to rejoice over
this dear, daring, sensational fellow, whose salvation
illustrates the potency of divine magic so much better
than that of a mere moral man.
Paul has been put through the same process of per
version as Christ; his admirable statements for one
situation wrested for another, and stereotyped into
dogma. In furthering Christ’s broad inclusiveness j
Paul had to confront the new difficulty that his J ewish
brethren were disposed to insist on the Gentiles sub
mitting to their ceremonial law. They were willing
i
to receive the Gentiles as returning prodigals, but
|
they must consent to obey all the regulations of the
father s house that is, the house of Israel. To this
the Gentiles would not submit; and it cost Paul the
labours of a life, and all his resources of eloquence
and art, to persuade the Jewish wing that a common
faith in Christ was all-sufficient without exacting from
Greeks and Romans the deeds of the law—that is, of
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course, the rites and ceremonial deeds of the Jewish
religion, circumcision and the like. When this argu-
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ment was detached from its point and purpose, when
it was read letter by letter by the eye of bibliolatry—
as little able to see its whole meaning as a fly the
statue over which it creeps—Paul’s “ deeds of the
law” were supposed to be the moral law—English
law; not circumcision and Sabbath, but laws against
theft and violence; and so Paul was brought at last
to sanction the dogma that men are saved by faith in
Christ, without requiring any good deeds, or con
formity with human laws.
It is greatly to the credit of human nature that this
.kind of teaching has not utterly corrupted Christian
society. If human nature had been half as bad as
theology says, the Christian name would to foreigners
have been synonymous with barbarism. But a great
many influences have intervened between the dogmas
and large numbers of the people—the saving grace of
common sense, pictures of virtue and vice on the
stage—these and other forces too complex to be now
considered have supplied some counterpoise to dogmas
that despise human merit. But there is a yet very
large class which may be called the potential criminal
.class—and against that class society is left with no
defence but that of superior force. It is a. war for
■advantages to the burglar, the murderer, in which he
:may be defeated, but in which he does not feel much
/disgrace or guilt, if any. His life is being lived in a
�general way under the necessity that knows no law,
and particular crimes are mere accidents in the
current that masters him. And he will remain somastered—without conscious responsibility or guilt—■
until a will is stimulated within him by some motive
of action stronger than that which tempts him. Now,
what is to stimulate in a person of strong appetites
the will to control those appetites ? Remember, our
problem now is not that of punishing crime, but of
how to keep people from committing crime. Can
Christianity do that ? What are the motives to which
it appeals ? Judgment Day and eternal Hell ? Now,
these would be very strong if they were penalties for
immorality, but Christianity repudiates that idea.
Hell it declares is for those who forget God, or donot believe on his Son. Consequently the criminal
may snap his fingers at the Day of Judgment. Hell
is a mere display of fireworks to the man who is
insured against it by the blood of Jesus. Charles
Peace, on the morning of execution, arose from
pleasant sleep, breakfasted heartily, then sat down and
wrote as follows :—“ To my dear wife and family,—I
tell you this great joy that I could not tell you yesterday.
No fear now, for it is all cleared up as to where I
am going to. I am going to heaven, or to the place
where the good go to that die in the Lord; or where
is the place appointed by God for the good to wait
�i5
until the resurrection of the dead. So do not forget!
Our meeting place is in heaven. So do come at the
last and you will find me there. This letter is wrote25 minutes before I die, so I must say good bye to
all. I am going to heaven.” A few moments after
he is on the scaffold preaching to the reporters, says
he is going to rest with the good till Judgment
Day, forgives his enemies, and says, “ I wish them tocome to the Kingdom, to die as I die.” That is hisbest wish for us all, to die as he died ! And that iswhat Judgment Day and Hell amounted to in the
eyes of this criminal. But what other motives canChristianity arouse now that it has enabled the criminal
to quench Hell with a drop of Christ’s blood? It
may say that it sets before him the life of Christ,—the perfect life,—-and so makes an affecting appeal toall the good in him. Be like Christ, it says. But that
ideal too it destroys by declaring Christ to be God.
The criminal is not a god. The virtues of a god are no
example to him. So far as Christ was a man his expe
riences are not attractive. We are now in Lent, and
Christendom recalls a poor man wandering in a wilder
ness 40 days, cold and hungry, resisting all temptations,
to get his living by evil ways. From a loaf of bread to
the kingdoms of the world, all the temptations were
offered him and resisted. What did he get by it ?*
A gallows. He might, to the criminal mind, he-
�i6
might well envy the happy end of our latest ruffian.
One sacrificed himself for others, and at execu
tion cried, “ My God, why hast thou forsaken me ?”
the other sacrificing others to himself, exclaims, “1
.am going to heaven.” So far as the virtuous, selfsacrificing, human life of Christ is concerned the re
ligion called after him goes into the criminal’s prison,
and in a few moments enables him to show vice tri.umphant, beside virtue agonizing on the cross of its
own Saviour. So it is on earth; and Christianity
.assures the criminal, converted after he can sin no
more, that heaven has the same place and rewards
for the life of crime and the life of virtue. He gets
.after a life of evil just what Christ gets after a life of
moral excellence. There are many Christians who
me moral, many who are wiser than their creed, but
-they cannot alter the remorseless logic of their
system. Either it is the blood of Jesus that saves
men or it is not. If man is saved by the sacrifice
and merits of Jesus, then he cannot be saved by his
-own merits or sacrifices. Consequently, so far as
eternal bliss and blessedness are concerned, he may
do without any merits or morality at all.
And in this claim, the very basis of Christ’s atone
ment, lies the fact that the criminal mind finds in
rthe orthodox system precisely its own method. For
what is the criminal mind ? It is a mind which seeks
�to gain advantages without working for them,—that
.it is, without fulfilling the conditions with which justice-
'di to others surrounds them. The criminal mind seeks
iri nothing that may not be fairly sought. This miser
able man, just executed, wanted beauty in dress, a
He:ai is quite credible when he declared that he never
fit? harmed living creature except when they were inter
fering with his appropriation of things he desired.
No man loves crime for itself. But the moral law>
says you must seek these things by patiently working
reft for them, not by snatching in a moment that for5
W which others have toiled, enriching yourself throughiiil the merits of others, or by sacrificing their lives to
ey your own happiness. But the criminal may point to
M a law holier than morality; to every Christian creed
iw which is on his side. Just as he gets his neighbour’smljewellery without toil, so is he to get paradise. Without
)fn| money and without price is he to attain the bliss of
eternity. By a great human sacrifice he is enabledj Oil to dispense with all toilsome conditions and
enjoy
jibj the celestial raiment and rubies that represent theheaven of every criminal’s dream—everything pretty
ms and pleasant, and no work to obtain them.
I
The essential superstition represented by the crimiteiil nal’s ascension to the right hand of God, by divine
aig grace, is as gross as anything among the Zulus. When
Sfi neat wagonette and horses, violins, and money.
�i8
'the chaplain, said, “Lord Jesus, receive his soul,” it
either meant that the vulgarest and meanest murderer
was a fit companion for Christ; or else it meant that
■a miracle was to be then and there wrought, and
villainy at once transmuted to perfection. The ascen
sion of the dead body through prison walls would be
no greater miracle than the ascension of that evil
mind to any realm of purity.
It is a superstition to suppose that animal had any
soul. Nevertheless, he might have had one had he
been born in a world that had made the best instead
■of the worst of him. From first to last his “ career,”
■as he grandly called it, reflects the unreason which
from the past has come to bind the present. A pre
tended religion turns his earthly life to a transient
trifle under the eternity to come ; and tells him that
his good or evil deeds here are equally unimportant;
•that heaven is had for the asking. Had religion told
him the truth, that this life is the only one he is sure
of, and that it is the only possible life he could have,
unless he developed moral powers useful elsewhere,
he might have ascended from animalism to manhood.
When this solemn sanction of his indolence and
worthlessness have borne their evil fruit, the law pro
ceeds to make him a hero, the sensation of months.
Biographies of him, reminiscences of him, myths and
legends, accounts of his down-sitting and up-rising;
�19
and all because he is slain like some formidable
prisoner of war. “ I want you, sir,” he said to the
clergyman, “to preach a special sermon over my case
. . . to hold me and my career up as a beacon ”—
such is his grand phraseology—“ that all who see may
avoid my example.” But is that the effect of his emi
nence ? Thousands of the wretched around us now see
how their obscure lives may achieve fame. As the
Saturday Review said, no statesman, author or artist
could hope to receive such obsequious attention at
death. Whereas it had been easy to put that man in
a particoloured dress with a chain gang, paving roads
for honest men, and make him a living witness to the
criminal’s disgrace and degradation, as he now is of
the criminal’s glory and ascension. He said, “ I hope
God will give me strength to go like a hero to the
scaffold. I had much rather die than live in penal
servitude.” Why not, when death meant ascension
to glory, and the other meant just that hard work it
was the aim of his life to avoid. Years ago he at
tempted suicide to escape a term of hard labour. I have
no sentiment about the death of such people, except
that I believe such death too good for them. My ob
jection is not sentimental, but scientific. It is a terrible
error for society to suppose that swift death is the
severest punishment. The Bible represents Satan as
believing that all that a man hath he will give for his
�20
life; but that was written by a people who believed
in no future life, and it was said about a man who had
a great deal to lose. But our criminals come of classes
to whom earth means poverty and misery, and heaven
means luxurious idleness. It is a great error to believe
that death is the chief deterrent to these. The main
terror of it fled when theology allowed salvation to alL
That was the practical abolition of hell. It has pro
claimed to the scoundrel world that it may cheat men
in this life, and then cheat the devil in the next. It
has added to the criminal’s morbid satisfaction in
creating a sensation, the assurance of ascension to
heaven by a more painless death than Charles Peace
had twice sought by his own act.
Waterlew & Sons Limited, Printers, London Wall, London.
�
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Victorian Blogging
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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The criminal's ascension : a discourse given March 2nd 1879
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Conway, Moncure Daniel [1832-1907.]
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Collation: 20 p. ; 15 cm.
Notes: Printed by Waterlow and Sons, London Wall. Morris Miscellaneous Tracts 2.
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[Waterlow and Sons]
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G3344
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Crime
Evil
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Crime and Punishment
Crime-Religious Aspects-Christianity
Good and Evil
Morris Tracts
Salvation
Social Problems
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Victorian Blogging
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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[Demonology and Devil-Lore]
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Allen, Grant
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Place of Publication: London
Collation: 6 leaves ; 19 cm.
Notes: Handwritten review on 6 leaves of Savile Club notepaper of Moncure Conway's work 'Demonology and Devil-Lore'. From, 'Mind', July 1879. From the library of Dr Moncure Conway.
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Text
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Book reviews
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Conway Tracts
Demonology
Moncure Conway
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NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY
FIRST SEVEN ALLEGED
PERSECUTIONS.
A.D. 64 TO A.D. 235.
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rpìs 8é jLtoi €K xeiP^v
Ìirrar’.
Ka^ òvelpip
*■ 206- 8-
LONDON:
FREETHOUGHT PUBLISHING COMPANY,
28 STONECUTTER STREET, E.C.
Price Sixpence.]
��B2.4-2./
KJ 2.24
THIS TRACT IS
TO THE MEMORY OF THE LATE
Sheinas (Statt, ®aq.,
Born 26th April, 1808, Died 30th December, 1878 ;
WHO, BETWEEN THE YEARS
KNOWN
1856 AND 1877,
and
BY HIS WELL-
Series of Tracts, most ably advocated
THE RIGHT OF ALL MANKIND TO
“ FREE EXPRESSION AND FREE INQUIRY.
��All dictionaries and other compilations on the subject
of “ Boman Antiquities,” are quite silent regarding the
existence of any laws or edicts directing the Romans to
persecute on account of religious opinions. Roman
History does not record any such thing. The pun
ishment of the Bacchanals was inflicted for purely
criminal and political reasons. The Romans never
punished anyone on account of his religion. On the
contrary, all their conquered nations—including the
Jews, and some Persians, both of whom were mono
theists—were permitted to continue in their own
religions. Therefore the question arises naturally, on
what foundation do those stories rest which relate per
secutions of the Christians for their religious opinions,
by the Roman Emperors Nero, Domitian, Trajan,
Hadrian, Aurelius, Severus, and Maximin ? Ignorance
regarding the correct answer to this question misled
Gibbon, and caused him to make very erroneous con
cessions to the friends of Christianity, especially in the
sixteenth chapter of “ The Decline and Fall.” Those
who wish for the answer to this question will find it in
the following pages.
Kilferest,
Feast of St Mark,
1879.
��FI RST SEVEN ALLEGED PERSECUTIONS.
O 11 sweet is pleasure after pain ” that men, who have
S experienced very painful sufferings, delight in re
lating them. To this rule the Christians are not any
exception whatever. Immediately after the time, a.d.
313, when the Roman Emperor, Constantine, took the
Christian Church under his protection, several Chris
tians entertained themselves with compiling traditions
regarding alleged persecutions of the early Christians
by Roman Emperors who reigned during our first and
second centuries. This we know from the ancient but
spurious Acta Martyrum and from the stories con
tained in the Acta Sanctorum, the compilation of which
was commenced by John Bolland, about a.d. 1640. It
does not appear that these supposed persecutions were
originally confined or increased to any particular num
ber. In the time of Eusebius, a.d. 315, they were in a
very uncertain state. He does not mention any num
ber, but he relates about eight supposed persecutions.
It was not until the fifth century of our supposed
Christian era that the number of these alleged persecu
tions amounted to ten. Sulpicius Severus, a.d. 422,
was the author of this computation. But even he is
not quite clear on the subject; for he seems desirous of
reserving the tenth and greatest persecution for the
coming of Antichrist.
Those alleged persecutions, and the dates at which
they are supposed to have occurred, are now generally
stated by the Christian writers, who are “ the best
authorities,” as follows, namely: that by Nero, a.d. 64;
by Domitian, a.d. 95 ; by Trajan, a.d. 107; by Hadrian,
�8
First Seven Alleged Persecutions.
a.d. 125 ; by Aurelius Antoninus, a.d. 165 ; by Septimius Severus, a.d. 202; by Maximinus, a.d. 235; by
Decius, a.d. 249; by Valerianus, a.d. 257; and by
Galerius, a.d. 303.
THERE ARE NOT EXTANT ANY LAWS ENACTED
BY THE ROMANS OR EDICTS ISSUED BY
THEIR EMPERORS AGAINST THE CHRIS
TIANS.
Dr John L. Mosheim, (“ Institutes of Ecclesiastical
History,” century 1, part i. chapter 5,) says : “ The
persecutions of the Christians by the Romans, have for
ages been accounted ten in number. But the ancient
history of the Church does not support exactly this
number; for if we reckon only the general and more
severe persecutions, they were fewer than ten ; but, if
we include the provincial and more limited persecutions
the number will be much greater than ten. Some
Christians of the fifth century were led by certain pas
sages of scripture,—especially one in 1 Revelation,’
xvii. 12,—to believe that it was decreed the
Christian Church must pass through ten grievous per
secutions ; and to this opinion they afterwards en
deavoured, in different ways, to accommodate the
reluctant testimony of history .... An ancient law
yer named Domitius, collected all the imperial laws
against the Christians, in his treatise ‘ De Officio Proconsulis,’ which, if it were now extant, would doubt
less throw much light on the history of the Church
under the Pagan emperors. In the meantime very
much is left wholly to conjecture.”
Our New Testament does not mention any laws or
edicts against the Christians, nor does it record any
of those alleged ten persecutions. Even the writer of
our “ Acts ” does not appear to know anything regard
ing a persecution of Christians at Rome during a.d. 64,
the date commonly ascribed to a supposed persecution
of Christians by Nero. On the contrary (Acts xxviii.
30, 31,) the writer of our “Acts” represents St Paul
�First Seven Alleged Persecutions.
9
preaching Christianity freely from a.d. 63 to a.d. 65,
the year after the alleged persecution of Christians by
Nero. For, after representing St Paul as having ar
rived a prisoner at Pome, a.d. 63, the writer says,
“And Paul dwelt two whole years in his own hired
house, and received all that came in unto him, preaching
the Kingdom of God, and teaching those things which
concern the Lord Jesus Christ, with all confidence, no man
forbidding him.” It is scarcely conceivable and most
improbable that if Paul were a prisoner on account of
his being a Christian, he would have been permitted to
preach the doctrines of that belief while he was in cus
tody,—or to preach Christianity at Rome the year be
fore Nero’s alleged persecution of the Christians there,
—to continue preaching it during the year of that
alleged persecution,—and during the year following.
So then, if our book of “Acts” be written by divine
inspiration, or even if it be a genuine and authentic
narrative of the events and persons that it purports to
relate, it contradicts and utterly subverts the story that,
ad. 64, Nero persecuted the Christians.
To obviate this and many other chronological diffi
culties, Dr William Smith has edited in a unique
manner a work which he is pleased to call “ The New
Testament History.” The period comprised in that socalled “History” extends from a.d. 1 to a.d. 70, and
dates are assigned to the events narrated with such care
and skill that all contradictions, like that above indi
cated, are avoided. The consequence is an arbitrary
chronology which is at variance with all other New
Testament chronologies, both ancient and modern.
One of Dr Smith’s dates is peculiarly remarkable. He
states (p. 155,) that the birth of Jesus Christ took
place “ b.c. 4.” This date bears a significance of which
most probably Dr Smith was not aware. For the fact
is that
CHRISTIANITY IS OLDER THAN JESUS CHRIST.
Hermas, author of “ The Shepherd,” is supposed to
have flourished about a.d. 140. This work is quoted
�io
First Seven Alleged Persecutions.
by Irenaeus, “ Against Heresies,” iv. 20, 2, as “ scrip
ture.” Origen, “Commentary on the Epistle to the
Romans,” bk. x. 31, gives it as his opinion regarding
“ The Shepherd,” that it is “ divinely inspired.” We
know from Eusebius, “E. H.” iii. 3, that in his time
“ it had been already in public use in our churches.”
Yet in that tract Jesus Christ is never mentioned, nor
does the writer ever quote from our New Testament.
Theophilus, of Antioch, has left us an apology for
the Christians in three books, addressed to his friend
Autolycus. He is supposed to have flourished about
a.d. 168. He never mentions Jesus Christ, nor does he
quote from our New Testament. His authorities for
the doctrines he inculcates are Homer, Hesiod, the
Greek Tragics, the Septuagint, and the prophecies of
the Sibyl. He professes to be a Christian, and says,
“ we are called Christians on this account, because we
are anointed with the oil of God.”
Athenagoras is supposed to have flourished about
a.d. 171. He calls himself a Christian in his “Plea
for the Christians.” Yet he never mentions Jesus
Christ, nor does he quote from our New Testament.
The authorities he quotes are Homer, Hesiod, the Greet
Tragics, the Septuagint, and “ Sayings of the Logos.”
Tatian is supposed to have flourished about A.D. 172.
In his “Address to the Greeks ” he endeavours at once
to defend Christianity and to expose the enormities of
heathenism. He never mentions Jesus Christ, nor does
he quote from our New Testament. The authorities
he quotes are Moses, the Logos, Orpheus and Demo
critus.
In his “ Evidences of Christianity,” bk. i., ch. 3, first
three lines, Paley says, “ Of the primitive condition of
Christianity a distant only and a general view can be
acquired from heathen writers. It is in our own books
that the detail and interior of the transaction must be
sought for.”
In his “ Roman History,” translated by Hare and
Thirlwall, ed. of 1831, vol. 1, 176-195, in the section
relating to “2Eneas and the Trojans in Latium,”
�First Seven Alleged Persecutions.
11
Niebuhr avows that his aim is “to determine whether
the Trojan legend is ancient and homesprung, or
adopted by the Latins from the Greeks, and whether
there is any chance of explaining how it originated.”
The conclusion he arrives at is “ That the Trojan legend
was not brought into Latium by Greek Literature, but
must be considered as homesprung; and that it has
Hot the least historical truth—any more than the des
cent of the Goths from the Getes, or that of the Franks
and. Saxons from the Macedonians, all which are re
lated with full faith by native writers—nor even the
slightest historical importance,” and that the Trojan
legend was manufactured from Roman names and
ceremonies the meaning of which had been forgotten,
and from poverty of materials for compiling early
Roman History, and from national vanity.
It is a historical fact that during the first seventy
years of our first century, and during almost the whole
of our second century, all heathen writers are silent
regarding the existence of Christianity and the Chris
tians. The traces of them in the writings of Josephus,
Suetonius, Pliny junior, and Tacitus, between a.d. 70
and 110, are uncertain, scanty, dubious and improbable.
Consequently Paley’s candid statement regarding the
fact that there are few, if any, genuine notices of pri
mitive Christianity or primitive Christians by heathen
writers, amounts on his part to a confession of weak
ness. It reduces Jesus Christ to the condition of such
heroes as Meleager, Adrastus, Ajax, Prince Arthur,
William Tell, and the like. In fact the very name
“Christians” is traceable to the worshippers of the
-Egyptian god Serapis, as appears by a letter from the
Emperor Hadrian to his son-in-law, Servianus, preserved
by the historian Vopiscus, who flourished about a.d.
294. It is given in his history of Saturninus, and was
written about a.d. 134. The scope of that letter is as
follows :—
“ Hadrianus Augustus, to the consul Servianus,
greeting. The -Egyptians [of Alexandria], whom you
so praise to me, I thoroughly know : they are frivolous,
�12
First Seven Alleged Persecutions.
undecided, and always shifting with every changing
report. The worshippers of Serapis are Christians ;
those are devotees of Serapis who call themselves
bishops of Christ. We have not any one there who is
a chief of the synagogue of the Jews, not any follower
of the Samarians, not any elder of a Christian flock,
not any astrologer, not any soothsayer, not any one to
anoint the wrestlers in the schools. . The Patriarch
himself, when he visits /Egypt, is compelled by one
party to pray to Serapis, by another to Christ. The
sort of men that you have there are seditious, conceited,
mischievous to a degree : the city, as a state, is wealthy
both in money and in produce ; because there is not any
one who lives there that is without some occupation.
Some melt glass, others make paper, others are linen
weavers ; all have at least the appearance of following
some trade, and are considered to do so. Even the gouty
have something to do,’ and so have the blind, even
those who have rheumatism in the hands are not idle.
They believe in one God, who is worshipped by Chris
tians and Jews and by all the people. I wish only that
the city were more moral than it is ; for in truth on
account of its greatness and antiquity it deserves to
stand at the head of all /Egypt. To this city I have
made all the concessions demanded, besides restoring
its ancient privileges and adding new ones with such
liberality that they offered me their thanks when I was
present in person; and when at length I left them
they immediately paid many compliments to my son,
Verus, and you know of course what they also said
about Antoninus.”
Outside the Christian Church, this letter of Hadrian
contains the earliest mention of the Christians that is
genuine and authentic. It is quoted by Vopiscus to
shew the character of the Alexandrians. It has not
been quoted by the advocates of Christian evidence.
From Hadrian’s statements it appears probable that
Christianity originated among the worshippers of Sera
pis, regarding whom the account may be stated briefly
as follows:—
�First Seven Alleged Persecutions.
13
Isis was the goddess who taught the .¿Egyptians the
cultivation of wheat and barley. She was the wife of
the Nile god Osiris, who taught the .¿Egyptians the
use of the plough. In fact, Isis was the goddess of
the Earth, which the .¿Egyptians called their mother.
Hence it was that Isis and Osiris were the only deities
worshipped by all the .¿Egyptians. In later times Isis
was identified with Demeter and Ceres, while Osiris
was identified with Dionysus and Bacchus. When
Osiris was overthrown by Typhon, Isis was left with
out a husband until the reign of Ptolemy Soter, B.o.
285-250. By that king the worship of Serapis was in
troduced into Egypt, and that God became identified
with Dionysus and Bacchus. Soon afterwards Serapis
became the husband of Isis. The offerings sacred to
Isis were bread and the fruits of the Earth. The offer
ings sacred to Serapis were wine and such things as
were offered to Bacchus. The worship of both Serapis
and Isis was celebrated with licentious orgies. Here
we have the bread, wine, and dove of Christianity,
about three centuries before Christianity existed accord
ing to commonly received chronology !
But the fact is that our “Homer,” our “New Testa
ment,” and the first four books of Eusebius’ “ Ecclesias
tical History,” are merely pieces of comparatively
modern patchwork.
HOMER, NEW TESTAMENT AND EUSEBIUS.
Morality is a growth, like mathematics or any other
science; and ancient literary morality is not an excep
tion to this rule.
Until the time of Aristotle, b.c. 340, all the Greek
epic poems on the Trojan war were attributed to Homer.
It was Aristotle who first confined the name of Homer
to our Iliad and Odyssey. His reason for doing so
was because those epics were written very much better
than the older Cyclics. Here he omitted the considera
tion that in point of time rude and uncouth works of
art must always precede those of their own kind which
�14
First Seven Alleged Persecutions.
are wrought with artistic skill. So, putting the cart
before the horse, he ascribed to old Homer our skilfully
constructed Iliad and Odyssey, while he attributed the
rude and uncouth Cyclics to persons bearing the names
of much later rhapsodists. But observe how Aristotle’s
“ Homer ” discloses the cloven foot of modern ideas.
He describes (Iliad xxiv. 155-8) the savage Achilles as
one 11 who is not silly, nor inconsiderate, nor a trans
gressor against the divine commands; but will very
heartily spare a suppliant man.” And (Iliad vi. 90)
he represents the Trojans as offering to Minerva the
Athenian sacred shawl,
Whoever wrote the book of “ Ecclesiastes ” did not
perceive any difficulty in representing Solomon as a
philosophical Atheist, who (ix. 11) represents all things
as taking place without the influence of Divine Provi
dence. He says, “ the race is not to the swift, nor the
battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor
yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to
men of skill; but time and chance happen to them alL”
Neither did he who wrote the book of “ Wisdom” con
sider that it was utterly impossible that Solomon could
have written in Hellenistic Greek, a language which had
not any existence until several centuries after the sup
posed time of that mythical king.
Pythagoras did not leave behind him any of his
philosophy committed to writing. Yet his Neopythagorean biographer eulogises the later writers who com
piled the Pythagorean philosophy; because, he said,
they renounced the fame that was their own, inasmuch
as they attributed their works to the Master of the
School.
At an early period in primitive church history
(Hierome, De Script. Eccl. tom. i., p. 350; ex Ter
tulian, lib. “De Baptisma,” cap. 17) a priest published
* See the admirable edition of our “ Iliad ” in two volumes
in the “ Bibliotheca Classica,” by Mr Frederick A. Paley, M.A.
The reader should especially read and carefully consider the
“ Introduction,” a piece of classical criticism which has never
been equalled.
�First Seven Alleged Persecutions.
15
a book entitled “ Acts of Paul and Thecla.” It was
proved against him that he had forged that compila
tion. Thereupon he plainly confessed that the love he
entertained for St Paul was the only cause that incited
him to do it. When he made this confession the
church authorities pardoned him, continued to use his
work, dedicated a festival day to these saints, and the
story of Paul and Thecla is still extant in the Apocry
phal New Testament writings.
From these circumstances regarding Aristotle’s
“ Homer,” the forgeries of the Neopythagoreans, the
double forgery of Solomon’s name, and the confessed
forgery of the story regarding Paul and Thecla, it is
highly probable that the names Mark and Luke attached
to our second and third gospels are names of men who
were famous in the Christian Church before Jesus
Christ and the Twelve Apostles were thought of. A
subsequent writer in the places where Mark and Luke
respectively flourished would put their names to his
compilation as a matter of course, and make them write
a history regarding persons of whom those saints had
never heard. The coincidences between the gospels of
Matthew, Mark, and Luke are certainly far less re
markable than the contemporaneous discovery of
fluxions by Leibnitz and Newton, or that of develop
ment by Wallace and Darwin.
A glance at the table of contents in the Apocryphal
New Testament, referring to “The Epistles of Jesus
and Abgarus, or Agbarus,” and the gospels of “James,”
“Thomas,” “Nicodemus,” &c., will shew how freely
the early Christian writers used names attributed to
primitive worthies of their church.
From St Jerome we know that the Galatians spoke
a language similar to that of the Gauls. Yet “ Paul ”
is made to address them in Greek as naturally as Aris
totle’s “ Homer ” transformed Achilles into a Quaker !
And the compilers of the Pentateuch represent the
Moses, who is supposed to have lived about fifteen
centuries before the Christian era, as writing in the
Syro-Chaldee language!
�16
First Seven Alleged Persecutions.
Both Mosheim (“Institutes,” century 1, part ii., § 16)
and Strauss (“Life of Jesus,” Introduction, 13) agree
that there is not any reliable trace of our New. Testa
ment until about the middle of our second century.
The extant apocryphal literature is universally admitted
to be not older than our second century. When
(“ Acts” xxviii. 5) Paul shook a viper off his hand and
did not feel any harm, he performed the last miracle
recorded in the so-called inspired pages of our New
Testament. That exploit was performed a.d. 62.
Protestants say that they make use of their private
judgment. The miracles related among the incidents
recorded in our New Testament during the period
(Luke i. 5, Acts xxviii. 5) from b.o. 6 to a.d. 62, are
the only miracles, outside our Old Testament, which
Protestants recognise. Regarding those miracles and
incidents the contemporary Pagan world was as silent
as the grave. That commonly received chronology of
our first and second centuries is grounded partly on
the statements of Eusebius, written about a.d. 315, and
partly on the fancies and conjectures of subsequent
ecclesiastical historians. In his “Ecclesiastical His
tory,” bk. i. ch. i., Eusebius declares expressly that he
was the first historian who -had undertaken to write a
history of the Christian Church—that it was beyond
his power to present that history in a full and con
tinuous state (gmXJj na.1 atfapaXwrrov), that in attempt
ing the subject, he was entering on a trackless and
unbeaten path—that he was utterly unable to find even
the bare vestiges (7%^ yo/z.i'a) of those who may have
toiled through the way before him, and that he had
not been able to find that any of the Christian ecclesi
astical writers had directed their efforts to present any
thing carefully in this department of writing. And,
accordingly, Eusebius prudently deals with chronology
for the most part only in a general manner, that is to
say, he assigns certain events and names handed down
by ecclesiastical tradition as either taking place or
doing or suffering certain things under the reigns of
the Boman Emperors who governed during those two
�First Seven Alleged Persecutions.
17
centuries. But he seldom assigns to any event or
person a particular date that we have sufficient means
of testing. The definite dates which adorn some
editions of Eusebius have been arrived at partly by his
general and avowedly very imperfect arrangement, and
partly by the fancies and conjectures of subsequent
writers. However, while writing the history of that
period, on one occasion, at least, the prudence and
caution of Eusebius forsook him. The supposed birth,
death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ are regarded by
all Christians as being the most important events in
the whole history of the Christian Church.
Yet,
strange to say, the dates of those events have never
been agreed on by the extant ecclesiastical historians.
In a rash moment Eusebius (“ Ecclesiastical History,”
bk. i., ch. 5, 10 and 13) attempted to ascertain the
exact date of those events. Assuming most erroneously
that our third gospel is the genuine and authentic work
of a writer who flourished about the middle of our first
century, Eusebius, ch. 5, represents the birth of Jesus
Christ as having taken place “ the same year when the
first census was taken, and Quirinus was governor of
Syria.” And Eusebius adds, “ this census is mentioned
by Flavius Josephus, the distinguished historian among
the Hebrews.” Josephus (“Antiquities,” xviii. 1, § 2)
does mention this census; but he says it was “ made
in the thirty-seventh year after Caesar’s victory over
Anthony at Actium.” This brings us down to a.d. 7,
a date which neither the writer of our third gospel nor
Eusebius could have intended to assign to the birth of
Christ. Again, (ch. 10) Eusebius says, “ It was about
the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius .
when our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, was in his
thirtieth year, that he came to the baptism of John,
and then made the beginning of promulgating his
gospel ... he passed the whole time of his public
ministry under the high priests Annas and Caiaphas
. . . the whole of this interval does not give even
four years.” Be it so; nevertheless, this period would
cause his ministry to terminate about the first year of
�18
First Seven Alleged Persecutions.
the two hundred and third Olympiad. But (ch. 131
when relating that after the ascension of Jesus, and in
accordance with a promise made by him to Abgarus,
Prince of Edessa, St Thomas sent Thaddeus, one of the»
seventy, to Abgarus, whom Thaddeus miraculously
cured of a disorder, Eusebius adds, “ these things were»
done in the three hundred and fortieth year/’ That
year, according to the account of the Edessens, corre
sponded with the first year of the two hundred and
second Olympiad. For the Edessens numbered their
years from the one hundred and seventeenth Olympiad,
thereby fixing their era upon the first year of Selucus’
reign in Asia. This we know from the “ Chronicon,”
compiled by Eusebius himself ! From that year to the
beginning of the two hundred and second Olympiad
there are three hundred and forty years exactly. The
beginning of the two hundred and second Olympiad
coincides with the fifteenth year in the reign of Tiberius,
in which year, according to both Luke and Eusebius,
the ministry of Jesus Christ commenced. So Eusebius
thereby contradicts himself completely. The fact is
that Eusebius was here trying to assign accurately a
time to events that never really took place. Outside
the pages of our New Testament and ecclesiastical tra
dition, there is not a single event in the history of
Jesus Christ which is recorded hy contemporary civil
history, Grecian, Jewish, or Latin. Moreover, outside
the pages of our New Testament there is not anything
implicitly believed in our day regarding the lives,
actions, doctrines, and ultimate fate of the Twelve
Apostles and the other characters who figure in the
narratives therein contained. And even those narra
tives are far from being perfect or even self-consistent.
Even Dr William Smith, in his “ New Testament
History,” p. 210, says, “ It is impossible to determine
exactly from the gospels the number of years during
which the Redeemer exercised his ministry before the
Passion.” So unerring and luminous are the con
tents of
the Book divine, by inspiration given !
�First Seven Alleged Persecutions.
19
As already stated, our New Testament is not older
than about the middle of our second century. The fact
is that it is a much later compilation. The most ancient
ecclesiastical historian, Eusebius, flourished more than
three centuries after the commonly received date of
Christ’s birth. That historian compiled his history in
a manner far from being accurate, or even self-consistent.
But it is an act of only bare justice to him to keep con
stantly before our mind, that he candidly avows his
inability and utter want of valid and available materials
for his work. So then, how can we reasonably be called
on to rely on the dates and statements which Eusebius
gives ? And, a fortiori, how much less reasonably can
we be called on to rely on dates assigned by subsequent
ecclesiastical writers to such obscure individuals as the
so-called Apostolical Fathers, and the still more obscure
writers who are commonly but unwarrantably supposed
to have succeeded them ? Instead of doing so our duty
is to disregard all mere authorities, since the oldest
authority, Eusebius, is too modern and too self-contra.,
dictory to be depended on. We must examine the
works of the so-called Apostolical Fathers and their
alleged successors, and from the contents of those works
we must draw inferences and arrive at conclusions
grounded on sound philological principles. For our
purposes here two inferences will be sufficient.
I. Ignorance and inefficien&y must precede know
ledge and skill. Consequently the writings
attributed to Tatian, Athenagoras, and Theo
philus being more meagre and unskilfully
written than those attributed to the Apostolical
Fathers we are rationally bound to consider
the former as being older than the latter.
II. Of the extant early writings attributed to our
first and second centuries, the first that shews
unmistakably a knowledge of the greater part
of the writings contained in our New Testa
ment are those of Irenaeus, who is alleged
erroneously to have been Bishop of Lyons in
Gaul, a.d. 178. But if the Apostolical
B
�20
First Seven Alleged Persecutions.
Fathers flourished, between a.d. 90 and a.d.
149, how is it that the writings attributed to
them do not shew unmistakably any know
ledge of our New Testament 1 Moreover there
is not any evidence to prove that there was
any Christian church in Gaul prior to A.D.
249. Of Irenaeus we do not know anything
except his name and his treatise, “ Against
Heresies.” That work is first quoted by
Eusebius, a.d. 315. Consequently from these
facts the correct inference is that our New
Testament had not any existence until some
time prior to the days of Irenaeus, who
flourished at a period considerably later than
the date commonly but erroneously assigned
to him by writers who knew very little, if
anything at all, about him beyond what we
of the present day know, namely, his own
name and. that of the treatise which he is said,
to have compiled.
Now let us examine the account of the persecutions
given by Eusebius.
TESTIMONY OF EUSEBIUS.
For the alleged persecution of the Christian church by
Nero, Eusebius (“ E. H.” ii. 25) quotes only Tertullian,
who was not born until about a century after the date
of that alleged persecution. To say the least of it, a
very remarkable circumstance relating to this matter is
the fact that Tertullian does not quote Tacitus,
“ Annals ” xv., 44, in support of that alleged persecu
tion, although Tertullian was well acquainted, with the
works of Tacitus. And a still more remarkable circum
stance is the fact that our book of 11 Acts ” represents
St Paul as preaching at Eome before, during, and after
that alleged persecution.
For the alleged persecution of the Christian Church
by Domitian, Eusebius (“E. H.” iii, 17—20,) doesnot
quote any authority whatever. He does not give any
�■first Seven Alleged Persecutions.
2I
details, or even any general narrative, any date or any
locality concerning that alleged persecution. Dr William
Smith says, “ Christian writers attribute to him [Domitian] a persecution of the Christians, hut there is some
doubt upon the matter; and the belief seems to have
arisen from the strictness with which he exacted tribute
from the Jews, and which may have caused much
suffering to the Christians also.”
For the alleged persecution of the Christian Church
by Trajan, Eusebius (“E. H.”iii. 33) quotes Hegesippus,
who is supposed to have flourished, at Corinth and
Rome, about a.d. 170.
For his existence our only
authority (“ E. H.” ii. 23) is Eusebius, who says,
“ Hegesippus, born in the time of those who imme
diately succeeded the apostles, gives the most accurate
account of James, the brother of the Lord.” But there
has not been anything really ascertained about Hege
sippus. Eusebius places him in our second century.
How then could Hegesippus have been born “ in the
time of those who immediately succeeded the apostles ?”
Of course this question is based on the supposition that
we are dealing with history, not miracles.
Regarding the alleged persecution of the Christian
Church by Hadrian, Eusebius does not say anything
about it. On the contrary, “ E. H.” iv. 9, he repre
sents Hadrian as protecting the Christians ; and Euse
bius quotes a letter said to have been written in their
favour by Hadrian, and addressed to Minucius Fun
danus, the Roman proconsul for the government of
Asia Minor.
Regarding the alleged persecution of the Christian
Church by Antoninus Aurelius, Eusebius does not say
anything about it. On the contrary, “E. H.” iv. 13,
h® attributes to Antoninus a letter addressed to the
Assembly of Romans, who governed Asia, in which
letter Antoninus is represented as directing that the
Christians are not to be persecuted. Niebuhr and Dr
William Smith are silent regarding this alleged perse
cution. And Dr Charles Merivale, in his “ General
History of Rome,” ch. Ixvi., says, 11 the great merit of
�22
First Seven Alleged Persecutions.
this paternal ruler [Antoninus] was his protection of
the Christians.”
Regarding the alleged persecution of the Christian
Church by Severus, Eusebius, “ E. H.” vi. 2, says, “ It
was in the tenth year of the reign of Severus . . . that
the kindled flame of persecution blazed forth mightily,
and many thousands were crowned with martyrdom.”
But for this statement Eusebius does not give any
authority. Moreover, his statements imply that this
alleged persecution was almost entirely confined to
Egypt. Dr William Smith and Dr Charles Merivale
are silent regarding this alleged persecution. Niebuhr
(“Lectures on R. H.” by Dr Leonhard Schmitz, Vol.
ii. ch. 72), says, “ In the reign of Severus Christianity
had not obtained any political importance. Severus
himself, but more especially his wife, Julia Domna,
was favourably disposed towards Christianity, though
she confounded it with magic ceremonies. Unction
was at that time often prescribed as a remedy in cases
of illness, and Severus had once received the unction
in a severe attack of illness, and as he attributed his
recovery to the influence of the unction and to the
prayer of the bishops he afforded protection to Christi
anity by special regulations.”
Regarding the alleged persecution of the Christian
Church by Maximinus, Eusebius, “ E. H.” vi. 28, says,
“ The Emperor Alexander [Severus, the predecessor of
Maxi-minus] being carried off after a reign of thirteen
years, was succeeded by Maximinus, who, inflamed
with hatred against the house of Alexander, consisting
of many believers, raised a persecution, and commanded
at first only the heads of the churches to be slain, as
the abettors and agents of evangelical truth. . . . Maxi
minus did not reign longer than three years.” During
his short reign, Maximinus never passed an hour at
Rome. His authority over the Roman Empire was
never fully established. He was constantly engaged in
carrying on war with the Germans. And, altogether,
he had on his hands matters which were to him of
much more importance than the existence or persecu-
�First Seven Alleged Persecutions.
23
tion of the Christians. Niebuhr is silent regarding this
alleged persecution. So are Dr William Smith, Dr
Charles Merivale, and Dr John Lempriere. Gibbon,
“Decline and Fall,” ch. xvi., gives an exceedingly pro
bable explanation of this myth. He says, “In his
domestic chapel he [Alexander Severus] placed the
statues of Abraham, of Orpheus, of Apollonius, and of
Christ, as an honour justly due to those respectable
sages, who had instructed mankind in the various
modes of addressing their homage to the supreme and
universal Deity. A purer faith, as well as worship,
was openly professed and practised among his house
hold. Bishops, perhaps for the first time, were seen at
court; and, after the death of Alexander, when the
inhuman Maximin discharged his fury on the favourites
and servants of his unfortunate benefactor, a great
number of Christians, of every rank and of both sexes,
were involved in the promiscuous massacre, which, on
their account, has improperly received the name of
Persecution.”
Now, we are in a position to examine the passages
regarding the Christians, at present found in
PUNY, Junior, JOSEPHUS, SUETONIUS, AND
TACITUS.
Tertullian, who flourished about a.d. 195, is the first
apologist who quotes a heathen writer as evidence for
the historical existence of Christianity during our first
century. Pliny the younger was proconsul of Bithynia,
about a.d. 110. Tertullian appeals to a letter on the
subject of the Christians, supposed to have been writ
ten from that province by Pliny to the Roman Em
peror Trajan. A German critic and divine, John S.
Semler, considers this letter to have been a fabrication
of Tertullian, and this opinion is borne out by the
scope of the letter.
In that supposed letter, Pliny expresses a wish to be
favoured with the orders and guidance of Trajan.
�24
First Seven Alleged Persecutions.
Pliny says, or rather is made to say, “ Having never
been present at any trials concerning those persons who
are Christians, I am unacquainted not only with the
nature of their crimes, or the measure of their punish
ment, but how far it is proper to enter into an examin
ation concerning them.” After expressing some minor
doubts, Pliny is made to say, “ In the meanwhile, the
method I have observed towards those who have been
brought before me as Christians is this : I interrogated
them whether they were Christians : if they confessed, I
repeated the question twice, adding threats at the same
time; and if they still persevered, I ordered them to
be executed immediately?’ Such an alleged piece of
conduct as this is utterly at variance with all we know
about the conduct of the Romans in general, and con
cerning that of Trajan, and Pliny in particular. Pliny
is also made to say that of the persons brought before
him, “ some said they neither were, nor ever had been
Christians; they repeated after me an invocation to the
gods, and offered wine and incense before your statue,
which I had ordered to be brought for that purpose,
together with those of the gods. . . . These, I thought,
ought to be discharged.” Regarding this passage more
will be said hereafter. Finally, Pliny is made to re
present the “ absurd and extravagant superstition ” of
the Christians as being very prevalent in Bithynia,
a.d. 110, so much so, that “the temples were almost
abandoned.” This is a silly statement, and forms a
strong contrast to the lamentations of Basil and Gregory
of Nyssa, who, in the middle of the third century of
the supposed Christian era, complain that the exten
sive diocese of Neo Csesarea—comprising, amongst
other territories, Bithynia—then contained only about
seventeen Christians! Regarding this persecution,
more will be said hereafter.
Eusebius is the next Christian writer who quotes
external evidence regarding the existence of the Chris
tians. He quotes from a pretended passage which he
alleged was written by Josephus, who flourished about
a.d. 70. The passage so quoted is at present found in
the “Antiquities of the Jews,” Bookxviii., ch. iii., §3.
�First Seven Alleged Persecutions.
25
There Josephus is made to say, “At this time there
existed Jesus, a wise man, if it be allowed to call him
a man, for he performed wonderful works, and in
structed those who received the truth with joy ; he
thus drew to himself many Jews and many Greeks ; he
was Christ; Pilate having punished him with crucifixion
on the accusation of our leading men, those who had
loved him before still remained faithful to him ; for on
the third day he appeared unto them, living anew;
just as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten
thousand other wonderful things concerning him ; and
the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not
extinct even at the present day.” This is a translation
of the whole passage as it now stands in Josephus’
“ Antiquities.” It has not the least connection with
What precedes or follows. It is not quoted by any of
the previous defenders of Christianity. Josephus was
a Jew, and always remained such. It is quite contrary
to the Jewish creed to say that Christ has appeared on
earth. The destruction of Jerusalem and the disper
sion of their nation are to them standing proofs that
the real Christ, their triumphant deliverer and restorer,
never can have come on earth. Consequently, it is
impossible that Josephus wrote this passage.
Still more remarkable than this passage, even if we
admit that it is genuine, is the silence of Josephus
regarding the Messiah all through his works. On this
subject, the Rev. Charles Merivale, in his “ Romans
under the Empire,” vol. vi., 536, observes painfully,
that, Josephus “ makes no more allusion to the false
Christ than to the true Christ. The subject of the
Messiah was one he shrank from ! ” Such an assertion
is utterly unwarranted. All that can be said on this
subject is this, namely, that Josephus, writing about
the time of a.d. 70, when the Christians had not any
real existence, does not mention the “false Christs” of
our Gospels (Matthew xxiv. 24, Mark xiii. 22, Luke
xxi. 8), who never were heard of until after the second
destruction of Jerusalem in the reign of Hadrian, 14,
July a.d. 135.
�26
First Seven Alleged Persecutions.
Orosius, who flourished about a.d. 416, quotes a
curious passage regarding the Christians, which is now
found in the life of “ Nero,” § 16, by Suetonius.
There that writer is represented as stating that Nero
devised a new style of building in Rome, and that he
designed to extend the city walls as far as Ostia, and
then there follows a statement that “ many severe
regulations and new orders were made in his time.
A sumptuary law [to check expense in banquets] was
enacted. Public suppers were limited to the sportulae,
and victualling-houses were restrained from selling any
dressed victuals, except pulse and herbs, whereas before
they sold all kinds of meat. He likewise inflicted
punishments on the Christians, a sort of people who
held a new and mischievous superstition. He forbade
the revels of the charioteers, who had long assumed a
license to stroll about, and established for themselves a
kind of prescriptive right to cheat and thieve, making a
jest of it. The partisans of the rival theatrical per
formers were banished, as well as the actors them
selves.”
After a lapse of about three hundred years, we are
by Orosius called on to accept this exceedingly abrupt
mention of the Christians in a passage attributed to
Suetonius, where the profession of Christianity and
expense in banquets, and other public amusements,
are huddled together in one and the same paragraph !
Sulpicius Severus, who flourished about a.d. 422, is
the first writer who quotes a passage, which is now to
be found in Tacitus’ “ Annals,” xv. 44. After relating
a conflagration which consumed a considerable part of
Rome, in the reign of Nero, a.d. 64, and that a report
had broken out among the populace to the effect that
Nero had ordered the conflagration, Tacitus is repre
sented as saying, “ Hence to suppress the rumour, he
falsely charged with guilt, and punished with the most
exquisite tortures, the persons commonly called Chris
tians, who were hated for their enormities.
The
founder of that name, one Christus, was put to death
as a criminal by Pontius Pilate, procurator of Judea, in
�First Seven Alleged Persecutions.
27
the reign, of Tiberius ; but the pernicious superstition,
repressed for a time, broke out again, not only through
Judea, where the mischief originated, but through the
city of Rome also, whither all things horrible and dis
graceful flow from all quarters, as to a common recep
tacle, and where they are encouraged. Accordingly,
first those were seized who confessed they were Chris
tians ; next, on their information, a vast multitude (!)
were convicted, not so much on the charge of burning
the city, as of hating the human race.”
It is remarkable that while in the writings attributed
to some early fathers of the Christian Church even the
name of Jesus Christ is never mentioned, yet, in the
foregoing extracts supposed to belong to the genuine
works of Pliny junior, Josephus, and Tacitus, those
Writers are represented as being comparatively well
acquainted with his history—so called.
So, this alleged passage from Tacitus, “ Annals,” xv.
44, after having been unnoticed by Tertullian (who
has quoted largely from Tacitus,) or by Eusebius,
or by any of the early Christians in their various
Apologies and their disputes with objectors, and after
a lapse of more than three hundred years subsequently
to the time when the composition of this passage is
alleged to have taken place, we are called on by Sulpicius Severus to believe this passage to be genuine !
The truth of this allegation is most improbable. And the
facts, namely, (i.) That this passage is uncorroborated
by any contemporary heathen testimony; (ii.) That it
is contradicted by “Acts” xxviii. 30, 31; (iii.) That
there could not have been “ a vast multitude ” of Chris
tians at Rome a.d. 64, since there was not “a vast
multitude ” of them at that time even in Palestine; and
(by-) That Tacitus is represented as being well acquainted
with the original locality of Christianity, with the name
of its founder, and with that of the alleged procurator
who was said to have put him to death, “ suffered under
Pontius Pilate,” sufficiently prove that we are here
dealing with matters the last of which, at least, was a
disputed point in the Christian Church centuries after
�28
First Seven Alleged Persecutions.
the time of Tacitus. For even in the time of Eusebius
(“E. H.” i. 9,) the statement that Jesus Christ suffered
under Pontius Pilate was not universally received in the
Church, and was introduced into the so-called “Apostles’
Creed,” a composition which, according to Mosheim
(“Institutes,” century i., part ii., ch. iii., § 4,) was re
ceived by the Church so lately as our fourth century.
Moreover all our present editions of Tacitus are only
copies of one manuscript, which was in the possession
of one individual who could have made any interpola
tions he pleased without having his accuracy tested by
a second manuscript.
All the Pagan writers, who flourished during our
supposed second century, and during the first forty
eight years of our third century, are silent regarding
both Jesus Christ and the Christians. Paley, in his
“ Evidences,” is sadly puzzled to find “ evidence of the
sufferings of the first propagators of Christianity, from
profane testimony.” The only quotation he gives is
from the “Meditations,” bk. xi., ch. 2, of Marcus
Aurelius Antoninus, a.d. 161, namely, “Let this pre
paration of mind [to die] arise from its own judgment,
and not from obstinacy like the Christians.” But
Aurelius does not say what class of Christians he refers
to. He may here refer to the Christians, who (as we
have seen by Hadrian’s letter) worshipped Serapis at
Alexandria. The truth is, Paley felt that the above
quotation from the “ Meditations ” did not prove any
thing ; for, in the very next sentence, quoted above, p.
10, Paley says, “ Of the primitive condition of Christi
anity, a distant only and general view can be acquired
from heathen writers. It is in our own books that the
detail and interior of the transaction must be sought
for.” To say the least of it, this is a decided confes
sion of weakness. So, it is quite evident, that all the
Pagan writers, who flourished during our supposed
second century, and during the first forty-eight years
of our third century, are silent regarding both Jesus
Christ and the Christians.
Now, therefore, the question naturally arises: Is it
�First Seven Alleged Persecutions.
29
probable that Josephus, Suetonius, Pliny junior, and
Tacitus, really knew more about Jesus Christ than
Theophilus, Hernias, Athenagoras, and Tatian who
»ever name him ? Or, if “ a vast multitude” of Chris
tians (as Pliny junior and Tacitus are made to represent)
during our first century attracted the attention of one
Jewish and three Pagan writers, who flourished towards
the end of that period, is it probable that not even one
Pagan writer would have taken notice of so remarkable
a sect during the whole of our second century, and
during the first forty-eight years of our third century ?
Further, is it conceivable that Nero persecuted “ a vast
multitude” of Christians at Rome during a.d. 64, and, at
the same time, during all that year permitted the apostle
Paul to live at Rome, in his own hired house, “ preach
ing the Kingdom of God, and teaching those things
which concern the Lord Jesus Christ, with all confi
dence, no man forbidding him ? ” These improbabilities
amount to an impossibility. And the facts (i.) that
there is not any Pagan writer of our second century
who mentions Christ or the Christians; (ii.) that the
statements in Suetonius and Tacitus are contradicted
by the writer of “Acts” xxviii. 30, 31; and (iii.) that
those early apologists for the Christians, namely, Theo
philus, Athenagoras, and Tatian, never mention Jesus
Christ, amount to positive proof that those passages now
found in Pliny junior, Josephus, Suetonius, and Taci
tus are forgeries.
To this may be added the consideration, that although
an uncritical antiquity might not instinctively antici
pate the doubts of modern criticism regarding the his
torical reality of Jesus Christ, yet it should be borne
in mind (i.) That the historical reality of the Gospel
narratives was assailed at an early period, even before
the time of Tertullian; (ii.) That, as we have seen, so
lately as our fifth century, the Christians were fre
quently destroying, altering, and substituting narra
tives and doctrines in their various, numerous, and
very different gospels; and (iii.) That during several
centuries the members of the Christian Church had
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First Seven Alleged Persecutions.
uncontrolled possession of all the remains of both
Pagan and Christian literature now extant, and fre
quently corrupted them for apologetic purposes.
If the statements made in the foregoing pages re
garding the first two hundred and forty-eight years
during which the Christian Church is supposed to have
existed rest on a substantially sound critical foundation,
it follows necessarily that of the alleged ten persecutions
of the Christian Church by Roman Emperors, the first
seven of those persecutions, namely, those by (1) Nero;
(2) Domitian; (3) Trajan; (4) Hadrian; (5) Antoni
nus; (6) Severus; and (7) Maximinus, are unreal and
unhistorical. Taken as represented by those who re
late them those seven persecutions were only local.
Those by Nero and Domitian were confined to Rome.
That by Trajan was confined to Bithynia,—unless we
accept the exceedingly improbable story referred to in
Gibbon’s “ Decline and Pall,” chapter xvi. note 74, that
“ten thousand Christian soldiers were crucified in one
day by Trajan or Hadrian [it does not matter which] on
mount Ararat.” Those by Hadrian, Antoninus, Septimius Severus, and Maximinus are not assigned to any
definite time or place : they have neither a when nor
a where. So, on the very face of the stories on which
belief in those seven persecutions rests we have not any
definite statement regarding a general persecution of the
Christian Church prior to that by Decius, a.d. 249.
In fact the principal authority for primitive Christian
mythology is Tertullian. His extravagant statements
form the foundation-stone on which rests the fabric of
Patristic miracles and stories regarding persecutions of
the primitive Christians by the Roman Emperors Nero,
Domitian, and Trajan.
Some of Tertullian’s statements are incompatible
with sanity. Yet they have been hitherto received as
if they were self-evident truths. So, according to the
limits of our space, let us estimate the real value of the
evidence borne to those miracles and persecutions by
�First Seven Alleged Persecutions.
31
TERTULLIAN.
Tertullian flourished about a.d. 200, and in our
standard dictionaries, cyclopaedias, histories, and bio
graphical repertories that treat of Tertullian’s character
as a writer, the authorities are virtually agreed in their
opinions regarding him. Perhaps the best estimate
of his character is that briefly and forcibly given by
Mosheim (“ Institutes,” cent, ii., pt. ii., ch. ii., § 5),
who says, “ Whether his [Tertullian’s] excellences or
defects were the greater it is difficult to say. He pos
sessed great genius, but it was wild and unchastened.
His piety was active and fervent, but likewise gloomy
and austere. He had much learning and knowledge,
but he was changeable and credulous, and he was more
acute than solid.” To this may be added with perfect
truth and safety, that whenever an assertion suited
Tertullian’s purpose there is not any evidence in his
writings that he was ever hindered from making one
either by reason of its improbability or even of its im
possibility. Of this characteristic all that can be given
here are a few specimens.
Tertullian (“Apology,” 21) says that Pilate was a
Christian : ipse pro sua conscientia Christianus.
He says (5), that Tiberius wished to deify Jesus
Christ.
He says (20), that the offices of the seasons and the
proper changes of the elements are out of course : etiam
officio, temporum et elementorum munia exorbitant.
He sayso(23), that he believes in magicians, daemons,
&c., and he asserts that when a person possessed by a
daemon “ is commanded by any Christian to speak,
that spirit will declare itself a daemon;” and, he adds
triumphantly, “ If this be not so, shed upon the spot
the blood of that most impudent Christian.” And
then he asks, “ If they be gods why do they feign
themselves daemons ? ”
He says (“On Prescription against Heretics”) that
the apostle John “ was plunged into boiling oil and
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First Seven Alleged Persecutions.
did not suffer anything.” That “ between Peter and
Paul there was a common faith and preaching.” And
shortly afterwards Tertullian exclaims, “ Away with
those who pass judgment on Apostles 1”
He says (“ Against the Jews ”) that except the Jews
“ all nations believe in the Christ now come.” And
that Christ is believed on “ in unexplored regions and
unknown islands.” A vainglorious and stupid asser
tion. Even in the present day the Christians do not
constitute more than about a fourth part of the human
race.
From these cases of assertions, which every rational
man is perfectly aware are contrary to facts as we
know them, it may be safely concluded that the testi
mony of Tertullian is utterly worthless.
So, if we desire to ascertain the truth or falsehood
of those stories which relate the first seven alleged
persecutions of the Christians by Roman emperors,
we must make search in a quarter never dreamed of
by Mosheim or even Gibbon. In short, we must in
quire and ascertain what were the laws and customs of
the Romans regarding religious toleration and prosely
tism ? The true answer to this question will prove a
crucial test.
ROMANS AND RELIGION.
It is well-known (Macrobius “ Saturnalia,” iii. 9)
that the Romans thought that all cities were under the
protection of some patron deity. When they were
besieging a city, and had made such progress that they
considered themselves able to take it they used an
incantation, carmen, whereby they supposed that they
called out of the city its tutelary god. They did this
because they thought it would be a wicked and dan
gerous act to carry the god into captivity. For this
same reason the Romans wished the name of their own
city’s patron god and the name of the city itself to remain
wholly secret; or, at least, known only to a chosen
few. See Pliny’s “ Natural History,” xxviii., 4, and
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33
ill, 9. So, the names Jupiter Optimus Maximus,
and Rome were not the secret names of their tutelarygod or of their city.
Among the Romans the Christian vices of prosely
tism and religious intolerance were unknown. They
had a national religion based on the principle of poly
theism, which does not know of any false gods. So,
the Romans conceded to all other nations that which
they claimed for themselves, namely, the observance of
their traditional rights; for their religion, like other
religions with which it came in contact, was purely
ceremonial. It taught how the gods were to be con
ciliated, but not what the gods were. ' It had not any
dogmatic belief. Their view is concisely expressed by
Cicero (“ For Flaccus,” 28), “ Each state has its own
religion: we have ours.” They could not understand
how any rational people could entertain a feeling of
religious intolerance. Hence the point in Juvenal’s
satire, xv., 33-38, where he says, “ Between neigh
bouring towns (Copti and Tentyra) there had been an
inveterate and ancient feud, immortal hatred, and an
incurable wound burns there yet. Thence on both
sides the utmost fury raged in the people; because
each place hates the deities of its neighbours, since it
believes those are to be held as gods only whom itself
worships.” But the Romans were more than tolerant
to alien deities : they regarded them with reverence
and awe. This is clearly seen in that curious cere
mony above mentioned and called the “evocatio
deorum,” or “ evocatio numinum,” by which when a
town was about to fall into their hands, a Roman
general sought to induce the gods of the town to leave
it, in order that the soldiers might not do anything
displeasing to those gods while the town was being
pillaged or destroyed. Further, that the Romans
might if possible secure the aid of gods who reigned in
other places, observe (Livy v. 21) the form of evocation
used at the siege of Veii, “ Thou also, queen Juno, who
inhabitest Veii, I beseech, that thou wilt accompany
us when victors, unto our city, soon to be thine, where
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First Seven Alleged Persecutions.
a temple worthy of thy majesty will receive thee.”
This is somewhat rationalistic. The story, as told by
Livy, runs thus, “ When all human wealth had been
carried away from Veii; they began to remove the
offerings of the gods and the gods themselves, but
more in the fashion of worshippers than plunderers.
Youths, selected from the entire army, to whom was
assigned the charge of conveying Juno the queen to
Rome, having purified their bodies and arrayed them
selves in white garments, entered her temple with pro
found adoration, applying their hands at first with
religious awe, because, according to Etruscan usage, no
one but a priest of a certain family had been accus
tomed to touch that statue ; afterwards when some
one, whether moved by divine inspiration or with youth
ful mirth said,£ Juno, art thou willing to go to Rome ?’
the rest cried out together that the goddess has nodded
assent. To the story an addition is made, that her
voice was heard declaring that she was willing. Cer
tain it is that having been raised from her place by
machines of trifling power, she was lightly and easily
removed, as if she followed willingly.” Other wellknown historical instances of this public recognition of
foreign objects of divine worship are the reception of
Demeter, Persephone and Dionysus under the Roman
names of Ceres, Proserpine, and Bacchus. Sometimes
these identifications were very absurd. For instance:
the Romans had a god of the hereditary homestead or
“ herctum,” whom they called Herculus or Hercules.
He was properly a farmer’s god, but he was identified
with the Greek hero Herakles who cleared Greece from
wild beasts, tyrants and monsters. Of course here the
identification was made through similarity in the sound
of the names. But foreign deities were introduced
at Rome without any such identification. Thus, b.o.
291, on the occasion of a plague, the Grecian deity,
.¿Esculapius, was solemnly brought to Rome from Epidaurus. And, B.c. 205, during the life and death
struggle with Hannibal, the great mother of Ida, Rhea,
or Cybele, was brought to Rome from Pessinus in
�First Seven Alleged Persecutions.
35
Asia Minor. In these terrible emergencies it was
thought wise to strengthen the religious garrison with
alien powers.
It is obvious how much this disposition and conduct
in reference to the religions of the vanquished facilitated
conquest. At least one great source of disunion was
avoided, namely, the antipathy of rival religions; as an
ancient writer says, “ In acknowledging the religious
rites of all nations, they deserved to reign.” This exer
cise of tolerance was easy to the Romans, and almost a
necessary consequence of their belief in local gods : a
belief which further precluded the idea of proselytism.
The more value the Romans placed on the protection of
their native deities, the less disposed they were to share
that protection with foreigners. Far, therefore, from
wishing to impose their religion on the vanquished, the
Romans were very circumspect in even permitting the
vanquished to adopt it. Thus, Livy, xliii. 6, tells us
that when allies asked to be allowed to sacrifice to
Jupiter Optimus Maximus in the Capitol it was only to
those allies who had best served the commonwealth that
the permission was accorded. As, for instance, he says,
“ The Alabandians said that they had erected a temple
to the city Rome, and had instituted anniversary games
to the goddess; that they had brought a golden crown,
of fifty pounds weight, to be deposited in the Capitol as
an offering to Jupiter Optimus Maximus, also three
hundred horsemen s shields which they were ready to
deliver to any one appointed to receive them; and they
requested permission to lodge that offering in the Capitol
and to .perform sacrifice donum ut in Capitolio ponere
et sacrificare liceret, petebant. In connection with these
facts, it is curious to remark how the religious sentiment
may change its aspect under different circumstances, and
produce even opposite effects; for amongst the intolerant
Christians excess of devotion ordinarily impels to pro
selytism and persecution, while it made the Romans
averse to their employment.
Toleration, however, was not without political limits.
The same reason that made the Romans tolerant out of
c
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First Seven Alleged Persecutions.
their native country hindered them from being com
pletely so at home. Since they thought a form of
religious worship is made specially for a people, they
inferred that each deity should be master in its own
domicile; and as they did not impose their gods on
foreign nations, so they reserved to themselves control
over foreign objects of divine worship at Rome. In
exercising this control, however, they were actuated by
political, not by religious, motives; and whenever a
foreign ceremonial was proscribed at Rome this was done
not in the interest of the gods, but for the preservation
of the state. We are told by ancient authorities that
people were prohibited from introducing new gods at
Rome without the sanction of the Senate; but Cicero
and Livy seem to differ. The former (“ De Legibus,”
ii. 8) quoting the old law, says, “ Let not anyone have
distinct gods, nor let him worship any in private whether
they be new or brought from abroad, unless they have
been sanctioned by the state?’ But Livy, xxv. 1, says,
££ Let not anyone in a public or in a sacred place sacri
fice with a new or foreign religious ceremony.” Probably
the reconcilement of these authorities will be found in
the fact that whatever the law may have been, that law
was but little enforced, or rather never, unless the exer
cise of the foreign rites were attended with gross immo
rality and scandal. Thus, on one occasion, b.c. 186,
the Senate intervened, and with terrible effect in the
suppression of the Bacchanals, when hundreds of persons
were executed. But the grounds of this suppression had
not anything to do with religion. It was necessary to
deal with a secret society that had reduced to a system
murder and other hideous and revolting crimes. Yet
even this case illustrates the extreme tolerance of the
Roman authorities as regards the exercise of religion.
These orgies were suppressed only when practised on a
large scale. But “ where two or three were gathered
together ” those orgies were allowed to continue even
though they disturbed the night; for, as Livy, xxix. 15,
tells us “ with clatterings and howlings they resounded
through the whole city.” The Romans had an indis
�First Seven Alleged Persecutions.
37
position to meddle with what might be really religious
worship; and, therefore, when at last authority was
forced to strike, provision was made for tender con
sciences, and persons wishing to perform Bacchic rites
were allowed to do so on application to the praetor,
provided those rites were not attended by more than five
persons.
If a great antisocial movement, veiling itself under a
religious guise, was dealt with thus, it may be easily
conceived how, in ordinary cases, sometimes with, more
frequently without, the sanction of the Senate, foreign
rites were continually insinuating themselves into Borne
according as she increased her points of contact with the
nations of the earth ; until at last foreign rites almost
flooded the city to the extent we find these things
described in the satirists.
Of course if the Christians, or any other monotheists,
destroyed idols, desecrated pagan temples, or in any
other manner did public violence to the religion of the
Romans such transgressors would be put to death. That
some Christians did transgress in this manner is evident
from the fact that the sixtieth canon of the council of
Illiberis, a.d. 324, refuses the title of martyr to those
who exposed themselves to death by publicly destroy
ing idols. See “ Decline and Fall,” ch. xvi. note 94.
An eminent writer observes that “ The intolerance of
almost all religions, which have maintained the unity of
God, is as remarkable as the contrary principle of poly
theists. ... A sacrifice is conceived as a present; and
any present is delivered to the deity by destroying it or
rendering it useless to men : by burning what is solid,
pouring out the liquid and killing the animate. For
want of a better way of doing him a service, we do our
selves an injury; and fancy that we thereby express, at
least, the heartiness of our goodwill and adoration.
Thus our mercenary devotion deceives ourselves, and
causes us to imagine it deceives the deity. . . . Few
corruptions of idolatry and polytheism are so pernicious
to political society as this corruption of theism. The
human sacrifices of barbarous nations consist of victims
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First Seven Alleged Persecutions.
chosen by lot. But virtue, knowledge, love of liberty
are the qualities which call down the fatal vengeance of
inquisitors ; and when expelled, leave the society in the
most shameful ignorance, corruption, and bondage. . . .
So sociable is polytheism, that the utmost fierceness and
aversion, which it meets with in an opposite religion,
are scarcely able to disgust it, and keep it at a distance.”
Further light is thrown on this subject by a criticism
of the popular religion, partly preserved to us in St
Augustine’s treatise “ De Civitate Dei,” from the pen
of the great jurist Quintus Mucius Scaevola, a younger
contemporary of the Scipio who destroyed Carthage.
This Scaevola fell a victim in the civil war of Marius,
b.c. 82. Qf this distinguished man we are told that
he separated critically three forms of religion, namely,
(a.) the religion of the poets, (6.) the religion of the
philosophers, and (c.) the religion of statesmen (principes civitatis). Regarding the first of these forms of
religion he expresses himself most unfavourably. He
considers that what the poets tell us of the gods is for
the most part degrading and puerile. They make the
gods commit murder, adultery, theft, and change them
selves into the lower animals for the vilest purposes;
in short, there is not anything so cruel, unjust, sensual,
monstrous, or shameless, there is not anything so in
consistent or irreconcilable with the idea of deity, that
the poets do not attribute to the gods. From all these
things the philosophic theology is free. This freedom
is common to pantheism, the necessity which excludes
the providence of the gods, and Atheism. But, accord
ing to Scaevola, the philosophic theology is unfit for
public use. It cannot be made the state religion; not
only because it is beyond the comprehension of the
people, and has not anything to do with the practical
object of religion, but further, because it contains what
it would be dangerous that the people should know, as,
for instance, that the images of the gods in the temples
have not the least resemblance to their true nature.
It may be well to mention here very briefly that
Scaevola is quite in error in supposing that there is
�First Seven Alleged Persecutions.
39
the slightest connection between morality and religion.
So far as regards fortitude, justice, temperance, and
prudence, it is evident that they cannot in the least
depend on whether the deity is round or square, or
whether heaven is in the seen or the unseen universe.
But so far as regards the payment of tithes religion is
all important.*
To return to Scaevola. St Augustine does not give
us the development of Scaevola’s views regarding the
religion of the magistrate, but they are easily inferable.
It could not be anything except a form of belief
intended to be adapted only to the masses, therefore
remote from the true conception of the deity, namely,
his manifestation only as Energy, and disfigured with
gross errors. Its point of view and standard of refe
rence were only those which were supposed to be con
sistent with public utility. What rendered the philo
sophic theology inadmissible was the supposition that
although it was true, yet that its doctrines could not
with safety be publicly inculcated.
In the theory that underlies these speculations we
have the solution for which we are seeking. That
which lends them importance is the fact that they pro
ceed not merely from a man of the highest eminence,
the founder of Roman jurisprudence, but from one who,
as Pontifex Maximus—a position which combined the
functions of a minister of public worship and an arch
bishop—was the head of the Roman religion. Now,
then, what are we to think regarding the belief enter
tained by the Roman aristocracy in the state religion ?
Moreover, we are to remember that it was the members
of the aristocracy who had been the mainstay of that
religion from the foundation of the state. Yet such a
man as Scaevola, without the least compunction, withers
with his contempt things most closely fastened together
with that religion, openly states that it is disfigured
with grave errors, and regards much that is essential to
* On this subject see Hallam’s “Middle Ages,” ch. ix.
part ii. and Francis Newman’s “Phasesof Faith,” page, 54, 5.
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First Seven Alleged Persecutions.
it as a concession made npon grounds of policy to the
ignorant masses !
But not only did Scaevola do this, but also, what is
still more remarkable, he did so without the least dis
paragement to the man who, on the contrary, continued
to be one of the greatest lights of Roman theology.
Bor although Quintus was far superior to his father
Publius, yet the latter was very highly esteemed, as
we find in Cicero (“ De Natura Deorum,” iii. 2, 5)
where Cotta, who had been a consul, says, “ In matters
of religion I submit to the rules of the high priests, T.
Coruncanius, P. Scipio, and P. Scaevola, not to the
sentiments of Zeno, Cleanthes, or Chrysippus, and I
pay greater regard to what C. Laelius, one of our augurs
and sages, has written concerning religion in that noble
oration of his than to the most eminent of the Stoics;
and, as the whole religion of the Romans at first con
sisted in sacrifices and divination by birds, to which
have since been added predictions; if the interpreters
of the Sibylline oracle [the Quindecimviri] or the
haruspices have foretold any event from portents and
prodigies, I have ever thought that there was not any
point of all these holy things that deserved to be
despised ■ even I have been persuaded that Romulus,
by instituting divination, and. Numa^ by establishing
sacrifices, laid the foundation of Rome, which un
doubtedly would never have risen to such extreme
advancement if the gods had not been rendered propi
tious by this worship.” In this same treatise Cotta
maintains the cause of the Academical or Sceptical
philosophy, yet he professes full confidence in the
haruspices and augurs. In like manner, although Julius
Ca?sar was an avowed atheist, yet in Africa he carried
about with him a certain Cornelius, an utterly obscure
man, but whose name might be deemed auspicious on
the battlefields of Sulla and Scipio. Thus, also, with
the instinct of self-preservation, Napoleon preserved
his white overcoat which he had worn at the battle of
Marengo. To the human mind so difficult is the task
of liberating itself entirely from the shadows, illusions,
and nonentities of religion!
�First Seven Alleged Persecutions.
4i
Be that as it may, in the matter of religion the
Roman was almost utterly unconcerned about dogma.
What he cared for was ceremonial or what we call
witchcraft. That is to say, the performance of certain
rites and customs, from which acts certain definite
effects were expected. With these acts the faith or
morals of the worshipper or of the priest had not any
thing whatever to do, just as in the Christian Church
“ The unworthiness of the ministers hinders not the
effect of the Sacrament.”
It should be observed here that the worship of the
Roman Emperors was not a worship that originated
among the Romans. It originated in the conquered
provinces, and was based on the same idea as that
which originated the worship of the city Rome among
the Alabandians. In both cases it was simply homage
offered to what appeared to the worshippers to be
irresistible and supreme power. But in neither case
did the Romans suggest or enforce it. The exercise of
such worship was left entirely to the discretion of those
who wished to use it for their own advantage. The
passage in Pliny’s supposed letter to the effect that he
punished Christians for not worshipping the Emperor’s
image proves that letter to be a forgery.
So it was possible to make a distinction between
the man and the citizen, and while binding the latter
with a chain of adamant, to leave to the former un
bounded liberty of speculation. This is the genuine
Roman point of view, and we find it illustrated at almost
every turn. This same distinction that was made by
Scaevola was made by Varro, who lived a generation
later (b.o. 115-25), and whose great work on “The
Antiquities of Rome” was the main authority to after
ages upon Roman religion. But in fact the whole
treatise of Cicero “ De Divinatione” is itself a palmary
example of this view which appears to us so extraor
dinary. There Cicero ruthlessly demolishes the science
of divination. He covers with abuse the gods and
their fables, and ridicules without mercy diviners and
their miracles. Yet Cicero was an augur, and he was
�42
First Seven Alleged Persecutions.
most vain of the office, the duties of which he performed
with the utmost and most scrupulous exactness !
In short this divorce between the sentiments of
private and public life did not shock any Roman. He
considered that a magistrate in the exercise of his func
tions ought to assume a certain attitude—a conventional
mode both of thinking and speaking—that he should
seem ignorant of things he knew, and that he should
express opinions which might be utterly discordant
with his own; but all this was prescribed, and its
decorous performance was universally admired. The
hypocrisy was so organised that it ceased to be hypo
critical, and consequently there was not any Roman
who was at all scandalized by the election of the atheist,
Julius Caesar, to the office of Pontifex Maximus.
From the foregoing facts and arguments it is easily
perceived that even the Epicureans who denied the
providence of the gods, and the Atheists who denied the
very existence of the gods, would not be sought out for
the purpose of being persecuted. As a matter of fact
we know that such was the case. In the Senate we are
told that Julius Caesar denied the existence of the gods
and derided them at his dinner table. Yet he was
chosen, b.c. 63, to be the Roman pontifex maximus.
Dean Merivale (“ General History of Rome/ p. 278)
tells us that “ Neither the notorious laxity of his
[Caesar’s] moral conduct, nor his avowed disregard for
the religious traditions of the state, hindered Caesar’s
advancement to the highest office of national worship.
His duties indeed were simply ceremonial, however
firmly the Romans believed that the welfare of the state
depended on their due execution.” As before stated,
the Roman was not in the least concerned about dogma,
while, on the other hand, he attached the greatest con
sequence upon the most accurate and solemn performance
of certain rites and ceremonies, from which definite
effects were supposed to be caused by these external
acts, and wholly unconnected with the faith of the
worshipping priest or people. The truth of these facts
we learn distinctly from Scaevola, b.c. 82, Cicero, b.c.
43, and Varro, b.c. 26.
�First Seven Alleged Persecutions.
43
Nor was the case different with regard to Christianity.
Regarded as a religious system the Roman magistrate
did not see any reason for excluding it from the general
tolerance extended to other sects. The speech of Gallio
(“ Acts ” xviii. 14, 15), when Paul was brought by the
Jews before him, charged with persuading men to wor
ship God contrary to the law, expresses with perfect
precision the Roman sentiment and practice. On that
occasion Gallio is reported to have said, “ If it were a
matter of wrong or wicked lewdness, 0 ye Jews, reason
there would be that I should bear with you ; but if it
be a question of words and names, and of your law, look
ye to it; for I will be no judge of such matters.” And,
according to this story, “ he drave them from the judg
ment seat. Then all the Greeks took Sosthenes, the
chief ruler of the synagogue, and beat him before the
judgment seat. And Gallio cared for none of these
things.” But we know that, however little Gallio might
care for religious nonsense, neither he, nor any Roman
governor, would suffer his judgment seat to be desecrated
by an act of violence. The beating of Sosthenes before
Gallio proves the whole story to be mythical; and the
story is valuable merely as showing the well-known
indifference of the Romans to every religion held by
foreigners. The author of “ Supernatural Religion,”
(vol. iii., p. 320), says, “ The Acts of the Apostles is
not only an anonymous work, but, upon due examina
tion, its claims to be considered sober and veracious
history must be emphatically rejected.”
It was the almost utter impossibility of obtaining the
crown of martyrdom from the Romans that caused some
Christian writers to invent stories about persecutions of
Christians by Roman Emperors. Among the foremost
of those mendacious writers is Tertullian. It is to him
that we owe the stories about the persecutions under
Nero, Domitian, Trajan, Aurelius, and the story
(“Apology,” § 5) that “Tiberius, in whose time the
name of Christ entered into the world, laid before the
Senate, with his own vote to begin with, things
announced to him from Palestine in Syria, which had
�44
First Seven Alleged Persecutions.
there manifested the truth of the divinity of that person.
The Senate, because they had not themselves approved
it, rejected it.” It is ridiculous to suppose that the
Senate would have dared to refuse such a request from
Tiberius, whom we know from Tacitus (“ Annals ” iv.,
37, 38), the Senate was willing to deify: just—as
before mentioned, page 30—we have been called upon
to believe that in one day Trajan or Hadrian crucified
ten thousand Christian soldiers on Mount Ararat! But
when once “ a system of enormous lying ” has been
successfully introduced it is difficult to discern its “ two
grains of wheat hid in two bushels of chaff,—you shall
seek all day ere you find them; and, when you have
them, they are not worth the search.”
We now leave the region of mythology, and proceed
to deal with real history. But, before entering into the
region of history, let us examine the extant stories re
garding the treatment of St Paul and St Ignatius while
they were undergoing imprisonment. Those stories
abound with alleged incidents, that are utterly at vari
ance with what we know regarding the treatment of
prisoners by the Romans, or by any other ancient people
with whose treatment of prisoners we are tolerably well
acquainted. To avoid confusion in our argument as
much as possible, we shall make this examination the
subject of a
feCHOLlUM.
An error, similar to that of supposing that the Romans
persecuted people on account of their religious opinions,
is the error of supposing that a prisoner in the custody
of Roman soldiers was permitted to write and publish
doctrinal essays, to have intercourse with his friends,
and to preach sermons. Among the Romans when a
man was made a prisoner, he was put into the common
jail (in carcerem) and cut off from all communication
with the external world. If a man were made a
prisoner at a distance from Rome he was strictly
guarded, and as much cut off from intercourse with his
�First Seven Alleged Persecutions.
45
friends as if he were in jail. The writers who have
handed down to us the epistles attributed to St Paul,
and those attributed to St Ignatius, and the stories
regarding the respective imprisonments of those saints,
have fallen into this error. The names of those
writers are unknown. But the writer of the book
called “ The Acts of the Apostles,” xxvii. 1; xxviii.
13, 14, 15, 16, relating the journey of St Paul in
chains, from Caesarea to Rome, accompanied by the
writer, tells us that “ they delivered Paul and certain
other persons unto one named Julius, a centurion of
Augustus’ band ” [which band never had any existence];
and at “ Puteoli we found brethren, and were desired
to tarry with them seven days, and so we went to
ward Rome . . . and from thence, when the brethren
heard of us they came to meet us as far as Appii Porum,
and the three Taverns; whom when Paul saw he
thanked God and took courage; ” And “ when we
came to Rome the centurion delivered the prisoners to
the captain of the guard; but Paul was suffered to
dwell by himself with a soldier that kept him.”
Further (30, 31) we are told that in this manner,
11 Paul dwelt two whole years in his own hired house,
and received all that came in Unto him, preaching the
kingdom of God, and teaching those things which con
cern the Lord Jesus Christ with all confidence, no man
forbidding him.” In his epistle to the Philippians,
i., 13, Paul says, “ my bonds in Christ are manifest in
all the palace, and in all other places.” In the original
the words here rendered “ in all the palace,” are sv o'Xw
rw vpairupibj, from which Dr Smith (“New Testament
History,” p. 491) infers that Paul “was suffered to
dwell by himself in his own hired house, of course
within the precincts of the Praetorium, and—what he
valued far more—to receive visitors and discourse
freely with them of the Gospel.” And Dr Smith ex
plains in a note that the praetorium means the camp
close to Rome constructed by Tiberius for the accommo
dation of the praetorian soldiers—in the midst of whom
Paul preached Christianity ! Dean Alford agrees with
Dr Smith; but neither of them gives authorities.
�46
First Seven Alleged Persecutions.
In like manner Ignatius, in his epistle to the
Romans, v., supposed to have been written while he was
travelling in chains from Syria to Rome, is made to say,
“ From Syria even unto Rome I fight with wild beasts,
by sea and by land, by night and day; being bound
amongst ten leopards, I mean a band of soldiers; who
even when they receive benefits show themselves all
the worse.”
These statements regarding Paul and Ignatius are
incompatible with Roman laws and usages. But the
fact is that the narratives, contained in the extant
apocryphal and canonical New Testament literature,
are merely fragments of a once extensive “system of
enormous lying” in which the supernatural ceases to be
miraculous, and the suspension of nature’s laws becomes
a sort of order. When a Christian prisoner is in the
hands of Roman soldiers he is treated like a respected
guest, or in “honourable captivity;” he preaches in
the praetorian camp until Divine Providence chooses
to release him, and then a little earthquake, perceived
only by the prisoner, opens the doors of the prison
and looses the prisoner’s bonds, the city gate opens of
its own accord, an angel leads the prisoner to the
house of “ Mary the mother of John whose surname
was Mark,” and then “ function is smothered in sur
mise, and nothing is but what is not.”
A good example regarding ancient prisons and the
treatment of prisoners is given in the case of Jeremiah,
xxxviii, concerning whom (b.c. 589) we are told that
“ They took Jeremiah, and cast him into the dungeon
of Malchiah the son of Hammelech, that was in the
court of the prison: and they let down Jeremiah with
cords. And in the dungeon there was no water but
mire : so Jeremiah sunk in the mire.” But all savages
have a fear of injuring madmen, consequently we are
told that “ the king commanded Ebedmelech the
Ethiopian, saying, Take from hence thirty men with
thee, and take up Jeremiah the prophet out of the
dungeon, before he die. So Ebedmelech took the men
with him, and went into the house of the king under
�First Seven Alleged Persecutions.
47
the treasury and took thence old cast clouts and old
rotten rags, and let them down by cords into the dun
geon to Jeremiah. And Ebedmelech the Ethiopian
said unto Jeremiah, Put now these old cast clouts and
rotten rags under thine armholes under the cords.
And Jeremiah did so. So they drew up Jeremiah
with cords and took him up out of the dungeon : and
Jeremiah remained in the court of the prison.”
Were the Romans more merciful than the Jews ?
Or were the Romans more merciful than the Greeks ?
To answer these questions in the affirmative is simply
impossible. For the treatment by the Romans of their
slaves, their prisoners, and even of their conquered but
unoffending provincials was cruel in the extreme.
During the period from the battle of Zama, b.c. 202,
to that of Actium, B.c. 31, the Roman patricians prac
tised towards the subject world a system of treatment
very little better than a system of extermination.
Even in Italy the severity of this system was felt.
When Marius (b.c. 88) fled from his enemies to Minturnae, a once flourishing town about seventy miles
south east of Rome, that town was reduced to a coast
guard station, and the district in its neighbourhood
was a howling wilderness. Appius Claudius called the
Roman jail “a receptacle for the commonalty.” A
Roman centurion would be quite as likely to give St
Paul his liberty as permit him to go about visiting his
friends, and preaching Christian metaphysics to Roman
soldiers.
But to ascertain the severity with which prisoners
used to be treated it is needless to go back to such
remote dates. The imprisonment of a Christian sub
ject by a Christian king, and the death of that Chris
tian prisoner during his imprisonment are beautifully
exemplified in the history of Sir John Eliot, a.d. 1632.
�48
First Seven Alleged Persecutions.
DECIUS WAS THE FIRST PERSECUTOR OF THE
CHRISTIANS.
After the mythical persecution of the Christian
Church by Maximinus, the next alleged persecution of
that church is the persecution of it by Decius, a.d.
249. This persecution is recorded by the writers of
the 11 Historia Augusta,” and by Zosimus. Its histori
cal reality is generally admitted, and it is the first of
the alleged persecutions of the Christians by Roman
emperors of which this can be safely and correctly
said. That it was the first of such persecutions is
corroborated by the following circumstances.
A Christian Bishop of Sardis, Melito, who is said to
have flourished about a.d. 170, addressed a letter to the.
Roman Emperor, Aurelius Antoninus, on behalf of the
Christians, A portion of that document has been pre
served by Eusebius, “ E. H.,” book iv., ch. 26. There
Melito says, “What indeed never before happened, the
race of the pious is now persecuted (3/wxsra/), driven
about in Asia, by new and strange decrees. Eor the
shameless informers, and those that crave the property of
others, taking occasion from the edicts of the emperors,
openly perpetrate robbery, night and day plundering
those who are not guilty of any crime.” And further
on Melito adds, “ The philosophy which we profess
first indeed flourished among the barbarians (tv
fiapfidpoif), but afterwards, when it grew up, also
among the nations under your government, under the
glorious reign of Augustus your ancestor, it became,
especially to your reign, an auspicious blessing.”
These statements by Melito show clearly that he did
not know anything about the alleged persecutions of
the Christians by Roman emperors between a.d. 1 and
a.d. 170.
So we have now to account for a period of
only about seventy-nine years.
One of the Christian fathers, Lactantius, was bom
about a.d. 250 and died about a.d. 330. In his work
“ De Mortibus Persecutorum,” c. 3, 4, Lactantius says,
�First Seven Alleged Persecutions.
49
11 After many years that execrable animal appeared,
Decius, who persecuted the church.” The “ many
years” here spoken of need not be more or less than
the seventy-nine for which we have to account. Of
course it took “ many years ” to make the Christian
Church worthy of political consideration. In the time
of the Emperor Philip the Christians had become of
sufficient political importance to induce him to befriend
them, The Romans never persecuted any sectaries of
any kind except on account of political considerations.
Of course the friends of Philip were regarded by Decius
as his political enemies, and as such, and only as such,
he persecuted them.
In his “Roman History,” vol. v. p. 322, Niebuhr says
that Decius “ was the first who instituted a vehement
persecution of the Christians, for which he is cursed
by the ecclesiastical writers as much as he is praised
by the pagan historians (the writers of the “ Historia
Augusta ” and Zosimus). The cause of this persecu
tion, I think, must be sought for in the feeling anta
gonistic to the tendency of his predecessor.
The
accounts which we have of earlier persecutions are
highly exaggerated, as Henry Dodwell has justly
pointed out. The persecution by Decius, however,
was really a very serious one ; it interrupted the
peace which the Christian Church had enjoyed for a
long time.”
At this point the human mind naturally pauses to
take a retrospective view of the uncertain and shadowy
figures which occupy the two hundred and forty-eight
years which we have here passed under review. Dur
ing all that period we cannot find any reliable Pagan
authority for the alleged persecutions of the Christian
Church by Nero, Domitian, Trajan, Hadrian, Aurelius,
Severus, and Maximinus. In his “ Ecclesiastical His
tory ”—so called—of that period, Eusebius gives a large
number of stories regarding alleged events, and a still
larger number of names regarding alleged persons sup
posed to have been connected with the Christian
Church during that period. But those stories and
�50
First Seven Alleged Persecutions.
those names have not any perceptible existence outside
the Christian Church. Even Eusebius does not give
us a satisfactory, or even a self-consistent account of
their times and their places. A man named Natalius,
supposed to have flourished a.d. 193, alleged that he
had been “flogged by holy angels.” Reproved this
allegation by shewing that he had been flogged. This
satisfied Eusebius ! Moreover, how did Eusebius as
certain that Natalius was a Christian ? How did
Eusebius ascertain that the majority of the names that
figure in his pages during our first and second centuries
represented real persons who were orthodox Christians ?
He does not inform us. He may have been told that
the names in question Were the names of persons who
were supposed to belong to the orthodox church because
they were called Christians. But what did the name
“ Christian ” signify during our first and second cen
turies 1 In the present day, what does the name
“ Christian ” signify ? We know that at present the
name/1 Christian” has at least ninety-five significations
attached to it!
In short, when we try to write a history, properly so
called, of the Christian Church during the first two
hundred and forty-eight years of its supposed existence,
we find that almost all the extant stories regarding it
are utterly unreal. Concerning that history we may
say as Ulysses said concerning the soul of his deceased
mother :
“ Thrice I endeavoured it to clasp,
Thrice it escaped my eager grasp,
Between my close pressed hands outspread
Like shadow or mere dream it fled.”
TURNBULL AND SPKABS, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH.
�
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Title
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Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
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Title
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First seven alleged persecutions, A.D. 64 to A.D. 235
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 50 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: Part of the NSS pamphlet collection. Published anonymously. "This tract is sacred to the memory of the late Thomas Scott, Esq., born 26th April,1808, died 30th December,1878, and who, between the years 1856 and 1877, by his well-known series of tracts, most ably advocated the right of all mankind to free expression and free inquiry."--p.[3]. Published by Turnbull and Spears, Edinburgh.
Publisher
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Freethought Publishing Company
Date
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[1879]
Identifier
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N221
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[Unknown]
Subject
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Persecution
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<img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /><br /><span>This work (First seven alleged persecutions, A.D. 64 to A.D. 235), identified by </span><span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk">Humanist Library and Archives</a></span><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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Text
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English
NSS
Persecution
-
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558239e8d47f0d8894988ea861c4aaca
PDF Text
Text
‘
RECENT MISCELLANEOUS LITERATURE.
441
we think, redeems Motley from all misconstruction, placing him in
the position of nn unjustly treated public servant.
This memoir is the simple expression of tender and fervid
friendship, not without fair discrimination, by one who loved its
subject for high and fine qualities, with which his own nature can
sympathize. The author calls it only an outline, which may be of
service to a future biographer. No other hand than his own should
venture to complete it.
Mr. Conway appends to his name on the title-page of “ Demon
ology and Devil-Lore ” his degree-mark of B. D. of Divinity Col
lege, Harvard University. He omits a motto. We suggest “Parcus deorum cultor et infrequens.” He would scornfully ask if it is
not plain on every page that he worships no false gods ? Perfectly
so, and equally plain, for all the pages show that he worships no
gods at all. Granted that he may have convinced himself that the
religion of our day is a “ creed outworn.” Then, if he attacks it, it
is his duty to commend a substitute. At least, let him not deal
bitterly or sneeringly with “the fair humanities of old religion.”
For millions these are still the breath of life. If the writer really
believes Christianity to be a superstition, he will not strive to scoff
men out of it any more than he would wish to frighten them into it.
The double title of the book denotes a distinction between its
subjects. Devils are not demons. They differ in age, demons
being the eldest creation of human fancy and fear. They differ in
character, the acts of demons being impelled by the necessity of
their nature, while devils work with a malignant will. As the au
thor states the distinction, the first personate the obstacles with
which men have had to contend in the struggle for existence, as
hunger, cold, destructive elements, darkness, disease. The latter
represent the history of the moral and religious struggles through
which churches and priesthoods have had to pass.
The idea of -a personal spirit of evil is the correlative of that of
a personal divinity. The primal thought of man that imaged the
last as a source of good must have been driven by the evil in nature
to shape the first as its cause.
One race copied or inherited the thought from another, and re
ligion followed religion in adapting it to its needs. This principle
of dualism is carefully traced out by the author through a varied
series of legends and impersonations. We look in vain, however,
for the ultimate statement of the matter, which is really this : The
origin of evil has nowadays almost ceased to be discussed. Evil is
�442
THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.
held either to be permitted by the Supreme Being as a discipline,
or, less theologically and more scientifically, to be the clinging taint
and weakness of the lower order of things out of which humanity
has emerged. In either case there is no need of a personal evil
spirit, and none the less need of a guiding divinity, for whom the
author seems to find no place.
The author traces the modern idea of an evil spirit to the con
flict of religions. Nothing is more normal, in ancient systems, he
says, than the belief that the gods of other nations are devils. When
the new religious system prevails, the old idol is treated with re
spect, and assigned some function in the new theologic regime.
The logic of this theory does not recommend it; but it is ingenious
ly carried out through speculations too subtile to be even summa
rized. In the course of them many traditions of our religion, now
conceded to be myths, are handled with the needless irreverence
and obtrusive contempt which weaken the author’s hold on the read
er’s convictions.
Ingenious, however, and elaborate, his book certainly is. Its
researches present the story of every kind of goblin, imp, specter,
dragon, and thing that walketh in darkness, that has made human
life piteous since it began. It is rich in curious legends and myths
of the darker sort, and it is a startling proof of the halting prog
ress of mankind, that some of the most ancient and horrible of
these superstitions, as the dread of the vampire and the were-wolf,
prevail at this day in certain parts of Europe.
Few women could employ the evening of a life in tracing the
remembrances of its early prime more agreeably than Mrs. Kemble
does. Her story ends abruptly, dramatically, with the words “1
was married at Philadelphia, on the 7th of June, 1834, to Mr.
Pierce Butler, of that city.” Scarcely more than a third of hex
conscious and active life is represented by those twenty-five years.
Yet there is nothing immature in this girlhood. It is filled with
little incidents, bright people, clever sayings. There is not much
sentiment, but plenty of honest, hearty family affection. The whole
memoir is so spirited, sunny, and confidential, that one reads it.
twenty pages at a time, with the kind of interest felt in reading a
piay.
The book is a record in substance as well as by its title. Soon
after her return to England from a French seminary, an acquaint
ance grew up between Miss Kemble and a Miss H----- S----- ,
which on their separation was continued by correspondence. Her
�
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Title
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Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
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2018
Publisher
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
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Pamphlet
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The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
[Demonology and Devil-Lore]
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: [New York, NY]
Collation: 441-442 p. ; 23 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. A review, by an unknown reviewer, of Moncure Conway's work 'Demonology and Devil-Lore' from North American Review,128, April 1879.
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[s.n.]
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[1879]
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G5605
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[Unknown]
Subject
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Book reviews
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<img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /><br /><span>This work ([Demonology and Devil-Lore]), identified by </span><span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk">Humanist Library and Archives</a></span><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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application/pdf
Type
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Text
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English
Book Reviews
Conway Tracts
Demonology
Moncure Conway
-
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Text
REPORT
OF THE
COMMITTEE
OF
SOUTH PLACE CHAPEL,
FOB THE YEAB 1878.
�SOUTH PLACE CHAPEL
1878.
jMinister.
MONCURE D. CONWAY, M.A., Hamlet House, Hammersmith.
Committee.
Mrs. ANDERSON
Mr. E. K. BLYTH
„ W. BURR
„ G. W. COOKE
„ E. DALLOW '
„ R. G. HEMBER
„ G. HICKSON
„ P. HICKSON
„ R. S. JOHNSON
„ J. KNIGHT
„ E. R. LEVEY
Mrs. McMORRAN
Mr. W. J. REYNOLDS
„ C. H. SEYLER
‘
„ J. SHAW
„ W. SHURY
„ J. STOUT
Mrs. THOS. TAYLOR
Mr. W. D. THOMSON
„ A. J. WATERLOW
Miss WILLIAMS
treasurer anb Chairman.
Mr. GEORGE HICKSON, 35, Highbury New Park, N.
Secretary.
Mr. W. J. REYNOLDS, Elm House, Mare Street, Hackney.
'auditors.
Mr. McMORRAN
1
Mr. J. A. LYON
®rustee».
Mr.
„
„
„
„
WM. BURR
JNO. CUNNINGTON
GEO. HICKSON
J. A. LYON
M. E. MARSDEN
Mr.
„
„
Sir
W. C. NEVITT
J. L. SHUTER
F. WALTERS
S. H. WATERLOW, Bart.,
M.P.
Mr. A. J. WATERLOW
Secretary Soiree Committee.
Mr. CORRIE B. GRANT, 1, Mitre Court Buildings, E.C.
d&oir=j¥laster.
Mr. J, TROUSSELLE, 7, Blandford Place, N.W.
�Mlfiport of the OTominittee
OF
SOUTH PLACE CHAPEL,
FOB, THE YEAH 1878,
The Committee in presenting the members of South
Place Congregation with the customary Annual Report, have
again the pleasure of recording a period of steady progress.
Not only is the financial position of the Society, as will be
seen from the annexed balance sheet, satisfactory; but what
is perhaps, of even more importance, there has been during
the past year a continued influx of new members. This cir
cumstance alone, apart from others to which attention wfll be
drawn, indicates that not only do the force and originality
of Mr. Conway’s discourses continue to command a deserved
popularity, but that liberal opinions in religious matters are—
notwithstanding many adverse influences—steadily advancing.
Probably, one of the circumstances that most tends to pre
vent the spread of advanced ideas in religion, as in politics,
is the want of union and sympathy between the various divi
sions of liberal opinion. Conscious of this, the Committee
gladly welcomed and assisted a proposal of Mr. Conway’s to
hold during the month of June a “ Conference of Liberal
Thinkers,” the meeting of which it was thought might pos
sibly result in some more systematic work being done in
furthering moral progress and spreading enlightened opinion.
This conference was held on June 13th and 14th, and was
well attended by ladies and gentlemen fairly representing
�4
the various schools of advanced thought, both in |Europe and
America. As might have been expected from such an assem
blage, much diversity of opinion prevailed, not only as to the
objects to be attained, but also concerning the best means of
securing them. Nevertheless, the papers read, and the dis
cussions held, had the result of clearing away much misappre
hension, and indicating many points of agreement between
minds of a very diverse order * The most important result,
however, was the formation of an “ Association of Liberal
Thinkers,” which.there is good reason to believe, will shortly
enter upon an energetic and useful career. In support of
these anticipations, it may be mentioned that the Association
has already, by the exertions of Mr. Conway, secured the
adhesion of the leading scientific and literary men. With
such honoured names as those which will duly appear, enlisted
for active work, it is scarcely rash to predict a character and
influence for the Association, which must redound to the credit
of the place where it was initiated.
Another matter that has engaged the attention of the Com
mittee, during the past year, has been the preparation of new
rules for the government of the Society. For some time past
it has been felt that the old rules were inadequate, and as no
provision was made for circulating them amongst the
members, many were unaware of the existence of any rules
whatever. Early in the year the Sub-Committee that had
been entrusted with the task of drafting a new code of rules,
reported, and the General Committee at a number of meet
ings carefully revised the work. The result was submitted
to a general meeting of the members on October 20th, and
the Committee feel well rewarded for the trouble they have
taken by the keen interest shown in the matter by the general
body of the members. Two adjournments were found neces* The Report of the proceedings has been printed, and can be obtained in
the Library.
�5
saxy., the rules being ultimately adopted, with some modifi
cations, on November 3rd, and confirmed, in accordance with
the provisions of the Trust Deed, on December 8th. Two
main objects have been pursued by those engaged in the
preparation of these rules. First, to extend and define the
rights of the members as fully as written regulations can do
so; and, secondly, to interest as many as possible in the active
work of the Society.
Amongst the events of the year, the Committee record
with satisfaction the following interesting incident. One of
our members, Mr. McIntyre, sought permission to make a
collection of surplus books for the use of the patients in
the various London Hospitals. The Committee willingly
gave their sanction and approval to the scheme, and have
pleasure in being able to state that no less than 1,500
volumes have been distributed amongst the Metropolitan
Hospitals.
Another circumstance also indicates that there is no lack
of energy in our Society. In the month of October, the
Committee were asked to permit a series of lectures on
Philosophy, to be given by Mr. James M. Rigg, B.A., Oxon.,
a gentleman who had recently come amongst us. Believing
that all educational efforts of a high character were completely
in accordance with the aims of the Society, the Committee
gladly granted the use of the building at a nominal charge,
and have the satisfaction of reporting that upwards of 100
ladies and gentlemen have given these lectures their support.
The Soirees have been held during the season with the
accustomed success, and the Soiree Committee have arranged
the details of these social gatherings with so much prudence
and care that they have been able to contribute materially
■towards the funds of the Society. It will also be freshly
within the recollection of the members that a most agree
able meeting has been held in the nature of a Reception
�6
to Mrs. Conway, on which occasion a substantial gift was
handed to Mr. and Mrs. Conway, in the name of the
congregation.
In addition to the usual ministrations, the Society has
had the pleasure of listening to discourses from Mrs.
Livermore and Colonel Higginson, both of the United
States ; from Dr. Andrew Wilson j an able representative of
liberal thought in Scotland ; and from Mr. J. Allanson
Picton, whose championship of religious freedom has made
him well known to us all. The discourses too of Mr. Conway
have been a continued source of pleasure and advantage to
our members, the freshness and impartiality with which he
has treated the numerous moral and social problems that
are now engaging public attention, being appreciated by
an ever widening circle of hearers. The Committee are also
happy to state that an arduous literary labour of Mr. Conway’s
has during the past year been completed. For nearly twenty
years the work on Demonology has engaged his anxious
attention ; and the important character, scope, and object of
this work can, perhaps, best be estimated by the following
short quotation from the preface :—
“ The natural world is overlaid by an unnatural religion,
“ breeding bitterness around simplest thoughts, obstructions to
“ science, estrangements not more reasonable than if they
“ resulted from various notions of lunar figures,—all derived
“ from the Devil-bequeathed dogma that certain beliefs and dis“ beliefs are of infernal instigation, Dogmas moulded in a fossil
“ demonology make the foundation of institutions which divert
“ wealth, learning, and enterprise to fictitious ends.
“ It has not, therefore, been mere intellectual curiosity
“ which has kept me working at this subject these many
“ years, but an increasing conviction that the sequelse of such
“ superstitions are exercising a still formidable influence.”
The musical arrangements, which have added so much to
the attractiveness of South Place Chapel in the past, have
�7
not been neglected during the past year; the Choir, under
the direction of Herr Trousselle, having maintained its high
character for efficiency.
In conclusion, the Committee congratulate the Members
on the prosperous and successful nature of the year’s
progress, on the increased activity and earnestness displayed
within the Society, and on the disposition shown to work
harmoniously for common aims; and they see no reason
why, with such forces at work, the character and influence
of South Place Religious Society should not be indefinitely
augmented as the years pass by.
ISTO TICE.
In accordance with the New Rules, seven members of the
Committee (the rotation determinable by lot) will retire from
^office at the ensuing General Meeting, and are not eligible
for re-election until next year. The members so retiring are
Mrs. McMorran, Miss Williams, Mr. W. Burr, Mr. Gr. W.
Cooke, Mr. E. R. Levey, Mr. W. J. Reynolds, and Mr. A. J.
Waterlow; in addition to which Mr. R. Gr. Hember, Mr. P,
Hickson, Mr. R. S. Johnson, and Mr. W, Shury have
resigned office. The members, therefore, will have to elect
eleven new members of Committee and two Auditors.
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Report of the committee of South Place Chapel for the year 1878
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South Place Chapel
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 7, [1] p. ; 22 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway.
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[South Place Chapel]
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Conway Tracts
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5
IM e$( v ° NATIONAL secular society
B'7-(X5
NJ633 PHILOSOPHIC ATHEISM.
■---- *—God
or no
God ?
I.
It has, been long my conviction—arrived at, I may. say,
against my deepest prejudices and the oldest tendencies of
my mind—that Atheism is not merely a logical position or
mental state, but as logical as any.
It appears , to me
that, approach the subject from which side we will—-the
purely intellectual or the moral—philosophy leads inevitably
up to Atheism. I can fully sympathise with the millions
who look upon Atheism as a monster, of absurdity and
immorality, for I once had the same ideas and feelings
myself, and no more dreamt of journeying to Atheism than
to the moon. I have discovered several things in recent
years which I formerly deemed impossible; among others,
that Atheism is not in the least like what popular prejudice
represents, and that Theism is as unfounded as Transubstantiation. Every argument yet produced in evidence of
divine existence fails even to satisfy a previous believer.
Judging from my own experience, I should say that the
most unshaken faith in a God is found in him who never
argued; the reasoner, even on the very smallest scale, starts
I doubts on the subject that can never be solved or destroyed. Once pass beyond the bounds of that innocent
state of spontaneous faith, possible only to early life or to
imbecility, and wrestle with a doubt respecting a God’s
■existence, and I question if the struggle will ever terminate
.entirely, except in Atheism or death. It is true, Orthodoxy
■promises you peace and rest, a solution of your difficulties,
■to be found in certain arguments, which, if rightly con■ ducted, will infallibly lead up to satisfaction. Alas ! how
fallacious the promise and the hope I I spent many years
R in following this will-o’-the-wisp ; but neither logic, prayer,
nor faith, nor all together could give settled satisfaction,
r This is not surprising, when the matter is fully examined.
Let us see.
The teleological argument is no doubt the oldest of the
so-called proofs of divine existence; it is, at least, as old as
Xenophon’s Memorabilia, and seems to have been used by
�4
PHILOSOPHIC ATHEISM.
Socrates. The argument, which is based upon a fallacy,
runs thus:—“We see in works of handicraft and Art
evidences of Design and adaptation of means to ends; we
see similar marks of design, &c., in Nature; and as
evidences of design in Art imply a designer, so do they in
Nature.” This, if logical, would be an exceedingly “ short
and easy method” of settling the dispute; but there is
really not one point of analogy between Art and Nature,
regarded either as a whole or in detail.
1. But for our education or experience in handicraft, &c.,
we could not possibly suspect anything like it in Nature.
We could never have gathered the conception of design
even from a work of art, were we not able, in some cases, at
least, to see both the means and the end, and to watch the
one resulting in the other. Now who can say what is the
end of Nature in any one department, to say nothing of
the final cause or ultimate aim of the whole ? This I shall
return to by-and-bye; at present I merely point to the want
of analogy between an art production (whose whole theory
•and action, inception and results, we can grasp) and any
particular part of Nature of which we know little or nothing
beyond the barest phenomena.
2. The analogy fails in another and more serious point.
We have seen and can see the maker of any human produc
tion. The identical man may be out of our reach, but we
have thousands like him all around us continually; ancL
though we may never have seen a given work in course onI
manufacture, yet we have seen artificers at work upon other!
artificial productions; and as all artificial things have!
certain points of resemblance, by the observation of which ,
we can readily pass from the known to the unknown, we
have little or no difficulty in recognising as a work of art
even an article we never saw before. Now where is the
analogy between this and any natural thing ? In Nature
the artificer has never once been seen, nor any one of his
fellows; we never saw any one making a single natural
product. Where, then, is the analogy? To establish it
you must show us some natural thing in course of produc
tion, and the maker himself, or some part of him, must be
seen at his work. Let this be done and our disputes end ;
but until we see some one making things in Nature—I don’t
say all things, but some—we have no right to institute an
analogy between a thing we know to be made and one that
may not be made at all.
�PHILOSOPHIC ATHEISM.
5
3. It is idle to say that the 11 Great Artificer ” is invisible;
that begs the question.
First prove your Artificer, and
then we must perforce admit his invisibility until we see
him. We see all around us the processes of Nature going
on—the revolution of the planets, and alternations of day
and night, storm and calm, summer and winter. We see all
this, but we never see the maker.
4. Not only have we never seen the Artificer of Nature,
we may further say that we have never seen Nature’s Art.
Is there not necessarily a distinction between the two
departments of Nature and Art ? And is not that distinction
essential? It is the height of linguistic- impropriety to
apply the terms of Art to the subjects and phenomena of
Nature. We have the best of proofs that artificial things
are made. Nature was never made ; it is not in any sense
a manufacture, it is an eternal existence as a whole, and its
various phenomena are growths, not Art productions. To
say the contrary is to abuse language and bewilder the
reader. I ask any intelligent man to take a coat and a
sheep, and say if there be any analogy between them. The
animal was not made, it grew; the coat did not grow, it
was made. The materials of the coat also grew; the act
of putting them together was the making of something that
did not and could not grow, any more than the sheep
could have been made. To talk, therefore, of animals
being made is not less incorrect than to speak of coats,
boots, chairs, &c., growing. A wise man will try to avoid
such confusion of • language, while the wisest will see in
natural phenomena nought but pure growths, and will thus
. escape the need of looking for a maker where none is
possible. Theology and false philosophy have done much
to confuse people on these matters, but there can be nothing
more incorrect, in the present state of human knowledge,
than to speak of the making or creation of the earth or of
any natural thing in it. Therefore it is not reason that
desiderates a maker or creator, it is faith that both demands
and supplies one or more, according to its whims or circum
stances.
5. But more serious objections remain. If nature does
manifest design we can discover the fact only by discovering
both the means and the end. This must be apparent at
once. In Art, did we not know why things are made, the
notion of design would be impossible; I don’t say in every
case. We cannot tell why some things have been made,
�6
PHILOSOPHIC ATHEISM.
they puzzle us; but these exceptions prove the rule, for if
we were not accustomed to recognise the end or object in
the majority of cases, we could never feel either curiosity or
doubt respecting the end to be answered by the few excep
tions. Now where is the man who will pretend to tell why
Nature was created? Consider its vastness, its intricacy,
how small a speck of the whole is known to us, and the
immense periods occupied in some of its processes. Who
can guess the meaning and the end of such immense and
intricate changes ? Only the most consummate rashness
would venture to attempt an explanation here. And if we
cannot tell the final cause of the whole, by what right do we
pretend to explain the design of a part ? Every part must
contribute to the total results, and must therefore be sub
ordinate to the whole, and without knowing the final upshot,
the end and aim cannot be guessed. Let the bold theologian
show us Nature’s means and her ultimate aim, or confess
that, like the rest of us, he is in total darkness respecting them.
If we cannot discover the end and means of Nature in
her immensity, let us try on a smaller scale. Take the
solar system. Was it designed, or is it the result of
accident ?—that is, the interaction of the materials and
forces of the system ? If designed, why are some planets
iso much farther from the sun than others? All might have
“been accommodated at distances much more nearly equal.
¡As it is there is a great waste of light and heat. If two
thousand millions of globes, each equal to the earth, were
/placed round the sun, side by side, and all at the same
/distance (from 90,000,000 to 100,000,000 miles), they
i would form a complete (omitting interstices) shell, with the
I sun in its centre. Now with the present expenditure of
[ light and heat, the sun would light up and warm the whole
interior of that enormous shell as brilliantly and intensely
as he does the earth at present. Think of what this means.
The sun which could, with the present emission of
1 energy, amply supply with light and heat an area of
1100,000,000,000,000,000 square miles and more, actually
«supplies about 50,000,000 square miles ! In this estimate
U omit all the planets except the earth, for their aggregate
receipts of light and heat are a trifle compared with the
lolar waste.
If, then, the solar system does manifest
Resign, it is not design executed by either wisdom or
aconomy.
Then consider how unequally the distances of the planets
�PHILOSOPHIC ATHEISM.
7
are arranged. How hot must Mercury or Vulcan (?) b<!
how cold Uranus and Neptune ! Besides, some of the
planets have satellites, others none, as far as yet known.
Where is the design here ? Our earth has but one satellite^
though it is well known we could do with more. What!
do we not need moonlight as much when it is absent as
when it is shining ? If one moon is good, it is my firm
belief that two would be twice as good.
Leaving the earth as a mere planet, let us descend fb
particulars, regarding it as a home for man and oth|r
animals. Look at the distribution of light and heat. Ip.
the tropics the people have far too much of both; in the
temperate regions, the alternations are dreadfully sever®
but in polar regions they are simply monstrous. A loi|g
day of six months’ duration is by-and-bye replaced by^,
night of equal length ! Does that show design and wisdor^?
Then consider the cold—land and sea frozen to an extent
to us almost incredible. What is the object? Is it to test
the enduring powers of seals and polar bears ? or to grfe
the Esquimaux an opportunity of displaying his voracity
upon blubber and his dexterity in travelling over the snow4?
Is there one good thing accomplished by such exaggerate^
cold ? Will the natural theologian explain ? He sees the
<£ hand of God ” and the “ footsteps of deity ” everywhere^
his eyes are so completely opened that he sees “ good in
everything.” He might, therefore, enlighten us a little on
these mysteries of nature. I have never yet heard of an
Esquimaux praising God for his wisdom and goodness as
displayed in Arctic nights and snows. They are people of
a milder clime, and whose civilisation enables them to defy
the malice of Nature, that praise the blessings of so;
extreme a cold.
Winds and rains show equal want of design.
One
country is devastated by storms, another is panting for a
breeze; one land is flooded by excessive rains, another is
parched and famine-stricken for want of water. During
the recent famines in Bengal, Bombay, and China, England
was flooded. Is this design ?—this wisdom ? Let a water
company follow the example of Nature, and flood one part
of a town week after week, while the rest is parched and
dusty as a desert, and your very Tories will demand reform.
Where and what is that supernal wisdom, which cannot be
imitated, except at the expense of common sense ? What
good thing is ever accomplished by a flood?—by a famine?
�8
PHILOSOPHIC ATHEISM.
by a hurricane? If the arrangements and processes of
Nature manifest wisdom, the best and most regular actions
of men are foolish in the extreme.
Now since we cannot discover the end or aim in the
above cases, and multitudes more that time forbids me to
mention, how can any one pretend to be able to discover
design in them ? And—
6. If we cannot discover the object or final cause of
Nature’s details, how can we discover it in any large depart
ment—say in the whole earth? Why was this planet made?
—for the sake of man ? Let us adopt that supposition, and
then proceed to test it by human experience. If the earth
was really made for man’s sake, if man is the final cause of
its creation and arrangement, I think he has abundant
reason to grumble, being at once so honoured and so grossly
outraged and insulted. He has no choice—it is not left to
him to take this world or some other. He enters it as he
enters into being; Nature throws him up like a waif tossed
to shore by the waves. If he can endure her treatment
and dodge her malicious blows, he survives; if not, he dies
before he fairly lives. Let him survive, for what does he
live? Ignorance, superstition, want, cold, hunger, fever,
accidents, tempests, volcanoes, wars, and death 1 This the
final cause of the world ! What!—the lord of the estate
knocked about in this fashion ! He for whom all was made
treated with contempt, get his bones broken, his blood cor
rupted, his person maltreated by the ill-arrangement of his
natural and only home 1 How grotesque ! How silly is
theology ! Was it worth while to expend all this care, pains,
and thought in the production of man, if he was to be
treated after all like the most worthless of beings ?
It is here that theology most completely collapses; after
going to the expense of producing what theology regards as
the final cause of the world, the final cause is treated as of
no conceivable value ! Either, therefore, man is not the
final cause of the world’s creation, or the wisdom displayed
in creation ends in a wretched farce. And if we cannot
find the ultimate end aimed at, by what right can we assume
that Nature shows any marks of design ? And, further, is
it not preposterous to speak of a final cause, or ultimate
aim, in an endless series of natural and inevitable events ?
The natural theologian is neither scientist nor philosopher ;
he is a man of faith; and faith can find its basis anywhere
—except in the region of fact and experience.
�PHILOSOPHIC ATHEISM.
9
7. If Nature in one or most parts manifests design, we
must be prepared to find it in all; for every event of Nature
must be as much designed as any that may be named. This
consideration the divine quietly and conveniently ignores.
He recognises design and divine goodness and wisdom in
all agreeable things; the rest are explained or overlooked.
It is our duty, however, to correct his mistakes and bring
up his omissions.
Let us grant then that Nature does undoubtedly manifest« ’
design.
(1) A hurricane that spreads devastation over
large tracts of the globe must be designed for that purpose. |
Smashing houses, rooting up trees, sinking ships, and i
drowning or killing men and animals are the chief works |
performed by those storms. Let the divine show the i
wisdom and goodness of his deity in them. (2) The I
eruption of Vesuvius that buried Pompeii and Herculaneum 1
must have been intended for that work; and the earthquake |
that swallowed up Lisbon was equally designed for that |
purpose. (3) The malaria that rises from the swamp and |
breeds a yellow fever epidemic, is designed for that; else
why does it exist ? What else does it accomplish ? The
evaporation that by-and-bye distils in the fruitful shower is
not more natural than the rise of the poisonous effluvia that
cause the death of thousands. (4) The coals stored up in
the earth’s strata were originally intended for—what?—to
torture poor men, women, and children in extracting them,
to exhale gases that should explode and kill the daring
intruders into Nature’s preserves, to burst steam boilers, I
and to drive machinery by which workers are maimed or ■
crushed to death, to manufacture cannon, torpedoes, and
other deadly instruments. And those coals perform evil
deeds with as much earnestness and effect as good ones ; a j
fire made of them will boil the kettle for tea or burn a child j
to death with equal indifference. What were they designed |
for ? Only stupidity can assert that they were designed for |
good, and not evil.
If design shows itself in one part of Nature, we must ex
pect it in all parts. (5) Theologians recognise design when
Nature turns out a Newton, they are silent when she pro
duces an idiot. And yet, there may be as great an expendi
ture of force and pains in producing the one as the other.
Is the idiot designed or not ? It is idle to lay the blame
upon parents or adventitious circumstances—the forces and
conditions that resulted in that idiot are as truly natural—
B
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PHILOSOPHIC ATHEISM.
as much a portion of the original plan as those were which
culminated in the philosopher. How will the divine secure
his dogmas in face of this ? And what is the final cause of
an idiot ?
(6) I once read of the birth of an animal—a dog, I
think—perfect and beautiful in all things, except in one
respect—it lacked its head. Let us pause ! In this case
Nature worked as carefully as she ever does—bones, muscles,
blood-vessels, skin, hair, and everything were carefully made,
and all for what ? A being that could not live. Did Nature,
or Nature’s author and ruler, know that the head was want
ing ? If so, why was the work not stopped, or the defect
supplied? Now, either this dog was designed, or Nature
worked independently of her maker; if it was designed, it
reflects the highest discredit upon the designer, and the
keenest ridicule. We have all heard of the wright who built
a waggon in an upper room, never once considering how it
was to be got out after it was finished. Is this case any more
ridiculous than that of Nature turning out a dog that had no
head? Verily, those who use the design argument employ
a sword with two edges, a weapon that cuts its owners far
more than their enemies. I beg the reader to consider
that in speaking of Nature “ making ” and “ working,” I
merely use the language of theology.
(7) A year or two since I visited a curious little museum
kept by an old sailor in Stockton-on-Tees, and among
other “ queer ” things I saw two that impressed me. One
was a little piggy Siamese twins. They were perfect, as far
as I could see, but fastened together, breast to breast, by a
short tube, so that walking would have been an utter im
possibility. The other was more curious still. It was a
lamb, single as to the head and neck, but double from the
shoulders backwards. There were eight legs and eight feet,
and the two bodies slightly receded from each other the
whole length behind the shoulders. One might have thought
Nature would have been content without sporting or blunder
ing further; but no. From the double shoulders of this
compound animal there grew an extra pair of legs, which
stretched backwards and slightly hung down between the
two bodies. They were fully grown, and had their front
parts turned upwards. I am writing from memory, but can
vouch for the general correctness of what I say. Now, what
could Nature mean—if she really meant anything—by pro
ducing such monsters ? Twin pigs that could never have
�PHILOSOPHIC ATHEISM.
II
lived, and a compound lamb dreadfully overdone with
bodies and limbs ! Was it divine wisdom that produced
these, or did blind Nature, operating by necessity, give rise
to them ? Let theologians say.
8. Many things in Nature are designed and adapted to
produce pain, if designed at all, and they never do or can
produce anything else. I may mention, as examples, ex
cessive heat and cold, stings of insects, poisons of serpents,
scorpions, &c., bites of beasts—many diseases, such as in
flammation, cancer, and others. Perhaps one of the most
dreadful is childbirth. What pangs, and how perfectly
objectless! There is not one good thing, as far as I can
learn, ever accomplished by any of the above. Indeed, if
I am not much mistaken, ninety-nine per cent, of all the
pain in the world is worse than useless. Theologians say
that, under given circumstances, “ labour is rest and pain is
sweet ” ; but you should not understand them literally. As
a French proverb says, “ One can regard evils with equani
mity—when they are another’s.” Theologians are no
more fond of pain than the rest of us, and they despise it
most thoroughly when they don’t feel it. They may preach
up the benefits of pain as long as they please; pain is pain,
call it by what names you may, and the world has a deal too
much of it to endure. If it was ever intended to do good,
the world’s designer miscalculated, and should long since
have tried to work on some other plan.
It has been asserted by some who are anxious to defend
their fancied deity, that animals which are devoured by
beasts and birds of prey feel no pain. Their own Bible
might have confuted them. Did Jonah feel no sort of pain
in the whale’s belly ? And does not Paul say, “ The whole
creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until
now ” ? Perhaps a bite from a tiger, or even from a dog,
might bring those divines to their senses. One thing is
certain, the animals that are eaten up by others show all the
signs of pain that man shows except those of speech, and
none but the perverse can doubt that they really feel pain.
The question to be answered is, Was pain designed ? If so,
what can be said of its designer? Did he ever feel pain, or
would he like to ?
9. Turn we next to another class of topics. What is to
be. said by a believer in design respecting parasites? I
believe the true parasites cannot live except in or on the
other living beings they inhabit. Which way shall we read
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PHILOSOPHIC A'IHEISM.
Nature’s declaration of design in these cases ? Must we
read it, “Parasites were designed for other animals,” or
“ Other, animals were designed for their parasites ” ? This is
a puzzle, and no divine can explain it. Leaving the less
important parasites, let us ponder for a moment the case of
trichina spiralis. This minute worm cannot live except in
an animal body. In the muscles of a pig or of a man he
can make himself very comfortable, though he gives great
pain to his guest and living habitation.. The tapeworm is
worse still—the very thought of it is sufficient to give one
the horrors ! But to the point—Is man designed as the
habitation of the trichina and tapeworm ? If so, which is
the greater, and which, after all, is the final cause of this
world—the man who protects and feeds the tapeworm, or
the tapeworm that dwells in and lives at the expense of the
man ? I think it cannot be doubted that the worm has the
best of it. The man he inhabits is tortured with a horrible
disease ; the worm has every want supplied, and is as happy
as his nature and conditions permit. It seems then, that not
man, but the tapeworm, or some other human parasite,
must be the great end of this world’s creation ! What an
issue and a fate for the celebrated “argument from
design ” !
Having shown that the design argument, when fairly
conducted to its logical conclusion, leads to the interesting
discovery that human parasites are the final cause of the
existence of the earth, I must next proceed to attack Theism
in other directions. I do not think the above conclusion in
the least flattering to human vanity ; but that reflection by
no means militates against its correctness. I suppose no
one will deny that the less, where adaptation prevails, is
subservient to the greater. It cannot be denied, the theo
logian affirms, that Nature manifests design, and it will not
be pretended that man is benefited by the trichina, or tape
worm; it is equally impossible to deny that these most
interesting beings, like princes and priests, are furnished
gratuitously with everything they desire by and at the ex
pense of man. If those parasites are of a superstitious
turn, no doubt they spend much of their time in chanting
“ Te Deums ” to the Bountiful Parent of All Good, who has
created such a delightful world as a human body for them
to dwell in.
�PHILOSOPHIC ATHEISM.
13
II.
But leaving this subject, let us next survey the doctrine
of cause and effect. This doctrine I accept, though I deny
emphatically that it logically conducts us to a first cause or
to a final cause. I suppose the materials and forces of the
universe—that is, the complete round of existence—to be
eternal. I shall not just now attempt to prove the doctrine,
or even to give any reason for my faith in it; the reader will
please observe that I merely assume it here for the sake of
argument. Whether it be true or not, no one can deny that
we find ourselves in the very midst of an exceedingly long
series of causes and effects. We also find ourselves in the
very midst of infinite space, partially occupied, though pos
sibly not entirely so; we are, further, in the very midst of
infinite time or duration. I shall not stop to discuss the
nature of these two infinities, but assume that most people
are agreed respecting their existence, at least.
Now let me ask the theologian if he can put his finger
upon the central point in space, or tell us how far off is the
circumference or limit of space in any direction he may
prefer. To say that this demand is absurd is no objection
to it, for I make it for the purpose of exposing another
absurdity, exactly parallel, though not quite so obvious.
I may assume, I think, that none but an enthusiast, a circlesquarer, or a maniac will try to find either the centre of
space or one of its limits.
Next, I ask, will the theologian find for me the middle,
the last, or the first moment (or any other unit of time) in
eternal duration? I need not press this either, since all
must see its absurdity as soon as it is fairly propounded.
But why cannot my demands be met ? The reason is,
Space has no centre, no limit; Time or duration no begin
ning, no end. We cannot conceive that, though we travelled
in one direction for ever, we should ever come to a spot
beyond which there was no space, or that we should be any
nearer its limit than we now are. It is the same with time
or duration; there never was a first moment, there never
can be a last.
Well, is it not equally absurd to speak of a First Cause
and a First Moment? There were former moments and
former causes; but a first is inconceivable in either case.
Had theologians set up a First Moment in capital letters,
thrown round it an air of mystery, and spoken of it with
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PHILOSOPHIC ATHEISM.
bated breath, it would have been worshipped ; temples and
churches would have started up by thousands, and the priest
hood would have grown rich upon devotion’s offerings ;
gushing songs would have been composed to the Great First
Moment, the Fount of Eternity, the Source of Being, and
the Ever-adorable Mystery ! I am afraid it is too late now ;
but had theologians begun in time, the Great First Moment
would have brought them a world of wealth and influence.
They have accomplished their purpose, however, by invent
ing and parading their Great First Cause, a fiction equally
absurd with the Great First Moment.
The bewilderment of the theologian is really one of the
most amusing features in the history of our race. He can
not account for the succession of events, or of causes and
effects, as he sees them occurring around him ; so he
deliberately concludes that there must have been a Great
First Cause, and this hypothesis seems to content him. But
sober reason can never rest in such an assumption; for (i)
Why suppose a First Cause ? The sole reason is to account
for phenomena you cannot otherwise explain, and which
you think are explained by your assumption. Really, then,
the First Cause is but a phrase invented to hide human
ignorance, a mere fiction to save appearances, and to keep
men from confessing frankly that they do not know what lies
beyond the circle of their knowledge. (2) But it won’t
serve them. To say there is a First Cause is equivalent to
the confession, “ I don’t know anything at all about the
matter, and am too idle to inquire further.” To assume the
existence of a First Cause certainly does shift the difficulty
one degree farther back, and affords a fictitious explanation
of Nature’s phenomena ; but it is not logical. A is a
mystery you wish to explain ; B explains it ; but what ex
plains B? C will do it. True; but can we stop at C?
“ Yes, if we call it the First Cause,” say you. But how
can you know that D does not precede it ?
Besides, as all must admit, if there really is a First Cause,
the mystery of its existence must be far deeper than that of
all other existences combined. It is not philosophical to
explain a phenomenon by something still more inexplicable ;
to attempt it only deepens the mystery. What then must
be said of thè attempt to explain an inexplicable chain of
causes and effects by the assumption of a great First Cause,
which is infinitely more inexplicable still ? The attempt
may be the result of credulity and ignorance ; most certainly
�logic never led people to it. The mind can no more rest
upon a so-called First Cause than it could on a pre
tended First Moment; in each case it demands what pre
ceded the one, and what caused the other. This difficulty
is not obviated by calling the fiction God, or printing it in
capitals ; investigation may be. forbidden for a time, but at
length the human mind demands a sight of your First
Cause, walks round, and finds an unexplored region at the
back of it. Once tell us how your First Cause rose without
a prior cause, and you will teach us to dispense with all
causes-, for if the infinite First Cause holds his being without
cause, surely the finite phenomena of nature may be allowed
a similar privilege.
Besides, if the infinite is without cause, why look for
cause and effect anywhere ? The doctrine is exploded if
theologians are correct; and thus, in the discovery of
the First Cause they demonstrate that no cause was needed,
and they and their system fall together in the very success of
their undertaking. If the doctrine of cause and effect be
true, every cause must be the effect of some prior cause ; if
they find a cause that is not an effect, an uncaused cause,
the doctrine they start with cannot be true; and thus success
in either direction is destructive of their position. If the
doctrine of cause and. effect be true, no First Cause is
possible ; if it is not true no such cause is required. Let them
take which horn they please.
III.
If Theists find no support from the Design Argument,
and if their First Cause is shown to be a very late effect
—of ignorance, what have they else to rest their faith
upon ? There is one more refuge to which they may run,
but it it can prove nothing but a temporary shelter, for the
pitiless “hail” of modern thought “shall sweep away the
refuge of lies, and the water ” of common sense “ shall
overflow the hiding-place.” The case of orthodoxy, whether
we begin at one end or the other, needs but to be stated in
plain words to be refuted. Not willing to ascribe any
inherent power to what is known and familiar to everybody,
they credulously credit some totally unknown substance
with all possible power, and assign to it the task of impart
ing to matter all its attributes and qualities. It is
impossible, say they, that “blind,” “dead ” matter should
�PHILOSOPHIC ATHEISM.
move itself, and assume all the beautiful and wonderful
forms we see. The world could not have made itself; there
are to be seen in it beauty, splendour, intelligence; these
could not have originated in mere matter; they must have
been bestowed by a being who himself possesses
them.” All this is specious but hollow, prime faith but
not logic.
Is matter so “dead” and “blind” a thing as they
represent ? Do not divines discredit matter to enhance the
greatness of their fictitious deity ? Those who divest their
minds of prejudice find in matter food for ceaseless wonder ;
and it is quite gratuitous to tell us matter cannot think, feel,
&c. How do you know? Matter has shown such mar
vellous properties, single and combined, that he must be
reckless who will venture to say that he knows all its attri
butes. The facts of nature—the glowing of suns, the
ceaseless revolutions of planets, the endless currents in the
air and sea, the ever changing face of the sky, the resur
rection in spring, the marvels of vegetation and animal
life—all proclaim the power of matter, and rebuke the
ignorance of those who call it “blind” and “dead.”
What! a thing that is in eternal flux, ever changing into
shapes and motions more enchanting than all romances
—this thing “ dead ” and “ blind ” ! Because its mode of
life is different from yours, dare you say it does not live at
all ? Because it sees not as you do through lenses, does it
therefore not see at all? In sooth, you are fine judges of
such profound mysteries !
We see the magnet attract steel; we see chemical action
day by day; we observe the mutual attraction of the earth
and bodies near its surface; this experience is our sole
reason for supposing that the magnet and the earth do at
tract, that elements possess chemical cohesion. In orga
nised bodies, on the other hand, we see all the phenomena
of what we are pleased to call “ life,” and in the higher
ones of intelligence. Why ascribe magnetism to that piece
of soft iron, if you won’t ascribe life to the tree or the man ?
The magnetism is an essential attribute of the magnet, the
life is such of the man. Why suppose there is a living
being who bestows the life, unless you also assume a mag
netic being to bestow the magnetism? Really orthodox
talk on this subject is mere trifling. They say that a being
cannot bestow an attribute itself does not possess. Very
well; if that be so, their God must be a curiosity.
�PHILOSOPHIC ATHEISM.
17
Let us suppose that they are correct; then their God
must have had, in his own person, all the qualities now pos
sessed by all matter—weight, size, colour, shape, taste,
odour, extension—he must be solid, liquid, and gaseous;
freezing, boiling, burning ; must be magnetic and non-inagnetic, gravitating, attracting, repelling; must be both resting
and moving, living and dead, blind and seeing, intelligent
and foolish, good and bad, beautiful and ugly, rough and
smooth, etc. These are but a few of the qualities we
observe around us, they must be native or imported, belong
ing essentially to matter, or else imparted by some other
substance which possessed them all before. The Deist
may .charge me with trifling and flippancy; but I am merely
delivering his own doctrines, and trying as bestaI can to
show their real absurdity.
IV.
I do not think logic or common sense requires more than
is given above, but orthodoxy is so slippery, so protean in
its shapes; so unscrupulous, so plausible, and gifted with
such astonishing powers of turning and twisting, that I feel
impelled to track it into another region still. The best way
to deal with divines is to admit (for argument’s sake) their
fundamental principles or assumptions, and then proceed to
show their logical consequences. Now, the orthodox
assure us that there exists a being whose nature is infinite,
whose presence is everywhere; and these terms they use in
their absolute or unlimited sense—at least they did in my
orthodox days. Be it so, then ; there is one infinite being;
he must have or must be an infinite substance, no matter
what that substance may be. Now every substance or
being must necessarily occupy some space, since no real
being can exist which is not more or less extended; and
every being must fill space exactly commensurate with itself;
indeed, we have no means of ascertaining or conceiving
the size of anything except by ascertaining or conceiving the
quantity of space it fills, that is, its extension in one, two,
or three directions.
If the above be correct, an infinite being cannot occupy
less than infinite space; all possible space must be so full of
it that nothing more could be introduced anywhere; for if
there be but space enough left for the insertion of one
atom, molecule, or the smallest possible division of sub
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PHILOSOPHIC ATHEISM.
stance, the being we are supposing must be less than
infinite, which is contrary to the hypothesis. Now since
an infinite being fills by itself or by its own substance all
possible space, there can be no space left to be occupied by
any other being or substance whatsoever, and thus we are
inevitably led to the interesting discovery that there is no
existence, no being, except the infinite one; that the ortho
dox God is alone, is everything, that nothing but itself
exists or can exist, for there is no unoccupied space for it to
fill. The divine, therefore, is reduced to this dilemma;
either he must give up his infinite substance or all other
substances ; he must renounce his God, or deny existence
to Nature, including himself. If we say that it is past
denying that we and other beings do really exist, and that we
occupy space commensurate with our substance—that being
so, we occupy some, of that space which an infinite being
must have occupied if he had existed; therefore no infinite
being exists. There is but one refuge for the divine from
this conclusion, namely^ to say that all Nature is but a part
of God; though I do not suppose that any one will per
manently abide in such a mental condition.
But let us allow the theologian his infinite God, and
doing so, let us analyse the conception. An infinite God 1
Such a being must be an absolute WzT, for all space must be
filled to its utmost capacity by its substance. It must also
be immovable. It would take infinite time for an infinite
being to move, no matter at what rate he did it. In an
absolute solid there can be no internal motion ; in an infinite
being ho external motion is possible, for there is no space
except what it already fills absolutely. Such a being could
not feel, think, will, or act in any way; for it would take a
whole eternity for a throb to pass through it The think
ing faculty or apparatus must be either located in a par
ticular part, or else diffused through the whole; in either
case thought would be impossible, except only a mere part
of the being thought. There is no act, mental or physical,
possible to any being butwhat takes time in its performance,
and the said time must bear a certain ratio to the size,
structure, organisation, or nature of that being. An infinite
one, therefore, could not perform the most simple or ele
mentary action without spending eternity in doing it, even
on the supposition that it could do it at all.
An infinite God, then, must be helpless, thought-less,
motionless; as void of sense as a block of marble. The
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PHILOSOPHIC ATHEISM.
19
conception is a conglomeration of the wildest absurdities;
nay, it is not a conception, since none ever conceived it—
it would take eternity to do so. The word God, as used
by Pagans, generally meant something; in orthodoxy it
stands for nought, a label covering the very darkest corner
of the human mind, a word without meaning, a symbol
symbolising nothing.
.
.
It is idle for the divines to appeal to spirit; for an infinite
spirit must be a substance of some kind, and must fill
infinite space, and must be infinitely powerless. Besides,
What is spirit? “Breath, wind,” say I. “Nay,” replies
the theologian, “ it is something more refined; it has no
weight, shape, colour, taste, smell, or sound.”. Exactly so;
it is abstract. To find spirit I give the following receipt:
Take a man, remove his physical being—all that you can
weigh, touch, taste, smell, see, or burn—in a word, all that
is material. Next remove from him all that you can possibly
conceive; persevere and exhaust the subject completely.
Well, all that is left is spirit. Yes; that imponderable, im
measurable, intangible, inodorous, invisible, tasteless, sound
less, and inconceivable nothing—this purest of abstractions—
is the spirit or soul. The believer is heartily welcome to his
■ “find.” If his God is a spirit, we can only say, as Paul
said of other Gods : “ Now we know that an idol is nothing
in the world,” or, in the language of Jesus, we may say to
the most devout: “ Ye worship ye know not what ”—in fact,
Nothing.
If I am not vastly-deceived, on all lines of intellectual
inquiry, the orthodox belief leads inevitably to absurdity. I
shall be glad to be corrected if I am in error, .and if some
one who is able will take the trouble to grind my notions to
powder, I shall take it as a favour. I hate wrong ideas;
they are amongst the foremost of human evils. Will some
one, therefore, do his best to enlighten me, as I am sincerely
trying to enlighten others ?
&
jL-
§
V.
I am not sufficiently vain to suppose that what I have
written previously on this subject has been exhaustive; I
have merely touched some of the more important intel
lectual difficulties that surround and interpenetrate the
Theistic position, and have endeavoured to show howabsurd is the orthodox belief. Just now I shall turn from
3
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PHILOSOPHIC ATHEISM.
the purely intellectual aspects of the subject and point out
a few of the Moral difficulties which meet the Theist__ diffi
culties he either ignores or explains in a very unsatisfactory
way.
J
The Theist proclaims a God who is infinitely good—
goodness itself, in fact ; whose “ tender mercies are over all
nis works, who is Humanity’s Great Father, and whose
nature is Love. Now all this might have continued undis
turbed in the world’s creed, if, unfortunately, the facts of
every-day life did not ceaselessly protest against such false
doctrines.
If infinite goodness really existed, such a thing as evil
would be impossible. I suppose no one will deny the
existence of evil; even the most thorough optimist must
sometimes be in doubt as to the correctness of his creed,
except he be too stupid to reflect. A fit of the gout,
sciatica, or a cancer would, I should suppose, convert the
most devout optimist into something more or less rational.
In the esteem of most men both physical and moral evils
exist in far too great plenty. Let us therefore reflect, i. If
I had the power I would remove every evil out of nature
and leave only what is useful and good. This I cannot
do for lack of ability. Give me the power and I will under
take the task. But if I have the power to remove one evil
and don t do it, you have the best of reasons for saying that
I am not so good as I should be. Now the orthodox
preach a God who, they solemnly assure us, is infinite in
being and in all his attributes j his power and knowledge
are absolutely infinite, and his goodness equal to either.
But this muet.be false, for such-a being could never have
suffered to exist any evil whatever, even for one moment.
A being infinitely good must will the existence of nothing
but good ; if he has all power and knowledge these must be
subservient to his will—if he be sane. But evils do exist:
these are the result (i) of his design or arrangement, for
nothing could slip in unawares to him; or (2) he had not
power to prevent nor is able now to destroy them ; or (3) he
is careless about their existence, and so does not wish them
to be destroyed; or (4) he desires their existence, and
actively favours their continuance. Which of these hypo
theses is correct ? No matter which , any one of the four
is. fatal to orthodoxy. If he arranged for evils in the
original creation, or introduced them subsequently, he must
himself be evil in the direct ratio of his knowledge and
�PHILOSOPHIC ATHEISM.
21
power; that is, on orthodox showing, he must be infinitely
evil, for he is infinitely knowing and able. Did a being of
boundless power and knowledge create evils, or create
materials and forces that in their “ workings ” must evolve
evils? The orthodox creed fairly implies this, though
believers shrink from its open and blank avowal. So be it—
the conclusion is inevitable, that he who made Nature, sup
posing it ever was made, and had full knowledge of what
he did, must be solely responsible for all that Nature
evolves.
Evils and goods are equally his offspring, not
begotten by momentary impulse, but after an eternity’s
(aparte ante) deliberation. But herein lies a contradiction;
goods and evils, or in the abstract, good and evil, are
diametrically opposed and incompatible. Therefore, an
infinite being could not will both goods and evils, except
alternately; and in that case they could not exist simulta
neously, for infinite power would instantly execute any wish
such a being might have ; the moment he willed evils goods
would cease, and vice versa. If the orthodox prefer to
suppose a God who wills both goods and evils simulta
neously, I will not at present contend with such an
absurdity.
Again, no Theist would aver that evils crept into Nature
or sprang up in its midst without his God’s knowledge or
power to prevent, as that would involve the conception of
ignorance or weakness. Nor could the orthodox suppose
that he without whom “ a sparrow falleth not,” and who
“ numbereth the very hairs of your head,” could be careless
of the existence of evils—that would un-God the deity at
once. Lastly, to suppose the creator and ruler of Nature
to desire the existence of evils, argues such a wicked or
malicious state of mind as really to shock the most callous
dogmatist in the world. What, therefore, can the Theist
say? Evils exist. How can he hold the doctrine of an
infinitely good, powerful, and wise God, with these un
deniable facts so constantly around him ?
Of course, most believers resort to the fiction of a future
life, and thus create a Utopian world to redress the wrongs
of this ; but that does not explain, it merely evades the
difficulty. For the question is, not the continuance or
redress of evils, but their existence. If the Theist could
prove that evils existed but for one moment, he would still
have to reconcile their existence with his God-theory—the
length of time is quite another affair. If, again, the believer
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PHILOSOPHIC ATHEISM.
could demonstrate that all evils would be redressed and
fully compensated, either here or hereafter, still that leaves
the real point untouched; for the question is, How does he
reconcile the existence of infinite goodness with the exist
ence of evils? Compensation may make amends, it never
can undo. Evils exist and the children of men groan
under them. Bitter are the tears that daily run down
sorrow s cheeks ; deep are the pangs and woes of humanity.
What ! can they be compensated ? Never. An eternity of
unmitigated bliss would not obliterate the furrows ploughed
by some woes that last but for an hour ■ if it could, what
of the existence of the evil, no matter how short its life ?
/ It seems to me beyond dispute that logic and common
/sense require the Theist to prove that no evil exists or ever
( did, or else give up his belief in an infinitely good God.
To talk of his “ permission ” of evil for wise but mysterious
reasons is mere shuffling. He who “permits” a known
evil he has power to destroy or prevent is so far guilty of
wrong ■ but with an Almighty God, to “ permit ” is to do,
since there is no power but his existing, and hence the evil
that results from his so-called “ permission ” is as actively
produced by him as any other thing he ever effects. When
man “permits ” he merely declines to check the operation
of certain forces not his own; when Almightiness “permits ”
he as actively works as he ever does.
Besides, it is sheer assumption to affirm that the unknown
purposes of the deity are wise. We can never know that a
man is wise except from his words and deeds : he whose
words and deeds are best we regard as the wisest. Now we
can read the character of God only in his deeds, for his
voice we never hear. It is only those works that strike us
as wise that can argue the wisdom of the designer of
nature and its ruler. If some of his deeds are wise, others
very doubtful, and others exceedingly unwise, tested by our
own and our only standard, we can but conclude that his
character is similarly mixed, uncertain, or heterogenous,
rv Theist will, prove the existence and perfect wisdom
of his deity by independent means, then we will readily
ajdmit that we have the best of reasons for supposing even
the most perplexing and staggering processes of nature are all
wise and good, only at present we are too ignorant to com
prehend how they are so. But the Theist first proves the
existence of his God from these very processes of nature, and
then argues the absolute perfection of his character from
�PHILOSOPHIC ATHEISM.
23
the same data; whereas nature merely presents evidence of
an imperfect, unwise, weak, and very evil-disposed or else
unfortunate deity. To argue perfection of character fromimperfect works; absolute goodness from a mixture of
goods and evils, in which the latter predominate; and;
infinite wisdom from a course of action in which wisdom;
and folly are freely mingled, is to ignore logic and to per-|
petrate an outrage upon common sense. And that the1
“constitution and course of Nature” do exhibit evils andt
goods, and at least as much folly as wisdom, none can!
intelligently deny.
■
’
On the whole I cannot avoid the conclusion that the
Theistic belief in a being of infinite goodness is entirely at
variance with the evidence. There is not, so far as I am
aware, a single fact or logical argument to support it; while
on the other hand, we know for certainty that infinite good
ness does not exist, for if it did, evils would be impossible.
What should we say in reply to one who asserted the theory
of an infinite light ? The only reply necessary would be to
point to one dark corner ! this would at once destroy the
hypothesis. Just so the existence of one evil is sufficient to
destroy all rational belief in infinite goodness. It is surely
time for the orthodox, if they wish to escape universal scorn,
to bethink themselves, and furnish some reasonable basis
for their faith; So far they have done nothing of the kind;
their whole creed is subjective, a genuine picture of their
own imagination, but as destitute of objective reality as
witchcraft or astrology.
But I shall be told, perhaps, that to destroy the belief in
a God is to annihilate the very basis and sanctions of
morality ! There are people, by no means insane, who' still
use this bugbear to frighten people into the orthodox fold.
It is curious to note how in every proposed change, the
timid and the designing raise the silly cry that reformers
are opening the floodgates, bursting the bonds of society,
and otherwise ruining the world! Alas ! how often this
world has been ruined by reformers, inventors, discoverers,
and others. I suggest that the theologian should go a step
further, and declare roundly that, without belief in a God
men would not know how to make boots, to till the ground,
to eat or drink, to build houses, and so forth. This would
be no more absurd than their cry about morality. I once
heard a man in serious debate affirm that we should have no
era to reckon the flight of time from, but for Christ! This
�24
PHILOSOPHIC ATHEISM.
I heard myself, and I was the unfortunate being who had to
reply to it. I further heard once of a monarchist who
solemnly assured a republican, that if we abolished the
present form of government we could have no current
money ! “ for,” he queried, with invincible logic, “ whose
head could we put upon the coins but the queen’s ? ”
Many believers are astonished when you tell them that
morality, like science, art, money, manners, language, etc.,
is a purely social growth or production, in fact, no more
divine than the art and weapons of war, or the skill and
weapons of the poisoner. And yet it would be quite as
easy to prove that money came from heaven as to prove
that morality did. It is not my intention at present to go
into the abstract question of morality, nor shall I attempt a
philosophy of ethics; I shall merely show that the Theist
has no monopoly of morality, that his theory respecting it is
.incorrect, and that, whencesoever its sanctions may be drawn,
they do not arise from theology. Let us see:
I. The Bible is held by a very large number of European
Theists to be a book inspired by God, and a sufficient moral
and a religious guide for man. I say they hold these doc
trines, that is, have them in their creeds and formulas, but
the best of them in real life, ignore the Bible, and walk by
higher rules than it contains. As to the divine origin of
the Bible, that has never been proved; the so-called evi
dence is unsatisfactory in the highest degree; and it would
be nothing less than a calamity if such a book could be
proved to have had any higher origin than other ancient
works. It contains the silliest of stories—told, too, with all
solemnity—the worst morality in the world; and we are
assured it is all divine. Its precepts the churches them
selves never think of obeying; its examples they dare not
follow, while large portions of it shock and horrify all
civilised persons. The best morality of the Bible is common
place enough, though paraded with such solemnity as to
impose upon many tolerably enlightened people. The
Bible is certainly not the source, nor can it ever be the
standard of the world’s Morality.
Let us next see if the Theist can draw lessons or
elements of morality from Nature. I speak now of Nature
apart from society, and I roundly affirm that Nature knows
nought of morality, nor do ethics enter at all into her
processes.
i. All through Nature the strong oppresses and eats up
�PHILOSOPHIC ATHEISM.
25
the weak, and the life of one being involves the destruction
of another, often of thousands daily. This is not morality,
and if done by the arrangement, or even connivance, of a
being able to have prevented it, it must be characterised as
monstrous iniquity.
2. Nature nowhere, in no way, manifests government.
An overruling Providence finds a place in creeds—that is,
in the fictions of the churches; but it exists nowhere else.
Consider these few undeniable facts: (i) Nature has never
yet been able to distinguish, in the very simplest cases,
between right and wrong, crime and accident, sin and mis
fortune. For example—if a man jump down a precipice he
is dashed to pieces—perhaps he deserves it; but if he should
accidentally fall down he suffers to precisely the same
extent; yes,-if he is wilfully flung down by murderers, it is
all the same in the end. Is that justice? Let us compare.
A jumps wilfully off a house and is killed; B accidentally
falls off, and meets the same fate; C is flung off by his
enemies, and is also killed. The three bodies are taken
before a coroner, and the jury, after being made acquainted
with all the facts of each case, return the same verdict for
all three. What should we say if they pleaded that, whereas
A, B, and C did all come by their deaths by too precipitate
a descent from the top of the house, therefore A, B, and C
all alike deserved the fate they met ? Such a verdict and
defence of it would involve about equal quantities of truth,
absurdity, and injustice. But Nature would justify that
stupid jury, and they might plead in self-defence that,
whereas the three died in consequence of their respective
falls, it was evident that Nature regarded them as equally
guilty, and they did not in the least desire to improve upon
the ways of Nature. Now, if Nature must be taken as the
exponent of deity, we can only conclude that deity cannot
distinguish between right and wrong, for in the course of
Nature, by which he governs (?) the sentient beings of this
world, he treats accidents, mistakes, and the greatest mis
fortunes as if they were the greatest crimes, and oftener
inflicts pain upon the innocent than upon the guilty.
(2) Further, if Nature teaches anything in the cases just
supposed, it teaches that murder is an innocent deed, if not
a commendable one; for, while the three who are the sub
jects of accident, suicide, and crime are killed summarily
by the forces of Nature, those who murdered the one not
only survive him, but possibly, as often happens, actually
�26
PHILOSOPHIC ATHEISM.
enjoy property and pleasures that honestly • belonged to
their victim. And it must not be forgotten that all natural
forces are, ifTheists speak truth, forces of God; in fact,
mere results of his own will.
This is a point so often ignored that I must spend another
sentence or two upon it to impress it on the reader’s mind.
All that is was created, so Theists say, by an Almighty and
otherwise Infinite God. That being so, the forces of Nature
are such only by derivation, nay, not derivation even—they
are merely the power or powers of God himself, exhibited
under certain circumstances or conditions. Now all natural
processes must be nothing more than actions of deity—he
does all that is done—if the premises of Theism are correct.
This being so, the destructive processes of Nature, and
those that give pain, are actions of God equally with those
which evolve new life or mantle the face of man with,
pleasure. If all this is true, we have in Nature a clear,
constant, and truthful exponent of God’s moral character;
and what a character ! Justice and wisdom are entirely
absent. Indeed, you look in vain to Nature, that is (in
directly) to God, for any one of those qualities esteemed
among men, while many of those society everywhere punishes
are very painfully and palpably present.
(3) To pursue this somewhat further, we may look for a
few moments at some of the frightful evils that have and
still do curse the world :
In an earthquake, a flood, or a storm, we see the deity
roused to fury and venting his rage indiscriminately upon
all who happen to be within reach. Not one of the victims
deserves such treatment, as far as we know; certainly the
infants don’t; yet they are ground to powder, drowned or
otherwise killed, as if they were the greatest offenders. . Is
that government ? and moral government ? The Turkish
manner of ruling Bulgaria was a trifle to this !
Again, how deaf the deity is to cries and prayers ! In
railway collisions, falls of bridges, shipwrecks, and other
catastrophes, you may call, no matter how passionately, to
the ruler of Nature.
He no more attends you than does
the wind, the wave, the iron, the rocks that surround you.
He might help without the smallest trouble or inconveni
ence, for he knows all, he hears all, is ever present, and has
almighty power— so Theists say. A man who will not help
when he sees calamity fall upon his fellows, is next to a
murderer, and is justly execrated. Yet he may plead some
�PHILOSOPHIC ATHEISM.
27
seeming or partial excuses. What could we say, if we were
certain there really existed a God who could look coolly on
in the direst calamity that ever befals men ? The thought
is so sickening I dare not dwell upon it. .Yet that is only
one part of the subject. Human calamity! It is all planned
and executed by the deity; no wonder he does not move to
the rescue. And what does he, can he gain ? It is all for
nought! The devil is said to torment for his pleasure;
not so the Almighty—he can never want a pleasure.
There have been millions of occasions in the world’s
history when the worst government worthy of the name must
have interposed to prevent or remedy mischiefs among its
subjects. What priesthood ever existed that did not speak
and act in the name, and professedly by the authority
of God, the Great Ruler ? Where was that ruler when
Moses and Joshua perpetrated such horrible villanies in his
name? Where was he.when the Pope and the Inquisition
were perpetrating horrid lies in his name, and burning Jews
and heretics for his pleasure ? Did he ever interpose to
prevent or close a war, or famine, or pestilence ? When ?
One case stands out in glaring colours as I sweep the
horizon of the world’s history. A company of fanatics or
knaves concocted a scheme for conveying letters to the
Virgin. Mary in heaven. It was the Feast of the Immaculate
Conception, and the church of La Compania, in Santiago,
Chili, was crammed with 2,000 women, deceived in the name
of Deity, and panting to communicate with the Mother of
God. Thousands of lamps lit up the temple, and thousands
of yards of muslin festooned the place. Suddenly rose the
flames, and played in horrid sport along the drapery. There
is a panic, wild and horrible ! a stampede for the doors,
which are soon choked with quivering, dying humanity, and
all exit is stopped. The ceiling catches fire, and streams
of molten lead pour down upon their living flesh ! The
paraffin lamps burst in the heat, and shower down their
contents in sheets and jets and wreaths of fire !
What an opportunity for a God ! Where was he that he
missed it! The people across the street could look through
the church windows and see the agonised victims running
to and fro in that hell, wringing their hands, and calling
upon men, and angels, and God, to save them. Not a
person who saw that sight—except Ugarte, the fiend-priest,
who saved the Virgin’s image and his own carcase, while he
left the women to seethe and burn—except him, no other
�28
PHILOSOPHIC ATHEISM.
being in the universe would have hesitated to risk his own
life to snatch one of those women from perdition ! But
Theist, where was your God? Your great ruler of the
world ? Your Father which is in heaven and everywhere ?
Whose tender mercies are over all his works? Did he
know ? Was he by ? O, Sir ! you are the blasphemers,
not we
You invent a God and give him all power, make
him all-knowing, and invest him with absolute and bound
less rule—then you write history, every page of which
proclaims your deity an infinite fiend! Sir, burn your
creed, or destroy history! Confess your errors, or else
reconcile the course of the world with the character of your
God ! At present you outrage our best sentiments. Be
ashamed and blush ! Your Bible tells us your God at one
time could so far demean himself as to order Aaron a bran
new suit of holiday clothes, giving minute directions for
every article, even to the pantaloons ! At another time he
stood or sat in stolid indifference, watching the agony of
2000 burning women deceived in his name, whose bodies
were roasting in 7zA own fire—for that fire would not have
burned had he not supplied the power.
I might pursue this subject, but there is no need. I do
not pretend to understand Nature; glimpses and broken
gleams of truth are all that fall to my share. But what little
I do know is all in favour of Atheism. The best light I
have leads up that path; the purest and noblest feelings of
my nature make me shudder at the God-conception—
yea ! even for its own sake. I cannot endure the thought that
any being exists so great and so wicked as the ordinary
orthodox God. The conception is altogether monstrous,
unnecessary, and full of mischief; for the history of Godism
is also the record of the densest ignorance, the worst folly,
the deepest degradation, and the foulest crimes of our most
unfortunate and bewildered race.
�THE
METHODIST
CONFERENCE
AND
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Do its Defenders Believe the Doctrine ?
By J. SYMES, formerly Wesleyan Minister.
HOSPITALS
and
3d.
DISPENSARIES,
Are they of Christian Growth ?
By J. SYMES,
id.
MAN’S PLACE IN NATURE,
Or Man an Animal amongst Animals.
By J. SYMES.
4<1-
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�
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Philosophic atheism : a bundle of fragments
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Symes, Joseph [1841-1906]
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Place of publication: London
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K 237^
nJ
NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY
THE EDUCATION OF GIRLS.
4
(S. -“3 aXA-x^vx,
essa;y i.
Jod. Thou breathest to
Thou who art life itself.’
us the breath of life,
hi. IV. II
The student who has patiently followed these essays thus
far through the labyrinth of cumbrous dissertations is now
to lift his head from the darkness which abides under the
skirt of Wisdom, and from groping after Her secret trea
sures of This Place nro mpn m, to behold for a season
the light of Her countenance without: to the end that from
that which is above he may understand that which is below,
and from that which is below may seek that which is above:
and so learning to live for Her by whom and for whom all
worlds exist may strive and fight for Her, not as one that
beateth the air.
We are now to breathe a new atmosphere, the daylight
of the outer and upper sky where it gleams abroad on the
busy world, on the vast mart of individual and social
interests. The shadowy cloister of philosophy must soon
throw open its doors, and our disputants Ish and Adam
walk forth together into the high road and join the motley
throng of human beings as they are, in order to see and
hear what now is, and to judge what shall be hereafter.
They must carry with them no prejudices, not even such as
seemingly tend to the social elevation of woman ; for flat
tery is hardly less detrimental to that cause than deprecia
tion. Preceding arguments have more than once been
directed to point out the all-important philosophic distinc
tion between woman and women; and we must not mix up
the eternal Divinity of the former with the manifold and
multiform failings and imperfections of the latter. Our
task is to teach what women are born to be, and to show
that the education and consequent habits of the world
hitherto have directly tended to bring girls up to woman
hood in complete and exact reversal of that course of
development which belongs to their innate qualities and
�2
THE EDUCATION OE GIBUS.
powers; the consequence of which perversion—that is, thcfirst consequence ; for a ghastly and almost endless train
attaches to it—is the undeniable, though perhaps not
obvious, fact, that no one has ever yet seen a real grown-up
woman, and no one knows what such a woman woidd be
capable of.
This may seem a paradox, but it is really an axiom. No'
existing woman nor man would have become what she or
he is at this moment but for her or his social surroundings,
past and present. We are each and all what our social
circumstances and the use we have put them to have made
us ; and the vast differences, especially mental differences,
which we observe among members of the same sex are,
generally speaking, quite as much, if not more, induced
from without than arising from within; no idiosyncracy
being strong enough to stand quite alone in all matters
whatever against the current of the time.
Well, then, who can point to a time and a place in the
world’s history where the current of social life, the influenceof the social atmosphere, flowed in the direction of treating
woman as the spiritual superior, or even equal, of man ?
Where and when has this been done, I ask—done soearnestly and effectually that adverse influences from with
out could never penetrate and vitiate that hallowed sphere ;
When and where did any woman, during her growth to
womanhood, ever breathe a social atmosphere the main,
weight of which was not dead against female supremacy in
either world ? But if such a state of things can nowhere
be pointed at, we come back perforce to this conclusion: a
real grown-up woman has not yet appeared in this icorld.
And even this is not all; the question follows, whether man
can be fully human while woman is not. In the subsequent
pages it will be considered whether he can. Meanwhile
here is on exposition of her views on the great social
question, written by a lady to the Examiner periodical of'
May 20th, 1871, showing how some few of our women, even
*
as they are, can rise equal to occasion.
WOMAN SUFFRAGE.
Sir,—At the various meetings and conferences that have
been held, and in the lectures that have been delivered, during
the last few weeks on the Woman Suffrage question, an enor
mous amount of reason and argument in favour of the removal of
�THE EDUCATION OF GIRLS.
o
political disabilities from women has been brought to bear on it.
It has, indeed, been asserted by several of the speakers, that all
the reason is on their side of the question, and the assertion has
not been disproved. “The objections of our opponents,” said
Dr. Lyon Playfair at the meeting at St. James’s Hall, “are
entirely of a sentimental character.”
Now, while perfectly concurring in the judgment that in
deciding all questions affecting great human interests, reason
should have the first place and sentiment the second; and that
in this particular question there is a weight of reason on one
side, and on the other nothing but sentiment, and sentiment
mostly of a very weak and washy character, it ought not to be
put so completely out of the question as the advocates of the
measure generally do. For even were the stout offensive weapons
of reason sheathed altogether, it could hold its ground, and ulti
mately win its way by the preponderating force of the highest
and purest sentiment it has in its favour.
There is now, say the opponents of Woman Suffrage, an
amiable forbearance to the ignorances and follies of women, and
an affection—occasionally a little contemptuous, no doubt—for
their weakness and defects, on the part of men, which is very
pleasant to see; while, on the other hand, women look up to
men with a sweet fearful humility, confide their whole social
and moral well-being to them with a beautiful unquestioning
trustfulness that is equally delightful and refreshing to behold.
All of which would be utterly destroyed by the social equality
of the sexes that the gift of political power to women would
necessary entail; and also by the intellectual equality that,
women’s minds being thus raised to take interest in a higher
range of subjects than they have yet done, must inevitably
follow. One honourable member of the House of Commons, in
the recent debate, reminded his brethren that a woman’s husband
should rule over her, and that “fear and blushing” were her
proper mental and physical conditions: while another dutifully
called to their remembrance the “ illogical and unreasonable
words which they had heard at their mothers’ knees,” and
warned them that if this bill passed their sons and grandsons to
come would have no such agreeable recollections to solace and
comfort them in manhood and old age. He also called upon
them to observe the dangerous element of priestly power that
would thus be introduced into our legislature, priests and such
like persons having always a pernicious influence over the illo
gical minds of women; a line of talk—I won’t dignify it by the
name of argument—carried still further by another honourable
member, who, with the eye of a seer, perceived in Woman
Suffrage the beginning of a Jesuitical rule that would ultimately
submerge all the Protestant liberties of England.
r!
But none of these honourable gentleman saw in this Bill the
foundation of a hope that finds a place in the breast of every
�4
THE EDUCATION OF GIRLS.
one who takes a large and comprehensive view of society as it
has been, as it is, as it may be in the time to come ; for a new
and higher, and—for both—a happier moral and intellectual
relation of the sexes than the contemptuous forbearance and
terrified confidence—the latter too often misplaced—that, on the
showing of those who are doing their utmost to maintain it,
form the type of the existing state of things. Looking each no
further than himself and his own illogical woman—or women,
as the member for Kilmarnock naively suggested—whom he
finds it agreeable to him to have and to hold in a state of admir
ing subjection to his superior wisdom, their minds were closed
to that far nobler conception of the human life, in its twofold
aspect, that the promoters of this Bill aspire to see realised
among us; not, as now, exceptionally, but universally, as
humanity advances still further towards perfection. The conception of man and woman united, not as the master and the
slave, the possessor and the possessed, which places an almost
insurmountable barrier between their moral natures, but as co
inheritors of all freedom and knowledge and truth; working
together for the same great end, the moral, intellectual, and
physical advancement of the human race. The diversities of
the two natures, not of necessity dividing them in every aim
and object and pursuit in life, but recognised rather as intended
that, the two working for the same purpose, each shall supply
the lack of the other. The inequalities of two natures fitted
together until they become one nature ; the greater breadth of
thought filling the space left by the narrower ; the firmer grasp
of mind holding the weaker in its place ; the quicker perceptions
stimulating the slower; the readier sympathies bringing out the
more backward; and the more acute reasoning faculties, and
the more profound, giving each to each what the other wants,
all joined together harmoniously to form a perfect whole.
This is the relation between the sexes that those who are
demanding the political equality of women hope to see arise,
upon the destruction of the other which the opponents of the
measure say—and with the very correct prescience—will be its
inevitable result.
But that such a relation could be established until women
have equal political rights and equal educational advantages
with men is impossible. It is met with now, no doubt, but only
in rare individual cases where men, contemning the power the
law gives them, practically make it a dead letter, and where
women, having educated themselves, notwithstanding that they
are deprived of political rights, work by any indirect means that
they can to advance great political ends, the furtherence of social
reforms and the general welfare of the community. But the
number of men who, having power, will not use it, are few.
And the number of women who will have convictions and
interests without the right to give them effect, and who will have
�THE EDUCATION OF GIRLS.
$
tie Courage and resolution to work on themselves to undo all
that governess, and the schoolmistress, and the world in general
have done for them—and when they have destroyed the super
structure of folly and frivolity and falsehood that these have
raised up upon their minds to build another of true knowledge
and common sense there instead—are fewer still. For it is a
(much harder thing to do ; truly any one of the labours of Hercules was light in comparison ! And yet this is what every
woman must do who wants to raise herself out of the slough of
Ignorance and apathy and error about everything that is good
and great, in which the majority of her sex are sunk, unless she
kappen to have had the good fortune not to be educated at all,
When her labour is diminished one half.
®ie folly that supposes political rights and educational advan
tages would make every woman aspire to rule the State and
toeglcet her personal duties, is scarcely worth noticing. It is
sufficient for its refutation to say that as the power to vote does
not make the bank-clerk or the shopkeeper neglect his desk or
OffittBter, to indulge in dreams of being Chancellor of the Ex
chequer or Prime Minister, there can be no possible grounds for
Supposing that it would make his mother or sister do so : or, if
dreaded universal suffrage came to pass, his wife or daughter
either; even though they were all educated to be bank clerks
and shopkeepers’ wives and mothers, instead of poor imitations
of fine ladies as they are at present. Placing women on an
equality with men would never raise them .above them. The
*
terror that some of these lower orders of men now indulge in, of
the world under the new regime coming to such a pass that they
Would have none but female Gladstones and John Stuart Mills
®nd Professor Huxleys in petticoats to marry, is without a shadow
of .foundation. Education will always be controlled by capacity,
if not by circumstance ; while, given its fair chance, genius is
sure to rise to its own level.
But, as all political economists know, everyone who works
Conscientiously and intelligently in his own place—be that place
ever so small and obscure a one—is giving his quota of help to
#ie prosperity of the State. And it is hard for women, whatever
be their place, to work either conscientiously or intelligently,
with the moral and mental obliquities, consequent on their mis
directed education, and the degraded social status that they suffer
from at present.
Another of the fanciful terrors that haunt the minds of men
opposed to women having political power, and the natural con
sequence of political power, political convictions, is, that
politics would then form one of the general topics of conversa
tion between men and women in society, and would introduce
an dement of bitterness and dissension instead of the sweet
That remains to be seen.
[Present Author.}
�6
THE EDUCATION OF GIRLS.
melliferousness that now characterises such intercourse. This
spectre, it is true, has some more reality about him than those
already disposed of; he has rattling bones at least, and is Lnot
one of the mere “airy nothings” they were. I admit that
women having a knowledge of, and an interest in, questions that
men only are now informed about and interested in, would be
likely to alter, to a very considerable degree, what is at present
the almost prevailing tone of the mixed society of both sexes.
But I cannot think that this would be an evil; on the con
trary, I believe that it would be a good; and a good so great
that to bring it about would be alone worth making the change.
As society at present exists, conversation between young men
and women, who are in person or manner excessively un
attractive to each other, is utterly insane and uninteresting to
both, and done merely as a duty to society. But, on the con
trary, if there be anything outwardly attractive in either to the
other, often when only very slightly attractive, sometimes
when merely negative, this intercourse assumes a tone called
by different names in the parlance of society, but which is, in
reality, a mutual excitation, or attempt at excitation, in a greater
or less degree, of sexual feelings, equally pernicious in its
effects on both. This will doubtless be called exaggeration,
but I need only point to the lists of broken troth-plights and
miserable marriages that the newspapers and each person’s
private circle of acquaintance furnish to verify the truth of the
assertion. What do these innumerable cases of men and
women, without the slightest real affinity in their natures, rush
ing into engagements and unions that end either in shameful
faithlessness or miserable bondage arise from but the fact that,
in the ordinary intercourse between men and women, there is
no opening for either to know anything of the other’s real mind
or disposition, while every effort is made on both sides to excite
a spurious admiration and love ? *
With no fear that educated Englishmen and Englishwomen
will ever be roused by political feeling to throw wine-glasses or
tea-cups at each other’s heads, or, in any other way, to forget
the respect due to each other, and each other’s honest convic
tions, serious thinking people might well rejoice to see elements
introduced into their association that would develop their real
sympathies and antipathies, bringing together only those whom
nature intended to be brought together, and sundering those
who ought to be sundered. “Fancy,” cry the ghoul-hunted
“a Conservative man married to a Radical woman, or vice versa!
There would be an end to all domestic peace ! ” We need
fancy no such thing. The skeleton of the rattling bones puts
* As spurious it is no doubt pernicious ; but were Divine Order fol
lowed, and sexual relations placed on a different footing, it would not be
so. [Present Author.]
�THE EDUCATION OF GIRLS.
7
this phantom completely to rout. On the showing of those
whose imaginations are frighted by these hobgoblins, such a
thing would be an impossibility. But without going so far as
to suppose that Conservative young men and Radical young
women, or the reverse, would ever be led, by the difference of
their opinions, to pull each other’s hair or punch each other’s
heads when they met in society, we must believe that the great
differences of mind that lead to these two mental conditions
would then be so apparent that there would be no possibility of
making a mistake on the subject; though the mistake may
easily occur under the present state of things, when, if a woman
happen to have any unlawful political opinions, she is frightened
into concealing them by the threat of her else incurring the
dreaded odium of all her male acquaintances.
But, with a new era of equal rights and equal knowledge for
women, we may hope to see this reign of terror for both sexes
come to an end. Then the day will come when a man will
not shrink, through a miserable vanity and self-conceit, from
owning that his wife is gifted with reason, as he is, and has the
same right to use it; above all, when he will be ashamed to
proclaim before his countrymen that he believes her to be such
a slave to the bigotry and superstition of priests, that even his
great controlling wisdom cannot direct her how to use her liberty
aright, and that he, therefore, dreads to give her the common free
dom and rights of a citizen—rather when he will rejoice in
having beside him a companion and fellow-worker to aid him in
carrying out his greatest aims, and in realising his highest
aspirations.—I am, &c.,
Alice Perrier.
Still more powerful is the following extract from a pam
phlet on the same subject by a well-known writer and
lecturer, Mrs. Annie Besant:—
Lastly, I would urge on those who believe in women’s natural
inferiority, why, in the name of common sense, are you so
terribly afraid of putting your theory to the proof? Open to
women the learned professions; unlock the gates which bar her
out from your mental strifes; give her no favour, no special
advantage; let her race you on even terms. She must fail, if
nature be against her—she must be beaten, if nature has in
capacitated her for the struggle. Why do you fear to let her
challenge you, if she is weighted not only with the transmitted
effects of long centuries of inferiority, but is also bound with
nature’s iron chain? Try. If you are so sure about nature’s
verdict, do not fear her arbitration; but if you shrink from our
rivalry, wemustbelievethatyoufeel ourequality, and, to cover your
own doubts of your superiority, you prattle about our feebleness.
“Women are indifferent about the possession of the fran
chise.” If this is altogether true, it is very odd that there
�8
THE EDUCATION OF GIRLS.
should be so much agitation going on about the subject. But I
am quite willing to grant that the mass of women are indif
ferent about the matter. Alas! it has always been so. Those
who stand up to champion an oppressed class do not look for
gratitude from those for whom they labour. It is the bitterest
curse of oppression that it crushes out in the breast of the
oppressed the very wish to be free. A man once spent long
years in the Bastille ; shut up in his youth, old age found him
still in his dungeon. The people assailed the prison, and
amongst others, this prisoner was set free; but the sunshine
was agony to the eyes long accustomed to the darkness, and the
fresh stir of life was as thunder to the ears accustomed to the
silence of the dungeon; the prisoner pleaded to be kept a prisoner
still. Was his action a proof that freedom is not fair? The slaves,
after generations of bondage, were willing to remain slaves
where their masters were kind and good. Is this a proof that
liberty is not the birthright of a man ? And this rule holds
good in all, and not only in the extreme cases I have cited.
Habit, custom, make hard things easy. If a woman is educated
to regard man as her natural lord, she will do so. If the man
to whom her lot falls is kind to her, she will be contented; if
he is unkind, she will be unhappy; but, unless she be an excep
tional character, she will not think of resistance. But women
are now beginning to think of resistance ; a deep, low, mur
muring is going on, suppressed as yet, but daily growing in
intensity; and such a murmur has always been the herald of
revolt. Further, do men think of what they are doing when
they taunt the present agitators with the indifference shown
by women? They are, in effect, telling us, that if we are in
earnest in this matter, we must force it on their attention; we
must agitate till every home in England rings with the subject;
we must agitate till mass meetings in every town compel them
to hear us ; we must agitate till every woman has our arguments
at her fingers’ end. Ah! you are not wise to throw in our
*
teeth the indifference of women. You are stinging us into a
determination that this indifference shall not last; you are nerving
us to a struggle, which will be fiercer than you dream ; you are
forcing us into an agitation which will convulse the State. You
dare to make indifference a plea for injustice. Very well; then
the indifference shall soon be a thing of the past. You have as
yet the frivolous, the childish, the thoughtless on your side; but
the cream of womanhood is against you. We will educate women
to reason and to think, and then the mass will only want a leader.
However, it is not to be pretended that philosophic, any
* Argumentative agitation ought of course, to be tried in the first
place; but, should arguments fail, women have a reserve force in
waiting. [Present Author. ]
�THE JEOTJCATION OR GIRLS.
more than diplomatic, controversy can be carried on withont a definite basis of negotiation ; and if we are to predi
cate right and wrong of a given state or states of society at
large, we must adopt some standard of what ought to be,
whereby to judge the character of what is. It hardly needs
to be said that the standard adopted in this work is the
hypothesis of the work—namely, the essential spiritual
Supremacy of woman over every other being in the universe,
and so of course over the universe of Nature itself, in the
same manner in which an individual woman is over and
above her own speech or her own clothes. Hence it is
necessary to take the religious aspect of the question as the
fundamental groundwork of every other aspect; for indeed
religion is truly but the final summing-up of all kinds of
practical utility.
The great lesson to be learnt, the fundamental axiom to
be engrained upon the mind of every one who aspires to
break the fetters wrought by a false and evil social edu
cation, is that this question of woman’s spiritual birthright
is one about which there can be no sort of parley or com
promise. The writer of the letter to the Examiner speaks in
a tone which seems to encourage the idea of sexual equality.
Now this is right enough in a certain restricted sense, but
in that only. It is only in view of the temporal co-operatfon of the sexes toward reunion in the Divine Female
Unity that the question of equality can be entertained. It
is certainly requisite that women should compete with men
on fair and equitable terms in all mundane matters, great and
small, in the government of Europe and America, as at the
chess-board, or in any other game. But to infer, from the
fact of the two sexes getting on best by mutual help and
competition in the earth-world, that man can be the equal
of woman spiritually, is neither more nor less than to make
Good and Evil equal, or two Infinites—a manifest ab
surdity. It is the destiny of the masculine or evil principle
in the universe to be finally reabsorbed into the feminine or
good principle, and so annihilated; hence doctrine or prac
tice which may be inconsistent with this knowledge must
always end in futility and failure, as it always has done.
This being clearly understood, and the spiritual dominion
*
* Demonstration of the doctrines thus sketched cannot be given
■within the compass of this pamphlet, which has a more immediate and
practical purpose.
�10
THE EDUCATION OE GIRLS.
being put aside as inherently and essentially belonging to
woman only, we can afford to be quite impartial between
the sexes in all other concerns. And the best service
which those who have the opportunity can render to women
is not to flatter or favour them, but to provide fair oppor
tunities for both sexes to compete, and then pay or reward
by results only, and not according to the sex of the worker,
or on any other extraneous consideration. There will, pro
bably, always be some physical matters in which a man can
do better than a woman, just as there are others in which a
horse or ox can do better than a man; these will soon show
themselves under any regime. For the rest open competition
will prove woman’s best title-deed.
The one-sided system under which we live cramps
the efforts even of wealthy benevolence. We see many
a wealthy philanthropist, no doubt, men who would do
good far and wide if they could, and who would not be
narrow and selfish if they could help it. But they cannot
help it so long as the social atmosphere they breathe is one
of general suspicion and distrust, of caution against being
over-reached, even by one’s friends, for their own benefit or
aggrandisement; so long as misunderstanding and envy
take the place of co-operation and sympathy. And I say
that so long as one of the sexes—and that the higher sex—
is kept from its rights, and artificially stunted in its capaci
ties, this state of things cannot be altered. History will
repeat itself with its woes and horrors, for there is
nothing to prevent similar circumstances kindling similar
passions, however hard they may have been scrubbed
in the meanwhile by the polishing-brush of an unsound
civilisation.
The Dialogists may now appear.
Adam. You know well, Ish, how to state your views
forcibly; but a good statement does not always involve a
strong case. Granted the folly and unmanliness of sitting
down helpless under admitted evils, it does not follow that
we are safe in receiving with open arms the first worldbetterer who comes forward with an offer of ready made
universal regeneration. Many plausible panaceas have been
tried, and you will agree with me that they have all failed
in their main object. Wh^ should we expect for yours a
better fortune than for all those that have gone before ?
�THE EDUCATION OF GIRLS.
11
Ish. The upshot of all which is—that there is never to he a
sensible improvement here in the circumstances of mankind!
If so, I think Wordsworth’s supposition about fire coming
down from far to scorch earth’s pleasant habitations and
dry up old ocean, in his bed left singed and bare, was no
idle one. The sooner this planet is burnt the better. After
all, the idea is not peculiar to Wordsworth or to his times.
Paul, I think, said something about the elements melting
some day with fervent heat; and thus much, at any rate, is
well known, that certain of the heavenly bodies have
already disappeared suddenly and unaccountably. May we
not reasonably fancy that their inhabitants had been offered
the last chance and would not take it ? But putting poets
and theologians aside, it is quite safe to say that in the
absence of much greater knowledge than our men of science
yet possess concerning the possible contingent causes of
sudden generation of excessive heat in the sun or in some
still more powerful star—the tenure of this little tem
poral home of ours, with its beauties and its drawbacks,
may be much more precarious than we are accustomed
to believe.
A. Save us, Ish! that is a tremendous threat. I hope
this earth will take care to improve before so violent a
remedy as that becomes necessary.
I. Not on its present style of going on. But my hope and
belief is that things will change for the better and obviate
all occasion for the human race to be rubbed out, and have
to begin again at the beginning.
A. I hope so too. I do not go so far as to deny the
likelihood of the world being bettered, I assure you.
I. Well, then, how far do you go ? Let us have something
definite.
A. I mean no more than what I have already said, that a
heavy burden of proof lies on the side of such innovation as
yours.
I. As heavy as you please. Only the proof, mind you,
lies not in talking, but in doing. I do not ask you or society
to take my words for anything ; I ask you to do your duty
by woman, and set her free from her present thralls, and it
will then be for her, not me, to prove the truth of what I
say. The burden of proof may |ie upon me, but the burden
of unperformed duty lies upon your side ; and that is a far
more serious matter.
�12
THE EDUCATION OF GIRLS.
A. Ah, then you do not rest your claim for woman’s
emancipation upon the fact of her essential divinity ?
I. Certainly not. I make, it is true, both claims; but
they are quite independent of each other. I arraign you in
the first instance for systematically ill-treating a portion,
the greater portion, I believe, of mankind. That is the first
step ; my assertion of her exclusive divinity is a step beyond.
A. I see. Well, then, to deal with the first step; how
does it happen that the female race exists in a generally
inferior position to the male race all over the world? You
denounce the fact as an abuse; but I should like to hear
you account for it.
I. It happens simply by the law of brute force; which
law, as humanity develops more, that is, rises in the scale of
its own being, gradually gives way to the higher law, that
of spiritual force, which is woman’s strength.
A. You mean, then, that man has no other superiority
over woman than that which great brutes have over him.
I. Just so.
A. But is it so? Putting causes aside, and looking to
their effects, do you not find yourself obliged for candour’s
sake to allow that, as men and women have hitherto been
and still are, the male sex has excelled the female in per
formances which savour not at all of the brutal, but quite
the contrary ? To take notorious instances near home,
what woman has written like Shakspere, has composed like
Beethoven—in short, not to enlarge, where have women
hitherto accomplished works in any department open to both
sexes equal to the best that men have accomplished ? It
does seem to me strange at the outset, that the superior sex
should be beaten by the inferior in nearly all—I am by no
means sure I might not say quite all—real practical doings.
I will add that, let alone higher things, it has yet to be
shown that men could not, by practice, also tend children,
and make beds, and mend clothes, and do all other domestic
duties commonly supposed to be women’s special province,
as well, aye and better, than women themselves. I am free
to avow that my notion of superiority is one of superior
performance even more than of beautiful appearance; and
if women generally cannot do what men generally can, what
is their superiority worth, even if it exist? You see, it is
one thing to aspire to the glories of heaven, and another to
condescend to recognise the utilities of earth.
�THE EDUCATION OF GIRLS.
13
I. Is that meant to imply that the glories of heaven are
not worth taking trouble about, while the utilities of earth
are? At any rate, then, let the glories of heaven be left
to woman, and let man confine himself to the utilities of earth.
A. No, but I don’t see how to reach the higher without
employing the lower.
I. Well, man has certainly not reached the glories of
heaven by his able use of earthly means. There can hardly
therefore, be that connection between the two which you suppose J
A. Come then, I waive heaven; woman shall be welcome
to it, so long as you leave earth to man.
I. I might retort that a compulsory cession is not meri
torious ; but let that pass. I cannot, however, leave man
to his misrule and usurpation of earth.
A. I suppose he must go to hell, then ?
I. Nay, nay; justice between the sexes in this world
makes the best earth for the male sex and the best heaven
for the female. But that justice has yet to be done.
When it is done, done in fulness without stint or reserve,
then the nations who sit in darkness and in the shadow of
death will have seen the beginning of a new heaven and a
new earth wherein shall dwell righteousness.
I grant, however, that your case would look strong enough
so far as regards the test by works, if only you could show
that women have had equal opportunities with men, and
therefore that their backwardness in productive arts must
proceed from some inherent defect of their nature. But
my argument—which I shall proceed to make good in detail
—is that the reason why women have not turned out Shaksperes and Beethovens, &c., is because they have not
been trained from early youth in such a manner as to give
their latent faculties a fair chance. I do not say but what
there might always remain a perceptible sexual difference
of mind as well as of body; but you have no ground for
assuming that such difference would place the female at
disadvantage; on the contrary, it is evident that analogy__
the only test we have to go by—points to a superiority on
the female side in the department of mind corresponding
to that she already undisputedly possesses in that of matter
—her physical beauty. Meanwhile, I am satisfied for the
present if you sincerely concede the first step and give up
the religious department of life to woman unreservedly.
�14
THE EDUCATION OF GIFTS.
ESSAY
‘ But now
‘
II.
been, how worse than
[blind !
Day by day we resist thy saving grace.’
blind have we
in. iv. iv.
The Dialogists may resume.
A. Come to the point, Ish; what do you formally pro
pose to substitute for a woman’s present surroundings and
bringing up ?
I. I propose, in a few words, that woman, from her
earliest infancy shall be systematically developed instead of
being systematically repressed and snubbed, as she is.
A. How is she so ? I must say that I cannot see it.
I. Let us begin, then, at the beginning proper, the
earliest influences common to childhood; and you will
discover, before we have done, that these influences are the
same as, or strictly analogous with, those which determine
our character at the close of this life—character, that one
thing which though we brought it not with us into the world,
yet it is certain we must carry out. The child is father to
the man, as Wordsworth says, in this sense, that the career
of the adult is foreshadowed by the peculiarities of the
infant; but then these peculiarities themselves assume a
healthy or an unhealthy form, accordingly as they are judi
ciously or injudiciously treated by those who have the rear
ing of the young mind.
Now, although between the treatment respectively of a
girl and of a boy just born there can hardly be much external
difference, there will, nevertheless, be a difference, too
subtle for ordinary people to observe, perhaps, but by no
means too subtle to affect the infants. I mean the differ
ence of what is termed atmosphere, in reference to the
spiritual world. Even while the new-born babe is wrapped
in a flannel covering and taken in the nurse’s arms, the
�THE EDUCATION OF GIRLS.
15
persons around the latter will begin to make their observa
tions ; and their words, which the babe cannot understand,
will be accompanied with looks expressive of affection or of
indifference, which there is good reason to believe it can.
The tones of the voice also have ei idently a strong effect
both on children and on lower animals. Now, without
assuming that we should everywhere meet with much differ
ence in the welcome given to a male or a female child;
without any ignoring of the fact that girls are often wel
comed where boys would not be—still I maintain that the
impulses generally evoked by the birth of a girl into a family,
the discussion of her promise of attractiveness, her possible
prospects in matrimony, &c., in short, her tacitly recognised
place as a tributary and appendage to the male—these things
floating and being ventilated around her, almost from the
very hour of her birth, coagulate the first stratum of that
poisoned spiritual atmosphere wherein she is destined to
grow up. The fondness for a baby girl felt in particular
instances by her parents and nurses may happen to exceed
that for a boy; but the fondness is of a different kind.
Ordinary persons have been accustomed to look upon boys
as those intended hereafter to be equals among themselves
in proportion to rank and wealth, and to be the masters of
women in their respective degrees. Consequently, it is not
to be expected that the future superior and the future
inferior in all matters of life should be regarded at the
outset of their lives with the same kind of affection, even
where the degree of it is in favour of the girl.
Thus, even before parents or guardians have begun to
dogmatise about the religious or moral training up of the
new-born girl, the atmosphere of that small society into
which she comes at her birth is dead against her. Of warm
love she may receive plenty; but it is rarely love of the
most precious kind; at the best, it is love that will provide
all attainable comforts and advantages for her lower nature,
and leave—nay, lead—her higher nature to perish. Be they
to whose care the infant is committed Jews, Christians,
Mahomedans, non-religionists, what you will, they all agree
in a common warfare against the divine order of the universe.
So the new-born girl inhales an atmosphere dead against her
spiritual life, so soon as her young eyes can discern faces
and her ears distinguish tones.
Let it not be thought that kindness of any sort, however
�16
THE EDUCATION OE GTKL.S.
mistaken its mode of working, is to be depreciated. The
young blind, led by the adult blind, will both, indeed, fall
into the ditch; but no one is further than I am from
disbelieving that the blind guides, as a rule, do their best
for their infant charge; and, moreover, I am sure that
there are some amongst them so honest and single-minded in
their simplicity, as to be capable of turning aside from the
evil way and walking in the right one, if only they could be
shown it. But, unfortunately, these are not the persons
who in this world form the mind and set the fashions of
society. It would almost seem as if mental culture were
laboured for only to be abused, so that in place of the head
being ruled by a good heart, the heart is misruled by a
perverted head until it has ceased to be honest. At any
rate, the knowledge of the sanctity hitherto attained by the
classes who make it their profession, has not exceeded that
amount which is proverbially dangerous ; the history of
priestcraft being a history of knowledge sufficient to become
an engine for misleading the masses, but not sufficient to
demonstrate beforehand what the event proves, that such
policy must bring about the falsification and corruption of
all social relations, and sooner or later bring down on its
authors and promoters the just execration of the lamely pro
gressing nations of the earth—still just, even although the
nations themselves were doubly in fault; first for having
made to themselves those crooked rules, and then for not
cutting them down like rotten trees so soon as ever their
character appeared. That character, it is true, depends
upon society, which thus moves in a vicious circle. A
superstitious laity sets up priests without natural qualifica
tion for their office; and these naturally take advantage of
their position to keep the laity conveniently superstitious.
And so the wheel goes round, without remedy, that I can
see, but in calling to our aid the dormant capacity of the
female race, and substituting the religion of nature and true
humanity for an ignoble idolatry which usurps its place.
�THE EDUCATION OF GIRLS.
17
ESSAY III.
[The same continued.']
I. I said that the fact of its social surroundings tending
to affect the character of an infant, is one which not all
minds may be able to comprehend. I think, however, that
few will be able to follow me into the next field of inquiry,
a spacious and sunny ground, where the objects to which I
shall direct attention are large, and simple, and common;
so that no hearer of my words shall be able to plead the
miserable excuse of his own intellectual weakness.
However hazy may be the notions many people have
concerning such things as spiritual atmosphere, they ought
to be able to follow me when 1 pass on to the period where
children begin to speak their little syllables and to take in
the drift of short sentences spoken to them, to distinguish
faces constantly seen, and to exercise acts of recent memory.
And here, in this manifest opening of education, comme-ces
the working of that evil spell which is to bruise and bll lit
the opening powers of the female child, and through her to
ruin the character of the male children with whom she con
verses, and through both to people the world with beings
who grow up, the one sex to be but half men, the other, it
is hardly exaggeration to say, not women at all.
Where, then, is the commencement of this evil spell’s
operation ? A little girl who has brothers ought to be inti
lectually the better for it; the sexual character of mines,
under the present terrestrial dispensation, being as much
intended for reciprocation as that of bodies. But what
benefits do we actually find ? The girl a year or two old,
just able to prattle and comprehend a few sentences, is at
once put by her mother or nurse, or both, into subjection
under her male companions on every occasion of a little
nursery quarrel about playthings, or some other storm in a
tea-cup. At best the little brothers are told that they should
give way to the little sisters on principles of chivalry, &c.,
�18
THE EDUCATION OF GIRLS.
so far as children can be taught such things ; that is to say,
because they are supposed to be the stronger, being: boys,
and the strong should always be generous to the weak. The
boy is to be kind to the girl on the principle that the merci
ful man is to be kind to his beast. I don’t mean that people
tell boys this in express words : but if they insinuate it that is
just as bad. They are doing their best, however unwit
tingly, to train up a child in the way of sacrilege and wrong;
and when he is old—nay, when he has attained the prime
of life—he will not depart from it.
A. Spoken like yourself, Ish. And, indeed, I am alive to
the reality of how much may be done by early impressions
for good or ill; but are you not making too much of it ?
For my part, I should be inclined to leave mothers and
nurses alone until the children are old enough to come
under wider influences, and then take care that these new
influences, which can easily be made to obliterate the old
ones, are of the right sort.
I. But why, my good friend, why go putting off to a
convenient season the duty which it behoves us to do to
day ? Why adopt or sanction a system of beginning wickedly
and foolishly, in the ungrounded confidence that you will
afterwards proceed righteously and wisely? If you may
spiritually debase your daughters at, say, four years old,
why not at seven ; if at seven, why not at seventeen, and so
on? Do you imagine it is so easy to say to the powers of
darkness, Thus far shall je go, and no further? No, no;
the only safety is in teaching children the principles of
divine order so soon as they are able to learn anything.
And I do not pretend that it will be a light task to neutra
lise the evil influence of so many past generations. But it
has to be done ; therefore, the sooner all classes buckle to
the business the better for all.
A. Well, but, Ish, how, for instance, in teaching young
children, would you account to them for the greater brute
force of the male ?
I. In the first place, I have great doubts whether this
quiet assumption about the male’s greater physical force is
not an utter delusion—I mean, of course, when we com
pare males and females of the same calibre. Of course, I
do not deny that men in general grow to a larger stature
than women in general, and have proportionally so much
more of that force which is identical with material weight.
�THE EDUCATION OF GIRLS.
It
Although, mind you, there is no reason why this order of
nature should continue. A very few generations might reverse
it. For instance, I believe the largest and tallest huma^
being now alive is a woman who lately exhibited herse1^London; and I lately read somewhere that Cuvier remarked ’
that the largest and heaviest brain he ever exfLmine(j wag...
that of a woman. These little straws show that tpe wjnq
seed not always set in the direction of Loan’s superiority
*
even in mere brute weight and its force, Moreover let me
remind you that enormous importance should attach to the
notorious fact that the existing modes of life of men and
boys generally is very much more calculated to develop
and haiden muscle than that of women and girls. So much
the worse for society and its customs; nevertheless, such
is the fact. And the difference between the muscles of the
same person properly exercised and not properly exercised,
is second only to that between the muscles of different
persons. Meanwhile, if great brute weight or force is ■
to be called superiority well and good. Only in that case, while you point out to children how 11 superior ” man isto woman, you must also point out to them how “ supe
rior” the elephant is to man, how “ superior” a great steamengine is to an elephant, how “superior” a falling cliff or
an irruption of the sea is to the steam-engine. Let it once
be cleaily settled that superiority means simply a greater
mass of inert matter, and then the assertion that man is
generally woman’s “ superior ” remains harmless so lon°- as
it holds good.
°
A. But are you sure that in a state of society where men
am women had equal opportunities and no favour physically
Old mentally, there would not be some performances in which
men would always excel women, as there would be others
m which women would excel men ?
7. I know of no evidence to show that men need always
surpass women in anything except those kinds of hard
labour, e.g., carrying heavy loads, which a woman in preg.
nancy, or during her menstrual periods, ought certainly to
avoid if possible.
J
. .4’
now> Ish, how would you take measures for
initiating very young children into your doctrine of Divine
‘
Order, so as to prevent the young religious or aspiring
faculty from going wrong ?
X I do not see that there is any necessity fcr trying thei?
�20
THE EDUCATION OF GIRLS
heads with deep matters at all. Not the ineffable Tetragrammaton, the universal one, but Elohim, the Godhead or
Divine Plurality—in other words, not Woman, but her re
presentative aspects, or individual women—constitute the
temporal object of worship which alone can belong to our
temporal conditions. We can worship and behold the One
olny through and in the Many.
A. Bless us, Ish ! do not you call that a deep matter? I
should like to find the child who could be posted up in it.
I. But, my dear Sir, alb you have to teach children is
that they are never to worship any other object than a
female—their own mother in the first instance, if you like.
As they get older, the idea can be gradually extended from
the single individual. Surely that is both simple and
natural.
A. Not quite such plain sailing as it might seem It is
all very well to talk of worship; but you yourself, Ish, had
you been taught on your present principles when you were
a child, would have knelt before a particular woman or girl,
and prayed to her with a homage as purely external and
objective as the attention paid to an article of food set
before you, and perhaps also as vague as, let us say, one’s
ordinary notion of “ London ” or “ the sea.”
1. Well, I cannot help that. Of course children’s worship
will be childish. All we can do is to see that rudimentary
and inchoate religion shall not develop wrongly. If a child
can only “ love ” a woman in the way that “ Charley Cram
loved raspberry jam,” that, at any rate, is better than its
living in awe of the detestable nightmare of a false god,
as all children who are taught religion at all are still com
pelled to do.
A. Return your sword, Ish; we must examine these
minutiae dispassionately.
1. Willingly. I have said nothing, however, but what I
am prepared deliberately to repeat.
A. Well then, now suppose that a child has reached that
stage of religious development where it can begin to extend
the sphere of its worship of women, or rather of woman ;
and suppose that two or more of those lovely objects of
worship happen to fall out and tear each other’s character
to rags, in their young devotee’s presence. It strikes me
that the growing Church of the Future would soon learn
that in mutual scolding, if in nothing else, the Divine
�THE EDUCATION OP GIRLS.
Plurality undoubtedly excels her humble subject, the
male.
I. Well, that would be the first lesson—rather a rude one,
it is true, and therefore to be avoided if possible—upon the
difference hetween the Unity and the Plurality, between
perfection and imperfection. Indeed they are pretty sure
to find out imperfections and inconsistencies in the objects
of their worship under even the most favourable circum
stances ; therefore it is to be kept in view that they should
learn to look higher than the individual, so soon as they are
able to understand the simple formula that there is a Woman
greater and better than all other women, who rules the
(world, and some day or other will set right everything that
goes wrong here. This, of course, is but a child’s way of
looking at the matter, and perhaps better modes of convey
ing the truth might be stated; all I strenuously insist on is
that though it may be impossible to convey the whole truth
to the young child, it is at all events possible, and a solemn
duty, moreover, to convey to it nothing but the truth.
Where there’s a will there’s a way : and if mothers, nurses,
&c., only set themselves right, it is not likely that the infants
and children under their care will wander far from the path
of Divine Order.
41. I should be glad, nevertheless, to hear something more
like explicit directions.
I. You must not rate any directions of this sort which I
can give as anything more positive than suggestion. Here
is a suggestion, however, if you please. If it be desired that
children begin religious practice very early, say by repeating
a short sentence at bed-time, why not tell them that the God
to whom this little prayer is made is simply a Woman, like,
btft more lovely than, all other women together, and that
though She cannot be seen and talked with in this life, yet
if we pray to Her and trust in Her now, we shall live in
enjoyment with Her in a happier life hereafter? To a very
intelligent child it might be added that in that happier life
there will be only women and girls, all good men having
been changed into them; but this could only be said use
fully to very thoughtful children. There then, Adam, I
have done my best to throw you out a hint or sketch; you
or others might, no doubt, easily improve upon it. Anyhow
it is right so far as it goes, though that be only a little way.
You would have shown the children—or put them in the
�22
THE EDUCATION OF GIRLS
right road to find out—that the God to whom they pray is
an ever ready help and comfort in trouble, an ever ready
eompanion and sympathiser in pleasures, be they ever so
childish, a real God at hand to heal and bless, not a false
and mean and revengeful and selfish God afar off to disap
point and mock.
A. Yes ; I see no objection to that.
I. Contrast such a faith of living warm sweetness and
reality, which daily experience and spontaneous observation
would mainly tend to confirm without the aid of unnatural
distortive struggles of imagination—contrast it with the cold
blast of Infinity, or with the bloody horrors of the historic
tragedy on Calvary. Is there not between the two kinds of
religious education almost the difference between giving a
a child its mother’s milk, and dashing its head against the
stones ?
Those who have young children to bring up will do well
to consider that they live in an age of rapid transition,
when the old faiths are crumbling away and fated soon to
lie mingled with the dust. Hence, to bring up children in
reliance upon those collapsing walls is decidedly worse
than to give them no religious education at all. It is but
to expend time, labour, and means upon work which will
have to be picked to pieces, upon lessons which will have
to be unlearnt, and unlearnt by no means cheaply. If in
deed a new and higher dispensation appear too startling to
be acquiesced in at once, it is surely better to suspend
judgment than to persist in a futile and discreditable course.
Let parents consider that their children, when they are
grown up men and women, living under a stronger and
purer light, will assuredly not hold them blameless, will
assuredly not esteem blundering affection any sufficient
excuse for having forced their young charge to cling by
their side to that which was visibly and palpably rotten.
A. You speak very harshly of beliefs which, although I
do not share them, are dear to many harmless and benevo
lent people.
I. I mean no injury to any one’s creed, regarded as a
purely religious ideal. But when that creed is made the
pretext for a social and political code of injustice and
oppression, it must incur the condemnation due to the
wrongs which it is abused to sanction.
�THE EDUCATION OF GIRLS.
23
ESSAY IV.
[Ish’s Discourse continued.]
*
1 Sic fatur lacrymans classique immittit habenas the
Saturday Review of January 4th, 1868 :—
'There are, it must be owned, few things on earth of less interest
at first sight than a girl in her teens. She is a mere bundle of
pale, colourless virtues, a little shy, slightly studious, passively
obedient, tamely religious. Her tastes are “simple;” she has
to particular preference, that is, for anything; her aims incline
mildly towards a future of balls to come ; her rule of life is an
hourly reference to “ mamma.” She is without even the charm
of variety; she has been hot-pressed in the most approved
finishing establishments, and is turned out the exact double of
her sister, or her cousin, or her friend, with the same stereotyped
manner, the same smattering of accomplishments, the same con
tribution to society of her little sum of superficial information.
We wonder how it is that any one can take an interest in a creature
of this sort, just as we wonder how any one can take an interest
in the Court Circular. And yet there are few sentiments more
pardonable, as there are none more national than our interest in
that marvellous document___ It is precisely the same interest
which attaches us to the loosely-tied bundle of virtue and accom
plishments which we call a girl. We recognise in her our future
ruler. The shy, modest creature who has no thought but a
dance, and no will but mamma’s, will in a few years be our
master, changing our habits, moulding our tastes, bending
our character to her own. In the midst of our own drawing
room, in our pet easy chair, we shall see that retiring figure
quietly establish, with downcast eyes and hands busy with their
crochet needles, what Knox called, in days before a higher
knowledge had dawned, “ The Monstrous Regimen of Woman.”
,..... Feminine rule is certainly not favourable to anything like
largeness of mind or breadth of view...... Woman lives from her
childhood in a world of petty details, of minute household and
other cares...... The habit of mind which is formed by these and
similar influences becomes the spirit of the house—a spirit
admirable, no doubt, in many ways, but excessively small. The
quarrels of a woman’s life, her social warfare, her battles about
precedence, her upward progress from set to set, have all on
�24
>
THE EDUCATION OE GIKLS.
them the stamp of Lilliput. But it is to these small details,
these little pleasures, and littie anxieties, and little disappoint
ments, and little ambitions, that a wife generally manages to
bend the temper of her spouse. He gets gradually to share her
indifference to large interests, to broad public questions. He
imbibes little by little the most fatal of all kinds of selfishness—
the selfishness of the home...... Whether from innate narrowness
of mind, or from defective training, or from the excessive
development of the affections, family interests far outweigh in
the feminine estimation any larger national or human consideration...... Justice is a quality unknown to woman, and against
which she wages a fierce battle in the house and in the world.
The first question here is whether the accusations quoted,
or any of them, be true. If not, there is no occasion to
give them a thought; they may be set affde with the easy
supposition that such writers are bachelors, or others,
“ crossed iD love,” and seeking to revenge indiscriminately
upon the sex at large the wrongs, or fancied wrongs, they
have suffered at the hands of individuals. But if, on the
other hand, even growling bachelors and disappointed
voluptuaries have nevertheless a real, solid foundation in
fact for their ungallant observations, the evils they complain
of will not be cured by being shrugged at and hushed up;
on the contrary, the more you whitewash the outside, the
more the inside will fester.
It is not quite accurate to say that a girl can be “ turned
out the exact double ” of another girl; the differences
between characters are as irrepressible as between faces.
Yet, just as the soldiers in a regiment, with all their various
characters, can be drilled into something like uniformity in
working, so can the girls in a house or in a school, and
thence in a larger or smaller circle of society, be drilled
after the pattern of a fixed conventionality, until their life
becomes a tissue of hypocrisy so thorough and so subtle
that it may almost be called conscientious hypocrisy. The
great Oriental maxim of human wisdom is reversed; and
Know not Thyself becomes the rule of polite society, the
basis of good manners, and last, not least, the chevcd de
lataille of that art of arts, that sport of sports, man
catching.
Let women of culture and of independent courage say what
they will for themselves ; I revere—surely I have well
shown how deeply—the bright side of their disposition;
but I am now obliged to treat of the dark one. And I
�THE EDUCATION OE GIRLS.
25
contend that the sway of the False God throughout known
history has so darkened the world with its evil shadow
that the most powerful among female minds now on this
earth can hardly hope to shake it off completely—at least,
I have not met with such an one. Turn to any religion or
to any doctrinal system you please, and the Male is still
practically in the ascendant; can we wonder, then, that lay
society, which voluntarily entrusts its spiritual interests to
the hands of a professional class, should model both its
morals and its fashions after the accepted teaching ?
When it has come to this, that a cultivated writer in a
periodical can state, without provoking the resentment of
all readers, that “ a girl in her teens ” is one of the most
uninteresting objects in the world, we may sit down. The
world, in that case, must be quite topsy-turvy, and the
whole must be less than its part. So it is futile to go any
further with science or philosophy; those useless occupa
tions had better be cast aside ; for the further they go, the
more they will go wrong. If she who is—or was intended
to be—the crown and consummation of nature be among
the most uninteresting objects of nature, it is hard to see
reason for taking an interest in anything. According to this,
it were better to be a mummy than a living and useful
human being. Yet, for all that, is the apparent blasphemy
entirely devoid of foundation ? I fear not.
For example, some time ago I read a series of private
letters addressed to a female relative from an unfortunate
young lady, who had given birth to an illegitimate child,
and had evidently suffered much in mind, if not in body,
before she departed this life a short time after. The letter#
evinced no want of good feeling of a certain sort; they ex
pressed no anger against any one but herself; but here was
just the hitch. I confess that, with all good will to sympa
thise with the girl’s sufferings, I could not help laughing at
these letters, and feeling my sympathies cheated. It was
all such unexceptionable sin, sorrow, and repentance; the
regular old story unaltered. The sin and sorrow were all
done into such correct, angular, book-like phrases; they
were so much in the style of the Perfect Letter-writer, so
unmistakeably the sin and sorrow of a well-drilled Miss,
instead of the unobtrusive grief of a natural, fresh girl; the
Oh !’s and Ah !’s came into their right places with such” a
weary, dreary precision of unbroken common-place; the
�26
THE EDUCATION OF GIRLS.
whole business was so exactly what one has met with over
and over again in penny romances—that the most pathetic
passages in the communications of this accurately-sinning
and accurately-repenting Miss were certainly more provoca
tive of a guffaw than of a sigh. It was the most complete
travestie and burlesque of woe that I ever came across
A. Poor Miss ! You are a very hard-hearted philosopher,
Ish.
I. I hope not; but I freely admit that I hate humbug,
especially second-hand humbug. And especially, to do our
English girls justice, does it sit ill upon them, who have
the sterling heart-of-oak nature hidden beneath all this con
founded rubbish, which would enable them to rise high
above it all, if they chose.
A.' Well, well; continue.
I. The amount of mischief, both to the individual and to
the society whereof the future woman or man is to form a
part, which is done by this systematic early perversion is
not to be estimated—unless, indeed, by forcing ourselves to
contemplate all the misery and wickedness that contact
with the world can reveal. From the horrors of a gigantic
war, with its mangled and agonised bodies, its desolated
and desecrated homes, down to the pettiest domestic trou
bles and quarrels, we may only too safely affirm that early
false impressions respecting good and evil lie at the bottom
of it a.
A. That is an awful impeachment. And I must say, it
seems to me far too much to assume.
I. Treat it as an assumption if you will, but I think you
will find examination bear it out. Let us continue the
examination. The first antagonism between children that
rests on inculcated principle is that of the sexes. This,
therefore, leaves its traces on brothers and sisters perma
nently, while all other differences and quarrels are effaced.
The young girl has been distorted and coerced into a false
appreciation of the other sex from her earliest years of in
telligence ; is she likely to forget the lesson during those
most susceptible years of her life, the years approaching
puberty ? Nay, nay; fidelity to her education, be it good
or bad, is, if any other, a characteristic of the female ; after
you have once spoilt her in early youth, it is very hard—
although I do not say impossible—to un-spoil her after
wards. Very well, then ; the character of the future mis
�THE EDUCATION OF GIRLS.
27
tress of the home, as the Saturday Reviewei’ says, is dormant
in the mis-educated, and therefore uninteresting, girl “ in
her teens ” that he sees before him. But to vitiate the
home is to vitiate the world; for the characters, male or
female, which can withstand home influence are few and
far between. And the home influence is polluted thus in
all departments. While the children are very young the
boy is encouraged to be rough and “ manly” in his exploits
under the nursery-table, or among the garden flower-beds,
or in the orchard, while the girl is to be meek and mincing
and “maidenly;” never to wrestle and kick about and
harden her muscles, nor to raise her voice and strengthen
her lungs. And now, when the children are passing out of
childhood, and leaving off extremely childish things, the
same principle is carried on, only that, in addition to pre
vious repression, the girl’s mind, as well as her body, is
attacked by her blind guides, and she is taught to repress
her natural curiosity about sexual relations, which could be
legitimately satisfied with judicious, but thoroughly scien
tific, instruction, analysing the passions, and bringing them
jfcrto subjection to the cultivated intellect; and so she is
forced to think about these things only in that cramped,
unwholesome, morbid, cowardly, and generally idiotic way
in which a polite society or a polite church dares to think
of them. Is it any wonder if a girl in her teens is made
uninteresting? Yet, for all that there is a part of her
which not even this persistent regime of devilry can sup
press : and whoso hath eyes to see it, let him see it.
A. The compliments of the season seem to be flying
about to-day. Would it not be well, perhaps, to ventilate
the matter in a rather more forensic tone ?
I. No ; I doubt if it would. Silver speech is not likely
to be listened to by those with whom I have to deal. Well,
then, again ; to take another point of a girl’s education.
A favourite feminine virtue is supposed to be humility.
But humility towards whom or what? If humility of the
individual human being towards the universal Human
Being were meant, well and good. But then this would
apply even more to man than to woman, since he is only
the indirect form of the Universal One, while she is the
direct form. Or if it were meant to convey that mankind,
children especially, should never be too proud to learn, but
always take to heart a useful hint on any subject, no matter
�28
THE EDUCATION OE GIRLS.
from how obseure a quarter; or if it were meant that we
should be just, even in our quarrels, and never ashamed to
recede from a clearly false position, and to make amends
to the extent of our error—this humility also would be most
commendable- and valuable.
I doubt whether any one
could become a philosopher without it, or indeed attain
real greatness in any walk. So here are two kinds of
humility which I admit to be very desirable in man or
woman. But it is easy to see that the “humility ” incul
cated by priestcraft and its morals is something altogether
different. By this sacerdotal humility, which enslaves the
conscience, beauty is to be humbled to material size and
weight, sweetness to coarseness, intelligence and refinement
to stupidity and brutality, the law of love to that of physical
tyranny among barbarous peoples, and of moral tyranny
among others ; the higher organism is to be humbled to the
lower; and thence by logical necessity—although this is
not admitted—Spirit to Matter, the Creator of the world to
its subordinate forms, Good to Evil.
A. You have a fine talent for making mountains out of
molehills.
I. I thought you said just now that the miseries of this
world were not a molehill, but an awful contemplation.
They are the molehill which the perversion of young girls
has created.
M. Nay, that is just the question.
I. Be it so ; you will tread any other road in vain to
settle the question. But that, of course, can only be finally
decided by your own experience. Meanwhile, pray go and
“ humble ” yourself as the Chair of St. Peter would tell you,
and see whither your “humility” will lead.
M. Well, keep your course again.
I. Not even the excuse of negligenee—a fault to which
we are all more or less prone in our various ways—can be
alleged in defence of the ideas of their mutual duties in
which those responsible cause the young of each sex to
grow up. It will not avail for parents to say, “ Ah, well;
we can’t be at the trouble to bring up our children differ
ently from other people’s children; they must take their
chance.” This kind of shelving the dispute will not hold,
because to take trouble is just what they do, as it happens.
They take enormous pains and trouble, only it is in a wrong
direction. The work, of encouraging the frolics and freaks
�THE EDUCATION OF GIRLS.
29
and gambols and outspokenness of boys, and of snubbing
and strait waistcoating those of girls, is an aggregate of
trouble in itself. Even if the work be shifted altogether to
schoolmasters and mistresses, a sacrifice of money is gene
rally entailed on the parents ; and a few would send their
children off without any inquiries about the place of their
paid-for instruction ; so that in any case a conscious effort
has been made, and its results deliberately calculated upon.
Hence, supposing that utter indifference what becomes of
children were an excuse for allowing them to be perverted,
that indifference is, generally speaking, not a fact, and the
excuse falls to the ground. But, indeed, it is hardly worth
considering; for there are comparatively few children so
isolated from their home as to be out of the way of home
influence on social relations.
Example is a powerful agent in the education of the
young. Any attempt to give them a sound ideal of conduct
is sure to fail, so long as girls and boys hear grown-up
women talking about the inability of ladies to do this or
that, to take long walks, to bear heat or cold, to be out in
the evening damp, to take their part thoroughly in any
game or amusement, in anything that calls for exertion of
body or mind ; and while they hear grown-up men ratifying
and encouraging all this absurd nonsense and delicateladyism, contrasting feminine fragility and good-for-nothingness with their own god-like strength and wisdom. Is it to
be expected that the buds of ideality, coming out in that
imitation of men and women at which all children delight
to play, should take any other form than that of setting up
their men as heroes or villains of unlimited power, and
their women as a set of washy fairies, bound to wait on
their hirsute lords, and do their pleasure ? These things
are not trifles ; for the future character of children is made
even more at play than at work. The same vein runs
through their amusements, whether they be children or
adults. From “ This is the man all tattered and torn, that
kissed the maiden all forlorn, that milked the cow with
the crumpled horn,” &c., up—if, indeed, it be not rather
down than up—to the most fashionable of sensational love
novels, the same light and airy aspect of woman as the
“ forlorn ” dependent of man, awaiting his favour, is pre
sented by a myriad of channels to the imagination of youth.
In the nursery, in the playground at school, at table with
�30
THE EDUCATION OF GIRLS
their elders, at public worship interpreted from the pulpit,
in the entire routine of daily and weekly life, it is the same
old story, the same sophistry and hypocrisy and arrogance
on the one side; the same external cringing acquiescence,
but practical hostility, on the other. On the one side are
developed selfishness and contempt; on the other, servility,
guile, and spite. This is not said at wedding-breakfasts;
but it is, nevertheless, the ugly reality inaugurated there and
everywhere else. And children cannot fail to see it, no,
not more than they can fail to acquire the rudiments of
their mother tongue. It may be wrapped in a silver paper
of plausibilities, but it is a poison whose work is sure.
I hardly need insist longer on the importance of early
impressions ; these have always been recognised, and acted
upon, alas! with only too fatal success by the self-seeking
enemies of light and knowledge. The question before us
is this: has any people in any age ever tried the experiment
of an unprejudiced and unrestrictive education of girls, an
education which, starting with no foregone conclusions
about feminine capacity or duty, seeks rather to find out
what girls can do than to restrain them from doing ? If
not, it is surely time that we should turn and try while
liberty of choice is left. The old religions of the world
have proved themselves to be mostly delusions; the morals
of the world have been something worse; failure has been
stamped upon every undertaking, however grand, to improve
the condition of mankind at large in any degree proportioned
to the sacrifices demanded. But expediency is only one
view of the question, and some might think it the lower
view. There are the requisitions of eternal truth and justice
to be satisfied; and if we who have the task entrusted to us
to perform freely and generously, neglect our duty from
short-sighted motives of whatsoever kind—those laws of
disintegration which are inexorable in reforming the lower
kingdoms of nature, will certainly not be long delayed in
their action upon a community which has shown repeatedly
that it is not fit to work out its destiny for itself.
London: Printed by Annie Besant and Charles Bbadlaugh,
28, Stonecutter Street, E.C.
���
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The education of girls
Description
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Edition: 2nd ed.
Place of publication: [London]
Collation: 30 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: Four essays, mainly in the form of dialogues between "Adam" and "Ish". Printed by Annie Besant and Charles Bradlaugh. Date of publication from British Library. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
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Dalton, Henry Robert Samuel
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[1879]
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N184
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Women's rights
Education
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Education of Girls
Suffrage
Women's Emancipation
Women's Rights
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2.S2..4, f*)o<
ON DISCUSSION
AS A MEANS OF ELICITING
TRUTH.
A PAPER
READ BEFORE
THE LONDON DIALECTICAL SOCIETY,
On We d n e s d a y , Oc t o b e r
i,
1879.
BY
ALEX. J. ELLIS, B.A., F.R.S., F.S.A.
PUBLISHED BY THE
LONDON DIALECTICAL SOCIETY,
LANGHAM HALL, 43, GREAT PORTLAND STREET, W.
Price Threepence.
�VNWIN BROTHERS,
PRINTERS.
�ON DISCUSSION
AS A MEANS OF ELICITING TRUTH.
Ra t h e r more than twenty years ago, as I was strolling
down the chief street of St. Bees on a sultry Sunday
afternoon, a cottage door stood open, and showed a
decently-dressed man and his wife taking their Sun
day’s meal, and, in their way, discussing some apparently
important matter at the same time as their food.
Their voices were raised and their tones eager, and as
I passed by I heard their argument, and being an out
sider literally as well as metaphorically (for I had not
the least idea what they were talking about), I had
ample opportunity of seeing most of the game. And
it was simply this : “ Yes, you did I ” “ No, I didn’t! ”
“ Yes, you did ! ” “ No, I didn’t! ” and so on, repeated
at least half a dozen times as I passed by, in tones of
unmistakeable obstinacy. Here was a case of typical
dialectics,—I don’t mean a specimen of argument by
philosophical discussion, but a truly typical specimen
of the usual argument by reiterated assertion.
Assertion without reason assigned, assertion from
intuition, from feeling, from the vaguest and most in
�complete knowledge of a subject, is so sweet and easy,
that we are all only too ready to fall into it ourselves.
Positive assertions, indeed, generally relate to matters
about which we are very ignorant. A physician told
me the other day, that his sister had passed through
an ambulance class, and now laid down the law on
anatomy and physiology in a way which he, who had
studied the subjects for twenty years, instead of six
weeks, could not venture to imitate. Some assertors
frequently venture on argument which, when analysed,
amounts to saying : “ It is so, because it is so, because
I know it is so, because I feel it is so, because it can’t
be otherwise, because it stands to reason, because every
schoolboy knows it, because I’m certain I’ve seen it
scores of times, (at least I know I did once,) and besides
every fool knows it must be so, and that’s enough.’’
Certainly, quite enough. Every wise man, of course,
endorses what every fool knows.
But there’s another side to the question, which I will
also illustrate by a perfectly authentic anecdote. A
carpenter in a village at the North of Yorkshire, when
my late brother-in-law proposed that he should under
take some job, would say : “You’ll excuse me, sir,”
with a deferential touching of his cap, coupled with an
unmistakeable emphasis on the personal pronoun,
“ You’ll excuse me, sir, but there’s a deal of things as
goes to everything. You’ll excuse me, sir.” Now this
pithy remark sums up nearly every point which has to
be borne in mind in making assertions, and which
gives value to discussion. There is indeed “ a deal,”
�an inconceivable quantity of circumstances and con
siderations, which “ goes to everything ” on which we
have to make an assertion, and we cannot by possibility
be acquainted with more than a very minute fraction
of them, unless we have the brain capacity of the rustic
that learned all about the steam-engine in five minutes,
and never forgot what he heard, though his instructor
would perhaps hardly recognise the lesson in the
abridged report. The very fact, however, that most
people have not thought of circumstances which may
prove of the utmost importance in forming a judgment,
but which spontaneously occur to others, shows the
great value of discussion, in which these circumstances,
or at least many of them, are immediately adduced.
We have thus a greater chance of arriving at a correct
notion of what is really the case,—the truth as it is
commonly called,—supposing that, and not the uphold
ing of our own assertions, to be our real purpose.
Now, the Dialectical Society aims at arriving at the
truth by means of discussion, and as I was asked to
open the present session by a paper, it occurred to me
that there was no subject more important for the
Society to consider than that which they look upon as
the very charter of their existence.
When a person reads a paper on which a discussion
has to be raised, it is to be presumed that he has
thought it well over, that the statements he makes are
the result of study, examination, or experiment, but
that he acknowledges that of “ the deal of things that
goes to everything” many may have escaped him,which,
�6
when presented, may induce hixn. to modify his state
ments partially or wholly. In fact, it is a condition
that whoever presents his judgments for criticism, ad
mits that they may be criticised. We recollect the
barrister turned parson in Theodore Hook’s novel,
who found it so comfortable when he got into his
pulpit, that there was no one to rise on the other side.
But a more sober judgment would be, that that is the
most unfortunate position for men to occupy, and the
acts of the uncontradictable bear out this view. But as
to eliciting truth by discussion—well, I should have to
pause a little before I saw my way to giving an opinion
on the subject. Let me explain some of my difficulties.
We all know Pilate’s petulant remark, “ What is
—t r u t h ? ” and really, when we hear so much called
“the truth” in one generation which will be looked
upon as dreams, or worse, in the next, we begin to
appreciate the mind-weariness of a Roman who knew
philosophy, and was bothered by a Jew’s telling him that
he had come into the world to bear witness unto “ the
truth,” and that everyone that was of “ the truth ”
heard his voice (John xviii. 37) ; and we can readily
understand his finding no fault in the dreamer. At any
rate, even if the scene be, as it may be, a mere dramatic
invention, it is well conceived and conformable to
nature as we know it now. The truth ! what is it ?
What can we mean by it? How is it that for thousands
of years the business of every philosopher has been to
show that his predecessor had not found it out ? Let
me take a matter as far removed from the heats of
�political and religious discussion as possible, and ask,
are mathematics sublimated physics or intuitions ? are
they founded upon recollected and combined experi
ences, or axiomatic assertions, whose proof is in them
selves ? Now here's a subject, the very simplest in
existence, appealing, one would think, to no one
human passion, on which all the world acknowledges
that exact notions are to be found if anywhere, and yet
what is the truth already elicited by discussion ? And
you will perceive that I do not confine myself to extem
pore discussion by word of mouth, such as goes on in
this room, which can at the very most be considered
as preliminary, as suggestive, as giving ground for re
flection. On the point I have raised the profoundest
thinkers have laboured for years. They have read and
re-read the discussions, they have proved the forensic
weapons and armour at every conceivable point, and
the result is, there are still two parties, the physicists
and the intuitionists, and they are likely to remain, so
far as I can see, for the difference is the fundamental
one between those who found knowledge on experience,
and those who spin it as a cobweb from their own
brains.
But the world says, what does it matter ? We know
what a straight line is, and what an angle is, and
whether we know it by experience or by intuition, what
does that concern the business of life ? Well, at any
rate, the Association for the Improvement of Geo
metrical Teaching, in their syllabus, lately published,
do not attempt to define a straight line or an angle,
�8
and the late Prof. De Morgan said the best definitions
were “ a straight line’s a straight line, and an angle’s
an angle.” So people would seem to be independent
of the controversy. But what becomes of truth ? And
may we not apply the same process to other matters,
cease to inquire into origins or reasons, and take re
sults with nothing to check them, just as a well-known
musician said lately that music was better without
acoustics ? But in this case, again, what becomes of
truth ? and how is it to be elicited by discussion ?
Such subjects as I have mentioned are, however,
usually left to adepts. Geometrical conceptions and
arguments are about the simplest in the world, but
just for that reason, may be, the general public takes
slight interest in them, and they are so little a matter
of common experience that those who know nothing
of them, really know that they are ignorant, though
a few will persist in squaring the circle. If pressed
they may say, “ Oh ! the truth’s long been known
about such things” (I’m afraid they would really say,
“ those sort of things,”) “and they are of little use in
practical life ; we want to find the truth on matters of
high import.” And then, leaving the simplest, they jump
at the most complicated. They will open up questions
of right and wrong, society, government, religion,
deity, atheism, eternal life, the soul, spirits, angels,
devils, responsibility here and hereafter, inspiration,
phenomena and noumena, metaphysics of all kinds, in
short the vague, the difficult, the intangible, the inac
cessible, the unintelligible, or at least the unknown.
�9
These are what charm the general mind. To prove
that God exists, to prove that there’s no proof
that God exists—some even try to prove that God
does not exist, the admitted impossibility of proving
a negative adding to the zest of the argument—
to alter the whole system of government, to invent
governments for people that they know nothing
of, to recast legislation, to alter property relations,
to reform everything; these are the questions
about which discussion waxes interesting and eager,
where no one can know much, and most know nothing,
and truth remains quiet at the bottom of her well.
You will think that I am in the reversed case of
Balaam, and being asked to bless have remained to
curse. But that would be a mistake. Such subjects
as I have named may even be discussed with
advantage, if the discussion only succeeds in showing
us how much more need we have of further thought,
further inquiry, further knowledge, before we can
reach a result. But it must not be expected that in
the excitement of speaking at the moment, after merely
hearing a paper, and with necessarily an imperfect
recollection of its contents, any great advance can be
made towards the settlement of a difficult question.
This fact has been duly recognised in this Society by
the rule (xv.) that no vote be taken with reference to
the subject of the paper read, or discussion which may
have taken place. Yet we can do much which is
valuable. We can, by a small sample, gauge current
opinion upon the subjects mooted. That will often
B
�IO
give us much to think over, especially in endeavouring
to account for this current opinion, and in estimating
what amount of knowledge it represents, and hence
what amount of permanence it is likely to possess. It
is especially valuable to those whose judgments run
counter to general opinion, because it may lead them
to consider matters and arguments which have
entirely slipped their attention, and must be satis
factorily disposed of, before they can feel any certainty.
But as for truth— !
But if truth cannot be discovered by discussion, how
can it be attained ? I do not know that it can ever be
attained. I do not know that we have any test by
which we could know that it had been attained. The
test that we cannot conceive the contrary is individual,
varying from man to man, and in the same man from
one state of knowledge to another, and has entirely
different meanings in different mouths. Yet at present
it is held to be the best test by at least one of our best
thinkers. Take an example from, the axioms of Euclid,
which are generally supposed to satisfy this test com
pletely. “ If equals be added to equals the sums are
equal.” Does not your assent to that depend upon
your conception of the words “ equal, add, and sum ” ?
Giving them the only meanings most of you probably
know, the only meanings known to Euclid—even to
him each word had several meanings—you might
accept the dictum, but even then you must qualify it
and verify it for each particular case, as straight lines,
angles, areas, circles, curved lines. But there are
�such things as “directed lines.” Does it apply to
them ? How can those who know nothing of the pro
perties of directed lines and the nature of their addi
tion, deny or accept the axiom ? For directed straight
lines on a plane it holds, for directed arcs of great
circles on a sphere it does not hold, unless it is quali
fied with the words “ in the same order,” and those
words need farther explanation. I am not going to
demonstrate the fact, which is one of the fundamental
propositions of SirW. Rowan Hamilton’s Quaternions.
It is quite enough to state it, in order to show how
inconceivability is as a test limited by our knowledge
of the factors of thought.
My own practical test of a theory enunciated as true,
that is of a truth in common parlance, rests not on
inconceivability but on conceivability, thus : Conceive,
or if possible, try experimentally, the effect of the joint
action of this theory with others regarded as established,
and see whether the result agrees with experience.
This is mererly a test, not a proof. For example, the
undulatory theory of light bears this test ve y well.
Yet, I can by no means regard it as established. Such
theories are merely as good as true within certain
limits. And none of our theories seem to be established
beyond those limits ; scarcely any even can be fully
established within those limits It is frequently not
even possible to experiment. A medicine cures a
patient, we think. But we cannot restore him to his
condition before taking the medicine, and see what
would have happened had he not taken it, or had he
�12
taken some other. We are driven to the very loose
analogies of patients in what may appear similar cases,
but are different in many secondary peculiarities, and
the truth is very doubtfully elicited. Hence the great
faith of people in doctors and nostrums,—in barbarous
language, medicine-men and fetishes,—of whose real
knowledge and action they are most profoundly
ignorant.
Now in all such matters dicussion is of great impor
tance, because it supplies omissions, and causes conse
quences and connections to be viewed with different
lights. Whenever we make subjective experiments we
are apt to be blinded to exceptions, and see only what
we wish to see. One who takes iip the subject afresh,
and views it from the side of his own environment, and
the training of years that this has given him, which
will almost invariably have been very different from
those of the first propounder of the theory,—will be sure
to find out the weak points and make the apparently
substantial edifice totter to its base. But will he assist
in erecting a firm edifice in its place ? Will he have
built a palace of truth ? The most he usually does, at
any rate, is to destroy an enchanted castle of error.
And this to my mind is the greatest use of discus
sion. It is negative not positive, destructive not con
structive. It shows points of weakness, it does not
build points of strength. It pulls to pieces, it does not
re-create. Perhaps after any verbal discussion no one
goes home convinced who has previously thought on
the subject, least of all the propounder and his chief
�opponent The utmost gain of either is generally
less security in his own opinion. Those who are con
vinced straight off are seldom worth convincing at all.
How many votes in Parliament—our great dialectical
society—are obtained through the speeches heard ?
Many persons may be shaken in their opinions, but
there is generally a strong motive in the background,
the support of party, which carries the day. In the
smaller society here present—the great merit of which
is that it is able to discuss subjects of all kinds with
calmness and propriety, that it does not find it neces
sary to exclude those explosive subjects of religion,
politics, and sex, which are generally tabooed—there is
fortunately no party to support, there is a unanimous
desire to find out what the reader of a paper means,
by help of a rattling fire of questions, which are
sometimes pretty difficult to answer, and then to state
opinions from individual thought andknowledgeforand
against, to which the reader briefly replies. Now, there
is no doubt in my own mind, that all this is admirable
exercise for the discussers, that it greatly opens their
eyes, clears their understanding, and makes them more
fit to think. But that it after all elicits truth, at least
directly, I must beg leave to doubt Indirectly, no
doubt, it does much towards helping a thinker forwards;
directly, it does very little. There is necessarily no
co-operation, no taking of a great subject to pieces,
and working at the details separately, so as ultimately
to form a perfect whole, like the large woodcuts of our
periodicals, engraved by different hands on small
�14
blocks of wood ultimately screwed together. Even the
papers which are read are not parts of some great
whole, but rather unconnected screeds of private
thought on the most diverse subjects.
Thus in looking over the subjects of papers which
have here been read and discussed during the last two
years, I find them so unconnected that they can
scarcely be classed. Religion occupied six papers,
from Mr. Bradlaugh, Dr. Brydges, Mr. Picton,
Mr. Foote, Mr. Parris, and myself, very far from
beginners on the subject certainly, but as certainly
unconnected by any common train of thought. Social
arrangements—I can hardly say sociology—occupied as
many evenings ; two led by Mr. Coupland, and others
by Mr. Rigby Smith, Mr. Fisher, Mr. Parris, and
Mr. Montefiore. Mr. Conway gave two papers dealing
with the Woman Question in different aspects. Three
papers dealt with politics, under the leadership of
Mr. Biggar, M.P., Mr. Probyn, and Dr. Drysdale.
Four papers were devoted to matters of legal enact
ment, introduced by Mr. Tailack, Mrs. Lowe,
Rev. Dawson Burns, and Professor Hunter, the last of
which gave rise to a special committee. The other
papers cannot easily be classed, but Mr. Levy spoke
of his “Utopia,” Mrs. Hoggan, M.D., on how to meet
chronic illness, Rev. H. N. Oxenham on vivisection,
and probably other subjects were also started, but this
is enough to show the great variety and complexity of
the matters brought before the Society to discuss. It
is evident that unprepared discussions upon such
�subjects could not lead to any elicitation of truth; they
could at most be gymnastics of thought, excellent
preparation, but necessarily unfinished work.
Might I suggest, by way of an experiment, your
taking of a leaf out of the book of the Education
Society ? A variety of individual papers on uncon
nected branches of education, followed by discussions,
used to take place before this Society, which has this
year carried out a connected series of discussions upon
one book, written by its president, Professor Bain, on
^ Education as a Science.” Might not the Dialectical
Society with advantage set apart, say one evening in
each month, for connected discussions upon some such
work as Spencer’s “ Data of Ethics ”? Each chapter or
section might be made the subject of a paper and dis
cussion. Such a book is full of matter for discussion,
and the discussers would have had the advantage of
seeing the whole argument of the original writer col
lectively, before beginning to argue, together with the
peculiar views of the opener. I throw this out merely
as a suggestion for co-operative thinking and directed
discussion. But to my mind such discussions would
after all be only admirable exercises. They would not
produce philosophic results, they would only enable
those who take part in them more fully to appreciate
the real work of philosophers, and hereafter, may be,
really to play their part in advancing the thoughts of
mankind.
The only discussion which in any way elicits an
approximation to truth, that is, which gradually brings
�i6
men’s thoughts into a juster conception of the objects
of thought and their mutual relations, as evinced by
greater security of prediction, is not the verbal discus
sion of an hour or the paper discussion of a lifetime.
It is the discussion of one life’s thought on another’s,
and lasts for ages, leaving its impress on the race, not
the individual. It is at first sight surprising how much
thought, carefully written out and even printed, never
finds an echo in another century, when the individuals
are gone, and other knowledge has grown up in the
race. Even the raw form of that knowledge has only
an antiquarian interest. The knowledge itself has
become part of the race, and we forget the discussion
which often cannot be unravelled without great difficulty.
What man now cares to read of perpetual motion and
the philosopher’s stone? Who cares for judicial
astrology? Who, beyond priests, care for patristic
theology ? The questions which fired thousands as to
the books of Moses and Joshua, when the first volume
of Colenso appeared, were scarcely heard when the
seventh volume came out, though the man is happily
still alive to do good. Why this fire and this apathy ?
An established Church was concerned in discussing
away the first, which appealed to popular knowledge
of the English Bible, and threatened to shake the
edifice to its base by rending the rock on which it
stood. The last volumes were learned discussions, into
which no one cared to enter, for everyone was already
convinced. No one now considers the books of Moses
and Joshua to be verbally inspired—even the Establish
�ment has given them up, and although some of the
ministers of other sects may yet feel sure that they are,
such a fact only shows how little suited the teachers
are to teach. This result, of course, has not come
from one man, although I have referred to one man
alone as a modern typical illustration. It has resulted
from a discussion of four centuries, begun by men like
Wycliffe and Luther, who thought they were merely
dispersing the clouds of papacy, but who were
establishing those negative principles, which have
done much other work, and have still much work before
them. But these men taught us nothing of what they
purposed. They merely rubbed out ; they did not
draw in. Their work was like those who remove the
accumulated whitewash of centuries on the walls of a
church to show the old fresco below. But they believed
in the old fresco, and were themselves as intolerant as
their predecessors of any suggestion that it was out of
drawing, out of taste, or false in conception.
The history of religion in Europe and on the shores
of the Mediterannean has been a succession of nega
tives. When and how the positive form of Egyptian
worship came in, or the rude worship of the North of
Europe, we know not. Even the Greek and Roman
gods, although so far from primitive, are but indis
tinctly traceable. But Judaism was a negative form
of polytheism. It made no new god, but it wiped off
many. And round its one God grew a poetic literature
due to great men and great thinkers, which was dis
tinctly positive in character. But these men, and more
�especially their interpreters, were intolerant of criti
cism. It came, many times in vain, at last in the form
of Jesus, who merely scraped off the whitewash and
endeavoured to exhibit the old conception of the one
Judaic God (Matthew v. 17-20). Round this work,
especially through the action of Paul of Tarsus, grew
a new and very remarkable, I might almost say very
strange, roll of doctrine, and finally to the old Judaic
book was added the new Christian book. But so little
did this form of Christianity revolutionise Judaism, that
it absolutely incorporated it, and made the Jewish book
the corner-stone of the Christian edifice to such an
extent, that theoretical Christianity crumbles to dust
when the legendary character of the two principal
Mosaic histories of creation has been established.
Then round this pair of books grew a new literature,
offering much that was positive, a priesthood, an inter
pretation of tradition, oftentimes irreconcilable with
the books, but none the worse for that, and an in
tolerance of criticism to the extent of burning the
critic. Then came another negative revulsion, another
scraping off of the new accumulation of whitewash,
and Protestantism bore aloft the old old fresco, much
the worse for its continual overplastering, but still un
altered. “ The books, the whole books, and nothing but
the books !” was its motto. But that meant, the right of
everyone to read the books,—granted,—and to criticise
them,—oh, dear, no ! It was only the new teachers who
could interpret ; what business had Tom, Dick, and
Harry, who knew nothing of the matter, to put in a
�word ? or what business had a pale scholar, who had
thought over the subject, who had investigated every
trace and weighed every argument, to controvert the
opinions for which the scrapers had given their life’s
blood ? If he were a laic, it was impertinence ; if he
were an ecclesiastic, it was heresy. And heresy had
its limits. Paul might “ confess that after the way
which they called heresy so worshipped he the God of
his fathers, believing all things which were written in
the law and the prophets.” (Acts xxiv. 14), that is,
believing in the fresco, but not the whitewash. But
when it came to criticising the fresco itself, Paul
thought very differently. “ These things teach and
exhort,” says he ; “ if any man teach otherwise, and
consent not to wholesome words, even the words
our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which is
according to godliness, he is proud” (or a fool, says the
marginal reading of the authorised version, the original
word means ‘ smoked,’ as in ‘ smoking flax shall he not
quench’ (Matt. xii. 20), a sufficiently expressive term
of abuse ; but it is only the first of a long series, for
Paul proceeds), “knowing nothing, but doting about
questions and strifes of words, whereof cometh envy,
strife, railings, evil surmisings, perverse disputings of
men of corrupt minds, and destitute of the truth” (poor
truth !) “ supposing that gain is godliness : from such
withdraw thyself.” (Tim. vi. 3-5 ) It is clear that Paul
would not have tolerated a Dialectical Society, with its
“ perverse disputings of men of (as a matter of course)
corrupt minds.”
�20
\
It is evident, then, that Paul and Luther, the two
typical reformers, did not seek to teach anything new, but
merely to restore the old, and the work they did was
exactly opposite to what they proposed : it was nothing
less than to establish the right of discussion, the right
of criticism, the right of everyone, learned or unlearned,
to say his say. It is of the utmost importance that we
should not limit criticism to those who have the re
quisite knowledge. (Our reviews, by the by, would be
sadly blank if that were the case.) We have quite a
right to turn a deaf ear to the words of a man who
clearly knows nothing about the matter he is speaking
about. But if we once attempt to prejudge his know
ledge and keep him silent, we jeopardise the whole
right of free discussion, and although free discussion
will not elicit truth, there is no other means for elimi
nating error.
And these words contain the very pith of the
observations which I have to make to you this evening.
Discussion never has elicited truth, and there does not
seem to be the slightest probability of its ever doing
so. Approximations to truth arise from painfully
evolved hypotheses of thinkers, who endeavour to form
the simplest possible representations of all the facts
they can manage to collect. But these collections are
generally deficient, these representations frequently—
but of course in typical cases always involuntarily—■
leave out of consideration important factors, or distri
bute the weight of facts injudiciously. Here steps in
discussion and criticism, and puts its finger on the
�2I
blot. Even the veriest ninny who knows nothing about
the matter may blurt out some fact which has es
caped the philosopher’s notice, although he may not
have the least conception of what he is really saying.
But everyone must have a right to speak, and we must
leave it to their own good sense or modesty, based on
consciousness of ignorance, not to speak unless they
feel that they have something to say which has a
bearing on the question. The function then of dis
cussion, that is, of criticism, is the elimination of error,
an extremely different thing from the elicitation of
truth, but an essential part of the process. Without
discussion, error is inevitable ; with discussion, truth
is by no means certain, but it is rendered possible.
There is, however, another kind of discussion,
which is meant to take place, for example, on a great
scale in Parliament, and is daily taking place in small
committees appointed to deliberate and advise on a
course of action. Here each member is selected
generally, or theoretically, with a view to his know
ledge of the matter in hand, and although such bodies
usually appoint one of their number, whom they are
supposed to consider best qualified for the purpose, to
draw up a scheme, the others in reviewing it are sup
posed not merely to criticise, but to amend, to make
suggestions, to do positive as well as negative work,
and, if they cannot agree, to draw up alternative
schemes. A remarkable instance of this kind of dis
cussion came under my notice a few years ago. The
Association for The Improvement of Geometrical
�22
Teaching, to which I have already had occasion to
allude, appointed a committee (of which I may as well
state I was not a member) to draw up a scheme for
teaching Proportion, notoriously the most difficult
subject in elementary mathematics. The committee,
consisting of five excellent mathematicians, met,
talked, and appointed one of their number to draw up
a scheme to submit to them at their next meeting.
The day came, the scheme was read, talked over, and
put to the vote, when four voted against it, and one,
the scheme-drawer himself, for it. That would never
do. So another reporter was appointed to draw up
another scheme, which was submitted to the next
meeting, and with the same result, four against and
one for, only the distribution of the voters was dif
ferent. It was clear that no one scheme could come
from these five competent men. So they agreed that
each one should present his own report, and the As
sociation had absolutely to select from among five
different schemes, and they actually did select one
and a-half, the meaning of which I could not make
clear to you without entering into a mass of details
quite unsuitable to a general audience. But the fact,
of which I am personally cognisant, serves to exem
plify, what will probably be within the experience of
all, that even deliberative discussion does not gene
rally lead to universally acceptable proposals, but
usually ends in compromise, or, to put it in other
words, does not really lead to positive truth, but at
most to less error.
�23
In such a society as the present, no one of course
suspects that the discussions raised will have any im
mediate or wide influence on public opinion. The
very fact that public opinion is very intolerant, and
thinks that many subjects should never be discussed,
which this society does not shrink from discussing, is
enough to discredit its work in the eye of “ the world.”
But, nevertheless, the members of this Society are
also members of the great body social, and will form
efficient units of that body in any deliberative act,
while the training which they receive from frequent
and animated discussion of topics which have the
most important bearing upon acts of the community,
cannot fail to enable them to sustain their part in a
way which is not only creditable to themselves, but
advantageous to the public. Especially would I
reckon among the great advantages of such discus
sions as here arise, the opportunity which each
member has of measuring his own strength. This
may be very different on different subjects, and the
result may be, I hope is, to lead them to increase their
strength upon those matters where they are strongest,
and to repair their weakness in others.
There are several pitfalls in discussion societies
which have to be avoided. There is a great danger
in mistaking readiness for depth, fluency for argu
ment, and self-sufficiency for power. But the greatest
danger of all is arguing for the sake of victory, of
taking part for or against any opinion, no matter what,
because there is somebody to oppose, not because the
|;
�speaker’s own deliberations have led him to the ex
pression of opinion. Still, with all such drawbacks,
a well-conducted discussion society is an excellent
school, by which a man may be led to the great work
of life, the advancement of the race, physically,
intellectually, and socially, not merely eliminating
error, but eliciting truth.
�NOTES.
As the Council of the Dialectical Society have resolved to
print the preceding paper, which I felt at the time, and still
feel, had not been sufficiently considered to deserve preserva
tion. in such a form, I take the opportunity of saying a few
words on points which were raised on the discussion that
followed.
The difficulty of following a written paper when read out,
sufficiently well for discussing its principles, was well exempli
fied by one speaker, who appeared to suppose that I deprecated
discussion, and considered it useless. Those who have read
the paper will see how far from correct was any such con
ception.
Another speaker stated that discussion on paper was much
inferior to discussion viva voce. For many purposes oral
discussion is most important, especially as a preliminary,
and discussion on paper is very tedious. But when we wish
to arrive at precise notions, and not to omit arguments of
importance, or to overlook what has been advanced through
a lapse of memory, oral discussion necessarily fails. Again,
oral discussions live in memory alone, unless reported
verbatim, and are consequently rapidly forgotten, leaving
only an impression, and often an incorrect impression, of
what was said, entirely insufficient for anything approaching
to the elicitation of truth.
Another speaker thought that I was wrong in deprecating
speaking for the sake of speaking, or defending an opinion
which the speaker did not entertain. He thought that both
gave readiness and facility of language, and at the same time
�26
an aptitude for considering objections. This may be fully
granted, and in mere discussion classes, such speaking has it
value. Especially it is useful to be able to call to mind all
the objections which may be raised to an argument in which
the speaker himself believes. But speaking without know
ledge, without examination, without any further desire than
to speak, and to raise arguments in which the speaker has
himself no faith, is certainly not a way of eliciting truth.
The same speaker found that my anecdote respecting the
committee on Proportion did not apply, because he supposed
that there was a mere disagreement as to method and none
in principle on such a subject. There happened to be
widely diverse views on principle, and comparatively little
difference on method. But the point of my anecdote was that a
deliberative discussion of adepts will frequently end in com
promise, and not in the ascertainment of “truth.” The
same speaker, however, touched upon the question of what
is “ true,” and said that a distinction must be drawn between
noumenal and phenomenal truth, that we must be satisfied
with what is true “for general purposes,” and not strive
after the absolute. “Noumenal truth ” did not form part
of my argument. It is very difficult to conceive what is
meant by it, and I did not intend to express myself in such
a way as to lead to any supposition that I referred to
noumenal truth at all. The expression “ true for general
purposes,” used by the speaker, implied a distinct “com
promise.” And in all physical investigations, which are
purely phenomenal, we are obliged to take “means” or
“averages,” which are all “compromises” in fact. The
whole of science is based upon such “ means,” and no one
dreams of being able to reach absolute exactness. But there
are numerous inquiries—by far the most numerous and the
most desired as subjects of discussion—which have not
reached a scientific stage proper, so as to be reducible even
approximatively, to arithmetic, and in these we must be
�satisfied with very rough compromises indeed, although it is
just in these that speakers are apt to assume the absolute
correctness of their own views.
To another speaker it seemed that I had much underrated
the power of discussion in eliciting truth, and he considered
that there was a distinctly positive side to discussion. My
paper certainly did not assert the contrary, for I gave due
place to the positive suggestions which might be made, and
often are made. But such suggestions are rather points of
departure than anything else, and their immediate action is
generally to divert the stream of another person’s thoughts,
and hence to eliminate error. If they really help to elicit
truth, it is possibly always by giving a speaker matter
to think over.
My suggestion for devoting one evening in a month to a
systematic discussion of one book, did not meet with much
favour. All that spoke on it, spoke against it. There seem
to be practical objections arising from the working of the
Society, from a desire for novelty, and from the impossibility
of regular attendance. But by saying one evening a month,
I intended to leave the other evening disposable for these
discursive subjects, and by proposing that each part should
be introduced by a paper, I intended to give each evening
thus devoted an individual character, and not to partake of
the nature of a six nights’ unreported debate, where absence
on two or three nights would prevent proper understanding
of the arguments advanced when the intending debater was
at last present. Also I hoped that each person who came
would have had time to look over the whole of the book
bearing upon the particular part to be there discussed,
which would in some respect stand in place of reports of
previous debates. Nor was it my intention that the series
of debates should run over half of a whole session. It might
be quite enough at first to set apart three or four monthly
meetings for such a purpose. But the idea pre-supposed
�28
that the Society was really desirous of eliminating as much
error and eliciting as much truth as was possible upon certain
subjects, or at any rate of discussing fully important theories
and arguments which had been raised by profound thinkers.
This supposes a very advanced stage for any society, and
probably it is only adapted for a smaller body of very earnest
thinkers. I think I remember how much good resulted from
adopting a similar plan, to the members of a small debating
society of which John Stuart Mill, George Grote, and others
belonged when young men. There is a good deal about it
in Mill’s autobiography.
To show how oral discussion is apt to swerve from the
point, it may be noted that on one speaker referring to
Auguste Comte’s hierarchy of the sciences, another instantly
asked what single ‘ ‘ truth ” Comte had ever discovered, and
the discussion threatened to become one on Comte’s Philo
sophy and Polity, which, even if the speakers had thoroughly
studied them, could not have been discussed in one evening,
and had no connection however slight with the subject of my
paper. But I may mention incidentally that Comte con
sidered that the great merit of his religion over that of all
others was that it was always discussible, although perhaps
no person was ever more impatient of having his opinions
called in question by a disciple, or formed an ecclesiastical
system which would have more completely excluded discussion.
This tendency in a discussion to fly off to some other
subject is very strong. In my former paper, the speakers
constantly referred to religion as it should be, instead of the
connotation of the English word religion, and supposed that
I desired to lay down a definition of religion, instead of
endeavouring to ascertain the common area of the numerous
areas of thought it actually expresses. In a discussion I had
lately to conduct concerning the especial use of classical over
other languages as an instrument of education, the speakers
continually complained that I checked them when speaking
�29
of the general use of language as an instrument of education,
which being admitted by the opener, had nothing whatever
to do with the matter on which a discussion was sought to be
raised. This is one of the great difficulties of oral discussion.
A speaker is struck by a sudden thought in the course of
speaking and follows it out, quite unaware that he is wasting
valuable time set apart for one particular object, in dealing
with another. One way which this acts is to induce a speaker
to introduce his own pet theory on every occasion, as one of
the speakers on my paper pointed out,reminding one of the way
in which advertisements begin by talking of the Afghan or
Zulu Wars in large letters, and glide off ingeniously to a
recommendation of Eno’s Fruit Salt or Moses’s Boys’ Suits.
If this tendency is not at once checked by the chairman the
discussion becomes abortive.
My chairman spoke especially upon the value of the
negative character of discussion. It was Comte’s opinion
that no theory is really snuffed out unless it has been replaced
by another, and hence he fulminated against the Reformation,
and denied Luther a place in his calendar, although he
admitted Paul. Mere negation, nothing but nihilism, is of
course self-destructive, ending in a by no means desirable
nirvana. But the air is full of theories which cry out for
annihilation, and the people who hold them are generally
quite unreachable by other theories, at least until the first
have been strangled by appeals to the most every-day
knowledge. When these unfortunate theories have the
further misfortune of subserving the material interests of
large bodies of men, as the scribes and pharisees of preChristian Judaism, then they are far more difficult and far
more necessary to be exterminated. These are the points of
course to which the chairman’s laudations of negation were
directed, and some of them were alluded to in the paper.
But the principle of discussion is mainly negative. As these
Notes will show, the speakers generally take exception to
�3°
some views enunciated, and seldom if ever advance in
dependent theories, unless they dart off to something irrelevant.
Hence discussion is mainly critical, not co-operative. It might
surely become more co-operative, but perhaps that is not to
be expected in a Society so large and so constituted as the
Dialectical.
These remarks touch upon nearly every point raised, and
will I hope tend to render the paper more complete, although
it remains in a far more imperfect state that I could have
wished.
A. J. E.
�I
1
�Inntrnn gxalatual Snddg,
LANGHAM HALL,
43, GREAT PORTLAND STREET, W.
^regtbent:
Professor W. A. Hu n t e r , M.A.
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Esq,. M.A.
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Prospectus and Rules (price Sixpence) may be obtained of
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Victorian Blogging
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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On discussion as a means of eliciting truth: a paper read before the London Dialectical Society on Wednesday, October 1, 1879.
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Ellis, Alexander John [1814-1890]
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 30, [1] p. : 15 cm.
Notes: Author cited as Alex. J. Ellis on title page. Printed by the Gresham Press, Unwin Brothers. Information on the Society's aims and officers on back page. Part of Morris Miscellaneous Tracts. 2.
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London Dialectical Society
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[1879]
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Rationalism
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Debates and Debating
Discussion
Morris Tracts
Truth
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Text
NATIONAL SECL’LAT.COCZnT
N)63O
HOSPITALS & DISPENSARIES
NOT OF
CHRISTIAN ORIGIN.
8T
J.
S Y M E S.
LONDON:
FREETHOUGHT PUBLISHING COMPANY.
28, Stonecutter Street, E.C.
PRICE ONE
PENNY.
�LONDON:
PRINTED BY ANNIE BESANT AND CHARLES BRADLAUGH,
28, stonecutter street, e.c.
�HOSPITALS AND DISPENSARIES
NOT OF
CHRISTIAN
ORIGIN.
A very frequent question put to Secularists is, What
hospitals have you built or endowed? And an equally
frequent assertion is made to the effect that the world owes
all those institutions for the care and cure of the sick to
Christianity. A greater mistake was never made, as I shall
try to show.
In the first place, I make bold to assert that mercy, compas
sion, humanity, and benevolence did not, and could not, spring
from religion. All the Gods, or nearly all, were origi
nally cold, callous, and cruel. They inflicted upon man
(if fables may be trusted) all the horrors he endured, and
then quietly and stolidly looked on while he writhed in
his agony No Gods sinned more in this respect than those
of the Jews, in proof of which I refer to the story of the
Flood, of Sodom and Gomorrah, of the Israelitish march
through the desert, of the conquest of Palestine, and other
tales of the Old Testament. It was only when man became
civilised that the Gods forsook their barbarism, and the very
mercy man learnt in civilised life was by-and-by ascribed to
the Gods. Every kindly feeling man has must have been learnt
in society—must have been produced there, for Nature
knows nothing of kindness, mercy, or compassion. Nature
and the Gods have not only inflicted flood, pestilence,
famine, and fire, upon man and beast, but they never
interfered to relieve the poor wretches of their suffering.
Wherever man, therefore, learnt his humanity and pity,
most certainly no God or religion ever taught him.
Secondly, as most religions have enjoined the belief in
miracles and miraculous cures of disease, their very spirit
has been antagonistic to the founding of hospitals, in
firmaries, and dispensaries. No religion has done moie
�4
HOSPITALS AND DISPENSARIES
harm in this respect than Christianity. Look through the
New Testament, and you will not find a single commenda
tion of medicine, surgery, or any other healing art. All
diseases are there to be cured by miracles ; the physician is
dispensed with, and physic is entirely thrown to the dogs,,
and the priest and the elder are exalted as the miraculous,
healers of both body and soul. Had the spirit of Christianity
been carried out successfully there would not have been a
hospital or anything of the sort now in the world. If this
religion had spread first among barbarians, instead of the
civilised nations of the Roman empire, and if her converts
had been docile instead of independent, we should have
seen, long ere now, what a curse she was to man. But
Christianity inherited all the learning, the arts and sciences,
the laws and social institutions of Greece and Rome. All
these (with few exceptions) she did her best to destroy, and
when that proved impossible, she coolly adopted and claimed
them as her own productions.
What has been said above will tend to show that we owe
none of our best sentiments to religion; but I will now
proceed to exhibit a few facts which will set the matter at
rest, and demonstrate that hospitals and kindred institutions
are not the product of Christianity. In doing this I shall
quote from, and refer to, an article in the current number
(Oct. 1877) of the Westminster Review, on “ Pre-Christian
Dispensaries and Hospitals.” The writer says :—“ It is in
the medical officers, appointed and paid by the State,
that we find the earliest germ and first idea of the
v?s.t. network of hospitals which has spread over the
civilised countries of the world. These medical officers
were an institution in Egypt from a remote antiquity, for in
the eleventh century b.c. there was a College of Physicians
in receipt of public pay, and regulated as to the nature and
extent of their practice. At Athens, in the fifth century
b.c., there were physicians elected and paid by the citizens;
there were also dispensaries in which they received their
patients, and we find mention made of one hospital.”
Turn we next to India. “In the fourth century b.c. an
edict was promulgated in India, by King Asoka, command
ing the establishment of hospitals throughout his dominions;
and we have direct proof that these hospitals were flourish
ing in the fifth and in the seventh centuries a.d.”—they
flourished then for a thousand years. “Among the Romans
under the empire physicians were elected in every city in
�NOT OF CHRISTIAN ORIGIN.
5
proportion to the number of inhabitants, and they received
a salary from the public treasury.”
Leaving the Westminster Review for a moment, I will
quote an extract from Tacitus. Referring to the fall of an
amphitheatre at Fidenae, in the ruins of which 50,000
people were killed or otherwise maimed, he says: “Now
during the fresh pangs of this calamity, the doors of the
grandees were thrown open, medicines were everywhere
supplied and administered by proper hands; and at that
juncture the city, though of sorrowful aspect, seemed to
have recalled the public spirit of the ancient Romans, who,
after great battles, constantly relieved the wounded, sustained
them by liberality, and restored them with care.”—“Annals,”
iv. 65. This extract shows not merely what the Romans
did at this date, about 27 a.d., but points back to periods
long past, when their forefathers regularly relieved and healed
the wounded soldiers. Such a nation, though still dread
fully barbarous in some respects, did not require the aid of
Christianity to set it on the path of humanity and mercy ;
the germs of those virtues had been there for ages, and only
required time to develop. Those who wish to see what
the best Romans, in the first century before our era, thought of
benevolence may consult Cicero “ De Officiis,” Bk. I., 14, 15.
Turning again to the Westminster Review, we read that
even the “ancient Mexicans had hospitals in their principal
cities ‘ for the cure of the sick, and the permanent refuge of
disabled soldiers.’” The Mexicans, by the way, and the
Peruvians as well, were working out a splendid civilization
for themselves at the time the barbarians from Spain dis
covered and ruined them. The more we know of those
ancient civilisations the more we must admire them; and it
cannot be denied that Spain herself was, at the time of the
conquest, more superstitious and less civilised than Mexico
or Peru; the eruption of those Christian savages into
Central America threw back the civilization of the continent
for four or five hundred years. I have nothing to say in
palliation of either Mexican or Peruvian religion; but I
must say that the Spaniards, in destroying those ancient
creeds, put nothing better in their place.
It is remarkable, viewed from the Christian standpoint,
that the Mohammedans were the first people known to
have had asylums for lunatics. As Mr. Lecky says, “ Most
commonly the theological notions about witchcraft either
produced madness or determined its form, and through the
�6
HOSPITALS AND DISPENSARIES
influence of the clergy of the different sections of the
Christian Church, many thousands of unhappy women, who
from their age, their loneliness, and their infirmity, were
most deserving of pity, were devoted to the hatred of
mankind, and, having been tortured with horrible and
ingenious cruelty, were at last burnt alive.”—“ Hist.
European Morals,” ii., 93. While this barbarity, the
genuine and legitimate fruit of Christ’s own action towards
the “possessed,” was practised wholesale among Chris
tians, the Mohammedans were, as early as the seventh
century, housing and nurturing the insane in asylums
at Fez, and they founded another at Cairo, probably about
a.d. 1304. The first Christian asylum for insane persons
was erected at Valencia in Spain, in a.d. 1409, or 700
years later than those first built by Mohammedans. Thus,
it was in the very country which the Mohammedans had
conquered, ruled, and partially civilised, that the first
Christian lunatic asylum was founded, and it is not difficult
to recognise their influence in this humane act. It should
also be remembered that the kind-hearted monk who
founded the asylum in Valencia, did it to shelter the poor
lunatics from the insults, jeers, and other persecutions of
their Christian neighbours, who never allowed them to pass
through the streets in peace.—(See “Europ. Morals,” ii.,94-5.
See also ii., 92).
To quote again the Westminster Review—li The most
remarkable instance of a military hospital was one in Ire
land. The palace of Emania was founded about 300 b.c.,
by the Princess Macha of the golden hair, and continued to
be the chief royal residence of Ulster until 332 a.d., when
it was destroyed. To this palace were attached two houses,
one, the house in which the Red Branch Knights hung up
their arms and trophies, the other in which the sick were cared
for and the wounded healed; this latter was called by the
expressive name Broin Bearg, the House of Sorrow.”
What has been put forward above will be sufficient to
show that we owe neither medicine nor hospitals to Chris
tianity ; indeed, I am not aware that any one ever ascribed
the former to this religion, though it would be just as
rational as to ascribe the latter to it. Neither Judaism (as
found in the Old Testament) nor Christianity (as found in
the New) shows any favour to medicine. The spirit of the
Old Testament may be found in the following passage :—
“ And Asa, in the thirty and ninth year of his reign was
�NOT OF CHRISTIAN ORIGIN.
7
diseased in his feet, until his disease was exceeding great;
yet in his disease he sought not to the Lord, but to the
physicians.” (2 Chron. xvi., 12.) The context tells us he
died; the inference is plain—he lost his life because he pre
ferred medical attendance to miraculous power. The Jews
could not more strongly have condemned medicine than
they have done in this passage, for not only did the patient
die, but the physicians are set in direct rivalry with Jehovah.
And here I may ask how it was that the Jews, who were so
favoured of God, had to learn all their medical knowledge
from other nations ? Their God revealed to them all those
senseless ceremonies found in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers,
and Deuteronomy, but never told them how to heal one
single disease ! Four books, filled for the most part with a
burdensome ritual or instructions in the art of worship,
were vouchsafed by their divinity, but not a word about
healing ! Large portions of those books, too, are occupied
in directions for finding leprosy, but not a word about the
cure of the disease (See Levit. xiii., 44-46). The whole
dress of the priest was prescribed, colour, shape, texture, and
everything—these were of supreme importance, and involved,
of course, the weal or woe of the world—so momentous
were they that their chief divinity went out of his way to
reveal them ; but human suffering was of no concern at all,
and their divinity forgot to reveal the art of healing. Indeed,
he himself claimed the sole right to kill and make alive, to
inflict or to heal disease. All this was fatal to the study of
medicine.
The same remarks, slightly modified, will apply to the
New Testament, where miraculous agency is the only
recognised mode of healing. This may be due to the fact
that the Jews went into captivity in Babylon, rather than in
Greece or Rome, for “ the Babylonians and Assyrians alone,
among the great nations of antiquity, had no physicians.
The sick man was laid on a couch in the public square, and
the passers-by were required to ask him the nature of his
disease, so that if they or any of their acquaintance had
been similarly afflicted they might advise him as to the
remedies he should adopt.” (West. Review, ibid.') How
much this resembles the Gospel story of the pool of Bethesda,
leaving out the angelic descent 1 (John v., 2.) The Baby
lonians were also fond of charms, for they mistook diseases
for devils, as Jesus did. Mr. H. F. Talbot, in his “Assyrian
Talismans and Exorcisms,” quotes a tablet as follows :—•
�HOSPITALS AND DISPENSARIES.
“ God shall stand by his bedside ; those seven evil spirits
He shall root out and expel from his body; those seven
shall never return to the sick man.” This superstition re
appears in the Gospels :—“ Then goeth he, and taketh with
himself seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and
they enter in and dwell there, and the last state of that man
is worse than the first.” (Matt, xii., 45.) Jesus actually
cast this number of devils out of Mary Magdalene. (See
Mark xvi., 9.) In face of this most debasing superstition,
people still worship Jesus as an almighty and omniscient
God ! And though he, beyond all men, taught the mira
culous causes and cures of disease, his professed followers
claim for him and his religion all the credit of originating
the scientific treatment of human ills. For certain, science
never met a more determined foe than Christianity; but
science no sooner gains a victory than Christianity turns
round and claims all the merit of inventing the very thing
she did her utmost to destroy.
That people bearing the name of Christ have, in modern
times, built and founded hospitals, I cheerfully acknowledge;
it matters not to me what names men bear so long as they
do good. But this I fearlessly affirm, that every hospital
ever erected has been built on or by principles which Christ
condemned, so that if he was right, the founders of
hospitals must have been wrong. Not only did Jesus teach
that diseases were to be healed by miracles (Mark xvi., 17,
18), but he strictly forbade the laying up of treasure : as
pointedly as he forbade murder or adultery, he also forbade
the accumulation of wealth. Without the wealth, hospitals
could not have been built, nay, all must have been paupers.
Religion and religious teaching, had they been obeyed,
would have made the world bankrupt; but in Secular
principles lies the salvation of man. Religion points to
another world, to reach which we must renounce this;
Secularism teaches to make the best possible—in money,
intelligence, humanity, and morality—of this world, and to
leave the next—a mere dream, most likely—to look out for
itself. I admit there are good things in the Bible ; but all
the good it contains would have been outweighed a thousand
times by a simple and effectual remedy for only one disease.
Why did divine mercy omit such a remedy ? Let Christians
explain.
�
Dublin Core
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Title
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Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
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Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Hospitals & dispensaries not of Christian origin
Creator
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Symes, Joseph [1841-1906]
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 8 p. ; 17 cm.
Notes: Printed by Annie Besant and Charles Bradlaugh. Date of publication from British Library record. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
Publisher
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Freethought Publishing Company
Date
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[1879]
Identifier
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N630
Subject
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Health
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Hospitals & dispensaries not of Christian origin), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
Format
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application/pdf
Type
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Text
Language
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English
Health
Health Services
Hospitals
NSS