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WHICH IS
TH/CIIE?
VERBATIM REPORT of a PUBLIC DEBATE
BETWEEN
The REV. DR. JAMES McCANN
AND
Mr. G. W. FOOTE .
(Editor of “ The Freethinker"),
AT THE
TIALL OF SCIENCE, OLD STREET, LONDON, E.C.,
On Thursdays, April 8, 15, 29, and May 6, 1886.
(Revised l>y the Disputants.)
•
V
PRICE ONE SHILLING.
LONDON:
PROGRESSIVE PUBLISHING COMPANY,
28 Stonecutter Street.
��NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY
CHRISTIANITY OR SECULARISM:
WHICH
IS
TZHTTZB ?
A VERBATIM REPORT OF A FOUR NIG-HTS’ DEBATE BETW EEN
The Rev. Dr. J. McCANN and Me. Gr. W. FOOTE,
At the Hall of Science, Old Street, London, E.C.
First Night, April 8, 1886.
Mbs. BESANT, in introducing the speakers, said: You are all
of you aware that the subject for the debate to-night is “ Chris
tianity or Secularism : Which is True ?” The arrangements for
the debate are as follows :—Dr. McCann opens the debate to-night
in a speech of half an hour; Mr. Foote answers in a speech also of
half an hour. The second hour will be divided into fouY speeches
of a quarter of an hour each, Dr. McCann commencing and Mr.
Foote closing for to-night. Next Thursday Mr. Foote will open the
debate, but arrangements otherwise will be the same. I don’t
think I need ask those who are present here to give help to the
disputants and to me by preserving thorough order throughout the
debate. I conclude from your presence here we may take it for
granted that you are searchers after truth, and that those of you
who are sure that you are right will be willing to listen patiently
and quietly to the arguments on the other side. (Hear, hear.) I
will now call on Dr. McCann.
Dr. McCANN : The time at my disposal is so short that I must
enter on my subject with but few preliminary remarks. I may
then at once state that I do not think a debate of this kind is the
best way of arriving at truth, because it must be apparent to all
that questions so important as those which we are discussing
require calm and protracted thought; and I have not the slightest
doubt that if either Mr. Foote or myself were to answer the other
from the solitude of our study, we should answer very differently
from the rapid method necessitated by the platform. Nevertheless
this debate may be of use ; I hope it may.
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CHRISTIANITY OR SECULARISM,
One word more. In this discussion there will be nothing per
sonal ; I shall hit as hard as I can anything Mr. Foote may say that
I think mistaken. To do that I must mention his name, but when
I say Mr. Foote, I mean only what Mr. Foote has said. I am also
well assured that my attitude towards him will be the same as his
towels me, so that no feeling but one of friendliness will exist in
either towards the other. (Applause.)
And now to my subject. Believing Christianity to be true and a
most important aid to human progress, I am about to state my
reasons for that belief. If these reasons be not refuted my point
will be established. Believing Secularism to be untrue, in fact im
possible, I shall state my reasons for that belief on a future even
ing. I hope to do this in so explicit a way that, whether I convince
you or not of my accuracy, you will at least learn to treat with
more respect than is now always accorded to it, that belief called
Christianity, and also have your belief shaken in that something
called Secularism.
The propositions I am about to maintain, and of which Mr.
Foote has a copy, are the following :—
1. Christianity is belief in the deity of Christ, and a life in
harmony with the teachings of Christ and the writers of the New
Testament.
2. These teachings are in harmony with the facts of conscious
ness.
3. They are helpful to human progress.
As regards the deity of Christ, it is no part of my work to-night
to prove or even explain that position. It will be attacked on the
next evening by my opponent, when I shall do my best to answer
him. Meantime I proceed on the assumption that the claims made
by Christ are true. Indeed no other course is possible, because
were I to pause to enforce this doctrine all our time would be
occupied, and I might with perfect consistency be asked to go
farther back and prove there was Deity at all. So the debate would
become one on the existence of God. I apprehend, however, that
you wish the subject treated from a practical rather than a specu
lative point of view. You will observe then that I make true
Christianity to consist in a life moulded by the teachings and
example of Christ, and the teachings of the writers of the New
Testament. It is not merely intellectual assent to a series of pro
positions, it is also the heart surrender to the influence of a person
—as Paul expressed it when he said “ to me to live is Christ.” This
principle will be acknowledged true of all moral systems, or those
that concern conduct. He would not be called a consistent Secu
larist who merely professed to believe the writings of Secularists
�WHICH IS TRUE ?
3
but who in life contradicted them. And such was the contention
of Christ always. “ He that hath my commandments and keepeth
them, he it is that loveth me.” “ If a man love me he will keep
my words.” Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on
him, “ If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed.”
The same with his apostles. “ Be ye doers of the word, an# not
hearers only, deceiving your own selves.” This, however, is so
manifest as not to require proof. Consequently, before any action
or life can be rightly called “ Christian,” it must be shown to be in
accordance with the teachings of Christ and his apostles. The
doings of Christians are very frequently, unfortunately, in direct
opposition to these teachings ; so that they ought to be called un
Christian. (Applause.)
It is unnecessary to dwell longer on this point, as it cannot be
disputed. Our next question is, Are these teachings calculated to
elevate the life that is in accordance with them ? Now it is per
fectly clear that any system to benefit the character of man must
be adapted to the fundamental principles of that character—that
is, they must be in harmony with the facts of consciousness, for
these are the base and guarantee of all truth. This is so important
that I must pause for a quotation from Sir Wm. Hamilton relative
to it. “It is at once evident that philosophy, as it affirms its own
possibility, must affirm the veracity of consciousness ; for, as philo
sophy is only a scientific development of the facts which conscious
ness reveals, it follows that philosophy, in denying or doubting the
testimony of Consciousness, would deny or doubt its own existence.”
Again : “ It is manifest at once and without further reasoning, that
no philosophical theory can pretend to truth except that single
theory which comprehends and develops the facts of consciousness
on which it founds itself, without retrenchment, distortion or
addition.”
We are, then, conscious of the possession of reason, conscience,
will and affection. I select these because, as time will not permit
of a more extended analysis, I prefer considering those powers that
are called the motive powers of the mind, or the powers that persuade
to action.. Surely any system that appeals to man’s reason, appeases
his conscience, defers to his will, and wins his purest affections,
must for.him be true. Christianity does all these. (Applause).
First,, it appeals to his reason. We are not asked to believe any
thing without a reason for that belief, or evidence in its favor.
Belief that is not based on evidence is credulitg, and not worthy
the name belief. Christ appealed sometimes to his works, as when
he said “ believe me for the very works’ sake.” Again : “ Why
even of yourselves judge ye not what is right.” In fact all his
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CHRISTIANITY OB SECULARISM,
teachings were an appeal to men’s reason, and his followers were
even more emphatic in their claims for reason. Paul says, “ Let
everyman be fully persuaded in his own mind.” “I speak as
to wise men ; judge ye what I say.” We read that Paul “ went in
unto them [Jews] and three Sabbath days reasoned with them out
of the scriptures.” When before Felix ‘'he reasoned of righteous
ness, temperance, and judgment to come.” He reasoned with the
philosophers of Athens, and with such effect that certain clave to
him there and then, while others wished to hear again. He states
one of the chief qualities of a bishop to be that he is “ apt to
teach.” But in point of fact it is not necessary to establish this
from the New Testament, for the mere fact that reason is a gift of
God is of itself sufficient to prove that reason ought to be used ; it
is a talent, as the Christian believes, to be accounted for one day. We
should then regard it as a primary duty “ to be ready always to
give an answer to every man that asketh him a reason of the hope
that is in us with meekness and reverence.”
Further, the authority of conscience is recognised, and its claims
admitted. The greatest sorrows in life, the deepest degradations
of our days, have arisen from disregarding its utterances. Well
does the poet speak of that “ peace above all earthly dignities a
still and quiet conscience.” When conscience speaks all other
voices must be hushed, custom must be disregarded, profit
must be rejected, worldly affluence or influence must be set aside.
That which is believed to be right, must be, as far as possible,
rightly done at all hazard, and at all cost. So Paul says “ herein
do I exercise myself, to have always a conscience void of offence
toward God, and toward men.” John tells Timothy "to hold the
mystery of the faith in a pure conscience.” Peter also speaks of the
“ answer of a good conscience towards God.” “ Ought ” is made
the imperative word. " These ought ye to have done.” " We ought
to obey God rather than man.” “ He that saith he abideth in him
ought himself also so to walk even as he walked.” Is this, or is this
not, in accordance with our moral sense ? Surely we cannot deny
that when a man’s conscience tells him a certain course is right, he
ought to follow it if he can. What would be thought of the man
who said, I feel I ought to do this, it is right, but it won’t pay ?
How much better, happier would our country be if every individual
in it tried to keep his conscience void of offence, tried to do that
which in his heart he honestly believed he ought to do. I freely
grant that sometimes the action might not be altogether a prudent
one, but that does not alter my position, that even with these mis
takes for all men to act conscientiously would be the dawning of a
brighter day than our land has yet seen. (Applause.)
�WHICH IS TRUE ?
5
Further, Christianity never loses sight of the fact that we have
will, freedom ; are so far agents in our own lives, and responsible to
God for the manner in which we use that agency. Man is every
where appealed to, urged, prayed, entreated, to cease to do evil, and
learn to do well. He is never regarded as a machine. So consis
tently is this borne in mind that even Christ does not bring his
power to bear in the moral world. In the physical world his ^vord
was sufficient, but in the world of man’s responsibility that word
never was used. He wished the love and consistency of brethren,
and not the monotony of machinery. It is ever “ Come unto me,”
“ seek,” “ strive,” “ labor,” etc. Let your view of the truth of
Christianity be what it may, none can deny the beauty of the state
ment regarding Christ, “ Behold I stand at the door and knock.”
The love, the patience, the deference to human responsibility,
expressed in these words, cannot, on our hypothesis, be overstated.
There is one other point to be considered here, and that not the
least important. It is that Christianity gains man’s affection. It
is perfectly clear that when we act from personal affection we shall
do so much more energetically, happily, and successfully, than when
duty is the only motive. Now on the theory of Christianity, the
affections must be won of those who practically embrace it. For
that theory is that Christ, for man, came from heaven to earth,
for him suffered more than any other man, is still conferring bene
fits upon him, and procures for him the greatest blessing possible
to confer on any human being. Whether truly or falsely, that is
what Christians believe, and believing that, it is not difficult to tell
the results. And in-fact such have been the results in those who
are rightly called Christians. This love is possible only to a
person—no abstract truth could call it forth. So far Christianity
is not assent to doctrines, but love and likeness to a person. It is
built on Christ. “ He made it first, he makes it still. His blood
was its seed, and his spirit creates its flower. Without him it would
ne^er have been, without him it could not continue to be.” Never
has Being kindled such love as he, the unseen. For him men have
home everything. He has stirred a love in life that has ennobled
the poorest, and made the penniless wealthy. (Applause.)
Allow me to quote here a passage from the life of Napoleon, not
now for the purpose of proving the divinity of Christ, but of
describing his power over men. While at St. Helena he said to
one of his generals “ Who was Christ ? Alexander, Caesar, Charle
magne, and I, have founded empires with force—he with love.
Millions would die for him. I understand human nature. These
were men, Jesus Christ was more than man. I have inspired
multitudes, but to do this it was necessary that I should be visibly
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CHRISTIANITY OB SECULARISM,
present with, the electric influence of my look, my words, my voice.
When I saw men and spoke to them I lighted up the flame of selfdevotion in their hearts. Christ alone has succeeded in so raising
the mind of men towards the unseen that it becomes insensible to
the barriers of time and space. Across the chasm of eighteen
hundred years he makes a demand which is beyond all others
difficult to satisfy ; he asks for the human heart. He inspires a
supernatural love. Time, the great destroyer, is powerless to ex
tinguish this sacred flame ; time can neither exhaust its strength
nor set a limit to its range.” Christianity, therefore, appealing to
the facts of consciousness, to the motive powers of man’s life, would
convince his reason, enforce the dictates of his conscience, stimu
late his will, and win his love ; Christianity necessarily elevates him
both intellectually and morally, making his life truer and grander
than before. (Cheers.)
The next point to be considered is—that a system to benefit man
must be adapted not only to his nature but also to his surround
ings or condition in life. It must not be for men of any one class,
or culture, or age, but for all men. Equally it must be able to
reach and elevate the rich and poor, the learned and the unlearned,
the old and young. It cannot for a moment be denied that this is
true of Christianity. Its disciples are found in all these positions.
This is made possible by the simplicity that is in Christ. All can
understand what it is to trust and follow Christ. In his own days
the common people heard him gladly, and they do so still. True
there are profundities of thought that sages cannot fully fathom.
This, however, is exactly what we should have anticipated, as when
a father teaches his child there is much the child can apprehend
but there is also much beyond its power of thought, at least for the
time. But yet again, if this power is to be for man it must
be adapted for man as such, irrespective of country and age.
There must be neither “Jew nor Greek, barbarian, Scythian,
bond nor free.
All must be one. It must also be de
tached from all those frameworks of human life that neces
sarily. pass away: codes of law, systems of government, in
stitutions, theories of philosophy, forms of language and
literature ; it must be able to live with and rule all, be indentified
with none. It must be universal in space and time. Now this
would have been utterly impossible for Christianity had it, as some
have thought it ought to have done, elaborated a detailed
set of rules for the guidance of life—directions regarding indi
vidual conduct, forms of government, political economy, etc. J. S.
ill thought it defective here, yet, what does he say on its ethics
as a whole : “ I am as far as anyone from pretending that these
�WHICH IS TRUE ?
7
defects are necessarily inherent in its ethics, in any manner in which
it can be conceived ; or that the many requisites of a complete moral
doctrine which it does not contain, do not admit of being reconciled
with it. Far less would I insinuate this of the doctrines and
precepts of Christ himself ” {Liberty.') Instead of a system of
casuistry, or cases for conscience, it gives broad leading principles of
conduct that strengthen a man’s moral muscle, teach him to think
for himself, and act intelligently as a master, and not a slave. In
moral as in material things one man’s meat is another man’s poison,
what will help one may hinder another. Therefore in things in
different, liberty is allowed and self is developed. One set of
principles for example is given by Paul : “ Whatsoever things are
true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are pure,
whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever
things are of good report ; think of these things.” These pre
cepts honestly carried out will do more than volumes of specific
rales to guide men aright. Suppose some revelation were imagined
to be given from God in the present day for the guidance, at the
present time alone, of all men in government, commerce and private
life, on this principle of detail demanded by Mr. F. W. Newman I
Why the idea would be ridiculously impossible. But these princi
ples stated by Paul, can you imagine a country, time, or circum
stance in which they would not be a guide ? Christianity is for all
ages of life, all ages of the world, all countries, and all circumstances.
Christianity also starts man from the first on the right and manly
way,
Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness,
and all these things shall be added to you.” It places truth first
and all other things as secondary. Who would have it otherwise ?
Tht man who is not true is nothing. He may have much, but he
is nothing. On the other hand, the citizen of the empire of truth
has, so far, the true in all things. If he has wealth, he uses its
truth and becomes richer ; if poverty, he uses it and becomes less
poor. One of Christ’s most honored names was “ the Truth,” and
therefore the life. He who will first of all, and before all, make
it his aim to be true to his God, true to his fellow-man and true to
himself, may be poor in the wealth of gold, but he will be rich in
wealth of self, nobility of character and grandeur of life. And
this is Christianity. (Applause.)
Not only, however, does it start man on a grand career—it also
Supplies him with motive forces that are, or ought to be, sufficient
for his needs. Such aids are urgently demanded, for there are un
manly habits to be mastered, evil tendencies to be overcome, temp
tations to be conquered. What is that aid ? I might refer to the
promised help of the spirit of God coming with power into our
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CHRISTIANITY OR SECULARISM,
weakness to make us strong; but I wish to keep to the human side
as much as possible; therefore I pass this by, and speak alone of
the power of love. This is the strongest of emotions, mastering
all the rest—mastering them happily as well as surely. In Chris
tianity we have love to Christ as the great foundation, as has been
already shown. And this love Christ claims as his own, and
rightly so, if his character and services be what Christians believe
them. They have learned to love that Christ who did not allow
man’s evil to hide the man; who came to seek and save the lost;
who was so gentle as to draw children to his side, and so sympa
thetic as to conquer the fear of the fallen. That Jesus whose
heart was the home of a love that enfolded the world, whose
spirit was the stainless and truthful mirror of the eternal. That
Jesus whose
spirit had depths storms could
not reach,
heights they
couldnot disturb.
That Jesus that loved
with more than brother’s love, and felt with more than woman’s
tenderness. But love of Christ ends not there ; from it there
springs love to our brothers also. No fact in the whole of
the New Testament is more insisted on than this, and surely no
fact could be more influential and good than brotherly love. For
love worketh no ill to his neighbor, therefore love is the fulfilling
of the law. What says Christ himself on this point ? “ Love
your enemies; bless them that curse you, do good to them that
hate you, and pray for them that despitefully use you and persecute
you.” If all men only acted on this precept, enemies would be
changed to friends, and hate give place to love. (Cheers.) There may
be some not able to appreciate such high-toned character, but this
only shows me the more their need of such an elevating influence.
Again, “ A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one
another ; as I have loved you that ye also love one another. By
this shall all men know that ye are my disciples if ye have love
one to another. ”,v He also summed up the whole law regarding
man’s duty to man in one sentence, “ Thou shalt love thy neighbor
as thyself.”
When we turn to the Apostles we find exactly the same teaching.
Many of you may be familiar with Paul’s splendid eulogy of love,
as charity, “ Though I speak with the tongue of men and angels, and
have not love, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling
symbol.” “Now abideth faith, hope, love, these three ; but the
greatest of these is love.” What, I ask, could be more emphatic
than the language of John : “ He that saith he is in the light and
hateth his brother is in darkness even until now.” “Beloved, let
us love one another.” “ If a man say, I love God and hateth his
brother he is a liar : for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath
�WHICH IS TRUE ?
9
seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?” Quotations
of this kind might be multiplied indefinitely. But these are suffi
cient for my present purpose, and they give you the spirit that
animates the whole teaching of Christ and his Apostles. Again, I
ask you, in all earnestness, what would be the effect of their
universal adoption ? Would they not put an end to all warfare
and dishonesty, to all cruelty, to all slander, to unbrotherliness of
every kind? Would they not give effect to the injunction, “Let
all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamor, and evil speaking
be put away from you with all malice, and be ye kind one to
another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, even as God for
Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.” More hopeful and ennobling
teaching, a sublimer system, based on so spotless and consistent a
life, cannot be imagined. (Applause.)
If the age is ever to advance, it can only be in the future, as in the
past, on these lines, and by means of a genuine Christianity ; for
Christ is the Master Spirit of all progress. “ He inculcates that
which is real and vital, he annuls that which is no longer helpful;
his eyes are ever on living needs—his face towards the future. ‘ I
am the truth,’ he said ; therefore whatever is untrue in doctrine or
life, in science or philosophy, is contrary to his spirit. He was a
hater of shams and forms that did not thrill with beneficent life.
He put behind him whatever of theory, or custom, or tradition
that interfered with human welfare. He brought the world face to
face with realities. Christianity is most vigorous in the most
vigorous and progressive nations. It marches in the van of the
world’s advancement. It lives in the sunlight, and walks in the
day, and grows under the gaze of men. It leads the procession of
those who minister to suffering, alleviate poverty and seek to speed
the day in which the brotherhood of man and the Fatherhood of
God shall be recognised around the world.” Well might Lecky,
in his History of Morals, write of the founder of this faith : “ It
was reserved for Christianity to present to the world an ideal cha
racter which, through all the changes of eighteen centuries, has
inspired the hearts of men with an impassioned love, and has shown
itself capable of acting on all ages, nations, temperaments and
conditions ; has not only been the highest pattern of virtue, but
the highest incentive to its practice : and has exercised so deep an
influence that it may be truly said that the simple record of three
short years of active life has done more to regenerate mankind than all
the disquisitions of philosophers and all the exhortations of moralists.”
This is not the testimony of a friend, and what say those who reject
his greater claims and view him from the standpoint of the true
rationalist ? What says Strauss, the apostle of destructive criticism ?
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CHRISTIANITY OB SECULARISM,
“ He remains the highest model of religion within the reach of our
thought, and no perfect piety is possible without his presence in
the heart.” What says Keim : “His is the religion of the loftiest
idealism, in faith and will; and yet again so entirely measured,
rational and sober ; because resting on actually experienced facts
and built on earnest deeds of highest, fullest and truly human, free,
reasonable performance.” Hear the words of J. S. Mill, in his Essays
on Religion: “ Whatever else may be taken from us by rational
criticism, Christ is still left, a unique figure, not more unlike all
his precursors than his followers. Nor would it be easy, even for
an unbeliever, to find a better translation of the rule of virtue from
the abstract into the concrete than to endeavor so to live that Christ
would approve his life.” Lastly, one quotation from Renan, who
wrote to show that Christ was only a man. I close with the words
in which he concluded his volume : “ Whatever be the surprises of
the future, Jesus will never be surpassed. His worship will grow
young without ceasing ; His legend will call forth tears without
end: His sufferings will meet the noblest hearts: .All ages will
proclaim that among the sons of men there is none born greater
than Jesus.” (Loud applause.)
Mb. FOOTE : To-night I am placed in rather a difficult position.
To begin with, although I was furnished with the three proposi
tions Dr. McCann would maintain to-night, I had no more idea of
the line he was going to pursue than any person in this audience.
The terms of his propositions are so vague that they include the
universe, and it was utterly impossible for me to make a selection
beforehand, I had not the slightest idea what writers Dr. McCann
would quote—that is a disadvantage which I shall endeavor to
remove for him next Thursday evening. It was a point we had
not sufficiently considered. Next Thursday Dr. McCann will have
a list of the books I shall cite, and, within reasonable limits, of the
passages I shall quote. He will, therefore, be able to quote from
the context, or from other portions of the same books, or the
writings of the same authors. I am also in a position of difficulty
because I rather agree than disagree with a great deal of what Dr.
McCann has said. (Hear, hear.) It was only when he came to the
close of his speech, and gave you a series of panegyrics on Christ,
which I have not time to refute in detail, that I found myself in
collision with him. The thought occurred to me, as he was read
ing that glowing piece of rhetoric from Renan, that it would have
been as well if that eminent writer had read a sentence of George
Eliot s before he wrote it—namely, that “ prophecy is a gratuitous
foim of error.” It is impossible to comprehend his entering among
�WHICH IS TRUE ?
11
th® prophets, except on the theory that Renan, who is a great
man, is conscious of his greatness, and is not devoid of that vanity
of opinion .which marks too many writers of the nation to which he
belongs.
Dr. McCann thinks that a debate of this kind may not be of
great value, and that if we had a private conversation we should
more probably arrive at truth. But that is not our purpose to
night. Dr. McCann has arrived at truth, as he thinks ; so have I;
and our purpose to-night is to lay before this impartial audience
Crtir respective views, so that you may judge between us. In a
private conversation we might be too lenient with each other. We
might concede too much. We might slur over diffierences and
make the most of agreements. To-night our business is rather to
make the most of disagreements.
It is not enough to say that Christianity inculcates moral pre
cept®. All religions that ever existed in the world do that. The
proper basis of discussion to-night is—what is it that differentiates
Christianity from other forms of belief, and is Christianity especially
true and beneficent in that respect ? To describe a particular man
in the terms of physiology would be to describe him so that
nobody could recognise him. If you describe him you must des
cribe all his peculiarities and not all his generalities ; that is, you
must describe him according to those characteristics that difference
him from others. I hold that Dr. McCann ought to have dwelt
most on those features of Christianity that separate it from other
religions, and give it its individuality. Whether he has done that
is a matter for you to judge. I have my own opinion, and perhaps
after all it would coincide with that of Dr. McCann himself.
(Daughter.)
Another curious observation I wish to clear away is this : Ohristiaa practice must not be taken into account when we are judging
Christianity. (Hear, hear.) Evidently Dr. McCann's view is
shared by some persons, but if you are to take the lives of Christians, select from their practices everything which throws credit
upon Christianity, and exclude everything that throws discredit
upon it, you can of course prove just what you please. (Hear,
hear.) It was well remarked by Cardinal Newman once that by a
judicious selection of facts you can prove anything. (Laughter.)
I want to point out what a very two-edged argument this is.
If people who do things which are not inculcated in the New
Testament are not to be reckoned as Christians in that respect,
then all those who refrain from doing things that are inculcated in
the New Testament must likewise be exempted. If you exelude all
who supplement and all who neglect the maxims of the New
�12
CHRISTIANITY OR SECULARISM,
Testament, you would have such a large category of exclusions
that I doubt if a single Christian would remain.
I believe it is a Christian doctrine that there is efficacy in prayer,
I believe Jesus Christ himself said that “Whatsoever ye ask
believing, ye shall receive.” In a Christian country, under a
Christian law, the House of Commons must supplicate the divine
aid every day before it commences its deliberations. That is the
profession. But when some member who really believes it all rises
and asks the Prime Minister to set aside a day for special prayer to
God against the prevailing distress, the Prime Minister sets the
request aside with a half-veiled sneer ; and his frame of mind is
similar to that of ninety-nine out of every hundred Christians out
side, who imply one set of principles in their rites and ceremonies,
and practise quite another in all the business and pleasure of life.
(Applause.)
Christianity is in harmony with the facts of consciousness ! Now
this is a very wide phrase. It includes everything that anybody
ever had in his mind. If that be a fair view of “the facts of con
sciousness,” Christianity is certainly not in harmony with them.
The Buddhist, the Brahman and the Mohammedan, and the professors
of every other creed, would reject'it as not in harmony with their con
sciousness. No doubt Christianity is in harmony with the con*
sciousness of those who have been taught from their childhood to
believe it. It would be a miracle if it were not. But it is not in
harmony with my consciousness. (Laughter.) It is sadly in dis
cord with it; and I do not know how Dr. McCann can maiiJtain his position unless he excludes me from the category of
humanity.
Now we were told that Christianity stimulates the reason, the con
science, the will, and the affections. I do not think anyone who can
didly reads the history of Christianity would come to any such con
clusion. Christianity has so stimulated reason that during the
greater part of its history reason has been remorselessly trodden
under foot. It is a fact, which I think no student of history would
think of disputing, that until Christianity appeared in the world
there never was a religion, except Judaism, which of course is only
another branch of the same theology, which ever put forward the
monstrous dogma that a man was to be saved or damned, or in any
way rewarded or punished, for his faith or want of faith. A reli
gion which has always taught that dogma, and written it in the
tortures of the Inquisition, in the fires of the stake, in the loath
some dungeons where men expiated the crime of thinking for
themselves, has no right to talk of its love for reason. Christianity
has no right to-day, when its power is diminished, to claim a love
�WHICH IS TRUE ?
13
for that rationality which it always derided and oppressed in the
day of its power. (Loud applause.)
I am sorry to confess that the teachings of the New Testament
do put a great strain upon my reason. Of course my reason
may not be so accommodating as Dr. McCann’s. It may not be so
pliable and docile. You will pardon me for introducing a little
story. A gentleman was once holding forth to George Eliot on the
beauty of Christianity. She listened to his platitudes with great
patience, and when he had done she said : “Well there’s a great
deal in what you say, and after all I have only one objec
tion to Christianity,” “And what is that, pray ?” “Why,” she
replied, “it isn’t true.” (Laughter). If Christianity simply meant
that men were to have brotherly love towards each other, if it
simply meant that they were to assist each other, if it simply meant
that men were to do their best in this life for themselves and all
around them, if it simply meant that they were to try to make the
world a little better for their having lived in it, everybody would be
a Christian ; and I venture to say that if Christianity had carried
©nly that message to the heathen world it would have made infinitely
greater conquests than it has. (Hear, hear.)
But Christianity says that Jesus Christ is God. That is a strain
on my reason. Dr. McCann said he would not enter into a discus
sion on that point because it would take too much time. No doubt
it would—to prove it. (Laughter.) We might be driven back on
the question of whether God exists ! Not so. I would admit for
th® sake of argument the existence of God, and then we should
simply have to discuss whether Jesus Christ was God in the sense
both of us attach to the word. Dr. McCann was judicious in
skipping that question. I cannot believe that Jesus Christ was
God; and what is more, ninety-nine out of every hundred Chris
tians do not believe it. (Hear, hear.) If they believed that he is
God would they not implicitly obey every injunction that ever fell
from his lips ? Jesus was God and told us what is necessary for
©'ttt guidance ! Yet no man will quote him in Parliament, on a
town council, on a School Board, or on any committee where men
are engaged in serious business. The place to quote him is in
church or chapel, and 'that is a place where, as you know, one
man speaks at a time and no one dare contradict what he says.
Christianity, according to the teaching of the New Testament
Writers, demands belief in miracles. The modem mind rejects
them. If you tell a man that a miracle occurred yesterday he will
laugh at you. If you tell him that a miracle occurred eighteen
hundred years ago, he says “ That is just what I believe.” But
why is this difference ? Simply because if you tell him a story of
�14
CHRISTIANITY OR SECULARISM,
yesterday he uses his common sense, while he believes without
thinking a story which is found within the borders of the book
which he accepts in a spirit of faith and not of reason, and bows
to as before the tribunal of God, which he must not question but
simply submit to. (Applause.)
Christianity stimulates men’s consciences ! Some people respond
very feebly to the stimulant. (Laughter.) I am not aware that
Christianity stimulates man’s conscience any more than Buddhism.
Nay, I consider that Buddhism is more tender, more beautiful, more
loving, than any form of Christianity. What Christianity ever
taught the rights of the lower animals ? Yet Buddhism teaches
that the moral law holds with every being capable of feeling pleasure
and pain, and I say that is a higher and more tender form of con
science than any Christianity has produced. (Hear, hear.) Con
science did not begin with Christianity, and fortunately will not
end with it. I object altogether to the statement that Christianity
stimulates conscience. I agree with Professor Bain, who says that
whenever Jesus says a right thing he always gives a wrong reason
for it. Jesus says we must do this and do that, but he never gives
us the right reason. “ Love one another ” he commands us, as if
love could be commanded! It can only be earned. (Hear, hear.)
We are to forgive each other because then God will forgive us !
It i^a question of profit and loss. (Laughter.) If Jesus had said,
Do good to each other because you are all of one family ; if he
had said, like the great Roman moralist, the emperor Marcus
Aurelius, that men are made for co-operation like the rows of the
upper and lower teeth ; if he had taught, like that noble sage, that
what is not good for the hive neithei’ is it good for the single bee,
and what is not good for the single bee neither is it good for the
hive; he would have put morality upon a basis that never could
have been subverted. But he bases morality on the will of God,
and we have simply to obey. That may be the slavishness of fear,
but it is not the morality of universal love. (Cheers.)
Christianity has won the affections of men 1 So has every
religion that ever was taught. Children are told from their earliest
days that Jesus was pure and perfect, and how many men in the
world ever think themselves out of the teaching of their childhood ?
Unfortunately, very few. The priest knows that as the twig is bent
the tree inclines. If children are taught that Jesus Christ was the
noblest, purest, and loftiest being that ever existed, men will say it
when they grow older, and Dr. McCanns will be found to expatiate
on it even from secular platforms. (Laughter.)
Christ suffered for man! If he were God, as Dr. McCann says,
how could he suffer for man ? There is no sense in the proposi-
�WHICH IS TRUE ?
15
lion, except on the supposition that Jesus was a man and not a
God. If he were God suffering on that cross, if he were God
calling to himself “ My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken
me?”-—-(laughter)—the whole thing would become a farce beneath
contempt. There is no pathos in the Calvary story except on the
supposition that Jesus of Nazareth was a man who, like so many
others in the world’s history, met a cruel death because he was
inimical to the people in power. Does Dr. McCann suppose that
Buddhism has not centred the affections of the hundreds of
millions of Buddhists round the person of Buddha ? He knows it
has. If his argument proves anything, it proves that Christ was
God and Christianity is true, that Mohammed was God and Moham
medanism is true, and that Buddha was God and Buddhism true.
(Cheers.) An argument which proves too much is quite as bad as
an argument that proves too little.
Millions are ready to die for Christ! Well, as I said before,
prophecy is easy. Millions were not always found ready to die for
Christ. As a matter of fact, Protestantism was established on the
continent and in our own island by the right arm of secular power;
and out of the thousands of clergymen in the reign of Queen Mary
who had to chose between yielding up their livings and preaching
a doctrine in direct opposition to that which they had sworn to
maintain, how many do you think followed Christ ? About a hun
dred and twenty. (Laughter). I know that men will fight for
light. I know that men will fight to realise what they think true.
I know that men will fight rather than yield positions they have
takes Up. If you exclude all these you will find that the martyrs
for Christ might be counted very much more readily than Dr.
McCann believes.
Christianity is adapted to all men ! It is so adapted to all men
that three-fourths of the human race, after eighteen centuries of
preaching, still reject it. Although the missionaries come home
and boast of the converts they have made .in heathen countries, it
is still true that they make no converts worth mentioning amongst
the adherents of the great historic systems—the Mohammedans, the
Buddhists, the Brahmans, or even the Jews. How then can Chris
tianity be considered fit for all men ? And it can be proved that
faster even than it professes to make converts among the heathen
abroad it loses it hold upon the people at home. (Hear, hear.)
Christianity is strongest among the most progressive nations !
Not so ; it is the feeblest. If you go to the most backward
countries of Europe, such as Spain and certain parts of Italy, you
will find Christianity meeting you at every turn. But it leaves
you freer when you come to the most progressive countries like
�16
CHRISTIANITY OR SECULARISM,
own, where men fling off their religious profession with their
Sunday clothes, and in their work-day costume act on their work
day principles, which are invariably secular and never Christian.
(Loud applause.)
out
Dr. McCANN : My friend in his opening remarks said, and very
rightly said, that he found his position a very difficult one, and I
believe every man who attempts to oppose Christianity by argument
will find it very difficult indeed. Mr. Foote also said that the
terms of my propositions were so vague that they included the'
universe. Considering that I was to defend Christianity I could'
not make them much more precise than I think they are. They
included its love, its tenderness, its improving influences, and its:
power of stimulating the conscience of man. I am obliged to MrFoote for his offer to give me a list of writers he will quote, which
I willingly accept as it will add much to the importance of our
debate. I could not well give him a list of the passsages I was
going to quote this evening, as I have only quoted from the NewTestament and from one or two authors with whom I am sure MrFoote is as well acquainted as I am.
He referred to Renan’s prophecies and thought that these werethe products of his vanity, but there might be other reasons than
vanity for prophesying certain events in the future. Might he not
be inferring from the past what will take place in the future ?
Renan understood human character, and his prophecy was a result
of reason and not a bauble born of vanity. (Hear, hear.) Mr.
Foote says that Christianity inculcates moral precepts, but so do
all systems of religion. Yes, but inculcating moral precepts is one
thing, but enforcing them is another. It is little to say—do this
or do that. But Christianity does more. It not only tells us what
to do, but tells us how to do it ; also supplies a moral force enabling
us to do it. One great point of our faith is this : it gives you an
ever-present power, and reasoning born of love for living a Chris
tian life. But Mr. Foote also says I ought to have shown how
Christianity was differentiated from the religions of the Mahommedans, the Buddhists and the Brahmins, and how these differentiseshowed a superiority on the part of Christianity over the other reli
gions of the world. My subject to-night is not Christianity and otherreligions, but Christianity and Secularism. (Hear, hear.) In so
far as this debate is concerned, I shall speak of Christianity in its
comparison with Secularism and nothing else, and I shall try toshow you how superior it is to that Secularism in which you believe.
You call yourselves Secularists and not Buddhists, and therefore I
need only explain to you Christianity as compared with your own
�WHICH IS TRUE ?
17
creed, and not with the creed of other people. (Hear, hear.) I ana
perfectly content to compare Christianity with any other religion
in the world at a proper time, when that should be the subject of
debate, but as our time at present is limited it is just as well to
Confine ourselves to the questions in hand.
My opponent says that I affirm that Christian practice is not to
be taken into account when we are judging (Christianity. Nothing
Could possibly be further from my mind than such an assertion.
We are to take Christian practice into account when we are
judging Christianity, but it must be the practice of those who are
truly Christians, and not of those who are merely Christian in
name. From the New Testament I deduce certain principles. These
are the principles of Christianity, and anyone acting in accordance
With these principles is a true Christian, so that the very first thing
to do, if we want to know whether a man or woman is a Christian
or not, is to compare their practice with that of Jesus or his dis
ciples. He says if we leave out all who transgress Christianity we
should leave out a very large number indeed. There is no doubt
about that whatever. Will you find me a perfect man of any kind
whatever on this world at the present time, of any class, of any
church, or of any creed? None will acknowledge more readily
than do Christians themselves that they are not as true to their
high standard as they ought to be, that their Christianity is not what
it ought to be. They very often do what they ought not to do,
and they very often think as they ought not to think; that, how
ever, is weakness of ourselves, and not the weakness of the faith
which we profess. (Hear, hear.) It is our purpose and our en
deavor to go on ever from strength to strength. Christ’s example
is something set before a man as a guide for him to act by, as a
Spur to help him on, ever onwards, upwards, higher and still
higher. (Hear, hear.) I say, therefore, it is to help those who
are toiling along, to bring the erring, the weak and the prodigal
into the right way of rest. We are also told that Christianity
necessitates belief in prayer. There can be no doubt whatever
about that. In our prayers we ask for blessings, believing in the
will, in the power, and in the wisdom of God to answer them. We
pray to him as your children would pray to you. If they want
anything they will come to you in prayer, for prayer on earth is
only one person asking another for something he wants, and you
would use your judgment for their good in responding to their
request. Would you grant that prayer if you knew that what they
were asking for would be bad for them ? Certainly not. They
come to you in the hope, in the faith, that if what they are
asking for is for their good you will do what you can to please them.
e
�18
CHRISTIANITY OR SECULARISM,
And so the Christian, in exactly the same way, believing in the
wisdom of his Father, goes to him asking him for help, de
ferring to his wisdom and judgment. In other words, we go to
God in prayer in exactly the same mannei’ as children go to a
dear and loving father on earth. (Dissent.) I think I ought
to know the theory of prayer as well as you.
Mr. Foote objects to my claim that Christianity was in harmony’
with the facts of consciousness, and this he said because it was a very
wide term involving all a man’s thoughts, but all that a man
thinks about is not what is understood by this term ; it means the
primary facts of a man’s nature. To say that Christianity agreed
with everything that all men could think about would be utter
nonsense ; for if it agrees with what I think about, it cannot agree
with what Mr. Foote thinks.
Mr. Foote also said that never till the time of Christianity was it
taught that men were to be saved by faith. Then I think he
ought to be thankful to Christianity for teaching anything so world
wide in its truth as that salvation is by faith. (Dissent and
laughter.) I should like to know in the overwhelming majority of
cases what is a man saved by if not by his faith. Have you no
faith in Secularism ? Perhaps you have not and you are right.
You know best. If you have no faith in it, it won’t be of much
use to you. It is faith that leads a man to use anything. If he
had no faith in it he would not use it. If he had no faith in
Secularism, or in Christianity, he would not try it; and so it
is because we have tried Christianity that we have faith in it. Our
faith is based on our reason. We are conscious of the greatness of
its power in our lives, and therefore we have faith in Christianity
for the same reason that every scientist has faith in the order of
nature, his faith in the future being based on the experience of the
past. (Applause.)
Mr. FOOTE: At the risk of giving Dr. McCann an opportunity
for another witticism, I repeat that I am in a difficult position. I
have to follow him to-night, and it is not easy, because he has
advanced, as I think, so few arguments in support of the position
he occupies. Next Thursday evening I shall have to lead the
debate. I shall then give you what I think very definite reasons
for believing Christianity to be untrue, and I dare say Dr. McCann
will find it quite as difficult to overturn them as I have found it to
reply to what he has advanced to-night. (Hear, hear.) I should
like to observe in passing that I don’t consider I had violated the
proper conditions of debate by referring to Buddhism or any other
creed. I did .not attempt any elaborate descriptions of those
�WHICH IS TRUE ?
19
system*, I simply mentioned them as illustrating an argument.
If I may mention nothing but Christianity, even by way of illustra
tion, my wings will certainly be very much clipped. (Laughter.)
I shall be like a poor bird in a London cage, instead of having the
free air to expatiate in. I might also say in passing that it is
rather dangerous to be always citing those panegyrics on Christ by
Eenan and other writers. Eenan’s panegyric is in the Vie de Jesus,
his first work of any importance, and written at. a time when he
WM much more under the influence of Christianity than he is now.
The quotation from Strauss is also from an earlier work, and is
utterly out of accord with sentence after sentence in Strauss’s last
book, The Old Faith and the New. I was only turning over its
pages this afternoon, and I find Strauss saying that the so-called
life of Christ is so obscured by supernatural fables that it is utterly
impossible for criticism to ascertain what he really was, and there
fore any veneration of him as a man would be a gratuitous absurd
ity, Were he a God, the case would of course be different. I will
not dilate on that further, but I think it might act as a check on
the exuberance with which the friends of the Christian Evidence
Society quote these earliest passages from the writings of men
whose latest writings often express very different views.
I will now, with your permission, jump to Dr. McCann’s con
cluding remark, because I want to deal with it first. We Secularists
have faith like other people! We have faith, but noi like other
people. It is not like to like, but, as the poet says, it is like in
difference, (Laughter.)' Faith according to knowledge, and faith
Without knowledge, are two very different things. You have faith
in your brother man, but it depends upon how much you know of
tan. I doubt whether Dr. McCann himself would take a promis
sory note from a man who this morning came out of Wormwood
Serubbs, after doing five years. (Laughter.) You have to take
my opponent’s statements with very much reservation. What I
referred to was not faith according to past experience, but the
doctrine of salvation by faith, which, as everybody knows, means
faith or belief in certain doctrines which we do not arrive at
through any process of reason, but which have come to us through
dogmatic channels. Now, if men are to be saved or damned
through faith in that sense, I say it is a doctrine both infamous
and absurd: absurd, because it shows an utter ignorance of the
conditions of human thought ; and infamous, because it punishes or
rewards men for what they can no more help than the color of their
hair or the height of their stature. (Applause.)
Christianity, says Dr. McCann, does not simply inculate precepts,
but it tells us why we should practise them, and helps us to do so.
�20
CHRISTIANITY OR SECULARISM,
Now Dr. McCann did not notice a very important point which I
advanced in my previous speech—namely, that when Jesus inculcated
a right thing he too frequently gave the wrong sanction for it.
Every moralist knows that the sanction of morality is the most
important thing about it. Why we should do so-and-so is the
most important question we can ask. If you say we are to love our
brother because God loves us, it is really no reason at all. If you
say we are to love our brother because if we do not God will punish
us, it is a very bad reason. It could not induce love. It might
induce an outward semblance of the reality, but never could lodge
the reality in our heart’s core. (Hear, hear.)
There is another point I ought to emphasise. Christianity, says
Dr. McCann, does not give us a moral code, but it gives us moral
principles, and the great example of Christ. If you mean that
Christianity gives us no moral laws to guide us, I deny it. Next
Thursday evening I will quote from Jesus Christ and the Apostles
to show that Christianity teaches moral doctrines which civilised
men cannot practise, and which, if they could be practised, would
produce social chaos and barbarism.
Christianity, we are told, supplies us with an emotional force in
affection for Jesus Christ. The same kind of thing is done by
every system which teaches children to venerate some historic
person. No doubt if children were taught to look up to Socrates
instead of Jesus they would feel the same affection for him, and
surely there was enough of nobility and heroism in the life of
Socrates to furnish a centre for the affections of children to revolve
round. The death of Jesus on Mount Calvary, so far as he was
concerned, is no more to be compared with the fine serenity,
mingled with tenderness, with which Socrates met his death, than
the moon can be compared with the refulgent and glorious sun.
(Cheers.)
Dr. McCann misunderstands my objection that he ought to have
set forth Christianity in its differentiae, and not in the generalities
it has in common with other systems. I did not desire that he
should give us a history of all the systems of the world. What I
said was if you described a man according to abstract physiology you
would define him so that no person could recognise him. You
must mention those particulars that difference him from other men.
You must give us his personal peculiarities. It is useless to tell
us how many bones he has in his body, and how many muscles he
has in his arm. It is futile to say he has so many limbs. He has
those things in common with all other men. You must describe
his features, the color of his hair, the color of his eyes, and so
forth. These are what difference him. And I say that what
�WHICH IS TRUE ?
21
differences Christianity from Secularism is not the fact that it in
culcates moral principles. It must have certain principles distinct
from Secularism, or it is left without any differentiae at all, and is
too vague for discussion. (Hear, hear.)
A word too about facts of consciousness. Dr. McCann says that
what he means by this phrase is simply that man has certain
faculties and that all men possess them. But how could anyone
construe the phrase “ facts of consciousness ” into that meaning ?
“ Facts of consciousness ” without any explanation simply mean
any fact that man has ever been conscious of. Now there are four
•faculties which Dr. McCann says that Christianity appeals to. I
fail, however, to see how Christianity does appeal to them. Dr.
McCann gave us Reason, which I think it has always abused : Con
science which I think it has impaired by giving us a wrong reason
why we should do a right thing; the Will and Affections which I
think it has perverted by teaching children that they are to act in
certain ways in order to win heaven or keep out out of hell, when
they should have been taught that certain actions would promote
and others hinder the welfare of their fellow man. Men have still
another faculty, namely Imagination, and that is the one which I
think Christianity has been most concerned with. Imagination is
a valuable faculty when it is in the service of reality. See it in
the work of the great painter whose masterpiece we wonder at and
admire through age on age. See it in the work of the great
sculptor, like some of those glorious artists of antiquity whose
statues have survived the ravages of time. See it in the epics of a
Homer or the dramas of a Shakespeare. See it in the scientific
genius of a Newton or a Darwin, which perceives subtle lines of
evidence all running to one point, although other men, with little
less knowledge, perceive nothing but chaos because their vision is
dim. Such imagination is grand indeed. But when the imagina
tion, uninformed by knowledge and uncontrolled by reality, employs
itself in the mere combination of its internal resources, joins one
fact of memory to another, and fancies that the product must be
real because the fancy is so vivid ; when it revels in the creation of
ghosts, and dreams of dead gods, and fantastic miracles, and
heavens, and hells, and all the foul or foolish things which are
foisted on the minds of little children in their undiscerning
youth ; then it is fearfully debasing to the whole life. The
corruption of the best is the worst ; and that imagination, which is
the noblest of all faculties in literature, science, and art, becomes
infinitely degrading in the curse of religion. (Loud and longcontinued applause.)
�22
CHRISTIANITY OR SECULARISM,
Dr. McCANN : I don’t think anyone here could differ very
much from the principle of the closing words of Mr. Foote, that
imagination, like every other faculty when rightly used, is grand
and true and healthful, but when wrongly used is neither grand
nor . of use. When imagination is concerned with the world of
realities, and pictures to itself possible combinations of that world
of reality, imagination is then most wisely used and does good, but
as to exercising itself in the world of ghosts and dead gods, no
power could be more misused or dishonored. We as Christians
have no concern with ghosts or dead gods either. (“Yes, yes,”
and laughter.)
Mr. Foote began his reply to me by a reference to faith, and said
that your faith differed from the faith of others. I agree with
that, because I think that your faith is not that of strong con
viction. He said there is faith without knowledge and faith with
knowledge.. Faith without knowledge, as I said before, is nothing
at all. It is mere credulity. If a man says he believes and doesn’t
know why he believes, what is his belief worth ? If he says I
have faith in this, the question we naturally ask is, why have you
faith in this or in that ? And if you ask him why he has faith in
Christianity, in the Bible, and in Christ, rather than in Buddhism
or in Mahomedanism, and he cannot tell you, you may be sure
that his faith is no faith worthy of the name. He ought
to be able to tell you, if he has faith, why he has faith. No other
can be helpful in a man s life. Salvation by faith—does it mean
merely assenting to a doctrine ? I told you that was not Chris
tianity. Christians hold the faith and practise it. A man
may be. struggling in the water for his life, and some one flings
him a life-buoy. If he has no faith in the buoy he will not try to
reach it, and will sink to the bottom ; but if he has faith in it
will he go on struggling as before ? No, he will lay hold of the
buoy and be brought to shore. A means of rescue is set forth
before him, and that man’s faith in that life-buoy becomes his
salvation.. The faith that saves the Christian is not faith apart
from Christ, but faith in Christ, laying hold of Christ and follow
ing him as his teacher and as his example in life. Of course if
Christ be no true teacher, no worthy example, then faith in Christ
cannot save him ; but he believes Christ was true in his doctrines
and in his teachings, and so he has faith that he will save all those
Y'ho believe in him. But the Christian’s faith goes higher still.
It.brings a pardon for the guilt he himself has committed, and this
aith works by love in our life and lays hold of the hopes set before
us. (Hear, hear.) So the salvation that is by faith, so far from
eing a useless doctrine, is the only one that can lead him to
�WHICH IS TRUE ?
23
happiness. God’s law in the spiritual world is as certain as it is
in 4 the material world. If we are to have the results of any law
w® cannot get them outside the law. If we are hungered there is
a law of hunger, a law of satisfaction of the hunger, that enables
ns to satisfy our hunger. In coming within the law we will
have our reward and the benefits of that law, be it what it may.
(Hear, hear.)
The Christian Evidence Society was mentioned by Mr. Foote. I
m&y say I am not here to-night as representing the Christian Evi
dence Society. They don’t, as Mr. Foote knows, approve of this
kind of debate, and so I undertook it altogether on my own indi
vidual risk and responsibility. (Applause.)
Again, Mr. Foote stated that this doctrine of salvation by faith
caused the Inquisition and other persecutions. I know nothing in
the world more horrible than were the persecutions of the Inquisi
tion, But these were not in the interests of any faith whatever,
but in the interests of the power of a politico-ecclesiastical church
which would not have her authority weakened, or lose her subjects,
gad so all who differed from her were tortured. There are none who
will speak with more horror of the terrors of the Inquisition than
do Christians themselves.
Then Mr. Foote said, If we believed that Christ was God would
W® not obey all his inj unctions; but while he is quoted in churches and
chapels, he is not in places of business. I grant you this, that
believing Christ to be God, all his injunctions ought to be acted on
with all our power. It is our duty as Christians to try to live
according to his precepts and his example, but we know that there
MO great weaknesses and evil habits in our human nature, and
while our judgment would lead us one way our inclination and
pagsions lead us sometimes the other way. That were surely a
poor Christian that didn’t do his best to act on the principles of
Christianity. I have not always myself the most faith in those
who always have the name of Christ on their lips, and who are
always quoting scripture. I wish to see Christianity in the lives,
in th® deeds, and in the works of those who call themselves by that
Mme. It is quite right for a Christian when he enters on his busi
ness to put on his business habits, but he ought in these to be more
honest, more kind, more true than those who do not pretend to have
the same noble teachings that they themselves possess. I say,
therefore, that Christianity in deed, in truth, ennobles men’s lives.
(Hear, hear.)
Mr. Foote has also said Christianity demands the performance of
miracles, and the modern mind rejects miracles. Some modern
minds may, but not all. My mind does not reject them, and many
�24
CHRISTIANITY OB SECULARISM,
scientific minds do not reject them. (Dissent and laughter.) The
performance of a miracle does not violate in one single instance the
basic principles of science. (Great laughter.) I think I know as
much about science as you do. Again, Mr. Foote says Christ gave
us wrong reasons for right things. The reason he gave that we
should do these right things was because they are born of brotherly
love, because they are right, and right is the fulfilment of the will
of God. There can be nothing wrong in the reason of God, for
his reasons must be all right. Submitting ourselves to the will of
God means that we are willing to be guided by perfect love, perfect
wisdom, perfect justice—for God is all these. What truer reasons
for conduct could be given than these ?
Mr. Foote said “You cannot command love.” With that I per
fectly agree. You cannot command the emotion of love, for all
emotions are spontaneous in certain conditions. It means we are
to act in love, to act lovingly towards those by whom we are sur
rounded. You are to act lovingly to your brother, you are to do
right by your brother man. Does he not always inculcate these
precepts ? Does he not teach his disciples to dwell together in
love, to love others as he has loved them ? And we believe he has
better loved the world than any other. We are told that Buddha
and Socrates called forth as much love in their followers as- did
Christ. Not so. They are both respected for their wisdom and
their sympathy with man, but neither could call forth the enthu
siasm inspired by Christ, for neither ever professed to do for
us what Christ did. I did not say Mr. Foote was violating the
conditions of debate in “ referring ” to Buddhism; but he did more
than “ refer ”—he asked me to give him the differentiae, and that
would have been impossible without a detailed comparison. Mr.
Foote is also in error as to my stating that Christ did not give any
moral directions. What I said was he did not give detailed direc
tions for every man in all circumstances of life, but in the New
Testament are certain principles, and I say those are the principles
to be guided by. Take those principles, and let them guide and
influence your life, and you will be going forward, onward, higher
and higher. Christianity does win man’s love, and, rightly or
wrongly, it points to a high ideal—the ideal of Christ, and leads
us to his Father, and to our Father. It gives us liberty, guidance
and love, stimulating our whole life, and I hold that it has done
more than any other system in this wide world for the benefit
of mankind. (Applause.)
Mr. FOOTE : Dr. McCann once expressed a wish on this platform
that I were his curate, and after listening to him to-night, I venture
�WHICH IS TRUE ?
25
to hope that.Dr. McCann is on the road from the cause which he
is championing. (Laughter.) He is so near us, or so it appears»to
me, that it wants simply the resolution to break a sheet of tissue
paper to see us face to face ; and I hope, to use the language of
the old book, that we should speak unto him face to face as a man
speaketh to his friend. We were told, and the statement involves
certainly what I cannot help calling an ignorance of the history of
Buddhism, that Buddha did not evoke the love of his followers as
Christ did. It is altogether untrue. The persecutions which
Buddhism underwent when it was cleared out of India, the land
of its birth—and it suffered so ruthlessly that India has never been
its home since—sink almost into insignificance any persecutions
that Christianity ever underwent except from its own hands. (Hear,
hear.) I will admit that Christianity has shed blood in internecine
strife, unfortunately in excess of that which was shed when Brah
manism expelled Buddhism from India, but I say there was nothing
in the persecution of the Christians by the Pagan emperors and
governors at all like the awful persecution which swept Buddhism
like a wave out of that Indian peninsula. And why did these men
suffer death ? Why did they suffer exile ? Why did they suffer
the loss of all that makes life dear ? Because this love for Buddha
was so great. And let me say, in passing, that Buddhism, through
out its long history of twenty-four centuries, never once interfered
with the rights of thought or action of man, woman, or child. (Ap
plause.)
Imagination, says Dr. McCann, is of course degrading when it
■exercises itself about foolish things. I say it is degrading when it
exercises itself about mere speculations which we never try to
verify. (Hear, hear.) How many Christians do try to verify the
dogmas of their faith ? How many of them think out the question
whether Christ is God ? How many of them think out the ques
tion of whether the miraculous stories of the New Testament have
any truth ? How many of them think out the question of whether
Jesus Christ was born without a father—(laughter)—or whether he
rose from the dead, or whether during the crucifixion there was a
wholesale resurrection of dead saints ? How many of them take the
trouble to think whether Jesus Christ could have ascended to heaven
from two different places and at two different times ? (Hear, hear.)
They are told in their childhood to believe these things, and they never
■afterwards criticise Christianity. It is for that reason that the
faith of nine hundred and ninety out of every thousand men is
•determined, not by their own reason, but by the geographical acci
dent of their birth and the education they have received. (Loud
■applause.) If faith without knowledge is credulity, that is credulity.
�23
CHRISTIANITY OB SECULARISM,
(Hear, hear, and “No.”) To believe because our teachers taught
us, without giving us any foundation for it; to go on believing it
without ascertaining or inquiring after evidence ; if that is faith,
and it appears to be, then it is credulity, and such a faith must be
a curse rather than a blessing. (Applause.)
I do not hold it is true that the Inquisition arose simply for
ecclesiastical and political reasons. Mr. Lecky, whom Dr. McCann
has quoted to-night, has said that in some cases it is undoubtedly
true that many of those Grand Inquisitors, who looked on callously
while a heretic was undergoing horrible agony, were not worse men
even than those they were torturing. They were believers in the
doctrine of salvation by faith, and they asked whether it was not
better that the heretic should go to hell alone than that he should
drag down others with him to perdition. I have had to go over
the history of that Inquisition in detail lately, and I feel thoroughly
convinced of the truth of what I am saying.
Christians believe we are saved by faith, but we must do as well as
believe ! Yes, but we must also believe as well as do. We must
believe all the supernatural contents of the New Testament, and if
our salvation is to depend on that I am afraid the gate of heaven
is so minute that no human being is diminutive enough to go
through it. (Laughter.) To talk about the New Testament not
being quoted while the serious business of the world is going on
because of such reasons as Dr. McCann advanced is simply absurd.
(Hear, hear.) Every decree in every Mohammedan country is in
agreement with the Koran, and it is generally sanctioned by quo
tations from it, and laws can be set aside if they are found to be
in contradiction with it. That is honest. (Hear, hear.) When
Christians were really in earnest they did quote the New Testament
in Parliament. In the time of the Puritans they did quote the
New Testament in all public business. But all this is gone because
faith is gone. (Hear, hear.) Christianity has died out of men’s
life, and that is a great proof of its untruth. I know that its pro
fessors may go on teaching its doctrines. I know that people go
to church and chapel on Sunday, and listen sometimes with an
inward and sometimes with an outward smile. I know it. But
from the secular life of the people it is divorced. The educated
classes cannot be called Christians in any proper sense of the word,
and statistics show that three-fourths at least of the working
classes, who are a hundred times more useful to the community
than the idlers—(applause)—do not take the trouble to attend the
ministrations of religion. Why, if all the people of London took
it into their heads to go to church next Sunday, you would want
places of fifty-fold elasticity. (Hear, hear.) John Bright has said
�WHICH IS TRUE ?
27
many true tilings, but lie never said a truer than when he declared
that in England the lower classes care as much about the dogmas
Of Christianity as the upper classes care about its practice.
(Applause.)
Towards the end Dr. McCann showed the cloven hoof of his
doctrine of salvation by faith. It leads us, he said, to repent, and
to obtain pardon of Christ. Suppose a pious bank director estab
lishes churches out of the proceeds of fraud, and is so holy that
he will not read the paper on Monday because it necessitates Sunday
labor; suppose he wrecks thousands of families, sends honest men
to a suicide’s grave because their strength of mind is not sufficient
to bear up under ruin ; suppose he makes orphans and widows eat
the bread of sorrow moistened by tears; suppose he at last repents
and gets pardon from Christ. Is that any satisfaction to those he
ha® ruined ? (No, no.) Will it revive the suicide ? Will it undo
the misery ? Will it re-unite the broken home ? It cannot.
This doctrine of repentance is one of the most iniquitous that ever
was preached. (Hear, hear.) Our opinion is that men should
look beforehand instead of after. We want them to realise that all
their actions produce inevitable consequences. We want them to
understand that the misery that results from wrong can never be
washed away, even if we shed an ocean of tears. (Applause.)
My last words shall be addressed to Dr. McCann’s statement that
the modern mind does not reject miracles. I did not say that the
modern mind rejected the miracles of the Bible altogether, although
many people who profess they believe the Bible to be the word of
God will often laugh at many of its wonderful stories. The ques
tion of whether the modern mind rejects miracles is to be decided
by inquiring whether the modern mind believes in miracles to-day.
(Hear, hear.) In the ages of faith men believed that miracles
happened then. Three centuries ago they did not believe that the
age of miracles closed with the apostles. Miracles occur in Catholic
countries still—that is, they occur as much as they ever did.
(Laughter.) Wherever the faith remains the miracle is found.
(Laughter.) But the modern educated mind does reject miracles.
I am speaking of the forward-looking people, the on-flowing water of
the stream of progress, and not its backwash. And if the modern mind
rejects miracles to-day it will by-and-bye reject them in past history.
When you bring up a new generation, educated by the School
Board to reject miracles from daily life, it will reject them from
religious life too. If no miracles occur to-day, whilst thousands
occurred in the ages of faith, even children ask the reason and
discover the answer. It is because those were ages of faith and
these are ages of reason. (Hear, hear.) It is not the miracle that
�28
CHRISTIANITY OR SECULARISM,
gave the faith, but the faith that produced the miracles. Cardinal
Newman is wiser in this matter than Dr. McCann, and knowing full
well the truth I am contending for, he advises people not to look
for evidence first and believe afterwards, but to believe first, and
evidence will come after as the reward of faith instead of its ground
work. The great Catholic is right, and I agree with him that if
you once believe a thing without reason, you will go on believing it
without any further help from that quarter. But to my mind the
practice is pernicious. I would advise you, like Descartes, who was
in some sense the founder of modern philosophy, to pursue the
opposite plan, and give complete assent to nothing unless the truth
•of it is so clear that it is impossible to doubt it. (Loud cheers.)
SECOND NIGHT.—APRIL 13.
------ ♦——
Mrs. BESANT : The debate to-night will be opened by Mr.
Foote with half an hour’s speech. Dr. McCann will occupy half
an hour, and the last hour will be divided into four speeches. I
call upon Mr. Foote. (Applause.)
Mr. FOOTE : Although last Thursday evening I did not consider
that Dr. McCann had really faced all the difficulties of his own
position, or maintained all the doctrines that are by all Christians
held essential to that form of faith, I yet thought it wise to follow
him scrupulously in the debate, in order that I might not set a
bad example which he might imitate this evening. But fortunately
to-night it lies with me to decide the lines on which the debate
shall run, and I do not intend to soar away into the infinite vague,
but to bring the debate down to a practical issue. (Hear, hear.)
I want us to argue whether Christianity be true according to such
methods as we should apply to any ordinary question in ordinary
life. I submit that if any creed will not bear such a test it falls,
and that its claims cannot be substantiated. (Hear, hear.) Now
the propositions I have undertaken to maintain to-night, and copies
of which I have furnished to Dr. McCann, are these :
(1) Christianity is belief in the Bible as God’s word and in
the Deity of Jesus Christ.
(2) Neither of these positions is true.
�WHICH IS TBUE ?
29*
(3) Many of the teachings of Jesus Christ and the Apostles as.
recorded in the New Testament are vicious and absurd.
(4) Christianity is, and has always been, mainly a hindrance to
human progress. (Applause.)
I shall commence then, in fulfilment of this task, by impugning
the doctrine that the Bible is God’s word, and I shall very rapidly
give you the reasons why it is impossible for any man imbued with
the modern scientific spirit, or any man who thoroughly realises the
claims of truth and morality, to accept the collection of Hebrew
and Greek tracts which form the Bible, as the infallible word of an
Almighty and all-wise God. Let us begin with the Old Testament.
The first half of the Bible consists of a number of documentsWitten, so far as scholarship can decide, for the most part nobody
knows where, nobody knows when, and nobody knows by whom.
Some of these books are ascribed to Moses, one of them to Joshua,
and others to various early traditional heroes among the Jews. But
I think there is scarcely a scholar in Christendom to-day who
would deny the statement that these Old Testament documentswere collated in their present form after the captivity of the Jews
in Babylon, or rather, to be more accurate, after the return of the
remnant of them from the Babylonian captivity. So we haveWitings dealing with very remote times, times that were certainly
Wte barbarous than that in which the • scriptures were collated,
times going far back into pre-historic periods ; and as we cannot
jplace these writings either in time, or authorship, or space, they
Cannot be considered as God’s word, unless they contain revelations<jf truths which the human mind had not arrived at without them,
attd which the majority of men agree the human mind never could
hav® arrived at without them. I suppose Dr. McCann will not
maintain that the Bible contains any statements either in theology
or ethics, which necessarily stamp it as original and unique. There
i nothing in the Old Testament, or in the New Testament, which
cannot be paralleled in the scriptures of ancient Egyptian and
Oriental peoples, or in the writings of Pagan sages and moralists.
In the next place I say that the Bible cannot be God’s word
because it is absurd to suppose that God, who knows everything,
would have dictated absolute falsity. Now the science of the
Bible, as contained first of all in the Book of Genesis, is thoroughly
exploded. It needed all the sophistry and persuasive rhetoric of
Mr. Gladstone to give even a plausible color to the Creation Story
in the presence of modern science and criticism ; and I think no
on® who read the discussions in the Nineteenth Century between Mr.
Gladstone and Professor Huxley can for a moment doubt that the
Professor utterly pulverised his opponent, and showed that science-
�30
CHRISTIANITY OR SECULARISM,
and Genesis, whenever they come into contact, are utterly contra
dictory to each other, and therefore mutually destructive. (Ap
plause.)
The Bible is false in its chronology. It tells us, and we deduce
this from the various chronologies in it, or rather, to speak more
■correctly, the various genealogies in it, that man’s existence on
earth—to say nothing of the question whether the word day means
day or period—does not extend beyond six thousand years. Now we
know very well that men existed in the Nile Valley in a state of
comparative civilisation long before the time when, according to
the Bible, God made the first man and woman to be fruitful and
multiply and replenish an else unpeopled world. We know further
that man, in a rude primitive form, has existed in Europe for at
least a quarter of a million years. There is not a scientist I am
aware of who would dispute that man in Europe antedated the last
glacial epoch, and I do not think there is a scientist in existence
who would assign less than a quarter of a million years to the
period between now and then. No universal deluge could therefore
have happened less than five thousand years ago, and the Bible
chronology becomes as a drop in a huge measure of water compared
with the vast periods demanded by geology and biology.
Again, we are met face to face in the Bible with remarkable
statements about the longevity of the early patriarchs, which not
a single scientific man would dream of entertaining. Even Pro
fessor Owen, who, as a rather orthodox anatomist, was appealed to
on the subject, gave his verdict against the story. He declared that
from what we know of human teeth it was quite impossible that
they could have lasted for nine hundred years. The result would
have been—there being no dentists in those days—(laughter)—men
would have to go about for centuries like mumbling old dotards.
We are still more forcibly struck with the absurdity of this when
we turn to the mythology of other peoples. Buckle tells us that
the average life of common men among the ancient Hindoos was
eighty thousand years—(laughter) : some died a little sooner and
some died a little later—(renewed laughter) ; and it is recorded of
two kings that they reigned respectively thirty-two thousand and
sixty-six thousand years. Both these unfortunate gentlemen were
cut off in their prime. (Laughter.)
Next—and you must pardon me for hurrying—we find the story
of the universal flood which is contradicted by geology and is
inherently absurd and contradictory to the elementary principles of
science. We also find a j mythological story about the tower of
Babel, which pretends to account for the origin of the various
languages now spoken on the face of the earth, and gives us a
�WHICH IS TRUE ?
31
philology which, would be the laughing-stock of a Muller or a
Whitney*
Next, I say that the Bible not only countenances but expressly
teaches witchcraft. The Book of Exodus says “ Thou shalt not
-suffer a witch to live.” Saul repaired to the witch of Endor to
wig© up for him the ghost of the dead prophet Samuel. We find
aho in the New Testament the correlative idea of demoniacal pos
session. Jesus Christ could cast out devils. He expelled seven
from one lady, and on one occasion he cast a legion out of one or
two men and sent them into a herd of swine ; in that manner, I
believe, introducing devils to pigs for the first time in history.
^Daughter.)
Next, the Bible is full of self-contradictions. I have recently
published forty pages of them which are at Dr. McCann’s service.
I need not enumerate them, but if Dr. McCann denies that there
are any self-contradictions in the Bible I shall be happy to give
him one or two. The Bible also contains a great many absurdities.
Jt abounds with many funny stories. I will not venture to recite
them all, but I will give two as illustrations ; namely, the wonderful
exploits of Samson, the Hebrew Hercules, who slew a thousand
soldiers with the jaw-bone of an ass, and carried off the gates of an
eastern city in a drunken midnight frolic ; and the marvellous ad
ventures of the prophet Jonah, who was swallowed by a whale, and not
enly hospitably entertained by the animal for three days and nights
but finally vomited up all safe and sound on dry land. I venture
to assert that if these things were found in any other book than
the Bible they would be regarded as simple childish stories of
the world’s infancy. (Cheers.) And if a book with such stories
OSte before us to-day for the first time, and claimed to be the
infallible word of God, there is no man, even a Christian, who
would give it a moment’s serious consideration.
| I say next, that the Bible contains a large number of
immoralities, indecencies and atrocities. There are things in ithe
Bible which I doubt if any man living would care to read to his
family. There are parts of the Bible which I am quite sure no
Christian minister dare read to his congregation, unless he is pre
pared to see all the bonnets leave the church and all those who do
not Wear bonnets kick him from the pulpit to the street. (Cheers.)
There are atrocities in the Bible, such as wholesale slaughters
commanded directly by God himself, which are sufficient to impwple every page of the sacred narrative ; and if there were nothing
els® than the vile crimes that were committed by the Jews, according
to their own acknowledgment, when they took possession of fields
they had never tilled, and cities they had never built, in the name
�32
CHRISTIANITY OR SECULARISM,
of their God, that would be sufficient to show they were simply a
horde of bandits, worshipping a God who was no better than any
of the barbarous gods of the peoples that surrounded them.
(Applause.)
I come now to the Deity of Jesus Christ. Dr. McCann passed
this by last week on the ground that we might be driven back on
a discussion as to whether God existed or not. I said I would
allow, for the sake of argument, the existence of God, and we could
then discuss whether Jesus Christ could be God in the sense both of
us attached to the word. Now I will to-night define what the
term God must mean. It means a being all-wise, all-powerful,
all-good. It may mean more than that, but it cannot mean less
than that. If, therefore, we find that Jesus Christ does not come up
to that standard, he cannot be God. What reason is there for sup
posing Jesus Christ to be more than man ? We are told that he
was miraculously born. So were all the horde of semi-human
and semi-divine heroes of antiquity. Although Jesus Christ is
said to have been born without an earthly father, neither John nor
Mark ever heard of it. At least that is a very fair inference from
their silence about it. Who will dare to say that a man would sit
down to write the life of Jesus Christ, in Apostolic times, who
knew he was born miraculously, without the assistance of an earthly
father, and yet would conceal that tremendous fact from his
readers ? If the Gospels of John and Mark are utterly silent on
this subject it follows that the writers never heard of it, or if they
did, that they did not believe it; which is still worse from the
Christian point of view. (Hear, hear.) The whole story rests
upon a dream of Joseph’s. In the night he had a celestial visita
tion in his sleep telling him that the child of Mary was the off
spring of the Holy Ghost. In the morning when Joseph awoke he
believed it. He had a perfect right to believe it ; but I deny that
he had a right to expect anybody else to. (Laughter.) Next, I
can show from the New Testament that the contemporaries of
Jesus Christ never heard of his miraculous birth. Both Mathew
and Mark make the fellow-citizens of Jesus Christ say “ Is not this
the carpenter’s son; is not his mother called Mary and his brethren
and sisters are they not all with us ?” They never heard of the
Incarnation. Of course not, because it was a legend which grew
up long after the death of Jesus Christ, and we find a parallel to
it in the history of many other of the so-called Saviors of the
world.
Can the Gospels be accepted as witnesses for this or any other
miracle ? I say not. I lay down broadly this position, which I
will maintain in debate, that there is not a single reference to our
�<> k>
i)<>
WHICH IS TRITE ?
four Gospels to be found in any of the writings of the Apostolic
Fathers before about the year 170, that is more than a century
and a quarter after Jesus Christ was dead and buried. Now the
testimony of tradition, put into a literary form so long after the
event, is utterly worthless. It would be considered worthless in
any court of law, and how much more shall it be considered worth
less in the high court of reason and humanity, where we are called
upon to pronounce judgment on the most important questions that
can be submitted to the human intellect. (Applause.)
I say, further, that the teachings of Jesus Christ in the New
Testament are not of such a transcendent character that it requires
the supposition that he was God to explain them. I agree with
Buckle that whoever asserts that Christianity revealed to mankind
truths with which they were previously unacquainted is guilty either
of gross ignorance or of wilful fraud. I fail to see why God should
come from everywhere to this earth; I fail to see why God should
neglect the affairs of the universe and die like a malefactor on this
little planet, only to tell men what they knew before he conde
scended to instruct them. Lastly, I say we find in Pagan and
Oriental incarnations, or as the Hindoos call them avatars, parallels
to the miraculous birth and career of Jesus Christ. These justify
any man in asking the question whether the Gospel story of Jesus
Christ is true or simply a legend like that of Chrishna, Mithra,
Buddha, Hercules, and other antique demigods. When we go to
Egypt, we find centuries and perhaps milleniums before the time of
Jesus Christ, the virgin mother Isis holding the divine child Horus
in her arms—the exact counterpart of the Christian pictures of the
Madonna and child ; and when we find further that all the names
given to the Virgin were previously given to Isis, as all the names
given to Christ were given to Horus, we see that Christianity has
merely borrowed all this from the Egyptian religion. I might even
venture the assertion that if Christianity gave back to the antique
religions all it borrowed from them, it would not have enough left
to shield its nakedness from the winds of criticism. (Cheers.)
Now as my half hour is drawing to a close I shall, with your
permission, run over very rapidly some supernatural doctrines
which Jesus Christ and the apostles teach and which all Christians
are bound to believe, reserving for my two remaining speeches the
treatment of the domestic, political, social and other teaching of
the New Testament. To begin with, the New Testament teaches
that there is a personal Devil. He had very definite adventures
with Jesus Christ. With Jesus Christ he took part in what I cannot
help thinking a most grotesque pantomime, namely, that of the
temptation in the desert—God Almighty allowing an inferior to
D
�34
CHRISTIANITY OR SECULARISM,
tempt him, knowing lie could not succeed, and the inferior tempting
him, also knowing he could not succeed. Next, the New Testament
demands belief in prayer. I dealt with that subject last Thursday
evening, and will say no more about it now. Next we are called
upon to believe in the resurrection of the body. That is an article
which I believe is explicitly taught by Dr. McCann’s Church, and
which I do not think he will repudiate to-night. We are also
expected to believe in a Day of Judgment at which all will be
arraigned before God—the great and small, the bad and the good—
and each will receive his portion for all eternity according as he
passes through the ordeal. We are next to believe in the dogma,
of the Fall, which, as Adam and Eve never existed outside the
imagination of Jewish mythologists, must be false. We are also
expected to credit that infamous doctrine of Original Sin, which is
a falsity so absurd and so atrocious, that if you propounded it to
any mother bending over her first child, with the maternal instinct
quickened in her bosom, you know that whatever her lips might
say, according to the instruction of her religious teachers, her heart
would revolt against it. Trust that mother’s heart, I say; it is
holier and more sacred than all the creeds that ever were or ever
will be. (Cheers.)
All believers in the New Testament are required to accept the
doctrine of salvation by faith. Last Thursday evening I dwelt on that
doctrine, and to-night I will simply rest satisfied with saying that it
is one which no man who understands the conditions of human
thought can ever accept, and which I believe no man can teach
without scruples and compunctions in his heart of hearts. For my
part—and I say it with all due respect to what is true and good—
I want no part or lot in a heaven which is not big enough to hold
all honest men. (Hear, hear.) I say with Ingersoll that if there be
a God who can punish men because of their unbelief, which is no
crime, and reward them for their faith, -which is no virtue, I neither
want his heaven nor fear his hell. (Cheers.)
The last supernatural doctrine I shall refer to is that of eternal
punishment. At the day of judgment, according to Jesus Christ’s
teaching in that famous chapter of Mathew, all of us are to be
separated into two great lots, the sheep on the one side and the
goats on the other ; the sheep, creatures made to be fleeced—
(laughter)—who are to go to heaven ; and the goats—those strong
legged creatures who will always be jumping fences to see what is
on the other side—who will go to hell. Now what an absurd idea
it is to suppose you can divide mankind into any two such cate
gories. If you put all the black on one side and all the white on
the other, it would be simple enough; but how about the infinite
�WHICH IS TRUE ?
35
shades of grey between them? Good and evil are inextricably
mixed in all of us. There is no man so good that has not his fail
ings, no man so bad that he has not his redeeming qualities. You
cannot punish a man for his bad actions without rewarding him for
his good ones. Consequently every man who was sent to hell
would deserve some intervals of heaven, and every man who was
sent to heaven would deserve some intervals of hell. (Laughter.)
But I say in conclusion that this doctrine of everlasting hell-fire
taught by Jesus Christ in the Gospel of Mathew is the most
accursed that ever was invented. It must originally have crawled
out of the putrefying brain of a priest. Since then it has developed
into a serpent of fear, twining itself round millions of hearts. I
want to kill that reptile and set free the throbbing heart of
humanity. (Cheers.) ’
Dr. McCANN : Mr. Foote, on the last evening, said he had a
difficulty in following my arguments because they were as wide as
the universe. I should like to know how much further he could
extend his ideas than he has to-night. If he had some difficulty
in answering my arguments on the last evening, I think he must
have had more difficulty in constructing arguments of his own with
which to meet me this evening. Our subject is Christianity, but
we have been taken over the whole of the theology of the Bible
and the chronolgv and antiquities of ancient times. We have been
led everywhere, from north to south and east to west. I cannot
profess to-night to follow him into the dim and distant past, into
what he himself has told you was the false chronology of Eastern
nations. It struck me as being strange that this chronology, which
he himself acknowledges to be false in many respects, he relied
upon to help him in this argument. If it be false in one element
it may be false in all, and therefore not to be relied upon.
There are, however, one or two points I want to refer to before
beginning systematically to-night. Mr. Foote asked me last even
ing to differentiate between Christianity and other faiths of the
world and show the superiority of the former. I have been think
ing about that matter since, as it is one in which I have always
taken an interest, and I consider it important and interesting to
study wherein Christianity differs from say Mohammedanism, or
Brahmanism, or Buddhism, and also the points in which Chris
tianity is—at least to my mind—infinitely superior to these others.
I have always felt an interest in reading those ancient books, because
I have found in them many glorious truths and thoughts. They
were written by men of noble aims, for man never was altogether
bad, altogether false, or altogether degraded. I shall be glad then,
�36
CHRISTIANITY OR SECULARISM,
at some future time, to meet Mr. Foote in friendly discussion
on this point, if he likes to undertake the task of showing, if he
believes it, that these systems are superior in general teaching to
the Christian system. I shall be glad to meet him to discuss in a
friendly way this subject—he, if he wish, to advocate the Eastern
creeds, and I to maintain the superiority of our own Christian'
faith.
But to return to our subject, which, as I have said, is Chris
tianity. Apparently, in turning to Christianity for arguments
against itself, Mr. Foote did not find that he had sufficient there to
accomplish his object, so he has gone to the Old Testament. It is
one of his propositions that Christianity is belief in the Old Testa
ment as the word of God. Christians do believe the Old Testament
to be the word of God, but that is a very wide, a very vague, and
very indefinite proposition. (Hear, hear.) All here who know
anything about theology, know there are different views regarding
the inspiration of the Old Testament, regarding what is the direct
teaching of God, and what is merely an inspired record of the
wrong doings, and wrong sayings, and wrong lives of men. There
is no one who will affirm that all which is recorded of men in the
Old Testament is for our example and our imitation. Many of
these things are written for our warning. Many utterances of
those who on the whole were good and well-intentioned men, have
been recorded for our warning, that we might avoid their weakness.
I therefore believe that in the Old Testament there are many direct
teachings inspired by God for the education of mankind, for the
elevation of humanity. I believe, as it is stated in the New Testa
ment, that all scripture inspired by God is profitable for doctrine,
for reproof, for correction and instruction in righteousness. But
we have to discriminate in matters of this kind, and determine
what is the direct teaching of God and what are the records of the
sayings of men that are not the teachings of Go l.
Mr. Foote has told you—and in this I perfectly agree with him—
that the being he considers God must be all-wise, all-loving, all-perfect,
all-good ; therefore it is perfectly clear that if there be any statement,
or teaching, or deed, not in accordance with this character, it is not
a command of the Being who is all-wise, all-perfect, all-good. We
must in these matters, before we can judge correctly, know all
the facts of the case, and have a cultivated and enlightened judg
ment, so as to be able to judge correctly. But one point here is
important: every objection Mr. Foote has brought forward to-night
has been urged again and again, and I believe Mr. Foote must be
aware of this fact. Also all these objections have been replied to
again and again; and it seems to me an utter waste of time—
�WHICH IS TRUE ?
37
(cries of “ No ”)—I know best what seems to me ; I do not say
what seems to you, I cannot tell what your depth of folly may be
—it seems to me an utter waste of time to be continually repeating
old objections and as continually repeating old answers to those
objections. If we want to advance in these discussions-----.(Interruption.)
Mrs. BESANT : I must point out to those who interrupt that
they are making debate simply impossible. No one has the slight
est right to interrupt Dr. McCann. (Hear, hear.) If they remain
in the hall they must be good enough to be absolutely silent and
not to interrupt in the excessively rude way in which some people
are doing. (Applause.)
Dr. McOANN : If we want to advance it seems to me that the
better way is, if Mr. Foote, or any other opponent of Christianity,
when stating the objection will also at the same time state the
answer to the objection and then his objection to the answer,
—(hear, hear):—because in that case we shall know exactly
where we are, and we shall be making some progress. If Mr. Foote
tells you wherein, or why he differs from the answers to his
objections, then I may go a step forward and reply to his objection
to the answer. In that way going step by step, we shall advance,
but if we must go over the familiar ground of the old objections and
old answers we shall go on in an everlasting circle.
Now I come to his detailed objections to the Old Testament. I
wish to reply to some things he advanced in his closing speech of
last evening. This I shall do in the course of the evening if I
have time ; at present I must address myself to what he said to
night. You will see by the very large ground he covered that it
will be utterly impossible for me to follow him in detail, so I shall
meet it with general propositions as rapidly as I can. He said we
do not know who were the authors of the different books of the
Cid Testament scriptures, etc. I put it to you whether it would
be possible for any man to critically examine this question in less
than half an hour, considering the other matters to be disposed of,
even if I had the scholarship—7which I confess I have not—to
enable me to give you on the instant from memory onlv, the literary
criticisms, the many idioms, and peculiarities of the Samaritan,
Hebrew and other languages in the various writings necessary for
so extensive a subject as the authenticity and genuineness of the
books of the Old Testament. That is a work for volumes, and for the
study, demanding calmest thought and fullest leisure. I will adopt
Another way of putting it, not only with regard to the Old Testa
ment, but the New Testament writers as well. It is not a question
to which I attach myself primary importance in the present HisJ
�38
CHRISTIANITY OR SECULARISM,
cussion, what were the names of the writers of the different books
of the Bible, in what particular years they wrote, or from what
particular places they dated their books. You give me, for
example, a golden sovereign, you come and tell me who the master
of the mint was, where the mint was situated, and what country
that gold came from—that may be all very well eventually; but
my first question is “Is that sovereign gold?” “Yes,” you
answer, “ the sovereign is gold.” All right. I am richer for the
possession of the sovereign ; I can take that because it is gold,
with me all over the world; let the inscription be what it may, the
coiner be whom he may, and the country from which the gold
comes from be what it may, I have got genuine gold, and that gold
over all the world will procure for me its intrinsic value. So I
come to the New Testament. I do not ask whether the name of
the writer of this book was John, or Matthew, or Mark; I-do not
care what country he dated from ; all I ask is, “ Is that the New
Testament ? Is that genuine gold for human nature, and human
life ?” If it be the thing I want for the elevation of my life, if it
be the thing the world wants for the purification of the world’s
life, I care, in the first place, for nothing else ; and I will take that
gold over the whole wide world and it elevates human cha
racter.
Again Mr. Foote rightly said if the Bible was the word of God
he would not dictate anything that is false. With that I am per
fectly in accord. He said the science of Genesis is exploded. To
that statement I altogether and entirely demur. (Hear, hear.) I
defy Mr. Foote, or any other man living, to name one single fact of
nature contradicted by a single statement in Scripture. (“ Oh !’’)
I only ask it to be done. Remember I do not care a straw for
scientific theories. (Laughter.) They are needful working hyposes, but scientific theory is only the thoughts of man about the
universe that surrounds him. Scientific theories have risen like
houses of cards and have fallen just as rapidly. I do not know at
the present day—I do not know a single scientific theory—now I
am speaking deliberately in the presence of those on my left, who,
I believe, know something of science—our President is not permitted
to speak here or I believe she would give us some information—but
I believe Mr. Foote has some acquaintance with science—I do not
know a single scientific theory that is holding its ground at this
Lour ; and I am very glad of it, for the discoveries that are being
made are very brilliant, very grand, glorious, and the result
will be that new scientific theories will be constructed, and new
departures taken.
AVe have had reference made to the discussion between Mr. Glad
�WHICH IS TRUE ?
39
stone and Professor Huxley, and I say at once that Professor Huxley
had undoubtedly far the best of it. When I saw Mr. Gladstone’s
first article I was uncommonly sorry, and I thought “Well, my
dear friend, you do not know everything, and if you do not get a
wigging for that, my name is not what it is.” And he did. But
here comes the point. Professor Huxley said if geology has any
thing whatever to say upon the subject Mr. Gladstone is wrong, and
I believe Professor Huxley in saying that is right—if geology has
anything whatever to say upon the subject. But the question I
would ask Professor Huxley is this : “ Has geology at the present
hour anything to say on the subject?” He says “No ; it has not.”
Let me quote some words of his in his lectures to working men.
Mr. Foote said last evening he would give me the names of any
work he was going to quote, and the passages. I received this
morning the names of a few works he might quote from, but no
passages indicated. However, as he has quoted very little it does
not matter in the least. I have not, however, sent to Mr. Foote
what I am going to quote, as I had no idea he would take me to
the heart of the earth in this matter. Professor Huxley says :
“ Only about one ten thousandth part of the accessible parts of the
earth has been examined properly, therefore it is with justice that
the most thoughtful of those who are concerned in these inquiries
insist continually upon the imperfection of the geological record,
for, I repeat, it is absolutely necessary, from the nature of things,
that this record should be of the most fragmentary and imperfect
character. Unfortunately, this circumstance has being constantly
forgotten. . . . Geologists have talked of this deposit been contem
poraneous with that deposit, etc. From our little local histories
of the changes at limited spots of the earth’s surface, they have
constructed a universal history of the globe as full of
wonders and portents as any other story of antiquity.” Mr. Foote
referred to the high antiquity of man as being contradictory of
the scriptural chronology, and said that men were existing before
the last glacial epoch, and put it at a quarter of a million of years
ago. The ice age has by some geologists been [jdated at 200,000
years or so from the present time. Professor Andrews, the wellknown geologist in .America, says it was about 7,800 years ago.
Now when one geologist says 7,800 years and others 200,000
years, I think we may say, “ We shall leave geological chronology
alone until you yourselves settle whether it is 8,000 years or a
quarter of a million of years ago.” (Cheers.) I suppose most of
you have heard of Sir Charles Lyell and Professor Geikie. They
place the glacial period of Scotland not more than 6,000 years ago,
and they are supposed to know something about it.
�40
CHRISTIANITY OR SECULARISM,
Again, we have the flood referred to as contradicted by modern
geology. I do not profess to be a profound geologist, but I know
something of it; yet I do not know what modern geology contra
dicts tbe necessary elements involved in the story of the flood.
Again, he has referred to contradictions in the Bible—absurdities,
immoralities and atrocities. As I said before about these contra
dictions, he is not the first who has discovered certain state
ments that appear to be contradictions in the Bible, but these that
appear to be contradictions have been absolutely and perfectly
reconciled. (Laughter.) I do not for one moment dispute that
some of the transcribers of the Bible may have been in error in a
date, because it is so easy from the old numerals to mistake one
letter for another. I must, however, skim this very rapidly if I
am to touch the Christian element in the debate at all.
That is Jesus Christ himself ; because I hold that while the
Old Testament was preparatory to Christianity it was not Chris
tianity, any more than the root is the flower or the leaf is the fruit.
They prepare the way for the fruit ; they are not the fruit itself ;
and the whole teaching of the Old Testament is that it prepared
the way was preparatory to the higher, more mature, and
developed teaching of the New Testament. Mr. Foote says the
incarnation of Christ was analogous to the incarnations of the myth
ologies. There is no doubt these did teach that there were in
carnations of some inferior deity, but these incarnations in Eastern
mythologies, while they bear this likeness to the incarnation of
Christ, in all else differ totally from that of Christ, which is an
incarnation of the one only and eternal God, and on that point the
whole value of the incarnation of Christ depends.
But will Mr. Foote be able to show that many of the common
beliefs which are found in our Christianity and in Eastern religions,
are not as small rivers flowing from one great original source ?
We believe all mankind came from one pair—whether that
pair be Adam and Eve or not—I think Mr. Foote will acknowledge
that all mankind did come from one pair; he must if he be an evo
lutionist. In point of fact, we must have come from one pair, let
that one pair be named Adam and Eve or not. There was conse
quently the starting of humanity from one couple, and that couple
“ not born in our imagination ” some 7,000, or 8,000years—I do not
care for a thousand or two of years in a matter of this kind
(laughter)—about that time was the starting of the history of the
human race on this planet.
My friend then says that Mark and John did not know of the
miraculous incarnation of Christ; that they did not know of it
because they did not write about it. But they had other work in
�WHICH IS TRUE ?
41
hand and other thoughts to write than this. This fact was written
hy others. If Mr. Foote takes this as his principle—whatever a
man does not write about he does not know—all I can say is that
a very large number of those present here to-night, do not know
much because I suppose they have not written much. Am I to
take Mr. Foote’s own writings and say “I have read Mr. Foote’s
writings upon a certain subject and he said nothing about this,
that, or the other, and therefore he did not know anything what
ever about it ?” If so I should attribute an ignorance to him which
I am sure he does not possess. They had their reasons for writing
of other than the miraculous incarnation. We are next asked
“ Can the testimony of the Gospel be received and accepted for any
miracle ?” And the only reason for doubt is that, as he says, there
is no account of these miracles before the year 170. Books of the
New Testament were referred to generally before that time, and
the fact of miracles is an integral part of the New Testament story.
Christ’s life is incomplete without miracles. When you take the
miracles recorded of Christ, and his incarnation, his resur
rection and his ascension, you have them all working
together in one grand unity. They all support each other in one
consistent, one harmonious scheme. It is not just to select miracles
here and there and say they are improbable. You must take
Christ’s life as a whole, or take it not at all. You have no right to
cut that life in two, and leave out the part you do not like, and
take the part that you do like.
As regards miracles, Mr. Foote does not deny that they are
possible. (Laughter.) I think I have a small work by Mr. Foote
here, and in that work I read these words. This is Secularism
the True Philosophy of Life, p. 23 : “I do not say that miracles
are impossible, an audacious and quite unscientific assertion, rightly
stigmatised as such by Professor Huxley in his admirable book on
Hume.” That is Mr. Foote, and he is right, because, admitting
the existence of God, to say that miracles are impossible is to talk
nonsense. The only question Mr. Foote asks, “ Are they probable
and are they actual ?” and the question of probability is one for
our judgment, and that of fact is one for history. Therefore miracles
per se cannot invalidate the authenticity or the truth of the teach
ings of the Gospels.
But he also said : “ Would God neglect the affairs of the universe
to come down to the earth and tell men what they knew already ?”
There are two fallacies here. Christianity is not a system of know
ledge only. The theory of Christianity is that it does not only
teach mankind, as I said last evening, a purer and a nobler
way than they ever knew before, and that Christ was the best and
�42
CHRISTIANITY OR SECULARISM,
truest of teachers. There is another element in it, and that is that
Christ was more than a teacher or a man. He was also God. You
must accept the whole theory.
When Christ came from
heaven to earth, to live and die for man as man’s Savior,
it was not only God’s coming to teach mankind what they
knew before, but it was that, and much 'more than that. I
perfectly acknowledge that many of the teachings in Chris
tianity were found before the time of Christ, and were found in other
countries of the world. Our friends speak as though we believed
that until the time of Christ men were inhuman beings and had no
true thought or feeling in their lives. I deny anything of the kind.
Mr. Foote says “ every man I believe has something good about
him, and every man has also something bad about him, and so is a
kind of grey.” He used the word I have used for a long time
in other places. We are a kind of grey, a mixture of good and bad
The better you are the lighter the grey, the worse you are the darker
the grey. Christianity is to make the grey lighter and lighter still,
until there is no spot of darkness left, until you are pure white light.
But beyond this, if God be all-perfect, and all-good, and all-wise, he
cannot neglect anything. Being here as man does not mean that
his knowledge is localised, that he has no knowledge of the universe.
Localise the knowledge of God ! It is utterly impossible. He must
and ever will remain absolute and infinite. I do not suppose Mr.
Foote will found a serious argument on this. There can be no
neglect on the part of God of anything in God’s universe. Again
he referred to prayer, but said that he would not speak further
upon that. I hold that prayer is the very essence of our Christi
anity. It is as philosophical and scientific as it is human. Tyndall
says there is nothing unscientific in the theory of prayer, but the
only question is, is prayer a fact. It is a perfectly fair question
and one that demands a fair and honest answer. But as far as the
prayer is concerned, if you acknowledge God, you must acknow
edge the possibility of prayer. My time is up. I was going to
speak of the resurrection of the body, but I must leave that to the
next time I have an opportunity of addressing you. (Applause).
Mr. FOOTE : Dr. McCann complained that my opening speech
was as wide as the universe. It was as wide as the Bible. (Hear,
hear.) I can quite understand that is rather too wide for my oppo
nent. Dr. McCann also complained that I had devoted too much
time to the Old Testament, and I notice that, forgetful of his own
criticism, he spent at least half of his time in doing the very same
thing. Jesus Christ said—and he is a very much highei’ authority
than Dr. McCann on his own theory—that he came not to destroy
�WHICH IS TRUE ?
4a
the law and the prophets but to fulfil. If the Old Testament is to
be set aside I can quite understand why it is preparatory—it is pre
paratory to equally lightly setting aside the New Testament. The
Bible is God’s word or it is not. If it is not God's word I have no
quarrel with Dr. McCann. If it is God’s word I want him
to defend it. If it is God’s word and man’s word mixed,
I want him to give some criterion for separating the one
from the other. (Hear, hear.) It is quite true I only sent Dr.
McGann last evening a list of the books I might use to-day, but I
told him in the letter I should have to refer to exceedingly few,
and I only mentioned such books as every man in Dr. McCann’s
position must have or ought to have in his own library.
Now I will pass on rapidly, clearing away a few of Dr. McCann’scriticisms, because I want to give him something fresh to answer.
He said the objections I had urged to-night had been urged before.
Similarly, every answer Dr. McCann has given to-night has been
given before. We came here with a clear platform. We came
here to discuss whether Christianity is true ; and whether my argu
ments against Christianity have been urged or answered before isnothing to the point. The question is—Can they be answered now ?
(Cheers.)
Dr. McCann will not trouble himself about who wrote the Old.
Testament. According to his theory God did, or God dictated it,
which is much the same thing. It is a matter of no importancewho wrote the Old Testament. Indeed ! A matter of no import
ance who wrote a book which tells you some prodigious stories
which you want the best authority for before you accept it! Is a
witness to be brought blindfolded and gagged into court, and is the
counsel to make him testify anything he pleases ? Is a witness not
to be cross-examined ? Are we not to be told who he is, where lie
lives, and what his name is ? I can quite understand what lament
able errors our Christian friends fall into when such are their
canons of evidence and criticism. (Hear, hear.) But if the thing
is gold, says Dr. McCann, what does it matter what stamp it bears ?
If it is all gold ! If it were all gold we should not be here discuss
ing to-night. As a rule, if you offer a man a piece of gold he does
not trouble much about the stamp on it, especially if you give it
him for nothing. I do not admit that all the Bible is gold. Some
of it is brass and more of it is brazen. (Hear, hear.) There are
passages in the Bible which no clergyman dare read to a mixed
congregation. (Hear, hear.) I know that there are coarse passages
in many old writers, but they were fallible men, infected with the
coarseness of their times despite their own genius. But if a
book is written by God, or at God’s dictation—and it will not do to
�44
CHRISTIANITY OR SECULARISM,
say God did not write, for the Bible says he wrote the Ten Com
mandments with his own fingers—then I say it should not fall'
below the purity of a progressive civilisation. And if God only
“ inspired ” the Bible writers in a general way, he might still have
•checked the foul mind of the scribe when he wished to record
anything that would bring a blush into the cheek of a child.
(Cheers.)
I do not allow that all mankind sprang from one pair. I know
■of no evolutionist who holds anything of the kind. Such an asser
tion seems to me to show a poor acquaintance with the Darwinian
theory. I need say no more. Dr. McCann founded an argument
on my admission, and as I repudiate the admission his argument
falls to the ground.
Dr. McCann says that Mark and John did not refer to the Incar
nation because they were writing about other matters. If I were
writing a paper on brown bread I might reasonably omit all refer
ence to Reckitt’s blue. (Laughter.) But if I were writing a life of
Shakespeare, what an omission it would be to make no reference to
his plays 1 And if a man is writing the life of Jesus Christ, and
makes no reference to the transcendent fact that he was brought
into the world unlike other men, that God was not metaphorically
but actually his father, I do not see how you can explain his silence
•except by supposing that he was ignorant of it, or that he dis
believed it.
A word as to miracles. I quite allow that it is absurd to say
that miracles are impossible. On the same theory it is absurd to
say anything is impossible. That is an abstract and futile discus
sion. Nobody can absolutely say what will take place to-morrow.
When we are dealing with such things we must go upon probabili
ties. But that does not make miracles any the easier of belief. A
miracle is a prodigious story. Being a prodigious story, it requires
prodigious evidence. It cannot dispense with the first-hand evi
dence of eye and ear witnesses. If you can only produce the
evidence of rumour, passed from mouth to mouth and from genera
tion to generation, and finally put into a literary form, nobody
knows exactly where, when, and by whom, everybody gifted with
common sense can see that your evidence is insufficient. It would
not be enough to convict a man of petty theft; and how much more
is it inadequate in a court like this where we have graver matters
to consider ?
Prayer has been dealt with. The question is, is prayer ever
answered ? Professor Tyndall is referred to. That is rather an
•ominous name. Professor Tyndall has challenged the theologians
to test the matter. He has asked that a ward shall be set aside in
�WHICH IS TRITE ?
45
a hospital and specially prayed for by all Christian congregations ;
and if more cures are recorded in that ward than in the others, it
would be decisive of the question of prayer. But you cannot catch
a theologian in that way. (Cheers.) Dr. Littledale asks whether
Professor Tyndall thinks that God Almighty is going to submit
himself to scientific experiments. (Laughter.) But if you will not
submit your theories to scientific tests, you have no right to ask
scientific men to give them a moment’s consideration. (Cheers.)
Last Thursday evening John Stuart Mill was referred to, and I
have given Dr. McCann notice that I .may refer to that writer’s
Essay on Liberty. We had a quotation from that work in which
Mill says that the sayings of Christ, if properly understood, arenoble in their ethical teaching. On the very next page—I am
referring to page 30 of the People’s Edition—Mill says : “ I believethat other ethics than any which can be evolved from exclusively
Christian sources must exist side by side with Christian ethics to
produce the moral regeneration of mankind.” He expresses himself
still more strongly in another passage. “ What little recognition,”
he says, “ the idea of obligation to the public obtains in modern
morality, is derived from Greek and Roman sources, not from Chris
tian ; as, even in the morality of private life, whatever exists of mag
nanimity, high-mindedness, personal dignity, even the sense of honor,,
is derived from the purely human, not the religious part of our edu
cation, and never could have grown out of a standard of ethics in
which the only worth, professedly recognised, is that of obedience.”
There speaks the real Mill, in accents very unlike those of the vagueand temporising passage which Dr. McCann quoted from the same
chapter.
I now proceed to deal with the teachings of Jesus Christ and the
Apostles on other matters. You have heard what I said in my first
speech, you have also heard Dr. McCann’s reply, and when you
calmly read the debate in print you will be able to see which of us
has the stronger case.
In the matter of domestic morality the New Testament is alto
gether wrong. Domestic morality being the beginning of all
morality, it is of primary importance. Civilisation grows out of the
family. What counsjel has Jesus Christ to the husband and wife,
and the father and mother ? Simply none. He himself apparently
knew nothing of this relationship, or he looked down upon it
with ill-disguised contempt. When you come to Paul you find him
teaching what I am sure no person here would for a moment
approve. In the seventh chapter of the first Epistle to the
Corinthians he puts the marriage of men and women on exactly the
same ground as the coupling of brute beasts. He says—I do not
�46
CHRISTIANITY OR SECULARISM,
care to read all lie says : “ I say, therefore, to the unmarried
and widows, it is good for them if they abide even as I ”—that is
unmarried—but if they cannot contain, let them marry : for it is
better to marry than to burn.” Paul in this passage does not recognise
in the relation of husband and wife any other sentiment than mere
animalism. If you are by nature so cold that you can remain un
married, Paul says it is a supreme blessing. He does not under
stand that woman is the complement of man and man the comple
ment of woman. He does not understand that only by true union
of the sexes can men or women live out their proper life. He
shirks altogether the question of how the human race is to go on if
men and women do not marry. Without marriage or promiscuity our
race would soon terminate, and perhaps Paul, with his view of
things, would have considered that a consummation devoutly to be
wished.
Again Paul says in the fifth chapter of Ephesians, “ Wives submit
yourselves unto your own husbands as unto the Lord. . . . There
fore as the Church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their
own husbands, in everything.” And in the fourteenth of Corin
thians—the very next chapter, by the way, to that which contains
his glowing panegyric on charity—he says : “ Let your women
keep silence in the churches : for it is not permitted unto them to
speak ; but they are commanded to be under obedience, as also
saitli the law. And if they will learn anything, let them ask their
husbands at home.” Fancy some women with no other source of
information 1 (Laughter.) I say, in conclusion, that Paul and
Jesus Christ give us no wise counsel in domestic morality, which is
the chief part of human conduct; while Paul distinctly degrades the
union of husband and wife, teaches the stultification of human
nature, and treats marriage as mere animalism disguised by law.
(Applause.)
Dr. McCANN Allow me before it slips my memory to take the
last point first—a very important one—with regard to social
morality in Christianity in the teaching of Paul, and what is said
about the relation of wives to husbands, because you have
not heard all that Paul said. You might imagine from Mr.
Foote’s quotation that there was only one side, and not another
side. Mr. Foote read : “ Therefore as the Church is subject to
Christ so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything.”
But there is something following: “ Husbands love youi’ wives
even as Christ also loved the Church and gave himself for it.”
Love your wives as Christ loved the Church and gave himself for
it. Can a husband love his wife more than by giving himself for
�WHICH IS TRUE ?
47
her ? “ So aght men to love their wives as their own bodies : he
that loveth ais wife loveth himself,” and so on. “For this cause
shall a man leave his father and mother and shall be joined unto
his wife, they two shall be one flesh : this is a great mystery, but
I speak concerning Christ and the Church ; nevertheless let every
■one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself, and the
wife see that she reverence her husband.” (Cheers.) All I have
got to say is this, that if there were more homes guided by those
rules—husband loving his wife, giving himself for her in care, in
work, in labor, and in trust; and the wife reverencing her husband
—there would be fewer miserable homes, fewer unfortunate unions
than there are at the present moment. (Applause.)
I must now go back to where I left off in my former remarks.
Mr. Foote said I had devoted half of my time to the consideration
of the Old Testament, although I had objected to him for devoting
so much of his time to it. But Mr. Foote told you in his first
speech that I did not discuss on the previous evening all the
doctrines of Christianity, but nevertheless he set a good example
by following me as closely as he could on that evening, and he
hoped I should follow his example. I did so, and if he took me
into the Old Testament I accepted his example and tried to follow
him as closely as possible. If he had not gone there he would not
have found me there. There are one or two doctrines I wish to
refer to, that have been mentioned, before I go further. Meantime
allow me to say that it is in the quiet reading of these debates in
your own houses that you will arrive at the truth of the case, and
not in the excitement of listening to the words spoken here, beccause
there is much, in partisanship, to excite the feelings and to arrest
your judgment. I will also freely confess that many doctrines have
been taught in the name of Christianity that are not Christian,
but the reverse. Whatever I believe I honestly believe, and what
ever I object to I fearlessly state, fearing not the consequences.
We never gain anything by unfair explanation or garbled interpre
tation. If I had heard many of such doctrines, as a man ignorant
of what the truths of Christianity were ; if I had believed such doc
trines were taught in the word of God, and were taught for the
benefit of mankind, I should no longer have been a Christian, but
should have joined the opposite ranks. I believe much harm is
done by calling that Christianity which is the reverse of Christi
anity, and I have a large amount of sympathy with our secularist
friends in so far as they are taking that for Christianity which is
not Christianity.
Mr. Foote spoke strongly against the Day of Judgment, when all
shall be judged before God and each awarded his portion for here
�48
CHRISTIANITY OR SECULARISM,
after. I would ask Mr. Foote, or any man, would he think it wise
in the moral Government of God, any more than in the natural
order of the universe, that actions should be parted from their in
herent and necessary results ? No action ends with itself. If it be
a bad action something follows it that is bad ; if it be a good
action something follows it that is good. Mr. Foote himself speaks
of a Day of Judgment, that Day of Judgment being in the first
place here. He said we were a grey mixture of good and bad.
Your character is as you stand to-night in your own knowledge the
result of all the past of your lives. Every word you have spoken,
everything you have done, good or bad, has left its mark behind it,
and you are to-night the balance of all the right that has been
done by you and of all the wrong that has been done by you. That
final Day of Judgment is simply the final revelation of man to himself, more clearly, more thoroughly, than ever he was revealed ta
himself before.
One word referring to Mr. Foote’s closing remarks of last evening.
He spoke of it as being a very hard and very false doctrine that
there should be pardon for guilt, and he mentioned the case of a
banker who had robbed many a poor widow and brought many a.
family to degradation by his dishonesty. A sin of that kind would
be forgiven, he said, because he professed penitence for what he
had done that was wrong. Let me tell Mr. Foote that in the
scriptures there is no pardon for evil of any kind. There is pardon
for sin, but no pardon for evil. As this is an important point, I
want you to understand it—sin and evil. A man may try to strike
me. In trying to strike me, he may miss me, strike something
and break his arm. He may be repentant for his ill-feeling, and
coming to me, tell me he was sorry for his anger against me.
Would you in that case, if you believed that man was sorry for
having attempted to hurt you or do you harm—would you, or would
you not, forgive that man his angry feeling against you ? I know
what I should do, and I believe I know what you would do. But,
on the other hand, you cannot forgive his broken arm. That must
be healed by the ordinary curative process. The same here. If a
man who does that which he ought not to do scars his soul, for
that there is no pardon. There is no pardon for evil; there is for
sin. God may pardon a sin against him, but God does not pardon
a sin against a brother. That has to be done by the brother—the
man himself. Christ’s teaching was : “ If your brother has aught
against you and you come to offer a sacrifice to God, it is useless if
you are at enmity with your brother. Go to your brother and get
his pardon. If you sin against your brother, go to your brother
and get his forgiveness, and then go to God and ask his forgive-
�49
WHICH IS TRUE ?
•
ness.” Pardon of sin and pardon of guilt are very different, and I
want you to understand the difference. Mr. Foote spoke of original
sin as being false and atrocious, and said if you try to teach this
doctrine to a mother nursing her child upon her breast, whatever
her words might emit, her heart would altogether repudiate and
rebel against your doctrine. But that depends upon what your
definition is. What is this original sin ? I want that defined. As
I understand original sin, it means a fact acknowledged by every
living being. As that mother would see her child indicate or
exhibit a certain amount of vicious temperament, she would know
that that child had inherited a tendency from its parents. (“ No.”)
Do you mean to say you deny inherited tendency ? If so, your
Secular philosophy is somewhat at fault. There is in all our being
this tendency towards wrong inherited from those who have gone
before, and I scarcely know a stronger deterrent from wrong to
parents who love their children than the thought that if they are
leading vicious lives and impairing their nature, they will bequeath
the legacy of a tendency to vice to their children, and so leave the
curse of their own sin to those who are following after, and in
that may let the offspring enter upon a career in the world weighted
with this tendency. There is no theory here ; there is no doctrine
here ; but this is simply the fact of original sin.
My opponent also objects that we are to be punished for our un
belief and rewarded for our belief, belief and unbelief being beyond
our control. I am aware that no man can believe or disbelieve at
will. We are bound to believe on evidence, and as I said on the
~ last evening if you have no evidence for your belief, call it by any
name you like, it is not belief ; but we must bear in mind that we
can to a very large degree select what evidence for belief we shall
examine and what evidence we shall exclude. You need not tell
me for a moment that a Secularist will study the scriptures with
exactly the same view as a Christian will. (Hear, hear.) Do you
think so yourselves ? Will you tell me that Mr. Foote and myself
will get exactly the same idea from certain passages of scripture ?
You have heard what his ideas are. Those are not my ideas. The
scriptures are the same to both. He goes to these scriptures
and he misinterprets them ; I go to the same scriptures and
interpret them differently ; to that book which I believe to
be God’s book and my guide and help for life. Therefore the
Bible being the same there must be a difference somewhere. That
difference is in ourselves. It is subjective ; it is not objective.
Therefore the will has a certain bearing upon this matter and a
very important one. We certainly are frequently able to believe what
we want to believe and to disbelieve what we wish to disbelieve.
E
�50
CHRISTIANITY OR SECULARISM,
Consider next tlie word “punishment.” It is a very misleading
word. If a child of mine does that which I believe a child ought
not to do, I can take and subject that child to punishment inflicted
by myself. That may be good, but that is not God’s moral order.
God’s moral order is that the result of the action shall be in the
doing of the action, and that when you do wrong you suffer wrong,
and when you do good you get good. Here as everywhere there is
law. It reigns no less in the moral than in the natural world.
Obedience to any law obtains the result of that obedience, dis
obedience entails its own punishment. There is no respect of
persons. There is not arbitrary punishment, it is self-inflicted
suffering. The law is self-acting and the suffering is in proportion
to the violation. There is no added punishment here as we
understand the term. It is a self-acting, ever-present, unaltering
law, the expression of the will of a moral governor.
Mr. FOOTE : As this is my last speech, you must pardon me if
I try to get as much as I can into it. I was quite aware when I
quoted Paul that I did not read the whole of the epistle. (Hear,
hear.) The gentleman on my left seems to imagine I ought to have
read the whole of it. I read as much as served my argument out
of a big book. I will now explain that what Dr. McCann added
does not in any degree touch my criticism. I knew what followed,
but what I quoted vitiates it all. Directly you begin to talk about
obedience between husband and wife, you are bidding society return
to barbarism. Marriage, as George Eliot well said, is a union either
of sympathy or of conquest. If it is a union of conquest, your
“ obedience ” is right; if it is a union of sympathy, your “ obedience ”
is wrong. It vitiates and must corrupt the whole home. (Cheers.)
Why there are some wives who are a great deal more sensible, and a
great deal more honorable, and have a great deal more stability of
character, than their husbands; and if Paul meant to put the thing
on a proper basis, or at any rate a more sensible one, why did he
not say “ Wives, submit yourselves unto your husbands, except in
such cases as they ought to submit themselves unto you ” ?
(Laughter.) The fact is Paul was a crusty old bachelor. If he
had been married he would never have talked such nonsense.
I am quite aware that God can never pardon the consequences
of our actions, but that is not my argument. It is not my duty to
defend it. What have I to do with God’s pardon ? I am here to
repudiate the notion. I say that to talk of God, a third party,
pardoning me for my wrong to a fellow man, is an infamous absur
dity. How can he pardon the wrong done to another ? To talk
about punishment and consequence as if they were the same thing.
�WHICH IS TBU.E ?
51
is also absurd.' I know if I put my hand in the fire I shall suffer
for it. That is not a punishment; it is the natural consequence of
my folly. Punishment is the deliberate infliction of pain by society
for a specific purpose. What relation is there between a natural
consequence and a superadded punishment ? When you tell me
that God’s law simply means that we are to take the consequences
of our actions, you are preaching Secular morality under the dis
guise of Christianity. (Applause.)
I am aware, too, that children inherit tendencies from their par
ents. But what has that to do with original sin ? Original sin is
something, according to the Christian theory, that we are to be
made responsible for, and probably punished for ; while inherited
tendencies in a child from its parents are not circumstances for
which it should be punished, but circumstances that must be taken
into account on the credit side in all the judgments we pass upon
it. (Cheers.)
I will now follow out my own prospectus. I say Christianity in
the New Testament teaches a doctrine of slavish submission, which
all free countries have had to violate. In the thirteenth chapter of
the Epistle to the Romans, whoever wrote it says : “ Let every soul
be subject unto the higher powers : For there is no power but of
God : the powers that be are ordained of God. Whosoever therefore
resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God : and they that
resist, shall receive to themselves damnation.” Then erect a monu
ment to Bomba and inscribe a tablet of infamy to Garibaldi! You
know that in every country the hearts of true men and women belie
this doctrine. Ask any man during his best and highest moments
which he would rather be—the crowned perjurer upon the throne
of France, or the lonely poet exile upon his channel rock, nursing
year by year the conscience of humanity within his mighty heart—
and you know the answer that would come. “ The powers that be
are ordained by God.” I wish he had ordained them better. The
powers that be in Russia are ordained of God ! Then all those men
and women who blacken the highways to the Siberian mines,
simply to expiate the crime of daring to hope their country might
be free, have resisted the ordinance of God and shall receive to
themselves damnation. Why the doctrine is an incredible infamy.
(Applause.)
In social matters Christianity teaches doctrines that would lead
us all to ruin. It teaches universal improvidence. Trust in God,
like the lilies of the field 1 Take no thought for the morrow, for the
morrow shall take thought for itself I I know in our Revised Version
they twist this into a new interpretation—“ Be not anxious for the
morrow.” But I ask whether civilised men must not be anxious for
�CHRISTIANITY OR SECULARISM,
>
the morrow. The difference between a savage and a civilised man
lies precisely there. The one is anxious for the morrow, and the
other is not. Is not the civilised man anxious for long after the
morrow; anxious for his wife, anxious for his children ? And some
in whose breasts the social sympathies are still stionger, are anxious
for the welfare of all posterity. Nay some devote their whole
energy to that end ; and some heroic souls have taken all—fortune,
reputation, and life itself—and offered it as a sacrifice on the altar
of man’s highest hopes. (Cheers.)
Suppose a young man beginning business turns to the Sermon
on the Mount for directions. He finds he must give to every one
that asketh. Therefore, as every body wants credit, in a fortnight
he would be in the Bankruptcy Court. Jesus Christ taught a crude
form of Communism. I agree with Professor Newman, who writes
as follows in his Christianity in its Cradle :—“ The virtue cardinal
to his moral system, the virtue without which no disciple can be
perfect, is that fundamental one of the Essenes, the renunciation of
private property. This pervades his discourses from end to end.
Not many Christians in any age have obeyed him, and the pre
valent excuse is, that he intended this preceptybr the twelve apostles
only. But the Sermon on the Mount was addressed to the multi
tude, and therein he enjoins : ‘ Give to him that asketh of thee,
and from him who would borrow of thee, turn not away.’ The
precept has no limitation. He who asks may be idle, may be a
worthless beggar or a drinker ; no special case is suggested as ground
for just refusal. That industry is a human duty cannot be
gathered from his doctrine: how could it, when he kept twelve
religious mendicants around him ?”
I will not argue whether Socialism, or Communism, or any other
system, will be the ultimate form of society; but I object to the
crude Communism which consists in telling people, as Jesus told
the young lawyer who only required one thing to be perfect—“ Sell
all that thou hast and give to the poor.” We should be all poor
together again to-morrow, and there would be no fresh partition to
keep the ball rolling.
Among the sayings of Jesus are these. <£ Blessed are the poor in
spirit 1 Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth !”
They have never made a beginning yet. (Laughter.) “ Resist not
evil! “ Whosoever shall smite thee on the right cheek, turn unto
him the other also 1” Try it on the first big Christian you meet.
“Whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain I” I
know of no Christian who will do it unless you carry him.
(Laughter.) Even in that beautiful and pathetic parable of the
prodigal son, you get essentially false teaching. I call it pathetic
�WHICH IS TRUE ?
53
because it is true to human nature. It is not a parable we should
study for any moral it conveys. When the young fellow has spent
all his portion in riotous living, he comes back because he is starv
ing, and for no better reason. The moral of it is that there is more
joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth than over ninety and
nine just persons who need no repentance. That is a cardinal error
of Christianity. It is always working upon the worst material,
.always trying to convert the incorrigible, always trying to reclaim
the irreclaimable. Why does not it turn its attention to the best
material of society, and leave the worst, the morally stunted and
deformed, until there is time for them. (Oh!) I do not say you
should oppress the morally stunted. I do not say you should
tread upon the fallen. But I do say it is wrong to waste your
efforts in reforming gaol-birds, and all sorts of moral lunatics and
lepers, while there are better men in a back street, whose poverty
■evokes no sympathy, though they are painfully striving to be honest
and keep out of prison. (Applause.)
In bringing my address to a close, I desire to say that in all
history Christianity has been a determined foe of that liberty with
out which no progress is possible. Show me any Christian country
on the face of the globe that has not enacted laws against heresy I
Even in our own country, which boasts of its freedom, and where
Christianity has so far abated its imperial claim that it sometimes
condescends to discuss with “ infidels ” instead of persecuting them ;
even here, I say, an Atheistic member of parliament is robbed for
years of his seat in the House of Commons ; an Atheistic mother is
robbed of her child (applause); and an Atheistic journalist can be
-sentenced by a Christian judge, after trial by a Christian jury, to
study the evidences of Christianity in a Christian gaol. (Ap
plause.)
Lastly, I say that Christianity, by concentrating attention on this
man of sorrows, this ghastly dejected figure upon the crucifix, has
turned men from the proper channel of their existence, and pro
vided a convenient doctrine for all the despots of the earth. While
men spend time in dreaming about compensations hereafter, they
will submit to misery and degradation now. I admire that old
pagan myth of Hercules, clearing the world of its monsters, and
cleansing its Augean stables, rather than the effeminate figure on the
cross, the semi-suicidal martyr of Calvary, who, so far as I can see,
struck no great blow for the remedy of evil. Surely, it is high
time, and surely the world sees it is high time, to make a change.
Christian profession still lingers on the lips, but Secular practice is
■dominating our lives. (Cheers.) The priests shout “ Great is
Christ,” as Demetrius the silversmith shouted “ Great is Diana of
�54
CHRISTIANITY Oil SECULARISM,
the Ephesians,” and too frequently for a similar reason. But thepeople are leaving the Church, and the foremost intellect of the
day has long been outside it. We witness a grand transformation,
which is leaving the priests of a dead faith to practise their rites in
a dead church, round whose aisles there flits the phantom of a dead
God. (Applause.)
Dr. McCANN : Mr. Foote and I must attach very different
meanings to .the same words when he talks about a dead faith and
a dead God. I should use exactly the opposite term and speak of
a living faith and a living God. There never was a time when
Christianity was so intelligently, so earnestly, and so thoroughly
held as it is at the present hour. (Cheers ) There never was a
time when God was preached in all the power and grandeur of
his character so clearly as now ; and this fact that there is so much
intelligence being brought to bear upon our faith, is that which,
causes many to doubt our faith who never doubted our faith before.
So much I grant you at once, and I am not sorry to see this,
because a man striving to find out for himself why he is a Chris
tian, and why he believes our Bible, will find out difficulties and
obstacles that another will never discover who accepts his creed
and Bible as a mere heritage left to him by his ancestors. Was
there ever a time when Christian activity was so active as at the
present time ? Christianity is spreading itself far and wide, not only
over our own land, but from North to South and from East to West,
over the whole of the world. It is going to India it is going to
China, and the result is that the old idolatries of India, and the
mysticism of China are giving way before its light, and before long
it will spread over the whole world until the prophecy is ful
filled.
Mr. Foote says Christ raised no stroke to remedy the evil of the
world! Think of what the world was when Christ was born ; try
to realise the degradation of Rome ; think what Germany was, or our
own land at the time when Christianity became a force purifying
morals and overturning rooted idolatries. Somehow the change
from idolatry to Christianity took place through Europe and
England. Think what they are at the present hour and what they
were then. I ask you to consider carefully what they are now. I
again affirm what I said on the last evening, that Christianity is
most progressive in the most progressive countries, My friend
referred to Spain. Spain is not a progressive country and so Chris
tianity is not progressive but stagnant. We, on the other hand,
are a progressive country. Thought is awaking, intelligence is
being developed, and as a result our appreciation of Christian truth
�WHICH IS TRUE ?
OJ
is becoming quicker, stronger, and brighter than ever before. Why
not ? Are we never to expand our views ? Are we never to alter
•our apprehensions of facts placed before us ? No one would claim
that for science. Science is the gradual study of the material
world. What is the result of that ? The material w orld in itself
is exactly now what it was 100 years ago, but our apprehensions
•of it have become brigter and clearer day by day because we study
it with continually increased knowledge, arid so come to know it
better. This is what we understand by the progress of doctrine.
It is simply growth of thought.
Mr. Foote says that the gospel he believes in is the gospel of
gladness, and there I perfectly agree with him, but is this not our
.-gospel ? I know there are men who think they ought always to
look miserable, men calling themselves Christians. They seem to
think it a misfortune they ever were born, and I feel sometimes
inclined to agree with them. But that is not the teaching of our
gospel. It is to “rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say re
joice.” It is that God has given us all these things richly to enjoy.
Is not this the gospel of gladness ?
We are also told that Christ taught slavishness because he said
“'Blessed are ye poor.” Now we know that the poverty he referred
to was poverty of spirit, but that this could not possibly mean what
Mr. Foote would have us to believe is made clear by Christ’s own
•conduct and that of his disciples. Was Christ poor in spirit when
he braved scribes and Pharisees, and denounced them to their faces,
those rulers of Israel who held his life in their hands ? Was he
poor in spirit thus, when he drove out from the temple those who
were trading there? Was Paul thus poor in spirit when he stood
Before kings, caught them by the conscience, and shook them on
their thrones ?
I will tell you, however, who advocates the blessings of poverty
.as such, and that is Mr. Foote. Here is his Secularism the True
Philosophy oj Life. On page 25 I read : “ Secularism came into
• existence with the decline of the Socialist movement, and has found
adherents mostly among the poor, to whom all new systems not of
the pedantic order must appeal. It was not the rich who first
welcomed Buddhism, nor the wealthy Jews who flocked round the
prophet of Nazereth. The rich, the respectable, are naturally
averse from change and freely content with the existing order of
things. Whatever is, is right because they flourish under it. . . .
To the poor alone change offers a prospect of gain, and they there
fore are the earliest adherents to principles which aim at radical
■ societary as well as speculative changes.” If he does not mean that
as a benediction on poverty I know not what blessing means. He
�56
CHRISTIANITY OR SECULARISM,
says in effect, if not in words, “ Blessed are ye poor for you will be
changed for the better?’ (Cheers.)
But surely such arguments as Mr. Foote has been indulging in
this evening go rather too far. If Christ’s teachings be as he
represents them, Christ must have been mad—(hear, hear)—and
if Christ were mad, his disciples must have been mad to follow
such teachings—(hear, hear)—and if his disciples were mad, all
Christians must have been mad, and are mad to the present hour.
And so, my Secularist friends, you have a mad Christendom, one
huge asylum, and you are the keepers. It has been sometimes said
that men who are mad believe all men mad except themse|ves.
Again, Mr. Foote has said that Christianity is a foe to liberty
because it taught that these early Christians were to be subject to
the higher powers—subject to the authorities in those countries
where Christianity was first taught. Supposing they had been
taught, “You are to oppose every form of Government,” what
would the result of that have been, think you ? It refers to higher
principles, and says “ the things that are Caesar’s give to Caesar,
and the things that are God’s give to God.” (Cheers.) If a man
claims my submission or allegiance in things that are wrong, I say,
“No. Whether it be right to obey God or man, judge ye.” So
long as I can obey the ruler of the land in harmony with obedience
to my God, I shall do it; but the moment the authority of the
emperor or king, be he who he may, violates the command of God,
that moment man must go to the wall and Christ must reign
supreme. This has been the history of the Church in all times.
Our friend spoke of persecution and said that Christianity taught
persecution. I know Christians have persecuted, I am sorry for it
and I hope the day will come when punishment for theological
views will be banished from our statute book. (Applause.) Per
secution is not the teaching of Christianity itself. We read “ who
art thou that judgeth another man’s servant ? To his own master
he stands or falls.” He is the judge and not we. It is also written
“Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind.” “If you
love not your brother whom you have seen how can you love God
whom you have not seen.” The man who is a true Christian and
who loves his brother will be the last to persecute that brother in
any way whatever. He will show his love for Christ by loving his
brother aiso.
But our friend has further urged against Christianity that it
oeeks to reclaim the irreclaimable, to waste power, while they go
to the good, and those who do not peed them and leave the others
alone. Yes, Christianity does seek to reclaim all. It does try to.
benefit even those in prisons, while not neglecting those who in
�WHICH IS TRUE ?
57
poverty and struggle try to keep out of prisons. How do you know
what may be the result of your influence on any one ? What right
have you to assume they cannot be reclaimed ? Many have gone to
the slums of our city and spoken words of kindness, and hope to
the poor there, which have kindled new aspirations, and opened to
them a new heaven, a new world, when our friend would have left
them rotting in the gutter. (•'•' No.”) I do not believe he would
himself but his words tell us so. Christianity is not neglecting the
slumsand back streets of our city. Have you read the Cry of Out
cast London, and do you know the work which is being done
in outcast London ? There are people who go night after night
into the streets of London, to pick up the .waifs and strays and
take them where they can get some help and food for body and
soul. This is the work that Christianity : - doing, carrying out the
teaching and example of Christ, who went about doing good ; and
his enemies could only say of him : •'* He saved others ; himself he
cannot save.” This.debate, or this portion of it. is now drawing
to a close. You will have our words respectively before you. Read
them carefully and honestly, and I have no doubt ’whatever of the
result. You will find that Christianity kindles love, awakens
noblest aspirations, gives you a model of life such as man has never
seen before. What has Mr. Foote brought against Christianity as
a whole ?—a few passages and thoughts, touching only the fringe
of the subject. I say to those who are here, Christianity is the
true Secularism, having the promise of the life that now is as well
as of that which is to come. (Cheers.)
��CHRISTIANITY OR SECULARISM:
■WHICH
IS
TBTTE ?
A VERBATIM REPORT OF A FOUR NIGHTS’ DEBATE BETWEEN
The Rev. Dr. J. MoOANN and Mr. G. W. FOOTE,
At the Hall of Science, Old Street, London, E.C.
Third Night, April 29, 1886.
Mrs. BESANT (who was received with cheers) said: The debate
to-night deals with the .question of Secularism, and it will be
opened by Mr. Foote. It was at first announced that to-night’s
debate would be opened by Dr. McCann, but it was felt that as Mr.
Foote took the affirmative in the second half of the debate, it
would be more rational for him to open it, and so state his posi
tions, which will then of course be attacked by Dr. McGann.
(Cheers.)
Mr. FOOTE : To-night I have to open this debate on Secularism,
and I shall endeavor to confine myself strictly to the subject ; yet
it will be quite impossible for me to avoid making reference to
Christianity. Although we have divided this discussion practically
into two, of two nights each, the subject of discussion throughout is
“ Christianity or Secularism : Which is True ?”
Consequently
Dr. McCann will not feel that I have at all invaded his province if in
maintaining my own positions I have to make reference to those
which he maintains. (Hear, hear.)
I think it will be as well for me at the very outset to tell Dr.
McCann and yourselves what I mean by Secularism. (Hear, hear.)
I have drawn up my definitions so as to harmonise all the teachings
on the subject of all the leaders of Secularism. I should simply
waste my time and yours if I occupied a portion of my address by
giving long or even short quotations from the writings of leading
men and women on our side. I shall give you the propositions
which I have submitted to Dr. McCann, ancl which I think he will
F
�60
CHRISTIANITY OR SECULARISM,
agree do contain the substance of what Secularists teach. Just as
Christians have diversities among themselves, so have we ; but I
think the points upon which we differ are of infinitesimal import
ance compared with those upon which we agree. My propositions
are these :
(1) “ Secularism is the philosophy of this life, without reference
to another; it recognises no providence but science and no savior
but human effort ■ and it regards the public welfare as the criterion
of right and wrong.” (Cheers.)
(2) “The ground and guarantee of morality exist in human
nature.”
(3) “ All real progress is Secular and not Christian.” (Hear,
hear.)
These propositions are short. They may seem at first sight com
paratively harmless. But I think on analysing and testing them
we shall find that they practically cover all that differentiates
Secularism from surrounding systems, and especially all that
differentiates it from Christianity. To begin with, I say that
Secularism is the philosophy of this life without reference to
another. This statement of course implies what Dr. McCann
would at once contest, and I have no doubt will contest presently,
that we have no knowledge of a future life. A man who knew
that there was a future life, and had reason to believe that his
position in another state of existence would depend upon his con
duct or his belief here, would be a fool if he did not take these
things into calculation in his daily life. (Hear, hear.) He would
be quite as great a fool as if he acted to-day without reference to
to-morrow. If there be a future life, then it is, so to speak, only
a great to-morrow; and to leave it out of our calculations for the
present would be the height of absurdity. Now Secularism is not
called upon to assert that there is no future life. Men have many
views about many things we may hold to be so highly improbable
that it would be credulity to profess belief in them ; and yet we
are not called upon to positively deny the existence of such things.
Professor Huxley once took this illustration. Suppose a man
asserts that in some remote planet there is now going on a discus
sion on an education bill. I have no means of judging whether
the man speaks truly or falsely, although I may have a very decided
opinion that he is going very far beyond the bounds of his present
knowledge. Well, as I have no information on the subject, I do
not positively assert that there is no such discussion going on in
that remote planet. (Laughter.) But if the man asks me to take
that discussion as the basis of my decisions on public education, I
should at once say to him—“My dear sir, I decline to do anything
�WHICH IS TRUE.?
61
of the kind. I will not settle the education of this,, earth with
reference to lunar politics.” (Hear, hear, and laughter.) So I am
not called upon to assert to-night that there is no future life, although
I frankly admit that I have no belief in any other life than this.
(Hear, hear.) I frankly admit that to my mind science reveals no
secrets of futurity. I frankly admit that, so far as I know, the
eternal silence of the grave has never been broken. If there be
any mystery in death, the veil has never, to my knowledge, been
lifted in the slightest degree. (Hear, hear.) If I ask a thousand
different men in different parts of the world what a future life is,
I shall get as many answers as there are people, and as different
answers as there are creeds. (Hear, hear.) ' One man in one part
of the world thinks the next life has plenty of good hunting.
Another thinks it is full of peace and rest. Another thinks it has
plenty of fighting. Another thinks it has interminable psalm
singing. Indeed, we find all over the world that men’s conceptions
of a future life are simply the reflection of their present life cast
upon the infinite curtain of an illimitable future. (Hear, hear.)
Speculations and conjectures are all we have to proceed upon. I
suppose even the devoutest Christian has sometimes doubts and
searchings of heart as to whether the future life is after all fact.
When I regard the sorrow in which Christians are plunged on the
death of those who are near and dear to them; when I find that
they exhibit the same signs of woe as those who have no belief in
the felicities of heaven—(hear, hear) ; when I see that their grief
is quite as profound as ours ; I am forced to conclude, either that
they do not in their heart of hearts believe what they profess with
their lips, or else that all the promises of theology fail men in the
hour of their direst need. They look strong and protective when
they are not required, but they betray in the hour of necessity,
like broken reeds which pierce the hands that trust them. (Cheers.)
Of course if Dr. McCann can show conclusively that there is a
future life, I shall have to take it into my calculations for this life.
But as a Secularist I know of no future life, and I decline to base
my philosophy upon anything but knowledge.
Next, I say that Secularism recognises no providence but science.
The ages of faith are ages of ignorance—(hear, hear)—and ages of
ignorance are ages of misery. (Hear, hear.) What is it that
really constitutes our modern civilisation ? What is the vital
principle of it, out of which all grows and develops ? Science.
Moral precepts were practically the same three thousand years ago
that they are now. The dogmas of Christendom were formulated
almost as they now stand fourteen centuries ago. It is neither the
moral precepts of the sage, nor the dogmas of the theologian, that
�G2
CHRISTIANITY OR SECULARISM,
have made the tremendous changes which the western world at
least has witnessed during the last two centuries. Science has
been the vital principle of all that change. Why, Science, even
more than all the preachers and moralists in the world, is makingman
kind one great family, by increasing communication between nations,
by carrying the products of one country for the consumption of
another, and by internationalising ideas as well as things. It shows
that the interests of all mankind are indissolubly bound up together ;
that we are all mutually helpful; and that by co-operation we may
bless each other, instead of cursing each other by the narrow
prejudices of patriotism, race and creed.
(Cheers.) Peasants
to-day enjoy luxuries that were denied to kings centuries ago.
(Hear, hear.) If you compare the general condition of our own
population now with its condition in the last century, you are
struck by a most remarkable change. Now the cause of this change is
the growth of science, the spread of information, the ferment in
the public mind, the consequent growth of new tastes among the
people, and the advent of democracy on the scene as the outcome of
it all. (Cheers.) We sometimes hear it said that Christianity
preached that God had made of one blood all nations of men to
dwell upon the face of the earth. We sometimes hear it said that
Christianity preached the doctrines of the brotherhood of man
effectually for the first time. We sometimes hear it said that
Jesus Christ was the greatest and truest democrat that ever lived.
But I know well that with all the centuries of the preaching of
Christianity, democracy never appeared on the scene until the
great French revolution ; and the preparation for that was made
in the studies of philosophers, who deluged the world with fresh
ideas, bearing grand fruit in that tremendous crisis which rang the
death knell of all the feudalisms of Europe. (Cheers.) I agree
with Buckle that the Hall of Science is the Temple of Democracy.
(Hear, hear.) As a matter of fact we find that what the Christian
may be the Secularist is sure to be. (Hear, hear.) You may have
a Christian on the side of right or of wrong in political and social
questions. But when the history of our country comes to be
written, I think it will have to be recorded that in season and out
of season, in prosperity and in adversity, in hours of sunshine and
in hours of darkness, the strength, the vote, the voice, and the pen
of Secularism were all cast on the side of righteousness, liberty,
and progress. (Cheers.)
If Dr McCann can point me to any providence but science, I
shall be glad of the information. I know of none. God helps
those who help themselves. (Hear, hear, and laughter.) And
you know, as well as I do, that when people say “Goi help you,”
�WHICH IS TRUE ?
63
it is all over with. you. (Cheers, and laughter.) I suppose Dr.
McCann will not deny that if there were any special providence in
the world apart from man’s knowledge of the laws of nature,
there are many opportunities for its exercise without our ever
perceiving it. How many doomed cities have been destroyed
by fire or volcanic eruptions? How many ships have foundered,
with praying hands uplifted, as hundreds of poor souls went down
to a watery grave ? How many mothers have bent over dying
children, moistening their faces with tears, beseeching the great
God in pity to spare the one beloved object, yet seeing the light
fade from the dear eyes and the sweet lips close in death ? Has
prayer ever been answered? (“No.”) We know it never has.(Hear, hear.) And I say the theologians know this quite as well
as the sceptics, for they will not allow the question of prayer, as
Professor Tyndall has asked, to be submitted to a scientific experi
ment. They prefer to let their dogmas float about in the vague region
of sentiment, where no obstacle impedes, and where a man can be
as erroneous and stupid as he pleases, without the least possibility
of his errors and imbecilities being exposed by facts. (Hear, hear.)
Secularism recognises no savior but human effort. When men
were on their knees praying to gods and ghosts the world never was
saved. When men got tired of praying, raised themselves from
their knees, assumed the proper attitude of men, looked nature in
the face, and drank deep of her truth, although at first it was bitter
—from that moment his deliverance began. (Cheers.)
Now-a-days we trust very little to supernatural agency. We
rely upon ourselves. If we can save ourselves we shall be saved ;
if we cannot there is no hope for us. (Hear, hear.) Instead of
praying to God now we are studying science. We are learning
how to secure good and ward off evil. We fling ourselves into
political, social and religious movements, to break away the fetters
of bygone times, or to preserve whatever is good in old institutions
by pruning away the pernicious accretions that have gathered
around them. This is how we try to reform the world. We no
longer trust, but we act. We no longer pray, but we think. The
age of faith is dying. The age of reason is dawning. The
prophets of the past have been the dreamers about the future.
The prophets of the future will be the students of the present.
(Cheers.)
Secularism regards the public welfare as the criterion of right
and wrong. How many objections are raised to this doctrine from
pulpits and Christian platforms, and how little departure there is
from it in the business of life. (Hear hear.) Supposing any
measure is proposed in the House of Commons : what is the sole
�64
CHRISTIANITY OR SECULARISM,
criterion of its justice or injustice, of its rightfulness or wrongful
ness ? Simply the public good. And any person who in the
House of Commons introduced another criterion would be thought
either a fossillised old Tory, or a preposterous member of some un
heard-of and incredible sect. Suppose a man got up in the House
of Commons, believing that the Bible contains what is necessary
for our guidance, and said, “Mr. Speaker, I object to this bill—the
fourteenth of Matthew and the twenty-fifth verse is dead against
it.” (Laughter.) Why I venture to think that even if it were
poor Mr. New degate himself—(laughter)—his fellow bigots would
only consider it was proof positive that the poor man was gone at last.
(Laughter.) No other criterion than the public welfare is ever
advanced in Parliament, or at any municipal meeting, or, indeed, in
any places except those which are devoted to religious worship.
Men prate on Sunday about a criterion of morality which they
never think of practising on any other day of the week. (Hear,
hear.) If Dr. McCann does not admit my criterion of morality,
I will ask him to give me his. I can conceive no other criterion
except the will of God, and that I consider is no criterion at all.
The will of God must itself be justified morally before I am bound
to obey it. God may command me to do a wrong thing. It is, at
any rate, within the bounds of possibility. I do not know that
even deity is unchangeable, and if his character is reflected in the
Bible he certainly is not. (Hear, hear.) How do you know that
God might not command me, as he once commanded Abraham to
take his son Isaac and offer him as a sacrifice? You may say
that Abraham was checked at the last moment. Yes ; but in
obedience to the command of God he put himself in the position of
a murderer. His heart was tainted, and the word of command
which arrested the murder did not prevent the deterioration of
his character. (Hear, hear.)
I say next, in pursuance of my programme, that Secularism finds
the ground and guarantee of morality in human nature. I do not
purpose to trouble you with an abstract metaphysical dis
cussion on morality, its origin, or its meaning. Generally you may
rely upon it that metaphysics are good to be flung into the fire.
(Laughter.) As a great metaphysician, Bishop Berkely, once said :
the metaphysician raises a dust to cloud the eyes and then com
plains that we cannot see. Plain people get at the truth much
better than metaphysicians. The best plan is the Darwinian or
scientific method of ascertaining how morality originated. That
will give you the key to everything else. I agree with Mr. Darwin
—of course very humbly and a long way off—that morality grows
out of our social instincts. Man is a gregarious animal—that is
�WHICH IS TRUE ?
bb
men flock together. We find that twenty people can do a great
deal more than one; nay that twenty people together can do things
that twenty separate ones could never do. How could I build my
house; how could I make my clothes ; how could I make my shoes ;
how could I do the thousand and one things necessary to my
existence ? I cannot. I depend upon others. They depend upon
me. And by this co-operation we are brought into contact with
each other. (Hear, hear.) Now we do not need any divine reve
lation to show us the necessity of this. Many of the lower animals
are gregarious, and wherever we find them herding together we find
there is a kind of social law amongst them which they enforce
upon each other. If you read the writings of men like Huber and
Sir John Lubbock on ants and bees, you will find that, far below
mankind, social laws are carried out where organisms herd together
for the purpose of mutual protection and support. (Hear, hear.)
Now Mr. Darwin says that out of the social instincts, morality grows.
As men advance in the scale of mentality, they look before and
after. They estimate the consequences of their actions, and much
of that evil which, as Hood says, is wrought by want of thought
as well as by want of heart, is eliminated from our daily life. Then
the growth of language enables each man to express to his fellows
his desires, and it enables the community to promulgate the laws
which it will insist on every member of society yielding obedience
to. Next, there is the power of habit which you see exemplified
all through our lives. You go to a committee consisting of half a*
dozen men you have never seen before. You associate with them
for some practical purpose, but you cannot do that without con
tracting a sympathy with them, and it is that sympathy or fellow
feeling, as we sometimes call it, which is really the basis of the
moral relation between man and man. (Hear, hear.)
With respect to conscience I hold that it is a growth. The con
science of a man in one country differs from the conscience of a
man in another. It is no use preaching to the Hindoo Thug on
the sacredness of life. Many of these Thugs have actually felt
remorse when they have failed to commit a murder. What is
remorse ? Eemorse is simply the uprising, after a moment of
temporary depression, of a permanent social instinct which has been
outraged by the revolt of an intermittent instinct. For instance,
if a man, in giving way to a sensual appetite, violates a law which
he permanently recognises as just; when the appetite is satisfied,
it ceases to importune him, and then the voice of the permanent
social instinct which he has outraged makes itself heard. He feels
a conflict going on between one part of his nature and another,
and this we call remorse. (Cheers.)
�*’6
CHRISTIANITY OR SECULARISM,
Some men s consciences are really a curious compound. I was
turning over the pages of Schopenhauer, a German philosopher, this
afternoon. That great writer says—and I am sorry to say that I
agree with him—that a great many men’s consciences might be
divided into one-fifth fear of man ; one-fifth religious fears°; onefifth prejudice; one-fifth vanity; and one-fifth custom. A pure
enlightened conscience is unfortunately rare. It can only exist
where a man consciously makes the welfare of society his highest
object, and deliberately calculates the consequences of his actions.
Happily, however, such consciences become more numerous as false
standards and illusory ideals disappear.
We may roughly lay down these as general motives. First, there
is egoism ; the contraction of a man’s desires and aspirations en
tirely to his own personal pleasure, without respect to that of
others. Next, absolute malignity, which relishes the pain of
others, seeks their misery, and eventuates in cruelty. Unfortu
nately this motive is very strong in some, and the best of us have
a taint of it. Third—pity, benevolence, compassion, sympathy, or
what else it may be called, which is really the cement of society,
and the feeling upon which all morality is based.
We may also divide the virtues into two great ones : justice,
which is the repression of one’s egoism in the interest of the general
social order ; and charity, which is the individual, unsolicited, ex
ercise of the social sympathies. Comte, Spencer and others, call it
the altruistic sentiment. Combined with a love of truth, it leads
men sometimes to gaol, sometimes to exile, and sometimes to the
stake. . They feel within them that burning enthusiasm for
humanity, which swamps their lower appetites, and raises them
into the loftiest region of morality ; and their martyrdoms are as
beacon-fires of warning and exhortation to generation after genera
tion of their fellow men. (Loud cheers.)
Dr. McCANN : I had hoped this evening that our debate would
have been much more satisfactory than the former ones, for this
reason—that as Mr. Foote’s propositions seem to me not very
numerous, and somewhat explicit, at any rate from his own stand
point, I might therefore have had an opportunity in the time at my
disposal to touch more or less effectively on all points put forward
by him. But he has contrived so to surround nearly all that he
has said by a metaphysical character, and has so dwelt within the
region of philosophy from first to last that I shall find it difficult.
(Hear, hear.)
I hope to refer, as time permits, to the mode in which
he has treated his own propositions, but in reading them
�WHICH IS TRITE ?
67
quietly by myself, I thought perhaps it might be a more useful
way to proceed this evening by explaining these propositions as
they presented themselves in their inferences and faults to my own
mind. In the first place, I knew that before I commenced to speak
you would have heard his views on the subject, and then you would
be able to compare my interpretations of the propositions with his
interpretation of them, so be, able to contrast them for yourselves,
and thus to contrast them more effectively for yourselves.
His first statement is this, that “ Secularism is the philosophy of
this life without reference to another.” I was glad of this admis
sion on Mr. Foote’s part that Secularism is a philosophy, becausemany Secularists have told me they do not consider their system a
philosophy at all, but simply a system of practical directions for
their guidance as to their mode of living in this world. However,
Mr. Foote says that it is a philosophy—it aspires to the rank of a
philosophical system, and as a philosophy of life must be the most
important of all philosophies. Now the very first requisite of any
philosophy is that it shall by the most complete possible induction
muster all its facts. In proportion as this is defective, so must the
philosophy based upon these insufficient facts be defective also..
What shall we say, then, to a philosophy that deliberately ignores
some of the most important facts for which it ought to account
and which ought to be incorporated in its system ? In life there
are beliefs regarding another life—beliefs which are and have been
most influential in and for this life, apart from the existence of
another life. And yet we are told by these propositions that all
these are to be disregarded. A system that wholly ignores a large
number of its most vital facts is certainly the strangest system in
the whole history of philosophy—in fact, is not a philosophy at all.
(Hear, hear.) In this claim, however, Mr. Foote is not consistent,
for he writes in his Secularism: “It finds noxious superstitions
impeding its progress, and must oppose them. It cannot altogether
ignore orthodoxy, although it would gladly do so, for the dogmas
and pretensions of the popular creed hinder its progress and thwart
secular improvement at every step.” This position is tenable and
consistent. But here is the alternative—in so far as Secularism
does not refer to another life, it is not a philosophy; in so far as it
does, it is Atheistic.
The next point is that “ Secularism recognises no Providence but
Science.” Remember that I am quoting the exact words of the
propositions as submitted to me by Mr. Foote. “ No Providence
but Science.” If so it is in opposition to the facts of every-day life.
Providence means providing for. We speak of provident and of
improvident men. All^will grant the great/importance of science,
�68
CHRISTIANITY OB SECULARISM,
or a knowledge of the order of that nature in which and by which,
so far, we are to live. But is a knowledge of science the only way
by which we are enabled to provide for the future ? How few of us
know much about science. We depend upon others for that. But
apart from that, do not sympathy, counsel, help of many a kind,
aid us in providing for the future ? (Hear hear.) Help from our
fellow men, guidance, sympathy, advice from our fellow men not
for them to do our work, but to teach us, to help and aid us in
doing our work for ourselves. And so far they are providences for
us in helping those who are willing to help themselves. (Cheers.)
I ask you—would you be willing to help a man who would not
help himself ? You would say at once—“to help that man is
utterly useless. Do all you can for him you only leave him in a
worse plight than he was in before.” But if you see a man in
difficulties, and endeavoring to overcome obstacles that block his
way, will you not at once say—“ That man is worthy of help, that
man is deserving of getting on ; he is desirous of doing his best
and I will help him by my wisdom : I will help him by my guidance
and by my sympathy.” And the man who adopted any other
principle than that does not act as a wise man, but very much
otherwise. (Hear, hear.) In other words he helps those who are
willing to help themselves. (Hear hear.)
The next proposition is that “ Secularism recognises no Savior
but human effort.” I would here ask—whosehuman effort? Does
it mean our own efforts only ? (Hear, hear.) If so, it is nonsense,
as no living man exists by his own efforts only. (Hear, hear, and
laughter.) Does not, for example, a drowning man find his savior
beyond himself ? Does not a sick man find his savior beyond him
self ? If it mean superhuman as distinct from human help, it
is a mere waste of words, for having said that another life is
ignored, it is surely useless to say that help from that life is not
recognised. How possibly could it be ?
We are next told that Secularism regards the public welfare as
the criterion of right and wrong. To avoid confusion it may be as
well to use the correct words. Mr. Foote has referred to utility
and it is as well to say so, for by morality—if I understand him
rightly, and as he has himself in fact, stated to-night inferentially—
he means utility. I should like to know—this being so—who is to
be the judge of what is for the public welfare ? In our country, for
example, I suppose you will assume that the judge is to be public
opinion ? In fact Mr. Foote has almost stated that. What is in
our own country the representative of public opinion but that
Parliament to which he himself has referred ? Therefore whatever
Parliament decides to be for the public utility is so for the time
�WHICH IS TRUE ?
69
being, according to Mr. Foote’s own teaching. It has decided that
imprisonment for blasphemy was necessary for the public welfare;
therefore according to his own showing, he was usefully imprisoned
for blasphemy. (Hisses and cries of “ No, no.”) I do not think
for one moment that Mr. Foote will affirm that he was usefully im
prisoned for blasphemy, and yet—speaking as a Christian, I do
not know that he was not. (“ Oh, oh.”) And perhaps from my
point of view, Mr. Foote will assent to my statement that he was
usefully imprisoned for blasphemy—that his imprisonment will do
a work that might not have been done for the liberation of human
thought, but for that imprisonment. (Cheers.) He was imprisoned,
however, we must remember, in harmony with the law of Parlia
ment and that was in harmony with public opinion. (Cries of “ No,
no.”) At the time the law was passed certainly it was, or it could
not have been passed. Public opinion changes—public opinion is
changing now—(hear, hear)—and changing rapidly, I am thankful
to say, and before long I believe the law will be altogether changed,
and when the law is changed it will mark another step, another
stage in the growth of public opinion. (Cheers.) But still it was the
expression of public opinion for the time being. I do not think
myself, however, that public opinion is the best judge of what is
for the public welfare. (Hear, hear.) I believe the public as a
whole to be somewhat like a flock of geese—all cackle when one
cackles, simply because they are a flock of geese. (Hear, hear, and
laughter.) I consider—and here I think that Mr. Foote will agree
with me—that cultured intelligence is the best judge of what is good
for all. (Hear, hear.) But the cultured intelligence of the
present day and in our own country would not decide the question
on the basis of utility ; but, on the other hand, on that of moral
right.
His next point is this—that “ the ground and guarantee of
morality exist in human nature.” I must say that this statement
puzzled me exceedingly as to its meaning. The ground of human
activity, or character, must be in human nature. It could not
possibly be elsewhere. I felt, however, that Mr. Foote was not the
man to mean such a palpable truism as that, and so I decided to
wait for an explanation, which he has given slightly but not suffi
ciently. The expression also that “the guarantee of morality
exists in human nature ” is scarcely less difficult. Can it possibly
mean that human nature as it now exists is a guarantee that when
ever anyone knows what he ought to do, or what is useful, he will
at once do it? Not even Mr. Foote, in the sweet simplicity of his
nature, could say anything so sadly contrary to fact as that. And
if it does not mean that, what does it mean ?
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CHRISTIANITY OR SECULARISM,
His concluding statement is that “ all real progress is Secular
and not Christian.” Now,' as all progress is found alone in Chris
tian countries—(laughter)—is not found in any until Christianity
is also found there—(cries of “ Oh, oh ”)—Mr. Foote can give me
cases when he rises if he knows of any such—and invariably
accompanies Christianity when it does come to the country, it will
I fancy be somewhat difficult to prove that progress is caused by a
system which is opposed to Christianity and would be subversive of
it. If it be meant that progress is secular in character, that it is
for time only, that is a position impossible to prove, except as
regards material progress. Eternity must be disproved before it
can be asserted that mental progress is not for eternity. Allow me
to give just one illustration out of many, where there was progress
of the most important kind, and where that progress was Christian
beyond all controversy. I am certain Mr. Foote will acknowledge
that a change from impurity and licentiousness of manners Jo
purity, was progress in the right direction. I appeal to Gibbon, in
his History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. He is
accounting for the rapid spread of Christianity, and he gives this
as one of the reasons—“ the pure and austere morals of the Chris
tians.” He says “ the primitive Christian demonstrated his faith
by his virtues.” “ Their serious and sequestered life, averse to all
the gay luxuries of the age, inured them to chastity, temperance,
economy and all the sober and domestic virtues.” “ If we seriously
consider the purity of the Christian religion, the sanctity of its
moral precepts, and the innocent as well as the austere lives of the
greatest number of those who during the first ages embraced the
faith of the Gospel, we should naturally suppose that so benevolent
a doctrine would have been received with due reverence even by
the unbelieving world.” Here then is one case of progress that is
essentially Christian, look at it as you may ; and did time permit I
could give you many other cases also of the same character.
And now I come to what Mr. Foote has said himself with refer
ence to these propositions. In the course of his remarks this even
ing in reference to the first, he contended that we have no know
ledge of a future life. What he has said here about this future
life I am rather glad of, for his address is rather on the evidences
for the state of immortality than an ignoring of it according to the
principles of Secularism. For if we are not to pay any regard
whatever to a future life, then there is no necessity either to speak
about having knowledge of this future life or not having a know
ledge of it. The moment you argue that question you come to
the philosophy of it, and you will see that regard is so far paid to
it while you are saying, or attempting to prove, that you take no
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71
notice of it. Entering at once upon this philosophical question
you are departing so far from this principle of Secularism. He may
affirm that we have no knowledge of a future life, but I would ask
him what he means by the word “knowledge ” ? If he means that
we have no right to infer a future life from our own consciousness,
and our own convictions, I say there I differ from him in toto. I
have the same reason for believing in the existence of a God, and a
future life, that I have for believing in your existence—both are
inferences drawn from consciousness. If he says that by not know
ing a future life he means we are not conscious of it, I say certainly
not. But there are many things in this world that we strongly
believe although we do not know them in that sense. But I think
that from the philosophical point of view we are warranted in
believing in a future life. We are justified in inferring that the
revelation made by God to us in the Scriptures is a revelation in
harmony with our own inferences, and with our own convictions. If
Mr. Foote will not affirm knowledge of anything he does not know
in consciousness, he will limit his knowledge very much indeed.
Again he knows “ no providence but science.” If he means this
—as apparently he does—as referring not to providence in the
strict sense of the term, but providence as applied to God—he will
imply this, that science alone helps us, and that there comes no
help from God. (Hear, hear.) On that point also I join issue with
him at once, as from the Christian standpoint all help that comes
from science comes indirectly from God. (Hear, hear, and No, no.)
There is no help for it, because what is science but a knowledge of
the order of nature, and what is the order of nature but the pro
duct of God ? (Hear, hear.) From the Secularist point of view
there being no God there can be no order of God in nature. Science
means the learning something of the phenomena that surrounds
you, and taking advantage of the phenomena as best you may.
But does not all that belongs to the Secularist belong to the Chris
tian also ? And much more forcibly and thoroughly, because the
Christian believes life to be a more valuable thing than the
Secularist does. (Hear, hear, and No, no.) He is told that his life
is given to him by God. The right using of his life is a talent
entrusted to him by God. The Secularist believes that if he mis
uses—I won’t say purposely—but if he misuses his life, if he has
wasted liis life, if he has voluntarily, so far as its utility is concerned,
lost his life, there is no reckoning for him, either here or hereafter.
The Christian, on the other hand, is taught that if he does not use
the talents 'committed to his care, if he does not study nature, if he
does not work,' if he does not use the means at his disposal to the
utmost of his ability, he must give an account of his carelessness
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CHRISTIANITY OB SECULARISM,
and his false stewardship to his master one day. (Hear, hear.) Be
the belief ever so wrong, the belief is there as a motive to influence
him in life. I have not yet heard one of the motives that can be
urged by Secularists for the study of nature, except the welfare of
himself, and his own happiness in any way that Mr. Foote likes to
put it—say if you will in its highest aspect—the promotion of
the happiness of others. (Hear, hear.) I am very glad to hear
that “hear hear,” but will Mr. Foote say for one moment that Secu
larists are that kind of people that they do not always do the right
thing simply because they do not know what the right thing is ?
Do they not very often do that which they believe they ought not
to do, and leave undone many a time the thing which they believe
they ought to do ? Will he tell me that the only thing men want
in this life to make them better men is a knowledge of what is
right, of what is their duty, and of what they ought to do ? Because
in saying that, he would say that which is contradicted by the
experience of every one of our lives.
He spoke very earnestly and strongly of the great achievements
of science and its power to increase the brotherhood of the human
family. But why should science, simply because it places men of
different lands in contact with each other, increase their brother
hood ? They may have antagonistic interests and feelings in this
world of ours. We want something more to make brotherhood
than placing men side by side and shoulder to shoulder. And that
something science will not give us. He mentioned certain teachings
of our Scriptures, and I was glad to hear him do so—although he
attempted a reply to it—“ that God made of one blood all families
of men to dwell upon the face of the earth.” There the teaching
of true brotherhood is quite distinct and clear. We are told also
that if we are to be true Christians we are to love our neighbors as
we love ourselves. We are to do him what good we can. As we
help ourselves we ought to help him. Here is true brotherhood—
a brotherhood such as science cannot by any possibility give you,
for it does not lie in the plane of science at all.
“ Education will give us new tastes.” There is no doubt about
that. Education will develop mankind. Education will increase
our power to understand and appreciate the world by which we are
surrounded. I would ask you, however, in whose hands was the
education of our country when your name as Secularists was un
known and unheard of ? (Hear, hear.) Pass over the length and
breadth of this country and Scotland too, and you will find no
church—certainly no parish church—without its schools and its
means of education. I know well that the education was not so
full and thorough, and complete, as it ought to have been. (Hear,
�WHICH IS TRUE ?
73
hear,) I know full well the world was not perfect then. I ask
you, Are you all perfect now, are you all you ought to be ? You
and I hope for improvement. Is the possession of weakness to be
confined to you alone. If you do not claim this weakness and im
perfectness of character to belong to you, then you have no right
to say the same weakness should not be found sometimes in others
also, as doubtless it is. Our world is progressive ; the education of
■mankind is spreading, and it is one of those things the more we
have the more we want to have. The more light it gives to us
the more we want. Mr. Foote can speak no more strongly in favor
of science than I should. But we should bear in mind that, from
the Christian standpoint, obedience to the law of science is obedience
to the order of God, and we must never banish that from our
minds when we are studying these questions and speaking of
science. Of course we have the advantage here of Mr. Foote, who
speaks of ignoring the existence of God altogether, but I, speaking
as a Christian, can never ignore that existence in any of my argu
ments, regarding the lives he has produced and placed in the world
he has created.
Again he has referred to the providence of God being incom
patible with the occurrences of catastrophes in our world, such as
shipwrecks, fire, disease and death. But I ask him, would he have
it otherwise ? (Hear, hear.) Would he have this world so regu
lated that, let a man find himself anywhere voluntarily or involun
tarily, he might by uttering a prayer, have all the phenomena at
once changed as a consequence. If there was a storm, for example,
and a sailor in danger in that storm, and he uttered a prayer for
the storm to immediately cease, and his prayer was invariably
answered, where would be any ordgr in life ? where would the
possibility of life be if every man by a prayer could alter at will
the system of the world in which he lived ? The thing would be
utterly impossible. God is a God of order. (Interruption.)
But our friend also, with regard to death, made a very important
statement, that Christian promises failed because Christians sorrowed
when they lost their friends, exactly as Secularists sorrowed. They
do grieve when they lose their friends ; there is no doubt about
that, for we cannot live for years with a friend or one of our own
families, and then when they have been taken away from us have
no sorrow for it. The thing would be impossible and unheard of.
But they do not sorrow as do Secularists, for in their sorrow they
have hope. In their sorrow they have peace. In their sorrow
they have trust that the one they have lost is not lost to them for
ever. I cannot fancy a greater sorrow than that of a Secularist or
an Atheist, who feels that the friend taken away from his side is
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CHRISTIANITY OB SECULARISM
lost to him for ever. We have heard, and I have heard, of the
joys of Atheists at these death-bed partings. I can only say that
when a man is called to die who has a wife or a child he cannot
have much love for them if he is joyful at such a time ; because if
he loves them he cannot be glad at the thought of the parting
from them. He might bear it stoicly as best he might, but he
■could have no joy or gladness. The wife or child who loses hus
band or father cannot have that in their sorrow which is given to
Christians—to true Christians. They will tell you in the hour of
their direst grief that, although they do mourn, they do not mourn
as those that have no hope ; and they will say to you that the Lord
gave and the Lord hath taken away. (Hear, hear, and laughter.)
And in their power of faith and trust they will still be able to say
“ Blessed be the name of the Lord,” because the parting is only for
a short time, and the meeting will be, as they believe, again for
■ever and ever. I am not saying these are your beliefs, but they
are our beliefs. But I do say this, that the man who has this
belief will sorrow very differently from the man who has not that
belief. (Cheers.)
Mbs. BESANT : Friends I must ask you to preserve more com
plete order in the remainder of the two speeches which Dr. McCann
has to deliver. It is not right that cries of “ Oh ” and “ Aye ”
and so on, should be made during the speech. We certainly ought
to set an example of courtesy as we are in the majority here. And
if you persist in it the only thing that I can possibly do is to say
that all the time which is thus occupied shall not be reckoned, and Dr.
McCann shall be given as extra time all that which the disturbers
of the meeting take from him. (Hear, hear.)
Mr. FOOTE : I quite sympathise with Dr. McCann in his position.
He has an uphill fight here. It would have been easier for him
if some of those persons, who profess at times to be so fond of
discovering truth, had only made a reasonable effort to get some
orthodox people here to-night to listen to the debate and to help
their champion. I do not mean to help him by their arguments,
but by their sympathy. Every man speaks better, feels more at
home, and sees that he is making a mark, when the audience yield
him a sympathetic response. (Hear, hear.) But we know that
some of the Christian representatives Dr. McCann has the misfortune
to work with, believe that discussion does their side more harm
than good, and perhaps they have rather tempted Christians away
than induced them to attend.
Let me now say that I quite fail to see what Dr. McCann read
to us from his papers had to do with my opening speech. I think
�75
WHICH IS TRUE ?
it would have been far better if he had simply followed me rather
than given you the thoughts which occurred to him this afternoon.
Next Thursday evening he will have an opportunity of directing the
lines of the debate himself. To-night he might have followed me
absolutely, and I think he need not have troubled you about my
third proposition, because my first half-hour was only long enough
for me to deal with the first two. I shall in my second speech
deal with number three. Dr. McCann has anticipated what I may
have to say on the third proposition, without properly answering
what I did say on the other two propositions. That this debate
will not be satisfactory I can quite believe. (Hear, hear.) I do
not think it will be quite satisfactory to me, because Dr. McCann
appears to evade instead of meeting the responsibilities of his
position. (Hear, hear.) For instance, I said that Secularism is
the philosophy of this life without reference to another, and Dr.
McCann says he is glad to hear that it is a philosophy. Well that
is very amusing by the way. But for all that, it is not particularly
relevant to the argument. What does it matter whether you call
it a philosophy or a system. What’s in a name ? A rose by any
other name would smell as sweet ; and if Secularism be true, it is
of no importance what you call it—a philosophy, a system, a creed,
a faith, or anything else. (Hear, hear.)
Dr. McCann says that Secularism ignores facts by not concerning
itself with a future life. Is it not clearly his business to adduce
those facts ? But all he does is to show that people have beliefs
about a future life. I am aware of that. They once had beliefs
about witches. Some people have beliefs now-a-days in the
philosophy of dreams. There are nearly as many dream-books
sold in this country as Prayer-books. (Laughter.) It is one of
the most flourishing branches of the publishing business. Well,
why should I take that belief into account in my philosophy ? Did
I not also say that with respect to a future life there was a mul
titude of beliefs, diverse, conflicting, and mutually destructive
because mutually contradictory ? And did I not say that when you
interrogated the various peoples of the earth on the subject you were
deafened by a babel of discordant answers ? What are the facts
that Dr. McCann adduces ? I will deal with them if he shows
whether they are facts or not. Until he does this I stand firm on the
position I took, that Secularism is the true philosophy of this life,
precisely because it is foolish to base conduct in this life upon
beliefs, which are of a purely speculative and conjectural order, as
to the possibility of another. (Hear, hear.) You well understand
that I did not say there is no future life. I did not say that
there is no God. I never was so foolish as to say either the one or
G
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CHRISTIANITY OR SECULARISM,
the other. I simply do not know of any God, and I do not know
of any future life. My opinion is that, in the future, men will treat
these beliefs precisely as they now treat astrology or witchcraft.
You will not be called upon centuries hence to say whether you
believe in God or a future life any more than you are now called
upon to say whether you believe in astrology or witchcraft. They
will be put aside as effete superstitions marking the dreary path
that man had to advance along into the sunshine of civilisation.
(Cheers.)
Is it true that Christians when they lose their relations do not
sorrow as persons without hope ? I know not what hope lies in
their minds ; but if their conduct be any index to their minds they
have no more practical hope than we have. Profession is one
thing ; I prefer to judge men by their practice. (Hear, hear.)
You say it is natural and human for them to sorrow. Precisely so.
That is what I say. (Hear, hear.) And the fact that they do
sorrow, and that it is natural and human, shows that the grim
reality of death frowns down the sunshine of the creed you trusted
in in the hours of prosperity. (Hear, hear.) But supposing these
persons who sorrow really believe in what they profess as to heaven,
what miserable selfish creatures they must be. (Hear, hear.) The
dead one has stepped out of the miry street across the threshold of
a glorious palace, and they shed tears for the dear one’s prosperity.
(Hear, hear.) And at the same time they expect soon to enjoy a
share of it themselves. (Hear, hear, and laughter.) Why, instead
of weeping, they ought to dance with joy. They do not, because
they know, as we know, that there is nothing to dance about.
(Cheers.)
Dr. McCann appears' to me to have rather muddled my argument
with respect to providence and science. (Hear, hear.) He says
“ Is there no help in human effort ?” I stated so in my propositions.
I said there was no savior but human effort. He asks, “ Do not
men help each other, and are we not a providence to each other ?”
Well the word “providence ” applies to something other than effort.
I used a phrase with some color in it that surely carries its mean
ing to every intelligence. (Hear, hear.) To the Providence which
the Christian seeks in prayer, I oppose the providence of science,
which the Freethinker seeks in study. (Hear, hear.) Of course
science will not carry you where you want to go. It points the
way, it tells you what to do. If we study the laws of nature, says
Dr. McCann, we are only getting God to help us ; and if we break
the laws of nature we suffer from it. That is a misuse of words.
You cannot break a law of nature. You can violate a canon of art,
but you cannot break a natural law. Whether you fall from the
�WHICH IS TRUE ?
77
top of a ladder or walk down it, you equally descend by the law
of gravitation. But what you can do—knowing the operation of
the law of nature—is to take it in your own way instead of letting
it take you in its way. (Laughter.)
Dr. McGann says that science does not help us to promote human
brotherhood. I say it does, and I told you how. I said—and
surely the argument was worth replying to—that the precepts of
moral sages were to-day practically what they were in the days of
Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, Buddha and Confucius. I said that the
doctrines of Christianity were formulated fourteen centuries ago.
During all that period of time the same principles were inculcated and
the same dogmas promulgated, and yet we had to wait for the revela
tions of Science to inaugurate the new era in which we live. (Hear,
hear.) Did I not say that Science, by means of international com
munications, brought men face to face, and taught them that there
was mutual helpfulness between them, and substituted that for the
enmity which the spurious patriotism inculcated by kings, and the
false notions of service to God inculcated by the priests, had
engendered in their minds ? (Hear, hear.)
Dr. McCann says that education does not give man a higher
morality. Does he not know that in the Christian schools of
England, which you raised to God and religion, the education was
very imperfect ? You had these schools, and what effect did they
produce ? Little on the general moral tone of the community.
They were the privilege of the few, and the lower orders of society,
as they are called, were kept in the darkness of ignorance. Con
sequently their lives were too fruitful in immorality. But at last
society awoke and demanded universal education. An Education
Act was passed in 1870, providing daily instruction for every boy
and girl; and in sixteen years that Education Act has done more
good than all the sermons preached from all the pulpits of Christen
dom. It has decreased the criminal statistics of this country by
one half in that time. (Cheers.)
A word as to our criterion of morality. Dr. McCann wants to
know how we are to apply the criterion. Like you do every other
criterion, by the exercise of intelligence and common-sense. You
may make mistakes in applying it. That is no fault of the cri
terion. You may make mistakes in the scientific laboratory, but
that says nothing against the rules of research. It is your own
ignorance and clumsiness. Society does not know everything to
day, but if you have a criterion you can go on applying it, and in
the long run you can find out what is right and what is wrong.
Gf course we do not begin every action afresh, any more than when
we sit down to dinner we have to study de novo whether every
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CHRISTIANITY OR SECULARISM,
article is nutritious or poisonous. The experience of previous
generations, as well as our own, has taught us many things,
Murder, theft, adultery, lying, and many other actions have been
discovered to be wrong. There is no need to argue about them
now. We take for granted what reason and experience have
settled. We take it for granted just as we do the truths of the
multiplication table. The great laws of morality are obvious to
the commonest intelligence, and starting from these certitudes we
proceed with fresh experience and study that bring us new truths.
(Applause.)
Dr. McCANN : Mr. Foote finished by referring to the criterion
of morality, and he said, How are we to know that criterion or
how are we to apply it but by the exercise of our common sense ? We
sometimes make mistakes, for we do not know everything ; but
making mistakes is nothing against the criterion as such.” I accept
those words, and ask you to bear in mind that the mere fact of
having a criterion is one thing, but the applying of that criterion
erroneously or mistakenly is nothing against the criterion as such,
for what he said with reference to a criterion of morality may be
said regarding conscience. He referred in his former address, and
has referred again, to a point I will just say a word about, as it
seems frequently misunderstood. He mentioned the conscience,
and said that men judged differently in different countries as to
what was right and what was wrong, and therefore, he thought,
the conscience was of no value.
We have a moral sense, but the using of that moral
sense wrongly is no argument against it as such, any more
than using a criterion wrongly is an argument against the
truth of the criterion as such. You must always distinguish
between moral sense and moral judgments. The moral sense is
the faculty which may be developed, educated, and can be culti
vated. According to this our judgments are formed as to what is
morally right or morally wrong. You have in like manner the
sesthetic faculty, relating to the beautiful. If you had no such
ability or power, your training in the perception of beauty could
not be carried on. You could have no education in the conception
of the beautiful if you had no aesthetic faculty. So there could
be no moral training, or character, if you had not the moral faculty.
What we mean by conscience is the moral sense found in all man
kind in all times and in all countries—that conviction that some
thing was right and something wrong. The judgment as to what
was right or wrong was formed by education, culture and growth—
the moral sense being part of our original human nature ; the
�WHICH IS TRUE ?
79
moral judgment being the result of our culture and our educa
tion.
Mr. Foote referred in his last speech to the Houses of Parliament
and the scriptures, and contended that no one would nowadays
oppose the passing of any measure by quoting chapter and verse,
and saying “ That is opposed to the principle of this Bill.” That
I am not sorry to hear, because we have passed beyond the mere
quoting of the letter to the spirit of Christianity as a whole. But
let it be affirmed in the House of Commons by any member that
any law proposed to be passed was in itself morally wrong—not a
useless law, but a morally wrong law ; and if he could only persuade
the House of Commons that that law was not in harmony with
Christian teaching as a whole—with the morality found in Chris
tianity—the member who introduced it would not even in the
present day have much of a chance of passing it into law.
Mr. Foote spoke a few words against metaphysics, and said they
are good to be flung into the fire ; but I do not see how you can
carry on any metaphysical argument apart from metaphysics. I
stated I was glad he had acknowledged that Secularism was a
philosophy. In reply he remarked there ought to be no new
thought in that, because it was a fact, it was a philosophy, a
creed, or system, or something. But a philosophy and a system
are as widely apart as the Poles. You may have a system utterly
unphilosophical in every detail, and you may have a system philo
sophical in all its parts. I have no doubt whatever that Mr. Foote
Could tell you of many systems in this world that were and are
Unphilosophical. Has he not been trying to speak and to show
to-night and the previous nights, that Christianity—he will' not
deny it as a system, no human being could deny that—but will
Mr. Foote here to-night assent to this proposition that Christianity
is a strictly philosophical system. If so, I shall thank him very
much for the admission, If he will not do that, then his own
statement that philosophy and system are one and the same thing
must fall to the ground.
He quoted Mr. Darwin to explain the growth of morality,
and referred to Darwin’s account of the development or growth
of what he called social instincts. Let this be distinctly
understood, if you will only use the word “ useful ” instead
of the word “ right ” or “ moral,” we shall be very much more
nearly agreed than we appear to be. I grant there are now social
instincts—never mind how they have arisen. I grant there is a
science of sociology, and I affirm with all my power that whatever
is good for society, is by that shown to be right, as well as useful.
But he says common sense and judgment are to be used to apply
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CHRISTIANITY OR SECULARISM,
this criterion. The exercise of our common sense will tell us what
is useful and useless. But who are to exercise this common sense
and tell us what is useful or useless ? But Mr. Foote has not told
us. He has spoken of a criterion of morality. He has not yet told
us what morality is in itself. When you have a criterion of some
thing, you have something of which it is a criterion. I can tell
you what utility is. It is that which develops, which fosters the
growth of society as a whole, and of the individual as a whole
also—the whole character of the body and soul. Will Mr. Foote
tell me what he means by morality ? Whatever is permanently
useful and aids the whole development of society, so far is a criterion
of its rightness, but it is not the attribute of rightness in itself.
Nitric acid may be the criterion of gold, but nitric acid is not gold.
Alluding to what I said in my former speech that Secularism
ignores facts because it does not concern itself with our beliefs in
a future life, Mr. Foote asks me to state what are the facts it
ignores. I say the facts it ignores are these : Our beliefs in a
future life ; these beliefs are facts as beliefs. They are not fictions.
(Laughter.) I suppose you are not trained in reasoning or you
would see the difference. You may believe falsely ; but it is a fact
that you believe falsely all the same. You cannot say I have not
a belief about a future life. That is a fact, and not only that; but
these facts of our beliefs ought to be taken cognisance of because
the are most essential and important in the present life. Will Mr.
Foote say that belief in a future life has no influence on this life ?
If they have an influence on this life it is either for good or for evil.
If the influence be for evil, as I think Mr. Foote imagines it to be,
is it not his duty in his philosophy to counteract those beliefs and try
to prove their falseness ; to show, if possible, that they are not
based upon sound reasoning ; that they are inferentially illogical ?
Y ou have no right in the philosophy of life to ignore such impor
tant facts for this life as these beliefs which human beings have with
regard to a future state, whether they are true or false. (Hear,
hear.) I hold, therefore, that this is the only philosophy that I
know of that ignores the facts of human nature altogether and yet
at the same time would hope or expect—while ignoring these—to
elevate human life and make it higher than it is. Mr. Foote does
not say there is no future life or God. Therefore these two things
are possible : future life and the existence of God. Does this possi
bility entail no responsibility upon us to study very carefully whether
these things be facts or not. (Hear, hear.) The mere possibility
entails the duty of trying to solve that possibility and to see
whether it is realiy a chimera of our imagination, or a logical infer
ence from our most deeply-rooted convictions.
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81
Again, Mr. Foote indulged in a little of that prophecy which he
sometimes denounces, for he told us that in the future time all
these beliefs of ours will be cast aside as dreary superstitions.
(Hear, hear.) But if it is possible that there is a future life and a
God, it may possibly happen that they will not be cast aside as a
dreary superstition—but in future times our Christianity may be
more brightly and more clearly held, and our position as to Chris
tianity and the existence of God more distinctly maintained even
than it is now. If he indulges in prophecy, he cannot find fault
with me for following his laudable example.
Then, alluding to the Christians who sorrowed for their
friends at death, he said “ they must be miserably selfish
creatures, because, believing in the existence of heaven, they
were sorry when their friend went to heaven.” They are
not sorry that their friend has gone to heaven, but that
death has taken him away for a time, and surely that is not alto
gether incomprehensible. Can he not understand a mother whose
son is leaving his home where he has passed many years, to go out
into the world to better himself, to enter the world of business, to
enter upon a most lucrative situation—will that mother be alto
gether joyous because her son is leaving her? May she, not shed
many a tear and be very sorry he is going away, and yet at the same
time be glad that he is going to better himself in life. (Hear hear.)
I daresay Mr. Foote has been present at a wedding. It is generally
supposed, although it is not always the fact, that when people get
married they are going to better themselves. In these circumstances
has he never heard it said, or seen it shown on this—the happiest
of days—by the flowing of tears that it appeared almost as if it
were the saddest of days ? It is utterly impossible for us when our
friends go from us, not to be sorry at parting from them for our
own sakes, and yet be glad for theirs, because the parting is better
for them. He said “It is natural and human.” Yes, it is natural
and human, and I have yet to learn that Christians are supposed to
be unnatural and inhuman. (Cheers.)
So far from that, if I want true humanity I look to
find it in the man who develops all the elements of human
nature in his character. If I want to find a truly natural
man I look to the man who ignores no facts but takes
everything into account his beliefs, his consciousness, and his
thoughts—one who believing that nature comes from God, does his
very best to place himself in harmony with nature and so be in
harmony with its Creator.
I have been further charged with having muddled up
Mr. Foote’s argument about providence and science when I
�<S2
CHRISTIANITY OR SECULARISM,
asked “ Don’t men help each other ?” Yes men undoubt
edly do help each other.
As I have said before, when
speaking about prayer, what does a Christian do ? He simply asks
in prayer from the Being who is powerful, and wise, and loving,
what we on earth ask of beings who are not powerful, who are not
altogether wise, nor are they altogether loving. We believe in the
existence of a Being above this world of ours, who knows all, has
power, and who has a desire to help us as far as is well for those
who pray to him. And so we pray to him, not in a mode of com
mand, but in the words of entreaty that, if it be best for us, that
those prayers of ours should be granted. (Applause.)
Mr. FOOTE : Dr. McCann complains that I have entered, like
Saul, the, ranks of the prophets. I did nothing of the kind. A
prophet is a man who says what will be. I merely said, I believe
it will be. . I will now deal with the matter which Dr. McCann
concluded with. A mother, he says, in parting from her son who
is going out into the world to better himself, sheds tears. Yes.
But why ? Chiefly because of the incertitude of the future. She
feels that while he may prosper, he may not. She feels the world
is full of accidents ; and although the reasonable chances of his
coming to grief are but few, her trembling mother’s heart magni
fies them. (Hear, hear.) But when the Christian dies, and his
relatives believe that he has gone to heaven, they ought to show
signs of gladness ; because their bereavement is only for a few
years, and is overwhelmed by the transcendent felicity into which
the dead one has entered. (Cheers and laughter.) Do you think I
should be sorry if a friend of mine came into a fortune which I
myself was going to share in a few years ? Surely not. (Hear,
hear.) I admit that it is natural and human for Christians to
grieve. It is natural and human for Freethinkers to grieve. And
the fact that they both act in the same way before the shadow of
death, shows that the theological differences between them are not
the springs of their conduct, but the human heart which they
share in common. (Cheers.)
With respect to the criterion of morality Dr. McCann wants me
to say what is the difference between the criterion and the thing
itself. What is morality ? Morality is, I say, the science of right
and wrong ; and the criterion of what is right or wrong is the
public welfare. (Hear, hear.) Now I think that statement is intel
ligible to all. If Dr. McCann does not understand it, I cannot
help it. Has he given us any other criterion ? No. And he
cannot. At least I think not, and I might venture to prophesy
that he will not give us one. (Hear, hear, and laughter.) ■■'Who is
�WHICH IS TRUE ?
83
to apply this criterion ? ” Everybody. And it is to be applied, as
I said before, through intelligence. There are certain methods of
scientific research. You practise those methods. You cannot
always practise them aright. If so, you would soon discover all
truth. But their failures are the result of your want of intelli
gence. They are not the defects of the methods. (Hear, hear.) So
I say, although the public welfare is the criterion of right and
wrong, we differ as we go along as to the public welfare itself.
But our differences with respect to that settle in course of time as
our differences as to other things do, because knowledge takes
the place of doubt. (Hear, hear.) Who now doubts whether the
abolition of the Corn Laws was a wise act ? Who now doubts
whether extending education to the masses of the people was a
wise act ? Yet when these things were proposed, they were hotly
discussed ; men took sides upon them, and differed as to whether
such measures would conduce to the public welfare. But expe
rience has settled the matter now. And when experience has done
that, there is no longei’ room for doubt or discussion on the subject.
(Cheers.)
I admit that Parliament can do wrong, simply because Parlia
ment is only an assemblage of men like ourselves—(hear, hear)—
and they are as liable to go wrong as we are—a little more liable,
for they have their own ends to serve. (Laughter.) The law of
this country sent me to gaol. Yes, but I never said the law could
not be mistaken. The law which sent me to gaol was passed in an
age of barbarism. It was an age fertile in similar mistakes. We
have corrected hundreds of them. This one still lingers ; but it
is on the high road to correction; the evil law will be speedily
abolished. (Cheers.) “ Why not call an action useful,” says
Dr. McCann “instead of moral?” Are we to return to the
barbaric or savage use of language ? The development of language
means finer discrimination of tastes, sentiments, and thoughts.
The savage calls almost all objects by generic names. He does not
differentiate them. The civilised man, with a larger power of
holding facts in consciousness, differentiates them and gives them
new names. To the savage—there are such savages—an action, a
person, a flower, a stream, and a meal are all alike 1‘ good.” But
the civilised man has a finer mental palate. He gives different
words to different shades of appreciation. Consequently we call
the inanimate object “ useful.” But when we come to actions,
which are expressions of organic character, we apply a different
term and call them “ right ” or “ wrong.” But the criterion is the
usefulness to the whole social community ; and if we call such
actions “ moral ” we have a right to do so—for Dr. McCann has
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CHRISTIANITY OB SECULARISM,
no claim to a monopoly of the best words in the vocabulary. We
claim to use them and give our meaning to them. Let Dr. McCann
and his friends give theirs if they have any other meaning to give.
(Cheers.)
“Beliefs are facts.” (Hear, hear.) Well they are facts inas
much as they are mental facts. But do they correspond to
objective realities ? (Hear, hear.) Of course there are hundreds
of thousands of persons in this country who still believe in witch
craft. You find people in the rural districts brought up from
time to time before the magistrates for molesting some poor old
woman who, they say, has bewitched them with her “ evil eye.”
(Laughter.) In some ignorant districts it is rather a rough time
for an old woman who has outlived the seventies. Well then, am
I t’o take that belief into my philosophy, because it is a fact ?
Witchcraft is a belief, although it is not a fact. Future life
cannot be called a fact simply because persons believe in it,
unless those who believe in it furnish the evidence which justifies
it. (Hear, hear.)
Is there not a possibility of God’s existence, asks Dr. McGann,
and of the existence of a future life ? The region of possibility is
infinite. No sane man ever tries his wings in vacuo. What we
have to deal with is certitudes and probabilities. Our knowledge
here is certain as far as it goes. If a man asks me to base my con
duct upon any other foundation than my knowledge of this life, I
ask him to give me some knowledge of a future life which is as
real and solid as my knowledge of this life. (Hear, hear.) If he
cannot do so, I say I will trouble about the next life when I know
something about it. “ Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.”
(Laughter.) But, suppose there be a God behind nature ; suppose
what we call the laws of nature are the stereotypes of his will; we
have then to ask—How does God act ? If there be a God, there is
no proof that he acts except through inexorable law. Now, I can
not see how we can enter into any relations of a moral character
with a God who works through a rigorous machinery, regardless of
whether it grinds out pain or pleasure ; a God who sees a good ship
and its living freight sink or float with equal satisfaction. (Cheers.)
I agree with Mr. Darwin as to the growth of morality, and no
man who studies morality amongst savages can doubt it for a
moment. Morality grows out of the family ; from the family it
developes into the tribe ; and from the tribe into the nation. Let
us hope that is not the final step. Morality is in the tribal and
national stages now. If we go to the Central African tribes, we
find that they consider it quite right to do to neighboring tribes
what they would consider to be quite wrong if they did it to one
�WHICH IS TRUE ?
85
of their own tribe. The stealing of a wife from a neighboring
tribe they think is right, but to take the wife of a man of the same
tribe is wrong. The social bond only obtains within the tribe, and
consequently its benefactions do not extend to other tribes unless
they have treaties with it. And in regard to national morality, do we
not go abroad on filibustering expeditions ? Do we not lie and steal,
and cloak our robberies with the name of diplomacy ? Do we not
do to Ashantees, Maories, Afghans and Zulus, what would bring a
blush of shame to the cheeks of the worst man in England, if done
to a fellow Englishman ? (Cheers.). I hope this is not the final
step. I hope that as the family grows into the tribe, and the tribe
into the nation, so the nation will grow into the great human
family. We shall then reach the time when all will say, like
Thomas Paine—“ The world is my country, and to do good my
religion.”
Christians see a greater sacredness in life than Freethinkers, it
is said. If so, how is it that so many parsons commit suicide ?
They have to give an account to God, and we have no God, yet we
keep here and fulfil our obligations. We-do not cut our throats
and leave our families behind to God’s protection. We comprehend
and stand by our obligations, We do not desert those who are
near and dear to us. (Hear, hear.) We know that if God forgives.
us our families ought not to do so. It is the most dastardly thing
a man can do to desert those who depend upon him, simply because
a little trouble has come upon himself. (Cheers.)
Let me conclude by dealing with what Dr. McCann said in his
opening speech. Civilisation, he says, is most progressive in
Christian countries ; it is only in Christian countries that we find
true civilisation and true progress. Is it ? Of course it is if yon
do not study heathen nations. Is there no civilisation in China ?
Was there no civilisation in Burmah, which we have entered on the
pretext of doing something for the people, but really for our own
officials who are in want of jobs? (Cheers.) Let us see what this
sentence from Gibbon comes to—Christianity spread through the
pure and austere morals of the early Church. Dr. McCann dwelt
on the “pure” but not on the “austere.” He might have
remembered another sentence of Gibbon’s—“ It was not in this
world that the Christians wished to be happy or useful.” Quite
so. They looked straight at the next world. That is the difference
between their time and ours. We do not strive for heavenly
crowns but for earthly ones ; true crowns, which a man has placed
upon his head by his fellows, who recognise his services to humanity.
“ Christianity gives us our progress ! ” I deny it. (Hear, hear.).
Progress is Secular and not Christian. The true Christian ages
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CHRISTIANITY OR SECULARISM,
were “the Dark Ages” when men lay prone at the foot of the
altar and the throne. (Hear, hear.) The light of Arabian
science flashing upon Europe was the daybreak of our modern era.
The infidel Mohammedans had homes of science and seats of
learning when the Christians prayed and hymned in mental dark
ness ; and the Mosque had its school when the Church had none.
Science lifted her head in Christendom, and the Church of
Dr. McCann—for it is but one Church through all the ages—
crushed her down. It made Galileo recant what every man knows
to be true; it burnt Bruno at the stake ; it plucked out the tongue
of Vanini before reducing his body to ashes. It fought against
reason with the ferocity of a tiger, ’and it revelled for ages in
blood. It broke men on the wheel even in the days of Voltaire.
The world grew pale and breathless at its crimes. But that
stupendous genius, the greatest Freethinker of France and of the
world, challenged its pretentions, and impeached it at the bar
of humanity. The peoples have gathered round the tribunal,
marvelling at the great indictment, and still more at the weak
defence. Their voice of judgment is swelling into a mighty roar—
“ Tried and found guilty ; down to oblivion as reward.” (Loud
•cheering.)
Dr. McCANN : I must most emphatically protest against the
last, what I may call, parenthesis of Mr. Foote, when he said that
my Church did certain things, and then said in this parenthesis
that all Churches were one, and then immediately he commenced
to say what was done by the Church of Rome. I deny most em
phatically that my Church is the Romish Church—on the contrary,
the Church of Rome—(hear, hear)—I repudiate as strongly as any
man can. The persecutions were practised by the members of the
Church of Rome, and not by the members of my Church. I know
full well that these things have to many a man the voice of
Christendom, because they were done by those who called them
selves Christians. But they were done in direct violation of the
teachings of Christianity, and not in accordance with those teach
ings.
I now return to where our friend referred to Providence and
Science. He said: “'We sought providence in prayer, but the
Secularists sought providence in study.” Yes ; but we have study
as well as you ; and we have the prayer in addition. The Christian
is as earnest in studying the conditions of life in which he is placed
as you can be ; and, knowing the value of this study and also his
own weakness, and his own ignorance, he asks for guidance, and
for life, health and wisdom to aid him in studying that world in
�WHICH IS TRUE ?
87
which he lives. Mr. Foote corrected me for saying we can “ break ”
a law when I remarked that if we break a law of nature we are
punished for that breach. If I used the word “break” I used a
word that was incorrect, because, as he said, and as I have frequently
mentioned, there is no such thing as breaking a law of any kind
whatever. We may disregard a law, but we cannot break it. We
may violate an injunction, or a commandment, but to break a law
of either God or nature is beyond the power of any human bein^.
I have said all along whatever law we obey we get the result of
that obedience, and if we disregard a law we get the result of that
disregard.
He further said I affirmed that science cannot help to promote
brotherhood. Yes, science can help very materially indeed, by
bringing human beings into contact with one another, and thus
help to promote brotherhood. But the brotherhood lies not in the
science, but in something beyond science. Science places them in
juxtaposition one with another, but brotherhood is not found in
science. Will Mr. Foote tell me what particular science it is, apart
from moral or Christian science, which will promote the brother
hood of man and the amity of nations ? I was misunderstood in
one expression. He said I referred to education as not giving a
higher morality. That was not my statement. It was that educa
tion gave higher tastes and higher aspirations, and also will, I
believe, very importantly aid towards a higher morality, by culti
vating and developing the moral judgments of the moral sense.
As we learn more we know more and better what purer morality
is; and therefore education in all points of view helps us intel
lectually, morally and socially. (Hear, hear.)
His reason for a mother shedding tears was certainly to
my mind a strange one, taken as a whole; it was, he
said, because of the incertitudes of the future. No doubt
a mother in sending forth her son into theworld is anxious
concerning his welfare in the future ; but let him ask any
mother on earth if that is the only cause of her shedding
tears—the uncertainty whether her son will prosper, or the reverse,
in the world into which he is going. Ask her if there is no per
sonal mother’s love in her breast, and I think she will tell him
there is. He says it is quite natural to grieve ; and that as a
Secularist and a Christian both act in the same way, therefore we
approach each other more nearly than some imagine. Certainly
both act in the same way physically. Tears are produced in the
eye of a Secularist exactly in the same manner as in the eye of a
Christian, and the whole physical part of'shedding tears is the same
in one as in the other. But if the Secularist tells me the emotions
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CHRISTIANITY OR SECULARISM,
in the heart of a Christian are the same as those in the heart of a
Seculaiist, I say he differs from the truth as widely as man possibly
can. There is human love in both cases, therefore there is sorrow
at the parting of friends in both cases ; but there is a brilliant and
happy hope in the heart of one that cannot be in the heart of the
other, and therefore these two differ widely as the Poles.
. What is morality I asked him, and Mr. Foote answered that ques
tion by saying that morality is the science of right and wrong ; the cri
terion of right and wrong is the public welfare. Again the question
is evaded. What is morality ? The science of right and wrong.
Then we come to the further question—what is right and what is
wrong? We must have these differentiated from utility, rather
more fully than Mr. Foote has done. However, he has attempted
to. show why he used the word morality rather than the word
utility. He asks me if we are to return to the barbaric mode of
speech. I say no. But in the present time we have not dropped
the word “ useful.” Yet if he would apply it only to inanimate objects,
and say what is done by an inanimate object is a useful action, and’
what is done by an organised thing is a moral action, he must go
further than that; because I do not suppose he will apply the word
moral to all organised beings—for instance, to plants. A plant
is organised ; but I do not think he would apply the word moral to
that. He would perhaps limit it to beings who are conscious. But
I ask you with regard to the actions of a human being, does he
not apply the word useful, as well as the word moral to them,
quite as frequently as to inanimate objects ? When you speak of a
useful action have you not in your mind one quality denoted by
the word “ usefuland when you use the words “ moral,”
“ right,” or “ wrong,” do you not mean something very different,
not only in degree, but in kind ? I know when I speak of a man
doing a useful action I mean one thing, and when I use the word
moi al I mean something totally different. I am very glad of
the admission, of Mr. Foote’s, that the category of words belonging
to morality, virtue and vice, are the best words in our language.
They aie the best, and if he banished them, I say that we would
banish the best words from our vocabulary.
And now a word as to beliefs being facts. Mr. Foote grants
mental facts are facts in our own minds, but he asks the question
a.very unnecessary one—“ Do these beliefs correspond to objective
realities?” In a large number of cases they do not. I know
Secularists say that Christian beliefs do not correspond to objective
i entities , but I think that what my opponent has to deal with is
not to simply say you have a belief and that belief does not cor
respond with objective reality, but to examine my reasons for having
�WHICH IS TRUE ?
89
that belief, and to test those reasons by the methods of logic and
philosophy, and so to see whether they are sound or not. (Hear,
hear.) I have reasons for my belief, and those reasons are based
upon what I know. We do not begin our thinking with belief.
No man can begin with belief; he begins with knowledge, and
from knowledge he goes on to infer that which he is compelled by
his reason and his knowledge eventually to believe. I would ask
any man who says that he begins with anything but knowledge, to
tell me how he knows his own existence, or the necessities of
thought in reasoning at all. We all begin with knowledge.
Therefore it is because I have knowledge and laws of thought that
I have certain convictions as regards the existence of a God and as
regards the existence of my own soul. However, my time is pass
ing away rapidly.
There was one other point referred to. It was an Act
of Parliament. He said that the Acts of Parliament which
sent him to jail were passed in barbarous times. That may
be so ; but at the time they were passed—according to his own
showing—they were useful for society and right, because they were
passed in accordance with the public opinion of society at the time
—(interruption)—and the parliament which passed them was an
embodiment of public opinion then. (Cries of “ No, no.”) We have
now grown beyond that public opinion. We have grown out of it into a
higher and better one ; but understand that what I repeat again is
that, while the moral sense as an element in human nature
remains ever the same, the moral judgments, which are totally
distinct, are subject to culture, to the education, and to the growth
of ages. Our moral judgments are altering ; but the moral sense,
or conscience, remains the same as it was before.
My inferences from Gibbon’s quotation have been in no way
invalidated. If these men chose to live pure, austere and virtuous
lives here, looking forward to a reward hereafter, still I say, let the
motive be what it may, they were pure lives, whereas before they
were jmpure ; they were austere lives when before they were
lincentious; they were virtuous lives when before they were
vicious. (Hear, hear.) And any principle which can alter the
character of a human being like this, is a principle which is not to
be ignored.
We have had a great deal to-night spoken by Mr. Foote about
moral philosophy, sociology as a whole, and the development of our
moral faculties ; but we have had from him very little indeed of
Secularism as such. We have heard nothing about the motives
that Secularism brings to bear upon mankind ; nothing as to how
that system which takes no account whatever of the existence of
�90
CHRISTIANITY OR SECULARISM,
God, the existence of an hereafter, or of moral responsibility, can
bring a leverage to bear upon mankind, who in their selfishness
disregard all their fellows and their descendants, and care nothing
for any members of society except themselves. It is that which
Secularism professes to do, and Secularism has not yet told us how
that may be done and what is its dynamic power. I do not
doubt for one moment that your motives may be good, that your
aims may be right and yOur principles sincere—I would claim for
you the same sincerity and honesty as I claim for myself—I have
nothing to do with you or you with me. We have simply to
examine each other’s principles, and when I compare our Chris
tianity with your Secularism, when I place your principles on one
side, men born yesterday and dying to-morrow, ignoring or dis
regarding the important facts of your nature, having no vital principles
or powers, nor dynamic forces, to bear upon your lives other than
those which you have heard ; and on the other hand consider the
Christian belief, from its own standpoint, seeing a God above
nature, who knows what is going on in this world of ours, the
necessity of help in our human needs; when I remember all the
pious and true and wise and holy men who have been Christians. When
I think too that we have also brought to bear upon our lives—as
our friend has said—the hope of a bright hereafter ; or the fear of
a dark one if we are untrue to ourselves, then we have a motive
power to act upon a man to make him lead a good Christian life.
(Hear, hear.) When I think of the two and place them side by
side in all their bearings and teachings it appears to me that the
teachings of Christianity are as the noonday sun shining in its
strength, and that Secularism is a dark moon that would come before
its surface to hide it, to change the brightness of the sun into dark
ness—the darkness of error and misery here, and what may be
hereafter, I cannot tell. God knoweth. (Cheers.)
FOURTH NIGHT.—MAY 6.
------- ♦------Mr. BARNARD (the Chairman) : Ladies and gentlemen, the
subject to-night, as you will all know, I dare say, is the same as it
has been on the previous evenings on which this debate has been
held—“ Christianity or Secularism, which is True ?” As chair
man, of course I shall not occupy your time. All I ask of you is to
give to each debater a fair hearing. (Hear, hear.) You know well
�91
WHICH IS TRUE ?
tliat interruptions do no good to anyone. They are unfair to the
audience and unfair to the speakers. With these words T introduce
to you Dr. McCann to open the debate to-night. (Hear, hear.) He
will have half-an-hour’s speech. Mr. Foote will then follow with
half-an-hour’s speech; and then they will have alternate a
quarter-of-an-hour each. I now call upon Dr. McCann.
Dr. MoO ANN : Friends, it is my turn to-night to open this debate
by attacking Secularism. In doing this I must say much from which
you will differ; I may say something you will not like ; yet I shall
avoid as much as possible anything irritating, and ask you to bear
with me, and listen as patiently as you can to what I may say. I
know you will call it, “nonsense,” “rubbish,” and other flattering
names, but please do so inaudibly and I shall not object. While
speaking about this, allow me to thank Mr. Foote for having so far
abstained from remarks calculated to wound the feelings of Chris tians. Of course he had to defend his own position, but in doing
it he has indulged in no unnecessary invective, and I gladly ac
knowledge his courtesy. And now to our subject.
As Secularism was presented to you last evening by one of its
ablest advocates, it was represented as being a philosophy that was
not metaphysical, but. only a system based on, or consisting of, a
series of abstract propositions. Now, suppose for the sake of argu
ment, we assume that these are true propositions—I have shown
that they are either meaningless, or philosophically false—but sup
pose them to be true, and even believed in by Secularists, would
they do anything to make men better men ? A man might say, I
believe them all, and yet remain as bad as a man could be. This
is not any reproach to Secularism, for exactly the same might be
said of the precepts of Christianity. Something more than state
ment is needed to make these principles of any practical value,
Something more must be done, if bad men are to be made good,
than formulate finely-sounding phrases, construct abstract state
ments, and admit the possibility of a God and a hereafter. In these
propositions there is not one syllable about the duty of man either
to himself or to other men, not one syllable about the elevation
either of our own character, or that of others ; not one syllable as
to how humanity is to be made more human. If these propositions
fairly represent Secularism as a system, they are the most defective
that ever saw the light of day.
But even if these considerations had found some place either in
the preliminary statements, or even in the subsequent explanation
of them, that would not suffice. I want to know what force this
system, so-called, can bring to bear on men so as to cause them to
H
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CHRISTIANITY OB SECULARISM
recognise and accept their duties. I want to know what impelling
energies it has at its disposal without which our propositions are
valueless. We had no word of any such forces, for the simple
reason that Secularism has none such, and cannot have any. They
are barred by the dogma of necessity. My task to-night will be to
show that this dogma effectually prevents any one from having any
leverage for the benefiting either of himself or any other indi
vidual.
I might have attacked Secularism in many different points,
in fact, in almost every point that differentiates it from Christian
ity ; but I prefer limiting myself to two which, if established, will
render all further discussion needless. They are morality and
possibility. It is perfectly clear that if I establish the fact that
whatever a man does it cannot be right, and secondly, that he
cannot do anything at all, I need not prove more. There was a
town once visited by a king, but no royal salute was fired. Asked
why, the citizens replied they had sixteen reasons, the first being
they had no guns. “Enough,” said the king, “we shall dispense
with the remainder.” To-night I shall establish two positions,
which will enable us to dispense with the remainder. To put my
thoughts in order, I have also arranged them in a series of proposi
tions, so that my line of argument may be more easily followed by
you. These have been in the possession of Mr. Foote some time.
The first is that “ Secularism in philosophy is Materialistic and
Necessitarian.” A difficulty meets me here at the outset in the
fact of Mr. Foote’s horror of metaphysics and philosophy—a
horror I can perfectly understand. Still it is difficult to keep an
antagonist on lines of exact thought, who would fling metaphysics
to the fire; regard philosophy, system, or creed as interchangeable
words, and ask what’s in a name. In a debate such as this much
is in a name, when that name is used to designate a quality. I
must therefore be pardoned if I use words in their almost universal
significance, and refuse to accept Mr. Foote’s dictionary, at least
till it is somewhat better known. I do not care to dwell long on
my first position, because practically it is generally acknowledged,
and has the high authority of Mr. Bradlaugh. Mr. Foote may of
course dispute this position if he choose; but as I wish another
point discussed which is the really important one, I shall make no
further reply than this, that it is directly involved in Mr. Foote’s
position of last evening. The theoretical ignoring of Gfod is the
practical negation of him. Also, that Mr. Foote and all the
Secularists I know are Materialists.
My second position is, that “Necessity in the Materialistic
vocabulary is equivalent to physical compulsion.”
On the
�WHICH IS THUE ?
93
materialistic supposition all states of a human being are physical
states, all mental states are states of brain, all activities are phy
sical activities, as are the activities of a stone. I wish you to
understand this thoroughly and clearly, as much depends on it.
All activities in the universe are activities of matter, consequently
physical activities, and so far they are on one plane. This being
so, it necessarily follows that all their laws are of one order—
physical laws. For example, the laws that govern (to use the
popular word) the alkalies and acids, the flasks and the crucibles of
the laboratory, are of the same order as those that govern the
chemist himself.
But further, as our activities are physical, they are as a conse
quence compelled also. That is, they are not voluntary, but
necessitated. Stones cannot move themselves, they must be moved
by external forces, and the movement must be in the direction of,
and according to the amount of force employed. All individuals,
whether animate or inanimate, are as links in a chain, necessarily
moved by the links on one side, and as necessarily moving the links
on the other side. I imagine that so far there will be little
opposition on the part of my friend, because, as I understand the
doctrine of Materialism, these are some of its teachings.
I also wish you to comprehend that I am not now attempting
to prove the falseness of this teaching—the time at my disposal
would forbid that. I only wish to state it fairly, that I may be
able to show the disastrous consequences flowing from it, and to
show also that it is utterly impossible to be a consistent Secularist.
(Cheers.)
My third position is that “ physical compulsion is incompatible
with morality, and all included under that term.” It is not my
intention at present to traverse the positions occupied by Mr. Foote
on the last evening with regard to the general subject, or further
criticise his very extraordinary, and unique, explanation of what
he meant by morality, as distinct from utility. Indeed the hopeless
confusion of Materialists as to what they mean by morality, might
well excuse us from noticing anything they say on the subject.
By it Professor Bain means the codification of social law ;
Mrs. Besant, harmony with natural order; Mr. Foote, the utility
of organic beings, etc.
I particularly wish to concentrate attention on one quality that
must be found in all actions which are correctly called morally
right or wrong, virtuous or vicious. That must be found also in
all actions for the doing of which the doer can be either praised
or blamed. That quality is voluntariness. They must have been
done voluntarily, the doer must have been free ; he must have had
�!)4
CHRISTIANITY OR SECULARISM,
an alternative. I appeal to that common sense which Mr. Foote and
we all value so highly when we find it. Suppose you saw a man
chained on right and left, dragged by those chains into the water
and held there till he was drowned, would you call that death by
drowning on the part of the drowned man either virtuous or
vicious ? Moral or immoral ? Praiseworthy or blameworthy ?
He was helpless, physically necessitated, had no alternative. He
was only a machine driven by a force over which he had no control,
and consequently as a machine must he be regarded, and not as a
moral agent.
On the last evening I stated that true Christians regard life as
more sacred than do Secularists. Mr. Foote replied that
this was not so, because we heard of clergymen who had com
mitted suicide, and he added that a more dastardly thing a man
could not do. There I quite agree with him, but it was surely a
somewhat peculiar way of showing that Christians do not value
life, by giving the case of one who so far forgot his Christianity as
to violate one of its fundamental commandments and murder himself.
But by what right does Mr. Foote call him “ dastard.” I would ;
but how can he consistently ? Would he call the former man
“ dastard ” who was dragged by chains into the water ? Why not ?
Because he could not help it you say. Exactly, but if all activities
are physical necessities, neither could the other help it. (Cheers.)
Both may be pitied, but neither blamed, according to this
teaching.
We had the case also of a banker cited on one of the earlier
evenings, who went to prayers and also cheated the widow and
the orphan, his conduct being described in language none too stern.
Now if this banker voluntarily selected this course of fraud; if
he decided to pray and to rob, when other courses were open to
him, and possible to him, then he was an immoral man, vicious,
and deserving of all censure. But if our friend’s theory be true,
then his wrath was misplaced, and his censure illogical. I offer
him the alternative, either to withdraw his theory, or his condem
nation, and I await his decision.
You must either withdraw your physical compulsion, or your
indignation. I am ready with reply in either case.
My opponent also introduced the subject of remorse last evening,
and, if I remember correctly, defined it as the sorrow felt when we
temporarily depart from a permanent law. Without pausing to dwell
on the utter irrelevance of the explanation, as such departure need
not in many cases, as that of the drunkard, have any element of
remorse about it. Indeed, such a man ought to be glad he some
times even temporarily departed from a permanent law. But
�WHICH IS TRUE ?
95
putting this aside for the moment, I ask why should anyone be
sorry for this, or for anything he has done—I mean sorrow in the
sense of censure—if he be physically compelled to depart ?
You will allow me to quote a sentence or two from my debate
with Mr. Bradlaugh, for the purpose of showing that there are
Secularists consistent enough to accept the position, and to confess
compulsion in their actions. Mr. Watts wrote (p. 22) : “ Man is
as much the consequence of all the causes and circumstances which
have affected him in his development previous to and since his
birth as any tree or mountain.” Mr. Austin Holyoake once said
(p. 23) : “ He did not think any thanks were due to him for what
he might have done in a public way during the last twenty years,
as he could not help the impulses of his nature ; they were beyond
his control.” Still more explicit, if possible, are the words of Mr.
H. G-. Atkinson (p. 65): “ I am a creature of necessity. I can
claim neither merit nor demerit. I feel that I am as completely
the result of my nature, and compelled to do what I do as the
needle to point to the north, or the puppet to move according as
the string is pulled. I cannot alter my will, or be other than I
am, and cannot deserve either reward or punishment.” These men
understood their principles, accepted their position, unutterably
miserable as it is, and were consequently consistent. In my judg
ment, Materialism, Necessitarianism, Secularism, need no further,
and could not have any more damaging, exposure than such con
fessions as these. Whether Mr. Foote will be equally consistent
remains to be seen. The whole problem may be expressed in a
sentence or two. Either free or not free ; either free or compelled ;
either, therefore, moral agents or only physical links.
My next and concluding point is that—“ Such a system is an
tagonistic to human progress.” Before proceeding to make good
this position, I must notice one error and a fallacy into which my
opponent fell on last evening with regard to Christian progress. I
had stated that progress was not found in any but Christian coun
tries ; in reply to that Mr. Foote stated that civilization existed in
China. He had, no doubt inadvertently, substituted the word
civilisation for progress, which is a very different thing, unless on
our friend’s principle that there is nothing in a name. I do not
imagine progress will be claimed for China, So I re-affirm my
former contention, that progress follows Christianity, aye, as closely
as shadow follows body in the sunshine. (Cheers.)
He also stated that moral precepts had not civilised the world; there
I agree with him, and have stated the same frequently; but what shall
we think of that system that does not possess even moral precepts ?
Precepts require some force to make them practical.; and one
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CHRISTIANITY OR SECULARISM,
force at least belonging to Christianity was acknowledged by Mr.
Foote as a reason for the self-denial of the early Christians. It
was the hope of a crown hereafter. This force was, he admits,
strong enough to produce purity in the midst of debauchery, and
self-denial in the midst of the grossest self-indulgence. It may be
sneered that they were striving for a heavenly crown, while Secu
larists are striving for an earthly crown. Even if the sneer were
true, is it nothing to have such a hope within us ? But the Chris
tian strives for an earthly crown as well as a heavenly—the crown
of righteousness for time and for eternity. Will the Secularist
name a nobler ? (Hear, hear.)
Again, Mr. Foote spoke of science as the one instrument of
progress, and the only providence and only savior of the Secularists.
If so, I am sorry for them. But it seems to be forgotten that what
science will do for the Secularist it will do also for the Christian.
In the same way as it proves a savior to the one, it will prove
itself a savior to the other. (Cheers.) It seems to be forgotten
that the Christian is as ardent a student of science as the Secularist,
and that much of the science of the present day has been received
from Christian sources, and given to us by Christian teachers. I
need not go farther back than last night, when the chair at a Chris
tian lecture in this hall was taken by Professor Stokes, President of
the Royal Society, and the first physicist in the world.
But Mr. Foote has tacitly acknowledged that science is not the
only instrument in progress; there is that hope of a bright hereafter,
born of Christian influences. What, I again ask, has the Secularist to
help him to progress ? Absolutely nothing. Nay more, not only has
he no motive force, but the only distinctive principle on this subjeet
that he possesses, is absolutely fatal to progress of any kind; andif he
does progress it is in defiance of his creed, and not because of it.
(Cheers, and cries of “oh, oh.”) I now proceed to make this clear.
What is the practical outcome of the doctrine of necessity, or
physical compulsion, as I have already explained it ? It is, in a
word, this : that you deprive yourself of the right to urge on any
man any line of conduct whatever. You have no right to say to
anyone in any circumstances, “ You ought to do this or that.” He
might turn on you and say, “ What right have you to talk to me
about ‘ ought’; I am as helpless as a stone, the creature of neces
sity, and cannot be other than I am. Go with your ‘ ought ’ to
those who believe they have some self-control, and can so far select
their own course, but come not to me, the product of fate, and the
victim of circumstances, with the mockery of your advice.” What
reply would Mr. Foote give in such a case as this ? I care not
what reply he may give, it must be, from the necessity of the case,
�WHICH IS TRUE ?
97
either inconsistent with his principles, or inconsistent with his
gdvice.
Let us take an illustration from inanimate things, for there we
shall get the idea in its simplicity, and the illustration is perfectly
legitimate, if all existences are under laws of the same order. You
take a barrel of gunpowder, and we shall for the moment imagine
it capable of understanding you, and of replying to you. You say
to it: “ Now everything is ready for the explosion, why don’t you
blow up? You ought to do so.” The answer would be: “I
cannot, it is impossible, I have no power ; you must first apply the
spark, then I shall go off.” You do apply the spark, and the explosion
follows immediately. (Cries of “ Oh, oh 1 ” and laughter.) Some
person seems to object to that statement, but if he tried the effects
he would not be able to object a second time. (Laughter.) There
was no alternative ; before the application of the spark an explosion
was impossible, after the application it was unavoidable. And that
is the condition to which our friend’s theory would reduce you
Secularists! (Laughter, interruption, and cries of “ Order.”)
Puppets never to move, but only to be moved as the strings are
pulled. Well, then, if Mr. Atkinson be correct, and Secularists are
only puppets, I suppose all Secularist meetings must be regarded
as puppet-shows.
Another very important consideration showing how Necessita
rianism would obstruct all progress, is the fact that, if we be phy
sically compelled to all we do, praise or blame for any action is the
veriest burlesque. Once you affirm that any deed is necessitated,
you at the same time lift it out of the category of censurable oi'
praiseworthy actions. Once you admit that a thief could not by
any possibility be other than a thief, and that he has himself no
power to stop his thieving, to blame him for theft would surely be
impertinent mockery. His hand was placed on your watch for the
purpose of stealing it, not by himself, but by the forces not him
self, over which he had no control; therefore no word of censure,
he deserves it not. Of course, this must be at once evident to all.
Again, I appeal to your common sense, and ask what influence,
think you, this teaching would have on the progress of men ? Do
we not require all the deterrent influences of displeasure and
censure which we have at our disposal, and all the helpful influ
ences of approbation, to aid man in striving after right and avoid
ing wrong ? And even with all these brought to bear on men, with
all their force, are they all they ought to be ? Banish even one of
these, however, and how much worse would they be ! Fortunately
the whole system is so diametrically opposed to the basic principles
of our nature, that you cannot get any single individual to act on
�98
CHRISTIANITY OB SECULARISM,
it consistently in every-day life. No thanks to our friends, how
ever, for that.
Secularist progress I Oh yes, there may be such a thing, but it
is the progress of a stone when kicked—it has no choice but to go,
and just as far as the kick may carry it. Necessitarians remind
me of balls on a billiard-table, going in many directions, ever on
the move, but moving whither they must, not whither they would.
Such progress is as far removed from truly human progress as any
thing I can imagine. The progress of man is the development of
individuality of character, of personal self-control, of mental
energy, of high-toned principle, of the power to reign in life, the
power to say to circumstances—Thou shalt, or thou shalt not. It
is the power to say to all things—I shall compel you to work
together for my good. But this is exactly what Necessitarianism
would crush out and make impossible. Progress depends on the
internal, and not on the external. You may increase wealth and
increase at the same time corruption. You may develop science,
and develop at the same time power for evil. You may extend
your literature and at the same time extend your licentiousness.
Growth in these things is not necessarily growth in human great
ness, though they may materially aid it. But when you elevate
motive and ennoble self, you involve progress. Necessitarianism
would make you as mere things—possessed of all things, possessing
none. Christianity would enable you to say : “ All things are
mine, whether Paul, or Apollos or Cephas, or the world, or life,
or death, or things present, or things to come : all things are mine,
for I am Christ’s, and Christ is God’s.” (Great cheering.)
Mb. FOOTE : For half-an-hour I have exercised my patience
and admired yours. (Hear, hear.) I take it that to-night Dr.
McCann has said his very worst against Secularism. (Cheers, and
hisses.) Allow me to say that by “ the very worst,” I am speaking
simply as a debater and not as a fish-fag. The gentleman who
hissed should understand that Dr. McCann and I know what
courtesy means. He should leave his hisses until he gets outside.
That will be very much better. (Hear, hear.) Dr. McCann, I
take it, has said his very worst against Secularism, and if that is
the -worst he can say, it does not stand in much danger. (Hear,
hear.) Before I come to the first point of his attack, I may as
well clear away one or two matters which he has introduced,
because I think they only block our path. Dr. McCann has faith,
and all persons that have faith have a great capacity for taking
things for granted. Dr. McCann tells you that last Thursday
evening he conclusively showed that all my positions were meaning-
�WHICH IS TRUE ?
i)9
less or valueless. (Hear, hear.) Well that may be Dr. McCann's
opinion—(A voice, “ Only his ”)—but it appears to me an extremely
vain way of putting it. I do not admit—and I know some of you
will not admit—that Dr. McCann did anything of the kind.
(‘•'No.no.”) But I shall not undertake to reply to such a state
ment. I shall let the printed debate stand for itself. (Hear,
hear.) We were also told that I had a horror of philosophy. Now
I said nothing of the sort. I did say that metaphysics were,
generally speaking, good for the bonfire, and I hold to the state‘ment. Dr. McCann turns the word “ metaphysics ” into philosophy,
and then twits me with talking as if any two words were inter
changeable. (Hear, hear.)
Dr. McCann said I gave you an extraordinary definition of
morality last Thursday. But an extraordinary one is better than
none at all. My opponent in this debate has sedulously avoided
giving any definition of any of the terms he has employed. I
ventured to say last Thursday evening that Dr. McCann would not
give us any definition of morality, and I ventured to say he would
not give us any criterion of morality. The only criterion I know
that Dr. McCann has ever given in his life, is that an action is
moral when it is right—(hear, hear)—which is only saying it is
moral when it is moral. (Hear, hear.) The word “ right ” strictly
means straight; and the straightness of an action depends upon
the end you propose to reach. It is precisely that which I have'
stated, and which Dr. McCann has declined to state from beginning
to end. (Hear, hear.) I defined a moral action as one which
conduces to the welfare of society. Let Dr. McCann give his. As
we are discussing the relative merits of Secularism and Christianity,
it will be quite impossible to arrive at any satisfactory conclusion
unless he exhibits what he wants discussed, as well as asking me
to exhibit mine.
I now propose to follow Dr. McCann throughout his half hour'sspeech. What, he says, are the schemes which we propose to put
in operation in order to make bad men good ? I am not quite sure
that any such operation is possible. (Hear, hear.) There are
cases where men, owing to bad conditions, have had the worst
elements in their nature stimulated into excessive action. (Hear,
hear.) I know also that there are cases where men are born with
diseased moral organisations that will inevitably lead them to the
gaol or the lunatic asylum. (Hear, hear.) All the reformatory
work in the world will never change the construction of these men’s
brains ; and if Christianity pretends to do anything of the sort it
only shows that Christianity is as defective in brain as the patients
on whom it proposes to operate. (“ No, no,” and cheers.)
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CHRISTIANITY OR SECULARISM,
What are our duties to ourselves and to others ? I said last
Thursday evening that our duty to others was to consult and con
sider their welfare as well as our own. My duty to my fellow man
is in all my actions to regard their effect upon him. I cannot, of
course, every time I do a trivial thing ask myself how it will affect
my fellow men ; and that applies to every moral or religious system
under the sun. No Christian, for instance, before he preceeds to
perform any trivial action, can read through the New Testament
and see what precise guidance Jesus or Paul gives in such anemergency. (Hear, hear.) When I am face to face with possible
actions of mine, which I clearly see must definitely and not dis
tantly affect the welfare of my fellow men, I am then bound to
consider their welfare as well as my own. As Secularists, this is
our duty to our fellow men. Duty to ourselves is a rhetorical
phrase. Duty strictly means, and should mean in such a discussion
as this, what a man owes to his fellows. His duty to himself is
really a loose way of talking, because, if he does not perform it, no
one can enforce it. The word “ duty ” involves an obligation on the
one side, and the right to exact it on the other.
I proceed to the next point. What force do we bring to bear
upon men ? I think I said something about the brotherhood of
man. I think I said that as morality began with the family, and
extended to the tribe, and afterwards to the nation, it would con
tinue to extend until all mankind were recognised as one great
family. The words of Thomas Paine would then be accepted by
all—“ The world is my country, and to do good my religion.”
(Cheers.)
Let me say that the doctrine of the brotherhood of man, as we
preach it, is safer and more beneficent than it is as preached by the
Christians. They found it upon the Fatherhood of God, -which
may be real or may be fictitious. (Hear, hear.) From a study of
history I know that, with the name of God the Father upon their
lips, men have taken each other by the throat in religious quarrels
until the wet blood distilled through their fingers. (Great cheer
ing.) I say that men belong to a common brotherhood, not
because of the assumed Fatherhood of God, but because of our
■common nature, our common wants, our common desires, our
common hopes, and our common aspirations. On the material side
it depends upon the teaching of experience that we are mutually
helpful, and that if we strike hands, and assist each other, we can
build up a civilisation, the benefits of which will be infinitely
greater than ar>y the individual could reap for himself. (Cheers.)
Dr. McCann's next point is that Secularism is materialistic. Are
there not Christians, and are they not a growing body, who
�WHICH IS TRITE ?
101
believe that man is a physical compound ? Is not the doctrine of
Conditional immortality growing in the Churches precisely because
they see that science does not countenance belief in a soul inde
pendent of the body ? Do they not base their immortality upon
this ground, that God will confer immortal life in the future upon
them as a special boon, while all those who are not so favored
will not be—as the old theologians thought—burnt in hell for
ever, but simply annihilated, that is, swept off the scene, while
their more fortunate brethren go to heaven, and live in the man
sions prepared for them ? (Laughter.)
I know something of matter ; so does Dr. McCann. I know
nothing of spirit, and I think he knows as little. (Cheers and
laughter.) It appears to me that I am more likely to be a product
of the known than a product of the unknown. (Hear, hear.) Dr.
McCann may of course entertain a different opinion. He
may prefer springing from the unknown, and I decidedly
think that some of his arguments to-night have sprung
from that source. (Cheers and laughter.) It is a condition
of morality, says Dr. McCann, that an action should be praise
worthy or blameworthy. But no one in the world ever disputed it.
(A voice, “Certainly not.”) Is there any need to insist upon
truisms ? Is there any need to emphasise what nobody thinks of
contradicting ? I know that actions are praiseworthy or blame
worthy, but the question between us is, Why are they praiseworthy
and why are they blameworthy ? (Hear, hear.) If the doctrine
which Dr. 'McCann calls necessity—but which I prefer to call
causation—is incompatible with morality, I must say that accord
ing to history, three-fourths of the great Christian teachers, from
St. Augustine to Luther and Calvin, have all held doctrines incom
patible with morality. (Hear, hear.) The dogma of free will was
never taught until men declared that there was an all-good God and
the same time all-powerful, and ■ thus found themselves face to
face with the problem of evil. In order to save the omnipotence of
God on the one side, and his omniscience on the other, they
promulgated the doctrine that man had a free will, that all the
evil in the world was the result of his own voluntary action,
and not ascribable to the God who made him. Suppose we take some
of these great Christian philosophers—if Dr. McCann will pardon
me for applying such a term to them—(laughter.) I will take as a
typical one Martin Luther, because I hold that on the whole he is
the most representative theologian Protestantism has produced—
and of course Dr. McCann belongs to the Protestant side of the
happy Christian family. (Laughter.) Said Luther—“ The human
Will is like a beast of burden. If God mounts it, it wishes and
�102
CHRISTIANITY OR SECULARISM,
goes as God wills. If Satan mounts it, it wishes and goes as Satan
wills. Nor can it choose the rider it would prefer, or betake itself
to him, but it is the riders who contend for its possession.” There
is free will for you. (Hear, hear, and laughter.) I need not say
that John Calvin did not teach free will. Jonathan Edwards, the
greatest theologian that America has produced, expounded and illus
trated the doctrine of causation in morality as clearly and as
powerfully as any man in the world ever did. The great concen
sus of authorities on Dr. McCann’s side is against free will, and in
favor of moral causation. Yet, he stands here to-night with that
historical fact behind him, and tells us that the doctrine of neces
sity is incompatible with morality. Then so much the worse for
the Church that has maintained through so many centuries, by so
many able teachers, the dogma which Dr. McCann now reprobates.
Dr. McCann appears to forget one thing, and that is the very
theory he is combating. He might have remembered the story of
the schoolboy and the Calvinistic master. The boy was about to
be flogged when he said, “ Sir, it is wrong to flog me, it was all
predestined, I could not help it.” “Eight, my boy,” said the
master, “and I was predestined to flog you—(laughter)—and the
next time you are about to do the same thing you will remember
the flogging, and you won’t do it.” You see it cuts two ways.
(Laughter.) Dr. McCann says that my indignation against the
suicidal clergyman is misplaced. But what is the use of telling me
that, for on the very theory Dr. McCann is opposing, I cannot help
it ? Why tell me it is misplaced if I cannot misplace it ? (Great
cheering.) A word in passing about suicide. I do not think all
suicide is dastardly. I hope I shall never be stupid enough to say
anything of the kind. The noblest women have committed
suicide rather than have their honor violated. (Cheers.) Boman
soldiers have committed suicide rather than fall into ignominious
captivity. I agree with Gibbon that- all sane persons have ever
recognised that in the ultimate resort man retains the free choice
of life or death. What I said was that if a man rushed out of life,
and left his wife and children behind him simply because he could
not stand up against a little trouble, and wrote upon a piece of
paper “I leave them to God,” that was the act of a stupid dastard.
(Cheers.) And I see no reason whatever to recede from the position
I then took up. (Hear, hear.)
Dr. McCann does not appear to understand the doctrine of
moral causation. (Hear, hear.) I will as briefly as possible
explain what I think it is. If you go to the inanimate worid you
find causation ruling. Every fact, as even the Christians now
admit, has- its antecedent cause or causes; and wherever the
�WHICH IS TRUE ?
103
■physical cause or causes operate the effect or effects will follow.
'There is no disputing that in the inanimate world. We pass
from the inanimate world to the animate world. We come to the
lowest forms of vegetable life. The transition is so gentle that
it is practically impossible for the most skilful botanist to put his
finger on the point where the vegetable world begins, and the
inanimate world ceases. Even the Christian does not dispute that
in the vegetable world the rule of causation still obtains. But no
person can deny that a new form of causation has come into
•existence. The vegetable is generally stationary. It has a local
position, and what we call life; that is, it has the power of pre
serving its identity against the shock of the surrounding universe.
Now there is a capacity in this plant of responding to external
stimulus. It comes under the law of excitation. There are
plants so developed in this respect, that they actually live by flies
and are carnivorous, and they are so susceptive, and so uncon
sciously discriminating, that if a piece of meat is dropped upon a
leaf it will fold upon it. But if a piece of stone is dropped on
it, which is of no use, it will not attempt to digest it. We
by a gradual transition from the vegetable world into the
Animal world. No physiologist can lay his finger exactly on the
spot and say, “Here the vegetable world ceases, and here the
animal world begins.” Amongst the lowest forms of animal life
we find this response to external stimulus. The law of excitation
•obtains there very much as it does in the vegetable forms. But
as the animal rises in the organic scale—as it develops a nervous
structure and a brain—it gets what we call intelligence ; and when
the intelligence reaches a certain point motivation commences.
That is, the external world stimulates the organism, not only
directly through the channels of sense, but indirectly through the
intelligence, which remembers previous facts of sense, and has a
capacity of looking forward, and of regulating its course, by con•siderations that extend far beyond the mere external solicitations
of the moment. As you proceed higher and higher you come to
Wan. Those of us who are Darwinians believe that there is no
absolute difference between man and other forms of life. We
hold that man has been developed from a lower form, and he is
still subject to the law which ruled his progenitors. An
Ordinary man acts mainly through immediate external stimulus.
A glass of beer is there. Unaccustomed to think, the man drinks
it, and then he drinks another and another and gets frightfully
drunk. He beats his wife, neglects his children, and becomes a
suicide or perhaps a murderer. Another man, with some culture,
with Wore capacity of thinking, not only sees the consequences of
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CHRISTIANITY OR SECULARISM,
his action, but be is brought under the sway of fresh motives.
Let us take an illustration. An ordinary criminal is about to
commit a burglary. Suppose I know, as well as he does, that
£50,000 is in that house, and might be had if the burglary were
successful. The temptation to me would be very much smaller
than it would be to him—partly because of my past life, which
has been decided by my organisation and my training, and partly
from the fact that my superior culture gives me a greater power
than he possesses of estimating the consequences of my actions.
Nay, my superior culture has also opened up in me a number of
motives which may be latent in him, but are certainly not operative.
(Hear, hear.) I have dear friends, and to lose their respect would
be worse than death. I have a large circle of acquaintances
throughout the country, belonging to the party which I have the
honour to represent, who would scorn me and hate me for com
mitting such a crime, and my punishment, if I were detected,
would be infinitely greater than- the ordinary criminal would suffer.
Thus you see I have fresh motives, and these fresh motives come
not through the heart, but through the head. When you improve
men’s understanding you give them fresh motives, besides strength
ening the old ones. Notwithstanding all Dr. McCann’s speeches,
and all the sermons on his side, I say that a great argument in my
favor is the one advanced last Thursday and which he has not
replied to. The Education Act of 1870 has reduced crime more
than all the sermons, from all the pulpits in Christendom, through
all the centuries. (Cheers.)
A word as to praise and blame. I am on explanatory lines now,
because I want Dr. McCann to understand my position. If a man
stricks me, and inflicts pain, I cannot help feeling annoyed or
wroth, as the case may be. If a man does me an injury, that is, if'
he retrenches the happiness I should otherwise have enjoyed, or
inflict upon me positive pain, I cannot help feeling indignation or
hatred towards him. That is a recognised fact, which has been
decided for us by nature. Were it not so it would be very
obvious, as Bishop Butler points out, that society would soon go to
rack and ruin, because individuals would not have sufficient selfassertion to protest against wrong. An external object is palatable
or serviceable, and I call it so. Why do I not praise or blame it ?
Simply because it is not an organism under the rule of motivation.
It is an inanimate object, not amenable to motives. Whenever
men even cease to be amenable to motives, you treat them accord
ingly. You put them in lunatic asylums. You no longer praise
or blame them, but treat them with kindness to the end of their
lives. Now if I praise an action which I like, it is an inducement
�WHICH IS TRUE ?
105
I to the person I praise to repeat it. Society punishes in order to
prevent crime, and not merely to wreak its vengeance upon the
man who has violated the law. Punishment is sensible if you
know that men are amenable to motives, and that the dread of the
punishment will be a strong deterrent from crime. But if you
cannot calculate—if man does anything he pleases according to
some fantastic free will of the soul lying in some secret recess of
his being—then legislation against crime is an absurdity. No
prevision is possible without causation. You would be dealing
with an incalculable future that might frustrate all your efforts,
and baffle all your designs. (Hear, hear.) We punish to prevent
crime. We know it will do so, because men are amenable tomotives. We know that the man who violates the social law, and
has not the social instincts strong enough within him to conform
to it deliberately, may conform to it under the fear of punishment.
If he do not then conform, the punishment is inflicted ; he is
incarcerated in goal, and is sent there, if need be, again and again,
until he learns the lesson, or ceases to plague the world. (Great
cheers.)
Dr. McOANN (who was received with cheers) : My friends, I
am perfectly willing to confess at once that I have very seldom
• during any argument in my life been more completely puzzled than
I am at the present moment. (Hear, hear.) Our friend has been
Necessitarian and Libertarian by turns with the most consistent
inconsistency. First he talked about intelligence, followed by
motivation, and next he spoke of motives very thoroughly and very
truly, and when he is speaking of motives I am heartily at one
with him. I never heard any one advocating free will who did not
speak of motives. I have heard Secularists say that motive was of
iio value whatever, and that it was the action that told, and not the
motive which caused the action to be committed. When speaking
of motive he said that if free will obtain, then punishment would
be silly. But I want to know what he means by motive. Does he
mean that which compels or does not compel a man ? If motive
compels a man to act, then he must give us his meaning for the
word “motive,” because, as I understand motive, it'is a man’s reason
far doing something, or why he does that while another alternative
18 Open to him. Would you talk of the “motive” of a stone
falling from a table on to the floor, if the stone could not help
falling ? Either it could, or it could not help falling. If it could
help falling, you may talk about motive, but if the stone has no
alternative but to fall, where does the motive come in ? If a man
has no alternative but to follow a certain line of conduct, what do
�10 3
CHRISTIANITY OR SECULARISM,
you mean by motive ? If a man, on the other hand, has liberty to
■select one line of conduct rather than another line of conduct, then
I understand what motive is.
What I want to know explicitly, and distinctly, from Mr. Foote
is this—Is a man at liberty, or is he able, to select one course of
action himself, rather than another course of action : or is he
compelled to action, or necessitated, by motive, or anything else,
either externally or internally ? Let us have that question fairly
and distinctly answered—is he free or not free ? We cannot have
this matter darkened by any cloudy words about motives, and
inducements, and reasons and principles, and so forth. With all
these things I am perfectly at one. You will not find a Christian
in the world who will not agree with you, that men are to be
■guided by reasons, motives, and principles, in their conduct.
What I want to know is whether you affirm him to be free or not.
If he is free you can blame him, or you can praise him, but if he
is not then all Mr. Foote has said about motives, are so many
words inconsistent the one with another ; because a man can either
select a course or he cannot. If he can select a course and selects
the wrong one you can blame him ; if he selects the right one you
can praise him. The whole question centres here—free or not
free.
Again he referred to causation and said he believed in moral
causation. I should like to know who does not believe in causa
tion. Mr. Foote has told us what his views on causation are. I
will tell him they differ very widely from those of many materialists
who deny altogether that there is any thing in causation except
antecedence and consequence, who say that the notion of force of
any kind is illegitimate—such for example as Professor Bain,
Huxley, and others.
But so far as a true causation is concerned, I hold the theory of
causation in all departments of life—mental life and material life
—as strongly as any man can do. I do not know what is meant
by uncaused action. I am not a Positivist or Materialist. Oomptists
and others will tell you that matter has the power to spontaneously
move itself without knowing that it is moving itself, and without
knowing why it is moving and where it is going. That is un
caused action if you like ; with this, however, I have no sympathy,
because I believe that all actions are caused. I may say that on
that point Mr. Foote and I are at one. I am glad he has given
this address to you, because when it comes to be read it will be
difficult for himself or anybody else to explain his position, which
is at the same time a believer in necessity and also a believer in
free agency.
�WHICH IS TBUE ?
107
He began his address by stating I had said nay worst against
Secularism. Well, I do think I did say my worst against it,
because I cannot fancy anything can be worse than to say that man
has no power to select his action, and cannot deserve blame or
praise. What, from a philosophical point of view, could be more
disastrous than that I confess I do not know. He said I was rather
mistaken in speaking of his horror of philosophy, and that he only
spoke of metaphysics. He may not have combined together meta
physics and philosophy in the same phrase, but when I said I was
glad to hear that Secularism was a philosophy, he replied : “ It is
a philosophy, or a system, or a creed, or a something ; what’s in a
name ? a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” When,
therefore, he did not think philosophy had any distinctive name,
he could not have any very high regard for the value of
philosophy.
He has requested me to define morality. My reason for not
having defined it before, is that I said I did not want to traverse
the whole philosophy of morality—I wanted to save our time,
which is very short. I sympathise with my opponent in this
matter quite as much as I do with myself, and that is saying a
good deal. I want one point kept prominently forward—the
element of voluntariness—or volition, in will—as the necessary
basis of morality. Do you acknowledge that an action to be a
moral action, must be voluntary ? If on the other hand you contend
that an action may be moral and not voluntary, then there is a
violation of the universal use of language which would make all
discussion useless. By moral action I may say at once that I
mean that which has God in it—(laughter)—I did not say you
meant it ; I said I did—one that has God in it; one that involves
a feeling of responsibility and of duty, and consequently a feeling
that you cannot base on the platform of humanity, but you must
rise to a higher platform than your own in order to obtain it.
(Cheers.) Further, he said I asked what schemes Secularism has
to make bad men good men. I did not ask anything of the kind.
I did not ask what schemes, but what force or power you are to
bring to bear upon men to make your schemes effective. He
tells us of men who professed Christianity whose deeds were deeds
of barbarity and of blood. What does that show ? That precepts,
which are but words, are not in themselves sufficient, and that
men may call themselves by the Christian name, may assent to
Christian teaching, and Christian doctrine, and yet be as un
christian in conduct and life as any man on the face of the earth
can possibly be. (Cheers.)
He said that he does not believe it possible to make very bad
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CHRISTIANITY OR SECULARISM.
men good, I do. I believe it possible to make bad men good.
(Cheers.) And I would like to know from Mr. Foote, or any other
person living, how and where will he draw the line of possibility in
any living character ? Is he to be a judge of any one, and say, '
“ You are bad, I do not think you can be made better, therefore I
shall leave you alone.” If that be true human sympathy ; if that
be the way Secularism is to improve society, only going to those .
who do not require improvement, and leaving outside those who
do, it will be a long time changing bad society into good.
Further, I did not ask him what are our duties to ourselves and
others, but I did ask, when men have recognised their duties to
others, how are you to make them perform those duties ? Becog- ,
nising duty is one thing, and acting up to that recognition is
another thing. He also stated that we are bound to consider the
welfare of our fellows. Why are you bound, as a Secularist, to con
sider the welfare of any human being but yourself ? The reply
seems to be that by increasing knowledge you increase civilisation,
and by increasing civilisation you get more good in your own life
than would be otherwise possible, and therefore you are bound to
do this. No, why are you bound to get the most good you can out
of your own life ? If I go to some one and say that, he might
reply : “ I am not bound to do so. I am not bound by anybody or
anything, except my own will. What am I to you, and what are
you to me ? I may try to benefit society if I like.” How easy, to
use the words of that incarnate angel Tom Paine and say : “ The
world is my country, and to do good my religon.” (Cheers.) How
nice these sentiments are, and how well they read, especially when
written by such a man as this ! (Applause.) But suppose a man
says—such as we find a great many of every day of our lives—“The
world is not my country, and to do good to myself is my only
religion.” (A voice, “ Yes.”) There is one such. Here is one man
who says that the world is not his country, and to do good to him
self is his only religion. Go and act on that man and alter his
conviction—(interruption)—and let us know how you perform it.
Experiment on one, and we shall then try the same experiment on
others also. I want an answer to this in distinct terms—upon
what principle or theory, what moral leverage can you bring to
bear upon men to cause them to do that which is unpleasant,
which is self-denying, which may cause them many hours of suffer
ing and many hours of struggling ; because we know when we have
evil inclinations, or evil habits, it requires much of self-denial and
much of battling and struggling to raise ourselves to a higher plat
form than we stood on before. Now, if there be no duty higher
than that coming from your fellows, who are merely organisms like
�WHICH IS TBUE ?
109
yourself, born to-day to die and pass away to-morrow, I scarcely
think the motive would be strong enough to cause a man to struggle
in order to reach a higher mental condition and a purer morality.
Our friend has spoken much of the teaching of the early
Christian Church, with regard to predestination and free agency. My
subject is not the teaching of the early Church. (Laughter.) If
you think it is you know more than I do. It is the teaching o
Secularism, and although Mr. Foote could prove to positive demon\ stration that the teaching of necessity was corrupt and corrupting
in the early Christian Church, that would not prove it to be
morally elevating in the Secular Church of to-day. (Cheers.)
Mb. FOOTE : Dr. McCann, mistakes me. I did not say that the
doctrine of moral causation as taught by the Christian fathers was
degrading or corrupting. On the contrary, I think it was the only
sensible thing about them. (Hear, hear.) What I said was this
that if the doctrine of moral causation, or, as Dr. McCann chooses
to call it, necessity, is incompatible with morality, three-fourths of
the greatest teachers in the Christian Church have taught a doctrine
which is incompatible with morality. What is sauce for the
Secular gander I hold is sauce for the Christian goose. (Laughter.)
A word as to making bad men good. The first man Dr. McCann
eomes across he proposes to hand over to me, although he has
the specific and I doubt whether I have. Surely that is not very
consistent. (Hear, hear.) Let us continue this. I read a few
years ago of a man in South Wales, walking about the country,
who murdered a whole family for two shillings and a pair of boots.
Now I want to know what hope Dr. McCann would have of turning
that fellow into a good man. I say it would be a radical impossi
bility. A man so devoid of sympathy with others, that he could
deliberately murder a whole family for such a trifling reward, or,
M he might call it, profit, regards his fellow man’s happiness and
welfare as so light in the balance that nothing you could do with
him would make him a decent member of society. (Hear, hear.)
But I allowed that there were men whose worst elements are not
.Irrepressible, whose surroundings have unduly stimulated those
elements into foul play. I allowed that such men had latent
possibilities of better things, and might be placed amid new sur
roundings, or might be brought under the influence of mental
culture, which would open up new motives. By means of changing
the condition, and recognising that they were amenable to motives,
. you proceed upon the inevitable law of moral causation ; and you
may improve men who would otherwise continue to live degraded
lives, (Hear, hear.)
�110
CHRISTIANITY OB SECULARISM,
Does punishment compel a man ? No. But the fear of punish
ment restrains him. (Cheers.) Surely Dr. McCann does not
mean that if all the policemen took a week’s holiday, it would not
be very awkward for everyone who has anything to lose. The
policeman does act as a deterrent—a great deal more than the
Devil. (Cheers.) I believe that one policeman is a greater terror
to the criminal classes than all the devils vast hell can hold. (Hear,
hear, and laughter.) The dread of punishment is a new motive
induced by human law. A man lives in society. He dreads, if
he violates a definite social law, the ill-will of his fellow
men, provided he himself has a sufficiently sympathetic nature to
feel their ill-will as a calamity. But if he has no such sympathetic
nature—if he does not feel their ill-will as a calamity—if two
shillings and a pair of boots would outweigh all that in the man’s
mind—then public opinion has no influence on him. But you
introduce a fresh motive. If a man cannot be drawn by sympathy
you have to drive him by fear; and without it society would go
back into the terrible anarchy from which it emerged.
Is a man, says Dr. McCann, free or not * I will answer that ques
tion when you tell me what you mean by free. Free means many
things. (Hear, hear.) According to some persons I was a free man
when I was in Holloway goal. (Laughter.) I did not think so.
(Laughter.) But there is a difference of opinion on the matter,
and clearly therefore we are not all agreed as to what free means.
There is physical freedom, there is intellectual freedom, and
there is moral freedom; and so far as these words have any
meaning to me I will tell you what the meaning is. Physical
freedom, as applied to a man, is the freedom of his body. A man
is not physically free if his motor nerves are paralysed. A man is
not physically free when chained or locked up by his fellow
men. A man is intellectually free when he consciously thinks
with freedom upon all subjects presented to him. I do not hold
that an orthodox person is a Freethinker, as he sometimes pre
tends, simply because you cannot prevent him from thinking as he
thinks. He has been taught from his earliest childhood that if he
faces evidence in certain directions it will lead him to conclusions
for which he will be punished ; consequently he shirks the evidence,
although if he faced it he could not resist the conclusions. (Hear,
hear.) When is a man morally free ? He is morally free when he
acts according to his own nature without restraint. (Hear, hear:)
That is the only sense I can attach to the word. If a man acted as
Dr. McCann thinks, in some incalculable way, if he were not sub
ject to moral causation, you could not discern your friends or your
foes from day to day. A man who acted honorably yesterday
�WHICH IS TBUE ?
Ill
might be a rascal to-morrow, and the man who acted as a rascal
yesterday might be an honorable man to-morrow. Fortunately
such a chaos does not exist. When an external motive acts upon
an organism, and the two co-operate to produce a volition, you
know that that act is the inevitable result of that motive at that
strength operating upon his character—(hear, hear)—and you
know very well that he will do the same thing again under the
same circumstances as long as he lives. “ You have betrayed
me,” says a man, ‘‘ and I never trust you more,” or as Othello says
to Oassio—“I love you, but never more be officer of mine.” If
a man lies to you deliberately you cannot trust him again. If a
man deceives you deliberately you cannot place confidence in him
again. You may talk about it, and pretend confidence, but you
will not stake anything upon it, and that is the real test of the
state of your mind. (Hear, hear.)
Now let me work out this notion of moral causation with these
ideas of moral freedom. Has a man no power of selection ? It
depends upon what you mean by selection. If you mean, Is it
possible for a man to act in opposite ways at any given moment ? I
say no. Given a man’s character, and given certain motives
operating upon him, and I say he can and will only act in one way.
A man leaves his work, and says, I am a free agent, I can either
take a walk, go to the club, go to the theatre, go outside the city
altogether and wander at large, or go home and sit with my
wife.”. Now what does he mean by this ? He means at bottom
that either of these actions is possible if he wills to do it. (Cheers.)
But the question is, which does he will to do, and why does he will
to do it ? (Hear, hear.) He might go to the theatre, he might go
to. the club, he might go for a walk, or he might go home to his
wife ; but the action which expresses his volition will in each case
depend upon the motive which proves itself the strongest, and
■defeats the others in the conflict of motives. (Hear, hear.) Now
let me show, as a Necessitarian, as a moral Causationist, as a
Secularist, that this very truth has a great promise for us. Instead
■of wasting our time in savage indignation with those who have
gone wrong ; instead of wasting our time in regrets which are
infinitely vain—for if wishing forward, is stupid, wishing backward
is the height of imbecility—when we get hold of criminals now,
we do not torture them as we used to do. Given their moral con
stitution, their bad training, and the whole circumstances that
preceded and accompanied their career of crime, what they are is
the inevitable result. Consequently the tendency of all our criminal
legislation now—slow, I admit, but sure—is to reform the criminal
instead of degrading him. (Hear, hear.) And what does that
�112
CHRISTIANITY OB SECULARISM,
mean ? It means stimulating those latent faculties in the man
which have been as though dead during his life outside prison.
He has lived a desultory life, he has followed the whim of the
moment, he has spurned discipline, he has never known what it
was to do a steady week’s work. He has not learnt that, even
commercially speaking, honesty is the best policy. In a scientific
establishment like the model penitentiary at New York, he is set
to work, paid wages, rewarded as well as punished, and disciplined
and educated in the best sense. And with what result ? In the ordi
nary prison, such as in our own country and in the United States,
eighty per cent, go back to gaol again. Under the new system of
stimulating the better part of the man, and bringing him under
the influence of moral causation, only twenty per cent, go back to the
prison again, as many as eighty per cent, being reformed. (Cheers.)
Now let me give Dr. McCann a dilemma. (Laughter.) I hope
he will not feel puzzled by it. (Laughter.) I have a body. So
has Dr. McCann. But he believes in addition, that he has—whether
I have or not—a soul. Now that soul began to be, or it existed
eternally. If it existed eternally, Dr. McCann is coeval with God
and consequently he is in a sense co-powerful with God ; that is,
his individuality bounds the otherwise infinite God. If, on the
other hand, Dr. McCann’s soul began to be, it was created, or it
came into existence through the operation of natural causes. If
it was created by God it must be subjected to the qualities with
which God endowed it. If it came into existence through the opera
tion of natural causes, it must participate in the character of its
natural parent. (Hear, hear.) So that his soul must be subject
to causation as well as my body, and even with his spiritualistic
philosophy he cannot escape from that which every great philo
sopher in the world has seen to be inevitable. (Cheers.)
Dr. McOANN : Mr. Foote said he would conclude by giving me
a dilemma, and he most decidedly has ; but the dilemma is this,—
how any man of Mr. Foote’s intelligence should think there was
any dilemma in the case. He said the soul is either created or it
is not. It is perfectly clear if the soul were created it must be
subject to the qualities with which it was endowed. Who would
think of denying that ? One of the qualities with which it was
endowed was freedom of action or freedom of selection, and because
endowed with that quality, I believe in moral causation ; in other
words, that we are agents, and have the power of selecting, so far,,
our own courses in life, and are therefore acting in accordance with
the qualities with which God has endowed our souls. There is no
difficulty in the matter. (Hear, hear.)
�WHICH IS TRUE ?
113
I have now but a very few moments at my disposal, but I want
to make one or two remarks here on what Mr. Foote said in his
former address, which was that there were Christians in the
present day who at the same time that they were calling them
selves Christians still, were Materialists, because they believe in the
dogma of conditional immortality. What this has to do with
Materialism I do not know, for I think he will scarcely find any
believer in the doctrine of conditional immortality who denies the
fact that any man possesses a soul, and how he could call one who
believes in the existence of God, of heaven, of a hereafter, and of a
soul, a Materialist, is a dilemma for himself which I hope he will
see his way to get out of as soon as possible.
What he has said has evaded the question o*f personal selection
altogether. I never denied for one moment the doctrine of moral
causation, nor did I deny the existence of motives in human
action. But Mr. Foote says that a man will be guided by the
strongest motive, and his action will depend upon the motive. I
ask does punishment compel a man? No! we are told, but fear
induces man. Will Mr. Foote not distinguish the difference between
inducing a man and compelling a man ? If men will not follow the
inducement, then they must be compelled—if you induce a man
you certainly mean, do you not, that when trying to induce him
you may succeed, or you may not succeed. If therefore you do
not succeed, why do you not succeed? Was it the man’s own
personal doing, or was it the result of some antecedent condition ?
He has asked me to define what I mean by free will or liberty.
I mean that men have the power of control, so far, over their own
actions, that they have the power of self-selection, and self-deter
mination. That is what I mean ; but whether my friend will agree
with me or not, is another thing. By free will I mean that human
beings are moral agents, and not materialistic links, and have the
power of determining and selecting their own actions, and what
they shall do and what they shall leave undone. He thinks that
if we believe in free-will we should not know how to depend
upon our friends from day to day. How he connects those two
thoughts as cause and effect, I cannot tell. We have motives
guiding us, and we are so far consistent with our principles. On
this subject, as in all matters of philosophy, our plan is to first
discover our facts, and then find out for ourselves as best we can
the explanation of those facts.
But surely Mr. Foote’s statement on one point contradicts his
own theory. He has said, Why go to the jails and reform the
criminals who are there ? Confine yourselves to those who are
outside—the better class of men, where there is hope—and yet
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CHRISTIANITY OR SECULARISM,
he has told us that by the superior mode of treatment in this day
in the jails 80 per cent, of criminals are reformed, and 20 per cent,
only go back again. Suppose his principle should be acted on,
that as these criminals are jail-birds and will always fly jail
wards, you leave them alone, it is of no.use trying to reform them.
The result would have been that you would have lost about 80 per
cent, of those criminals who are now reformed, according to his own
showing. I have come a good deal in contact with men ; I know
of such cases as my friend has referred to—very difficult, awkward
cases, perhaps impossible cases, but that is not my business. My
business is to do my duty to the utmost of my power, not knowing
what the possible result of that duty may be. Mr. Foote tells us
that there are some men apparently so bad that there is really
nothing good about them. I hold that a man—I care not how bad
he is, has something good about him, if I can only find out that
spot of brightness. I do not believe there is any man living who
is radically bad—altogether bad from end to end. (Applause.)
Mr. Foote spoke also again about the teaching of the early Chris
tians and of the theory of Necessitarianism being immoral. I do
not agree with those teachings. I do not think they are Biblical
teachings. I do not go to any man for infallible teaching, I go to
the Word of God. I am glad to get help from anyone who will
give me help, but I acknowledge no master on earth. There is this
difference, however, between their Necessitarianism and that of Materi
alism. Behind their necessity they place conscience, intelligence
and God ; behind the Materialistic Necessitarianism there is no being
whatever, only t-he world of matter of which he himself forms
a part .
And now my last address to you in this debate has come, and I
must say I have enjoyed it more than I anticipated, and I hope
also it will be productive of more good than I anticipated. I must
thank Mr. Foote for the manner in which he has done his work,
and I think it of no mean importance to show that two men
differing as widely as we do, can yet meet and defend our respec
tive beliefs with calmness and mutual respect, attributing no
motives and calling no names. (Cheers.) I must also thank you,
the hearers, for the attention you have given me, the great majority
having been opposed to me in thought; but you have listened to
me with most exemplary patience, and have given me the fairest
of hearings. There have been a few interruptions, which I per
fectly understood, and which indicate to me earnestness rather
than rudeness. (Cheers.) It will be for you to read carefully
what we have said, and draw your own conclusions as to how
we have respectively accomplished our tasks, under what I still
�WHICH IS TRUE
115
consider the disadvantageous circumstances of an oral debate,
where there is no time to accurately analyse arguments and to
Condense expressions. I do not yet despair of having a debate
■conducted on a totally different method, and I could wish no
better antagonist from your ranks than Mr. Foote. (Cheers.)
Time does not permit me to analyse our discussion, nor is it
necessary. I have been accused by a correspondent in the Free
thinker of “ explaining away ” certain doctrines. I have explained
certain doctrines, but I have explained away none. One would
imagine, to hear our opponents speak, that they alone understood
Christianity, and that the only persons ignorant of it were Christians;
that the only individuals ignorant of theology were theologians,
that the only persons capable of telling you all about eternity were
Secularists—metaphysical ones, not you—and the only persons
•competent to reveal the secrets of infinity were Agnostics. (Hear,
hear.) One thing this debate has shown us is, that many of the
misapprehensions regarding Christianity are due to the very
peculiar mode adopted by sceptics of treating the Scriptures. Let
me give you only two illustrations from what Mr. Foote said. To
prove the defective social morality of Christianity, he quoted
firstly some personal advice of Paul about the advantages of single
blessedness, but he did not quote that which explains all (1 Cor.
vii, 26)—that it was on account of “ the present distress.”
Again, when quoting the passage relating to submission to the
powers that be, he read “ they that resist shall receive to them
selves damnation.” I have little doubt those present thought by
damnation, was meant hell, whereas my opponent knew full well
it had no more reference to hell than it had to this room. He did
not tell you that the word “damnation ” having changed itsmeaning
in our own language, the word in the Testament has been changed
also to express still the idea of the original, which was and is con
demnation, and that the word “ damnation ” has in this sense
disappeared from the New Testament. This might not have served
his argument, but it would have served truth. You will never
get at the truth of any doctrine in this way. (Hear, hear.) May
I impress on you this thought, that many Christians are as honest,
as pure, as upright, as learned, even as you are, and if they can
•cling to Christianity as they do, there must be in it something more
than some of you seem to think. (Cheers.)
I turn to Secularism and ask, What has your advocate done for
that ? When I read over his propositions, barren as they are of
all practical value, and still more his defence of them, I must con
fess I was surprised. I thought something more could have been
pleaded in its favor, something more urged in extenuation of its
�116
CHRISTIANITY OR SECULARISM,
pretensions. And this, I thought, is all even Mr. Foote can say in
reference to it—Mr. Foote, the very ablest, advocate it has at pre
sent. It must be in a sorry plight indeed if that be all even he
can advance. We heard much about its ignorance regarding a
possible God, and a possible hereafter ; much about its helplessness
outside the realm of science: much about its ever varying, and
ever uncertain criteria of what was best for the majority ; much
about its sorrow, without hope, in the hour of death. Literally
that was in substance all! You have heard my indictment of Secu
larism to-night, and our friend’s reply. Are you satisfied ? I am
not blaming Mr. Foote; no one could have done more; the
blame lies in the poverty of his subject. With all my heart, I say,
defend me from that system that would rob me of all that is
noblest in manhood : the desire and the power to struggle against
the false and wrong-, and to struggle for the true and good ; from
that system that would teach me I am but a bubble born of the waves
of chance, helplessly to be drifted to and fro till the bubble bursts,
and I become nothing once again ; that would come to me on the
bed of death, and, as the shades of night are closing around, say to me,
Look on your wife, who for years has been to you as your own soul,
look on your children, your sunniness in many a dark day, and look on
them for the last time for ever. Nay, give me rather that glorious
Christianity that offers me the noblest precepts, that would inspire
me with the grandest motives, that would animate me with the
purest love, that would aid me in my battle of life with the highest
and holiest help, and would keep me in communion with my Lord
and Father. That Christianity which has God for its author,
Christ for its illustration and example.
Christ whose work
is described in simplest words as “ going about doing good.” That
Christianity which has truth as its kingdom and its power ; happi
ness as its end and aim. That rightly lived, joins all the varieties
of race, creed, caste, together by the silver cord of love. That
epitomises all law in this : Love worketh no ill to his neighbor,
therefore love is the fulfilling of the law. (Cheers.)
Mb. FOOTE : I take this opportunity of reciprocating the good
will which Dr. McCann expressed. He has conducted this debate
with as much courtesy as he ascribes to me. And whatever else
may result from it we have shown that imprisonment is altogether
unnecessary. We have shown that a Freethinker can meet a
Christian in debate on a common platform and not show himself
an incarnate fiend. (Hear, hear.) But I think that truth was
established before my imprisonment, and did not wait for this
occasion to demonstrate it. (Hear, hear.) I pass by the compli
�WHICH IS TBUE
117
ments Dr. McCann lias bestowed on me. It might be very flatter
ing to one’s vanity to think they are all true, but I feel quite sure
that they are all well meant. (Hear, hear.) And now for the
subject.
Dr. McCann’s escape from the dilemma I put to him may have
been effective, but it was very scrambling. (Hear, hear.) I prefer
to let you read the report for yourselves, and see whether he has
not. in wriggling off one horn of the dilemma, impaled himself on
the other. (Laughter.) Dr. McCann accuses me of inconsistency.
He is the most inconsistent man I ever met ; for he says he believes
in moral causation, and yet he believes in free will. (Cheers.)
Now to my mind these two things are quite incompatible. The
word necessity is quite superfluous. Causation is the fact, necessity
is the mental attitude. I know as a fact that the law of gravitation
exists. I know that if I let this glass fall from my hand, and there
be no greater intervening obstacle than the air, it will fall to the
floor, simply because I know it has been scientifically worked out,
and demonstrated by experience since, that every particle of matter
attracts every other particle in a definite ratio. (Hear, hear.) But
if I say the glass will fall I simply mean that the law of gravita
tion will not be suspended. If 'you use the word necessity, and say
it must fall, you are not teaching anything fresh. You are only
emphasising your mental attitude, and showing the impossibility
on your part of conceiving that the glass will not fall. There is
nothing else in it ; the fact is the cause and effect, and all else is a
mental figment. If Dr. McCann admits the fact of moral causa
tion, the free will he maintains is put out of court altogether.
(Hear, hear.) Let us take that illustration of the gaol again. Dr.
McCann says that on my theory it would be useless to go to gaol.
Not so. What I objected to was that sort of Christian philanthropy
which devotes its energies to reclaiming criminals without giving
proper support to those who are trying to keep honest. But when
men violate the law, and come within the grip of society, society
is morally wrong itself if, while it has the opportunity, it does not
try to turn these criminals out of the gaol better men than they
entered it. (Cheers.) And how is that to be done ? The free
will plan is this. Put a man into a pulpit with a black coat and a
white choker, and let him preach. That is the free-will plan, and
that has been pursued in the gaols from time immemorial. But it
has never had the slightest effect on the criminals. I speak from
experience. (Laughter.) Dr McCann has never had my opportu
nity of studying the inside of a gaol. I watched the prisoners in
Holloway during service. They looked at the parson in a way that
reminded me of a story in George Borrow. When he read the
�1 18
CHRISTIANITY OB SECULARISM,
Bible to a circle of gypsies, they listened in silence because they
respected him; but when he took his eyes off the pages of the
book he perceived that they were all squinting. (Laughter.) The
chaplain was always telling of men coming to him and pretending
that they had been made better by his teaching, but in nearly every
case they turned out to be hypocrites, and they had pretended con
version in order to get some special advantage. That is the free
will plan. But the man of science goes to work in a different way.
In that model New York prison a good secular governor is appointed.
The chaplain takes a back seat, for his preaching is seen to be
useless. The prisoners, as I said, are rigorously subjected to a wise
discipline, which, if some of them had been subjected to in their
early days, would have prevented them from ever becoming in
mates of a gaol. (Cheers.)
I now come to Dr. McCann’s point that the same motives produce
different effects upon different men. I said in my previous speech
that the effect of the motives depended upon the character of the
organism to which it appealed. Every man is born into the world
with definite characteristics and tendencies. You have only to
look at babies twelve months old—not looking at them with the
•eye of indifference but with the eye of a loving parent—to see
that they show even at that tender age strong indications of in
herited character. (Hear, hear.) That is a law of physiology,
and it is a law of morality. Many a man has gone to a drunkard’s
grave because he inherited the lust for drink in his blood and
nerves from his parents. (Hear, hear.) I will take the same
motives in two cases. Here is a man with blood and nerves
suborned by inheritance in favor of drink. And here is a man
with sound organs, blood full of oxygen, and a healthy nervous
system that does not want these stimulants. There is something
to drink. The latter may or he may not drink it. If thirsty he
may drink it, or he may even prefer cold water. But having
quenched his thirst there is no desire for more. The former takes
it and drinks it at once. It finds a co-operating mischief in his
system, and he takes a second glass, not because he is thirsty
but because of the inherited craving for the liquor. He drinks
himself dead drunk, and finally that man drinks himself into a
drunkard’s grave. Here we have the same motives producing
different effects, because of the different constitutions. Now let us
take a case where a man has a tendency to drink, but where he
also has conflicting motives. Some men derive a craving for drink
from their parents, but sometimes they also derive stroiig sympa
thies and a craving for affection. They are devoted to their friends,
strongly attached to wife and child, and these motives fight against
�WHICH IS TRUE ?
119'
the craving for drink. They fight it, and perhaps in the end they
conquer it. But it is not the man saying, “ I won’t drink
it is
the new motive—the love of friend, the love of wife, the love of
child—exerting itself. One part of the man’s nature is fighting
another part, and which ever is the stronger triumphs, and thus
for good or ill the victory is decided. (Cheers.)
Dr. McCann’s only definition of morality is that it has God in it.
(Hear, hear.) The most extravagant definition that ever pro
ceeded from the lips of man. Does he mean that every thing that
has been commanded in the name of God is moral ? If not, what
does he mean-? If he means that only some things commanded in
the name of God are moral, who is it that discriminates what is
right from what is wrong? Ourselves, of course. We are the
ultimate judges after all. We are the sovereign judges of revelation
itself. The book Dr. McCann preaches from says that God
commanded people to go to cities they had never built, and
fields they had never tilled, and water them with the blood of their
inhabitants, whose only crime was that they defended their homes.
The Jews entered Canaan like a horde of bandits. If this is the
morality of the Bible, the sooner we fall back on our poor, weak,
inadequate, but radically sound, Secular morality, the better for
Bumanitv. (Cheers.)
Secularists and Freethinkers are the only people who know
Christianity, says Dr. McCann, or at least they think so. Aye,
sometimes we think so with good reason. A man who has been
brought up a Christian ; who once believed as sincerely as Dr.
McCann ever did or ever will; who has—rightly or wrpngly—
thought himself out of Christianity, may surely claim to know
both sides. (Cheers.)
Dr. McCann complains that I quoted the Bible and did not
explain it. I cannot help it if the Bible does not explain itself.
I quoted from the authorised version. A new version is out, and
no doubt when we get the next version that will be still more
different. (Laughter.)
We are weak and helpless things ! Our motives bear no compa
rison with the Christian’s ! The Christian on his death bed feels
that there is an immortality of glory and happiness for him ! Aye,
but may there not be an immortality of pain ? Why present to us
the sweet side and conceal the bitter ? Why give one half of a
dual doctrine ? Why not give us the truth, the whole truth, and
nothing but the truth ? If it is a pleasure to know that you will
live with your loved ones for ever and ever in heaven, what a terrible
agony to think that you may only be united in pain ! What a
greater agony to think you may be for ever divided, and that you
�120
CHRISTIANITY OB SECULARISM,
or they in heaven may witness eternally the others’ torture in hell.
(Great and continued cheering.)
A word in conclusion. I asked Dr. McCann in the early part of
this debate to differentiate his Christianity from other systems and
especially from Secularism. I will occupy my last few minutes in
dealing with the grand difference between Christianity and Secu
larism myself. • We both live on this earth. That is undeniable.
It is the world of all of us. Dr. McCann talks of another as a
Christian. I know nothing of it. If there be another world my
unbelief will not destroy it. If there be another life my unbelief
will not annihilate it. If there be a just God my honesty of
purpose here will stand me in good stead elsewhere. (Hear, hear.)
But here is the world we live in. Here is the world where the
great battles of our forefathers for liberty and progress were
fought. Here is the world where all the triumphs of the future
will be achieved. (Hear, hear.) Christian doctrines are not merely
dreams about a possible future ; they are dogmas, and they claim
sovereignty here. Precisely at this point it is that Secularism
finds itself in direct antagonism with Christianity. You may
spend your time in speculating about another world if you please ;
but the moment you bring dogmas derived from unknown sources,
and claim for them a sovereignty over this world, we challenge
you in the name of reason and humanity.
This life is our garden, and we must cultivate it. It may pro
duce beautiful flowers or it may be overrun with weeds. I hold
that the worst weeds in all ages have been the dogmas of the
priests. We Secularists do not propose to create a world. We
only hope to improve this one. We will cultivate the flowers here,
and exterminate the weeds. If we do this, is our work merely
negative ? Is it not truly positive ? Standing on the conquests
of the past, we enjoy them in our day, and transmit them with
added glory to the future. Our garden of life is fair, but we can
make it fairer. The lily of liberty and the rose of progress are
too often stifled by the weeds of religion. Let us kill the weeds,
and these lovely flowers, the queens of our garden, will flourish in
deathless splendor. When theology leaves a man he takes a new
departure. His faculties expand. All things are seen in a new
light, and the world takes fresh colors. Where he saw dimly, he
sees clearly. His mind soars, and his heart swells with a new joy.
And if, at the end, he has not the Christian’s selfish expectation of
personal immortality, and endless felicity in an unknown heaven ;
he may at least enjoy the nobler consolation of reflecting that the
world is a little better for his having lived in it, that he has fought
like a man in the front of the battle instead of shrinking like a
�WHICH IS TBUE ?
121
coward to the rear, and that his courage has made the struggle less
arduous for those who follow. His heart will be at peace with
itself. Without doubts or forebodings he will enter the great
silence. And the consciousness of tasks achieved and duty
done, will tint with rainbow colors the mists of death, far more
surely than expected glories from the mystic land of dreams
(Loud and continued applause.)
The proceedings closed with a vote of thanks to the chairman.
Printed and Published by G. W. Foote, at 28 Stonecutter Street, London, E.C.
��PROGRESSIVE
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JANUARY, 1886.
AVELING, DR. E. B.
The Darwinian Theory
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Three Trials for Blasphemy of G. W. Foote, W.
J. Ramsey, and H. A. Kemp, as editor, printer, and
publisher of the Freethinker. A Verbatim Report,
containing Mr. Foote’s three Defences, and the
Summings-up of Lord Coleridge and Judge North...
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Raising the Devil. By the Rev. Robert Taylor (the
Devil’s Chaplain), twice imprisoned for Blasphemy...
Freethought Gleanings
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Profane Jokes. Selected and reprinted from the Free
thinker. Real Rib-Ticklers.
Nos. 1, 2, 3, each
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4‘ Freethinker ” Tracts—(1) Bible Blunders, by
G-. W. Foote.
(2) Who’s to be Damned if Chris-
tianity be True? by J. Symes. (3) A Few Words
to a Christian, by G. W. Foote. (4) The Salvation
Craze, by G. W. Foote. (5) How a Fairy was Trans
formed, by J. Symes. (6) The Bible and Teetotalism, by J. M. Wheeler. (7) The Fanatical Monkeys,
•by Charles Southwell. (8) Salvation by Faith, by
Col. Ingersoll. (9) The Death of Adam, by W.
Nelson. (10) The Clothes of the Bible, by Annie
Besant. (11) “The Atheist’s Grave ” and “I Some
times Think” (Poems). (12) The Devil’s Doom, by
A. B. Moss. (13) Is Unbelief a Crime ? by J. E. W.
(14) What Must it be to be There ? by “ Scoffer.” .
(15) Christian Murderers, by W. P. Ball. (16) “ The
Real Trinity” and “ The Parson’s Idol ” (Poems).—
Qd. per hundred, or by post 3d., assorted or otherwise.
Extra “Freethinker” Tracts—
The Maiden Tribute to Jehovah. Over 100,000 of
this Tract distributed in three months.
The First Woman—Mrs. Eve. {Price as above).
Special “Freethinkers.”
Profusely illustrated;
witty and humorous articles and paragraphs. Called
by the orthodox “ Budgets of Blasphemy.” In hand
somely designed wrappers.
Summer Number, 188^
Christmas Number, 1884
Summer Number, 1885
Christmas Number, 1885
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Progress.
A Monthly Magazine, edited by G. W.
Foote.
Vol. I., Jan. to June, 1883; cloth, reduced to
...
Vol. II., July to Dec., 1883; cloth, reduced to
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Vol. III., out of print.
Vol. IV., July to Dec, 1884
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Vol. V., January to December, 1885
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�8
The FREETHINKER.
Edited by G. W. FOOTE.
The most largely circulated Freethought Journal in England..
------ PRICE
OWE
------
Published Every Thursday.
Forwarded, direct from the office, post free to any part of Europe,.
America, Canada and Egypt, at the following rates, prepaid:—One
Year, 6s. 6d.; Half Year, 3s. 3d,; Three Months, Is. 7^d.
Scale of Advertisements :—Thirty words, Is. 6d.; every suceeding ten words, 6d. Displayed Advertisements—One inch, 3s.; Half
Column, 15s.; Column, £1 10s. Special terms for repetitions.
PROGRESS
A Monthly Magazine.
Edited, by G« W. Foote.
PRICE SIXPENCE.
Darwinian in Science, Human in Religion, Radical in Politics, Modern
in Thought, Honest in Criticism.
ZtST O T I O IE _
At.t. orders for publications in this Catalogue should be sent
(with remittance) to W. J. Ramsey, 28 Stonecutter Street,
London, E.C.
Mr. Foote will not be responsible for orders
sent to him.
Printed and Published by 0. W. Foote, at 28 Stonecutter Street, E.C.
��IRES AND
By JAMES THOMSON (B.V.)
Edited, with a brief Introduction, by G. 'W'. FOOTE.
44 As clever as they are often profane.’’—Christian World.
“ Well worth preserving. . . . flashes of genius.”— Weekly Dispatch.
“ Reminds one of the genius of Swift.”—Oldham Chronicle.
“ Keen, brilliant nervous English. . . . strenuous utterances of a man of genius. ”
— Our Corner.
MOST BRILLIANT FREETHGUGHT VOLUME EVER PUBLISHED.
THE
Handsomely Bound in Cloth, Is. 6d.
MISTAKES of MOSES.
By Colonel R. G.
With,
a
INGERSOLL.
brief Introduction by
Gr. W. FOOTE.
The only Complete Edition published in England; faithfully reprinted
from the Author's American edition. Accurate as Colenso’s “ Pentateuch ”
and fascinating as a novel. Every Freethinker- should have a copy in his
library beside Paine’s “ Age of Reaion.”
A
HANDSOME
VOLUME
In Paper Covers, Is.
OF
136
PAGES.
Bound in Cloth, Is. 6d,
PRISONER FdR BLASPHEMY
By G. W. FOOTE.
A full history of the author’s Trialsand Imprisonment for Blasphemy.
“ Altogether apart fr?m the theological opinions of its author it is an interesting
record of prison life, and will make many who do not sympathise -with his views
regret the scandal caused by their own injudicious partizans.”—Weekly Times.
*’ An important Preface.”—National Reformer.
“ The book is valuable just now, but it will be much more valuable by-and-bye.
. . Mr. Foote relates in a quiet, manly way, without any sensational or hysterical
shrieking, how he vVas subjected to gross injustice and indignity.”—Senator Review.
“ Well written. . . . The book must have a certain value as associated with a
case tint will be historical ”— Western Daily Mercury.
“ This interesting, and in some parts very humorous description of a prisoner's
life in Holloway Gaol.”—Reynolds' Newspaper.
“ Seeing what ample excuse Mr. Foote has for being angry, his narrative is very
temperately written, and should be not only interesting to readers now, but also,
as he says.’4 of service to the future historian of our time.’”—Weekly Dispatch.
44 Among the books which have a value for many a long year after the author has
passed away.”— Our Corner.
Cheap Edition, in Paper Covers, Is. 6d. Superior Edition in.Cloth, 2s.
FOOTSTEPS
OF
THE
PAST.
A collection of Essays on Human Evolution, Oriental Religions, and European
Customs and Superstitions.
By J. M. WHEELER. With an Introduction by G. W. Foots.
In Paper Wrapper, Is.
Bound in Limp Cloth, Is. Id.
Progressive Publishing Company. 28 Stonecutter Street, E.C
�
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Christianity or secularism : which is true? a verbatim report of a public debate between the Rev. Dr James McCann and Mr G.W. Foote, at the Hall of Science, Old Street, London, E.C., on Thursdays, April 8,15,22, and May 6, 1886
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Foote, G. W. (George William) [1850-1915]
McCann, James
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 121, [8] p. ; 20 cm.
Notes: Publisher's list (8 p.) dated January 1886 the end. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
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Progressive Publishing Company
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[1886]
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N231
N232
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Christianity
Secularism
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Christianity
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Text
{PrWeTh ree-Halfpence.
REPORT
OF THE
International Trades Union Congress,
Held at PARIS from August 23rd to 28th, 1886.
By ADOLPHE SMITH, Interpreter at the Congress.
a Secretaries of Trade Societies will be supplied with copies at the rate of One Penny each.
INTRODUCTION.
A few words concerning the general
i;ondition of the working classes in France
s indispensable to the true understanding
>f the forthcoming report. English worknen, before venturing on any comparison
>etween themselves and their French
irethren, must first realise the immense
lifference in the political and economical
:ondition of the two countries. Econonically, England was the first to benefit
>V the application of steam for the manuacture of goods and for the purposes of
ransit. We soon almost monopolized
he carrying trade of the world ; and
rlfcvhen in “ the forties ” it seemed that our
prosperity was on the wane, the discovery
f)f rich gold fields in California and Aus
tralia gave our commerce a new lease of
oKife. ’ It is only of recent years that con
tinental countries are commencing to
overtake us in the start we had oblilained.
Politically, our revolution preceded that
tof France by a hundred and forty years ;
find whatever may have been the special
jippression from which our Trades Unions
iftuffered at the commencement of this ceniKury, the freedom of speech and coalition
rftvhich English workmen have enjoyed,
;ior more than a generation, is unparalleled
In the Continent. But, apart from this
inestimable boon, English organizations
have not been continually shattered by
foreign invasions, nor is the English arti
san torn from his trade and his so
ciety by the necessity of serving in
the ranks of the army. In France, on
the contrary, with but very rare excep
tions, every able-bodied man must serve
his time in the regular army and the re
serve. Under such circumstances, organi
zation is particularly difficult.
Nor
have the French working classes had any
opportunity of contracting those orderly
and business-like habits which arise from
unrestricted exercise of free speech and
free association. The law, March 14th,
1873, against any form of International
association is still in force; and it was
only in 1876 that a small French Congress
of workmen was tolerated. In 1878 Mr.
George Shipton and some fellow English
Trades’ Unionists went over to Paris to
hold a congress with French workmen.
The meeting-room was occupied by police,
the English were sent away, and the
French workmen seized and thrown into
prison. Little by little, however, more
tolerance has been shown ; English dele
gates were allowed to address French
meetings in 1882 ; and, in 1883, a Confer
ence of English, Spanish, Italian, and
�2
French representatives was held in Paris.
The presence of the English Trades
Unionists, and notably of a member of
the English Parliament, Mr. H. Broad
hurst, rendered it rather difficult for the
French police to interfere; and thus a
precedent was established, so that this
year it was possible to open the doors of
the congress to all nations without in
curring any very great danger.
If these circumstances are taken into
account, together with the peculiar cha
racteristics of the French people, who,
under the influence of a generous idea
will enthusiastically make the greatest
sacrifices, but who are not so capable as the
Northern races of steady and dreary con
tinuous effort, it will be easily understood
why French Trades Unions are weak in
funds and in discipline. It is, therefore,
easier to rouse them to action for the rea
lization of some vast political scheme,
than to obtain their steady adherence to
the petty details of every day business.
Thus the French Trades Unions, so far
as their existence was allowed by the
police, soon came to the conclusion that
it was necessary to form a Workman’s
Party, which should defend solely the
cause of labour, and would alike eschew
all connection with Conservatives, Libe
rals or Radicals.
The example of the
United States of America, where every
plank of the Radical platform has been
carried, sufficed to show that where the
cause of labour, as against capital, is at
stake, all middle class political parties are
equally to be considered as adversaries.
Acting on this principle, the Work
man’s Party, composed in the main of
Trades Unions, or Charr.bres Syndicales
Ouvrieres, as they are called in France,
descended into the political arena, and
commenced by contesting municipal elec
tions. In 1881 they obtained in Paris in
all 11,873 votes. A division now arose in
the ranks, and a small body, following the
lead of M. Guesde, severed their connec
tion from the parent society, whom they
called in derision the Possibilists.
It
naturally followed that the Guesdists were
in their turn called the Impossibilists.
In 1884 the Possibilists had so far in
creased' their power that they obtained
33,604 votes, while the Guesdists secured
only 867 votes. The Blanquists, another
faction, polled 3,214 votes. Since then
the latter two bodies have run their can- 4
didates in conjunction with the Radicals, f
so that it is no longer possible to estimate
their respective strength. Roughly Speaking, the Possibilists command some’®
40,000 votes m Paris, and therefore hold k.
the balance of power between the two g
middle class parties, the Radicals and the
Opportunists. The Possibilists have se- E
cured the return of M. Chabert and M. ’
Joffrin to the Municipal Council; and, by k
their assistance, obtained many enact- m
ments greatly to the advantage of alllH
working classes.
These may briefly be summarized as fc
follows : In all work done for the town, ap
tariff has been established which serves &
as a model to private firms, and main- $
tains a higher rate of wages. In many in- id
stances contracts for work have been given
over direct to the Trades Unions without ^
the intervention of any contractor or)l$
middle man, so that whatever the com-ife
munity paid went direct to those whoifei
actually did the work.
Educational facilities, elementary and b
technical, have also much increased, andik
with regard to the metropolitan railway
which is going to be built for Paris, M. SI
Joffrin obtained the enforcement of nineite
hours as the day’s work, after havindt
failed to secure eight hours as the limit. K
He further introduced a stipulation to thehi
effect that no railway servant should bapr
discharged from his employment without!
being first judged and convicted by alb
jury of hisshopmates or equals. Unforlfe
tunately it would take too long to enume-i®
rate all that the Workman’s Party hadfe
done by its influence on local legislature! te
both in Paris and in the provinces. Safe
great is this influence that the Paris Muni-ju
cipality was prevailed upon to send ^4000.
to the miners on strike at Decazeville, andfe>
many provincial municipalities voteci •
funds to enable workmen to attend at th®®;
International Workman’s Exhibition andL
Congress of Paris. Indeed, the exhibitiorw
itself is a palpable manifestation of the pracfc
tical results accruing from the organize A?
action of the French workers. The sub-fti
ventions given by the Paris Municipality
for this purpose amounted in all to /’6,ooofet
Alluding to the visit which the English
Trades Union delegates paid to this exit;
hibition, the London Times, of August^
24th, states :—
I
�They were considerably impressed by the highly
artistic merits of some of the exhibits, notably the
i painting on porcelain, some cabinet-makers’ work,
and the bronze chasing. Fears were expressed
that those workmen who had made new inventions
1 were not sufficiently protected, and that their ideas
fl would probably be stolen. Others argued that the
3 ordinary articles of commerce were not sufficiently
i exhibited ; but to this it was replied that, if the
j difficult and rare work would be done, there was
i no doubt but that the commoner products could
* with still greater facility be shown. This does not
| follow. . The French workmen evidently intend
i the exhibition to demonstrate that organised trade
I corporations, with the support of a democratic
3 State or municipality, can supply the wants of the
j community without the intervention of the ordinary
a contractor, employer or middleman. For this
ipurpose.it would have been better to place before
i the public objects of every day usefulness, and prove
I that where the workman was better paid the pur
chaser would be better and more cheaply served by
presorting to the municipal emporium instead of
^patronising private shops and individual enterprise
3
The first was held in 1876 at Paris, in
1878 at Lyons, and afterwards at
Marseilles, Havre, St. Etienne, Rennes,
Paris. As the central link of union for
all this organisation, a National Commit
tee is elected every year.
It meets at
No. 58, Rue Greneta, where it also issues
the official organ of the party, the
Proletariat. This newspaper is the collec
tive property of the party and is in no
wise a financial speculation.
It is the
only absolutely independent workman’s
organ in Paris, but there are similar
publications in the provinces.
The Workman’s Party consists, in the
first instance, of the vast majority of
Trades Unions ; then of workmen’s clubs
or societies generally called Cercles
d Etudes Sociales.
These latter are
purely political societies meeting at regu
| The force of this criticism is dulv
lar intervals to discuss politics bearing on
(appreciated by the French workmen, and
the rights of labour.
The members
|the same fault will not, we are promised,
belong to all trades and all conditions of
ibe found in 1889. The great fact remains
life, but the immense majority are work
ithat the municipality opened the public
men ; and, one and all, strive for the com
apurse to the federation of 74 Trades
plete emancipation of labour which, they
lUnions.
These societies organised the
maintain, can only be brought about when
^exhibition, the community providing the
the worker is himself the owner of the
ijraw material and the capital; the workmeans of production and exchange.
qmen did the rest, but they excluded all
The Exhibition, however, and the
who having societies in their trade did
International Congress, (so as to secure
i|iot
belong to them.
Co-operative
the Municipal Subvention which, of
Societies who obtained assistance by pay
course, would not have been given to a
ing wages were also rejected as traitors to
political party) was organised solely by
the cause. By the employment of wage
the Trade Union element of the party,
labour such societies converted them
federated especially for the purpose of the
selves into mere joint stock companies ;
Exhibition and the Congress. Seventyihnd the so-called co-operators became
four Parisian Trades Unions joined
ijlividend-hunting shareholders. There are
together for this double object, the Exhibi
twenty co-operative societies in Paris but
tion and the Congress, and it was their
ljinly two out of them were deemed worthy
special Executive Committee that sent
do participate in the exhibition, the rest
out the invitation for the Congress, Had
shaving been proved guilty of exploiting
the matter been managed by the National
labour by paying wages.
Committee of the whole party, as it was
i In conclusion, it still remains for me to
done in 1883, men of far greater experi
ixplain the exact constitution of the
ence and ability would have assisted in
Workman’s Party. Its official title is La
the work, and the result would doubtless
federation des Travailleurs Socialists de
have been more satisfactory.
But then
rance. The federation is brought about, the moral approbation or patronage of the
rst by annual congresses held in each of
Paris Municipal Council would not have
ie six districts into which France and
been secured and the delegates would
Algeria have been divided for this pur
have incurred a far greater danger of
pose. These districts are called Regions
encountering the police who might
>|nd each has its Regional Commitee.
have invoked against them the law for
Thus Parisian affairs are managed by the
bidding the International. In 1889 it is
committee of the Central Region. Then
anticipated France will acquire greater
flvery year there is a National Congress.
liberties.
The same precautions will
�4
not be necessary, and therefore the Con
gress voted that the Workman’s Party
should organise the International Congress
for that year, and we may therefore anti
cipate a much larger and more success
ful gathering.
These explanations though incomplete,
for volumes could be written on the organ
isation and development of the French
proletariat, will, I trust, facilitate the
understanding of the events that are daily
occurring in France. It will be easier to
appreciate the men and ideas with which
the English delegates came in contact
and the organisation with which future
relations may be established.
Adolphe Smith.
lunched in company with several foreign, pro
vincial, and Parisian delegates, and were
offered liqueurs specially concocted by the Distillators Trade Union. One was called the
Scottish Liqueur and the other La Sociale;
but both were like Chartreuse, though the
latter was decidedly the best.
At six o’clock several members of the Na
tional Committee waited at the Hotel d’Es
pagne to return the visit they had received
from the English delegates the previous day.
Mr. Harford gracefully complimented the
visitors, and M. Chabert, Municipal Council
lor, elected by the Workman’s Party, replied.
Some conversation took place, as to the func
tions of the Conseil de Prud’hommes, of
which M. Soens, one of the visitors, is a mem
ber elect, with imperative mandate from the
Workman’s Party.
FIRST DAY, Monday, August
On Sunday morning, August the 22nd, all
the English delegates were united together at
the Hotel d’Espagne, Cite Bergere, where
special arrangement had been made for them.
Some had arrived on the Friday, others on
Saturday, and the last delegate on Sunday
morning. It was then determined to render
an official visit to the National Committee of
the French Workman’s Party, who were then
sitting at No. 58, rue Greneta. The English
delegation was timed to arrive just when the
Committee would have completed its usual
business. The exchange of compliments and
salutations was very cordial, the English dele
gates being anxious to recall the good recep
tion they had received in 1883 at the Confer
ence organized by the Committee.
In the afternoon the Trades Unions of Paris
were holding a delegate meeting in a large
lecture room of the Arts et Metiers School and
Museum, and here also the English delegates
proceeded in a body. The Times corres
pondent thus described the visit;—After two hours’ debate, and precisely at the appointed
time, a large folding door was thrown open, and a loud voice
announced the approach of the English delegates. The
Frenchmen at once rose to their feet and gave a hearty
English hurrah. Mr. John Burnett responded. He re
marked that it had been said the Conference of 1883 did
little good. It seemed to him, however, that seed had then
been sown which was now germinating. The splendid meet
ing of to-day was a living testimony of improved organiza
tion and increased strength. Nations, like individuals, felt
that alone they were powerless. The emancipation of the
working classes could only be the result of international and
united effort. These remarks were greeted with a vigorous
clapping of hands.”
Some discussion ensued as to the mode of
business for the Congress, and the time of
meeting, after which the English delegation
withdrew, not without first expressing great
satisfaction at the hearty reception they had
received, particularly as it proved increased
powers of organization among the French
Trades Unionists.
On Monday morning the English delegates
visited the Workmen’s Exhibition, where they
23RD.
At 8 p.m. the delegates began to assemble '
m the Salle de la Redoute, 35 rue Jean Jacques :
Rousseau, a hall capable of holding about a ;
thousand people, and which for a long time j!
has been the head-quarters of the Paris Free- ;
masons of the Scottish rite. The hall was lit I
with gas manufactured on the spot by one of j
the French delegates, according to a new process, and decorated with red flags, busts of f
the Republic, Phrygian liberty caps and a few .
foreign flags, notably the Union Jack. ThefS
French flag was, however, carefully andjh
rigorously excluded. It would have implied a p
certain amount of Jingo and patriotic feeling Is
against which the working classes are always Si
ready to protest. A tricolour flag might have p
caused many expressions of dissatisfaction,]^
but all would cheer the international banner R.
of the proletariat, the Red Flag.
It was not much before nine o’clock wheq]p
the “ bureau ” was constituted. This mean! m
the election of Mr. John Burnett as honorargp
President, M. Chabert, municipal councillor!E
as effective President, two “ accessors,” or twqwi
assistants, and two secretaries.
M. Herbinet read out the roll call, consisting”
of 76 Parisian, 27 provincial, and 15 foreigqr:
trades societies or federations who had senfe
delegates, each delegate answering as th®’1
name of his society was called out.
M. Dumay proposed that the various com|‘"
missions should meet in the day, and Mf&
Andrieux read the minutes of yesterday’j1™'
preparatory meeting as likely to be of interest^
to the Congress.
U
M. Herbinet, as Secretary for Foreign Re Itl
lations, read a letter from Herr Leo, thl tea
Secretary for Abroad, of the German Social JKk
Democratic party, stating that the Anti Mi
Socialist law did not render it possible to seni
a delegate direct from Germany, but tha
Herr Grimpe would speak on their behal
Another letter from the Federation of th '
�Trades of Zurich, demanded that every effort
should be made to encourage the Swiss Govern
ment in pushing forward its negotiation with
with foreign powers for the conclusion of in
ternational treaties on labour questions. This
letter professing to speak in the name of 12,000
Swiss workmen, further called upon the Con
gress to take measures likely to check over-pro
duction, and suggested the necessity of Inter
national Labour Statistics. M. Herbinet
also read two approbatory letters one from
Lyons and the other from Doue.
It was then my pleasant duty to give a sum
mary in French of the various letters I had
received from different English trades unions:—
the Ironfounders’ Society, the Scottish Typo
graphical Association, the Hyde and District
Weavers’ Association, the Northern AmalgaImated Association of Weavers, the Operative
^Stonemasons’ Society, the Leeds Trades’
(Council, the Leicester Trades’ Council, the
(Durham Miners' Association, the Amalga
mated Society of Tailors, the Barrow-in- Fur
ness Trades’ Council, the Amalgamated
1 Society of Railway Servants for Scotland, the
•Society of Operative Plasterers, the Asso
ciated Shipwrights’ Society, the Glasgow
^United Trades’ Council, and the Operative
(Bricklayers’ Society, all expressing sympathy,
iwith the object of the Congress. Some re
gretted that the depression in trade prevented
■ their sending delegates, all expressed hopes
(for success.
I Some societies, notably the Hull Trades’
^Council and the Aberdeen Trades’ Council,
(sent special resolutions giving at considerable
(length expression to their cordial feelings, and
|Mr. Harland, of the National Society of Lithoigraphic Artists, etc., wrote an admirable letter
fin French precognising the international
^federation of kindred trades. The London
bailors’ and Machinists’ Society sent a reso
lution concluding with their assurance to
•!“ their comrades of all nations of their
^sympathy with the international efforts
((which are being made to abolish the
^system of wage-slavery, and pledge them
selves to do all in their power to assist
i|to place in the hands of the workers the
scomplete control of the means of production,
^without which it is impossible to bring about
qthe true emancipation of labour.” This and
^another resolution, written in the same sense,
land signed by fifteen members belonging to
imine different London branches of the Amal
gamated Engineers’ Society, elicited loud
[^applause from the Congress.
, I then concluded by describing the repre
sentative character of the seven English dele
gates present, namely:—
; Mr. James Mawdsley, for the Trades’
^Union Congress Parliamentary Committee.
Mr. John Burnett, for the Amalgamated
1 Engineers.
Mr. C. J. Drummond and Mr. Wm. Jones
for the London Trades’ Council.
Mr. Edward Harford, for the Amalgamated
Society of Railway Servants.
Mr. J. Galbraith, for the London Society
of Compositors.
Mr. Edward Trow for the Steel and Iron
Workers.
These explanations terminated, the Congress
were invited to discuss Question IV., so as to
give more time to the Commissions to prepare
their reports on the previous questions, and
M. Ed. Anseele was invited to describe the
“ economic and political situation of the
working classes ” in Belgium.
M. Anseele said he could photograph the
position of his country in a sentence : If he
were not a Socialist he would be ashamed to
be a Belgian. (Applause.) Even Russian
women and the wives of barbarians were
better protected than the women and children
of Belgium. Our political position is nil.
Though there are 5,000,000 inhabitants in
Belgium there are only 80,000 electors, and
these we must reduce to 30,000 independent
electors, for the remaining 50,000 are under
the thumb of their employers and dare not
vote according to their convictions and in
terests. The miners who, a few miles over
the French frontier, earn 3s. 3d. a day, only
make is. 6d. a day in Belgium. He had known
men work 500 yards below the surface of the
earth for gd. a day. The Government had
instituted an official inquiry and the facts re
vealed would constitute a terrible indictment
of the governing classes. Evidence had been
adduced to prove that some girls were at times
obliged to descend in the coal mines at four
in the morning and came up at eleven at
night; and, for this toil of nineteen hours,
only received eighteen pence! Then when
they were not at work in the mines, they too
often served as servants and worse. The
quarry men earned from is. 6d. to 2s. 6d. per
day in the Walloon districts, but in Flanders
matters were even more sombre. Flanders was
the Ireland of Belgium, the labourers did not
receive more than ten or eleven pence per
day; the weavers, 5s. to 6s. a week. (Loud
cries of “Shame.”) “I do not exaggerate, I
swear that what I say is true : we workmen
find no pleasure in rending our hearts by
exaggerating the misery of the people.” (Loud
applause.) At Ghent, thanks to a perpetual
struggle, to indescribable efforts, we have
raised the average wages of men from
12s. iod. to 14s. 6d. per week, but to attain
this much we have had in the course of three
years strikes that have cost us £2,800. And
what strikes ! The last one was among flax
spinners. One of their fellow workers had
been discharged because she was unable to
return to the factory six days after her con
finement! Yet the workman’s Socialist paper,
the Vooruit (“ Forward ”), had been sentenced
�6
because it called this employer a scoundrel!
The truck system was also practised to a
scandalous extent. Some manufacturers paid
their men with flour, coffee, or rather chicory,
and even bought back at a reduction the flour
given as wages. He had known of workmen
being obliged to pawn the goods received
under the truck system so as to get a little
ready cash. He had heard with pleasure the
details given concerning the strength of the
English Trades Unions.
If the English
workmen had only received a Socialist educa
tion like the workmen of Belgium and of
France they would be better able than their
brothers of the Continent to bring about the
era of social justice and equality. We have
on the Continent larger hearts but our
stomachs are smaller and our pockets in
nowise so deep. He spoke as the representa
tive of the General Council of the Belgian
Workman’s Party, which consisted of 170
different trade societies, possessing, in all,
about 126,000 members. In Belgium, they
illustrated the practicability of international
ism ; for though of totally different races, the
French Belgians and the Flemish Belgians
worked harmoniously together. Let us then
be without apprehension; and, as the monarchs
of Europe formed at the end of last century a
Holy Alliance to crush Republican France, so
let us to-day form a Red Alliance against our
common foe—capitalism !
After the cheers had subsided,
Mr. Mawdsley was called upon to describe
the state of affairs in England:—
Mr. Mawdsley remarked that it was not
without hesitation he addressed the meeting.
This was the first time he had been outside
his own country and he had never before
spoken to a foreign delegation. Foreign in
fluences were known and felt in London, but
they had not reached his part of England. Mr.
Mawdsley then reviewed, in detail,the condition
ot trade. Taking first the textile industries, he
was obliged at once to confess they were not
in a good condition. Wages had fallen, and
there was a great number of unemployed. The
cotton weavers, it is true, were as well off as
ever, but flax mills were being closed every
day, and it was undeniable that the flax trade
was rapidly going to other countries, and
would soon altogether cease to exist in Eng
land. The English weavers and spinners were
better paid than on the Continent, but there
was a marked downward tendency in the rate
of wages. All the building trades were in a
bad position and wages had fallen consider
ably. Ironfoundries were in difficulties, and
one-third of the iron shipbuilders were with
out work. Steam-engine makers were also
slack, excepting those manufacturers who
exported to France, Germany, and Austria.
With a few rare exceptions, the depression
effecting the great leading trades was felt in a
thousand-and-one other occupations. Seeing
that there was a much larger number of un
employed, the question naturally presented
itself as to whether there was any chance of
improvement. He considered there was no
chance of improvement so long as the present
state of society continued to exist. So long as
workmen do not look more closely to their
interests, there will be no improvement. But
what remedy could there be ? He had already
said that he was a stranger in their midst. He
did not understand their Socialism, he had
not studied it as perhaps he ought to have
done. The workmen of England were not so
advanced as the workmen of the Continent.
Nevertheless, they, at least, possessed one clear
conception, they realised that the actual pro
ducers did not obtain their share of the wealth
they created. He also thought there was too
much production and too much competition,
and believed this might be remedied by pro
ducing less. Then, when the output was
lowered, the workman might get a greater
proportion of the wealth. The English were
not so advanced, they could not believe that
by a stroke of the pen it was possible to alter
all this ; but yet he thought the workmen did
not get their fair share. It would be difficult
for all to agree as to the best ways and means
to adopt, but they might come to a common
understanding as to the point to be attained.
The means and method was a secondary con
sideration ; let us first all agree that profits
should go to labour. (Cheers.)
M. Brod, the Austrian delegate, explained
that Austria was much in the same condition
as Belgium ; with this great difference, that, in
Belgium, the workman had at least the right
to complain while, in Austria, any such inditcment as that just uttered by comrade Anseele
would ensure the speakers immediate incar
ceration. He hoped, at a later date, to lay
some figures concerning the rate of wages in
Austria before the Congress.
M. Grimpe, the German delegate, stated
that he had not expected the fourth question
would be brought forward the first night. It
was extremely dangerous to speak about Ger
many, as any imprudent utterance on his part
would ensure the imprisonment of friends in
Germany. As he could not speak well in
French, and as it was so necessary to weigh
his words, he would write out his statement
and read it on the morrow.
M. Dalle, in the name of the French
Workman’s Party, wished to congratulate his
comrade Anseele for the very efficient service
he had rendered the cause of labour in help
ing to unite the various societies in Belgium,
and thus constitute a strong and well
organised Belgian Workman’s Party.
The Congress then adjourned.
SECOND DAY, August 24TH.
The sitting commenced at 8 p.m., and Herr
Grimpe, German delegate, was selected
�Honorary President. M. Bertand, Acting
President.
The roll call showed the presence of 85
French and 15 foreign societies.
The minutes were read and confirmed.
Letters of adherence were read from Mou
lin, St. Estienne and Marseilles. Dr. Csesar
de Paepe, from Belgium, M. Rackow, from the
German Communist Club of London, and
M. Palmgren, from Sweden, were introduced
as new delegates to the Congress.
The discussion on Question IV. was re
sumed, and M. Palmgren related that the
working class organizations of Sweden were
still m their infancy. Four years ago Palm
introduced into Sweden the Social Demo
cratic doctrines of the German school. He
also started a newspaper, which, after many
failures, is mow firmly established, and has
5,000 to 6,000 subscribers. The antagonism
of religious sects was the first and greatest
| obstacle that had to be overcome. ’'Formerly
j the Swedish workmen only attended to purely
I trade questions, now they understood that
| politics were inseparable from the considera| tion of their material position. They were,
1 therefore, agitating in favour of universal
| suffrage. At first they were met with only
| ridicule, then people began to discuss, and
j now they had 5,000 Social Democrats in Swej den, and 500 at Stockholm. Many Socialists
| were driven by the absolutism that prevails in
| Denmark to take refuge in Sweden, and this
ihad strengthened the movement. Of Norway
Ithe same might be said. The Norwegian
people were Republican in their sympathies,
sand their Democratic tone encouraged the
a growth of Socialism. They were, therefore,
e able to maintain two newspapers. In Sweden
|starvation wages prevailed, excepting in two
I or three towns. They found most of their re|cruits among the agricultural population, as
I these were the most miserable. Many among
jthem were Christian Socialists. On all sides
• the Social Democrats were establishing work
omen’s clubs, and the Trade Union movement
■awas intimately allied with the Socialist projpaganda.
M. Herbinet, having called the attention
Oof the meeting to the fact that the Socialist
tiand revolutionary paper, the Cri du Peuple,
Shad boycotted the Congress,
J M. Grimpe rose to speak on behalf of Ger®many. His first desire was to express his
^gratification at having to speak in that France
Iwhich the middle-class press described as the
larch enemy. Though against his habits he
^accepted the honorary Presidency, as em
blematic of the union of the working classes
t^of both countries. The German authorities
fwould certainly not give subventions to Ger|man workmen to enable them to participate
(Jin a French workmen’s exhibition or congress.
HHe congratulated the French on being able to
ijthus influence their muncicipalities. In Ger
many all public monies were devoted to mili
tary affairs. Mr. Mawdsley in his speech had
said he had not studied Socialism. This
seemed strange, for there were plenty of
Socialists in England who would be only too
pleased to afford him every information. He
sincerely regretted that these English Socialists
were not represented at the Congress. He
hoped that all workmen would come to an un
der standing with the English Socialists, and
regretted that the Trades Unionism of England
had been hostile to English Socialism. The
speaker then went on to attack Dr. Buchner,
who, at the inauguration of the statue to
Diderot, said French revolutionary ideas had
no hold on the other side of the Rhine. No
one knew better than Dr. Buchner that this
was false, for he was himself present at Frank
fort at the formation, in 1863, of the Socialist
German party. But it was in the Spring of
1848, and on the barricades of Berlin that, for
the first time, the party of the European
Proletariat made its appearance. The bour
geoisie were so alarmed that they were ready
to give up the Liberal institutions they had
won with the aid of the workmen’s blood.
Ten years later, they once more sought
the alliance of the working classes and
in 1863, Ferdinand Lassalle appeared and
proclaimed the war of classes, organised
the Universal Association of German Work
men, and demanded that the State should
assist workmen’s productive societies, destined
to replace the capitalist and individualist
system. In 1866 Bismarck gave universal
suffrage, and the very next year Bebel and
Leibknecht were elected by the workmen to
the German Reichstag. In 1868 the first
Socialist congress was held, at which inter
national Trades Unions were created, and
the programme of the Social-Democrats laid
down and accepted. This programme still
holds good, it has not been altered in any of
its essential principles. Briefly the SocialDemocrats maintain that work is the only source
of production, that the fruits of work must
therefore go to the worker and none must re
ceive who do not work. Therefore the mono
poly, by a class, of the means of production
must be abolished, and land, machinery, the
means of transport and exchange, must
become the property of the community.
When, in 1871, the Commune was estab
lished, Bebel in the German Parliament,
declared that this episode in the history of
labour, was but a skirmish at the advanced
posts indicating the coming war ’The Trades
Unions in Germany now took the title of In
ternational Trades Unions, and their organi
sations improved so rapidly that they were
able at the general elections, held in 1877, to
bring 560,000 men to the poll to contest 175
seats and secured the election of twelve SocialDemocrats. They then possessed 42 politi
cal newspapers and 17 purely trade or technical
�8
papers. The 42 papers were edited by 11
university men, 10 compositors (type setters),
4 clerks, 2 masons, 2 bootmakers, 1 professor,
1 saddle maker, a designer, a tailor, 2 cigar
makers, &c. The constitution then granted
the liberty of association and there was
greater freedom in Germany than there actually
exists to-day in France. But in the spring of
1878, Hcedel’s attempt on the life of the
Emperor supplied a pretext to demand
laws of exemption. These were refused at
first and only granted after the second at
tempt made by Nobiling. The anti-Socialist
law of 1878 once passed, the Trades
Unions and the political societies were
were attacked, their cash boxes seized, and
every effort made to destroy their organisa
tion. Nevertheless, in 1881, they secured the
return of thirteen Social Democrats as depu
ties to the Parliament. Bismarck thought that
by suppressing freedom on the one hand, and
giving no payment to Members of Parliament,
he would exclude us. But we subscribe money
and pay our representatives ourselves, so that
they are well under our control. The fortytwo papers being suppressed, the party relies
on the Sozial Demokrat published in Switzer
land, and smuggled into Germany. Bismarck’s
next effort was to attempt reforms of a Socialist
character; but, at a Congress held by our
party at Copenhagen, in 1883, we acted against
this manoeuvre, and denounced the intentions
and capacity of the Government. One of our
representatives, Rittinhousen, would not ac
cept the resolutions of this Congress; and,
therefore, at the next elections, he only re
ceived 500 votes, while the orthodox Social
Democrat set up against him, obtained 6,500
votes, and was returned to the Parliament.
This will show how well we are organised, how
thorough is our discipline. Vet we cannot
acknowledge such organisation. Nothing is to
be seen of our organisation, we are officially
not organised, and yet it seems as if we were
organised. Each State in Germany has its
little Parliament, and here also we have exer
cised our influence and secured the return of
our Chaberts and ourjoffrins. He regretted
that errors concerning German affairs had
crept in to the Proletariat. He had been
deputed to give that paper information con
cerning, the movement in his country. But the
articles he had sent were returned with the
notification that ;there was no room. The
Germans had always done their duty in inter
national matters. At the recent Decazeville
strike they had collected money; and, in spite
of the state of siege prevailing, the workmen
of Leipsic subscribed 200 marks for their
French colleagues. The money collected in
Germany had been sent to V Agglomeration
,
*
Parisienne."
Since the anti-Socialist law had
* This announcement helped to create an unfavourable
impression. The Agglomeration is another name given to
the Guesdists, If the Germans wished to send their money
to the miners of Decazeville through the Parisian Socialists,
been in force, that is during the course of 7I
years, 948 prints have been suppressed, and
246 societies broken up, in 137 small and large
towns.
Nevertheless, a number of trade
societies still survived, notably that of the
compositors. There was a law also that
allowed the creation of benefit funds, and the
German workmen were able to group them
selves under the cover of this mantle. Thus
the Cabinetmaker’s Society in Germany had
branches in 680 localities, and last year they
numbered 71,500 members. In 1885 they had
/’ll, 122 reserve funds, and paid, in benefits,
£60,321. There were many other similar
societies, and Herr Grimpe was about to give
further financial details, when he checked
himself, as the Congress was showing mani
fest signs of impatience. He had spoken with
a strong German accent, and though his
speech contained so much information, yet
the method of delivery was wearisome, at
least, to the quick impatience of a French
audience. He therefore now hastened for
ward the conclusion of his speech by urging
that over-production was chronic, that it in
no wise benefited the workmen, and that
the economic position was the same through
out Europe and America. He cordially
approved the conduct of the English Trades
Unions in strictly enforcing the payment of
subscriptions, and maintained that in Germany
they had done the same and as successfully.
Their organisation existed not only in Germany
but wherever German workman lived, in
London, in Paris, in Philadelphia, Switzerland,
&c. They were only separated from the
English Trades Unionists by the Socialist
idea. We are as well organised as they are,
but the English have enjoyed too much
political freedom, too much material prosperity,
and are therefore unable to understand the
necessity of the doctrines we advocate. Their
interpreter stated that a man was not con
sidered a member of a Union till he had paid his
subscription, and that those who did not pay
were false to the cause. But what shall we say
of men who betray the cause, of such men as
Mr. Broadhurst who voted in favour of coercion
in Ireland and accepted 35,000 francs a year
to be a member of a capitalist Cabinet. In
1883, this self-same Mr. Broadhurst came to
Paris as delegate to the International Con
ference held at the Cafe Hollandais. In
France, at least, the workmen had got rid of
their Tolains and their Nadauds and he hoped
the English workmen would have the sense to
do the same. Such a scandal would not be
tolerated in Germany.
An immense outburst of conversation folwhy did they select the petty faction of the 800 defeated Impossibilists, instead of the 33,000 Possibilists. Both parties
hold the same fundamental principles as the German Social
Democrats ; this the vote of the Congress proves. But for
the personalities of the German “ official circle,” the money
would have been sent to the “ French Workman’s Party", if
it was meant to go through the hands of Socialists, or else
why not direct to Decazeville ?
�I lowed this speech, the audience was thoroughly
I impatient at its great length, and the PresiE dent, seeing the advanced hour, implored me
not to attempt its translation. The English
delegates, on the other hand, naturally insisted on hearing what had been said, while
Dr. Brousse, on the ground of a motion of
order, came to the platform and, stated he
I had listened to the details about German
t; affairs with great interest: but had hoped
■ that, at an International Congress, all al
ii lusions to factious polemics would be rigourI ously excluded. Herr Grimpe had spoken of
I the Proletariat, Dr. Brousse wished to reply
g on this head, and was understood to say that
I the articles rejected contained personalities,
I' but the Congress, in the midst of much conII fusion, voted that this was out of order.
It was then my turn to enter a protest.
I The English delegates had been attacked in
|| the person of one of the most prominent
j Trades Unionists, they insisted on hearing
r what had been said. There were many in1! accuracies in Herr Grimpe’s speech. In3 spired by the Sozial Demokrat of Zurich, this
n was not surprising; for, putting Trades Unionii ism aside, and speaking only of Social De
ll mocracy, the personal antipathies of the Sozial
b Demo; rat were so great, that, in describing the
[| English Socialist movement, this paper had
| printed many scandalous libels. The English
g delegates present insisted on a translation.
Dr. Brousse shouted : Let us take a sponge
is and wipe out all these personal attacks: they
it have nothing whatsoever to do with the busii| ness of the Congress.
[ Herr Grimpe: I have made no attack, I
I have only criticised ; I did not desire to offend
«the English delegates.
|
The Congress decided that the latter part
3 of the speech should be translated at once,
and when this was done, the English dele
gates demanded that the Congress should
a| meet in the afternoon so that there should be
full time to discuss this and all other questions,
gj Several French delegates protested that this
was not practical, for so many had to go to
U their work.
? Herr Grimpe again stood up and declared
If that he did not wish to give offence but only
sought to draw the attention of the English
b trades unions to the conduct of Mr. Broad
fl burst.
j This added fuel to the fire, but:—
Mr. Jones rose and urged that we ought
>4not to attach too much importance to this
ujincident as there were hundreds of English
TTrades Unionists who thought that, as a
id Government Minister, Mr. Broadhurst could
)fjnot consistently represent Trades Unions, and
^personally he shared in this opinion.
In the midst of much confusion, Mr. Burnett
iscross-questioned Herr Grimpe as to the rate
hjof wages in various parts of Germany, and
i|finally it was decided that the English dele
:
r
I
I
i
9
gation should meet in the morning, hear the
full translation of the German speech, and be
the first to speak next evening in reply.
M. Brod, the Austrian delegate, now gave
further details concerning the condition of his
country.
Repressive police measures had
destroyed many Trades Unions, nor were
they able to centralise their organisations,
with the exception, allbeit, of the compositors’
society. The laws of hygiene were scarcely
observed, and Councils of Prud’hommes ex
isted only in a few industries. It was difficult
to conceive the state of degradation of the
Austrian workmen. It was necessary to go
out in the rural districts and live among them,
when it would be found that five out of ten
could not even sign their names, and that
women worked fourteen hours for sevenpence
a day. Wages had not increased since 1873.
Compositors, upholsterers, piano makers, and
gilders earned from 14s. to 16s. a week. Ma
sons, turners, saddle makers, boot makers,
and tailors from 12s. to 14s. a week. There
was only one Socialist paper in Austria, all
the others had been suppressed. In Bohemia
the position of the workmen was especially
deplorable, as they worked for sixpence to
sevenpence-halfpenny per day. Fortunately
a law had been passed limiting the day’s work
to eleven hours. In conclusion, and though
ahxious to avoid any personalities, he must
state that he agreed, in principle, with the
remarks made by Herr Grimpe. Opportunism
was a bad policy, and in so far as this policy
had been supported by the Trade Unions of
England their action should be condemned.
While anxious to say nothing against the
person of Mr. Broadhurst, the acceptance of
a position in the Ministry was wrong in prin
ciple. Workmen must learn to understand
that they must not compete against each other,
and was not the Government of England up
holding the competitive system ?
M. Brebant now read the collective report
of the Paris Workmen’s Syndical Chambers,
or Trades Unions. These numbered in all
144, of whom 85 were represented at the Con
gress, and 17 had sent in special reports.
These testified to 114,000 members, but la
mented that the proportion of Unionists to
non-Unionists was very small. There were
38,000 foreign workmen in Paris belonging
principally to boot, cabinet, and carriage
making trades. Several trades were federated.
Both piece work and time work prevailed.
Depression and reduction of wages were the
rule. Bronze workers receive now 50 per
cent, less than they did twenty years ago, and
this was brought about principally by sweaters
who profited by the depression to obtain work
at starvation rates- Cabinet makers made
beds now for 80 francs when formerly the
same work was paid no francs. A certain
other popular model had fallen from 45 francs
to 30 francs. Many trades had very long dull
�seasons, notably the locksmiths and carriage
makers, who were generally five months with
out employment. Machinery had reduced the
pay of the engineers. The report concluded
in favour of proposals similar to those em
bodied in the resolutions to be laid before the
Congress.
The sitting terminated at midnight.
THIRD DAY, Wednesday, August 25.
The sitting was commenced at 8.30 p.m.
M. Ed. Anseele, the Belgian delegate, was
elected honorary President, and M. Victor
Dalle the acting President. Letters respect
ing several new adhesions were read and Mr.
John Norton, delegate for South Australia
and New South Wales, was introduced. The
minutes were read and Dr. C. de Paepe pro
tested that Herr Grimpe had misrepresented
Dr. Buchner’s speech at the inauguration of
the Diderot statue. The learned German
scientist had declared that “ The ideas of
fraternity were unfortunately not popular on
the other side of the Rhine,” but he had never
attempted to deny the existence of Socialism
in Germany. In spite of this objection, Herr
Grimpe maintained that Buchner denied the
popularity of the principles of 1789 in Ger
many, and as President of the Socialist Con
gress, held at Frankfort in 1863, he ought to
have known better. After a. few more obser
vations on the minutes, they were adopted.
The President, in re-opening the discus
sion on Question IV, urged that the speakers
should keep to the subject and not criticise
the leaders and the tactics followed by the
Socialists in various countries.
;Herr Grimpe objected to this and said that,
on the contrary, we were gathered together to
advise and enlighten each other and that we
should denounce what we conceived to be
wrong anywhere and everywhere.
The Acting President energetically denied
this and remarked it was only Herr Grimpe’s
personal opinion. We had not met to criticise
the tactics followed by different labour parties
of various countries. Each knew best what
suited his own nationality. Our object was to
find a common ground of agreement. If we had
to debate over the conduct and personality of
leaders in all countries, the discussion would
last more than six months. This declaration
was loudly cheered and
Mr. John Burnett rose to reply to Herr
Grimpe’s speech. He said this was the first
thorough international congress convoked to
bring about concord in the efforts made for the
amelioration of the conditions of labour. He
was therefore especially sorry to find that on
so auspicious an occasion a delegate had
taken upon himself to throw in to their midst
the apple, of discord.
How often had the
clock which marked the progress of the
world been put back by similar manoeuvres.
Herr Grimpe had been called upon to describe
the economic and political condition of the
workmen of Germany. Evidently the question
implied that each delegate should speak about
his own country, about things with which he
was personally acquainted, otherwise the
German speaker might as well have described
the condition of labour in Central Africa. Com
plaints had been made that the English were
not well versed in the advanced theories advo
cated on the Continent. But he might with
equal justice complain that the workmen of
the Continent did not know and appreciate
the exact state of affairs in England. Herr
Gvimpe complained that the English had been
spoiled by too much liberty and too much
prosperity. This was a paradox that came
with bad grace from the delegate of a nation
whose labourers are worse off than those of
any other country. People living in glass
houses should not throw stones. He did not
wish to be hard upon the Germans, but Herr
Grimpe had said that the Trade Unions had
tried to put down Socialism. This was a
gratuitous assumption, and he defied Herr
Grimpe to bring forward a single fact in proof
of his assertion. In England Socialism was an
open question. The English Socialists were
wise in their generation. They always made a
point of joining the Trades Unions; they did
not seek to oppose, but tried to convert the
unionists. The English Socialists felt it was
better policy to reconcile and win over such
powerful institutions. If it were not for his
desire to avoid personalities, he would point out
that Mr. Grimpe was out of order in criticising
English Trade Unions, and should have
reserved his observations for the discussion on
Question III.:—“ Workmen’s coalitions, trade
societies, national and international.” But
the fact that, whether in or out of season, he
had seized the very first opportunity to attack
the English, showed he was inspired by
a deliberate intention to prevent a practical
conclusion being arrived at. Mr.Burnett did
not, however, desire to raise the question of
Trade Unionism as against Socialism. He
preferred to dwell upon the marked improve
ment of the organisations in France. He saw
gathered around him some two hundred dele
gates coming not only from Paris, the great
centre of thought, but from all the principal
towns of the French provinces. As compared
with the Conference of 1883, the present Con
gress proved that the French were successfully
striving to imitate what had been done
with so much success in England. Eng
lish Trade Unionists, while aiming at ac
quiring all the fruits of labour, sought to
bring this about by availing themselves of all
the moral and legal means within their power.
A small question, ifit tended in the right direc
tion, was never too small to merit their
attention. Thus in a slow but certain manner
they had obtained more than those who sought
�11
: lto do all in a moment.
Why then should
false and fierce statements be made against
them ? He had hoped, on the contrary, to
‘hear discussed some common ground of agree
ment. The attack against English Trades
Unions came very inappropriately from the
representative of a nation which more than any
other country helped to keep down the rate of
wages. (Loud cheers.) Ask the tailors, and
bakers, and cabinet makers in England why
they earned so little, and they will at once
answer that they suffer from the competition
of German Emigrants. Doubtless it is the
same in France. (Cries of “Yes! ” from the
French delegates.) Thus the English Trades
Unions are accused of being hostile to the
cause of labour by the representatives of a
country that most largely contributed to reduce
wages ! We were told that the hours of
labour ranged in Germany from 9 to 18 a
day, and that the wages vary from 7|d. to
7s. 2d. a day. The former figure is deplorable.
(The Germans here interrupted to notify that
7^-d. a day was paid only to women.) The
Belgian delegate almost drew tears from our
eyes by the appalling picture he gave of his own
country. But if we are to pity these unfortu
nate people why should we not rejoice at the
greater prosperity of England. If too much
freedom and prosperity constituted an un
wholesome meal he would not object to dine
on it every day, and leave to Herr Grimpe the
privilege of maintaining himself on 7|d.
Undoubtedly Socialism had made more pro
gress in England during the last 20 years
than it had ever done before, We had laws
of a somewhat socialistic character, and our
women and children were protected. The
German delegate will perhaps say this is bad
for us, and that when we have roast beef we
ought to push it aside, and eat only potatoes,
so as to prove that we are good Socialists.
The English might be dull in their powers of
comprehension, but they believed that high
wages was a step on the right road. By high
wages the general result Socialists desired
would be more readily realised. Ultimately
the workman will receive the wealth he pro
duces without the capitalist stepping in
I between the producer and consumer. He
g regretted being put on his defence ; it seemed
i so self-evident that Trades Unions have conI stantly striven to protect the worker against
I his employer. The weakness and the ill-grace
| of the charge was so patent that it seemed as
I if it must have been made 011 purpose and for
I some unworthy object. The practical reI suits achieved by the Trades Unions proved
I the charge to be false, and he challenged the
I Socialists to show they had done anything,
j Mr. Grimpe had stated that in Germany a few
I years ago the workmen had been granted the
J right of combination but had again been
I deprived of it by the government on account
| of socialistic agitation. The German Social
ists had therefore made things worse instead
of better. Before concluding he would say
a word about Mr. Broadhurst.
Trade
Unions had won
us
at
least
this
advantage, that we could talk about
Mr. Broadhurst or any other Englishman
without exposing him to the danger of being
thrown into prison. From his childhood up
wards Mr. Broadhurst had helped to improve
the condition of his trade and of all other
workers. The Unionists have not lost faith in
him, and he had just been re-elected by his
own trade to represent them at Hull. He
considered his appointment as Under Secre
tary at the Home Office a proof that the
Government recognised the workmen had the
right not only to vote but also to govern.
Nevertheless they would readily disown him if
he were false to Trade Unionism; but he had
found that his position in the Ministry had
enabled Mr. Broadhurst to render still greater
services to the Trade Unions. Mr. Broad
hurst had gone out of his way during his
tenure of office to assist the Unionists. They
would not therefore thrust aside a tried friend
at the mere bidding of a German delegate.
When the applause which greeted Mr.
Burnett’s speech subsided, M. Pican, moved
that the Congress, having granted the Eng
lish delegates the right of reply and heard
what they had to say, passes to the “ order of
the day.” This was carried.
Herr Rackow, who spoke in English,
stated that he represented a society of Ger
man workmen established in London. They
sent fraternal salutations, and had been highly
gratified at having received the first visit paid
by the 21 French delegates when they reached
England to report on the exhibitions of this year.
As a German, he had no ill feeling towards
the English ; but he had not come to the Con
gress to flattter them, and he must confess
that it seemed to him as if Mr. Burnett had
sought, in his speech, to mystify his audience!
The great difference between the workmen of
the two countries was that the German was
first of all a Socialist and afterwards became a
Trade Unionist; while the Englishman began
by being a Unionist and sometimes subsequent
ly developed into a Socialist. Certainly the
Socialist movement had made giant strides of
late years in England, still the English Union
ists were in the main very much behind the age.
Complaints had been made of the German
competition in England. He had lived eight
years in London. There were many English
institutions he greatly admired, but in some
cases German institutions were preferable.
Herr Rackow then went on to protest against
the harsh language used in the English press
towards the Germans, and pointed out that,
whenever a foreigner did anything amiss, no
enquiries were made as to his nationality, but
the blame was laid at the door of the Germans
After reading copious extracts from English
�12
newspapers to this effect, he proceeded to
discuss the accusation that Germans in Eng
land helped to reduce the rate of wages. It
[ had been computed that there were 150,000
Germans in London, but, of this number, only
about 40,000 were workmen. What effect
would this have on a population of 4,000,000 ?
The migration of English agricultural
labourers to the large towns was a far more
important factor in the reduction of wages.
Also it should be born in mind that the Ger
mans who were organized did not compete
but worked at the Trade Union rate; indeed
they sometimes obtained even higher wages
than the English. It was the unorganized
labour that reduced wages ; but, for one Ger
man, there were thousands of unorganized
Englishmen. Nor was it easy for a foreigner,
when he first reached a strange country, to
obtain the highest rate of wages. If the cost
of living is taken into account, the workmen
were not paid much less in Germany than in
England. Some women, it is true, received
only 7^d. a day, but it was notorious that
many women worked in London for 6d. a day,
and the match box makers did not even earn
as much. The average wage for men in Eng
land was £1 a week. The Trade Unionists
might get more, but they were only the aris
tocracy of labour.
The delegates at the
annual Congress only represented some
600,000 Trade Unionists and therefore could not
speak of the whole body of English working
men. Complaints had been made of the com
petition of a handful of unorganized Ger
mans in London, but had not the whole work
ing class of Europe suffered from the compe
tition of English industry; was it not the
English goods, flooding the markets of the
whole world, that kept the wages down to the
starvation level ? The Germans had been
attacked so he felt it his duty to defend them,
but, at the same time, he was not opposed to
Trades’ Unions if they led to Socialism, but
mere strike and benefit funds were only blunt
instruments in the struggle between Labour
and Capital.
For five-and-a-half years
he had worked in London as a cigar
maker.
He had belonged to the union
and obtained full wages; but there were
I
Poles in the same shops who did not do
so, and the Germans were blamed for
the delinquencies of the Poles. In no country,
however, were Trade Unions sufficiently
powerful to solve the problem involved by the
rival interests of capital and labour. The
unions of the capitalists would always be the
strongest.
By this time, the. audience had become very
restive. Without understanding exactly what
Herr Rackow said, it was supposed that he
I
was re-opening personalities against the EngI
hsh Trades Unionists, and therefore many
1
interruptions arose. Herr Rackow, on his
side, not understanding the interruptions
P
made by the French delegates, persisted with
his speech with much tenacity and calmness.
The English delegates had also interrupted
on several occasions, and Mr. Drummond
challenged Herr Rackow to produce his man
date. The mandate was then read out, and,
as it emanated from the German Communist
Club, which had received so hospitably the
French delegates in London, it was greeted
with applause.
M. Anseele rose to conciliate matters. We
have heard during two days a discussion be
tween two different worlds of workmen. It is
the upshot of a misunderstanding, for Herr
Grimpe did not wish to attack Trade Union
ism, he only sought to propagate Socialism.
The English ought not to say that the Ger
mans tend to reduce the salaries. He was
profoundly grieved when he heard the Con
gress applaud this assertion.
Surely we
should show otherwise our respect for the in
numerable German Socialists who have
endured imprisonment and every form of per
secution in their efforts to raise the rate of
wages. (Cheers.) The Germans only fear
that English Trade Unionism, unless it is
combined with Socialism, will end in bank
ruptcy.
Herr Rackow, now resumed the thread
of his discourse.
He thought English
Trade Unionists relied too much on
mere trade action.
He had read a
statement that out of 362 recent strikes
353 had failed. (Cries of No! no! and Where ?)
The statement was published by the Builder.
(Jeers from the English Delegates). The de
pression of trade had compelled the German
Societies to increase their subscriptions, the
Bookbinders to the extent of 25 per cent,, the
Lithographers to 80 per cent. The German
Compositors Union had shown a deficit of
£3,000 in one year. But the same melancholy
story could be told by the English Trade
Unions. To relieve the distress, Bismarck
had instituted “working men’s colonies”
where honest artizans were treated like
prisoners and made to compete by their work
against those who had not applied for relief.
In the matter of wages, Germany should be
divided into three parts. The highest rate
was paid in the North, the lowest in the South.
In the North the pay was, if anything, better
than in England; in the Central districts
about the same ; in the South decidedly worse.
Herr Grimpe had said the hours of labour
varied from 9 to 18. Mr. Burnett professed
to be shocked at such long hours, and stated
that in only two trades of Germany was the
time reduced to nine hours. Herr Rackow
denied this. He thought the hours of labour
were much the same in Germany and Eng
land. In London they varied from 8 to 16
hours. In his trade, the Cigar Makers only
worked eight and a half hours.
It was
notorious that the Tramway Servants, the
�I Omnibus Drivers, the Postmen of London
e worked 15 to 16 hours with but one and a half
I hour® for their meals. The difference between
II England and Germany, if anything, was not
I sufficiently marked to warrant so much boast1 ing. If the German Trade Unionists bad
not done more than the English Trade
Unionists to raise the rate of wages, they had,
at least, this advantage ; that, as Socialists,
they were approaching a complete and scien
tific solution of the entire difficulty.
1
M. Bailly now read the Report of the
French Provincial delegates. These delegates
represented 54 Provincial Trades Unions.
With the exception of four societies, they all
1 concluded by urging that the depression in
1 the provinces was as great as in Paris, and
a supplied a long array of statistics in support.
H They maintained that the struggle is restricted
1 to the antagonism between “money capital”
4 and “labour capital.” As a stepping stone
4 the hours of labour must be reduced. The
(^necessity of a class war cannot be denied, the
producers must strive, by political action, to
J become the masters of the government adq ministrations, and then bring about the
fl nationalization of “money capital ” and the
0! means of production.
fFOURTH DAY, Thursday, August26.
I ' Th© Congress adjourned at midnight.
I M. Brod, the Austrian delegate, was elected
ft honorary President, M. C. Allemane, the act
ing President. The roll call showed that the
q representatives of 17 foreign and 88 French
^societies were present. The minutes were
rfread and confirmed.
! M. Herbinet, secretary, gave some explan
tations concerning the Cri du Ptuple. This
q’paper now declared that it did not boycott the
^Congress but had not been invited. M. Herb
*
:iiuet showed that the Cri du Peuple, on the
^contrary, was the only paper which had
ijreceived a special notification about the Con
gress.
; Mr. John Norton, delegate of the Trades
uaud Labour Councils of New South Walesand
><|South Australia, gave an account of the
^political and economical condition of the
^workmen he represented. Speaking in forciIflble, somewhat incorrect, but humorous French,
ahe soon found favour with the Congress and
Whis speech was frequently interrupted with
slaughter and applause.
In the name of
□poo.ooo Australian Trades Unionists, he
^brought cordial greetings to the Congress. It
Jwas his duty to expose the miserable condition
fof the colonial workmen and to warn intending
immigrants that Australia was no longer an
jfearthly Paradise. Indeed, the workmen’s
qbosition was even worse than in Europe. At
ifirst, when Australia was a penal colony, the
■and fell into the hands of a few hundred
13
individuals belonging to the worst classes.
They founded what is now considered as the
colonial aristocracy, and were even more
oppressive than the Irish landowners. They
not only held the land but refused to cultivate
it. They are content to breed sheep so that
the best lands remain unfilled. This suits
the interests of the merchants as the population is compelled to depend for its subsistence
on importations. For want of home, that is
colonial, produce, the people remain poorq
and yet the merchants who govern the coun
try, by providing the legislating class, are
ever voting large sums to facilitate emigration
and thus further contribute to keep down the
rate of wages. There is hardly any agricul
ture in Australia and there is very little indus
try. Absentee landlordism drains the country
and merchants, though buying at the lowest
price in Europe, can sell at exorbitant rates in
Australia, for there are no native industries to
compete with these importations. Thus the
people are at the mercy of the landlords and
the merchants. In Victoria only, the youngest
and the most democratic colony, there are
some prosperous manufactories.
On all
points, the Australian Trade Unionists agree
with the English Democrats; indeed, they
would go even further and would sympathise
with the French and the Belgians, with the
one exception of the free trade policy advo
cated in Europe. By protection only could they
break the tyranny of the combined forces of
the landlords and merchants. Though thou
sands starved in the streets, slept in the parks
of Sydney, still the poor were imported from
all parts of Europe. At last the unemployed
of Sydney had been compelled to threaten the
Parliament Houses, and the government,
seriously alarmed, started relief works. He
had seen skilled artizans work as navvies for
15s. a week, when in London they would earn
£1 ios. or £2. Then when their hands, unac
customed to such rough work, began to swell,
they were discharged on the pretext that they
were idle. On one occasion the government
had been driven to give out 800 blankets and
some bread with crumbs of cheese. This
sudden generosity was, however, accompanied
with a warning. The government would not
do this again, for they wanted the blankets
for the felons in jail. Honest men had con
sequently been led to commit some slight
offence to secure food and shelter in prison.
In spite of all this, emigration still continued.
State-aided emigration was a vile form of
exploitation. It was a means of passing over
the exploited of England to be still further
exploited in Australia. But the exploited of
Europe must remain in Europe so as to
revenge themselves on the spot for the wrongs
they have endured. (Loud cheers.) To make
matters worse, there was the Chinese difficulty.
Now a law had been passed against the im
portation of the Chinese, but they were smug
�i4
gled into the colony notwithstanding; and,
the other day, the. Workmen’s Council dis
covered a ship load of 200 Chinamen: with
false naturalization papers. The Chinese
learnt every trade; they were notably excel
lent cabinet makers, they were quite content
to work 16 hours a day whereas the Australians
had got an Eight Hours Bill. The Chinaman
lived on nothing; and, if at the end of ten
years’ toil, he could save £20 he went back to
China content. Europeans had been obliged
to abandon completely several trades in con
sequence of Chinese competition. This ques
tion must be solved by legislation otherwise
violent measures would be taken in Australia
as in America. It may be objected that
Australian workmen should organize and send
representatives to parliament. But this was
difficult, as the population, numbering only
four-and-a-half millions, was so much scat
tered over immense tracts of land. The
country was still too young for elaborate
organization, yet his presence in Paris proved
that they were progressing in this respect. In
conclusion, he wished to assure his French
hosts that the workmen he represented had
no objection to the annexation by France of
the New Hebrides ; but they were strongly
opposed to the creation of a penal colony at
the doors of Australia.
Mr. Galbraith and Mr. Jones consented
to abandon their claim to be heard on condition
that no one else spoke on the subject. M.
Victor Dalle then read the report of the
French Societies on
THE FIRST QUESTION.
All the reports received from individual
societies tended towards increased State inter
vention, and all advocated the federation of
trades. In France there were a few laws pro
tecting the work of women and children.
They were not efficaciously applied, but they
were precious as establishing the precedent
that it was the duty of Parliaments to defend
the weak against the strong. Several govern
ments, notably the Swiss and Italian govern
ments, had spoken in this sense, and the
report went on to enumerate the societies
demanding increased State intervention, and
those that specially urged the adoption of an
Eight Hours Bill. Some protested against
night work, a few demanded the international
enforcement of a minimum rate of wages. The
Commission did not, however, think inter
national legislation on wages practical in con
sequence of the great difference in the value
of money, the power of work, and climatic
influences.
If the proposals to be laid
before the Congress were adopted, this
question of minimum wages would settle itself,
and the report concluded with the eight
clauses of the resolution voted during the
Sixth Day of the Congress.
M. Muller, the Hungarian delegate, having
expressed his general approbation,
Dr. Cesar de Paepe rose to support the
principles advocated by the report, not only
as a workman, but as a man of science. Man
dates had been challenged, he therefore felt
compelled to give some personal explanations.
By trade he was a compositor, and thus earned
his living for many years.
In his leisure
moments he studied and finally passed all the
necessary examinations to qualify himself as
a doctor of medicine. But he had never
quitted his class, and was still proud to consider
himself a workman. Together with comrade
Anseele, he represented not one Trades
Union, but more than a hundred Unions.
The Belgian Workman Party consists essenti
ally of Unions formed to obtain increase of
wages, and to resist reductions. But he spoke
to the Congress as a doctor, for the question
was esssentially a sanitary question. The
demands made in the resolution were in con
formity with the laws ot physiology. There
were international laws to protect a great multi
plicity of interests, why should there not be
similar enactments to protect labour. Thus,
taking clause VI, it would be found that
hygienists had established a great number of
international laws, notably quarantines to op
pose barriers against living or organic poisons,
microbes, germs, etc. But these were notthe
only poisons. The unnecessary use in various
industries of lead, mercury, and phosphorus
had killed quite as many people as the cholera.
Why should the law touch organic poisons
and not mineral poisons. It was as easy to
use non-poisonous zinc as the poisonous lead
employed for white paint, etc.; and we must
watch jealously over the hygiene of the work
shop, its ventilation, drainage, and warming.
Then we must study the conditions of labour.
If the hours were short the poisonous sub
stances used would not prove so fatal ; and,
as the women, the children, the weak were
especially susceptible, they should be rigourously kept away from unwholesome industries.
Itw’as also a medical necessity to have eight
hours sleep, eight hours relaxation, and eight
hours work. In helping to found the Inter
national, now forbidden in Germany, France,
and Spain, he had urged that capital was
international. Thus Paris, for all practical
purposes, was nearer to London than London
used to be to Brighton. What were countries
are now but provinces. August Comte had
spoken of Europe as the Western Republic ;
but the term will soon not be big enough.
We shall have the World’s Republic and then
will come the Chinese question which we
must settle, not by extermination, but by treat
ing the yellow man as a friend and a brother.
But how can this be done otherwise than bv
International Legi^ation ? We must even
now prepare the way for the legislation that
will save us from the invasion of cheap Chinese
labour. Concerning clause II, it was evident
the growth of education rendered it necessary
�that preliminary studies should be prolonged
fto at least the age of fourteen ; and, after this,
|the general education might be wisely comibmed with technical teaching. Machinery
was especially fatal to children. They were
hot able to concentrate their attention on the
imonotonous revolutions of a machine and
thus become the frequent victims of accidents.
If he also demanded that women should be
(kept away from certain trades, it is not
sbecause we think ourselves her master and
|her protector. We do this in the name of
^humanity at large and of the health of future
^generations. The stooping of women work
sing in mines, was the frequent cause of rickets
Find diseases of the pelvic region. When
(miscarriages occurred they were generally fatal
land rendered the employment of artifical
means of delivery indispensable. Therefore
(women must be kept away from these mortal
(employments for they destroyed not only the
(women but the children also. We should
further demand one day’s rest a week because,
Ahis was the natural limit. Diseases, notably
jtyphoid fever, assumed a different phase
(every seventh day. It was also the fourth part
bf the lunar month and to this period was
(attached important physiological phenomena
/affecting half humanity. Consequently, and
^though a Republican and a Freethinker, he
(was, in this case, in favour of the law of Moses
Sas opposed to the law of the French Republic
(which decreed a holiday every ten days. To
the eight clause of the resolution, he would
Sish to add a ninth, to the effect that prison
ibour should not compete with free labour,
because a man had sinned or had been sinned
gainst, and was thrown into prison, this, was
o reason for giving him a privileged place
1 the competition of the world’s markets. In
^Prussia it was proposed that prisoners should
Iwork only for foreign exportation, but interinational legislation should tend to check such
action. Another matter:—the establishment
of a minimum rate of wages was, for the time
being,one of the most difficult questions to solve.
We should try more practical problems first,
land in time this demand would ripen. Difference
In cost of life and in climates existed within a
fciation as well as in foreign countries. Thus
there was a greater difference in climate and
in cost of living between Marseilles and Paris
Khan between Berlin and Paris. Yet in other
International questions this was not taken into
Account. For instance, by the Postal Conven
tion, a Bohemian, earning 7|d. per day, would
liave to spend a third of his day’s wages to
Iwrite to a friend in the United States. The
f atter, earning two dollars a day, would only
Aave to spend one fortieth part of his
iday’s wages to answer the letter. The assim
ilation of the minimum rate of wages would
tend to equalize the cost of these international
measures. It was an ideal that might ultinately become practicable. The Belgians
had discussed this question at their annual
congress held last year at Ghent, and they
meant to convoke an international congress
to debate this very point over again, at which
all would be welcome, whether trades unionists,
co-operators, revolutionary groups, or Socialist
bodies. Referring once again to the general
question of international legislation on labour,
he urged that this was no new movement.
The whole question had been brought promi
nently forward:in 1853 by an Alsacian manufac
turer named Le Grand. He drew up a pro
ject of law which was subsequently published
in Switzerland by M. De Fre. In 1856, at an
international congress on Poor Relief, where
most of the governments of Europe sent
officials representatives, a project, almost
analogous to the eight clauses now before the
Congress, was introduced by M. Ann, the
official representative of Wurtemberg, and
adopted. Thus the Congress was invited to
endorse what, in the highest quarters, had
already been recognised as practical. The
Swiss government had recently taken the
initiative in demanding the enactment of
international legislation on labour, and, now
that the interested parties, the workmen
themselves, had taken the matter m hand, the
cause would prosper and soon labour would
enjoy, like other forms of property, effective
international protection.
After this speech had been translated into
English, and some provincial delegates made
a few brief remarks, the President read out a
resolution submitted by the English delegation
which was worded as follows:—“That the
International Trade Union Congress of Paris
deplores the action of certain governments in
suppressing working men’s associations as it
is precisely in such countries where no labour
organizations exist that acts of violence have
occurred.”
The Congress, as it was past midnight, now
adjourned.
.
FIFTH DAY, Friday, 27TH August.
Mr. John Norton, Australian delegate, was
elected honorary President, M. Lavaud,
organizing Secretary of the Workmen’s Exhi
bition, acting President. The roll call read
and the minutes confirmed, an uproar arose
at the hall door. A crowd had gathered in
the street and clamoured for admission under
the impression that it was a public meeting.
Several delegates were in favour of admitting,
the people as spectators to the gallery of the
hall, but it was necessary to explain that such
a proceeding was illegal. No public meeting
can be held in Paris without having first given
notice to the Prefecture of Police. This had
not been done in the present instance, and
the admittance of anyone not possessed of a
card of invitation, would have justified the
military occupation of the hall, the dissolution
�of the meeting, and the arrestation of its pro
moters. It was with some difficulty however
that the crowd outside could be persuaded to
return homewards, and a strong guard had to
be posted at the hall door to prevent the
entrance of any but delegates.
The President informed the Congress that
Comrade Anseele had received a dispatch
from Belgium bidding him to return at once
so as to undergo the six months imprisonment
to which he is condemned. He therefore
asked that special permission should be
granted so that Anseele- might address
the Congress previous to his departure.
*
M. Anseele was greeted with loud cheers
and said:—The principle of international
legislation is accepted and applied by the
middle and upper classes in the defence of
their interests. They have established postal
conventions, international railway signals, and
the same decimal coinage circulates through
four or five different nations.
The inter
national character of the bourgeoisie is patent
to all. A large number of French capitalists
possess Belgian coal mines, and Belgian
soldiers are sent to shoot down Belgian work
men, so as to defend the dividends of French
shareholders. This is the way the bourgeois
himself establishes an International, and
seeks to enforce its claims. Yet these self
same middle classes would forbid us creating
an International. The workmen, however,
are essentially international in their instincts,
and this is proved by the readiness with which
foreigners subscribed for the French miners
during the great strike at Decazeville. Inter
national legislation on labour would greatly
contribute to remedy the present universal
depression of trade. English manufacturers
have raised factories in France so as to profit
by the low wages paid to French workmen,
to compete against English workmen, and
when these manoeuvres do not suffice, they
go and invade some distant country, Tonquin
for instance, to open out new markets. But
this aggression calls down upon us the fierce
hatred of races. A little while ago the French
* It will be remembered that during the recent labour
riots in Belgium, Anseele wrote and published a letter beg
ging all parents who had sons in the army to write to them
an<T implore them not to fire upon their brothers and fathers
who were on strike. This letter appeared in the Vooruit, the
workman’s paper, edited by Anseele, and for this he was
condemned to six month’s imprisonment. The Vooruit sells
18 ooo copies daily at Ghent. It is retailed for two centimes,
or’five copies a penny. The publishing plant belongs to the
workmen, and has been bought with the profits made from
the Co-operative Bakery, established by them at their
central meeting place, also called the Vooruit (Forwards).
Here all the Trade Unions of Ghent have their meeting
place and offices, while the profits from the co-operative
institutions they have established are employed for propa
ganda purposes, and not to enrich the shareholders. Thus
they are able to send six lecturers into different parts of
Flanders every Sunday to organize the Workman Party
throughout the priest-ridden districts of this ignorant and
reactionary portion of Belgium. Co-operation,, it will be
noted, is only used as a means of organization, and of acquir
ing the strength to bring about Socialism, and not as a
solution in itself. The principal organizers are Ed. Anseele
and Van Beveren, address the Vooruit, Ghent, Belgium.
were taught to look upon the German army
as the enemy. Now we are told that the
German, by reason of his superior education
and the inferior pay he accepts, is the princi
pal enemy. But for the infamous law against
the International, an agreement would probab
ly have been concluded by this time between
French and German workmen, so that they
should no longer compete against each other.
A worse difficulty arises. A cancer is eating
the heart of the proletariat. Have we not
heard, even in this assembly, recriminations
between English and German workmen, be
tween Australians and Europeans ? If this
continues, if the struggle for existence con
tinues with its present increasing fierceness,
we shall have great commercial wars arising
from the fear of foreign competition. The
recriminations heard in this Congress are in
themselves a demonstration of the necessity
of international legislation on labour. If it
is true that the English earn more, and it is
undoubtedly true so far as Belgium is con
cerned, the Belgians become the Chinese
of Europe. The Belgian lives on as little,
and receives almost as low wages as the
Chinese.
Therefore the Belgian might
be treated by the English with the same
epmity as the English in Australia dis
played towards the Chinaman. The English
workman might with as much reason desire to
massacre the Belgians as the Australians who
meditate the extermination of the Chinese.
Therefore if the English will not unite with
us on the broad basis of disinterested Socialism
let them do so on the grounds of their own
individual selfishness; or else we, who live on
dry bread, who live as cheaply as the Chinese,
will beat down their wages. Let us then
legislate and that quickly and before circum
stances lead us to tear each other to pieces.
But Belgium is too small to influence the
legislatures of Europe; it is for England,
France, and Germany to act. If we could
have but one aim, one flag, one party we
should soon give the law to Europe and the
Universe. We have not come to this Con
gress merely to say how do you do and shake
hands ; but to try and get one or two clear
ideas. Now if we all leave this assembly with
the one conviction that international legisla
tion on labour is indispensable this will have
been the most useful educational congress
ever held. With respect to an international
minimum rate of wages, the facilities of com
munication by steam ships and railways
tend to render the price of raw material
uniform in all industrial centres. Labour,
therefore, will soon be the only thing remain
ing on which reductions in cost will be possible.
We must then insist on a minimum rate of
wages. In this we shall be giving our adhesion
to the noble fight of the English Trades
Unions. Like them we must demand a mini
mum and indeed the English wages though
�sometimes high are but the minimum of what
workmen ought to receive. To carry these
ideas forward we ought to exchange our news
papers more frequently, and communicate
with each other more regularly. Every true
Socialist should make it a matter of duty to
learn the three languages that govern the
world. Two years hence we must all know
how to speak French, English, and German.
I already know two of these languages and I
pledge myself before you all to soon master
the third. Then we ought to create an inter
national newspaper to which the best thinkers
of all nations should contribute carefully pre
pared articles. Thus we should assimilate
our ideas and unite in our mode of action. In
conclusion I adhere to the resolutions before
the Congress.
■ M. Anseele then quitted the hall amidst
( enthusiastic applause and surrounded by
every mark of sympathy and friendship.
Herr Grimpe, in answer to enquiry as to the
opinion in Germany on the question, contented
himself with handing to the President a copy
of the Project of Law relating to International
| Legislature on Labour introduced into the
I German Parliament by the members of the
I Social-Democratic party in 1884, and re-introI duced in 1885 ; Herr Grimpe was then going
| on to say that the English delegates were
| opposed to international legislation on labour
; and that they were consequently altogether
1 behind the times; but I interrupted the speaker
| and explained that as yet the English deleI gates had expressed no such opinion.
M. Dutertre, delegate from Brest,
approved the previous speakers. In his town,
men earned only 2s. a day and the present
I conditions of misery could not continue even
I though a revolution, perhaps a sanguinary
! revolution, be necessary to produce the
desired change.
M. Brod, the Austrian delegate, said that
in his country the workmen till quite recently
! toiled 16 hours a day just as the English work
men had done before 1848. When a restric
tive law was demanded the Austrian capitalists
brought forward precisely the same absurd
s arguments which had formerly been adduced
gin England. Nevertheless the government
j two years ago passed a law limiting the day's
| work to eleven hours and still the capitalists
I are not ruined. They have introduced new
| machinery and thus reduce the number of
ij men they need employ.
The objections
a raised in all countries to the reduction of
hours of labour were identical; but, if we
could obtain a universal Eight Hours Bill,
then the change, being similar in all countries,
the objection of foreign competition could not
I be raised. This would not, however, be a
final solution and could only be considered as
a good stepping stone towards the nationaliza
tion of the land and the means of production.
M. Brisse, of Nantes, thought there should
be two holidays in a week, urged the abolition
of custom duties and the imposition of a pro
gressive income tax in its stead.
The delegate from Lyons asked for the
addition of an extra clause to the resolution so
as to include the question of a minimum wage
and wanted to suppress the sweating system.
After a few more somewhat irrevalent
remarks, the discussion on the first question
was terminated, and the President called for
the report on
THE SECOND QUESTION.
Madame Vaise read, on behalf of the
School Teachers Union, the portion of the
report relating to general education. Integral
education meant the simultaneous develop
ment of all the human faculties. Diderot,
Condorcet, and other leaders in the Great
Convention had advocated this cause. She
denied the paramount influences of hereditary
tendencies. The child was a monkey which
the school would develope into a human
being. At first mere facts should be taught
mingled with games, gymnastics, dance and
music. Then the cause, the theory, might be
gradually explained.
Science should be
taught with history and physics. The true
reading of history was a science. The know
ledge of material facts of anatomy, should
go hand in hand with the study of mental and
moral evolutions. Then the knowledge thus
acquired should be applied to some suitable
industry. Technical and industrial teaching
must be based on scientific knowledge, and
thus men could easily learn new trades as
new machinery destroyed the old ones.
Madame Vaise was in favour of complete
education and opposed to apprenticeship.
All children would not be able to benefit by
integral education, but all should have an
equal chance. To supply the entire popula
tion with every possible educational facility
and this gratuitously would require a very
large outlay ; but then there was the Church
that could legitimately be disendowed. All
useless lands and private pleasure grounds
should be heavily taxed and the rich domains
now held by members of royal families who
had never bought them, might be nationalized.
This was no revolution, the methods suggested
were pacific and legal methods, but they
would revolutionize the intellect of the nation.
As for the feeding of the children by the State,
even our present individualistic governments
had yielded this point; and it was amusing to
note the Collectivism practised by our anti
Socialist rulers. At the Diderot school, for
instance, not only was the technical training
gratuitous, but half the children were fed by
the State, and they had also scholarships and
free journeys throughout France, provided
for them at the expense of the collectivity or
community at large.
M. Gondefer, from St. Estienne, urged that
�workmen who possessed exceptional know
ledge and education became small tyrants in
the workshop, and the specially skilled com
peted with the ordinary workman and reduced
his wages. He could not object to education,
in the abstract, but its management should be
well under the control of the workmen them
selves, or else the employers would use it as a
weapon against the producing classes.
M. Damay, engineer, and formerly Mayor at
the Creusot, read the second part of the
report. He acknowledged that in response to
public pressure, some improvements had been
accomplished in France. The secularization
of the schools was however far from complete.
Most of the school books spoke in a Deistic
sense. One authorized school book defined
the stars as little lamps hung up by the creator
of all things. What knowledge of the science
of astronomy could arise from such absurdities.
The moral taught was that the capital
possessed by the Rothschilds was legitimately
theirs. In the school book No. 2058, on the
Siege of Paris, the members of the Commune
were described as men drunk with blood and
petroleum, followed by bands preaching theft
and assassination. Do Longuet, Vaillant, and
other Members of the Commune, who, at the
present moment, are Members of the Paris
Municipal Council, preach any such doctrines ?
He should much like to find the person whose
palate relished the flavour of petroleum.
Poverty will be a serious barrier to integral
education, and it will be difficult to carry this
out before the creation of collective property.
The engineers, in their report, urge that for
every five hours spent in the workshop, there
should be three hours study. Other Trade
Unions objected that, in existing technical
schools, there was not a sufficient variety of
trades taught. Modern industry rendered it
more and more difficult for the apprentice to
learn in the workshop, as the machines can
not be left by those who should teach. The
better the education of the workman, the less
readily will he submit to the petty tyranny of
the master. This education will also lead him
to take political action. The present com
mercial depression rendered it all the more
urgent that the workmen should themselves
take the management of technical education
into their own hands, for such management,
on their part, would be a step towards the
socialization of productive industries. The
reporter further insisted on the need of an in
creased number of farm or agricultural schools.
He criticized at length the existing technical
schools, and showed that those that were
managed by the State were encumbered by
red tapeism, while those under the direct
control of the Municipality were cheaper and
more successful. To render access to these
institutions, gratuitous meals should be the
rule. The pupils would be much improved if
every week they were taken to visit a work
shop, and, before they definitely settled on a
trade, they should be taken on a journey all
round France, and be called upon to select a
career only after they had seen the great
natural and industrial sights of the country.
The reporter after some further remarks read
the conclusions which he proposed as resolu
tions for the Congress to vote. These will be
found in extenso as the vote taken on the
Second Question.
The Congress now adjourned.
SIXTH DAY, Saturday, August 28.
M. Palmgren, the delegate for Sweden was
elected to the honorary Presidency, and M.
Dutertre, the delegate from Brest, to the
effective Presidency.
When the roll call was completed, and the
minutes of the previous meeting confirmed,
the following dispatch from Sweden was read
amidst the applause of the Congress :—“ The First General Congress of the Workmen’s Associa
*
tion of Sweden, Norway, and Denmark, meeting to-day at
Gothemberg, sends you its fraternal salutations and hopes to
see, at no distant date, united action and co-operation be
tween the Workmen’s Trade Societies of all countries.
Signed:
LAURENT & JENSEN, Presidents.”
According to the “ Order of the day,” the
report on the fifth question should have been
read, and the voting on all the questions
brought forward.
But several provincial
delegates protested that no one from the
provinces had spoken during the Congress,
and the President yielded to their complaints.
Thos. M. Briocelle, delegate from the de
partment of the Tarn, opened the debate. He
had come to Paris animated with some preju
dice against Parisian Socialists, but, on better
acquaintance, he found that they were sadly
maligned.
Their only fault was their excess
of generosity. They did not realize the full
difficulties of the situation, otherwise they
would be more careful and avoid thoseexcesses of language which in the Provinces,
at least, repelled thousands and kept them
away from the movement. He was in favour
of a national and then an international feder
ation of trade societies, but he still believed
that with republican institutions and universal
suffrage we could reach the desired end.
Force should only be used when all legal
measures were exhausted.
But our faults
were due to our nature rather than to our
institutions. We must try and reform the
people and the governments will reform them
selves. When every workman shall regularly
pay -his subscription to his society there will
be the material means to teach the people, to
moralize the people and the greater our
strength the more sure the order we
shall maintain and the progress we shall
achieve.
M. Salmon, from Douai, spoke against the
sweating system and urged the strict enforce
ment of the law of 1848, by which the system
�should have been abolished.
He also de-
| nounced piece work.
The President now called for the report
| on the Fifth Question : the proposed Interna
tional Workman’s Exhibition and Congress in
1889 :—
M. Prion read the report which concluded
as follows
J
i
S
’
t
I
I
9
1
The Commission of the Parisian Trades Unions demand
that the International Workman’s Exhibition for 1889 shall
be organised with a subvention from the State but that the
administration of the Exhibition shall be left entirely to the
Trades Unions who will settle the question by convoking a
general assembly of all the Unions. With respect to the
International Congress of 1889 the Commission, after studying the various reports received, and which all conclude in
favour of such a congress, demands that an international
congress shall be held in 1889 at which shall be invited all
the Socialist members of Parliament, or of Municipal
Councils, all the Trades Unions, all the Workmen’s Clubs or
*
" Clubs of Social Study,” in fact the entire Socialist party of
all nations.
*
la the course of a somewhat confused dis
cussion, it was suggested that the prices of the
s articles exhibited should be given and cheap
ordinary goods as well as rare articles shown.
| Further debate was, however, cut short, as it
«was necessary to vote on the First before
3| deciding the Fifth question. But there were
imany provincial speakers who still desired to
dmake themselves heard. Others had all man
ti nor of amendments to the conclusions of the
M various reports and the Acting President entire■jly lost control over the Congress. Some dis
putes arose between Parisian and Provincial
fidelegates, and the impartiality of M. Dutertre
c having been called into question it was
q finally resolved to elect another President
ttwhose neutrality could not be open to any
Hdoubt. Dr. Caesar de Paepe as a Belgian, yet
ij a perfect master of the French language, was
ftinvited to take the Chair; and, with admirable
ffirmness and tact, he not only brought the
^assembly to order, but he succeeded in
isilencmg weary speakers and pushing the busijiness forward with surprising promptitude.
M It was now proposed to take the conclusions
j|of the report on the First question as a subiistaative resolution. They run as follows:—
! The Congress decides that the workmen of the different
acountries represented will urge their respective governments
ojto open negotiations for the purpose of concluding internalitional conventions and treaties concerning the conditions of
■labour. The Congress urges that the following demands
should be first taken into discussion:
1. Interdiction of work by children under 14 years of age.
2. Special measures for the protection of children above
14 years and of women.
| 3. The duration of the day’s work to be fixed at eight
(Mhours, with one day’s rest per week.
_.j 4, Suppression of night work, excepting under
iircuHlstances to be specified,
S 5. Obligatory adoption of measures of hygiene in work
shops, mines, factories, etc.
6. Suppression of certain branches of industry and certain
■nodes of manufacturing injurious to the health of the
Jvorkers.
-J 7. Civil and penal responsibility of employers with respect
. So accidents.
3# 8. Inspection of workshops, manufactories, mines, etc.,
*>y inspectors elected by the workmen themselves.
* It will be noted that the possibility of a working class
Organisation being anything else but Socialist had not
l»awned on the framers of this report.
To these eight proposals two additional
clauses were added ; the first demanding that
the work done in prisons should not compete
disastrously with private enterprise and the
second, based on the suggestions made the
previous day by M. Anseele, that a minimum
rate of wages should be established which
would enable workmen to live decently and
rear their families. Both these additions were
adopted by the French and therefore made
the clauses nine and ten of the resolution.
Some of the delegates proposed an eleventh
clause demanding participation in profits for
workmen ; and this brought up M. Allemane
who energetically protested that participation
in profits was but a snare of the capitalists.
Workmen toiled hard enough at present with
out being made to work harder still. Their
death-rate would rise higher and higher and
the competition of workman against workman
already so keen, would become absolutely
intolerable, if they shared in profits.
After these few energetic words, participa
tion in profits was at once condemned and re
jected.
Another suggestion was made that, if the
day’s work was fixed at eight hours for men,
women, who had more domestic duties than
men, should work for six hours only. A gene
ral feeling, however, was manifested in favour
of equality of the sexes, and this suggestion
was not pressed to the vote w’hich now
began.
The French delegates, who were con
sulted first, voted unanimously in favour of the
ten clauses mentioned above. The President,
in the name of Belgium, gave in his warm ap
proval, and stated that the 126,000 members
of the Belgian Workman’s Party would
heartily endorse the vote of the Congress on
International Legislation. The President
then asked what was
THE ENGLISH VOTE.
By this time, Mr. Mawdsley, Mr. Galbraith
and Mr. Jones had left the hall so as to catch
the last train for London ; and Mr. Trow was
absent through ill-health. It was nevertheless
generally understood that the remaining de
legates would act in the name of their collea
gues.
Mr. Jones, however, did not assent to this
arrangement, but left a special message that
he thoroughly approved of the first eight
clauses of the resolution, and would have
voted in their favour had it been possible for
him to be present. He had, of course, no
knowledge of the two additional clauses which
were only introduced after his departure for
London. This announcement was received
with much cheering.
The following written declaration, prepared
by the remaining English delegates was then
read:—
“ That, while agreeing with the principle of International
Legislation as a means of obtaining uniform and improved
�20
conditions of labour in the various countries of the world,
and thus preventing the labour of one country from being
undersold by another, the English delegates have no man
date from their constituents to vote in favour of the whole of
the propositions submitted, and will, therefore, remain neu
tral, at the same time announcing that several of the condi
tions demanded by the resolution are already in force in
England as the result of Trade Union action.”
I
«•' i
This declaration fell like a douche of cold
water on the Congress ; a feeling of hopeless
ness was depicted on many countenances. Ac
cording to some French newspapers cries of
“ treachery ” or “ betrayal ” were raised ; but,
personally, I failed to hear any such express
ion, though, undoubtedly, the greatest disap
pointment prevailed.
The Chairman, Dr. C. de Paepe, rose,
and with much dignity, combined with a slight
tinge of sarcasm, said :
“We had expected something better than
that at the hands of the English Trades
Unions. They have failed to understand that
by voting with us they would have given great
moral strength to our moderate practical
demands. In two Congresses, in 1886 as in
1883, the English Trade Unionists have hung
back from resolutions, which, practically,
amounted to an effort made to strengthen the
hands of the Swiss Government in the initia
tion taken by that Power to obtain Inter
national Legislation on labour questions. I
cannot but still hope that there is some mis
understanding.
Surely the English must
acknowledge that it is indispensable to gene
ralize the measures which in their own country
have been of so much use to them. Their own
interests demand such International Legisla
tion if they do not wish to be the victims of a
disloyal competition. For their own selfish
ends, if not for the cause of humanity, they
ought to vote with us. How can it be that
the English, who were the first to adopt laws
protecting women and children, should be the
last to demand their general application ?
Women are majors, they have formed Trades
Unions of their own, yet men recognise the
necessity of a law for their protection, and
Trades Unionists generally approve the law
that secures a day’s rest on Sunday. They do
not reject Legislation on these subjects, why
should they not agree to extend to the Con
tinent principles which they have so nobly
struggled to enforce in England ? ”
Mr. John Burnett replied that the chief
reason why his friends and himself remained
neutral, was that they had no mandate. They
had come hastily to Paris; it was materially
impossible to have first consulted their consti
tuents. They could only promise to lay all the
resolutions before the Congress to be assembled
at Hull on the 6th September. The opinion of
this Congress will be of far greater value and
influence than that of the few individual dele
gates in Pans. Some of the clauses of the re
solution, he thought, would not be approved,
but with several they cordially agreed. They
thoroughly deprecated all laws that interfered
with workmen’s combinations, whether it be
the law against the “ International,” or any
other similarly oppressive measure. They be
lieved in limiting the age when children might
begin to work, and in England a law estab
lishing the age at thirteen gave very general
satisfaction. They had obtained reductions in
the hours of labour, and, when the proper mo
ment arrived, they would doubtless be ready
to go a step farther in this direction. But they
were not prepared to ask the legislature to enact
laws. He did not understand what was meant
in clause 4. If by night-work they meant double
shifts which divided the labour among the
greatest possible number of workers, he would
not approve of the clause, but he would be
willing to endorse it if it simply meant that we
were to resist overtime. As for sanitary mea
sures, there were some very good sanitary laws
in England : and he also agreed to measures
against unwholesome industries. Further,
employers were liable in England, both in
civil and penal law. Since 1880 English em
ployers had in all paid £34,000 damages to
injured workmen, and recently an employer
had been sent to prison for a year in conse
quence of a fatal accident. The inspection of
workshops by workmen was also a principle
fully in force in England, therefore the Eng
lish delegates were in thorough sympathy
with the International Congress on most
points ; but they had no mandate with regard
to the International enforcement of these
points. They would report the results to the
Hull Congress, and their future action would
be the more forcible for having first obtained
the approval of their constituents. Probably
all the proposals would not be adopted, for the
English, had done so much by self-help and
by their own organisations that they were not
prepared to hand all over to parliaments.
Dr. de Paepe, as chairman, was glad to note
that if the English did not vote for the resolu
tion, still they were not animated by any hos
tile intention.
M. Allemane wished the English Unionists
to pledge themselves that they would lay the
cause of international legislation before the
Hull Congress ; and Dr. de Paepe remarked
that trades unions would become more and
more necessary as legislation on labour ques
tions increased, so as to inspire such legislation,
to check it when needful, and to carry out
those State contracts and public works, which
must soon be given over direct to the organised
working classes, and not to individual con
tractors or speculators.
The President now called for the German
vote, and Herr Grimpe rose and stated that
as the resolutions before the Congress were
identical in principle with the Bill introduced
in the German Parliament by the Deputies of
the Social-Democratic Party, and as these
principles were the same as those advocated
by the 700,000 trades unionists and others who
�voted for these deputies, he adopted them with
out hesitation or reserve.
M. Palmgren, in the name of the Trades
eUnioBS of Sweden, that constituted the Social
ly Democratic Party of that country, indignantly
rejected the proposal for participation in pro
pts, and was against any difference being made
|.n legislation affecting women and men. He
kherefore approved the vote of the French
^Delegates, and accepted the ten clauses of the
(resolution.
M. Brod, for Austria, the Hungarian and
I all the other foreign Delegates present gave in
Itheir assent.
Mr. John Norton, the Australian delegate,
Swished to explain his vote, for he was in favour
xjof the six hours’ work for women ; and, if he
■'{voted for eight, it was only to secure a unani
mity on the part of the Congress.
His
^mandate gave him full latitude to vote, and if
|the English could not vote they should have
icome as visitors and not as delegates. He
swished to explain why he was in opposition to
lithe English. He would be ashamed of a man
tidate that did not allow him to vote. The Eng
lish delegates say they are largely in sympathy
■with the Congress, then why do they not vote ?
|I come from a greater distance, but still I
II maintain I have the right to vote. Women
fihad much household work, and he would have
dpreferred to limit their hours to six ; but this
3 Congress represented directly many hundreds
<fof thousands of workmen, and indirectly many
|millions. Its decisions could not do otherwise
iithan influence the governments concerned. It
I was therefore essential to secure a unanimous
■ vote. He would put aside his little difference
Iwith regard to the question of women’s work,
land would accept, in union with the delegates
| of all the other countries, the resolution before
I the Congress. His only regret was that the
1 English had not the courage of their opinions
| and thought fit to abstain. Legislation, in the
a sense of the resolutions before the Congress,
1 had been enacted in England and Australia,
2 and that mainly through the instrumentality
dof Trades Unionists. It seemed to him we
oj could not have too much of a good thing, and
4 he was astounded that those who professed to
^represent English Trades Unionists should
J hesitate to generalise what their constituents
a put in practice at home. He believed that the
*
v views of the Australian Trades Unionists were
nj more in accordance with the principles pro1 claimed by the Continental delegates than the
1! timorous neutrality of the English represen1 tatives. He was, therefore, loyally fulfilling
F his mandate in voting for the resolutions.
Mr. Burnett, on the termination of this disJ course, asked leave to make a short reply,
a This was out of order. During the voting of
J resolutions, explanation of a vote alone is
J allowed, and the English had declined to
vi vote. It was only by the vigorous enforceiii ment of these rules that the President had, un
like his predecessor, been able to keep the
meeting in hand and forward the business.
Many speakers had already been ruled out
of order and debarred from the privilege of
speaking. Nevertheless, Dr. de Paepe deter
mined to make an exception in Mr. Burnett’s
favour, and appealed to the Congress to forego
its rules and afford Mr. Burnett an opportu
nity of answering Mr. Norton. It was, how
ever, very late, and so much of the time of the
Congress had already been taken up in dis
cussing the policy or position of English Trades
Unions, that the meeting voted against the
President’s proposal. Not satisfied, however,
and as opinions seemed somewhat divided,
M. de Paepe insisted on taking a second vote,
and then there was undoubtedly a small
majority against hearing Mr. Burnett.
The President consequently declared the
incident to be closed, and the resolutions, with
respect to International Legislation on La
bour, to be unanimously carried ; some of the
English Delegates alone abstaining.
THE SECOND QUESTION.
The following conclusion of the Report on
Integral Education were brought forward as a
resolution:—■
“The International Workmen’s Congress, considering
that all children have a right to integral education, that this
education should have a unique programme on encyclopaedic
basis, developing itseli gradually according to the ages, and
specialising itself in the last period so as to form pupils fully
developed intellectually and morally, that the working
classes, in possessing in more than one profession the
fundamental elements of other occupations, will then be
guaranteed against the risks of industrial transformations,
changes in material, tools, or the forces of Nature which
tend day by day to replace human forces; considering that
this education, logically and inevitably, bears with it the
necessity of maintaining the children at the expense of the
collectivity, demands that pending the modification of the
programmes according to the exigencies of modern educa
tion, gratuitous, professional, or technical schools shall be
created in sufficient numbers to afford place for all children
leaving primary schools up to the age of sixteen. That pend
ing the recognition by law of the duty of the State to keep
all childien till they are able to earn their own livelihood,
scholarships of £8 to £20 shall be created for children accord
ing to age, whose parents’ income does not exceed £120 a
year. That the schools shall be placed under the surveill
ance of the Trades Unions and of the Educational Com
mittees. That the authorities select among the suggestions
thrown out in the preceding report the means for raising the
necessary funds.’’
By the time this resolution was put to the
vote, the English delegates had all quitted the
hall, and this without giving any explanation
as to their intentions or motives. Mr. Jones
alone had left a message to the effect that he
approved of gratuitous, compulsory, secular
education, with the free feeding of the chil
dren ; that this education should embrace
every branch, both technical and superior,
according to the capacity of the child ; in
fact, that there should be absolute equality in
the educational advantages offered to the
poor and the rich. This being explained,
amid the cheers of the Congress, the above
resolution was carried by all the nationalities
present.
�22
The resolutions relating to
THE THIRD QUESTION
were now read as follows :—
1. The International Congress proclaims itself opposed to
all existing laws in all countries that have for object the
prevention of workmen uniting internationally, and demands
their abrogaticn.
2. That it is necessary to reconstitute an international
society between the workers of all countries.
3. That it is also necessary to create national and inter
national trade societies.
4. That the realisation of these measures shall be confided
to a future international workmen’s congress.
The French having at once adopted these
resolutions, the President called for the En
glish vote. A ghastly silence ensued, and, so
as to create a slight diversion, I briefly ex
plained that in the earlier part of the Congress
the English delegation had desired to move a
resolution which m spirit harmonised with the
first clause of the motion now submitted. The
foreign delegates all agreeing, the resolutions
on the third question were carried. Though
THE FOURTH QUESTION
had given rise to such a long discussion, still
as it consisted principally of the reports of the
delegates as to the economical and political
condition of the workmen they represented, it
was not considered necessary to bring forward
a resolution.
The latter portion ot the resolution on
THE FIFTH QUESTION
gave rise to some
opposition.
The
idea of inviting men because they were
Socialist Deputies or Municipal Councillors
was qualified as a form of hero worship op
posed to all Democratic principles. If the
societies to be represented chose to elect these
men well and good ; otherwise they could not
be admitted.
M. de Paepe was somewhat opposed to this
restriction. He explained that though willing
to approve of a French Congress and Exhibi
tion in 1889, the Belgians had determined to
hold an International Congress before that
date, and they would open their doors to all
comers, whether Trades Unionists or Socialists,
political bodies or trade societies—all that
advocated the cause of labour would be
welcome.
M. Dalle urged that the exhibition should
above all things be a collective exhibition, the
object being to show what organised trade
societies working in conjunction with the State
could do to supply public wants. As for the
congress, it should be organised by the French
Workman’s Party as they possessed the most
extensive international relations, and more
general experience. As these suggestions met
with general approval, the resolution was
amended and put as follows :—•
Resolution.—“The Congress decides that a Collective In
ternational Workman’s Exhibition will be held in 1S89, with
a State subvention, to be administered by the Trades Unions
who will convoke a general assembly of the corporations
for this purpose.
The Congress further decides that an International
Workman s Congress shall take place in 1889 and that the
French Workman’s Party (Federation des Travailleurs
Socialists de France) shall be entrusted with the organisation
of this Congress.”
The French voted for this resolution;
another awkward pause ensued when the
English were called upon for their vote. Herr
Grimpe remarked that while he was favourable
to the project he feared the German law would
not allow the participation of Germany, and
with regard to the Congress he would wait for
the result of the Belgian Congress, which was
to come first. The Austrian delegate observed
that the workmen of his country had made
great sacrifices to participate in the present
Exhibition and Congress. He trusted they
would renew their efforts in 1889.
The
Swedish delegate abstained with regard to
the Exhibition, and the Australian delegate
voted in favour of the resolution on the ground
that workmen of different countries could not
meet too often.
The resolution was therefore taken as car
ried.
A proposal was then made and accepted that
the minutes should be published in pamphlet
form, and the President, C. de Paepe, rose to
pronounce a short allocution recognising the
union of all nations.
In the absence of the English delegates,
who might have taken the initiative in the
matter, for every effort had been made to
render their visit in Paris agreeable and profit
able. I rose to propose a vote of thanks to
the French executive or organising committee.
This being accepted, the last act of the Con
gress was the adoption, without discussion
and with the utmost unanimity, of a resolution “
demanding an amnesty for all those who were
nowin prison for having defended the interests
of the working classes.
At last, amid cheers and congratulations,
the delegates rose, and the arduous task of the
Congress was brought to an end. It was
half-past one in the morning before the dele
gates had all quitted the hall; but, though 1
late, they had at least the satisfaction of
having fully exhausted the programme they 1
had met to discuss and decide.
CONCLUSION.
The business of the Congress terminated, I
the delegates did not at once separate. On !
the morrow, Sunday, 29th August, a great
banquet was given at the Workmen’s Exhibi
tion. This entertainment was a failure by
reason of its success. Dinner had been pre
pared for three hundred persons ; no less than
483 came. The provisions consequently fell
short, and half the waiters in despair gave the
matter up as hopeless, took their coats and
hats and marched away. Thus the difficulties
increased, the clamour and confusion was
indescribable, and most of the guests had to]
F
to
so
?■
te
n:
r■
37
fel
IS?
U
th
ife1
�be content with a very incomplete dinner.
: Under these circumstances, it was difficult to
obtain silence for the speeches.
MM.
Ghabttrf, Jacques, Delhoinme, Marchard,
Muzet, de Menorval, Desnoulins, and GuicIhaxd, members of the Paris Municipal
I Couri-eii attended at the Banquet, and two of
I the Cs&nmMors spoke in the name of the town
I of Pali® to congratulate the workmen on the
*
Isuccess of their exhibition, and expressed their
I regret tiaat it had not been possible to grant
I a larger subvention. At the conclusion of the
Ibaaqueta number of the delegates danced
land Sling the Carmagnole m the gardens of
I the Exhibition.
On Monday, 30th August, several of the
delegates went to visit the technical schcol
s established at Montevrain for children morally
| abandoned where they were entertained at a
| sumptuous lunch at the expense of the Town of
I Paris. On the Tuesday they were treated
Iwith equal hospitality at Villepreux where a
I similar school is established. At the latter
s establishment horticulture and agriculture are
jtaught; at the former, various skilled trades,
jin both cases, the pupils are rescued from the
if street® of Paris, when they have been morally
3 abandoned by their parents, and saved from
^vagabondage by being taught useful trades.
'These institutions are under the control of the
{Council General of the Seine. But the Trades
I Unions exercise considerable indirect influence
iover their management, thus the education
igiven is of a democratic, scientific and abso
lutely secular character.
‘ It should also be mentioned that the
lorganizers of the Congress had graciously
3 placed a large brake at the disposal of the
{English delegates, and obtained more than
^twenty special permissions from the Governiment, the Municipality, and the Prefecture
jof Police, authorizing them to visit every pub
lic institution in Paris and in the neighbour!hood. The delegates, being anxious to call
at workshops and on the societies of their own
trades, were not able to avail themselves exttensively of these privileges. They, however,
|vifflted the State manufactories of tapestry at
'■•the Gobelins and of porcelain at Sevres, the
1 technical schools, the Ecole Diderot, and a few
other establishments. Finally on Monday
the 30th, a public meeting was held in the
evening at the Salle de la Redoute ; where
sewpll- delegates to the recent Congress
spoke, and pointed out that whatever hesitatioaWBight still linger in the minds of English
working men with regard to Socialism, from
iievery point of view the organization of powerIfttl Trade Unions was an indispensable preijliffiinary step. Socialism itself could not be
■realised if the different trades were not organyized and accustomed to collective action. It
t^was the great trade societies who would have
Ito supply the wants of the community when
lithe revolution, pacific or otherwise, had
triumphed over privilege, caste and individual
ism. Such, at least, was the general tone of
this public meeting.
It will be seen, therefore, that the foreign
workmen are at one with the Trade Unionists
of England in the advocacy of strong trade
societies. At the same time, their ultimate
ideal is the Socialism which is now being
taught so extensively in England.
*
But the
French Possibilists differ from what is known,
on the Continent, as Marxism by their belief
in the expediency of allowing each country to
work out its own emancipation according to
its own instincts and customs. They indig
*
nantly repudiate the pretensions of Hatt
Grimpe and other Marxists who would attempt
to dictate to Englishmen how they should
choose as their leaders or what tactics they
should adopt. For this reason, the “ Official
Circle ” of the Social-Democrats of Germany,
composed to a great extent of old personal
allies of Dr. Marx, has taken sides in favour of
the Guesdists ; that is the little handful of
Frenchmen who represent the Marxist policy
in France, as against the autonomist policy
of the Possibilists. In England, the sain®
division exists, and the Socialist League
embodies the Marxist element, while the
Social-Democratic Federation is imbued with
a keener sense of British independence and
repudiates the inspirations of an occult and
in the main German influence.
Yet both
Marxists and anti-Marxists are ardent
admirers of the profound economic works of
Dr. Karl Marx. Both readily applaud theim
*
mortal manifesto issued by Marx and Engels
in 1847 and try to master the intricacies of
Das Capital.^ On the other hand, it is gener
ally believed, that the personal influence of
Dr. Karl Marx, his intimate friends and family,
by their centralizing and autocratic tenden
*
cies, did more to break up the International
than the Dufaure Law and all the other sup
pressive enactments. Actually a daughter of
Dr. Karl Marx is the wife of a leader among
the Guesdists in Paris and another daughter
is a prominent member of the Socialist League
m London. The principal difficulty in obtaining united action among the workmen of
the continent springs from the antagonism
arising out of these family influences and
personal hostilities. There is no real differ
ence in principle. The Possibilists in Paris vote
to a man in favour of resolutions harmonizing
with the theories and doctrines of Dr. Kar
Marx and the Collectivist school of the scientific
* For publications relating to the same see list by Reeves,
185, Fleet Street, E.C., and The Modern Press, 13, Pater
noster Row. Many of these publications are penny pamph
lets, the most popular being the “ Socialist Catechism,” by
J. L. Joynes, B.A., (late Assistant Master at Eton College),
and “The Eight Hours Movement,’’ by Thomas Mar®,
(Amalgamated Engineers).
+ The original edition, in German, may be obtained from
Triibner & Co., Ludgate Hill.. A French translation wM
published for five francs by Maurice Lachatre, Editeut
Paris. An English edition will shortly appear.
�and State Socialists. But there is the an
tagonism of personalities and of policy. Per
haps the advent of English Trade Unionism
in the midst of these differences may help to
bridge over such sources of weakness, for the
time is surely at hand when the old quarrels
that date back more than sixteen years may
be buried and forgotten. In view, however,
of the forthcoming International Congress to
be held in London, it seemed to me indispen
sable to give a few brief details concerning
these great currents of continental opinion.
Adolphe Smith.
LIST OF DELEGATIONS TO THE CONFERENCE.
AUSTRIA.
M. Brod, delegate to the Exhibition and the
Congress.
BELGIUM.
For the General Council of the Belgian Workmen’s
Party, Ed. Anseele, of Ghent, and Dr.
Cesar de Paepe, of Brussels.
(125,000
Members).
For the Federation of the Trade Unions of Ghent,
Louis Bertrand.
For the Federation of the Workmen’s Leagues,
Central District La Louviere, (9,000 Members),
Ch. Minnie.
Federation of the
Miners
of
the
Borinage,
Defuisseaux.
ENGLAND.
For the Trades Unions Congress Parliamentary
Committee, J. Mawdsley. (65,534 Members),
For the London Trades Council, C. J. Drummond
and W. Jones. (25,600 Members).
"The Amalgamated Engineers, John Burnett.
(52,000 Members)Railway Servants Society, Ed. Harford. (9,000
Members).
London Society of Compositors, J. Galbraith.
(6,500 Members).
The Iron and Steel Workers Society, E. Trow.
(2,000 Members).
COLONIES, AUSTRALIA.
South Australia and New South Wales, John
Norton.
GERMANY.
The Sozial Demokrat of Zurich, in the name of the
Parliamentary Committee of the German
Workman’s Socialist Party, Herr Grimpe.
(The Social-Democratic vote throughout the
German Empire is estimated at about 700,000)
The German Workman’s Communist Club of
London, H. Rackow.
HUNGARY.
The Compositors of Buda-Pesth, — Muller.
SWEDEN.
Social-Democratic Federation. C. Palmgren.
FRENCH PROVINCES.
Name of Societies and number of Delegates:—The
Glass Workers of Montlugon, Blanzy, Carmeau, and Chalons, one delegate. The Feder
ated Trades Union of Poitiers, three delegates.
Federated Trades of Blois, two delegates. The 15 J
Boiler Makers of Nantes, one. The Furniture
Trades of St. Estienne, one. The Turners of |R
Nantes, one. Weavers of St. Estienne, two.
The Workman’s Society of St. Estienne, one.
The
"" Blacksmiths of Nantes, one. The Boot----makers of Tours, one. ~
The Locksmiths of
Marseilles, one. The Engineers of _
""
u
Lyons,
two. The Boiler Makers of Lyons, two. The
Painters on porcelain of Limoges, one. The
The Workers’ Union of Macon, one. The
Metal Workers of East Lyons,, one. The I
,
Annual Congress of the Trades of Lyons, three.
Masons and Plasterers of Brest, one. Marble
aud Stone Cutters of Brest, one. Carpenters!
and Joiners of Brest, one. Painters of Brest,
one. Locksmiths and Tinsmiths of Brest, one.
Cabinet Makers of Tours, one. The Leather j
and Skin Trades of the Tarn, one. The Boot
makers of Anger, one.
The Furriers of’
Angouleme, one. The Executive Commission I
of the Trades of Rennes, one. The Metal f
Workers of Rennes, one. The Slate Quarry
Men of Trelaze, one.
The Gilders andi
Decorators of Rennes, one. The BootmakersB
of Rennes, one.
The French Colony of Algeria sent three dele-i
gates who were appointed by the Trades Council®
of Algiers.
Finally the majority of the Trade Societies of I
Paris were represented. Altogether there were®
delegates from 86 Trade Unions which unfortun-|
ately cannot be enumerated here for want of space. |
Nevertheless, if it is desired to communicate with i
any French Trade Society, it will suffice to writes
to the following address;
au Secretaire du Comite National,
Bureau du Proletariat,
58 rue Greneta, PARIS.
PUBLISHED BY
FOULGER & CO., 14, Paternoster Row, London, E.C.
�
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Report of the International Trades Union Congress, held at Paris from August 23rd to 28th, 1886
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Smith, Adolphe
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Collation: 24 p. ; 23 cm.
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Socialism
Trade unions
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Conferences
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B
SZ
NS35
THE
NATIOxNALSECULARSOClETY
MOVEMENTS OF PLANTS.
By ERNEST A. PARKYN, M.A.
ROBABLY no phenomenon in Nature excites,
so much attention and enquiry as movement.
On perceiving the movement of any object,
we almost unconsciously look for its cause.
The movement of an apple falling to the
ground from an apple-tree is said to have
set the mind of Newton enquiring in a direction which
ultimately revealed the law of gravitation.
The soporific influence of custom and habit appears to
have had a less weakening effect upon the minds of men in
this direction than in most others. I mean that the neces
sary relation between cause and effect is more generally
admitted with regard to movement than other phenomena.
A person, for instance, who does not so much as ask for
the cause of any ordinary phenomenon, will often seek and
look for the cause of a movement coming under his
observation.
The cause to which the mind most readily refers move
ment is undoubtedly life. This is not to be wondered at,
for that which we most intimately associate with our own
vital activity are the movements of our bodies and of their
parts. Thus it is that the savage, when he first becomes
�2
The Movements of Plants,
aware that the stars move in the heavens, believes that
there is behind them a living cause; or when he first sees a
locomotive in action, believes it to be endowed with life.
But in thus referring movement to a living cause, that
cause is invariably associated with the animal world. Life,
as far as it is associated with obvious movement, is invari
ably referred to an animal, not to a vegetal source. The
very expression, “ vegetable life,” is synonymous with a
quiet, peaceful, motionless existence.
In fact, so deeply has this idea become ingrained in the
mind, that we have been religiously brought up in the
belief that one, perhaps the great distinction between
animals on the one hand and plants on the other is, that
whilst the former possess, the latter are wanting, in the
power of movement.
Unless there were a nucleus of truth in this idea, it
would doubtless not be so generally entertained as it is.
The extent of its truth depends upon what you mean by
the word movement, when applied to living things—to
animals and plants.
If by movement is meant locomotion, or movement from
place to place, and we restrict our observation to the
higher animals and plants, it is correct; but if, on the
other hand, we turn our attention to the lowest forms of
life, animal and plant, the distinction by no means holds,
for here we find that the lowest plants, like the lowest
animals, are endowed with the power of locomotion—they
are able to move from place to place, by exactly the same
means and in precisely the same manner, as do the lowest
animals. Moreover, some lowly animals are fixed and
incapable of moving from place to place. On the screen
you see illustrations of a few such lowly plants. Here, for
instance, is a lowly vegetal organism named Myxomycetes.
It is nothing more nor less than a mass of structureless
living matter, or protoplasm, which is capable of creeping
�The Movements of Plants.
3
about on any surface on which it may happen to rest.
There are certain lowly animals, which are well known in
the animal world, which are endowed with this curious
creeping movement, and here in this little plant we see
exactly the same kind of locomotion.
Here is a little plant which, under ordinary circum
stances, is green or red. It is a little spherical mass of
protoplasm, coloured green, and surrounded by a fine
membrane. At one spot you observe two fine filaments,
or cilia, which, by their active contraction, move the little
particle through the water. In the animal world there are
a great number of minute animals which are able to move
about in this manner.
If by movement, on the other hand, you mean not loco
motion, but movement of parts or members of an individual
organism, the distinction by no means holds, as I shall
endeavour to explain in this lecture. For recent observa
tions, more especially those of the illustrious Darwin,
have shown that all parts of plants—root, stem, leaf—
are in a state of continuous movement so long as they
are growing. As long as these parts of plants are
growing they are in a state of incessant movement;
in fact, the difference between the animal and the plant
would appear to be rather this, that whereas the
movements in the case of the former take place only now
and then—in other words, are intermittent—the move
ments of the parts of the latter take place continuously,
without intermission, so long as the parts are in a state of
growth.
Now, this movement which is observed in the different
parts of plants is of the nature of a nodding movement.
It is a movement from side to side, and it is therefore
usually spoken of by the word Nutation, from the Latin
nutatio, a nodding. Now, this nutation or nodding move
ment of plants is of two kinds—(1) simple, when the part
�4
The Movements of Plants.
moves from side to side, in one plane only ; or (2) revolving,
when it moves more or less in a circle. Revolving nuta
tion is also called circumnutation (Latin circum, around;
nutatio, a nodding).
In the first part of the lecture I want to endeavour to
explain the nature of this movement—its cause, and how,
by simple experiments, it has been shown to be exhibited
by the different parts of plants.
The next illustration on the screen will enable us to
appreciate this kind of movement better. Here is an
illustration of the simple nodding movement of the plant.
You are supposed to be looking down upon the stem in its
normal position, and you observe the marks supposed to be
made by the top of the stem as it sways to and fro in one
plane. That is simple nutation. But here is the revolving
movement illustrated. You again look down on to the top
of the stem, and see that it moves through each quarter of a
circle until it reaches again the point from which we started.
You notice that the side of the stem which faces the
centre of the circle described varies as the stem revolves.
After having moved through half-a-circle, the side which
first faced the centre now looks directly away from it, or
vice versd.
The cause of the movement is inequality of growth.
If one side of the stem grows more quickly than the other,
by simple mechanical principles the stem will bend over
on the side of lesser growth, and there is simple nuta
tion. If the inequality of growth travels gradually round
the stem, all portions of the stem will successively be forced
out of the perpendicular, or normal line, and revolving
nutation, or circumnutation, will be the result.
As to the means by which this movement is experimented
upon, you have here a flower-pot containing a growing
plant. A fine filament of glass, an inch or an inch and
a-half long, is taken, at one end of which is fixed a little
�The Movements of Plants.
5
round knob of sealing-wax. About two-thirds of the way
down a piece of paper is fixed, by the sharp end of the
glass being run through it. At one corner of the piece of
paper is put a black ink mark, and then the piece of glass—
which weighs very little indeed, being very fine—is fixed
at this end to the top of the stem. A large flat piece of
glass is then taken and placed above the stem at right
angles to it. Suppose, now, looking down through the
glass plate from above, you fix your eye on the knob of
sealing-wax at the end of the glass rod, and then move
your eye until the knob of sealing-wax directly covers the
black spot on the paper. When they are exactly in 'line,
you make a mark on the flat piece of glass above. Leave
the plant for an hour, and then go back and look at it in
the same way, and make another mark. This is repeated
again and again, until at last a considerable number of dots
have been made upon the glass plate. Now join these dots
together by lines, and you will find that the figure obtained
approaches more or less that of a circle.
The next illustration shows a few tracings taken in this
way. Here is the tracing obtained from a cabbage plant.
The arrows, showing the direction of the movement, travel
almost in the form of a circle. Of course I am not speaking
of a mathematically-correct circle. Here are also another
kind of cabbage and canary-grass, and here one of a cotton
plant. This is the way in which the observations are made
upon the stem.
The method adopted with the root is different, of course.
You cannot experiment with the root beneath the soil in
this manner. It is done in this way :—The tip of the root
is allowed to grow down upon a slightly inclined glass
plate, which has been blackened by being held over a smoky
flame, and upon which the slightest pressure will make a
mark. The end of the root is allowed to press against this
piece of glass, and as it grows down you find a mark on the
6
�6
The Movements of Plants.
sooty glass curving from side to side. This is seen in the
case of an oak plant on the screen. The marks in some
places are finer than in others, showing that the tip of the
root pressed more strongly sometimes against the glass than
at other times, pointing to its not having merely moved
from side to side, but to its moving more or less in a
circle.
The next illustration shows us a young seedling plant.
This is a pea. When you open a pea seed, you see
within it the young plant. You observe at the top a
little curved object; that is the very young stem. Then
you notice a little pointed shoot below; that is the young
root, or radicle. The mass of the seed is really made up of
two very big leaves. They are the leaves of the seedling
plant, and are therefore called the seed leaves. They
contain a great deal of nutriment, which is used up by the
young seedling when growing.
Here you have the seedling of the bean plant, which is
closely allied to the pea. It has come out from the seed, and
grown considerably : here you have the young stem, with
the first ordinary leaves upon it; this is the young root
growing down into the soil. I want you to notice that
coming off from the root are a number of fine filaments.
These are little hairs, and since they come off from the root
they are called root hairs. Now, the movement of the
root down through the soil is one which is worthy of a few
moments’ attention, inasmuch as the root is continuously
exhibiting this peculiar revolving movement, which helps it
to pass down through the soil. Of course when the root is
surrounded by hard soil it cannot move in this revolving
manner to any great extent. The nature of the soil prevents
it. But remember it is always trying to move. There
fore, if, for instance, a worm should pass along near
the root tip and push away the earth just by the root,
the root moves, taking advantage of the space that the
�The Movements of Plants.
7
worm has left, and so pushes down more easily into the soil
than it could when completely surrounded by it. In fact,
this revolving movement of the root enables it to move
down through the soil in the direction of least resistance.
Whenever the soil is removed it takes advantage of that in
virtue of being able to revolve. It is able in that way to
grow down where the soil offers the least resistance.
The movement of the root down through the soil is aided
in a much more wonderful way than that. I refer to the
help rendered by the root tip, which is sensitive to contact
and to moisture in a remarkable manner. Here you have
a young, a very young seedling of buckwheat; here is the
young stem with two leaves, and here you have the young
root. The end of the root, or root tip as it is called, is
extremely sensitive. When anything presses against the
tip it moves away from the object touching it. For
instance, supposing the root is growing down into the soil,
and comes against a hard object, such as a stone, so that the
tip presses on it, the root, instead of trying to push through
the stone, creeps away and goes down by the side of the stone.
It is worth while following the course of events here. What
happens ? You not only have the tip of the root moving,
which has been touched, but a part of the root above the
tip moves. The root moves completely away, so as to get
round the stone, instead of pushing against it, and so it
grows down into the soil, which it would not do if it were
to remain against the solid stone. The point is this, that
not only is the tip of the root sensitive to touch, just as
your fingers are, but it is able to transmit that “ touching ”
influence to a part of it above, and so cause the upper part
to move as well. The tip of the root is not only sensitive
to touch but to moisture. But the tip, instead of turning
away from moisture, turns towards it. Now that again, you
will see, is advantageous to the movement of the root down
through the soil. Suppose the root happens to come near
�8
The Movements of Plants,
to soil which is rather more moist than that above. It will
turn towards the moist earth, and, of course, it is easier to get
through moist earth than through dry earth. The resist
ance is less. Therefore the sensitiveness of the tip to moisture
which, instead of causing it to move away, causes it to move
towards it, is equally favourable to the movement of the root
down through the soil—in the direction of least resistance.
These little root hairs also play an important part in
enabling the root to penetrate through soil. The root hairs
are simply little tubes, each consisting of an external
membrane with living matter, or protoplasm, within. As
the root is passing down through the ground, the little root
hairs come into contact with the soil, and the remarkable
fact is this, that the membranes become partially liquified
at their extremities, so that minute stones, or particles of
earth, become mixed up with it. The membrane then
solidifies again, and in that way the end of the root hair
becomes quite fixed in that portion of the soil. This fixing
takes place in all directions. What is the result ? It is
this : that the root becomes fixed on all sides by the little
hairs, and so any force within the growing root which acts
in any direction must exert its influence in forcing the
root down through the soil. A force within the root may
tend to push it to the side or upwards, but it- cannot do so
when these little hairs are fixing it on all sides, and so any
force is exerted in pushing it down through the soil.
Let me conclude this portion of the subject with a
quotation from Darwin :—
“ If we look at a great acacia tree we may feel assured that
every one of the innumerable growing shoots is constantly
describing small ellipses, as is each petiole, subpetiole, and
leaflet. The flower stalks are likewise continually revolving.
If we had the power of a microscope, and could look beneath
the ground, we should see the tip of each rootlet endeav
ouring to sweep small circles as far as the surrounding
�The Movements of Plants.
9
earth permitted. All this astonishing amount of movement
has been going on year after year since the time when the
plant emerged from the soil as a seedling.”
Let me now refer briefly to the movement of the
stem. I wish to explain a remarkable resemblance between
the way in which the movement of the stem of plants is
influenced by light, and the way in which our own bodies
are influenced by the same agent. There is a striking
resemblance between the influence of light upon the move
ment of the stems of plants, and the influence of light upon
our own bodies—or that important portion of them which
we call the nervous system. The interest attaching to this
is due to the fact that nothing like a nervous system of
the animal body is known to exist within the bodies of
plants.
Now, there are no less than five different ways in which
this analogy can be shown to exist:—(1) The small amount
of light necessary to produce an effect; (2) transmitted
effects; (3) in exhibiting an after-effect; (4) the stronger
the stimulus the greater the effect; (5) the greater effect
produced after darkness than after exposure to light.
To begin with, everybody knows that the human eye,
which of course is part of our nervous system, is affected by
a very small amount of light. We can appreciate extremely
small quantities of light by our eyes. But, I think, even our
eyes are surpassed by the sensitiveness of plants to light.
I will just give one experiment. It has been known for a
long time, and you are probably well aware, that plants are
influenced by light in this way, that they turn towards the
source of light. Everybody knows that plants on the edge
of a forest will turn away from the inside of the forest, and
to the exterior, which is more brilliantly illuminated. That
is a fact that has been known for a very long time. The
first point is that plants seem extraordinarily sensitive to
light. ' A small seedling was placed in a pot, covered over
�io
The Movements of Plants.
with a tin vessel. In the tin vessel a tiny hole was made,
one-twentieth of an inch in diameter. The light could just
fall upon a certain portion of the seedling by means of this
microscopic hole. When, after a time, the tin vessel was
taken off, it was observed that the seedling had turned
most distinctly towards the little hole. That small amount
of light had affected the plant.
The next point is one which is analagous to the
transmission of effect. For instance : say the plant is above
the ground, and the stem is partially covered over, so
that only the upper part of it is exposed to the light. You
will find that not only will the upper and exposed part of
the stem turn towards the source of light, but that the
hidden portion will do the same. You can only explain
this by the fact that the light not only affects the top of the
stem, but transmits its effect to the lower part of the stem.
We can readily understand that in our own bodies. When
I look at a gas-light, I am aware of the fact. Why ? The
light acts upon my eye, but with that alone I should not
know that the gas-light was there. The eye transmits the
influence by means of nerves to the brain. There is a
transmission of the effect that affects my brain, and I am
able to see the light. Just in the same way, when the light
affects the top part of the stem, it is able to transmit
the influence of the light to its lower part, and cause that
also to move.
The influence of light upon plants exhibits what we
call an after-effect. You will have no difficulty in readily
understanding that. I shall speak first of the after
effect in the case of the human body. Suppose you wake
up on a fine sunny morning and look at the window. You
see a striking picture of the window—the light panes and
the dark sashes. You turn round, or without turning round
you shut your eyes, and you still see before you, when your
eyes are shut, the picture of the window; you see the
�The Movements of Plants.
II
bright panes and the dark sashes most distinctly. It is an
after-effect. The meaning of that is, that the influence of the
light upon the eye remains for a certain time after the source
of light is removed. You have exactly the same thing in the
case of the plants. Take a plant, for instance, and allow a
light to act upon it, so that it moves at a certain rate
towards the source of light; you then place the plant in
darkness. What do you observe ?—that the plant still
moves in the same direction as it did before. It is an
after-effect. The effect of the light does not stop directly
you take the light away, for the plant still moves on as it
did before. The light still exerts an influence—there is
an after-effect.
The rapidity of the movement of the plant towards the
light is proportionate to the intensity of light. It is quite
unnecessary to mention, with regard to the eye, that the
stronger the light acting upon the eye, the more we are
affected by it. That will be admitted at once. It is exactly
the same with the plant. If you allow a light of a certain
intensity to fall upon the plant, it will move towards the
light with a certain rapidity. If you then make another ex
periment, after carefully noting the rapidity with a stronger
light, it will move more quickly towards the source of light; if
you take stronger light still, it will move quicker still. You
are brought to the conclusion that the plant moves towards
the light in proportion to the intensity of the light.
Lastly, here is a most curious analogy between the animal
and the plant bodies, and that is in the greater influence
light has upon a plant after the plant has been in the dark.
When you came into this room it was illuminated, but you
did not experience anything unusual in your eyes. You were
not struck by any particular brilliancy. The lights are now
turned down for the lantern illustrations, but when they
are turned up again presently, you will be conscious of the
light acting upon your eyes, though it will not be any
�12
The Movements of Plants.
brighter than it was before. Your eye will be acted upon
more strongly by a light of the same intensity, because,
meanwhile, you have been in the dark. The same thing
occurs in the case of a plant. Take a plant and allow a
light to fall upon it for a certain time, and note the rate of
movement; then leave the plant in darkness for some
hours, and afterwards expose it to a light of the same
intensity as before. It will be acted upon more strongly
than before, and will move more actively towards the source
of light than it did before being in the dark. In these five
ways there is a very striking analogy between the effect of
light on the movement of plants and its effect on the
human body.
But this revolving movement of the plant is most strikshown in Climbing Plants. In fact, here it subserves
a very important use indeed. It is due to the power pos
sessed by certain portions of the climbing plants of moving
in a circle that they are able to climb as they do. There
are different kinds of climbing plants—hook-climbers, roof
climbers, twiners, tendril-climbers. The two last are the
most common, and of those only I shall speak to-night.
Everybody knows the nature of the hop or convolvulus
plants, which climb up poles or stems by twining round
them. On the screen we see this. Now, the way these
plants manage to climb is simple enough ; they possess this
power of revolving in a very marked degree indeed. In
fact, the last three or four, or sometimes five or six, joints
of the stem move in a circle. When one of these plants
comes first above the ground, of course there may be no
stick or anything round which it can climb. It will begin
to move, the uppermost joints sweeping small circles. It is
trying to find something round which it can twine. When
the hop-grower comes upon the scene, he sticks a pole into
the ground. It is put into the middle of the circle, as it
were, made by the revolving stem, and then the stem comes
�The Movements of Plants.
13
into contact with it, and of course twines around it. The
part which becomes pressed against the pole ceases to grow,
and becomes fixed against it. That portion which moves
round in a circle is the growing portion of the stem, and as
it grows it moves up the pole, for the circles will in
reality be parts of a spiral. This is very strikingly
shown in the “ Morning Glory ” on the screen. In a plant
(feropegia Gardnerix) observed by Darwin, the part of the
stem that revolved was no less than 32 inches long—nearly a
yard. In that way the diameter of the circle swept would
be something like two yards. The circle itself once estab
lished would be something like six yards, or nearly 18 feet.
Darwin took the plant into his study and placed it on the
table, and it continued to move—it moved at the rate of
half-an-inch a minute. Darwin says it was a most interest
ing spectacle to watch the long shoot sweeping this grand
circle continuously, night and day, in search of some object
round which it could twine.
The second class of plant comprises the tendril-climbers.
The Mexican Passion Flower in the screen is one of these.
A tendril is a very fine filamentous body, which does not
end in anything. It does not end in a flower or a leaf.
These tendrils have the power of revolving in a marked
degree. But over and above that, they are extremely sensi
tive. If you go into a hot-house and touch a tendril with a
stick, it will soon bend, and afterwards perhaps coil up. It
is sensitive to a touch. This is especially the case with the
termination—the end of it. When this end comes into
contact with a hard object, it is so sensitive, it gets hold of
it, and coils around it, and becomes firmly fixed to it. We
have here also a very striking example indeed of the trans
mission of effect. What we saw in the root and the stem,
we see in a most marked manner in the case of the tendril.
The effect produced on the end of the tendril by its sensi
tive nature is transmitted to the whole of the tendril, or
�14
The Movements of Plants.
nearly the whole of it, in such a way that it becomes coiled
in a beautifully spiral manner. This subserves two very
important purposes. By coiling in that way it simply
hauls up the stem of the plant, thus raising it to a
higher point. If you cut off the tendril, and pull out the
coil, it will be two or three times as long, and so you
see how considerably the coiling must pull up the stem.
But this coiling of the tendril also subserves another pur
pose. The spirally-coiled tendril acts very beautifully as
a spring. That is a useful purpose indeed, for a strong
wind would blow the plant out of its position. The tendrils
are extremely delicate, and the slightest strain would break
them. But the coil acts as a spring before the wind, and
the tendril is blown against without damage. It is stretched,
and when the wind has gone down, it resumes its proper
length. Here on the screen is a Vine and a Virginia
Creeper, which so easily grows up against the sides of walls
and houses. At the end of the tendril of the Virginia
Creeper are very curious little bodies that might be called
flat suckers. The end of the tendril becomes firmly fixed
and pasted against the wall by means of this little sucker
like body, and the plant is thus enabled to become fixed
against any perpendicular flat structure like a wall.
Sleep Movements.—These movements every child has
observed in certain flowers. The sleep of leaves is far
more common, however. Recent observation has shown
that an enormous number of leaves of different kinds of
plants exhibit this sleep movement. The peculiarity may
be briefly summarised by saying that the leaf at night puts
itself into such a position that the blade is perpendicular
to the zenith. The leaf, of course, in the day-time is
flattened out, exposing its upper surface to the sky. At
night it is at right angles with the sky, so that neither the
upper nor the lower surface is exposed to the sky. The
trefoil leaf of the clover may be instanced, which you see
�Ths Movements of Plants.
15
on the screen in both its normal and sleep position.
Here, too, is the Marsilea, a pretty water plant. This
Acacia which you now see is another. You may have
observed the Telegraph Plant in hot-houses; some of the
little leaflets of which the leaf is composed are continually
moving up and down—hence its name. At night the
leaves fall so as to be almost perpendicular, as is well
shown by the illustration on the screen.
As to the use of these sleep movements :—Their use
appears to be to protect the leaves from chills and frost at
night-time, by diminishing the loss of heat by radiation.
That plants do suffer from this cause is acknowledged by
the custom of protecting seedlings and fruit trees, by
covering them in cold weather. Direct experiments have
been made which point to this conclusion. The nature of
these experiments is this :—To compare the effect of cold
or even frost at night on leaves of two similar plants, one
of which is allowed to go to sleep in the normal manner :
the leaves of the other are prevented from sleeping by beingpinned out in their diurnal horizontal position. On the
leaves of the former very little dew is deposited, and they
are not much, if at all, injured by frost. On those of the
latter much dew is deposited, and great numbers of them
are blackened and killed by frost. Hence it is obvious
that the sleep movement is of a protective nature as far as
injury to the plant arises from loss of heat from the flat
surface of the blade of the leaf, or from loss of heat by
radiation.
Touch Movements.—In conclusion, I shall refer briefly to
another kind of movement, which is best known, and for
some reason is perhaps the most interesting, though not the
most common. These may be called touch movements. I
will take two examples :—The Sensitive Plant {Mimosa
pudica'); and the other, Venus’ Fly-trap {Dionoea muscipulaY The leaves of both these plants exhibit a very
�16
The Movements of Plants.
remarkable movement when they are touched. Here is
one leaf of the Sensitive Plant on the screen. If you touch
the last leaflet of this compound leaf—the leaflets of which,
being arranged like a feather, is sometimes called a
pinnate leaf—the leaflets all close up one after another, in
a very beautiful, regular movement. When this is finished,
the whole stalk of the leaf falls ; the leaf is then said to be in
the excited state, which is well seen in the illustration on
the screen. You have here one of the most striking examples
in the whole of plant life, as far as we know, of the transmis
sion of effect. When you excite the last leaf, you only touch
the very last leaflet; and what is the result ? You get the
movement of leaflets a long way off, and, further, you get
the movement of the whole stalk—simply as the result of
touching one tiny leaflet at the end. When I touch the
table I am aware of the fact, because the effect of the touch
is transmitted to the brain by means of nerves. We can
understand this in the case of the human body, where you
have a nervous system. But in plants, so far as we know,
we have no nervous system, and this phenomenon has
therefore much excited the attention of physiologists, and
they have been much puzzled to find a suitable or satisfac
tory explanation of what superficially appears so simple.
The proximate cause of the fall of the leaf is, however,
known, and this is what I want to endeavour to explain.
You notice that at the end of the stalk by which the leaf
is attached to the stem is a little oval enlargement. From
a fancied resemblance to a cushion, it is called the pulvinus
(Latin for cushion) of the leaf. This little pulvinus is
nothing more or less than a beautiful mechanical contriv
ance by which the leaf is enabled to fall down when the
end of it is excited. What happens, though we cannot
exactly explain how the excitement travels from the tennial leaflet to the pulvinus, is this:—When you take the
last leaflet between your finger and thumb, and stimulate
�The Movements of Plants.
17
it, the effect passes right along the leaf, until it reaches the
pulvinus. On arriving there it alters the constitution or
the mechanism of this curious cushion-like enlargement
in such a way as to cause the leaf to fall. A change takes
place within the cushion-like body, or pulvinus. On the
screen is a microscopic view of a pulvinus cut down through
the middle. In section it is circular. There is a woody mass
in the centre, around which are great numbers of what the
physiologist calls cells, containing living matter and water.
The walls of the cells in the upper half are thicker than those
forming the lower half. The real mechanism is composed of
the cells of the lower half, and what takes places is this:—
When you touch the end leaflet the effect is transmitted to
the pulvinus, and by some means, which we do not fully
understand, causes the cells in the lower half of the pul
vinus to discharge some of their contained water into the
spaces between the cells which previously contained only
air. As a result of this the little cells of the lower part,
instead of being distended, become flabby. The change
might be compared to a number of bladders passing from a
condition in which they are strongly distended by contained
liquid, to the slack state ensuing on the passage out of
some of the water. What is the result ? That the stalk
being no longer supported by the mass of distended cells
forming the lower half of the pulvinus, falls in virtue of its
weight.
A word or two regarding the Venus’ Fly-trap. This
plant is carnivorous—it is able to make use of insects as
food. Each leaf consists of two symmetrical halves. On the
upper surface of the leaf there are extremely sensitive
hairs—three little hairs on each half. If an unfortunate
insect touches a hair, it is caught in a trap; the two
valves very soon closing up, thus imprisoning the insect as
you see in the illustration on screen. The leaf gives out a
digestive liquid, and the insect is thereby made suitable for
�18
The Movements of' Plants.
absorption by the plant as its food. Now, in this case you
have a contractile organ of some kind by which the leaf,
on being excited, is moved so as to close up in the way I
have described.
In animals we have markedly contractile organs, or more
strictly speaking, tissue—viz., what we call muscle. The
evident existence of contractile tissue in animals and plants
has led to a close comparison of the two; and with very
remarkable results, to which, in conclusion, I will briefly
allude. It has been known for a good many years that the
muscular tissue of animals—the contractile tissue of
animals we call muscle—exhibits certain electrical pheno
mena—what physiologists call the muscle current.
Physiologists have proved that when these muscles undergo
contraction, the muscle current becomes diminished in
intensity—undergoes what is called a negative variation.
The enquiry was therefore made, “Does the contractile
tissue in plants exhibit similar electrical phenomena ? ”
Experiments on the Dionoea plant have shown that it
does. There is a leaf current just as there is a muscle
current, that when the leaf contracts by closing up, the
leaf currents also undergo a change, exactly similar to the
change which the muscle current undergoes when the
muscle contracts.
But that is not all. Suppose you take the muscle and
throw an electrical shock into it, causing it to contract;
the muscle does not contract directly you send the shock
into it. A very short time elapses first, as can be shown
by delicate physiological instruments. There is a sort of
hesitation period, as if the muscle were making up its
mind whether it should contract. It is in this period that
the change in the muscle currents, its negative variation,
takes place. When you make an experiment with the
Venus’ Ely-trap, you also find this hesitation period. A
certain period elapses between the moment when you
�The Movements of Plants.
19
stimulate the leaf and the moment when it closes up.
Further, the change or negative variation in the leaf
current in the plant also takes place in this period. The
analogy, therefore, between the contractile tissue of the
animal or muscle, and the contractile tissue of the plant,
as exhibited in the Dionoea, is as complete in every
particular.
There is one more fact that is more striking still to my
mind. It has been shown that these hairs are sensitive
only to touch. They must be touched by something. The
most interesting point is this : they are most sensitive of all
to a human touch. Professor Burdon Sanderson, on whose
authority I make this interesting statement, could come to
no other conclusion than that the stimulus which causes
the leaf most readily and actively to contract is a human
touch.
What is a human touch ? A human touch is the
result of a combined contraction of a great number of
muscles, of the contractile animal tissue ; and his observa
tion tells us this—that that which most readily causes the
contractile tissue of this plant to be thrown into activity
is a stimulus resulting from the activity of the contractile
tissue—the muscle of an animal. One might almost say
that in this case there is some magnetic sympathy between
the contractile tissue of the animal and the contractile
tissue of the plant.
It would be very unbecoming in me if I concluded this
lecture to-night without referring to the illustrious man of
science to whom we are so much indebted for so many
of the observations and results which I have briefly brought
before your notice to-night,—observations which, apart
from their inherent interest, have a charm of their own, in
asmuch as they formed almost the concluding and crowning
work in the most laborious life of the greatest of modern
naturalists : the work of one whose marvellous powers of
�20
The Movements of Plants.
observation, whose unrivalled genius for the interpretation
of nature, whose devotion to the scientific spirit, whose
fidelity to truth, calmness of judgment, and fairness in
controversy, should make him the master of every student,
of every lover of nature—Charles Darwin.
Printed by Walter Scott, Felling, Nerocastle-on-Tyne.
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contest not ineffectually the critical suffrages of the demo
cratic shilling.
As in the Canterbury Poets issued from the same press,
to which this aims at being a companion series, the Editing
of the volumes will be a special feature. This will be
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A COMPLETE PROSE LIBRARY FOR THE PEOPLE.
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�
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The movements of plants
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Parkyn, Ernest Albert, 1857-
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Collation: 20, [3] p. ; 18 cm.
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Plant Physiology
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NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY
o
REVELATION
ARTHUR B. MOSS.
London:
WATTS & Co., 17, JOHNSON’S COURT, E.C.
Price One Penny.
o
��TWO REVELATIONS.
Foremost among the dogmas of the Christian faith is the
one comprised in the declaration that the infinite and intel
ligent Being, who is alleged to rule over the universe, on
one occasion, if not more, revealed himself to man, to
whom he imparted important information which it would
have been impossible for any of the sons of men, by
their own unaided intelligence, to have acquired. To
question this dogma is to plant the “thin end of the
wedge ” under the very foundation-stone of the Christian
religion. To show the gross stupidity of the alleged Divine
revelation, and the truth and potency of the revelations of
science, is a task of no great novelty, but nevertheless is
one which, in these days of constant and numerous acces
sions from the Christian fold to the ranks of Freethought, it
is at once our highest wisdom and duty, from time to time,
to undertake.
To weaken the influence of the Bible, it is only necessary
to expose the monstrous pretensions put forward on its
behalf; and of these none has had, or continues to have, so
strong a hold of the orthodox Christian mind as the doc
trine that the Bible is a revelation direct from the supreme
ruler of the universe. Let it once be admitted that the
Bible is a human production, valuable only in propor
tion to the truth and utility of its contents, and every
thing in regard to it will be changed. It will then be
divested of its supposed “ sacred characterits fictitious
charm will evaporate, and it will be subjected to the
same critical ordeal as any other book. Unhappily, that
time has not yet arrived. It is still pretended that the
Bible differs from all other books in this respect—that,
whereas all other books are the productions of frail human
�4
TWO REVELATIONS.
beings possessing more or less value according to the ability
and skill of the writers, the Bible is an unique work—the
result of a direct and infallible revelation from Deity.
Now, there are many reasons why we should be
sceptical of all alleged revelations of God to man; and
the notion of an infallible revelation is most illogical
and inconsistent. It need not be disputed that, if God
is infinite in power, he could reveal himself if he felt
so disposed. But, suppose God were to reveal himself,
it is questionable whether man, with finite capacities, could
understand an “ infallible revelation
or, even if he under
stood it, that he could infallibly interpret it to others.
For it must be obvious to the dullest mind that, pre
suming God to be an infinite being, and that he revealed
himself to man, it could not have been as an infinite being
that he so revealed himself, man having no capacity for un
derstanding the infinite, except as the antithesis of the finite.
And if God revealed his will to any individual man,
that man could only understand and interpret it up to the
measure of his capacity; so that, if it left Deity as an in
fallible expression of his will, without the operation of a most
stupendous organic change—viz., that of giving infinite
capacity to a finite being—there would be no guarantee that
it was infallibly understood or perfectly interpreted to others.
Moreover, if God has revealed his will to man, he must have
revealed it in some language ; and, even supposing that it
had been perfectly expressed, it would have been a revela
tion only to those who heard it, or, in a limited sense, to
those who understood the tongue in which it was expressed.
On the other hand, if God, instead of personally revealing
himself, had written his will in the heavens, so that all men
might observe it, still he must have written it there in some
language; and, as we have no evidence that the human
race has ever spoken an universal tongue, there would
always be the liability of its being an unknown tongue to
many, or of its being imperfectly translated, and in a mea
sure misunderstood.
With these strong objections to revelation firmly impressed
on our mind, we may go to the consideration of the alleged
revealed record. And what shall we find ? A mass of state
ments that accord with the careful observations of the
wisest among mankind ? Not so; the very reverse of this.
�TWO REVELATIONS.
5
AVe have nothing but statements that are in direct conflict
with the universal experience of mankind, false in regard to
its science, history, and philosophy, hopelessly confused in
its figures, and bad in respect to its morality.
Of the cosmogony of Genesis it need only be remarked
that it is believed only by those who hold faith to be a higher
faculty than reason, and pretend that it is not unreasonable
to maintain that an infinite and omnipotent Deity could
make the universe “out of nothing.” The most thoughtful
even among Christians now admit that there is a great deal
in the objection of scientists, that we know nothing of the
•origination of substance nor of its destruction, but only of
a long series of changes practically infinite.
The Bible astronomy, its geology, and biology are alike
absurd, being diametrically opposed to the ripest knowledge
■of our best scientists, and in conflict with the daily ex
perience of mankind. No schoolboy in the fourth standard
but now knows the falsity of Biblical astronomy, and
could as easily demonstrate that the sun could not have
been created on the “ fourth day ” as that the doctrine of
the “ blessed Trinity ” and the rule of three are not consis
tent with each other. Recently Mr. Gladstone advanced the
ludicrously indefensible theory that the sun was made on
the first day, but that the inspired writers did not mention
it as being in existence until the fourth—or, in other words,
that the sun existed on the first day, but that it was not
turned on, like a modern sun-burner, to give light to the
earth until the fourth day. As, however, the sun is the great
central attractive power round which our earth with several
other planets revolve, this theory will scarcely bear the test
of serious examination. As to revealed geology, the theo
logian finds it necessary, in order to reconcile the Bible
with modern science, to extend a day of twenty-four hours
into a period of indefinite duration, and, in so doing,
without removing a single difficulty, he only renders the
“ revelation ” the more incredible. How the difficulty, that
grass and herbs could not survive an hour without the sun,
is removed by prolonging that sunless period indefinitely, is
past human understanding, and must be relegated to the
region of blind credulity or religious faith.
A serious attempt to reconcile Genesis with the geologi
cal epochs, like Dr. Kinns’s book, may be regarded in the
�6
TWO REVELATIONS.
light of a huge joke—the same in kind as, and differing only
in a very slight degree from, the attempt of Mr. Pickwick
to demonstrate the vast antiquity of the curious inscrip
tion on the stone discovered by the Pickwickians in one
of their famous excursions. Nor is Mr. Gladstone more
successful than Dr. Kinns when he attempts the same im
possible task. A few facts of geology, skilfully marshalled
by Professor Huxley, pulverise the pious opinion of the
great statesman, that the Biblical account of the cosmogony
is in exact accordance with modern science. If any fact
has been brought to light by the researches of geology, it is
that the order of living creatures has been (i) crustacea,
(2) fishes, (3) reptiles and birds, (4) mammals generally,
and (5) man ; but the Mosaic order is threefold—(1) fishes
and birds, (2) mammals and reptiles, and (3) man. We
have millions and billions of fossil shells in the Cambrian
period, long before the existence of fishes ; then the great
fish period of the Devonian period; then the saurian
period; long afterwards come the archaic animals of the
mammoth family; then those still nearer approaching the
types of animals belonging to the history of man; and
finally man, with his contemporaries. Six periods instead
of three.
In the study of geology we find the flora and fauna of
one period differing greatly from that immediately preced
ing it—an appreciable gulf separating the animals of one
age from those of another. Within six days we have,
according to Moses, all living creatures created, from the
sea-worms and great marine lizards to the vertebrate animals,,
including even man himself.
No line of demarcation showing the great periods of
time that must have elapsed in the evolution of the lower
to the higher forms of life, which all true science now
demands, can be found in Genesis, and for this very obvious
reason : because the writer of Genesis was wholly ignorant
of any such evolution, and the all-wise Deity apparently
neglected to supply the information, when he revealed to
his chosen servant his method and manner of creation.
Equally uusatisfactory is the Bible view of biology.
All the races of the earth are practically alleged to have '
sprung from Noah and his three sons ; but, remembering
the long period over which the history of China and India.
�TWO REVELATIONS.
7
stretches—a history written in monuments of stone and
wood—it is impossible for any intelligent person who has
seriously considered the subject with a view of arriving at
truth to give credence to teaching which makes the human
family less than six thousand years old. How infinitely
trivial is all this when compared with the revelations of
science—revelations which the study of man has extracted
from Nature herself. How insignificant is the Mosaic view
of astronomy, when viewed side by side with modern know
ledge ! From a comparatively small luminary, placed
in the heavens to give light to this earth during the day,
the sun is seen to be a vast body, 880,000 miles in dia
meter. The little twinkling stars are magnified into great
bodies, many in magnitude vaster than our sun, and at
such immense distances that the light of some of them
has not yet reached our earth. In our own system we have
Jupiter, hundreds of times larger than our earth, with four
moons dancing constant attendance upon her ‘ in addition
to which we have Neptune, Uranus, Saturn, and Mars, all
older, and three of them larger, than the earth which we
inhabit.
“ It is difficult,” says Colenso, “ to realise to ourselves the
enormous size and distance from us of the fixed stars, and
the awful solitude in which each separate star and its little
troop of planets exists by itself in the midst of the mighty
universe.” Perhaps the following calculation may assist the
reader’s mind to grasp more distinctly and appreciate more
fully the grandeur of the heavenly host: “ One travelling
at railway speed, day and night, 33^ miles an hour, or 100
miles in 3 hours, would reach the moon in 300 days, and at
the same rate he would reach the sun in 330 years. But, if
he could reach the sun in one single day, it would take 550
years of such travelling to reach the nearest fixed star. And
then it must be remembered that the enormous interval,
on every side of our sun and its little family, is an awful
void of animal and vegetable life. A similar tremendous
void must recur between one star and another, and on all
sides around each separate star—nay, around each separate
mote of nebular star dust.” Now, as far as can be ascertained,
the nearest fixed star is twenty-one billions of miles from our
earth; the next nearest being thirty-seven billions of miles
distant; while Sirius is no less than eighty-two billions of
�8
TWO REVELATIONS.
miles away. Nor is this by any means the most distant, for
the Polar star is calculated to be two hundred and ninetytwo billions of miles distant, and Capella one hundred and
thirty-three billion miles still further off.
To return again to the sun, which is the grand centre and
animating principle of the planetary system, around which
the various planets revolve, and the attractive power by
which they are sustained in their orbits—in short, the source
of light and heat and all that renders the earth fit for habita
tion. In magnitude the sun is so vast that figures fail to
convey any adequate idea of its immensity. As, however,
arithmetical numbers and illustrations are the only means
open to us in which to indicate the vast magnitude of
this body, I may as well say that its diameter is estimated
to be no less than 880,000 miles. Its circumference, or line
going quite round it, is 2,764,600 miles; while its surface con
tains 2,432,800,000,000 of square miles, or, in other words,
twelve thousand times the number of square miles on our
globe. It has been further estimated that its solid contents
comprehend 356,818,739,200,000,000, or three hundred and
fifty-six thousand billion of cubical miles—that is, 1,350,000
times the number of solid miles which our terraqueous globe
contains j so that it would take 1,350,000 globes as large as
our earth to equal the size of the sun. The distance of the
sun from our earth is 95,000,000 of miles. Or, to take a
familiar illustration : a cannon-ball travelling at its utmost
speed is calculated to fly through the air at the rate of 500
miles an hour. Going continuously at this speed, the
cannon-ball would reach the sun in twenty-one years, two
hundred and forty-five days. Or, again, suppose a train to
travel at the rate of four hundred and eighty miles a day,
it would require five hundred and forty-seven years of such
travelling to reach the sun. In view of these facts, is it
not preposterous to suppose that the sun and the stars were
not created until the fourth day ? How could the earth—
nay, the whole of the planets in our system—exist for a
single instant without the sun, the great centre of attraction,
the great heavenly loadstone which holds them in their
respective orbits, and keeps them continuously spinning
along in space ? How could herbs and grass grow before
the existence of the sun ? Moreover, if it took deity six
days to complete the creation of this world—infinitesimally
�TWO REVELATIONS.
9
small as compared with other heavenly bodies—how much
longer would it have required to create the numberless stars
that stud the universe, the magnitude and distance of which
no words can express ?
Geology, instead of showing an earth that has existed
only a few thousand years, makes us acquainted with the
fossil remains of animals that must have existed thousands
of years before Jehovah thought of communicating his
opinion on these subjects to Moses, or any other of the
inspired Bible-makers of the earth. And, while geology
thus opens up for us a vast field for study which inevitably
leads to the revelation of the “ unity of nature,” biology
joins hands to demonstrate the great antiquity of the human
race and the relation of man to the lower animals, tracing
all forms of life down to its lowest condition—the proto
plasmic germ.
By a study of geology we learn to distinguish the epochs
or ages that mark the various changes in the earth’s condi
tion by reference to the rock systems which constitute the
crust of the earth. They are as follows, beginning from the
lowest or first formed :—
1. The Metamorphic system.
2. Laurentian system.
3. Cambrian system.
4. Silurian system.
5. Old Red Sandstone system.
6. Carboniferous system (Devonian).
7. Permian system.
8. P. Triassic system.
9. Oolitic system (Jurassic).
10. Chalk system (Cretaceous).
11. Tertiary system.
12. Superficial Deposits.
Each of these systems, consisting of many beds of rock,
would require ages of long duration for its formation;
yet even the whole lumped together would cover but
a part—and perhaps only a small part—of the earth’s
history. Since the termination of the rock systems
the present tribes of plants and animals have come into
existence; and it will be seen that the stages of develop
ment through which they have passed have been exceedingly
�>
IO
TWO REVELATIONS.
slow—so much so that the evolution of one species into
another is, for the most part, quite imperceptible.
Though the earth has undergone many transformations
since the first geological epoch, no doubt can exist in any
thoughtful mind that, in its general features, it remains the
same. Sea and land, atmosphere and light, rains and winds,,
summer and winter, have remained pretty -well the same.
Fishes, birds, and quadrupeds have lived for seons, and'
preyed upon each other, as they now do. These, though
altering from time to time, the sea and land often changing
positions, remain the component parts of the world as we
know it this day.
Taking the earliest series of stratified rocks—those that
are found above the granite—no life-remains are discover
able in them. This series, having been brought into their
present condition by being subject to continuous burning,
are for that reason called “Igneous Rocks.”
In the Laurentian system, so called from the St.
Lawrence of North America, only the very lowest form of
life-remains have been found : something approaching in
simplicity to a spreading bunch of coral. Sea-weeds,
zoophytes, burrowing worms, and shrimp-like animals are
yielded in the Cambrian. In the Silurian are found the
remains of a number of marine creatures, numerous species
of zoophytes, or animals allied to the “ sea pen,” corals,
crinoids, some species of shell fish, worms, and Crustacea..
Marine plants, seed weeds, and the Trilobite—a curious,
creature, in every respect a well-developed crustacean,
covered with shelly plates, terminating variously behind in a
flexible extremity, and furnished with a headpiece composed
of larger plates ; eyes of a very complicated structure, which,
according to the best fossil anatomists, were fitted with noless than 400 spherical lenses—are also found here.
In the following age we have the Crinoidea and the
Cephalopods.
In the fifth epoch (blocked sandstone) appear a largenumber of now extinct fishes, such as the Placoidians and
the Ganoidians.
The Carboniferous age is chiefly remarkable for the pro
duction of a land vegetation called coal, no new form of
animal life being discernible during this period; but when
we come to the New Red Sandstone we find novel
�TWO REVELATIONS.
II
and superior forms of plant and animal life appear, though
the greatest and most marked departure occurred in the
Oolitic age, when, for the first time, insects are brought upon
the scene, and such extraordinary reptiles as the Saurians, or
lizard family.
Of these saurians that curiously-formed creature known
as the Ichthyosaurus is well worth a passing notice. This
gigantic saurian had the backbone of a fish, the long tail of
a crocodile, the snout of a porpoise, the head of a lizard,
with a large number of strong teeth, large eyes, and the
paddles of a whale, which enabled it to propel itself rapidly
through the water. The remains of these creatures show
that they varied between twenty and thirty feet in length.
Later, we find what are called land or crocodile lizards,
such as the Megalosaurus and the Pterodactyle, or Flying
Dragon.
According to Dr. Buckland, in this age are to be found on
the surface of slabs, of calcareous grit and stonefied slate,.
“ perfectly preserved, petrified castings of marine worms
and, though traces of the footprints of animals may be found
on the surfaces of these rocks, there are no indications during
this period of the existence of man. By reference to these
footprints the existence of birds at this early period of the
world’s history has been pretty well established ; and it is
probable that a gigantic kind of gallinaceous bird, larger even
than the ostrich, waddled about the earth, to the danger,
perhaps, of birds of smaller size.
Rock salt is found in the Triassic age, and on the top of
the Oolite formation are found innumerable beds of what is
familiarly known as limestone in some parts of England and
Germany, several hundreds of feet in thickness. Professor
Huxley and other well-known scientists consider the for
mation of this substance due mainly to the “ siliceous
coverings of animalcules the remains of some of which
animals have been discovered in these beds.
But we must pass rapidly on, and come to the Tertiary
system. In this age we come across great rock for
mations such as the Tripoli, now believed to be composed
exclusively of the solid remains of animalcules, so minute
in structure as to be imperptible to the human eye
without the aid of a microscope. We are now introduced
to several orders of reptiles, such as the Chelonia (tortoises),
�12
TWO REVELATIONS.
Crocodilia and Batrachia (frogs), and birds of the genera,
represented by the owl, woodcock, quail, etc.; while among
the quadrupeds were the Palaeotherium, the Glyptodon (a
sort of armadillo), and the Anoplotheria, in addition to
■certain of the wolf, fox, racoon, doormouse, and squirrel
tribes.
In what is termed the Miocene period of the Ter
tiary formation are found the remains of the gigantic
Dinotherium and of the Hippotherium, an animal allied to
the horse, hogs, cats, and animals, bearing resemblance to
the tiger, the dog, and bear; while the sea was alive with
marine mammalia, such as whales, seals, dolphins, and so
on.
Characterising the Pliocene age, which is again divided
into two periods, we find the remains of Pachydermatous
families, such as the mammoth, rhinoceros, and hippo
potamus, take the place of the extinct thick-skinned
animals before mentioned, and traces appear of the exist
ence of some ruminants, such as oxen, deer, and camels.
It has now been established that the great Mastadon, a
■skeleton of which -was dug out of the earth in America so
recently as 1801, belongs to this period; as does also the
Megatherium, a huge creature, slow in movement, and
larger somewhat than the common ox, with tremendous
toes and claws; while, in the second half of this period, a
number of animals have been discovered similar to species
now existing; and from this period downwards progress
towards the present types of the animal world becomes
more and more manifest.
Now, if the earth has existed only some six thousand years,
and if, as Genesis states, everything was created within six
days, how is it that the remains of animals, of various stages
of growth or development, are to be found thus embedded
in the rocks ? How is it that the Bible makes no mention
of the extraordinary creatures named, the ancestors of the
animals now existing on the earth ? Besides, if we would
study aright the age of the earth, we must not fail to take
into account the important discovery of William Pengelly in
Kent’s Cavern. “ We know,” says this scientist, in his lec
ture on “ The Time that has Elapsed Since the Era of the
Cave Men of Devonshire,” “ that in Kent’s Cavern there
are inscriptions on the granular stalagmite; and we know
�TWO REVELATIONS.
TS
further that the lines of drainage of the cavern have not
changed. Now, if it has taken 250 years to form the twentieth
of an inch in thickness in a part of a cavern where the stalag
mite has been formed with unusual rapidity, judging from
these bosses, you perceive clearly enough that it would take
twenty times that amount of time at that rate to represent
an inch—that is, 5,000 years, and we have fully five feet to
account for in the granular stalagmite only. Now, ladies and
gentlemen, are you prepared for that amount of time ? Five
thousand years for an inch, and sixty inches—sixty times,
five thousand years!”
Dealing with the Palaeontological evidence, the same
authority enumerates the kind of animals found in the
earth. They were “ the cave lion, felis of the size of
the lynx, wild cat, cave hyena, wolf, fox, canis vulpes var
spelseus, canis of the size of isatis, glutton, badger, cave
bear, grizzly bear, brown bear, mammoth, rhinoceros, tichorhinus, horse, urus or wild bull, bison, ‘ irish elk,’ red
deer, reindeer, hare, lagomys spelaeus, water vole, field vole,
bank vole, arvicola gulielmi, beaver, and machairodus
latideus.” Here we have three groups of animals—many
extinct; some, though not extinct, only to be found on the
continent, and others, such as the fox and the hare, still
existing in Great Britain.
Biological research proves beyond the shadow of a doubt
that man’s existence on the earth dates not 5,000, nor 50,000,
but probably hundreds of thousands of years, and Karl
Vogt, the great German scientist, goes as far as saying that
“ there is no longer any doubt that man existed in Europe—
probably the latest peopled part of the world—at a time
when the great southern animals—the elephant, mam
moth, rhinoceros, and hippopotamus—were found there.
Even when no human remains or tools have been found
the acute researches of Steenstrap have found traces of man
by distinguishing the bones, which have been gnawed by
animals from those which show signs of having been split
by man for the sake of the marrow, or otherwise handled
by him” {Anthropological Review, page 219); a state
ment corroborated by Sir Charles Lyell in his “ Anti
quity of Man,” page 204, and also maintained by Professor
Huxley and other leading scientists of the day.
It is of no avail for theologians to declare that the
�14
TWO REVELATIONS.
passages in the first chapter of Genesis are susceptible of
bearing the interpretation that ages elapsed between the crea
tion of the vegetable kingdom and man. The Bible says that
the evening and the morning was “the first day,” and we
refuse to confuse ourselves and others over the meaning of a
verse which ought to be clear to every person possessing
only a grain of common sense. This portion of my subject
I close with a quotation from the late Bishop Colenso, with
which I entirely agree. He says : “ We have thus seen that
in Genesis i., if regarded as statements of historical matter
of fact, are directly at variance with some of the plainest
facts of natural science, as they are now brought home, by
the extension of education, to every village, almost we might
say to every cottage in the land. It is idle for any minister
of religion to attempt to disguise this palpable discordance.
To do this is only to put a stumbling block in the way of
the young—at all events of those of the next generation—
who well instructed themselves in these things, and, having
their eyes open to the real facts of the case, may be
expected either to despise such a teacher as ignorant, or to
suspect him as dishonest, and in either case would be very
little likely to attach much weight to his instructions in
things of highest moment ” (Bishop Colenso, in “ Examina
tion of Pentateuch,” page 324). But, if we turn our atten
tion from the narrow and puerile view of the Bible to the large
and comprehensive view of science, we shall find that the
universe is in reality the one great open book—a revelation
to man just up to the measure of his capability of reading
and understanding it. The diligent and earnest student
of Nature day by day grasps some new fact, and, speculating
upon its value, opens up new mines of thought for future
exploration. It is worthy of remark, too, that Nature is
a book that is open to all peoples; it recognises no
distinction of colour, or nationality, or sex ; it is free to
impart its wonders to all who are prepared to read its ever
unfolding pages. Better far than any revelation contained
in the numerous bibles of the earth ; for these, though con
taining the best guesses at truth that man could make in
past ages of ignorance, could not in their very nature con
tain an infallible record of Nature’s final words to man.
Never for a moment silent, this universe, in its ceaseless
changes, is ever ready to deliver its message to whosoever is
�TWO REVELATIONS.
15
willing to receive it—a message that is exactly suitable to the
progressive nature of man; it is delivered, not all at once,
but in piecemeal; for, as man is incapable of grasping or
understanding all the truths of Nature at once, she is slow
and persistent in the gradual but everlasting unfolding of
her wondrous book.
These natural revelations, moreover, are never finished.
The knowledge of one age becomes the ignorance of the next,
as surely as the heresy of to-day will become the orthodoxy
of to-morrow ; for, with an ever-widening grasp of facts, the
half-truth that was known yesterday will bear a new meaning
in the light of the additional half that has been discovered
to-day. Well, indeed, is it for man that he acquires his
knowledge thus by small, but never-ending, instalments.
Just as a story loses its charm to the reader the moment
the plot is disclosed, or interest wanes as the reader can,
with some degree of certainty, predict the course of events
as they are likely to affect the hero or heroine, so life would
lose its charm, its chief source of happiness, its motive
power, if man could interpret now for all time the meaning
of Nature’s wonders. Fortunately for man, such knowledge
is not possible. Could he live for a thousand years, there
would always be some fresh lessons for him to learn; and,
though there is a limit to his power of grasping the meaning
of Nature’s truths, the facts within his reach are so numerous
that he need never seek in vain. Not by spasmodic effort,
nor by any series of such efforts, can he encompass all truth
that to him is knowable. Only by ceaseless accumulation of
facts, only by a careful classification of those facts, only by
well-reasoned deductions, can man hope to understand their
real significance. As the great mountains of the earth are
but the deposits, through thousands of ages, of small particles
of matter that, from their inherent properties, have thus
been drawn together, so is the knowledge of man : every
moment there is a fresh deposit of facts for him who will
study, and the great accumulations of the past make up the
sum of man’s knowledge to-day. The universe is a great
panorama; it is continually unfolding new pictures to
satisfy our mental cravings, and this unfolding seems likely
to go on forever.
Printed by Watts & Co., 17, Johnsoris Court, London, E.C.
�WORKS BY ARTHUR B. MOSS.
Was Jesus
an
Impostor ? ioopp., cloth is., boards 6d.
A Discussion between two Freethinkers—Agnes Rollo Wilkie
and Arthur B. Moss. The most blasphemous book of the age.
Freethinkers enjoy it ; Jews like it amazingly ; Christians detest it.
It strikes at Jesus the God, demonstrates the hollowness of his pre
tensions, shows that he deceived himself and his followers, and
that through them the world has been deceived ever since. With
Introductory Paper by Mr. Charles Watts.
The Mirror of Freethought. Cloth, is.
Waves of Freethought. 6d.
Man and the Lower Animals, id.
Natural Man. id.
.
. ydl hi
.vf.b-oi
The following Pamphlets are Sold at One Penny each:—
Bible Horrors ; or, Real Blasphemy.
Bible Makers.
Bible Saints.
Moses Versus Darwin.
M't -, - Socrates, Buddha, and Jesus.
Mupw
Fictitious Gods.
The Old Faith and the New.
Bruno and Spinoza.
'
Design and Natural Selection.
. ’ 7. _•
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Health, Wealth, and Happiness.
The Brain and the Soul.
The above twelve Pamphlets will be sent post free on
receipt of Postal Order for One Shilling.
On the ipth of Every Month.
WATTS’ LITERARY GUIDE.
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“ Very useful:'—Vide Press.
Post free One Penny.
�
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Victorian Blogging
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Two revelations
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Moss, Arthur B.
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Text
SOCIALISM
AND THE
WORKER
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Price One Penny.
BY PERMISSION OF THE AUTHOR.
LENDING
LIBRARY
LONDON:
THE MODERN PRESS, 13, PATERNOSTER ROW, E.C.
AND
W. L. ROSENBERG, 36, EAST FOURTH STREET, NEW YORK CITY.
�THE
SOCIAL-DEMOCRATIC. FEDERATION.
OBJECT.
The Establishment of a Free Condition of Society based on the prin
ciple of Political Equality, with Equal Social Rights for all and the
complete Emancipation of Labour.
PROGRAMME.
1. All Officers or Administrators to be elected by Equal Direct Adult
Suffrage, and to be paid by the Community.
2. Legislation by the People, in such wise that no project of Law
shall become legally binding till accepted by the Majority of the People.
3. The Abolition of a Standing Army, and the Establishment of a
National Citizen Force ; the People to decide on Peace or War.
4. All Education, higher no less than elementary, to be Free, Com
pulsory, Secular, and Industrial for all alike.
5. The Administration of Justice to be Free and Gratuitous for all
Members of Society.
6. The Land with all the Mines, Railways and other Means of Tran
sit, to be declared and treated as Collective or Common Property.
7. Ireland and all other parts of the Empire to have Legislative
Independence.
8. The Production of Wealth to be regulated by Society in the com
mon interest of all its Members.
9. The Means of Production, Distribution and Exchange to be
declared and treated as Collective or Common Property.
As measures called for to palliate the evils of our existing society the
Social-Democratic Federation urges for immediate adoption :—
The Compulsory Construction of healthy artizan’s and agricultural
labourers’ dwellings in proportion to the population, such dwellings to
be let at rents to cover the cost of construction and maintenance alone.
Free Compulsory Education for all classes, together with the provision
■of at least one wholesome meal a day in each school.
Eight Hours or less to be the normal working day in all trades.
Cumulative Taxation upon all incomes above a fixed minimum not
•exceeding ^300 a year.
State Appropriation of Railways, with or without compensation.
The establishment of National Banks, which shall absorb all private
institutions that derive a profit from operations in money or credit.
Rapid Extinction of the National Debt.
Nationalisation of the Land, and organisation of agricultural and
industrial.armies under State control on Co-operative principles.
As means for the peaceable attainment of these objects the SocialDemocratic Federation advocates :
Adult
tation.
Suffrage. Annual Parliaments. Proportional Represen
Payment of Members ; and Official Expenses of Election
■out of the Rates. Abolition of the House of Lords and all
Hereditary Authorities.
Disestablishment and Disendowment
of all State Churches.
.Secretary, Social-Democratic Federation, Bridge House, Blackfriars, E.C.
�SOCIALISM AND THE WORKER.
----------- >£<-----------
OCIALISM has been attacked and incriminated at all times,
but never with more animosity than recently. Socialists are
reproached with every kind of wickedness; of the tendency
to do away with property, marriage, family, to pollute every
thing that is sacred ; they have even been accused of arson and murder.
And why not ? If we look at the originators of these incriminations, we
are not the least astonished, for they have to defend privileges and
monopolies, which in reality are in danger, if drawn to the broad day
light and handled by the Socialist. They act according to the old
jesuitic stratagem : invent lies, pollute your enemy in every way you
can ; something will stick. But if we find those reproaches repeated
and echoed even by working men, whose interest are quite different, we
must wonder indeed.
If the workers, however, hate and attack Socialism, it is not a clear
perception of the wickedness of the aims of Socialism, by which their
judgment is guided, but by a dim and vague idea, and it is well known
that spectres are awful things in the dark, for people who believe in
them.
.
But everybody who hates and persecutes other people for their pur
poses and pursuits should be convinced that he is right in doing so.
For, if we hate and persecute persons whose purposes and pursuits are
reasonable and right, we are wrong.
For this reason let us examine the real aims of the Socialists. I think
I know them pretty well, and I promise to tell the truth, and nothing
but the truth about them.
. .
When you have read this to the end, you may persecute the Socialists
with renewed hatred, if you find they are bad ; on the other hand, you
will think favourably of them, if you find their views good and right.
For I am convinced, that you, dear reader, whoever you are, have not
a mind to love the bad and hate the good.
Foremost and above all, it seems to be certain that the Socialists
intend to divide all property. Everybody, who owns anything, must
give up what he owns; this whole mass has to be divided equally among
all the people, and each person may use his part, just as he likes. After
a while, when some have used up their allotted part, and a new dispro
portion of property has arisen, a new division will be made; and so on.
Especially the money and the soil are to be divided.—This is, what some
people say concerning Socialism.
Now honestly, reader, have you ever seen or heard of a man of sound
mind, who really demanded such nonsense ? No, you have not! Such
a demand involves the highest degree of ciaziness. Just reflect, dear
*3
I
�4
reader to whose lot, for instance, should a railroad fall ? Who should
haVe the rails, or a locomotive, or a carriage ? And since everybody
would have a right to demand an equal share, all these things would
nave to be broken and smashed up, and one would get a broken axletree
another the door of a carriage, or perhaps some bolts. Not even lunatics
could recommend such a state of things.
A division of money or soil might possibly be thought of, but money
and soil form only a small part of the wealth of a country. The ready
money forms even a very small part. And if the soil should be divided,
all the new owners would be in need of houses, barns, stables, agricultural
implements of all kinds. Such a distribution of the soil is, therefore
utterly impossible, and the Socialists know well enough that such a
proceeding would benefit nobody. During the great French Revolution
in 1709 something similar was tried; large estates were divided among
poor country people to make them happy. What is the result ? The.
French peasantry, generally, are so poor, that thousands of them live in
dwellings with only a door and no window at all, or with only one small
window at the side of the door. And small farmers are not much better
off m any country, except, perhaps, in the vicinity of large cities. The
small farmers must, as a rule, toil harder than any other person, to make
a living, and a very scanty and poor one in any case. Farming, in our
age, only pays well if done on a large scale, if large tracts of land can be
cultivated with the aid of machinery and the application of all modern
improvements. And this knowledge and doctrine of the Socialists is
strictly opposed to a division of the soil. On the contrary, the Socialists
are of the opinion, that there will be a time when a number of small
farmers will unite to cultivate their farms in common, and divide the
products among themselves, seeing that farming on a small scale cannot
compete with farming on a large scale, just as manufacturing on a small
scale cannot compete with manufacturing on a large scale. Therefore,
what has been said about the intention of the Socialists with respect to
dividing the soil, is an apparent falsehood.
Concerning the division of money I must relate an anecdote invented
to ridicule people who were represented to have such intentions. One
day in 1848, as the story goes, Baron Rothschild took a walk on the
Common at Frankfort on the Main.
Two labourers met nim and
accosted him thus : “ Baron, you are a rich man ; we want to divide
with you.” Baron Rothschild, not the least puzzled, took out his purse
good-humouredly and answered: — “ Certainly 1
We can do that
business on the spot. The account is easily made. I own 40 millions
oi florins; there are 40 millions of Germans. Consequently each
German has to receive one florin ; here is your share
and giving one
florin to each one of the labourers, who looked at their money quite
confused, he walked off smiling.
This teaches that the division of money is but an idle invention.
And with a little brain and thought, everybody must easily come to
the conclusion, that the great number of those who confess to the
principles of Socialism cannot possibly consist of blockheads or rather
lunatics, which they would prove to be, if they demanded such nonsense,.
In Germany 700,000 voters voted for Socialist candidates—can they all be
crazy?
Therefore, there must be something else in Socialism. The number
of Socialists in Germany is constantly growing. Even Prince Bismarck
confesses that. There must be something in it.
�Now if we go to the meetings of the Socialists, if we read their
papers and pamphlets what do we find ?
They do not intend to introduce division of property; on the con
trary, they are for abolishing its division.
This sounds strange, but it is so.
The Socialists are of the opinion, that division of property is flourish
ing in our society at present, and further they are of the opinion that
this division is carried on in a very unjust manner. If you doubt, only
think of our millionaires, and say, whether those fellows did or did not
understand to divide and to appropriate to themselves large sums of
money. Think of those swindling railroads and other companies. How
many honest mechanics, farmers, labourers, have been swindled by
them out of the little sums they had gathered by hard work and saving ?
The Socialists do not claim the honour of being the first to discover
that this kind of distribution is going on everywhere throughout thworld ; they have learned it. Men who belong to their adversaries have
taught them. John Stuart Mill, who was opposed to Socialism, said in
one of his writings : “ As we now see, the produce of labour is in almost
an inverse ratio to the labour—the largest portions to those who have
never worked at all, the next largest to those whose work is almost
nominal, and so in a descending scale, the remuneration dwindling as
the work grows harder and more disagreeable, until the most fatiguing
and exhausting bodily labour cannot count with certainty on being able
to earn even the necessaries of life,”
This sounds really dreadful, but if you look around and consult your
own experience, is it not so ? Certainly, it :’s I
There are people who have a princely income, who plunge from one
pleasure into another—and perhaps they have never in their life done
the least useful thing ; they need not work, they do not work themselves,
but—they draw the proceeds of the work of other people and enjoy
them.
On the other hand, look at him, who “ eats his bread in the sweat of
his brow,” look at the labourer who works for wages. If he is skilful,
industrious and strong, and if he is lucky enough to find employment,
he may even be able to save a little. But the large majority of labourers
cannot even think of that, in spite of all hardships they undergo. When
they have to stop work, they are as poor as when they began it. And
many, many labourers, hard toiling men, are not able to protect them
selves and their families from exposure and hunger. You need not go
far, reader, you will will find them everywhere. Ragged, palefaced,
despairing people will meet your vision, and on enquiring you will learn,
that they were industrious, orderly workers, and that there are thousands,
aye, hundreds of thousands of people living in the same miserable con
dition, in the cities as well as in the country.
Now look at the mechanics ? A few of them may succeed ; they may
be able to reach a state, in which they are safe from sorrow and care for
he necessaries of life. The greater number of mechanics who have a
little shop of their own and work on a small scale, have to battle with
poverty and care. Thousands, hundreds of thousands of mechanics fail
in this battle; they give up their small establishments and turn wage
labourers. One manufacturer on a large scale deprives hundreds of
small mechanics of their independent existence, one large shop or “ co
operative store ” crushes out fifty small shopkeepers. As things stand
�6
to-day, only those will succed in the great struggle for life, in the universal
competition, who command large means, a great amount of capital.
In commerce it is the same; merchants with small means rarely do a
good business, many go bankrupt, merchants with large means grow
richer and richer. It is similar with farmers throughout the civilised
countries of Europe and America. Owners of small farms just eke out a
scanty living and have to work very hard ; many gradually fall off: in
general the peasantry get poorer. There is the usurer, who knows how
to make profit of a poor crop. Very frequently we find that small farms
are bought by owners of large farms to be united with them. Only the
latter understand and are able to farm with profit.
Thus we see how the large class of those who work hard and
assiduously do not make money, do not amass riches—on the contrary,
many of them must suffer from want and care. But now, who creates
these riches which fall to those who never worked, or whose work hardly
deserves the name of work ? Who else, but that self-same working-class.
For industry and work scarcely a living ! Riches for those, who never
or seldom did anything useful ! Do you call that just ? Can you
approve of such a state of things? I know you cannot. No sensible
man can approve of it. And now say what you may against Socialists
—in this point they are right. This state of things cannot and must not
continue. It is wrong, and therefore it must be changed. Socialists do
not object to acquisitions made by honest work, on the contrary, they
try to secure the product of work to the worker himself, and to protect it
from the clutches of those who hitherto have been accustomed, not to
work themselves, but only to draw profit from the work of others, and
who, in doing so, are not content with a small part, but try to take the
lion’s share as it is in the fable.
But do the Socialists not go too far in their zeal ? It would, certainly,
be well and just if it could be accomplished, that those who toil and
work could be liberated from care and want, and those who have been
idle so far could be forced to work also. Birt are not the Socialists
enemies of the property-holders, and is not everybody who owns property
threatened to lose it by the Socialists, should they come into power—
so much so that he would have to face penury and want ? ' Ave they not
Communists ?
These objections and reproaches have been made and are made. Let
us not make light of them, but let us consider them quietly, in order to
judge right and justly.
Before we go on, we must explain two conceptions :
I. What is Communism ?
II. What is property ?
About Communism many lies have been set afloat, especially by people
whose interest it was to do so, viz., by those money-making idlers, so
that most people cannot but connect with the word Communism the idea
of rascality ; communist and scoundrel of the worst kind appear to them
to be synonymous. Therefore it is not an easy matter to speak of Com
munism without running risk to be condemned before one commences.
Many people in such a case will not hear, will not see, will not judge,
t heir verdict is formed. All social prejudices are awakened and called
forth by this expression. For that reason it is very difficult to come to
a quiet understanding about it. But the reader, who has followed us so
far, will follow us farther, not blindfolded, but using good common sense.
�7
If we open our eyes and look around us, we find many beneficent and
useful institutions brought forth by many or by the whole people in
common. In one place associations are formed, for instance, to save and
shelter shipwrecked persons; at another place the community erect a
school, or the State, the commonwealth, builds a harbour or a canal. In
ordinary life everybody cares for himself, but in such cases as those
just mentioned people unite for advancing a common, social purpose. Ex
perience teaches that, in doing so, they do admirably well; every one of
them who will reflect a little must confess that his own welfare is greatly
advanced by such institutions of common usefulness. What would people
be without common roads, common schools, etc., that is, such as are built
and instituted at the cost of the community for common use ? We should be
in a terrible situation, if all at once the different insurance companies
were to cease to exist, whose object is, to transfer a calamity, by which a
person might be struck heavily or perhaps be ruined, from his shoulders
to the shoulders of many. If I chose, I could mention here a thousand
other things, but the above named common institutions will be sufficient4
Now all these institutions are nothing but Communism. For Cowwwmswa i?
nothing but the principle of common interests of society. In every-day life
everybody looks out for his own interest, even at the cost of his fellow
men ; here cold, ugly egoism is dominant. The large cotton mills have
ruined thousands and thousands of weavers ; but who cares for hundreds
of honest, industrious, happy people, who get ruined by one mill ? Who
cares how many honest shoemakers are deprived of a living by the large
shoe manufacturers ? What does the usurer care for the victims of his
avarice ? What do the speculating swindlers care for the fate of the
shareholders, after their hard-earned savings are gone ? Nobody ever
thought of caring for such things, and it is my firm belief that a business
man in our days who would show any consideration for the welfare of
his fellowmen in his transactions would be certain to become a laughing
stock. Egoism rules supreme. Everybody thinks of his own welfare,
and does not care whether by doing so he destroys the welfare of others.
“What business have I to care for others if I am comfortable.” In
spite of the prevalence of Egoism, the common interest of mankind is
irrepressibly gaining ground. More and more people unite to culti
vate it, more and more associations are formed, the activity of the State
and community is extending its influence over more and more objects.
Who would have thought in former times of all the different associations
which are formed to-day to advance any number of common interests of
every description ? AVho held a.n idea in former years, that whole
countries would be cut in all directions by railroads, that telegraphs
would communicate news to the remotest parts of the world in an
instant ? Who could predict the admirable development of our postal
system ? Who thought of waterworks or of gas ? Who had an idea of
the modern arrangement of the fire brigades ? The root of all these
is Communism. They represent the victory of common interests over
hideous Egoism.
.
.
To turn institutions of common interest to the use of ail, is tiie tendency
of the age, and however people may curse at Communism, they are
bent to obey its mandates. Everywhere common interests press their
claims, and Communism, proudly elevating its head, marches on trium
phantly with all conditions of human life in its attendance.
He who declares himself an enemy of Communism declares himself
�8
nn enemy of common interest, an enemy of society and mankind ! Who
ever wishes to annihilate Communism will have to destroy the common
roads, the schools, the churches, he will have to destroy the public
gardens and parks, he will have to abolish the public baths,"the theatres,
she waterworks, all the public buildings, for instance, town halls, courts,
-ill the hospitals, the alms-houses, he will have to destroy the railroads’
She telegraphs, the post-office ! For all these belong to Communism.
Communism cannot be annihilated, it has its origin and root in human
nature like egoism. Everybody who will open his eyes must see that in
the present time we are under full sail to land in its sheltering harbour.
Sheltering ? Yes, sheltering ! Sheltering for the great majority of man
kind, for whom a better time will come, must come, when the common
interest, the interest of all, will be the rule governing all our social con
ditions, when a barrier will be erected against egoism by the regard for
the common or public welfare. If it happens nowadays that rich specu
lators make people in hard times pay exorbitant prices, and take advan
tage of a common calamity to double their wealth, or if railway
shareholders make their own rates for freight, injuring by high prices
producers as well as consumers in order to gain a large dividend ; or if
manufacturers prefer running short time to selling at lower prices—these
proceedings are considered “ all right,” for everybody can do with his own
as he chooses, But everybody must see that such egoism is opposed to
the common interest; and there will be a time when people will know
how to protect the common interest against such egGism. When that
time has come it will be better for all; all will enjoy life, not only those
who do so now at the cost of their fellow-beings.
If you define Communism in this way, some of my readers will say, we
do not object to it, quite on the contrary, we must confess to belong to
the Communists ourselves. But this is not what people generally under
stand by the word “ Communism..” We were to consider the Communism
which the Socialists want to introduce, the Communism with regard to
property. We admit that they do not intend to divide, but do they not
intend to abolish property ? That is what we oppose, otherwise we
would not object to it.
What is property ? “ To be sure that, what a person owns, possesses! ”
Well 1 But, now tell me, are you certain that the Socialists are, or ever
were, opposed to what Peter or Paul owns ? Can you show me a
sentence or passage from any of the writings or pamphlets of Socialists
which justifies the supposition, that they intend to attack the property
of any person ?
You cannot, because such an idea never entered the head of a Socialist.
I should not wonder if you yourself have not thought sometimes con
sidering the means and ways by which many amass their riches, it
would be only just and right to take that illgotten wealth from the
rascally owner, but it is a firm principle of Socialism, never to mingle
with personal property in order to investigate its origin, or to arrange it
in a different way. Never and nowhere 1 And whoever asserts to the
contrary, either does not know the principles of Socialism or willingly
and knowingly asserts an untruth. The Socialists deem an investigation
into the origin of an acknowledged personal property an unnecessary
trouble. They do not envy the Duke of Westminster or Sir Thomas
Brassey their wealth. Although they perceive very well the constant
changes with regard to property, although they investigate and are
�<1
■acquainted with the causes producing those changes, although they are
well aware that fraud and meanness and violence in a great many in
stances are among those causes; they forbear to investigate how much
these causes, how much others, have influenced the state of property of
this or that single person. They consider the personal property an
accomplished fact, and respect it; so much so, that they consider
stealing a crime. Every time Revolution was victorious in Paris, bills
were seen at the street corners threatening death to thieves. A remark
able fact is that Baron Rothschild fled suddenly from Paris as soon as
these bills were posted. At Lyons during an insurrection in 1832, a
man who had appropriated another man’s property was shot by a
labourer in command. During the reign of the Commune of 1871,
Paris had no thieves, no prostitutes.
On the other hand, the right of the owner is not always respected in
our time, but they are not Socialists who violate the sanctity of property
in these cases, although it must be confessed that in many instances an
abrogation of the right of a property-holder becomes necessary. Socialists
cannot be reproached with ever having condemned houses or tracts of
land for the purpose of building a street or opening a railroad. They
certainly are not Socialists who seize and sell houses or lots at auction for
unpaid taxes. Nor will you find Socialists who connive at those shame
fully unjust appropriations of the property of others, which however go
on in a lawful form.
One thing, however, calls forth all the energy of the Socialists, and
they will try with all their might to remedy it. I have stated already,
they do not care whether a person owns hundreds of thousands or
millions of pounds, whether that person makes use of his money one way
or the other, whether he spends it wisely or foolishly. He may spend
his own as he chooses. But—these sums of money are not used simply
to be spent, but to bring interest, to increase, if possible, the wealth of
the possessor. Does he himself want to work, to do something useful ?
Far from it. His money works for him, his money makes money, as the
saying is; or in plain English, his money is the channel through which
the earnings of other, industrious people flow into his pockets. Socialists
call all kinds of property in this respect “ capital,” this expression com
prising all means for production : and- because one class of the people
possess, by their wealth, these means—the capital—another, and by far
the largest class have only their physical or mental strength and skill
for labour, hence the capital becomes a means for enslaving workers, forcing them
to give up the greater part of their produce to him who owns the capital.
They themselves obtain hardly enough to support themselves and their
families, while the capitalists enjoy life and get richer without working
at all. This is the point. Dead property deprives living work of its
fruits. Now since work should, by rights, own what it produces, as its
sole and legitimate earning, dead property becomes the bitter enemy of
working life.
Hence the struggle of labour with capital.
Returning to the question ; What is property ? the answer given above
appears unsatisfactory; we must add another question; to whom justly
belongs what the working part of the human race produces.
The answer to this question is of the greatest importance. Now it is
the capital which appropriates the greater part of it, leaving to the
workers, who form by far the greater number, only so much of it, that
�IO
they may keep alive; they are treated like bees, they are robbed of the
honey they make. This class is excluded from enjoying the blessings of
civilisation, the greater part of their product is taken by the capital.
What right has the owner of a beehive to rob the bees of the fruit of
their industry and labour ? They are his property, his is the might.
What right has capital to rob the working class of the greater part of
the fruit of their industry and labour ? The wage-labourers, the
mechanics, the farm hands, are they the property of the capitalist ? Are
they his slaves ?
As things stand to-day—they are 1 Might is right and by the title of
such right the slaveowner considers the fruit of the work of his slaves
his property; by this right, in former times, the feudal landowner
made his serfs work for his employment and benefit. Slavery is injustice,
serfdom is injustice, so the right which capital claims to the work of the
worker is injustice. I would not like to be misunderstood here. As far
as anything is the personal property of a person, he may enjoy it, as he
chooses; nobody has a right to interfere. But as soon as he tries to use
this property to enslave other people, he steps over his domain and must
be checked. For, I think, it is acknowledged among civilised people,
that nobody has a right of ownership over his fellowmen. Slavery has
been abolished, serfdom has been abolished, so the power which capital
exercises now, will be abolished ; its place will be occupied by the natural
and sacred right of the worker to the proceeds of his work.
But—is not the capital as necessary as the labour ? Can labour pro
duce anything without capital ? There must be raw material, there must
be tools, there must be machines, there must be workshops, warehouses
and so forth ; there must be soil to be tilled, &c. What can mere labour
do without all these ? True! But labour existed before capital, and
made the tools, workshops, &c. Is it necessary that capital, now the
foundation of successful labour, and which has been produced by labour,
be owned by a few individuals ? Has this minority a right to continue
to take the best part of what labour produces ?
The Socialists take the side of Labour. They maintain that it is
every body's duty to work, unless he be sick or crippled. They maintain
that whoever is able to work and is not willing to do it, has no right to
enjoy the fruits of the industry and labour of others.
If capitalists attempt to justify their way of making profit, by saying
that they have to run risks sometimes, that a part of their property
might occasionally.be lost, we answer, that labour has nothing to do with
that. The real cause of it is the competition among the employers, the
custom to produce at random, without investigating whether what is
produced is really wanted. For the class of capitalists there is no risk,
because its wealth increases every day. But there is a great risk for the
working-class. When business is slack, when wages go down, when
many workers are out of employment,—when in consequence of this
mechanics, grocers, and even farmers suffer, the condition of the work
ing part of the people is pitiable and many suffer. The newspapers tell
about that. Have they not had startling accounts of people starving to
death in our great cities ? Look at the local columns of the daily papers
and it is exceptional if there is no account of some family or other being
poverty-stricken, of people driven to despair, driven to commit suicide
by want. And all this in cities that have stores and warehouses crowded
with goods ! Is this no risk ?
�11
But how could this state, of things be changed ?
This, certainly, cannot be done of a sudden. There is a natural pro
cess of development in this, as in all changes that history has recorded
so far. According to the reasoning of the Socialists, this development
will be as follows.
Some time ago the middle-class formed the firm and solid foundation
of society and State. Machinery was invented and a change occurred.
Manufacturing, and even farming to a certain extent, were conducted on
a large scale; the middle-class people were pressed down into a class of
wage-labourers, and were employed in large numbers by the manufac
turers or employers. More and more this middle-class cease to be pro
perty-holders ; it is getting 'more and more difficult for the mechanics
and small farmers to hold their ground ; thus the middle-class is con
stantly decreasing, the class of wage-labourers increasing, until there
will be only two classes of people—rich and poor. In this progress
the number of rich people is diminishing, wealth becoming concen
trated in the hands of comparatively few persons, who are getting
enormously rich.
But this process must soon have its limit. There will be a time, when
the large mass of the working-people will feel its consequences unbear
able, will abolish it. That will be the time, when Communism will enter
into its rights. Labour will then be organised according to a certain
reasonable plan, and since, for that purpose, the use of the existing
capital, comprising soil, houses, railways, shipping, manufactories,
machines, &c., will be necessary, those comparatively few possessors of
all the wealth of the nations will have to be expropriated. Perhaps
they then will consent themselves to such a measure and give up every
thing necessary for production of their own accord, honoured and
praised for their patriotism and humanity, and remunerated deservedly;
perhaps they will use their ample means to resist the common demand,
and will perish, overwhelmed by the newly formed organisation of the
State. As I hinted before, in the new order of things all branches of
labour will be organised, similar to the arrangements we see to-day in
large factories, large estates, or institutions of the Government. Un
necessary work will be avoided and the reward for work done will be
greater. Labour will not be wasted in making luxuries for the idle, but
be usefully employed in making the necessaries of life for other workers.
It will be everybody’s duty to work, hence everybody will have ample
leisure for recreation and mental development. All will strive to amelio
rate the conditions of the community they belong to ; for, by doing so,
everybody will improve his own private situation.
The basis of this state of things will be abolition of private property
of individuals in such things as are necessary for production and trans
portation, such as factories, machines, railroads, &c., or which have
been created for instruction and amusement, such as schools, colleges,
museums, parks, &c.
Personal property will be what is necessary
or useful for private life. These are the outlines of a picture of future
times. Nobody is able to state whether the development will go on
exactly in the way we sketch out; but that does not matter, if only the
underlying idea of Communism is right. When Stephenson, more than
fifty years ago, built the first railroad, he certainly did not plan all the
locomotives, rails, signals, stations, etc., the way we find them to-day,
but his idea was right, and it conquered the world. Thus the idea of
�12
Socialism will conquer the world, for this idea is nothing but the real,
well understood interest of mankind. It is injustice, that a large majority,
to-day must work hard and suffer want, in order to procure an affluence of enjoyment
for an minority of people, who do not work. And who would deny, that, if it
is everybody s duty to work, if the production of unnecessary, nay even
injurious articles is abolished, if production is organised m conformity
with the real wants and pleasures of mankind—who would deny, that
■the standard of life of the whole human race might be raised infinitely
above its present grade, that the great mass of human beings might enter
the sphere of a life worthy of a human being ; from which they have been
excluded so far ?
Let me point out to you an example of organised labour in one branch,
to show the benefit of such an arrangement. How would it be possible
to send a letter to any place in the United Kingdom for a penny, a post
card for a half-penny, a letter to America for 2-J-d., if the postmasters in
the different parts of the world were private like the merchants and
manufacturers of to-day, if we had not the communistic arrangement of the
post ? Formerly the post was also a private business in nearly all the
•countries of Europe, like our railroads, and the owners of this institution
derived a princely income from it, although its use was very limited.
And well arranged, as our post-office may be.called, it might be better
yet, and will be more convenient in time.
Similar benefits would arise from all branches of human activity.
Look at our railroads—might they not be the property of the community
at large, as.well as the high roads, instead of being a monopoly in the
hands of private persons, whose sole object is to enrich themselves at the
cost of their fellow-citizens? If so, it has been proved that you could
go to any part of these islands with a shilling ticket, just as a letter goes
now, by post, with a penny stamp. In this manner one branch after
the other will be organised according to the ideas of communism, perhaps
by classes of people who are far from confessing to the principles of
Socialism, of Communism, by classes who are inimical to it—because
they do not understand it—and are narrow-minded enough to shut their
ears and their eyes to everything that does not tend to their private
interest.
This is not yet enough. All means for transportation, such as ships, etc.,
must come into the hands of the community at large ; so must all means
for production. This demand of Socialism has been the cause for accusing
them of hostility to property, even to the property of those who own but
a little. But who is it actually who drive the owner of small means
from his house, from his soil? Is it the Socialist? It is the large
capitalist, the large landowner ! As the magnet attracts iron filings, so
large capital attracts the small sums round it. And the same capitalists
who in all directions seize what they can get, try to persuade the small
•owners to beware of Socialism, this being ready to tear their property
from them. What a shameful falsehood ! Socialism only teaches the
way in which in a future time people will try to re-establish justice and
a more equal condition of life for the whole people while the owners of
small property are being robbed of the little they own, not by Socislists
—they have no power to do so, nor the desire for doing it—but by the
rich capitalists.
And this way is well-organised labour !
This certainly includes expropriation of those who have expropriated
�*3
he mass of the people, restitution of all means of production to those
who made them. Socialism is the true and only friend of the man of
small means, for it is the party of the working people. Large property
is the natural enemy of small property, as long as it has not been able to.
seize and devour it.
Moreover, Socialism, far from intending to abolish any property to-day
or to-morrow, only predicts that there will be a time, not suddenly pro
voked, but brought on by historical development, when the working
people will insist upon their right to the product of their own work, against
the privilege which property enjoys with regard to the work of others.
The conception, of. “ property of capital" will be transformed gradually
into the conception of “property of work."
Nowhere, you will perceive, abolition of property is thought of by
Socialists, and nobody I trust, will object to the change just mentioned.
The development of mankind to greater perfection never was and never
will be arrested by the prevailing laws concerning property, as for instance,
it was not arrested, when humanity demanded abolition of slavery, by
the pretended divine right of the slave owners. And if such rights and
laws demand that humanity stop its progress, such demand is madness.
Laws and rights concerning property are subjected to constant changes,
when such changes are in the interest of progress. But even in our
better institutions injustice is ruling, and the change just spoken of will
abolish that injustice and lead mankind to a higher state of perfection.
At the bottom of our institutions there is a remnant of slavery; as soon
as capital shall cease to govern, wage-labour and the rest of slavery will
be abolished.
Freedom and equality will then be no longer empty and cheap phrases,
but will have a meaning ; when all men are really free and equal, they
will honour and advance one another. The working man will then no
longer be deprived of the fruit of his work, his property, and everybody
who will work will be able to spend a good deal more in food, clothing,
lodging, recreation, pleasure and instruction than he can spend at
present.
If the Socialists had nothing to offer to the suffering people but the
consolation that Communism will bring help at some future time, when
the conditions for life, nearly unbearable now, will have become quite so, ■
this consolation would be poor. Long enough a future state of bliss has
been held out to suffering mankind, in which they would be rewarded for
all the wants and sufferings and pains of this world, and now most people
have lost confidence in such empty promises. They demand an ameliora
tion, not words, not promises, but facts. They do not want to expect
with resignation what may come after death, they demand a change of
their unfortunate situation while living on earth.
The interests of all workers are the same ! This is best shown by the fact
that in many strikes working shopkeepers are in favour of the wage
labourers. Low wages are unfavourable to the farmer as well as to the
mechanic, for when wages are low, the struggle for economical indepen
dence is more difficult; large capital increases, and at the expense of
small property. If working people would only learn to comprehend
the solidarity of their interest !
As it is with the increase of wages, so it is with the decrease of workmg-hours. Eight hours work a day is judged sufficient by physicians.
A person that has worked properly eight hours a day, ought to have
�*4
done his duty and has a right to request some hours for recreation, for
instruction, and for his family. Those who are the loudest in complaining
of the laziness of the working men, would soon make wry faces if they
were compelled to work only six hours a day. This decreasing the
working-hours will better the condition of the whole working-class.
Everybody can easily see that. Even in the country it could be done,
although there such a shortening will meet with the greatest objections,
and it will de done. What a great benefit will be achieved by this mea
sure alone! Whole armies of paupers, tramps, etc., will find useful em
ployment, they will disappear and with them a great deal of mischief
and crime.
Now if the wage-labourers of the cities and manufacturing places will
be ready to lead the van in the struggle for the interest of labour, the
rest of the whole working-class have no right to put themselves in the
position of idle, indifferent, or even grudging and hostile spectators. On
the contrary, it is the duty of the whole working-class to participate in
this struggle, for this war is carried on in the interest of all workers, and
the wage-labourers who have taken up the gauntlet are the Pioneers for
the human race.
But in order to carry on this war successfully, the workers must be
organised. Singly and isolated they are powerless; if all would unite
for the same purpose, they would be a formidable power, which nothing
could resist. You may easily break many single matches, a whole bundle
of them tied together, you would try in vain to break.
With regard to this, the Socialists have the gratification of seeing, that
their endeavours have not been fruitless. In Germany Socialism already
forms a respectable power, which commences to puzzle even the great
Bismark. They have been able to elect twenty-four representatives into
the Parliament of the German Empire, who, by their untiring activity, bv
the speeches they have delivered, have opened the eyes of hundreds of
thousands of people in Germany. And who would venture to pretend
that those men strove for something that was bad, that they betrayed
the interests of their constituents ? But not only in the parliament, in a
great many municipal assemblies also we find members belonging to the
working-class or representing its interests.
And all this has been accomplished in a few’ years: It is only 24 years
since the labour party unfurled its banner there. And what has been
tried and done during those 22 years to suppress this labour movement!
It has been ridiculed, scorned, incriminated. Many of its prominent
leaders have been put into prison. Many were deprived of their offices
and situations, of their customers. In spite of all this it grew and
thrived. In France, Belgium, Holland, Denmark, Austria, Russia,
Italy, Spain, and now in England—everywhere throughout the civilised
world Socialism has taken root. Everywhere it has begun the struggle
against capital, monopoly, and classrule, and its victory is assured.
Concerning Socialism there might be said, what was said in olden times
about Christianity: If it is bad, it will die of its own badness ; if it is
good, it will conquer the world, in spite of all persecutions !
And Socialism will conquer the world, its principles will carry the whole
human race to a higher state of perfection.
Reader, you may judge for yourself and decide either in favour of or
against Socialism. If you think the aims and endeavours of the Socialists
deserve your hatred, try to crush them ; if on the contrary, you are con-
�*5
vinced that they are good, that the Socialists endeavour to promote the
happiness and welfare of mankind, join them I And if you do not like
to act publicly, help them secretly. Try to propagate their principles
among your acquaintances, explaining them in your intercourse, destroy
ing the falsehoods brought against them. Tell them that Socialists
form the true and only party of the working people. And if you are a
capitalist yourself, reflect how much nobler it is to help to promote the
welfare of the many, than to serve only your own interest, ugly and
hideous Egoism.
All who are interested, in Socialism
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The Australian Labour Market: Startling
Disclosures.
By John Norton, New South Wales
Labour Delegate. Royal 8vo., Price id.
The Industrial Problem Solved. By W. B.
Robertson.
Royal 8vo., Price id.
The Nationalisation of Railways.
F. Keddell. Reprinted from Justice and revised.
8vo., price id.
By
Roval
Mining Rates and Royalties. By J. Morrison
Davidson (Author of “ New Book of Kings,” &c.)
By the REV. MERCER DAVIES, M.A.
The Bishops and their Wealth. Price 2cl.
The Bishops and their Religion. Price id.
The Facts about the Unemployed.
One of the Middle Class.
By
Royal 8vo., price id.
An appeal and a warning issued in October, 1886, showing the causes of
the present distress, how they can be removed, what steps have already
been taken, and what are the consequences of continued indifference to
hunger and despair.
Also the following Leaflets for Distribution.
The Use of a Vote.
Royal 8-vo. Handbill.
Price 2s. per 500, post free.
Work for all, Overwork for none. Royal
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2s. per 500, post free.
�
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Socialism and the worker
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Edition: New ed.
Place of publication: London; New York City
Collation: 15, [1] p. ; 23 cm.
Notes: Stamp on title page: 'South Place Chapel Finsbury, Lending Library'. Publisher's list on preliminary pages unnumbered pages at the end. Information on the Social-Democratic Federation on title page verso.
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Socialism
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’NATIONAL SECULAR' SOCIETY
THE
NATURAL HISTORY OF INSTINCT.
By G. J. ROMANES, Esq., F.R.S.
------------*-----------
-
NSTINCT is a wide subject, presenting many
different sides of interest. To the naturalist
who studies the forms and habits of animals,
the phenomena of instinct are of interest
on their own account. Again, to the psychologist, who studies the phenomena of mind, the facts of
instinct are of interest as proving the possibility of know
ledge inborn or antecedent to individual experience.
Lastly, to the philosopher, who studies the mutual relation
of things in general, the facts of instinct are of interest
just because they prove the possibility of such inborn or
innate knowledge, and therefore because these facts bear
upon any theory of knowledge in general which his other
studies may lead him to form. This evening I propose
to restrict the subject of the lecture to the first of these
sides of interest, or the interest instinct presents to the
naturalist: the interest which the phenomena of instinct
present on their own account; therefore I have termed
the subject of the lecture “The Natural History of
�2
The Natural History of Instinct.
Instinct.” I shall endeavour to take a bird’s-eye view,
as it were, of all the instincts known to us, and I shall
select for special description those instances of animal in
stinct which appear to me most remarkable, or otherwise
most deserving of our attention. You wifi, then, under
stand that I shall have nothing to do with either the
psychology or the philosophy of instinct. Nevertheless,
it seems desirable at the outset that we should so far go
into the psychology of the subject as to understand exactly
what it is that we mean by instinct; because within the
limits of the English language there is perhaps no term
which has been used in a greater variety of meanings. In
ordinary conversation and in general literature we find in
stinct used as a term to name all the mental qualities of
animals taken collectively, to distinguish them from the
mental qualities of man, which are termed rational. This
popular classification, however, will not do, because there
is now no doubt in the mind of any competent naturalist
that the mind of an animal is constructed on the same
pattern as the mind of a man, the difference between the
two consisting merely in the difference of relative degree
in which instinctive faculties predominate in the animal
and the rational faculties in the man. What, then, shall
we use as a scientific definition of instinct 1 After a great
deal of consideration, I have myself put forward such a
definition. In the first place, instinctive actions are mani
festly adaptive actions. But not only are they adaptive:
they are likewise consciously adaptive; for if they were
not consciously adaptive, we should not be able to dis
tinguish between them and such adaptive actions as are
merely vital—such, for example, as the beating of our
�The Natural History of Instinct.
3
hearts. Instinctive action, therefore, differs from vital action
in not only being adaptive, but in being likewise consciously
adaptive. Again, instinctive action depends upon knowledge
which, as I have said, is inborn or innate, anterior to- in
dividual experience, and in this respect, you will perceive,
differing from reason, which always depends upon knowledge
gained by individual experience. Again, the knowledge
on which instinctive action depends is knowledge which
may not be knowledge of the relation between the means
employed and the ends attained. Innate, inborn knowledge
may not involve any rational acquaintance with the re
lation between the means employed and the ends attained.
And, lastly, instinctive actions are actions which are
performed by all individuals of the same species when placed
in similar circumstances. To gather up all the points in
this definition, therefore, we may say that instinct is a
term which is used to designate all those faculties of mind
that are concerned in conscious and adaptive actions
antecedent to individual experience, without necessary
knowledge of the relation between the means employed and
the ends attained, but similarly performed under similar
and frequently-recurring circumstances by all individuals
of the same species.
Now, I have taken the trouble to go into this definition,
partly for the sake of circumscribing the area which the pre
sent lecture is to cover, but partly, also, because my attention
has just been drawn to a very friendly article—friendly in
tone, and intelligent in its spirit—which appeared in the
Newcastle Daily Chronicle, of November 21st, 1885. The
writer of that article, after quoting this definition from
myself (which I have cut out of the newspaper)—quoted
�4
The Natural History of Instinct,
from a work of mine already published—remarks that if
I were in the position of a political candidate, instead of a
scientific lecturer, he would bother me with a few questions
on the subject of that definition. Well, I do not wish to
take any unfair advantage of my position as a scientific
lecturer, and therefore I will answer the question which he
has so courteously put. After quoting this definition, he
frames his question upon the concluding portion of it.
He asks, if it be true that actions called instinctive are
those *• similarly performed under similar and frequentlyrecurring circumstances by all the individuals of the same
species, ’ how do I account for the fact that in the case of
almost every instinct we meet with individual exceptions 1
My answer is, that in all these cases which he gives as
examples, and in all such cases it is possible to give as
examples, the individual exceptions are of the nature of im
perfections of animal instinct. But, obviously, if the instinct
is imperfect, it does not fall within my category of instinct.
It does not fall within my definition of instinct, simply
because as an instinct it is imperfect j or in other words, as
far as it is imperfect in individual cases, so far does it fail of
being an instinct, and so far does it fail to be covered by my
definition of instinct. The work of my own, from which
he quotes this definition, is a work on “ Animal Intel
ligence, and the object of that work is expressly stated to
be that of rendering only the natural history of instincts
without going in for the psychology of the subject. That
is to say, it merely states the facts of animal instinct,
without entering at all into any theory, either of origin,
correlation, or anything else of the kind. But that work
was only antecedent to another which has since been
�The Natural History of Instinct.
5
published, and which is called, “ Mental Evolution in
Animals.” In that work I have gone fully into the whole
psychology and philosophy of instinct, and if my kindly
critic will do me the honour of turning to the pages of
that work I fancy he will find, not only his own question,
but also every other question that it is possible to suggest
in the way of difficulty, discussed with as much elaboration
as I think he is likely to care to pursue. I mention this
not only for his benefit, but also because I hope that any
of you who may not have seen that work, may likewise
do me the honour of getting it out of some of your circu
lating libraries; and I mention this, not because the work
happens to be written by myself, but simply because it is
the only work hitherto published which deals with the
whole philosophy of instinct from an evolutionary point
of view.
Trusting I have now made clear what it is I mean by
instinct, I will devote the rest of the lecture to selecting
those instances of the special display of instinct in the
animal kingdom which, as I have said, appear to me the
most remarkable. For this purpose I think it will be con
venient to further restrict myself, looking to the great
abundance of the materials, to those classes of animals in
which the phenomena of instinct occur with greatest richness
and abundance. I mean the invertebrate animals.
Taking first the case of larvae, or insects which have not
yet attained their perfect development—such, for instance,
as caterpillars—the instincts manifested by larvae are of
interest because they often display higher elaboration of
instinctive mechanism than occurs in the perfect condition
of the insect. There is a kind of larvae called the caddis2
�6
The Natural History of Instinct.
worm, which lives at the bottom of fresh water streams.
At the bottom of fresh water streams it constructs for
itself a tubular shell, fitting close to its worm-like body.
This tubular or cylindrical shell is constructed of a large
number of small particles of gravel, sand, bits of leaf, and
so forth, all glued together by a secretion from the animal’s
body. Now, it has been quite recently discovered by a
very competent observer, Mr. W. MacLachlan, F.R.S., and
principal entomologist in this country, that when the
caddis-worm finds its tubular shell becoming too heavy, so
that it has a difficulty in dragging it about the bottom of
the stream, it will glue into the structure small splinters of
wood, in order to cause the tubular dwelling to have less
specific gravity, to make it lighter, and therefore more easy
for the worm to drag about the bottom of the stream. On
the other hand, if the worm finds it has placed too much
wood in the structure, so that it is liable to the catastrophe
of floating to the surface, it will then search about for little
masses of sand or pebble, wherewith to increase the specific
gravity of its dwelling, and so adjust it to the specific
gravity of the water. There is a kind of caterpillar,
eight or ten of which live in company inside the fruit of
pomegranate. They eat out the fruit of the pomegranate
by degrees, and as they do so, the pomegranate is apt to
wither; when it withers, the stalk of the pomegranate is
apt to break, and allow the pomegranate to drop. Now, it
has been observed that in order to prevent this possible
catastrophe—it is not a necessary catastrophe, it does not
always happen that the pomegranate drops—these cater
pillars, before they begin to eat out the inside of the fruit,
carefully make a web, extending from the fruit to the
�The Natural History of Instinct.
7
branch, so as to act as a stalk in the event of the
natural stalk withering and allowing the fruit to drop,
were it not for the artificial stalk supplied by
the web. This foresight is very remarkable. There
is in the south of France, and also on the north coast
of Africa, a species of caterpillar which afterwards turns
into the Bombyx moth. The instincts presented by this
species of caterpillars are highly remarkable. In the
first place, they are gregarious. Colonies of some five
hundred or one thousand caterpillars live on the same tree.
They are pretty large, about as long as one’s little finger.
When they have eaten bare the leaves upon one tree, they
migrate to another, and they do this in what we may
call military order. That is to say, one caterpillar acts as
leader, and all the others follow him in Indian file, one
behind the other. So they march off, a long line of cater
pillars, yards in length. The head of caterpillar No. 2
touches the tail of caterpillar No. 1, and the tail of cater
pillar No. 2 touches the head of caterpillar No. 3, and so
forth, all the way down the line. Now, I had myself an
opportunity of observing these caterpillars, and found that
if I knocked out any one of the series, so as to cause an
interruption in this continuous line, the caterpillar in front
of the interruption immediately stopped, and began to wag
his head. Then the caterpillar in front of him likewise
stopped, and began to wag his head, and so on until all the
caterpillars in front of the point of interruption were at a
standstill, and all wagging their heads. Meanwhile, the
caterpillar behind the point of interruption continued his
march, and all the train behind him continued their march,
and as soon as the head of the caterpillar behind the point
�8
The Natural History of Instinct.
of interruption joined up, so as to touch the tail of the cater
pillar in front of the point of interruption, so soon did that
caterpillar cease to wag his head and begin to move, and then
the next ceased to wag his head and began to move, and so
on till the whole line was again in motion. The time re
quired for this to take place I found to be at the rate of about
one second per caterpillar. Now, if I removed the leader of
this kind of follow-my-leader train, the next one in the
series very rarely felt himself competent to undertake the
task of leadership, but he would fall back upon the rest of
the line, and the rest of the line, having lost their leader,
would double back as they came, and in the result the
whole line was thrown into helpless confusion—confusion
so hopeless, indeed, that eventually, from having been
an orderly line, they became a chaotic heap. After a
varying period, some one member of this republic seemed
to suppose it was time to begin to restore order, and
assumed the leadership; as soon as they found a leader,
like republics in general, they all followed in the wake.
I now tried the effect of removing the last member
of the series. The effect here of course was that there was
no other caterpillar left to join up the interruption; con
sequently, we ask how long the whole line will remain
stationary, wagging their heads'? Well, they remained
stationary for a very long time, but not for an indefinite
period of time. I think after a lapse of four or five
minutes they began to say, “ There is no use waiting any
longer,” and they gave up wagging their heads, and went on
again. But I thought it would be worth while to see
under these circumstances whether I could deceive the
caterpillar into supposing that I was a caterpillar. After
�The Natural History of Instinct.
9
removing the tail member of the series, I took a camel’s
hair brush and began gently to tickle the tail of the last in
order, and I found that the delusion succeeded. I was
able to deceive the caterpillar into supposing that I was
the caterpillar behind him, and he immediately stopped
wagging his head and began to move on, and I could keep
the whole line in motion so long as I continued to tickle
the tail of the caterpillar. There is another very remark
able instinct manifested by these caterpillars which has
only recently been observed by Lord Walsingham ; and by
his kindness I was able to see one of the extraordinary
structures produced. It is not a European, but an African
species. Here, when all the colony of these caterpillars
have occasion to pass into the pupae condition—the crysalis
state—they form what you may call a collective cocoon, to
accommodate the whole number. It is about the size of
a good large melon, and of the same shape ; at one end of
the melon there is a minute hole, in order to allow of the
exit of the moths when they come to maturity inside this
melon-shaped cocoon. Now, a remarkable feature of this
structure is, that if you dissect the melon-shaped mass, you
find inside that each caterpillar has weaved for itself a
separate cocoon. They all unite to weave the general, or
enveloping cocoon, while each one constructs a separate
cocoon for itself within the melon-shaped mass; and the
extraordinary fact is, that all these separate cocoons are
arranged around branch passages or corridors. All these
branch passages or corridors converge to the general
entrance hall, as it were, which leads out to the orifice,
or the door. So that you may liken the whole thing to
the state-rooms on board ship—rows of them along the
�10
The Natural History of Instinct.
corridors, and all opening out into the common exit. You
will agree with me in regarding this as one of the most ex
traordinary instincts that has ever been noticed when you
consider that if any one of these caterpillars should make
the smallest mistake, and build his cocoon slightly out of
its proper place, with relation to the others, he would
block up one of the corridors, and thereby prevent the
exit of any of the moths behind him, when those moths
came to maturity. Yet so perfect is the collective instinct
of all this mass of caterpillars, that in this complex
structure not one of the separate cocoons is built out of its
place so as to obstruct any one of these corridors. So
much for the intelligence of larvae.
Coming now to the order of animals where instincts occur
in the greatest profusion, and are of the most extraordinary
kind—you know, of course, that I refer to the ants. In
the first place, all the ants of every nest know each other
personally. This is a very remarkable fact when you
remember how many ants there are in a nest. It is still
more remarkable in the case of the so-called American ant
towns. In these ant towns there may be as many as from
1000 to 2000 nests, and each nest may be as much as four
feet or five feet high. Therefore, in each nest there are
thousands of individuals, and in the whole ant town the
individuals are to be numbered by millions. Well, every
one of these individuals know each other personally, so to
speak. Because if you remove any individual from one
part of the ant town to deposit him in another part, he is
recognised as a friend; whereas if you take any ant from
another ant town at a distance, and place him in this ant
town, he is immediately fallen upon and slain. Now, this
�The Natural History of Instinct.
II
seems to be a most remarkable fact. Suppose we parallel
it in the case of ourselves. We should find it a very diffi
cult and precarious matter to distinguish a Frenchman
when he landed here, if we wanted to fall upon and slay
him. Even if there were no moral repugnance to such an
act, we should not be willing to take the responsibility of
killing a man from his personal appearance. The ants,
however, experience no difficulty. Something more remark
able still has been observed by Sir John Lubbock, a very
competent observer. He found that if you take away the
pupae or crysalis, or so-called ant eggs, out of the nest, and
hatch them away from the nest, and if you then return to
the nest the ants so hatched, these ants are recognised as
friends, although you will understand none of the ants in the
nest could ever possibly have seen them. More remarkable
still, he found that if you take away the queen ant before
she lays her eggs, and allow her to lay them in any other
place, and then return the ants so hatched to the original
nest, all the ants immediately recognise the progeny of the
queen as friends. Therefore, we must suppose that it is
blood relationship which these ants are in some way or
another able to distinguish. Another very interesting
feature of ant intelligence of an instinctive kind is the
power of communication. There is no doubt at all about
ants being able to communicate up to a certain point. You
can see them communicating by rubbing their antennae
together. The extent to which they are thus able to com
municate has also been investigated by Sir John Lubbock,
and he found that they could tell each other not only that
there was food to be found somewhere, but also the place
where the greatest amount of food was to be fallen in with,
�12
The Natural History of Instinct.
He did this by taking three glasses, and connecting them
with an ant nest by means of three tapes to act as road
ways. In one glass he put a large number of larvae, in
another of the glasses a very small number of larvae, and in
the third glass he put no larvae at all Then into each
of the three cups, or glasses, he placed a marked ant.
All three marked ants immediately went back over the
tapes to the ant nest. The one that came from the empty
glass brought out no friends, the one that went co the glass
containing the small number of pupae brought out a small
number of friends, while the one which went from the glass
containing a large number of pupae brought out a large
number of friends. If ants are able to tell each other
where the largest amount of food is to be found, however,
they are not able to tell each other the precise locality.
That is to say, it was necessary that the marked ants should
be allowed to act as guides or pioneers of their friends on
the way back, for if, while they were half way back, Sir
John Lubbock suddenly removed the marked ant, all the
others were at once bewildered, and did not know where to
go, so that we may say that they are able to tell each other
where there is a large quantity of food to be found. It is
a kind of “ Follow me; there is a quantity of food or eggs I
have found.” But they are not able to tell each other
where the eggs are, such as “ the first to the right, and the
second to the left,” and so on. There is another verv
remarkable instinct displayed by a large number of species
of ants that, namely, of keeping other insects for the pur
pose of furnishing them with a sweet secretion, of which
they are very fond. These other insects, or so-called aphides,
are somewhat larger than the ants. They regularly keep
�The Natural History of Instinct.
13
these aphides to serve the function of milch cows. They
always milk these milch cows by striking them with their
antennae—a peculiar tickling action, which causes the aphides
to exude a sweet secretion, which the ant licks up. These
aphides the ants keep carefully in their own nests; some
species keep them outside, on the plants, and then they
build round them little mud chambers, or stables, or stalls.
These stalls have openings large enough to allow the ants
to go in and out, but not large enough to allow the aphides
to go in and out. They are, therefore, kept prisoners—or
in stables if you like. Now, Sir John Lubbock has made
the highly remarkable observation that there is one species
of ant which goes out in the month of October to seek for
the eggs of the aphides, which are laid upon daisies. Having
found the eggs, they take them into their nests, cherish
them there during the winter months, and hatch them out
in March. As soon as the young aphides are hatched out,
the ants convey them to the daisy plants again, for them to
feed. This is one of the most extraordinary instincts on record.
Another highly remarkable instinct displayed by ants is
the keeping of slaves. Three species of ants are in the
habit of enslaving other species of ants. The slave-making
species are of a red colour, and have a very avaricious
temper. The ants which are submitted to slavery, on the
other hand, are very properly of a black colour, and are
not so warlike in spirit. Now, when the nest of a red slave
making species have occasion to replenish the number of
their slaves, they send out scouts in various directions, in
order to seek for the slave nests. When the scout has
found a nest of these black ants, he goes back to the rest of
the red ants, and then the whole nest of red ants turn out
�14
The Natural History of Instinct.
in a swarm. They march in regular military order, naturally
following the lead of the scout until the scout brings them
to the nest of the black ants. As soon as this is the case,
the red ants fall upon the black ants in enormous numbers,
and a regular melee begins. Usually this battle terminates
unfavourably for the black ants. When it does so, the
red ants put a garrison into the nest of the black ants, and
take away all the eggs that belong to the black ants. These
eggs are conveyed home and hatched oq| in the nests of the
red ants, to act subsequently as slaves. The slave-making
ants become so dependent upon the services of these slaves,
that they not only do no work for themselves at all, beyond
the capture of slaves, but one species has gone so far in
their indolence that they are actually not able to feed them
selves, and require to be fed by their slaves. That is to
say, if you deprive these ants of their slaves, they all die of
starvation, even though at the same time you supply them
with their habitual food.
Still more remarkable, I think, than the habit of keeping
slaves, is the habit of keeping beasts of burden. This habit
has been discovered by the naturalist Audubon, a very great
observer, and he vouches for the fact that in the Brazilian
forests there is a species of ant which has occasion to
convey leaves from trees to its nest, as we shall see sub
sequently. Audubon declares that he has repeatedly seen
this species of ant enslave another and a larger kind of
insect, which is not an ant at all, but a kind of bug. This
large, strong bug is regularly driven by the ants to carry the
loads of leaves from the trees to the nest.
Another highly remarkable fact about the domestic
economy of ants is that they not only enslave other animals
�Ths Natural History of Instinct.
15
for the purpose of doing work, but they also keep a number
of other slaves which serve no function at all in the economy
of the hive, and therefore appear to be kept by the ants
merely for the sake of gratifying some kind of caprice.
That is to say, ants have power to keep these other kinds
of insects just for the same reason, or absence of reason,
that we ourselves keep domestic pets. There are thirty or
forty different species of beetle that are made pets by the
ants.
Another set of habits exhibited by ants are very, I
think very, interesting, as showing a resemblance to the
social condition of man; or, perhaps, some of us may
think, as not showing such a resemblance. I mean in
habits of personal cleanliness. All insects, as you are
aware, are very scrupulous about keeping themselves clean.
You can always see the blue-bottle assiduously at work
when it seems he is already as much polished up as there is
any occasion for. The remarkable thing about the ants is
that they clean one another. The ant that feels in need of
a brush-up goes to a companion ant and makes a gesture of
supplication, which is very expressive. He kneels down
and puts up his fore-legs, and the supplicated ant immedi
ately sets to work and brushes him down. When the
cleaning process is over, the relations are reversed, on the
principle that one good turn deserves another.
Another point in which ants resemble ourselves is that
of requiring sleep. The sleep lasts for three or four hours
at a time; and during the time they are asleep they have
been observed by Belt, who is a good observer, and by
McCook, in America, to move their jaws, and feelers, and
mandibles in the same way as we see a dog twitch his mouth,
�16
The Natural History of Instinct.
nose, and feet, when asleep. Therefore these motions are
very suggestive of the ant dreaming. Upon awakening,
also, these ants have a habit of stretching their limbs as we
do, and often of opening their mouths and gaping. In all
these respects there is a wonderful similarity to ourselves.
Again, as to habits of play or recreation. These ants
have habits of play and recreation, just like ourselves; and
when they play thus, they run about and chase each other
round grass stalks, stand on their hind-legs, and have
wrestling matches ; they play hide-and seek, and have mimic
fights, and in all sorts of ways behave just like athletes.
Lastly, under the head of the general habits of ants, I
may notice perhaps the one which is most remarkable—
namely, that of conducting funerals. All the ants have a habit
of taking away the dead ones from the nest and dragging
them a long distance, but it is only some species which have
the habit of conducting regular funerals. It has been
alleged by two or three very good observers, that the ants
will form regular processions, whereby to do, as it were, due
honour to their dead. And these processions are always
destined for one particular locality, which is the ants’
cemetery. Here the dead body of the ant is deposited in
its last resting-place with all due honours apparently. I
say with all due honours, because in the case of the slave
making species, great care is taken not to bury slaves in the
same cemetery as the masters.
So much as to the general habits of ants. Taking one
or two species which display special instincts of a highly
remarkable kind, I will first consider one which was noticed
longest ago, by a naturalist who seems to have shown
himself a good authority—Solomon.
He is a good
�The Natural History of Instinct.
*7
authority as a naturalist, because his observations, though
long supposed in the matter of ants to be what the
Americans call “ bunkum,” have turned out to be perfectly
true. I hope you all know the passage in Proverbs—“ Go
to the ant, thou sluggard ; consider her ways, and be wise;
which having no guide, overseer, or ruler, provideth her
meat in the summer, and gathereth her food in the harvest.”
This observation was long discredited, and was especially
denied by a great naturalist, Huber, who paid more atten
tion than anybody else to the habits of ants and bees. But
both Solomon and Huber were right. The difference or
discrepancy in their statements arose merely from the
difference in their geographical positions. It is only in one
part of Europe that the ants display this harvesting
instinct at all. They display it in Palestine, and no doubt
Solomon saw it. It has also been noticed now that there
is a species in the New World which displays it. In all
these cases, the instinct is very much the same. It consists
in the ants first of all cutting roadways from the nest to
the ant fields. These roadways diverge in various direc
tions, and along these roadways the ants run in a double
line. The line outgoing is empty-handed ; the line incoming
is laden with grain. When the empty-handed line reach
the grass fields, they disperse and pick up the grains which
have fallen from the grass ; or else they run up the stalks,
cut away the grains which have ripened, and then either
carry them down the grass stalks themselves or throw
them down to their comrades beneath, thus showing an
appreciation of the principle of a division of labour. The
incoming train carry the grain in their jaws, and when
they arrive at the ant-hill, it is put into a regular granary,
�18
The Natural History of Instinct.
excavated below the ground for the purpose. In some way
which is not at all understood, in these granaries the grain
does not sprout. It is exposed to all the conditions
favourable for sprouting—in a damp or moist soil not far
below the surface. Well, as a matter of fact, it does not
sprout. If it did, the ants would be deprived of nourish
ment. But what it is that the ants do to prevent the
sprouting nobody has yet been able to discover. It is
certain, however, that they take great pains to prevent the
seed from getting too wet, thereby being rendered more
apt to sprout. This is certain; because it has been
observed that if the grain become too wet, the ants take it
out of the granary and sun it, in order that it may be
dried. Moreover, it is noticed that if for any reason one
particular grain does begin to sprout, the ants immediately
stop the further progress of the sprouting by nipping off
the tip of the radical. This is a very remarkable fact,
because although it is well known to botanists and hor
ticulturists that by nipping off the tip of the radical you
prevent the further germination of the seed, I doubt if it is
known to anybody here who does not happen to be a
botanist or horticulturist. Yet it is well known to those
ants. A species of the harvest-ant in Texas, in America,
exhibits a further refinement of this instinct, so to speak.
Because Dr. Lincecum, who was the first to observe ants in
that continent, positively declared, as the result of his own
observations, that the harvesting ant begins by cutting
down the prairie grass as a clearing, just as a colonist does.
He declared that the ants go forth into the prairie to seek
for the seeds of a kind of grass of which they are par
ticularly fond, and that they take these seeds to the clearing,
�The Natural History of Instinct.
19
and there actually sow them, for the purpose six months
afterwards of reaping the grain which is the produce of
their agriculture.
• Of course this is one of the most remarkable instincts on
record, and it was thought desirable that it should be con
firmed. Consequently, McCook went to Texas for the
express purpose of corroborating Lincecum’s observations.
Well, he corroborated all his observations with one ex
ception—of the sowing of this plant. The reason why he
did not confirm that observation was because he went to
Texas at a time of the year when the sowing did not take
place. He went to Texas at the time of the year when the
ant-rice was growing, and he confirmed Lincecum to the ex
tent of saying that he saw the ant-rice growing on the
patches here and there, and growing nowhere else in
patches like that throughout the prairie. Therefore we
cannot say Lincecum has been actually corroborated in his
observations as to the sowing • but at the same time, it is
not fair to Lincecum, who is now dead, to say, as has been
said in some quarters, that McCook has contradicted his
observations. He has only gone there at a time of the
year when it was not possible for him to corroborate the
observations. Therefore I think Lincecum’s statements are
entitled to credence, because he was fully aware of the ex
traordinary nature of instinct himself, and he wrote to
Darwin letter after letter on the subject, always insisting
on the sowing of the plant rice. If this is the case, it is
said the ant is entitled to be called not only a harvesting
ant, but an agricultural ant.
Again, there is another species of ant we may similarly,
with as much appropriateness, term the horticultural ant.
�20
The Natteral History of Instinct.
This is the one which, as I have said before, cuts leaves off
the trees. They bite off the grass and throw it down,
knots below receiving it. This they convey to their nests,
and then lay it in folds one above the other, in order to
constitute a kind of soil upon which there subsequently
grows a kind of fungus, upon which they feed. Their
object in collecting the leaves is to supply a soil for the
growth of the fungus.
Lastly, there is another kind of ant which we may call
the military ant. One species belongs to the Amazon,
and another species is found in Central Africa. These
animals display some of the most remarkable instincts in
the animal kingdom, and which are all in the direction of
military organisation. They have no fixed abode, but go
about in enormous armies, comprising thousands of in
dividuals, and they march in regular military order—one
species in the form of a phalanx, and another in the form
of a column.
On each side of the column there are always
running backwards and forwards a comparatively small
number of individual ants, somewhat different in shape,
and these evidently serve the functions of officers. They
run about along the outside of the column, and give
directions for dressing up, and so on, whenever they see
there is any want of order, and generally conduct the
movements of the host. From each side of the host there
proceeds a number of scouts, who scour the country on all
sides for a certain distance ; and when they come upon any
kind of booty, such as a wasp’s nest, they return to the
main host to give the information. The direction of march
is altered, the hordes of military ants swarm upon the
wasps’ nest, or ants’ nest, or whatever it is, and there is no
�The Natural History of Instinct.
21
animal in the creation that can withstand the assault.
The only chance is to cut and run.
The instincts manifested by these animals are highly
remarkable—so much so, that the whole lecture might have
been devoted to this one species alone. But I will only
mention one other fact in connection with them, and that is
their habit of making bridges when they come to a stream ;
I do not mean a wide stream, but a rill, which they might
think it desirable to cross. They make a sort of raft to
begin with, and a clump of ants floats upon the surface of
the stream. They join hands with the ants on shore, and
thus allow themselves to be carried across the stream by
the action of the current. This is a desperate resort, of
course, because if the communications with the shore were
to break off, they would all be drowned. They do not
adopt this course if they can help it; they run up and down
a long way to see if there is not any natural bridge,
accidentally constructed by the fall of a piece of timber
across the water. If they find such, which is not wide
enough to admit of the column advancing except in single
or Indian file, they save time—and it is a very remarkable
thing, as showing the military organisation—by increasing
the width with their own bodies; that is to say, they stick
three or four deep upon each side, so that the other ants
may run over their backs.
Coming now to bees, this branch of the lecture will not
take very long, because the instincts of bees are closely
analagous to those of ants. The cell-making instinct is the
greatest exception; but without describing the exact method,
I may say that Mr. Darwin has proved that the cell-making
instinct depends upon certain mechanical principles. Buffon
�22
The Natural History of Instinct.
Iona: ago sought to account for the hexagonal form of the
cells by an hypothesis of mutual pressure. This hypothesis
was sustained by such a physical analogy as the blowing of
a crowd of soap-bubbles in a cup. Buffon said that the
hexagonal cells of the bee are produced by the reciprocal
pressure of the cylindrical bodies of these insects against
each other. This turns out to have been not very wide of
the mark. Darwin has proved by experiments that this
hypothesis was the true one—that the bees eat out the cells
from the solid cake of wax, and the instinct is concerned in
the bees standing at sufficient distance from one another.
The sense of direction is a very interesting fact. It has
always been supposed that bees and wasps have some sense
of direction, but that it is of some mysterious nature, and
did not depend upon the recognition of land marks. This
idea is the foundation of the popular saying that the quickest
way is the bee-line. It occurred independently to Sir John
Lubbock and to myself, last year, to try some experiments
on the subject, and we both got the same results, though
working independently. The way I worked was to place
a bee-hive in a room with a window which I could open or
shut. I then allowed the bees to get well acquainted with
the locality; and after they had been in the room for about
a fortnight, one night I shut the window—after all the bees,
you understand, had gone home for the night. Then in
front of the exit-hole of the bee-hive I slipped a glass shutter.
When I came down in the morning, all the bees were im
prisoned in the hive ; they were buzzing about the inside of
the glass shutter, as if they could not think what the dickens
was the matter with the hive, as they could see through
the glass shutter well, and could not get out. Then I
�The Natural History of Instinct.
23
opened up the glass shutter and allowed about twenty bees
to escape, and then shut it down again. The twenty bees
that escaped immediately flew to the window, but it was
closed. I was, therefore, able to get these twenty bees and
place them in a box. I then spread a lot of bird lime on
the front of the hive, where the bees would come home, and
left the glass shutter closed, and the window open. I took
my twenty bees in a box out to sea—the house being near
the sea—a good way from the land, and let them go. Now
you understand that if any of these bees came home, they
would be caught upon the bird lime, and I should see them.
As a matter of fact, none of the bees came back. Then I
tried another lot in the same way, but let them go nearer
home, on the sea shore; but none came back. I found
they never could come back unless I let them go in the
flower garden, near the house. These bees were always in
the habit of going to the flower garden, and they knew
their way back, and were caught on the bird lime. If I
took them anywhere two hundred yards in the direction of
the sea, where they were not accustomed to go, they could
not find their way back, proving that the bees find their
way back by observation of land marks, and not by any
mysterious sense of direction.
I have tried the same experiments with ants in England
and in Germany, with the same result, that they are
completely lost if you take them more than a certain
distance from the nest, beyond the distance that they know
by personal observation.
To give an example of only one other instinct, I think I
will mention what appears to me to be the most remark
able instinct in the animal kingdom. A species of wasp,
�24
The Natural History of Instinct.
or wasp-like animal, called the sphex, lays up for its young
a store of insects for them to prey upon when they are
hatched out. The sphex insect stings the insects which
it lays up for food in order partly to paralyse them: it
does not kill them, because if they were killed they would
decay before the eggs are hatched out into grubs, and
would be no use as food to the grubs. The sphex insect
therefore stings the prey only in a certain part of the body,
where there is a large accumulation of nerve centres. It
stings the spider, for instance, in the part of the body
where there is the largest supply of nerve centres. The
effect of stinging the nerve centres is to paralyse without
killing him. It is a very remarkable fact that the sphex
should have discovered this peculiarity. Still more re
markable, however, is that species of sphex which preys
upon grasshoppers. It is needful to sting the grasshopper
in three different parts of the body in order to produce
this effect, and this is done. Lastly, there is another
species of sphex which preys upon caterpillars; and here
the nervous system is still more elongated, and it is actually
necessary that the sphex should pierce the caterpillar in
nine different parts of the body, each one very localised,
and yet the sphex actually stings the caterpillar in those
nine particular points.
This, I think, is the most remarkable instinct in the
animal kingdom, because it appears to display some know
ledge—or something which serves the same purpose—both
of the anatomy and of the physiology of the insects on
which they prey.
Printed by Walter Scott, “ The Kenilworth Press," Felling. Newcastle.
�
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Victorian Blogging
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Title
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The natural history of instinct
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Romanes, George John [1848-1894]
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An account of the resource
Place of publication: [London]
Collation: 24 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: Imprint supplied from British Library record. Printed by Walter Scott, "The Kenilworth Press". Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
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[Sunday Lecture Society]
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[1886]
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N554
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Natural history
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Text
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English
Animal Behaviour
Instinct
NSS