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THE
CAUSE OF HUMANITY,
O R
THE WANING AND THE RISING FAITH.
An Essay
from the
Standpoint of the
POSITIVE
PHY,
By COURTLANDT PALMER.
Read
before the
Society
of
Humanity, Sunday, March 3d, 1878,
With subsequent Revisions and Additions.
PUBLISHED FOR THE
SOCIETY OF HUMANITY,
141 Eighth Street,
NEW YORK.
Copyright 1879, by Cortlandt Palmer.
��PREFATORY
LETTER.
T. B. Wakeman, Esq.,
JZy Dear Friend:
Many indulgent hearers who have kindly listened to
the reading of this Essay have requested me to publish
it. In doing so allow me to dedicate it to you ; for I
feel that to you, more than to any one individual, I owe
not only deliverance from the superstitions of the old
theology, but a firm and abiding sense of salvation in
the new faith of Science.
I make, for this paper, little or no claim to original
ity. My object has been to present a summarized state
ment of my faith as it is held and expounded by the
Society of Humanity. I have tried to tell “ a plain, un
varnished tale,” “ to naught extenuate, nor set down
aught in malice,” and to do this in a way so simple
“ that he who runs may read.”
As is the inevitable fate of anyone who departs from
the commonly received religious belief, my opinions
have been subjected to all sorts of misrepresentations.
The appelatious Spiritualist, Communist, and other
epithets still more objectionable, have been unhesita
tingly applied to me, none of which, it should be need
less for me to say, serve at all to explain my position.
We positivists must expect to be misunderstood in re
gard not only to our doctrines but also in respect to our
conduct and our aim. I believe that I personally, sup
ported as I feel myself by the nobleness of our philoso
phy and the rectitude of my own endeavor, am quite in
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different to these uncharitable misconstructions, nor
would any motives of mere egotistical explanation ever
induce me to appear in print. I mean that were it a
question of myself alone, I should prefer to remain
silent, to quietly live my life and be judged by the fruits
thereof; but for the sake of my family and of many
friends who are interested in knowing what I really
think, I have been moved to write out this compendium
of my views. In this attempt, wherever I have found
the language of another which I thought would serve
to express my meaning better than my own pool* words
could do, I have not hesitated to quote it. I may per
haps rather say that it has delighted me to call in the
aid of such powerful auxilaries, prominent among whom
are Comte and Spencer, to say nothing of yourself.
In two instances I have been unable to put these ex
tracts in quotation marks for the reason that they have
been so adapted, altered and inwrought into my text that
even their own authors would hardly recognize their off
spring. One case of this kind is the description of doc
trinal Christianity which I found in reading “ the Pil
grim and the Shrine;” the other is my statement of
Morality in which Mr. F. E. Abbott’s “ Fifty Affirma
tions ” partially assisted me. I here render to these
writers my acknowledgment.
That the few readers I may chance to have may not
labor under any misunderstanding as to my meaning of
the terms “ Positivism ” and “ The Religion of Human
ity,” I wish here to state distinctly that I agree with you
in the propriety of dissociating them in due measure
from the system of Comte. I gladly accord to that most
noble and most able man the first place in this connec
tion, but, as you so well said in your last address before
the Free Religious Association: “ we agree with the
“ rest of the world in thinking that the true philosophy
4‘ and religion of our race is not, and cannot be, the pen-
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“ dant of any personality, however great; but that the
“ personality must be regarded as a pendant or incident
“ of the religion.” Thus not only Comte but Spencer,
not only Decartes but Plato, not only Jesus, but Con
fucius, Buddha and Mahomet; in truth all great think
ers, scientists and prophets, ancient and modern, are
gladly adopted as our guides. Paul may plant and Appolos water ; it is Humanity alone that giveth the in
crease.
Although my Essay has extended itself far beyond
the limits of an evening lecture, 1 have still thought it
best to have it in its original form of an address before
an audience.
Trusting that my feeble effort may be instrumental in
helping some few strugglers who are toiling to work
their way towards the light of truth, and that thus they
may be saved some of the mental agony I underwent in
my transition from the Religion of Christ to the Religion of Humanity, I remain,
Sincerely Your Friend,
CoURTLANDT PALMER.
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“ Where thou findest a lie that is oppressing thee, ex
tinguish it. Lies exist there only to be extinguished;
they wait and cry earnestly for extinction. Think well,
meanwhile, in what spirit thou wilt do it: not with ha
tred, with headlong selfish violence ; but in clearness of
heart, with holy zeal, gently, almost with pity.”
— Thomas Carlyle.
“ To destroy, you must replace,”
“ Ou ne detruit que ce qu'on remplace ”—Comte.
“ Unceasingly strive
From the half life to wean ourselves;
And in the whole, the good, the beautiful,
Resolutely to live.”—Goethe.
Faire le bien, Connaitre le vrai.
To do the good, know the true.—Motto of Diderst.
“ The world is my country; to do good is my relig
ion.”—Thomas Paine.
Those who can read the signs of the times, read in
them that the kingdom of man is at hand.—Professor
Clifford.
�THE
CAUSE OF HUMANITY.
Ladies and Gentlemen :
Did I need any apology for presenting this essay to
the attention of my audience, I should find it in the fol
lowing words which I adapt from Herbert Spencer,
where he says : ££ whoever hesitates to utter that which
“ he thinks to be the highest truth, lest it should be too
*£ much in advance of the time, may reassure himself by
“ looking at his acts from an impersonal point of view.
“ Let him duly realize the fact that opinion constitutes
“ the general power which works our social changes, and
4£ he will perceive that he may properly give full utter•“ ance to his innermost conviction, leaving it to produce
“ what effect it may. It is not for nothing that he has
££ in him these sympathies with some principles and re££ pugnance to others. He with all his capacities and
££ aspirations and beliefs, is not an accident but a prot£ duct of the time. He must remember that while he is
££ a descendant of the past, he is a parent of the future;
££ and that his thoughts are as children born to him,
££ ■which he may not carelessly let die. Not as adven<c titious therefore will the wise man regard the faith
,££ which is in him. The highest truth he sees he will
fearlessly utter ; knowing that, let what may come of
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“ it, he is thus playing his right part in the world—
“ knowing that if he can effect the change he aims at,
“ well: if not—well also ; though not so well.”
This eloquent language is a sufficient justification for
anyone to speak his thought when he feels that his
thought is worth the speaking. Christ of old was cal
led the Way, the Truth and the Life. I feel that to us
of the modern era a new way, a truer truth, and a larger
life is opened. Old things are passing away and all
things are becoming new. Our times are pealing forth
the trumpet tones of mighty change. Vast questions
are pending in politics, art, and industry. The new
wine can no longer be kept in the old bottles. Every
breeze that sweeps the ocean sings a new deliverance for
man, or wafts as from an Aeolian harp the pleasing
notes of advancing science.
The press is filled with the unrest of disturbed con
victions. Every week and month journal and magazine
deal trenchant blows against the strongholds of theology,
oi’ build up brick by brick the beauteous temple of Hu
manity. Phoenix-like from the ashes of the old faith
we behold arising the world-wide pinions of the new.
The pulpit itself is wavering. With each passing
fortnight comes the report that this clergyman is leading
a reformed movement in his church, or that that one
withdraws entirely from his flock. Of the broad church
of England, under the leadership of Dean Stanley, it
may not, perhaps, be speaking too strongly to say that
they are casting out devils in the name of the Religion
of Humanity. Repeating the words of the great Nazarene we can say that he that is not against us is for us,
and he that gathereth not with us scattereth abroad. A
general view of the situation cannot fail to impress us
with the conviction that the creeds of Christendom are
becoming hard of assimulaticn even for those trained to
their digestion. Church is contending against church
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sect against sect is waging deadly warfare: and although
the cathedral of theology still points its spire to the sky,
although the dim religious light of ages steals through
Gothic windows painted with the rarest art, bathing in
its softened rays pillar, aisle and dome; although priests
kneel in spotless surplice, and worshippers bow with
adoring knee, there still is wanting one great presence,
The once true God is no longer there ! The edifice so
fair in form is weak at the foundation. Its worn-out
beams are sinking under the dry-rot of doubts, which the
church can no longer meet nor overcome.
Most of us have heard that noted lecturer, Col. Robert
G-. Ingersoll, who is carrying throughout this land his
onslaught against superstition. He is not a professed
believer in the Religion of Humanity, but still, as a
grand pioneer, he is one of the van-guard of the army
of progress whose office it is to destroy and clear away
in order that riper constructives may come in and pos
sess the land that he has conquered. From the lips of
this valiant champion I heard on one occasion the fol
lowing remark ; he said: “I occupy this platform by
reason of the infidelity of the churches. And so it
was, for no further back than ten years ago he would
have been persecuted, or perhaps, even stoned for the
expression of such radical utterances.
All these and many other signs show beyond perad
venture that our age is the age of a great transition, the
greatest as yet witnessed in the history of our race. The
handwriting is plainly seen upon the wall.
The fiat
has gone forth. With trembling knees the Belshazzar
of superstition beholds the “Mene, mene, tekel, upharsin,” which forewarns him that the power of ignorance
is doomed, and that emancipation is dawning for man
kind ; while, on the other hand, the pilgrim, toiling up
the steep and narrow way of progress, beholds’the salva
tion of the race in the universal reign of law.
�14
For evolution rules the world of man as surely as
gravitation dominates the world of matter. Under the
resistless sway of law the stars revolve in their deter
mined course, and man is hurried on to progress. The
mighty car of change sweeps on, an engine of destruc
tion to those who would resist it, but to those who ac
cept its protection, it becomes at once a palladium of
safety, and a vehicle that bears them to a higher life.
Still, advance comes only at the price of effort and
conflict. It will not do to rest supinely on our backs
and lay the pleasing unction to our souls that the spon
taneous movement of the race will attain the end desired.
As Comte says: “ In order to complete the laws, there
“ is need of our wills.” Evolution therefore is not to
be taken as a moral sedative, or excuse for idleness, but
rather as an incitement to action and enthusiasm. It is
we who are the factors of the problem. On us depends
the coming era. It is for us, therefore, not only to re
ceive the rich legacies of the past, but to transmit them
improved and brightened to the future. To effect this,
the soldiers of Humanity must not fear to buckle on
their armor and defend their convictions to the utter
most. The smallness of their numbers is no real cause
of fear: one man in the right is a majority against a
million, and, as conservative liberals, they can cherish
the assured hope that in the end their opinions must sur
vive, not only because they are the fittest, but because
they are the best.
The parties to this conflict are and can be only two.
On the one side, the myriad hosts of supernaturalism
launch their thunders from behind “ the baseless fabrics
of their visions,” while, on the other side, the little army
of science stand entrenched within the impenetrable
breastworks of our solid earth. Against this inexpug
nable rampart fall alike harmless the anathema of pope,
and the frenzied rage of ignorance ; while every shot
�15
sent forth from the camp of true knowledge, pierces the
frail defences of theology, scattering terror through its
midst.
And so of necessity must it be ; for it is the war of
new weapons against old weapons, of the Sharpe rille
against the bow of the savage, of new intellectual re
sources against old intellectual resources.
I earnestly hope in criticising Christianity that I may
not seem to do so in the spirit of blind hatred. I well
remember it as the earnest faith of my own childhood
taught me at my mother’s knee, a mother to whom it
was the comfort and stay of life, as it still is to millions
like her. And even now I recognize and freely allow
that the Religion of Jesus, on its heart or human side,
has taught mankind the noblest lessons of love and duty.
On these grounds, I shake hands with the theologians,
and am glad to call them brethren, but when they turn
to the head or doctrinal side of their creed and attempt
to teach us the misleading and immoral tenets of the
Fall of Man, Vicarious Atonement, Election and Hell,
against these pious lies (to be more fully considered here
after^ I maintain that any honest thinking man should
enter his earnest protest; and I feel that such an one
might well be pardoned if in his wrath against these
dwarfing dogmas we found him uttering as his own that
famous malediction of Voltaire when, a century ago he
flung in the teeth of the priesthood and of all Europe
those memorable -words “ Ecrasez 1’ infame,” (crush the
infamous thing), for that great hero felt, as all should
feel, that on the denial of these dismal falsehoods hangs
the welfare of mankind.
The difference at bottom between the two parties is a
difference of method. Both the Religion of Christ
and the Religion of Humanity uphold beneficence
virtue, love, self-sacrifice, sympathy, and every other
noble attainment. But one employs theological or
�16
supernatural means and methods, while the other
resorts only to scientific and human means or methods,
the deep signification of which is that Christianity de
pends on imaginative and fictitious expedients which
can only serve to defeat its own most cherished pur
poses, while Positivism takes no steps except those
which in the light of science facilitate its high endeav
ors, and establish truth and virtue.
I have said that the parties to this conflict are and can
be only two ; viz., the theologians and the philosophers
of science. Many clergymen, to be sure, as previously
remarked, show progressive tendencies, and some even
desire to be ranked among the liberals. It may be that
such men, placed as they are midway in this great tran
sition, are performing a most effective service. They
administer milk to their religious babes, and help to
guide their feeble steps by the leading strings of modern
thought; but theologians they are and theologians they
remain. Like men riding backward in a railroad car,
either their gaze is turned towards heaven, or, if they
cast their eyes to earth, ’tis but to see the landscape they
have passed. The great onward destiny of man they
dimly see and only half appreciate. These are the men
who preach the reconciliation of science and religion,
unknowing that science and religion need no reconcilia
tion, that they are in their essential nature one . Not
therefore till in place of the words “ Religion and
science, they can speak the words, “ The Religion of
Science,” can such men be entitled to a place in the lib
eral ranks. We welcome all signs of advance, and
therefore we bless the priest who extols Science to his
congregation, not, however, because he really adheres
to the new ideal, but because his teachings, like the
boomerang, return to destroy the false parts of his
creed.
Such preachers having committed themselves to ra
�17
tional Science are obliged to maintain for the sake of
consistency that their religion also is rational. Unfor
tunate dilemma !! Much to be pitied men, while with
doubting hands they offer their Evidences of Christian
ity and claim that there can be such a thing as a Natu
ral Theology, or a Science of Theology—Natural Supernaturalism ; a science or knowing of the Z7h-knowable!
Why, for the sake of their own side and their own con
sistency, can they not drop at once and forever all ap
peal to reason and support themselves on what ordinary
mortals, from their standpoint, would deem all sufficient,
viz., an infallible God, who in an infallible bible, tells
the infallible truth. To the weakness of the Positivistic
mind it does really seem as if the Christian’s appeal
to reason means the surrender of his doughtiest strong
hold. Where the need thereof ? Is not the word of
God sufficient of itself ? — No! No! No! Let me con
jure both Christian and Liberal thinkers that they de
ceive not themselves. Between science and doctrinal
theology there can be no truce. As men of large char
ity and students of the philosophy of history, we may
recognize whatever services the various creeds have in
past times rendered to humanity; still, we cannot fail to
perceive that, as the case stands to-day, they are both
striving for the same places, and are contrary the one to
the other; and those, therefore, who endeavor to float
the banner of evolution in the name of God are only
acting at once in opposition to their own belief and ours.
Infallible revelations can never for long adapt themselves
to changing environments, and therefore it seems to
me that for such Christians there is only one of two con
sistent courses, viz., either to content themselves with
their own iron-bound revelation, and to bow before their
chosen God, with whom is neither variableness nor
shadow of turning; or else, to renounce their idolatrous
�18
adherence to a bible, which, by its assumption of com
pleteness leaves no place for the idea of progress.
I have alluded to the unrestful religious feeling
that broods over our century. I have also described the
contending parties of advance and retrogression. I
now approach my main topic.
THE CAUSE CF HUMANITY.
What is it ?
Before describing what it is, it will not, perhaps, be
amiss to describe what it is not; since a negative defi
nition will render the affirmative one clearer.
Our cause, then, is not the cause of doctrinal theloogy, which represents a tyrant God, who created his
children, placed them in an Eden of forbidden delights,
and then required of them an obedience which by the
deification of Christ (who alone was able to fulfil the
law) could not be rendered by any earthly man however
perfect, and when they yielded a little to the first temp
tation in the garden, this heavenly ruler condemned
them and their unborn offspring to unspeakable tor
tures forevermore; all of which is simply saying that
the cause of Humanity is not the cause of a God who
made men finite and imperfect, and then condemned
them for not being infinite and perfect, and who would
only be propitiated towards them by the blood and
agony of the only innocent one who had never offended
Him, and that one his only-begotten son. No human
father requires a compensation or sacrifice before he
can pardon a repentant child, so I ask the Christians,
Is man more tender than their God, and is the thing
made an unfaithful index to the character of its maker ?
If their God be so infinitely pure as to detest sin, how
came he to admit its defilement into his work ? If so
infinitely just how came he to make men (the work of
his own hands) responsible for the flaws in their con
�19
struction ? If so infinitely merciful and lo/ing, why so
averse to pardon his erring children ? If so infinitely
powerful why allow an evil demon to devastate the fair
domain of his creation ? Why ! such doctrine deposes
their God from his high place, and makes. their Devil
triumphant to all eternity! Evangelical Christianity
simply means Devil worship !!
“ You preach Him to me to be just,
And this is His realm you say,
While the good are dying of hunger,
And the bad gorge every day.
You say that He loveth mercy,
And the famine is not yet gone,
That He hateth the shedder of blood,
And He slayeth us every one.”
To sum up in a word, the theologic conception of
God is to the human mind and heart an inexplicable
bundle of riddles and immoralities. Such, it is needless to
say is not the cause of Humanity. What, then, is it ?
In the place of these stultifying contradictions I af
firm that
THE CAUSE OF HUMANITY IS THE CAUSE
OF TRUTH.
Arid Pilate said, What is Truth ? and his question has
been echoed and re-echoed by the ages. How simple at
last is the answer! Truth is human knowledge, that
which man does or can know. But, here comes in the real
enquiry, What can man know ? 'What are the limits of
human knowledge f Can we, as the theologians claim,
grasp such a conception as that of the infinite? Can
the mind, in other words, force itself outside of its con
ditions, and soar in the thin ether of the unconditioned?
“ Can the finite the infinite search ?”
“ Did the blind discover the stars ?”
�20
No ! no! let us away with such vain imaginings,
which modern philosophy declares to be utterly un
thinkable ; for its teaching tells us that to think at all,
we must have a thing to think of, and that that thing
can only be known by its likeness or unlikeness to ano
ther thing. In other words, a thing to be known must
be defined, and to be defined it must be compared.
By this test, the infinite becomes simply the unknow
able. No one can even attempt to realize the infinite
(the illimitable) except by defining it, and the moment
he does that he immediately imposes limits upon it, and
makes it the finite and no longer the infinite. He
limits or attempts to limit the illimitable.
In like manner, all enquiries into first and final causes
are foreign to science, and perfectly fruitless. How,
for instance, can the mind rest in the conception of an
uncaused first cause ? Why not just as well an un
caused world as an uncaused God ?
The human soul, likewise, as an immaterial entity,
separate from and independent of the body, is, in the
same manner, swept away by the besom of this law of
thought. I say nothing of the probable denial which
anatomy and physiology present to this conception,
but I ask as before, What is the soul or what is it not,
what like or what unlike ? And echo answers, what ?
Thus we find that the theological definitions of God,
and also of the human soul, are utterly misleading. All
these conceptions are undefinable, and unverifiable.
For the real purposes of life, such words must either
have attached to them some true and scientific meaning,
or else we must affirm, that what they attempt to repre
sent are mere non-existences.
The principle thA has thus been stated in these con
densed terms is the famous doctrine of the Relativity
of Human Knowledge, which simply means, as before
shown, that our minds, by their very constitution, are
�'
21
forced to consider things in their likeness or unlikeness
to each other, ?. e., in their relations. This law is the
basis of all human truth. It is as much a condition of
thought, as breathing is a condition of life; and it
forms the great wall of partition between the true and
the imagined, between the knowable and the unknowa
ble, between theology and science. It says to the mind
that thus far it may go but no further, and that here must
its proud waves be stayed. It tells us that while we may
cling to the relative (that is, to the known and the
knowable) beyond as ever stretches the irrelative (the
infinite, the illimitable) there to remain forever a terra
incognita, a No-mans land.
We show by this law that the Cause of Humanity
is that of Truth. “But,” I hear the theologian cry,
“you take away my God, you take away my soul !!
What, what do you leave me ?” “ Take away your
God” I answer, “ take away your soul! No ! no !
What we banish are but the specters of the mind ! We
only take away your GHOSTS ! We lift from the
ages the incubus of a mighty night-mare.”
And what do we leave you ?
Here comes in the important question the Christians
have a perfect right to ask. What are we positivists
to provide as a substitute for the “ Waning Faith ?” To
this I reply as follows:
Firstly: We give you if nothing else
EMANCIPATION.
We award you deliverance from the debasing supersti
tions of a vain imagination, we free you from the worst
of all hells, the hell of doubt. We liberate you from
that worst of all responsibilities, the responsibility of a
soul to save or lose. We bid you stand forth, like the
slave freed from his fetters, in all the conscious dignity
of manhood.
�22
But more, much more than this we give you, for
Secondly: The cause of Humanity is the cause not
only of Emancipation, but also of
FRUITFUL
TRUTH, AS EXPRESSED
SCIENCE.
IX
I have spoken a few pages back of the doctrine of
the relativity of human knowledge as the cause of
truth : so indeed it is, for it is the invaluable doctrine
which points out clearly to us the inevitable boundaries
between the knowable and the unknowable, but by itself
alone it is totally insufficient, and science, fruitful science
becomes the real creed of the new faith. Demonstration
not Revelation is our watchword. As some one has
beautifully said, “ Our belief is one with the falling
rain and the growing corn.”
I do not propose, Ingersoll-like, to merely preach in
place of the dying faith the gospel of the railroad,
telegraph and postoffice. We positivists are no worship
pers of a bald materialism, though we are free to say
that even this view is not undeserving of attention, for
science since the sixteenth century has transformed the
features of the globe, and re-created the substantial
well-being of the race. Comparing our new era with
the middle age we find, for example, that a real medical
art has supplanted shrine cure, that comparative health
and comfort bloom where pestilence then trampled
millions into noisome graves ; we find good roads and
lands redeemed, where formerly the wayfarer struggled
through pitfalls or fell a victim to miasmatic poison.
And thus we might go on reciting by the hour these ma
terial benefactions of science, for their name is Legion;
but it is aside from our object. We wish here only to
recall those larger generalizations which form the great
intellectual treasures of the race,—the philosophy of
science, from which fall the 'material discoveries and
�•
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23
arts, as do ripening fruits from the tree that bears
them.
I would first allude to the great law of The Correla
tion of Force and Matter. This is an affirmative truth
astonishing in its reach and results. It proves to us that
matter is indestructible, and that force is ever persistent, that all change expresses itself in these two terms,
and that all phenomena are but re-distributions of these
factors. In the light of this law life itself is seen as
“bottled sunshine,” and the very words I am now using
had their source in the charges of light and heat of our
great luminary.
We discover in this law of correlation the final unity
of objective science; for by it the organic and inor
ganic world, mind and matter, are brought into a know
able relation as parts of this wondrous cosmical order.
This fundamental truth can only be consistently held
by the new faith, for by it all duality of conception,
such as God as opposed to Man, Heaven as contrasted
with Earth, a spiritual life in contradistinction to a
worldly life, must be forever discarded, and, in their
place, we obtain the grand monistic conception of the
unity of force and matter ; wherein all things, organic
and inorganic, appear but asparts of one stupendous
whole.”
This new conception as opposed to the old is well pre
sented to the mind in the symbol of a circle as contrast
ed with a straight line. The old idea was the straight
line with God at one end, man and the world at the
other; but the circle, without beginning or end, can
alone picture the grandeur of the everlasting flow of
phenomena as now we know them.
Turn we now for another illustration of the same gene
ral topic to the teachings of Astronomy and Geology.
The old faith presents such astonishing cosmical revela-
�24
tions as the following : “ Again the devil taketh Jesus
“ up into an exceeding high mountain, and showeth him
“ all the kingdoms of the 'world, and the glory of them.”
Matt, iv—8.
“ And it came to pass while he blessed them he was
« parted from them and carried up into heaven.” Luke
xxiv—51.
These two texts,'though doubtless possessing allegori
cal value, display complete unaccjuaintance with the
facts of the rotundity of the earth and its revolution
on its axis. No miracle could make us believe that
Jesus saw the antipodes, and in the continual motion of
the earth there can be no such conception as up to
heaven since what is up one hour is down another.
Thus these two texts form excellent illustrations of
the old geological and astronomical notions. The
earth, under this, (at the time, natural) illusion, was be
lieved to be a flat, extended, stationary plane, all the
kingdoms of which could be seen from a high eleva
tion. Heaven was just a little way above it, at most
not more than a mile or so, and its floor was the crys
talline dome of the sky. Here was distinctly located
the realm of the blessed. Here the eternal harpers dis
coursed their ecstatic strains. Here the angels, for oc
cupation, bore onwards during the night not only the
moon whereby to illumine the earth, but also other
“ lesser lights,” like Jupiter, Neptune and Sirius.
A
somewhat larger lamp they kindly held aloft pioducing
daylight.
The celestial architect, inhabiting this supernal re
gion, conceived the idea some six thousand years ago of
making an earth. He completed the task in six days,
and then feeling tired rested on the seventh.
Silly as this primitive cosmogeny now appears, the
old faith, in reality, is nothing without it, for on it de
pended the localization of heaven and hell, the one
�25
placed above, the other below the earth; but how piti
ful, how sadly childish it appears in view of the real re
velations of science, which prove that this earth is not
the recent creation of a divine mechanic, but a planet
which for inconceivable time has revolved around its
central sun. Vast transformations have occurred upon
its surface. Continents have risen and fallen. Great
systems of life have followed one upon another, mark
ing their birthdays not by years but by centuries.
And this little earth, so hoary with age, so venerable
with change, is itself but a tiny speck amid the starpeopled fields of space. From the great nebula of
Orion it would be indiscernible even with the aid of the
most powerful telescope. Could we in imagination
take the wings of the morning and fly to the outermost
parts of our astronomical system, still beyond us would
stretch space and stars, space and stars, till the sense is
dazed and the mind benumbed in the contemplation.—
The telescope has pierced the infinite depths, revealing
orbs whose lightning-speeding rays consume millenia in
reaching us, but the telescope reveals—no heaven—
There is a curious little book called Erehwon, the letters
of which being re-transposed, read “ Nowhere.” Sci
ence has transformed Heaven into Erehwon. God,
if he exists, is a homeless wanderer in the Infinite.
But I fancy I hear the old question of Napoleon,
“ Whence came all these stars ?” I could reply by
giving you the nebular-hypothesis or the aggregation
theory, and so present a proximate explanation, but I
am content to answer in all humility “ I know not.”
Nor do we need to know. Any fact of science traced
to its ultimatum, brings us face to face with facts which
are impenetrable to any human capacity. We have, how
ever, no warrant to invoke the pseudo mystery theolo
gians call God to solve the real mystery that surround
us. We, as positivists, are content to take our mysteries
�26
at first hand, and do not presume to measure the infi
nite by the little foot-rule of human experience.
But if Astronomy has deprived the theologian of
his heaven, it has certainly shown him what the posi
tion of his earth is in the universe. If rightly inter
preted it tells him that on this contracted isle in the
ocean of the infinite is to be wrought out his destiny
and that of the race of which he is a member. It tells
him that the celestial spheres have departed, that the
old false world is gone, but that his true home is here
on earth, and that he must now turn, not to the angelic
hosts, but to his fellow-man for aid and comfort.
Since this is so ; since, in other words, we must now
look to Humanity instead of God, it becomes of para
mount importance to know the laws not only of the
inorganic, but also of the organic world. We there
fore shut the leaves of the old fable, and open the new
book of Genesis, which reveals the law of evolution, as
exemplified in the studies of Biology and Sociology;
the former being the science of plant and animal life 5
the latter, the science of society.
Geologists are well agreed that there was a time when
no life existed on this planet. We also know that all
living substances are composed, of protoplasmic cells.
Life must, therefore, have first appeared in the form of
this colloid substance, which lias been analyzed and
found to consist of carbon, nitrogen, hydrogen, oxygen,
a little sulphur and pliosporus. Such is the physical
basis of life, and, under the law of correlation, the
alternative seems to be inevitably thrust upon us that
from the combination of these elements resulted that con
dition of matter, whose organic action we call life, the
definition of life being the interplay between an or
ganism and its environment, and thought the miiror
that reflects them.
�Protoplasm is therefore the bridge between the or
ganic and the inorganic worlds. The peculiarity of
this substance is its wonderful quality of increment
and growth. By means of this peculiarity, and by
adaptation and re-adaptation to its environment, by the
survival of the the fittest in the struggle for existence,
by the transmission through inheritance of acquired
superiorities, came that vast development of animal life,
recorded in the unalterable history of the rocks, and
kept concealed in those rough pages till the wand of
science, with its “ open sesame,” revealed these miracles
of nature.
Well, this process of advancing life went on till the
higher animals were developed, and with them man. If
anyone still entertains a doubt of the descent of man
from some form of the anthopoid ape, let him visit some
museum of natural history and study the appearance,
manners and formation of the Gibbon and Chimpanzee.
One look will be worth a hundred arguments, and the
distant relationship will appear two plain to be honestly
disowned. To-day even there are savages existing far
nearer the condition of the highest ape than they are to
civilized man.
“ Shocking” cries our objector, and we also seem to
hear him say, “ I do not wish to believe it even if it is
true;” to which we rejoin that we rejoice in it, because
it makes our life at one with the great life of this globe.
It protects our being by placing it in the lap of law. It
shows to us our destiny. It tells us whence we came
and whither we are going. Better the developing ape
than the degraded angel. The ape progressive opens
boundless vistas for the Future of the Race ; the angel
fallen tolls the knell of human hope,
These ^primeval ancestors of anthropoid origin were
the completest possible contradiction to those Paradi
saical creatures into whom the Almighty is fabled to
�28
have breathed the breath of life, creating them, so says
the legend, in his own image. They were, as a matter
of fact and science, but a grade above the beasts, and
it was only when they first began to associate, for of
fence, defence, or other purpose, that they laid thefoundation of Society and Manhood, for, “ man is not
man, but in Society Man means Society.”
Co-evally with that association doubtless came the
first dull glimmerings of language, the sine qua non to
social advancement. The savage learned also to make
a fire ; another great step in human progress. TribaL
union came. The untutored intellect began to ask
itself the great questions of the whence, the where, and
the whither. It looked around on nature. It saw the
grasses grow, the leaves waving in the breeze, the brook
lets dancing in the sunshine, and the stars pursuing
their silent courses. All nature seemed in motion.”
“ Whence these motions ? asked the savage. Must not
“ these objects move just as I move ? My will directs
“ my motion. Wills, therefore, must also direct theirs.”
Thus came the first great stage of religion—Fetichism,
in which all nature seemed alive, in which all things
that moved, whether animate or inanimate, were inter
preted as being actuated by wills.
By this incipient philosophy, rude and primitive as it
now appears, the human mind was saved-from chaos. In
the absence of science no other theory was possible.
All nature was alive, actually alive. To the fetichist
there were literally books in the running brooks, sermons
in stones, and God in everything. He was the most
complete of theologians the world has ever, or ever will
behold, for he always lived in the midst of a constant
communion with his surrounding deities.
But the savage had other experiences. , He saw
visions and dreamt dreams. In the watches of the
night appeared to him his friend or enemy, nay even.
�29
his own self. These apparitions to him were realities.
To each man, therefore, the savage reasoned, belonged a
second self, a veritable alter ego, which was a spirit or
ghost, the belief in which was confirmed by such
strange phenomena as the breath appearing and fading
away, or the shadow following in snch silent mystery.
Herein we discover the historical origin of the
human soul, considered as an entity. As an illusion it
arose and as such is fast fading away.
Nor is this all. If these strange appearances could
live separate from the body during life, why not after
death ? So a place had to be prepared for departed
spirits, located sometimes on a mountain, sometimes in
a cave; sometimes above, sometimes below the earth.
Thus, also, do we find the historical foundations of
heaven and hell, a doctrine natural to and consistent
with that old savage theory of things, but an utter ano
maly in the state of our present knowledge.
Still, social advance went on. The original nomadic
life became changed to that of agriculture and the care
of flocks. Men found a settled abode in the great river
valleys, like the Tigris and Euphrates. It was the be
ginning of home life.
There was now more time for contemplation. The
care of harvests and cattle led the people to watch the
skies. The lesser fetiches began to fade in interest be
fore the sun and stars, and astrolatry set in. The great
Gods were thus seen as further off, and the mind be
came prepared to separate the wills, deities and spirits
from the objects they inhabited. Then came the next
great religious stage Polytheism. For men had begun
to notice uniformities in nature. The gods of each
tree, for example, were condensed into the God of the
Forest. The great divisions of the universe, Earth,.
Hades (or Hell) and Heaven were assigned to their re
spective rulers.
�30
But still along the ages the process continued of the
weeding out of the deities, for completer observations
of nature and larger scientific conceptions were forcing
the minds of men towards a larger unity, (especially
under the influence of the great amalgamation of the
Roman Empire,) and Monotheism was the result.
Idol worship was the first stage, Fetichism. Idol
worship was the second stage, Polytheism. And idol
worship is the third stage (their direct successor) Mono
theism. What matters it whether the idol be one carved
by the hand or created by the mind ? Has not Comte
well described the God of Christianity by applying to it
the term “La Grand Fetiche?”
But observe the process. With the advance of real
knowledge, the Gods of false knowledge have been ex
terminated one by one, or relegated to a greater dis
tance ; and thus through the ages has the great war gone
on between science and theology. Every advance meant
fewer gods, or the same god attenuated or driven fur
ther off; and the course of human history show’s that
this earth can never stand redeemed till God and Satan,
angels and demons, ghosts and spirits, are forever driven
and consigned to their appropriate limbo of fiction and
mythology.
'But pari passu with this destructive theological disso
lution was ever occurring a constructive scientific evolu
tion. We have said that men became men by virtue of
their primal association. These associations at first were
small, consisting, probably, of the family. The family
grew to the tribe, the tribe increased to the city, or
combined with other tribes to form the nation; until
now in these latter days, as Tennyson says, “ The Indi
vidual withers, but the Race is more and more,” and we
have dawming upon us, at last, the grandest of all the
revelations of science the great conception of tlie Im
mortal Individual, Humanity as an Organism. This
�31
Humanity, as defined by my friend, Mr. T. B. Wakeman,
tlie author of that admirable little work called “ An
Epitome of the Positive Religion and Philosophy,” is
to be regarded as the “ whole of human beings past, pre
sent and future,” or again, as “ the voluntary conver
gence of all the sentient beings on our planet, the
Parliament of Man, the Federation of the world.”
“ This,” he says, “ has been especially manifest since the
“ French Revolution in the inciease of diplomatic,
“ scientific, commercial and social intercourse, all of
“ which has strengthened the conviction that all are but
“ parts of one great earthly family, whose interests are
“ in a thousand ways indissolubly interwoven. Both the
“ French and American revolutions, in the appreciation
“ they displayed of the brotherhood aud the rights of
“ man, were a grand admonition that the word Humanity
“ had come to stand for the deepest sentiment and the
“ highest interest of Mankind, whereby each finds that
“ he has a place, a right and a duty as part of the grand
“ Organic Social Being of our planet.”
Under my fifth head, wherein I shall endeavor to
show that our cause is the Cause of Religion, I shall
adduce further evidence to prove that Humanity is a
Being or Organism; but fearing that the impression
which my scientific outline has thus far left upon the
minds of my hearers, in spite of my previous protest,
is that of the identity of Positivism with Materialism,
I wish at once to correct any such misunderstanding in
case it exists. Beginning with Chaos I have described
the occurrence of Phenomena under the laws of corre
lation and evolution, and have stated that those pheno
mena culminated in man himself. We have been consi
dering these things objectively, just as if we were
disinterested observers poised somewhere in space and
watching how matters took place on earth. In this ob
�32
jective view Positivism is, we are ready to confess, mate
rialistic. But the great point to notice is that we are
not such disinterested observers in space. We are our
selves part and parcel of the Cosmos. Its laws are only
laws as they appear so to our minds. “ The everlast
ing laws are parts of ourselves.” In this therefore
which is the subjective view, the idea or idealism is the
uppermost consideration. The two conceptions, put
together, form the counterpart one of the other. If on
the objective side we seem purely materialistic, on the
subjective side we seem purely idealistic, and the one
view is as scientific as the other. If the out-and-out ma
terialist states that we cannot know mind except in terms
of matter we shall not contradict him, but we shall put in
our rejoinder to the effect, neither can matter be known
except in terms of mind, that, in fact, the final synthesis
of science must be a subjective one or one based on the
consciousness of impressions made on the mind by its
environment. The environment may be called material,
the effect of it is ideal. The mind (subjective) is
the reflector of the world (objective). They are but
two aspects of the same shield. In their ensemble
they constitute, in truth, the grand reconcilation of
materialism with spiritualism, using the latter term not
in the sense of Ghostism, but in its proper human
meaning.
But the individual, in this subjective or human view,
is totally inexplicable except when considered in his re
lation to the race. The theologian right here with jus
tice urges his intuitional philosophy against the ma
terialist, asking him whence come all these aspirations
and longings, these fine imaginations, this soaring of the
soul for something higher and better, unless from the
divine intentions implanted from the source of all per
fections, God. Before this question pure materialism
has to stand abashed. Holiness of life and striv-
�33
fngs after righteousness could not be entirely inter
preted by the attempt of physiology to resolve
them into so much expenditure of nervous and
vital force. To account for these phenomena scien
tifically a missing link had to be found, which is the
the link that Positivism presents to view, viz., the race
idea, or Humanity. Says Comte “ Entre nous et le
monde il faut V Ilumanite.” ' (Between us and the
world there is, and there is need of Humanity). Only
in the continuity and solidarity,(that is, by investigation
ot the past and present,) of this greater organ
ism can we know ourselves as individuals at all, but now
we are sure that law, science, intellect, morality, all we
have and are, are the accomplishments of the generations
dead and gone transmitted to us through heredity.
Thus everything is accounted for, even the tenderest
pleadings of the heart, the lover’s sigh, or the child’s
sweet glance of confidence.
Distasteful as I know these discriminations between
the objective and the subjective to be, I yet linger for a
few moments upon them to consider the much vexed
question of the freedom of the will, for I feel that in
the distinction between the objective and subjective lies
the only approach to a solution of this puzzle. As has
before been intimated, the subjective synthesis is nothing
more nor less than the classified impressions of the
world around tis. Having received and thus arranged
these impressions, the mind naturally asks itself, “ What
are you going to do about it ? Are you going to rest
quiet and take no action in the premises, or will you at
tempt to modify these phenomena and turn them to the
well being of man ?” To put the question differently,
Have we freedom of the will ? Are we the creatures
of a blind fatality or can we regulate circumstance,
and become to ourselves a practical providence ? To the
question then, Have we freedom of the will, I an
�34
swer no and yes. In the objective sense, no; in the sub
jective sense, yes. Objectively we see that all things
. are under the sway of immutable law from the move
ment of the planets to the finest action of the brain
and the strongest decisions of our nature. This is the
position of the materialistic fatalist, and as far as he
goes he is right and consistent. Kismet is its watch
word. It is the philosophy of laisser abler and of
consequent indifferentism. It bids its disciples to quietly
sail along with the sluggish stream of time, picking
up on their way whatever driftwood they can find of
pleasure or of gain. In its morality it is profoundly
selfish. It seeks only for number one. But, turning
to the subjective aspect of this hard problem, a new
light bursts upon it. While we must acknowledge that
under the sway of objective law our wills simply follow
the lines of least resistance, and are consequently noth
ing but a force the resultant of other forces ; still it is
at once apparent that this line of least resistance is re
sultant from influences far beyond the mental powTer of
man to calculate, and hence the will of man is, for all
practical purposes, left perfectly free. I mean that the
resolutions a man is each moment taking are undoubt
edly because of a countless number of influences,
astronomical, metereological, biological, socialogical
and moral, which in their ensemble no earthly power
can either control or stop to calculate. But his will, the
resultant of all these influences, any man is most dis
tinctly conscious of, and can with reason proceed to act
upon it as an original and basic force, and as if it were
not the consequent of other forces at all. This position
may be, perhaps, dimly illustrated by the attitude of
children in a household. In many respects such chil
dren feel themselves perfectly free in their wills. They
laugh and play, rise and sleep, pretty much to please
themselves, totally thoughtless that their parents have
�35
woven around them a net-work of physical and moral
bands that bind them with most powerful hold. The
children feel that they are free, and act so. The
parents know that they are not. Just so it is, only in a
much greater degree, that the minds and wills of adults
are free. The inextricable combinations of the external
and internal worlds are incalculable, and thus leave man
an independent agent. This is shown by our everyday
attitude towards our environment. The astronomical
world around us is unmodifiable. No effort of the will
can change the course of the stars, but as we approach
the regions of physics and chemistry we find that we
can effect vast transformations in nature to the use
of man, and coming to the social and moral life
of man himself, here, of all regions, are the places
where he can change and alter the most, and in these
fields it is that the hope of human redemption lies as
they are most of all under intelligent direction and con
trol. If this explanation is not entirely satisfactory to
all, I can maintain at any rate that it is a vastly better
one than theology could ever offer in consideration of
the okl difficulty that always existed under the attempt
to reconcile man’s free agency with the predestinations
of an all-wise and overruling God. There was here, in
fact, no reconciliation possible. But it certainly strikes
me that in the objective and subjective aspects of the
antagonism between fate and free-will we have a rela
tive, if not an absolute explanation, which is sufficient
for all the real purposes of life.
As long as science, thus transmitted through race in
heritance, was confined to the inorganic world, a cold
and selfish, one-sided and exclusive materialism was the
result, but now that she has extended her sway over the
organic departments, we find ourselves so linked by law
to our fellows, that only by unselfishness can we fulfil
the laws.
�36
I wish, at this point, to offer a suggestion concerning
the question of theology and science, which, at the first
blush, may seem to contradict my previous statements.
I have maintained that between these two ideas or
methods there is an irrepressible conflict. And this is
strictly true. Yet it is not only fair, but it will throw
much light on the topic to remember that until real de
monstrated science came in, the theological interpreta
tion of the Universe was regarded as the Scientific one.
It was the ignorant man’s science. Science (from scioire) is what we know. The savage 'knew that a nightly
vision was a reality, for he saw it with his very eyes.
He knew that the earth was flat and stationery. He
knew that the sun moved around it, and not it around
the sun. The astrologer believed religiously in his
horoscope ; the alchemist in his alembic. The search of
Ponce de Leon for the fountain of youth was just as
much a scientific expedition to him as a few years ago
was that of her Majesty’s ship “ Challenger ” in its deep
sea soundings. Only little by little has real science dis
placed false science. The process has involved, through
many centuries, the conflict between these two interpre
tations of the universe, the one pseudo-scientific, the
other really scientific. Any one who has read Dr.
John W. Draper’s History of the Conflict between Sci
ence and Religion has seen, as in a grand epic, the por
trayal of what I allude to. The God idea and the man
idea have ever been contending because they are both
endeavors to construe the universe and the destiny of
Humanity with reference thereto.* The one has had its
basis on the conception of the will of a God or Gods,
the other on the conception of Law. Both methods
have been upheld as scientific, but in every case demon
stration has held its own against revelation. In Astron* They both attempt to tell man what he is, where he is, whence
he is, and whither he is tending.
�37
-omy, Physics and Chemistry no appeal to deity is now
even thought of to explain their phenomena. In these
departments the would-be science of divine interpreta
tion has completely yielded to the proven science of
rational interpretation. In individual and social life
recourse is still had to the old methods to explain man
in his relations to the world and to his fellows, but the
application of the laws of Biology and Sociology must as
inevitably remove the resort to a celestial governance,
as has been the case in the other regions of demonstrated
fact. “ When I was a child, I thought as a child, I
felt as a child, I spoke as a child, but when I became a
man, I put away childish things.” This text clearly
illustrates the manner in which we emerge from our
worn out opinions. We lay them aside as we do a shabby
garment, or as a Crustacean does the shell he has out
grown.
The same text also shows how in most cases those in
a lower stage of civilization should be treated, as against
the educated classes; but one ground is tenable, and
that is the utter unfitness of Christian doctrine to guide
the thought of the future, but concerning those in lower
stages of culture, we should, in the light of evolution,
apply to such only a relative remedy. In the case of the
African tribes, for instance, their adoption of Moham
medanism would be a long step in advance, and prob
ably the best one, as well as the only one practicable.
And with regard to our own ignorant masses under the
rule of the Romish Church, any sudden extrication from
their priestly censorship would undoubtedly prove an
evil. Religiously speaking, they are children, and as
such they must be treated. It is to be hoped that the
Catholic priesthood may become sufficiently enlarged to
apply to their charges a Kindergarten method in religion
which will, without violence, acquaint the masses piece
meal with the new truth. Unless some such plan of
�38
gradual amelioration can be effected, another (and hap
pily the last) great conflict between theology and science
is inevitable. The thinking, reading world will range
itself on one side, ignorance and Pharisaism on the
other, and sad will be the clash.
In this connection the following words of John Mor
ley, taken from the Contemporary Review, may not
seem out of place: addressing the clergy, he says:
“ The growth of bright ideals and a nobler purpose will
go on, leaving ever and ever further behind them your
dwarfed finality and leaden, moveless stereotype. We
shall pass you on your flank ; your fiercest darts will
only spend themselves upon air. We will not attack you
as Voltaire did ; we will not exterminate you ; we shall
explain you. History will place each dogma in its
class, above or below a hundred competing dogmas, ex
actly as the naturalist classifies his species. From being
a conviction, it will sink to a curiosity ; from being the
guide to millions of human lives it will dwindle down to
a chapter in a book. As history explains your dogma,
so science will dry it up ; the conception of law will
silently make the conception of the daily miracle of
your altars seem impossible ’ the mental climate will
,
gradually deprive your symbols of their nourishment,
and men will leave your system, not because they have
confuted it, but because, like witchcraft or astrology, it
has ceased to interest them.”
I conclude the present head of my discourse by saying
that the above, in brief, are the lessons of science which
show to man his place in nature. As the result and out
come of all these forces (organic and inorganic) stands
the civilization of to-day. That civilization can only be
expressed in the term Humanity, and in that Humanity
we all live and move and have our being. Just as the
individual organism is made up of living cells, which
�39
only exist as they are related to and connected with the
body, so is each one of us in our dependence on Human
ity. Outside of man has neither meaning nor exist
ence. Humanity is our Providence. Its toils and
agonies have been the stepping stones to bear us to a
higher life; its benificent protection holds us in the
hollow of its hand.
Having thus far endeavored to show that science an* swers (as far as they are answerable) the great questions
of the whence, the where and the whither, our subject
leads us to another grand point, in which the new re
ligion of Truth brings to us the idea of the Beautiful.
So I affirm,
THIRDLY—THAT THE CAUSE OF HUMAN
ITY IS THE CAUSE OF ART.
Much as I have dwelt on science, art is as truly and
fundamentally an inspiration of the new faith : art, not
in its narrow meaning, but art in its larger sense, in the
sense implied in Goethe’s splendid aphorism, wffiere he
says, “We know no world except in relation to man ;
we wish no art except as an expression of that relation.”
Rising at once above the domain of the mechanical arts,
art, in its highest sense, becomes the idealization, the
apotheosis of the real. Its aim is to ennoble and beau
tify humanity. Art is Beauty. Its masterpieces in
poetry, sculpture, painting, music and architecture, have
always been the accompaniments of great concrete civ
ilizations. This explains why art has been called the
handmaid of religion, since no civilization of any mo
ment has existed in the world unless based upon and
accompanied by a controlling faith. Art accomplished
marvels under Polytheistic and Christian theology, not
�40
because of the divinity of those religions, but because
they both possessed a strong human side, and this side it
is that art has given us in its delineations. If chained
completely to the trammels of superstition, she would
starve for want of sustenance, for she must find her
nourishment in the actual.
It is science that lays the deeply dug foundations, and
there she is content to leave them buried ; but on these
solid blocks of truth art will rear her dwellings and her
temples for the future of men. All the skill of archi
tecture, all the resources of sculpture, all the devices of ’
painting, she will apply to their adornment. Fairer
women and braver men will dwell and worship therein,
and will echo their sense of the sublime and beautiful
through the harmony of music and the synthetic
inarch of poetry.
Art is the child of nature; yes,
Her darling child, in whom we trace
The features of the mother’s face,
Her aspect and her attitude,
All her majestic loveliness
Chastened and softened and subdued
Into a more attractive grace,
And with a human sense imbued,—He is the greatest artist then,
Whether of pencil or of pen,
Who follows nature,—Never man,
As artist or as artizan,
Pursuing his own fantasies,
Can touch the human heart, or please,
Or satisfy our noble needs,
As he who sets his willing feet
In nature’s footprints, light and fleet,
And follows fearless where she leads.
�41
Art’s greatest effort under the old faith has been to
idealize this world in order to enable us to realize an
other. The new faith cherishes the ideal at least in
equal degree; all that is lovely and of good report, all
that is beautiful, all that is grand, all that is true and
estimable in the world of nature or the world of man,
will be the office of art to symbolize ; and then the
heaven which men have so vainly sought in another
sphere will be realized on earth. Quoting Goethe’s
words, in their largest sense, may we not almost say
with him ?
“ Who science has and art
Has also religion.
Who neither of them has
Let him have religion.”
I would gladly dwell longei’ on this most attractive
phase of positivism, but the limitations of space, already.
too much transgressed, compel me to desist.
Having shown thus far that our synthesis embraces
the regions of science and art, I am next led to de
monstrate that the cause of Humanity is now prepared
to cope with Christianity in its last stronghold, and that
hence
FOURTHLY.—OUR CAUSE IS THE CAUSE
OF MORALITY.
We claim that Humanity is the sole basis of morals.
Therefore, in discussing this portion of our subject we
must, at the outset, distinguish between the human and
divine morality ; or the morality of Naturalism and the
morality of Supernaturalism. The former may be called
the ethics of one world at a time, the latter the ethics of
two worlds at a tune.
�42
Some skilled equestrians in the hippodrome are able
to ride two steeds simultaneously. Even they, however,
find it a tiresome and risky operation. But for the mul
titude sueli a feat is an impossibility; yet this is the
attempt which for ages civilization has been trying to
accomplish, and many have been the falls and greatthe
disaster which has resulted.
When I speak of Supernaturalism in this essay, I
limit myself to Christian Supernaturalism, and here, as
before, I draw the line between the head side and the
heart side of the religion of Jesus. On the heart side
(within the brotherhood of the Christian confession)
noble traditions of sympathy, charity and self-sacrifice
have become the inheritance of the race. Contracted
within the limits of the Boman Catholic civilization this
heait side has given us much that is human and humane.
But when we turn to the head side (the doctrinal side)
of Christianity, how sadly the picture changes ! We
there have the vengeful God, who created man in his
own image by making him totally depraved, and who
still further showed the cruelty and despotic favoritism
of his nature by slaying his own son to the end that cer
tain sti ay sinners might inherit life eternal. Heaven
and hell were presented to lure the selfish and intimi
date the weak, and a priesthood was established as the
ministers plenipotentiary of their Celestial Tyrant.
These same points have been before dwelt upon, but we
now restate them to show their bearing upon morality.
Would you know the meaning of these Christian dog
mas ? I will tell you. They mean the organized despair
of man. They mean the slave cringing before a power
he cannot control. They mean the perpetuation of
ignorance and fear. They mean the denial of our own
manhood, the shirking of our own responsibility through
the wretched doctrine of the atonement, the cowardly
and degrading assumption of another’s merits to stand in
1
�(
43
place of our own. They mean a personal salvation gained
at the price of almost universal damnation. . They mean
a human fellowship confined to the narrow range of the
Christian confession, excluding all others. And, worst
of all, they mean the denial of human freedom, the sub
jection of the race to an absolute foreign despot, who
has vested his unalterable authority in Priest, King or
Bible.
Such is the picture of Christian morality, a picture of
stagnation and misery set against the dark background,
and within the sombre frame-work of the middle ages.
But in the sixteenth century two twin giants leapt
forth, full-armed, like Minerva from the head of Jove,
whose double office it was to reverse this dreary pic
ture. Their names were Protestantism and Science.
Protestantism, with its dogma of the right of private
judgment, shouted revolt against authority, the destruc
tion of idol-worship, the overthrow of all false Gods;
while Science prophesied the establishment of a higher
truth, the construction of a new ideal, the conformity of
the soul of man, not to the laws of God, but to the laws
of nature.
Both of these twin Saviours appealed to humanity in the
name of liberty. The former demanded, and is still de
manding, liberty from the trammels of the old; the lat
ter, liberty to lay down the strong foundation of the
new. They both tell us that the law of freedom means
freedom to obey law.
For three centuries have these great forces been work
ing in society, and under their holy influence what a
vast change do we see in the civilization of the nine
teenth century, so falsely called a Christian civiliza
tion ! How differently we can now describe the
morality of the representative man of the modern
epoch ! No longer bowed with face in the dust, pros
trate at the feet of Jesus, we see him standing erect in
�44
the nobility of his own manhood. Instead of Faith in
Christ, we see him living by his Faith in Human Na
ture. The brotherhood of the Christian Confession has
given way to the Republic of the World, the Common
wealth of Man. In place of self-suppression we have
self-development. Doubt is no longer sin, nor disbelief
damnation. Organized Faith in man has become the
substitute for the organized Despair of man.
All this has been accomplished for human morality in
the sacred names of Science and of Liberty. Reverence
for freedom has increased as reverence for authority has
decreased, and even Christianity (which I have thus
strongly assailed) has so expanded under the freedom
wrested from itself, that it has proved fruitful of
many blessings. I wish to give it all the credit possible,
but after every allowance it is evident that much, very
much, remains to be done. Under the doctrine of elec
tion, for example, theology created an elect in heaven,
which has been aptly imitated by an overbearing aristo
cracy on earth. In directing contrite submission to the
will of God, by saying that the powers that be are or
dained of God, that the poor you have always with you,
&c. it basin past times justified masters in grinding down
their slaves, feudal lords in trampling on their vassals,
and to-day sanctions capital in its oppression of labor.
If Christianity does go down into the pit to help the
poor, it first is determined to keep them there ; witness
how it advocates the present false competitive method
of trade, that Darwinism in business, wherein every
man’s hand is against every other man’s, and must of
necessity be while the system lasts. The priest is the
natural ally of the capitalist. They both represent one
sided, selfish power.
I here wish to answer an anticipated objection,
which is that I am fighting against the windmills,
that I have been setting up straw figures merely
�45
to knock them down, or, in other words, that
these dogmas which I have been reprobating have be
come, in the light of the nineteenth century, practically
obsolete. To which I would reply, that this is not true.
There is not a single orthodox sect in Christendom in
whose printed articles of faith these incubi will not be
found, and I venture the assertion that week by week
thousands of ingenuous children in our Sunday-schools
are having their consciences warped, and their little
minds polluted with the debasing teaching that they are
(in the words of Brown’s old Catechism) “ Enemies of
God, children of Satan and heirs of hell.”
They are taught on Sunday, under the holy sanction
of the church, that the world was created in six days;
on Monday they learn in their day-school that its con
struction consumed millenia of time. The childish mind
sees there is a lie somewhere, and most unhappily, as
my witty friend James Parton once said, the young
hopeful’s natural inference is, . “ Go it while you’re
young.” The conflict of secular and religious teaching
deprives him of his standard of morality.
And even in the more liberal churches, those which
have reached out beyond the pale of orthodoxy, I main
tain that the same flavor pervades their tenets. Re
moulding an old rhyme, I would say :
“ You may break, you may shiver the jar, if you will,
“ The stench of the garbage will cling round it still.”
For, as long as these doctrines exist (even in their most
attenuated form), they tend on the side of that spirit
which makes for ignorance, hatred and slavery, and
which sets itself at variance with freedom, science and
humanity. These liberal churches are a strange anom
aly. Christianity, to be Christianity at all, it seems to
me, must, by the force of its own logic, hold to the doc
�46
trines we have been considering, or else become no
longer Christianity. For the dogmas of the Fall,
Atonement and Salvation, form one consistent whole ;
the abstraction of any one of them being the removal of
a link that breaks the whole chain. Unless men were
fallen, what the need of a Saviour, unless doomed to hell,
what the use of atonement; if possessed of merits of
their own, what the need of another’s merits ? Consid
eration will thus show that all these conceptions must be
construed together. Still, only in direct proportion as
Christians cut loose from such belief do they work out
from the genius of the twelfth into the genius of the
nineteenth century, and from the narrow morality of
superstition into the large morality of science and free
dom. The retention even of an iota of Christian doc
trine is so much premium on selfishness and wrong. Yet
it may be there is one class of Christians (if Christians
they can be called) whom hitherto I have not described
in this essay, and to whom I have not done justice.
They are a set of men who are symbolizing away their
old faith. To them no longer is God a person, but the
name signifies the great unknowable, unnameable power
underlying the cosmos. Christ is to such the type of
self-sacrifice, the highest embodiment of manhood, the
symbol of reconciliation ; and the chief idea they attach
to immortality is the glory of the conscious performance
of well-doing throughout eternity. Canon Farrar is
perhaps an example of such believers. He denies en
tirely the orthodox interpretation of the atonement.
With regard to such Christians, it might not be im
proper to again quote their own Scripture by saying,
“ He that is not against us is for us.”
The truth, however, about such seems to be that they
are simply stopping in a half-way house. Their First
of May, their moving day, must soon come. Between
Roman Catholicism and the Religion of Humanity there
�47
is no fixed resting place. The men I am now describ
ing necessarily cling to their old notion of Duality. This
must unfix their foundation.. It bases their hopes
wrongly, and to that extent debases them. I know a
gentleman who once bought a beautiful place on the
sea-shore. He found it so thickly surrounded with ever
greens—the type of immortality—that the beautiful
view of the ocean was quite excluded. "With his ax he
struck them down right and left. The evergreens were
gone, but the loveliest panorama was opened, having the
grand old ocean for its background, with men and wo
men rambling by the roadside, and children playing in
the fields. And thus will it ever prove. This life will
become more and more just as the other life becomes
less and less, and not till our hopes are no longer fixed
on an objective personal immortality ; not till this and
other false aspirations are removed, can Humanity reach
to the full attainment of its high capability. The heaven
men would gain must be sought for here.
Did this last most advanced type of Christians but
know it, there is only one step trom their belief to Posi
tivism. Perhaps no better definition of the latter on its
religious side could be found than to call it thus, viz,
developed Christianity, minus its theology. In this
view all superstition would be discarded. The term
Force would take the place of God, and the noble ideal
of Humanity would supplant, without displacing, that of
the Christ.
And we who embrace these modern views know
whereof we speak. Having tasted of this new tree of
life, we have found the fruition of our religious hopes.
To use an expression of Frederic Harrison’s, “we find
ourselves again in the old lines of religious rest.” Each
one, be he high or low, rich or poor, again finds himself
of use in the world. He sees again the purpose and the
joy of life.
�48
“ Poor indeed thou must be, if around thee
“ Thou no ray of light and joy canst throw;
“ If no silken cord o.f love hath bound thee
“ To some little world through weal or woe.
“ If no dear eyes thy fond love can brighten,
“No fond voices answer to thine own ;
“ If no brother’s sorrow thou cans’t lighten
“ By tender sympathy and gentle tone.
“ Not by deeds that win the crowd’s applause;
“ Not by works that give the world renown ;
“ Not by martyrdom or vaunted crosses
“ Canst thou win and wear the immortal crown.
“ Daily struggling, though unloved and lonely,
“ Every day a rich reward will give ;
“ Thou wilt find by hearty striving only
“ And truly loving thou canst truly live.”
Returning from this side path into -which I have been
led for the purpose of describing the Christians of the
most liberal type, I return to the high-road of my sub
ject, and proceed to say that in spite of every allowance
to be made for the generally received opinions, too much
of the middle-age spirit still remains.
Protestanism was an advance upon Romanism in the
line of freedom, as Unitarianism is upon Protestantism,
but, after all, it is undeniable that the Christian Church,
as such, both in its constitution and history, has been
the sworn foe of science and of liberty. I say both in
her constitution and history. In her constitution, be
cause a perfect revelation from a perfect God admits of
no improvement, needs no science; obedience to the
divine will allows of no liberty. In her history, as wit
ness Copernicus, Galileo, Giordan Bruno, the Inquisi
tion, St. Bartholomew, to say nothing of the Puritan’s
persecution of witchcraft, and numberless other instances
of religious cruelty.
�49
*
To state the matter in one single phrase, doctrinal
Christianity means absolute despotism. It represents
the rule of an overbearing God, and is the very anti
type of Republicanism. Heaven has certainly never
been represented as a democracy. In that summer-land
nothing prevails but meekness and obedience in the
presence of a potentate. A government of the angels,
for the angels, by the angels, with a new president re
elected every four years, would certainly be an anomaly.
This unavoidable antagonism between the ideal heavenly
life and the ideal earthly life leads us to say further that
the fundamental difficulty with Christians, in these tran
sition times, is that, consciously or unconsciously, they
are sailing under two flags. Each individual believer
represents in his own nature a conflict of authority, the
conflict between despotism and republicanism. In his
spiritual and religious nature his life is passed in a dream
of Oriental Tyranny ; in his earthly life, he is a member
of our glorious commonwealth.
History helps us to an explanation of this, since it
shows to us that of old the idea of government, both
human and divine, was based on theology. Christians
have outgrown the one conception and not the other.
Theological government remains in the church, but has
passed away in the state. Government to our fore
fathers was deemed a royal appanage, founded on the
divine right of kings ; while government now is regarded
as the prerogative of the people only, growing out of
their natural right of self-rule.
The American Declaration of Independence human
ized or socialized politics. What we now want is a Declaration of Independence which will humanize religion.
The one equally with the other must be secular and re
publican. Real religion can no more exist under the
rule of God than popular government can under the
sway of a Caesar. Political liberty we have already ob
�50
tained. The next great issue, underlying and including
all others, is the attainment of religious liberty, which,
in the high sense that I refer to, means, and can only
mean, that this toiling, groaning, suffering race of men
and women must summon God before the bar of human
justice, there to have him tried for the deeds done in the
spirit during the long six thousand years of his misrule,
and when found guilty to depose him from his high
estate and in his stead enthrone Humanity, whose scep
tre he has so long usurped.
The abolition of the divine right of kings is the pro
phecy of the abolition of the divine right of God. De
livered from the false authority of both king and God,
of earthly and heavenly tyrant, society will then be
free to submit itself to the only true authority, the
authority of Law.
When freed from the mirage of supernaturalism true
morality is seen to be purely a social growth. From
the attrition through the ages of human experiences, the
sense of right has been evolved, and has become in
grained into the human system as the sum and substance
of social utilities. The old morality is founded on the
God idea, and places its reliance on a divine providence;
the new morality is based entirely on the man idea,
and trusts implicitly in a human providence. The one
is theological, the other sociological. Beginning with
low conditions, the conscience has been augmented, and
ever transmitted and re-transmitted, till it has come to
be regarded as an instinct, an intuition, or a separate
entity. That the moral sense, however, is really the
result of an evolution is shown by comparing present
customs with those of the savage, who, in perfect accord
ance with his barbarous code, kills off the aged, murders
or enslaves his prisoners of war, tortures his enemy, and
�51
feasts on human flesh. Ethically defective, as is our
present age, it certainly represents a vast improvement
on such practices, and we cannot fail to see on a com
parison of savage with civilized times, that conscience,
like the intellect, grows through the ages, and is a purely
relative and human acquisition.
A not unfamiliar example might be found in the Ser
mon on the Mount (Matt, v., 38-41), wherein Christ
himself becomes the unconscious witness of the evolu
tion of morality by his contrast of the old with the new.
“Ye have heard that it hath been said, an eye for an
“ eye, and a tooth for a tooth:
“ But I say unto you, that you resist not evil; but
“ whosoever small smite thee on the right cheek, turn to
“ him the other also.
“ And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take
“ away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also.
“ And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go
“ with him twain.
“ Give to him that asketh of thee, and from him that
“ would borrow of thee, turn not thou away.
“ Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt
“ love thy neighbor and hate thy enemy.
“ But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them
“ that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and
“pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute
“ you.”
But, in spite of the advance effected by Christianity,
and notwithstanding its many excellent precepts, the
insuperable trouble with theology still remains, viz.:
that it has always placed morality upon a selfish and
individual basis; we may, perhaps, say selfish, because
individual basis. Before each believer was placed Par
adise and the Judgment for him or her alone to gain or
lose. The earth was a vale of tears, the heavenly Jeru
salem the all in all. As the Christian song recites it,
�52
“ I’m but a pilgrim here,
Heaven is my home;
Earth’s but a desert drear,
Heaven is my home.”
This world and all that pertains thereto were reckoned
but as dross, and the one thing needful was for each to
save his own immortal soul; (“ for what profiteth it a
man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul ?”)
the whole scheme differing in this respect most un
favorably from he Chinese Fo worship, in the liturgy
of which occurs the following remarkable expression :
“ Never will I seek to receive private individual salva
tion, never enter final peace alone, but forever and
everywhere will I live and strive for the universal re^
demption of every creature throughout all worlds. Un
til all are delivered, never will I leave the world of sin,
sorrow and struggle, but will remain where I am.”
Thus, this Heaven-and-Hell, or look-out-for-numberone doctrine, inevitably resulted “ in weakening the
affections by unlimited desires, or in degrading the
character by servile terror.” It is a selfish, unsocial „
individual, and hence immoral religion, a transfer of'
this world’s egoism into another, though imaginary
sphere. Just as in the fierce competition of modern
life in the terrific race for wealth we see the rule exem
plified of “ each for himself,” so is it in this Christian
theory, the one, in fact, being the counterpart of the
other. What is sought on earth is the selfish attainment
of ease and power. What is sought in the after-life is
practically the continued enjoyment of the same thing.
While the heavenly ideal is the representative of the
earthly selfishness, the earthly selfishness, in turn, is
sanctioned by the heavenly ideal. To save our own
souls we are obliged, on the Christian theory, to do our
duty towards God, and subordinate ourselves to His
�53
almighty will, the performance of duty and self-salva
tion thus becoming interchangeable terms; and morality,
which can only be truly defined as unselfishness, and
which should be entirely dissociated from the idea of
rewards and punishments, becomes divorced from social
surroundings and indissolubly connected with a sel
fish hope of heaven and a debasing fear of hell. Under
the old dispensation the one unpardonable sin was blas
phemy against the Holy Ghost. Under the new regime
that one sin is egoism. No matter how reputable a man’s
life may seem; no matter how brilliant a women’s
career may be; nay, let the highest attainment of
science and culture be their object, still them life is
wrongly directed unless its motives and its aims are
sanctified by the heart. The intellect, at best, is fitted
only for a guide. Beason must never master the affec
tion. If it does, the life so governed must be largely a
life of selfishness, and to that extent a life of wasted
power ; as Longfellow puts it:
“ A millstone and the human heart
Are driven ever round ;
If they have nothing else to grind,
They must themselves be ground.”
Tho subordination of egoism to altruism is thus not
only the path of duty but the path of the highest happi
ness also. St. Paul has expressed it inimitably in that
greatest chapter in the whole of religious literature, his
chapter on charity in the first epistle to the Corinthians.
The standard thus held up, though the happiest, is
■undoubtedly the hardest to follow. To oppose the gen
eral opinions of one’s age, to swim eternally against the
•current, is no holiday sport. It only brings its compen
sation in the sense of duty done and convictions adhered
to. It leaves the feeling that our children will have one
�54
stone or two less to turn in the path of their progress,,
and that mankind generally are at least one little whit
the better for our having been here and breasted out
our little struggles. For it is inevitable that those who
succeed these times must face a new environment, and
they are the blessed ones who thus prepare the way of
Man and make his path straight. Such will be the real
second coming of the Christ.
I have criticised unsparingly the creeds of Christen
dom, but, happily, Christians for the most part are bet
ter than their creeds; and why they are so we positivists
well know, for right living and right thinking do not
have their foundations in the sky, but in the here and
now. It is the social influences that form the basis
of all the faiths, and morality is stronger than any
creed, and has outlived all religions. Theology is to
Morality what the old man of the sea was to Sinbad
the Sailor, merely a weight to drag him down; but,
under the new conception, where society is regarded
as an organism, man discovers that only in the good
of all can he find his own good ; he sees, under the
influence of the new faith, that it is only by others that
he can exist, and that thus the noble motto of Positiv
ism, “ Live for others,” comes to supplant the golden
rule of Confucius and the Gospels. “ Dans le bonh&ur
d'autruije cherche monbonli&urf says Corneille. “In
the happiness of others my happiness I seek.”
It is not meant that each one’s personal identity is to
be lost in this sense of universal love. On the contrary,
the individual becomes more and more important and
exalted. We find, for example, in regard to a complete
human body that perfect organs are needful to make it
so. Foi’ the wholeness and harmony of its structure,
arms and legs moved by powerful muscles are required;
also a heart to propel the blood, and a brain to preside
over and crown the whole, to say nothing of the thous
�55
*
and and one functions by which each and all of the
many organs perform their lesser parts.
And thus it is in that larger and more wonderful or
ganism, Humanity. For the perfection of the whole,
the individual organs of which it is composed must be
perfect; and cleanliness, observances of hygiene, and
physical and intellectual improvement become bounden
duties. A quotation from Comte applies aptly here
where he says:
“ All human societies and individuals are regarded as
the organs of this Great Being, Humanity, having their
work and duties determined by their relation to it, and
finding their welfare, happiness and life motive in their
cheerful and faithful service.”
Positivism has been criticised as insisting so strongly
on the conception of duty, as practically to deny the
conception of rights. But this is not just. Bights are
but the obverse estimate of duties, the opposite view of
the same shield. What is A’s duty to B, B has the
right to demand of A. Did A and B both do their
duty, no insistance on the rights of either would ever
be required. Thus the doctrine of human duty will, in
the end, swallow up the doctrine of human rights and
man will learn that the highest, nay, the only right he
needs, is the right to do his duty. In one word, to live
for parents, live for children, live for country, live for
mankind, or, to express it in the noble phrase before
used, to “ Live for others,” becomes the whole duty of
man.
Space forbids mention of much of Positivistic Ethics
that should not be omitted. I merely allude, for example, to its glorious motto, “ vivre au grand jour”
“live in the light of day,” or, “live without conceal
ment.” What a world of value it contains, admonishing
us ever to act as if the eye of all mankind were upon
us!
�56
Again, in passing, it would be an absolute remissness
not to recall the image under which this philosophy sym
bolizes tlie application of all our powers and the per
formance of all our duty to the generations past and
gone, the image, namely, of a trust, by which it
insists that we come into this world largely in debt, that
all our capacities are the gift of Humanity, and to
Humanity must be devoted; that wealth, for instance,
being social in its origin, should be socialized in its use,
and that its claim as a purely individual acquisition, is a
crime against our fellows. This same notion of respon
sibility clings to any human endowment we possess, be
it a genius for the highest art cr but the humblest apti
tude for manual service.
Under such and analagous conceptions and motives,
there must arise, in time, a new order of chivalry in the
world, wherein the strong on earth, as Knights of Hu
manity, under the impulse and inspiration of an emanci
pated womanhood, will go forth conquering and to con
quer, devoting their powers to the rescue of the weak,
the deliverance of the enthralled, and the common wel
fare of the whole.
Fascinating as such points are, they must be hur
ried by to enable us to reach and treat the last
head of our discourse, and therefore Ibeg permission
of my theological friends to leave this topic with one
* concluding thought.
I ask them to imagine that
Death, the Christian King of Terrors, has subjected
Heaven to his sway, and has sent forth his devouring
Plague, under whose deadly arrows have fallen prostrate
not only all the Angelic hosts, but God Himself. Jehovah
is dead! Heaven is no more I Our old earth, however,
with all the inhabitants thereof, still moves on in its accus
tomed way, protected in the lap of everlasting law. God
has gone, but Fatlier and Mother still remain. Heaven is
a barren waste, but our country still is left us. Must
�57
♦
family love die out ? Must patriotism perish ? Must
virtue exist no longer ? Shall we not rather say that
since Jerusalem the Golden is abolished we will cling
with increased tenderness to this our native sphere ?
Shall we not rather affirm that since the Almighty is no
more, we will hold parents in kindlier reverence, and
that since the angels above have disappeared, we will
cherish with deeper affection those earthly angels who,
as friends and relatives, afford the solace of our lives ?
No, my Christian brothers and sisters, our higher natures
need not die with the decay of Supernaturalism. In
stead thereof it will be found that under a system of
purely secular morals, humanity, rid of its old clogs,
will attain Jits! heights and develop capabilities which
heretofore have been but dreams.
We have thus far shown the Cause of Humanity to
be the Cause of Science, Art and Morality; the good,
the true, the beautiful. We are now naturally led to
our last point, wherein we maintain,
FIFTHLY—THAT THE CAUSE OF HUMANITY
IS THE CAUSE OF .RELIGION.
>
We find an easy transition from the subject of Moral
ity to the subject of Religion in Matthew Arnold’s de
finition of the latter wherein he says: u Religion is
Morality touched with Emotion.” The writer of “ Ecce
Homo” has also beautifully called Religion the “ En
thusiasm of Humanity,” but the meaning of the word
may, perhaps, best be seen in its derivation from the
Latin words re and ligo, “ to bind back” or “ tie back.”
To quote again the words of the Epitome before refer
red to: “ Religion is the tie by which man’s feelings
“ and thoughts within and his actions without are co•“ ordinated into health and harmony with each other,
�58
“ with society and the world, with the past and the fu“ ture.
What is holy. That it is that
Many souls together hinds,
Binds them ever so lightly,
As a rush thread the wreath.”
What is the holiest ? That which
To-day and ever on
Deeper and deeper felt, souls
More and more together binds.”—Goethe.
All theological definitions made earth “ the battlefield
of religions.” Each one “ true” God had to be up
held and defended : as Christ said : “ I come not to bring
peace but a sword.”
“ But (still quoting from the Epitome) in the newer,
“ that is the human or scientific sense, the word religion
“ has come to mean ‘ the convergence’ or unity of peo“ pie or of peoples, that has resulted or may result from
“ any common belief or sentiment, whether springing
“ from a belief in a God or otherwise. In this sense,
“ the unity, integration, or binding together, under the
“ influence of a common conviction, is the substance of
“ the meaning of which the gods are but the variable
“ incidents. Thus, in the march of history, each god, in
“ his turn, falls into insignificance, but the social unity
“ the collective man, is more and more., In this view
“ the lesson of history is clear, ^%iman progress
“ must be arrested, or man must, in this newer sense,
“ become more and more religious, and yet, at the same
“ time, less and less theological.”
Man has always created his gods or god in his own
image. The have been and are mere anthropomorphic
(man-imitated) embodiments. The great spirit of the
�59
Indians, for example, is a majestic brave, and the gods of
Greek mythology were the perfect men and beauteous
women of the Greek ideal. The whole history of
theology has exemplified this, and nowhere has it been
better expressed than in the following humorous lines
from the old Greek poet Xenophanes:
If sheep and swine and lions strong,
And all the bovine crew,
Could paint with cunning hands and do
What clever mortals do.
Depend upon it every pig,
With snout so broad and blunt,
Would make a Jove that like himself
Would thunder with a grunt.
And every lion’s God would roar
And every bull’s would bellow,
And every sheep’s would give a “ baa”
And each his worshipped fellow^
Would find in the immortal form,
And naught exist divine,
But had the gait of lion, sheep,
Oi’ ox or grunting swine.
In other and more serious words, underneath all the
superstitions of the creeds, men have ever been striving
to attain to a more and more ennobled human ideal, and
before that ideal they have fallen down and worshipped.
Guided by this perception, as Richard Congreve says:
“ the Positivist reviews the different religion of man.
“ He accepts them all as in their time, useful. But he
“ finds in their decay a proof that they are none of them
“ final, and that some definitive and comprehensive solution is yet required. To his view the religions disap-
�60
“ pear; religion remains. That which is human in
“ them alone is imperishable. They have in their variety
“ had one common aim. They have each in its measure
“ given an account to man of his existence, his existence
“ in relation to other men and to himself. They have
“ aimed at the harmony of all his faculties; they have
“ sought to unite him with a smaller or larger portion of
“ his fellow men.
“ Positivism accepts the same problem, offers to man
“ an account of his existence, gives him an object of
“ faith, explains the conditions under which he lives,
“ and makes him lovingly accept them, unites him in
“ himself by love, and binds him to his fellow men in
“ the three-fold communion of faith, of worship, and of
“ action.” In one word, the God whom thus far men
have so ignorantly worshipped, have so longingly yearned
for, and have represented to themselves under so many
symbols, is the God whom we announce, Humanity, the
Supreme Being on this planet, the one science-revealed
God.
Here at once I perceive that 1 shall be asked the ques
tion, How do you know that Humanity is a being of any
kind, much less a Supreme Being, and I may be reminded
of the witty reply of the Oxford student who on being
sent to investigate and report on the Positivist meetings
in London, brought back word that he found “ three
persons, but no God I”
In the theological sense we certainly have no God.
But have we no Supreme Being ?
For my 'answer to this most proper enquiry, I turn to
Herbert Spencer’s Sociology where he gives his reasons
for believing Society to be an organism. I present a
partial summary of his statement.
What is a Society ? It is a mere aggregate of separ
ate individuals, which, like an audience in a theatre, dis
�61
4
perses when, the play is over, and exists no longer, or is
it not rather like the bricks, beams and mortar of a house
which combine together to make a result quite distinct
from the parts which compose it ?
The latter is the conception of Sociology; though the
material simile of the building presents but a very im
perfect analogy, since we cannot reason from the inor
ganic to the organic, from dead to living matter. A
better illustration will be found in the science of Biology.
How do we know for example that man himself is a
being or organism ? We know it, among many other
reasons: 1st. because he grows ; 2d. because he increases
both in structure and function; 3d, because the different
parts of his body are dependent upon the whole body,
and the whole body upon the different parts.
In much the same way we know a society to be an
organism. 1st, because it grows: our own U. S. with
its century of increase in population is sufficient evidence
of this. One hundred years ago we numbered three
millions, now we count our forty five millions.
2d. Because while increasing in size society increases
in structure and function. We find in animal evolution
that at first an organism all stomach develops into a
creature with lungs, heart, &c., &c., further and further
differentiations causing greater and greater unlikenesses
among the organs, all of which perform their multiform
functions. So in the development of a society. Divis
ions and subdivisions occur and recur. Another glance,
for example, at our own country will show us how much
greater diversity of structure there is to-day in com
merce, the arts, manufactures, religions, education and
all the departments of life, than existed a hundred years
ago ; also how, the unlike portions having thus become
marked off, vast divisions of labor ensue, producing un
like duties through all the mass of the community, and
�62
making up in their entirety that complex thing we call
modern civilization.
3d. Because as in the human, so in the social organ
ism nothing is more strongly marked thant he mutuality
of dependence between the parts. The necessity of all
the organs in the animal frame to form the complete
being is paralleled in society by the dependence of the
parts upon each other and the whole, and the whole
upon the parts. For instance when society is rudiment
ary, every man is his own warrior, merchant and farmer,
but when It becomes highly developed, the warrior class,
the merchant class, the farmer class, and, in fact, all the
thousands of classes become unified and interdependent
till, as Carlyle says, an Indian can’t quarrel with his
squaw on Lake Winnepeg without causing a rise in
the price of furs in London. Co-ordinately with this
differentiation of the parts of society and their mutual
dependence on each other we find an integration (or the
action of the whole upon the parts) formulating itself in
the shape of religion and government.
But enough of this dry reasoning to prove that society
is an organism or heing. Popular acceptance alone is
sufficient to prove it so, as is shown by the conceptions
attached to such words as home and country. The home,
for example, is never thought of as a place enclosed in
bare walls where parents and children meet merely to
eat, and separate simply to sleep.
Around the sacred
name cling a thousand associations recalling tender ideas
of father and mother, brother and sister. We regard it
as the seat of our affections, the abode of our rest. We
love to think of its honorable ancestry. We hope to
establish a still nobler posterity. In this sense, is not a
family, with its kindred idea of home, a being or or
ganism ?
�63
So with our commonly received notion of “ country,”
which is to us a distinct conception, though by no possi
bility can we represent to ourselves even in imagination
the vast numbers which compose it. We speak of the
life of a nation as we do of the life of a person. The
blood-disks in a man’s arteries die, but the life of the
man goes on. So, the individuals of a country disappear
but the life of the nation continues. In the one case as
the other we formulate to our minds the idea both of
the man and the nation as an existence, entity, organism
or 3ezmg.
Speaking thus instinctively of the life and growth of
a nation, in a larger, fuller sense, Humanity also may be
said to have its life, not only in the present, but extend
ing through the past and future, a life in which even the
eras of national existence are but as wavelets on a shore
less sea. Pascal’s seer-like instinct dimly grasped this
great conception long ago when he said : “ the entire
succession of men through the whole course of the ages
must be regarded as one man, always living and inces
santly learning.” “ In this light,” says Comte, “ the
human race, past, present and future, constitutes a vast
and eternal social unit, whose different organs, individual
and national, concur in their various modes and degrees
in the evolution of Humanity.”
Again says Comte, “ this Humanity, this object of
Positivist worship, is not like that of theological be
lievers, an absolute, isolated, incomprehensible being,
whose existence admits of no demonstration or compari
son with anything real. The evidence of this Being is
shrouded in no mysticism, since by means of history we
know her laws. Though not claiming perfection for
Humanity, she is ever growing towards it, and we know
that of all organisms she is the supreme one on this
planet.”
�64
But again we hear our objector entering his caveat:
“ A very pretty God,” he exclaims, “ is this Humanity
“ of yours, a most adorable God ! Hero fiddling over
“ burning Rome and making torch-lights out of
“ Christians, is a sweetly attractive saint; Torquemada
“ amusing himself with the application of the thumb“ screw and the rack, is a most worshipful man;
“ Jeffreys persecuting and condemning his luckless vic“ tims, is a deeply religious spectacle, and Wm. M.
“ Tweed will answer, I presume, as well for a deity as he
“ will for a “ boss !” Or, taking Humanity outside of its
“ individual aspect, what a lofty contemplation do we
“ not discover for example, in the eternal reign of desola“ ing carnage ! The path of history is red with the
“ blood of battle-fields! And if we turn from the
achievements of glorious war to the pursuits of
“ ‘ piping peace,’ what then do we find ? The great
“ struggle of men for the ‘ almighty dollar,’ wherein to
“ gain the paltry prize, human rights are trampled down,
“ human duties disregarded, and the higher life is
“ crushed beneath the iron heel of selfishness! Whether
“ in war or peace, therefore, man’s record is that of
“ Cain, his hand against every man, and every man’s
“ hand against him, or, to quote the oft-repeated phrase,
“ i Man’s inhumanity to man, makes countless thousands
“ mourn.’ Such is your God, Humanity; and if Posit“ ivism cannot present us with some better Supreme
“ Being, my advice to it would be to go into liquidation
“ on the God-making business, and adopt some other
“ trade ! ”
The answer to our theological sceptic is two-fold.
1st. The perhaps non-logical, but always effective,
“ you’re another” argument. For the criticism he makes
�65
against Humanity holds with ten-fold power against his
biblical deity. Unlike theology, Positivism makes no
claim of omnipotence for its Supreme Being.
It only
says that Humanity is the highest organism known to
man. But the Christian’s claim for their God endows
him with omniscience. CVwC.
Omniscience, omnipotence ! Posessed of these great
attributes it needed but a single stroke of such Almighty
Power to make of Earth an Eden, and of Life a Joy ;
but instead thereof we find in their God the primal source
of all life’s evils, be they devils or mosquitoes, wars or
warts, the black vomit, the itch, or any other ill that
flesh is heir to. Consistent reasoning regarding this allpowerful deity leaves no alternative except the conclu
sion that his infliction of misery upon his children,
through time and eternity, was from deep design and de
liberate choice. Unattractive as is the picture our or
thodox unbeliever has drawn of Humanity, it is beatific
compared to that of his fiendish God. The evil in the
one is relative, and the result of environment and cir
cumstance; it is evil that can be understood and recon
ciled, because it can be taken as the simple fact. It is
evil that can be patiently borne because hope is left to
soften it. But the evil in the other is sin self-chosen as
it is self-damning, and totally at variance with a benefi
cent omnipotence an&4^By^cjgee.
But 2d: The real reply to our atheistic retrograde
(for he is the truest atheist who denies the highest good)
is to be found in a sufficiently comprehensive definition
of Humanity as the Supreme Being, and this can only
be obtained by a proper discrimination between the ob
jective and subjective view of man’s Life on Earth. We
have previously dwelt (page 31) on these two phases
�66
of thought. In the light of that explanation let us now
considei’ Humanity ul dor this double aspect.
First, in the objective view: In this view it is un
deniable that the history of mankind is a recital of a
vast intermixture of the evil with the good; or, more
correctly speaking, of the endeavor of Humanity to
adapt herself to her environment.
We see her ever
baffled and thwarted, yet ever striving, and on the whole
gaining ground. She might be likened to a child born
amid low surroundings, subject to physical pollution
from the slums wherein it dwells, and liable to moral
degradation from debauched companionship,
“ An infant crying in the night,
“ An infant crying for the light,”
with all life’s odds apparently against it. We see it,
however advancing from childhood to youth, from youth
to age, ever struggling on, sinking into pitfalls only to
rise the stronger, yielding to one temptation only to
present more fierce resistance to the next.
Little by
little it progresses from a low culture to a high one,
from beasthood to manhood. Such a sight is a sublimity
and such, in miniature, is the story of Humanity. De
graded in her early stages, the slave of fear, and the
victim of imagination, we see her emergent in the grand
march of time, ever redeeming herself and her children,
ever conquering and to conquer.
And it is a matter of congratulation, in this new age,
that many causes are working under the conscious use
of the law of evolution towards a favorable end, causes
that are grounds of improvement and of hope. As an
example, nothing promises more fairly for the supremacy
of the humane over the inhumane than the application
�67
of the doctrine of heredity: and when this doctrine is
scientifically availed of, it is believed that the good will
more and more overcome the evil by arresting the
trouble at its source, viz., by the checking of a badlyborn population; by preventing from being born those
who, when born, must inherit physical, mental or moral
stain. This remedy working in connection with a higher
religious sentiment and a better morality (especially in
reference to the distribution of wealth) must have an
immense effect in circumscribing pauperism and crime.
The pressure of population on food will be diminished
and less temptation to crime engendered. Equally also
with the influence of this law of heredity on the non
creation of evilly disposed beings will it show its benefi
cent results in the wider production of more highly born
characters. Just as by care and by the study of points
and pedigrees, high breeds of animals are produced on
our best stock farms, so, under a comprehension of this
law in relation to man, a nobler race of beings will be
“ selected,” to whom can rightfully be entrusted the
management of this planet.
Many other combined causes are tending towards the
disenthralment of the race, but without stopping to ' ex
amine these further, I may say that the picture I have
been thus seeking to paint is a general objective pre
sentation of our earthly career in history which, while
it concedes the evil in Humanity, shows at the same
time her constant conquest and reduction of it, a view
which explains our retardations through the past and
our encouragement for the future. Better, a thousand
times better even such a Supreme Being than the dread
unapproachable God of Christianity, who exerts his om
nipotence to curse men here and doom them to hell
hereafter. If no choice remains but between this hu
man conception and the theological one let us by all
means adopt the human.
�68
Second : In the subjective view ; turning to the sub
jective side, we here meet one of the foundational doc
trines of Positivism, to wit, that no subjective concep
tion can be true unless based on an objective fact. There
fore in strict science, the subjective cognition of Hu
manity must correspond to the objective actual Human
ity. As is the real Humanity so is our conception of it.
In fact, one of the strongest charges Positivism brings
against theology is that it is purely subjective, having
nothing outside of the human imagination to confirm it
in its assumed data. We have just recognized in the
objective Humanity a mingling of the good and bad,
and it must here also at once be conceded that in the
sternly scientific subjective view,, we are obliged to re
cognize this great organism just as it is, full of strength
yet full of weakness, replete with energy yet often tot
tering, losing one day yet more than gaining the next.
I trust that I have shown that even this apprehension of
Humanity, ever triumphing over herself, is no real bar
to the inspiration of a religious enthusiasm, but this does
nut by any means include the whole picture; it merely
gives the view, as it were, from the base of the moun
tain, wherein the vision, in a small horizon, is confined to
the stern outlines of subjective science in its severest
aspects, wherein it merely endeavors to represent the
cold and naked truth ; but as we ascend the heights, we
find from our new standpoint that the landscape of ex
istence stretches vastly wider, softly mellowed and sub
dued through depth of atmosphere. Thus there is a
subjective view that includes something more than mere
science. In fact, there may be said to be two subjective
views, one the strictly scientific subjective, which we
have just given ; the other, the ideal or reZz’yw-subjective, which now remains to be described.
This ideal conception, while ever reposing on facts for
�G9
its base, points way beyond these towards the airy realm
of Fancy, wherein dwell Art and Love. The old scrip
tures enjoins: “ be ye therefore perfect even as your
Father which is in Heaven is perfect;” it tells us to
“ approve those things which are excellent, to seek those
things which are above where Christ dwelleth at the
right hand of God.” Now this sublime perfection can
only be thought of whether in a theological or strictly
human faith by means of the ideal faculty in man, for
man to be truly great must have a high purpose inspired
by a lofty spiritual aim. He must have that which is
outside of, better than and beyond himself. He must
have some Arcadia towards which in hope at least he can
steer his bark. The ideal alone is the source of this;
the ideal alone is the constructor of Utopias. The ideal
alone it is which kindles anew on the altar the fires of
enthusiasm, and becomes, when personified, the true highpriestess of Religion, in whom we find the transmuta
tion of the evil, the divination of the highest good. Anyone who has been among the mining districts has seen
the long narrow troughs divided up into sections formed
by small cross pieces fastened to the wooden sluice to
catch the ore as it sinks in the flowing water. The
pounded and broken mineral all mixed with dirt and
rubbish is thrown in at the upper end of the receptacle;
the heavier pieces fall in the first section clear and clean;
the lighter particles in the next compartment, and so on
till in the last one the finest ore dust is deposited bright
and shining, while the water flows away carrying off
every vestige of impurity.
In this mamer it is, through the blessed aid of the
imagination, that we are enabled to appreciate the ideal
and to escape from even the appearance of evil in our
Supreme Being, for this idealized Humanity represents
only tlie beings in the past, present and future who con
�.70
verge. None but the good can converge. Inhumanity
has no convergence. The good only exercise upon each
other and posterity the power of a moral cohesion. From
such a conception all the Neros, Torquemadas, Jeffreys
and Tweeds must be excluded, and in place of these non
human men can be counted those noble animals (more
truly good than many self-styledly more exalted beings)
such as the horse, without whose aid civilization could
not have been, and the dog, the synonym of fidelity,
who has been to man such a devoted friend and servant.
Beckoned forward by this uplifting inspiration can we
not be justified in dreaming that this world will become
a paradise, an earthly heaven, where there will be no
more war nor any distraction of contentious trade, an
Eden of Peace, where the lion and the lamb shall lie
down together, and a little child shall lead them; where
the rough shall be made smooth and the crooked straight ?
We must think thus or hope must bid farewell to life.
Humanity nnder this idealization may perhaps best
be symbolized, as Comte pictured Her to himself, under
the figure, namely, of the Virgin Mother and Child,
adopted from the Roman Catholic Church. In the
mother we have the Past; in the child and mother to
gether, the Present; in the child alone, the Future.
This group expressed Comte’s highest soaring toward
perfection as best embodying beauty, both in form, fea
ture and character, and was his idealized representation
of Humanity. In like manner all of us, to aid ourselves
may, if we choose, adopt this or some similar dream
wherewith to fill our longings.
In the light of this Examination of Humanity as the
Supreme Being, we may claim, not without reason, to
have found the Holy Spirit of the New Religion, and a
real Trinity in Unity. The Father may be called the
GreatUnknowable Power or Force, underlying all things;
�71
the Son, the Redeemer, may be thought of as this
Grand Objective Human Organism,ever striving to reconcile itself unto the world, and the world unto itself;
while the Holy Spirit may be pictured in the ideally
subjective view we have attempted to portray, which
quickens the conscience of man and says to his soul:
“ Peace, be still, for all things are for the best, and are
working together for good 1 Better times are coming,
hope cheers us on, and Paradise lies not in the past, but
in the future!”
The voices of spirits
Are calling from yonder,
The voices of masters :
Neglect not to ponder
The Powers of the Good.
In silence eternal
Here are a-weaving,
Crowns that with fulness
The strong are achieving!
We bid thee to hope !
Goethe.
In further development of this same strain of thought
are added the following eloquent words of Frederic Har
rison, in eulogy of Humanity as embodied in civilization:
“ Does not our imagination stir when 'we think of its
<£ immensity ? Does not our intelligence ‘triumph in its
“achievements? Do not our souls melt to remember
“ its heroisms and its sufferings ? Are we not dust in
“ comparison with that myriad-legioned world of human
“ lives, which made us what we are ? Every thinker
<£ who ever wore out his life, like Simon, on his lonely
££ column of thought, was dreaming for us. Every
££ prophet and king who raised up a new step in the
££ stage of human advance raised the pyramid on which
�72
“ we stand. Every artist who ever lifted himself into
“ the beautiful lifted us also. Nor was ever mother who
“ loved her child in toil, tears and pain, but was wrung
“ for us. Each drop of sweat that ever fell from the
il brow of a worker has fattened the earth which we en“ joy. Martyrs, heroes, poets, teachers, toilers—all con“ tribute their share. The priests in the churches would
“ rest our whole religion upon the legend of pity on
“ Calvary. They dwarf and narrow the range of our
“ compassion. There were Nazarenes in many ages and
“ in many climes, and Calvaries have been the land“ marks of each succeeding phase of human story.
“ Moses, Bouddha, Confucius, St. Paul, Mahomet, the
“ ideals and authors of every creed, have been but some
“ of the Messiahs of the human race. The history of
“ every religion is but an episode in the history of hu“ manity. Nor has any creed its noblp army of martyrs
“ which can compare with that of man.”
Think of the vast dependence each of us has upon this
organism. Whether we eat or drink, or whatever we
do, we rely on this Humanity. The fields and gardens
of the world minister to every repast of which we par
take.
Longfellow touches this note of human unity in his
beautiful poem of “ The Building of the Ship :”
“ Ah ! what a wondrous thing it is,
“ To note how many wheels of toil,
“ One thought, one word can set in motion I
There’s not a ship that sails the ocean,
“ But every climate, every soil
“ Must bring its tribute great or small,
“ And help to build the wooden wall.”
And so the work goes on. For each of us the labor
of the world is toiling. Trace out this idea in all its
�73
details, and it becomes at once apparent that but for this
human providence we could not live a day.
Thus, as with the Fetichist, every act of life was a re
ligious one in the theological sense, so, with the Posit
ivist, every act becomes a religious one in the scientific
sense, and living becomes one great hymn of human
worship. “From Humanity we have received all; to
“ Her we owe all; we are Her servants and Her organs;
“ we live by Her and so should live for Her.”
Humanity has created all the Gods, so is greater than
any God. She has written all the bibles, so is greater
than any bible. She has founded all religions, so is
greater than any religion. She has discovered all sci
ence, so is greater than any science. She is the Supreme
Being on this planet.
In this new faith, head and heart are finally united,
for Humanity, like all phenomena, is under the govern
ance of law, and yet by our relation to her we are com
pelled towards love and duty. Thus, with us most liter
ally, love becomes the fulfilling of the law ; and thus our
atonement (at-one-ment) is at least completed—for we
are at one with the great external order of inorganic na
ture, by obedience to its laws, and we become at one
with our fellow men in love, in service, and in duty. In
the oneness of the cosmos we find no place for the dis
tractions of another world. Earth and Humanity be
come our all in all, and “ human life at last attains that
“ state of perfect harmony, which has been so long
“ sought for in vain, and which consists in the direction
“ of all our faculties to one common purpose, under the
“ supremacy of affection” (Comte). Liberty is our con
dition, Love is our principle, Order is our basis, Progress
is our end.
Incorporated with Humanity we Positivists do not
await salvation ; we are saved. We do not sigh for im
�74
mortality; we are immortal.
True it is
u That low in the dust our mouldering frames may lie,
But that which warmed them once can never die.”
A. modern poet, still unknown to fame, strikes the
same conception when he says,
Man—
Who, being dead, is buried and consumed,
By the unseemly fingers of decay,
His sad remainder setting forth a feast
For the same guests as an interred dog;
Yet, being thus, the unrecorded brute,
Sans life his equal and, when dead, both dumb,
His voice is heard through all the rear of time,
In mighty diapason loud and long,
And magic chords of sweet entuned rnyme,
That echo and will echo to the doom.
And Victor Hugo emphasises the same sentiment
most nobly in his funeral eulogy of George Sand :
“ I weep for the dead and I salute the immortal.
“ I have loved her; I have admired her; I have
“ venerated her; to-day in the presence of the august
“ serenity of death, I contemplate her.
“ I felicitate her, because what she has done is great,
“ and I thank her because what she has done is good. I
“ remember that one day I wrote to her : ‘ I thank you
“ c for being so great a soul.’
“ Have we lost her ? No. These lofty figures dis“ appear, but they do not vanish. Far from it, one can
“ almost say that they are realized. By becoming in“ visible under one form, they become visible under an“ other. A sublime transfiguration.
“ The human form is an occultation.. It masks the
“ real and divine usage, which is the idea. George
*
�“ Sand was an idea: she escaped from the flesh, and be“ hold she is free: she is dead, and behold she is liv“ ing.”
It may be said that this sort of Immortality may prove
an inspiration for those raised by genius above their fel
lows, “ but how about the many common toilers who
constitute the rank and file of life ?” For these also the
same sentiment amply suffices. I cannot express this
better than does the following anonymous bit of poetry
I have chanced upon.
WORDS AND ACTS.
Not a mind but has its mission—
Power of working woe or weal;
So degraded none’s condition,
But the world his weight may feel,
Words of kindness we have spoken,
May, when we have passed away,
Heal, perhaps, some spirit broken,
Guide a brother led astray.
Thus our very thoughts are living,
Even when we are not here ;
Joy and consolation given
To the friends we hold so dear.
Not an act but is recorded,
Not a word but has its weight;
Every virtue is rewarded,
Outrage punished, soon or late.
Let no being, then, be rated
As a thing of little worth
Every soul that is created
Has its part to play on earth.
Tn this sense it is, the sense of the Immortality of In
�76
fluence that we abide, the sense of the immortality of
that which is best and noblest in us, quite content to
leave to the Christians the selfish materialism of an after
life, which, contrary to all reason and all morality, they
seek to transfer to another and impossible sphere.
Are not the Christians aware that there is absolutely
no demonstration of a personal existence beyond the
grave ; that at the best it is but a hope which no more
proves their case than the desire for earthly wealth
proves its possession ? Do they not also know that the
widest spread religion on the earth finds the acme of its
longing in the very opposite of this Christian doctrine,
in the Buddhist dream, viz. of Nirvana, wherein the
sense of eternal rest is sighed for through the total and
eternal absorption of the individual into the universal
all?
Why, also, do not the theologians dwell on the pre
natal as well as the post-mortuary immortality ? Cer
tainly an undying soul lives as much before birth as after
death. Yet this point is never even alluded to.
“ You say that the soul is immortal,
“ That the spirit can never die ;
“ If God was content when I was not,
“ Why not when I have passed by ?”
Still, with all said, if people insist on clinging to this
last remnant of superstition, the position taken by
Positivism is, that it denies nothing. It simply affirms
that to the human ken all knowledge of the hereafter is
impossible, and that ample inspiration, ample solace and
ample hope can be found in the substitute, the wholly
unselfish substitute, which it proposes. •
;
And mark how beneficent in practical action our re
ligion becomes. Capital and labor under this enthusi
asm will each appear servitors under the impulse of a
�common love, and their united action will constitute the
material providence of the race. The philosopher,
scientist and artist will become the priests of the new re
ligion. Woman, the mother and queen, will be wor
shipped as the moral ideal. But these are all subjects
for separate essays, involving as they do the organiza
tion of society under the new regime.
So I can only ask in conclusion, who is the true in
fidel, the Christian or the Positivist; he who believes in
legend, or he who believes in law, he who enlarges art,
or he who dwarfs it, he who foundmmorality in the here*
or he who basis it on heaven and hell, he whose aim is a
scramble for his individual salvation, or he who religi
ously “ lives for othersin a word, he who adores God
or he who clings to Humanity ? I leave to yon the
answer.
�
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The cause of humanity, or the waning and the rising faith: an essay from the standpoint of the positive philosophy ... read before the Society of Humanity, Sunday, March 3d,1878, with subsequent revisions and additions
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Palmer, Courtlandt
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Society of Humanity
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1879
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Positivism
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Humanity
Positivism
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B
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bJ I ^-’3.
national secular society
LORD BACON:
WRITE
HE
DID
SHAKESPEARE’S PLATS?
A REPLY TO
I JUDGE HOLMES, -MISS D. BACON, & MR. W. H. SMITH,
BY
I
CHARLES C. CATTELL,
Editor of “ Dawson’s Speeches on Shakespeare.”
‘ Know the grounds and authors of it.’—Twelfth Night, Act V Sc. 1
PRICE
(THE
PROCEEDS TO
TWOPENCE.
BE
GIVEN
RESTORATION
Printed
and
TO
THE
LIBRARY
FUND.)
Published
by
G. & J. H. SHIPWAY, 39, MOOR STREET, BIRMINGHAM.
1879.
�NEW
WORK
Just Published, Price One Shilling,
THE
BY
CHARLES C. CATTELL.
Opinions—1878.
“A very interesting little work.”—Newcastle Chronicle, March 16th.
“ A series of short biographies of illustrious men who have suffered
tribulation in this world. Apart from this [that some do not deserve
the title], the biographies are interesting and instructive.”—Birming
ham Daily Bost, April 23rd.
“ Might have been made a hundred times as long as it is............ But
this small work very creditably fulfils the purpose which is set forth in
the preface. ”— Weekly Dispatch. March 24th.
“The facts in the various ‘ lives ’ are well marshalled, and the leading
characteristics as well brought out as narratives so very condensed will
admit. The volume bespeaks a large and varied course of reading,
and has substantial literary merit.”—The Advertiser, March 23rd.
“Well worthy of perusal, having been judiciously done.”—Free
Press.
‘1A sort of handy summary of the Foxe’s Martyrs order, and abounds
cheerfully with the headsman’s axe, racks, knouts, and stakes at
Smithfield.”—The Dart, March 16th.
“The biographies are comprehensive, and written in a pleasing
pithy style. The love of freedom which permeates the whole volume
is not the least interesting feature in it.”—Daily Mail.
“It is an excellent work of its kind; and, being very cheap, it
will doubtless find its way into the hands of the young working men
for whom it is adapted.”—7'ruthseeker.
“ Mr. Cattell has compiled a short history of each martyr, the lite
rary merits of which do him as much credit as the generous prompt
ings which led to such a task being undertaken. ’— Brtlish Mercantile
Gazette.
Published by CHARLES Watts, 84, Fleet Street, London.
�BID LORD BACON WRITE SHAKESPEARE’S PLAYS?
BY
CHARLES
C.
CATTELL.
O some this is an old question, but it is not so old as some
other questions by many thousands of years. Many who
possess the volume entitled “Shakespeare’s Works” are
altogether indifferent as to when or by whom the plays and
poems were written. Then there are the idolaters who regard
the utterance of a doubt, as to Shakespeare being the author,
as gross infidelity, a species of blasphemy against “the divine
William.” But a wise scepticism is a healthy sign in this age
of reason, this age of intellectual activity—such as was never
before seen in the history of mankind. Old and wise heads
have settled this and many other questions to their own satis
faction ; but a new generation seeks solutions of its own, and
desires to discuss and settle questions, unawed by all authori
ty but the evidence, by which alone a thoughtful man is
guided. This humble contribution to the discussion is intended
to serve those whose time or opportunity does not permit them
to consult more expensive and voluminous books on the subject.
Some persons are angry with the heretics ; but it may be
fairly taken as a very high compliment to the genius of
Shakespeare, that his plays and poems are considered worthy
of the pen of so profound a philosopher, scholar, and master
mind as Lord Bacon.
T
�4
Those who think this is a fight with phantoms, a firing into
the air at nothing in particular, should be informed that in
1875 a new edition of Judge Holmes’s work was published,
containing 696 pages, setting forth the claims of Lord Bacon.
Besides this, there is a work by Miss Delia Bacon of 582 pages,
and one by W. H. Smith of 162 pages, and others.
The position taken by the heretics is that Shakespeare was
only a poor strolling, vagabond player—who not only could
not be the writer of the plays or of anything else, except his
own name, and that so badly that it is still an open question
whether he knew how to spell it.
On the other hand, Lord
Bacon could write, was a scholar, and lived at the same time,
in the same country, as Shakespeare, and therefore he might
have written the plays and poems. Dr. Watts laid down as a
sort of logical canon that what might be might not be.
One
argument against Lord Bacon is that several literary men of
eminence, who lived at the time, in the same country, do not
say he wrote the plays, but give the credit of authorship to
William Shakespeare.
The words these men wrote, about Shakespeare being the
author, were published at the time, form part of our national
literature, and remained undisputed for more than 250 years.
Besides Ben Jonson, Francis Meres, and others, Earl
Southhampton calls Shakespeare his “especial friend” and
describes him as the “writer of some of our best English
plays ”
John Milton, in 1632, only a few years after the death of
Shakespeare, which occurred in 1616, sings to his memory a
hymn of praise. Heminge and Condell, who played with him,
were on friendly terms with Earl Pembroke, and had, so far
as we know, thirty years good character, published the plays
�5
and poems in 1623, as we now have them, under the name of
William Shakespeare; and at the same time under their own
signature claimed him as their friend and the author of the
hooks they edited.
In order to sustain the claims set up for Lord Bacon we are
compelled to take refuge in the assumption—that men of
learning, scholars, pure and noble characters—-entered into a
conspiracy to deceive mankind to all eternity, or, otherwise,
that they were the most weak, deluded, drivelling, soft-headed
fools that ever were permitted to breathe the air of Great
Britain. Either they lied or were imposed upon, and neither
one nor the other is laid to their charge—or, instead of being
quoted as ornaments to their age, they would be described as
impostors or idiots.
The so-called arguments of the heretics are made up of
11 if’s,” “hut’s,” and “might he’s.” Those who put forth no
arguments on their side are the most difficult writers to answer
or refute : but the reasoning of the heretics admits of illustra
tion, if not of refutation.
The following will illustrate their method, supposing they
described it as I should:—There was a plague in London; Charles II. was King, and
John Milton was a poet. Now John Milton was poor, and old,
and blind—and had no power over the elements,the army or
the government—but the king had control over the govern
ment and its administration, and therefore he “ might ” have
had something to do with the plague. Although we have
held the opinion for more than twenty years that the King
caused the plague, we never hoped or expected to be able to
prove any such thing!
One conclusive proof against Milton
is he left no manuscript giving instructions about the plague ;
�6
neither did the King, but no doubt he wrote them.
Having
sent a copy of our work, showing that the King caused the
plague, to a gentleman who has devoted many years to writing
a life of the King, and he having thanked us for it, and also
given us his opinion—that our theory and statements are
totally unsupported by facts, and are incredible and absurd
beyond all question ; we think it necessary to bring out anew
edition of our valuable work, which we find is supported by
other independent writers, who have proved nothing at all, and
of whose existence we were entirely ignorant at the time we
wrote our own views on the same subject.
Judge Holmes makes a point of the fact that no manuscript
has been found of Shakespeare’s own writing : but if that
proves anything against him it is equally fatal in the case of
Bacon who has also omitted to leave us manuscript of his
Tragedies and Sonnets.
Dr. Ingleby suggests that Shakes
peare’s manuscripts may have been taken to London by his
friend Ben Jonson, and that they may have been burnt at the
fire which took place at Jonson’s house. Heminge and Condell say they had Shakespeare’s manuscripts of his plays and
poems to print from, but I am not aware of any one having
said that much of Lord Bacon’s. Bacon’s works were not
published till after twelve of the plays, so that plagiarism
would be extremely difficult, especially as his works contained no
plays or sonnets.
Here we have Lord Bacon busy writing his great works,
and having them carefully done into Latin; and we are asked
to believe that at the same time he wrote the same sentiments
(for their evidence consists of parallel passages only) in
sublime tragedies, known and played before, and placed to
the credit of a writer whose name was not Bacon. Moreover
�7
these Dramas which have won the praise and admiration of all
nations were in his eyes such inferior rubbish, that he allow
ed them to remain in English instead of having them done
into Latin to be preserved for posterity. Any one who knows
Bacon’s character knows that that is just what he would not
have done.
The assumption necessary for the heretics’ case is that Bacon
not only wrote the sentiments in majestic prose, about which
there is no dispute; but that he also made the same sentiments
do duty twice—in the second instance they appear in the form
of sublime dramatic poetry—the writing of which he confessed
himself incompetent, and the heretics produce no evidence that
he either could or did.
Holmes says it is ‘ historically known’ that Bacon wrote plays
and poems ; but does not say to whom this history was known,
or who wrote it. Ellis gives a list of fifty persons who wrote
in the reigns of Elizabeth and James, but Bacon is not one.
Bacon wrote in fulsome adulation of his friend James, but did
not produce a sonnet on his accession to the throne, but he did
produce some wretched prose, altogether unworthy of his pen.
It certainly is recorded by himself that he 'prepared a sonnet’
as ' a toy,’ in 1599, to please the queen, and in the same docu
ment he says he did not profess to be ‘a poet.’
It is also‘historically known’ that he ‘assisted’ in preparing
a masque, and the part he did was ' the dumb shows,’ and
the rest was done by others. Another proof that Bacon wrote
Shakespeare is that he wrote a metrical version of the Psalms
of David. I can only make out that he paraphrased VII of
them, and if any body else had produced such—I hesitate to
say what language critics would have used about the VII. To
produce any force, the parallel passages, to prove identity of
�8
authorship, should have been taken from Bacon's tragedies
and sonnets, about which no dispute has taken place because
even their existence has not yet been established. Bacon’s
biographer says—if he did not write the plays of Shakespeare,
of which we have no proof, there is no evidence that Bacon
could write Dramatic Poetry. True enough, say the heretics,
but if he did, which he
that is evidence that he
could. Verily there is “much virtue in ?/.”
Any one reading the plays would infer that the writer had
some knowledge of the stage, and was not unacquainted with
Warwickshire, and even Stratford-on-Avon : —and ‘if Bacon
did not write them, some other person ‘might'' who had some
knowledge of both. The author ‘might' have been a player,
‘if he had once lived on the banks of the Avon.
Of course
Bacon lived at a time when his parents ‘might' have resided
in Warwickshire, and he ‘ might' have obtained some know
ledge of the stage, ‘if' he was a player, although it is not
“ historically known " these mights are in any sense rights.
It is urged that all the difficulty is occasioned by Bacon’s
concealment of his name as a Dramatist; because that character
was unpopular in his time. A more conclusive reason, to my
mind, is the fact that he was unknown to be able to sustain
the character—and that the reason why his name was con
cealed, as the writer of Shakespeare’s plays, was because he
did not write them—and that purely through his lack of
ability to do anything of the sort, as he himself confessed in
writing.
Let any one compare Bacon’s version of the Psalms with any
Tragedy or Drama, attributed to Shakespeare, and see what
sort of an idea can be obtained of a parallel. There is as much
difference between the writings of Bacon and the Plays as
�9
there is difference in the characters of the philosopher and
the poet.
Shakespeare has keen described as honest, open,
gentle, free, honourable and amiable; while Bacon has been
described as ambitious, covetous, base, selfish, unamiable and
unscrupulous. Now, taking these two descriptions as a fair
index of their souls—which is the more likely to have por
trayed the women of Shakespeare’s plays ?
The reasons given for concealment lose all their force
when we remember that Bacon’s complete works were not
published till 1635, one year before he died.
He lived long
enough to see the end of his plays ‘ if’ he wrote them ; so
that the excuse which he ‘ might ’ have had, when a young
rising ambitious man, could not do duty at the age of sixty.
Besides, his friend and servant Ben Jonson had placed the
plays and poems, many a long year before, high up above all
the productions of the genius of the human race. To suppose
a man like Bacon dying and leaving such works unowned—•
leaving them to be fathered by a poor despised player, who
could but just sign his name for cash received from the Queen
and King for acting before them—is—what ? To assert that
such is within the limits of probability is unmitigated twaddle.
It is a known fact that Bacon was very anxious about how
he should appear to posterity—and yet we are asked to believe
that he allowed his plays, ‘if’ he wrote them, which he
might not, to come down to us, published under his very eyes,
with 20,000 errors.
Then there is the important point that Shakespeare had
little or no education--very irregular—short in duration—and
the absence of proof that he ever went to school at all—and
if he did go—he must have begun to write before he was
qualified either by college or university.
�10
At the very starting point in this investigation the presump
tion is that the boy Shakespeare was totally unprepared for
the office of poet at the time when he was busy at it. Now, ‘ if
he did go to school, his father being a yeoman and having
served as chief magistrate, he ‘ might ’ have had an education
like his friend Lord Southampton.
Ben Jonson says Shake
speare had “small Latin and less Greek,” so that it seems
quite possible that he obtained these at some school—and is it
too much to assume that his friend Ben, who was a scholar,
could, and would, and did assist him ?
Many of the books he ‘might' have read in English, ‘if
that be added to his Latin and Greek, which is not impossible,
as he lived at a time when English was spoken and written.
Surely Ben Jonson would help his ‘beloved author ’ to Ovid
and Virgil, about the only two he would want besides trans
lations. It should be remembered that much of Shakespeare
is the work of genius observing nature and man, and that he
does not write alone as books enable and as colleges teach.
He may also have in some measure resembled Pope, Goldsmith,
and Burns, whose education was not of a very high order •
but they, as also Dryden, Milton, Coleridge, and others
began to write before they were twenty, Milton being a fair
classical scholar at 17. Shakespeare having, according to Emerson, “the best head in the universe,” and some knowledge
of Latin and Greek, and some mysterious mental power sur
passing that of the wisest of the ancients, he might have been
able to produce some of the great works which make his name
immortal, without being Lord Bacon in disguise, or the mere
puppet of the great philosopher, who had as much to do with
the plays as the writer of this.
�11
Holmes cites a number of passages from Bacon containing
the same words and illustrations as are found in Shakespeare’s
plays, and asks “ can all this be accidental ?”
Yes : but if
not, things that are equal to the same thing are equal to one
another : so that if parallels prove identity of authorship, the
inference that Shakespeare wrote Bacon is as logical as the in
ference that Bacon wrote Shakespeare. The evidence consists
solely of similarity of expressions, as the following will illustrate.
Bacon writes that he remembers in a chamber at Cambridge
there was “ a pillar of iron erected for a prop,” in another
place he speaks of “ Ancient pillars.”
Shakespeare also speaks of “ a prop to lean upon,” “ props
of virtue,” “pillars that stand to us,” and “deserving pillars of
the law.” To me this only proves that both used the words
pillar and prop. Bacon speaks of “the finger of God.”
Shakespeare speaks of “the fingers of the powers above.”
Bacon speaks of “ the soul having shaken off her flesh.”
Shakespeare speaks of “ when we have shuffled off this mortal
coil.” Bacon speaks of “ the mole that diveth into the darkness
of the earth.” Shakespeare says—“ old mole ! canst work i’
th’ ground so fast ? ” Bacon writes—
“ As a tale told, which, sometimes men attend,
And sometimes not, our life steals to an end.”
Shakespeare writes :—
“ Life is as tedious as a twice told tale,
Vexing the dull ear of a drowsy man.”
Bacon :—“ The great navies look like walking woods.”
Shakespeare :—
“Anon, me thought,
The woods began to •move.”
It should be noted that the last two quotations from Bacon are
�12
translations from the Psalms, so that, if they prove any
thing, they prove that Shakespeare was written by King David.
Holmes discovers that the plays were written between 1582
and 1613 ; Bacon at the same time living thirty-one years,
from 21 to 52, “ corresponding exactly to that portion of Ba
con slife in which we may most easily suppose they could have been
written by him.” Shakespeare also lived thirty-one years dur
ing the same period, corresponding exactly to that portion
of Shakespeare’s life from 18 to 49, in which we may easily
suppose he wrote some of the plays.
This would be very easy
indeed if we took Holmes as a guide. For instance, in speak
ing of the style of Heminge and Condell’s affectionate dedication,
he says, “it is much more nearly that of Bacon; but it may very
well have been Jonson.” Again, Holmes says, there are traditions
that Jonson severely criticised Shakespeare’s productions,
and was envious of his fame—“and from these it should be
inferred that Jonson could not really have believed that
Shakespeare was the actual author of the works.”
While reading this sentence it will be well to bear in mind
that Jonson paid the highest compliment to Shakespeare’s
genius, and that Holmes himself contends that the works so
“ severely criticised ” were written by no less a person than
Lord Bacon. If we believe in Holmes and his logic, Jonson
was a fool in criticism and a liar in eulogy.
Holmes quotes a postscript from a letter by Tobie Matthew
to Lord Bacon, in which allusion is made to a ‘ ‘ most prodigi
ous wit ”—“ of your Lordship’s name, though he be known by
another.”
Who else could this refer to but Shakespeare?
He calls this a “very remarkable piece of evidence.”
To me
the sentence is by no means clear—as to whom it refers —
is a kind of literary conundrum—the true answer to which,
�13
Judge Holmes himself has not, in my opinion, yet discovered.
The sentence to me is remarkable as evidence of an
obscure style of letter writing, and of interest, or even intelligi
ble, only to the initiated correspondent.
Miss Delia Bacon, whose sincerity is indisputable, since she
sacrificed her reason and her life in pursuing this subject,
states that she will not place any value on Ben Jonson’s evi
dence in favour of Shakespeare’s authorship until he has ex
plained why he did not mention to the author of the “ Advance
ment of Learning ” the name of the author of ‘‘ Hamlet” as,
she says, two such remarkable persons “ might like to meet each
other.” She offers no evidence that Jonson did not do this, or
that they did not meet.
The imputation upon the honour of
Jonson is therefore unsupported, except by thejgreat argument
which the heretics fall back upon on all occasions, which is
founded on the fact that all the historians and biographers are
entirely silent on the subject.
This comes with great force
because historians and biographers so seldom agree, but on this
point they are unanimous, in saying nothing !
She may be excused for her enthusiasm since she believed
she had discovered “hidden treasure” under the surface of
Shakespeare’s plays, although for years she had been a
student of the bard, and, like all the rest of the world, found
only beautiful ideas clothed in the most majestic words of one
of the greatest living languages.
But she, with keener eye
than ordinary mortals, saw, “under the surface of Shakepeare’s plays,” the philosophy of Sir Walter Raleigh, and the
imperishable thoughts of Lord Bacon, the father of the induc
tive method. Strange as this may appear to some—it is mar
vellous what hidden things may be discovered in any great
book, if you gojzo it with a theory preconceived, and with a
�14
settled purpose of finding in it some support to your theory.
A remarkable illustration of this is found in the case of the
English Bible. A thousand discordant sects fly to the book of
books in search of illustrations and facts and sanctions to en
force their views, and they come back loaded with texts innum
erable with which they pelt each other for hundreds of years.
Moreover they not only thus fight each other but they combine
to pelt all who differ from the whole of them with a vigour
that can only be appreciated by those who have been engaged
in what Coleridge’s coachman called “something in the oppo
sition line.”
My contention is, that if you did not first catch your hare
you could not cook it, that if you did not get your theory first
you would not find it in the book nor the facts in support of it.
I read Bacon’s essays before Shakespeare’s plays and
the thought that one man wrote both was not suggested, and
such a thought would not be suggested by the reading only—
not to one man in a million—and still it might be so—it might
still be true that one man was the author of both.
The mul
titude do not make discoveries. The discoverers of truth, the
proclaimers of truth, and the defenders of truth, have in all
ages been the few—-the minority of the human race.
These facts should be constantly borne in mind, so that per
sonal abuse, persecution in any form, should not be possible
among the students, or even among the admirers, of literature,
art, and science. In the words of Shakespeare, let it become
a common truism, and not the insulting concession called toler
ation, that “ Thought is free.”
Mr. W. H. ^Smith contends that in Bacon alone are to be
found the vast variety of talents possessed by the writer of
Shakespeare’s plays.
�15
The best answer I can give is that the talent required, above
all others, is the ability to write such dramatic poetry as the
book contains, and which cannot be traced to Lord Bacon.
Mr. Smith considers similarity of ideas or coincidence of
expressions unreasonable, and not to be expected, yet here we
find them in the following pointed instances.
Bacon speaking of reputation uses these words “because of
the peremptory tides and currents it hath ” and Shakespeare
says “ There is a tide in the affairs of men.”
Bacon relates an anecdote about a man named Hog, who
claimed kindred on account of his name. Sir N. Bacon replied
“ Ay, but you and I cannot be kindred except you be hanged ;
for Hog is not Bacon until it is well hanged.”
Shakespeare
has also used the words hang, hog, and bacon.
Evans—“Hung, Hang, Hog.”
Dame Quickly—“Hang, Hog is the Latin for Bacon.”
Mr. Smith points out that the word ‘ Essay ’ was new in
Bacon’s time, and yet Shakespeare uses it once, Bacon uses it
as a title.
If the use of the same word by two authors who lived at the
same time proves that one wrote the works of the other, there
wonld be no difficulty in proving that Judge Holmes wrote the
book of W. H. Smith, or vice versa.
As a matter of fact he has been charged with copying Miss
Delia Bacon. In his defence he says that if it were necessary
he could show that for twenty years he had held the opinion
that Bacon was the author of the works of Shakespeare. Such
a declaration would lead any reader to expect something very
conclusive,—yet at the end of his volume he says “ we shall
be told that the sum of the whole does not prove that Bacon
wrote the plays.
We have never said or insinuated that we
hoped or expected to prove any such thing,”
�16
The value of an opinion, although like this of Mr. Smith’s,
may be twenty years of age, depends on the facts which support
it. Any opinion of which there is no hope or expectation is
hardly likely to obtain converts, and maybe very justly left to
expire with the name of W. H. Smith.
IN THE I-'NESS.
TO SUBSCRIBERS ONLY, 2/6.
GREAT MEN’S VIEWS
ON
SHAKESPEAKE,
BY
This work will contain the opinions of the leading writers on
the subject in Germany, France, America, and England.
Subscribers names to be sent to
G. & d. H. SHIPWAY, 39, MOOR ST.,
BIRMINGHAM:.
G. & J. H. SHIPWAY, 39, Moon Street, Birmingham.
�
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Lord Bacon: did he write Shakespeare's plays? A reply to Judge Holmes, Miss D. Bacon, & Mr W.H. Smith
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Cattell, Charles Cockbill
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Place of publication: Birmingham
Collation: 16 p. ; 18 cm.
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G. & J. H. Shipway
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Francis Bacon
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Shakespeare
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'
- Gi <3|
TRANSMISSION;
VARIATION OF CHARACTER
THROUGH
THE MOTHER.
BY
GEORGIANA B. KIRBY.
NEW EDITION,
Revised and Enlarged.
G
NEW YORK:
S. R. WELLS & COMPANY, PUBLISHERS,
737
BROAD WAY.
1879.
�COPYRIGHT, 1877, BY
S. R. WELLS & COMPANY.
�INTRODUCTION.
In the following pages it is my wish to impress on
women the grave truth, than which none can have more
importance, that with them, with the mother, rests the
greater power to mould for good or ill, for power or
weakness, for beauty or deformity, the characters of
her unborn children, and that with power comes the
responsibility for its use.
Laying down a few self-evident propositions I shall
illustrate the same by facts which have come under my
own immediate notice during a period of nearly forty
years, simply changing in each case the names of per
sons and locality.
The subject is by no means a new or original one.
The principles involved are found scattered throughout
all the journals which embody modern thought, and
even find their way, accompanied by much contradic
tion, into our lighter literature. Yet it is certainly not
universally understood that on the mother’s state of
mind and body during pregnancy depend such vital in
�6
INTRODUCTION.
terests. The shadow thrown on the subject by false'
modesty keeps the masses in ignorance and arrests the
upward progress of the race.
The mother’s office was, and is yet, by the majority held
to be a secondary one and comparatively unimportant.
“ She merely nourishes the germ given by the father ”
is the common supposition. What singular infatuation
is this when anatomy shows that the ova or eggs exist
in the mother, and that the material supplied by the
father vivifies them!
In ancient, as well as modern, times it was admitted
that during the period of gestation the mother was
keenly sensitive to hideous impressions, and was
through this equal to the production of deformity and
monstrosity. It seems strange that the converse of this
did not suggest itself, so that her sensibility could have
been tested for the creation of beauty and symmetry.
It was also seen that the pregnant woman could affect
the temper, the disposition of her child by yielding to
angry emotions, but she was not credited with the
ability to convey a serenity and sweetness of nature
suipassing her own.
Through all the dark ages that have preceded us,
woman has known herself a slave with less questioning
as to the rightfulness of the position awarded her by man
than she is sensible of to-day. This was the inevitable
order of development for primitive man. That the
�INTRODUCTION.
7
' unjust domination continues is but another proof of
how unwillingly usurped power is relinquished.
The slave woman respects her master, not herself.
The children she has borne have been the children of
their father, not of their mother. Darwin declares
that “ qualities induced by circumstances inhere in that
sex on which the circumstances operated,” passing by
the opposite sex born of the same mothers. Thus
women have given birth to independent sons and sub
servient daughters.
In civilized lands it is now almost universally ad
mitted that conditions produce a race. The included
truth that conditions, governed by invariable law, pro
duce each individual of that race is scarcely recognized
by the most enlightened, so deeply seated in the minds
of men is the belief in woman’s inferiority and unim
portance in the realm of causes.
“Mv children will represent me,” is the unexpressed
thought of nearly every father until the baseless as
sumption is slowly dispelled by the irresponsible medi
ocre children before him. Men, and women too, are
astonished and perplexed when the superficial, but pleas
ing young wife of the man of genius proves the mother
of dull boys and girls without possibilities. Still more
incomprehensible to them is the mysterious Providence
which has awarded the vicious or deficient child to the
S excellent and sensible couple, and presented the lazy
�8
INTRODUCTION.
and disorderly one with, a delicate saint, or an inventor.
When the education, the training, had been exactly
alike for all the children, why did the second or the sixth
o’ertop the others in talent, high ambition, nobler
presence ? If the exceptional child were dull, the mother
was held measurably responsible; if it were brilliant
and beautiful, the qualities were traced back to some
great-grandfather or grand-aunt of the father’s.
At length, -if almost unwillingly, we have found the
right track. In the early part of this century it began
slowly to dawn on the minds of the most enlightened
men that women were in a truer sense the mothers of
the race than had been previously supposed, and
through the influence of these pioneers in the world of
ideas, woman begins to realize her great maternal
power. With this knowledge, and the higher educa
tion now offered her in the schools, her character will
broaden, her thoughts enlarge. Subserviency, personal
gossip, and paltry rivalries will no more belong to her
than to her brother. Courage and sincerity will belong
to both, equally with purity and gentleness may we
hope.
�TRANSMISSION;
OR,
Variation of Character Through the Mother.
All nature, including human nature, is governed by
immutable law.
All variation of character, physical and mental, takes
place in foetal life.
To the sensitiveness conferred by nature on the
child-bearing woman is due her superior capacity to
improve or degrade the race. To her varied mental,
emotional, and physical conditions during her periods of
gestation are due the widely different characters of the
children born of the same parents.
Every quality, or its absence, in man or woman is
there, or is wanting, by reason of conditions afforded
or withheld for its incarnation through the parents.
The compass and tone of each individual is abso
lutely decided before birth.
�10
VARIATION 01' CHARACTER
The faculties actively used by the mother during
pregnancy, rather than those lying latent and part of her
original character, will be found prominent in her off
spring.
Other things being equal, the children of youthful,
immature parents will be inferior to those of the fully
developed.
A marriage may, in itself, be perfect in every re
spect, yet owing to violation of natural or spiritual
law by the parents, the offspring may be inferior to
either or both.
A marriage may be very imperfect, and the parties
to it very imperfect characters, yet, through the influ
ence of happily elevating conditions surrounding and,
as it were, pressing in on the mother, the children will
be superior to both parents.
Education may modify, but never overrule inherited
defects.
�CONCEPTION.
Very much depends on the moment of union which
precedes conception. Never run the risk of conception
when you are sick or over-tired or unhappy; or when
your husband is sick, or recovering from sickness, ex
hausted, or depressed, or when you are not in full sym
pathy with him, or when the children already yours
claim for their welfare your entire strength and time.
For the bodily condition of the child, its vigor and
magnetic qualities, are much affected by the conditions
ruling this great moment. Independent of the mutual,
spiritual estate, the material supplied by the father for
the vitalizing of the ovum, represents his then state of
being, and will continue to represent it in the life it has
helped to organize. If, therefore, this communicated
principle be wanting in vitality or diseased, physical
perfection in the child is not to be expected. This
finest secretion of the man’s whole being-—this subtle
�12
VARIATION OF CHARACTER
essence of his nature, which is both spiritual and phys
ical—should express his best possible condition. After
this he can only affect the child indirectly through his
influence on the mother’s mind.
The more highly-organized the mother, the more
child-bearing exhausts her, because she is drained of
her intellectual and spiritual forces. She, therefore,
requires longer periods of rest and recuperation than
the healthy, animal woman who can bear a child eveiy
two years for many succeeding years, and retain health
and vigor.
Many of the most lovely, most charming, and alto
gether admirable women, become the inmates of insane
asylums from having maternity thrust on them at too
near periods of time.
For a child to be well born, his parents should be
happily mated and in good health; the coming together
should be mutual, and with a willingness, if not a desire,
for parentage. Quite infrequent relations, if any, should
take place up to the fourth month. This should, of
course, be left entirely to the wife’s decision—to her
feeling of what is right and best for leer. I have
known wives very desirous of having children, who, on
finding themselves pregnant, could not help turning
with glad affection to the father of the child. Nothing
is as yet proved on this head, and there is no telling
what magnetisms may or may not be furnished the
�THROUGH THE MOTHER.
13
embryo at this early stage. Nature in the woman re
fuses to entertain the thought of sexual commerce
after the fourth month.
SLEEPING.
There are many reasons which make it most unadvis
able for husband and wife to occupy the same bed, and
growing physiological knowledge will sooner or later
effect a change in this, as in many other of our habits.
In the first place, it is not desirable in this way to
equalize the magnetism of the two parties. Part of
the mutual attraction is thus lost. Then sleep is not
so wholly undisturbed and refreshing as when one is
quite alone. But most important of all, the mere fact
of contact often arouses the animal when the will and
judgment are asleep, and a base union takes place, which
is followed by regret, shame, and bodily weakness.
X late writer on marriage, parentage, and kindred
subjects takes the ground that the sexual attraction
exists solely for the production of offspring. He gives
the impression that, unless the minds of the parties con
cerned are filled with the desire for parentage, the phys
ical union is wholly sensual and unjustifiable. Here the
experience of the very best men and women who should
certainly give us a standard, if one is possible, goes
contrary to this view, and certainly we ought not to
discard this testimony for that of the unspiritual ani
�— /
14
VARIATION OF CHARACTER
mal world, especially when this varies from the human
in being polygamous, and each season choosing another
mate; neither can it be supposed that the animal of in
tuition creates offspring.
Then again, unless denied children, a man never has
a thought of parentage in that all-absorbing moment.
It is his wife—the woman he adores, to whom he is
drawn as by an invisible magnet, and children originat
ing in this tender and impassioned embrace will be thus
far magnetic and well-born children. A desire for par
entage is as good as the love of woman, no doubt; but
since it is in the order of nature for a man to be con
cerned for the woman alone, should we interfere ?
With regard to the best hour in the twenty-four for
originating a new life, I differ from most authors. Love
is most private and interior, shunning vulgar observa
tion and the glaring light, therefore the quiet hours of
early morning best befit the expression of it.
Not many hundred years will-elapse before the earth
will be sufficiently populated. Then large families of
children will be a curse instead of a blessing, and par
ents will be obliged to limit their powers of reproduc
tion to two children only. Will they then reduce the
exercise of the amative faculty to two occasions ? We
have yet much to discover on this head.
�THROUGH THE MOTHER.
15
AMATIVENESS.
Since in the minds of many good and otherwise in
telligent women much confusion exists respecting the
actual marriage or “ sexual union,” it is desirable that
we make some remarks on thjit organ of the brain on
which rests conjugal love—namely, Amativeness.
No other single organ of the brain has so command
ing an influence on the whole nature as this much-slan
dered faculty. The very word itself is held attaint.
Yet it is this power, in woman as well as man, that
gives beauty and symmetry to form and feature, grace
and sweetness to manners and voice, and sympathy and
charity to the soul. All the heroism that has redeemed
the past from utter and disgusting barbarism, has sprung
out of the love of man for woman; not the Friendship,
but the Love, whose completest expression—that which
most softened and refined the man, strengthened and
sustained the woman—was the perfect union of soul and
body demanded by itself. And spite of its gross and
cruel record, amativeness is to-day, as it always has
been, the principal guarantee for the higher develop
ment of humanity. Without it genius is impossible,
capacity for large enjoyments, attractiveness, a segment
of the circle is wanting, making all the rest incomplete
and defective.
Because of the hitherto undue activity of this organ
•
�16
variation of character
and its apparent fickleness, many philosophers have
given friendship a higher place than love in the econ
omy of human life. But let us extinguish this passion
in the heart, leaving friendship to its widest experience,
and we should soon sink down to the level of the Chi
nese, whose brutal contempt for woman expressed in
every fable and proverb, and illustrated in the national
countenance, precludes to them all advancement.
Man appears to have been superendowed with ama
tiveness since first he stood erect. Inferior intellect
and strong passions characterized the primitive man.
And as the head of the modern man still awaits the
arch, he continues to be intemperate on this side of his
nature, and to dominate woman in such degree as suits
his pleasure. Over-indulgence is followed by a sense of
shame, of disgust; and as this habit of excess was and
is universal, man has learned to separate this passion
from what he calls his higher nature, and brand it as
degrading, sensual, shameful. The helpless, the willing
subjection of woman in marriage has served to lower
yet more the character of the relation.
The Church has taught that marriage is a sensual
estate, including one major-general and one private.
A profound contempt for nature is inherited with the
blood, and is confirmed in us by experience.
Now, science and philosophy prove that sin, evil,
wickedness, mean merely a want of balance among
�THROUGH THE MOTHER.
17
faculties in themselves good. How weak is a man
without sufficient firmness, yet how unamenable is he
who possesses too large a share. How valuable is ac
quisitiveness with conscience and the reasoning powers
fully developed. Without the latter, acquisitiveness
purloins cash and jewelry.
Excess of amativeness—the faculty most blindly
abused hitherto—has worked most cruel wrong. Goaded
by stimulants it has murdered its willing slave, sought
satisfaction in promiscuous relations which destroy con
jugal love, changing it to lust,—levied tax on the other
organs of the brain, dragging them with itself to a
shameful death.
The difference between Love and Lust is the differ
ence between heaven and hell. Love seeks only the
happiness of the being loved, and is as refined in its
most private as in its public demeanor. Lust cares only
for selfish, animal gratification, without regard to the
slave who gives enforced consent.
That an act absolutely necessary to the continuance
of the race, animal, human, and vegetable, and the
principle of which governs even the mineral world,
should be in itself, and under right conditions, consid
ered coarse, is but evidence of our own ignorance.
We reason a priori that when the entire being consents,
the spiritual as well as the affectional, the act of union
is as pure in its character as the blossoming of the lily
�18
VARIATION OF CHARACTER
or the rose. The pure, unselfish love of a nohle man,
when carried to its ultimate with a happily responsive
wife, should be as free from shame as the opening
violet. Emotion is as divine as thought. Could it be
necessary, or even possible, for a merely sensual act to
originate a being like Margaret Fuller, or Hawthorne,
or the author of Shakespeare’s plays ? He who replies
in the affirmative is unbalanced and unnatural.
To common observation the more reverent and
kindly demeanor of the lad as he approaches puberty
demonstrates the refining, ameliorating nature of con
jugal love.
The radiant countenance of the modest wife, the
harmonious faces of the chaste and loving pair, justify
their lives.
Marriage is a partnership for the higher development
of each party, and the continuance of the race.
Under the past regime the highly organized and
more individualized American woman has had her
capacity for conjugal emotion almost annihilated. And
this constantly repeats itself in her children as the
abused mother transmits to her son the abnormal pas
sions of his father, and to her daughter her own feeble,
outraged conjugal capacity.
This state of things will continue as long as women
grow up ignorant of the laws of their own being; as
long as mothers bring up their sons and daughters in
�THROUGH THE MOTHER.
19
absolute ignorance of what is right and wrong in
marriage—the mother thinking she is modest and re
fined when she blushes before the honest facts of nat
ure.
What father instructs his son before marriage as to
his behavior under that most sacred bond? What
mother advises with her daughter, assuring her that she
is to be the judge and regulator in her private life with
her husband ? Too often the health of both is im
paired, and the mutual attraction destroyed, because
knowledge came too late. Instead of this, the young wife should be proud to say, “ My mother taught me
that this relation should take place very seldom. We
shall be less happy if we are intemperate.” The man
who married her because he loved and admired her,
would willingly be guided by her to a true continence.
As it is, she evades the responsibility, and abandons
soul and body to the undisciplined will of one as ig
norant of law as herself. Here, as elsewhere, men, and
women too, persuade themselves that subserviency in
woman is lovely as in a man it is contemptible.
DESIRES AND FANCIES.
A superstition is common among the ignorant that
every whim, every craving of the pregnant woman
should be gratified, or the child will be “marked.” I
once heard of a woman who, shortly before her con
�20
VARIATION OF CHARACTER
finement, insisted on having a pint of whisky, and be
cause it was thought best to give her only half a pint,
the child was never satisfied and drank himself to
de#th.
It is true that the very great change in the system,
the forces now specially drawn to the womb which be
fore were equally distributed throughout the body,
leaves the stomach often in a very delicate condition,
needing more acid or less, more flesh and less vegetable
diet, or the reverse, as the case may be, and there
should certainly be no pains spared in providing the
mother with the food that she can relish and digest, or
in her yielding to her innocent and harmless fancies.
The first months are often wearisome and depressing.
She feels restless and unsettled, and should be treated
with patient sympathy even if she seems a little un
reasonable.
But the patient should never resign her own judg
ment and conscience. Gross feeding, excess of meats,
gravies, pastry, wine, etc., should be avoided if desired.
Over-eating is nearly as bad as over-drinking, and a
sense of repletion after meals should be a warning that
the intemperance must not be repeated. It is very
plain that if the pregnant woman used her will in de
nying herself that which she knew to be unwholesome,
oi’ in excess of sufficient, the child would be more
likely to inherit self-control. The true mother will
�THROUGH THE MOTHER.
21
have constant reference to the well-being of the child
she is bearing, and she will have ample reward.
BIRTH-MARKS.
Birth-marks, whether unimportant in character, or
amounting to deformity, are to be referred not so much
to the first impression made on the mother’s mind, as
to her subsequent and frequent reproduction of the
image. The unfurnished mind of the illiterate woman
seizes on and retains the ugly or grotesque picture,
which another rich in thought and experience would
have dismissed at once. Thus we see club-feet, stra
bismus, and other physical defects almost confined to
the lower orders of the people.
Be this as it may, the mother should turn away on
principle from the unpleasant object or circumstance,
and occupy herself by an exercise of her will with
something agreeable. If she acts thus, all will be safe.
DEFICIENT CHILDREN.
The union of young persons, affectionate, but unin
tellectual and ignorant of law, is followed, not unfrequently, by more or less deficiency in the first child.
No restraint is put on the passions, as it is believed that
after the legal ceremony has taken place any amount
of indulgence is permissible.
More cases of deficiency are found in the families of
�22
VARIATION OF CHARACTER
the rich, and of the brutalized and ignorant poor, than
in households whose moderate circumstances necessarily
force some domestic duties on the wife. The simplest,
household labors involve the exercise of calculation,
perception, order, and judgment, not to mention the
good to the body of the exercise of many sets of mus
cles. Consider, then, the loss to the unborn where
wealth has secured abundant service and the pregnant
condition is made an excuse for indolence and over-in
dulgence !
If the young couple have planned their life wisely ;
if they are hospitably inclined, it may be musical and
social at once, and the wife especially take some kindly
interest in the welfare of those less favored than them
selves, all will be safe so far as the intellect is concerned;
and if the delicate consideration and courtesy felt and
shown before marriage by each to the other continue
after the union is consummated, a happy temperament,
a pleasing natural manner may be expected for the
child.
But if these conditions do not exist, the first child
will be greatly inferior to those that follow it, since the
most indolent and selfish mother will expend some
thought on her own little one after its arrival.
Habits of intoxication in either parent result in off
spring who prove to be non compos mentis, if not
�THROUGH THE' MOTHER.
23
drivelling idiots. Ko wife should cohabit with an in
ebriate. The greatest sin that can be committed is to
create a child who must of necessity be a degraded or
helpless creature. Even if he escape these worst con-x
sequences, he will be of quite inferior organization to
those born of temperance.
•.
It would be well if the unmarried would visit asy
lums where idiots and inebriates bear testimony to
their ante-natal conditions.
OVER-EXERTION.
Over-exertion during pregnancy is almost as hurtful
as indolence, depriving the unborn of those vital forces
necessary to a well-constituted existence.
In no country called civilized does the pregnant
woman overtax her strength as she does in these Uni
ted States. This fact is quite sufficient to account for
the very general want of robustness, vigor, and firm
health, especially among our women. I refer here
principally to our farmers’ and mechanics’ wives.
The farmer’s brood mare is carefully considered.
She is exercised gently lest her progeny suffer deterio
ration. But the farmer’s wife, the mother of his prog
eny, who are to do him honor by their virtues, or cast
reproach upon him by their mediocrity or vices, is over
worked every day of each of the nine months of each
period that is to decide his case.
�24
VARIATION OF CHARACTER
When the mare has performed the labor that is good
for her, she is turned into the sunny pasture for the
rest of the day. But there is no considerate arrange
ment for the wife’s walking in green meadows to drink
in the beauties of nature, and absorb the invigorating
sunlight when she has had as much exercise as is good
for her. She cooks and scours, washes and irons, makes
and mends, churns, quilts, makes preserves, pickels, rag
mats, washes dishes three times a day, saves and con
trives (than which nothing is so wearing
o
*n
the mind),
attends the meetings of her religious society, helping at
their fairs and socials; it is probable she takes a boarder
or two in the summer, keeps up a limited correspondence
with her family, and goes to bed every night so exhausted
of her forces, that sleep has to be waited for, rising
unrested to begin over again the dreary daily routine.
You say she has wonderful energy and ability. But
why does she not give her children the benefit of her
ambition and faculty? She put all the vitality, all
the magnetism that belonged to her little daughter, into
the kettles and pans, into the soap and butter. The
butter may sell well in the market, but it will not atone
for the absence of resource in her child.
Her boys are slow to apprehend, and will never
- aspire beyond the three K’s. They lounge instead of
sitting, and walk without dignity.
The girls lack stamina, and have not their mother’s
�THROUGH THE MOTHER.
25
ambition to “ put the work through.” Poor things! They
do not know that they were bom tired, or they would
offer that as an excuse. They are lacking in the mag
netism that attracts, in the hopefulness and health that
makes every day a satisfaction.
If the husband, on his farm, or in his factory, or
store, has extra or increasing work, he forthwith hires
more help; but as child after child add to the responsi
bilities and labors of the home, the mother struggles on
unassisted, until at last she becomes a hopeless invalid,
or sinks at middle age under her burdens, leaving her
husband with his accumulated means to marry a younger .
woman, who sits in the parlor, hires plenty of servants-—
now considered quite necessary—and has a good time
generally, on the savings of her predecessor.
It is the conscientious, self-sacrificing woman who.
thus wears her life out so unnecessarily. She thinks it
her duty. Her husband’s labor has profits attending
it—hers, none. Most fatal mistake! Her maternal
office was her first and highest. If she filled that well,
she did a more important and profitable work than any
that could fall to her husband. And it is plain enough
that when such domestic services as hers have to be,
Twredy they have a very decided money value.
As an illustration of the dangers of over-work, I will
*
* This, and other illustrations, are authentic names of
persons and places simply changed.
�26
VARIATION OF CHARACTER
cite the case of a boy bora of well-to-do parents in-----County, Kentucky. There were several children older
and one younger than the lad in question. This young
est boy had a brain of the very best calibre. Talent,
latent energy, and determination were written in every
line of the child’s face. ££ He has the will of a Napo
leon,” said his father, and this was true.
The brother of whom I would speak was live years
the senior of master Jefferson, a boy with a very large
head, lack-lustre eyes, and a mixture of amiability and
apathy in his air and manner. He relished neither
work, or study, or play. I boarded in the family, and
had ample opportunity for exact observation of the
very different characters composing it. The parents
were unusually rugged and hearty, and the children,
with this one exception, took after them.
When, by careful steps, I led the mother back to
the summer preceding dull Charley’s birth, she was
able to recall quite vividly the circumstances that had
surrounded her, and the kind of life she led.
££ Had she,” I asked, ££ been unhappy ? ”
££ Oh, dear no; she had had nothing to be unhappy
about.”
“Was she sick during any part of her pregnancy?
Had she felt her condition a greater tax on her powers
than was usual with her ? ”
�THROUGH THE MOTHER.
27
“No; on the contrary, she had been filled with
ambition.”
Her husband’s mother was making her first visit
with them, and she was anxious to prove to her
how good and “smart” a woman her son had married.
Business had taken her husband away from home (he
was a horse and cattle trader, and was often absent
months at a time), and she had desired to surprise him
on his return by all she had accomplished.
“ Why, you would hardly believe it if I should tell you
all I compassed that summer before Charley was born.
I wove a whole piece of butternut, and made my hus
band a complete suit—a new one for Johnny, too. I
put up sweet pickles, and preserves, and apple butter
enough to last more than a year. We only had
Aunt ’Liza and that lazy, fat Tish in the kitchen, and
Jake for out-doors, and Aunt ’Liza wasn’t much account
that summer, for she had her little Ben a month before
Charley came. But nothing seemed to trouble me.
Husband wrote that he was doing right well, and every
time put in some nice words for me, and how he longed
to see us all. So I worked and worked. I remember
how tired I was when night came. I was always ac
counted a sound sleeper, but that summer I could not
sleep. I. heard the big clock in the entry strike one
and two half the time.”
�28
VARIATION OR CHARACTER
Here, you see, the mother’s activity gave the large
head, while what should have filled it with compact
brain went into the butternut and preserves.
I have known women stand at the ironing-table
ready to drop with fatigue, while they smoothed out
the last crease from the kitchen towel.
It is a growing custom to embroider under-garments,
night-dresses, etc. Such work is extremely fascinating,
and women who can not afford to purchase it, will oft
en allow themselves to stitch far into the night. This
tends to make a child narrow-chested and short-sighted,
and is unfavorable to good looks, and the embroidered
garments do not make it as attractive as would a serene
and sunny disposition. Grace is said to depend on ex
cess of power. Insufficiency of power precludes this
quality, which is even more fascinating than beauty
itself.
There are, unfortunately, among all classes, women
who can not, or do not, extend their thoughts beyond
the trimming on their skirts, or the last small scandal.
Alas! for the high-minded, true-hearted man who unites
his destiny with one of these. Her aims are paltry, and
his fine traits in her keeping are changed to littleness.
She clings to her petty interests, and he can no more
inspire her with larger views than he can mould a mar
�THROUGH THE MOTHER.
29
ble image. She represents herself in her children. His
descendants through her progress backward, and he is
obliged to admit that woman has the greater power in
* the formation of character.
After what has been said it will be seen that no
greater mistake can be made than for a mother, while
creating immortals, to drudge and scrimp for the sake
of being some day well, or better off. While she has thus
slaved, sparing herself no restful hours in which to enjoy
the beauty of flower or field, in which to contemplate a
beautiful face or graceful figure in real life or picture,
in which to enjoy music or the creations of genius in
literature, she has fixed irrevocably for this world the
unsatisfactory status of her children who will so poorly
adorn the new house when it is one day built.
There is a ministry without us visible and invisible,
and angels find it difficult to approach with gifts the
mother absorbed by household drudgery.
EFFECT OF IMAGINATION.
[Thia, with the account of the New Berlin Prostitute, was communicated to mo
hy my tri end, Mrs. E. W. Farnham].
In a remote hamlet in one of the then young
Western States, Mrs. F. became acquainted with a
family which included nearly a dozen members, and
nearly all married, and settled within easy distance of
■ the old homestead. The sexes were pretty equally
�30
VARIATION OF CHARACTER
divided, each and every one of these young men and
women being in appearance and character below me
diocrity, with one exception. The latter was a young
girl about nineteen years old, who was so evidently
and remarkably superior both in personal appearance
and nature, that it did not seem possible she could be
long to the same family. Beside the heavy, coarse
faces of her brothers and sisters, hers was angelic in its
graceful contour, long-fringed lids and refined, express
ive mouth. The very curly hair, which resembled the
mother’s only in its curliness, had a golden glint that
removed it by several degrees of relationship from the
wiry red on one side and faded black on the other,
which crowned the broad, low heads of the gruff
brothers and two drowsy-looldng married sisters who
were at this time home on a long visit.
This girl, now the successful teacher of the district
school, filled her place in the always untidy, dilapidated
household, unconscious of being an anomaly. She had
made some effort to brighten the dingy walls, and here
and there the uneven floor of the living-room was con
cealed by pretty rag-mats of her making.
Notwithstanding the inferiority of the family as a
whole, there was a general friendliness among the mem
bers, proceeding from the rough, but unfailing defer
ence shown by the father to the mother. Nelly’s
wishes received a sort of grumbling attention, and her
�THROUGH THE MOTHER.
31
opinion was quoted as having weight. Still, owing to
the very relined character of her attractions, they were
evidently to a great extent overlooked by all but her
mother.
Mrs. F. was a long while in getting hold of any clue
that would explain this phenomenon.
No, Nelly was not born in that low dwelling under
the shadow of those catalpas, but in a poorer shanty
in Northern Tennessee.
No, there were no nice people thereabouts ; no kind
Methodist preacher visited them. They were sort of
outside the “ circuit.”
No, there was no school-teacher boarded with them.
There was quite a spell when there was a quarrel about
whose land the school-house occupied, and school didn’t
keep more than three months any way.
In view of so much content in the midst of so much
dirt and disorder, it did not seem worth while to ask if
any one had lent her books which pleased her. How
ever, the conversation evidently recalled pleasant mem
ories, for the weather-beaten countenance of the kindhearted old woman suddenly lit up, and her small eyes
twinkled with happy light as she said :
“We were awful poor about those times, and there
was no look-out for anything better. Some of the
boys had come up here to see if they couldn’t get better
land. But we had no money to buy it with if there
�32
VARIATION OF CHARACTER I
was, and there was a book I must tell you about — a
book that lifted me right out of myself. You see there
came along a peddler—’twas a wonder how he ever got
to such an out-of-the-way place—well, he unpacked his
traps, and among them was a little book with a lovely
green and gold cover. ’Twas the sweetest little thing
you ever saw, and there was just the nicest picture in
the front. I saw ’twas poetry, and on the first page it
said, c The Lady of the Lakethat was all. I did want
that book, and I had a couple of dollars in a stocking
foot on the chimney-shelf, but a dollar was a big thing
then, and I didn’t feel as if I ought to indulge myself,
so I said no, and saw him pack up his things and travel.
“ Then I could think of nothing but that book the
rest of the day, I wanted it so bad, and at night I
couldn’t sleep for thinking of it. At last I got up, and
without making a bit of noise, dressed myself, and
walked four miles to Scranton Centre, where the ped
dler had told me he should stay that night—at the
Browns—friends of ours, they were, and I got him up,
and bought the book, and brought it back with me,
just as contented and satisfied as you can believe. I
looked it over and through, put it under my pillow,
and slept soundly till morning.
“ The next day I began to read the beautiful story.
Every page took that hold of me that I forgot all
about the pretty cover, and perhaps you wouldn’t be
�THROUGH THE MOTHER.
33
lieve it, but before Nelly was born, if you would but
give me a word here and there, I could begin at the
beginning, and say it clear through to the end. It ap
peared to me I was there with those people by the
lakes in the mountains—with Allan-bane and his harp,
Ellen Douglas, Malcolm Graeme, Fitz-James, and the
others. I saw Ellen’s picture before me when I was
milking the cow, or cooking on the hearth, or
weeding the little garden. There she was, stepping
about so sweetly in the rhyme, that I felt it to be
all true as the day, more true after I could repeat
it to myself. And then when I found my baby grew
into such a pretty girl, and so smart too, it seemed as if
Providence had been ever so good to me again. But
children are mysteries any way. I’ve wondered a
thousand times why Nelly was such a lady, and why
she loved to learn so much more than the other chil
dren. She has read to me ever since she was ten years
old, and she’s got quite a lot of books there, you see,
ma’am. She’s mighty fond of poetry, too.”
RESULTS OE UNUSED TALENT.
To illustrate the advantages of healthful duties
and self-esteem, and the evils following want of occu
pation, I will give the experience of an old friend, a
former resident of this State. For convenience I will
call her Mrs. Hosmer.
�34
VARIATION OF character:
This daughter of an orderly and peaceful home, in
Western New York, became engaged when quite young
- to an intelligent young man, who afterward became
foreman in her father’s iron-works. Several years
elapsed before the young man felt at liberty to take on
himself the cares and expenses of a family. He sought
to expedite matters by obtaining a California agency
from a large hardware establishment. This took him
from home, and pending the decision, he became in
timately acquainted with another young woman pos
sessing marked personal attractions, different entirely
from those of his long time fiancee. News of
his supposed disloyalty reached his betrothed simul
taneously with his return to his native town with the
agency in his pocket — ready for the ceremony, and
removal to California. The beauty, and alert, independ
ent ways of the young woman in question, were set
forth to the betrothed in a manner calculated to depress
her own self-esteem, and raise a doubt of her lover’s
satisfaction in her, but not enough doubt, she thought,
to justify an explanation, or to impede the marriage,
which therefore took place at once.
In San Francisco, Mrs. Hosmer found herself in what
are considered most fortunate circumstances, a. 0., she
had nothing to do, and had no need of doing anything.
She was a born housekeeper and a skillful cook, but in
a boarding-house these talents remained unexercised.
�THROUGH THE MOTHER.
35
She was a neat and swift seamstress, but her mother
having supplied her with the usual superfluity of gar
ments included in a wedding outfit, her talent lay dor
mant in this direction also. Then she was amongst
strangers, shy, and unacquainted with others needing
assistance. So, while her husband was at his place of
business, her sole thought was—bearing in mind her
imaginary rival—Is Martin satisfied with me ? Is he
happy ? Will he think this dress becoming to me ?
Mr. Hosmer went and came, wholly ignorant of the
doubt in his wife’s mind. He was now jovial and un
reserved, now abstracted and anxious, as business prom
ised success or failure; but always gentle and consider
ate with his wife. The latter was a sisterly rather than
a wifely person. There was, therefore, a lack of spon
taneity in the union, yet no real unhappiness on either
side.
In due time a babe was born—a girl—my acquaint
ance with whom commenced when she was about eight
een ; a fair, graceful creature, with a small head on a
large, well-proportioned body, soft, helpless, imploring
blue eyes, a rosebud mouth, and a peculiar, plaintive
tone in her speaking voice.
She had just left a private school, where for years
she had gone through books mechanically, coached for
examinations by her good-natured, brighter companions.
She wrote a neat hand and a limited amount of correct
�36
VAEIATION OF CHAEACTEE
English. But she could never explain a page of her
natural philosophy or algebra, and could not reason on
any subject more profound than the making of a dress
or the dressing of her hair. She was an amiable, affec
tionate, incapable, timid girl, who always leaned on
others for support.
Now, this weak-minded girl had a sister two years
her junior, as unlike, except in the color of her hair, eyes,
and complexion, as any two persons could be. Where
Rosy was insignificantly pretty, Charlotte was commandingly handsome. Firmness, courage, self-reliance,
reasoning faculty, she had in marked measure. She
was already through the high-school studies, taking a
year’s rest between that and the university, while her
mother made the long-wished-for visit East; delighted
to be mistress of the house, since she was practically
skilled in domestic arts herself.
Having previously learned the circumstances thathad so impressed themselves on Rosa, I longed to un
derstand how Mrs. Hosmer was situated before the
birth of her second daughter.
“Were you still boarding when you were pregnant
with Charlotte ? ” I asked, one day. “ She carries her
self with so much dignity, she has so much conscious
power that it does not seem as if she could be related
to Rosy,’*
“Bless you, no,” she replied, laughing. “We were
�THROUGH THE MOTHER.
37
keeping house then, and I had the sole care of Captain
Rimes’ three children. Their mother had died, you
remember. Father sent me our old Nora, and she was
a great help to me. Still, I had plenty of responsi
bility, and not a little labor besides. But I had gotten
over all my fears about Martin’s not being happy. He
fairly worshiped Rosy, and was so proud when people
called her a fairy, as they always did. People said we
were the handsomest couple that walked up the aisle in
Starr King’s church. Then, principally, I had no time
to make trouble by analyzing my face in the glass and
proving to myself that I was -a fright, as I used to do.”
CONSTRUCTIVENESS AND ARTISTIC TENDENCY.
Jannette, a well-balanced, conscientious yon ng woman,
had married a sign-painter, who kept strictly within the
limits of his business. She had now three children,
healthy, nice-looking, docile children, but without any
special characteristics. They had been living in a rented
house, but now Jannette’s father, having met with
success in some business venture, purchased for his
daughter a good lot, on which they were able to build
a moderate house. Mrs. T. at this time was pregnant
with her fourth child, and she entered, with the zest
such good fortune would naturally call out, into the
planning and replanning the new home, so as to secure
the maximum of space, comfort, and architectural
�38
VARIATION OF CHARACTER
beauty out of their modest means. With this her
thoughts were occupied during the day, and the even
ings were passed advising together over the height of
doors and windows, the odd spaces for closets, the pre
cise wood for the different floors. This was durino- the
o
latter half of the rainy season. The storms once over,
the lumber was hauled, and the house put up forthwith.
It now became necessary, with the last remnant of
the savings before her, as basis and limit to her opera
tions, to calculate what, of the new furniture needed,
could be bought. The papering also must be con
sidered.
“ I want a touch of what is called the artistic in our
room and the sitting-room, if we can’t do more. Let
me help to choose the wall-paper. I shall have to see
it every minute of the day,” she said.
A first-class Brussels carpet, somewhat worn, was
bought at auction. This was so remodeled as to ap
pear new and elegant. A fringed lambrequin for the
mantel-shelf (which was not marble); a few pretty, but
cheap, brackets; a few photographs of fine paintings,
which had lain out of sight for years, made into passe
partouts, and hung judiciously. Pretty imitation chintz
curtains, with lambrequin top, for the bed-room; sheer
muslin, lined with Turkey-red, for the living-room;
well-fitting chintz covers for the old couch and arm
chair, the colors made to harmonize with carpet and
�THROUGH THE MOTHER.
39
wall-paper, which latter was, of course, neutral-tinted; a
hanging-basket, already well-filled and growing, in each
window; a few inexpensive, urn-shaped vases for flow
ers; a graceful evening lamp. This last Jannette
feared an extravagance, but ££ it will be so restful to
our eyes; think of it, dear, every evening.”
When all was ready, a house-warming was given, and
was not our little wife proud of her success ? She really
had not realized before her own talent and good taste.
££ I am sure, Mr. T., you must have spent hundreds of
dollars on all this,” said Mr. T.’s partner’s wife, who
frowned severely on all extravagance. Jannette shook
her head and smiled.
And now, in a few weeks, all was ready for the new
comer— Master Thomas Bliss Trescott, as he was
named. In after years the mother still remembered
the pleasure she had had in the arrangement of their
lovely home, but she did not connect that fact with the
sterling intellect and marked artistic ability of her
fourth child (and second son), notwithstanding that
he was seen by all to be head and shoulders above the
rest in all that makes a man.
JEALOUSY.
No influence, excepting the desire to dislodge and so
murder the unborn, has so damaging an effect on the
character of the child as jealousy. I have but too
>
�40
VARIATION OF CHARACTER
often seen the workings of this emotion and its con
sequent evils.
I once lived in the house of a good-hearted young
Irish woman, the mother of two girls, respectively two
and five years old. The younger was a happy, rollick
ing little dot, needing small care, and finding amuse
ment in everything about her.
- The older" child, a coarse, distorted likeness of her
mother in form and feature, presented a strong contrast
to her sister. There was a sly, malicious expression in
her light blue eyes—at times a vicious leer so horrible
in childhood. I used to watch her at my leisure, and
have seen her deliberately stick a pin into her sister
and push her down, standing silently pleased to see
she was hurt.
“ Do you see how different in disposition your two
girls are ? ” I one day asked the mother.
“ Oh ! sure, I do, Miss,” she replied, “ and I don’t see
why the good God give Katy thim ways she has. She
angers me that much sometimes, that I could just kill
her, I could, when I see her wid me own eyes pinch the
baby, and the darlint looking up as innocent, smilin’, wid
the tears in her eyes, as if she didn’t believe it, nohow.”
“ Did you live here among these beautiful hills be
fore Katy was born ? ” I asked.
“ Shure an’ I did, Miss, and me husband worked in
the factory yonder.”
�THROUGH THE MOTHER.
41
“ The scenery is so lovely round here, that if, as you
say, you have a good husband, you ought to have been - happy all the time. Were you quite as happy when
you were carrying Katy as you were with Molly I”
“ Happy, is it, you say, Miss ? an’ shure whin me
husband was tuk up wid another woman, how could I
be happy ? An’ he a spending his money on her, too, an’
the wages got lower, an’ it’s not the money that riled
me neither, it’s me as was but a few months married,
an’ in a strange counthrie, and he a riding more nor
three times wid her in a chaise, it is. Och ! but he’d
been over and larnt the wicked ways before iver he
brought me here. Faith, me heart was broken, it was,
an’ I hated that woman so, I was longing all the time
to lay me hands on her. I’d liked to have murthered
the old divil, an’ I wanted to go to the factory an’ in
form on her, but me husband cursed me, and threat
ened to kill me if I did.”
I knew her husband, and he was a very fair specimen
of the better class of Irish laborers. He behaved him
self very well, I thought, and was never tired of play
ing with the baby Molly. It was by slow observation
I discovered that illicit relations make a man cruel,
brutal to the wife he deserts.
“ And was he still behaving so badly while you were
bearing the baby Molly ? ” I asked.
<£ The saints be praised, no, Miss. The woman moved
�42
VARIATION OF CHARACTER
away a bit after Katy was born. Bad ’cess to her, and
Pat giv’ up his bad ways afther, and trated me rale well,
too. The baste of a woman niver come back, an’ I tuk
no more throuble consarning her.”
“ That was sensible and kind, too, in you,” I said;
“ but it would have been better for poor Katy if she
had gone sooner. You see, you put all your hatred of
that woman into Katy, and she is not so good or so
pretty in consequence.”
“An’ do you mane to say, Miss, that God could
make me Katy bad, an’ me a sufferin’ too ? ”
“Well, but did not she lie right under your heart
when you were longing to lay hands on that wicked
woman ? All your feelings went with the blood that
nourished her every day through all those months. It
was a sad chance for her, poor child.”
It was some time before the good creature could
accept an idea so foreign to her crude opinions on the
subject. But she saw at last how it must be. She
promised to control her temper (she was again preg
nant), and I advised her not to be severe in her treat
ment of poor Katy, but to give her a little garden in
the poorly-fenced lot, with some cheap seeds to plant
to occupy her mind; and for herself, she should not
dwell on Katy’s looks and imperfections, but enjoy
Molly all she could, and sing every day some of her
sweet Irish songs.
�THROUGH THE MOTHER.
43
During courtship it is the habit of the mind to avoid
all topics on which disagreement is anticipated. This
comes of a longing for sympathy, and a fear of losing
whatever degree of it is possible between the parties.
It is a dangerous course, and imperils future happiness,
because after marriage all disguises are sure to be drop
ped, and the want of harmony in opinion and feeling
becomes at once prominent.
Under such circumstances an excellent young man
of our acquaintance, whom we will call K., became
the husband of a lady of equally admirable, but wholly
different character, by name C. A few months of
married life sufficed to reveal the width of the gulf be
tween them. It could not be ignored. Their estimate
*
of individuals, actions, looks, were always at variance.
Shrinking from the pain of dissent, C. learned to limit
her conversation to the very simplest matters of house
hold occurrence, then to the baby, who seemed to have
inherited all the inharmony of the alliance, never con
tent, always awake.
Other children were born to them, capable, conscien
tious children, wanting serene affection and content
ment, as only love can beget love. So the years went
on, when circumstances threw K. almost daily into the
society of one of those women who appeal directly to
the passions of a man—a handsome animal, with no
scruples of conscience as to the misery she might bring
�44
VARIATION OF CHARACTER
on another woman. K. felt more at home in the
company of one below his own plane, than with one
who was above it, and plunged at once into what is
politely termed a liason.
While this affair was at its height, C. found herself
pregnant; and her husband expressing his annoyance at
the prospect of another child, and dreading the effect
on the child of her own desolation and sense of wrong,
she would have rejoiced could she have brought on the
menstrual flow. Finding this an impossibility at so
early a stage, and unwilling to risk injuring the child
later on, she made up her mind to do her “ level best ’’
and bear it. By sheer force of will, and by the most
passionate prayer for help from Above, to enable her to
live above her surroundings, to save her from bearing
malice; shutting her eyes to the cruel insensibility of
FT. and his affinity, keeping them open to the needs of
others, she lived day by day, working, aspiring, dread
ing lest her efforts should fail to save her child, deter
mined that he should be saved.
The effect of her high endeavor astonished even her
self. She had lifted him above the clouds and put him
en rapport with greater good and wiser wisdom than
came to the other children. His nature proved to be
hopeful and trustful, with more affection to bestow on
the mother who had thus struggled for him, than sons
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45
usually feel for mothers, and more force of intellect
than easier conditions would have ensured.
Could any instance more fully prove the mother’s
peculiar power in moulding the constitution of her
child ? The father’s thoughts were all engrossed with
his mistress. The mother’s persistent, intelligent, un
selfish aspiration alone saved her son from being the
spiritual brother of poor Katy—the child of malice.
THE NEW HEELIN' PROSTITUTE.
The following illustrates the fearful consequences of
sexual indulgence during pregnancy:
“ Charlotte and I were school-mates and dear friends
ever since I can remember anything,” said the young
woman. “ Our parents had been friends before us. I
think we were equals in every sense, except that Lotty
was handsomer than I. We became engaged and were
married on the same day, when I was twenty-one and
she twenty-two years of age. Our husbands are both
honorable and kind men, and so far as our married
lives are concerned, we have both been well situated.
“In about the usual time after marriage we found
ourselves pregnant, and as we lived not far distant
from each other, we made our babies’ wardrobes in
company, anticipating, with much pleasure, the already
dear children.
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VARIATION OF CHARACTER
“We had passed the fifth month, when Lotty, for
the first time, alluded to her most private life with her
husband, saying she was so glad that she could respond
so fully to his demands. It had not been so at first,
but now the relation occurred almost every night, and
she experienced quite as much emotion as he did, to
his very great satisfaction.
“I made an exclamation of surprise, and then was
silent. My own experience had been entirely opposed
to hers, but I knew nothing of right or wrong in such
matters ; I had nothing to reply.
“ In due time, to our great delight, we each held a
daughter in our arms. Other children followed pretty
close on then’ track, and our meetings, though no less
cordial, became less frequent. The years flew past on
swift wing. Our eldest children were thirteen years
old; mine a refined, conscientious, reliable girl; hers
too mature bodily, and with a rather handsome, but
positive, sensual face. In order—as they intended—to
check the forwardness of her manners, she was sent to
boarding-school. Here she climbed out of the window
at night, and having had an intrigue with a boy belong
ing to an academy near by, was expelled from the insti
tution. The parents entreated, bribed, threatened,
with no signs of improvement on her part. Finally,
when this poor child wanted two months of reaching
her fifteenth year, she left her home, and of her own
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47
free will became the inmate of a brothel. Once or
twice, through the help of a detective, she was recov
ered ; but only to escape again to follow the life that
suited her organization.
“ Her father’s head was bowed with grief. The mother
became hard and irritable, growing to hate the child
who had brought on them so much sorrow and shame.
I grieved for them, but I never understood the case
till I heard you speak of the mother’s power over her
unborn child. Now I see that Maria was the victim
of her parents’ ignorance.” *
VIOLATION OE SEXUAL LAW DURING PREGNANCY.
I will briefly refer to another instance where the
child so fatally endowed was a boy.
The sisters of this boy—women of some presence—
* Dr. Sanger, who is authority on the subject of pros
titution, says that the observation of years among the
abandoned class, has led him to the conclusion that only
one woman in a thousand is brought to adopt the life of a
prostitute from the same sensual proclivities that make a
man consort with the abandoned. Seduction by a lover,
followed by the rejection of society, poverty, inability to
labor, desire for elegant clothing, and various other causes,
have brought the other nine hundred and ninety-nine into
this bitter degradation. The young girl alluded to above
was one of the esceptions. Since while pregnant—women,
sad to say, have been constantly forced to yield their per
sons to the lusts of the husband, they have in spirit re
belled against the unnatural demand, instead of heartily
assenting.
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VARIATION OF CHARACTER
were already married, and mothers, when their mother
found herself pregnant at forty-five. The husband
was much gratified at the prospect of becoming a fa
ther at sixty, and expressed this satisfaction in frequent
relations with his wife. It so happened that their pe
cuniary circumstances were easier than at any previous
time, and the wife employed “help,” which relieved
her of all the severer household duties. She was not
an intellectual or cultivated woman, and the unaccus
tomed leisure did not prove a boon, since it left her
with unspent strength to meet and respond to the
demands made upon her quite up to the time of the
infant’s arrival. Thus, you see, the boy had imparted
to him over-active amativeness, combined with small
mental activities. How should he when a man restrain
his passions, when during all his ante-natal life his
parents had put no restraint on theirs ? He did not.
He showed himself a low bully among his school-mates,
and the dread of the younger girls, before he had
reached his “teens.” After that, his sensual, brutal
behavior actually repelled his boy-companions. When
a man, he barely escaped being the inmate of a prison,
as he had been already of worse places.
The man who is dominated by this one quality is
very often handsome, magnetic, and attractive to women.
He boasts privately, if not publicly, of his conquests,
holding no reputation sacred.
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49
Perhaps to common observation he is a gentleman,
and you hear of his liasons in a whisper. AlasI for
the wives of these gay cavaliers. They lead a lonely
life, since he spends the best of himself—his suave
manners and good nature—in fact, all of himself else
where.
Suddenly and all unexpectedly you hear that this at
tractive man, not forty-five, is sinking down with some
insidious disease. It is called neuralgia in the head, or
paralysis, and the doctor has the promise of a long job.
It is, in fact, softening of the brain, caused by excessive
passional excitement and the undue drain on his vital
forces. He may live years, his digestive organs holding
out better, because having drifted into idiocy there is
no longer any wear and tear of the mind.
This man has been “ successful ” with women, and
this is the finale.
THE father’s INFLUENCE THROUGH THE WIFE.
Mr. Z., a man of thirty-five, of a refined, intellect
ual, but rather cold nature, married his ward, an
amiable, immature girl of fifteen. Her attraction for
him lay in her youthful affection and her healthy,
handsome, physical characteristics. She had in her the
“makings” of a thoughtful, self-reliant woman; but
development in natural order was arrested by her being
placed in so false a position—a wife at scarcely fifteen.
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VARIATION OF CHARACTER
Very soon after the marriage she found herself
pregnant. Meanwhile, Mr. Z. for love of her and for
the sake of companionship, earnestly endeavored to
awaken in her some intellectual tastes. He read to
her, explaining and illustrating as he went along, many
of the standard English poets and essayists. She lis
tened, received, and grew en rapport with him.
Under these favorable auspices their first child was
born. She was the child of the father, and wore his
features, toned to greater delicacy of outline and purer
colors. Her mind as she grew to womanhood was of a
quite superior order, but wanted the breadth and gen
erosity which more warmth in the father, and greater
ripeness in the mother, would have secured to her.
This infant once in the mother’s arms there could
be no further leisure for literary or poetic culture. And
as it was not possible for intellectual habits to be formed
in the short space of twelve months, the young girl
naturally slid back to her former plane of life. This
was the more inevitable as their pecuniary circum
stances made it necessary for Mrs. Z. to take sole charge
of her little one.
Two years from this time another child was born to
them—a girl also; but in whom Mrs. Z.’s mental cali
bre was represented, while her fine physical traits were
omitted.
With the more all-engrossing cares of the young
�THROUGH THE MOTHER.
51
wife, the daily life of herself and husband grew insen
sibly apart. And now a new personage appeared on the
scene—a lady of a brilliant, comprehensive, and highly
cultivated mind, to which was added a keen and com
prehensive interest in the most important reform move
ment of the day, for which Mr. Z. had signally failed
to enlist his wife’s sympathy.
Now'it was but natural that Mrs. Z., observing the
eagerness with which her husband became engrossed
in conversation with his guest, argument following argu
ment, constant reference made at breakfast, dinner,
supper to events and personages of which she was
wholly ignorant, should grow uncomfortable, depressed,
jealous. The talented lady was oblivious to the im
pression she was making, but she had too noble a nat
ure to willingly make trouble between man and wife.
The new yeai’ came, and the fascinating guest de
parted. The husband, reviewing the past months,
charged himself with gross neglect of his wife, and
sought, by the most delicate and considerate attention,
to atone for his neglect. Mrs. Z. was now nearing her
twentieth year, and was enciente with her third child.
She was overjoyed to have her husband all to herself
again, and expressed that satisfaction in responding
passionately to the almost nightly embrace. In due
time a son was bom—a handsome animal he proved to
be. “ What a pity that excellent people like the Z.’s
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VARIATION OF CHARACTER
should be cursed with so vile a son! ” was the common
remark when the young man’s reputation as a libertine
had become fully established.
ILL EFFECTS OF MORAL COWARDICE.
The common, ideal woman is a weak, disingenuous,
cowardly creature. She has no earnest convictions, no
purpose, no sincerities within her.
Happily, this
worthless ideal is breaking up, or is treasured only by
weak-kneed clerks in city stores, and lads still in their
teens. Rosa Hosmer had a dozen of this kind calling
on her. Their self-love was gratified by the slight con
trast between their weak-mindedness and hers. The
vanity of an obtuse, illiterate man is piqued by the
superiority of a woman, while a large-natured, chiv
alrous man feels honored in her regard.
“How
weak-minded must a woman be to meet with your
approbation!” said a lady in a stage coach of some
fellow-passengers who were inveighing against strongminded women. They looked at one another perplexed,
and slightly ashamed of the absurdity of their position,
and one of the number who recovered his senses be
fore the others, replied: “ I believe you’ve got the best
of us, ma’am. I guess none of us would want a par
ticularly silly wife.”
I met once, in New York, a young man of very re
markable acquirements, with great decision of character,
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53
and large self-esteem. “ If I ever many,’’ he remarked,
“ my wife will always have to yield implicit obedience
to my commands, or there will be open warfare in the
house.”
“ Your children will be a stalwart set, then,” I re
plied, “ with their mother a mere mush of concession.”
He did not see what she had to do with it. The
children would be
children, and being his, would do
him credit. He was not wanting in clear reasoning
powers, and having great family pride—pride of race,
I should say—after considerable argument, was honest
enough to admit that there must be truth on my side.
UNIMPRESSIBILITY.
There are some cold, narrow, positive women so im
pervious to the influence of others, so insensitive that
the husband, if he is superior, can hardly ever repre
sent himself in his children.
I am acquainted with a gentleman conspicuous among
his fellows for gra.ce of soul and nobility of nature.
He has the tenderness of a woman combined with mas
culine heroism. Of his six children not one equals
the father. The mother, self-willed and external in char
acter (though, of course, violently opposed to woman’s
rights and strong-minded women), had children much
alike, and all like herself. A very faulty, but sympa
thetic woman, has often finer children than those frig
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VARIATION OF CHARACTER
idly virtuous mothers who are never stirred to the
depths by any event or consideration.
An artist of no mean powers took to wife a gentle,
characterless girl. He did not wish his wife to be in
tellectual, and decidedly she was not. They had chil
dren “ fast,” and it was not long before her amiability
changed to fretfulness. She flung all her cares on her
husband, had a doctor in the house continually, and at
thirty was a faded, complaining, old woman. At thirtyfour her seventh child was laid in her arms. The
father, despairing of the others, stuck a paint brush in
the tiny fist of the latest born, and vowed he should
be a painter. In vain,—this son, it is true, dabbled in
paints, but had no more genius than the others, not
withstanding that he was a seventh child.
ASKING FOR MONEY.
Mrs. Myrtle was a lovely young woman, lovely in
mind and body, but for one defect—viz., a want of
firmness and self-esteem. She was surrounded by all
the comforts and elegancies that wealth could procure,
and was yet the abject slave of a gentlemanly tyrant.
She could not receive or pay visits, go shopping, or to
a matinee without first obtaining permission from her
master. And she was always giving an account of her
self in a pacificatory manner. When she suffered
humiliation, she blamed her husband, and not the stand
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55
ard slie had given hiiii. Mrs. M. had three boys, and
they were the most inveterate liars. How could it be
otherwise, when their mother spent half her time in
eluding inspection, and half in making confession,
while she regularly searched Mr. M.’s pockets for coins
that could be spent without explaining il what for.’’
I could draw another picture where the husband, as
soon as his means permitted, placed money in the bank
in his wife’s name, that she might feel the interest was
more really hers to spend as she pleased without any
sense of obligation.
REPRESSED EXTERNAL ACTIVITIES.
A very remarkably superior woman, but without
quick, external perceptive faculties to give her insight,
into character, mistook a handsome, unprincipled brute
for a man and gentleman. What she endured for six
months after her marriage could not be written. When
she found herself enciente, for the sake of the child
she sought refuge with an humble friend at a distance
from her unhappy home. Being pinched for means,
she earned money by her needle, endeavoring, at the
same time, to banish from her memory the recollection
of her late cruel experience.
Day after day this regal woman sat sewing with
Elizabeth Browning’s poems open on a chair beside her,
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VARIATION OF CHARACTER
committing to memory the most interior of those re
ligious strains as she stitched, stitched in the solitude
of the low-roofed cottage hy the river. No exhilarat
ing rides on horseback, such as had been her wont, no
genial, social company, no brisk walks and happy
communion with nature, were possible in her peculiar
circumstances. She must forego the healthy, harmoni
ous, external life of her past, and live solely within the
inmost chambers of her soul.
At two years old the little girl bom of these unto
ward conditions was lovely, large-eyed, thoughtful,
considerate, and tender in her ways as any lady.
“ "Where are your wings, Mary ? ” said a gentleman who
noticed the radiant face at the mother’s garden gate.
For these seemed only necessary to prove her a seraph.
Alas! to her mother’s infinite sorrow, she very soon
departed to more blissful realms. The constantly re
pressed emotions of her mother, and her sedentary life,
had caused an imperfect action of the lungs, and a low
vital tone generally. Grief shortens the breathing as
joy expands the lungs. Little Mary was extremely
narrow-chested, with sloping shoulders, and hence quite
unable to supply sufficient sustenance for so very large a
brain, whose weight she bent under, and died, shortly
after completing her second year, of acute hydroce
phalus.
�THROUGH THE MOTHER.
‘ ' 57
BEAUTY.
Beauty of form and feature should not be, as it is
now, exceptional. It should be the rule. And there
will come a time when parents will be held as much re
sponsible for an ill-favored, ungainly child, as they are
beginning to be for their dishonest or vicious children.
The English nobility are celebrated the world over
for personal beauty and elegant manners. What cause
or causes lie back of this significant fact ?
So far as manners are concerned, we know that they
are the result of generations of culture, confirmed by
generations of use. They suppose leisure and good
manners for company, as Emerson has suggested.
The bustle and hurry of the work-a-day-world afford no
room for polished manners, and only when co-opera
tion shall have taken the place of our present wasteful
and cruel competition, shall we have time for graceful
living. Hard labor and worry will in time wear out
the most charming and inbred politeness.
With regard to the personal beauty of the class al
luded to, let us turn to its past—the past of this heredi
tary nobility. The blood which held courage, selfrespect, and the ability to control others, deserved in a
sense the deference and admiration it commanded.
Then, as these qualities, in themselves and their retro
active effects, favored the production of the more mas-
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VARIATION OF CHARACTER
culine and striking forms of beauty, that type was
repeated through successive generations until in the
later times it has been modified by the increasing def
erence to human rights, and refined by intellectual and
moral culture. The hereditary transmission of superior
personal traits was the more certain because the wife of
the lord was a lady, and the wife of the duke a duchess,
and as lady and duchess, they believed that the very
marrow in their bones excelled in worth that of every
man and woman ranking below them in the social scale.
And this saved them from the belittling consciousness
so debasing to their children, that, as women, they were
inferior to men.
We have learned in these days that blood runs out
as well as in (on the very principle I am seeking to
prove), and the nobleman and woman of genius appear
quite as often outside the charmed circle of hereditary
distinction as within it. Still, the law is inflexible, and
never evaded. Beauty is not born of cowardice, sub
serviency, or grief. The more culture, the more the
blood is worked over, the finer the types, provided we
grow more related to humanity, and less to a class.
Pure, unselfish love is in very fact the mother of
beauty, as happiness is the mother of song. And what
can awaken gladness in a wife so certainly as the ever
watchful kindness of her husband ?
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59
DAISY B-------- .
I was at one time intimate with, a couple who were
noticeably plain and angular in appearance. He, from
ill-health, had an irritable disposition. She was easily
excited. But they were truly mated, and whatever of
these peculiarities appeared in society, they disappeared
before the door-step of the home was reached. A per
fect confidence existed between them, and the unvary
ing respect and courtesy shown by the husband toward
his wife did honor to them both.
It was a late marriage, and one daughter alone came
to bless them. A child lovely from her birth, bearing
scarce any resemblance to either parent. A delicate,
oval face, creamy complexion, soft, intelligent black
eyes, a sweet mouth, and a shower of golden curls;
not an angle about her, simply a beauty from baby
hood to womanhood.
a Tou think it unaccountable,” said the father to me,
“ that my wife and I, who are both so plain, should have
so pretty a child as Daisy. But I have studied it out,
and I settle it this way. My great-grandmother was
a famous beauty and a noted belle in her day, and it is
her features that have cropped out in Daisy.”
“ And let me tell you,” I answered, with equally im
pressive gesture of the forefinger. “ Let me tell you
that both of your great-grandmothers might have been
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VARIATION OF CHARACTER
as handsome as the Venus de Medici and the Venus of
Milo in one, but if you had not bestowed the most
chivalrous attention on your excellent wife while she
was bearing Daisy—if you had not made her so thor
oughly happy by your loving -words and thoughtful
care, there would have been no cropping out of beauty
in the little daughter. Sweet and lovely thoughts re
solve themselves into symmetry of form and face.
Mental and physical traits do undoubtedly reappear in
the same family after a longer or shorter period, but
never without the right conditions for their re-incarna
tion. You may take at least half the credit of Daisy’s
good looks to yourself, and the other half belongs to
her good mother.”
ministers’ children.
There is a common proverb which says that ministers’
children are worse than other people’s. We shall not
inquire into the case, but we would suggest that there is
no power without freedom, and no deep sentiment with
out solitude, and the minister’s wife can enjoy neither
freedom nor solitude where the parishioners provide the
(Salary; for ghe is considered the property of the par
ish—her words and actions are forever criticised. She
must conciliate the easily offended, steer clear of church
factions, abstain from downrightness of speech. The
dangers of her situation are permanently impressed
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61
upon her, for is not the bread they eat dependent on
unanimity of opinion in the society respecting their
worth? If she can think her own thoughts, she cer
tainly must not express them. If she has any doubt
concerning any part of the creed, she must force it
back and make believe that the strait-jacket is as easy
as a knitted shirt.
. Children born amid these petty oppressions are not
likely to be patterns of perfection. Then they are not
allowed to be bad like other children, and to get, by
degrees, rid of their inharmony. If they break win
dows or punch noses, they are considered fearfully de
praved, and to reflect on the father. So they learn to
consult appearances, and give up the only experience
that would make men of them. Too much catechism
and formal prayer during their early years must give a
disgust for the solemnities, and create a distrust of
earnest living and thinking, integrity and sincerity.
Just in proportion to the degree of irrationality of the
creed, are the chances for damaging the characters of
the minister’s children.
Love of Truth expands the soul;
Fear of Evil cramps it.
The most unproductive use one can put one’s mind
and heart to, is hatred of evil, of meanness, falsehood,
ugliness in others. It does not even prove that we
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VAEIATION OF CHARACTER
possess the opposite virtues. Especially if we would
convey to our children generosity, ingenuousness, and
beauty, let our hearts be filled with admiration of these
divine qualities. As I have shown, we reproduce that
which most impresses us. If it is ugliness, and we hate
it, still we reproduce it, because we have dwelt on it.
Do not then, when enciente, permit yourself to analyze
or dislike imperfections of either mind or body, for this
puts the unborn en rapport with that imperfection.
VALUE OF TEMPOEAEY EFFOET.
It certainly ought to encourage any mother to know,
that no matter what her particular faults may be, she
can lessen if not obliterate them in her child, by mak
ing a great effort, in the right direction for so short a
period as nine or even six months.
That she should make herself over entirely would
appear a too formidable undertaking, but with such a
motive she could aid her child. She may have, for
instance, a quick temper, which she will determine to
control; or she may lack order, or a good memory; or
she may be wanting in quiet serf-esteem (though she
have inward self-respect). Either of these deficiences
may be greatly lessened.
I will here insert a letter which I received some time
ago from a young woman who had become greatly in
terested in the subject before us, and who was remark
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63
ably wanting in what the phrenologist calls “ concentrativeness,” and also in consecutiveness of thought:
“You know what a day-dreamer I have always been.
This has helped to confirm my ‘ scatterbrains ’ tendency.
At first it did not seem to me reasonable that intentional
activity in any direction could have the desired effect. If
circumstance j outside of one's self aroused in a woman one
or another set of faculties, naturally enough they might be
prominent in the child. But this going to work with mal
ice prepense, I feared would avail but httle. However, I
made up my mind to give my child the benefit of the
doubt.
“Every day I obliged myself to explain certain problems
in geometry. This would favor continuity of thought, I
decided. Then I began to recall continually the ideas that
just flitted into my mind and out again. They would re
turn, and I would dwell a little more on them—see other
sides to them ; the connection in which they stood to
some other idea. Then, after a httle I felt tired, and let
them go, but still held my mind in readiness for their re
turn. It really both amused and astonished me to see
them come trooping back. Why, thought is a series of
pictures! I exclaimed. It is ah illustration. The ‘ fetch
ing myself up standing ’ in this way was rather hard work
the first two months, but it became easier, and I grew to
enjoy my own improvement wonderfully. Of course there
were interruptions and discouragements, but I held on
bravely, and I am sure successfully, for Walter, at three
years old, would fix his mind on a person or a picture in a
book, and keep his attention on it to the amusement of
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VARIATION OF CHARACTER
all observers; and now if you tell him to make his slate
full of figures, he pegs away at it till there is not room for
one more.”
MUSICAL ABILITY.
During the winter which followed the summer of
their union the X.’s became members of a coterie, with
which dancing was held in high esteem. Mrs. X. was
enciente, but showed her condition scarcely at all, and
so danced, and afterward played for the dancers at the
hebdomadal reunions, up to within a month of her
confinement.
She had left school with fair musical powers fairly
cultivated, and with a voice sweet, but not powerful.
The lover who had praised her singing, when her hus
band, spoke in thoughtless, disparaging strain of its
quality. This so wounded and discouraged her that no
inducement could make her open her lips again. But,
as I have said, she continued to play on the piano-forte,
more or less on each occasion, “ dance music ” already
at her fingers’ ends, and short, easy, gay compositions
with which she was familiar before leaving school, and
which needed no notes as reminders. At home she
read and studied no new music, or music of a higher
character. This was partly because her musical taste
was uncultivated, and partly because the new draft on
her energy was attended by depression, and she felt
justified in yielding to her feelings, and dropping all
�THBOUGn THE MOTIIEB.
65
mental and bodily effort. “ I will be more studious,
more orderly and hospitable after baby is born. But
now I shall drop everything—let things slide.”
The boy born of these ante-natal circumstances re
sembled his father in his coarser mental calibre, while
he lacked the ambition and steady purpose which char
acterized the latter. He, however, took to the keys of
the piano as a duck takes to water. When a lad, his fin
gers grasped the chords and flew swiftly through the
scales. This endless series of polkas, schottisch.es, and
cotilions wearied the entire household.
He hated
classical music, and cared little for vocal melody or
harmony.
Two years after the birth of this boy, a younger sister
of Mrs. X. made them a visit of some months’ duration,
and she insisted that Clara should take part with her
in duets, notwithstanding that her unused voice and
pregnant state promised little success from the effort.
As soon as Mr. X. was quite out of sight on the way to
his business (for the old criticism still rankled in her
mind, and the mutual performance was kept a secret
from him), the two would be at the instrument with
Mendelssohn, Wallace, and others before them, making
delicious harmony. There is nothing like singing to
free the soul, and awaken its heights and depths.
Nothing could have been more fortunate for little
Clara, who made her entry into the world before her
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VARIATION OF CHARACTER
aunt’s departure, than the antecedent occupation of her
mother. In time her voice proved to he as sweet and
far stronger than her mother’s, and in all her nature
she realized the inspiring effect of those hours when
persuaded by her sister, her mother had lost sight of
herself in the pure emotions and thoughts of those
famous masters.
GRIEF.
The cause of grief very seriously affects its character.
If it is based on a sense of wrong, as in the case of a
husband’s unfaithfulness, then indignation, anger,
malice make a part of it, and a pregnant wife, dis
tracted by these emotions, conveys to her child, as we
have shown, the violent emotions she herself experi
enced.
If the bad, the unprincipled conduct of a son from
whom we had expected reverence and manliness bows
us down, a sense of wrong and shame, a feeling that it
might have been avoided, mixes with our grief and em
bitters it.
But if death, from natural causes, which no woman’s
eye could foresee and provide against, strikes down one
near and dear to us, we simply mourn, and this grief
may open the inner chambers of the soul hitherto closed.
Thus Mrs. W., an external, worldly-minded woman,
not wanting in common benevolence or sense of duty,
�THROUGH THE MOTHER.
67
simply without dignity or elevation of character, was
married to an energetic, sensible, practical man, the
manager and owner of a large foundry. Their circum
stances were, therefore, quite easy. An inferior kind
of social life occupied much of Mrs. W.’s time, and
amid these conditions their first child, a girl, was born.
This child, on the principle that inferior fruit ripens
early, was as mature as she would ever be at sixteen.
At twenty she was shallow, pretentious, illiterate,
which last her mother was not.
When five months pregnant with her second child,
the news was suddenly brought to Mrs. W. that her
husband, whom business had called several hundred
miles from his home, had been stricken down with
yellow fever, and, among total strangers, had passed
away, in his delirium calling wildly on his wife for
help. The loss made a more profound impression on
Mrs. W. than it would have done had she not been
pregnant. She had accepted Mr. W. from sentiments
of gratitude, and now she was moved to make a strict
self-examination as to her imperfect appreciation of his
love and kindness. Worldly motives and thoughts were
silenced. Conscience and finer judgment were active.
The second child, modified by these four grave, ear
nest months, was made up of sincerity, earnest thought,
and unfailing benevolence. Her early disregard for
appearances, as compared to realities, made a wide gulf
�68
VARIATION OF CHARACTER
that could never be bridged between the two sisters.
There was absolutely no relationship between them.
Marian’s plain, honest, eager, affectionate face was
/ grand beside the empty, pretty one of her elder sister.
The younger was slow in developing her whole nature,
which was transcendent in its interior moral character
istics. The blow came too late to seriously injure the
physical. There was just the unavoidably less degree
of robustness between herself and sister, which, with
the absence of hope and common gayety, favored grav
ity in the former.
THE BLACK SHEEP.
I
The black sheep of a family is to be pitied rather
than hated. He is the wronged, as well as the wrong
doer. Many years ago such an one came frequently
under my observation. The family consisted of five
boys and three girls, all but the one in question re
markably good-looking, gentle - hearted, fairly intelli
gent, thoroughly temperate, and honest. The third,
in order, of the boys, was a coarse, brutal, unprincipled
fellow, the dread and despair of his timid mother,
whose money, and even clothing, he would steal (the
latter to pawn), and whose life he would constantly
threaten when a mere lad. He was at home only in a
groggery, and that not so much on account of a love of
liquor, as from his need of companions on his own
plane. He was more than once in prison; oftener
�THROUGH THE MOTHER.
69
escaped through the prayers and management of his
mother. Who, now, was responsible for this danger
ous member of society ?
The father was an amiable, inefficient, illiterate, tem
perate man ; a waster of other people’s time ; an inter
minable talker of nothings. The mother, an amiable,
industrious, capable woman, who patched and knitted
and made a few dollars by nursing, at the call of the
village doctor—a most tender and devoted mother, a
too generous neighbor. Passing the unfinished habita
tion one day, I stopped to admire the double holly
hocks and breathe the perfume from the beds of herbs.
At the same moment I heard a loud cry for help, and
the old lady came hurriedly round the corner of the
house, followed by her son, with a hoe in his hand up
raised to strike her. Seeing me, he flung the hoe aside
and walked sullenly out of the gate. Sitting on the
doorstep wiping her tears away with the corner of hei’
apron, the unhappy woman apologized for her evil son
* in this wise :
“We were always poor, living from hand to mouth.
My husband never had any faculty for making a living.
I strove and strove to keep my children from want, and
keep them looking decent. There were now six of
them, and I was nearly distracted when I found I was
going to have another. At this point, late in the fall,
my husband went off and stayed four months with a
�ro
VARIATION OR CHARACTER
well-to-do uncle of his, leaving me and the six children
without food or fire-wood. I had endured all patiently
till then, but this made me full of bitterness and anger.
I was just raving—quite beside myself all the time.
A neighbor helped me, and trusted me a little, so that
we kept from starving; but this did not prevent me
from feeling indignation, almost hatred, toward a
father who could be so unfatherly. Thomas showed
the same disposition from a child.”
“my
consolation.”
Here is a counterpart to the preceding narrative.
We had gone to visit an invalid friend who himself
had climbed these mountain heights to escape the fogs
below on the sea-shore. Here, cosily sheltered by the
summit, surrounded by peach and cherry-trees, and
looking down on wooded heights and gorges, we found
a most excellent hotel. The host, a mild, intelligent
man, was himself quite delicate; his wife, on the con
trary, was one of those rarely met with, magnetic, generous-natured women, whose coming affects one like
the ocean breezes. She had, so she told us, nine chil
dren living and one dead. Only such a brave, boun
teous creature could have been equal to this, and never
in one instance bring reproach on her motherhood. It
is of the tenth I would speak, now a lad of sixteen,
observing whom the invalid remarked : “ I shall get
�THROUGH THE MOTHER.
71
well just looking at that boy. What a manly, affec
tionate fellow I ”
“ I call him my consolation,” said his mother.
“ Ide can do anything, and he does it so easily, so
quietly.” And, indeed, the way in which this refined
lad handed you your plate, your glass of milk, or cup
of coffee, gave a dignity to the meal, while conferring
honor on all parties concerned. The phrase “ menial
labor ” had no significance when he was basting the
meat or ironing the “belated” table-cloths for his
mother.
Usually, when a woman in very straitened circum
stances has an extremely large family, she presently
becomes oppressed and discouraged. Her ambition is
foiled. She can neither clothe, educate, nor train the
children properly, and the latest comers are apt to have
a poorer make-up—a fag-end sort of air. Here, on the
contrary, was the flower of the flock, a youth full of
faculty, at home on the piano-forte stool as at the
knife-board, determined to sustain his mother at all
hazards.
I sought eagerly the explanation of this phenomenon,
and the happy mother in full, varied, and affectionate
tones, gladly replied to my inquiries.
“ When I found myself pregnant with my tenth
child, the nine were living and all at home. My hus
band’s salary—he was a preacher—was between three
�12
VARIATION OK CHARACTER
and four hundred dollars a year. Fortunately, we
owned the little place on which we lived, and yet, if
you will recall those Eastern winters, you will realize
the great difficulty I had in keeping us all clothed as
well as'fed. It seemed to me not a virtue, but a sin, to
bring more children into the world, and I made up my
mind that this should be the very last. I would take
matters into my own hands.
“ But the thing now to be thought of was a little
clothing for the expected baby. I had not a rag to
make over, not a dollar for the purpose.
At this juncture a gentleman, an agent for some re
ligious publication house, called, and as the custom was,
I asked him to spend the day, which he did, and I had
considerable talk with him. He left, and returned
while I was preparing supper, and seemed greatly sur
prised to find that I had no help. ‘What 1 nine chil
dren to cook and sew for, and no help 1 ’ He had never
supposed such a thing possible. I explained that I had
a primitive constitution, but still I found myself giv
ing way lately. Whenever I had a trifle ready to pay
out, which was very seldom, I employed, it was true, a
woman poorer than myself, but less burdened, to do
the washing. His astonishment, however, continued.
“ A week or two after this visit, I received a letter
from a distant city, saying that my case had made a
profound impression on him, and that having met with
�THROUGH THE MOTHER.
73
coterie of ladies belonging to a certain congregation
who were anxious to assist some missionary, or help in
some other good cause, he had mentioned me and my
circumstances, and they were of one mind, eager to
help me, and wished to know if I would accept a pres
ent in the spirit in which it was offered; and if so,
would I indicate what things would be most useful
to me.
“ I was glad, and willing to accept anything, and in
replying mentioned infants’ wear and children’s clothes
as most needed.
“ In return came a large box with every sort of
child’s garments, a roll of flannel, and a complete in
fant’s wardrobe of the nicest material and most beau
tifully made — embroidered flannels, dresses prettily
tucked and edged—things lovely to look at.
“ An immense load was taken off my mind. I was
actually filled with delight whenever I thought of these
delicate, pretty things, and how comfortable my baby
would be. I went about my tasks after this in a spirit
of love and thanksgiving. You see Paul! He has
been my consolation since his babyhood. No tempta
tion could make him less positively good, less conscien
tious, or less affectionate than he is.”
As this large-hearted woman related to me these in
teresting facts, I could not help wishing that the kind
ladies who had been instrumental in bringing about so
a
�74
VARIATION OF CHARACTER
happy a result, as well as the gentleman who had given
the impetus to their benevolence, could know how valu
able had been the effects.
KLEPTOMANIA.
The word kleptomania is used to indicate the habit
of stealing, by those persons with whom wealth pre
cludes the ordinary temptation to the act. Certain
women of position are regularly watched by clerks in
stores because they are known to carry off laces, rib
bons, etc., when they fancy themselves unobserved.
Such women have very inferior minds independent of
this one vice. In the mother of such an one the desire
to get and to keep things of material value, must have
been exceedingly prominent. Many an honest mother
mourns over the unscrupulous dishonesty of her son,
while all unwittingly she conveyed to him the over
powering impulse; or there was not rigid probity
enough in her own life to overrule the dishonest tend
ency conveyed by her husband:
In the first case, her desire to get and to keep would
be harmless and justifiable as a temporary state of
mind, if she were not pregnant. She knows, although
she does not often dwell on the fact, that she is work
ing assiduously for legitimate ends. But as she is, in
truth, mainly engrossed in getting and saving, thus
using a very limited part of her mind, she does the
�THROUGH THE MOTHER.
75
- harm. The selfish, grasping spirit increases on itself
through generations of similar experience. On the
same principle, the remarlwble singer is the product of
two or three generations of love of song.
A childish inclination to appropriate that which be
longs to another, yields readily to wise treatment, where
the intellect, the nature, is not cramped and dull.
SPECULATIVE INTELLECT.
.
The habit of reasoning independently, of investiga
ting without reference to authority, is by no means a
common one. Most people have their thinking done
for them, and are content to quote their clergyman,
their doctor, or their great-grandmother, as the case
may require. We say a man or woman is “ original ”
when they seek Truth wherever she may be found, re
gardless of popular opinion.
My friend, though quite practical, loved dearly to
wander in the higher regions of thought. Such an one
is apt to suffer for the want of sympathy, and situated
as she was in an obscure inland town, where living lit
erature was unappreciated and congenial companion
ship did not exist, her first year of married life was not
all that she had anticipated. Her husband was “ all
business,” but he wanted his wife to be happy, and he
induced her to send for an old schoohnate “ for company.”
�76
VARIATION OF CHARACTER
After Miss Wood’s arrival there was no time for
morbid regrets or dissatisfaction. She brought a year’s
later news of the old circle of friends, was full of
piquant personal reminiscence, could discuss the merits
of the latest noteworthy literature, and entered heartily
into the political reform movements of England and
Italy. The days were now only too short for the du
ties and sympathy that had to be crowded into them.
After the birth of Mrs. Roche’s first child her friend
married, and moved on to a farm some miles away.
Mrs. R. had more domestic occupation, but a close
communication was kept up. Then the anti-slavery
agitation was beginning to be felt all over the country,
and Mr. R., to his wife’s great delight, flung himself
with all his compact executive energy into it. During
this period another child, a girl, was born. Suddenly
and unexpectedly business losses occurred, which obliged
a removal to a new place.
“ It so happened,” said Mrs. R., referring long years
later to the marked difference in her children, “ that
the months before Cecil’s birth, I met with no book or
person that appealed to me, and I was always so help
lessly dependent on outside influences when I was en
ciente. The dear boy, in his early youth, gave evidence
of the absence of the speculative intellect. He hates
discussion and theories of every sort. Philosophy is
his abomination. The day is good enough for him
�THROUGH THE MOTHER.
77
without analysis. He likes a fine poem, and adores
Ruskin, and his order and system make him invaluable
to his father. But in comprehensiveness, in capacity
for ideas, he ranks far below his brother and his sister.”
INTEMPERANCE.
In the preceding pages I have endeavored to show
what manner of living favors the transmission of noble
and beautiful qualities from mother to child; what
conditions tend to produce unbalanced, vicious, un
lovely character. I have dwelt principally on the
moral aspects of maternity, because that is the side
hitherto overlooked. But I can not close without say
ing a word respecting the baleful influence of intoxi
cating drinks.
Nothing is more certain than that the desire for alco
holic drinks is inherited, and all degrees of mental dull
ness and incapacity, from one grade below the parental
endowment, to idiocy, may be distinctly referred to
habits of intoxication.
We have seen that the abnormal sensibility of a
pregnant woman insures large effects (on the child)
from small causes. Thus a joy is absorbed by the
young life that the mother outgrows; and depression
that was but temporary with her, leaves its mark on
the temperament and disposition of her offspring.
Thus the habit of taking just a drop to sustain your
�78
VARIATION- OF CHARACTER
fainting spirits during the day, and a glass of something
hot at night, added, most likely, to the father’s moder
ate drinking, gives the child an uncontrollable passion
for stimulants. Now, the life you live may be all that
is desirable, but if your brain is put under this influence
occasionally, all the good is weakened, vitiated, under
mined. Alcohol breaks down the will, and what is a
human being without a will ? A vacillating, unreliable
creature. It deadens the mental sensibilities and arouses
the passions.
Friends will often advise a pregnant woman to drink
beer or spirits, assuming that nature at such times re
quires it. Now, nature is equal to her own emergen
cies, and pregnancy is not a disease. The brooding
mother needs plenty of sunlight and fresh air, abun
dant sleep, moderate exercise, wholesome food, and
congenial surroundings. Let her Usten to no one who
prescribes a stimulant which holds disease in itself.
There is such a thing as intemperance in eating, and
I would counsel any woman to demand of herself a
perfect self-control at the table. Nothing less than
this, with entire abstinence on her part, will suffice to
neutralize in most cases the’ desire for liquor, communi
cated, in so many cases, by the father; and the firm
ness exercised by her in denying the appetite, will give
her child the firmness to resist the temptation to drink.
Without this will in the matter, the inclination would
�THROUGH THE MOTHER.
79
be communicated and not the power to resist, as, for
instance, if she merely abstained because she could not
obtain what she longed for.
The Germans sodden their brains with lager-beer;
the English brutify themselves on gin and porter. We
ruin soul, body, and worldly prospects on adulterated
whisky.
Our husbands and fathers license thousands of groggeries, corner groceries, saloons, that they may be free
to indulge out of sight of home. In this way they pre
pare places wherein their sons may be initiated into
vice. Thus the crop of drunkards never fails in village,
town, or city, nor the supply of criminals, large and
small, made criminals by these means provided.
The “ deficient ” child and the predestined drunkard,
are cradled as softly as are the children of temperance.
The mother handing her babe round for the admiration
of her neighbors, is shaken by no prevision of what it
will one day become. Her fair, rosy-cheeked boy des
tined to be the inmate of an inebriate asylum ? She
will not believe it. Yet only obedience to the higher
law on her part will have saved him from it.
CONCLUSION.
It has been clearly demonstrated in these modern
days that nothing is to be had without paying the full
price. The more valuable the thing desired, the great-
�80
VARIATION OF CHARACTER THROUGH THE MOTHER.
the price to be paid. Thus the satisfactions and joys
of parentage can only be had by the study of, and obe
dience to, natural and spiritual law, at the cost of much
effort, self-denial, and self-control. (Self-indulgence
and indifference do not produce fine offspring).
It has also been proved, to the simplest observation,
that woman has the large balance of power in the
formation of character, and it is for her to assume the
responsibility. Genius is dependent on a combination
of influences outside our control, but good sense, integ
rity, generosity, and chastity take their growth from
thoughts, emotions, and acts, over which we have con
trol to a very great extent. Let women take courage.
The larger their responsibility, the nobler their reward.
er
�
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Victorian Blogging
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Transmission; or, variation of character through the mother
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Edition: New ed., rev. & enl.
Place of Publication: New York
Collation: 80 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Georgiana Bruce Kirby was an early suffragist, educator and a California pioneer.
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Child rearing
Conway Tracts
Heredity
Women
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38
[July
ci ^3
Shelley
as a
Lyric Poet.1
OO many biographies, records, comments, criticisms, of Shelley
0 have lately appeared that I take for granted that all who hear
me have some general acquaintance with the facts of his life.
Of the biographies none, perhaps, is more interesting than the
short work by Mr. J. A. Symonds, which has lately been published
as one of the series edited by Mr. Morley, ‘ English Men of Letters.’
That work has all the charm which intense admiration of its subject,
set forth in a glowing style, can lend it. Those who in the main
hold with Mr. Symonds, and are at one with him in his funda
mental estimate ot things, will no doubt find his work highly attrac
tive. Those, on the other hand, who see in Shelley’s character
many things which they cannot admire, and in the theories that
moulded it much which is deeply repulsive, will find Mr. Symonds’s
work a less satisfactory guide than they could have wished. Of
the many comments and criticisms on Shelley’s character and poetry
two of the most substantial and rational are, the essay by Mr. R. H.
Hutton, and that by the late Mr. Walter Bagehot. To these two
friends Shelley, it would appear, had been one of the attractions of
their youth, and in their riper years each has given his mature
estimate of Shelley’s poetry in its whole substance and tendency.
We all admire that which we agree with; and nowhere have I found
on this subject thoughts which seem tome so adequate and so helpful
as those contained in these two essays, none which give such insight
into Shelley's abnormal character and into the secret springs of his
inspiration. Of the benefit of these thoughts I have freely availed
myself, whenever they seemed to throw light on the subject of this
lecture.
The effort to enter into the meaning of Shelley’s poetry is not
altogether a painless one. Some may ask, Why should it be painful ?
Cannot you enjoy his poems merely in an aesthetic way, take the
marvel of their aerial movement and the magic of their melody,
without scrutinising too closely their meaning or moral import?
This, I suppose, most of my hearers could do for themselves, without
any comment of mine. Such a mere surface, dilettante way of
treating the subject would be useless in itself, and altogether un
worthy of this place. All true literature, all genuine poetry, is the
direct outcome, the condensed essence, of actual life and thought.
Lyric poetry for the most part is—Shelley's especially was—the
vivid expression of personal experience.
It is only as poetry
is founded on reality that it has any solid value ; otherwise it is
1 A Lecture delivered in the theatre of the Museum, Oxford.
�1879]
Shelley as a Lyric Poet.
39
worthless. Before, then, attempting to understand Shelley's lyrics I
must ask what was the reality out of which they came—that is, what
manner of man Shelley was, what were his ruling views of life, along
what lines did his thoughts move ?
Those who knew Shelley best speak of the sweetness and refine
ment of his nature, of his lofty disinterestedness, his unworldliness.
They even speak of something like heroic self-forgetfulness. These
things we can in sort believe, for there are in his writings many
traits that look like those qualities. And yet one receives with some
decided reserve the high eulogies of his friends ; for we feel that
these were not generally men whose moral estimates of things we
would entirely accept, and his life contained things that seem
strangely at variance with such qualities as they attribute to him.
When Byron speaks of his purity of mind we cannot but doubt whether
Byron was a good judge of purity. We must, moreover, on the evidence
'of Shelley’s own works demur; for there runs through his poems
a painful taint of supersubtilised impurity, of aweless shamelessness,
which we never can believe came from a mind truly pure. A pene
trating taint it is, which has evilly affected many of the higher minds
who admire him, in a way which Byron's own more commonplace
licentiousness never could have done.
One of his biographers has said that in no man was the moral
sense ever more completely developed than in Shelley, in none was
the perception of right and wrong more acute. I rather think that
the late Mr. Bagehot was nearer the mark when he asserted that in
Shelley the conscience never had been revealed—that he was almost
entirely without conscience. Moral susceptibilities and impulses,
keen and refined, he had. He was inspired with an enthusiasm of
humanity after a kind; hated to see pain in others, and would
willingly relieve it; hated oppression, and stormed against it, but
then he regarded all rule and authority as oppression. He felt for
the poor and the suffering, and tried to help them, and willingly
would have shared with all men the vision of good which he sought
for himself. But these passionate impulses are something very dif
ferent from conscience. Conscience first reveals itself when we become
aware of the strife between a lower and a higher nature within us—
a law of the flesh warring against the law of the mind. And it is out
of this experience that moral religion is born, the higher law rather
leading up and linking us to One whom that law represents. As
Canon Mozely has said, ‘ it is an introspection on which all religion
is built—man going into himself and seeing the struggle within
him ; and thence getting self-knowledge, and thence the knowledge
of God.’ Of this double nature, this inward strife between flesh and
spirit, Shelley knew nothing. He was altogether a child of impulse
—of impulse, one, total, all-absorbing. And the impulse that came
to him he followed whithersoever it went, without questioning either
himself or it. He was pre-eminently roZs ttu6c<tlv aKoXovOyriKos,
and you know that Aristotle tells us that such an one is no fit judge
�40
Shelley as a Lyric Poet.
[j^y
of moral truth. But this peculiarity, which made him so little fitted
to guide either his own life or that of others, tended, on the other
hand, very powerfully to make him pre-eminently a lyric poet. How
it fitted him for this we shall presently see. But abandonment to
impulse, however much it may contribute to lyrical inspiration, is a
poor guide to conduct; and a poet s conduct in life, of whatever kind
it be, quickly reacts on his poetry. It was so with Shelley.
It is painful to recall the unhappy incidents, but? we cannot
understand his poetry if we forget them. ‘ Strongly moralised,’ Mr.
Symonds tells us, his boyhood was ; but of a strange—I might say,
an unhuman—type the morality must have been which allowed
some of the chief acts of his life. His father was no doubt a com
monplace and worldly-minded squire, wholly unsympathetic with his
dreamy son; but this cannot justify the son’s unfilial and irreverent
conduct towards his parent, going so far as to curse him for the
amusement of coarse Eton companions. Nobility of nature he may
have had, but it was such nobility as allowed him, in order to hurl
defiance at authority, to start atheist at Eton, and to do the same
more boldly at Oxford, with what result you know. It allowed him
to engage the heart of a simple and artless girl, who entrusted her
life in his keeping, and then after two or three years to abandon
her and her child—for no better reason, it would seem, than that
she cared too little for her baby, and had an unpleasant sister, who
was an offence to Shelley. It allowed him first to insult the religious
sense of his fellow men by preaching the wildest atheism, then in the
poem ‘ Laon and Cythna,’ which he intended to be his gospel for the
world, to outrage the deepest instincts of our nature by introducing a
most horrible and unnatural incident. A moral taint there is in this,
which has left its trail in many of his after poems. The furies of
the sad tragedy of Harriet Westbrook haunted him till the close,
and drew forth some strains of weird agony; but even in these
there is no manly repentance, no self-reproach that is true and
human-hearted.
After his second marriage he never repeated the former offence,
but many a strain in his later poems, as in ‘ Epipsychidion,’ and in
his latest lyrics, proves that constancy of affection was not in him, nor
reckoned by him among the virtues. Idolators of Shelley will, I know,
reply, ‘Tou judge Shelley by the conventional morality of the present
day, and, judging him by this standard, of course you harshly con
demn him. But it was against these very conventions which you call
morality that Shelley s whole life was a protest. He was the prophet
of something truer or better than this.’ To this I answer that
Shelley’s revolt was not against the conventional morality of his own
time, but against the fundamental morality of all time. Had he
merely cried out against the stifling political atmosphere and the
dry, dead orthodoxy of the Regency and the reign of George IV., and
longed for some ampler air, freer and more life-giving, one could well
have understood him, even sympathised with him. But he rebelled
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Shelley as a Lyric Poet.
41
not against the limitations and corruptions of his own day, but
against the moral verities which two thousand years have made good,
and which have been tested and approved not only by eighteen
Christian centuries, but no less by the wisdom of Virgil and Cicero, of
Aristotle and Sophocles. Shelley may be the prophet of a new morality,
but it is one which never can be realised till moral law has been ob
literated from the universe and conscience from the heart of man.
A nature which was capable of the things I have alluded to,
whatever other traits of nobility it may have had, must have been
traversed by some strange deep flaw, marred by some radical inward
defect. In some of his gifts and impulses he was more,—in other
things essential to goodness, he was far less,—than other men ; a
fully developed man he certainly was not. I am inclined to believe
that, for all his noble impulses and aims, he was in some way defi
cient in rational and moral sanity. Alanv of you will remember
Hazlitt’s somewhat cynical description of him. Yet, to judge by
his writings, it looks like truth. He had ‘ a fire in his eye, a fever
in his blood, a maggot in his brain, a hectic flutter in his speech,
which mark out the philosophic fanatic.
He is sanguine-complexioned and shrill-voiced.’ This is just the outward appearance
we could fancy for his inward temperament. What was that tem
perament ?
He was entirely a child of impulse, lived and longed for highstrung, intense emotion—simple, all-absorbing, all-penetrating emo
tion, going straight on in one direction to its object, hating and
resenting whatever opposed its progress thitherward. The object
which he longed for was some abstract intellectualised spirit of beauty
and loveliness, which should thrill his spirit continually with delicious
shocks of emotion.
Ibis yearning, panting desire is expressed by him in a thousand
forms and figures throughout his poetry. Again and again the
refrain recurs—
I pant for the music which is Divine,
My heart in its thirst is a dying flower;
Pour forth the sound like enchanted wine,
Loosen the notes in a silver shower;
Like a herbless plain for the gentle rain
I gasp, I faint, till they wake again.
Let me drink the spirit of that sweet sound ;
More, 0 more ! I am thirsting yet;
It loosens the serpent which care has bound
Upon my heart, to stifle it;
The dissolving strain, through every vein,
Passes into my heart and brain.
He sought not mere sensuous enjoyment, like Keats, but keen
intellectual and emotional delight—the mental thrill, the glow of
soul, the ‘ tingling of the nerves,’ that accompany transcendental
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Shelley as a Lyric Poet.
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rapture. His hungry craving was for intellectual beauty, and the
delight it yields ; if not that, then for horror, anything to thrill the
nerves, though it should curdle the blood and make the flesh creep.
Sometimes for a moment this perfect abstract loveliness would seem
to have embodied itself in some creature of flesh and blood ; but only
for a moment would the sight soothe him—the sympathy would cease,
the glow of heart would die down—and he would pass on in the hot,
insatiable pursuit of new rapture. ‘ There is no rest for us,’ says the
great preacher, 4 save in quietness, confidence, and affection.’ This
was not what Shelley sought, but something very different from this.
The pursuit of abstract ideal beauty was one form which his
hungry, insatiable desire took. Another passion that possessed him
was the longing to pierce to the very heart the mystery of existence.
It has been said that before an insoluble mystery, clearly seen to be
insoluble, the soul bows down and is at rest, as before an ascertained
truth. Shelley knew nothing of this. Before nothing would his soul
bow down. Every veil, however sacred, he would rend, pierce the
inner shrine of being, and force it to give up its secret. There is in
him a profane audacity, an utter awelessness. Intellectual AZSws
was to him unknown. Beverence was to him another word for hated
superstition. Nothing was to him inviolate. All the natural reserves
he would break down. Heavenward, he would pierce to the heart of
the universe and lay it bare; manward, he would annihilate all the
precincts of personality. Every soul should be free to mingle with
any other, as so many raindrops do. In his own words,
The fountains of our deepest life shall be
Confused in passion’s golden purity.
However fine the language in which such feelings may clothe theme
selves, in truth they are wholly vile ; there is no horror of shameless
ness which they may not generate. Yet this is what comes of the
unbridled desire for ‘ tingling pulses,’ quivering, panting, fainting
sensibility, which Shelley everywhere makes the supreme happiness.
It issues in awelessness, irreverence, and what some one has called
4 moral nudity.’
These two impulses, both combined with another passion, he had
—the passion for reforming the world. He had a real, benevolent
desire to impart to all men the peculiar good he sought for himself
—a life of free, unimpeded impulse, of passionate, unobstructed
desire. Liberty, Equality, Fraternity—these of course; but some
thing far beyond these—absolute Perfection, as he conceived it, he
believed to be within every man’s reach. Attainable, if only all the
growths of history could be swept away, all authority and govern
ment, all religion, all law, custom, nationality, everything that
limits and restrains, and if every man were left open to the uncon
trolled expansion of himself and his impulses. The end of this
process of making a clean sweep of all that is, and beginning afresh,
would be that family, social ranks, government, worship, would dis
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Shelley as a Lyric Poet.
43
appear, and then man would be king over himself, and wise, gentle,
just, and good. Such was his temperament, the original emotional
basis of Shelley s nature ; such, too, some of the chief aims towards
which this temperament impelled him. And certainly these aims do
make one think of the ‘ maggot in his brain.’ But a temperament of
this kind, whatever aims it turned to, was eminently and essentially
lyrical. Those thrills of soul, those tingling nerves, those rapturous glows
of feeling, are the very substance out of which high lyrics are woven.
The insatiable craving to pierce the mystery, of course, drove
Shelley to philosophy for instruments to pierce it with. During his
brief life he was a follower of three distinct schools of thought. At
first he began with the philosophy of the senses, was a materialist,
adopting Lucretius as his master and holding that atoms are the
only realities, with perhaps a pervading life of nature to mould
them—that from atoms all things come, to atoms return. Yet even
over this dreary creed, without spirit, immortality, or God, he shouted
a jubilant ‘ Eureka,' as though it were some new glad tidings.
hrom this he passed into the school of Hume—got rid of matter,
the dull clods of earth, denied both matter and mind, and held that
these were nothing but impressions, with no substance behind them.
This was liker Shelley’s cast of mind than materialism. Not only
dull clods of matter, but personality, the ‘ I ’ and the ‘ thou,’ were by
this creed eliminated, and that exactly suited Shelley’s way of
thought. It gave him a phantom world.
brom Hume he went on to Plato, and in him found still more
congenial nutriment. The solid, fixed entities—matter and mind —
he could still deny, while he was led on to believe in eternal arche
types behind all phenomena, as the only realities. These Platonic
ideas attracted his abstract intellect and imagination, and are often
alluded to in his later poems, as in ‘ Adonais.’ Out of this philosophy
it is probable that he got the only object of worship which he ever
acknowledged, the Spirit of Beauty. Plato’s idea of beauty changed into
a spirit, but without will, without morality, in his own words :—
That Light whose smile kindles the universe,
That Beauty in which all things work and move,
That Benediction which the eclipsing curse
Of birth can quench not, that sustaining Love
Which, through the web of being blindly wove
By man and beast and earth and air and sea,
Bums bright or dim, as each are mirrors of
The fire for which all thirst.
To the moral and religious truths which are the backbone of
Plato’s thought lie never attained. Shelley’s thought never had any
backbone. Each of these successively adopted philosophies entered
into and coloured the successive stages of Shelley’s poetry; but
through them all his intellect and imagination remained unchanged.
W hat was the nature of that intellect ? It was wholly akin and
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Shelley as a Lyric Poet.
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adapted to the temperament I have described as his. Imnatient of
solid substances, inaccessible to many kinds of truth, inappreciative of
solid, concrete facts, it was quick and subtle to seize the evanescent
hues of things, the delicate aromas which are too fine for ordinary
perceptions. His intellect waited on his temperament, and, so to
speak, did its will—caught up one by one the warm emotions as they
were flung off, and worked them up into the most exquisite abstrac
tions. The rush of throbbing pulsations supplied the materials for
his keen-edged thought to work on, and these it did mould into the
rarest, most beautiful shapes. This his mind was busv doing all his
life long. The real world, existence as it is to other minds, he re
coiled from—shrank from the dull, gross earth which we see around
us—nor less from the unseen world of Righteous Law and Will
which we apprehend above us. The solid earth he did not care for.
Heaven—a moral heaven—there was that in him which would not
believe in. So, as Mr. Hutton has said, his mind made for itself a
dwelling-place midway between the two, equally remote from both.
some interstellar region, some cold, clear place—
Pinnacled dim in the intense inane—
which he peopled with ideal shapes and abstractions, wonderful or weird,
beautiful or fantastic, all woven out of his own dreaming phantasy.
This was the world in which he was at home; he was not at home
with any reality known to other men. No real human characters
appear in his poetry; his own pulsations, desires, aspirations, sup
plied the place of these. Hardly any actual human feeling is in
them; only some phase of evanescent emotion, or the shadow of it, is
seized—not even the flower of human feeling, but the bloom of the
flower or the dream of the bloom. A real landscape he has seldom
described, only his own impression of it, or some momentarv gleam,
some tender light, that has fleeted vanishingly over earth and sea he
has caught. Nature he used mainly to cull from it some of its most
delicate tints, some faint hues of the dawn or the sunset clouds, to
weave in and colour the web of his abstract dream. So entirely at
home is he in this abstract shadowv world of his own making, that
when he would describe common visible things he does so bv likening
them to those phantoms of the brain, as though with these last alone
he was familiar. A irgil likens the ghosts bv the banks of Styx to
falling leaves—
Quani mulxa in silvis auciumni frigore prime
Lapsa cadunx folia.
Shelley likens falling leaves to ghosts.
leaves, he says—
Before the wind the dead
Are driven. like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing.
Others have compared thought to a breeze. With Shelley the
breeze is like thought; the pilot spirit of the blast, he savs—
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Shelley as a Lyric Poet.
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Wakens the leaves and waves, ere it hath past,
To such brief unison as on the brain
One tone which never can recur has cast
One accent, never to return again.
We see thus that nature as it actually exists has little place in
Shelley’s poetry. And man, as he really is, may be said to have no
place at all.
Neither is the world of moral or spiritual truth there—not the
living laws by which the world is governed—no presence of a Sove
reign Will, no all-wise Personality, behind the fleeting shows of
time. The abstract world which his imagination dwelt in is a cold,
weird, unearthly, inhuman place, peopled with shapes which we may
wonder at, but cannot love. When we first encounter these we are
fain to exclaim, Earth we know, and Heaven we know, but who and
what are ye ? Ye belong neither to things human nor to things
divine. After a very brief sojourn in Shelley’s ideal world, with its
pale abstractions, most men are ready to say with another poet, after
a voyage among the stars—
Then back to earth, the dear green earth;
Whole ages though I here should roam,
The world for my remarks and me
Would not a whit the better be :
I’ve left my heart at home.
In that dear green earth, and the men who have lived or still
live on it, in their human hopes and fears, in their faiths and aspi
rations, lies the truest field for the highest imagination to work
in. That I believe to be the haunt and main region for the songs
of the greatest poets. The real is the true world for a great poet,
but it was not Shelley’s world.
Yet Shelley, while the imaginative mood was on him, felt this
ideal world of his as real as most men feel the solid earth, and
through the pallid lips of its phantom people and dim abstractions he
pours as warm a flood of emotion as ever poet did through the
rosiest lips and brightest eyes of earth-born creatures. Not more real
to Burns were his bonny Jean and his Highland Mary, than to
Shelley were the visions of Asia and Panthea, and the Lady of the Sen
sitive Plant, while he gazed on them. And when his affections did
light, not on these abstractions, but on creatures of flesh and blood,
yet so penetrated was his thought with his own idealism, that he
lifted them up from earth into that rarefied atmosphere, and de
scribed them in the same style of imagery and language as that with
which he clothes the phantasms of his mind. Thus it will be seen
that it was a narrow and limited tract over which Shelley’s imagina
tion ranged—that it took little or no note of reality, and that bound
less as was its fertility and power of resource within its own chosen
circle, yet the widest realm of mere brain creation must be thin and
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Shelley as a Lyric Poet.
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small compared with existing reality both in the seen and the
unseen worlds.
We can now see the reason why Shelley’s long poems are such
absolute failures, his short lyrics so strangely succeed. Mere thrills
of soul were weak as connecting bonds for long poems.
Dis
tilled essences and personified qualities were poor material out of
which to build up great works. These things could give neither
unity, nor motive power, • nor human interest to long poems.
Hence the incoherence which all but a few devoted admirers find
in Shelley’s long poems, -despite their grand passages and their splen
did imagery. In fact, if the long poems were to be broken up and
thrown into a heap, and the lyric portions riddled out of them and
preserved, the world would lose nothing, and would get rid of not a
little offensive stuff. An exception to this judgment is generally
made in favour of the ‘ Cenci ’; but that tragedy turns on an
incident so repulsive that, notwithstanding its acknowedged power,
it can hardly give pleasure to any healthy mind.
On the other hand, single thrills of rapture, which are such in
sufficient stuff to make long poems out of, supply the very inspiration
for the true lyric. It is this predominance of emotion, so unhappy to
himself, which made Shelley the lyrist that he was. When he sings
his lyric strains, whatever is most unpleasant in him is softened
down, if it does not wholly disappear. Whatever is most unique and
excellent in him comes out at its best—his eye for abstract beauty,
the subtlety of his thought, the rush of bis eager pursuing de
sire, the splendour of his imagery, the delicate rhythm, the
matchless music. These lyrics are gales of melody blown from a
far-off region, that looks fair in the distance. Perhaps those enjoy
them most who do not inquire too closely what is the nature of that
land, or know too exactly the theories and views of life of which
these songs are the effluence; for if we come too near we might
find that there was poison in the air. Many a one has read those
lyrics and felt their fascination without thought of the unhappy
experience out of which they have come. They understood ‘ a
beauty in the words, but not the words.’ I doubt whether any one
after very early youth, any one who has known the realities of life,
can continue to take Shelley’s best songs to heart, as he can those of
Shakespeare or the best of Burns. For, however we may continue to
wonder at the genius that is in them, no healthy mind will find in
them the expression of its truest and best thoughts. Other lyric
poets, it has been said, sing of what they feel. Shelley in his lyrics
sings of what he wants to feel. The thrills of desire, the gushes of
emotion, are all straining after something seen afar but unat
tained, something distant or future ; or they are passionate despair,
utter despondency for something hopelessly gone. Yet it must be
owned that those bursts of passionate desire after ideal beauty set
our pulses a-throbbing with a strange vibration even when we do
not really sympathise with them. Even his desolate wails make
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Shelley as a Lyric Poet.
4.7
those seem for a moment to share his despair who do not really
share it. Such is the charm of his impassioned eloquence and the
witchery of his music.
Let us turn now to look at some of his lyrics in detail.
The earliest of them, those of 1814, were written while Shelley
was under the depressing spell of materialistic belief, and at the time
when he was abandoning’ poor Harriet Wbstbrook. For a time he
lived under the spell of that ghastly faith, hugging it, yet hating it;
and its progeny are seen in the lyrics of that time, such as ‘ Death,’
e Mutability,’ ‘ Lines in a Country Churchyard.’ These have a cold,
clammy feel. They are full of ‘ wormy horrors,’ as though the poet
were one
who had made his bed
In charnels and on coffins, where black Death
Keeps record of the trophies •won from Life,
as though by dwelling amid these things he had hoped to force some
lone ghost
to render up the tale
Of what we are.
And what does it all come to ?—what is the lesson he reads there ?__
Lift not the painted veil which those who live
Call life. . . . Behind lurk Fear
And Hope, twin destinies, who ever weave
Their shadows o’er the chasm, sightless and drear.
That is all that the belief in mere matter taught Shelley, or ever
will teach anyone.
As he passed on, the clayey, clammy sensation is less present.
Even Hume’s impressions are better than mere dust, and the Platonic
ideas are better than Hume’s impressions. When he came under
the influence of Plato his doctrine of ideas, as eternal existences
and the only realities, exercised over Shelley the charm it always
has had for imaginative minds; and it furnished him with a form
under which he figured to himself his favourite belief in the Spirit
of Love and Beauty as the animating spirit of the universe—that
for which the human soul pants. It is the passion for this ideal
which leads Alastor through his long wanderings to die at last in the
Caucasian wilderness without attaining it. It is this which he apos
trophises in the ‘ Hymn to Intellectual Beauty,’ as the power which
consecrates all it shines on, as the awful loveliness to which he looks
to free this world from its dark slavery. It is this vision which
reappears in its highest form in ‘Prometheus Unbound,’ the greatest
and most attractive of all Shelley’s longer poems. That drama is
from beginning to end a great lyrical poem, or I should rather
say a congeries of lyrics, in which perhaps more than anywhere
else Shelley’s lyrical power has reached its highest flight. The
whole poem is exalted by a grand pervading idea, one which in
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Shelley as a Lyric Poet.
[July
its truest and deepest form is the grandest we can conceive—the
idea of the ultimate renovation of man and the world. And although
the powers and processes and personified abstractions which Shelley
invoked to effect this end are ludicrously inadequate, as irrational as
it would be to try to build a solid house out of shadows and moon
beams, yet the end in view does impart to the poem something of
its own elevation. Prometheus, the representative of suffering and
struggling humanity, is to be redeemed and perfected by union with
Asia, who is the ideal of beauty, the light of life, the spirit of love.
To this spirit Shelley looked to rid the world of all its evil and
bring in the diviner day. The lyric poetry, which is exquisite
throughout, perhaps culminates in the well-known exquisite song in
which Panthea, one of the nymphs, hails her sister Asia, as
Life of Life ! thy lips enkindle
With their love the breath between them;
And thy smiles, before they dwindle,
Make the cold air fire ; then screen them
In those looks, where whoso gazes
Faints, entangled in their mazes.
Child of Light! thy limbs are burning
Through the vest which seems to hide them;
As the radiant lines of morning
Through the clouds, ere they divide them ;
And this atmosphere divinest
Shrouds thee wheresoe’er thou shinest.
Lamp of Earth 1 where’er thou movest
The dim shapes are clad with brightness,
And the souls of whom thou lovest
Walk upon the winds with lightness,
Till they fail, as I am failing,
Dizzy, lost, yet unbewailing.
The reply of Asia to this song is hardly less exquisite. Everyone
here will remember it:—
My soul is an enchanted boat,
Which, like a sleeping swan, doth float
Upon the silver waves of thy sweet singing ;
And thine doth like an angel sit
Beside the helm, conducting it,
Whilst all the winds with melody are ringing ;
It seems to float ever, for ever,
Upon the many-winding river,
Between mountains, woods, abysses,
A paradise of wildernesses !
Till, like one in slumber bound,
Borne to the ocean, I float down, around
Into a sea profound of ever-spreading sound.
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Shelley as a Lyric Poet.
49
Meanwhile thy spirit lifts its pinions
In music’s most serene dominions,
Catching the winds that fan that happy heaven.
And we sail on, away, afar
Without a course, without a star,
But, by the instinct of sweet music driven;
Till through Elysian garden islets
By thee, most beautiful of pilots,
Where never mortal pinnace glided,
The boat of my desire is guided :
Realms where the air we breathe is love,
Which in the winds on the waves doth move,
Harmonising this earth with what we feel above.
In these two lyrics you have Shelley at his highest perfection.
Exquisitely beautiful as they are, they are, however, beautiful as the
mirage is beautiful, and as unsubstantial. There is nothing in the
reality of things answering to Asia. She is not human, she is not
divine. There is nothing moral in her—no will, no power to subdue
evil; only an exquisite essence, a melting loveliness. There is in
her no law, no righteousness ; something to enervate, nothing to
brace the sold. After her you long for one bracing look on the
stern, severe countenance of Duty, of whom another poet sang—
Stern lawgiver I yet thou dost wear
The Godhead’s most benignant grace;
Nor know I anything so fair
As is the smile upon thy face;
Flowers laugh before thee in their beds,
And fragrance in thy footing treads;
Thou dost preserve the stars from wrong,
And the most ancient heavens through thee are fresh and strong.
Perfect as is the workmanship of those lyrics in 4 Prometheus ’
and many another, their excellence is lessened by the material out of
which they are woven being fantastic, not substantial, truth. Few
of them lay hold of real sentiments which are catholic to humanity.
They do not deal with permanent emotions which belong to all men
and are for all time, but appeal rather to minds in a particular stage
of culture, and that not a healthy stage. They are not of such stuff
as life is made of. They will not interest all healthy and truthful
minds in all stages of culture and in all ages. To do this, however,
is, I believe, a note of the highest style of lyric poem.
Another thing to be observed is, that while the imagery of Shelley’s
lyrics is so splendid and the music of their language so magical, both
of these are at that point of over-bloom which is on the verge of decay.
The imagery, for all its splendour, is too ornate, too redundant, too
much overlays the thought, which has not strength enough to uphold
such a weight. Then, as to the music of the words, wonderful as it is,
all but exclusive admirers of Shelley must have felt at times as if the
sound runs away with the sense. In some of the 4 Prometheus’ lyrics
No. 595 (no. cxv.
n. s.)
E
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Shelley as a Lyric Poet.
[Juiy
the poet, according to Mr. Symonds, seems to have ‘realised the miracle
of making words, detached from meaning, the substance of a new
ethereal music.’ This is, to say the least, a dangerous miracle to
practise. Even Shelley, overbome by the power of melodious words,
would at times seem to approach perilously near the borders of the
unintelligible, not to say the nonsensical. What it comes to, when
adopted as a style, has been seen plainly enough in some of Shelley’s
chief followers in our own day. Cloyed with overloaded imagery, and
satiated almost to sickening with alliterative music, we turn for re
invigoration to poetry that is severe even to baldness.
The ‘ Prometheus Unbound ’ was written in Italy, and during his
four Italian years Shelley’s lyric stream flowed on unremittingly, and
enriched England’s poetry with many lyrics unrivalled in their kind,
and evoked from its language a new power. These lyrics are on the
whole his best poetic work. To go over them in detail would be im
possible, besides being needless. Perhaps his year most prolific in
lyrics was 1820, just two years before his death. Among the products
of this year were, the ‘ Sensitive Plant,’ more than half lyrical, the
‘ Cloud,’ the ‘ Skylark,’ ‘ Love’s Philosophy,’ ‘ Arethusa,’ 4 Hymns
of Pan and Apollo,’ all in his best manner, with many besides these.
About the lyrics of this time two things are noticeable : more of them
are about things of nature than heretofore, and there are several on
Greek subjects.
Of all modem attempts to reinstate Greek subjects I know nothing
equal to these, except perhaps one or two of the Laureate’s happiest
efforts. They take the Greek forms and mythologies, and fill them
with modem thought and spirit. And perhaps this is the only way
to make Greek subjects real and interesting to us; for if we want
the very Greek spirit we had better go to the originals and not to
any reproductions.
You remember how he makes Pan sing—
From the forests and highlands
We come, we come ;
From the river-girt islands,
Where loud waves are dumb,
Listening to my sweet pipings.
*
*
*
*
Liquid Peneus was flowing,
And all dark Tempe lay
In Pelion’s shadow, outgrowing
The light of the dying day,
Speeded with my sweet pipings.
The Sileni, and SyIvans, and Fauns,
And the nymphs of the woods and waves,
To the edge of the moist river-lawns,
And the brink of the dewy caves,
And all that did then attend or follow,
Were silent with love, as you now, Apollo,
With envy of my sweet pipings.
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Shelley as a Lyric Poet.
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I sang of the dancing stars,
I sang of the daedal Earth,
And of Heaven, and the giant wars,
And Love, and Death, and Birth,
And then I changed my pipings—
Singing how down the vale of Menalus
I pursued a maiden and clasped a weed.
Gods and men, we are all deluded thus !
It breaks in our bosom, and then we bleed :
All wept, as I think both ye now would,
If envy or age had not frozen your blood,
At the sorrow of my sweet pipings.
Of the lyrics on natural objects the two supreme ones are the
4 Ode on the West Wind ’ and the 4 Skylark.’ Of this last nothing
need be said. Artistically and poetically it is unique, has a place of
its own in poetry; yet may I be allowed to express a misgiving
about it which I have long felt, and others may feel too ? For all its
beauty,, perhaps one would rather not recall it when hearing the
skylark’s song in the fields on a bright spring morning. The poem is
not in tune with the bird’s song and the feelings it does and ought to
awaken. The rapture with which the strain springs up at first dies
down before the close into Shelley’s ever-haunting morbidity. Who
wishes, when hearing the real skylark, to be told that
We look before and after,
And pine for what is not:
Our sincerest laughter
With some pain is fraught ?
If personal feeling is to be inwrought into the living powers of
nature, let it be such feeling as is in keeping with the object, ap
propriate to the theme in hand.
Such is that personal invocation with which Shelley closes his
grand 4 Ode to the West Wind,’ written the previous year, 1819—
Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is :
What if my leaves are fallen like its own !
The tumult of thy mighty harmonies
Will take from both a deep autumnal tone,
Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, spirit fierce,
My spirit I be thou me, impetuous one !
Drive my dead thoughts over the universe
Like withered leaves, to quicken a new birth ;
And, by the incantation of this verse,
Scatter, as from an unextinguished hearth
Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind !
Be through my lips to unawakened earth
The trumpet of a prophecy ! 0 Wind,
If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?
e
2
�Shelley as a Lyric Poet.
52
[July
This ode ends with some vigour, some hope ; but that is not
usual with Shelley. Everyone must have noticed how almost
habitually his intensest lyrics—those which have started with the
fullest swing of rapture—die down before they close into a wail
of despair. It is as though, when the strong gush of emotion had
spent itself, there was no more behind, nothing to fall back upon, but
blank emptiness and desolation. It is this that makes Shelley’s poetry
so unspeakably sad—sad with a hopeless sorrow that is like none
other. You feel as though he were a wanderer who has lost his way
hopelessly in the wilderness of a blank universe. His cry is, as Mr.
Carlyle long since said, like ‘ the infinite inarticulate wailing of for
saken infants.’ In the wail of his desolation there are many tones—
some wild and weird, some defiant, some full of despondent pathos.
The lines written in ‘ Dejection,’ on the Bay of Naples, in 1818,
are perhaps the most touching of all his wails : the words are so
sweet they seem, by their very sweetness, to lighten the load of heart
loneliness :—
I see the Deep’s untrampled floor
With green and purple seaweeds strown;
I see the waves upon the shore,
Like light dissolved in star-showers, thrown :
I sit upon the sands alone ;
The lightning of the noon-tide ocean
Is flashing round me, and a tone
Arises from its measured motion.
How sweet! did any heart now share in my emotion.
Alas ! I have nor hope, nor health,
Nor peace within, nor calm around,
Nor that content, surpassing wealth,
The sage in meditation found.
*
*
*
*
Yet now despair itself is mild,
Even as the winds and waters are ;
I would lie down like a tired child,
And weep away this life of care
Which I have borne, and yet must bear,
Till death like sleep might steal on me,
And I might feel in the warm air
My cheek grow cold, and heai’ the sea
Breathe o’er my dying brain its last monotony.
Who that reads these sighing lines but must feel for the heart
that breathed them ! Yet how can we be surprised that he should
have felt so desolate ? Every heart needs some real stay. And a
heart so sensitive, a spirit so finely touched, as Shelley’s needs, far
more than unsympathetic and narrow natures, a refuge amid the
storms of life. But he knew of none. His universe was a home
less one, had no centre of repose. His universal essence of love,
�1879]
Shelley as a Lyric Poet.
53
diffused throughout it, contained nothing substantial—no will that
could control and support his own. While a soul owns no law, is
without awe, lives wholly by impulse, what rest, what central peace,
is possible for it ? When the ardours of emotion have died down,
what remains for it but weakness, exhaustion, despair ? The feeling
of his weakness woke in Shelley no contriteness or brokenness of spirit,
no self-abasement, no reverence. Nature was to him really the whole,
and he saw in it nothing but ‘ a revelation of death, a sepulchral
picture, generation after generation disappearing and being heard of
and seen no more.’ He rejected utterly that other ‘ consolatory
revelation which tells us that we are spiritual beings, and have a
spiritual source of life,’ and strength, above and beyond the material
system. Such a belief, or rather no belief, as his can engender
only infinite sadness, infinite despair. And this is the deep under
tone of all Shelley’s poetry.
I have dwelt on his lyrics because they contain little of the offen
sive and nothing of the revolting which here and there obtrudes
itself in the longer poems. And one may speak of these lyrics without
agitating too deeply questions which at present I would rather avoid.
Yet even the lyrics bear some impress of the source whence they
come. Beautiful though they be, they are like those fine pearls
which, we are told, are the products of disease in the parent shell.
All Shelley’s poetry is, as it were, a gale blown from a richly
gifted but unwholesome land ; and the taint, though not so percep
tible in the lyrics, still hangs more or less over many of the finest.
Besides this defect, they are very limited in their range of influ
ence. They cannot reach the hearts of all men. They fascinate only
some of the educated, and that probably only while they are young.
The time comes when these pass out of that peculiar sphere of
thought and find little interest in such poetry. Probably the rare
exquisiteness of their workmanship will always preserve Shelley’s
lyrics, even after the world has lost, as we may hope it will lose,
sympathy with their substance. But better, stronger, more vital
far are those lyrics which lay hold on the permanent, unchanging
emotions of man—those emotions which all healthy natures have felt
and always will feel, and which no new stage of thought or civilisa
tion can ever bury out of sight.
J. C. Shairp.
�
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Title
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Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
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Title
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Shelley as a lyric poet
Creator
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Shairp, J.C.
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: [s.l.]
Collation: p. 38-53 ; 22 cm.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references. From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. From Fraser's Magazine 20 (July 1879). Fraser's Magazine for Town and Country was a general and literary journal published in London from 1830 to 1882, which initially took a strong Tory line in politics.
Publisher
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[s.n.]
Date
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1879
Identifier
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CT43
Subject
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Poetry
Rights
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Shelley as a lyric poet), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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application/pdf
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Text
Language
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English
Conway Tracts
English Poetry
Percy Bysshe Shelley
Poetry in English
Romantic Poetry
-
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Text
The Bookseller, Feb. 1, 1879. ____________________________________
Handbook of Drawing. By William Walker,
Ictur^ and Teacher of Free-hand Drawing in
Owens College, &c. With upwards of 200 Woodcuts and Diagrams. (Seeley, Jackson, and Halliday.)—Everthing that a tyro in the art of drawing can reasonably ask for, in the way of oral
instruction, is provided in a useful little manual.
The drawing-master treats him as a creature
endowed with brains, as well as ambitious of
deftly handling the pencil and chalk. From one
thing to another, he leads him on ; from purely
technical rules and instructions, to the more
refined elements of the art, which everyone must
master who would pass from a mere dauber or
copyist to the higher sphere of an artist. When
the pupil has learnt to draw straight and curved
lines, and shade his surfaces so as to look as
like nature as he can make them, he is instructed
in the subtler secrets of proportion, symmetry,
and character in art work; in taste, style, and
“ motive ; ” a word which we gladly welcome as
naturalised at last in our art-language. Per
spective also is sufficiently illustrated for the
purposes of free-hand drawing. The diagrams
are generally good. A little more graphic force,
and a little less conventionality, particularly in
examples of leafage and tree-drawing, would
make the illustrations really excellent.
Demonology and Devil Lore. By Moncure
D. Conway, M.A. Two Vols., with numerous
Illustrations. (Chatto and Windus.)—In a work
full of curious and recondite learning, the history
of demon worship is traced back to its rightful
origin, as the complement of the solar myth ; and
the offspring of the prevalent notion affirming
the existence of the dual and antagonistic
principles of Good and Evil in nature. Starting
from this point, the author,in great detail, discusses
the many forms assumed by the Devil of human
imagination in his sinister and deadly influences
inimical to mankind, as animals, serpents,
dragons, and what not. The mortal strife main
tained between the Deity and the Demon under
various aspects is traced from one myth to
another, concluding with more modem manifes
tations of a similar character, as in witchcraft,
sorcery, and the Faust and Mephisto legend.
We shall return to the subject when we can
command space more adequate to its vast im
portance and engrossing interest.
The Dramatic Works of G. E. Lessing. Trans
feted from the German.
Edited by Ernest
Bell, M.A. With a Short Memoir by Helen
Zimmern. Two Vols. (George Bell and Sons.)
—Lessing, the parent of modern German
thought, the master to whom Goethe, Schiller,
and many others looked up with imitative
Ireverence, is gradually making his way in
England, through recent translations of his
works and Mr. Sime’s Memoir. The more he
is known the better will he be appreciated.
Miss Zimmern has condensed into a few pages
the particulars of his life. Art and literature
were its predominant occupations. His treatise
on the Laocoon group established his reputation
as an art critic. The limits he drew between
painting and poetry have taken their place
among the canons of art which may be
regarded as axiomatic. A project for the
1 or .noiii
proves. The order of their composition, in
point of date, has been inverted, for no very
J Y397 on
it bus zsib
sufficient reason we think ; three tragedies and
B -haoaiq
a dramatic poem, “ Nathan the Wise,” preced
|■ •ratal js :
ing the comedies, although composed at a later
1iiiolsO
period. “ Sara Sampson " and “ Emilia Galotti ”
Ikmsa n
among the tragedies, and “ Minna Von Barn
helm ” as a comedy, will always hold their own
1 nwo trarl
I aqjsdiaq
as works of genuine art, although not perhaps
I sit ritiv
of the very first order; for, except with the
■ bus stcti
work of the Immortals, the lapse of time and
I tairrqoq
change of manners seriously affect the popular
I elttii sro
estimate of such things. But with some little
| e'gniazsJ
allowance made on this account, Lessing's
| nrarii lo
dramas are very readable. Several of them
now appear for the first time in English.
I sWjS.
The Englishman's Critical and Expository Bible
: .veil 9flj
Cyclopedia. Compiled and Written by the Rev.
A. R. Fausset, M.A., Rector of St. Cuthbert’s, , I.e'iisddJi
! labboH)
York, &c. Illustrated by 600 Woodcuts. (Hodder
R lo iroiaivi
and Stoughton.)—In these days of the division of
I dona lo
literary, as of all other labour, a work of such
' ,naq algn
magnitude as this, emanating from a single pen,
E gni'isvsar
entitles its author to the praise of persevering
modal 9£
industry. It has cost him, he tells us, the labour
of seven years. His predominant idea in under- 1 I -labrm ni
I bairuml fl
taking it was to put Bible students, both learned
and unlearned, in possession of the fruits of 1 lo giirnl
aril efriJS’
modern criticism and research, as regards the
historical and other external features of Scrip l-qrio2 lo
J bus Isnh:
ture, while also conveying “ those doctrinal and
experimental truths which the written word it |->r biovz 1
self contains.” The results of the Palestine f enitaeisT
laristam
Exploration supplied him with fresh material
bus yriqsfor elucidating obscure points of topography and
.gedomea:
history. Egyptian and Assyrian researches,
-noo emo;
also, are not overlooked, nor the welcome con
srit lo ya
firmation they afford to the accuracy of the
rfaflgnS ,1
sacred writers. Other commentators, English
and German, have been made available in clear ! -rselo ni 9
banistnoo
ing away difficulties. The information contained
ni .yllsoit!
in the Cyclopaedia is arranged alphabetically, in
sfllii ano'
pages of three columns, the numerous little
.ixst orii.
wood-engravings taking their place in the text.
aloihts dor
Scripture references are worked into each article
iHSitoqnii
as they are required; notices of more important
personages running into short biographies inter i-i91ni g9id
oiiosbib b
woven with reflections of a moral and didactic
bns Insia
character. Readers of Ultra-Protestant and
noitansfq:
Calvinistic views will appreciate the explanation
ynsm lo li
of doctrinal matters. In his treatment of many
controverted passages of Scripture, the author 1 Toriins ad
decidedly adopts the literal interpretation. The adT .noil
"'mirmnaili
reader may be interested to find the “Millennium
discussed as a future event; “ Antichrist and bus " tarn
“ Babylon ” are explained, in a somewhat obso ■-ogdo tariv
,dismal al
lete sense, as the Church of Rome. We remark,
with some surprise, the absence of “ Grace . as l as "aosiO
the title of a separate article. And in the article I aloiiis aril
.
on the “Holy Ghost,” His “procession” in ani "noiaas
eternity, from the Father and the „Son, is !Jai ,no2 a
strangely confused with His “ Mission to the J adl ol "n<
Apostles after Christ’s Ascension.
Elizabeth Eden. A Novel in Three Volumes. By [ y8[ .sonuri
M. C. Bishop. (Low and Co.)—“ Love is too boot si 9V0,
strong to die. Elizabeth bowed her head on his S aid no hsoi
breast. She could not say anything definite in Fni ofinrteb
her sense of overpowering devotion to her I had ot no
ro,.
'>
. -'S
r-.l 4-1-ia -• '_1e story _ of j to
-T-^-7
_
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Publisher
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
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Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Demonology and Devil-lore
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: [London]
Collation: Unnumbered page ; 23 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. A short review of Moncure Conway's work 'Demonology and Devil-lore' from 'The Bookseller, February 1st, 1879. Reviewer not named. Printed in double columns. Bottom of page torn off but does not affect the text of the Conway review.
Publisher
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The Bookseller
Date
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1879
Identifier
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G5594
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[Unknown]
Subject
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Book reviews
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Demonology and Devil-lore), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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application/pdf
Type
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Text
Language
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English
Book Reviews
Conway Tracts
Demonology
Moncure Conway
-
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PDF Text
Text
Egypt
and the
Pre-Homeric Greeks.
OMER has been called by a very late Greek poet of the Antho
logy, ‘ the second sun of the life of Hellas.’ In the warm light
of his poem a world of men is alive, a world that we know from no
Other source. The sunshine of Homer breaks for a moment through
the darkness of time, and the Achaeans and Danaans, when that light
is withdrawn, fade back again into the obscurity that shrouded them
before, like Children of the Mist. Of their history and of the de
velopment of their civilisation before the Homeric age, we have no
authentic account, and of what befell them when the epics fail us, up
to the moment when Greek literary records begin, we learn but vaguely
from legend and tradition. Yet it is plain that a people so essentially
civilised as the people amidst whom Homer sung, must have had a
long training in experience of life, and in the knowledge of foreign
culture. On the nature of that training and that early history, it has
for some time been believed that light was cast by the Egyptian
monuments. Within the last year, however, the ‘ History of Egypt,’
by Dr. Brugsch, has been published and translated into English.
The aim of some chapters in that learned work is to destroy the idea
that the prehistoric Greeks had any connection with Egypt. The
present article will be devoted to a consideration of the arguments
for and against the opinions that the ancestors of Homer’s Greeks
were well acquainted with the empire on the Nile. It may be as
well, in the first place, to sketch a picture of what that empire was
like, in the distant years when the Achaeans and Danaans did not yet
possess their sacred poet.
When we read Homer, we find ourselves in the morning of the
world. Society has not yet fixed, by hard and fast limits, the special
duties and conditions of human existence. The division of labour is
still all but unknown. The king of one island may become the thrall,
the swineherd, in another. The leader in war is a carpenter, a ship
wright, a mason in time of peace. The merchant is a pirate on
occasion, and the pirate a merchant. Each day brings variety and
adventure to men who are ready for every vicissitude, and who still
find in all experience, in war, storm, and shipwreck, in voyage of
discovery, in the marvels of great towns, and in the peril of enchanted
islands, something delightfully fresh and strange. The Homeric
Greeks, in spite of the orderliness of their public and domestic life,
are still like children, easily moved to wonder, easily adapting them
selves to every change of fortune, and only impatient of dull drill, and
of routine.
With Homer’s men, we live in a young world ; but on their very
border, and within their knowledge, there existed a world already
H
�172
Egypt and the Pre-Homeri$ Greeks.
[AuguS
old, rich, artificial, and the slave of habit. The island of Crete was a
part of heroic Greece; it owned Agamemnon as its over-lord, and
from Crete he drew some of his bravest warriors. Within five days’
sail of the island (if a ship had a fair nortll wind in her sails), were
the mouths of ‘ the River of Egypt,’ and the i most fruitful fields of
the Egyptian men ’ (Odyssey, xiv. 257). In Egypt, when Homer
sung, civilisation had passed its noon, and was declining to its even
ing. Thus in 4 Hundred-gated Thebes, where lies the greatest store
of wealth in the houses’ (Iliad, ix. 381 ; Odyssey, iv. 127), were
already found the extremes of wealth and poverty, and the fixed
divisions of society. Already the day-long and life-long labour which
the Greeks detested deformed the bodies of the artisans.
The weaver, within his four walls, is more wretched than a woman; his
knees are fitted to the height of his heart, he never breathes the free air.
.... The armourer has great toil and labour when he carries his wares
into far-off countries. A heavy price he must pay for his beasts of burden
when he sets out on his journey, and scarce has he returned to his home
when again he must depart............ Every worker in metals fares more
hardly than the delvers in the fields. His fields are the wood he works on,
his tools the metal wherewith he toils. In the night, when he should be
free, he is labouring still, after all that his hands have wrought during the
day. Yes, through the night he toils by the light of the burning torches.
.... Thus all arts and trades are toilsome; but do thou, my son, love
letters and cleave to them. Letters alone are no vain word in this world;
he who betakes himself to them is honoured by all men, even from his
childhood. He it is that goes forth on embassies and that knows not
poverty.—(Maspero, ‘ Histoire Ancienne de l’Orient,’p. 127. Translation
of Egyptian epistle.)
What a modern picture this is ! How unlike anything that Homer
has to draw, though he, too, pities the toil of the woman who lives by
her loom, and of the woman grinding at the millI The letter from
which this sketch of Egyptian life is quoted was written by a certain
scribe under the Nineteenth Dynasty, some fourteen hundred years
before the birth of Christ. It was written, probably, at the very time
when the children of Israel were suffering from cruel taskmasters,
who 4 made their lives bitter with hard bondage, in mortar and brick,
and all manner of service in the field ; all their service, wherein they
made them serve, was with rigour.’ To that Egypt, where the
Hebrews were bond-slaves, the ancestors of Homer’s Greeks may have
come as pirates, or as hostile settlers, and may have remained as
mercenary soldiers, or as labourers. Thus when Odysseus tells a
feigned tale about his adventures in Egypt, he declares that he
invaded the country, that his men were defeated, ‘and some the
Egyptians slew, and some they led away alive, to toil for them
perforce’ (Odyssey, xiv. 272). The monuments of an age much
earlier than that of Homer, of an age between the dates of Joseph
and of the Exodus, have been generally interpreted in the same sense
as the story of Odysseus. They have been supposed to prove that,
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Egypt and tke Pre-Homeric Greeks.'
173
while the Israelites were yet in Egypt, or had but recently left it, the
prehistoric Greeks fought there, were defeated, and became the
mercenaries of the Pharaohs. There can scarcely be a more inte
resting or romantic moment in history than this was, if the usual
reading of the monuments is correct. The early Greeks are learning
a sense of their own national unity, and are gaining their first sight
of an advanced civilisation, on the same soil as that where the
Hebrews learned the same lessons. The romantic interest of this
theory must not, however, lead us to neglect the arguments urged
against it by Dr. Brugsch. Let us examine, then, the foreign re
lations of Egypt at this period, and the evidence as to Homer’s know
ledge of one of the peoples who have bequeathed to us our art, our
politics, science, philosophy, and our religion.
The Eighteenth, Nineteenth, and Twentieth Dynasties of Egypt
bore sway, widely speaking, during the centuries which passed between
1700 B.C. and 1100 B.C. In these ages the Egyptian empire reached
the summit, of her wealth and power. Her arms were carried victoriously northward, into Asia Minor, southwards down the Nile
valley, and the Arabian Gulf, and across the ‘ great sea ’ to Cyprus.
On the walls of her temples may still be seen the painted procession
of captive or tributary races. These races are mentioned by names
which it is not always possible to attach, with certainty, to known
peoples, but the pictures themselves often afford the clearest evidence
as to types of race. The Egyptians, broadly speaking, knew four
races. These were the black men, negroes, whose type is unchanged;
the hook-nosed Semitic peoples, whose features survive in the Jews ;
the Egyptians themselves, painted in a conventional victorious red,
and lastly, the white non-Asiatic races of northern Africa, and of
the islands and coasts of the Mediterranean. It was chiefly with
the thick-lipped and curly-haired blacks of the interior, or with the
Phoenicians and other Semitic races, that the Egyptians of the
sixteenth century before Christ had to do. From the Hittites of the
Orontes valley and other Asiatic tribes, conquered in the great battle
of Megiddo, Thothmes III. took as tribute all those marvels of Sidonian art that Homer is never weary of extolling. The representations
of the gold and silver vases on the monuments prove that Homer did
not exaggerate the merit of the Phoenician craftsmen. Thothmes III.
boasts how he took ‘many golden dishes, and a large jug with a
double handle, a Phoenician work.’ He also acquired ‘ chairs with
the foot-stools to them of ivory and cedar wood ’ (Brugsch, i. 327).
We are reminded of Homer’s description of the chair which Icmalius
£ wrought with ivory and silver, and joined thereto a footstool that
was part of the chair itself’ (Odyssey, xix. 57). The horses,of the
Asiatic enemy also fell into the hands of Thothmes with the goldenstudded chariots which had been framed in the isle of Cyprus, ‘ the
land of the Asebi,’ the very country where Homer places his most
skilful artificers. It was thus that the Pharaohs dealt with their
Semitic enemies, while from the negroes they took, as tribute,
,
, <,
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Egypt and the Pre-Homeric Greeks.
[August
leopards and apes, incense and fragrant woods, and slaves, and tusks
of ivory.
Such were the relations of the Egyptians with two out of the four
races into which they divided the dwellers in the world. From the
white-skinned peoples of Northern Africa, and from their allies, also
white, who came from the isles and coasts of the great sea, Egypt
took little by way of tribute. They rather came to seek her; it was
not she who wished to attack them. As early as the reign of Thothmes III., the victor over the Asiatics at Megiddo, the monuments
speak of the Tamahu, the ‘people of the North,’ and of the ‘ tribes of
the islands.’ Among these the most conspicuous at first were called
Tahennu, the ‘ white men ’ of Northern Africa. Early in the reign
of Ramses II. (about 1450 B.c.) the monarch boasts of conquests over
‘ the barbarians of the north, and the Libyans, and the warriors of the
great sea’ (Chabas, ‘ Etudes,’p. 184). It is among these ‘warriors
of the great sea’ that we seem to recognise those indubitably
powerful Mediterranean peoples, the ruins of whose vast Cyclopean
cities, built before the dawn of history, crown many an isolated rocky
height, and command many a harbour and creek, on the shores of
Greece, Italy, and the islands. These warriors, in short, were in all
probability the ancestors of Homer’s more than half-mythical heroes.
For more than two centuries Egypt was exposed to the attacks
and invasions of these northern peoples. Her wealth, her rich soil,
her soft climate, and the beginnings of her decrepitude, attracted the
maritime tribes, and the races of the Lybian mainland. As we read
the accounts of these invasions in the inscriptions, we are irresistibly
reminded of the similar excursions of the Northmen ‘ on viking.’ The
very language of the monuments reads like the language of the
English chroniclers who went in fear of Danish pirates. The first
recorded inroad on a large scale by the confederated forces of Libya
and the maritime powers was made in the time of Ramses II. This
king began his reign by an exploit which brought him into collision,
according to some authorities, with the tribes which later succoured
Ilion. In the battle of Kadesh he checked the power of the Kbita
or Hittites, with their allies, the Leku, the Dardani, the warriors of
Carchemish, ‘ all the peoples from the extremest end of the sea, to
the land of the Khita.’ In the Khita some authorities see the other
wise mysterious Keteians who were led to fight for Troy by Eurypylus
the son of Telephus (Odyssey, xi. 519). In the Dardani they remark
the familiar Dardanians of Homer, and in the ‘ Leku ’ the no less
familiar Lycians. Dr. Brugsch, the determined opponent of views so
easy and so pleasing, is not content with these identifications. He
thinks that the Leku are not the Lycians, but a much less powerful
and important tribe, ‘the Legyes mentioned by Herodotus as a
people of Asia Minor’ (Herodotus, vii. 72). Now the Greeks
called all the wide-spread Ligurians of the north Mediterranean coast
‘ Legyes,’ so it is not easy to see why, if ‘ Leku ’ is ‘ Legyes,’ the
allies of the Khita may not have come from Trieste or from the
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Egypt and the Pre-Homeric Greeks.
175
shores under the Maritime Alps. The Dardanians again are not, so Dr.
Brugsch holds, the Dardanians with whom we are all familiar, but a
sept named once by Herodotus (i. 189). Yet even the Dardanians of.
Herodotus were next neighbours of the Paphlagonians, who, in their
turn, are numbered by Homer among the allies of Priam. Thus, even
on the showing of Dr. Brugsch, the Asiatic enemies of Agamemnon,
and the Asiatic enemies of Ramses II. drew their allies from the same
districts. But why should we look for an obscure sept of Dardani
on the Tigris, people only casually alluded to by Herodotus, writing a
thousand years later ? We might as plausibly identify the Dardani
who fought against Ramses II. with the Dardani who, according
to Strabo, lived in dens excavated under dunghills in Illyria, but
possessed an unaffected taste for music.
When he attacked the Leku, Khita, and Dardani, Ramses II. was
aided by some foreign mercenaries, called the Shardana 4 of the sea.’
These men are called 4 the King’s prisoners,’ and it is probable that
they had first been made captives in some war with North Africa, and
afterwards trained to bear arms with the native Egyptian soldiery.
The name of the Shardana, with that of other maritime peoples, was
soon to be terrible to the Egyptians. The reign of Ramses II. lasted
very long—no less than sixty-eight years—and it is possible that the
government of Egypt shared the weakness of the king’s old age.
-However that may be, Ramses II. had not long lain within his
Strangely humble tomb when the Libyans, with the peoples of the
Mediterranean, invaded the empire. The story of the invasion is
told by reliefs and inscriptions on the walls of a little court to the
south of the precinct of the chief temple at Carnac. The inscriptions
are described by Champoilion, who partly deciphered them (1828),
but did not identify the names of the races mentioned as hostile to
Egypt. As read by the late Vicomte de Rouge, and (with occasional
variations) by M. Chabas and Dr. Brugsch, they describe the war
between the Libyan king and his allies on the one part, and Meneptah,
son of Ramses II. (the Pharaoh of Exodus), on the other. The names
of the allied powers are thus written by Dr. Brugsch: 4 The A-qaua-sha, the Tulisha, or Turisha, the Liku, the Shair-dan, the Shaka-li-sha, peoples of the north which came hither out of all countries.’
{Brugsch, ii. 116.) The Vicomte de Rouge spelled the names,
4 Akaiusa, Tuir’sa, Leku, Shairdina, S4akalesha.’ (4 Memoire sur les
Attaques,’ etc., p. 11.) Both authorities agree that the Rebu (Li
byans) and Mashuasha (Maxyes, an African people who, in Herod
otus’ time, claimed Trojan ancestry) were among the invaders. All
authorities agree in saying that these allies had for months pitched
hostile camps in Egypt, did violence, 4 plundered, loved death, and
hated life.’ In this inscription (translated also by Dr. Birch,4 Records
of the Past,’ vol. iv. p. 36), one seems to hear Hildas grumbling
•about the Saxons, or the English chroniclers denouncing the Danish
pirates. Though Meneptah refused (on the pretence of a warning
vision) to lead his troops into action, the charioteers of Egypt utterly
No. 596 (no. CXV». N. s.)
N
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Egypt and the Pre-Homeric Greeks.
[August
routed the confederate hosts. Of the Libyans there fell over six
thousand men, of the Shakalsha more than two hundred, many of the
Shardana, whose kinsmen fought against them in the ranks of Egypt,
and many of the Aqaiusha. The bloody trophies of victory, frag
ments and hands of the mutilated dead, were counted over before the
king.
The all-important question must now be asked, who were these
maritime nations, these enemies of Egypt ? The spelling of their
names by various interpreters does not vary so much, but that a ready
answer rises to the lips. When the Vicomte de Rouge published his
celebrated 4 Memoire ’ in 1866, he identified, as most people would be
prone to do, the Aqaiusha with the Achaeans, who, in Homer’s time,
were the chief race in Greece. In the Shakalusha he saw the Sicilians,
whom Homer frequently alludes to as slave merchants, and therefore,
probably, as pirates. The Shardana were taken for the Sardinians
and the Tuirsha for the Tyrrhenians or Etrurians ; these famous sea
farers, an identification favoured by the spelling of the Tyrsenian, or
Tyrrhenian name in Oscan inscriptions. Even if these natural sugges
tions are adopted, it does not follow that the Tyrrhenian, Sardinian,
Sicilian, and other tribes had as yet established themselves in Etruria,
Sardinia, and Sicily. De Rouge’s system was adopted by Maspero,
Chabas, Lenormant, and (provisionally) by Dr. Birch. It has been
disturbed by the theory of Dr. Brugsch (‘ History of Egypt,’ vol. ii.p. 124). According to Dr. Brugseh, the invaders were 4 Colchio-Cretan
tribes.’ They came from the distant Caucasus, and from Crete, where,
as Homer tells us, dwelt Achaeans, native Cretans, Cydonians, Dorians,
and Pelasgians. (Odyssey, xix. 175.) Dr. Brugsch, however, says
little about the Cretans among the invaders. It is from the spurs of
the Caucasus and the coasts of the Black Sea that he brings the allies
of the Libyans. Let us examine his reasons.
Dr. Brugsch’s system is based, partly on a point of Egyptian verbal
scholarship, in which no one agrees with him ; secondly, on ethnolo
gical conjecture. He interprets the inscriptions about the Egyptian
victory to mean that the dead Aqaiusha and Shakalsha, whose hands
were cut off and brought to Meneptah, were circumcised men. No
other translator, neither Dr. Birch, nor M. Chabas, nor De Rouge (and
their combined opinion is of immense weight) has understood the in
scription in this sense. Dr.Brugsch holds that theLibyans were despised
by the Egyptians as an uncircumcised race, while the circumcised
Aqaiusha and Shakalsha were comparatively respected. He argues
that ‘to identify circumcised tribes, as some have done, with the
Achaeans, Sicilians, Sardinians, &c., is to introduce a serious error
into the primitive history of the classical nations.’ Here, then, is the
negative argument; the Aqaiusha conformed to the Egyptian and the
Jewish rite, therefore, they were not the Achaeans of Greece. Here
two obvious answers suggest themselves; first, the translation on which
Dr. Brugsch reposes is not, as yet, accepted by other scholars ; second,
we have no means of knowing whether the prehistoric ancestors of
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Egypt and the Pre-Homeric Greeks.
177
the Greeks did or did not practise a rite which is widely spread, espe
cially among savage races. We only know that, in the age of
Herodotus, a thousand years after this period, no tradition that the
Greeks had ever practised the rite seems to have survived. It is per
fectly possible that races with the Hellenic instinct for refinement at
one time conformed to, but later, and long before the time of Herodotus,
abandoned a custom which, in origin, seems essentially savage. In pre
cisely the same way, the Phoenicians gave up this trait of manners
when theybecame acquainted with the Greeks (Herodotus, ii. 104), and
many Polynesian peoples are abandoning it in our own time. Again,
it must be noted that Dr. Brugsch declares the Mashuasha (Maxyes)
to have conformed to the Egyptian manners in this respect. Now,
Herodotus, on whose evidence Dr. Brugsch elsewhere relies, omits to
L
.mention the Maxyes in his catalogue of circumcised races, while, in
his account of the Maxyes, he says nothing about circumcision. Did
Dr. Brugsch assume that the Maxyes conformed to the rite, because
he found that their hands were cut off, after a battle, like the hands
of the Aqaiusha ? Singularly enough, the mutilation of a hand is the
punishment now inflicted in Socotra, on persons who are not circum
cised. Many other arguments derived from the practice of Polynesian
race» might here be adduced. It is enough to say that, even if Dr.
Brugsch’s translation is accepted, the authentic history of manners
permits us to suppose that the Achaeans of the thirteenth century
before our era may have conformed to the descriptions of the Aqaiusha
in the Egyptian texts, as translated by Dr. Brugsch.
The learned German is dissatisfied with the old identification. What
reasons lead him to put forward his new theory ? At a first glance,
■ it does seem very unlikely that the tribes of4 remotest Caucasus,’ that
‘ wall of the world’s end,’ as the Greeks thought it, should ally them
selves with Libya, and invade Egypt. No Greek tradition or legend
p
speaks of such an alliance, while Greek legendary history starts from
a. supposed constant intercourse between Libya, Egypt, Sardinia,
Sicily, and Greece. Herodotus however assures us, that, whether the
Caucasian tribes came to Egypt or not, the Egyptians went to the
Caucasus. This expedition was made, he says, under Sesostris, that
is, Ramses II., the monarch on whose death the Caucasians (teste
t
Brugsch) in their turn invaded Egypt I This was a singular turning
of the. tables. Herodotus thinks that the Colchian tribes learned
K,
Egyptian manners from the soldiers of Ramses II. Is it probable
that the practice became at once so general that they could send a
circumcised army to invade the realms of the son of Ramses ? Here,
at least, is the argument of Dr. Brugsch ; the maritime invaders of
-Egypt conformed to the Egyptian rite, therefore, they were not the
ancestors of the famous Achaeans. But the tribes of the Caucasus
(a thousand years later), practised the rite, therefore it is proper to
look among them for the invaders of Egypt. Yet even Dr. Brugsch
has to come down to much later times for his facts. He wishes to
find, among the Colchian and Caucasian mountaineers, names of tribes
m
2
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Egypt and the Pre-Homeric Greeks.
[Augus!
that correspond to the names of invaders on the monuments, and
these names he finds, more than a thousand years later, in the pages
of Strabo, a writer of the time of Augustus. As Dr. Brugsch goes
to the Caucasus, and to Colchis, to find the invaders of Egypt, it
may be as well to. quote Herodotus’s account of the Colchians, and
of their apparent ethnological connections with the Egyptians.
Thereafter he (Sesostris, Ramses II.) went all through the continent,
even till he crossed out of Asia into Europe, where he overcame the
Scythians and the Thracians. So far, and no further, methinks, came the
Egyptian host, for in the land of these peoples are the memorial pillars set,
and still to be seen, but beyond these they are no longer to be found.
Thence he turned about, and went back, and when he came to the Phasis
river, I have thereafter no clear story to tell, as to whether the King
Sesostris himself sundered a portion of his army, and planted them there,
or whether certain of the soldiers, being weary of wandering, chose to
abide there about the River Phasis. For the Colchians seem to be of
Egyptian race, and this I say as one that noted it myself, before I heard it
from others. But when the thing came into my mind I made inquiry of
both peoples, and the Colchians remember the Egyptians better than the
Egyptians remember the Colchians. The Egyptians said they reckoned the
Colchians to be in the host of Sesostris, but I guessed at the matter by this,
that both Egyptians and Colchians are dark-skinned and curly haired, And
this proves nothing, for other men so far resemble them; but by this I
was more led to my guess, namely, that the Colchians, Aegyptians, and
Aethiopians, and they alone, have always from the beginning practised
circumcision.................. Come, now, I will mention other Colchian matters,
to show how like they are to the Egyptians. They and the Egyptians are
the only peoples that weave linen (in the same way), and all their manner
of life, and the tongue they speak, resemble each other. And Colchian linen
the Greeks call Sardonikon, but that which comes from Egypt they call
Egyptian. (Herodotus, ii. 1*03, 104.)
So far Herodotus goes, and by aid of his evidence Dr. Brugseh
recognises his circumcised Shardana in the Colchian makers of Sardonian linen (Xlvov 'ZapSovticov'). The Tursha of the sea, Brugsch calls
people from Mount Taurus, but it appears that philological reasoning
(‘ if anyone is inclined to trust that,’ as Herodotus would say) strongly
favours De Rouge’s identification of the Tuirsha with the Tyrseni,
or Etruscans. The Leku, or Luku, as we have already seen, Dr.
Brugsch believes to be, not Lycians, but Legyes. The Aqaiusha
are Achaeans with Dr. Brugsch, as well as with De Rouge and Chabas,
but then they are not the Achaeans of Greece or Crete, but the
Achaeans of the Caucasus. This interesting tribe (the ancestors of
the gallant Lazi ’) are mentioned by Strabo, some thirteen hundred
years after their appearance on the monuments. According to
•Strabo, the Achaeans of the Caucasus were not unlike the m od ern
buccaneers of Batoum. In his time, they dwelt near the rugged
•and harbourless coasts of the Black Sea. They lived somewhat inland,
in the forests and glens, in which they dragged up the canoes
(capable of holding about twenty-five men each), in which they made
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tEgypt and the Pre-Homeric Greeks.
179
buccaneering expeditions. When an expedition was over, they re
turned to their fastnesses, and drank, and feasted till all was spent.
It is in the ancestors of these semi-savage neighbours of the degraded
‘ lice-eaters,’ that Dr. Brugsch recognises the allies of Libya, the men
who shook the empire of Egypt. Few other students will be inclined to
overlook the claims of the Achaean race, which was certainly, within
four centuries, so powerful in the Levant, in favour of a remote and
obscure set of savages, without history, traditions, or architectural
remains. The remains of Mycenae, Orchomenos, and scores of other
towns, attest the prehistoric homes of the dwellers in Greek coasts
and isles. The legends of Libya, Sardinia, Sicily, Egypt, and Greece,
as' Pausanias shows, are all in undesigned coincidence with the
Egyptian monuments, as read by De Rouge and Chabas. The con
tents of the oldest graves in Greek and in Sardinian soil, speak to a
prehistoric intercourse with Egypt. The very sculptures on the
sepulchral sieZae, found in the Acropolis of Mycenae, are most easily
explained as rude and debased imitations of the familiar Egyptian
group, in which the king fights from his chariot. In face of all this
tangible evidence which connects prehistoric Greece with Egypt,
it seems superfluous to seek for casual similarities of name among the
obscure tribes of the remote Caucasus.
The next mention of the people of the Mediterranean coasts and
islands is found in the monument of Ramses III. (1200—1166 B.C.)
On the walls of Medinet Habou in Western Thebes are depicted the
chief events in the history of an invasion of Egypt, in the eighth
year of Ramses. The inscriptions declare that ‘ the people quivered
with desire of battle in all their limbs, they came up leaping from
their coasts and islands, and spread themselves all at once over the
lands.’ (Brugsch, vol. ii. p. 147.) They were moved by the irresistible
attraction of the south, by the force that draws the Slavonic races
towards India and the Mediterranean, the force that led the North
men to Byzantium and the Goths to Rome. 4 It came to pass,’ says
another inscription, ‘ that the people of the northern regions, who
reside in their islands and on their coasts, shuddered [with eagerness
for battle] in their bodies. They entered into the lakes of the
mouths of the Nile. Their nostrils snuffed up the wind, their desire
was to breathe a soft air.’ (Brugsch, vol. ii. p. 149.) From the
reliefs and inscriptions we learn that the invasion was attempted
both by land and sea. Some of the Northerners landed on the coast
of Canaan, defeated the Khita, the people of Kadi (Galilee), and
of Karchemish, and so advanced on Egypt. Others sailed round to
the mouths of the Nile. By the rapidity of his movements Ramses
III. discomfited the double attack. In the reliefs of Medinet
Habou, we see the king distributing arms, we accompany the army
on the march, and behold the destruction of the islanders and men of
the Mediterranean coasts. A fourth picture represents the return
march of the Egyptians to encounter the hostile navy, and the fifth
shows us the earliest extant view of a naval battle. Ramses had
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Egypt and the Pre-Homeric Greeks.
[August
formed a cordon of ships and boats to protect the great water-gate of
Egypt. ‘ A defence was built on the water, like a strong wall, of
ships of war, of merchantmen, of boats and skiffs. They (who had
reached the boundary of my country never more reaped harvest. . . .
Their ships and all their possessions lay strewn on the mirror of the
waters.’ (Brugsch, vol. ii. p. 148.)
Who were the islanders and coastmen who thus failed to make
good their enterprise ? The inscriptions give their names, the basreliefs present pictures of their ships, costumes, and weapons. First
let us examine the names. They are read thus by Dr. Brugsch:
‘ Their home was in the land of the Purosatha, the Zakkar, the
Shalkalsha, the Daanau, and the Uashuash.’ (‘The Tuirsha of the
sea,’ Brugsch’s Taurians, and the Tyrrhenians of De Rouge, were
also engaged.) For Purosatha, M. Chabas, with almost all other
scholars, reads Pelesta, vaguely identified with Pelasgians, or Phi
listines. For Zakkar, it is usual to read Tekkri, or Tekkariu, sup
posed to be the classical Teucri. There is a general agreement as to the
spelling of Shakalsha or Shalkulsha, Taanau or Daanau, and Uas
huash, though not about the peoples mentioned under these names.
Now here the method of Dr. Brugsch is well worth attending to ; it is
so extraordinary as to be almost incredible. He protests that the
Shakalsha are not Sicilians, but the people of Zagylis (vol. ii. p.
124). Now what was Zagylis? It was ‘a village in the time of
the Romans.’ There ‘ the last remnant of the Shakalsha still re
mained.’ Obviously this tells us nothing. The Shakalsha are the
people of Zagylis, and the people of Zagylis (some fourteen hundred
years later), are—the remnant of the Shakalsha! Take another
example: the Shardana are ‘ the Chartani,’ and the Chartani are-—
the remains of the Shardana. Here, however, we have at least
some clue as to who the, Shardana were: they were not the Sardi
nians, but Colchians, linen-manufacturing people, inferred to exist
from the term ‘Sardonian linen,’ in Herodotus. Let us try the
Daanau; these are the classic Danai, or the Daunians, according to
other students. Dr. Brugsch says they are the people of Taineia,
mentioned by the geographer Ptolemy. And who are the people of
Taineia ? They are the remains of the Daanau. Finally, theZakkar are identified with the Zygritae (vol. ii. p. 151), and when we
ask who the Zygritae were, we find that they were a small tribe, who
perpetuated the name of the Zakkar. Surely it is not a very scien
tific process to identify a powerful ancient race with a small one
first heard of a thousand years later, and then to explain that the
weak tribe is the descendant of the strong one. We think it is suf
ficiently obvious that Dr. Brugsch’s theory is no satisfactory substi
tute for the older system, which recognised powerful and historical
peoples of the Levant in powerful prehistoric races of almost iden
tical names, only slightly altered by Egyptian orthography.
Let us now turn from the record of names in his inscriptions to
the record of facts in the bas-reliefs. In these representations
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Egypt and the Pre-Homeric Greeks.
181
preserved to us through three thousand years, we may admire, with
absolute confidence, the lively pictures of the old masters of the
Mediterranean. From the representations of the battle on land, it is
plain that the Tekkri and Pelesta were in the same social con
ditions as the Cimbri who were defeated by Marius, and the Tartars
who invaded Russia in the thirteenth century. Like the Tartars,
they came to conquer and settle; they brought their wives and chil
dren with them in huge wains of wicker work, with solid wheels,
■each wain being drawn by four oxen. The descriptions of the
Russian annalist might serve for an account of these inroads of the
Tekkri. The Egyptians, like the Slavs, must have been dismayed
by ‘ the grinding of the wheels of the wooden chariots, the bellowings of the buffaloes, the howling of the barbarians.’ While the
warriors of the Tekkri and Pelesta were fighting in open chariots
like those of the Egyptians and Greeks, the wains with the women
and children were drawn up in the rear. The van of the foreign
army was routed, and in the pictures of Medinet Habou we see
the Egyptians falling on the waggons, and slaying the children
whom the women in vain endeavour to rescue. It is a singular
fact that the Tekkri who took the lead of the land-forces also
supplied many mariners to the confederate navy. In the sea-piece
which preserves the events of the naval battle, we recognise the
Tekkri by their peculiar head-piece, which is not absolutely unlike
a rude form of the later Greek helmet. This head-piece is also
worn by Pelesta, Daanau, and Uashuash.
The picture of the sea-fight throws a great deal of light on the
civilisation of the predecessors (we dare not say ‘ ancestors ’) of
Agamemnon. The artist has been most careful to mark the differ
ence between the ships of the Shalkalsha, Shardana, and Daanau, and
those of his own countrymen. The Egyptian vessels are low at prow
and stern, either extremity is tipped by a carved lion’s head, and it
is easy for a warrior to have one foot on deck, and the other on the
figure head of his ship. The bulwarks are slightly raised at each
extremity, and the ships must have been half-decked. The confede
rates on the other hand fight in barques which are lofty in prow
and stern. Either extremity is finished off with a bird’s beak,
which rises high out of the water. The reader of Homer at once
recognises the v^val KopwvLCL. the ships with beaks at either end,
the vsas apbfybsXMT&as, vessels curved at prow and stern (recurvatae)
of the poet. The later barques of the Greeks, as we see them
painted on vases of the sixth century, were quite unlike these. The
prow was by that time constructed for ramming purposes, for which
these high birds’ beaks of the early Mediterranean vessels were not at
all adapted. That the people of the Mediterranean did use such
vessels as those which they man in the Egyptian pictures, is proved by
a very old Cyprian vase in the Cesnola collections (Cesnola’s ‘ Cyprus,’
pl. xlv.). On this vase is painted a ship with the arrangement of mast
and sail common to the barques of the Egyptians and their enemies.
�182
Egypt and the Pre-Homeric Greeks.
[August
The prow and stern, however, are built high out of the water,
and protected, as in the reliefs, by lofty bulwarks. This is good
evidence to the accuracy of the Egyptian draughtsmen, who were
careful to mark all these distinctions, as they were engaged in com
piling historical records, rather than in producing mere works of art.
In the sea-fight the Egyptians are, of course, having the best of'
the battle. The masts of the Tuirsha, Tekkri, and Shakalsha are
going by the board; the Egyptians shower in their arrows with
deadly effect; the Tekkri, with drawn swords, in vain attempt to
drive back the boarders. The face of the sea is covered with the
bodies of men who have fallen from the decks, and the Egyptians,
with the clemency which was peculiar to them, help the wounded
to reach the shore, or take them on board their own vessels. In some
of the ships of the allied invaders are soldiers who wear a peculiar
helmet. It so far resembles the helmets of the Shardana, that it has
a curved horn on each side, but, unlike them, it has no spike and
ball in the centre. A horned helmet of the same sort (but probably
much later) has been found in an Italian grave, and may be seen in
the British Museum. In other ships of the allies appear the Tekkri,
with their crested bonnets, mingled with allies who wear the conical cap
of the Greek and Etruscan sailors, the cap, or fez, which, in Greek art, is
worn by Odysseus. The wearers of these caps are, probably with justice,
recognised as the Tuirsha, whom Dr. Brugsch calls the Taurians,
but whom we prefer to call Etrurians or Tyrrhenians. The striped
tunics worn by these two last classes of allies are the same as those
in which the Shardana were still dressed, even after they had become
allies of the Egyptians.
We have now caught a glimpse of the races in whom it seems not
unreasonable to recognise Mediterranean peoples, the ancestors of
Homer’s heroes. We may say, then, with some confidence, that for
centuries before the period dealt with in the Homeric poems, the dwellers
on the borders of the midland sea, the Tuirsha, Shakalsha, Aqaiusha,.
Tekkri, and the rest, were adventurous warriors, capable of forming
such large confederacies as those which took part in the siege of
Troy. About the Tekkri, we may say with certainty that they had
not passed the period of great national migrations. Unless a whole
people had moved, or had at least sent out a ver sacrum, they would
not have led with them women and children, in the wains drawn by
oxen. About the sea-faring Aqaiusha, Shakalsha, and Shardana, we
cannot speak so certainly. ‘ They desired to breathe a soft air,’ they
were eager to plunder the Egyptians, but it does not seem that they
brought their women with them, or definitely meant to settle. When
we turn from the monuments to Homer, we certainly find in him a
picture of an established society contented with secure habitations.
The Achaeans and Argives of the poems are deeply attached to
home; their thoughts always go back from the leaguer under Troy
to wives, children, and aged fathers, who now and again send them
news of their welfare, from Phthia, Crete, or Argos. Homer knows
�i
1879]
Egypt and the Pre-Homeric Greeks.
183
nothing of combined Achaean invasions of Egypt. The more recent
feuds of the eastern and western shores of the Aegean have put apy
t
such adventures out of memory. Only here and there the roaming
spirit of the older pirates survives in such men as Odysseus feigned
himself to be, in the story told to Eumaeus (Odyssey, xiv. 240-300).
When he there describes himself as a Cretan pirate who ventured to
make a raid on Egypt, he also declares that such adventurous persons
are now rare. His joy, he says, is in all that other men hold in horror.
Though Homer knows nothing of confederated invasions of Egypt,
le his acquaintance with the manners of the country is tolerably exact.
He knows Thebes as the richest city in the world, full of stored wealth,
of chariots, and horses. Mr. Gladstone and others have tried to show
that this description could only apply to Thebes in the days of its im
perial prosperity. We cannot possibly say, however, how long the
memory of Thebes as the 4 mickle-garth’ of the world might survive its
actual decline. It is unnecessary to discuss Dr. Lauth’s bold attempt
>■
to find Ramses III., 4 the old man of the sea,’ in the Proteus of the
fourth book of the Odyssey. Proteus is merely the Homeric form
of the marchen which in Scotland becomes the ballad of Tamlane.
Setting aside these far-fetched conjectures, it is certain that Homer
knows 4 the River Aegyptus,’ which in Hesiod has already become 4 the
Nile.’ He knows Thebes and its wealth ; he knows the island Pharos.
He is familiar with the clemency of the Egyptians. The king, in
, the story of Odysseus, conveys the pirate chief safely away in his own
t
chariot, just as the sailors, on the monuments, rescue their drowning
E
enemies. Homer is also aware that the Egyptians had friendly relations
with Cyprus and Phoenicia (Odyssey, xvii. 440). He knows the
V
Egyptian reputation for skill in medicine. 4 There each man is a
physician skilled beyond all others, for they are of the race of Paeaeon.’
(Od. iv. 211, 213.) To be brief, Egypt is to Homer a land within
the limits of the real world ; it is beyond Libya that the enchanted
isles and shores come into the ken of his wandering hero.
We have tried to show reason for maintaining the opinion that
the Egyptian monuments reveal to us a moment in the national
education of the early Greeks. Egypt probably gave them their first
glimpse of a settled and luxurious civilisation, first taught them to
take delight in other things than 4 swords, shafts, and spears, and
ships with long oars.’ What manner of life would Greek prisoners or
mercenaries see in Egypt ? There they would find towns wealthier
than the fabled city of the Phaeacians. Thebes alone they knew
of as a dim rich city that rose on the borders of the world, as did
Byzantium on the horizon of the Danes. In Thebes and the other
cities of Egypt they beheld 4 the fields full of good things, the canals
rich in fish, the lakes swarming with wild fowl, the meadows green
with herbs. There are lentils in endless abundance, and melons
honey-sweet grow in the well-watered fields. The barns are full of
wheat, and reach as high as heaven; the vine, the almond, and the
fig-tree grow in the gardens. Sweet is their wine, and with honey do
�184
Egypt and the Pre-Homeric Greeks.
[August
they -mingle it. The youths are clacl always in festive array, the fine oil
is poured upon their curled locks.’ It is thus that an Egyptian scribe
depicts one of the towns of his country. The picture is precisely that
which Homer draws of ideal luxury and comfort. Even in trifling
details the Homeric domestic life is like that of Egypt. In Phaeacia, as
in the monuments, kings’ daughters drive chariots. In Ithaca, as in
Thebes, kings and queens are fond of geese, of all birds1 In the tribute
brought to Thutmes III. from the Phoenician land are 4 two geese.
These were dearer to the king than anything else’ (Brugsch, i. 334).
Compare Penelope’s story of her dream: 4 Twenty geese have I in the
house that eat wheat out of the water-trough, and it gladdens me to
look on them.’ (Odyssey, xix. 540.) In the Egyptians’ 4 Garden of
Flowers ’ the northern mercenaries may have seen the strange tamed
beasts, and have undergone (as some romances in the papyri show us)
the magic wiles of Circe. (See 4 Records of the Past,’ vi. 152, iv. 129 ;
where there are ancient Egyptian stories in the style of the 4 Arabian
Nights.’) If the stranger passed through the temple precincts he
saw the walls covered with signs, which perhaps were deciphered for
him. He then listened to chants like those which the minstrels of
his own lands were soon to recite. There are some curious, though
probably accidental resemblances, in the style of Egyptian and
Greek epic poetry. The similes are often identical. Thus the
slaughtered Khita, under the walls of Kadesh, are said by the
Egyptian poet to lie kicking in heaps, like fishes on the ground.
Compare the slain wooers in the Odyssey (xxii. 384) : 4 He
found all the host of them fallen in their blood, in the dust, like
fishes that the fishermen have drawn forth in the net, into a
hollow of the beach, from out of the grey sea .... and the
sun shines forth and takes their life away.’ In the account of the
battles with the invaders, the Egyptian warriors 4 come down like
lions of the hills, like hawks stooping upon birds.’ The Khita,
before Ramses II., are 4 like the foals of mares, which tremble before
the grim lions.’ But the Egyptian poet most closely resembles
Homer when he dilates on the valour and piety of Ramses II., when
cut off from his army at Kadesh. The religious sentiment, the
relations between Amon and Ramses, are precisely like those between
Odysseus and Athene. Ramses, with his charioteer, is alone in the
crowd of foes. Then he calls to Amon, as Aias calls to Zeus, or
Odysseus to Athene, reminding the god of all the honours he has
paid him. 4 Shall it be for nothing that I have dedicated to thee
many temples, and sacrificed tens of thousands of oxen? Nay, I
find that Amon is better to me than millions of warriors, than
hundreds of thousands of horses.......................... Amon heard my voice,
and came at my cry (saying), 441 am with thee, and am more to thee
than hundreds of thousands of warriors.” ’ This is like the reply of
Athene to Odysseus : 4 And now I will tell thee plainly, even though
fifty companies of men should compass us about, and be eager to slay
us in battle, their kine shouldst thou drive off, and their brave flocks.’
�1879]
Egypt and the Pre-Homeric Greeks.
185
These resemblances, and many others, are, no doubt, the result
of similar ideas prevailing in societies not wholly uninfluenced by
each other. The point we have tried to prove is, that the Homeric
civilisation had been influenced by occasional contact with Egypt.
The pre-Homeric Greeks seem to have mixed, in their years of
youthful audacity and unsettled temper, with the most civilised
people of the earlier world, and to have looked, with their eager eyes
and teachable minds, on the marvels of the empire of Ramses.
They were in connection, in short, with the highly developed art and
culture which the Phoenicians spread from the Euphrates to Egypt,
and through the islands to the Hellenic coasts. Centuries of these
oriental influences gradually ripened society into the free and flexible
organisation which we meet in the lays of Homer.
A. Lang.
Sonnet
SUGGESTED BY THE PICTURE OF THE ANNUNCIATION,
BY E. BURNE JONES.
Woman, whose lot hath alway been to bear
Love’s load beneath the heart, set there to hold
It high, and keep it resolute and bold
To clasp God’s feet, and hang on to the fair
Wide skirts of light,—thy sealed sense can spare
The open vision, thou being called to fold
From time’s mischance, and from the season’s cold,
The wonder in thy breast, and nurse it there.
What though thy travail hath been long and sore,
Love being borne in so great heaviness,
Through loss and labour, joy shall be the more
Of love that living shall the nations bless :
Love that shall set man’s bounden spirit free,
The ‘ holy thing’ that still is born of thee.
Emily Pjfeiffer.
cv
A
�
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Egypt and the Pre-Homeric Greeks
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Lang, Andrew [1844-1912]
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Collation: 171-185 p. ; 22 cm.
Notes: From Fraser's Magazine 20 (August 1875). From the library of Dr Moncure Conway.
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A VINDICATION
THOMAS PAINE.
BY
ROBERT G. INGERSOLL
*
AND
THOMAS PAINE.
A
CRITICISM.
MONCURE D. CONWAY
‘ To ARGUE WITH A MAN WHO HAS RENOUNCE1} THE USE AND AUTHORITY OF REASON,
IS LIKE ADMINISTERING MEDICINE TO THE DEAD.”—THOMAS PAINE.
CHICAGO AND TORONTO:
BELFORD S, CLARKE & CO
1 87 9.
�* The Vindication of Thomas Paine” is published by arrangenent with Mr. Robt. G. Ingersoll. Mr. Conway’s Article is
e-published from our edition of The Fortnightly Review.
�irth. -urkc
J>
i
VINDICATION OT THOMAS PAINE.
‘ * To argue with a man who has renounced the use and authority of reason, is
ik administering medicine to the dead. ”—Thomas Paine
Peoria, III., October 8th, 1877.
To the Editor of tne New York Observer :
Sir : Last June, in San Francisco, I offered a thousand dollars
in gold—not as a wager, but as a gift—to any one that would
substantiate the absurd story that Thomas Paine died in agony
and fear, frightened by the clanking chains of devils. I also
offered the same amount to any minister that would prove that
Voltaire did not pass away as serenely as the coming of the dawn.
Afterwards, I was informed that you had accepted the offer, and
called upon me to deposit the money. Acting upon this infor
mation, I sent you the following letter:
“ Peoria, III., August 31st, 1877.
“ To the Editor of the New York Observer:
“ I have been informed that you have accepted, in your paper,
an offer made by me to any clergyman in San Francisco. That
offer was, that I would pay one thousand dollars in gold to any
minister in that city, who would prove that Thomas Paine died
in terror because of religious opinions he had expressed, or that
Voltaire did not pass away serenely as the coming of the dawn.
“ For many years, religious journals and ministers have been
circulating certain pretended accounts of the frightful agonies
endured by Paine and Voltaire when dying; that these great men,
at the moment of death, were terrified because they had given
their honest opinions on the subject of religion to their fellowmen.
The imagination of the religious world has been taxed to the
utmost in inventing absurd and infamous accounts of the last
moments of these intellectual giants. Every Sunday-paper,
thousands of idiotic tracts, and countless stupidities, called ser
mons, have been filled with these calumnies.
�4>
VINDICATION OF THOMAS PAINE.
“Paine and Voltaire both believed in God—both hoped for
immortality—both believed in special providence; but both
denied the inspiration of the Scriptures—both denied the divinity
of Jesus Christ. While theologians most cheerfully admit that
most murderers die without fear, they deny the possibility of any
man who has expressed his disbelief in the inspiration of the
bible, dying except in an agony of terror. These stories are used
in revivals and in Sunday schools, and have long been considered
of great value.
“ I am anxious that these slanders shall cease. I am desirous
of seeing justice done, even at this late day, to the dead.
“ For the purpose of ascertaining the evidence upon which
these death-bed accounts really rest, I make to you the following
proposition:
. “ First.—As to Thomas Paine : I will deposit with the First
National Bank of Peoria, Illinois, one thousand dollars in gold,
upon the following conditions : This money shall be subject to
your order when you shall, in the manner hereinafter provided,
substantiate that Thomas Paine admitted the bible to be an
inspired book, or that he recanted his infidel opinions—or that he
died regretting that he had disbelieved the bible—or that he died
calling upon Jesus Christ in any religious sense whatever.
“ In ordei' that a tribunal may be created to try this question,
you may select one man, I will select another, and the two thus
chosen shall select a third, and any two of the three may decide
the matter.
“ As there will be certain costs and expenditures on both sides,
such costs and expenditures shall be paid by the defeated party.
“ In addition to the one thousand dollars in gold, I will deposit
a bond with good and sufficient security in the sum of two
thousand dollars, conditioned for the payment of all costs, in
case I am defeated. I shall require of you a like bond.
“ From the date of accepting this offer, you may have ninety
days to collect and present your testimony, giving me notice of
time and place of taking depositions. I shall have a like time
to take evidence upon my side, giving you like notice, and you
shall then have thirty days to take further testimony in reply to
what I may offer. The case shall then be argued before the
persons chosen; and their decision shall be final as to us.
“ If the arbitrator chosen by me shall die, I shall have the right
to chose another. You shall have the same right. If the third
one, chosen by our two, shall die, the two shall choose another ;
and all vacancies, from whatever cause, shall be filled upon the
same principle.
“The arbitrators shall sit when and where a majarity shall
�VINDICATION OF THOMAS PAINE.
0
determine, and shall have full power to pass upon all questions
arising as to competency of evidence and upon all subjects.
“ Second.—As to Voltaire: I make the same proposition:—
If you will substantiate that Voltaire died expressing remorse, or
showing, in any way, that he was in mental agony because he
had attacked Catholicism—or because he had denied the inspira
tion of the bible—or because he had denied the divinity of Christ.
“ I make these propositions because I want you to stop slander
ing the dead.
“ If the propositions do not suit you in any particular, please
state your objections, and I will modify them in any way con
sistent with the object in view.
“ If Paine and Voltaire died filled with childish and silly fear,
I want to know it, and I want the world to know it. On the
other hand, if the believers in superstition have made and circu
lated these cruel slanders concerning the mighty dead, I want the
world to know that.
“ As soon as you notify me of the acceptance of these proposi
tions, I will send you the certificate of the bank that the money
has been deposited upon the foregoing conditions, together with
copies of bonds for costs.
“R. G. INGERSOLL.”
In your paper of September 27th, 1877, you acknowledge the
the receipt of the foregoing letter, and, after giving an outline of
its contents, say:
“ As not one of the affirmations, in the form stated in this letter,
was contained in the offer we made, we have no occasion to sub
stantiate them. But we are prepared to produce the evidence of
the truth of our own statement, and even to go further : to show
not only ‘ that Tom Paine died a drunken, cowardly, and beastly
death,’ but that for many years previous, and up to that event,
he lived a drunken and beastly life.”
In order to refresh your memory as to what you had published,
I call your attention to the following, which appeared in the
New York Observer, the 19th of July, 1877 :
« PUT DOWN THE MONEY.
“ Col. Bob Ingersoll, in a speech full of ribaldry and blasphemy,
made in San Francisco recently, said:
“ ‘ I will give $1,000 in gold coin to any clergyman who can
substantiate that the death of Voltaire was not as peaceful as the
dawn; and of Tom Paine, whom they assert died in fear and
agony, frightened by the clanking chains of devils—in fact,
�6
VIODlUATION OF THOMAS PAINE.
frightened to death by God. I will give $1,000 likewise to any
one who can substantiate this * absurd story ’—a story without a
word of truth in it.’
“We have published the testimony, and the witnesses are
on hand to prove that Tom Paine died a drunken, cowardly and
beastly death. Let the Colonel deposit the money with any honest
man, and the absurd story, as he terms it, shall be shown to be an
‘ ower true’ tale. But he won't do it. His talk is infidel ‘ buncombe?
and nothing more.”
On the 31st of August I sent you my letter, and on the 27th of
September you say in your paper : “ As not one of the affirma
tions in the form stated in this letter was contained in the offer
we made, we have no occasion to substantiate them.”
What were the affirmations contained in the offer you made ?
I had offered a thousand dollars in gold to any one who would
substantiate the absurd story that Thomas Paine died in fear
and agony, frightened by the clanking chains of devils—in fact,
frightened to death by God.”
In response to this offer you said: Let the Colonel deposit the
money with an honest man, and the ‘ absurd story,’ as he terms
it, shall be shown to be an ‘ ower true ’ tale. But he won’t do it.
His talk is infidel ‘ buncombe,’ and nothing more.”
Did you not offer to prove that Paine died in fear and agony,
frightened by the clanking chains of devils? Did you not
ask me to deposit the money that you might prove the
“ absurd story ” to be an “ ower true ” tale, and obtain the money ?
Did you not, in your paper of the 27th of September, in effect
deny that you had offered to prove this “ absurd story ? ” As
soon as I offered to deposit the gold and give bonds besides, to
cover costs, did you not publish a falsehood ?
You have eaten your own words, and for my part, I would
rather have dined with Ezekiel than with you. You have not
met the issue. You have knowingly avoided it. The question
was not as to the personal habits of Paine. The real question
was, and is, whether Paine was filled with fear and horror at the
time of his death on account of his religious opinions. That is
the question. You avoid this. In effect, you abandon that
charge, and make others.
To you belongs the honor of having made the most cruel and
�VINDICATION OF THOMAS PAINE.
7
infamous charges against Thomas Paine that have ever been made.
Of what you have said you cannot prove the truth of one word.
You say that Thomas Paine died a drunken, cowardly and
beastly death.
I pronounce this charge to be a cowardly and beastly falsehood.
Have you any evidence that he was in a drunken condition
when he died ?
What did he say or do of a cowardly character just before, or
at about the time of his death ?
In what way was his death cowardly? You must answer
these questions, and give your proof,'or all honest men will hold
you in abhorrence. You have made these charges. The man
against whom you make them is dead. He cannot answer you.
I can. He cannot compel you to produce your testimony, or
admit by your silence that you have cruelly slandered the de
fenseless dead. I can, and I will. You say that his death was
cowardly. In what respect ? Was it cowardly- in him to hold
the Thirty-nine Articles in contempt ? Was it cowardly not to
call on your Lord ? Was it cowardly not to be afraid ? You say
that his death was beastly. Again I ask, in what respect ? Was
it beastly to submit to the inevitable with tranquility ? Was it
beastly to look with composure upon the approach of death?
Was it beastly to die without a complaint, without a murmur—
to pass from life without a fear ?
Did Thomas Paine Recant ?
Mr. Paine had prophesied that fanatics would crawl and
cringe around him during his last moments. He believed that
they would put a lie in the mouth of death.
When the shadow of. the coming dissolution was upon him, two
clergymen, Messrs. Milledollar and Cunningham, called to annoy
the dying man. Mr. Cunningham had the politeness to say :
“ You have now a full view of death ; you cannot live long; and
whosoever does not believe in the Lord Jesus Christ will assur
edly be damned.” Mr. Paine replied: “Let me have none of
your popish stuff. Get away with you. Good morning.”
On another occasion a Methodist minister obtruded himself
when Willet Hicks was present. The minister declared to Mr.
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VINDICATION OF THOMAS PAINE.
Paine, “that unless he repented of his unbelief he would b«»
damned.” Paine, although at the door of death, rose in his bed
and indignantly requested the clergyman to leave the room. On
another occasion, two brothers by the name ofc Pigott sought to
convert him. He was displeased, and requested their departure.
Afterwards, Thomas Nixon and Capt. Daniel Pelton visited him
for the express purpose of ascertaining whether he had, in any
manner, changed his religious opinions. They were assured by
the dying man that he still held the principles he had expressed
in his writings.
Afterwards, these gentlemen, hearing that William Cobbett
was about to write a life of Paine, sent him the following note :
" New York, April 24th, 1818.
“ Sir: Having been informed that you have a design to write
a history of the life and writings of Thomas Paine, if you have
been furnished with materials in respect to his religious opinions,
oi’ rather of his recantation of his former opinions before his
death, all you have heard of his recanting is false. Being aware
that such reports would be raised after his death by fanatics who
infested his house at the time it was expected he would die, we,
the subscribers, intimate acquaintances of Thomas Paine since the
year 1776, went to his house. He was sitting up in a chair, and
■apparently in full vigor and use of all his mental faculties. We
interrogated him upon his religious opinions, and if he had
changed his mind, or repente'd of anything he had said or wrote
on that subject. He answered, “ Not at all,” and appeared rather
offended at our supposition that any change should take place in
his mind. We took down in writing the questions put to him,
and his answers thereto, before a number of persons then in his
room, among whom were his doctor, Mrs. Bonneville, etc. This
paper is mislaid and cannot be found at present, but the above is
the substance, which can be attested by many living witnesses.
“ THOMAS NIXON,
“ DANIEL PELTON.”
Mr. Jarvis, the artist, saw Mr. Paine one or two days before his
death. To Mr. Jarvis he expressed his belief in his written
opinions upon the subject of religion. B. F. Haskin, an attorney
of the city of New York, also visited him, and inquired as to his
religious opinions. Paine was then upon the threshold of death
but he did not tremble. He was not a coward. He expressed
�VINDICATION OF THOMAS PAINE.
9
his firm and unshaken belief in the religious ideas he had given
to the world.
Dr. Manley was with him when he spoke his last words. Dr.
Manley asked the dying man if he did not wish to believe that
Jesus was the Son of God, and the dying philosopher answered:
“ I have no wish to believe on that subject.” Amasa Woodsworth
sat up with Thomas Paine the night before his death. In 1839
Gilbert Vale, hearing that Mr. Woodsworth was living in or near
Boston, visited him for the purpose of getting his statement.
The statement was published in the Beacon of June 5, 1839,
while thousands who had been acquainted with Mr. Paine were
living.
The following is the article referred to :
“We have just returned from Boston. One object of our visit
to that city was to see a Mr. Amasa Woodsworth, an engineer,
now retired in a handsome cottage and garden at East Cambridge,
Boston. This gentleman owned the house occupied by Paine at
his death—while he lived next door. As an act of kindness, Mr.
Woodworth visited Mr. Paine every day lor six weeks before his
death. He frequently sat up with him, and did so on the last
two nights of his life. He was always there with Dr. Manley,
the physician, and assisted in removing Mr. Paine while his bed
was prepared. He was present when Dr. Manley asked Mr.
Paine ‘if he wished to believe that Jesus Christ was the Son of
God.’ He says that lying on his back he used some action, and,
with much emphasis, replied : ‘ I have no wish to believe on that
subject.’ He lived some time after this, but was nGt known to
speak, for he died tranquilly. He accounts for the insinuating
style of Dr. Manley’s letter, by stating that that gentleman, just
after its publication, joined a church. • He informs us that he has
openly reproved the doctor for the falsity contained in the spirit
of that letter, boldly declaring before Dr. Manley, who is yet liv
ing, that nothing which he saw justified the insinuations. Mr.
Woodsworth assures us that he neither heard nor saw anything
to justify the belief of any mental change in the opinions of Mr.
Paine previous to his death ; but that being very ill and in pain,
chiefly arising from the skin being removed in some parts by long
lying, he was generally too uneasy to enjoy conversation on
abstract subjects. This, then, is the best evidence that can be
procured on this subject, and we publish it while the contravening
parties are yet alive, and with the authority of Mr. Woodsworth.
“ GILBERT VALE.”
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VINDICATION OF THOMAS PAINE.
A few weeks ago I received the following letter, which con
firms the statement of Mr. Vale:
“ Near Stockton, Cal., Greenwood Cottage, July 9, 1877.
“Col. Ingersoll: In 1842 I talked with a gentleman in
Boston. I have forgotten his name ; but he was then an engin
eer of the Charlestown navy yard. I am thus particular, so that
you can find his name on the books. He told me that he nursed
Thomas Paine in his last illness, and closed his eyes when dead.
I asked him if he recanted and called upon God to save him. He
replied : “ No ; he died as he had taught. He had a sore upon
his side, and when we turned him it was very painful, and he
would cry out, ‘ 0 God,’ or something like that.” “ But,” said
the narrator, “ That was nothing, for he believed in a God.” I
told him that I had often heard it asserted from the pulpit that
Mr. Paine had recanted in his last moments. The gentleman said
that it was not true, and he appeared to be an intelligent, truth
ful man.
With respect I remain, &c.,
“ PHILIP GRAVES, M. D.”
The next witness is Willet Hicks, a Quaker preacher. He says
that during the last illness of Mr. Paine he visited him almost
daily, and that Paine died firmly convinced of the truth of the
religious opinions he had given to his fellow men. It was to this
same Willet Hicks that Paine applied for permission to be buried
in the cemetery of the Quakers. Permission was refused. This
refusal settles the question of recantation. If he had recanted,
of course there could have been no objection to his body being
buried by the side of the best hypocrites in the earth. If Paine
recanted, why should he be denied “ a little earth for charity ? ”
Had he recanted, it would h£ve been regarded as a vast and
splendid triumph for the Gospel. It would, with much noise
and pomp and ostentation, have been heralded about the world.
I received the following letter to-day. The writer is well known
in this city, and is a man of high character:
Peoria, III., October 8th, 1877.
Robert G. Ingersoll—Esteemed Friend : My parents were
Friends (Quakers). My father died when I was very youno-.
The elderly and middle-aged Friends visited at my mothers
house. We lived in the city of New York. Among the number,
I distinctly remember Elias Hicks, Willet Hicks, and a Mr.___ -
�VINDICATION OF THOMAS PAINE.
11
Day, who was a book-seller in Pearl street. There were many
others, whose names I do not now remember. The subject of the
recantation of Thomas Paine of his views about the bible in his
last illness, or at any other time, was discussed by them, in my
presence, at different times. I learned from them that some of
them had attended upon Thomas Paine in his last sickness, and
ministered to his wants up to the time of his death. And upon
the question of whether he did recant there was but one expres
sion. They all said that he did not recant in any manner. I
often heard them say that they wished he had recanted. In fact,
according to them, the nearer he approached death the more posi
tive he appeared to be in his convictions.
These conversations were from 1820 to 1822. I was at that
time from ten to twelve years old, but these conversations im
pressed themselves upon me because many thoughtless people
then blamed the Society of Friends for their kindness to that
“ arch-infidel,” Thomas Paine.
Truly yours,
“A. C. HANKINSON.”
A few days ago I received the following:
“ Albany, New York, September 27th, 1877.
“ Dear Sir : It is over twenty years ago that, professionally,
I made the acquaintance of John Hogeboom, a justice of the
peace of the County of Rensselaer, New York. He was then
over seventy years of age, and had the reputation of being a man
of candor and integrity. He was a great admirer of Paine. He
told me he was personally acquainted with him, and used to see
him frequently during the last years of his life in the city of New
York, where Hogeboom then resided. I asked him if there was
any truth in the charge that Paine was in the habit of getting
drunk. He said that it was utterly false ; that he never heard
of such a thing during the life time of Mr. Paine, and did hot
believe any one else did. I asked him about the recantation of
his religious opinions on his death-bed, and the revolting death
bed scenes that the world had heard so much about. He said
there was no truth in them ; that he had received his information
from persons who attended Paine in his last illness, “ and that
he passed peacefully away, as we may say, in the sunshine of a
great soul.” * * *
Yours truly,
“W. J. HILTON.”
The witnesses by whom I substantiate the fact that Thomas
Paine did not recant, and that he died holding the religious opin
ions he had published, are
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VINDICATION OF THOMAS PAINE.
First.—Thomas Nixon, Captain Daniel Pelton, B. F. Haskin.
These gentlemen visited him during his last illness for the pur
pose of ascertaining whether he had, in any respect, changed his
views upon religion. He told them that he had not.
Second.—Jas. Cheetham. This man was the most malicious
enemy Mr. Paine had, and yet he admits that “ Thomas Paine
died placidly, and almost without a struggle.”—Life of Thomas
Paine, by James Cheetham.
Third.—The ministers, Milledollar and Cunningham. These
gentlemen told Mr. Paine that if he died without believing in the
Lord Jesus Christ, he would be damned, and Paine replied: “ Let
me have none of your popish stuff. Good morning.”—Sherwin’s
Life of Paine, page 220.
Fourth.—Mrs. Hedden. She told these same preachers, when
they attempted to obtrude themselves upon Mr. Paine again, that
the attempt to convert Mr. Paine was useless; “ that if God did
not change his mind, no human power could.”
Fifth.—Andrew A. Dean. This man lived upon Paine’s farm,
at New Rochelle, and corresponded with him upon religious sub
jects.—Paine’s Theological Works, page 308.
Sixth.—Mr. Jarvis, the artist with whom Paine lived. He gives
an account of an old lady coming to Paine, and telling him that
God Almighty had sent her to tell him that unless he repented
and believed in the blessed Saviour he would be damned. Paine
replied that God would not send such a foolish old woman with
such an impertinent message.—Clio Rickman’s Life of Paine.
Seventh.—William Carver, with whom Paine boarded. Mr.
Carver said again and again that Paine did not recant. He knew
him well, and had every opportunity of knowing.—Life of Paine
by Vale.
Eighth. Dr. Manley, who attended him in his last sickness,
and to whom Paine spoke his last words. Dr. Manley asked him
if he did not wish to believe in Jesus Christ, and he replied : “ I
have no wish to believe on that subject.”
Ninth.—Willet Hicks and Elias Hicks, who were with him
frequently during his last sickness, and both of whom tried to
persuade him to recant. According to their testimony Mr. Paine
died as he lived—a believer in God and a friend of man. Willet
�VINDICATION OF THOMAS PAINE.
13
Hicks was offered money to say something false against Paine.
He was even offered money to remain silent, and allow others to
slander the dead. Mr. Hicks, speaking of Thomas Paine, said :
“ He was a good man—an honest man.”—Vale’s Life of Paine.
Tenth.—Amasa Woodsworth, who was with him every day for
some six weeks immediately preceding his death, and sat up with
him the last two nights of his life. This man declares that Paine
did not recant, and that he died tranquilly. The evidence of Mr.
Woodsworth is conclusive.
Eleventh.—Thomas Paine himself. The will of Mr. Paine,
written by himself, commences as follows: “ The last will and
testament of me the subscriber, Thomas Paine, reposing confi
dence in my creator, God, and in no other being, for I know of
no other, nor believe in any other and closes with these words :
I have lived an honest and useful life to mankind ; my time
has been spent in doing good; and I die in perfect composure
and resignation to the will of my creator, God.”
Twelfth.—If Thomas Paine recanted why do you pursue him ?
If he recanted he died substantially in your belief; for what
reason, then, do you denounce his death as cowardly ? If, upon
his death-bed, he renounced the opinions he had published, the
business of defaming him should be done by infidels, not by
Christians. w
I ask you if it is honest to throw away the testimony of his
friends—the evidence of fair and honorable men—and take the
putrid words of avowed and malignant enemies ?
When Thomas Paine was dying, he was infested by fanatics—
by the snaky spies of bigotry. In the shadows of death were
the unclean birds of prey waiting to tear, with beak and claw,
the corpse of him who wrote the “ Rights of Manand there,
lurking and crouching in the darkness, were the jackals and
hyenas of superstition ready to violate his grave.
These birds of prey—these unclean beasts—are the witnesses
produced and relied upon by you.
One by one the instruments of torture have been wrenched
from the cruel clutch of the church, until within the armory of
orthodoxy there remains but one weapon—Slander.
Against the witnesses that I have produced you can bring just
�14
VINDICATION OF THOMAS PAINE.
two—Mary Roscoe and Mary Hinsdale. The first is referred to
in the memoir of Stephen Grellet. She had once been a servant
in his house. Grellet tells what happened between this girl and
Paine. According to this account, Paine asked her if she had
ever read any of his writings, and on being told that she had
read very little of them, he inquired what she thought of them,
adding that from such an one as she he expected a correct answer.
Let us examine this falsehood. Why would Paine expect a
correct answer about his writings from one who had read very
little of them ? Does not such a statement devour itself ? This
young lady further said that the “ Age of Reason” was put in
her hands, and that the more she read in it, the more dark and
distressed she felt, and that she threw the book into the fire.
Whereupon Mr. Paine remarked: “ I wish all had done as you
did, for if the devil ever had any agency in any work, he had it
in my writing that book.”
The next is Mary Hinsdale. She was a servant in the family
of Willet Hicks. She, like Mary Roscoe, was sent to carry some
delicacy to Mr. Paine. To this young lady Paine, according to
her account, said precisely the same that he did to Mary Roscoe,
and she said the same thing to Mr. Paine.
My own opinion is that Mary Roscoe and Mary Hinsdale are
one and the same person, or the same story has been, by mistake,
put in the mouths of both.
It is not possible that the identical conversation should have
taken place between Paine and Mary Roscoe, and between him
and Mary Hinsdale.
Mary Hinsdale lived with Willet Hicks, and he pronounced
her story a pious fraud and fabrication. He said that Thomas
Paine never said any such thing to Mary Hinsdale.—Vale’s Life
of Paine.
Another thing about this witness. A woman by the name of
Mary Lockwood, a Hicksite Quaker, died. Mary Hinsdale met
her brother about that time and told him that his sister had
recanted, and wanted her to say so at her funeral. This turned
out to be false.
It has been claimed that Mary Hinsdale made her statement to
Charles Collins. Long after the alleged occurrence Gilbert Vale,
�VINDICATION OF THOMAS PAINE.
15
one of the biographers of Paine, had a conversation with Collins
concerning Mary Hinsdale. Vale asked him what he thought of
her. He replied that some of the Friends believed that she used
opiates, and that they did not give credit to her statements. He
also said that he believed what the Friends said, but thought
that when a young woman, she might have told the truth.
In 1818 William Cobbett came to New York. He began col
lecting materials for a life of Thomas Paine. In this’ way he
became acquainted with Mary Hinsdale and Charles Collins. Mr.
Cobbett gave a full account of what happened in a letter addressed
to the Norwich Mercury in 1819. From this account it seems
that Charles Collins told Cobbett that Paine had recanted.
Cobbett called for the testimony, and told Mr. Collins that he
must give time, place and circumstances. He finally brought a
statement that he stated had been made by Mary Hinsdale.
Armed with this document, Cobbett, in October of that year,
called upon the said Mary Hinsdale, at No. 10 Anthony street,
New York, and showed her the statement. Upon being ques
tioned by Mr. Cobbett, she said, “ that it was so long ago that
she could not speak positively to any part of the matter—that
she would not say that any part of the paper was true—that she
had never seen the paper—and that she had never given Charles
Collins authority to say anything about the matter in her name.”
And so in the month of October, in the year of grace, 1818, in
the mist and fog of forgetfulness, disappeared forever one Mary
Hinsdale, the last and only witness against the intellectual hon
esty of Thomas Paine.
Did Thomas Paine Die in Destitution and Want ?
The charge has been made, over and over again, that Thomas
Paine died in want and destitution; that he was an abandoned
pauper—an outcast, without friends and without money. This
charge is just as false as the rest.
Upon his return to this country, in 1802, he was worth $30,000
according to his own statement, made at that time, in the follow
ing letter, addressed to Clio Rickman:
My Dear Friend: Mr. Monroe who is appointed minister
�16
VINDICATION OF THOMAS PAINE.
extraordinary to France, takes charge of this, to be delivered to
Mr. Este, banker, in Paris, to be forwarded to you.
I arrived in Baltimore, 30th of October, and you can have no
idea of the agitation which my arrival occasioned. From New
Hampshire to Georgia (an extent of 1,500 miles), every news
paper was filled with applause or abuse.
My property in this country has been taken care of by my
friends, and is now worth six thousand pounds sterling, which,
put in the funds, will bring me £400 sterling a year.
Remember me, in affection and friendship, to vour wife and
family, and in the circle of your friends.
THOMAS PAINE.
A man, in those days, worth thirty thousand dollars was not a
pauper. That amount would bring an income of at least two
thousand dollars per annum. Two thousand dollars then, would
be fully equal to five thousand dollars now.
On the 12th of July, 1809, the year in which he died, Mr.
Paine made his will. From this instrument we learn that he was
the-owner of a valuable farm within twenty miles of New York.
He also was the owner of thirty shares in the New York Phoenix
Insurance Company, worth upwards of fifteen hundred dollars.
Besides this, some personal property and ready money. By his
will he eave to Walter Morton and Thomas Addis Emmet, brother
of Robert Emmet, two hundred dollars each, and one hundred
dollars to the widow of Elihu Palmer.
Is it possible that this will was made by a pauper—by a desti
tute outcast—by a man who suffered for the ordinary necessaries
of life?
But suppose, for the sake of the argument, that he v^as poor,
and that he died a beggar, does that tend to show that the bible
is an inspired book, and that Calvin did not burn Servetus ? Do
you really regard poverty as a crime ? If Paine had died a mil
lionaire, would you have accepted his religious opinions ? If
Paine had drank nothing but cold water, would you have repu
diated the five cardinal points of Calvinism ? Does an argument
depend for its force upon the pecuniary condition of the person
making it ? As a matter of fact, most reformers—most men and
women of genius—have been acquainted with poverty. Beneath
J
f
�VINDICATION OF THOMAS PAINE.
17
a covering or rags have been found some of the tenderest and
bravest hearts.
Owing to the attitude of the churches for the last fifteen
hundred years, truth-telling has not been a very lucrative busi
ness. As a rule, hypocrisy has worn the robes, and honesty the
rags. That day is passing away. You cannot now answer the
argument of a man by pointing at the holes in his coat. Thomas
Paine attacked the church when it was powerful—when it had
what is called honors to bestow—when it was the keeper of the
public conscience—when it was strong and cruel. The church
waited till he was dead, and then attacked his reputation and
his clothes.
Once upon a time a donkey kicked a lion. The lion was
dead.
Did Thomas Paine Live the Life of a Drunken Beast, and
Did He Die a Drunken, Cowardly and Beastly Death ?
Upon you rests the burden of substantiating these infamous
charges.
You have, I suppose, produced the best evidence in your pos
session, and that evidence I will now proceed to examine. Your
first witness is Grant Thorburn. He macles three charges against
Thomas Paine. 1st. That his wife obtained a divorce from him
in England for cruelty and neglect. 2nd. That he was a defaulter,
and fled from England to America. 3rd. That he was a drunkard.
These three charges stand upon the same evidence—the word of
Grant Thorburn. If they are not all true, Mr. Thorburn stands
impeached.
The charge that Mrs. Paine obtained a divorce on account of
the cruelty and neglect of her husband is utterly false. There is
no such record in the world, and never was. Paine and his wife
separated by mutual consent. Each respected the other. They
remained friends. This charge is without any foundation in fact.
I challenge the Christian world to produce the record of this de
cree of divorce. According to Mr. Thorburn, it was granted in
England. In that country public records are kept of all such
decrees. Have the kindness to produce this decree, showing that
B
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▼INDICATION OF THOMAS PAINE.
it was given on account of cruelty, or admit that Mr. Thorburn
was mistaken.
Thomas Paine was a just man. Although separated from his
.wife, he always spoke of her with tenderness and respect, and
frequently sent her money without letting her know the source
from whence it came. Was this the conduct of a drunken beast ?
The second charge, that Paine was a defaulter in England and
fled to America, is equally false. He did not flee from England.
He came to America, not as a fugitive, but as a free man. He
came with a letter of introduction, signed by another infidel,
Benjamin Franklin. He came as a soldier of Freedom—an apos
tle of Liberty.
In this second charge there is not one word of truth.
He held a small office in England. If he was a defaulter, the
records of that country will show that fact.
Mr. Thorburn, unless the records can be produced to substan
tiate him, stands convicted of at least two mistakes.
Now as to the third: He says that in 1802 Paine was an
“ old remnant of mortality, drunk, bloated and half asleep.”
Can any one believe this to be a true account of the personal
appearance of Mr. Paine in 1802 ? He had just returned from
France. He had been welcomed home by Thomas Jefferson, who
had said that he was entitled to the hospitality of every American.
In 1802 Mr. Paine was honored with a public dinner in the
city of New York. He was called upon and treated with kind
ness and respect by such men as De Witt Clinton.
In 1806 Mr. Paine wrote a letter to Andrew A. Dean upon the
subject of religion. Read that letter and then say that the writer
of it was an old remnant of mortality, drunk, bloated and half
asleep. Search the files of the New York Observer from the first
issue to the last, and you will find nothing superior to this letter.
In 1803 Mr. Paine wrote a letter of considerable length, and of
great force, to his friend Samuel Adams. Such letters are not
written by drunken beasts, nor by remnants of old mortality, nor
by drunkards. It was about the same time that he wrote his
“ Remarks on Robert Hall’s Sermons.” These “ Remarks” were
not written by a drunken beast, but by a clear-headed and
thoughtful man
�VINDICATION OF THOMAS PAINE.
39
In 1804, he published an essay on the invasion of England, and
a treatise on gun-boats, full of valuable maritime information ; in
1805, a treatise on yellow fever, suggesting modes of prevention.
In short, he was an industrious and thoughtful man. He sympa
thized with the poor and oppressed of all lands. He looked upon
monarchy as a species of physical slavery. He had the goodness
to attack that form of government. He regarded the religion of
his day as a kind of mental slavery. He had the courage to givehis reasons for his opinion. His reasons filled the churches with
hatred. Instead of answering his arguments they attacked him.
Men who were not fit to blacken his shoes blackened his character.
There is too much religious cant in the statement of Mr.
Thorburn. He exhibits too much anxiety to tell what Grant
Thorburn said to Thomas Paine. He names Thomas Jefferson as
one of the disreputable men who welcomed Paine with open
arms. The testimony of a man who regarded Thomas Jefferson
as a disreputable perscn, as to the character of anybody, is utterly
without value.
In my judgment, the testimony of Mr. Thorburn should be
thrown aside as wholly unworthy of belief.
Your next witness is the Rev. J. D. Wickham, D.D., who tells
what an elder in his church said. This elder said that Paine
passed his last days on his farm at New Rochelle, with a solitary
female attendant. This is not true. He did not pass his last
days at New Rochelle; consequently, this pious elder did not see
him during his last days at that place. Upon this elder we prove
an alibi. Mr. Paine passed his last days in the city of New
York, in a house upon Columbia street. The story of the Rev.
J. D. Wickham, D.D., is simply false.
The next competent false witness is the Rev. Charles Hawley,
D.D., who proceeds to state that the story of the Rev. J. D.
Wickham, D.D., is corroborated by older citizins of New Rochelle.
The names of these ancient residents are withheld. According
to these unknown witnesses, the account given by the deceased
elder was entirely correct. But as the particulars of Mr. Paine’s
conduct “ were too loathsome to be described in print,” we are
left entirely in the dark as to what he really did.
While at New Rochelle, Mr. Paine lived with Mr. Purdy, with
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VINDICATION OF THOMAS PAINE.
Mr. Dean, with Capt. Pelton, and with Mr. Staple. It is worthy
of note that all of these gentlemen give the lie direct to the state
ments of “ older residents” and ancient citizens spoken of by
the Rev. Charles Hawley, D.D., and leave him with the “ loachsome particulars” existing only in his own mind.
The next gentleman you bring upon the stand is W. H. Ladd,
who quotes from the memoirs of Stephen Grellett. This gentle
man also has the misfortune to be dead. According to his account,
Mr. Paine made his recantation to a servant girl of his by the
name of Mary Roscoe. To this girl, according to the account,
Mr. Paine uttered the wish that all who read his book had
burned it. I believe there is a mistake in the name of this girl.
Her name was probably Mary Hinsdale, as it was once claimed
that Paine made the same remark to her, but this point I shall
notice hereafter.
These are your witnesses, and the only ones you bring forward
to support your charge that Thomas Paine lived a drunken andl
beastly life, and died a drunken, cowardly and beastly death.
All these calumnies are found in a life of Paine by James Cheet
ham, the convicted libeller already referred to. Mr. Cheetham
was an enemy of the man whose life he pretended to write.
In order to show you the estimation in which this libeller was
held by Mr. Paine, I will give you a copy of a letter that throws
light upon this point:
“ October 27th, 1807.
“ Mr. Cheetham : Unless you make a public apology for theabuse and falsehood in your paper of Tuesday, October 27th, res
pecting me, I will prosecute you for lying.
*
*
*
“ THOMAS PAINE.”
In another letter, speaking of this same man, Mr. Paine says ::
“ If an unprincipled bully cannot be reformed, he can be pun
ished.” “ Cheetham has been so long in the habit of giving falseinformation, that truth is to him like a foreign language.”
Mr. Cheetham wrote the life-of Paine to gratify his malice and
to support religion. He was prosecuted for libel—was convicted'
and fined.
Yet the life of Paine, written by this man, is referred to by the;
Christian world as the highest authority.
�VINDICATION OF THOMAS PAINE.
*
21
As to the personal habits of Mr. Paine we have the testimony
of William Carver, with whom he lived ; of Mr. Jarvis, the artist,
with whom he lived; of Mr. Purdy, who was a tenant of Paine’s;
of Mr. Burger, with whom he was intimate ; of Thomas Nixon
and Capt. Daniel Pelton, both of whom knew him well; of Amasa
Woodsworth, who was with him when he died ; of John Fellows,
who boarded at the same house; of James Wilburn, with whom
he hoarded; of B. F. Haskin, a lawyer, who was well acquainted
with him, and called upon him during his last illness; of Walter
Moi ton, President of the Phoenix Insurance Company; of Clio
Rickman, who had known him for many years; of Willet and
Elias Hicks, Quakers, who knew him intimately and well; of
Judge Hertell, H. Margary, Elihu Palmer and many others. All
these testified to the fact that Mr. Paine was a temperate man.
In those days nearly everybody used spirituous liquors. Paine
was not an exception ; but he did not drink to excess. Mr.
Lovett who kept the City Hotel, where Paine stopped, in a note
to Caleb Bingham, declared that Paine drank less than any
boarder he had.
Against all this evidence you produce the story of Grant
Thorburn—the story of the Rev. J. D. Wickham, that an elder in
his church told him that Paine was a drunkard, corroborated by
the Rev. Charles Hawley, and an extract from Lossing’s history
to the same effect. The evidence is overwhelmingly against you.
Will you have the fairness to admit it ? Your witnessess are
merely the repeaters of the falsehoods of James Cheetham, the
convicted libeller.
After all, drinking is not as bad as lying. An honest drunk
ard is better than a calumniator of the dead. “ A remnant of old
mortality, drunk, bloated and half asleep,” is better than a per
fectly sober defender of human slavery.
To become drunk is a virtue compared with stealing a babe
from the breast of its mother.
Drunkenness is one of the beatitudes, compared with editing a
religious paper devoted to the defence of slavery upon the ground
that it is a divine institution.
Do you really think that Paine was a drunken beast when he
wrote “ Common Sense”—a pamphlet that aroused three millions
�22
VINDICATION OF THOMAS PAINE.
of people as people were never aroused by words before ? Was
he a drunken beast when he wrote the “ Crisis ? ” Was
it to a drunken beast that the following letter was addressed:
“Rocky Hill, September 10, 1783.
“ I have learned, since I have been at this place, that you are
at Bordentown. Whether for the sake of retirement or economy
I know not. Be it for either, or both, or whatever it may, if
you will come to this place and partake with me, I shall be ex
ceedingly happy to see you at it. Your presence may remind
congress of your past services to this country; and if it is in my
power to impress them, command my best exertions with free
dom, as they will be rendered cheerfully by one who entertains
a lively sense of the importance of your works, and who, with
much pleasure, subscribes himself
“Your sincere friend,
“ GEORGE WASHINGTON.”
Did any of your ancestors ever receive a letter like that ?
Do you think that Paine was a drunken beast when the follow
ing letter was received by him :
“ You express a wish in your letter to return to America in a
national ship. Mr. Dawson, who brings over the treaty, and who
will present you with this letter, is charged with orders to thecaptain of the Maryland to receive and accommodate you back,
if you can be ready to depart at such a short warning. You will,
in general, find us returned to sentiments worthy of former times ;
in these it will be your glory to have steadily labored, and with
as much effect as any man living. That you may live long to
continue your useful labors, and reap the reward in the thankful
ness of nations, is my sincere prayer. Accept the assurances of
my high esteem and affectionate attachment.
“THOMAS JEFFERSON.”
Did any of your ancestors ever receive a letter like that ?
“ It has been very generally propagated through the continent
that I wrote the pamphlet ‘ Common Sense.’ I could not have
written anything in so manly and striking a style.
“ JOHN ADAMS.”
“ A few more such flaming arguments as were exhibited at
Falmouth and Norfolk, added to the sound doctrine and unanswer
�VINDICATION OF THOMAS PAINE.
23
able reasoning contained in the pamphlet ‘Common Sense/ will not
leave numbers at a loss to decide on the propriety of a separation.
“ GEORGE WASHINGTON.”
“ It is not necessary for me to tell you how much all your
countrymen—I speak of the great mass of the people—are inter
ested in your welfare. They have not forgotten the history of
their own revolution, and the difficult scenes through which they
passed; nor do they review its several stages without reviving in
their bosoms a due sensibility of the merits of those who served
them in that great and arduous conflict. The crime of ingrati
tude has not yet stained, and, I trust, never will stain, out national
character. You are considered by them as not only having ren
dered important services in our revolution, but as being on a
more extensive scale the friend of human rights and a distin
guished and able advocate in favor of public liberty. To the
welfare of Thomas Paine, the Americans are not, nor can they be,
indifferent.
JAMES MONROE.”
Did any of your ancestors ever receive a letter like that ?
“ No writer has exceeded Paine in ease and familiarity of
style, in perspicuity of expression, happiness of elucidation, and
in simple and unassuming language.
“ THOMAS JEFFERSON.”
Was ever a letter like that written about an editor of the New
York Observer ?
Was it in consideration of the services of a drunken beast that
the legislature of Pennsylvania presented Thomas Paine with five
hundred pounds sterling ?
Did the State of New York feel indebted to a drunken beast,
and confer upon Thomas Paine an estate of several hundred
acres ?
Did the congress of the United States thank him for his ser
vices because he had lived a drunken and beastly life ?
Was he elected a member of the French convention because he
was a drunken beast ? Was it the act of a drunken beast to put
his own life in jeopardy by voting against the death of the king ?
Was it because he was a drunken beast that he opposed the
“ reign of terror ”—that he endeavored to stop the shedding of
blood, and did all in his power to protect even his own enemies ?
�24
VINDICATION OF THOMAS PAINE.
Do the following extracts sound like the words of a drunken
beast:
“ I believe in the equality of man, and I believe that religious
duties consist in doing justice, loving mercy, and endeavoring to
make our fellow creatures happy.”
“ My own mind is my own chuBch.”
“ It is necessary to the happiness of man that he be mentally
faithful to himself.”
“ Any system of religion that shocks the mind of a child can
not be a true system.”
“ The word of God is the creation which we behold.”
“ The age of ignorance commenced with the Christian system.”
“ It is with a pious fraud as with a bad action—it begets a
calamitous necessity of going on.”
“ To read the bible without horror, we must undo everything
that is tender, sympathizing and benevolent in the heart of
man.”
“ The man does not exist who can say I have persecuted him,
or that I have, in any case, returned evil for evil.”
“ Of all the tyrants that afflict mankind, tyranny in religion is
the worst.”
“ The belief in a cruel god makes a cruel man.”
“ My own opinion is, that those whose lives have been spent in
doing good, and endeavoring to make their fellow-mortals happy,
will be happy hereafter.”
“ The intellectual part of religion is a private affair between
every man and his maker, and in which no third party has any
right to interfere. The practical part consists in our doing good
to each other.”
“No man ought to make a living by religion. One person can
not act religion for another—every person must perform it for
himself.”
“ One good schoolmaster is of more use than a hundred
priests.”
“ Let us propagate morality, unfettered by superstition.”
�VINDICATION OF THOMAS PAINE.
25
“ God is the power, or first cause, nature is the law, and matter
as the subject acted upon.”
“ I believe in one God and no more, and I hope for happiness
beyond this life.”
“ The key of happiness is not in the keeping of any sect, nor
•ought the road to it to be obstructed by any.”
“ My religion, and the whole of it, is, the fear and love of the
Deity, and universal philanthropy.”
“ I have yet, I believe, some years in store, for I have a good
State of health and a happy mind. I take care of both, by nourish
ing the first with temperance and the latter with abundance.”
“ He lives immured wiMiin the Bastile of a word.”
How perfectly that sentence describes you. The Bastile in
which you are immured is the word “ Calvinism.”
“ Man has no property in man.”
What a splendid motto that would have made for the New
'York Observer in the olden time I
“ The world is my country—to do good, my religion.”
I ask you again, whether these splendid utterances came from
the lips of a drunken beast ?
CONCLUSION.
From the persistence with which the orthodox have charged,
for the last sixty-eight years, that Thomas Paine recanted, and
that when dying he was filled with remorse and fear ; from the
malignity of the attacks upon his personal character, I had
concluded that there must be some evidence of some kind to
support these charges. Even with my ideas of the average honor
■of believers in superstition—the disciples of fear, I did not quite
believe that all these infamies rested solely upon poorly attested
lies. I had charity enough to suppose that something had been
■said or done by Thomas Paine capable of being tortured into a
foundation for these calumnies. And I was foolish enough to
think that even you would be willing to fairly examine the pre
tended evidence, said to sustain these charges, and give your
honest conclusion to the world. I supposed that you, being
�26
VINDICATION OF THOMAS PAINE.
acquainted with the history of your country, felt under a certain
obligation to Thomas Paine for the splendid services rendered by
him in the darkest days of the Revolution. It was only reason
able to suppose that you were aware that in the midnight of
Valley Forge, the “ Crisis,” by Thomas Paine, was the first star
that glittered in the wide horizon of despair. I took it for
granted that you knew the bold stand taken, and the brave words
spoken by Thomas Paine in the French convention, against the
death of the king. I thought it probable that you, being an
editor, had read the “ Rights of Man;” that you knew that
Thomas Paine was a champion of human liberty; that he was
one of the founders and fathers of this republic ; that he was one of
the foremost men of his age ; that he had never written a word in
favour of injustice; that he was a despiser of slavery; that he ab
horred tyranny in all its forms; that he was in the widest and
highest sense a friend of his race; that his head was as clear as his
heart was good, and that he had the courage to speak his honest
thoughts. Under these circumstances I had hoped that you
would, for the moment, forget your religious prejudices and sub
mit to the enlightened judgment of the world the evidences you
had, or could obtain, affecting in any way the character of so
great and so generous a man. This you have refused to do. In
my judgment you have mistaken the temper of even your own
readers. A large majority of the religious people of this country
have, to a considerable extent, outgrown the prejudices of their
fathers. They are willing to know the truth, and the whole
truth, about the life and death of Thomas Paine. They will not
thank you for having presented to them the moss-covered, the
maimed and distorted traditions of ignorance, prejudice and
credulity. By this course you will convince them, not of the
wickedness of Paine, but of your own unfairness.
What crime had Thomas Paine committed that he should have •
feared to die ? The only answer you can give us, that he denied
the inspiration of the scriptures. If this is a crime, the civilized
world is filled with criminals. The pioneers of human thought__
the intellectual leaders of the world—the foremost men in every
science—the kings of literature and art—those who stand in the
front rank of investigation—the men who are civilizing, elevat
�VINDICATION OF THOMAS PAINE.
.
27"
ing, instructing and refining mankind, are to-day unbelievers inthe dogma of inspiration. Upon this question the intellect of
christendom agrees with the conclusion reached by the genius of
Thomas Paine. Centuries ago a noise was made for the purpose
of frightening mankind. Orthodoxy is the echo of that noise.
The man who now regards the old testament as, in any sense,
a sacred or inspired book, is, in my judgment, an intellectual
and moral deformity. There is in it so much that is cruel,
ignorant and ferocious, that it is to me a matter of amazement
that it was ever thought to be the work of a most merciful Deity.
Upon the question of inspiration, Thomas Paine gave his
honest opinion. Can it be that to give an honest opinion causes
one to die in terror and despair ? Have you, in your writings,
been actuated by the fear of such a consequence ? Why should
it be taken for granted that Thomas Paine, who devoted his life
to the sacred cause of freedom, should have been hissed at in the
hour of death by the snakes of conscience, while editors of
Presbyterian papers, who defended slavery as a divine institu
tion, and cheerfully justified the stealing of babes from the
breasts of mothers, are supposed to have passed smilingly from
earth to the embraces of angels ? Why should you think that
the heroic author of the “ Rights of Man” should shudderingly
dread to leave this “ bank and shoal of time,” while Calvin,
dripping with the blood of Servetus, was anxious to be judged
of God ? Is it possible that the persecutors; the instigators of
the massacre of St. Bartholomew; the inventors and users of
thumb-screws, and iron boots, and racks; the burners and tearers
of human flesh; the stealers, whippers and enslavers of men;.
the buyers and beaters of babes and mothers; the founders of
inquisitions; the makers of chains; the builders of dungeons;
the slanderers of the living and the calumniators of the dead;
all died in the odor of sanctity, with white, forgiven hands
folded upon the breasts of peace, while the destroyers of preju
dice ; the apostles of humanity; the soldiers of liberty; the
breakers of fetters; the creators of light; died surrounded by
the fierce fiends of fear ?
In your attempt to destroy the character of Thomas Paine you
*
have failed, and have succeeded only in leaving a stain upon
*
�28
VINDICATION OF THOMAS PAINE.
your own. You have written words as cruel, bitter and heart
less as the creed of Calvin. Hereafter you will stand in the
pillory of history as a defamer—a calumniator of the dead. You
will be known as ihs man who said that Thomas Paine, the
“Author Hex j, lived a drunken and beastly life, and died a
drunken, cowardly and beastly death. These infamous words
will be branded upon the forehead of your reputation. They
■will be remembered against you, when all else you may have
suttered shall have passed from the memory of men.
ROBERT G. INGERSOLL.
�*
THOMAS PAINE.
�y.
j
I
III
!'i
I.
J,
•ir
I!
�THOMAS PAINE.
MONCURE D CONWAY.
During the International Exposition at Philadelphia, by which
the hundredth year of American independence was celebrated, a
number of eminent citizens of the United States presented to that
city a bust of Thomas Paine. The offer was promptly declined.
After a century of progress in a republic founded in religious
freedom by freethinkers the odium theologicum was still strong
enough, when the list of revolutionary heroes was unrolled for
national homage, to single out for insult the man who in the year
commemorated was idolised beyond all others, above even Wash
ington himself. A recent writer in the Atlantic Monthly remarks
that “ his (Paine’s) career was wonderful, even for the age of
miraculous events he lived in.” This is literally true, but one
may now add that even the wonders of his career while living
.are eclipsed by those which have attended his name and fame.
It would be impossible to find in the eighteenth century a name
surrounded with brighter halo by tho> of his contemporaries
2
*
whom the world now honors; it would be equally impossible to
find in the nineteenth century a name more covered with obloquy.
Nor is this obloquy found in theological quarters alone. There is
a purely mythological Paine still industriously circulated in
pictorial tracts, which show him recanting his opinions, and dying
“ in fear and agony, frightened by the clanking chains of devils—
in fact, frightened to death by God.” But there is also a conven
tionalised Paine whose actuality is admitted even by scholars,
and who is denied a place of honor among independent minds as
contemptuously as the bust was refused a niche in the Indepen
dence Hall at Philadelphia.
At a time when even such a liberal thinker as Mr. Leslie
Stephen is found contributing his assent to the schivarmerei, of
�32
THOMAS PAINE.
traditions and denunciations gathered around the reputation of
Paine, an attempt to secure a rehearing of his case may meet little
favor. Many of the unorthodox may properly repudiate any
thing looking like an admission that the works or character of
Paine form any part of their case. What matters it if he was a
lax thinker, an ignorant, tipsy vagabond ? Concessum sit. His
writings are of no importance to our questions, his political
opinions and deeds have no relation to present emergencies. But
even conceding this, it may be claimed that the man whom, aboveall others, theological hatred has distinguished by the persistency
of its invective has some title to the consideration of a tolerant
age; and further, that polemical writings which elicited more
volumes in reply from eminent theologians than any others of
their time can hardly be without historical interest, if no other.
However, I am induced to submit the present study not by any
desire to vindicate Paine’s opinions, nor even primarily to vindi
cate Paine himself, but by a conviction that beneath the conven
tionalised and vulgarised notion of this man lies obscured a
remarkable chapter of modern history, and altogether hidden one
the best types of English mind and character.
The pious mythology that has gathered around Paine may be
briefly dismissed. All the moming-stars become rebellious and
diabolical Lucifers to those on whose darkness they bring the
light. The light which Paine brought upon the bald dogmas of
a hundred years ago has so far faded to the light of common day,,
that many who regard his name with abhorrence are nearer tohim in belief than to those with whom their notions of the man
originated. To such his reign of terror is generally explained
by the theory that he must have been a blasphemer, and an
atheist of an especially vulgar type. The late Lord Dalling, in
his essay on Cobbett, speaks of Paine as “ an atheist; ” whereas
his theism was pronounced and almost passionate. The Bishopof Llandaff, in replying to Paine, said, “ There is a philosophical
sublimity in some of your ideas when speaking of the Creator of
the universe.” It seems to have been part of the evidences of
such Christianity as Paine opposed that its assailants should die
in agony and terror. The same imagination that invented the
horrors of Faust’s end is, however, somewhat tempered in the
�33
THOMAS PAINE.
sensational pulpit pictures of the death-beds of Voltaire and
Paine; and all may be favorably contrasted with the realistic
scenes attending the last moments of Bruno and some others
which they succeeded. But in Paine’s case an amusing solecism
is presented in the twofold character of the myth, which equally
insists that he recanted his heresies and was nevertheless carried
*
off by devils. The denunciations which have pursued him have
been directed against a man who is yet declared to have died in
the true faith. In truth, poor Paine did have a hard time of it
in his closing days. No sooner was it known that his end was
near than fanatical preachers and women managed to gain en
trance to his room and tried to convert him. To the ministers
who told him that if he died without believing on the Lord
Jesus Christ he would be damned, Paine replied, “ Let me have
none of your popish stuff. Good morning.” A woman came
saying that God had sent her to tell him that unless he repented
and believed in the blessed Saviour he would be damned. Paine
replied that God would not send a foolish old woman with such
an impertinent message. One after another these obtrusive
zealots were dismissed, and finally, in the words of his relentless
enemy, Cheetham, “ Thomas Paine died placidly, and almost
without a struggle.” In the year of his death, 1809, Paine wrote
his will, at the close of which he says : “ I have lived an honest
and useful life to mankind; my time has been spent in doing
good; and I die in perfect composure and resignation to the will
of my Creator, God.”
In the biography of Cobbett, recently published, there are
*
several allusions to Paine, and the efforts made by Cobbett to
repair the wrong he had done to the good name of Paine are indi
cated, though with less fulness than the facts admit of. While
Paine was in France, amid revolutionary scenes and perils, there
appeared in London The Life of Thomas Paine, the Author of
Rights of Man. By Francis Oldys, A.M., of the University of
Pennsylvania. Printed for John Stockdale, Piccadilly, 1791.
Mr. Edward Smith justly characterises it as “one of the most
horrible collections of abuse which even that venal day pro
* The. Life of William Cobbett. By Edward Smith.
C
(Sampson Low & Co.)
�31
TIIOM.AS PAINE.
duced.” It is now known to have been written by George Chal
mers, who fled from America and became a Government clerk and
pamphleteer in England. Paine probably did not see this libel
until long after it was written. The malice displayed in every
line, and its political animus, rendered a reply unnecessary ; and
the pamphlet was sinking into oblivion when William Cobbett
reprinted it in his Censor. He lamented his mistake, and carried
his desire to make reparation to the extent of bringing Paine’s
bones to England in hope that they might be entombed with
honor. The welcome which Cobbett and Paine’s bones received
may be judged from the fact that the Bolton town-crier was im
prisoned ten weeks for announcing their arrival. And now, sixty
years later, for mere mention of these bones with honor, Cobbett’s
biographer has received a sentence of corresponding severity from
a weekly reviewer, who, to the growing Paine-myth, adds the
unique charge of venality !
There are several good biographies of Paine,—such as those
written by Vale, Sherwin, Rickman, Linton,—yet in an impor
tant public library in London the only books concerning him are
the political libel of George Chalmers and the pious libel of
Cheetham, for which he was convicted in a court of Christians.
Cheetham was a Manchester man who went to New York and
edited a paper. No sooner had the grave closed over Paine than
Cheetham, in the same year, published his accusations. The
worst of these involved the honor of a lady, Madame Bonneville,
who promptly prosecuted the accused for slander; and though
the judge reminded the jury that the defendant’s book was calcu
lated to aid Christianity, they brought in a verdict against him
with damages. It is important, however, to state that the most
eminent Christian writers in America were not deceived by these
libels. Thus, the Rev. Solomon Southwick, editor of the Chris
tian Visitor when Cheetham’s book appeared, wrote: “ Had
Thomas Paine been guilty of any crime, we should be the last to
eulogise his memory. But we cannot find he was ever guilty of
any other crime than that of advancing his opinions freely upon
all subjects connected with public liberty and happiness. . . . .
We may safely affirm that Paine’s conduct in America was that
of a real patriot. In the French Convention he displayed the
�35
THOMAS PAINE.
same pure and disinterested spirit............. His life, it is true, was
written by a ministerial hireling, who strove in vain to blacken
his moral character. The late James Cheetham likewise wrote
his life, and we have no hesitation in saying that we knew per
fectly well at the time the motives of that author for writing and
publishing a work which, we have every reason to believe, is a
libel almost from beginning to end. In fact, Cheetham had be
come tired of this country, and had formed a plan to return to
England and become a ministerial editor in opposition to Cob
bett, and his Life of Paine was written to pave his way back
again. *
Although the authorities of Philadelphia have refused to admit
the bust of Paine to a place in Independence Hall, his portrait is
there, and it is near that of George III. This juxtaposition is
proper enough. To these two men may be fairly ascribed the
'• evolution and its event, of which Independence Hall is the his
toric memorial. It was at a time when those American leaders
from whose statuesque company Paine is rejected, sat in the same
place anxious and dismayed, without any clear idea of whithei
the storm was bearing them and the country, that there appeared
among them that Englishman and his Quaker coat who was the
first to pronounce the word “ Independence.” Not for a long
time after the struggle had begun, did the idea of complete separ
ation from England enter the question. The leaders regarded
themselves as resisting a special wrong; and at any time before
Paine began his appeals the English Ministry might have ended
the difficulty by conceding to the colonies immunity from certain
taxes. There is even reason to believe that submission rather
than separation was beginning to be the question in the minds of
many influential Americans at the close of that dark year, 1774,
when Paine arrived in America. “ Independence was a . doctrine
scarce and rare even towards the conclusion of the year ’75. All
our politicks had been founded on the hope or expectation of mak
ing the matter up; a hope which, though general on the side of
America, had never entered the head or heart of the British
Testimonials, <fcc., compiled by J. N. Moreau.
1861
�3(
THOMAS PAINE.
court. * On the 8th of July, 1775, the American Congress
humbly petitioned the king “ that your royal authority and influ
ence may be graciously interposed to procure us relief from our
afflicting fears and jealousies, and to settle peace through every
part of your dominions; with all humility submitting to your
Majesty’s wise consideration, whether it may not be expedient,
for facilitating these important purposes, that your Majesty be
pleased to direct some mode by which the united applications of
your faithful colonists to the throne, may be improved into a
happy and permanent reconci liation.”j- Mr. Penn, who carried
this petition to England, presented it on the 1st of September in
the same year, and on the 4th was informed by Lord Dartmouth
that “no answer would be given to it;” and, although this
haughty attitude induced the revolutionary leaders to listen more
favorably to Paine’s arguments, even then they persuaded him
to strike out of his first pamphlet on the subject a sentence
which seemed to burn their ships. The sentence erased from
Common Sense was:—“ A greater absurdity cannot be conceived
of than three millions of people running to their sea-coast every
time a ship arrived from London, to know what portion of liberty
they should enjoy.
It is probable that even Franklin, who introduced Paine to the
chiefs of the revolution as a friend he had met in London, knew
little of the moral region from which the man had come, or how
much of England he bore with him. No individual of that time
was more related to the feelings and convictions which stirred
the genuine heart of the English people. He went from those
humble clubs which had no constitutions, and met in public
houses and small rooms, wherein were uttered in the ear many
things that have since been proclaimed from the housetops. One
such circle was that which met at the White Hart in Lewes
every evening. Its central figure was the exciseman, Thomas
Paine (then about thirty years of age), who generally had in his
possession the “Headstrong Book,”—an old volume of Homer
* Crisis No. 3. Paine himself appears to have reached the conclusion that com
plete and final separation was necessary only after the battle at Concord and Lex
ington, April 19, 1775.—Common Sense, p. 28.
+ Journals of Congress.
J Rush’s Letter, July 17, 1809.
�THOMAS PAINE.
37
which was delivered to the wrangler who most obstinately and
successfully defended his position in an evening’s debate. It
would not be a little curious if, as Clio Rickman seems to think,
it was while as yet Paine had no reputation beyond the village,
that one of the White Hart company wrote verses to him such as
the following:
“ Thy logic vanquished error, and thy mind
No bounds but those of right and truth confined.
Thy soul of fire must sure ascend the sky,
Immortal Paine, thy fame can never die.”
Paine was not then, indeed, a mere radical in the rough. His
father (a stay-maker) was the son of a respectable Quaker farmer;
his mother the daughter of a lawyer in Thetford, where Paine was
born (1736), and they made sacrifices to secure him the best edu
cation within their reach. He studied well in the Thetford
grammer-school, whose master was the Rev. William Knowles ;
and, at any rate, he appears to have given satisfaction as teacher
of English in an academy in London, where he was employed in
1765. He had also considerable experience of various sides of
life, having served for a time on “ the King of Prussia privateer,”
married, and held the office of exciseman in several places. Paine
possessed some qualities not so common in his countrymen; first
of all, a profoundly religious nature, which at first was manifested
in a tendency to apply scriptural phrases to real things, but ulti
mately expressed itself in those earnest negations which gained
him the name of infidel; secondly, he was morally a man of the
world, entirely without that insularity which is sometimes con
fused with patriotism. Franklin having said, “ Where liberty is,
there is my country,” Paine amended the saying with, “ Where
liberty is not, there is mine.”
Such was the man, and with such antecedents, who emigrated
to America at the moment when the colonists were fighting
against the powers which were even more hated, because more
hopelessly, by poor men like himself in England. The third
Georgian reign, with its corruptions and its unconquerable stupid
ities, could hardly be seen through three thousand miles, as they
were seen by English radicals who read the speeches of Pitt
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THOMAS PAINE.
and the invectives of Junius. Paine was a sort of English
ambassador of this sentiment to which Transatlantic independence
was a dream, while in America it was a dread. In the preface of
that work which literally electrified the American people are these
words, “ The cause of America is in a great measure the cause of
all mankind.”
The work referred to is that entitled Common Sense. It was
published January 1, 1776, and was the first work of Paine’s
which reached the entire nation. The circulation speedily ran to
a hundred thousand. Concerning the effect it produced there can
be no question. Upon this point his admirers and enemies agree.
Rush, who refused to renew acquaintance with him because of his
infidelity, at the same time (1809) wrote, “ Common Sense burst
from the press with an effect which has rarely been produced by
types and paper in any age or country.” Washington writes to
General Reed, March, 1776, “By private letters which I have
lately received from Virginia, I find that Common Sense is work
ing a powerful change in the minds of many men.” And again,
“ A few more such flaming arguments as were exhibited at Fal
mouth and Norfolk, added to the sound doctrine and unanswerable
reasoning contained in the pamphlet Common Sense, will not
leave numbers at a loss to decide on the propriety of a separation.”
General Lee writes to Washington, “ Have you seen the pamph
let Common Sense 1 I never saw such a masterly irresistible
performance. It will, if 1 mistake not, in concurrence with the
trancendent folly and wickedness of the Ministry, give the coup
de grdce to Great Britain. In short, I own myself convinced by
the arguments of the necessity of separation.” But there is no
need to accumulate such quotations. John Adams (who detested
Paine), Jefferson, Franklin, the contemporary historians Gordon
and Ramsay, and all cognisant of the facts, even including Cheet
ham, unite in the testimony that this first appeal for American
independence did more than anything else to unite the colonies
around that aim, and render any subsequent compromise impos
sible. Among the many examples of its effect one may be men
tioned. By request of General Scott, a leading member of the
New York Assembly, who was alarmed at the still semi-treason
able position of Paine, a number of distinguished members of that
�THOMAS PAINE.
39
body met to read the pamphlet and prepare an answer. They
met several evenings. When the readings were ended they unani
mously concluded to attempt no answer.
That Thomas Paine was a charlatan, and his writings shams,
is now so often assumed, that perhaps one may, without arro
gance, express concurrence with the estimate of the American
statesmen and generals. If an essay is to be judged, like an
organism in nature, by its degree of adequacy to its own ends,
Paine’s Common Sense may be numbered among the few perfect
works ; and those who regard the detachment of the English
colonies in America, and their constitution as a republic, in the
light of a necessary world-event, may further regard as a great
work the pamphlet so-adapted to a great purpose. To that pur
pose, if it were to succeed, it was necessary to unite thirteen
colonies, representing several centres of various history, interest,
relio-ion, and even, to some extent, of race. The people of New
England, severely trained in the religion of obedience to rulers,
and rendering unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s; the Dutch
population of New York, so slow to arouse; the Quakers of
Pennsylvania, with their already loud testimonies against armed
resistance; the old English families of Maryland, Virginia, and
elsewhere, whose pride as well as sentiment clung to “ the mother
country,” as so many in Canada now do ; all these must be com
bined and concentrated upon an aim which, if it should fail,
would be treason,—if it should succeed, would but launch them
upon an unknown sea, whose farther shore was haunted by dan
gers more formidable than their pilgrim fathers had encountered.
Paine begins by penetrating the superstition about Government.
It is the expedient of men living in society to defend themselves
against the wickedness of exceptional persons. They prudently
surrender part of their property to protect the rest. “ Society in
every state is a blessing, but Government in its best state is but
a necessary evil ; in its worst state an intolerable one , for when
we suffer or are exposed to the same miseries by a Government,
which we might expect in a country without a Government, our
calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means
by which we suffer.” There follows an illustration likely to tell
upon the colonial mind—a small number of people in some
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THOMAS PAINE.
sequestrated region; their co-operation under common difficulty s,
their decrease of reciprocal attachment when prosperity did away
with dangers which had bound them in a common cause; the
appearance of vice, followed by the need of regulations. “ Some
convenient tree will afford them a state-house, under the branches
of which the whole colony may assemble to deliberate on public
matters. ... In this first Parliament every man by natural
right will have a seat.” But with increase of the colony general
convenience will require the selection of a few from the whole
body. This is all very simple, and says Paine, “ the more simple
anything is, the less liable is it to be disordered, and the easier
repaired when disordered.” With which maxim in view he
reaches, on the fourth page, the Constitution of England. “ Abso
lute Governments (through the disgrace of human nature) have
this advantage with them, that they are simple; if the people
suffer they know the head from which their sufferings springs,
know likewise the remedy, and are not bewildered by a variety
of causes and cures. But the Constitution of England is so ex
ceedingly complex that the nation may suffer for years together,
without being able to discover in which part the fault lies; some
will say in one and some in another, and every political physician
will advise a different medicine.”
The English Constitution, he says, is compounded of—1. The
remains of Monarchical Tyranny in the person oi the King; 2.
The remains of Aristocratical Tyranny in the persons of the
Peers; 3. The new Republican Materials in the persons of the
Commons, on whose virtue depends the freedom of England.
“ To say that the Constitution of England is a union of three
powers, reciprocally checking each other, is farcical.” How came
the King by a power which the People are afraid to trust and
always obliged to check ? This question, which it is always so
easy for a peaceful and prosperous people to answer, was put by
Paine to a nation who knew none of those practical advantages
of monarchy which are its only real arguments. A power, he
says, that needs checking, cannot be from God, nor could it be the
gift of a wise people. Nor, he adds, is the check adequate, while
the King is giver of places and pensions. “ Though we have been
wise enough to shut and lock a door against absolute Monarchy,
�THOMAS PAINE.
41
• we at the same time have been foolish enough to put the Crown
in possession of the key.” General principles like these are fol
lowed by a scriptural argument. It is presented with entire
sincerity—for the Age of Reason is yet fifteen years away—and
makes such use of the divine reproofs of the Israelites for wishing
a king as could not have been answered by any pulpit in the
land at that day.
Samuel’s diatribe (I. viii. 10) plentifully interlarded with
applications, ending with “Ye shall cry out in that day because
of your King which ye shall have chosen, and the Lord will not
hear you in that day,” passed from the pen of Paine to the
pulpits as the voice of prophecy. With equal force did the
author touch every variety of sentiment. Did the Quakers long
for peace ? Kings and civil wars go together. “ Thirty kings
and two minors have reigned in that distracted kingdom (Eng
land) since the Conquest, in which time there have been (includ
ing the Revolution) no less than eight civil wars and nineteen
rebellions.” Did the old gentleman talk tenderly of the old
home and mother country ? There lay the dead of Concord and
Lexington, there was the cold, unnatural disdain of every petition J
“ wherefore since nothing but blows will do, for God’s sake let
us come to a final separation, and not leave the next generation
to the cutting of throats under the violated unmeaning names of
parent and child.” Were some faint-hearted ? He reminded
them how many allies they might expect as an independent
country; how America was without an enemy in the world
except as being a part of Great Britain. He awakened the poor
by tracing poverty to dependence, and pointing out the vast
resources of the country which, could America trade directly
with foreign nations, would make them the richest of nations.
He also enlisted the pride of the non-English settlers by his
sentence—" Europe, and not England, is the parent country of
America.” Nay, even the Reconciliationists he convinced by his
argument to show the perils of their plan, even were it possible
—an argument which the King was rendering final by his speech
on the same day that Paine’s pamphlet was published. In addi
tion to this there was a remarkably clear outline of a colonial
republic such as might be formed, and a demonstration of the
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THOMAS PAINE.
presence of both the men and means to conduct the same. “ No •
writer,” wrote Jefferson, “ has exceeded Paine in ease and famili
arity of style, in perspicuity of expression, happiness of elucida
tion, and in simple and unassuming language.” This is eminently
true of Common Sense, which is almost as free from suggestion
of the writer’s personality as the Declaration of Independence.
The man is utterly merged in the cause he has espoused, and
the result is a style never arrogant, yet strangely authentic. Its
wonderful effect was much enhanced by their knowledge that its
author had devoted the copyright to the colonies.
The year which gave the Colonies the Declaration of Inde
pendence on paper, brought them mainly reverses on the field.
Things went from bad to worse, until, late in the winter, Wash
ington wrote to a Congress which had fled for safety, “ Ten days
more will put an end to this army.” At that time Paine was
serving under Washington as a common soldier, and every night,
while others tried to snatch a little repose, he was writing his
next great production, that number of The Crisis whose vast
effect has made it historic. It was a little piece, afterwards
printed in eight pages, written by the light of camp-fires during
Washington’s retreat through the Jerseys with only 2,600 men,
his best arms in the hands of the enemy. The last sentence was
written on the 23rd of December (1776), and Washington sum
moned together his dismayed and shivering soldiers to hear it
read. It opened with these words
These are the times that
try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot
will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he
that stands it now, deserves the thanks of man and woman.”
On the Christmas night after this was read to the remnant of
his army, Washington recrossed the Delaware, and on the follow
ing day encountered the British forces at Trenton. It was the
first victory of the Americans. The soldiers rushed into battle
with the cry, “ These are the times that try men’s souls,” and the
nation ascribed their triumph to the pen of Paine. He speedily
became the most popular man in America. Public expressions
of gratitute poured in upon him from Congress and the State
legislatures, with testimonials in money—it being found that he
had impoverished himself by giving his copyright to the national
�THOMAS PAINE.
43
cause—and the University of Pennsylvania awarded him the
degree of A. M. The United States Congress elected him
Secretary of its most important Committee, that of Foreign
Affairs. And though he presently lost this by his “ imprudence”*
in attacking a fraudulent claim urged against the nation by one
Silas Deane, who was backed by an American clique and the
French Government, the State of Pennsylvania made him Clerk
of its Legislature. While serving in this capacity, it became
Paine’s duty on one occasion (1780) to read to the Legislature a
letter from Washington describing the deplorable situation
caused by the capture of Charleston by the British. “ A despair
ing silence pervaded the House” when this letter had been read,
for the treasury was empty. Paine at once drew his salary, and,
proposing a subscription, headed it with five hundred dollars.
*
He was the poorest man present, and the others at once came
forward with their contributions which, taken up by Congress,
surmounted the emergency.
Paine had for some years indulged the hope of influencing affairs
in England. “ I was strongly impressed with the idea that if I
could get over to England without being known, and only remain
in safety till I could get out a publication, I could open the eyes
of the country with respect to the madness and stupidity of the
government.” Full of this hope he went to Paris in 1787, bear
ing with him letters of introduction to eminent men there, and,
after a brief sojourn, the same year crossed to England, and
hastened to Thetford. His father was dead; he settled on his
mother a weekly allowance of nine shillings. At this time he
appears to have been mainly occupied with an iron bridge which
he had invented, a model of which had been exhibited to the
Academy of Sciences in Paris and received its approbation. The
bridge was cast and erected at Rotherham, Yorkshire, in 1790.
* Journals of Congress, Jan. 7-16, 1779. A similar disregard of his own inter
ests was shown by Paine in a pamphlet written by him against certain cherished
territorial claims of Virginia, at a time when a bill was pending in the Legislature
of that State to offer him a sum of money. As he was forewarned, his pamphlet
defeated the bill. (Letter of Lee to Washington, 23rd July, 1784.) In the
Deane affair, Congress showed its appreciation of the patriotic character of
Paine’s “imprudence” by voting him three thousand dollars.
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THOMAS PAINE.
At the close of the same year Paine was engaged writing, at the
Angel, Islington, his Rights of Man. Part I. appeared in 1791,
Part II. in 1792. And now Paine’s collaborateurs, so far as his
literary success was concerned—the Ministry—came to his
aid again. The work reached a circulation of nearly forty
thousand, on its merits as an answer to Burke. Ferocious de
nunciations of it, culminating in a prosecution and outlawry of
the author, secured for it a reading hardly less than that which
Common Sense had enjoyed in America. “Paine’s Rights of
Man,” says Hazlitt, “was the only really powerful reply [to
Burke’s Reflections']; and, indeed, so powerful and explicit that
the government undertook to crush it by an ex-officio information, and by a declaration of war against France, to still the
ferment and excite an oduim against its admirers, as taking part
with a foreign enemy against their princ.e and country.”
Paine had a sixpenny edition of the work printed, from which
the profit on each copy was twopence; nevertheless it speedily
earned £1,000, which Paine, though still poor, gave to the Society
of Constitutional Information, in London, to be distributed as
they should see best. This society circulated vast numbers of
Paine’s works, and among other things 12,000 copies of his Letter
to Mr. Secretary Dundas, one of the most effective things Paine
ever wrote. Dundas (May 25, 1792) had opened the debate in
the House of Commons on the proclamation against “ wicked and
seditious publications,” and had especially directed the epithets
against the Rights of Man. This gave Paine an opportunity
which he was not likely to disregard, and his reply took the form
of a contrast between the then uncomfortable state of financial
and other affairs in England, and the prosperity which was
already springing up in America.
Legal proceedings were instituted against Paine for his book,
May 21, and he resolved to defend himself in person at the trial,
which was appointed for the following December. This deter
mination was changed by a deputation which came from France
to inform him of his election by the department of Calais to
represent them in the National Convention. The government
did not detain him, probably were glad to be rid of him; at any
rate, in the state of public feeling at the time, an arrest of an
�THOMAS PAINE.
45
American citizen and member of the French Convention might
have been attended with serious complications.
While Paine was the theme of a new national anthem with
one party, and was being burnt in effigy by another in his native
land, he passed to Calais to be welcomed as a hero, and thence
made a sort of triumphal journey to France. But he had left
behind him the times that tried men’s souls. During the whole
of the year 1793 the Government was mainly employed in trying
to trample out the works of Paine. Taking the last six months of
that year, we find in the Cambridge Independent, the only paper
audacious enough even to print full reports of the proceedings,
paragraphs which reveal the extent of the crusade. The religi
ous heresies of Paine had not yet been printed in England, and
the work mainly prosecuted was The Rights of Man. On July
18 Mr. Cook, a baker at Cambridge, was sentenced to three
months’ imprisonment for having, three years and a half previ
ously, said that “ he wished all the churches were pulled down
to mend the roads with; and as to the King’s Chapel, he should
like to see it turned into a stable.” In the ardour of ferreting
out Paine’s works, this ancient offence, like many others, was
brought to light and punished. At Nottingham, Daniel Holt, for
selling a volume by Paine, was sentenced to £50 fine, two years’
imprisonment, with two sureties for good behavior afterwards.
The Messrs. Robinson, publishers, were fined £200 for selling a
copy, though the firm had published “ A Protest against Mr.
Paine’s Works.’’ A boy named Sutton, at Ashfield, was fined
£20, with a year’s imprisonment, for “ avowing himself a Painite.” George Eden, for the same offence, was fined one shilling
and imprisoned six months. Peart and Belcher, at Warwick,
Phillips, at Leicester, and many other booksellers, were fined and
imprisoned ; among these being Mr. Spence, “ in Little Turnstile,
Holborn,” which cannot be far from where Mr. Truelove has so
long freely sold the works of Paine, and others much more radi
cal, beside the little table on which Paine wrote The Rights of
Man. In the few cases where gentlemen, were found distribut
ing the books the penalties were very severe. Thus Mr. Fische
Palmer was sentenced at Perth to seven years’ transportation for
assisting the publication and circulation of Paine’s works, in the
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THOMAS PAINE.
interest of parliamentary reforms to which he had been for
many years devoted. Mr. Thomas Muir, of Huntershill, for
having advised persons to read “ the works of that wretched
outcast Paine” (to quote the Lord Advocate’s words), was actually
sentenced to fourteen years’ transportation. The sentence was
received amid hisses from the gallery. The tipstaff being ordered
by the Lord Justice Clerk to take those who hissed into custody,
replied, “ My lord, they’re all hissing.” There were, indeed, large
numbers of people who viewed these proceedings with indigna
tion, but something like an apparent suppression was at length
reached. The famous town-crier of Bolton who reported to his
masters that he had been round that place, “ and found neither
the Rights of Man nor Common Sense in it,” made a statement
characteristic of the time. Yet at that time there were in the
country more than a hundred thousand volumes of Paine in
circulation among the people. They were read in secret, and the
race of old Radicals has hardly run out which remembers reading
the books on Sundays in fields—in groups, whose numbers
alternately read, listened, and went off to keep a look-out for
the police.
For a little time after his arrival in Paris, Paine enjoyed what
to the majority of the republicans in his time would have been
all that the heart of man could desire. It was a year of sun
shine, but Paine never outgrew his Quakerism, and hated all the
fuss and pomp with which the Parisians insisted on lionising
“ the author hero of the Revolution.” Possibly he might have
adapted himself to such things better had he been able to speak
the French language; but as he did not, he was probably em
barrassed by the attentions he received. Madame Roland has
expressed, in her Appeal, the regret she felt at being unable to
converse with Paine ; but she listened carefully to his discourse
with others, and being able to understand English, she was im
pressed by “ the boldness of his conceptions, the originality of
his style, the striking truths he throws out bravely among those
whom they offend.” Paine was described by Aaron Burr, hypercrititical in such matters, as a gentleman ; and the sense in which
he was so may be understood from a passage in one of Lord
Edward Fitzgerald’s letters from Paris to his mother,—“ I lodge
�THOMAS PAINE.
47
with my friend Paine ; we breakfast, dine, and sup together. The
more I see of his interior the more I like and respect him. I
cannot express how kind he has been to me. There is a simpli
city of manner, a goodness of heart, and a strength of mind in
him that I never knew a man before to possess.” Paine was,
however, deficient in the dexterities of general society; he could
not comprehend the pride that infuses what is called loyalty, nor
such transmitted instincts as those which make the moral accent
of words like infidel and miscreant. That was good arable
soil to him which to some around him was burning lava,—foi
*
instance to that young aristocrat, Captain Grimstone, who once
leaped from the table at a dinner-party and struck him on the
head, calling him an incendiary and traitor to his country. The
old man of sixty only resented this by saving the young man’s
life—it being punishable with death to strike a deputy—and pro
viding him with money to leave the country.
This was not the only instance of Paine’s personal kindness
to members of the high English circle, whose ordinary toast in
those days was “ Damnation to Thomas Paine !” He gave £200
to General O’Hara, who was his fellow-prisoner. These incidents,
however, made little impressions in his favor, and it was, per
haps, the only glad tidings which had reached the ruling class in
England from Paris for many a day when it was announced by
the London journals that Paine had been guillotined. The fact
that Paine must have suffered under sentence of revolutionists
for mercy to a fallen monarch seemed only to sweeten their
revenge.
Coming as the rumor of his death did along with the terrible
Age of Reason, it was easily shown to be a divine judgment.
But, in fact, it was Paine who could felicitate himself on provi
dential intervention. The facts are sufficiently striking. Neither
soldiering under Washington, agitating revolutions, nor lionising
at republican courts, had destroyed the Quaker of Thetford;
and when it was proposed to execute the King, it was he who rose
up in the French Convention and testified against capital punish
ment, begging them to kill the King, but spare the man. He
pleaded that Louis Capet should be banished to America—for his
education! “ He may learn from the constant aspect of pubfic
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THOMAS PAINE.
prosperity that the true system of government consists not in
kings, but in fair, equal and honorable representation.” The
angry radicals of the Robespierre faction were utterly unable to
comprehend this language in the supposed arch-firebrand of
America, and it looks as if they suspected that the English had
bought him; at any rate, after he had been thrown into prison,
the Americans in Paris went in a body to demand his release,
and were refused on the ground that Paine was an English
citizen.
It was also stated to the American deputation that the Amnrican Minister, Morris, had taken no interest in the case, which
unhappily was true. Paine could understand that; there were
private reasons for the hostility of Morris; but neither he nor
any American in Europe doubted that when the tidings had
reached the United States that nation would be indignant, and
that Washington, now President, would instantly demand his
friend’s release. In that, too, he was disappointed. Washington
gave no sign, but left Paine to languish 4n prison for nearly a
year. This was equivalent to a death sentence coming from
Washington. Though Monroe came as Minister, superseding
Morris, and exerted himself to the utmost to secure Paine’s
release, it was soon discovered by Robespierre that he had
brought no instruction favorable to Paine; and the sentence of
death was passed. On the night when a chalk-mark was put on
the door of each prisoner who was to be executed in the morning,
Paine’s door happened to be open, so that when closed the mark
was on the inside. By this accident his life was preserved. A
few days after, Robespierre fell. But though that fall occurred
on the 27th July, it was not until the 4th November (1794) that
Paine was set at liberty—the continued silence of Washington
causing the belief that the imprisonment was agreeable to him.
This was a terrible humiliation. Washington was now a hero
in the eyes of all Europe, and his published praises of Paine
were known to the world. Paine had dedicated to Washington
his first work on the Rights of Man, and to Lafayette his
second ; and it was to him that Lafayette had entrusted the key
of the Bastile to be presented to Washington. After all this
Washington delivers him up silently to death! Whatever may
�THOMAS PAINE.
49
have been the cause, no one can wonder at the bitterness of the
letter which Paine wrote to Washington after it, and it would
seem to require a great deal of partiality to judge the passionate
words of the aggrieved prisoner an pied de la lettre, while
putting indulgent constructions on the deliberate and neverexplained action of Washington.
On his way to prison Paine had managed to call at the rooms
of one of the most eminent American writers of that time, Joel
Barlow, and entrust to him the manuscript of a work on which
he had for some time been engaged—the Age of Reason. Even
in childhood, Paine tells us, he had rebelled against some features
of the popular theology ; but the long struggle with poverty, the
American revolution, political controversies, prevented his giving
much attention to the subjects treated in the Age of Reason
until later life; and there are evidences in his earlier works that,,
while abandoning the more familiar dogmas of orthodoxy, he
had not specially considered such subjects as supernaturalism and
the general value of the Bible until after the American revolu
tion had ceased. There was, indeed, in most of the political
leaders in that revolution a sceptical spirit, as was only natural
when it is remembered that George III. was the visible head of
the Church. The late Hon. Jared Sparks, while President of
Harvard University, showed me some letters which passed be
tween Jefferson and Paine on religious subjects. I believe they
are still withheld from the public, and no doubt more for the
sake of the great Virginian’s reputation than for that of Paine,
who, as I remember, was by no means the more unorthodox of
the two. It was indeed the earnest way in which Paine regarded
all matters of human interest, his religious sense of the duty of
testifying against what he considered public errors and wrongs,
even at such cost as Fox, Barclay, and other saints of the Thet
ford household had paid before him, which led to the Age of
Reason and the author’s impalement. Even as regards positive
beliefs, Paine was nearer to the received standards than many
who now join in the hue and cry against him. On the first page
of his denounced work he says,—“ I believe in one God, and no
more ; and I hope for happiness beyond this life. I believe the
equality of man; and I believe that religious duties consist in
D
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THOMAS PAINE.
doing justice, loving mercy, and endeavoring to make our
fellow-creatures happy.” There is no action or word in Paine’s
life or writings which impeaches the sincerity of this creed. But
he further believed what many liberal thinkers yet do not, that
it is necessary to the happiness of man that he be mentally
faithful to himself. Infidelity does not consist in believing, or in
disbelieving; it consists in professing to believe what he does
not believe.” The negative positions of the Age of Reason are
still exercising a profound influence on innumerable minds^ de
spite the repeated announcement that the book is dead and
buried. It would be difficult to find in any modern work more
forcible popular statements than those found on nearly every
page. “ Admitting that something has been revealed to a certain
person, it is revelation to the first person only and hearsay to
every other. “ The trinity of gods was no other than a reduc
tion of the former plurality, which was about twenty or thirty
thousand; the statue of Mary succeeded the statue of Diana of
Ephesus; the deification of heroes changed into the canoni
sation of saints; the mythologists had gods for everything ;
the Christian mythologists had saints for everything; the Church
became as crowded with the one as the Pantheon had been with
the other; and Rome was the place of both.” “ The morality
that he (Christ) preached and practised was of the most benevo
lent kind; and though similar systems of morality had been
preached by Confucius, and by some of the Greek philosophers,
many years before, by the Quakers since, and by many good men
in all ages, it has nbt been exceeded by any.” “ The Christian
mythologists tell us that then Satan made war against the
Almighty, who defeated him and confined him afterwards ....
in a pit; .... the fable of Jupiter and the Giants was told
many hundred years before that of Satan.” “ They represent
him (Satan) as having compelled the Almighty to the direct
necessity either of surrendering the whole of the creation to the
govenment and sovereignty of this Satan, or of capitulating for
its redemption by coming down upon earth, and exhibiting
himself upon a cross in the shape of a man........... They make
the transgressor triumph and the Almighty fall.” “ Is the gloomy
pride of man become so intolerable, that nothing can flatter it
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51
but a sacrifice of the Creator?” “When we contemplate the
immensity of that Being who directs and governs the incompre
hensible WHOLE, of which the utmost ken of human sight can
discover but a part, we ought to feel shame at calling such
paltry stories (e.g. that of Samson and Delilah, the foxes, &c.)
the Word of God.” “It (the Church) has set up a religion of
pomp and of revenue, in pretended imitation of a person whose
life was humility and poverty.” “The Word of God is the
Creation we behold .... which no human invention can coun
terfeit or alter.” “ The Creation speaketh an universal language.”
What homage should we have heard if, in any orthodox work
of the last century, had occurred the far-seeing astronomic specu
lations of the Age of Reason ! It was from the humble man who
in early life studied his globes, purchased at cost of many a din
ner, and attended the lectures of Martin, Ferguson, and Bevis,
that there came twenty-one years before Herschel’s famous paper
on the Nebulae, the sentence,—“ The probability, therefore, is that
each of those fixed stars is also a sun, round which another sys
tem of worlds or planets, though too remote for us to discover,
performs its revolutions.”
It has been so often said as to have become a general belief,
that the Age of Reason is a mass of ribaldry. The work, how
ever, is a very serious one, and the sentences I have quoted are
characteristic of its spirit. In patiently going through the Old
and New Testaments, and examining narratives for which literal
inspiration was claimed, it was impossible not to point out primi
tive features which seem grotesque when made salient amid
modern customs and ideas. There are a few instances in which
Paine dwells upon the absurdity which is presented to his mind,
—in one or two cases with questionable taste, as in his picture of
the people coming out of their graves and walking about Jeru
salem, according to Matthew,—but I know of no similar investi
gation in which the writer’s mind is so generally fixed upon the
simple question of truth and falsehood, and so rarely addicted to
ridicule. Few will deny the difficulty, however reverent the
reciter, of relating the story of Jonah and the whale without
causing a smile. Paine’s smile is in two sentences; in one place
he says it would have been nearer to the idea of a miracle if
�52
THOMAS PAINE.
Jonah had swallowed the whale, elsewhere that if credulity could
swallow Jonah and the whale it could swallow anything. But
after this, for him, unusual approach to the ribaldry of which he
is so freely accused, Paine gives over three pages of criticism on
the Book of Jonah, not only grave and careful, but presenting
perhaps the earliest appreciation of the moral elevation and large
aim of that much-neglected legend.
A great many sneers have been directed against Paine because
of the fact mentioned by himself, with his usual naivety that
when he wrote Part I. of the Age of Reason he had not a copy of
the Bible in his room. But the circumstance is not without its
more impressive significance. Paine had already received intima
tion that his arrest was certain and near. The guillotine was
within the shadow closing about him. There was but one
anxiety it brought—the remembrance that he had not yet written
a sentence of that testimony against superstition, which had been
gathering the importance of his final duty to mankind. For
ordinary purposes he had no need of a Bible ; he had been in all
his early life fed on little else ; he had now to run a race with
the faction of Robespierre. This book was written during the
few days of liberty remaining to him, and six hours after the last
sentence was penned he was on his way to prison. He addressed
it “ to the protection of the citizens of the United States,” man
aged to get it into the hands of Joel Barlow, and so soon as he
could get pen and paper began in prison Part II. of the same
work. The greater part, therefore, of the book was written by a
man who believed that death was near and certain. Part II. was
destined, however, to be published when he had become free, and
was able to refer to chapter and verse with a fulness and accu
racy which his opponents liked far less than the more vague and
reserved allusions of the first production. Mr. Yorke, a wellknown Englishman of the time, who visited him in Paris, wrote:
“ The Bible is the only book which he has studied, and there is
not a verse in it that is not familiar to him.”
Paine’s life abounds in such curious incidents, and instances of
luck, that at a somewhat earlier period he would probably have
been supposed under the protection of the devil for a term. The
incident of the chalk mark which had saved him from the guil
�THOMAS PAINE.
53
lotine was followed by a long fever, during which his insensibility
for a month prevented further proceedings against him; and,
when he was at liberty, he engaged a passage for America in a
vessel commanded by Commodore Barney, but was detained by
some slight circumstance which saved his life, for the vessel sank
at sea.
Paine had become utterly disgusted with French politics. He
was receiving every day reproaches from England because of his
Age of Reason, many of his former friends having turned against
him. The echoes from America were as yet few. The neglect of
him in his distress by Washington was counterbalanced by the
friendship of the new President, Jefferson, who had offered him
an American ship in which to return. The sufferings and fever
which he had undergone in prison. had seriously impaired his
health and strength ; indeed he never recovered them again. He
more than ever pictured America as the one perfect land. To a
lady who wrote to him from New York, he replied:—•“ You touch
me on a very tender point when you say that my friends on your
side of the water cannot be reconciled to the idea of my abandon
ing America, even for my native England. They are right. I had
rather see my horse, Button, eating the grass of Bordertown, oi
Morrisiana, than see all the pomp and show of Europe.” But a
terrible disenchantment awaited him. When he returned to
America it was to find most of his old friends turned to enemiesThe very lady who had so written, and her husband, refused to
receive the author of the Age of Reason, which now had become
the horror of every pulpit; Samuel Adams, Benjamin Bush, and
of course Washington, would have nothing to do with him. The
Federalists of the North who wished to make the United States
another England, and hated everything French, dreaded him ; the
slaveholders of the South had been alarmed at his having written
about the abolition of slavery— ‘ We must push that mattez
further on your side of the water. I wish that a few well-instruct
ed negroes could be sent among their brethren in bondage; for.
until they are enabled to take their own part, nothing will bft
done.”* The nation which he had left glorified by enthusiasm
Written to a friend in Philadelphia from Paris, March 16, 1789.
�54
THOMAS PAINE.
for liberty, had sunk to the work of protecting slavery j sectarian
ism and dogmatism, having lost their ancient supports in the
State, were industriously replacing them with a revival of intoler
ance before which great men were bowing who used to talk more
heresy than Paine. The poor man was almost abandoned. It
need hardly excite wonder if in the solitude to which he was
forced, and in his enfeebled health, the old man drank enough
for pious imagination to turn him into a sot. There is not the
least doubt that Paine was a temperate man up to the time when,
close upon seventy, his friends began to turn from him. The
weakness that followed his imprisonment first led him to use
stimulants in any noticeable degree, but there is no doubt that
Barlow is the truest witness in saying that Paine was a temperate
man “ till he conceived himself neglected and despised by his for
mer friends in the United States.” But, admitting that during
the closing three years of his life—he was over seventy-two at
death—Paine drank more than was good for him, it is certain
that it was not enough to prevent his writing during those years
many able essays, and also that it would not have been heard of
but for that heterodoxy which exposeth a multitude of sins.
Whether the one fault which undertook this old man, Thomas
Paine, so warm-hearted and faithful, casts the darker shadow
over his own career or over those who gave him up to be the
scape-goat demanded by defeated bigotry and oppression, is a
question on which future critics may have something to say.
For the present it is enough to know that Thomas Paine has been
selected for special odium, not because he was an immoral man,
for he was not that,—the only charge of that kind ever made
recoiled on the accuser, and proved the singular generosity of the
accused to a deserted family; not because he was irreligious, he
was the reverse of that by episcopal testimony; not even because
he was unorthodox, for he was chief founder of the society of
Theo-philanthropists in Paris (1797) in opposition to the atheistic
opinions which found many adherents not only there, but in Eng
land, whose fame, however, has suffered far less than that of this
devout theist and admirer of Christ; but because he wrote for the
people and had the power of convincing them, and this brought
on a panic among those interested in the existing theological and
�THOMAS PAINE.
»
55
political order. It was on the works of Paine that the battle of a
free press, and that of free thought, were fought and won in Eng
land. The battle did indeed rage for many years after Paine was
dead. I have before me a printed paragraph taken from an
English newspaper of the year 1823, which tells a significant
story:—“ Some persons have, we are informed, purchased the
lease of a house in Fleet Street, near St. Bride’s Church, which
they have underlet to Richard Carlile, for the purpose of enabling
him to vend his numerous publications. This is one of the con
sequences of vindictive persecutions for opinions. Persecute
truth, and it will be seen to flourish: persecute error, and many
will be induced ,to embrace it from sympathy with the sufferers.
Carlile was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment and fines of
£1,500. The three years expired in November last, and he has
since been and now is held in Dorchester jail for the fine. His
sister was also sentenced to two years’ imprisonment and a fine
of £500. Her two years’ imprisonment expired also in November,
and she, who states in her petition to the House of Commons that
she never possessed any property, has also been and still is de
tained for her fine. The consequence of these absurd persecutions
has been the propagating of infidel opinions to an extent which
they could not otherwise have reached, and at length to the in
terference of persons in a way calculated to call public attention
more closely to matters which those who promoted the prosecu
tions wished should be suppressed. These facts speak for them
selves.”
Subsequent facts spoke even more loudly in the same way.
The Carlisles were soon released under the feeling that Miss Car
lile’s petition awakened in the House of Commons and in the
country, and they and their successors continued to sell the works
of Paine and other heresiarchs without molestation. The recent
attempts to interfere with the freedom so secured, were rendered
possible by the complication of the principle with moral questions
which were not involved in the original struggle ; but their one
success—the imprisonment of Mr. Truelove—as well as their
several failures, equally confess the impregnable security of the
main principle for which Paine and his comrades suffered.
��
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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A vindication of Thomas Paine, by Robert G. Ingersoll, and : Thomas Paine, a criticism by Moncure D. Conway
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Ingersoll, Robert Green [1833-1899]
Conway, Moncure Daniel [1832-1907]
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Place of publication: Chicago; Toronto
Collation: 55 p. ; 23 cm.
Notes: Ingersoll's "Vindication" is a reply to the New York observer, refuting charges brought against Paine's character and stories of his supposed recantation. The article by Conway is reprinted from the Fortnightly Review for March, 1879. Inscription on p.[3]: Sample: "Can send 100 at 8d each post paid, H.B. Cooke, 170 1/2 Young St., Toronto, Ont., E W." Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
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Belfords, Clarke & Co.
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1879
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N1517
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Thomas Paine
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Thomas Paine
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Text
CT &
i'ctturc
DELIVERED BEFORE THE
SUNDAY
LECTURE
SOCIETY,
ST. GEORGE’S HALL, LANGHAM PLACE,
ON
SUNDAY AFTERNOON, 6th APRIL, 1879,
By H. MAUDSLEY, M.D.,
Professor of Medical Jurisprudence, University College, London.
[Reprinted, from the “ Fortnightly Review,” by kind permission of the
Editor.]
llonhon:
PUBLISHED BY THE SUNDAY LECTURE SOCIETY.
1879.
PRICE THREEPENCE.
�SYLLABUS.
The doctrines of Materialism and Spiritualism.
Why Materialism is looked upon as inferior and degrading.
Every function of mind dependent upon organization.
Milton an avowed Materialist.
Materialism not inconsistent with the belief of a future life, but incon
sistent with the doctrine of a contempt of the body.
The human body the last and greatest product of organic development.
Differences of size and development between the brain of the lowest savage
and that of an ordinary European.
Corresponding differences of intellectual and moral capacities.
The reign of law in human evolution.
The reign of law in human degeneracy.
Morality the essential condition of complex social development.
Intellectual and moral lessons of Materialism.
�LESSONS OF MATERIALISM.
T is well known that from an early period of speculative thought
two doctrines have been held with regard to the sort of
connection which exists between a man’s mind and his body. On
the one hand, there are those who maintain that mind is an
outcome and function of matter in a certain state of organization,
coming with it, growing with it, decaying with it, inseparable
from it: they are the so-called materialists. On the other hand,
there are those who hold that mind is an independent spiritual
essence which has entered into the body as its dwelling-place for
a time, which makes use of it as its mortal instrument, and which
will take on its independent life when the body, worn out by the
operation of natural decay, returns to the earth of which it is made :
they are the spiritualists. Without entering into a discussion as
to which is the true doctrine, it will be sufficient in this lecture to
accept, and proceed from the basis of, the generally admitted fact
that all the manifestations of mind which we have to do with in
this world are connected with organization, dependent upon it,
whether as cause or instrument; that they are never met with
apart from it any more than electricity or any other natural force
is met with apart from matter ; that higher organization must
go along with higher mental function. What is the state of things
in another world—whether the disembodied or celestially embodied
spirits of the countless myriads of the human race that have come
and gone through countless ages are now living higher lives—I do
not venture to inquire. One hope and one certitude in the matter
every one may be allowed to have and to express—the hope that
if they are living now, it is a higher life than they lived upon
earth ; the certitude that if they are living the higher life, most of
them must have had a vast deal to unlearn.
Many persons who readily admit in general terms the depend
ence of mental function on cerebral structure are inclined, when
brought to the particular test, to make an exception in favour of
the moral feeling or conscience. They are content to rest in the
uncertain position which satisfied Dr. Abercrombie, the dis
tinguished author of the well-known Inquiry concerning the In
tellectual Powers, who, having pointed out plainly the dependence
of mental function on organization, and, as a matter of fact which
I
�4
Lessons of Materialism.
cannot be denied, that there are individuals in whom every correct
feeling in regard to moral relations is obliterated, while the
judgment is unimpaired in all other relations, stops there, without
attempting to prosecute inquiry into the cause of the remarkable
fact which he justly emphasises. “ That this power,” he says,
“ should so completely lose its sway, while reason remains un
impaired, is a point in the moral constitution of man which it does
not belong to the physician to investigate. The fact is unquestion
able ; the solution is to be sought in the records of eternal truth.”
And with this lame and somewhat melancholy conclusion he leaves
his readers impotent before a problem, which is not only of deep
scientific interest, but of momentous practical importance. The
observation which makes plain the fact does not, however,
leave us entirely without information concerning the cause of it,
when we pursue it faithfully, since it reveals as distinct a depen
dence of moral faculty upon organization as of any other faculty.
Many instructive examples of the pervading mental effects of
physical injury of the brain might be quoted, but two or three,
recently recorded, will suffice. An American medical man was
called one day to see a youth, aged eighteen, who had been struck
down insensible by the kick of a horse. There was a depressed
fracture of the skull a little above the left temple. The skull was
trephined, and the loose fragments of bone that pressed upon the
brain were removed, whereupon the patient came to his senses.
The doctor thought it a good opportunity to make an experiment,
as there was a hole in the skull through which he could easily
make pressure upon the brain. He asked the boy a question, and
before there was time to answer it he pressed firmly with his finger
upon the exposed brain. As long as the pressure was kept up the
boy was mute, but the instant it was removed he made a reply,
never suspecting that he had not answered at once. The experi
ment was repeated several times with precisely the same result,
the boy’s thoughts being stopped and started again on each
occasion as easily and certainly as the engineer stops and starts
his locomotive.
On another occasion the same doctor was called to see a groom
who had been kicked on the head by a mare called Dolly, and
whom he found quite insensible. There was a fracture of the
skull, with depression of bone at the upper part of the forehead.
As soon as the portion of bone which was pressing upon the brain
was removed the patient called out with great energy, “Whoa,
Dolly! ” and then stared about him in blank amazement, asking,
�Lessons of Materialism.
5
“Where is the mare?” “Where am I?” Three hours had
passed since the accident, during which the words which he was
just going to utter when it happened had remained locked up, as
they might have been locked up in the phonograph, to be let go
the moment the obstructing pressure was removed. The patient
did not remember, when he came to himself, that the mare had
kicked him ; the last thing before he was insensible which he did
remember was, that she wheeled her heels round and laid back her
ears viciously.
Cases of this kind show how entirely dependent every function
of mind is upon a sound state of the mechanism of the brain.
Just as we can, by pressing firmly upon the sensory nerve of the
arm, prevent an impression made upon the finger being carried to
the brain and felt there, so by pressing upon the brain we can as
certainly stop a thought or a volition. In both cases a good
recovery presently followed the removal of the pressure upon the
brain ; but it would be of no little medical interest to have the
after-histories of the persons, since it happens sometimes after a
serious injury to the head that, despite an immediate recovery,
slow degenerative changes are set up in the brain months or years
afterwards, which go on to cause a gradual weakening, and perhaps
eventual destruction, of mind. Now the instructive matter in this
case is that the moral character is usually impaired first, and some
times is completely perverted, without a corresponding deterior
ation of the understanding; the person is a thoroughly changed
character for the worse. The injury has produced disorder in the
most delicate part of the mental organization, that which is
separated from actual contact with the skull only by the thin
investing membranes of the brain: and, once damaged, it is
seldom that it is ever restored completely to its former state of
soundness. However, happy recoveries are now and then made
from mental derangement caused by physical injury of the brain.
Some years ago a miner was sent to the Ayrshire District Asylum
who, four years before, had been struck to the ground insensible
by a mass of falling coal, which fractured his skull. He lay
unconscious for four days after the accident, then came gradually
to himself, and was able in four weeks to resume his work in the
pit. But his wife noticed a steadily increasing change for the
worse in his character and habits ; whereas he had formerly been
cheerful, sociable, and good-natured, always kind and affectionate
to her and his children, he now became irritable, moody, surly,
suspicious, shunning the company of his fellow-workmen, and
�6
Lessons of Materialism.
impatient with her and the children. This bad state increased•
he was often excited, used threats of violence to his wife and
others, finally became quite maniacal, attempted to kill them, had
a succession of epileptic fits, and was sent to the asylum as a
dangerous lunatic. There he showed himself extremely suspicious
and surly, entertained a fixed delusion that he was the'victim of a
conspiracy on the part of his wife and others, and displayed bitter
and resentful feelings. At the place where the skull had been
fractured there was a well-marked depression of bone, and the
depressed portion was eventually removed by the trephine. From
that time an improvement took place in his disposition, his old self
coming gradually back; he became cheerful again, active and
obliging, regained and displayed all his former affection for his
wife and children, and was at last discharged recovered. No
plainer example could be wished to show the direct connection
ot cause and effect—the great deterioration of moral character
produced by the physical injury of the supreme nerve-centres of
the brain: when the cause was taken away the effect went also.
. Going a step further, let me point out that disease will some
times do as plain and positive damage to moral character as any
which direct injury of the brain will do. A fever has sometimes
deranged it as deeply as a blow on the head ; a child’s conscience
has been clean effaced by a succession of epileptic convulsions, just
as the memory is sometimes effaced; and those who see much of
epilepsy know well the extreme but passing moral transformations
which occur in connection with its seizures. The person may be
as unlike himself as possible when he is threatened with a fit;
although naturally cheerful, good-tempered, sociable and obliging,
he becomes irritable, surly, and morose, very suspicious, takes
offence at the most innocent remark or act, and is apt to resent
imaginary offences with great violence. The change might be
compared well with that which happens when a clear and cloudless
sky is overcast suddenly with dark and threatening thunder-clouds;
and just as the darkly clouded sky is cleared by the thunderstorm
which it portends, so the gloomy moral perturbation is discharged
and the mental atmosphere cleared by an epileptic fit or a succes
sion of such fits. In a few remarkable cases, however, the patient
does not come to himself immediately after the fit, but is left by it
in a peculiar state of quasi-somnambulism, during which he acts
like an automaton, doing strange, absurd, and sometimes even
criminal things, without knowing apparently at the time what he
is doing, and certainly without remembering in the least what he
�Lessons of Materialism.
T
has done when he comes to himself. Of excellent moral character
habitually, he may turn thief in one of these states, or perpetrate
some other criminal offence by which he gets himself into trouble
with the police.
There are other diseases which, in like manner, play havoc with
moral feeling. Almost every sort of mental derangement begins
with a moral alienation, slight, perhaps, at the outset, but soon so
great that a prudent, temperate, chaste, and truthful person shall
be changed to exactly the opposite of what he was. This alienation
of character continues throughout the course of the disease, and
is frequently found to last for a while after all disorder of intelli
gence has gone. Indeed, the experienced physician never feels
confident that the recovery is stable and sure, until the person is
restored to his natural sentiments and affections. Thus it appears
that when mind undergoes decadence, the moral feeling is the first
to suffer ; the highest acquisition of mental evolution, it is the first
to witness to mental degeneracy. One form of mental disease,
known as general paralysis, is usually accompanied with a singu
larly complete paralysis of the moral sense from the outset; and a
not uncommon feature of it, very striking in some cases, is a
persistent tendency to steal, the person stealing in a weak-minded
manner what he has no particular need of, and makes no use of
when he has stolen it.
The victim of this fatal disease is
frequently sent to prison and treated as a common criminal in the
first instance, notwithstanding that a medical man who knows his
business might be able to say with entire certitude that the
supposed criminal was suffering from organic disease of the brain,
which had destroyed moral sense at the outset, which would go on
to destroy all the other faculties of his mind in succession, and
which in the end would destroy life itself. There is no question in
such case of moral guilt; it is not sin but disease that we are con
fronted with: and after the victim’s death we find the plainest
evidence of disease of brain which has gone along with the decay
of mind. Had the holiest saint in the calendar been afflicted as he
was, he could not have helped doing as he did.
I need not dwell any longer upon the morality-sapping effects of
particular diseases, but shall simply call to mind the profound
deterioration of moral sense and will which is produced by the
long-continued and excessive use of alcohol and opium. There is
nowhere a more miserable specimen of degradation of moral feeling
and of impotence of will, than the debauchee who has made
himself the abject slave of either of these pernicious excesses.
�8
Lessons of Materialism.
Insensible to the interests of his family, to his personal responsi
bilities, to the obligations of duty, he is utterly untruthful and
untrustworthy, and in the worst end there is not a meanness of
pretence or of conduct that he will not descend to, not a lie he will
not tell, in order to gain the means to gratify his overruling
craving. It is not merely that passion is strengthened and will
weakened by indulgence as a moral effect, but the alcohol or opium
which is absorbed into his blood is carried by it to the brain and
acts injuriously upon its tissues : the chemist will, indeed, extract
alcohol from the besotted brain of the worst drunkard, as he will
detect morphia in the secretions of a person who is taking large
doses of opium. Seldom, therefore, is it of the least use to
preach reformation to these people, until they have been restrained
forcibly from their besetting indulgence for a long enough period
to allow the brain to get rid of the poison, and its tissues to regain
a healthier tone. Too often it is of little use then; the tissues
have been damaged beyond the possibility of complete restoration.
Moreover, observation has shown that the drink-craving is often
times hereditary, so that a taste for the poison is ingrained in the
tissues, and is quickly kindled by gratification into uncontrollable
desire.
Thus far it appears, then, that moral feeling may be impaired or
destroyed by direct injury of the brain, by the disorganizing action
of disease, and by the chemical action of certain substances which,
when taken in excess, are poisons to the nervous system. When
we look sincerely at the facts, we cannot help perceiving that it is
just as closely dependent upon organization as is the meanest
function of mind; that there is not an argument to prove the
so-called materialism of one part of mind which does not apply
with equal force to the whole mind. Seeing that we know
no more essentially what matter is than what mind is, being
unable in either case to go beyond the phenomena of which we
have experience, it is of interest to ask why the spiritualist
considers his theory to be of so much higher and intellectual and
moral order than materialism, and looks down with undisguised
pity and contempt on the latter as inferior, degrading, and even
dangerous ; why the materialist should be deemed guilty, not of
intellectual error only, but of something like moral guilt. His
philosophy has been lately denounced as a “ philosophy of dirt.”
An eminent prelate of the English Church, in an outburst of moral
indignation, once described him as possibly “ the most odious and
ridiculous being in all the multiform creation; ” and a recent writer
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in a French philosophical journal uses still stronger language of
abhorrance—“ I abhor them,” he says, “ with all the force of my
soul. ... I detest and abominate them from the bottom of
my heart, and I feel an invincible repugnance and horror when
they dare to reduce psychology and ethics to their bestial phy
siology—that is, in short, to make of man a brute, of the brute a
plant, of the plant a machine. . . . This school is a living
and crying negation of humanity.” The question is, what there is
in materialism to warrant the sincere feeling and earnest expression
of so great a horror of it. Is the abhorrence well founded, or is
it, perhaps, that the doctrine is hated, as the individual oftentimes
is, because misunderstood?
This must certainly be allowed to be a fair inquiry by those who
reflect that no less eminent a person and good a Christian than
Milton was a decided materialist. Several scattered passages in
Paradise Lost plainly betray his opinions ; but it is not necessary
to lay any stress upon them, because in his Treatise on Christian
Doctrine he sets them forth in the most plain and uncompromising
way, and supports them with an elaborate detail of argument. He
is particularly earnest to prove that the common doctrine that the
spirit of man should be separate from the body, so as to have a
perfect and intelligent existence independently of it, is nowhere
said in Scripture, and is at variance both with nature and reason ;
and he declares that “ man is a living being, intrinsically and
properly one and individual, not compound and separable, not,
according to the common opinion, made up and framed of two
distinct parts, as of soul and body.” Another illustrious instance
of a good Christian who, for a great part of his life, avowed his
belief that “ the nature of man is simple and uniform, and that the
thinking power and faculties are the result of a certain organization
of matter,” was the eloquent preacher and writer, Robert Hall.
It is true that he abandoned this opinion at a later period of his
life; indeed, his biographer tells us with much satisfaction that
“ he buried materialism in his father’s grave ; ” and a theological
professor in American college has in a recent article exultantly
claimed this fact as triumphant proof that the materialist’s “ gloomy
and unnatural creed ” cannot stand before such a sad feeling as
grief at a father’s death. One may be excused, perhaps, for not
seeing quite so clearly as these gentlemen the soundness of the
logic of the connection. On the whole, logic is usually sounder
and stronger when it is not under the pressure of great feeling.
The truth is that a great many people have the deeply-rooted
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feeling that materialism is destructive of the hope of immortality,
and dread and detest it for that reason. When they watch the
body decay and die, considering furthermore that after its death it
is surely resolved into the simple elements from which all matter is
formed, and know that these released elements go in turn to build
up other bodies, so that the material is used over and over again,
being compounded and decompounded incessantly in the long
stream, of life, they cannot realise the possibility of a resurrection
of the individual body. They cannot conceive how matter which
has thus been used over and over again can remake so many
distinct bodies, and they think that to uphold a bodily resurrection
is to give up practically the doctrine of a future life. It is a
natural, but not a necessary conclusion, as the examples of Milton
and Robert Hall prove, since they, though materialists, were
devout believers in a resurrection of the dead. Moreover, there
are many vehement antagonists of materialism, who readily admit
that it is not inconsistent with the belief in a life after death.
Indeed, they could not well do otherwise, when they recollect
what the Apostle Paul said in his very energetic way, addressing
the objector to a bodily resurrection as “ Thou fool,” and what
happened to the rich man who died and was buried; for it is told
of him that “ in hell he lifted up his eyes, and cried and said,
Rather Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he
may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I
am tormented in this flame.” Now if he had eyes to lift up and a
tongue to be cooled, it is plain that he had a body of some kind in
hell; and if Lazarus, who was in another place, had a finger to dip
in water, he also must have had a body of some kind there.
Leaving this matter, however, without attempting to explain the
mystery of the body celestial, I go on to mention a second reason
why materialism is considered to be bad doctrine. It is this : that
with the rise and growth of Christianity there came in the fashion
of looking down on the body with contempt as the vile and
despicable part of man, the seat of those fleshly lusts which warred
against the higher aspirations of the soul. It was held to be the
favourite province of the devil, who, having intrenched himself
there, lay in wait to entice or to betray to sin ; the wiles of Satan
and the lusts of the flesh were spoken of in the same breath, as in
the service of the English Church prayer is made for “ whatsoever
has been decayed by the fraud and malice of the devil, or by his
own carnal will and frailness ; ” and all men are taught to look
forward to the time when “ he shall change this vile body and make
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it like unto his glorious body.” It was the extreme but logical
outcome of this manner of despising the body to subject it to all
the penances, and to treat it with all the rigour, of the most rigid
asceticism—to neglect it, to starve it, to scourge it, to mortify it in
every possible way. One holy ascetic would never wash himself,
or cut his toe-nails, or wipe his nose; another suffered maggots
to burrow unchecked into the neglected ulcers of his emaciated
body; others, like St. Francis, stripped themselves naked and
appeared in public without clothes. St. Macarius threw away his
clothes and remained naked for six months in a marsh, exposed to
the bite of every insect; St. Simeon Stylites spent thirty years on
the top of a column which had been gradually raised to a height of
sixty feet, passing a great part of his time in bending his
meagre body successively with his head towards his feet, and so
industriously that a curious spectator, after counting one thousand
two hundred and forty-four repetitions, desisted counting from
weariness. And for these things—these insanities of conduct may
we not call them—they were accounted most holy, and received
the honours of saintship. Contrast this unworthy view of the
body with that which the ancient Greeks took of it. They found
no other object in nature which satisfied so well their sensejof
proportion and manly strength, of attractive grace and beauty : and
their reproductions of it in marble we preserve now as priceless
treasures of art, albeit we still babble the despicable doctrine of
contempt of it. The more strange, since it is a matter of sober
scientific truth that the human body is the highest and most
wonderful work in nature, the last and best achievement of her
creative skill; it is a most complex and admirably constructed
organism, “ fearfully and wonderfully made,” which contains, as it
were in a microcosm, all the ingenuity and harmony and beauty
of the macrocosm. And it is this supreme product of evolution
that fanatics have gained the honour of saintship by disfiguring
and torturing!
These, then, are two great reasons of the repugnance which is
felt to materialism, namely, the notion that it is destructive of the
hope of a resurrection, and the contempt of the body which has
been inculcated as a religious duty. And yet on these very points
materialism seems fitted to teach the spiritualist lessons of humility
and reverence, for it teaches him, in the first place, not to despise
and call unclean the last and best work of his Creator’s hand; and,
secondly, not impiously to circumscribe supernatural power by the
narrow limits of his understanding, but to bethink himself that it
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were just as easy in the beginning, or now, or at any time, for the
omnipotent Creator of matter and its properties to make it think
as to make mind think.
Passing from these incidental lessons of humility and reverence,
I go now to show that materialism has it moral lessons, and that
these, rightly apprehended, are not at all of a low intellectual and
moral order, but, on the contrary, in some respects more elevating
than the moral lessons of spiritualism. I shall content myself
with two or three of these lessons, not because there are not more
of them, but because they will be enough to occupy the time at mv
disposal.
. It is a pretty . well accepted scientific doctrine that our fardistant prehistoric ancestors were a very much lower order of
beings than we are, even if they did not inherit directly from the
monkey; that they were very much like, in conformation, habits,
intelligence, and moral feeling, the lowest existing savages ; and
that we have risen to our present level of being by a slow process
of evolution which has been going on gradually through untold
generations. Whether or not “ through the ages one increasing
purpose runs,” as the poet has it, it is certainly true that “ the
,thoughts of men are widened with the process of the suns.” Now
when we examine the brain of the lowest savage, whom we need
not be too proud to look upon as our ancestor in the flesh—say a
native Australian or a Bushman—we find it to be considerably
smaller than an ordinary European brain ; its convolutions, which
are the highest nerve-centres of mind, are decidedly fewer in
number, more simple in character, and more symmetrical in
arrangement. These are marks of inferiority, for in those things
in which it differs from the ordinary European brain it gets nearer
in structure to the still much inferior brain of the monkey ; it
represents, we may say, a stage of development in the long distance which has been traversed between the two. A comparison
of the relative brain-weights will give a rude notion of the
differences : the brain-weight of an average European male is
49 oz.; that of a Bushman is, I believe, about 33 oz.; and that of
a Negro, who comes between them in brain-size, as in intelligence,
is 44 oz. The small brain-weight of the Bushman is indeed
equaled among civilised nations by that of a small-headed or socalled microcephalic idiot. There can be no doubt, then, of a
great difference of development between the highest and the lowest
existing human brain.
There can be no doubt, furthermore, that the gross differences
�Lessons of Materialism.
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which there are between the size and development of the brain of
a low savage and of an average European, go along with as great
differences of intellectual and moral capacities—that lower mental
function answers to lower cerebral structure. It is a well-known
fact that many savages cannot count beyond five, and that they
have no words in their vocabulary for the higher qualities of
human nature, such as virtue, justice, humanity, and their
Opposites, vice, injustice, and cruelty, or for the more abstract
ideas. The native Australian, for example, who is in this case,
having no words for justice, love, mercy, and the like, would not
in the least know what remorse meant; if any one showed it in
his presence, he would think probably that he had got a bad
bellyache. He has no words to express the higher sentiments and
thoughts because he has never felt and thought them, and has
never had, therefore, the need to express them ; he has not in his
inferior brain the nervous substrata which should minister to such
sentiments and thoughts, and cannot have them in his present
state of social evolution, any more than he could make a particular
movement of his body if the proper muscles were wanting. Nor
could any amount of training in the world, we may be sure, ever
make him equal in this respect to the average European, any more
than it could add substance to the brain of a small-headed idiot
and raise it to the ordinary level. Were any one, indeed, to make
the experiment of taking the young child of an Australian savage
and of bringing it up side by side with an average European child,
taking great pains to give them exactly the same education in
every respect, he would certainly have widely different results in
the end : in the one case he would have to do with a well-organized
instrument, ready to give out good intellectual notes and a fine
harmony of moral feeling when properly handled; in the other
case, an imperfectly organized instrument, from which it would be
out of the power of the most patient and skilful touch to elicit more
than a few feeble intellectual notes and a very rude and primitive
sort of moral feeling. A little better feeling, certainly, than that
of its fathers, but still most primitive ; for many savages regard as
virtues most of the big vices and crimes, such as theft, rape,
murder, at any rate when they are practised at the expense of
neighbouring tribes. Their moral feeling, such as it is, is extremely
circumscribed, being limited in application to the tribe. In Europe
we have happily got further than that, since we are not, as savages
are and our forefathers probably were, divided into a multitude of
tribes eager to injure and even extirpate one another from motives •
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o£ tribal patriotism; but mankind seems to be far off the goal of
its high calling so long as, divided into jealous and hostile nations,
it suffers national divisions to limit the application of moral feeling,
counts it a high virtue to violate it under the profaned name of
patriotism, and uses the words “ humanitarianism” and “cosmo
politanism ” as crushing names of reproach. There is plainly room
yet for a wider expansion of moral feeling.
Now what do the discoveries of science warrant us to conclude
respecting the larger and more complex brain of the civilised man
and its higher capacities of thought and feeling ? They teach us
this : that it has reached its higher level not by any sudden and
big creative act, nor by a succession of small creative acts, but by
the slow and gradual operation of processes of natural evolution
going on through countless ages. Each new insight into natural
phenomena on the part of man, each act of wiser doing founded
on truer insight, each bettered feeling which has been developed
from wiser conduct, has tended to determine by degrees a corre
sponding structual change of the brain, which has been transmitted
as an innate endowment to succeeding generations, just as the
acquired habit of a parent animal becomes sometimes the instinct
of its offspring; and the accumulated results of these slow and
minute gains, transmitted by hereditary action, have culminated in
the higher cerebral organization, in which they are now, as it
were, capitalised. Thus the added structure embodies in itself the
superior intellectual and moral capacities of abstract reasoning and
moral feeling which have been the slow acquisitions of the ages,
and it gives them out again in its functions when it discharges its
functions rightly. If we were to have a person born in this
country with a brain of no higher development than that of the
low savage—destitute, that is, of the higher nervons substrata of
thought and feeling—if, in fact, our far remote prehistoric ancestor
were to come to life among us now—we should have more or
less of an imbecile, who could not compete on equal terms with
other persons, but must perish, unless charitably cared for, just as
the native Australian perishes when he comes into contact and
competition with the white man. The only way in which the
native Australian could be raised to the level of civilised feeling
and thought would be by cultivation continued through many
generations—by a process of evolution similar to that which lies
back between our savage ancestors and us.
That is one aspect of the operation of natural law in human
events—the operation of the law of heredity in development, in
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carrying mankind forward, that is, to a higher level of being. It
teaches us plainly enough that the highest qualities of mind bear
witness to the reign of law in nature as certainly as do the lowest
properties of matter, and that if we are to go on progressing in
time to come it must be by observation of, and obedience to, the
laws of development. But there is another vastly important
aspect of the law of heredity which it concerns us to bear sincerely
in mind—its operation in working out human degeneracy, in
carrying mankind downwards, that is, to a lower level of being.
It is certain that man may degenerate as well as develop ; that he
has been doing so both as nation and individual ever since we have
records of his doings on earth. There is a broad and easy way of
dissolution, national, social, or individual, which is the opposite of
the steep and narrow way of evolution. Now what it behoves us
to realise distinctly is that there is not anything more miraculous
about the degeneracy and extinction of a nation or of a family
than there is about its rise and development; that both are the
work of natural law. A nation does not sink into decadence, I
presume, so long as it keeps fresh those virtues of character
through which it became great among nations ; it is when it suffers
them to be eaten away by luxury, corruption, and other enervating
vices, that it undergoes that degeneration of character which
prepares and makes easy its over-throw. In like manner a family,
reckless of the laws of physical and moral hygiene, may go through
a process of degeneracy until it becomes extinct. It was no mere
dream of prophetic frenzy that when the fathers have eaten
sour grapes, the children’s teeth are set on edge, nor was it a
meaningless menace that the sins of the fathers shall be visited
upon the children unto the third and fourth generations ; it was
an actual insight into the natural law by which degeneracy increases
through generations—by which one generation reaps the wrong
which its fathers have sown, as its children in turn will reap the
wrong which it has sown. What we call insanity or mental
derangement is truly, in most cases, a form of human degeneracy,
a phase in the working out of it; and if we were to suffer this
degeneracy to take it course unchecked through generations, the
natural termination would be sterile idiocy and extinction of the
family. A curious despot would find it impossible, were he to
make the experiment, to breed and propagate a race of insane
people; nature, unwilling to continue a morbid variety of the
human kind, would bring his experiment to an end by the
production of sterile idiocy. If man will but make himself the
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Lessons of Materialism.
subject of serious scientific study, he shall find that this working
out of degeneracy through generations affords him a rational
explanation of most of those evil impulses of the heart which he
has been content to attribute to the wiles and instigations of the
devil; that the evil spirit which has taken possession of the
wicked man is often the legacy of parental or ancestral error,
misfortune, or wrong-doing. It will be made plain to him that
insanity, idiocy, and every other form of human degeneracy is not
casualty, but defect which comes by cause ; that it is just as much
the definite consequent of definite antecedents as any other event
in nature; and that these antecedents many times are within human
controul, being the palpable outcome of ignorance or of neglect of
the laws of moral and physical hygiene. Let me illustrate by an
example the nature and bearing of this scientific study.
I will take for this purpose a case which every physician who
has had much experience must have been asked some time or
other to consider and advise about: a quite young child, which is
causing its parents alarm and distress by the precocious display
of vicious desires and tendencies of all sorts, that are quite out of
keeping with its tender years, and by the utter failure of either
precept, or example, or punishment to imbue it with good feeling
and with the desire to do right. It may not be notably deficient
in intelligence; on the contrary, it may be capable of learning
quickly when it likes, and extremely cunning in lying, in stealing,
in gratifying other perverse inclinations; and it cannot be said
not to know right from wrong, since it invariably eschews the
right and chooses the wrong, showing an amazing acuteness in
escaping detection and the punishment which follows detection.
It is, in truth, congenitally conscienceless, by nature destitute of
moral sense and actively imbued with an immoral sense. Now
this unfortunate creature is of so tender an age that the theory of
Satanic agency is not thought to offer an adequate explanation of
its evil impulses ; in the end everybody who has to do with it feels
that it is not responsible for its vicious conduct, perceives that
punishment does not and cannot in the least reform it, and is
persuaded that there is some native defect of mind which renders
it a proper case for medical advice. Where, then, is the fault that
a human being is born into the world who will go wrong, nay, who
must go wrong, in virtue of a bad organization ? The fault lies
somewhere in its hereditary antecedents. We can seldom find
the exact cause and trace definitely the mode of its operation—the
study is much too complex and difficult for such exactness at
�Lessons of Materialism.
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present—but we shall not fail to discover the broad fact of the
frequency of insanity or other mental degeneracy in the direct line
of the child’s inheritance. The experienced physician seldom feels
any doubt of that when he meets with a case of the kind. It is
indeed most certain that men are not bred well or ill by accident
any more than the animals are; but while most persons are ready
to acknowledge this fact in a general way, very few pursue the
admission to its exact and rigorous consequences, and fewer still
suffer it to influence their conduct.
It may be set down, then, as a fact of observation that mental
degeneracy in one generation is sometimes the evident cause of an
innate deficiency or absence of moral sense in the next generation.
The child bears the burden of its ancestral infirmities or wrong
doings. Here then and in this relation may be noted the in
structive fact, that just as moral feeling was the first function to
be affected at the beginning of mental derangement in the
individual, so now the defect or absence of it is seen to mark the
way of degeneracy through generations. It was the latest
acquisition of mental evolution; it is the first to go in mental
dissolution.
A second fact of observation may be set down as worthy of con
sideration, if not of immediate acceptation, namely, that an absence
of moral feeling in one generation, as shown by a mean, selfish,
and persistent disregard of moral action in the conduct of life, may
be the cause of mental derangement in the next generation. In
fact, a person may succeed in manufacturing insanity in his
progeny by a persistent disuse of moral feeling, and a persistent
exercise, throughout his life, of those selfish, mean, and anti-social
tendencies which are a negation of the highest moral relations of
mankind. He does not ever exercise the nervous substrata which
minister to moral functions, wherefore they undergo atrophy in
him, and he runs the risk of transmitting them to his progeny in
So imperfect a state, that they are incapable of full development of
function in them ; just as the instinct of the animal which is not
exercised for many generations on account of changed conditions
of life, becomes less distinct by degrees and in the end, perhaps,
extinct. People are apt to talk as if they believed that insanity
might be got rid of were only sufficient care taken to prevent its
direct propagation by the marriages of those who had suffered it
or were like to do so. A vain imagination assuredly ! Were all the
insanity in the world at the present time clean sweptaway to-morrow,
men would breed it afresh before to-morrow’s to-morrow by their
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Lessons of Materialism.
errors, their excesses, their wrong-doings of all sorts. Rightly,
then, may the scientific inquirer echo the words of the preacher,
that however prosperous a man may have seemed in his life, judge
him not blessed before his death : for he shall be known in his
children: they shall not have the confidence of their good descent.
In sober truth, the lessons of morality which were proclaimed by
the prophets of old, as indispensable to the stability and well-being
of families and nations, were not mere visions of vague fancy ;
founded upon actual observation and intuition of the laws of
nature working in human events, they were insights into the
eternal truths of human evolution.
Whether, then, man goes upwards or downwards, undergoes
development or degeneration, we have equally to do with matters
of stern law. Provision has been made for both ways ; it has been
left to him to find out and determine which way he shall take. And
it is plain that he must find the right path of evolution, and avoid the
wrong path of degeneracy, by observation and experience, pursuing
the same method of positive inquiry which has served him so w7ell
in the different sciences. Being pre-eminently and essentially a
social being, each one the member of one body—the unit, that is,
in a social organism—the laws which he has to observe and obey
are not the physical laws of nature only, but also those higher laws
which govern the relations of individuals in the social state. If
he make his observations sincerely and adequately in this way, he
cannot fail to perceive that the laws of morality were not really
miraculous revelations from heaven any more than was the •
discovery of the law of gravitation, but that they were the essential
conditions of social evolution, and were learned practicallv by the
stern lessons of experience. He has learnt his duty to his
neighbour as he has learnt his duty to nature ; it is implicit in
the constitution of a complex society of men dwelling together in
peace and unity, and has been revealed explicitly by the intuition
of a few extraordinary men of sublime moral genius.
As it is not a true, it cannot be a useful, notion to foster, that
morality was the special gift to man, or is the special property, of
any theological system, and that its vitality is in the least bound
up with the life of any such creed. Whether men believed in
Heaven and Hell or not, in Jupiter or in Jehovah, in Buddha or in
Jesus, they could not fail to find out that some obedience to moral
law is essential to social evolution. The golden rule of morals
itself—“ Do unto others as ye would have others do unto you”—
was perceived and proclaimed long before it received its highest
/
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Christian expression.* We ought to be just and to confess
the truth: there were good Christians in the world before
Christ. It is not, indeed, religious creed which has invented
and been the basis of morality, but morality which has been the
bulwark of religions. And as a matter of fact it is too true that
morality has suffered many times not a little from its connection
with theological creeds; that its truths have been laid hands on
and used to support demoralising supersitions which were no part
of it; that doctrines essentially immoral have been even taught in
the name of religion; and that religious systems in their struggles
to establish their supremacy have oftentimes shown small respect
to the claims of morality. Had religion been true to its nature and
function, had it beenas wide as morality and humanity, it should have
been the bond of unity to hold mankind together in one brother
hood, linking them in good feeling, good-will, and good work
towards one another ; but it has in reality been that which has most
divided men, and the cause of more hatreds, more disorders, more
persecutions, more bloodshed, more cruelties than most other
causes put together. In order to maintain peace and order, there
fore, the State in modern times has been compelled to hold itself
practically aloof from religion, and to leave to each hostile sect
liberty to do as it likes so long as it meddles not by its tenets and
ceremonials with the interests of civil government. That is the
present outcome of a religion of peace on earth and goodwill
among men ! On the whole it may be thought to be fortunate for
the interests of morality that it is not bound up essentially with
any form of religious creed, but that it survives when creeds die,
having its more secure foundations in the hard-won experience of
mankind.
The inquiry which, taking a sincere survey of the facts, finds
the basis and sanction of morality in experience, by no means
* There appears to be no doubt that Confucius, among others, has the
clearest apprehension of it and expressly taught it; and the Buddhist
religion of perfection is certainly founded upon self-conquest and self
sacrifice. They are its very corner-stone: the purification of the mind
from unholy desires and passions, and a devotion to the good of others,
which rises to an enthusiasm for humanity, in order to escape from the
miseries of this life and to attain to a perfect moral repose. “ Let all the
sins that have been committed fall upon me, in order that the world may
be delivered,” Buddha says. And of the son or disciple of Buddha it is
said, “ When reviled he revileth not again; when smitten he bears the
blow without resentment; when treated with anger and passion he returns
love and good-will; when threatened with death he bears no malice.”
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Lessons of Materialism.
arrives in the end at easy lessons of self-indulgence for the
individual and the race, but, on the contrary, at the hardest
lessons of self-renunciation. Disclosing to man the stern and
uniform reign of law in nature, even in the evolution and
degeneracy of his own nature, it takes from him the comfortable
but demoralising doctrine that he or others can escape the penalty
of his ignorance, error, or wrong-doings either by penitence or
prayer, and holds him to the strictest account for them. Dis
carding the notion that the observed uniformity of nature is but a
uniformity of sequence at will which may be interrupted whenever
its interruption is earnestly enough asked for—a notion which,
were it more than lip-doctrine, must necessarily deprive him of his
most urgent motive to study patiently the laws of nature in order
to conform to them—it enforces a stern feeling of responsibility
to search out painfully the right path of obedience and to follow it,
inexorably laying upon man the responsibility of the future of his
race. If it be most certain, as it is, that all disobedience of natural
law, whether physical or moral, is avenged inexorably in its conse
quences on earth, eithei’ upon the individual himself, or more often,
perhaps, upon others—that the violated law cannot be bribed to
stay its arm by burnt-offerings nor placated by prayers—it is a
harmful doctrine, as tending directly to undermine understanding
and to weaken will, to teach that either prayer or sacrifice will
obviate the consequences of want of foresight or want of self
discipline, or that reliance on supernatural aid will make amends
for lack of intelligent will. We still pray half-heartedly in our
churches, as our forefathers prayed with their whole hearts, when
we are afflicted with a plague or pestilence, that God will “ accept
of an atonement and command the destroying angel to cease from
punishing ; ” and when we are suffering from too much rain we
ask him to send fine weather “ although we for our iniquities have
worthily deserved a plague of rain and water.” Is there a person
of sincere understanding who, uttering that prayer, now believes
it in his heart to be the successful way to stay a fever, plague, or
pestilence ? He knows well that, if it is to be answered, he must
clean away dirt, purify drains, disinfect houses, and put in force
those other sanitary measures which experience has proved to be
efficacious, and that the aid vouchsafed to the prayer will only be
given when, these being by themselves successful, the prayer is
superfluous. Had men gone on believing, as they once believed,
that prayer would stay disease, they would never have learned and
adopted sanitary measures, any more than the savage of Africa,
�Lessons of Materialism.
21
who prays to his fetish to cure disease, does now. To get rid of
the notion of supernatural interposition was the essential condition
of true knowledge and self-help in that matter.
Looking at the matter in the light of scientific knowledge, it is
hard to see how any one can think otherwise. However, one may
easily overrate the depth to which such knowledge goes in the
general mind: at best it is but a thin surface-dressing. Only a
few days ago, on opening a book at random, I hit on the following
extract from a sermon on the Miracles of Prayer, by a well-known
clergyman :—
“ But we have prayed, and not been heard, at least in the present visita
tion. Have we deserved to be heard? In former visitations it was
observed commonly how the cholera lessened from the day of public
humiliation. When we dreaded famine from a long-continued drought
on the morning of our prayers the heaven over our head was of brass ; the
clear burning sky showed no token of change. Men looked with awe on
its unmitigated clearness. In the evening was a cloud like a man’s hand •
the relief was come.”
’
This is from a sermon preached by no mean citizen of no mean
city; it was preached at Oxford, in 1866, and the preacher was
Dr. Pusey, who goes on to say that it describes what he himself
saw on the Sunday morning in Oxford, on returning from the
early communion at St. Mary’s, at eight. The change occurred in
the evening. A good instance, one would be apt to say, of a very
common fallacy of observation and reasoning—the fallacy that an
event which happens after another necessarily happens in conse
quence of it! But what I would point out is, that if Dr. Pusey’s
interpretation of the matter be true, all our scientific knowledge of
the order of nature has no stable foundation; it is no better than
a baseless fabric, which has come like wind and like wind may go.
And most certain it is that if such views were universal, the result
would be to carry us back straight to the ignorance and barbarism
which prevailed in Europe before the Reformation and the dawn
of modern science. Consider how much it means, that a man of
Dr. Pusey’s culture and eminence should so little apprehend the
fundamental principles of modern science, should be so blind to
the conception of the reign of law in nature ; consider again how
the great majority of the people are in his case, and that the torch
of modern science is after all really carried by some hundred men
or so in Europe and America, and would be pretty nigh extin
guished by their simultaneous deaths ; and consider, lastly, that
we have everywhere in our midst a most complete and powerful
Organisation which, holding that all truth has been given into
�22
Lessons of Materialism.
the keeping of the church from the beginning, and cannot be
either added to or taken from, is truly a gigantic and unsleeping
conspiracy against the human intellect;—consider these things
fairly, I say, and then ask yourselves soberly whether modern pro
gress is so stable and assured a thing as we are apt to take it for
granted it is. For my part, I would not give much for it if the
Roman Catholic Church had its way for fifty or a hundred years.
In all ages of the world, I make no doubt, there have been a few
persons with too much insight to accept the fables which have
satisfied the vulgar, but who dared not utter their thoughts, or,
uttering them, were quickly extinguished; the torch of knowledge
has been again and again lit and again and again put out; and
truth never will be made secure until it has been driven down
into the hearts of the masses of the people by a right method of
education from generation to generation.
Many persons who could not confidently express their belief in
the power of prayer to stop a plague or a deluge of rain, or who
actually disbelieve it, still have a sincere hold of the belief of its
miraculous power in the moral or spiritual world. Nevertheless, if
the matter be made one simply of scientific observation, it must be
confessed that all the evidence goes to prove that the events of
the moral world are matters of law and order equally with those
of the physical world, and that supernatural interpositions have no
more place in the one than in the other; that he who prays for
the creation of a clean heart and the renewal of a right spirit
within him, if he gets at last what he prays for, gets it by the
operation of the ordinary laws of moral growth and development,
in consequence of painstaking watchfulness over himself and the
continual exercise of good resolves. Only when he gets it in that
way will he get the benefit of supernatural aid ; and if it rests in
the belief of supernatural aid, without taking pains to get it
entirely in that way, he will do himself moral harm ; for if he
cannot rely upon special interpositions in the moral any more than
in the physical world, if he has to do entirely with those
secondary laws of nature through which alone the supernatural is
made natural, the invisible visible, it needs no demonstration that
the opposite belief cannot strengthen, but must weaken, the under
standing and will. It is plain that true moral hygiene is as
impossible to the person who relies upon his fetish to change his
heart in answer to prayer, as sanitary science is impossible to the
savage who relies upon his fetish to stay a pestilence in answer to
prayer.
�Lessons of Materialism.
23
So far from materialism being a menace to morality, when it is
properly understood, it not only sets before man a higher intellec
tual aim than he is ever likely to reach by spiritual paths, but it
even raises a more self-sacrificing moral standard. For when all
has been said, it is not the most elevated or the most healthy
business for a person to be occupied continually with anxieties and
apprehensions and cares about the salvation of his own soul, and
to be earnest to do well in this life in order that he may escape
eternal suffering and gain eternal happiness in a life to come. The
disbeliever might find room to argue that here was an instance
showing how theology has taken possession of the moral instinct and
vitiated it. Having set before man a selfish instead of an altruistic
end as the prime motive of well-doing—his own good rather than the
good of others—it is in no little danger of taking away his strongest
motive to do uprightly, if so be the dead rise not. Indeed, it
makes the question of the apostle a most natural one : “ If, after
the manner of man, I have fought with beasts at Ephesus, what
advantageth it me if the dead rise not ? ” Materialism cannot
hesitate in the least to declare that it is best for a man’s self and
best for his kind to have fought with the beasts of unrighteousness,
at Ephesus or elsewhere, even if the dead rise not. Perceiving
and teaching that he is essentially a social being, that all the
mental faculties by which he so much excels the animals below
him, and even the language in which he expresses his mental func
tions, have been progressive developments of his social relations,
it enforces the plain and inevitable conclusion that it is the true
scientific function, and at the same time the highest development,
of the individual, to promote the well-being of the social organiza
tion—that is, to make his life subserve the good of his kind. It
is no new morality, indeed, which it teaches ; it simply brings men
back to that which has been the central lesson and the real stay
of the great religions of the world, and which is implicit in the
constitution of society; but it does this by a way which promises
to bring the understanding into entire harmony with moral
feeling, and so to promote by a close and consistent interaction
their accordant growth and development; and it strips morality
of the livery of superstition in which theological creeds have
dressed and disfigured it, presenting it to the adoration of mankind
in its natural purity and strength.
�“ The Pathology Of Mind.” By H. MAUDSLEY, M.D. Being the Third
Edition of the Seeond Part of the “Physiology and Pathology of
Mind,” recast, much enlarged and re-written. In 8vo, price 18s.
By the same Author.
“ The Physiology of Mind.” Being the First Part of a Third Edition
revised, enlarged, and re-written, of “ The Physiology and Pathology
of Mind.” Crown 8vo, 10s. 6d.
“Body and Mind An Inquiry into their Connection and Mutual Influ
ence, specially with reference to Mental Disorders. Second Edition,
enlarged and revised, with Psychological Essays added. Crown 8vo.,
6s. 6d.
Macmillan & Co., London.
SUNDAY LECTURE
SOCIETY,
To provide for the delivery on Sundays in the Metropolis, and to encourage
the delivery elsewhere, of Lectures on Science, —physical, intellectual,
and moral,—History, Literature, and Art; especially in their bearing
upon the improvement and social well-being of mankind.
President.—W. B. Carpenter, C.B., LL.D., M.D., F.R.S., &c.
Vice-Presidents.
Professor Alexander Bain.
Sir Arthur Hobhouse, K.C.S.I.
James Booth, Esq., C.B.
Thomas Henry Huxley, Esq., LL.D.,
Charles Darwin, Esq., F.R.S., F.L.S.
F.R.S., F.L.S.
Edward Frankland, Esq., D.C.L., Herbert Spencer, Esq.
W. Spottiswoode, Esq., LL.D., P.R.S.
Ph.D., F.R.S.
James Heywood, Esq., F.R.S., F.S.A. John Tyndall, Esq., LL.D., F.R.S.
THE SOCIETY’S LECTURES
ABE DELIVERED AT
ST. GEORGE’S HALL, LANGHAM PLACE,
On SUNDAY Afternoons, at FOUR o’clock precisely.
(Annually—from November to May).
Twenty-four Lectures (in three series), commencing Sunday, the 2nd
of November, 1879, will be given.
Members’ £1 subscription entitles them to an annual ticket, transferable
(and admitting to the reserved seats), and to eight single reserved-seat
tickets, available for any lecture. .
For tickets, and for the Lectures published by the Society, of which lists
can be obtained on application, apply (by letter enclosing cheques, post
office orders or postage stamps) to the Hon. Treasurer, Wm. Henry
Domville, Esq., lb, Gloucester Crescent, Hyde Park, W. The Lectures
can also be obtained of Mr. J. Bumpus, Bookseller, 158, Oxford Street, W.
Payment at the door:—One Penny; —Sixpence;—and (Reserved
Seats) One Shilling.
Kenny & Oo., Printers, 25, Camden Road, London, N.W.
�
Dublin Core
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Title
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Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
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2018
Publisher
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
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Pamphlet
Dublin Core
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Title
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Lessons of materialism : a lecture delivered before the Sunday Lecture Society, St. George's Hall, Langham Place, on Sunday afternoon, 6th April, 1879
Creator
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Maudsley, Henry [1835-1918]
Description
An account of the resource
Place of Publication: London
Collation: 23, [1] p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: Presented in Memory of Dr. Moncure D. Conway by his children, July Nineteen hundred & eight. List of the Society's Sunday Lectures on unnumbered page at the end. From Fortnightly Review (August 1879). From the library of Dr Moncure Conway and part of Morris Miscellaneous Tracts 5. Reprinted from the 'Fortnightly Review' [Title page]. The author is Professor of Medical Jurisprudence, University College, London.
Publisher
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Sunday Lecture Society
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1879
Identifier
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N478
CT85
G3422
Subject
The topic of the resource
Materialism
Rights
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Lessons of materialism) identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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application/pdf
Type
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Text
Language
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English
Conway Tracts
Materialism
Morris Tracts
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PDF Text
Text
MM
SOUTH
PLACE CHAPEL.
November isi, 1879.
The
hereby give
Committee
notice,
that
after
and
on
January 1st, 1880, the following charges will be made for
sittings in the Chapel:—
ON THE GROUND FLOOR.
In Seats Nos.
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IN THE GALLERY.
Sittings Nos. 107 to
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136 55
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inclusive 1 £1
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By order of the Committee,
W. J. REYNOLDS,
Hon. Sec.
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��
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
South Place Chapel [Notice regarding seating charges]
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
South Place Religious Society
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 1 p. ; 21 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1879
Identifier
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G5697
Subject
The topic of the resource
Conway Hall Ethical Society
Rights
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<img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /><br /><span>This work (South Place Chapel [Notice regarding seating charges]), identified by </span><span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk">Humanist Library and Archives</a></span><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
Format
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application/pdf
Type
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Text
Language
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English
Conway Tracts
South Place Chapel