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HA-nONALSECULARSOCffiTV
“THERE WAS WAR
IN HEAVEN.”
jlnfiòtl Sermon
Delivered to the Portsmouth Branch of the National Secular Society
BY
ROBERT FORDER.
, ‘ And there was war in Heaven : Michael and his angels
plight against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his
mg els.”—Rev. xii. 7.
ONE
PENNY,
LONDON:
R. FORDER, 28, STONECUTTER STREET, E.C.
1887.
�28, S-ton4.cu-W^c S-tre-^t, S.S.
�r \ \
*l Mib ifjere was Mar in tjcaucn.”
(Bev. xii. 7.)
"Friends,—The text that has just been read cannot
"but bring forcibly to your minds the picture of the ter
rible affray in the celestial regions, which may indeed be
described as “ the cause of all our woe.” To ascribe the
entry of sin and misery into the1 world as due to our first
parents eating fruit that was forbidden them by Jehovah
is obviously a mistake, for the vanquished leader of the
rebel host was only continuing the strife in another
portion of the victor’s dominions, when-Ae persuaded’
poor Eve that that apple was both pleasant to the eye, -agreeable to the taste, and requisite to give the know
ledge that she then lacked. The fall, therefore, was a
defeat of Jehovah, and an effect of the war being trans
ferred to the new-made earth, to which Satan had been
so unceremoniously hurled.
But where, when, and how did this unbloody war
begin? Do your priests tell you? Is it explained in
your catechisms or made clear in your creeds ? Do any
of the ministers of the Gospel ever venture to fix a date?
No. It is left to the preachers of the gospel of freethought . to faithfully set before their friends. the time '
when this conflict began and the causes that led to the
outbreak of hostilities. God’s holy word, aided by one
of his. faithful servants, John Milton by name, shall be
requisitioned into our service, with an occasional aid
from more profane but equally well-informed sources, so
determined are we that the whole truth shall be fully set
forth. ’
.............
. .
�Jehovah, then, once upon a time alone with his
three selves, made out of what they alone know, a,
company of beings generally known as archangels,
seraphs, cherubim, and the rank and file known as
angels. When this was is not known. But as Jahveh
is the only “ eternal,” it must have been after his devel
opment. These seem to have been all male, as none of
the gentle sex are mentioned. Some impious mortals
have not hesitated to name their children after t]u?
highest of these beings, for Michael, Gabriel, and.
Raphael are by no means uncommon amongst Irishmen,
and Jews. If it is any consolation to my lady hearers,
I may at once cheer them with the welcome news that,
unlike many of the wars that have desolated the earth,
the cause of this one was' not woman. And women
ought to be glad when, together with this testimony as
to the non-existence of feminine aboriginal angels, there
is the negative evidence of the whole of the Bible that no
women have got there, coupled with the undeniable
assertion of St. John the Divine that “ there was silence
in heaven about the space of half an hour ” (Rev. viii. 1).
Bor this wise provision Milton even compliments Jahveh,
but he almost upbraids him for giving Satan such an
opportunity by making a woman upon earth. Hear
him :—
“ O, why did God,
Creator wise, that peopled heaven
With spirits masculine, create at last
This novelty on earth, this fair defect
Of Nature, and not fill the world at once
With men as angels without feminine!
Or find some other way to generate
Mankind ?”
But the divine John had, we are told, a termagant wife,
and this must be his excuse for his impious and ungallant
thought.
The archangels, then, were named, and among them
was Lucifer. Jahveh, who certainly could not have
*
foreseen the consequences that resulted from the creation,
of this being, must have made him imperfect, for ho
sooner or later showed signs of having a will of his own,
growing at last into open rebellion against his Maker.
But let us pause here, and ask, from our experience of
�(5)
similar events amongst us, whether there must not have
Jbeen a reason for this insubordination ? Rebellion is
'always brought about by the tyranny of rulers or the
'ambition of rivals. .Which was it, think you, that
actuated Lucifer ? Is it possible to imagine that abuses
had crept into the imperial government ? Were services
-required of a degrading and unworthy character? Or
Hid his highness the Devil fancy he could boss the con
cern with a view to the greatest happiness of the greatest
number? Was his employment that apportioned after
wards to the four-headed beasts, and which is vividly
depicted for us by the other John in his Revelation,
who rest not day and night saying, Holy, Holy, Holy,”
“before the great white throne ? This occupation would
certainly after a time become tedious, and there would
be some excuse for trying to bring such antics to a close.
Or had Satan charge of the stables of the heavenly
toenagerie, and did he ask for a change of duties and get
■refused? No one knows. But he rebelled ; and we find
from the fact of his following being numerous that a
"Spirit of dissatisfaction must have been prevalent among
the angels also. Here let me quote, with approval, a
remark from the article “ Satan” in Smith’s Bible Dic
tionary : “ We cannot, of course, conceive that anything
essentially and originally evil was created by God.”
Therefore it follows that circumstances over which
Jahveh had no control led up to a feeling in myriads of
his angels that things were getting very bad there, and
that radical reform was necessary. Lucifer unfurled the
banner of revolt, and
“ Hoping by treason foul to get
Into the great Jehovah’s seat;
And drawing in by wiles and snares
■Angels of all sorts unawares,”
............. ■ >
< ’
wept into the fight in earnest. Here Holy Scripture fails
Ils when we ask for particulars. We know nothing as to
the beginning of hostilities—who sent the declaration of
war; whether either side was equally well armed ;
whether the commissariat had been properly attended
to ; and whether adequate preparation had been made
for the nursing of the sick and the wounded. But Mil
ton assists us here; for ammunition appears to ba.vetutt,
short on the Imperial side, and Michael’s followers
.
�“ From their foundations loosening to and fro
O' ■ ' They plucked the seated hills with all their load.”
’’
‘These they hurled at the rebel hosts, and terror was
naturally excited in their breasts when they saw coming
thick upon them
.
&
“ The bottom of the mountains upward turned.”
But Nick was not to be outdone by Mick at this game
and, giving the order, “ Up, lads, and at ’em ! ” to his
■Captains, they,
“ In imitation, to like arms
Betake them, and the neighboring hills uptore i
So hills amid the air encountered hills,
Hurled to and fro with jaculation dire I
That underground they fought in dismal shade.”
£
,
"What carnage ! And heaven is a holy place, my friends >
there no sin or sorrow can enter; there all is joy and love’
Is it ? . Ask your Christian teachers for a guarantee thatwar will not occur there again. Look at the danger
into which you are needlessly running by going there,
now that it is the home of most of the scoundrels
that have desolated the earth ; of atrocious murderers—
wretches who have been assured by priests, while on the
very point of being "jerked to Jesus,” that they were
going straight to glory ! There is infinitely more pro
bability of a row there now than there was when all the
inhabitants of the celestial regions were aboriginals, and
had not incurred the risk of being corrupted by the miscreants that have gone there during the last six thousand
years.
But to the field again. Besides this Brobdignagiaq.
ammunition, cutlery was brought into use, although it is
difficult to understand how immortal beings could slash
and maim one another. Yet so it was, for
“ The girding sword with discontinuous wound,
Passed through him, but the ethereal substance closed, 7
Not long divisible.----- Yet soon he healed.”
• This peculiar action of “ ethereal substance ” prompted
Cobbett to remark : “I am abused for my notions of
Milton and Shakespeare ; but why abuse me ? 1 If there?be persons who are delighted with the idea of an angef
being split down the middle, and of the two halves com-
�(f)
ing (slap !) together again, intestines and’ all, they
surely let me pass without abuse for not haying sb re
*
fined a taste.”
;
The conflict raged for a long time, with varying for?
tune, Satan displaying generalship not unworthy of a>
Wellington or a Napoleon. Milton even seems proud of
his prowess and gallantry, for thus he . sings his valor in
the fray:—'
.
D,
r
, .
’
-:
“ ........................ ... down they fell
'
By thousands, angel on archangel rolled.
‘
..................... Satan beheld their flight,
And to his mates thus in derision called :
‘ O, friends, why come not on these victors proud ?
Erewhile they fierce were coming.’”
;
, •»
•'
.;
, J
But all great battles must come to an end; and so»
Jahveh finished this bloodless struggle by pursuing Satan:
.
“ With terrors and with furies to the bounds
<;
And crystal wall of heaven, which, opening wide,
c- Rolled inward, and a spacious gap disclosed.
.
4,., . Into the wasteful deep eternal wrath
Burnt after them to the bottomless pit.
’ .
Nine days they fell.”
•' J
?
:
' • - .
Here Milton’s genius seems to. have deserted him, for,’
if the pit was bottomless, they would still be tumbling,
and Satan would be powerless. But the other John aversthat they were cast out into the earth, though this state
ment is curiously contradicted by Christian theologians,
who have invented a hell in which to preserve him. This,
assertion may seem to Christians present to be a very,
reckless one indeed ; but it is the opinion of the writer Of
the article “ Hell,” in Smith’s Dictionary of the Bible, a
view that we may fairly take to be that of all’ the eminenttheologians who contributed to that important biblicalcyclopaedia. Hear what Hell is. “ This is the word,'
generally and unfortunately used by our translators tb>
render the Hebrew Sheol. It would, perhaps, .have beenbetter to retain the Hebrew word Sheol, or else render it
always by ‘ the grave,’ or ‘ the pit.’............. .The Hebrew
ideas respecting Sheol were of a vague description. Gen
erally speaking, the Hebrews regarded the grave as the
*
end of all sentient and intelligent existence.” It may bet
*
Urged that Jesus often used, the words hell and hellfire ;>
hut we must not allow the ignorance? of! a poor Jew, see
?
*
�/
(8)
Ing that there Js no evidence that he understood a word
of Hebrew, to influence us on this question. His reported
passionate and revengeful speeches, in which those words
'occur, were probably invented' by artful priests in the
Second or third century of our era. Besides, the Revised
Version has generally substituted Sheol for “ Hell ” in
the Old Testament ; and Hellophiles are sadly distressed
in consequence.
Satan, then, was hurled from heaven to earth; «.nd
here we may now expect to find him. It would be nnfa.ir
to charge him with that artful trick of chousing Jahveh
in Eden, but for the fact that orthodox Christians iden
tify him with the serpent. Of this there is no evidence
whatever, and the view cannot be supported by a single
Sentence from the Hebrew books. We first find him and
Michael “at it again,” contending about the body of
Moses (Jude 9), but whether for a dissecting room or in
the interest of rival undertakers “ no one knoweth unto
this day. Certain it is, however, that Mick showed due
and proper respect to his whilom confrere, and subsequent
antagonist, as he dared not bring a railing accusation
against him, but simply said at the end of the conflict:
“ The Lord rebuke thee.” Certain it is, therefore, that
Satan secured the body of Holy Moses, either for an
hospital or for some professional Mr. Mould, Round
three for Satan.
Pursuing our inquiries about this time, we find that
Nick, having entered into a kind of treaty of peace with
Jahveh, again became on friendly terms with his rival.
“ There was a day when the sons of God came to present
themselves before the Lord, and Satan came also among
them” (Job i. 6). Of course he did; what was to prevent
him? “Ha! how do, Sate?” said Jahveh. “ All right,
old boy; how are things up here?” replied Nick. “Very
quiet indeed; scarcely any addition to our circle,” says
Jahveh, “ since you sent most souls another way by that
Eden escapade of yours, old man.” “ No recriminations,
let byegones be byegones!” sharply replied the Old One,
a reply which brought Jahveh back to the novelty of the
situation. “Where have you been lately, Satan? ” said the
elder Old One in his blandest tone; to which the younger
Old One answered: “ Oh, only having a run up and
down the earth.” “ And how are matters generally in
�(9)
that neighborhood,” queried the Omniscient, “ and by
the bye, do you ever get as far as Uz?”* “ Oh, yes, I
have a country house there, and generally spend a part
of the autumn in the locality.” “ Do you know a big pot
down there named Job ? ’’ “ Know him well, as well as
I know you. Saw his missus home from a party the
other night—Job, who keeps good hours, having gone
home early.”
“What’s your opinion of the old chap, Satan—tell us
the truth now? I consider him to be a right good sort, in
fact there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an
upright man.” “Is he?” said Satan; “you don’t know
him as well as I do. See what you have done for him,
made his fortune for him, blessed him with a large
family, enabled him to become prime minister of his
country, and protected him on every hand. Take these
advantages from him, and he’ll repudiate you at once.”
“ I don’t believe it; but I know, Satan, you’re a man
of your word. Promise me you won’t hurt the old
fellow, and you may try the experiment of depriving him
of all his property, knocking his house down about his
ears, and you can even go so far as to smite his sons and
daughters; but don’t meddle with Job, and respect his
missus.” “ That’s a bargain, Jahveh; you may trust me
to keep my word respecting Job, and nothing wTould
induce me to harm his missus. Ta, ta! ”
Now, if the story in the Book of Job be true (and we
must assume that it is), Satan went straight from
Heaven to Uz, and played the devil with poor Job in
real earnest. The Sabeans carried off all his oxen and
donkeys, the Chaldeans stole his camels, and, probably,
in order that nothing should be left, God himself lent a
helping hand in this work of destruction by dropping
down fire from Heaven on the poor sheep, being rewarded,
no doubt, by “ a sweet savour ” of which we know from
holy writ that he was' exceedingly fond. In this general
destruction, my friends, do not forget that the whole of
Job’s servants, with the exception of three or four, were
Either burnt to death by God or murdered by those bands
. * Only Jahveh and Nick knew this country. “ Whether the
name of Uz'survived to classical times is uncertain.”—Die. of the
Bible.
'
�that, fell, on his. flocks; and,, to complete this- hellish.
Satan-Jahveh experiment, a hurricane was sent which
wrecked the house of Job’s eldest son, in which were
gathered Job’s other sons, and daughters, all of whom
met with a violent death. O■•! friends, it was a dreadful
thing to fall under the notice of the living God; but,
fortunately for humanity, he is dead now, or gone, on a,
journey, or is asleep. Amid all this carnage and des
truction it is satisfactory to. state of Satan that he was
a man of his word; he faithfully kept the promise he.
made to Jahveh not to harm Job. Bound four for Satan»
Satan returned, to Heaven on the next Levée day, pre
sumably to report progress, for the conversation is a
repetition of the former interview, Jahveh again asking
Nick what was his opinion of Job. If the Devil’s
character has not been grossly misrepresented, his
Christian enemies have credited him with being possessed
of craft, cunning, and deceitfulness to such a degree
that even saints have for a time been deceived by him.
We may, therefore, assume that Nick took in the sitúa-,
tion at once, laid his plans accordingly, and reasoned
thus: “I have with very little difficulty got round my
old enemy, and have bamboozled him by blarney sufficient
to allow me to go and punish, with his permission (al
though I could have done it without), one of his most
obsequious followers ; and if I. only humor him a little
*
more, I have no doubt I can get round him and obtain
his permission to go and torment old Job with small-póx,
fever, or blotches. . I will therefore tempt him.” So
Satan acted; poor old Jahveh fell into the trap, not;
without some suspicion, however, that Nick was diddling
him, for he pathetically reproached Satan with having
“ movedst me against him, to destroy him without cause.’’
“Skin for skin,” said Nick, “all that aman hath will
he give for his life. Put forth thine hand now, and touch'
his bone and his flesh, and he will curse thee- to thyface.” The historian of the transaction has suppressed1
the remainder of the conversation, but let us try and
fill up the hiatus. Jahveh exclaimed : “I don’t believe
it.” “ Try him,” said Satan, “ and see if I don’t know^
him better than you do.” “ Well, Sate, “ replied Jabyqh,
** most honorably have. you .kept your word in conducting
the last mission; make me a solemn promise bn your
�’<11)
yvord as a devil that you won’t take his- life from him,
and a further experiment shall be tried.” “ I will swear
it, if you doubt me,” began Nick ; but he was instantly
stopped by Jahveh exclaiming : “ No—no oath; I myself
sware one once to Abraham and have been unable to*
perform it. Your word is sufficient.” Here the inspired,
chronicler comes. again to our aid. “Behold, he is in
thine hand; but spare his life.” Off went the old onn
to Uz, “ and smote Job with sore boils from the sole of
his foot to his crown.” You will notice, my friends, how
‘clearly every fact is stated in this holy book; you cannot
possibly mistake the character of these boils. They
were sore boils ; boils that were not sore were none of
Satan’s production.
Poor Job seems to have had a sour-tempered wife, like=
Milton, for, instead of at once making him some strong,
linseed-meal poultices, or looking him up a box of Hollo
way’s'ointment, she began reproaching him, Job getting,
out of her way by going out and lying down on the dust
heap in the back-yard, scraping his boils with a piece of
a broken tea-cup. There’s a spectacle, my friends L
there’s an incentive to be good ! What an awful example,
of serving Jahveh faithfully 1 Beware of him, shun him.
as you would the----- boils. But in order that theremay be no doubt whatever of the truth of this event,
the narrative relates that-Job had three friends ; and soaccurate is the book in small matters, as well as great,
that it descends to telling their names. There was.
Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar“
the Naamathite; but where these countries were the:
Devil only knows. These three men began comforting,
poor Job by tearing up their coats and throwing dirt om
their heads—actions which by no stretch of the imagina?
tion can be considered as cures for boils ; they finished,,
however, by sitting down on the ground by Job’s midden
“ for seven days and seven nights, and none spake a.
word to him.” Tins round must certainly be given tothe Devil. Score : Devil four, God one.
You will have noticed that after Satan’s repulse hewas cast out into the earth, and all his angels were castout with him ; and the history in Job certainly corrobo—
•See Genesis, xxvi—3.
�■Tates this, for it speaks of him walking up and down in
it then. Subsequently we find him playing pranks with
¿David, tempting him to take a census of his kingdom —
*
a little eccentricity indulged in by us every decade in
Great Britain and Ireland, just to show that we are still
faithful to the Prince of this world, and respect his coun■sel and follow his advice. True, a few devoted followers
■of Jahveh the younger indignantly protested against this
-device when it was first adopted; but they were met
with scorn and derision in Parliament and in the press.
Satan again triumphed, and the result of his victory in
this bout has been of immense advantage to his subjects
here. Jahveh waxed angry with David for taking that
first census, and, possibly being afraid to engage in open
¿hostilities with Satan, resolved to punish the old Jewish
¿king. So he sent to David a certain fortune-teller, named
Gad, with a message of a most engaging nature. “I,
.■Jahveh, am determined to be revenged for this your action in following the advice of Satan: choose, therefore,
how you will be punished. You can have three years of
famine,, or three months in flight before your enemies, or
I will gird my angel Michael with one of my best Dam
ascus blades, and he shall have three days’ sport among
your people.” David, feeling assured that Satan would
stand by him, chose the last alternative, and Jahveh’s
-deputy went at it with a pestilence, and smote 23,333J
•persons per day for three days—70,000 in all. Not a
bad three days’ work, was it ? Consider, too, how just
naid moral it was—killing the people for being counted,
-and sparing the king who counted them, and Satan who
“ moved ” the king thereto. It is only fair to say that
-another writer in this blessed book declares that it was
Jahveh himself who “ moved ” David to number his sub
jects ; but that is manifestly impossible, as it would
make of Jahveh a fool as well as a murderer. Besides,
"the writer shows his ignorance of the details of the affair
■by making the three years’ famine into seven. It is
possible to believe that three are equal to one; but to
/require assent to the proposition that three are equiva
lent to seven is rather too much—even for the faithful. .
Satan and his angels are more frequently met with in
* I Chron. xxi. 1.
�( 13 ) ;
later times.- When Jesus was led up by the spirit into-y
the wilderness, it was on purpose to be tempted by the ,
Devil. On another occasion we find some of Satan’s,
angels taking up their abode inside the body or bodies of
a man or men (for Matthew and Mark relate the story ■
differently as to the number; and, while one lays the
scene in Gergesha, the other is positive that it was at
Gedara). In this affair we learn that the devils knew <
Jesus although they were inside the man, and begged of ■
Jesus, if he evicted them, to permit them to take up their.
residence inside two thousand pigs that were in the neigh- ,
borhood. This being conceded, the pigs—doubtless won- •
dering what the devil was the matter with them—ram
headlong “ down a steep place into the sea,” and were-'
drowned. The news of this destruction of these Jews’
pigs brought the people out of the city, and they very
naturally “besought him that he would depart out of •
their coasts.”
This is not the only story told of devils in God’s Word.
Jesus, in choosing his twelve apostles, admitted that one.
of them was a devil; and, in another place, we have this,
apostle identified, when Jesus says to Peter: “ Get thee,
behind me, Satan.” In those authentic productions of
the early Christian writers we have numerous instances,
of the trouble caused by devils to the Christian Church.
Some of these veracious writers descend to particulars f
and thus enable us to estimate their power in this fight.
Hear St. Cyprian : “They (the devils) insinuate them
selves into the bodies of men, raise terrors in the mind,,
distortions in the limbs, break the constitution, and bring
on diseases—yet, adjured by us in the name of the true
God, they presently yield, confess, and are forced to quit
the bodies which they possessed.” This work of exor
cism went on for more than a thousand years, the Church
drawing up a form of prayer to drive devils out of dwell
ings—an operation which took seven days to perform.
The whole of this office has been preserved by Bourne in
his Antiquities, and I will cite a pertinent remark of
Brand, another antiquary, in introducing it in his work :
“ Here follows the tedious process for the expulsion of
Daemons, who, it should seem, have not easily been
ferretted out of their quarters, if one may judge of their
unwillingness to depart by the prolixity of the subsequent
�removal-warrant, which I suppose the Romish clerical
bailiffs were not at the trouble of serving for nothing.”
Rather Montfaucon has recorded, in his Journey, an in
stance of how these devils vexed the faithful in later
times. In the Church of St. Maria del Popolo, at Rome,
ie found an altar bearing upon it an inscription in the
Latin tongue, which his English translator renders thus:
'“This altar, solemnly erected by Pope Paschal II., in
"this place, upon a Divine Inspiration, by which he soon
<lrove out the tall Devils who, sitting on the Nut Tree,
cruelly insulted the people as they passed by, was, by
the authority of Pope Urban VIII., removed to the higher
place,, where you now see it, in the year of our Lord;
1527.” To-day it is not uncommon, among people that
are very religious and very ignorant, to believe in the
raising and laying of the Devil. I know that in Norfolk '
it is a widespread form of this Bible superstition, and the
charms employed to remove the Evil. One are many and'
quaint. Saying the Lord’s Prayer backwards, whilst.
walking round the parish church, is one of these ; but a
much easier method is to be found in the Jewish records.
Eor the use of those who may at any time be troubled
by having the Devil in their houses, we will relate how
he was got rid pf. There was a young man named Toby,'
who fell dn love with a young lady named Sara, and,
like most young men under similar circumstances, he ‘
proposed marriage to her. The girl was young and ;
pretty, and she had been married to seven men, all of
whom went to bed on their wedding-night well and
strong, but all were found dead beside her the next
morning. The Devil was in love with her, and was de- '
termined that no one but he should be her spouse.
When Toby discovered this he was not quite so anxious
to make her his wife. However, one evening he went
down to the river Tigris to wash himself, when a fish '
jumped up and sought to devour him. No doubt it was
Jonah’s whale on the rampage again ; but Toby eluded
it. Looking round he saw the angel Raphael, who
shouted: “Toby, put in your hand and pull out that;
fish.” A fish that is about to swallow you is the sort of .
fish to pull out with your hand. Toby did so. Then
Raphael gave instructions to Toby to take out the heart,
liver and gall, and put them away safely. The fish' was1'
�015 )
¿ext cooked and eaten for supper by Toby and the angel,
after which they both jogged on together to Ecbatane.
Here we may remark that whenever the angels came
down to. earth they were noted for indulging in a goodSquare meal; in Abraham’s time roast veal was the billOf fare ; in this it is roast fish. Perhaps up above they
are restricted to manna, and are glad of a change when:
Put visiting. On the way, the angel assured the young man
that he could now safely marry the girl, but the fate ofher seven husbands troubled, poor Toby. He, however,,
being assured by the angel, went to the girl, proposed,
and was accepted. Raphael gave him instructions how
to “ lay ” the Devil, and after they had supped, they
brought the girl to Toby’s bedroom ; he made a fire in it
and put the heart and liver of the fish on it “ and made
a smoke therewith.” You may take it for granted that
if he had kept those organs of that fish long he would,
have made a stink also ; and this is borne out by the
statement of the writer, who says : “ The which smell,
when the evil spirit had smelled, he fled into the utter-,
most parts of Egypt, and the angel bound him.” So you
see, my friends, that if you should be troubled by Satan,
leave holy water,.prayers, and signs of the cross alone—
give him a dose of ^stinking fish!
There was war in Heaven; but let us again remark
that it was only discovered by the last writer in the
Bible. Similar tales were prevalent with nearly all the
peoples from most remote antiquity. In the Persian,
Etruscan, Indian, Egyptian, and Assyrian cosmogonies
this story is variously related, and there has recently
Been unearthed what are known as the Chaldean
creation tablets, which have been translated by the late
George Smith. In editing a popular History of Baby- ■
Ionia, written by Mr. Smith, the Rev. A. H. Sayce, an
Oxford professor, says : “ Connected with these creation,
tablets are others which describe the fall of man,
brought about by the tempter, the great dragon Tiamatu
(Tehamtu), or the ‘ Deep,’' as well as another series
which recounts the war of Merodach, the sun-god, with
Tiamatu and her allies. This- war reminds us of the1*
Biblical passage (Rev. xii. 7), in which it says there wash
war in heaven.” (History of Babylonia from the Monu
ments, p. 53.) ' Remind us, good heavens ! remind us of
�( U )
what ? Why, that the early Christians cribbed from the
old, hated Babylonian sun-myths their pretended origin,
of the Devil, and-foisted it on a credulous and ignorant
people as a revelation from God. ’ .
Such, then, is the origin of this story, which has
been of enormous advantage to priests in all times, but
which is now laughed at and derided by the wisest and.'
best of men. Let us all do our best to exorcise this
wretched superstition from earth—by logic, if you like,,
by reasoning, if you will, but, more potent than either of
these, by ridictile and laughter, as adopted by us
to-night.
Tilly » DE VII/S t PULPIT.
Forty-six Discourses by the Rev. Robert Taylor, B.A.
734 pages, cloth, 2/- (postage 6d.)
For delivering two of these Discourses the author was
indicted for Blasphemy, and sentenced, on July 4, 1831,
to two years’ imprisonment, to pay a fine of £200, and to
find two sureties for £250 each for five years.
THE TRUE SOURCE OF CHRISTIANITY;
OR, A VOICE FROM THE GANGES.
By AN
INDIAN
OFFICER.
IN PAPER COVERS, Is.; CLOTH, Is. 6d. POST FREE
Frauds and Follies of the
Christian Fathers.
By JOSEPH MAZZINI WHEELER. Price Threepence.
BSF The icorks of Voltaire, Paine, Volney, Holyoake,
Bradlaugh, Besant, Foote, Ingersoll, and other Free
thinkers, always in stock. Orders to the amount of one
shilling sent post free.
R. Forder, 28, Stonecutter Street, E.C.
�
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"There was War in Heaven" : an infidel sermon, delivered to the Portsmouth Branch of the National Secular Society
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Forder, Robert
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 16 p. ; 19 cm.
Notes: Part of the NSS pamphlet collection. Publisher's advertisements on back cover. Text taken from Rev. xii. 7 'And there was war in heaven...'.
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R. Forder
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1887
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N274
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Secularism
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<p class="western">This work ("There was War in Heaven" : an infidel sermon, delivered to the Portsmouth Branch of the National Secular Society), identified by <span style="color:#0000ff;"><span lang="zxx"><u>Humanist Library and Archives</u></span></span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</p>
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English
Bible. N.T. Revelation
NSS
Original Sin
-
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Text
PRICE ONE PENNY.
JL F L H .A
FOR
S O CIA LISM:
BY
J . L. MAHON.
Delivered in
the course
AMONGST
THE
of a
MINERS
Socialist Campaign
ON
STRIKE
IN
Northumberland, 1877.
“ AS LONG AS OUB CIVILIZATION IS BASED UPON PROPERTY OUR BICHES
WILL LEAVE US SICK, THEBE WILL BE BITTERNESS IN OUB LAUGHTER AND
OUB WINE WILL BURN IN OUB MOUTH.
ONLY THAT GOOD PROFITS WHICH
WE CAN TASTE WITH ALL DOORS OPEN AND WHICH SERVES ALL MEN.”—
Emerson
Published at the “ Commonweal” Office :
13, Farringdon Road, London, E.C
J. Beall, Printer, Stationer, &c., St. Andrew’s Street.
1887.
�“ I ask you to think with me that the worst which can
happen to us is to endure tamely the evils which we see, that
no trouble or turmoil is so bad as that; that the necessary
destruction which reconstruction bears with it must be taken
calmly ; that everywhere—in State, in Church, in the house
hold—we must be resolute to endure no tyranny, accept no
lie, quail before no fear, although they may come before us
disguised as piety, duty, or affection, as useful opportunity and
good nature, as prudence or kindness.”—William Morris.
“ The ivorld in a commercial society belongs to the
capitalists, the share of oiunership which each man pos
sesses being his capital.
In order that wealth may be
produced .... toorkmen and horses must till the
land; the sun must shine and the rain must fall upon the
field, when the seed will sprout and grow; bees must per
form the operation necessary to the fertilization of the
flower, when the fruit will form and swell; birds must
join in the work by destroying the noxious insects which
would otherwise destroy the harvest; and so on. When all
is done some of the agents claim a share of the product;
the men and cattle must be fed; the birds make good their
right to share the wealth which their labour, as much as
that of the men and horses, has produced; and even the
earth demands a part as seed for the next crop. After
all the deductions are made, which the harshness of nature
renders necessary, the balance belongs to the capitalist.
To him it is a matter of indifference what natural agents
are instrumental in the production of his wealth, and the
labour of men does not, in his estimation, differ generically
from that of birds or horses, and is more important only
because the men are the phenomena over xohich he has most
control........................... He groups together all the agents
(including the workmen) that have co-operated in the pro
duction of his wealth as elements of the efficiency of his
capital, and measures the result of all their energies by the
rate of profit he obtains.’'—Communal and Commercial
Economy.—JOHN CARRUTHERS.
�A PLEA FOR SOCIALISM
Fellow- Workmen,
I am sure that an appeal to you for a fair hearing is
unnecessary. Socialism no longer meets with the jeers and
abuse that assailed it, from workmen as well as others, only
a few years ago. Discontent is just now so deep and general
amongst the working-class, and the exponents of Socialism
have worked so hard and enthusiastically in their cause that
a respectful and sympathetic hearing is given them by people
of all kinds all over the country. But, having cast off your
prejudice see also that you put away all misunderstandings.
Socialists are often accused of holding opinions which they
are constantly preaching against, of wishing to bring about
things which they are even now trying to abolish. It is said
they wish to make an equal division of all wealth, bring all
men to one dull level, put every man’s affairs at the mercy of
State officials, make the sober support the drunken and the
industrious work for the thriftless, stamp out individuality,
abolish all incentive to invention, and to bring about these
things by hanging every man with a decent coat on his back.
Everything that malignity, jealousy, and sheer stupidity
could string together has been said against the Socialists.
Well, we don’t grumble. We know the way all great reform
ers since the time of Christ have been received ; kicks and
cuffs, and good chances of crucifiction or hanging in the end.
But we take it all as a compliment to the goodness and
usefulness of our principles.
Ike need for Socialism. The chief cause of the great spread
of Socialism of late is the dissatisfaction felt by all classes
with things as they are and the evident uselessness of all other
proposed remedies. England yearly grows richer, yet her
working-men and women are practically as bad off as ever
''
�A Plea
for
Socialism.
they were. Our power of making goods gets greater every
year, but we have not yet found a way of supplying the wants
of those who make them. Food, clothes, houses and all the
needs of life and happiness are here at our hand in abundance,
at our hand also is the means of making ten times more than
we have, and yet the workers who make these things are living
in wretchedness, squalor, and semi-starvation. Many boast
of the power, fame, and grandeur of the British Empire, but
few notice that in the lowest depths of social life, in the shims
and the back streets, is an ever growing mass of people with
out hope in life, for life to them means a fierce scramble ever
getting fiercer; a miserable subsistence ever getting more
miserable. These people have no respect for Society, for
Society has no respect for them. “ Law and order’' is to them
only a fancy name for the power that keeps them in the mire.
They hate the law and they hate society, and their hatred is
just. They are too many to be ignored, too strong to be
despised, too much wronged to bear good will to those in
power. Their ranks are recruited from the working-class
every year : and some prolonged depression of trade may see
them powerful enough to put Law at defiance ; as indeed they
were during the early months of 1886. Civilization ! Pro
gress ! National Greatness !—mockery and humbug while
those who make the wealth are ever in want and in fear of
want, and those who neither toil nor spin live in luxury.
People feel the evil of all this and they see nothing in the
ordinary proposals to undo it. The Socialists have, as is
generally admitted, brought forward the most consistent and
satisfactory criticism of the present system of society, and
from the same line of thought the real remedy must likewise
come.
Toryism, Liberalism, and Radicalism. Out of all our party
fighting we don’t seem to get much benefit. The working
class are gradually losing faith in the political parties of all
shades. Toryism is a dead horse—not even worth a kiok.
Tliberalism has always meant, and Liberals have always worked
for, the interests of trade and commerce, under the idea, no
doubt, that the welfare of the people could best be served in
that way. But every day makes it plainer that the whole
object of modern commerce is to enslave and cheat the
people. That trade is carried on solely for the profit of the
�Political Parties.
5
capitalists, whose chief aim is to increase profits by decreasing
wages. The Liberals have posed as the friends of the people
on questions of merely political importance. But on any
question affecting the “ rights” of property—such as the
factory acts, or adulteration acts—-some of the best Liberals
were the workmen’s worst enemies. It is now plain to most
workmen that there is nothing to choose between Liberals and
Tories, but that the bitter opposition of both may be expected.
Then what of the Radical party ? But where is it I Wander
ing about after a dozen leaders, chasing fifty fads, but having
no policy to give to the people which will excite their
enthusiasm or better their condition. A more hazy, indefinite,
muddled-up party never existed than the latter day Radicals.
Their chief function has been to blacken the boots of the
Whigs, and except that now and then we hear a little murmur
ing, their function has been well fulfilled. The days of
popularity for the Liberal party are now over. They are on
the high road to perdition ; in going there they will kick the
Tories in front of them, and drag most of the Radicals, as
usual, at their coat tails.
The Socialists spend a good
deal of energy in trying to win over the Radical workmen,
and this energy is well spent. In the Liberal agitations hither
to the Whig Dukes and cotton Lords have given the money
while the Radical workmen have furnished the enthusiasm.
The Socialist cause will gain by detaching these enthusiasts
from the false friends of the people and using their powers
for a better purpose. The reason why I attack Liberalism
and Radicalism more than Toryism is because many people
believe in them, while no one believes in Toryism at all.
The official Tories believe least of all in their own principles,
for when in office they masquerade in Liberal garments—
which shows at once their duplicity and their depraved taste.
In my opinion both political parties are humbugs, and the
only difference between the Liberals and the Tories is that
the Liberals are the most ingenious humbugs of the two.
Labour Representation. Great things were expected if we
got workmen into Parliament but very little has been realized.
There are plenty of rich men in the House of Commons who
are far more outspoken and independent than the Labour
members. We, as workmen, ought to be thoroughly ashamed
of the way we are represented. A few limpid lisping weak-
�6
A Plea
for
Socialism.
lings, who always truckle to the party chiefs, who never yet
distinguished themselves by standing out sturdily for the
interests of labour—who indeed have either forgotten or never
knew what the interests of labour mean. A poor spiritless
lot are they ! The best of them seem to have mistaken their
business. They are grubbing away at “ Employers’ Liability
Acts” as if legislation of that kind would by itself achieve
much for the workers. In the Parliament of 1886 we had
twelve Labour M.P.’s
Our twelve apostles ! At that time
the unemployed were rioting, so keen and widespread was
their distress, all over the country. But our apostles did not
like to disturb the arrangements of the Liberal Government.
Labour was in bad straits : but, for a whole session its
apostles sat sucking their thumbs and said never a word. In
Northumberland during the strike, which began in February,
1887, the suffering and distress was very keen. The men
were trying to resist an attempt to reduce wages which were
already at starvation point. Surely the Labour M.P.’s might
have used their position as members of Parliament to draw
attention to the state of their constituents : had Northumber
land been a county in Ireland, the House of Commons would
have been ringing with the tale of the miners’ wrongs. No
better illustration of the miserable incompetency of the
labour M.P.’s could be brought forward. Had they possessed
the least spark of vigour and sturdiness, the country would
not have been in darkness as to the condition of their con
stituents.
•
■
'
If Labourers are to be sent to
Parliament why make them middle-class men by paying them
from T6 to £10 per week ? A workman in Parliament ought
to get the wages of a London artisan and be enabled to live
in the same standard of comfort. He should go there to work
and not be ashamed of the object of his mission. Instead of
that his first move is to ape the costume and manners of the
cultured drones amongst whom he sits. The whole spirit and
object of mere “Labour representation” is mistaken. The no
tion that having “ labourers” in Parliament will do much good
is a very silly and artificial one. Working-men are no better
than other men, and middle-class men are no worse. It is
some definate principle or ideal that must be taken up by the
working-class before it can achieve anything. The Labour
Representation movement has nothing definate in it. It
�The root
of the difficulty.
7
simply wants to get workmen into Parliament—not to do any
thing in particular, just to loaf about, and look dignified, and
turn lick-spittles to the Liberal party when occasion demands.
This vague, hazy, scatter-brained policy will never do any
service or any credit to the working-class. Representatives
of this kind will be only half supported by workmen and de
spised by upper class politicians. Let us resolve on a definate purpose and push that forward. Use Parliament as a
platform if you will, but educate the people tp a clear under
standing of what your aim and their aim should be. When
you have cleared away some of the ignorance of the people—
and that is the real obstacle to their progress—then a strong
fighting party can be organized and there will be every chance
of winning : at present with no particular object and no en
deavour to find one, with nothing but a muddled-up notion of
doing something, sometime, somehow; failure and ignominy
are certain.
The root of the difficulty. Now, in my opinion the error
of the various political parties I have referred to is that they
skim over the surface of these great problems. They are
afraid or unable to go to the root of the matter and point
out the cause of poverty. It is a paltry superficial kind of
reasoning which tells us that the industrious are well-to-do,
and the idle and thriftless poverty-stricken. I have no wish
to gloss over the failings of working people, or to excuse their
sins on the plea that the rich sin also and more heavily. But
I think there is something mean and hypocritical about those
who continually denounce the faults of the poor while they
leave the rich man’s crimes unassailed. Let us denounce
intemperance, idleness, thriftlessness wherever we may find
*
it; but let us be unsparingly impartial: let neither fame nor
rank save the wrong-doer from the reprobation of his fellows.
The faults of the rich do not excuse the faults of the poor,
but they are often the cause of them. It is luxury that makes
penury necessary. It is waste on one hand that entails
scrimping and starving on the other. It is the legalised lazi
ness amongst the rich that sets the example of loafing and
* It is strange to see how this term, thrift, is misused. Thrift means
making the best use of what you have. It does not mean selfish grabbing of
all you can get, nor a crazy hoarding of things you can never use. Still less
does it mean (as some sentimental moralists would have us believe) cowardly
contentment with less than you are entitled to.
�8
A Plea
for
Socialism.
flunkeyism to the poor. It is because the rich man shirks his
share of the world’s work that the poor man is overworked.
And what is the cause of nine-tenths of the vice and callous
ness of the working-men ? The long, dreary, and depressing
toil they have to endure when in employment; the feverish
anxiety about to-morrow’s food, and the future of their child
ren when in the ranks of the unemployed. To most workmen
life is an uninteresting past, a joyless present, and a hopeless
future. The root of the great social question is that modern
society treats the workmen as machines and the capitalists as
lords of civilization. In a civilized society the capitalist
is master of the land and minerals which no man made ;
of the machinery which includes within it the toil and
skill of countless generations; of the vast stores of wealth
which all (except the capitalists) have helped to accumu
late ; in short all the resources of civilization—which,
without exception, are the produce of work—belong to
one class. The only thing the capitalist, as such, does
is to keep a firm grip of these things and never spend
five shillings without a reasonable certainty of getting
ten, fifteen, or twenty in return. Civilization is a huge
arrangement for heaping up profit, and whatsoever will not
bring profit to the holder of capital is prohibited by the laws
of trade and commerce ; it is stigmatized as a thing that
“won’t pay” (no matter how much good it may do) and
banished from the business of life, and the world is thought
lucky if some philanthropist or faddiBt take it up instead.
Are we Slaves ? The pet delusion of the British working
man is that he is free. How he came by this delusion, and
why he sticks to it, I don’t know. It is interesting to notice
that the British workman’s “patriotism” and fondness for
proclaiming his independence varies with the rate of his
wages and the security of his employment. At £2 per week
he is sure that he is not a slave, and “never, never” will
be ; at £1 he is doubtful about the reality of his freedom ; at
12s. he curses the British Empire and says, wisely, though
not elegantly, that his freedom is a fraud. Now, what is a
slave ? One who is compelled to work for somebody
else.
In this, the real sense, the working-class of every
civilised country are slaves. They work and all the result
goes to the capitalist and upper class ; they get back a few
�The old slavery
and the new.
9
shillings to keep them alive, for that is all their wages
amount to. They are forced to work for the upper class,
while the upper class does nothing for them, and therefore
they are slaves. If the miner produces coal for the money
lord, and the money-lord does nothing for the miner, then
surely the miner is a slave. Every man who lives without
doing useful work is enslaving some other people. It is
work that keeps society going. Every man who eats bread,
lives in a house, or burns coal is using the fruits of labour.
Unless he renders some useful service to the baker, the
builder, or the miner he is stealing from them and making
them his slaves. A civilised society includes two main
classes:—Workers and idlers, producers and thieves, slaves
and slave-owners. The workers do everything for themselves,
and support the other class besides. The upper class do
nothing for themselves, and nothing for any-body else, so they
are thieves and slave drivers. Not that they are individually
conscious of stealing or oppressing, or should be individually
punished for it. But the harm done is the same whether
they are conscious or not. Besides, every sensible man
ought to think of where his dinner comes from, and to reflect
that somebody must have earned it; and that if he did not
earn it he must have stolen it.
The old slavery and the new. It is true that one man
cannot call another his property as he would a horse or a
dog, but does this make any essential difference ? The
reason why men were once owned like cattle was simply
that their labour might be used for their master’s benefit.
Well, if their labour is still taken from them, even without
the institution of private property in human flesh and blood,
the result is the same. The capitalist does not to-day own
the workman, but he owns the means by which only the
workman can live ; and he says to him, “ You cannot labour
without using the land and the capital; these things are
under my control, and I shall only allow you to use them on
condition that you take a bare living out of the produce of
your own labour, and that you hand over to me all the
balance over and above that.” The capitalist manages to
■enforce these terms. Nine-tenths of the modern workmen
are mere slaves, getting enough each pay-day to keep them
in bread till the next. In one respect they are worse off
�10
A Plea
for
Socialism.
than the olden slaves. When the employer has no further
need for their services, he turns them adrift in the streets
to find a crust as best they can; in olden times the slave
owner, out of self-interest, always took care to feed and
clothe his human property. In spite of all our boasting
of freedom the position of the civilised workman may be
summed up thus : He is allowed to earn his own living
only when his labour will also yield a profit to supply the
middle and upper classes with a living for nothing ; he gets
only a small part of what he earns ; he is dependent upon
others for the chance of working at all; and when he cannot
be made an instrument of profit-grinding he is cast amongst
the unemployed, and from thence too often he drifts to the
gaol, the workhouse, or the lunatic asylum.
The Slave Market and the Labour Market.
A closer
examination of the old and the new slavery will show still
stronger points of resemblance. In olden times there was a
slave market, to which men were driven in gangs, goaded on
by the lash of the slave driver. When they got there, they
were sold at auction, like cattle, to the highest bidder. Now
there is a labour market, at which human labour is bought
and sold like other goods. The people have no alternative
but to go and sell their labour, and they go obediently and
docilely, and as long as the system lasts they must do so.
Brute force is discarded, but the force of circumstances work
to the capitalists’ interests instead. The slave driver’s whip
is only to be found in the museum, but the whip of hunger
does the same work, and it bites as cruelly. But what is the
difference when they get to the market ? In olden times
they were put up to auction and knocked down to the highest
bidder ; now they are compelled to compete against each
other and are knocked down to the lowest bidder. From
this competition for employment a strange and horrid light
is thrown on the working of the capitalist system. The
master takes advantage of the men’s misfortunes, and uses
the unemployed to force down the wages of those in work.
In short, slavery is still the basis of our social organisation.
Our chains ud to be ugly black iron ; we saw them and
e
*
abhorred them. Now they are finely polished and painted,
and we think them ornaments and hug them ; but they are
as strong as ever, and when the times of distress come we
�Conquer
the cupboard.
11
feel them gnawing and chafing us. We cannot be free
while able, useful, and willing workmen starve in a land
made wealthy by their own labour. Our freedom is an
elaborate and ingenious hypocrisy while thousands are
denied the chance to earn their bread in their own country;
and while the whole working-class is only allowed to labour
on condition that it will hand over the largest part of the
result to the idle, useless, and vicious upper class.
Conquer the Cupboard. The powei’ lies in the hands of
the moneyed class, because they have the land and the
capital completely in their control. The workers dare not
till the soil of their own country, although thousands of acres
of it are lying waste, unless they can produce a heavy rent
for the landlord as well as a living for themselves. The
factories also are closed and the machinery stopped in many
districts. Here comes the narrow selfishness of the present
system. The men who own the land and capital do not wish
to use it themselves, and indeed could not. They simply
have the power to prevent others from using these things,
and they use that power to extort enormous profits from the
workers. Let us compare society to an ordinary household.
Imagine a family in which the father and several sons were
the bread-winners, and the mother and several daughters
housekeepers. Suppose they have a cupboard in which the
food and other means of life are stored. This cupboard
should be under the care of the housewife. But let us
imagine that a stranger, who has done nothing to help in the
work of the household, forces his way in, fixes a patent
lock to the cupboard, and says to the household, “ In future
this part of the house shall be under my charge. I shall
always be ready to open it when you have anything to
put in, but when you want any supplies I shall dole out
just as much as I think is good for you. While you are
filling the cupboard you shall get enough to keep you, and
enable you to go on working, but no more. When the cup
board is full you must stop working, and eating too, and you
will be known as ‘ tramps ’ and the ‘ unemployed.’ ” Now,
this family might fancy itself free ; it might meet in the
back-parlour and sing paeans in praise of the grand system it
lived under; it might also pass Bills and give each of its
members a vote, or a dozen votes ; but as long as the
�12
A Plea
fok
Socialism.
stranger held the key of that cupboard he would be master
of the situation, and the inmates one and all would be mere
slaves of his. This is a fair simile of what England and
every other civilised land is to-day. The workmen are filling
the cupboard of the country, but the key is held by men who
do none of the labour. While filling it they get a subsistence
wage—seldom more—and when it is filled to overflowing
there is a glut (a trade depression), and the men who filled
the cupboard must go hungry and homeless because it is too
full. Yes, this is why we starve in the midst of abundance,
and the first duty of the working-class is to make good its
claim to the fruits of its labour : it must conquer the cup
board.
The Socialist proposal is to take the land and capital
from the private individuals who now unrighteously own
them, and put them under the control of the community,
and use them for the benefit of the workers. Capital must
be the handmaid of labour, not its master. The resources
of civilization must be used to benefit the people, not to
grind profit out of them, as now. The aim of society must
be to so dispose of the labour and resources of the com
munity as to secure a fair living to all who labour for it.
Socialism is based on the principle that as all society is
maintained by labour, all should do a fair share of it. The
bread we eat, the houses we live in, and the coals we burn
are all produced by labour. If we use these things, we
ought to produce them, or do some useful service to those
who do. If we use these things, and live in idleness, we
are stealing them. All we eat and drink and wear is made
by labour, and if we eat without labouring we are stealing
from some one else who has laboured. We should all do
our fair share of the world’s work ! No man is too good
to toil for his living; no man is so bad that he should be
cheated out of his living when he has toiled for it.
The Defence of Property.
Whenever this doctrine of
Socialism is stated a certain class of people cry out “ Confis
cation !” “ You want to take men’s savings from them !”
“You want the drunken and thrtftless kept at the expense of
the industrious and careful I” All these parrot cries totally
ignore the fact that to-day the thriftless are living on the
�Property
and
Co-operation.
18
industrious, and that the whole string of evils they charge us
with trying to bring about are here already, and we are
trying to abolish them. When we attack the capitalists our
opponents never defend the proper culprit: they bring up
the workman with £100 saved, and try to turn prejudice
against us by alledging that this would be confiscated. But
the difference between a large capitalist and a workman with
a savings bank account is very great and quite clear. The
workman has earned his small capital; the other has not.
Of course the taking of interest is wrong, no matter to what
extent it may be carried. It must, also, be borne in mind
that in dispossessing the landlord and capitalist we are not
taking from them anything that they wish to use. We simply
deprive them of the power of making others work for them.
It is curious to notice how strong the blind greed for property
is in the minds of those who have only a little. It is not the
Baring or the Rothschild who is most bitter against Socialism.
The kind of man who is fiercest in defence of the rights of
property is the small shopkeeper who, perhaps, is £100 in
debt. The silly scramble of modern days has frightfully
narrowed mens’ notions of the real aim and pleasures of life.
If the rich were to-morrow deprived of all the property they
wrongfully hold, and set to work under decent circumstances
for their living, it would be the best thing that ever happened
to them. The true nobility a man can attain is by making
himself useful to his fellows, and this distinction would be
placed within reach of everybody by Socialism.
The Co-operative Movement. 'The easiest line of thought
towards Socialism is by considering what the Co-operative
movement has done. Had anyone suggested thirty years
ago that this movement would accomplish the revolution that
it has in such a space of time, and by such humble agents,
he would have been laughed at as a fool, or jeered at as an
Utopian—just as Socialists are laughed and jeered at now.
But by steady patient work a great change has been brought
about, the petty shopkeeping class has been greatly lessened,
an enormous amount of labour saved, and the process of
distribution greatly simplified. But still the biggest part of
the work has been left untouched. Distributive co-operation
shows the workman the best and wisest way to spend his
wages—once he has got them. Important as this is, the
�14
A Plea
for
Socialism.
question of how to get a just wage, or any wage at all, is still
more important ; but co-operation at present cannot touch
this question. Here Socialism steps in to finish what Co
operation began. Indeed Socialism is but the full and
genuine development of co-operation. We have introdoced
Co-operation to the shop and the store ; now we must extend
it to the mine, the factory, and the farm.
Is it practicable ? Great difficulties lie in the way of
Socialism, and much hard earnest work will be needed to
bring it about. These difficulties are not due to Socialism
being very Utopian, or very incomprehensible. Socialism is
merely the application of common sense and justice to social
order, but justice and common sense are strange and un
known in these days, when veiled fraud and oppression reign
supreme. Socialism would be simpler and easier to work, so
far as the mere industrial arrangements are concerned, than
the present system. Indeed we should try to make
society as simple in its mechanism and our own lives as
unpretentious as may be. The greatest curse of the present
system is its unnecessary complexity of organisation, and the
conflicting interests which Economists pretend are in har
mony. The first step towards Socialism is to make
Socialists ; to get together a great organisation of all who
accept the principle. Different schools of Socialists may
suggest different ways of realising the new society, but
their differing in that respect is a hopeful sign, as it
shows diversity and even some originality of thought. All
Socialists agree that the principles of competition and
monopoly now holding sway should be done away with, and
superseded by a general and thorough-going co-operation.
In fact we want a nation in which there are neither
masters nor servants, but where all are fellow-workers. A
solid combination of the Socialist movement could bring
a tremendous power to bear on the politics of this country.
That power should be used, not so much in bringing to pass
petty measures, as in forcing the hand of the upper class.
The futility of compromise. There is a class of wellintentioned reformers who are puzzling themselves to find
a way of benefiting the poor without interfering with the
rich. It is self-evident that this is a fruitless endeavour.
�The
future of
Socialism.
15
The robbery of the poor by the rich is the first aim of
capitalist production.It may be wrong
for the poor to
rob the rich ; it maynearly be as wrong for the rich to
rob each other; but for the rich to rob the poor is the
most abominable of all systems. There can be no peace
between the two classes. The poor must cast off the
leeches which are draining the life’s blood from them.
The rich are really parasites on the workers. The dis
tinctions of class must be abolished, for they only mean
the right of the rich to rob and the duty of the poor to
submit. But, although no peace can be between them, a
peaceable settlement might be effected. The rich should
be told by the toilers, “ Now, you have lived a long time
at our expense, and we find that it is bad for both of
us—it wearies you with elegant and enforced idleness, and
it burdens us with overwork. We don’t want to hurt you
for your past misdeeds, because for the most part you
were unconscious of the evil you were doing, but you
must do different in future. Those of you who are
entirely useless, and most of you are, so we fear, we will
keep in moderate comfort. We will give work to those
of you who are able and willing to do it (and that is
more than you gave us') ; a training to those who are
willing and not able ; and the gaol or the lunatic asylum
to those who are able and not willing.” These are the
only terms on which this antagonism can be settled. It
is nearly 2,000 years since St. Paul said, “ He that will
not work, neither shall he eatand surely it is time we
put the principle into operation.
The future of the Socialist party. Everything points to the
rapid growth of the Socialist party in this country. It lays
definite principles before the people, and though these, as
they require some independent thought and enthusiasm, may
take some time to win acceptance, they make a deep and
lasting impression where they do take hold. As time goes on
and the difficulty and hardships which the present system im
poses on the workers are more keenly felt, they will find out
how shallow and ineffective is the hand-to-mouth policy of the
ordinary politician. Times are coming when plain honest
words and upright action will be needed to save the country
from the horrors of a revolt of miserable and desperate people.
�16
A Plea
for
Socialism.
That revolution will come upon us, there can be no doubt.
Its shadow is already cast over us. Socialists do not wish to
make or to carrse a revolution: they only wish to point out
that revolution, bred of the misery and inherent injustice of
the present system, is inevitable. If the people are left un
organised and ignorant, revolution may well seem a terror to
all men. But we look to the coming change. We are pre
paring to. meet it with a combined and intelligent people, a
people wise enough to know their rights, strong enough to
enforce them, and disciplined enough to guard them. We
are carrying a message of hope to the poor, of comfort to the
outcast, of joy to the desolate. We bid them lay aside
despair, to take courage, and gather strength, for the time is
at hand when, with enlightenment and determination, they
may end for ever the folly, and crime, and misery in which
their lives are now spent, and realise a noble, fraternal, social
life, with labour, leisure, and liberty for all; a life in which
we shall have
“ Man without a master, and earth without a strife,
And every soul rejoicing in the sweet and bitter of life.”
Single copies of this
address on receipt
sale or distribution
50 copies 3/-; one
THE
pamphlet will be sent to any
of threehalf-pence. Parcels for
at cheaper rates : ioo copies, 5/-;
dozen copies post free 1/-
“COMMONWEAL, ”
Official Journal of the Socialist League.
A thorough-going weekly labour paper : contains a re
view of the labour struggle and Socialist movement
throughout the world; criticism on current political
events; revolutionary poetry; review of books on the
labour question ; and articles on science, art, history,
and political economy in their bearing on labour
questions.
ONE PENNY WEEKLY.
�
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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A plea for socialism : delivered in the course of a socialist campaign amongst the miners on strike in Northumberland, 1877
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Mahon, J. L.
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 16 p. ; 19 cm.
Notes: Advertisement for the "Commonweal", the Official Journal of the Socialist League, on end page. Printed by J. Beale, St. Andrew's Street, Newcastle-upon-Tyne.
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The "Commonweal"
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1887
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T467
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Socialism
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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 (A plea for socialism : delivered in the course of a socialist campaign amongst the miners on strike in Northumberland, 1877), 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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English
Addresses
Miners
Northumberland
Socialism
Speeches
-
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Text
NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY
* ’ -
BIBLE HEROES
«
BY
i'
ll
*
FOOTE.
G. W.
lb
9
FIRST SERIES.
LONDON:
PROGRESSIVE PUBLISHING COMPANY,
28 Stonecutter Street, E.C.
1887.
it.
��LONDON:
PRINTED BY G. W. FOOTE,
AT 14 CLERKENWELL GREEN, E.C.
�—
-
—
....................... 1
1
�MR.
ADAM.
-------- 4---------
Science tells us that the human race has existed on this planet,
ruder in form and character the further we go back, for hundreds
of thousands of years. Long before “the grand old gar
dener,” as Tennyson calls him. was cultivating his. green peas
and asparagus in Eden, there were millions of civilised men in
Egypt and India, and probably in Assyria and China; and long
before that, in the obscurity of prehistoric ages, the earth was
peopled by barbarians. These also were preceded by savages
who, in their turn, had succeeded the ape-like progenitors of
Mankind.
Science and the Bible, however, disagree on this, as on so
many other points. According to the book which Christians
treasure without studying, and venerate without following, Mr.
Adam was the first man that ever lived; and he was born, or
rather manufactured, less than six thousand years ago. There
are, indeed, a few Christians who believe that the world was
inhabited before Jehovah made a clay man, hung him up to dry,
and finally blew the breath of life into his nostrils. The theory
of Pre-Adamite races was started in’1655 by Isaac de la Peyreira,
a converted Jew, who argued that the beings created in the first
chapter of Genesis were different from those created in the
second. From the first set all the Gentiles have descended,
while the Jews have issued from the loins of Mi’. Adam. Noah’s
flood was only a partial deluge, and it was only the antediluvian
Jews who perished in that catastrophe. But Peyreira’s book
was burnt in Paris by the executioner, and he himself narrowly
escaped the same fate. Since then his theory has always had
some adherents, yet they have been an insignificant minority.
Some Orientals also hold that there were men before Mr. Adam.
One race of these were the “ fiat-heads ” of Ceylon, who sub
mitted to him when he fell on their island after his expulsion
from Paradise; and they really must have been flat-heads to
truckle to such a nincompoop. Bishop South says that “An
Aristotle was but the rubbish of an Adam.” In other words,
Mr. Adam was perfect. So he was—a perfect fool. Like Charles
the Second, in Rochester’s epigram, Mr. Adam never did a wise
thing ; and, unlike the merry monarch, he never said a wise one
either. A collection of his utterances, throughout a long life
�BIBLE HEROES.
extending to nearly a thousand years, would be the smallest and
baldest treatise to be found in the whole world. It seems an
insult to the deity to allege that he was unable to turn out a
better specimen of his handiwork after six days’, apprenticeship
on such a gigantic scale.
Mr. Adam was made out of clay, or dust, or something of that
kind, by Jehovah, who was his spiritual father. Carnally, the
poor fellow was an orphan from birth. He never felt a mother’s
kiss on his brow. He never climbed on his father’s knee. God
was the only father he had, and his legs were too long; for if, as
Jesus tells us, heaven is his throne and earth his footstool, there
must be a frightful distance between his feet and the part he
displayed to Moses on Mount Sinai.
That the first man was made from earth is a very natural
superstition. The Peruvians, Collas, Caribees, and North
American Indians, believed that the first human beings sprang
from the ground. In Egypt, India, China, and Mexico, they were
believed to have been fashioned of earth by some superior power.
According to the Chaldeans, man was made by the mixing of
the blood of Belus with the dust of the ground; while the Per
sians held that he grew from the soil which was impregnated
with the seed of the man-bull Kaiomorts. Aristophanes, in
*
The Birds, calls men “ creatures of clay.”t According to Apollodorus, the first man and woman were formed of clay by Prome
theus. It is absurd to suppose that these ancient and widely
sundered peoples borrowed their notions of man’s origin from
the Jews, especially when we know that Genesis is not an early,
but a very late portion of the Hebrew scriptures, dating only
a few centuries before Christ.
The Mohammedans say that Mr. Adam’s body was made of
clay brought by the archangels, Gabriel, Michael, Israfiel, and
Asrael, from the four quarters of the earth. According to the
Talmud the dust was collected from all parts. Rabbi Hoshea
says his trunk was made of dust from Babel, his head of dust
from Palestine, and the rest of his limbs from, the soil of other
countries. Rabbi Acha adds that his seat of honor was made of
clay from Acre.J When he was finished there was some dust
left over, and of this God made locusts.
Didron§ prints a copy of an Italian miniature of the thirteenth
century, in which an angel is represented as modelling the rough
figure of a man, while God Almighty is standing by, waiting to
give it the finishing touches. God is also depicted as consulting
the angels about the matter in a series of figures in the north
porch of Chartres cathedral.*
§
*
t
J
§
Priaulx’s Questiones Mosazcce, p. 64.
So Frere and Poyard. Hickie translates “ figures of clay.’ ’
Baring Gould, Legends of Old Testament Characters, vol. i., pp. 9, 13.
Christian Iconography, vol. ii., p. 14.
�MB. ADAM.
3
When God furnished his clay man with a soul, it entered his
mouth and passed down into his belly, where to this very day
the soul of many of his descendants continues to reside. His
first motion was to sneeze and say “ Praise be to God.” Then he
tried to get up and eat, but the soul had not yet ani
mated his extremities, so Gabriel said “ 0 Adam, don’t be in a
hurry.”
We may here mention a curious idea referred to by Gerald
Massey, who says that “ Epiphanius represents Elkesi, the
Ebionite prophet, as teaching that Christ was the first created
Adam, who returned as the second Adam. Photius also says
Origen maintained that the soul of Jesus was the soul of
Adam.”*
Jehovah was not likely to turn out a mannikin, particularly
M, according to Philo, he spent sixty days over the job. Besides,
so long-lived a gentleman as Mr. Adam was naturally a good
height. The Rabbis say that the tree of life was so big that it
took a good walker five years to march round it, and Mr. Adam’s
proportions were in keeping with this mighty bole. When ho
laid down his body stretched from east to west, and when he
stood up his head reached to the seventh heaven. Subsequently
he became shorter. According to one Rabbinical story, the angels
were afraid of him, and to abate their terror God put him asleep
and pared him down; or, as others say, placed his hand on Mr.
Adam’s head and flattened him down to a thousand cubits.
A&Other story says that he shrank with horror at the death of
Abel, and was never able to stretch himself out to his original
dimensions. The Mohammedans assert that he lost his primitive
size in yearly pilgrimages to Mecca, and finally retained the
height of sixty ells. According to a fourth story, when Mr,
Adam was all alone on a peak in Ceylon, he was so tall that the
8tm burnt his hair off. God mercifully ordered Gabriel to
shadow the poor fellow’s head with his wings, and Mr. Adam
dwindled under that curious umbrella till he was only ninety
feet high.
Saint Augustine thought Mr. Adam was thirty years old when
he was born.f The Rabbis say he was superlatively beautiful.
It is generally believed by the Jews that he was born circumcised,
although he did his utmost to conceal the fact. J Therefore, if he
was made in God’s image, God must be circumcised too. Both
Mr. Adam and Mrs. Eve are drawn in pictures with navels.
Test as they were not born in the ordinary way this “ cannot be
showed,” says Sir Thomas Browne. His editor Ross, however,
says that navels were given them as an ornament, in support of
which opinion he cites the second verse of the seventh chapter
* The Natural Genesis, vol. ii., p. 329. 1 Cor. xv., 45-47.
f Sir Thomas Browne’s Works, (Bohn) vol. ii., p. 382.
$ Calmet’s Dictionary of the Bible, and Bayle’s Dictionary.
�4
BIBLE HEROES.
of Solomon’s Song, where the hero describes that feature in his
sweetheart as “ a round goblet.”
. _ 'A'.That Mr. Adam was created an hermaphrodite is a widely
received opinion. Gould reads Genesis I., 27 as “ male-female
created he them.” As Butler says :
“ Man was not man in Paradise,
Until he was created twice,
And had his better half, his bride,
Carved from th’ original his side,
T’ amend his natural defects,
And perfect his recruited sex;
Inlarge his breed at once, and lessen
The pains and labor of increasing,
By changing them for other cares,
As by his dried-up paps appears.”
Hudibras, Part III., Canto I., 761-770.
Man’s rudimentary mammas are now explained by Darwin.
They point back very much farther than the origin of the human
race. Yet in more ignorant ages they naturally lent a color to
the superstition in Butler’s verses. Many Jewish writers have
asserted that “ man and woman were created in one body, united
by the shoulders, having four feet, four hands, and two heads,
alike throughout excepting sex; and that God having cast this
compound figure into a deep sleep, divided it, and made two
persons of it.”* Browne says that Marcus Leo, a learned Jew,
affirmed that “ Adam in one swppositum, without division, con
tained both male and female.”f Antoinette Bourignon, the
mystic, held that Adam contained both sexes, and was able to
produce his like without connection. Paracelsus maintained
that the generative organs only appeared in our first parents
after their sin. Some Rabbis have held that Adam was an
elaborate Janus, male one side and female the other; Jeremiah
Ben-Eleazer supporting this view by the text “ Thou hast
fashioned me before and behind.”
A similar legend is expounded in Plato’s Banquet, far more
beautifully than in any Hebrew writings. It also appears in
the mythology of India, China, Persia and Phoenicia. Every
where men and women seek their joy in marriage, and out of
this yearning grew the fancy of two divided halves of an original
whole striving after their pristine unity.
Mr. Adam being made in the image of God, it follows that
Jehovah is androgynous too. This explains how he procreated
his only begotten son without a wife; for the Holy Ghost can
scarcely stand to him in that capacity, seeing it was the father
of the Virgin Mary’s baby.
Mr. Adam was a smooth-faced gentleman until he fell. After
* Calmet.
f Works, vol. i., p. 308.
�MR. ADAM.
a
that event he sprouted a beard. According to the Mohamme
dans, it was the result of excessive grief, but they do not explain
the effect of sorrow upon the hair-follicles of the chin. Mr.
Adam was an exception to the rule that grief has a tendency to
make people bald.
Tabari says that Mr. Adam remained five hundred years in
Paradise, but several Rabbis assert that events moved far more
rapidly. He was created on a Friday. God gathered the dust
in the first hour; in the second he formed the embryo ; in the
third the body was developed; in the fourth it was endowed
with a soul; at the fifth it stood upright; at the sixth Mr.
Adam named the animals ; at the seventh he married Mrs. Eve;
at the eighth Cain and his sister were born; at the ninth he
was warned against the forbidden fruit; at the tenth he fell; at
the eleventh he was “ over the garden wall ” ; and at the twelfth
hour he was toiling and sweating outside. This was a remark
ably quick dispatch of business. During those eventful twelve
hours poor Mr. Adam must have been puzzled to tell whether
he was on his head or his feet.
Mr. Adam was probably christened by his maker. But Priaulx
points out that there is a sort of pun in the Hebrew—God formed
Adam out of Adamah, which according to Josephus means red
earth. The Chinese say that the first man was kneaded of
yellow earth, because they are yellow themselves, and other
people assert different colors according to their own skins. Sale
says that Adamah is Persic, meaning primarily red earth; and
that in all the oriental languages it means man in general, but
eminently the first man. Parkhurst tries to derive the word
from a Hebrew noun signifying likeness, but this is only to
bolster up the theory of Mr. Adam’s being created “ in the like
ness of God.” Gerald Massey says that “ the name of Adam
occurs often enough in Inner Africa, to show Whence came the
primal pail’ who were personified as the typical parents in Egypt,
and continued in the sacred writings brought out of that land,
by the Hebrews.”* He gives a striking list of several African
languages in which the word Adam, with slight variations, means
Male or Father in the generic sense like the Latin Vvr. There
is a curious corroboration of his theory in the remark of a writer
cited by Eusebius, who says that Protogonos, or the first made, is
a translation into Greek of the Egyptian title of Adam, taken
from the pillars of Thothfi
However Mr. Adam obtained his name, it is certain that he
had it engraved on his card and cut on his brass-plate. “ Mr.
Adam, Gardener,” was properly exhibited on the gate of Eden.
But where Eden was is another matter. According to Genesis
it was “ eastward,” which is not very precise. Commentators
Vol. ii., pp. 16, 17.
f Calmet’s Dictionary.
�6
BIBLE HEROES.
advance all sorts of theories, their only point of agreement being
that Eden was somewhere.
Boss of this large establishment, Mr. Adam bnstled proudly
about. He was monarch of all he surveyed, and his right there
was none to dispute; except, perhaps, a big-maned lion with hot
carnivorous jaws, a long-mouthed alligator, a boa-constrictor, a
stinging wasp, or an uncatchable flea. Surveying his subjects,
he saw that all the lower animals had partners. Some of the
males had one wife, and some had a fine harem, but there was
none without a mate. He watched the amorous couples frisking
about, and the doves billing and cooing, and his solitary heart
filled with an ineffable yearning. Lifting up his hands to the
sky, from which his heavenly parent occasionally dropped down
for a conversation, he cried aloud, in the words that were after
wards used by poor diddled Esau, “ Bless me, even me also, 0
my father.”
Poor Mr. Adam pined away. He lost several tons in less than
a month, and the Devil had serious thoughts of offering to pur
chase him as a living skeleton for his show in Pandemonium. At
last God took pity on him. Forgetting that he had pronounced
everything good, or not foreseeing that Moses would be mean
enough to record the mistake, he said it was not good for Mr.
Adam to be alone, and resolved to make the orphan-bachelor a
wife. But how to do it ? God had clean forgotten her, and had
used up every bit of his material. All the nothing he had in
stock when he began to make the universe was exhausted.
There was not a particle of nothing left. God was obliged to
use some of the old material over again. Putting Adam into a
deep sleep, he carved out one of his ribs. It was the first surgi
cal operation under chloroform.
With this spare rib God manufactured the first woman. Mr.
Adam woke up minus a rib and plus a wife ; an awkward, yet
after all a pleasant exchange. He had never seen a woman
before, but he put his arm round her waist at once, and said
“ You’re my wife; ” and Mrs. Eve blushed her consent to the
engagement. It was the shortest courtship on record.
Before Mrs. Eve appeared on the scene, it seems that God
passed all the lower animals in review before Mr. Adam, expect
ing him to choose a partner from some agreeable species. But
not a single female made any impression on him. All he did
was to give them their proper names. Mr. Adam was certainly
a wonderful naturalist. He knew more than the Royal Society
or the British Association. He excelled Buffon, Cuvier, and
Darwin. It is a pity he did not write a Zoological Dictionary.
Several writings are ascribed to him, such as the Book of the
Generations of Adam, the Apocalypse of Adam, and the hundred
and fourth Psalm. Why did he not leave us some more instruc
tive productions ?
How Mr. Adam got on with his wife, and how she got on with
�MB. ADAM.
7
him, will be treated at length in my Bible Women. I also
reserve for that volume the curious Rabbinical stories of Lillith,
who is said to have been his real first wife before Mrs. Eve was
created. The whole story of the Fall is already discussed in my
Bible Romances. I shall therefore confine myself to Mr. A dam’a
personal exploits.
Having eaten of the forbidden fruit of the tree of knowledge,
he proved himself a miserable coward by throwing all theblame on his wife. He was hardly the sort of man a woman
could trust in the hour of danger. If Mrs. Eve had said to him
** Adam, my dear, there’s a noise in the passage; take the poker,
a»d go down and see who’s about,” he would have carefully
locked the door and covered his head with the bed-clothes.
Cod Almighty should at least have turned out a man. A fellow
like Adam was only fit to clean boots and carry slops.
Certain Rabbis say that when Mr. Adam was cast out of Eden
he fell right into Gehenna, but escaped to earth again by pro
nouncing the mystic word “ Laverererareri.” According to the
Mohammedans he fell upon mount Ser an dib, in Ceylon, while
Mrs. Eve fell at Dgidda, a port of the Red Sea, near Mecca.
Tabari says that the male apple-eater lay where he fell for a
hundred years, bemoaning his dreadful fate. After another
hundred years he met his wife again, and then they cried
together. Mrs. Eve’s tears changed into pearls, and Mr. Adam
snivelled so much that his briny drops formed the Tigris and
the Euphrates.
Defoe, in his witty and amusing History of the Devil, tells us
that after Cain set up as a family man, Mr. Adam dwelt on “ the
plains of Mecca in Arabia Felix.” The Mohammedans say he
lived in Ceylon. Michaelis supposes that India was first peopled,
and the reader in his turn can suppose anything else he
pleases.
When God told Mr. Adam that he should “ eat the herb of the
field ” the poor fellow trembled all over, and exclaimed, “ O Lord
of aD the world! I and my beast, the ass, shall have to eat out of
the same manger !” But Gabriel gave him lessons in cooking,
and the poor fellow got on very well at length, although
at first, his badly-baked new bread gave him a frightful belly-
Mrs. Eve being a good breeder, he had a numerous progeny.
Before he died, his children, grandchildren, and great grand
children, numbered something between twenty and seventy
thousand, so that he was obliged to bless them in the lump when
he shuffled off his mortal coil.
English editor thinks the forbidden fruit poisoned
Mr. Adam s blood, and wonders what an extraordinary age he
might have reached if he had never eaten it. As it was he lived
960 years, which is an age we shall never attain to, though we
refiain from apples all our days. Mr. A dam’s longevity is
�•8
BIBLE HEROES.
obviously mythological, for after the Deluge man’s life ig
shortened, and as we approach the historical period it dwindles
to three score years and ten. “ According to the traditions of
the Lamaic faith,” says Priaulx, “ the first men lived to the age
of 60,000 years.” Buckle tells us of two early Hindu kings,
Yudhisther and Alarka, who reigned respectively 27,000 and
66,000 years. Both these unfortunate princes were cut off in
their prime! Another king was 2,000,000 years old when he
came to the throne; he reigned 6,300,000 years, and then resigned
his empire, and lingered on for 100,000 years more. That tough
old monarch took over a hundred of Mr. Adam’s lives to die in.
Compared with him Mr. Adam was a chicken.
Mr..Adam’s last will and testament, according to the Arabs,
was dictated to the angel Gabriel, and sixty-two million angels
were required to bring the pens and parchments from heaven.
Seth was left as his sole executor.
There is no account of Mr. Adam’s funeral, though it must
have been a big affair’, and considering his height, his coffin must
have been a fine line for the undertaker. Some ancient writers
■say he was buried at Hebron. Origen held that he was buried
at Calvary, where Christ was crucified. Jerome, however,
doubted it, though it was soothing to the popular ear. The
Persians say he was buried in Ceylon, where his tomb used to
be shown. Jewish traditions assert that his body was embalmed.
It was taken into the ark by Noah, and afterwards buried at
Jerusalem by Melchizedek. The skull was found in latei’ ages,
and hence the spot was called Golgotha. Mr. Adam’s skull
must have been pretty thick.
Tatian and the Encralites were positive that poor Mr. Adam
went to hell after all, but the Church condemned this opinion.
The Fathers and the Rabbis say he did very hard penance and
went to glory.
Thus endeth the history of Mr. Adam. He was very little
credit to his maker, and although the first of Bible heroes, the
sects all agree that his example is to be shunned. The Adamites
of the second century imitated him by going to church naked,
and the Anabaptists were accused of similar extravagance. But
sane people do not emulate his conduct, for what little the Bible
records of him shows that he was a great booby, and it is really
wonderful that God Almighty exhausted his strength over such
a wretched production.
�CAPTAIN
NOAH.
-------- ♦--------
Mr. Adam’s early posterity included two remarkable persons.
One was Methusaleh who lived 969 years, and was thus older
than the grand, old gardener himself. The other was Enoch,
who never died at all, for he was so good that God had him con
veyed to heaven by a special messenger. He appears to have
ascended to glory, like Jesus Christ, body and soul together;
and probably, as Jesus Christ sits at the Father’s right hand,
Enoch sits on his left; unless the Holy Ghost occupies that seat,
instead of perching on the Father’s shoulder.
The next person of distinction is Captain Noah. Lamech, his
father, was 182 years old when he begat our hero, who was pro
bably his first-born, for no other child is mentioned, and gentle
men who lived nearly a thousand years did not marry as early
as we do. The word Noah means repose or rest. Perhaps Mrs.
Lamech had a bad time in her confinement, and they called the
bantling by that name to express their comfort that the job was
over. Or may be it was a lazy baby, who sucked his thumb,
stared into vacancy, and sat still wherever they placed him.
Unfortunately the Bible is silent on these interesting points.
Captain Noah lived 950 years in all, yet our record only covers
one of them, during which he acted as a navigator. What he
did in the first 600 years of his life, or what he did in the
last 350 years, is an inscrutable mystery. God and Noah only
know, and it is difficult to find either of them nowadays.
Captain Noah became a navigator in his six hundredth year
in this way. The Devil had so effectually planted the seeds of
original sin in man that “ every imagination of the thoughts of
his heart was only evil continually.” Things were so bad that
God, who is unchangeable, “ repented that he had made man on
the earth.” The Lord resolved to put all his business in this
world into liquidation. It was a case of universal bankruptcy.
All that was saved out of the catastrophe was a consignment of
■eight human beings, and an unknown number of elephants,
crocodiles, horses, pigs, dogs, cats, and fleas. In short, God
•determined to drown all his living creatures except some speci
mens of each variety to start afresh with. Rabbi Johanan says
that the very animals were demoralised as well as the men; but
�10
BIBLE HEROES.
neither he nor any other theological doctor explains why theLord kept samples of the old stock to breed from, instead of
creating a brand-new set.
Our hero was the only person who “ found grace in the eyes
of the Lord.” He was “ a just man and perfect,” and he
“ walked with God.” Yet we shall find that his history doesnot contain a single good action, while it contains at least two
bad ones. If the Lord could not have selected a better man
than Captain Noah the world must have been in a frightful
condition indeed.
Let us pause to inquire how it was that Noah was the only
passable specimen of the human race. Original sin does not
account for all their depravity, foi he had it as well as they..
*
Some divines have found the explanation in the words “ the sons
of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair.” Reckoning
ministers as sons of God, the fondness has continued ever since.
The deluge itself could not wash out the amatory feelings with
which they regard those sweet creatures who were supposed tobe the Devil’s chief agents. Even to this day it is a fact that
courtship goes on with remarkable briskness in religious circles.
Churches and chapels are places of harmless assignation, and
many matches are made in Sunday-schools, where Alfred and
Angelina meet to read the Scripture and flirt. The clergy arenotorious for their partiality to the fair sex. They purr round
the ladies like black tom-cats. Some of them are adepts in the
art of rolling on e eye to heaven and letting the other languish,
on the fair faces of the daughters of men. It is also noticeable
that the Protestant clericals marry early and often, and generally
beget a numerous progeny; while the Catholic priest who, being
celibate, never (well, hardly ever) adds to the population^
“ mashes ” the ladies through the confessional, worming out all
their secrets, and making them as pliable as wax in his holy
hands.
Who the original “ sons of God ” were is a moot point. Many
theories have been advanced by Jewish and Christian divines.
According to some, the sons of God were the offspring of Seth,
who was born in succession to righteous Abel, while the
daughters of men were the offspring of wicked Cain. Among
the oriental Christians it is said that the children of Seth tried
to regain Paradise by living in great austerity on Mount Her
mon, but they soon tired of their laborious days and cheerless
nights, and cast sheep’s-eyes on the daughters of Cain, whose
beauty was equal to their father’s wickedness. Marriages fol
lowed, and the Devil triumphed again.
According to the Cabbalists, two angels, Aza and Azael, com
plained to God at the creation of man. God answered, “ You, O
angels, if you were in the lower world, you too would sin.”"
They descended on earth, and directly they saw the ladies they
forgot heaven. They married and exchanged the hallelujahs of
�CAPTAIN NOAH.
11
the celestial chorus for the tender tones of loving women and
the aweet prattle of little children. Having sinned, or to use
the vile language of religion, “ polluted themselves with women,”
they became clothed with flesh. Trying to regain Paradise,
they failed and were cast back on the mountains, where they
continued to beget giants and devils. The latter were the Jins
■of Mohammedanism. Very soon the world was completely in
their power. They ruled everywhere, and built colossal works,
including the pyramids.
The “ giants ” have been cleared out of our Revised Version.
Probably the translators thought these mythical personages
were too suggestive of Jack and the Beanstalk, so they have
left the original Nephilim in the text. They know, as well as
we do, that every nation on the face of the earth has similar
legends of “ mighty men which were of old, men of renown.”
They are conspicuous in the mythologies of Greece, India, China,
and Scandinavia, and we find them also in the mythologies of
America. Greybeards talk of the wonderful times when they
were young, and nations prattle about the youth of mankind.
Skies were bluer, the sun was brighter, the earth was more
fertile, the men were bigger and braver and the women more
lovely and loving, in the golden age. Boccaccio gravely relates,
in his Genealoffia Deorum, that in his own time some Sicilian
peasants discovered the body of a giant in a cave, and the staff
of this wonderful being was fifteen hundred-weight! Girolamo
Maggio affirmed that while he was a prisoner in Africa he
actually saw the head of a giant, which was eleven palms in
■circumference I No doubt the fossil remains of large extinct
*
•animals gave color to the general superstition as to the enor
mous size of primitive men.
God told Captain Noah that he was going to drown the
world, and ordered him to build a ship for his own family and a
large menagerie. The “ ark,” as it is called, was to be 300 cubits
long, 50 cubits broad, and 30 cubits high. Reckoning the cubit,
which was the length of a man’s forearm, as eighteen inches,
this would be 450 feet long, 75 feet broad, and 45 feet high.
Anxious to make Captain Noah’s vessel as large as possible,
Cruden says that “ Some are of opinion that the cubit which
Noah made use of when he built the ark was equal to six com-mon
-cubits.”! But why six ? Why not sixty, or six thousand ?
Where there is absolutely no information, one man’s opinion is
as good as another’s.
Captain Noah must have been a first-rate shipwright to build
ft Vessel of these dimensions. Did God inspire him for the pur
pose ? And how is it that Captain Noah, who lived 350 years
after the deluge, and his immediate descendants, lost the art of
* Priaulx, Questiones Mosaicai, pp. 180,181.
f Concordance, article “ Cubit.”
�12
BIBLE HEROES.
shipbuilding, which had to be rediscovered by their posterity ?'
The ancient vessels in eastern stone-pictures were small, nearly
always open, and rowed with oars, though sails were used in addi
tion. Even in the days of Rome and Carthage very much the same
kind of vessel was employed, and when Julius Cassar crossed from
Gaul to Britain he required a tremendous fleet to convey his little
army. Fifteen centuries later the Spanish galleons were floating
castles, but the English ships were still small. Men like Drake
and Raleigh crossed the Atlantic and fought naval battles in
crafts of thirty, forty, and fifty tons.
Hebrew is a curious language, being all consonants. The vowel
points are a modern invention. The word translated “ ark”
therefore is spelt tebeh, thebeh, or thebet. It only occurs twice
in Scripture. The second time it is given to the ark of bul
rushes, in which little Moses was concealed. It means something
closed up, like a trunk. From the pictures of the ark in Calmet’s
Dictionary, it seems to have been a floating house. Calmet’s
English editor argues that it must have been flat, for if it were a
keeled ship, its draught would have exceeded the fifteen cubits
of water that covered the highest mountains, and it might have
stranded on some rocky peak.
Peter calls Captain Noah “ a preacher of righteousness,” and
no doubt while he was building the ark he gave his neighbors
many sermons, warning them to flee from the wrath to come. But
they only mocked him, say the Mohammedans. “ They took
their evening walks,” says Defoe, “ to see what he was doing,”*
and laughed at his big boat that was to float over the hills.
Eutychius, of Alexandria, who wrote in the tenth century, and
probably quoted from apocryphal writings that are now lost,
says that Captain Noah made a bell of plane wood, about five
feet high, which he sounded every morning, noon, and evening
to warn his neighbors that the deluge was coming, f Still they
laughed at him, as we should do to-day; but when the deluge
did come, they rushed to the ark in such multitudes that they
would have crowded and sunk it, if the lions, tigers, and other
ferocious animals had not fought them off the gangway.
There was no room for these people. All the space, and a
great deal more, was needed for the menagerie. Two of every
species of beast, bird, and insect, went into the ark, accord
ing to the sixth of Genesis; oi’ two of all unclean animals
and seven of the clean, according to the seventh chapter.
There are already known at least 1,600 species of mammalia,
12,500 of birds, 600 of reptiles, and of insects and other inferior
creatures at least 1,000,000. Captain Noah’s menagerie was
unique. It was absolutely complete, down to the smallest midge
and the last variety of flea. Whether he collected them from all
parts of the earth, or whether they came to him of their own
* History oj the'JJevil, chap. viii.
f Gould, vol. ii., pp. 109, 110.
�CAPTAIN NOAH.
13
accord, is an open question, for either view is favored by the
text. I have dealt with this, and the general scientific aspect of
the deluge, in my Bible Romances, and I will not repeat myself
here. But it must be stated, as a fact in Captain Noah’s career,
that he was expressly told to “ gather ” food for his passengers,
and of course he obeyed the divine command. What a tremen
dous task this was may be easily imagined. For the rest I must
refer the reader to the above volume; only adding that if, as
legend says, it took sixty-two million angels to bring the
materials for Mr. Adam’s last will, it must have taken all heaven,
including the Trinity, to collect twelve months’ provender for
this floating Zoo.
Captain Noah, his wife, his three sons Shem, Ham and Japheth,
and them three wives, were the only human beings who got into
the ark and escaped the fate of drowning. But according to
Eastern traditions, there was a ninth person who effected an
entrance, namely our old friend the Devil. He caught hold of
the donkey’s tail as that sedate quadruped stepped on the plank,
and of course Neddy could not make much headway. “ Come in
quick, you cursed one,” cried Captain Noah, who was anxious to
weigh anchor and set sail. The donkey and the Devil were soon
inside. But when the patriarch caught sight of Old Nick he
exclaimed, “ Holla, what right have you in here ?” Whereupon
the Devil replied, “ You said ‘ Come in, you cursed one,’ and
here I am.”*
Some Rabbis declare that the rhinoceros was too big to be
admitted. Its head was taken on board, but its body swam
astern. The rhinoceros was very much larger in ancient times,
for Rabbi Jannai says he saw a young one, only a day old, whose
neck was three miles long, and the river Jordan was actually
choked by its excretions.
Not only was the human race destroyed, but the giants also
perished, with the single exception of Og. He was so tall that
he stopped “ the windows of heaven ” with his hands, or the
water would have risen over his head. The other giants took to
swimming, but God made the water so hot that they were
boiled to death. Og, however, swam beside the rhinoceros,
where the water was kept cool. According to the Midrash, he
climbed upon the roof, and when they tried to dislodge him he
swore that if he were allowed to remain he and his posterity
would become the captain’s slaves. Such a capital bargain was
soon clinched, and Og’s daily rations were passed through a
porthole. After the deluge Og must have been a more valuable
servant than “ the drudging goblin ” of Milton’s L’Allegro.
Considerable interest attaches to the fate of another character.
According to our English Bible, Methusaleh died in the very
year of the flood. The Midrash says that he expmed seven days
* Gould, vol. i., . 112.
�14
BIBLE HEROES.
before it began, but Eusebius admits that “ according to all
editions ” of the Septuagint he “ lived fifteen years after the
Deluge, but where he was preserved through it is uncertain.”*
Perhaps our ancient friend, like the Irishman’s ancestor who
survived the flood, paddled his own canoe on that occasion.
Captain Noah’s voyage could not have been a pleasant one.
Some say he made the circuit of the globe, but he never touched
at a port or sighted land, and the monotony must have been
stupefying. Disgusting is a mild word for the stench,. from
which there was no escape. The huge ship had only one window
and one door, and apparently both were closed, for “ the Lord
shut them in,” and perhaps the precaution was necessary to
keep them from committing suicide. Surely the stoutest heart
and the stoutest stomach would succumb in a twelve-months’
trip under such loathsome conditions.
Where all the water came from is unknown, and it returned
to the same place. Five months before Captain Noah got ashore,
his ship “ rested upon the mountains of Ararat.” Scripture does
not say upon how many of them. The highest peak of this
range is 17,210 feet high, 14,320 feet above the plain of the
Araxes. The people of the neigborhood point to a step on the
mountain side, covered perpetually with snow and glacier, where
they say the ark stranded. Josephusf said that the remains of
this wonderful craft were to be seen in a good state of preserva
tion. The Christian Fathers told the same fine story. Benjamin
of Tudela says that the wood was all carried away by the Caliph
Omar, in a.d. 640, and placed in a mosque he erected on an
island of the Tigris. But Johann Strauss, in 1670, said he saw
the ark grounded on the snow. Prevoux, another traveller, saw
a large building at Chenna, said to have been built by Captain
Noah, and a piece of the ark was exhibited through an iron
grating. One of the beams is shown in the Lateran at Borne,
and no doubt it is quite as authentic as other relics of Holy
Mother Church.
Captain Noah and all his menagerie, including the elephant,
got down somehow. The animals all dispersed, after bidding
each other an affectionate farewell. There was no food for them
of course ; and how long the lion left the lamb at large, every
true believer must settle for himself.
Shem, Ham, and Japheth, with their three wives, whose names
are not recorded (for women in the early part of the Bible are
only regarded as breeding machines), “ overspread the whole
earth;” that is, they peopled the whole world. Shem is thought
to have appropriated Asia, Ham took Africa, and Japheth settled
in Europe. America and Australia were not discovered when
the Bible was written, or Captain Noah would have.had five sons
instead of three. In religion, as in other things, we live and learn.
Cited in Gould, vol. i., p. 105.
f Antiquities, I., 3.
�CAPTAIN NOAH.
5
John P. Robinson, he
Says they didn’t know everything down in Judee.
God Almighty chose Hebrew to write in, foi’ some purpose
best known to himself; but it is so curious, or so obscure, that it
often means anything or nothing. Shem is said by the doctors to
mean—name, or renown, or he that places, or he that is placed.
The reader pays his money and takes his choice. Japheth means
—he that persuades, or is handsome. Either will do. Ham or
Cham, means brown or black. More than once in the Psalms,
Africa is called the land of Cham; and Plutarch, in his De Iside
et Osiride, calls Egypt Chemia.
Christians, who laugh at Darwinism, and assert that every
species was created separate, should explain how the three sons
of one father and mother have peopled the world with white
men, yellow men, red men, and black men. The black races are
so distinct that the Talmud tried to account for them by saying
that Ham turned sooty in the ark through incontinence. Orient
alists say his skin darkened when his son was cursed. Any
theory is better than the cowardice of silence.
The Bible does not inform us whether Captain and Mrs. Noah
had any children after the flood. Perhaps they did, and perhaps
they didn’t. Mrs. Noah was called Noriah by the Gnostics, and
Jtfoerna or Tethira by some ancient Rabbis. She is called Nuraito
in Syro-Chaldee. This name comes from a word signifying fire.
Curiously this is the very meaning of Pyrrha, the name of
the wife of Deucalion, who was saved from the flood sent by
Jupiter, in a skiff which stranded on the top of Parnassus.
*
Being a very religious man, otherwise he would not have been
spared in the deluge, Captain Noah’s first business on reaching
terra firma was to pay his devotions to the Lord. He “ builded
an altar ”; that is, probably, he made a heap of stones; on
which he sacrificed of “ every clean beast, and of every clean
fowl.” It was the biggest holocaust on record. Never was
there so much meat, venison and poultry dressed for cooking;
and if the animals were all slaughtered before they were roasted
(let us hope they were), those eight butchers must have taken
many days cutting their throats or wringing their necks. The
“burnt offerings” were very acceptable to Jehovah, who
“ smelled a sweet savor,” sniffing up the odor of this extensive
cuisine with the greatest relish. His tough old heart mollified
Wader the sweet influence, and he said “ I will not curse the
ground any more, neither will I again smite everything living,
as I have done” Perhaps he thought that if he gave way to histemper again, and made a clean sweep, there would be no more
“ sweet savor ” for his holy nostrils.
The next thing Captain Noah did was to make a vinery, and.
a® goon as he brewed he drank deep of that liquor which, as the
Lucian, De Dea Syria and Timon.
Ovid, Metamorphoses, Bk. I.
�16
BIBLE HEBOES.
Bible says, “ cheereth God and man.”* The result was that the
“just man and perfect” got beastly drunk. According to the
Bible, this perfect performance went on in “ his tent.” The
Hebrew word is aheteh, and Parkhurstf says it was “ a tent con
secrated to divine worship,” so that Captain Noah was drunk in
the synagogue. Parkhurst adds that the old salt had probably
“ retired thither in expectation of a prophetic dream.” Perhaps
the oracle did not work, and Captain Noah sought inspiration
in the winecup. No doubt Bacchus gave him a prophetic dream,
but it seems to have been something like a nightmare, for he
awoke in a most abominable passion, and imitated his God by
damning a third of his own posterity.
Loosely clad in his flowing robe, the patriarch fell back in his
inebriation, and was guilty of indecent exposure. Ham dropped
in promiscuously, and witnessed this edifying spectacle. He
went out and told Shem and Japheth, who took a garment and
covered their father’s nakedness, walking backwards in order
not to see his shame. When his booze was over, Captain Noah
was wild at learning what had happened. Commentators say
that Ham had scoffed at his governor, but the Bible does not cor
roborate them. Anyhow Captain Noah swore, but he damned
the wrong party. “ Cursed be Canaan,” he cried, “ a servant of
servants shall he be unto his brethren.” Michaelis hints that
the text is corrupt, and that it should read “ Cursed be Ham,
the father of Canaan.” But as the curse was clearly to be ful
filled through the children, the emendation does not alter its
iniquity. It is supposed that the Canaanites were the descen
dants of Canaan, and that when the Jews dispossessed them by
wars of unparalleled ferocity, the chosen people were only ful
filling the just curse of an offended father on his son’s posterity !
Negro slavery has also been justified on the same foolish and
wicked principle.
Drunkenness, swearing, and injustice, are the only things
recorded of this perfect man during the 350 years he survived the
flood. There is not a single good deed or sensible word placed
to his credit. He is the second Bible hero, but his example is
better honored in the breach than in the observance.
Captain Noah was probably buried. His tomb is shown at
Mount Lebanon. It is an old aqueduct, over sixty feet long.
Large as this is, they say the old fellow could not be buried at
full length but had to have his legs doubled under his thighs. J
And there we will leave him, like the dull old folio in Browning’s
poem, to “ Dry-rot at ease till the Judgment Day.”
* Judges ix., 13.
f Hebrew Dictionary.
J Thomson, The Land and the Book, vol. i., p. 353
�FATHER ABRAHAM.
-------- ♦--------
Although the “ false prophet ” Mohammed asserts that Abraham
was n either a Christian nor a Jew, but an orthodox Mussulman,
it is perfectly clear, according to the Bible, that he was the
founder of the chosen people. God selected him from all the in
habitants of the world, four centuries after the Flood, to be the
father of a special nation. Abraham begat Isaac, Isaac begat
Jacob, Jacob begat a dozen from Reuben to Benjamin, and so they
went on begetting each othei’ to the end of the chapter. Yet it is
highly probable that such a person as Abraham never existed.
Not only the Jews, but almost all the tribes and barbarous
nations on earth, trace their descent to a common ancestor.
*
This useful fiction serves as a social bond, by giving a sense of
kindred to members of the same community. But although
Abraham is a myth, he is none the less a Bible hero. He en
joyed the proud and unique distinction of being the friend of
God.f His character, therefore, should be as perfect as human
frailty will allow. But, alas, Abraham was like other Scripture
worthies, and the most consummate sophistry cannot make him
a pattern of excellence.
This hero’s original name was Abram, which means “ high
father.” After bearing it over a hundred years, he had it
changed to Abraham, which means “ the father of a multitude.”
His wife’s name was also changed from Sarai (my princess) to
Sarah (the princess).
Father Abraham is first mentioned at the end of the eleventh
chapter of Genesis. He appears to have been the eldest son of
Terah, who set up as a father at the age of seventy, and died at
the ripe old age of two hundred and five. When Terah had
joined the majority, the Lord called Abraham out from his
kindred to the land of Canaan. He was then seventy-five years
old. J But if his father was dead he must have been a hundred
and thirty-five. St. Jerome and St. Augustine give up this diffi
culty as in soluble. § Calmet, however, cuts the gordian knot.
He surmises that Abraham was Terah’s youngest son, although
Genesis names him the first, and therefore as the eldest.
*
f
J
§
Tylor, Primitive Culture, vol. i., page 402 ; vol. it, p. 235.
2 Chronicles xx., 7 ; Isaiah xli,, 8 ; James ii., 23.
Genesis xii., 4.
Voltaire, Philosophical Dictionary, “Abraham.”
�18
BIBLE HEROES.
Among the Jews and Mohammedans there are many traditions
of Abraham’s youth.
Holy Scripture passes over his first
seventy-five years at a single bound, but there must have been
some remarkable incidents in the youth of such an extraordinary
person. It is related that his birth was heralded by a star; that
King Nimrod sought the young child’s life; that the baby was
hidden by his mother, and protected by the angel Gabriel; that
he was nourished in his concealment by milk, butter, honey, and
date-juice, which flowed from his fingers as he sucked them;
that he foiled all the armies that were sent to capture him; that
he had an interview with Nimrod, when all the idols in the palace
fell, and the king rolled from his throne in convulsions. As he
grew older he played havoc with his father’s trade. Terah kept
an idol-shop, and Abraham cried stinking fish to all the custo
mers. One day he smashed all the paternal stock except the
biggest god, in whose hands he placed the stick, and when the
old man returned home to empty the till and found his business
bankrupt, the pious young shopman swore that the surviving
deity had demolished all the rest. Subsequently he refused to
worship Nimrod’s gods, and was ordered to be cremated, but he
remained in the fire for three days and nights without the
slightest inconvenience.
*
When the Lord called Abraham into the land of Canaan, he
made him many fine promises, all of which have been broken,
although they were ratified again and again, “I will make of
thee a great nation,” said Jehovah. " ■ the Jews never were a
But ’
great nation, nor has Abraham’s seed become as “the dust
of the earth” for number. The Jews are more numerous
now than they ever were before, yet they boast only seven of the
fourteen hundred millions on the globe.
Jehovah also entered into an offensive and defensive alliance
with Abraham, saying, “ I will bless them that bless thee, and
curse him that curseth thee.” The natural laws of morality
were henceforth to be suspended, and people were to be judged
according to their sympathy or aversion for the Jews. A fur
ther promise was, “ In thee shall all families of the earth be
blessed.” What a splendid piece of impudence! Surely the
Jewish historians must have strutted like turkey-cocks as they
gloated over this passage.
God promised Abraham the land of Canaan, but as he could
not take possession of that fine property, he was glad to run
down to Egypt to escape a famine. According to Jewish tradi
tion, as he reached the river of Egypt, he for the first time in
his life noticed the beauty of Sarah. His wonderful modesty
kept him from looking her in the face, but he saw her features
reflected in the water I f Fearing that her marvellous loveliness
would set men’s hearts aflame, and that he might fare badly as
* Gould, vol. i., pp. 171—186.
f Gould, vol. i., p. 189.
�FATHER ABRAHAM.
19
the Menelaus of this Helen, he persuaded her to pass herself off
as his sister.
Here is courage for you! Surely the Lord might have found
a braver friend. Abraham’s solicitude was all about his own skin,
his wife’s honor being a secondary consideration. The natural
result was an infernal mess. The princes of Egypt went mad
over Sarah’s beauty, and Pharaoh put her in his seraglio. What
happened there the Lord only knows, but if Sarah had returned
to her cuckold with a cracked reputation, he would have had no
one to blame but himself. Pharaoh acted naturally. He
admired beauty, and saw no harm in marrying another man’s
sister. But Abraham’s friend was of a different opinion. The
Lord “ plagued Pharaoh and all his house with great plagues,”
and the poor king was glad to pack the precious couple out of
Egypt by the next mail.
How old does the reader think Sarah was ? Sixty-five at
least. She was a second Ninon de l’Enclos. Or rather she
resembled the Madame de Valentinois of Brantome, who, at the
*
age of. sixty-six, retained the beauty, the freshness, and the
attraction of her thirtieth year, and was loved and served by a
great and valiant king.
Pharaoh gave Abraham a good scolding before he expelled
him, but the lesson was lost on this friend of God. Twenty-five
years later he passed his wife off as his sister a second time.
Sarah was then ninety and pregnant, but her youthful charms
fascinated Abimelech the King of Gerar, who “ took ” her, but
in the elegant language of Scripture, was not allowed to “ touch”
her. .The Lord not only watched over Sarah’s chastity, but as
a punishment for the king’s folly in believing that the friend of
God could speak the truth, he “ fast closed up all the wombs of
the house of Abimelech,” and their sterility was only removed at
Abraham’s intercession. The unfortunate monarch was naturally
angry with the old fellow. “ Why,” he asked, “ did you not tell
me she was your wife ? Why did you say she was youi’ sister ?”
Thereupon the unvenerable hypocrite replied that she was his
sister as well as his wife, being the daughter of his father by
another mother. It is obvious, however, that he deliberately
arranged with Sarah to pretend that they were not husband and
wife; and, although the commentators have expended a good
deal of ingenuity in palliating the offence, they cannot explain
away the damning fact.
This little trick appears to have run in the blood, for Isaac,
who in this respect was a true chip of the old block, passed off
Rebekah as his sister for a similai’ reason, namely to keep him
self out of danger, f On all three occasions the godly liars were
rebuked by the persons they deceived. But the Lord never
reproached them, and it seems that morality was in a more
Discours V.
t Genesis xxvi., 6-11.
�20
BIBLE HEROES.
flourishing condition among the “ heathen ” than it was among
God’s elect. Abraham was not even above profiting by his
arrangement with Sarah. Pharaoh and Abimelech gave him
sheep, oxen, asses, camels and slaves, while they were courting
his “ sister,” and he was too much of a Jew to return those nice
little presents when they discovered their mistake.
Yet this cowardly huckster suddenly developed into a full
blown hero when his nephew was taken captive in a big battle.
Hastily arming three hundred and eighteen trained servants, he
pursued the victorious armies of five great kings. Palling
upon them by night, he smote them hip and thigh, rescued
Lot with all the other captives, and recovered every bit of the
spoil. Profane history furnishes no parallel to this heroic feat.
Even the three hundred Spartans, who defended the pass of
Thermopylae against the hosts of Xerxes, were less successful, for
with the exception of one man they were all slain, while Abraham
does not appear to have lost a single warrior. We must go to
Scripture itself for similar prodigies of valor; where we find
Gideon, who defeated a whole army with three hundred men
armed with pitchers and lamps; and Samson, who slew a
thousand Philistines with the jaw-bone of an ass.
According to the Jewish legends, Abraham was deserted by
his servants as they approached the enemy, but the patriarch
fell upon the five armies alone, and with God’s assistance he
polished them all off before daybreak.
*
On returning from the fight, Abraham met a gentleman
named Melchizedek, who was “ priest of the most high God.”
This worthy sky-pilot gave Abraham his blessing, and Abraham
“ give him tithes of all.” Melchizedek is described by Paul as
“ without father, without mother, without descent, having
neither beginning of days, nor end of life.”f Whenever we
meet anyone who answers to that description, we will pay him
tithes too. Probably the priests inserted this passage to give
the highest autiquity to the ten per cent, business. Yet we need
not go to the Jews for the origin of tithes, for the custom is
widespread. The Greeks generally dedicated a tenth of their
spoils to Apollo, but the Athenians to Minerva, and the Samians
to Juno. The Carthaginians sent a tithe of their Sicilian spoils
to Hercules, and the Arabians offered a tenth of their frank
incense to Sabis.t The Persians, the Scythians, and the Romans
also paid tithes to their gods.§ Superstitious people give presents
to their deities to purchase their favor, and the priests of every
religion have found a way to turn devotion into a duty.||
* Gould, vol. i., p. 194.
+ Hebrews vii., 3.
J Selden, History of Tythes, iii.
§ Calmet, Tythes.
|| Hooker’s reason why a “ tenth of our wordly profits ” is the proper
amount to give to the Church is very curious. Three is the number of
the Trinity, seven the number of our spiritual perfections, and ten the
�FATHER ABRAHAM.
21
Another part of religion which the Bible traces back to
Abraham is the rite of circumcision.
“Ye shall circumcise
the flesh of your foreskin,” says Jehovah, “ and it shall be a token
of the covenant between me and you.”* This was rather an
obscene token, but the Lord’s ways are not our ways. Abraham
circumcised all the males of his household on one day. He was
ninety-nine years old, and the surgical operation must have
been trying at his time of life.
Circumcision is no token of a covenant between Jehovah and
Abraham, nor is it a special mark of the chosen people.
Herodotus tells us that circumcision was practised by the
Colchians, Egyptians, Ethiopians, and Syrians, nearly five
centuries before Christ, when it was beginning to be discon
tinued by the Phoenicians.f The rite obtains among the Arabs,
the Abyssinians, and the Kaffirs; it was found by Captain Cook
among the South Pacific islanders; a similar practice prevailed
in Mexico^, and it existed among the aborigines of Australia.§
Such a widely prevalent rite, found in parts of the world that
have no intercourse with each other, must have had a general
origin. It is simply a relic of primitive superstition. The
ancient priests of Rhea amputated their genitals altogether in
honor of their goddess. What wonder, then, that a milder form
of mutilation should have survived among whole nations. Both
among the Jews,|| and among every other people, circumcision
was effected with a stone implement.^ No doubt the use of this
article, in accordance with the intense conservatism of religion,
had survived with the rite itself from the Stone Age.
All authorities agree in stating that circumcision was obli
gatory on the priestly caste in Egypt. This is a further proof
of its religious character. But many of the people also sub
mitted to it, as a mark of purity and holiness. That the Jews,
who had been in Egypt, should have borrowed this rite, is not
surprising ; * but that the Egyptian priests, the hierophants of
*
a hoary creed and the leaders of a haughty civilisation, should
have condescended to borrow it from their slaves, is absolutely
incredible.
Let us return to Abraham. His wife Sarah was barren, like
all the other Bible women who were to give birth to miraculous
children. She was anxious, however, that Abraham should
have children by somebody, so she gave him her handmaid
Hagai’ to breed from. Nothing loth, he “ went in unto Hagar,
number of nature’s perfections as well as “ the highest we can rise unto,
without iteration of numbers under it.” Here be reasons !—Ecclesiastical
Polity, bk. 5, chap, lxxix., 6, 7.
* Genesis xvii., 11.
f Bk. II., 104.
J Priaulx, pp. 381-9.
§ Tylor, Early History of Mankind, p. 219.
|| Exodus iv., 25: Joshua v., 2.
Tylor, pp. 216-219. ** Joshua v., 9.
�22
BIBLE HEROES.
and.she conceived.” Eighty-five was his age; but there was
life in the old boy yet. Hagar being in the family-way by her
master, Sarah was expected to sing small; but the good lady’s
temper was none of the tamest, and she bothered Abraham till
he exclaimed, “Do as you like with her.” Sarah took full
advantage of the permission, and Hagar ran away; but an angel
persuaded her to return, and in due course Abraham was pre
sented with a bouncing boy named Ishmael, who is supposed to
be the father of the Arabians.
Thirteen years later “the Lord appeared to Abram,” and
said, “ I am the Almighty God.” Our hero fell on his face,
and “ God talked with him.” This was no angel, but the great
I Am himself. What a pity there was no photographer handy
to take his likeness ! Oh, the joy it would be to have a portrait
of God Almighty over the mantel-piece! But, alas! that
pleasure is denied us. Photography was not invented then;
and since the advent of modern science Jehovah has kept care
fully out of the way. No Abraham has a chat with him, no
Moses sees his back parts.
Before leaving, the Lord promised that Sarah should be “ a
mother of nations.” God said it, but Abraham thought his
maker was joking. He “ fell upon his face, and laughed.”
But the Lord paid him another visit, and ratified the promise.
As he sat at his tent door in the heat of the day three men
appeared. Either one of them was God, or God was with them,
for all the conversation went on between Abraham and “ the
Lord.” We are told that, after the three men went, “ Abraham
stood yet before the Lord.” The text is very confused; but
God was evidently there, and it has been suggested that the
three visitors were Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
With Bedouin hospitality, Abraham said, Stop to dinner, and
they accepted the invitation. Sarah baked cakes, while he pre
pared the roast veal, which was served up with butter and milk.
Fortunately Genesis preserves the bill of fare at God Almighty’s
dinner. Should he ever favor us with a call, we shall know
what to put on the table.
Dinner being over, the Lord was in a good humor, for
dyspepsia is unknown to his omnipotent stomach. Rubbing his
hands together genially, he said to himself, “ I must do some
thing for Abraham. Pool’ old fellow, he wants a boy, and hang
it he shall have one, a real son and heir.” Certainly it did not
look a very promising case. Abraham was a hundred, and Sarah
was ninety. But, as the poet says, “ God moves in a mysterious
way his wonders to perform.” 'Turning to his “friend,” the
Lord said, “ Sarah, thy wife, shall have a son.” The old lady
overheard this promise, but she was old enough to know better,
so she “ laughed within herself.” The Lord has long ears, how
ever, and he heard her smile. “ Abraham,” said his Godship,
“ what is the old woman laughing about ? Does she fancy I
�FATHER ABRAHAM.
23
can’t manage it ? ” Sarah overheard this too, and being a bit
frightened, she said, “ I didn’t laugh.” “ You did though,” said
the Lord, and the matter dropped. But when nine moons had
rolled by Sarah had a baby, and they christened it Isaac. Many
other barren women had babies at the same time, according to
tradition, while the blind saw, the dumb spake, the deaf heard,
the lame walked, crazy people recovered their senses, and the
sun shone with forty-eight times his usual brilliancy. Alto
*
gether it was a fine old time, and we daresay there was a good
deal of wetting the baby’s nose.
Having one child, and perhaps thinking she was in for a good
family, Sarah concluded that Hagar was de trop, so when the
weaning feast came on she complained that the young minx
laughed at her, and asked Abraham to turn her adrift. “ The
son of this bondwoman,” said she, “ shall not be heir with my
son.” Abraham was reluctant to turn the girl out of doors, but
the Lord told him to obey Sarah, and early one morning he sent
Hagar and Ishmael packing with some dry bread and a bottle of
water. The pool’ mother and boy “ wandered in the wilderness
of Beersheba,” their provisions were soon spent, and the pathetic
picture of Hagar weeping over the imminent death of her child
is enough to melt a heart of stone. An angel came to their
assistance, but that does not diminish Abraham’s crime. Even
if a man seduces a woman, and withdraws himself from her
society afterwards to avoid further sin, he is bound to protect
her from want and its many perils; and the obligation is, if
possible, still deeper if she is the mother of his child. Theo
logians, who seek to whitewash Abraham, and to justify
Jehovah’s advice, have played fast and loose with the primary
laws of morality; but every honest heart will feel that the
“ father of the faithful ” was a contemptible scoundrel, or a hen
pecked fool, or a damnable mixture of both.
Having turned Ishmael out of house and home, to live or die,
it is not surprising that Abraham readily obeyed the Lord when
he was told to offer up Isaac as a burnt-offering. An altar was
built, the wood laid in order, and Isaac bound as a victim for
the sacrifice. Already the father’s hand, holding the fatal knife,
Was raised to strike death into the heart of his son, when the
tragedy was averted by a voice from heaven, telling him to spare
the lad. “How I know that thou fearest God,” said Jehovah,
“ seeing that thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son
from me.” Abraham was ready to commit a murder for his
friend.” Not in act, but in intention, he had slain his son.
And this readiness to perpetrate any crime at God’s instigation
is hailed as a sovereign proof of his piety. Even in the New
Testament, Paulf commends Abraham’s faith in offering up
Isaac, and James declares that by such “ works ” his “ faith ”
* Gould, vol. i., p. 206.
t Hebrews xi., J 7.
�24
BIBLE HEROES.
was “ made perfect.”* When such frightful atrocities are
sanctioned by the Bible, it is a sin to put it into the hands of
children, and a scandal to call it the infallible Word of God.
Neither Abraham nor Jehovah could dispense with a sacrifice
of some kind, so a ram was immolated in Isaac’s stead. Tradition
says that this opportune animal was brought from Paradise, and
ever since the Lord God planted the Garden of Eden it had fed
under the Tree of Life, and drunk of the river that waters its
roots; and the Last Trumpets of the Day of Judgment will be
made from its wonderful horns, t
Sarah died at a hundred and twenty-seven, and aftei’ seeing
Isaac settled, Abraham married Keturah, who with or without
his assistance was the mother of six sons. Dr. Giles obsei’ves
that Abraham had laughed at the notion of his being a father at
a hundred, yet when he is thirty-seven years older he marries
again and has six children. He surmises that Abraham was a
polygamist, like Jacob, David and Solomon; that he had children
by Keturah during Sarah’s lifetime; and that a late compiler
“ ranges in successive dates events which really were contem
poraneous.”!
Abraham died at a hundred and seventy-five, and was buried
in Sarah’s grave. The Mussulmans say he was the first man who
ever had a white beard, and that God kissed him, and he gave
up the ghost. § His tomb was “ discovered ” ever so many cen
turies after the funeral, in a cave near Hebron. Isaac and Jacob
were buried in the same hole, and all three bodies were in a fine
state of preservation. The Christians built a church over the
spot, but the Turks have changed it into a mosque, and for
bidden Christians to approach it.|| Several books have also.been
ascribed to Abraham. They were mentioned by the Rabbis, by
Athanasius, and by Origen. Probably the old fellow would be
as astonished as anybody to learn that he wrote them.
We now take leave of this Friend of God. He was a liar, a
coward, and a would-be murderer. His proper place would be
in the Chamber of Horrors. But Jesus Christ tells us that he
is in heaven, with Lazarus the sore-legged beggar in his bosom.
May it never be our fate to pig with such company, for although
Abraham was and probably is God’s friend, we decidedly object
to spending our eternity inside the shirt-front of an elderly Jew.*
§
* James ii., 21, 22.
f Gould, vol. i., p. 228.
J Rev. Dr. Giles, Hebrew Records, p. 233.
§ Gould, vol. 1, p. 23G.
|| Calmet.
�JUGGLING
JACOB.
-------- ♦--------
God was particularly fond of this Bible hero. Abraham was his
friend, but he loved Jacob. How much reason there was for this
affection will appeal’ in the course of our narrative. Jehovah
himself was a desperately sharp shaver at a bargain, but Jacob
beat him hollow in that line. He is the father of the great race
of Jeremy Diddlers. He diddled everybody he ever met, in
cluding God himself. His life was an uninterrupted career of
jewing, save for one little affair, in which his uncle Laban
diddled him.
But, before we follow Jacob’s adventures, we wish to say a
few words about our old friend Captain Noah. According to
Scripture, Noah lived fifty-eight years after the birth of Abra
ham, while Shem lived a hundred and ten years after the birth
of Isaac, and fifty years after the birth of Jacob. How was it
that neither Abraham, Isaac, nor Jacob knew either of them ?
They were the most interesting and important men alive at
that time; they had seen the world before the Flood; and one
of them had seen people who knew Mr. Adam. Both of them
had lived through the confusion of tongues at Babel, and were
well acquainted with the history of the world. Yet they are
never once mentioned during all the centuries they survived
their exit from the Ark. Why is this ? Simply because the
whole story is a myth. Each character plays his part, and when
he is no longer wanted he is quietly dismissed from the stage.
Up to a point, like the hero of one of Bret Harte’s poems, they
are all alive and kicking; afterwards they still resemble that
gentleman, who was knocked down in the spree, and “ the sub
sequent proceedings interested him no more.”
Isaac married at forty. His wife Rebekah was barren (of
course), and Isaac had to pray hard before she got into the
family-way. Naturally the result was twins. “ The children,”
we are told, “ struggled together within her.” Rabbi Eliezer
says that they carried on a theological discussion there. Another
*
Rabbi asserts that when Rebekah passed before a synagogue,
Jacob tried to get born; and when she passed before an idol
temple, Esau tried to do the same. Poor Rebekah “went to
Gould, vol. ii-, p. 16.
�2G
BIBLE HEROES.
inquire of the Lord ” about the matter. The answer was “ Two
nations are in thy womb.” What a prospect! The poor young
woman found to her cost that “ the effectual fervent prayer of a
righteous man availeth much.”
Esau was born first. He was red, and “ all over like a hairy
garment.” Jacob followed quickly; in fact “ his hand took hold
on Esau’s heel,” and hence his name. Jewish traditions explain
Esau’s redness in various ways. One says he was born under
the ruddy planet Mars, another that he liked his meat under
done, and another that he was red-haired. Rabbi Isaiah says
he had a serpent coiled in his bowels, and surely that was enough
to make him red in the face.
*
Isaac was seventy years old when the twins came to light.
We presume, therefore, that he had been nearly thirty yearspraying for them. Scripture does not say whether Rebekah,
according to the pious fashion of the age, lent him a handmaiden
or two to try his luck with.
“ The boys grew,” says Scripture. Of course they did. All
boys, except Tom Thumbs, manage to do that. Esau became “ a
cunning hunter.” The Rabbis say that he wore the leather suit
which God made for Mi’. Adam.f This outfit was stolen by Ham
from Noah. Ham gave it to Cush, and Cush to Nimrod. Esaukilled Nimrod and secured the God-made raiment, which gavehim success in hunting.^ Jacob dwelt in tents and minded
sheep. He was “ a plain man,” and also “ a smooth man.”
Smooth-skinned, smooth-tongued, and smooth-faced; plain and
unsophisticated as the Heathen Chinee.
One day this plain, smooth man was making lentil pottage,
when Esau came in from the hunt, faint and weary, and ready to
die of hunger. The starving hunter besought a little food of his
twin-brother. Any man with a spark of natural feeling would
have said, “ Eat, my brother, there is enough for both, and if not
we will share it.” Sir Philip Sidney, mortally wounded on the
field of Zutphen, was about to drink some water his friends
brought him to appease his intolerable thirst; but seeing a poor
soldier writhing in agony beside him, he put the precious
draught aside untasted, saying, “ Give it to him; his necessity
is greater than mine.” But Jacob was not a Sidney, although
God loved him. Not even a brother’s necessity touched his
selfish heart. His only thought was “ How can I make a profit
out of his extremity ? ” Turning to Esau, he said, “ I’ll give you
some of my pottage, but on one condition. Let me have your
birthright, and you may take a spoon.” The condition was
hard, for it meant that Esau was to resign all his rights of
seniority to Jacob. But a perishing man cannot be fastidious.
Esau was obliged to close with the offer. Yet, even then, Jacob
* Gould, vol. ii., p. 17.
+ Genesis iii., 21.
} Gould, vol. ii., p. IS.
�JUGGLING JACOB.
27
would not let him eat until he had confirmed the bargain with
an oath. “ Thus Esau despised his birthright,” says the Bible.
Thus Jacob despised the common instincts of humanity,” says
every honest reader.
Isaac grew old, and “ his eyes were dim, so that he could not
see.” Some Rabbis say that his eyes were dimmed by the tears
of the angels falling in them when he was stretched on the altai’;
others say that he was dazzled by looking on the throne of God;
and others that he went blind through crying over Esau’s
marriage with a Canaanitish woman. The old patriarch
*
thought his end was approaching, and having a weakness for
venison, he sent Esau out to hunt some game, so that he might
have a thorough good feast and give up the ghost on a full
stomach. While the hairy man was away on this expedition,
the smooth man played him a very dirty trick. Having sharped
Esau out of his birthright, Jacob proceeded to cheat him of his
father’s blessing.
Rebekah, who was the worthy mother of such a son, put Jacob
up to the contrivance. She cooked a kid to taste like venison,
and put the skin upon Jacob’s hands and neck, to make him feel
like Esau. Juggling Jacob took in the savory mess to his poor
old father, who asked him how he had caught the game so
quickly. This was a poser, but Jacob was equal to the occasion.
“ Because,” said he, “ the Lord thy God brought it to me.” The
rascally hypocrite mixed his piety with his cheating in the most
exemplary manner. He was a fellow who could pick a pocket
and say a prayer in the same breath.
Being somewhat sceptical, Isaac said “ Come near that I may
feel thee.” The blind old father felt him, or rather the kid skin,
and was a little reassured. Still, he noticed that the voice was
the voice of Jacob; so he asked him “ Art thou my very son
Esau?” And Jacob, rolling up the whites of his eyes like a
negro preacher, and in a tone that would have struck envy into
the soul of Mr. Pecksniff, answered “ I am.” That was enough.
Isaac tucked into the dinner, and afterwards gave Jacob the
blessing he intended for Esau. “ Be lord over thy brethren,”
said Isaac, “ and let thy mother’s sons bow down to thee.” In
patriarchal societies a father’s blessings and curses are “regis
tered in heaven,” and this was equivalent to giving Jacob’s off
spring a perpetual superiority over Esau’s.
Presently Esau returned from the hunt, cooked his game, and
invited his father to eat. “ Who art thou ?” said Isaac. “ I am
thy son, thy firstborn Esau,” was the reply. Isaac “ trembled
very exceedingly,” told Esau what had occurred, and added that
he could not retract Jacob’s blessing. When Esau heard this, he
“ cried with a great and exceeding bitter cry.” What a picture
of anguish! The poor fellow was heart-broken. He pleaded
* Gould, vol. ii., p. 15.
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BIBLE HEROES.
hard for a blessing too. “ Bless me, even me also, 0 my father,”
he cried, and then he “ lifted up his voice, and wept.” The story
is told with terrible pathos, and the Jews must have been blinded
with, the spirit of nationality not to feel that Esau sustained a
shocking injury, and that Jacob was a contemptible scoundrel.
Naturally “ Esau hated Jacob,” nor is it surprising that he
promised to slay this treacherous brother after their father’s
death. Jacob was too cowardly to face Esau’s wrath, so by
Rebekah’s advice he fled to his uncle Laban’s. During his
journey he slept one night upon a pillow of stones. It was cal
culated to give him the nightmare, yet he had a heavenly dream.
He saw a ladder reaching from earth to heaven. The Lord stood
on top of it, and said “ I am the Lord God.” Angels were
ascending and descending it, though it is difficult to understand
why these winged creatures should climb a ladder. Perhaps
they were moulting.
God shouted down from the top of that ladder all the fine
promises he had previously made to Abraham, and when Jacob
awoke he was in a very pious frame of mind. After saying his
prayers he made this beautiful vow : “ If God will be with me,
and will keep me in the way that I go, and will give me bread to
eat, and raiment to put on, So that I come again to my father’s
house in peace; then shall the Lord be my God.” Jacob was a
man of business. He was not going to worship any God for
nothing. His terms were pretty high, however; and all he
undertook to do, in addition to praising Jehovah, is expressed
in this elegant offer. “ Of all that thou shalt give me,” said
Jacob, “ I will surely give the tenth unto thee.” That is, if God
provided him with unlimited capital, he would give God ten per
cent, of the profits.
The Arabs say that Jacob’s stone pillow is now at Jerusalem.
It is also in Westminster Abbey. Somebody conveyed it to
Scone, where it was used for the consecration of the Scottish
king, and Edward I. brought it to London, where it remains till
Jacob sends for it.
*
Jacob settled down at his uncle Laban’s, undertaking to serve
him seven years for his younger daughter Rachel, with whom
the runagate was desperately in love. When the term expired
Jacob was married. There was a wedding feast, and he probably
got fuddled. How else are we to explain his obtuseness ? When
he awoke he found himself in bed with the wrong woman. He
had slept with Leah instead of Rachel. Eor once in his life he
was done brown. Laban explained that it was against the
custom of the country to wed the younger sister before the
elder, but he told Jacob that he might have Rachel too. Having
served seven years for the woman he did not want, Jacob had to
serve another seven years for the woman he did want. His
* Gould, vol. ii., p. 21.
�JUGGLING JACOB.
29
marrying two sisters is treated as perfectly proper. Yet the
clergy say that marriage with a deceased wife’s sister is incest.
Evidently the incest consists in taking two sisters in succession.
Taking them both together is the good old Bible plan.
Leah was fruitful, but Rachel was barren, like Sarah and
for the same reason. “ Give me children, or else I die,” she
exclaimed to Jacob. This put him in a passion, and he inquired
whether he was God Almighty. Thereupon Rachel asked him
to get children by her handmaid Bilhah. Soon afterwards
Leah made the same request for her handmaid Zilpah, and
Jacob obliged them both.
Rachel appears to have owned Jacob and farmed him out.
Leah’s eldest son found some mandrakes in the field and brought
*
them home. “ Give me some,” said Rachel to Leah, “ and Jacob
shall sleep with you to-night.” The bargain was struck, and
Leah posted off to meet Jacob. “ Thou must come in unto me,”
she said, “ for surely I have hired thee with my son’s mandrakes.”
Holy Scripture adds that “ he lay with her that night.” This is
a very pretty story for parents to put in the hands of their
daughters I Surely the Word of an all-wise God might teach
something more useful and decent than the lesson to be derived
from the story of a woman hiring her own husband to sleep
with her.
Thinking it high time to leave uncle Laban, Jacob asked for
his discharge. Laban, however, desired him to remain on his
own terms. Jacob stipulated that all the speckled and spottled
cattle, all the brown sheep, and all the spotted and speckled
goats, should be his, and all the rest his uncle’s. This was agreed
to, and Jacob proceeded to breed the flocks and herds, so that all
the stronger ones were of his variety, and all the feebler ones of
Laban’s. How he did this is a wonderful specimen of Bible
biology. When the animals were “ in the doing of the deed of
kind,” as Shylock puts-it, Jacob placed pilled rods with white
streaks before the lustier ones, and this enabled the females to
bring forth “ cattle ringstraked, speckled, and spotted.” Youatt,
who is a high authority on breeding, attributes this result to
“ the power of the imagination in the mother, carried to an
extent the like of which is certainly not seen in the present day,” or
to “some superior over-ruling agency.” f St. Jerome, St.
Augustine, and St Isidore, who probably knew as much about
sheep and cattle as about the Copernican astronomy, held that
Jacob’s method of breeding was perfectly natural; but St
* According to Calmet, mandrakes resembled the sexual parts of men,
and were used as aphrodisiacs, especially in cases of barrenness. But, as
Voltaire remarks (La Bible Enfin JExpliquee') this was an error of ancient
medicine, like the belief in satyrion and cantharides ; and “ such fancies
were only credited in great cities where debauchery supported charlatans ”
f Youatt Sheep; their Breeds, Management, etc., p. 17.
�30
BIBLE HEROES.
Chrysostom, Theodoret and others, who were equally learned on
the subject, held that it was “ something above nature.”* It is
scarcely necessary to say that modern farmers are not in the
habit of following Jacob’s methods. Those were Bible days, and
Bible sheep and cattle.
Jacob getting wealthy and Laban poor, they grew unfriendly,
and our hero resolved to go home to Isaac. He had both Laban’s
daughters, and all his sheep, cattle, and goats worth having,
and there was nothing more to remain for ; so he levanted one
night with all his belongings. But it was reserved for Rachel
to put the finishing touch to Laban’s misfortunes. She actually
carried off his images (terapliim, household gods, like the Roman
senates'), and left her pool’ old father without a god to worship.
This was more than flesh and blood could stand. Laban pursued
the fugitives, and rated Jacob for sneaking off without saying
good-bye; and “ wherefore hast thou stolen my gods ?” he
inquired. Jacob denied the charge, told Laban to search for
them, and vowed that whoever had them should be put to death.
But Rachel had put the images in the camel’s furniture in her
tent, and she sat upon them—hatching ! She escused her
self from rising up on the ground that “ the custom of women ”
was upon her. What a thievish, cunning slut this Rachel was !
She and her husband were fit for the shadiest business in Petti
coat Lane.
Twenty years had Jacob been away from home, and he was
returning a rich and prosperous man. But his heart sank as he
reflected that Esau’s anger might still be hot against him, and
when messengers came to say that Esau was coming out to meet
him with four hundred men, he began to taste the very bitter
ness of death. His mercenary nature prompted him to try the
effect of a bribe, so he sent forward “ a present unto my lord
Esau ” of goats, sheep, camels, oxen, and asses. Injured, how
ever, as Esau was, he did not cherish a spirit of revenge. He
had forgiven Jacob, and only remembered that they were
brothers. Putting aside the presents, with the generous
remark, “ I have enough, my brother ; keep that thou hast unto
thyself,” Esau embraced Jacob, and “ fell on his neck and kissed
him.” What a noble picture of generosity and brotherly
affection! Esau was large-hearted and magnanimous, while
Jacob was base and sordid. One was a hero, and the other a
skunk. Yet the Bible God says, “ Jacob have I loved, but Esau
have I hated.”f
While Jacob was in a funk at the thought of Esau’s approach,
he had a marvellous adventure. Being alone by night at
Jabbok brook, somebody “wrestled with him until the break
ing of the day.” It was the longest and most stiffly contested
Calmet, Jacob.
f Romans is., 13; Malachi i., 2.
�31
JUGGLING- JACOB.
match on record. The mysterious person found he could not
throw his man or shake him off. Jacob held on like grim death.
His thigh was put out of joint, but he never relaxed his grip.
“ Let me go,” said the stranger, “ for the day breaketh.” But
Jacob refused to do so, unless he obtained a blessing. That was
all the stranger had to give. Had he worn clothes, and keptany cash in his pockets, Jacob would have had that too. As it
was Jacob got the blessing. His name was changed from Jacob
to Israel. From a patriarch he became a prince. When the
Stranger departed, Jacob called the place Peniel, for, said he,
“ I have seen God face to face.” Supposing he was right (and
the other party has never contradicted him), Jacob wrestled
with God Almighty. The match was “ God v. Jacob.” It lasted
all night; there was only one round; and Jacob won the
stakes.
This need not surprise the reader, for in a following chapter
we are several times apprised that Jacob had interviews with his
maker. God “ appeared unto Jacob again,” “God spake with
him,” “ God said unto him, I am God Almighty.”*
Calmet informs us that authorities—that is, gentlemen who
are perfectly ignorant on the matter—are divided as to whether
Jacob’s thigh ever recovered from its dislocation. Some think
he went about with a game leg for the rest of his days, and.
others that he passed over Jordan safe and sound in everv
limb.
Isaac died, some time after Jacob’s return, at the ripe age of
a hundred and eighty. Esau had several wives before, but after
the old man was buried he took a fresh batch. Jacob, however,
kept to Rachel and Leah. But as he enjoyed two of their hand
maids, and perhaps a few more, he had a first-rate harem all the
same.
What became of Leah afterwards is not recorded. It is to be
hoped she died, for she appears to have been buried, f Rachel
died in giving birth to her second son, Benjamin. A tombstonewas fixed over her remains, and “ that is the pillar of Rachel’s-,
grave unto this day.” The writer of this sentence should havebeen more precise. He ought to have put into the text, or a
footnote, something like this—“ This is the 24th of so and so, in
the year of the world so and so.” Then we should have known
at what date the story was written, which is a great deal more
than the cleverest commentators are able to say now.
The remainder of Jacob’s life was chiefly spent in the land of
Canaan, where he managed to set his own family by the ears
through his doting fondness for Joseph, “ the son of his old age.”
But that pretty story, and the strangely bestial doings of some
of Leah’s sons, must be reserved foi’ our next chapter. Suffice it
to say, that Jacob spent his last seventeen years in Egypt, where
t Gen. xxxv., 7, 9, 11, 15.
f Genesis xlW 31.
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BIBLE HEBOES.
Joseph had become Prime Minister; and that he died at the age
of a hundred and forty-seven. On his death-bed he took to
prophecy, foreshadowing in highly symbolical and oracular
language the history of the future tribes of Israel. But as these
prophecies were all written long aftei’ the events foretold, they
were a remarkably easy form of composition. If Jacob uttered
all that vaticination on his last feather-bed, we should like to
know who took the shorthand notes.
Jacob’s body was embalmed, and buried at Joseph’s expense
in the cave of Machpelah. The Bible informs us that “ all the
elders of the land of Egypt ” went to the funeral, which we
respectfully beg leave to doubt. Nor do we believe that the
whole Egyptian nation mourned the loss of Jacob for seventy
days. This is, in our opinion, simply a bit of Jewish brag. The
chosen people always had a miraculous opinion of themselves,
which they have nevei’ induced other people to share; and their
historians constantly flattered their national vanity. When we
remember that the Jewish army thought nothing of killing a
hundred thousand in battle, we understand that the homage,
paid to Jacob by Pharaoh was all “ gas.”
According to the Bible, Jacob nevei’ did a generous action.
We must go to tradition to discover the single benefit he conferred on mankind. Before his time sneezing was fatal. The
strongest men were killed by a single shock. But Jacob induced
the Lord to relax this law on condition that everybody who
sneezed should say “ God bless me.” * That apocryphal blessing
is all we owe to Jacob. Throughout his long life he furnished
an unbroken example of the meanest vices. He was a liar,
a sharper, a cheat, a hypocrite, and a thief. God’s “ love ”
did not save him from being a paltry wretch. As a Bible
hero, he is contemptible. If he belonged to any other gallery of
unhung scoundrels, he would be beneath our disdain.
I* I Jesus Christ was good enough to say that “ many shall come
from the east and west, and shall sit down with Abraham, Isaac,
and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven.” f With all humility we
beg to be excused. Everlasting life would be a burden in such
detestable company. It would be an eternal round of suspicion.
Abraham and Isaac would always be trying to impose on our
credulity, and it would tax our utmost vigilance to preserve our
harp and crown from Juggling Jacob.
Gould, vol. ii., p. 29.
f Matthew viii,, 11.
�MASTER JOSEPH.
------- -♦--------
Bible heroes have thus far been found a shady lot. But Joseph,
the hero of the present chapter, is lauded as a model of every
virtue. It is difficult, however, to discover reasons for this
eulogy. Even the chastity for which he is famous is inade
quately established. That he resisted the importunities of an
amorous woman is indeed recorded, but we are not informed that
she was young and beautiful; on the contrary, her advances
were made with such brazen brutality that it might be conjec
tured she was an old practitioner in sin, enamored of the fresh
innocence of a pretty boy. Nor have we any means of judging
the strength of the temptation on Joseph’s side. Whether his
constitution was warm or cold, as well as the plainness or fasci
nation of his mistress, should affect our estimate of his cha
racter. But, on the other hand, we require no elucidations for
a judgment on his conduct as Prime Minister of Egypt. Accord
ing to the plain and circumstantial narrative of the Bible, he
deliberately reduced a whole nation to slavery, which is the
greatest crime that can be committed or conceived. The worst
atrocities of war, the vilest deeds of the cruellest tyrants, sink
into insignificance beside the premeditated villainy of Joseph
who used the knowledge he obtained from God to cozen the
Egyptians of their property and liberty for ever.
Joseph was the first of Jacob’s two children by Rachel. The
favorite wife of Israel was long barren, like all Bible women
destined to give birth to wonderful children, until at last, in the
graceful and expressive language of the Holy Ghost, “ God
harkened to her, and opened her womb.” When we next meet
this child of promise, he is seventeen years old, and his father’s
favorite, “because he was the son of his old age.” The old
fellow doted on the lad, and “ made him a coat of many colors,”
so that he looked a regular “ masher.” How many Sundayschool children have dreamt of that variegated garment! But,
alas, the Revised Version robs it of all its romance by stating
that it was simply “ a long garment with sleeves.”
°
Like other favorite children, Joseph was a bit of a sneak, and
told tales of his brethren. When they remembered this,- and
Saw him always in his best clothes, they “ hated him, and could
not speak peaceably unto him.” This feeling was exasperated
�34
BIBLE HEROES.
by his vanity. He dreamed that he and his brethren were
binding sheaves in the field, and their sheaves made obesiance to
his. In another dream “ the sun and the moon and the eleven
stars bowed before him.” This was too much even for Jacob, as
it seemed to include Joseph’s father and mothei’ am on g his
inferiors. He therefore reproved the youngster, yet he treasured
the dream in his foolish old heart.
Joseph’s brethren detested him, and he certainly gave them
cause for the sentiment. . Presently their smoking hatred burst
into flame. Jacob sent him to inquire after them and the flocks
while they were pasturing at a distance, and when they saw
him approaching they said to each other, “ let us slay him.”
It was a cowardly proposal, for they were ten to one, Benjamin
being probably at home; but their natures were fierce and
bloody, and the ties of kindred were as straw to the fire of their
passion. Their project was to kill him, fling his body into a pit,
and tell Jacob he was eaten by a wild beast. But Reuben per
suaded them not to shed his blood. He suggested that they
should cast him into a pit alive, intending to release him after
wards. This was agreed to. They stripped poor Joey, and cast
him into a pit, or probably a well, though “ there was no wafegr
in it.” An oriental tradition says there was water, but Jos^fli
stood on a stone; while the Rabbis say it was dry, but full of
scorpions and adders. Perhaps it was a rock-hewn cistern such
*
as abound in Palestine ; from which, as they are shaped like a
bottle, with a narrow mouth, a prisoner could not escape with
out assistance, f
Pooi- Joey being “ in the belly of the earth,” as Jesus says, to
dream at leisure, his tender-hearted brethren sat down to lun
cheon. . While they were feeding, and toasting Joseph’s health,
they spied a caravan of Ishmeelites going down to Egypt, and a
bright idea immediately occurred to Judah. “ Let us sell him
to the Ishmeelites,” he said. It was a capital notion, and worthy
of the family. But what followed is very obscure. We had
better give the text:—“Then there passed by Midianites
merchantmen; and they drew and lifted up Joseph out of the
pit, and sold Joseph to the Ishmeelites for twenty pieces of
silver : and they brought Joseph into Egypt.”J Who can make
head or tail of this jumble ? They drew Joseph up and sold him.
Who, his brethren or the Midianite merchantmen ? The second
they would seem to refei to the Ishmeelites who bought him;
*
yet the last verse of the chapter says that “ the Midianites sold
him into Egypt.” Two chapters further on, it says that Potiphar
bought Joseph “ of the hands of the Ishmeelites. ”§ Later, when
he reveals himself to his brethren, he says “ I am Joseph your
* Gould, vol. ii., p. 32
+ Rev. Dr. Thomson, The Land and the Book, p. 168.
t Genesis xxxvii., 28.
§ Genesis xxxix., 1.
�MASTER JOSEPH
35
brothei-, whom ye sold into Egypt.”* The Midianites sold him,
the Ishmeelites sold him, and his brethren sold him ! God help
ns ! Our brain is reeling. Would that the Holy Ghost had
written plainer, for this episode is like the peace of God, it passes
all (our) understanding; and, unfortunately, we have not the
dexterous faith of Dean Milman, who airily evades the difficulty
by saying that Joseph was sold to “ a caravan of Arabian
traders.”!
It is usually held that Joseph’s brethren did sell him, and as
they were Jacob’s sons it is highly probable. Josephus distinctly
says they sold him for twenty pieces of silver.J The Hebrew
and Samaritan give the same figure, but the Vulgate gives thirty,
which brings Joseph and Jesus to the same price. The Septuagint
gives twenty, but says the pieces were gold. According to the
Targums, the brethren had two pieces each, with which they
bought shoes. § But Zabulun, in the Testaments of the Twelve
Patriarchs, denies that he shared the blood-money, though
“ Simeon and Gad, and six other of our brethren, took the price
of Joseph, and bought sandals for themselves, their wives, and
their children.”
jJacob’s sons were cunning villains. They dipped Joseph’s
coat in goat’s-blood, took it to their father, and innocently asked
what he thought of it, For their part, they had a notion it was
Joseph’s, but they would defer to his opinion. The old man saw
it was his son’s, and concluding that his favorite child was
devoured by a wild beast, he grieved and wept, declaring that
he would join his beloved in the grave. Thereupon the hypo
critical scoundrels tried to comfort him. They had disposed of
their brother for two “ shiners ” each, and now they wept
crocodile tears over then- father’s bereavement. Reuben, how
ever, must be exonerated for once. He tried to save Joseph by
an artifice, but his strategy had failed.
Eastern and Rabbinical traditions assert that Joseph’s face
shone like the sun, and all the women and damsels ran out on
the terraces to see the light, while the wealthy ladies of Helio
polis sent their husbands or relations to bid for the beautiful
youth.i| According to Genesis, he was purchased by “ Potiphar,
an officer of Pharaoh, captain of the guard.” Josephus and the
Testaments, however, style this gentleman the chief cook. Dr.
Kitto calls him “ chief of the royal police,” while Dr. Taylor
renders the original Hebrew as “ chief of the executioners.”^
Whoever wishes to know what Potiphar really was must pray
for enlightenment from heaven.
Joseph gained his master’s favor, and soon became his right* Genesis, xlv., 4.
f History of the Jews, p. 23.
I Josephus, Book II, c. iii.
§ Gould, vol. it, p. 35.
|| Gould, vol. ii,, p. 35.
•f Rev. W. M. Taylor, D.D., Joseph, the Prime-Minister, p. 45.
�36
BIBLE U EROES*
hand man. Potiphar made him overseer of his estate, and “ the
Lord blessed the Egyptian’s house for Joseph’s sake.” Now,
Potiphar had a wife, and thereby hangs a tale. She also had a
partiality for Joseph, who was “a goodly person, and well
favored; ” indeed, the Orientals say he was so beautiful that
he was called the Moon of Canaan. His mistress did not beat
about the bush. First she “ cast her eyes upon Joseph,” and
next she said, “ Lie with me.” But il casto Giuseppe declined
her frank invitation. He reproved her immodesty, reminded
her that she was his master’s wife, and refused to “ sin again st
God.” Dr. Taylor argues that, besides the gratification of
appetite, Joseph might expect “this intrigue meant also for
him the putting of Potiphar ultimately out of the way, and his
own elevation, in an easy and speedy fashion, to his master’s
place.”* But we beg to differ. Egypt was a highly-civilised
country, women were allowed great freedom, marriage was held
sacred, and life was secure. It no more followed then than it
does now, that a married woman who intrigued with a young
fellow would also murder her husband.
Josephus writes a long account of this wretched business.f
The Arabs give it a romantic turn; Zuleika, in their story, being
a very different character from the lustful quean in the Bible.
The Testaments make pool’ Joseph groan “ She was wont to bare
her arms, and breasts, and legs, that I might fall before her.”
His mistress, then, was a thorough-going Lady Booby, and he
was more sorely tried than Joseph Andrews. It is a great pity,
however, that we have not Potiphar’s wife’s account of the
affair. The poor lady is condemned unheard. She might give a
very different version, showing that she played the Lucretia to
his.Tarquin. Joseph and the Jews have made their affidavits,
while Zuleika and the Egyptians have never been examined.
Genesis, however, tells us that Potiphar’s wife pressed Joseph
to comply with her desires, and one day, when they were alone,
she “ caught him by his garment, saying, Lie with me.”
Josephus says she “had a mind to force him.” But Joseph
fled, leaving his garment in her hands. Thus signally repulsed,
her love soured to hate, and she accused poor Joey of having
tried to violate her; whereupon Potiphar clapped the chaste
youth in prison as a ravisher.
The Rabbis give many amplifications of this pretty story,J
and there is a version of it in the Koran, where it is said that
Joseph “ would have resolved to enjoy her, had he not seen an
evident demonstration of his Lord.” This is explained by the
1 earned Sale in a footnote to his translation.
. “ Some suppose that the words mean some miraculous voice or appa
rition, sent by God to divert Joseph from executing the criminal thoughts
* P. 52.
+ Book ii.. chap, 4.
f Gould, vol. ii., pp. 36, 37
�MASTER JOSEPH.
37
which began to possess him. For they say, that he was so far tempted
with his mistress’s beauty and enticing behavior, that he sat in her lap,
and even began to undress himself, when a voice called to him, and bid
him beware of her; but he taking no notice of this admonition, though
it was repeated three times, at length the angel Gabriel, or, as others
will have it, the figure of his master appeared to him : but the more
general opinion is that it was the apparition of his father Jacob, who bit
his fingers’ ends, or, as some write, struck him on the breast, whereupon
his lubricity passed out at the ends of his fingers.”*
A pretty little story also hangs by Joseph’s garment. Potiphar’s wife’s cousin, who was then a baby in the cradle, cried
out that if the garment was torn in front, the lady’s version was
correct, but if it was torn behind the young man’s version was
correct.f Potiphar obeyed the voice of the sucking child, and
satisfied himself of Joseph’s innocence; yet to gratify his wife,
or to wean her from her passion, he still kept him in gaol.
Strange to say, this imprisonment was his first step to glory.
He gained the good graces of his keeper, but that was little.
“ The chief cause of his rapid rise to fortune and dignity,” as
Milman observes, “ was his skill in the interpretation of
dreams.” Joseph was a diviner, a walking dream-book. His
sknl was first tried on Pharaoh’s chief butler and chief baker,
who were in prison at that time. He interpreted their dreams
with marvellous accuracy, predicting that the first would be
restored to his post and the second hanged. Two years later
Pharaoh had a wonderful dream, which troubled him greatly.
All the magicians and wise men of Egypt were summoned to
interpret it, but they could not, though they were very clever
fellows, and could turn rods into serpents in a jiffey. There
upon the chief butler, who was restored to his post, remem
bered Joseph, and recommended him to the king. Accordingly
our hero was brought out of prison, and aftei’ shaving and
putting on a clean suit, he stood before Pharaoh and told him
to fire away. Pharaoh related his dream, which we will not,
and Joseph interpreted it as meaning that Egypt was to have
seven years of plenty, followed by seven years of famine. He
also advised that a fifth part of the annual produce during the
first period should be saved for the necessity of the second.
Pharaoh was mightily pleased; he called Joseph a wise man,
full of the spirit of God, and made him grand vizier of Egypt.
Joseph now rode in a chariot, clothed in fine linen, with a gold
chain round his neck, and Pharaoh’s ring on his finger. The
king als(o gave him a new name, Zaphnath-paaneah, which
Josephus writes as Psothom Phanech, or the reader of secrets.
Pharaoh likewise “ gave him to wife Asenath, the daughter of
Poti-pherah, priest of On.” Milman supposes that “ as inter+ Sale, footnote to the Koran, chap. xii.
t Koran, chap. xii.; Gould, vol. ii., p. 37.
�38
BIBLE HEE0E8.
preter of dreams, Joseph, no doubt, intruded into the province ”
of the priests, and the king married him to a priest’s daughter
to “ disarm their jealousy.”* According to Josephus the name
*
of Joseph’s father-in-law was Petephres, and Whiston says the
notion that he was Joseph’s old master is “ common to Josephus,
to the Septuagint interpreters, and to other learned Jews of
old time. ”f Many, says Gould, J suppose that Asenath was the
daughter of Joseph’s old master Potiphar by Dinah! And she
was as tall as Sarah, as comely as Rebekah, and as beautiful as
Rachel. The Targums add that she was the daughter of Dinah
by Shechem, and was adopted and brought up by Potipherah’s
wife.§ But, according to other Jewish and Mussulman tradi
tions, Joseph married the Potiphar’s wife who made love to him,
after she became a widow; and the loves of Zuleika and Joseph
are a popular subject for Eastern poets.||
^Pharaoh’s grand vizier began to save corn against the famine.
Josephus says that the Egyptians had no expectation of the
drought, though Whiston considers this incredible. According
to the Bible, Joseph “ gathered corn as the sand of the sea,” ana
laid it up in granaries. The Jewish historian adds that he
“ took the corn of the husbandmen, allotting as much to every
one as would be sufficient for seed and for food, but without
discovering to anyone the reason why he did so.”5[
This virtuous Joseph was therefore a regrator, or, as the
Yankees say, “ a cornerer.” He monopolised grain to sell at
famine prices. Yet his action is approved and praised by men
who ask for laws against the same thing being done now. In
fact, the Yankees have passed a law against it, though Joseph
is still treated as a perfect saint in all the churches and chapels
in the United States.
When the famine came “ the dearth was in all lands ”; but
we suspect it was like the darkness at the Crucifixion, which
covered the whole earth, yet was invisible at a distance. The
Egyptians were obliged to buy corn of Joseph, or else starve.
At first he sold for money, but he soon had all their cash.
Next he took their horses and cattle. Then he took all their
land, and when the transaction was finished he said “ Behold, I
have bought you this day and your lands for Pharaoh”** You
and your lands I They had lost all their possessions, and had
become slaves to boot; in other words, the poor Egyptians were
thoroughly jewed.
Joseph supplied them with seed to sow the land, of which
they were no longer proprietors, on condition that the fifth part
of the produce should be paid to Pharaoh Wishing to put a
f Footnote to Josephus, bk. it, chap. 6. * Vol, ii., p. 46.
§ Ante-Nicene Library, vol, xxit, p. 73, footnote.
|| Gould, vol. ii., pp. 40, 41.
Josephus, Bk. it, chap. 5.
* Genesis xlvit, 23.
* P. 25.
�MASTER JOSEPH.
39
good face on. this affair, Josephus says that he “ gave them back
the land entirely,” but Whiston is obliged to differ from his
author. “ It seems to me,” he writes, “ that the land was now
considered Pharaoh’s land, and this fifth part as its rent, to be
paid to him, as he was their landlord, and they his tenants;
and that the lands were not properly restored, and this fifth part
reserved as tribute only till the days of Sesostris.”* Dr. Taylor
says that Joseph “also gave them back their cattle,” but he
draws on his fancy for the statement, as there is not a suggestion
of it in the Scripture.
Dr. Taylor offers a curious apology for Joseph. He contends
that if the Egyptians had obtained corn for nothing it “ would
only have demoralised them.” So he sold it to them, to prevent
their becoming paupers, and transformed them into slaves! But
was not Joseph a wise man? Did not God grant him super
human knowledge ? Surely, then, he might have hit upon a
more humane device. Had the people been properly warned of
the approaching drought, and provision made in the public
granaries, they might have maintained themselves during the
famine. It is infamous to trade on a natural calamity. A
nation reduced to want by continued drought is like a starving
crew. Despotism would be necessary for self-preservation ; but
what would be thought of a mercenary wretch who took advant
age of the public starvation to reduce his fellows into a state of
perpetual slavery or dependence ? Yet that is what Joseph did,
if there is any truth in the story. He was as cunning and un
scrupulous a minion as ever basked in the smiles of a king.
Joseph dealt with the people he had “bought” in a high
handed manner. He “ removed them to cities from one end
of the borders of Egypt even to the other end thereof.”
Dean Milman insinuates that this was a method of protecting
them from the overflow of the Nile, but he is obliged to allow
that “ This has been supposed by some an arbitary measure, in
order to break the ties of attachment, in the former possessors,
to their native farms.”!
Let it be observed that Joseph did not buy up the land of the
priests, who were the highest caste, and in whom “ one-third of
the whole land of the country was inalienably vested.”^ They
were all supported gratis during the famine, yet Dr. Taylor
does not hint that they were pauperised. The fact is, the priests
were the real rulers of Egypt. They were not only the minis
ters of religion, but public astronomers, geometricians, sur
veyors, physicians, legislators, and judges; and the king was
either selected from their body or enrolled in it before his
coronation. They were too powerful even for Pharaoh’s grand
vizier. Joseph could not browbeat or swindle them. Yet these
* Footnote, Josephus, bk. ii., chap. 7.
t P. 29.
J Milman, p. 25.
�40
BIBLE HEBOES.
priests, altheugh they looked after themselves pretty sharply,
seem to have connived at the spoliation of the people.
Among those who were driven into Egypt by the famine were
Joseph’s brethren. How he treated them roughly as strangers,
and then revealed his identity; how he invited Jacob’s house
hold into Egypt, and induced Pharaoh to let them settle there;
is a story familial’ to all. It is related with exquisite pathos and
simplicity, and merely as a story it may be compared with any
domestic narrative in literature.
The number of Jacob’s household is given as sixty-six and as
seventy in two consecutive verses. Josephus says seventy,
*
without including Jacob. But Stephen, in the Acts of the
Apostles, gives the number as seventy-five.f Probably he quoted
from the Septuagint, which includes five descendants of Joseph
not included in the Hebrew text. But the Holy Ghost should at
least make the Old and New Testaments agree in their arithmetic,
Sixty-six, seventy, or seventy-five, they settled down in
Goschen. It was a particularly fine land for shepherds, for the
grass grew to the height of a man, and so thick that an ox might
browse all day without rising.J According to Genesis it was
“ the best of the land.” The beggars in this case were choosers
too, and in the midst of their excessive humility they kept a keen
eye on the main chance.
Nearly every Bible character has had some writing ascribed to
him, and Joseph is no exception to the rule. Legend assigns
him the authorship of Joseph’s Prayer, and Trimethius speaks of
a magical book attributed to him, called Joseph’s Mirror.§
According to the Rabbis he had a tremendous voice, and would
have made a fine open-air preacher. On one occasion his voice
shivered a palace pillar into fine dust. Reuben’s lungs were still
more powerful, for when he roared all the inhabitants died of
terror within a radius of a hundred miles. ||
Joseph died at the age of a hundred and ten, and “ they em
balmed him, and he was put in a coffin in Egypt.” According
to the Targums, they sank the coffin in the Nile; but Exodus
tells us that when the Jews left Egypt they carried Joseph’s old
bones with them.^f
Here endeth the history of Joseph. Fortunately for the
honor of the human race, it is purely legendary. Egyptian
history shows no trace of such occurrences. Joseph did not
jew the Egyptians; and the story of a Hebrew slave lording it
oyer the hereditary rulers of a mighty civilisation is simply a
bit of J ewish brag.
* Genesis xlv., 26, 27.
f Acts vii., 14.
§ Calmet, Joseph. || Gould, vol. ii., pp. 43, 44.
J Milman, p. 29.
Exodus xiii., 19.
�JOSEPH’S
BRETHREN.
Jehovah was always unlucky in the choice of his favorites, and
the same misfortune attended his Son, for the twelve disciples of
Jesus, when he was arrested, all “ forsook him and fled.”
Probably the number of those valiant worthies was taken from
the number of the sons of Jacob ; in fact, their Master distinctly
told them that, when he came into his Kingdom, they should sit
upon twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel. That
*
precious promise has not been fulfilled, nor has the Lord
accomplished the blessings he prophesied for the descendants of
Joseph and his brethren. Perhaps he has repented, found second
thoughts best, and privately resolved to violate his pledge. Nor
can anyone bring him to task for the dereliction. The Lord
■swears, as the Bible frequently informs us, but as he swears unto
himself he can easily obtain a release from awkward engage
ments, without fearing a prosecution for perjury.
Considering the stock they came from, the character of Jacob’s
■sons is not surprising. They possessed between them all the
•qualities which endeared theii’ father, as well as Isaac and
Abraham, to the God of Israel. Lying, theft, lust, incest,
murder, and fratricide, appeared to run in the family. When
Jacob lay on his death-bed, and dealt out his patriarchal blessings,
he reminded his progeny of their crimes in magisterial tones;
forgetting that what was bred in the bone would show in the
blood. He blamed the branches, without reflecting that they
shared the vices of the roots and stem.
Reuben was Jacob’s eldest son by Leah. After Rachel died in
giving birth to Benjamin, Jacob “journeyed, and spread his
tent beyond the tower of Edar.” While he was residing there,
doubtless mourning over the only woman he loved, his first-born
played him a very dirty trick. “Reuben,” we are told, “ went
and lay with Bilhah his father’s concubine.”f What an in©estuous beast! A concubine was not a harlot, nor even a kept
mistress. She had a legal status, and was second only to the
wife; indeed, she was a wife, though over the left shoulder.
Calmet’s Bible Dictionary justly remarks that the term concubine,
M in Western authors, commonly signifies a woman who, without
being married to a man, yet lives with him as his wife : but, in the
sacred writers, the word concubine is understood in another sense;
* Matthew xix., 28 ; Luke xxii., 30.
t Genesis xxxv., 22.
�42
BIBLE HEROES.
meaning a lawful wife, but one not wedded with all the cere
monies and solemnities of matrimony; a wife of a second rank,
inferior to the mistress of the house.” The Boman law regarded
concubines in a similar light. Even the Christian law of Jus
tinian recognised the right of a concubine’s offspring to a sixth
part of the father’s estate; and, as Gibbon informs us, “ from
the age of Augustus to the tenth century, the use of this
secondary marriage prevailed both in the West and the East.”*
Priests were allowed concubines after they were forbidden to
marry, and according to the canon law, which is still unrepealed,
there is nothing to prevent a clergyman from taking a concubine
in preference to a wife,f although his bishop would probably in
hibit him for doing so.
Enough has been said to prove that Bilhah was a real, though
an inferior, wife of Jacob’s. Yet we must not neglect a conclu
sive piece of evidence. There is absolutely no distinction made
between the children of his concubines and those of his legiti
mate wives. They all rank according to the succession of their
births, whether they are born of Leah or Rachel, or of Bilhah or
Zilpah.
Reuben’s crime was disgusting. It is not suggested that he
was the victim of an irresistible passion, like Marc Anthony,
who threw manhood and empire away on Cleopatra, playing the
great drama of “ All for Love, or the World Well Lost.” Bestial
concupiscence moved him. He had more than the incontinence
of Jack Ealstaff, without a gleam of the fat knight’s wit. Like
an animal, to use the simple language of Scripture, he “ went
and lay with Bilhah.” She was probably a good deal older than
himself, and as in oriental countries women age quickly, she
could scarcely have been a very fascinating object. Above all,
she was his father’s half-wife, and the mother of two of his own
brothers. This Reuben was filthy and incestuous. Yet he was
the eldest son of the man whom God loved, and the founder of
the first twelfth of the chosen people. According to Revelation,
there will be a hundred and forty-four thousand Jews around
the throne in heaven, twelve thousand from each of the twelve
tribes of Israel; every one a male, and every one a virgin.
Surely, if there is any truth in heredity, it will be hard to find
so many male virgins in the tribe of Reuben.
An apocryphal book, the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs,.
makes Reuben give his own account of the transaction. The
author of this curious work was perhaps a Jew, who, having
been converted to Christianity, employed the names of the
patriarchs of Israel to win over his countrymen to the new
faith. Where and when it was written is unknown, but it was
quoted by Tertullian and Origen in the second century. Eoi’
many centuries afterwards its history is indefinite. There are
* Decline and Fall, chap. xliv,
f Rev. M Davies, Hagar.
�JOSEPH S BRETHREN.
43
possible references to it in Jerome and Athanasius, and in the
Canons of the Councils of Rome (a.d. 494) and Bracara (a.d. 563).
In the middle of the thirteenth century it was brought to the
knowledge of Western Europe by Robert Grosseteste, Bishop of
Lincoln. Matthew Paris, the chronicler, said it was “hidden
through the jealousy of the Jews ” because it contained pro
phecies of Christ. He also called it “ a glorious treatise,” cal
culated to strengthen Christianity and confound the unbelieving
Jews. Four Greek manuscripts of the Testaments exist. One is
at Cambridge, one at Oxford, one at the Vatican, and another in
the possession of Tischendorf, who discovered it in the island of
*
Patmos. We may add that this curious work, which we must
draw from, is still regarded as canonical by the Armenian
Church.
According to the Testaments, which we suspect to be as true
as Gospel, Reuben delivered himself in the following manner on
his little affair with Bilhah, just before giving up the ghost in
his hundred and twenty-fifth year :
“ Pay no heed to the sight of a woman, nor yet associate privately with
a female under the authority of a husband, nor meddle with affairs of
Womankind. For had I not seen Bilhah bathing in a covered place, I
had not fallen into this great iniquity. For my mind, dwelling on the
Woman’s nakedness, suffered me not to sleep until I had done the
abominable deed. For while Jacob our father was absent with Isaac his
father, when we were in Gader, near to Ephrata in Bethlehem, Bilhah was
drunk, and lay asleep uncovered in her chamber; and when I went in
and beheld her nakedness, I wrought that impiety, and leaving her sleep
ing I departed. And forthwith an angel of God revealed to my father
Jacob concerning my impiety, and he came and mourned over me, and
touched her no more.”f
This is a poor apology. .Reuben offers, as a partial excuse,
that he fornicated with his father’s concubine when she was
dead drunk. He does not, indeed, say dead drunk, but he says
drunk, and her obstinate sleep warrants the double epithet.
Nobody but a beast would indulge his sensuality with a woman
in such a nauseous condition.
Waxing maudlin over his recollected sin, Reuben launches
out into warnings against “ the beauty of women,” as though it
were a .snare to any but lascivious fools. Fra Lippo Lippi, in
Browning’s masterly poem, teaches a better philosophy :
“ Suppose I’ve made her eyes all right and blue,
Can’t I take breath and try to add life’s flash,
And then add soul and heighten them threefold ?
Or say there’s beauty with no soul at all—
(I never saw it—put the case the same—)
If you get simple beauty and nought else,
You get about the best thing God invents.
* Ante-Nieene Christian Library, vol. xxii.
f Ibid, p. 15.
I Robert Browning, Fra Lippo Lippi.
�44
BIBLE HEROES.
So speaks a glorious poet. But the Reuben of the Testaments
breaks into a fit of foul-mouthed fury at the whole sex; and,
alas, his view of women is pure Jewish and Christian too, other
wise it would not have been written for the primitive Church.
This is how he vomits his censure.
“ Hurtful arejwomen, my children; because since they have no power or
strength over the man, they act subtilly through outward guise how they
may draw him to themselves; and whom they cannot overcome by
strength, him they overcome by craft. For moreover the angel of God
told me concerning them, and taught me that women are overcome by
the spirit of fornication more than men, and they devise in their head
against men ; and by means of their adornment they deceive first their
minds, and instil the poison by the glance of their eye, and then they take
them captive by their doings, for a woman cannot overcome a man by
force. Flee therefore fornication, my children, and command your wives
and your daughters that they adorn not their heads and faces ; because
every woman who acteth deceitfully in these things hath been reserved
to everlasting punishment.”*
This grovelling, unnatural philosophy is fit for misogynists
and eunuchs. To men it is an insult, and to women an outrage.
Yet it might well satisfy a pious student of the Bible, wherein
the “ weaker vessel,” as Peter calls her, is systematically
degraded. How long are we to cherish the abject teaching of
polygamists and harem-keepers ? Shall the Occident bow for
ever before the worst features of the Orient ? The Arab, in
Girardin’s story, is what the Jews were of old, and what the
Christians were in spirit, if not altogether in practice. This
gentleman of Arabia, being asked by Girardin why the Easterns
did not allow their women more liberty, replied, “ You can look
on them without perturbation, but we/”—adding in deeper
tones, “ The very face of a woman1” The inflammable Arab
would understand the Bible and the Testaments on the subject of
women, though he would probably shrink from the company of
an incestuous brute like Reuben.
“ Israel heard it,” says Genesis, adding with ludicrous haste
“ Now the sons of Jacob were twelve.” The old fellow apparently
said nothing till he was in extremis, when he eased his mind on
the subject. Addressing Reuben, he said, “ Unstable as water,
thou shalt not excel; because thou wentest up to thy father’s
bed; then defiledst thou it: he went up to my couch.”t
Jacob’s next sons were Simeon and Levi. The chief exploit of
these worthies is circumstantially narrated in the thirty-fourth
chapter of Genesis. Their sister Dinah is the only daughter of
Jacob mentioned in Scripture, and she was the cause of a very
pretty quarrel. She “ went out to see the daughters of the
land,” which the commentators construe as gadding abroad.
But perhaps she only visited hei’ female neighbors, and took five
Ante-Nicene Library, vol. xxii., p. 16.
t Genesis xlix., 4
�Joseph’s
brethren.
45
©’©lock tea with them, for want of sisterly company at home.
Daring her rambles she fascinated Shechem, son of Hamor the
prince of the Hivites, who “ took her, and lay with her.” Court
ship in those days was not prolonged. Holy Writ goes at once
to the fifth act of the play.
Shechem’s love was not blunted by possession. He proposed
to marry the girl, and it was really a capital match for a shep
herd’s daughter. Hamor opened negociations with Jacob,
offering a heavy dowry for his consent to the union; but Jacob’s
virtuous sons protested against Dinah’s marrying a man who
had “ defiled her.” They hated their own sins in another, and
resolved to punish Shechem for their own offences as well as his.
We cannot give our sister, they said, to one that is uncircum
cised ; although, as Bishop Hall remarks, “ Themselves had
taken the daughters and sisters of uncircumcised men; yea,
Jacob himself did so.”* They pretended, however, that if
Shechem and all his people would be circumcised, there would
be no barrier to intermarriages of Israelites and Hivites. The
hard proposal was accepted. Shalem, the city in which they
dwelt, prepared for amputation, and on the selfsame day “ every
male was circumcised.” It was a painful condition, and Shechem
must have been very fond of Dinah, and the Hivites of Shechem,
to undergo it.
What follows is comedy and tragedy in one. “ On the third
day, when they were sore,” the inhabitants of Shalem could not
resist the assault of Simeon and Levi, who “ took each man his
sword, and came upon the city boldly, and slew all the males.”
Dancy a whole city disposed of in this easy fashion 1 Though
they were sore with circumcision, surely the men could have
defended themselves against two assassins. But if not, the
women could have fallen pell-mell upon the brace of bullies, and
overwhelmed them with the kitchen furniture. The story is
altogether too thin except for thickheads. We might say of
Simeon and Levi, what the disciples said to Jesus about the two
fishes that were to feed five thousand—“ What are they among
so many ? ”
Yet if their exploit was authentic, and not legendary, Simeon
and Levi were a couple of scoundrels, guilty of treachery and
murder. According to the sequel, they pillaged the Hivites’
property, taking all their sheep, oxen, asses, and other moveables,
and making captives of “their little ones, and their wives.”
What became of those poor creatures ? Were they kept or sold
as slaves, or subjected to the lust of Jacob’s sons? The regard
of Joseph’s brethren for the honor of their sister was compatible
with the greatest contempt for the rights of other women.
Dinah, it seems, was ready to marry Shechem, but Simeon and
Levi ravaged and massacred a whole city for a punctilio. No
Contemplations, book iii., 3.
�46
BIBLE HEROES.
wonder that Jacob, on his deathbed, exclaimed that “ instru
ments of cruelty are in their habitations.”
According to the Targum of Jerusalem and the Rabbis, who
are followed by some ancient Fathers, the scribes and lawyers
were of the tribe of Simeon. Probably they inherited the craft
*
of their progenitors, which induced Jesus to exclaim “Woe
unto you lawyers.” Levi, on the other hand, was the pro
genitor of the Levites, who were chosen by God for the service
of his tabernacle and temple, and provided by law with tithes
of corn, fruit, and cattle ; the tenth of which, again, was paid
to the Aaronites who served in the sanctuary. Jacob’s curse,
therefore, that the posterity of Simeon and Levi should be
scattered, was fulfilled in a very agreeable manner. Punishment,
in this case, is remarkably like reward.
We come now to Judah, Jacob’s fourth son, of whom the old
fellow’s valedictory words were, “ thou art he whom thy brethren
shall praise.” Rising into prophecy, the dying patriarch ex
claimed, “ The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a law
giver from between his feet, unfiil Shiloh come; and unto him
shall.the gathering of the people be.”f So runs the Authorised
Version, but the Revised Version says that “ until Shiloh come ”
may read “ until he come to Shiloh.” There are many other
renderings—for Hebrew is a delightfully vague language—the
principal ones being given in Calmet. Yet from this obscure,
perplexed, and controverted passage, the Christians have
derived a prophecy of Christ! He, they say, is Shiloh, and the
sceptre departed irom Judah after his advent; although the
Jews, who should be the highest authority on the meaning of
their own Scripture, strenuously repudiate this interpretation.
Shiloh was, in fact, the name of a place and not of a person.
Joshua assembled the people there to make a second distribu
tion of the Land of Promise.J There the Tabernacle was set up
when the Jews were settled in Canaan.§ At Shiloh Samuel
began to prophesy,|| and afterwards the prophet Ahijah dwelt
there. T It is highly probable that this sacred place was in the
writer’s mind when he penned the famous Shiloh passage in
Genesis, although what he precisely meant by it will never be
known till the Day of Judgment.
If the reader will turn to the first chapter of Matthew, he will
find that the genealogy of Jesus is traced back through Joseph,
who was not his father, to Judah who “ begat Phares and Zara
ofThamar.” How Phares and Zara were bastards, and their
mother was a harlot, who committed incest with her father-inlaw. Jesus, therefore, was descended from Judah (if he was
descended) in a most unfortunate manner. There was a frightful
bar sinister in the family escutcheon. For our part we should
- * Calmet, Simeon.
f Genesis xlix., 10.
§ Joshua xix., 51.
|| 1 Samuel iv., 4.
J Joshua xviii., 8-10.
1 Kings xiv., 2.
�Joseph’s
brethren.
47
never think of prying into a man’s family antecedents. Let
every tub stand on its own bottom. But when an inspired
biographer ostentatiously draws out a man’s genealogy before
Our eyes, we can hardly refrain from remarking that “ all is not
sweet, all is not sound.”
Some time after Joseph’s brethren sold him, Judah left the
family for a while, and lodged with an Adullamite gentleman
named Hirah. Seeing there “ a daughter of a certain Canaanite ”
who tickled his fancy, in the eloquent language of Scripture
“ he took her, and went in unto her.” Whether he married her
is an open question. She bore him three sons, Er, Onan, and
Shelah. Er growing to man’s estate, Judah found him a wife
called Tamar; but Er was an erring youth, and “ the Lord slew
him.” This was the first individual case of death from the
visitation of God. According to the Jewish law, as Tamar was
*
left childless, her dead husband’s next brother was bound to
marry her. Judah, therefore, plainly told Onan, “ Go in unto
thy brother’s wife, and marry her, and raise up seed unto thy
brother.” This order was obeyed in the lettei’ but not in the
spirit. Onan frustrated his father’s intention by an unspeakable
device, which is bluntly disclosed in the Bible; f and the name
of Tamar’s second husband, by whom she was as childless as by
her first, has become synonymous with self-pollution. Onan’s
evasion displeased the Lord, who “ slew him also.” Thus two
of the noble Judah’s three sons were declared not fit to live.
Shelah was not yet old enough to marry, but Judah pro
mised Tamar she should have 'him when he was “ grown.” But
Judah was slack in fulfilling his promise, or he and Tamar
differed as to Shelah’s ripeness for matrimony. Anyhow, the
young widow resolved to stand no more delay, and finding that
Shelah was not given to her embraces, she made up her mind to
become a mother by Judah. Having married two brothers in
succession, and while expecting the third, she determines to
commit incest with her father-in-law ; being nearly, if not quite,
as shameless as the daughters of Lot.
Hearing that Judah was going to Timnath to shear his sheep,
she flung off her widow’s weeds, dressed like a meretricious
harlot, and sat “ in an open place ” by the way. Judah saw her,
took her for a courtesan, and begged the hospitality of her
tribe. Playing the prostitute to the letter, she asked his price
for her favors, and he promised her a kid. But as the animal
had to be sent on, she demanded a “ pledge,” having learned,
Bishop Hall says, “ not to trust him without a pawn.” Judah
gave her his signet, his bracelets, and his staff as security, and
the precious pair adjourned to the nearest brothel. Scripture
does not say so, but let us hope they had that decency.
Judah, in the Testaments, says he was drunk, and “ recognised
Jueuteronomy xxv., 5.
f Genesis xxxviii., 9.
�48
BIBLE HEEOES.
her not by reason of wine ”—evidently considering this a pallia
tion of his vice; and like Reuben, he launches into censures on the
sex, as though they were not at least six to the women’s half
dozen.
The articles in pawn being probably more valuable than the
kid, Judah sent the animal on by his friend Hirah, who could
not discover the woman; indeed, the people straitly denied that
there was a harlot in the locality. But three months afterwards
Tamar betrayed the consequences of her filthy frolic, and it was
told Judah, “ thy daughter-in-law hath played the harlot; and
also, behold, she is with child by whoredom.” This is plain
enough, and short if not sweet. It worked on Judah like a tar
antula. He boiled with rage at the wanton. His indulgence
was venial, but hers was a mortal sin. Sternly, like a virtuous
implacable judge, he cried, “ Bring her forth, and let her be
burnt.”
Tamar, however, quickly turned the tables on him. She pro
duced the articles he left in pawn, and asked him whose they
were. His guilt was then as obvious as hers. Did he straight
way offer to share her pyre ? Oh no. Judah loved his own skin,
and to save it he was obliged to spare Tamar’s too. He admitted,
perhaps according to the tribal morality of the time, “ She hath
been more righteous than I,” and then instead of punishing
himself heavily and his accomplice lightly, he added, “ I’ll forgive
us both.”
Six months later the incestuous wanton gave birth to twins.
Her confinement was a curious one, and Scripture relates it
*
fully, perhaps for the curiosity and amusement of children,
The twins were named Pharez and Zarah, and from the first of
this ill-begotten pair our Blessed Lord and Savior traced his holy
descent; the illustrious line being also adorned by the chaste
Ruth, the chaster Bathsheba, and apparently the still chaster
Rahab, an ancient Mrs. Jeffreys of Jericho.
There is little information as to the rest of Joseph’s brethren,
except that they “ burked ” their own flesh and blood,
and nearly brought their father’s grey head in sorrow to the
grave. The only one described by Jacob, besides the four pre
cious rascals we have anatomised, was his sixth son. “ Issachar,”
said Jacob, “ is a strong ass.”f The old fellow ought to know,
and we believe him. The family were mostly rogues, but there
was one strong ass to give it variety.
* Genesis xxxviii.. 27-30.
f Genesis xlix., 14.
�HOLY
MOSES.
“The history of Moses,” says Cardinal Newman, “is valuable
to Christians, not only as giving us a pattern of fidelity towards
God, of great firmness, and great meekness, but also as affording
us a type or figure of our Savior Christ.”* Evidently, then, we
have to do with a very important personage. It is a curious
fact that Jesus and Moses are the only individuals in the Bible
who are characterised by the epithet meek. Jesus said “ I am
meek,”f and although that is the last thing we should believe of
a man on his own protestation, we are bound to credit the state
ment of Jesus, for he was God, and whoever disbelieves him
will be damned. Fortunately Moses is not left to his own vindi
cation ; his meekness is vouched for by the Almighty himself,
who informs us, with the indisputable authority of omniscience,
that “ the man Moses was very meek, above all the men which
were upon the face of the earth.”J Yet the carnal mind would
he slow to accept the description of either of these worthies if
it were not dictated by infinite wisdom. It was a peculiar meek
ness which prompted Jesus to ride into Jerusalem like a theatrical
conqueror on a couple of requisitioned donkeys, amid the plaudits
of an ignorant and fanatical mob ; which led him to assault the
harmless money-changers and dove-sellers in the unsanctified
precincts of the temple; and which inspired his scurrilous
denunciation of his rivals. No less singular was the meekness
Of Moses, who commenced his public career by assassinating an
Egyptian, and ended it by ordering the wholesale robbery,
violation, and slaughter of the Canaanites. But when Deity
commands our reason must submit. Moses was the meekest
man on earth. We make the admission freely, as we hope for
grace. Yet the imp of scepticism dances in our brain, despite
our efforts to suppress him, and cries out—Oh yes, Moses was
meek, as you say; meek with the meekness of Byron’s Lambro,
who was
“ the mildest manner’d man
That ever scuttled ship or cut a throat.Ӥ
The life of our hero divides itself into three distinct chapters.
* Parochial and Plain Sermons, vol. vii., p. 118.
+ Matthew xi., 29.
J Numbers xii., 3.
§ Don Juan, canto iii., 41.
�50
BIBLE HEROES.
He lived a hundred and twenty years in all. Forty years he
spent in Egypt, the land of his birth; forty years he followed
the avocation of a shepherd in Midian ; and forty years he led
the wandering Jews in the wilderness, where three millions of
them coiled and uncoiled like an aimless serpent, taking a whole
generation to complete a month’s journey, and demonstrating
once for all the asinine stupidity of making an excursion under
the guidance of a missionary.
Before Jacob’s favorite son had long been dead, a king arose
in Egypt who “ knew not Joseph.” Regarding the Jews, who
multiplied like rabbits, with the gravest apprehension, he
appears to have withdrawn them from their pasturages and set
them to task-work, which they have never relished from that
day to this. According to their own account, which is probably
a partial one, and certainly foreign to our historical notions of
Egyptian manners, he served them “ with rigor ” and “ made
their lives bitter with hard bondage.” Josephus says that he
“ set them also to build pyramids.”* But this cannot be true,
for the Bible states that they worked in brick, and the pyramids
are built of stone. Pharaoh’s object seems to have been to wear
them out, but they continued to increase amazingly, and he had
recourse to stronger measures. If we may believe the Jewish
historian, he commanded that every male child among the
Hebrews should be cast into the Nile as soon as it was born;
and in order that his edict might be carried out effectually, he
instructed theEgyptian midwivestosee to its execution.! Milman
follows Josephus on this point, and adds that “ the midwives, in
this land of hereditary professions, were most likely a distinct
class under responsible officers.”! But the Bible expressly says
that Pharaoh gave the order to the Hebrew midwives. § Nay
more, it gives us their names, Shiphrah and Puah. Jewish
tradition says they were mother and daughter.|| No others are
mentioned, and we must therefore conclude that two midwives
sufficed for a population of a million or so, among whom there
could not be less than a thousand births a week 1
According to the Rabbis, God came to the assistance of the
Jewish mothers. They were delivered in sleep ; angels attended
on them, washed and dressed the babies, and smeared their
little hands with butter and honey, so that they might, in licking
them, be fed and kept from crying. When Pharaoh’s emissaries
followed their traces, the earth gaped and swallowed the little
ones, who afterwards sprouted from the soil like flowers, and
walked home unperceived.IT
In the midst of this extraordinary rumpus, “ there went a
man of the house of Levi, and took to wife a daughter of Levi.”
* Book ii., chap. ix.
J History of the ,Teios, p. 32.
|| Gould, vol. ii., p. 67.
f Josephus, book ii., chap. ix.
§ Exodus i, 15.
Gould, vol. ii, p. 70.
�HOLY MOSES.
51
Their names, as we subsequently learn, were Amram and.
'
*
Jochebed.
She conceived and bare a son, and seeing “ he was
a goodly child, she hid him three months.” Judging from the
narrative this was their first child, yet Moses had a brother
three years older than himself, and a still older sister.f The
Rabbis affirm that Jochebed was a hundred and thirty years old
at the birth of Moses, yet as fresh and beautiful as when she
left her father’s house.t According to Exodus (vi., 20) she was
her husband’s aunt 1 The same verse informs us that Amram
lived to the age of a hundred and thirty-seven. All this is hard
to believe, but the penalties of disbelief are still harder.
Josephus, no less than the Bible, dwells on the beauty of'
Moses. Eine and large as a baby, he grew up tall and handsome,
and people turned to look at him in the streets.§ This mar
vellous child, say the Rabbis, was born at three in the morning,
on the seventh day of the month Adar, in the year 2368 after
the Creation, and 130 after Jacob’s descent into Egypt. Some
say his parents called him Tobias (God is good), but others say
he was called Johutiel (Hope in God).|| Clement of Alexandria,,
however, affirms that he was named Joachim at his circumcision,
although it appears from Exodus‘s that Moses was nevei’ circum
cised at all, while in heaven he passes under the name of MeZcfei.
**
Bishop Hall indulges in the natural reflection that it was a
wonder Amram thought of procreating “when he knew he
should beget children either to slavery or slaughter.” The
Bishop’s explanation is that Amram thought “ his own burning
a still greater evil, and “ he therefore uses God’s remedy for
sin, and refers the sequel of his danger to God.”ff A most Chris
tian and convenient philosophy!
Our little hero being three months old, his mother despaired
of hiding him any longer, and therefore resolved to throw all
further responsibility for his safety on the Lord. She took an
ark of bulrushes, daubed it with slime and pitch to make it.
water-tight, put her baby in it, and launched it among the flags
of the Nile, leaving her daughter Miriam to watch what would
happen. As the river abounds with crocodiles it was a dan
gerous experiment; but no doubt those voracious creatures werewarned off by the same God who “ spake unto the fish ” that
swallowed Jonah.
Presently Pharaoh’s daughter came to that very spot to bathe.
“ Those.times,” says Bishop Hall, “looked for no great state.”’
But he is mistaken. Egypt was a mighty empire, Pharaoh was
a powerful.and splendid monarch, at once priest and king; and
the supposition that his daughter, apparently his only daughter,
would bathe among the water-flags of the Nile, at a spot which*
§
* Exodus vi., 20.
f Exodus vii., 7.
J Gould, vol. ii., p. 71.
§ Josephus, book ii., chap. ix.
|| Gould, vol. ii., p. 72.
T VI., 12, 30.
** Calmet, Moses.
ff Contemplations, book iv., 2.
�52
BIBLE HEROES.
anyone was free to visit, and where a Hebrew slave conld watch,
with impunity, is too absurd for serious criticism. Let the Jews
believe it! as the Roman satirist exclaims. They were credulous
enough for anything. But those who are acquainted with the
manners and customs of the ancient Egyptians will regard the
story with derision.
According to Josephus the princess was named Thermutis.
The Rabbis say that she had been married for some time to
Chenephras, prince of a territory near Memphis, but was child
less, although she fervently desired a son who might succeed
hei’ father on the throne of Egypt. Any reader with half an
*
eye can see what is coming.
Exodus tells us that Pharaoh’s daughter espied the floating
cradle and sent a maid to fetch it. When it was brought the
little urchin inside snivelled, and his tears touched her heart,
although she saw it was a Hebrew baby. Thereupon Miriam
came up and offered to fetch a nurse for the bantling. The offer
was accepted, and of course Miriam fetched her own mother,
who suckled her own offspring as a hireling. Josephus, who
amplifies every Bible story, except those he prudently neglects,
informs us that several Hebrew women were called before Joche
*
bed, but the baby would not patronise their feeding apparatus.
Miriam then saw her chance; she brought her mother, and “ the
child gladly admitted the breast. ”f
Jewish traditions furnish many wonderful incidents in this
story. God was then afflicting Egypt with intolerable heat, and
the people suffered from grievous boils. Thermutis herself did
not escape the malady. She usually washed in the palace baths,
but on this day she performed her ablutions in the sacred Nile.
Seeing the ark, she bade one of her maidens to swim out and
bring it to the shore, but the other servants told her it contained
a Hebrew child, cast out by the royal command, and ad
*
vised her not to oppose her father’s will. For this interference
they were immediately swallowed by an earthquake, opportunely
wrought by the angel Gabriel, who was hovering around.
Meanwhile the princess, in hei' eagerness, had stretched out her
hand towards the ark; by a miracle her arm was lengthened
to sixty ells, and she lifted the child out of the water. She
admired his beauty, but her compassion was chiefly excited by
his tears, the angel Gabriel having boxed his ears to make him
weep copiously.t
But the most astonishing part of this romance is to come.
The Bible gravely informs us that when this precious child was
grown (no age is stated) he was brought to Pharaoh’s daughter
“ and he became her son.” This is absurd enough, for Egypt was
a land of castes, and the princess had no more power to break
* Gould, vol. ii., p. 73.
f Josephus, bk. ii., ch. ix.
J Gould, vol. ii., pp. 73, 74.
�HOLY MOSES.
53
through them than the meanest of her father’s subjects. But
Josephus makes the monstrous addition that Thermutis adopted
him as the “ heir to her kingdom,” * a statement which evinces
the grossest ignorance. Fancy the Princess of Wales adopting
a child from the Foundling Hospital with a view to its becoming
King of England ! The fact is we are not dealing with history,
although Christians deem it so, but with oriental romance. The
Rabbis try to make the yarn more plausible by saying that
Thermutis feigned a pregnancy, went through a fictitious con
finement, and palmed off the little Hebrew as her own child ! f
Let us pause for a moment to consider the change in our
hero’s name. Henceforth he was called Moses. According to
Dr. Lee, learned men differ as to whether the word is Hebrew or
Egyptian.J Josephus says that “ Thermutis imposed the name
Mouses upon him, from what had happened when he was put in
the river; for the Egyptians call water by the name of Mo, and
such as are saved out of it by the name of Z7ses.Ӥ The Abbe
Renaudot, however, affirms that Mooou signifies water, and Si
to draw or take out.|| The etymology is a little mixed, but near
enough for any useful purpose.
From this time till he attained to the age of forty,If the book
of Exodus is silent as to his career. But Stephen says, in the
Acts of the Apostles (vii., 22) that “Moses was learned in all
the wisdom of the Egyptians.” The Rabbis also relate that as a
boy he played on Pharaoh’s knee, and one day he kicked over
and danced upon the crown. All the king’s councillors cried
©ut for his immediate execution, but the angel Gabriel, assuming
the form of a grave and reverend signior, advised Pharaoh to
put before the lively youngster a bowl of precious stones and a
bowl of live coals; if he took the jewels he would know what he
was about, but if he took the fire he would be ignorant and
innocent. Moses naturally thrust his hand towards the wrong
bowl, but Gabriel, who had made himself invisible, directed it
towards the red-hot coals. The poor boy burnt his fingers, and
putting them to his mouth, he burnt his lips and tongue.
**
Therefore he said in after years “ I am slow of speech, and of a
slow tongue.”ff
Josephus likewise informs us that Moses led an Egyptian
army against the Ethiopians, signally defeated them, and married
Tharbis their king’s daughter, who was enamored of his beauty.JJ
But the Rabbis place these exploits after his flight from Egypt.
They say that Moses assisted the king of Ethiopia against some
rebels, and the monarch dying amidst the war, his subjects
elected the valiant Hebrew as their king. He reigned over them
* Book II chap. ix.
f Gould, vol. ii., p. 76.
t Hebrew Grammar, p. 153. § Book II., chap. ix. || Calmet, Moses.
1 Acts vii., 23.
** Gould, vol. ii., p. 77.
ft Exodus iv„ 10.
++ Book II., chap. x.
�54
BIBLE HEROES.
for forty years, and. tlien resigned in favor of the legitimate
heir to the throne.
*
According to Josephus, the real cause of the flight of Mosesfrom Egypt was the malice of the people, who envied the laurels
he won in the Ethiopian war. They infected the king with theirenmity, and. Moses, on learning that his death was being com
passed, “ went away privately ” to the city of Midian on the
coast of the Red Sea. But this account is perfectly false, as
Josephus must have known. The Jewish historian, whose
honesty and accuracy were lauded by Scaliger as superior to
that of the Pagan writers, composed his Antiquities with an eye
to the Gentiles. He designed to give them an exalted idea of'
his countrymen, and to this end he deliberately omitted several
striking incidents in the J ewish scriptures, which might excite
a.smile or a sneer at the expense of the heroes or the religion of’
his race. Josephus had the Book of Exodus before him; he
knew that Moses fled from Egypt because he had slain a native;
yet he never alludes to the circumstance, but throws the blame
upon the Egyptians whose laws had been shamefully violated.
The Bible informs us, as it informed Josephus, that Moses
“ spied an Egyptian smiting a Hebrew.” They may have been
quarrelling, for Hebrews could quarrel as well as Egyptians.
Either may have been right, or either wrong. But Moses sided
with his countryman. In the expressive language of Scripture,
he “looked this way and that way, and when he saw that there
was no man, he slew the Egyptian, and hid him in the sand.”t
Like all savages he was both sanguinary and cautious. “ He
who commits such a deed,” wrote Goethe, “ approves himself a
thorough barbarian.”J Milman himself is constrained to admit
that Moses was “ guilty of a crime, by the Egyptian law, of the
most enormous magnitude.”§ He had incurred “ the unpardon
able guilt of bloodshed.” Subsequently, in dealing with the first
plague, Milman allows that the Egyptians viewed murder with
the greatest abhorrence, and that “ To shed, or even to behold
blood, was repugnant to all their feelings and prejudices.”||
Always ready to supply the deficiencies of Scripture, the
Rabbis pretend that an Egyptian taskmaster concealed himself ’
in the. house of a Hebrew in order to debauch his wife, and on
his being discovered Moses was appealed to. The meekest man
on earth raised a spade to strike the Egyptian dead. While the
fell weapon was poised aloft Moses consulted the Lord. Jahveh
told him to smite and spare not; whereupon the spade descended
on the Egyptian’s skull, yet it did not kill him, for he fell dead
at the sound of God’s name.If
Our “ very meek ” assassin thought his deed of darkness would .
* Gould, vol. ii., pp. 83—86.
f Exodus ii , 12.
J Notes to West-iistlicher Divan.
§ History of the Jews, p. 35.
II P. 38.
Gould, vol.ii., pp. 81, 82.
�HOLY MOSES.
55
never be discovered. But he found, like many another homicide,
that murder will out. The very next day he interfered between
two quarrelling Hebrews, one of whom turned upon him, ex
claiming, “ Who made thee a prince and a judge over us ?
intendest thou to kill me as thou killedst the Egyptian ?” Holy
Moses, what a mess! Yesterday’s crime was on the wings of
the wind. Pharaoh heard of it and “sought to slay Moses.”
Here again the Babbis step in, telling us that his execution was
ordered, the headsman flashed the sword over his head, yet he
was not slain, for the Lord turned his neck into marble. Some
declare that Gabriel assumed the semblance of the executioner,
transmogrified that worthy into the semblance of Moses, and cut
off the headsman’s own head with his own sword ! *
Moses was off. He and Egypt had had enough of each other.
■Somewhere in “ the land of Midian ” he “ sat down by a well.”
The priest of that country (had it only one priest ?) had seven
daughters, who were shepherdesses. They came down to this well
to water their father’s flocks, but the men drove them away, and
Moses stood up and helped them. This piece of gallantry
deserves notice, a's such things are exceedingly rare in the
Bible.
The girls introduced Moses to their father Beuel, who is afterwards called Jethro. Our hero took up his residence with the
•old man and married his daughter Zipporah. Had it been
Jacob, he would have married the whole seven, and had a fresh
wife for every day in the week, keeping the prettiest for
■Sunday.
Here Moses lived in clover, and as the years rolled by his
memories of Egypt must have grown dim. But he was fated to
return thither, and leave again after a butchery compared with
which his assassination of the Egyptian was child’s play.
The old Pharaoh was dead, a new Pharaoh reigned in his
stead, and the Lord had work for Moses in Egypt. God appeared
to him one day at Mount Horeb in the form of a conflagration.
Moses saw a bush burning without consuming, and anybody who
sees a bush in that condition may he sure the Lord is inside.
Presently the divine voice shouted, “ Moses, Moses I” and Moses
said “ Here 1” Then the voice cried “ Take off your shoes, for
the ground is holy,” and Moses was quickly unshod, which proves
that people who converse with gods are soon bereaved of their
understandings.
“Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look upon God.”
although he afterwards became very familiar with the deity, who
“ spake unto Moses face to face, as man speaketh unto his friend.”t
Cardinal Newman asserts that Moses was the only person before
Christ who enjoyed that honor, but he forgets our old friend
—
* Gould, vol. ii., p. 83.
+ Exodus xxxiii., 11 ; Deuteronomy xxxiv., 10.
�56
BIBLE HEROES.
Jacob who had an equally close view of the divine counten
*
ance.
This God in the bush informed Moses that he was to visit
Egypt, bring the Jews out of bondage, and lead them to Palestine.
This was a big undertaking. Moses viewed it with reluctance,
and told the Lord he was unequal to the task. But the Lord
persisted, and Moses tried another tack, “ Who shall I say has
sent .me?” he inquired. “I Am that I Am,” was the reply,
and its exquisite definiteness was enough to raise a smile on the
face of a jackass. But Moses was too frightened to grin, and he
listened patiently while “ I Am that I Am ” sketched out the
plan of campaign.
When Jahveh had finished Moses protested that nobody in
Egypt would believe such a story. “ Cast your rod on the
ground,” said Jahveh. Moses did so, and it became a serpent.
Our hero scurried off, but he was ordered to take the reptile by
the tail, and it turned into a rod again. “ Now put your hand
in your bosom,” said Jahveh. Moses did so, and when he drew
it out it was white with leprosy. He put it back, drew it out
again, and it was perfectly sound. “ There,” said Jahveh, “ do
that brace of tricks in Egypt, and my word for it they’ll believe
you.” Yet Moses still objected that he was very slow of speech,
and desired the Almighty to send another messenger. Then the
Lord grew wild, but he restrained himself, and promised Moses
the assistance of his brother Aaron, who was a good speaker.
“ You shall be his god,” said Jahveh, “ and he shall be your
telephone.”!
Moses gave in. He said good-bye to Jethro, fixed his wife and
sons on one poor donkey, and set out for Egypt. On the road
he put up an hotel, where “ the Lord met him, and sought to
kill him.” The Authorised Version calls it “an inn,” and the
Revised Version “a lodging house.” But whether it was a
drinking shop or a teetotal' establishment, whether its sign was
“ beer and spirits ” or “ beds fourpence a night,” God Almighty
attempted there the life of his own missionary. How did he
seek to kill him ? Did Moses get wind of it and secrete himself?
Did the Lord chase him from room to room ? Did he poison the
prophet’s “ nightcap,” and was Holy Moses too robust to
succumb ? Such questions might be elaborated ad infinitum.
Meanwhile the fact remains, unless the Bible lies, that Infinite
Goodness designed a murder and Infinite Power failed in its
execution.
The conclusion of this extraordinary business was that Zipporah took a sharp stone, cut off her Son’s foreskin, and cast it
at his father’s feet with the remark that he was “ a bloody hus
band.” Then, says the Bible, God “ let him go.” From this it
would appear that the Lord was angry with Moses because he or
his son was uncircumcised, but the deity knew that very well
* Genesis xxxii., 30.
f Exodus iv., 16.
�57
HOLY MOSES.
when he despatched him on his mission. The Hebrew text, how
ever, is very obscure, though what glimpses we get of its mean
*
ing are most ludicrous. Perhaps the whole passage is an inter
polation in the interest of circumcision. Let it be added that
Josephus is silent on this absurdity, which would have excited
the risibility of his Gentile readers.
Here again it should be noticed that Zipporah circumcises the
boy with a stone implement. We have already indicated the
significance of this fact (p. 21), and it only remains to add that
a stone knife was also used by the Egyptian embalmers.
Calmet asserts that the rite of circumcision was not forgotten
by the Jews in Egypt, but the statement is not warranted by
the Bible. Moses distinctly tells God that he is “ of uncircum
cised lips.” What can this mean but that he was uncircum
cised ? Had he attached a sovereign importance to the rite he
would not have neglected to perform it on his sons. Why, also,
did the Jews disregard this token of God’s solemn covenant with
Abraham in their forty years’ wanderings ? After the death of
Moses they were all circumcised by Joshua. Does not this show
that “ the covenant ” with Abraham was unknown to them ?
There can be little doubt that the story of Abraham’s circum
cision was got up by the priests, long after his time.
Moses was met in the wilderness by his brother Aaron. On
reaching Egypt they called a meeting of the Jewish elders, who
were soon convinced by the serpent and leprosy tricks, and
then they paid Pharaoh a visit. “ The kings of Egypt,” says
Milman, “ probably held that sort of open court or divan, usual
in Oriental monarchies, in which any one may appear who
would claim justice or petition for favor. ”f Pharaoh was
requested to let the Jews go into the wilderness for a feast, and
the petition was preferred in the name of Jehovah. “ Jehovah 1”
he sneered, “ who the devil is Jehovah ? I never heard of the
fellow. Be off with you, and mind your business.”
This rebuff was followed by fresh oppression. The Jews were
ordered to make bricks as before, but to find their own straw,
and their taskmasters were more rigorous than ever. This
caused them to remonstrate with Moses for interfering, and he
in turn remonstrated with God in very plain and disrespectful
language. “Nonsense!” said the Lord; “now you shall see
what I will do to Pharaoh.”
What God did do, how he afflicted the poor Egyptians with
all sorts of filthy, disgusting, and terrible plagues, is related in
my Bible Romances. The Ten Plagues were the work of Jehovah
and not of Moses, who was only his instrument. Suffice it to
say that Pharaoh was eventually glad to let the Jews go on their
own terms, and Moses led them out of Egypt in one night.
Three millions of people moved more rapidly than a disciplined
* Calmet, Moses.
t P. 37
�58
BIBLE HEROES.
army. Not only the sound in wind and limb marched off for the
land of promise, which they never lived to reach, but also the
blind, the lame, the paralysed, the bedridden, women just con
fined, and children newly born. What a wonderful troupe they
must have been ! Yet Moses, although he was eighty years old,
headed them with the greatest alacrity.
Miriam was still alive and was now a prophetess. We read
that she took a timbrel, followed by all the women of Israel with
similar instruments, and dancing at their head, she sang a song
of glory to the Lord for drowning Pharaoh and his army in the
Red Sea. What a lively old lady! She came of a long-lived
family, and was juvenile and frisky when other women stoop
and crawl.
We shall not follow the Jews through their idiotic wanderings
in the desert, but merely deal with those incidents that affect
Moses or exhibit his character, and those transactions in which
he played a conspicious part.
In some respects Moses had a hard time of it. Whenever
anything went wrong the Jews grumbled lustily, abused him to
his face, and frequently threatened to stone him. But he en
joyed many compensations. He still possessed the magical rod,
with which he wrought miracles, such as bringing water out of
rocks. He smote one rock at Horeb and produced enough water
from it to supply three millions of people. Whiston, the trans
lator of Josephus, says that “ This rock is there at this day, as
the travellers agree, and must be the same that was there in the
time of Moses, as being too large to be brought thither by our
modern carriages.”* Simple Whiston 1 His logic is like that
of the gentleman who proved the truth of his ghost-story by ex
claiming “ Why, there’s the very house in which it happened 1”
Moses also rejoiced in a most intimate communion with his
Maker. When he suffered from hypochondria, when the Jews
murmured against his leadership, or when he had any knotty
point to resolve, he used to get assistance from the Lord.
Several of these interviews are recorded, but they are too
numerous for citation. We shall presently see that Moses had
great influence over God; in fact, he played the part of a candid
friend, and by judiciously reminding the Lord of his weakness
he sometimes brought him down from a towering flight of
passion.
The chief interview between God and Moses took place on
Mount Sinai Jehovah came down from everywhere to the top
of this eminence,! a distance which has never been computed.
His descent was made “ in the sight of all the people.” Moses
received an invitation to come up and spend a few days with him,
and they had so much to talk about that it was nearly six weeks
before they separated. During this time the Jews were warned
Josephus, bk. iii.. ch. ii., footnote.
t Exodus xix., 11, 20.
�HOLY MOSES.
59
off the mountain by thunders, lightnings, clouds, and clangorous
teampets ; and whoever touched it incurred the penalty of death.
Moses took with him “ Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy
of the elders of Israel,” who for once in their lives had a view of
the Almighty. “ They saw the God of Israel: and there was
ttttder his feet, as it were, a paved work of a sapphire stone, and
as it were the body of heaven in its clearness. And upon the
aohles of the children of Israel he laid not his hand : also they
saw God, and did eat and drink.”* This is a little mixed, yet it
seems clear that seventy-three Jews took luncheon with God.
Such a gross piece of anthropomorphism is very amusing. Still
more amusing is Milman’s attempt to explain away their
viw of God’s feet as “ symbolic fire ” over “ what appeared like
a pavement of lapis-lazuli, or sapphire, or the deep blue of the
dearest and most cloudless heaven.”!
Moses went up to the top of Sinai, where he and God were
wrapt in a cloud for forty days and nights. What God said to
Moses may be found in Exodus, from chapter twenty-five to
Chapter thirty-one. Most of it is ecclesiastical stuff, of no interest
except to priests and their dupes. At the finish Moses received
** two tables of testimony, tables of stone, written with the
finger of God.” We are told that “ the tables were written on
both sides,” and that “ the tables were the work of God, and the
writing was the writing of God.”{ This is supposed to have
been the decalogue. God quarried the stones, chiselled and
polished them, and graved the letters. Were they still in
existence they would be the most precious objects in the world.
But, alas, they were soon smashed. Something put the “ very
■meek ” Moses out of temper, and in his passion he eclipsed the
greatest sinners on record, save himself, by flinging down the
fables and breaking all the ten commandments at once. The
Rabbis say that the holy writing flew away to heaven.§
While Moses was up in the cloud the Jews had resorted to
Holatry, in circumstances which will be treated in our next
chapter on Aaron. God saw their backsliding and boiled with
rage. “ Let me alone,”|| he said to Moses ; “ I’ll kill the whole
lot, and breed a fresh people from you.” But Moses advised
him to sprinkle cool patience upon the heat and flame of his distemper. “ Remember your promises to Abraham, Isaac, and
Jacob,” said he; “ don’t act rashly; above all think how the
Egyptians will laugh at you.” Then the Lord cooled down and
Said he was sorry he lost his temper. Nor was this the only
occasion on which Moses pacified Jehovah, and restrained him
from violating his own sixth commandment on the most tremendous scale. A similar scene occurred when the Jews were
* Exodus xxiv., 9-11.
f Milman, p. 53.
t Exodus xxi., 18; xxii., 16.
§ Gould, vol. ii, p. 105.
|| Exodus xxxii., 10.
�60
BIBLE HEROES.
-terrified by the report of the spies who returned from Palestine
*
with stories of giants beside whom men were like grass
hoppers.
When Moses descended from Sinai and saw what the Jews
were doing he broke the tables he was carrying, and was obliged
to go up again for facsimiles. But the Lord declined to supply
the stone this time. Moses had to bring his own, and the Lord
worked in the ten commandments again with his finger. This
lumpy piece of literature was stowed away in the ark, and both
have gone the way of other antiquities. They will be found
when we discover the Twelve Tables of ancient Romef and the
gold plates of Joe Smith the Mormon. Yet their loss is grievous,
for as Bishop Hall exclaims, “ Any manuscript scroll, written by
the hand of a famous man, is laid up amongst our jewels; what
place then should we have given to the hand-writing of the
Almighty 1” $
No passion distorted the face of Moses when he descended the
second time from Sinai. His face shone so gloriously that even
Aaron was afraid to come near him, and he was obliged to wear
a veil. According to some Rabbis, he had seen the original light
which God created, and by which Adam saw from one end of the
earth to the other; others say he had seen the Shekinah,§ whose
glory his face reflected as the moon reflects the sun’s.
The Bible informs us that Moses had seen something more re
markable. “ Show me thy glory,” he said to Jehovah, who
replied, “ thou canst not see my face : for there shall no man see
me, and live.” This flatly contradicts the statement in the pre
vious chapter that “ the Lord spake unto Moses face to face,”
but the Bible is full of such discords. According to this story
God gave Moses a view of his “back parts.” We are not told
what Moses thought of them. Of course the story is as true as
gospel, yet if it had not appeared in the Bible we should have
laughed at the notion of God Almighty exhibiting his posteriors
to a gentleman who wished to see his face.
During his two confabulations with the Lord on Mount.Sinai,
which Josephus cunningly runs into one, to avoid mentioning
the golden-calf business, Moses “ tasted nothing of food usually
appointed for the nourishment of man.”|| So says Josephus, but
the Bible says “ he did neither eat bread nor drink water.”5T
The reasonable inference is that he fasted altogether, and was
miraculously supported. Elijah also went forty days and nights
without food, and the same feat is recorded of Jesus.ff But
**
Moses takes the palm. He went through two periods of absti* Numbers xiv.
f Maine’s Ancient Law, p, 14.
t Contemplations, book v.. § 6.
§ Gould, vol. ii, p. 108.
|| Josephus, book iii., chap. v.
Exodus xxxiv., 28; Deuteronomy ix., 18 ; x,, 10.
** 1 Kings xix., 8.
ft Matthew iv., 2.
�HOLY MOSES.
61
fiance, and beat all ancient and modern fasting-men hollow, by •
dispensing with liquids as well as solids.
Moses was so great a favorite with God that all who insulted
or opposed him were badly punished. When he married an
Ethiopian woman, Miriam and Aaron set their backs up, and
sneeringly inquired whethei the Lord had not spoken by them
*
as well as by Moses. Scripture does not go to the bottom of
this quarrel, nor tell us whether Zipporah was still alive. She
may have been dead, or Moses may have taken another wife
during her lifetime, for he was a lusty old fellow, and Zipporah’s
withered charms must have lost their attraction. Be that as it
may, Miriam and Aaron took to nagging. This is a common
incident in domestic circles, and it was scarcely worth the fuss
God made about it. He was especially angry with the female
sinner, and punished her with the loathsome and ghastly disease
of leprosy, which was only removed at her brother’s intercession.
*
Here, again, the Lord flies into a fury, and Moses has to cool
him down.
Subsequently there was a kind of sedition raised by Korah,
Dathan, and Abiram. The first of this trinity, say the Rabbis,
was very wealthy. Moses had obtained the philosopher’s stone
from God. To use an Hibernicism, this stone was a plant which
grew in abundance on the shores of the Red Sea. Moses
revealed the secret to Korah, who used it to transform large
quantities of base metal into gold. His wealth grew so pro
digious that eventually it took sixty camels to carry the keys of
his treasuries.! With his riches increased his pride, and when
Moses ordered the Jews to wear blue, Korah habited all his
servants in scarlet and mounted them on red horses. So far the
Hebrew old-clothes-men. According to the Bible, Korah, Dathan,
and Abiram, headed an agitation against the tyranny of Moses.
Followed by a number of the people, and two hundred and fifty
princes, they expostulated with Moses and Aaron for “ taking
too much ” upon themselves. Prime Ministers had, in those
days, an easy method of disposing of the opposition. Moses
appealed to God, and the judicious deity sent an earthquake
which swallowed up all the ringleaders, as well as a fire which
consumed two hundred and fifty men who presumed to worship
in rivalry with Aaron.!
Goethe held that these revolts, and the perpetual murmurings
of the Jews, resulted from their leader’s bad generalship. He
maintained that Moses was as pooi’ a military commander as
he was a legislator, and that the preposterous wanderings of the
Hebrews in the wilderness were occasioned by his lack of courage
and address. Certainly our hero took care to keep out of
danger. When the Jews fought the Amalekites, Moses left
* Numbers xii.
f Gould, vol. ii., pp. 120—123,
t Numbers xvi.
�62
BIBLE HEB0ES.
Joshua to lead the troops and repaired to the top of a hill to pray
for their success. This significant fact is obscured by a cloud of
supernaturalism. Moses, we are told, lifted his hands to heaven,
and while he remained in that posture the Israelites won, but
when he dropped his hands through weariness the Amalekites
prevailed. Seeing this, Aaron and Hur set him on a stone, and
held up his hands on either side. Thus the Amalekites were
*
routed and slaughtered, while, according to truthful Josephus,
not a single Jew was lost in the engagement.!
During their wars the Jews fought with Og the King of
Bashan,j whose subjects they exterminated without regard to
age or sex. This king was the remnant of a race of giants.
His bed was thirteen feet six inches long and six feet broad.
According to the Rabbis, Og was much larger than this. The
sole of his foot was forty miles long, and a chair was made out
of one of his teeth. A single drop of sweat from his brow
weighed thirty-six pounds, while at one meal he consumed a
thousand oxen and a thousand firkins of liquor. This unparalleled
giant was destined to feel the prowess of Moses. Seizing a hatchet,
our hero made a prodigious jump in the air, and hit Og on
the ankle. The battle concluded by Og getting his head im
prisoned in a monstrous ant-hill, and exposing the rest of his
person to the merciless hatchet of his enemy.§
But whethei’ valiant or the reverse, Moses is credited in the
Bible with extraordinary ferocity. His war policy was extermi
nation. Men, women, and children, were all put to the edge of
the sword, except when the virgins were reserved for a darker
fate.|| When the Jews fought the Midianites, defeated them,
killed all the males, and took the women and children captive,
Moses was wroth with them for being so merciful. “ Kill every
male among the little ones,” he sternly ordered, “ and kill every
woman that hath known man by lying with him. But all the
women children, that have not known a man by lying with him,
keep alive for yourselves.”^ What devil could exceed this bar
barity ? One’s hand falters in transcribing the bloody text.
Holy Moses was a tough old fellow, and unless his days had
been shortened by a miracle he might have lived till now. For
one little slip he was doomed to die in the wilderness. Joshua
was consecrated his successor, and Moses ascended Mount Nebo,
whence the Lord gave him a bird’s-eye view of the promised
land. He was still vigorous, though a hundred and twenty
years old; his eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated.
**
Beginning his career at eighty, when most men who live SO long
* Exodus xvii., 9-13.
f Josephus, book iii., chap. ii.
J Numbers xxi; Deuteronomy iii.
§ Gould, vol. ii., pp. 124, 125.
|| Deuteronomy xx.
Numbers xxxi., 17, 18.
** Deuteronomy xxxiv., 7.
�HOLY MOSES.
63
are decrepid, lie bore the burden and heat of a forty years’
leadership of the most stiff-necked race in history, and was still
as game as ever. Surely he was the original Grand Old Man.
But his time had come. Somewhere on that hill the Lord
settled his hash. God “ buried him in the land of Moab, over
against Beth-peor : but no man knoweth of his sepulchre unto
this day.”* Josephus, however, says he disappeared in a cloud,
but wrote in the holy books that he died, lest the Jews should
say he had gone to God.f
The Rabbis say that Gabriel, Michael, Israfiel, and Azrael, who
acted as sextons at the funeral of Moses, defend his grave till
the Judgment Day.! Before or after the burial (God know
which) the Devil appears to have put in a claim for the corpse,
but he was defeated by Michael after a fierce dispute.§ This
curious legend has been more useful than might have been
expected, for it furnished Byron with the central idea of his
Splendid Vision of Judgment.
According to the Talmud, an attempt was once made, when
the Persian empire was at its zenith, to discover the sepulchre of
Moses. A host of soldiers ascended Mount Nebo, and when they
reached the top they saw the sepulchre at the bottom, but when
they descended to the bottom they saw it at the top. The search,
therefore, had to be abandoned.||
Some, however, have maintained that Moses did not die, but
shared the destiny of Enoch and Elijah. “ Our masters,” says
Maimonides, “ have assured us that our master Moses is not
dead, but ascended into heaven, where he serves God to all
eternity.”1T Curiously, in the Gospel story of the Transfiguration,
Moses and Elijah are brought together with Jesus in a visible
bodily form. Sceptics have asked how the disciples, who saw
**
the trio, recognised Moses and Elijah who had gone to glory so
many centuries before. But the true believer regards this as
hypercriticsm, and answers that all things are possible with
faith.
Like other Bible heroes, Moses has been credited with the
authorship of several books. The passage about Michael and
the Devil in Jude is from the Assumption of Moses, a work now
lost, but which was quoted by Origen and othei’ early Fathers.
There were also an Apocalypse and. a lesser Genesis ascribed to
him, as well as the Testament of Moses and the Mysterious Books
of Moses, ft The Jews, in addition, affirm that he wrote eleven of
the Psalms (xc. to c.), and both Jews and Christians have always
asserted that he wrote the Pentateuch. But modern scholarship
• Deuteronomy xxxiv., 6.
f Book IV., chap. 8.
f Gould, vol. ii., p, 135.
§ Jude, 9.
|| Gould, vol. ii., p. 1.36.
Calmet, Moses
** Matthew xvii„ 3; Mark ix., 4 ; Luke ix., 30
ft Calme4, Moses.
�64
BIBLE HEROES.
has justified the criticisms of Spinoza and Voltaire, and the
*
Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch is now abandoned by every
authority. Ministers still preach the falsehood from the pulpit,
but they dare not defend it outside their churches. Every
scholar knows that the Pentateuch is not the work of one hand,
and that the Mosaic law cannot be carried beyond the time of
Ezra, after the Captivity, when a mass of priestly teaching was
incorporated with ancient legends and traditions, and presented
as ordinances of Moses so as to give them the authority of
antiquity which so imposes on the credulous conservatism of
barbarians.f
Moses is probably a mythical figure. The Jews themselves,
judging from their so-called historical books, never heard of him
for nearly a thousand years after his death. Manetho, the
Egyptian historian, who is “refuted” by Josephus, declares
that the Jews were originally a band of Egyptian lepers who
migrated under the leadership of a leprous priest. The Jewish
historian resents the statement as an insult, but the Jewish
scriptures reveal the most extraordinary precautions against
leprosy, although Josephus denied their liability to the disease.
Whatever is the truth on this point, the Bible figure of Moses
is unhistorical. Robert TaylorJ is doubtless wrong in confusing
Moses with Bacchus, but he is quite right in indicating their
points of similarity. Both were of Egyptian origin, both were
brought up in Arabia, both crossed the Red Sea, both carried a
miraculous rod, both fetched water from the rock, both led armies
through deserts, both were legislators, both were priests, both
were soldiers, both were magicians, both were married, and, adds
Taylor, both of them wore horns.
According to scripture, there arose not a prophet like unto
Moses, and the Jews mourned for him thirty days. If he existed,
and bequeathed the intolerant and bloody maxims of the Jewish
law, mankind has mourned for more than thirty days on his
account. From that law is derived the persecuting spirit of
Christianity, as well as of Mohammedanism; a spirit which has
destroyed the happiness of millions, built thousands of dungeons
for honest thought, and lighted the fires of a myriad stakes for
the glory and honor of God.
* Philosophical Dictionary, Moses.
+ Dr. W. Robertson Smith, The Old Testameiit in the Jewish Church,
gives a fair resume of the conclusions of European scholarship, although
he does not go to the full length of his own principles. He has been cast
out as a heretic from the Scottish Church, but his opponents are too
sensible to attempt a refutation of his teaching. Their weapons are
persecution and silence.
J Devil's Pulpit, vol. ii., No. 20.
�PARSON
AARON.
The Church, said Bishop Warburton, has been from of old the
Cradle and the nursery of the younger aristocracy. When a
young fellow, belonging to the upper ten thousand, is under the
necessity of making his own nest, they send him into one of the
professions if he possesses a fair share of brains; if he has only
a moderate quantity of that article, they send him into the
army; and if he has none worth speaking of, they send him
into the Church. A living is procured for him, preferment may
be expected in time, and at the very worst he lolls at ease in the
sleepy hollow of a parson’s paradise.
Churches are the supports of privilege, and therefore it is not
surprising that they are filled with scions of the nobility. The
altar and the throne have always been in alliance. Priests and
kings are excellent friends. Both are leagued against the
people. One teaches and the other rules, one inspires credulity
and the other practises oppression, one deludes and the other
plunders, one works the confidence trick and the other walks off
with the spoil. Without priestcraft, neither kingcraft nor aris
tocracy could exist. Minds must be devastated before bodies
can be fettered. Poi’ this reason every true lover of his species
will echo the prayer of Shelley—
“ Oh that the wise from their bright minds would kindle
Such lamps within the dome of this dim world,
That the pale name of Priest might shrink and dwindle
Into the hell from which it first was hurled,
A scoff of impious pride from fiends impure.”*
Those who understand the immemorial alliance between the
spiritual and the temporal powers for the subjugation of the
people, will appreciate the congruity of Parson Aaron being the
brother of Holy Moses. These worthies were bound together
by the closest tie of blood, and therefore they understood each
Other thoroughly. Moses ruled and Aaron worked the oracle.
Moses gave his orders like a despot, and Aaron blessed them
and approved them with a text. Moses organised and A a,ran
preached; and whenever a big miracle was to be wrought the
two brothers acted together, so as to impose effectually on their
credulous slaves.
* “ Ode to Liberty.'
�66
BIBLE HEROES.
Aaron’s nane signifies lofty or mountainous; or, according to
Saint J erome, a mountain of strength He was, indeed, a tower
*
of strength to Moses, for he almost uniformly confirmed his
brother's mandates in the name of God; but there was nothing
very lofty in his character, and the only thing mountainous
about him was his impudence.
Three years older than Moses, he was still several years
younger than their sister Miriam. How he lived, what he did,
and in what society he moved, before his eighty-third year we
have no information. He took a back seat till he was wanted,
like all the personages in the story-books. God sent him out
into the wilderness to meet Moses when he was commissioned to
bring the Jews from Egypt. As this necessitated a journey of
two months, Calmet infers that Aaron’s circumstances were
above those of the lower class of Jews, who were kept to their
daily bondage; and that though his family “ had no pretension
to sovereign authority by descent, yet they were of consideration
among the Israelites by property, or by office, or by some othei’
way.” This learned writer also maintains that as Aaron and
Moses do not seem to have been elected to represent the Jews,
their reception by Pharaoh argues his recognition of their
superior status. But Scripture tells us that the two brothers
had a meeting with “ all the elders of the children of Israel,”!
who credited their mission from God when they beheld the
“ signs,” What is this but an equivalent to election ?
Moses had no “ gift of the gab,” but Aaron could “ speak
well.”! When they appeared before Pharaoh, therefore, Aaron
did all the speechifying; otherwise there might have been a
scene like that in the Merchant of Venice, where Launcelot Gobbo,
assisted by his father, solicits a place of Bassanio.
Moses’s rod turned into a serpent at the burning bush in
Horeb, but it was reserved for Aaron’s rod to perform this
elegant trick before Pharaoh. When the King of Egypt asked
for a miracle in proof of their mission from Jehovah, Aaron
threw down his rod and it became a serpent. Pharaoh smiled,
and exclaiming “ Is that your trump card ? ” he beckoned to his
magicians, who instantly “ did in like manner with their enchant
ments.’^ Dean Milman shuffles out of this awkward contretemps
in the following manner. “The dexterous tricks,” he says,
“which, the Eastern and African jugglers play with serpents
will easily account for this without any supernatural assistance.
It might be done, either by adroitly substituting the serpent
for the rod; or by causing the serpent to assume a stiff
appearance like a rod or staff, which being cast down on
the ground might become again pliant and animated.”|| But
* Calmet, Aaron.
§ Exodus vii., 2.
f Exodus iv., 29-31.
J Exodus iv , 14.
|| History of the Jews, p. 3>.
�PARSON AARON.
67
this pretty explanation might cover Aaron’s trick as well
as the magicians’, and _ proving too much is as bad as
proving too little. Besides the spirit of such an expla
nation is utterly unhistorical. All ancient nations, like
all modern savages, believed in magical arts, and in the
power of sorcerers to transform one thing into another. Egypt
*
was certainly no exception to the rule.f Jehovah himself is
represented as admitting the power of rival deities, but boasting
his own superiority. “ Against all the gods of Egypt,” he says, “I
will execute judgment:J am the Lord.”t Even the early Chris
tians never denied the miracles of Paganism; the only ques
tion in dispute was which miracles were divine and which were
diabolical. Surely Milman must have been disingenuous, for in
the very next chapter of Exodus it is recorded that the magi
cians of Egypt turned water into blood, and brought swarms of
frogs out of the river “ by their enchantments.” Was this also
legerdemain ? Milman does not say. He does not even mention these wonders. Silence in such a case was discretion, but
its honesty is more than questionable.
Probably Moses and Aaron felt chagrined when they saw
their serpent trick capped by Pharaoh’s magicians. “Holy
Moses! ” the elder brother might have exclaimed, “ what on
earth are we to do now ? Our performance seems stale in these
parts. I fancy we shall have to learn some fresh 1 business ’
or throw up the sponge altogether. Hadn’t you better go back
to the burning bush and ask Jehovah for a new wrinkle ? Or
stay, there is the leprosy trick you spoke about. Thrust your
hand inside your shirt-front, Moses, and pull it out white as snow.
Depend upon it these infernal magicians will scampei’ like hares
if you do, foi’ they are punctiliously clean, and some of the
Brahmans of this country will not pass within half-a-mile on the
leeward side of one of our holy race.”
What answer Moses would have made to this appeal may be
left to conjecture, for a fresh miracle speedily extricated the
brothers from their unpleasant position. There are some scep
tics, however, who deny that there was anything miraculous in
what occurred; for Aaron’s was a Jewish rod, and if, when trans
formed into a serpent, it swallowed up the others, this was no
more than might have been expected. But whether a miracle
or a natural occurrence, this event decided the contest, for it
was obviously impossible for the swallowed serpents to swallow
their swallower. Whether Aaron’s serpent digested the others
or vomited them up again, we are not informed. If it ejected
them, every Egyptian sorcerer doubtless got his stick back; if
not, Aaron’s stick must have been remarkably stout when he
* Tylor, Primitive Culture, chap. iv.
f Lenorimant, La iVLagie chez les Chaldeens, p. 90.
J Exodus, xii., 12.
�68
BIBLE HEROES.
left the palace. Jehovah was the lord of lords, and Aaron’s rod
was literally the stick of sticks.
Aaron’s part in the tragi-comedy of the Ten Plagues, as well
as that of Moses, is dealt with in our Bible Romances. Keally
the harrying of Egypt was the work of Jehovah and not of
his intruments. He, therefore, must receive the full credit of
its filthinesss and atrocity.
.When the Jews were well out of Egypt, and encamped before
Sinai, Aaron had the pleasure of accompanying Moses up that
mountain,, where he had the further pleasure of lunching with
God Almighty. Aaron, Nadab, Abihu, and seventy elders,
“ saw God, and did eat and drink.”* There can be no doubt as
to this remarkable repast, but unfortunately none of the guests
preserved the bill of fare. Had they done so, and had the docu
ment been handed down to this age in a good state of repair,
it would certainly fetch an enormous price in the auction-room.
We may presume that God wrote it himself, and if he graved
the decalogue with his finger, he probably scrawled this less
dignified document with his big toe.
Parson Aaron did not stay with Holy Moses during his forty
days’ confabulation with Jehovah. He descended to look after
the chosen people, who had astonishingly short memories. They
were always forgetting the miracles and mercies of Jehovah, and
whenever Moses turned his back they were off in search of fresh
gods.
. Now, on this occasion, Moses turned his back for a very long
time. His absence was protracted enough to try the loyalty and
patience of the most devoted adherents. Day after day the
Jews looked up to “ the mount of God,” but no Moses appeared,
nor did they so much as catch a glimpse of his bald head behind
a rock. All they saw was clouds, clouds, clouds; and by-andbye they concluded that Moses and Jehovah had both ended in
smoke. In this predicament they naturally wanted a fresh
leader and a fresh god. Savages are like sheep in following
their chief, and without a deity to worship they are like fish out
of water. The Jews, therefore, requested Aaron to take the
place of “ this Moses ” who had gone aloft, and they begged him
to make them a few gods to ease their religious desolation.
Aaron accepted the offer with great alacrity. Possibly he
shared the general belief in the collapse of Moses, or thought
he might be able to establish his own authority before his
brother’s return when he might successfully bid him defiance.
Aaron was the elder brother, yet he had to play second fiddle;
and as he was not yet consecrated high priest, he perhaps
thought his own merits were not sufficiently recognised and
rewarded. Here then was a glorious opportunity of promoting
his own interest, and Aaron not unnaturally seized it. “ I’ve
Exodus xxiv., 11.
�PARSON AARON.
69
played second fiddle to Moses long enough,” he may have exclaamed, “ and if ever he returns he shall play second fiddle to
me.”
Jehovah does not appeal’ to have entered into our hero’s
Calculations. That was not an age when religion presented only
Hobson’s choice. There were many gods, all independent of
each other, and all warranted sound. What wonder, then, if
Aaron thought he might, like Cain, go out from the presence of
the Lord, and worship another deity.
Orthodox commentators, however, prefer the theory that
Aaron was a coward. He had not the courage to resist the
popular clamor, and he incurred the wrath of God sooner than
face the wrath of the Jews, who on several occasions attempted
to stone Moses himself when they were annoyed or disappointed,
lor our part, we leave every reader to decide for himself.
Having agreed to make the Jews some new gods, Aaron
desired them to furnish him with the material. He could not
make a god out of his own head, unless it was a wooden one.
M Bring your gold,” said Aaron. Gold ! It is the first demand
of priests in every age and clime. They love gold. Judging by
their practice, gold is their god. The felicities of heaven are for
their dupes; they themselves wish “ in health and wealth long
to live.” They read their title cleai’ to mansions in the skies,
but they prefer the actual possession of a snug rectory or
vicarage in this miserable vale of tears.
The Jews brought Aaron their golden earrings, which were
worn by men and women alike With this precious metal he
*
made a golden calf; or rather, we suspect, with so much of it
as was left after he deducted his own liberal commission. Before
the calf he erected an altar. Religious worship went on merrily
again. The people “ sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to
play ” ; their play apparently consisting in naked dances before
the new god. The Jews took readily to the worship of the
golden calf. Some people, indeed, say they worship it still.
Perhaps the calf was an imitation of the Egyptian god Apis,
and thus the Jews simply returned to the religion of their old
masters. Long after this they affected calf-worship. Jeroboam
set up.two golden calves at Dan and Bethel,f and these were
worshipped by Jehu even after he had “ destroyed Baal out of
Ifirael.”J
When Moses came down from the clouds and witnessed the
saltatory worship of this golden calf, he not only broke all the
ten commandments, but burnt the calf, ground it to powder,
mixed it with water, and made the Jews drink the potion.
Metallurgists would like to know how this was done, but Scrip* Exodus xxxii., 2.
fl Kings xii., 28, 29.
I 2 Kings x., 28, 29.
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BIBLE HEROES.
ture, which tells us many things we could dispense with, neglects
to inform us of many things we are anxious to learn.
After drinking, this water, those who had kissed the idol were,
according to Jewish tradition, marked with gilt lips. Another
tradition says that their hair turned red, and that is the origin
of red hair among the Jews; while a third tradition declares that
this watei’ gave them the jaundice, which was then introduced
for the first time, though it has remained ever since.
*
Moses instructed the Levites to slay the idolators. They did
so, and “there fell of the people that day about three thousand
men.” Aaron, however, was only expostulated with. The chief
sinner was spared because he belonged to the leader’s family.
During the colloquy between the two brothers, Aaron pre
varicated in a manner worthy of his profession. “ Look here
Moses,” he said, “ I didn’t make that calf. ’Pon honor! I just
put the gold into the fire, and the calf came out of itself.”f
Soon afterwards Aaron was consecrated high priest, and the
office was to be hereditary in his family for ever. Even those
who assisted in the ceremonies of Jehovah’s worship were to
belong to Aaron’s tribe of Levi. The consecration was perfoimed .by Moses. Taking Aaron and his sons, he washed
them with water, and we dare say they needed it. They were
then dressed in the priestly paraphernalia. Aaron’s outfit
was extremely fine. Not only were all his garments of the
richest material, but he wore a splendid mitre on his head, and
a golden breastplate in front, inwrought with the mystic Urim
and Thummim. These words signify light and perfection, or
revelation and truth.X The article itself consisted of twelve
precious stones, by which undoubtedly the high-priest divined.
This superstition connected with precious stones was common in
ancient ages. No oracle was complete without them. Among
barbarians the superstition is still rampant, and it lingers even
among civilised nations. Thousands of people in our own
country believe in the occult virtues of precious stones, and
only two or three centuries ago each had its specific influence
on human health and fate.
Aaron was also anointed with oil.§ Some of it was mixed
with blood from the altar, and the beastly mess was sprinkled
on his and his son’s garments.|| But most of the holy oil was
poured over Aaron’s head. According to the Psalmist, it ran
down his beard and fell upon the skirt of his garments.^
Dripping with the holy macassar, Aaron looked a greasy priest,
but the stuff sanctified him. Like Christ, he was the “ anointed,”
or the begreased. Anointing is still retained in the Catholic
Church, and both the Catholic and the Protestant Church retain
* Gould, vol. ii., pp. 105-107.
f Exodus xxxii., 24.
I Whiston, footnote to Josephus.
§ Leviticus viii., 12.
|| Ibid, v. 30.
If Psalms cxxxiii., 2.
�PABSON AARON.
71
baptism. “ When we come into life,” says Robert Taylor, “ we
WBt be baptised, when we go out of it we must be anointed.
We are baptised into Jesus Christ and greased into the Holy
Ghost.”*
Besides this holy oil, Aaron had a sacred scent for use in the
'tabernacle. God gave the prescription for making it, and pro
nounced a frightful penalty against anyone who violated the
patent, f
Henceforth Moses and Aaron pulled well together. Each had
his eminent place, and they could exercise their respective
authorities without conflict. Woe unto the Jews when they set
up their backs against this worthy pair ! Eor murmuring after
the settling of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, and the slaughter
of two hundred and fifty worshippers in their rival tabernacle,
no less than 14,700 were killed.^
To prevent any further rivalry with Aaron in the priesthood,
♦he brothers hit upon an ingenious device. Speaking as usual
in the name of God, Moses ordered the princes and elders to
bring a rod for each of the tribes. This made eleven, and Aaron’s
rod for the tribe of Levi made the twelfth. All were to be
placed in the tabernacle, and the rod of God’s choice for
the priesthood was to blossom.
The plan was tried.
Twelve rods were laid before the Lord overnight, and
in the morning when Moses entered to see the result, Aaron’s
rod “ was budded, and bloomed blossoms, and yielded almonds.”§
Aaron’s blooming rod settled this dispute for ever. Yet the
princes and elders of Israel must have been remarkable flats to
accept such a decision. Aaron and Moses had access to the
tabernacle at all hours, though they had not; and what was
easier than foi’ the confederate brothers to design and execute
this pretty miracle themselves ?
Aaron had one little quarrel, however, with Moses, and he
Was joined by Miriam. Moses manned an Ethiopian woman;
one of a people who, for some mysterious reason, are referred
to in Scripture as unable to change their skin. This was against
the Jewish law and custom. Aaron and Miriam, therefore,
“ spake against Moses.” But their murmurings vexed Jehovah,
fwho actually came down, stood in the door of the tabernacle,
and read them a severe lesson.|| Miriam was punished with
leprosy and excluded from the camp, where she remained seven
days, after which the Lord healed hei’ at Moses’s intercession.
Aaron suffered no othei’ punishment than a bad frightening.
Evidently Moses was a terrible old fellow to interfere with.
Miriam apparently did not long survive this ordeal. She
died in the desert of Zin.
In the same year, accordingyto
Y • * Devil's Pulpit, vol. ii., p. 332.
t Num. xvi., 49.
§ Num. xvii., 8.
f Exodus xxx., 34-38.
[I Num. xii., 3-5.
Num. xxi.
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BIBLE HEROES.
*
-Josephus, Aaron died also. Scripture is not so precise, but it
records both their deaths in the same chapter. Surely their
disappearance so soon after their quarrel with Moses looks some
thing more than a coincidence. The Bible story of Aaron’s
demise is very singular. God tells Moses to inform his brother
that his time has come. Moses and Aaron, and Eleazar
the latter’s son, ascend Mount Hor. Arrived at a convenient
spot, Moses strips Aaron’s garments off and puts them on
Eleazar; Aaron then accommodatingly dies, and the uncle and
nephew descend. Josephus, perhaps thinking that the story
looked ugly, says that the transference of the priestly garments,
and the death of Aaron, took place in the presence of the people.f
Now when we remember that Aaron had seriously crossed
Moses, and that the “ meek ” man was capable of sticking at
nothing to serve his purpose, is it absurd to suppose that Aaron
was “ burked ” on Mount Hor, with or without the assistance of
his son and heir ? Eleazar may have actively participated in
the murder, or his father and uncle may have left him in some
hollow while they went further, and on arriving at a likely
situation Moses may have killed Aaron as he killed the Egyptian
so many years before. According to a Mohammedan tradition,
Moses was accused of murdering Aaron, but he was exculpated
“ by the angels bringing his body and exposing it to public
view, or, say some, by the testimony of Aaron himself, who was
raised to life for that purpose.’’^ This, at any rate, is certain,
if anything in the story is certain. Three men went up that
mountain and only two came down. They reported that the
third had died there; but one of them had seriously quarrelled
with the deceased, and the other inherited his office and pro
perty.
Gould gives a long account of the Jewish traditions as to the
death of Aaron. When they reached the summit of Mount Hor
they saw a cavern, and inside they found a death-bed prepared
by the angels. Aaron reposed on it and gradually gave up the
ghost. The Mohammedan tradition, however, says that there
was a sarcophagus, with the inscription, “ I am for him whom I fit.”
Moses tried to lie down in it, but his feet hung out; Aaron then
got in, and it fitted him exactly. Subsequently, say the Rabbis,
Aaron’s coffin ascended in sight of all the people, borne by
angels, who carried it to heaven.§ Whatever Aaron’s fate may
have been after death, he certainly enjoyed a well-feed office on
earth. Could he have managed it, he would doubtless be in the
ten-per-cent, business still; but fortunately even priests must
die, and “ go home ” to heaven or otherwise as destiny decides.
* Book IV., chap. iv.
JjSale's Koran, Ch. xxxiii., footnote.
f Book IV., chap, v., § 7.
§ Gould, vol. ii., pp. 127—131.
�GENERAL JOSHUA.
----------- «♦-------------
After Jehovah had dispatched Moses and secretly buried him,
as Moses himself had eighty years previously dispatched and
buried the Egyptian, Joshua was appointed to succeed him as
leader of the Jews. He was “ full of the spirit of wisdom, for
Moses had laid his hands upon him.” No doubt Moses laid his
venerable hands on Joshua’s head, for religious superiors have
always transmitted holiness to their inferiors through the skull.
Jesus Christ laid his hands upon the apostles, saying “ Receive
ye the Holy Ghost,” and the same performance is gone through
still at the ordination of priests. A bishop lays his hands on
the would-be curate’s cranium, and discharges through that
Osseous structure as much of the Holy Ghost as the young
gentleman is capable of receiving.
Joshua, it appears, was nominated for the leadership by Moses,
but God readily accepted the nomination, and proceeded to in
struct the new chief in his duties. He told him to be above all
“ strong and very courageous,” and to fight the inhabitants of
Palestine according to the law of Moses, a piece of advice which
Joshua was the last man in the world to neglect.
What was this law of Moses ? We have already seen (p. 62)
how Moses commanded the massacre of all the captive Midianites except the young virgins, all of whom were reserved as
food for the lust of his brutal soldiery, with the exception of
thirty-two that were assigned to “ the Lord,” or in other words
to the priests. Let us now turn to Deuteronomy, where we
*
shall find the war-policy dictated by Moses in the name of the
most merciful God.
“ When thou comest nigh unto a city to fight against it, then proclaim
peace unto it. And it shall be, if it make thee answer of peace, and open
unto thee, that all the people that is found therein shall be tributaries
unto thee, and they shall serve thee. And if it will make no peace with
thee, but will make war against thee, then thou shalt besiege it: And
when the Lord thy God hath delivered it into thine hands, thou shalt
smite every male thereof with the edge of the sword: But the women,
and the little ones, and the cattle, even all the spoil thereof, shalt thou
take unto thyself; and thou shalt eat the spoil of thine enemies, which
the Lord thy God hath given thee. Thus shalt thou do unto all the
sgities which are very far off from thee, which are not of the cities of
* Numbers, xxxi., 29, 40.
�74-
BIBEE heroes.
these nations. But of the cities of these people, which the Lord thy God
doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing that
breatheth.”*
Such were the bloody maxims of inspired war-! Yet when
England was excited by the report of Turkish atrocities in
Bulgaria, how the clergy, who frequently attended indignation
meetings, denounced both the Turks and their creed; declaring
that the Koran sanctioned, if it did not command, those infamies;
and protesting that there was no hope for a nation which
derived its politics from such an accursed book. Mohammed
did, indeed, give savage counsels to his followers in respect to
war, but they sink into insignificance beside the counsels of
Moses. Allah was far less brutal than Jehovah. The whole
range of history reveals no more ferocious cruelty than the Jews
perpetrated in Canaan, when they took forcible possession of
cities they had never built and fields they had never ploughed.
“ How that red rain will make the harvest grow ! ” exclaimed
Byron over the slaughter of Waterloo; and surely the first
harvest the Jews reaped in Canaan must have been luxuriantly
rich, for the ground had been drenched with human blood.
Joshua was soon ordered to cross the river Jordan and begin the
holy war. . But before doing so he dispatched two spies to recon
noitre Jericho, which was the first place to be attacked. They
reached this famous old city by night, and of course required
lodgings. Instinct, or the Holy Spirit, led them to a brothel.f
Mrs. Rahab, who presided over this Academy of Venus, proved
a very good friend to the interlopers; for when their arrival
was bruited abroad, and the king’s messengers came to arrest
them, she hid them beneath a heap of flax on the roof, and
declared they had just left. Pursue them quickly, she added,
and you are sure to overtake them. These intelligent officers,
without searching the premises, set out in chase of the imaginary
runaways; and when the coast was clear Mrs. Rahab, whose
house was erected on the town wall, let her two guests down
“by a cord through the window.”
But before they left she made a covenant with them. Like
many other ladies of easy virtue, or no virtue at all, Mrs. Rahab
was inclined to piety. She had conceived a great respect for
Jehovah, and was assured that his people would overcome all
their enemies. She had also a great respect for her own skin; so
she.made the spies promise, on behalf of the Jews, that when
Jericho was taken they would spare her and all hei’ relatives ;
and they were to recognise her house by “ the line of scarlet
thread in the window;” red, as old Bishop Hall says, being the
saving color.
Mrs. Rahab was clearly a traitress ,to her own countrymen.
* Deuteronomy, xx., 10-16.
f Judges ii., 1.
�GENERAL JOSHUA.
75
She not only harbored the enemy’s spies, but actually made a
profitable alliance with the invader. According to the law of
all countries, whether barbarous or civilised, she was guilty of
treason and deserved to be hung. But besides being a traitress
she was also a harlot. Josephus judiciously describes hei as an
*
*
innkeeper. Milman blandly says she kept “ a public caravansary.”f Whiston, with whom discretion was not altogether
the better part of valor, tries to explain the harlotry away.
*" Observe,” he says, “ that I still call this woman Rahab, an
■inn-keeper, not a harlot; the whole history, both in our copies,
and especially in Josephus, implying no more. It was indeed
so frequent a thing, that women who were inn-keepers were
also harlots, or maintainers of harlots, that the word commonly
used for real harlots was usually given them.”J But this is a
Very lame apology for Mrs. Rahab. There is nothing in the
■“ whole history ” that contradicts her being a lady of pleasure;
and as the Bible is not an ordinary book, but God’s Word, its
language must be taken as it stands. If the Lord meant us to
regard Mrs. Rahab as a virtuous woman, he would have em
ployed another word than “ harlot.” Some indeed maintain
that zona does not mean “ harlot ” at all, but it was so under
stood by the translators of the Septuagint, and by St. Jerome,
the translator of the Vulgate. Our Authorised Version trans
lates zona as “ harlot,” and thus it is allowed to stand in the
Revised Version.
Mrs. Rahab, traitress and prostitute, was duly saved from
the sack of Jericho, She married Salmon, a prince in Israel, of
very questionable taste. They begat Boaz, who begat Obed,
who begat Jesse, who begat David, and so on to “ David’s greatei
*
®on.”§ The blood of Mrs. Rahab, therefore, flowed in the veins
of Jesus Christ. She was adopted into the holy line of the
Savior’s ancestry, and both James and Paul have sung her
praises.|| Each calls her a harlot, but one celebrates her
■“ works ” and the other hei “ faith,” and between them they
*
make her a most illustrious saint.
Joshua’s two spies returned safely to the camp, and reported
“ all serene.” The Canaanites were very much frightened, and
their terror would render them an easy prey.
The next morning Joshua got up early and told the Jews that
God was going to do wonders. They wanted to get on the
■other side of Jordan, and the Lord intended to ferry them over.
The river was swollen at that time and could not be forded, nor
had the Jews any means of navigation. But God was with
them, and he who had manipulated the Red Sea was quite equal
* Book V., chap. i.
f History of the Jews, p. 92.
J Footnote to Josephus.
§ 1 Chronicles i.; Matthew i,
|| James ii., 25; Hebrews xi., 31.
�76
BIBLE HEROES.
to dealing with the Jordan. Forward went the priests, bearing
the ark, followed by all the people; and as the holy feet of the
men of God “were dipped in the brim of the water ” the river
parted in twain; on one side the waters “ stood and rose up
upon a heap,” while on the other side they “ failed and were
cut off.” No miracle, however, was worked further up the river
to stop the supplies, and therefore the “ heap ” must have been
a pretty big one before the Lord let it fall.
Standing in the river-bed “ firm on dry ground,” the priests
kept the road clear while the Jews “ passed over right against
Jericho.” They seem to have done this in less than a day, but
three millions of people would require a week. Perhaps Old
Nick was commissioned to accelerate their progress with his
toothpick; or perhaps the Lord assisted them more comfortably,
after the fashion of Richard Baxter, the famous author of Tike
Saints’ Everlasting Rest, who wrote a tractate entitled “A Shove
to a Heavy-A—d Christian.”
When the Jews were over Jordan the “ heap ” of water tum
bled down. Joshua and his people then encamped near Jericho,
in readiness for still greater wonders. Three days afterwards
the manna, on which God had fed the Jews for forty years, with
such fatal results that only two of them survived the trial, was
suddenly stopped. Manna is “ angel’s food,” made of the “ corn
of heaven.”* It was good enough for the chosen people while
they loitered in the wilderness, but henceforth J ehovah’s fighting
cocks needed a more stimulating diet.
The generation born in the desert had grown up uncircum
cised, although it is difficult to understand how such a rite, if it
was believed to be the mark of God’s covenant with the Jews,
could ever have been neglected. Joshua, therefore, was ordered
to amputate their foreskins, and he “ made him sharp knives ”
for the purpose. According to the letter of the narrative he was
the sole surgeon for a million and a half of patients. Allowing
a minute for each operation, it would have taken him three years
to complete the business, yet it appears to have been transacted
in a single day. Samson’s jaw-bone was nothing to Joshua’s
knife.
Orthodox critics will, of course, contend that Joshua circum
cised the Jews as a general victuals his army; that is, he
simply caused it to be done; and no doubt this would be a
rational interpretation of the text if Joshua were not a mira
culous personage. Why should not a surgeon perform fifteen
hundred thousand operations in one day as easily as an orator
could address an audience of three millions ? This oratorical
feat is recorded of Joshua. After the capture of Ai he gathered
all the Jews together, men, women, and children, and even the
strangers, and read to them all the law of Moses without omitPsalms lxxviii., 24, 25.
�77
GENERAL JOSHUA.
ting & single word. It must have been a long job, and Joshua
*
ffiittlt have been pretty dry before the finish. But the greatest
marvel is how he made himself audible to three million people
at once. Either their ears were very sharp or his voice was
terribly loud. General Joshua could outroar Bottom the
weaver by two or three miles. One wonders how a voice, which
oould be heard distinctly on the outskirts of such a vast audience,
did not break the tympanums of the front ranks. But perhaps
they put the stone-deaf in the first rows, then the half-deaf, and
then the hard of hearing, while those with more sensitive ears
stood at a merciful distance.
Soon aftei’ this wholesale circumcision, and while the Jews
were thinking of going to Jericho, Joshua had a curious experi
ence, exactly like the one that happened to Balaam’s ass. He saw
“ a man over against him with his sword drawn in his hand.”
Joshua walked up and asked the stranger whether he was for or
against them. I am “ captain of the host of the Lord,” was the
reply. Good heavens! General Joshua was a “ big pot,” but here
was a superior officer of the Lord of Hosts. Our hero immediately
fell flat, and he was further ordered to take off his shoes. Moses
was told to do the same thing when he met God in the burning
bush. We may therefore presume that shoemakers will have to
follow some other trade in heaven.
_ From this celestial messenger Joshua received precise instruc
tions as to the assault on Jericho, and it must be admitted that
the Lord’s way of storming fortresses is unique in military
literature.
“ Ye shall compass the city, all ye men of war, and go round about the
city once. Thus shalt thou do six days. And seven priests shall bear
before the ark seven trumpets of rams’ horns: and the seventh day ye
shall compass the city seven times, and the priests shall blow with the
trumpets. And it shall come to pass, that when they make a long blast
with the rams’ horn, and when ye hear the sound of the trumpet, all
the people shall shout with a great shout; and the wall of the city shall
fall down flat, and the people shall ascend up every man straight before
him.”f
What general except Joshua ever received such extraordinary
instructions from his commander-in-chief? God’s soldiers need
no cannon or bomb-shells, nor even battering rams or catapults;
all they require is a few priests—and that article never mna
short—a few rams’ horns, and good lungs for shouting.
God’s orders were obeyed. Six days in succession the Jews
went round the wall of Jericho behind their tootling priests.
Probably the garrison wondered why they did not come on, and
felt there was something uncanny in this roundabout seige. On
the seventh day the Jews went round the wall seven times, and
either they must have had good legs or Jericho was very small
for a capital city. Suddenly the priests trumpeted like mad
* 'Joshua viii., 30-35.
t Johsua vi., 3-5.
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BIBLE HEROES.
elephants, the Jews shouted like the Falls of Niagara, and the
wall of Jericho fell flat—as flat as the fools who believe it.
Will some inspired sky-pilot kindly inform me whether the
whole wall fell flat, as seems implied by the text, “ the people
went up into the city, every man straight before him.” If so,
1 should like to learn what became of Mrs. Rahab’s house which
was “ upon the town wall,” and what was the use of her “scarlet
thread m the window ” when her Academy of Venus was in
ruins.
Jericho was. in the hands of Jehovah’s bandits, and they
carried out his bloody instructions to the letter. Even the
passion of lust was not allowed to conflict with their prime
duty of slaughter. The universal cry was “ Kill, kill, kill 1”
God told them to “ leave alive nothing that breatheth,” and
Joshua was there to see the command obeyed. The army of the
Lord “ utterly destroyed all that was in the city, both man and
woman, young and old, and ox, and sheep, and ass, with the
edge of the sword.”* Only Rahab and her relatives were
spared; all the rest were massacred; and when the pall of
night fell upon the doomed city it covered a scene that
might have made the very devils shudder. Surely if the blood
of man “ crieth from the ground,” here was enough to have
sounded to the stars.
Joshua and the priests understood each other. All the silver
and the gold, and all the vessels of brass and iron, were “ put
into the treasury of the house of the Lord.” Then Jericho was
burnt, and Joshua laid a solemn curse on whomsoevei’ should
rebuild it. But although “the Lord was with Joshua” the
curse was futile. Jericho was rebuilt. The city existed in Jesus
Christ’s time, and was next in importance to Jerusalem. A
certain man travelling to Jericho fell among thieves; but if he
or any other mortal ever fell among worse thieves than Joshua
and his marauders, it would need a pen dipped in something
worse than hell-fire to chronicle the encounter.
When the Jews attacked Ai they were repulsed, and no less
than thirty-six were killed. This prodigious loss melted their
hearts and they became as water. Joshua rent his clothes, fell
upon his face before the ark with the elders of Israel, and all of
them, peppered their ■ greasy Hebrew locks with dust. After
remaining in this position for several hours, Joshua expostulated
with God, asked him whether he had brought his people over
Jordan only to betray them to theii’ enemies, and expressed a
hearty wish that they had never crossed at all. God, however,
told him to get up. Some one had stolen a portion of the spoil
of Jericho, all of which belonged to the Lord, or in other words
^e. pGests, who evidently concocted this pretty story. In
quisition was made at once, and “ Achan was taken,” who con
Judges vi., 21.
�GENERAL JOSHUA.
79
fessed to having appropriated “ a goodly Babylonish garment,
and two hundred shekels of silver, and a wedge of gold of fifty
shekels weight.” His doom was swift and terrible; he was
Stoned to death, and his body consumed with fire. Nor was he
the only sufferer. Jehovah (or the priests) was not so easily
appeased. Achan’s sons and daughters, and even his oxen,
asses, and sheep, were served in the same manner. A cairn was
raised over the cinders, and then “ the Lord turned from the
fierceness of his anger.” This holocaust put him in a good
temper, and the heathen felt the smart of his loving-kindness.
Joshua captured Ai forthwith; all the inhabitants, from the
oldest man to the youngest babe, were massacred ; and the city
was burnt into a desolate heap. After this feast of blood Joshua
“ built an altar unto the Lord God of Israel in Mount Ebal,”
and Jehovah seems to have been mightily well pleased with the
whole business.
t The Gibeonites obtained a league by craft, but though their
lives were spared they did not escape slavery. The five kings
of Jerusalem, Hebron, Jarmuth, Lachish, and Eglon, who united
their forces, were defeated by Joshua; and as their armies fled
from the field “ the Lord cast down great stones from heaven
upon them,” killing more by this stratagem than the Jews slew
with the sword. When we read that Pan fought with the
Greeks against the Persians at Marathon, we must regard it as
a fable; but when we read that Jehovah fought with the Jews
against the five kings at Gibeon, we must regard it as historical
truth, and if we doubt it we shall be eternally damned.
But the most remarkable incident of this battle was Joshua’s
miracle. For the purpose of enabling God and the Jews to kill all
the fugitives, which could not have been achieved in darkness,
he cried out, “ Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon; and thou,
Moon, in the valley of Ajalon.” Those obedient orbs immediately
stood still, the day was lengthened, and the slaughter of the
enemy was completed.
What Joshna stopped, if he stopped anything, was not the sun
but the earth; and science tells us that a sudden arrest of the
earth’s motion would generate heat enough to cause a wholesale
conflagration. But nothing of the kind happened. Nor, indeed,
has any ancient nation, except the Jews, preserved the slightest re
cord of Joshua’s miracle. Josephus says that “ the day was leng
thened,” but he of course borrowed from the Jewish scriptures.
Whiston’s footnote on the story is perfectly nonsensical. Mil
man discreetly commits himself to no opinion on the subject.
Bishop Watson, in his reply to Thomas Paine, thinks it “ idle, if
n©t impious, to undertake to explain how the miracle was per
formed.” But he adds that, “ a confused tradition concerning
Ws miracle ” was preserved by the Egyptians. The only evi
*
* Watson’s Apologies, p, 220.
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BIBLE HEROES.
dence he gives is a passage from. Herodotus about the sun having
twice risen in the west and set in the east in Egypt. But wl^at
has this to do with Joshua ? Such prodigies were common
among credulous eastern peoples in ancient times. Even the
Greeks believed that when Jupiter personated Amphitryon, and
visited jhis bride Alcmena, the amorous god lengthened the
night to prolong his enjoyment; and surely this story is quite
as credible, and quite as moral, as the Bible story of Joshua's
lengthening the day to prolong a massacre.
While the Jews pursued their fugitive enemies the five con
federate kings hid themselves in a cave. Joshua ordered the
mouth to be closed with big stones until the pursuit was ended,
when the poor devils were brought out and treated with great
ignominy. Their necks were used as footstools by the captains
of Israel, and afterwards they were hung on separate trees.
This highly civilised treatment of prisoners shows that Joshua
and the Jews were worthy of their God.
General Joshua’s remaining career was one of uniform blood
shed. The history, indeed, is monotonous in its brutality.
Makkedah, Lachish, Eglon, Hebron, Debir, and other cities were
captured; and in every case the inhabitants were exterminated.
Men, women, and children were involved in a promiscuous
slaughter. Joshua “ left none remaining, but utterly destroyed
all that breathed, as the Lord God had commanded.”* Dumb
animals, also, were treated with equal cruelty; the horses, for
instance, being maliciously houghed,f and allowed to perish by
a slow and agonising death.
When Jehovah’s bandits had obtained possession of Palestine
by wars of unparalleled ferocity, General Joshua gave up the
ghost at the age of one hundred and ten.J He was buried at
Timnath. Josephus says he led the Jews for twenty-five years.§
General Joshua’s father was called Nun; his mother’s name
is unknown, but according to a Jewish tradition the lady who
had the signal honor of bringing this pious murderer into the
world was Miriam, the sister of Moses and Aaron.|| Neither the
Bible nor any other authority assigns him a wife; and, indeed,
it is highly probable that such a slaughterer of his kind was a
total stranger to the domestic sentiments. We may presume
that he gratified his lust on some of the captive females, who
were unfortunate enough to survive the massacre of their fathers
and brothers, and to fall into the hands of the vilest horde of
cut-throats that ever polluted the earth. Scripture tells us he
was “ full of the spirit of wisdom,”*T but the inspired narrative
[
of his career exhibits a moral monster whose effigy merits a
conspicious place in the Chambei’ of Horrors.*
§
* Joshua x., 40.
f Joshua xi., 6. 9.
f Joshua xxiv., 29.
§ Josephus, bk.v., chap. i. || Gould, vol. ii.,p. 138.
Deut. xxxiv., 9.
�JEPHTHAH & CO.
After the death of General Joshua the Jews “ forsook the Lord
and worshipped Baal and Ashtaroth.” Baal was identical with
Bel of the Babylonians, and with Moloch, although in the course
of time he improved, and became “ no longer the god of destruc
tion and death in nature, but the father of life, the supreme
dispenser of light and heat, the principle and cause of the
Renewing which yearly clothes the earth with luxurious vegeta
tion.”* This Baal was evidently the sun. Ashtaroth was a
feminine deity, better known as Astarte, representing the moon,
whose periodicities are intimately associated with those of the
human sexual system. She was the goddess of voluptuousness
and fecundity, as Baal was the god of strength and virility.
Their worship included the most incredible lasciviousness, but
Who can wonder that an amorous people like the Jews should
constantly turn their backs on the stern Jahveh, and court the
Softer deities of Syria ? Their bacchic strains at midnight were
better than the horrid shrieks of human sacrifice; the fever of
lust was less awful than the rage of murder.
But if the Lord thought otherwise, why did he not take pre
cautions against their natural tendency ? He clearly foresaw
the mischief, for he purposely left in the promised land “ five
lords of the Philistines, and all the Canaanites, and the Sidonians,
* and the Hivites that dwell in Mount Lebanon,”f in order that
his chosen people might be tempted into idolatry. They were
left to “ prove Israel, whether they would hearken unto the
commandments of the Lord,” as well as “ to teach them war, at
the least such as before knew nothing thereof”; a proceeding
Which strikes the carnal mind as simply infamous.
With all their fondness for fighting, the Jews were less san
guinary than Jehovah, and they intermarried with the remnants
of the native population. This displeased the Lord, who objected
to the spoiling of their precious blood, which had “ rolled through
rascals ever since the Blood.” But he was still more displeased
when the Jews “ served Baalim and the groves.”}: That was an
unpardonable sin, for what god could ever stand rivalry in the
Opea market ? Therefore the Lord “ sold them ” into the hands of
* Jules Soury, The Religion of Israel, p. 53.
t Judges iii, 3.
t For “ groves ” the Revised Version substitutes ‘‘ Asheroth,” which
were phallic emblems.
s.
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BIBLE HEROES.
the king of Mesopotamia, who ruled them for eight years. “ Sold
them ” is a capital phrase. Sooner or later the gods always sell
those who are foolish and weak enough to trust them.
During several generations there was a perpetual alterna
tion of loyalty and treason on the part of the Jews. Foi’ long
periods they were punished by subjection to their enemies; then
the Lord took pity on them, and “ raised up ” Judges to deliver
them.
The first important Judge was Ehud. He was a Benjamite
and left-handed, and he delivered Israel in a very left-handed
fashion. Under pretence of bringing a present to Eglon, the
king of Moab, to whom the Jews were then subjected, he obtained
a private interview. “ I have a message from God unto thee,”
said Ehud. Eglon rose from his seat, and being “ a very fat
man ” he displayed a fine abdomen, into which Ehud imme
diately thrust God’s message in the shape of a dagger. It pene
trated so deeply that it could not be withdrawn, and in the
beautiful language of Scripture “ the dirt came out.” Ehud
escaped, gathered the Jews together, and fell upon the soldiers of
Moab, all of whom perished in the battle. They were ten thou
sand in all, and “ not a man escaped.”
God’s chosen people, and especially their scribes, had mar
vellous notions of arithmetic. Ten thousand Moabitish soldiers
had sufficed to overawe for eighteen years a people numbering
three millions with six hundred thousand men of arms 1 It
could scarcely be done even now when trained soldiers with
rifles have such immense advantage over undisciplined and ill
armed multitudes; and how much less when the weapons and
methods of warfare were rude, when men fought mostly hand
to hand, and one man was as good as another.
As the Lord “ raised up ” this “ deliverer,” we are justified in
assuming that he instigated the assassination. According to
Scripture, therefore, the assassination of obstructive monarchs
is a virtuous deed. Christian apologists, who make rich capital
out of the French Revolution, have wasted much denunciation
over the guillotining of Louis XVI., conveniently forgetting the
story of" Ehud, who slew Eglon treacherously, whereas the
execution of Louis XVI. was at least a formal act after a public
trial.
Eighty years’ rest followed Ehud’s performance; then the
Jews went wrong again, and were oppressed by the Philistines.
Once more the Lord raised them up a deliverer, whose whole
history is told in a single verse. His name was Sham gar, and
*
he “ slew of the Philistines six hundred men with an ox goad,”
probably skewering them like cat’s-meat. Milman describes
this formidable weapon as “ a strong pike, eight feet long, and
pointed with iron.”f Shamgar was a tough fellow, his ox goad
Judges iii., 31.
f History of the Jews, p. 106.
�JEPHTHAH AND CO.
83
was tough, the story is tough, and it requires a tough throat to
swallow it.
After this “ the children of Israel again did evil in the sight
of the Lord,” who once more “ sold them” to Jabin, king of
CaBftan. This monarch “ mightily oppressed them,” for he had
nine hundred chariots of iron. How many soldiers he had we
are not informed. But unless they were a great army, it is
difficult to understand how they could mightily oppress a
nation, as populous as Scotland is now, and nearly as populous
a® England was in the reign of Elizabeth. Our surprise is in
creased when we subsequently read that his iron chariots, his
army, and his great captain Sisera, were all overcome by Barak
ten thousand Jews.
A woman stirred Israel up to fight. She was called Deborah,
and her husband’s name was Lapidoth. Doubtless he was merely
ft necessary appendage to his wife. She was a prophetess, and
gh® “judged Israel at that time.” She “ dwelt under the palmteee of Deborah between Ramah and Bethel in Mount Ephraim ;
and the children of Israel came up to hei’ for judgment.”* Clearly
ih® was a Sibyl,f who told fortunes and revealed the secrets of
futurity. People who practise that business now are sent to
gaol, but in ancient times they were honored and trusted, as
they still are among savages.
At her instigation Barak, the son of Abinoam, collected ten
thousand men to fight Jabin ; and Sisera gathered together all
his chariots and warriors to put down the impudent rebel.
But the Lord took part in the battle, and the Canaanites were
utterly discomfited. Every man of them was slain, except
Siiera himself, who alighted from his chariot and fled on foot
towards the tent of Jael the wife of Heber the Kenite, who was
OU terms of friendship with king Jabin. Jael came out, proffered
him shelter, gave him refreshment, covered him with a mantle,
invited him to sleep, and promised to watch for the enemy
While he slumbered. Relying on her good faith, the weary
general sank into repose, and when he was unconscious his
treacherous . hostess, violating the sacred laws of hospitality,
gmote a nail into his temples and fastened his head to the
ground. Then she went out to meet Barak, brought him into
her tent, and showed him his enemy treacherously and brutally
assassinated. A generous soldier would have revolted at the
infamous spectacle, but Barak and Deborah sang a long duet,
in which they said, “ Blessed above women shall Jael the wife of
Heber the Kenite be.”J Blessed forsooth 1 Surely a woman who
inveigles a hunted man into her tent, pretends old friendship
for him, lulls him into a false security, and murders him in his
sleep, is a fit mate for the Devil; nay, a fit spouse for Jehovah
* Judges iv., 4, 5.
f Tylor, Primitive Culture, vol. ii., pp. 215—228.
J Judges v., 24.
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BIBLE HEROES.
himself, who might have bred from her many a “ man after his
own heart.”
Coleridge has expended some fine eloquence on Deborah,
calling her “ a high-souled, heroic woman,” and the “ Hebrew
Bonduca.”* But her pious rejoicings over the treachery of Jael,
and the cold-blooded assassination of a fugitive general after the
extermination of his army, reveal a dark and ferocious temper.
Israel had rest another forty years, but they went wrong
again, and the Lord “ delivered them into the hand of Midian.”
But these Midianites had been utterly destroyed by Moses; their
cities were burnt, their males and married women were slain,
and the young virgins reserved for a darker fate.f Yet here
they are again, stronger than ever, and able to oppress the Jews
for seven years!
Gideon was “ raised up ” to deliver the Jews from this
thraldom. Visited by an angel, who wrought miracles for a
sign of his divine mission, Gideon demolished his father’s altar
dedicated to Baal, and prepared for war with Midian. But
before commencing the campaign he demanded a supreme sign
of God’s favor. Laying a fleece of wool on the ground at night,
he found it in the morning wet with dew while the ground was
dry. The following morning the ground was wet and the fleece
dry. What a pity that fleece was not preserved, like the blood
of St. Januarius in the bottle at Naples; and as the congealed
blood liquefies annually under the hand of a priest, so the fleece
might still exhibit its miraculous character. Unfortunately, it is
lost. The priests fleece their pious sheep, but they never show
them anything so wonderful as Gideon’s fleece.
Gideon’s army numbered thirty-two thousand, but the Lord
reduced it to ten thousand, and finally to three hundred, by “ a
singular process, of which it is difficult to discover the
meaning.” J Brought down to the river to drink, some of the
army lapped the water like dogs, and they were selected.
Gideon and his doggish three hundred advanced by night
against the Midianites, who were multitudinous like grass
hoppers, and their camels as the seashore sand. Each Hebrew
soldier carried a lamp in a pitcher. Nearing the enemy, they
broke the pitchers and flourished the lamps in their left hands,
while in their right hands they blew their trumpets. The
Midianites were scared and thrown into great disorder. They
fought each other by mistake and then fled, the Jews _ pursuing
them with hideous slaughter, and bringing back to Gideon the
heads of two princes as trophies of victory. Jehovah’s prize
fighters were on a level with the Zulus. Imagine the French
beating the Germans, and bringing the heads of Bismarck and
Moltke to Paris ! Even the French “infidels” would scarcely do
* Confessions of an Enquiring Spirit, Letter iii.
J Milman, p. 110.
f Numbers xxxi.
�JEPHTHAH AND CO.
s>
*
that but God’s favorites thought it a glorious part of war, and
he never taught them better.
Having killed 120,000 Midianites, Gideon captured two cities,
and punished Succoth for refusing him assistance by whipping
its elders with thorns and briars. Being invited to rule the
*
dews, he declined, but at length consented on condition of re
ceiving all the golden earrings taken from the 'slaughtered
Midianites, and other precious spoil. With a portion of this
treasure he “ made an ephod,” and put it in his own city,
Ophrah; where “ all Israel went a whoring after it,” a circum
stance which is difficult to understand, as an ephod was not an
idol, but a costly, ornamental part of the priestly raiment.
Israel had rest for another forty years. Why forty ? Because
that was a sacred number, and we are not reading history but
romance. Gideon lived to a good old age and left a numerous
family. Like all God’s favorites he was a thorough-going poly
gamist. He had l£ many wives ” and at least one “ concubine.”
They bore him seventy-one sons, and perhaps as many daughters.
Gideon was succeeded by Abimelech, who put his seventy
brothers to death; and he was followed by Tola, who ruled for
twenty-three years, and added thirty male children, and God
knows how many female children, to the population. When
Tola died the Jews indulged in a perfect carnival of idolatry.
They worshipped the gods of all their neighbors with the utmost
impartiality; which so provoked the Lord that he let the Phili
stines and the Ammonites oppress them until they repented,
when he raised them up a deliverer in Jephthah the Gileadite.
This worthy was the son of a harlot, and being driven from his
father’s house by the legitimate children he had taken to the
life of a freebooter. But he was elected chief by the elders of
Gilead when they resolved on war with Ammon. Before going
out to battle, “ the spirit of the Lord ” being upon him, he
vowed that if he returned victorious he would offer whomsoever
came out of his own house to meet him as a burnt offering. The
Ammonites were smitten with immense slaughter, and Jephthah
returned to Mizpeh, where his daugher, who was ignorant of
his vow, came out to meet him with dance and song. The pious
father was very sorry, for “ she was his only child,” but he kept
his promise to God, and after allowing the unfortunate girl two
months to bewail her virginity, he “ did with hei- according to
his vow.”f
Ordinary Christians shrink from the literal horror of this
story, and welcome every attempt of modern commentators
to explain it by the subterfuges of a later faith. But
a slight acquaintance with ancient creeds would diminish
their surprise. Human sacrifice is almost invariably found in
certain Stages of religious culture. No matter where we turn
* Judges viii, 16.
t Judges xi., 30-40.
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BIBLE HEROES.
—to Phoenicia, Carthage, Assyria, Arabia, Gaul, Rome, Greece,
India, Mexico, or Peru—this dark and bloody rite has prevailed;
*
and it has been found in recent times among various African
tribes, in the South Pacific islands, and among the Mongols and
the American Indians, f All the great Semitic gods, from Moloch
downwards, were ravenous for human victims, and there is
nothing overstrained in the terrific thirteenth chapter of Flau
bert’s Salam/mbd. Nor was the God of Israel an exception to the
rule. “ There is, indeed,” says Professor Soury, “ no doubt that
human victims were offered to Jahveh” in primitive times.J
Like Moloch, Jahveh claims his first-born. “ The first born of
thy sons shalt thou give unto me,” he says, “ foi’ all the first born
are mine.”§ And Jephthah’s fulfilment of his vow was in accord
with the text in Leviticus (xxvii., 28-29), which declares that
both beast and man devoted to the Lord shall not be redeemed,
but “ shall surely be put to death.”
Not until the twelfth century of our era, when Rabbi Kimchi
wrote on the subject, was there any attempt to dispute the
sacrifice of Jephthah’s daughter. Josephus distinctly says “ he
sacrificed his daughter as a burnt offering.” || St. Ambrose
deplores Jephthah’s cruelty; St. Jerome says that God permitted
the sacrifice to punish the imprudent father for such a rash vow;
St. Chrysostom expresses a similar opinion, which was also
adopted by Justin Martyr and Theodoret; and the great St.
Thomas, while censuring Jephthah’s rashness, acknowledges
that the faith and devotion which inclined him to make this vow
proceeded from God.TT
Rabbi Kimchi proposed to read, “ It shall be consecrated to
the Lord if it be not fit for a burnt offering,” or “ it shall be
offered for a burnt offering, if fit for it.” Simon Patrick
**
followed this line, but confessed that the stream of interpreters
ran in the contrary way. Adam Clarkeff takes the same position,
but he supports it with a priori reasons of no weight against the
text, which, as Lnther says in his marginal note, “ stands there
clear.” Our Authorised Version shows “ a distinct disposition to
tone down the meaning of the original,” says the Rev. Dr. Wright,
who alleges that the Hebrew “ whosoever goeth out from the doors
of my house,expressly refers to a person, and not to an
animal. This agrees with Oalmet, who says “ Observe, he does
not say the first thing, or the first animal, but the first person.”*
§
* H. 0. Trumbull, D.D., The Blood Covenant, pp. 105, 106, 157, 166,
174, 277.
t C. S. Wake, .Evolution of Morality, vol. i., pp. 161, 324, etc.
J Jules Soury, The Religion of Israel, p. 46.
§ Exodus xiii., 2; xxii., 29; Numbers ill., 13.
|| Book V., chap. vii.
Calmet, Jephthah. ** Commentary, 17 Go.
tf Commentary, Judges xi., 31.
British and Foreign Evangelical Review, July 1884, p. 61.
�JEPHTHAH AND 00.
87
This great Catholic commentator adds that “ I will offei’ him up
as burnt offering to the Lord, eum holocaustum offeram Domino,”
is the true meaning of the text, and they pervert it who say
she was redeemed. Exactly the same view is expressed in the
latest English commentary, edited by Canon Cook. The original
Hebrew, we are told, means whosoever, and “ these words prove
©Oaelusively that Jephthah intended his vow to apply to human
being-s not animalsthe same writer adding, still more strongly,
that the words “ preclude any other meaning than that Jephthah
contemplated a human sacrifice.” *
The words “ and she knew no man,” which end the story of
Jephthah’s vow, have induced some apologists to pretend that
his daughter was not burnt, but devoted to perpetual virginity.
The words, however, stand in our Revised Version “ and she had
not known man ” ; that is, says the Speaker’s Commentary, “ in
the mind of the writer her virginity was an aggravation of her
Orue! fate.” Besides, as Milman observes, “ it is certain that
vows of celibacy were totally unknown among the Hebrews,
and belong to a different stage of society. Another objection of
Michaelis is fatal to these views. The daughter could not be
Consecrated to the service of the high priest, for the high priest
and the ark were then at Shiloh, in the territory of Ephraim,
with whom Jephthah was at deadly war.”f Well might Bishop
Warburton exclaim, “ Solutions like these expose sacred scrip
ture to the scorn and derision of unbelievers.
There cannot be a reasonable doubt that Jephthah’s daughter
was sacrificed as a burnt offering to the Lord. But the ques
tion remains, Did the Lord accept the present and sanction the
sacrifice ? First, let it be noted that “ the Spirit of the Lord
came upon Jephthah ” § before he made his fatal vow; nor is
there any sign that the holy spirit deserted him before its com
pletion. .Next, there is absolutely no censure of Jephthah’s
Conduct in any part of the Bible. Lastly, he is mentioned by
Paul |j .as a worker of righteousness through faith. Jephthah’s
vow did not, therefore, displease the Lord, who continued to
speak through prophets and apostles for more than a thousand
years without expressing the slighest disapprobation ; and even
When he distinctly praised Jephthah through the inspired pen
Of St. Paul, [he neglected to mix any censure with his pane
gyric .
Jephthah’s vow was not without a parallel among pagan
nations. Agamemnon, who led the Greeks in the war against
Troy, immolated his daughter Iphigenia to appease the gods,
and. procure favorable winds for the fleet which was detained
*
f
t
|
The Speaker’s Commentary, Judges xi.
History of the Jews, p. 112.
Divine Legation of Moses, vol. ii., p. 698 (Tegg).
Judges xi., 29.
|| Hebrews xi., 32.
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BIBLE HEBOES.
at Aulis. According to. the Greek legend, Iphigenia’s inno
*
cence excited the compassion of Diana, on whose altar she was
to be sacrificed; and when the knife was descending into her
devoted bosom the goddess miraculously snatched her away,
and substituted a handsome goat for the maiden. This escape,
however, is probably later than the original story of her immo.
lation. Like the modern theories of the escape of Jephthah’s
daughter, it was the product of an age which had grown
ashamed of the brutalities of primitive faith, and learnt to sub
stitute animals for human victims on the altars of the gods.
Jephthah subsequently, at the head of his victorious
Gileadites, warred with the tribe of Ephraim, of whom, after
the battle, he slew forty-two thousand in cold blood. After
this he judged Israel for six years, during which time his deeds
are not recorded. Being dead and buried, he left a name illus
trious for filicide, massacre, and no virtue except animal courage.
The Book of Judges ends worthily in a tornado of bloodshed
and lust. There was a Levite who became priest to one Micah,
a fellow who robbed his mother, got wealthy, set up gods for
himself, and kept his own parson, who acquired such a reputa
tion that the Danites stole him. This Levite had a concubine
who played him false and decamped. He fetched her back, and
on his way home he stayed a night at Gibeah, which was in
habited by Benjamites. Just as in the case of Lot’s visitors, the
people came to the Levite’s host and demanded his guest. The
old man quietly refused, but offered them instead his own
daughter (a maiden) and the Levite’s concubine, whom they
might abuse as they pleased. In the end, the poor concubine
was thrust out to the lustful crowd, who treated her so brutally
that in the morning she lay dead at the door. Then the Levite
cut her up into twelve pieces, and sent one to each of the twelve
tribes, who inflicted such vengeance on the Benjamites that only
six hundred escaped alive out of twenty-six thousand^ All
the women seem to have perished, and the tribe of Benjamin
was threatened with extinction. But the fugitives soon received
the gift of four hundred virgins spared in a religious massacre
at Jabesh-gilead ; and afterwards they made a Sabine rape upon
the daughters of Shiloh while they were merrymaking.
What a horrid story of unnatural passion, brutal lust, awful
bloodshed, and weltering anarchy! No wonder Josephus, for
the honor of his nation, passes it all over in silence. God’s
chosen people, on their own showing, were an abominable crew;
while their Judges were but savage chieftains, whose only vir
tue was physical bravery, and their highest happiness to possess
a harem and procreate like barn-yard cocks.
* Lempriere’s Classical Dictionary, Iphigenia; Euripides, Iphigenia in
■lulis.
f Judges xix.-xxi.
�PROFESSOR SAMSON.
-------- ♦--------
Milton’s sublime genius has invested the story of Samson with
a fictitious grandeur. Omitting the ludicrous incidents of his
hero’s career, by taking it at the point where it became tragic,
he produced a noble drama in the Greek style. But the real
hero of Samson Agonistes is Milton himself. All those pathetic
lamentations and noble resolves flowed from the depths of his
own sorrow and courage, when in blindness and solitude he
grieved ovei' the dead Commonwealth, which his pen had de
fended and adorned, and reflected on the moral profligacy and
political baseness of the Restoration. No trace of the poem’s
tender beauty or heroic splendor can be found in the old Hebrew
story, which was the occasion but not the source of his inspiration.
Samson’s history is vulgar and absurd. “ As in those of the
Grecian Hercules and the Arabian Antar,” says Milman, “ a kind
of comic vein runs through the early adventures of the stout
hearted warrior, in which love of women, of riddles, and of slay
ing Philistines out of mere wantonness, vie for the mastery.” *
This is mild criticism _ indeed. Samson is nothing but a great
bully, alternately courting, swaggering, fighting and drinking.
He is described as a teetotaller, but sevei’al texts show that he
shared Jack PalstafPs partiality to good liquor, though he never
displayed a scintillation of his wit. His one virtue, if it may
be called so, was his miraculous strength, in which he excelled
Hercules himself. Were he alive in this age of exhibitions, he
would realise a colossal fortune by his public performances.
Professor Samson would be “ all the rage,” and his gymnastic
exploits the talk of the town.
°
Myth and tradition seem to have been clumsily blended in
Samson’s history. We have seen that Shamgar slew six hun
dred Philistines with an ox goad; and Dr. Oort surmises that
the achievements of this hero were woven into a solar myth.f
As to the solar myth there can be no doubt. The reader will
meet with abundant evidence as we proceed. Meanwhile let
two facts be noted. Samson’s name is never mentioned in the
whole of the Jewish Scriptures except in the four chapters
devoted to his career. It is also remarkable that while the
* History of the Jews, p. 113.
t Bible jor Young People, bk. ii., chap. xx.
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BIBLE HEBOES.
other Judges fight at the head of armies, Samson fights alone
like Hercules, opposing his enemies single-handed, and slaying
thousands without arms.
Samson is introduced to us in the thirteenth of Judges. His
father’s name was Manoah, but his mother’s is not revealed,
from that perverse contempt of women for which the Bible is
conspicuous. Like other Bible women who gave birth to
wonderful children, she was unfortunately barren. But Manoah
was not the only person of the male persuasion. She was visited
one day by an angel, who promised her a son. Naturally he
called when Mr. Manoah was out; and, according to Josephus,
his appearance was that of a beautiful, tall young man. His
*
intervention was very effectual, and in due course she produced
a sturdy baby, who became the champion athlete of the world.
Mrs. Manoah told her husband, and Josephus relates that her
encomiums on the visitor’s beauty raised a storm of jealousy in
the good man’s breast. But this passion was allayed by the
angel’s return. They invited him to dine with them, but he
refused, and even declined to tell them his name. Mr. Manoah
sacrificed a kid to the Lord, and the angel “ did wonderously,”
though the details of his performance are omitted. Finally,
when the flame rose from the altar he ascended with it, and
vanished from their sight. This convinced them it was an
angel, and they fell on their faces, exclaiming, “We shall surely
die, because we have seen God.” f
Now, who was this visitor ? From the Hebrew it appears
that Mrs. Manoah addressed him as “ thou God of visibility,”
and the “ angel of the Lord ” is said to be equivalent to “ the
Messiah.” According to the Rev. W. A. Scott,J it was “ the
Great Judge.” Gill § says it was “no less than the Son of
God,” and Adam Clarke || says it was “ no other than the Second
Person of the ever-blessed Trinity.” If these learned commen
tators are right, this was the first appearance of Jesus Christ on
earth, or his first appearance without the other two partners of
the firm. Yet the visitor may have been the First Person of
the ever-blessed Trinity, old Jahveh himself, in the guise of a
“ masher ” ; for he who appeared to Moses in a burning bush,
showed him on another occasion his holy posteriors, and
habitually conversed with him face to face, might very well call
on the Manoahs, who belonged to the same chosen stock.
Mrs. Manoah was ordered by this visitor—whether an angel,
Jesus Christ, God Almighty, or even the Holy Ghost—not to eat
grapes, nor to drink wine or anything “ short,” for the child was
to be a Nazarite from the womb. No razor was to “ come on
his head,” though nothing was said about scissors. And when*
§
* Bk. v., chap. viii.
f Judges xiii., 22.
t The Great Judge; or the Story of Samson (San Francisco. 1858 )
§ Bible Exposition, p. 57.
[] Commentary, Ju. xiii., 3.
�PROFESSOR SAMSON.
91
the child grew up he was to redeem Israel from the Philistines,
by whom they were then oppressed.
One part of this prediction is very suggestive. How could
the boy be a Nazarite, when that sect certainly did not
exist until many centuries after the date of the Judges ? The
Nazarites were teetotallers apd strict ascetics, which Samson
was not. Why, then, is he called a Nazarite? Because he had
long flowing hair, like all the members of that sect, who
eschewed the razor and all its works as affronting the decrees
of God, and gave unlimited hospitality to as many of his crea
tures as chose to nestle in their hirsute adornments. But
Samson’s luxuriant curls have really a different reason. They
amounted to seven, which was a sacred number with the Jews.
*
They were his glory, like the shining locks of Apollo; and his
strength lay in them, as is the case with all the solar gods; for
that abundant hair represents the sun’s rays, which are resplen
dent in summer, shorn in the winter, and renewed in the spring.
It is possible, however, as Gerald Massey argues, that the num
ber seven in this, case is derived from the lunar myth; seven
being the indivisible quarter of one moon.f
The very name of this miraculous child betrays his mytholo
gical character. Samson, or Shimson, means sun-like, according
to Gesenius;^ their sun, according to St. Jerome; little sun,
according to Adam Clarke ;§ and his sun, according to Calmet.||
Dag, or fish, gave Dagon, or fish-god; and from Shemesh, the
sun, was derived Shemesh-sun, or sun-god. We find the first
syllable retained in many biblical names, such as Shem, Shemuel
(Samuel), Shemida. Shemiramoth, and Shemezar. The Phoeni
cian sun-god, Baal, who. was notoriously worshipped by the
recreant Jews, leaves similar traces in the names of the sons of
Saul and David—Eshbaal, Meribaal, and Baalyadah, as preserved
in Chronicles, but changed by the Kabbi compilers of Samuel
into Ishbosheth, Mephibosheth, and Elyadah. There were also
two places in Palestine, one in Dan and the other in Naphthali,
called Beth.-shemesh, or Ir-shemesh; that is, “ house of the
sun ” or “ city of the sun.”
Dr. Oort well remarks of Samson’s adventures that “ a solar
myth doubtless lies at the bottom of them, as we may see by the
very name of the hero, which signifies sun-god. In some of the
features of the story, the original meaning may still be traced
quite clearly.’W The same view is admirably developed and
supported by Professor Steinthal, in his appendix to Goldziher’s
Valuable Mythology of the Hebrews
**
Gerald Massey, however,
contends with some reason, that the legend of Sam son is not
f Gerald Massey, Luniolatry, pp., 11, 12.
I Hebrew Lexicon.
§ Commentary, Ju. xiii, 24.
|| B. Diet., Samson.
IT Vol. II., p. 226.
** English Translation (Longmans, 1877).
* Judges xvi., 19.
. aA-'
A. r
�92
BIBLE HEROES.
entirely solar, but is “ the Hebrew version,of the Egyptian myth
of Khunsu, the luni-solar hero, who slays the giants—or Phili
stines—and overcomes the powers ofMpJfcpess.”* Samson’s
thirty companions, and their thirty changes of raiment, are
“the thirty days to the month in th^e ''soli4unar reckoning.”
These sun-gods—with or without njbcfc myths—are found
among all peoples who have advanced beyond fetishism. The
mighty orb was an object of wonder and praise, and was personi
fied and worshipped. Light, heat, and life sprang from the be
nignant god of day, and all their fluctuations were reflected in
his career. Sunrise and sunset, the war of light and cloud, the
fecund power of spring, the consuming heat of summer, and the
blighting approach of winter, were all symbolised in his birth,
battles, triumphs, defeat, death, and resurrection.
How Samson’s youth was spent we are not told. The Bible
says he “grew,” but most children do that. We are also
informed that “ the Lord blessed him,” but not what the blessing
was worth. We picture him as a boisterous lad, fond of exer
cising his raw strength; pulling cats’ tails, robbing orchards,
fighting his playmates, and “ cheeking ” his elders. While still
young he entered the camp of Dan, and there “ the spirit of the
Lord began to move him at times.” One movement of the spirit
sent him after a Philistine young woman at Timnath. Returning
home in hot haste, he told his parents to go down and secure her
for his wife. They desired him to choose a wife from his own
tribe, but he cut them short. “ She just suits me,” said he, “ so
fetch her at once.” This was rather undutiful, but “ it was of
the Lord.” So the old people gave in and set out for Timnath,
with the young fellow on their track.
As Samson approached Timnath, “ a young lion roared against
him ” most uncivilly, and our hero made a first display of his
prowess by slaying the offensive brute with “ nothing in his
hand,” just as Hercules slew the Nemean lion without a weapon.
Samson kept his exploit secret and went on to his young woman.
Shortly after, on passing the spot again, he found a swarm of
bees in the lion’s carcase; and taking a couple of handfuls, he
ate some himself, and gave the rest to Mr. and Mrs. Manoah.
This worthy couple had made arrangements for the wedding,
and thirty young men came to share the festivities. By way of
killing the time, Samson propounded a riddle. If they solved
it in seven days, he was to give them thirty sheets and thirty
changes of raiment; if not, they were to give him the same
articles. The riddle was, “ Out of the eater came forth meat,
and out of the strong came forth sweetness.” After trying six
days to solve it, but in vain, they threatened to murder Mrs.
Samson and all her family unless she wormed the answer out of
her husband. She coaxed him, wept like a thunder-shower, and
Luniolatry, p. 10.
�PROFESSOR SAMSON.
93
“ lay sop® Upon him,” until he told her the answer, which she
conveyed to his friends, who won the bet. Samson delicately
taunted them with having “ ploughed with his heifer,” and then
absconded, leaving his wife for his bosom friend; and “ the Spirit
Of the Lord,” coming upon him again, he went to Ashkelon and
slew thirty men. Josephus says “ he divorced this wife; and
the girl despised his anger, and was married to his companion.”*
Samson’s riddle remains a riddle still, except to the mythologistg. Bees do not build in dead flesh, for their wax and honey
would be spoiled by putrefaction. Virgil, indeed, describes them
as breeding in the carcase of an ox ;f but he places the event in
Egypt, the motherland of superstition. The whole story is
mythological. Hercules slew his lion ; and the sun-god Sandon,
of the Assyrians and Lydians, was likewise a lion killer. The
lion is also found as the animal of Apollo on the Lycian monu
ments as well as at Patara. “ Hence it becomes clear,” says
Steinthal, “ that the lion was accepted by the Semitic nations as
a symbol of the summer heat. . . . ‘ Samson, Hercules, or San
don, kills the lion,’ means therefore, ‘He is the beneficent saving
power that protects the earth against the burning heat of
Summer.’ Samson is the kind Aristeeos who delivers the island
of Keos from the lion, the protector of bees and honey, which
is most abundant when the sun is in the lion.”J This is mostly
true, but it is pointed out by Gerald Massey that, on this theory,
Samson “ in killing the lion would be only slaying the reflection
of himself.” Regarded, however, as a luni-solar-god, Samson is
relieved from this suicide. Mithraic monuments depict the lion
with a bee in its mouth. Sekhet, the she-lion, was an Egyptian
figure of fire; her name was also the name for the bee, which
was the royal symbol of Lower Egypt; and the bee denotes the
sweetness in the lion. When her heat, at the time of the annual
inundation, became often fatal, the luni-solar hero, as Khunsu,
Hercules, or Samson, was the conqueror in the cool of the night.
Further, the full moon rose when the sun was in the sign of the
lion, and “ As the moon was the bringer of the waters, and the
breath of life in the coolness and the dews of night, the lunar
hero was not only credited with drawing the sting of Sekhet;
but with extracting honey from the dead lion.Ӥ
Having satiated his anger, Samson remembered the young
woman at Timnath, and at harvest time he paid her a visit.
Like the rude lover in Voltaire’s L'Ingenu, he walked towards
her bedroom, hut her father barred his way. “ No, no,” said
th® old man, “ that game won’t do now, Samson; the girl’s
another man’s wife, so hands off; but here’s her sister, a fine
handsome girl, and you can have her if you like.” Samson de* Book V., chap. ix.
J Goldziher, p. 396.
f Georgies, iv.
§ Massey, p. 11.
�94
BIBLE HEI.OES.
dined the offer, and bolted in a passion. Catching three hun
dred foxes, he tied them in pairs by their tails, stuck firebrands
between their tender buttocks, and sent them into the standing
corn of the Philistines. Terrible destruction ensued, and the
e iraged Philistines burnt the young woman of Timnath and her
father to death.
This was a clumsy stratagem, and rough on the foxes, to say
nothing of the Philistines. Samson might have kindled a con
flagration more easily had the Lord provided him with a few
gallons of paraffin oil, a patent sprinkler, and a box of fusees.
The word rendered “ foxes ” is also rendered “jackals.”* Dr.
Oort considers that “ in the reddish-brown jackals, with torches
between their tails, .we may easily recognise the lurid thunder
cloud, from the projecting points of which the lightning-flashes
seem to dart.”"f' Gerald Massey says the jackal was an Egyptian
type of darkness ; and Samson’s chastisement of the Philistines
is similar to the struggle between Horus and the jackal-headed
Sut-Anap.J Prom a natural point of view, Samson’s feat is in
credibly absurd. He might have burnt down the Philistines’
corn in less time than it takes to catch one fox or jackal; yet, on
the other hand, had he acted sensibly he would not have been
Samson.
After smiting the Philistines hip and thigh, Samson retreated
to the rocky fastness of Etam, though it is strange that such an
irresistible warrior should hide himself from his enemies. His
own people sided with the Philistines, and he grimly allowed
them to bind him with new ropes and deliver him to the foe.
But as they shouted he broke his bonds like tinder, and attacked
them with the jawbone of a jackass (probably Balaam’s) that
happened to be lying about. When he stopped slashing a
thousand corpses were piled in heaps. Surely the Philistines
were jackasses _ too. They must have stood and waited their
turns. Why did they not skedaddle, and leave him to cut slices
in the air ?
According to Herodotus,§ Hercules had a similar adventure
in Egypt, where the inhabitants tried to offer him as a sacrifice
to Jupiter. Fora while he submitted quietly, but when they
led him to the altar he put forth his strength and slew them all.
. Samson was dreadfully thirsty after completing his tally of
victims, and being ready to die, he called on the Lord, who
clave a hollow in the jawbone and brought forth water. One
commentator suggests that the socket of a tooth became a well.
What a monstrous ass! The Revised Version puts the jawbone
in the margin, and says “ God clave the hollow place that is in
Lehi.” Calmet and others argue that the jawbone was the name*
§
* Revised Version, margin.
f Vol. II., p. 233.
§ Book II., chap. xlv.
J P. 13.
�PROFESSOR SAMSON.
95
of a hill or pass, and Maktesh, or jaw-tooth, the name of a sharp
rock. But in any case there was a miracle, and why stickle for
niceties in the presence of Omnipotence ?
Hercules was favored with a similar miracle. After slaying
the dragon of the Hesperides, he was in danger of perishing
from thirst in the scorching deserts of Libya, but the gods
caused a fountain to spring from a rock which he struck with
his foot. Dr. Oort considers both the jawbone and the spring
as mythical, the former being the jagged thunder-cloud, from
which the lightning shoots, while the latter is the rain that
pours out of it as the sun-god triumphs.
*
This tremendous massacre of Philistines appears to have
gained Samson the Judgeship, which he held for twenty years;
but the dignity of this position did not restrain his fondness for
escapades. Going to Gaza once for a spree, he stayed at a
brothel with “ an harlot,”f and the Gazites laid in wait for him,
intending to kill him in the morning. But at midnight Samson
went out for a stretch, probably bilking his fancy woman; and
lugging off the city-gates on his shoulder, he carried them to the
top of a hill, and perhaps took salvage for bringing them down
again.
His next amour, for like Hercules he had many, was with
Delilah. She dwelt in Nachal Sorek. or the Vine Valley. This
may be a mythical trait, representing the sun-god’s zealous
wooing of the vine ; or it may imply that Samson was anything
but a Nazarite. Delilah’s name, according to Ewald,| means
Auiiress; but the generally accepted meaning is languid, delicate,
triste. Gerald Massey compares her with the Egyptian Ishtar,
the female moon, who as the year wanes is accused of robbing
the sun-god, Izdubar, of his virility.§
°
As Omphale befooled Hercules, so Delilah befooled Samson.
Milton treats her as his wife; but she was evidently a profes
sional beauty; indeed, Calmet plainly calls her “ a prostitute.”
Hex- countrymen, the Philistines, offered her a heavy bribe to
reveal the secret of Samson’s strength. Thrice he tricked her,
but the fourth time she succeeded. Finding that his strength
lay in his hair (as the sun’s power is in his beams), she 'made
him “ sleep upon her knees,” and called in a barber, who shaved
his head as bald as a plate. The traitress then delivered him
to the Philistines, who bound him with brass fetters, put out his
eyes, and made him grind corn in their prison house.j|
But Samson’s turn was coming. His death was to be more
marvellous than his life. He was destined to make positively
* Vol. II., p. 233.
f Ju. xvi , 1.
J History of Israel, vol. ii., p. 407.
§ P. 13.
|| Calmet says that “ some commentators ” find an “ obscene sense ” in
Samson’s occupation there; but we may be excused from fathoming the
Bible cloaca too deeply.
�96
BIBLE HEROES.
his last appearance in the fifth act of the play, to eclipse all his
previous efforts, and literally bring down the house.
The Philistine lords fixed a public holiday to celebrate Sam
son’s capture, and to honor their god Dagon for delivering him
into their hands. When their hearts were merry they called for
Samson to make them sport like a circus-clown. They should
have been more careful, for his hair had begun to grow again,
and his pate “ showed like a stubble land at harvest home.”
Why did they not give him a clean shave every morning ?
Samson leaned against the two middle pillars supporting the
temple-roof, on which three thousand men and women were
assembled, in addition to those inside the edifice. Suddenly he
clasped the pillars, prayed for divine assistance, bowed himself
with all his might, and brought down the whole structure in
shapeless ruin. Thus Professor Samson avenged himself, and
perished under a mountain of his enemies.
St. Augustine, St. Bernard, and others, have discussed whether
Samson was justified in killing himself; but they exculpate him
on the ground that he was moved by the Holy Ghost. Mytho
logically, .his suicide is easily understood. “ The sun-god,” says
Steinthal,” “ in fighting against the summer heat is fighting
against himself; if he kills it, he kills himself.”* Hercules also
destroyed himself, but arose out of the flames to Olympus. The
Phoenicians, Assyrians and Lydians also attributed suicide to
their sun-gods; yet these did not actually die, but renewed
themselves like the phoenix.
According to Josephus, Samson was too easily seduced by
wicked women, though “ in all other respects he was of extra
ordinary virtue.”! Very extraordinary ! Show us a single wise
word or good deed he ever said or performed ? Compared
with the heroic age of Greece, that of the Jews was barren and
brutal. Adam Clarke is obliged to admit that “ if we regard
what is called the choice of Hercules, his preference of virtue
to pleasure, we shall find that the heathen is, morally speaking,
vastly superior.”^ Yet St. Paul classes Samson with the heroes
of faith,§ and Adam Clarke says he is “ supposed to be a most
illustrious type ” of Jesus Christ. Surely this is a libel on the
Prophet ofNazareth, who bore little resemblance to the mythical
Jew, who drank, spreed, raked, fought, and murdereu wholesale.
Our hero is rather an “ illustrious type ” of God the Father,
between whom and himself there was a striking likeness. Old
Jahveh is the head of the house, but Professor Samson is a
cadet of the family and shares the blood.
* Goldziher, p. 397.
I Commentary, Ju. xvi.
f Bk. V., chap. viii.
§ Hebrews xi., 32.
�
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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
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Title
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Bible heroes
Description
An account of the resource
Edition: First series
Place of publication: London
Collation: 200 p. ; 19 cm.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references. Incomplete copy - lacks p.97-200. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
Creator
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Foote, G. W. (George William) [1850-1915]
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Progressive Publishing Company
Date
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1887
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RA423
N226
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Bible
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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 (Bible heroes), 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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Text
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English
Bible
NSS
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Architecture and Place
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Humanist Library and Archives
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2016
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An account of the resource
A collection of digitised items from the Humanist Library and Archives telling the story of buildings and spaces occupied by the Conway Hall Ethical Society (formerly the South Place Ethical Society). Also includes several born digital items.
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Architecture
Conway Hall (London, England)
South Place Chapel, Finsbury
Mansford, Frederick Herbert (1871-1946)
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English
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Counterpart lease of 49 Theobalds Road, 16 December 1887
Description
An account of the resource
<p>Counterpart lease of 49 Theobalds Road, (16 December 1887).</p>
<ul><li>(1) Metropolitan Board of Works</li>
<li>(2) George Christopher Trout Bartley of St Margarets House, Victoria St, Westminster, Middx, esq, MP</li>
</ul><p>In consideration of expense of (2) in erecting buildings etc, (1)-(2) piece of ground on south side of Theobalds Rd, parish of St George the Martyr, Middx. (dimensions and abutments given, including east on 47 Theobalds Rd about to be leased to (2) and west on premises leased to Alfred Lanham) with house and shop erected thereon by (2).</p>
<p>Term: 80 years from 29 Sept 1882</p>
<p>Rent: first two years a peppercorn; residue £22 pa</p>
<p>Block plan of premises.</p>
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Unknown
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1887
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Leases
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SPES/3/1/2/12/1
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image/jpeg
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Text
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<p>Licenced for digitisation by the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/guidance/copyright-orphan-works" target="_blank">Intellectual Property Office</a> under Orphan Works Licence <a href="https://www.orphanworkslicensing.service.gov.uk/view-register/details?owlsNumber=OWLS000075-27" target="_blank">OWLS000075-27</a>.</p>
Bartley, George Christopher Trout (1842-1910)
Theobalds Road, Holborn
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PDF Text
Text
Desirable Mansions:
A
TRACT
Reprinted, with a few alterations, from “Progress, June, 1883.
By
EDWARD CARPENTER.
THIRD EDITION
PRICE
ONE
PENNY.
Published by
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1887.
�BY
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�DESIRABLE MANSIONS
FTER all, why should we rail against the rich ? I
think if anything they should be pitied. In nine
cases out of ten it is not a man’s fault.
He is
born in the lap of luxury, he grows up surrounded
by absurd and impossible ideas about life, the innumerable
chains of habit and circumstance tighten upon him, and when
the time comes that he would escape, he finds he cannot. He
is condemned to flop up and down in his cage for the re
mainder of his days—a spectacle of boredom, and a warning
to gods and men.
I go into the houses of the rich. In the drawing-room I
see chill weary faces, peaked features of ill-health ; down
stairs and in the kitchen I meet with rosy smiles, kissable
cheeks, and hear sounds of song and laughter. What is this ?
Is it possible that the real human beings live with Jeames
below-stairs!
Often as I pass and see in suburb or country some “ desir
able mansion ” rising from the ground, I think : That man is
building a prison for himself. So it is—a prison. I would
rather spend a calendar month in Clerkenwell or Holloway
than I would in that desirable mansion. A young lady that
I knew, and who lived in such a mansion, used with her sisters
to teach a class of factory girls. Every now and again one
of the girls would say, “ Eh, Miss, how I would like to be a
grand lady like you ! ” Then she would answer, “ Yes, but
you know you wouldn’t be able to do everthing you liked ; for
instance, you wouldn’t be allowed to go out walking when
�4
you liked.” “ Eh, dear I ” they would say to one another,
“ she is not allowed to go out walking when she likes—she is
not allowed to go out walking when she likes ! ”
Certainly you are not allowed to go out walking when you
like. Reader, did you ever spend a day within those desirable
walls ? I have, many. I wake up in the morning. It is fine
and bright. I think to myself: I will have a pleasant stroll
before breakfast. Yes—man proposes. It is all very well to
meditate a morning walk, but where O where are my clothes ?
I cannot very well go out without them. What can have be
come of them ? Suddenly it occurs to me: James, honest
soul, has taken them away to brush. Good. I wait. Nothing
happens. I ring the bell. James appears. “ My clothes,
James.” “Yes, sir.” Again I wait—an intolerable time.
At last the familiar jacket and trousers appear. Good. Now
*
I can go out. Not so fast—where are your boots ? Boots,
good gracious, I had forgotten them. Heaven knows where
they are—I don’t. Probably fifty yards away. I creep
downstairs. All is quiet. The servants are evidently at
breakfast. It would be madness to hope to get boots brushed
at such a moment. I would like to clean them myself. In
fact I am fond of cleaning my own boots: the exercise is
pleasant, and besides it is just such a little bit of menial
work as I would rather do for myself than have others
do for me; but, as I said before, one cannot do what
one likes. In the first place, in this house where one is
fifty yards away from everything one wants I have not
the faintest idea where my boots are, or the means and instru
ments of blacking them ; in the second place an even more
fatal objection is that if I did succeed in committing this deed
of darkness the consequent uproar in the house would be per
fectly indescribable. The outrage on propriety would not
only shock the feelings of the world below-stairs, but it would
put to confusion the master of the house, upset the whole
domestic machinery, create unpleasant qualms in the minds
* A friend tells me that once, to revenge himself for this sort of trifling,
he concealed his nether garment under the mattrass and then, in the
morning, slyly watched the footman as he vainly sought round the room
for it. The consequence however was that he fell very much in the esti
mation of the latter, who doubtless thought that, like Matthew, Mark,
Luke, and John, his master’s visitor •' had gone to bed with his breeches
on.”
�5
of the other guests, and possibly make me feel that I had
better not have lived. Accordingly, I abandon the idea of my
pleasant stroll. It is not worth such a sacrifice. The birds
are singing outside, the flowers are gay in the morning sun —
but it must not be. Within, in the sitting-rooms, chaos reigns.
Chairs and tables are piled in cheerful confusion upon one
another, carpets are partially strewn with tea-leaves. To
read a book or write an aimless letter to some one (the usual
resource of people in desirable mansions) is clearly impossible;
to do anything in the way of house-work is forbidden—it
being well understood in such places that one may do any
thing except what is useful.
There remains nothing but to
beat a retreat to my chamber again—put my hands in my
pockets and whistle at the open window.
“ Who was that I heard whistling so early this morning ? ”
says my kindly old host at breakfast. “ O, it was you, was
it ? I expect now you’re an early riser ; get up at seven, take
a walk before breakfast; that sort of thing—eh ? ” “Yes, when
I can,” I reply with ambiguous intent. “ Well, I call that
wonderful,” says an elderly matron—not likely, as far as ap
pearances go, to be accused of a similar practice—“ such
energy, you know.” “ What a strong constitution you must
have to be able to stand it! ” remarks a charming young lady
on whom it has not yet dawned that the vast majority of
human kind have their breakfast before half-past nine.
This is not a good beginning to the day ; but the rest is like
unto it. I find that there are certain things to be done—a
certain code of things that you may do, a certain way of doing
them, a certain way of putting your knife and fork on your
plate. When you come down to dinner in the evening you
must put on what the Yankees call a claw-hammer coat. It
is not certain, (and that is just the grisly part of it) what
would happen if you did not do this. In some societies
evidently such a casualty has never been contemplated. I
have heard people seriously discussing—in cases where the
required article was missing—what could be done, where one
might be borrowed, &c.—but clearly it did not occur to them
that anyone could dine in his natural clothes. Sometimes,
when in a fashionable church, I have wondered whether
it would be possible to worship God in a flannel shirt—
but I suppose that to go out to a dinner party in such a
�6
costume would be even more unthinkable. As I said
before, you are in prison. Submit to the prison rules,
and it is all right—attempt to go beyond them, and you
are visited with condign punishment. The rules have
no sense, but that does not matter (possibly some ot
them had sense once, but it must have been a very long time
ago); the people are good people, no better nor worse in
themselves than the real workers, the real hands and hearts
of the world; but they are condemned to banishment from
the world, condemned into the prison houses of futility. The
stream of human life goes past them as they gaze wearily
upon it through their plate-glass windows; the great Mother’s
breasts of our common Humanity, with all its toils and suf
ferings and mighty joys, are withheld from them. Dimly al
last I think I understand why it is their faces are so chill and
sad, their unnourished lives so unhealthy and over-sensitive.
Truly, if I could pity anyone, I would them.
By the side of the road there stands a little girl, crying ;
she has lost her way. It is very cold, and she looks pinched
and starved. “ Come in, my little girl, and sit by my cottage
fire, and you’ll soon get warm; and I’ll see if I can't find you
a bit of something to eat before you go on . . . Eh 1 dear !
how stupid I am—I quite forgot. I am sorry 1 can’t ask
you in, but I am living in a desirable mansion now—and
though we are very sorry for you, yet you see we could hardly
have you into our house, for your dirty little boots would
make a dreadful mess of our carpets, and we should have to
dust the chairs after you had sat upon them, and you see Mrs.
Vavasour might happen to come in, and she would think it
so very odd ; and I know cook can’t bear beggars, and, O
dear ! I’m so sorry for you—and here’s a penny, and I hope
you’ll get home safely.”
The stream of human life goes past. When a rich man
builds himself a prison, he puts up all these fences to shut
the world out—to shut himself in. If he can he builds far back
from the high road. In the front of his house he has a bound
less polite lawn, with polite flower beds, afar from vulgarpeople
and animals. Rows of polite servants attend upon him; and there
within of inanity and politeness he dies. Of what human
life really consists in he has little idea. He has not the
faintest notion of what is necessary for human life or happi
�7
ness. Sometimes with an indistinct vision of accumulated
evil, he says: “ Poor So-and-so, he has only ^200 a year to
keep his wife and family on ! ” No wonder his own daughters
dedicate themselves to “ good works.” They go out with the
curate and visit at neighbouring cottages. Their visits have
little appreciable effect on the people, but are a great benefit
to themselves and the curate. They observe, for the first
time, how life is carried on ; they see the operations of scrub
bing and cooking (removed in their own houses afar from
mortal polite eye) ; perhaps they behold a mother actually
suckling her own babe, and learn that such things are pos
sible ; finally, they “ wonder ” how “ those .people ” live, and
to them their wonder (like the fear of God) is the beginning of
wisdom. The lord of the mansion sits on the magisterial
bench or strides about his fields, and lumps together all who
are not in a similar position to himself as the “ lower
classes.” After dinner in the evening, if the conversation
turns on politics, he and his compeers discuss the importance
of keeping the said lower classes in order, or the best method
of “ raising ” them out of the ignorance and disorder in which
they are supposed to wallow. And during the conversation
it will be noticed that it is by everyone tacitly allowed and
understood, and is, in fact, the very foundation of the whole
argument, that the speakers themselves belong to an educated
class, while the mass of the people are uneducated. Yet this
is exactly the reverse of the truth—for they themselves
belong to an ill-educated class, and the mass of the people
are, by the very nature of the case, the better educated of
the two.
In fact, the education of the one set of people (and it is a
great pity that it should be so) consists almost entirely in the
study of books. That is very useful in its way, and if pro
perly balanced with other things; but it is hardly necessary
to point out that books only deal with phantoms and shadows
of reality. The education of the world at large, and the real
education, lies, and must always lie, in dealing with the
things themselves. To put it shortly (as it has been put
before), one man learns to spell a “ spade,” to write it, to
rhyme it, to translate it into French and Latin—possibly,
like Wordsworth, to address a sonnet to it—the other man
learns to use it. Is there any comparison between the two ?
�8
Now is it not curious that those good people sitting round
their dinner table in the desirable mansion, or listening to a
little music in the drawing-room, should actually be so
ignorant of the world, and what goes on in it, as to think, and
honestly believe, that they are, par excellence, the educated
people in it ? * Does it ever occur to them, I often think, to
inquire who made all the elegant and costly objects with
which they are surrounded ? Does it ever occur to them, as
they tacitly assume the inferiority of the working classes, to
think of the table itself across which they speak—how beauti
fully fitted, veneered, polished ; the cloth which lies upon it,
and the weaving of it; the chairs and other furniture, so light
and yet so strong, each requiring the skill of years to make ;
the silver, the glass, the steel, the tempering, hardening,
grinding, fitting, riveting ; the lace and damask curtains, the
wonderful machinery, the care, the delicate touch, adroit
manipulation ? the piano 1 the very house itself in which they
spend their days ! Is there one, I say, who we will not say
could make even the smallest part, but who even has the
faintest idea how one of these things is.made, where it is
made, who makes it ? Not one. All the care, the loving
thought, the artistic design, the conscientious workmanship
that have been expended, and are daily expended, on these
things and the like of them—go past them unrecognised,
unacknowledged. The great hymn of human labour over the
earth is to them an idle song. There, in the midst of all
these beautiful products of toil and ingenuity, possessing but
not enjoying, futile they sit, and fancy themselves educated—
fit to rule. I have heard of a fly that sat stinging upon the
hindquarters of a horse, and fancied that without it the cart
would not go. Fancied so, I say, until the great beast
whisked its tail, and after that it fancied nothing more.
Doi put these things in a strong light? May be, I do; but I put
them faithfully as I have seen them, and as I see them daily.
* “ . . . . People who roll about in their fine equipages scarcely
knowing what to do with themselves or what ails them, and some of whom
occasionally run to such places as ours to have their carriage linings or
cushions altered, or to know if they *can be altered as they don't feel quite
1
comfortable.' I often think ‘ God help them,’ for no one else can. . .
I insert this extract just to show how these things are regarded from
the side which does not usually find expression. It is from a letter written
by an elderly and gentle-hearted man, employed in a carriage factory.
�9
I do not suppose that riches are an evil in themselves. I do
not suppose that anything is an evil in itself. I know that
even in the midst of all these shackles and impediments,
that wonderfulest of things, the human soul, may work out
its own salvation ; and well I know that there are no condi
tions or circumstances of human life, nor any profession from
a king to a prostitute, that may not become to it the gateway of
freedom and immortality. But I daily see people setting this
standard of well-to-do respectability before them, daily more
and more hastening forth in quest of desirable mansions to
dwell in ; and I cannot but wonder whether they realise what
it is they seek ; I cannot lend my voice to swell the chorus
of encouragement. Here are the clean facts. Choose for
yourselves. That is all.
Respectability ! Heavy-browed and hunch-backed word '
Once innocent and light-hearted as any other word, why now
in thy middle age art thou become so gloomy and saturnine ?
Is it that thou art responsible for the murder of the innocents ?
Respectability! Vision of clean hands and blameless dress—
why dost thou now appear in the form of a ghoul before me ?
I confess that the sight of a dirty hand is dear to me. It
warms my heart with all manner of good hopes and promises.
Often and long have I thought about this matter, and in all
good faith I must say that I fail to see how hands always
clean are compatible with honesty. This is no play upon
words. I fail to see how in the long run, any man that
takes his share in the work of the world can keep his hands
in this desirable state.
How ? The answer is obvious enough—leave others to do
the dirty work. Good ! Let it be so ; let it be granted that
others shall do the scrubbing and baking, the digging, the
fishing, the breaking of horses, the carpentering, build
ing, smithing, and the myriad other jobs that have to be
done, and you at the pinnacle of all this pyramid of work,
above all, keep your hands clean. We shouting to you from
below, exhort you—At all costs, keep your hands cle‘an !
Think how important it is, while the great ships have to be
got into harbour, that your nails should be blameless ! Think
if by any accident you were to do a real good piece of work,
and get your hands thoroughly grimed over it, unwashable
for a week, what confusion would ensue to yourself and
�IO
friends ! Think O think of your clients, or of the next
dinner party, and earnestly and prayerfully resolve that
such a fall may never be yours. Seek, we pray you, some
secure work—some legal, clerical, official, capitalist, or land
owning business, safe from the dread stain of dirty hands,
whatever other dirt it may bring with it—some thoroughly
gentlemanly profession, marking you clearly off from the
vulgar and general masses, and the blessing of heaven
go with you !
Shut yourself off from the great stream of human life,
from the great sources of physical and moral health ; ignore
the common labour by which you live, show clearly your
contempt for it, your dislike of it, and then ask others to do
it for you ; turn aside from nature, divorce yourself from the
living breathing heart of the nation; and then you will have
done, what the governing classes of England to-day have
done, have given full directions to your own heart and brain
how to shrivel and starve and die.
Man is made to work with his hands. This is a fact which
cannot be got over. From this central fact he cannot travel
far. I don’t care whether it is an individual or a class, the
life which is far removed from this becomes corrupt, shrivelled,
and diseased. You may explain it how you like, but it is so.
Administrative work has to be done in a nation as well as
productive work ; but it must be done by men accustomed to
manual labour, who have the healthy decision and primitive
authentic judgment which comes of that, else it cannot be
done well. In the new form of society which is slowly
advancing upon us, this will be felt more than now. The
higher the position of trust a man occupies the more will it
be thought important that, at some period of his life, he
should have been thoroughly inured to manual work ; this
not only on account of the physical and moral robustness
implied by it, but equally because it will be seen to be im
possible for any one, without this experience of what is the
very flesh and blood of national life, to promote the good
health of the nation, or to understand the conditions under
which the people live whom he has to serve.
But to return to the sorrows of the well-to-do—and care
that sits on the crupper of wealth.
This is a world-old and
well-worn subject. Yet, possibly, some of its truisms may
�II
bear repeating. A clergyman, preaching once on the trials
of life, turned first to his rich friends and bade them call to
mind, one by one, the sorrows and sufferings of the poor;
then, turning to his “ poorer brethren,” he exhorted them
also not to forget that the rich man had his afflictions—with
which they should sympathise—amongst which afflictions,
growing chiefly out of their much money, he reckoned “ last,
but not least, the difficulty of finding for it an investment
which should be profitable and also secure 1 ” It has been
generally supposed that the poorer brethren failed to sym
pathise with this form of suffering.
But it is a very real one. What cares, what anxieties,
what yellow and blue fits, what sleepless nights, dance at
tendance on the worshiper in the great Temple of Stocks !
The capricious deity that dwells there has to be appeased by
ceaseless offerings. Usury ! crookfaced idol, loathed, yet
grovelled to by half the world, whose name is an abomination
to speak openly, yet whose secret rites are practised by
thousands who revile thy name, what spell of gloom and
bilious misery dost thou cast over thy worshipers! Is it
possible that the ancient curse has not yet lost its effect:
that to acquire interest on money and to acquire interest in
life are not the same thing ; that they are positively not com
patible with each other; that to fly from one’s just share of
labour in the world, in order to live upon the hard-earned
profits of others, is not, and cannot come to good ? Is it
possible, I say, reader, that there is a moral law in the world
facing us quite calmly in every transaction of our lives by
which it must be so—by which cowardice and sham cannot
breed anything else for us but gloom and bilious misery ? In
this age which rushes to stocks—to debenture, preference,
consolidated, and ordinary stocks, to shares, bonds, coupons,
dividends—-not even refusing scrip when it can get it—does
it ever occur to us to consider what it all means ?—to con
sider that all the money so gained is taken from some one
else ; that what we have not earned cannot possibly be ours,
except by gift, or (shall I say it ?) theft ? How can it then
come with a blessing ? How can we not but think of the
railway operatives, the porters, managers, clerks, superin
tendents, drivers, stokers, platelayers, carriage - washers,
navvies, out of whose just earnings (and from no other
�12
source) our dividends are taken ? ■ Let alone honesty—what,
surely, does our pride say to this ? Is it possible that this
frantic dividend-dance of the present day is like a dance of
dancers dancing without any music—an aimless incoherent
impossible dance, weltering down at last to idiocy and
oblivion ?
Curious, is it not, that this subject (of dividends) is never
mentioned before said wage-receiving classes ? I have often
noticed that. When James enters the room, or Jeffery comes
to look at the gas-fittings, the babble of stocks dies faintly
away, as if ashamed of itself? and while a man will, without
reserve, allude to his professional salary, he is generally as
secret concerning his share-gotten gains as ladies are said to
be about their age.
But, as I said at first, these things are not generally a
man’s fault. They are the product of the circumstances in
which he is born. From his childhood he is trained osten
sibly in the fear of God, but really in the fear of money. The
*
whole tenor of the conversation which he hears round him,
and his early teaching, tend to impress upon him the awful
dangers of not having enough. Strange that it never occurs
to parents of this class to teach their children how little they
can live upon, and be happy (but perhaps they do not know).
Hence, the child of the poor man—even in these adverse
times—grows up with some independence of mind, for he
knows that if at any time he can obtain £50 or ^100
a year by the work of his hands, he will be able to bring
up a little family; while the son of a rich man in the
midst of a family income of fifty times ^50, learns to tremble
slavishly at the prospect of the future ; dark hints of the
workhouse are whispered in his ears ; father and mother,
school-teachers and friends, join in pressing him into a pro
fession which he hates—stultifying his whole life—because it
will lead to ^500, or even ^1,000 a year in course of
time. This is the great test, the sure criterion between
two paths: which will lead to more money? The youth* Or as Mr. Locker has it,
They eat and drink and scheme and plod,
And go to church on Sunday;
For many are afraid of God,
And more of Mrs. Grundy.
�i3
ful tender conscience soon comes to look upon it as a
duty, and the acquisition of large dividends as part of the
serious work of life. Then come true the words of the
preacher: he realises with painful clearness the difficulty of
finding investments which shall be profitable and also secure;
circulars, reports, newspaper-cuttings, and warning letters
flow in upon him, sleepless nights are followed by anxious
days, telegrams and railway journeys succeed each other.
But the game goes on : the income gets bigger, and the fear
of the workhouse looms closer ! Friendsand relations also,
have shares. Some get married and others die. Hence
trustee-ships and executor-ships, increasing in number year
by year, coil upon coil; solicitors hover around on all sides,
jungles of legal red tape have to be waded through, chancery
looms up with its “ obscene birds ” upon the horizon, and
the hapless boy, now an old man before his time, with
snatched meals and care-lined brow, goes to and fro like an
automaton—a walking testimony to his own words that
“ the days of his happiness are long gone past.” Before
God, I would rather with pick and shovel dig a yearlong
drain beneath the open sky, breathing freely, than I would
live in this jungle of idiotic duties and thin-lipped respect
abilities that money breeds. Why the devil should the days
of your happiness be gone past, except that you have lived a
life to stultify the whole natural man in you ? Do you think
that happiness is a little flash-in-the-pan when you are eighteen,
and that is all ? Do you not know that expanding age, like a
flower, lifts itself ever into a more and more exquisite sun
light of happiness—to which Death, serene and beautiful,
comes only at the last with the touch of perfected assurance ?
Do you not know that the whole effort of Nature in you is
towards this happiness, if you could only abandon yourself,
and for one child-like moment have faith in your own mother ?
But she knows it, and watches you, half amused, run after
your little “ securities,” knowing surely that you must at
length return to her.
But wherein the affluent classes suffer most in the present
day perhaps is the matter of health. Into that heaven it is
indeed hard for a rich man to enter. Here again the whole
tradition of his life is against him. If there is one thing
that appears to me more certain than another it is, as I have
�partly said before, that no individual or class can travel far
from the native life of the race without becoming shrivelled,
corrupt, diseased—without suffering, in fact. By the native
life I mean the life of those (always the vast majority of
human kind) who live and support themselves in direct
contact with Nature.
*
To rise early, to be mostly in the
open air, to do some amount of physical labour, to eat clean
and simple food, are necessary and aboriginal conditions of
the life of our race, and they are necessary and aboriginal
conditions of health. The doctor who does not start from
these as .the basis of his prescriptions does not know his
work. The modern money-lender, man of stocks, or what
ever you call him, and his family, live in the continual
violation of these conditions. They get up late, are mostly
indoors, do little or no physical work, and take quantities of
rich and greasy food and stimulants, such as would exhaust
the stomach of a strong man, but which to them, in their
already enervated state, are simply fatal. Hence a long
catalogue of evils, ever branching into more. Hence dys
pepsia, nerves, liver, sexual degeneracies, and general de
pression of vitality ; a gloomy train, but whose drawn
features you will recognise if you peep into almost anyone of
those desirable mansions of which I have spoken. A terrible
symptom of our well-to-do (?) modern life is this want of
health, and one which presses for serious attention. There
is only one remedy for it; but that remedy is a sure one—
the return (or advance) to a simpler mode of existence.
What is the upshot of all this? There was a time when
the rich man had duties attending his wealth. The lord or
baron was a petty king, and had kingly responsibilities as
well as power. The Sir Roger, of Addison’s time, was the
succeeding type of landlord. And even to the present day
there lingers, here and there, a country squire who fulfils that
* It must be noticed that the working masses of our great towns do not
by any means fulfil this condition. Thrust down into squalor by the very
effort of others climbing to luxury, the unnaturalness and misery of their
lives is the direct counterpart and inseparable accompaniment of the un
naturalness of the lives of the rich. That the great masses of our popula
tion to-day are in this unhealthy state does not however disprove the
statement in the text—i.e., that the vast majority of mankind must live in
direct contact with Nature—rather it would indicate that the present
conditions can only be of brief duration.
�j
M
fl! IUHM
15
now antiquated ideal of kindly condescension and patronage.
But the modern rush of steam-engines, and the creation of
an enormous class of wealthy folk, living on stocks, have
completely subverted the old order. It has let loose on
society a horde of wolves !—a horde of people who have no
duties attaching to their mode of life, no responsibility.
They roam hither and thither, seeking whom and what they
may devour. Personally I have no objection to criminals,
and think them quite as good as myself. But, Talk of
criminal classes—can there be a doubt that the criminal
classes, par excellence, in our modern society, are this horde of
stock and share-mongers ? If to be a criminal is to be an
enemy of society, then they are such. For their mode of
life is founded on the principle of taking without giving, of
claiming without earning—as much as that of any common
thief. It is in vain to try and make amends for this by
charity organisations and unpaid magistracies. The cure
must go deeper. It is no good trying to set straight the roof
and chimneys, when the whole foundation is aslant. These
good people are not boarded and lodged at Her Majesty’s
pleasure, but the Eternal Justice, unslumbering, causes them
to build prisons (as I have said) for themselves-—plagues
them with ill-health and divers unseen evils— and will and
must plague them, till such time as they shall abandon the im
possible task they have set themselves, and return to the
paths of reason.
The whole foundation is aslant—and aslip, as anyone may
see who looks. In short, it is an age of transition. No
mortal power could make durable a Society founded on
Usury—universal and boundless usury. The very words
scream at each other. The baron has passed away; and the
landlord is passing. They each had their duties, and while
they fulfilled them served their time well and faithfully.
The shareholder has no duties, and is miserable, and will
remain so till the final landslip, when the foundations having
completely given way, he will crawl forth out of the ruins of
his desirable mansion into the life and light of a new day.
Less oracular than this I dare not be!
As I have
said before there is no conceivable condition of life in
which the human soul may not find the materials of its
surpassing deliverance from evil and mortality. And I for
�one would not, if I had the power, cramp human life into
the exhibition of one universal routine. If anyone desires to
be rich, if anyone desires to gradually shut himself off from
the world, to build walls and fences, to live in a house where
it is impossible to get a breath of fresh air without going
through half a dozen doors, and to be the prisoner of his
own servants; if he desires it so that when he walks down
the street he cannot whistle or sing, or shout across the road
to a friend, or sit upon a doorstep when tired, or take off his
coat if it be hot, but must wear certain particular clothes in
a certain particular way, and be on such pins and needles as
to what he may or may not do, that he is right glad when he
gets back again to his own prison walls ; if he loves trustee
ships and Egyptian Bonds, and visits from the lawyer, and
feels glad when he finds a letter from the High Court of
Chancery on his breakfast table, and experiences in attend
ing to all these things that satisfaction which comes of all
honest work ; if he feels renovated and braced by lying in
bed of a morning, and by eating feast dinners every day, and
by carefully abstaining from any bodily labour ; if dyspepsia,
and gout, and biliousness, and distress of nerves are not
otherwise than grateful to him ; and if he can obtain all
these things without doing grievous wrong to others, by all
means let him have them.
Only for those who do not know what they desire I would
lift up the red flag of warning. Only of that vast and ever
vaster horde which to-day (chiefly, I cannot but think, in
ignorance) rushes to Stocks, would I ask a moment’s pause,
and to look at the bare facts, If these words should come
to the eye of such an one I would pray him to think for a
moment—to glance at this great enthroned Wrong in its
dungeon palace (notffhe less a wrong because the laws coun
tenance and encourage it)—to listen for the cry of the home
less many, trodden under foot, a yearly sacrifice to it—to
watch the self-inflicted sufferings of its worshipers, the
ennui, the depression, the unlovely faces of ill-health, to
observe the falsehood on which it is founded, and therefore
the falsehood, the futility, the unbelief in God or Man which
spring out of it—and to turn away, determined, as far as in
him lies, to worship in that Dagon-house no longer.
�
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Desirable mansions : a tract
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Edition: 3rd ed.
Place of publication: London
Collation: 16 p. ; 19 cm.
Notes: Reprinted, with a few alterations, from Progress, June 1883. List of other works by author on p. 2.
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Carpenter, Edward
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Socialism
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Social change
Socialism
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NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY
AND FACT
4
A Letter
to
The Rev. Henry M. Field, D.D.
BY
ROBERT G. INGERSOLL.
REPRINTED FROM
THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW
(November 1887).
Price Twopence,
LONDON:
PROGRESSIVE PUBLISHING ¡COMPANY,
28 Stonecutter Street, E.C.
1887.
:
�LONDON :
FEINTED AND FUFIISHED BY U. W. FOOTE,
AT 28 STONECUTTER STREET, E.U.
�N'34-4-
FAITH AND FACT.
My Dear Mr. Field,—I answer your letter because it is
manly, candid and generous. It is not often that a minister of the
gospel of universal benevolence speaks of an unbeliever except in
terms of reproach, contempt and hatred. The meek are often
malicious. The statement in your letter that some of your brethren
look upon me as a monster on account of my unbelief, tends to
show that those who love God are not always the friends of their
fellow men.
Is it not strange that people who admit that they ought to be'
eternally damned, that they are by nature totally depraved, and
that there is no soundness or health in them, can be so arro
gantly egotistic as to look upon others as “ monsters ? ” And- yet
“some of your brethren,” who regard unbelievers as infamous,
rely for salvation entirely on the goodness of another, and expect
to receives as alms an eternity of joy.
The first question that arises between us, is as to the innocence
of honest error—as to the right to express an honest thought.
You must know that perfectly honest men differ on many im
portant subjects. Some believe in free trade, others are the
advocates of protection. There are honest Democrats and sincere
Republicans. How do you account for these differences? Edu
cated men, presidents of colleges, cannot agree upon questions
capable of solution—questions that the mind can grasp, concerning
which the evidence is open to all, and where the facts can be with
accuracy ascertained.
How do you explain this ?
If such
differences can exist consistently with the good faith of those who
differ, can you not conceive of honest people entertaining different
views on subjects about which nothing can be positively known ?
You do not regard me as a monster. “ Some of your brethren ”
do. How do you account for this difference? Of course, your
brethren—their hearts having been softened by the Presbyterian
God—are governed by charity and love.
They do not regard
me as a monster because I have committed an infamous crime,
but simply for the reason that I have expressed my honest
thoughts.
What should I have done ? I have read the Bible with great
�care, and the conclusion has forced itself upon my mind not only
that it is not inspired, but that it is not true. Was it my duty to
speak or act contrary to this conclusion ? Was it my duty to
remain silent ? If I had been untrue to myself, if I had joined
the majority—if I had declared the book to be the inspired word
of God—would your brethren still have regarded me as a monster ?
Has religion had control of the world so long that an honest man
seems monstrous ?
According to your creed—according to your Bible—the same
being who made the mind of man, who fashioned every brain, and
sowed within those wonderous fields the seeds of every thought and
deed, inspired the Bible’s every word, and gave it as a guide to all
the world. Surely the book should satisfy the brain. And yet
there are millions who do not believe in the inspiration of the
Scriptures. Some of the greatest and best have held the claim of
inspiration in contempt. No Presbyterian ever stood higher in the
realm of thought than Humboldt. He was familiar with nature
from sands to stars, and gave his thoughts, his discoveries and
conclusions, “ more precious than the tested gold,” to all mankind.
Yet he not only rejected the religion of your brethren, but denied
the existence of their God. Certainly Charles Darwin was one of
the greatest and purest of men—as free from prejudice as the
mariner’s compass—desiring only to find amid the mists and clouds
of ignorance the star of truth. No man ever exerted a greater
influence on the intellectual world. His discoveries, carried to their
legitimate conclusion, destroy the creeds and sacred scriptures of
mankind. In the light of Natural Selection, The Survival of the
Fittest, and The Origin of Species, even the Christian religion
becomes a gross and cruel superstition. Yet Darwin was an honest,
thoughtful, brave, and generous man.
Compare, I beg of you, these men, Humboldt and Darwin, with
the founders of the Presbyterian Church. Read the life of
Spinoza, the loving Pantheist, and then that of John Calvin, and
tell me, candidly, which, in your opinion, was a “ monster.” Even
your brethren do not claim that men are to be eternally punished
for having been mistaken as to the truths of geology, astronomy,
or mathematics. A man may deny the rotundity and rotation of
the earth, laugh at the attraction of gravitation, scout the nebular
hypothesis, and hold the multiplication table in abhorrence, and
yet join at last the angelic choir. I insist upon the same freedom
of thought in all departments of human knowledge. Reason is the
supreme and final test.
If God has made a revelation to man, it must have been ad
�dressed to his reason. There is no other faculty that could even
decipher the address. I admit that reason is a small and feeble
flame, a flickering torch by stumbiers carried in the starless night
—blown and flared by passion’s storm—and yet it is the only light.
Extinguish that, and naught remains.
You draw a distinction between what you are pleased to call
“ superstition ” and religion. You are shocked at the Hindoo
mother when she gives her child to death at the supposed com
mand of her god. What do you think of Abraham, of Jephthah ?
What is your opinion of Jehovah himself ? Is not the sacrifice of
a child to a phantom as horrible in Palestine as in India ? Why
should a god demand a sacrifice from man ? Wh y should the
infinite ask anything from the finite ? Should the sun beg of the
glow-worm, and should the momentary spark excite the envy of
the source of light ?
You must remember that the Hindoo mother believes that her
child will be for ever blest—that it will become the special care of
the god to whom it has been given. This is a sacrifice through a
false belief on the part of the mother, She breaks her heart for
love of her babe. But what do you think of the Christian mother
who expects to be happy in heaven, with her child a convict in the
eternal prison—a prison in which none die and from which none
escape ? What do you say of those Christians who believe that
they, in heaven, will be so filled with ecstasy that all the loved of
earth will be forgotten—that all the sacred relations of life and all
the passions of the heart will fade and die, so that they will look
with stony, unreplying, happy eyes upon the miseries of the lost ?
You have laid down a rule by which superstition can be distin
guished from religion. It is this : “ It makes that a crime which
is not a crime, and that a virtue which is not a virtue.” Let us
test your religion by this rule.
Is it a crime to investigate, to think, to reason, to observe ? Is
it a crime to be governed by that which to you is evidence, and is
it infamous to express your honest thought ? There is also another
question : Is credulity a virtue ? Is the open mouth of ignorant
wonder the only entrance to Paradise ?
According to your creed, those who believe are to be saved, and
those who do not believe are to be eternally lost. When you con
demn men to everlasting pain for unbelief—that is to say, for
acting in accordance with that which is evidence to them—do you
not make that a crime which is not a crime ? And when you
reward men with an eternity of joy for simply believing that which
happens to be in accord with their minds, do you not make that a
�( 6 )
virtue which is not a virtue ? In other words, do you not bring
your own religion exactly within your own definition of superstition ?
The truth is, that no one can justly be held responsible for his
thoughts. The brain thinks without asking our consent. We
believe, or we disbelieve, without an effort of the will. Belief is a
result. It is the effect of evidence upon the mind. The scales
turn in spite of him who watches. There is no opportunity of
being honest or dishonest in the formation of an opinion. The
conclusion is entirely independent of desire. We mnst. believe, or
we must doubt, in spite of what we wish.
That which must be, has the right to be.
We think in spite of ourselves. The brain thinks as the heart
beats, as the eyes see, as the blood pursues its course in the old
accustomed ways.
The question then is not, have we the right to think,—that
being a necessity,—but have we the right to express our honest
thoughts? You certainly have the right to express yours, and you.
have exercised that right. Some of your brethren, who regard me
as a monster, have expressed theirs. The question now is, have I
the right to express mine ? In other words, have I the right to
answer your letter ? To make that a crime in me which is a virtue
in you, certainly comes within your definition of superstition. To
exercise a right yourself which you deny to me is simply the act of
a tyrant. Where did you get your right to express your honest
thoughts ? When, and where, and how did I lose mine ?
You would not burn, you would not even imprison me, because
I differ with you mn a subject about which neither of us knows
anything. To you the savagery of the Inquisition is only a proof
of the depravity of man. You are far better than your creed.
You believe that even the Christian world is outgrowing the fright
ful feeling that fagot, and dungeon, and thumb-screw are legitimate
arguments, calculated to convince those upon whom they are used,
that the religion of those who use them was founded by a God of
infinite compassion. You will admit that he who now persecutes
for opinion s sake is infamous. And yet, the God you worship will,
according to your creed, torture through all the endless years the
man who entertains an honest doubt. A belief in such a God is
the foundation and cause of ’ all religious persecution. You may
reply that only the belief in a false God causes believers to be
inhuman. But you must admit that the Jews believed in a true
God, and you are forced to say that they were so malicious, so cruel,
so savage, that they crucified the only Sinless Being who ever lived.
This crime was committed, not in spite of their religion, but in
�accordance with it. They simply obeyed the command of Jehovah.
And the followers of this Sinless Being, who, for all these centuries,
have denounced the cruelty of the Jews for crucifying a man on
account of his opinion, have destroyed millions and millions of their
fellow men for differing with them. And this same Sinless Being
threatens to torture in eternal fire countless myriads for the same
offence. Beyond this, inconsistency cannot go. At this point
absurdity becomes infinite.
Your creed transfers the Inquisition to another world, making
it eternal. Your God becomes, or rather is, an infinite Torquemada, who denies to his countless victims even the mercy of death.
And this you call a “consolation.”
You insist that at the foundation of every religion is the idea
of God. According to your creed, all ideas of God, except those
entertained by those of your faith, are absolutely false. You are
not called upon to defend the gods of the nations dead, nor the
gods of heretics. It is your business to defend the God of the
Bible—the God of the Presbyterian Church. When in the ranks
doing battle for your creed, you must wear the uniform of your
Church. You dare not say that it is sufficient to insure the
salvation of a soul to believe in a god, or in some god. According
to your creed a man must believe in your god, All the nations
dead believed in gods, and all the worshippers of Zeus, and
Jupiter, and Isis, and Osiris, and Brahma prayed and sacrificed in
vain. Their petitions were not answered, and their souls were
not saved. Surely you do not claim that it is sufficient to believe
in any one of the heathen gods.
What right have you to occupy the position of the Deists, and to
put forth arguments that even Christians have answered ? The
Deist denounced the God of the Bible because of his cruelty, and
at the same time lauded the god of Nature. The Christian
replied that the god of Nature was as cruel as the God of the
Bible. This answer was complete.
I feel that you are entitled to the admission that none have been,
that none are, too ignorant, too degraded, to believe in the super
natural ; and I freely give you the advantage of this admission.
Only a few—and they among the wisest, noblest and purest of
the human race—have regarded all gods as monstrous myths. Yet
a belief of “ the true god ” does not seem to make men charitable
or just. For most people, theism is the easiest solution of the
universe. They are satisfied with saying that there must be a
being who created and who governs the world. But the universality
of a belief does not tend to establish its truth. The belief in the
�( 8 )
existence of a malignant devil has been as universal as the be lief in
a beneficent god, yet few intelligent men will say that the universality
of this belief in an infinite demon even tends to prove his existence.
In the world of thought majorities count for nothing. Truth has
always dwelt with the few.
Man has filled the world with impossible monsters, and he has
been the sport and prey of these phantoms born of ignorance and
hope and fear. To appease the wrath of these monsters man has
sacrificed his fellow man. He has shed the blood of wife and child ;
he has fasted and prayed ; he has suffered beyond the power of
language to express, and yet he has received nothing from the gods
—they have heard no supplication, they have answered no prayer.
You may reply that your God “ sends his rain on the just and
on the unjust,” and that this fact proves that he is merciful to all
alike. I answer, that your God sends his pestilence on the just
and on the unjust—that his earthquakes devour and his cyclones
rend and wreck the loving and the vicious, the honest and the
criminal. Do not these facts prove that your God is cruel to all
alike ? In other words, do they not demonstrate the absolute im
partiality of the divine negligence ?
Do you not believe that any honest man of average intelligence,
having absolute control of the rain, could do vastly better than is
being done ? Certainly there would be no droughts' or floods ; the
crops would not be permitted to wither and die, while rain was
being wasted in the sea. Is it conceivable that a good man with
power to control the winds would not prevent cyclones ? Would
you not rather trust a wise and honest man with the lightning ?
Why should an infinitely wise and powerful God destroy the
good and preserve the vile ? Why should he treat all alike here,
and in another world make an infinite difference ? Why should
your God allow his worshippers, his adorers, to be destroyed by his
enemies ? Why should he allow the honest, the loving, the noble,
to perish at the stake ? Can you answer these questions ? Does
it not seem to you that your God must have felt a touch of shame
when the poor slave mother—one that had been robbed of her
babe—knelt and with clasped hands, in a voice broken with sobs,
commenced her prayer with the words “ Our Father ” ?
It gave me pleasure to find that, notwithstanding your creed,
you are philosophical enough to say that some men are incapaci
tated, by reason of temperament, for believing in the existence of
God. Now, ,if a belief in God is necessary to the salvation of the
soul, why should God create a soul without this capacity ? Why
should he create souls that he knew would be lost ? You seem to
�think that it is necessary to be poetical, or dreamy, in order to be
religious, and by inference, at least, you deny certain qualities to
me that you deem necessary. Do you account for the Atheism of
Shelley by saying that he was not poetic, and do you quote his
lines to prove the existence of the very God whose being he so
passionately denied ? Is it possible that Napoleon—one of the
most infamous of men—had a nature so finely strung that he was
sensitive to the divine influences ? Are you driven to the neces
sity of proving the existence of one tyrant by the words of another?
Personally, I have but little confidence in a religion that satisfied
the heart of a man who, to gratify his ambition, filled half the
world with widows and orphans. In regard to Agassiz, it is just
to say that he furnished a vast amount of testimony in favor of the
truth of the theories of Charles Darwin, and then denied the
correctness of these theories—preferring the good opinion of
Harvard for a few days to the lasting applause of the intellectual
world.
I agree with you that the world is a mystery, not only, but that
everything in Nature is equally mysterious, and that there is no
way of escape from the mystery of life and death. To me, the
crystallization of the snow is as mysterious as the constellations.
But when you endeavor to explain the mystery of the universe by
the mystery of God, you do not even exchange mysteries—you
simply make one more.
Nothing can be mysterious enough to become an explanation.
The mystery of man cannot be explained by the mystery of God.
That mystery still asks for explanation. The mind is so that it
cannot grasp the idea of an infinite personality. That is beyond
the circumference. This being so, it is impossible that man can be
convinced by any evidence of the existence of that which he can
not in any measure comprehend. Such evidence would be equally
incomprehensible with the incomprehensible fact sought to be es
tablished by it, and the intellect of man can grasp neither the one
nor the other.
You admit that the God of Nature—that is to say, your God—
is as inflexible as Nature itself. Why should man worship the in
flexible ? Why should he kneel to the unchangeable ? You say
that your God “ does not bend to human thought any more than
to human will,” and that “ the more we study him, the more we
find that he is not what we imagined him to be.” So that after
all, the only thing you are really certain of in relation to your
God is, that he is not what you think he is. Is it not almost, ab
surd to insist that such a state of mind is necessary to salvation,
�( 10 )
or that it is a moral restraint, or that it is the foundation of
social order ?
The most religious nations have been the most immoral, the
I. cruellest, and the most unjust. Italy was far worse under the
Popes than under the Caesars. Was there ever a barbarian nation
more savage than the Spain of the sixteenth century ? Certainly
you must know that what you call religion has produced a thousand
civil wars, and has severed with the sword all the natural ties that
produce “ the unity and married calm of States.” Theology is
the fruitful mother of discord ; order is the child of reason. If you
will candidly consider this question, if you will for a few moments
forget your preconceived opinions, you will instantly see that the
instinct of self-preservation holds society together. People, being
ignorant, believed that the gods were jealous and revengeful.
They peopled space with phantoms that demanded worship and
delighted in sacrifice and ceremony, phantoms that could be
flattered by praise and changed by prayer. These ignorant people
wished to preserve themselves. They supposed that they could
in this way avoid pestilence and famine, and postpone perhaps the
day of death. Do you not see that self-preservation lies at the
foundation of worship? Nations, like individuals, defend and
protect themselves. Nations, like individuals, have fears, have
ideals, and live for the accomplishment of certain ends. Men
defend their property because it is of value. Industry is the
enemy of theft. Men as a rule desire to live, and for that reason
murder is a crime. Fraud is hateful to the victim. The majority
of mankind work and produce the necessities, the comforts, and
the luxuries of life. They wish to retain the fruits of their labor.
Government is one of the instrumentalities for the preservation of
what man deems of value. This is the foundation of social order,
and this holds society together.
Religion has been the enemy of social order because it directs
the attention of man to another world. Religion teaches its
votaries to sacrifice this world for the sake of that other. The
effect is to weaken the ties that hold families and states together.
Of What consequence is anything in this world compared with
eternal joy ?
You insist that man is not capable of self-government, and
that God made the mistake of filling a world with failures—in
other words, that man must be governed not by himself, but by
your God, and that your God produces order, and establishes and
preserves all the nations of the earth. This being so, your God is
responsible for the government of this world. Does he preserve
�(11)
S>
order in Russia ? Is he accountable for Siberia ? Did he establish
the institution of slavery ? Was he the founder of the Inquisition ?
You answer all these questions by calling my attention to
“the retributions of history.” What are the retributions of
history ? The honest were burned at the stake ; the patriotic,
the generous and the noble were allowed to die in dungeons ;
whole races were enslaved ; millions of mothers were robbed of
their babes. What were the retributions of history ? They who
committed these crimes wore crowns, and they who justified these
infamies were adorned with the tiara.
You are mistaken when you say that Lincoln at Gettysburg
said: “Just and true are thy judgments, Lord God Almighty.”
Something like this occurs in his last inaugural, in which he says__
speaking of his hope that the war might soon be ended—“ If it
shall continue until every drop of blood drawn by the lash shall be
paid by another drawn by the sword, still it must be said, ‘ The
judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.’ ” But
admitting that you are correct in the assertion, let me ask you one
question : Could one standing over the body of Lincoln, the blood
slowly oozing from the madman’s wound, have truthfully said :
“Just and true are thy judgments, Lord God Almighty ” ?
.Do you really believe that this world is governed by an infinitely
wise and good God ? Have you convinced even yourself of this ?
Why should God permit the triumph of injustice ? Why should
the loving be tortured ? Why should the noblest be destroyed ?
Why should the world be filled with misery, with ignorance and
with want ? What reason have you for believing that your God
will do better in another world than he has done and is doing in
this ? Will he be wiser ? Will he have more power ? Will he
be more merciful?
When I say “your God,” of course I mean the God described in
the Bible and the Presbyterian confession of faith. But again, I
say, that, in the nature of things, there can be no evidence of the
existence of an Infinite Being.
An Infinite Being must be conditionless, and for that reason
there is nothing that a finite being can do that can by any possibility
affect the well-being of the conditionless. This being so, man can
neither owe nor discharge any debt or duty to an Infinite Being.
The infinite cannot want, and man can do nothing for a Being
who wants nothing. A conditioned being can be made happy or
miserable by changing conditions, but the conditionless is absolutely
independent of cause and effect.
I do not say that a God does not exist, neither do I say that a
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God does exist; but I say that I do not know—that there can be no
evidence to my mind of the existence of such a Being, and that my
mind is so that it is incapable of even thinking of an infinite
personality.
I know that in your creed you describe God as
“ without body, parts, or passions.” This, to my mind, is simply
a description of an infinite vacuum. I have had no experience
with gods. This world is the only one with which I am acquainted,
and I was surprised to find in your lettter the expression that
“ perhaps others are better acquainted with that of which I am so
ignorant.” Did you, by this, intend to say that you know any
thing of any other state of existence—that you have inhabited
some other planet—that you lived before you were born, and that
you recollect something of that other world, or of that other state ?
Upon the question of immortality you have done me, unintention
ally, a great injustice. With regard to that hope, I have never
uttered a flippant or a trivial ” word. I have said a thousand
times, and I say again, that the idea of immortality, that, like a
sea, has ebbed and flowed in the human heart, with its countless
waves of hope and fear beating against the shores and rocks of time
and fate, was not born of any book, nor of any creed, nor of any
religion. It was born of human affection, and it will continue to
ebb and flow beneath the mists and clouds of doubt and darkness
as long as love kisses the lips of death.
I have said a thousand times, and I say again, that we do not
know, we cannot say, whether death is a wall or a door—the
beginning or end of a day—the spreading of pinions to soar, or the
folding forever of wings—the rise or set of a sun, or an endless life,
that brings rapture and love to every one.
The belief in immortality is far older than Christianity. Thou
sands of years before Christ was born billions of people had lived
and died in that hope. Upon countless graves had been laid in
love and tears the emblems of another life. The heaven of the
New Testament was to be in this world. The dead, aftei’ they
were raised, were to live here. Not one satisfactory word was said
to have been uttered by Christ—.-nothing philosophic, nothing clear,
nothing that adorns, like a bow of promise, the cloud of doubt.
According to the account in the New Testament, Christ was dead
for a period of nearly three days. After his resurrection, why did not
some one of his disciples ask him where he had been ? Why did
he not tell them what world he had visited ? There was the opportu
nity to “bring life and immortality to light.” And yet he was
silent as the grave that he had left—speechless as the stone that
angels had rolled away.
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How do you account for this ? Was it not infinitely cruel to
leave the world in darkness and in doubt when one word could
have filled time with hope and light ?
’
The hope of immortality is the great oak round which have
climbed the poisonous vines of superstition. The vines have not
supported the oak—the oak has supported the vines. As long as
men live, and love, and die, this hope will blossom in the human
heart.
All I have said upon this subject has been to express my hope
and confess my lack of knowledge. Neither by word nor look
have I expressed any other feeling than sympathy with those who
hope to live again—Tor those who bend above their dream of life
to come. But I have denounced tjbf, selfishness and heartlessness
of those who.'expect for themselves an eternity of joy, and for the
rest of mankind predict, 'Without a tear, a world of endless pain.
Nothing can be more contemptible thair, such a hope—a hope that
can give satisfaction only to the hyenas of the human race.
When I say that>1 do not know^tfheh'dh.deny the existence of
perdition, you-reply that “therefis something very cruel in this
treatment of the,belief of my fellow creatures.”
You have had the goodness to inyijte me to a grave over which a
mother bends an^v^ps for
only son.1 I accept your invitation.
We will go togetlj^r. £ Do not, pray yon,'Ideal in splendid generali
ties. Bh. explicit. Bemember fhat the son for whom the loving
mother weeps was not a Christian, not a believer in the inspiration
of the Bible nor in the divinity of Jesus Christ. The mother turns
to you for consolation, for some star of hope in the midnight of
•her grief. What must you say ? Do not desert the Presbyterian
creed. Do not forget the threatenings of Jesus: Christ. What
must you say ? Will you read a portion of the Presbyterian con
fession of faith ? Will you read this ?
“ Although the light of nature, and the works of creation and provi"
deuce, do so far maniflfc the goodness, wisdom, and power of God as
to leave man inexcusably yet they are not sufficient to give that know
ledge of God and of his will which is necessary to salvation.”
Or, will you read this ?
By the decree of God, for the manifestation of his glory, some men
and angels are predestined unto everlasting life and others foreordained
to everlasting death. These angels and men, thus predestined and
foreordained, are particularly and unchangeably designed, and their
number is so certain and definite that it cannot be either increased or
diminished.”
Suppose the mother, lifting her tear-stained face, should say:
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“ My son was good, generous, loving and kind. He gave his life
for me. Is there no hope for him ?” Would you then put this
serpent in her breast ?—
“ Men not professing the Christian religion cannot be saved in any
other way whatsoever, be they never so diligent to conform their lives
according to the light of nature. We cannot by our best works meA^
pardon of sin. There is no sin so small but that it deserves damnation’
Works done by unregenerate men, although for the matter of that they
may be things which God commands, and of good use both to them
selves and others, are sinful and cannot please God or make a man meet
to receive Christ or God.”
And suppose the mother should then sobbingly ask : “ What has
become of my son ? Where is he now ?” Would you still read
from your Confession of Faith, or from your Catechism, this ?—
“The souls of the wicked are cast into hell, where they remain in
torment and utter darkness, reserved to the judgment of the great day.
At the last day the righteous shall come into everlasting life, but the
wicked shall be cast into hell, to be punished with unspeakable torment,
both of body and soul, with the Devil and his angels forever.”
If the poor mother still wept, still refused to be comforted, would
you thrust this dagger in her heart ?—
“ At the Day of Judgment you, being caught up to Christ in the
clouds, shall be seated at his right hand and there openly acknowledged
and acquainted, and you shall join with him in the damnation of your
son.”
If this failed to still the beatings of her aching heart, would you
repeat these words which you say came from the loving soul of
Christ ?—
“ They who believe and are baptised shall be saved, and they who
believe not shall be damned; and these shall go away into everlasting
fire prepared for the Devil and his angels.”
Would you not be compelled, according to your belief, to tell
this mother that “ there is but one name given under heaven and
among men whereby ” the souls of men can enter the gates of
paradise ? Would you not be compelled to say : “Your son lived
in a Christian land. The means of grace were within his reach.
He died not having experienced a change of heart, and your son is
for ever lost. You can meet your son again only by dying in your
sins ; but if you will give your heart to God you can never clasp
him to your breast again.”
What could I say ? Let me tell you.
“ My dear madam, this reverend gentleman knows nothing of
another world. He cannot see beyond the tomb. He has simply
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stated to you the superstitions of ignorance, of cruelty and fear.
If there be in this universe a God, he certainly is as good as you
are. Why should he have loved your son in life—loved him,
according to this reverend gentleman, to that degree that he gave
his life for him ; and why should that love be changed to hatred
the moment your son was dead ?
“My dear woman, there are no punishments, there are no
rewards—there are consequences ; and of one thing you may
rest assured, and that is, that every soul, no matter what sphere it
may inhabit, will have the everlasting opportunity of doing right.
“ If death ends all, and if this handful of dust over which you
weep is all there is, you have this consolation: Your son is not
within the power of this reverend gentleman’s God—that is some
thing. Your son does not suffer. Next to a life of joy is the
dreamless sleep of death.”
Does it not seem to you infinitely absurd to call orthodox Chris
tianity “ a consolation ” ? Here in this world, where every human
being is enshrouded in cloud and mist—where all lives are filled
with mistakes—where no one claims to be perfect, is it “ a conso
lation ” to say that “ the smallest sin deserves eternal pain ” ? Is
it possible for the ingenuity of man to extract from the doctrine of
hell one drop, one ray, of “ consolation ” ? If that doctrine be
true, is not your God an infinite criminal ? Why should he have
created uncounted billions destined to suffer for ever ? Why did
he not leave them unconscious dust ? Compared with this crime,
any crime that any man can by any possibility commit is a virtue.
Think for a moment of your God—the keeper of an infinite
penitentiary filled with immortal convicts—your God an eternal
turnkey, without the pardoning power. In the presence of this
infinite horror, you complacently speak of the atonement—a
scheme that has not yet gathered within its horizon a billionth
part of the human race—an atonement with one-half the world
remaining undiscovered for fifteen hundred years after it was
made.
If there could be no suffering, there could be no sin. To un
justly cause suffering is the only possible crime. How can a God
accept the suffering of the innocent in lieu of the punishment
of the guilty ?
According to your theory, this infinite being, by his mere will,
makes right and wrong. This I do not admit. Right and wrong
exist in the nature of things—in the relation they bear to man,
and to sentient beings. You have already admitted that “ Nature
is inflexible, and that a violated law calls for its consequences.”
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I insist that no God can step between an act and its natural
effects. If God exists, he has nothing to do with punishment,
nothing to do with reward. From certain acts flow certain con
sequences ; these consequences increase or decrease the happiness
of man ; and the consequences must be borne.
A man who has forfeited his life to the commonwealth may be
pardoned, but a man who has violated a condition of his own
well-being cannot be pardoned—there is no pardoning power.
The laws of the State are made, and, being made, can be changed;
but the facts of the universe cannot be changed. The relation
of act to consequence cannot be altered.
This is above all
power, and consequently, there is no analogy between the laws of
the State and the facts in Nature. An infinite God could not
change the relation between the diameter and circumference of the
circle.
A man having committed a crime may be pardoned, but I deny
the right of the State to punish an innocent man in the place of
the pardoned—no matter how willing the innocent man may be to
suffer the punishment. There is no law in Nature, no fact in
Nature, by which the innocent can be justly punished to the end
that the guilty may go free. Let it be understood once for all:
Nature cannot pardon.
You have recognised this truth. You have asked me what is
to become of one who seduces and betrays, of the criminal with
the blood of his victim upon his hands. Without the slightest
hesitation I answer, whoever commits a crime against another
must, to the utmost of his power in this world and in another, if
there be one, make full and ample restitution, and in addition
must bear the natural consequences of his offence. No man can
be perfectly happy, either in this world or in any other, who has
by his perfidy broken a loving and a confiding heart. No power
can step between acts and consequences—no forgiveness, no atone
ment.
But, my dear friend, you have taught for many years, if
you are a Presbyterian, or an evangelical Christian, that a man
may seduce and betray, and that the poor victim, driven to
insanity, leaping from some wharf at night where ships strain
at their anchors in storm and darkness—you have taught that this
poor girl may be tormented for ever by a God of infinite com
passion. This is not all that you have taught. You have said to
the seducer, to the betrayer, to the one who would not listen to her
wailing cry—who would not even stretch forth his hand to catch
her fluttering garments—you have said to him : “ Believe in the
�( 17 J
Lord Jesus Christ; and you shall be happy forever; you shall live
iu the realms of infinite delight, from which you can, without a
shadow falling upon your face, observe the poor girl, your victim,
writhing in the agonies of hell.” You have taught this. For my
part, I do not see how an angel in heaven meeting another angel
whom he had robbed on the earth, could feel entirely blissful.
I go further. Any decent angel, no matter if sitting at the right
hand of God, should he see in hell one of his victims, would leave
heaven itself for the purpose of wiping one tear from the cheek of
the damned.
You seem to have forgotten your statement in the commence
ment of your letter, that your God is as inflexible as Nature—that
he bends not to human thought nor to human will. You seem to
have forgotten the line which you emphasised with italics : “ The
effect of everything which is of the nature of a cause, is eternal.” In
the light of this sentence, where do you find a place for your for
giveness—for your atonement ? Where is a way to escape from the
effect of a cause that is eternal? Do you not see that this sen
tence is a cord with which I easily tie your hands ? The scientific
part of your letter destroys the theological. You have put “ new
wine into old bottles,” and the predicted result has followed. Will
the angels in heaven, the redeemed of earth, lose their memory ?
Will not all the redeemed rascals remember their rascality ?
Will
not all the redeemed assassins remember the faces of the dead ?
Will not the seducers and betrayers remember her sighs, her tears,
and the tones of her voice, and will not the conscience of the
redeemed be as inexorable as the conscience of the damned ?
If memory is to be for ever “ the warder of the brain,” and if
the redeemed can never forget the sins they committed, the pain
and anguish they caused, then they can never be perfectly happy ;
and if the lost can never forget the good they did, the kind actions,
the loving words, the heroic deeds ; and if the memory of good
deeds gives the slightest pleasure, then the lost can never be per
fectly miserable. Ought not the memory of a good action to live
as long as the memory of a bad one ? So that the undying memory
of the good, in heaven, brings undying pain, and the undying
memory of those in hell brings undying pleasure. Do you not see
that if men have done good and bad, the future can’ have neither
a perfect heaven nor a perfect hell ?
I believe in the manly doctrine that every human being must
bear the consequence of his acts, and that no man can be justly
saved or damned on account of the goodness or the wickedness of
another.
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If by atonement you mean the natural effect of self-sacrifice,
the effects following a noble and disinterested action ; if you mean
that the life and death of Christ are worth their effect upon the
human race—which your letter seems to show—then there is no
question between us. If you have thrown away the old and bar
barous idea that a law had been broken, that God demanded a
sacrifice, and that Christ, the innocent, was offered up for us, and
that he bore the wrath of God and suffered in our place, then I
congratulate you with all my heart.
It seems to me impossible that life should be exceedingly joyous
to anyone who is acquainted with its miseries, its burdens, and its
tears. I know that as darkness follows light around the globe,
so misery and misfortune follow the sons of men. According to
your creed, the future state will be worse than this. Here, the
vicious-may reform ; here, the wicked may repent; here, a few
gleams of sunshine may fall upon the darkest life. But in your
future state, for countless billions of the human race, there will
be no reform, no opportunity of doing right, and no possible gleam
of sunshine can ever touch their souls. Do you not see that your
future state is infinitely worse than this ? You seem to mistake
the glare of hell for the light of morning.
Let us throw away the dogma of eternal retribution. Let us
“ cling to all that can bring a ray of hope into the darkness of this
life.”
You have been kind enough to say that I find a subject for cari
cature in the doctrine of regeneration. If, by regeneration, you
mean reformation—if you mean that there comes a time in the
life of a young man when he feels the touch of responsibility, and
that he leaves his foolish or vicious ways, aud concludes to act like
an honest man—if this is what you mean by regeneration, I am a
believer. But that is not the definition of regeneration in your
creed—that is not Christian regeneration. There is some mys
terious, miraculous, supernatural, invisible agency, called, I
believe, the Holy Ghost, that enters and changes the heart of
man, and this mysterious agency is like the wind, under the con
trol, apparently, of no one, coming and going when and whither it
listeth. It is this illogical and absurd view of regeneration that I
have attacked.
You ask me how it came to pass that a Hebrew peasant, born
among the hills of Galilee, had a wisdom above that of Socrates
or Plato, of Confucius or Buddha, and you conclude by saying,
“ This is the greatest of miracles—that such a being should live
and die on the earth.”
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I can hardly admit your conclusion, because I remember that
Christ said nothing in favor of the family relation. As a matter
of fact, his life tended to cast discredit upon marriage. He said
nothing against the institution of slavery; nothing against the
tyranny of government; nothing of our treatment of animals;
nothing about education, about intellectual progress ; nothing of
art, declared no scientific truth, and said nothing as to the rights
and duties of nations.
You may reply that all this is included in “ Do unto others as
you would be done by,” and “ Resist not evil.” More than this
is necessary to educate the human race. It is not enough to say
to your child or to your pupil, “ Do right.” The great question
still remains : What is right ? Neither is there any wisdom in
the idea of non-resistance. Force without mercy is tyranny. Mercy
without force is but a waste of tears. Take from virtue the right
of self-defence, and vice becomes the master of the world.
Let me ask you how it came to pass that an ignorant driver
of camels, a man without family, without wealth, became master
of hundreds of millions of human beings? How is it that he
conquered and overran more than half of the Christian world?
How is it that on a thousand fields' the banner of the cross went
down in blood while that of the crescent floated in triumph ?
How do you account for the fact that the flag of this impostor
floats to-day above the sepulchre of Christ ? Was this a miracle ?
Was Mohammed inspired ? How do you account for Confucius,
whose name is known wherever the sky bends ? Was he inspired
—this man who for many centuries has stood first, and who has
been acknowledged the superior of all men by thousands of
millions of his fellow-men ? How do you account for Buddha, in
many respects the greatest religious teacher this world has ever
known, the broadest, the most intellectual of them all; he who
was great enough, hundreds of years before Christ was born, to
declare the universal brotherhoood of man, great enough to say
that intelligence is the only lever capable of raising mankind ?
How do you account for him, who has had more followers than
any other ? Are you willing to say that all success is divine ? How
do you account for Shakespeare, born of parents who could neither
read nor write, held in the lap of ignorance and love, nursed at the
breast of poverty—how do you account for him, by far the greatest
of the human race, the wings of whose imagination still fill the
horizon of human thought; Shakespeare, who was perfectly ac
quainted with the human heart, knew all depths of sorrow, all
heights of joy, and in whose mind was the fruit of all thought, of
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all experience, and a prophecy of all to be ; Shakespeare, the
wisdom and beauty and depth of whose words increase with the
intelligence and civilisation of mankind ? How do you account
for this miracle ? Do you believe that any founder of any religion
could have written “ Lear ” or “ Hamlet ” ? Did Greece pro
duce a man who could by any possibility have been the author of
“ Troilus and Cressida ” ? Was there among all the countless
millions of almighty Rome an intellect that could have written
the tragedy of “ Julius Caesar ” ? Is not the play of “ Antony
and Cleopatra ” as Egyptian as the Nile ? How do you account
for this man, within whose veins there seemed to be the blood of
every race, and in whose brain there were the poetry and philo
sophy of a world ?
You ask me to tell my opinion of Christ. Let me say here,
once for all, that for the man Christ—for the man who, in the
darkness, cried out, “My God, why hast thou forsaken me ? ”—for
that man I have the greatest possible respect. And let me say,
once for all, that the place where man has died for man is holy
ground. To that great and serene peasant of Palestine I gladly
pay the tribute of my admiration and my tears. He was a reformer
in his day—an infidel in his time. Back of the theological mask,
and in spite of the interpolations of the New Testament, I see a
great and genuine man.
It is hard to see how you can consistently defend the course
pursued by Christ himself. He attacked with great bitterness
“ the religion of others.” It did not occur to him that “ there was
something very cruel in his treatment of the belief of his fellow
creatures.” He denounced the chosen people of God as a “ gene
ration of vipers.” He compared them to “ whited sepulchres.” How
can you sustain the conduct of missionaries ? They go to other
lands and attack the sacred beliefs of others. They tell the people
of India and of all heathen lands, not only that their religion is a
lie, not only that their Gods are myths, but that the ancestors of
these people, their fathers and mothers, who never heard of God,
of the Bible, or of Christ, are all in perdition. Is not this a cruel
treatment of the belief of a fellow-creature ?
A religion that is not manly and robust enough to bear attack
with smiling fortitude is unworthy of a place in the heart or brain.
Aireligion that takes refuge in sentimentality, that cries out: “Do
not, I pray you, tell me any truth calculated to hurt my feelings,”
is fit only for asylums.
You believe that Christ was God, that he was infinite in power.
While in Jerusalem he cured the sick, raised a few from the
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dead, and opened the eyes of the blind. Did he do these thingsbecause he loved mankind, or did he do these miracles simply to
establish the fact that he was the very Christ ? If he was actuated
by love, is he not as powerful now as he was then ? Why does he
not open the eyes of the blind now ? Why does he not, with a
touch, make the leper clean ? If you had the power to give sight
to the blind, to cleanse the leper, and would not exercise it, what
would be thought of you? What is the difference between one
who can, and will not cure, and one who causes disease?
Only the other day I saw a beautiful girl—a paralytic, and yet
her brave and cheerful spirit shone over the wreck and ruin of her
body like morning on the desert. What would I think of myself
had I the power by a word to send the blood through all her
withered limbs freighted again with life, should I refuse ?
Most theologians seem to imagine that the virtues have beenproduced by and are really the children of religion.
Religion has to do with the supernatural. It defines our duties
and obligations to God. It prescribes a certain course of conduct
by means of which happines s can be attained in another world.
The result here is only an incident. The virtues are secular.
They have nothing whatever to do with the supernatural, and are
of no kindred to any religion. A man may be honest, courageous,
charitable, industrious, hospitable, loving and pure without being
religious—that is to say, without any belief in the supernatural;
and a man may be the exact opposite and at the same time a sincere
believer in the creed of any church—that is to say, in the existence
of a personal God, the inspiration of the scriptures and the divinity
of Jesus Christ. A man who believes in the Bible may or may not
be kind to his family, and a m an who is kind and loving in his
family may or may not believe in the Bible.
In order that you may see t he effect of belief in the formation
of character, it is only necessa ry to call your attention to the fact
that your Bible shows that th e Devil himself is a believer in the
existence of your God, in the inspiration of the scriptures and in
the divinity of Jesus Christ. He not only believes these things,
but he knows them, and yet, in spite of it all, he remains a devil
still.
Few religions have been bad enough to destroy all the natural
goodness in the human heart. In the deepest midnight of super
stition some natural virtues, like stars, have been visible in the
heavens. Man has committed every crime in the name of Christi
anity—or at least crimes th at involved the commission of all
others. Those who paid for labor with the lash, and who made
�"blows a legal tender, were Christians. Those who engaged in the
slave trade were believers in a personal God. One slave ship was
called “The Jehovah.” Those who pursued, with hounds, the
fugitive led by the northern star, prayed fervently to Christ to
crown their efforts with success, and the stealers of babes, just
before falling asleep, commended their souls to the keeping of
the Most High.
As you have mentioned the Apostles, let me call your attention
to an incident.
You remember the story of Ananias and Sapphira.
The
Apostles, having nothing themselves, conceived the idea of having
all things in common. Their followers, who had something, were
to sell what little they had, and turn the proceeds over to
these theological financiers. It seems that Ananias and Sapphira
had a piece of land. They sold it, and after talking the matter
over, not being entirely satisfied with the collaterals, concluded to
keep a little—just enough to keep them from starvation if the good
and pious bankers should abscond.
When Ananias brought the money, he was asked whether he had
kept back a part of the price. He said that he had not; where
upon God, the compassionate, struck him dead. As soon as the
corpse was removed, the apostles sent for his wife. They did not
tell her that her husband had been killed. They deliberately set
a trap for her life. Not one of them was good enough or noble
enough to put her on her guard : they allowed her to believe that
her husband had told his story, and that she was free to corroborate
what he had said. She probably felt that they were giving more
than they could afford, and, with the instinct of a woman, wanted
to keep a little. She denied that any part of the price had been
kept back. That moment the arrow of divine vengeance entered
her heart.
Will you be kind enough to tell me your opinion of the apostles
in the light of this story ? Certainly murder is a greater crime
than mendacity.
You have been good enough, in a kind of fatherly way, to give
me some advice. You say that I ought to soften my colors, and
that my words would be more weighty if not so strong. Do you
really desire that I should add weight to my words ? Do you really
wish me to succeed ? If the commander of one army should send
word to the general of the other that his men were firing too high,
do you think the general would be misled ? Can you conceive of
his changing his orders by reason of the message ?
I deny that “ the Pilgrims crossed the sea to find freedom to
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worship God in the forests of the new world.” They came not in
the interest- of freedom. It never entered their minds that other
men had the same right to worship God according to the dictates
of their consciences, that the pilgrims had. The moment they had
power they were ready to whip and brand, to imprison and burn.
They did not believe in religious freedom. They had no more
idea of religious liberty of conscience than Jehovah.
I do not say that there is no place in the world for heroes and
martyrs. On the contrary, I declare that the liberty we now have
was won for us by heroes and by martyrs, and millions of these
martyrs were burned, or flayed alive, or torn in pieces, or assassi
nated by the Church of God. The heroism was shown in fighting
the hordes of religious superstition.
Giordano Bruno was a martyr. He was a hero. He believed
in no God, in no heaven and in no hell, yet he perished by fire.
He was offered liberty on condition that he would recant. There
was no God to please, no heaven to preserve the unstained white
ness of his soul.
For hundreds of years every man who attacked the Church was
a hero. The sword of Christianity has been wet for many cen
turies with the blood of the noblest.
Christianity has been
ready with whip and chain and fire to banish freedom from the
earth.
Neither is it true that “ family life withers under the cold sneer
—half pity half sneer—with which I look down on household
worship.”
Those who believe in the existence of God, and believe that they
are indebted to this divine being for the few gleams of sunshine in
this life, and who thank God for the little they have enjoyed, have
my entire respect. Never have I said one word against the spirit
of thankfulness. I understand the feeling of the man who gathers
his family about him after the storm, or after the scourge, or after
long sickness, and pours out his heart in thankfulness to the sup
posed God who has protected his fireside. I understand the spirit
of the savage who thanks his idol of stone, or his fetish of wood.
It is not the wisdom of the one nor of the other that I respect, it
is the goodness and thankfulness that prompt the prayer.
I believe in the family. I believe in family life, and one of my
objections to Christianity is that it divides the family. Upon this
subject I have said hundreds of times, and I say again, that the
roof-tree is sacred, from the smallest fibre that feels the soft, cool
clasp of the earth, to the topmost flower that spreads its bosom to
the sun, and like a spendthrift gives its. perfume to the air. The
�( 24)
home where virtue dwells with love is like a lily with a heart of
fire, the fairest flower in all this world.
What did Christianity in the early centuries do for the home ?
What have nunneries and monasteries, and what has the glorifica
tion of celibacy done for the family ? Do you not know that Christ
himself offered rewards in this world and eternal happiness in
another to those who would desert their wives and children and
follow him ? What effect has that promise had upon family life ?
As a matter of fact, the family is regarded as nothing. Christi
anity teaches that there is but one family, the family of Christ,
and that all other relations are as nothing compared with that.
Christianity teaches the husband to desert the wife, the wife
to desert the husband, children to desert their parents for the
miserable and selfish purpose of saving their own little, shrivelled
souls.
It is far better for a man to love his fellow men than to
love God. It is better to love wife and children than to love
Christ. It is better to serve your neighbor than to serve your God
—even if God exists. The reason is palpable. You can do nothing
for God. You can do something for wife and children, you can
add to the sunshine of life. You can paint flowers in the pathway
of another.
It is true that I am an enemy of the orthodox sabbath. It is
true that I do not believe in giving one-seventh of our time to the
service of superstition. The whole scheme of your religion can be
understood by any intelligent man in one day. Why should he
waste a seventh of his whole life in hearing the same thoughts
repeated again and again ?
Nothing is more gloomy than an orthodox Sabbath. The
mechanic who has worked during the week in heat and dust, the
laboring man who has barely succeeded in keeping his soul in his
body, the poor woman who has been sewing for the rich, may go to
the village church which you have described. They answer the
chimes of the bell, and what do they hear in this village church ?
Is it that God is the father of the human race ; is that all ? If
that were all, you never would have heard an objection from my
lips. That is not all. If all ministers said : Bear the evil of this
life ; your Father in heaven counts your tears ; the time will come
when pain and death and grief will be forgotten words—I should
have listened with the rest. What else does the minister say to
the poor people who have answered the chimes of your bell
He
says : “The smallest sin deserves eternal pain.” “ A vast majority
of men are doomed to suffer the wrath of God for ever.’ He fills
�( 25 )
the present with fear and the future with fire. He has heaven for
the few, hell for the many. He describes a little grass-grown path
that leads to heaven, where travellers are “ few and far between,”
and a great highway worn with countless feet that leads to ever
lasting death.
Such Sabbaths are immoral. Such ministers are the real sav
ages. Gladly would I abolish such a Sabbath. Gladly would I
turn it into a holiday, a day of rest and peace, a day to get ac
quainted with your wife and children, a day to exchange civilities
with your neighbors ; and gladly would I see the church in which
such sermons are preached changed to a place of entertainment.
Gladly would I have the echoes of orthodox sermons—the owls and
bats among the rafters, the snakes in crevices and corners—
driven out by the glorious music of Wagner and Beethoven. Gladly
would I see the Sunday-school, where the doctrine of eternal fire
is taught, changed to a happy dance upon the village green.
Music refines. The doctrine of eternal punishment degrades.
Science civilises. Superstition looks longingly back to savagery.
You do not believe that general morality can be upheld without
the sanctions of religion.
Christianity has sold, and continues to sell, crime on credit. It
has taught, and still teaches, that there is forgiveness for all. Of
course it teaches morality. It says : “ Do not steal, do not mur
der
but it adds : “ but if you do both, there is a way of escape ;
believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.” I in
sist that such religion is no restraint. It is far better to teach that
there is no forgiveness, and that every human being must bear the
consequence of his acts.
The first great step toward national reformation is the universal
acceptance of the idea that there is no escape from the consequences
of our acts. The young men who come from their country homes
into a city filled with temptations, may be restrained by the
thought of father and mother. This is a natural restraint. They
may be restrained by their knowledge of the fact that a thing is
evil on account of its consequences, and that to do wrong is always
a mistake. I cannot conceive of such a man being more liable to
temptation because he has heard one of my lectures in which I have
told him that the only good is happiness—that the only way to
attain that good is by doing what he believes to be right. I can
not imagine that his moral character will be weakened by the
statement that there is no escape from the consequences of his
acts.' You seem to think that he will be instantly led astray —
that he will go off under the flaring lamps to the riot of passion.
�( 26 )
Do you think the Bible calculated to restrain him ? To prevent
this would you recommend him to read the lives of Abraham, of
Isaac, and of Jacob, and the other holy polygamists of the Old
Testament ? Should he read the life of David, and of Solomon ?
Do you think this would enable him to withstand temptation?
Would it not be far better to fill the young man’s mind with facts,
so that he may know exactly the physical consequences of such
acts ? Do you regard ignorance as the foundation of virtue ? Is
fear the arch that supports the moral nature of man ?
You seem to think that there is danger in knowledge, and that
the best chemists are the most likely to poison themselves.
You say that to sneer at religion is only a step from sneering at
morality, and then only another step to that which is vicious and
profligate.
The Jews entertained the same opinion of the teachings of
Christ. He sneered at their religion. The Christians have en
tertained the same opinion of every philosopher. Let me say to
you again—and let me say it once for all—that morality has
nothing to do with religion. Morality does not depend upon the
supernatural. Morality does not walk with the crutches of miracles
Morality appeals to the experience of mankind. It cares nothing
about faith, nothing about sacred books. Morality depends upon
facts, something that can be seen, something known, the product
of which can be estimated. It needs no priest, no ceremony, no
mummery. It believes in the freedom of the human mind. It
asks for investigation. It is founded upon truth. It is the enemy
of all religion, because it has to do with this world, and with this
world alone.
My object is to drive fear out of the world. Fear is the gaoler
of the mind. Christianity, superstition—that is to say, the super
natural—makes every brain a prison and every soul a convict.
Under the government of a personal deity, consequences partake of
the nature of punishments and rewards. Under the government of
Nature, what you call punishments and rewards are simply conse
quences. Nature does not punish.
Nature does not reward.
Nature has no purpose. When the storm comes, I do not think :
“ This is being done by a tyrant.” When the sun shines, I do not
say : “ This is being done by a friend.” Liberty means freedom
from personal dictation. It does not mean escape from the relations
we sustain to other facts in Nature. I believe in the restraining
influences of liberty. Temperance walks hand in hand with freedom.
To remove a chain from the body puts an additional responsibility
upon the soul. Liberty says to the man: You injure or benefit
�yourself ; you increase or decrease your own well-being. It is a
question of intelligence. You need not bow to a supposed tyrant,
or to infinite goodness. You are responsible to yourself and to
those you injure, and to none other.
I rid myself of fear, believing as I do that there is no power
above which can help me in any extremity, and believing as I do
that there is no power above or below that can injure me in any
extremity. I do not believe that I am the sport of accident, or
that I may be dashed in pieces by the blind agency of Nature.
There is no accident, and there is no agency. That which happens
must happen. The present is the child of all the past, the mother
of all the future.
Does it relieve mankind from fear to believe that there is some
God who will help them in extremity ? What evidence have they
on which to found this belief ? When has any God listened to the
prayer of any man ? The water drowns, the cold freezes, the flood
destroys, the fire burns, the bolt of heaven falls—when and where
has the prayer of man been answered ?
Is the religious world to-day willing to test the efficacy of
prayer ? Only a few years ago it was tested in the United States.
The Christians of Christendom, with one accord, fell upon their
knees and asked God to spare the life of one man. You know the
result. You know just as well as I that the forces of Nature pro
duce the good and bad alike. You know that the forces of Nature
destroy the good and bad alike. You know that the lightning feels
the same keen delight in striking to death the honest man that it
does or would in striking the assassin with his knife lifted above
the bosom of innocence.
Did God hear the prayers of the slaves ? Did he hear the
prayers of imprisoned philosophers and patriots ? Did he hear the
prayers of martyrs, or did he allow fiends, calling themselves his
followers, to pile the fagots round the forms of glorious men ?
Did he allow the flames to devour the flesh of those whose hearts
were his ? Why should any man depend on the goodness of a
God who created countless millions, knowing that they would suffer
eternal grief ?
The faith that you call sacred—“ sacred as the most delicate or
manly or womanly sentiment of love and honor ”—is the faith that
nearly all of your fellow men are to be lost. Ought an honest man
to be restrained from denouncing that faith because those who
entertain it say that their feelings are hurt ? You say to me :
“ There is a hell. A man advocating the opinions you advocate
will go there when he dies.” I answer : “ There is no hell. The
�( 28 )
And you say : “ How can
Bible that teaches that is not true.”
you hurt my feelings ? "
You seem to think that one who attacks the religion of his
parents is wanting in respect to his father and mother.
Were the early Christians lacking in respect for their fathers and
mothers? Were the Pagans who embraced Christianity heartless
sons and daughters ? What have you to say of the Apostles ?
Did they not heap contempt upon the religion of their fathers and
mothers? Did they not join with him who denounced their people
as a “ generation of vipers ” ? Did they not follow one who offered
a reward to those who would desert father and mother ? Of course
you have only to go back a few generations in your family to find
a Field who was not a Presbyterian. After that you find a Presby
terian. Was he base enough and infamous enough to heap con
tempt upon the religion of his father and mother? All the
Protestants in the time of Luther lacked in respect for the religion
of their fathers and mothers. According to your ideas, progress is
a prodigal son. If one is bound by the religion of his father and
mother, and his father happens to be a Presbyterian and his mother
a Catholic, what is he to do ? Do you not se.e that your doctrine
gives intellectual freedom only to foundlings ?
If by Christianity you mean the goodness, the spirit of forgive
ness, the benevolence claimed by Christians to be a part, and the
principal part, of that peculiar religion, then I do not agree with
you when you say that <l Christ is Christianity and that it stands
or falls with him.” You have narrowed unnecessarily the founda
tion of your religion. If it should be established beyond doubt
that Christ never existed all that is of value in Christianity would
remain, and remain unimpaired. Suppose that we should find that
Euclid was a myth, the science known as mathematics would not
suffer. It makes no difference who painted or chiseled the greatest
pictures and statues so long as we have the pictures and statues.
When he who has given the world a truth passes from- the earth
the truth is left. A truth dies only when forgotten by the human
race. Justice, love, mercy, forgiveness, honor, all the virtues that
ever blossomed in the human heart, were known and practised for
uncounted ages before the birth of Christ.
You insist that religion does not leave man in “ abject terror ’ —
does not leave him “ in utter darkness as to his fate.”
Is it possible to know who will be saved ? Can you read the
names mentioned in the decrees of the infinite ? Is it possible to
tell who is to be eternally lost ? Can the imagination conceive a
worse fate than your religion predicts for a majority of the race ?
�( 29 )
Why should not every human being be in “ abject terror ” who be
lieves your doctrine ? How many loving and sincere women are in
the asylums to-day fearing that they have committed “ the un
pardonable sin”—a sin to which your God has attached the penalty
of eternal torment, and yet has failed to describe the offence ?
Can tyranny go beyond this—fixing the penalty of eternal pain for
the violation of a law not written, not known, but kept in the
secrecy of infinite darkness ? How much happier it is to know
nothing about it, and to believe nothing about it! How much
better to have no God.
You discover a “ great intelligence ordering our little lives, so
that even the trials that we bear, as they call out the finer elements
of character, conduce to our future happiness.” This is an old
explanation—probably as good as any. The idea is, that this
world is a school in which man becomes educated through tri
bulation—the muscles of character being developed by wrestling
with misfortune. If it is necessary to live this life in order to
develop character, in order to become worthy of a better world,
how do you account for the fact that billions of the human race
die in infancy, and are thus deprived of this necessary education
and development ? What would you think of a schoolmaster who
should kill a large proportion of his scholars during the first day,
before they had even an opportunity to look at A ?
You insist that “ there is a power behind nature making for
righteousness.”
If nature is infinite, how can there be a power outside of nature ?
If you mean by a “ power making for righteousness ” that man, as
he become civilised, as he become intelligent, not only takes ad
vantage of the forces of nature for his own benefit, but perceives
more and more clearly that if he be happy he must live in harmony
with the conditions of his being, in harmony with the facts by
which he is surrounded, in harmony with the relations he sustains
to others and to things; if this is what you mean, then there is
“ a power making for righteousness.” But if you mean that there
is something supernatural at the back of nature directing events,
then I insist that there can by no possibility be any evidence of the
existence of such a power.
The history of the human race shows that nations rise and fall.
There is a limit to the life of a race ; so that it can be said of every
nation dead, that there was a period when it laid the foundations
of prosperity, when the combined intelligence and virtue of the
people constituted a power working for righteousness, and that
there came a time when this nation became a spendthrift, when it
�( 30 )
ceased to accumulate, when it lived on the labors of its youth, and
passed from strength and glory to the weakness of old age, and
finally fell palsied to its tomb.
The intelligence of man guided by a sense of duty is the only
power that makes for righteousness.
You tell me that I am waging “ a hopeless war,” and you give
as a reason that the Christian religion began to be nearly two thou
sand years before I was born, and that it will live two thousand
years after I am dead.
Is this an argument ? Does it tend to convince even yourself ?
Could not Caiaphas, the high priest, have said substantially this
to Christ ? Could he not have said : “ The religion of Jehovah
began to be four thousand years before you were born, and it will
live two thousand years after you are dead ?” Could not a follower
of Buddha make the same illogical remark to a missionary from
Andover with the glad tidings ? Could he not say: “You are
waging a hopeless war. The religion of Buddha began to be
twenty-five hundred years before vou were born, and hundreds of
millions of people still worship at Great Buddha’s shrine ?”
Do you insist that nothing except the right can live for two
thousand years ? Why is it that the Catholic Church “ lives on
and on, while nations and kingdoms perish ? ” Do you consider that
the survival of the fittest ?
Is it the same Christian religion now living that lived during the
Middle Ages? Is it the same Christian religion that founded the
Inquisition and invented the thumb-screw ? Do you see no differ
ence between the religion of Calvin and Jonathan Edwards and the
Christianity of to-day ? Do you really think that it is the same
Christianity that has been living all these years ? Have you
noticed any change in the last generation? Do you remember
when scientists endeavored to prove a theory by a passage from
the Bible, and do you now know that believers in the Bible are
exceeding anxious to prove its trurn by some fact that science has
demonstrated? Do you know that the standard has changed?
Other things are not measured by the Bible, but the Bible has to
submit to another test. It no longer owns the scales. It has to
be weighed—it is being weighed—it is growing lighter and lighter
every day. Do you know that only a few years a go “the glad
tidings of great joy ” consisted mostly in a description of hell ?
Do vou know that nearly every intelligent minister is now ashamed
to preach about it, or to read about it, or to talk about it ? Is
there any change ? Do you know that but few ministers now be
lieve in “the plenary inspiration ” of the Bible, that from thou
�( 31 )
sands of pulpits people are now told that the creation according to
•Genesis is a mistake, that it never was as wet as the flood, and that
the miracles of the Old Testament are considered simply as myths
or mistakes ?
How long will what you call Christianity endure, if it changes
as rapidly during the next century as it has during the last ? What
will there be left of the supernatural ?
It does not seem possible that thoughtful people can, for many
years, believe that a being of infinite wisdom is the author of the Old
Testament, that a being of infinite purity and kindness upheld
polygamy and slavery, that he ordered his chosen people to mas
sacre their neighbors, and that he commanded husbands and fathers
to persecute wives and daughters unto death for opinion’s sake.
It does not seem within the prospect of belief that Jehovah, the
cruel, the jealous, the ignorant, and the revengeful, is the creator
and preserver of the universe.
Does it seem possible that infinite goodness would create a world
in which life feeds on life, in which everything devours and is
■devoured ? Can there be a sadder fact than this : Innocence is not
a certain shield ?
It is impossible for me to believe in the eternity of punishment.
If that doctrine be true, Jehovah is insane.
Day after day there are mournful processions of men and women,
patriots and mothers, girls whose only crime is that the word
Liberty burst into flower between their pure and loving lips, driven
like beasts across the melancholy wastes of Siberian snow. These
men, these women, these daughters go to exile and to slavery, to a
land where hope is satisfied with death. Does it seem possible to
you that an “ Infinite Father ” sees all this and sits as silent as a
god of stone ?
And yet, according to your Presbyterian creed, according to your
inspired book, according to your Christ, there is another procession,
in which are the noblest and the best, iu which you will find the
wondrous spirits of this world, the lovers of the human race, the
teachers of their fellow men, the greatest soldiers that ever battled
for the right; and this procession of countless millions in which
you will find the most generous and the most loving of the sons and
daughters of men, is moving on the Siberia of God, the land of
eternal exile, where agony becomes immortal.
How can you, how can any man with brain or heart, believe this
infinite lie ?
Is there not room for a better, for a higher philosophy ? After
all, is it not possible that we may find that everything has been
�( 32 )
necessarily produced, that all religions and superstitions, all mis
takes and all crimes were simply necessities ? Is it not possible
that out of this perception may come not only love and pity for
others, but absolute justification for the individual ? May we not
find that every soul Jias; like Mazeppa, been lashed to the wild
horse of passion, or like Prometheus, to the rocks of fate ?
You ask me to take the “sober second thought.” I beg of you
to take the first, and if you do you will throw-away the Presby
terian creed ; you will instantly perceive that he who commits the.
smallest sin ” no more deserves eternal pain than he who does;
the smallest virtuous deed deserves eternal bliss you will becomj*
convinced that an infinite God who creates billions of men
knowing that they will suffer through all the countless years is ah
infinite demon ; you will be satisfied that the Bible, with its
philosophy and its folly, with its goodness and its cruelty, is but
the work of man, and that the supernatural does not and cannot
exist.
For you personally I have the highest regard and the sincerest
respect, and I beg of you not to pollute the soul of childhood, not«
to furrow the cheeks of mothers, by preaching a ereed- that should
be shrieked in a mad-house^ Do not make the cradle as terri-blbj
as the coffin. Preach, I.pxay you, the gospel of intellectwj
hospitality—the liberty of thought and speech. Take from loving^
hearts the awful fear. Have mercy on your fellow men. Do not
drive to madness the mothers whose tears are falling on the pallid
faces of those who died in unbelief. ‘ Pity tbp,erring, wayward", I
suffering, weeping world. Do not proclaim as “ tidings of greatj
joy ” that an Infinite Spider*is weaving webs to catch the souls of
men.
1
I
�
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Faith and fact : a letter to the Rev. Henry M. Field
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Ingersoll, Robert Green [1833-1899]
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 32 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: Part of the NSS pamphlet collection. Reprinted from the North American Review, Nov. 1887. No. 22e in Stein checklist. Printed and published by G.W. Foote.
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1887
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Religion
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Text
irit
is SOCIALISM SOUND?
VERBATIM REPORT
OF
A FOUR NIGHTS’ DEBATE
BETWEEN
ANNIE BESANT and 6. I. FOOTE,
AT THE
HALL OF SCIENCE, OLD ST., LONDON, E.C.
On February ‘ nd, 9th, 16th, and 23rd, 1887.
I
REVISED BY BOTH DISPUTANTS.
LONDON:
FREETHOUGHT
PUBLISHING COMPANY,
63, FLEET STREET, E.C.
1 8 8 7.
�LONDON :
PRINTED BY ANNIE 3ESANT AND CHARLES ERADLAUGH,
63, FLEET STREET, E.C.
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND?
FIRST NIGHT.
William Morris in the Chair.
The Chairman : Ladies and gentlemen, we are met here
to-night to open an extremely interesting discussion on
what, I think, you will probably all agree with me is in
point of fact the question of the day—(cheers)—the question
which practically includes all questions, whether you call
them politics or whether you do not. And it is, further,
made more interesting by the fact that both the debaters
are skilled and practised debaters with very great talent;
and I think I may be perfectly certain that the subject
will be treated in a thoroughly serious and satisfactory
manner. As chairman, before such a debate it is clearly
my business to say as little as I possibly can; and I will
only add that the subject is so very interesting that it may
jperhaps make some rather excited at what goes on. I
hope therefore that we shall all remember that we came
here to hear the two debaters; and if we have to give
voice to our feelings on any occasion we shall do so at the
end of sentences, so as to interfere as little as possible with
the debaters’ arguments. (Hear, hear.) I have only now
to tell you the conditions under which the debate is to take
place. Annie Besant will open the debate and speak for
half an hour. Mr. Foote will then speak for half an hour.And after that Annie Besant will speak for a quarter of an
hour and Mr. Foote for a quarter of an hour, and so each
debater will have two quarters of an hour, and that will,
conclude the debate of this evening. I will now call upon
Annie Besant to open the debate on “Is Socialism Sound?”.'
.(Cheers.)
B2
�4
IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
Annie Besant : Friends; in taking the affirmative of'
the question, 4‘Is Socialism Sound?”, I propose to divide
into two parts that portion of the debate which falls under
my conduct. I propose to-night to deal with the economic
basis of Socialism, and to try to show that that is sound.
I propose on this night fortnight to deal with the historical
evolution of Socialism, and to try to show that it is a ne
cessary result of the evolution of the past. In the othertwo nights of the debate it will be my duty to follow Mr.
Foote—the duty of leading it falling upon him. And I
must at the very outset ask you to bear with me duringmy first speech, in that it will be necessary to put with
extreme terseness the arguments which I must lay beforeyou. Any argument stating the economic case for Socialism,
compressed into half an hour must necessarily be very
inadequate, and I can only give you a rough outline,,
leaving you to elaborate the details for yourselves. (Hear,
hear.) And I will commence by asking you to distinguish,
in thought between that form of Socialism which has been
described as Utopian, which is thought out by the student
in seclusion, and which gives a complete scheme full of'
elaborate details on every possible point—a scheme which,
it is proposed to impose from without upon society. That
is not the form of Socialism that I defend here to-night.
Over against that is the more modern form of Socialism
which has been described as scientific Socialism, and that
form of Socialism, in common with every system that can
fairly be called scientific, is an attempt to go to the root of'
the matter; to try to understand thoroughly the causes of
the effects that we see around us; to trace back—just as a
geographer may trace a river to its source—to their real
source certain facts that we find in the society around
Us. The chief fact it deals with is the fact of poverty. It
strives to trace back poverty to its source, and having, as
ft believes, done that—having found out the cause of
poverty in modern society—scientific Socialism lays down
a fresh economic basis for society; and then, assertingthat new principle as basis, it believes that from it there
will gradually be developed a healthy social organism, not
produced from without, but growing from within, by the
action of the natural social and economic forces which are
at work in society itself. (Cheers.) And this distinction is
not invented by myself for the purposes of this debate. I will
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
5
•take Emile de Laveleye, a writer who is not a Socialist,
.although I might refer to a Socialist like Engels, who was,
I believe, the first to state this distinction clearly. ■■Writingon Socialism in the Contemporary Review, April, 1883,
Emile de Laveleye pointed out the extreme difference be
tween modern Socialism and the earlier forms in which
Socialism presented itself. He said: “Ricardo, Mill, in
fact all the representatives of orthodox science, show that
with free competition, in a country where both the popu
lation and the wealth are on the increase, the revenues of
proprietors will also steadily increase, while wages will
fall to what is strictly necessary............ Political economy
has thus furnished Socialism with a scientific basis, and
has been the means of its quitting the region of Com
munistic aspirations and Utopian schemes.” And
M. de Laveleye warns these who are against Socialism
that they must beware of “ mixing up this system
with Communistic Utopias ”. I submit that Socialism
is no longer a dream. It is a reasoned scheme
based on political economy. It proposes to change
our economic basis. It proposes to do this by rational
-and thoughtful argument, convincing the brain of man.
And those who do not appreciate this change of
position—those who merely go round the outside of the
•question, who take the old schemes and deal only with
matters of detail on every point—such have not grasped
the real centre of the question; they are simply beating
the air, and never touch the chief point with which we are
-concerned. (Cheers.) Now, many definitions of Socialism
have been given, and they cover a large amount of ground.
You may start from the wide definition of Proudhon,
“ Every aspiration for the amelioration of society is
Socialism”, but that is somewhat too general to serve as
a practical definition. It is very possible that various
definitions may be advanced by Mr. Eoote, and it will then
be my duty to deal with them as he puts them forward ;
but so far as I am concerned to-night, I lay down one
principle as the differentia of Socialism, as that on which
•every Socialist is agreed—that which I maintain is the
economic basis of Socialism; and I allege that Socialism
. is the theory which declares that there shall be no private
property in the materials which are necessary for the provduction of wealth. "Whatever your Socialistic school—let
�6
IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
it be Anarchist or Communist, let it be Collectivist, Evolu
tionary or E evolutionary, or both, you will nowhere find a
Socialism which will disagree with that fundamental
statement, or which will not proclaim, as the basis of all
proposed changes, the destruction of private property in
the materials which are necessary for the production of
wealth. (Cheers.) The next question arises as to what
we mean by these “materials ”. And I propose to divide
them under two heads, practically following the usual
divisions of political economy, although using phrases to
describe them which are not those of the ordinary economic
books. I describe as raw material everything which the
political economist describes as land—that which Mill said
“no man made”, including, of course, in that raw material,
ah ore and minerals, and other natural material for the
production of wealth, so long as it has been untouched by
man. The whole of that will come under my definition of
raw material. And I put over against that the material
upon which human labor has been employed, and I class
the whole of that together as wrought material. That will
include of course what is generally known as “capital” ;
as “ means of production ”; or as “ instruments of produc
tion ”. And I take every case in which raw material has
been transformed by human labor into wrought material as
the second division of the materials for the production of
wealth with which we have to deal to-night. Now every
Socialist claims all this as common property. He declares
of raw material plus wrought material—that the claim to
make that common property differentiates the Socialist
from every non-Socialist school. He alleges that the
essential difference—which is what we want to get at hereto-night—the essential difference between Socialism and
Individualism is that the Socialist says that these materials
ought to be public property, whereas Individualism declares
that they ought to be private property; and between these
two logical and opposite schools you will find a number of
schools under different names which tend more or less in
one direction or in the other. Some only claim raw material
as common property, and would leave the wrought as
individual property. But I assert to you that everyone
who claims these, or part of these, as common property has
begun with Socialism, and is bound by logic to go on step
by step until the whole becomes public property. I allege
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
7
that land nationalisation is essentially a Socialistic plan;
and here again, instead of putting it on my own authority,
I fall back once more on M. de Laveleye, quoting from his
article on “The European Terror” in the Fortnightly
Review of April, 1883, I find him, without apparently the
smallest notion that anyone would challenge him, stating:
“ Collectivism may be conceived as more or less completely
applied, according as the State hold only the soil, and this
is the system which is being now so much discussed in
England, under the name of nationalisation of land, or as the
State hold all fixed capital, and in this latter case, all that
is reserved to individuals is the enjoyment of what they
can purchase with the immediate produce of their labor ”.
I take it then that this is the absolute differentia between
the Socialist and the non-Socialist, and it is with respect to
this raw and this wrought material that every Socialist is
a Communist. And I use that word deliberately, because
of the misconception with which it is often regarded in a
country like this. If we take the “ Manifesto of the Com
munists ” put forward by Karl Marx and his friend Fried
rich Engels in 1847, in which he proclaims himself to be a
Communist, and where according to the common view he
would destroy all property and take away all individual
claims, what are Karl Marx’s own words ? They are: “It
has been said of Communists that we wish to destroy
property which is the product of a man’s labor—earned by
his own work; that property which forms the basis of all
personal liberty, activity, and independence—personally
earned, personally acquired property”. But, he goes on
to point out that as capital is a collective product, “ Capi
tal is therefore not a personal factor; it is a social factor.
Therefore when capital is converted into common property
belonging to all members of society, personal property is
not thereby changed into social property.” And he adds :
“ Communism deprives no one of the power to appropriate
social products for his own use; it only deprives him of
the power to subject others’ labor by such appropriation”
(pp. 13, 14, 15, ed. 1886). (Cheers.) Whether or not
you agree with that definition of Marx’s, whether or not
you may carry Communism, as some writers do, very much
farther than Marx has carried it, and may use the word as
negating private property completely, still I submit that if
you are going to argue against Socialism, instead of cari
�8
IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
caturing it, you must take the words you attack with the
limitations put upon them by the writers who used the
words, and must distinguish Marx’s Communism from that
of some others. And if you fail to do this, and merely use
it to rouse prejudices in the minds of the ordinary citizen
against the system, and thus mislead the understanding,
you may gain a temporary triumph on the platform, but
you do nothing towards bringing the argument to a satis
factory conclusion. (Cheers.) I pass from that, and the
next point I put for your consideration is this. It is im
possible to separate in practice raw material from wrought
material, so that you can nationalise the one and leave the
other as private property. I have sometimes thought that
the opposition between land and capital which has been so
much dwelt upon by a certain school is really nothing
more than a survival from the mercantile system, in which
capital was regarded merely as money, and the distinction
between land and money being apparently very clear these
two things were taken as fundamentally distinct. I believe
that the view taken of land and capital to-day is very much
colored in the minds of many by that old and discredited
mercantile theory. (Hear, hear.) If raw material is to
be land which “no man made”—which is, as we say,
given by Nature—where are you going to get that in an
old country ? How are you going to find out the so-called
prairie value which persons talk about so readily but under
stand so little? How, in a country like ours, are you
going to find out the economic rent, if you are going to
use the old Ricardian definition and call rent that portion
of the produce which is paid for the use of the original
and indestructible powers of the soil? Take a marsh.
That is raw material which is useless for agricultural
purposes, having, of course, no economic rent. But if
you drain the marsh, it is no longer raw material, for
Turman labor has changed the raw material into wrought
material for the use of man. And I am going to try
to show you presently that you cannot draw any dis
tinction economically between your marsh made into
fertile land by human labor, and your iron which was as
much raw material as the marsh, until by human labor it
was moulded into the machine for the sake of the greater
productive power it would not otherwise have possessed.
(Hear, hear.) What is it that the State is to have if you
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
9
are going to nationalise the land ? Is it to have the rent
of the undrained marsh ? That is nothing. Is it to have
some economic rent ? Then you must extend your Ricar
dian definition to include not only the original and inde
structible powers of the soil, but also the acquired powers
which the soil has gained by the labor of man. If you
only claim for the State the rent of your raw material,
then your whole scheme of land nationalisation becomes
absurd and hopelessly impracticable. (Hear, hear J But
if you are going to claim for the State rents which are
based upon the present differences of the value of the
land—of land which has been made fertile by generations
of laborers—land on which human power has been ex
pended and which in its present condition is the result of
the employment of human energy—then I submit to you
that you are nationalising the rent of wrought material
and not only the rent of raw. And when you have once
done that you have started from the Socialist basis and
you will find yourself unable to distinguish between the
wrought material of the land and the wrought material of
the machine. And now instead of taking this improved—
this wrought—material in the shape of land, I will take it
in the shape of a machine. A man invests money in a
machine and he demands that payment shall be made to
him for the use of that machine. Payment made for the
use of capital is generally termed interest, but I prefer to
term it rent. Using different words for the same thing
tends to confusion of thought, and I want to try to make
our views here to-night clear and not confused. What is
rent ? Payment made for differences of productive power.
What is interest paid for capital but payment made for
•differences of productive power ? It is essentially a form
of rent. There is no difference in principle between the
extended doctrine of the Ricardian rent which makes it
The part of the produce paid to the landlord for the original
plus the acquired powers of the soil—that is for advan
tages of productivity—and the interest which is paid to the
^capitalist also for advantages of productivity, only the ad
vantages are in the form of a machine which produces
more, instead of in the form of the more fertile land
which produces more than the less fertile. I submit
then that such payment—payment of rent for advantages
of fertility, payment of rent for advantages of productive
�10
IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
power, that these payments are just and rational payments,
equalising to the laborer the results of his labor, because
by paying rent for an advantage you stand on the same
ground as your brother who does not share that particular
advantage, and the rent is merely the payment you make
for the advantage you have that he does not share, so that
both of you are practically on the same level, receiving for
equal amounts of labor equal results of your toil. (Hear,
hear.) Now, under the Individualistic system these rentsgo to the individual, and they keep up an idle class which
need never work at all, because other persons work for it.
Under Socialism these rents would go to the community,
and the only persons they would support would be the ser
vants of the community who were told off to perform dif
ferent non-productive functions for the benefit of those
whom they serve. (Cheers.) And that is our essential
difference—that is the point on which Mr. Foote must
meet me to-night. (Hear, hear.) I pass to my next point
—that all rent for the material of production should be
paid to the State. Private property in these being de
stroyed, common property, or—if you prefer the word—Communism takes its place. Thus we reach Collectivist
Socialism, the Socialism I am defending to-night. At this
point the question—a perfectly fair one—is asked very
often by our opponents : “ How far will private property
in anything survive the destruction of private property in
the materials for wealth production?”. Now on that
point the Collectivist is completely within his right if ho
says boldly and plainly that no other private property
need be destroyed at all save private property in these
materials for wealth production. Emile de Laveleye puts
fin's very strongly, and shows how Collectivism could
be worked leaving untouched private property in every
thing, saving in that which I have called raw and wrought
materials. There would be nothing against the Socialist
theory in such private property. But it is perhaps as well
to speak perfectly frankly and with absolute straight
forwardness on this point. And I, for one, confess that
realising the enormous change which the acceptance of the
principle of common property in the materials for wealth
production will inevitably work—a change not merely in
society as a whole, but a change which will touch
men’s minds and morals quite as much as it will touch
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
II
their views on economics—I admit freely and frankly that
it is perfectly possible that men who are educated in the
Collectivist system will after a while grudge the enormous
waste of labor which is implied in constantly dividing off'
to each man his exact share; and that private property
will survive just as far as convenience, as desire, as expe
rience keep it alive, and no farther. (Hear, hear.) That
is to say, that it is perfectly possible that—after being
trained in the Collectivist system—that, after realising
some better ideal than the mere scramble which is the con
dition of society at the present time, you will very largely
weaken the desire for what is called private property. That
exaggerated love of private property which has grown
into a disease, a morbid extreme, in many civilised
countries—what does it grow from ? It grows out of the
struggle for existence. It grows out of the fear that you
will not have enough, unless you are always grabbing as
much as you possibly can, to keep you in the time when
you are unable to work. Once let men feel that there is
enough foi' all; once let men feel that there is no neces
sity laid upon them to seize by strength from their brother
lest they, or those nearest to them, should suffer in the
strife; once let the idea spread that co-operation in.
brotherly fashion is a nobler ideal than that of cut-throat
competition, and I believe that you will enormously
weaken the sense of private property. (Cheers.) And,
after all, would it be so much the worse for society if such
a weakening took place ? Is our highest ideal to be that
of a number of pigs at a trough, struggling with each
other, pushing each other aside, for fear the trough should
be too small for every pig’s dinner, and that unless the
strong can push aside the weaker he himself may gohungry ? I cannot help thinking that it is not a very im
possible ideal of society that, instead of that strugglinground the pig-trough, you may rather have human beings
sitting around a board where there is enough for all;
where every man knows that he will have his share;
where he is willing to await his turn, ready to pass what
is wanted by his neighbor; and where the appetite of thediner, rather than the weighing-machine, shall measurethe ration that is given to him. (Great cheering.)
The Chairman: I will now call upon Mr. Foote to
answer.
�12
IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
Mr. Gr. W. Foote : One thing to-night gives me exceeding
pleasure, and that is, for the first time in my life, to meet
■a, lady in debate. It shows that whether we are driving
towards Socialism or not, even our individualistic state of
society, rotten as it is said to be, is somehow consistent
with a growing recognition of the natural rights of a sex
which has through history been down-trodden. (Cheers.)
'Therefore I think that, on the whole, the system, in that
very fact, shows that it is not incompatible with progress.
Mrs. Besant is here to-night to advocate another system,
that of Socialism, which she undertakes to show to us is
sound. And to-night she has given us what she calls the
economical basis of Socialism. But I frankly confess,
without in the least intending to be ironical, that I have
heard of nothing in this economical basis which is not a
part of the economical basis of every other system. I
have listened and I have heard nothing—I use the words
without meaning anything invidious—but commonplaces
•of political economy, most of which I am prepared to
admit, although I do not admit with Mrs. Besant the
policy of calling things which, according to present usage,
pass under one name, by some other name in order to suit
an argument or a purpose. It may be convenient to Mrs.
Besant, but it seems to me inconvenient to other people.
Now, bas Mrs. Besant told us what the system of Socialism
she thinks to be sound really is ? (“ Yes ”.) Well, every
one is entitled to his opinion. I think not. Mrs. Besant
has given us one definition of Socialism, which I admit is
perfectly intelligible, and which I am glad to receive ; but
it appears to me that a system like Socialism which claims
to supplant the present system altogether, root and branch
•—which proposes to deal with millions of people and
thousands of millions of capital and land upon an entirely
new foundation—ought to give something more in the
way of explanation than a bald definition covering not
more than two lines of print. Mrs. Besant says that her
system of Socialism is not a Utopian scheme. I have not
the slightest doubt that she thinks so; but I certainly
differ from her. Whenever mankind is fitted for any
particular social system, it will inevitably live in the
midst of that social system. Outward institutions are
merely the expressions of inward thoughts and feelings.
It is quite true that the environment in which a man
�IS SOCIALISE! SOUND ?
1&
lives largely moulds his character; but it is also truethat man’s internal nature acting with and against his
environment — in accordance with the well-known laws
of Biology and civilisation, with which Mrs. Besant is
acquainted—produces that progress which. is recorded on
the pages of universal history. And Individualism has
been the very essence of that progress. Competition algo’
has been the essence of that progress. It is not such an
alarming thing as Mrs. Besant dreams. She has quoted
from Emile de Laveleye—who is not a Socialist, but who,
in my opinion, dreads it too much, because I believe it is
a great deal farther off than he imagines. She quotes from
him to the effect that Socialism will put an end—or. at
least proposes to put an end—to this system of competition
by means of which some are pressed down and others are
elevated. Gronlund—whose book on Socialism is justly
one of the favorites of Socialists, and in some sense
may be called their New Testament, as Karl Marx’s
book may be called their Old Testament — Gronlund,
seeing that competition is essentially indestructible, seeks
to restore it under the new name of emulation. We are
not to compete with each other, but we are to emulate each
other. (Cheers.) In what is the radical distinction ? It
is simply the difference between the concrete object of
desire and the abstract object of desire. If I compete
with my fellows it is for success in business, say.; but if I
emulate, for what is it ? Eor success in procuring public
opinion on my side ; an opinion which we all value more
or less, which some persons value above all things, and
which the foremost in the race of emulation must get, and
all the others to some extent greater or less, exactly as in the
competition for material objects, must lose. (Hear, hear.)
Mrs. Besant was candid enough—and I think it is greatly
to her honor—to admit towards the conclusion of her
speech that it was highly probable that a Collective state of
society would somehow or other result in Communism. I
was glad to hear that, because it saves me a great deal of
trouble. I should otherwise have had to show from the
works of Mr. Bax, Mr. Morris, and others distinguished
in present-day Socialism, what the system would ulti
mately lead to. Now, if you admit that it will ultimately
lead to something, you are bound to consider whether
what it leads to will be agreeable, and for the advance-
�14
IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
Dient of man’s moral or intellectual character. Mrs,
Besant thinks Communism would ultimately be a good
thing. But I fancy I have seen somewhere in her
writings—and, if not, she will correct me—that a system
of Communism would mean that the unfit would live at
the expense of the fit. I admit, with Mrs. Besant,
that there are many hard things in Nature. But I did not
make Nature. No Individualist made it, any more than any
Socialist. If I were at the top of a fifty-foot ladder, it would
Be extremely absurd for me to declaim against the laws of
gravitation and then descend in a somersault. (Laughter.)
I should admit that the law of gravitation was a very hard
fact, and come down rung by rung. And so I see in
human nature that the Darwinian law of the struggle for
life in some form or another cannot be abolished. It is
the wisdom of men and women to recognise the fact as
unalterable, as a thing which cannot be changed “by all
the blended powers of earth and heaven ”.
Mrs. Besant says Socialism is intended as a redress for
poverty. What does she mean ? Does she mean that
poverty can, by the adoption of a certain system, be imme
diately changed or removed ? Certainly, if you passed a
law to-morrow that everybody should be entitled to go to
a national workshop and there get what is called productive
work, you would, for a time, be able to feed everybody; but
unless you took into account, unless you carefully con
sidered, unless you carefully provided for, something which
Mrs. Besant has not mentioned to-night, but something
she has been very eloquent about on other occasions,
viz., the law of population, which I think she will
admit with me is inevitable and is a natural fact which
cannot be blinked, then in the course of time you would
not be able to find employment, and this system would
bring on in an exaggerated form the very same poverty
which you wish to remove. (“ Oh!”, and cries of cfissent.)
Mrs. Besant speaks of people being like pigs round a big
trough, some of whom cannot even get their feet in.
(Laughter.) Well, that is the attitude in which pigs
always eat. Now, supposing there be only enough food
for ninety-nine pigs out of a hundred—I merely suppose
it hypothetically—which is preferable in the long run, that
the weak, unfit pig should perish and leave no offspring,
or that a strong one should suffer that fate ? I put the
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
15
case as one of hard fact, whether we like it or not. If
people to-day were content to come under some sensible
adjustment with regard to the population question, neither
Socialism nor Communism would in this economical respect
—although it might in other respects which I shall speak
of next Wednesday night—be fraught with much evil.
.But if a man who is unfit—Mrs. Besant used the word—
and a man who is fit were put on exactly the same level,
and if society insured them the same amount of subsist
ence, what would be the result ? The problem affects
posterity as well as yourselves. We are stewards for
posterity. (Cheers.) We know that the law of heredity
is a scientific truth which cannot be gainsaid. We know
that the unfit, will transmit their characteristic quali
ties of unfitness to their offspring. It is better for the
race that the unfit should not so transmit these qualities,
and if Mrs. Besant removes the law of natural selection,
which provides for the gradual improvement of the race,
.she is bound to provide in her new scheme something
which is adequate to replace it. Why, as a matter of fact,
under the present law—which in some respects is too
Socialistic—boys of fourteen and girls of twelve years of
age can go and get married. Mrs. Besant thinks perhaps
they do not. Mr. Arnold White, who knows as much
about London poverty as any man, gives an analysis of a
hundred and seventy-six cases which were investigated in
Clerkenwell. In eleven cases the wife was fourteen years
■old. In two cases the husband, and in twelve the wife,
were fifteen. In twelve cases the husband, in forty-six the
wife, and in three cases both, were sixteen. Twenty-seven
husbands and forty-eight wives were seventeen when they
began housekeeping, and in thirteen cases both of the
happy pair boasted of that age. Let me give another
statistical fact. In 1884—not so very long ago—14,818 men
married under age in England, and 74,004 married at the
age of twenty-one. And the practice of marriage by men
under age has increased since 1841 from 4’38 per 100 to
7’25 in 1884. Now, is it any wonder if this causes a
frightful deterioration ? If boys and girls rush into mar
riage at a time when they are utterly unfit economically to
support their offspring ; and if those who marry at a later
age are—as Mrs. Besant knows full well—grossly impru
dent in the number of their offspring, is it any wonder
�16
IS SOCIALISM SOUXD ?
that the trough should be over-swarmed ? And is it any
wonder that some should be turned away through the
operation of a natural law which can no more be defeated
than the Alps can be removed. (Cheers.)
Mrs. Besant says that she would not only nationalise land,
but also wrought material. And then she subsequently told
us there was no distinction in a country like ours between
land and wrought material. Is it a fact that the nationali
sation of the land is Socialistic ? Does it in any way
involve that wide regulation of human affairs which the
confiscation and seizure of all capital would entail ? It
does not. Suppose the land were nationalised to-morrow,
rent would necessarily be paid still. Rent cannot be
abolished. It is the difference between rich and poor land
and good and bad convenience of site. No man could
claim a plot of rich land for the same value as another man
paid for a similar plot of poor land. That rent would
have to be paid; but instead of going into the pocket of
a few private individuals who did not assist or co-operate
in making the land, this rent would go into the national
exchequer, and every man would as a citizen become a
part owner of the land which is the gift of Nature to all,
(Cheers.) It is a curious fact that before the present
phase of English Socialism was heard of, and long before
its chief advocates appeared in the field, the nationalisation
of the land was advocated by Mr. Herbert Spencer, the
protagonist of Individualism. In his “ Social Statics”,
published so far back, I think, as 1850, he argued that
the equal right of all to access to nature, and to the
exercise of their faculties in the gratification of their
wants, logically led to the State-ownership of the soil.
“ Equity,” he wrote, “ does not permit property in land.
Eor if one portion of the earth’s surface may justly become
the possession of an individual, and may be held by him
for his sole use and benefit as a thing to which he has an
exclusive right, then other portions of the earth’s surface
may be so held, and eventually the whole of the earth’s
surface may be so held; and our planet may thus lapse
altogether into private hands”. He further argued that
the doctrine of collective ownership of land may be car
ried out “without involving a community of goods”, or
causing “ any serious revolution in existing arrange
ments ”, and he concludes the chapter by saying, “ that
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
17
the theory of the co-heirship of all men to the soil is con
sistent with the highest civilisation; and that, however
difficult it may he to embody the theory in fact, equity
sternly commands it to be done ”. Surely, then, if the
greatest living opponent of State Socialism writes in this
way, it is idle to assert that the nationalisation of the land
is a Socialistic measure. (Cheers.) Sir Henry Maine tells
us that the idea of land being a chattel in the market is
very recent. It is probably not more than two centuries
old. People will probably recur to the collective owner
ship of the soil, which will stand in a different position to
capital. Mrs. Besant says that capital is a social product.
The watch in my pocket is a social product. Mrs. Besant’s
dress is a social product. Everything conceivable is a
social product under a system like ours where the division
of labor obtains. Well, if no social product could come
under private ownership, Mrs. Besant is landed in sheer
Communism—not in the far future—but to-night, accord
ing to the principles which she lays down. What is a
social product ? I want to eliminate the personal element
from the illustration as far as possible. One man with
capital might engage fifty men without capital to work
upon certain raw material, which his capital has provided.
What do they work for ? They produce a manufactured
article, but the essence of the contract on the workman’s
part was not any specific amount of produce, but a cer
tain proportion of his time given for a certain monetary
consideration. At the end of it the workman gets his
stipulated sum, and the capitalist holds the product.
But suppose the product turns out to be a drug in the
market—suppose the product has to be sold without a
profit. The workman will not lose. It was not part
of his contract that he should bear any risk or re
sponsibility. In other words, his fate was not bound up
with the product. He contracted to do certain work at
a certain price, and was paid for it. The product rightly
remained with the person who undertook the responsibility
and risk. Now, if the workman is prepared to undertake
the responsibility and risk, he also can become, in the
fullest sense of the word, a capitalist as well as his employer.
(Cheers and “No”'.) I believe in co-operation as much
as Mrs. Besant. Civilisation is co-operation. We could
not have been in this hall to-night unless we had co-
�'is
is SOCIALISM SOUND ?
operated to produce common results. Division of labor
means co-operation. But Mrs. Besant’s co-operation is
co-operation by law. My co-operation is voluntary co
operation. I distrust law. Mrs. Besant seems to place
implicit reHance on it. She thinks probably in the future,
if the law is made by the many, it will be absolutely just
and wise. I do not think so. The many can be mistaken
as well as the few. The many can go wild for a time as
well as the few. I say that no man ought to be handed
over bound hand and foot to that maj'ority which calls
itself society, but which can never be more than a majority,
large or small. The majority has no right to do every
thing and anything. It has no just power to rule the
minority arbitrarily, leaving them with no power to settle
their fate for themselves. (Cheers.) Mr. John Stuart
Mill thought—and everybody who agrees with Mrs. Besant
must honor him—that the individualistic system would
survive and gradually develop into voluntary co-operation.
Now, supposing Mrs. Besant’s system were established,
one of two things must happen. Either she would have to
seize the whole of the present capital, or she would have
to pay for it. (A voice : “ Seize it! ”.) I should like to
know how this is to be done. Suppose the property of the
country were obtained by either of these means, what
would the Collectivists gain in either case ? They would,
possibly, have the capital. But capital is a very tender
plant, reared with difficulty, and easily killed. It is not,
like the land, indestructible. It has to be continually
renewed. What is at present the value of capital ? Mrs.
Besant speaks as if all the profits of manufacturing
and commercial enterprises were really a return on
capital. That is a fallacy. Capital is worth what it
will fetch in the open market in good security—no more
and no less. The railway companies in England are
getting on the average four per cent. First-rate security
will give you, I think, about three per cent., and that
security is considered practically firm. Now if, in addition
to the capital, a capitalist has to provide himself the
trained capacity, the result consists of three things. First,
the interest on the capital which would be paid by any
other man -who used it; secondly, insurance against risk;
and, thirdly, the cost of direction which, if he did not direct
the concern himself, he would necessarily incur in the
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
19
payment of other persons who did. Under yonr Socialist
system, this cost of direction would still remain. If you
■elect directors, how would you pay them? If you paid
them at the same rate as a day laborer, the probability
is they would do just about as much labor, and just as
valuable labor, as that of day laborers.
(Cries of
dissent.) I say that, of course, without any disrespect
to day laborers. But a man who cannot draw a distinction
between laying bricks and writing “Hamlet”, for instance,
has something yet to learn. (Hear, hear, and applause.)
Now, this direction would have to be paid for; men with
directing capacity would make you pay their price. You
could not help it. Generalship is indispensable. Caesar’s
legions locked up in Gaul were worth nothing until Caesar
came. And so it is with any great commercial enterprise.
Unless you have the directing capacity, the ordinary run
of workers could not possibly work with a profit. You
may see two mills standing side by side in a town like
Oldham. The one will be bankrupt in two years ; and the
other, in the same period, will be paying ten per cent.
What is the cause of the difference ? One is in the hands
of a skilled management, carefully watching the markets and
generally exhibiting sagacity in the conduct of the business;
the other is deficient in this controlling wisdom. If you were
a capitalist, and did not head the enterprise yourself,
choosing the managers and watching personally over every
thing, all you would be entitled to, and all you would obtain,
would be three or four per cent, at the outside which is
the market interest on capital. Then, is this big revolution
worth working for three per cent. ? (Cries of “No, no”,
and “ Yes ”.) I think not.
As a redress for poverty, Socialism would, in my opinion,
wholly fail. All the Socialists, I believe, with one or two
trifling exceptions, consider that the Malthusian theory of
population is a delusion and a snare, a middle-class or upperclass invention. (Hear.) Well, Charles Darwin — the
greatest naturalist of our age—did not think so. One of his
greatest successors, Professor Huxley, does not think so.
And, what is more to the purpose to-night, Mrs. Besant does
not think so. You could not, as human nature is, provide
restraints. H so, I should like it proved. I deny the possi
bility of it. But Individualism is gradually lessening the
pressure of poverty. (“ OhI oh! ”) Nothing is so easy as to
�20
IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
confine attention to what has occurred within a few months,
rather than to extend observation over a number of years.
Speak to an old man in any great manufacturing centreand ask him the difference between fifty years ago and
now. Nay, do not go to any old man; go to absolute
statistics which cannot be refuted. I shall show you if Mrs.
Besant questions it, because I have the figures under my
hand, that during the last fifty years the wages of skilled
artisans have nearly doubled; I shall show you that the
wages of unskilled laborers have increased nearly forty or
fifty pei’ cent. I shall show you that the prices of nearly
all commodities have diminished instead of rising. (Cheers,
and “No, no”.) I shall show you that the only twothings that have risen are the prices of meat and rent.
Now, if the profits of the capitalist have increased, they
have increased in the mass, and not in proportion. (A
laugh.) It is very easy to laugh at statistics and BlueBooks. But, if you look at the last Blue Book, with
respect to the Royal Commission on Trade—(laughter)—I
suppose, then, that we are to take not only Socialist argu
ments but Socialist facts—you will find that during the last
fifty years, in the various changes that have taken place,
the condition of the worker has improved, and pauperism
has diminished. When you hear of men being out of
work, it is only a small proportion of them who are out of
work. And as I understand the state of things, I contend
that it is the Individualistic system which is working
such improvements. The fate of the workers lies in their
own hands. (Cheers.) Why wait until you convince
everybody that the millennium is at hand ? Why not begin
with co-operative experiments to-morrow, and gradually
bring society to the truth by experiments which will con
vince, and cease indulging in extravagant schemes and
excited declamation which will do no good whatever?
(Loud applause.)
Annie Besant : Friends, I must ask Socialists who are
present to be good enough for my sake even more than
for their own not to interrupt in the way some are inclined
to do. Your flag to-night is in my hands, and I cannot
keep it unsoiled if you interrupt my opponent. (Hear,
hear.) Mr. Foote has said, and said truly, that Individu
alism has not been incompatible with progress. That istrue; it is a historical fact; and it would be idle to deny
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
21
that in evolving from the more savage and. brutal forms of
society the Individualism through which we have passed, is
tk necessary stage. But I hope to be able to show you
later on that real Individualism that makes for progress
can only be secured by the Socialist. That I am prepared,
to defend this day fortnight. (Cheers.) Then Mr. Foote
said that I was dealing only with the commonplaces of
political economy, and that he had but little trouble in
admitting most of them. But surely he was acute enough
to see that my claim for the whole of the raw and wrought
material included the claim for the whole of the capital of
this country ? So that while at the beginning of his speech
he said that my claim was a mere commonplace, at the
end of his speech he urged you not to take the step I am
striving to induce you to take. (Hear, hear.) Mr. Foote
complains that my definition was not full enough. It
included the whole of the land and all the capital; and
that ought to be full enough. (Laughter, and hear, hear.)
In dealing with the economic basis, and seeing that I care
fully confined myself to the economic aspect of Socialism,
I fail to see what further definition Mr. Foote can require.
He made another statement, however, with which I agree,
when he said that when mankind was fitted for a system
then it is that they will live in that system. That is
exactly why I believe that Socialism is now approaching.
I learn from Emile de Laveleye that the majority of French
workmen in every town are Socialists; that the professors
of nearly every university in Germany and Italy are up
holding Socialism. Even in this country the conception as
to property hitherto held will have to be completely given
up, according to Professor Graham: and I believe Social
ism to be absolutely inevitable, although I try to hasten
its coming by pointing out the advantages that will accrue
from the acceptance of it. (Hear, hear.) Mr. Foote says,
is competition so evil a thing ? And I do not propose to
waste time over the difference between competition and
emulation. Competition is an evil thing under present
■conditions. (Hear, hear.) Competition under Socialism
might possibly not have many evil results. And I will tell
you why. So long as you have your raw and wrought
materials in the hands of a class, then that class can practi
cally fix the remuneration of labor. (Hear, hear.) Upon
that, too, I will not be content with my owa opinion, but
�22
IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
will take the authority of Emile de Laveleye, who pointsout that “in every contract he who advances the where
withal to labor, i.e., land and capital, will fix the terms
he chooses; and will, of course, so fix them that
the profits will be at a maximum and the wages at a
minimum”. (Cheers.) Take, too, the declaration of
Cairnes—that there is no possibility of the laboring class,
as a whole, rising out of the position of suffering and
distress in which it is to-day, so long as it continues to be
composed of wage-laborers. When you have your com
petition hampered by absolute proprietorship in the whole
of the materials of wealth production on the one side, and
on the other a proletariat without property—a proletariat
who must get at the land and capital or starve—then your
pretence of free competition is a fraud and a hypocrisy,
for one of the competitors has a clog around his neck
which makes it impossible for him to swim against the
other. (Cheers.) And that is not all. So long as you
have these proprietors and the proletariat, the proletarians
will have to work for the proprietors as well as for them
selves. And the difficulty is that the proprietors can wait,
and the proletarians cannot. The proprietor has got hisland. He can cultivate it himself if the worst comes to
the worst. He has got his capital. He can utilise that if
the worst comes to the worst. And land and capital give
him credit, and that will keep him well-clothed and wellfed for years and years. But the proletarian cannot wait,
for he wants food and can only get it by taking the wages
offered to him. He starves if he waits. And to say that
these parties are equal, and are able to make a fair con
tract, is to fly in the face of every fact of our present
society. (Cheers.) That brings me-—following Mr. Eoote
step by step—to the statement that he remembers a pas
sage of mine in which I stated that Communism would
mean the living of the idle on the industrious. I presumehe was quoting from my pamphlet on “ Modern
Socialism,” in which I stated what I stated to you to
night—that it was likely that society would evolve into
Communism. But I added—and this Mr. Foote omitted
to mention—“ that stage of development man has not yet
attained ; and for man as he is, Communism would mean
the living of the idle on the toil of the laborious”. (Hear,
hear.) I hold that immediate complete Communism is.
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
23:
utterly impracticable, but that through Collectivism you
may come to Communism. Mr. Foote says the struggle
for" existence is necessary; the fact of the struggle for
existence must be recognised. That both Darwin and
Huxley realise it is true; but it was because Darwin
realised it that he was against those checks to undue in
crease of the population which I propose. He says, if you
limit the number of competitors and soften the struggle
for existence, progress will be arrested. He would leave
the old brute struggle to go on among men, trusting that
thus, despite the suffering, improvement will result. Is
Mr. Foote prepared to take up that position, and to deny
everything we have striven to do to lessen and regulate
this strife by substituting rational for natural selection ?
(Hear, hear.) But Mr. Foote also says—and here I agree
with him—that if the law of population is not recognised
poverty will once more result. Mr. Foote is right. Many
of my fellow Socialists—not thinking as carefully and
thoughtfully as they should — ignore or deny that
indisputable truth. But I allege that when you
have Socialism, the fact that unless you regulate the
relative numbers of producers and consumers you
will overburden your producers, will be a fact so
patent and obvious that the blindest will be compelled to
see it. (Hear, hear.) Well, but says Mr. Foote, suppose
there is enough for every ninety-nine out of a hundred, is
it not better for the unfit to perish and not transmit their
unfitness to their offspring ? But do you kill out the unfit
in the present condition of society ? Is it the unfit who go
to the wall in the social struggle for existence ? Why, it
is your idlers who five; your idle aristocrats who cannot
earn their own living ; the lazy women who cannot sweep
a room or clean a saucepan. (Hear, hear.) These are the
men and women who live under your present social system,
and it is the fit who are crushed out—those who could work
and who long to work; those who are industrious and
pray for work; those you kill off by your competition, and
your idle vagabonds it is who live. (Hear, hear.) Then
Mr. Foote says the poor marry very young. I know that.
And why ? Because they are crowded together in small
rooms where no separation of the sexes is possible, and
where in consequence the sexual instinct is awakened at
an age when it should still be sleeping; because in their
�24
IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
miserable life their poverty makes them old when they
ought to be young, and the longings of manhood and of
womanhood are roused in them when they should be still
almost in their childhood. (Hear, hear.) There is no
blame to them. Forced in this impure hothouse of
poverty; with no pleasure save that of the sexual relation;
with no relief for their feelings save in sexual intercourse;
shut out from art, from beauty, from education, and
from everything that might make life fair to them as to
others, they cling to this one joy of their manhood and
their womanhood as all of happiness that is open to them.
(Cheers.) But Mr. Foote says—Why not go in for land
nationalisation? it is more simple. Mr. Foote did not
think it worth while to deal with the difficulty of national
ising the rent of land. He ignored the fact that in
nationalising the rent of land—which is capital as well as
land, a point he had apparently forgotten—he has the
whole of the Socialist difficulty to face. (Hear, hear.) I
will take Sidgwick on this head. He points out that
capital and land cannot be separated; that land is capital,
and is largely the result of accumulated labor. Take, for
instance, a railway. Is the railway running through a
county land or capital ? Does not the land over which it
runs represent part of the capital of the railway company ?
And Mr. Foote, in an eloquent passage, said that those—
the idle class—who took the rent of the land did not make
the land ; that they did not even co-operate in making the
land. I can find no better words than his to describe the
class that lives on the capital made by the labor of others ;
“They did not make the capital; they did not even co
operate in making it
They have taken it unfairly, by
force and fraud, that is, by theft, and we want to take it
back from them. (Cheers.) But Mr. Foote says that all
who work to make the capital work with their eyes open,
and that they have no right to quarrel with the result. Is
that true ? Surely not. Even with their eyes open men
prefer a poor wage to absolute starvation. But it is not a
case of freedom of contract. They are forced into the
contract by the absolute pressure of their bodily necessities.
(Hear, hear.) It is not a case of willingly accepting a
contract which you have power to refuse. You are driven
into it with the whip of starvation, and you must take
it or starve. (Cheers.)
�IS SOCIALISM SOUXI) ?
25
Mr. Foote : To-night Mrs. Besant naturally circumscribes
-the limits of the debate : I follow her and must do so..
Next Wednesday night I trust to alter to some extent the
character of the debate. I shall then go a little further
into the Socialistic scheme, and see how it would work in
practice—or rather how it would be likely to work in
practice. (Hear, hear.) For the present I confine myself
to the duty of following Mrs. Besant. She admits that
Individualism is not incompatible with progress. I cannot
say that the admission was wrung from her, because it is
one that no student of history could possibly refuse to
make. But the fact that the progress the world has made
during the last three centuries—the great era of progress
—has been achieved under the system of Individualism
ought to make innovators pause before they propose to
substitute something for it, unless they can clearly show—
not in mere words but almost in the visualisation of imagi
nation—that what they propose to put in its place will be
far better than what they wish to remove. (Cheers.)
Under the present system we do somehow hold on ; we do
not go from bad to worse; we keep making some little
improvement year by year and generation by generation.
(Hear, hear.) If you cannot cultivate, under purely
arbitrary conditions of your own making, a special variety
■of a plant in a short time, how are you going to cultivate,
under what cannot be purely arbitrary conditions, a special
new variety of human nature in a short time ? Mrs.
Besant says present human nature is not fit for her whole
scheme. Her whole argument is founded on prophecy.
Some day or other human nature will be fit for it I I
think that, some day the forces which have elevated man
in the past will bring him to higher things. I know
Individualism is not incompatible with social elevation.
It is an essential requisite for a man to assist anyone else
that he shall be strong and self-helpful himself. You
cannot have a really strong society when everybody is
a leaning-post to everybody else. (Hear, hear.) In
.some parts of the world where they five under a system
which is very much nearer Socialism than ours, they look
upon the suffering and peril of their fellow creatures almost
with amusement. But in a country like ours where In
dividualism so predominates, our instincts are such that
brave fellows will leap into the water, and brave firemen
�26
IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
will run up the fire-ladder, and men will go out in the
lifeboats to sinking crews, and women will send their
dearest to save the fives of others. (Hear, hear.) These
things are done under Individualism—it is not incompa
tible with the highest development of human nature.
Mrs. Besant says I cannot separate land from wrought
material. Now land is not wrought material in the ordinary
sense of the word—that it can be carried about. Whatever
improvements you make in the soil you cultivate, by
digging, manuring, and planting, you cannot carry them
away with you. They remain on and in the land. And that
is one of the reasons why the law interferes, and gives the
tenant compensation for whatever improvements he has
made when his lease is terminated by the landlord’s action.
Now, if the land were nationalised, is it true that we could
not possibly separate the value of the land, for the pur
poses of statemanship, from the value of other things ? A
railway runs over a certain amount of land. Supposing
we wanted that bit of railway. The company is not in the
true sense of the word “ a bloated capitalist ”. (Laughter.)
Thousands on thousands of persons have small sums of
money invested in it as shareholders. Heaps of money
are invested in railway security by life assurance societies.
If you were to take it you would make these bankrupt,
and ruin the expectations of almost everybody who assured
their lives for the benefit of their wives and children.
These things are talked about without the consequences of
what is proposed being seen. A laugh is cheap and a
sneer is easy. But when you find yourselves face to face
with the consequences you never foresee, you might feel a
little less jubilant. (Cheers.) If the land w§re bought
under Act of Parliament, and a price given for it, any
State that took possession of it would be bound to
compensate for it, otherwise it would injure thousands
who have invested their money in it. Socialists may
claim their right to take it without compensation. I
for one deny their right to do it. (Hear, hear.) Mrs.
Besant may differ from me. Well, in that case we must
both appeal to such feelings of fair play , as men may
possess. (Cheers.) It would not be very difficult to take
over a railway. My opinion is that it is confusion to sup
pose that because the State can do one thing well it can do
everything well. You might as well say that because a
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
27
man can build a house well he could paint a picture well.
(Hear, hear.) There is no natural reason for believing it.
A municipality can supply us very well with water and
also with gas. But what municipality could supply. uswith anything except what had been simplified for it
through long experience and experiment under individual
istic enterprise ? If any one tried to get municipalities to
take up the electric fight he would be laughed at. In
dividualism has to work it up, and risk the money, and
by and by when it has succeeded society will step in and
reap the advantage of it. (Hear, hear.) There are certain
things that must be monopolies. Mrs. Besant may say
that capital is a monopoly too. But what I want to point
out is, that although for the moment the amount of
capital existing is determined, the amount of capital that
may exist is indeterminate. The amount of land that
exists in England is determined; but land is also deter
minate—it cannot be more to-morrow than it is to-day.
But capital can. (Hear, hear). While the land is now
practically the same as in the time of William the Con
queror, capital is probably a thousand times as much as it
was then. I hold that what is a natural monopoly the
State should undertake, and the State has never relinquished
that right. There is no such thing in English law as
private ownership of land; there is no such thing in Eng
lish law as an absolute private right to work a public
monopoly. A railway has only a right given to it by Act
of Parliament. A water company has only the right given
to it by Act of Parliament. It is simply a question of
prudence whether it is better to give a public com
pany a right of working a monopoly under Parliament,
within legal conditions, or for a municipality or State to
take the direct management of it itself. But the prin
ciple of it is the same whether the company work understatutory limitations, or whether the State provide the
directors. (Hear, hear.) The State is the ultimatesovereign of all monopolies. I hold, as an Individualist,
that they should be regulated by the State, and that they
should be actively conducted by the State.
Now let us try to separate our land from the wrought
material. What would be the actual problem ? Here is some
land the State proposes to take. All the State has to do is to*
lay down what it considers just principles of compensation,
�■28
IS SOCIALISM SOUND?
which, of course, it is impossible to argue out in detail at
present. Besides, Mrs. Besant is a land nationaliser as
well as I. The State would have to lay down broad
principles of fair compensation. And commissioners would
have to apply them in particular cases, just as commissioners
did when they fixed the judicial rents in Ireland, or as the
Land Court does when it adjudicates on the question of a
tenant’s unexhausted improvements. There would be no
difficulty in it at all. I cannot understand how Mrs.
Besant can so dwell upon a difficulty which is, after all,
mainly of her own creation. (Hear, hear.)
Why is the land different from capital ? Mrs. Besant says
capital is a social product. Admitted. She says that land
and capital are both used for production. Yes. But there is
this difference. Land is naturally a monopoly. Land was
not created at all. Nobody co-operated in the making
of it. But people did co-operate in the making of capital.
The difference between capital and land is, that in the
one you have a vast mass of value created by the volun
tary cooperation of employers and workmen under all
varieties of association, while in the other you have an
uncreated and indestructible gift of Nature to all her
children. You have the right to take for all the prime
gift of Nature. But I cannot see your right to take
for all what has been created by separate bodies of men
after giving such consideration for the raw material as
the law of the land declared at the time to be just.
(Cheers.)
Mrs. Besant says that under the present system
■ capital fixes the terms upon which labor shall workI
Bid she never hear of trades’ unions ? Mr. Thornton’s
fine book, “On Labor”, showed how it was that trades’
unions were able, in spite of the mistaken notions on
the subj ect of most political economists, to affect the price
of labor. Mrs. Besant says the capitalist fixes wages!
Is there no such thing as supply and demand? Mrs.
Besant must know that it is one of the commonplaces
of political economy, as you will find in Mill, that under a
highly-developed economical system like ours, with im
mense accumulation of capital and increasing skill in labor,
wages tend to rise and profits to fall to a minimum. That
is a commonplace of political economy. And the proof of
lies in the fact that the profits are falling. Statistics
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND?
29'
show it. And wages have risen a hundred per cent.—in
some cases more and in others less—during the last fifty
years. Further, the return on capital, which, as I said,
is simply interest—the market rate for the use of capital—
gradually gets less and less. You cannot now get for
invested capital, unless you conduct the enterprise your
self, what was obtained ten years ago. Interest now is so
low that bankers have been declining to give interest at
all, and depositors have often been glad for the bankers to
take charge of the money for them without any percentage.
(Laughter.)
Mrs. Besant says that the proletariat cannot rise—that
it is the unfit, the idle, who five. Not all of them, I hope.
It is rather too sweeping a condemnation. I am in favor,
as a Radical, as much as Mrs. Besant can be, of abolishing
all privileges created by law. (Cheers.) And what is more
I have always been in favor, in all public reforms, of
adopting the wise German proverb of sweeping the stairsfrom the top downwards. But it is not true that it is
simply the unfit who survive and the fit who are killed
out. What is the fact ? According to the income tax
table, schedule D, incomes from £200 to £1,000 have in
creased in number, from 1874 to 1885, from 162,435 to
215,790; incomes from £1,000 to £2,000 from 11,944 to
13,403 ; and so on right up the scale. But you find a
decrease when you come to incomes from £5,000 to £10,000.
These have diminished from 2,035 to 1,928. (Hear, hear.)
And the incomes above £10,000 a year have diminished
from 1,283 to 1,220. So that there is a great increase of'
incomes from £100 upwards to £5,000, and a decrease atthe wealthier end of the scale. The wages of the workman
have also increased. (“No, no.”) I say yes. If Mrs.
Besant denies it I will prove it, but not otherwise. I say
then that under the circumstances it is not the fit who are
killed out and the unfit who survive. The fact is the mass
of the people are better off. The workers are in an improved condition. The income tax returns show an increase
of small incomes and a decrease of big ones. That is in
consistent with Mrs. Besant’s position. It is corroborative
of mine. (Cheers.)
Annie Besant : Mr. Foote alleged—I am going back to
the speech made before the last, when he was dealing with,
the conditions under which men accepted labor for which.
�30
IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
they took wage—that if the product was a failure the loss
fell on the capitalist, and not on the worker. If Mr. Foote
will think that question out he will find that if a product
•is a failure—that is, if the capitalist cannot sell that which
has been produced and a glut is caused—that while the
capitalist may lose his profit the workman loses his live
lihood, which is a much more important thing. And it is
looking excessively superficially at the subject to say, that
because a man receives a certain amount of wage he runs
no risk from the failure of the market. (Hear, hear.) Mr.
Foote went on to urge that capital is easily killed, and that
it is a very tender plant. That is a favorite phrase of the
capitalist. But capital is not a tender plant. Look at the
way France was treated at the Franco-German War, and
see how soon she replaced the wealth of which she was
then robbed. The making of capital lies in the productive
power of the nation, and you cannot frighten away capital
in the fashion some persons imagine. You have it left
behind you after your big capitalists are frightened, and
the sooner they are frightened off the spoil the more chance
there is for the worker who really creates the capital. Then
we are told that the capitalist’s profits must cover insur-'
ance against risk, interest on capital, and the cost of pro
duction ; and Mr. Foote might have added the rent. It is
true that they cover these things, but when Mr. Foote
goes on to urge the enormous value of generalship and of
business ability, and to declare that the man, who cannot
distinguish between the value of the labor of laying, bricks
and that of writing Hamlet, is apparently not worthy of
having an opinion on a scientific problem, one cannot
help asking two questions. Are not the wages of
superintendence enormously higher than they ought
to be, judged by comparison with the value added
to the product by the business manager? And is it
not possible that, valuable as Hamlet is, the laying of
bricks is even more necessary to the community; and if
society wants to be served both by the bricklayer and
the poet, it must be content to take from each that
which his natural capabilities enable him to give ; and not
to give enormous extra advantages to the man who, being
an artist, has joy in his work as part of his payment, but
whose work is not more necessary to the community than
is that of the humbler members who do the actual manual
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND?
31
labor on which our lives depend. (Cheers.) Mr. Foote
argues that the wages of skilled workmen have doubled,
and those of unskilled workmen have risen; and we all
know these figures come from Mr. Gillen. When he says
so scornfully, 11 Is it worth while to make a revolution for
3 per cent ?”, I turn to Mr. Giffen, and I see he puts rent
and interest, without a penny of wages of superintend
ence, at £407,000,000 ; and I am inclined to say that as
the total produce per year is only £1,250,000,000, then to
rescue from the idle class even one-third of that total is
worth trying hard for by law, and might even, if it could
be effected thereby, excuse a revolution. (Cheers.) Then
we are told that under the present system we at least go
on—we do not go from bad to worse. Why, that phrase
is used by every tyranny, as well as by every Tory as an
excuse for opposing the wicked Radicals whenever they
propose a change. They use it by the necessity of their
position; but it is, indeed, strange, for a Radical to use
against Socialism the very argument he would scoff at if
it came from a Tory against himself. (Hear, hear.) Then
we are told that Mrs. Besant admits that human nature
is not fit for it—what is “it”? Mrs. Besant admitted
that human nature was not yet fitted for Communism, but
not that it is not fit for collectivist Socialism. Mrs. Besant
thinks it is fit for collectivist Socialism. (Hear, hear.)
Then I am told that in the savage state—which for some
mystic reason is like Socialism—men look on unmoved
at drowning men, whereas under Individualism they
plunge in to the rescue. I think I have read not
so very long ago of men walking away from a
pond whilst children were drowning.
But that is
not argument — it is only an attempt to raise prejudice
against the system at which it is aimed. (Hear, hear.)
Under your Individualism also the wealthy people look on
unmoved in the great cities at the poor, as they slowly die
of that which is a worse death than drowning. (Hear,
hear.) Then Mr. Foote urges that if you take the railways
you will rob people of the insurance they are hoping to
leave to their widows. But this difficulty is not special to
Socialism. The insurance offices have a large number of
mortgages on freehold land. When you nationalise the
land, are you going to steal from these offices ? or is it not
true that just the same difficulties will occur in the
�32
IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
nationalisation of land as in the nationalisation of capital ?
and that while these difficulties are a good reason for pro
ceeding with caution, they are not the slightest reason for
not moving at all ? (Cheers.) In any such change you
will have to be careful as to the method; but the diffi
culties placed against the nationalisation of capital are of
equal force in dealing with the nationalisation of the land.
Then Mr. Foote says that municipalities can only take up
things when experience has shown them to have been
successful. I was told only the other day by the secretary
of a company for the raising of water by hydraulic power
that their machines were only taken by municipalities which
had the water supply in their own hands, and that these
were ready to take the cost in this instance which private
companies refused to incur. (Hear, hear.) Next, Mr.
Foote argues that the land differs from capital in that it is
a fixed quantity, while capital is not. The soil of England,
he says, has not increased since the time of William the
Conqueror. Does Mr. Foote mean to say that the soil is
not more productive now than it was in the time of
William the Conqueror ? If his argnment as to the land
is good for anything, that is the meaning of it. You
measure your soil by its power of production; and if you
increase the productive power and get more food from it
than before, then the increased productivity is the measure
of the increased land ; and it is only throwing out words to
those who look at words rather than things to say that,
because the outline of the country is very much the same,
therefore the land has not increased. (Cheers.) The
land has increased in everything that makes it valuable.
Thousands of aeres have been brought under cultivation,
and those cultivated have been made more productive.
Land is increasing in productive power. Capital, says Mr.
Foote, cannot be limited. I was under the delusion that
capital could only be obtained by applying labor to raw
material, and Mr. Foote expects me to believe that the
material is limited, and that that which is made out of it
is unlimited. I find myself unable to accept that view.
(Hear, hear.) Then, against the argument I put at the
end that the wages of the laborers as a class could not
rise very high—Mr. Foote asks me if I have not heard of
trades unions and whether I do not think they can affect
the rate of wages ? To a very small extent. Mr. Foote
�33
IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
quotes Mr. Mill, but he knows that Mr. Mill’s political
economy has been discredited in point after point, and is
in much given up to-day by every economist of repute.
You cannot now quote Mill as a final authority. You
must take the arguments of Cairnes and Sidgwick and
Jevons, who have taken up the science where Mill dropped
it, and you must meet and refute their arguments. And
what is it that Cairnes has said on this subject? Cairnes
distinctly tells us that “nothing is more certain than that
taking the whole field of labor, real wages in Great Britain
will never rise to the standard of remuneration now pre
vailing in new countries” ; that the “possibilities of the
laborer’s lot are confined” within “very narrow limits”,
“ so long as he depends for his well-being on the produce
of his day’s work. Against these barriers trades unions
must dash themselves in vain.” (Hear, hear.) And then
he says, if you deal with the relative position of the in •
dustrial classes you find that inequality is continually in
creasing ; that “unequal as is the distribution of wealth
already in this country, the tendency of industrial progress
is towards an inequality greater still. The rich will be
growing richer, and the poor, at least relatively, poorer ”
(“Some Leading Principles of Political Economy”, pp.
337, 338, 340, ed. 1874). And he winds up his argument
on this point by declaring that ‘‘ if workmen do not rise
from dependence on capital by the path of co-operation,
then they must remain in dependence upon capital ;
the margin for the possible improvement of their lot
is confined within narrow barriers which cannot be
passed, and the problem of their elevation is hopeless ”
{Ibid., p. 348). (Hear, hear.) These are Professor
Cairnes’ words. I ask Mr. Foote to meet Professor
Cairnes on his own ground, and give us the authority
which will show us that Cairnes’ judgment is wrong. It
is true that profits tend to fall because of the competition
between employers. But when Mr. Foote says that wages
still tend to rise, then he speaks against the deductions of
political economy, and against the knowledge of facts of
every practical man who hears him. Wages do not now
tend to rise in the fashion which has been put. By com
bination something can be done. But as Sidgwick points
out—a man worthy of careful thought—Sidgwick points
out that if you are going to deal with the condition of
D
�34
IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
wage-laborers, then you must recognise that the tendency
of our system is to press their wages down to a minimum,
and to a minimum which is below what is necessary .for
healthy life. (Cheers.) Mr. Sidgwick points out that
wherever laborers belong to the capitalist—as the horse
and the ox belong to him—then they have a fair subsist
ence to keep them in working order ; but he says that the
pressure of competition has forced the wage-laborer below
a fair subsistence; and that is the point to which the wage
continually tends. (Hear, hear.) And I submit that on
that point you find that the views deduced from the prin
ciples of political economy as to the results of the present
competitive system have been really borne out by all the
facts of the society you have around you, and that what
Professor Sidgwick says is true. And whilst you have more
absolute money going into the laborer’s hands in some
trades to-day than before, it is also true that the share of
the produce obtained by the worker is not growing greater
but smaller. (Hear, hear.) Mr. Foote says that he is in
favor of abolishing privileges established by law. I ask
him to come over then to the Socialist ranks, and join us in
abolishing the privileges conferred on the landlords and
the capitalists by giving them these unfair monopolies. And
when he says that the salvation of the workman lies in his
own hands, I endorse that with all my power. I say your
salvation does lie in your own hands. Till you are edu
cated, till you understand your own condition, till you are
loyal to each other, till you unite to win your own
liberty, you will remain oppressed ; and only as you band
yourselves together, and realise the changes you should
seek to bring about, will you raise yourselves from your
position of dependence. The workers must save them
selves. We can only talk; but you must act. (Cheers.)
Mr. Foote : I notice in this debate that up to the present
Mrs. Besant is fonder of relying upon other person’s
opinions than on statistics and facts that cannot be ques
tioned. I submit that the question before us to-night is
not what Mill or Cairnes thought. We are here to think
for ourselves, and it is the business of the debaters to lay
before you grounds upon which you can form your own
judgment. And the best of all grounds, and in the long
run the only ground, is fact. Now Mj?s. Besant has not
denied the truth of my statement, that during the last
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
35
fifty years mechanics’ wages have risen in the majority of
cases nearly a hundred per cent., and that during the same
period the wages of unskilled labor have increased nearly
fifty per cent. (Hear, hear.) Cairnes’ opinion cannot
avail against those facts. It is useless for Cairnes to say
that the workman’s elevation is impossible if, during those
fifty years, the workman has been elevated.
Again, you have heard I daresay a good deal about the
distress in the shipbuilding trade, and I know many of the
hard-working men of the Tyneside have suffered seriously
owing to the glut of ships in the market. There are ships
lying idle there because there is no carrying trade for them.
And the shipbuilding trade has consequently suffered
very much. But still, with all that, what is the fact as to
the wages ? Before the Royal Commission, Mr. Knight
(the secretary of the Amalgamated Boilers and Engineers
Society, with whom I had the honor of speaking once at
the Crystal Palace) was interrogated as to the recent strike,
and he said that the reason of it was that the men com
plained that upon the piece work they had accepted they
could not manage to earn as much as they thought they
should according to the rate of day wages. Now the
question was put to Mr Joseph Knight ££ What do you call
a fair day’s rate for rivetters for piece work ? ” ££ I should
say”, he replied, ££a fair day’s rate, working at piece
work, is 8s. per day”. Now if you take five and a half
days a week, which leaves at least one day and a half
leisure a week for a man, to say nothing of his evenings,
you get a wage of £2 4s. per week. Because they could
not get that sum they had gone out on strike. Now, does
that look as if the working classes in the main were in
such a truly deplorable case as Mrs. Besant endeavors to
depict ? I admit that there are evils and suffering in
society, and everyone of us thinks that something should
be done to remedy them. (Hear, hear.) But I see no use
in exaggerated pictures of blackness and despair. Mrs.
Besant said I used forms of words to appeal to your pre
judices. I say she has painted a black picture so as to
appeal to your finer feelings of sympathy to foist upon
you an economical system which is to be judged according
to pure scientific canons of criticism and not according to
sentiments excited by one side or the other.
Mrs. Besant said that capital was not a tender plant, and she
d 2
�36
IS SOCIALISE! SOUND ?
said, “see how quickly France recouped herself after the war
with Germany ’ ’. Why, that ‘ ‘ exploded ’ ’ political economist
John Stuart Mill explained it himself. If a war in civilised
times leaves the land, the plant employed in manufac
tures, the canals, the railways, the docks, and all the per
manent instruments of production, all the people have to
do is to set to work again. But how soon would France
have recovered herself if Germany had spoiled all her
canals and railways and docks, ruined her machinery,
destroyed her buildings, broken down her hedges, and
devastated her vineyards ? France would not be in the
position she is in to-day. It would be found that capital
was hard to accumulate. It would take generations of
hard effort to remedy the result of one single devastating
campaign fought on the old barbarous methods that were
practised three or four centuries ago. (Hear, hear.)
Mrs. Besant says that generalship is necessary, but that
it should not be rated too highly. Do I rate it too
highly ? I do not rate anything except at its market
value. I know of no other method. If a man asks me
how much a bricklayer’s work is worth, or an artist’s, I
say I do not know. What does he get in the market?
That is the only means I have of judging of its value.
All the economists who have learnedly explained or be
fogged the question have got no further than old Butler,
who wrote “ Hudibras ”, and who said : “ The value of a
thing is just as much as it will bring ”. (Hear, hear,
and laughter.) Generalship can be rated too high! Now
supposing you have industrial armies, as Socialists are
fond of advocating, these armies would have to be com
manded. (“No, no.”) But you cannot have armies
without commanders. Why use the word army, if you
do not mean a similar mode of direction from head
quarters ? Why not find some other term ? Mrs. Besant
said she preferred to find new terms. Why not find a
new term for that ? Is it a fact that an army is of
much use without its general ? No. A general in military
matters and a general at the headquarters of an industrial
army would be of similar value. Such a general in
military matters is often of more worth in a struggle than
another army as large as the one he commands. The
difference between the genius of command on the one hand
and on the other will often make a small army more valu
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
37
able than a big one. What was it made the difference
between Oliver Cromwell, with a small sick army shut up
on the peninsula of Dunbar, and David Leslie, with nearly
three times the number ranged on the heights ? The
English soldiers were brave, but the Scotch were also
brave; and they fought after at Worcester as bravely as
men ever fought on this earth. But the difference lay in
this, that at the head of the smaller army there was the
sleepless vigilance, the military genius, the unfaltering and
invincible mind of one of the greatest generals that the
earth ever produced. (Cheers.) Although he was down
below and David Leslie had a better position on the
heights, the result was that Cromwell’s army, by a splendid
stroke of generalship, defeated the other army, losing
itself only a few men, and taking ten thousand of the
others as prisoners. (Cheers.) I say that the captain or
general of a great industrial enterprise may be of as much
importance to its success as the whole army put together,
and under any system you must pay him somehow. Mrs.
Besant said society must fix the wage. But supposing the
man objects and walks off, and goes elsewhere. (Hear,
hear, and laughter.) It is very well to speak of altruism,
but even under the selected communisms of America, as
Noyes tells us in his history of those institutions, what he
called general depravity—in other words, personal interest
—even among the elect divided them again and again.
One concern—a big one—broke up because the artisans
themselves complained that the value of their product was
twice that of those who worked in the fields, and they
should therefore only work half as long as agriculturists
did. Mrs. Besant says that human nature is fit for'Collec
tive Socialism. In my opinion Collective Socialism is not
fit for human nature. (Hear, hear, and laughter.)
Mrs. Besant proposes to wrest capital and land from the idle
classes. It is well to understand not only what they
propose to do, but how they propose to do it. Wrest
ing means taking away, and taking away without com
pensation. (Cheers.) Now the wealth is to be taken
from the idle classes. What idle classes ? (A voice:
“Those who do not labor”).
Do you . mean the
English aristocracy? (Cheers.) I am as ready to deal
with them by law as you are. Why, Mr. Bradlaugh, who
is opposed to Socialism, is quite ready to deal with the
�38
IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
English, aristocracy, if he gets the chance. (Hear, hear,
and laughter.) Surely we do not need Socialism as a
revelation to inform us that the English aristocracy should
be removed. Radicals have known that long. But some
whom Mrs. Besant includes in this idle class are not idle.
Was Josiah Mason idle, who worked as he did, and,
having made a fortune, founded the best institution in
Birmingham, erecting out of his fortune a splendid monu
ment of his wise generosity ? Was Whitworth idle ? Was
Bessemer idle ? But why go through a long list of these ?
Mrs. Besant knows and you know, as I know, that many
of these men included in the idle classes work in their
way, and contribute in their way to the production which
is the result of labor and capital and superintendence.
Without their guidance, and without the capital which
their ability helped to get together and increase, the work
man would really be worse off than he is to-day. (Hear,
hear.)
Mrs. Besant says that I should not scoff like the
Tories, who say that we should do nothing fresh because
we still go on. I never said we should do nothing because
we still go on. What I said was that if we do go on under
the present system, you must show us some very clear
reason for believing that the new system will supplant it
with immense benefit before we give up all we now
possess. That is very different. I am surprised that Mrs.
Besant could not see the difference. Mrs. Besant also
thought that it was not right for me to insinuate that
certain barbarous or savage people were somehow in. a
state of Socialism But if Socialism means an omnipotent
State, that the State regulates all industry, that the State
owns all the land and all the capital employed in produc
tion, then nearly every primitive form of society is more
or less in a condition of Socialism or Communism. (Hear,
hear.) The Individualism of the last three centuries has
revolutionised the modern world and done more in that
time than the Socialism of the lower states has done in as
many thousands of years. (Cheers.) Again, Mrs. Besant
holds me wrong for saying that the soil of England is of
the same extent now as it was in the time of William the
Conqueror. I said “soil” ; I did not say its productive
ness, nor did I say cultivated soil or uncultivated soil. _ I
I said simply soil. And the soil of the earth means all its
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
39
surface and what is under it that can be got out. Now, is
the soil of England in that respect any greater than it was
in the reign of 'William the Conqueror ? On the contrary,
some miles of coast on the east have been washed away by the
sea. (Laughter.) But it is true that the capital has increased
a thousandfold. Mrs. Besant says she cannot understand
that, but if the fact is true, not understanding it will not
alter it. The explanation is not so difficult. There is so
much raw material got somehow from the land, either
from plants, or from animals that consume the vegetation,
or from the surface of the ground, or from the bowels of
the earth. Now that raw material so worked might be
consumed the very same year, or a portion of it might be
kept over for further production. That amount so kept
over goes on accumulating—the abstinence of each genera
tion from consumption causes an accumulation of capital.
And that process goes on to an extent which is practically
illimitable; although at any one moment it is determined.
If that explanation does not make it clear, my power to do
so fails me.
Mrs. Besant says it is not true that the workman can
emancipate himself. I say it is. That is the grand dis
tinction between us to-night. She wants to call in an
omnipotent State to provide the brains which we have
not got, to provide the moral cohesion which we have
not got. But where is it to come from ? When we have
the moral cohesion, when we have the intellectual capacity,
we can join together. We do not want to wait for the mil
lennium. Any Trades Union could, if it had the necessary
mental and moral qualities, begin co-operative production
to-morrow. When we are sufficiently advanced we shall
go in the right direction, and the workers will find in
voluntary co-operation the way to elevate themselves from
the dependence of the wage system. But until we are
sufficiently advanced we must not expect the reward, and
no social mechanism will ever supply us with the qualities
we lack. (Cheers.)
A vote of thanks, proposed by Mr. Eoote and seconded
by Mrs. Besant, having been accorded the chairman, the
debate was adj ourned.
�40
IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
SECOND NIGHT.
Mr. Arthur B. Moss
in the
Chair.
The Chairman : Friends, to-night we are to listen to
the second instalment of this interesting and instructive
discussion on Socialism. Mr. Foote will open the proceed
ings with a speech of half-an-hour’s duration. Mrs.
Besant will follow with a speech of the same length.
There will then be two subsequent speeches of a quarter
of an hour for each disputant, and that will terminate the
proceedings. As I know from personal experience that
audiences who assemble in this hall are for the most part
trained listeners, I have only to ask you to give to the
consideration of the subject all the attention which the
importance of it undoubtedly demands. I have great
pleasure in calling upon Mr. Foote to open the discussion.
(Cheers.)
Mr. Foote : Mr. Chairman, ladies, and gentlemen, in
opening this discussion to-night I have the opportunity of
settling the lines upon which it is to go. I am glad of the
opportunity, because it is highly necessary not only that I
should be able to reply to what Mrs. Besant advances on
behalf of Socialism, but that I should also be able to urge
objections against it in my own fashion, which she will
have to reply to in return. First of all, let me say—not
for the instruction of all, but for the instruction of some—
that Socialism is by no means a new thing. Almost all the
Socialistic pills that are prescribed in our age have been
tried by the human race again and again in various stages
of its career. The peculiar American sect of Free Lovers,
for instance, is only teaching something which was taught
long, long ago, which is always tried more or less as
society is in a low condition, and is always left behind as
society advances into what is called civilisation. So it is
with Socialism.
What is, after all, the essence of
Socialism ? It is the omnipotence of the State : the de
claration that the State is rightly lord of all, that no
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND?
41
citizen has any rights excepting those which the State
allows him, and that even the family itself only exists by
the toleration of the State. If that is the essence of
Socialism, it is to be found amongst savages, amongst bar
barian nations, and is still to be found amongst peoples
in Oriental lands. An extreme instance of it was found
in ancient Peru, where everything was managed by State
officials, and where every department of the life of the
citizen was absolutely under the control of those who were
in authority. (Hear, hear.) There is, then, nothing new
in Socialism. Further, ever since Christianity had any
power Socialism has been a commonplace of its teaching.
I am not here for the purpose of dealing with theology,
but simply to deal with the relation of the system to social
matters. Mrs. Besant kindly drew my attention, in fur
nishing me with a list of books she would use, to two
articles by Emile de Laveleye, one in the Fortnightly
Review and one in the Contemporary Review, both for the
same month of April, 1883. I was exceedingly glad of
the references, because they had very naturally escaped
my attention, having been published at a time when,
owing to the law of the majority, which of course is
supreme, I was secluded for my country’s good. (Laughter.)
Now Laveleye, in the second of those articles, cannot
understand why Socialists reject Christianity, which ad
mits a great deal of their claims, and accept Darwinianism,
which denies the very equality they urge. He says,
“ Christianity condemns riches and inequality with a
vehemence nowhere surpassed” ; and (on page 565), after
citing a long and eloquent passage from Bossuet, a great
French divine, he gives the following brief quotations
from the early Christian Fathers. “The rich,” says St.
Basil, “ are thieves ”. St. Chrysostom says, “ the rich are
brigands. Some sort of equality must be established by
their distributing to the poor of their abundance ; but it
would be preferable if everything were in common ”. St.
Jerome says, “ opulence is always the result of a theft; if
not committed by the actual possessor, it has been the
work of his ancestors”. (Cheers.) I am glad to see so
many Socialists in accord with these early Christian
Fathers. (Laughter.) St. Clement says, “ H justice were
enforced there would be a general division of property”.
Mrs. Besant must, of course, be also aware that the
�42
IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
founder of Christianity taught the precept, “ Sell all that
thou hast and give to the poor”. She must be further
aware that the early Christian Church practised Com
munism ; but as soon as it grew large—as soon as the
fanatical bond of the small community was broken—this
teaching had to be relinquished in the interest of the very
order itself. (Hear, hear.)
Again, we have had no dearth of paper Utopias—from
Plato, whose Republic is a classic, down to Gronlund, the
American writer, whose “ Social Commonwealth ” I referred
to as a sort of New Testament for Socialists. If you
invest ninepence in one of Routledge’s shilling series, you
will get a little collection of more modern Utopias than
Plato’s, beginning with Sir Thomas More, going on to Lord
Bacon, and ending with Thomas Campanella, whose “ City
of the Sun ” has some affinities with More’s work, and
also some differences, which I have not time to dilate upon
now. In more recent times still we have had the Utopian
schemes of Owen, Fourier, and St. Simon; and essentially
Utopian schemes even by men like Comte. Then there
have been attempts to reduce their teachings to practice in
France, in England, and in America. Curiously enough,
in every case, unless the community was held together by
some bond of religious bigotry, or fanaticism, or as I should
sometimes prefer to say, of sheer imbecility, they have
always broken up and had to resolve themselves into the
general competitive system of mankind. (Cheers.)
While it is perfectly true that many noble natures have
been attracted by Socialistic Utopias, it is also a fact that
a very different class of persons are attracted by them.
Horace Greeley, who at one time belonged to a Socialist
community in America, and who after he ceased to be a
practical Socialist assisted some Socialist communities with
his money, wrote from bitter experience as follows : “A
serious obstacle to the success of every Socialistic experi
ment must always be confronted. I allude to the kind of
persons who are naturally attracted to it. Along with
many noble and lofty souls, whose impulses are purely
philanthropic, and who are willing to labor and suffer
reproach for any cause that promises to benefit mankind,
there throng scores of whom the world is quite worthy—
the conceited, the crotchety, the selfish, the headstrong, the
pugnacious, the unappreciated, the played-out, the idle,
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
43
and the good-for-nothing generally; who, finding them
selves utterly out of place and at a discount in the world
as it is, rashly conclude that they are exactly fitted for the
world as it ought to be.” (Laughter.) There cannot be
any doubt in the minds of those who know Mrs. Besant
that she belongs to the first and better class of those
whom Greeley mentions. (Cheers.) But I am decidedly
of opinion that even in England there is a large contingent
of the second class. Watching the antics of some of the
more forward class of Socialists, who do not follow the
example of the Fabians, but go out into the streets and
advertise themselves lustily, I am inclined to think that
Horace Greeley wrote from a very accurate and very painful
observation of Socialists and of mankind. (A. voice:
“Apply it to yourself”.) Socialism I urge, is really a
case of recrudescence. In my opinion it might be described
as economical atavism. In our country, curiously enough,
every time there is acute distress, Socialism comes to the
front, and every time the distress disappears it recedes
until it becomes invisible. (Hear, hear.) If the trade
of England improves—and it has shown signs lately of
improving—the probability is that Socialism will have to
wait until distress is again acute. (“No, no.”) I know
that some Socialists think differently, but that is my
opinion and as I am in possession of the platform I shall
say just what I think—(cheers)—and it will be well to leave
Mrs. Besant the opportunity as well as the right of replying
to me. (Cheers.)
In defining Socialism last Wednesday, Mrs. Besant said
that you might take the definition of Proudhon. Now
Proudhon was certainly a writer of great power, and
nobody can read his writings without feeling that he lived
habitually in a lofty moral atmosphere ; but it would be
as well, if we are to judge of his economics, to take his own
definition of property. La propriete c'est le vol, he says :—
“ Property is theft ”. I do not know whether Mrs. Besant
accepts that definition of property ; if not, I do not know
why Proudhon was referred to at all. But really Mrs.
Besant’s definition comes to much the same thing. She
says that “ Socialism teaches that there should be no
private property in the materials used in the production
of wealth”. That is, not only the land, but also the
capital of the country is to be appropriated by the State.
�. 44
IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
(Hear, hear.) I deny that such a definition leaves any
right of private property at all. (Hear, hear.) I deny
the possibility of any separation of wealth into two classes
—one capital and the other simply wealth. Every particle
of wealth is capable of being used as capital for the pro
duction of fresh wealth. The line is arbitrary. Only a
certain amount of wealth is used as capital at a certain
time, but the whole is capable of being so used. Mrs.
Besant’s definition would result in the complete abolition
of private property, a result which, I think, Socialism must
eventually come to if we accept it. I agree with Mr.
Bradlaugh in saying that no definition of Socialism is
accurate except that which includes the abolition of private
property. Any other definition is divided from this by a
thin sheet of tissue paper, which probably is set up in
order that we may not see all that Socialism means, and
thus be led to accept its best side without seeing its worst
side, which is inseparably connected with it. (Cheers.)
Now, how is capital to be appropriated by the State ?
I said last Wednesday that we not only want to know
what Socialists propose to do, but how they propose to do
it. If a man wants me to go to Manchester, it is a
matter of importance to me to know whether he wants
me to go on a bicycle, by train, by stage-coach, or
to fly. Unless he goes my way, I shall not go his
way. Now, how is this appropriation to be made ?
Mrs. Besant says it will be taken somehow, but she does
not tell us how. I should like to know how it is to be
done. Our friends of the Social Democratic Federation
say, for instance, of railways, that they are to be appro
priated by the State “with or without compensation”.
(Cheers.) Now that implies that “with or without” are
equally right, and if it be right to appropriate with
out compensation what utter fools they must be to
include the possibility of compensation. (Cheers.) I
submit that we have no right to deal with interests
that have been allowed by law without compensation.
(Cheers.) Of course, if Socialists say, as Gronlund does,
that the State has a right to do everything; if they
urge that there are no rights antecedent to the State,
and that there are no rights which are inviolable by the
State ; there is nothing more to be said. That, however,
is not my philosophy, nor, if I read mankind aright, is
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
45
that the philosophy of mankind. All of us recognise that
there are personal rights over which the State has no just
control or authority. Mrs. Besant recognises it every day
of her life. Mrs. Besant stands every day of her life in
opposition to the declared law of the land. Mrs. Besant
writes and prints and publishes what, according to the
law, is illegal. She justifies by her conduct—and I, of
course, quite approve of the position she takes up—the
principle that there are imprescriptible rights of mankind,
which altogether transcend the power of the State, whether
the power be exercised by a single despot or by a multi
tude that transforms itself into a despotism. (Cheers.)
One of the French Socialists, called Clement Duval, an
Anarchist, who is now unfortunately paying the penalty
of his mistakes in a prison—(cheers)—he has evidently
two or three friends here who, I hope, will never share his
fate—committed a burglary at the house of a widow lady,
abstracted money that did not belong to him, and stood by
while his comrade set fire to the house. That looks like
an ordinary case of ruffianism. When a man profits by
his theories in this way, it certainly looks as though self
interest had a great influence among some Socialists.
But on his trial Duval said: “I declare from my
point of view I am not a thief. Nature, in creating
man, gives him a right to existence, and he is justified
in availing himself of it. If society does not supply
him with the means of living he is entitled to take what
he requires.” (Cheers). He did not, however, quite
approve of the house being set on fire, whereupon his
comrade reproached him by saying : “ Then you are not a
true Anarchist”, to which he answered: “lam. Why
burn down houses which, after the great revolution, will
afford shelter to the workers ? ” (Cheers.) I am pained
to think that robbery by individuals like this can find
any justification. (Hear, hear.) Do our Socialist friends
propose to carry this right through ? Do they propose to
do by a majority what many of them would censure when
done by an individual ? If an individual had no right to
help himself, what right has the majority to help itself ? I
do not believe that majorities have a right to do anything
they like—(hear, hear)—although I admit that their power
to do so is unquestioned. I say that the majority have
only the right to act within the lines of those purposes for
�46
IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
which, all society is formed. All society is, in my opinion,
formed for the protection of life, of liberty, and of property.
(Cheers.) Gronlund says: “We shall not trouble our
selves overmuch about compensation ”. Mrs. Besant does
not, so far as I know, give her views on that point at all.
I beg her to-night to give us some idea of how she would
have the State appropriate the possessions of private indi
viduals. (Cheers.)
The motive of this appropriation is the redress of poverty.
Assuredly poverty should be redressed if possible. (Hear,
hear.) And assuredly poverty is being redressed. (Cries
of “ Oh, oh,” and Hear, hear.) Now I am quite prepared
for the “oh’s,” and I will give the “oh’s” a few facts
which they can digest at leisure. Birst of all the removal
of ignorance is one means .for the redress of poverty.
(Cheers.) In my opinion ignorance is simply the mother
of all the preventible ills that human flesh is heir to.
(Hear, hear.) In 1851 in England (excluding Scotland
and Ireland) there were 239,000 children at school; in
1881 there were 2,863,000 at school. (Cheers.) Look for
a moment at the statistics of crime. In 1839 there were
24,000 prisoners committed for trial in England, and in
1881 there were only 15,000, although the population had
largely increased. Now look at the statistics of pauperism.
In 1849—from which date our statistics become accurate—
there were 934,000 paupers in England; in 1881 there
were 803,000—that is, a decrease of 131,000, although in
the interval there had been a large increase in the popula
tion. (Hear, hear.) In the whole of the United Kingdom
in 1849 there were 1,676,000 paupers, but in 1881 there
were only 1,014,000. Now look at another class of figures.
In 1831 there were 429,000 depositors in our savings
banks, and the amount of their deposits was £13,719,000.
In 1881 the number of the depositors had increased to
4,140,000, and the amount of the deposits had increased to
£80,334,000. (Cheers.) In 1862 there were 90,000 members
of co-operative societies with a paid-up capital of £428,000,
and annual sales of £2,333,000. In 1881 there were
525,000 members, with a paid-up capital of £5,881,000,
and total sales of £20,901,000. (Cheers.) In the various
building societies in the country there were as many as
500,000 members. (Hear, hear.) Now these statistics are
facts. They are not fancies. They are not Individualistic
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
47
dreams to set against Socialistic dreams. They are things
that have already happened. If this accumulation of wealth
—this saving practically by the working classes—has been
effected during the last twenty or thirty years, what reason
is there for supposing that the improvement may not
go on with accumulating power, gathering momentum as
it goes, until by self-help, and personal thrift, and the
sense of individual responsibility, the social problem is
solved on the lines of Individualism—without transform
ing the State into an almighty and omnipresent tyrant,
ruling every person and everything with a rod of iron ?
(Cheers.)
If Socialism were inaugurated, you would not settle
the question. It is only the few in every generation who
do the forward work. The mass simply mark time. It is
the few who go ahead and point the way. When they
have convinced the rest by experience, when their ideas
are proved to be true, the rest take advantage of the
demonstration and join them. (Hear, hear.) Mrs. Besant
complained that the great instrument of Individualism is
cut-throat competition. There is an old adage that if you
give a dog a bad name, that is sufficient to secure his
destruction. Now why cut-throat? Of course it makes
competition look ugly. It suggests a razor and blood.
But why not say simply “competition”. Competition
may be a very bad thing for those who cannot keep up.
It does not follow that it is for those who can. Competi
tion may be a bad thing for a man who runs in a race and
loses ; but it is not so bad a thing for the man in front.
(Hear, hear, and laughter.) And unless you are going to
abolish all competition, which Mrs. Besant proposes to do ;
unless you are going to remove it as she proposes from
every department of human life ; I do not see how you can
object to the principle at all. (Hear, hear.) John Stuart
Mill who, although, according to Mrs. Besant, he is a
discredited economist, is not by any means a discredited
thinker—for his writings will probably live when both
Mrs. Besant and myself are forgotten-—John Stuart Mill
says:—“Instead of looking upon competition as the
baneful and anti-social principle which it is held to
be by the generality of Socialists, I conceive that,
even in the present state of society and industry,
every restriction of it is an evil, and every extension
�48
IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
of it, even if for the time injuriously affecting some
class of laborers, is always an ultimate good”. (Hear,
hear.) I agree with Mill in this. If competition is to
be removed, what do you propose to substitute for it
as a method ? Are you going to base society on pure dis
interestedness ? Gronlund himself, the writer of the New
Testament of Socialism, says: “Morals are not the founda
tion, still less religion. They are the top of our system.
Interest—self-interest—is the foundation, the prime motor, the
mainspring of our actions, so it is, has always been, and
will always be.” Self-interest, then, is to be the mainspring
of our actions even under Socialism. It must be, and I
will tell you why. You may do disinterested actions and
practise generosity—the more the better. But daily life
can only be organised on permanent motives. And the only
permanent motive which will keep the average man at
work, prevent him from idling, and make him thrifty, is
the desire of his own personal advantage—the desire of
the advantage of his own family—without infringing on
the equal right of all others to work for the same ends for
themselves. (Cheers.)
I have a number of other points for Mrs. Besant, but if
she goes over these I shall be satisfied. Meanwhile let
me ask her, above all things, to tell us how she proposes
to carry out the appropriation of all the wealth of the
country by the State. (Hear, hear.) How is it to be
done ? On what principles is it to be conducted ? For
until you tell us that, you are working with one hand
behind your back. Show us the hidden hand. (Cheers.)
Annie Besant, who was received with cheers, said: In
Mr. Foote’s last speech, on Wednesday night, he threw out
a challenge which I was then unable to answer, as I had
no further right of speech; and, with your permission, I
will accept that challenge very briefly before passing on to
the points which were raised in the speech to which we
have listened to-night. Mr. Foote then asked me to ex
plain how we were going to deal under Socialism with
what, he said, were the necessary “ generals” of industry,
and he compared Oliver Cromwell in his generalship of the
army to the best of those men who organised industry, and
who because of their special ability were highly paid.
I would submit to Mr. Foote first that in that comparison
he confused two things, which are very different—the
�49
IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
wages paid for exceptional ability and the interest paid for
the use of capital held by idlers. It is not wise to mix up
different things in that fashion if you desire to seek clear
ness of thought. Wages for exceptional ability might
exist under Socialism, where the interest for capital was
abolished as a payment to idle individuals. Not only so,
but it must be also remembered as to generalship
that history tells us that the greatest generals were not
those who were attracted merely by high pay ; and I read
Oliver Cromwell’s character very badly if he was moved to
his devotion to his country by the hope of the cash pay
ment that he might receive, and not by his enthusiasm for
the cause which he thought was the nobler cause at that
time in England. Then Mr. Foote, arguing on the ques
tion of the “tenderness” of capital, asked me what would
have happened in France had Germany destroyed the
canals, and generally the fixed capital of the country.
There would have been a far slower revival of prosperity.
But I desire to reassure Mr. Foote on this head, and to
tell him that when the Socialists take over the land and
capital here they do not propose to destroy, before taking
over, the canals and fixed plant, but to keep them for the
benefit of the people to work with, so that they shall start
with the advantage of the past accumulation, and use it
for the facilitation of present and future labour. (Cheers.)
Then Mr. Foote challenged me on the question of the rate
of wages. Here I am obliged to go over the point very
quickly, and I would suggest to Mr. Foote that in dealing
with Mr. Giffen’s figures there are certain points he over
looked. Mr. Foote stated that the wages of skilled labor
had risen 100 per cent., and that that of the other
forms of labor had risen 50 per cent., and he asked
me to explain the cause of that. But Mir. Foote did not
state that which Mr. Giffen put with great frankness—
that his figures were, to a considerable extent, guess-work
rather than absolute certainty. His statement was that un
fortunately there was no account drawn up that would give
full statistics on the question save from the date of about
fifteen or sixteen years ago, and he explained that in dealing
with this matter, he was dealing with figures drawn from local
trades and then he takes from these an average which he
admits himself might not be really accurate. (Hear, hear.)
He then goes on to say that the wages have risen variously
E
�50
IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
from 20 per cent, up to 50 and 100 per cent. And after
he has admitted that variation of percentages, for the rest
of his pamphlet he speaks of the rate of wage as having
doubled. Instead of taking into account the small increase
of 20 per cent, he takes the highest percentage for the
purpose of his argument, and uses that as if valid for the
whole of his argument. But I am willing to admit a
very considerable rise of wages. That has, however, been
largely balanced by the enormous rise of rent. It has also
to some extent been balanced by the very great rise in the
price of meat which is used to a considerable extent in this
country. The rise of rent is simply enormous. If you
take the rent in 1843 it amounted only to £95,000,000 ; if
you take it now it has run up to at least £200,000,000 ;
and if you are going to put the gain of the workers on the
one side, you must take into account the gain of those who
live on the workers on the other side. (Hear, hear.) Nor
is that all. Mr. Giffen himself admits that while wages
have risen in this fashion, the returns from capital have
risen from £188,500,000 to £407,000,000. He admits that
the wages which are paid to the workers among the upper
and middle classes, the wages of the highly paid, have
risen from £154,000,000 to £320,000,000; so that you have
your returns from capital more than doubled ; your returns
of these higher wages more than doubled, and I ask
you with what pretence, after admitting figures of that
sort, can Mr. Giffen say that the whole of the material
advantage of the last fifty years has gone into the pockets
of the manual workers? (Cheers.) But even this is not
all; in order thoroughly to understand how the rise has
come about, you must investigate the surrounding condi
tions, and you will find that you are dealing with a time
when an enormous impetus was given to trade. You are
covering the whole of the time when trade was expanded
by the first rush consequent on the free trade movement.
You are dealing with a. period in which England prac
tically stood alone as the workshop of the world; when
her coal and her iron went everywhere; when she was
the maker of nearly all the improved machinery, and
had nearly all the other nations of the world as her
customers to give her laborers work. All these things
must be taken into consideration when you are dealing
with the rise of wages that, as I admitted, has been con
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
51
siderable. But that is now no longer the case. You have
come to the end of the tether of your prosperity, for other
countries now raise their own coal and produce their own
iron. Your coal and your iron are getting lower down,
and therefore harder to work, while other countries are not
coming to you now as formerly for your machinery. You
used to be the world’s workshop, but you are now com
petitors with other nations; and the result of that is that
as you are competing with men whose wages are lower,
your wages will have to sink to the level of those which
are paid to the worst paid workers in foreign countries.
(Hear, hear.) That is my position. The past was a time
of unexampled prosperity, but that time is over, and now
the share to be divided among the workers is less than
it has been; the workers feel the pinch of poverty, and
that is the problem with which you have to deal at the
present time. Nor still is that all. During the time over
which Mr. Giffen has taken his figures you have had a
growing Socialism with all its advantages. There has
been the great benefit of trades unions, which fifty years
ago were illegal. They were combinations of workmen
struggling together to obtain the legal right of combining,
the right to work with each other for a rise of wages.
Trades unions are essentially Socialistic. (Hear, hear.)
They do away among the members with that competition
of which Mr. Foote is so strong a supporter; they tell the
stronger men not to use their strength for the injury of
their weaker brethren, but to hold together so that the
advantage of the strength may spread over all, and not be
taken by the stronger to the detriment of the weaker.
The same sort of attack as that of the Tories on trades
unionism is now being made on Socialism, and the same
reasons are given for the attack, namely, that trades
unionism was tyrannical, that it held back the stronger,
and tended to equalise the earnings of the more and the less
skilled workers.
There is one other point as to the growing Socialism
that I wish to refer to, and that is the passing of various
Factory Acts, which have practically, to a certain extent,
limited the power of plunder of the propertied classes.
These Acts, which came between the capitalist and the
worker limiting the hours to a considerable extent, have,
by their influence on public opinion, even limited the hours
n2
�52
IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
of labor in places outside the statutory scope. You have
the whole of these matters operating on this question
of the rise of wages, and simply to say that the wages have
risen and to leave out of consideration everything that has
been a factor in that rise, is really not to go to the
root of the question, but to deal with it with absolute
superficiality. And I contend that these figures are used
against the workers in a fashion that even Mr. Griffen—
holding a brief for the capitalist as he said he was accused
of doing—would have been ashamed to use them. (Hear,
hear.) I will conclude this brief answer to Mr. Foote’s
challenge by reminding him of that which of course he
must know, the relative position of workers and of capital
ists in the matter of increased incomes. He submitted to
you figures as to the rise of incomes amongst the poor folk.
Why not have laid some stress on the enormous rise of
incomes amongst the wealthier persons as well ? Why not
have told us of the fortunes of £50,000 and upwards, that
whereas there were only eight of these in 1843, there were
sixty-eight in 1880 ? Why not have told us that the
fortunes ranging from £1,000 to £5,000 have enormously
increased during that time, having risen from 6,328 in 1843
to 15,671 in 1879-80? Why did he only lay stress upon
the increase of small incomes and not on the increase in
the large incomes? and why not have pointed out that,
according to Mr. Giffen, you will find that out of sixteen
and a half millions of different incomes, there are only one
and a half millions over £150 a year ? Why not also have
pointed to the shocking extravagance that has been one of
the signs of that fifty years’ growth, and the shameful
luxury and waste which have characterised the aristocracy
of wealth ? And why not have cast one thought towards a
point of serious importance in dealing with the possibility
of change—to that wise remark of De Tocqueville, that the
French made their Revolution when their condition was
improving ? He suggested that people do not rise in revolt
when crushed down by hopeless misery, but that it is as
they improve, as their position gets somewhat higher, as
they have hope in their life, that then it is the hope that
sometimes pushes them into the revolution which they
would never have dreamt of making in their days of utter
degradation. (Cheers.)
I pass from that to deal with the speech of to-night.
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND?
53
Mr. Foote says Socialism is old. So is man. But it does
not necessarily follow that because a thing has been long
in the world it is bad. (Hear, hear.) How ought history
to be used ? History is the record of the experiences of
our race. Are we to read it only to abuse our ancestors
and to say what fools they were? Or are we to read it
to learn wisdom from their experience ; to utilise only
what was proved to be right and true, and to avoid
falling into their errors by marking the places where they
stumbled? (Cheers.) Mr. Foote passed on to what he
called the peculiar American sect of “Free Love”. . I
fail to understand why any mention of that sect was in
troduced into this debate. (Hear, hear.) It has nothing
to do with our discussion. The phrase “free love”
raises in England a very bitter feeling, largely because
the views implied by it are not sufficiently understood.
And I quite fail to understand—and Mr. Foote did not
give us any explanation—why he dragged that particular
sect into a discussion on the question “ Is Socialism Sound? ”
(Cheers.) Mr. Foote says that Socialism is the character
istic of a low state of civilisation ; and to some extent it is
true that you will find in the low stages of civilisation a
very crude form of Socialism as well as of Individualism.
(Hear, hear.)- But if it is true that you are to condemn
Socialism because among some tribes of low civilisation you
will find a community of goods, are you then to condemn
Individualism because in some tribes in low stages of civilisa
tion you find it in the crudest form, and see the strongest
man preying upon the weaker and using his imprescriptible
right of eating his neighbor for his dinner ? Because, if
you are going to argue in that way then Socialism and
Individualism are alike to be rejected; where is the path
along which humanity is to walk ? (Cheers.) But Mr.
Foote says that according to Socialism the State is every
thing ; everything is to be done by the State. I cannot
help regretting that Mr. Foote did not define what he
meant by the State. If by the State he means a bureau
cracy ruling over the people, or a despotism like that of
Peru—a despotism in which the workers had no political
or social power whatever, but were merely a class tyran
nised over by an absolute sovereign and a hierarchy of
priests and aristocrats-—then I deny that such a State
has anything to do with Socialism. (Hear, hear.) But
�54
IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
if by the State he means the whole of the community
organised for self-government; if he means a society
organised for the good of the whole of society; then I agree
with him that it is of the essence of Socialism that that
organised community shall be supreme over itself. And I
fail to see any difference there can be between the Socialist
and the Radical on this head, when the Socialist says that
the community should be the controller of itself, and the
Radical desires the government of the people, by the people,
and for the people. (Cheers.) We ought not in this discus
sion to merely play with words. (Hear, hear.) We want
to get to facts, and it is necessary for Mr. Foote to define
what he means by the State before I can deal with his
statement as to the tyranny implied.
Then Mr. Foote went off to touch on Christianity, and
stated that ever since Christianity had begun Socialism
was a part of it. But this need not be any accusation against
Socialism, since he also says that it existed long before
Christianity was in existence, and it was very likely to be
partly taken into Christianity when Christianity became
one of the religions of the world. It is possible that if I
had lived in those times I might have approved of some of
the doctrines which were put forward by those fathers of
the Church which Mr. Foote quoted. (Hear, hear.) And
if Christianity walked on the same lines as Socialism then
Socialists would be willing to welcome it on these points
of agreement, as they are willing to-day to welcome
Christians as workers for this common purpose. (Hear,
hear.) But if we are to bring theology into this discussion,
it is as well to remember that Jesus Christ not only said,
“ Sell all that thou hast and give to the poor ”, but also,
“ Blessed be ye poor ”, and that Socialism considers as an
absolute curse that poverty which the founder of Chris
tianity is said to have blessed. But will it not be wiser to
try and deal with the thing itself rather than say whether
or not it enters into a religion to which both Mr. Foote and
myself are known to be antagonistic, and which can hardly
be introduced here without unfairly prejudicing the view
I am advocating? (Hear, hear.) I pass from this about
Christianity to the statement that many Utopian schemes
of Socialism have been suggested in the past. That is so.
Is it wonderful that men, grieving sorely at the sorrow of
their present, should strive to picture some nobler life on
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND
55
earth, where the sorrow and the misery should have passed
away ? (Cheers.) Remember it was the noblest men who
did this. Utopian dreamers or not, they were the nobler
outcome of humanity. All who long for a nobler life on
earth must at times dream of some Utopia. (Hear, hear.)
And it was better to have noble dreams even, than to rest
satisfied with the brutal gratifications of gain and greed.
Is it therefore, because some have made their Utopias too
perfect, that we shall not strive to realise something better
than the Pandemonium we have now ? (Cheers.) But Mr.
Poote says they were not only Utopian, but that many of
those who have started Socialistic experiments were only
held together by the bands of fanaticism, or religion, or
by sheer imbecility. I am not so sure that the desire of
persons to make a life of brotherhood—although imperfectly
carried out—should be characterised as an attempt in which
they were only held by sheer imbecility. (Cheers.) And I
doubt whether the use of words such as that will lead us to
any satisfactory result in this debate. (Hear, hear.) Mr.
Poote said that some of the nobler minds now approve of
Socialism, and that large numbers of the ignorant and the
poor also join them from baser motives, and he was kind
enough to say that I was one of the dreamers of the former
class, while he put the mass of Socialists in the other. He
also said that many of the members of the Social Demo
cratic Federation were going into the streets to advertise
themselves. And is it in this hall—the hall which is the
very centre in London of Preethought, of aggressive
Radicalism—that the going out into the streets to reach
the poor is to be pointed and scoffed at as being an un
worthy attempt at self-advertisement? (Cheers.) How
else are we to reach many of the poor? Mr. Poote may
say that I do not go out street-preaching. It is true I do
not speak in the streets, because I have not the physical
strength, and because I believe that the work I do is more
useful when I speak in this hall and elsewhere, and when
I use my pen—(cheers)—then if I did work others can do
more effectively. But if. there were no others to do the
street-work—if there were no Socialists able and willing to
do it—then would I too take my share in it and speak in
the streets. (Cheers, and cries of “Bravo”.) But whilst
there are others willing to do it, and whilst they are also
willing that I should do the other part of the work for
�56
IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
which I am more fitted, I will not scoff at them because
some of them may not always be wise in their speech, be
cause some may be even reckless in their utterances.
(Hear, hear.) I will thank them, despite even their
recklessness and their passion, for that they at least
see the evil of the present, and long for some nobler and
better form of brotherhood, instead of the struggle in which
the weaker are trampled out of life. (Cheers.)
M e are next told that Socialism is a symptom of distress,
and there is truth in that. The desire to make things
better comes from the recognition of the sufferings of
others. While everything goes on smoothly and easily, it
is quite possible that men’s minds may not turn towards
a change. But I think that trade depression has lasted
quite long enough to teach the lesson of Socialism, and
that the lesson being learned that poverty must grow out
of the form of proprietorship to which Socialists object, an
improvement in trade will only make the workers stronger
to effect the necessary change. (Cheers.)
I am a little surprised at—if Mr. Foote will pardon methe phrase—what seems to me Mr. Foote’s somewhat rough
and inaccurate translation of Proudhon’s phrase “la pro
priety c'est le vol”, as “property is theft”. Mr. Foote, is,
I know, well acquainted with the French language, and he
will bear me out in saying that “property ” in the English
sense is not the equivalent of “propriete” in the French.
A Frenchman would no more speak of his hat or his stick
as his “propriete” than an Englishman would say that
similar articles were his “estate”. In fact, the word
estate is a nearer equivalent for “propriete”, and it is
used for land, or for wealth in a wide sense, not for the
personal property of individuals in small articles. I put
this, not as agreeing with Proudhon, but as doing him
justice in a matter in which he is very generally misunder
stood. (Hear, hear.) As to Mr. Foote’s remark that my
presentation of the Socialist arguments is designed to hide
the bad side of my case, I cannot help thinking that the
debate will proceed more smoothly if such imputations be
omitted. The distinction that I made between wealth in
general, and wealth which is set apart for purposes of pro
duction, is not a distinction invented by myself, but is one
which is made by every political economist. There is a
very wide distinction between the ownership by the com
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
57
munity of land and capital, that is, of the raw and wrought
materials for the production of wealth, and the enjoyment
by individuals of their share of the products of labor. It
is perfectly possible to have public property in the one
existing simultaneously with private property in the other.
(Cheers.) Mr. Foote, as a land nationaliser, is face to face
with a similar difficulty with respect to the land. He
surely thinks that a man might pay rent to the State, and
yet remain owner of a vegetable he had raised on State
land. That is, that there might be public property in the
material for wealth production, and private property in the
wealth produced. Then why might not the distinction be
equally maintained between public property in capital, and
private in the products of labor when once they had been
acquired? The difficulty is of words not of things, and
affects all change in the ownership of raw, as much as it
does change in the ownership of wrought, material. Ought
I then to say to Mr. Foote, in his own words, that
his argument was a sheet of “thin tissue paper” in
tended to hide the true state of his case ? (Laughter and
applause.)
In my next speech I will say something on the possible
methods of appropriation of the material we claim for
society, though on questions of method there is much
divergence of opinion among Socialists, and in dealing
with them I can give only my personal views. Let me, in
conclusion, express my dissent from the doctrine of the
natural, or imprescriptible rights of man. These supposed
rights have no historical basis, they have no answering
realities in life. The natural right of a man is to grab as
much as he can, and to hold all he can grab as long as he
can. “The spoils to the victor” is the natural law.
Rights were not anterior to society, but grew slowly out
of society. They grew out of the desire of each to be safe
and free from oppression, and from the union of many to
restrain the aggressor, from public opinion codified as law.
Anterior to society and to law there were no rights. The
doctrine is an idle metaphysical theory, and what we now
call the “ rights of man ” are those conditions which bn man
experience has shown to be most conducive to happiness.
The idea of a “ right ” has been slowly evolved in, slowly
recognised by, society, and society exists to secure these
rights for the weaker, who can only obtain them by law,
�58
IS SOCIALISM SOW ?
and to guard for all those advantages which are naturally
enjoyed only by the strong. (Loud applause.)
Mr. Foote : Mrs. Besant seems to have perverted many
things I said, or perhaps she misunderstood them. A little
sense of humor would have prevented these blunders. Mrs.
Besant might, for instance, have seen that I was speaking
as euphemistically as I could of the Social Democratic.
Federation ; that I meant a good deal more than I said,
but I did not care to use strong language. Since I must
speak plainly, however, to make myself properly understood,
I will do so at once. I did not complain simply because the
more eager Socialists went into the streets. Mrs. Besant
says she would go into the streets and speak herself if there
were no others to do the work. Well, I have gone into the
streets. (Cheers.) I have done it repeatedly, and when the
summer months come round I shall probably do it again.
(Applause). But I have never assembled men and led
them to places of worship, where neither they nor I have
any business. (Hisses and cheers.) I have strongly op
posed the teaching given in such places, but I have no right
to obtrude my opinions there. (Hear, hear.) bl or have I
ever sought to gain a hearing by appealing to the basest
passion of the human mind, the passion of envy. (Hear,
hear.) I have never addressed half-starved men, or men
out of work, in such a way as would encourage them to
■commit offences which the law would punish; nor after
wards, when brought before a jury, have .1 pitifully
pleaded “ It was not I that did it ”. (Loud and repeated
applause, hisses, and cries of “order”.) I have stood
before juries, and I may have to do so again. Who knows ?
What has happened may happen once more. But what
ever I may be tried for, in the matter of advocacy of
opinion, I shall, as before, defend what I have done.
(Loud applause.)
Mrs. Besant says I mistranslated the sentence I quoted
from Proudhon. But I had at least the honesty to give
the French original before I gave my translation. It is
impossible to translate with absolute precision from one
language into another, especially in the case of two
such different languages as the French and English. I
might have said “Owning is theft”, or “Ownership is
theft”—which is perhaps the nearest translation. But
really, what difference is there between that and “Pro
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
59
perty is theft?”. It is simply a quarrel about words.
(Hear, hear).
Mrs. Besant also said I was unfortunate in my reference
to Cromwell. But was I ? It is true he did not work
simply for mercenary motives, but there was in him a mix
ture of regard for his own interest. Cromwell did not
refuse substantial rewards. He was exceedingly well paid
for what he did. He had something like £10,000 a year,
a palace to live in, and many acres of confiscated royalist
estates. I do not deny Cromwell’s earnestness, but I say
it was not unalloyed; and there are other generals who
would be patriots on the same terms. (Cheers.)
Again, I adhere to all I said about the destruction of
French capital by the Germans. They did not destroy the
permanent capital of the country, but only some of its
floating capital, and that chiefly food. In fact, they merely
helped to consume what the French would otherwise have
consumed by themselves. When the French were left in
peace with their railways, docks, canals, fields, houses,
and machinery, all they had to do was to go on working as
before, and the replacement of floating capital was an easy
task. (Hear, hear.)
I have been accused by Mrs. Besant of not representing
Mr. Giffen fairly. Well, Mr. Giffen gives a great
quantity of figures, and I could only select what suited my
purpose. With respect, however, to the proportion of the
national income taken by labor as against capital, Mr.
Giffen distinctly says that he has, if anything, understated
it. I am also aware that he says the early figures are not
quite satisfactory. But they are satisfactory as far as they
go. Mr. Giffen takes the actual wages, for instance, of
many parts of the country. They are numerous and far
apart, so that he gets a very fair average. How otherwise
would you have him proceed ? (Hear, hear.) Mrs. Besant
says that Mr. Giffen holds a brief for the capitalists. I
don’t quite see it. But suppose he does; might I not
reply that Mrs. Besant holds a brief for the Socialists ?
(Hear, hear.) It seems that we must listen to nothing
here but Socialist facts, and”by a judicious selection and a
judicious use they may be made to prove anything.
(Cheers.) If Mr. Giffen’s figures are wrong, let the
Socialists furnish other figures that are right and that
will controvert his. (Cheers.)
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IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
Mrs. Besant said that trade unions are carried out on
Socialistic lines. But is thst so ? Any member of a trade
union may leave it to-morrow if he chooses. But if you
socialise everything, the only way to leave it will be to go
to another planet. (Laughter.) Then trade unions do
not prescribe an absolute uniformity of wage, but only a
minimum, and even that breaks down where piece-work
is taken. The reason of the uniform minimum is obvious.
Trade unions are to some extent fighting organisations,
and under a fighting system you must submit to the com
mon law of the machine, otherwise united action in warfare
would be impossible. But I maintain that if it were not
for that necessity there would be nothing like uniformity
of wage, and the men themselves would reject it. The
tailors’ establishment at Clichy started by Louis Blanc,
despite his sentimentalism, gave up equal payment. It
was found to be unworkable. The men would not put up
with it. In the great house of Leclaire, which is worked
on the co-partnership principle, the men would laugh at
you if you suggested that they should all have the same
wages. The difference in the skill and application to the
work makes all the difference in the result of the man’s
labor, and, as Mrs. Besant says everyone should have the
result of his labor, why should not everyone in the ideal
state of things have the wage for which he honorably
works and which he has actually earned? (Applause.)
It is not fair to say that I did not refer to the increased
incomes of the rich during the last fifty years. I stated
that the rate of the working men’s wages had increased
during the last fifty years to counteract Mrs. Besant’s
picture of the gradual deterioration of the workman and
the poverty in which he was found now. Next, Mrs.
Besant wishes me to give her an explanation of how the
land is to be nationalised without falling into the very
evils which she will fall into with her nationalisation of
capital. I dealt with that last Wednesday, when I stated
that if land were to be nationalised, the use of it would
would have to be paid for as now. There would be com
petition amongst those who wanted to use the land, and
those able to give the best rent would get it. But there
would be this difference—that rent, when paid by the in
dividual cultivators of the soil, competing against each
other in the open market, instead of often going as un
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
61
earned increment into the pockets of the absolute idlers,
who do not co-operate to produce the general result, would
go into the national exchequer, for the benefit of all.
(Cheers.)
What is the State ? asks Mrs. Besant. The State, always
and everywhere, is a body of men appointed by other men,
or self-elected, or coming in by what is called hereditary
right, to manage the affairs of the people. (Hear, hear,
and “No, no”.) That is not a State? Then I will ask
Mrs. Besant to give me her definition of a State. I know
what some of you may mean. You may have in your
mind the idea of society. But society, consisting of every
body under the State, is a very different thing. (Hear,
hear.) The State itself is the government of the country,
no matter how it be appointed or held.. It involves coer
cive power. That coercive power is rightfully used for
some things, and is wrongfully used for others. The dif
ference between us is that Mrs. Besant says it rightly
covers everything, while I say it only rightly covers some
things. Against its exercise in some things she rebels,
and I rebel, and every man or woman here also rebels.
(Applause.)
But let us return to our old friend “cut-throat compe
tition”. (Laughter.) Mrs. Besant is, of course, aware of
the fact that we largely depend upon foreign trade. Until
the world is Socialised—and that will be a very long time,
for before you convert the Chinese and the Hindoos, the
Central Asians, the South Americans, and the Central
Africans, a good period must naturally elapse, even under
the most hopeful prospects—(laughter)—we shall have to
depend largely on foreign trade. How are we to hold our
own in that open market of the world where we are noy
obliged to trade, unless we compete with the foreigner in
respect to the prices at which we can offer our goods for
sale ? And if we are obliged to compete as to prices, we
must compete as to labor, and consequently, to that extent
at least, competition is inevitable. (Hear, hear.)
Now, I come to a point which Mrs. Besant did not deal
with, although I invited her to do so last Wednesday, and
that is, What are you going to do with the population
question ? Mrs. Besant says, in her pamphlet on Social
ism, that “Under a Socialist regime the community will
have something to say as to the numbers of the new
�62
IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
members that are to be introduced into it
I urge that
the community must say its wordyzrsh All your construc
tion, if you do not settle the population question, is like
erecting castles on the sand of the sea-shore in front of an
advancing tide. (Hear, hear.) It is a peculiarity of
Socialists that they laugh at the population question.
Gronlund says of Malthus that ‘ ‘ This doctrine of his is a
vicious monstrosity, hatched in the saloons of the wealthy,
and flattering to the conscience of the ruling classes, and
therefore it has been so widely accepted”. Mrs. Besant
does not argue thus. She argues quite to the contrary.
The law of population is an absolute fact, and if anyone
cannot see it it shows the deficiency of his sight. If the
State finds everybody with work—and Mrs. Besant holds
it must—the Socialist state, with respect to population,
would be in the same position as a Communistic state;
because, if it cannot provide everyone with work, it must
provide everyone with food ; for, if it takes all the capital
and leaves none for private enterprise, it is bound to fur
nish food for the starving. (Hear, hear.) If you find
everybody with food, how are you going to prevent over
population by those who have no sense of responsibility ?
Under the present system, conjugal prudence and parental
responsibility prompt those who possess them not to pro
duce a larger offspring than they are able to rear, and
they have thus an advantage in the struggle for existence.
I know the struggle is hard. Therefore it is better to
breed from the fit than from the unfit. It is better for
posterity that the stronger should survive than that the
weaker should hand down their weakness to subsequent
generations. (Hear, hear.) Mrs. Besant and her friends
must settle this problem, not after but before they ask us to
inaugurate Socialism. She understands the vital importance
of this point, and I ask her to speak out clearly. She was
never grander than when she defended the right to
publish the truth on this subject. It is one of the regrets
of my life that I misinterpreted her motives, and I take
this public opportunity of saying so. But I also ask her
to be true to the great cause now as she was true to it
then, to champion still the theory of population which she
maintained in the face of danger and in front of the gaol.
(Loud applause.)
Annie Besant : Mr. Foote asks me, How do you pro
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
63
pose to nationalise the land and capital ? and he quotes a
phrase—I think it is from the manifesto of the Social
Democratic Federation—about taking over the railways
“ with or without compensation ”. The phrase is not difficult to understand. If the change be made in peace, it
would be possible to make it with reasonable compensation
to the holders, the unjust holders, of land and capital.
But if the change be made, not by law but by force, then
the question of compensation would be swamped in the
rush of revolution. That is probably what is meant when
the phrase is used “ with or without compensation ”. If
the present holders are wise, then, remembering that
society has made them, and that, unsatisfactory results as
they are, we are responsible for them, we may still keep
them for the remainder of their unprofitable lives ; but if
they are not wise, and set themselves against the people,
then they will have to take their chance in the struggle
which they have provoked. (Hear, hear.) How should
we make the change ? I grant that is a question for dis
cussion. My point, as a Socialist, is to persuade people it
would be a good thing to make the change, and until that
is done all the talk about the methods of doing it is
almost useless. (Cries of “No, no”.) You say no. But
Radicals’ proposals for sweeping changes are open to a
similar objection. Do you mean to say that in dealing
with proposals for change that you do not always first try
to persuade people that change is desirable before going
into the methods ? How many imperfect schemes of nation
alisation of the land are there? The land nationalisers
are not agreed as to the method, although they are agreed
on the principle. (Hear, hear.) Socialists are not agreed
as to the method, although they are agreed that they must
do something to bring that nationalisation about. (Hear,
hear.) My view of the easiest way to do it is to try and
make a reasonable allowance to the present holders of
land and capital, to terminate with their lives. That is.
more than just; it is generous in the extreme. You must
remember that in dealing with human affairs you have not
always the choice between good and evil, but you have to.
choose the lesser of two evils. At the present time a small
class lives idly because they possess these monopolies. It
would be better that that small class should be deprived
of that monopoly without compensation, rather than
�64
IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
myriads of the people should continue to live as they live
to-day. (Cheers.) But I do not believe that absolute
confiscation is necessary. I believe we can find a method
by which, with the least possible suffering to any, this
great change can be made. But I say frankly that this
question needs very full and very complete discussion. It
is a question for Socialists to discuss amongst themselves
rather than for Socialists to discuss with their antagonists.
We want to convince you first that it would be well for us
to cross to the other side of the river, and when that is
done we will consult as to the best methods of building
the bridge that will take us over. (Hear, hear.) But, as
I have said before, it may be done simply by making a
number of those persons life-charges on the rents of the
monopolies. I believe it might be done in that fashion
to a large extent. Then the National Debt should be
gradually paid off, so that those who five on the interest of
the National Debt may be got rid of even though it be
done by very considerable taxation. I should not propose
to continue to pay interest, but to pay off the value of
their stock; because I know that when you have once
closed the source of idle living by stopping the interest,
small harm would be done by letting them have what they
originally invested; but you must stop them from levying
a perpetual tax upon industry by the interest which they
are able to draw. I put it to you that these and similar
methods of turning these people into life annuitants is a
practical reasonable way of making the great transition,
and of getting rid, in a generation, of the idle class. I
admit there are many difficulties, but they are not always
insuperable. What is wanted is, first to get the idea clearly
before the people that these monopolies for the few mean
poverty for the many, and that we must use our brains to
discover the best method of destroying them, and so of
striking at the root of our social evils. (Hear, hear.)
After dealing with that point, Mr. Foote went on to the
case of Clement Duval, but I fail to follow his argument.
Clement Duval was said to be an Anarchist, and was
clearly a thief. But is it because a thief calls himself an
Anarchist that Socialism is to be condemned ? If so, as
Individualism produces most of the thieves, Individualism
stands condemned in the same way. (Hear, hear.) And
I must remind you that your legalised thievings breed
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND?
65
illegal thefts. If a man. like Clement Duval sees a wealthy
man taking wealth that he has not earned, how is he to
distinguish in principle. between the capitalist’s right to
take the wealth he has not earned from the worker, and
his own right to take that for which he gives no equiva
lent from a private house ? If you destroy men’s sense
of honesty by your legalised system of thieving—called
capitalism—you cannot wonder that men, with somewhat
muddled brains, imitate on a small scale what is done on
a large by the leaders of society. (Hear, hear,) Mr.
Foote says that the majority has only the right to protect
life, liberty, and property. But society, in its supreme
right over its members, very often tramples on the whole
of those rights, and I think with the approval, to some
extent, of Mr. Foote himself. What about taking the
life of a man who has committed a murder ? I do not
say it is right. I do not think it is consistent with the
highest morality ; but if society is formed for the protec
tion of life, speaking generally and universally, it seems
strange that the life of man should be taken by society, and
this action seems to support the view that society can claim
supremacy even over the lives of those who are its mem
bers. Mr. Foote says that society defends liberty and
property. Liberty and property are very fine words, but
we complain that the present organised system defends
neither liberty nor property for the majority. We allege
that instead of defending property, it confiscates the property
of the workers, and places it in the hands of those who do
not labor. We allege that it only protects the property of
the rich, and authorises the constant robbery of the poor.
When you are dealing with this question of property, has
it ever struck you to turn to some statistics—not made by
Socialists, but issued by a benevolent Government for the
instruction of its subjects—and to read there that out of
every 1,000 persons who die—I am dealing with the
probate and legacy returns—only thirty-nine leave behind
them £300 worth of personal property, including furniture.
So that, on the whole, the protection of property in our
country is scarcely satisfactory, since it can hardly be con
tended that the worker in a whole life would not have
made more than that to leave behind him when he dies.
And again, when you have the idler who leaves hundreds
and thousands of pounds behind him when he dies,
u
�66
IS SOCIALISM SOUND?
although, he has done nothing, then your view as to the
value of society in protecting property will have to undergo
some modification before being accepted. (Hear, hear.)
I am told that poverty is now redressed, and stress is
laid on the spread of education and on the decrease of
crime, and when Mr. Foote urged that I found myself very
much in agreement with him. The statistics quoted as to
education and diminution of crime are such as we must
all be glad to know ; but as to the decrease of pauperism,
the statistics are not so satisfactory, because we know how
it has been caused; we know that the poor-law officers
have made the conditions of relief much more stringent,
and the taking away of out-door relief has diminished the
number of paupers, in consequence of the shrinking of
the people from going into the workhouse. This has made
the diminution shown by the statistics not so real as it
looks. (Hear, hear.) Then we are told as to the growth of
savings in banks, and so on, and we are asked why not go
on in this particular line. I answer, because if we go on
in this line the masses will continue to get so little and
the few will still get so much ; because although in savings
banks you may get a large sum in the aggregate, if you
work it out and compare it with the number of the popu
lation you will find it amounts to a contemptibly small
amount per head, and even then we have no right to say
that all is the savings of the workers. But still all those
points are points which show some sort of slight improve
ment here and there. But they are balanced by an amount
of misery, by an amount of wretchedness, that surely
should urge us to some method of dividing the nation’s
produce which shall not leave only one-third of it in the
hands of 5,000,000 families, while the remaining twothirds go to 2,000,000 families to keep them in wealth.
(Hear, hear.)
But, Mr. Foote says, why use the phrase, “cut-throat
competition”, and he says it suggests a razor and blood.
But how many of our people are killed out in this struggle
for life ? (Hear, hear.) I speak of cut-throat competition,
and I base that phrase, not on Socialist figures, but on the
report of the Registrar-General, where I find the average
life of the workers is very little more than one half the
average age of the idlers, and it makes no difference to me
in looking at the effect of things whether a man has his
�67
IS SOCIALISM SOUND?
life cut short by direct violence, or if his throat is cut by
the razor of semi-starvation carried on during a great part
of his childhood and manhood, sinking him to the grave
sooner by half a life than if he shared the better food and
sanitary conditions of the wealthy class. (Hear, hear.)
Then Mr. Foote made another attack on the Social
Democratic Federation, into which I will not again
follow him, for this debate is on the question, “Is
Socialism Sound?”, not on whether it is wise for persons
to enter a church and hiss at the Queen. Supposing these
things were done over and over again by foolish persons
that does not touch the subject of this debate. (Hear,
hear.) Then Mr. Foote tells me that Oliver Cromwell was
well paid in the end. Mr. Foote will not say that that
payment was Cromwell’s motive in his work. In fact, all
the great works of genius are done because the genius is
there, impelling the man to act. It was not money that
made Mil ton write “ Paradise Lost ”. It is the imperious
faculty in the artist that makes him create, and makes him
find a joy in his creative work. Little cares he whether
money come to him as payment; his payment comes in
men’s love, in men’s gratitude, and the memory they keep
of him ; he knows that the future is his, and herein is his
reward, rather than in the mere cash amount that may be
paid over to him. (Cheers.)
Mr Foote : I have again and again heard Mrs. Besant
say what the facts of life strictly disprove—that men of
genius are simply moved by theijs creative impulse. If
Mrs. Besant went and told the members of the Royal
Academy that they only painted for public applause, they
would probably all laugh at her. Certainly the artist
does like public applause, just as Mr. Gladstone or any
minister of the crown likes public applause. But somehow
they all like to be as well paid as possible too. (Hear,
hear.) Gronlund supposes—and I have heard the same
thing from other Socialists—that it would be absurd to
think of a great man of genius painting or writing for
payment. The name of Raphael was given as one instance,
but Raphael painted for popes and cardinals, and other
men of great eminence and great wealth. It is well to
keep the facts of history before you. (Hear, hear.)
When Mrs. Besant says that the suffering of to-day is a
balance against the improvement that I indicated, she is
f 2
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IS SOCIALISM SOUND?
also conflicting with the facts of history. I have read some
thing of the history of my country, and Mrs. Besant pro
bably has too. I have also spoken to old men belonging to
the party with which I have the honor to work, up and
down the country in the manufacturing districts, who
remember what was the state of things thirty and forty
years ago, and they corroborate what I have read in the
pages of recent history. If I may trust these reports, the
state of the worker forty years ago was greatly worse than
it is to-day. (Hear, hear.) It is easy enough for a man
who feels the distress to-day to exclaim like mourners are
always apt to do, “Never was grief like unto mine”.
But if you look at the real facts you will find that in your
deepest misery others suffer as greatly; and if you now
suffer from distress, there was greater distress forty years
ago. However, Mrs. Besant says—and true it is—that
poverty is to be redressed. But it does not at all follow
that mere benevolence is likely to redress it. It does not
follow that rash action is likely to redress it. (Hear,
hear.) If a man is in dire agony, it does not follow that
the first half-a-dozen persons who drop in to see him in a
neighborly way, and to sympathise with him, will do him
any good. The surgeon who is called in must keep
his sympathy in the background. He must use his skill
with the utmost callousness. He must not allow his
sympathy to affect his nerves. He must work in the
cold, dry light of the intellect. Unless he does that the
patient will suffer more, from his sympathy than he will
gain from it. So with this great social question. You
cannot eradicate the evils of human nature in a moment
or in a generation. I tell Mrs. Besant she takes too
optimistic a view of human nature. I know there are
heroes in the world, but there are also cowards; there are
wise men, and there are fools; there are Shaksperes,
and there are Silly Billys. (Laughter.) You cannot with
the same old human nature work a new scheme simply
because you have devised it on the strictest rules of
altruism. (Hear, hear.) The same human nature that
produces to-day’s evils will reassert itself. No matter
what your social mechanism is, it will show the same old
fruit. Covetousness will not be abolished by Socialism.
Idleness will not be abolished because the whole com
munity will find work or food. Thrift will not be increased
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND?
69
because you say that a man should work for all instead of
for himself. (Applause.) If this human nature could be
twisted and turned like dough, and we were to agree that
the most benevolent scheme of the loftiest dreamer should
be put into operation, we might perhaps do some good.
But if it were applied to ordinary human nature it would
not, it could not, work. (Cheers.) Why, if ever a Social
istic experiment could have succeeded, surely it would have
been the Brook Farm in America. Surely it might be
thought that persons like Emerson, Hawthorne, Margaret
Fuller, and the others assembled together in a Socialistic
system, had the wisdom and the lofty nature for the pur
pose. But there was the old human nature in every one
of them. There it was, deeper down than their intellect
and their aspirations, and asserting itself in its own way.
In the end the experiment broke up, as all others have
done, except when supported by fanaticism and religious
bigotry. (Applause.)
Mrs. Besant says that she does not quite understand my
saying that society, or rather the State, exists for the pro
tection of life, liberty, and property. She carefully refrains
from saying a word about liberty. In the last night of
this discussion, when my turn comes to open again, I shall
perhaps have enough to say about liberty, which I believe
Communism, Socialism, or any such system, would crush
from off the face of the earth. (Cheers.) Meanwhile, I
will say that I cannot understand how Mrs. Besant thinks
that hanging a murderer is a violation of the principle that
the State is organised for the protection of life. Why is
the murderer hanged or incarcerated for the rest of his
days ? Because he has taken life; because he has violated
the very principle for which the State is organised. Unless
the State protects the people, you have anarchy instead of
organised society. (Cheers.)
It may, perhaps, be clever, but it is on the whole a little
too clever, to say that the protection of property means
merely the protection of idlers. Are all the members of
building societies idlers ? Are all the men who own—as
many do throughout England—the freehold of their houses,
idlers ? Are all the men who deposit in savings banks,
idlers ? Are all those who have paid money year by year
in fire and life insurance societies, idlers ? (Cries of “ No,
no ”.) You will find that if John Smith thinks the fate of his
�70
IS SOCIALISM SOUND?
fifty pounds is bound up with that of the Duke of Bedford’s
millions, he will fight in defence of his own and the Duke’s
too. (Applause.) It is easy enough to under-estimate the
power which is held by those who own small properties in
this country. Socialists may laugh, but the moment they
thought they were in the majority, and tried to put their
proposals into execution, they would find a million bayonets
lifted in defence of property. (Cheers.) The right of
property is not simply a principle that’ covers the idler;
it covers the worker too.
Mrs. Besant allows that we both agree that poverty
should be redressed. Before this debate is over it will be
my duty to show that I am not simply occupying a nega
tive position, although I am doing so to-night. (Hear,
hear.) I will attempt to show that without the Collectivist
system, or any of its dangers, by a gradual and sure
process we can emancipate the worker in the true sense of
the word. Bor what is it he suffers from ? Compe
tition? I say, nonsense I (Hear, hear.) Competition
gives a hard-working man an advantage over a lazy
man. Competition gives a skilful man an advantage over
a man who will not take the trouble to be skilful. What
the worker really suffers from is the subordination of
labour to capital. Aye, and that subordination can be
remedied just in proportion as the workers show that they
possess the moral and intellectual qualifications without
which their emancipation is an impossibility. (Cheers.)
Mrs. Besant has not yet touched the population question.
I want to know how she proposes to deal with it. She says
that under Socialism the necessity of conjugal prudence
would be obvious to the blindest. Why is it not obvious
now, when the parents have to bear the whole responsi
bility, unless the poor-law or private benevolence inter
venes ? How will it be obvious to the blindest when the
whole burden is thrown on collective society ? I did not
make the world, and I am glad of it. I did not lay down
the law of natural selection, and I am glad of it. But
nature has laid it down. It is a sure sign of a fool to
fancy that if you walk and talk round a fact it will change
or vanish. Facts must be met. H you go on breeding
population you must meet the question somewhere. H you
keep all that are not working, or for whom work cannot
be found, you will have the unfit, the scrofulous, the con
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND?
71
sumptive, the indolent, and the stupid, exactly on a par,
as respects their offspring, with the more capable and
energetic, from whom it would be far better that the race
should be continued. It is better to face these facts
instead of blinking them. (Cheers.)
In concluding my last speech to-night, let me draw your
attention to something curious in Socialism. In every
other system, persons all say “ experiment will show the
thing can be done ”, Why do not the Socialists try an ex
periment and see whether they can manage to succeed.
(A voice: “We are not organised”.) In this world we
do not make discoveries, we do not make inventions, we do
not make any progress, except by the one method of ex
periment. We try fifty or a hundred wrong ways until we
find the right one. By closing the avenues to experiment
with a cut-and-dried universal system, you really block
progress. Instead of doing this, let the Socialists show us
by experiment that Socialism can succeed. Why wait for
the whole world to join you before you make a move ?
Why don’t the Socialists give their scheme a trial on a fair
if modest scale, and show us that they can produce
better results than are obtained under Individualism.
(Cheers.) But Mrs. Besant’s Socialism cannot be practised
tilll the whole world is converted. There never was such
a Gospel before. She invites us all to ascend Mount
Pisgah, or some other height, and view the beauties of the
Socialist promised-land. Some of us think it is nothing
but a mirage, a mere haze on the horizon, or only a dream
of the prophet’s brain. But Mrs. Besant asks us to ascend
with her, and she will provide us with a patent Socialistic
flying-machine. We are not to go on in the old plodding
way, step by step, but we are to try our wings, we are to
fly instead of walking. It will be fortunate for those who
hold back when the flight begins. (Laughter.) There is
only one true method of progress in this world. It is step
by step, line upon line, here a little and there a little.
(Applause.) Pessimism is probably false, and Optimism is
probably false, but there is sound philosophy in Meliorism,
or making things a little better day by day. When Louis
Blanc, after years of sentimentalising, had an opportunity
of doing something after the fall of the Empire, he went
on sentimentalising as before. He kept talking and writ
ing about “the social question ”, until he provoked Gam-
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IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
betta into saying: “ There is no one social question ; there
are many social questions, and each must be dealt with
when it is ripe”. Every stimulation of the intellect and
higher feelings of the people, every fresh advance in public
education, every new political reform, every gradual im
provement of the relations between labor and capital, every
sure step of the workers in the direction of self-help through
voluntary co-operation, is of more advantage to the world
than all the fanciful Utopias ever spun by metaphysical
spiders. (Loud applause.)
Annie Besant : Let me dispose first of the Royal
Academy. I quite grant that the members of the Royal
Academy paint for money. My words only applied to
geniuses. I quite admit that where you are dealing with
mental ability short of genius, it may be necessary for
some time to come to have some difference of remunera
tion. That is not in any sort of way necessarily antagon
istic to Socialism, and the confusing of the two things may
give a dialectical triumph, but will hardly stand much in
vestigation. (Hear, hear.) Mr. Eootesays I take too opti
mist a view of things. Socialism urges itself upon the world,
not because it takes an optimist view, but because it tries
to take a real one. It believes that where one man can
live idly on the labor of others, that man will live idly on
other’s labor. That is, it realises that unless you can
make it impossible for men to live in idleness, and can
thwart men’s evil instincts by arrangements which do not
permit of their having full play, these instincts will
triumph and cause misery in society. It is because we
believe this that Socialists propose to take away the pos
sibility of idle living, so as to be able to say to a man,
“ If you do not work you will starve
(Hear, hear.) It
is because we know men will live idly if they can, that we
want to destroy the means of their living on the labor of
others. (Hear, hear.) Socialism tries to destroy the
monopolies in the material for wealth, because only by
that destruction can the men who own them be prevented
from preying on their fellows. Hear, hear.) Well, Mr.
Eoote says that the Socialistic experiment at Brook Farm
did not succeed, and that, if that failed, where can we
hope for success. And he asks, why do you not try your
Socialist experiments yourself ? We say that the failure
of the previous experiments has convinced us that small
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND?
73
Socialist societies living in the midst of a competitive
system can never realise our idea of what true Socialism
is. It can only be done by the conversion of the majority
to Socialism, and by that majority taking over the means
of production already in existence. And when we are
asked why do we not now make our experiment, we say
that we are not going to surrender our right to the accu
mulations of previous labor, and that by leaving these in
the hands of the present owners, and starting afresh, we
should be only playing into the hands of the plunderers.
(Cheers.) The workers have already made the capital;
why should they leave it in the hands of the appropriating
class, and set to work to build it all up anew ? Then Mr.
Foote challenges me—and rightly—to speak on the popu
lation question, and he uttered words of generous recog
nition of what I have done in the matter in the past, for
which I earnestly and cordially thank him. (Hear, hear.)
I do not move from the position I took up in 1877. I
would stand as readily on my trial now, as then, for the right
to teach the people how to limit their families within their
means. I know I am in a minority on this question in the
Socialist party. I know that the majority of my Socialist
friends, realising rightly, as they do, that the population
question alone cannot solve this problem of poverty, at
present shut their eyes too much on this matter, and turn
their backs too angrily on a truth which they ought to
realise. (Hear, hear.) But none the less is it true that if
you solved the population question to-morrow your people
would still remain exploited for the benefit of others; if
the population were so reduced that the masters were left
to compete for labor as laborers now compete for employ
ment, justice would still be left undone. Why do masters
try to get hold of the laborers but in order to make a
profit out of them—that is, to deprive them of some of the
result of their labor ? and whilst, given the same amount
of employment, the laborer’s wage with a small population
would be higher than with a larger population, it would
still only be a wage—a share of what he earned—and the
idler would still live on the industrious man. (Cheers.)
Socialists see this ; but they very unwisely, as I often tell
them, go out of their way and put themselves into a false
position by setting themselves against a law of nature,
instead of recognising and utilising the truth for them
�74
IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
selves. (Hear, hear.) Mr. Foote says, how will your
Socialist State prevent over-population ? and I might
answer him by saying, How would your Individualist
State prevent it ? But that is no answer. The Socialist
State would probably prevent it by law. (Laughter, and
“Oh, oh”.) Yes, by law. The Socialists will be forced
to understand that the children are a burden on the com
munity ; education being supported out of the taxes and
education going on from childhood until the citizen is
almost an adult—education will be a very heavy burden
which the producers will have to bear. When they feel
that the undue increase of their families makes that burden
too great, when they realise that the multiplication of non
producing consumers means more work, less leisure, more
hardship for themselves, can it be pretended that they will
be likely to leave the comfort of the community at the
mercy of its most reckless members ? And when you are
dealing with society organised as we propose it should be
organised, it will be far easier to stop these mischiefs even
by public opinion than it is now. (Hear, hear.) Mr. Foote
speaks about breeding from the fit and from the unfit. But
is it from the fit only that the population is recruited under
the Individualist system ? Are the Brunswicks then among
the fit ? The idlers of the country add largely to the
numbers of the population, and we want to strike at all
idle living, and we believe that by doing that we shall be
able the sooner to educate the people to realise the full
scope of this question of population. But I say again,
as before, that every system which does not realise or
recognise this law of population will break down. (Hear,
hear.) Socialism without it would break down, and even
Bebel himself, who speaks against Malthusianism now,
admits that under the Socialist regime we shall come face
to face with this increase of population, and that the time
will come for dealing with it. (Hear, hear.)
I will now pass on from that to another point raised.
Mr. Foote says why not have free competition ? You can
not have free competition whilst you have monopolies in
land and capital. You can only get anything of the value
of free competition when every man shall be able to reach
the land and have the use of capital, so that each shall be
really free. (Hear, hear.) There is no freedom of con
tract between the proprietors and the proletariat. For one
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND?
75
is clogged by the absolute necessity of having to get his
livelihood from the other, and to talk of free competition
under such conditions is a mere hypocrisy. Then Mr.
Foote says that the State under Socialism would interfere
with everything. We do not allege that the State should
do everything and interfere with everything. We allege
that you should have an organisation elected by the people,
responsible to the people, removable by the people, which
should administer for the general good the material for
the production of wealth in the country. (Hear, hear.)
But such a State, or rather the Executive of such a State,
would be nothing more than a body or bodies of officers
elected by the people, much as your municipalities are now
elected to discharge certain functions for the benefit of the
towns whose business they administer. (Hear, hear.) Next,
Mr. Foote asks, what about foreign countries ? and he
says truly that it will take a long time before China,
India, and various barbarous races will be socialised.
Then, he says, we should have to compete with these non
Socialist States in the markets of the world. I am not
aware that we compete with the negro or with these
lower races in the world’s markets ; and is it quite fair to
use the argument that it will be a long time before these
lower races are socialised, and then the next moment to
speak of them as if they were our competitors, whereas
the only relation between us and them is that we plunder
and murder them, and that they resist us? (Hear, hear.)
It will indeed be a long time before the negro is socialised;
but we hope it will not be long before England, France,
Germany, America, and Italy will be socialised. (Cheers.)
These are the nations with which we have to compete in
the world’s markets, and these are the nations in which
the Socialists are winning over the majority of the working
population, and are obtaining adherents in every circle of
society. (Hear, hear.)
Then Mr. Foote says, poverty will not be redressed by
benevolence and sympathy. I admit it; and it is because
of that that Socialism tries to trace the poverty to its
source. I reiterate the statement that the source of
poverty is private ownership in the material necessary to
produce wealth, and so long as private ownership in this
material continues, so long will poverty be found to be
its inevitable result. (Hear, hear.) That is not talking
�76
IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
benevolence; that is not simply acting on sympathy or
appealing to yonr emotions. It is laying down a hard
economical fact out of which the whole of Socialism grows,
and that fact it is with which our opponents must deal.
And Mr. Foote has not attempted to do so. (Hear, hear.)
Mr. Foote finally spoke about liberty. Mr. Foote urges
apparently, and he has said that he will strengthen his
contention hereafter, that under Socialism liberty would
disappear, that tyranny would override society. Never
from my lips shall come one word of attack upon liberty—
that liberty which is the source of human progress, which
is the condition of human growth. (Hear, hear.) But
even liberty is not all. Nearly one hundred years ago a
cry broke out from an awakening people, and that cry
had in it the word “liberty”, but it had joined with
it as watchword for the Revolution “Liberty, equality,
fraternity”. (Cheers.) That cry rang over to England,
and the Radicals caught it up, and on their banner they
put the motto, they named the indivisible three which
make human progress safe. (Cheers.) And are the
modern Radicals going to drop the last two words, and
in the exaggeration of the importance of liberty forget
that of equality and fraternity, which are its sisters
and inseparable? (Cheers.) Liberty! What liberty
under your Individualistic society for the poor sempstress
stitching in the garret for the pittance of a shilling a day ?
(Cheers.) What equality possible between your duke and
your dock laborer? What fraternity to be hoped for
between your millowner and-his hands? (Hear, hear.)
Is equality to become only a word ? Has fraternity passed
into a dream for the modern Radical? 0 my Radical
brothers, who turn deaf ears against our Socialist plea:
you who dream in your zeal for liberty that by this you
will win everything, no matter over what human lives your
car travels, I remind you of your older days ; I recall you
to your older traditions. (Cheers.) I appeal to you for
help for the movement which began a hundred years ago,
and which is going on among us still; I appeal to you—
do not use against us the weapons which of old Toryism
used against you; do not throw at us the old taunts and
scoffs which were thrown at you by our common enemies.
I appeal to you to remember your past. (Hear, hear.) If
you would have liberty to work for progress have also
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
77
fraternity and equality, and let us work together for that
nobler society where all shall be free, where all shall be
equal, and where all shall be brothers because masterhood
shall have passed away. (Cheers.)
Mr. Foote : I beg to propose a hearty vote of thanks to
our chairman.
Annie Besant : I second it.
The vote having been carried,
The Chairman said: I thank you for your vote of
thanks, and I ask you to attend in large numbers next
week, when Mrs. Besant will open the discussion.
�78
IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
THIRD NIGHT.
George Bernard Shaw
in the
Chair.
The Chairman: Ladies and gentlemen; our business to
night is the continuation of the debate on the subject,
“Is Socialism Sound?”. Mrs. Besant says that it is
sound. Mr. Foote contends that it is not. The arrange
ments of the debate this evening will be : each debater
will speak three times—once for half-an-hour, and twice
for fifteen minutes, the speakers speaking, of course,
alternately. On the last evening the debate was commenced
by Mr. Foote. It is therefore Mrs. Besant’s duty to open
to-night; and I now call upon her.
Annie Besant : Friends, as I said on the first night of
the debate, I propose to deal to-night with the historical
evolution of Socialism, and with the absolute necessity for
its adoption in this and in other civilised countries, if the
civilisation of the present is not to break down as past
civilisations have done. I am, of course, aware that there
is something of rather portentous impudence in the attempt
to sketch the evolution of society in the space of half-anhour ; but as I am limited to that time, I must do the best
I can, merely giving you the landmarks of the chief stages
through which, as I contend, society has passed. And to
begin with, we will go back to that condition which Mr.
Foote fairly enough described as the condition of primitive
Communism; this you find in a few cases of tribes in a
very low condition of civilisation ; this is found only where
life-conditions are easy, where the soil is fertile, and where
food is abundant, and can be obtained without very much
trouble. Under those conditions you will occasionally find
what may be called primitive Communism—a condition of
things in which private property has practically no exist
ence, and there being abundance for everyone, each man
takes according to his own needs. These communities,
however, are very few in number, for the simple reason
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND?
79
that the parts of the earth where such abundance is easily
obtained, are themselves very limited in number. And the
moment that you come under harsher life-conditions, then
over the greater part of the habitable globe you will very
soon find a struggle for existence going on amongst men,
which makes anything like Communism absolutely im
possible. You then get the right of the strongest to take
what he can and to keep what he can. Thus you get what
we may call a primitive Individualism, where strength is
the supreme law, and where the individual’s rights are
only measured by his power of enforcing them. (Hear,
hear.) Under those conditions private property very rapidly
springs up ; for when a man has to work hard for that which
he obtains, he naturally feels resentment, and desires to
punish those who, without labor, would deprive him of the
results of his own toil. And so, as practically there is only
one man who is the strongest in the tribe and only a few
who are above the average strength, the resentment of the
majority who are plundered finds expression in the form
of law and of punishment; and private property becomes
recognised as a right by the limitation of the power of the
stronger and by the defence of the weaker who form the
majority of the community. (Cheers.) And when that
stage has been reached, the next one is the condition in
which civilisation, having somewhat advanced, and the
cultivation of the ground having taken the place of hunt
ing and fishing, and of that particular form of war in
which war and the chase are united—-I mean the institu
tion of cannibalism—when society has passed beyond that
stage into the agricultural stage, you find appear in prac
tically every early community a form of labor which is
known as slavery. (Hear, hear.) Men who are taken in
war, instead of being used as food immediately, are used
as food in a less direct fashion. And you find the owners
of these captives taken in war setting the captives to labor,
turning them into slaves who produce for their master’s
benefit, and who have no rights beyond those which
their masters may bestow upon them for their own advan
tage. And you then get this property in man. This is
one of the results of the growing civilisation under the
Individualistic condition, and you find society divided into
the propertied and the non-propertied classes—the nonpropertied class in these early conditions being literally
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND?
slaves—chattel slaves—who produced for their owners, who
took the result of their labor, giving back in return suffi
cient to keep them in healthy working order. (Hear,
hear.) If you look back to the various stages of civilisa
tion which we should class as ancient, you will find that
they were all very largely based on this institution of
slavery. You will find that in Greece and in Rome you
have a vast mass of the population absolutely without
property, absolutely without rights; and the nation was
considered to consist of the higher classes of the com
munity who owned the slave, no rights of the commonest
citizenship being given to the slaves themselves, who
labored for their masters. (Hear, hear.) And on that rock
of utter division of classes—of the breaking up of society into
practically two nations in every community—on that rock
ancient civilisations split, and every one of them in turn
went down before a flood of barbarism. (Cheers.) I pass
now to the next stage that I mark on this brief sketch
of historical evolution. Of collective property in land you
find traces practically down to our own time, and I must
ask you in thought to distinguish between the less numerous
cases where the property in land was really of a collective
kind, and the far more numerous cases which were more
analogous to peasant proprietorship, where families inheri
ted certain plots of land to which they had a special right,
in which each member of the community had his own
piece, as it were, of the ground, none being left absolutely
landless. But still all the community, with this sort of
limitation, owned property in land, though not having
absolute collectivism. But you do find in some communi
ties absolute collective property in land, and I suppose
there is no better instance of that at present than you will
find in the case of some Slavonic tribes, such as you may
see a good example of in the Russian Mir. In the western
parts of Europe the property in land was of a very different
character. There you find—in countries like our own, in
France, and in other western lands of Europe—there is
a kind of holding of land known as feudal, that is practi
cally the result of the military state in which the people
lived. The nations of the north, urged on by the necessity
for subsistence and the pressure of the population, were
constantly overrunning the more fertile lands, and the con
quering tribes set up the system which grew into feudalism
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND?
81
in the lands of which they were the conquerors. And
then you find the Danes and the Northmen spreading over
France and settling in England; and then some passing
from Normandy into England, destroying the old fashion
of land-holding and establishing feudalism in its stead.
(Hear, hear.) Under these conditions the king was really
the one owner of the whole of the soil. I know that
it is said that the king was the representative of the
nation. But that is a myth, a mere figure of speech. The
king was really the owner, for he granted the land to his
barons. (Hear, hear.) What is, however, very important
to us is that the baron’s rights in these lands were strictly
limited, and under feudalism these barons had duties con
nected with their ownership of the soil, and one special
duty was that of defending it from all outside attack.
(Cheers.) In Scotland and Ireland the method of hold
ing land was somewhat different. There you had the
clansmen living on the land. There were clans under
a chief who was autocratic, but still the clansmen had cer
tain rights in the soil, and the very chief himself would
have been careful how he touched them. (Hear, hear.)
And the result of that was that there was a feeling on the
part of those who then dwelt on the land that they had
rights in the soil as sacred as any of the rights of their
chief. And if you enquire into the traditions of these
people—which are now held by men like the Scotch
crofters and the Irish peasants—you will find that the root
of these men’s resistance to the modern landlord is not so
much that they are fighting against the rights of property
of the landlord, as that they are fighting for their own
right of property in the soil upon which they were born.
(Cheers.) And you will never convince a Highland crofter
or an Irish peasant that justice is not on his side, however
much landlord-made law may be against him. (Hear,
hear.) In passing from the feudal system, I pause for a
moment to remind you of that great act of robbery whereby
the landlords conveyed the land into their own complete
possession, throwing off the rental which in the feudal
days they had to pay in dues and various charges to the
king, and they thus became practically absolute owners of
the soil. (Hear, hear.) I am of course aware that there
is no such thing as absolute ownership of land known to
our law; but for all practical purposes the landlords are
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IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
absolute owners ; and that act of theirs was really a great
act of expropriation, a robbery, whereby they made them
selves the real owners of the land which they had up to
that time only held by payment of dues. (Hear, hear.)
We find, upon turning from these various stages through
which this land-holding went, that the claim for collective
property in capital is of comparatively very modern origin.
(Hear, hear.)
And naturally so, because until very
modern times there have been no vast accumulations of
capital for the purpose of wealth production. You have
the small industries of the Middle Ages—you have the
handicraftsmen banded together in guilds, but you have
no great accumulations of capital; nor have you any
thing which is at all analogous to our modern system of
factory labor of gathering together great crowds of
men to co-operate in the formation of a common product.
And it is only from the sixteenth century upwards that
you will find the struggle beginning between traders
and landowners; and only practically from the end of
the last century will you find the true beginning of the
industrial difficulties with which we are dealing at the
present time. (Cheers.) From 1760 to 1781 you get
the great age of invention in machinery; the destruction
—not of industries themselves but—of the small methods
of manufacture, and the putting in their stead of the
modern method of manufacture by which hundreds of
men work together to make a common product, dividing
the various parts of the labor amongst them. It is thus
only for the last 100 years that society has been face to
face with this great difficulty of the aggregation of capital
in the hands of a few. (Hear, hear.) What was the im
mediate result of this sudden outburst of mechanical
energy ? It was the revival of slavery under a new name.
(Cheers.) Just as when society, taking up agricultural
pursuits and working on the land, found that by enslaving
men and making them work their masters would be raised
to a position of wealth and of luxury which they could
not reach by their own toil, so in modern times, when this
sudden productivity of machinery was discovered or prac
tically started—we may say just about a century ago—then
you get the beginning of a similar division of propertied
and unpropertied classes — the employing class and the
employed class—the one completely at the mercy of
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
8.
the other. (Hear, hear.) And although it is true that
the slavery was a wage and not a chattel slavery, still fun
damentally the two things are identical; for you have in
each case one man taking another man and using his labor
for his own purposes—taking the product that the laborer
has produced and giving back to him only enough to keep
him in working order. (Cheers.) It is true that in the
chattel slavery the produce—or the share of the produce—
that the laborer got was given to him in the form of food,
clothing, and shelter. It is true that in the modern sub
stitute for slavery that part of the produce the laborer
gets is given to him in the form of money, with which he
buys food and clothing and shelter. But the principle
is exactly the same—(hear, hear)—men working for a
master not for themselves; men with no control over the
product of their own labor, but the product passing into
another man’s hands, and the laborer in each case getting
in return the possibility of subsistence; getting in return
sufficient to keep him in fair working order. (Hear,
hear.) But there is this difference. Under the old system
the slave really did get sufficient to keep his body in the
best possible condition for labor. (Cheers.) Not only so,
but as a child he was maintained, as an aged man he was
fed and he was sheltered. The chattel slave was a
valuable property as the horse is valuable and the ox—
(hear, hear. A Voice : 11 And no more ”)—and the owner
of the slave kept him in a condition of the highest effi
ciency. (Hear, hear.) But the modern slave owners have
found out a cheaper method than that of breeding and of
owning slaves. (Cheers.) They have found that it is
cheaper to hire than to buy them. They have found that
it pays better to take them only for their working life and
to have no responsibility beyond it. (Hear, hear.) And the
advantage is a very simple one. James Nasmyth, the
great engineer, was being examined before a Parliamen
tary Committee on the subject of trade unions, and he ex
plained that he constantly increased his receipts by sub
stituting apprentices at a low wage for able-bodied men
who demanded payment of the full wage that was paid in
their trade. And the questiou was asked him, “What
becomes of the men you discharge : of their wives, and cf
their families ?” Nasmyth answered: “I do not know.
I leave their fate to the natural forces that govern society”.
g2
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IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
Now that is exactly what the slave owner could, not do.
(Hear, hear.) But it is what the modern capitalist can do,
and does do, although very few of them are honest enough
to speak out as frankly as James Nasmyth spoke before
that Parliamentary Committee. (Cheers.)
I pass for a moment from that to the next point in my
argument. We have to trace in that growing industrialism
the growing interference of the State. I will just remind
you of the early attempts of the State to regulate Middle
Age industries. You will remember that the first edict
fixing wages was in the Fourteenth Century, and that the
Statute as to laborers that followed it tried to fix the
laborer’s wage at a definite sum, and that it failed, and
Jailed for a very simple reason. (Hear, hear.) It failed
because the men wanted higher wages than were specified,
and because it paid the masters to give a higher wage.
(Hear, hear.) And as the men were anxious to get the
higher wage and the masters were ready to give it, the
law became practically inoperative. It was a regulation
between two classes, neither of whom was willing to accept
that regulation of the State. But it is not because that
one case failed that any student of history can pretend
that it is true that all attempts at wage-fixing have been
inoperative. (Hear, hear.)
Take, for instance, the
Statute of Apprentices. It was successful to such an ex
tent that when it became an anachronism it was difficult to
get rid of it. And one half of the difficulty of the adminis
tration of the old Poor Law was due to the attempt to
circumvent in some sort of fashion this Statute with its
fixed wages, and out of the rates they tried to make up
more than the wage which ought legally to have been given.
Then you have a mass of laws interfering with workmen’s
combinations. And then, going on again, we come to the
time which I previously spoke of, when machinery was in
troduced, and you have the struggle between the workmen
who were fettered by the laws against combination, and
the employers, who were absolutely free—absolutely un
fettered by law. (Hear, hear.) What was the result of
this condition of things ? Vast fortunes on the side of
the propertied class ; frightful degradation on the side of
the unpropertied class—(cheers)—degradation so horrible
as to frighten Parliament itself. The death-rate of children
so great; the deterioration of the factory population so
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
85
terrible, that even Parliament itself—composed as it was
chiefly of the propertied class—found itself forced to pass
the first Factory Act, which interfered with this condition
of so-called free contract and free labor. (Cheers.) Then
you had—first, interference with child labor; next, inter
ference with woman labor. And the result of this inter
ference with the child’s and with the woman’s labor was
practically a limitation of that of the man’s. (Hear, hear.)
Because since these three worked together in the factories
—and since the female and the male labor were practically
complementary to each other—the limitation of the women’s
hours of labor indirectly brought about a limitation of
the men’s hours. (Hear, hear.) And so this legislation
went further than those who initiated it intended, and it
acted as a very general limitation of the hours of labor.
(Hear, hear.) And then you had still further State inter
ference—interference with contracts over and over again,
as when rent-courts and so on were established in Ireland
and in the northern parts of Scotland. And step by step as
that legislation has progressed, the condition of the laboringclasses has to some slight extent been improved. (Hear,
hear.) That is to say : the growing Socialism has brought
about a growing improvement, and the gradual inter
ference of the community to make the conditions more
equal on the side of the men has really given them oppor
tunities of rising which were utterly out of their reach in
the earlier years of the present century. (Cheers.) Nor
has that been all. There has been a growing recognition
on the part of the community that it is concerned with
something more than the regulation of business relations.
The responsibility of the community for the feeding of its
helpless members had long been recognised. (Hear, hear.)
The recognition of its responsibility for the curing of its
sick members had also to a considerable extent been recog
nised. But the fault in both these cases has been that the
conditions for getting food or medicine were, with the
object of discouraging people from embracing them, made
so degrading that those who may be considered the least
worthy accepted the opportunity of relief, whereas those
who were self-respecting and independent found the con
ditions so insulting that many a one would rather starve
than condescend to accept the relief. (Cheers.) Next,
society recognised its duty in matters of education. It
�bG
IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
recognised that it was a thing in which the community
had a right of interference, and it went on the plan of
taxing everyone, although only some had the immediate
benefit of the taxation. (Hear, hear.) And rightly so;
because you cannot divide off society into small cliques
and tax each for its own necessities. And although it may
be true that only some profit directly by the taxation for
education, yet the whole community profits indirectly ; not
only in the greater utility of the educated man or
woman, but also from the decrease of crime which is one
of the most marked results of our Socialist plan of national
education. (Cheers.) Next came the acceptance of re
sponsibility to a considerable extent on the part of society
even for the health and amusement of its members ; and
parks were made and kept up out of the public rates ;
galleries and museums were provided out of the national
taxation; libraries were adopted by parish after parish
taxing itself directly for this benefit to all. And so, step
by step, and more rapidly than ever during the last twenty
years, this growth of practical Socialism has been spreading
amongst our people, so that John Morley truly said, in his
“Life of Cobden”, that England, although Socialism was
little spoken of, had a greater mass of Socialistic legisla
tion than any other country in the world. (Hear, hear.)
And at the same time the Socialist spirit is spreading in
the smaller representative bodies in our country; corpora
tions and municipalities, passing beyond their at first very
limited duties, have been gradually taking over more and
more administrative and trading work into their hands.
And so you find municipalities now beginning to trade in
water and in gas ; and wherever that has commenced, the
advantages of that kind of Socialist trading become patent
to the town that adopts it. And the result is a gradual
but more and more rapid growth of Socialist feeling.
(Cheers.) Take a town like Nottingham—a town I hap
pened to visit recently. There the municipality has taken
over the supply of gas. What has been the result ? Not
only that the gas has been very much cheapened to the
citizens—although that is something—but that out of the
profits obtained from the cheapened gas-rate, at the same
time that the people of Nottingham can get their light for
very much less than ever before, instead of the profits
going to the shareholders of a company and being divided
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
87
amongst them, and. so keeping in idleness men who did
nothing for the town, those profits on the gas have been
utilised to build a great college, fitted up with everything that
is wanted for literary, for scientific, and for artistic training.
(Hear, hear.) There in that college, paid for out of the
profits of the town’s gas, are professors for instruction in the
various branches of learning ; and there every night classes
are held at merely nominal prices, to which every citizen
of Nottingham can go and train himself into wider know
ledge, into deeper enjoyment of life. (Hear, hear.) And
that is the result of Socialist legislation. (Cheers.) Under
Individualism the profits would go to enrich shareholders.
Under Socialism the profits go to be used for the benefit
of the town, and that grand educational experiment is the
result of practical Socialism in Nottingham. (Cheers.)
Mr. Foote : Last Wednesday evening Mrs. Besant occu
pied the first half of her first speech in replying to what
I had said on the previous evening. She cannot therefore
complain if I follow her excellent example to-night. And
I feel that I shall be all the more entitled to do so because
a considerable quantity of Mrs. Besant’s first speech to
night is the kind of thing you may read in any primer of
universal history, and which therefore I do not feel called
upon to dispute. (Hear, hear.) It will be remembered
that last Wednesday I pressed Mrs. Besant in two speeches
to say how she proposed to take over capital and land, and
how she proposed to deal with the population question.
Now either by design or inadvertence—I prefer to think
the latter—Mrs. Besant left these two questions unanswered,
although she had two opportunities of replying, until her
last speech, when of course I had no opportunity of rejoin
ing, and therefore it had necessarily to be left until this
evening. Now how does Mrs. Besant propose to take over
capital and land ? A great many Socialists say, following
Gronlund, 11 the matter of compensation will not trouble us
much”—(hear, hear, and laughter)—and evidently when
Socialists speak out in unguarded moments—(hear, hear)—
Mr. Gronlund and the Social Democratic Federation have
a very large amount of sympathy. But Mrs. Besant says—
and in this as in so many other points she follows Gronlund
—“we would give capitalists and landowners life annui
ties”. Gronlund’s proposal is a little more sensible, if
Mrs. Besant will allow me to say so. By Mrs. Besant’s
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IS SOCIALISM SOUXD ?
plan all the capitalists would be given life annuities.
Some of them would live a great while, but some of them
would die to-morrow, and their wives and families would
be swept among the wreckage of society—(“Oh, oh”)—
to find some kind of compensation of a character which
I think it is far better to contemplate than to realise.
(Cheers.) Gronlund proposed that they should all be paid
off; so that, supposing Vanderbilt were worth eighty
millions, he should have a million a year for eighty years.
I very much doubt if a Socialistic Society would have the
million a year to pay for eighty years—(hear, hear)—I
still more gravely doubt whether the ease with which the
first measure of confiscation were passed would not speedily
raise an agitation for complete repudiation of the obliga
tions that were incurred. The great difference between
Mrs. Besant and myself on this point is that I deny her
right to do this; I say that the man who owns property
under the existing law, which he has not stolen in violation
of any law, has a right not only to get his price for it, if
someone else demands it, but a right to withhold it from
sale if he chooses. (Cheers.) So that there is a moral
difference here between myself and Mrs. Besant, and I do
not see how it can be easily bridged over. I fancy it must
leave Mrs. Besant and myself on two different sides of a
chasm, across which she strikes me in vain, and across
which I strike her in vain. And I can only leave the
moral aspect of that question to every man and woman, to
be decided by such instincts of justice and fair play as they
may happen to possess. (Hear, hear.)
With respect to the population question, which Mrs.
Besant does not appear to treat with quite her old serious
ness, she says that the new society—whatever that may
be; it is largely a question of prophecy—will deal by law
with the progress of population. But if law can deal with
it, why does not the law deal with it now ? And how are you
to get your law ? Under Socialism everybody will have a
vote. Of course, everything will be decided by the vote
of the majority. If Mrs. Besant thinks that the human
nature, which we all know, will by a majority of voters
pass a law making the procreating of offspring over a
certain number penal, she is a great deal more sanguine
than I happen to be. (Cheers.) But if human nature
can assent to such a law, why does not human nature
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
89
assent to such a law now ? Mrs. Besant says that the
workers only breed slaves for the capitalist. (Hear, hear.)
She says that all their children are kept, or nearly all of
them—the exceptions being hardly worth counting—in
the state of society in which they are born. Well, if this is
so, and if the fact is obvious, how is it that the workers
do not voluntarily restrict population now ? Because it is
much easier to ask somebody else to come under a law
than to come under it yourself. (Cheers.) I cannot help
contrasting the almost Bacchanalian fury with which Mrs.
Besant incites the workers to take possession of other
people’s property—(cries of “No, no”)—and the bated
breath and whispering humbleness with which she reminds
her Socialist friends that they really do not attach quite
sufficient importance to this law of population. Mrs.
Besant did not use to speak so. She spoke in sterner
accents years ago. (Cries of “Oh” and “Question”.) Is
it not a fact, after all, that great as may be the courage
required to face juries and judges and prisons, a still
higher and rarer courage is required to turn on friends
who are mistaken and tell them in the stern accents of verity
what they have neglected or forgotten ? (A Voice: “She
has the courage”.) A gentleman, who has I fancy inter
rupted me more than once, says Mrs. Besant has courage.
I have not said she has not. (Cheers.) Now, what kind
of law is it to be that will deal with population ? Are you
going to have public committees watching young couples ?
(Laughter.) Are you going to say a husband and wife
shall have two, three, or four children as the case may be?
And if they have more children than the law prescribes,
how will you deal with them ? Are you going to put them
in prison ? If so, you must keep them there. And when
they come out they will violate the law with the same
equanimity as before. (Cheers.)
This law of population is the rock on which all com
munistic and Socialistic schemes must founder. (Cries of
“No, no.”) Suppose you have Socialism inaugurated to
morrow. Suppose you remove the competition which
Mrs. Besant detests. Suppose you guarantee, as she un
dertakes to guarantee, productive work for everybody.
Suppose you monopolise all the means of subsistence.
You are then bound to do what the law of England does
at present: make the possessors of the means of sub
�90
IS SOCIALISM SOUND?
sistence find food for those who are out of employment.
(Cheers.) The State would be obliged to feed everybody
who was starving for want of work. (“Oh, oh.”) The
lady or gentleman who disputes that is really without a
rudimentary acquaintance with the subject. Persons out
of work have to be fed now, and persons out of work under
Socialism will also have to be fed. (A Voice: “There
will be none”.) A gentleman says, “ there will be none”.
Well, he and I differ on that point. You will have to find
food for all your population. You remove competition,
and you remove parental responsibility for offspring. The
feeding of the children will be done by the State if the
parents are unable to do it, and what will be the result ?
(A Voice: “Enough to eat”.) The result will be—
(dissent)—Well, really, it appears that the manners of
economical atavism are quite what one might expect.
(Laughter.) You would have to do one of two things.
Either you would have to weed out the utterly incapable—
the semi-idiotic, the scrofulous, the consumptive, and all
those whom a sensible doctor would declare to be unfit to
procreate—and sternly forbid them to do so. Otherwise
you would have a perennial supply of the unfit, who would
all flourish; whereas, under the present competitive system,
notwithstanding our hospitals, our charities, and our work
houses, they get gradually eliminated, because the odds are
against them from the very beginning. (Cheers, and cries
of “No, no”.) If you are not prepared to do that, you
would have swarms of population beyond your power to
maintain. Then what would happen ? Either there would
be such anarchy, such poverty, that society would remould
itself round some stable centre—perhaps in the form of a
military conqueror—figuring once more as a savior of
society; or else the more vigorous and more progressive
members would separate themselves from the rest, form
new communities of their own, strike out in fresh direc
tions, and so restore the old competive system which was
abolished in a moment of Socialistic folly. (Cheers.)
I am very sorry to spoil a pretty peroration. I am very
sorry to throw a cold shower of common sense upon what
was a glowing piece of rhetoric. But at the same time I
would ask Mrs. Besant, who accuses me of mistranslating
Proudhon without giving a better translation herself, how
she comes to read Liberte, Egalite, et Eraternite as meaning
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND?
91
anything Socialistic? “Egalite”, which we translate
equality—very roughly, hy the way, though—has never
meant in the mouths of the French people who used it
anything like equality in the Socialistic or Communistic
sense. Nor has “ fraternity ” meant anything like Com
munism. Liberty and equality were both meant as a
protest against the privilege created by law under the
ancien regime. Egalite. meant equality before the law
for everyone, high and low, rich and poor; the aboli
tion of all law-created distinctions; the placing of everybody
on what Thomas Paine called the “democratic floor”, where
he is entitled to no more consideration than his own energy,
intellect, and character entitle him to. (Cheers.) Perhaps
Mrs. Besant will tell me what great leader of the French
Bevolution used the word egalite as meaning anything like
Socialistic equality. If she cannot point to any such
leader, and if the word has never been used in that sense,
it appears to me that her peroration was far more mis
leading than my translation of Proudhon’s definition of
property. My translation was as near as possible, con
sidering the difference between the genius of the two
languages, which makes it utterly impossible to translate
epigrams from one into the other without some roughness
and some loss of the finer shades of meaning. (Cheers.)
Practically Mrs. Besant, in one of her remarks, gave up
the whole of the debate. She said that it was perfectly
absurd—and I agree with her—to start Socialistic experi
ments in the midst of a competitive society; or, as Mr.
Hyndman grandiosely called it in his debate with Mr.
Bradlaugh, “making Socialistic oases in a howling desert
of competition”. By the way, Arabs and other people
do keep up oases in the desert, where they cheer and
refresh the traveller with palm trees and water. Mr.
Hyndman and his friends might try to do the same kind
of thing. But what is their admission ? Why is it that
Socialistic experiments cannot succeed in the midst of a
competitive state of society ? Because competitive society
is more robust and virile, calling forth the energies of the
people, and producing grander results. Socialism cannot
succeed by experiment because competitive society would
beat it and kill it in the open field. (“Oh, oh.”) Mrs,
Besant shows a wise and true instinct in asking that every
body shall join Socialism at once before it is carried out.
�92
IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
Socialism could never hold its own unless, by means of an
overwhelming majority, it got the power to make the laws
into its own hands, and used that power to proscribe every
form of rivalry with itself. (Cheers.)
Monarchy, aristocracy, and such things, I am quite as
much prepared to deal with as Mrs. Besant can be, and
therefore they may as well be eliminated from the debate.
(Cries of “ No, no ”.) My opinion is that if many things
Mrs. Besant and I equally object to were remedied there
would be very little distress now or at any time. But we
need not dwell upon these. They are common points of
agreement. But let me say that Mrs. Besant attaches a
little too much economical importance to a Duke with
£200,000 a year or a rich capitalist with £50,000 a year. As
a matter of fact, a man with that immense income cannot
eat it and drink it. (Laughter.) A laborer once facetiously
remarked, though with a great deal of truth, when some
one was talking to him about a rich man: “Well, I guess
he has not a bigger stomach than I have”. (Laughter.)
Now, what does a rich man do with his wealth ? He
spends nearly all of it in employing some kind of labor.
(Laughter and cries of “Oh, oh”.) One moment. It
may be the labor of domestic servants; it may be
the labor of men engaged in various forms of fine
art, it may be the labor of men engaged in painting
pictures, it may be the labor of men engaged in carving
statuary, it may be the labor of men employed in one or
other of the twelve thousand different trades that are
tabulated by the Registrar-General. Well if this be so,
and all the rich men were immediately abolished, all the
persons who follow the trades they maintain would be
thrown helplessly on the labor market. (“ Oh, oh.”) I
say they would if it were done at once. (“Oh, oh,” and
cheers.) I say that the peculiar kind of work they do is
only such as rich men can pay for. (Hear.) That is no
argument against any kind of reform, but it certainly is an
argument for gradual proceeding, instead of revolutionary
haste. (Cheers.) The real grievance is that so much is
spent in non-productive labor. That is the true economical
grievance ; and I should very much like to see less money
spent in non-productive labor. But there will always be a
great deal of money spent in that way, unless you widen
the term productive so as to include everything that can be
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
93
done. Mrs. Besant might think that publishing a book is
productive work. It is in a sense, but I doubt whether it
is in a Socialistic sense. I do not know what particular
value a book has. If it is printed and sells, it is worth
something; but if it is not instructive or interesting, or
too good for the public, and does not sell, it is only worth
waste paper. It is not like a commodity turned out in the
open market which has a natural value, and will always
fetch it. I will turn to another point. Mrs. Besant over
estimates the amount which would be distributed amongst
the workers if capital were appropriated by them “with
or without compensation”. A fact is worth any quantity
of theory, especially if the theory conflicts with it.
(Laughter.) I have taken the trouble, as I have on
previous occasions, to put together a few statistics. I find
that in 1884 our total output of coals and metals was of
the value of £64,000,000. I find also that the number
of miners was about 441,000. Now if you divide the out
put by the number of miners, you will find it gives a total
sum for each worker of £145 per year. But mark, the
£64,000,000 is the total value of the output. In addition
to the miners’ wages there are other expenses, a few of
which I will recite. Birst taxes, including income tax,
as now paid; secondly, rates on the property; thirdly,
interest on the capital, or sinking fund ; fourthly, savings
for increasing, maintaining, and extending the business;
fifthly, extra payments for skill, such as foremen, engineers
and managers ; sixthly, rent, or royalty to the Government;
seventhly, payment for clerks, surveyors, etc.; eighthly,
payment for materials, machinery and ventilating appa
ratus ; ninthly, payment for tramways, horses, and so
forth; tenthly, payment for insurance and employers’
liability. Now, if you took all those expenses for each
colliery from the total output, you would find that they
made a very serious diminution in the amount that would
be available for distribution amongst the workers them
selves. The total only comes to £145 for each worker, and
the nett amount could not come to anything like that sum.
Surely the difference between the wages now paid to the
miners and the amount they would receive if the whole
value of the output, minus the working expenses, were
distributed amongst them, is not sufficient to justify Mrs.
Besant’s revolutionary proposals. She asks us to leave
�94
IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
the shore we are accustomed, to, where great possibilities
of improvement still remain, and embark with her for the
opposite shore. It is politic to ask us all to go at once,
for if we succeed in crossing safely the pilot will be
universally praised, and if we sink there will be nobody to
utter a word of blame. (Cheers.)
I will deal in my next speech, and more fully, with what
Mrs. Besant has advanced to-night. What she said does
not seem to have any particular relation to Socialism. The
great questions of universal history—how States arose and
fell, how slavery originated, how it affected civilisations,
how far it helped to break them up, the growth and pro
gress of education, and so forth—have nothing to do with
the distinctive question “Is Socialism Sound?”. (Cheers.)
Mrs. Besant has to deal with the economical and practical
objections to Socialism. She has to show, by an effort of
constructive imagination, how Socialism would work in
practice. But she has done nothing of the kind. She has
denounced evils that we all deplore; she has urged that
they should be remedied, and we all wish to remedy them.
The question at issue is: Is her remedy a good one ?
Denouncing evil is beside the point. She must show that
her remedy will cure it; and unless she does that, she
has no right to invite us to follow her prescriptions.
(Applause.)
Annie Besant : I am almost sorry that Mr. Foote did
not think it worth while to deal with the speech with
which I opened, because one of the great differences be
tween modern thought and older thought is the tendency
of modern thought to study how things evolve. (Hear,
hear.) And that can only be done by studying the past,
and tracing through the past up to the present. The
modern progress of science is based largely on that
method. (Cheers.) And to renounce that, or to treat it
with contempt, is to turn your back on the truth which
has made the scientific progress of the last twenty years.
(Hear, hear.) I pass from that, and I will deal very
briefly with my peroration of last week, to which Mr.
Foote objected. Now I am sure that Mr. Foote knows as
well as I know that you cannot destroy the effect of a
peroration after a week has elapsed. A peroration moves
for the moment; it is the arguments before it that remain.
A peroration is like the closing passage of a sonata, bring
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
95
ing the music to an effective conclusion. You remember
the sonata, and you cannot destroy its effect even when
the chord which concluded it no longer fills the ears that
listened to it. I make Mr. Foote a present of my perora
tion without any further remark, save this : that I admit
at once that the Frenchmen who used that cry did not
mean Socialism when they spoke of “liberty, equality, and
fraternity
They were not face to face with a condition
of society in which Socialism was possible. But what I
meant in applying their phrase was that just as in those
days equality meant the destruction of the privileged
classes, which were then kings and nobles, so the cry of
equality now means the destruction of that aristocracy of
wealth which is more highly privileged and more mis
chievous to society than the old one. (Cheers.)
I now come to the points raised by Mr. Foote in his
speech. Mr. Foote spoke as to compensation. Let me
put very clearly what I said. I said that I should be
willing to give life annuities to the expropriated owners.
The income of the Duke of Westminster will shortly, as
the building leases fall in, reach a million and a half a
year. The way in which I should deal with the Duke of
Westminster would be something like this : I should say—
“ My lord duke, you are not of the very least good in the
world; you are the result of a very bad system, and we are
even more responsible for that than you are, because you are
only one and we are many. We have practically made you
the very unprofitable creature that you are. You cannot use
your hands to keep yourself. You cannot earn your living
by any useful work. Although this is our fault more than
yours, we cannot allow you to keep on robbing others for
an income. We will therefore give you for the rest of
your unprofitable life a decent little income, say of £500 a
year.” (Hear, hear, and laughter.) That is the sort of
compensation which I meant when I spoke of life annuities.
And I should be willing, in a case where a man died and
left a widow, to continue the annuity to her; and I might
be generous enough, if there was a son left about forty
years of age, too old to learn to be of any use, to continue
the annuity to him. (Hear, hear, and laughter.) I do
not desire to make these people a wreckage on society—
I see too much social wreckage as it is. (Cheers.) And I
do not desire to add one single life to it. (Hear, hear.)
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IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
But what I do desire is to prevent these men continuing
to make wreckage of thousands in order to keep them
selves. (Cheers.) Then Mr. Foote says man has a right
to withhold his property from sale if he chooses. Would
he have used that argument in the Southern States of
America to defend slavery ? I deny that a man has any
absolute right to withhold property from sale if he chooses.
(Hear, hear.) The rights of property were made by society,
and society is supreme over them. No man has a right to
hold his property to the injury of the greater number
among whom he lives, and you do not even now allow
~Hm “so to hold it. (Hear, hear.) You force men to sell
now by law, if they will not sell of their own good will,
when their property is wanted for the community; and
you must, if you are going to have society at all, admit
the right of society to control the property of the members
of the community to an enormous extent. (Hear, hear.)
And if a man usurps property which he has not made,
that he has no right to—property which he only holds by
virtue of bad laws—then the majority has the right to
repeal those laws and destroy his power of exploiting, and
thus, by destroying his property in man, to free the men who
must remain slaves whilst he holds them. (Cheers.) Mr.
Foote says there is a moral difference between us. I grant
there is an enormous moral difference between Socialism
and Individualism, and the whole of the moral difference
is this—that from Mr. Foote’s point of view a small num
ber of persons have the right to rob other persons and get
the result of their labor, whereas Socialism says that theft
is wrong in the prince as much as in the peasant, and that
neither shall be allowed to rob his neighbors and live
upon the labors of the industrious. (Cheers.)
Mr. Foote challenges me again on the question of the
law of population, and asks me how it is possible by law
to limit the population, and why not pass such a law, and
why don’t the workers see the difficulty now. There are
several reasons why the workers of this country do not see
the bearing of the law of population. In the first place,
they have so little property themselves that they do not
see the mischief done by making too many claimants
among whom it is divided. They are already so poor
that they cannot well be poorer, and they are careless
and indifferent, thinking it matters comparatively little
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IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
whether twelve are starving on 12s. a week or four are
starving on the same sum. (Cheers.) One important
step towards limiting the population is to raise the standard
of comfort; because when you do that you make the
people anxious not to fall back from the comfort they have
obtained. (Hear, hear.) But if always on the verge of
starvation they do not feel the fall, because practically
they cannot fall very much further in position. (Hear,
hear.) And, unfortunately, through our history there has
been an opposition from the time of Malthus between
those who consider that the remedy for poverty lies in
State interference and those who believe it lies in limita
tion of the family. The result of that has been a certain
antagonism between those who would improve matters by
legislative action, and those who would only deal with the
law of population. And that hereditary antagonism, like
the fighting of dogs and cats, comes out rather as a matter
of instinct than of intelligence. Nor is that all. I ask
Mr. Foote to notice that in France where you have, to
some extent, raised the standard of comfort for a great
part of the population, that part of the population has re
cognised the law of population, and has voluntarily
limited its own increase. (Hear, hear.) And in every
Socialist experiment in America it has been found neces
sary to recognise the law by the very condition of their
living. And whatever steps they took—whether by pre
ventive checks of various kinds—in every case limitation of
the population has been one of the primary conditions
insisted on in these communities. That is, the moment
you establish Socialism, even among a limited number of
persons, they recognise that you must keep the balance
between the arms that produce and the mouths that eat.
(Cheers.) Another reason why I think the law of popu
lation is not now seen by Socialists as it ought to be, is
because of the bluncFfing way in which it has been put
by many economists. I think I have mentioned before
that the old wage-fund theory on which it was based has
been given up. But as this law was based by economists
on an economical theory now discredited, it is not wonderful
that with the discredit of the theory the other theory based
on it disappears from the thoughts of Socialists. And
when you take these facts into consideration—the raising
of the standard of comfort; the recognition that society
H
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IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
must maintain its members, and that therefore every man
is interested in the limitation of the family; it being then
seen—as it will be then seen—that for every large family
there is less leisure and more labor for the producing
community, then you will have made a public opinion in
favor of the limitation of the family, which is utterly
impossible at the present time. (Hear, hear.) Then,
again, Mr. Foote asks : How are you going to limit the
number ? Are you going to imprison the parents ? H
you do, the multiplication will go on as soon as the people
come out of prison. (Hear, hear.) But you don’t use such
arguments against imprisonment for theft. (Hear, hear.)
We know that penalties practically make conscience and
public opinion. But, at the same time, I very much doubt
whether for the limitation of the family you would want
anything more than the education, especially, of the women,
and a rather stern social boycotting for those who trans
gressed the limit too recklessly. (Cheers.) Nor is that
all. I believe that one of the strongest arguments in
favor of the limitation of the population will come from
the women ; as you educate your women more highly, as
they take part in public life, as they become more economi
cally independent than they are to-day, your women will
refuse to be mere nurses of children throughout the whole
of their active life. (Cheers.) They will be willing to
give all the care that is necessary for two or three children,
but will refuse to have their health ruined, and the whole
of public life shut to them, by having families of ten
or twelve, which are practically destructive of motherly
feeling as well as of happiness and comfort in the home.
(Cheers.) Mr. Foote suggests that under the present con
ditions the sickly, the scrofulous, and so on, get killed out
amongst the poor. You do not kill them out from among
the rich. And what I want is a public opinion to make it
a crime for a diseased man or woman to transmit their
disease to a child. (Cheers.) And it is public opinion
that will do this better than any other way; and that
public opinion I am trying to make. (Cheers.) But Mr.
Foote says that I used to use stronger language on this
question than I do now : and that it requires more courage
to speak out to friends things they do not like, than even
to face a judge and jury. I do not think I have softened
my language on the population theory. (Hear, hear.)
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IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
I say now, as I said long ago, that the limitation of the
family, if it stood by itself, would never remedy poverty.
I pointed then to the changes which we wanted in the
land laws and in other ways, side by side with the law of
population, and I say the same still. I say the law of
population alone is not our most important matter. It.is
more important to get the right idea on the production of
wealth to-day even than it is to press—as I still press—
the duty of the limitation of the family. (Cheers.) I
thoroughly agree with Mr. Foote, that it does need more
courage to speak unpalatable truths to friends than to
face judge and jury. (Hear, hear.) And I can assure
him that, in my own experience, I stood before judge and
jury, and lay under sentence of imprisonment, with a far
lighter heart, and with a far less troubled mind, than I
have felt in taking the name of Socialist, and thus setting
myself against some of those with whom I have worked
for the last thirteen years—(hear, hear,)—and when I have
seen faces grow cold and friends grow distant, because I
have dared to speak a truth unpalatable to them. (Cheers.)
The Chairman : Ladies and gentlemen, in calling upon
Mr. Foote this time will you allow me to say that the way
in which you have listened to Mrs. Besant’s speech is very
greatly to the credit of those who disagree with her. I
want to appeal therefore to those who disagree with Mr.
Foote not to allow themselves to be outdone in patience
and courtesy. (Hear, hear.)
Mr. Foote: Unfortunately, I and the chairman mis
understood each other towards the close of my first speech.
He said something about my having half-a-minute more,
but he told me afterwards that I had three and a-half
minutes, so I am to have my compensation in this speech.
(Hear, hear.)
Mrs. Besant says you cannot spoil the effect of a perora
tion a week after. It depends upon the circumstances.
She says a peroration is something that influences people
at the moment. That is not quite my notion of a perora
tion. If a peroration is something that cannot subsequently
be defended, I do not think it is a right thing to try to
influence people with it at any moment. (Hear, hear.)
Mrs. Besant says she would compensate the Duke of
Westminster in the way you heard. It is a curious thing
that Mrs. Besant avoids all the ticklish parts of her case.
h2
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IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
The Duke of Westminster, as an English nobleman, has
no right whatever in the land except the right which he
holds legally under the Crown. The Duke of Westminster,
as a peer of the realm, can be dealt with by Parliament,
with the Crown’s sanction, differently from men who have
purchased the land, or men who are holders of land in the
sense that their small moneys, collected together in fire
and fife insurance and other societies, are invested in that
way. I want Mrs. Besant to tell us, not how she proposes
to deal with the Duke of Westminster—with whom I, as
an Individualist, believe we can deal by law—but how she
proposes to deal with the hundreds and thousands of poorer
persons who own smaller quantities of land—(hear, hear)—
and how she proposes to deal not only with the big capita
list who makes a fortune, but with the thousands of little
capitalists, some of whom only get a bare living, and
others not a much better living than the highest form of
skilled labor which they happen to employ.
Mrs. Besant says a man has no right to do as he pleases
with his property. Aye, but what property ? Mrs. Besant
has referred to land, but the law of England does not
recognise private property in land—not absolute private
property. The soil of England is always held under law.
But I do not hold my watch under law. A capitalist does
not hold his capital under law, except in the sense that the
law protects him against the thief who wishes to appro
priate it. The land, of course, has to be sold if it stands
in the way of a public improvement, but the Bill which
empowers the public improvement also provides for fair
compensation. I want Mrs. Besant not to be merely
facetious about the Duke of Westminster—as to whom I
don’t care very much—but to deal with the interests of all
these other persons—hundreds and thousands of our fellowcountrymen, as honest as Mrs. Besant and I, as honest as
all of us here—who, with their wives and children, if they
have any, must all be considered in your scheme, unless
a ou are going to violate all the instincts that throb in the
heart of every man with a feeling for his fellows.
(Cheers.)
As to population, Mrs. Besant says she would somehow
deal with it by law. But she takes particularly good care
not to tell us what kind of law she would put in operation.
She trusts more to public opinion, however, in the long
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
101
run. That is exactly what I trust to, and public opinion
grows under our Individualist system quite as much as it
could under a Collectivist system. (Hear, hear.) It is
true that the prejudiced jury, representing a mistaken
majority, found Mrs. Besant guilty of an obscenity which
she never committed. Yet at the same time, notwithstanding
these occasional outbursts of bigotry, Individualist society
is more and more willing to act fairly, and to allow
discussion on vital subjects. (Hear, hear.) The proof of
it lies in the fact that Mrs. Besant can go on, despite that
verdict, advocating the very same principles for which .the
jury condemned her. (Hear, hear.) Public opinion is
growing, and it cannot very well be forced. Collectivist
social machinery won’t, as Herbert Spencer says, produce
golden actions out of leaden instincts. You have to wait.
Progress is slow. Jumping at the moon is sport for
lunatics. Our way in this world, set for us by nature, is
steady plodding, step by step. We make some advances
even on the question of population. Mrs. Besant says byand-bye women will be educated. But we are not waiting
for Collectivism to educate women. (Hear.) The Education
Act of 1870, passed under an Individualist state of society,
provides for the education not only of every boy, but of
every girl, in the State. (Hear, hear.) Girton College,
University examinations for women, education in the fine
arts for girls, and tutorship even at the Royal Academy—
these things are not the gift of Collectivist Socialism.
(Hear, hear.) Women are being educated, and all of us
are glad of it. (Cheers.) I quite believe with Mrs. Besant
that as women become more educated, and take a larger
interest in public affairs, and think more about general
questions, they will not oppose that prejudice, which they
now oppose more than men, to a prudent restriction of
offspring. (Cheers.) They will refuse, as Mrs. Besant
well says, when their standard of comfort and feeling and
education is raised, to become mere domestic drudges from
the beginning to the end of their married life. We do not
want Socialism to tell us that. We see the improvement
of woman going on now. If Socialism disappeared to
morrow, and was never heard of again, the cause of
woman would be safe. When a great cause has raised its
head from the dust, and begun to boldly challenge opposing
prejudices, it must win in the long run, unless you can
�102
IS SOCIALISM SOUND?
crush, it by law. But the time for that is gone by, and the
elevation and emancipation of woman is assured. (Cheers.)
Mrs. Besant says that under a Socialistic state of society
the workers would see that if they bred too fast they
would injure themselves. Here is a man who is earning
two pounds a week. He has four children, and the fifth
is coming. He says “It is hard ” ; he knows his two
pounds a week is becoming relatively less and less. He
knows he must keep himself and all the children he brings
into existence. Yet although the burden of keeping them
falls directly, obviously, perceptibly, beyond all question,
upon his own shoulders, Mrs. Besant says he has no in
ducement to refrain from breeding, but that under a Col
lectivist state of society the inducement will be perfectly
clear. (Hear, hear, and laughter.)
I will deal now with Mrs. Besant’s first speech. She
told us how tribes began, and as I think, quite wrongly.
She said that in the tribe one man was stronger than the
others and he gained the predominance. But one strong
man cannot terrorise five thousand by his physical power.
The five thousand could break him in a moment. Why
is he the head of the tribe ? The whole explanation of it
is, that tribes war against tribes, and military organisation
is necessary. The military machine must be worked from
one centre, with one controlling mind. A debating society,
as Lord Macaulay said, never fights. A general, whether
he be a tribal chief, or a Duke of Marlborough, or a
Napoleon, must have absolute control, otherwise the whole
business will come to grief. Savages are subordinated to
chiefs because everything must be subordinated to the
tribal law of self-preservation. They are obliged to protect
themselves against the attacks of the predatory tribes
about them. There thus arises a military state of society,
entirely because of the militancy of the populations sur
rounding the tribe, and the constant necessity of selfdefence. (Cheers.)
Mrs. Besant told us quite rightly that slaves were origin
ally captives in war. That clearly shows that slavery did
not begin out of the mere lust of slavery. (Hear, hear.)
Originally, as you will read in many ancient scriptures
the captives taken in war were slain—immolated on the
altars of cruelty. But as men got a little more intelligent
and a little more humane they discontinued this, and all
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
103
the captives in war became slaves. All the various castes
in India and elsewhere are simply the results of so many
waves of conquest sweeping over the land, the conquerors
establishing themselves as rulers, and subordinating those
whom they conquered. But I do not see what that has to
do with Individualism. I do not propose that we should
go prowling over the world, and imposing ourselves on
subordinate populations. Unfortunately we are in India,
and we shall have to face many difficulties before we can
■clear out of it. (Hear, hear.) But if we were not in India,
what sensible man would ever propose that Englishmen
should go there ? (Cheers.) How slavery arose is a very
long question, and how it developed is a longer question
still. But when Mrs. Besant says that slavery broke up
all the ancient civilisations, I have to differ from her.
What broke the power of Greece ? The greater power of
Borne. Both of them were founded on slavery. What
ultimately broke the great power of Home ? Was it
slavery? No. It was the employment of mercenary
troops, by which the Romans themselves grew out of the
habit of war, lost their old instinctive valor, and so the
barbarians from the north were able to overrun them. The
barbarians, who overran them, brought Feudalism.
Feudalism was established by the Goths upon the ruins of
the Roman Empire, and that Feudalism was slavery in
another form. (Hear, hear.) The serf of the soil was no
better off than the ancient slave. He was really in a worse
position than the. slave in the best days of the Roman
Empire, when many of the leading men—artists and
thinkers—were slaves. They were protected by the law
then. No owner was allowed to do as he liked with his
slaves. If maltreated, the slave could appeal to the
tribunals, and obtain his freedom or a better master. But
under Feudalism the lord was practically absolute. Out of
that Feudalism our modern system has arisen. (Hear,
hear.) Mrs. Besant points to the Act of 1694—I presume—
by which the English aristocracy threw off from them
selves the burdens of Feudalism, which went with the
holdership of land, and practically threw those burdens
upon the shoulders of the industrial community. I should
be as glad to undo that as Mrs. Besant, but I do not see
how the undoing of it conflicts with the principles of
Individualism, which I am here to maintain. (Hear, hear.)
�104
IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
Let me now deal with, something which Mrs. Besant
says is Socialistic and which she claims for the principle of
Socialism. She speaks of the town of Nottingham. But
she might, without going to Nottingham, have found at
Birmingham many years ago that the Municipality had
taken over the gas supply. The Municipality may also
take over the water supply. But, as I said in a previous
part of this debate, no Municipality, no State, ever did, or
ever will, inaugurate a new thing. (Hear, hear.) The
State and the Municipality can only take over what has been
begun and perfected by individual enterprise. (Cheers.)
Mrs. Besant says that education is Socialistic. I hope
not, I believe not. What is public education founded
upon? Upon Socialism? No. Upon Individualism, upon
the right of every individual brought into the world to
have those duties performed that are involved in the obli
gation which the parents undertake. (Hear, hear.) A
parent is forced to find education for his child, but the
duty had been so long neglected that the State had to say—
“ The child, who is an individual as well as the parent,
the child towards whom the parent has contracted obliga
tions, shall be sent to school”. (Hear, hear.) And as
the State made it compulsory, the State had to find the
machinery. It was a question of ways and means. The
easiest method was to establish School Boards all over the
country. And that education does not in any way interfere
with competition. Certainly that education does not dimi
nish competition. That education gives all the children
brighter minds, more knowledge, keener faculties, to start
with some measure of equality in that great race of life,
where the prize is to the swift, and the victory to the
strong. And that law—the law of all struggle, and the
law of all progress—cannot be set aside by all the devices
of all the dreamers in the world. (Cheers.)
Annie Besant : Doubtless, from the brevity with which
I had to make my opening statements, Mr. Foote did not
quite catch my idea in dealing with slavery in connexion
with the downfall of the older civilisations. I alleged
that they fell from the great division between the proprie
tary and the unpropertied classes, caused by the slavery
on which they were founded. And the reason why they
fell was chiefly this: that those who did not labor, in their
idleness grew luxurious, effeminate, and careless. (Hear,
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
105
hear.) That happened in Greece and it happened in Rome.
(Cheers.) The earlier strength of Borne broke down Greece
where the slave canker had existed longer, and had made
these idle, useless classes unable to defend themselves.
The younger vigor of the Goths broke down Rome when
the sloth made possible by the slave-class had destroyed
the manhood of those who possessed them. And so in
England the upper classes are growing, as the upper classes
of Greece and Rome grew, luxurious, effeminate, caring
more for soft living than for hard thinking. And for them,
living on a vast and degraded population, there is the
danger of a similar fall to that which wrecked both Greece
and Rome. (Hear, hear.) Mr. Foote repeated the state
ment that no municipality had ever taken up a new thing.
But he appears to have ignored the fact which I stated
that the only bodies which had taken up the hydraulic
machine for supplying water at high pressure were munici
palities, and that that fact was fatal to the whole of the argu
ment that the State can never inaugurate an improvement.
(Cheers.) Mr. Foote ignores the fact, and simply repeats
the statement.
\
I go back to Mr. Foote’s earlier speech. He asks once
more, Why do we not make a Socialist oasis, and he says:
Because Socialism could not hold its own against competi
tion. It is true that a small number of Socialists, who are
poor, entirely without plant, without accumulated capital,
cannot hold their own against the vast accumulated capital
which is in the hands of the supporters of the competitive
system to-day. (Hear, hear.) The competitors have the
railways, the great carrying companies, the canals; they
have a vast store of goods and of accumulated wealth
of every kind. It is not reasonable that a few of
those who have helped to make this wealth should go
outside, and, practically without capital, begin a fresh
accumulation with the hope of being able to hold
their own against the results of the robbery of their
rights for centuries. (Cheers.) Such a proposal is a pro
posal utterly unworthy of consideration. The Socialists
mean to have the railways and the canals and the plant
that they and their fellows have made, and not to leave
these to the competitive system whilst they go out naked
into the wilderness to make more. (Cheers.) Then Mr.
Foote stated that a very rich man cannot eat his income,
�106
IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
and he told us of a not very clear-sighted agricultural
laborer who said that the rich man had not a bigger
stomach than he had. The agricultural laborer wanted
more education, and then he would have seen a little fur
ther, for he would have seen that the rich man with his
servants—the domestics, the gardeners, and the game
keepers—has a hundred stomachs to fill, and fills them all
out of the produce of the laboring classes who support
him. (Cheers.) It is quite true that a Vanderbilt cannot
eat up the whole of his income; but he can get a lot of
lazy persons to hang on to him; and that is where the
mischief of these very wealthy men is shown. And if
the agricultural laborer had been able to see a little fur
ther he would have seen a multiplication of stomachs
feeding on other men’s labor, which is the result of the
very wealthy classes. (Hear, hear.) Then Mr. Foote says
that all the servants and others employed by the wealthy
would be idle if capital were abolished. He threatened
us with 12,000 trades—all the members of which would be
thrown helpless on the world. But why so ? A large
number of trades would, I admit, fall out of existence in
a healthy and rational condition of society. Those trading
in jewels, which have only their value for show; traders
in many articles which are utterly worthless, and which
are simply bought by persons who do not know how to
waste their money fast enough—these useless trades would
fall out under Socialism ; and the men who used to make
so many articles of luxury for the idle and the rich would
be employed in making useful and beautiful articles for
the masses of the community whose wider wealth would
enable them to purchase them, and would multiply a hun
dred fold the commodities which would be wanted for the
comfort of the whole of the community. (Hear, hear.)
For what you have got is so much human labor to be
utilised in the best way ; and while it makes useless articles
and luxuries for the wealthy, you are depriving those who
are wanting absolute necessaries of the results of labor
in which they have a right to share. (Hear, hear.) Mr.
Foote spoke of productive and non-productive work. I
object to the phrase. Useful and useless work are better
terms. It would be far better to speak of useful work,
when the work done supplies anything to society of which
society stands in need. (Hear, hear.) I draw no distinc
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
107
tion in usefulness between the teacher and the grower of
corn, between the author of a great book and the man
who builds a useful house. Society has many needs, and
they all have to be supplied; and any man who fulfils a
function that is useful—that man deserves his place in
society. There is no sense in the distinctions between pro
ductive and non-productive work, which took John Stuart
Mill into the absurdity of calling the work of an artist
who painted a picture productive work, whereas the
work of the man who played a sonata on the piano he
called non-productive work. These distinctions are idle
and useless, and the sooner we get rid of them the better.
(Cheers.)
Then Mr. Foote says to me : I do not care what you do
with the Duke of Westminster, but how will you deal with
the poor men who have their own freeholds and a little
money invested.
Mr. Foote : As a point of order, I did not say I did not
care, but that I did not care much.
Annie Besant : I should suggest to Mr. Foote as I did
before that that lies quite as much on him as a land
nationaliser as on me as a Socialist. I challenged him on
that point, and he avoided it. I said I should have the same
law for the rich as for the poor. I should destroy private
property in land completely and utterly. But I would
make this distinction: Where a man had earned money
and invested his savings in the land, I should admit that
he had a right to the usufruct of that land during his life,
oi’ else to receive back the sum he invested in it—without
payment of interest—if he preferred so to receive it; and
I should certainly in this case give full compensation on
this principle, that you may compensate a man fully when
you are dealing with what he has absolutely earned, but
there is no need to compensate a man fully when you are
taking from him what he did not earn and what he became
possessed of by the labor of others. (Cheers.) Mr. Foote
spoke of dealing with thousands of poor capitalists barely
getting a living now. Socialism will put them in the way
of getting more than a bare living, and so they will profit
by Socialism. And the result, we say, of your competition
is to make the fives of the poor capitalists a burden and
misery; more and more of the wealth is going into the
hands of the few, and all these little fishes will get
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IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
swallowed up by the big ones. (Hear, hear.) We want
to save them from this misery by placing the distribution
of wealth in the hands of organised societies, so that there
may not be so many competing in getting a living out of
a small amount of capital, but rather that they may be in
the position of acting as functionaries of society, fulfilling
useful work for which they would receive full and complete
remuneration. (Hear, hear.) Then there again I ought
to say that where any small capitalist had made his capital
himself I should be prepared to fully restore to him any
thing he had himself earned. The difference would be that
he would not be able to employ it as he had been used to
do in simply appropriating his neighbor’s labor, but would
have the result of his own work without being able to get
interest upon it—without being able to make money From
another person’s labor. Then Mr. Foote says land is
held under law, but he does not hold his watch under
law. I do not understand in what other fashion he
does hold it. If it were held without law probably that
watch would not remain long in his pocket. As a matter
of fact every right in a civilised community is based
on and defended by law. (Hear, hear.) Mr. Foote says
public opinion grows under Individualism. I have not
denied it. I say that probably it would grow faster under
Socialism if we may draw conclusions from analogy.
Take the force of trade public opinion within a trade
union. Public opinion where men are brought close to
gether works far more strongly on them and influences
them much more than it can do under our present condition
of struggling. (Hear, hear.) And I agree again with Mr.
Foote that public opinion cannot be forced. But public
opinion can be educated, and Socialists are trying to edu
cate the public opinion which they know will bring about
changes in these matters. (Hear, hear.) Then Mr. Foote
says that the Education Act was passed in an Individual
istic State. Not quite so. The Education Act was passed
in a State undergoing transition from Individualism to
Socialism, and it is a mark of the growing Socialist feeling
which is forcing these changed measures on the legislature.
And the thorough Individualists—take men like Auberon
Herbert and Herbert Spencer—admit this with regard to
State education, and point to the growing Socialism in legis
lation, which they contend is a danger. But Mr. Foote, in
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
109
legislation from his Individualistic standpoint, accepts the
fruit of Socialism, and then abuses the very tree from which
it comes. Mr. Foote says, “ We don’t want Collectivism to
raise women”. Don’t you? The Socialist body, as a
body, is the only one that claims complete equality in
every respect for women. (Cheers.) The old Radicals are
not sound upon it; some of them are in favor of it, and
some are against it. You find some Radicals everywhere
denying equality to women, and trying to keep them out
even from the rights of citizenship. There is no body in
the world save the Socialist, whether you take them in
England, or in America, or in Germany, or among the
Nihilists in Russia, there is no other body where you find
the absolute independence and equality of women pro
claimed as one of the cardinal points in their creed.
(Cheers.) That was one of the things that attracted me
to the Socialist party, because they do claim absolute
economical independence for women; because they do
claim absolute equality for her; and because in Russia,
above all, they have never grudged to women the place of
danger, but have stood side by side with her in conspiracy,
in peril, aye, and in the very worst prisons and on the scaf
fold. (Hear, hear.) They have never said, Your sex dis
qualifies you for the post of danger; our strength shall
guard your weakness. And this is the noblest thing which
Socialism has to say—there is no distinction of class, no
distinction of sex. It destroys every distinction and
every enmity, and places men and women on one plat
form of duty and of right. (Cheers.) And when Mr.
Foote tells us we do not need Socialism to do this, my
answer is, only under Socialism is that complete enfran
chisement of women possible. (Hear, hear.) Mr. Foote
says slavery existed under feudalism. It has existed
under every Individualistic condition of society, and it
must so be if the race is always to be to the swiftest and the
victory of the battle always to be with the strongest; for if
this is to be taken as meaning absolute muscular ability and
absolute want of scruples of conscience and human sympathy,
then, indeed, no true equality is possible. But, as I believe,
real individuality will only become possible under Socialism
—(hear, hear)—no Individualism is possible while men are
struggling for bare life. So long as they have to think
•only of food there is no possibility of that brighter day of
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IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
progress to a higher future. And only as you free them,
from that continual want; only as you secure to them the
necessities of existence; only as you destroy monopoly of
that material for the production of wealth on which this
controversy really turns; only as you destroy that mono
poly can you have the leisure for the possibility of culture,
the possibility of refinement, and the possibility of time,
for that great effort which will change the masses of the
people from the drudges they are to-day into the cultured
men and women who shall form our Socialist Common
wealth. (Cheers.)
Mr. Foote: Mrs. Besant gave us another very glowing
picture of what Socialism would do for women. It is all
future tense with her. She plays the role of the prophet
throughout. Socialism may do this and that, and Socialism
may not do it. But when Mrs. Besant says that Socialists
are the only body who proclaim, and have proclaimed,
equality between man and woman—by which I suppose
she means legal equality, for otherwise the word can have
no meaning—I happen to remember that a body with
which I have had the honor to work for many years, and
with which Mrs. Besant had the honor to work before ever
she joined the Socialists, not only proclaimed that equality,
but in practice made no distinction whatever between the
sexes. (Cheers.) The best way to promote the equality
of the sexes is not to be always shouting it, but to practise
it. If you treat women as though they were men’s equals
you will do far more than by the most ardent declamation.
(Hear, hear.) I happen also to belong to one of the
largest Radical societies in London—the Metropolitan
Radical Federation, which is an organisation of nearly
all the workmen’s and Radical clubs in the metropolis.
When the programme was drawn up one gentleman with
drew because adult suffrage was carried instead of man
hood suffrage. Only one withdrew, and all the rest
laughed at him. So I do not think Mrs. Besant is quite
right in saying that Radicals, here, there, and everywhere,
are opposed to woman suffrage. (Hear, hear.) I know that
Admiral Maxse and Mr. Cremer are opposed to woman suf
frage; but does Mrs. Besant mean to say that every Socialist
is prepared to defend it? (Cries of “Yes”.) I doubt it.
Mt. Belfort Bax, who is one of the leading Socialist
writers, calls woman suffrage a bourgeois superstition, and
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
Ill
says that as women are numerically the majority, it would
be handing over political power absolutely into their hands.
(Cheers.) That is pretty much the view which Admiral
Maxse takes. But I quite agree that neither Radicalism
nor Socialism is to be judged by an individual member.
The great body of Radicals are in favor of woman
suffrage. I do not see what is to be gained by charging
on them what they are not guilty of. (Hear, hear.)
Again, we are told by Mrs. Besant that I claimed for
my Individualism all that has been done from her prin
ciples in a transition state of society. But how does she
know this is a transition state of society ? How does she
know that Socialism is going to win? (Hear, hear.) It
is all prophecy. She cannot know that Socialism is going
to succeed. I don’t say it won’t, but I don’t think it will
—(hear, hear)—and I deny Mrs. Besant’s right to claim
that we are in a transition state of society. Time will
show. I have my opinion about it as well as she, and I
have quite as much right to my opinion as she has to
hers. (Hear, hear.)
As to the difference between productive and non-pro
ductive labor, Mrs. Besant says there is none, or it is not
worth taking notice of. She says the difference is between
useful and useless labor. Permit me to say that in the
long run it comes to very much the same thing. When
John Stuart Mill was dealing with productive and non
productive labor, he was dealing with it simply as an econo
mist, who was considering the laws of the production and
distribution of material wealth. The man who plays a
sonata does not produce a material thing, but the man who
carves a beautiful statue produces something which has
a market value—something which could be put into the
market and sold. Mill was drawing a real and not a
fanciful distinction, without being concerned at all, as an
economist, with the moral or aesthetic aspects of the matter.
(Hear, hear.)
Mrs. Besant comments upon my allusion to the facetious
laborer, and says that he had a good deal to learn. Un
doubtedly he had; but not as to the dimensions of their
respective stomachs. (Laughter.) Mrs. Besant says that
a rich man gets a lot of idle persons about him. They are
not always idle. The real fact is, as I said, that the man
of wealth gets about him a lot of persons whom he employs
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IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
in labor which in non-productive. That is the whole
gravamen of the charge. I am not sure that all the rich
men who employ labor are idle. Some of them have to
work very hard, and some of the persons they employ have
to work hard, although their labor produces nothing, and
does not help to swell the material, or intellectual, or
moral wealth of the community. (Hear, hear.) Mrs.
Besant thinks that a large number of the twelve thousand
trades I referred to are useless. (Hear, hear.) But if she
looks at the names of many of them she will see that most
of them are not employed by rich persons. They are
trades of all sorts and kinds and descriptions. It appears
to me that Mrs. Besant does not really see the gravity of
the proposals she is making. She does not seem to see
that the labor in these industries will have to be organised.
She does not seem to see that Collectivism, if it were
agreed to, would have to face tremendous difficulties.
She does not seem to see that it would have to provide
by sheer foresight the machinery for carrying out all the
multifarious labors of society, that are now done by indi
viduals finding out the proper spheres for their operations.
(Cheers.)
Socialistic experiments, Mrs. Besant says, could not be
expected to succeed. I know it. I agree with her. I
think they will never succeed, except occasionally here and
there, as in America where the ordinary laws of human
society are contravened. (Hear, hear.) Mrs. Besant
referred to the way in which they dealt with the population
question. Yes, and in one of the communities, owing to
the religious principle, or, as I should prefer to call it, the
principle of fanaticism, they had only two babies in twelve
months among two hundred and fifty adults. (Laughter.)
I know very well, in a small community like that, you can
deal with the population question. I know that in a small
community, which is recruited from all the cranks of the
world, you can hold men together by a principle which
the general run of humanity would not tolerate. Mrs.
Besant says that Socialism would fail because it has not
possession of all the railways, canals, etc. I fail to under
stand this. The railways will carry your Socialist produce,
as well as Individualist produce, and at the same rates
to the same markets. You do not want to take over
the railways in order to be put on an equality with Indi
�113
IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
vidualists. If your produce will compete successfully with
theirs you will beat them, but not else. You know better
than to try it. (Cheers.) You say you cannot get capital
now. I pointed in my previous speech to the fact that
trades unions have spent hundreds of thousands of pounds
in their strikes and in resisting lock-outs—in many cases
justifiably, but in some cases not—but they have not started,
as far as I am aware, a single concern for the production
of commodities, under organised, voluntary, co-operative
labor. (Cheers.) And why have they not done it? Because
they are not yet ripe for it. Again, in the co-operative
societies that distribute—and those are the general body
of co-operative societies in our country—that sell goods in
the course of a year to the amount of over £26,000,000 in
value, you find that a great difficulty is to find proper
managers, and a greater difficulty still is, how to keep
them. (Hear, hear.) They have also found it exceedingly
difficult to produce their own goods, for they generally
find that they can buy in the open market the produce of
Individualist enterprise better and cheaper than they can
make for themselves. (Hear, hear.) If they could produce
better and cheaper themselves, they would do so to-morrow.
But distribution is one thing, and production is quite
another. (Hear, hear.) What does the State produce ?
What did the State ever produce ? What can the State
ever produce? Water, gas? When Individualism has
once produced these the question is mainly one of distribu
tion. Mrs. Besant says that somebody has invented an
improvement in water-supply and that municipalities are
taking it up. Well, I have not much information on that
point. Mrs. Besant does not say who the man is, or what
the invention is. I should like to investigate it before I
take a mere statement like that absolutely. Not that I
distrust Mrs. Besant, but when a statement passes from
one to another, although there may be no intention to ex
aggerate, there may be some exaggeration. I should like to
investigate it fully before I dealt with that improved
machine. But meanwhile I will say this : No municipality
invented it. It was invented by an individual seeking his
own gain. (Cheers.) Then again, education is not pro
duction. It is a question of distribution; the State does
not produce its schoolmasters ; the State does not produce
its scholars. All the State does is to put the children and
i
�114
IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
the teachers into juxtaposition. It is a question of distri
bution. (Hear, hear.) The Post Office itself is simply a
question of distribution. Our Socialist friends often
attach great importance to it, and I find Mrs. Besant’s
colleagues introducing it as a very fine Socialistic experi
ment. But let us see. The Post Office produces nothing.
It distributes an article which is peculiarly imperishable.
It is not like meat, or fish, or tea, or sugar. Letters,
newspapers, and book-post parcels, whatever the climate
or the temperature may be, whether it be wet or dry,
hot or cold, arrive at their destination pretty much
what they were when they were posted. (Hear, hear, and
a voice : “What about the parcels post ? ”.) I will say a
word about that in a moment. The Post Office is also
protected by law against competition. The Post Office is
allowed to charge its own price. And how is the work
done under these conditions ? There is no datum to go
upon in deciding whether the Post Office is cheap or not.
You have no private enterprise competing with it, for
competition is prevented by law. But here and there
an illustration does sometimes arise which shows that the
Post Office is not so cheap after all. The Post Office says
it carries letters from one part of England to another
for one penny, just as it carries a letter round the corner.
But the cost is nearly the same, whether the letter is
carried round the corner or to Newcastle. The difference
is simply in the cost of the transit paid to the railway
company. The labor of collecting letters, sorting them,
and delivering them, is the same whether they go to the
next street or to Scotland. (Hear, hear.) It was found,
even in the old coaching days, that the cost of taking a
letter to Edinburgh was only the fraction of a farthing,
and that all the other expense was incurred in collecting
and distributing and other forms of labor. The other day
I had to send a parcel across London. The Post Office
wanted eighteenpence, but the Parcels Delivery Company
wanted fourpence. Of course, I sent it by the latter. This
is a good illustration of the advantage of private com
petition. Individualism will beat your Socialist produc
tion or distribution right out. You know it. You are
afraid to compete with it. Therefore you want the law to
crush all rivalry. You would show Socialism the brightest
star by darkening all the rest of the sky. (Cheers.)
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IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
FOURTH NIGHT.
Mr. 2Eneas Smith in the Chair.
The Chairman : Ladies and gentlemen, I am sure the
debate to-night will require little preface from me. Will
you allow me to impress upon you the absolute necessity
of attention to the speakers ? The turn of a word, or even
an emphasis, may affect the meaning; and as this debate
is intended for others besides those who are here, I am
sure you will see the necessity of paying attention to both
sides. (Hear, hear.) I will now call upon Mr. Foote.
Mr. Foote: Although we have occupied three evenings in
discussing this question, there remains very much still to be
said—so much, indeed, that I shall, if possible, keep straight
on on my own lines this evening, leaving Mrs. Besant to
reply in her speeches to what I say. As on last Wednesday,
I prefer to begin with a few figures. Figures are facts—or
should be ; and there can be little dispute as to the truth
of the old proverb that an ounce of fact is worth a pound
of theory. Mrs. Besant proposes as a Socialist that all
capital as well as land should be appropriated by the State.
(Hear, hear.) And I can quite understand that a large
number of persons who are not much accustomed to
analysing figures, and who see wealth which they cair
never hope to possess often massed in the hands of one
man, fancy that if the State did appropriate all the-land and all the capital, there would be such an extraA
ordinary increase in the earnings, or at any rate in the • y
receipts, of the masses of the people, that the millennium
might almost be thought to have arrived. Now I am
really sorry to say that figures do not support this enchant
ing prospect. The Socialists are very fond of saying that
Mr. Giffen holds a brief for the capitalists. (Hear, hear.)
In fact, Mrs. Besant has said it in this debate. Yet I
notice that whenever Mr. Giffen serves their turn, they use
his figures without the least scruple, and only raise o'bjeci 2
�116
IS SOCIALISM SOUND?
tions when the figures seem to go in the opposite direction.
It seems to me that if Mr. Giffen’s figures are not correct,
and the Socialists know it, they should compile a different
set of statistics, and let us see what, according to Socialistic
research, the real facts of the case are. (Hear, hear.)
But fortunately for my purpose Mrs. Besant has, in one
of her articles in her magazine, virtually admitted, with
respect to Mr. Giffen’s division of the £1,200,000,000 at
which he places the annual income of this country, that he
is practically right. Now the £1,200,000,000 is divided as
follows. Capital, according to Mr. Giffen’s figures, and
according to Mrs. Besant’s admission, receives £400,000,000,
although on that point, I think it only fair to say that Mr
Giffen thinks the amount is relatively exaggerated; but
still he puts it at the highest possible figure. Working
incomes that are taxed amount to £180,000,000; and the
working classes receive incomes which are not assessed
amounting, to £620,000,000. Now that £400,000,000
which capital receives undoubtedly looks a large sum,
At a superficial glance, it may seem that Mrs. Besant is
perfectly right when she contends that what she calls idle
capital ought not to receive this large amount every year
in the shape of interest. (Hear.) But let us look'below
the surface, and see what this £400,000,000 return on
capital really implies. Of this amount, I think, Mrs.
B esant is prepared to admit that something like£100,000,000
comes as return on English capital invested abroad. Now
if the Socialists appropriated all the capital in this country,
unless all the world were socialised at the same time—
which is very much of a dream—it would be impossible
to exploit that hundred millions. It is paid by foreign
countries, and foreign countries would in all probability
continue to pay the interest on these investments to the
persons who made them. This sum must therefore be
deducted. It is not a sum which can by any means be
appropriated. Next, Mr. Giffen states—and I think he
cannot be far from the truth—that about £200,000,000
every year are added to the amount of the national capital,
which is, of course, required to find employment for the
increasing number of the workers; for although the law
of population is going to be dealt with in the Socialist
millenium, it is not dealt with at present, and it requires
more capital to keep a larger number of persons every
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND?
117
year in productive work. There would, therefore, only
remain £100,000,000, if so much as that, to be seized, or
appropriated, or rescued, according as Mrs. Besant pleases
to term it, and to be distributed among the workers. Now
if we take the workers as the main body of the population,
and I presume Mrs. Besant would agree to that, this
£100,000,000 would only amount to about one shilling a
week, or less than three pounds per year. If the whole
of the £180,000,000 at present received by skilled labor,
either of hand or head, should also be appropriated, there
would be a further sum of from five to six pounds a year
for each person available, the total amount thus obtained
coming to about eight pounds a year per head, or in other
words about three shillings a week. Now is that three
shillings a week anything like what Mrs. Besant’s picture
of the Socialist millenium implies ? To my mind it is
not. And that amount could not be increased unless we
found some means of increasing, first the sum total of the
capital of the country, and next the income of the country
which arises from the productive use of that capital.
(Hear, hear.)
Now let us look at these figures in another way. The total
income of the country, setting aside nearly £100,000,000
derived from foreign investments, and £200,000,000 saved
every year to increase the capital for further production,
amounts to about £900,000,000. Taking the entire popu
lation of the country, it amounts, roughly speaking, to £20
per head. That is, for a family of five there would be an
income of £120. Of course this implies that the present
long hours of labor are to continue, and the extensive
employment of women and children as at present. But if
the hours of labor were shortened, if only the adult males
were employed, if the females and the children were no
longer allowed to engage in industrial pursuits as they
now do, you would probably have little more than half
that sum; that is something over £60 per family of five.
(Hear, hear.) But I will take it at the outside, and regard
the total for a family of five as £120. On the most
sanguine estimate then, by equalising everybody all round,
there would only be £2 6s. a week for every family; and
that wage would have to be made up to the inferior workers
by taking from the reward of skilled labor. There is no
escape from this dilemma that I can perceive. Perhaps
�118
IS SOCIALISM SOUND?
Mrs. Besant. may be more sagacious. If so, all the better
for her position. But if she cannot see any escape it
simply comes to this: that unless you can exploit the
wages of skilled labor, and give a portion of them to
unskilled labor, the millenium would be as far off as ever.
(Hear, hear.) Now I deny that that would be right, to
begin with. And I deny, in the second place, that it would
be economically sound. (Hear, hear.) Not only is skill
necessary, but I venture to say the reward of unskilled
labor is greater where skill directs it than it could be with
out that direction, even if skilled labor takes what seems
to unskilled labor a preposterous share. (Cheers.) If you
contravene this, by all means let us see on what grounds
you contravene it. It will not do simply to say the wages
of superintendence are too high, or that skill receives too
much. I say that skill will be paid. (Hear, hear.) I
say that if you don’t pay in our country for skill it will
emigrate to countries where it would find its proper
reward. (Cheers.)
Now having adduced these figures, which are at least
worthy of some attention, I propose to deal with some
of the practical difficulties of Mrs. Besant’s scheme. You
will perhaps remember that I said she had not by an
effort of constructive imagination attempted to show us
that her scheme would work well in practice. But that is
absolutely necessary. Any scheme can be made to look
well on paper. (Hear, hear.) Any scheme which can put
its good side forward, and never have any of its ill aspects
presented, would naturally gain a great deal of acceptance
among the unthinking, and a good deal of applause among
those whose hearts on this subject are a good deal bigger
than their heads. (Cries of “Oh, oh”.) I am sorry that
any gentleman should resent the idea that he has a big
heart, and if it pains him to think so I will retract the
observation. (Cheers and laughter.) Unfortunatelv what
ever scheme you propose would have to work in practice
with the same old human nature we all know. (Hear,
hear.) I have said that in my opinion Mrs. Besant takes
too optimistic a view of human nature. That is not a matter
we can easily discuss, because all people differ more or
less in their estimate of human nature, and the thing must
be left for overyone to decide for himself. But certainly
there is a great deal of improvidence in human nature.
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND?
119
There is a great of want of forethought in human nature.
There is a great deal of stupidity in human nature. (Laugh
ter.) There is a great deal of idleness in human nature.
(Hear, hear.) If you have a scheme which looks excellent
on paper, promising to work with a brand-new form of
human nature, in which all the old evils are eliminated
and only its better qualities survive, naturally you have
not a very difficult task before you. But taking human
nature as we know it, leaving a slight margin for probable
improvement in the immediate future, let us see how this
scheme of Mrs. Besants would be likely to work. First
let us deal with its economical aspect. Mrs. Besant holds—
following Gronlund in this, as she follows him in so many
other points—that the industries of the country would be
conducted by groups of workers holding capital—that is
holding all the machinery and all the tools, every kind
of plant and every kind of structure necessary for carrying
on their trade. Now as I pointed out in a previous part of
this discussion there are no fewer than twelve thousand
different trades tabulated by the Registrar General. At
the outset it looks an extremely difficult thing for nominees
of the State, public committees, or what not, to decide how
much capital is the proper amount for each of these twelve
thousand groups. I should be very sorry to sit on the
committee myself. (Laughter.) It would tax more powers
than I possess. But as very sensible persons are going to
turn up in the immediate future, that may not be a very
great difficulty after all. (Laughter and hear, hear.)
Now I put it to Mrs. Besant that these groups would
either be related to each other under a central Board, or
they would be separate. In either case you would have
to face one of two evils. If they are connected together
under one Board, if they have all the capital necessary to
conduct their enterprise, if they also have complete control
over it so that they can fix their wages and decide the
prices of the commodities which they will put into the
market, all the community will be absolutely at the mercy
of any particular group; and if the group be the producers
of one of the prime necessaries of life, in a manufacturing
country like ours, the dependence of the rest of the com
munity upon it would be something shocking to contem
plate. (Hear, hear.) Now suppose the groups are
separate. Then the competition which Mrs. Besant so
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much, dreads will simply continue—for group will still
compete with group. I suppose people will not be obliged
to purchase from whatever group the committee may
specify. The better kinds of work would, of course, be
done by the better kinds of workmen, and these would
gradually find each other out. They would group together,
and the most skilled groups would get the largest share
of public support, while the unskilled would be gradually
driven out of employment, and in all periods of commercial
distress they would be thrown upon the community, whowould have to be responsible for their support. (Cheers.)
Even if all your groups were connected under one Board,
you would have the evils of competition, because the groups
of persons in similar industries in other countries would
compete with ours in the general market. In fact, as I
have said before, you could not by any mechanism destroy
that competition, which is not a hindrance to progress, but
rather, as I hold, the very essence of progress, stringing
the faculties of men in the great battle of life, where if
occasionally the sluggish are left behind, there is reward
for those who have the courage and the energy to hold their
own. And this applies to the great mass of the people.
Even in the greatest commercial crisis—and you hear so
much now in the papers about public distress—the great
majority of the workers are in fair remunerative employ
ment. It is only a small percentage who are out of work,
depending upon public or upon private charity. (Hear,
hear.)
I should like to know how these groups are going to
settle prices. Suppose a group fixes the price of an article,
and says, “ That is what it takes us to produce it ” ? Who
is to estimate this ? There is a very good way of estima
ting whether a thing is offered at the right price or not now.
Supply and demand settles it in the open market. But if'
the price is to be fixed by a group, then one of two things
would happen—either that group would be able to exact
something which under the present competitive system
it would not be able to get from the community, or else
all the other groups would raise their prices as well, and I
need not say that a common rise of prices would leave
things exactly the same as before, without the least advan
tage to anybody concerned. (Hear, hear.)
Next, I should like to know whether foreign compe
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121
tition would not have something to do with the price of
commodities in our own country even under Socialism.
All the world is some day to be Socialised, but still it will
take a good deal of time. Perhaps it may be said that
the Social Democrats are making advances in Germany.
(Cheers.) Well, perhaps so; but if you were to ask the
Social Democrats of Germany to sit down and write out
what they all want, you would find there are large differ
ences between them. In my opinion, the social democracy
of Germany is largely a reaction against the oppressive
militarism of Bismarck and Moltke. (Hear, hear.) If
the country were allowed, not only nominal, but actual
free institutions, we should hear a great deal less of
fanciful schemes and extreme ideas. (Cheers.)
I should also like to know how wages are to be settled.
Mrs. Besant says in one of her pamphlets that the worker
would have control over the price of his own labor,
exactly as he has now. Well, I fail to see this. Wages
would have to be fixed by a committee, and from what I
know of human nature I should think it highly probable,
if there are eleven commonly skilled persons and one
exceptionally skilled person, that they would pull him
down to their economical level. (Hear, hear.) I believe
that if salaries had to be fixed, salaries would be fixed
by the vast majority pretty much on their own level, and
in that case, as I have said before, I believe they would
drive skill out of the market. (Hear, hear.) But how
would the wages of the general run of workers be fixed ?
How could it be fixed, in the long run, except by the
market value of'lhe commodities they produced ? Well,
that is exactly how wages are fixed, in the long run,
now. There would have to be a return on capital, as
there is now. There would have to be, if your industrial
enterprises are to be fairly successful, the same payments
for skill as at present. Then, if the groups were overrun,
as many of them would be, owing to the pressure of popu
lation ; if the lower unskilled labor-market were flooded
by this growth of population—a disaster to which the
higher skilled groups would be less subject; then wages
would gradually get lower and lower. The only remedy
would be to raise prices. But that is impossible. In the
long run the only way of fixing wages is leaving it to be
determined by the price of the commodity; and the price
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of the commodity in the open market, no matter whatever
Socialism may do, would inevitably be determined by the
great economical law of supply and demand. (Cheers.)
Next, I should like to know how you are going to
settle the question of occupations. Mrs. Besant thinks it
would be pretty much the same as now, and that if a
particular trade were flooded, a man would have to go
into something else—or rather a boy, for that is the end
of life at which you begin learning a business. Well, that
may seem very nice to some people, but to my mind it seems
an intolerable tyranny. (Hear, hear.) Occupations are
not so easily settled. There would, of course, be a rush
for the best kind of work. Who is to settle who shall
have them ? Would it not be a question of first come
first served ? And would not those who got inside stand as
a rampart to guard the rings, and keep outsiders from
coming in and lowering the wages of their privileged
groups. (Cheers.) The inferior groups would naturally take
all the rest. But suppose you had a more ideal system, and
the occupations were determined by fitness. How will
you estimate the fitness ? Who is to decide whether a
gloomy, melancholy youth like James Watt has in him
the capacity which he manifests in after life ? Who is to
decide whether Shakspere, running away from home, is
going to be the mightiest poet in the world ? (Cheers.)
Who is to decide whether Robert Burns at the plough-tail
is to be the greatest glory of Scotland? (Cheers.) Who
is to decide these things ? You cannot decide them by
forethought. You can only allow them to be decided by
Nature herself, giving free play and exercise to all quali
ties, and letting the highest and the best come to the front.
■( Cheers.)
Then, of course, in all societies there is a great deal of
•dirty and irksome work to be done. (Hear, hear.) It is
idle to shun facts. I have said before in this debate, and
I repeat it now, that the sure sign of a man of judgment
is the recognition of a fact as unalterable, and the sure
sign of a fool is the inability to recognise that facts are
unalterable. Now, this dirty and irksome work would
have to be performed by somebody. Mrs. Besant thinks
that in the Socialist State there will be a much greater
mixture of labor than at present. She says the clerk will
be as ready to fill the cart as a carter, and that the carter
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123
will be as ready to handle the pen as the clerk. (Laughter.)
I do not believe it. Still, I do not deny Mrs. Besant her
right to believe it. What is the fact at present ? The fact
is, human nature consists of all levels—from Newton and
Shakspere to the lowest forms of mentality outside the
walls of a lunatic asylum. There are all grades. What
to one man is utterly disgusting, to another man is scarcely
irksome. What to a man of very fine tastes and feelings
would be simply intolerable, to another man would be
simply something which he would perhaps rather avoid,
but it does not make his daily life a burden, and his nightly
life sleepless. (Hear, hear.) Now, at present the lower
forms of human nature fall into positions where they do
the more irksome and dirty work, and it is less irksome
and disagreeable to them than to others. (Hear, hear,
and “Oh, oh.”) If you were to put Shakspere, if you
were to put a highly skilled physician, or a consummate
artist, to the same kind of labor which is done as a matter
of course by some of the coarser human organisms, it
would be infinitely more distressing to them. (Hear,
hear.) And I say that generally the finer intellect goes
with finer tastes. (Hear, hear.) But suppose this dirty
work, this irksome work—as Mrs. Besant proposes—
should be divided among all. What would be the result ?
Here is a skilled surgeon who has to perform the most
delicate operations. With a sensitive touch, the lancet
being inside the skin and invisible, he has to discriminate
between one tissue and another, and the life or death of
the patient depends upon his hand not swerving a hair’sbreadth from the right line. To tell me that that man can
go out for half-an-hour to fill the place of a carter, and
come back retaining his previous fine skill, is to tell me
something utterly repugnant to common-sense. (Cheers.)
I shall conclude this half-hour’s speech—for I have a
good deal more to urge—by dealing with the question of
amusements. All theatres, concert rooms, parks, public
galleries, museums, etc., are to be regulated by State com
mittees. Fancy a State committee trying to manage the
Lyceum Theatre. (Laughter.) Fancy a State committee
dictating what Mr. Irving shall play. Fancy a State
committee deciding all these things. What would happen ?
The great general average of low taste would swamp the
better taste. The average taste, I believe, would not be
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for Patti, but for Jenny Hill. (Hear, hear.) Those whowanted the higher and better forms of amusement would
be asked if they were so much better than their neighbors,
and whether what was good enough for Smith, Brown,
Jones, and Robinson, was not good enough for all the rest.
(Cheers, and hear, hear.) I am not surprised at that “ hear,
hear ”, but I am sorry. I say that the better forms of amuse
ment suit the better natures. The highest natures require
the highest forms of recreation. Under the present system
they can gratify their tastes. But if all the means of pro
duction, all the capital of the country, all the halls, and
all the theatres, are to be under State regulation, the
great mass of lower tastes will swamp the superior. In
stead of the world being advanced in all those higher
qualities that are of the very essence of progress, it would
be driven back, generation after generation, until in the
course of time we should return to the savagery and
anarchy from which we have emerged. (Great cheers.)
Annie Besant : Friends, in making my last half hour’s
speech in this debate, I propose to mark exactly the stage
that we have reached; to note what are the difficulties
that I have put before Mr. Foote, which he has not met,
and to point out also how many of the difficulties that he
has raised are difficulties of the nature of a nightmare
rather than of reality. The position that I put first in
this debate was, that so long as private property existed
in the material necessary for wealth-production then
whether you take the theory of political economy, or
whether you take the facts of society around you, you find
that that property in the material of wealth-production
must result in the continued subjection of the wage
earners, and in the impossibility of the masses rising far
above the level of subsistence. I put that to Mr. Foote
first as a fair deduction made by the leading economists of
our own times ; and next, as proved by the facts of society
visible to us as we study the pheenomena around us. I
pointed out to him thefactthat in every civilised country that
result had followed from the appropriation, that in every
civilisation around you, you had the extreme of wealth and
the extreme of poverty. That central proposition has only
been met by raising difficulties in the details of its possible
application, and not by grappling with it; not by showing
us how these evils might be prevented while private pro
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125
perty in those materials remained, but only by asking us
how, in a variety of minute details, are you going to try to
apply it, and how are you going to try to work out your
new system; and my answer to that is, that difficulties in
the way of application are difficulties in the way of every
veforming body—(cheers)—and that while those difficulties
are, as I put it to you the first night, a reason for caution
in our movement, they are no reason for despair. And I
pointed out to him, and he never tried to answer the diffi
culty^—that every difficulty of detail that he put to me with
regard to the total material for wealth-production was an
equal difficulty on his own shoulders with respect to the
nationalisation of the land, or to that half-and-half Socialism
which he advocates without knowing the principle which
underlies it, and the results that would flow from it.
(Cheers.) I put to him on the next night on which I led
the debate the historical difficulty, that every civilisation
in which this private property had existed had its pro
prietary and its slave classes. I pointed out to him that
on that division of classes each civilisation in its turn had
been wrecked; that the upper classes grew effeminate,
lazy, and luxurious, while the lower class were degraded,
helpless, without self-respect. I pointed out to him that
in the older ones we had chattel slaves, in the Middle Ages
we had serfs, and in our own times we have wage slaves ;
and I showed him that the difficulties on which the other
civilisations had been wrecked were difficulties in our own
time. Yet he never tried to meet that position, but simply
sneered at my raising a historical question. (Cheers.) I
submit to you that in dealing with a question like this you
must try and go to the root of the matter. I submit to you
that the causes which have destroyed every previous Indi
vidualistic society are at work in your own society. Take
America, where the land in proportion to the population is
practically boundless. The difficulties in America are as
great as in our own country, the same extremes of wealth
and poverty, the same sub] ection of the workers, the same
■divorcebetween classes; even wider divisions than we have
here; for here they are modified by some of the old
traditions of feudal duty on the one sideband feudal looking
for help on the other; whereas in America you have your
modern Individualistic system utterly naked, utterly un
ashamed, and you have the whole mass of society there
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restless and troubled, and giving rise to the same Socialist
agitation that you find yourself face to face with at your
own doors. (Cheers.) Your Individualistic society is being
destroyed from within more than it is in danger of being
overthrown from without. The causes of its failure are
within itself, and those causes are becoming more and more
palpable, and their results more clear. The result of the
international capitalism is the driving of our home trades
down to the lowest level of the worst paid foreign work
men. (Hear, hear.) Even during the last week, with all
the difficulties in our own coal trade, the difficulty is in
creased by the joining together of a number of capitalists
to bring over Belgian coal raised by Belgian miners at the
starvation wage paid in the Charleroi basin; this is to be
put on the London market at 2s. 6d. per ton cheaper than
any coal which can be brought from South Wales. How
are you going to deal with that under the Individualistic
system ? It can only be met in two ways : either by your
capital, or so much of it as can do so, leaving the country
to be invested in lands where labor is cheaper than at
home ; or in the way it will be chiefly done, by the sinking
of your mining population to the level of the worst paid
workmen; and the degradation of our Northumberland,
of our Durham, of our Yorkshire, and of our South
Wales miners to the miserable condition in which the
Belgian miners are starving at the present time.
(Cheers.) Not only so, but I say that the present system
of competition leads to monopoly more and more. Your
great industries are falling into fewer hands, more and
more they are passing into joint stock companies, and in
America you see this system carried further yet. But when
they become monopolies, as they are becoming; when the
smaller men are crushed out, as they are being crushed out
at the present time ; then you will be face to face with an
absolute tyranny over society as you have got it in America,
where a ring of capitalists simply plays with the market
for its own profit and plunders the community for its own
gain. You must either submit to that or you must adopt
the Socialist plan, and take over those monopolies into the
power of the community, and make them social instead of
anti-social as they are under your Individualistic system.
(Cheers.)
And at this point I naturally come to those figures with
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127
which. Mr. Foote dealt in the early part of his speech.
Mr. Foote stated—and stated accurately enough—that there
would not be an enormous increase of wage if the pro
portion of land and of capital he mentioned were divided
up among the workers. But he will pardon me, I am sure,
for saying that he very much understated it, because I
have the figures here to prove the contention that I shall
put to you. In the first place the 400 millions which
Mr. Giffen gives include not only interest on capital,
as Mr. Foote was putting it, but the whole of the rental
also which goes into the pocket of the landlord. (Hear,
hear.) These do not include the wages of superintendence
at all. I am not dwelling on the fact that Mr. Giffen
gives his figures on one occasion as 407 millions,
and at another as 400 millions, because seven millions,
are a trifle for the purpose of this argument. But
I would point out to you that you practically get400 millions to dispose of by the admission of Mr.
Giffen, and that Mr. Foote in his argument managed to
whittle the 400 millions down to 100 millions, and
then to base the rise that would take place in the wages
of workers on the lower figure. And let me say why
it is I take Mr. Giffen’s figures, although I—to quote
his own phrase—think that he was fairly accused of holding
a brief for the capitalists. I take them because, although
they are understated and unfair to our side of the question,
they are quite strong enough to bear the weight of the
whole of the Socialists’ contention. (Hear, hear.) Out of
our enemies’ mouth we can prove our case. For what are
Mr. Giffen’s figures ? According to Mr. Giffen 400
millions go for rent and interest to idle capitalists—
(cries of “Shame”)—out of the total income of 1,200
millions, from which we are to take 100 millions forinterest on foreign investments. The wages for special
ability are variously reckoned by Mr. Giffen, Mr. Mulhall,
and Professor Leoni Levi, but we find that they comeroughly to 350 millions. That is to say: that out of theproduce of the country, when you have taken interest on
capital and rent of land, when you have taken higher salaries
and wages, which are sometimes called rent of ability, then
you have left to divide amongst the manual labor class only
450 millions out of 1,250 millions, with which you started ;
that is 800 millions of pounds made by the workers go
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IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
completely out of their hands. And now what does that
mean ? It means in the first place that those who get these
three rents, as the economists call them—of land, of
capital, and of special ability—numbering, as they do, ac
cording to Mr. Giffen’s computation, two millions of
families, take 800 millions out of the national income ; and
the producers, numbering five million families, get
450 millions; that is, that the two million families get
800 millions, and the 5,000,000 get 450 millions. Then I
find Mr. Giffen again stating that out of the 16^ millions
of separate incomes, which are made in this country only
millions are over £150 a year. I find Mulhall, in the
‘ ‘ Dictionary of Statistics, ’ ’ giving 222,000 families of the very
rich, that is with incomes over £1,600 a year, and 604,000
families of the rich, that is with incomes of £320 a year,
and 1,220,000 in the middle and trading classes; and that
if those figures are added together you get two-thirds of the
total income of the country. Now I submit that if you
recovered even one-third of the income of the country for
the producers, and distributed it among them in addition
to the one-third already held by them, no twisting of figures
can leave the wages at the point at which they are to-day,
for you would at least increase them by bringing that onethird more within the workers’ reach to be used for their
benefit. (Cheers.) No Socialist pretends that the whole
of that rent and the whole of that interest on capital can
ever under a Socialistic condition go directly into the hands
of manual workers: but it says this—that while your
economic rent must remain, while your payment for ad
vantages in productivity in machinery must remain, to
equalise the condition of the workers ; that that rent, and
that interest on capital, instead of going to the support of
the class who are absolutely idle, and who therefore act as
a poison to the community, will go into the national
exchequer to be used for national purposes, to remove the
burden of taxation from labor, and to be utilised for the
benefit of those from whom it came, and to whom it should
go. (Cheers.)
Now what is the result of your present industrial
system ? Compare your death-rate of rich and poor.
Mr. Foote wants figures. I intend to-night to give him
some. You can go to the Registrar-General’s report and
•compare the death-rates of rich and poor. I will first take
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children under five years of age; you will find that ac
cording to Dr. Playfair the death-rate of children of the
upper classes is only 18 per cent., as against tradesmen 36
per cent., and workmen 55 per cent. (A Voice : “ Hor
rible.”) That is, more than half the children of the workers
die before they reach the age of five years. And it is not
only amongst the children. The children, inheriting feeble
frames from underfed parents, die very fast, and the un
derfeeding, the slow starvation, of the parents shortens their
lives even when they reach the adult condition; and I
find in the report made by Dr. Drysdale to the Industrial
Remuneration Conference that, comparing the average age
at death among the nobility and professional classes with
that of some classes of the poor, that the average age of
death of the so-called higher classes was fifty-five years,
while the average age amongst the artisan class of Lam
beth only amounted to twenty-nine years. Now, I want
to know why that is, if everything is for the best in this
best of all possible worlds; if the division of profits is so
admirably made by the law of supply and demand, and by
those laws of which we hear so much, why is it that those
who supply the demand supply death also with so many ?
(Cheers.) Why is it that the poor man’s child has so much
less chance of life than the rich man’s, if it is not that your
society is built up on the plan of putting at the base of
your social pyramid a class which you exploit to the utter
most, and of whose life you are absolutely careless ; while
at the apex you have persons whom you point to as pro
ducts of your magnificent civilisation, and who are as use
less in their lives as they are mischievous in their action on
society. (Cheers.) I admit that under any conditions life
for some time to come will be a hard struggle. I admit
that the conditions that surround us are such that life
without hard labor is impossible; and I say that that
fact is no reason for allowing a class that earns nothing to
appropriate so much, and that the very fact that much
work is wanted to produce the necessities of life is a reason
for getting rid of the drones who eat so much honey while
they do nothing to increase the store. (Cheers.) I will go
a step further. I find Mr. Mulhall, reckoning the pauper
class from the figures of paupers receiving relief in Eng
land, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland, and reckoning the
whole pauper class, put it at three million persons, or one
K
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IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
in eight of the manual labor class. I find Mr. Giffen, the
great authority, talking of the residuum of five millions
whose condition is a stain on our civilisation. Mr. Foote
talks of a small minority, but one in eight is not a small
minority—when that means a pauper class in the midst of
industrial civilisation, and when you take five millions of
residuum whose condition is a disgrace to our civilisation.
When you remember that the total number of manual
workers in the country only amounts to not quite
16 millions, I ask you to think of the five millions who are,
according to Mr. Giffen’s own account, a stain on our
civilisation. (Cheers.)
Well, but, says Mr. Foote, when you deal with this
question how are you going to get on with your change ?
I submit that if I show a grave cause for change; if I
prove that the result of the present economical and indus
trial system is the degradation which we see around us,
and which is proved by figures, that then the question is
no longer—“ is the change needed ?” but “ how shall that
change be made in the most rapid and most efficient way?”
(Cheers.) And I come to the points which were put by
Mr. Foote. Mr. Foote states that I take a too optimistic
view of human nature. No, it is because I do not take an
optimistic view of human nature that I advocate Socialism.
(Hear, hear.) I believe that men are selfish; I believe
that men are apt to trample on their fellows; I believe
that the result of centuries of struggling for life has been
to make men much more hard-hearted than they ought to
be, and that when they can take advantage of their fellows
they will do so ; and therefore I want to do away with the
opportunities of living on other persons which human
selfishness, sloth, and greed will most certainly take ad
vantage of. (Hear, hear.) I want to say to the selfish
man living on his brother, “We will take away from you
the possibility of living upon another by making you work
for anything you desire to get ”. It is because I do not be
lieve that human nature is perfect that I want to take
away the opportunities of exploitation which are enjoyed
by men under the present conditions of society. But Mr.
Foote goes on to say that an unskilled man gets more by
being directed by the skilled; and I am not prepared to
challenge that statement. I believe the working together
of skilled and unskilled is good for both, but I do not want
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to try to keep the unskilled, class where they are, but to
raise them up into the skilled ; and while I admit the value
of skilled over unskilled, labor, I say that the amount it
gets as proved by the figures of the other side is far too
high. (Hear, hear.) Mr. Foote says that skilled, labor
will emigrate ; but there are two sides to that question. If
all the skilled persons go out of the country to foreign
countries they will become a drug in the foreign market,
and will drive down their own wages by competition among
themselves. If they desert us, they will at least no
longer exploit the laborers. (Hear, hear.) But I am in
clined to think that it may be worth our while to keep
some of them, and that until they are civilised into beings
with higher sense of duty to society than they have now,
it may be worth while to grant them some exceptional pay
for the work that they do, and so keep some of them to
direct our industrial enterprises. I believe amongst Social
ists I am in a minority in thinking that the various forms
of labor should be equally paid; I believe the majority are
in favor of unequal payment, so that you may still be able
to give some extra advantages to the extra skill. But
however that may be, equal or unequal remuneration is
not of the essence of Socialism. But it is of the essence
of Socialism that you should not have any payment what
ever made to an idle class. (Hear, hear.) And that is
why I pointed out before that Mr. Foote was confusing
wages of superintendence with the interest paid on capital
to persons who do nothing at all. That 407 millions are
rent and interest on capital without one stroke of work
being done in return; and it is not fair to speak as though
the whole or any of that came as remuneration for skill,
when really it only comes as remuneration for being born
the eldest son of your father and your mother.
Let us take a step further. Mr. Foote raised a great
many difficulties about occupations. He wanted to know
how Socialists were going to manage the 12,000 trades;
he wanted to know how prices were to be fixed either by
the groups or federations of groups; he said if one group
stood out you would have the whole community at its
mercy, or the groups thrown on the community for support.
But is there any reason why the Socialists should be such
fools as Mr. Foote supposes ? He is good enough to tell us
that our hearts are bigger than our heads, and then he
G 2
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complained that his sneer was not taken as a compliment,
as if he had dealt with the largeness of our hearts and not
with the smallness of our heads. But I would point out
to Mr. Foote that Socialists are not fools enough to believe
that they can settle beforehand every detail of a future
condition of society. (Hear, hear.) What the Individualist
prefers to do is to get away from the central principle on
which we stand, and put conundrums of this kind to which
he challenges us to find an answer. Our answer is that
you will have working then the natural laws of society as
you have them now. Demand and supply will still exist;
prices will still be fixed by demand and supply ; and when
you deal with foreign goods taken in exchange for your
own products, if the foreigner has a more limited amount
to exchange and you are in need of it, his price will go up,
that is, you will have to give more of your commodities in
exchange for his goods ; and you will have to require more
labor here from those who desire to possess a portion of that
which has been obtained at the higher price. We do not
propose to start a new heaven and a new earth with laws
different from what they are now. (Hear, hear.) We
propose to destroy private property in the material of
production, and then to let economic forces mould the
details of the new condition of things, as they have
moulded the old. But we say, if we start on a basis which
is sound instead of on one that is rotten, we may reason
ably hope that the structure will be sounder than the one
you have to-day. (Cheers.) Then Mr. Foote put the
difficulty of the division of labor, and spoke about the refined
man feeling the intolerable burden of heavy work and the
lower human organism who is only fit for the work he does.
Then I ask Mr. Foote whether he deliberately means that
his Individualist society is based on the existence of a
helot-class, in which every taste, every feeling of art, every
longing for beauty and refinement, is to be crushed out in
order that a small minority may usurp all. (Hear, hear.)
If that be what he means, then the moral difference
between us is indeed deep and wide. (Hear, hear.) We
deny that there should be a helot-class. We do not ask
that a physician with his delicate fingers should go into the
streets and sweep up, nor do the scavanger’s work there,
for every society must have division of labor. But we say
that the physician is useful to society and the scavenger is
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133
useful to society; that under Socialism the scavenger’s
work will be honorable ; that he shall not be a mere helot,
a mere drudge, but shall have the enjoyment of hearing
a Patti and of higher art, and we say that the civilisation
which is based on helotry will fall. (Cheers.)
Mr. Foote : Sometimes I envy Mrs. Besant’s power of
appealing to people’s feelings. (Hear, hear.) Fortunately
this debate will be reported verbatim, and will be read in
cold blood. Mrs. Besant says that she objects to a helot
class. At the same time she says that under Socialism
there will be men set apart for surgery and men set apart
for scavenging. Exactly so. And why ? Because some
are fit for surgery and some are fit for scavenging. Other
wise you are going to appoint them because they are unfit
for the special work they have to do. (Hear, hear.) But
mark. Mrs. Besant says the scavenger who does this—I
am but speaking the plain truth—disgusting work—
(Interruption)—why this complaint, when under Socialism
somebody will have to do it ? Mrs. Besant says that the
scavenger shall, under Socialism, hear Patti. Well, if he
has a taste for Patti, he can hear her now. (Cries of
“ No, no ”.) Can’t he ? I can remember the time when
my earnings were not greater than any scavenger’s in the
country, yet I still saved my two shillings for a treat at
the Italian opera, climbing the flight of stairs that led to
the gallery. Although I did not sit in a luxurious seat,
I heard Patti and Albani as well as the man who paid
his guinea. (Cries of “No, no”.) I say, yes. I heard
the music and the singing, and he could do no more.
(Cheers.)
Mrs. Besant says that if we do not pay for skill, and it
emigrates, it will bring down the value of the skill abroad.
But that depends upon where the skill goes. There is
Australia, there is South Africa, there are large parts of
North America, there are other portions of the globe at
present being colonised by the English-speaking race,
which could take as much skill as ever the old countries
could send them. (Hear, hear.) It is not skill that they
object to. Skill can always find its reward. (Cries of
“ No, no ”.) It is persons going there with no skill and no
means that they object to. (Hear, hear, and “No, no”.)
Why, even now, on the landing-stage at New York they
turn emigrants back if they have not a fair prospect before
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IS SOCIALISM SOUND?
them, and make them return to the country they camefrom or anywhere else they can go to.
Mrs. Besant also says there is a great deal of selfishness
in human nature. She believes that human nature has a
large amount of ingrained selfishness. Yet she proposes
to take away all opportunity for using a faculty which is
more or less in everybody. You will need a very stringent
law to frustrate a faculty in everybody, and a faculty which
has hitherto been legitimate, and will not therefore feel
criminal all at once. It is very much like saying that be
cause persons sometimes cut their throats with razors,
no more razors shall be made. Is selfishness a bad thing ?
It is more than selfishness when it steps out of its way to
inflict suffering upon others. That is not mere selfishness,
but crime. It is aggressive egoism, which the law of every
civilised society represses and punishes. But that is not a
bad selfishness which enables a man to work hard, to fore
see consequences, to make provision for the morrow, toforego a present gratification for a more important future
one, and to strive to make provision for the wife and
children in his own home, whom he must love more
than the wives and the children of society in general.
That selfishness is not a crime. If you could eliminate
it from society you would kill society. But the passion is
indestructible and society is safe. (Cheers.)
I did not say in any part of this debate that everything
was for the best. I said that man was a gradually im
proving creature. I did not say there was no room for
improvement. Mrs. Besant cannot deplore more than I do
the evils that afflict mankind. (Hear, hear.) And I have
in my own way done my little share towards making the
world a trifle better. (Cheers.) The question between us
is not whether the world requires reform, but what is the
kind of reform it requires. (Hear, hear.) If a patient is
sick, Mrs. Besant and I may both deplore his condition,
but the question of what is the best remedy for his dis
order is entirely independent of our appreciation of the
fact that he is ill. You may as well say there is no use in
discussing the merits of allopathy and homoeopathy while
patients are sick. I say our patient must be treated care
fully in cold blood, by persons who subordinate their
feelings to their skill. You may work as much mischief
by good feeling wrongly directed as by bad feeling itself.
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND?
135
If you could measure all the evil done in society by mis
directed benevolence it would appal you. (Hear, hear.)
Pauperism itself is intensified by this evil. I admit that
society requires change; but how is the change to be
brought about ? Mrs. Besant says let us turn over a brandnew leaf. I say there is plenty of good message on the
leaf we have not yet exhausted. It is not a fact that in
our present system we have merely exchanged the old
slavery for a new one. (Cries of “ Oh, oh”.) It is not a
fact. Words often cheat people. They fancy that two
different things, because they can be called by the same
word, are really identical. Do you mean to tell me there
is any identity between the black slave, put up in the mar
ket for sale, and knocked down to the highest bidder,
separated from his wife and family probably never to see
them more, driven to work in the fields with a whip, and
not having a single thing to call his own, even his life
being almost absolutely at the mercy of his master—and
the skilled mechanic—(Cries of “ Oh, oh ”.) One moment.
If there are persons who are unskilled, whose fault is it ?
Cannot the unskilled laborer become a skilled laborer ?
(Cries of “ No, no ”.) Is there any penal statute in the
wide universe to prevent any man with the capacity getting
as much skill as any other man with the same capacity.
(Cheers.) I repeat, then, What analogy is there between
that black slave and the skilled or half-skilled mechanic,
who goes to work five and a half days in the week, and has
his evenings to himself ; who, if he does not live altogether
on the fat of the land, at least has his own inviolable domi
cile, where he can shut his door, and enjoy unmolested the
society of those he loves ? It may not be quite so large as
he might like ; but it is his. (Hear, hear.) Why, if you
were to call half the working men in this country in their
own workshops slaves, they would feel insulted. (Hear,
hear.) Although I daresay some will go to a public hall
and cheer the utterance when it serves their side of the
dispute. These workers are not slaves. (Cries of “We
are ”.) Well, if any gentleman feels he is a slave, I will
not dispute the fact any further. (Laughter.)
Now is it a fact that the working classes have no means
of redress ? I said before that they had. I say their
proper road to salvation is not through enforced co-opera
tion, but through voluntary co-operation. (Cheers.) No
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IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
State co-operation, can. succeed until the necessary qualities
are there ; and if they were there, they would make volun
tary co-operation possible to-morrow. (Hear, hear.) Volun
tary associations have succeeded; succeeded with picked
men it is true, but no new enterprise, no progressive
movement, can ever succeed except with picked men.
(Hear, hear.) The mass of mankind go on doing pretty
much the same thing from the cradle to the grave. It is
only the exceptional persons who strike out in fresh direc
tions, and they are followed by-and-bye when the experi
ment they began has proved a success. Many co-operative
societies have succeeded. Mill mentions some of them in
his chapter on the Probable Future of the Working Classes.
Others are mentioned by Thornton. You will also find
others in the Government' “Report on Co-operation in
Foreign Countries ” issued last summer. Mrs. Besant says
the workers cannot obtain capital, but she is entirely
wrong. These experiments prove the very opposite. Nay
more, while nearly all—I believe absolutely all—the State
subventioned enterprises failed in France in 1849, the
successful ones were those animated wholly by the spirit
of self-help. Let me cite a few instances from the Govern
ment Report:
“In 1849, fifty-nine tailors started with some assistance
from outsiders, a co-operative tailors’ shop. They soon
raised a business capital of 200,000 francs in fifty franc
shares, which were to be paid for in weekly one franc instal
ments. In 1851 this association was doing work on a large
scale, and had at the same time a benefit fund formed by re
taining five per cent, on salaries, and ten per cent, on profits.”
“ Fourteen piano makers in 1848, without any means of
their own, or Government aid, after great hardships and
difficulties in starting, founded and carried on successfully,
a business which two years afterwards owned 40,000 francs’
worth of property.”
“A small association of armchair makers, which started in
1849 with 135 francs, made 37,000 francs of net profits, and
could afford to pay 5,500 francs per annum for their work
shop.”
“A co-operation of file-makers, starting with fourteen
members and 500 francs, acquired a capital of 150,000
francs, and two houses of business, one in Paris, the other
in the provinces.”
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
137
“A successful co-operation of boot-form makers began
with two francs. One of spectacle makers, with 650 francs,
had in 1883 a capital of over 1,270,000 francs.” (Cheers.)
You see, then, that the statement that labor, if it be
energetic, earnest, possessed with the necessary intellectual
and moral qualities, cannot get capital, is belied by these
facts, which are of infinitely more value than all the de
clamations and theories in the world. (Cheers.)
Now just a word in concluding this speech. Mrs. Besant
says she is not here to solve conundrums. I never asked
her to. She says she is not going to trouble herself about
details, as it is not necessary to work them out. But
everything in the long run consists of details. (Hear,
hear.) Great masses are made up of small quantities.
Details mean everything in the end. Mind you, the ques
tion between us is, not whether society requires improve
ment, but whether Mrs. Besant’s particular scheme for
improvement is likely to turn out a good one. You may
as well say that a Prime Minister should bring in a Bill
for Home Rule, without telling the House or the country
any of the details of the scheme by which he proposes to
carry his principles out, as shirk the practical details of
a question like Socialism. Mr. Gladstone was opposed
by many who approved his object but disapproved his
method. They agreed on the principle, but split on the
ways and means. So I approve Mrs. Besant’s principle
of agitating for the improvement of society, but I object
to her method. I know that reform is wanted, but I also
know that to shirk the details of new proposals is to over
look the fact that life is made up of details, and that men
must be guided by experience. H you will shirk the prac
tical difficulties of your scheme, you have no right to ask
us to accept it. (Applause.)
Annie Besant : Let me say at once that I thoroughly
and gladly admit that Mr. Foote is as earnest for social
reform as I am myself. (Hear, hear.) I should be
sorry in the strictures I level against the system of
society he supports, to be supposed in any way to
make any kind of imputation against his sincerity or
against his earnest desire to see improvement. It is
the system he advocates I am attacking, without throwing
any kind of slur on his own desire of making any
improvement. And on the question of detail there is
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IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
one more word I should like to say. Suppose a naturalist
desires to breed to any particular type, he will select
his type, and then basing his actions on scientific prin
ciples, he will try to breed towards that type, knowing
generally what he desires to attain. But he will not be
able to tell you the exact length of the animal’s ears, the
number of curls there will be in his tail, or the particular
direction in which his eyes may slope. (Laughter.) Those
are the kind of details about which the scientific naturalistwould not try to prophesy. (Hear, hear.) He would take
his general type as I have done in this subject, but he
would not commit himself to prophecies for which the
foundation is not in any way attainable. Mr. Foote gives
me an illustration of the present Socialist policy by refer
ring to a Prime Minister. He says that a Prime Minister
must not bring in a mere abstract of a Bill without details;
but I ask Mr. Foote whether anything is more common
than that a statesman should bring in an abstract resolution
embodying some particular principle, and try to carry that
resolution, and thus to gather the general sense of the
House before he passes into the details of the Bill, details
which are, I grant, necessary, when it becomes a project
for immediate legislation. (Cheers.) That is exactly our
Socialist position at the present time. (Hear, hear.)
We are trying to carry a resolution before the public in
favor of the Socialist principle; and, mark you, we are
giving our definite reason for doing it. We have said over
and over again, and I say it now for the last time in
this debate, that we allege that private property in
the material of wealth-production is at the root of
poverty. (Hear, hear.) That as long as that lasts you
must have your propertied and your slave classes. We
allege that this is the source from which the evils flow, and
we must fight out that question of principle before it is
even worth while to go into minute details, which must be
considered, I thoroughly accept that, before you can make
a Socialist community; but it is idle to discuss the details
so long as the main principle of difference between the
Individualists and the Socialists remains undecided by the
public voice. (Hear, hear.) I go back to the speech of
Mr. Foote, which, he very fairly said, I did not completely
answer. There was a slight error in quotation Mr. Foote
made in connexion with the question—How wages should
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
13^
be settled, when he quoted me as saying the worker
should have control over the value of his labor. The whole
context of the passage shows that what I was arguing wasthat when the workmen had received a return for the labor
he had done, that amount which he received would beentirely under his own control. Just as now, a man re
ceiving wage from an employer can spend that wage as hepleases; so the workman employed, as he may be, by a
group of workers, or by whatever other phrase you may
use, when he receives the recompense of his labor, would
be able to use that recompense as he chose, as he thought
best. (Hear, hear.) That is the point I put in my essay,
and it appears that Mr. Foote has entirely misconceived it,
and has turned it into the man fixing his own wage instead
of controlling the equivalent for his own labor. (Hear,
hear.) Then Mr. Foote asks us to take a case which we
find in our present society—take the case of men like
Burns or Watt—what shall they do, and who shall decidein what way they shall be employed ? One of the reasons
why we want to press the Socialist solution is because,
under your present Individualistic system, you crush out
such an enormous amount of talent that might make its
way if it only had the opportunity. (Cheers.) If, as the
Socialists propose, the people were educated thoroughly
and completely in the years of their childhood and of their
youth, do you mean to say that it would be possible that
the talent of a Burns would escape notice, as it did when
he was sent to the plough-tail in his childhood, and had no
possibility of education which would enable him to show
his literary power ? (Hear, hear.) Under your present
system it is but a mere chance whether the child
of great ability succeeds or not. It depends largely
on the rank of society in which he is born. (Hear,
hear.) I do not say that you may not here and there havea child born under unfavorable conditions, who has talent
which amounts to absolute genius, and a strength of will
as of iron, so that even circumstances cannot break it. I
do not say that such a one amongst a myriad may not fight
his way to the front despite all that is against him. But
I do say that under your present system you practically
lose to society thousands upon thousands of personsdowered with real ability, whose ability would have been
discovered had they had a reasonable and rational educa
�140
IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
tion, but whose ability is crushed out of them in their
•childhood and their youth by the hard circumstances of
their life. (Cheers.) And that is why we say that your
Individualistic system crushes Individualism. That is
why we say that only under Socialism can you hope to get
all the benefit through individual development which
■comes from removing persons from the constant strain and
struggle for existence, and, by securing the means of liveli
hood to all, give time and opportunity for the development
of the particular capacity. (Hear, hear.)
Then Mr. Foote asks, are you going to have all your
amusements arranged by public committees, because if so
their low tastes will swamp the higher tastes for the fine
arts. Now that is exactly what happens at the present
time, because the managers are now ruled by the receipts,
and the receipts come from the majority. Mr. Foote says
that low tastes are the tastes of the majority, and that it is
only the small minority that have the higher tastes. And
what is the result ? Your wretched melodrama and the
• comic opera are what the manager readily accepts, because
they appeal to the majority. (Hear, hear.) And even
Irving, great as he is, has his genius stunted, and, like a
fine jewel in tawdry setting, he has to fall back on fine
upholstery and limelight because he dares not trust to the
attraction of his own genius, for he knows it would not
pay. (Hear, hear.) It is the testimony of everyone who
has looked into the subject—(cries of “No, no”)—I am
going to give you a fact—(cries of “ Question! ”)—the
question is that of amusements under Socialism, and I am
dealing with that. (Hear, hear.) It is a fact which
everyone knows who has looked into the subject that the
only countries in which new genius—either dramatic or
artistic of any kind—can really make its way and be heard
by the public are those countries where theatres and places
of amusement are endowed by the State. (Hear, hear.)
The French stage is the very model of the other European
theatres. And why ? Because there a man of genius can
really bring forward a play that has to wait before it is
. appreciated. But your stage here falls back upon the off
scourings of the French theatres, and plays adapted from
the lower stage of France are played at your best theatres
here. (Hear, hear.) And so in Germany. Take the case
of Wagner. He was on the verge of starvation, was nearly
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
141
killed by your Individualistic system, until an endowed
theatre made it possible for him to get his music heard.
And these are facts for Mr. Foote to deal with instead of
theorising and floating about in the clouds. (Hear, hear.)
But Mr. Foote argues that the scavenger can hear Patti if
he is prepared to pay his two shillings, and to wait two
hours at the doors. But the scavenger cannot easily pay
that money and wait two hours or more. I have paid that
and waited—(A Voice : “It’s half-a-crown”)—the gentle
man is quite right, it is half-a-crown and not two shillings,
(Laughter.) But I do not think that a scavenger with a
small family of hungry children at home, can afford to
spend 2s. 6d. and to wait two hours, and then spend three
or four more in listening to Patti. (Cheers.) And what
is worse, he does not want to do so. He has not had the
education which would make it possible for him to enjoy
such music ; and he won’t have the desire until the educa
tion given by the community includes art and literary
culture as well as the mere elements it now gives. (Cheers.)
I pass on to yield my perfect agreement to Mr. Foote’s
statement of what we are seeking—viz., the best remedy.
And that is why I complain that he has not tried to deal
with the fundamental remedy of Socialism, and has ap
pealed to feeling and prejudice instead of dealing with my
proposals. (Hear, hear.) I pointed out to Mr. Foote that,
if he speaks of words leading to mistakes, that is the very
complaint which the Socialists make. We say that the
word “freedom”, applied to any laborer who has only a
choice of accepting the contract offered him and starvation,
is but a word, and is not a thing. (Hear, hear.) When
freedom of contract is spoken of, I say that that can only
take place between persons tolerably equal; and when Mr.
Foote speaks of the tension of muscles caused by compe
tition, I answer that such benefit can only result when each
competitor has a chance of reaching the winning-post.
There is no stimulating competition, but only a crushing
feeling of disqualification, if you set to race one man who
is only allowed to go on one leg and is carrying a heavy
chain, and another man who is allowed to use a bicycle to
get round the course. (Hear, hear.) The man with the
disadvantage finds it practically impossible for him to race
at all. And I allege that in your modern society the man
of the bicycle is the landlord and the capitalist who has
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IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
everything made easy for him in the life-race ; and the man
with one leg and the chain, who is asked to compete with
him, and to feel the benefit of freedom of competition and
free contract, is the laborer who has nothing whatever but
his labor to sell, and who must starve unless he can sell
it. (Cheers.)
Mr. Foote : Mrs. Besant says that if a naturalist wishes
to produce a particular variety of dog, he does not before
hand say what length its tail is going to be, or how many
hairs it is going to have on its body. But if he proposes
to breed a long-tailed dog, surely the length of the tail
would have something to do with his prevision. If that
naturalist proposed to produce a special variety of dog,
and made it a condition of his experiment that he should
have every dog in the country under his control, the rest
of us would want to know what he was going to do before
■consenting to allow him to make such a vast experiment.
(Hear, hear.)
Mrs. Besant'reiterates that private property in capital is
at the root of all the poverty there is. Now we have had
three nights of this debate already. This point has been
•debated over and over again, and why Mrs. Besant wants
that particular point debated afresh to-night I do not
understand. I contravene it. I say there is no one root,
but many roots of evil, and the cause of all the roots of
evil lies in the fact that man is as yet only partially
evolved. He has advanced a long way from his brutish
progenitors, but he has yet higher ranges of capacity, of
thought, and of feeling, to reach in his development.
(Hear, hear.) You cannot do with your present human
nature what you could do with a better human nature.
The better human nature will come in time, for the Dar
winian theory which gives us a certitude of progress in the
past gives us a reasonable guarantee of progress in the
future.
I gave as one of the causes of poverty the pressure of
population on the means of subsistence. (Cheers.) Mrs.
Besant herself has given it. She has to-night told you
that the death-rate is lower among the upper classes than
among the lower classes. (Hear, hear.) If I had known
that Mrs. Besant was going to use those particular
statistics to-night, instead of following my lead, I should
have come prepared with some counter statistics. But I
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
143
now make the broad statement that the birth-rate among
the lower classes is as high as their death-rate relatively
to the upper classes. (Hear, hear.) They marry earlier,
breed faster, and therefore their numbers are kept down
by a heavy death-rate. I never said that the poor man
was in as good a condition as the man who is better off.
(Laughter.) But that is not our argument. How are the
great mass of people to be improved ? is the question at
issue. And after all, it is not my remedy, but Mrs.
Besant’s remedy, that is under discussion. When she
says I have not dealt with the difficulties she raised, I beg
to say that she has to deal with the difficulties which I have
raised against the system she wants us to embrace. (Hear,
hear.) . She says that, under the Individualist system,
talent is crushed down for want of education. We all
know that to some extent, but we did not wait for
Socialism to provide education in the Board Schools for
every boy and girl. We did not wait for Socialism to
found our system of secondary education, and we shall not
wait for Socialism to realise the dream of Radicals that
the endowments of the universities shall be put to their
right purposes, and applied to the education of those
higher capacities that are selected from the lower schools
to which all the mass of the children go. (Cheers.)
It is perfectly true that to some extent the lower taste
at present swamps the higher taste. But if the lower
taste gets the reins of power in its hands it will be an
overwhelming deluge. Now you can paddle your own boat,
but then you will have no boat to paddle. (Hear, hear.)
It is perfectly true that what pays best is put on the stage ;
but I said that there was a select circle of finer tastes, and
that they can get what they want. It may be true that
Mr. Irving has too much recourse to upholstery and lime
light, but that may be due to his melodramatic instincts.
He has played in many Shaksperian characters, however,
and in other legitimate dramas, and I do not see how his pos
turing in “Faust ” proves that he is a panderer to the lowest
tastes of the day. (Hear, hear.) If you can go and see
low comedy, you can also go and see high comedy. Tf
you want your tastes gratified with the best music, or
drama, or literature, you can have it. Shakspere is brought
into our homes, decently printed, for a shilling; and in
all sorts of ways the highest taste in such things can be
�144
IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
gratified without a very great expenditure. The poorest,,
even, can sometimes have the pleasure of hearing a great
singer like Patti ; and even under Socialism she could not
sing every night to everybody, unless the opera house
were large enough to hold the nation. Wagner was a
poor illustration. He was outlawed for fighting on behalf
of liberty against what turned out to be the majority of
his countrymen. Mrs. Besant says his musical genius
stood no chance till he was endowed. But the person who
assisted him with money was the mad King of Bavaria.
That fact does not favor Mrs. Besant’s position. It rather
tells, if at all, on behalf of the monarchy which she and I
are both opposed to. (Hear, hear.)
I will now take a few more difficulties. I do not know
much about carpentering, and I think Mrs. Besant knows
as little. (Laughter.) I have no practical knowledge of
a variety of trades. But I do know something about
writing and publishing, and so does Mrs. Besant. Under
Socialism, Mrs. Besant would like to write and publish
articles and pamphlets maintaining her Freethought, Mal
thusian, and other views. Yet if all the means of produc
tion were in the hands of State officials, or under the
control of industrial groups, how does she know that she
would be able to do what she wanted ? Gronlund says
that society would not allow anything and everything to
be printed. It would draw the line somewhere. Yes,
and I think the line would be very hard upon the minority
and all unpopular ideas. It would seriously hamper the
advanced few who are the cream of every generation, and
whose thought to-day decides the action of to-morrow.
(Cheers.) Mrs. Besant knows very well that she is not in
the majority at present. Her Malthusianism is unpopular
with general society, and she regrets to say that among
her Socialist friends it is more unpopular still. She and !
would continne to hold unpopular opinions, and if we did
not, other persons would. Now those opinions would have
to be ventilated, and in a highly organised society like
ours they cannot be ventilated, except through the press
and the pl at,form. But all the halls, all kinds of meeting
places, are to be controlled by public committees, and all
printing plant is to be under similar management. Would ,
Mrs. Besant get what she wanted printed, if it were
generally distasteful? Would not the managers of the
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IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
printing group be very reluctant to offend their constituents
and imperil their prospect of re-election to office ? She
would also probably find that if the hall she wanted was
not absolutely refused, it would be required for something
else on that date. The free play of mind would thus be
checked. But upon that very thing all progress hinges.
What is progress ? The only valuable, or indeed intelli
gible definition I know of is Sir Henry Maine’s “progress
is the constant production of fresh ideas”. Fresh ideas
might be produced, but they would be absolutely abortive,
unless there were the means of disseminating them and
carrying them out. Could those means be counted on when
all the agencies were in the hands of the majority who
would naturally be content with the state of things in
which they exercised supreme power ? How can you praise
liberty, when under your system liberty would be arrested
at its source ? Mrs. Besant may smile at this. She may
say, as she has said, that if you cannot get a hearing in a
hall you must go to some open space. But if the officials
would not let you speak in public halls, they would put
obstacles in the way of your speaking in public places of
other kinds. (Hear, hear.) You would then have to hold
forth on Dartmoor or the Yorkshire wolds, where the
chances of finding an audience are exceedingly limited
(Laughter.) I really wish Mrs. Besant would tell us how
these difficulties are to be surmounted.
Individualism will produce all the benefits Socialism
could possibly bestow, and it gives us other benefits which
Socialism would destroy. It was finely said by Channing
that you may spring a bird into the air by mechanism,
but its flight is only admirable when it soars with its own
vital power. So the mechanism which would elevate
people despite themselves does not really elevate them.
They are only lifted up when their life is improved by
their own energy, foresight, and capacity. (Cheers.) If
you gave a man with the lowest tastes ten times his present
income, do you mean to tell me that he would be ten times
better ? He would probably spend it all very much as he
spends his money now. But if he got more by voluntary
co-operation with his fellows, his character would be
elevated in the very process of bettering his material con
dition. (Cheers.)
Mrs. Besant complains that competition is impossible
L
�146
IS SOCIALISM SOUND?
with those who have personal advantages. Yes, and I
know that without riding on bicycles there are some
stronger and fleeter than others. Those with the most
powerful and subtle brains must win the first prizes in the
race of life. But there are many competitions and millions
of minor prizes of all degrees. We cannot all run in the
race for the Premiership. Only a few can compete for
that, and let us hope the best man gets it. But if a man
cannot compete for the Premiership, he may be first in the
making of good honest boots. (Hear, hear.) There are
thousands of races, and if a man cannot succeed in one he
may enter another. Competition is not the frightful
thing Mrs. Besant supposes. It does not imply that only
one wins and all the rest absolutely lose. In our com
petition there is a first prize, a second, a third, a fourth,
and'so on down to the point at which there really is com
plete failure, and a man is thrown out of employment.
But the great mass of workers are in employment, and
there is something even for those who are farthest behind.
The vast majority get what is worth having, though all
cannot be first. (Hear, hear.)
Now, in conclusion, let me say a word as to what Indi
vidualism has done. There was a time when man fought
for the possession of caves with his brute contemporaries.
There was a time when man was so low in the scale of life
that he could scarcely be discriminated from his ape-like
progenitor. Through countless ages he has advanced to
his present position. And that position gives only a fore
taste of what he will realise in the days to come. The science
which affords us so many benefits is still in its childhood,
and what it has done is but “ an earnest of the things
that it shall do ”. Individualist competition, man wrest
ling with nature and the brutes, man matched against
man, thrift against improvidence, sagacity against dulness,
energy against indolence, courage against cowardice, sense
against stupidity—this has brought civilisation to its pre
sent pitch. Individualism has constructed railways, made
the steam-engine, bridged rivers, covered the ocean with
ships, invented the printing press, and given us all our
science and art. Individualism has given to “the poor”
what they consider necessaries of life, but what once were
luxuries to princes and kings. And what has your State
done? It has always been trying to “ regulate ” things,
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
147
making mistake after mistake with the best intentions, and
failing again and again because it could not possibly succeed.
It has tried to take men’s religion under its control; it has
tried to take all their thoughts and all their actions under
its control. It decreed the status in which men should
remain from the cradle to the grave. It hemmed them in
on every side. And while individual Europeans have gone
all over the world, colonising and founding new empires,
what have the Europeans States done ? They have hurled
people against people. They have contracted four thou
sand five hundred millions of debt in senseless quarrels.
The 1 ‘ State ’ ’ has done more harm than good. Individualism
has made progress. Without it none is possible. Col
lectivism, State control, crushes liberty, hinders Indi
vidualism, and prevents that noble progress which we all
see brightening and heightening in the great future before
us. (Prolonged applause.)
Annie Besant : I did not state in my last speech that
the present system of private property in the material of
wealth production is at the root of all the poverty. Mr.
Eoote has put in the word all. I quite admit that there
are other influences at work as well; and you know that
in dealing with the question of population I have pointed
to that cause. But Mr. Eoote rightly said in an earlier
speech that under the present system that difficulty was
not dealt with, because it is to the interest of the capitalist
that the workers should rapidly increase, that he may play
off the one against the other. (Hear, hear.) Then Mr,
Eoote stated—and I agree with him—that society will
improve by evolution. And it is because I am an evolu
tionist that I am a Socialist; it is because I see that society
is evolving in the direction of Socialism, and that the
tendency of the most Radical legislation is to promote the
growth of Socialism. (Hear, hear.) And then Mr. Eoote
says that the birth-rate and the death-rate balance each
other. But surely Mr. Eoote must have noticed that I
gave percentages, and not absolute numbers, of deaths,
and that brief answer of his does not deal with my diffi
culty, which really was the price that society pays for the
maintenance of the present system. (Hear, hear.) Then
Mr. Foote says we don’t wait for Socialism to get educa
tion. But your education is founded on the Socialist
principle ; you tax the community for a special benefit of
�148
IS SOCIALISM SOUND?
which, some only take advantage; the State compels
parents to do their duty towards their children, forcing
upon them that which otherwise they would not do, and
intruding even within the circle of the home; in fact, you
treat the children as belonging in the highest sense to the
community rather than to the parents, and you forbid the
parent to inflict an injury upon the community by keeping
the child in ignorance, and therefore in degradation.
(Cheers.) I admit in that good work has been done; but
it is work done by society—by the State that Mr. Foote
attacks—and not by Individualistic effort. (Hear, hear.)
The voluntary school system was the growth of Indi
vidualism ; the national system is the growth of the
tendency towards Socialism in the State.
Mr. Foote goes on to say a word about publishing
papers and pamphlets : Here are Mrs. Besant and Mr.
Foote. Their opinions are in a minority. How are they
to publish their views under Socialism? But we are
in a minority now, and we have paid for it under your
Individualistic system. (Hear, hear.) We have found
not only that it is very difficult to get a hearing for the
views of the minority, but that a man may be sent to gaol
for putting his views in print. What worse tyranny than
this can Socialism inflict ? (Hear, hear.) Individualistic
society shuts up a man in prison because he dared to print
something against the views of the majority. (Cheers.)
What more could Socialism do ? But let us be frank in
this matter. Socialism will not at once quite alter human
nature. These difficulties which Mr. Foote speaks of are
the difficulties of minorities everywhere, and there is no
way of getting over them save by courage on the part of
the minority, and the gradual growth of education and of
a feeling of respect in the majority for the opinions of
others. (Hear, hear,) But I can tell you why we think
that under Socialism the minority would have a better
chance of making itself heard than it has now. It is
because even under the present condition of things those
institutions which are most nearly on the road to Socialism
are those where the greatest liberty is already permitted.
(Hear, hear.) Co-operation, for instance, which is the
grouping of many together to work side by side and there
fore is only in a small way—when it is real, and not mere
dividend hunting—what the Socialist State will be in a
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
149
large form—co-operation may serve as an instance. Mr.
Foote knows that it is the halls scattered over the country
which have been built by the co-operative societies, and
which are controlled by committees and not by individual
owners, which are most readily granted for the propaga
tion of the opinions of the minority. (Hear, hear.) Often
when an individual owner refuses to let me his hall, I find
the co-operative society readily grant it, although many
members of their committee are in opposition to my views.
(Hear, hear.) The truth is that where an individual refuses
to let any views be heard but his own, the clash of opinions
on a committee makes each member disposed to give others
a hearing in order that his own views may obtain a hearing
in turn. Take another case. You speak of the tyranny
of the State. I take as an illustration of the difference
between being under a State and being under the indi
vidual, an incident that happened at the British Museum.
There was a gardener there who committed the horrible
crime of calling by his first name the son of one of the
officials—he called him George instead of Master George.
(Laughter.) Such a piece of gross insolence on the part of
a gardener could not be overlooked, and the result was that
he was dismissed. So far he shared the fate which would
have befallen him had he been hired by an individual owner.
But as he was a servant of the State and not the mere
hired servant of an individual owner, his complaint was
listened to, an inquiry ordered, and the result was that a
fresh post was found for the gardener to compensate him
for the loss he had undergone. H he had called an indi
vidual’s son George he would have been thrown out into
the world to seek a fresh livelihood for himself; but as he
called the State functionary’s son George, the State inter
fered in order to protect him, and gave him another place
instead of the one he lost. (Cheers.)
But Mr. F oote points to what Individualism has done—
it has covered the sea with ships. Aye, with coffin ships,
which went to the bottom until the State interfered to save
life. (Hear, hear.) Individualism has done much. On
my very first night I said that being an evolutionist I
recognised the fashion in which society had grown ; from
my point of view it is idle to find fault with what has been
done in the past; it is for us to try with the experience of
the race, by the study of history, by the growing knowledge
�150
IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
of man, and by our increased scientific ability, to find a
better road for the future, than our ancestors have struggled
along in the past. (Hear, hear.) And the difference
between Mr. Foote and myself is this—that I recognise
that evolution has brought us to the point where this
Individualistic struggle must give way to organised action.
And I notice that we have grown from the Individualism
of the savage up to the co-operative Socialism of civilisa
tion : because as Mr. Foote truly says—civilisation is co
operation ; that is, it is the raising of the group and the
group interests above the interests of the units who compose
the group.
I put to you now in closing this debate one or two points
which I venture to think are not unworthy your careful
■consideration. Mr. Foote says that we have been making
progress, we have been improving in the past. I have
urged on him, on the other side, that the improvement has
been far slower than it need be, and that the root of the question of poverty must be dealt with if improvement is
to go on. I have pointed out to him that while there is
improvement in one part of society there is retrogression
in another. I have pointed out to him the ever-widening
of the gulf between the rich and the poor—the evergrowing division between the cultured and the masses of
the people—the ever-increasing danger of that which
Sidgwick pointed out, viz., that the tendency of our
present industrial system is to make the rich grow richer
and the poor grow poorer. (Cheers.) That I hold to be
the position in which we stand to-day; and I, a Socialist,
come forward, and pointing to these evils in modem
society say they are evils which are inherent in the system.
Under a Socialist system—and only under that system—
is the change and the remedy for us possible. Mr. Foote,
I recognise, desires that improvement should go on. He
says to us: Your Socialism will fail when it is tried. I
answer him: Your Individualism has been tried and
has failed—(cries of “No, no!”)—and our wars, our
poverty, our misery, our ignorance, our wretchedness,
are the proofs of the failure of an Individualistic
system of society. (Cheers.) You say it has not
failed. How then is it that in every civilised country
the millionaire and the pauper stand side by side ? How
is it, if it be a success, that in this great metropolis of ours
�IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
151
where thousands of pounds are given for a china dish
hundreds of men and women are dying of slow starvation ?
(Hear, hear, and cries of “ Shame ”.) Go down to Shadwell
High Street when the crowds are turning out of the music
rooms and gin palaces, and next morning go to the Ladies’
Mile; see how the West End differs from the East End,
and then ask yourself, can a civilisation last where the
contrasts are so glaring, where the divisions are so
extreme? (Hear, hear.) Eor remember that you have
no longer the safety of the past—the safety of the ignorance
of the masses of your people. (Hear, hear.) While there
was no penny press, while there was no public education,
much of the luxury of the rich man remained hidden from
the eyes of the poor, starving in their cellars and in their
garrets. But to day your halfpenny paper takes the news
everywhere. The sempstress reads of the great ladies
decked in diamonds at a Court ball, and the costermonger
•reads of the millionaire giving thousands for a race horse,
spending thousands in luxury and in vice. These are
beginning to think—beginning to ask questions ; beginning
to ask, must these things always be ? is there not something
fundamentally wrong in a condition of society where such
things exist ? And that is not all. Your idle classes are
the very cancer of society. (Hear, hear.) The luxury in
which they live makes them rotten by its very idleness.
They consume without producing; they enjoy without
discharging a duty; they live easily, smoothly, without
difficulty, and society takes nothing from them in ex
change for what they take from it. And what is the
result ? Your higher classes with their profligacy are
the scandal of the whole civilised world at the present
time. A press, greedy for profit, tears down every curtain
in the desecrated home, and exhibits it to the eyes of the
whole of Europe, until the very noblest of human passions
becomes as filth, fit only to roll through the sewer which
runs beneath your streets. (Cheers.) And this is the
outcome of the Individualistic system. This is the result of
luxury and idleness, the result of the neglecting of duty,
and of the making possible of luxury without service done
in exchange for those who give it. And one plea I make
to you—to you, the majority of whom in this Hall are
against me—the large majority of whom judge us harshly
and blame us sternly, because looking at the misery, and
�152
IS SOCIALISM SOUND ?
the luxury of society we strive to bring about a remedy
which may make things other than they are to-day. (Hear,
hear.) Many of us are ignorant; most of us are poor.
Tongues of education and of culture are but here and
there amongst us, and rough men speak for us out of the
miseries that they feel. What wonder that sometimes the
tongues should be reckless; what wonder that some
times the speech should be bitter; what wonder that
men, feeling what they might have been, and knowing
what they are, speak words that may not be measured as
carefully as the perfectly cultured and the unsuffering
may measure theirs; what wonder if their indignation
grows hot against the wrongs they know. But this I ask
of you. If sometimes we speak too hotly; if sometimes
our passion gets the better of our judgment; if sometimes
the misery of the poor voices itself too sharply in our
words and rings out in a fashion that the easy and idle
class may not like ; at least do us this justice: that in a
society where the stronger trample upon the weak ; in a
society where most men seek for power, for luxury, or for
money; at least admit this to the despised Socialists
amongst you—that in that society we have withdrawn from
the strife for gold, we have turned aside from the struggle
for power, and we have eyes that see and hearts that love
some nobler ideal of society than you have yet found
possible in your Individualistic life. (Great cheering.)
Mr. Foote : I rise to propose with great pleasure a very
hearty vote of thanks to the chairman.
‘ Annie Besant : I second that.
The motion was carried, and the meeting dispersed.
�
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
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
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2018
Publisher
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
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Pamphlet
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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Is socialism sound? : verbatim report of a four nights' debate between Annie Besant and G. W. Foote : at the Hall of Science, Old St., London, E.C. : on February 2nd, 9th, 16th and 23rd, 1887
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Besant, Annie Wood
Foote, G. W. (George William)
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 152 p. ; 19 cm.
Notes: Stamp on title page: 'South Place Chapel Finsbury, Lending Library'.
Publisher
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Freethought Publishing Company
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1887
Identifier
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T404
Subject
The topic of the resource
Socialism
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 (Is socialism sound? : verbatim report of a four nights' debate between Annie Besant and G. W. Foote : at the Hall of Science, Old St., London, E.C. : on February 2nd, 9th, 16th and 23rd, 1887), 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
Debates and Debating
Socialism
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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
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Architecture and Place
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Humanist Library and Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised items from the Humanist Library and Archives telling the story of buildings and spaces occupied by the Conway Hall Ethical Society (formerly the South Place Ethical Society). Also includes several born digital items.
Publisher
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
Subject
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Architecture
Conway Hall (London, England)
South Place Chapel, Finsbury
Mansford, Frederick Herbert (1871-1946)
Language
A language of the resource
English
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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Parchment
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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Lease of 49 Theobalds Road, 16 December 1887
Description
An account of the resource
<p>Lease of 49 Theobalds Road, (16 December 1887).</p>
<ul><li>(1) Metropolitan Board of Works</li>
<li>(2) George Christopher Trout Bartley of St Margarets House, Victoria St, Westminster, Middx, esq, MP</li>
</ul><p>In consideration of expense of (2) in erecting buildings etc, (1)-(2) piece of ground on south side of Theobalds Rd, parish of St George the Martyr, Middx. (dimensions and abutments given, including east on 47 Theobalds Rd about to be leased to (2) and west on premises leased to Alfred Lanham) with house and shop erected thereon by (2).</p>
<p>Term: 80 years from 29 Sept 1882</p>
<p>Rent: first two years a peppercorn; residue £22 pa</p>
<p>Block plan of premises.</p>
<p>Endorsed: 'Part of Plot 88'</p>
Creator
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Unknown
Date
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1887
Subject
The topic of the resource
Leases
Identifier
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SPES/3/1/2/11
Format
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image/jpeg
Type
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Text
Language
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English
Rights
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<p>Licenced for digitisation by the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/guidance/copyright-orphan-works" target="_blank">Intellectual Property Office</a> under Orphan Works Licence <a href="https://www.orphanworkslicensing.service.gov.uk/view-register/details?owlsNumber=OWLS000075-11" target="_blank">OWLS000075-11</a>.</p>
Bartley, George Christopher Trout (1842-1910)
Theobalds Road, Holborn
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91a0d3b852bf44c7b01ef9ed09a87ca7
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Title
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National Secular Society archival collection
Creator
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National Secular Society
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1875 - 1898
Rights
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Owned by the National Secular Society, held by Conway Hall Library and Archives
Language
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English
Contributor
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Charles Bradlaugh, Annie Bessant
Description
An account of the resource
The four earliest surviving volumes of the National Secular Society’s Executive Committee minutes, 1875 - 1898. Two illuminated manuscripts presented to Charles Bradlaugh, 1874 and 1887.
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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Illuminated manuscript
Dublin Core
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Title
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NSS/7/36 Charles Bradlaugh illuminated address 1887
Description
An account of the resource
Illuminated address presented to Charles Bradlaugh MP, by the Secularists of Glasgow, 1887.
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National Secular Society
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1887
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NSS/7/37
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NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY
ROYAL PAUPERS
A Radical’s Contribution
TO
THE
JUBILEE.
SHOWING
What Royalty does for the People
AND
What the People do for Royalty.
BY
G. W. FOOTE.
-------- ---------------
PRICE
TWOPENCE.
'•
■•
4
4
4
4
4
LONDON:
PROGRESSIVE PUBLISHING COMPANY,
28 Stonecutter Street, E.C.
1887.
�LONDON :
PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY G. W. FOOTE,
AT 28 STONECUTTER STREET, E.C.
�ROYAL PAUPERS.
-----------♦-----------
“ Our most gracious Sovereign Lady, Queen Vic
toria,” as the Prayer Book styles her, has occupied
the throne for nearly half a century, and as she is
blessed with good health and a sound constitution,
she may enjoy that exalted position for another
fifteen or twenty years, and perhaps prevent her
bald-headed eldest son from acceding to the illus
trious dignity of King of the United Kingdom of
Great Britain and Ireland, and Emperor of India.
Whether she does or does not linger on this mortal
stage, and whether the Prince of Wales will or will
not live long enough to succeed her, is a matter of
trifling importance to anyone but themselves and
their families. The nation will have to support “ the
honor and dignity of the throne,” whoever fills it,
without the least abatement of expense; unless,
indeed, the democratic spirit of the age should ques
tion the utility of all “ the pride, pomp, and circum
stance ” of royalty, and either abolish it altogether or
seriously diminish its cost.
This being the fiftieth year of Her Majesty's reign,
the hearts of all the flunkeys in the nation are stirred
to their depths. There is quite an epidemic of
loyalty. Preparations are being made on all sides
�4
to celebrate the Queen’s Jubilee. Busybodies
are meeting, discussing, and projecting. All
sorts of schemes are mooted, but the vital essence of
every one is—Cash ! The arts of beggary are devel
oped on the most magnificent scale, without regard
to the Vagrancy Act; and titled ladies, parsons’
wives, and Primrose Dames, condescend to solicit
pennies from sempstresses and charwomen. The
Prince of Wales, meanwhile, is devoting his genius
and energies to floating the Imperial Institute, which
promises to be a signal failure, unless the Chancellor
of the Exchequer comes to its assistance, because the
royal whim of fixing it in a fashionable quarter, in
stead of in the commercial centre of London, is a
barrier to its success.
How much of the money drained from British
pockets by such means will be spent on really useful
objects ? It may be safely predicted that a consider
able portion will flow into the pockets of the wire
pullers, but will any appreciable amount go to benefit
all classes of the community ? Will there, in parti
cular, be any advantage to the masses of the working
people, whose laborious lives contribute more to the
greatness and prosperity of the state than all the
titled idlers, whether scions of royalty or members of
the aristocracy, who live like gilded flies “basking in
the sunshine of a Court ” ? Time will prove, but
unless we are very much mistaken, the Jubilee will
be just as advantageous to the people as loyal move
ments have ever been.
It is a sign of the wholesome democratic spirit
which is beginning1 to animate the nation, that a few
�5
towns have absolutely refused to trouble their heads,
and still less to tax their pockets, with regard to the
Jubilee. But the most cheerful indication comes
from Wexford. The municipal council of that his
toric Irish city has ventured to make the following
sensible suggestion:
“ If the ministers of the Crown wanted to govern this
country in a quiet and peaceable manner, and not by fire and
sword, they would advise her Majesty to send to the starving
poor of this country, to relieve their distress, the half of that
eight millions which she has lying in the Funds, and which she
has received from the ratepayers. By this means they would
require no Coercion measure, but would make this one of the
most happy, peaceable, and law-abiding countries in the
world.”
This spirited though courteous suggestion implies
that Royalty has done less for the People than the
People have done for Royalty, that the balance of
profit is not on the national side of the account, and
that gratitude is not due by those who confer bene
fits, but by those who receive them.
During the present reign, the Royal family has
obtained from the nation nearly twenty-four million
pounds. What has the nation received in exchange
for that enormous sum ? I do not propose to reckon
in this place the value of the normal functions of
Royalty, as I intend to estimate it when I have calcu
lated the annual cost of the institution. I simply
inquire, at present, what special advantage has
accrued to us from her Majesty, and not another per
son, having worn the crown for the last fifty years.
Ireland may be dismissed from the inquiry at
once. She has no opportunity of gazing on the
Queen’s classical features, or even of being splashed
�6
with the mud of her carriage wheels; and, on the
other hand, the statistics of Ireland’s fifty years’ his
tory show that 1,225,000 of her children have died of
famine, while 3,650,000 have been evicted by the
landlords, and 4,186,000 have emigrated to foreign
lands.
There has, however, been considerable progress in
Great Britain. Our national wealth has immensely
increased, but Royalty has only assisted in spending
it. Science has advanced by gigantic strides, but
Royalty has not enriched it by any brilliant disco
veries ; for since George the Fourth devised a shoe
buckle, the inventive genius of the House of Bruns
wick has lain exhausted and fallow. Our commerce
has extended to every coast, and our ships cover
every sea; but the Prince of Wales’s trip to India,
at our expense, is the only nautical achievement of
his distinguished family, unless we reckon the Duke
of Edinburgh’s quarter-deck performances, and Prince
Lieningen’s exploit in sinking the Mistletoe. Our
people are better educated, but Royalty has not
instructed them. Our newspapers have multiplied
tenfold, but Royalty is only concerned with the Oourt
Circular. The development of the printing press has
placed cheap books in the poorest hands, and our
literature may hold its own against the world. But
what contributions do we owe to Royalty ? Her
Majesty has published two volumes of Leaves from
her j ournal, which had an immense sale, and are now
forgotten. They chronicle the smallest talk, and
express the most commonplace sentiments, the prin
cipal objects on which the Royal author loved to
�7
expatiate being the greatness and goodness of Prince
Albert and the legs and fidelity of John Brown.
Thousands of ladies, and probably thousands of
school-girls, could have turned out a better book.
And when we recollect that the Queers diary was
prepared for the press by the skilful hand of Sir
Arthur Helps, we may be pardoned for wondering
into what depths of inanity he cast his lines to fish
up such miraculous dulness. The only son her
Majesty has lost, and whose expenses the nation has
saved, was “ studious,” as that word is understood
in royal circles; but his speeches, although they were
furbished up by older and abler hands, will never
figure in any collections of eloquence, and it is
doubtful whether a lengthy life would have enabled
him to shine at Penny Readings without the advan
tage of his name. The Prince of Wales’s sons have
also put two big volumes on Mudie’s shelves (it
would be too much to say into circulation), yet their
travelling tutor acted as their literary showman; and
what parts of the exhibition were his and what theirs,
God alone knoweth except themselves.
It is not one of the stipulated functions of a
Queen, but it is reasonably expected, that she should
produce an heir to the throne. Her Majesty, in
obedience to the primal commandment, “Be fruitful,
and multiply, and replenish the earth,” which is
seldom neglected in royal families, has borne the
desired heir, and many other children to take his
place if he or his offspring should come to an untimely
end. Her progeny is, indeed, remarkably numerous,
if we reckon all the branches, and if they breed like
�8
wise it will ultimately become a serious question
whether they or we shall inhabit England. As it is,
everyone of them is kept by the nation, for Her
Majesty, although fabulously rich, or as Johnson said,
“ wealthy beyond the dreams of avarice,” is never
theless too poor to maintain her own children. We
support them, and in the most extravagant fashion.
Yet they have absolutely no public duties to perform.
The Queen's duties are not onerous, and still less
necessary, but they are real however light. Her
offspring and relatives, however, do nothing for their
pensions. They never did anything, and never expect
to do anything. They are the recipients of public
charity, which does not change its essence because it
is administered by special Acts of Parliament. Dr.
Findlater defines a pauper as “ a poor person : one
supported by charity or some public provision.” Does
not this exactly apply to all our Royal pensioners ? Am
I not strictly justified in calling them Royal Paupers ?
There are paupers in palaces as well as in workhouses,
and in many, if not most cases, the latter are the
more honorable. Thousands of men who have worked
hard in their younger days far scanty wages, hundreds
who have paid rates and taxes to support the state
burdens, have eked out the sombre end of their lives
in the Union, and have been buried in a parish egg
box. They were called paupers, and so they were,
for there is no disputing the fact. But are not they
worse paupers who have never worked at all, who live
on other people from the cradle to the grave, who add
impudence to their dependence, and glory in their
degradation ?
�9
Why should the people fling up their caps and
rend the air with their shouts ? They owe Royalty
nothing, and they have no particular occasion for
gladness. It is, however, perfectly natural that the
Queen and her family should rejoice over her Jubilee.
Fifty years of unearned prosperity is something to
be grateful for, and if the members and dependents
of the House of Brunswick wish to join in a chorus of
thanksgiving, by all means let them do so; but let
them also, out of their well-filled purses, defray the
expenses of the concert.
Let us now estimate the annual cost of these Royal
Paupers, and of the Royal Mother of most of the
brood; in other words, let us reckon the yearly
amount which John Bull pays for the political luxury
of a throne.
When Her Majesty came to the throne, in June,
1837, it was ordered by the House of Commons
ee that the accounts of income and expenditure of the
Civil List from the 1st January to the 31st December,
1836, with an estimate of the probable future charges
of the Civil List of her Majesty, be referred to a
Select Committee of 21 members/'’ Those gentlemen
went to work with great simplicity. They ascer
tained what it cost King William to support “ the
honor and dignity of the Crown” during the last,
year of his reign, and they recommended that Queen
Victoria should be enabled to spend as much money
and a little more, for they put the cost of the various
branches of the Civil List into round figures, and
always to her advantage. One ’of King William/s
bills was £11,381 for “ upholsterers and cabinet-
�1G
makers/'’ but they surely could not have imagined
that her Majesty could require nearly twelve thou
sand pounds* worth of furniture every year. Nor
could they really have thought that she would spend
£3,345 a year on horses, or £4,825 a year on carriages.
Probably they felt that the subject was too sacred for
criticism. At any rate, they speedily produced an
estimate of £385,000 per annum as the amount
necessary “ for the support of her Majesty's house
hold, and of the honor and dignity of the Crown of
the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.”
The Civil List was settled at this figure by an Act of
Parliament, which received the Royal Assent on
December 23, 1837. No doubt Her Majesty signed
that precious document with the most cordial
satisfaction.
In February, 1840, Her Majesty married. Her
husband, of course, was imported from Germany.
The Queen was anxious that he should be hand
somely supported by Englishmen, Irishmen, and
Scotchmen. A desperate effort was made to procure
him an allowance of £50,000 a-year; but through
the patriotic exertions of a band of Radicals, headed
by Joseph Hume, the sum was reduced to £30,000.
On that paltry income Prince Albert had to live. It
was a severe lesson in economy, but his German
training enabled him to pass through the ordeal, and
in time he increased his scanty income by other
emoluments. He took £6,000 a-year as FieldMarshal; £2,695 a-year as Colonel of the Grenadier
Guards ; £238 a-year as Colonel-in-Chief of the Rifle
Brigade; £1,000 a-year or so in the shape of per-
�11
quisites as Grand Ranger of Windsor Great Park;
£500 a-year or so as Grand Ranger of the Home
Park; and £1,120 a-year as Governor and Constable
of Windsor Castle. Besides these posts, he filled
some which were honorary, and some whose value
was a secret to common mortals. When the lucky
German prince died he left a very large fortune, but
how much he contrived to amass is unknown, for his
will has never been proved.
Returning to the Civil List, we find it divided up
as follows :—Her Majesty's Privy Purse, £60,000;
Household Salaries, £131,260; Tradesmen's Bills,
£172,500; Royal Bounty and Special Services,
£9,000 ; Alms and Charity, £4,200 ; Unappropriated
Money, £8,040—Total, £385,000.
The £60,000 of Privy Purse money the Queen
spends as she pleases. She can say like Shylock,
“'Tis mine, and I will have it." The £8,040 of
Unappropriated Money appears to have been thrown
in to make up a round rum, or perhaps to provide the
Queen with pin-money, so that she might not go abroad
without small change in her pocket. The £13,200
for Bounty and Alms is supposed to be spent on
deserving objects of charity. How much of it is
spent we know not. But the fact that the sum is
voted for that purpose is calculated to lessen our
appreciation of Royal benevolence. When the ladies
get hold of the morning papers, and see by the Daily
Telegraph, or some other loyal newspaper, that Her
Majesty has sent so much to this charity, and so much
to that, they exclaim, “ What a dear good lady the
Queen is to be sure." They never suspect that her
�12
Majesty’s charity is exercised with other people’s
money. The poorest and the most penurious might
be charitable on the same easy conditions.
According to the Civil List Act, the other sums
were to be rigorously spent in maintaining the Royal
dignity; indeed, a clause was inserted to prevent
savings, except of trifling amount, from being carried
from one category to another. Yet it is well-known
that many sinecure offices in the Royal Household
have been abolished, while large reductions have been
made in the Household expenditure. Who benefits
by these savings ? Can any person do so but the
Queen ? Would she allow them to be appropriated
by others ? But if she “ pockets the difference ” it
is in violation of the Act. Whatever reductions are
made, so much less is admitted to be necessary for
the purposes specified by law, and it is the sovereign
who makes the admission.
Surely, then, these
savings, these reductions in the expenditure on
maintaining “ the honor and dignity of the Crown,”
should accrue to the State, and not swell the private
income of a fabulously rich old lady.
We shall peep into the Royal Household presently.
Before doing so, however, we must see the full extent
of the Queen’s resources. Besides what she derives
from the Prince Consort’s will, she has the income
accruing from the Nield legacy. Mr. J. C. Yield
died in 1852, and not knowing a more proper object
of charity, he left his poor Queen the sum of £250,000,
in addition to real estate. Her Majesty is reported
to have invested heavily in the Funds. She has also
private estates in England and Scotland, to say
�13
nothing of her estates in Germany. They are
returned as 37,643 acres, at an annual rental of
£27,995. Finally, there is the splendid revenue of
the Duchy of Lancaster, which, in 1886, amounted
to £45,000.
Being so enormously wealthy, her Majesty might,
taste the luxury of contributing, however slightly,
to the expenses of government. She voluntarily
undertook to do so in 1842, but never appears to
have kept her word. When Sir Robert Peel intro
duced his Income Tax Bill, in August of that year,
he made the following announcement:
“ I may take this opportunity of making a communication
which, I am confident, will be received by the House with
great satisfaction. When in an interview with her Majesty,
a short time since, I intimated that her Majesty’s servants
thought that the financial difficulties of the country were
such that it was desirable, for the public interest, to submit,
all the income of this country to a charge of £3 per cent.,
her Majesty, prompted by those feelings of deep and affec
tionate interest which she has always shown for the welfare
and happiness of her people, observed to me that if the
necessities of the country were such that, in time of peace,
it was necessary to impose a charge of £3 per cent, on income,
it was her own voluntary determination that her own
income should be subject to a similar deduction.”
There is no positive proof, but there is negative
proof, that this “ voluntary determination” was not
carried out. Mr. C. E. Macqueen, secretary of the
Financial Reform Association, wrote to Mr. J.
Wilson, Financial Secretary to the Treasury, on
December 1, 1855, inquiring “ whether her Majesty
and the Royal Consort contribute their respective
quotas to the income and property tax.’'’ Mr. Wilson
replied that it was contrary to practice to answer
�14
such inquiries. He was technically right, but his
official reserve would scarcely have prevented his
making the statement, if it could be made, that Her
Majesty had paid the tax in accordance with her
promise. So much for the Queen’s “ deep and affec
tionate interest in the welfare and happiness of her
people.”
It should be added that the Royal estates escape
all Probate Duty, and that none of the Royal Family
have to pay Legacy and Succession Duties. Every
thing is arranged by a loyal nation for their comfort
and profit.
But, strange as it may sound, we have not yet done
with the cost of a Queen. There is a long list of
further expenses which, for the sake of convenience,
and that the reader may get a bird’s-eye view of
them, I print in a tabular form. The figures given
are for the year 1884-5.
Pensions granted by hei’ Majesty
.............. £24,072
Royal Palaces, occupied wholly or partially by
her Majesty ..............................................
15,466
Royal Palaces, not occupied by her Majesty ...
19,783
Royal Yachts, etc.................................................
39,732
Royal Escort (Household Troops, etc.)..............
31,150
£130,203
Here we have £130,203 expended by or on the
Sovereign, in addition to the Civil List of £385,000
and the revenue of £45,000 from the Duchy of Lan
caster. This makes a grand total of £560,203.
What a sum to lavish on the pride and luxury of
one person ! The President of the United States
only receives £10,000 a year. It is evident, there
�15
fore, unless there is no truth in Cocker, that the
people of this old country fancy a Queen is worth
fifty-six Presidents. The Yankees, however, have
a very different opinion: they laugh at John Bull for
lavishing so much wealth on a single human being,
and facetiously ask him why he complains of bad
trade and hard times when he can afford to fool away
his money in that fashion.
Now, let us turn our profane gaze into the sacred
arcana of the Boyal Household, ft is a pity that
such a glorious Flunkey's Paradise cannot be accu
rately and graphically described by a master hand.
What a wonderful picture of sinecure sloth and
corruption it would be to posterity ! Some writer,
with the pen of a Dickens steeped in the gall of a
Carlyle, should have a carte blanche commission for
the task. He should have unlimited opportunity to
study the ins and outs of the establishment, and the
lives of its officers and servants; and he should be
free to write exactly what he saw and heard, as well
as his own reflections on the matter. Were that
done, there would be at least one imperishable
monument of “ low ambition and the pride of kings."
There is no accessible account of the detailed ex
penditure in this Flunkey's Paradise at present, but
we have a full account of the expenditure in 1836,
on which the amount necessary for Tradesmen's
Bills was calculated. In the Lord Chamberlain's
department there is a bill of £11,381 for “uphols
terers and cabinetmakers," and another of £4,119
for “ locksmiths, ironmongers, and armorers." £284
is paid to sempstresses, so there must be a deal of
�16
shirt-making and mending. The washing bill is
£3,014, and £479 is paid for soap. Doctors and
chemists receive £1,951 for attending and physicing
the flunkeys. Turning to the Lord Steward’s De
partment, we find £2,050 worth of bread consumed,
and £4,976 worth of butter, bacon, eggs, and cheese.
The butcher’s bill comes to £9,472, and the amount
is so great that one wonders there is not a royal
slaughter-house. The flunkeys and the cats con
sumed £1,478 worth of milk and cream, and perhaps
the cats helped the flunkeys to devour the £1,979
Worth of fish. Groceries come to £4,644, fruit and
confectionery to £1,741, wines to £4,850, liqueurs,
etc., to £1,843, and ale and beer to £2,811. Ifthere
is as much boozing now in the Royal Household, it
is high time that Sir Wilfrid Lawson turned his
attention to the subject. The New River Water
Company would supply Buckingham Palace, at least,
with a sufficiency of guzzle at a much cheaper rate.
The nation would gain by the change, and if the
superior flunkeys’ noses were compulsorily toned
down, it might not be very much to their disadvan
tage either.
The Household Salaries are allotted to hundreds
of flunkeys, from the Lord Chamberlain to the
lowest groom or porter. All the chief officials are
lords and ladies. These have to be in immediate
attendance, and Royalty could not tolerate the con
tiguity of plebeians. Pah I an ounce of civet, good
apothecary !
Chief of the flunkeys is the Lord Chamberlain.
This nobleman’s salary is £2,000 a year. He is the
�17
master of the ceremonies, and has to be perfect in
the punctilios of etiquette. Besides looking after
the other flunkeys, he oversees the removal of beds
and wardrobes, and superintends the revels, corona
tions, marriages, and funerals. Lest these onerous
duties should impair his health, he has a Vice
Chamberlain, who is also a nobleman, to assist him at
a salary of £924 a year. Undei’ these gentlemen
there is an Examiner of Plays. This person is paid
£400 a year, besides fees, to decide what plays shall
be placed on the stage. He is also authorised to
strike out from the plays he condescends to license
everything likely to contaminate the public morals,
or bring the Church and State into disrespect. This
official is almighty and irresponsible. There is no
appeal against his fiat. Thirty-five millions of people
have to be satisfied with what he permits them. He
is the despot of the drama; they are his slaves; and
they pay him "several hundreds a year by way of gild
ing their fetters. The result is precisely what might
be expected. While the most vulgar farces and the
most suggestive opera, bouffe are licensed for the pub
lic delectation, some of the noblest masterpieces of
continental dramatic literature are tabooed, because
they deal with profound problems of life and thought
in a manner that might affront the susceptibilities of
Bumble and Mrs. Grundy. Even Shelley's Cenci was
prohibited, and the Shelley Society was obliged to
circumvent the Examiner of Plays by resorting to a
“ private performance." No matter that the loftiest
names in current English literature were associated
with the production of this magnificent play; the
�18
authority of Robert Browning and Algernon Swin
burne was overshadowed by that of the autocrat of
the Lord Chamberlain’s office, who has no standing
in the republic of letters, whose very name is un
known to the multitude of playgoers, who belongs to
the ranks of what Shelley called “ the illustrious
obscure.”
Among the female flunkeys, if I may be allowed
the appellation, are the Mistress of the Robes, with
£500 a year, and eight Ladies of the Bedchamber,
with the same salary. They are required to keep
Her Majesty company for a fortnight, three times in
the course of each year, and when in attendance they
dine at the Royal table. There are also eight Bed
chamber women, at £300 a year each, to serve in
rotation; and eight Maids of Honor, at the same
salary, who reside with Her Majesty in couples, for
four weeks at a time. It was remarked, in the days
of Swift, that Maids of Honor was a queer title, as
they were neither the one nor the other. But let us
hope that a great improvement has taken place since
then.
There is a large Ecclesiastical staff attached to
the Royal Household, but it only costs £1,236 a year.
The smallness of the sum does not imply that clergy
men are cheap, but that many will gladly officiate for
little or nothing at Court, as such appointments are
always considered stepping-stones to valuable pre
ferments.
More than twice as much is expended on the
mortal bodies of the Royal Household as on their
immortal souls. £2,700 a year is paid to Court
�19
physicians, surgeons, apothecaries, and chiropodists,
some receiving salaries, and others fees when in
attendance.
The salaries of the Kitchen Department amount to
no less than £9,983 a year, enough to excite the
wonder of Lucullus. We have no space to recite the
interminable list of menials. Suffice it to say that
the wine-taster has a salary of £500, the chief con
fectioner £300, the chief cook £700, and three
master cooks £350 each. There are also three
well-paid yeomen in charge of the Royal plate,
the value of which is reckoned at two millions
sterling.
Lowest of all in the scale of payment is the Poet
Laureate. His post is a survival of Feudalism. The
Court used to keep a dwarf and a jester, but these
have been discarded, and only the versifier is retained.
His duty is to grind out loyal odes whenever a
member of the Royal family is born, marries, or dies.
A more wretched office could scarcely be conceived.
Yet it is held by Lord Tennyson, who bestows the ex
crements of his genius on the Court. His latest Jubilee
Ode might have been composed by a printer’s devil,
whose brains were muddled by two poems of Walt
Whitman and Martin Tupper set in alternate lines.
The salary of the Laureateship is £100 a year. Seven
hundred a year to the chief cook, and one hundred a
year to the poet! Such are the respective values of
cooking and poetry in the Royal estimation. When
Gibbon presented the second volume of his immortal
histoiy to George the Third, the farmer-king could
only exclaim, “ What, another big book, Mr.
�20
Gibbon ? ” The House of Brunswick has thus been
consistent in its appreciation of literature.
Having taken a rapid look at the Court Flunkeys,
let us come to the great brood of Royal Paupers.
Such a poverty-stricken woman as the Queen cannot
be expected to maintain her children; they are there
fore supported by the State on a scale commensurate
with the Civil List.
The Princess Royal, who is the wife of the Crown
Prince of Germany, receives £8,000 a year. When
she married the nation voted her a dowry of £40,000,
and £5,000 was devoted to fitting up the Chapel
Royal for the wedding.
The Prince of Wales has a pension of £40,000 a
year. He takes £1,350 for the colonelcy of the Tenth
Hussars, a purely sinecure office. Probably the regi
ment would not recognise him if they saw him in
uniform. He lives rent free in Marlborough House,
on which £2,120 was spent in repairs in 1884-5, and
there is a somewhat similar bill every year. The
revenues of the Duchy of Cornwall swell the Prince’s
income by £64,641. Those were the figures in the
year just referred to. During his minority the
revenues of the Duchy accumulated to the amount of
£601,721. A third of this sum was invested in the
purchase of his Sandringham estate, and the rest in
other ways. Returns show that the Prince has
8,079 acres in Norfolk, and 6,810 in Aberdeenshire,
the rental being given at the extremely low figure of
£9,727.
When the Prince of Wales married, the nation
voted him an extra grant of £23,455, and as he was
�21
too poor to support a wife £10,000 a year was secured
to her from the national purse, with a further pro
mise of its being made £30,000 if she survives her
husband. When the Prince visited India, in 1875,
he was allowed £142,000 for the expenses of the
trip, £60,000 being pocket money, for the exercise of
generosity. The presents he gave we paid for; the
presents he received are his. Evidently the Prince
of Wales has much to be thankful for, and he may
celebrate the Jubilee with the utmost cordiality.
Even if he never becomes king, he will have had a
fine old time, and his appearance shows how well it
agrees with him.
The Duke of Edinburgh was voted £15,000 a-year
on attaining his majority in 1866. When he married,
in 1874, the amount was increased to £25,000,
although a few brave and honest Radicals opposed
the additional grant to the Prince “ for marrying
the richest heiress in Europe
His wife is the Czar’s
daughter; she brought him a private fortune of
£90,000, a marriage portion of £300,000, and a life
annuity of £11,250. Being a royal pauper, the
Duke does nothing for his pension. He takes
£3,102 for his post in the navy. They give him
command of the Mediterranean Fleet in time of
peace, but in time of war his fiddling tunes might
be preferable to his shouting orders. Let us, however,
be fair. There are some who say that he handles a
fleet splendidly; yet there are others who believe
that if the Peers took a trip round the world in one
of our ironclads, under the actual command of the
Duke of Edinburgh, there would be no need to
�22
agitate for their abolition. We may add that the
Duke has a yearly allowance of £1,800 from SaxeCobourg, and on the death of his uncle, the reigning
Duke, he will inherit a fortune of £30,000 a year.
AVhen he comes into that windfall he will, perhaps,
resign the pension of £25,000 a year he draws from
us. It would be a graceful act. But, alas! the House
of Brunswick has never been noted for grace.
The Princess Christian receives £6,000 a year,
and £30,000 was voted to her on her mam'a,go, The
Princess Louise had a similar dowry, and her pension
is also £6,000 a year. The Duchess of Albany,
widow of Prince Leopold, has £6,000, the Princess
Mary £5,000, and the Princess Augusta £3,000.
The Duke of Connaught's pension is £25,000. His
military reputation was achieved in Egypt, where
Lord Wolseley officiated as his wet-nurse. He was
kept out of danger, and specially mentioned in a des
patch from the field of battle. At present he is
Commander-in-Chief in Bombay, a post whose
abolition was recommended by the Military Com
mission. He draws pay at the rate of £6,000 a year.
Sir John Gorst will ask Parliament to pass a Bill
authorising the Duke to come home to celebrate the
Jubilee without forfeiting his office. Of course the .
Bill will pass, but the cream of the joke is that we
shall have to pay the cost of his journey. The move
ments of princes are expensive. The national
exchequer trembles when they blow their noses.
Another Royal Paupei’ of the warrior caste is the
Duke of Cambridge, This Prince is the Queen’s
uncle. His pension is £12,000 a year. His salary
�23
and perquisites as Banger of St. James’s, Green, Hyde,
and Richmond Parks are estimated at over £2,000 a
year. As Field Marshal Commander-in-Chief he
takes £4,500 a year. He is also Colonel of the
Grenadier Guards at £2,132 a year. His military /
genius is renowned throughout the world, and
his noble brow is circled with the deathless laurels
he won in the Crimea. His corpulence makes him
a commanding figure, and although his sword is
not famous, his umbrella is the terror of our enemies.
It only remains to add that poverty prevents him
from maintaining a wife. The Duchess of Cambridge,
therefore, enjoys a separate pension of £6,000 a year.
Besides the Royal pensioners, there are a few of
the Queen’s relatives (Germans, of course) who
sponge on the British taxpayer. Prince Edward of
Saxe-Weimar draws £3,384 a year from the Army,
and his Dublin residence is worth another thousand.
Prince Deiningen takes £593 a year as a half-pay
Vice-Admiral. Count Gleichen receives £740 as a
retired Vice-Admiral, and £1,120 as Governor of
Windsor Castle.
There is always a make-weight, even in accounts.
Accordingly we find a lot of extra expense in the
£4,881 paid in pensions to various surviving friends
and servants of George III., George IV., William IV.,
and Queen Charlotte.
Directly and indirectly the Royal Family costs the
nation the stupendous sum of £808,316 a year. The
vastness of such an amount is difficult for ordinary
minds to realise. Let us, therefore, analyse it, and
see what it makes in detail. It would maintain
�24
10,365 families at £1 10s. a week. It represents
£2,215 every day, £92 an hour, and £1 10s. 6d. every
minute. We frequently hear it said that the payment
of Members of Parliament would be too expensive.
But £300 a year is the outside salary proposed by
Radicals; and the annual cost of the Royal Family
would suffice to pay every member of the House of
Commons that salary four times over.
Thick-and-thin loyalists sometimes urge that we
have no right to grumble at the expense of Royalty.
The sovereign, they say, accepts a Civil List in lieu
of the Royal Revenues, and the nation gains by the
contract. But this argument is unconstitutional.
The Crown Revenues are not private property; they
belong to the monarch, just as the crown does, by
virtue of Acts of Parliament, and all Acts of Parlia
ment can be modified or repealed. If the Crown
Lands, for instance, were personal estate, they could
not be alienated from the present possessor. Should
the Queen, however, turn Roman Catholic, she could
not continue to occupy the throne. The Prince of
Wales would succeed her at once, and if Tie turned
Roman Catholic, the next heir would immediately
succeed him. In each case the Crown Revenues
would change hands. It is obvious, therefore, that
those Revenues are the appanage of the Crown solely
by virtue of law ; and it necessarily follows that the
nation has the legal as well as the moral right to
settle the Civil List as it pleases.
Other Loyalists urge the spendthrift objection that
the cost of the Royal Family- is trifling when distri
buted over the entire population. Why make a fuss,
r
�25
they ask, about fivepence half-penny each ? It is less
than the price of a quart of beer, or two ounces of cheap
tobacco. True, but many mickles make a muckle. The
lavish expenditure on Royalty corrupts our national
'economy. The cost of government, the expenses of the
Army and Navy, rise higher and higher every year.
Since the Queen’s accession, indeed, they have nearly
quadrupled. A nation cannot waste its money on titled
idlers without lavishing it shamefully in other
directions.
There is another way of replying to this foolish
objection.
What good might be done with that
£808,316 a year if it were otherwise expended ! It
would maintain museums, art galleries, and public
libraries throughout the country on the most munifi
cent scale, as the following table very clearly shows.
Towns.
Per Year.
Total.
5 at £20,000 = £100,000
10,000 = 100,000
10 „
5,000 =
20 „
100,000
2,500 =
40 „
100,000
100 „
1,000 =
100,000
616 „
500 =
308,000
£808,000
This is only one illustration. The ingenious reader
will think of many more, and he can work out the
figures himself.
Now let us glance at the functions of Royalty. We
have seen its cost, and we must try to ascertain its
worth.
�26
“ The King reigns but does not govern," and
therefore “the King can do no wrong.’' These
maxims of constitutional monarchy imply that the
sovereign exercises no direct power.
Even Lord
Salisbury, who is a thorough-paced courtier, would
shrink from publicly maintaining “ the right divine
of Kings to govern wrong." The Queen rules through
her Ministers. What they resolve on is executed in
her name. But she herself has no choice in the
matter. She is nominally able to refuse her assent
to an Act which has passed both branches of the
Legislature, but the first time she ventured to exert
that cc right ” the Crown would be brought into^dangerous collision with the people. Nor can* her
Ministers act without the Consent of Parliament. The
monarchy has been gradually shorn of its perogatives,
until it has become a political fiction. We are
really living under a veiled Republic, and the sooner
the mischievous and costly disguise-is flung aside the
better for the welfare and integrity of the nation.
Calling one of her “ subjects ” to form a Ministry
is the Queen’s first function. But this involves no
wisdom or decision, for there is no choice. It is not
Her Majesty,‘but the electorate, that decides who
shall be Premier. The Queen simply summons the
acknowledged leader of whichever party triumphs at
the ballot. If the Conservatives win she calls Lord
Salisbury, if the Liberals win she calls Mr. Gladstone.
Her personal wishes count for less than those of the
humblest ratepayer, for he has a vote and she has none.
Her next business is to open and close Parliament.
This duty, however, is seldom performed. Her
�Majesty rarely emerges from her widowed seclusion,
except to give a fillip to a Tory government. For
many years after Prince Albert’s death she felt
unequal to the exertion, although she had strength
enough to participate in ghillie balls. If a washer
woman complained that she was so cut up by the
death of her husband that it was impossible to work,
and expected regular payment without sending home
any clean linen, she would quickly weary her patrons,
and find it prudent to return to the tub. Yet a
Queen can indulge in the luxury of woe for twenty
years, and her flatterers will account it a virtue.
Thomas Carlyle wrote a significant little sentence on
this subject. Acknowledging a presentation copy of
Gilchrist’s Life of William Blake, which Mrs. Gilchrist
bravely saw through the press after her husband’s
death, Carlyle wrote : “ Your own little Preface is all
that is proper—could but the Queen of these realms
have been as Queen-like in her widowhood I ”
As for the Queen’s Speech, it is a ridiculous farce.
The document is drawn up by the Ministry, and its
sentiments differ with the succession of parties.
Generally, too. it is read by proxy. Her Majesty,
therefore, neither reads it nor writes it.
It is no
more hers than mine.
When Parliament is opened or prorogued in the
Queen’s absence, the royal robes are thrown over the
royal chair, and the Lords bow in passing them,
precisely as though the sovereign sat there. The
garments do as well as the wearer. Why, then, go
to the expense of filling them out ? With all rever
ence, I make the following suggestion. Let half-a-
�dozen of our finest artists be commissioned to carve
and chase a Phidean statue in ivory and gold, tn
occupy the royal chair instead of the Queen. The
expense would be incurred once for all, and we
should know the full extent of our liability. The
present monarchical idol could then be discarded for
the cheaper substitute, which would probably be quite
as useful, and certainly quite as handsome.
Next, her Majesty signs Acts of Parliament. I
would undertake to sign them all for £50 a year, and
my handwriting is as good as the Queen’s. As a
matter of fact, it is not the Royal signature that gives
validity to statutes. During one of George the Third’s,
fits of insanity, it is said that Lord Eldon used acounterfeit of the King’s signature, which was
engraved for the purpose; yet the Acts of Parliament
thus ratified were no less operative than those which
bore the King’s autograph. Under the Common
wealth the Great Seal was broken up, and a new one
substituted. On one side was a map of England
and Ireland; on the other, the device, “ In the first
year of freedom, by God’s blessing restored.” AIL
resolutions and orders of the House were signed by
the Speaker as nominal Chief of the State. “ Mr..
Speaker ” is still the First Commoner, and why can
not his signature be attached to Acts of Parliament
instead of an hereditary official’s ? The laws of a freecountry are the expression of the people’s will, and
they depend on no individual’s concurrence for theirvalidity and force.
These are absolutely all the“ functions” of Royalty,,
though there are other reasons adduced in its favor..
�29
While we retain a throne, filled by hereditary right,
it is urged that we avoid an undignified scramble for
the highest position in the State. But what scramble
is there for the Presidency in France ? Or what
particular scramble is there for it in the United
States, where the President is elected by a kind of
plebiscite ? Whatever scramble there is, some very
good men manage to win. From Washington to
Cleveland there have been many illustrious names.
Have we had a single sovereign who could be men
tioned in the same breath with the best of them ?'
What is our boast ? George the Third, the madman
George the Fourth, the profligate; William the
Fourth, the ninny; and Victoria, whose loftiest virtue
is that, being a Queen, she has lived like an honest
woman. The single name of Lincoln outweighs a
thousand such; nay, compared with his greatness,
they are but dust in the balance.
We are further told that Society (with a capital S)
must have a head. But what' is this Society ? Does
it include the great thinkers and workers, th ez poets,
artists, philosophers, and scientists ? No; it com
prises the lazy, pampered classes, whose wealth and
titles are their only passports to esteem, whose highest
ambition is to be presented at Court and invited to
royal levees. These people are not a sign of national
health, but a sign of national disease. Let them, if
they must, pursue their idle round of foolish pleasure,
but let them elect and support their own “ head ”
without expecting the nation to countenance their
frivolity by maintaining the Head of the State as the
master or mista\ ss of their foppish ceremonies.
�Lastly, the monarchy is defended on the ground
that a State must have a figure-head. But this is a
fatal plea. When monarchy was a reality the King
stood at the helm. If the sovereign is to be an orna
mental figure under the bowsprit, why should he cost
us an admiral’s salary for painting and gilding ?
Besides, figure-heads become very expensive when
they beget little figure-heads, whose maintenance in
a proper state of decoration is a first charge on the
freightage.
There is one function which her Majesty, ever
since Prince Albert’s death, has been unconsciously
performing. She has been teaching the people that
the monarchy is not indispensable. By habituating
them to dispense with its forms and pageants, she
has shown them how unessential it is to our political
life. Without the least intention, she has been pre
paring the way for a Republic. A few timid Radi
cals, and many Liberals, may stand aghast at the
prospect, but they cannot escape the result of cen
turies of historic tendency. From the day when the
Long Parliament condemned to death ie the man
Charles Stuart,” and established a Commonwealth,
“without King or House of Lords,” the fire of
Republicanism has never been extinguished in the
heart of England. It was allayed by Cromwell, and
it almost expired under Charles the Second, but it
faintly revived under his successor, and it has
gradually strengthened ever since. It gleamed
in many an epigram of Pope, it shone in the
eloquence of Bolingbroke, it quivered in many a
line of Cowper, it kindled the young muse of Words-
�31
worth, it glowed in the songs of Burns, it coruscated
in the satire .of Byron, it flamed in the lyrics of
Shelley, it burned with a steady light in the prose of
Thomas Paine. Nor was the noble tradition lost in
the reaction after the French Revolution. For two
generations it survived in the genius of Landor, and
since his death it has inspired the genius of Swinburne.
Royalty is now moribund, and democracy is striding
to the throne. After centuries of slumber the
People are at length awake, and the noble words
of John Milton may be re-echoed in a later age.
“ Methinks 1 see in my mind a noble and puissant
nation rousing herself like a strong man after sleep,
and shaking her invincible locks. Methinks I
see her as an eagle mewing her mighty youth,
and kindling her undazzled eyes at the full
midday beam, purging and unsealing her longabused sight at the fountain itself of heavenly
radiance/'’ While she was asleep the privileged
classes, from the monarch to the meanest aristocrat,
battened upon her like vampires. But their night is
over. They lurk and wait in vain for her relapse.
They fancy the daylight an illusion, yet they are~
deceived. Democracy is like the grave, it yields
nothing back; and a nation once awakened does not
sleep again until she dies. The day of her freedom
is the day of her life. For as';the dull sense of the
brute grows into full consciousness in man, s® the
rude instincts of the multitude grow into the con
scious life of a people, widening and clearing for
evermore.
�THE
Shadow of the Sword.
SECOND EDITION,
REVISED
AND
ENLARGED.
BY
Gm Wm FOOTE.
PRICE
TWOPKWOE.
PRESS OPINIONS.
“ An ably-written pamphlet, exposing the horrors of war and
the burdens imposed upon the people by the war systems of
Europe. . . . The author deserves thanks for this timely publi
cation.”—Echo.
“ A trenchant exposure of the folly of war, which everyone
should read.”—Weekly Times.
“ A wonderfully eloquent denunciation of the war fever.”—
Birmingham Owl.
“ This pamphlet presents us with some startling truths that are
well worth preserving.”—The People (Wexford).
“ Should be in the hands of all advocates of peace.”—Our
Corner.
Progressive Publishing Co., 28 Stonecutter Street, London, E.C.
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Dublin Core
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Title
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Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
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Pamphlet
Dublin Core
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Title
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Royal paupers : a radical's contribution to the Jubilee, showing what royalty does for the people and what the people do for royalty
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Foote, G. W. (George William) [1850-1915]
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 31 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
Publisher
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Progressive Publishing Company
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1887
Identifier
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N262
Subject
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Monarchy
Republicanism
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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 (Royal paupers : a radical's contribution to the Jubilee, showing what royalty does for the people and what the people do for royalty), 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
Monarchy-Great Britain
NSS
Queen Victoria