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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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[The Sacred Anthology]
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: [London]
Collation: 2 leaves; 20 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Handwritten review by unknown hand of Moncure Conway's work 'The Sacred Anthology' from Pall Mall Gazette, February 17th 1874.
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[s.n.]
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[1874?]
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Book reviews
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work ([The Sacred Anthology]), 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
Book Reviews
Conway Tracts
Oriental Literature
Sacred Books
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806d784e4d19c2db56207f09150f53b1
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WHAT POSITIVISM MEANS.
Positivism, or the Religion, of Humanity, is the name
given by the French philosopher, Auguste Comte, to the
system of thought and conduct founded by him, and
signifies that it rests on a basis of demonstrable, or “posi
tive”, science. The name has been objected to in some
quarters as being ungainly, and in others as suggesting
the idea of dogmatism. To the first of these objections,
although, perhaps, superficially true, it may be replied
that every system has a fair claim to be recognized by the
appellation bestowed on it by its founder; and this ia
especially the case where a man like Comte is concerned.
The other objection, expressing the idea that Positivism
leans towards intellectual autocracy, can be maintained
only so long as ignorance of its real nature prevails. In
addition to the qualities of reality, utility, certainty, and
precision, which are connected in ordinary language with
the term positive, Comte points out that, when science was
applied to the study of social phenomena, it at once as
sumed an organic character, and that, being organic, it
necessarily became relative. It could not, however, become
relative without becoming also sympathetic, and it is this
last quality which, although usually regarded as having
no connection with science, Comte declares to be specially
typical of Positivism.
In his famous Law of Intellectual Progress, without a
reference to which even the briefest account of Positivism
would be imperfect, Comte asserts that every theoretical
conception framed by the human mind passes through
three stages ; the first being the Theological, or fictitious;
�4
WHAT POSITIVISM MEAN’S.
the second, the Metaphysical, or abstract; the third, the
Positive, or scientific. The first of these stages is always
provisional, the second simply transitional, the third alone
definitive. It is not intended to discuss here at any length
the truth of this law, which can be adequately appreciated
only after a study of Comte’s Philosophy of History ; but
it may be mentioned that it has been accepted by various
thinkers of eminence, and notably by John Stuart Mill.
Considering, however, its importance, as furnishing the
foundation from which the whole Positivist system springs,
it will, perhaps, be well to give a very brief explanation
of its meaning, which is this:—Prom the earliest epoch
at which we can conceive man to have become possessed
of even the smallest amount of speculative power, he must
spontaneously have been led to theorize, although in a
very crude way, on the origin and meaning of the multi
tudinous facts of the world around him, and must, for his
own satisfaction, have endeavoured to frame some explana
tion which might account for their existence. Of real
knowledge he could have but little, and his means of
acquiring it were very slender. He was, therefore, neces
sarily thrown back upon imagination and hypothesis; and
the simplest and readiest hypothesis which could, under
the circumstances, present itself to him was, that the endless
motion and variety he found pervading the world were the
products of intelligence of some kind, resembling that
which he himself was conscious of possessing, although,
of course, infinitely more powerful. This assumption lies
at the root of all theological philosophy, whatever the
precise shape of the doctrines which, from age to age,
have been built upon it. It is, however, a mental process
which, according to Comte, is itself also susceptible of
.analysis into three stages. In the first of these, primitive
man, knowing nothing of the distinction which, with the
progress of science, has been drawn between organic and
inorganic nature, incapable of realizing the ultimate dif
ference between life and death, supposes all matter to be
animated, and assumes that the intelligences, to which he
ascribes the changes he sees, dwell in and form part of
the objects with whose existence his senses make hirn,
acquainted. The lion roars, the fish swims, the eagle
soars, because it is alive and possessed of an intelligence
similar to his own. And so the river flows, the cloud
�WHAT POSITIVISM MEANS.
5
moves, th© lightning flashes, because, so far as he knows,
it, too, is alive, and endowed with intelligence.
This mode of explanation, which Comte denominated
Fetichism, was regarded by him as the inevitable startingpoint of man’s intellectual activity. With the increase of
. knowledge, however, and the advance of reasoning-power,
it was eventually found to be insufficient. The hypothesis
■ < of universal, all-permeating life and will was discovered
t 1 to be irreconcilable with the facts furnished by ever
widening experience, and it had accordingly to be modified.
The world was still assumed to be governed by intelli
gence, but that quality was no longer attributed to
inanimate bodies, upon which man had, by degrees, learned
to exercise, within certain limits, an unquestioned power.
It was now supposed to reside in certain supernatural
beings, having no corporeal existence, and dwelling apart
from matter, although continuing to preside over different
groups of phenomena manifested by matter—beings which
were accessible to the prayers of man, and susceptible of
being propitiated by his sacrifices. With this form of
philosophy, known as Polytheism, the reign of theology,
properly speaking, began.
But this enormous effort of abstraction once accom
plished, by which the attributes of Life and Will were
detached from the countless objects of inanimate nature,
and bestowed on a comparatively restricted number of
purely mythical gods and goddesses, it was inevitable that
this theory should have a much less stable existence than
that which preceded it. A gradual process of concentrartion in the number of deities, to which, from the outset,
the system was necessarily exposed, could eventually
have but one logical termination. This was the establish
ment of Monotheism, and the recognition of a single god
as the legitimate heir to the government of the universe.
Every Polytheistic system must, in the nature of things,
come to this in the end.
So long, however, as theological methods were pursued,
SO long, that is to say, as men persisted in inquiring into
the causes of phenomena, the answers obtained were more
and more doomed to be regarded as unsatisfactory and
delusive. Men vt*fere, however—as they still are—reluctant
to frankly abandon the search for causes; but, growing
mistrustful of purely theological solutions, the habit was/
�6
WHAT POSITIVISM MEANS.
by degrees, formed of silently ignoring them, and seeking
the desired explanation in various abstract principles, quite
as much the creation of their own minds as theology, and
quite as unreal: of which tendency a familiar illustration
is afforded in the case of Moliere’s aspirant to medical
honours, who, amidst the applause of the Court of Ex
aminers, explains the narcotic properties of opium, not by
the soothing intervention of the god of sleep, but by the
assumption that it is possessed of a certain “ dormitive
virtue ”. This method marks what Comte calls the Meta
physical stage, and is regarded by him as a mere transition
from the Theological search into causes to the final, scien
tific, Positive stage, in which all hope of ever learning the
real nature of causes is definitively abandoned, and men
are contented to voluntarily restrict themselves to the study
of the laws of phenomena—a study which has, in fact, been
going on all the time concurrently with the other inquiry ;
has been the basis on which the whole of man’s practical
activity has rested; and the chief agent in discrediting
supernaturalism, and gradually narrowing its domain.
Supposing the Law of the Three Stages to be true, it
involves, ultimately, the universal abandonment of every
form of theological belief—that is to say, the disappear
ance of every religion resting on a supernatural foundation.
Religion, however, as suggested by its etymological deriva
tion, is the binding force of all human society, and by no
writer has this been more clearly recognized than by Comte.
It is religion which, under one form or another, holds
society together. In order, therefore, that the social fabric
may not, as a result of intellectual progress, be dissolved,
and anarchy supervene, it is necessary to discover some
substitute for theological religion. Science must become
religious. Positivism, then, professes to be such a religion.
It is ostensibly based on science, and, in Comte’s view, is—
in its general principles at least, if not in all its details—
destined ultimately to become universal.
The fundamental problem of human life, as stated by
Comte, is how to subordinate Egoism to Altruism—or, to
put it in a perhaps simpler, though certainly less compact
form, how to give continually-increasing predominance to
the higher over the lower side of man’s nature, so that his
activity, which originally was inspired by necessarily in
dividualist motives, may become ever more and more social
�WHAT POSITIVISM MEANS.
7
in its character. This is a problem which, it is almost
needless to say, has been empirically dealt with, although
not explicitly recognized, by every religion in its turn, and,
in some cases, with remarkable success; but, owing to
what Positivism regards as the fatal want of reality in the
doctrines of all previously-existing religions, it was impos
sible that the success could be other than temporary. Those
creeds, whatever their differences in dogmatic details, all
inculcated in man’s mind a spirit of reverence and sub
mission to some supernatural power or powers, which he
supposed to exercise absolute dominion over his destiny,
and from which he derived all that he possessed. As a
collateral and subordinate result they also, through the
wisdom of their teachers, the spiritual leaders of the race,
fostered the sense of duty and desire for union among
those whose lives were subject to the same conditions, and
who acknowledged allegiance to the same Divine Power.
At first, no doubt, this was done in a very rudimentary
and imperfect way; but every fresh religious develop
ment, while becoming simpler in its supernatural aspect,
strengthened the social ties, until Christianity, by its
doctrine that all men were children of one Father, and
consequently brethren, carried the conviction of the unity
of the race to a point which had never before been reached,
thereby approximating more closely than any previous
creed to a solution of the problem.
Assuming, however, the truth of the Positivist hypothesis
as to the disappearance of theological belief, a substitute
will eventually be required for the supernatural Power
which has so long served, not merely as the rallying-point
of man’s intellectual conceptions, but as the source of
inspiration of his social sympathies. This substitute
Positivism finds in Humanity, which, following out a
suggestion of Pascal, it personifies as an immense and
eternal Being, to whose immeasurable services we are
indebted for all the blessings we enjoy, and whose
existence, apart altogether from disputed theological
legends of origin, is, at all events, an indisputable fact.
It is not unusual to speak of Positivism as if it were a mere
a priori emanation from Comte’s brain; as if he had under
taken the task of reconstructing society in such a fashion
as merely to give it a shape which should correspond with
his own prejudices and conceptions; and he has accord
�8
WHAT POSITIVISM MEANS.
ingly been, taxed with arrogance and presumption. But
to regard Positivism in this fight is to mistake its character
and its aims. It is, in theory, a scientific construction,
framed in accordance with what Comte regarded as per
manent and incontrovertible laws governing the world and
man, and cannot, therefore, justly be condemned as a mere
arbitrary scheme for which Comte alone is responsible.
How far its claim in this respect is well-founded is, of
course, open to question, and no one was more sensible
than Comte of the difficulties which lay in the way of its
general acceptance. He was fully aware of the tentative
nature of his task, but, while acknowledging the possi
bility that shortcomings might ultimately be detected in
his doctrines, he insisted strenuously on the virtue of his
method. “ In all inquiries,” he said, “but especially in
the study of social questions, the method is more important
than the doctrine ” ; and in more than one passage of his
fundamental work, the Philosophic Positive, he admitted, in
a spirit of modesty widely separated from the arrogance
laid to his charge, that different conclusions from his own
might be arrived at by “more fortunate successors”,
employing his method, but possessed of later, and there
fore more accurate, information. The tendency to agree
with him that social, like all other, phenomena, are subject
to the action of natural law, is certainly increasing.
Whether the system he built up on this assumption will
ultimately secure the adhesion of mankind, is a question
which only the future can decide.
Although, however, Positivism puts forward these scien
tific pretensions, it has by no means the dry, cold character
with which it is sometimes reproached, and which is popu
larly attributed to all science. Its cardinal principle is
the supremacy of feeling over intellect, and this principle
is fostered in every way by the conception of Humanity, by
the cultivation of a sense of gratitude to the past, by a
touching attitude of reverence towards the dead, by insist
ing on the sacredness of family ties, by exalting the func
tions of woman as a wife and a mother, and by the most
elaborate provisions for what Comte called Cuite — a
French word which has, perhaps, no adequate equivalent
in English, but is more or less imperfectly rendered by the
word “worship ”, and which, as employed by Comte, has
for its object to enforce the idea, not merely of the solidarity,
�WHAT POSITIVISM MEANS.
>
9
but—what is far more important—the conimu/ty of the
human race: an idea which lay at the root of Carlyle’s
Hero Worship. “The History of the World”, said Car
lyle, “is the Biography of Great Men”, and he declared
that he knew of “no nobler feeling ” than “the transcen
dent admiration of a Great Man”, to which he gave the
name of worship. Comte—with whom, not merely on this
but on some other points, Carlyle had much in common—
gave a more universal and systematic form to this con
ception by his remarkable compilation of the “Positivist
Calendar ”, which, with the double view of cultivating
a knowledge of the history of the past, and stimulating
our gratitude for the legacy it has bequeathed to us,
devotes each day in the year to the memory of some bene
factor of the race: some great man who, whether as priest
or warrior, poet or statesman, thinker or worker, aided, by
his efforts, the great cause of human progress. Carlyle
justifies hero-worship by asking whether every “true
man” does not feel “that he is, himself made higher by
doing reverence to what is really above him ” ; and this
question is some index to the spirit which animates Posi
tivism. It urges its adherents to endeavour to understand
the past, as a means of raising their own characters. It
seeks to repress the tendency, so widely manifest in the
present generation, to glorify itself at the expense of its
ancestors, and to substitute for it a spirit of humility,
springing from a more thorough knowledge of the extent
of our obligations; in reference to which, indeed, it affirms,
in one of its most characteristic axioms, that, with the
lapse of time, the living become ever more and more subject to
the dominion of the dead, and that, therefore, in adopting
an attitude of irreverence towards the past, we are vainly
striving to escape from an inevitable destiny.
As a further means of subordinating the individual to
the community, and therefore to Humanity, Positivism
seeks to break down the barrier which now exists between
private and public life, by means of a series of social cere
monies, to which Comte gave the name of Sacraments,
and which are intended to remind each member of a community that, in all the important epochs of his career—
e.g., birth, marriage, death—his interests are not exclusive,
but that he forms part of a greater whole which is also
concerned. This view of life, although expressed under
�10
WHAT POSITIVISM MEANS.
theological forms, has been, sanctioned by all previous
creeds, and Positivism merely continues the tradition.
By these and similar means it endeavours to assert the
supremacy of feeling over intellect, and to stimulate the
sentiment of social duty—duty to Humanity. But according
to the wise phrase of Tacitus, which has been so often
repeated, the difficulty is not merely to do our duty, but
to know what is our duty ; and here the assistance of the
intellect is necessary. Such knowledge is to be obtained
only by education directed to social ends ; and perhaps the
most important part of Comte’s work is his comprehensive
scheme for the reform of education, which, if carried out,
would mean a veritable revolution, not merely in the
methods of teaching, but in social habits and modes of
life. It would be superfluous at the present moment to
enter into the details of this scheme, but the magnitude of
the changes it contemplates is faintly indicated by the pro
vision that schools, as now understood, would be abolished,
all children being left in their mother’s care till the age of
fourteen, and receiving from her the rudiments of educa
tion which they are now taught at school. This, however,
is merely a preliminary process, it being proposed that, at
the age of fourteen, the children of all classes, and both
sexes, shall commence an encyclopaedic training (occupying
seven years, and founded on Comte’s Classification of the
Sciences), which is intended to give them a general
acquaintance with the whole field of human knowledge,
beginning with mathematics, passing afterwards in suc
cession through astronomy, physics, chemistry, biology, and
sociology, and terminating with morals. This education is to
be imparted by an organized body of teachers, whom Comte
designates by the name of a priesthood—a term which,
especially in Protestant countries, is invested with certain
sinister associations, and the employment of which accounts,
no doubt, for the suspicion with which many people view
Positivism, under the impression that, if once established,
it would be dangerous to liberty. Of the existence of this
feeling Comte was quite aware, but his survey of history
led him to the conclusion, which, ignoring current preju
dices, he formulates as a definite sociological theory—that
no society can exist, and be developed, without a priesthood in
some form or other. “All men”, he said, “stand in need
of education and counsel ”, and wherever any institution
�WHAT POSITIVISM MEANS.
11
is found to exercise these functions, there, under whatever
name it is known, exists what is in essence a priesthood. In
this sense the germ of a Positivist priesthood has already
made its appearance, although in a very imperfect form.
The science teacher, the physician, the journalist, each in
his own way, performs these functions, and may conse
quently, within his own limits, be regarded as a priest.
Comte, however, desired that what is now done in a
spontaneous, informal way, with too often no guarantee of
either capacity or integrity, should be done by a carefully
selected body of men, trained for the purpose, devoting
their whole lives to the work, and voluntarily abandoning
all competition for wealth or exalted position.
But education, in the Positivist sense, must not be re
garded as limited to mere book-learning. Its object, as
already stated, is to inculcate principles of civic duty—to
make men not merely scholars, but citizens; the education
which allows any member of the community to stand aloof
from the political and social movements of his time, how
ever elaborate it may be from the intellectual stand-point,
being, in Comte’s view, utterly unworthy of the name.
Obviously, however, the character of civic duty is governed
by the conception which exists as to the nature and func
tions of the State; and here, again, Positivism sets forth an
ideal which, if established, would effect a revolution. With
the decay of theology, it regards as inevitable the decline
of the hereditary principle in government, the institution
of birth being directly dependent on theology. On this
hypothesis, the ultimate form of government will be
republican. War also, being regarded as another ally of
theology, it is assumed will disappear. If, in fact, the
Positivist estimate be correct, there are spontaneous ten
dencies now at work, by which society will ultimately be
transformed—which will, by degrees, abolish the theolo
gical, monarchical, and military character it still possesses,
and render it instead scientific, republican, and pacific
industrial. Abandoning, as Positivism does, all idea of a
future life, and of consolation in another world for the
misfortunes of this, it considers the highest duty of the
human race to be that of developing, by collective efforts,
the resources of the earth, its only dwelling-place, so that,
by the labours of each succeeding generation, the happiness
of its inhabitants may be increased. With the acceptance
�12
WHAT POSITIVISM MEANS.
of this view, many of the special classes identified with, and
supported by, existing institutions will gradually become
extinct, and society, in the main, will assume a purely
industrial aspect, the bulk of it consisting of workmen,
labouring as now, only under vastly improved conditions,
and with more avowedly social aims, in association with,
a comparatively small body of capitalists, regarded as
trustees of the wealth of the community, under the intel
lectual and moral' guidance of the priesthood, and in
spired and consoled by the companionship and sympathy
of women.
Industry, however, being the basis of the society to
which Positivism looks forward, and peace being ever
more and more firmly established, Comte predicts that the. communities into which mankind is now distributed will,
by degrees, undergo a process of re-arrangement. Thereare, in his view, three normal forms of human association
—three social aggregates which call out man’s affection,
and inspire him with a sense of duty—the Family, the
State, and Humanity. Of these, the spirit of union is most
intense in the case of the first, and most general in thecase of the last; the State serving as a connecting link
between the two—appealing to man’s sympathy and ener
gies on behalf of something nobler than the interests of
. the narrow family group, and so helping to raise him to
a consciousnesss of his duty to Humanity. In order, how
ever, that this process should be effective, the idea of
Country should be real and tangible. Patriotism, in the
proper sense of the term, Comte holds to be impossible in
the case of such enormous societies as those now con
stituting the principal states of the world. They are toolarge to inspire a genuine sentiment of affection and de
votion, and he regards it, therefore, as certain, that, sooneror later, a movement of decomposition will set in, which
will reduce them within narrower limits. The ideal Posi
tivist State, the State destined to become universal, is
represented by a city with its surrounding territory; and
Comte anticipates that, under the influence of this view,.
Europe will in time break up into a number of small
republics of the size of Belgium or Tuscany, in which,
as a result of the restraining discipline of the new universal
spiritual power which Positivism will establish, civic
duty, now too often a synonym for mere vulgar Chauvin
�WHAT POSITIVISM MEANS.
13
ism, will become a reality, modified, restricted, and en
nobled by subordination to the still loftier sentiment of
■duty to Humanity.
It will be seen that the aims of Positivism are large,
and it is consequently regarded with hostility by many
who are ignorant of its teaching, or who shrink from its
conclusions. It is sometimes classed indiscriminately with
Atheism, Communism, and other theories of a purely
revolutionary character ; and if attention be directed only
to the results which it proclaims as inevitable, and for
which it seeks to prepare the way, this comparison is,
perhaps, not unnatural. Between Positivism, however,
and other so-called “progressive” schools, there is a pro
found difference in method, which is too often overlooked.
While they mostly look to political changes, either peace
ful. or violent, as a means of achieving their ends, Positivism
relies solely on moral means. It insists that a reformation
in ideas must precede any alteration in institutions. One
of the most pregnant and luminous political maxims with
which Comte has enriched the world consists in this—that
progress is but the development of order ; from which maxim
the conclusion is inevitable that, unless based upon order,
progress of any permanent character is impossible. Al
though, therefore, the intellectual, moral, and political
aspects of society will, in the course of time, if the Posi
tivist ideal be reached, undergo modifications of which
the most advanced reformers now scarcely dream, yet it
is assumed that they will be effected gradually and spon
taneously, as the result of previous convictions arrived at
by means of Positivist education. Briefly, the method of
Positivism may be described as that of evolution as opposed
to revolution.
. Whether the Eeligion of Humanity be destined to justify
its title, time alone can show. Its success, or its failure
can matter nothing to its founder. The philosopher to
whose genius it is due, who passed his life in poverty and
obscurity, , gaining a precarious subsistence as a teacher of '
mathematics, now sleeps peacefully, indifferent alike to
praise or blame, in a quiet hollow of Père-Lachaise. It is
however, a significant testimony to the force of his doc
trines, that, in various parts of the world, they have
succeeded in. attracting groups of devoted adherents, of
different nationalities, who carry on a systematic propa
�14
WHAT POSITIVISM MEANS.
ganda. The influence of his teaching, moreover, cannot
De measured by the number of those who call themselves
Positivists. In Comte’s phrase, Positivism is “systema
tized common sense”, and, as such, it acts, naturally
enough, in different ways on different minds, influencing
them to an extent which it is quite impossible to gauge.
Persons of the most widely varying pursuits, although
unable to accept it as a whole, and even rejecting its
leading principles, have acknowledged their obligations
to it on points connected with their own special ex
perience.
The centre of the Positivist movement is at No. 10, Rue
Monsieur-le-Prince, Paris, where M. Pierre Laffitte, the
friend and disciple of Auguste Comte, assisted by a body
of younger co-religionists, carries on the work of scientific
and historical teaching essential to the progress of the
cause, and where also a Positivist magazine, La Revue
Occidentale, is published every two months. There are also
groups in Havre, Rouen, and other French cities. Positi
vism was introduced into England by Dr. Richard Con
greve, another disciple of Comte, and there are now three
organized bodies in London, the best known, perhaps, of
which has its head-quarters at Newton Hall, Fleur-de-lis
Court, Fetter Lane. The movement has of late years
spread to Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham, and other
British cities. It has branches also in Sweden, the United
States, Chili, Brazil, India, etc. The organization is not
very strict, and there are differences of opinion as to the
opportuneness of giving prominence to certain aspects of
the system; but, by common consent, an agreement exists
on fundamental points of doctrine. All the groups cherish
the same ideal, although some of them differ as to the
means of arriving at it.
Comte’s principal work, La Politique Positive, instituting
the Religion of Humanity, has been translated into
English, and published in four volumes by Longmans,
but is now out of print. Comparatively few people, how
ever, have sufficient time, and perhaps still fewer the
inchnation, to study, as it requires and deserves, so large
and important a philosophical work. Those who wish to
make acquaintance with the system, without so serious an
expenditure of energy, will do well to read Comte’s smaller
works, two of which, the General View of Positivism, and
�WHAT POSITIVISM MEANS.
15
the Catechism of Positive Religion, are published in English
in a convenient form, price half-a-crown each. The former,
translated by Dr. Bridges, and published by Messrs.
Beeves and Turner, 196, Strand, is an admirable exposition
of general principles, and, as such, is perhaps the more
suitable for a person approaching the subject for the first
time. It begins with a most remarkable chapter on the
intellectual character of Positivism, the first reading of
which, to any one not previously familiar with philosophical
problems, is in itself a veritable education. In the suc
ceeding chapters, it deals with such subjects as the nature
and uses of wealth (in connexion with which it includes a
profound criticism of the ordinary Economic and Socialist
theories), the position and duties of the workman in a
properly-organized society, the social functions of woman,
the human theory of marriage, the relation of Positivism
to Art, the meaning of the conception of “ Humanity ” as
a central object of religion, etc., etc. But, for the purpose
of learning the nature of the institutions by which it is
proposed to give effect to these principles, and to form
an idea of what society, organized in accordance with
them, would belike, the reading of the General View should
be supplemented by that of the Catechism, a translation of
which, by Dr. Congreve, is published by Messrs. Triibner
and Co., Ludgate Hill. The original appeared in 1852,
four years later than the General View, and as a conse
quence, Comte’s views having become more matured, the
religious conception of Positivism is brought forward more
distinctly. In it are found the list of books, known as the
Positivist Library, which Comte recommended for habitual
reading by those whose leisure is limited, and who are,
therefore, under the necessity of making a selection from
the enormous mass of literature by which they are sur
rounded ; a copy of the Positivist Calendar; and sundry
other tables, the knowledge of which is essential in order
to thoroughly realize the nature of Positivism, not merely
as a philosophical creed conducing to sound and tranquil
lizing convictions, but as a large-hearted effort to reor
ganize society, to stimulate material and moral progress,
and to increase the sum of human happiness. An English
abridgment, by Miss Martineau, of the Philosophic Positive
is published by Triibner in two volumes. An appreciative
memoir of Comte, with some account of the system, will
�16
WIIAT POSITIVISM MEANS.
be found ill the second volume of Lewes’s History of Philo
sophy. * A fuller and more synthetic view, however, is
given in the Notice sur V Œuvre et sur la Vie P Auguste Comte,
by Dr. Bobinet, his friend and physician.
Any one wishing for further information as to the organiza
tion in England, or the methods of propaganda, is requested
to apply to the Secretary of the English Positivist Com
mittee, Newton Hall, Fleur-de-lis Court, Fetter Lane,
London, E.C.
�
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What positivism means
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Ellis, Henry
English Positivist Committee
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Positivism
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Text
Amongst the rocky Cyclades was a small isiand that by
passing travellers of old was never visited. To the eye of
the Grecian navigator its rugged cliffs appeared to pro
mise a barren surface, unfit for the habitation of man,
and tempted no adventurer to explore the recesses that
lay within. But if any such had climbed the steep granite
precipice,—as my imagination has done,—and had once
safely gained the verdant slope that ascends to the in
land plains, how rich a prospect would have rewarded
the bold attempt!
Never did the glorious sun smile upon a lovelier spot
of earth. Sparkling streams trickled along the green
meadows, or leapt amidst the trees down the steep
ravines, opening into beautiful valleys embosomed in
groves below : where, between the dark cypress and grace
ful olive, glittered the marble dwellings whose light and
stately forms proclaimed their inhabitants to be the sons
of tasteful Greece. The mountain walls of the island rise
highest to the north ; but all around it is encircled by
massive crags,—which, however, are deeply enough cleft
for breezes continually to enter and, hiding amid the
branches, to murmur out tales of sportive malice, about
bewildered boats left tossing outside.
�-■c
■
FTlcwmlw
2
Beautiful Heliados! My subject is the hearts of thy
children, yet I linger in fancy on the verdant summit
of thy plains, and seem bathed in delight at the scene
spread before me. The deep blue sea, dotted with distant
is,lets, sleeps calm o’er the white ridges to south and
west. Dark pines crown the peak that rises high to the
north. But the eastern waves are all dancing in flame,
because soon will the God of light ascend his radiant
car, to lead his splendid course on this day of trium
phant rejoicing. For the day beheld is indeed that on
which Helios attains to his prime glory of solstitial
dominion: the day of annual jubilee to his adorers.
Where was the worship of Helios rendered with purer
and more exclusive honours than on his own island of
Heliados?----- He was to these scholars of nature the One
Supreme Deity; while a secondary homage, and no more,
was paid to the Queen of night and her attendant stars.
The simple cult might seem to show an Eastern origin:
yet this people was undoubtedly sprung from Greece. It
was a colony that had been planted thence in what were
now remote ages, and that consisted of some of the best
and wisest of that land, banished in civic struggle from
their native soil. The children of the first settlers soon for
got the traditions which they had heard from their fathers,
save alone their one ever-memorable legend. The legend,
namely, which related how, when the frail vessel that
bore them was cast wildly about on raging waves, under
heavens all wrapt in storm-clouds, the trembling exiles
prayed to Helios, and He, the gracious God, divided the
clouds, and stood—nay, stood forth in the divine beauty
of his hfiman form, and shot down an arrow before
them into the sea, * whence immediately arose the
rock-bound Heliados. They, singing aloud the praise of
their Deliverer, beat their oars with renewed strength,
and safely moored their bark in a cavern of the island,
* See Grote’s “Greece” Vol. I., p. 327.
.oTtah
-no ana I offv or rerracrauron, w mnn
�3
while the waves contended sullenly in vain against the
outward walls, indignant for their rescued prey.
To Helios the grateful settlers dedicated their new
abode. To Helios their piou3 offspring ascribed all the
blessings that multiplied around them. The high-priest
of Helios was the chief magistrate in their little state :
without whose sanction the deliberations of their repub
lican assemblies never passed into law.
For many generations the contented philosophic race
cultivated their island without a wish beyond. But at
length, as their skill increased, some adventurous youths
were bold enough to explore the seas, and seek out their
parent land. And' thence they brought back to the
wondering Heliadans a glowing report of the arts, and
the science, and, above all, of the gods of Greece. By
the knowledge of the latter the allegiance of some was
nearly drawn aside from their own exclusive Deity.
But the eloquence of the sage Philinos convinced all
hearts anew of the superiority of their own simple faith.
“Zeus, Athene, Heracles,” said he, “are figments of
• tradition; but our God is visibly manifest, pouring down
on us, from his benignant throne, life, light, and bless
ing.” The people heard him with gladness, and pro
claimed afresh with solemn vows that Helios alone was
their God, and that only . Him would they serve.
'
The communication with Greece was closed by the
breaking out of the Persian war. But a new stimulus
had been given to the minds of the inhabitants of
Heliados.
Now see from all sides the white-robed trains that
wind up the highest ascent, emulous to gain a place
nearest to the rounded platform at the top. Here, in
dazzling relief against the black pines that crown the
summit, stands an altar with a semi-circular marble
�_ __ meo.tvmhfir
»
4
alcove, fronting the mid-day sun : to which lead twelve
steps, so numbered from the months of the year.
Foremost the Priests with stately gait lead up the
procession, and range themselves around the altar. Next
follows a troup of young virgins, dedicated to the service
of the temple. Train after train succeeds, till the whole
mountain-side is covered with the band of worshippers,
all robed in white, and garlanded with myrtle or with
flowers. Motionless they stand, till from the glowing
waves emerges the first beam. Then, all arms are raised
aloft, instruments of music give forth a mighty clang, and
as from one voice bursts forth the universal chorus,
“ Ilail to our God, all hail! ”
The chorus swells into full harmony, and lasts until the
full round orb hangs suspended o’er the sea—or, rather,
until Helios has shaken the spray from his golden hair,
and, casting one bright glance along the glittering waves,
springs on in his car of flame to mount the unclouded
heaven.
Then the measure of the music changes. The magnifi
cent hymn subsides into a lighter strain. The multitudes
separate into groups, and around the altar youths and
maidens weave a mazy dance; while song and laughter
resound, and all presents a scene of exuberant but grace
ful mirth. Meanwhile, one individual after another, in
unbroken succession, ascends to the temple, and lays his
offering of fruits or flowers upon the altar, loading the
air with a delicious perfume.
Thus the hours wore on, until the fervid beams of
the mounting sun began to fall too intensely on the ex
posed worshippers. The languid dancers sank on the
heated ground, waving green branches over their heads.
Offerings ceased to be brought, and the songs were grad
ually silenced. Especially within the temple the glare
i5>L-p«
nn HhoioffvorreLracLaLioii, uuv mon
�reflected from the marble walls became intolerable.----- At
a signal from the High Priest, all fell prostrate on the
ground, and a chorus broke forth, solemn and grand, but
subdued and reverential to the degree of extreme awe:—
“Helios! Almighty! We have felt thv power. We adore
thee. The creatures of earth cannot sustain thy glance. Be
merciful in thy majesty!”
When the solemn strain was concluded, the priests led,
and all followed, down the mountain to the shady plains
below, while the virgins sang in cheerful measure,—
" He gave us groves for shelter, and running brooks.’’
Various paths brought the festive crowds again to
assemble on the cool borders of the translucent lake into
which all the tricklings from the mountains discharged
themselves. Here, abundant refreshments were placed,
and, reclined on the soft turf, each indulged himself as
his sportive fancy inclined. For wit and mirth were held
an acceptable homage to the God of light and beauty,
when in this way called forth, and consecrated by the
conscience of his presence. It was thus that sang their
poets, and thus that their priests approved ; for the wor
ship of the Grecian heart was joy. All-comprehensive
must be the homage paid to Him who is Sovereign over
all. Hence also, while the playfulness of lighter spirits
was thus benignly regarded, the graver and the more
philosophic spent the hours of this noontide repose in
the fashion that was their own, of learned converse.
Many a knot was gathered round some favourite sage,
who explained results of scientific research; or hung on
the lips of some traveller returned from Greece, in
structing them in wonders of art, or showing to them
the horrors of military invasion, contrasting with their
own happy tranquility, or, still more appropriately to
the day, giving them cause for a new exulting in the
intelligence and simplicity of their own worship, through
�rTloo.emhp.i’
6
description of idolatrous rites beheld there, to the mul
tiplied deities of the divided land, where gods as much
battled in heaven as their votaries below.
“But where is our Orthinos?” was inquired by many
a disappointed group. “ Has he no new discoveries to
impart to us on this great day of our rejoicing? Who
like him can exalt the praises of Helios, by bringing, as
he has done to us, continually new proof of his mighty
working?”
“See,” said a child, “I have a wondrous gift from
Orthinos. Through it I have seen the beauty of an in
sect’s wing. The master said to me, ‘Behold: thus are
the lowly offspring of earth adorned by the All-bounteous
One.’ He also showed me the secret wonders of fruits
and flowers.”
And in thez group where the priests sat apart, the
Sovereign spoke with displeasure. “Where is Orthinos?
Why addresses he not the people to-day ? ”
“ Sacred Father,” answered an aged priest with mild
and kindly countenance, “thou knowest that Orthinos
is dear to me as an only son. Last night I went to his
dwelling, and found him so deeply plunged in his studies
that he scarcely heeded my entrance. When I bid him
remember the holy assembly of this day, the beam of
his eye, as he looked up, was like that of Helios himself.
He pressed my hand, and words seemed struggling for
utterance; but when I listened as for the inspiration of
the Glorious One, he turned away from me and entreated
me to leave him. I obeyed, for I thought, surely the
God is mighty within him, and he will pour forth his
message to-morrow.”
“ Brother,” said the High Priest, “ I fear we have
erred greatly in our regard to this man. He seeks too
daringly to penetrate the mysteries of heaven. He has
turned his magic instruments to the face of Helios him-
mak-ps no a.noloffvorTe.vr<iCLavroii, mio mniu<.a,
�7
self—not for worship, but in presumptuous curiosity. We
have held our peace, for we deemed him the favourite of
our God. But am not I the accepted minister of Helios ?
And this day he is bold enough to disobey my ordinance.
Henceforth, I will look nearer to this Orthinos.”
“Great King of heaven forbid!” exclaimed Chares.
“ Shall it be suspected that the brightest and noblest son
of Heliados is an enemy to its God!—Is he not the des
cendant of that holy man who denounced the vanity of
the gods of Greece, and first proclaimed the great Helios
for our God alone ? ”
“ Yes: but by the ordinance of that same Philinos was
I appointed the minister of Helios, and the guardian of
his people.”
When the intensity of npon-day heat was past, and
the slanting beams of the descending sun fell with a
milder but a richer glow on the turfy glades, again the
song resounded, and the clang of tymbals woke the
sprightly dance. And as the Monarch sank into his ocean
bed, again did all voices unite in a solemn chorus of
richest harmony,. dying away in soft cadence with the
fading tints of heaven.
Unwilling to disperse, the white bands yet lingered on
the darkened hills:—for loving hearts are closer knit by
the communion of gracious piety. But my fancy now
follows alone the beautiful young maiden that steals
silently away to the depths of a distant grove:—Selene,
whose sweet voice has been trilling like the lark’s, as she has sung in delicious rapture the praises of the God
of day.
In a dark chamber, amidst strange instruments of his
own invention, sits Orthinos. Motionless he has remained
since light vanished out of heaven. Nor yet now is he
aroused by the light step of the maiden as she glides in,
,*
�J" Cl.__ J.,
rnonpmlip.r
8
till her soft arms have been laid about his neck, and she
has whispered,—“ My brother, would’st thou have me
with thee ? ’ ’
Orthinos drew her to his side, and passed his arm around
her.
“So weary and sad!—and all but thee have been so
happy on this' glorious day! Would that thou too----Thou dost shake thy head. Then I know that some dis
covery has rewarded thy labour. Wilt thou not impart
it to me ? ’’
“Ask me not. Do thou rather, my Selene, tell me all
the joy of thy innocent heart.”
“Ah! that my joy could shine out upon thy soul—that
I could reflect on thee, like the Queen of night, all the
gladness that has been mine on this day! Am not I thy
Selene, thy moon, who have received from thee all the
light of my mind?—And oh! my brother, this day when
all were rejoicing in the glory of our G-od, how much
brighter was that glory to me for all thou hast taught me
to know of him. I felt how blest was my lot to be near
unto one so wise.----- Why dost thou sigh ? ”
“ Go on, my sister. Tell me all thou hast felt.”
“ Never have I felt so vividly as this day the living in
fluence of our religion. What would be the light of the
sun to us if we knew not that it was the intelligent smile
of our G-od! As plants collapse and shrivel without his
vital warmth, so would even our souls without the blessed
consciousness of his presence. Every chord of our nature
is struck by him, and, tuned by piety, should respond
like Memnon’s lyre. Our eyes behold him; our senses
feel his genial heat; our souls believe and worship. He
is not a God hidden and unknown, but he suffers us to
behold him as he dwells in mysterious solitude in the blue
expanse of heaven. And though at times he may veil
his form, for anger at our sins, or for trial of our faith,
yet for ever he leaves us a glimmering assurance of his
a
unnino-v oTreiraciaiionroab nrru
�9
presence. And when he dismisses us at night, in order
that our mortal senses may have repose from too constant
a communion with his Divineness, he commits us in
charge to his gentle vicegerent. Here, Orthinos, how has
thy science come in aid of religion. For, while our ances
tors believed that in storm and at night Helios was
departed from us, now we know that it is only our earth,
changeful like its creature man, that then turns itself
away, and that He rests for ever fixed in central repose,
the Unchangeable I—I could smile, but that others believe
them now, at the images which held my infant reverence,
of a throned charioteer, careering round the level earth.
How far more glorious is the revelation of thy science, of
Helios holding-in worlds and worlds by his mighty energy,
as they roll and roll around him, ever ready to dash off
into destruction, if his hand were for an instant relaxed,
—he himself being all the time throned immovably on the
middle point of the universe! ”
“No!----- He moves: Helios too moves!----- Yesterday,
while I was watching him intently, the idea occurred to
me. This day I have re-examined all my evidence, and
I am sure. He does not truly occupy the centre of the
world of planets, but is just so far away from it as should
have been, if they, in their turn, have a power over him,
small but real, of the same kind as is that which he holds
over them. And, if so——”
“And, if so, what then?”
“ If so, he is no longer a God, but he is a world like
our own ! ”----“ The voice of Orthinos uttering blasphemy ! ” exclaimed
Chares, who suddenly entered.
“ Convince him that he is wrong, father,” cried Selene,
as she fell at the old man’s feet. “I am lost, myself,
in a fearful amazement. But you will show to him his
error.”
With eager enthusiasm, the philosopher drew forth his
�rTJonombp.i*
10
charts, and rapidly unfolded the course of his discovery
to the priest, who had been hitherto his admiring scholar,
and repeated the awful result. “Is it not manifestly so ?
Every indication confirms the suspicion that this vast
central power is governed by the same laws that deter
mine our own inferior action, and is therefore of a similar
nature.”
“ I am confounded, and know not how to answer thee,”
returned the simple-minded priest. “ But this I know,
that in thy blind pursuit of science thou art overthrowing
a faith which is supported firmly in every other kind of
way.”
“ Father, I have gone over the whole field of nature,
so far as it lies open before me, but all strengthens me in
the belief that there is a sameness of character in that
bright orb of heaven and this our earth.”
“I speak not of evidence that is of sense, rash Orthinos,
but of the stronger proof that touches straight on the
heart of man.”
“I know not what may serve for conviction to other
hearts ; but I myself am a man, and have listened to the
voice of my own heart; and it tells me that that alone is
adorable which is true.”
“Unhappy deluded one! does thy heart then say that
there is no God?”
“ Not so. On the contrary, all nature proclaims a Cause
that is well thought of as Divine. But I see still that
that Cause is far from such as we have believed.”
“How! A God unseen, unfelt? What is that but the
same as nothing—or, at least, a dim something in which
we have no concern, and is therefore no better to us than
nothing ? ”
“ A heaven without our Helios!” cried Selene. “Cold,
dread order, in the place of intelligence and love! To
believe that day restores us to the sight of him, not by
his loving, paternal will, but as a result of dead necessity,
icftrAH Tin a.nmoyv or
oiiavuwiwx,
�11
—to feel but the sort of warmth we might derive from
earthly fuel,—to see but a lamp in heaven, in place of
that clear revelation of Deity, which through our senses
draws our hearts to a constant living perception of a
power above us !----- And is this, then, the fruit of science :
by the bringing us to nearer vision to annihilate the
glorious mystery which dazzled our imagination, to dis
perse the divine phantoms of our own creation, and show
to us that our heaven is but the magnified reflection of
earth!----- Shall then the faith of man for ever yearn and
strive for a something above him, and for ever by know
ledge be cast back upon himself! ”
“I too have felt this,” said Orthinos, not unmoved.
“ But the light has come to me, and how shall I gainsay
it?”
‘‘Listen to me, my son,” rejoined Chares. “Have the
traditions of our fathers any weight with thee ? ”
“None: I have observed too well how superstition can
invent and disguise.”
“Then I will forbear to speak of these. But thou hast
granted that all nature proclaims a Maker?”
“I have. I believe it.”
“ Thou knowest that light and heat are the means of
all growth—that no chemical change ever happens, not
any blade of grass issues forth, no kind of living being is
formed, and thence is no human soul produced, except
through their ministering agency?”
“All this have my experiments gone to prove.”
“And light and heat come alone from the Sun?”
“ Apparently.”
“ Then is Helios the Author of all good! ”
“Or the Instrument.”
“ Granted, my son,” cried the old man triumphantly.
“ But so immediately, so exclusively the instrument, that
he is, as it were, the right hand of all Godhead, the breath
of its mouth, and the one form which it is pleased to put
�on,—and therefore to us the same as full Deity, being
that which is all that we can know of it.”
“Nay, but I have confident expectation that by search
ing I shall truly find out more.”
“Believe it not. Once quitting this safe and certain
ground, a cold and dead negative alone will lie before thee.
And for this thou wilt abandon the warm and cheering
faith which animates the heart and rouses up the virtue
of worshippers ; which lifts their eyes from a grovelling
on this base earth to the ennobling contemplation of
heaven.----- Interrupt me not. I read what thou would’st
say. Who of the Heliadans has gazed upon heaven like
thee? But oh! my son, to look upon heaven with bold
inquiring eye, feeling that thy spirit is master of its
secrets, and that heavenly bodies only lie as it were
beneath thee, to be investigated,—what is this but a
making of thyself the God thou worshippest ? And how
different, how incomparably more becoming to a mortal
being, is the state of mind where the adoring believer
bows consciously himself, before acknowledged Higher
Being, seeing and feeling that he himself is ever subject
to the inspection of Divinity.”
“ Father,” returned Orthinos after a pause, “ there is
much weight in your appeal. I feel there is a moral
difficulty to overcome.”
“Give heed to it, my son: give heed to it. Ponder it
in thy heart; and above all beware that thou disturb
not the faith of others.”
“I will not, while a doubt remains to my own mind.
Too much already I have perhaps said. My Selene, go
thou with this kind father, and let him pour comfort
into thy heart.”
“I will not leave thee, my brother. But oh! father,
bless me still in the name of Helios,” exclaimed the weep
ing girl as she knelt before Chares.
“ May Helios beam into thy soul, my daughter, and
�13
disperse thy doubts as he chaseth the mists of night.
For thee, Orthinos ”—and the old man hesitated and
shuddered, “I dare not say, may Helios bless thee!”
Chares hastened away, and as he passed through the
midnight shade of the grove, the thought of his mind
was a trembling rejoicing that this blasphemy had not
been uttered in the face of day.
With early dawn Selene left her restless couch that
she might go forth, and meet the first glance of rising
Deity. But in passing by the apartment where her brother
was wont to study she stopped, for she saw that he re
mained still seated as she had left him over-night. There,
amid his charts and instruments, he was slumbering with
a smile upon his lips like a happy infant. Selene bent
over him, and dropped a gentle kiss on his large smooth
brow. Orthinos awoke, and the clear soul that beamed
from his eyes seemed full of noble confidence, as of one
that has been in communion with lofty' thoughts. The
ruddy dawn shone into the chamber as Selene extinguished
the flickering lamp; and with one consent the brother
and young sister issued forth.
She looked inquiringly in his face as she turned their
steps to the accustomed hill.----- “ Whither thou wilt.”
In silence they mounted the hill and turned to the
crimson east.----- “ For worship, brother?” murmured the
maiden.
“ Yes, Selene, for worship :—here,—everywhere. Wher
ever we turn, new wonders unfold themselves, beyond the
feeble ken of man. Never was my soul so tuned to wor
ship as now that I seem to have first opened my eyes
upon the miracles of nature. Last night, Selene, as I
pursued my researches, schemes of such vastness of con
ception dawned on me as almost dazzled my imagination.
As yet they are no more than faint gleams; but I shall
trace them into the boundless space before me.”
�“And leave behind thy religion and thy God! What
then shall science avail thee ! ”
“No! if my science be true,—and, I think, none can
prove it false,—that which we have been adoring is no
God, and his worship is superstition, not religion.”
“Whom, what, then shall we worship?”
“ That yet is unknown. But do not shrink from the
idea. He does not the less exist, because we are not yet
able to discern Him.----- 1 will confess to thee that at first,
when it seemed to me truly that the'Maker was annihilated
from creation, I felt dismayed: as if the universe were
suddenly dead, without a soul. But I re-consider, and
find that it is our imagination about Him, not Himself,
that in reality is departed. And though He is yet to seek,
all the proofs we have ever had of His being still remain
as much as ever in full force.”
“But oh1 if invisible, if no object of sense, it seems to
me that He can be no object of love !----- Brother, are
the arguments of Chares without weight ? ”
“Not entirely so. The practical worth of any doctrine
is a testimony in its favour.
The moral value found
in it ought to serve as a guard against our rashly aban
doning it. But it cannot prove, nor can anything prove,
that it is criminal to seek for more knowledge; and much
less can it impugn the claim on us which is that of any
knowledge once surely gained. The really good must be
inevitably at one with the really true. But how can we
know under what influence the old ideas may have sprung
forth, which now are clothed with the sacred form of
religion, and which, having been received as such, have
twined themselves about the deepest and the dearest parts
of our nature—nay, which indeed have by a beautiful
sublimation in character become actually that which they
at first but pretended to be ?
I have spoken to thee of
successive eras in the formation of our globe ;—so, in the
progress of humanity, has religious faith taken stand on
�15
different stages, as new layers of moral civilization have
spread over the rude mental world; and in each success
ive case, no sooner have the flooding waters subsided than
life newly has shot from every pore, fresh verdure has
covered the rocky bed, and a glad creation has arisen as
if it were to endure for ever 1
How ruthless appears to
us, the ephemeral creatures of earth, the destruction that
has repeatedly swept over it, appearing as if destined to
hurl nature back into chaos:—instead of which, each in
stance of destruction has brought it to onward stages of
perfection. Even so it is painful to break up old forms
of religion—to tear away from the heart its long-cherished
associations. Even so is there destruction for a while, in
partial measure, to even morality and virtue. But fear not
in the end for either virtue or religion. These truly are
divine—divine in themselves. They are immortal energies,
inseparable from true human nature, however the facile
images they have been decked in by rude invention may
truly prove destined to perish.”
Orthinos paused, for Helios was breaking forth from
the waves. It was the signal at which all Heliadans were
wont to fall prostrate, and worship. Selene threw her arms
around hei- brother. He pressed her to his bosom, and
together they watched the noblest spectacle of nature.
“ Glorious is that beam,” said the philosopher, “ but
more glorious to me, Selene, was the light that broke in
upon my mind, when the thought flashed on me of the
wondrous balance on which are worlds poised in the
real heaven.”
They descended the hill, and Selene felt that there was
a power in her brother’s soul on which she could rest,
even as she hung upon his arm for bodily support.
Orthinos returned to his study, and the maiden wandered
alone. Alone! yes, Selene felt that she was indeed alone!
She sought the thickest groves, and if a sunbeam crossed
�JL £L
rTJpnornbftr
16
her path., she shrank aside. But the shades were oppres
sive, and seemed to her like the mansion of death. And
when the voices of distant virgins, chanting their morn
ing hymn to Helios, were borne to her on the breezes,
Selene wept. Yet not in thought did she reproach her
brother that he had revealed to her truths too vast and
stern for her weaker soul.
She gloried in his superior
mind. She felt her own enlarged : for hers was of the
kindred nature which could receive, if not originate;
it could appreciate and admire, if it could not itself
accomplish, the daring and undeviating pursuit of truth.
Hers too was the love that would share in all things. He
could not lead, where she was unwilling to follow. But,
now, as a thousand images of home-nourished association
crowrded into her mind, she felt as if the pathway before
her were a drear and barren wilderness, beyond which,
if there lay a fairer home, her strength might fail to
reach it. He, her guide, it appeared to her, was now to
be her all, in earth and heaven.
Meanwhile the youths who were accustomed to be taught
by Orthinos, lamented that he came not forth. Still by
these, who respected his retirement, he was left in quiet.
Nevertheless, it was not long that his study was undis
turbed. For the High Priest sent Chares to summon
him to the royal presence.
Orthinos prayed his friend that he might delay till he
had finished the calculation in which he was plunged.
Bnt the command was imperative, and reluctantly he
obeyed. “ The Ruler of our Isle,” he said, “ has a right
to know the doctrines that are promulgated among his
people ; and I am willing to explain to him, as to all
Heliadans, the discoveries that have opened themselves
to me.”
“ I beseech thee, forbear I Dost thou not perceive that
these notions of thine are utterly subversive, not only of
Tin H.T1UIOH V vr ’
vciutvii,
�17
the religion, but of the whole government of our Isle ;
and that therefore thou must appear to the Ruler, not
only as an impious blasphemer, but also as a rebel ? ”
The idea was startling to Orthinos. For, wholly im
mersed as he had been in his discoveries, he had never
yet contemplated this consequence.
“Be guided by me, my son,” urged the old man, with
tears of earnest affection.
“ Keep these thoughts all
within thy own breast.”
“It is impossible! For all will come and question me
—unless, indeed, I be shut up, or banished from commu
nion with men.----- 1 have no wish to interfere with the
government of our Isle.
We have lived freely and
happily under the paternal sway of our Priest.----- Yet,
I bethink me, this was owing to the cause that our
religion gave its sanction to the yoke, whence voluntarily
was it that we bent to it. I see that if truly our faith
be changed, nought can hinder but that discord and
rebellion will follow.----- -Even so was it, father, that in
the realm of my own nature were discord and rebellion
also stirred. But not for these, nevertheless, did I swerve
from my course. Nor will I now, from any fear of what
may happen to others. For them and me, I am per
suaded, there is no better guide than honest truth.”
Chares would have urged farther, but reverence for
his Sovereign, and religion towards his God, restrained
his lips.
Boldly, but without defiance, Orthinos made his con
fession before the High Priest; and, subsequently, before
the assembled chiefs of the island. Horror and dismay
were in all hearts, contending with the esteem in which
he was universally held, as the wisest of their learned
men. Hitherto, it had never happened in Heliados that
any shedding of blood should appear needful at the bar
of justice. But this was an unheard-of crime; and how
�18
should they arrest its fearful contagion from spreading
amongst the people? dhey would gladly have imposed
silence, and left the inflicting of punishment to the offended
Deity himself. But little would this avail. “ Know,”
said Orthinos, “that the way of science which I have
opened to multitudes of young inquiring minds will lead
also them to the same end that I have gained. In spite
of any endeavours to stop the current of thought, my
example will be repeated a hundred fold Yes, surely as
the light of another morrow will succeed on the darkness
of night, will truth arise on other souls as it has arisen
on mine.”
“He has spoken to his own condemnation,” said the
High Priest. “It is true that even now are there rumours
afloat of impiety diffused among the people. And we
must therefore set a warning before them to restrain
them from following his example. The denier of Helios
must die 1 ”
Thus the deliberations of the day were ended. And
at midnight the prisoner was left for the few short hours
of darkness to feel the unutterable cruelty of his doom.
He prayed that for one year,—one month,—he might enjoy
the precious boon of life. He prayed, at least, that this
night they would allow him his instruments and papers,
that he might finish the scheme on which he had entered.
But the judges—the priestly judges—were inexorable ; and
he repressed the deep anguish of his soul. All access
to his polluting presence was denied. Selene had been
committed to the charge of Chares, who was rendered
responsible that she should neither imbibe nor propagate
the impiety of her brother.
A third morning dawned on Heliados. And once more
the people assembled in crowds on the temple mountain.
But it was not now for joy and exulting worship. On
this day is a sacrifice to be rendered to the Mighty One: —
Tna.KeN nu nruivcr
'i
. 1
I
I
■
|
I!
|
�19
a crowning act of homage, but one of which the memory
will embitter all the worship to follow after.
Again arises Helios, glorious and unclouded in his
majesty. But a blighting mist is already filling the moral
atmosphere that will speedily dim for ever the faith of
his votaries.
The people whispered amongst one another in won
dering indefinite alarm till the white band of priests
appeared and wound up the ascent. Then an utter con
sternation seized on all, for as the priests opened their
ranks, and stood around the altar, they discovered in
the midst their Orthinos! The Sovereign Pontiff stood
forth, and with hand out-stretched towards the God
of day, commanded in the name of Helios that all
should listen.
“This man whom I have sanctioned to teach, and
from whom ye have loved to learn, has become a blas
phemer of our God. While the hearts of all his country
men have been glowing with a loving and grateful homage
to their Founder and Preserver, he has buried himself in
darkness with the spirits of darkness, and has only come
forth to deny the very being of our Helios. What fiery
indignation, what plagues, may not the offended God
hurl down on us, if we suffer this great criminal to dwell
amongst us unpunished ! Wherefore I have commanded
him to be brought here, that he may either worship,
or die.”
rl hen all fixed their eyes with trembling horror on the
prisoner, waiting breathless for his reply.
“I have found that Helios is no God, and I cannot
worship him.”
“Ye have heard his blasphemy, 0 Heliadans. Lift up
your voices with me, and deprecate the wrath of the
Mighty One from falling on us also.”
And the people obeyed, while at the signal of their
Sovereign the priests bound Orthinos to the altar; placing
�XILan<a.mheiy
20
at his feet the instruments of his science, the fruits of
the labour of his life, doomed also to destruction.
‘‘Thus,” said the High Priest, “we commend to Helios
his own victim. In darkness has this sin been engen
dered : let him now feel the potency of the God, warm
and gracious at first, but increasing to fierce overpower
ing might. Until noon shall he remain, in order that
perchance the God may have mercy on him, and touch
his heart.”
Orthinos would have spoken to the people, but they
were bidden to retire out of hearing of his voice, “ in
order,” it was said, “ that he might commune with
Helios alone.”
But there was one whom no command could force to
retire. On the steps of the altar knelt Selene, her
appalled guardian at her side. The woeful interval had
been passed by them in alternate efforts on his part to
console the maiden, and to renew her shaken faith. Now,
in the weariness of her intense sorrow there was but one
thought that remained to her:—“If Helios be a God, he
will spare my godlike brother.” And the vehemence of
this assurance still upheld her.
The hours moved slowly on, and the heat became more
and more intense, so that those that stood within the
temple sickened and grew faint. And yet no cloudy veil
was spread in mercy, no breeze was made to fan the
heavy air. The fire of heaven burned fiercely, as if with
indignant ire.
The shadow of the altar dwindled till it fell only on
the very centre of the alcove.
Then the Pontiff once
more approached, and addressed his victim. “Dost thou
now adore the Omnipotent Helios ? ”
Orthinos raised his languid head, and once more cast
a glance around on the exquisitely-beautiful landscape,
—on the many well-loved ones whose hearts were now
agonizing for him,—on her, chiefly, who was the nearest
�21
and best loved. And his soul shrank from the blank
region of death, the dread expanse without a shore and
without a God:—and it struggled convulsively for life.
But on this side was a Lie. And his lips uttered the
firm resolve, “ Let me die I ”
Then the priests drew from amongst his instruments a
clear transparent circle, by the aid of which he had been
wont to regard the heavens. “ With this,” said the High
Priest, “ has he lifted presumptuous gaze to the mysteries
of heaven. Behold, what shall happen when the God in
like manner looks down upon him! ”
And they held it over the head of the victim. The
glowing beams were concentrated on his brow and pierced
direct to his brain. Sense and life were instantaneously
extinguished, and the stricken frame held Orthinos no
more.
What should have followed for a people thus robbed
of their noblest teacher but a bitter season of contention,
between those who admired him and those who con
demned:—between those who would have saved him with
their lives, and those who abhorred him with all their
souls ?
I see the image of my unhappy Selene, after she had
passed through the paroxysm of her anguish, reviving some
what into a gentle consolation, through the force of her
pure instincts. Her thoughts hovered ceaselessly over
the region where the spirit of her brother was now a
sojourner. Faith grew up for her out of love, and her
loving faith created or discovered a Heaven. Nor was
it long ere thither also her own spirit followed.
For the G-od-deprived island in general, however, in
creasing discord and increasing persecution raged long in
the manner of ujiholy demons:—until at last a great
�rT)dp.f>mhfir
22
solution was evolved. The conviction was brought forth
into a ripe truth, that undoubtedly is the soul of man
in itself a surer medium for the manifesting of Deity
than any exhibitor of mere physical glory.
And it
happened therefore, inevitably, that the repentant and
grateful countrymen of Orthinos turned to worship him
self as their God.
. With this consummation the history of the Heliadans
closed. Shortly after, their island was submerged by an
earthquake.
Sara S. Hennell.
Hackney, November, 1846.
�[This little tale is now printed with a view to private use.
The date attached to the manuscript copy is retained as a
necessary index; but none the less, as requires to be ack
nowledged, has the original version been subjected through
out, under present revision, to some measure of correction
of a slight kind.
The passage from Grote’s “Greece” which is referred to,
and which was the obvious source of the whole story’s com
position, is the following:----“After leaving Corcyra, the Argo was overtaken by a perilous storm
near the island of Thera: the heroes were saved from imminent peril by
the supernatural aid of Apollo, who, shooting from his golden bow an
arrow which pierced the waves like a track of light, caused a new island
suddenly to spring up in their track and present to them a port of refuge.
The island was called Anaphe; and the grateful Argonants established
upon it an altar and sacrifices to Apollo jEgletes, which were ever after
wards continued, and traced back by the inhabitants to this originating
adventure.”
8. 8. H.]
COVENTRY, March, 1884.
CURTIS AND BEAMISH, PRINTERS, COVENTRY.
�---- —"-- -—“--- “
------f---- .— 2*. Cl
rTianomllP.r
�
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Victorian Blogging
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Heliados a mythical legend
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Hennell, Sara Sophia
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Place of publication: Coventry
Collation: 22, [1] p. ; 19 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Printed by Curtis and Beamish, Coventry. Date of publication from KVK.
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[s.n.]
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1884
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Mythology
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Conway Tracts
Legends
Mythology
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fl
^ertrn
DELIVERED BEFORE THE
SUNDAY
LECTURE SOCIETY,
ST. GEORGE’S HALL, LANGHAM PLACE,
ON
SUNDAY AFTERNOON, 6th APRIL, 1879,
By H. MAUDSLEY, M.D.,
Professor of Medical Jurisprudence, University Colleye, London.
[Reprinted from the “ Fortnightly Review,” by kind permission of the
Editor.]
Honbon:
PUBLISHED BY THE SUNDAY LECTURE SOCIETY.
1879.'
PRICE THEEPENCE.
�SYLLABUS.
The doctrines of Materialism and Spiritualism.
Why Materialism is looked upon as inferior and degrading.
Every function of mind dependent upon organization.
Milton an avowed Materialist.
Materialism not inconsistent with the belief of a future life, but incon
sistent with the doctrine of a contempt of the body.
The human body the last and greatest product of organic development.
Differences of size and development between the brain of the lowest savage
and that of an ordinary European.
Corresponding differences of intellectual and moral capacities.
The reign of law in human evolution.
The reign of law in human degeneracy.
Morality the essential condition of complex social development.
Intellectual and moral lessons of Materialism.
�LESSONS OF MATERIALISM.
is well known that from an early period of speculative thought
two doctrines have been held with regard to the sort of
connection which exists between a man’s mind and his body. On
the one hand, there are those who maintain that mind is an
outcome and function of matter in a certain state of organization,
coming with it, growing with it, decaying with it, inseparable
from it: they are the so-called materialists. On the other hand,
there are those who hold that mind is an independent spiritual
essence which has entered into the body as its dwelling-place for
a time, which makes use of it as its mortal instrument, and which
will take on its independent life when the body, worn out by the
operation of natural decay, returns to the earth of which it is made:
they are the spiritualists. Without entering into a discussion as
to which is the true doctrfrie, it will be sufficient in this lecture to
accept, and proceed from the basis of, the generally admitted fact
that all the manifestations of mind which we have to do with in
this wprld are connected with organization, dependent upon it,
whether as cause or instrument; that they are never met with
apart from it any more than electricity or any other natural force
is met with apart from matter ; that higher organization must
go along with higher mental function. What is the state of things
in another world—whether the disembodied or celestially embodied
spirits of the countless myriads of the human race that have come
and gone through countless ages are now living higher lives—I do
not venture to inquire. One hope and one certitude in the matter
every one may be allowed to have and to express—the hope that
if they are living now, it is a higher life than they lived upon
earth ; the certitude that if they are living the higher life, most of
them must have had a vast deal to unlearn.
Many persons who readily admit in general terms the depend
ence of mental function on cerebral structure are inclined, when
brought to the particular test, to make an exception in favour of
the moral feeling or conscience. They are content to rest in the
uncertain position which satisfied Dr. Abercrombie, the dis
tinguished author of the well-known Inquiry concerning the In
tellectual Powers, who, having pointed out plainly the dependence
of mental function on organization, and, as a matter of fact which
t
I
�4
Lessons of Materialism.
cannot be denied, that there are individuals in whom every correct
feeling in regard to moral relations is obliterated, while the
judgment is unimpaired in all other relations, stops there, without
attempting to prosecute inquiry into the cause of‘ the remarkable
fact which he justly emphasises. “ That this power,” he says,
“ should so completely lose its sway, while reason remains un
impaired, is a point in the moral constitution of man which it does
not belong to the physician to investigate. The fact is unquestion
able ; the solution is to be sought in the records of eternal truth.”
And with this lame and somewhat melancholy conclusion he leaves
his readers impotent before a problem, which is not only of deep
scientific interest, but of momentous practical importance. The
observation which makes plain the fact does not, however,
leave us entirely without information concerning the cause of it,
when we pursue it faithfully, since it reveals as distinct a depen
dence of moral faculty upon organization as of any other faculty.
Many instructive examples of the pervading mental effects of
physical injury of the brain might be quoted, but two or three,
recently recorded, will suffice. An American medical man was
called one day to see a youth, aged eighteen, who had been struck
down insensible by the kick of a horse. There was a depressed
fracture of the skull a little above the left temple. The skull was
trephined, and the loose fragments of bone that pressed upon the
brain were removed, whereupon the patient came to his senses.
The doctor thought it a good opportunity to make an experiment,
as there was a hole in the skull through which he could easily
make pressure upon the brain. He asked the boy a question, and
before there was time to answer it he pressed firmly with his finger
upon the exposed brain. As long as the pressure was kept up the
boy was mute, but the instant it was removed he made a reply,
never suspecting that he had not answered at once. The experi
ment was repeated several times with precisely the same result,
the boy’s thoughts being stopped and started again on each
occasion as easily and certainly as the engineer stops and starts
his locomotive.
On another occasion the same doctor was called to see a groom
who had been kicked on the head by a mare called Dolly, and
whom he found quite insensible. There was a fracture of the
skull, with depression of bone at the upper part of the forehead.
As soon as the portion of bone which was pressing upon the brain
was removed the patient called out with great energy, “Whoa,
Dolly 1 ” and then stared about him in blank amazement, asking,
I
I
�Lessons of Materialism.
5
“Where am I?”
Three hours had
“Where is the mare?”
hw-8<-£fi passed since the accident, during which the words which he was
just going to utter when it happened had remained locked up, as
they might have been locked up in the phonograph, to be let go
it
mi' eiw the moment the obstructing pressure was removed. The patient
pa'bin did not remember, when he came to himself, that the mare had
kicked him ; the last thing before he was insensible which he did
ijjeirr^i remember was, that she wheeled her heels round and laid back her
:v OTBe ears viciously.
Cases of this kind show how entirely dependent every function
of mind is upon a sound state of the mechanism of the brain.
r/tewl Just as we can, by pressing firmly upon the sensory nerve of the
[ .nna arm, prevent an impression made upon the finger being carried to
the brain and felt there, so by pressing upon the brain we can as
rrirhe’i certainly stop a thought or a volition.
In both cases a good
tyri&w recovery presently followed the removal of the pressure upon the
rwfi<d brain; but it would be of no little medical interest to have the
after-histories of the persons, since it happens sometimes after a
>W0W<W serious injury to the head that, despite an immediate recovery,
h -v/ofc slow degenerative changes are set up in the brain months or years
jrwJtf: afterwards, which go on to cause a gradual weakening, and perhaps
LJtiIOV«| eventual destruction, of mind.
Now the instructive matter in this
case is that the moral character is usually impaired first, and some
■-asinrJ times is completely perverted, without a corresponding deterior
jtuoiM ation of the understanding; the person is a thoroughly changed
affl-Sflf) character for the worse. The injury has produced disorder in the
jKom most delicate part of the mental organization, that which is
iiusti-a® separated from actual contact with the skull only by the thin
ifewni investing membranes of the brain: and, once damaged, it is
miuied seldom that it is ever restored completely to its former state of
folium soundness. However, happy recoveries are now and then made
: .jGihoai from mental derangement caused by physical injury of the brain.
eiacb Some years ago a miner was sent to the Ayrshire District Asylum
F. ,ofi/w who, four years before, had been struck to the ground insensible
i 'li' vd by a mass of falling coal, which fractured his skull. He lay
miqqcw unconscious for four days after the accident, then came gradually
niiiloi to himself, and was able in four weeks to resume his work in the
F“ .fiq pit. But his wife noticed a steadily increasing change for the
fo&TOW worse in his character and habits ; whereas he had formerly been
idresiid cheerful, sociable, and good-natured, always kind and affectionate
•serf oJ to her and his children, he now became irritable, moody, surly,
mq&jja suspicious, shunning the company of his fellow-workmen, and
�6
Lessons of Materialism.
impatient with her and the children. This bad state increased;
he was often excited, used threats of violence to his wife and
others, finally became quite maniacal, attempted to kill them, had
a succession of epileptic fits, and was sent to the asylum as a
dangerous lunatic. There he showed himself extremely suspicious
and surly, entertained a fixed delusion that he was the victim of a
conspiracy on the part of his wife and others, and displayed bitter
and resentful feelings. At the place where the skull had been
fractured there was a well-marked depression of bone, and the
depressed portion was eventually removed by the trephine. From
that time an improvement took place in his disposition, his old self
coming gradually back; he became cheerful again, active and
obliging, regained and displayed all his former affection for his
wife and children, and was at last discharged recovered. No
plainer example could be wished to show the direct connection
of cause and effect—the great deterioration of moral character
produced by the physical injury of the supreme nerve-centres of
the brain: when the cause was taken away the effect went also.
Going a step further, let me point out that disease will some
times do as plain and positive damage to moral character as any
which direct injury of the brain will do. A fever has sometimes
deranged it as deeply as a blow on the head; a child’s conscience
has been clean effaced by a succession of epileptic convulsions, just
as the memory is sometimes effaced; and those who see much of
epilepsy know well the extreme but passing moral transformations,
which occur in connection with its seizures. The person may be
as unlike himself as possible when he is threatened with a fit;
although naturally cheerful, good-tempered, sociable and obliging,
he becomes irritable, surly, and morose, very suspicious, takes
offence at the most innocent remark or act, and is apt to resent
imaginary offences with great violence. The change might be
compared well with that which happens when a clear and cloudless
sky is overcast suddenly with dark and threatening thunder-clouds;
and just as the darkly clouded sky is cleared by the thunderstorm
which it portends, so the gloomy moral perturbation is discharged
and the mental atmosphere cleared by an epileptic fit or a succes
sion of such fits. In a few remarkable cases, however, the patient
does not come to himself immediately after the fit, but is left by it
in a peculiar state of quasi-somnambulism, during which he acts
like an automaton, doing strange, absurd, and sometimes even
criminal things, without knowing apparently at the time what he
is doing, and certainly without remembering in the least what he
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7
hag done when he comes to himself. Of excellent moral characterhabitually, he may turn thief in one of these states, or perpetrate
some other criminal offence by which he gets himself into trouble
with the police.
There are other diseases which, in like manner, play havoc with
moral feeling. Almost every sort of mental derangement begins
with a moral alienation, slight, perhaps, at the outset, but soon so
great that a prudent, temperate, chaste, and truthful person shall
be changed to exactly the opposite of what he was. This alienation
of character continues throughout the course of the disease, and
is frequently found to last for a while after all disorder of intelli
gence has gone. Indeed, the experienced physician never feels
confident that the recovery is stable and sure, until the person is
restored to his natural sentiments and affections. Thus it appears
that when mind undergoes decadence, the moral feeling is the first
to suffer ; the highest acquisition of mental evolution, it is the first
to witness to mental degeneracy. One form of mental disease,
known as general paralysis, is usually accompanied with a singu
larly complete paralysis of the moral sense from the outset; and a
not uncommon feature of it, very striking in some cases, is a
persistent tendency to steal, the person stealing in a weak-minded
manner what he has no particular need of, and makes no use of
when he has stolen it.
The victim of this fatal disease is
frequently sent to prison and treated as a common criminal in the
first instance, notwithstanding that a medical man who knows his
business might be able to say with entire certitude that the
supposed criminal was suffering from organic disease of the brain,
which had destroyed moral sense at the outset, which would go on
to destroy all the other faculties of his mind in succession, and
which in the end would destroy life itself. There is no question in
such case of moral guilt; it is not sin but disease that we are con
fronted with: and after the victim’s death we find the plainest
evidence of disease of brain which has gone along with the decay
of mind. Had the holiest saint in the calendar been afflicted as he
was, he could not have helped doing as he did.
I need not dwell any longer upon the morality-sapping effects of
particular diseases, but shall simply call to mind the profound
deterioration of moral sense and will which is produced by the
long-continued and excessive use of alcohol and opium. There is
nowhere a more miserable specimen of degradation of moral feeling
and of impotence of will, than the debauchee who has made
himself the abject slave of either of these pernicious excesses.
�8
Lessons of Materialism.
Insensible to the interests of his family, to his personal responsi
bilities, to the obligations of duty, he is utterly untruthful and
untrustworthy, and in the worst end there is not a meanness of
pretence or of conduct that he will not descend to, not a lie he will
not tell, in order to gain the means to gratify his overruling
craving. It is not merely that passion is strengthened and will
weakened by indulgence as a moral effect, but the alcohol or opium
which is absorbed into his blood is carried by it to the brain and
acts injuriously upon its tissues : the chemist will, indeed, extract
alcohol from the besotted brain of the worst drunkard, as he will
detect morphia in the secretions of a person who is taking large
doses of opium. Seldom, therefore, is it of the least use to
preach reformation to these people, until they have been restrained
forcibly from their besetting indulgence for a long enough period
to allow the brain to get rid of the poison, and its tissues to regain
a healthier tone. Too often it is of little use then ; the tissues
have been damaged beyond the possibility of complete restoration.
Moreover, observation has shown that the drink-craving is oftentihies hereditary, so that a taste for the poison is ingrained in the
tissues, and is quickly kindled by gratification into uncontrollable
desire.
Thus far it appears, then, that moral feeling may be impaired or
destroyed by direct injury of the brain, by the disorganizing action
of disease, and by the chemical action of certain substances which,
when taken in excess, are poisons to the nervous system. When
we look sincerely at the facts, we cannot help perceiving that it is
just as closely dependent upon organization as is the meanest
function of mind; that there is not an argument to prove the
so-called materialism of one part of mind which does not apply
with equal force to the whole mind. Seeing that we know
no more essentially what matter is than what mind is, being
unable in either case to go beyond the phenomena of which we
have experience, it is of interest to ask why the spiritualist
considers his theory to be of so much higher and intellectual and
moral order than materialism, and looks down with undisguised
pity and contempt on the latter as inferior, degrading, and even
dangerous ; why the materialist should be deemed guilty, not of
intellectual error only, but of something like moral guilt. His
philosophy has been lately denounced as a “ philosophy of dirt.”
An eminent prelate of the English Church, in an outburst of moral
indignation, once described him as possibly “ the most odious and
ridiculous being in all the multiform creation; ” and a recent writer
�. Lessons of Materialism.
9
in a French philosophical journal uses still stronger language of
abhorrance—“ I abhor them,” he says, “ with all the force of my
soul. ... I detest and abominate them from the bottom of
my heart, and I feel an invincible repugnance and horror when
they dare to reduce psychology and ethics to their bestial phy
siology—that is, in short, to make of man a brute, of the brute a
plant, of the plant a machine. . . . This school is a living
and crying negation of humanity.” The question is, what there is
in materialism to warrant the sincere feeling and earnest expression
of so great a horror of it. Is the abhorrence well founded, or is
it, perhaps, that the doctrine is hated, as the individual oftentimes
is, because misunderstood ?
This must certainly be allowed to be a fair inquiry by those who
reflect that no less eminent a person and good a Christian than
Milton was a decided materialist. Several scattered passages in
Paradise Lost plainly betray his opinions ; but it is not necessary
to lay any stress upon them, because in his Treatise on Christian
Doctrine he sets them forth in the most plain and uncompromising
way, and supports them "with an elaborate detail of argument. He
is particularly earnest to prove that the common doctrine that the
spirit of man should be separate from the body, so as to have a
perfect and intelligent existence independently of it, is nowhere
said in Scripture, and is at variance both with nature and reason ;
and he declares that “ man is a living being, intrinsically and
properly one and individual, not compound and separable, not,
according to the common opinion, made up and framed of two
distinct parts, as of soul and body.” Another illustrious instance
of a good Christian who, for a great part of his life, avowed his
belief that “ the nature of man is simple and uniform, and that the
thinking power and faculties are the result of a certain organization
of matter,” was the eloquent preacher and writer, Robert Hall.
It is true that he abandoned this opinion at a later period of his
life; indeed, his biographer tells us with much satisfaction that
“ he buried materialism in his father’s grave ; ” and a theological
professor in American college has in a recent article exultantly
claimed this fact as triumphant proof that the materialist’s “ gloomy
and unnatural creed ” cannot stand before such a sad feeling as
grief at a father’s death. One may be excused, perhaps, for not
seeing quite so clearly as these gentlemen the soundness of the
logic of the connection. On the whole, logic is usually sounder
and stronger when it is not under the pressure of great feeling.
The truth is that a great many people have the deeply-rooted
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Lessons of Materialism.
feeling that materialism is destructive of the hope of immortality,
and dread and detest it for that reason. When they watch the
body decay and die, considering furthermore that after its death it
is surely resolved into the simple elements from which all matter is
formed, and know that these released elements go in turn to build
up other bodies, so that the material is used over and over again,
being compounded and decompounded incessantly in the long
stream of life, they cannot realise the possibility of a resurrection
of the individual body. They cannot conceive how matter which
has thus been used over and over again can remake so many
distinct bodies, and they think that to uphold a bodily resurrection
is to give up practically the doctrine of a future life. It is a
natural, but not a necessary conclusion, as the examples of Milton
and Robert Hall prove, since they, though materialists, were
devout believers in a resurrection of the dead. Moreover, there
are many vehement antagonists of materialism who readily admit
that it is not inconsistent with the belief in a life after death.
Indeed, they could not well do otherwise, when they recollect
what the Apostle Paul said in his very energetic way, addressing
the objector to a bodily resurrection as “ Thou fool,” and what
happened to the rich man who died and was buried; for it is told
of him that “ in hell he lifted up his eyes, and cried and said,
Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he
may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I
am tormented in this flame.” Now if he had eyes to lift up and a
tongue to be cooled, it is plain that he had a body of some kind in
hell; and if Lazarus, who was in another place, had a finger to dip
in water, he also must have had a body of some kind there.
Leaving this matter, however, without attempting to explain the
mystery of the body celestial, I go on to mention a second reason
why materialism is considered to be bad doctrine. It is this : that
with the rise and growth of Christianity there came in the fashion
of looking down on the body with contempt as the vile and
despicable part of man, the seat of those fleshly lusts which warred
against the higher aspirations of the soul. It was held to be the
favourite province of the devil, who, having intrenched himself
there, lay in wait to entice or to betray to sin ; the wiles of Satan
and the lusts of the flesh were spoken of in the same breath, as in
the service of the English Church prayer is made for “ whatsoever
has been decayed by the fraud and malice of the devil, or by his
own carnal will and frailness ; ” and all men are taught to look
forward to the time when “ he shall change this vile body and make
�Lessons of Materialism.
11
it like unto his glorious body.” It was the extreme but logical
outcome of this manner of despising the body to subject it to all
the penances, and to treat it with all the rigour, of the most rigid
asceticism—to neglect it, to starve it, to scourge it, to mortify it in
every possible way. One holy ascetic would never wash himself,
or cut his toe-nails, or wipe his nose; another suffered maggots
to burrow unchecked into the neglected ulcers of his emaciated
body; others, like St. Francis, stripped themselves naked and
appeared in public without clothes. St. Macarius threw away his
clothes and remained naked for six months in a marsh, exposed to
the bite of every insect; St. Simeon Stylites spent thirty years on
the top of a column which had been gradually raised to a height of
sixty feet, passing a great part of his time in bending his
meagre body successively with his head towards his feet, and so
industriously that a curious spectator, after counting one thousand
two hundred and forty-four repetitions, desisted counting from
weariness. And for these things—these insanities of conduct may
we not call them—they were accounted most holy, and received
the honours of saintship.' Contrast this unworthy view of the
body with that which the ancient Greeks took of it. They found
no other object in nature which satisfied so well their sensejof
proportion and manly strength, of attractive grace and beauty; and
their reproductions of it in marble we preserve now as priceless
treasures of art, albeit we still babble the despicable doctrine of
contempt of it. The more strange, since it is a matter of sober
scientific truth that the human body is the highest and most
wonderful work in nature, the last and best achievement of her
creative skill; it is a most complex and admirably constructed
organism, “ fearfully and wonderfully made,” which contains, as it
were in a microcosm, all the ingenuity and harmony and beauty
of the macrocosm. And it is this supreme product of evolution
that fanatics have gained the honour of saintship by disfiguring
and torturing!
These, then, are two great reasons of the repugnance which is
felt to materialism, namely, the notion that it is destructive of the
hope of a resurrection, and the contempt of the body which has
been inculcated as a religious duty. And yet on these very points
materialism seems fitted to teach the spiritualist lessons of humility
and reverence, for it teaches him, in the first place, not to despise
and call unclean the last and best work of his Creator’s hand; and,.
secondly, not impiously to circumscribe supernatural power by the
narrow limits of his understanding, but to bethink himself that it
�12
Lessons of Materialism.
were just as easy in the beginning, or now, or at any time, for the
omnipotent Creator of matter and its properties to make it think
as to make mind think.
Passing from these incidental lessons of humility and reverence,
I go now to show that materialism has it moral lessons, and that
these, rightly apprehended, are not at all of a low intellectual and
moral order, but, on the contrary, in some respects more elevating
than the moral lessons of spiritualism. I shall content myself
with two or three of these lessons, not because there are not more
of them, but because they will be enough to occupy the time at my
disposal.
It is a pretty well accepted scientific doctrine that our fardistant prehistoric ancestors were a very much lower order of
beings than we are, even if they did not inherit directly from the
monkey; that they were very much like, in conformation, habits,
intelligence, and moral feeling, the lowest existing savages ; and
that we have risen to our present level of being by a slow process
of evolution which has been going on gradually through untold
generations. Whether or not “ through the ages one increasing
purpose runs,” as the poet has it, it is certainly true that “ the
.thoughts of men are widened with the process of the suns.” Now
when we examine the brain of the lowest savage, whom we need
not be too proud to look upon as our ancestor in the flesh—say a
native Australian or a Bushman—we find it to be considerably
smaller than an ordinary European brain ; its convolutions, which
are the highest nerve-centres of mind, are decidedly fewer in
number, more simple in character, and more symmetrical in
arrangement. These are marks of inferiority, for in those things
in which it differs from the ordinary European brain it gets nearer
in structure to the still much inferior brain of the monkey; it
represents, we may say, a stage of development in the long dis
tance which has been traversed between the two. A comparison
of the relative brain-weights will give a rude notion of the
differences : the brain-weight of an average European male is
49 oz.; that of a Bushman is, I believe, about 33 oz.; and that of
a Negro, who comes between them in brain-size, as in intelligence,
is 44 oz. The small brain-weight of the Bushman is indeed
equaled among civilised nations by that of a small-headed or socalled microcephalic idiot. There can be no doubt, then, of a
great difference of development between the highest and the lowest
existing human brain.
There can be no doubt, furthermore, that the gross differences
�Lessons of Materialism.
13
which there are between the size and development of the brain of
a low savage and of an average European, go along with as great
differences of intellectual and moral capacities—that lower mental
function answers to lower cerebral structure. It is a well-known
fact that many savages cannot count beyond five, and that they
have no words in their vocabulary for the higher qualities of
human nature, such as virtue, justice, humanity, and their
opposites, vice, injustice, and cruelty, or for the more abstract
ideas. The native Australian, for example, who is in this case,
having no words for justice, love, mercy, and the like, would not
in the least know what remorse meant; if any one showed it in
his presence, he would think probably that he had got a bad
bellyache. He has no words to express the higher sentiments and
thoughts because he has never felt and thought them, and has
never had, therefore, the need to express them ; he has not in his
inferior brain the nervous substrata which should minister to such
sentiments and thoughts, and cannot have them in his present
state of social evolution, any more than he could make a particular
movement of his body if the proper muscles were wanting. Nor
could any amount of training in the world, we may be sure, ever
make him equal in this respect to the average European, any more
than it could add substance to the brain of a small-headed idiot
and raise it to the ordinary level. Were any one, indeed, to make
the experiment of taking the young child of an Australian savage
and of bringing it up side by side with an average European child,
taking great pains to give them exactly the same education in
every respect, he would certainly have widely different results in
the end: in the one case he would have to do with a well-organized
instrument, ready to give out good intellectual notes and a fine
harmony of moral feeling when properly handled; in the other
case, an imperfectly organized instrument, from which it would be
out of the power of the most patient and skilful touch to elicit more
than a few feeble intellectual notes and a very rude and primitive
sort of moral feeling. A little better feeling, certainly, than that
of its fathers, but still most primitive ; for many savages regard as
virtues most of the big vices and crimes, such as theft, rape,
murder, at any rate when they are practised at the expense of
neighbouring tribes. Their moral feeling, such as it is, is extremely
circumscribed, being limited in application to the tribe. In Europe
we have happily got further than that, since we are not, as savages
are and our forefathers probably were, divided into a multitude of
tribes eager to injure and even extirpate one another from motives
�14
Lessons of Materialism.
of tribal patriotism; but mankind seems to be far off the goal of
its high calling so long as, divided into jealous and hostile nations,
it suffers national divisions to limit the application of moral feeling,
counts it a high virtue to violate it under the profaned name of
patriotism, and uses the words “ humanitarianism ” and cosmo
politanism ” as crushing names of reproach. There is plainly room
yet for a wider expansion of moral feeling.
Now what do the discoveries of science warrant us to conclude
respecting the larger and more complex brain of the civilised man
and its higher capacities of thought and feeling ? They teach us
this : that it has reached its higher level not by any sudden and
big creative act, nor by a succession of small creative acts, but by
the slow and gradual operation of processes of natural evolution
going on through countless ages. Each new insight into natural
phenomena on the part of man, each act of wiser doing founded
on truer insight, each bettered feeling which has been developed
from wiser conduct, has tended to determine by degrees a corre
sponding structual change of the brain, which has been transmitted
as an innate endowment to succeeding generations, just as the
acquired habit of a parent animal becomes sometimes the instinct
of its offspring; and the accumulated results of these slow and
minute gains, transmitted by hereditary action, have culminated in
the higher cerebral organization, in which they are now, as it
were, capitalised. Thus the added structure embodies in itself the
superior intellectual and moral capacities of abstract reasoning and
moral feeling which have been the slow acquisitions of the ages,
and it gives them out again in its functions when it discharges its
functions rightly. If we were to have a person born in this
country with a brain of no higher development than that of the
low savage—destitute, that is, of the higher nervous substrata of
thought and feeling—if, in fact, our far remote prehistoric ancestor
were to come to life among us now—we should have more or
less of an imbecile, who could not compete on equal terms with
other persons, but must perish, unless charitably cared for, just as
the native Australian perishes when he comes into contact and
competition with the white man. The only way in which the
native Australian could be raised to the level of civilised feeling
and thought would be by cultivation continued through many
generations—by a process of evolution similar to that which lies
back between our savage ancestors and us.
That is one aspect of the operation of natural law in human
events—the operation of the law of heredity in development, in
�Lessons oj Materialism.
15
carrying mankind forward, that is, to a higher level of being. It
teaches us plainly enough that the highest qualities of mind bear
witness to the reign of law in nature as certainly as do the lowest
properties of matter, and that if we are to go on progressing in
time to come it must be by observation of, and obedience to, the
laws of development. But there is another vastly important
aspect of the law of heredity which it concerns us to bear sincerely
in mind—its operation in working out human degeneracy, in
carrying mankind downwards, that is, to a lower level of being.
It is certain that man may degenerate as well as develop; that he
has been doing so both as nation and individual ever since we have
records of his doings on earth. There is a broad and easy way of
dissolution, national, social, or individual, which is the opposite of
the steep and narrow way of evolution. Now what it behoves us
to realise distinctly is that there is not anything more miraculous
about the degeneracy and extinction of a nation or of a family
than there is about its rise and development; that both are the
work of natural law. A nation does not sink into decadence, I
presume, so long as it keeps fresh those virtues of character
through which it became great among nations ; it is when it suffers
them to be eaten away by luxury, corruption, and other enervating
vices, that it undergoes that degeneration of character which
prepares and makes easy its over-throw. In like manner a family,
reckless of the laws of physical and moral hygiene, may go through
a process of degeneracy until it becomes extinct. It was no mere
dream of prophetic frenzy that when the fathers have eaten
sour grapes, the children’s teeth are set on edge, nor was it a
meaningless menace that the sins of the fathers shall be visited
upon the children unto the third and fourth generations; it was
an actual insight into the natural law by which degeneracy increases
through generations—by which one generation reaps the wrong
which its fathers have sown, as its children in turn will reap the
wrong which it has sown. What we call insanity or mental
derangement is truly, in most cases, a form of human degeneracy,
a phase in the working out of it; and if we were to suffer this
degeneracy to take it course unchecked through generations, the
natural termination would be sterile idiocy and extinction of the
family. A curious despot would find it impossible, were he to
make the experiment, to breed and propagate a race of insane
people; nature, unwilling to continue a morbid variety of the
human kind, would bring his experiment to an end by the
production of sterile idiocy. If man will but make himself the
�16
Lessons of Materialism.
subject of serious scientific study, he shall find that this working
out of degeneracy through generations affords him a rational
explanation of most of those evil impulses of the heart which he
has been content to attribute to the wiles and instigations of the
devil; that the evil spirit which has taken possession of the
wicked man is often the legacy of parental or ancestral error,
misfortune, or wrong-doing. It will be made plain to him that
insanity, idiocy, and every other form of human degeneracy is not
casualty, but defect which comes by cause ; that it is just as much
the definite consequent of definite antecedents as any other event
in nature; and that these antecedents many times are within human
controul, being the palpable outcome of ignorance or of neglect of
the laws of moral and physical hygiene. Let me illustrate by an
example the nature and bearing of this scientific study.
I will take for this purpose a case which every physician who
has had much experience must have been asked some time or
other to consider and advise about: a quite young child, which is
causing its parents alarm and distress by the precocious display
of vicious desires and tendencies of all sorts, that are quite out of
keeping with its tender years, and by the utter failure of either
precept, or example, or punishment to imbue it with good feeling
and with the desire to do right. It may not be notably deficient
in intelligence; on the contrary, it may be capable of learning
quickly when it likes, and extremely cunning in lying, in stealing,
in gratifying other perverse inclinations; and it cannot be said
not to know right from wrong, since it invariably eschews the
right and chooses the wrong, showing an amazing acuteness in
escaping detection and the punishment which follows detection.
It is, in truth, congenitally conscienceless, by nature destitute of
moral sense and actively imbued with an immoral sense. Now
this unfortunate creature is of so tender an age that the theory of
Satanic agency is not thought to offer an adequate explanation of
its evil impulses ; in the end everybody who has to do with it feels
that it is not responsible for its vicious conduct, perceives that
punishment does not and cannot in the least reform it, and is
persuaded that there is some native defect of mind which renders
it a proper case for medical advice. Where, then, is the fault that
a human being is born into the world who will go wrong, nay, who
must go wrong, in virtue of a bad organization ? The fault lies
somewhere in its hereditary antecedents. We can seldom find
the exact cause and trace definitely the mode of its operation—the
study is much too complex and difficult for such exactness at
�Lessons of Materialism.
17
present—but we shall not fail to discover the broad fact of the
frequency of insanity or other mental degeneracy in the direct line
of the child’s inheritance. The experienced physician seldom feels
any doubt of that when he meets with a case of the kind. It is
indeed most certain that men are not bred well or ill by accident
any more than the animals are; but while most persons are ready
to acknowledge this fact in a general way, very few pursue the
admission to its exact and 'rigorous consequences, and fewer still
suffer it to influence their conduct.
It may be set down, then, as a fact of observation that mental
degeneracy in one generation is sometimes the evident cause of an
innate deficiency or absence of moral sense in the next generation.
The child bears the burden of its ancestral infirmities or wrong
doings. Here then and in this relation may be noted the in
structive fact, that just as moral feeling was the first function to
be affected at the beginning of mental derangement in the
individual, so now the defect or absence of it is seen to mark the
way of degeneracy through generations. It was the latest
acquisition of mental evolution; it is the first to go in mental
dissolution.
A second fact of observation may be set down as worthy of con
sideration, if not of immediate acceptation, namely, that an absence
of moral feeling in one generation, as shown by a mean, selfish,
and persistent disregard of moral action in the conduct of life, may
be the cause of mental derangement in the next generation. In
fact, a person may succeed in manufacturing insanity in his
progeny by a persistent disuse of moral feeling, and a persistent
exercise, throughout his life, of those selfish, mean, and anti-social
tendencies which are a negation of the highest moral relations of
mankind. He does not ever exercise the nervous substrata which
minister to moral functions, wherefore they undergo atrophy in
him, and he runs the risk of transmitting them to his progeny in
so imperfect a state, that they are incapable of full development of
function in them ; just as the instinct of the animal which is not
exercised for many generations on account of changed conditions
of life, becomes less distinct by degrees and in the end, perhaps,
extinct. People are apt to talk as if they believed that insanity
might be got rid of were only sufficient care taken to prevent its
direct propagation by the marriages of those who had suffered it
or were like to do so. A vain imagination assuredly I Were all the
insanity in the world at the present time clean sweptaway to-morrow,
men would breed it afresh before to-morrow’s to-morrow by their
�18
Lessons of Materialism,
errors, their excesses, their wrong-doings of all sorts. Rightly,
then, may the scientific inquirer echo the words of the preacher,
that however prosperous a man may have seemed in his life, judge
him not blessed before his death: for he shall be known in his
children: they shall not have the confidence of their good descent.
In sober truth, the lessons of morality which were proclaimed by
the prophets of old, as indispensable to the stability and well-being
of families and nations, were not mere visions of vague fancy;
founded upon actual observation and intuition of the laws of
nature working in human events, they were insights into the
eternal truths of human evolution.
Whether, then, man goes upwards or downwards, undergoes
development or degeneration, we have equally to do with matters
of stern law. Provision has been made for both ways ; it has been
left to him to find out and determine which way he shall take. And
it is plain that he must find the right path of evolution, and avoid the
wrong path of degeneracy, by observation and experience, pursuing
the same method of positive inquiry which has served him so well
in the different sciences. Being pre-eminently and essentially a
social being, each one the member of one body—the unit, that is,
in a social organism—the laws which he has to observe and obey
are not the physical laws of nature only, but also those higher laws
which govern the relations of individuals in the social state. If
he make his observations sincerely and adequately in this way, he
cannot fail to perceive that the laws of morality were not really
miraculous revelations from heaven any more than was the
discovery of the law of gravitation, but that they were the essential
conditions of social evolution, and were learned practically by the
stern lessons of experience. He has learnt his duty to his
neighbour as he has learnt his duty to nature; it is implicit in
the constitution of a complex society of men dwelling together in
peace and unity, and has been revealed explicitly by the intuition
of a few extraordinary men of sublime moral genius.
As it is not a true, it cannot be a useful, notion to foster, that
morality was the special gift to man, or is the special property, of
any theological system, and that its vitality is in the least bound
up with the life of any such creed. Whether men believed in
Heaven and Hell or not, in Jupiter or in Jehovah, in Buddha or in
Jesus, they could not fail to find out that some obedience to moral
law is essential to social evolution. The golden rule of morals
itself—“ Do unto others as ye would have others do unto you”—
was perceived and proclaimed long before it received its highest
�Lessons of Materialism.
19
Christian expression.* We ought to be just and to confess
the truth: there were good Christians in the world before
Christ. It is not, indeed, religious creed which has invented
and been the basis of morality, but morality which has been the
bulwark of religions. And as a matter of fact it is too true that
morality has suffered many times not a little from its connection
with theological creeds ; I that its truths have been laid hands on
and used to support demoralising super sitions which were no part
of it; that doctrines essentially immoral have been even taught in
the name of religion; and that religious systems in their struggles
to establish their supremacy have oftentimes shown small respect
to the claims of morality. Had religion been true to its nature and
function, had it been as wide as morality and humanity, it should have
been the bond of unity to hold mankind together in one brother
hood, linking them in good feeling, good-will, and good work
towards one another; but it has in reality been that which has most
divided men, and the cause of more hatreds, more disorders, more
persecutions, more bloodshed, more cruelties than most other
causes put together. In order to maintain peace and order, there
fore, the State in modern times has been compelled to hold itself
practically aloof from religion, and to leave to each hostile sect
liberty to do as it likes so long as it meddles not by its tenets and
ceremonials with the interests of civil government. That is the
present outcome of a religion of peace on earth and goodwill
among men 1 On the whole it may be thought to be fortunate for
the interests of morality that it is not bound up essentially with
any form of religious creed, but that it survives when creeds die,
having its more secure foundations in the hard-won experience of
mankind.
The inquiry which, taking a sincere survey of the facts, finds
the basis and sanction of morality in experience, by no means
* There appears to be no doubt that Confucius, among others, has the
clearest apprehension of it and expressly taught it; and the Buddhist
religion of perfectron is certainly founded upon self-conquest and self
sacrifice. They are its very corner-stone: the purification of the mind
from unholy desires and passions, and a devotion to the good of others,
which rises to an enthusiasm for humanity, in order to escape from the
miseries of this life and to attain to a perfect moral repose. “ Let all the
sins that have been committed fall upon me, in order that the world may
be delivered,” Buddha says. And of the son or disciple of Buddha it is
said, “ When reviled he revileth not again; when smitten he bears the
blow without resentment; when treated with anger and passion he returns
love and good-will; when threatened with death he bears no malice.”
�20
Lessons of Materialism.
arrives in the end at easy lessons of self-indulgence for the
individual and the race, but, on the contrary, at the hardest
lessons of self-renunciation. Disclosing to man the stern and
uniform reign of law in nature, even in the evolution and
degeneracy of his own nature, it takes from him the comfortable
but demoralising doctrine that he or others can escape the penalty
of his ignorance, error, or wrong-doings either by penitence or
prayer, and holds him to the strictest account for them. Dis
carding the notion that the observed uniformity of nature is but a
uniformity of sequence at will which may be interrupted whenever
its interruption is earnestly enough asked for—a notion which,
were it more than lip-doctrine, must necessarily deprive him of his
most urgent motive to study patiently the laws of nature in order
to conform to them—it enforces a stern feeling of responsibility
to search out painfully the right path of obedience and to follow it,
inexorably laying upon man the responsibility of the future of his
race. If it be most certain, as it is, that all disobedience of natural
law, whether physical or moral, is avenged inexorably in its conse
quences on earth, either upon the individual himself, or more often,
perhaps, upon others—that the violated law cannot be bribed to
stay its arm by burnt-offerings nor placated by prayers—it is a
harmful doctrine, as tending directly to undermine understanding
and to weaken will, to teach that either prayer or sacrifice will
obviate the consequences of want of foresight or want of self
discipline, or that reliance on supernatural aid will make amends
for lack of intelligent will. We still pray half-heartedly in our
churches, as our forefathers prayed with their whole hearts, when
we are afflicted with a plague or pestilence, that God will “ accept
of an atonement and command the destroying angel to cease from
punishing; ” and when we are suffering from too much rain we
ask him to send fine weather “ although we for our iniquities have
worthily deserved a plague of rain and water.” Is there a person
of sincere understanding who, uttering that prayer, now believes
it in his heart to be the successful way to stay a fever, plague, or
pestilence ? He knows well that, if it is to be answered, he must
clean away dirt, purify drains, disinfect houses, and put in force
those other sanitary measures which experience has proved to be
efficacious, and that the aid vouchsafed to the prayer will only be
given when, these being by themselves successful, the prayer is
superfluous. Had men gone on believing, as they once believed,
that prayer would stay disease, they would never have learned and
adopted sanitary measures, any more than the savage of Africa,
�Lessons of Materialism.
21
■who prays to his fetish to cure disease, does now. To get rid of
the notion of supernatural interposition was the essential condition
of true knowledge and self-help in that matter.
. Looking at the matter in the light of scientific knowledge, it is
•hard to see how any one can think otherwise. However, one may
•easily overrate the depth to which such knowledge goes in the
general mind: at best it is but a thin surface-dressing. Only a
few days ago, on opening a book at random, I hit on the following
extract from a sermon on the Miracles of Prayer, by a well-known
clergyman :—
“ But we have prayed, and not been heard, at least in the present visita
tion. Have we deserved to be heard? In former visitations it was
observed commonly how the cholera lessened from the day of public
humiliation. When we dreaded famine from a long-continued drought,
on the morning of our prayers the heaven over our head was of brass; the
clear burning sky showed no. token of change. Men looked with awe on
its unmitigated clearness. In the evening was a cloud like a man’s hand;
the relief was come.”
This is from a sermon preached by no mean citizen of no mean
city; it was preached at Oxford, in 1866, and the preacher was
Dr. Pusey, who goes on to say that it describes what he himself
saw on the Sunday morning in Oxford, on returning from the
early communion at St. Mary’s, at eight. The change occurred in
the evening. A good instance, one would be apt to say, of a very
common fallacy of observation and reasoning—the fallacy that an
event which happens after another necessarily happens in conse
quence of it! But what I would point out is, that if Dr. Pusey’s
interpretation of the matter be true, all our scientific knowledge of
the order of nature has no stable foundation; it is no better than
a baseless fabric, which has come like wind and like wind may go.
And most certain it is that if such views were universal, the result
would be to carry us back straight to the ignorance and barbarism
which prevailed in Europe before the Reformation and the dawn
of modern science. Consider how much it means, that a man of
Dr. Pusey’s culture and eminence should so little apprehend the
fundamental principles of modern science, should be so blind to
the conception of the reign of law in nature ; consider again how
the great majority of the people are in his case, and that the torch
of modern science is after all really carried by some hundred men
or so in Europe and America, and would be pretty nigh extin
guished by their simultaneous deaths ; and consider, lastly, that
we have everywhere in our midst a most complete and powerful
organisation which, holding that all truth has been given into
�22
Lessons of Materialism.
the keeping of the church from the beginning, and cannot be
either added to or taken from, is truly a gigantic and unsleeping
conspiracy against the human intellect;—consider these things
fairly, I say, and then ask yourselves soberly whether modern pro
gress is so stable and assured a thing as we are apt to take it for
granted it is. For my part, I would not give much for it if the
Homan Catholic Church had its way for fifty or a hundred years.
In all ages of the world, I make no doubt, there have been a few
persons with too much insight to accept the fables which have
satisfied the vulgar, but who dared not utter their thoughts, or,
uttering them, were quickly extinguished; the torch of knowledge
has been again and again lit and again and again put out; and
truth never will be made secure until it has been driven down
into the hearts of the masses of the people by a right method of
education from generation to generation.
Many persons who could not confidently express their belief in
the power of prayer to stop a plague or a deluge of rain, or who
actually disbelieve it, still have a sincere hold of the belief of its
miraculous power in the moral or spiritual world. Nevertheless, if
the matter be made one simply of scientific observation, it must be
confessed that all the evidence goes to prove that the events of
the moral world are matters of law and order equally with those
of the physical world, and that supernatural interpositions have no
more place in the one than in the other; that he who prays for
the creation of a clean heart and the renewal of a right spirit
within him, if he gets at last what he prays for, gets it by the
operation of the ordinary laws of moral growth and development,
in consequence of painstaking watchfulness over himself and the
continual exercise of good resolves. Only when he gets it in that
way will he get the benefit of supernatural aid; and if it rests in
the belief of supernatural aid, without taking pains to get it
entirely in that way, he will do himself moral harm; for if he
cannot rely upon special interpositions in the moral any more than
in the physical world, if he has to do entirely with those
secondary laws of nature through which alone the supernatural is
made natural, the invisible visible, it needs no demonstration that
the opposite belief cannot strengthen, but must weaken, the under
standing and will. It is plain that true moral hygiene is as
impossible to the person who reEes upon his fetish to change his
heart in answer to prayer, as sanitary science is impossible to the
savage who relies upon his fetish to stay a pestilence in answer to
prayer.
�Lessons of Materialism.
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23
So far from materialism being a menace to morality, when it is
properly understood, it not only sets before man a higher intellec
tual aim than he is ever likely to reach by spiritual paths, but it
even raises a more self-sacrificing moral standard. For when all
has been said, it is not the most elevated or the most healthy
business for a person to be occupied continually with anxieties and
apprehensions and cares about the salvation of his own soul, and
to be earnest to do well in this life in order that he may escape
eternal suffering and gain eternal happiness in a life to come. The
disbeliever might find room to argue that here was an instance
showing how theology has taken possession of the moral instinct and
vitiated it. Having set before man a selfish instead of an altruistic
end as the prime motive of well-doing—his own good rather than the
good of others—it is in no little danger of taking away his strongest
motive to do uprightly, if so be the dead rise not. Indeed, it
makes the question of the apostle a most natural one : “ If, after
the manner of man, I have fought with beasts at Ephesus, what
advantageth it me if the dead rise not ? ” Materialism cannot
hesitate in the least to declare that it is best for a man’s self and
best for his kind to have fought with the beasts of unrighteousness,
at Ephesus or elsewhere, even if the dead rise not. Perceiving
and teaching that he is essentially a social being, that all the
mental faculties by which he so much excels the animals below
him, and even the language in which he expresses his mental func
tions, have been progressive developments of his social relations,
it enforces the plain and inevitable conclusion that it is the true
scientific function, and at the same time the highest development,
of the individual, to promote the well-being of the social organiza
tion—that is, to make his life subserve the good of his kind. It
is no new morality, indeed, which it teaches ; it simply brings men
back to that which has been the central lesson and the real stay
of the great religions of the world, and which is implicit in the
constitution of society; but it does this by a way which promises
to bring the understanding into entire harmony with moral
feeling, and so to promote by a close and consistent interaction
their accordant growth and development; and it strips morality
of the livery of superstition in which theological creeds have
dressed and disfigured it, presenting it to the adoration of mankind
in its natural purity and strength.
�“ The Pathology of Mind.” By H. M AUDSLEY, M.D. Being the Third
Edition of the Second Part of the “Physiology and Pathology of
Mind,” recast, much enlarged and re-written. In 8vo, price 18s.
liy the same Author.
“ The Physiology of Mind.” Being the First Part of a Third Edition
revised, enlarged, and re-written, of “ The Physiology and Pathology
of Mind.” Crown 8vo, 10s. 6d.
“Body and MindAn Inquiry into their Connection and Mutual Influ
ence, specially with reference to Mental Disorders. Second Edition,
enlarged and revised, with Psychological Essays added. Crown 8vo.,
6s. 6d.
Macmillan & Co., London.
SUNDAY LECTURE SOCIETY.
To provide for the delivery on Sundays in the Metropolis, and to encourage
the delivery elsewhere, of Lectures on Science, —physical,^intellectual,
and moral,—History, Literature, and Art; especially in their bearing
upon the improvement and social well-being of mankind.
President.—W. B. Carpenter, C.B., LL.D., M.D., F.R.S., &c.
Vice-Pre sidents.
Professor Alexander Bain.
Sir Arthur Hobhouse, K.C.S.I.
James Booth, Esq., C.B.
Thomas Henry Huxley, Esq., LL.D.,
Charles Darwin, Esq., F.R.S., F.L.S.
F.R.S., F.L.S.
Edward Frankland, Esq., D.C.L., Herbert Spencer, Esq.
Ph. D., F.R.S.
W. Spottiswoode, Esq., LL.D., P.R.S.
James Heywood, Esq., F.R.S., F.S.A. John Tyndall, Esq., LL.D., F.R.S.
THE SOCIETY’S LECTURES
ARE DELIVERED AT
ST. GEORGE’S HALL, LANGHAM PLAGE,.
On SUNDAY Afternoons, at FOUR o'clock precisely.
(Annually—from November to May).
Twenty-four Lectures (in three series), commencing Sunday, the 2nd
of November, 1879, will be given.
Members’ -£1 subscription entitles them to an annual ticket, transferable
(and admitting to the reserved seats), and to eight single reserved-seat
tickets, available for any lecture.
For tickets, and for the Lectures published by the Society, of which lists
can be obtained on application, apply (by letter enclosing cheques, post
office orders or postage stamps) to the Hon. Treasurer, Wm. Henry
Domville, Esq., 15, Gloucester Crescent, Hyde Park, W. The Lectures
can also be obtained of Mr. J. Bumpus, Bookseller, 158, Oxford Street, W.
Payment at the door:—One Penny; — Sixpence;—and (Reserved
Seats) One Shilling.
Kenny & Co., Printers, 25, Camden Road, London, N.W.
�
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Victorian Blogging
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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The first love again : a discourse delivered in the Church of the Redeemer, Cincinnati, Ohio, Nov. 28,1875, on the occasion of the re-union of the two Societies, which had divided fifteen years previously, chiefly on the issue of supernaturalism
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CONWAY, Moncure Daniel [1832-1907]
Description
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Place of publication: [s.l.]
Collation: 21 p. ; 15 cm.
Notes: Part of Morris Miscellaneous Tracts 1. Reprinted from the Cincinnati Daily Commercial (revised by the author). With a preface about the doctrinal differences between the first Congregational Church and the Church of the Redeemer in Cincinnati.
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[s.n.]
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[1875]
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G3342
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Unitarianism
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application/pdf
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Text
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English
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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 (The first love again : a discourse delivered in the Church of the Redeemer, Cincinnati, Ohio, Nov. 28,1875, on the occasion of the re-union of the two Societies, which had divided fifteen years previously, chiefly on the issue of supernaturalism), 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>
Doctrines
Dogma
Liberalism (Religion)
Morris Tracts
Rationalism
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yVlUMAL
AND
‘ Read it again, and tell me, who was she ?’
‘Well, wines are best to drink where they are grown.
And tales to tell where they are old and known ;
But Mumal was a fair false sorceress,
Whose wiles brought half the East to nakedness,
Whom Mendra and the king set out to see.
Before hei’ house what seemed a river ran,
And here they met a crazy beggar man
Who said “ Ye soon shall be forlorn like me.”
The king turned back, the river ran too high :
Mendra went forward, and he found it dry.
He passed the roaring lions, made of stone,
The seven couches, where her shadows lie,
Who stretched to clasp him as he hurried by,
And found the couch where Mumal sat alone,
Too idle to do anything but love.
So he went back and made his boast thereof,
Nor showed her to the envious king, save he
Would serve them at their feast on bended knee :
Who paid the scorn with bonds, yet nightly freed
In the dear prison of her arms he slept
Till once he found not whom her sister kept.’
‘ And lost his faith, but not his love ; now read
In the seven-gated hold
Mendra sits, bound sevenfold
With the meshes of fine gold;
There they cast him to grow old.
And the hold hath seven eyes,
Where the king hath set his spies,
Set to spin the captive’s sighs
To a deadlier web of lies.
There when night is at the noon
Mendra wails beneath the moon.
1 Of. ‘Tuhfatu-1 Kiram’ in Sir H. Elliott’s History of India, voh i., pp. 345—341
and Captain Burton’s Sindh, pp. 114—125.
�MUMAL AND MENDRA.
‘ Where did she go when I could not follow?
Where is she gone whom. I held so dear ?
She is false and fair, and her heart is hollow;
I called her name and she did not hear.
If she had loved me she would have heard,
Though my voice were only the voice of a bird,
Singing far away as the flight of a swallow,
She would have heard me, called me to follow;
If she had loved me she would have heard.
Faster than any swallow can fly,
I came to her under the cloudy sky,
With neither moon nor stars above,
And never a guiding light but Love,
And the fleetest steed that would follow my track
Panting after me under the spur,
Should journey three days ere he turned back,
But I journeyed in three hours to her ;
And all my magic was only Love.
She taught me Love’s magic, I know it yet,
She taught me, and how could she forget ?
She could have heard me, I know, far away,
If she could not hear she had only to stay,
To stay for her love where the roses blow,
If she loved me, what ailed her to go ?’
In the garden at Mayapur,
Where the magic lions of Mumal roar,
Sitting alone on the magic bed,
Mumal also made moan, and said :
4 Seven weeks, and day by day,
I make the fountain of gladness play;
Seven weeks, and night by night,
I burn in my bower the lovers’ light;
Seven weeks, and I always wear
The lovers’ flower in my scented hair;
Seven weeks, and I wmtch and pray,
Saying, “Surely he comes to-day;” '
Seven weeks and he is away.
Is Mendra dead that he comes no more
To the garden of love at Mayapur ?
If he lives, he can come if he will,
Yet I know while he lives he loves me still.’
301
�302
MUMAL AND MENDRA.
Over against the prison tower,
Mumal hath spoken the word of power.
In heaven the Lord of lovers heard,
Before she spake it the mighty word,
And none of the seventy-seven spies
Beheld her palace of love arise :
But Mendra saw it with hungry eyes,
And he marvelled what Mumal came to do,
And he said, ‘ The false is seeking the true;’
And he waited a space while the palace grew
’Twixt the prison bars and the boundless blue.
When the palace builders went away,
Mumal stood at the window the livelong day.
Mendra looks forth every morn
To greet his love with a smile of scorn.
Mendra looks forth every eve
To see if his love still waits to grieve;
From morning to eve his curtains fall,
Lest his beloved, who loves him well,
Should see but his shadow upon the wall,
And all day the loveless laugh in hell,
To think that one night’s fickleness
Should have put hex' delight so far away,
That she might not find it in many years;
Though she never had loved her love the less
For the night that her sister made hei' stay.
But every morn and every even
Tears are shed in the lovers’ heaven,
And the tears of heaven are healing tears.
Over against the tower again
Mumal hath builded a palace of pain ;
She watches there as she watched before
To lure Mendra home unto Mayapur ;
And Mendra also will never miss
The exquisite pain, the shuddering bliss,
To sit in his chains and to know that a queen
Is pining to see him, and he unseen.
About the seven-gated hold
She builded her palaces seven fold ;
Seven moons she watched in each
To see her love and to hear his speech ;
�DRAWN DY E. F. CLARKE.
MUMA L AND MENDRA.
��MUMAL AND MENDRA.
All her reward was, morn by morn,
To know that he watched how she brooked his scorn ;
All her rest was to know at eve
He had known she was there to love and grieve ;
While he did not forget, though he did not forgive,
He loved her enough to help her to live.
But when six times seven moons were past,
And she entered the fairest palace and last;
She panted greatly in hope and fear,
Saying, ‘ I have done and the end is near;
Will Love accept of me even yet ?
I have been patient and sorely tried,
There is only one night for Love to forget,
Only one little stain for Love to hide,
When he wraps me up into the light at his side.
0 Love, accept of me even yet,
For the tears wherein I am purified.’
And the Lord of death who is Lord of love,
Who is over and under the souls of all,
Considered her voice when he heard her call:
And he strengthened her out of his house above.
And she walked to the window with steady pace,
And she looked her last with a quiet face.
She looked forth into the dewy dawn,
And already the curtains of black were drawn ;
She looked again through the noon-day skies,
And the sable curtains did not rise;
She watched till she saw the golden moon,
And the curtains were drawn as at morn and noon,,
‘ 0 love, there is nothing to see,’ she said,
‘ 0 love, you will have me cover my head;
If love hideth himself what is left to see,
Though I hide myself love shall discover me,
Love shall behold me, and only he,
0 love, there is nothing to do,’ she said,
And she bowed to her love, and she was dead.
And because of the love that had made them one,.
Binding their souls in a band for ever,
That either might tangle, but never sever,
He understood that her watch was done,
303
�304
MUMAL AND MENDRA.
That she had forgotten that love was pain,
In the land of the Lord who makes all things plain,
And he said, ‘ She is gone where I must follow,
She will guide me now, for she holds me dear,
To the land beyond the flight of the swallow,
To the far-off land that is always near.’
Now the spies had said, ‘ 0 king, we see
No sin in Mendra concerning thee;’
So the king commanded to set him free.
But ere they came to his release,
He also had entered into peace.
Long ago, and long ago,
Mumal and Mendra ceased from woe,
In the land where seven rivers flow,
Yet they, whose hearts are molten in one,
By the fire that burns beyond the sun,
Thank the Lord of lovers unto this day
For Mumal’s and Mendra’s love, and pray
To the Lord, who healed the pain and strife,
They had while they sought to the Lord of-life,
Crying out, with short ecstatic breath,
To the Lord of love, who is Lord of death,
Laughing at life which is hard and hollow,
Till out of the prison of hope and fear
The fluttering spirit is free to followr
To the far-off land that is alwTays near.
G. A. Simcox.
�
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Victorian Blogging
Description
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Title
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Mumal and mendra: a legend of Scinde
Creator
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Simcox, George Augustus
Clarke, E.F. (ill)
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: [London]
Collation: 300-304 p. : ill. ; 23 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. From The Dark Blue 2 (November 1871). Attribution of journal title and date: Virginia Clark catalogue. The Dark Blue was a London-based literary magazine published monthly from 1871 to 1873. Drawing by R.F. Clarke, engraved by C.M. Jenkin. Mumal and Mendra is a mythical love story in ancient Indian history.
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[s.n.]
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[1871]
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G5336
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Poetry
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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 (Mumal and mendra: a legend of Scinde), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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application/pdf
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Text
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English
Conway Tracts
English Poetry
Poetry in English
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47270e92620929583356712c5c221f71
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national secular society
CASES OF CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE.
iIHE records of every country abound in remarkable cases
of persons being judicially put to death for crimes of
j which they were entirely innocent. A mistaken resem
blance to the actual perpetrator, the fact of having been
Il seen near the spot where the crime was committed, or
some other suspicious circumstance, has contributed, to bring the
guilt and punishment on the wrong party. At one time, cases of
injustice were also committed by condemning individuals for murder
when it was not proved that a murder had been perpetrated. The
now well-recognised principle in criminal law, that no murder can
be held as having been committed till the body of the deceased has
been discovered, has terminated this form of legal oppression.
Another, and perhaps one of the most common causes of injustice in
trials of this nature, is the prevarication of the party charged with the
offence. Finding himself, though innocent, placed in an awkward
predicament, he invents a plausible story in his defence, and the
deceit being discovered, he is at once presumed to be in every
respect guilty. Sir Edward Coke mentions a melancholy case of
this kind; A gentleman was charged with having made away with
his niece. He was innocent of the crime ; but having, in a state of
No. 4.
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�CASES OF CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE.
trepidation, put forward another child as the one said to have been
destioyed, the trick was discovered, and the poor gentleman was
executed—a victim of his own disingenuousness.
The following interesting cases of loss of life from too great a
leaning on circumstantial or presumptive evidence, we select from
various authorities, English and foreign.
WILLIAM SHAW.
In the year 1721 there resided in Edinburgh an upholsterer
named William Shaw, who had a daughter, Catherine Shaw, who
lived with him. This young woman, it appears, encouraged the
addresses of John Lawson, a jeweller, to whom William Shaw
declared the most insuperable objections, alleging him to be a pro
fligate young man, addicted to every kind of dissipation. He was
forbidden the house; but the daughter continuing to see him clan
destinely, the father, on the discovery, kept her strictly confined.
William Shaw had for some time urged his daughter to receive
the addresses of a son of Alexander Robertson, a friend and neigh
bour; and one evening, being very urgent with her thereon, she
peremptorily refused, declaring she preferred death to being young
Robertson’s wife. The father grew enraged, and the daughter more
positive, so that the most passionate expressions arose on both
sides, and the words barbarity, cruelty, and death, were frequently
pronounced by the daughter. At length he left her, locking the
door after him.
The greater number of the buildings in Edinburgh are tall and
massive, divided into fiats or floors, each inhabited by one or more
families, all of whom enter by a general stair leading to the respective
floors. _ William Shaw resided in one of these flats, and a partition
only divided his dwelling from that of James Morrison, a watch-case
maker. This man had indistinctly overheard the conversation and
quarrel between Catherine Shaw and her father, and was particularly
struck with the repetition of the above words, she having pronounced
them loudly and emphatically. For some little time after the father
was gone out all was silent, but presently Morrison heard several
groans from the daughter. Alarmed, he ran to some of his neigh
bours. under the same roof; these entering Morrison’s room, and
listening attentively, not only heard the groans, but distinctly heard
Catherine Shaw two or three times faintly exclaim, 1 Cruel father,
thou art the cause of my death} Struck with this, they flew to the
door of Shaw5s apartment; they knocked—no answer was given.
The knocking was repeated—still no answer. Suspicions had
before arisen against the father; they were now confirmed. A con
stable was procured and an entrance forced: Catherine was found
weltering in her blood, and the fatal knife by her side. She was
�CASES OF CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE.
alive, but speechless ; but on questioning her as to owing her death
to her father, was just able to make a motion with her head,
apparently in the affirmative, and expired. At this critical moment
William Shaw returns, and enters the room: immediately all eyes
are on him. Seeing his neighbours and a constable in his apart
ment, he appears much disordered ; but at the sight of his daughter
he turns pale, trembles, and is ready to sink. The first surprise
and the succeeding horror leave little doubt of his guilt in the
breasts of the beholders ; and even that little is done away on the
constable discovering that the shirt of William Shaw is bloody.
He was instantly hurried before a magistrate, and, upon the
depositions of all the parties, committed to prison on suspicion. He
was shortly after brought to trial, when in his defence he acknow
ledged his having confined his daughter to prevent her intercourse
with Lawson; that he had frequently insisted on her marrying
Robertson ; and that he had quarrelled with her on the subject the
evening she was found murdered, as the witness Morrison had
deposed ; but he averred that he left his daughter unharmed and
untouched, and that the blood found upon his shirt was there in con
sequence of his having bled himself some days before, and the
bandage becoming untied. Thèse assertions did not weigh a feather
with the jury when opposed to the strong circumstantial evidence of
the daughter’s expressions of 4 barbarity, cruelty, death,’ and of 4 cruel
father, thou art the cause of my death,’ together with that apparently
affirmative motion with her head, and of the blood so seemingly
providentially discovered on the father’s shirt. On these several
concurring circumstances was William Shaw found guilty, and
executed at Leith Walk in November 1721.
Was there a person in Edinburgh who believed the father guilt
less ? No, not one, notwithstanding his latest words at the gallows
were, 11 am innocent of my daughter’s murder.’ But in August
1722, as a man, who had become the possessor of the late William
Shaw’s apartments, was rummaging by chance in the chamber where
Catherine Shaw died, he accidentally perceived a paper that had
fallen into a cavity on one side of the chimney. It was folded as a
letter, which on being opened ran as follows : 4 Barbarous father, your
cruelty in having put it out of my power ever to join my fate to that
of the only man I could love, and tyrannically insisting upon my
marrying one whom I always hated, has made me form a resolution
to put an end to an existence which is become a burden to me. I
•doubt not I shall find mercy in another world, for sure no benevolent
Being can require that I should any longer live in torment to myself
in this. My death I lay to your charge : when you read this, con
sider yourself as the inhuman wretch that plunged the murderous
knife into the bosom of the unhappy—Catherine Shaw.’
This letter being shewn, the handwriting was recognised and
avowed to be Catherine Shaw’s by many of her relations and friends.
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�CASES 'OF CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE.
It became the public talk; and the magistracy of Edinburgh, on a
scrutiny, being convinced of its authenticity, ordered the body of
William Shaw to be given to his family for interment; and as the
only reparation to his memory and the honour of his surviving
relations, they caused a pair of colours to be waved over his
grave in token of his innocence—a poor compensation, it will
be allowed, for an act of gross cruelty and injustice.
THE FRENCH REFUGEE.
The following singularly involved case is given in the Gentleman's
Magazine for 1754, with the initials of a correspondent, who states it
to have been extracted from some minutes of evidence made by his
grandfather in criminal causes in which he was counsel on the part
of the crown in the reign of Charles II.
Jaques du Moulin, a French refugee, having brought over his
family and a small sum of money, employed it in purchasing lots of
goods that had been condemned at the custom-house, which he again
disposed of by retail. As these goods were such as, having a high
duty, were frequently smuggled, those who dealt in this way were
generally suspected of increasing their stock by illicit means, and
smuggling, or purchasing smuggled articles, under colour of dealing
only in goods that had been legally seized by the king’s officers, and
taken from smugglers. This trade, however, did not, in the general
estimation, impeach his honesty, though it gave no sanction to his
character; but he was often detected in uttering false gold. He
came frequently to persons of whom he had received money with
several of these pieces of counterfeit coin, and pretended that they
were among the pieces which had been paid him : this was generally
denied with great eagerness ; but, if particular circumstances did not
confirm the contrary, he was always peremptory and obstinate in his
charge. This soon brought him into disrepute, and he gradually
lost not only his business but his credit. It happened that, haying
sold a parcel of goods, which amounted to £78, to one Harris, a
person with whom he had before had no dealings, he received the
money in guineas and Portugal gold, about several pieces of which
he scrupled; but the man having assured him that he himself had
carefully examined and weighed those very pieces, and found them
good, Du Moulin took them, and gave his receipt.
In a few days he returned with six pieces, which he averred were
of base metal, and part of the sum which he had a few days before
received of him for the lot of goods. Harris examined the pieces,
and told Du Moulin that he was sure there were none of them among
those which he had paid him, and refused to exchange them for
others. Du Moulin as peremptorily insisted on the contrary, alleging
that he had put the money in a drawer by itself, and locked it up till
4
�CASES OF CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE.
he offered it in payment of a bill of exchange, and then the pieces'
were found to be bad; insisting that they were the same to which he
had objected. Harris now became angry, and charged Du Moulin
with intending a fraud. Du Moulin appeared to be rather piqued
than intimidated at this charge; and having sworn that these were
the pieces he received, Harris was at length obliged to make them
good ; but as he was confident that Du Moulin had injured him by a
fraud supported by perjury, he told his story wherever he went,
exclaiming against him with great bitterness, and met with many
persons who made nearly the same complaints, and told him that it
had been a practice of Du Moulin’s for a considerable time. Du
Moulin now found himself universally shunned; and hearing from
all parts what Harris had reported, he brought an action for defama
tory words, and Harris, irritated to the highest degree, stood upon
Ms defence; and in the meantime having procured a meeting of
several persons who had suffered the same way in their dealings with
Du Moulin, they procured a warrant against him, and he was appre
hended upon suspicion of counterfeiting the coin. Upon searching
his drawers, a great number of pieces of counterfeit gold were found
in a drawer by themselves, and several others were picked from
Other money that was found in different parcels in his scrutoire :
Upon further search, a flask, several files, a pair of moulds, some
powdered chalk, a small quantity of aqua regia, and several other
implements, were discovered. No doubt could now be entertained
of his guilt, which was extremely aggravated by the methods he had
taken to dispose of the money he made, the insolence with which he
had insisted upon its being paid him by others, and the perjury by
which he had supported his claim. His action against Harris for
defamation was also considered as greatly increasing his guilt, and
everybody was impatient to see him punished. In these circum
stances he was brought to trial; and his many attempts to put off
bad money, the quantity found by itself in his scrutoire, and, above
all, the instruments of coining, which, upon a comparison, exactly
answered the money in his possession, being proved, he was upon
this evidence convicted, and received sentence of death.
Now, it happened that, a few days before he was to have been
executed, one Williams, who had been bred a seal-engraver, but had
left his business, was killed by a fall from his horse : and his wife,
who was then pregnant, and near her time, immediately fell into fits
and miscarried. She was soon sensible that she could not live; and
therefore sending for the wife of Du Moulin, she desired to be left
fidone, and then gave her the following account :
That her husband was one of four, whom she named, that had for
many years subsisted by counterfeiting gold coin, which she had
been frequently employed to put off, and was therefore intrusted
with the whole secret; that another of these persons had hired
himself to Du Moulin as a kind of footman and porter, and being
5
�CASES OF CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE.
provided by the gang with false keys, had disposed of a very con.
siderable sum of bad money by opening his master’s scrutoire, and
leaving it there in the stead of an equal number of good pieces which
he took out; that by this iniquitous practice Du Moulin had been
defrauded of his business, his credit, and his liberty, to which in a
short time his life would be added, if application were not imme
diately made to save him. After this account, which she gave iir
great agony of mind, she was much exhausted, and having given
directions where to find the persons whom she impeached, she fell
into convulsions, and soon after expired. Du Moulin’s wife imme
diately applied to a magistrate; and having related the story she had
heard, procured a warrant against the three men, who were taken
the same day, and separately examined. Du Moulin’s servant
steadily denied the whole charge, and so did one of the other two ;
but while the last was being examined, a messenger, who had been
sent to search their lodgings, arrived with a great quantity of bad
money, and many instruments for coining. This threw him into
confusion, and the magistrate improving the opportunity by offering
him his life if he would become evidence for the king, he confessed
that he had been long associated with the other prisoners and the
man who was dead, and he directed where other tools and money
might be found ; but he could say nothing as to the manner in which
Du Moulin’s servant was employed to put it off. Upon this discovery
Du Moulin’s execution was suspended; and the king’s witness
swearing positively that his servant and the other prisoner had
frequently coined in his presence, and giving a particular account of
the process, and the part which each of them usually performed, they
were convicted and condemned to die. Both of them, however,
denied the fact, and the public were still in doubt about Du Moulin.
In his defence, he had declared that the bad money which was
found together was such as he could not trace to the-persons of whom
he had received it; that the parcels with which bad money was
found mixed he kept separate, that he might know to whom to apply
if it should appear to be bad; but the finding of the moulds and
other instruments in his custody was a particular not yet accounted
for, as he only alleged in general terms that he knew not how they
came there ; and it was doubted whether the impeachment of others
had not been managed with a view to save him who was equally
guilty, there being no evidence of his servant’s treachery but that of
a woman who was dead, reported at second-hand by the wife of
Du Moulin, who was manifestly an interested party. He was not,
however, charged by either of the convicts as an accomplice, a
particular which was strongly urged by his friends in his behalf;
but it happened that, while the public opinion was thus held in
suspense, a private drawer was discovered in a chest that belonged
to his servant, and in it a bunch of keys, and the impression of one
in wax : the impression was compared with the keys, and that which
�CASES OF CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE.
it corresponded with was found to. open Du Moulin’s scrutoire, in
which the bad money and implements had been found. When this
particular, so strong and unexpected, was urged, and the key
produced, he burst into tears and confessed all that had been alleged
against him. He was then asked how the tools came into his
master’s scrutoire ; and he answered, that when the officers of justice
Came to seize his master, he was terrified for himself, knowing that
he had in his chest these instruments, which the private drawer
could not contain; and fearing that he might be included in the
warrant, his consciousness of guilt kept him in continual dread and
suspicion : that for this reason, before the officers went up stairs,
he opened the scrutoire with his false key, and having fetched his
tools from his box in the garret, he deposited them there, and had
just locked it when he heard them at the door.
In this case even the positive evidence of Du Moulin, that the
money he brought back to Harris was the same he had received
of him, was not true, though Du Moulin was not guilty of perjury
either wilfully or by neglect, inattention or forgetfulness. And the
circumstantial evidence against him, however strong, would only
have heaped one injury upon another, and have taken away the life
of an unhappy wretch, from whom a perfidious servant had taken
away everything else.
BRUNELL’S CASE.
In the year 1742 a case of a very remarkable nature occurred
near Hull. A gentleman travelling to that place was stopped late
in the evening, about seven miles from the town, by a single high
wayman with a mask on his face, who robbed the traveller of a
purse containing, twenty guineas. The highwayman rode off by a
different path full speed, and the gentleman, frightened, but not
injured, except in purse, pursued his journey. It was growing late,
however, and being naturally much agitated by what had passed,
he rode only two miles further, and stopped at the Bell Inn, kept
by Mr James Brunell. He went into the kitchen to give directions
for his supper, where he related to several persons present the fact
of his having been robbed ; to which he added this peculiar circum
stance, that when he travelled he always gave his gold a peculiar
mark, and that every guinea in the purse taken from him was thus
marked. Hence he hoped that the robber would yet be detected.
Supper being ready, he retired.
The gentleman had not long finished his supper, when Mr Brunell
came into the parlour where he was, and after the usual inquiries
of landlords as to the guest’s satisfaction with his meal, observed,
* Sir, I understand you have been robbed not far hence this even
ing?’ ‘ I have, sir,’ was the reply. ‘And your money was marked?’
7
�CASES OF CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE.
continued the landlord. ‘It was,’ said the traveller. ‘A circum
stance has arisen,’ resumed Mr Brunell, ‘ which leads me to think'
that I can point out the robber. Pray, at what time in the evening,
were you stopped ?’ ‘ It was just setting in to be dark,’ replied
the traveller. ‘ The time confirms my suspicions,’ said the landlord;
and he then informed the gentleman that he had a waiter, one John
Jennings, who had of late been so very full of money, and so very
extravagant, that he (the landlord) had been surprised at it, and had
determined to part with him, his conduct being every way suspicious;
that long before dark that day he had sent out Jennings to change
a guinea for him; that the man had only come back since the
arrival of the traveller, saying he could not get change ; and that,
seeing Jennings to be in liquor, he had sent him off to bed, deter
mining to discharge him in the morning. Mr Brunell continued tosay, that when the guinea was brought back to him, it struck him
that it was not the same which he had sent out for change, there
being on the returned one a mark, which he was very sure was not
upon the other; but that he should probably have thought no more
of the matter, Jennings having frequently had gold in his pocket of
late, had not the people in the kitchen told him what the traveller
had related respecting the robbery, and the circumstance of the
guineas being marked. He (Mr Brunell) had not been present
when this relation was made, and unluckily, before he heard of it
from the people in the kitchen, he had paid away the guinea to a
man who lived at some distance, and who had now gone home.
‘The circumstance, however,’ said the landlord in conclusion, ‘struck
me so very strongly, that I could not refrain, as an honest man, from
coming and giving you information of it.’
Mr Brunell was duly thanked for his candid disclosure. There
appeared from it the strongest reasons for suspecting Jennings; and
if, on searching him, any others of the marked guineas should be
found, and the gentleman could identify them, there would then
remain no doubt in the matter. It was now agreed to go up to his
room. Jennings was fast asleep : his pockets were searched, and
from one of them was drawn forth a purse, containing exactly
nineteen guineas. Suspicion now became certainty ; for the gentle
man declared the purse and guineas to be identically those of which
he had been robbed. Assistance was called; Jennings was
awakened, dragged out of bed, and charged with the robbery. He
denied it firmly; but circumstances were too strong to gain him
belief. He was secured that night, and next day taken before a
justice-of-the-peace. The gentleman and Mr Brunell deposed to
the facts upon oath ; and Jennings, having no proofs, nothing but
mere assertions of innocence, which could not be credited, was
committed to take his trial at the next assizes.
So strong seemed the case against him, that most of the man’s
friends advised him to plead guilty, and throw himself on the mercy
�CASES OF CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE.
of the court. This advice he rejected, and when arraigned, pled not
guilty. The prosecutor swore to the fact of the robbery; though,
as it took place in the dusk, and the highwayman was in a mask,
lie could not swear to the person of the prisoner, but thought him
of the same stature nearly as the man who robbed him. To the
purse and guineas, when they were produced in court, he swore—as
to the purse, positively, and as to the marked guineas, to the best
of his belief; and he testified to their having been taken from the
pocket of the prisoner.
The prisoner’s master, Mr Brunell, deposed as to the sending of
Jennings for the change of a guinea, and to the waiter’s having
Drought back to him a marked one, in the room of one he had given
him unmarked. He also gave evidence as to the discovery of the
purse and guineas on the prisoner. To consummate the proof, the
man to whom Mr Brunell had paid the guinea, as mentioned, came
forward and produced the coin, testifying at the same time that he
had received it on the evening of the robbery from the prisoner’s
master in payment of a debt; and the traveller, or prosecutor, on
comparing it with the other nineteen, swore to its being, to the best
of his belief, one of the twenty marked guineas taken from him by
the highwayman, and of which the other nineteen were found on
Jennings.
The judge summed up the evidence, pointing out all the concurring
circumstances against the prisoner ; and the jury, convinced by this
strong accumulation of circumstantial evidence, without going out
of court brought in a verdict of guilty. Jennings was executed some
little time afterwards at Hull, repeatedly declaring his innocence up
till the very moment of his execution.
Within a twelvemonth afterwards, Brunell, the master of Jennings,
was himself taken up for a robbery committed on a guest in his
house, and the fact being proved on trial, he was convicted, and
ordered for execution. The approach of death brought on repent
ance, and repentance confession. Brunell not only acknowledged
he had been guilty of many highway robberies, but owned himself
to have committed the very one for which poor Jennings suffered.
The account which Brunell gave was, that after robbing the
traveller, he had got home before him by swifter riding and by a
nearer way. That he found a man at home waiting for him, to
whom he owed a little bill, and to whom, not having enough of other
money in his pocket, he gave away one of the twenty guineas which
he had just obtained by the robbery. Presently came in the robbed
gentleman, who, whilst Brunell, not knowing of his arrival, was in
the stable, told his tale, as before related, in the kitchen. The
gentleman had scarcely left the kitchen before Brunell entered it,
and there, to his consternation, heard of the facts, and of the guineas
being marked. He became dreadfully alarmed. The guinea which
he had paid away he dared not ask back again; and as the affair
No. 4-
9
�CASES OF CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE.
of the robbery, as well as the circumstance of the marked guineas,
would soon become publicly known, he saw nothing before him but
detection, disgrace, and death. In this dilemma, the thought of
accusing and sacrificing poor Jennings occurred to him. The state
of intoxication in which Jennings was, gave him an opportunity of
concealing the money in the waiter’s pocket. The rest of the storv
the reader knows.
LADY MAZEL.
Ln
yefr *^9 there lived in Paris a woman of fashion, called
Lady Mazel. Her house was capacious, and four stories high : on
the ground-floor was a large servants’ hall, in which was a grand
staircase, and a cupboard where the plate was locked up, of which
°2-er°f the chambermaids kept the key. In a small room partitioned
oft from the hall slept the valet-de-chambre, whose name was Le
Brun : the rest of this floor consisted of apartments in which the
lady saw company ; which was very frequent and numerous, as she
hept public nights for play. In the floor up one pair of stairs was
the lady s own chamber, which was in the front of the house, and
was the innermost of three rooms from the grand staircase. The
key of this chamber was usually taken out of the door and laid on a
chair Dy
servant who was last with the lady, and who, pulling’
the door after her, it shut with a spring, so that it could not be
opened from without. In this chamber, also, were two doors ; one
communicating with a back staircase, the other with a wardrobe,
which opened to the back stairs also.
On the second floor slept the Abbé Poulard, in the only room
which was furnished on that floor. On the third story were two
chambers, which contained two chambermaids and two foot-boys ;
the fourth story consisted of lofts and granaries, whose doors were
always open. The cook slept below in a place where the wood
was kept, an old woman in the kitchen, and the coachman in the
stable.
On the 27th of November, being Sunday, the two daughters of Le
Brun, the valet, who were eminent milliners, waited on the lady, and
Were kindly received ; but as she was going to church to afternoon
service, she pressed them to come again, when she could have more
of their company. _ Le Brun attended his lady to church, and then
went to another himself ; after which he went to play at bowls, aS
was customary at that time, and from the bowling-green he went to
several places ; and after supping with a friend, he went home seem
ingly cheerful and easy, as he had been all the afternoon. Lady
Mazel supped with the Abbé Poulard as usual, and about eleven
o clock went to her chamber, where she was attended by her maids.
Before they left her, Le Brun came to the door to receive his orders
for the next day, after which one of the maids laid the key of thè
Tn
J
�Cases
of circumstantial evidence.
chamber door on the chair next it; they then went out, and Le Brun
tollowing them, shut the door after him, and talked with the maids
a few minutes about his daughters, and then they parted, he seeming
Still very cheerful.
In the morning he went to market, and was jocular and plea
sant with everybody he met, as was his usual manner He then
returned home, and transacted his usual business. At eight o’clock
he expressed surprise that his lady did not get up, as she usually
rose at seven : he went to his wife’s lodging, which was in the
neighbourhood, and told her he was uneasy that his lady’s bell
had not rung, and gave her seven louis-d’ors, and some crowns
in gold, which he desired her to lock up, and then went home
again, and found the servants in great consternation at hearing
nothing of their lady; when one observed that he feared she had
been seized with an apoplexy, or a bleeding at the nose, to which
she was subject. Le Brun said : ‘ It must be something worse;
my mind misgives me; for I found the street door open last
night after all the family were in bed but myself.’ They then
sent for the lady’s son, M. de Savonieie, who hinted to Le Brun
his fear of an apoplexy. Le Brun said: ‘ It is certainly something
worse ; my mind has been uneasy ever since. I found the street
door open last night after the family were in bed.’ A smith being
now brought, the door was broken open, and Le Brun' entering
first, ran to the bed ; and after calling several times, he drew
back the curtains, and said : 1 Oh, my lady is murdered ! ’ He
then ran into the wardrobe, and took up the strong box, which
being heavy, he said : 1 She has not been robbed ; how is this ? ’
A surgeon then examined the body, which was covered with no
less than fifty wounds : they found in the bed, which was full of
blood, a scrap of a cravat of coarse lace, and a napkin made into
a night-cap, which was bloody, and had the family mark on it ;
and from the wounds in the lady’s hands, it appeared she had
Straggled hard with the murderer, which obliged him to cut the
muscles before he could disengage himself. The bell-strings were
twisted round the frame of the tester, so that they were out of
reach, and could hot ring. A clasp-knife was found in the ashes
almost consumed by the fire, which had burned off all marks of
blood that might have ever been upon it: the key of the chamber
was gone from the seat by the door ; but no marks of violence
appeared on any of the doors, nor were there any signs of a
robbery, as a large sum of money and all the lady’s jewels were
found in the strong box and other places.
Le Brun being examined, said, that 1 after he left the maids on
the stairs, he went down into the kitchen ; he laid his hat and
the key of the street door on the table, and sitting down by the
fire to warm himself, he fell asleep ; that he slept, as he thought^
about an hour, and going to lock the street door, he found it
II
�CASES OF CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE.
open ; that he locked it, and took the key with him to his chamber.
On searching him, they found in his pocket a key, the wards of
which were new filed, and made remarkably large ; and on trial
it was found to open the street door, the antechamber, and both
the doors in Lady Mazel’s chamber. On trying the bloody night*
cap on Le Brun’s head, it was found to fit him exactly, where
upon he was committed to prison.
On his trial it appeared as if the lady was murdered by some
persons who had been let in by Le Brun for that purpose, and
had afterwards fled. It could not be done by himself, because no
blood was upon his clothes, nor any scratch on his body, which
must have been on the murderer from the lady’s struggling ; but
that it was Le Brun who let him in seemed very clear. None-of
the locks were forced ; and his own story of finding the street
door open, the circumstances of the key and the night-cap, also a
ladder of ropes being found in the house, which might be supposed
to be laid there by Le Brun to take off the attention from himself,
were all interpreted as strong proofs of his guilt; and that he had an
accomplice was inferred, because part of the cravat found in the bed
was discovered not to be like his ; but the maids deposed that they
had washed such a cravat for one Berry, who had been a footman to
the lady, and was turned away about four months before for robbing
her. There was also found in the loft at the top of the house, under
some straw, a shirt very bloody, but which was not like the linen of
Le Brun, nor would it fit him.
Le Brun had nothing to oppose to these strong circumstances but
a uniformly good character, which he had maintained during twentynine years he had served his lady; and that he was generally]
esteemed a good husband, a good father, and a good servant. It
was therefore resolved to put him to the torture, in order to discover I
his accomplices. This was done with such severity on February 23,
1690, that he died the week after of the injuries he received,
declaring his innocence with his dying breath.
About a month after, notice was sent from the provost of Sens
that a dealer in horses had lately set up there by the name of John
Garlet, but his true name was found to be Berry, and that he had
been a footman in Paris. In consequence of this he was taken up,
and the suspicion of his guilt was increased by his attempting to
bribe the officers. On searching him a gold watch was found, which
proved to be Lady Mazel’s. Being brought to Paris, a person swore
to seeing him go out of Lady Mazel’s the night she was murdered,
and a barber swore to shaving him next morning, when, on his
observing the hands of his customer to be very much scratched,
Berry said he had been killing a cat.
On these circumstances he was condemned to the torture, and
afterwards to be broken alive on the wheel. On being tortured, he
confessed that, by the direction and order of Madame de Savoniere
12
�CASES OF circumstantial evidence.
(Lady Mazel’s daughter), he and Le Bran had undertaken to rob and
murder -Lady Mazel, and that Le Brun murdered her whilst he stood
at the door to prevent surprise. In the truth of this declaration he
persisted till he was brought to the place of execution, when, begging
to speak with one of the judges, he recanted what he had said against
Le Bran and Madame de Savoniere, and confessed ‘ that he came to
Paris on the Wednesday before the murder was committed. On.the
Friday evening he went into the house, and, unperceived, got into
one Of the lofts, where he lay till Sunday morning, subsisting on
apples and bread which he had in his pockets ; that about eleven
oxlock on Sunday morning, when he knew the lady had gone to
mass, he stole down to her chamber, and the door being open, he
•tried to get under her bed ; but it being too low, he returned to
the loft, pulled off his coat and waistcoat, and returned to the
Chamber a second time in his shirt; he then got under the bed,
where he continued till the afternoon, when Lady Mazel went to
church; that knowing she would not come back soon, he left his hiding
place, and being incommoded with his hat, he threw it under the bed,
and made a cap of a napkin which lay on a chair, secured the bellStrings, and then sat down by the fire, where he continued till he
heard her coach drive into the courtyard, when he again got under
the bed, and remained there ; that Lady Mazel having been in bed
about an hour, he got from under it and demanded her money ; she
•began to cry out, and attempted to ring, upon which he stabbed her,
and she resisting with all her strength, he repeated his stabs till she
was dead ; that he then took the key of the wardrobe cupboard from
the bed's head, opened this cupboard, found the key of the strong
box, opened it, and took out all the gold he could find, to the amount
of about six hundred livres ; that he then locked the cupboard, and
replaced the key at the bed’s head, threw his knife into the fire, took
Kg hat from under the bed, left the napkin in it, took the key of the
chamber from the chair, and let himself out; went to the loft, where
he pulled off his shirt and cravat, and, leaving them there, put on his
coat and waistcoat, and stole softly down stairs ; and finding the
Street door only on the single lock, he opened it, went out, and left it
open ; that he had brought a rope-ladder to let himself down from a
window if he had found the street door double-locked ; but finding
it otherwise, he left his rope-ladder at the bottom of the stairs, where
it was found.’
Thus was the veil removed from this deed of darkness, and all the
Circumstances which appeared against Le Brun were accounted for
leonsistently with his innocence. From the whole story, the reader
Will perceive how fallible human reason is when applied to circumstances; and the humane will agree that in such cases even improba
bilities ought to be admitted, rather than a man should be condemned
who may possibly be innocent.
13
�CASES OF CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE.
THE YOUNG SAILMAKER.
■_ In the year 1723, a young man, who was serving his apprenticeship
in London to a. master sailmaker, got leave to visit his mother, to
spend the Christmas holidays. She lived a few miles beyond Deal
in Kent. He walked the journey ; and on his arrival at Deal in the
evening, being much fatigued, and also troubled with a bowel
complaint, he applied to the landlady of a public-house, who was
acquainted with his mother, for a night’s lodging. Her house was
full, and every bed occupied ; but she told him that if he would
sleep with her uncle, who had lately come ashore, and was boat
swain of an Indiaman, he should be welcome. He was glad to
-accept the offer, and after spending the evening with his new
.comrade, they retired to rest.
In the middle of the night he was attacked with his complaint, and
wakening his bedfellow, he asked him the way to the garden. The
boatswain told him to go through the kitchen ; but as he would find
it difficult to open the door into the yard, the latch being out of
■order, he desired him to take a knife out of his pocket, with which he
could raise the latch. The young man did as he was directed, and
after remaining nearly half an hour in the yard he returned to his
bed, but was much surprised to find his companion had risen and
gone. Being impatient to visit his mother and friends, he also arose
before day, and pursued his journey, and arrived at home at noon,
The landlady, who had been told of his intention to depart early,
was not surprised ; but not seeing her uncle in the morning, she
went to call him. She was dreadfully shocked to find the bed
stained with blood, and every inquiry after her uncle was in vain.
The alarm now became general, and on further examination, marks
of blood were traced from the bedroom into the street, and at intervals
down to the edge of the pier-head. Rumour was immediately busy,
and suspicion fell of course on the young man who slept with him,
■that he had committed the murder and thrown the body over the
pier into the sea. A warrant was issued against him, and he was
taken that evening at his mother’s house. On his being examined
and searched, marks of blood were discovered on his shirt and
.trousers, and in his pocket were a knife and a remarkable silver
coin, both of which the landlady swore positively were her uncle’s
property, and that she saw them in his possession on the evening he
retired to rest with the young man. On these strong circumstances
the unfortunate youth was found guilty.
He related all the above particulars in his defence ; but as he
•could not account for the marks of blood on his person, unless that
he got them when he returned to the bed, nor for the silver coin
being in his possession, his story was not credited. The certainty of
the boatswain’s disappearance, and the blood at the pier, traced, from
14
�CASES OF -CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE.
his'bedroom, were supposed to be too evident signs of his being
murdered ; and even the judge was so convinced of his guilt, that he
ordered the execution to take place in three days. At the fatal tree
the youth declared his innocence, and persisted in it with such
affecting asseverations, that many pitied him, though none doubted
the justness of his sentence. .
« .
The executioners of those days were not so expert at their trade
as modern ones, nor were drops and platfoims invented. The
young man was very tall; his feet sometimes touched the ground;
and some of his friends who surrounded the gallows contrived to
give the body some support as it was suspended. After being cut
down, those friends bore it speedily away in a coffin, and m the
course of a few hours animation was restored, and the innocent
gaved. When he was able to move, his friends insisted on his
quitting the country, and never returning. He accordingly travelled
by night to Portsmouth, where he entered on board a man-of-war on
the point of sailing for a distant part of the. world ; and as he
changed his name, and disguised his person, his melancholy story
never was discovered.
After a few years of service, during which his exemplary conduct
was the cause of his promotion through the lower grades, he was
at last made a master’s mate, and his ship being paid off in the
West Indies, he and a few more of the. crew were transferred to
another man-of-war, which had just arrived short of hands from
a different station. What were his feelings of astonishment, and
then of delight and ecstacy, when almost the first person he saw
On board his new ship was the identical boatswain for whose
murder he had been tried, condemned, and executed five years
before! Nor was the surprise of the old boatswain much less
when he heard the story.
An explanation of all the mysterious circumstances then took
place. It appeared that the boatswain had been bled for a pain
in the side by the barber, unknown to his niece, on the day of
the young man’s arrival at Deal; that when the young man
wakened him, and retired to the yard, he found the bandage had
•come off his arm during the night, and that the blood was flowing
afresh. Being alarmed, he rose to go to the barber, who lived
across the street, but a press-gang laid hold of him just as he left
I the public-house. They hurried him to the pier, where their boat
I was waiting; a few minutes brought them on board a frigate then
I under-way for the East Indies; and he omitted ever writing home
I to account for his sudden disappearance. Thus were the chief
circumstances explained by the two friends thus strangely met.
The Silver coin being found in the possession of the young man
could only be explained by the conjecture, that when he took the
knife out of the boatswain’s pocket in the dark, it is probable, as
the coin was in the same pocket, it stuck between the blades of
15
�CASES OF CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE.
the knife, and in this manner became the strongest proof against
him.
On their return to England, this wonderful explanation was told
to the judge and jury who tried the cause, and it is probable they
never after convicted a man on circumstantial evidence. It also»
made a great noise in Kent at the time.*
THOMAS GEDDELY’S CASE.
Thomas Geddely lived as a waiter with Mrs Hannah Williams,
who kept a public-house at York. It being a house of much
business, and the mistress very assiduous therein, she was deemed,
in wealthy circumstances. One morning her scrutoire was fonnd.
broken open and robbed, and Thomas Geddely disappearing at th®
same time, no doubt was entertained as to the robber. About a
twelvemonth after, a man calling himself James Crow came to York,
and worked a few days for a precarious subsistence in carrying'
goods as a porter. Many accosted him as Thomas Geddely. He
declared he did not know them, that his name was James Cro^,
and that he never was at York before. But this was held as merely
a trick to save himself from the consequences of the robbery
committed in the house of Mrs Williams, when he lived with her as
waiter.
His mistress was sent for, and in the midst of many people
instantly singled him out, called him by his name (Thomas Geadely),
and charged him with his unfaithfulness and ingratitude in robbing
her. He was directly hurried before a justice-of-peace ; but on his
examination absolutely affirmed that he was not Thomas Geddely,
that he knew no such person, that he never was at York before, and
that his name was James Crow. Not, however, giving a good
account of himself, but rather admitting that he was a vagabond
and petty rogue, and Mrs Williams and another person swearing
positively to his person, he was committed to York Castle for trial
at the next assizes.
On arraignment, he pled not guilty, still denying that he was the
person he was taken for; but Mrs Williams and some others made
oath that he was the identical Thomas Geddely who lived with her
when she was robbed ; and a servant girl deposed that she had seen
him, on the veiy morning of the robbery, in the room where the
scrutoire was broken open, with a poker in his hand. The prisoner,
being unable to prove an alibi, was found guilty of the robbery. H®
was soon after executed, but persisted to his latest breath in
* We present this cáse as usually recounted by popular tradition, without vouching for
its accuracy. If true, the jury, it will be observed, had no proof of the murder, as the
body was not found. We doubt that any judge would have sanctioned such a gross
perversion of justice.
16
�CASES OF CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE.
affirming that he was not Thomas Geddely, and that his name was
James Crow.
And so it proved! Some time after, the true Thomas Geddely,
who, on robbing his mistress, had fled from York to Ireland, was
taken up in Dublin for a crime of the same stamp, and there con
demned and executed. Between his conviction and execution, and
again at the fatal tree, he confessed himself to be the very Thomas
Geddely who had committed the robbery at York for which the
unfortunate James Crow had been executed.
We must add, that a gentleman, an inhabitant of York, happening
to be in Dublin at the time of Geddely’s trial and execution, and
who knew him when he lived with Mrs Williams, declared that the
resemblance between the two men was so exceedingly great, that it
was next to impossible to distinguish their persons asunder.
BRADFORD THE INNKEEPER.
Jonathan Bradford kept an inn in Oxfordshire, on the London
road to Oxford. He bore a respectable character. Mr Hayes, a
gentleman of fortune, being on his way to Oxford on a visit to a
relation, put up at Bradford’s. He there joined company with two
gentlemen, with whom he supped, and in conversation unguardedly
mentioned that he had then about him a considerable sum of money.
In due time they retired to their respective chambers ; the gentlemen
to a two-bedded room, leaving, as is customary with many, a candle
burning in the chimney corner. Some hours after they were in bed,
one of the gentlemen being awake, thought he heard a deep groan
in an adjoining chamber; and this being repeated, he softly awoke
his friend. They listened together, and the groans increasing, as of
one dying and in pain, they both instantly arose, and proceeded,
silently to the door of the next chamber, from which the groans had
seemed to come. The door being ajar, they saw a light in the room.
They entered, but it is impossible to paint their consternation on
perceiving a person weltering in his blood in the bed, and a man
Standing over him with a dark lantern in one hand, and a knife in
the other ! The man seemed as much petrified as themselves, but
his terror carried with it all the appearance of guilt. The gentlemen
soon discovered that the murdered person was the stranger with
whom they had that night supped, and that the man who was
Standing over him was their host. They seized Bradford directly,
disarmed him of his knife, and charged him with being the
murderer. He assumed by this time the air of innocence, positively
denied the crime, and asserted that he came there with the same
humane intentions as themselves ; for that, hearing a noise, which
was succeeded by a groaning, he got out of bed, struck a light,
armed himself with a knife for his defence, and had but that minute
17
�CASES OF CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE,
entered the room before them. These assertions were of little avail *
he was kept in close custody till the morning, and then taken before
a neighbouring justice-of-the-peace. Bradford still denied the
murder, but with such apparent indications of guilt, that the justice
hesitated not to make use of this extraordinary expression on writing
his mittimus, i Mr Bradford, either you or myself committed this
murder.’
This remarkable affair became a topic of conversation to the whole
country. Bradford was condemned by the general voice of every
company. In the midst of all this predetermination, came on the
assizes at Oxford. Bradford was brought to trial • he pled not
guilty. Nothing could be stronger than the evidence of the two
gentlemen. They testified to the finding Mr Hayes murdered in his
bed, Bradford at the side of the body with a light and a knife, and
that knife, and the hand which held it, bloody. They stated that,,
on their entering the room, he betrayed all the signs of a guilty man;
and that, but a few minutes preceding, they had heard the groans
of the deceased.
Bradford’s defence on his trial was the same as before : he had
heard a noise ; he suspected that some villainy was transacting; he
struck a light, snatched up the knife, the only weapon at hand, to
defend himself, and entered the room of the deceased. He averred
that the terrors he betrayed were merely the feelings natural to
innocence, as well as guilt, on beholding so horrid a scene. The
defence, however, could not but be considered as weak, contrasted with
the several powerful circumstances against him. Never was circum
stantial evidence so strong, so far as it went. There was little need
for comment from the judge in summing up the evidence ; no room
appeared for extenuation; and the prisoner was declared guilty by
the jury without their even leaving the box.
Bradford was executed shortly after, still declaring that he was
not the murderer, nor privy to the murder, of Mr Hayes; but he
died disbelieved by all.
Yet were these assertions not untrue ! The murder was actually
committed by the footman of Mr Hayes; and the assassin, imine*
diately on stabbing his master, rifled his pockets of his money, gold
watch, and snuff-box, and then escaped back to his own room,
This could scarcely have been effected, as after-circumstances
shewed, more than two seconds before Bradford’s entering the
unfortunate gentleman’s chamber. The world owes this information
to remorse of conscience on the part of the footman (eighteen
months after the execution of Bradford) when laid on a bed of
sickness.. It was a death-bed repentance, and by that death the
law lost its victim.
It were to be wished that this account could close here; but there
is more to be told. Bradford, though innocent of the murder, and
not even privy to it, was nevertheless a murderer in design. He
�CASES OF CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE.
had heard, as well as the footman, what Mr Hayes had declared at
¿Upper, as to the having a sum of money about him; and he went
to the chamber of the deceased with the same dreadful intentions as
the servant. He was struck with amazement on beholding himself
■anticipated in the crime. He could not believe his senses ; and in
turning back the bed-clothes to assure himself of the fact, he in his
agitation dropped his knife on the bleeding body, by which means
both his hands and the weapon became bloody. These circum
stances Bradford acknowledged to the clergyman who attended him
after sentence, but who, it is extremely probable, would not believe
them at the time.
Besides the graver lesson to be drawn from this extraordinary
case, in which we behold the simple intention of crime so signally
and wonderfully punished, these events furnish a striking warning
against the careless, and, it may be, vain display of money or other
property in strange places. To heedlessness on this score the
unfortunate Mr Hayes fell a victim. The temptation, we have seen,
proved too strong for two persons out of the few who heard his illtimed disclosure.
THE LYON COURIER.
In the month of April 1796—or, according to the dates of the
French republic, in Floreal of the year 4—a young man, named
Joseph Lesurques, arrived in Paris with his wife and his three
children from Douai, his native town. He was thirty-three years of
age, and possessed a fortune of 15,000 livres (.£600) per annum,
inherited from his own and his wife’s relations. He took apartments
■in the house of a M. Monnet, a notary in the Rue Montmartre, and
made preparations for permanently residing in Paris and educating
his children. One of his first cares was to repay one Guesno,
proprietor of a carrying establishment at Douai, 2000 livres he had
formerly borrowed. On the day following, Guesno invited Lesurques
to breakfast. They accordingly went to No. 27, Rue des Boucheries,
■in company with two other persons, one of whom, a gentleman of the
name of Couriol, was invited in consequence of his calling on the
third party just as they were sitting down to breakfast. The party
remained at table until nearly twelve o’clock, when they proceeded
to the Palais Royal, and after having taken coffee at the Rolonde du
Caveau, separated.
Four days afterwards (on the 27th April), four horsemen, mounted
on good but evidently hired horses, were observed to ride out of
Paris through the Barriere de Charenton, as if on a party of pleasure.
They all wore long cloaks, as was then the fashion, and sabres
hanging from their waists. One of the party was Couriol.
Between twelve and one o’clock the four horsemen arrived at the
pretty village of Mongeron, on the road to Melun and Burgagne.
19
�CASES OF CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE.
One of the party had galloped forward to order dinner at the Hotel
de la Poste, kept by Sieur Evrard : after dinner, they asked for
pipes and tobacco, and two of them smoked. They paid their bill,
and went to the casino of the place, where they took four cups of
coffee. Shortly afterwards, they mounted their horses, and following
the road, shaded by beech-trees, which leads from Mongeron to the
forest of Lenart, they proceeded at a foot pace towards Lieursaint,
a picturesque village in the midst of a grove.
They arrived at Lieursaint about three o’clock in the afternoon,
and there made another long halt. The horse of one of the party
had lost a shoe, and another of them had broken the chain of his
spur by collision with a friend’s horse. This one stopped at the
beginning of the village, at the cottage of a woman named Chatelin,
a lemonade-seller, and requested her to give him coffee, and supply
him with some coarse thread to mend the chain of his spur. This
woman immediately complied with his double request ; and as the
traveller was not very skilful in mending the chain, she called her
servant, one Grossetete, who accordingly mended the chain, and
assisted in putting the spur on the boot. The three other horsemen
during this time had dismounted at one Champeaux’s, an innkeeper,
and took something to drink, while he conducted the horse and
horseman to the village smith, a man named Motteau. When the
horse was shod, the four travellers went to the café of the woman
Chatelin, where they played some games at billiards. At half-past
seven o’clock, after taking a stirrup-cup with the innkeeper, to whose
house they returned for their horses, they mounted and rode off
towards Melun.
On going in, Champeaux saw on a table a sabre, which one of the
travellers had forgotten to put in his belt: he wished his stable-boy
to run after them, but they were already out of sight. It was not
until an hour afterwards that the traveller to whom the weapon
belonged, and who was the same who had mended his spur, returned
at full galop for it. He then drank a glass of brandy, and set off at
full speed in the direction taken by his companions. At this
moment the mail courier from Paris to Lyon arrived to change
horses. It was then about half-past eight o’clock, and the night had
been for some time dark. The courier, after having changed horses,
and taken a fresh postilion, set out to pass the long forest of Lenart.
The mail at this period was a sort of postchaise, with a large trunk
behind containing the dispatches. There was one place only open
to the public, at the side of the courier. It was on that day occupied
by a man about thirty years of age, who had that morning taken his
place to Lyon in the name of Laborde, silk merchant.
The next morning the mail was found rifled, the courier dead in
his seat, with one wound right through his heart, and his head cut
nearly off; and the postilion lying in the road, also dead, his head
cut open, his right hand divided, and his breast wounded in three
,20
�CASES OF CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE.
places. The postilion’s wounds were evidently inflicted by sabres,
wie-ldeci by two persons. One horse only was found near the
carriage. The mail had been robbed of 75,coo livres in assignats,
silver, and bank bills.
The officers of justice, in their researches, immediately discovered
that five persons had passed through the barrier of Rambouillet,
proceeding to Paris between four and five o’clock in the morning
after the murder. The horse ridden by the postilion was found
wandering about the Place Royale ; and they ascertained that four
horses, covered with foam, and quite exhausted, had been brought
about five o’clock in the morning to a man named Muiron, Rue des
Fosses-Saint Germain l’Auxerrois, by two persons who had hired
them the evening before. These two persons were named Bernard
and Couriol. Bernard was immediately arrested ; Couriol escaped.
In the course of the inquiry, it became evident that the criminals
must have been five in number. A description was obtained of the
four who had ridden from Paris and stopped at Mongeron and
Lieursaint, from the many persons with whom they had conversed
on the road. A description was also obtained of the man who had
taken his place with the courier under the name of Laborde, from
the person at the coach-office, and from those who had seen him
take his seat.
Couriol was traced to Chateau Thierry, where he lodged in the
house of one Bruer, with whom, too, Guesno, the carrier of Douai,
was also staying. The police proceeded there, and arrested Couriol:
in his possession was found a sum, in assignats, drafts, and money,
equal to about a fifth of what had been taken from the mail. Guesno
and Bruer were also taken into custody, but they proved alibis so
distinctly, that they were discharged as soon as they arrived in
Paris.
The Bureau Central intrusted to one Daubenton, the Juge de Paix
of the division of Pont-Neuf, and an officer of the judicial police, the
preliminary investigations in this affair. This magistrate, after
discharging Guesno, had told him to apply at his office the next
.morning for the return of his papers, which had been seized at
Chateau Thierry; at the same time he had ordered a police-officer,
named Heudon, to set out immediately for Mongeron and Lieur.saint, and to bring back with him the witnesses, of whom he gave a
list, so as to have them all together the next day at the central office
ready to be examined.
Guesno, being desirous to obtain his papers as soon as possible,
left home earlier than usual; just before he reached the central
office, he met his friend Lesurques. They conversed together, and
Guesno having explained the cause which took him to the office of
the Juge de Paix, proposed that he should accompany him. They
went to the office, then at the hotel now occupied by the Prefect de
Police; and as Citizen Daubenton had not yet arrived, they sat
at
�CASES OF CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE
down in the antechamber, on purpose to wait his arrival, and be
more speedily released.
About ten o’clock the Juge de Paix, who had entered his room by
a back door, was interrupted in his perusal of the documents, before
examining the witnesses, by the officer H eudon, who said : ‘ Among
the witnesses there are two, the woman Santon, servant of Evrard
the innkeeper at Mongeron, and the girl Grossetete, servant of the
woman Chatelin, the lemonade-seller at Lieursaint, who declare in
the most precise manner that two of the assassins were waiting
in the antechamber. They said they could not be mistaken, as
one of them had waited at the dinner of the four travellers at
Mongeron, and the other had conversed with them at Lieursaint,
and had remained more than an hour in the room while they played
at billiards.
;
The Juge de Paix, not believing this improbable statement, ordered
the two women to be introduced separately. He then examined each
of them, when they energetically repeated their statement, and said
that they could not be mistaken. He then, after warning the women
that life and death depended on their answers, had Guesno brought
into his room. ‘What,’ said the Juge, ‘do you want here?’ ‘I
come,’ replied Guesno, ‘for my papers, which you promised th
restore to me yesterday. I am accompanied by one of my friends
from Douai, my native place. His name is Lesurques. We met OH
the road, and he is waiting for me in the other room.’
The Juge de Paix then ordered the other person pointed out by
the two women to be introduced. This was Lesurques. He con
versed with him and Guesno for a few minutes, requested them to
walk into another room, where the papers would be brought to
them, and privately told Heudon not to lose sight of them. When
they had left the room, the magistrate again asked the women if
they persisted in their previous declarations ; they did persist; their
evidence was taken down in writing; and the two friends were
immediately arrested.
From this time the proceedings were pressed on with great
rapidity. Guesno and Lesurques, when confronted by the witnesses^
were recognised by almost all. The woman Santon asserted that
it was Lesurques who, after dinner at Mongeron, wished to pay in,
assignats, but that the tall dark man (Couriol) paid in silver.
Champeaux and his wife, the innkeepers at Lieursaint, recognised
Lesurques as the man who had mended his spur and returned
for his sabre. Lafolie, the stable-boy at Mongeron, the woman
Alfroy, a florist at Lieursaint, all recognised him. Laurent Charbant,
a labourer who had dined in the same room with the four horsemen^
deposed that he was the one who had spurs affixed to his boots
hussar fashion.
On the day of his arrest, Lesurques wrote to his friend the follow
ing letter, which was intercepted and added to the legal documents :
22
�CASES OF CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE.
* My friend, since rny arrival in Paris I have experienced nothing
but troubles, but I did not expect the misfortune which now over
whelms me. Thou knowest me, and thou knowest whether I am
capable of degrading myself by crime; yet the most frightful of
crimes is imputed to me. I am accused of the murder of the courier
to Lyon. Three men and two women, whom I know not, nor even
their abode (for thou knowest that I have never left Paris), have had
the assurance to declare that they remembered me, and that I was
th© first who rode up on horseback. Thou knowest that I have
never mounted a horse since I arrived in Paris. Thou wilt see of
what vital import to me is such testimony as this, which tends to my
judicial assassination. Assist me with thy memory, and try to
remember where I was and what persons I saw in Paris—I think it
was the 7th or 8th of last month—so that I may confound these
infamous calumniators, and punish them as the laws direct.’
At the bottom of this letter were written the names of the persons
he had seen on that day : Citizen Tixier, General Cambrai, Made
moiselle. Eugenie, Citizen Hilaire, Ledru, his wife’s hairdresser, the
workmen engaged on his apartments, and the porter of the house»
He concluded by saying : ‘ Thou wilt oblige by seeing my wife
often, and trying to console her.’
Lesurques, Guesno, Couriol, Bernard, Richard, and Bruer were
tried before the criminal tribunal: the first three as authors ot
accomplices of the assassination and robbery; Bernard for having
Supplied the four horses ; Richard for having concealed Couriol and
his mistress Madeleine Breban, and for having concealed and divided
all or part of the stolen property ; Bruer for having received Couriol
and Guesno into his house at Chateau Thierry. In the course of
the trial, the witnesses who pretended to recognise Guesno and
Lesurques persisted in their declarations. Guesno and Bruer
produced evidence that completely cleared them. Guesno proved
his alibi in the most distinct manner, and thus insured his acquittal.
Lesurques called fifteen witnesses, all citizens, exercising respectable
professions, and enjoying the esteem of the public. He appeared at
the bar with remarkable confidence and calmness. The first witness
for the defence was Citizen Legrand, a countryman of Lesurques, a
wealthy silversmith and jeweller. He testified that, on the 8th, the
very day the crime was committed, Lesurques passed one part of the
morning with him. In addition, Aldenof, a jeweller, and Hilaire
Ledru Chausfer, affirmed that they had dined with the prisoner on
¡the same day at his relation’s, Lesurques, in the Rue Montorquiel.
They stated, that after dinner they went to a café, and after taking
Some liqueur, had seen him to his own house.
The painter Beudart added, that he meant to have dined with his
friends, but that being on duty as a National Guard, he could not
►arrive m time, but that he had been at Lesurques’s house the same
evening in uniform, and had seen him retire to rest. In support of
43
�CASES OF CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE.
this deposition, this witness produced his billet-de-gardc, dated the
Sth. The workmen who were employed on the apartments Lesurques
was about to occupy, deposed that they had seen him several times
in the course of the 8th and 9th.
The jeweller Legrand, to corroborate his testimony, had stated
that on the day, the 8th Floreal (27th April), he had before dinner
made an exchange with Aldenof, or, at anyrate, that it was men
tioned in his book on that day. He proposed that his book should
be brought. It was examined in court, and discovered that the 9th
had been clumsily scratched out, and the 8th substituted. This at
once changed the favourable impression which had been produced
in favour of the prisoner, and the witness was ordered into custody.
He then lost all presence of mind, and owned that he was not certain
of having seen Lesurques on that day, but that, feeling convinced of
his innocence, he had altered his register to corroborate his own
testimony. This circumstance produced the most unfavourable
effect on the judges ; but in spite of the dark complexion of his case,
Lesurques continued to maintain his innocence.
The discussions and examinations were closed, and the jury had
retired to deliberate. At this moment a woman, in a violent state of
excitement, called aloud from the midst of the crowd in the court for
leave to speak to the president. She was, she said, urged by the
voice of conscience to save the tribunal from committing a dreadful
crime. On being placed before the judge, she declared that
Lesurques was innocent; that the witnesses had mistaken him for
a man of the name of Dubosq, to whom he bore an extraordinary
resemblance. This woman was Madeleine Breban, the mistress of
Couriol, and the confidante of his most secret thoughts ; who now
abandoned him, and avowed her own guilt to save Lesurques.
Madeleine Breban’s evidence was rejected, and the jury brought
in their verdict, by which Couriol, Lesurques, and Bernard were
condemned to death. Richard was sentenced to twenty-four years’
labour in irons ; Guesno and Bruer were acquitted.*
No sooner had sentence been pronounced, than Lesurques, rising
calmly, and addressing his judges, said : ‘ I am innocent of the crime
imputed to me. Ah ! citizens, if murder on the highway be atrocious,
to execute an innocent man is not less a crime.’ Couriol then rose,
and exclaimed : ‘ I am guilty; I own my crime ; but Lesurques is
innocent; and Bernard did not participate in the assassination!’
He repeated these words four times, and on returning to his prison,
wrote a letter to his judges, full of anguish and repentance, in which
was this passage : ‘ I never knew Lesurques. My accomplices were
Vidal, Rossi, Durochat, and Dubosq. The resemblance of Dubosq
has deceived the witnesses.’
Madeleine Breban presented herself, after sentence had been
At that period the sentence was part of the jury’s verdict.
=4
�CASES OF CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE.
pronounced, to renew her declaration. Two parties attested that,
before the condemnation of the prisoners, Madeleine had said to
them that Lesurques had never had any connection with the guilty
parties—that he was the victim of his fatal likeness to Dubosq. The
declaration of Couriol caused some doubt in the minds of the judges.
They immediately applied to the Directory for a reprieve, who,
alarmed at the probability of an innocent man being executed,
applied to the legislative assemblies ; for all judicial means had been
exhausted. The message of the Directory to the ‘ Five Hundred’
was urgent. It requested a reprieve, and instructions on the subse
quent steps to be taken. It concluded in these words—1 Ought
Lesurques to die on the scaffold because he resembles a criminal?’
The legislative body passed to the order of the day, considering
that, as all legal forms had been fulfilled, a single case ought not to
cause an infraction of forms previously settled ; and that to annul
on such grounds the sentence legally pronounced by a jury would
subvert all ideas ofjustice and of equality before the law 1
The right of pardon had been abolished. Lesurques was left
without help or hope. He bore his fate with firmness and resigna
tion. On the day of his death he wrote to his wife the following
letter : ‘ My dear friend, we cannot avoid our fate. I shall, at any
rate, endure it with the courage which becomes a man. I send some
locks of my hair ; when my children are older, divide it with them.
It is the only thing that I can leave them.’
In a letter of adieu addressed to his friends, he merely observed :
‘ Truth has not been heard ; I shall die the victim of mistake.’
He published in the newspapers the following letter to Dubosq,
whose name had been revealed by Couriol: ‘ Man, in whose place I
am to die, be satisfied with the sacrifice of my life : if you be ever
brought to justice, think of my three children, covered with shame,
and of their mother’s despair, and do not prolong the misfortunes of
SO fatal a resemblance.’
On the loth of March 1797, Lesurques went to the place of execu
tion dressed completely in white, as a symbol of his innocence, with
his shirt turned over his shoulders. The day was Holy Thursday
(old style). He expressed his regret at not having to die the next
day, the anniversary of the Passion. On the way from prison to the
place of execution, Couriol, who was seated in the car beside him,
cried in a loud voice, addressing himself to the people : ‘ I am guilty,
but Lesurques is innocent! ’
When he reached the scaffold, already red with the blood of
Bernard, Lesurques gave himself up to the executioners, saying : ‘ I
pardon my judges ; the witnesses, whose mistake has murdered me ;
and Legrand, who has not a little contributed to this judicial assas
sination. I die protesting my innocence.’
Many of the jury afterwards expressed their regret at having given
credit to the witnesses from Mongeron and Lieursaint; and Citizen
25
�CASES OF CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE.
Daubenton, the Juge de Paix, who had arrested Lesurques, and
conducted the first proceedings, resolved to investigate the truth
which could only be satisfactorily effected through the arrest and
trial of the four persons denounced by Couriol as his accomplices.
Two years elapsed without the conscientious magistrate being
able, in spite of all his inquiries, to discover the slightest trace of the
fugitives. At length, in examining the numerous warrants and
registers of persons daily brought to his bureau, he discovered that
Durochat, the individual whom Couriol had denounced as the one
who had taken his place by the side of the courier, under the name
of Laborde, had just been arrested for *a robbery he had latelyeffected, and lodged in St Pelagie. At the time of Lesurques’s trial,
it had come out in evidence that several persons, amongst others an
inspector of the post-mails, had preserved a perfect recollection of
the pretended Laborde, having seen him when waiting for the mail.
. Citizen Daubenton, by great exertion, secured the presence of the
inspector in the court on the day of Durochat’s trial. He was con
demned to fourteen years’ labour in chains ; and as the gens-d’armes
were conducting him to prison, the inspector recognised the prisoner
as the same person who had travelled in the mail towards Lyon,
under the name of Laborde, on the day on which the courier was
assassinated.
Durochat made but feeble denials, and was reconducted to the
Conciergerie, where Citizen Daubenton had him immediately
detained, under a charge arising out of the proceedings against
Couriol. The next morning the magistrate, assisted by Citizen
Masson, an officer of the criminal tribunal, took means for transfer
ring the prisoner to the prisons of Melun, where he arrived the same
evening. After being examined early the next morning, it was found
necessary to transfer him to Versailles, where he was to be tried.
The magistrate and officer set out, followed by two gens-d’armes, to
convey the prisoner to Versailles. On arriving at a village near
Grosbois, he asked for breakfast; for he had eaten nothing since
the preceding evening. The escort therefore stopped at the first inn,
and Durochat then asked to speak with the Juge de Paix alone.
The Juge having sent away the two gens-d’armes and the officer
Masson, although the latter made signs to him that it was dangerous
to remain alone with such a consummate villain, ordered breakfast
for himself and Durochat. A table was placed between them ; the
servant, acting under the orders of Masson, brought only one knife.
Citizen Daubenton took it to open an egg, when Durochat, looking
hard at him said : ‘Monsieur le Juge, you are afraid !’ ‘Of whom?’
said Daubenton.. ‘Of me,’ replied Durochat; ‘you have armed
yourself with a knife.’ The Juge de Paix presented the knife to him
by the handle, saying: ‘ There, cut me some bread, and tell me
what you know about the assassination of the courier.’
Durochat rose up from his seat, and laying down the knife, which
�CASES OF CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE.
he had at first grasped menacingly, exclaimed: ‘You are a brave
fellow, citizen. I am a lost man—my time’s up—but you shall know
all!’ He then related every particular of the murder, which com
pletely agreed with the statements made by Couriol. He stated that
Vidal had projected the affair, and had communicated it to him at a
restaurant’s in the Champs Elysées. The criminals were Couriol,
Rossi, alias Beroldy, Vidal, himself, and Dubosq. Dubosq had
forged for him the passport in the name of Laborde, by means of
which he easily procured another for Lyon, to enable him to take
his place in the mail. He had also lent the party 3000 francs in
assignats. Bernard had supplied four horses for Couriol, Rossi,
Vidal, and Dubosq. They had attacked the carriage as the postilion
was slackening his pace to ascend a little hill. It was he (Durochat)
who had stabbed the courier at the instant that Rossi cut down the
postilion with a sabre ; he had then given up his horse to him
(Durochat), and had returned to Paris on that of the postilion. As
soon as they arrived there, they all met at Dubosq’s, Rue Croix-desPetits-Champs, where they proceeded to divide the booty. Bernard,
who had only procured the horses, was there, and claimed his share,
and got it. ‘ I have heard,’ he added, 1 that there was a fellow
named Lesurques condemned for this business ; but to tell the
truth, I never knew the fellow either at the planning of the business,
or at its execution, or at the division of the spoil. After the crime, I
lodged with Vidal, Rue des Fontaines. I left there soon afterwards,
on hearing of thè arrest of Couriol. The porter at that house was
named Perrier.’
The confession of Durochat was taken down in writing, and
signed by him. The party then resumed their journey to Versailles,
and on the prisoner’s arrival there, he renewed it before one of the
judges of the tribunal. ‘ The magistrate,’ says Citizen Daubenton,
‘ present at this examination observed to Durochat that Lesurques
had been sworn to as one of the party of four,’ and also 1 that he had
silver spurs on his boots, which he had been seen to repair with
thread, and that this spur had been found on the place where the
mail had been attacked.’ Durochat replied : ‘ It was Dubosq who
had the silver spurs. The morning we divided the plunder, I
remember hearing that he had broken one of the chains of his
Spurs ; that he had mended it where he dined, and lost it in the
scuffle. I saw in his hand the other spur, which he said he was
going to throw into the mixen.’ Durochat then described Dubosq,
and added that on the day of the murder he wore a blonde wig.
Some days after the arrest of Durochat, Vidal, one of the other
authors of the crime, was also arrested. Although all the witnesses
swore to him as one of the party who had dined and played at
billiards, he denied everything. Special proceedings were instituted
against him, and he remained in the prisons of La Seine.
Durochat was condemned to death, and executed. He underwent
27
�CASES OF CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE.
his fate with perfect indifference. Vidal was shut up in the principal
prison of Seine and Oise, where the prosecution commenced in Paris
was carried on.
Towards the end of the year 8 (1799—1800), four years after the
assassination of the courier, Dubosq, having been arrested for a
robbery in the department of Allier, where he had retired under a
false name, was recognised in the prisons, brought to Paris, and
thence to Versailles, to be tried at the same time as Vidal before the
criminal tribunal. It was discovered, on searching the registers,
that while very young he had been condemned to the galleys for life
for stealing plate at the archbishop’s of Besançon. He had after
wards escaped at the time of the revolutionary disturbances.
Arrested in Paris for a second robbery, he had been again con
demned, and had again escaped. Retaken at Rouen, he had once
more succeeded in breaking loose ; and, arrested at Lyon, he had
a fourth time broken from prison. This last escape occurred a few
weeks before the attack on the mail and double murder in the forest
of Lenart. Like Vidal, however, he denied everything.
Dubosq and Vidal, being both confined in the prison of Versailles,
planned an escape, which they soon executed. After having climbed
over the two first walls, and reached the top of the outside one, they
had only to jump down twenty-five feet into the street. Vidal tried
first, and succeeded ; Dubosq broke his leg in the attempt, and was
retaken. The Citizen Daubenton spared no pains to discover
Vidal’s retreat. He learned soon afterwards that he had been
arrested at Lyon for new crimes. He was brought back to
Versailles ; but in the meantime Dubosq had recovered from his
fracture, and found means to break out of prison. Vidal was tried
alone, condemned, and executed.
At length, in the latter part of the year 9 (1800—1801), Dubosq
was again arrested, and immediately brought before the criminal
tribunal of Versailles. The president had ordered a blonde wig to
be placed on his head before the witnesses were called in. ‘ The
Citizen Perault, a member of the legislative assembly, and one of
those who had seen the four cavaliers who had dined at Mongeron
on the day of the murder of the courier, and who had recognised
Lesurques as one of them, stated that there was a striking resem
blance between Dubosq and Lesurques.’ The woman Alfroy, who
had before sworn to Lesurques as one of the four, declared that she
was mistaken in her evidence before the Tribunal de la Seine, and
that she was now firmly convinced that it was not Lesurques but
Dubosq that she had seen. To this evidence Dubosq replied by
stubborn denials. It was proved that he was intimate with the
guilty parties ; indeed he could not deny it ; and the declarations
of Couriol, Durochat, and Madeleine Breban had great weight
against him.
He was unanimously condemned, and was executed the 3d
�CASES OF CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE.
Ventose, in the year io (22d February 1802). At length the last of
the accomplices denounced by Couriol and Durochat, Rossi, other
wise Ferrari, or the Great Italian, whose real name was Beroldy,
was discovered near Madrid, and given up at the request of the
French government. Having been tried and sentenced to death at
Versailles, he testified the utmost repentance, and went to execution,
receiving religious attentions from Monsieur de Grandpre. After the
.execution, Monsieur de Grandpre stated to the president that he had
been authorised by the criminal to confess the justice of his sentence.
The same Monsieur Grandpre deposited with M. Destrumeau, a
notary at Versailles, a declaration written and signed by Beroldy,
Otherwise Rossi, which was not to be published until six months after
his death. The following is the tenor of this document, which is
given, with all the particulars of this extraordinary case, in a memoir
written by M. Daubenton, the Juge de Paix. i I declare that the
man named Lesurques is innocent; but this declaration, which I
give to my confessor, is not to be published until six months after my
death.’
Thus terminated this long judicial drama. Ferrari, otherwise
Rossi, was the sixth executed as one of the authors or accomplices
in the murder of the Lyon courier, besides Richard, who was con
demned to the galleys for having received the stolen property, and
for having concealed Couriol, and afterwards assisted him to fly.
Yet it was most distinctly proved, in the course of the trials, that
there were only five murderers. The one who, under the name of
Laborde, had taken his place beside the courier, and the four horse
men who rode on the horses hired by Bernard, dined at Mongeron,
and took coffee and played at billiards at Lieursaint.
The widow and family of Lesurques, relying on these facts, and
supported by the declarations of Couriol and Durochat, the confes
sions of Rossi and Vidal, and the retractions of the witnesses in
Dubosq’s trial, applied for a revision of the sentence so far as con
cerned Lesurques, in order to obtain a rehabilitation (a judicial
declaration of his innocence, and the restoration of his property), if
he should be proved the victim of an awful judicial error.
The Citizen Daubenton devoted the latter part of his life, and the
greater part of his fortune to the discovery of the truth. In the con
clusion of his memoir, he declared that, according to his conviction,
there were sufficient grounds to induce the government to order a
revision of Lesurques’s sentence. He concluded his statement by
saying, that ‘ the Calases, the Servens, and all the others for whom
the justice of our sovereigns had ordered a like revision, had none
of them had such strong presumptions in their favour as the unhappy
Lesurques.’
But the right of revision no longer existed in the French code.
Under the Directory, the Consulate, and the Restoration, the applica
tions of the widow and family of Lesurques were equally unsuccessful.
29
�CASES OF CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE.
All that the family could obtain was the restoration, in the last two years
of the reign of the elder Bourbons, of part of the property sequestrated
according to the law in force at the time of Lesurques’s execution
Since the revolution of 1830, the Lesurques family have made more
than one appeal to the legislature, but still in vain. The widow of
Lesurques died m the month of October 1842. His eldest son fell
fighting in the ranks of the French army. A son and daughter only
remained whom their mother, on her death-bed, adjured to continue
the pious labour which she had commenced the day when her husband
perished on the scaffold.*
net uus Dana
CASES IN AMERICA.
Mr,s
her.w?rk> Letters from New York (1843), advocating
the abolition of capital punishments, gives a notice of two cases in
which circumstantial evidence led to the execution of the wron^ parties.
The testimony from all parts of the world is invariable and con
clusive, that crime diminishes in proportion to the mildness of the
laws. The real danger is in having laws on the statute-book at
variance with universal instincts of the human heart, and thus
tempting men to continual evasion. The evasion even of a bad law
is attended with many mischievous results : its abolition is always
sate. In looking at capital punishment in its practical bearings on
the operation of justice, an observing mind is at once struck with the
extreme uncertainty _ attending it. Another thought which forces
itself upon the mind in consideration of this subject, is the danger of
convicting the innocent. Murder is a crime which must of course
be committed in secret, and therefore the proof must be mainly cir
cumstantial. This kind of evidence is in its nature so precarious,
that men have learned great timidity in trusting to it.
A few years ago a poor German came to New York, and took
lodgings, where he was allowed to do his cooking in the same room
with the family. The husband and wife lived in a perpetual quarrel.
One day the German came into the kitchen with a clasp-knife and a
pan of potatoes, and began to pare them for his dinner. The
thaiIihIpbenndSht tostatethat some of the highest juridical authorities in France either deny
that the condemnation of Lesurques was an error, or hold that, at all events the case is
far from being so clear as the advocates of his innocence would make it appear’ President
°n\°J
m°St enlShtenecl and conscientious members^ the Court of
Cassation, presented a Report on the case to the Council of State, which appeared hi the
^iar'o “of^hFnine wT’ KrOm, thl,S Feport.it aPPears that, at the trial of Dubosq in the
K a „ 9’ of th T! e witnesses who had previously testified to having seen Lesurques in
persisted in declaring that they had not been mistaken,
appearance
nf V* DuboSq’ they pointed out varioui differences between his
nfC* 1 f hesurques, on which they grounded their persistence. The voice
dLkStion^f thenr?nfeaChdb 6 ^ltnesse? ouSht> M- Zangiacomi thinks, to outweigh the
declaration of the confessed murderers that Lesurques was not an accomplice. As to the
nlrnUIjS-ta>Ce>°f m°re,. Rersons bei”g condemned and executed for the crime than were concetned in it, it is pointed out as remarkable that the accused themselves vary as to the exact
number, making it either five or six ; while, from the statements of two ofThe witnessed h
appears very probable that the assassins were seven in number.
witnesses, it
30
�CASES OF CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE.
quarrelsome couple were in a more violent altercation than usual;
but he sat with his back towards them, and being ignorant of their
language, felt in no danger of being involved in their disputes. But
the woman, with a sudden and unexpected movement, snatched the
knife from his hand, and plunged it in her husband’s heart. She
had sufficient presence of mind to rush into the street and scream
murder. The poor foreigner, in the meanwhile, seeing the wounded
man reel, sprang forward to catch him in his arms, and drew out
the knife. People from the street crowded in, and found him with
the dying man in his arms, the knife in his hand, and blood upon
his clothes. The wicked woman swore, in the most positive terms,
that he had been fighting with her husband, and had stabbed him
with a knife he always carried. The unfortunate German knew too
little English to understand her accusation or to tell his own story.
He was dragged off to prison, and the true state of the case was
made known through an interpreter; but it was not believed.
Circumstantial evidence was exceedingly strong against the accused,
and the real criminal swore unhesitatingly that she saw him commit
the murder. He was executed, notwithstanding the most persevering
efforts of his lawyer, John Anthon, Esq., whose convictions of the
man’s innocence were so painfully strong, that from that day to this
he has refused to have any connection with a capital case. Some
years after this tragic event the woman died, and on her death-bed
confessed her agency in the diabolical transaction; but her poor
victim could receive no benefit from this tardy repentance; society
had wantonly thrown away its power to atone for the grievous wrong.
Many of my readers will doubtless recollect the tragical fate of
Burton, in Missouri, on which a novel was founded, that still
circulates in the libraries. A young lady, belonging to a genteel
and very proud family in Missouri, was beloved by a young man
named Burton; but unfortunately her affections were fixed on
another less worthy. He left her with a tarnished reputation. She
was by nature energetic and high-spirited ; her family were proud;
and she lived in the midst of a society which considered revenge a
virtue, and named it honour. Misled by this false popular sentiment
and her own excited feelings, she resolved to repay her lover’s
treachery with death. But she kept her secret so well, that no one
suspected her purpose, though she purchased pistols, and practised
with them daily. Mr Burton gave evidence of his strong attach
ment by renewing his attentions when the world looked most coldly
upon her. His generous kindness won her bleeding heart, but the
softening influence of love did not lead her to forego the dreadful
purpose she had formed. She watched for a favourable opportunity,
and shot her betrayer when no one was near to witness the horrible
deed. Some little incident excited the suspicion of Burton, and he
induced her to confess to him the whole transaction. It was obvious
enough that suspicion would naturally fasten upon him, the well-
31
�CASES OF CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE.
known lover of her who had been so deeply injured. He was
arrested, but succeeded in persuading her that he was in no danger.
Circumstantial evidence was fearfully against him, and he soon saw
that his chance was doubtful; but with affectionate magnanimity he
concealed this from her. He was convicted and condemned. A
short time before the execution he endeavoured to cut his throat •
but his life was saved for the cruel purpose of taking it away
according to the cold-blooded barbarism of the law. Pale and
wounded, he was hoisted to the gallows before the gaze of a
Christian community.
The guilty cause of all this was almost frantic when she found
that he had thus sacrificed himself to save her. She immediately
published the whole history of her wrongs and her revenge. Her
keen sense of wounded honour was in accordance with public
sentiment, her wrongs excited indignation and compassion, and the
knowledge that an innocent and magnanimous man had been so
brutally treated, excited a general revulsion of popular feeling. No
one wished for another victim, and she was left unpunished, save by
the dreadful records of her memory.
32
�
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>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
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2018
Publisher
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
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Pamphlet
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Title
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Cases of circumstantial evidence
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: [S.l.]
Collation: 32 p. : ill. ; 17 cm.
Notes: Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
Publisher
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[s.n.]
Date
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[n.d.]
Identifier
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N117
Subject
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Law
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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 (Cases of circumstantial evidence), 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
Circumstantial
Crime and criminals
Evidence
Law
NSS
-
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7dcc723cbb6ace27db34a4cda7599935
PDF Text
Text
The sketch, of the character and temperament of St. Paul in his
relation to the doctrine of the resurrection is as important as it is
interesting. The spirit of the volumes is 'summed up in the follow
ing words, with the quotation of which we for the present earnestly
commend the book to the attention of our readers—
“Although we lose a faith which has long been our guide in the past,
we need not now fear to walk boldly with Truth in the future, and turning
away from fancied benefits to be derived from the virtue of His death, we
may find real help and guidance from more earnest contemplation of the
life and teaching of Jesus.”
N
We presume that the chapters in Mr. Conway’s work10 have been de
livered as lectures in South Place. No one could listen to them, few could
read them, without stimulus to thought, without being obliged to say, Do
I or do I not believe in the things which are- here so fiercely assailed as
merely old wives’ fables ? It is well to break idols—it is well often
to be full of scornful irony in the breaking—it is well to show, as Mr.
Conway is never tired of doing, the comparative mythology of religions ;
but the idol-breaker and the comparative mythologist perhaps lose
necessarily a something of reverential spirit that we should like to
find in all teachers, and a power of sympathy with what is true among
the felicities of the past.
One of the most striking lectures in the book is concerned with the
Ammergau miracle-play, in which he draws a very skilful contrast)
between the ideal Christ of the Church and the Christ as represented
in the Gospels ; but we cannot help thinking that his picture is ex
tremely overcharged from a desire of being original, and of differing,
not only from most Christians, but from most free-thinkers.
We are sure that few will agree with Mr. Conway’s estimate of the
manner in which Christ shrank from death, as put out by him in the
following passage—
“ Again and again had Christ tried to escape this danger (death), even
with dexterity, and on his trial he fenced with every art of speech and
silence. When he saw the coils of priestly hatred closing around him,
his soul was exceeding sorrowful. Death haunted him. When a woman
anointed him tenderly, the odour reminded him of death. i She embalms
me for burial,’ he cries, and his very words shudder. He meets his
disciples at supper ; but when he sees and tastes the red wine, that too
suggests death ; he recoils and cries, ‘ It’s my blood ! Drink it yourselves
—I’ll never taste it again ! ’ ”
In a hasty survey of the good and evils of Christianity, the same or
greater want of real sympathy and interest is shown. “ Idols and
Ideals” is a striking but extremely irritating book, attracting by its
brilliancy, repelling by its cold, metallic hardness.
The Hon. Albert Canning has written an essay 11 which, as its seems
to us, would be far more in place in the pages of a magazine than pub10 “ Idols and Ideals.” By Moncure D. Conway, M.A. London: Trubner&
Co. 1877.
11 “ The Political Progress of Christianity.” By the Honourable Albert S. G.
Canning. London: Smith, Elder, & Co. 1877.
�220
®
Bish pH as a substantial book. For it is too hasty, and is too m"ch
occupied with temporary judgments and modern newspaper litera
ture, to have any real and permanent value. It is an examination into
the comparative civilisation attained by Christian nations and those
under the sway of Islam ; and he considers it evident that, in modern
times, at least, no country except under Christian political rule has
attained to real civilisation. Mr. Canning has drawn carefully on all
authorities which tend to prove his point, but it is a one-sided and
argumentative rather than an exhaustive examination into the ques
tion. It is, however, worth reading as a statement of one side of the
v question.
“No task,” says Miss Whately,12 “ can well be undertaken by a
Christian writer more painful than that of controversy with fellowt Christians.” If such be the case, we can only say that almost every
V theological work ever written must have brought to its author many
terrible pangs ; for, with the rarest possible exceptions, every statement
of faith and doctrine in every language consists in large measure in
running down the faith and doctrines of somebody else. Miss Whately
gives herself the terrible pain of assailing, on evangelical grounds, the
doctrine and practices of the sect known as the Plymouth Brethren.
The whole controversy seems to us so very puerile, that we need only
draw attention to it as another indication of the intestine convulsions
that are shaking religious Protestantism to its foundations.
“ Scepticism and Social Justice ” 13 is an enlarged reprint of a little
work formerly published in Mr. Scott’s well-known series of tracts. It
contains a sketch of the aspect in which the controversy about the authen
ticity and the credibility of the Bible presents itself to an intelligent
layman who has no time to study the subject profoundly at first hand.
He challenges the clergy either to refute the attacks which have been
brought on the received theology and Scripture history, or else to allow
the sceptic to hold his own without placing him under a social stigma.
It is not enough, Mr. Bastard thinks, to say that in the large centres
of civilisation no social stigma attaches to the upholders of sceptical
opinions. He is writing in behalf of those who live in country neigh
bourhoods, where thinkers are few, and where orthodoxy and ecclesiasticism are still rampant. It is a temperate, well-written, though not
profound pamphlet, kindly and considerate to those from whom it asks,
but perhaps asks in vain, equal kindness and consideration.
Mr. Bacon 14 is an American living in Switzerland, who has contri
buted papers to various American periodicals for some time past. His
collected volume, dealing on questions connected with the Church on
the Continent, the Catholic reformation in Switzerland, the Old Catholic
Congress, on the temperance reformation, &c., are better worth reading
than are most volumes of connected essays.
12 “ Plymouth Brethrenism.” By E. J. Whately. London : Hatchards. 1877,.s
13 “ Scepticism and Social Justice.” By Thomas Horlock Bastard. , London :
Williams & Norgate. 1877.
„ n
14 “ Church Papers.” By Leonard Woolsey Bacon. London : Trubner & Lo.
1877.
\
‘‘ ’
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-
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�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
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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
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
[Idols and Ideals]
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: [s.l.]
Collation: p. 219 ; 22 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. A review, by an unknown reviewer, of Moncure Conway's work 'Idols and Ideals' from 'Theology'. Date and issue number unknown.
Publisher
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[s.n.]
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[n.d.]
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G5611
Subject
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Book reviews
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[Unknown]
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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 ([Idols and Ideals]), 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
Christianity
Conway Tracts
Moncure Conway
Religion
Superstition
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Text
«rO
\ J
PSYCHE
TO
Mother Earth.
BY
FRANCES ROSE MACKINLEY.
ARTH, my BELOVED MOTHER !
Prone upon you I prostrate myself;
I imprint you with earnest kisses ;
With awful wonder, I love, revere,
adore you.
How beholden am I to your spirit,
That you enable me to apprehend your entity ;
You, so near, so familiar to me ;
That with my psychic vision clarified,
Looking lucidly through my physical eyes,
You empower me to recognize you ;
Presential, breathing, palpitating, living !
You, the concrete, primogenial source of life.
�PSYCHE TO MOTHER EARTH.
What delight to hear your mystic voice,
To catch with clairaudient sense the latency
Of your multisonous mobility,
Your myriad and varied tones
Reverberating musically in my ears !
What boundless satisfaction
To cognize the subjective analogies
Of your elemental language !
(I am one of your living ideographic words.)
What spontaneous delight
To be able to respond to you,
In all your diversified forms of expression,
To your repercussive intonations,
Or your mellifluous whisperings—
Mother, I understand !
flow beautiful you are, O mother !
Every day I gaze fascinated and enraptured
On your athletic, brunonian body,
Outstretched, nude and lethargic ;
Your legs, massive, plump, symmetrical ;
Your bosoms luxurious, redundant;
Your wistful, luscious face,
With pensive, languishing, hazel eyne.
Ever serenely, quiescently you repose,
Basking bewitchingly your bared charms
In the searching and amative regards
�3
PSYCHE TO MOTHER EARTH.
Of your transcendent lover, the Sun.
How resplendently your flesh glistens,
Bathed in the dazzling scintillations
Of his sensuous, magnetic presence !
The beauty of your sons and daughters
Is but a faint similitude
Of your immaculate loveliness.
How loving you are, O mother !
My present existence and daily continuance
Manifest your provident love ;
That you will take this wondrous body
You
have
lent
my
spirit,
to
your
warm
embrace,
To more intimately assimilate its particles,
What evincement of love !
That you have oft incarnated my spirit,
And with, love sent me forth from you,
And, with as great love, recalled
My material personality to your bosom,
To be fondled and afterward resent,
What supereminent proofs of love !
I have noted you, endeared mother !
In daily coition with your lover, the Sun.
I have watched his gorgeous masculinity,
K
In lustful intermutation with you ;
!........... ——---------------------
�//.
PSYCHE TO MOTHER EARTH.
Embalming you in the luminous beams
Of his effulgent thermodic halo.
How much you seemed to glory,
To exult and revel in his caress !
I glory with you in your delectation,
And in the good he imparts to you.
Without his embrace, you would perish,
Even as I, your daughter, would expire
Without the contactual suscitation of my lovers.
I have seen you also, O wanton mother!
Surfeited of your lover’s dalliance,
Antagonistic, repellant of his desire.
O I too have been satiated
With the aphrodisaic carnality
Of my Priapian paramours !
From gentle encounters with you,
And tempered orgasms in your embrace,
I have seen his passion rousing
Into glowing and rampant salacity ;
Till he impended over you exacerbated
To the very ultimity of heat.
I have seen you shrinkingly recoil,
When his vehement afilation,
Simoon-like, effumed upon you,
And his rapacious arms,
Ignifluous annulars,
Compressed you impactly
�PSYCHE TO MOTHER EARTH.
5
To his lascivient and candescent body;
Whilst into your womb he extruded
.His ebullient, geyser-jet semen.
You were feverous, chafed, wincing, aglow ;
Torrified by his scortatory passion.
I deemed that you must expire ; '
And should your vitality cease, O mother !
How could your children survive !
One day, in the sultry month of July,
As I reclined on your hot breast,
Murmuring words of condolence
To you, poor suffering mother !
We were startled
by thundering
rumblings
in the West.
Looking thitherward, I descried
Huge cumuli overtopping the horizon.
Instantaneously you exclaimed :
“ O rejoice with me, my children !
“ He comes, He, my redemptive lover,
“ He, for whom I have been sighing,
“ He, whom I now need for rescue,
“ He, who only can relieve me ! ”
Then, revealed to my wonderment,
I beheld your lover, awe-compelling,
Black, colossal, cyclopean, vast,
�6
PSYCHE TO MOTHER EARTH.
Stalking majestically in the heavens,
His terrific shadow overdarkening the skies,
And tenebrously enveloping you;
His frowning browns portentously lowering ;
His
gigantic
bulk equipendent
in
the
mid
welkin.
Inflated with generant vigor,
Dissilient with desire for you,
He fulmines thunderous lustful threats.
With foretaste of delight, O mother !
You trembled at his lecherous menaces,
And with upthrown arms,
Enrounding your retroverted head,
Anxious, impatient, eager,
You slightly disparted your thighs,
And gently upraised your abdomen,
In longing preparedness to receive him.
With thought exceeding instantaneity
His phallic lightning strokes
Reiteratedly penetrate your genetalia.
Negative, receptive mother !
As his invigorating love lymph
Emulged upon you in lavish profluence ;
Your eyes closed as in serene ectasy.
Your
countenance
exuberated
with
renewed
life,
Your quickened orbs ■ looked up lovingly,
�PSYCIIE TO MOTHER EARTH.
Every freshened pore responsively dilated,
Your lips tremulously articulated, thanks.
Love-sick, languishing, despairing,
I, your daughter, with trepid sighs,
Long for a reciprocal love mate,
Whose electric influence and embrace
.*
Will be to me, as was your savior to you,
Solace, reviviscence, ecstasy !
With wearied body, o’erspent and drooping,
Sore, wounded feet, swollen with travel,
From bootless chase of unattainableness,
I seek refuge in your maternity.
I clasp my arms around your neck.
Let me nestle my weighted head
Cosily ’twixt your lenitive mammoe !
In this delicious harborage,
Let me uninterruptedly repose ! J
Let me find there, long enduring rest ;
Till, through your kindly assuagement,
The perturbation within me is allayed !
Let me subside into sedative slumbers,
Calming to my insatiate heart;
To waken, comforted, composed, ductile,
7
�g
PSYCHE TO MOTHER EARTH.
Prompt to obey your dehortations,
Assured that to question your teachings,
Or ignore your prescient admonitions,
Must be to constantly return to you afflicted,
To abide in embroilment and inquietude !
Make me
Placid, compliant, resigned, passive,
As you are, O Infinite Parent !
Animate me with your own essentiality !
Are you thus,
Placid, compliant, resigned, passive,
Thus beatifically accordant with events ;
Since to you belongs the cognition
Of the mysterious purpose of all that is ?
O let me, thro’ your inspiration,
Attain some definite discernment
Of the subtle intent of existence ;
Some positive hint of certitude,
More than the discontinuous clairvoyance,
Whereby I glimpse scintillas of truth,
With ever intervenient periods
Of dubiety, and its consequent despondence !
Your sensuous, voluptuous breath
Respiring balmily over me,
Convulses
me with titillative tremors.
The semblance of lascivious abandon,
�PSYCHE TO MOTHER EARTH.
9
Ascendant in your mien and bearing,
Spells and ecstasizes my spirit.
The aroma of your wantonness
Materializes into living forms of beauty :
Vital, substantive, efflorescent virtues ;
Whence in turn exhales a quality
Gossamery, subtile, insinuative ;
An impalpable emication,
Invisible, but sensate to your children,
In irresistibly seductive allurements
To languor, desire, love, worship, coition.
O in this luscious magnetism—
The life incitement of your children—
Is there not revealed the aim of Being ?
O from this mystic adumbration,
Have I not apprehended the purport of ex
istence ?
Expand my soul, O mother !
To a lasciviousness akin to yours ;
That I also may give exoteric form
To the fullness of like voluptuousness,
And by a consummate shapeliness
Incite, as you do, love, worship, adoration !
Make me, as you are, bold, free, cosmopolite,
Accessible, nonchalant, unbosoming !
You, ever love environing your children,
�10
PSYCHE TO MOTHER EARTH.
Coulcl they but clairvoyantlv see you 1
Make me, as you are, communicant,
\
Outspoken, fluent, colloquial, eloquent !
Your voice, ever speaking to your children,
Could they but clairaudiently hear you !
Make me just, intrusive, assertive as you !
We,
children,
your
feel
this
fictile, plastic
force ;
This charactery, whereby you express yourself,
Acting within ourselves and about us,
To fashion the physical and metaphysical ;
But
how
few divine
in it, your immanent
presence !
Make me negative, receptive as you !
Because of these feminine attributes,
You are transcendently a divine mother.
Promiscuous, all-embracing, all-loving,
All-inclusive, universal mother !
Impress me with your catholicness,
That I may reimpress all humanity,
With such assimilative consciousness
Of the opulence and divinity of those attributes,
That your sons and daughters will all emulate
The similitude of you in me,
And with one ecumenic purpose, exclaim :
Let us strive to resemble our mother ! ”
�
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Psyche to mother earth
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Mackinley, Frances Rose
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Poetry
Spiritualism
Women's rights
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Havel: “ The Origins of Christianity.”
397
which after what has been said above can be affirmed only in
a modified fofttij Science and Art and Politics are all Greek,
and to these a constantly larger share of energy and attention
is being devoted. But reactions are apt to be blind and
stupid things: surely the time has come at which it is pos
sible for thoughtful men, who aim to direct the progress of
humanity, to strive towards a definite goal by paths carefully
surveyed and chosen. And certainly, so far as religion is
concerned (and with religion alone we have chiefly to do in
this place), that goal will not be the crude revival of any form
of faith hitherto recognized as flowing from a Hebrew foun
tain. There can, indeed, be nothing truer and deeper than
the fundamental truths of religion and morality as enunciated
by Christ; but they are far fewer and simpler than most men
take them to be, and much less mark off Christianity from
other forms of faith than bind them all together in one great
and comprehensive unity. Still, while the religion of the
future will not become, in the best sense of the word, less
Christian, it will certainly grow less Jewish. Yet we hardly
think it will be Greek, after the fashion in which the Nicenh
Creed is Greek. The Hellenism which it must embrace, or
run the risk of shrinking into a narrow and obsolete sect, will
be that of an earlier and better time—the Hellenism which,
turning a frank face to the universe, strives to pierce the
mystery of its wonders, and is not reluctant to learn their
lesson—the Hellenism which aims at the complete develop
ment of humanity from the side not merely of reverence and
of right, but of beauty—the Hellenism which seeks in the
constitution of human nature for the secret of its perfection,
and finds in what is truly natural what is seemly at once and
good. The world is growing too old, knowledge too vast,
humanity too conscious of its unity, for race-religions : the
only kingdom of heaven henceforth possible is one in which
Jew and Gentile, Semite, Aryan and Turanian, can find an
equal and a rightful place.
Charles Beard.
�( 398 )
VI.—HISTORIES OF THE DEVIL.
Demonology and Devil-lore. By Moncure Daniel Conway, M.A.,
B.D., of Divinity College, Harvard University, &c. With
numerous Illustrations. London : Chatto and Windus, Pic
cadilly. 1879.
Any work which deals with the Devil or his angels and
ministers may reckon upon exciting considerable initial curi
osity and interest.
Many of the current stories about the Devil are sufficiently
quaint and amusing to evoke a desire to hear more of their
hero, and perhaps we retain just enough reverence for his
majesty to give a zest to the flippant familiarity with which
he is often treated in the legends.
Again, the weird and extravagant fancies represented by the
words witchcraft and magic, so closely connected with Demon
ology, still command a speculative interest which reflects, how
ever faintly, the terrific fascination which they must have often
exercised over the minds of those who believed in them as
veritably existing. Now and then we have cast a momentary
glance down the long line of grotesque and fearful images
which these words call up before us, and there is something
almost irresistibly attractive in the offer to reveal the whole
system and machinery of the infernal actions and agents which
have only flitted through our general reading, like the witches
in Macbeth, to leave us with an awakened but utterly unsatis
fied curiosity.
Yet again, while promising to satisfy an irrepressible curiosity
and to provide considerable amusement on the one side, books
of devilry seem to draw us on the other side close to one of
the deepest and most absorbing of the ever-recurring problems
of the universe—the origin of evil. And even if we are suffi
ciently strong-minded to relegate speculations upon such sub
jects to the limbo of “lunar politics” so far as we ourselves are
concerned, we can hardly fail to recognize the varying solutions
of this great problem which have been given or attempted
�Histories of the Devil.
399
through the ages, as possessing a deep historical interest, and
as throwing a light on the development of moral conceptions
which cannot fail to secure them respectful attention.
On these and many other grounds, any attempt to write a
history of the Devil or a treatise on Demonology is almost
sure to find that initial interest which is often the one thing
needful to secure success.
And yet, though scholars and writers of very varied qualifi
cations have in late years written from the most diverse points
of view upon this class of subjects, it would probably be im
possible to point out a single recent work on the Devil which
has succeeded in establishing itself as a really valuable and
permanent addition to the library of the historical and philo
sophical student.
M. Enville’s ingenious epitome of Eoskoff’s Geschichte des
*
Teufels is probably the best known of them all, but even that
is rather a disappointing book.
The fault seems to lie after all with the subject. It by no
means fulfils its promise. The dulness and monotony of the
devil stories soon pall on the wearied attention, and the nearer
we get to their original forms the more totally devoid of humour
and imagination on the one hand, and of all serious significance
on the other, do they appear.
Witches, again, are only interesting as long as they are
shadowy, and the titillation of curiosity soon yields to over
powering somnolence in face of the endless repetition of trivial
absurdities of which the annals of witchcraft consist; while
the ghastly chronicles of persecution, the only substantial out
come of the whole inquiry, turn the heart sick with horror.
In a word, if any one wishes to find amusement in devilry
and witchcraft, he cannot do better than stick to the “ Ingoldsby Legends” and the “Lancashire Witches,” and set all
serious study aside.
But of course the grave authors who write elaborate works
on these subjects aim at something far more than amusing
See Theological Review, Vol. VIII. (1871), pp. 30 sqq.
�Histories of the Devil.
400
their readers. It may be presumed that their purpose is to
present a systematic survey of a distinct and important branch
of human thought, to trace it to its origin, to follow it into its
manifold developments, and to indicate its practical bearing
upon life and character; and if, one after another, they fail to
accomplish anything really noteworthy, we may perhaps learn
from their failure a lesson quite as important and considerably
more encouraging than anything that their success would
have been likely to teach us.
For the inherently chaotic and parasitic nature of evil is
impressed upon us afresh by every fresh failure to present a
systematic view of the attempts that have constantly been made
to erect it into an organism possessing its own laws of deve
lopment and expression. Mr. Conway remarks, with more
*
than usual profundity, that the conception of an absolute
fiend, or personified Principle of Evil, has always evaded, and
must always evade, the popular grasp, remaining at best the
exclusive possession of a small circle of speculative thinkers ;
for a personified being, to be popular, must act upon princi
ples roughly appreciable by the average human mind ; and
the principle of absolute and intrinsic preference for evil is
unintelligible and unrealizable; it falls to pieces by its own
incoherence. Elsewhere the same or a kindred thought is
tersely put as follows :
“ Spinoza’s aphorism, £ From the perfection of a thing proceeds
its power of continuance,’ is the earliest modern statement of the
doctrine now called £ survival of the fittest.’ The notion of a Devil
involves the solecism of a being surviving through its unfitness for
survival. ”t
In the same spirit, St. Augustine, in his keen analysis of the
motives to sinful action, + resolves even the most seemingly
gratuitous vice into some kind of corrupt and perverted pur
suit of good and imitation of God ; and in this sense the wellknown aphorism that Satan is the ape of God, frequently
alluded to by Mr. Conway, gains a far more profound signifiVol. II. pp. 8, 9.
+ Vol. II. p. 441.
Confessions, Book ii. .
�Histories of the Devil.
401
cance than was originally put into it, and goes far towards
demonstrating the impossibility, not only of the Devil’s exist
ence, but even of systematic treatises on his supposed signifi
cance.
This necessity of attributing an adequate motive to any
personal being, makes it simply impossible to conceive of a
fundamental dualism as at once personal and moral. If the
great Spirit of Evil has no plan or ultimate purpose whatever,
but is simply obstructive, he loses all dignity, and ceases to be
in any sense co-ordinate with the Spirit of Good. And, con
versely, as soon as he is raised to any independence and dignity,
we are forced to credit him with some statesmanlike object, so
to speak, and he ceases to be wholly evil. Even Ahriman, as
expounded by Mr. Conway, very often seems to be a defeated
*
candidate for the throne, indulging a natural though reprehen
sible love of thwarting his successful rival, rather than the
absolute Principle of Evil.
In fact, the only fundamental dualism conceivable is that
between God and Matter, not between God and the Devil. A
stubborn and chaotic vXp (whether material or spiritual in the
ordinary sense of the words), yielding or failing to yield to the
evolving spirit, a chaos ever threatening to engulf the cosmos
and defeat its designer, is conceivable enough ; and we may
likewise imagine a mighty spirit, impelled by wounded ambi
tion or any other personal motive, throwing all his power on
the side of chaos, and giving a kind of direction to the blind
and mutinous resistance of the intractable vX-rj; but when we
reach even this point, the antithesis, in becoming to some
extent personal, has ceased to be wholly moral, inasmuch as
the opposing spirit already acts from some motive other than
gratuitous love of evil, and is, in fact, the great “ Second Best,”
as Mr. Conway is rather fond of calling him.
Let philosophers and theologians do what they will, there
fore, it remains a fact that no personification of Evil can be
even approximately complete. The Evil Principle must exist
Vol. II. pp. 20 sqq.
�402
Histories of the Devil.
independently of the Devil, and, what is more, the Devil’s own
alliance with evil can only be incidental and partial, can only
be a means to an end.
Any Will absolutely identified with evil must itself be a
kind of unorganized spiritual vXtj, and must stand in the same
relations of mingled subjection and resistance to the Supreme
Organizer as those in which the rest of his unfinished creation
or evolution are supposed to exist.
True Devils, then, are only conceivable at that low stage
of nature and development which is simply mutinous, which
never looks beyond its blind and vulgar instincts of lawless
and heartless rebellion, or asks itself the question, “What
should I do if successful?” No sooner is any internal disci
pline or definite purpose imported into the diabolical ranks,
than they cease to be wholly diabolical.
This fact, which probably lies at the root of the failure of
books on the Devil, is strikingly illustrated by what may be
called the poetical history of Devils.
If, for instance, we pass under review the representations of
Dante, Tasso and Milton, we shall find that just in proportion
as the poets allow the diabolical agents in their dramas to rise
into independent significance and interest, and constitute one
of the true “ motives” in the development, they are compelled
to divest them of their purely diabolical character.
To begin with Dante. The devils in his great poem take
an absolutely subordinate place. In a general sketch of the
Inferno, it would hardly be necessary even to mention them.
Hell is not in any strict sense their own domain; nor do we
feel that they would for a moment sustain its hideous order
and discipline, were not their own brutal and senseless recal
citrance itself held under sternest and most immediate disci
pline, even within the boundaries of Hell. No organization
whatever depends upon them ; and it is possible, therefore, to
represent them as true devils, without any single impulse of a
potentially constructive character in their composition. They
have no self-discipline, no loyalty, no purpose. Resenting the
pressure of the yoke they cannot break, they have nevertheless
�Histories of the Devil.
403
learnt, perforce, to bear it, and to find what scope they can for
their infernal energies within the limits prescribed them ; but
anything which reminds them afresh of their subjection, inva
riably leads to a burst of wildest fury, that only yields to
abject terror.
*
In spite of the demon garrison of the city of
Dis, in spite of the Malebranche, in spite of all the other
devils that have their parts assigned to them, we feel through
out this awful poem that a Higher Power reigns even here,
and holds in their places forces which if left to themselves
would instantly lapse into wildest chaos.
Dante’s devils, with their obscene gestures, their brutal fero
city and their low wit, chopping logic over the dismayed sinner,
snarling at the delivering angel that carries off the soul saved
“ by a sorry tear,” taunting the doomed wretch as he falls into
their boiling pitch, or screaming defiance at the poet and his
guide, are as ready to fall out amongst themselves as to torture
their victims, and the momentary agreement of the Male
branche (aptly signified by the line of tongues thrust through
the mocking teeth), though inspired by a purpose to deceive,
has not cohesion enough to keep them together for an hour;
and when last we see them, two of them have fallen into the
pitch as they buffet and tear one another, and the rest are
madly pursuing the two poets with a baffled fury that has
forgotten even the dreadful penalties that would surely wait
upon its indulgence ! j
*
These are real devils, and for that very reason they could
not take any place except an entirely subordinate one in
Dante’s conception of Hell itself.
Satan, the great arch-fiend, looms fearfully over the central
lake of ice, and champs in his eternal jaws the three great
traitors; but we are scarcely allowed a glimpse into his psy
chology after his fall, and find no traces in Hell of the action
of his mind or will.|
When we turn to Tasso, we find a very different order of
* Compare, e. g., Inf. viii. 82—ix. 105, xxi. 64—87.
+ See Inf. xxi.—xxiii. 57, xxvii. 112—123; Purg. v. 103—129.
I See Inf. xxxiv., and compare Par. xix. 46—48, xxvii. 22—27, xxix. 55—57-
�404
Histories of the. Devil.
conceptions. Hell is with him the kingdom of the devils, and
there at least they are free to govern and combine on their
own principles. We find them capable of deliberation and of
concerted action; and their attempts to thwart Godfrey and
his host, whether on their own motion or under the potent
spells of Ismeno, rise into one of the principal motives of the
*
epic development of the poem. But all this necessitates a
complete change in the manner in which they are represented.
At the terrific blast of the arch-fiend’s horn, the legions of
Hell assemble to deliberate, and their leader addresses them
with passionate eloquence, reminding them of all their suffer
ings and wrongs, appealing to the still unconquered daring
that had once armed them against Heaven, and which still
maintained them, even in the face of their defeat, in the glory
of invincible courage. Finally, with a pathetic cry to them a.s
his faithful companions, as his only strength, he urges them to
the fray. And before the words are fully out of his mouth, his
legions burst from Hell and speed to do his bidding.
The mere fact that they are capable of such enthusiasm
removes them more than'half-way from Dante’s sheer devils to
Milton’s infernal demi-gods.
It is in vain that Tasso attempts, by loathsome physical
descriptions, to make his devils hateful. It is in vain that he
speaks of their hoofs and horns and knotted tails; in vain that
he subjects them to the ignominious treatment they tamely
endure from the archangel Michael ;* in vain that he makes
f
stench and smoke and gore issue from the Devil’s jaws as he
harangues his followers ; for in order to enable them to take a
leading part in his drama, he has been compelled to give them
some measure of discipline, of loyalty, of enthusiasm; and
having given them these, he cannot make them simple devils
again in virtue of physical repulsiveness, or even submission
to archangelic insolence.
Passing now to Milton, we find Tasso’s conceptions developed
* See, e. g., Gerusalemme Liberata, Canto iv. Stt. i.—xix., and Canto xiii.
Stt. i.—xii., and subsequent cantos.
f Canto ix. St. lxv.
�Histories of the Devil.
405
and exalted, and almost all attempt to disarm or qualify them
practically abandoned. To all intents and purposes, Satan is
the hero of Paradise Lost; and in order to qualify him for
holding such a place, Milton has been compelled to endow him
with such noble attributes that he rivals Prometheus as the
type of heroic fortitude ; and whenever he stoops to ungenerous
or undignified conduct, the poet feels constrained to explain
and apologize !
* On the other hand, he is satisfied with the
barest formal attempts to maintain his hero’s infernal character,
and, with truer instincts than Tasso’s, perceives that, having
once made the Devil a hero, he must be sparing in his use of
undignified physical adjuncts.^
Thus we see that devils cannot be raised to the dignity of
serious treatment without, so far, ceasing to be devils. Once
let a clear purpose command their assent, and introduce cohe
sion and discipline into their ranks, and they are no longer
devils.
Is not this the real explanation of the utter insignificance of
the great mass of stories of the Devil? We look in vain for
the vast embodiment of Evil, the grand proportions of the
incarnate opposition to God, and find nothing but pettifogging
and often stupid cunning or mere animal ferocity.
In the great dualism of good and evil, of truth and error, of
order and chaos, of discipline and licence, of self-sacrifice and
self-seeking, the power of order and development can be con
ceived as personal, the power of disorder and inertness cannot.
The Devil cannot really be made the author and embodiment
of evil. At the very most he can only be a being who has
made himself the champion of evil for some intelligible and
therefore not wholly evil purpose.
\ Mr. Conway himself would, I think, quite endorse all this.
Indeed, he gives very striking utterance to one aspect of the
* See, for instance, the celebrated passages, Paradise Lost, Book iv. 32 sqq.,
358 sqq.
f See, however, Book x. 504 sqq.; compare Dante, Inf. xxv. 34—144, where
the description excels Milton’s as much in appropriateness as it does in power.
Such scenes have no true place amongst Milton’s devils.
VOL. XVI.
2 F
�406
Histories of the Devil.
central conception I have been trying to illustrate, in the
words : “ The fact of evil is permanent.... Were starry Lucifer
to be restored to his heavenly sphere, he would be one great
brand plucked from the burning, but the burning might still
go on.”*
It is this “ burning,” this resistance to the divine evolution,
this shadow that haunts the divine creation, this rebellion
against the discipline involved in the divine order, this para
sitical growth of evil which has no principle of life or being of
its own, and gnaws into the life which supports it,—it is this
that constitutes the really absorbing problem, but it is this
that histories of the Devil and treatises on Devil-lore do not
touch.
And even if they did, the history of the Devil would
still remain an abortive and preposterous study. It would
be something like a Parliamentary history which should
take cognizance of nothing but the Opposition. Theories
of chaos have no meaning except in connection with and in
subjection to theories of the cosmos. Theories of evil cannot
be the centre of any coherent exposition, for they are but the
reflex of theories of good. A history of non-development, a
chart and plan of chaos, is an impossibility.
Mr. Conway’s own theory of Good, it need hardly be said, is
summed up in the two words “ Evolution” and “ Science.” If
people would only believe in these two, they would instantly
be saved. We should therefore expect the Unevolved to be
our author’s Evil; but as a matter of fact he seems rather to
like it, as supplying material for Evolution.
“To the artist, nature is never seen in petrifaction; it is really
as well as literally a 'becoming. The evil he sees is 1 good in the
making f what others call vices are voices in the wilderness prepar
ing the way of the highest. ”+
Again, our author quotes, from a poem by Cranch,| the fol
lowing fine lines, put into the mouth of Satan :
* Vol. II. p. 393.
J Satan: a Libretto.
t Vol. II. p. 447.
Boston: Roberts Brothers.
1874.
�Histories of the Devil.
407
111 symbolize the wild and deep
And unregenerated wastes of life,
Dark with transmitted tendencies of race
And blind mischance ; all crude mistakes of will
And tendency unbalanced by due weight
Of favouring circumstance; all passion blown
By wandering winds ; all surplusage of force
Piled up for use, but slipping from its base
Of law and order.”
On which he observes :
u This is the very realm in which the poet and the artist find
their pure-veined quarries; whence arise the forms transfigured in
their vision.”*
All this prepares us for the optimistic view of things in
general which Mr. Conway’s two talismans, “Evolution and
u Science,” enable him to take.
“ The hare-lip, which we sometimes see in the human face, is there
an arrested development. Every lip is at some embryonic period
a hare-lip. The development of man’s visible part has gone on much
longer than his intellectual and moral evolution, and abnormalities
in it are rare in comparison with the number of survivals from the
animal world in his temper, his faith, and his manners. Criminals
are men living out their arrested moral developments. They who
regard them as instigated by a devil are those whose arrest is mental.
The eye of reason will deal with both all the more effectively, because
with as little wrath as a surgeon feels towards a hare-lip he endea
vours to humanize.” t
. And yet we have fancied in reading these volumes that when
the Unevolved, the arrested mental growth, takes the form of
disbelief in Evolution and Science, or belief in an Omnipotent
Will, or, above all, faith in a Priesthood, Mr. Conway’s caustic
is applied with a little more “ wrath” than suits his philoso
phical creed, and his knife is brandished in a style not strictly
surgical.
We are very far from complaining of this. A surgical calm
ness in the face of what we regard as pernicious error is happily
* Vol. II. p. 447.
Query: is “he” ‘the eye of reason’ ?
f Vol. II. p. 439.
2
f
2
�408
Histories of the Devil.
impossible, and we are all of us practical dualists at heart.
All earnest men have their moral antipathies, rising, if not
into wrath, at least into indignation.
Even Mr. Conway, philosopher as he is, cannot deal with
priests quite as graciously as he does with serpents. “Taught
by Science,” he says, when speaking of the latter,
“ Man may, with a freedom the barbarian cannot feel, extermi
nate the Serpent; with a freedom the Christian cannot know, he
may see in that reptile the perfection of that economy in nature
which has ever defended the advancing forms of life. It [i. e. Science]
judges the good and evil of every form with reference to its adapta
tion to its own purposes.”*
But when he is speaking of priests, Mr. Conway seems to
feel no desire to “justify their place in nature,” or to “judge
the good and evil” of this special form of existence solely
“ with reference to its adaptation to its own purposes.”
Superstition, then, in Mr. Conway’s mind, appears to be that
form of the Unevolved which approaches most nearly to a
positive principle of Evil, and a desire to reclaim this waste
land appears to have inspired the more serious purpose of his
volumes.
“ The natural world is overlaid by an unnatural religion, breeding
bitterness around simplest thoughts, obstructions to science, estrange
ments not more reasonable than if they resulted from varying notions
of lunar figures,—all derived from the Devil-bequeathed dogma that
certain beliefs and disbeliefs are of infernal instigation. Dogmas
moulded in a fossil Demonology make the foundation of institutions
which divert wealth, learning, enterprize, to fictitious ends. It has
not, therefore, been mere intellectual curiosity which has kept me
working at this subject these many years, but an increasing convic
tion that the sequelae of such superstitions are exercising a still
formidable influence.”!
Elsewhere Mr. Conway gives us an elaborate allegory founded
on the fate of a certain holy tree in Travancore :
“ Why should that particular tree—of a species common in the
district and not usually very large—have grown so huge ? ‘ Because
Vol. I. pp. 418 sq.
f Vol. I. p. vii.
�409
Histories of the Devil.
it is holy,’ said the priest. ‘Because it was believed holy/ says the
fact. For ages the blood and ashes of victims fed its roots and
swelled its trunk; until, by an argument not confined to India, the
dimensions of the superstition were assumed to prove its truth.
When the people complained that all their offerings and worship did
not bring any returns, the priest replied, You stint the gods and
they stint you. The people offered the fattest of their flocks and
fruits : More yet! said the priest. They built fine altars and tem
ples for the gods : More yet! said the priest. They built fine houses
for the priests, and taxed themselves to support them. And when
thus, fed by popular sacrifices and toils, the religion had grown
to vast power, the priest was able to call to his side the theologian
for further explanation. The theologian and the priest said—1 Of
course there must be good reasons why the gods do not answer all
your prayers (if they did not answer some, you would be utterly
consumed) : mere mortals must not dare to inquire into their mysteries : but that there are gods, and that they do attend to human
affairs, is made perfectly plain by this magnificent array of temples,
and by the care with which they have supplied all the wants of us,
their particular friends, whose cheeks, as you see, hang down with
fatness.’”*
i
Evolutionist as he is, Mr. Conway can really look upon this
as an adequate view of ecclesiastical history !
But to go on with the tree. In the end it was cut down
by an English missionary to make the planks and beams of
his own church, and, continues our author,
I
|
I
I
|
“The victorious missionary may be pointing out in his chapel
the cut-up planks which reveal the impotence of the deity so long
feared by the natives; and perhaps he is telling them of the bigness
of his tree, and claiming its flourishing condition in Europe as proof
of its supernatural character. Possibly he may omit to mention the
blood and ashes which have fattened the root and enlarged the trunk
of 7ws holy tree.”t
|
|
I
If we ask what this holy tree of the Europeans is, we cannot clearly ascertain whether it is belief in God or in the
Devil, because Mr. Conway has a confirmed habit of mixing
[
Vol. I. pp. 301, 302.
t P. 303.
�410
Histories of the Devil.
up the two ; but it is evidently one or both of these beliefs, as
appears from the following very powerful passage :
“All that man ever won of courage or moral freedom, by con
quering his dragons in detail, he surrenders again to the phantom
forces they typified when he gives up his mind to belief in a power
not himself that makes for evil. The terrible conclusion that Evil
is a positive and imperishable Principle in the universe carries in it
the poisonous breath of every Dragon. It lurks in all theology
which represents the universe as an arena of struggle between good
and evil Principles, and human life as a war of the soul against the
flesh. It animates all the pious horrors which identify Materialism
with wickedness. It nestles in the mind which imagines a personal
deity opposed by any part of nature. It coils around every heart
which adores absolute sovereign Will, however apotheosised..........
“. . . . Happily the notion of a universe held at the mercy of a
personal decree is suicidal in a world full of sorrows and agonies,
which, on such a theory, can only be traced to some individual
caprice or malevolence. However long abject fear may silence the
lips of the suffering, rebellion is in their hearts. Every blow inflicted
directly or permissively by mere Will, however omnipotent, every
agony that is consciously detached from universal organic necessity,
in order that it may be called ‘ providential/ can arouse no natural
feeling in man nobler than indignation.......... The heart’s protest
may be throttled for a time by the lingering coil of terror, but it is
there.”*
We have now, perhaps, a pretty clear idea of Mr. Conway’s
purpose in writing this book, and may see more clearly
than ever that a history or systematic survey of the most
objectionable portion of the Unevolved, can only rise to
importance in proportion as it forsakes its own impossible
centre of vision, and becomes a chapter in the history of
Evolution. Demonology and Devil-lore are only interesting
when they become branches of folk-lore, or hover in constant
retreat upon the margin of theology, philosophy or science.
The attempt to isolate them and treat them as independent
centres of interest, must inevitably fail.
This, then, is the lesson taught by the failure of books on
Vol. I. pp. 426, 427.
f
�
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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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Demonology and Devil-Lore
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: [s.l.]
Collation: 398-410 p. ; 23 cm.
Notes: A review, by an unknown reviewer, of Moncure Conway's work 'Demonology and Devil-Lore' from Theological Review, vol. 16, July 1879. The review is incomplete. From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Includes bibliographical references.
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[s.n.]
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[1879]
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G5607
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Book reviews
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[Unknown]
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Demonology and Devil-Lore), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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Text
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English
Book Reviews
Conway Tracts
Demonology
Moncure Conway
-
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Text
THE
WEST OF ENGLAND MISCELLANY.
Vol. I.]
FEBRUARY, 1845.
[No. 4.
THE SOCIAL CONDITION OF THE EMPIRE.
“ The Rich and Poor meet together, but somehow both forget that God has made
them all. *
*
* Heaven help us ! were there but a community of feeling,
as honest as that which necessity has at last nearly made the community of metallic
interests—and the value even of gold lies in the feelings which it can buy—how
happy we might make many now, whose bruised hearts will be cold when ours are
so, and to what blessed returns might thousands put their dormant virtues, if they
would but believe that God’s image lingered in the world. *
*
* Your
fathers had their superstitions, but they were never so gross as yours, for they were
fed and clothed while they followed them, and spoke of the powers of the old
Church at their warm firesides; but you, in spite of the cries of nature, bend in
reverence to oppression when it comes in a majestic shape, and receive the law of
outrage with meekness, because disguised by a respected form of words.”—The
Young Widow.
Perhaps it is not one of the least extraordinary of the signs of the times
that while statesmen and philosophers are daily enunciating some new
utilitarian sentiment, and merchants and manufacturers are counting
from deep money-bags their gold, the Poet and the Novelist are, with
a fervour and energy till now unknown in the “ world of letters,” de
voting their time and their talent to the cause of the poor man, seeking
to enforce his rights, and make his misery heard, by all the impassioned
eloquence they can command. The delightful work from which we
have quoted the above brilliant passages, and many others written in a
kindred spirit—the novels of D’Israeli, Dickens, and Sue—the
poetry of Talfourd, Smythe, and Lamartine—have done more
towards directing public attention to the social condition of mankind
than all the speeches of a Peel, a Russell, or a Palmerston, for
they have addressed themselves to the holier feelings,—in the inmost,
chambers of the heart whispered bitter truths: and while the bold
denunciation of the Times has spoken in a voice of thunder throughout
the length and breadth of the land, the pages of Coningsby and The
Young Widow have been read in the boudoir, and have enlisted on the
side of humanity woman’s mighty influence, woman’s true and earnest
sympathy. And it is meet and right that it should be so. Who will
Vol. 1.
H
�98
THE SOCIAL CONDITION OF THE EMPIRE.
not rejoice to see in the moral desert this spring of life and hope ? And
yet is the fact strange—melancholy—the duties of Government, even
the sacred offices of the Church, are virtually administered by a power
unrecognized by either, but which now, in the hour of necessity, has
gathered up the straggling reins, and is holding them with a will and a
determination at which their lukewarmness and expediency recoil. Yes,
by the necessities of the times that power has been again called into
being, or rather, awoke from dormancy, for it is deathless, before which
ere now the proud Autocrat has grown pale with fear, and the infallibi
lity of the Vatican confessed to error; that power which has hurried
princely monarchs, founders of dynasties, heirs of a long line of ennobled
ancestry, to an untimely and a cruel end, and which has raised from the
lowest abyss of grimy penury an obscure and nameless being to occupy
the vacant throne ; that power which achieved the English Reformation,
and which in later times has freed the Catholic from the bondage then
imposed • that power which speaks but once in centuries, and then in a
voice which makes the nations tremble, is again around and about us ;
the warning blast of its trumpet is becoming fearfully shrill and distinct.
Public Opinion is guided by the Press more than Acts of Parliament,
and the influence of Woman is greater than the power of a Cabinet
Minister. A Windsor uniform may dazzle the eye, but it cannot move
the mind. Opinion expresses itself in the literature of the day; the
novelist and the poet are its most efficient representatives, and we
repeat that it is most cheering in the dearth of good feeling, and cordial
reciprocation of kindly offices, to see the man of letters heartily espousing
the cause of the suffering poor, and striving for a moral regeneration of
those social relations which are the support and the glory of a nation.
The evils of our Social Condition are now pretty generally allowed by
all who think upon the subject; few have sufficient hardihood to defend
things as they are; but many are yet careless, more refuse to look beyond
the surface, and it is to these we woidd particularly address our remarks.
The careless man most commonly seeks to excuse his criminality by
shifting the blame to other shoulders than his own, or alleging that he
is not responsible for the misconduct of another; but in the present
instance we submit either plea is inadmissible. The fact is not dis
puted ; the man must be blind, not careless, who will venture to deny
the existence of a frightful, wide-spread, spreading, and fatally contagi
ous misery, destitution, and wretchedness in this beautiful land, over-
�THE SOCIAL CONDITION OF THE EMPIRE.
flowing with riches, bringing forth plenty, and abounding in the good
tilings of the earth. He must be blind, not careless, who, in traversing
Etc streets and squares of our cities, has not seen squalid, homeless
wretches, courting a moment’s shelter beneath the lofty portico of
some spacious mansion, and supplicating in speechless agony a morsel
of bread to prolong a life of woe,—or, when the curtain of night has
fallen over the earth, and a still more squalid poverty creeps forth from
its hiding place, when keen hunger and the freezing air make the cries
of the houseless beggar truly heart-rending, when the gin-shop is full,
the pawnbroker’s passage crowded, the poor courtezan covering a broken
heart with hued garments, and the thief creeping warily along,—who
that has seen these things will dare to put the fact in issue ? Who that
thinks of these things can continue careless ? No, the fact is not dis
puted—the hardest face-grinder must admit it; imposture there may
be, and doubtless is, but the pretenders are very few indeed compared
with the real sufferers, and to refuse all sympathy on such a miserable
pretext is as wicked as it is hypocritical. The careless, and those who
affect a carelessness which they think well-bred and fashionable, take a
line of defence requiring a little more consideration, because, although
it is equally untenable, it is more specious and sophistical. They con
stantly remind us that there is a “ State provision for the poor,” that the
Government of the country cares for its poor, that every poor man and
poor woman has a refuge where to fly in distress, where their wants will
be attended to and their interests watched over, and for which there is
a regular assessment made throughout the land. This, and the like of
this, we have heard over and over again, but, Heaven help our igno
rance ! we can see no sound argument in it. We will not say one word
on the New Poor Law, or make a single remark on the barbarous and
complicated machinery by which its unchristian enactments are carried
into operation, but will at once attempt to show these superficial reasoners how exceedingly vague and unsatisfactory are their premises, how
very illogical the conclusions they wish to draw, or rather leave us to
infer therefrom, That the prevention of an acknowledged evil is better
than any temporary alleviation of its sequences, is an observation so
hackneyed as to require no enforcement here; still, notwithstanding the
common and ready acquiescence in this great truth, many—and especi
ally the class we are now addressing—neglect to follow in their practice
the precept which their lips are not slow to preach for the benefit of
H 2
�100
THE SOCIAL CONDITION OF THE EMPIRE.
others : and though it be (as we admit it is) a common failing of huma
nity, such conduct merits reproof, and deserves unceasing reprobation;
and in no instance is this inconsistency more clearly to be recognised
than in the answer of a careless man when the condition of the poor is
urged upon his consideration. As we have already said, he talks much
of the laws for their relief, the money he contributes to the rates,
invites us to inspect the Union House Con a visiting dayJ, and intro
duces us to the guardians, the nurses, and the matrons. He is eloquent
on these topics, for he is not only talking to another but is also
addressing his own conscience—is seeking to convince himself that he
has done all that is required of him ; but if we venture to suggest that
the parochial refuge will, in all probability, soon require very considerable
enlargement—that it is already, in our opinion, too crowded for the
health of its inmates—our indolent friend is suddenly seized with an
unapproachable taciturnity; or, if at last compelled to give an opinion or
suggest a remedy, he will refer us to a volume of Malthus, rail much at
early marriages, and descant on the unknown beauties of some hitherto
unexplored island in the Pacific. Such are the contents of his medicine
chest, and they are invariably crammed down oui- throats whenever we
ask disagreeable questions. These men must have read history to little
purpose, or they would have discovered that the policy they advocate, or
by their silence approve, does inevitably lead to irretrievable ruin in
the State by which it is adopted. The pages of the past are full of
instructive lessons, are rich in that learning which makes politicians
wise, but they must be perused by a free and unbiassed mind, and such
we fear these cannot bring to the study. They have been too accustomed
to regard the peasantry as mere ministers to their necessities or their
gratifications, and they refuse to look into the rottenness of the core if
they can heal for a time the broken skin. They treat poverty as a
crime, and not as a misfortune, forgetting that in the decrees of Provi
dence there is no wrong, and not remembering that the meanest serf,
the veriest Lazarus that craves a crumb from their table, is a man and
a brother. It may be that this class will temporarily appease the upbraidings of their consciences by the constant repetition of these falla
cious arguments, but it is impossible that the impression can last, or
will have the effect of convincing any well disposed to investigation. It
is not sufficient that we build up large mansions for the poor, or provide
them with food to hold body and soul together; we should remember
�THE SOCIAL CONDITION OF THE EMPIRE.
101
fflHwhey have the same feelings as ourselves—that the same blood
circulates in their veins as flows in our own—and that if the feelings are
torpid, or the blood frozen, it is the rigour of our laws which has
plunged the iron into the soul, and the wintry customs we respect
which have congealed the waters of life. It is not enough that we
support the body while we starve the mind; we may subscribe to one
charity, preach sermons for another, and make soup and buy coals for a
third—all will not absolve us from blame, or even free us from some
self-censure, if we forget the commands of Heaven, or neglect the small
still admonitions of Divinity within our own bosoms; all this, and much
more, will not regenerate our social system, or restore the peasantry of
our beloved country to their ancient and legitimate rank.
Oh ! no ; the day in which paltry measures of expediency might have
availed is past. We must now strike with the axe, not trim with the
pruning-knife; schemes of reform must be commensurate with the
demands of the times, and they must be framed with a regard to what
is just rather than what is necessary. They must be tried by the
standard of a Catholic religion, and not by the loose morality of erring
man. Legal wrong must yield to holy right, and Scriptural command
ment supersede philosophical erudition. We must now, to effect a cure,
eradicate the seeds of disease, and purge the body of every particle of
that perilous stuff which preys upon our vitality. No; the hour in
which temporizing might have sufficed can never be recalled ; the deeds
of that hour are registered, and it is now a record of the past. The
hypocrisy and the double dealing, the open violence and the secret injury
of that time, are gone by, but not forgotten. The ravages of the storm
are oft more terribly apparent when the angry waves have subsided,
and the blustering winds are hushed. Their memory lives after them;
they are forced upon the recollection by the results they have already
brought forth, and the yet more fearful ones with which these seem
pregnant. Oh 1 no; if we would avert the calamities which threaten our
very existence as a nation—for deprived of her peasantry England
would soon vanish from the map of civilization—if we would ward off
the coming blow—if we would be prepared to chastise the insolence of
a foreign foe, or crush the rebel in our own bosom—let us unite as one
man, animated with one purpose, and desiring but one end, diligently
and religiously to promote that kindly and generous feeling between
every class of society, the absence of which is a primary cause of the
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manifold evils we all agree to deplore. Let us above all things cherish
a charity free, extended, universal,—a charity which knows not the
rivalry of sect, is a stranger to the contentions of party, which hopeth
all things, and, in doubt, refers to the arbitration of Heaven what
Omniscience can alone decide. Let us follow the plain commands of
Holy Writ rather than dispute on doctrinal theology, feed the poor and
clothe the naked before we study the oreed of Calvin, and humbly con
fess our own sins ere we decide on the forms and ceremonies which
others adopt as symbols of their faith. Let us, regardless of the sneer
of ignorance, the taunt of vulgar minds, or the abuse of the interested
and the unworthy, listen to the monitions of the heart, and receive its
language as the oracles of inspiration, as the whisperings of Nature, and
the still voice of Nature’s God. Let us abide by this as the rule of
life, and the influence of good example ■will soon become contagious.
We shall reap a full harvest from the seeds we scatter around us, cull
sweet flowers in the wilderness, and rejoice that we have, by the exer
cise of the virtues of humanity, saved the land of our birth from that
fiery ordeal which in other countries must have purified and regenerated
THE SOCIAL CONDITION OF THE EMPIRE.
LETTER OPENING IN LADIES’ SCHOOLS.
As promised in our last number, we proceed to offer a few remarks
upon the espionage very generally practised in Ladies’ Schools in this
country. A correspondent has favoured us with a letter written by a
well-known school-mistress in one of the western cities, from which we
fairly extract the following very plain, and, had it been printed in the
circulars which announce the merits of this establishment, we should
have been bound to add, very honest, paragraph. Here it is; we pledge
ourselves to its accuracy, for the letter is now before us:—
“ I seal and read the direction of every letter going out of my house, and I break
the seal and read the signature of every letter coming into my house. Those from
parents I do not read • all others are subject to my choice of inspection, and if I see
anything which I do not approve, a letter is more likely to go into the fire than into
the hands of the intended recipient.”
This, then, shall be our text. At all events none can charge us with
exaggeration, for we have given Madame’s own words; she cannot feel
�LETTER OPENING IN LADIES* SCHOOLS.
103
aggrieved, for we see the letter is deliberately and cautiously written—
written on this subject in reply to a complaint preferred, and is not a
private letter ; moreover it is a subject upon which we may legitimately
comment, for it is one in which all are interested. We believe the
assumed right to be indefensible—to be an engine of tyranny and
capricious oppression—and we have a right to denounce it. Print this
condition with your terms, Madame; tell every parent and guardian
what you do before they commit their daughter or their ward to your
keeping: and, as regards you we are silent; but we are informed you
do not do so; we are told you do not state this in the preliminary
interview; we cannot find it among the extras in your card. If you
tell a father, a mother, or a guardian, that if you do not like a letter
which a sister, a brother, or a friend, may write to their daughter you
will burn it, we can say no more; we grant you may bum it, or may
paste it in your scrap-book, or do any other thing with it seeming right
unto yourself; the fault then rests with those who gave you that power,
without which such conduct would be criminally punishable, and with
this hint we will leave you, Madame, and address ourselves to those
who are, or ought to be, more deeply interested in the welfare, happi
ness, and comfort of their children, than any paid governess, however
upright and honest.
We do not wish to say one word personally offensive to any school
mistress ; we can readily conceive that these individuals have much to
encounter, but truth compels us to add that we fear they too often
provoke the vexations to which they are subject, and of which they
make such loud complaint. It is not so generally known as it should
be that the mistresses of establishments for the education of ladies are
very often, indeed, persons uneducated and vulgar. They have a little
money, and are what is termed “ good managers,” but the instruction
of their pupils is necessarily confided to subordinate governesses, poorly
paid, and more poorly treated, but who are not unfrequently ladies by
birth, education, manners, and feelings, whose poverty compels a
reluctant submission to the whims and insults of those who are unable
to appreciate their worth, or understand the movings of their generous
hearts. How much do the daughters of our aristocracy owe to these
poor despised governesses ! But these ladies are exposed to many and
sore temptations—temptations which few can resist, which few can
entirely master. They must be toadeys to their mistress, spies on her
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LETTER OPENING IN LADIES’ SCHOOLS.
pupils, say this and do that at her bidding ; or, by becoming friends of
the ladies it is their duty to instruct, declare open war against Madame,
who pays their wages, and add miseries a hundred-fold to those they
already endure. If a young governess is seen to enter her pupils’ cham
ber, be sure a servant will be directed to listen at the key-hole. Truth
and feeling are interdicted in Ladies’ Schools ; duplicity and hypocrisy
daily encouraged.
We wish to confine our remarks to such an establishment as that
brought under our especial notice by a veritable correspondent—to a
school where most of the pupils are ladies from sixteen to twenty years
of age—and we ask any one whether such should not be treated as
reasonable and thinking beings ? If their letters are to be opened, why
not still make them wear a fool’s cap ? You tell them to behave like
women, as they are, and treat them like babies, which they are not. We
ask, why permit such a mortifying system of espionage to be practised
on your daughters ? Why delegate to another a power which you never
exercise yourself? You would hesitate to alienate the affections of your
grown-up daughters by pursuing a course which you permit a hireling
to practise with impunity, even if you do not yield your express sanc
tion. We will give the school-mistress the benefit of any doubt, and
admit, for the argument, that she has your permission or direction to
pry into every letter entering or leaving her establishment, which is
addressed to or by your daughter; we ■will suppose that this is so, and
we must at once frankly and most unequivocally assert that if mothers
have at all properly and diligently attended to the education of their
children—if they have acted towards them as becomes a mother—if
they have taken care to check evil, and to inculcate good—when they
arrive at the advanced age at which they enter an establishment such as
we have now in our eye, this degrading espionage is not only not neces
sary, but positively demoralizing. It is almost fearful to contemplate
the possible sequences of such mingled suspicion and severity. How
many of the sins of after-life may be traced to the treatment received in
establishments like these, at this the most interesting and most important
era in female existence. Bright hopes are there nipped in the bud—
ardent expectations cruelly blasted by petty and prudish restrictions.
How many a faithless wife, “ more sinned against than sinning,” does
in the drear hours of a bitter repentance curse this blighting and with
ering policy. Oh 1 talk not of the evils of romance and feeling 1
�LETTER OPENING IN LADIES* SCHOOLS.
105
Preach no more against the influences of the Drama, or the dangers of
the Theatre ! Out upon the hypocrisy which dictates such pharisaical
and senseless abuse I Out upon the cold philosophy which knows not
friendship, and shrinks from the embrace of love ! And yet it is the
object, the avowed object of this system, to prevent any correspondence
above the frigid temperature of the school-room; and an unsympathizing
mistress—and we grant a better instrument could not be found—is
directed sedulously to watch the growth of the holiest and most hea
venly feelings of which humanity is capable, and in a girl of eighteen
years of age to crush them with the unsanctified but strong arm of
authority. Need we say that any contravention of Nature’s laws must
infallibly tend to immorality; or is it necessary to refer to France,where this mode of female education has attained its perfection—where
Mademoiselle passes at once from the dark recesses of the Pension to
the marriage-bed ? Do the matrons of England wish to assimilate the
morality of the two nations ? It is a trite observation, but one which
cannot be too often repeated, that where confidence is freely and unre
servedly reposed it is very rarely betrayed; and we do think that if at
any period of a woman’s life it is expedient to place reliance on her
honour, to appeal to her heart and to her understanding, it is at that
critical moment when she is ripening into maturity ; when for good or
for evil her destiny must soon be fixed; when every expression is trea
sured up in the mind, every action recorded; when nothing escapes the
intense observation of a searching eye, or fails to make a lasting impres
sion on a fervid and awakening imagination. This is the moment to
form the character of a life, to call into action all those charms and vir
tues which make woman not only an ornament to society, but the great
essential to human happiness. Let mothers consider whether this is
best accomplished by imputing to their daughters a criminality of which
their pure hearts had never dreamt, till harsh restraints and hireling
spies suggested its possibility.
Our correspondent has also furnished us with some details of the
school particularly, but we hope not invidiously, alluded to in this
article, which will bear comparison with any Parisian Pension. It is a
common complaint of Protestant bigotry that the Roman Catholic is
always seeking unduly and by improper means to make proselytes, and
the priests of this religion are unscrupulously charged with intruding
into the seminaries of youth—and especially among Protestant ladies of
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BOODHISM.
the upper and middle classes—searching converts to their faith—and it
may be so; but we think we can prove that some at least in the
Church of England are equally and mistakenly zealous. We are told
of this school that it is expressly stated that religious creed will not be
interfered with, but that free toleration will be permitted, encouraged,
and enjoined. These are the professions ; what has been the practice ?
A distinguished “ Evangelical ” Doctor of Divinity has weekly visited
this establishment, and, with the consent of the Mistress, talked and
lectured on controversial theology in the school-room, and in so public
a manner as to prevent those young ladies who were Dissenters leaving
the room without incurring the censure of Madame, who presided. In
this same establishment, we are informed, a young Drench governess, a
Catholic, was insulted and mocked in the exercise of her religious duties
in the presence of the Mistress, who sanctioned it by her silence—and
her sneer.
Observation is unnecessary; the simple facts speak trumpet-tongued
and we guarantee that they are facts.
BOODHISM.
FROM A CORRESPONDENT.
Mr. Barrow, the great astronomer, says that “ the Boodhist supersti
tion (erroneously termed ‘ religion ’) had spread over the whole earth at
one period; that Stonehenge, in Wiltshire, is one of the temples of
Boodh; and that astronomy, astrology, arithmetic, holy-days, games,
&c., may be referred to the same original.” Even at present, says a
late English visitor at China, “ the Chinese priests of Boodh live in
monasteries, practise celibacy, fast, pray for the souls of the dead, use
holy water, burn incense, worship relics, pray (to and with the people)
in a strange tongue, and represent Boodh with rays of glory round his
head. In saying their prayers, they count the ‘ Soo choo’ (the name of
their beads or rosary) as the Boman Catholics do their Pater-noster.
The principal creed among the untutored or ignorant, consequently
among the majority of the people, is Boodliism. Boodh (the founder)
flourished 1500 years before Christ, and had several incarnations. His
priests worship daily in temples, and have a Pontifex Maximus, as a
High Priest or Pope. Boodhism or Buddhism, as it is oft written, is
not though supported (only tolerated) by the Emperor, who, -with his
�BOODHISM.
107
family and the nobility, and their literati, or men of letters, are all pure
T/tetsis, worshipping solely the true and great Creator of the Universe,
as taught by their worthy lawgiver, Confucius.* In the religious tem
ples erected to Boodh is their triad or trinity of Buddhor ('San, Paon
Full) like the magnificent piece of sculpture in the cavern of Elephant or,
in India, representing the Hindoo or Indian triune deity, to indicate
the Creator, the Preserver or Regenerator, and the Destroyer of mankind. There is a smaller sect likewise (thus forming three sects among
them) who are followers of Laon-Heuntze. These last are partly Budhists, partly Epicureans.” Apropos, this Greek philosopher (Epicurus)
has been sadly maligned and misunderstood. It is generally inferred that
he was a man whose whole soul was devoted to the enjoyments of the
table—that he was the beau-ideal of a bon-vivant; in short, a sensual
man in every respect. Epicurus, on the contrary, was a model of self
denial; but he has been thus introduced by the priests, because he
recommended cheerfulness in opposition to their ascetic and gloomy
dogmas. As a proof, over the door of his house at Athens he had
inscribed the following words :—
“ A great house, but no cheer,
Bread and cheese, small beer;
Epicurus lives here.”
He was not the patron of voluptuousness ; his philosophy was more
of a self-denying philosophy; his doctrines inculcated self-control, and
were directly opposed to all excess. He was truly the advocate of
pleasure, and innocent and rational enjoyments, for he recommended
temperance in everything, and the harmonious exercise of all our facul
ties (like Gall and Spurzheimt), under the belief or assured conviction
that without that discipline (and which could not begin to be practised
too early in life) neither the body nor the mind could be kept in a sound
state of health. Let us bear in mind, too, Horace’s maxim, “ Mens
sana in corpore sano.”
* The moral doctrines of Confucius resemble closely those of the Christians.
■j- Phrenology is the natural history of the incarnate mind ; “ riosce te ipsum” is
the most useful of injunctions, and the “proper study of mankind assuredly is man.”
Man is made for society, not for solitude, like beasts of prey, he being a gregarious
animal, and is made for joy, not for mourning his life away. It is but misconception
of our destiny, barbarism, ignorance, superstition, and insanity itself, that may prefer
suffering to enjoyment (aye, “to enjoy is to obey”), or a less sum of happiness to
a greater one. The greatest sum of earthly happiness is to be found in social and
friendly life, and in the discharge of all our relative duties. Let us then be laugh
ing philosophers.
�THE MONK AND THE STUDENT.
BY THE AUTHOR OF “ CHARLES ARNOLD.”
CHAPTER I.
“ Mourn not thy mother fading,
It is the common lot,
That those we love should come and go,
And leave us in this world of woe,
So murmur not.
No pangs or passionate grief,
N or anger raging hot;
No ills can ever harm her more;
She goes unto that silent shore,
Where pain is not.”
It was a calm and gentle evening in Italy as an invalid lay reclining on
a sofa, to all appearance rapidly hastening into eternity. The sufferer
was in the prime of life, and possessed a loveliness which, though almost,
destroyed by the inroads of disease, retained still a beauty which death
only could finally battle with and destroy. By her side stood her
daughter, a young and lovely girl, who was watching with deep earnest
ness and affection her only parent. Tears fell fast, and her whole frame
exhibited marks of the toil and anxiety she had undergone in painful
watching. The sufferer opened her eyes, but she appeared not to recog
nise her child, and she again relapsed into her former state of lethargy.
In a few minutes a priest entered, for the purpose of giving religious
consolation to the dying woman. He was a young man, of commanding
figure and appearance, and his words were bland, and his manner con
ciliatory. His countenance, although highly intellectual and striking,
had an air of deep and repulsive cunning, and his fine dark eye an
aspect startling and disagreeable. He was a man whom one might fear
rather than respect. People said his sanctity was feigned, that his
religion was not the religion of the heart, and that it was assumed to
gratify a dark and haughty ambition. There he stood seemingly gazing
on the patient before him, yet one could not observe him long without
perceiving that his glances were often wandering towards the daughter
with a deep and sinister expression.
Margaret, for that was the daughter’s name, stood as mute as a statue
beside her mother. The presence of Claude, the priest, was forgotten.
Soon, however, his voice was heard addressing the young girl. His
tones were not hushed as the solemnity of the scene would naturally
have demanded, but were uttered with coarseness and unconcern. His
words awoke the dying woman, and she gazed on him long and intensely,
her large black eyes shining with a deep and unearthly lustre.
�THE MONK AND THE STUDENT.
109
“ Madam,” said Claude, 11 you wait to receive the last rites of the
Church.: there is little time. Is your daughter to enter the holy sister
hood of Saint Margaret’s ? ” He turned and looked on Margaret.
“ No,” cried Margaret, with deep vehemence, “ never. Mother, let
me go with thee to the grave.”
“ Silence, girl,” said the priest, “ obey the Church.”
“Daughter,” faintly ejaculated the mother, “ all that I have possessed,
all that you have regarded as your inheritance is yours no longer. To
the Church have I given it. Margaret, give yourself as an offering to
God, or my soul’s pangs will be sharper and more severe as the moment
of my departure comes.”
“Mother, mother, spare me; I am young,” said the maiden, meekly.
Claude looked on her with an almost fiendish aspect as he exclaimed,
“ Methinks thou art a heretic who would thus talk to a dying parent.
Madam,” he continued, addressing the sufferer, “ speak not to your
daughter again. The Church has power to make her obey your
request.”
“ The Church will never commit such an unholy wrong as this,” said
Margaret.
“ Daughter, I have vowed before this man of God that thou should’st
enter the Church. I have cherished thee from childhood; till now
Dever hast thou refused my lawful commands. ’Tis not I who bid thee
enter the cloister ; ’tis the voice of God. Margaret, forsake the world
and all its vanities.”
“ Do not let thy mother curse thee as her soul is about to leave the
body,” said Claude; “ if she curseth thee, the curse will follow unto
death. Beware, I say ; a parent’s dying curse is a fearful thing.”
Margaret caught the words. “ No, mother,” she exclaimed fran
tically, “ thou shalt not curse me. Bid me die, bid me go to the con
vent, but curse me not. ’Tis that base man who stands before thee,
mother, who hath induced thee thus to vow. A righteous God will
mete him with a deep punishment.” Turning to Claude, she fastened
her keen indignant eye on him, and exclaimed, “ Mark me, sir, for all
this baseness punishment will come, slowly but surely.”
Claude looked confounded. He attempted to speak ; the words died
on his lips. He remained silent for some moments, when an involuntary
expression of agony escaped from the lips of the dying woman. By
much effort she whispered feebly, yet intelligibly, “ Margaret, it is the
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THE MONK AND THE STUDENT.
pastor wlio hath besought me thus. All thy wealth goes to the Church;
thyself will be consecrated to its service. I feel myself failing; the
last struggle is rapidly hastening. My child, trust in God.” This was
the last sentence she uttered, and Margaret and the priest stood by the
bed-side watching the gradual approach of death. It came speedily.
As the physical organs failed, the mind’s powers seemed to grow more
vivid. The voice was almost too weak for articulation, still frequent
exclamations of “ Margaret,” burst from her lips; but these gradually
ceased, and the sufferer was soon released from pain. Margaret flung
herself on the dead body of her parent, weeping, and calling on God
mercifully to grant her prayer that she might die with her mother. It
was a sorrowful sight to see a young girl, in the prime and beauty of
existence, calling on the Almighty to number her with the dead. The
priest left the room, and summoned a domestic, who bore Margaret from
the scene of death to her own apartment. In an hour afterwards
Claude again made his appearance, and forcing his way into the room
of the maiden, he demanded to know if she could go to the convent
that evening.
“ To the grave,” said Margaret.
“ I am sorry you feel not the position in which you are placed,”
returned the priest .
“ By whom, sir, but yourself, who have robbed me of all. Your
black hand of villainy and fraud has done this during my absence from
mv mother’s side, when, faint and ill, she could not contend against your
foul machinations. Away man, your presence insults the memory of the
dead. There is an eye,” continued Margaret, “which neither slumbers
nor sleeps, which will punish you according to your deserts. You have
falsely induced my departed mother to assign to the Chru’ch all the
property she possessed; and to carry out your own dark schemes would
compel me to become the inmate of a convent. Oh! man, thy sin will
find thee out.”
“Hereis the -will,” said Claude; “read it.”
“ I will not; thy baseness is the author of it.”
“ Enough,” he said, “ I will pray for you.”
“ Pray for me,” exclaimed Margaret, passionately. “ Oh 1 if the
wishes of those dead to honesty, virtue, and every holy sentiment, can
be called prayers, then may you pray. But take not my name in your
polluted lips when you would approach your Maker.”
�THE MONK AND THE STUDENT.
Ill
Claude listened no more, so sharply , was he stung, but hastily re
treated from the room, and was soon on his way to his dwelling; whilst
Margaret, prostrate and spirit-broken, knew not how to act. She had
pledged her word to her dying parent that she would enter the con
vent. Could she break it ? She was now alone in the world, with no
relative, and not a farthing to call her own; how should she proceed ?
She sat down and wrote the following note, and at once dispatched it
by a messenger :—
“ Dear Pierre,—Come tome directly. My mother has just breathed her last. I
am pennyless, wretched, and miserable. Claude, the priest, has practised fraud
and villainy of the deepest dye. By a series of artful contrivances, known only to
himself, he first alienated my mother’s affection from me, and finally persuaded her
to make over all her property to the Church, leaving me completely destitute.
About an hour before my mother died she took me to her arms and blessed me.
The fearful wrong she had done seemed to oppress her mind. Claude visited her
during the last few moments of her existence. He persuaded her to tell me that
the remainder of my life must be passed in a convent I refused, implored, and
entreated that I might not thus be dealt with. My dying mother urged me, and
told me, in the dark sepulchral tones of the grave, that no rest could her soul know
until I had consented to her request Again I expostulated, wept, and prayed. At
the instigation of Claude a mother’s dying curse would have sounded in my ears.
That could not be. I said no more. I fear I must go as a prisoner to the convent
Haste to me, Pierre; I know not what to do. They would urge me to enter the
hated cloister ere my mother’s corpse is yet cold. They would part us, Pierre, for
ever« Margaret D’Seal.”
The domestic had been absent on the errand bnt a short time when
a billet was placed in the hands of Margaret. She tore it open with
evident anxiety. It was in the hand-writing of her lover, and read
thus ;—
“ My dear Margaret,—I have just received a summons to attend my unhappy
brother in Bordeaux, who is on the point of death. I would have seen you before I
left, but the packet sails immediately. In the meanwhile rest assured of the eternal
love of Pierre Guillard. I know not how long I may be detained, but will write
every day,”
Margaret read the letter once, twice, and then again.
A sickness
ci ept over her as the full import of the words flashed across her brain,
It was her last chance, and that, too, had failed her. Pierre Guillard
was a young, handsome, and intelligent student, who resided about
three leagues from Myan. His circumstances were easy, having a
small competency, which, though barely enough for a livelihood, yet,
joined with the proceeds of his literary labours, was sufficient to afford
him all the necessaries, and perhaps a few of the luxuries, of life. Pierre
was of an amiable disposition, and his habits were retired and unosten
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THE MONK AND THE STUDENT.
tatious. He had met Margaret but a few weeks before her mother’s
death. An acquaintance had sprung up which ended in love, and thenpassion was marked by a singular intensity and devotion. Pierre had
seen many, many troubles during his short life, and these had tinged his
habits and train of thought with a deep melancholy. His parents had
died while he was an infant; all his relatives were dead and gone with
the exception of a brother, whose latter years had been marked by
unblushing profligacy and vice.
On the fortunes of Pierre, Margaret, and Claude, does our narra
tive turn.
CHAPTER II.
“ Methought the biUows spoke and told me of it;
The winds did sing it to me, and the thunder.”
Tempest.
Vexed and dispirited, Claude hastened to pour out his troubles to
Garana, a priest, who resided in an adjoining hamlet. What this man’s
character was the conversation that ensued will tell.
“ It is finished,” said Claude ; “ she is dead.”
A joyous emotion came across the countenance of Garana as he
exclaimed, “It is well; the dead tell no tales. How now, Claude, you
seem out of humour, man. You have done a good thing for us both;
money we have secured, which we can use as we list. Besides, Claude,
there is Margaret; when did ever a maiden refuse a handsome monk?
Try her, brother ; taste love’s draughts; you deserve them. A skilful
intriguer upon my word. . We’ll drink to night: what still silent,
Claude ?
“ We have robbed the living,” returned Claude; “ we have destroyed
the dead. Guilt and blood hang on our hands. Can’st say drink, when
the spectre form of the departed would flit about the goblet, and choke
him who drinketh.”
“ Tush man,” replied Garana, “ why thou art like a silly wench
giving thyself to doleful fancies. What care I for these things ? I
have had enough of them since I entered life; many things have I done
that a craven heart would fear; vast sums of money wrung from igno
rance and superstition have passed my hands ; I have rioted in wealth,
money has been mine in countless hoards, and—”
“ Where is it now ? ” said the other. “ Would these menial vestm-es,
�THE MONK AND THE STUDENT.
113
these homely things about thee, be here if thy wealth had not departed
as swiftly as it came. Money it is that has cursed, ruined, and trampled
on. human nature and on Giod’s laws. Its curse clings around the path
way of frail humanity. Dost think that hell would be so stocked with
fiends—that the groans, curses, and cries of despair would ascend from
that pit, as they do, if money had been wanting ? No; it is the living
destroyer in every man’s hand ; it is every man’s tempter.”
“ A moralist, forsooth,” said Garana, and his sneering eye caught that
of his companion.
“ I was a moralist,” said Claude, bitterly, “ until you knew me. I
was happy and good till your form crossed my path, and since then sin
and hell have been my companions.”
“ Go on,” said Garana, and he bit his lip.
“ I will go on, thou man of guilt. I was innocent till you bade me
sin; I was a mother’s pride, a father’s joy, till thy machinations de
stroyed my hopes of eternal salvation.”
“ Do not let us quarrel,” said Garana, calmly; “ there are things
which may bring you to the gallows.”
“ With thee,” said Claude, scornfully.
“ Without me,” said Garana. “ I can bring witnesses to prove that
you plundered Madame D’Seal of her jewels—that her death, which
thou know’st was sudden, was the work of thine own hand.”
“ The jewels were got by thy cursed persuasion; we shared them
together. Oh! thou false lying reprobate.”
“ Another word,” said Garana, “ and I denounce you to the officers
of justice;” and as he spoke his countenance bore the marks of demo
niacal hate and madness.
Claude moved not, but sobs burst from his lips, Garana, with his
eyes fastened on the ground, kept his former position, and a silence
of some moments ensued.
“ Claude,” said Garana, “ we must not quarrel. We shall dig a pit
into which both may fall. I have seen in my long life many hurled to
destruction, gone for ever,—and why ? Because in all then- schemes they
have adopted companions who have betrayed them, snared them, and
they have lost life, lost all. I have trusted thee, Claude ; it is too late
now to talk of repentance. I, too, feel anguish, sorrow, and misery,
when I look back. I can’t retrace a step in the path of virtue. You
cannot; it is idle to talk.”
Vol. 1.
i
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THE MONK AND THE STUDENT.
“ Garana, said Claude, “ I feel it; thy weaknesses are not confined
to thy mortal frame, old as thou art, grey as are thy locks; but what
pain can equal that of a young heart, knowing character is gone, virtue is
gone ; that Satan is here ruling all.” He stopped, and then with a voice
almost hushed to a whisper, continued, “ Society laid the first stroke on
my character. I joined in the gaiety of youth; I mingled with those
around me as a man. Months passed in innocence, peace, and happi
ness. I was a pastor; my heart was pure ; my hope and trust were in
Heaven. Calumny laid her hand on me. I noticed it. I scorned the
ruthless gang of petty slanderers, but I had no peace ; afterwards I lost
my flock; Host my all; and, Garana, I met with thee, alas ! alas !”
“ ’Tis in vain,” said the priest, “ these regrets are useless; they only
tear open the wound. Here is liquor, Claude : drink, drink ”
Claude, like a man perishing from thirst, seized the goblet. He
drank again and again ; it was no sooner emptied than Garana re-filled
it. That, too, was soon gone, and then his deep and cautious compa
nion began to draw him gradually into conversation.
“ What do youthink of Margaret, now?” said Garana.
“ That she hates me.”
“ So all the girls say when you first make love to them.”
“ Garana, I have begged Margaret to view me only as a friend.”
" And she did ? ”
“Nay, she told me that hell was the colour of my heart—that I was
a bad, base man.”
“ You talked with her gently ? ”
“ I did. She told me she despised me, spurned me, nay, she defied
me. You know, Garana, her mother was always under the power of the
Church. She thought a priest was but an angel on earth—that his
words and his acts We as true as God’s own love. I saw her in an
agony of soul for some sin which she fancied she had committed. I
told her the price of absolution would be 4000 pistoles, to be given to
thee for purposes of charity—that thou wert a man whose life and con
duct were just and holy—that not the smallest part of it would be
misapplied. She gave me the money for thee to distribute amongst the
poor; thou hadst it all. Margaret, her daughter, won my heart. I
loved her with madness ; I met her; I told her what I felt; I entreated
her to pity me, to love me in return. Beaten back in all my endeavours
I vowed revenge on her—a revenge which few heads would plan or
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115
I live but for that one purpose : I shall yet triumph over
girl. Thou hast taught me to hate, Garana, too well. I spoke to
the mother of her daughter; I pointed out that she was living in sin,
and that she loved a heretic, and that eternal death would be the
result of such a connexion being formed. I pointed out to the sick
woman that she might lose her own soul if she took not some steps tp
cut the link asunder. The poor credulous being believed all; at thy
instigation I prevailed on her to execute a deed known only to hersel
and me, wherein she left houses, lands, all she possessed, to the Church.
I thought her end was approaching, but it came not so soon as I wished.
Margaret was at her bedside serving her faithfully and lovingly; the
mother would not speak to her. She begged her parent on her knees
to tell her in what she had offended. My false lies had laid a silence
on her tongue, and though the sufferer panted to embrace a child whose
deep affection was apparent in all she said and did, my voice hushed
those throbbings of love. It could not long remain thus; nature could
not be kept pent within a mother’s breast. I arrived one morning, and
Margaret was. in her mother’s arms weeping. The voice of love and
tenderness which dwell in that loving heart could be staid no longer. I
saw it; I felt it; I knew that I must take a bold step, or I should be
ruined. I did so. In an adjoining cabinet was placed a number of
rich and valuable jewels that had belonged to Margaret’s father. I
watched my opportunity, and stole them; they are even now, Garana,
in thy coffers. I then went to a woman, and by means of my priestly
office' and a heavy bribe induced her to accompany me to the chamber
of the invalid. Margaret was not there; she had retired to rest for a
few hours, to recruit nature after long watching. I left this creature
with the dying woman, and she told her that Margaret, her child, had
given the jewels to her lover. She told. more. That head never again
raised itself from the pillow. I spoke to the mother ; I recommended,
as a safe means of securing the wealth which she had left behind to the
Church, that the maiden should be sent to the convent. She assented,
fearful of the disgrace that might be brought on her name. I saw she
was dying ; she could scarcely speak. I left her for an horn; when I
returned Margaret was by her bedside, watching the fleeting pulses of
her parent. Madame D’Seal awoke from her slumber, and a few mo
ments before she died she spoke to her daughter. Margaret even before
•her dying parent accused me of crime and fraud. Life passed away.
carry out.
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REVIEWS.
That girl is now a beggar; she enters the sisterhood to night. She
still accuses me of poisoning the mind of her parent, and doing a deep
and grievous wrong.”
Claude finished this recital, seized the goblet, and hastily draining its
contents, bade good night to Garana, and started for his home. When
he reached his house the first thing he did was to write to the Arch
bishop, informing him of Madame D’Seal’s death, and that she had
left a large property to the Church; that her only daughter, who was
quite young, was of heretical opinions; and her mother, before her
death, had, by great persuasion, induced her to consent to enter the
convent, so that if her life and conduct were consistent she might ulti
mately become one of the nuns. The letter concluded by stating no
steps could by any possibility be taken to set aside the will, as there
were no friends to interest themselves in the matter. When this was
done he went to the convent and informed the Abbess of what had taken
place, and that Margaret would enter that night.
Taunton.
[to be continued.]
Goblin Story. By Charles Dickens. Chapman
and Hall, London.
Although a month has passed since the publication of this book we
are inclined to think that a short notice of it will even now be interest
ing to oui leadeis, and particularly so to those who are by their inabi
lity to purchase or procure a loan of it from a circulating library
deprived of the gratification and instruction which its perusal must,
afford. Such we advise to club together a sufficient sum, and at once
ordei The Chimes, and that they may be induced so to do we will rive
one or two extracts, only premising that to commend any work written
by Mr. Dickens would be almost an insult to that public who rightly
receive in his magic name a guarantee of worth and merit.,
Heie is a scene between Trotty Veck, a poor old porter, and his
daughter Meg, which should be read again and again by every cold
hearted and unfeeling Malthusian. Meg has brought her father unex
pectedly a tripe dinner, which he is eating on the door-step of a rich
man s mansion, and while thus employed Meg broaches the subject of
her long talked-of marriage :—
The Chimes :
a
p.“.‘ A?d R1C^ard, >Say,’
V-’ Meg resumed 5 then stopped.—' What does
Richard say, Meg ? ’ asked Toby.-' Richard says, father-’ Another stoppage.Richard s a long time saying it,’ said Toby.—' He says then, father,’ Meg continued,
itting up her eyes at last, and speaking in a tremble, but quite plainly,' another year
nearly gone, and where is the use of waiting on from year to year, when it is so
�REVIEWS.
117
unlikely we shall evei be better off than we are now ? He says we are poor now,
father, and we shall be poor then; but we are young now, and years will make us old
before we know it. He says that if we wait—people in our condition—until we
see our way quite clearly, the way will be a narrow one indeed—the common way—
the grave, father. —A bolder man than Trotty Veck must needs have drawn upon
his boldness largely to deny it. Trotty held his peace.
“ ‘ And how hard, father, to grow old and die, and think we might have cheered
and helped each other! How hard in all our lives to love each other, and to grieve,
apart, to see each other working, changing, growing old and grey. Even if I got
the better of it, and forgot him (which I never could), oh, father dear, how hard to
have a heart so full as mine is now, and live to have it slowly drained out every drop,
without the recollection of one happy moment of a woman’s life to stay behind and
comfort me, and make me better! ’
“ Trotty sat quite still. Meg dried her eyes, and said more gaily—that is to say,
with here a laugh, and there a sob, and here a laugh and sob together :—‘ So Richard
says, father, as his work was yesterday made certain for some time to come, and as
I love him, and have loved him full three years—ah! longer than that if he knew
it!—will I marry him on New Year’s Day? the best and happiest day, he says, in
the whole year, and one that is almost sure to bring good fortune with it. It’s a
short notice, father—isn’t it?—but I haven’t my fortune to be settled, or my wedding
dresses to be made, like the great ladies, father—have I ? And he said so much,
and said it in his way—so strong and earnest, and all the time so kind and gentle—
that I said I’d come and talk to you, father. And as they paid me the money for
that work of mine this morning (unexpectedly, I am sure), and as you have fared
very poorly fora whole week, and as I couldn’t help wishing there should be some
thing to make this day a sort of holiday to you as well as a dear and happy day to
me, father, I made a little treat and brought it to surprise you.’ ”
We have only space for a part of Will Fern’s speech; we trust every
landlord, magistrate, and clergyman, will read and inwardly digest it;
“ *
* ‘ Gentlefolks, I’ve lived many a year in this place. You may see
the cottage from the sunk fence over yonder. I’ve seen the ladies draw it in thenbooks a hundred times. It looks well in a picter I’ve heerd say; but there an’t
weather in picters, and maybe ’tis fitter for that than for a place to live in. Well!
I lived there. How hard—how bitter hard I lived there, I won’t say. Any day in
the year, and every day, you can judge for your own selves
*
*
* ’Tis
harder than you think for, gentlefolks, to grow up. decent, commonly decent, in such
a place. That I growed up a man, and not a brute, says something for me—as I
was then. As I am now, there’s nothing can be said for me or done for me. I’m
past, *
* I dragged on somehow. Neither me nor any other man knows how,
but so heavy that I couldn’t put a cheerful face upon it, or make believe that I
was anything but what I was. Now, gentlemen—you gentlemen that sits at
Sessions—when you see a man with discontent writ on his face you say to one ano
ther, ‘He’s suspicious. I has my doubts,’says you, ‘about Will Fern. Watch that
fellow ! ’ I don’t say, gentlemen, it ain’t quite nat’ral, but I say ’tis so; and from
that hour whatever Will Fern does, or lets alone—all one—it goes against him.
*
* Now, gentlemen, see how your laws are made to trap and hunt us when
we’re brought to this. I tries to live elsewhere. And I’m a vagabond. To jail
with him! I comes back here; I goes a nutting in your woods, and breaks—who
don’t ?—alimber branch or two. To jail with him! One of your keepers sees me
in the broad day, near my own patch of garden, with a gun. To jail with him! I
has a nat’ral angry word with that man when I’m free again. To jail with him !
I cuts a stick. To jail with him! I eats a rotten apple or a turnip. To jail with
him ! It’s twenty mile away, and coming back I begs a trifle on the road. To jail
with him! At last the constable, the keeper—any body—finds me anywhere, a
doing anything. To jail with him, for he’s a vagrant, and a jail-bird known; and
j il’s the only home he’s got. *
* Do I say this to serve my cause ? Who
can give me back my liberty, who can give me back my good name, who can give
me back my innocent niece ? Not all the lords and ladies in wide England. But,
gentlemen, gentlemen, dealing with other men like me begin at the right end. Give
us, in mercy, better homes when we’re a lying in our cradles; give us better food
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1<E VIEWS.
when we’re a working for our lives; give us kinder laws to bring us back when we’re
a going wrong; and don’t set jail, jail, jail, afore us everywhere we turn. There
an’t a condescension you can show the labourer, then, that he won’t take, as ready
and as grateful as a man can be; for he has a patient, peaceful, willing- heart. But
you must put his rightful spirit in him first; for whether he’s a wreck and ruin such
as me, or like one of them that stand here now, his spirit is divided from you at this
time. Bring it back, gentlefolks, bring it back 1 Bring it back afore the day comes
when even his Bible changes in his altered mind, and the words seem to him to read,
as they have sometimes read in my own eyes—in jail: Whither thou goest, I can
Not go; where thou lodgest, I do Not lodge; thy people are Not my people; Nor
thy God my God! * ”
One extract more, and we must close a book, almost every line of
which speaks eloquent truth :—
“ The voice of Time cries to man, Advance ! Time is for liis advancem'ent and
improvement; for his greater worth, his greater happiness, his better life ; his pro
gress onward to that goal within its knowledge and its view, and set there, in the
period when Time and He began. Ages of darkness, wickedness, and violence, have
come and gone ; millions unaccountable have suffered, lived, and died, to point the
way Before him. Who seeks to turn him back, or stay him on his course, arrests a
mighty engine which will strike the meddler dead; and be the fiercer and the wilder
ever for its momentary check I ”
Young Love.
By Mrs. Trollope.
Henry Colburn, London.
These volumes are rich both in the beauties and the imperfections which
so strongly mark all the writings of Mrs. Trollope. There is the usual
quantity of truthful and keen satire, and the usual extreme exaggeration;
the same ridicule of the Americans, the same bitterness against Dissent,
which are so conspicuous in all the former works of this lady. The
advice of Hamlet to the players may, indeed, be very appropriately
addressed to many Novel writers of the present day, and among the rest
to the authoress of Young Love, for anything which exceeds the modesty
of Nature must grate upon the ear, and weaken the interest; and mora
lity is not served by representing vice in darker clothing, or folly in a
more ridiculous garb than that in which they are commonly attired.
The plot is tame and meagre. Colonel and Mrs. Dermont are the
occupants of a pretty country house called the Mount, then- family con
sisting of an only child, Alfred (the hero), and Julia Drummond, a
ward of the Colonel’s. In the third chapter we find Alfred twenty
years of age, a spoiled child grown into a wilful, conceited young man,
and Julia, at sixteen and half, “ a queer looking little creature still.”
The business of the novel opens with a dejeuner d lafourchette, which
introduces us to all the neighbourhood, and particularly to Miss Thorwold, its acknowledged belle. Beautiful, very fascinating, and with the
experience of twenty-nine summers, it would not be surprising if a better
trained youth than Alfred Dermont became deeply enamoured of the
highly connected and penniless Amelia Thorwold. He falls most out
rageously in love, of course, and insists that the fair one be invited to
his father’s house to be wooed at his leisure; this a clever mother
easily manages for him, and the ardent admiration and fervid passion of
the boy are laughably contrasted with the accomplished artifice and
shrewd policy of the maturer lady, who will not give him an opportu
nity of speaking explicitly until she has satisfied herself that she has no
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119
hope in another quarter, where she loves “ not Wisely, but too well.”
Lord William Hammond, a man upon town, and “ dreadfully involved,”
is the object of her adoration, and he is easily induced to visit the house
of Mrs. Knight, where she is residing, and there proposes to Ameba a
secret marriage, which, after a little hesitation, she agrees to, leaves her
home on the plea of visiting a sick friend, repairs to the abode of a cer
tain Mrs. Stedworth, in London, who is a dealer in ladies’ left-off wear
ing apparel, a letter of furnished apartments, a bill discounter, with two
or tln-ee more et ceteras, from whence she is married, and becomes Lady
William Hammond. After the ceremony, which is performed in some
suburban church, the noble pair make a short excursion in the country,
and then return to “ dear kind Stedworth,” where, after a few prelimi
nary jars, Lord William pens a note to his wife, commencing “ My dear
Miss Thorwold,” assuring her that the marriage was only “ a farce,” and
earnestly advising her immediate return to Alfred Dermont, and real
matrimony. This she does with as little delay as possible, and with
excuses so plausible, that she is received with every demonstration of
joy, and no exertion is spared to expedite the union now so ardently
desired by both parties. Julia Drummond, who has ever loved the son
of her guardian, views the preparations for the approaching wedding
with much dismay, but with the most patient submission. Her present
maid, however, happens very unfortunately to be the very same Abigail,
“who” (in the feminine language which Mrs. Trollope makes Miss
Thorwold write to “ dear Stedworth,”) used to have the honour of
waiting upon my Ladyship, when my Ladyship was preparing for her
downy pillow, in expectation of my Lord,” and in spite of an offer of
ten guineas, large promises, and many threats, honest Susan tells the
Colonel her story,—and is turned out of the house for her pains. The
happy morning at length arrives, and when all are on then- road to the
church the old Colonel receives a note from Mrs. Stedworth, who
having fixed her heart upon a trip to Paris, in company with Lord
William Hammond, is greatly exasperated at that nobleman declining
the proposed honour, and in the excess of her spleen writes this letter,
proving that Miss Thorwold is Lady William Hammond, the marriage
having been perfectly legal, and inclosing a certificate thereof from the
officiating clergyman. Mr. Alfred Dermont receives this astounding
information with extraordinary nonchalance, and with much prompti
tude offers his hand and fortune to Miss Julia Drummond, who kindly
but decisively refuses her consent to such an arrangement. He then
leaves England, and she visits a relative in Scotland; but at the expi
ration of four years they meet again in the salons of London; the
refusal is not repeated, and from a few concluding fines we are led to
infer that Julia Drummond becomes Mrs. Alfred Dermont. Lord and
Lady William Hammond live together for a short time, but he at length
discovers a wealthy lover, gets damages to the amount of twenty pounds,
and a divorce.
Such is a hasty outline of this story: there are, however, two
personages whom we have not had occasion to mention, but who,
nevertheless, occupy a considerable number of pages in Young Love
—Miss Celestina Marsh, a lady of middle age, much attached to men
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REVIEWS.
in general, and the military in particular; and Mrs. Stephens, a liter" y
lady, and a Unitarian.
We care not to speculate whether Mrs. Trollope has drawn some of
her dramatis persona from real life—whether “ recent events ” in
fashionable circles have furnished her with materials—this is foreign to
our intention ; but we cannot refrain from observing on a few of those
exaggerations which we alluded to in the commencement of this notice,
and which, coming as they do from a female pen, we consider very
reprehensible. We will say nothing on the deep, unrepeatable oath,
which a young lover of nineteen is made to swear in the ear of his mistress at a crowded breakfast table ! But we must protest against very
many of the sayings and doings of Miss Amelia Thorwold—protest
against them as libels upon womanhood; and really we are unable to
reconcile the entire portrait of this lady with either truth or probability.
Read her letters to Stedworth ; hear her own account of that woman,
given to a man when proposing marriage to her,—“ a person who gains
her living by being considered as trustworthy.” Mark how ready she
is to defraud any one, from her Uncle to Juba Tlrnmmond. There is
not one good trait in her character as painted by Mrs. Trollope, and yet
she is bold enough to ask her countrywomen to accept this as a faithful
delineation of one of the educated and high bom of their own sex 1
Modest authoress!
Then there is poor Celestina Marsh, who is made to outrage, and
habitually outrage, all female delicacy or decorum in almost every word
and action of her recorded life ; and Mrs. Stephens, also a broad carica
ture, but less offensive. We do not deny that these are all forcibly
sketched, but we think sketched from the prejudiced creations of a sinister
fancy, rather than nature, and such is, we regret to say, a rommon fail
ing in the works of this authoress. Any moral which the story may be
intended to convey is lost sight of in the repulsiveness of its details;
and even supposing that there are a few such creatures as Amelia. Thor
wold and Celestina Marsh, still is Mrs. Trollope as inexcusable in hold
ing them forth as representatives of a class, We admire the vigorous
language in which Mi's. Trollope ever arrays her ideas, but we can
bestow no more particular praise on this novel.
Vacation Rambles and Thoughts ; comprising the Recollec
tions of Three Continental Tours, &c. By T. N. Talfourd,
D.C.L. Two Vols. Moxon, London.
Let none, however wearied with the sameness and insipidity of ordinary
Books of Travel, be deterred from perusing these volumes, for we assure
them that the talented author of “ Ion” has invested a subject long
deemed exhausted with a freshness and originality very delightful.
He has enveloped it in his own rich eloquence, and adorned it with
" thoughts ” speaking in their every syllable the good and the accom
plished man. It is a book extremely entertaining, and, what is more,
permanently interesting.
To the many who, Eke ourselves, are devoted admirers of the poetry,
the enthusiasm, and the brilliant abilities of the learned Seijeant, lus
name will be a sufficient passport for these “Rambles;” and to those
�WANDERINGS OF A FAY.
121
(if such there be) who are not intimate with his writings, or acquainted
with his fame, we would say lose no time in overcoming an ignorance
which does you discredit as inhabitants of a nation rightly claiming him
as her first dramatic poet.
ORIGINAL POETRY.
WANDERINGS OF A FAY.
PART II.
In sadden’d mood he takes his flight,
And now he chances to alight
Within a room of ample space,
Adorn’d by many a form of grace ;
And one fair girl all silently
Hath seiz’d the Postman’s mystery,
And reads in earnest guise.
Is it the Spirit’s breezy wings
That to her cheek such deep flush brings,
And brightens up her eyes
Ah no! but passing well he knew
’Twas Love his own bright radiance threw
From his triumphal throne; For, after many a peril past,
Her lover seeks his home at last,
And wooes her for his own.
Each sister looks with kindly eye,
And a young brother standing by
Speaks of a bridal near.
At length is raised her beauteous head,
Her hasty glance around is sped;
Veil’d in a misty tear;
She gazes on her father’s face,
Where anxious love her heart can trace,
And then her hurried eye hath met
Her mother’s look of fond regret,
And round that cherish’d form fast clinging,
Her gushing tears are wildly springing,
And other dear ones come ;
And hearts their earnest hopes are breathing,
Around her head a halo wreathing,
Shed from the shrine of home.
The Spirit’s eye again was bright,
He wav’d his wings in rich delight,
And felt an inward joy to know
Our world was not one scene of woe,
Unlighten’d and uncheer’d';
For sure the Everlasting Love
Must smile from his bright sphere above
On love by love endear’d.
And now again he soar’d away,
And paus’d where some poor sufferer lay
Upon her bed of sad despair,
O’ercome with grief, and pain, and care.
Her sailor boy had cherish’d still
His mother’s age through ev’ry ill,
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i
THE ENGLISH CATHEDRALS.
But oh! his good ship now was lost,
And age, and want, and sickness crost
Her pathway to the grave ;
When lo ! that radiant beam of light
Brought once again before her sight
His missive o’er the wave.
He Was not lost, but soon would come
To cheer once more her humble home.
And oh ! in that entrancing thought
Her pain and sickness seem’d forgot,
Hope shone so warmly in her breast,
Her path appear’d too brightly blest ■
For poor-may be the lowly cell
Where feelings exquisite may dwell,
And from a mother’s yearning heart
Love for her child will never part.
Then lightly the Spirit floated along,
Trilling his joy in a murmuring song,
That in its gentle and musical swell
Seem’d the sweet tones of some far distant bell,
In echoes of melody borne on the wind,
Waking old mem’ries of love in the mind;
Or like the soft sopg of some love-stricken bird,
,
In the shadows of twilight so gracefully heard.
(To be continued.)
FLORENCE.
THE ENGLISH CATHEDRALS.
The old Cathedral Churches,
In their majesty they stand;
The temples of a holy faith,
In this our favoured land.
Within their sacred precincts
Low falls the voice of mirth;
Race after race have worshipped here
The God of heaven and earth.
I love their solemn grandeur,
Meet to raise the soul on high;
The vaulted roof, the cloisters dim,
Grown dark with years gone by.
Around are shadowy' forms,
Silent and soft we tread;
Alone—amid a voiceless crowd,
Alone—with the slumbering dead.
Alone with the perishing dead,
Returned to their native dust,—
Mitred abbot and scepfc®gd king
Have yielded their earthly trust.
The knight from the bold crusade
Lies down in a dreamless rest;
The hands that wielded sword and spear
Are folded upon his breast.
Fie hears not the clarion’s blast,
The thrilling trumpet’s sound;
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MONTHLY GOSSIP.
The pealing organ’s melody
Lulls him in sleep profound.
And hark! from the ancient tower
Sounds forth the deep-toned bell—
A faithful servant Time has had,
One who did his bidding well.
Joined to the peal of mirth
When it bade the heart rejoice,
And tolled to the passing crowd
A loud and warning voice.
Will ye hear that solemn voice,
Frail dwellers of the sod?
Let it pierce to your inmost souls,
“ Prepare to meet your God 1 ”
Filled with pleasure, with care,
How will ye meet the day
When the flaming earth to its centre shakes,
And the heavens shall pass away ?
And ye hear the unearthly blast,
Thrilling all hearts with dread;
The voice that shall break the iron sleep,
And arouse the slumbering dead ?
Oh! let us all so live
That we may not fear to die;
Lifting up our heads when God appears,
And feel our redemption nigh.
ADA.
MONTHLY GOSSIP.
r
The Bath Theatre.—Mr. and Mrs. C. Kean.—This Theatre has opened for
the season, with Sir Bulwer Lytton’s comedy of Money; Evelyn by Mr. Kean, and
Clara by his talented wife. Those who, like ourselves, have again and again
listened whilst the classic genius and the kindly heart of Mr. Macready have
invested the part of Evelyn with that truthful reality which in such a character can
not be simulated; and seen Miss Helen Faucit even raise the creation of the poet,
and render her Clara a sweet and touching representation of feminine delicacy, will
not be surprised at our failing to appreciate the acting of Mr. and Mrs. Kean in this
play, for while regarding their Evelyn and Clara we can never divest ourselves of
the idea that it is acting ; the trick of the stage is ever visible, and Nature is often
sacrificed to produce a momentary and most worthless sensation. Mr. Kean is quite
competent to give the requisite effect to the last scene in Macbeth, and to make some
acts in Romeo and Juliet attractive; but he is utterly unable to do justice to the
high mysticism of Hamlet, the impassioned gloom of the Stranger, or the proud mind
of Evelyn. It is not his fault, but his misfortune. Heaven has not blessed him with
the talent which can alone make a great actor, and which is not to be acquired in
schools. It is the presumption of his friends and admirers which provoke compa
risons that to Mr. Kean must be especially odious. To Mrs. Kean we bow with
willing homage. Miss Ellen Tree in Ion it is impossible to forget; but we must
confess that even her sweet elocution cannot give to Clara that secret charm by
which Miss Faucit has made this character, as well as the Pauline of the same
author, essentially her own. We have no space to notice the characters in which
Mr. Kean has subsequently appeared; but we cannot refrain from observing that the
�124.
MONTHLY HOSSIP.
plays of the immortal bard require more than the meretricious ornaments of the stage
—fine dresses and gaudy scenery—can ever give. They require that right concep
tion of the poet, in which (although he is certainly improved) we deem Mr. Charles
Kean lamentably deficient.
The late Miss Clara Webster.—The following remarks on “the spirit of
the age,” as exemplified in the disgusting apathy of the audience assembled at
Drury Lane Theatre, on the evening of the melancholy accident which caused the
death of this talented young lady, are from a very eloquent letter in the Times,
subscribed S. G. O., and which is generally understood to be written by a respected
gentleman in our own district, eminently distinguished for his Christian virtues and
exalted philanthrophy
“A ballet, called, I believe, The Revolt of the Harem,
was in course of representation at one of our largest theatres. One of its scenes
represented women bathing. An actress in this scene accidentally set fire to the very
light drapery in which, in such a scene, she was necessarily clothed. She rushes
screaming about the stage, and is at last rescued from the flames around her by a
carpenter courageously throwing her down and rolling on her. She is taken home;
and, in. spite of all that skill and attention could do, in a few days she dies. The
audience’ who had looked on her in flames and heard her screams, remained in their
seats, saw the performance of the ballet out, and went home at the usual hour. And
now for a developement of the spirit of the age. An inquest is held, a verdict
returned of ‘ Accidental Death,’ and then the Coroner tells the jury and the public
—nay, it is said he sent for a candle and proved the fact—that an ingenious chemist
has invented a starch which will make even the light drapery of the ballet-dancer
fire proof; there is a funeral, and the scene closes. The cruel, heartless indecency
of the spectators of such a scene, who could remain one moment longer than neces
sary at the theatre that night, receives no reproof; the nature of the scene exhibited
passes without comment. Public decency has been outraged—a mother has lost her
child by a shocking, cruel death. The public and the profession have gained a
knowledge of fire-proofing starch. Henceforward the tender feelings of the play
goers need undergo no apprehension, though the ‘ pet of the ballet ’ should, in one
of her most fascinating pirouettes, spin her scanty drapery over the very foot-lamps
of the stage.”
We learn from a respectable provincial journal that the Reverend Vicar of
Seaton, in Devonshire, is now most busily occupied in denouncing the Theatre. Why
do not these clerical orators vent a little of their bile on the degrading Poor Law
system and the murderous Game Laws ?
The Fine Arts.—We are much gratified to find that a Society of Arts is about
to be established in Bristol. We shall watch this projected institution with great
interest.
We extract the following remarks from an extremely interesting paper in the
Athena om, on Sacred and Legendary Art, by Mrs. Jameson:—“In the old times
the painters of these legendary pictures could always reckon securely on certain
associations and certain sympathies in the minds of the spectators. We have out
grown these associations; we repudiate these sympathies. We have taken these
beautiful works from the consecrated localities in which they once held each their
dedicated place, and we have hung them in our drawing-rooms and our dressing
rooms, over our pianos and our sideboards; and what do they say to us ? That
Magdalen, weeping amid her hair, who once spoke comfort to the soul of the fallen
sinner—that Sebastian, arrow-pierced, whose upward ardent glance spoke of courage
and hope to the tyrant-ridden serf,—that poor tortured slave, to whose aid St. Mark
comes sweeping down from above—can they speak to us of nothing save flowing
lines, and correct drawing, and gorgeous colour ? Must we be told that one is a
Titian, the other a Guido, the third a Tintoret, before we dare to melt in compassion
or admiration ? or the moment we refer to their ancient religious signification and
influence, must it be with disdain or with pity ? This, as it appears to me, is to take
not a rational, but rather a most irrational, as well as a most irreverent, view of the
question. It is to confine the pleasure and improvement to be derived from works
of art within very narrow bounds. It is to seal up a fountain of the richest poetry,
and to shut out a thousand ennobling and inspiring thoughts : and such was the opi
nion of the late Dr. Arnold, whom no one, I imagine, will suspect of a leaning to
Puseyism. In speaking of the pictures in the church of San Stefano at Rome, he
remarks:—‘No doubt many of the particular stories thus painted will not bear a
�GLEANINGS.
125
criticakexamination. It is likely enough, too, that Gibbon has truly accused the
general statements of exaggeration. Divide the sum total of reported martyrs by
twenty, by fifty if you will, but after all you have a number of persons, of all ages
and sexes, suffering cruel torments and death itself for conscience sake and for
Christ’s; and therefore,’ he adds, ‘pictures of this kind I think very wholesome,
not to be sneered at, nor looked at as a mere excitement, but as a sober reminder to
us of what Satan can do to hurt, and what Christ’s grace may enable us to bear;
neither should we forget those who, by their sufferings, were more than conquerors,
not for themselves only, but for us.’ ”
The Taunton Institute.—We have received a number of letters from various
correspondents in Taunton, five or six of whom describe themselves as members of
this Institute, and all complaining of the annoyance which is occasioned to them and
their fellow members by the narrow minded and canting, but vain attempt, which is
annually made to obtain the closing of the News-room on the Sunday. It appears
that for several years past an individual has attended the yearly meetings of the
Institute for the purpose of renewing a futile debate on this question. His elo
quence is described to us in language not the most complimentary, and it seems (hat
although constantly defeated in argument and numbers, this valiant Sabbatarian
intends to persevere until his pet motion is carried. Although feeling that the Sab
bath is a day which entitles it to a sacred observance, apart from other days, we
cannot see the objection to the perusal of a newspaper on that day. Where can be
the sin ? With what law of the Bible does it interfere ? We believe that a news
paper has a useful tendency; it prevents the childish, the unprofitable, and often
times exaggerated conversation on men and things, which so constantly ensues on
that day; and to the poor man especially the possession of a newspaper on a Sunday
—for on that day alone has he time to read it—affords a rich mental treat, gives a
humanizing turn to his mind and inclinations, which he could never obtain in a pot
house. But we fear in the present instance we are wasting words. A man whose
notions are so bigotted—so replete with intolerance; who can hardly walk on the
same side of the street with a Catholic or Unitarian; who would have no politics
unless they were based on spurious Evangelism; who wages a more than mortal
warfare with the innocent amusements of life, and would have no social feeling
aroused unless created at the missionary or tea meeting, is not amenable to the laws
of common sense, is deaf to the remonstrance of reason, and is blind to his own
insignificance.
GLEANINGS.
At school friendship is a passion. It entrances the being; it tears the soul. All
loves of after life can never bring its rapture, or its wretchedness; no bliss so absorb
ing, no pangs of jealousy or despair so crushing and so keen! What tenderness
and what devotion; what illimitable confidence; infinite revelations of inmost
thoughts; what ecstatic present and romantic future; what bitter estrangementsand
what melting reconciliations; what scenes of wild recriminations, agitating explana
tions, passionate correspondence; what insane sensitiveness, and what frantic
sensibility; what earthquakes of the heart and whirlwinds of the soul are confined
in that simple phrase a schoolboy s friendship ! ’Tis some indefinite recollection
of these mystic passages of their young emotion that makes grey-haired men mourn
over the memory of their school-boy days. It is a spell which can soften the acerbity of political warfare, and with its witchery can call forth a sigh even amid the
callous bustle of fashionable saloons.—Coningsby.
Good breeding is the result of nature, and not of education; for it may be found
in a cottage, and may be missed in a palace. ’Tis a genial regard for the feelings of
others that springs from an absence of selfishness.—Ibid.
Conservativism is an attempt to carry on affairs by substituting the fulfilment of
the duties of office for the performance of the functions of government; and to
maintain this negative system by the mere influence of property, reputable’ private
conduct, and what are called good connexions. Conservativism discards Prescription,
shrinks from Principle, disavows Progress; having rejected all respect for Anti
�126
GLEANINGS.
quity, it offers no redress for the Present, and mikes no preparation for the Future.
It is obvious that for a time, under favourable circumstances, such a confederation
may succeed ; but it is equally clear that on the arrival of one of those critical con
junctures that will periodically occur in all states, and which such an unimpassioned
system is even calculated ultimately to create, all power of resistance will be
wanting; the barren curse of political infidelity will paralyze all action; and the
Conservative Constitution will be discoverad to be a Caput Mortuum.—Ibid.
Fame and power are the objects of all men. Even their partial fruition is gained
by very few; and that, too, at the expense of social pleasure, health, conscience,
life. Yet what power of manhood in passionate intenseness, appealing at the same
time to the subjeet and the votary, can rival that which is exercised by the idolized
chieftain of a great public school ? What fame of after days equals the rapture of
celebrity that thrills the youthful poet, as in tones of rare emotion he recites his
triumphant verses amid the devoted plaudits of the flower of England ? That’s
fame, that,s power—real, unquestioned, undoubted, catholic. Alas! the school-boy
when he becomes a man finds that power, even fame, like everything else, is an affair
of party.—Ibid.
There are some books when we close them—one or two in the Course of our life
—difficult as it may be to analyze or ascertain the cause,—our minds seem to have
made a great leap. A thousand obscure things receive light; a multitude of inde
finite feelings are determined. Our intellect grasps and grapples with all subjects
with a capacity, a flexibility, and a vigour, before unknown to us. It masters ques
tions hitherto perplexing, which are not even touched or referred to in the volume
just closed. What is this magic ? It is the spirit of the Supreme Author, that, by
a magnetic influence, blends with our sympathizing intelligence, directs and inspires
it. By that mysterious sensibility we extend to questions, which he has not treated,
the same intellectual force which he has exercised over those he has expounded. His
genius for a time remains in us, ’Tis the same with human beings as with books.
All of us encounter, at least once in our life, some individual who utters words that
make us think for ever. There are men whose phrases are oracles ; who condense
in a sentence the secrets of a life ; who blurt out an aphorism that forms a character,
or illustrates an existence. A great thing is a great book ; but greater than all is
the talk of a great man! And what is a great man ? Is it a Minister of State ? Is
it a victorious General? A gentleman in the Windsor uniform ? A Field Marshal
covered with stars ? Is it a Prelate, or a Prince ? A King, even an Emperor ? It
may be all these; yet these, as we must all daily feel, are not necessarily great men.
A great man is one who affects the mind of his generation ; whether he be a monk
in his cloister agitating Christendom, or a monarch crossing the Granicus, and
giving a new character to the Pagan world.—Ibid.
A coquette is a being who wishes to please. Amiable being! If you do not like
her you will have no difficulty in finding a female companion of a different mood.
Alas! coquettes are but too rare. ’Tis a career that requires great abilities,
infinite pains, a gay and airy spirit. ’Tis the coquette that provides all amusement,
suggests the riding party, plans the pic-nic, gives and guesses charades, acts them.
She is the steering element amid the heavy congeries of social atoms ; the soul of the
house, the salt of the banquet, Let any one pass a very agreeable week, or it may
be ten days, under any roof, and. analyze the cause of his satisfaction, and we might
safely make a gentle wager that his solution would present him with the frolick
phantom of a coquette.—Ibid.
We are too apt to believe that the character of a boy is easily read. ’Tis a mys
tery the most profound. Mark what blunders parents constantly make as to the
nature of their own offspring, bred too under their eyes, and displaying every hour
their characteristics. How often in the nursery does the genius count as a dunce
because he is pensive ; while a rattling urohin is invested with almost supernatural
qualities because his animal spirits make him impudent and flippant! The school
boy, above all others, is not the simple being the world imagines. In that young
bosom are often stirring passions as strong as our own, desires not less violent, a
volition not less supreme. In that young bosom what burning love, what intense
ambition, what avarice, what lust of power; envy that fiends might emulate, hate
that man might fear !—Ibid.
Music.—Oh, Music! miraculous art, that makes the poet’s skill a jest; revealing
to the soul inexpressible feelings, by the aid of inexplicable sounds! A blast of thy
�GLEANINGS.
127
trumpet, and millions rush forward to die: a peal of thy organ, and uncounted
nations gink down to pray. Mighty is thy three-fold power ! First, thou canst call
up elemental sounds, and scenes, and subjects, with the definiteness of reality.
Lo ■ the voice of the winds—the flash of the lightning—the swell
Then thou canst speak to the secrets of a
man s heart as if by inspiration. Strike the lyre! Lo! our early love—our
treasured hate—-our withered joy—our flattering hope ! And, lastly, by thy myste
rious melodies thou canst recall man from all thought of this world and of himself—
bringing back to his soul’s memory dark but delightful recollections of the glorious
heritage which he has lost, but which he may win again. Strike the lyre ! Lo 1
Paradise, with its palaces of inconceivable splendour, and its gates of unimaginable
glory!—Vivian Grey.
The Unfortunate.—The wretched wanderer of the night, whose only “home”
is the noisome stew, reeking with the foul breath of infamy; whose emaciated,
squalid, and care-worn features are bedaubed with the mockery of health; whose
diseased and attenuated frame is decked in the gaudy rags of bygone pleasure; whose
heart is sapped, whose memory is blighted, qnd whose breast is hopeless—none
regard her with compassion—most with profound loathing and contempt. Few think
of the hidden rock on which the fair vessel struck. The effect is seen and con
demned, but the fatal cause escapes mole-eyed censure. Who thinks upon the
probable treachery, falsehood, and villainy that have been exerted to corrupt the
unbefriended, weak, and too confiding woman? Who inquires if the depravity,
which glares in every expression, was drawn in with the first breath of life, and the
blood tainted in the veins by the authoress of her being ? Not one among the mil
lion that spurn the poor outcast, and, by adding to her misery, think to increase the
moral observance on which they plume themselves. The creature of unhappy des
tiny—she who drew her first nourishment from the bosom of crime and ignorance—
whose first lisp of infancy was the instructed curse—is thought of only as a wretch
fitted for the cell and the felon’s brand. The victim to fraud and perjury, whose
every comfort, every joy, every hope is shattered and annihilated—whose once ten
der heart is made callous by sorrow—is remembered only to be despised. Meek-eyed
mercy seldom sits in judgment on either.—Old English Gentleman.
Mesmerism.—There being nothing palpably absurd on the face of the subject,—
only strange, unthought of, and overwhelming, to minds unaccustomed to the great
ideas of Nature and Philosophy—the claims of Mesmerism to a calm and philo
sophical investigation are imperative. No philosopher can gainsay this; and if I
were to speak as a moralist on the responsibility of the savans of society to the mul
titude—if I were to unveil the scenes which are going forward in every town in
England from the wanton, sportive, curious, or mischievous use of this awful
agency by the ignorant, we should hear no more levity in high places about Mesme
rism—no more wrangling about the old or new names by which the influence is to
be called, while the influence itself is so popularly used with such fearful reckless
ness.—Miss Martineau.
If you contend at all let it be for Truth; for truth throws a lustre on the combat
ant which error cannot do.
Names are but the arbitrary marks of conceptions. Sound honest principles
possess a charm worth all other talismans.
Tobe deceived is not always a sign of weakness; for he that never deceives
readily believes that others are as honest as himself.
Insolence is the offspring of ignorance and cowardice, and the mark of meanness.
Sin and punishment are like the shadow and the body, never apart.
We should use a book as the bee does the flower.
Native Cats of New South Wales.—Several of the mischievous little
animals, commonly called native cats, were destroyed by our dogs. They seem to
occupy the same place in Australia that the weasel and ferret 'family do at home,
being terribly destructive if they can get into the hen-house, not only killing to eat,
but continuing to kill as many fowls or turkeys as they have time for, leaving a sad
spectacle of mangled corses behind them. They are pretty, but have a sharp,
vicious countenance, very different to the deer-like expression of the herbivorous
animals here. Their common colour is grey, finely spotted with white; the tail
thin, covered with rather long, wiry hair, which forms a sort of tassel at the end.
They are about the size of a lean, half-grown domestic cat, very agile, fierce, and
^yre •
of the wave—the solitude of the valley !
�128
GLEANINGS, ETC.
4,
strong, and extremely tenacious of life. Dogs seem to have a natural propensity
to destroy them, but sometimes find the engagement rather more equal than they
might wish.—Meredith’s Sketches of New South Wales.
The Egyptian Pyramids.—I went to see and to explore the pyramids. Familiar
to one from the days of early childhood are the forms of the Egyptian Pyramids;
and now, as I approached them from the banks of the Nile, I had no print, no pic
ture before me, and yet the old shapes were there; there was no change ; they
were just as I had always known them. I straightened myself in my stirrups, and
strived to persuade my understanding that this was real Egypt, and that those angles
which stood up between me and the west were of harder stuff, and more ancient,
than the paper pyramids of the green portfolio. Yet it was not till I came to the
base of the Great Pyramid that reality began to weigh upon my mind. Strange to
say, the bigness of the distinct blocks of stone was the first sign by which I attained
to feel the immensity of the whole pile. When I came, and trod, and touched with
my hands, and climbed, in order that by climbing I might come to the top of one
single stone, then, and almost suddenly, a cold sense and understanding of the Pyra
mid’s enormity came down overcasting my brain,—Eothen.
The Ages of Mountains.—There is no part of geological science more clear
than that which refers to the ages of mountains. It is as certain that the Grampian
mountains of Scotland are older than the Alps and Appenines, as it is that civili
zation had visited Italy, and had enabled her to subdue the world, while Scotland
was the residence of “ roving barbarians.” The Pyrenees, Carpathians, and other
ranges of continental Europe, are all younger than the Grampians, or even the
insignificant Mendip hill of Southern England. Stratification tells this tale as
plainly as Livy tells the history of the Roman republic. It tells us, to use the
words of Professor Phillips, that, at the time when the Grampians sent streams
and detritus to straits where now the valleys of the Forth and Clyde meet, the
greater part of Europe was a wild ocean.—Vestiges of the Natural History of
Creation.
LIST OF NEW BOOKS.
Passages in the Life of a Radical, by S. Bamford, 2 vols., 10s.—Zoe, the History
of Two Lives, by Geraldine E. Jewsbury, 3 vols., post 8vo.—Valentine M’Clutchy,
the Irish Agent, by W. Carleton, esq., 3 vols., post 8vo., £1 : 11s. 6d.—Eothen,
2d edition, 1 vol., demy 8vo., 12s.—May Morn, and other Poems, by Swynfen
Jervis, 2s. 6d.—Revelations of Russia, by an English Resident, 2 vols., 24s.—St.
Etienne, a Tale of the First Revolution, by Miss Martin, 3 vols., post 8vo.—The
Ward of the Crown, by the author of “ Seymour of Sudley,” 3 vols., post 8vo.—
Lady Willoughby’s Diary, so much as relates to her Domestic History, 2d edition,
foolscap 8vo., 8s. cloth, 18s. morocco.—Letters of a German Countess, written during
her Travels in Turkey, Egypt, &c., in 1843 and 1844, by Ida, Countess of HahnHahn, 3 vols., post 8vo., £1: Us. 6d.—Lady Cecilia Farrencourt, by Henry Mil
ton, esq., 3 vols., post 8vo., £1 :1 Is. 6d.—Beauties of Jeremy Taylor, 1 vol., post
8vo., 7s. 6d.—Arthur O’Leary, edited by Harry Lorrequer, new edition, 1 vol. 12s.
TO CORRESPONDENTS.
“ A,” (Yeovil) in our next number.
The lines sent by “ C. A.,” (Exeter) cannot be inserted. We know more than “ C. A.”
was pleased to communicate to us.
If “ M. B.” (Gay-street, Bath,) will favour us with her name in confidence, we will
reply to the “ private ” letter.
We are extremely sorry to be obliged to postpone the publication of the poem with
which we have been favoured by Captain Belle w.
t
It will be more convenient if our correspondents write only on one side of their paper.
“ M.” We are very much obliged.
All communications for the Editor are requested to be addressed to him at Mr. Cus
tard’s, Library, Yeovil.
Errata in our last nvmber.—Tn. the note to “The Poet’s Love,” for “ Ricciardo,” read
Ricciarda, In “Wanderings of a Fay,” line 30, for “ the,” read his.
John and James Keene, Printers, Bath.
�
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Victorian Blogging
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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The West of England Miscellany. Vol. 1, No. 4, February 1845
Description
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Place of publication: [Sherborne]
Collation: 97-128 p.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway.
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1845
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G5549
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Periodicals
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<p class="western"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" name="graphics1" width="88" height="31" border="0" alt="88x31.png" /></p>
<p class="western">This work (The West of England Miscellany. Vol. 1, No. 4, February 1845), 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
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Conway Tracts
Periodicals
West of England