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fe 2-5 'y 5
NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY
POVERTY:
ITS CAUSE AND CURE.
POINTING OUT A MEANS BY WHICH THE WORKING CLASSES MAY RAISE» •
THEMSELVES FROM THEIR PRESENT STATE OP LOW WAGES AND
CEASELESS TOIL TO ONE OF
COMFORT, DIGNITY, AND INDEPENDENCE;
AND WHICH IS ALSO CAPABLE OF ENTIRELY REMOVING, IN
COURSE OF TIME, THE OTHER PRINCIPAL SOCIAL EVILS
BY-
M. G. II.
“ The Diseases of Society can, no more than corporeal maladies, be prevented or
cuied, without being spoken about in plain language."— J ohn Sxuabt.Miu.
ILoniJon:
E. TRUELOVE, 256, HIGH H0L30RN;
REMOVED FROM TEMPLE BAR.
1885.
[PRICK ONE PENNY.]
�INTRODUCTORY REMARKS.
This little tract—made as small as possible in order that, by its mode
rate price, it may be within the reach of even the very poorest—is
written for the purpose of pointing out to the working classes, and
indeed to all other classes, the only true means of bettering their
condition. Its object is thoroughly practical, since the means we
advocate is simple, and requires no self-denial; but, on the contrary,
must cause a speedy improvement in the circumstances of the parties
adopting it. And, moreover, if its practice were universally recog
nized as a great social duty (as there is every reason to believe it will
be in time), it leads us to hope that, besides Poverty, the two other
great evils of our country, Prostitution and Celibacy, may be entirely
extirpated. We doubt not that at first it will be overwhelmed with
contempt and abuse, more especially by the “moralist;” but we
firmly believe that after such a calm examination of the subject as
its immense importance deserves, it will be acknowledged to be the
only means of escaping from the manifold evils under which we all, rich
and poor, now suffer. We have thought it necessary to precede the
communication of this means by a short explanation of the principal
cause of the present state of Low Wages, in order that the reader
may the more deeply feel that any scheme, benevolent or otherwise,
for the abolition of poverty, hitherto tried, must either be totally
powerless to effect its object, or, if successful, can only be so at the
cost of inflicting fresh evils, hardly less grievous than Poverty itself.
�3
POVERTY:
ITS
AND
CAUSE
CURE.
L
“The life of our working classes is worse than that of most of the
beasts of burden. They toil unremittingly, at a laborious, monotonous,
and in many cases a deadly occupation; without hope of advance
ment, or personal interest in the work they are engaged in. At night
their jaded frames are too-tired to permit their enjoyment of the few
leisure hours; and the morn awakens them to the same dreary day of
ceaseless toil. Even the seventh day, their only holiday, brings them,
fa this country, little gaiety, little recreation.................... Thus have
the poor to toil on, as long as their strength permits. At last some
organ gives way, the stomach, the eyes, or the brain; and the un
fortunate sufferer is thrown out of work, and sent to the hospital,
whilst his wife and family are reduced to the brink of starvation.
Often, the man, rendered desperate by his hopeless position, plunges
into drink, and gives himself over to ruin. At other times, the
Working classes, in a frenzy of rage at their infernal circumstances,
determine that they will have higher wages or perish. Hence result
the disastrous strikes, and the terrible social revolutions, that have in
recent times so often convulsed society. But they are vain; they are
but the blind efforts of men to do something or die, the fruitless
heavings of a man in a night-mare. The mountain of misery in
variably falls back upon their breast, with only increased pressure ;
and forces them, worn out by impotent struggles, to bear it quietly
for another little season.”
The above extract presents a sad, but too true, picture of the
*
manner in which thousands, nay millions, of our fellow countrymen
are forced to pass their lives. That it is not overdrawn, all belonging
fo the class referred to must be able to testify. Those who earn good
wages, and therefore save themselves and families from a personal ex
perience of the bitter miseries of poverty, doubtless know many less
favored by fortune, who have sunk and been trodden upon, in the hard
struggle for the bare necessaries of life which is going on around us.,
• From “The Elements of Social Science; or, Physical, Sexual,
ind Natural Religion.” E. Truelove, 256, High Holborn.
�4
Were we to ask, “ What is the cause, and what trie cure (if any) ot
¡this sad state of things ? ” how various and how contradictory would
be the replies. Some, and these would be of the richer classes, would
attribute it principally to idleness, drunkenness, or improvidence ;
recommending as its remedy education, the establishment of penny
Banks, sick funds, hospitals, &c. A large portion of th® middle
classes, viewing it from religious grounds, would declare it to be a
visitation-from heaven, sent for our spiritual good; and offer no Other
hope than that all -will be set right in the next world. Other®, of a
more practical turn, lay it at the door of over-competition, and re
commend emigration to the colonies as a cure. From the above,
opinions would vary, in proportion as we descend the Social scale,
through all the gradations ot trades unions, associated industry, socialism, change of laws, down to the extreme of red republicanism, and
a forcible division of the property of the rich amongst the poor.
'Now, in a work of this limited kind, it would be quite impossible
to examine in detail all these various schemes for the bettering of th®
state of the working classes. We must therefore content ourselves
with remarking that those among them that are at all practical, and
that - have had a trial, partial or general, have either been totally
powerless, or, at best, have only had a-very passing effect, in raising
the poor from the mire in which they are sunk. The main question
is, “ How can we raise wages ? ” All else is comparatively unim
portant—for as long as the present miserable rate of wages prevails
(a rate hardly sufficient to keep starvation from a man’s door), edu
cation, savings’ banks, and the like, are but mockeries. Even reli
gion itself is but a poor substitute for food and other necessaries.
No; if we could but raise wages to a fair rate, all the rest would
follow in time, even to the reformation of our criminals and prosti
tutes, who are for the most part driven into those wretched paths of
life Tor very bread.
Inorder to solve the question, “How can we raise wages?” we
must first look to the cause of the present low rate. This, it must be
evident to all, arises from the fact that the number of hands able and
willing to work greatly exceeds the capital for their employment at
good wages; in short, that the supply of labor is too large in propor
tion to the demand. When this is the case, wages will always be
low; and all efforts to raise them by such means as trades-unions and
strikes can only result in misery to both employers and employed«
We do not wish here to discuss the vexed subject of the combinations
of workmen against employers for the purpose of forcing up wages;
we only state a fact which few will dispute, namely, that this means
of bettering their condition is scarcely ever successful, but on the
contrary, nearly always leaves those who have taken part in it in a
worse condition than ever. Equally powerless for good is the plan,
once very popular, of fixing wages by law, at a higher rate than
would be warranted by the demand. Such compulsory interference
with the labor market was -.easily evaded.; but where enforced, it
always had the effect of throwing a number of men out of work. A
�ô>
moment’s consideration wiH'convince us that such must be the result.
Capital is a certain sum which is divided, in the form of wages,
amongst a certain number of men. If, without altering the relative
proportion between capital and labor, we forcibly raise the current
rate of wages, a portion only of the hands may indeed obtain that
advance, but at the cost of depriving the rest of their shares alto
gether; that is, throwing them out of work, to starve, or rely on
charity.
Brom the above considérations, we believe it will be acknowledged
that the only means of raising wages, without at the same time
causing a number of hands to suffer by it, would be to increase the
capital, and therefore the demand for labor, as compared with the
supply.
Now, from various causes, amongst the principal of which we may
mention the application of steam to land and sea travelling (that is,
railway and steam navigation), the rotation of crops and other im
provements in agriculture, &c., this country has increased in wealth
within the last fifty years to an extent and with a rapidity hitherto
unknown. And yet the working classes have by no means benefited
by all this increase of capital. It is quite as difficult for them to gain
an honest livelihood now as it was formerly. The very small weekly
snnas (six or eight shillings, for instance) which we find to have been
the current wages two centuries or so back, may seem to give the lie
to this; but such sums were in reality equal to double or treble their
present value, since food and rent were then not one-half or one-third
as high as at present. To convey some idea of the cost of living at
that period, we give the following table of the price of some of the
necessaries of life about the middle of the 17th century :—
Oatmeal, per quart .......... 1 Ad.
Beef and Mutton, per lb. ... 34d.
Beer, per gallon.................. 3d.
Bacon
„ ... 3^-d.
Eggs, per dozen.................. 3d.
Dutch Cheese
„ ... 2|d.
Sack of Best Coals ...........6d.
Best Salt Butter
„ ... 4d.
Weekly rent of a laborer’s
Biscuit
„ ... l^d.
Cotton Candles
„ ... 4d.
cottage.......................... 2d.
We have not given the price of wheaten bread, because in the middle
of the 17th century it had hardly come into general use, its place
being supplied by .rye, oatmeal, or buck wheat, whose price bore about
the same relative proportion to wages as wheaten bread now does.
Few will be bold enough to assert that wages have advanced in
greater proportion than this. We here speak of factory and other
trade operatives. The agricultural laborer has fared far worse, for
his wages have never considerably varied, during two centuries, from
10s. per week, notwithstanding the increase in the cost of the prin
cipal necessaries. As we should expect, we find his condition to be
worse than any other class of honest laborers, and by far inferior to
that of the condemned criminals. From Mr. Mayhew’s work we
learn that, whilst prisoners on hard labor are supplied with a weekly
allowance of 254 ounces of solid food—that being’the smallest amount
which (according to eminent medical men) can be given consistently
�6
with health and vigor—the English laborer can procure for himself
alter feeding his family, no more than an average of 140 ounces’
that is to say, the honest working man gets hardly more than half
as. 7n}ch
the crlminal, whose allowance is the smallest consistent
with health and vigor. In plain terms, a large portion of the most
hard-working of our industrial classes are half-starved.
If the case of male laborers is bad, doubly so is that of the females
lhe miserable condition of the sempstresses and slop-workers for
large shops is well known. Indeed, so truly appalling is the life they
lead, that instead of wondering at our streets being over-run with
prostitutes, we ought rather to feel astonishment that so many young
women should be found willing to prefer a virtuous life with sixteen
hours daily toil, and barely enough food to keep life in them, to the
degraded course of living on the streets: in which way, however
■shameful, they can at least generally procure an abundance of food.
After such facts as these, and they might be multiplied indefinitely,
let us- no longer boast of our civilization, our respect for religion our
wondrous progress in arts and sciences. Such only tend to dazzle us
and to hide with a gilded cloak the vast mass of poverty, over-work’
and vice, beneath. If all our glorious achievements cannot lighten
the sufferings of our fellow beings, then have they nothing accom
plished worthy of being called glorious.
We are now led to inquire into the causes which have prevented
the poorer classes from sharing in the great increase of wealth which
has taken place during the present century. Such, all our best
modern authors declare to be ovek-pofulation. We shall now
examine and explain what is called the “Law of Population.”
n.
One of the chief propositions of this law is the following:_ “All
animated nature has a constant tendency to increase beyond the
means for its support; ” that is to say, that, however great may be
the increase in the produce of the soil, it will always in old countries
be far short of the increase of living beings, supposing nothing were
to prevent their following natural instinct, and multiplying their
species unchecked. This applies equally to the human race, not
withstanding the power they possess of immensely augmenting the
produce of the soil above the natural yield.
Now, although man’s greatest power of multiplication is not exactly
known, it can be approached nearly enough for our present purposes.
It has been variously stated by different writers at the power of
doubling the numbers in the course of every 25 years, to as rapidly
as every 10 years. We will choose the more moderate rate, and
suppose population capable of doubling itself every quarter of a
century. Representing the present population as I,' at the end of
25 years it would be 2; in fifty years it would have again doubled, 4;
in another 25 years, 8; and at the end of the century, 16; that is, it
would be sixteen times as numerous as at first.
�1
As to the rate of increase of the produce of the soil, it is even more
difficult to arrive at a true result, than in the case of population; but
one thing we may be certain of, that it is very far indeed behind the
latter. For the sake of argument, however, we will suppose that the
produce of this island might be increased every twenty-five years, by
a quantity equal to what it at present produces. No sane man could
suppose a greater increase than this. Indeed in a few centuries it
■would make every acre of land in the island like a garden.
In the table here given we see these two rates contrasted :—
At the end of
Present 25
50
75
100
Time. Years. Years. Years. Years.
Increase of Food .....
1
2
3
4
5 &c.
Increase of Population ...
1
2
4
8
16 &c.
By this we see, that, were it possible for min to follow his greatest
rate of multiplication, at the end of a century he would exceed, by
more than three times, the food for his sustenance. But we know
that this would be practically impossible. A larger number of in
dividuals than could procure food would not be able to exist a week
after food began to run short; which, in the above example, would
occur after the lapse of the first 25 years. We therefore see that the
Mte of increase of the human race must be limited to the very
moderate rate of increase of food; all efforts to exceed that rate being
met by a falling off in the necessary supply of food, that is, by
famine. But though this must operate to repress excess of multipli
cation, were there no other checks; still, in point of fact, it is rarely
that this is the actual one. It is replaced (especially in more civilize^ ■
Countries) by a large variety of other checks. In describing these,
we shall for convenience divide them into two great divisions, the
Positive and the Preventive checks. The former consists of wars,
vice, disease, misery, and all other causes whatsoever which tend to
shorten the duration of human life. The latter, having no direct
influence on the deaths, operates in checking the births, and consists
in Sexual Abstinence or Celibacy, whatever form it may assume.
The priesthood, convents and nunneries in Catholic countries, the
large standing armies and navies of most civilized states, to whose
members marriage is generally impossible; above all, the class who
remain single from motives of prudence, common to all countries, but
most numerous in Switzerland, Norway, a few German States, and
our own, all have the effect of reducing the number of births, and
thus effecting, by opposite means, precisely the same end as is brought
about by the positive check, namely, keeping down the population to
the level of the food.
From the action of one or other of these checks man has had no
means of escape. He cannot choose apart from them: he can only
choose between them. If he follows natural instincts without restraint,
and brings more beings into the world than can find support (making
every allowance for increased yield of the products of the soil con
�8
sequent on improving knowledge of agriculture, &c.), the Stirplus
twist be cut off by disease, vice, or war; unless, indeed, a part of
these evils are warded off, as amongst the working classes of England,
by fearful efforts of industry, which reduce them to the condition of
mere machines. . On the other hand, if he exercise that prudence
and foresight which is peculiar to civilized man, and restrain himself
from begetting offspring until late in life (say thirty), he will by this
prudence procure for himself exemption to a very great extent from
the evils of over-population: but at the cost, besides an immense
amount of unhappiness, of introducing vicious habits.
Had we space we should examine in detail the condition of every
modern state in the world, and show how population is repressed in
each, either by the positive or preventive check; and how in pro
portion to the rarity of the one, we shall be sure to find the opposite
check in force. However, as such would lead us beyond the limits of
á small tract of this nature, we must content ourselves with reviewing
two or three countries where their action is most plainly seen
Amongst the most remarkable is Hindostán or India. Here marriage
is greatly encouraged, by the religious code, which makes the pro
creation of male children one of the greatest merits In the
ordinances of Menu (their Bible,) it is said, “ By a son, man obtains
a victory over all people; by a son’s son, he enjoys immortality; and
afterwards by the son of that grandson, he reaches the solar abode.”
Thus, marriage in India is considered a religious duty; and therefore
the preventive check operating little, the positive one must of necessity
supply its place. The people are so crowded that the most excessive
poverty prevails, and periodical famines have been always very Se
quent. Wars and pestilences have also at times carried off large
numbers. So much for the positive check falling on a race but lialfcivilized ; let us see its effect on a people much more advanced_ the
Chinese.
In China the population is enormous, being upwards of 300 millions
or about one-third of the human race. These vast numbers are
owing to the goodness of the soil and climate, the very great attention
that has always been paid to agriculture, and also the extraordinary
encouragements to marriage, which here, as in India, is considered a
religious duty; to be childless being held a dishonor. The preventive
check having therefore operated but little, the positive has been the
chief one. The most grinding and abject poverty prevails among the
lower classes, together with an untiring industry and hard work, (&
combination which finds a parallel perhaps in England alone).
Famines are very frequent, which sweep off vast numbers, and
infanticide is very general. It is in these modes rather than by wars
(which, till lately, have not been so destructive in China), that the
positive check operates. The check to population from vicious sexual
intercourse does not appear to be very considerable in China. The
women are modest and reserved, and adultery is rare.
From the above two examples of the operation of the positive
check, let us turn to the opposite extreme, where the preventive check
�9
or sexual restraint, is in greatest force, namely, in Switzerland, Nor
way, ^nd several of the German States. We shall borrow the words
of a weekly periodical, which sets forth in glowing terms the pros
*
perous and happy condition of the people of those countries. “ They
are certainly in advance of us in England,” says the writer. “ They
have almost destroyed pauperism; they have no ragged children, nor
ragged schools; the very boys have such regard for the rights of pro
perty, that the orchards are not enclosed, and cherry trees hang loaded
over the paths and roads, without being robbed by the pilferer, or
watched by the owner; not even watch-dogs are kept; each defends
the property of his neighbour as well as his own. The houses are
large and comfortable, two stories, and sometimes three, with nu
merous apartments; and in all the country there are no such cots
hovels as there are in England. The people are all well but simply
dressed; and even the few laborers that live on day wages are as well
dressed, and as comfortably fed and lodged, as their masters; and
work and live in hope that by their savings, which are weekly accu
mulating, they shall be able to purchase a little farm for themselves,
and spend the evening of their days in comfort.” We should remark
that the writer of the article from which the above is taken, attri
butes all these beneficial results to the system of “ peasant pro
prietors” there in force; that is to say, the possession by every
laborer of a piece of land of from five to ten or more acres, which is
Cultivated by himself and his family. Now we do not deny that such
may be a very useful means of raising the condition of the working
classes, giving them, as it does, a personal interest in their work;
still w® assert that alone it would be quite powerless to raise one jot
the poor from their miserable condition. In proof of this, we point
to the description of the state of the Chinese above given, which
shows the results of the above system (for there it is in greatest force,
nearly every peasant being a land-holder) when unaided by sexual re
straint.
The true cause of this prosperity we find in the custom of late
marriages and celibacy, more general in those countries than in any
other in Europe. Indeed, so much is it felt to be a duty to refrain
from wedlock until the man is able to maintain a wife and children,
that in some of the states alluded to, a law is enforced which requires
every person intending to marry, to prove before a magistrate that he
possesses the means of supporting a family; otherwise he cannot
marry. However repulsive such a law may seem to us Englishmen,
born and bred in an atmosphere of liberty, there can be no doubt that
it has effected in those countries all the improvements so remarkable
of late years.
We shall now turn to our own country, and endeavour to solve the
question put in th,e first part of this work, “ What are the causes
* “Family Herald,” for the week ending Feb. 22, 1857, article,
“The World but little known.”
�10
which have operated in cutting off the working classes of England
from their due share of the vast increase of wealth, which has takes
place in this country during the present century ? ” To thia we
boldly answer, early marriages and undue procreation; and in this we
are supported by all the greatest modern writers on the state of the
poor, to wit, Messrs. John Stuart Mill, Malthus, McCulloch, Dr.
Whately, and others too numerous to mention. We are so impressed
with the idea (which has descended to us from the ancient Hebrews),
that to rear a large family is a very meritorious act, that it may seem
startling when we lay at its door all the poverty, misery, and even
crime, so rife amongst the poorer classes. And yet from the facts
before passed in review, namely, the existence of universal poverty in
all those countries whose inhabitants do not practise sexual restraint,
and, on the contrary, its rarity in proportion as sexual restraint is
exercised, we can no longer shut our eyes to the conclusion, however
harsh it may appear, that the large families common amongst the
working classes have not only the effect of dragging down and
crippling the parents who have to toil for their support, but are also
the great cause of the present state of low wages, ceaseless drudgery,
and early death, consequent on an over-crowded population, and too
great a supply of labor in proportion to the demand. As long as the
number of hands seeking work is greater than the capital for their
employment at fair wages, it is vain to expect a rise in wages ; just
in the same way as when the population of a country exceeds the
food for its comfortable support, it would be impossible for all to get
enough sustenance.
III.
From what we have said in the preceding chapters, it may be
thought that we would wish to impress upon the poor and working
classes the duty of exercising moral restraint; that is, sexual ab
stinence. This is the view of the question taken by Mr« Malthus,
Dr. Chalmers, and many other writers; and no doubt whatever can
exist as to the power of this means, if it could be adequately prac
tised, to remove poverty and want in England. But, with all due
deference to such eminent authorities, we cannot refrain from ex
pressing our firm conviction that such a remedy for poverty is almost,
if not quite, as bad as the disease it would cure. Our endeavours
should be not merely directed to the removal of poverty, which is but
one form of human misery, but to the much larger question of a re
moval of all the causes of unhappiness. If we remove one only to
replace it by another as bad, then have we done no real good.
This subject—the evils of moral restraint or sexual abstinence
will require a little careful examination; as, although we all feel by
instinct that it is an evil, yet (from its very nature causing its victims
to hide their sufferings) it is much less capable of being clearly de
fined and put down in black and white, than is that of over-popula
tion, and its natural result—poverty.
In order the better to explain this subject, we shall borrow a few
�.11
passages from the work already quoted from, which, being written
by a student of medicine, who has evidently carefully studied this
branch of physiology, is entitled to our serious attention.
“It is most unwise,” he says, “ to suppose that our chief duty with
regard to our appetites and passions, is to exercise self-denial. This
quality is far from being at all times a virtue ; it is quite as often a
vice; and it should by no means be unconditionally praised. Every
natural passion, like every organ of the body, was intended to have
moderate exercise and gratification. ... At the present, in this
country, abstinence or self-denial, in the matter of sexual love, is
much more frequently a natural vice than a virtue; and instead of
deserving praise, merits condemnation, as we may learn from the
mode in which all-just nature punishes it. Wherever we see disease
following any line of conduct, we may be certain that it has been
erroneous and sinful, for nature is unerring. Sexual abstinence is
frequently attended by consequences not one whit less serious than
sexual excess, and far more insidious and dangerous, as they are not
io generally recognised. While every moralist can paint in all its
horrors the evils of excess, how few are aware that the reverse of the
picture is just as deplorable to the impartial and instructed eye.”
Those who require a more detailed account should consult the work
itself, where also are shown in vivid colors the hundred times more
ruinous effects resulting from the abuse of this part of our frames,
whether in the form of self-pollution, or that of prostitution, with the
melancholy list of diseases in their train ; both of which vices are
sure to be rampant wherever great obstacles to marriage exist.
Let us now view moral restraint or sexual abstinence from a lower,
but, to the majority, more influential point of view; that is, its effect
On the every-day comfort of the working man. It is here that would
be found the greatest difficulty in its adoption; for to a young
operative a wife is a necessity, if he would obtain any of those in
numerable small comforts, without which, however trifling they may
be thought by some, this life is hardly worth the having. Unable to
hire a cook or housekeeper, as is done by the more wealthy bachelor,
he would find it impossible to procure comfortable meals, nor even
any degree of cleanliness in his home, engaged as he is from morning
to night at work, probably far away from home. If the life of the
unmarried working man is comfortless and dreary, ten times more so
must be that of the unmarried woman after a certain age. Indeed,
amongst the poorer classes, such a person is quite in the way; she is
felt to be a burden to her family if she remain at home; and it is
hardly possible to support herself independently in lodgings, except
in the most miserable way. Thus, apart from any other reason,
marriage is felt to be an absolute necessity to both sexes, soon after
their reaching full growth, for the sake of that dearest of all things
to an Englishman, no matter how miserable it may be, a home. The
last remaining objection to moral restraint and late marriage, namely,
the deprivation, during the flower of man’s life, of the two dearest
objects for which human nature yearns—to love and be beloved by a
�12
wife and children—is too evident from the unhappiness it is universally
acknowledged to produce, to nc-ed illustration. Suffice it to say that
by this, the lot of the greater part of the middle classes, especially
the female portion, is rendered so comfortless and dreary, that many
of them would joyfully exchange their comfort and wealth, enjoyed
in solitude, for the poverty of what are called their less fortunate
neighbours, who at least are not deprived of all outlet for the social
and domestic virtues with which we are all endowed. Indeed, so ut
terly cheerless and miserable are the lives of most of that much to
be pitied section of the middle classes, called in ridicule “old maids,”
that we could not have the heart to wish to see the like state amongst
the poor, who, God knows, have as it is but very few pleasures.
“Is there no escape, then,” we are tempted to cry in despair, “from
the miseries inflicted on man by want of food, love, or leisure.”
“There is none,” cries the orthodox political economist; “none,”
repeats the disciple of Malthus; “none,” echoes the religionist. “If
such be the case then, if ordinary political economy, Malthusianism
of the ascetic school, religion itself, can do nothing but tear from us
all hopes of improvement in this world, and content themselves with
croaking resignation and patience under our afflictions: then will we
have none of them.” But we truly believe that human affairs are not
so hopeless, else should we have refrained from opening afresh the
many wounds which torment us. No, there is a means, the only
means, by which the evils of want of love, equally with those of want
of food and leisure (those three great necessities of our nature), may
in course of time, be entirely cured. It may appear at first sight,
perhaps, ridiculously unequal to such gigantic results, perhaps im
moral, perhaps unnatural, but we are confident in being able to meet
and refute any objections which can be made to it, and prove it to be
the only solution to the question nearest to the interests and happiness
of mankind—“Is it possible to obtain for each individual a fair share
of food, love, and leisure ? ”
IV.
The means we speak of, the only means by which the virtue and
the progress of mankind are rendered possible, is preventive sexual
intercourse. By this is meant, sexual intercourse where means are
taken to prevent impregnation. In this way love would be obtained
without entailing upon us the want of food and leisure, by over
crowding the population.
Two questions here arise: First, “ Is it possible, and in what way?”
Second, “Can it be done without causing moral and physical evil?”
In answer to the first question, we reply that there are several
means which have been adopted in this country, and more especially on
the continent, for the purpose of checking the increase of an already
numerous family without the exercise of perfect continence; but we
shall.chiefly recommend the following, as most of the others are more or
less iniurious to the health or nervous system of the parties adopting
�13
them. The following, however, has none of these objections, being
perfectly harmless, easy of adoption, and at the same time not in the
least diminishing the enjoyment of the act of coition. It consists in the
introduction of a piece of fine sponge, slightly soaked in tepid water,
and of sufficient size, in such a way as to guard the womb from the
entrance of the male semen during sexual connection. This might
be followed by an injection of tepid water.
By this means a fruitful result would be rendered Impossible. The
other means of preventing conception which have 1 een employed or
proposed, are, firstly, withdrawal before ejaculation; secondly, the
use of the sheath, or “French Letter;” thirdly, the use of injections
immediately after intercourse; and fourthly, the avoidance of con
nection, from two days before, till eight days after, the monthly
courses—at which time impregnation is far most likely to occur. Of
these, the two first are the most certain preventives: but the two
last, as well as the sponge, are the least open to objection in other
respects.
The second question was, “ Can preventive sexual intercourse be
used without causing physical or moral evils?” We firmly believe
that it can, or at least, that if there be any evil results, such would
sink into insignificance beside the present ones, which, arising as they
do from over-population, are otherwise irremediable. We think a
ealm consideration of the principal objection which may be urged
against the adoption of this invaluable means, will enable us to con
vince the reader that it is founded on error. We allude to the idea
that many entertain, of preventive intercourse being a kind of murder
or infanticide. In order to do this, we must pause to explain the
nature of the act of generation, which, though one of the simplest,
and at the same time most beautiful operations of nature, has often
been considered as a deep mystery and a subject never to be
mentioned.
The fixture human being is formed by the union, in the womb, of
two very minute cells, of opposite sexes, invisible to the naked eye,
called the sperm (male) and germ (female) cells, which is effected by
the act of copulation. When once this union has taken place, the
embryo, as it is then called, possesses life, which is as sacred as that
of the adult’s, and the destruction of which would truly be murder.
But to prevent this union from taking place is a totally different
matter. Before coition the seminal fluid is no more than a secretion,
like the saliva, perspiration, &c.; and consequently it is a total con
fusion of ideas to associate its loss with infanticide, as it cannot be
murder to destroy that which has never existed as life. Moreover,
the curious discovery has recently been made, that every time a
woman menstruates (that is, has the monthly illness), one or more of
the germ cells or eggs is spontaneously discharged, and, if sexual
coition have not previously taken place, it is wasted. So that, if we
go on the principle that to prevent a birth is murder, we might with
equal justice accuse those persons who remain unmarried during the
time of potence (namely, more than 30 years) of the murder of all
�14
the children who might have been bot~n, had they married. Far from
being murder, preventive intercourse is the only possible means of
preventing murder; for that is hardly too strong a word to apply to
the bringing into the world of such a number of beings as we know
could never find support should they all reach manhood. Let us see
if facts do not bear us out in this assertion. In this country, amongst
the poor, 53 in every 100, or more than one-half of the children who
are born, die in infancy. Now in spite of this large amount of mor
tality, those who survive to manhood, perhaps not more than one-third
of those born, still find it next to impossible to gain a livelihood.
What, then, would be the result, think you, were it possible, by im
provements of dwellings and other means of health, to save those
children from an early grave, and throw upon the already over
crowded labor market a triple number of hands? Famine.
Thus, if we know that, as at present, twice or thrice as many being#
are brought into the world as can by any possibility find food, instead
of a crime, would not preventive intercourse rather be the greatest
virtue we could possibly practise, since it would save nearly twothirds of our fellow-beings from the death by slow starvation, poverty, ■
or neglect, which is otherwise inevitable?
For the satisfaction of those who may feel timid in adopting any
thing which they suppose to be new, it will be as well to mention that
Messrs. Francis Place, Richard Carlile, Robert Dale Owen, Dr.
Knowlton, and the author of the Elements of Social Science, have,
in the journals or books edited or published by them, strongly re
commended the adoption of preventive intercourse. It is also openly
advocated by a number of the most eminent foreign writers, some of
them holding high positions in the universities of their respective
cities.
With regard to the extent to which it should be practised, that
must of course depend greatly on the present state of population of
the country, or of the class adopting it; but we believe we should be
near the mark in saying that, under existing circumstances, married
persons should in no ease allow themselves more than two children, at
least in this country. Indeed, considering the fearfully over-crowded
state of England, it would be a noble sacrifice on the part of married
persons to refrain from having any for the present, until the rate of
wages has somewhat risen.
*
The day will come, and soon too, we hope, when the having a large
family, far from being thought a virtue, as at present, will be looked
upon in its true light--that of a great social wrong; and although
this tract is more particularly addressed to the working classes, as
they are probably the greatest sufferers by the present state of things,
and the least aware of its true cause, we nevertheless believe limited
procreation ts be a duty equally binding on all classes, rich or poor.
Mr. Malthus, the discoverer of the great Law of Population, laid it
* Or until the price of the necessaries of life—as bread, house
rent, clothing, &c.—has fallen ; which, as we have before shown, is
practically the same as an increase of money-wages.
�15
down as a duty strictly binding on all, “ Not to bring beings into the
world for whom one cannot find means of support;” but what would
be the result of following that course? Why, to give the rich a
monopoly of those blessings, or rather those necessaries of life, love
and offspring, cutting off the poor from what is now often their only
solace. Instead of the above, we should rather say, “It is a sacred
duty for us all, by the use of preventive means, to limit the number
of our families, in order that we may not prevent our fellow beings
from obtaining their share of love, food, and leisure,” any one of
which is, in the present age of celibacy and large families, quite un
attainable without a proportionate sacrifice of the two others. .
Preventive intercourse, then, is the only means by which it i3 pos
sible for mankind to make any real or satisfactory advance in happi
ness; and were it to be universally practised, it could not fail to
cheapen food, raise wages, and remove the greater part of the vice
and disease for which, in spite of all our boasting, this country is
remarkable.
But although preventive intercourse is the main remedy for poverty
amongst the poor, and celibacy amongst the rich, there are some other
schemes which, tried with the above, would doubtless do much good.
Amongst the foremost is associated industry, that is, the system which
gives every working man in trade a direct interest in the success of his
labor, and a share of the profits, raising him from the condition of a.
mere machine to that of a kind of junior partner. In a similar
manner, there is no doubt that to raise the country laborer from his
present condition of a hired drudge, to that of an owner of land,
however small in quantity, would have a very beneficial effect in im
proving his state, moral and physical. This would require an altera
tion in the laws regarding freehold land, which now render its ac
quirement almost impossible for any but a rich man. However, as
such reforms are for the most part out of the reach of the class to
whom this work is addressed, and are, after all, of little consequence
compared with the duty of limiting procreation, we need not longer
pause to consider them.
In conclusion, we call upon all to throw away false prejudices, and
unite in the adoption of preventive sexual intercourse. By such
means the state of ideal happiness for which we all instinctively
yearn, may not be in time so unattainable; meanwhile, the working
classes can, by the practice of the above simple and harmless ex
pedient, very much better their condition with regard to wages: in
which it is vain to expect a rise as long as the supply of labor is so
great in proportion to the demand, as is the case in these days of
large families and over-crowded population. Working men! your
salvation is in your own hands. If you allow yourselves to turn
from it and lean solely upon socialism, red republicanism, and
trades’-unions, your condition is indeed hopeless; but we sincerely
believe that when once you learn the true remedy for your ills, you
will not be slow to adopt it: and by using every effort in your power
to Spread the knowledge of it amongst your fellow workmen, will
be the means of raising the class to which you belong, from the state
�16
of semi-slavery, ^ith ceaseless toil and scantv food, which is but too
commonly their lot, to one of comfort and Independence.
POSTSCRIPT.
The reader is earnestly requested to do all in his power towards
making widely known the contents of this tract. This he might do
with little or no trouble to himself, by lending it amongst his friends
or fellow workmen, or by leaving it on the tables of coffee-houses,
mechanics’ institutes, and other public places. It must be evident
that unless the duty of limited procreation be almost universally
recognized, any good effected by its practice in raising wages, will be
liable to be counteracted by the earlier marriages and increased pro
creation of those not adopting it.
The 22ndEdition, enlarged by the addition of a Fourth Part, of the
TpLEMENTS OF SOCIAL SCIENCE; or, Physical, Sexual,
and Natural Religion. With the Solution of the Social
Problem. Containing an Exposition of the true Cause and only Cure
of the three primary social evils—Poverty, .Prostitution, and
Celibacy. By a Graduate of Medicine. Price 2s. 6d.; or in cloth 3s.
Post-free.
Upwards of 600 pages.
%
u
Opinions of the Press.
. . si)me respects all books of this class are evils; but it would be weakness and
criminal prudery a prudery as criminal as vice itself—not to say that such a book as
the one in question is not only a far lesser, evil than the one that it combats, but in
\??nse a
which it is mercy to issue and courage to publish.”—Reasoner.
.
. av?xnever risen from the perusal of any work with a greater satisfaction
thrni this. i Ur ^reatest hope is that it may get into families where the principles
w
inculcated by a parent, who will use his authority in the advice to both sons
and daughters, which should always accompany the reading of works like this. And
we are certain that in every case where it is read with care, there will be another
soldier gained to that brave band who are ever encircling the ramparts of bigotry
and ignorance.
**This book is the BIBLE OF THE BODY. It is the founder of a great moral
reform. It is the pioneer of health, peace, ami virtue. It should be a household Lar
in every home. head it, study it, husbands and wives Had you, had your parents,
read a book like this, a diseased, dwarfed, deteriorated race would not now be
wasting away in our country. By reading this wonderful work every young man may
preserve his health and his virtue. Some will say the disclosures are exciting or
indelicate—not so; they are true, and the noblest guide to virtue and to honour.
That book must be read, that subject must be understood, before the population can
be raised from its present degraded, diseased, unnatural, and immoral state. We
really know not how to speak sufficiently highly of this extraordinary work; we can
only say, conscientiously and emphatically, it is a blessing to the human race.”—
Ptepte's Paper.
“ Though quite out of the province of our journal, we cannot refrain from stating that
this work is unquestionably the most remarkable one, in many respects, we have ever
met with. The anonymous author is a physician, who has brought his special know
ledge to bear on some of the most intricate problems of social life. He lays bare to the
public, and probes with a most unsparing hand, the sores of society, caused by anoma
lies in the relation of the sexes. Though we differ toto ccelo from the author in his
views of religion and morality, and hold some of his remedies to tend rather to a dis
solution than a reconstruction of society, yet we are bound to admit the benevolence
and philanthropy of his motives. The scope of the work is nothing less than the whole
field of political economy
.. .
—The British Journal of Homoeopathy. January, 1860. 1 (Pub
lished Quarterly, Price 5s.)
London: K Truetx>ve, 256, High Holborn, W.O.
�
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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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Poverty : its cause and cure [...], by M.G.H.
Description
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 16 p. ; 16 cm.
Notes: Published anonymously. Publisher's advertisement for Elements of social science, 22nd ed., on p.16. Full title: Poverty: its cause and cure pointing out a means by which the working classes may raise themselves from the present state of low wages and ceaseless toil to one of comfort, dignity and independence and which is also capable of entirely removing in course of time, the other principal social evils. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
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E. Truelove
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1885
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N294
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[Unknown]
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Social problems
Birth control
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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 (Poverty : its cause and cure [...], by M.G.H.), 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
Birth Control
NSS
Poverty
Working Class-Great Britain
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NATIONAL Secular society
USA?
REFORMERS’ LIBRARY. 256, HIGH HOI,I
(Nearly opposite Day & Martin's, and the Royal Amphitheatre. J
Instituted 1852, for the publication of Freethought in Politics and
Religion, New and Second-hand.
VOLTAIRE’S PHILOSOPHICAL DICTIONARY. Reprinted verbatim
’ from the Six vol. edition, sold at 60s. The work is embellished with
two Engravings, a Medallion Portrait, and a full length likeness of the cele
brated author, in elegant cloth binding. Two volumes, cont,aiming nearly
1,300 pages, price 8s., post free. May be had of all booksellers.
Ofimtow
op thb
“ Dispatch.”
** Voltaire’s Philosophical Dictionary.—This is a translation, in two volumes, of that magnificent
work which must hand the name of Voltaire down to the latest posterity. We have compared it
with the French edition in three volumes, and find that the English version is a most faithfill one,
fully preserving the spirit of the original, and in no way abridged. The work is, of course, a very
valuable one, and should have a place on the shelves of all persons who accumulate useful books.
It is printed in a clear, legible type, and in a manner to be easy of reference. The publisher has
done very wisely to compress the entire contents of this encyclopaedia into two volumes of con
venient size, inasmuch as he places an admirable work within the reach of those persons whose
means would not permit them to procure a larger and more expensive edition. It is impossible to
contemplate this ‘ Dictionary ’ without being struck by the Grandeur and comprehensiveness of
that intellect which, alone and unassisted, could produce a work embracing so many and such varied
subjects. Ingenious theories, exposures of historical or popular fallacies, philosophical essays,
physics, metaphysics, in a word, all branches of learning, science and art, are the topics which
evoked the brilliant wit, or tested the profound wisdom of France’s greatest philosopher. Although
much of the philosophy of that school to which Voltaire belonged has been since exploded;
although many of his theories have been displaced by others which have been supported by
arguments or proved by experiments of which he never dreamt; although, in fine, much of his
reasoning on physics is now pointless, yet on the whole, and taken as a whole, the ‘ Philosophical
Dictionary ’ is most valuable and most useful, not only as the record of a great man’s opinions, but
also in those very many departments where his comments and observations do really apply to tbs
affairs or circumstances of the present day. We are glad to find that an English publisher has
dared to do justice to a man who is much calumniated by our English saints and hypocrites, and
we cordially recommend this edition of the ‘ Philosophical Dictionary ’ te our readers.”
Paine’s Complete Political and Miscellaneous Works. Cloth ..............
Paine’s Theological Works ; including the “Age of Reason” and all
his miscellaneous pieces and poetical works ; his last will and tes
tament, and a Steel Portrait. To prevent disappointment, ask
for Truelove’s Edition. Cloth Boards ............................................
The Age of Reason ; complete, including an essay on his Life and
Genius, with Portrait .......................................................................
A Large Portrait of Paine, 12 inches by 9. Sharp’s Line Engraving
from Romney. Post free.............. ,....................................................
5
0
3 0
1
0
1
0
“ It is a very superior engraving, and the best likeness of the great politician extant.”—Reasoner.
Paine’s Common Sense ..........................................................................
Paine’s Rights of Man, with full Report of his Trial in 1792 ..............
John Stuart Mill on Liberty........... ................
Renan’s Life of Jesus. Unabridged.......................................................
Renan on the Apostles. Just published ................
Mirabaud’s System of Nature, The Atheist’s Bible, 520 pp. Cloth ...
The real author was the Baron D’Holbaoh. Memoir by Charles Bradlaugh.
0
1
1
1
1
2
3
0
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6
�THE PROPHET OF NAZARETH;
OK,
A
CRITICAL
INQUIRY
INTO
THE
PROPHETICAL,
INTELLECTUAL, AND MORAL CHARACTER OF
JESUS CHRIST,
AS EXEMPLIFIED IN HIS PREDICTIONS, HIS PRECEPTS, HIS ACTIONS, HIS DISCOURSES
AND HIS SOCIAL INTERCOURSE,
By EVAN POWELL MEREDITH, F.A.S.L.
Demy 8vo., Cloth, Lettered, Reduced to 7s. 6d.
PUBLISHED BY
E.
TRUELOVE, 256, HIGH
NOTICES OF THE
HOLBORN.
PRESS.
“This is a ‘Prize Essay,’ but unlike the majority of prize essays, it shows real
power and independent strength. But as the preface hints, the offering of a prize for
such a work only suggested to the author the writing of this book as an utterance ‘ on
theological matters,’ after having been silent for thirteen years, since his ‘quiet with
drawal from Christianity.’ As a Christian minister, he tells us he has well studied the
beliefs of Christendom and the grounds of them ; and now he assures us he has ‘ almost
daily pursued his researches after the real origin of the Christian religion.’ The result
of his inquiries, on both sides, are here in the massive volume before us. Ostensibly
ths work is an examination of the evidences for and against the prophecies of Christ,
especially those prophecies which relate to the supposed drawing nigh of the end of the
world ; but in reality, it is an elaborate review of the life, character, and teachings of
Christ. With regard to the prophecies relating to the end of the world, the arguments
on both sides are really well stated, with great fidelity and equal fulness. The con
clusion he arrives at is that Christ predicted the end of the world and the day of
judgment as events then just at hand, and that, in consequence, we ought to regard
Christ as ‘neither a deity nor in supernatural communication with the deity.’
“Mr. Meredith is a shrewd, clear, and incisive writer, and says the sharpest and
most outright things possible on the subject in hand. He is evidently a man of con
siderable reading and great industry ; and, if only for the sake of his frequent notes,
which ane full of information, and particularly rich in quotation and illustration, hi
book deserves attention.
“The Christian reviewer here proceeds, at great length, to defend the character of
Jesus from the charges brought against him by the author, and concludes his critique
by stating that he finds that ‘ the last chapter, which is a refutation of the doctrines
“taught by modern divines’’ contains passages of real power, and not a few of
great beauty and eloquence,’ and that ‘ the writer is quite capable of giving us something that may live.’”—-The Rev. John Page Hopfs. in the Truthseefa?
�E. TRUELOVE,
256, HIGH HOLBORN.
The Prophet of Nazareth—Notices of the Press—continued.
"It is a very serious practical question—what ought to be the result, and what
must be the result, to the clergy, if the conclusions reached by some modern enquirers
touching the unhistorical character of a great part of the New Testament should prove
irrefutable. We refer to such works as Mr. Scott’s just completed English Life of
Jesus, and to the elaborate and comprehensive work, ‘The Prophet of Narazeth,’ by
E. P. Meredith. This last work would have been more popular, and would have
attracted more observation, if it had not been so voluminous. The book is one of
vast research and compass ; of great ability, earnestness, learning, and impartiality.
It is a hard study to master all its varied contents ; and the best and ablest among
the clergy might think it no disparagement to enter the lists with this formidable
Goliah. High priced as the work is, it is cheap in proportion to the amount and
variety of the contents.”—A. P. M. of the English Leader, in an able article—
“■Results of Biblical Criticism.”—Sept. 21st, 1867.
“Never did I feel more covetous of Dr. Johnson’s gift of tearing out the heart
of a book, than on sitting down to review the elaborate work now lying before me.
To the critics described by Theodore Hook, who confine themselves to cutting a page
or two, and then smelling the paper-knife, as a substitute for reading the book, ‘The
Prophet ’ seems to say :—
‘ Procul 0 / procul esto profani
Conclamat vales, totoque absistite luco*
Nor is it wonderful that it has become an established principle with critics to lose
sight of the book they are professedly reviewing, and to launch out into matters and
things in general. Having conscientiously read The ‘ Prophet,’ I shall endeavour to
convey to the reader some idea of the work, and my own views thereon. In the
first place, I must express my astonishment, and, to say the truth my disappoint
ment, that this book—a Prize Essay, of closely printed demy 8vo. of 650 pages, price
12s. 6d. (which was published in 1864, and has already reached its second thousand)—
has called forth no orthodox expression of opinion from Lord Shaftesbury. Possibly
his Lordship finds it difficult to improve on his allocution respecting ‘ Ecce Homo
for if that book be ‘ the worse book ever vomitted forth from the jaws of hell,’ (see
N. R. Oct. 13th. 1867) what words in the orthodox vocabulary are sufficiently sul.
phurous to define ‘The Prophet’? Mr. Francklin’s expressions—‘horrible and
blasphemous production,’ ‘pestilent doctrines,’ &c., are tame and feeble, when com
pared with the truly diabolical imagery of Lord Shaftesbury. It is frightful to think
what fearful figures of rhetoric may be fulminated against Mr. Meredith’s book. It
has been my pleasure and my pride to review this writer hitherto in the character of
a literary tirailleur, an unerring marksman, stalking a bishop, or firing a heavy charge
of swan shot into the retreating Lincolnshire Vicar, who, after commencing the fray
took the earliest opportunity of showing his back to the enemy.V Mr. Meredith now
appears in a far grander capacity, as captain of a magnificent iron-clad man-of-war,
which with true British pluck, he steers right into the midst of the theological
squadron, laying his vessel alongside of the largest ships, and challenging a heavy
fire from all quarters. And the theological squadron seem in no haste to return the
raking broadside which he pours in. They appear inclined to sheer off and give
him a wide berth. They seem to argue—logically enough—if the rattle of his
musketry has put to flight a bishop and a vicar, what will become of us when he
opens fire from hie heavy guns ! And so, the word is passed to the orthodox captains
—(id est, the editors of the religious papers)—‘Do not return the fire of that strange
vessel. Belay there my hearties;’ the powder monkeys (printer’s devils) are all ready
to hand up ammunition, and curses, not loud, but deep, are muttered on ‘ the
Infidel.’ ’ But the horrible theological earnage is delayed, and ink, shed for a time»
ceases to flow. The smoke from Mr. Meredith’s guns clears away, and, ajs the
parsons behold the black hull and muzzles of the guns protruding from the open
port-holes, most devoutly do they hope that it will all end in smoke. Truly, it may
�E. TRUELOVE, 256, HIGH IIOLBORN.
The Prophet oe Nazareth—Notices of the Press—continued.
be said, ‘ the boldest hold their breath for a time.’ The pause is ominous, but it can
not last. The conflict between priestism and what priests call infidelity must go
on, and the theological policy of a ‘masterly inaction ’ will be found as futile as it is
inglorious. To drop metaphor : the orthodox papers, the Guardian, Record, John
Bull, Christian World, et id genus omne, pursue the worldly-wise policy of ignoring
this book, which is a magnificent addition to the literature of Freethought, and a
powerful effort to substitute terra firma in lieu of the pestiferous bogs of
superstition, and theological sloughs of despond. I have the more pleasure
in stating this, as it is not my intention to plaster the volume or its author
With unqualified praise ; but all candid persons, orthodox or heterodox, will
admit that there cannot be two opinions as to the erudition, the patient
industry, and the great moral courage manifested by Mr. Meredith. The writer of
this elaborate work manifests great scholarship and great patience ; and Buffon has
said, ‘ Le Genie, c’est la Patience.’ The judicial spirit of impartiality is also strikingly
manifested in the arguments for and against the orthodox view of the character of
Jesus. ‘ The prefixed advertisement will show the conditions under which the work
was written, and will explain the cause that considerable portions of it are written
on the Christian side of the argument. The portions of the work devoted exclusively
to the advocacy ol Christianity are from page 9 to 50, and from 245 to 258. Should
any Christian reader be so conscious of the weakness of his faith as to desire to know
only what can be said in favour of his religion, he is recommended to confine himself
exclusively to the perusal of these pages, and, when he has read them, to shut the
book, lest his prejudice be irritated, or his mind roused to critical inquiry.’ On first
reading the above, I was irresistibly reminded of the polished irony of Gibbon, as
displayed particularly in the 15th and 16th chapters of his immortal work. Indeed,
there is a good deal, both in the literary style and in the position of this brave
Meredith attacking superstition from his philosophic retreat in Monmouth, which
recalls those noble lines of Byron, where, after depicting the philosopher of Ferney,
he refers to the philosopher of Lausanne.................................. But on reading the
portions referred to, it will be found that our author has fully borne out this
statement in his preface. ‘ These portions which are strictly orthodox are enforced
with every possible fidelity and strength of reasoning that the writer could command
when he was a sincere believer in the truth of the Christian religion,’ &c. On
reading Mr. Baillie’s advertisement, the reader will see that the Prize Essay is
not a desultory discussion of Christianity, but a most pertinent and important
inquiry as to whether certain definite prophecies attributed to Jesus have or have
not been fulfilled. ‘Did Jesus Christ predict the Last Day of Judgment and
Destruction of the World as events inevitable during the then existent generation of
men ?’ If this question can be answered in the affirmative, then the non-fulfilment
of such a clear and distinct prophecy effectually disposes of the divinity of Jesus.
‘ For although to utter true prophecies is no proof that the prophet is a deity, or
that he has any preternatural communication with deity, yet to utter false prophecies
is, in the very nature of things, a positive proof that the prophet is not a deity, and
is not in any manner supernaturally influenced by the Supreme Being.’”—AUTONOMOS,
in the National Reformer of July 12th, 1868.
“ Germany has produced its celebrated ‘Leben Jesu ’ by Strauss, and France its
‘ Vie de Jesus,’ by Renan ; but England has never until now produced any
distinguished or remarkable life of Christ. This has just been accomplished
by Mr. Evan Powell Meredith, whose elaborate work has the English characteristics
of solidity, thorough exhaustiveness, and great clearness of statement. The author
was educated for the Christian ministry ; but he subsequently, to use his own
explicit and courageous words, ‘ quietly withdrew from Christianity, whose
doctrines, after considerable examination and research, he had ceased to believe,
and therefore could no longer conscientiously preach.’ After being for thirteen
�E. TRUELOVE, 256, HIGH HOLBORN.
The Prophet of Nazareth—Notices of the Press—continued.
years from his seoedure silent on theological matters, the offer of the Baillie Prias
induced him to enter upon the composition of this volume, to which he has devoted
the labours of seven years. There are numerous authorities quoted in the work.
Mr. Meredith, acting upon the genuine intuition of literature, enters upon the
examination of his subject with the resources of a scholar, the spirit of a gentleman,
and the courage of a critic, who knows that the purpose of criticism is the discovery
and estimate of the truth, and that the duty of a critic is to express an honest,
uncompromising, and discriminating opinion. The result is a very remarkable and
valuable book of 652 demy 8vo. pages, solid, of more than ordinary width and
length. The Christian reader will find in this volume more information than all the
Crudens, and Kings, and Kittos, and commentators have ever supplied touching the
true characteristics of these most interesting subjects—the predictions, precepts,
actions, discourses, and social intercourse of Jesus Christ; and that stated in
language which is considerate without weakness, and bold without offence. As
perfect for reference as for reading, the ‘ Prophet of Nazareth’ is accompanied with
a most copious and complete index.”—The Reasoner.
“Believing that the Christian religion is like a goodly vineyard overgrown with
thistles and weeds, the author sets himself resolutely to the task of destroying the
erowded undergrowth; and he handles his spade and his scarifier with much skiil
and noticeable pluck. . . . Now, whatever may be the merits of the modern
German critics, Bishop Colenso, the Essayists and Reviewers, and the other black
sheep of the Church, there can be no mistake respecting the plainness of Mr.
Meredith’s language or the boldness of his speculations................................... Those
who wish to continue the subject may purchase the volume for themselves. They
will find Mr. Meredith always in earnest, and always gentlemanly in tone.”— The
Newcastle Daily Chronicle.
“ After reading this volume no one should be unacquainted with the real character
of Christ, and with the nature and tendency of his teachings. We never remember
reading a book with less pretension, and at the same time being more exhaustive.
The Christian’s view is fairly stated, and the Freethinker’s position is so well
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with quoting,” &c.—The National Reformer.
“ Mr. Meredith appears to have withdrawn quietly from Christianity some years
ago, but to have employed himself with inquiries into its origin ; and in the present
work we have the result, distributed into arguments for and against the divine nature
of its Founder, the reality and accomplishment of his prophecies concerning the
destruction of Jerusalem, the end of the woi d, and his own resurrection, the
excellence or defects of his teaching, and the orobable sources of his precepts.
Mr. Meredith has endeavoured not to wound uni| scessarily the feelings of believers.’'
—The Westminster Review.
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�VOLTAIRE’S PHILOSOPHICAL DICTIONARY
CONTENTS
c-r 1HE
FIRST VOLUME.
*.
•
•
•
•
A, B, C, or Alphabet,
.
Abbe
.
.
.
.
Abbey—Abbot
.
.
Able—Ability .
Abraham .
.
.
.
Abuse
....
Abuse of Words
.
.
Academy ....
Adam
.
.
.
.
Adoration .
Adultery .
Affirmation on Oath .
Agar, or Hagar .
Alchymy .
Alcoran
Alexander
.
.
Alexandria
.
.
Algiers
Allegories
Almanack
.
•
»
Altars, Temples, Rite , Sacrifices,
&c.
Amazons .
.
.
.
Ambiguity—Equivocation
America
.
Amplification .
.
.
Ancients and Moderns
.
Anecdotes
Angels
.
•
Annals
.
.
.
•
Annats
.
.
.
.
Anthropomorphites .
Anti-Lucretius .
.
.
Antiquity
.
.
.
Apis
.
,
.
.
M
\
page
1
1
4
5
9
10
19
19
20
21
25
27
32
32
33
34
39
42
43
45
46
!
; Apocalypse
.
.
! Anti-Trinitarians
.
.
! Apocrypha—Apocryphal •
page
.
.
i Apostate .....
Apostles .
...
s Apparition
....
Appearance
....
1 Apropos .....
> Arabs, and, occasionally, on the
i Book of Job
I Ararat
.....
I Arianism .....
Aristeas .....
Aristotle .....
s Arms—armies ....
> Arot and Marot; with a short Res view of the Koran .
J Art of Poetry ....
Arts—Fine Arts. [Article dedi> cated to the King of Prussia.]
s Amodeus
....
1 Asphaltus
....
49 J Ass ......
50 < Assassin—Assassination
52 > Astrology
....
53 ! Astronomy ; with a few more Re54 | flections on Astrology
56 j Atheism .....
64 S Atheist .
.‘
.
.
.
74 Atoms......................................
80 I Avarice......................................
82 Augury......................................
83 Augustine
.
.
.
.
83 > Augustus (Octavius) .
.
85 I Avignon ,
.
.
»
.
90 > Austerities
.
#
•
to
94
107
1 10
116
118
119
119
122
123
127
128
133
136
140
141
142
144
146
148
150
151
154
167
169
169
171
172
175
177
�a
li
'^OAl'LXTS OF THE FIRST VOL
page
178
.
181
Axis
.
182
Babel
..... 182
Bacchus .
186
Bacon (Roger)
188
Bacon (Francis)
189
Banishment
.... 192
Baptism ..... 192
B iruch, or Barak, and Deborah ;
and, incidentally, on Chariots of
War .
. 197
•
Battalion .
. 198
•
Bayle
.
. 198
Bdellium
. 199
Beard
. 200
Beasts
«
. 200
Beautiful (The)
201
Bees
..... 203
Beggar—Mendicant .
204
Bekker, “The World Bewitched,”
the Devil, the Book of Enoch,
and Sorcerers
. 205
Belief
. 201
Bethshemesh
. 209
Btlhah —Bastards
. 211
Bishop .
. 211
Blasphemy
. 212
Body
. 213
Books
. 216
Bourges .
. 221
Brach mans—Brahmins
. 221
Bread-Tree
. 224
Buffoonery—Burlesque —Low
Comedy
.
. 225
Bulgarians
. 227
Bull
. 228
Bull (Papal)
. 229
Csesar
.
,
. 233
Calends .
. 235
Cannibals
. 236
Casting (in Metal) .
. 241
Cato
. 241
Celts
. 247
Ceremonies—Titles—Precedence
Certain—Certainty
. 252
Chain of Created Beings .
. 255
Chain or Generation of Events . 256
Changes that have occurred in the
Globe ....
, 257
Authors
Authority
!
; Character
Charity ,
.
Charles IX.
.
China
Christianity
Christmas
Chronology
Church .
.
Church of England
Church Property
Cicero
Circumcision
Clerk—Clergy .
Climate .
Coherence—Cohesio -Adhesion
Commerce
.
Common Sense
Confession
Confiscation
Conscience
Consequence
Constantine
.
Contradictions .
Contrast .
.
Convulsionaries
Corn
Councils .
Country .
Crimes or Offences
Criminal •
Cromwell
Cuissage .
.
Curate (Of the Country) .
Curiosity .....
Customs—Usages
Cyrus
•
.
.
.
.
Dante
.....
David
.....
Decretals
....
Deluge (Universal) ,
Democracy
....
Demoniacs
.
.
Destiny ....
Devotee .....
Dial
.....
Dictionary
....
Dioclesian
....
Dionysius 9t. (the Areopagit*1^
and the famous Eclipse .
295
r>t«dorus
Sicily, and Herodotus 396
/
�contents of the first
Director .
Disputes .
Distance .
Divinity of Jesus
Divorce .
Dog
Dogmas .
Donations
Drinking Healths
Druids (The) .
Ease
.
.
Eclipse .
...
Economy (Rural)
Economy of Speech .
Elegance .
Elias or Elijah, and Enoch
Eloquence
Emblems
Enchantment, Magic, Conjuration,
Scrcery, &c. .
End of the World
Enthusiasm
Envy
Epic Poetry
Epiphany
Equality .
Essenians
Eternity .
Eueharist
Execution
Executioner
Expiation
Extreme .
.
Ezekiel .
Fable
Faction
Faculty .
•
Faith
.
.
.
Falsity
Falsity of Human Virtues
•
Fanaticism
.
•
Fancy
Fasti
Fathers—Mothers—Children
(Their Duties)
Favour .
,
•
Favourite
•
•
Feasts
.
.
•
.
Ferrara .
.
•
Few
page
399
400
402
405
406
407
408
409
414
415
416
'417
419
420
422
423
425
428
434
4 38
440
4 42
443
447
445
4r.O
454
454
456
460
461
463
464
46 7
471
472
473
475
476
477
486
486
volume.
Fiction
....
Fiertd
....
Figure
.
.
.
.
Figure—Figurative .
Figure in rf heology
Final Causes
Finesse, Fineness, &c.
Fire
Firmness ....
Flattery ....
Force (Physical)
Force—Strength
Franchise
Francis Xavier .
Franks—France—French .
Fraud
.
.
.
.
Free-Will
French Language
Friendship
Frivolity ....
Gallant ....
Garagantua
.
. - .
Gazette ....
Genealogy
Genesis
Genii
.
.
.
•
Genius ....
Geography
Geometry
Glory—Glorious
Goat—Sorcery
God — Gods
Good—The Sovereign GoodA Chimera .
Good
....
Gospel
....
Government
Gourd or Calabash .
Grace (Of)
Grave—Gravity
.
Great— Greatness
Greek
....
Guarantee
Gregory V11. .
487
488 Happy—Happily
488 Heaven (Ciel Materiel)
489 Heaven of the ancients
....
491 Hell
492 Hell (Descent intC
. 498
. 499
. 502
. 507
. 508
. 509
. 510
. 511
. 511
. 512
. 512
. 515
. 520
. 522
. 523
525
. 526
526
. 527
. 528
530
533
. 544
546
. 547
. 549
. 551
. 555
. 556
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
571
57 3
577
578
590
592
595
596
589
599
600
.
.
.
.
602
604
606
608
613
�THE QUEEN
E. TRUELOVE,
(QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION, FEBRUARY 1,
1878,)
FOB
PUBLISHING THE HON. ROBERT DALE OWEN’S “ MORAL
PHYSIOLOGY,” AND A PAMPHLET ENTITLED
“INDIVIDUAL, FAMILY, AND NATIONAL POVERTY."
{Specially Reported.)
100 pages, also an Appendix (25 pages) containing
“ Authorities ” which Mr. Truelove’s Counsel, W. A. Hunter, Professor
of Roman Law and Jurisprudence, Lond. Univ., was prevented from
using for the defence, owing to the impatience of the Judge, Chief
Justice Cockburn. Price 6d. or in cloth boards, Is. post free.
“ There is one thing undoubtedly not to be lost sight of, namely, that this is not one of
those books intended to inflame the imagination and passions. There are zn it no
indelicate or indecent (Hags, or lascivious descriptions of marriage. It is not one of
those books which you have only to look at to see that they ought to be suppressed and
burned by the common hangman. It is not a work of that kind. There is nothing in its
language, or the ideas conveyed by it, of a voluptuous character—it is simply a dry
physiological discussion, and the defendant is entitled to the benefit of that.-—JExtract
from the “Summing-up” of the Lord Chief Justice.
This Trial is published as a contribution to the literature of the
Population Question. It is believed that the fair and legitimate liberty
of the Press has been imperilled by the attempt of the “ Society
for the Suppression of Vice ” to bring such a work as the “ Moral
Physiology ” of R. D. Owen, Senator of the United States and Ambas
sador at the Court of Naples, within the scope of Lord Campbell’s
Act and the English Common Law.
The Population Question has only quite recently come before the
Courts of this country; first, in the cause celebre of Mr. Bradlaugh
and Mrs. Besant, for publishing “The Fruits of Philosophy,” and
secondly, in the case of Mr. Truelove, as reported in this volume.
The Speeches of Counsel on both sides, the Evidence, and
Summing-up of the Judge, full and complete.
K. TRUELOVE, 256, HIGH HOLBORN, W.Cl
�
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E. Truelove (Publishers)
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Place of publication: London
Collation: [12] p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: Date of publication supplied by unknown hand on front page. At head of front page: Reformers' Library,256, High Holb[orn]. Includes review of Evan Powell Meredith's work 'The Prophet of Nazareth ... Social Intercourse'. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
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[1892]
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Text
NATIONAL SECULAR SOC1™’
HOME RULE
AND
FEDERATION.
WITH EEMABKS ON
LAW AND GOVERNMENT AND INTERNATIONAL ANARCHY;
AND WITH A PEOPOSAL EOB THE
FEDERAL UNION OF FRANCE AND ENGLAND, '
AS THE MOST IMPOBTANT STEP TO
THE FEDERATION OF THE WORLD.
BY
A
DOCTOR
Author
of
OF
MEDICINE,
“The Elements of Social Scib.vce”.
LONDON:
E. TRUELOVE, 256 HIGH HOLBORN.
(REMOVED FROM TEMPLE BAR.)
1 8 8 9.
�“ The time may come when the aspirations and the wishes of some
among us may be realised, and we shall see all the possessions and
the colonies of England united in one great federation. When that
tiTHo. comes we may have a great federal authority which will be pre
pared to take the place, the supreme place, in the government of our
Empire which is now occupied by the Imperial Parliament.”—Lord
Hartington {Speech at Norwich, Feb. 27, 1889).
“ Some of us who look with hope to a possible federation of the
whole of the dominions now nominally or really subject to British
rule, recognise that we shall then have to face the huge difficulty of
constitution-making.”—Mr. Bradlaugh {National Reformer, Feb. 10,
1889).
�g 23 24-
THE QUESTION OF
IRISH HOME RULE.1
i.
As a warm friend of Ireland, though, an opponent of Home
Rule in the sense of an Irish Parliament Separate from that of
Great Britain, I may perhaps be permitted here to make a few
remarks on the great and complicated Irish question. I know
that on this subject I have the misfortune to differ in certain
respects from some whose opinion I value very highly and with
whom I am anxious to be agreed ; but I think that the differ
ences are partly owing to the ambiguity in the phrase “ Home
Rule” or “local self-government”, which is used in at least
three widely different senses, and that at bottom we have the
same earnest desire—that the supremacy of the Imperial Parlia
ment and the unity of the kingdom should be preserved, and
that Ireland should not be separated from Great Britain.
The Irish question has been divided into the three parts of
local self-government, or Home Rule, the land system, and
social order—including under the first terms not only an Irish
parliament, whether on the colonial or the federal model, but
also minor forms and degrees of local self-government, and
meaning by “social order” compliance with law and the re
pression of outrages and boycotting; and besides the above
there is a fourth question which should, I think, be attentively
considered, namely, the Irish Churches, Catholic and Protestant,
and their relation to the State. I need scarcely say here, more
over, what Mr. Bradlaugh and Mrs. Besant have so nobly and
strenuously contended for, that the population question lies at
the very root of the social evils, in Ireland as in all other old
countries, and should be carefully taken into account.
The most serious objection to an Irish Parliament, I venture
to think, is this—that if such a parliament were “independent”,
or in other words if it were neither subject to the British
Government nor subject along with it to a higher common
government, it would make Ireland an independent, separate,
1 Reprinted from the National Reformer.
�2
DEMAND EOR LEGISLATIVE INDEPENDENCE.
or foreign State like France or Holland; while if, on the other
hand, it were “dependent” on the British Government, it
would put Ireland in an inferior position to that which she now
occupies, and it would therefore not content Mr. Parnell and
his followers but would be used by them as an instrument for
effecting entire separation. Mr. Parnell claims for Ireland
“legislative independence” and “the full and complete right
to arrange our own affairs, to make our land a nation, and to
secure for her, free from outside control, the right to direct her
own course among the peoples of the world”. But an inde
pendent legislature free from outside control could not possi
bly, as it seems to me, exist in Ireland unless it were entirely
separated from Great Britain. The word “independent” some
times means distinct or detached, but its proper sense, and the
sense in which it is evidently here used by Mr. Parnell, is “ not
dependent” or “not subject to outside control”. An inde
pendent legislature or government is therefore equivalent to a
supreme or sovereign government, and means a government
which is not subordinate or subject to the commands of any
higher authority. Such a government can only exist in a
separate or independent State, for the very meaning of an
independent State is a political society consisting of a sovereign
government and its subjects, and there cannot be two sovereign
governments in the same State. “By ‘an independent political
society ’, or ‘ an independent and sovereign nation
says Mr.
John Austin in his lectures on jurisprudence, “we mean a
political society consisting of a sovereign and subjects, as
opposed to a political society which is merely subordinate”.
Mr. W A. Hunter, M.P., a high legal authority, says also in
his work on Boman Law, “ Since the time of Hobbes, the pro
position that sovereign power is one, that there cannot be two
sovereign powers in one State, has become a political common
place ”. There may be many distinct legislatures or govern
ments in the same political community, as we see for instance
in the United States and in the British Empire, but there can
be only one independent and sovereign government to which
all the rest are subject, for otherwise the community could not
form a single State.
The great majority of Englishmen who are in favor of a
separate Parliament for Ireland have, I believe, radically
different views and aims on the subject from Mr. Parnell.
They do not wish that the Irish Parliament should be inde
pendent and free from outside control, which would inevitably
have the effect of making Ireland a foreign country. Thus Mr,
Bradlaugh holds that there should be a federal union in these
islands, as in the United States, and that Ireland should be
fully and constantly represented in the Imperial Parliament.
He said at a Home Bule meeting in St. James’s Hall, in
�FEDERAL FORM OF HOME RELE.
3
explaining his views on the subject, “Let Ireland share in
Imperial legislation. It was asked ‘ How will you prevent the
Irish members from voting on English, Scotch, and Welsh
■questions?’ Let English, Scotch, and Welsh questions go to
English, Scotch and Welsh assemblies. Let the Parliament of
England be an Imperial Parliament.” “ I contend ”, he writes
in another place, “ that Ireland ought not in any event to be
deprived of its fair and constant representation in the Imperial
Parliament. As I have often said, my desire is that all local
affairs should be withdrawn from the Imperial Parliament and
dealt with under wide powers of local self-government.” A
political community like the United States is often called a
■composite State and is said to be under a supreme Federal
Government. Mr. Austin carefully examines the constitution
of the United States with the view of determining where the
sovereignity resides, and he shows that all the different legisla
tures, both State and Federal, form together the sovereign
government, to which each of these legislatures, taken singly,
is subject or subordinate; just as in our own constitution, and
in all other cases where the sovereign power is vested not in a
single person but in a body of persons, each member of the
body, taken singly, is subject to the whole body taken collec
tively. “In the case of a composite State or a supreme Federal
•Government”, says Mr. Austin, “ the several united governments
of the several united societies, together with a government
common to those several societies, are jointly sovereign in each
■of these several societies, and also in the larger society arising
from the Federal union. Or, since the political powers of the
common or general government were relinquished and conferred
upon it by those several united governments, the nature of a
composite State may be described more accurately thus: As
compacted by the common government which they have con
curred in creating, and to which they have severally delegated
portions of their several sovereignties, the several governments
of the several united societies are jointly sovereign in each and
all.” To this aggregate and sovereign body, he says, “ each of
its constituent members is properly in a state of subjection”.
Under a Federal system, therefore, though the Irish Parliament
would be a part of the sovereign body, it would not be inde
pendent, but would on the contrary, if taken singly, be in a
state of subjection to the whole body; and hence Mr. Parnell
has always, I believe, been opposed to the Federal scheme,
when regarded as an ultimate aim or policy for Ireland.
The other leading scheme of Home Pule which has been
proposed, and of which Mr. Parnell is (or was until lately) an
adherent, is that called the colonial, from its resemblance to the
form of government in many of the English colonies. Under
it the Irish members would be excluded from the House of
�4
COLONIAL FORM OF HOME RULE.
Commons, or would at most only take part in debates on.
Imperial questions, and Ireland would have her own legislature
for the management of Irish affairs, with an executive or ad
ministrative government responsible to it. This is evidently a
proposal of a widely different and far more separatist character,
repealing as it does the union of the British and Irish Parlia
ments, and I believe that comparatively very few English
Liberals or Radicals are in favor of it. They object to the
exclusion of the Irish members, or to their taking part only in
certain debates, even if the latter suggestion could be carried
out in practice. Mr. Bradlaugh, for instance, says of such a
suggestion, “ with this part we utterly disagree. We contend
that every member of the House of Commons should have equal
right, but that purely local questions should be relegated to
local assemblies.” It was keenly debated in the House of:
Commons whether the Imperial supremacy would be retained,
or whether the two countries would be separated, if the Irish
members were excluded, and the controversy evidently turns
upon the question whether or not the Irish Parliament would be
independent. If it were dependent on the British Government,
the supremacy of the latter would be retained and the countries
would remain united, but Ireland would he placed in the same
intolerable position of inferiority as she occupied prior to 1782;
if it were independent, on the other hand, then Ireland as
we have just seen would be a foreign country. In the
course of the debate, Sir Henry James defined supremacy as
“ the power of making laws for the whole dominions of the
Crown ”. He also defined sovereignty (which, he said, is
another phase of supremacy) as consisting in two things,
namely, that a Sovereign Parliament “ must be subject to the
control or decision of no man or body ”, and that “ it must be
able to alter and re-model its own constitution ” ; and he
maintained that if the Imperial Parliament, after the departure
of the Irish members, had no longer the power of legislating
for Ireland, its supremacy would be gone and the countries
would be entirely separated from one another. “I am con
tent ”, he said, “ to take my stand upon the dictum that if you
give up the abstract right—and I make no distinction between
abstract right and right—of legislation, the country over which
you give it up becomes an independent and foreign State ”, It
is true that the two countries would still be connected as regards
their foreign affairs which would be entirely under British
control, but Ireland would here be reduced to the humiliating
condition of an inferior having no voice in the management.
What tends to obscure this question is the peculiar position of
the British Colonies, which are nominally dependencies but
really independent States, connected with the mother-country
by a voluntary alliance and not by the legal or compulsory tie-
�AMBIGUITY OF WORDS
FREEDOM AND INDEPENDENCE
5
of subject and governor. The eminent judge, Sir James Stephen,
lately pointed out that the colonies might separate from this
country if they chose, without any attempt being made to
retain them by force; and that the superior power nominally
reserved, and indeed not unfrequently exercised, by the Im
perial Parliament of making laws to bind the colonies is at
bottom “ merely theory ”, since no laws would be imposed on
them against their will, and if any serious conflict arose the
English law would give way. “As to the great colonies ”
says Sir James Stephen, “it is plain that wherever, as in
Canada, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand, constitu
tional government has been granted, the grant has involved,
as indeed it was meant to involve, the consequence that from
that time forth the connexion between such a colony and the
British Islands should depend ultimately on the good will of
both parties, and that every idea of retaining it by force in
any event whatever, and in the last resort, should be definitively
renounced. That the Dominion of Canada could, if the Canadian
Parliament thought proper, separate from the United Kingdom
as effectually and completely as the United States, and that if
it determined to do so no civil war would take place, can be
denied by no reasonable man.” Where countries are connected
together but have the power of separating if any of them
please, it is evident that their connexion, in its essence, is not
a legal or compulsory union but only an alliance, and that
they really stand to each other in the relation of free and in
dependent States.
II.
But the words “ freedom and independence ” are used in
very different senses when applied to individuals and when
applied to States, and this ambiguity of language should be
carefully noticed, as it seems to me the source of endless con
fusion and of the most dangerous errors. As applied to indi
viduals, the words mean freedom and independence under law
and government, but as applied to States they mean freedom and
independence in the absence of law and government, or in what
jurists call “the state of nature” or of anarchy. The former
may be called legal or political, and the latter lawless or
anarchical freedom and independence. The wide difference
between them will be seen if we reflect that freedom and inde
pendence, when the words are used with reference to individuals
(as for instance in speaking of a freeborn person or an emanci
pated slave) are legal rights which are protected or secured, like
�6
ANARCHY BETWEEN INDEPENDENT NATIONS.
all other such rights, by means of corresponding duties imposed
by the law on other persons, forbidding them under penalties
to violate the rights in question. “ What, for example”, says
Mr. Hunter, “is the meaning of a ‘right to liberty’? It
means that all men are bound to abstain from interfering with
a man s freedom of action, except in the case where such
constraint is authorised by law.” “ In the civil law ”, he says
again, “duty and right are correlative terms. No duty is
imposed except in the interest of some specified person, who
thus has a right, and no right can exist except by imposing on
another some duty. The subject-matter of the civil law may
thus be described as rights and duties.”
The position of free and independent States, however, is very
different from this. As regards their international relations, or
their dealings with one another, independent nations live to
gether in the peculiar kind of anarchy called by Hobbes, Locke,
Bentham, and other writers “the state of nature”, or the
natural condition of society; that is to say, the anarchy
which does not consist in resistance to, but in the total absence
of, law and government. They have no common government, no
international laws, and no courts of justice for the settlement of
international disputes. In such a state of things, legal right
and legal duty do not exist, for there is no government to
protect the one or to impose the other. Each nation has to
protect itself as best it can by its own strength and resources;
and hence the so-called freedom and independence of nations’
being unprotected by law, are not legal rights, and are quite
spurious and illusory. “ As Mr. Locke has well observed,” says
Blackstone in his Commentaries, “where there is no law, there
is no freedom ”. And in the passage here quoted from his
essay on Government, Locke says: “ In all the states of created
beings capable of laws, where there is no law, there is no
freedom; for liberty is to be free from restraint and violence
from others; which cannot be where there is not law ”.
Law and government are by far the greatest and most
valuable of all institutions, while anarchy with its attendant
war is among the most terrible of evils. So great an evil is
the.anarchy or “ state of nature ” existing between independent
nations, that it has filled all past history with wars, and the
endeavor to put an end to it and to bring mankind under a
common government has been a main cause of foreign con
quests and the subjugation of vast territories by single5States,
especially by ancient Borne, and by Bussia and England in
modern times. But conquest, in addition to the bloodshed and
misery it occasions, is attended with the immense evil that it
reduces free States to the condition of dependencies under a
foreign rule; although their subjection is not unfrequently of
the greatest benefit to "'he conquered race if they are much
�UNION THE REMEDY EOR INTERNATIONAL ANARCHY.
7
inferior in civilisation to their conquerors, and the two peoples
may in time become united on terms of equality. All nations,
like all individuals, should be equal, and have equal political
rights, as soon as they are sufficiently civilised to use them with
advantage; and therefore the true and ultimate mode of putting
an end to the anarchy between nations is not by conquest and
the dependency of one State upon another, but by the legal
union of different States on equal terms. Now States cannot be
legally united together unless they are brought under the same
government, for all laws proceed from government, and a
government can only make laws for its own subjects. It
cannot establish legal relations between those who are not
under its authority and jurisdiction, and thus the unity of a
kingdom or empire depends on the unity of its government.
“ The real unity of a kingdom ”, says Sir Henry James in the
debate already referred to, “ must depend upon the unity of its
laws. I do not mean by that that there must be an identity of
laws. But what I mean is that there must be one power of
making laws for a kingdom supposed to be united. It is not
the identity of manufacture, it is the identity of the manu
facturer that makes the unity of a kingdom.” In order, there
fore, that two or more free and independent nations should be
legally united together, they must have the same government;
and to be united on equal terms, each of them must have a share
in the government, and a share in proportion to its population.
They cannot, as we have seen, be legally united at all unless
one of them has the power of making laws for the others ; and
they cannot be united on equal terms unless each of them has
this power and can make laws for the others as well as for
itself; that is to say, unless they have a common government
and are mutually subordinate to one another. Mutual legislation,
and mutual subordination or subjection, are the requisites for a
legal union between free and independent States under repre
sentative institutions.
These conditions are fulfilled by the two great and invaluable
methods of uniting nations, called the complete union and the
federal union; which agree in the cardinal point that they are
not mere alliances but real legal unions, since in each of them
a single State, consisting of one sovereign government and its
subjects, is formed by the junction of two or more separate
States. They differ, however, in this respect, that in the com
plete union the sovereign powers of the State thus formed are
vested in a single body of persons, while in the federal union
they are divided between several distinct assemblies, which
together make up the sovereign government, and each of which,
taken singly, is a subordinate or non-sovereign legislative body.
It is by means of a complete union, or in other words, by
incorporation under one central government (whether consisting
�8
COMPLETE UNION AND FEDERAL UNION.
of a sovereign assembly or of a single person or monarch), that
the grea 1 majority of modern States, such as France, Italy, and
the United Kingdom, have been gradually built up out of the
host of petty independent kingdoms, principalities, tribes, or
clans, perpetually at war with each other, which at early times
existed in every part of the world. As to the federal union,,
which is more complicated, it is of comparatively recent origin,
having been first planned and instituted by the eminent men
who founded the United States, and it has since been adopted
in several other countries, including Switzerland, Canada, and
Germany. Under both systems of government in advanced
countries, as, for instance, in the United States and the United
Kingdom, there is complete political equality between the
different states or nations taking part in the union. Thus
Ireland has exactly the same political rights and privileges as
England or Scotland; she is just as free and independent as
they are ; each country has a share in the government in pro
portion to its population, so that they mutually legislate for
and are mutually subject to one another; the colonies and
dependencies of the empire belong to Ireland no less than to
Great Britain, and the one has the same privileges and duties
as the other with respect to them; it is not the “British” or
the “English” Government and Empire (though often so called
for shortness), but the British-Irish Government, and the
British-Irish Empire which are common to all the three countries
alike, and in which each of them has an equal part and interest.
Many Irishmen, however, have sought to sever this connexion,
and hold that Ireland has in strict justice a right to separate
and be independent if she prefers separation to union. Mr.
Dicey, professor of law at Oxford, in his work on “ England’s
case against Home Rule ”, alludes to those “ Nationalists who
still occupy the position held in 1848 by Sir Charles Gavan
Duffy and his friends, and who either openly contend for the
right of Ireland to be an independent nation, or accept Home
Rule (as they may with perfect fairness) simply as a step
towards the independence of their country.” Mr. Parnell too,
in the passage already quoted, claims for Ireland legislative
independence, freedom from outside control, and the full and
complete right to manage her own affairs, which are just the
distinctive characteristics of a separate and independent State.
On the contrary, Mr. Bradlaugh and almost all Englishmen and
Scotchmen to whatever party they belong, strenuously deny
the right of separation. Some months ago Mr. Bradlaugh
said in the House of Commons that ‘ ‘ he had preached the
doctrine of Home Rule for twenty-five years. He preached it
in New York in 1873, when he was attacked by Irishmen in a
perfectly friendly spirit, because, though he supported Home
Rule, he declared that he would resist separation by force if
�ANARCHICAL LIBERTY AND INDEPENDENCE.
force were employed to bring it about.” The question as to the
true relations between England and Ireland is evidently only a
part of a far wider question which concerns every country in
the world; namely, is it a good thing for any nation, and has
any nation a right in morality and justice, to be independent
and separate from others, and to have a sovereign government
to itself apart ? I venture to think that no nation has such a
right, but that all nations ought to be legally united together;
and that the rights which Mr. Parnell claims for Ireland, of
legislative independence, freedom from outside control, and
exclusive management of her own affairs, are not a good or a
blessing either to Ireland or to any other country, but on the
contrary enormous evils to mankind.
The only kind of freedom or liberty which is really a blessing
is political or civil liberty—that is to say, the freedom which
exists under the reign of law and government, and whose nature
is thus described by Mr. Austin: “Political or civil liberty”,
he says, “is the liberty from legal obligation which is left or
granted by a sovereign government to any of its own subjects ”,
Moreover, before we can call liberty a blessing it must be such
liberty as is consistent with the welfare of society, or, in other
words, the acts permitted by government must not be of a mis
chievous character and hurtful to other people. “The liberty ”,
says Bentham, “ which the law ought to allow of and leave in
existence—leave uncoerced, unremoved—is the liberty which
concerns those acts only by which, if exercised, no damage
would be done to the community as a whole ”. Now, the
liberty of independent States in their dealings with one another
is not political or civil, but anarchical or lawless, liberty, that
is to say, the liberty which is unrestrained by government and
law; for independent nations, as already remarked, have no
common government, and therefore no international laws pro
perly so called, but live together in a state of nature or of
anarchy. Hence each nation is free to make war upon others,
to oppress them, to violate their rights, to defraud them, and
to do them any act, good or bad, which lies in its power, and
which it may think conducive to its own interests. Such liberty
as this is evidently not a blessing, but an incalculable evil to
mankind.
.Again, the truly desirable kind of independence and sove
reignty is not that which a nation possesses for itself apart, but
that which it shares with others, and which, moreover, is
coupled with dependence or subjection in such a man nor that
each sharer in the sovereignty is both independent and depen
dent, sovereign and subject. The states of the American Union,
and. the different parts of the United Kingdom, did not lose
their sovereignty or independence when they combined to
gether, but shared it with others by forming in each case one
�10
HAVE NATION'S A RIGHT OF SEPARATION ?
independent and sovereign State. Moreover, it is only in their
collective capacity that the supreme governments in England
and America are sovereign and independent, while each of
their constituent parts or members, taken singly, is dependent
or subject to the will of the whole. The countries which
really lose their independence by being united with others are
dependencies such as India, which have no share in the govern
ment, and this is an evil which we should seek earnestly though
cautiously to remedy till at last we can become united with
them on equal terms. But the sovereignty or independence
which is.shared with others is not an evil but a good, whereas
that which is held by a nation for itself apart is anarchical
independence and is attended by all the frightful evils and
dangers of anarchy ; for whenever there is more than one
supreme or sovereign government it is evident that the different
sovereign governments are in a state of nature or of anarchy
with respect to each other. It is independence in union, and
not in separation, that is a real blessing to mankind.
III.
As to the question whether a nation has a right, in morality
and justice, to be separate from others and to have the exclusive
management of its own affairs, it seems to me that in justice
nations should be legally united together and that each nation
should have a voice in the management of affairs which concern
them all. There is a wide difference, as Mr. Mill points out,
between those of a man’s acts which affect himself alone, and
those which affect other people ; the former are really his own
affairs, and he should be allowed to manage them for himself;
but the latter are just as much the affairs of others as of
himself, and they have an equal right with him to a share in
the management. The most important of the affairs which
concern all mankind and in which therefore all should have a
voice, are the rules of justice, whose essential character is that
they are the rules which forbid a man or a nation to hurt others
—to kill or enslave, to rob, cheat, or oppress them. ‘ ‘ The
moral rules”, says Mr. Mill, “which forbid mankind to hurt
one another (in which we must never forget to include wrongful
interference with each other’s freedom) are more vital to human
well-being than any maxims, however important, which only
point out the best mode of managing some department of
human affairs. Now it is these moralities primarily which
compose the obligations of justice.” Each nation, I venture
to think, should have a share in laying down and enforcing the
�FEDERATION OF MANKIND.
11
essential rules of justice not only between nation and nation,
but between man and man and between rulers and their
subjects, all over the world. The first rights of man, the
security of person and property and the fair and equal ■ treat
ment of individuals, concern everyone deeply, and should be
under the common protection of all. But law and government
are institutions whose main object is to lay down and enforce
the rules of justice among mankind. How then can it be just
for a nation, how can a nation have a right, to separate and
remain apart from others, when by so doing it puts an end to
law and government between itself and them, and thus saps
the very foundations of justice ?
Instead of seeking to make Ireland “free and independent ”
in the spurious and anarchical sense oi these terms, we ought
rather to seek that no country whatever should be independent
in this sense, but that all should have the true freedom and
independence which can only exist under the reign of govern
ment and law. It seems to me that one of the grandest aims
ever conceived—indeed, next to the removal of poverty and the
other population evils, the very greatest reform that could be
effected in human affairs—is to get rid gradually of the present
system of independent or sovereign States, which is attended
with complete international anarchy, and to substitute for it a
system of law and mutual subordination by bringing all
mankind under a common government; in such a way that
there should be only one supreme or sovereign federal govern
ment, of which the national governments in the different
countries, together with a general congress composed of re
presentatives from them all, would form parts or members,
and to which each of these governments, taken singly, would
be subject or subordinate. All States would thus be legally
united or confederated with one another, while the component
parts of each State would be joined together either by a com
plete or by a federal union ; and the condition of dependencies,
in which less civilised races are governed by others more
civilised, would gradually be done away with as the backward
populations grew in enlightenment, till at length all nations
were placed on a footing of political equality, and endowed
with equal rights and privileges. This, I believe, is the great
goal to which humanity should aspire and is actually tending,
as is warmly urged by many of the ablest and most prominent
members of the Freethought party, including Mrs. Besant,
“ D.”, Mr. J. M. Robertson, and Mr. W. P. Ball, in late
numbers of the National Reformer. Mrs. Besant said at the
Home Rule Meeting in St. James’s Hall: “They hoped that
this union with Ireland would be the forecast of a wider union
which, in days to come, should bind together every land in one
great commonwealth. What the Radicals hoped for was that
�12
FEDERATION OF MANKIND.
every nation might manage its local affairs in its own way, and
that over and above every nation there should be one vast
Parliament where all should make their voices heard—the
Parliament of that English commonwealth which spreads over
every part of the habitable globe.” “Can any clear-headed
Liberal”, “D.” writes, “doubt for one moment that the future
of Liberal politics lies with the development of the Federal
idea”? and he adds, quoting Tennyson, that “The hope of
the future lies with ‘ the Parliament of Man, the Federation of
the World’”. “True federation”, says Mr. Robertson, “is a
great ideal—an ideal only to be fully realised, indeed, when
nations hitherto armed against each other agree to bury their
jealousies ”, And in a letter on the subject of the Channel
Tunnel, Mr. Ball says, “ Possibly the Tunnel might be a good
thing in the long run by helping to bring about the United
States of Europe. But I should prefer that the United States
of Europe brought about the Tunnel by rendering it safe for
us.” Imperial federation of England and her colonies has
grown rapidly in public favor within the last few years, and
would be an immense step in advance, but the federation of
independent or foreign nations, between whom there is the
risk of war, such as the States of Europe, seems to me of even
greater importance. It is not merely for the sake of strengthen
ing the Empire that federation is to be desired, but above all,
in order to introduce law and government into the society of
nations and do away with the state of nature or of anarchy.
Until there is a common international government among
mankind, there can be no international law, in the proper sense
of the term, nor any legal rights and duties between nations,
but only moral rights and duties; there can be no legal limits
to the power of existing sovereign governments over their sub
jects, nor can the former have any legal rights and duties
towards the latter, but only moral rights and duties; in short,
the dealings of nations with one another, and of sovereign
governments with their subjects must be uncontrolled by law
and must remain as at present in a state of anarchy. There
can be no legal union between countries which are not under
the same government, but only a moral unions; and as regard
the latter, it seems to me impossible that nation s under different
supreme governments should really love and trust each other,
for they have no common superior to lay down and enforce
the rules of justice between them, to settle their disputes, and
redress their mutual wrongs ; and therefore, whenever they
cannot agree and will not yield to one another, so that a com
pulsory settlement is needed, their only resource is the terrible
expedient of war. How can there be real love and trust between
nations who have, as it is called, “ the right of making war”
on one another, that is to say, war between whom is not
�ESSENTIALS OF LAW AND GOVERNMENT.
13
solemnly declared to be a legal crime, and forbidden under
threat of punishment by a government able and willing to
execute the threat against offenders ? The huge standing
armies and navies, the wars and dread of war, the oppression of
weak States by strong ones, and the hatred, jealousy, and
distrust between nations, are really due to the want of a com
mon government and the consequent international anarchy now
prevailing over the world.
These considerations are so extremely important that, in
order to throw additional light upon the subject, I may perhaps
be permitted here to examine a little more closely the essential
nature of law and government together with the nature and
consequences of anarchy, and to quote, in support of the fore
going statements, a . few passages from the writings of the
great jurists Jeremy Bentham and John Austin, and also from
the celebrated treatises, the “Leviathan” and the essay on
“ Government ”, by Hobbes and Locke.
"What then are the essentials of law and government ? Law
may be defined as consisting in a set of commands issued by
governments to their subjects, conferring on them rights and
imposing on them duties ; obedience to these commands being
compelled by means of sanctions or threatened penalties which
are enforced by the power of the State. Thus Sir Henry
Maine in his work on “Ancient Law” observes that “Ben
tham in his ‘ Fragment on Government ’, and Austin in his
‘ Province of Jurisprudence determined ’, resolve every law into
a command of the law-giver, an obligation imposed thereby on
the citizen, and a sanction threatened in the event of disobedience;
and it is further predicated of the command which is the first
element in a law, that it must prescribe, not a single act, but a
series or number of acts of the same class or kind. The results
of this separation of ingredients tally exactly with the facts of
mature jurisprudence.” In like manner Mr. Hunter says :
“The subject matter of law is commands—general rules in
tended to govern men in their conduct towards each other.
‘ Law ’ may be defined sufficiently for the present purpose as a
command of the Sovereign to all persons in given circumstances
to do or not to do something, which persons will be visited
with some evil by the Sovereign if they disobey.” From this
definition it will be seen, in the first place, that laws are
commands addressed by governments to their subjects, and
hence that law is merely the creature or product of govern
ment, and where there is no government there can be no law,
in the legal or political sense of the word; secondly, that all
laws are compulsory, that is to say, they compel people to do
or not to do certain acts by the threat of punishments or
penalties in case of disobedience; and thirdly, that laws are
enforced by an enormous and irresistible power, namely, by
�14
DEFINITION AND DIFFERENT SENSES OF “ LAW ”,
the whole physical force of the community, which is placed, if
need be, at the disposal of the government or supreme authority
in order to execute its commands. Moreover, since government
represents the nation and is chosen under the representative
system by the great bulk of the people to make laws for th pm,
the commands of government may be said to be virtually the
commands of the nation or commonwealth, as is done by
Hobbes in his definition of civil laws. “Civil law”, he says,
is to every subject those rules which the commonwealth
hath commanded him, by word, writing, or other sufficient
sign of the will, to make use of for the distinction of right and
wrong . that is to say, of what is contrary or not contrary to
the rule ”.
The word “law”, as Mr, Austin points out, is used in four
widely different senses, which are often blended and confounded
with one another but should be carefully distinguished. There
are, in the first place, the laws, strictly and emphatically so
called, which are set or prescribed by governments to their
subjects ; secondly, the laws or rules of morality which are set
hy public opinion / these laws together with the foregoing con«,
stitute law or morality as it is, and may be either good or bad,
wisely or unwisely framed; thirdly, the moral law, or morality
as it ought to be, that is to say, .the standard of right to which
legal and moral rules ought to conform, and must conform if
they are to merit approbation; and, fourthly, the scientific
laws, which are only called laws in a metaphorical or figurative
sense, as they are not rules for conduct but uniformities or
invariable relations existing between natural phenomena. The
first and second classes of laws, which it is particularly important
here to distinguish, are called respectively by Mr. Austin positive
law and positive morality and are thus defined by him- “The
essential difference”, he says, “of a positive law (or the differ
ence which severs it from a law which is not a positive law)
may be stated generally in the following manner. Every
positive law, or every law simply and strictly so called, is set
by a sovereign person, or a sovereign body of persons, to a
member or members of the independent political society,
whereof that person or body is sovereign or supreme. Or
(changing the phrase) it is set by a monarch or sovereign
number to a person or persons in a state of subjection to its
author.” Of positive morality, or the laws imposed by opinion,
he. says: “No law belonging to the class is a direct or cir
cuitous command of a monarch or sovereign number in the
character of a political superior ” ; and he adds, “ The character
or essential difference of a law imposed by opinion is this :
that the law is not a command, expressly or tacitly, but is
merely an opinion or sentiment, relatively to conduct of a
kind, which is held or felt by an uncertain body, or by a
�BENTHAM ON GOVERNMENT.
15
determinate party ”, Positive law gives rise to legal rights
and duties, but positive morality only to moral rights and
duties, or in other words, to rights which are not protected
and duties which are not enforced by the State. Now the
rules which guide and influence sovereign governments in their
dealings both with foreign nations and with their own subjects
are not positive law but positive morality merely. “ For
example , says JMr. Austin, “ the so-called law of nations
consists of opinions or sentiments current among nations
generally. It therefore is not law properly so called.” The
same may be said of those parts of constitutional and adminis
trative law which concern the acts of the supreme govern m rm f
itself, and not of its political subordinates; in short, the con
duct of sovereigns, whether they be single persons or bodies
of persons, and whether in their foreign or their domestic
relations, is not under the control of law but only of morality
and public opinion.
IV.
The difference between political society, in which there exists a
government, and natural society, or society in the state of
nature, in which there is no government, is described as follows
by Bentham and Austin,. the latter of whom points out also the
distinction between an independent political society, such as
the United Kingdom, and a subordinate political society, or
dependency, such as India, in the former of which the govern
ment is sovereign and independent, while in the latter it is
control of another and higher government.
“When a number of persons (whom we may style subjects}
says Bentham in his “ Fragment on Government ”, “are sup
posed to be in the habit of paying obedience to a person, or an
assemblage of persons, of a known and certain description
(whom we may call governor or governors} such persons alto
gether (subjects and governors) are said to be in a state of
political society”. On the other hand, “When a number of
persons are supposed to be in the habit of conversing with each
other, at the same time that they are not in any such habit as
mentioned above, they are said to be in a state of natural society ”.
In criticising some remarks of Blackstone, Bentham says also :
ti ? S.tate °f na^ure’ a man means anything, it is the
state, 1 take it, men are in or supposed to be in before they are
under government, the state men quit when they enter into a
state of government, and in which, were it not for government
they world remain. ”. As examples of men living together in a
�16
BENTHAM ON GOVERNMENT.
state of nature or of anarchy, without any common government,
Bentham instances not only tribes of savages amongst them
selves, but also all independent nations and governments in
their foreign or international relations. Thus he speaks of
“the kings of France and Spain” as being “ in a perfect state
of nature with respect to each other ”, and observes that the
Spanish provinces of the Netherlands, having effected their
independence, “are now in a state of nature with regard to
Spain”. In fact, all men are in a state of nature in relation to
those who do not belong to the same political society with
themselves; to all who are under a different supreme govern
ment to their own, they are foreigners or aliens.
The following is the definition of sovereignty and independent
political society given by Mr. Austin. “ The superiority which
is styled sovereignty ”, he says, “ and the independent political
society which sovereignty implies, are distinguished from other
superiority and from other society by the following marks or
characters. 1. The bulk of the given society are in a habit of
obedience or submission to a determinate and common superior;
let that common superior be a certain individual person, or a
certain body or aggregate of individual persons. 2. That
certain individual, or that certain body of individuals, is not in
a habit of obedience to a determinate human superior. Or the
notions of sovereignty and independent political society ”, he
continues, “ may be expressed concisely thus: If a determinate
human superior, not in a habit of obedience to a like superior,
receive habitual,from the bulk of a given society, that
determinate superior is sovereign in that society, and the society
(including the superior) is a society political and independent.
To that determinate superior the other members of the society
are subject; or on that determinate superior the other members
of the society are dependent,” As to the distinction between
an independent and a subordinate political society, Mr. Austin
says: “ By ‘an independent political society’ or ‘an independent
and sovereign natiop’, we mean, a society consisting of a
sovereign and subjects, as opposed to a political society which
is merely subordinate^ that is to say, which is merely a limb
or member of another political society, and which therefore
consists entirely of persons in a state of subjection ”. And
with regard to a society in the state of naimre or anarchy, he
says: “A natural society, a society in a state of nature, or a
society independent but. natural, is composed pf a number of
persons who are connected bjhapiutual intercourse but are not
members, sovereign or subject, M-a; political society. None of
the persons who compose it live irr-the positive state which is
styled a state of subjection.” He shews that from the absence
of a common international government, "tefiependent nations
are really in a state of nature with regard to ohe another, and
�AUSTIN ON GOVERNMENT.
17
thus the so-called law of nations or international law is not
properly law at all. “Society formed by the intercourse of
independent political societies”, he says, “is the province of
international law or of the law obtaining between nations.
For (adopting a current expression) international law, or the
law obtaining between nations, is conversant about the conduct
■of independent political societies, considered as entire com
munities. Speaking with greater precision, international law,
or the law obtaining between nations, regards the conduct of
sovereigns, considered as related to one another. And hence
it inevitably follows that the law obtaining between nations is
not positive law; for every positive law is set, by a given
sovereign, to a person or persons in a state of subjection to its
author.” In a similar manner Sir James Stephen says: “ It is
because nations have no common superior that international
law commonly so called is not really law at all, but only a form
of morality ”, Mr. Austin divides the existing systems or
forms of society into the four classes described above, namely,
“societies political and independent, societies independent but
natural, society formed by the intercourse of independent
political societies, and societies political but subordinate ”,
The great object of those who aim at the federation of mankind,
is gradually to change the existing systems and to unite all
nations into one independent political society, consisting of a
sovereign federal government and its subjects, so that there
should be no longer any foreigners or aliens, and that a true
international law should put an end to war and secure peace
and justice throughout the world.
It should be remarked that by “the sovereign”, jurists
■commonly mean the sovereign government, whether it consists of
a. single person or a body of persons. In Europe the only
single persons who are sovereigns in this, the true sense of the
word, are the Emperor of Russia and the Sultan of Turkey,
while all the other royal and imperial persons, though members
of the sovereign bodies, and though their actual shares in the
sovereignty vary greatly in different countries, are, when con
sidered singly, not really sovereigns but subjects. The con
stitutional king or emperor in a so-called limited monarchy
does not differ in this cardinal point from the president of a
republic, and is really subject to the assembly which has the
power to limit him. “Unlike a monarch in the proper accep
tation of the term ”, says Mr. Austin, “that single individual
is not sovereign, but is one of the sovereign number. Con
sidered singly, he is subject to the sovereign body of which he
is a limb. Limited monarchy therefore is not monarchy,”
Each member of a sovereign assembly, taken singly, is subject
to the assembly itself, taken collectively, and can be bound by
laws enacted by the whole. He is thus at once a sharer in the
�18
AUSTIN ON GOVERNMENT.
sovereignty and a subject, a political superior and inferior;
and this constitutes a most important difference between govern
ments of one and of many persons. “ In the case of a monarchy
or government of one ”, says Mr. Austin, “ the sovereign portion
of the community is simply or purely sovereign. In the case
of an aristocracy or government of a number, that sovereign
portion is sovereign as viewed from one aspect, but is also
subject as viewed from another.” Under the representative
system of government, moreover, the whole body of electors
are virtually sharers in the sovereignty, and form, as it were,
an ulterior sovereign behind the immediate or legal sovereign,
Thus, in England, the legal sovereign is the assembly composed
of the Queen and the two Houses of Parliament; but the House
of Commons, by far the most powerful branch of the legisla
ture, is itself elected by the constituencies, who are thus the
ultimate controlling body in the State, and whose desires and
mandates are sure in the end to be obeyed. “ The electorate ”,
says Mr. Dicey, in his lectures on the Law of the Constitution,
“is, in fact, the sovereign of England”. One of the immense
benefits of the representative system is, that it does away with
any degradation connected with habitual obedience to the com
mands of a political superior. Political subjection is only
degrading when it is one-sided, as in the subjects of an abso
lute monarch or in a dependency ruled by another country;
but when the position of superior and inferior is reciprocal, and
when each person commands as well as obeys, and is at once a
sharer in the sovereignty and a subject, there is no degradation
to any one, nor anything repugnant to the great principle of
equality between all mankind. The nation itself is author of
the laws which every one is obliged to obey,
Every sovereign government, whether it consists of a single
person or a body of persons, is absolute and uncontrolled
by law, or, in other words, it is in a state of nature or of
anarchy with regard both to foreign nations and to its own
subjects. This is a necessary consequence of its being
supreme, and not subject to the commands of any higher
government. ‘ ‘ It follows from the essential difference of
a positive law, and from the nature of sovereignty and in
dependent political society”, says Mr. Austin, “that the
power of a monarch, properly so called, or the power of a
sovereign number in its collegiate and sovereign capacity, is
incapable of legal limitation. A monarch or sovereign number
bound by a legal duty, were subject to a higher or supreme
sovereign ; that is to say, a monarch or sovereign number bound
by a legal duty were sovereign and not sovereign. Supreme
power limited by positive law is a flat contradiction in terms.”
In like manner Blackstone says of sovereign governments that
tf there is and must be in all of them a supreme, irresistible,
�AUSTIN ON GOVERNMENT.
19
•absolute, uncontrolled authority ”, that is, an authority which
is not and cannot be limited by positive law. A. sovereign
government is controlled, not by law, but only by morality and
public opinion in its dealings with its subjects, and has no legal
rights and duties towards them, but only moral rights and
duties. “Independence of political duty”, says Mr. Austin,
“is one of the essentials of sovereignty”, and he observes
further that a supreme government ‘ ‘ has no legal rights (in
the proper acceptation of the term) against its own subjects.
To every legal right there are three several parties; namely, a
party bearing the right; a party burthened with the relative
duty; and a sovereign government setting the law through
which the right and duty are respectively conferred and im
posed”. It is powers, and not legal rights, that a sovereign
government possesses in respect of its subjects. On the other
hand, subjects have no legal rights but only moral rights,
together with legal and moral duties, towards the supreme
government. Thus Mr. Austin says, “As against the govern
ment itself you can have no legal right ”, and “ as against the
sovereign there can be no right”. Wherever subjects have
legal rights against their government, it is because the latter is
not sovereign but subordinate to another and higher govern
ment ; as is the case, for example, with the different legislatures
in the United States, each of which is subordinate or habitually
obedient to the Constitution enacted by them all, and with the
■executive or administrative government in this country (often
called emphatically “ the Government ”) which habitually obeys
the will of Parliament. “ The power of Parliament”, as Mr.
Bradlaugh lately remarked, “ is unlimited, but the powers of
"the executive are not unlimited”.
As to the supreme powers or the powers belonging to a
sovereign government, Mr. Austin observes that they are ininite in number and kind, and that the modes in which they
may be shared among the different members of the sovereign
body are also infinite; thus he describes them as “the political
powers infinite in number and kind, which, partly brought into
exercise, and partly lying dormant, belong to a sovereign or
■state ”. Some of these powers are exercised by the supreme
government itself while it delegates others to political subor
dinates, as for instance to the executive authorities and to the
judges. The branch of law which deals with the powers,
rights, and duties of the supreme government and its political
subordinates is commonly divided into constitutional law and
administrative law; the former of which determines the constitution or structure of the government, that is to say, it
determines who shall bear the sovereignty, and also, if the
government consists of a number of persons, how the supreme
powers shall be shared among them; while the latter deter-
�20
AUSTIN ON GOVERNMENT.
mines the ends to which, and the modes in which, the powers
shall be exercised, either by the government itself or by its
subordinates. Now it is evident from the foregoing remarks,
that the parts of constitutional and administrative law whicbe
concern the acts of the supreme government itself, though
included in legal treatises, are not properly law at all, but
merely rules set by morality and public opinion, like the socalled law of nations. “As against the monarch properly socalled, or as against the sovereign body in its collective and.
sovereign capacity ”, says Mr. Austin, “ the so-called laws
which determine the constitution of the State, or which deter
mine the ends or modes to and in which the sovereign powers
shall be exercised, are not properly positive laws, but are laws
set by general opinion, or merely ethical maxims which the
sovereign spontaneously adopts ”, “ Against the monarch
properly so called”, he says also, “or against the sovereign
number in its collegiate or sovereign capacity, cons’itutional
law and the law of nations are nearly in the same predicament.
Each is positive morality rather than positive law. The former
is guarded by sentiments current in the given community, as
the latter is guarded by sentiments current amongst nations
generally.” The individual members of a sovereign assembly
may indeed be bound by laws, but not the assembly itself.
“ Considered collectively, or considered in its corporate char
acter ”, continues Mr. Austin, “ a sovereign number is sovereign
and independent; but considered severally, the individuals and.
smaller aggregates composing that sovereign number are subject
to the supreme body of which they are component parts.
Consequently, though the body is inevitably independent of
legal or political duty, any of the individuals or aggregates
whereof the body is composed may be legally bound by laws
of which the body is the author.” The only possible way to
bring the existing sovereign governments, while preserving
their equality and real independence, under the control of law,
and to give them legal rights and legal duties towards their
subjects as well as towards foreign nations, is to make them
all members of, and subordinate to, one supreme federal
government : whereby the collective wisdom and justice of
the common central authority might remedy the defects of
local authorities, and the tyranny of national rulers over their
subjects, together with revolutions and civil wars, might beeffectually prevented in every country of the world.
�HOBBES AND LOCKE ON GOVERNMENT.
21
V;
The great and permanent cause of government—the cause
which has given rise to governments in the past, maintains
them at present, and will ultimately, it may be hoped, unite
all nations under a common federal government—is the per
ception of the enormous evils attendant on the state of nature
or anarchy, and a wish to escape from these evils. “ The only
general cause of the permanence of political governments, and
the only general cause of the origin of political governments ”,
says Mr. Austin, “ are exactly or nearly alike. Though every
government has arisen in part from specific or particular causes,
almost every government must have arisen in part from the
following general cause, namely, that the bulk of the natural
society from which the political was formed were desirous of
escaping to a state of government from a state of nature or
anarchy.” I may quote also the words of Thomas Hobbes, the
powerful thinker who has done more than almost any other to
throw light on the theory of government, and of whom Mr.
Austin says: “I know of no other writer (except our great
contemporary Jeremy Bentham) who has uttered so many
truths, at once new and important, concerning the necessary
structure of supreme political government, and the larger of
the necessary distinctions implied by positive law”. In his
“Leviathan ” (a figurative title by which he means a Common
wealth or State) Hobbes says: “The final cause, end, or design
of men, who naturally love liberty and the dominion over
others, in the introduction of that restraint upon themselves in
which we see them live in Commonwealths, is the foresight of
their own preservation and of a more contented life thereby;
that is to say, of getting themselves out of that miserable con
dition of war, which is necessarily consequent to the natural
passions of men, when there is no visible power to keep them
in awe, and tie them by fear of punishment to the performance
of their covenants and observance of the laws of nature ”. In
like manner the illustrious philosopher, John Locke, in his work
on Civil Government, observes that “the end of civil govern
ment ” is “to avoid and remedy these inconveniences of the
state of nature, which necessarily follow from every man being
judge in his own case ”. No one has explained more clearly
than Hobbes and Locke the evils of the state of nature or of
anarchy; the former of whom deals chiefly with the anarchy,
or absence of a common government, existing among savages
and between independent political societies, while the latter
draws attention also to the evils and dangers of the other kind
of anarchy, namely, that consisting in the absolute power, un
controlled and uncontrollable by law, which, as we have seen,
�22
HOBBES AND LOCKE ON GOVERNMENT.
is possessed by all sovereign governments over their own
subjects.
The chief evils of the state of nature arise from the want of
a provision, such as government essentially is, for securing
peace and justice among mankind. There is a want of a known
and settled law or rule of justice, and of a sufficient power to
compel obedience to it. Men’s judgments with regard to right
and wrong conduct differ widely, and are very often erroneous ;
and therefore, as in numberless cases they cannot agree on
what is just, the only way to settle disputes and to keep the
peace between them, is that an umpire or arbiter should be
appointed to lay down beforehand and apply to each particular
case the rules of justice, and that all parties should agree to
abide by his decisions. “As when there is a controversy in
an account ”, says Hobbes, “ the parties must by their own
accord set up, for right reason, the reason of some arbitrator
or judge, to whose sentence they will both stand, or their
controversy must either come to blows or be undecided for
want of a right reason constituted by nature ; so is it also in
all debates of what kind soever.” Moreover, since it is not
mere advice or exhortation, but the compulsory settlement of
disputes and redress of injuries, that are required from the
arbiter, he must have sufficient power to compel obedience to
his laws and sentences by the punishment of those who disobey
them: for as Blackstone observes, “nothing is compulsory but
punishment”. What is needed therefore, to secure peace and
justice in human society, is a supreme authority, or government,
which all are obliged to obey, and which can lay down, apply,
and enforce the rules of justice. Where no such authority
exists to restrain the passions of mankind, and where each
person is free to do to others whatever lies in his power, and
is himself judge in his own case of what is just, there can be
no real justice or real peace for anyone, but a perpetual war or
the dread of war. “ In the nature of man ”, says Hobbes,
“ we find three principal causes of quarrel. First, competition ;
secondly, diffidence” (that is, distrust or suspicion); “thirdly,
glory. The first maketh men invade for gain ; the second, for
safety; and the third, for reputation. The first use violence
». to make themselves masters of other men’s persons, wives,
children, and cattle; the second, to defend them; the third,
> for trifles, as a word, a smile, a different opinion, and any other
sign of undervalue, either direct in their persons, or byreflexion
in their kindred, their friends, their nation, their profession, or
their name. Hereby it is manifest that during the time men
live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they
are in that condition which is called war: and such a war as
is of every man against every man. War consisteth not in
battle only. For as the nature of foul weather lieth not in a
�HOBBES AND LOCKE ON GOVERNMENT.
23
shower or two of rain, but in an inclination thereto of many
days together; so the nature of war consisteth not in actual
fighting, but in the known disposition thereto, during all the
time there is no assurance to the contrary. All other time is
Peace. Whatever therefore is consequent to a time of war,
where every man is enemy to every man; the same is conse
quent to the time, wherein men live without other security
than what their own strength and their own invention shall
furnish them withal.” It will be seen that in the above passage
Hobbes includes under the term “war ” not only actual fighting,
but also the dread of war and the constant danger of it, as the
characteristic evils of the state of nature or of anarchy.
A similar account of the evils arising from the want of a
government is given by Locke. Men, he says, are led to quit
the state of nature, and to “unite for the mutual preservation
of their lives, liberties, and estates, which I call by the general
name, property. The great and chief end therefore of men’s
uniting into commonwealths and putting themselves under
government is the preservation of their property. To which in
the state of nature there are many things wanting. First,
there wants an established, settled, known law, received and
allowed by common consent to be the standard of right and
wrong. . Secondly, in the state of nature, there wants a fair
and indifferent judge, with authority to determine all differ
ences according to the established law.” Such an impartial
judge is evidently needed to prevent men from being judges in
their own cases, when they are so apt to be blinded by passion
or self-interest. “That ‘no man shall be judge in his own
cause ’ (that is, in any matter in which he is interested) ”, says
Mr. Samuel Warren in his Introduction to Law Studies, “is a
great fundamental principle in the administration of justice ”,
Locke continues : “ Thirdly, in the state of nature, there often
wants power to back and support the sentence when right, and
to give it due execution. They who by any injustice offend,
will seldom fail, where they are able by force, to make good
their injustice ; such resistance many times makes the punish
ment dangerous, and frequently destructive, to those who
attempt it. To avoid these inconveniences, which disorder
men’s properties in the state of nature, men unite into societies
that they may have the united strength of the whole society to
secure and defend their properties and may have standing rules
to bound it; by which every one may know what is his.” In
the state of nature no one knows clearly what is his and what
another s, what is mine and thine, for there is no government
either to define the rights of each individual or to protect
them.
We have seen that, according to Bentham and Austin, the
state of nature not only exists, or has at one time existed,
�24
HOBBES AND LOCKE ON GOVERNMENT.
among savage tribes, but prevails at present over the whole
world between independent political societies in their dealing»
with one another. Independent nations have no common
government, no international law properly so called, nor any
judges or courts of justice for the compulsory settlement of
international disputes and redress of wrongs ; but each nation
is itself judge in its own case as to what is just towards others,
and has absolute liberty to make war upon them and to do
them any other harm within its power, unrestrained by the fear
of legal punishment. Among nations the anarchy is between
commonwealth and commonwealth, just as among savages it
exists between man and man or between families. This i&
pointed out by Hobbes and Locke, who show that the effectsof such a state of things are essentially similar to those described
above, and that it necessarily leads to a want of real justice and
of real peace, as well as of mutual love and trust, between
nations, and to what may be called the condition of “ war ”, if
we understand by this term not only actual hostilities, but also
the dread and danger of war, and habitual preparations against
it. Thus Hobbes says, after referring to the anarchy among
savages : “ But though there had never been any time wherein
particular men were in a condition of war, one against another ;
yet in all times, kings and persons of sovereign authority, be
cause of their independency, are in continual jealousies, and in
the state and posture of gladiators; having their weapons
pointing and their eyes fixed on one another; that is, their
forts, garrisons, and guns upon the frontiers of their kingdoms;
and continual spies upon their neighbors; which is a posture
of war”. “And as small families did then”, that is, among
barbarous communities, he says in another place, “ so now do
cities and kingdoms, which are but greater families, enlarge
their dominions upon all pretences of danger and fear of in
vasion or assistance that may be given to invaders, and endeavor
as much as they can to subdue or weaken their neighbors by
open force or secret arts.” And again, in speaking of the
liberty of independent states in their dealings with each other,
he says that this “ is not the liberty of particular men, but of
the commonwealth, which is the same as that which every
man then should have, if there were no civil laws nor common
wealth at all. And the effects of it also be the same. For as
amongst masterless men there is perpetual war of every man
against his neighbor, no inheritance to transmit to the son nor
to expect from the father, no propriety of goods and lands, no
security, but a full and absolute liberty in each particular man ;
so in states and commonwealths not dependent on one another,
every commonwealth, not every man, has an absolute liberty
to do what it shall judge, that is to say what that man or
assembly that representeth it shall judge most conducive to
�HOBBES AND LOCKE ON GOVERNMENT.
25-
their benefit. But withal, they live in the condition of aperpetual war and upon the confines of battle, with their
frontiers armed and cannon planted against their neighbors
round about.” The terrible truth of this may be seen from the
history of Europe, which has never ceased to suffer either from
actual war, or from the dread and danger of it, and where the
vast standing armies, far larger and provided with far deadlier
weapons now than at any former time, are calculated to amount
to about ten millions of men.
Locke points out in like manner the state of nature existing
between independent rulers, and draws attention to the onlv
effectual remedy for war and security for peace among mankind,
namely, a common government. “ Since all princes and rulersof independent governments, all through the world ”, he say-,
“are in a state of nature, it is plain the world never was, nor
ever will be, without numbers of men in that state”. With
regard to war and the means of preventing it, he says that
“ force, or a declared design of force upon the person of another,
where there is no common superior on earth to appeal to for
relief, is the state of war. To avoid this state of war (wherein
there is no appeal but to heaven, and wherein every the least
difference is apt to end, where there is no authority to decide
between the contenders) is one great reason of men’s putting
themselves into society and quitting the state of nature; for
where there is an authority or power on earth from which
relief can be had by appeal, there the continuance of the state
of war is excluded, and the controversy is decided by that?
power.” And as to peace, he observes that “civil society” is“ a state of peace, amongst those who are of it, from whom
the state of war is excluded by the umpirage which they have
provided in their legislative for the ending all differences that
may arise amongst any of them ”. In civil society, peace isfurther secured by forbidding under penalty all force or violenceexcept in self-defence; and then too, only while the wrong isbeing actually committed, and there is no time to appeal tothe law for assistance or redress. Men are not allowed forcibly
to redress their own wrongs, or what they conceive to be their
wrongs, and to exact any penalty they please, but must in all
cases appeal for redress to a court of justice. “When the
wrong is consummated, when the mischief is done ”, says Mr.
Hunter, “it is never lawful to resort to force; the peaceful
remedy of an action or criminal accusation can alone be em
ployed. . But if the invasion of my right, or the attack on my
person is not completed, as a general rule force may be used in
defence.” Beal peace, like real justice, real liberty, and rpal
independence, can only exist under the reign of government
and law.; whereas the so-called peace which alternates with
open strife in the state of nature or anarchy, and which is
�26
POLITICAL UNION.
accompanied by huge armaments and by hatred, jealousies,
and distrust between nations, is but a veiled form of war.
VI.
We now come to the great permanent remedy for war and
the other evils arising from the state of nature or anarchy,
namely, the formation of a common government. The anarchy
prevailing at the present day is not between individual men or
single families as among savage tribes, but between inde
pendent political societies in their dealings with one another;
.and what is needed to put an end to it is the political union of
different nations and of different sovereign governments, by
methods which have already been repeatedly employed with
success in building up the existing states and empires of the
world. Whether between individuals or between nations, a true
legal or political union is always essentially the same process,
and consists in submitting all wills, and entrusting the whole
strength of society, to the will and direction of one sovereign
government, composed either of a single person or of one or
more bodies of persons acting collectively, so as to avoid that
division of wills and of physical force which leads to war and
to the appalling evils characteristic of the state of nature or
anarchy.
Thus Hobbes says, in describing the generation of a Com
monwealth among a society living in the state of nature:
“ The only way to erect such a common power as may be
able to defend them from the invasion of foreigners and the
injuries of one another, and thereby to secure them in such
sort as that by their own industry and by the fruits of the
earth they may nourish themselves and live contentedly, is, to
confer all their power and strength upon one man, or upon one
assembly of men, that may reduce all their wills, by plurality
of voices, into one will; which is as much as to say, to appoint
■one man or assembly of men to bear their person; and every
one to own and acknowledge himself to be the author of what
soever he that so beareth their person shall act, or cause to be
acted, in those things which concern the common peace and
safety ; and therein to submit their wills, every one to his will,
and their judgment to his judgment. This is more than consent
or concord; it is a real unity of them all in one and the same
person, made by covenant of every man with every man; in
such a manner as if every man should say to every man, ‘I
authorise and give up my right of governing myself to this
man, or to this assembly of men, on this condition, that thou
�DANGER OF OPPRESSION BY SOVEREIGN GOVERNMENTS.
27
give up thy right to him and authorise all his actions in like
manner
This done, the multitude so united in one person is
called a Commonivealth.”
In a similar manner Blackstone observes that harmony of
wills ‘ ‘ can be no otherwise produced than by a political union;
by the consent of all persons to submit their own private wills
to the will of one man, or of one or more assemblies of men, to
whom the supreme authority is entrusted; and this will of that
one man, or assemblage of men, is, in different states, according
to their different constitutions, understood to be law”.
Locke says also in describing the formation of a Common
wealth : ‘ ‘ This is done whenever any number of men, in the state
of nature, enter into society to make one people or body politic,
under one supreme government; or else when one joins himself
to and incorporates with any government already made; for
hereby he authorises the society, or, which is all one, the
legislative thereof, to make laws for him as the public good of
the society shall require; to the execution whereof his own
assistance (as to his own decrees) is due. And this puts men
out of a state of nature into that of a Commonwealth, by setting
up a judge on earth with authority to determine all the con
troversies and redress the injuries that may happen to any
members of the Commonwealth; which judge is the legislative1
or magistrate appointed by it.” He adds that “ whosoever out
of a state of nature unite into a community, must be under
stood to give up all the power necessary for the ends for
which they unite into society to the majority of the community,,
unless they expressly agreed in any number greater than th©
majority”. The rule that if opinions differ among the members
of a sovereign body, the majority or some other fixed propor
tion must decide, is evidently needed to secure the unity of
will and action which is indispensable for the purposes of
government.
From the necessity of submitting all wills and entrusting all
power to one man or one assembly (or to any number of
assemblies, at any distance apart, provided they act together
by a majority of their body and arrive at joint decisions or
enactments) in order to avoid the division of wills and of the
forces of society; and from the fact, already noticed, that the
power of a monarch properly so called or of a sovereign
assembly cannot be limited by law, there arises the great in
herent evil and danger of government, which, like the opposite
evil of anarchy, has caused such countless miseries to mankind,
namely, the abuse of their immense powers by rulers to plunder
and oppress their subjects. This evil, though it has always to
be most carefully guarded against, is far more severely felt
under an absolute monarchy, which was the earliest form of
government as the simplest way of obtaining one supreme will,
�28
SUBJECTS CAN, SOVEREIGNS CANNOT, BE BOUND BY LAW.
and which, still prevails in most of the backward countries of
the world. Thus Locke says, in replying to the advocates of
monarchical rule: “I shall desire those who make this objec
tion to remember that absolute monarchs are but men; and if
government is to be the remedy for those evils which necessarily
follow from men’s being judges in their own cases, and the
state of nature is therefore not to be endured, I desire to know
what kind of government that is, and how much better it
is than the state of nature, where one man, commanding
a multitude, has the liberty to be judge in his own case,
.and may do to all his subjects whatever he pleases, without
the least liberty to anyone to question or control those who
•execute his pleasure ? and in whatsoever he doth, whether led
by reason, mistake, or passion, must be submitted to?” “If
it be asked”, he says again, “what security, what fence is there
in such a State against the violence and oppression of this
absolute ruler ? the very question can scarcely be borne. To
ask how you may be guarded from harm or injury on that side
'where the strongest hand is to do it, is presently the voice of
faction and rebellion; as if when men, quitting the state of
nature, entered into society, they agreed that all of them but
one should be under the constraint of laws, but that he should
still retain all the liberty of the state of nature, increased with
power and made licentious with impunity.” In a sovereign
assembly, though its power is as great as that of a monarch,
being absolute and unlimited by law, Locke points out that
there is this great safeguard against oppression, that each of
the members, taken singly, is a subject, and is himself amenable
to the laws which the assembly enacts. When the people, he
says, found that monarchs abused their power, they “ could
never be safe nor at rest, till the legislative was placed in
collective bodies of men, call them senate, parliament, or what
you please. By which means every single person became
subject, equally with other the meanest men, to those laws
which he himself, as part of the legislative, had established.”
An even greater security against oppression under the repre
sentative system is that the constituencies, who form the bulk
of the nation, are themselves virtually authors of the laws by
which they are to be governed. Mr. Mill shows that in the
representative system (though he points out grave defects in it
as now existing, especially the want of a fair proportional
representation of minorities and the denial of a share in the
suffrage to women) the sovereignty, or ultimate controlling
power, is really vested in the entire community, and that this
is far superior to any other form of government. “ There is no
difficulty in showing ”, he says, “that the ideally best form of
government is that in which the sovereignty, or supreme
controlling power in the last resort, is vested in the entire
�DIEEEliENCE BETWEEN UNION AND ALLIANCE.
2f
aggregate of the community; every citizen having not only a
voice in the exercise of that ultimate sovereignty, but being,
at least occasionally, called on to take an active part in the
government by the personal discharge of some public function,
local or general ”. From these improvements in government
and from the growing feelings of brotherhood and of common
interest between all mankind, aided powerfully by easier
means of communication, the obstacles to the political union of
nations have greatly diminished, while the beneficial effects of
such union on the relations of governments, not only to each
other but to their own subjects, cannot, I think, be exaggerated.
The oppression of subjects by their rulers is largely due to the
■absolute power, uncontrolled and uncontrollable by law, which
resides in every supreme government, whether it consist of a
single person or a body of persons ; and to reduce the evil as
far as possible, there should be only one supreme or sovereign
federal government, of which the existing legislatures in the
different countries would be members (or might, if it were
thought preferable, elect a part while the people elected the
other part, of the members), and to which each of them, taken
singly, would be subject or subordinate. In this way the
national governments would be no longer isolated from one
another, as at present, or sole judges in their own cases; but
the common judgment and authority of all would be brought
to bear on all, and oppression by local rulers, as well as rebellion
among subjects, might be legally controlled and prevented in
■every part of the world.
A legal or political union between two or more independent
states should be carefully distinguished from a mere alliance.
An alliance is an agreement between them, while remaining
-separate states, that is, while remaining under different sovereign
governments, to co-operate for certain purposes; all the acts
of each of them, including the continuance of the alliance or
its dissolution at any time, being determined by the will of its
own government. A political union, on the other hand, is an
agreement between them to unite together into one state, that
is, to have one and the same sovereign government, by whose
will all their acts, including the continuance of the union or its
repeal at any time, are to be determined. Though an alliance
is often very valuable for temporary purposes, it has no effect
in putting an end to the state of nature or anarchy existing
between independent communities. “It is not every compact
which puts an end to the state of nature between men ”, says
Locke, “but only this one of agreeing together mutually to
enter into one community and make one body politic; other
promises and compacts men may make one with another, and
yet still be in a state of nature.” In an alliance there are
•different supreme governments, or supreme wills, each claiming
�30
PERMANENT ALLIANCES DISTINGUISHED FROM UNIONS.
obedience from its own subjects among the allied nations, which
is the state of nature or anarchy; whereas in a political union
there is only one supreme government with claim to obedience
from the whole united people, and this submission of all willsto one is, as we have seen, the essence of government. Some
alliances, of a more complicated character than others and
intended to be more permanent, are particularly apt to beconfounded with true political unions, and among them Mr.
Austin instances the confederations of states existing in his
time in Switzerland and in Germany before the formation of
the present federal governments in these countries. Mr. Dicey
also describes as a “permanent alliance rather than a union”
the dual system of government in Austria-Hungary, which
resembles in its main features the bond now connecting to
gether the two kingdoms of Norway and Sweden. The distinction between a system of confederated states, like the
former Swiss and German confederations or the dual system
of Austria-Hungary, and a composite state or supreme
federal government such as that of the United States of
America, is thus pointed out by Mr. Austin. “A composite
state and a system of confederated states ”, he says, “ are
broadly distinguished by the following essential difference.
In the case of a composite state, the several united societies are
one independent society, or are severally subject to one sovereign
body; which through its minister the general government, and
through its members and ministers the several united govern
ments, is habitually and generally obeyed in each of the united
societies, and also in the larger society arising from the union
of all. In the case of a system of confederated states, the several
compacted societies are not one society, and are not subject to
a common sovereign; or (changing the phrase) each of the
several societies is an independent political society, and each of
their several governments is properly sovereign or supreme.”
The agreement to form the Confederation at the beginning,
and the subsequent resolutions passed by it, are not enforced
on the different governments or on their subjects by the
collective will of the whole, but are spontaneously adopted by
each government and enforced upon its own subjects. “In
short ”, continues Mr. Austin, “ a system of confederated states
does not essentially differ from a number of independent
governments connected by an ordinary alliance. If in the
case of the German or the Swiss Confederation, the body of
confederated governments enforces its own resolutions, those
confederated governments are one composite state, rather than
a system of confederated states. The body of confederated
governments is properly sovereign; and to that aggregate and
sovereign body, each of its constituent members is properly in
a state of subjection.” As to the dual government of Austria-
�TTNION ON NATIONS ALREADY FAR ADVANCED.
31
Hungary, Mr. Dicey says, after giving a detailed account of it:
“ The Austro-Hungarian system is therefore briefly this:
two separate states, each having a separate administration,
a separate parliament, and separate bodies of subjects or citizens,
are each ruled by one and the same monarch; the two portions
of the monarchy are linked together, mainly as regards their
relations to foreign powers, by an assembly of delegates from
each parliament, and by a ministry which is responsible to the
delegations alone, and which acts in regard to a limited number
of matters which are, of absolute necessity, the common con
cern of the monarchy.” He says also that “the Hungarian
Diet has, as such, no legislative authority in Austria, and the
Reichsrath has no legislative authority in Hungary.” The dual
system of Austria-Hungary is really an alliance or agreement
between two separate states, under different supreme govern
ments, to manage together their foreign affairs and all matters
relating to war and to finance; both countries having the same
emperor, who though not a monarch or a sovereign in the true
sense of the terms, but only a member of each of the two
sovereign bodies, has considerably more political power, accord
ing to Mr. Dicey, than royalty possesses in England.
VII.
A true political union, on equal terms, between two or more
independent states, can only be effected by uniting together into
one their different sovereign governments, in such a manner that
each state shall have a share, proportional to its population, in the
common government thus resulting. The union of nations
under a common supreme government, whether on a footing
of equality or on that of sovereign and subordinate states, and
whether by conquest or by mutual agreement, has already
been carried out to such an extent in the course of ages, that,
according to the Government Year Book for 1888, “the chief
independent countries of the world, arranged on the basis of
their nominal forms of government ”, are now only forty-four
in number, eight of them being absolute monarchies, while the
others have more or less fully developed representative institu
tions. “Theoretically”, says the writerafter giving a list of
them, “thirty-six out of the forty-four states just enumerated
are under various forms of popular government, having repre
sentative institutions, and executives based upon contracts
between the governing and the governed”. The most im
portant difficulties now standing in the way of the equal
political union of nations and its immense benefits, seem to me
�32
CHIEF DIFFICULTIES NOW OPPOSING UNION.
to be the very backward condition, of some populations, the
existence of absolute monarchies, the distances of nations from
one another, and difference of language. The last two of
these, however, may be surmounted by some adaptation of the
invaluable principle of federal government; as we see, for
instance, in the United States, which are nearly as large as the
whole of Europe, and where the local State legislatures, though far
distant from one another, make up together one sovereign body;
and in Canada, where a million and a half of French colonists
are united with three millions of English under the same federal
constitution and on terms of complete political equality. Abso
lute monarchies, on the other hand, though they may favor
the reduction by conquest of many nations under the dominion
of one supreme ruler as in Russia, are, I think, incompatible
with their union on equal terms, the only conditions on which
civilised states can be expected voluntarily to unite with one
another. This follows from the essential character of an abso
lute monarch as contrasted with a sovereign assembly. ‘ ‘ The
difference between monarchies or governments of one and
aristocracies or governments of a number”, says Mr. Austin,
“is of all the differences between governments the most precise
and definite, and in regard to the pregnant distinction between
positive law and morality incomparably the most important
An absolute monarch is purely sovereign, and cannot be bound
by law; whereas each member of a sovereign assembly, taken
singly, is a suZy'eci, and may be bound by laws enacted by the
whole. By uniting therefore on equal terms with another
government, a monarch ceases to be sovereign, becoming a
member of a sovereign body, and thus amenable to the control
of law. What is commonly called a “limited monarchy”, as
Mr. Austin points out, is not really monarchy at all, but is
“one or another of those infinite forms of aristocracy which
result from the infinite modes wherein the sovereign number
may share the sovereign powers”. A limited monarch, such
as the Emperor of Germany or the Queen of England, is not a
monarch or a sovereign in the true sense of these terms, but a
member of a sovereign assembly, and either is or may be made,
like the president of a republic, amenable to laws passed by
the whole body. Limited monarchy is therefore no barrier to
the equal political union of independent states, as is clearly
shown by the fact that four kings, together with reigning
princes, grand dukes, and others, are included in the great
federal union forming the German empire. Amenability to
law, it should be remarked, is a matter of the utmost import
ance, for one of the chief ends of civilisation is to bring man
kind universally under the dominion of law and government,
so that all acts whatever (except those of a supreme govern
ment in its collective capacity) should bp ’fither permitted, or
�GOVERNMENT THE ORGAN OE COMPULSION.
33
■enjoined, or forbidden by law. This end has been attained in
cur own and other countries with regard to subjects or citizens,
but not with regard to their rulers or to the mutual intercourse
of different nations. As observed by Montesquieu, the rela
tions of mankind in society may be divided into those existing
■either between subject and subject, or between subjects and
their government, or between one sovereign government and
another. Now it is only the relations of subject to subject,
and of a subject towards his government, that have been
brought under the dominion of law; whereas the relations of
the existing supreme governments towards their subjects, and
of one supreme government to another—as we have already
seen—are quite uncontrolled by law, or in other words, are in
a state of nature or anarchy. If all nations could be united
under a common federal government, as is urged by those who
aim at the federation of mankind, the reign of law, whether
Tietween individuals, between nations, or between national
rulers and their subjects, would be universal, and the only acts
which would, of necessity, remain exempt from legal control
would be those of the supreme federal government itself.
Government is the organ, and the only legitimate organ, by
which compulsion or force is employed in a community. It not
only lays down in its laws or commands the duties of each
individual, but compels him to perform them and to abstain
from mischievous acts, or acts which are hurtful to other
people. “The general object of all laws”, says Bentham, “is
to prevent mischief,”. Law does not exhort or entreat, but
always compels, and the manner in which it exercises its com
pulsion is by the threat of punishments or penalties to be inflicted
on those who disobey. Thus Mr. Mill observes that “penal
sanction is the essence of law”. In like manner Sir James
Stephen says : “ The distinctive and special characteristic of
all law and government is force—coercion in some one of its
shapes. It is this which draws the line between law and
advice, between government and speculative discussion.” He
points out also that no other compulsion than that authorised
by government (excepting of course the compulsion coming
from public opinion or from one’s own conscience) can right
fully, be exercised over any individual; and that “the first
principle of the supremacy of the law of the land is that it is
the only form of coercion .... which ought to be brought
upon all,.whether they like it or not”. It is true that the
great majority of people suffer no inconvenience from this legal
control, feeling it as little, to use Mr. Hunter’s striking simile,
as “the weight of the atmosphere”, because they are con
vinced in the main of the justice of the laws and have a voice
in making them; but the control or compulsion exists never
theless, and is absolutely indispensable to the happiness and
�34
j
GOVERNMENT THE ORGAN OE COMPTTLSION.
security of society. However willing or desirous men may beto abstain from mischievous acts, no free choice is given them
in the matter, for it is felt that society cannot be sufficiently
protected against such acts without the compulsion exercised'
on all persons alike, willing or unwilling, by the fear of legal
punishment if they offend. If a man has not a sufficient love
of justice and regard for the interests of his fellows to keep
him from crime, he must be deterred from it by the fear of
punishment; and, moreover, just laws are well known to have
a most powerful effect in making men just, and giving them a
genuine love of virtue for its own sake. These truths are well
understood with regard to a particular society, and are quite
as applicable to the great society of nations. Every national
government in its dealings with other nations and with its own
subjects ought, like every private individual, to be under the
control of law as well as of morality and public opinion. It
should be bound by compulsory rules, laid down and enforced
by a common authority, not to injure other nations or to
oppress its subjects. Now, a common authority, armed with
the irresistible power which is needed to enable it to lay down
and enforce the laws, is obtained in each community by the
political union of all the citizens—or, in other words, by the
submission of all wills and all physical force to the will and
direction of one sovereign government—and in like manner in
the general community of mankind such an authority can only
be obtained by the political union of all the nations. A mere
alliance between separate states is of no avail; what is needed
is a legal or compulsory union under one sovereign government •
for nations which are not under the same supreme government
can have no legal relations, but only moral relations, to each
other. The laws of one independent state have of themselves
no validity whatever in another, though they are often, from
motives of comity, allowed to take effect, or speaking more
accurately, are spontaneously adopted by the courts of justice
in trying cases between citizens of different states who are
under different systems of law. Thus the eminent American
judge, Story, in his work on “ The Conflict of Laws ”, says :
“ It is plain that the laws of one country can have no intrinsic
force, proprio vigore, except within the territorial limits and
jurisdiction of that country. Whatever extra-territorial force
they are to have is the result, not of any original power to
extend them abroad, but of that respect which from motives of
public policy other nations are disposed to yield them.” This
absence of any power to exercise legal compulsion over inde
pendent states, and of any code of international law prescribed
by a common authority, seems to me the essential cause of
wars and revolutions. Force or compulsion is so indispensably
needed for the settlement of disputes in which the parties can-
�MATIONS UNITED BY UNITING THEIB, REPRESENTATIVES.
35
■not agree, and for the prevention and redress of injuries, that
if it cannot be applied in a legal form it is sure to be resorted
to in another. War, conquest, and the oppression of weak
■states by strong ones, are the barbarous and arbitrary methods,
in the absence of a common superior, for effecting this compul
sion between nations; while political union, law, and a common
government where disputes can be settled by the voice of a
majority, are the peaceable and civilised means for compelling
■one nation to be just to another and national rulers in every
part of the world to abstain from tyranny over their subjects.
To form an equal political union and common government
between independent states, it is the real and not merely the
nominal rulers of each state who must be united together into
■one sovereign body. Now under the representative system, the
dorm of government which is rapidly tending to become univetsal among civilised communities, the real rulers are the
elected representatives of the nation. “ The meaning of repre
sentative government”, says Mr. Mill, “is that the whole
people, or some numerous portion of them, exercise through
■deputies periodically elected by themselves, the ultimate con
trolling power, which, in every constitution, must reside
somewhere ”, In England the real government is very different
from the nominal one, and is in fact representative: for al
though by constitutional law the Crown has the power of refus
ing assent to Bills which have passed both Houses of Parliament,
-and . also of appointing the members of the executive or
administrative government, yet by custom and constitutional
morality these powers have become practically obsolete, the
Crown’s veto not having been used since 1707, in the reign of
Queen Anne, and the executive government being really
appointed and removable by, or in common phrase being
■“responsible to”, the House of Commons. “The constitu
tional morality of the country”, says Mr. Mill, “ nullifies these
powers (of the Crown), preventing them from being ever used;
and, by requiring that the head of the administration should
always be virtually appointed by the House of Commons,
makes that body the real sovereign of the state.” In a similar
manner Mr. Dicey says : “The executive of England is in fact
placed in the hands of a committee called the Cabinet. If there
be any one person in whose single hand the power of the state
is placed, that one person is not the Queen, but the chairman
of the committee, known as the Prime Minister.” Moreover,
the House of Lords, though nominally possessed of equal legis
lative powers, acts rather as a checking or restraining body to
secure further discussion of disputed questions, and is really
¡subordinate to the House of Commons, to whose will it is
■obliged sooner or later to conform. “ The British government ”,
says Mr. Mill, “is thus a representative government in the
�36
NATIONS UNITED BY UNITING THEIR REPRESENTATIVES,
correct sense of the term : and the powers which it leaves in
hands not directly accountable to the people can only be
considered as precautions which the ruling power is willing
should be taken against its own errors.” Mr. Dicey observes
that the various rules and customs of constitutional morality,
or as he calls them “the conventions of the constitution”,
which have been established in this country by the growing
influence of the constituencies and have gradually changed thegovernment in reality though not in name, “ have all one
ultimate object. Their end is to secure that Parliament or the
Cabinet which is indirectly appointed by Parliament, shall in
the long run give effect to that power which in modern Eng
land is the true political sovereign of the State- -the majority of
the electors, or (to use the popular though not quite accurate
language) the nation.” “ The conventions of the constitution ”,
he says again, “now consist of customs which (whatever their
historical origin) are at the present day maintained for ensuring
the supremacy of the House of Commons, and ultimately,
through the elective House of Commons, of the nation.”
Since, therefore, the elected representatives of the people are
the real rulers in this and other countries having popular
forms of government, an equal political union of such countries
can only be effected by uniting their representatives into one
sovereign body; whether that body consist of a single assembly
as in the United Kingdom, or of several distinct assembliesacting collectively as in the United States. Nations, in fact,
are politically united under the representative system in exactly
the same way as the different parts of the same nation, namely,,
by bringing their representatives together into one supreme
governing body, so that all matters requiring a compulsory
settlement may be decided, not by war and violence or by
diplomatic pressure, but by fair and open discussion and the
vote of a majority. Thus the essential articles in the treaties
of Union between England and Scotland, and between Great
Britain and Ireland, are those which joined together their
Parliaments, declaring in the former case that “ The United
Kingdom shall be represented by one Parliament ”, and in the
latter, “ That there shall be one Parliament, styled the Parlia
ment of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland ”.
On the other hand, the demand which is, or was, put forward
by Mr. Parnell and the Nationalist Party for an Irish Parlia
ment, to be formed by the withdrawal of the Irish members
from the House of Commons, seems to me not really a demand
for Home Pule, but for the separation of the countries. Home
Rule properly so called means, I think, the rule of local legis
latures, of a subject or subordinate character and possessing a
delegated authority, in countries which are united with others
on equal terms under the same supreme government. Countries
�HOME BULE PROPERLY MEANS FEDERALISM.
37
which are under different supreme governments are separate
from one another; and a common supreme government, on
equal terms, between states with representative institutions,
can only be obtained by joining their representatives into one
sovereign body. If their representatives are separated, the
countries cannot be united on equal terms, but must either be
separate from each other or united on the footing of sovereign
and subordinate states, a form of union which would never
again be tolerated between Great Britain and Ireland, and is
fast becoming quite impracticable between any civilised nations.
The great English colonies such as Canada and Australia, which
have legislatures of their own, are only nominally subject to
the English rule, and are really and essentially, as we have
already seen, independent states which are connected with the
mother country by a voluntary alliance, and have the power of
separating from her if they please. To withdraw the Irish
members from the House of Commons seems to me, therefore,
really equivalent to the separation of Ireland from Great
Britain.
VIII.
Nations which are independent and separate from others are
not said to have “ Home Rule”, but only those nations which
are politically united with others under a constitution of a
peculiar kind. Every country which can properly -be said to
have Home Rule must, I think, like one of the states in the
American union or in the German empire, be under two
governments, namely, a common supreme government in which
it has a share together with other states by the union of their
representatives in one sovereign body, and a local subordinate
government, composed exclusively of its own representatives,
for the management of its domestic affairs. A dependency, if it
has a legislature of its own, is often said to have Home Rule,
but improperly, as it seems to me, or at least in a widely
different sense of the term, for the legislature in such a case is
subject to the government of the dominant country, in which
the dependency has no share. Mr. Austin observes that all the
laws made by a subordinate legislature require the consent or
approval of the supreme legislature, and ‘ ‘ derive their validity
from its express or tacit authority. For either directly or
remotely the sovereign or supreme legislator is the author of
all law”. But if the above definition is correct, and if in
dependent and separate nations, as well as dependencies,
though possessing parliaments of their own, cannot rightly be
said to have “ Home Rule ”, it follows that neither Ireland nor
�38
FEDERAL SYSTEM OF GOVERNMENT.
the British colonies have ever yet had Home Rule in the true
sense of the word; for Ireland up to the time of the Union was
either a dependency of England or an independent nation, and
the colonies, as we have seen, are nominally dependencies, but
really and virtually independent states. In speaking of laws
enacted by subordinate legislatures, Mr. Austin says : “ Such
were the laws made by the Irish Parliament before that Act of
the British Parliament which acknowledged the independence
of Ireland (1719-1782). In fact and practice, the Irish legis
lature (consisting of the King and the Irish Houses of Parlia
ment) was in a state of subjection to the supreme legislature of
Great Britain; that is to say, to the same King and the British
Houses of Parliament.” Neither Ireland nor the colonies could
properly be said to have Home Rule in their relations with this
country, unless they not only had local legislatures but were
fidly and fairly represented in the supreme imperial legislature,
or in other words, unless they were federated with Great
Britain.
Home Rule properly so called is thus identical with Federalism
or the federal system of government. As to the very different
system of government often called “the colonial form of Home
Bule ”, in which countries having parliaments of their own are
not represented along with others in a common supreme parlia
ment, it should not, I think, be spoken of as “Home Rule”
at all, since the countries in this case are necessarily either
dependencies or independent and separate states. The federal
form of Home Rule is the one advocated by Mr. Bradlaugh and
I believe by the great majority of Englishmen and Scotchmen,
as well as Americans, who are in favor of a separate Irish
parliament; and it is the only kind of Home Rule to be desired
among civilised nations, who should be united as equals, and
not on the footing of dependencies and sovereign states. In
equality is only justifiable in dealing with backward and
uncivilised populations, till they are sufficiently advanced to
have equal political rights. The federal system, which was
first introduced in the United States and has since been modified
in other countries, especially in Germany, seems to me one of
the greatest discoveries ever made, and of an importance to
human happiness which cannot possibly be exaggerated; for it
supplies the means of uniting independent nations under a
common government, so as to do away with the state of nature
or anarchy now existing between them, and to put an end to
war. It fulfils the three main conditions of a satisfactory
political union, for it unites nations legally and effectively by
bringing them under the same sovereign government; it unites
them on equal terms, by joining their representatives in
one supreme body, and thus giving each nation a share in the
government proportional to its population; and moreover it
�FEDERALISM IN UNITED STATES AND GERMANY.
39
secures to them the advantages of sei!/-government or govern
ment exclusively by their own representatives, wherever this is
thought desirable, by allowing them to retain their national
legislatures for the management of their domestic affairs.
Each nation is thus placed under a general supreme legislature
composed of its own representatives along with those of other
states, and a local subordinate legislature composed of its own
representatives exclusively. The advocates of Federation hold
that Home Rule in the above sense, or as meaning Federalism,
ought to be extended over the whole world; and that all
nations, besides having their national rulers, should be united
together under one supreme federal government. The federal
■system is so important and so different in some respects from
the government with which we are acquainted in this country
that it deserves an attentive consideration.
The form of federation existing in the United States seems
to me to differ in one very important point from that which
has been adopted in Germany; namely, that in the former
country the sovereign government consists, as already remarked,
•of all the State legislatures acting collectively, and that the
general legislature or Congress, composed of the Senate and
the House of Representatives, together with the President, is a
subordinate body; whereas in Germany the Diet or general
legislature, composed of the Bundesrath, the Reichstag, and
the Emperor, is itself the sovereign government. This will
appear, I think, if we consider the powers possessed by these
bodies, and also the distinction between supreme and subordi
nate political powers, and between a sovereign and a subordinate
government. Thus Mr. Austin observes with regard to political
powers: “Of all the larger divisions of political powers, the
division of these powers into supreme and subordinate is perhaps
the only precise one. The former are the political powers,
infinite in number and kind, which, partly brought into exercise
and partly lying dormant, belong to a sovereign or state. The
latter are the portions of the supreme powers which are dele
gated to political subordinates.” Mr. Dicey in pointing out
the signs or maiks which distinguish a sovereign government,
■such as the English Parliament, from a subordinate govern- '
ment, such as Congress or a state legislature in the United
'States, says: “ These then are the three parts of parliamentary
sovereignty as it exists in England; first, the power of the
legislature to alter any law, fundamental or otherwise, as freely
and in the same manner as other laws; secondly, the absence
of any legal distinction between constitutional and other laws;
thirdly, the non-existence of any judicial or other authority
having the right to nullify an Act of Parliament, or to treat it
as void, or unconstitutional”. As to “the marks or notes of
legislative subordination” he says: “These signs by which
�40
FEDERALISM IN UNITED STATES AND GERMANY.
you may recognise the subordination of a law-making body are,
first, the existence of laws affecting its constitution, which such
body must obey and cannot change; hence, secondly, the
formation of a marked distinction between ordinary laws and
fundamental laws ; and lastly, the existence of some person or
persons, judicial or otherwise, having authority to pronounce
upon the validity or constitutionality of laws passed by such
law-making body”. Sir Henry James also, in a passage
already quoted, reduces the distinctive marks of a sovereign
government to these two—that it “ must be subject to the
control or decision of no man or body”, and that it “must be
able to alter and remodel its own constitution ”, Judging by
these marks or tests, we can see at once that the American
Congress is a subordinate government, whereas the German
Diet appears to be a supreme or sovereign assembly. The
Constitution of the United States (a written document which
was agreed to as the fundame: tai law of their union by all the
States in 1787-1789, soon after they acquired their independ
ence of Great Britain) creates Congress and grants to it certain
legislative powers strictly defined and limited, and creates also
a supreme court of justice, with jurisdiction in all cases arising
under the constitution and with an authority, which has not
unfrequently been exercised, to declare void any law passed by
Congress in excess of its powers; and moreover, changes in the
constitution cannot be effected by Congress, but only by a
majority, of three - fourths of the state legislatures. Such
changes or amendments may be proposed either in Congress or
in a convention called by the States, and if approved of there,
must be sent for ratification to all the state legislatures, and
must be ratified by three-fourths of these bodies, before they
are adopted. Hence Mr. Dicey observes that “the legal
sovereignty of the United States resides in the majority of a
body constituted by the joint action of three-fourths of the
several States at any time belonging to the Union ”, On the
other hand, although Germany also has a written constitution,
adopted in 1871, which distributes the various powers and
departments of legislation between the Diet or federal govern
ment and the State governments, there is, I believe, no judicial
body corresponding to the Supreme Court in the United States
with authority to declare void any act of the Diet, but the
latter is itself judge in disputes between the States, and may
settle them, if need be, by federal legislation ; and the Diet,
moreover, has itself the power of changing or amending the
constitution. Thus the German Constitution (which is given
in full in the Government Year Book for 1888) says: “ Litiga
tions between several States, in so far as they do not concern
private rights and are not thereby within the competence of
ordinary tribunals, will be adjudged by the Bundesrath, on the
�MR. DICEY ON FEDERALISM.
41
demand of one of the parties. Disputes concerning the consti
tution, where there is no authority competent to decide such
disputes, must be amicably adjusted by the Bundesrath, on the
demand of one or other of the parties, and if this cannot be
effected, they must be determined by federal legislation. Changes
in the constitution are to be effected by Acts of the Assembly ;
but such modifications must receive in the Bundesrath the
support of a majority of two-thirds of the representative votes.”
It thus appears to me that the German Diet, like the English
Parliament, or like all the state legislatures in the United
States acting collectively, is a sovereign government, and, as
such, possesses powers which cannot be limited by law.
The leading characteristics of federalism are summed up as
follows by Mr. Dicey, who has given a most valuable exposition
of this system and other matters relating to government in his
“ Lectures on the Law of the Constitution ” and in “ England’s
case against Home Rule”. “A Federal Constitution”, he
says, “ must from its very nature be marked by the following
characteristics. It must, at any rate in modern days, be a
written constitution, for its very foundation is the ‘ Federal
pact ’ or contract ; the constitution must define with more or
less precision the respective powers of the central government
and the state governments, of the central legislature and of the
local legislatures ; it must provide some means (e.g., reference
to a popular vote) for bringing into play that ultimate sovereign
power which is able to modify or reform the constitution itself ;
it must provide some arbiter, be it Council, Court, or Crown,
with authority to decide whether the Federal pact has been
observed ; it must institute some means by which the principles
of the constitution may be upheld, and the decrees of the
arbiter or Court be enforced against the resistance (if need be)
of one or more of the separate states ”. He says also in
another place: “The essential characteristics of federalism—
the supremacy of the constitution—the distribution of powers
—the authority of the judiciary—reappear, though no doubt
with modifications, in every true federal state.” This descrip
tion, however clearly it explains the form of government
existing in the United. States or in Switzerland, is not, I venture
to think, equally applicable to the German Constitution, which,
by making the Diet a sovereign body, seems to me a most
important and valuable modification of the federal system.
The essence of federalism in my opinion is the existence of a
common supreme legislature, in which all the federated states
are duly represented, together with local subordinate legisla
tures, consisting solely of local representatives, in the different
states ; while the other remarkable feature in the American
Government, namely, that the sovereign power is vested in all
the state legislatures taken together, and that Congress is a
�42
ELECTORAL SOVEREIGNTY, PARLIAMENTARY SOVEREIGNTY
subordinate body, unable to change its own constitution and
subject to the control of a legal tribunal, does not appear to mo
to be necessarily or essentially a part of federalism. Govern
ments which are not federal, such as the English Pari i am ent.,
might in like manner be made subordinate bodies and might
have their powers limited, if the constituencies who elect them
■chose to retain the legal sovereignty in their own hands. Mr,
Austin points out that although the trust held by the House
of Commons for the constituencies is at present enforced only
by moral sanctions, it might be enforced by legal sanctions;
and that for this purpose, a law or written constitution would
need to be passed by the constituencies themselves, who would
thus form an ulterior legislature. If such a constitution were
enforced by the courts of justice, the legal sovereignty of the
country would then reside in the constituencies or electors,
and not as at present in Parliament. “ In order that the
members of the Commons House might be bound legally and
completely to discharge their duties to the Commons”, says
Mr. Austin, “ the law must be made directly by the Commons
themselves ” with the assistance of the king and the lords, or,
in. a republic, by the Commons alone. In that case, “the
King and the lords with the electoral body of the Commons,
or the electoral body of the Commons as being exclusively
sovereign, would form an extraordinary and ulterior legisla
ture
This is exactly what has been done in the United
States and in Switzerland, where the body of the electors, or
of the State legislatures, have tied down the federal govern
ment by a constitution enforced by the law courts, and have
kept to themselves the ultimate sovereign power. But this
electoral sovereignty seems to me unessential to federalism,
and in many respects a less advantageous principle than par
liamentary sovereignty. It unduly limits or cripples the power
of the central legislature in a country, and makes the govern
ment more complicated; and also, as Mr. Dicey shows in a
striking passage, it vests the legal sovereignty in an inactive
and non-apparent body, and renders any change in the con
stitution a matter of much difficulty, especially in the United
States, where so large a majority as three-fourths is required
for. the. purpose. “From the necessity for placing ultimate
legislative authority in some body outside the Constitution ”,
says Mr. Dicey, “ a remarkable consequence ensues. Under
a federal as under a Unitarian system there exists a sovereign
power, but the sovereign is under a federal state a despot hard
to rouse. The sovereign of the United States has been roused
to serious action but once in the course of ninety years. But
a monarch who slumbers for years is like a monarch who does
not exist. A federal constitution is capable of change, but
for all that a federal constitution is apt to be unchangeable.”
�SHOULD IRELAND BE EEDEBATED WITH ENGLAND ?
43
If Congress were made supreme, these evils would be obviated ;
and I believe that the best means for securing the rights of
the people throughout the world is not by any plan of electoral
sovereignty, however valuable it may be in some respects, but
by uniting the r ations under one supreme federal government,
whose combined authority could protect the people of each,
country from tyranny or oppression by their national rulers.
One advantage of making Parliament supreme is that, as
Hobbes remarks, “there needs no writing”, or in other words,
a written constitution is not needed for a sovereign government,
because its powers are infinite and cannot be limited by law ;
and a constitution of this kind, which defines the delegated
powers and can be enforced by the law courts, would be required
only for subordinate bodies. Even where a written constitu
tion assigns to a supreme government, as well as to its subor
dinates, certain functions or makes other conditions, the supreme
government cannot be legally bound by these conditions, since
it can change the constitution. For all these reasons it appears
to me that parliamentary sovereignty is not only compatible
with federalism but is the principle which might best be
adopted in the federal union of different states.
IX.
If Parliamentary sovereignty were adopted as a part of
federalism, and if the central legislature were made supreme, a
federal government such as that of the United States would
resemble much more closely a unified government as in Eng
land, and they would differ chiefly in the extent of the powers
delegated to subordinate bodies. The question of Irish Home
Rule would then be narrowed to the inquiry as to what powers
should be delegated to a subordinate body or bodies in Ireland
by a supreme parliament in which that country was fairly
represented : for the so-called “ colonial form of Home Rule ”,
in which the Irish members would be excluded from the
Imperial Parliament, seems now to be very generally aban
doned. In a letter to Mr. Rhodes in last June, Mr. Parnell
says ; “I think you have correctly judged the exclusion of the
Irish members from Westminster to have been a defect in the
Home Rule measure of 1886”; and in the following July,
Sir George Trevelyan observed that ‘ ‘ two years ago the mass
of the people were not willing to exclude Irish members from
the English Parliament. Now the Liberal party were ready to
keep those members ”. All parties are agreed, moreover, that
the “ minor representative bodies ”, which according to Mr.
�44
FEDERALISM AND UNIFIED GOVERNMENT.
Mill “ ought to exist for purposes that regard only localities ”,
as, for example, Town Councils, and the newly created County
Councils, are of the greatest value, and that the latter should
be extended to Ireland also as soon as circumstances permit.
These minor bodies are the third kind of government by local
representatives to which the term “Home Rule” has been
applied, though it is usually reserved for the larger and more
important assemblies coming under the designation of parlia
ments or legislatures. The real question at issue, therefore, in
respect to Home Rule, is whether or not there should be a
separate Irish Parliament on the federal model; and it should
be borne in mind that while a state legislature in the United
States is independent of Congress, and is a member of the
ultimate sovereign government, the Irish parliament would be
purely subordinate or subject to the Imperial parliament, sup
posing the latter to continue as at present a sovereign body.
As regards the question of an Irish parliament, which lies at
the bottom of the recent controversies, I confess it appears to me
that the present system of unified government in these islands
is a preferable one. Unification seems to me better than federa
tion, except in cases where the countries to be united are very
distant from one another, or where their inhabitants speak
different languages, and it is chiefly, I think, by overcoming
these two great obstacles to political union that the federal
system is such an incalculable blessing to mankind. It also
renders invaluable service as a first step by uniting together
independent nations who, though near neighbors and having
the same language, would not, for various reasons, consent to
give up their national legislatures and to form at once a unified
government, but who may in course of time see cause to do so,
and to become thoroughly incorporated with one another. A
single parliament is a more complete union than a plurality of
parliaments, and in cases which admit of it, seems to me to
have several important advantages.
Mr. Dicey points out, as in his opinion two of the chief
drawbacks or dangers of federalism, the divided allegiance
of the citizens, who owe obedience both to the central govern
ment and to the government of their own state, and the want
of sufficient power in the central legislature to protect un
popular minorities in the different states. “ Federalism ”, he
says. “ has in its very essence, and even as it exists in America,
at least two special faults. It distracts the allegiance of citizens
and, what is even more to the present point, it does not provide
sufficient protection for the legal rights of unpopular minori
ties ”. To these causes, he considers, were greatly due the
terrible civil wars in the United States and in Switzerland, from
the history of which countries it will be seen that “ the two
most successful confederacies in the world have been keDt
�DRAWBACKS AND DANGERS OK FEDERALISM.
together only by the decisive triumph through force of arms of
the central power over real or alleged State rights.” A signal
instance of the want of sufficient protection for minorities and
oppressed classes, is that Congress had no power to abolish
slavery in the Southern States, and its total abolition could only
be effected at the close of the civil war by a special amendment
of the Constitution. It seems, indeed, to be the chief defect of
the federal system as compared with a unified government, that
the primary rules of justice, the rules for the security of person
and property, which concern every one, and which all should
have a voice in framing, are not discussed and settled by the
representatives of the whole people collectively, but only by the
representatives of each separate state; so that the common
will of all is not brought to bear on all, and laws passed by
particular states may be completely opposed to the feelings of
justice and morality in the great majority of the nation. This
defect, however, might to a great extent be remedied if the
•central government were made sovereign or supreme, and if it
were to lay down a set of conditions in the written constitution
granted to each subordinate legislature, to prevent the latter
from oppressing any class or any individual of its subjects.
Such a set of conditions, commonly called a “ bill of rights ”,
exists in the written constitution of every single state in the
American Union, though it is there inserted by the body of
local electors and not by the central government.
Another feature of federalism which seems open to objection
is its tendency unduly to multiply the number of parliaments
and of .legal systems, thus increasing the labor and cost of
legislation, and at the same time making law and government
more complicated. In the United States there were originally
thirteen and are now thirty-eight States, each of which has a
parliament of its own, consisting, like Congress, of a Senate
and a House of Representatives, together with a governor and
executive staff; and this seems a large proportion, even when
we consider the vast size of the country, which is nearly as
extensive as the whole of Europe. Moreover, each of the State
parliaments has substantially the same functions, namely, to
lay down and administer the great bulk of the civil and criminal
law, or in other words, to deal with all subjects of legislation
and administration except the comparatively small number—
including foreign affairs, the army and navy, national finance,
the currency, the post-office, the bankruptcy laws, and other
matters—which are delegated to Congress or to the President
by the constitution. ‘ ‘ The powers not surrendered to the
Government of the United States”, says Mr. Sterne, a barrister
of New York, in his “Constitutional History of the United
States”, “are much more extensive and much more immediately
related to the rights of the individual, and therefore affect him
�46
DRAWBACKS OF FEDERALISM.
more closely, than the delegated powers of the Federal Govern
ment. In all his functions as a citizen—in his amenability to
the deprivation of life and liberty by the criminal law, in the
assertion or denial of his rights through the civil administration
of justice—the State, with but few exceptions, has absolute
control over the life, liberty, and happiness of its subjects.”
Thus the work entrusted to the State legislatures is performed
thirty-eight times while that entrusted to Congress is only
performed once. In England all affairs, both foreign and
domestic, are managed by one parliament ; but if Ireland had
a legislature of her own on the federal model, there would need
to be at least three and not improbably five parliaments in the
United Kingdom; for the Irish members at Westminster could
no longer take part in the domestic legislation of England and
Scotland, and to confine them to debates on Imperial questions
has been shown to be impracticable. The only resource, there
fore, would be to have a parliament for the management of
domestic affairs in Great Britain also, or possibly in each of the
three countries, England, Scotland, and Wales, as well as in
Ireland, and to deal with Imperial questions in a separate
assembly, as is done in all federal countries. Besides the
difficulty of defining the spheres of the central and the local
legislatures, which gives rise to frequent litigation under a
federal constitution, another source of complexity is the
multitude of legal systems created by the different parliaments:
and the branch of jurisprudence called “ private international
law” or the “ law of domicil”, which is due to the difference
of legal systems and deals with the rights and duties of persons
living in other countries or states than their own—as, for
instance, of Scotchmen residing in France, and even in England,
since English law differs from Scotch law—is well known to be
a very important and intricate one. The American Chief
Justice Story, whose work on the “Conflict of Laws” is
devoted to this subject, says : “ The jurisprudence, then,
arising from the conflict of the laws of different nations, in
their actual application to modern commerce and intercourse,
is a most interesting and important branch of public law. To
no part of the world is it of more interest and importance than
to the United States, since the union of a national government
with already that of twenty-six (now thirty-eight) distinct
states, and in some respects independent states, necessarily
creates very complicated private relations and rights between
the citizens of these states, which call for the constant adminis
tration of extra-municipal principles ”. The above seem to m6
some of the chief objections to the adoption of federalism
between Great Britain and Ireland, but they do not apply
to its past history in the United States, where the federal
system has rendered the most immense services, and, consider
�FEDERATION OR MANKIND.
47
ing the size of the country and the international jealousies at
one time existing, is probably the only kind of common govern
ment which the states would have consented to enter into, or
which would have held them together.
X.
The large and increasing numbers, in different countries, who
advocate federation as the only true remedy for war, for huge
armaments, and for the other evils arising from the want of a
common international government, propose therefore that all
nations should be federally united together. In other words,
they hold that all nations should gradually be brought under
one supreme federal government, consisting of representatives
from each of them, who would legislate on the subjects affecting them all in common; and that they should also have
subordinate national governments, consisting exclusively of
nationaljrepresentatives, for the management of their internal
or domestic affairs. M. de Laveleye in his recent work on the
Balkan Peninsula, which has been translated into English,
describes the federal system as “ theoretically the best form of
government ”, and says of it: “ This form of government allows
the formation of an immense and even indefinitely extensible
State, by the union of forces, without sacrificing the special
originality, the individual life, the local spontaneity of the
provinces which compose the nation ”, Under a federal system,
if it were extended throughout the world, all the existing
sovereign governments would become subordinate or subject to
a common supreme government; while the number of subordi
nate legislatures or governments would depend on various
circumstances, and would in the long run, I venture to think,
be chiefly determined by the consideration already alluded to,
namely, that nations who are very distant from one another
or who speak different languages should have separate parlia
ments of their own, but that for near neighbors speaking the
same language it is in several important respects a great ad
vantage to have one unified parliament. The common inter
national government might be elected by the nations in the
same manner as the federal legislatures in the United States or
in Germany: that is to say, supposing it to consist of two
Chambers, one of them might be chosen by the national govern
ments and the other by the body of the people; each State
sending to both Chambers, as in Germany, a number of repre
sentatives approximately in proportion to its population. This
would apply, however, only to civilised or advanced communi
�48
COMPOSITION OP COMMON INTERNATIONAL GOVERNMENT.
ties, between whom there should always be completely equal
federation. Backward and semi-civilised populations, on the
other hand, could not have equal political rights, since their
vast numbers would enable them to outvote all others; but it
seems to me extremely desirable that no people whatever—much
less the great nations of Asia, some of whom are in many
respects highly polished, and are at the present day rapidly in
creasing in enlightenment under the influence of Western ideas
■—should be treated as a mere dependency of another State. All
nations should, I think, be federated together, that is, they
should all have a share both in the common supreme govern
ment and in the national government of their own country;
but with backward communities the federation could at first
only be on unequal terms, gradually changing to equality as the
inhabitants grew in civilisation. The difficulty now felt in
giving the great dependencies a share in the government arises
from the weakness and isolation of the dominant States, who
fear to lose their ascendancy ; but if the latter were themselves
federated with one another this difficulty would disappear, and
all nations could be represented both in the central and in the
local legislatures in such measure as justice and the real in
terests of each people might require.
The common supreme parliament, though containing repre
sentatives of all the nations, would not necessarily be larger
than other parliaments, even if it consisted only of a single
body, as its size would depend on the proportion of members
to the populations who elected them. It would doubtless
consist, however, not of a single assembly but of several as
semblies in different parts of the world, who would act col
lectively and legislate by a majority of their whole number,
like the State legislatures in the United States when they
exercise their sovereign powers ; an arrangement by which the
difficulty of uniting very distant countries might be overcome
and a fuller representation could be allowed to each people.
The other great difficulty, arising from difference of language,
might also be surmounted by this means ; and wherever different
nationalities were included in the same legislature each member
should be allowed to address the assembly in his own language,
as is the rule at present in several legislative bodies. In
Canada, for example, where a million and a half of French
inhabitants are federally united with three millions of English,
either language may be employed in the Dominion Parliament;
in the Cape Parliament, as mentioned in the Government Year
Book for 1888, Dutch may be spoken as well as English; in
the Hungarian Diet the deputies from Croatia may use their
native tongue; and in Switzerland, where about a fourth of
the people speak French, and nearly two-thirds German, both
languages can be employed in addressing the Federal Assembly.
�BALKAN CONFEDERATION.
49
In Austria, which, apart from Hungary, seems to be really a
federal State with a large share of the sovereignty vested in
the Emperor, the nationalities are more mixed than in any
other country of Europe, and there are seventeen local par
liaments, many of them transacting their business in distinct
languages, in addition to the common central parliament, or
Reichsrath, in which, I believe, only German can be employed.
Though there would doubtless be numerous difficulties in
government from these and other causes, the experience of
federal countries shows that they admit of being overcome by
a spirit of fairness and mutual concession, together with a
stedfast respect for law; and even at their greatest they do
not seem to me to bear comparison with the difficulties con
sequent on the “state of nature” or of anarchy now existing
between independent nations, and the perpetual risk of war.
At present, international questions are not treated by the
methods of law and government at all, but by secret diplomacy
and other methods characteristic of the state of anarchy ;
whereas if mankind were federated, secret diplomacy would
be done away with, and international affairs, like all others,
would be openly discussed by parliament and the press, and
settled in a legal and constitutional manner by the vote of
a majority.
It is evident that a change of such vast extent as the federal
-union of all nations could only be effected by successive steps,
and by the gradual federation of independent countries with
each other, and of sovereign states with their dependencies,
throughout the world ; but I cannot think its final accomplish
ment so distant and so extraordinarily or insuperably difficult
as is often supposed. If the dreadful calamity of another
European war be averted, there seem good reasons for believing
that great progress will be made before long in this direction.
The junction of the numerous separate states in Italy and in
Germany, in the one case by a complete and in the other by
a federal union (which are really the same at bottom, since
both consist in the fusion of two or more supreme governments
into one, and in the formation of a single independent and
sovereign state), has shown in the most striking manner the
enormous benefits of political union; and Mr. Freeman, the
distinguished historian, speaks of the change thus effected as
“the greatest event of our times
If the states in Italy and
in Germany have united together, and thereby greatly increased
their strength and national importance, their security from
attack, and the feelings of sympathy and brotherhood among
the people as fellow-countrymen, why may not other European
states unite with like results ? Many of our most eminent
politicians, both Liberal and Conservative, have declared them
selves in favor of a federation between Turkey, Greece, Bui
'S
�50
IMPERIAL FEDERATION.
garia, and other countries of the Balkan Peninsula ; which
shows that they regard as perfectly feasible the union of nations
who are separated by the widest differences in religion and in
language, and by the memory of ages of war and oppression.
M. de Laveleye warmly advocates a Balkan Confederation as
the.true solution of the Eastern question, and says that it is
desired by the people of the countries themselves as well as by
Austria-Hungary and by the English Liberals. “ This solution,
so just and natural ”, he says, “ has been for many years
advocated by the English Liberals. It is the only one which
is conformed to the right of the populations to govern them
selves, and which avoids giving a dangerous preponderance to
one of.the two large neighboring empires.” What hinders the
execution of this project is no want of feasibility, but the
opposition of Russia, whose aim for generations has been to
keep Turkey and the neighboring states weak and divided, so
that she may seize the magnificent city of Constantinople.
Other countries whose federation seems especially desirable
at. present, and comparatively easy to effect from their near
neighborhood and the identity or affinity of their languages,
are the three Scandinavian kingdoms of Norway, Sweden, and
Denmark; the kingdoms occupying the third great peninsula
of southern Europe, Spain and Portugal ; and the numerous
independent Spanish republics in North and South America,
whose separation from one another, and the state of nature or
anarchy thus produced between them, have led to the most
frightful evils in the shape of constant wars and revolutions.
Political union is evidently most needed and most easily carried
out between contiguous nations and those having the same
language, from the frequency of their intercourse together;
and hence each people should strive above all to be united
with their nearest neighbors and with those akin to themselves
in race and language in other parts of the globe. It is also
much easier to effect a federation between a sovereign state and
its dependencies than between independent countries, for the
former are already united under the same government, and to
the dependencies federation is a manifest gain ; while it is not
less important to the interests of the dominant state, for in thepresent day, when the great ideas of national equality and the
equal rights of nations are spreading far and wide, no empire
can long be held together on the footing of a sovereign state
and dependencies, but if not federated will assuredly fall to
pieces. This tendency to promote federation shows the great
value to mankind at large, and not merely to the dominant
nations themselves, of vast empires such as those of Russia and
England. The policy which the truest friends and admirers of
Russia would wish to see her pursue is not to engage in aggres
sive wars which might end in her own overthrow, but legally
�FEDERAL UNION OF FRANCE AND ENGLAND.
51
-and peacefully, or without revolution, to change by degrees her
present absolute monarchy into a constitutional and representa
tive system of government, and to federate her immense domin
ions. In England the extraordinary importance of Imperial
Federation, or, in other words, the federation of the British
Isles with their colonies, and eventually with India and the other
great dependencies, is recognised by statesmen of all political
parties, and Lord Rosebery lately declared the hope of its
accomplishment to be “ the dominant passion of his public
life ”. The colonies themselves are desirous of being federally
united with the mother country; and meanwhile, as statfid in
the Government Year Book, “ the federation of colonial groups
into dominions has made good progress. The confederation of
British North America is all but complete. That of Australasia
■is, accomplished in part; and in all probability the South
African settlements will follow suit.” It is not for themselves
alone, but for mankind, that Russia and England would
■federate their empires, since other nations would doubtless
sooner or later be admitted, and urgently invited, to join the
federation.
But of all political unions, that which seems to me most
important at present, and most ardently to be desired, is the
federal union of France and England. The statesmen who
could bring it about would render an inestimable service to both
countries, and inaugurate a new era of peace and fraternity,
for in itself and by its probable consequences it would go far
^towards making the federation of mankind, instead of a remote
ideal, an actual and accomplished fact. The advantages to this
•country of such a union, and the weight of the reasons in its
favor, cannot, I think, be exaggerated. The French are our
nearest neighbors; they are one of the bravest and most power
ful, and at the same time most highly cultivated, quick-witted,
■and charming nations on the face of the earth; a nation whom
■any people might be delighted to have as fellow-countrymen.
From its proximity to England, France is the country with
■which we mu3t always have most frequent intercourse, and
with which therefore a union is most of all required; Paris and
London are nearer together than any other great capitals, and
indeed if the project of a Channel Tunnel were carried out, as
■could safely be done if the countries were united, the journey
from London to Paris might be performed, without the dis
comforts of a sea voyage, in about seven hours. Our language,
though of Teutonic origin, has become since the Norman
Conquest so intimately mixed with the French that the latter
is easier for an Englishman to acquire than German, and there
ure probably twenty persons among us who know French for
■one who is acquainted with any other continental language.
'.The strength and resources of the two countries if united
�52
!1
,
)
;
(
'
i's
|(
u
If
FEDERAL UNION OF FRANCE AND ENGLAND.
would be twice as great as of either of them singly; Franc®
would gain England, and England would gain France; and
what is particularly important for countries having distant
possessions of such enormous extent (since the colonies and
dependencies of each nation would then belong to both) their
combined navy would have nothing to fear from any foreign,
foe. Moreover, the paramount reason for every political union,
whether of individuals or of nations, is that it puts an end to
the state of nature or anarchy previously existing between
them, and substitutes for it the reign of government and law.
Mr. Dicey remarks that a separation from Ireland would entail
upon England three great evils, namely, a defeat and surrenderof her traditional policy, a loss of power, and “the incalculable
evil of the existence in the neighborhood of Great Britain of a
new, a foreign, and possibly a hostile state”. Is not theseparation of France and England exactly in the same way am
“incalculable evil ” to both countries ?
It appears to me that the union of France with the United
Kingdom would tend to settle the Irish question and to bring
about a thorough and permanent reconciliation with Ireland ;
that it would strengthen the foundations of the Empire, whosemaintenance is of such vast importance, and for whose complete
security against any hostile attack England urgently needs a
partner; that it would render feasible Imperial Federation or
federation with the colonies, and not improbably also a federalunion with our kinsmen and former fellow-countrymen in the
United States, both of which objects, however ardently to be
desired, are at present surrounded with difficulties that seem
to me insuperable; and that it would enable a share in the
government, in the form of an unequal federation, to be granted
without danger to India and the other great dependencies. It would do' more than almost anything else to convince the Irish.
Nationalists that separation from Great Britain is neither
practicable nor desirable, and that “ national independence ”,
in the sense of a separate supreme government, is only anothername for the state of nature or anarchy between nations, and
opposed to the most vital interests of all. Indeed, if we consider
the matter closely, it will appear, I think, that political unioni
and government are not at bottom founded on what can pro-perly be called a contract or consent, but on a moral duty, namely,
the duty of the minority, when opinions differ, to yield to the
majority (which does not mean that the less numerous nation
should yield to the more numerous, but that the minority of '
both nations taken together should yield to the majority) since
this is at once just in itself, and the only way to secure peaceamong mankind. Moreover, France has at different times beem
allied with Ireland, and was for centuries the ally of Scotland,
in their wars against England; and she is a Roman Catholic:
�FEDERAL UNION OF FRANCE AND ENGLAND.
52
country, and a country of peasant proprietors, which, circum
stances might be expected to aid in overcoming the hostility of
the Irish priesthood and the Irish peasantry, and in enabling
them to obtain the fullest satisfaction of all their legitimate
rights and demands. As regards the federation of England
with the colonies and with the United States, it seems to me that
an insurmountable obstacle to this at present is the unwilling
ness of the latter countries to incur the risk of being involved
in European wars, and obliged therefore, like the nations of
Europe, to maintain huge standing armies and navies. Mr.
Washburne, late Minister of the United States in France, ob
serves : “It had been the traditional policy of our Government
to keep out of all entangling alliances with foreign govern
ments”. Mr. Sterne also, a barrister of New York, from whose
work I have already quoted, says: “Unlike the nations of
Europe, the United States has no neighbor sufficiently powerful
to affect its policy or to modify its constitution. It requires no
standing army : and so long as England performs the police
duties of the seas, it requires but little of a navy.” Why
should the United States, whose standing army is only twenty
thousand strong, and why should the colonies, mix themselves
up with the politics of a continent groaning under the weight
of ten millions of armed men ? But if France and England
were united, the situation would be entirely changed. Their
union would be a guarantee for peace, insomuch that both the
colonies and the United States might safely federate with them,
thus adding immensely to the strength and security of the con
federation and promoting the spread of liberal ideas and re
presentative government throughout the world. One very
powerful motive for union arises from the peculiar circumstances
of Canada. The French are already federally united with the
English in Canada, and if they were similarly united in Europe
the colony would be attracted with double force to the two mother
countries; while the United States also has long been urgently
desirous of federating with Canada, and it is evident that the
only way to satisfy all these deeply-rooted desires is by the
federation of all the four countries together. This would secure
peace in Europe, not only by the union of so many powerful
and peace-loving nations, but by showing how much greater
results can be obtained by political union than by the terrible
weapons of war. If all wars and conquests are to end sooner
or later in federation, why not rather begin with federation and
spare these horrors and miseries to mankind ?
Whatever other nations may do, however, our own policy
in my humble opinion should be to seek a federal union with
France. It would lighten our difficulties, lead to peace and
concord, and tend most powerfully to promote federation and
to solve the problems of government in everv part of the world.
�54
FEDERAL UNION OF FRANCE AND FISTULA nd,
I would conclude with, the words of the great thinker, Thomas
Hobbes, who may be regarded as in many respects the founder
o<f the true theory of law and government, and who says that
‘ the condition of mere nature, that is to say, of absolute
liberty, such as is theirs that neither are sovereigns nor sub
jects, is anarchy and the condition of war ”, whereas “ all other
time is Peace ”,
�
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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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Home rule and federation : with remarks on law and government and international anarchy, and with a proposal for the federal union of France and England, as the most important step to the federation of the world
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Drysdale, George
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 54 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: Part of the NSS pamphlet collection. By 'A doctor of medicine'. Author's name handwritten in pencil on title page.
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E. Truelove
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1889
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N194
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Ireland
Anarchism
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<img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /><br /><span>This work (Home rule and federation : with remarks on law and government and international anarchy, and with a proposal for the federal union of France and England, as the most important step to the federation of the world), identified by </span><span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk">Humanist Library and Archives</a></span><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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application/pdf
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Text
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English
Anarchism
Federalism
Great Britain-Foreign Relations-France
Home Rule-Ireland
NSS
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NATIONALSECULAR SOCIETY
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ROBERT DALE OWEN,
acthob of
"footfalls on
the boundabx of another wobld,”
BTC, BTC.
“ The principle of utility is the foundation of the present work.”
Bentham on Morals and Legislation.
" The diseases of Society can, no more than corporeal maladies, be
prevented or cured, without being spoken about in plain language.”
John Stuart Mill.
A NEW EDITION.
LONDON:
E. TRUELOVE, 256, HIGH HOLBOBN.
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*
*» The Frontispiece which accompanies this treatise, represents a poor
mother abandoning her infant, at the gate of the Hotel des Enfans trouves,
(Foundling Hospital) at Paris. The original painting is by Vigneron, a
French artist of celebrity; it was purchased at the price of one thousand
nollars for the Gallerie Royale, and is now in the possession of the French
king.
The Hotel des Enfans trouves, than which a more humane institution
was never founded, exhibits, in its every arrangement, order, economy,
and, above all, a beautiful tenderness to the feelings of those poor crea
tures who are thus compelled to avail themselves, for their offspring, of the
asylum it affords.. No obtrusive observation is made, no unfeeling question
asked : the infant charge is received in silence, and either trained and
supported until maturity, or, if circumstances, at any subsequent period,
enable the parents to claim their offspring, it is restored to their care.
There is surely no sect, of creed so frozen, or ritual so rigid, that it can
systematize away the common feelings of humanity, or dry up, in the
breasts of some gentler spirits, the milk of human kindness. The benevo
lent founder and indefatigable supporter of this noble institution, was a
esuit. . Be the good deeds of St. Vincent de Paul remembered, long after
the intrigues and cruelties of his fellow sectaries are forgotten 1
The case selected is one ofmild, of modified,—-I had almost said, of
favored misfortune : an extreme case were too revolting for representation.
But even under these comparatively happy circumstances, when benevo
lence extends her Samaritan care to the destitute and the forsaken, who
reoart^s f°r a moment the abandoned helplessness of the deserted
child, and the mute distress of the departing mother, but will join in the
exclamation, <f Alasthat it should ever have been born
�PREFACE
I
TO THE EIGHTH EDITION
(Published in London,)
I am requested to permit and to revise an English reprint
of “Moral Physiology;” and I accede to the request,
because the same deep conviction of the importance of the
views and
recommendations therein contained, which,
nearly two years ago, first prompted their publication, has
been still confirmed to me, in the strongest manner, during
the lapse of that period.
Myself a husband and a proprietor of land, my stake in
society may absolve me, in the eyes of those who require
such securities, from the suspicion of a design against do
mestic virtue or social order. For the rest, let the work
speak for itself. It contains the plain statement of a sub
ject, which deserves to be approached in its broadest and
simplest sense; and to be dispassionately investigated, in
connexion with its own physical and moral influence on
men and women, without reference to favorite theory or
political system.
London, September, 1832.
R. D. O
��PREFACE
TO THE FIRST EDITION.
(Published in New York.)
It may be proper to state, in few words, tlie immediate circumstances
which induced me to write and publish this treatise.
Some weeks since, a gentleman coming from England brought with him
two ingenious specimens of English typography. He had been requested by
a Brighton printer, who executed them, to present these, as specimens of
the progress of the art in Great Britain, to some of his brother craftsmen
in America. He gave them to me; I admired the ingenuity displayed in
the performance; but thought they ought to have been presented to some
printers’ society rather than to an individual. I therefore addressed them
to our Typographical Society in New-York, accompanied by a note, simply
requesting the society’s acceptance of them, as specimens of the art in
England.
I thought no more of the matter until I received, the other day, my spe
cimens back again, with a long and angry letter, signed by three of the
members, accusing me of principles subversive of every virtue under
heaven, and calculated to lead to the infraction of every commandment in
the decalogue: and, more especially, of having given my sanction to a
work, as they expressed it, “ holding out inducements and facilities for
the prostitution of our daughters, sisters, and wives.”
I subsequently learned from one of the society, circumstances which some
what extenuate this childish incivility. A gentleman who busied himself
last year in making out a notable reply to the “ Society for the Protection
of Industry,” got up, at a late Typographical meeting, and read to the so
ciety, several detached extracts from a pamphlet written by Richard Carlile,
entitled “ Every Woman’s Book,” which extracts he pronounced to be
excessively indecent; and asked the society whether they would receive
any thing at the hands of a man who publicly approved a book of a ten
dency so dreadfully immoral; which, he averred, I had done. The society
were (or affected to be) much shocked, and thereupon chose a committee
to return the heretical specimens, with the letter to which I have alluded.
�VI
PREFACE,
Probably some members of the society really did believe the work to be
of pernicious influence. Had some garbled extracts only from it been read
to me, I might have misconceived its tendency. But he must be blind
indeed, who can read the pamphlet through, and then, (whether he ap
prove it or not.) a.tribute other than good intentions to the individual who put it forth.
As to the book itself, I was requested, two years since, when residing
in Indiana, to publish it, but declined doing so My chief reasons were,
that I somewhat doubted its physiological correctness • that I did not con
sider its style atd tone in good taste ; but chiefly (as I expressed it in the
New Harmonv Gazette) because I feared it would be circulated in this
country, only “ to fall into the hands of the thoughtless, and to gratify the
curiosity of the licentious, instead of falling, as it ought, into the hands of
the philanthropist, ol the physiologist, and of every father and mother of a
family.” The circumstances I have just detailed may afford proof, that
my fears regarding the hands into which it might fall, were well founded.
My principles thus officiously and publicly attacked, I have felt it a duty
to step forward and vindicate them ; and this the rather, because, unless I
give my own sentiments, I shall be understood as unqualifiedly endorsing
Richard Carlile’s. Now, no one admires more than I do the courage
which induced that bold advocate of heresy to broach this important subject;
and to him be the praise accorded, that he was the first to venture it. But
the manner of his book I do not admire. There is in it that which was
repulsive, (I will not say revolting) to my feelings on the first perusal; and
though I afterwards began to doubt whether that first impression was not
attributable, in a measure, to my prejudices, yet I cannot doubt that
a similar, and even a more unfavorable impression, will be made on the
minds of others, and thus the interests of truth be jeopardised. Then
again, I think the physiological portion of his pamphlet somewhat in
correct as to the facts, and therefore calculated to mislead, where an error
might be of important consequence.
It may seem vanity in me to imagine, that this treatise is free from
similar objections; yet I have taken great pains to render it so.
r. d, a
New York, December, 1830.
�<»•
MORAL PHYSIOLOGY
f
■
CHAPTER
■
' *
'
I.
INTRODUCTORY.
I sit down to write a little treatise, which will subject me
to abuse from the self-righteous, to misrepresentation from
the hypocritical, and to reproach even from the honestly
prejudiced. Some may refuse to read it; and many more
will misconceive its tendency. I would have delayed its
publication, had the choice been permitted me, until the
public was better prepared to receive it: but the enemies
of reform have already foisted the subject in an odious
form, on the public; and I have no choice left. If, there
fore, I touch the honest prejudices of any, let it be borne in
mind, that the occasion is not of my seeking.
The subject 1 intend to discuss is strictly physiological,
although connected, like many other physiological subjects,
with political economy, morals, and social science. In dis
cussing it, I must speak as plainly as physicians and phy
siologists do. What I mean, I must say. Pseudo-civilised
man, that anomalous creature who has been not inaptly de
fined “ an animal ashamed of his own body,” may take it
ill that I speak simply: I cannot help that.
A foreign princess, travelling towards Madrid to become
queen of Spain, passed through a little town of the penin
sula, famous for its manufactories of gloves and stockings.
The magistrates of the place, eager to evince their loyalty to
their new queen, presented her, on her arrival, with a sample
of those commodities for which their town was most remark
able. The major domo, who conducted the princess, received
the gloves very graciously; but, when the stockings were
presented, he flung them away with great indignation, and
severely reprimanded the magistrates for this egregious
pjece of indecency, “Know,” said he, “that a queen of Spain
has no legs.” *
I never could sympathise with this major-domo delicacy
and if you can, my reader, you had better throw this pamphlet
aside at once.
* See “ Memoires de la Cour d’Espagne,” by Madame d’Aunoy.
�8
MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
If you have travelled and observed much, you will already
have learnt the distinction between real and artificial pro
priety. If you have been in Constantinople, you probably
know, that when any one of the grand seignor’s wives is ill,
the physician is allowed only to see her wrist, which is thrust
through an opening in the side of the room; because it is
improper even for a physician to look upon another man's
wife; and it is thought better to sacrifice health than
*
propriety.
If you have sojourned among the inhabitants of Turcomania, you know, that they consider a woman’s virtue sa
crificed for ever, if, before marriage, she be seen to stop on
the public road to speak to her lover ;f and if you have read
Buckingham’s travels, you may remember a very romantic
story, in which a young Turcoman lady, having thus forfeited
her reputation, is left for dead on the road by her brothers,
who were determined their sister should not survive her
dishonor.
Perhaps you may have travelled in Asia. If so, you can
not be ignorant how grossly indecorous to Asiatic ears it is,
to inquire of a husband after his wife’s health; and proba
bly you may know, that men have lost their lives to atone
for such an impropriety. You know, too, of course, that in
Eastern nations it is indecent for a woman to uncover her
face ; but perhaps you may not know, unless your travels
have extended to Abyssinia, that there the indecency consists
in uncovering the feet.J
In Central Africa, you may have seen women bathing in
public, without the slightest sense of impropriety ; but you
were doubtless told, that men could not be permitted a simi
lar liberty ; seeing that modesty requires they should perform
their ablutions in private.
If my reader has seen all or any of these countries and
customs, I doubt not that he or she will read my little book
understandingly; and interpretit in the purity which springs
from enlarged and enlightened views ; or, indeed, from com
mon sense. If not—if you who now peruse these lines have
been educated at home, and have never passed the boundary
line of your own nation—perhaps of your own village—if you
have not learnt that there are other proprieties besides those
of your country; and that, after all, genuine modesty has
* See Tournefort’s Travels in Turkey,
t See Buckingham’s Travels in Asia,
t See Bruce’s Travels in Abyssinia.
�MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
9
*ts legitimate seat in the heart, not in the outward form or
sanctioned custom—then, I fear me, you may chance to cast
these pages from you, as the major domo did the proffered
stockings, unconscious that the indelicacy lies, not in.my
simple words, or the Spanish magistrates honest offeiing,
but in the pruriently sensitive imagination that discovers
impropriety in either. Yet, even though inexperienced, if
you be still young and pure-minded, you may read this
pamphlet through, and I shall fear from your lips, or in your
hearts, no unworthy misconstruction. .
Young men and women ! you who, if ignorant, are uncor
rupted also; you in whose minds honest and simple words
■call up none but honest and simple ideas ; you who think no
evil ; you who are still believers in human virtue and human
happiness ; you who, like our fabled first parents in their
paradise, are yet unlearned alike in the hypocritical conven
tionalities and the odious vices of pseudo-civilization ; you
with whom love is stronger than fear, and the law within the
breast more powerful than that in the statute-book; you
whose feelings are still unblunted, and whose sympathies
•till warm and generous ; you who belong to the better por
tion of your species, and who have formed your opinion of
mankind from guileless spirits like your own—young men
and women 1 it is to your pure feelings I would speak : it is
by your unsophisticated hearts I would fain have my treatise
and my motives judged.
Libertines and debauchees! this book is not for you. You
are unable to appreciate the subject of which it treats. Bring
ing to its discussion, as you must, a distrust or contempt, of
the human race—accustomed, as you unfortunately are, to
confound liberty with licence, and pleasure with debauchery,
your palled feelings and brutalized senses no longer suffice
to distinguish moral truth in its purity and simplicity. I
never discuss this subject with such as you ; because I
esteem it useless, and know it disagreeable, to do so. It has
been remarked, that nothing is so suspicious in a woman as
vehement pretensions to especial chastity : it is no less true,
that the most obtrusive and sensitive stickler tor the etiquette
of orthodox morality is the heartless rake. The little inter
course I have had with men of your stamp, warns me to
avoid the discussion of any species of moral heresy with
you. You approach such subjects in a tone and spirit re
volting alike to good taste and good feeling. You seem to
presuppose—from your own experience, perhaps—that the
hearts of all men, and more especially of all women, are
�MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
9
*ts legitimate seat in the heart, not in the outward form or
sanctioned custom—then, I fear me, you may chance to cast
these pages from you, as the major domo did the proffered
stockings, unconscious that the indelicacy lies, not in.my
simple words, or the Spanish magistrates honest offeiing,
but in the pruriently sensitive imagination that discovers
impropriety in either. Yet, even though inexperienced, if
you be still young and pure-minded, you may read this
pamphlet through, and I shall fear from your lips, or in your
hearts, no unworthy misconstruction. .
Young men and women ! you who, if ignorant, are uncor
rupted also; you in whose minds honest and simple words
■call up none but honest and simple ideas ; you who think no
evil ; you who are still believers in human virtue and human
happiness ; you who, like our fabled first parents in their
paradise, are yet unlearned alike in the hypocritical conven
tionalities and the odious vices of pseudo-civilization ; you
with whom love is stronger than fear, and the law within the
breast more powerful than that in the statute-book; you
whose feelings are still unblunted, and whose sympathies
•till warm and generous ; you who belong to the better por
tion of your species, and who have formed your opinion of
mankind from guileless spirits like your own—young men
and women 1 it is to your pure feelings I would speak : it is
by your unsophisticated hearts I would fain have my treatise
and my motives judged.
Libertines and debauchees! this book is not for you. You
are unable to appreciate the subject of which it treats. Bring
ing to its discussion, as you must, a distrust or contempt, of
the human race—accustomed, as you unfortunately are, to
confound liberty with licence, and pleasure with debauchery,
your palled feelings and brutalized senses no longer suffice
to distinguish moral truth in its purity and simplicity. I
never discuss this subject with such as you ; because I
esteem it useless, and know it disagreeable, to do so. It has
been remarked, that nothing is so suspicious in a woman as
vehement pretensions to especial chastity : it is no less true,
that the most obtrusive and sensitive stickler tor the etiquette
of orthodox morality is the heartless rake. The little inter
course I have had with men of your stamp, warns me to
avoid the discussion of any species of moral heresy with
you. You approach such subjects in a tone and spirit re
volting alike to good taste and good feeling. You seem to
presuppose—from your own experience, perhaps—that the
hearts of all men, and more especially of all women, are
�10
MOKAL PHYSIOLOG f.
deceitful above all things and desperately wicked ; that vio
lcnce and vice are inherent in human nature, and that
nothing but laws and ceremonies prevent the world from
becoming a vast slaughter-house or a universal brothel.
You are led to judge your own sex and the other by the
specimens you have met with in haunts of mercenary pro
fligacy ; and, with such a standard in your minds, I niarvel
not that you remain incorrigible unbelievers in any virtue,
but that which is forced in the prudish hot-bed of ceremoni
ous conformity. You willnot trust the natural soil, watered
from the free skies and warmed by the life-bringing sun.
How should you? you have never seen it produce but weeds
and poisons. Libertines and debauchees ! cast my book
aside! You will find in it nothing to gratify a licentious
curiosity ; and, if you read it, you will probably only give
me credit for motives and impulses like your own.
And you, prudes and hypocrites ! you who strain at a gnat
and swallow a camel ; you whom Jesus likened to whited
sepulchres, which without indeed are beautiful, but within
are full of all unclcanness; you who affect to blush if the
ancle is incidentally mentioned in conversation, or displayed
in crossing a stile, but will read indecencies enough, without
scruple, in your closets; you who, at dinner, ask to be helped
to the bosom of a duck, lest, by mention of the word breast,
you call up improper associations; you who have nothing
but a head and feet and fingers ; you who look demure by
daylight, and make appointments only in the dark—you,
prudes and hypocrites ! I address not. Even if honest in
your prudery, your ideas of right and wrong are so artificial
and confused, that you are not likely to profit by the present
discussion; if dishonest, I desire to have no communication
with you.
Reader! if you belong to the class of prudes or libertines,
I pray you, follow my argument no farther. My heresies
will not suit you. As a prude, you will find them too honest;
as a libertine, too temperate. In the former case, you will
call me a very shocking person ; in the latter, a quiz or a bore.
But if you be honest, upright, pure-minded ; if you be
unconscious of unworthy motive or selfish passion ; if truth
be your ambition, and the welfare of our race your objectthen approach with me a subject the most important to man s
W'ell-being ; and approach it, as I do, in a spirit of dispas
sionate, disinterested, free inquiry. Approach it, resolving
to prove all things, and hold fast that which is good. 1 ho
discussion is one to which it is every man’s and every wo •
�11
MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
man’s duty, (and ought to be every one’s business,) to attend.
The welfare of the present generation, and—yet far more—of
the next, requires it; common sense sanctions it; and the t
national motto of my former country, “ Honi soit qui mal y <
pcnse,” * may explain the spirit in which it is undertaken,
and in which it ought to be received.
Reader! it ought to concern you nothing who or what I _
am, who now address you. Truth is truth, if it fall from t
Satan’s lips; and error ought to be rejected, though preached
by an angel from heaven. Even as an anonymous work,
therefore, this treatise ought to obtain a full and candid
examination from you. But, that you may not imagine I
am ashamed of honestly discussing a subject so useful and
important, I have given you my name on the title page.
Neither is it any concern of yours what my character is, or
has been. No man of sense or modesty unnecessarily ob
trudes personalities that regard himself, on the public. And,
most assuredly, it is neither to gratify your curiosity nor my
vanity, if I now do violence to my feelings, and speak a few
words touching myself. I do so, to disarm, if I can, preju
dice of her sting, thus obtaining the ears of the prejudiced ;
and to acquaint my readers, that they are conversing with
one whom circumstance and education have happily pre
served from habits of excess and associations of profligacy.
All those who have known the life and private habits of
the writer of this little treatise, will bear him witness, that
what he now states is true, to the letter. He was in
debted to his parents for habits of the strictest temperancesome would call it, abstemiousness—in all things. He never,
at any time, habitually used ardent spirits, wine, or strong
drink of any kind : latterly, he has not even used animal
food. He never entered a brothel in his life ; nor associated,
even for an evening, with those poor, unhappy victims, whom
the brutal, yet tolerated vices of men, or their own unsus
picious or ungoverned feelings, have betrayed to misery and
* One of the English kings, Edward III., in the year 1344, picked up
from the floor of a ball-room, an embroidered garter belonging to a
lady of rank. In returning it to her, he checked the rising smile of his
courtiers with the words, “ Honi soit qui mal y pense ! ” or, paraphrased
in English, “ Shame on him who invidiously interprets it!” The senti
ment has become the motto of the English national arms. It is one
which might be not inaptly nor unfrequently applied in rebuking the
mawkish, skin-deep, and intolerant morality of this hypocritical and pro
fligate age.
�12
MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
degradation. He never sought the company but of the intei
lectual and self-respecting of the other sex, and has no asso
ciations connected with the name of woman, but those of
esteem and respectful affection. To this day, he is even
girlishly sensitive to the coarse and ribald jests in which
young men think it witty to indulge at the expense of a
sex they cannot appreciate. The confidence with which
women may have honored him, he has never selfishly abused;
and, at this moment, he has not a single wrong with which
to reproach himself towards a sex, which he considers the
equal of man in all the essentials of character, and his su
perior in generous disinterestedness and moral worth.
I check my pen. I have said enough, perhaps, to awaken
the confidence of those whose confidence I value; enough,
assuredly to excite the ridicule, or the sneer, of him who
walks through life wrapped up in the cloak of conformity,
and laughs, among his private boon companions, at the
scruples of every novice, who will not, like himself, regard
debauchery and seduction (in secret) as manly and spirited
amusements.
And now, reader! if I have succeeded in awakening your
attention, and enlisting in this inquiry your reason and your
better feelings, approach with me a subject the most interest
ing and important to you, to me, to all our fellow-creatures.
If you be a woman, forget that I am a man : if a man, listen
to me as you would to a brother. Let us converse, not as
men, nor as women, but as human beings, with common in
terests, instincts, wants, weaknesses. Let us converse, if it
be possible, without prejudice and without passion. What
ever be your sex, sect, rank, or party, to you I address 1lie
poet’s exhortation—here, far more strictly applicable, than in
the investigation to which he applied it—
“ Retire I the world shut out: thy thoughts call home;
Imagination’s airy wing repress;
Lock up thy senses ; let no passion stir j
Wake all to reason j let her reign alone.”
�MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
CHAPTER II.
STATEMENT OF THE SUBJECT.
Among the various instincts which contribute to man's pre
servation and well-being, the instinct of reproduction holds a
distinguished rank. It peoples the earth; it perpetuates
the species. Controlled by reason and chastened by good
feeling, it gives to social intercourse much of its charm and
zest. Directed by selfishness, or governed by force, it is pro
lific of misery and degradation. Whether wisely or unwisely
directed, its influence is that of a master principle, that
colors, brightly or darkly, much of the destiny of man.
It is sometimes spoken of as a low and selfish propensity ;
and the Shakers call it a “ carnal and sensual passion/’* I
see nothing in the instinct itself that merits such epithets.
Like other instincts, it may assume a selfish, mercenary, or
brutal character. But, in itself, it appears to me the most
social and least selfish of all our instincts. It fits us to give,
even while receiving, pleasure ; and, among cultivated beings,
the former power is ever more highly valued than the latter.
Not one of our instincts affords larger scope for the exercise
of disinterestedness, or fitter play for the best moral sentiments
of our race. Not one gives birth to relations more gentle,more
humanizing and endearing; not one lies more immediately
at the root of the kindliest charities and most generous lmpulses that honor and bless human nature. Its very power,
indeed, gives fatal force to its aberrations ; even as the waters
of the calmest river, when dammed up or forced from their
bed, flood and ruin the country : but the gentle flow and fer
tilising influence of the stream are the fit emblems of the in
stinct, when suffered, undisturbed by force or passion, to
follow its own quiet channel.
That such an instinct should be thought and spoken of as
a low, selfish propensity, and, as such, that the discussion of
its nature and consequences should be almost interdicted
among human beings, is to me a proof ot the profligacy
of the age, and the impurity of the pseudo-civilized
mind. I imagine, that if all men and women were gluttons
• See “ A brief Exposition of the Principles of the United Society
calledShakers,” published by Calvin Green and Seth Y. Wells, Albany,
N.Y,, 1830,
�MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
and drunkards, they would, in like manner, be ashamed to
^peak of diet or temperance.
Were I an optimist, and had I accustomed myself to
judge and to admire the arrangements of nature, I should
he inclined to put forward, as one of the most admirable,
the arrangement according to which the temperate fulfil
ment of the dictates of this, as of almost all other instincts,
confers pleasure. The desire of offspring would probably
induce us to perpetuate the species, though no gratifica
tion were connected with the act. In the language of the
optimist, then, “ pleasure is gratuitously superadded.” But,
instead of pausing to admire arrangements and intentions, the
great whole of which human reason seems little fitted to ap
preciate or comprehend, I content myself with remarking,
that this very circumstance (in itself surely a fortunate one,
* inasmuch as it adds another to the sources of human happi
ness) has often been the cause of misery; and, from a bless
ing, has been perverted into a curse. Enjoyment has led to
excess, and sometimes to tyranny and barbarous injustice.
Were the reproductive instinct disconnected from pleasure
of any kind, it would neither afford enjoyment nor admit of
abuse. As it is, the instinct is susceptible of either: just as
wisdom or ignorance governs human laws, habits and cus
toms. It behooves us, therefore, to be especially careful in
its regulation, lest what is a great good may become a great
evil.
This instinct, then, may be regarded in a two-fold light;
first, as giving the power of reproduction ; second, as afford
ing pleasure.
And here, before I proceed, let me call to the reader’s
mind, that it is the province of rational beings to bear utility
strictly in view. Reason recognises the romantic and un
earthly reveries of Stoicism, as little as she does the doctrines
of health-destroying and mind-debasing debauchery. She
reprobates equally a contemning and an abusing of pleasure
She bids us avoid asceticism on the one hand, and excess on
the other. In all our inquiries, then, let reason guide us.
and let utility be our polar star.
I have often had long arguments with my friends, the
*
'Shakers, touching the two-fold light in which the reproduc* I call them my friends, because, however little I am disposed to
accede to their peculiar principles, I have met, from among their body, a
great proportion of individuals who have taken with them my friendship
and sympathy.
�MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
15
live instinct may be regarded. They commonly stand out
stoutly against the propriety of considering it except simply
as a means of perpetuating the species ; and they deny that it
may be regarded as a legitimate source of enjoyment. In
this 1 totally dissent from them. It is a much more noble,
because less purely selfish,instinct, than hunger or thirst; and,
though it differ from hunger and thirst in this,that it may re
main ungratified without causing death, I have yet to learn,
I that because it fe possible, it is therefore also desirable, to
mortify and repress it. I admit, to the Shakers, that in the
world, profligate and hypocritical as we see it, this instinct is
the source of much misery ; and that if I bad to choose between
the life of the profligate man of the world and that of the asce
tic Shaker, 1 should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.
But, for admitting that the most social and kindly of human
instincts is sensual and degrading in itself, I cannot. I think
its influence moral, humanising, polishing, beneficent; and
that the social and physical education of no man or woman is
fully completed without it. Its mortification (though far less
injurious than its excess) is very mischievous. If it do
not give birth to peevishness, or melancholy, or incipient dis
ease, or unnatural practices, at least it almost always freezes
and stiffens the character ; checking the flow of its kindliest
emotions, and not unfrequently giving to it a solitary, anti
social, selfish stamp.
I deny the position of the Shaker, then, that the indul
gence of the instinct is justifiable (if, indeed, it be justifiable
at all) only as necessary to the reproduction of the species.
It is justifiable, in my view, just in as far as it makes man a
happier and a better being. It is justifiable, both as a source
of temperate enjoyment, and as a means by which the sexes
mutually polish and improve each other.
If a Shaker has read my little book thus far, and cannot re
concile his mind to this idea, he may as well close it at once.
I found all my arguments on the position, that the pleasure
derived from this instinct, independent of and totally distinct
from its ultimate object, the reproduction of our race, is good,
proper, worth securing and enjoying. I maintain, that its
temperate enjoyment is a blessing, both in itself and in its
influence on human character.
Upon this distinction of the instinct into its two-fold cha
racter, rests the present discussion. It sometimes happens,
nay, it happens every day and hour, that mankind obey it»
dictates, not from any calculation of consequences, but sim
ply from animal impulse. Thus many children who are
�16
MORAL PHYSIOLOGY,
brought into the world owe their existence, not to deliberate
conviction in their parents that their birth is desirable, but
simply to an unreasoning instinct, which men, in the mass,
have not learnt either to resist or control.
V
It is a serious question—and surely an exceedingly proper
and important one—whether man can obtain, and whether ■
he is benefitted by obtaining, control over this instinct Is
IT DESIRABLE THAT IT SHOULD NEVER BE GRATIFIED WITH
OUT AN INCREASE TO POPULATION ? Or, IS IT DESIRABLE,
THAT, IN GRATIFYING IT, MAN SHALL BE ABLE TO SAY WHE
THER OFFSPRING SHALL BE THE RESULT OR NOT ?
To answer the questions satisfactorily, it would be neces
sary to substantiate, that such control may be obtained with
out injury to the physical health, or violence to the moral
feelings; and also, that it may be obtained without any
leal sacrifice of enjoyment; or, if that cannot be, with as
little as possible.
This is the plain statement of the subject. It resolves
itself into two distinct heads: first, the desirability of such
control, and, secondly, its possibility.
In examining its desirability, we enter a wide field, a field
often traversed by political economists, by moralists, and by
philosophers, though generally, it will be confessed, to little
purpose. This may be, in a great measure, attributed rather
to their fear than their ignorance. The world would not
permit them to say what they knew. I intend that my
readers shall know all that I know on the subject; for 1
have ceased to ask the world’s leave to say what I think
and what I believe to be useful to the public.
I propose to consider the question in the abstract, and
then to examine it in its political and social bearings.
CHAPTER III.
THE QUESTION EXAMINED IN THE ABSTRACT.
Is it in itself desirable, that man should obtain control over
the instinct of reproduction, so as to determine when its
gratification shall produce offspring, and when it shall not?
But that men have not accustomed themselves to free and
dispassionate reflection, and that the various superstitions
�MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
17
of the nursery pervade the opinions and cramp the inquiries •
of after-life;—but for this, the very statement of the
question might suffice to obtain for it the assent of every
rational being. Nothing so elevates a man above the brute
creation, as the due control of his instincts. The lower animal
follows them blindly, unreflectingly. The serpent gorges
Himself; the bull fights, even to death, with his rival of the
pasture : the dog makes deadly war for a bone. They know
nothing of progressive improvement. The elephant or the
beaver of the nineteenth century, are just as wise and no
wiser, than the elephant or the beaver of two thousand years
ago. "Man alone has the power to improve, to cultivate, to
elevate his nature, from generation to generation. He alone
can control his instincts by reflection of consequences, and
regulate his passions by the precepts of wisdom.
It is strange, that even at this period of the world, we
should have to remind each other, that all knowledge of facts
is useful; or, at the least, that it cannot be injurious. The
knowledge of some facts may be unimportant; the know
ledge of none is mischievous. A human being is a puppet,
a glave, if his ignorance is to be the safeguard of his virtue.
Nor shall we know where to stop, if we follow up this prin
ciple. Shall we give our sons lessons in mechanics? but
they may thereby learn to pick locks. Shall we teach them
to read ? but they may thus obtain access to falsehood and
folly. Shall we instruct them in writing? but they may
become forgers.
Such, in effect, was the reasoning of men in the dark ages.
vVhen Walter Scott puts in the mouth of Lord Douglas, on
the discovery of Marmion’s treachery, the following excla
mation, it is strictly in accordance with the spirit and pre
vailing opinions of the times :
“ A letter forged 1 Saint Jude to speed
Did ever knight so foul a deed 1
At first in heart it liked me ill,
When the king praised his clerkly skill.
Thanks to Saint Bothan, son of mine,
Save Gawain, ne’er could pen a line
So swore I, and so swear I still,
Let my boy bishop fret his fill.”
The days are gone by when ignorance can be the safeguard
of virtue. The only rock-foundation for virtue is knowledge.
There is no fact, in physics or in morals, that ought to be
concealed from the inquiring mind. Let that parent who
B
�18
MORAL PHYSIOLOGY,
thinks to secure lis sons’honesty or his daughters’innocence
by keeping back from them facts—let that parent know,
that he is building up their morality on a sandy founda
tion. The rains and the floods of the world’s influence shall
beat upon that virtue, and great shall be the fall thereof.
If, then, man can obtain control over this most important
of instincts, it is, in principle, right that he should know it.
If men, after obtaining such knowledge, think fit not to use
it; if they deem it nobler and more virtuous, to follow each
animal impulse, like the beasts of the field and the fowls of
the air, without a thought of its consequences, or an inquiry
into its nature—let them do so. The knowledge that they
have the power to act more like rational beings will not
injure, if it fail to benefit, them. They may set it aside, may
neglect it, may forget it, if they can. Only let them show
common sense enough to permit that others,who are more slow
to incur sacred responsibilities, and more willing to give
reason the control of instinct, should obtain the requisite
knowledge, and follow out their prudent resolutions.
If this little book were in the hands of every adult in the
United States, not one need profit by it, unless he saw fit.
Nor will any man admit, that he can possibly be injured by it.
Oh no 1 His virtue can bear any quantity of light. But then,
his neighbour’s, or his son’s, or his daughter’s!
This would lead me to discuss the social bearings of the
question. But, as conceiving it more in order, I shall first
speak of it in connexion with political economy.
CHAPTER IV.
THE QUESTION IN ITS CONNEXION WITH POLITICAL ECONOMY.
The population question, as it is called, has of late years
occupied much attention, especially in Great Britain. It
was first prominently brought forward and discussed there in
the year 1798, by Malthus, an English clergyman. Godwin,
Ricardo, Place, Mill, Thompson, Robert Owen, and other
celebrated cotemporary writers, have all discussed it, with
more or less reserve, and at greater or less length.
Malthus’ work has become the text book of a large poli
tico-economist party in England. His doctrine is that
�MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
]£)
“population, unrestrained, will advance beyonS the means of
subsistence.” He asserts, that, in most countries, population
at this moment presses against the means of subsistence;
and that, in all countries, it has a tendency so to do. He
recommends, as a preventive of the growing evil, celibacy
till a late age, say thirty years ; and he asserts, that unless
this “moral restraint” be exerted, vice, poverty and misery
must continue to be the checks to population. The ten
dency of such principles appears to me very mischievous;
though, upon the whole, the work of Mr. Malthus, by pro
voking inquiry, will, I doubt not, prove a source of good.
I have heard some of his disciples openly declare, that they
considered the crimes and wretchedness of society to be
necessary—to be the express ordainings of Providence in
tended to prevent the earth from being overpeopled. I
have heard it argued by men of rank, wealth and influence,
that the distinctions of rich and poor, and even of morality
and immorality, of luxury and want, will and must exist to
the end of the world ; that he who attempts to remove them
fights against God and nature ; and, if he partiaJly succeed,
will but afford the human race an opportunity to increase,
until the earth shall no longer suffice to contain them, and
men shall be compelled to prey on each other. It must bo
confessed, that this is a comfortable doctrine for the rich idler;
it is a healing salve to the luxurious conscience ; an opiate to
drown the still small voice of truth and humanity, which calls
to every man to be up and do his part towards the alleviation
of the human suffering that everywhere stares himin the face.
*
It is vain to argue with the defenders of the evils that be,
that, for the present, there is land and every other necessary
in abundance for all, if there were wisdom in the distribu
tion ; and that the day of ultimate overstocking is afar off.
They tell you, that day must come at last; and that the more
you do to remove vice and misery—those destroyers of popu
lation—the sooner it will come. And what reply can one
make to the argument in the abstract? I believe it to be
true, that population, unrestrained,f will double itself on an
* Let me not be understood as charging on Mr. Malthus himself a style
of reasoning he disclaims. I do but remind the reader how easilv weak
or selfish men may pervert his doctrine to mischievous purposes.
t By unrestrained, Malthus and his disciples mean, not restricted or
destroyed by any incidental check whatever, moral or immoral, pruden
tial or violent. Thus, poverty, war, libertinism, famine, &c. are allclteckR
*o population. In this sense, and not simply as applying to preventive
moral restraint, have I employed the word throughout this chapter.
B2
�MORAL PHYSIOLOGY
20
average every twenty-five to fifty years. If so, it is evidvnt
to a demonstration, that, if population were not restrained,
morally or immorally, the earth would at last furnish scarcely
foothold for the human beings produced.
Take the least rapid of the above rates of increase, and
say, that population, unrestrained, will double itself every
fifty years. That it has done so, (without reckoning the
increase from emigration,) in many parts of this continent
is certain.
Then, if we suppose the present numerous checks to po
pulation, viz. want, war, vice, and misery, removed by
rational reform, and if we assume the present population of
the world at one thousand millions, we shall find the rate
of increase as follows:—At the end of
100 years, there would be four thousand millions.
200 —------------------------ sixteen thousand millions.
300 -------------------------- sixty-four thousand millions.
400 --------------------------- two hundred and fifty-six thou
sand millions.
And so on, multiplying by 4 for every hundred years. So
that, in 500 years, if we imagine unchecked increase, there
would be more than a thousand times as many as at present;
and in 1,000 years, upwards of a million times as many
human beings as at this moment.
It is evident, then, to demonstration, that there is notspace
on this earth for population, under any circumstances, to in
crease unrestrained, during more than a very few hundred
years. We are thus compelled to admit to Malthus, that, sooner
or later, some restraint or other to population mast be em
ployed ; and compelled to admit to his aristocratic ex
pounders, that if no other better restraint than vice and
misery can be found, then vice and misery must be; they are
the lot of man, from generation to generation.
Let me repeat it: it is no question—never can be a ques
tion—whether there shall be a restraint to population or not.
There must be; unless indeed we imagine communication
opened with other planets, so that we may people them.
In the nature of things, there must be a check, of some
kind. The only question is, what that check shall be—
whether, as heretofore, the check of war, want, profligacy,
misery; or a “ moral restraint,” suggested by experience
and sanctioned by reason.
Let those, then, who cry out against this little treatise, be
told, that though they may postpone the question, no human
power can evade it. It must come up. Had the friends of
reform been left to choose their own time it might, perhaps
�MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
21
With advantage, have been postponed. And it is an imagi
nable case, that prejudice might delay it until a general
famine or a universal civil war became the frightful checks.
But will any man of common sense argue the propriety of
suffering such a crisis to approach?
Malthus saw this. He saw that some check must exist;
and, whatever some of his disciples might say, he did not
intend to be considered the apologist of vice and misery
His theory, indeed, supplied specious arguments to those
who assert, with the ingenious author of the Fable of the
*
Bees, that “ private vices are public benefits
and fur
nished a comfortable excuse for supine contentment witji a
vicious and degrading order of things. But Malthus him
self declares the only proper check to be, the general prac
tice of celibaey to a late age. He employs all his eloquence
to persuade men and women that they ought not to marry
till they are twenty-eight or thirty years of age ; and that, if
they do, they are contributing to the misery of the world.
Now, Mr. Malthus may preach for ever on this subject.
Individuals may indeed be found, who will look to distant
consequences, and sacrifice present enjoyment; even as indi
viduals are found to become and remain Shaking Quakers:
but to believe that the mass of mankind will abjure, through
the ten fairest years of lite, the nearest and dearest of social
relations ; and during the very holiday of existence, will live
the life of monks and nuns—all to atone for a mal-administration of the earth’s resources, or to avert an ultimate catas
trophe which is confessedly some hundreds of years distant—
to believe this, requires a faith, which no accurate observer
of mankind possesses.
This weak point the aristocratic expounders of Malthus’
doctrines were not slow to discover. They broadly asserted,
that such “moral restraint” would never be generally prac
tised. They asked, whether a young woman, to whom a
comfortable home and a pleasant companion were offered,
would refuse to accept them, on this theory of population ;
whether a young man who had a fair (or even but a very
indifferent) prospect of maintaining a family, would doom
himself to celibacy, lest lhe world should be overpeopled.
And they put it to the advocates of late marriages, whether,
in one sex at least, the recommendation, if even nominally
followed, would not almost certainly lead to vicious excess
• Mandeville
�22
MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
and degrading- associations ; thus resolving the check at last
into vice and misery. As experience answers these ques
tions in the negative, is it not clear, (they proceeded exultingly to ask,) that vice and misery are the natural lot of man;
and that it is quixotic, if not impious, to plague ourselves
about them, or to attempt, by their suppression, to contro
vert the decrees of God 1
It was very easy for generous feelings to reply to so heart
less an argument. It was easy to ask, whether even the
apparent hopelessness of the case formed any legitimate apo
logy for supine indifference ; or whether, where we cannot
cure, we are absolved from the duty of alleviating. But it
was not very easy fully and fairly to meet the whole question.
It was idle to deny that preaching would not put off mar
riage for ten years: and if no other species of moral restraint
than ten years Shakerism could be proposed, it did ap
pear evident enough, that moral restraint would be by the
mass neglected, and that the physical checks of vice and
misery must come into play at last.
I pray my readers, then, distinctly to observe, how the
matter stands. Population, unrestrained, must increase
beyond the possibility of the earth and its produce to support.
At present ft is restrained by vice and misery. The only
remedy which the orthodoxy of the English clergyman
permits him to propose, is, late marriages. The most en
lightened observers of mankind are agreed, that nothing con
tributes so positively and immediately to demoralize a nation,
as when its youth refrain, until a late period, from forming
disinterested connexions with those of the other sex. The
frightful increase of prostitutes, the destruction of health,
the rapid spread of intemperance, the ruin of moral feelings,
are, to the mass, the certain consequences. Individuals
there are, who escape the contagion; individuals whose
better feelings revolt, under any temptation, from the mer
cenary embrace, or the Circean cup of intoxication ; but these
are exceptions only. The mass will have their pleasures, the
pleasures of intellectual intercourse, of unbought affection,
and of good taste and good feeling, if they can ; but if they
cannot, then such pleasures (alas! that language should be
perverted to entitle them to the name!) as the sacrifice of
money and the ruin of body and mind can purchase.
*
* Lawrence, the ingenious author of the “ Empire of the Nairs,”
says, shrewdly enough: “ Wherever the women are prudes* the men
will be drunkards."
�MORAL PHYSIOLOGY
'
23
But this is not all. Not only is Malthus’ proposition
fraught with immorality, in that it discountenances to a latt
age those disinterested sexual connexions which can alone
save youth from .vice ; but it is ineradicable. Men and
women will scarcely pause to calculate .‘he chances they have
of affording support to their children ere they become
parents : how, then, should they stop to calculate the chances
of the world’s being overpeopled ? Mr. Malthus may say what
he pleases, they never will make any such calculation; and
it is folly to expect they should.
Let us observe, then: unless some less ascetic and more
vracticable species of “ moral restraint” be‘introduced, vice and
misery will ultimately become the inevitable lot of man. He
can no more escape them, than he can the light ot the sun,
or the stroke of death.
What an incitement, this, to the prosecution of our in
quiry 1 Here is an argument put forth, wLMi is all but an
apology for the apathy that prevails among the rich and the
powerful—among governors and legislators—in regard to
human improvement. How important, how essential for the
interests of virtue that it should be refuted! How beneficent
that knowledge, wtich discloses to us some moral practi
cable check to population, and relieves us from the despairing
conclusion, that the irrevocable doom of man is misery, with
out remedy and without end ! In the absence of such know
ledge, truly the prospects of the world were dark and cheer
less. Philanthropy herself pauses, when she begins to fear
that all her exertions are to result inhopetess disappointment.
And yet—such is this world—even the ablest opponents of
Malthus stop short when they come to the question, and
leave an argument unanswered, which a dozen pages might
suffice for ever to set at rest.
Let one of the most intellig nt of these opponents—a man
of sterling talent—let Mill, be well-known political econo
mist, and author of “ British L.'dia,” speak for himself:
“ What are the best means of checking the progress of
population, when it cannot go on unrestraired without pro
ducing one or other of two most undesirable effects, either
drawing an undue portion of the population to the mere
raising of food, or producing poverty and wretchedness, it is
not now the time to inquire. It is, indeed, the most important
practical problem to which the wisdom of lhe politician and the
tliorali^ can be applied. It has, till this time, been miserably
evaded by all those who have meddled with the subject, as
well as by these who were called on by lheir situation to find
�MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
24
a remedy for the evils to which it relates. And yet, if the.
superstitions of the nursery were disregarded, and the principle
of utility hept steadily in view, a solution might not be very
difficult to be found; and the means of drying up one of the
most copious sources of human evil—a source which, if all
other sources were taken away, might alone suffice to retain the
great mass of human beings in misery, might be seen to be
neither doubtful nor difficult to be applied.”—Art. Colony,
Encyclopaedia Britannica.
Let my readers bear in mind, that this is from the pen oi
one of the most admired writers of the present day; a man
celebrated throughout Europe, for his works on political
economy, and whose writings are not unknown on this side
the Atlantic. He considers the question now under discus
sion to involve “ the most important problem to which the
wisdom of the politician and moralist can be applied.” This
question, he admits, has ever been “ miserably evaded.”
Yet even a man so influential and clear-sighted as Mill,
must, himself yield to the weakness he reprobates; must speak
in parables, as the Nazarene reformer did before him; and,
even while commenting on the “ miserable evasion” of a
subject so engrossingly important, must imitate the very
evasion he despises.
*
I will not imitate it. I am more independently situated
than was the English economist; and I see, as clearly as he
does, the extreme importance of the subject. What he saw
and declared ought to be said, I will say.
Before concluding this chapter, let me distinctly state an
opinion, from which Mr. Malthus himself, if I read his doc
trine aright, will hesitate to dissent. I am convinced, that,
at this moment, there is nothing approaching to an excess
of population, absolutely considered, in a single country of
Europe. Iniquitous laws, false education, and a vicious
order of things, are continually producing effects, which are
erroneously attributed to over-population; effects which
spring, not from the number, but from the ignorance, of men.
Monopolies favour the rich, imposts oppress the poor, com
mercial rivalry grinds to the dust the victims of an over
grown system of competition. To such causes as these, ana
not to positive excess of people, at the time being, is the dis
tress, more or less felt over the civilized world, to be attri
buted. Still, it is undeniable that the most perfect system of
* I speak here, as regretting the circumstance, not as censuring the
individual. It is probable, that had Mr. Mill spoken more plainly, his
essay would have been refused admission into the Encyclopasdia.
�OPAL. PHYSIOLOGY.
25
political or social economy in the world could not, of itself,
prevent the ultimate evils of superabundant population. A nd,
it is no less certain, that, in the meantime, the pressure ol a
large family on the labouring man greatly augments his
difficulties, and often deprives him of that leisure which he
might employ in devising means to better his condition, in
stead of leaving public, business in the hands of political
gamblers.
Vice-bringing laws and customs ought to be—must be
changed ; but while the grass is growing, let us prevent the
horse from starving, if we can
Thus (and I am desirous it be distinctly understood) a
solution of the population question is here offered, as an
alleviation of existing evils, not as a cure for them ; as a pal
liative, not as a remedy, for the national disease. Population
might be but a tenth part of what it is, and unjust legislation'
and vicious customs would still give birth, as they now do, to
extravagance and want. It is true, and ought to be remem
bered, that the check I propose, by diminishing the number
of laborers, will render labor more scarce and consequently
of higher value in the market; and in this view, its political
importance is considerable: but it may also be doubted
whether our present overgrown system of commercial compe
tition be not hurrying the laborer towards the lowest rate of
wages, capable of sustaining life, too rapidly to be overtaken,
except in individual cases, even by a prudential check to
population. I do not, then, expect political wonders from my
little work. Economy in living is, like the parental foresight
of which I speak, in itself an excellent thing, and ought
to be recommended to all ; but he who expects, by the one
recommendation or the other, to eradicate the ills of poverty,
expects an effect from inadequate causes.
The root
of the evil lies far deeper than this ; and its remedy must be
of a more radical nature. This is not the place, however,
to enter on such a discussion. The great importance of the
present work I conceive to lie more in its m«raZ and social,
than in its political, bearings. It is addressed to each
individual, rather as the member of a family, than the
citizen of a state.
Enough has been said, probably, in this chapter, to deter
mine the question, whether it is, or is not, desirable, in a
political point of view, that some check to population be
sought and disclosed—some “moral restraint” that shall
not, like vice and misery, be demoralizing, nor, like late
marriages, be ascetic and immacticable.
�MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
CHAPTER V.
THE QUESTION CONSIDERED IN ITS SOCIAL BEARINGS.
This is by far the most important branch of the question.
The evils caused by an absolute overstocking; of the world, if
inevitable, are distant; and an abstract statement of the sub
ject, however unanswerable, does not come home to the
mind with the force of detailed reality.
What would be the probable effect, in social life, if man
kind obtained and exercised a control over the instinct of
reproduction?
My settled conviction is—and I am prepared to defend
it—that the effect would be salutary, moral, civilising; that
it would prevent many crimes and more unhappiness; that
it would lessen intemperance and profligacy ; that it would
polish the manners and improve the moral feelings; that it
would alleviate the burden of the poor, and the cares of the
rich ; that it would most essentially benefit the rising gene
ration, by enabling parents generally more carefully to
educate, and more comfortably to provide for, their offspring.
I proceed to substantiate these positions.
And first, let us look solely to the situation of married
persons. Is it not notorious, that their families often
increase beyond what a regard for the young beings
coming into the world, or the happiness of those who give
them birth, would dictate ? In how many instances does the
hard-working father, and more especially the mother, of a
poor family, remain slaves throughout their lives, tugging at
the oar of incessant labor, toiling to live, and living only
to die; when, if their offspring had been limited to two or
three, they might have enjoyed comfort and comparative
affluence! How often is the health of the mother, giving
birth every year, perchance, to an infant—happy, if it be not
twins '.—and compelled to toil on, even at those times when
nature imperiously calls for some relief from daily drudgery
—how often is the mother’s comfort, health, nay, her life,
thus sacrificed ! Or, when care and toil have weighed down
the spirit, and at last broken the health of the father, how
often is the widow left, unable, with the most virtuous inten
tions, to save her fatherless offspring from becoming de
graded objects of charity, or profligate votaries of vice !
Fathers and mothers! not you who have your nursery and
�MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
27
your nursery maids, and who ieave your children at home
to frequent the crowded rout, or to glitter in the hot ball■room ; but you, by the labor of whose hands your children
are to live, and who, as you count their rising numbers, sigh
ttotoink how soon sickness or misfortune may lessen those
wages, which are now but just sufficient to afford them
bread—fathers and mothers in humble life ! to you my
argument comes home, with the force of reality. Others may
impugn—may ridicule it. By bitter experience you know
and feel its truth.
It will be said, that the state ought to provide for the effi
cient guardianship and education of all the children of the
land. No one is less inclined to deny the position than I.
But it does not provide for these. And if it did, a periou
must come at last, when even such an act of justice would
be no relief from the evils of over-population.
,
Yet this is not all. Every physician knows, that there are
many women so constituted that they cannot give birth to
healthy—sometimes not to living children. Is it desirable—
is it moral, that such women should become pregnant? Yet
this is continually the case, the warnings of physicians to the
contrary notwithstanding. Others there are, who ought never
to become parents; because, in so doing, they transmit to
their offspring grievous hereditary diseases; perhaps that
worst of diseases, insanity. Yet they will not lead a life
of celibacy. They marry. They become parents, and the
world suffers by it. That a human being qsould give
birth to a child, knowing that he transmits to it hereditary,
disease, is, in my opinion, an immorality. But it is a folly
to expect that we can ever induce all such persons to live the
lives of Shakers. Nor is it necessary. All that duty requires
of them is, to refrain from becoming parents. Who can
estimate the beneficial effect which rational, moral restraint
may thus have on the physical improvement of our race,
throughout future ages ! Were such virtue as this generally
cultivated, how soon might the very seeds of disease die out
among us, instead of bearing, as now, their poison-fruit,
from generation to generation! and how far might human
beings, in succeeding times, surpass their forefathers in
health, in strength and in beauty!
This view of the subject is, to the physiologist, to the phi
losopher, to every friend of human improvement, a most
interesting one, “ So long’’’ to use the words of an eloquent,
tocturer, now in this city, “ as the tainted stream is unhesi*
'* Mr. Graham, whose excellent discourses on temperance have excited!
�28
MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
tatingly transmitted through the channel of nature, from
parent to offspring, so long will the text be verified which
‘ visits the sins of the fathers on the children, even to the
third and fourth generations? ” And so long, I would add,
will mankind (wise and successful whenever there is question
of improving the animal races) be blind in perceiving, and
listless in securing, that far nobler object, the physical, and
thereby (in a measure) the mental and moral improvement
of our own.
1 may seem an enthusiast—but so let me seem then,—when
I express my conviction, that there is not greater physical
disparity between the dullest, shaggiest race of dwarf draught
horses, and the fiery-spirited and silken-haired Arabian, than
'between man degenerate as he is, and man perfected as he
might be : and though mental cultivation in this counts for
much, yet organic melioration is an influential—an indis
pensable accsseary.
But, apart from these latter considerations, is it not most
plainly, clearly, incontrovertibly desirable, that parents should
have the power to limit their offspring, whether they choose
*
to exercise it or not? Who can lose by their having this
power? and how many mrr/y gain ! may gain competency for
themselves, and the opportunity carefully to educate and
provide for their children! How many may escape the jar
rings, the quarrels, the disorder, the anxiety, which an over
grown family too often causes in the domestic circle !
It sometimes happens that individual instances come home
to the feelings with greater force than any general reasoning.
I shall, in this place, adduce one which came immediately
under my cognizance.
In June, 1829, I received from an elderly gentleman of
the first respectability, occupying a public situation in one of
the western states, a letter, requesting to know whether I
could afford any information or advice in a case which greatly
interested him, and which regarded a young woman for
whom he had ever experienced the sentiments of a father.
so much interest, and made so many converts, lately, in New York,
Philadelphia, and other cities of the Union.
* It may possibly be argued, that all married persons have this power
already ; seeing that they are no more obliged to become parents than the
unmarried ; they may live as the brethren and sisters among the Shakers
do. But this Shaker remedy is, as every one knows, utterly impi acticable
as a general rule; and it would chill and embitter domestic life, even if
’t were practicable.
�MORAL PHYSIOLOGY
29
In explanation of the circumstances he enclosed me a copy
of a letter which she had just written to him, and which
I here transcribe verbatim. A letter more touching from
its simplicity, or more strikingly illustrative of the unfortunate
situation in which not one, but thousands, in married life,
find themselves placed, I have never read.
“ Dear Sir,
L * * * Kentucky, May 3, 1829.
“ The friendship which has existed between you and my
father, ever since I can remember; the unaffected kindness
you used to express towards me when you resided in our
neighbourhood, during my childhood ; the lively solicitude
you have always seemed to feel for my welfare, and your
benevolent and liberal character, induce meto lay before you,
in a few words, my critical situation, and ask for your kind
advice.
“ It is my lot to be united in wedlock to a young mechanic
of industrious habits, good dispositions, pleasing manners,
and agreeable features, excessively fond of our children and
of me; in short, eminently well qualified to render him
self and family and all around him happy, were it not for the
besetting sin of drunkenness. About once in every three or
four weeks, if he meet, either accidentally, or purposely, with
some of his friends, of whom,either real or pretended, his good
nature and liberality procure him many, he is sure to get in
toxicated, so as to lose his reason ; and, when thus beside
himself, he trades and makes foolish bargains, so much to
his disadvantage, that he has almost reduced himself and
family to beggary, being no longer able to keep a shop of his
own, but obliged to work journey work.
“We have not been married quite four years, and have
already given being to three dear little ones. Under present
circumstances what can I expect will be their fate and mine?
I shudder at the prospect before me. With my excellent con
stitution and industry, and the labor of my husband, I feel
able to bring up these three little cherubs in decency, were
I to have no more : but when I seriously consider my situa
tion, I can see no other alternative left for me, than to tear
myself away from the man who, though addicted to occasional
intoxication, would sacrifice his life for my sake; and for
whom, contrary to my father’s will, I successively refused the '
hand and wealth of a lawyer and of a preacher; or continue
to witness his degradation, and bring into existence,in all pro
bability, a numerous family of helpless and destitute children, .
who, on account of poverty, must inevitably be doomed to a life of ignorance, and consequent vice and misery.
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MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
“ The dreadful sentence pronounced against me by my father
for my disobedience, forbids me applying to him, either for
advice or anything else. Aly husband being somewhat
sceptical, my father attributes Ins intemperance to his infi
delity ; though my brother, as you know, being a member of
the same church with my father, is, nevertheless, though he
does not fool away his property, more of a drunkard than my
husband, and ranks among the faithful. You will therefore
plainly see, that for these and other reasons, 1 stand the more .
in need of your friendly advice; and I do hope, and believe ■■
you will give me such advice and counsel as you would to
your own daughter, had you one in the same predicament that
I am. In so doing, you will add new claims to the gratitude
of your friend,
M. W.”
Need I add one word of comment on such a case as this?
Every one must be touched with the amiable feeling and
good sense that pervade the letter. Every rational being,
surely, must admit, that the power of preventing, without
injury or sacrifice, the increase of a family, under such cir
cumstances, is a public benefit and a private blessing.
Will it be asserted—and I know no other even plausible re
ply to these facts and arguments—will it be asserted, that the
thing is, in itself, immoral or unseemly? I deny it; and I point
to France, in justification of my denial. Where will you find,
on the face of the globe, a more polished, or more civilised
nation than the French, or one more punctiliously alive to any
rudeness, coarseness, or indecorum? You will find none. The
French are scrupulous on these points, to a proverb. Yet,
as every intelligent traveller in France must have remarked,
there is scarcely to be found, among the middle or upper
■classes, (and seldom even among the working classes,) a
large family; seldom more than three or four children. A
French lady of the utmost delicacy and respectability will, in
common conversation, say as simply—(ay, and as innocently,
whatever the self-righteous prude may aver to the contrary)
as she would proffer any common remark about the weather:
“ I have three children ; my husband and I think that is as
many as we can do justice to, and I do not intend to have
any more.”*
I have stated notorious facts, facts which no traveller who
has visited Paris, and been admitted to the domestic life of
* Will our sensitive fine ladies blush at the plain good sense and sim
plicity of such an observation ? Let me tell them, the indelicacy is in
their own minds, not in the words of the French mother.
�MORAL PHYSIOLOGY
31
its inhabitants, will attempt to deny. However heterodox,
then, my view of the subject may be in this country, 1 am
supported in it by the opinion and the practice of one of the
most refined and most socially cultivated nations in the
world.
Will it still be argued, that the practice, if not coarse, is
immoral ? Again I appeal to France. I appeal to the details
of the late glorious revolution—to the innumerable instances
of moderation, of courage, of honesty, of disinterestedness, of
generosity, of magnanimity, displayed on the memorable
“ three days,” and ever since; and I challenge comparison
between the national character of modern France for virtue,
as well as politeness, and that of any other nation under
heaven.
It is evident, then, that, to married persons, the power of
limiting their offspring to their circumstances is most desir
able. It may often promote the harmony, peace, and com
fort of families ; sometimes it may save from bankruptcy and
ruin, and sometimes it may rescue the mother from premature
death. In no case can it, by possibility, be worse than super
fluous. In no case can it be mischievous.
If the moral feelings were carefully cultivated, if we were
taught to consult, in every thing, rather the welfare of those
we love than our own, how strongly would these arguments
be felt! No man ought even to desire that a woman should
become the mother of his children, unless it was her express
wish, and unless he knew it to be for her welfare, that she
should. Her feelings, her interests, should be for him in this
matter an imperative law. She it is who bears the burden,
and therefore with her also should the decision rest. Surely
it may well be a question whether it be desirable, or whether
any man ought to ask, that the whole life of an intellectual,!
cultivated woman, should be spent in bearing a family of/
twelve or fifteen children ; to the ruin, perhaps, of her con
stitution, if not to the overstocking of the world. No man
ought to require or expect it.
Shall I be told, that this is the very romance of morality?
Alas ! that what ought to be a matter of every day practice—
a common-place exercise of the duties and charities of life,
■* —a bounden duty—an instance of domestic courtesy too
universal either to excite remark orto merit commendation—
alas ! that a virtue so humble that its absence ought to be re
proached as a crime, should, to our selfish perceptions, seem
iu.t a fastidious refinement, or a fanciful supererogation !
But I pass from the case of married persons to that of
�32
MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
young men and women who have not yet formed a matrirno.nial connexion.
In the present state of the world, when public opinion
stamps with opprobrium every sexual connexion which has
not received the orthodox sanction of an oath, almost all
young persons, on reaching the age of maturity, desire to
marry. The heart must be very cold, or very isolated, that
does not find some object on which to bestow its affections.
Early marriages would be almost universal, did not pruden
tial considerations interfere. The young man thinks, “ I
must not marry yet. I cannot support a family. I must
make money first, and think of a matrimonial settlement
afterwards.”
And so he sets about making money, fully and sincerely
resolved, in a few years, to share it with her whom he now
loves. But passions are strong, and temptations great.
Curiosity, perhaps, introduces him into the company of
those poor creatures whom society first reduces to a depen
dence on the most miserable of mercenary trades, and then
curses for being- what she has made them. There his health
and his moral feelings alike make shipwreck. The affections
he had thought to treasure up for their first object, are chil
led by dissipation and blunted by excess, He scarcely re
tains a passion but avarice. Years pass on—years of profli
gacy and speculation—and his first wish is accomplished;
his fortune is made. Where now are the feelings and re
solves of his youth ?
Like the dew on the mountain,
Like the foam on the river,
Like the bubble on the fountain,
They are gone—and for ever I
He is a man of pleasure—a man of the world. He laughs
at the romance of his youth, and marries a fortune. If
gaudy equipages and gay parties confer happiness, he is
happy. But if these be only the sunshine on the stormy
ocean below, he is a victim to that system of morality, which
forbids a reputable connexion until the period when provi
sion has been made for a large, expected family. Had he
married the first object of his choice, and simply delayed
becoming a father until his prospects seemed to warrant it,
how different might have been his lot? Until men and wo
men are absolved from the fear of becoming parents, except
when they themselves desire it, they will continue to form
�33
MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
mercenary and demoralizing connexions, and seek in dissi
pation the happiness they might have found in domestic life.
I know that this, however common, is not a universal case.
Sometimes the heavy responsibilities of a family are incurred,
at all risks; and who shall say how often a life of unremit
ting toil and poverty is the consequence ? Sometimes—if even
rarely—the young mind does hold to its first resolves. The
youth plods through years of cold celibacy and solitary
anxiety : happy, if before the best hours of life are gone and
its warmest feelings withered, he may return to claim the
reward of his forbearance and his industry. But even in
this comparatively happy case, shall we count for nothing the
years of ascetical sacrifice at which after-happiness is pur
chased ? The days of youth are not too many, nor its affec
tions too lasting. We may, indeed, if a great object require
it, sacrifice the one and mortify the other. But is this in
itself, desirable ? Does not wisdom tell us, that such sacri
fice is a dead loss—to the warm-hearted often a grievous one?
Does not wisdom bid us temperately enjoy the spring-time
of life, “ while the evil days come not, nor the years draw
nigh when we shall say, ‘ We have no pleasure in them
Let us say, then, if we will, that the youth who thus sacri
fices the present for the future, chooses wisely between two
evils, profligacy and asceticism. This is true. But let us not
imagine the lesser evil to be a good. It is not good for man
to be aione. It is for no man’s or woman’s happiness or benefit, that they should be condemned to Shakerism. It is a vio
lence done to the feelings, and an injury to the character. A
life of rigid celibacy, though greatly preferable to a life of
dissipation, is yet fraught with many evils. Peevishness,
restlessness, vague longings, and instability of character, are
among the least of these. The ipind is unsettled, and the
judgment warped. Even the very instinct which is thus
mortified, assumes an undue importance, and occupies a por
tion of the thoughts, which does not, of right or nature, belong
to it; and which, during a life of satisfied affection, it would
not obtain.
I speak not now of extreme cases, where solitary vice or
*
* For a vice so unnatural as onanism there could be no tempta*
lion, and therefore no existence, were not men and women unnaturally
and mischievously situated. It first appeared, probably, in monasteries
and convents ; and has been perpetuated by the more or less antisocial and demoralizing relation in which the sexes stand to each
ether,inalmost all countries. In estimating the consequences of the
�34
1
‘
moral physiology.
disease, or even insanity, lias been tbe result of asceftca.
mortification. I speak of every-day cases ; and I am well
convinced, that, (however wise it often is, in the present state
of the world, to select and adhere to this alternative,) yet no
man or woman can live the life of a conscientious Shaker,
without suffering, more or less, physically, mentally, and
morally. This is the more to be regretted, because the very
noblest portion of our species—the good, the pure, the highminded, and the kind-hearted—are the chief victims.
Thus, ^nasmuc’1 as the scruple of incurring heavy respon
sibilities deters from forming moral connexions, and en
courages intemperance and prostitution, the knowledge
which enables man to limit his offspring, would, in the pre
sent state of things, save much unhappiness, and prevent
many crimes. Young persons sincerely attached to each other,
and who might wish to marry, might marry early; merely
resolving not to become parents until prudence permitted it.
The young man, instead of solitary toil or vulgar dissipation,
would enjoy the society and the assistance of her he had
chosen as his companion ; and the best years of life, whose
pleasures never return, would not be squandered in riot
or lost through mortification.
If, in virtue of these recommendations, early marriages
became common, and parents were accustomed to limit the
number of their offspring, they would have the best chance
of forming their children’s characters, watching their pro
gress, even to manhood, and seeing them settled in the
world ; instead of leaving them, while young and inexpe
rienced, as they who become parents at a late age must
expect to do, to the mercy of fortune and the guidance of
strangers.
My readers will remark, that all the arguments I have
hitherto employed, apply strictly to the present order of
things, and the present laws and system of marriage. No
one, therefore, need be a moral heretic on this subject, to
present false situation of society, we must set down to the black account
the wretched, wretched consequences, (terminating not unfrequently in
incurable insanity,) of this vice, the preposterous offspring of modern
civilization. Physicians say that onanism at present prevails, to a
lamentable extent, both in this country and England. If the recorts
*
mendations contained in this little treatise were generally followed, it
would probably disappear in a single generation.
�MORAL PHYSIOLOGY,
35
admit and approve them. The marriage laws mi ht all re
main for ever as they are ; and yet a moral check to popula
tion would be beneficent and important.
But there are other cases, it will be said, in which the
knowledge of such a check would be mischievous. If young
women, it will be argued, were absolved from the fear of
consequences, they would rarely preserve their chastity.
Unlegalized connexions would be common and seldom de
tected. Seduction would be facilitated. Let us carefully
i examine this argument.
I fully agree with that most amiable of moral heretics,
Shelley, that “ Seduction, which term could have no mean
ing in a rational society, has now a most tremendous one.”
It matters not. how artificial the penalty which society has
chosen to affix to a breach of her capricious decrees. Society
has the power in her own hands; and that moral Shylock,
Public Opinion, enforces the penalty, even though it cost
the life of the victim. The consequences, then, to the poor
sufferer, whose offence is but an error of judgment or a weak
ness of the heart, are the same as if her imprudence were
indeed a crime of the blackest dye. And his conduct who,
for a momentary, selfish gratification, will deliberately entail
a life of wretchedness on one whose chief fault, perhaps, was
her misplaced confidence in a hypocrite, is not one whit
excused by the folly and injustice of the sentence.j- Some
poet says,
“ The man. who lays his hand upon a woman
Save in the way of kindness, is a wretch
Whom ’twere gross flattery to call a coward.”
How, then, shall we regard him who makes it a trade to
win a woman’s gentle affections, betray her generous confi
dence, and then, when the consequences become apparent,
abandon her to dependence, and the scorn of a cold, a selfrighteous and a wicked world; a world which will forgive
* Letter of Percy Bysshe Shelley, of December 5, 1818.
+ Every reflecting mind will distinguish between the unreasoning—
sometimes even generous imprudence of youthful passion, and the calcu
lating selfishness of the matured and heartless libertine. It is a melant^ich®ly truth, that pseudo-civilization produces thousands of seducers by
profession, who, while daily calling the heavens to witness their eternal
affections, have no affection for any thing on earth but their own profli
gate Reives. It is to characters so utterly worthless as these that my
t&scrvations apply.
a
�36
MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
any thing but rebellion against its tyranny, and in whose
eyes it seems the greatest of crimes to be unsuspecting and
warm-hearted !
And, let me ask, what is it gives to the arts of seduction
thier sting, and stamps to the world its victim ? Why is it,
that the man goes free and enters society again, almost
courted and applauded ; while the woman is a mark for the
finger of reproach, and a butt for the tongue of scandal ? Is
it not chiefly because she bears about her the mark of what
is called her disgrace ? She becomes a mother ; and society
has something tangible against which to direct its anathe
mas. Mine-tenths, at least, of the misery and ruin which are
caused by seduction, even in the present state of public
opinion, result from cases of pregnancy. Perhaps the unfeel
ing selfishness of him who fears to become a father, adminis
ters some noxious drug to procure abortion ; perhaps—
for even such scenes our courts of justice disclose!—perhaps
the frenzy of the wretched mother takes the life of her in
fant, or seeks in suicide the consummation of her wrongs
and her woes ! Or, if the little being live, the dove in the
falcon’s claws is not more certain of death than we may be,
that society will visit, with its bitterest scoff’s and reproaches,
the bruised spirit of the mother and the unconscious inno
cence of the child.
If, then, we cannot do all, shall we neglect a part? If we
cannot prevent every misery which man’s selfishness and the
world’s cruelty" entail on a sex, which it ought to be our pride
and honor to cherish and defend; let us prevent as many as
we can. If we cannot persuade society to revoke its unmanly
and unchristian * persecution of those who are often the best
and gentlest of its members—let us, at the least, give to wo
man what defence we may, against its violence.
I appeal to any father, trembling for the reputation of his
child, whether, if she were induced to form an unlegalised
connexion, her pregnancy would not be a frightful aggrava
tion? I appeal to him, whether any innocent preventive
which shall save her from a situation that must soon disclose
all to the world, would not be an act of mercy, of charity, of
philanthropy—whether it might not save him from despair,
and her from ruin? The fastidious conformist may frow£
upon the question, but to the father it comes home; and.,
• Jesus said unto her,“ Neither do I condemn thee.”—viii. 11
�moral physiology.
37
whatever his lips may say, his heart will acknowledge the
soundness and the force of the argument it conveys.
*
It may be, that some sticklers for orthodox morality will
still demur to the positions I defend. They will perhaps tell
me, as the Committee of a certain Society in this city lately
did, that the power of preventing conceptions “ holds out
inducements and facilities for the prostitution of their
daughters, their sisters, and their wives.
* What is the actual state of society in Great Britain, and even in thii
republic, that pseudo-civilization, in her superlative delicacy, should so
fastidiously scruple to speak of or to sanction, a simple, moral, effectual
check to population? Are her sons all chaste and temperate, and her
daughters all passionless and pure ? I might disclose, if I would, in this
very city of New York—and in our neighbor city of Philadelphia—
scenes and practices that have come to light from time to time, and that
would furnish no very favorable answer to the question. I might ask,
whether all the houses of assignation in these two cities are frequented
b y the known profligate alone ? or, whether some of the most outwardly
respectable fathers—ay, mothers of families—have not been found in
resorts frequented and supported only by “ good society’'’ like them
selves ?
As regards Great Britain, I might quote the evidence delivered before
a “ Committee of the House of Commons, on Laborers’ Wages,” by
Mr. Henry Drummond, a banker, magistrate, and large land-owner, in
the county of Surry, in which the following question and answer occur
Q. “ What is the practice you allude to of forcing marriages ?” A. “ I
believe nothing is more erroneous than the assertion, that the poor laws
tend to imprudent marriages; I never knew an instance of a girl being
married until she was with child, nor ever knew of a marriage taking
place throagh a calculation for future support.” Mr. Drummond’s
assertions were confirmed by other equally respectable witnesses; and
from what I have myself learnt in conversation with some of the chief
manufacturers of England, I am convinced, that the statement, as regards
the working population in the chief manufacturing districts, is scarcely
exaggerated.
I might go on to state, that the spot on which the Foundling Hospital
in Dublin now stands, formerly went by the name of “ Murderer’s
Lane,” from the number of ch-’’d murders that were perpetrated in the
vicinity.
I might adduce the testimony of respectable witnesses in proof, that,
even among the married, the blighting effects of ergot are not unfrequently incurred; by those very persons, probably, who, in public,
would think fit to be terribly shocked at this little book.
But why multiply proofs? The records of every court of justice, nay,
the tittle tattle of every fashionable drawing room, sufficiently marks the
leal character of this prudish and p'narisaical world.of ours.
t See Letter of the Gommittee of the Typographical Socletv ‘ib Robert
�MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
38
Truly, but they pay their wives, their sisters, and their
daughters, a poor compliment!
Is, then, this vaunted
chastity a mere thing of circumstance and occasion ? Is
there but the difference of opportunity between it and prosti
tution ? Would their wives, their sisters, and their daugh
ters, if once absolved from the fear of offspring, become
prostitutes—sell their embraces for gold, and descend to a
level with the most degraded? In truth, they slander their
own kindred; they libel their own wives, sisters, and
daughters. If they spoke truth—if fear were indeed the only
safeguard of their relatives’ chastity, little value should I
place on a virtue like that I and small would I esteem his
offence, who should attempt or seduce it.
*
Dale Owen, published in the Commercial Advertiser of the 29th of
September, and copied into the Free Enquirer of the 9th of Oqfepber,
1830.
For a statement of the circumstances connected with that letter, and
which induced me, at this time, to write and publish the present treatise,
see Preface to the New York edition.
* I should like to hear these gentlemen explain, according to what
principle they imagine the chastity of their wives to grow out of a fear of
offspring; so that, if released from such fear, prostitution would follow.
I can readily comprehend that the unmarried may be supposed careful
to avoid that situation to which no legal cause can be assigned ; but a
wife must be especially dull, if she cannot assign, in all cases, a legal
cause ; and a husband must be especially sagacious, if he can tell whe
ther the true cause be assigned or not. This safeguard to married
chastity, therefore, to which the gentlemen of the Typographical Com
mittee seem to look with so implicit a confidence, is a mere broken reed ;
and has been so ever since the days of Bathsheba.
Yet conjugal chastity is that which is especially valued. The incon
stancy of a wife commonly cuts much deeper than the dishonor of a
sister. In that case, then, which the world usually considers of the
highest importance, the fear of offspring imposes no check whatever. It
cannot make one iota of difference whether a married woman be knowing
in physiology or not; except perhaps, indeed, to the husbands advan
tage ; in cases where the wife’s conscience induces her at least to guard
against the possibility of burthening her legal lord with the care and sup
port of children that are not his. Constancy, where it actually exists, is
the offspring of something more efficacious than ignorance. And if in
the wife’s case, men must and do trust to something else, why not in all
other cases, where constraint may be considered desirable ? Shall men
trust in the greater, and fear to trust in the less? Whatever any one
may choose to assert regarding his relatives’ secret inclinations to pro
fligacy, these arguments may convince him, that if he have any safeguard
at present, a perusal of Moral Physiology will not destroy it.
’Tis strange that men, by way of suborning an argument, should be
�M01UL PHYSIOLOGY.
39
That chastity which is worth preserving is not Ihc chastity
that owes its birth to fear and ignorance. If to enlighten a
woman regarding a simple physiological fact will make her
a prostitute, she must be especially predisposed to profli' gacy. But it is a libel on the sex. Few, indeed, there are,
, who would continue so miserable and degrading a calling could they escape from it. For one prostitute that is made
by inclination, ten are made by necessity. Reform the laws
—equalize the comforts of society, and you need withhold no
knowledge from your wives and daughters. It is want, not
knowledge, that leads to prostitution.
For myself, I would withhold from no sister, or daughter,
or wife of mine, any ascertained fact whatever. It should
be to me a duty and a pleasure to communicate to them all
I knew myself: and I should hold it an insult to their under
standings and their hearts to imagine, that their virtue would
diminish as their knowledge increased. Would we but trust
human nature, instead of continually suspecting it, and
guarding it by bolts and bars, and thinking to make it very
chaste by keeping it very ignorant, what a different world
we should have of it! The virtue of ignorance is a sickly
plant, ever exposed to the caterpillar of corruption, liable to
be scorched and blasted even by the free light of heaven ; of
precarious growth ; and even if at last artificially matured, of
little or no real value.
I know that parents often think it right and proper to
withhold from their children, especially from their daughters,
facts the most influential on their future lives, and the know
ledge of which is essential to every man and woman’s well
being. Such a course has ever appeared to me ill-judged
and productive of very injurious effects. A girl is surely no
whit tlie better for believing, until her marriage night, that
■ children are found among the cabbage leaves in the garden
The imagination is excited, the curiosity kept continually on
the stretch ; and that which, if simply explained, would have
been recollected only as any other physiological phenome
non, assumes alf the rank and importance and engrossing
interest of a mystery. Nay, I am well convinced, that mere
Curiosity has often led ignorant young people into situations,
from which a little more confidence and openness on the part
of their parents or guardians, would have effectually secured
| them.
willing thus to vilify their relatives’ character and motives, without first
carefully examining whether any thing was gained to theii cause, after
all, by the ’'i'Pic-uion
�•A
MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
In the monkish days of mental darkness, when it was
taught and believed that all the imaginations and all the
thoughts of man are only evil continually, when it was
deemed right and proper to secure the submission of the
mass by withholding from them the knowledge even how to
read and write—in those days, it was all very well to shut up
the physiological page, and tell us, that on the day we read
therein we should surely die. But those times are past. In
this nineteenth century men and women read, think, discuss,
inquire, judge for themselves. If, in these latter days, there
is to be virtue at all, she must be the offspring of knowledge
and of free inquiry, not of ignorance and mystery. We
cannot prevent the spread of any real knowledge, even if we
would ; we ought not, even if we could.
This book will make its way through the whole United
States. Curiosity and the notoriety which has already been
given to the subject, will suffice at first to obtain for it cir
culation. The practical importance of the subject it treats
will do the rest. It needed but some one to start the stone;
its own momentum will suffice to carry it forward.
But, if we could prevent the circulation of truth, why
should we? We are not afraid of it ourselves. No man
thinks his morality will suffer by it. Each feels certain that
bis virtue can stand any degree of knowledge. And is it not
the height of egregious presumption in each to imagine that
his neighbor is so much weaker than himself, and requires a
bandage which he can do without? Most of all, it is pre
sumptuous to suppose, that that knowledge which the man
of the world can bear with impunity, will corrupt the young
and lhe pure-hearted. It is the sullied conscience only that
suggests such fears. Trust youth and innocence. Speak
to them openly. Show them that yot- respect them, by
treating them with confidence; and they will quickly learn
to respect and to govern themselves. Enlist their pride
in your behalf; and you will soon see them make it their
boast and their highest pleasure to merit your confidence.
But watch them, and show your suspicion of them but once,
and you are the jailor, who will keep his prisoners just as
long as bars and bolts shall prevent their escape. The
world was never made for a prison-house; it is too large
and ill-guarded : nor were parents ever intended for gaol
keepers ; their very affections unfit them for the task.
There is no more beautiful sight upon earth, than a family
among whom there are no secrets and no reserves ; where
the young people confide every thing to their elder friends—
�MORAL PHYSIOLOGY
for such to them arc their parents—and whine the parents
trust every thing to their children; where each thought is
communicated as freely as it arises; and all knowledge
given as simply as it is received. If the world contain a
prototype of That Paradise, where nature is said to have
known no sin or impropriety, it is such a family. And if •'
there be a serpent that can poison the innocence of its in- 5
mates, that serpent is Suspicion,
I ask no greater pleasure than thus to be the guardian and
companion of young beings whose innocence shall speak to
me as unreservedly as it thinks to itself; of young beings
who shall never imagine that there is guilt in their thoughts,
or sin in their confidence ; and to whom, in return, I may
impart every important and useful «fact that is known to
myself. Their virtue should be of that hardy growth, which
all facts tend to nourish and strengthen.
I put it to my readers, whether such a view of human
nature, and such a mode of treating it, be not in accordance
with the noblest feelings of their hearts. I put it to them,
whether they have not felt themselves encouraged, improved,
strengthened in every virtuous resolution, when they were
generously trusted, and whether they have not felt abashed
and degraded when they were suspiciously watched, and
spied after, and kept in ignorance. If they find such feelings
in their own hearts, let them not self-righteously imagine,
that they only can be won by generosity, or that the nature
of their fellow-creatures is different from their own.
There are other considerations connected with this subject,
which farther attest the social advantages of the control I
advocate. Human affections are mutable, and the sincerest
of mortal resolutions may change.
*
Every day furnishes
instances of alienations, and of separattons; sometimes
almost before the honey-moon is well expired. In such
cases of unsuitability, it cannot be considered desirable
that there should be offspring; and the power of refraining
from becoming parents until intimacy had, in a measure,
established the likelihood of permanent harmony of view
and feelings, will be confessed to be advantageous.
The limits which my numerous avocations prescribe to
* Le premier serment que se firent deux etres de chair, se fut au
ied d’un rocher, qui tombait en poussiere; ils attesterent de leur conpance un ciel qui n’est pas un instant le meme: tout passait en eux, et
stutour d’eux ; et ils croyaient leurs coeurs affranchis de vicissitudes. O
afaiise a’, touiours enfans! —Diderot Jacques et son Maitre.
t
�42
MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
this little treatise, permit me not to meet every argument in
detail, which ingenuity or prejudice might put forward. If
the world were not actually afraid to think freely or to listen
io the suggestions of common sense, three fourths of what
has already been said would be superfluous for most of
;
*
the arguments employed would occur spontaneously to any
rational being. But the mass of mankind have still, in a
measure, every thing to learn on this and other moral sub
jects. The world seems to me much to resemble a company
of gourmands, who sit down to a plentiful repast, first very
punctiliously saying grace over it; and then, under sanction
of the priest’s blessing, think to gorge themselves with im
punity ; as conceiving, that gluttony after grace is no sin.
So it is with popular customs and popular morality. Every
thing is permitted, if external forms be but respected. Le
gal roguery is no crime, and ceremony-sanctioned excess no
profligacy. The substance is sacrificed to the form, the
virtue to the outward observance. The world troubles its
head little about whether a man be honest or dishonest, so
he knows how to avoid the penitentiary and escape the
gallows. In like manner, the world seldom thinks it worth
while to enquire whether a man be temperate or intemperate,
prudent or thoughtless. It takes especial care to inform
itself whether in all things he conforms to orthodox require
ments ; and, if he does, all is right. Thus men too often
learn to consider an oath an absolution from all subsequent
decencies and duties, and a full release from all after re
sponsibilities. If a husband maltreat his wife,, the offence is
venal: for he premised it by making her, at the altar, an
honest vfoman.” If a married father neglect his children,,
it is a trifle ; for grace was regularly said, before they were
born.
So true is this, that if some heterodox moralist were to
throw out the idea, that many of the rudenesses and jarrings,
and much of the indifference and carelessness of each others’
feelings that are exhibited in married life, might be traced to
the almost universal custom (in this country, though not in
France) of man and wife continually occupying the same
bed—if he put it to us whether such a forced and too fre
quent familiarity were not calculated to lessen the charms
and pleasures, and diminish the respectful regard and defer
ence, which ought ever to characterize the intercourse or
□uman beings—if, I say, some heretical preferrer of things
Jo forms were to light upon and express some such unlucky
�43
MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
ideaas this, ten to one the married portion of the community
would fall upon him without mercy, as an impertinent inter
meddler in their most legitimate rights and prerogatives.
With such a world as this, it is a difficult matter to reason.
After listening to all I have said, it may perhaps cut me
short by reminding me, that nature herself declares it to be
right and proper, that we should reproduce our species with
out calculation or restraint. I will ask, in reply, whether
nature also declares it to be right and proper, that when the
thermometer is at 96, we should drink greedily of cold
water, and drop down dead in the streets ? Let the world
be told, that if nature gave us our passions and propensities,
she gave us also the power wisely to control them; and that,
when we hesitate to exercise that power, we descend to a
level with the brute creation, and become the sport of for
tune—the mere slaves of circumstance.
*
To one other argument it were not, perhaps, worth while
to advert, but that it has been already speciously used to
excite popular prejudice. It has been said, that to recom
mend to mankind prudential restraint in cases where chil
dren cannot be provided for, is an insult to the poor man;
since all ought to be so circumstanced that they might pro
vide amply for the largest family. Most assuredly all ought
to be so circumstanced ; but all are not. And there would
be just as much propriety in bidding a poor man go and take
by force a piece of Saxony broadcloth from his neighbor’s
store, because he ought to be able to purchase it, as to en
courage him to go on producing children, because he ought
to have wherewithal to support them. Let us exert every
nerve to correct the injustice and arrest the misery that results
from a vicious order of things; but, until we have done so,
let us not, for humanity’s sake, madly recommend that which
grievously aggravates the evil; which increases the burden
on the present generation, and threatens with neglect and
Ignorance the next.
* Some German poet, whose name has escaped me, says,
“ Tapfer ist der Lowensieger,
Tapfer ist der Weltbezwinger,
.
Tapferer, wer sich selbst bezwang!”
u
<f Brave is the lion victor,
Brave the conqueror of a world,
Braver he who controls himself!”
It ia a noble sentiment, and very appropriate to the present discussion-
�44
MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
And now, let my readers pause. Let them review the va
rious arguments I have placed before them. Let them reflect
how intimately the instinct of which I treat is connected
with the social welfare of society. Let them bear in mind,
that just in proportion to its social influence, is it important
that we should know how to control and govern it; that,
when we oblain such control, we may save ourselves, and
what we ought to prize much more highly, may save our com
panions and our offspring, from suffering or misery ; that, by
such knowledge, the young may form virtuous connexions,
instead of becoming profligate or ascetics; that, by it, early
marriage is deprived of its heaviest, consequences, and seduc
tion of its sharpest sting; that, by it, man may be saved from
moral ruin, and woman from desolating dishonor: that by it
the first pure affections may be soothed and satisfied, instead
of being thwarted or destroyed—let them call to mind all
this, and then let them say, whether the possession of such
control be not a blessing to man.
,______ _
•
,, ffniUitiia. ot buoni
-id joun«o rroib
<■', H-. rmi-:
CHAPTER VI.
/
THE SUBJECT CONSIDERED IN ITS IMMEDIATE CONNECTION
WITH PHYSIOLOGY.
It now remains, after having spoken of the desirability of
obtaining control over the instinct of reproduction, to speak
of its practicability.
As, in this world, the value of labor is too often estimated
almost in proportion to its inutility; so, in physical science,
contested questions seem to have attracted attention and en
gaged research, almost in the inverse ratio of their practical
importance. We have a hundred learned hypotheses for one
decisive practical experiment. We have many thousands of
volumes written to explain fanciful theories, and scarcely as
many dozens to record ascertained facts.
It is not my intention, in discussing this branch of the sub
ject, to examine the hundred ingenious theories of genera
tion which ancient and modern physiologists have put forth.
I shall not inquire whether the future human being owes its
first existence, as Hippocrates and Galen assert, and Buffon
very ingeniously supports, to the union of two life-giving
�MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
45
fluids, each a sort of extract of the body of the parent, and!
composed of organic particles similar to the future offspring;
or whether, as Harvey and Haller teach, the embryo reposea
in the ovum until vivified by the seminal fluid, or perhaps
only by the aura seminalis: or whether, according to the
theories of Leuvenhoeck and Boerhaave, the future man
first exists as a spermatic animalcula, for which the ovum,
becomes merely the nourishing receptacle, or whether,, as
the ingenious Andry imagines, a vivifying worm be the more
correct hypothesis; or whether, finally, as Perault will
have it, the embryo beings (too wondex fully organized’
*
to be supposed the production of any mere physical phe
nomenon) must be imagined to come directly from the hands
of the Creator, who has filled the universe with these
little germs, too minute, indeed, to exercise all the ani
mal functions, but still self-existent, and awaiting only
the insinuation of some subtle essence into their microscopic
pores, to come forth as human beings. Still less am I
inclined to follow Hippocrates and Tertullian in their
inquiries, whether the soul is merely introduced into the
foetus, or pre-exists in the semen, and becomes, as it were,
the architect of its future residence, the body; f or to attempt
a refutation of the hypothesis of the metaphysical naturalist, J
who asserts, (and adduces the infinite indivisibility of matter
in support of the assertion,) that the actual germs of the
whole human race, and of all that are yet to be born, existed
in the ovaria of our first mother, Eve. I leave these and fifty
other hypotheses, as ingenious and as useless, to be discussed
by those who seem to make it a point of honor to leave no
fact unexplained by some imagined theory ; and come at
once to positive experience and actual observation.
It is exceedingly to be regretted that mankind did not
spend some small portion of the time and industry which,
has been wasted on theoretical research, in collecting and
collating the actual experience of human beings. But this
task, too difficult for the ignorant, has generally been
thought too simple and common-place for the learned. To
* See “ Histoire de l’Academie des Sciences,” for the year 1679,
page 279.
t Hippocrates positively asserts this latter hypothesis, and is outrage
ous against all sceptics in his theory. In his work on diet, he tells us,
“ Si quis non credat animam, anima misceri, demens est” TertulliaO
tvarmly supports the orthodoxy of this opinion.
| Bonner, I believe.
�46
MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
this circumstance, joined to the fact, that it is not thought
fitting or decent for human beings freely to communicate
their personal experience on the important subject now
under consideration—to these causes are attributable the
great and otherwise unaccountable ignorance which so
strangely prevails, even sometimes among medical men, as
to the power which man may possess over the reproductive
instinct. Some physicians deny that man possesses any such
power. And yet, if the thousandth part of the talent and
research had been employed to investigate this momentous
fact, which has been turned to the building up of idle
theories, no commonly intelligent individual would be igno
rant of the truth.
I have taken great pains to ascertain the opinions of the
most enlightened physicians of Great Britain and France on
this subject; (opinions which popular prejudice will not per
mit them to offer publicly in their works ;) and they all con
cur in admitting, what the experience of the French nation
positively proves, that man may have a complete control over
this instinct; and that men and women may, without injury
to health, or violence to the moral feelings, and with very
little diminution of the pleasure which accompanies the grati
fication of the instinct, refrain at will from becoming parents.
It has chanced to me, also, to gain the confidence of several
individuals, who have communicated to me, without reserve,
their own experience ; and all this has been corroborative of
the same opinion.
Thus, though I pretend not to speak positively to the de
tails of a subject, which will then only be fully understood
when men acquire sense enough simply and unreservedly
to discuss it, I may venture to assure my readers, that the
main fact is incontrovertible. I shall adduce such facts in
proof of this as may occur to me in the course of the inves
tigation.
However various and contradictory the different theories
of generation, almost all physiologists are agreed, that the
entrance of the sperm itself (or of some volatile particles
proceeding from it) into the uterus, must precede conception. This it was that probably first suggested the possibi
lity of preventing conception at will.
Among the modes of preventing conception which may
have prevailed in various countries, that which has been
adopted, and is now practised, by the cultivated classes on
the continent of Europe, by the French the Italians and I
!
*
■
�MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
47
Relieve, by the Germans and Spaniards, consists of complete
Withdrawal, on the part of the man, immediately previous to
emission. This is, in all cases, effectual. It may be objected,
that the practice requires a mental effort and a partial sacri
fice. I reply, that, in France, where men consider this, (as
it ought ever to be considered, when the interests of the other
sex require it,) a point of honor—ally oung men learn to make
the necessary effort; and custom renders it easy and a matter
J of course. As for the sacrifice, shall a trifling (and it is but a
very trifling) diminution of physical enjoyment be suflered
to outweigh the most important considerations connected
with the permanent welfare of those who are the nearest and
dearest to us? Shall it be suffered to outweigh the risk of
incurring heavy and sacred responsibilities, ere we are pre
pared to fulfil them ? Shall it be suffered to outweigh a regard
for the comfort, the well-being—in some cases, the life, of
those whom we profess to love? The most selfish will hesitate
deliberately to reply, in the affirmative, to such questions as
these. A cultivated young Frenchman, instructed as he is,
even from his infancy, carefully to consult, on all occasions,
the wishes, and punctiliously to care for the comfort and wel
fare, of the gentler sex, would learn, almost with incredulity,
that, in other countries, there are men to be found, pretend
ing to cultivation, who were less scrupulously honorable on
this point than himself. You could not offer him a greater
insult than to presuppose the possibility of his forgetting
himself so far as thus to put his own momentary gratification,
for an instant, in competition with the wish or the well-being
of any one to whom he professed regard or affection.
I know it will be argued, that men in the mass are not
I sufficiently moral to adopt this recommendation; because they
will not make any voluntary sacrifice of animal enjoyment,
however trifling. I do not see that. Hundreds of voluntary
* A Frenchman belonging to the cultivated classes, would as soon bear
to be called a coward, as to be accused of causing the pregnancy of a
woman who did not desire it ■, and that, too, whether the matrimonial
’ law had given him legal rights over her person or not. Such an imputa
tion, if substantiated, would shut him out for ever from all decent society ;
and most properly so. It is a perfect barbarity, and ought to be treated
as such.
When we begin to look to genuine morality, instead of empty or onenk fcve forms, these are the principle, of honor we shall implant in our chil
dren’s minds : and then we shall have a world of courtesy and kindneSF^
instead of a scene of legal outrage, or hypocritical profession.
�48
MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
sacrifices are daily made to fashion—to public opiniou. Let
but public opinion bear on this point in other countries, as it
does among the more enlightened classes in France, and
similar effects will be produced.
The matter is a trifle. The mere act of animal satisfaction,
counts with any man of commonly cultivated feelings, as but
a small item in the aggregate of enjoyment which satisfied
affection aifords; and, surely, whether that act be at ali
times attended with the utmost degrees of physica pleasure
or not, must, even with the felfish, be a secondary and unim
portant consideration. His moral sentiments must be espe
cially weak or uncultivated, who will not admit, that it is the
gratification of the social feelings—the repose of the affec
tions—which, at all times, constitutes the chief charm of
human intercourse.
The least injurious among the present checks to popula
tion, celibacy, is a mortification of the affections, a violence
done to the social feelings, sometimes a sacrifice even of the
health. Not one of these objections can be urged to the
trifling restraint proposed.
As to the cry which prejudice may raise against it as being
unnatural, it is just as unnatural, and no more so, than to
refrain, in a sultry summer’s day, from drinking, perhaps,
more than a pint of water at a draught, which prudence tells
us is enough, while inclination bids us drink a quart. All
thwarting of any human wish or impulse may, in one sense,
be called unnatural; it is not, however, oft-time the less pru
dent and proper, on that account. Then, too, if this trifling re
straint is to be called unnatural, what shall we say of celibacy ?
As to the practical efficacy of this simple preventive, the
experience of France, where it is extensively practised,
might suffice in proof. I know, at this moment, several
married persons who have told me, that, after having had
as many children as they thought prudent, they hail for years
employed this check, with perfect success. For the satisfaction
of my readers, I will select one particular instance.
I knew personally and intimately for many years, a young ,
man of strict honour, in whose sincerity I ever placed confi- 1
dence, and who confided to me the particulars of his situation. ■,
He was just entering on life, with slender means, and his I
circumstances forbade him to have a large family of chil
dren. He, therefore, having consulted his young wife, prac
tised this restraint, I believe for about eighteen months, and
with perfect success. At the expiration of that period, theij
situation being more favourable, they resolved to become
�MOKAL PHYSioluGY.
4.9
parents; and, in a fortnight after, the wife found herself
pregnant. My friend told me, that though he felt the partial
privation a little at first, a few weeks’ habit perfectly re
conciled him to it; and that nothing but a deliberate con
viction that he might prudently now become a parent,
and a strong desire on his wife’s part to have a child, in
duced him to alter his first practice. I believe I was the
only one among his friends to whom he ever communicated
the real state of the case; and I doubt not there are, even
in this cotf-^try, hundreds of similar cases which the world
never learns any thing about. Hence the doubts and igno
rance which exist on the subject.
I add another instance. A short time since, a respectable
and very intelligent father of a family, about thirty-five
years of a<re, who resides west of the mountains, called at
our office. Conversation turned on the present subject, and
I expressed to him my conviction, that this check was effec
tual. He told me he could speak from personal experience.
He had married young, and soon had three children. These
he could support in comfort, without running into debt or
*
difficulty; but, the price of produce sinking in his neigh
bourhood, there did not appear a fair prospect of supporting a
large family. In _ .'sequence, he and his wife determined to
limit their offspring to three. They havo accordingly em
ployed the above check for seven or eight years; have had
no more children; and have been rewarded for their pru
dence by finding their situation and prospects improving
every year. He confirmed an opinion I have already ex
pressed, by stating, that custom completely reconciled him
to anv slig1,i privation he might at first have felt. I asked
him, whether his neighbors generally followed the same
practice. H" replied, that he could not tell; for he had not
thought it prudent to speak with any but his own relations on
the subject, one or two of whom, he knew, had profited by his
advice, and afterwards expressed to him their gratitude for
the important information.
It is unnecessary farther to multiply instances. The fact
that this check is in common practice, and known to be effi
cacious, in France, is alone sufficient evidence of its practi
cability and safety.
I can readily imagine, that there are men, wSo, in parr
from temperament, but much more from the continued habit
of unrestrained indulgence, may have so little command
over their passions, as to find difficulty in practising it; and
some, it may be, who will declare it to be impossible. If any
D
�50
MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
there be to whom itzs impossible, (which I very much doubt,
I am at least convinced that the number is exceedingly small;
not a fiftieth part of those who may at first imagine such to be
their case.
I may add, that partial withdrawal is not an infallible pre
ventive of conception.
Other modes of prevention have been employed. I have
selected this, because I judge it to be at once the most simple,
and the most efficacious. Those who have employed it for
ys»ars, seem to concur in the opinion that it. is, as regards its
influence on health, innocent: it has even been said to
*
produce on the human system an influence similar to that of
temperance in diet; but this I doubt. As regards any moral
impropriety in its use, enough methinks has already been said,
to convince all except those who will not be convinced, that
to employ it, in all cases where prudence or the well-being
of our companions requires it, is an act of practical virtue.
It may be said, and said truly, that this check places the
power chiefly in the hands of the man, and not, where it
ought to be, in those of the woman. She, who is the sufferer,
is not secured against the culpable carelessness, or perhaps
the deliberate selfishness, of him who goes free and unblamed
whatever may happen. To this, the reply is, that the best and
only effectual defence for women is to refuse connexion with
any man void of honor. An (almost omnipotent) public opinion
would thus be speedily formed: one of immense moral utility,
by means of which the man’s social reputation would be
placed, as it should be, in the keeping of women, whose
moral tact and nice discrimination in such matters is far
superior to ours. How mighty and beneficent the power
which such an influence might exert, and how essentially and
rapidly it might conduce to the gradual, but thorough extir* Experience, extensive and carefully recorded, can alone verify, as
in a matter so important ought to be verified, the opinion here expressed
touching the innocence to health of the preventive recommended. No
one is justified in speaking positively on such a subject, until he has
accumulated a greater mass of facts than I, or perhaps any other indi
vidual, have yet had the means of ascertaining. The subject once
agitated, such facts will gradually come to light. <n the mean time let
us bear in mind, that the truth and importance of th abstract principle
*
rest not on the accuracy of the physiological items here adduced. A
preventive check to population is a thing in itself good and desirable, or
it is the reverse. If good and desirable, men and women will ultimately
perceive it to be so, and will search and experiment until they discover
what practice is best. Of this, as of other branches of physical science,
time alone can elucidate and substantiate the details.
�MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
51
pation of those selfish vices, legal and illegal, which now dis
grace and brutify our species, it is difficult even to imagine.
In the silent, but resistless progress of human im
provement, such a change is fortunately inevitable. We
are gradually emerging from the night of blind prejudice and
of brute force; and, day by day, rational liberty and cultivated
refinement, win an accession of power. Violence yields to
benevolence, compulsion to kindness, the letter of law to the
spirit of justice : and, day by day, men and women become
more willing, and better prepared, to entrust the most sacred
duties (social as well as political) more to good feeling and
less to idle form—more to moral and less to legal keeping.
It is no question whether such reform will come: no
human power can arrest its progress. How slowly or how
rapidly it may come, is a question ; and depends, in some
degree, on adventitious circumstances. Should this little
book prove one among the number of circumstances to ac
celerate, however slightly, that progress, its author will be
repaid, ten times over, for the trifling labor it has cost
him.
In conclusion, it may be useful to state to the reader the
following facts. A knowledge of this and other checks to
population has been, for many years, extensively disseminated
in most of the populous towns in Great Britain by hundreds
of thousands ofhand-bills which were gratuitously distributed
from benevolent motives. The men who were first instru mental
in making them known in England are all elderly men,fathers
of families of children grown up to be men and women ; men
of unquestioned integrity and moral character; many of them
men of science, and some of them known as the first political
economists of the age. Beside the allusion to thesubjectalready
given from the Encyclopaedia Britannica, it is adverted to in
Place’s “ Illustrations of the principles of Population;” in Mill’s
“ Elements of Political Economy in Thompson’s “ Distri
bution of Wealth,” and probably in other works with which
I am unacquainted. It was also (disguisedly) broach ed in
several English newspapers, and was preached in lectur es to
the laboring classes, by a benevolent man, at Leeds. I do
not believe the subject has ever been touched upon, ex
cept by men of irreproachable moral character, and gene
rally of high standing in society. The chief difference
between this little treatise, and the allusions made by the
distinguished authors above mentioned, is, that what public
opinion would only permit them to insinuate, I venture to say
plainly.
~
D 2
�52
MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
My readers may implicitly depend on the accuracy of the
facts I have stated. Though, in the present state of public
opinion, I may not, for obvious reasons, give names in proof,
yet it is evident that I can have no motive whatever to mislead
or deceive. I shall consider it a favor if any individuals who
can adduce, from personal experience, facts connected with
this subject, will communicate them to me.
Note. The enlightened Condorcet, in his well-known “ Esquisse des
progres de I’esprit humain,” -very distinctly alludes to the safety and
facility with which population might be restrained, “ if reason should
but keep pace with the arts and sciences, and if the idle prejudices of
superstition should cease to shed over human morals an austerity cor
rupting and degrading, not purifying or elevating.” See his Esquisse,
pages 285 to 288, Paris Ed. 1822. Malthus (see his “ Essays on Popu
lation,’' Book III. chap. 1.) “professes not to understand the French
philosopher.” No Frenchman could misunderstand him.
CHAPTER VII.
CONCLUDING REMARKS.
That most practical of philosophers, Franklin, interprets
chastity to mean, the regulated and strictly temperate satisfac
tion, without injury to others, of those desires which are natural
to all healthy adult beings. In this sense chastity is the first
of virtues, and one most rarely practised, either by young
*
men or by married persons, even when the latter most scru
pulously conform to the letter of the law.
*
The promotion of such chastity is the chief object of tne
present work. It is all-important for the welfare of our
race, that the reproductive instinct should never be selfishly
indulged ; never gratified at the expense of the well-being of
our companions. A man who, in this matter, will not con
sult, with scrupulous deference, the slightest wishes of the
other sex ; a man who will ever put his desires in competi
tion with theirs, and who will prize more highly the pleasure
lie receives than that he may be capable of bestowing—such
a man, appears to me, in the essentials of character, a brute.
* My father, Robert Owen’s definition of chastity is also an excellent
and an important one: “PROSTITUTION, Sexual intercourse without
affection: CHASTITY, Sexual intercourse with affection.”
�MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
53
The brutes commonly seek the satisfaction of their propen
sities with straight-forward selfishness, and never calculate
whether their companions are gratified or teased by their im
portunities. Man cannot assimilate his nature more closely
to theirs than by imitating them in this.
Again. There is no instinct in regard to which strict tem
perance is more essential. All our animal desires have
hitherto occupied an undue share of human thoughts; but
none more generally than this. The imaginations of the young
and the passions of the adult are inflamed by mystery or
excited by restraint, and a full half of all the thoughts and
intrigues of the world has a direct reference to this single
instinct. Even those who, like the Shakers, “ crucify the
flesh,” are not the less occupied by it in their secret thoughts;
as the Shaker writings themselves may afford proof. Neither
human institutions nor human prejudices can destroy the
instinct. Strange it is, that men should not be content ration
ally to control and wisely to regulate it.
It is a question of passing importance, IIow may it Dest
he regulated?” Not by a Shaker vow of monkish chastity.
Assuredly not by the world’s favorite regulator, ignorance.
No. Do we wish to bring this instinct under easy govern
ment, and to assign it only its due rank among human senti
ments ? Then let us cultivate the intellect, let us exercise
the body, let us usefully occupy the time, of every human
being. What is it gives to passion its sway, and to desires
their empire, now ? It is vacancy of mind; it is listlessness
of body ; it is idleness. A cultivated race are never sensual;
a hardy race are seldom love-sick ; an industrious race have
no time to be sentimental. Develope the moral sentiments,
and they will govern the physical instincts. Occupy the
mind and body usefully, intellectually ; and the propensities
will obtain that care and time only which they merit. Upon
any other principle we may doctor poor human nature for
ever, and shall only prove ourselves empirics in the end.
Mortifications, vestal vows, mysteries, bolts and bars, prud
ish prejudices—these are all quack-medicines; and are only
calculated to prostrate lhe strength and spirits, or to heighten
the fever, of the patient. If we will dislodge error and pas
sion, we must replace them by something better. They say
that a vacuum cannot exist in nature. Least of all can it exist
in the human mind. Empty it of one folly, cure it of one
vice, and another flows in to fill the vacancy, unless it find it
already occupied by intellectual exorcise and common sense
�54
MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
Husbands and fathers! study Franklin’s definition of chas
tity. Your fears, your jealousies, have hitherto been on the
stretch to watch and guard: reflect whether it be not pleasan
ter and better, to enlighten and trust.
Honest ascetics ! you have striven to mortify the flesh;
ask yourselves whether it be not wiser to control it. You have
sought to crucify the body ; consider whether it be not more
effectual to cultivate the mind.
Have you succeeded mi
spiritualizing your secret thoughts? If not, inquire whether
every human propensity, duly governed, be not a benefit and
a blessing to the nature in which it is inherent.
Human beings, of whatever sex or class I examine dispas
sionately and narrowly the influence which the control here
recommended will produce throughout society. Reflect
whether it will not lighten the burdens of one sex, while it
affords scope for the exercise of the best feelings of the other.
Decide whether its tendency be not benignant and elevating;
conducive to the exercise of practical virtue, and to the per
manent welfare of the human race.
�APPENDIX
TO THE FIFTH EDITION.
Reception of the Work by the Public. Opinion of a talented Author. Opinion
of a Physician and Professor. Letter from a Mechanic. The work never in
tended as a political panacea. Transmission of hereditary disease. Letter on
the subject. Letter from a French gentleman. Physiological argument in fa
vor of temperance. Experience of two members of the Society of Fri ends
Objection of J. W. Objections by a physician of Indiana. Answer to them
Weighty objections. Suggestion in a letter from Manchester.
New-York, June 25, 1831
Seven months have not yet elapsed since the first publication of
“ Moral Physiology
and already I am called upon to pre
pare a fifth edition. If I am pleased (as what author is not) to
see that my labors are appreciated by the public, I am also
reminded of the additional obligations I lie under, to render the
little treatise as complete and as free from error and inaccuracy
as possible.
I have therefore carefully revised the work, and made such
amendments as have suggested themselves during these seven
months. And as, in the course of that time, I have received a mul
titude of communications (some verbal.but chiefly by letter) on ths
subject in question, I shall here add, in the shape of Appendix,
such extracts from, and comments on, a few of these, as seem
<.0 me interesting and useful.
I expected much opprobrium from the work ; and have been
not a , little surprised to find my expectations agreeably dis
�APPENDIX.
56
appointed. Never, in my life, have I written any thing that so
nearly united the suffrages of all whose opinion I care for, or
which has been suffered to spread more quietly by our opponents.
Jn this, these latter have acted wisely. Had they abused it, it
might have been the Appendix to the twentieth, not to the fifth,
edition I should now be writing.
The sentiments of approval which have reached me from vari
ous quarters, have, in the expressive language of the Old Book,
“ strengthened my hands and encouraged my heart;” for,
though the world’s opinion be worth little, there are individualsin
it whose opinion is worth much; and though a consciousness of
rectitude may support a man against all opinions, yet it is plea
sant to find, now and then, in one’s progress, concurrent senti
ments from those we esteem.
I imagine that it may afford similar encouragement, in a de
gree, to any of my readers who may chance to approve what they
read, if I quote for them a few of these opinions. I begin by se
lecting for the purpose two, which come from men both known to
me, as to the American public, only by their writings. Could I
give the names of the writers, these w ould be sufficient to secure
for their opinions a weight which no anonymous sentiments can
obtain. But, in the present state of public opinion, I do not feel
myself at liberty to do so. My readers must therefore be content
to take my word for it, that both the writers are gentlemen who
nave displayed in their works talents of a high order, and whose
personal acquaintance I should highly value.
I extract from the first letter the following:
“ I am greatly obliged to you for sending me your ‘ Moral Phy
siology.’ I have read it with pleasure and instruction. I see not
why you should anticipate censure, from any quarter, for its pub
lication. It contains no sentiment or doctrine which strikes me
unfavorably, or which any person could wish suppressed. Had
the same thoughts occurred to me, I should have entertained
them, and possibly published them, without the least suspicion of
offence to delicacy or good morals.
“ I fully concur with you, that truth can do the world no harm.
Nor do I doubt that he would be deemed a benefactor, (even an
exceedingly great benefactor,) who can teach man how to limit
his powers of reproduction without abridging his enjoyments.”
Again, the same correspondent says :
“ The value of the pow'er to limit offspring is, I think, very se
parable from any theory which involves consequences arising from
�APPENDIX.
67
the extent of population which the earth can sustain. The liini.
tation is a matter which concerns the present comfort of indivu
duals, in their private capacity; while the extent of the earth’
ultimate fecundity concerns only the thoughts of speculatists and
politicians. I say this, because I am not troubled by the spectre
of Malthus.”
This appears to me an enlightened, and also a very practical
view of the subject. The political economy of the question ought
ever to be kept separate from its moral bearings. The conse
quences involved by the former, are distant, and may be called
theoretical; while those resulting from the latter, are immediate,
and of daily recurrence in practice. If there were no tendency
whatever in the human race to increase beyond its present num
bers, the question would still be one of vital interest, and the con
sequences it involves would still be of surpassing importance to
man in his social and domestic relations. The more I reflect on
the subject, the more thoroughly convinced I am, that man can
never attain to any thing like social cultivation, without a know
ledge of the means to limit, at pleasure and without much sacri
fice of enjoyment, his power of reproduction. And I cannot but
think, that all who have seen much of the civilised world, and
carefully traced out the various causes of the vices and miseries
that pervade it, will, upon reflection, concur with me in the
opinion.
The second writer of whom I spoke (an eminent physician and
professor) says:
“ I have received your ‘ Moral Physiology.’ Your boldness
and independence are entitled to great respect. It is a very im
portant question, and ought to be brought forward, that the pub
lic opinion concerning it may be based on the only proper ground,
full and free and patient public discussion. Your method of hand
ling the subject I approve. Place, the political economist, sug
gests the remedy more boldly than any other.”
The next communication from which I shall copy is from a
young man of excellent character, living in a neighbouring state,
and now one of the conductors of a popular periodical. After sug
gesting to me the propriety of re-publishing some English works
now out of print, he proceeds as follows :
“-------- , February 23, 1831.
Had I not been addressing you upon another subject, I should
nnt have ventured to obtrude on you my small meed of approba
tion, due to your last work ; but I cannot let slip this opportunity
�58
APPENDIX.
of endeavouring to express how much I feel indebted to you for
its publication.
“ To know how I am so indebted, it is necessary you should
also know something of my situation in life : and when it is de
scribed, it is perhaps a description of the situation of two-thirds of
the journeymen mechanics of this country.
“ I have been married nearly three years, and am the father of
two children. Having nothing to depend upon but my own in
dustry, you will readily acknowledge that I had reason to look
forward with at least some degree of disquietude to the prospect
of an increasing family and reduced wages: apparently the inevi
table lot of the generality of working men. Under these circum
stances, I saw W. Jackson’s article in the Delaware Free Press •
but my feelings as a freeman (nominally) revolted at it, and I
must say that I felt greatly pleased when I found that his’ system
did not meet your approbation. You had spoken upon the sub
ject, but, like the Nazarene Reformer, you spoke in parables.
‘ Every Woman’s Book’ I could not see ; and, had not Dr. Gibbons afforded me an example of how much you might be misre
presented, I might have been tempted to believe the slanders cir
culated regarding you.
“ I had apparently nothing left but to let matters take their
own course, when your ‘ Moral Physiology’ made its appearance.
“ I read it; and a new scene of existence seemed to open be
fore me. I found myself, in this all-important matter, a free
agent, and, in a degree, the arbiter of my own destiny. I could
have said to you, as Selim said to Hassan,
‘ Thou’st hewed a mountain’s weight from off my heart.
*
My visions of poverty and future distress vanished ; the present
seemed gilded with new charms, and the future appeared no
longer to be dreaded. But you can better imagine, than I can
describe, the revolution of my feelings.
“ I have since endeavoured to circulate the little book as
widely as my limited opportunities permit, and shall continue to
do so, believing it to be the most useful work that has made its
appearance since the publication of Paine’s ‘ Common Sense
and convinced that, by so doing, I shall render you the most
acceptable return, in my power to make, for the benefit you have
conferred upon me as an individual
G.”
The next extract, from an inhabitant of Pennsylvania, I have
selected chiefly as it furnishes a beautiful, and, alas ! a rare, ex
�APPENDIX.
59
ample, of that parental conscientiousness which scruples to inipar‘
existence, where it cannot also impart the conditions necessary
to render that existence happy
“----------- , March 23, 1831.
*
% “ I use no meat, unless eggs may be considered such; I drink
neither tea, coffee, nor any thing more exciting than milk and
water; and, like yourself, I am fully satisfied, having no craving
after the luxuries of the table. With regard to ‘ Moral Physio
*
logy, let the following facts speak :
** I was born of poor parents, and early left an orphan.
When of age, though my circumstances promised poorly for
the support of a family, I desired to marry, knowing that a
good wife would greatly add to my happiness. The check spoken
of in your book (withdrawal) presented itself to my mind. And
for seven years that I have now been married, lhave continued to
practise it. I was successful in business, and acquired the means
of maintaining a family; but still I have refrained, because my
constitution is such an one as I think a parent ought not to transmit
to his offspring. I prefer refraining from giving birth to sentient
beings, unless I can give them those advantages, physical as well
as moral and intellectual, which are essential to human happiness.
“ One thing I have observed, that since I have adopted a simple
diet, and laid by all artificial stimuli, not only is my health better
and my mind more clear, but I can abstain, at will, without in
jury or inconvenience, from sexual connexion for any length of
time;’ and this without having, in the least, lost any power in
that respect.
T.”
* We applaud as a marvel, the continence of Scipio. Such continence—and
amid circumstances far more trying—is habitually found (under no other re
straint than that of public opinion) among the native Indians of our continentA friend of mine, whose family was captured by a party of Mohawk Indians some
fifty years ago, informed me, that four young women (two of them of considera
ble beauty) who were made prisoners on that occasion, were not once, during a
residence of several years, addressed, even with the remotest degree of sexual im
portunity, by an Indian, old or young, though living with them in the same wig
wam. These young women were the near relatives of the friend who related this
fact to me; and it was from their own lips he obtained it. Yet these were sa
vages.
4 How common would be such 'virtue among ourselves, but for the artificial
Stimuli, and as artificial restraints, which custom and Jaw make prevalent amonv
as.
R. D. O.
�60
APPENDIX.
From the letter of in aged French gentleman, who holds a
public office in the western country, I translate the following •
and I would that every young man and woman in these United
States could read it:
•‘I have read your little work with much interest, and desire
that it may have a wide circulation, and that its recommendations
may be adopted in practice. If you publish a third edition, I
could wish that you would add a piece of advice of the greatest
importance, especially to young married persons. Many women
are ignorant, that, in the gratification of the reproductive instinct
the exhaustion to the man is much greater than to the woman:
a fact most important to be known, the ignorance of which has
caused more than one husband to forfeit his health, nay, his life.
Tissot tells us, that the loss by an ounce of semen is equal to that
by forty ounces of blood ; and that in the case of the healthiest
*
man, nature does not demand connexion oftener than once a
month.!
“ How many young spouses, loving their husbands tenderly
and disinterestedly, if they were but informed of these facts, would
watch over and and preserve their partners’ healths, instead of
exciting them to over-indulgence 1
“ I send you a copy of Italian verses,; appropriate, like the
German stanza you have quoted in your work, to the above re
marks :
(
* Merta gli allori al crine
Chi scende in campo arinato,
• This of course must be rather a matter of conjecture and approximation, than
of accurate calculation.
r. d. O.
F- t And I doubt whether she permits it without more or less injury, to the average
of constitutions, oftener than once a week. I am convinced that atty young man who
will carefully note and compare his sensations, will become convinced, that tem
perance forbids such indulgence, at any rate, more than twice a week; and
that he trifles with his constitution who neglects the prohibition. How immea
surably important that parents should communicate to their sons, but especially
to their daughters, facts like these!
t For the English reader, 1 have attempted the following imitation of the above
lines:
Crown his brows with laurel wreath,
Who can tread the field* of death—
�6h
APPENDIX.
Chi a cento squadre a late,
Impallidir non sa:
Ma pih gloria ha nel fronte
Chi, alia ragion soggetto,
D’un sconsigliato affetto
Trionfator si ft.
I extract the following from my journal:
“ A member of the Society of Friends, from the country, called
at our office; he informed me that he had been married twenty
years, had six children, and would probably have had twice as
many, had he not practised withdrawal, which he found, in every
instance efficacious. By this means he made an interval of two
or three years between the births of each of his children. Hav
ing at last a family of six, his wife earnestly desired to have no
more ; and on one occasion, when she imagined that the necessary
precautions bad been neglected, she shed tears at the prospect of
again becoming pregnant. He said he knew, in his own neigh
bourhood, several married women who were rendered miserable
on account of their continued pregnancy, and would have given
any thing in the world to escape, but knew not how.”
This gentleman corroborated the opinion I have suggested
(page 50,) that the habit of withdrawal had an influence similar
to that of temperance in diet. Ke had found it, he said, much less
exhausting than unrestrained indulgence.
Another gentleman, also belonging to the Society of Friend^,
has since confirmed to me (as a fact proved to him by personal
experience) the above opinion. He likewise expressed his con
viction that the habit was greatly conducive to the preservation
of those first, fresh feelings, so beautiful, and, alas ! so evanes
cent,) under which the married usually come together.
.1
Tread—with armed thousands near—
And know not what it is to fear.
But greater far his meed of praise,
luster his claim to glory’s bays,
Who, true to reason’s voice, to virtue’s call,
Conquers himself, the noblest need of all.
R. D. O..
�APPENDIX.
In reply to a correspondent, J. W., who cites a case of Pria
*
pism mentioned in a Medical Journal some eight or ten years
6ince, and which pathological derangement he thinks was attri
butable to the habit of withdrawal, I reply, that the confurrent testimony of all who can speak from experience on the
subject, disproves not of course the fact he cites, but the propriety
of attributing the effect produced to the cause in question. Pria
pism, it is well known, is frequently caused by sexual excess ; and
was probably so caused in the case alluded to. Such excess is
much less likely to take place, when withdrawal is practised, than
during unrestrained indulgence.
It now remains for me to notice a communication which I re
cently received from a medical gentleman residing iu Indiana, for
whose character I entertain much respect. It regards the phy
siological portion of the work, which the writer, Dr. S----- -, thinks
is altogether inaccurate.
He refers me to Burns’, Denman’s, and Dewee’s Midwifery,
and especially to an essay by Dr. Caldwell, of Transylvania
University, on Generation, in proof that all are not agreed that
the semen must enter the uterus in order to effect impregnation.
He instances a case published in the New-York Medical Reposi
tory, and another in the Western Quarterly Reporter, in which
impregnation was effected, though immediately previous to the
child’s birth the vagina was found only large enough to admit a
common knitting needle, and the medical attendant had, in con
sequence, to make an artificial passage. And he argues, on the
authority of this and other instances where there existed such
mechanical obstruction in the vagina, os tincae,or colimn uteri, as
to render the passage of the seminal fluid next to impossible, that
tha^ fluid does not enter the uterus at all, and, consequently, that
the doctrine on which the whole work is founded, is physiologi
cal! y false; and, as being false, is calculated to do much and cruel
mischief. There are two chief theories, he says, now generally
received on the subject, the absorbent and the sympathetic ; ac
cording to both of which, all that appears absolutely necessary to
impregnation is, that the semen should be deposited somewhere in
the vagina; perhaps, to be taken up by a set of absorbent vessels,
and by them conveyed to the ovum, which ovum is, in its turn
taken up by thefinibriated ends of the Fallopian tube, and thereby
deposited in the uterus: perhaps (but I confess this seems to me
a very poetical theory,) merely to produce simultaneous anft
sympathetic action, thereby effecting the great and secret work
of nature.
�APPENDIX.
63
Now, my expression was, that “ almost all physiologists are
agreed, that the entrance of the sperm itself, or of some volatile
particles proceeding from it, into the uterus, must precede con
ception.”* The favorers of the absorbent theory will not, I pre
sume, deny this ; the few advocates of the sympathetic may.
Nor am I tenacious as regards any theory whatever, on a subject
of which the arcana still remain shrouded in comparative mystery.
Enough for my purpose, that the condition indispensable to repro
duction is, (as Dr. S----- himself reminds us,) the deposition of
the sperm in the vagina. The preventive suggested in “ Moral
Physiology,” positively precludes the fulfilment of this condition ;
and it could only have been, I imagine, by confounding it with
the partial expedient of which I have spoken, (page 50,) that
my medical friend arrived at the conclusion to which I have here
alluded.
The only argument which I conceive can be fairly urged against
it by the physiologist,j- is that to which I have adverted and replied:
(last paragraph of page 49.)
* In proof that I have not spoken unadvisedly on this subject, I may quote
what. I believe, is now considered the highest authority.
I “If the most recent works on Physiology are to be credited, the nterus, during
impregnation, opens a little, draws in the semen by inspiration, and directs it to
the ovarium by means of the Fallopian tubes, whose fimbriated extremity closely
embrace that organ.”—Magendie, p. 416, Philad. Ed.
SeealSd Blundell's and Haighton’s experiments on the rabbit, at Guy’s hospi
tal. See also Spallanzani’s experiments.
# I feel it to be my duty to add, that, since my arrival in England, I have heard
another physiological objection urged against this particular cheek ; namely, that
its influence on the female health is sometimes injurious. It has been suggested
that the deposition of sperm in the vagina cannot be dispensed with during the
.period of excitement, without producing mischievous consequeuces. In so far as
ttw may be a mere theoretical influence—a hazarded opinion, like so many other
opinions, as to “ what, in the nature of things, surely must be”—in this view of
it, I Conceive the objection entitled to little or no weight. But in so far as it may
be substantiated by facts, it is entitled to much weight. We want to know, not
what vague inference suggests, but what actual experience proves. If, unfortunattiy, experience should prove, that women, in availing themselves of this
eheck, do often, or do sometimes, lose their health, either in consequence of the
gtatifiertes being imperfect, or from any other cause, then the objection would
W fatal; and it would behove ns to enquire, whether some other check could
not be found, which even if less infallible, should be more innocent: sueb
�64
APPENDIX.
Having thus answered all the objections which have hitherto
’eached me, I conceive it unnecessary to lengthen this Appendix
by farther quotations approbatory of the work, or corroborative
of the facts it details. Let “Moral Physiology” abide the
ordeal of public examination ; if found wanting, to be cast aside
and forgotten; but if deemed true and useful, to be remembered
and approved.
perhaps, as the insertion into the vagina, previously to coition, of a small,
.moistened sponge, to he immediately afterwards withdrawn : or such as is sugJ
gested in the following extract of a letter which I lately received from a gentle
man of worth and respectability, residing near Manchester:—
“ A mother, whose health was such as to make child-bearing painful and
dangerous to her existence, was desirous, after giving birth to two children, no
urther to increase her family. Her husband’s fondness forbad him to act con
trary to the wishes of his wife: he had, from some source or other, obtained the
information given in your book, and he endeavoured to practise upon it; but
alas ! he was not sufficiently master of his feelings on one or two occasions, and
Lis wife again found herself enceinte.
“ After suffering, during the usual period, all the pains she had before ex
perienced, her health becoming daily more debilitated, she gave, at the narrow
risk of losing her life, birth to a poor little idiot.
“ Since then, a female friend informed her, that, were she to adopt the pre
caution of giving a strong cough immediately after, emission by her husband,
pregnancy would be prevented. She adopted this expedient, and with success.
“ A dear friend of mine, intimate with the lady of whom I have been speaking,
communicated the fact to me, and further assured me, that several females or
her acquaintance had adopted the check and proved its efficacy.
« If, Sir, this.be a sure preventive, 1 think it more safe and natural than with
drawal ; and preferable besides, as placing in the hands of the woman; who has
more caution and more to suffer also than our sex, the power over her destiny.’’
*“ I place these objections and suggestions, a6 they arise, before the public, though
I confess my doubt in regard to the general efficacy of the latter expedient. Let
all such suggestions be canvassed, and taken for what they are worth. Thus, and;
only thus, can truth be elicited.—Note to the Ninth edition
�
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NATIONALSECULAR SOCIETY
��MORAL PHYSIOLOGY;
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THE POPULATION QUESTION.
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ROBERT DALE OWEN,
acthob of
"footfalls on
the boundabx of another wobld,”
BTC, BTC.
“ The principle of utility is the foundation of the present work.”
Bentham on Morals and Legislation.
" The diseases of Society can, no more than corporeal maladies, be
prevented or cured, without being spoken about in plain language.”
John Stuart Mill.
A NEW EDITION.
LONDON:
E. TRUELOVE, 256, HIGH HOLBOBN.
�c
*
*» The Frontispiece which accompanies this treatise, represents a poor
mother abandoning her infant, at the gate of the Hotel des Enfans trouves,
(Foundling Hospital) at Paris. The original painting is by Vigneron, a
French artist of celebrity; it was purchased at the price of one thousand
nollars for the Gallerie Royale, and is now in the possession of the French
king.
The Hotel des Enfans trouves, than which a more humane institution
was never founded, exhibits, in its every arrangement, order, economy,
and, above all, a beautiful tenderness to the feelings of those poor crea
tures who are thus compelled to avail themselves, for their offspring, of the
asylum it affords.. No obtrusive observation is made, no unfeeling question
asked : the infant charge is received in silence, and either trained and
supported until maturity, or, if circumstances, at any subsequent period,
enable the parents to claim their offspring, it is restored to their care.
There is surely no sect, of creed so frozen, or ritual so rigid, that it can
systematize away the common feelings of humanity, or dry up, in the
breasts of some gentler spirits, the milk of human kindness. The benevo
lent founder and indefatigable supporter of this noble institution, was a
esuit. . Be the good deeds of St. Vincent de Paul remembered, long after
the intrigues and cruelties of his fellow sectaries are forgotten 1
The case selected is one ofmild, of modified,—-I had almost said, of
favored misfortune : an extreme case were too revolting for representation.
But even under these comparatively happy circumstances, when benevo
lence extends her Samaritan care to the destitute and the forsaken, who
reoart^s f°r a moment the abandoned helplessness of the deserted
child, and the mute distress of the departing mother, but will join in the
exclamation, <f Alasthat it should ever have been born
�PREFACE
I
TO THE EIGHTH EDITION
(Published in London,)
I am requested to permit and to revise an English reprint
of “Moral Physiology;” and I accede to the request,
because the same deep conviction of the importance of the
views and
recommendations therein contained, which,
nearly two years ago, first prompted their publication, has
been still confirmed to me, in the strongest manner, during
the lapse of that period.
Myself a husband and a proprietor of land, my stake in
society may absolve me, in the eyes of those who require
such securities, from the suspicion of a design against do
mestic virtue or social order. For the rest, let the work
speak for itself. It contains the plain statement of a sub
ject, which deserves to be approached in its broadest and
simplest sense; and to be dispassionately investigated, in
connexion with its own physical and moral influence on
men and women, without reference to favorite theory or
political system.
London, September, 1832.
R. D. O
��PREFACE
TO THE FIRST EDITION.
(Published in New York.)
It may be proper to state, in few words, tlie immediate circumstances
which induced me to write and publish this treatise.
Some weeks since, a gentleman coming from England brought with him
two ingenious specimens of English typography. He had been requested by
a Brighton printer, who executed them, to present these, as specimens of
the progress of the art in Great Britain, to some of his brother craftsmen
in America. He gave them to me; I admired the ingenuity displayed in
the performance; but thought they ought to have been presented to some
printers’ society rather than to an individual. I therefore addressed them
to our Typographical Society in New-York, accompanied by a note, simply
requesting the society’s acceptance of them, as specimens of the art in
England.
I thought no more of the matter until I received, the other day, my spe
cimens back again, with a long and angry letter, signed by three of the
members, accusing me of principles subversive of every virtue under
heaven, and calculated to lead to the infraction of every commandment in
the decalogue: and, more especially, of having given my sanction to a
work, as they expressed it, “ holding out inducements and facilities for
the prostitution of our daughters, sisters, and wives.”
I subsequently learned from one of the society, circumstances which some
what extenuate this childish incivility. A gentleman who busied himself
last year in making out a notable reply to the “ Society for the Protection
of Industry,” got up, at a late Typographical meeting, and read to the so
ciety, several detached extracts from a pamphlet written by Richard Carlile,
entitled “ Every Woman’s Book,” which extracts he pronounced to be
excessively indecent; and asked the society whether they would receive
any thing at the hands of a man who publicly approved a book of a ten
dency so dreadfully immoral; which, he averred, I had done. The society
were (or affected to be) much shocked, and thereupon chose a committee
to return the heretical specimens, with the letter to which I have alluded.
�VI
PREFACE,
Probably some members of the society really did believe the work to be
of pernicious influence. Had some garbled extracts only from it been read
to me, I might have misconceived its tendency. But he must be blind
indeed, who can read the pamphlet through, and then, (whether he ap
prove it or not.) a.tribute other than good intentions to the individual who put it forth.
As to the book itself, I was requested, two years since, when residing
in Indiana, to publish it, but declined doing so My chief reasons were,
that I somewhat doubted its physiological correctness • that I did not con
sider its style atd tone in good taste ; but chiefly (as I expressed it in the
New Harmonv Gazette) because I feared it would be circulated in this
country, only “ to fall into the hands of the thoughtless, and to gratify the
curiosity of the licentious, instead of falling, as it ought, into the hands of
the philanthropist, ol the physiologist, and of every father and mother of a
family.” The circumstances I have just detailed may afford proof, that
my fears regarding the hands into which it might fall, were well founded.
My principles thus officiously and publicly attacked, I have felt it a duty
to step forward and vindicate them ; and this the rather, because, unless I
give my own sentiments, I shall be understood as unqualifiedly endorsing
Richard Carlile’s. Now, no one admires more than I do the courage
which induced that bold advocate of heresy to broach this important subject;
and to him be the praise accorded, that he was the first to venture it. But
the manner of his book I do not admire. There is in it that which was
repulsive, (I will not say revolting) to my feelings on the first perusal; and
though I afterwards began to doubt whether that first impression was not
attributable, in a measure, to my prejudices, yet I cannot doubt that
a similar, and even a more unfavorable impression, will be made on the
minds of others, and thus the interests of truth be jeopardised. Then
again, I think the physiological portion of his pamphlet somewhat in
correct as to the facts, and therefore calculated to mislead, where an error
might be of important consequence.
It may seem vanity in me to imagine, that this treatise is free from
similar objections; yet I have taken great pains to render it so.
r. d, a
New York, December, 1830.
�<»•
MORAL PHYSIOLOGY
f
■
CHAPTER
■
' *
'
I.
INTRODUCTORY.
I sit down to write a little treatise, which will subject me
to abuse from the self-righteous, to misrepresentation from
the hypocritical, and to reproach even from the honestly
prejudiced. Some may refuse to read it; and many more
will misconceive its tendency. I would have delayed its
publication, had the choice been permitted me, until the
public was better prepared to receive it: but the enemies
of reform have already foisted the subject in an odious
form, on the public; and I have no choice left. If, there
fore, I touch the honest prejudices of any, let it be borne in
mind, that the occasion is not of my seeking.
The subject 1 intend to discuss is strictly physiological,
although connected, like many other physiological subjects,
with political economy, morals, and social science. In dis
cussing it, I must speak as plainly as physicians and phy
siologists do. What I mean, I must say. Pseudo-civilised
man, that anomalous creature who has been not inaptly de
fined “ an animal ashamed of his own body,” may take it
ill that I speak simply: I cannot help that.
A foreign princess, travelling towards Madrid to become
queen of Spain, passed through a little town of the penin
sula, famous for its manufactories of gloves and stockings.
The magistrates of the place, eager to evince their loyalty to
their new queen, presented her, on her arrival, with a sample
of those commodities for which their town was most remark
able. The major domo, who conducted the princess, received
the gloves very graciously; but, when the stockings were
presented, he flung them away with great indignation, and
severely reprimanded the magistrates for this egregious
pjece of indecency, “Know,” said he, “that a queen of Spain
has no legs.” *
I never could sympathise with this major-domo delicacy
and if you can, my reader, you had better throw this pamphlet
aside at once.
* See “ Memoires de la Cour d’Espagne,” by Madame d’Aunoy.
�8
MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
If you have travelled and observed much, you will already
have learnt the distinction between real and artificial pro
priety. If you have been in Constantinople, you probably
know, that when any one of the grand seignor’s wives is ill,
the physician is allowed only to see her wrist, which is thrust
through an opening in the side of the room; because it is
improper even for a physician to look upon another man's
wife; and it is thought better to sacrifice health than
*
propriety.
If you have sojourned among the inhabitants of Turcomania, you know, that they consider a woman’s virtue sa
crificed for ever, if, before marriage, she be seen to stop on
the public road to speak to her lover ;f and if you have read
Buckingham’s travels, you may remember a very romantic
story, in which a young Turcoman lady, having thus forfeited
her reputation, is left for dead on the road by her brothers,
who were determined their sister should not survive her
dishonor.
Perhaps you may have travelled in Asia. If so, you can
not be ignorant how grossly indecorous to Asiatic ears it is,
to inquire of a husband after his wife’s health; and proba
bly you may know, that men have lost their lives to atone
for such an impropriety. You know, too, of course, that in
Eastern nations it is indecent for a woman to uncover her
face ; but perhaps you may not know, unless your travels
have extended to Abyssinia, that there the indecency consists
in uncovering the feet.J
In Central Africa, you may have seen women bathing in
public, without the slightest sense of impropriety ; but you
were doubtless told, that men could not be permitted a simi
lar liberty ; seeing that modesty requires they should perform
their ablutions in private.
If my reader has seen all or any of these countries and
customs, I doubt not that he or she will read my little book
understandingly; and interpretit in the purity which springs
from enlarged and enlightened views ; or, indeed, from com
mon sense. If not—if you who now peruse these lines have
been educated at home, and have never passed the boundary
line of your own nation—perhaps of your own village—if you
have not learnt that there are other proprieties besides those
of your country; and that, after all, genuine modesty has
* See Tournefort’s Travels in Turkey,
t See Buckingham’s Travels in Asia,
t See Bruce’s Travels in Abyssinia.
�MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
9
*ts legitimate seat in the heart, not in the outward form or
sanctioned custom—then, I fear me, you may chance to cast
these pages from you, as the major domo did the proffered
stockings, unconscious that the indelicacy lies, not in.my
simple words, or the Spanish magistrates honest offeiing,
but in the pruriently sensitive imagination that discovers
impropriety in either. Yet, even though inexperienced, if
you be still young and pure-minded, you may read this
pamphlet through, and I shall fear from your lips, or in your
hearts, no unworthy misconstruction. .
Young men and women ! you who, if ignorant, are uncor
rupted also; you in whose minds honest and simple words
■call up none but honest and simple ideas ; you who think no
evil ; you who are still believers in human virtue and human
happiness ; you who, like our fabled first parents in their
paradise, are yet unlearned alike in the hypocritical conven
tionalities and the odious vices of pseudo-civilization ; you
with whom love is stronger than fear, and the law within the
breast more powerful than that in the statute-book; you
whose feelings are still unblunted, and whose sympathies
•till warm and generous ; you who belong to the better por
tion of your species, and who have formed your opinion of
mankind from guileless spirits like your own—young men
and women 1 it is to your pure feelings I would speak : it is
by your unsophisticated hearts I would fain have my treatise
and my motives judged.
Libertines and debauchees! this book is not for you. You
are unable to appreciate the subject of which it treats. Bring
ing to its discussion, as you must, a distrust or contempt, of
the human race—accustomed, as you unfortunately are, to
confound liberty with licence, and pleasure with debauchery,
your palled feelings and brutalized senses no longer suffice
to distinguish moral truth in its purity and simplicity. I
never discuss this subject with such as you ; because I
esteem it useless, and know it disagreeable, to do so. It has
been remarked, that nothing is so suspicious in a woman as
vehement pretensions to especial chastity : it is no less true,
that the most obtrusive and sensitive stickler tor the etiquette
of orthodox morality is the heartless rake. The little inter
course I have had with men of your stamp, warns me to
avoid the discussion of any species of moral heresy with
you. You approach such subjects in a tone and spirit re
volting alike to good taste and good feeling. You seem to
presuppose—from your own experience, perhaps—that the
hearts of all men, and more especially of all women, are
�MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
9
*ts legitimate seat in the heart, not in the outward form or
sanctioned custom—then, I fear me, you may chance to cast
these pages from you, as the major domo did the proffered
stockings, unconscious that the indelicacy lies, not in.my
simple words, or the Spanish magistrates honest offeiing,
but in the pruriently sensitive imagination that discovers
impropriety in either. Yet, even though inexperienced, if
you be still young and pure-minded, you may read this
pamphlet through, and I shall fear from your lips, or in your
hearts, no unworthy misconstruction. .
Young men and women ! you who, if ignorant, are uncor
rupted also; you in whose minds honest and simple words
■call up none but honest and simple ideas ; you who think no
evil ; you who are still believers in human virtue and human
happiness ; you who, like our fabled first parents in their
paradise, are yet unlearned alike in the hypocritical conven
tionalities and the odious vices of pseudo-civilization ; you
with whom love is stronger than fear, and the law within the
breast more powerful than that in the statute-book; you
whose feelings are still unblunted, and whose sympathies
•till warm and generous ; you who belong to the better por
tion of your species, and who have formed your opinion of
mankind from guileless spirits like your own—young men
and women 1 it is to your pure feelings I would speak : it is
by your unsophisticated hearts I would fain have my treatise
and my motives judged.
Libertines and debauchees! this book is not for you. You
are unable to appreciate the subject of which it treats. Bring
ing to its discussion, as you must, a distrust or contempt, of
the human race—accustomed, as you unfortunately are, to
confound liberty with licence, and pleasure with debauchery,
your palled feelings and brutalized senses no longer suffice
to distinguish moral truth in its purity and simplicity. I
never discuss this subject with such as you ; because I
esteem it useless, and know it disagreeable, to do so. It has
been remarked, that nothing is so suspicious in a woman as
vehement pretensions to especial chastity : it is no less true,
that the most obtrusive and sensitive stickler tor the etiquette
of orthodox morality is the heartless rake. The little inter
course I have had with men of your stamp, warns me to
avoid the discussion of any species of moral heresy with
you. You approach such subjects in a tone and spirit re
volting alike to good taste and good feeling. You seem to
presuppose—from your own experience, perhaps—that the
hearts of all men, and more especially of all women, are
�10
MOKAL PHYSIOLOG f.
deceitful above all things and desperately wicked ; that vio
lcnce and vice are inherent in human nature, and that
nothing but laws and ceremonies prevent the world from
becoming a vast slaughter-house or a universal brothel.
You are led to judge your own sex and the other by the
specimens you have met with in haunts of mercenary pro
fligacy ; and, with such a standard in your minds, I niarvel
not that you remain incorrigible unbelievers in any virtue,
but that which is forced in the prudish hot-bed of ceremoni
ous conformity. You willnot trust the natural soil, watered
from the free skies and warmed by the life-bringing sun.
How should you? you have never seen it produce but weeds
and poisons. Libertines and debauchees ! cast my book
aside! You will find in it nothing to gratify a licentious
curiosity ; and, if you read it, you will probably only give
me credit for motives and impulses like your own.
And you, prudes and hypocrites ! you who strain at a gnat
and swallow a camel ; you whom Jesus likened to whited
sepulchres, which without indeed are beautiful, but within
are full of all unclcanness; you who affect to blush if the
ancle is incidentally mentioned in conversation, or displayed
in crossing a stile, but will read indecencies enough, without
scruple, in your closets; you who, at dinner, ask to be helped
to the bosom of a duck, lest, by mention of the word breast,
you call up improper associations; you who have nothing
but a head and feet and fingers ; you who look demure by
daylight, and make appointments only in the dark—you,
prudes and hypocrites ! I address not. Even if honest in
your prudery, your ideas of right and wrong are so artificial
and confused, that you are not likely to profit by the present
discussion; if dishonest, I desire to have no communication
with you.
Reader! if you belong to the class of prudes or libertines,
I pray you, follow my argument no farther. My heresies
will not suit you. As a prude, you will find them too honest;
as a libertine, too temperate. In the former case, you will
call me a very shocking person ; in the latter, a quiz or a bore.
But if you be honest, upright, pure-minded ; if you be
unconscious of unworthy motive or selfish passion ; if truth
be your ambition, and the welfare of our race your objectthen approach with me a subject the most important to man s
W'ell-being ; and approach it, as I do, in a spirit of dispas
sionate, disinterested, free inquiry. Approach it, resolving
to prove all things, and hold fast that which is good. 1 ho
discussion is one to which it is every man’s and every wo •
�11
MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
man’s duty, (and ought to be every one’s business,) to attend.
The welfare of the present generation, and—yet far more—of
the next, requires it; common sense sanctions it; and the t
national motto of my former country, “ Honi soit qui mal y <
pcnse,” * may explain the spirit in which it is undertaken,
and in which it ought to be received.
Reader! it ought to concern you nothing who or what I _
am, who now address you. Truth is truth, if it fall from t
Satan’s lips; and error ought to be rejected, though preached
by an angel from heaven. Even as an anonymous work,
therefore, this treatise ought to obtain a full and candid
examination from you. But, that you may not imagine I
am ashamed of honestly discussing a subject so useful and
important, I have given you my name on the title page.
Neither is it any concern of yours what my character is, or
has been. No man of sense or modesty unnecessarily ob
trudes personalities that regard himself, on the public. And,
most assuredly, it is neither to gratify your curiosity nor my
vanity, if I now do violence to my feelings, and speak a few
words touching myself. I do so, to disarm, if I can, preju
dice of her sting, thus obtaining the ears of the prejudiced ;
and to acquaint my readers, that they are conversing with
one whom circumstance and education have happily pre
served from habits of excess and associations of profligacy.
All those who have known the life and private habits of
the writer of this little treatise, will bear him witness, that
what he now states is true, to the letter. He was in
debted to his parents for habits of the strictest temperancesome would call it, abstemiousness—in all things. He never,
at any time, habitually used ardent spirits, wine, or strong
drink of any kind : latterly, he has not even used animal
food. He never entered a brothel in his life ; nor associated,
even for an evening, with those poor, unhappy victims, whom
the brutal, yet tolerated vices of men, or their own unsus
picious or ungoverned feelings, have betrayed to misery and
* One of the English kings, Edward III., in the year 1344, picked up
from the floor of a ball-room, an embroidered garter belonging to a
lady of rank. In returning it to her, he checked the rising smile of his
courtiers with the words, “ Honi soit qui mal y pense ! ” or, paraphrased
in English, “ Shame on him who invidiously interprets it!” The senti
ment has become the motto of the English national arms. It is one
which might be not inaptly nor unfrequently applied in rebuking the
mawkish, skin-deep, and intolerant morality of this hypocritical and pro
fligate age.
�12
MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
degradation. He never sought the company but of the intei
lectual and self-respecting of the other sex, and has no asso
ciations connected with the name of woman, but those of
esteem and respectful affection. To this day, he is even
girlishly sensitive to the coarse and ribald jests in which
young men think it witty to indulge at the expense of a
sex they cannot appreciate. The confidence with which
women may have honored him, he has never selfishly abused;
and, at this moment, he has not a single wrong with which
to reproach himself towards a sex, which he considers the
equal of man in all the essentials of character, and his su
perior in generous disinterestedness and moral worth.
I check my pen. I have said enough, perhaps, to awaken
the confidence of those whose confidence I value; enough,
assuredly to excite the ridicule, or the sneer, of him who
walks through life wrapped up in the cloak of conformity,
and laughs, among his private boon companions, at the
scruples of every novice, who will not, like himself, regard
debauchery and seduction (in secret) as manly and spirited
amusements.
And now, reader! if I have succeeded in awakening your
attention, and enlisting in this inquiry your reason and your
better feelings, approach with me a subject the most interest
ing and important to you, to me, to all our fellow-creatures.
If you be a woman, forget that I am a man : if a man, listen
to me as you would to a brother. Let us converse, not as
men, nor as women, but as human beings, with common in
terests, instincts, wants, weaknesses. Let us converse, if it
be possible, without prejudice and without passion. What
ever be your sex, sect, rank, or party, to you I address 1lie
poet’s exhortation—here, far more strictly applicable, than in
the investigation to which he applied it—
“ Retire I the world shut out: thy thoughts call home;
Imagination’s airy wing repress;
Lock up thy senses ; let no passion stir j
Wake all to reason j let her reign alone.”
�MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
CHAPTER II.
STATEMENT OF THE SUBJECT.
Among the various instincts which contribute to man's pre
servation and well-being, the instinct of reproduction holds a
distinguished rank. It peoples the earth; it perpetuates
the species. Controlled by reason and chastened by good
feeling, it gives to social intercourse much of its charm and
zest. Directed by selfishness, or governed by force, it is pro
lific of misery and degradation. Whether wisely or unwisely
directed, its influence is that of a master principle, that
colors, brightly or darkly, much of the destiny of man.
It is sometimes spoken of as a low and selfish propensity ;
and the Shakers call it a “ carnal and sensual passion/’* I
see nothing in the instinct itself that merits such epithets.
Like other instincts, it may assume a selfish, mercenary, or
brutal character. But, in itself, it appears to me the most
social and least selfish of all our instincts. It fits us to give,
even while receiving, pleasure ; and, among cultivated beings,
the former power is ever more highly valued than the latter.
Not one of our instincts affords larger scope for the exercise
of disinterestedness, or fitter play for the best moral sentiments
of our race. Not one gives birth to relations more gentle,more
humanizing and endearing; not one lies more immediately
at the root of the kindliest charities and most generous lmpulses that honor and bless human nature. Its very power,
indeed, gives fatal force to its aberrations ; even as the waters
of the calmest river, when dammed up or forced from their
bed, flood and ruin the country : but the gentle flow and fer
tilising influence of the stream are the fit emblems of the in
stinct, when suffered, undisturbed by force or passion, to
follow its own quiet channel.
That such an instinct should be thought and spoken of as
a low, selfish propensity, and, as such, that the discussion of
its nature and consequences should be almost interdicted
among human beings, is to me a proof ot the profligacy
of the age, and the impurity of the pseudo-civilized
mind. I imagine, that if all men and women were gluttons
• See “ A brief Exposition of the Principles of the United Society
calledShakers,” published by Calvin Green and Seth Y. Wells, Albany,
N.Y,, 1830,
�MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
and drunkards, they would, in like manner, be ashamed to
^peak of diet or temperance.
Were I an optimist, and had I accustomed myself to
judge and to admire the arrangements of nature, I should
he inclined to put forward, as one of the most admirable,
the arrangement according to which the temperate fulfil
ment of the dictates of this, as of almost all other instincts,
confers pleasure. The desire of offspring would probably
induce us to perpetuate the species, though no gratifica
tion were connected with the act. In the language of the
optimist, then, “ pleasure is gratuitously superadded.” But,
instead of pausing to admire arrangements and intentions, the
great whole of which human reason seems little fitted to ap
preciate or comprehend, I content myself with remarking,
that this very circumstance (in itself surely a fortunate one,
* inasmuch as it adds another to the sources of human happi
ness) has often been the cause of misery; and, from a bless
ing, has been perverted into a curse. Enjoyment has led to
excess, and sometimes to tyranny and barbarous injustice.
Were the reproductive instinct disconnected from pleasure
of any kind, it would neither afford enjoyment nor admit of
abuse. As it is, the instinct is susceptible of either: just as
wisdom or ignorance governs human laws, habits and cus
toms. It behooves us, therefore, to be especially careful in
its regulation, lest what is a great good may become a great
evil.
This instinct, then, may be regarded in a two-fold light;
first, as giving the power of reproduction ; second, as afford
ing pleasure.
And here, before I proceed, let me call to the reader’s
mind, that it is the province of rational beings to bear utility
strictly in view. Reason recognises the romantic and un
earthly reveries of Stoicism, as little as she does the doctrines
of health-destroying and mind-debasing debauchery. She
reprobates equally a contemning and an abusing of pleasure
She bids us avoid asceticism on the one hand, and excess on
the other. In all our inquiries, then, let reason guide us.
and let utility be our polar star.
I have often had long arguments with my friends, the
*
'Shakers, touching the two-fold light in which the reproduc* I call them my friends, because, however little I am disposed to
accede to their peculiar principles, I have met, from among their body, a
great proportion of individuals who have taken with them my friendship
and sympathy.
�MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
15
live instinct may be regarded. They commonly stand out
stoutly against the propriety of considering it except simply
as a means of perpetuating the species ; and they deny that it
may be regarded as a legitimate source of enjoyment. In
this 1 totally dissent from them. It is a much more noble,
because less purely selfish,instinct, than hunger or thirst; and,
though it differ from hunger and thirst in this,that it may re
main ungratified without causing death, I have yet to learn,
I that because it fe possible, it is therefore also desirable, to
mortify and repress it. I admit, to the Shakers, that in the
world, profligate and hypocritical as we see it, this instinct is
the source of much misery ; and that if I bad to choose between
the life of the profligate man of the world and that of the asce
tic Shaker, 1 should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.
But, for admitting that the most social and kindly of human
instincts is sensual and degrading in itself, I cannot. I think
its influence moral, humanising, polishing, beneficent; and
that the social and physical education of no man or woman is
fully completed without it. Its mortification (though far less
injurious than its excess) is very mischievous. If it do
not give birth to peevishness, or melancholy, or incipient dis
ease, or unnatural practices, at least it almost always freezes
and stiffens the character ; checking the flow of its kindliest
emotions, and not unfrequently giving to it a solitary, anti
social, selfish stamp.
I deny the position of the Shaker, then, that the indul
gence of the instinct is justifiable (if, indeed, it be justifiable
at all) only as necessary to the reproduction of the species.
It is justifiable, in my view, just in as far as it makes man a
happier and a better being. It is justifiable, both as a source
of temperate enjoyment, and as a means by which the sexes
mutually polish and improve each other.
If a Shaker has read my little book thus far, and cannot re
concile his mind to this idea, he may as well close it at once.
I found all my arguments on the position, that the pleasure
derived from this instinct, independent of and totally distinct
from its ultimate object, the reproduction of our race, is good,
proper, worth securing and enjoying. I maintain, that its
temperate enjoyment is a blessing, both in itself and in its
influence on human character.
Upon this distinction of the instinct into its two-fold cha
racter, rests the present discussion. It sometimes happens,
nay, it happens every day and hour, that mankind obey it»
dictates, not from any calculation of consequences, but sim
ply from animal impulse. Thus many children who are
�16
MORAL PHYSIOLOGY,
brought into the world owe their existence, not to deliberate
conviction in their parents that their birth is desirable, but
simply to an unreasoning instinct, which men, in the mass,
have not learnt either to resist or control.
V
It is a serious question—and surely an exceedingly proper
and important one—whether man can obtain, and whether ■
he is benefitted by obtaining, control over this instinct Is
IT DESIRABLE THAT IT SHOULD NEVER BE GRATIFIED WITH
OUT AN INCREASE TO POPULATION ? Or, IS IT DESIRABLE,
THAT, IN GRATIFYING IT, MAN SHALL BE ABLE TO SAY WHE
THER OFFSPRING SHALL BE THE RESULT OR NOT ?
To answer the questions satisfactorily, it would be neces
sary to substantiate, that such control may be obtained with
out injury to the physical health, or violence to the moral
feelings; and also, that it may be obtained without any
leal sacrifice of enjoyment; or, if that cannot be, with as
little as possible.
This is the plain statement of the subject. It resolves
itself into two distinct heads: first, the desirability of such
control, and, secondly, its possibility.
In examining its desirability, we enter a wide field, a field
often traversed by political economists, by moralists, and by
philosophers, though generally, it will be confessed, to little
purpose. This may be, in a great measure, attributed rather
to their fear than their ignorance. The world would not
permit them to say what they knew. I intend that my
readers shall know all that I know on the subject; for 1
have ceased to ask the world’s leave to say what I think
and what I believe to be useful to the public.
I propose to consider the question in the abstract, and
then to examine it in its political and social bearings.
CHAPTER III.
THE QUESTION EXAMINED IN THE ABSTRACT.
Is it in itself desirable, that man should obtain control over
the instinct of reproduction, so as to determine when its
gratification shall produce offspring, and when it shall not?
But that men have not accustomed themselves to free and
dispassionate reflection, and that the various superstitions
�MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
17
of the nursery pervade the opinions and cramp the inquiries •
of after-life;—but for this, the very statement of the
question might suffice to obtain for it the assent of every
rational being. Nothing so elevates a man above the brute
creation, as the due control of his instincts. The lower animal
follows them blindly, unreflectingly. The serpent gorges
Himself; the bull fights, even to death, with his rival of the
pasture : the dog makes deadly war for a bone. They know
nothing of progressive improvement. The elephant or the
beaver of the nineteenth century, are just as wise and no
wiser, than the elephant or the beaver of two thousand years
ago. "Man alone has the power to improve, to cultivate, to
elevate his nature, from generation to generation. He alone
can control his instincts by reflection of consequences, and
regulate his passions by the precepts of wisdom.
It is strange, that even at this period of the world, we
should have to remind each other, that all knowledge of facts
is useful; or, at the least, that it cannot be injurious. The
knowledge of some facts may be unimportant; the know
ledge of none is mischievous. A human being is a puppet,
a glave, if his ignorance is to be the safeguard of his virtue.
Nor shall we know where to stop, if we follow up this prin
ciple. Shall we give our sons lessons in mechanics? but
they may thereby learn to pick locks. Shall we teach them
to read ? but they may thus obtain access to falsehood and
folly. Shall we instruct them in writing? but they may
become forgers.
Such, in effect, was the reasoning of men in the dark ages.
vVhen Walter Scott puts in the mouth of Lord Douglas, on
the discovery of Marmion’s treachery, the following excla
mation, it is strictly in accordance with the spirit and pre
vailing opinions of the times :
“ A letter forged 1 Saint Jude to speed
Did ever knight so foul a deed 1
At first in heart it liked me ill,
When the king praised his clerkly skill.
Thanks to Saint Bothan, son of mine,
Save Gawain, ne’er could pen a line
So swore I, and so swear I still,
Let my boy bishop fret his fill.”
The days are gone by when ignorance can be the safeguard
of virtue. The only rock-foundation for virtue is knowledge.
There is no fact, in physics or in morals, that ought to be
concealed from the inquiring mind. Let that parent who
B
�18
MORAL PHYSIOLOGY,
thinks to secure lis sons’honesty or his daughters’innocence
by keeping back from them facts—let that parent know,
that he is building up their morality on a sandy founda
tion. The rains and the floods of the world’s influence shall
beat upon that virtue, and great shall be the fall thereof.
If, then, man can obtain control over this most important
of instincts, it is, in principle, right that he should know it.
If men, after obtaining such knowledge, think fit not to use
it; if they deem it nobler and more virtuous, to follow each
animal impulse, like the beasts of the field and the fowls of
the air, without a thought of its consequences, or an inquiry
into its nature—let them do so. The knowledge that they
have the power to act more like rational beings will not
injure, if it fail to benefit, them. They may set it aside, may
neglect it, may forget it, if they can. Only let them show
common sense enough to permit that others,who are more slow
to incur sacred responsibilities, and more willing to give
reason the control of instinct, should obtain the requisite
knowledge, and follow out their prudent resolutions.
If this little book were in the hands of every adult in the
United States, not one need profit by it, unless he saw fit.
Nor will any man admit, that he can possibly be injured by it.
Oh no 1 His virtue can bear any quantity of light. But then,
his neighbour’s, or his son’s, or his daughter’s!
This would lead me to discuss the social bearings of the
question. But, as conceiving it more in order, I shall first
speak of it in connexion with political economy.
CHAPTER IV.
THE QUESTION IN ITS CONNEXION WITH POLITICAL ECONOMY.
The population question, as it is called, has of late years
occupied much attention, especially in Great Britain. It
was first prominently brought forward and discussed there in
the year 1798, by Malthus, an English clergyman. Godwin,
Ricardo, Place, Mill, Thompson, Robert Owen, and other
celebrated cotemporary writers, have all discussed it, with
more or less reserve, and at greater or less length.
Malthus’ work has become the text book of a large poli
tico-economist party in England. His doctrine is that
�MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
]£)
“population, unrestrained, will advance beyonS the means of
subsistence.” He asserts, that, in most countries, population
at this moment presses against the means of subsistence;
and that, in all countries, it has a tendency so to do. He
recommends, as a preventive of the growing evil, celibacy
till a late age, say thirty years ; and he asserts, that unless
this “moral restraint” be exerted, vice, poverty and misery
must continue to be the checks to population. The ten
dency of such principles appears to me very mischievous;
though, upon the whole, the work of Mr. Malthus, by pro
voking inquiry, will, I doubt not, prove a source of good.
I have heard some of his disciples openly declare, that they
considered the crimes and wretchedness of society to be
necessary—to be the express ordainings of Providence in
tended to prevent the earth from being overpeopled. I
have heard it argued by men of rank, wealth and influence,
that the distinctions of rich and poor, and even of morality
and immorality, of luxury and want, will and must exist to
the end of the world ; that he who attempts to remove them
fights against God and nature ; and, if he partiaJly succeed,
will but afford the human race an opportunity to increase,
until the earth shall no longer suffice to contain them, and
men shall be compelled to prey on each other. It must bo
confessed, that this is a comfortable doctrine for the rich idler;
it is a healing salve to the luxurious conscience ; an opiate to
drown the still small voice of truth and humanity, which calls
to every man to be up and do his part towards the alleviation
of the human suffering that everywhere stares himin the face.
*
It is vain to argue with the defenders of the evils that be,
that, for the present, there is land and every other necessary
in abundance for all, if there were wisdom in the distribu
tion ; and that the day of ultimate overstocking is afar off.
They tell you, that day must come at last; and that the more
you do to remove vice and misery—those destroyers of popu
lation—the sooner it will come. And what reply can one
make to the argument in the abstract? I believe it to be
true, that population, unrestrained,f will double itself on an
* Let me not be understood as charging on Mr. Malthus himself a style
of reasoning he disclaims. I do but remind the reader how easilv weak
or selfish men may pervert his doctrine to mischievous purposes.
t By unrestrained, Malthus and his disciples mean, not restricted or
destroyed by any incidental check whatever, moral or immoral, pruden
tial or violent. Thus, poverty, war, libertinism, famine, &c. are allclteckR
*o population. In this sense, and not simply as applying to preventive
moral restraint, have I employed the word throughout this chapter.
B2
�MORAL PHYSIOLOGY
20
average every twenty-five to fifty years. If so, it is evidvnt
to a demonstration, that, if population were not restrained,
morally or immorally, the earth would at last furnish scarcely
foothold for the human beings produced.
Take the least rapid of the above rates of increase, and
say, that population, unrestrained, will double itself every
fifty years. That it has done so, (without reckoning the
increase from emigration,) in many parts of this continent
is certain.
Then, if we suppose the present numerous checks to po
pulation, viz. want, war, vice, and misery, removed by
rational reform, and if we assume the present population of
the world at one thousand millions, we shall find the rate
of increase as follows:—At the end of
100 years, there would be four thousand millions.
200 —------------------------ sixteen thousand millions.
300 -------------------------- sixty-four thousand millions.
400 --------------------------- two hundred and fifty-six thou
sand millions.
And so on, multiplying by 4 for every hundred years. So
that, in 500 years, if we imagine unchecked increase, there
would be more than a thousand times as many as at present;
and in 1,000 years, upwards of a million times as many
human beings as at this moment.
It is evident, then, to demonstration, that there is notspace
on this earth for population, under any circumstances, to in
crease unrestrained, during more than a very few hundred
years. We are thus compelled to admit to Malthus, that, sooner
or later, some restraint or other to population mast be em
ployed ; and compelled to admit to his aristocratic ex
pounders, that if no other better restraint than vice and
misery can be found, then vice and misery must be; they are
the lot of man, from generation to generation.
Let me repeat it: it is no question—never can be a ques
tion—whether there shall be a restraint to population or not.
There must be; unless indeed we imagine communication
opened with other planets, so that we may people them.
In the nature of things, there must be a check, of some
kind. The only question is, what that check shall be—
whether, as heretofore, the check of war, want, profligacy,
misery; or a “ moral restraint,” suggested by experience
and sanctioned by reason.
Let those, then, who cry out against this little treatise, be
told, that though they may postpone the question, no human
power can evade it. It must come up. Had the friends of
reform been left to choose their own time it might, perhaps
�MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
21
With advantage, have been postponed. And it is an imagi
nable case, that prejudice might delay it until a general
famine or a universal civil war became the frightful checks.
But will any man of common sense argue the propriety of
suffering such a crisis to approach?
Malthus saw this. He saw that some check must exist;
and, whatever some of his disciples might say, he did not
intend to be considered the apologist of vice and misery
His theory, indeed, supplied specious arguments to those
who assert, with the ingenious author of the Fable of the
*
Bees, that “ private vices are public benefits
and fur
nished a comfortable excuse for supine contentment witji a
vicious and degrading order of things. But Malthus him
self declares the only proper check to be, the general prac
tice of celibaey to a late age. He employs all his eloquence
to persuade men and women that they ought not to marry
till they are twenty-eight or thirty years of age ; and that, if
they do, they are contributing to the misery of the world.
Now, Mr. Malthus may preach for ever on this subject.
Individuals may indeed be found, who will look to distant
consequences, and sacrifice present enjoyment; even as indi
viduals are found to become and remain Shaking Quakers:
but to believe that the mass of mankind will abjure, through
the ten fairest years of lite, the nearest and dearest of social
relations ; and during the very holiday of existence, will live
the life of monks and nuns—all to atone for a mal-administration of the earth’s resources, or to avert an ultimate catas
trophe which is confessedly some hundreds of years distant—
to believe this, requires a faith, which no accurate observer
of mankind possesses.
This weak point the aristocratic expounders of Malthus’
doctrines were not slow to discover. They broadly asserted,
that such “moral restraint” would never be generally prac
tised. They asked, whether a young woman, to whom a
comfortable home and a pleasant companion were offered,
would refuse to accept them, on this theory of population ;
whether a young man who had a fair (or even but a very
indifferent) prospect of maintaining a family, would doom
himself to celibacy, lest lhe world should be overpeopled.
And they put it to the advocates of late marriages, whether,
in one sex at least, the recommendation, if even nominally
followed, would not almost certainly lead to vicious excess
• Mandeville
�22
MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
and degrading- associations ; thus resolving the check at last
into vice and misery. As experience answers these ques
tions in the negative, is it not clear, (they proceeded exultingly to ask,) that vice and misery are the natural lot of man;
and that it is quixotic, if not impious, to plague ourselves
about them, or to attempt, by their suppression, to contro
vert the decrees of God 1
It was very easy for generous feelings to reply to so heart
less an argument. It was easy to ask, whether even the
apparent hopelessness of the case formed any legitimate apo
logy for supine indifference ; or whether, where we cannot
cure, we are absolved from the duty of alleviating. But it
was not very easy fully and fairly to meet the whole question.
It was idle to deny that preaching would not put off mar
riage for ten years: and if no other species of moral restraint
than ten years Shakerism could be proposed, it did ap
pear evident enough, that moral restraint would be by the
mass neglected, and that the physical checks of vice and
misery must come into play at last.
I pray my readers, then, distinctly to observe, how the
matter stands. Population, unrestrained, must increase
beyond the possibility of the earth and its produce to support.
At present ft is restrained by vice and misery. The only
remedy which the orthodoxy of the English clergyman
permits him to propose, is, late marriages. The most en
lightened observers of mankind are agreed, that nothing con
tributes so positively and immediately to demoralize a nation,
as when its youth refrain, until a late period, from forming
disinterested connexions with those of the other sex. The
frightful increase of prostitutes, the destruction of health,
the rapid spread of intemperance, the ruin of moral feelings,
are, to the mass, the certain consequences. Individuals
there are, who escape the contagion; individuals whose
better feelings revolt, under any temptation, from the mer
cenary embrace, or the Circean cup of intoxication ; but these
are exceptions only. The mass will have their pleasures, the
pleasures of intellectual intercourse, of unbought affection,
and of good taste and good feeling, if they can ; but if they
cannot, then such pleasures (alas! that language should be
perverted to entitle them to the name!) as the sacrifice of
money and the ruin of body and mind can purchase.
*
* Lawrence, the ingenious author of the “ Empire of the Nairs,”
says, shrewdly enough: “ Wherever the women are prudes* the men
will be drunkards."
�MORAL PHYSIOLOGY
'
23
But this is not all. Not only is Malthus’ proposition
fraught with immorality, in that it discountenances to a latt
age those disinterested sexual connexions which can alone
save youth from .vice ; but it is ineradicable. Men and
women will scarcely pause to calculate .‘he chances they have
of affording support to their children ere they become
parents : how, then, should they stop to calculate the chances
of the world’s being overpeopled ? Mr. Malthus may say what
he pleases, they never will make any such calculation; and
it is folly to expect they should.
Let us observe, then: unless some less ascetic and more
vracticable species of “ moral restraint” be‘introduced, vice and
misery will ultimately become the inevitable lot of man. He
can no more escape them, than he can the light ot the sun,
or the stroke of death.
What an incitement, this, to the prosecution of our in
quiry 1 Here is an argument put forth, wLMi is all but an
apology for the apathy that prevails among the rich and the
powerful—among governors and legislators—in regard to
human improvement. How important, how essential for the
interests of virtue that it should be refuted! How beneficent
that knowledge, wtich discloses to us some moral practi
cable check to population, and relieves us from the despairing
conclusion, that the irrevocable doom of man is misery, with
out remedy and without end ! In the absence of such know
ledge, truly the prospects of the world were dark and cheer
less. Philanthropy herself pauses, when she begins to fear
that all her exertions are to result inhopetess disappointment.
And yet—such is this world—even the ablest opponents of
Malthus stop short when they come to the question, and
leave an argument unanswered, which a dozen pages might
suffice for ever to set at rest.
Let one of the most intellig nt of these opponents—a man
of sterling talent—let Mill, be well-known political econo
mist, and author of “ British L.'dia,” speak for himself:
“ What are the best means of checking the progress of
population, when it cannot go on unrestraired without pro
ducing one or other of two most undesirable effects, either
drawing an undue portion of the population to the mere
raising of food, or producing poverty and wretchedness, it is
not now the time to inquire. It is, indeed, the most important
practical problem to which the wisdom of lhe politician and the
tliorali^ can be applied. It has, till this time, been miserably
evaded by all those who have meddled with the subject, as
well as by these who were called on by lheir situation to find
�MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
24
a remedy for the evils to which it relates. And yet, if the.
superstitions of the nursery were disregarded, and the principle
of utility hept steadily in view, a solution might not be very
difficult to be found; and the means of drying up one of the
most copious sources of human evil—a source which, if all
other sources were taken away, might alone suffice to retain the
great mass of human beings in misery, might be seen to be
neither doubtful nor difficult to be applied.”—Art. Colony,
Encyclopaedia Britannica.
Let my readers bear in mind, that this is from the pen oi
one of the most admired writers of the present day; a man
celebrated throughout Europe, for his works on political
economy, and whose writings are not unknown on this side
the Atlantic. He considers the question now under discus
sion to involve “ the most important problem to which the
wisdom of the politician and moralist can be applied.” This
question, he admits, has ever been “ miserably evaded.”
Yet even a man so influential and clear-sighted as Mill,
must, himself yield to the weakness he reprobates; must speak
in parables, as the Nazarene reformer did before him; and,
even while commenting on the “ miserable evasion” of a
subject so engrossingly important, must imitate the very
evasion he despises.
*
I will not imitate it. I am more independently situated
than was the English economist; and I see, as clearly as he
does, the extreme importance of the subject. What he saw
and declared ought to be said, I will say.
Before concluding this chapter, let me distinctly state an
opinion, from which Mr. Malthus himself, if I read his doc
trine aright, will hesitate to dissent. I am convinced, that,
at this moment, there is nothing approaching to an excess
of population, absolutely considered, in a single country of
Europe. Iniquitous laws, false education, and a vicious
order of things, are continually producing effects, which are
erroneously attributed to over-population; effects which
spring, not from the number, but from the ignorance, of men.
Monopolies favour the rich, imposts oppress the poor, com
mercial rivalry grinds to the dust the victims of an over
grown system of competition. To such causes as these, ana
not to positive excess of people, at the time being, is the dis
tress, more or less felt over the civilized world, to be attri
buted. Still, it is undeniable that the most perfect system of
* I speak here, as regretting the circumstance, not as censuring the
individual. It is probable, that had Mr. Mill spoken more plainly, his
essay would have been refused admission into the Encyclopasdia.
�OPAL. PHYSIOLOGY.
25
political or social economy in the world could not, of itself,
prevent the ultimate evils of superabundant population. A nd,
it is no less certain, that, in the meantime, the pressure ol a
large family on the labouring man greatly augments his
difficulties, and often deprives him of that leisure which he
might employ in devising means to better his condition, in
stead of leaving public, business in the hands of political
gamblers.
Vice-bringing laws and customs ought to be—must be
changed ; but while the grass is growing, let us prevent the
horse from starving, if we can
Thus (and I am desirous it be distinctly understood) a
solution of the population question is here offered, as an
alleviation of existing evils, not as a cure for them ; as a pal
liative, not as a remedy, for the national disease. Population
might be but a tenth part of what it is, and unjust legislation'
and vicious customs would still give birth, as they now do, to
extravagance and want. It is true, and ought to be remem
bered, that the check I propose, by diminishing the number
of laborers, will render labor more scarce and consequently
of higher value in the market; and in this view, its political
importance is considerable: but it may also be doubted
whether our present overgrown system of commercial compe
tition be not hurrying the laborer towards the lowest rate of
wages, capable of sustaining life, too rapidly to be overtaken,
except in individual cases, even by a prudential check to
population. I do not, then, expect political wonders from my
little work. Economy in living is, like the parental foresight
of which I speak, in itself an excellent thing, and ought
to be recommended to all ; but he who expects, by the one
recommendation or the other, to eradicate the ills of poverty,
expects an effect from inadequate causes.
The root
of the evil lies far deeper than this ; and its remedy must be
of a more radical nature. This is not the place, however,
to enter on such a discussion. The great importance of the
present work I conceive to lie more in its m«raZ and social,
than in its political, bearings. It is addressed to each
individual, rather as the member of a family, than the
citizen of a state.
Enough has been said, probably, in this chapter, to deter
mine the question, whether it is, or is not, desirable, in a
political point of view, that some check to population be
sought and disclosed—some “moral restraint” that shall
not, like vice and misery, be demoralizing, nor, like late
marriages, be ascetic and immacticable.
�MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
CHAPTER V.
THE QUESTION CONSIDERED IN ITS SOCIAL BEARINGS.
This is by far the most important branch of the question.
The evils caused by an absolute overstocking; of the world, if
inevitable, are distant; and an abstract statement of the sub
ject, however unanswerable, does not come home to the
mind with the force of detailed reality.
What would be the probable effect, in social life, if man
kind obtained and exercised a control over the instinct of
reproduction?
My settled conviction is—and I am prepared to defend
it—that the effect would be salutary, moral, civilising; that
it would prevent many crimes and more unhappiness; that
it would lessen intemperance and profligacy ; that it would
polish the manners and improve the moral feelings; that it
would alleviate the burden of the poor, and the cares of the
rich ; that it would most essentially benefit the rising gene
ration, by enabling parents generally more carefully to
educate, and more comfortably to provide for, their offspring.
I proceed to substantiate these positions.
And first, let us look solely to the situation of married
persons. Is it not notorious, that their families often
increase beyond what a regard for the young beings
coming into the world, or the happiness of those who give
them birth, would dictate ? In how many instances does the
hard-working father, and more especially the mother, of a
poor family, remain slaves throughout their lives, tugging at
the oar of incessant labor, toiling to live, and living only
to die; when, if their offspring had been limited to two or
three, they might have enjoyed comfort and comparative
affluence! How often is the health of the mother, giving
birth every year, perchance, to an infant—happy, if it be not
twins '.—and compelled to toil on, even at those times when
nature imperiously calls for some relief from daily drudgery
—how often is the mother’s comfort, health, nay, her life,
thus sacrificed ! Or, when care and toil have weighed down
the spirit, and at last broken the health of the father, how
often is the widow left, unable, with the most virtuous inten
tions, to save her fatherless offspring from becoming de
graded objects of charity, or profligate votaries of vice !
Fathers and mothers! not you who have your nursery and
�MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
27
your nursery maids, and who ieave your children at home
to frequent the crowded rout, or to glitter in the hot ball■room ; but you, by the labor of whose hands your children
are to live, and who, as you count their rising numbers, sigh
ttotoink how soon sickness or misfortune may lessen those
wages, which are now but just sufficient to afford them
bread—fathers and mothers in humble life ! to you my
argument comes home, with the force of reality. Others may
impugn—may ridicule it. By bitter experience you know
and feel its truth.
It will be said, that the state ought to provide for the effi
cient guardianship and education of all the children of the
land. No one is less inclined to deny the position than I.
But it does not provide for these. And if it did, a periou
must come at last, when even such an act of justice would
be no relief from the evils of over-population.
,
Yet this is not all. Every physician knows, that there are
many women so constituted that they cannot give birth to
healthy—sometimes not to living children. Is it desirable—
is it moral, that such women should become pregnant? Yet
this is continually the case, the warnings of physicians to the
contrary notwithstanding. Others there are, who ought never
to become parents; because, in so doing, they transmit to
their offspring grievous hereditary diseases; perhaps that
worst of diseases, insanity. Yet they will not lead a life
of celibacy. They marry. They become parents, and the
world suffers by it. That a human being qsould give
birth to a child, knowing that he transmits to it hereditary,
disease, is, in my opinion, an immorality. But it is a folly
to expect that we can ever induce all such persons to live the
lives of Shakers. Nor is it necessary. All that duty requires
of them is, to refrain from becoming parents. Who can
estimate the beneficial effect which rational, moral restraint
may thus have on the physical improvement of our race,
throughout future ages ! Were such virtue as this generally
cultivated, how soon might the very seeds of disease die out
among us, instead of bearing, as now, their poison-fruit,
from generation to generation! and how far might human
beings, in succeeding times, surpass their forefathers in
health, in strength and in beauty!
This view of the subject is, to the physiologist, to the phi
losopher, to every friend of human improvement, a most
interesting one, “ So long’’’ to use the words of an eloquent,
tocturer, now in this city, “ as the tainted stream is unhesi*
'* Mr. Graham, whose excellent discourses on temperance have excited!
�28
MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
tatingly transmitted through the channel of nature, from
parent to offspring, so long will the text be verified which
‘ visits the sins of the fathers on the children, even to the
third and fourth generations? ” And so long, I would add,
will mankind (wise and successful whenever there is question
of improving the animal races) be blind in perceiving, and
listless in securing, that far nobler object, the physical, and
thereby (in a measure) the mental and moral improvement
of our own.
1 may seem an enthusiast—but so let me seem then,—when
I express my conviction, that there is not greater physical
disparity between the dullest, shaggiest race of dwarf draught
horses, and the fiery-spirited and silken-haired Arabian, than
'between man degenerate as he is, and man perfected as he
might be : and though mental cultivation in this counts for
much, yet organic melioration is an influential—an indis
pensable accsseary.
But, apart from these latter considerations, is it not most
plainly, clearly, incontrovertibly desirable, that parents should
have the power to limit their offspring, whether they choose
*
to exercise it or not? Who can lose by their having this
power? and how many mrr/y gain ! may gain competency for
themselves, and the opportunity carefully to educate and
provide for their children! How many may escape the jar
rings, the quarrels, the disorder, the anxiety, which an over
grown family too often causes in the domestic circle !
It sometimes happens that individual instances come home
to the feelings with greater force than any general reasoning.
I shall, in this place, adduce one which came immediately
under my cognizance.
In June, 1829, I received from an elderly gentleman of
the first respectability, occupying a public situation in one of
the western states, a letter, requesting to know whether I
could afford any information or advice in a case which greatly
interested him, and which regarded a young woman for
whom he had ever experienced the sentiments of a father.
so much interest, and made so many converts, lately, in New York,
Philadelphia, and other cities of the Union.
* It may possibly be argued, that all married persons have this power
already ; seeing that they are no more obliged to become parents than the
unmarried ; they may live as the brethren and sisters among the Shakers
do. But this Shaker remedy is, as every one knows, utterly impi acticable
as a general rule; and it would chill and embitter domestic life, even if
’t were practicable.
�MORAL PHYSIOLOGY
29
In explanation of the circumstances he enclosed me a copy
of a letter which she had just written to him, and which
I here transcribe verbatim. A letter more touching from
its simplicity, or more strikingly illustrative of the unfortunate
situation in which not one, but thousands, in married life,
find themselves placed, I have never read.
“ Dear Sir,
L * * * Kentucky, May 3, 1829.
“ The friendship which has existed between you and my
father, ever since I can remember; the unaffected kindness
you used to express towards me when you resided in our
neighbourhood, during my childhood ; the lively solicitude
you have always seemed to feel for my welfare, and your
benevolent and liberal character, induce meto lay before you,
in a few words, my critical situation, and ask for your kind
advice.
“ It is my lot to be united in wedlock to a young mechanic
of industrious habits, good dispositions, pleasing manners,
and agreeable features, excessively fond of our children and
of me; in short, eminently well qualified to render him
self and family and all around him happy, were it not for the
besetting sin of drunkenness. About once in every three or
four weeks, if he meet, either accidentally, or purposely, with
some of his friends, of whom,either real or pretended, his good
nature and liberality procure him many, he is sure to get in
toxicated, so as to lose his reason ; and, when thus beside
himself, he trades and makes foolish bargains, so much to
his disadvantage, that he has almost reduced himself and
family to beggary, being no longer able to keep a shop of his
own, but obliged to work journey work.
“We have not been married quite four years, and have
already given being to three dear little ones. Under present
circumstances what can I expect will be their fate and mine?
I shudder at the prospect before me. With my excellent con
stitution and industry, and the labor of my husband, I feel
able to bring up these three little cherubs in decency, were
I to have no more : but when I seriously consider my situa
tion, I can see no other alternative left for me, than to tear
myself away from the man who, though addicted to occasional
intoxication, would sacrifice his life for my sake; and for
whom, contrary to my father’s will, I successively refused the '
hand and wealth of a lawyer and of a preacher; or continue
to witness his degradation, and bring into existence,in all pro
bability, a numerous family of helpless and destitute children, .
who, on account of poverty, must inevitably be doomed to a life of ignorance, and consequent vice and misery.
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MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
“ The dreadful sentence pronounced against me by my father
for my disobedience, forbids me applying to him, either for
advice or anything else. Aly husband being somewhat
sceptical, my father attributes Ins intemperance to his infi
delity ; though my brother, as you know, being a member of
the same church with my father, is, nevertheless, though he
does not fool away his property, more of a drunkard than my
husband, and ranks among the faithful. You will therefore
plainly see, that for these and other reasons, 1 stand the more .
in need of your friendly advice; and I do hope, and believe ■■
you will give me such advice and counsel as you would to
your own daughter, had you one in the same predicament that
I am. In so doing, you will add new claims to the gratitude
of your friend,
M. W.”
Need I add one word of comment on such a case as this?
Every one must be touched with the amiable feeling and
good sense that pervade the letter. Every rational being,
surely, must admit, that the power of preventing, without
injury or sacrifice, the increase of a family, under such cir
cumstances, is a public benefit and a private blessing.
Will it be asserted—and I know no other even plausible re
ply to these facts and arguments—will it be asserted, that the
thing is, in itself, immoral or unseemly? I deny it; and I point
to France, in justification of my denial. Where will you find,
on the face of the globe, a more polished, or more civilised
nation than the French, or one more punctiliously alive to any
rudeness, coarseness, or indecorum? You will find none. The
French are scrupulous on these points, to a proverb. Yet,
as every intelligent traveller in France must have remarked,
there is scarcely to be found, among the middle or upper
■classes, (and seldom even among the working classes,) a
large family; seldom more than three or four children. A
French lady of the utmost delicacy and respectability will, in
common conversation, say as simply—(ay, and as innocently,
whatever the self-righteous prude may aver to the contrary)
as she would proffer any common remark about the weather:
“ I have three children ; my husband and I think that is as
many as we can do justice to, and I do not intend to have
any more.”*
I have stated notorious facts, facts which no traveller who
has visited Paris, and been admitted to the domestic life of
* Will our sensitive fine ladies blush at the plain good sense and sim
plicity of such an observation ? Let me tell them, the indelicacy is in
their own minds, not in the words of the French mother.
�MORAL PHYSIOLOGY
31
its inhabitants, will attempt to deny. However heterodox,
then, my view of the subject may be in this country, 1 am
supported in it by the opinion and the practice of one of the
most refined and most socially cultivated nations in the
world.
Will it still be argued, that the practice, if not coarse, is
immoral ? Again I appeal to France. I appeal to the details
of the late glorious revolution—to the innumerable instances
of moderation, of courage, of honesty, of disinterestedness, of
generosity, of magnanimity, displayed on the memorable
“ three days,” and ever since; and I challenge comparison
between the national character of modern France for virtue,
as well as politeness, and that of any other nation under
heaven.
It is evident, then, that, to married persons, the power of
limiting their offspring to their circumstances is most desir
able. It may often promote the harmony, peace, and com
fort of families ; sometimes it may save from bankruptcy and
ruin, and sometimes it may rescue the mother from premature
death. In no case can it, by possibility, be worse than super
fluous. In no case can it be mischievous.
If the moral feelings were carefully cultivated, if we were
taught to consult, in every thing, rather the welfare of those
we love than our own, how strongly would these arguments
be felt! No man ought even to desire that a woman should
become the mother of his children, unless it was her express
wish, and unless he knew it to be for her welfare, that she
should. Her feelings, her interests, should be for him in this
matter an imperative law. She it is who bears the burden,
and therefore with her also should the decision rest. Surely
it may well be a question whether it be desirable, or whether
any man ought to ask, that the whole life of an intellectual,!
cultivated woman, should be spent in bearing a family of/
twelve or fifteen children ; to the ruin, perhaps, of her con
stitution, if not to the overstocking of the world. No man
ought to require or expect it.
Shall I be told, that this is the very romance of morality?
Alas ! that what ought to be a matter of every day practice—
a common-place exercise of the duties and charities of life,
■* —a bounden duty—an instance of domestic courtesy too
universal either to excite remark orto merit commendation—
alas ! that a virtue so humble that its absence ought to be re
proached as a crime, should, to our selfish perceptions, seem
iu.t a fastidious refinement, or a fanciful supererogation !
But I pass from the case of married persons to that of
�32
MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
young men and women who have not yet formed a matrirno.nial connexion.
In the present state of the world, when public opinion
stamps with opprobrium every sexual connexion which has
not received the orthodox sanction of an oath, almost all
young persons, on reaching the age of maturity, desire to
marry. The heart must be very cold, or very isolated, that
does not find some object on which to bestow its affections.
Early marriages would be almost universal, did not pruden
tial considerations interfere. The young man thinks, “ I
must not marry yet. I cannot support a family. I must
make money first, and think of a matrimonial settlement
afterwards.”
And so he sets about making money, fully and sincerely
resolved, in a few years, to share it with her whom he now
loves. But passions are strong, and temptations great.
Curiosity, perhaps, introduces him into the company of
those poor creatures whom society first reduces to a depen
dence on the most miserable of mercenary trades, and then
curses for being- what she has made them. There his health
and his moral feelings alike make shipwreck. The affections
he had thought to treasure up for their first object, are chil
led by dissipation and blunted by excess, He scarcely re
tains a passion but avarice. Years pass on—years of profli
gacy and speculation—and his first wish is accomplished;
his fortune is made. Where now are the feelings and re
solves of his youth ?
Like the dew on the mountain,
Like the foam on the river,
Like the bubble on the fountain,
They are gone—and for ever I
He is a man of pleasure—a man of the world. He laughs
at the romance of his youth, and marries a fortune. If
gaudy equipages and gay parties confer happiness, he is
happy. But if these be only the sunshine on the stormy
ocean below, he is a victim to that system of morality, which
forbids a reputable connexion until the period when provi
sion has been made for a large, expected family. Had he
married the first object of his choice, and simply delayed
becoming a father until his prospects seemed to warrant it,
how different might have been his lot? Until men and wo
men are absolved from the fear of becoming parents, except
when they themselves desire it, they will continue to form
�33
MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
mercenary and demoralizing connexions, and seek in dissi
pation the happiness they might have found in domestic life.
I know that this, however common, is not a universal case.
Sometimes the heavy responsibilities of a family are incurred,
at all risks; and who shall say how often a life of unremit
ting toil and poverty is the consequence ? Sometimes—if even
rarely—the young mind does hold to its first resolves. The
youth plods through years of cold celibacy and solitary
anxiety : happy, if before the best hours of life are gone and
its warmest feelings withered, he may return to claim the
reward of his forbearance and his industry. But even in
this comparatively happy case, shall we count for nothing the
years of ascetical sacrifice at which after-happiness is pur
chased ? The days of youth are not too many, nor its affec
tions too lasting. We may, indeed, if a great object require
it, sacrifice the one and mortify the other. But is this in
itself, desirable ? Does not wisdom tell us, that such sacri
fice is a dead loss—to the warm-hearted often a grievous one?
Does not wisdom bid us temperately enjoy the spring-time
of life, “ while the evil days come not, nor the years draw
nigh when we shall say, ‘ We have no pleasure in them
Let us say, then, if we will, that the youth who thus sacri
fices the present for the future, chooses wisely between two
evils, profligacy and asceticism. This is true. But let us not
imagine the lesser evil to be a good. It is not good for man
to be aione. It is for no man’s or woman’s happiness or benefit, that they should be condemned to Shakerism. It is a vio
lence done to the feelings, and an injury to the character. A
life of rigid celibacy, though greatly preferable to a life of
dissipation, is yet fraught with many evils. Peevishness,
restlessness, vague longings, and instability of character, are
among the least of these. The ipind is unsettled, and the
judgment warped. Even the very instinct which is thus
mortified, assumes an undue importance, and occupies a por
tion of the thoughts, which does not, of right or nature, belong
to it; and which, during a life of satisfied affection, it would
not obtain.
I speak not now of extreme cases, where solitary vice or
*
* For a vice so unnatural as onanism there could be no tempta*
lion, and therefore no existence, were not men and women unnaturally
and mischievously situated. It first appeared, probably, in monasteries
and convents ; and has been perpetuated by the more or less antisocial and demoralizing relation in which the sexes stand to each
ether,inalmost all countries. In estimating the consequences of the
�34
1
‘
moral physiology.
disease, or even insanity, lias been tbe result of asceftca.
mortification. I speak of every-day cases ; and I am well
convinced, that, (however wise it often is, in the present state
of the world, to select and adhere to this alternative,) yet no
man or woman can live the life of a conscientious Shaker,
without suffering, more or less, physically, mentally, and
morally. This is the more to be regretted, because the very
noblest portion of our species—the good, the pure, the highminded, and the kind-hearted—are the chief victims.
Thus, ^nasmuc’1 as the scruple of incurring heavy respon
sibilities deters from forming moral connexions, and en
courages intemperance and prostitution, the knowledge
which enables man to limit his offspring, would, in the pre
sent state of things, save much unhappiness, and prevent
many crimes. Young persons sincerely attached to each other,
and who might wish to marry, might marry early; merely
resolving not to become parents until prudence permitted it.
The young man, instead of solitary toil or vulgar dissipation,
would enjoy the society and the assistance of her he had
chosen as his companion ; and the best years of life, whose
pleasures never return, would not be squandered in riot
or lost through mortification.
If, in virtue of these recommendations, early marriages
became common, and parents were accustomed to limit the
number of their offspring, they would have the best chance
of forming their children’s characters, watching their pro
gress, even to manhood, and seeing them settled in the
world ; instead of leaving them, while young and inexpe
rienced, as they who become parents at a late age must
expect to do, to the mercy of fortune and the guidance of
strangers.
My readers will remark, that all the arguments I have
hitherto employed, apply strictly to the present order of
things, and the present laws and system of marriage. No
one, therefore, need be a moral heretic on this subject, to
present false situation of society, we must set down to the black account
the wretched, wretched consequences, (terminating not unfrequently in
incurable insanity,) of this vice, the preposterous offspring of modern
civilization. Physicians say that onanism at present prevails, to a
lamentable extent, both in this country and England. If the recorts
*
mendations contained in this little treatise were generally followed, it
would probably disappear in a single generation.
�MORAL PHYSIOLOGY,
35
admit and approve them. The marriage laws mi ht all re
main for ever as they are ; and yet a moral check to popula
tion would be beneficent and important.
But there are other cases, it will be said, in which the
knowledge of such a check would be mischievous. If young
women, it will be argued, were absolved from the fear of
consequences, they would rarely preserve their chastity.
Unlegalized connexions would be common and seldom de
tected. Seduction would be facilitated. Let us carefully
i examine this argument.
I fully agree with that most amiable of moral heretics,
Shelley, that “ Seduction, which term could have no mean
ing in a rational society, has now a most tremendous one.”
It matters not. how artificial the penalty which society has
chosen to affix to a breach of her capricious decrees. Society
has the power in her own hands; and that moral Shylock,
Public Opinion, enforces the penalty, even though it cost
the life of the victim. The consequences, then, to the poor
sufferer, whose offence is but an error of judgment or a weak
ness of the heart, are the same as if her imprudence were
indeed a crime of the blackest dye. And his conduct who,
for a momentary, selfish gratification, will deliberately entail
a life of wretchedness on one whose chief fault, perhaps, was
her misplaced confidence in a hypocrite, is not one whit
excused by the folly and injustice of the sentence.j- Some
poet says,
“ The man. who lays his hand upon a woman
Save in the way of kindness, is a wretch
Whom ’twere gross flattery to call a coward.”
How, then, shall we regard him who makes it a trade to
win a woman’s gentle affections, betray her generous confi
dence, and then, when the consequences become apparent,
abandon her to dependence, and the scorn of a cold, a selfrighteous and a wicked world; a world which will forgive
* Letter of Percy Bysshe Shelley, of December 5, 1818.
+ Every reflecting mind will distinguish between the unreasoning—
sometimes even generous imprudence of youthful passion, and the calcu
lating selfishness of the matured and heartless libertine. It is a melant^ich®ly truth, that pseudo-civilization produces thousands of seducers by
profession, who, while daily calling the heavens to witness their eternal
affections, have no affection for any thing on earth but their own profli
gate Reives. It is to characters so utterly worthless as these that my
t&scrvations apply.
a
�36
MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
any thing but rebellion against its tyranny, and in whose
eyes it seems the greatest of crimes to be unsuspecting and
warm-hearted !
And, let me ask, what is it gives to the arts of seduction
thier sting, and stamps to the world its victim ? Why is it,
that the man goes free and enters society again, almost
courted and applauded ; while the woman is a mark for the
finger of reproach, and a butt for the tongue of scandal ? Is
it not chiefly because she bears about her the mark of what
is called her disgrace ? She becomes a mother ; and society
has something tangible against which to direct its anathe
mas. Mine-tenths, at least, of the misery and ruin which are
caused by seduction, even in the present state of public
opinion, result from cases of pregnancy. Perhaps the unfeel
ing selfishness of him who fears to become a father, adminis
ters some noxious drug to procure abortion ; perhaps—
for even such scenes our courts of justice disclose!—perhaps
the frenzy of the wretched mother takes the life of her in
fant, or seeks in suicide the consummation of her wrongs
and her woes ! Or, if the little being live, the dove in the
falcon’s claws is not more certain of death than we may be,
that society will visit, with its bitterest scoff’s and reproaches,
the bruised spirit of the mother and the unconscious inno
cence of the child.
If, then, we cannot do all, shall we neglect a part? If we
cannot prevent every misery which man’s selfishness and the
world’s cruelty" entail on a sex, which it ought to be our pride
and honor to cherish and defend; let us prevent as many as
we can. If we cannot persuade society to revoke its unmanly
and unchristian * persecution of those who are often the best
and gentlest of its members—let us, at the least, give to wo
man what defence we may, against its violence.
I appeal to any father, trembling for the reputation of his
child, whether, if she were induced to form an unlegalised
connexion, her pregnancy would not be a frightful aggrava
tion? I appeal to him, whether any innocent preventive
which shall save her from a situation that must soon disclose
all to the world, would not be an act of mercy, of charity, of
philanthropy—whether it might not save him from despair,
and her from ruin? The fastidious conformist may frow£
upon the question, but to the father it comes home; and.,
• Jesus said unto her,“ Neither do I condemn thee.”—viii. 11
�moral physiology.
37
whatever his lips may say, his heart will acknowledge the
soundness and the force of the argument it conveys.
*
It may be, that some sticklers for orthodox morality will
still demur to the positions I defend. They will perhaps tell
me, as the Committee of a certain Society in this city lately
did, that the power of preventing conceptions “ holds out
inducements and facilities for the prostitution of their
daughters, their sisters, and their wives.
* What is the actual state of society in Great Britain, and even in thii
republic, that pseudo-civilization, in her superlative delicacy, should so
fastidiously scruple to speak of or to sanction, a simple, moral, effectual
check to population? Are her sons all chaste and temperate, and her
daughters all passionless and pure ? I might disclose, if I would, in this
very city of New York—and in our neighbor city of Philadelphia—
scenes and practices that have come to light from time to time, and that
would furnish no very favorable answer to the question. I might ask,
whether all the houses of assignation in these two cities are frequented
b y the known profligate alone ? or, whether some of the most outwardly
respectable fathers—ay, mothers of families—have not been found in
resorts frequented and supported only by “ good society’'’ like them
selves ?
As regards Great Britain, I might quote the evidence delivered before
a “ Committee of the House of Commons, on Laborers’ Wages,” by
Mr. Henry Drummond, a banker, magistrate, and large land-owner, in
the county of Surry, in which the following question and answer occur
Q. “ What is the practice you allude to of forcing marriages ?” A. “ I
believe nothing is more erroneous than the assertion, that the poor laws
tend to imprudent marriages; I never knew an instance of a girl being
married until she was with child, nor ever knew of a marriage taking
place throagh a calculation for future support.” Mr. Drummond’s
assertions were confirmed by other equally respectable witnesses; and
from what I have myself learnt in conversation with some of the chief
manufacturers of England, I am convinced, that the statement, as regards
the working population in the chief manufacturing districts, is scarcely
exaggerated.
I might go on to state, that the spot on which the Foundling Hospital
in Dublin now stands, formerly went by the name of “ Murderer’s
Lane,” from the number of ch-’’d murders that were perpetrated in the
vicinity.
I might adduce the testimony of respectable witnesses in proof, that,
even among the married, the blighting effects of ergot are not unfrequently incurred; by those very persons, probably, who, in public,
would think fit to be terribly shocked at this little book.
But why multiply proofs? The records of every court of justice, nay,
the tittle tattle of every fashionable drawing room, sufficiently marks the
leal character of this prudish and p'narisaical world.of ours.
t See Letter of the Gommittee of the Typographical Socletv ‘ib Robert
�MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
38
Truly, but they pay their wives, their sisters, and their
daughters, a poor compliment!
Is, then, this vaunted
chastity a mere thing of circumstance and occasion ? Is
there but the difference of opportunity between it and prosti
tution ? Would their wives, their sisters, and their daugh
ters, if once absolved from the fear of offspring, become
prostitutes—sell their embraces for gold, and descend to a
level with the most degraded? In truth, they slander their
own kindred; they libel their own wives, sisters, and
daughters. If they spoke truth—if fear were indeed the only
safeguard of their relatives’ chastity, little value should I
place on a virtue like that I and small would I esteem his
offence, who should attempt or seduce it.
*
Dale Owen, published in the Commercial Advertiser of the 29th of
September, and copied into the Free Enquirer of the 9th of Oqfepber,
1830.
For a statement of the circumstances connected with that letter, and
which induced me, at this time, to write and publish the present treatise,
see Preface to the New York edition.
* I should like to hear these gentlemen explain, according to what
principle they imagine the chastity of their wives to grow out of a fear of
offspring; so that, if released from such fear, prostitution would follow.
I can readily comprehend that the unmarried may be supposed careful
to avoid that situation to which no legal cause can be assigned ; but a
wife must be especially dull, if she cannot assign, in all cases, a legal
cause ; and a husband must be especially sagacious, if he can tell whe
ther the true cause be assigned or not. This safeguard to married
chastity, therefore, to which the gentlemen of the Typographical Com
mittee seem to look with so implicit a confidence, is a mere broken reed ;
and has been so ever since the days of Bathsheba.
Yet conjugal chastity is that which is especially valued. The incon
stancy of a wife commonly cuts much deeper than the dishonor of a
sister. In that case, then, which the world usually considers of the
highest importance, the fear of offspring imposes no check whatever. It
cannot make one iota of difference whether a married woman be knowing
in physiology or not; except perhaps, indeed, to the husbands advan
tage ; in cases where the wife’s conscience induces her at least to guard
against the possibility of burthening her legal lord with the care and sup
port of children that are not his. Constancy, where it actually exists, is
the offspring of something more efficacious than ignorance. And if in
the wife’s case, men must and do trust to something else, why not in all
other cases, where constraint may be considered desirable ? Shall men
trust in the greater, and fear to trust in the less? Whatever any one
may choose to assert regarding his relatives’ secret inclinations to pro
fligacy, these arguments may convince him, that if he have any safeguard
at present, a perusal of Moral Physiology will not destroy it.
’Tis strange that men, by way of suborning an argument, should be
�M01UL PHYSIOLOGY.
39
That chastity which is worth preserving is not Ihc chastity
that owes its birth to fear and ignorance. If to enlighten a
woman regarding a simple physiological fact will make her
a prostitute, she must be especially predisposed to profli' gacy. But it is a libel on the sex. Few, indeed, there are,
, who would continue so miserable and degrading a calling could they escape from it. For one prostitute that is made
by inclination, ten are made by necessity. Reform the laws
—equalize the comforts of society, and you need withhold no
knowledge from your wives and daughters. It is want, not
knowledge, that leads to prostitution.
For myself, I would withhold from no sister, or daughter,
or wife of mine, any ascertained fact whatever. It should
be to me a duty and a pleasure to communicate to them all
I knew myself: and I should hold it an insult to their under
standings and their hearts to imagine, that their virtue would
diminish as their knowledge increased. Would we but trust
human nature, instead of continually suspecting it, and
guarding it by bolts and bars, and thinking to make it very
chaste by keeping it very ignorant, what a different world
we should have of it! The virtue of ignorance is a sickly
plant, ever exposed to the caterpillar of corruption, liable to
be scorched and blasted even by the free light of heaven ; of
precarious growth ; and even if at last artificially matured, of
little or no real value.
I know that parents often think it right and proper to
withhold from their children, especially from their daughters,
facts the most influential on their future lives, and the know
ledge of which is essential to every man and woman’s well
being. Such a course has ever appeared to me ill-judged
and productive of very injurious effects. A girl is surely no
whit tlie better for believing, until her marriage night, that
■ children are found among the cabbage leaves in the garden
The imagination is excited, the curiosity kept continually on
the stretch ; and that which, if simply explained, would have
been recollected only as any other physiological phenome
non, assumes alf the rank and importance and engrossing
interest of a mystery. Nay, I am well convinced, that mere
Curiosity has often led ignorant young people into situations,
from which a little more confidence and openness on the part
of their parents or guardians, would have effectually secured
| them.
willing thus to vilify their relatives’ character and motives, without first
carefully examining whether any thing was gained to theii cause, after
all, by the ’'i'Pic-uion
�•A
MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
In the monkish days of mental darkness, when it was
taught and believed that all the imaginations and all the
thoughts of man are only evil continually, when it was
deemed right and proper to secure the submission of the
mass by withholding from them the knowledge even how to
read and write—in those days, it was all very well to shut up
the physiological page, and tell us, that on the day we read
therein we should surely die. But those times are past. In
this nineteenth century men and women read, think, discuss,
inquire, judge for themselves. If, in these latter days, there
is to be virtue at all, she must be the offspring of knowledge
and of free inquiry, not of ignorance and mystery. We
cannot prevent the spread of any real knowledge, even if we
would ; we ought not, even if we could.
This book will make its way through the whole United
States. Curiosity and the notoriety which has already been
given to the subject, will suffice at first to obtain for it cir
culation. The practical importance of the subject it treats
will do the rest. It needed but some one to start the stone;
its own momentum will suffice to carry it forward.
But, if we could prevent the circulation of truth, why
should we? We are not afraid of it ourselves. No man
thinks his morality will suffer by it. Each feels certain that
bis virtue can stand any degree of knowledge. And is it not
the height of egregious presumption in each to imagine that
his neighbor is so much weaker than himself, and requires a
bandage which he can do without? Most of all, it is pre
sumptuous to suppose, that that knowledge which the man
of the world can bear with impunity, will corrupt the young
and lhe pure-hearted. It is the sullied conscience only that
suggests such fears. Trust youth and innocence. Speak
to them openly. Show them that yot- respect them, by
treating them with confidence; and they will quickly learn
to respect and to govern themselves. Enlist their pride
in your behalf; and you will soon see them make it their
boast and their highest pleasure to merit your confidence.
But watch them, and show your suspicion of them but once,
and you are the jailor, who will keep his prisoners just as
long as bars and bolts shall prevent their escape. The
world was never made for a prison-house; it is too large
and ill-guarded : nor were parents ever intended for gaol
keepers ; their very affections unfit them for the task.
There is no more beautiful sight upon earth, than a family
among whom there are no secrets and no reserves ; where
the young people confide every thing to their elder friends—
�MORAL PHYSIOLOGY
for such to them arc their parents—and whine the parents
trust every thing to their children; where each thought is
communicated as freely as it arises; and all knowledge
given as simply as it is received. If the world contain a
prototype of That Paradise, where nature is said to have
known no sin or impropriety, it is such a family. And if •'
there be a serpent that can poison the innocence of its in- 5
mates, that serpent is Suspicion,
I ask no greater pleasure than thus to be the guardian and
companion of young beings whose innocence shall speak to
me as unreservedly as it thinks to itself; of young beings
who shall never imagine that there is guilt in their thoughts,
or sin in their confidence ; and to whom, in return, I may
impart every important and useful «fact that is known to
myself. Their virtue should be of that hardy growth, which
all facts tend to nourish and strengthen.
I put it to my readers, whether such a view of human
nature, and such a mode of treating it, be not in accordance
with the noblest feelings of their hearts. I put it to them,
whether they have not felt themselves encouraged, improved,
strengthened in every virtuous resolution, when they were
generously trusted, and whether they have not felt abashed
and degraded when they were suspiciously watched, and
spied after, and kept in ignorance. If they find such feelings
in their own hearts, let them not self-righteously imagine,
that they only can be won by generosity, or that the nature
of their fellow-creatures is different from their own.
There are other considerations connected with this subject,
which farther attest the social advantages of the control I
advocate. Human affections are mutable, and the sincerest
of mortal resolutions may change.
*
Every day furnishes
instances of alienations, and of separattons; sometimes
almost before the honey-moon is well expired. In such
cases of unsuitability, it cannot be considered desirable
that there should be offspring; and the power of refraining
from becoming parents until intimacy had, in a measure,
established the likelihood of permanent harmony of view
and feelings, will be confessed to be advantageous.
The limits which my numerous avocations prescribe to
* Le premier serment que se firent deux etres de chair, se fut au
ied d’un rocher, qui tombait en poussiere; ils attesterent de leur conpance un ciel qui n’est pas un instant le meme: tout passait en eux, et
stutour d’eux ; et ils croyaient leurs coeurs affranchis de vicissitudes. O
afaiise a’, touiours enfans! —Diderot Jacques et son Maitre.
t
�42
MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
this little treatise, permit me not to meet every argument in
detail, which ingenuity or prejudice might put forward. If
the world were not actually afraid to think freely or to listen
io the suggestions of common sense, three fourths of what
has already been said would be superfluous for most of
;
*
the arguments employed would occur spontaneously to any
rational being. But the mass of mankind have still, in a
measure, every thing to learn on this and other moral sub
jects. The world seems to me much to resemble a company
of gourmands, who sit down to a plentiful repast, first very
punctiliously saying grace over it; and then, under sanction
of the priest’s blessing, think to gorge themselves with im
punity ; as conceiving, that gluttony after grace is no sin.
So it is with popular customs and popular morality. Every
thing is permitted, if external forms be but respected. Le
gal roguery is no crime, and ceremony-sanctioned excess no
profligacy. The substance is sacrificed to the form, the
virtue to the outward observance. The world troubles its
head little about whether a man be honest or dishonest, so
he knows how to avoid the penitentiary and escape the
gallows. In like manner, the world seldom thinks it worth
while to enquire whether a man be temperate or intemperate,
prudent or thoughtless. It takes especial care to inform
itself whether in all things he conforms to orthodox require
ments ; and, if he does, all is right. Thus men too often
learn to consider an oath an absolution from all subsequent
decencies and duties, and a full release from all after re
sponsibilities. If a husband maltreat his wife,, the offence is
venal: for he premised it by making her, at the altar, an
honest vfoman.” If a married father neglect his children,,
it is a trifle ; for grace was regularly said, before they were
born.
So true is this, that if some heterodox moralist were to
throw out the idea, that many of the rudenesses and jarrings,
and much of the indifference and carelessness of each others’
feelings that are exhibited in married life, might be traced to
the almost universal custom (in this country, though not in
France) of man and wife continually occupying the same
bed—if he put it to us whether such a forced and too fre
quent familiarity were not calculated to lessen the charms
and pleasures, and diminish the respectful regard and defer
ence, which ought ever to characterize the intercourse or
□uman beings—if, I say, some heretical preferrer of things
Jo forms were to light upon and express some such unlucky
�43
MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
ideaas this, ten to one the married portion of the community
would fall upon him without mercy, as an impertinent inter
meddler in their most legitimate rights and prerogatives.
With such a world as this, it is a difficult matter to reason.
After listening to all I have said, it may perhaps cut me
short by reminding me, that nature herself declares it to be
right and proper, that we should reproduce our species with
out calculation or restraint. I will ask, in reply, whether
nature also declares it to be right and proper, that when the
thermometer is at 96, we should drink greedily of cold
water, and drop down dead in the streets ? Let the world
be told, that if nature gave us our passions and propensities,
she gave us also the power wisely to control them; and that,
when we hesitate to exercise that power, we descend to a
level with the brute creation, and become the sport of for
tune—the mere slaves of circumstance.
*
To one other argument it were not, perhaps, worth while
to advert, but that it has been already speciously used to
excite popular prejudice. It has been said, that to recom
mend to mankind prudential restraint in cases where chil
dren cannot be provided for, is an insult to the poor man;
since all ought to be so circumstanced that they might pro
vide amply for the largest family. Most assuredly all ought
to be so circumstanced ; but all are not. And there would
be just as much propriety in bidding a poor man go and take
by force a piece of Saxony broadcloth from his neighbor’s
store, because he ought to be able to purchase it, as to en
courage him to go on producing children, because he ought
to have wherewithal to support them. Let us exert every
nerve to correct the injustice and arrest the misery that results
from a vicious order of things; but, until we have done so,
let us not, for humanity’s sake, madly recommend that which
grievously aggravates the evil; which increases the burden
on the present generation, and threatens with neglect and
Ignorance the next.
* Some German poet, whose name has escaped me, says,
“ Tapfer ist der Lowensieger,
Tapfer ist der Weltbezwinger,
.
Tapferer, wer sich selbst bezwang!”
u
<f Brave is the lion victor,
Brave the conqueror of a world,
Braver he who controls himself!”
It ia a noble sentiment, and very appropriate to the present discussion-
�44
MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
And now, let my readers pause. Let them review the va
rious arguments I have placed before them. Let them reflect
how intimately the instinct of which I treat is connected
with the social welfare of society. Let them bear in mind,
that just in proportion to its social influence, is it important
that we should know how to control and govern it; that,
when we oblain such control, we may save ourselves, and
what we ought to prize much more highly, may save our com
panions and our offspring, from suffering or misery ; that, by
such knowledge, the young may form virtuous connexions,
instead of becoming profligate or ascetics; that, by it, early
marriage is deprived of its heaviest, consequences, and seduc
tion of its sharpest sting; that, by it, man may be saved from
moral ruin, and woman from desolating dishonor: that by it
the first pure affections may be soothed and satisfied, instead
of being thwarted or destroyed—let them call to mind all
this, and then let them say, whether the possession of such
control be not a blessing to man.
,______ _
•
,, ffniUitiia. ot buoni
-id joun«o rroib
<■', H-. rmi-:
CHAPTER VI.
/
THE SUBJECT CONSIDERED IN ITS IMMEDIATE CONNECTION
WITH PHYSIOLOGY.
It now remains, after having spoken of the desirability of
obtaining control over the instinct of reproduction, to speak
of its practicability.
As, in this world, the value of labor is too often estimated
almost in proportion to its inutility; so, in physical science,
contested questions seem to have attracted attention and en
gaged research, almost in the inverse ratio of their practical
importance. We have a hundred learned hypotheses for one
decisive practical experiment. We have many thousands of
volumes written to explain fanciful theories, and scarcely as
many dozens to record ascertained facts.
It is not my intention, in discussing this branch of the sub
ject, to examine the hundred ingenious theories of genera
tion which ancient and modern physiologists have put forth.
I shall not inquire whether the future human being owes its
first existence, as Hippocrates and Galen assert, and Buffon
very ingeniously supports, to the union of two life-giving
�MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
45
fluids, each a sort of extract of the body of the parent, and!
composed of organic particles similar to the future offspring;
or whether, as Harvey and Haller teach, the embryo reposea
in the ovum until vivified by the seminal fluid, or perhaps
only by the aura seminalis: or whether, according to the
theories of Leuvenhoeck and Boerhaave, the future man
first exists as a spermatic animalcula, for which the ovum,
becomes merely the nourishing receptacle, or whether,, as
the ingenious Andry imagines, a vivifying worm be the more
correct hypothesis; or whether, finally, as Perault will
have it, the embryo beings (too wondex fully organized’
*
to be supposed the production of any mere physical phe
nomenon) must be imagined to come directly from the hands
of the Creator, who has filled the universe with these
little germs, too minute, indeed, to exercise all the ani
mal functions, but still self-existent, and awaiting only
the insinuation of some subtle essence into their microscopic
pores, to come forth as human beings. Still less am I
inclined to follow Hippocrates and Tertullian in their
inquiries, whether the soul is merely introduced into the
foetus, or pre-exists in the semen, and becomes, as it were,
the architect of its future residence, the body; f or to attempt
a refutation of the hypothesis of the metaphysical naturalist, J
who asserts, (and adduces the infinite indivisibility of matter
in support of the assertion,) that the actual germs of the
whole human race, and of all that are yet to be born, existed
in the ovaria of our first mother, Eve. I leave these and fifty
other hypotheses, as ingenious and as useless, to be discussed
by those who seem to make it a point of honor to leave no
fact unexplained by some imagined theory ; and come at
once to positive experience and actual observation.
It is exceedingly to be regretted that mankind did not
spend some small portion of the time and industry which,
has been wasted on theoretical research, in collecting and
collating the actual experience of human beings. But this
task, too difficult for the ignorant, has generally been
thought too simple and common-place for the learned. To
* See “ Histoire de l’Academie des Sciences,” for the year 1679,
page 279.
t Hippocrates positively asserts this latter hypothesis, and is outrage
ous against all sceptics in his theory. In his work on diet, he tells us,
“ Si quis non credat animam, anima misceri, demens est” TertulliaO
tvarmly supports the orthodoxy of this opinion.
| Bonner, I believe.
�46
MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
this circumstance, joined to the fact, that it is not thought
fitting or decent for human beings freely to communicate
their personal experience on the important subject now
under consideration—to these causes are attributable the
great and otherwise unaccountable ignorance which so
strangely prevails, even sometimes among medical men, as
to the power which man may possess over the reproductive
instinct. Some physicians deny that man possesses any such
power. And yet, if the thousandth part of the talent and
research had been employed to investigate this momentous
fact, which has been turned to the building up of idle
theories, no commonly intelligent individual would be igno
rant of the truth.
I have taken great pains to ascertain the opinions of the
most enlightened physicians of Great Britain and France on
this subject; (opinions which popular prejudice will not per
mit them to offer publicly in their works ;) and they all con
cur in admitting, what the experience of the French nation
positively proves, that man may have a complete control over
this instinct; and that men and women may, without injury
to health, or violence to the moral feelings, and with very
little diminution of the pleasure which accompanies the grati
fication of the instinct, refrain at will from becoming parents.
It has chanced to me, also, to gain the confidence of several
individuals, who have communicated to me, without reserve,
their own experience ; and all this has been corroborative of
the same opinion.
Thus, though I pretend not to speak positively to the de
tails of a subject, which will then only be fully understood
when men acquire sense enough simply and unreservedly
to discuss it, I may venture to assure my readers, that the
main fact is incontrovertible. I shall adduce such facts in
proof of this as may occur to me in the course of the inves
tigation.
However various and contradictory the different theories
of generation, almost all physiologists are agreed, that the
entrance of the sperm itself (or of some volatile particles
proceeding from it) into the uterus, must precede conception. This it was that probably first suggested the possibi
lity of preventing conception at will.
Among the modes of preventing conception which may
have prevailed in various countries, that which has been
adopted, and is now practised, by the cultivated classes on
the continent of Europe, by the French the Italians and I
!
*
■
�MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
47
Relieve, by the Germans and Spaniards, consists of complete
Withdrawal, on the part of the man, immediately previous to
emission. This is, in all cases, effectual. It may be objected,
that the practice requires a mental effort and a partial sacri
fice. I reply, that, in France, where men consider this, (as
it ought ever to be considered, when the interests of the other
sex require it,) a point of honor—ally oung men learn to make
the necessary effort; and custom renders it easy and a matter
J of course. As for the sacrifice, shall a trifling (and it is but a
very trifling) diminution of physical enjoyment be suflered
to outweigh the most important considerations connected
with the permanent welfare of those who are the nearest and
dearest to us? Shall it be suffered to outweigh the risk of
incurring heavy and sacred responsibilities, ere we are pre
pared to fulfil them ? Shall it be suffered to outweigh a regard
for the comfort, the well-being—in some cases, the life, of
those whom we profess to love? The most selfish will hesitate
deliberately to reply, in the affirmative, to such questions as
these. A cultivated young Frenchman, instructed as he is,
even from his infancy, carefully to consult, on all occasions,
the wishes, and punctiliously to care for the comfort and wel
fare, of the gentler sex, would learn, almost with incredulity,
that, in other countries, there are men to be found, pretend
ing to cultivation, who were less scrupulously honorable on
this point than himself. You could not offer him a greater
insult than to presuppose the possibility of his forgetting
himself so far as thus to put his own momentary gratification,
for an instant, in competition with the wish or the well-being
of any one to whom he professed regard or affection.
I know it will be argued, that men in the mass are not
I sufficiently moral to adopt this recommendation; because they
will not make any voluntary sacrifice of animal enjoyment,
however trifling. I do not see that. Hundreds of voluntary
* A Frenchman belonging to the cultivated classes, would as soon bear
to be called a coward, as to be accused of causing the pregnancy of a
woman who did not desire it ■, and that, too, whether the matrimonial
’ law had given him legal rights over her person or not. Such an imputa
tion, if substantiated, would shut him out for ever from all decent society ;
and most properly so. It is a perfect barbarity, and ought to be treated
as such.
When we begin to look to genuine morality, instead of empty or onenk fcve forms, these are the principle, of honor we shall implant in our chil
dren’s minds : and then we shall have a world of courtesy and kindneSF^
instead of a scene of legal outrage, or hypocritical profession.
�48
MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
sacrifices are daily made to fashion—to public opiniou. Let
but public opinion bear on this point in other countries, as it
does among the more enlightened classes in France, and
similar effects will be produced.
The matter is a trifle. The mere act of animal satisfaction,
counts with any man of commonly cultivated feelings, as but
a small item in the aggregate of enjoyment which satisfied
affection aifords; and, surely, whether that act be at ali
times attended with the utmost degrees of physica pleasure
or not, must, even with the felfish, be a secondary and unim
portant consideration. His moral sentiments must be espe
cially weak or uncultivated, who will not admit, that it is the
gratification of the social feelings—the repose of the affec
tions—which, at all times, constitutes the chief charm of
human intercourse.
The least injurious among the present checks to popula
tion, celibacy, is a mortification of the affections, a violence
done to the social feelings, sometimes a sacrifice even of the
health. Not one of these objections can be urged to the
trifling restraint proposed.
As to the cry which prejudice may raise against it as being
unnatural, it is just as unnatural, and no more so, than to
refrain, in a sultry summer’s day, from drinking, perhaps,
more than a pint of water at a draught, which prudence tells
us is enough, while inclination bids us drink a quart. All
thwarting of any human wish or impulse may, in one sense,
be called unnatural; it is not, however, oft-time the less pru
dent and proper, on that account. Then, too, if this trifling re
straint is to be called unnatural, what shall we say of celibacy ?
As to the practical efficacy of this simple preventive, the
experience of France, where it is extensively practised,
might suffice in proof. I know, at this moment, several
married persons who have told me, that, after having had
as many children as they thought prudent, they hail for years
employed this check, with perfect success. For the satisfaction
of my readers, I will select one particular instance.
I knew personally and intimately for many years, a young ,
man of strict honour, in whose sincerity I ever placed confi- 1
dence, and who confided to me the particulars of his situation. ■,
He was just entering on life, with slender means, and his I
circumstances forbade him to have a large family of chil
dren. He, therefore, having consulted his young wife, prac
tised this restraint, I believe for about eighteen months, and
with perfect success. At the expiration of that period, theij
situation being more favourable, they resolved to become
�MOKAL PHYSioluGY.
4.9
parents; and, in a fortnight after, the wife found herself
pregnant. My friend told me, that though he felt the partial
privation a little at first, a few weeks’ habit perfectly re
conciled him to it; and that nothing but a deliberate con
viction that he might prudently now become a parent,
and a strong desire on his wife’s part to have a child, in
duced him to alter his first practice. I believe I was the
only one among his friends to whom he ever communicated
the real state of the case; and I doubt not there are, even
in this cotf-^try, hundreds of similar cases which the world
never learns any thing about. Hence the doubts and igno
rance which exist on the subject.
I add another instance. A short time since, a respectable
and very intelligent father of a family, about thirty-five
years of a<re, who resides west of the mountains, called at
our office. Conversation turned on the present subject, and
I expressed to him my conviction, that this check was effec
tual. He told me he could speak from personal experience.
He had married young, and soon had three children. These
he could support in comfort, without running into debt or
*
difficulty; but, the price of produce sinking in his neigh
bourhood, there did not appear a fair prospect of supporting a
large family. In _ .'sequence, he and his wife determined to
limit their offspring to three. They havo accordingly em
ployed the above check for seven or eight years; have had
no more children; and have been rewarded for their pru
dence by finding their situation and prospects improving
every year. He confirmed an opinion I have already ex
pressed, by stating, that custom completely reconciled him
to anv slig1,i privation he might at first have felt. I asked
him, whether his neighbors generally followed the same
practice. H" replied, that he could not tell; for he had not
thought it prudent to speak with any but his own relations on
the subject, one or two of whom, he knew, had profited by his
advice, and afterwards expressed to him their gratitude for
the important information.
It is unnecessary farther to multiply instances. The fact
that this check is in common practice, and known to be effi
cacious, in France, is alone sufficient evidence of its practi
cability and safety.
I can readily imagine, that there are men, wSo, in parr
from temperament, but much more from the continued habit
of unrestrained indulgence, may have so little command
over their passions, as to find difficulty in practising it; and
some, it may be, who will declare it to be impossible. If any
D
�50
MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
there be to whom itzs impossible, (which I very much doubt,
I am at least convinced that the number is exceedingly small;
not a fiftieth part of those who may at first imagine such to be
their case.
I may add, that partial withdrawal is not an infallible pre
ventive of conception.
Other modes of prevention have been employed. I have
selected this, because I judge it to be at once the most simple,
and the most efficacious. Those who have employed it for
ys»ars, seem to concur in the opinion that it. is, as regards its
influence on health, innocent: it has even been said to
*
produce on the human system an influence similar to that of
temperance in diet; but this I doubt. As regards any moral
impropriety in its use, enough methinks has already been said,
to convince all except those who will not be convinced, that
to employ it, in all cases where prudence or the well-being
of our companions requires it, is an act of practical virtue.
It may be said, and said truly, that this check places the
power chiefly in the hands of the man, and not, where it
ought to be, in those of the woman. She, who is the sufferer,
is not secured against the culpable carelessness, or perhaps
the deliberate selfishness, of him who goes free and unblamed
whatever may happen. To this, the reply is, that the best and
only effectual defence for women is to refuse connexion with
any man void of honor. An (almost omnipotent) public opinion
would thus be speedily formed: one of immense moral utility,
by means of which the man’s social reputation would be
placed, as it should be, in the keeping of women, whose
moral tact and nice discrimination in such matters is far
superior to ours. How mighty and beneficent the power
which such an influence might exert, and how essentially and
rapidly it might conduce to the gradual, but thorough extir* Experience, extensive and carefully recorded, can alone verify, as
in a matter so important ought to be verified, the opinion here expressed
touching the innocence to health of the preventive recommended. No
one is justified in speaking positively on such a subject, until he has
accumulated a greater mass of facts than I, or perhaps any other indi
vidual, have yet had the means of ascertaining. The subject once
agitated, such facts will gradually come to light. <n the mean time let
us bear in mind, that the truth and importance of th abstract principle
*
rest not on the accuracy of the physiological items here adduced. A
preventive check to population is a thing in itself good and desirable, or
it is the reverse. If good and desirable, men and women will ultimately
perceive it to be so, and will search and experiment until they discover
what practice is best. Of this, as of other branches of physical science,
time alone can elucidate and substantiate the details.
�MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
51
pation of those selfish vices, legal and illegal, which now dis
grace and brutify our species, it is difficult even to imagine.
In the silent, but resistless progress of human im
provement, such a change is fortunately inevitable. We
are gradually emerging from the night of blind prejudice and
of brute force; and, day by day, rational liberty and cultivated
refinement, win an accession of power. Violence yields to
benevolence, compulsion to kindness, the letter of law to the
spirit of justice : and, day by day, men and women become
more willing, and better prepared, to entrust the most sacred
duties (social as well as political) more to good feeling and
less to idle form—more to moral and less to legal keeping.
It is no question whether such reform will come: no
human power can arrest its progress. How slowly or how
rapidly it may come, is a question ; and depends, in some
degree, on adventitious circumstances. Should this little
book prove one among the number of circumstances to ac
celerate, however slightly, that progress, its author will be
repaid, ten times over, for the trifling labor it has cost
him.
In conclusion, it may be useful to state to the reader the
following facts. A knowledge of this and other checks to
population has been, for many years, extensively disseminated
in most of the populous towns in Great Britain by hundreds
of thousands ofhand-bills which were gratuitously distributed
from benevolent motives. The men who were first instru mental
in making them known in England are all elderly men,fathers
of families of children grown up to be men and women ; men
of unquestioned integrity and moral character; many of them
men of science, and some of them known as the first political
economists of the age. Beside the allusion to thesubjectalready
given from the Encyclopaedia Britannica, it is adverted to in
Place’s “ Illustrations of the principles of Population;” in Mill’s
“ Elements of Political Economy in Thompson’s “ Distri
bution of Wealth,” and probably in other works with which
I am unacquainted. It was also (disguisedly) broach ed in
several English newspapers, and was preached in lectur es to
the laboring classes, by a benevolent man, at Leeds. I do
not believe the subject has ever been touched upon, ex
cept by men of irreproachable moral character, and gene
rally of high standing in society. The chief difference
between this little treatise, and the allusions made by the
distinguished authors above mentioned, is, that what public
opinion would only permit them to insinuate, I venture to say
plainly.
~
D 2
�52
MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
My readers may implicitly depend on the accuracy of the
facts I have stated. Though, in the present state of public
opinion, I may not, for obvious reasons, give names in proof,
yet it is evident that I can have no motive whatever to mislead
or deceive. I shall consider it a favor if any individuals who
can adduce, from personal experience, facts connected with
this subject, will communicate them to me.
Note. The enlightened Condorcet, in his well-known “ Esquisse des
progres de I’esprit humain,” -very distinctly alludes to the safety and
facility with which population might be restrained, “ if reason should
but keep pace with the arts and sciences, and if the idle prejudices of
superstition should cease to shed over human morals an austerity cor
rupting and degrading, not purifying or elevating.” See his Esquisse,
pages 285 to 288, Paris Ed. 1822. Malthus (see his “ Essays on Popu
lation,’' Book III. chap. 1.) “professes not to understand the French
philosopher.” No Frenchman could misunderstand him.
CHAPTER VII.
CONCLUDING REMARKS.
That most practical of philosophers, Franklin, interprets
chastity to mean, the regulated and strictly temperate satisfac
tion, without injury to others, of those desires which are natural
to all healthy adult beings. In this sense chastity is the first
of virtues, and one most rarely practised, either by young
*
men or by married persons, even when the latter most scru
pulously conform to the letter of the law.
*
The promotion of such chastity is the chief object of tne
present work. It is all-important for the welfare of our
race, that the reproductive instinct should never be selfishly
indulged ; never gratified at the expense of the well-being of
our companions. A man who, in this matter, will not con
sult, with scrupulous deference, the slightest wishes of the
other sex ; a man who will ever put his desires in competi
tion with theirs, and who will prize more highly the pleasure
lie receives than that he may be capable of bestowing—such
a man, appears to me, in the essentials of character, a brute.
* My father, Robert Owen’s definition of chastity is also an excellent
and an important one: “PROSTITUTION, Sexual intercourse without
affection: CHASTITY, Sexual intercourse with affection.”
�MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
53
The brutes commonly seek the satisfaction of their propen
sities with straight-forward selfishness, and never calculate
whether their companions are gratified or teased by their im
portunities. Man cannot assimilate his nature more closely
to theirs than by imitating them in this.
Again. There is no instinct in regard to which strict tem
perance is more essential. All our animal desires have
hitherto occupied an undue share of human thoughts; but
none more generally than this. The imaginations of the young
and the passions of the adult are inflamed by mystery or
excited by restraint, and a full half of all the thoughts and
intrigues of the world has a direct reference to this single
instinct. Even those who, like the Shakers, “ crucify the
flesh,” are not the less occupied by it in their secret thoughts;
as the Shaker writings themselves may afford proof. Neither
human institutions nor human prejudices can destroy the
instinct. Strange it is, that men should not be content ration
ally to control and wisely to regulate it.
It is a question of passing importance, IIow may it Dest
he regulated?” Not by a Shaker vow of monkish chastity.
Assuredly not by the world’s favorite regulator, ignorance.
No. Do we wish to bring this instinct under easy govern
ment, and to assign it only its due rank among human senti
ments ? Then let us cultivate the intellect, let us exercise
the body, let us usefully occupy the time, of every human
being. What is it gives to passion its sway, and to desires
their empire, now ? It is vacancy of mind; it is listlessness
of body ; it is idleness. A cultivated race are never sensual;
a hardy race are seldom love-sick ; an industrious race have
no time to be sentimental. Develope the moral sentiments,
and they will govern the physical instincts. Occupy the
mind and body usefully, intellectually ; and the propensities
will obtain that care and time only which they merit. Upon
any other principle we may doctor poor human nature for
ever, and shall only prove ourselves empirics in the end.
Mortifications, vestal vows, mysteries, bolts and bars, prud
ish prejudices—these are all quack-medicines; and are only
calculated to prostrate lhe strength and spirits, or to heighten
the fever, of the patient. If we will dislodge error and pas
sion, we must replace them by something better. They say
that a vacuum cannot exist in nature. Least of all can it exist
in the human mind. Empty it of one folly, cure it of one
vice, and another flows in to fill the vacancy, unless it find it
already occupied by intellectual exorcise and common sense
�54
MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
Husbands and fathers! study Franklin’s definition of chas
tity. Your fears, your jealousies, have hitherto been on the
stretch to watch and guard: reflect whether it be not pleasan
ter and better, to enlighten and trust.
Honest ascetics ! you have striven to mortify the flesh;
ask yourselves whether it be not wiser to control it. You have
sought to crucify the body ; consider whether it be not more
effectual to cultivate the mind.
Have you succeeded mi
spiritualizing your secret thoughts? If not, inquire whether
every human propensity, duly governed, be not a benefit and
a blessing to the nature in which it is inherent.
Human beings, of whatever sex or class I examine dispas
sionately and narrowly the influence which the control here
recommended will produce throughout society. Reflect
whether it will not lighten the burdens of one sex, while it
affords scope for the exercise of the best feelings of the other.
Decide whether its tendency be not benignant and elevating;
conducive to the exercise of practical virtue, and to the per
manent welfare of the human race.
�APPENDIX
TO THE FIFTH EDITION.
Reception of the Work by the Public. Opinion of a talented Author. Opinion
of a Physician and Professor. Letter from a Mechanic. The work never in
tended as a political panacea. Transmission of hereditary disease. Letter on
the subject. Letter from a French gentleman. Physiological argument in fa
vor of temperance. Experience of two members of the Society of Fri ends
Objection of J. W. Objections by a physician of Indiana. Answer to them
Weighty objections. Suggestion in a letter from Manchester.
New-York, June 25, 1831
Seven months have not yet elapsed since the first publication of
“ Moral Physiology
and already I am called upon to pre
pare a fifth edition. If I am pleased (as what author is not) to
see that my labors are appreciated by the public, I am also
reminded of the additional obligations I lie under, to render the
little treatise as complete and as free from error and inaccuracy
as possible.
I have therefore carefully revised the work, and made such
amendments as have suggested themselves during these seven
months. And as, in the course of that time, I have received a mul
titude of communications (some verbal.but chiefly by letter) on ths
subject in question, I shall here add, in the shape of Appendix,
such extracts from, and comments on, a few of these, as seem
<.0 me interesting and useful.
I expected much opprobrium from the work ; and have been
not a , little surprised to find my expectations agreeably dis
�APPENDIX.
56
appointed. Never, in my life, have I written any thing that so
nearly united the suffrages of all whose opinion I care for, or
which has been suffered to spread more quietly by our opponents.
Jn this, these latter have acted wisely. Had they abused it, it
might have been the Appendix to the twentieth, not to the fifth,
edition I should now be writing.
The sentiments of approval which have reached me from vari
ous quarters, have, in the expressive language of the Old Book,
“ strengthened my hands and encouraged my heart;” for,
though the world’s opinion be worth little, there are individualsin
it whose opinion is worth much; and though a consciousness of
rectitude may support a man against all opinions, yet it is plea
sant to find, now and then, in one’s progress, concurrent senti
ments from those we esteem.
I imagine that it may afford similar encouragement, in a de
gree, to any of my readers who may chance to approve what they
read, if I quote for them a few of these opinions. I begin by se
lecting for the purpose two, which come from men both known to
me, as to the American public, only by their writings. Could I
give the names of the writers, these w ould be sufficient to secure
for their opinions a weight which no anonymous sentiments can
obtain. But, in the present state of public opinion, I do not feel
myself at liberty to do so. My readers must therefore be content
to take my word for it, that both the writers are gentlemen who
nave displayed in their works talents of a high order, and whose
personal acquaintance I should highly value.
I extract from the first letter the following:
“ I am greatly obliged to you for sending me your ‘ Moral Phy
siology.’ I have read it with pleasure and instruction. I see not
why you should anticipate censure, from any quarter, for its pub
lication. It contains no sentiment or doctrine which strikes me
unfavorably, or which any person could wish suppressed. Had
the same thoughts occurred to me, I should have entertained
them, and possibly published them, without the least suspicion of
offence to delicacy or good morals.
“ I fully concur with you, that truth can do the world no harm.
Nor do I doubt that he would be deemed a benefactor, (even an
exceedingly great benefactor,) who can teach man how to limit
his powers of reproduction without abridging his enjoyments.”
Again, the same correspondent says :
“ The value of the pow'er to limit offspring is, I think, very se
parable from any theory which involves consequences arising from
�APPENDIX.
67
the extent of population which the earth can sustain. The liini.
tation is a matter which concerns the present comfort of indivu
duals, in their private capacity; while the extent of the earth’
ultimate fecundity concerns only the thoughts of speculatists and
politicians. I say this, because I am not troubled by the spectre
of Malthus.”
This appears to me an enlightened, and also a very practical
view of the subject. The political economy of the question ought
ever to be kept separate from its moral bearings. The conse
quences involved by the former, are distant, and may be called
theoretical; while those resulting from the latter, are immediate,
and of daily recurrence in practice. If there were no tendency
whatever in the human race to increase beyond its present num
bers, the question would still be one of vital interest, and the con
sequences it involves would still be of surpassing importance to
man in his social and domestic relations. The more I reflect on
the subject, the more thoroughly convinced I am, that man can
never attain to any thing like social cultivation, without a know
ledge of the means to limit, at pleasure and without much sacri
fice of enjoyment, his power of reproduction. And I cannot but
think, that all who have seen much of the civilised world, and
carefully traced out the various causes of the vices and miseries
that pervade it, will, upon reflection, concur with me in the
opinion.
The second writer of whom I spoke (an eminent physician and
professor) says:
“ I have received your ‘ Moral Physiology.’ Your boldness
and independence are entitled to great respect. It is a very im
portant question, and ought to be brought forward, that the pub
lic opinion concerning it may be based on the only proper ground,
full and free and patient public discussion. Your method of hand
ling the subject I approve. Place, the political economist, sug
gests the remedy more boldly than any other.”
The next communication from which I shall copy is from a
young man of excellent character, living in a neighbouring state,
and now one of the conductors of a popular periodical. After sug
gesting to me the propriety of re-publishing some English works
now out of print, he proceeds as follows :
“-------- , February 23, 1831.
Had I not been addressing you upon another subject, I should
nnt have ventured to obtrude on you my small meed of approba
tion, due to your last work ; but I cannot let slip this opportunity
�58
APPENDIX.
of endeavouring to express how much I feel indebted to you for
its publication.
“ To know how I am so indebted, it is necessary you should
also know something of my situation in life : and when it is de
scribed, it is perhaps a description of the situation of two-thirds of
the journeymen mechanics of this country.
“ I have been married nearly three years, and am the father of
two children. Having nothing to depend upon but my own in
dustry, you will readily acknowledge that I had reason to look
forward with at least some degree of disquietude to the prospect
of an increasing family and reduced wages: apparently the inevi
table lot of the generality of working men. Under these circum
stances, I saw W. Jackson’s article in the Delaware Free Press •
but my feelings as a freeman (nominally) revolted at it, and I
must say that I felt greatly pleased when I found that his’ system
did not meet your approbation. You had spoken upon the sub
ject, but, like the Nazarene Reformer, you spoke in parables.
‘ Every Woman’s Book’ I could not see ; and, had not Dr. Gibbons afforded me an example of how much you might be misre
presented, I might have been tempted to believe the slanders cir
culated regarding you.
“ I had apparently nothing left but to let matters take their
own course, when your ‘ Moral Physiology’ made its appearance.
“ I read it; and a new scene of existence seemed to open be
fore me. I found myself, in this all-important matter, a free
agent, and, in a degree, the arbiter of my own destiny. I could
have said to you, as Selim said to Hassan,
‘ Thou’st hewed a mountain’s weight from off my heart.
*
My visions of poverty and future distress vanished ; the present
seemed gilded with new charms, and the future appeared no
longer to be dreaded. But you can better imagine, than I can
describe, the revolution of my feelings.
“ I have since endeavoured to circulate the little book as
widely as my limited opportunities permit, and shall continue to
do so, believing it to be the most useful work that has made its
appearance since the publication of Paine’s ‘ Common Sense
and convinced that, by so doing, I shall render you the most
acceptable return, in my power to make, for the benefit you have
conferred upon me as an individual
G.”
The next extract, from an inhabitant of Pennsylvania, I have
selected chiefly as it furnishes a beautiful, and, alas ! a rare, ex
�APPENDIX.
59
ample, of that parental conscientiousness which scruples to inipar‘
existence, where it cannot also impart the conditions necessary
to render that existence happy
“----------- , March 23, 1831.
*
% “ I use no meat, unless eggs may be considered such; I drink
neither tea, coffee, nor any thing more exciting than milk and
water; and, like yourself, I am fully satisfied, having no craving
after the luxuries of the table. With regard to ‘ Moral Physio
*
logy, let the following facts speak :
** I was born of poor parents, and early left an orphan.
When of age, though my circumstances promised poorly for
the support of a family, I desired to marry, knowing that a
good wife would greatly add to my happiness. The check spoken
of in your book (withdrawal) presented itself to my mind. And
for seven years that I have now been married, lhave continued to
practise it. I was successful in business, and acquired the means
of maintaining a family; but still I have refrained, because my
constitution is such an one as I think a parent ought not to transmit
to his offspring. I prefer refraining from giving birth to sentient
beings, unless I can give them those advantages, physical as well
as moral and intellectual, which are essential to human happiness.
“ One thing I have observed, that since I have adopted a simple
diet, and laid by all artificial stimuli, not only is my health better
and my mind more clear, but I can abstain, at will, without in
jury or inconvenience, from sexual connexion for any length of
time;’ and this without having, in the least, lost any power in
that respect.
T.”
* We applaud as a marvel, the continence of Scipio. Such continence—and
amid circumstances far more trying—is habitually found (under no other re
straint than that of public opinion) among the native Indians of our continentA friend of mine, whose family was captured by a party of Mohawk Indians some
fifty years ago, informed me, that four young women (two of them of considera
ble beauty) who were made prisoners on that occasion, were not once, during a
residence of several years, addressed, even with the remotest degree of sexual im
portunity, by an Indian, old or young, though living with them in the same wig
wam. These young women were the near relatives of the friend who related this
fact to me; and it was from their own lips he obtained it. Yet these were sa
vages.
4 How common would be such 'virtue among ourselves, but for the artificial
Stimuli, and as artificial restraints, which custom and Jaw make prevalent amonv
as.
R. D. O.
�60
APPENDIX.
From the letter of in aged French gentleman, who holds a
public office in the western country, I translate the following •
and I would that every young man and woman in these United
States could read it:
•‘I have read your little work with much interest, and desire
that it may have a wide circulation, and that its recommendations
may be adopted in practice. If you publish a third edition, I
could wish that you would add a piece of advice of the greatest
importance, especially to young married persons. Many women
are ignorant, that, in the gratification of the reproductive instinct
the exhaustion to the man is much greater than to the woman:
a fact most important to be known, the ignorance of which has
caused more than one husband to forfeit his health, nay, his life.
Tissot tells us, that the loss by an ounce of semen is equal to that
by forty ounces of blood ; and that in the case of the healthiest
*
man, nature does not demand connexion oftener than once a
month.!
“ How many young spouses, loving their husbands tenderly
and disinterestedly, if they were but informed of these facts, would
watch over and and preserve their partners’ healths, instead of
exciting them to over-indulgence 1
“ I send you a copy of Italian verses,; appropriate, like the
German stanza you have quoted in your work, to the above re
marks :
(
* Merta gli allori al crine
Chi scende in campo arinato,
• This of course must be rather a matter of conjecture and approximation, than
of accurate calculation.
r. d. O.
F- t And I doubt whether she permits it without more or less injury, to the average
of constitutions, oftener than once a week. I am convinced that atty young man who
will carefully note and compare his sensations, will become convinced, that tem
perance forbids such indulgence, at any rate, more than twice a week; and
that he trifles with his constitution who neglects the prohibition. How immea
surably important that parents should communicate to their sons, but especially
to their daughters, facts like these!
t For the English reader, 1 have attempted the following imitation of the above
lines:
Crown his brows with laurel wreath,
Who can tread the field* of death—
�6h
APPENDIX.
Chi a cento squadre a late,
Impallidir non sa:
Ma pih gloria ha nel fronte
Chi, alia ragion soggetto,
D’un sconsigliato affetto
Trionfator si ft.
I extract the following from my journal:
“ A member of the Society of Friends, from the country, called
at our office; he informed me that he had been married twenty
years, had six children, and would probably have had twice as
many, had he not practised withdrawal, which he found, in every
instance efficacious. By this means he made an interval of two
or three years between the births of each of his children. Hav
ing at last a family of six, his wife earnestly desired to have no
more ; and on one occasion, when she imagined that the necessary
precautions bad been neglected, she shed tears at the prospect of
again becoming pregnant. He said he knew, in his own neigh
bourhood, several married women who were rendered miserable
on account of their continued pregnancy, and would have given
any thing in the world to escape, but knew not how.”
This gentleman corroborated the opinion I have suggested
(page 50,) that the habit of withdrawal had an influence similar
to that of temperance in diet. Ke had found it, he said, much less
exhausting than unrestrained indulgence.
Another gentleman, also belonging to the Society of Friend^,
has since confirmed to me (as a fact proved to him by personal
experience) the above opinion. He likewise expressed his con
viction that the habit was greatly conducive to the preservation
of those first, fresh feelings, so beautiful, and, alas ! so evanes
cent,) under which the married usually come together.
.1
Tread—with armed thousands near—
And know not what it is to fear.
But greater far his meed of praise,
luster his claim to glory’s bays,
Who, true to reason’s voice, to virtue’s call,
Conquers himself, the noblest need of all.
R. D. O..
�APPENDIX.
In reply to a correspondent, J. W., who cites a case of Pria
*
pism mentioned in a Medical Journal some eight or ten years
6ince, and which pathological derangement he thinks was attri
butable to the habit of withdrawal, I reply, that the confurrent testimony of all who can speak from experience on the
subject, disproves not of course the fact he cites, but the propriety
of attributing the effect produced to the cause in question. Pria
pism, it is well known, is frequently caused by sexual excess ; and
was probably so caused in the case alluded to. Such excess is
much less likely to take place, when withdrawal is practised, than
during unrestrained indulgence.
It now remains for me to notice a communication which I re
cently received from a medical gentleman residing iu Indiana, for
whose character I entertain much respect. It regards the phy
siological portion of the work, which the writer, Dr. S----- -, thinks
is altogether inaccurate.
He refers me to Burns’, Denman’s, and Dewee’s Midwifery,
and especially to an essay by Dr. Caldwell, of Transylvania
University, on Generation, in proof that all are not agreed that
the semen must enter the uterus in order to effect impregnation.
He instances a case published in the New-York Medical Reposi
tory, and another in the Western Quarterly Reporter, in which
impregnation was effected, though immediately previous to the
child’s birth the vagina was found only large enough to admit a
common knitting needle, and the medical attendant had, in con
sequence, to make an artificial passage. And he argues, on the
authority of this and other instances where there existed such
mechanical obstruction in the vagina, os tincae,or colimn uteri, as
to render the passage of the seminal fluid next to impossible, that
tha^ fluid does not enter the uterus at all, and, consequently, that
the doctrine on which the whole work is founded, is physiologi
cal! y false; and, as being false, is calculated to do much and cruel
mischief. There are two chief theories, he says, now generally
received on the subject, the absorbent and the sympathetic ; ac
cording to both of which, all that appears absolutely necessary to
impregnation is, that the semen should be deposited somewhere in
the vagina; perhaps, to be taken up by a set of absorbent vessels,
and by them conveyed to the ovum, which ovum is, in its turn
taken up by thefinibriated ends of the Fallopian tube, and thereby
deposited in the uterus: perhaps (but I confess this seems to me
a very poetical theory,) merely to produce simultaneous anft
sympathetic action, thereby effecting the great and secret work
of nature.
�APPENDIX.
63
Now, my expression was, that “ almost all physiologists are
agreed, that the entrance of the sperm itself, or of some volatile
particles proceeding from it, into the uterus, must precede con
ception.”* The favorers of the absorbent theory will not, I pre
sume, deny this ; the few advocates of the sympathetic may.
Nor am I tenacious as regards any theory whatever, on a subject
of which the arcana still remain shrouded in comparative mystery.
Enough for my purpose, that the condition indispensable to repro
duction is, (as Dr. S----- himself reminds us,) the deposition of
the sperm in the vagina. The preventive suggested in “ Moral
Physiology,” positively precludes the fulfilment of this condition ;
and it could only have been, I imagine, by confounding it with
the partial expedient of which I have spoken, (page 50,) that
my medical friend arrived at the conclusion to which I have here
alluded.
The only argument which I conceive can be fairly urged against
it by the physiologist,j- is that to which I have adverted and replied:
(last paragraph of page 49.)
* In proof that I have not spoken unadvisedly on this subject, I may quote
what. I believe, is now considered the highest authority.
I “If the most recent works on Physiology are to be credited, the nterus, during
impregnation, opens a little, draws in the semen by inspiration, and directs it to
the ovarium by means of the Fallopian tubes, whose fimbriated extremity closely
embrace that organ.”—Magendie, p. 416, Philad. Ed.
SeealSd Blundell's and Haighton’s experiments on the rabbit, at Guy’s hospi
tal. See also Spallanzani’s experiments.
# I feel it to be my duty to add, that, since my arrival in England, I have heard
another physiological objection urged against this particular cheek ; namely, that
its influence on the female health is sometimes injurious. It has been suggested
that the deposition of sperm in the vagina cannot be dispensed with during the
.period of excitement, without producing mischievous consequeuces. In so far as
ttw may be a mere theoretical influence—a hazarded opinion, like so many other
opinions, as to “ what, in the nature of things, surely must be”—in this view of
it, I Conceive the objection entitled to little or no weight. But in so far as it may
be substantiated by facts, it is entitled to much weight. We want to know, not
what vague inference suggests, but what actual experience proves. If, unfortunattiy, experience should prove, that women, in availing themselves of this
eheck, do often, or do sometimes, lose their health, either in consequence of the
gtatifiertes being imperfect, or from any other cause, then the objection would
W fatal; and it would behove ns to enquire, whether some other check could
not be found, which even if less infallible, should be more innocent: sueb
�64
APPENDIX.
Having thus answered all the objections which have hitherto
’eached me, I conceive it unnecessary to lengthen this Appendix
by farther quotations approbatory of the work, or corroborative
of the facts it details. Let “Moral Physiology” abide the
ordeal of public examination ; if found wanting, to be cast aside
and forgotten; but if deemed true and useful, to be remembered
and approved.
perhaps, as the insertion into the vagina, previously to coition, of a small,
.moistened sponge, to he immediately afterwards withdrawn : or such as is sugJ
gested in the following extract of a letter which I lately received from a gentle
man of worth and respectability, residing near Manchester:—
“ A mother, whose health was such as to make child-bearing painful and
dangerous to her existence, was desirous, after giving birth to two children, no
urther to increase her family. Her husband’s fondness forbad him to act con
trary to the wishes of his wife: he had, from some source or other, obtained the
information given in your book, and he endeavoured to practise upon it; but
alas ! he was not sufficiently master of his feelings on one or two occasions, and
Lis wife again found herself enceinte.
“ After suffering, during the usual period, all the pains she had before ex
perienced, her health becoming daily more debilitated, she gave, at the narrow
risk of losing her life, birth to a poor little idiot.
“ Since then, a female friend informed her, that, were she to adopt the pre
caution of giving a strong cough immediately after, emission by her husband,
pregnancy would be prevented. She adopted this expedient, and with success.
“ A dear friend of mine, intimate with the lady of whom I have been speaking,
communicated the fact to me, and further assured me, that several females or
her acquaintance had adopted the check and proved its efficacy.
« If, Sir, this.be a sure preventive, 1 think it more safe and natural than with
drawal ; and preferable besides, as placing in the hands of the woman; who has
more caution and more to suffer also than our sex, the power over her destiny.’’
*“ I place these objections and suggestions, a6 they arise, before the public, though
I confess my doubt in regard to the general efficacy of the latter expedient. Let
all such suggestions be canvassed, and taken for what they are worth. Thus, and;
only thus, can truth be elicited.—Note to the Ninth edition
�
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Moral physiology; or, a brief and plain treatise on the population question
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Edition: New ed.
Place of publication: London
Collation: 64 p. : ill. ; 17 cm.
Notes: First published, New York, 1830. Preface (p. [iii] dated 1832) is to the eighth edition. Signature on half-title: A. Bonner, Plaistow, 19/12/80. Engraving by Vigneron on verso opposite t.p. shows woman abandoning her baby with caption: 'Alas! that it should ever have been born!' Appendix: "To the fifth edition." Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
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Owen, Robert Dale [1801-1877]
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E. Truelove
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[pref. 1832]
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N520
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Population
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Birth Control
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Population
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Victorian Blogging
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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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Revealed religion: its claims on the intellect and on the heart impartially discussed in a series of letters from a father to his son
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 62, [4] p. ; 19 cm.
Notes: Covers and edges of most pages stained with red ink. Annotations in pencil and ink. Indecipherable writing in pencil on front cover. By "A Wrangler and ex-member of the University of Cambridge".
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1870
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Christianity-Controversial Literature
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THE SOCIAL FUTURE OF THE
.
WORKING CLASS.
*
*\
& ftttert
Delivered to a Meeting of Trades Unionists, May 7, 1868.
BY
EDWARD SPENCER BEESLY,
PBOEESSOB OP HISWEY IN UNIVEBSITY COLL EC®, LONDON.
“ The working class is not, properly speaking, a class at all, but constitutes the-body
of society. From it proceed the various special classes, which we may regard as organs
necessary to that body.”—-Auguste Comte.
Reprinted from the “Fortnightly Review.”
LONDON:
E.
TRUELOVE, "256,
. .
HIGH HOLBORN.
± 1869*1^
��THE SOCIAL FUTURE OF THE WORKING CLASS.1
We live in a day when social questions are for the first time con
testing precedence with political questions. In the first French
revolution the distinction was not apparent; at all events it was not
recognised even by sharp-sighted observers, though we, looking back
to those times, can detect the signs of it. During the reign of Louis
Philippe—from 1830, that is, to 1848—the distinction became every
year more marked. It is the fashion to speak of the revolution of
1848 as a very small affair—as a feeble imitation of the old revolu
tion. If looked at from a political point of view, in the narrowest
sense of that term, it certainly was a much smaller affair than the
old revolution. But to those who have realised in their minds that
there has been in truth but one revolution, which began in 1789 and
has been going on ever since, and that the year 1848 marks its
transition from the purely political to the social phase,—to such
persons, I say, the last epoch will seem even more momentous than
the first. The attempt of 1848 was a failure, no doubt. But the
history of the French revolution was not closed in 1848, as most of
us here present will live to see.
In England we have travelled the same path, though hitherto
without such violent shocks. We are all of us, French and English
alike, moving rapidly towards the most fundamental revolution
Europe has yet undergone ; a revolution in comparison with which
the great political changes in the time of our grandfathers, and even
the great religious changes three centuries ago, were, I had almost
said, insignificant. I will not pretend to say how far workmen may
have clearly realised to themselves this prospect. I am inclined to
think that not many of them have more than a vague conception of
it, although they are instinctively working towards it. But the
middle class have no conception of it at all. I am not speaking of
the stupidly ignorant part of that body, but of its more enlightened
and active members. They sincerely believe that the series of
political changes which they commenced in England forty years ago
is nearly completed. When they shall have abolished the State
Church, reduced taxation somewhat, obtained the ballot and equal
electoral districts or something like it, they think reform will be
completed, and that England will enter upon a sort of golden age.
(1) This lecture was the last of a series of three delivered last spring, by request of
the London Trades’ Council, to meetings convoked by that body. The first two were
"by Dr. Congreve and Mr. Frederic Harrison.
�2
THE SOCIAL FUTURE 0$ THE WORKING CLASS*
They do not contemplate any serious change, either political or
industrial. Politically, we are still to be governed by Parliament.
In industry we are to have the reign of unlimited competition.
' Now we can all of us understand that some men, either from
education or mental constitution, do not believe in progress at all.
They think that all change is for the worse, unless it is a change
backwards; and they are convinced that nothing but firmness is
wanting to resist change. There always have been such men, and
we can understand them. But what is less easy to understand is
that there should be men who believe heartily in progress, and yet
shut their eyes deliberately to the goal whither we are tending.
The truth is that their belief in progress does not rest on any reason
able basis. It is nothing better than a superstitious optimism, a
lazy semi-religious idea that the world must have a natural tendency
to get better. As for what getting better means, that they settle by
their own likes and dislikes. Consequently the middle-class man
interprets it to mean a reign of unlimited competition and individual
freedom; while the workman understands it to be a more equal
division of the products of industry. Although the workman’s
circumstances have led him to a truer conception of progress, perhaps
he has not arrived at it on much more reasonable grounds than those
on which the middle-class man has arrived at his. For, after all, it
does not follow because we long for a certain state of society that
therefore we are tending towards it.
The lot of the poor is a hard lot; there is no denying that. With
a very large number of them life is absolute misery from birth to
death. Though they may not actually starve, they are more or less
hungry from one week’s end to another; their dull round of toil
occupies the whole day; their homes are squalid and frightful,
seldom free from disease, and the heartrending .incidents of disease,
when aggravated by poverty. For them life is joyless, changeless,
hopeless. “ They wait for death, but it cometh not; they rejoice
exceedingly and are glad when they can find the grave.” Those who
have mixed with the very poor, and have been startled by the strange
calmness with which they contemplate and speak of death, whether
of themselves or their relatives, will not say that this picture is much
over-drawn. But it is not of this poorest class that I now wish to
speak. I say that the lot of the skilled artizan earning his 30s.
or 35s. a week (when he is not out of employment) is a hard lot.
Perhaps it may seldom or never happen to him to go for a day with
his hunger only half satisfied. But his position compared with that
of a non-workman is one of great discomfort. People often seem to
forget this. It is not uncommon for rich men, when addressing an
audience of workmen to say, “ My friends, I am a working man. I
have been a working man all my life. I have been working with
�THE SOCIAL FUTURE OF THE WORKING CLASS.
3
my brain as you have with your hands.” Yes, but there is just
that difference. The one man has risen, say, at eight in the morning,
from a comfortable bed, has come down-stairs to a comfortable
breakfast, read his newspaper, reached his place of business towards
eleven o’clock, and then worked perhaps hard enough for some hours,
but in a comfortable office, and with interest in his work so intense
that he perhaps prefers it to any amusement, and then back to his
comfortable dinner and bed. The other man has risen perhaps
before daylight, has toiled ten or twelve hours, it may be under a
broiling sun, or a chilling rain, or under other conditions equally
disagreeable, and at work which cannot have very much interest for
him, first, because it is monotonous, secondly, because the product
will not be his when he has produced it. He has snatched his coarse
food at intervals during the day, and has returned at night to an
uncomfortable home. I think rich people are too apt to forget that,
though habit counts for much, a poor man’s, muscles, lungs, and
stomach,.are, after all, not very unlike their own, and that no amount
of custom makes such a life Otherwise than disagreeable and even
painful to him; and that the main question for him in reference to
civilisation will be, how it alleviates his condition. How are we
to answer that question? Everyone is familiar with the hymns
of triumph that are raised from time to time on the platform and in
the press. We need not enter into particulars, because no one
disputes that, so far as they go, they do point to progress of a certain
kind. No one disputes that the production and accumulation of
wealth is an element of progress J but it is only one element, and if
even this is confined to a comparatively small section of the com
munity, it must be admitted either that society as a whole is not
progressing, or that its progress must be proved by somewhat better
evidence than the statistics paraded in budget speeches and news
paper articles.
There is no question about the material progress of the non-work
man class. There are many thousands of houses in London infinitely
more commodious and luxurious than the palaces of Plantagenet
kings. But there is very great question whether the workmen
generally have made any real progress in comfort. Some of them
have, no doubt. The skilled artizan in London gets enough to eat.
He is perhaps no better lodged than his forefathers, but he dresses
better, and he has greater opportunities of enjoying himself and
moving about to better himself. But among the agricultural
labourers what state of things do we find ? In many parts of England
they are positively worse off than they were a hundred years ago.
In the Eastern Counties, where agriculture is carried on by the
newest lights of science, the horrible gang-system has come into
existence within the present century. Nor is such misery confined
.
b 2
�4
THE SOCIAL FUTURE OF THE WORKING CLASSJ
to agricultural labourers. It has been proved in official reports that
' the workmen in such extensive trades as shoe-making, silk-weaving,
and stocking-weaving, are on an average worse fed than the
Lancashire operatives were during the cotton famine.1
Now, wretchedness of this terrible kind does not exist even among
barbarous nations and savage tribes. The child of the North
American Indian, or the Caffre, or the Esquimaux, does not begin to
work in a mill or in an agricultural gang almost as soon as it can
walk. It gets better food than the English child, and leads a
healthier and more enjoyable life. The West Indian negro has
been treated as an irreclaimable savage because he will not toil like
an English labourer, and the reason assigned is that he has plenty
to eat and drink without working hard for it. I fancy most English
labourers wish they could say the same. Really, if progress and
civilisation mean nothing but an increase of wealth, irrespective of
its distribution, Rousseau had much reason to prefer the state of
nature. It is childish to remind the poor man that his ancestor
under the Plantagenet kings had no chimney to his hut, no. glass in
his windows, no paper on his walls, no cheap calico, no parliamentary
trains, no penny newspapers. He was no worse off in these respects
than the Plantagenet king himself, who was equally without chimneys,
glass windows, calico, railways, and penny newspapers. There are parts
of the world now where the labourer is still in that condition. But
he gets sound and healthy sleep out of the straw spread on the floor
of his windowless hut, which is more than three or four families
huddled together in a single room in St. Giles’s can do, though they
may have a glazed window and a chimney. A poor Englishman
might be ashamed to walk about in a good stout sheepskin; but he
is often clad in garments much less warm and durable. What sort
of progress is this, in which the larger part of the community remains
as miserable, if not more miserable, than in a state of barbarism ?
If progress is necessarily so one-sided, it were better—I say it deli
berately—it were better it ceased. It were better that all were poor
together than that this frightful contrast should exist to shake men’s
faith in the eternal principles of justice.
Happily, we are not shut up to so discouraging a conclusion. If .
we look at the whole history of our race in Western Europe, instead
of studying one short chapter of it alone, we shall soon see what its
progress has been. The labouring class have steadily advanced in
dignity and influence. Once they were slaves, with no more rights
than horses and oxen. Then they were serfs, with certain rights,
but still subject to grievous oppression and indignities. Then they
became free hired labourers, nominally equal with the upper class
before the law, but in practice treated as an inferior race, and them(1) Public Health; Sixth Report, for 1863, pp. 13, 14.
�THE SOCIAL FUTURE OF THE WORKING CLASS.
3
selves looking on the rich with much deference and awe. Now we
have come to a time when the workmen are almost everywhere
standing on their rights, and resisting what they deem unfair or
oppressive. They have learnt the secret of combination. With
freedom and dignity has come confidence—confidence in each other.
They have grasped the idea that the main object of government and
industrial organisation should be their comfort and happiness. What
is more, everybody is beginning to hold the same language. Every
proposal publicly made, whether to destroy or to create, is represented
as for the good of the lower classes. The very employers who are
trying to destroy your trade societies profess to be doing it out of
pure love for you. How astonishing and incomprehensible would all
this have been—I do not say to the ancient slave-owner, or to the
mediaeval baron—but to the wealthy men of the last century. Is
not this progress ? What if a minority only of the workmen have
as yet derived any benefit from the increased production of wealth ?
Is it nothing that the arms are being forged with which all shall at
length get their share ? Material improvement has always begun,
and always will begin, not with. those who need it most, but with
those who need it least; and the higher classes of workmen are now
making the experiment which the lowest will repeat after them.
Once firmly grasped, this truth throws a flood of light on history,
and makes clear what at first sight, is so obscure—the unbroken,
continuous progress of society. We see that even in the so-called
dark ages, when the splendour of Roman civilisation appeared to be
extinguished by the barbarian—when science, art, and literature
were lost and forgotten, and the world seemed to have retrograded
ten centuries—even then, in that dark hour, our race was accom
plishing the most decided step forward that it has ever made. When
the philosophers and poets and artists of Greece were lavishing their
immortal works on small communities of free men—when the
warriors and statesmen of Rome were building up the most splendid
political fabric that the world has seen—the masses were sunk in a
state of brutal slavery. . But when savage tribes, with uncouth names
and rude manners, had poured over Europe,. when a squalid bar
barism had superseded the elegance and luxury of ancient society,
when kings could not read, and priests could not write, when trade
and commerce had relapsed into Oriental simplicity, when men
thought that the end of a decayed and dying world was surely near
—then were the masses, . the working men, accomplishing un
noticed their first great step from slavery to' serfdom.
What I have already said amounts to this: that the improvement
of the condition of the working class is the most important element
of human progress—so important that even if we were to make it
�6
THE SOCIAL FUTURE OF THE WORKING CLASS.
the sole object and test of our public life we could not justly be said
to be taking a one-sided view of political and social questions. I
shall endeavour presently to draw a picture of the workman’s life,
as it ought to be, and, as I believe, it will be in the future. But I
must first examine some of the means by which the transition is
being effected.
I will put aside the various schemes of Socialists and Communists.,
which have found so many supporters on the Continent. Widely as
they differ from one another, I believe they all agree in demanding
that the State shall intervene, more or less, in the direction of
industry. Now that' opinion has never found much favour in
England, nor is there at the present time any large body of workmen
who support it. In France the first idea of every reformer or
innovator is to act through the Government. This tendency arises
partly from the jealousy with which all Governments in that country
have repressed voluntary association, but partly also from the logical
and orderly character of the French mind, which abhors anything
partial or patchy either in thought or action. But in England,
where there has always been considerable facility for private and
associated action, it is our way rather to depend upon ourselves than
to wait till we have a Government of our way of thinking. Hence
the only two methods which have any serious pretensions to promote
the elevation of workmen in England have both of them sprung, not
from the brains of philosophers, but from the practical efforts of
workmen themselves. This is shown by the very language we
employ to describe them. In France the labour question has meant
the discussion of the rival schools, the Economic School, the school of
Fourier, the school of Proudhon, the school of Louis Blanc, of Cabet,
of Pierre Leroux, and so on. In England we do not talk of schools,
but of Unionism and Co-operation, which began in a practical form,
and have continued practical. There can be no doubt that all work
men who care for the future of their class are looking to one of these
two methods for the realisation of their hopes. Here, as on the
Continent, there is no lack of thinkers with elaborate schemes which,
in the opinion of their authors, would ensure universal happiness.
But whereas the French philosophers, whom I have mentioned, had
each his thousands of ardent disciples among the workmen, our
theorists cannot count their disciples by dozens, and are therefore not
worth taking into account. But Co-operation and Unionism are real
forces, and to pass them over in silence would be to deprive this
lecture of all practical value and interest for such an audience as I
am addressing.
The first thing to be noticed about Co-operation is that the word is
used for two very different things. There is the theory, and there is
the practice. The theory, as you know, is that there should be no
�THE SOCIAL FUTURE OF THE WORKING CLASSI
7
employer-class, that the workmen should divide the profits of produc
tion amongst themselves, and that whatever management is necessary
should be done by salaried officers and committees. Co-operation,
nowever, in that sense, does not get beyond a theory. The nobleminded men who founded the celebrated mill at Rochdale did indeed
for some years manage to put their principles in practice; but even
their own society at length fell away from them, and began to employ
workmen who were not shareholders at the market-rate of wages;
and I believe there is not in England, at the present moment, a
single co-operative society in which workmen divide the profits
irrespective of their being shareholders. Co-operation, in this sense,
then, may be dismissed from consideration with as little ceremony
as the Socialist and Communist theories before alluded to. Like*
them it supposes a degree of unselfishness and devotion which wedo not find in average men, and it does not attempt to create those
qualities, or supply their place by the only influence that can keep
societies of men for any length erf time to a high standard of
morality, the influence of an organised religion.
The Co-operation which actually exists, and is an important featureof modern industry, is something very different. We must strip it
mercilessly of the credit it borrows from its name, and its supposed
connection with the theory above described. It is nothing more than
an extension of the joint-stock principle. In what respect does the
Rochdale mill differ from any other joint-stock company ? A con
siderable number of its shares are already%eld by persons who do not
work in it, and it is very possible that in course of time all, or most
of the workmen employed in it, will be earning simply the market
rate of wages. A certain number of men, by the exercise of industry,
prudence, and frugality, will have risen from the working class into
the class above. How is the working class the better for that ?
What sort of solution is that for the industrial problem ? We set out
with the inquiry how the working class was to be improved, not how
a few persons, or even many persons, were to be enabled to get out of
it. We want to discover how workmen may obtain a larger share of
the profits of production, and the Rochdale Co-operative Mill, which
pays workmen the market-rate, has certainly not made the discovery.
The world is not to be regenerated by the old dogma of the economists
masquerading in Socialist dress.
The history of Co-operation is this. The noble-minded men who
first preached the theory in. its purity, were deeply impressed with
the immoral and mischievous way in which capital is too often
employed by its possessors,, and instead of inquiring how moral
influence might be brought to bear on capitalists, they leaped to the
conclusion that capitalists as a separate class ought not to exist. In
making this assumption they overlooked the distinction between the-
�8
THE SOCIAL FUTURE OB’ THE WORKING* CLASS!
accidental and the permanent conditions of industry. Collective
activity among men has had two types—the military and the indus
trial, the latter of which has gradually almost superseded the former.
Military organisation has undergone many and great changes, from
the earliest shape in which we find it among savage tribes down to
its most elaborate form in our own time. But its one leading
characteristic has remained unchanged. There has never been a
time when armies weje not commanded by generals with great power
and great responsibility. Wherever there has been the slightest
attempt to weaken that power and diminish that responsibility, there
it is admitted that the army has suffered and the work has been so
much less efficiently done. Whether the soldiers were mere slaves
as in Eastern countries, or free citizens as in the republics of Greece
and Rome and America, or mercenaries fighting for hire as has often
been the case in modern Europe, the principle of management has
always been the same. Discipline was as sharp among the citizen
soldiers of Grant and Sherman as among the conscripts of Frederick
and Napoleon. Such a thing as the co-operative management of an
army has never been heard of.
Now in the other type of collective activity-—the industrial—a
similar organisation has constantly prevailed. The analogy is
striking, and it is not accidental, for the conditions are fundamentally
the same. Fighting and working are the two great forms of activity,
and if you have to organise them on a large scale, it is not strange
that the same method should be found best for both. And workmen
will do well to notice this analogy, and insist on pressing it home to
the utmost of their power; for the more logically it is carried out, the
more striking and overwhelming are the arguments it supplies for
their side of the labour controversy. There is not a phase of that
controversy which it does not illustrate, and invariably to their
advantage. As one instance out of many, I may mention the sanc
tion afforded by military practice for a uniform rate of wages to the
rank-and-file of labour—an argument which was put by one of the
Trades’ Union Inquiry Commissioners to the Secretary of the Master
Builders’ Association, and which completely shut his mouth on that
questioh. But it is for another purpose that I am now referring to
this analogy. Special skill and training, unity of purpose, prompti
tude, and, occasionally, even secrecy, are necessary for a successful
direction of industry just as much as of war. “ A council of war
never fights ” is a maxim which has passed into a proverb, as
stamping the worthlessness of such councils. Yet councils of war
are not composed of private soldiers, but of skilful and experienced
officers. They are more analogous to our boards of railway directors,
whose incapacity, I must admit, does not take exactly that form.
Whether the efficiency of our railway management would be improved
�Khe soUIAIj future of the Working class.
9
by an. infusion of stokers and plate-layers into the direction, I will
leave it to the advocates of Co-operation to say.
Another no less important advantage of the old industrial system
over Co-operation is that it transfers the risk from the workman to
the employer. Capital is the reserved fund which enables the
employer to carry on his business' with due enterprise, and yet
to give a steady rate of wages to the workman. Great as have been
the changes through which industry has passed—^-slavery, serfdom, and
free labour—this fundamental characteristic has remained unaltered.
In all ages of the world, since industry began to be organised at all,
the accumulated savings which we call capital ha^e been in the hands
of comparatively few persons, who have provided subsistence for the
labourer while engaged in production. The employer has borne the
risk and taken the profits. The labourer has had no risk and no
share of the profits. Though in modern times there appears to be
some desire on the part of the master to make the workman share
the risk, he will soon come to see that such a policy destroys the
only justification of capital, and thus strikes at the root of pro
perty itself. The workmen will help him to see this by their com
binations, if he shows any indisposition to open his eyes. It is one
among many ways in which they will teach him in spite of himself
what is for his own good. In point of fact, in the best organised
trade—that of the engineers—the rate of wages is subject to little if
any fluctuation.
The separation, then, between employers and employed, between
capitalist and labourer, is a natural and fundamental condition of
society, characteristic of its normal state, no less than its preparatory
stages. We may alter many things, but we shall not alter that.
We may change our forms of government, our religions, our
language, our fashion of dress, our cooking, but the relation of
employer and employed is no more likely to be superseded in the
future by Communism in any of its shapes, than is another institu
tion much menaced at the present time—that of husband and wife.
It suits human nature in a civilised state. Its aptitude to supply
the wants of man is. such that nothing can compete with it. There
may be fifty ways of getting from Temple Bar to Charing Cross;
but the natural route is by the Strand; and along the Strand the
bulk of the traffic will always lie. ' And so, though we may have
trifling exceptions, the great mass of workmen will always be
employed by capitalists.
Now this was what the founders of Co-operation refused to see;
and in their enthusiasm they fancied they could establish societies,
the shareholders of which would voluntarily surrender to non-share
holders a large part of the profits vhich their capital would naturally
^command. But the shareholders were most of them only average
�10
THE SOCIAL FUTURE OF THE WORKING CLASS.
men; they were not enthusiastic, or their enthusiasm cooled as the
money-making habit crept over them. The co-operative theory was
not bound up with any religious system, or supported by any spiritual
discipline ; and they soon fell into the vulgar practice of making the
most of their capital. What is the lesson to be learnt ? Whatever
there was of good in the movement belonged not to the industrial
theory, but to the social spirit of the men who started it. If those
men had been employers, or if any employers had had their spirit,
the workmen would have reaped the same advantages without any
machinery of co-operation. Therefore we must look for improvement, not to this or that new-fangled industrial system, but to the
creation of a moral and religious influence which may bend all in
obedience to duty. When we have created such an influence, we
shall find that it will act more certainly and effectually on a small
body of capitalists than it would on a loose multitudinous mob of
co-operative shareholders.
Before leaving the subject of Co-operation, let me say that, while I
cannot recognise its claims to be the true solution of the industrial
question, I heartily acknowledge the many important services it may
render to the working class. Even as applied to production, in
which I contend it can never play an important part, it will do good
for a time by throwing light On the profits of business. As applied
to distribution in the shape, that is to say, of co-operative stores, its
services can hardly be exaggerated. It not only increases the
comfort of workmen, by furnishing them with genuine goods and
making their money go further, but it gives them dignity and
independence by emancipating them from a degrading load of debt.
Moreover, it sets free, for the purpose of reproduction, a large
amount of labour and capital which had before been wasted in a
badly arranged system of distribution.
If we turn now to the other agency by which the labouring class
in this country is being elevated, I mean Trades Unions, we shall
find more enlightened ideas combined with greater practical utility
Unionism distinctly recognises the great cardinal truth which Co
operation shirks—namely, that workmen must be benefited as work
men, not as something else. It does not offer to any of them
opportunities for raising themselves into little capitalists, but it
offers to all an amelioration of their position. Co-operation is a fine
thing for men who are naturally indefatigable, thrifty, and ambitious
—not always the finest type of character, be it observed in passing—
but it does nothing for the less energetic, for the men who take life
easily, and are content to live and die in the station in which they
were born. Yet these are just the men we want to elevate, for they
form the bulk of the working class. They are in very bad odour
with the preachers of the Manchester school, the apostles of self-help.
�THE SOCIAL FUTURE OF THE WORKING CLASS.
11
To my mind there is not a more degrading cant than that which
I incessantly pours from the lips and pens of these wretched instructors.
Men professing to be Christians, and very strict Christians too—■
Protestant Christians who have cleansed their faith of all mediaeval
corruptions and restored it according to the primitive model of
apostolic times, when, we are told, “all that believed were together,
and had all things common; and sold their possessions and goods,
and parted them to all men, as every man had need ”—these teachers,
I say, are not ashamed to talk of making money and getting on in
the world, as if it were the whole duty of a working man. Thus it
comes to pass, that while they are bitter opponents and calumniators
of Unionism,1 they patronise Co-operation, because it enables their
model workman to raise himself, as Lord Shaftesbury expressed it
not long ago, “ into a good and even affluent citizen,” a moral eleva
tion to which it is clear a primitive Christian never attained. But
you who are workmen, and have a little practical experience of the
thing, you do not want me or anyone else to tell you that the men
who raise themselves from the ranks are very often not distinguished
by fine dispositions or even by great abilities. What is wanted for
success of that sort is industry, perseverance, and a certain sharpness,
often of a low kind. I am far from saying that those who raise
themselves are not often admirable men ; but you know very well
that they are sometimes very much the reverse—that they are morally
very inferior to the average workman who is content with his posi
tion, and only desires that his work may be regular and his wages
fair. Now the merit of Unionism is that it meets the case of this
average workman. Instead of addressing itself to the sharp, shifty
men, who are pretty certain to take care of themselves in any case,
it undertakes to do the best that can be done for the average man.
And not only so, but it attends to the man below the average in
industry and worthiness: it finds him work, and insists on his
working; it fortifies his good resolutions; it strengthens him
against temptation; it binds him to his fellows;—in short, it
regulates him generally, and looks after him. Nor is even this the
full extent of the difference in this respect between Co-operation and
Unionism. While the benefits of the former are exclusively reaped
by shareholders, the union wins its victories in the interest of nonunionists just as much as of its own members..
I noticed as a fatal error of Co-operation that it regards the relation
of employer and employed as a transient and temporary arrangement
which may and will be superseded, whereas it is permanent, and
(1) “ God. grant that the work-people may be emancipated from the tightest thraldom
they have ever yet endured. AR the single despots, and aU the aristocracies that ever
were or will be, are as puffs of wind compared with these tornadoes of Trades Unions, j
BufeJ^.have small hope. The masses seem to me to have less common-sense than they
had a year ago.”—Zcfter of Lord Shaftesbury to Colonel Maude.
�12
THE SOCIAL FUTURE OF THE WORKING CLASSI
destined to survive all attacks. It is an eminent merit of Unionism
that it recognises this important truth. The practical good sense of
workmen has here shown itself superior to all the cleverness of philo
sophers. They have instinctively grasped the maxim that we shall
best serve the cause of progress, whether political or social, by striving
not to displace the actual possessors of power, but to teach them to
use their power for the interests of society.1 And there is this further
advantage of a practical kind, that Unionism is not obliged, like the
schemes of the philosophers, to hover impotently in the air, as a mere
speculative phantom, till such time as it can command the assistance
of the State to get itself tried in practice. A few dozen men can
commence the application of it in their own trade any day they please.
Nor is it a cut-and-dried scheme in which every detail is settled
beforehand with mathematical exactness; it is of infinite elasticity,
and can adapt itself spontaneously to the circumstances of each
case.
I It is desirable that the workman’s wages should be good, but it is
still more desirable that they should be steady. A fluctuating income
in any station of life is, as everyone knows, one of the most demora
lising influences to which a man can be exposed. When an outcry
is raised against the unions because -they maintain that wages ought
not to fall with every temporary depression of trade, it always seems
to me that in so doing they are discharging precisely their most
useful function. I have already alluded to the duty of the capitalist
in this respect, and Unionism supplies exactly the machinery required
for keeping him up to his duty, until a religious influence shall have
been organised which will produce the same result in a more healthy
and normal way. No doubt unions might offend deplorably on their
side against this principle of a steady rate of wages. It is conceivable
that they might screw out of the employer every year or every month
wages to such an amount as would leave him only the bare profit
which would make it worth his while to continue in business. It is
manifest that on those terms he could not amass such a reserve fund
as would enable him to tide over temporary depression without
reducing wages. Every fluctuation in trade would cause a corre
sponding fluctuation in wages, which would vary from month to
month. If Trades Unions were to act in this way they would lose
their principal justification. They are charged with doing so now,
but the charge is perfectly groundless. Probably in no case do they
extract from the employer anything like the wages he could afford
to give if he was disposed. I do not believe that unions, extend them
as you will, will ever be strong enough to put such a pressure on the
employers. I believe that an organised religious influence will here
after induce employers to concede to their men, voluntarily, a larger
(1) Comte Pol. Pos. i. 163 (p. 173 of the translation by Dr. Bridges).
�THE SOCIAL FUTURE OF THE WORKING CLASS.
13
sh^?e ofxhew profits than any Trades Union could extort from them.
An additional security that unions will never go too far in this direc
tion is to be found in the fact that some masters, whether from larger
capital, greater business ability, or higher reputation, make much
larger profits than others. But unions do not pretend to exact higher
wages from such masters. The tariff, therefore, is evidently ruled by
the profits of the least successful employers.
It might have been supposed at first sight that employers would
have looked with more favour on Unionism, which leaves them in full
possession of their capital, their authority, and their responsibility,
than on Co-operation, which proposes to supersede them altogether.
But, as you all know, the contrary is the case; and there could not
be a more instructive test of the relative efficiency of the two methods.
Unionism maintains that capital has its duties, and must be used for
a social purpose. Co-operation shrinks from asserting a doctrine so
distasteful to the propertied classes, and seeks to evade the necessity
for it by the. shallow fallacy that everyone is to become a capitalist.
Although everyone will not become a capitalist, no doubt some
will, and the net result of the co-operative movement will be that
the army of capitalists will be considerably reinforced in its lower
ranks. Will that army so reinforced be more easy to deal with ?
An exaggerated and superstitious reverence for the rights of property,
and an indifference to its duties, is the chief obstacle to the elevation
of the working class. The fewer the possessors in whose hands
capital is concentrated, the more easy will it be to educate, discipline,
and, if need be, gently coerce them. But when the larger capitalists
have at their back an army of little capitalists, men who have sunk
the co-operative workman in the co-operative shareholder, men who
have invested their three or four hundred pounds in the concern, and
are employing their less fortunate fellow-workmen at the market rate
of wages, why, it stands to reason that the capital of the country will
be less amenable to discipline than ever. A. striking example is to
be seen in France at the present time. You know that the immediate
effect of the old revolution was to put the cultivators in possession of
the soil. A vast number of small proprietors were created. Doubtless
many advantages resulted from that change. France got rid of her
aristocracy once and for good. The cultivators identified themselves
with the revolution which had given them the soil, and defended it
fiercely against the banded sovereigns of Europe. If the people had
not been bribed with the land, the revolution might have been
crushed. But there has been another result from it, of more doubtful
^advantage. The whole of this class of small proprietors is fanatically
devoted to the idea of property; and in their fear that property should
Ue attacked they have thrown their weight on the side of conserfeailSKL and against further political and social progress. The wealthy
�14
THE SOCIAL FUTURE OF THE WORKING CLASSI
middle class plays on their ignorance and timidity. All who desire
to initiate the smallest social reform, who express any opinion adverse
to the tyrannical power exercised by capital, are denounced as Com
munists and apostles of confiscation. The small proprietors are
worked up into a frenzy of apprehension, and fling themselves into
the arms of any crafty impostor who talks big words about saving
society. Thus the artizans and small proprietors, men whose interests
must be essentially the same, for they are all alike workmen living by
the sweat of their brow and the labour of their hands, are pitted
against one another, and the middle class alone profits by the dissen
sion. If the manufactures of this country were to get into the hands
of a number of small shareholders, simple workmen would soon find
the rein tighter and the load heavier. Their demand for the repeal
of unjust laws would encounter a more stubborn resistance; the
progress they have been making towards comfort and dignity would
be abruptly checked. Fortunately, as I have already endeavoured to
1 show, there is no likelihood that so-called Co-operation will ever drive
the capitalist employer out of the field.
Such are the reasons for which I hold Unionism to be by far the
most efficient of all the agencies that have as yet been largely advo
cated or put in practice for the purpose of elevating the working
class, and preparing it for its future destinies. The French workmen
have much to teach us ; but I think in this matter they might take
a lesson from our men with advantage. I hope they will signalise
their next revolution—for which, by the way, I am getting rather
impatient—by abolishing all those laws which so iniquitously obstruct
their right to combine. Indeed, Unionism cannot be said to have
had a fair trial in England until it is established in the other
countries of Europe also?
It remains to consider what the destinies are for which our work
men are thus preparing themselves, and to picture to ourselves what
their condition will be when society shall approximate more nearly
to its normal state. We may do so without indulging in Utopias or
extravagant estimates of our capacity to shape the course of human
development, because we are not postulating springs of action in
individuals, which, as a matter of fact, do not exist, or do not exist
in sufficient strength—we are not spinning theories out of a priori
notions of what society ought to be, but we are feeling our way by
an examination, on the one hand, of the permanent facts of our nature,
and the conditions imposed upon us by the external world ; and, on
the other hand, of the steady, continuous progress of society in the
past. And if it has occurred to anyone that I have been a long
time coming to what professed to be the subject of this lecture—
namely, “ the future of the working class ”—I must plead, in justi
�THE SOCIAL FUTURE OF THE WORKING CLASS.
131
fication, that I have in effect been dealing with it all along, and that
nothing now remains but to give some practical illustrations of the
conclusions already arrived at.
That the position of the workman will ever be as desirable as that
of the wealthier classes seems, as far as we can see, highly impro
bable. Some people are shocked when such a proposition is plainly
enunciated. They have a sort of hazy idea that the external condi
tions of our existence cannot be inconsistent with the perfection and
happiness of man. They have been taught that this is a world
where only man is vile, and it sounds to them immoral to talk as if
there was any insurmountable obstacle to an ideal state of society
except what they are accustomed to term our fallen nature. The
fact is, however, that this is very far from being the best of all
possible worlds, and we must look that fact in the face. Human
society might arrive much nearer perfection, both moral and material,
if there was not so much hard work to be done. It must be done by
some; and those to whom it falls to do it will inevitably have a less
pleasant life than others. But though to annul or entirely alter the
inflnone.es of the world external to ourselves is beyond our humble
powers, we can generally either modify them to some extent, or,
what comes to the same thing, modify ourselves to suit them, if only
successive generations of men address themselves wisely to the task;
just as an individual may by care preserve his health in a pestilential
climate, though he can do little or. nothing to alter the climate.
And so, though there will probably always be much to regret in the
workman’s lot, we may look forward to improvements which will
give him a considerable amount of comfort and happiness. I will
enumerate some of these which we may reasonably expect will be
reached when present struggles are over, and when employers and
workmen alike have learnt to shape their lives and conduct by the
precepts of a rational religion.
Employers, though exercising their own judgment and free action
in their industrial enterprises, will never forget that their first con
cern must be, not the acquisition of an enormous fortune, but the
well-being and comfort of the labourers dependent on them. Hence
there will be an end of that reckless speculation which sports with
the happiness, and even the life, of workmen and their families—
displacing them here, massing them there, treating them, in short,
as mere food for powder in the reckless conflicts of industrial compe
tition. We shall no longer see periods of spasmodic energy and
frantic over-production first in one trade, then in another, followed
by glutted markets, commercial depression, and cessation of employ
ment. For capital being concentrated in comparatively few hands,
it will be possible to employ it with wisdom and foresight for the
general good; which is quite out of the question while the chieftains
�16.
THE SOCIAL .FUTURE OF THE WORKING CLASS.
of industry are a disorganised multitude, swaying to and fro in the
markets of the world as blindly and irrationally as a street-mob at a
fire. Thus the workman will be able to count on what is more
precious to him than anything else—steady employment, and an
income which, whether large or small, is, at all events, liable to
little fluctuation. The demoralising effects of uncertainty in this
respect can hardly be overrated. Large numbers of workmen at
present, from no fault of their own, lead as feverish and reckless an
existence as the gambler. When this state of things ceases, we may
look forward with confidence to a remarkable development of social
and domestic virtue among the working class.
To give the workman due independence, he ought to be the owner
of his abode, or, at all events, to have a lease of it. In some
instances at present we find men living in houses belonging to their
employers, from which they can be ejected at a week’s notice. This
_is often the case among colliers and agricultural labourers, and what
grinding tyranny results from it, I need not tell you. It is not
desirable in a healthy, industrial society that labour should be
migratory. Ordinarily, the workman will continue in the same
place, and with the same employer, for long periods, just as is the
habit with other classes. Fixity of abode will naturally accompany
fixity of wages and employment. Here, again, we may expect an
admirable reaction on social and domestic morality.
A diminution of the hours of work is felt by all the best workmen
to be even more desirable than an increase of wages. All of you,
I am sure, have so thoroughly considered this question in all its
bearings, that I am dispensed from dwelling on it at length. I
merely mention it that it may not be supposed I undervalue it. If
the working day could be fixed at eight hours for six days in the
week, and a complete holiday on the seventh, the workman would have
time to educate himself, to enjoy himself, and above all to see more
of his family.
Let us next consider how far the State can intervene to render the
position of the workman more tolerable. That ought to be the
first and highest object of the State, and therefore we need have no
scruple about taxing the other classes of the community to any extent
for this purpose, provided we can really accomplish it.1 But of course
it must be borne in mind that by injudicious action in this direction
(1) As I have had some experience of the criticism (always anonymous) which seizes
a detached passage and draws from it inferences directly excluded by the context, I
desire by anticipation to protest against any quotation of the above sentence apart from
at least the three which immediately succeed it. Taken by itself (although even so it
is guarded by a strictly adequate proviso) it might be misunderstood. In the context
the proviso is carefully and fully expanded into an argument on social grounds against
excessive taxation of the rich. Arguments from the individualist point of view I
entirely reject, as I trust my audience did.
�THE’ SOCIAL FUTURE OF THE WORKING CLASS.
• 17
we might easily defeat our own benevolent intentions. For instance,'
it is conceivable that such taxation might become so heavy as to
approximate in effect to the establishment of Communism, and the
springs of industry and frugality, in other words the creation of capital,
would be proportionately affected. Again, the State must not afford
help to workmen in such shape as directly or indirectly to encourage
on the one hand idleness, and on the other a reckless increase of the
population. For example, it must not interfere to lower the price
of food or houses; because common sense and experience alike show
us that such interference would rapidly pauperise the class it was
intended to benefit. But there are, I believe, many ways in which
it may add most materially to the comfort and happiness of the poor
without at all relieving them from the necessity of exercising prudence
and industry. As regards their physical comfort, it may carry out
sanitary regulations on a scale hitherto not dreamt of. It may
furnish them in London, and other large towns, with a copious supply
of good water free of expense. It may provide medical assistance
much more liberally than at present. I would add, it may exercise
a close supervision over the weights and measures of the shopkeepers
and the quality of the goods they supply, did I not hope that the
spread of co-operative stores may render such supervision unnecessary.
The State may also do much to make the lives of the poor brighter
and happier. It may place education within their reach; it may
furnish an adequate supply of free libraries, museums, and picture
galleries; it may provide plenty of excellent music in the parks and
other public places on Sundays and summer evenings.
I think that a London workman in steady employment, earning
such wages as he does now, working eight hours a day, living in
his own house, and with such means of instruction and amusement
as I have described gratuitously afforded him, would not have an
intolerable lot. His position would, it is true, be less brilliant than
that of his employer. But it does not follow that the lot of the
latter would be so very much more desirable. His income, of course,
will be lessened in proportion as his workmen receive a larger share
of the profits of production. He will live in greater luxury and
elegance than they do, but within limits; for public opinion, guided
by religious discipline, will not tolerate the insolent display of
magnificence which at present lends an additional bitterness to the
misery of the poor. His chief pleasure will consist, like that of the
statesman, in the noble satisfaction of administering the interests of
the industrial group over which he presides. But the responsibilities
of this position will be so heavy, the anxiety and the strain on the
mind so severe, that incompetent men will generally be glad to take
the advice that will be freely given them, namely, to retire from it
to some humbler occupation, The workmen, on the other hand.
�18*
THE SOCIAL FUTURE OF THE WORKING CLASSI
will lead a tranquil life, exempt from all serious anxiety; and
although their position will be less splendid than that of the
(employers, it will not be less dignified. For in that future to which
I look forward, the pressure of public opinion, directed, as I have
several times said, by an organised religion, will not tolerate any idle
class living by the sweat of others, and affecting to look down on all
who have to gain their own bread. Every man, whether he is rich
or poor, will be obliged to work regularly and steadily in some way
or other as a duty to society; and when all work, the false shame
which the industrious now feel in the presence of the idle will dis
appear for ever. I am addressing an audience, which, whether it
calls itself Republican or not, has, I am sure, a thoroughly Repub
lican spirit, and a keen sense of the insolent contempt with which
labour is regarded by those whose circumstances exempt them from
performing it. You will therefore agree with me that of all the
changes in the workman’s condition which I have enumerated as
likely to be realised in the future, this is by far the most precious—
that his function will be invested with as much dignity as that of
any other citizen who is doing his duty to society.
There are some men who are inclined to be impatient when they
are asked to contemplate a state of things which confessedly will not
be of immediate realisation. They are burning for an immediate
reformation of all wrong in their own time. They think it very poor
work to talk of a golden age which is to bless the world long after
they are dead, buried, and forgotten. They are even inclined to
resent any attempt to interest them in it, as though dictated by a
concealed desire to divert them from practical exertions. “ Tell us,”
they say, “how we may taste some happiness. Why should we
labour in the cause of progress if the fruits are to be reaped only by
posterity ? ”
I do not wish to speak harshly of workmen who have this feeling.
There has been too much of such hypocritical preaching in times
past, and it is not strange if they have become suspicious of exhorta
tions to fix their eyes on a remote future rather than on the present.
So conspicuously unjust is their treatment by the more powerful
classes, so hard and painful is the monotonous round of their daily
life, that the wonder is, not that some men should rebel against it,
but that most should bear it with calmness and resignation. Never
theless, it is necessary to say firmly, and never to cease saying, that
such language as I have alluded to belongs to a low moralityJ
Moreover, it defeats its own object. For whatever may be the case
with individuals, the people will not be stimulated to united action
by arguments addressed to its selfishness. The people can only be
moved to enthusiasm by an appeal to elevated sentiments. If leaders
�THE SOCIAL FUTURE OF THE WORKING CLASS.
19
of the worst causes find it necessary to invest them with some delusive
semblance of virtue that may touch the popular heart, shall we who
have put our hand to the sacred task of helping and accelerating
social progress, shall we deal in cynical sophisms and play on selfish
passions ? We owe it to our race that we should leave this world in
a better state than we found it. We must labour for posterity,
because our ancestors laboured for us. What sacrifices have we to
make compared with some that have been made for us ? We are
not called on to go to the gallows with John Brown and George
William Gordon, the latest martyrs in the cause of labour; or to
mount barricades, like the workmen who flung away their lives in
Paris twenty years ago next month. Is their spirit extinct ? Were
they men of different mould from us ? Or did they enter upon that
terrible struggle on some calculation of their personal advantage ?
No ! but so short a time had wrought them up to an heroic enthu
siasm which made it seem a light thing to pour out their blood if
they might inaugurate a happier future for their class. And shall
we who live in times less stormy, but not less critical for the cause
of labour, shall we complain if the fruits of such small sacrifices as 1
we may make are reserved for another generation ?
The worst of this unworthy spirit is, that the exhibition of it is an
excuse to the self-indulgent and frivolous for their neglect of all
serious thought and vigorous action. One is sometimes ready to
despair of any good coming out of a populace which can fill so many
public-houses and low music-halls ; which demands such dull and
vulgar rubbish in its newspapers; which devours the latest news
from Newmarket, and stakes its shillings and pots of beer as eagerly
as a duke or marquis puts on his thousands. This multitude, so
frivolous and gross in its tastes, will not be regenerated by plying
it with fierce declamation against the existing order of society. You
will more easily move it by appealing to its purer feelings, obscured
but not extinct, than by taunting it with a base submission to class
injustice. The man whose ideas of happiness do not go much beyond
his pipe and glass and comic song, knows that the sour envious
agitator will never be a bit the better off for all the trouble he gives
himself; and he sees nothing to gain by following in his steps. But
there are few men so gross as not to be capable of feeling the beauty
of devotion to the good of others, even when they are morally too
weak to put it in practice. And though a man may lead an un
satisfactory life, it is something if, so far as his voice contributes to
the formation of public opinion, it is heard on’ the right side. This
is the ground we must take if we wish to raise the tone of workmen.
We must place before them, without reserve, the highest motive of
political and social action——the good of those who are to come after
�20
THE SOCIAL FUTURE OF THE WORKING CLASS.
us. We must hold out no prospect of individual advantage or reward
other than the approval of their own consciences.
Those who complain most bitterly of the slow rate of progress
towards an improved industrial state, would sometimes do well to
reflect whether their own conduct does not contribute to retard »
it. The selfish spirit follows us even into our labours for others,
and takes the form of vanity and ambition. Probably all of us have
had frequent occasion to observe how the cause of labour has suffered
from ignoble jealousies and personal rivalries. Yet it is the greatest
spirits who are invariably most ready to.t^ke the subordinate position '
and to accept obscurity with a noble satisfaction. The finest type k
of theocratic government, the lawgiver of the Hebrew nation, was
ready to be blotted out of God’s book, so that the humblest and
lowest, the rank-and-file of his people, might enter the promised
land. The greatest of the apostles wished that he himself might, be
accuised from Christ, if at that price he might purchase salvation for
an obscure mob of Jews. “ Reputation,” said the hero of the French
revolution, “ what is that ? Blighted be my name, but let France
be free.” So speaks a Moses, a Paul, or a Danton, while petty ambi
tions are stickling for precedence, and posturing before the gaze of
their contemporaries. Devotion, forgetfulness of self, a readiness to
obey rather than an eagerness to command—-if a man has not these
qualities he is but common clay, he is not fit to lead his fellows.
Det us school ourselves into a readiness not merely to storm the
breach, but to lie down in the trench, that others may pass over our.
bodies as over a bridge to victory. It is a spirit which has never
been found wanting whenever there has been a great cause to call it
forth; and a greater cause than that of the workman of Europe
advancing to their final emancipation, this world is not likely to see
again.
�
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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 social future of the working class: a lecture delivered to a meeting of Trades Unionists, May 7, 1868
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Beesly, Edward Spencer [1831-1915.]
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 20 p. ; 23 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Reprinted from Fortnightly Review. "This lecture was the last in a series of three delivered last spring, by request of the London Trades' Council, to meetings convoked by that body. The first two were given by Dr. Congreve and Mr. Frederic Harrison". [p. 1]. Title page brown and paper acidified. Tears at edges of title page. Printed by Virtue & Co., London.
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E. Truelove
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1869
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G5208
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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 social future of the working class: a lecture delivered to a meeting of Trades Unionists, May 7, 1868), 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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Labour Movement
Socialism
Capitalism
Conway Tracts
Labour Movement
Political reform
Social Reform
Socialism
Working Class-Great Britain
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Text
NATIONAL SECULAR SOCTPTV
STATE MEASURES
FOB THE ABOLITION OF
wig, War, and
Containing
three Articles, (the two last reprinted from
the “ National Reformer”) :
STATE REMEDIES FOR POVERTY;
CAN AVAR BE SUPPRESSED?
AND
THE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
BY
A DOCTOR OF MEDICINE,
Author of the “Elements of Social Science''
SIXTH THOUSAND.
LONDON:
E. TRUELOVE, 256, HIGH HOLBORN.
REMOVED FROM TEMPLE BAR.
1886.
�“Poverty, in any sense implying suffering, may be completely extin
guished by the wisdom of society, combined with the good sense and provi
dence of individuals.”—John Stuart Mill.
“ In civil society, either law or force prevails.”—Lord Bacon.
“ Man has it in his power to cause parasitic diseases to disappear off the
surface of the globe, if, as we firmly believe, the doctrine of spontaneous
generation is a chimera.”—Louis Pasteur.
�2-3 S’
no ,95
STATE REMEDIES EOR POVERTY.
I would here add, to what has been said in previous editions,* a
few remarks on a subject of the utmost possible importance. It
is a subject which has hitherto been little discussed, but on which
many have doubtless, like myself, thought long and anxiously,
BUd which seems to me urgently in need of an earnest considera
tion. However strongly opposed to the prevailing opinions
and sentiments, it will sooner or later, I believe, become the
most momentous of practical questions in every country of the
World. I refer to the endeavour to extinguish poverty by direct
legal enactment in the only way in which this could possibly be
done, namely, by means of a statute limiting the size of families,
and forbidding anyone, whether rich or poor, to have more than a
certain small number of children.
Mr. John Stuart Mill, the great thinker whose loss we deplore,
Was strongly in favour of such a measure. He says in his Political
Economy, “ It would be possible for the State to guarantee em
ployment at ample wages to all who are bom. But if it does this,
it is bound, in self-protection, and for the sake of every purpose
for which government exists, to provide that no person shall be
born without its consent.” In another work, in a vindication of
the French Revolution of 1848, he says, “ The practical result of
the whole truth might possibly be, that al] persons living should
guarantee to each other, through their organ, the State, the ability
to earn by labour an adequate subsistence, but that they should
abdicate the right of propagating the species at their own dis
cretion and without limit; that all classes alike, and not the poor
alone, should consent to exercise that power in such measure only,
and under such regulations, as society might prescribe with a
view to the common good. But before this solution of the problem
can cease to be visionary, an almost entire renovation must take
place in some of the most rooted opinions and feelings of the
present race of mankind.” And, again, he says in his Political
Economy, ‘‘ If the opinion were once generally established among
the labouring classes that their welfare required a due regulation
of the numbers of families, the respectable and well conducted of
the body would conform to the prescription, and only those would
exempt themselves from it who are in the habit of making light
*.These remarks were first inserted in the edition of the “Elements of
Social Science,” which appeared in 1878.
A 2
�4
STATE REMEDIES FOB POVERTY.
of social obligations generally ; and there would be then an evident
justification for converting the moral obligation against bringing
children into the world who are a burden to the community into
a legal one; just as in many other cases of the progress of
opinion, the law ends by enforcing against recalcitrant minorities,
obligations which to be useful must be general, and which, fro®®
a sense of their utility, a large majority have voluntarily c<M«
sented to take upon themselves. There would be no need, how^
ever, of legal sanctions, if women were admitted, as on all other
grounds they have the clearest right to be, to the same right of
citizenship with men. Let them cease to be confined by custom
to one physical function as their means of living and their source of
influence, and they would have for the first time an equal voice
with men in what concerns that function ; and of all the improve
ments in reserve for mankind, which it is now possible to foresee,
none would, in my opinion, be so fertile as this in almost every
kind of moral and social benefit.” I venture to think that even
if women were admitted to the suffrage, and other just rights and
privileges of citizenship, there would still exist the most weighty
reasons in favour of legislation on this subject.
The great reasons for such an enactment seem to me to be that
a law to regulate population, if duly carried out, could of itself with
certainty remove poverty and overwork ; that no other law, or laws,
could do this, and that the force of public opinion, and the con
science and self-interest of individuals are not strong enough,
without the aid of law, to accomplish so vast an object. What is
indispensably needed for the extinction of poverty is a restraint
on population so powerful and general as to riww the excessive
pressure on the soil; in other words, by diminishing the demand
for food, to enable the margin of cultivation to recede to a suffi
cient extent, the worst soils to be thrown out of tillage, and the
land altogether to be less highly and expensively cultivated. In
this way the productiveness of labour would be increased, and
wages would rise, while at the same time there would be a reduc
tion in the working hours, and in the cost, and, therefore, the
price of food. The country would then be placed somewhat in
the position of a new colony, for the essential difference between
an old country and a new colony is that in the former population
is pressing too heavily on the productive powers of the land. Now
it appears to me that a reform of such vast extent and difficulty
as this, requiring the co-operation of the whole of society, will
never be adequately carried out without the assistance and de
liberate sanction of the Government. When the increase of
population is left solely to the discretion of individuals, th#
moderation and self-restraint of some are counteracted by the
recklessness and improvidence of others, and thus the overcrowded
state is constantly kept up. Even in France, where prudence is
most general in this respect, there is still immense over-popula
tion ; as may be seen by the miserably low rate of wages in many
�STATE REMEDIES FOR POVERTY.
D
employments, and the high average price of provisions. It is a
fact, thoroughly established by science, that large families are the
real cause of low wages and dear food in old and civilised coun
tries, and there can be no doubt that Government has the power,
if it only has the will, to suppress the source of the evil, and
thereby remove the effect. Anything else which Parliament can
&> to raise wages must be merely indirect, and can only attain its
object by the circuitous means of acting on the general intelli
gence and independence of the people, and inducing them to limit
their numbers. Why then should we always be content with
indirect and inadequate measures? Why not go at once to the
root of the matter, and grapple with the main cause of poverty
and pauperism, with the earnest resolution to put an end to them ?
It seems to me that this question is sure to be asked before long
by the working classes and social reformers, when the chief cause
of poverty becomes widely known, and is no longer a matter of
dispute. The great idea lying at the root of the socialist and
democratic doctrines which have spread so widely of late years,
■especially on the Continent—an idea which I believe to be pro
foundly true—is that mankind form a community whose interests
are bound up together, and who should mutually aid one another,
and insure one another, as far as possible, against the ills of life ;
that society should have an equal care for the happiness of all its
members, and should see that all are duly provided for ; that
therefore it is the duty of society, through its organ, the Govern
ment, to take energetic steps for the removal of poverty, and to
guarantee to every individual who is willing to work, an ample
Subsistence in return for his labour. Now, a law to regulate
population is in reality the only law by which it is possible for the
State at once and directly to do away with poverty, to shorten the
hours of labour, and to raise wages to a satisfactory amount ; and
If it be true, as was maintained by the Provisional Government of
France in 1848, and was inscribed in the project of a constitution,
that the State ought to guarantee subsistence and employment to
ail who are willing to Work, such a law is the only means by which
the object could be effected. Ought not then the State to adopt
this one and only means for ensuring to all a comfortable subristence ? Should we not choose the most direct and certain path
to deliver our society from the fearful evils of poverty and
pauperism? For my own part, I cannot but entertain a deep
conviction that such a law is quite legitimate in the extraordinary
difficulties arising from the population principle. I think that it
would, if enacted, be the most important to human happiness of
all possible laws, and that it will sooner or later be laid down as
the very foundation and corner-stone of society, in all the civilised
countries of the old world.
It will be said that a measure of the kind described is far too
Sweeping an innovation, and too despotic an interference with
personal liberty to be ever seriously cont«mplated. But those
�6
STATE REMEDIES FOR POVERTY.
who rely on sueh objections would do well to consider attentively
the actual state of the facts The truth is, that population is
already so powerfully restrained by prudential motives in this and
many other countries, that a little more or less of restraint is a
matter of much smaller importance, and would be far less felt,
than is often supposed. Immense numbers of people, perhaps the
majority of society, are obliged at present by their circumstances
to exercise so much caution in regard to marriage and offspring,
that it would not make the slightest practical difference to them
whether a Malthusian statute were in existence in the country ot
not. To those who are forced to lead a life of celibacy, the change
would bring a positive increase of freedom, for if there were no
excessive families, a much greater number could marry. The only
persons whose liberty would really be interfered with are those
who have large families, and in their case the operation of the law
would for the most part be the greatest possible blessing to them
selves as well as to the rest of society. It is no one’s real interest
in an old and over-peopled country to have a large family.
Children, when too numerous, are a source of intolerable diffi
culties and anxieties among the rich quite as much as among the
poorer classes ; and it is a remarkable fact that in France and
many other countries it is the rich, and not the poor, 'who most
carefully limit the number of their offspring. We see, therefore,
that the question does not really lie between liberty and restraint,
but between two degrees of restraint, one of them unjust and
partial in its action, inefficient, and attended by the most wide
spread sufferings, and the other, which would be just and efficient,
and which would not be practically felt by most people as any
increase of restriction, but only by those who would themselves be
immensely benefited by the change. I believe that the abolition
of poverty, the mightiest of all social revolutions, could be quietly
and peacefully effected by this means, with only such an amount
of interference with personal liberty as would be comparatively
little felt as a positive evil. Moreover, poverty cannot possibly be
got rid of without an increase in the preventive check to popu
lation. It is in vain to wish that there were no poor, and yet
object to a further limitation of the size of families ; if we will
the end, we must will the means to attain it; and if, therefore,
society must of an absolute necessity submit to an increased
restraint in order to effect this grand purpose, what real difference
does it make whether the restraint comes from law, or from public
opinion, or from the conscientious feelings, or the interests, or the
circumstances of individuals ? Another very important matter
to be taken into account is, that legal restrictions on population
actually exist at present in many continental countries, and even,
in England. Mr. Senior, as quoted by Mr. Mill in his Political
Economy, says that in the countries which recognise a legal right
to relief, “ marriage on the part of persons in the actual receipt of
relief appears to be everywhere prohibited, and the marriage of
�STATE REMEDIES FOR POVERTY.
7
those who are not likely to possess the means of independent sup
port is allowed by very few.” In Norway, Wurtemberg, Bavaria,
Frankfort, several Swiss Cantons, and some other parts of the
Continent, no one is permitted to marry unless he can show that
he has a fair prospect of being able to maintain a family ; while
in England, by a provision of the poor-law, husband and wife are
separated in the workhouse. Now these laws, however excellent
their intention, and however efficacious they may have been in
diminishing poverty, do not seem to me strictly in accordance with
justice, for two reasons : in the first place, because they prohibit
marriages, instead of prohibiting (what alone, it appears to me,
the Legislature can justly restrict) large families; and, secondly,
because they apply only to the poor, and not to all classes of
society alike. The existence of such enactments shows that a
statute to regulate population would not introduce any new prin
ciple (since restrictions on marriage are really restrictions on
population), but would merely be the extension to the community
at large of a law which exists in this and other countries in regard
to certain classes, and which, in my opinion, is unjust so long as it
is confined to them, and is thus only a law for the poor and not
for the riqh. Is it just that all the restrictions should be laid on
the poor or the paupers, when the whole of society has a share in
the production of poverty and pauperism ? Again, as to the objec
tion that such a statute could never be enforced, we must remem
ber that it could not possibly be enacted without an immense
deal of discussion, and till the majority of the nation were strongly
in its favour, and that the majority would not seek to impose any
obligations on others which they were not ready to submit to
themselves. It may, perhaps, be added that it would be possible
to make the limit of families rather a high one—perhaps four
children as the maximum—since very many would not reach it, and
the penalty could be slight, as the great object of the law would
be to guide and strengthen public opinion, and the dictates of
individual prudence and conscience, and not by any means to
supply their place. The mere discussion of the subject would be
of incalculable value, and would spread a knowledge of the popu
lation truths over the whole country.
Had the population question been openly discussed, so that all
Blight understand it, we should never have seen that perversion of
justice by which two of the most gifted of English citizens have
Been sentenced to fine and imprisonment for seeking to benefit
the poor—for earnestly considering the cause of low wages, as
laid down by political economy, and pointing out the means by
which, in their belief, poverty could be removed from society. It
is the duty of all to meet, and not evade, this question. More
especially is it incumbent on those who prosecute others to state
plainly their own views on the subject. When a remedy for
human miseries is put forward, not as a good in itself, but as the
least oj several alternative evils, one or other of which is necessary
�8
STATE REMEDIES FOR POVERTY.
and inevitable, those who condemn it are bound to say which of
the other alternative evils they think preferable. As there must
always exist a most powerful check to population, either positive
or preventive, in old countries, the question to be determined is,
which of the various forms of the check is most consistent with
the happiness and well-being of mankind ? This is the real point
at issue, and opponents are bound to consider it most carefully,
and to show, if they can, that some other mode of dealing with
the terrible difficulty of population is better than the one pro
posed. Now there are several different ways in which the popu
lation difficulty may be dealt with by those who disapprove of
preventive measures. People may either ignore it altogether, as
the vast majority do, and go on blindly striving to remove from
society all the checks to population, or permanently to diminish
any one of them without a proportional increase of some of the
others-—objects which Mr. Malthus, eighty years ago, showed to
be quite unattainable by human effort. Or they may deny the
truth of the law of population, and contend that man’s choice is
not limited to one or other of the checks to increase, and that
poverty is not the result of too rapid multiplication. Or they
may hold that the existing checks, poverty, prostitution, and celi
bacy, are preferable to preventive means ; or maintain, with Mr.
Malthus, that all the other checks ought to be superseded by an
enormous increase of celibacy or sexual abstinence. Or, finally,
they may see nothing wrong in the preventive measures—nay,
may themselves adopt them—but yet hold that the subject ought
not to be spoken of or discussed in writing ; an opinion which is,
I believe, very common, but which cannot be sustained ; for if it
be morally right to use these means, they must be carefully con
sidered by physicians and others, so as to learn their influence on
human health and happiness, and to free them, as far as possible,
from any injurious consequences. One or other of these views
must be held by opponents, and they are bound to state clearly
and openly which of them they do hold. This, however, has not
been done by the prosecutors or their counsel, and hence those who
honestly meet and try to solve the greatest of human difficulties
are attacked and threatened with legal penalties by those who
evade it altogether, and therefore do not give any real grounds to
justify their condemnation. For the moment the attempt has
been defeated by the heroism and eloquence of Mr. Bradlaugh and
Mrs. Besant, and the heart of every true friend of the people is
with them, and with Mr. Truelove, in their steadfast defence of
the population doctrines and the liberty of the Press—one of the
greatest services ever done in any country to the poor and to
humanity at large.
�CAN WAR BE SUPPRESSED?
Hs>w long is war with its countless list of horrors and miseries to
continue among us? Every one must feel that war is an appalling
evil and blot on civilisation, and must earnestly desire that means
<fould be taken to put an end to it. War is lawlessness ; it is an
appeal to might instead of right, in which parties decide their own
quarrels by force of arms, instead of submitting them to an im
partial tribunal to be decided according to reason and justice ; and
hence it is utterly opposed to civilisation, which seeks to bring all
actions under the dominion of law. War stands out alone, as an
exception and a fearful remnant of barbarism in the midst of
modern civilised life. But war is not merely lawlessness, it is
murder. We can see this from the parallel case of duelling, which
absolutely prohibited and treated as murder by the law of
England. “ According to the law of England,” said Sir John
Holker, in a recent trial, “ a man who kills another in a duel is
a murderer and liable to be hanged.” No matter what the merits
of the quarrel may have been, whether a man be aggrieved or
aggressor, if he fights a duel and kills his opponent he is punished
by the law as a murderer. But if duelling be murder, what else
is war ? War is simply duelling on a vast scale, and with this
aggravation, that the crime of robbery, in the shape of annexations,
indemnities, and other kinds of pillage, is usually added to that of
murder. Moreover, in duelling the principals fight their own
battles, and an attempt is made to put them, as far as possible, on
a footing of equality ; whereas in war, the rulers who give the
command for it do not usually themselves fight, and every advan
tage is taken of superiority in number, skill, and military resources
between the combatants. Is it not monstrous that now, after all
the progress in humanity, one nation is allowed to attack another,
perhaps a much weaker nation, to kill the people and seize their
land and their goods ? How can the people of England, who
have shown their respect for law and for human life in putting
down the duel, tolerate war ?
Few of the great movements of the age are of such extra
ordinary importance as that for the suppression of war. The
most noble efforts have been made of late years for this end by
Mr. Bright, M. Victor Hugo, Mr. Henry Richard, Mr. Bradlaugh
gnd others, and the Peace Societies in England already number
Several hundred thousand members. Various plans have also been
put forward for superseding war and supplying its place by inter
�10
CAN WAR BE SUPPRESSED ?
national arbitration, and these plans cannot be too carefully con
sidered and discussed ; for it is not merely by the general advance
of commerce and enlightenment and the growing abhorrence of
war among thinking minds, but also, and above all, by the adoption
in time of peace of active practical measures to prevent war, that
we shall ever be able to free human society from this terrible and
immemorial evil.
The more deeply the subject is reflected on, the more clearly I
think will it be seen that the real cause of wars is the want of a
supreme and irresistible authority, which could force the nations to
conform to law in their dealings with one another and to settle
their disputes by peaceable arbitration. The only effectual remedy
for war, as has been well pointed out, is the introduction of law
—or in other words, of positive rules of conduct, applied by a
court of justice, and enforced by a competent authority—into the
mutual intercourse of nations. At present international relations
are in an essentially lawless state; there is no code of laws govern
ing nations like that which governs individuals ; for what is called
“ international or public law ” or “ the law of nations,’’ as all
writers on the subject admit, is not really law at all, in the legal
sense of the word, but merely custom or usage, or else engagement
by treaty. Nations may disregard these customs, or break their
treaties in particular instances, if they choose to incur the risk of
so doing, and they have what is called the “right of making war ”
on one another and deciding their quarrels by violent means—a
right whichis utterly subversive of the very idea of law. The essence
of law is the compulsory adjudication of disputes by an impartial
tribunal, and if parties are allowed to dispense with a tribunal
altogether and settle their differences for themselves by the sword,
it is evident that law doesnot exist between them. But wherever,
in any department of human affairs, law is absent, or cannot be
enforced from weakness of the executive, the most fatal conse
quences are sure to arise. Thus in the Middle Ages, before govern
ments were strong enough to coerce the barons and feudal chiefs,
private wars between them as well as national contests were so
common that, as Mr. Buckle says, “ there was never a week with
out war.” Even in our own day, when opinion is so much more
advanced, if there were no laws regulating the succession to pro
perty, the fulfilment of contracts, &c., and if people were allowed
to fight for their rights instead of having them determined by a
court of justice, society would be a scene of continual bloodshed
and confusion. War is the natural and inevitable result of the
present lawless state of international relations, and the one and
only remedy for it is to extend to nations, as well as individuals,
the inestimable benefits of law. But how is this to be done ? If
we examine the matter attentively we shall find that the element
which is wanting to constitute a true legal system between nations,
is a supreme authority with adequate executive force. There
exists already a code of rules or usages commonly called inter-
�CAN WAR BE SUPPRESSED ?
11
Rational law, which has gradually become better defined and more
binding, as well as juster and more humane, in the course of
ages ; an international tribunal could be established, consisting
of judges skilled in public law, and chosen from the different
States ; but the grand difficulty to be overcome is the want of a
supreme authority, to approve and, when necessary, add to the
code, and strong enough to compel the nations, however powerful,
to carry their disputes before the tribunal and abide by its de
cisions. It is a sanction, or enforcing authority, of this kind that
the international code really needs. “ The independent societies
of men, called States,” says Mr. Wheaton, in his work on Inter
national Law, “ acknowledge no common arbiter or judge, except
such as are constituted by special compact. The law by which
they are governed, or profess to be governed, is deficient in those
positive sanctions which are annexed to the municipal code of
each distinct society.” If there were such sanctions, war between
nations could be crushed out with the same certainty and com
pleteness as the civil wars between the feudal nobles have been
extinguished by the growing power of the law courts. The
question, How is war to be suppressed, seems to me, therefore, to
tasolve itself mainly into this other question—How is a sufficient
Sanction, or executive authority, to be obtained for the law of
nations ?
We may now turn to the various practical proposals which have
been brought forward with a view to the prevention of war, and
of which the most important seem to be the following : a general
reduction of armaments ,* a confederation of States, and international
armies. The first of these would be an immense boon if it could
be obtained, as it would lighten an intolerable burden on the
nations, and also make war less probable, since governments would
no longer be so fully prepared for it. But there are evidently
most formidable difficulties in the way of carrying out this pro
posal. The disarmament would need to be general, for if any of
the great Powers refused to reduce their forces, it would be dan
gerous for others to do so ; and some governments would be
particularly averse to disarm, either from unwillingness’ to give
up cherished schemes of ambition or revenge or from the vast
size of their dominions and fear of disaffection among their sub
jects. But even if these difficulties were overcome, disarmament
Would be only a palliative, and not a cure for present evils. It
Would still leave arbitration optional, whereas the object to be
aimed at is that it should be compulsory, or, in other words, that
law should be introduced in international affairs. “We hold,”
says Professor Cliffe Leslie, “ that only a law of nations in the
* A resolution in favour of a general disarmament by the European States
was proposed in Parliament by Mr. Cobden in 1849, and again recently in
1880 by Mr. Henry Richard. The latter also, in 1878, moved a resolution,
which was adopted by the House of Commons, in favour of the arbitration
of international disputes.
�12
CAN WAR BE SUPPRESSED?
strict sense of the term, can terminate war.” Without law, there
is not only no guarantee for peace, but no provision for securing
justice, between nations. Disputes between nations, as between
individuals, arise on questions of contested right, or in conse
quence of injuries received ; and if one party refuses to arbitrate,
the other must either tamely submit to what it considers an
injustice, or go to war to enforce its rights. But war, like the
barbarous “ trial by combat ’’ in use among our ancestors, can
never be a proper test of justice or of right, for a war does not
show which cause is just, but only which of the combatants is the
stronger. So long, therefore, as Governments may refuse arbi
tration and may go to war, injustice and lawless force are the final
umpires in international disputes, and this must have a profoundly
demoralising effect on mankind and their rulers. In order to have
either peace or justice it is necessary to introduce law, which would
compel arbitration, and secure, even to the weakest among the
nations, its rights and redress for its injuries. This, too, is the
only sure means for bringing about a disarmament, for the real
cause of the enormous armies (amounting at present in Europe
alone to about ten millions of men) is the state of general inse
curity and licence arising from the absence of law. As there is
no law to protect or restrain them, nations arm partly to protect
themselves and partly to carry out secret projects of conquest
and aggrandisement; and we can scarcely hope to see any satis
factory reduction of armaments till there is a real and effective
international law.
How, then, can such a law be obtained? We have seen that
what is mainly needed for this purpose is a supreme authority,
with adequate executive force to give effect to the present inter
national code, which, as Mr. Cliffe Leslie observes, has the features
of law “in its inchoate or rudimentary form.” Now there is
evidently only one way in which an authority of the kind can be
established, namely, by means of a combination between different
States. Nothing but the combined strength of many States can
force single States to obey the law and to keep the peace. The
real sanction of the law between individual and individual is the
general community of individuals, and in like manner the sanction
of the law between nation and nation can only be the com
munity of nations. It seems to me the clearest and most urgent
duty of nations to take measures for introducing positive law
between them and putting an end to war. Until provision can
be made for the legal settlement of international disputes, the
responsibility for war with all its horrors rests in great part on
the nations generally ; and this leads to the utmost confusion of
ideas with regard to the criminality of war. One. of the most
frightful of crimes is not generally seen to be a crime at all.
Thus at present wars are commonly divided into just and unjust,
because, in the absence of law, it is sometimes necessary, and
even an act of the most heroic virtue in a nation to fight for its
�CAN WAR BE SUPPRESSED ?
13
rights and liberties; but if law were once firmly established,
and means of legal arbitration afforded, war would simply be a
crime, to be repressed and its chief authors punished, as in the
case of other heinous offences. There would then be only one
kind of lawful and justifiable war, namely, that which is analogous
to the action of the police, and consists in putting down by force
any resistance to the orders of the supreme authority. . Not only
can and ought the nations thus to put down war as a crime, but it
is their most vital interest to do so. At present any nation is
liable at some time or other to be involved in war, and even
neutrals during a war often suffer most severely ; for their.com
merce and communications are interrupted by blockades, sieges,
and other military operations ; and, besides, war has a great ten
dency to spread, and the best efforts on the part of neutral States
are often unavailing to prevent their being dragged into it. Why
should neutrals submit to these fearful evils and dangers at
the hands of belligerents, who are morally bound to arbitrate
their disputes, and are therefore committing a crime in going to
war?
These considerations are so immensely important that they
■lust, I believe, before long lead to a combination among civilised
States for the purpose of preventing war. But States may com
bine in different ways, either by alliance or by a more or less inti
mate confederation ; and the great difficulty of the question is to
decide which kind of combination is at once suited to effect the
object in view and also capable of adoption by existing States.
^Professor Seeley, in a lecture delivered before the Peace Society,
Bias held that nothing short of a close federal union, like that sub
sisting between the States of North America, who are all under a
common government, would be sufficient; and a similar view seems
to be taken by those who advocate, as a remedy for war, the for
mation of what they term “ the United States of Europe.” It
geems to me, however, that so vast a change as this is neither
©raoticable nor necessary, and that the form of union to be aimed
at is one which, while binding the nations very strongly together,
would interfere as little as possible with the sovereignty and inde
pendence of each. This could best be done, in my opinion, by
means of an alliance, with mixed or international armies; a proposal
which was brought forward some time ago by Mr. G-lasse, in the
columns of the National Reformer, and to which I had myself
independently been led on thinking on the subject. The means
which I would venture to suggest as best adapted for the pre ven
tton of war are the following :—-That two or more nations should
enter into a close alliance together, unite their armies, and invite
other nations to join them, with the declared intention of arbi
trating their own disputes in future, and also of putting an end to
war throughout the world and compelling all disputes to be settled
by peaceable arbitration, as soon as the alliance was strong enough
to effect this. The object of such a league would be to sanction
�14
CAN WAR BE SUPPRESSED ?
and enforce international law, and compel all disputes between
nations to be settled by it, and not by war; and if only two or
three powerful States were thus to ally themselves, it would pro
bably be sufficient in great measure to effect the object, since the
alliance could often prevent a war by threatening, in the event of
a quarrel between two States, to assist in hostilities against either
party which acted illegally—or, in other words, which either re
fused to arbitrate, or, having arbitrated, refused to submit to the
judgment of the tribunal. It is to be hoped, however, that in time
all civilised nations would join the alliance, so that it would
become irresistible, and that single States would as little dare to
defy its authority as individuals now think of setting themselves
against the civil powers. In this manner war would not merely be
suppressed, if it occurred, but, what is infinitely more desirable,
would be entirely prevented from occurring.
A league of the kind here suggested would bind the nations
very firmly together by uniting their armies, and yet would not, as
it appears to me, interfere materially with their existing rights of
sovereignty and independence. One part of the mixed forces
could be kept in each country, and would be subject to the national
government, as armies now are ; while in all operations external to
the country the troops would be under the joint command of the
allied powers, and would never be used except against those who
refused to settle their differences in a legal and peaceable manner.
This, I submit, is the only true function of an army—namely, to
defend and enforce the law, and not merely, as hitherto, to carry
out the arbitrary will of individual governments. An army should
be the guardians of international law, as the police are the guardians
of the municipal law. Like the police, too, an army should be
strictly impartial, having nothing to do either with the merits of
quarrels or with the parties concerned in them. It should be as
culpable for a soldier to show partiality to his own country, at the
expense of international law, as for a policeman illegally to favour
his personal friends. This impartiality, so indispensable in all
officers of the law, would, I think, be best secured by having
armies of mixed nationality. Another great advantage of the
league would be that the allies could, if they pleased, at onep
reduce their forces, without waiting for other nations to do the
same, and without dangerously diminishing their strength ; for
they would be able to draw upon the combined armies and re-*
sources of two or more countries, instead of one only, for their
protection against foreign or domestic foes. It appears to me that
in this manner, or by some similar means, a sufficient executive
authority could be obtaiued for the international code ; while any
difficult question that might arise, or amendment that might be
needed in the code itself, could be discussed and settled, as is now
the practice, by conferences or congresses between the different
States.
The extension of law to nations as well as individuals, and th®
�CAN WAR BE SUPPRESSED?
15
abolition of the barbarous “ right of making war,” seem to me
beyond all comparison the greatest improvements which could be
effected in international politics, and would be a glorious triumph
of statesmanship. If statesmen of different countries, and among
them Mr. Gladstone, who has already done so much for the cause
of international arbitration, and who speaks in one of his works of
“ the rising hopes of a true public law for Christendom,” could do
something towards the realisation of these hopes, it would be a
priceless boon to a world sick of war and bloodshed, and longing
for the advent of a new era of settled peace, law, and real brother
hood among mankind.
[The momentous change in our Constitution which has lately
been proposed—the setting up, namely, of a Parliament in Ireland,
separate from that of Great Britain—is a change in the opposite
direction to those suggested above, and would, I cannot but think,
be a calamity and great danger to both countries from the clashing
of the legislative wills. It seems to me that the object of re
formers, all over the world, should be to strengthen and not to
relax the legal ties which now bind nations together. Why not
rather do our utmost to conciliate the Irish people and to satisfy
their legitimate aspirations, while at the same time enforcing
obedience to law and maintaining inviolate the Union ? a union
which has been the source of incalculable benefits to England and
Scotland, and also, I am firmly persuaded, to Ireland itself, in spite
of the confiscations and hateful penal laws of bygone ages.]
�THE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES,
Of all the doctrines recently brought forward in medicine, none
seems to me so extremely important as that which has been gain
ing ground with regard to infectious fevers, and has been earnestly
urged by the highest medical authorities, in particular by Sir
James Simpson and Sir Thomas Watson. I allude to the momentous
and startling doctrine that by taking proper measures to prevent
them, all the purely infectious or contagious febrile diseases might
be, and ought to be, completely and finally extirpated. The diseases
in question have more and more occupied the attention of Parlia
ment and sanitary reformers of late years, and were a leading sub •
ject of discussion at the International Medical Congress held a few
years ago in London. They form a peculiar class of affections,
having the following very remarkable characters in common.
They are fevers of a specific kind, most of them attended with an
eruption on the skin ; they are propagated by infection from one
person to another, usually by breathing the exhalations from the
sick, and they occur, as a rule, only once in a lifetime. In all of
them the minute poison which communicates the disease is im
mensely multiplied in the body of the patient, and as in this and
some other points the fevers have a resemblance to the action of
a ferment, they are often called zymotic, or fermentation-like
diseases.
The late Sir Thomas Watson, in an article on “ The Abolition
of Zymotic Disease,” which was published in the Nineteenth Cen
tury lieview, for May, 1877, and has since been re-issued with
others in a separate form, expresses his firm belief, that these
diseases “ might be finally banished from this island,” and ob
serves, that with regard to them, “it is of vast importance that
the public, no less than the medical profession, should have the
fullest attainable knowledge.” He thus enumerates the diseases to
which he refers :—“ They are not numerous,” he says, “ these
zymotic diseases. There are not more than nine or ten of them.
Small-pox, chicken-pox, typhus fever, typhoid or enteric fever,
scarlet fever, the plague, measles, hooping-cough, mumps—these
belong to, and, I think, constitute, the group of diseases now to
be considered.” Two of the number, chicken-pox and mumps
are slight affections, but the others are among the most ter
rible and fatal maladies that afflict the human race. If we
think of the prodigious amount of suffering and death these
diseases have caused and are causing yearly—the millions they
�THE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIOJS DISI A.SES.
17
have slain, and the panic they spread around them, the danger
which a person affected with one of them becomes to his fellow
features, and the broken constitutions and disfigurements they so
often leave behind even when they spare life, we can form an idea
of the immense and incalculable blessing which their extinction
Would be to mankind.
The great fact which warrants us in believing that these
diseases might be entirely extirpated, or “ stamped out,” is, that
whatever their primary origin in past ages may have been, they
never norv-a-days arise spontaneously, but are invariably propagated
ig infection. They are not merely infectious diseases, but have no
other source than infection. “ They are communicated from
person to person by contagion,” says Sir Thomas Watson, “and,
a® I venture to maintain, arise in no other way ; and this quality,
with their non-recurrence, forms the key to their supreme in
terest.” Small-pox, for example, never arises except by contagion
from a pre-existing case of small-pox, measles from a pre-existing
case of measles, scarlet fever from scarlet fever, and so on with the
rest. Moreover, they always, to use a common expression, “breed
tea®/* propagating their own kind, and no other, and maintaining
their characteristic type and features unchanged from generation
to generation. Thus measles always breeds measles, and never
scarlet fever or hooping-cough ; typhus breeds typhus, and never
typhoid fever; and each disease runs the same course in the
present day, has the same average duration, and presents the same
symptoms as it did when first clearly described by the earlier
physicians. In the above respects the infectious fevers bear a close
and most, striking resemblance to the different species of plants and
animals. We do not know how these species at first came into
existence (though we believe them to have been gradually deve
loped from lower forms), but we know that at the present day the
individuals belonging to each species always descend from parents
like themselves, and never spring up spontaneously. We know,
top, that they propagate their own kind and no other ; and that,
although admitting of some modifications, they adhere tenaciously
through the ages to their distinctive form and characters. From
their remarkable resemblance to species in these respects, the
infectious fevers are often called specific diseases ; that is, diseases
which are Like species in their constant characters, and in the fact
that they never originate spontaneously.
Sow it follows as a necessary consequence from this single and
definite mode of origin, that both the infectious fevers and the
different species of plants and animals are liable to extinction if
certain conditions be fulfilled. As they never arise in any other
way than by continuous succession, the fevers from diseases like
tbemgelves, and the plants and animals from parents like them
selves, if the line of descent be entirely broken through at any
time, the race perishes and can never re-appear. Many animal and
vegetable species have thus perished in the world’s history, as the
B
�18
THE EXTINCTION OB' INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
geological records show us, and some races hurtful to man have
been intentionally exterminated over large tracts of country, as,
for instance, wolves have been exterminated in England. In order
to extirpate a living species all that is needed is to destroy at any
given time every individual belonging to it ; and, in like manner,
to extirpate a form of infectious fever, it would be sufficient that
every existing case of it should be prevented from spreading to
others; if this can once, and once only, be accomplished, the
species, or the fever, ■will become permanently extinct. We see,
therefore, that as regards their preventibility, no less than their
mode of origin, the contagious fevers are a peculiar class of dis
orders, separated by a broad line of demarcation from others.
They are often called “ the most preventible of diseases/’ but the
truth is, that their preventibility is of a very different kind from
that of other affections. They are not merely preventible, in the
ordinary sense of the word, but extinguishable, or abolishable
diseases. Other diseases cannot be extinguished, and for this
reason, that we cannot destroy the causes that produce them. We
can only avoid their causes by the exercise of constant care and
vigilance, and if our efforts were relaxed at any time, the diseases
would appear again ; but in regard to the contagious fevers, as
they never arise but from other fevers of a similar kind, it is pos
sible to destroy the only causes known to be capable of producing
them. Thus, if every existing case of small-pox, typhus, scarlet
fever, and the rest, could be prevented from propagating itself to
others, these fevers would be definitively extirpated, and no im
prudence on the part of mankind, nor any other circumstance, so
far as we have reason to believe, could ever revive them. They
would then be extinct forms of disease, like the extinct species of
plants and animals, and only the memory of them would remain
to posterity.
The two assertions here made—that the infectious fevers have no
other source than infection, and that therefore, unlike other dis
eases, they might be finally extirpated—are among the most mo
mentous conclusions ever brought forward by science, and should
be thoroughly known to every one. The first of them is the
foundation of the other, and has a bearing on human health and
happiness whose importance cannot be exaggerated. If it be true
that these diseases have no other source than infection, then we
may hope by vigorous sanitary measures to stamp them out com
pletely, so that no further anxiety on their account would ever
afterwards be needed ; but if, on the other hand, besides being
infectious, they can also arise spontaneously, or de novo, as it is
often expressed (that is, from any other cause than infection), not
only would their prevention be far more difficult, since we should
have to guard against two or more modes of origin instead of one,
but we could never hope permanently to extinguish them. The
great question, therefore, is—Have these diseases no other cause
than infection ? This is a point on which the present medical
�THE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
19
opinion has been slowly and gradually arrived at. In former times
the infectious fevers were very commonly confounded together,
and their mode of origin was not clearly understood, but they
were often supposed to be due to some unknown atmospheric
influence ; as may be seen from the fact that even in the seven
teenth century the celebrated Sydenham, who was the first to
draw the distinction between small-pox and measles, did not know
that small-pox is infectious. Afterwards their infectiousness
became recognised, but it was thought that they might also pro
ceed from other causes ; and lastly, increasing experience and
careful observation and reasoning, especially since the publication
of Dr. Bancroft’s essay in 1811, have led to the modern view that
they never in any single instance arise but from infection. This
is now the prevalent medical doctrine on the subject, and with
regard to many of the diseases above enumerated it is rarely, if
ever, disputed.
Thus Sir Thomas Watson says: “ As life springs only from
preceding life—as, according to the verdict of exact scientific
experiment, there is no such thing as spontaneous generation, so,
under similar testimony, there is, now-a-days at least, no spon
taneous origin of any of these specific disorders.” In like manner,
in a “ Proposal to Stamp out Small-pox and other Contagious
Diseases,” published in the Medical Times and Gazette for January
4th and 11th. 1868, the late Sir James Simpson says, speaking of
small-pox: “We would no more expect this known species of
disease or poison to originate de novo at the present day, under
any combination of circumstances, than we would expect a known
species of animal or plant—as a dog or a hawthorn--to spring up
de novo and without antecedent parentage.” Dr. Aitken, also, in
his “Science and Practice of Medicine,” 7th edition, 1880, says,
in discussing the origin of scarlet fever: “ On this point Dr.
Ballard writes most distinctly (and with him I fully agree) that
‘ thus much is certain, it does not arise spontaneously—no disease
of its class ever does.’ ”
The most convincing argument against the spontaneous origin
of any of these diseases is the great length of time during which
they may be entirely absent from a district, a country, or even a
whole continent, until they are introduced from some external
source. Indeed, the contagious fevers, like the animal and
vegetable species, seem at first to have arisen in certain parts of
the world only, and thence to have gradually spread to others,
with the progress of human intercourse and the increased facilities
of communication, so that in most countries they are not indigenous
but imported diseases. Sir Thomas Watson observes that small
pox, though existing from remote antiquity in China and Hin
dustan, “does not appear to have been known in Europe till the
beginning of the eighth century,” and that “ there was no small
pox in the New World before its discovery by Columbus in 1492,
In 1517 the disease was imported into St. Domingo. Three years
b 2
�20
THE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
later, in. one ot the Spanish expeditions from Cuba to Mexico, a
negro covered with the pustules of small-pox was landed on the
Mexican coast. From him the disease spread with such desolation
that within a very short time, according to Robertson, three
millions and a half of people were destroyed in that kingdom
alone.” As to scarlet fever, Dr. Aitken says that “ the earliest
source of the poison is distinctly traceable to Arabia,” and adds
that “ measles was first noticed at the same time and in the same
country as scarlet fever, and the two diseases have subsequently
followed nearly the same course. They now prevail all over the
world.” Of hooping-cough -(which is not, like the others, afever)
he says that “ its origin is not beyond 1510, when it was endemic
in Paris ; but its epidemic character was not determined till 1580.
That most fatal of all epidemic maladies, the plague, had til'/
within the last forty years its chief home in Egypt and other
countries bordering on the Levant, from which it repeatedly
spread to different parts of Europe, committing fearful ravages.
In the middle of the fourteenth century it is computed to have
carried off, under the name of the “ Black Death,” from a fourth
to a third of all the inhabitants of Europe ; and in 16G5, the date
of its last appearence in our country, the “ Great Plague of
London” was fatal to 68,596 persons out of a population amount
ing at the time to about half a million. The prolonged absence
of a contagious fever is best seen in islands, and isolated places on
the mainland, to which infection is less readily carried ; and
among many remarkable instances of ths kind on record, there is
one which has often been cited in the recent history of measles.
There was no measles in the Faroe group of islands on the north
of Scotland, for sixty-five years previous to 1846, at which date
it was imported into them by a man affected with the disease.
It spread from him with vast rapidity (as usually happens when
measles or small-pox is introduced among a population, few or
none of whom are protected by having had it before), so that
within six months, out of the 7,782 inhabitants of the islands,
more than 6,000, old and young alike, suffered from the com
plaint.
Now, if any of these contagious fevers were capable of arising
spontaneously, why did they not show themselves during the
long periods just referred to? Why was there no small-pox in
Europe till the eighth or in America till the sixteenth century ?
Why has the plague been unknown in England since 1665, or,
since 1844, even in Egypt, which was formerly looked upon as
its peculiar home? Why was measles entirely absent from the
Faroe islands between 1781 and 1846? It cannot be said
that surrounding circumstances were unfavourable—on the con
trary, as events proved in regard to measles and small-pox, they
were extremely favourable to the existence and propagation of the
diseases. Why, then, did the latter not make their appearance ?
The answer evidently is, that they did not appear because there
�THE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
21
was no antecedent case present to produce them by infection, and
these diseases are as little capable of arising from any other cause
than injection as a plant can spring up except from a seed, or an
animal except from an egg.
I The argument against the spontaneous origin of the infectious
fevers, drawn from the great length of time during which they
®»ny be absent from particular countries or localities, until intro
duced from an external source, is so convincing that, when taken
®fong with the results of daily experience, it has led to a very
general agreement among medical men with regard to many of
these diseases. Thus, of the six principal kinds of infectious
fever now existing among us—namely, small-pox, measles, scarlet
fever, hooping-cough, typhusfever, and typhoid or entericfever'—the
first four are almost universally admitted never to arise spon
taneously at the present day, but to be propagated solely by
infection. On this point I may quote, in addition to the high
authorities already given, the opinion of Dr. Karl Liebermeister,
who says, in his introductory essay on Infectious Diseases, in
Stanssen’s “Cyclopaedia of the Practice of Medicine” (1875):
“ The spontaneous origin of small-pox, measles, and scarlet fever
could scarcely find a defender now.” Mr. Jonathan Hutchinson
observes also, in his article on Constitutional Syphilis, in Reynolds’
** System of Medicine
“ Like small-pox, scarlet fever, measles,
and the others in this group, syphilis is communicable from the
diseased to the healthy, and can be produced by no other means.”
One of the few who still advocate the doctrine of a spontaneous
origin is Dr. Charlton Bastian ; but he admits nevertheless, in
•peaking of “ hooping-cough, measles, scarlet fever, and small“ the knowledge we possess concerning the mode of
origin of these, otherwise than by infection, is almost nil."
With regard, however, to the origin of the two remaining
fevers, typhus and typhoid, and especially the latter, there is, un
fortunately, not yet the same general agreement; and as these
fevers are exceedingly important from their frequency and
fatality, they deserve particular attention. In their outward
appearance the two diseases are very much alike, being long
continued fevers, with obscure, though different eruptions, and
attended with great prostration and delirium—typhus lasting from
two to three weeks, and typhoid fever about a week longer.
Owing to their external resemblance, they were always confounded
together till within the last thirty or forty years, and were thought
to be merely modifications of the same disease, as other fevers
had been previously ; but the labours of several eminent observers,
among whom Sir William Jenner holds a conspicuous place, have
shown them to be quite distinct. In the Registrar-General’s
Imports of the causes of death in England they were first sepa
rated in 1869. The chief difference in their symptoms is, that in
typhoid fever there is always present an inflammation and ulcera
tion of some of the intestinal glands, accompanied by a peculiar
�22
THE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
and copious diarrhoea lasting for several days, which intestinal
affection is not found in typhus. For this reason, and also to
avoid the confusion arising from the similarity of the namM
typhus and typhoid, the latter disease is now more suitably called
enteric, that is, intestinal fever.
But the difference between the two diseases which is most
important with a view to their prevention is in the mode of their
infectiousness. Typhus fever, like small-pox, scarlet fever,
measles, and hooping-cough, is propagated directly from person to
person by breathing the air which surrounds the sick; but enteric
or typhoid fever is very little, if at all, communicable in this way.
It is spread, as it were, in an indirect manner by means of the dis
charges from the bowels, not in their fresh state, but some time
after they have left the body of the patient, and when they are in
the form of sewage, undergoing decomposition or putrefaction.
These discharges, by oozing from drains or cesspools, find their way
through the soil into the drinking water, and are swallowed, or else
the effluvia rising from them are inhaled, and thus the disease is
communicated. Another terrible epidemic disease, Asiatic cholera,
is also held, on carefully considered grounds, to be propagated
mainly in this indirect manner by means of the decomposing bowel
discharges of the sick. From the obscurity attending its mode of
propagation, the infectiousness of typhoid fever, as of cholera, was
long doubted or denied, and is difficult to trace in large towns,
where the houses are connected together by a network of drains ;
but in country places it is much more evident. Cases have again
and again been observed in which typhoid fever has been imported
by persons affected with it into country villages where it had not
previously been known for years, perhaps not within human
memory, and the disease has spread from them as from a centre—
facts which conclusively demonstrate its infectious nature.
Few, if any, now deny that typhoid fever is infectious ; but the
question has of late years been repeatedly debated, whether infec
tion is its only cause, or whether it can also arise spontaneously or
de novo, that is to say, from any other cause than infection ? Dr.
William Budd has urged with particular force and ability the
former doctrine, and his conclusions have been very widely accepted
among the medical profession. He holds the view just explained,
that typhoid fever is usually due to poisoning by sewage, but
that, whenever sewage acts in this virulent and deadly manner,
the reason is that it contains the stools of typhoid patients.
Ordinary sewage not containing typhoid stools has, he contendsf
no power whatever to produce the disease. On the other hand,
the doctrine that typhoid fever is sometimes generated spon
taneously has been advocated by the late Dr. Charles Murchison, in
an elaborate and most valuable work on “ The Continued Fevers of
Great Britain” (2nd ed., 1873). Dr. Murchison gives numerous
cases showing that typhoid fever is communicable from the sick to
the healthy—a conclusion which, he says, “with such facts before
�THE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
23
us, it is impossible to deny but he also holds that the disease is
BOmetimes produced afresh by a poison derived from ordinary
sewage not containing any admixture of typhoid stools. He says :
“It may be generated independently of a previous case by the fer
mentation of fsecal and, perhaps, other organic matter and this
is an opinion which is shared by many other medical men. Accord
ing to Dr. Murchison, moreover, the poison of typhus fever, a
highly and unmistakeably infectious disease, is sometimes “genefated de novo in the exhalations of living human beings, by over
crowding and bad ventilation,” especially in circumstances of great
poverty, dirt, and insufficiency of food ; but this view has, I think,
met with comparatively few supporters in this country.
In his article in the Nineteenth Century, Sir Thomas Watson
vigorously combats Dr. Murchison’s views on these two points,
and endeavours to show that neither typhus nor typhoid fever
has ever any other source than infection. The extreme importance
of this question can be readily understood. Our power to prevent
a disease depends on our knowledge of its cause, and it seems to
me that the question whether infectious disorders can also arise
spontaneously is in reality the most important of all questions
Relating to the causation of disease, from the vast practical conse
quences involved in it. In all efforts to prevent and eradicate
infectious diseases, the question of their spontaneous origin presents
itself, and few subjects in medicine have been so long and so
vehemently debated. It was discussed several hundred years ago
With reference to the plague, and within the present century the
controversy has been renewed again and again, not only in regard
to every one of the contagious fevers already enumerated, but also
to many other contagious maladies, among which I may mention
Asiatic cholera, yellow fever, relapsing fever, diphtheria, syphilis,
hydrophobia, glanders, and malignant pustule. The very same
question has been often discussed as regards the principal con
tagious diseases of the domestic animals, namely, rabies, glanders,
anthrax or splenic fever (which produce respectively, when inocu
lated on man, the very fatal affections of hydrophobia, glanders,
and malignant pustule), the cattle plague, pleuro-pneumonia or
infectious lung disease, sheep-pox, swine plague, and foot and
mciith disease. If we take these eight diseases in man, along
With the six infectious fevers prevalent among us, and also the
plague, which still exists in some countries, they form together
fifteen affections of the utmost gravity, besides eight most destruc
tive disorders of the domestic animals, the cause of almost all of
which is held very widely, and of many of them nearly universally,
by the best medical and veterinary authorities, to reside in con
tagion alone, while our hopes of preventing and extinguishing them
are inseparably bound up with the question whether or not they
can also arise spontaneously. If they are propagated by contagion
alone, their prevention is much easier, and their extinction is pos
sible ; but it) unfortunately, they can also arise in other ways,
�24
THE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
their prevention is far more difficult, and we cannot hope to
extinguish them. A few years ago, Professor Tyndall, as chair
man at a lecture delivered by Dr. Corfield, pointed out the extra
ordinary importance of the doctrine that infectious fevers “ breed
true,” and never arise spontaneously. He said that “ he entirely
agreed with all that the lecturer had stated as to these diseases
‘ breeding true,’ for they never found the virus of small-pox pro
ducing typhoid, or vice versa. The subject was one of the most
important -which could engage the attention of the scientific
physician, for in the whole range of medical art and science there
was not a subject of equal importance. But in applying to daily
practice this question of infectious diseases, the physician must
not stand alone—he ought to be aided by the sympathy of an
enlightened public.” On another occasion Professor Tyndall
quoted on this subject the words of the famous French chemist
and experimenter, M. Pasteur, who says, “ Man has it in his
power to cause parasitic diseases to disappear off the surface of the
globe, if, as we firmly believe, the doctrine of spontaneous genera
tion is a chimera.” The question as to the spontaneous origin of
infectious diseases has been so long under discussion, without being
yet decided, that there must evidently be something very difficult
in its settlement; and as it is a question of such vital interest to
human happiness, I may perhaps be permitted here to refer very
briefly to the arguments which Dr. Murchison brings forward
in favour of the spontaneous origin of typhus and of typhoid
fever.
I may remark, in the first place, that in order to prove an in
fectious disease to be capable also of arising spontaneously, it is
necessary to show one of two things—either that in a certain case
or cases infection cannot be the cause of the disease, or else that
some other influence, such as overcrowding or bad drainage, has
produced it. In other words, it is necessary to prove either the
negative proposition that the disease in some cases does not arise
from infection, or the positive or affirmative proposition that it
does arise from some other given cause.
Now in seeking to establish the first or negative proposition, the
main argument which Dr. Murchison uses is that several cases of
typhus and of typhoid fever, whose circumstances he relates, could
not, on careful enquiry, be traced to any exposure to infection as
their source. There was, he says, “ no evidence of infection ” to
be found in the history of these cases. But this argument, which
has always been the one most strenuously urged in such discussions,
is admitted by Dr. Murchison himself to be quite fallacious in
regard to small-pox. He recognises the well-known fact that in
certain cases of small-pox, as indeed of all infectious disorders, no
evidence of infection can be found, and yet he holds that small
pox never arises spontaneously at the present day. Speaking of
infectious diseases, he says: “ Some of them, such as Variola
(small-pox), are not only extremely contagious, but at the present
�THE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
25
day can nev yr be traced to any other cause than contagion. Whole
continents, such as America and Australia, have remained exempt
from them until they were introduced by an infected person. It
is true that now and then we cannot trace even these diseases to
contagion.” If then the argument is admittedly of no avail to
prove that small-pox can arise spontaneously, why should it be
relied on in other infectious complaints ? How can that be a good
argument for typhus or typhoid fever which is allowed to be a bad
one for small-pox ?
In answer to this obvious question, Dr. Murchison says that
there are mr.ny more cases of typhoid fever than of small-pox
which cannot be traced to contagion. This, however, is probably
to be accounted for by the very obscure and indirect mode of pro
pagation in the former disease, and there is reason to believe that
the number of unexplained cases will diminish as we gain a fuller
knowledge of the different channels or vehicles by which the in
fection may be conveyed.
We can easily see how unreliable is any argument founded
merely on negative grounds like the above when we consider the
extremely subtle and insidious nature of the poisons that give rise
to the infectious fevers. These poisons are invisible, they can be
carried long distances and kept, under favourable circumstances, for
an indefinite time, and moreover they can be communicated, not
only by the patient himself, both during his illness and his conva
lescence, but by everything that has been in his neighbourhood. A
person suffering from an infectious fever exhales constantly into
the air a multitude of extremely minute infectious particles, which
cling tenaciously to all the surrounding objects and persons, and
can be transmitted by them. There are thus three ways in which
these fevers can be communicated: either by the patients, by
tainted or contaminated objects, or by tainted persons ; the tainted
objects, or “ fomites,” as they are often called, acting simply as
©atriers of the poison, while the “tainted” or “suspected” persons
act not only in this way, but also as themselves perhaps infected
with the disease and already suffering from it in its latent or incu
bative stage. When we add to this that the little infectious
particles can be transported to a great distance in clothing, bedding,
furniture or other goods, drinking water, milk, etc., as well as by
persons, and that if kept from the air or dried, they may long
retain their virulent properties—a cloak, for instance, having been
known to give scarlet fever after being laid by for eighteen months,
and the poison of anthrax or the splenic fever of cattle having
been found active after keeping for four years—we can understand
how little warrant there is for inferring positively from the mere
fact that we cannot trace infection in a particular case that there
fore infection does not exist. The argument would be wellfounded if the case were a solitary one, and occurred in an island
or other locality having no communication whatever with adjacent
parts; but in a populous country where there are always many
�26
THE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
other cases of the same disease to he found, and where more or
less intercourse takes place, even with the remotest districts, it is
rarely possible to exclude entirely the chance of infection, and
unless this can be done the reasoning is evidently inconclusive.
In seeking to prove that typhus and typhoid fever, besides
being infectious, can arise spontaneously or de novo, Dr. Murchison
relies not only on the negative evidence afforded by our inability
to trace infection in particular cases of these diseases. He holds
that there is also positive evidence to show that typhus fever may
be produced by overcrowding and deficient ventilation, especially
among squalid, dirty, and ill-fed persons ; and that typhoid fever
is sometimes generated, independently of infection, by the fer
mentation of sewage and perhaps other organic matters. The
third kind of infectious disease described in his very able work
on “ The Continued Fevers of Great Britain ” is relapsing fever
(a less dangerous affection, always attended by a relapse, and
occurring from time to time in epidemics, especially in Ireland);
and this disease also he holds to be sometimes generated afresh by
famine or prolonged scarcity of wholesome and nutritious food.
The reason which he gives is that in cases where infection could
not be traced, the above influences were present, and appear to
him to have produced the diseases.
Now the causes here assigned by Dr. Murchison are the very
ones which have at all times been popularly believed to have a
power of breeding infectious fevers. Overcrowding and bad ven
tilation, dirt and squalor, the concentrated exhalations of numerous
uncleanly human beings pent up together in close and ill-smelling
rooms, prisons, or ships ; the foul effluvia rising from sewers and
cesspools, from graveyards, and other collections of putrefying
animal or vegetable substances; war, with its sieges and battle
fields. and its multitudes of unburied bodies polluting the air and
the water; and famine with its wasted victims—to these causes,
either singly or combined, it has been usual to attribute outbreaks,
not only of typhus and typhoid, but of nearly every other kind
of infectious fever, including the plague, scarlet fever, and small
pox. Even the best medical authorities commonly held such
views before the publication, in 1811, of Dr. Bancroft’s invaluable
work treating on febrile contagion. “Most writers on the subject
of contagious fever,” says Dr. Bancroft, “ have either inculcated
or believed that it might be generated—first, by an accumulation
of those disgusting matters commonly denominated filth ; secondly,
by the offensive vapours emitted by corrupting dead bodies, or by
other matters in a putrid state ; and, thirdly, by crowding persons,
even when healthy, in ill-ventilated and unclean places.” Dr.
Bancroft maintained that, although these causes greatly favour
the diffusion of a contagious fever when once it has been intro
duced by a person suffering from it, yet of themselves they are
utterly unable to generate a single case ; and his reasonings, with
those of others, had so powerful an effect, that this immensely
�THE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
27
important conclusion has been more and more widely received as
the true medical doctrine on the subject. “Never,” says Dr.
Murchison, “ has any work effected a greater revolution in pro
fessional opinion in this country. The doctrine of Bancroft was
generally adopted.” The chief argument used by Dr. Bancroft
was the one to which I have already referred—namely the complete
and prolonged absence of the contagious fevers till introduced by an
infected person, though the other causes alleged to be capable of
producing them are in full operation.
Thus Dr. Bancroft showed that, among the Esquimaux and
Greenlanders, in slave-ships, and in Continental prisons, there was
no typhus, in spite of over-crowding and bad ventilation together
with filth, hunger, and squalor, often in the most aggravated
degree. Typhus fever, it may be remarked, is the disease which
has been popularly known by various names, such as “camp fever,”
“ship fever,” or “gaol fever,” from the frequency with which it
has decimated armies in the field, and used formerly to infest
emigrant ships and the English prisons. Epidemics of typhus
have repeatedly occurred in most parts of Europe, especially when
imported into them by war ; but at ordinary times the disease is
not so widely spread as enteric or typhoid fever, which is a pre
valent affection in almost all countries. Typhus, on the other
hand, has its peculiar abode in some of the large towns of Great
Britain, and, above all, in Ireland, where it has always been fear
fully common and destructive; while in the rural districts of
England, throughout the whole of France, and in many other parts
of the Continent, it is very little known. “ In the country districts
of England,” says Dr.Murchison, “typhus is a rare disease ; almost
all the examples of 1 typhus ’ reported as occurring in small country
towns and villages are really cases of enteric fever.” He says
also : “ The disease is at all times so rare throughout France
that few French physicians have ever seen it;” and adds : “ It is
especially to be noted that in many parts of the Continent of
Europe where typhus never occurs in time of peace, it becomes
epidemic in time of war.” But over-crowding and defective ven
tilation, dirt and privations of all kinds, are exceedingly common
in the rural parts and small towns of England, as well as in France,
and indeed everywhere among the very poor ; and this seems
plainly to show that such causes are not of themselves able to give
rise to typhus fever.
Again, as regards typhoid or enteric fever, that it cannot be
generated merely by the fermentation of ordinary sewage may be
seen from the fact that multitudes of people habitually breathe
air, or drink water polluted by sewage without ever contracting
the disease. In such towns as London, and still more Paris, as Sir
Thomas Watson observes, more or less of sewer air almost always
finds its way into the houses even of the wealthiest classes ; and in
country places, where there are no sewers, the drinking water is very
frequently tainted, from the dangerous practice which prevails of
�28
THE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
having the pumps or shallow wells in too close proximity to the
privy and cesspit, and allowing the excremental matters to soak
into the soil. The Rivers Pollution Commissioners say in their
report that estimating the town population of Great Britain at
about fifteen millions of people, “ the remaining twelve millions
of country population derive their water almost exclusively from
shallow wells, and these are, so far as our experience extends,
almost always horribly polluted by sewage and by animal matters
of the most disgusting origin.” Yet in many country villages
where such water is used, typhoid fever is entirely absent for
years, till a case is imported which gives rise to a local epidemic
of the disease. An outbreak of the kind in the village of Nunney,
in which seventy-six persons were attacked out of a population of
832, and which was traced to the fact that the bowel-discharges of
a typhoid-fever patient had been allowed to mil gl j with the
drinking water, is thus commented upon by the emir ent authority
on Hygiene, the late Dr. Parkes. “ The case,” he says in his
“ Manual of Practical Hygiene,” seems quite clear—first that the
water caused the disease ; and secondly, that though polluted with
excrement for years, no enteric fever appeared until an imported
case introduced the virus. Positive evidence of this kind seems
conclusive, and I think that we may now safely believe that the
presence of typhoid evacuations in the water is necessary. Com
mon faecal matter may produce diarrhoea, which may perhaps be
febrile, but for the production of enteric fever the specific agent
must be present.” Facts such as these seem to show clearly that
neither typhus nor typhoid fever can be generated by the causes
assigned by Dr. Murchison. How can a disease be said to proceed
from a cause which, in numberless instances, over wide areas and
during long periods of time, though constantly and powerfully
operating never gives rise to a single case of it ?
Whenever a cause is given and known, we can try it in the
above manner, by observing its action at different times and places,
and under a variety of circumstances ; and notone of the numerous
influences supposed to generate the infectious fevers has been able
to withstand this test. Indeed, our belief that these diseases have
no other source than infection is mainly founded on the fact that
every other cause which we see operating around us fails in count
less instances to produce them. But when the cause is not given
or known, and it is merely alleged that some cause, other than in
fection, is capable of generating an infectious fever, we cannot
entirely disprove this assertion, since we do not know all the causes
that may possibly exist in nature. As Mr. Simon observes : “ To
say that a disease is contagious is not to say that it cannot arise
without contagion.” It seems to me to be this difficulty in proving
a negative which has so long prevented the settlement of the con
troversy. We cannot show that the spontaneous origin of the
contagious fevers is impossible, but only that it is not proved, and
that all the evidence adduced in its favour is inconclusive. We
�THE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
29
hold, moreover, that such a mode of origin is not only unproved,
but very improbable ; in the first place, because every known agent
whose effects have been carefully watched seems incapable of
producing them, so that if they really have any other source than
contagion it is an unknown one ; and secondly, because their pro
longed absence from extensive areas where a multitude of causes
under a great variety of conditions are at work, renders it unlikely
that any cause whatever, except contagion, is able to generate
them. With respect to small-pox, which has been absent for cen
turies from whole continents, till introduced by a person suffering
from it, the improbability of its ever originating de novo is so great
as to amount to a practical certainty ; and although the question
as regards typhoid fever is a much more difficult one, yet if we
consider the very significant facts that typhoid fever has no other
known and proved cause than infection, that many of the cases
formerly thought spontaneous have been shown to depend on in
fection conveyed in drinking-water, milk, etc., and also that the
disease is often entirely absent for long periods from country
districts till imported into them, we have strong grounds for be
lieving that typhoid fever has never in reality any other than an
infectious source.
Besides the foregoing arguments, which are the chief ones, Dr.
Murchison brings forward two others, on which I would like to say
a few words, on account of the extreme importance of the ques
tions connected with them. The first is an argument from analogy.
He points out that “ there are certain contagious diseases, such as
erysipelas, pyaemia, and puerperal fever,” which are well known to
be capable also of arising spontaneously or de novo, and infers from
analogy that typhus and typhoid fever can probably do so likewise.
In order to understand what is the force of this argument, it will
be necessary to advert very briefly to the other great leading divi
sion of infectious diseases, the inflammatory and septic group,
with which, as well as with those previously mentioned, it is most
important that the public should be acquainted.
There is a numerous class of diseases— some of them of very
common occurrence, and others terribly fatal—which have the
power of arising, not only from infection, but also independently
of this source, and which, therefore, we can never hope completely
to abolish or extinguish. Among them are purulent ophthalmia,
common catarrhal ophthalmia, gonorrhoea, erysipelas, dissection
wound poisoning, pycemia and septicaemia, puerperal fever, hospital
gangrene or phagedoma, and dysentery. These may be called the
'non-specific, or not purely infectious diseases, in contradistinction
to the specific, or purely infectious disorders, already considered.
I may remark here that the word “specific,” as applied to a disease,
is often used in a different sense from this to signify merely pecu
liar or special, as opposed to common or ordinary ; but of late
years it has been frequently employed in the very important sense
here intended, namely, to signify “like a species.” A specific
�30
THE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
disease, in the latter sense of the term, is a disease which resembles
a species of plants or animals, in having singularly regular and
unvarying characters, and also more especially in the fact that it
has only one kind of cause—in other words, that it always arises
by infection from another disease like itself, just as the members
of a living species always descend from parents like themselves.
A non-specific infectious disease, on the other hand, can arise from
other sources as well as from infection.
Now. there is this wide difference between the infectious dis
orders belonging to the non-specific class and typhus and typhoid
fever, that, in the former the power of or ginating without infec
tion has been proved, while in the latter, as we have seen, it is not
proved. It has been conclusively shown, partly by the observation
of the sick, and partly by experiments on animals, that all the ten
infectious disorders just enumerated (except the last of them,
dysentery) can be generated by introducing into the blood, or
applying to a mucous surface, the products of ordinary inflam
mation or putrefaction. Recent researches have ascertained the
fact that inflammatory products, such as pus, are all more or less of
a contagious nature, and tend to excite a similar inflammation in
other parts or persons. Thus one of the highest authorities on
infectious diseases, Dr. Burdon Sanderson, who investigated the
subject of contagion under the direction of the Privy Council and
their eminent medical officer, Mr. John Simon, says : “ In a certain
sense it has been long familiar that an inflamed part is a focus from
which irritating material is distributed to healthy parts by radia
ting lines of absorption; but it is only of late years that it has
been distinctly seen and recognised clinically that every exudation
liquid of an inflamed part carries more or less with it the pro
perties of an inflammation-producing virus.” In like manner, Mr.
Simon, in one of his Reports to the Privy Council, speaks of the
“ essential contagiousness ” of the inflammat ry process. He says :
“Inflammatory excitement tends to diffuse itself. Within limits,
hitherto not defined, inflammations, both common and specific, are
communicable from part to part and from parson to person.” I
may add the opinion of Mr. Jonathan Hutchinson, who says : “ Let
us accept clearly the doctrine, so essential to the explanation of
numerous p ithological phenomena, that all living pus is contagious,
and is capable of producing an inflammation similar to that in
which it originated.” Putrid or septic matters also, such as
ichorous fluids or putrescent pus, are highly p nsonous, and when
introduced into the blood, or absorbed into it from the surface of
a wound, they give rise to the frightfully fatal diseases, pyaemia
ind septicaemia. These affections, together with hospital gangrene,
ire commonly termed the septic diseases, and aie one of the chief
ilaDgers to which patients suffering from wounds are exposed,
whether the wounds have resulted from injuries or from surgical
operations, --bout a third of the deaths after operations in the
Londop 'mspitals being due to pyaemia. Another disease often
�THE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
31
arising from the noxious influence of putrefying substances upon
wounds is erys pelas, which is included by some surgeons among
the septic diseases. Puerperal fever also—that fearful malady
whose real nature was first pointed out by Dr. Robert Ferguson,
and which he describes as “ the most fatal of those peculiar to
women, as seven-eighths of the total mortality in child-birth are
owing to it ”—is essentially a septic disease, consisting of various
forms of pyaemia, sep'icaemia, and internal erysipelas, caused by
absorption into the blood of decomposing matters from the inner
surface of the uterus, which, after delivery, partakes of the charac
ters of a wound.
All the septic diseases are particularly apt to be generated by
the overcrowding of patients suffering from suppurating wounds,
which loads the air with putrescent animal products, and hence
they are sure to be of frequent occurrence in close and ill-venti
lated surgical hospitals. “ Overcrowding of patients after opera
tions,” says Mr. Erichsen, in his “ Science and Art of Surgery,”
“ is one of the most fertile causes of disease and death ; for the
overcrowding of wounded people, whether the wounds be accidental
or surgical, will inevitably produce one of the four septic diseases
—phagedsena, septicaemia, pyaemia, or erysipelas.” When once
produced by such means, they are afterwards propagated by infec
tion from one person to another ; the infection having this pecu
liarity, that it can act only on wounded people, since the poison
apparently cannot affect the system except through a wound.
Hence these diseases belong rather to surgery than to medicine,
and are often called the traumatic or surgical infections. Before
their generation by the overcrowding of the wounded, and their
propagation by infection, were clearly understood, the mortality
from septic disease in civil and military hospitals and in lying-in
institutions was sometimes perfectly appalling. An important
fact, pointed out by Dr. Burdon Sanderson and M. Davaine, and
which help- to explain the generation of these disorders, is that
their virulence is greatly increased by transmission from one animal
to another ; so that from a product at first but slightly contagious
there may be developed, after a few transmissions, a most deadly
poison. Even without any transmission, however, a contagious
poison of the utmost intensity can be rapidly generated, de novo,
by inflammatory and septic processes in the body ; as may be seen
from the fact that an unhealthy inflammation of the peritoneum,
excited by a purely non-infectious cause, such as a surgical opera
tion, may give rise to an effusion of serum and pus so virulent,
that the mere prick of a needle dipped in it is enough to occasion
death by septicaemia. Many medical men have lost their lives by
blood-poisoning from dissection wounds of this nature.
With regard to dysentery—one of the most destructive diseases
of hot climates—its mode of origin is very different from that of
the septic affections. The contagiousness of dysentery has only
been recognised of late years, and seems to be confined to the
�32
THE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
epidemic form of the disease prevalent in the tropics, while the
scattered cases which occur in this and other temp -rate countries
are not held to be contagious. As in the case of cholera and
t\ phoid fever, the infection is, in all probability, conveyed chiefly
by means of the discharges. The peculiar exciting cause of dysen
tery appears to be a miasma or malaria, generated in hot, swampy
districts, and closely allied to the malaria which gives rise to ague ;
the word miasma or malaria being commonly used to denote a
poisonous matter bred outride the body, while a contayium is one
which breeds and multiplies within the body itself. Since dysen
tery may arise from a miasm as well as from contagion, and since
the inflammatory and sepfic infections can be generated by the
products of ordinary inflammation and putrefaction, it is evident
that we can never hope to abolish these diseases, however greatly
they may be reduced m amount by human skill and energy.
The diseases which can be abolished, and on which above all
others, therefore, the attention of society should be fixed, are the
zymotic diseases, strictly so called. The word zymotic signifies
“ like a fermentation,” and is often employed in a looser sense so
as to include all infectious dise ises, and even some which are not
infectious; but Sir Thomas Watson, in his article on “ The
Abolition of Zymotic Disease,” restricts the term to a certain
group of infectious disorders, consisting of small-pox, scarlet fever,
measles, and others, which in their course and symptoms most
nearly resemble a fermentation. The resemblance between these
maladies and a fermentation, as pointed out by Liebig, is in many
respects very striking. Thus, for example, when a ferment, such
as yeast, is added to a fermentable liquid, there is first a period of
quiescence; then follows a period of disturbance, with rise of
temperature, during which two periods a great multiplication of
the ferment takes place ; next comes a stage of subsidence or
decline; and afterwards there remains an immunity or insuscep
tibility to the further action of that ferment. In like manner,
when the virus of a zymotic disease, such as small-pox or measles,
enters the body, there is first a period of quiescence or incubation ;
then a stage of disturbance, attended with rise of temperature or
fever, an eruption on the skin, and a great multiplication of the
virus or infecting matter ; then a stage of decline or defervescence ;
and, lastly, an immunity from the further action of that contagion.
The stages not only follow one another in regular order, but each
of them lasts a certain time, which varies but little in different
cases of the same disease. There is a large group of infectious
disorders, both in man and the domestic animals, presenting the
remarkable characters here described, and it is these disorders
which are specific, or, in other words, which resemble species in
having only one kind of cause, and in being therefore liable to
extinction. Many of them are admitted almost universally to arise
at the present day from contagion alone, and not one has been
proved to have anv other mode of origin. Op the other hand, the
�TIIE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
‘Septic and inflammatory group of disorders have not such regular
and unvarying symptoms, and none of them give immunity from
future attacks : and these are the non-specific infectious diseases,
that is to say, the class which can arise from other sources as well
as from infection. But typhus and typhoid fever, and the former
more especially, have well-marked zymotic characters of intubation
fever and eruption, regular stages and lesions, and subsequent
immunity, and Sir Thomas Watson includes them among the true
zymotic diseases. Their real analogy is to small-pox and scarlet
fever and not to pyaemia and erysipelas, with which Dr. Murchison
compares them, and this seems a strong argument against their ever
originating de novo. Dr. Buchanan, the present medical officer of
the Privy Council and Local Government Board, says, in his article
on Typhus Fever in “Reynolds’s System of Medicine,” in dis
cussing Dr. Murchison’s theory : “ The most serious obstacle to the
reception of this theory arises from the analogy of other specific
diseases, as to the present production of 'which by contagion, and
contagion alone, there can be no question.” The argument from
analogy, therefore, instead of supporting Dr. Murchison’s view,
seems rather to tell very strongly against it.
The last of Dr. Murchison’s arguments to which I shall refer is
of an a priori character, and is one which has been repeatedly
brought forward in discussing the spontaneous origin of the in
fectious fevers. It is urged that such a mode of origin is not only
possible, but must actually have taken place when the diseases first
came into existence, since the first cases must have arisen with
out infection ; and as this has happened once, why, it is asked,
might the same thing not happen again ? “ In the first sufferer
from a contagious disease,” says Dr. Murchison, “ its origin
must have been
novo, and there is no reason why the unknown
causes of the first case may not operate at the present day.” But
Dr. Murchison himself disregards this argument when he concludes,
from a careful survey of the facts, that small-pox and some other
disorders never now arise de novo ; and it is evidently by facts, and
not by speculative considerations, that the question has mainly to
decided. Still there is one thing, a knowledge of which would
be of immense value, and might aid us in forming an opinion on
this and every other point relating to infection. If we knew what
rhe poisons that give rise to infectious diseases real/y are—if we
knew their intimate nature, and how they produce the extra
ordinary phenomena of infection—we might be able to say
whether or not it is likely that they should ever be generated
Sp mtaneously. This brings us to the great question which of late
years has occupied, more than almost any other, the attention of
medical inquirers, namely, wliat, is contagiumt and how do the
different kinds of contagia produce their effects?—the word
contagium, in the plural contagia, being used to denote the
material substance or poison which gives rise to a contagious
disease. When we have carefully considered what the couc
�34
THE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIONS DISEASES.
tagia really are, we shall be in abetter position to decide as to their
modes of origin, and also as to the possibility of their utter extinction.
Till within the last twenty or thirty years the nature of con
tagion remained an inscrutable mystery and standing enigma in
medicine, and more has been done in the present generation than
in all past ages to clear up the difficulty. The explanation of the
facts of infection now given by the best authorities is contained
in the great theory known as “the Germ Theory of infectious
diseases,’’ and also called the doctrine of contagium vivum and
miasma vivvm (living contagium and living miasm), which Dr.
Liebermeister regards as “perhaps the most important questions
which have ever busied the medical world.” According to this
doctrine, the different contagia are in reality different kinds of
extremely minute living beings, which produce disease by growing
and multiplying in the body of the patient, and communicate
infection by passing from the body of one person or animal int o
that of another. These little organisms are generally considered
to be plants belonging to the bacteria, a tribe of the lower fungi,
and they have received various names, su'-h as microbes, micro
phytes, microzymes (Lttle living things, little plants, little fer
ments), on account of their vital properties, or else, from their
peculiar forms, they have been called bacteria, bacilli, spirilla,
micrococci, etc. (that js, rod-like bodies, very minute rods, little
spiral filaments, or little rounded organisms). Each kind of contagium attacks by p eference certain parts and tissues of the body,
and hence the pecubar symptoms and lesions that characterise the
different infectious diseases. If this view be correct, it is evident
that the contagia are not. properly speaking, poisons but parasites;
and the reason why certain disorders are called specific and never
arise but from infection, is that they are caused by distinct species
of living organisms which, like other species, are kept up only by
continuous propigation. Like other species, too, they might be
completely extirpated by human intelligence and energy. In Let,
the battle with contagious fevers and specific disorders is nothing
else than a war of extermination against a class of excessively
minute disease and death-producing parasites, which, though the
smallest of living beings, are infinitely mnre dangerous and deadly
to mankind than any venomous reptile or beast of prey.
The truth of the germ theory in its main features seems now to
be firmly established, and is admitted by large numbers of the most
eminent medical and scientific authorities in this and other countries.
On this point I may quote the opinion of Dr. Burdon Sanderson, who,
in 1870, in discussing the doctrine that the little particles found in
contagious liquids “ are organised beings, and that their powers of
producing disease are due to their organic development,” says :
“ We have accepted the doctrine as the only one which affords a
satisfactory explanation of the facts of infection.” Mr. John
Simon, in his Address as President of the Public Health Section
at the International Medical Congress held in London in 1881,
�THE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES
35
says: “ We have learnt, as regards those diseases of the animal
l)ody which are due to various kinds of external cause, that pro
bably all the most largely fatal of them (it is impossible yet to
say how many) represent bur, one single kind of cause, and respec
tively depend on invasion of the animal body by some rapidly
multiplying form of alien life.” At the same Congress, Professor
Klebs, of Prague, read a paper on the subject, in which he says :
The conclusion which appears tome to follow inevitably from
■this short survey of the results of modern investigation is this—
that specific communicable diseases are produced by specific
organisms.” In the discussion following the ] aper, Dr. Virchow,
the eminent German pathologist, observed that “ the study of
pathological anatomy had been greatly changed by the discovery of
parasitic organisms.” I may quote also the opinion of M. Bern
heim, who says, in his article on “ Contagion ” in the “ DictionBaire Encyclopedique des Sciences Medicales” (1874) : “Now we
ghall see that the results of existing science tend precisely to make
the contagia be regarded as animal or vegetable parasites, and
that consequently between contagious maladies and parasitic
maladies there is perhaps no essential difference.” In like manner,
Dr. Frankland, president of the Institute of Chemistry, says:
“ The researches of Chauveau, Burdon Sanderson, Klein, and
fethers, scarcely leave room for doubt that the specific poisons of
the so-called zymotic diseases consist of organised and living
®rganic matter.” In an address delivered in St. James’ Hall
during the London Congress of 1881, the celebrated chemist,
M. Pasteur, who has done so much to promote the knowledge of
this subject, alluded to his own “labours during the past twentyfive years upon the nature of ferments—their life and their
nutrition, their preparaiion in a pure state by the introduction of
organisms under natural and artificial conditions—labours which
have established the principles and methods of microbism.”
It was M. Pasteur’s brilliant researches on fer mentation ana
putrefaction that led the way to the discovery of the true causes
of infectious disorders. Fermentation is a process which occurs
When a fermentable compound, such as sugar, is pla< ed in coni act
with gluten, casein, albumen, or other nitrogenous substance, pro
vided air be admitted ; and it was held by Liebig that the ferments
in such a case are the dead nitrogenous substances, which begin to
decompose when acted on by the oxygen of the air, and thus in
duce changes in the sugar. But M. Pasteur showed that in every
fermentation, properly so-called, the alcoholic, the viscous, the
lactic, etc., little, living beings are present, which are the real fer
ments or agents in the process. Fermentation consists, in fact, in
the changes arising from the growth and multiplication of a microgoopic plant, whose germ is at first brought by the air, but which
afterwards lives without air, feeding on the sugar and the nitrogenised substances, and using their elements to build up its own
tissues. “When sugar is placed in the presence of gluten, or
C 2
�36
THE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASE3.
casein, or an animal membrane,” says M. Pasteur, in a notice of
bis researches published in 1861, “it is not the nitrogenised matter
which is the ferment. The true ferment consists in a microscopic
vegetable, the germ of which is brought by the air at the com
mencement, and which multiplies itself, taking its carbon from
the sugar, its nitrogen and its phosphates from the gluten or tbe
casein.” In his “ Studies on Fermentation,” a translation of
which was published in 1*79, he says : “ The essential point of the
theory of fermentation, which we have been concerned in proving
in preceding paragraphs, may be briefly put in the statement that
ferments, properly so-called, constitute a class of beings possessing
the faculty of living out of contact with free oxygen; or, more
concisely still, we may say fermentation is a result of life without
air.” Putrefaction also, which is a kind of fermentation accom
panied by foul smells, was shown by M. Pasteur to be due to the
action of little living organisms, the septic bacteria, whose germs
are derived from the air. By a beautiful series of experiments,
which were confirmed by the researches of Professor Tyndall, he
showed that all ordinary air contains large numbers of these germs,
and that if they be totally excluded by boiling, hermetically closing
vessels, or other means, animal and vegetable substances can be
kept for years without putrefying. As it appeared from these en
quiries that little living beings are the real causes of fermentation
and putrefaction, the question naturally presented itself whether
the infectious fevers, which are so like a fermentation, may not have
a similar source. Accordingly this great question was vigorously
attacked by M. Pasteur and a number of most able observers in
different countries. The methods by which they sought to solve
it were chiefly the search for organisms by an examination under
the microscope of the contagious products and the blood in the
various infectious disorders of men and animals ; the endeavour to
separate from one another the different parts of which contagious
liquids are composed, in order to determine which of them pos
sesses the virulent properties ; the chemical analysis of these
liquids to see whether they contain any chemical poison; the
artificial cultivation of the little organisms or microbes, that is to
say, rearing them in some nutrient fluid, such as serum or meat
juice, in which they can grow vigorously, so as to rid them of
impurities, and to study their nature and development; dnd also
testing the powers of infectious liquids, and of the little organisms
in the pure state, by experiments on animals, which formed an in
dispensable part of the inquiry. By these means a large amoun t
of evidence was obtained, which seems to show in the clearest
manner the truth of the germ theory.
The reasons now usually given in proof of the germ theory, are
drawn pirtlyfrom facts of infection that have long been known,
and partly from the results obtained more recently by the exami
nation of contagious liquids. Among the former, the two facts
on which Dr. Burdon Sanderson lays particular stress as showing the
�THE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
37
contagia to be living beings, are their enormous multiplication within
the body of the patient, and also their long preservation and resist
ance to adverse surrounding influences outside the body. He holds
the germ theory to be “ the only one which affords a satisfactory
explanation of the facts of infection, and in particular of those
which tend to show that witbin the body of the infected individual
the particles of contagium rapidly reproduce themselves, while
out of the body they are capable of resisting for long periods the
influence of conditions which, if not restrained by organic action,
would produce chemical decomposition.” The multiplication of
the virus or infecting matter which takes place in a contagions
disease is extraordinary, and should be carefully noticed, as it is
one of the most important points relating to infection. “ A
quantity of small-pox matter not so big as a pin’s head,” says Dr.
Aitken, “ will produce many thousand pustules, each containing
fifty times as much of the specific pestilent matter as was originally
inserted ; and moreover the blood and all the secretions of the
body are equally infected with the specific poison of the pustules.
The miasmata from one child labouring under hooping-cough
are sufficient to infect a whole city.” This fact alone would seem
almost enough to show that a contagious virus must be organised
and living, for living beings are the only things we know of pos
sessing the faculty of reproduction or self-multiplication. No
chemical poison, whether of the inorganic or organic class, as
arsenic, or snake venom, has any power of reproducing itself, oris
evei’ multiplied in the body. Hence it takes a certain amount of
these poisons to produce death, and their effects are proportional
to the dose ; but the contagia can act in what is termed a minimal
dose, that is, a quantity quite impalpable and infinitesimal. Thus
Mr. Marson says of small-pox that “ a single breathing of the air
where it is, is enough to give the disease.” The reason of this
remarkable difference is that a chemical poison is not multiplied in
the body, whereas an infectious virus is rapidly multiplied, so that,
if once it gains a footing, the amount originally taken into the
system matters but little. Professor Naegeli, of Munich, in his
work on the “ Lower Fungi in their relation to Infectious Diseases”
(1877), holds this fact to be conclusive evidence .on the question.
“ The infectious matters,” he says, “ cannot be chemical com
pounds or collections of them, but can only be organised bodies,
because in this case alone is their increase conceivable from the
minimal quantity taken in, to the amount in which they become
dangerous to the human frame.”
Another important fact is the power of the contagia to retain
their virulence for long periods, sometimes for many years, outside
the body, and to resist changes of heat and cold, dryness and
moisture, or other influences which would speedily decompose and
destroy any dead organic matters. This accords well with what
we know of the bacteria and other minute organisms, which are
wonderfully tenacious of life, and moreover are able to exist in two
�38
TIIE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
states or forms—the one an active parent form when they are comp irativelv perishable, and the other an inactive form, as little buds
or spores, when they are very indestructible, and can continue in a
sort of dormant vitality for an indefinite time. It is on this
ground chiefly that Dr. Burdon Sanderson objects to a theory of
germs, differing from the one usually adopted, which has been
put forward by the distinguished physiologist and microscopist
Dr. Lionel Beale, in his work on “ Disease Germs ” (2nd ed,
1872). Dr. Beale holds as strongly as any one that the contaaia
are living and not dead substances. “ The only condition in which
matter is known to exhibit these powers of self-multiplication.”
he sa.vs, “ is the living state;” and be adds: “Every one will
admit that the particular forms of disease now under consideration
—the contagious fevers—r< suit from the introduction of living
particles of some form or other.” Assuming the infectious par
ticles to be living, however, there are evidently two suppositions
possible as to their nature; either they are independent organisms
or parasites coming from without, or else they are little living
cells or portions of protoplasm derived from the patient’s own
tissues. Dr. Beale adopts the latter alternative, and holds the
disease germs to be particles of degraded protoplasm, which are
capable of living independently, and can be engrafted on other in
dividuals, in whose bouies they can grow and multiply. This view,
however, is objected to by the great majority of observers here
and abroad, as purely hypothetical and wanting a real instance to
support it, and especially as being inconsistent with the fact that
many kinds of disease germs can live for such long periods out of
the body. “ Considering,” says Dr. Burdon Sanderson, “ that of
all perishable things protoplasm is among the most perishable—so
much so that no living particle of our bodies can be abstracted
from its place in the organism, even for five minutes, without
dying and being disintegrated—it appeared to me quite out of the
question to suppose, as Dr. Beale had suggested, that the particles
could be of this nature consistently with the astonishing power
which they evidently possess of retaining their activity for such
long periods, in spite of their being subjected to enormous varieties
of moisture, temperature, and all other conditions.” “If, then,
the doctrine of a contagium viviftn be true,” says Dr. William
Roberts, in his Address on Medicine to the British Medical Asso
ciation in 1877, “we are almost forced to the conclusion that
contagium consists (at least in the immense majority of cases) of
an independent organism or parasite.”
The results which have been obtained of late years by the
examination of contagious liquids with high powers of the micro
scope, relate in the first place to the physical characters of the con
tagia. Some infectious diseases, such as small-pox and measles,
are propagated through the air by inhalation ; while others, as
cow-pox and glanders, are communicated by inoculation with
liquid products, and hence it is often supposed that the infecting
�THE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
39
matters must have the form of a vapour or a fluid. But if this
were so, it would follow that they cannot be living, for living
beings are always solid, and never fluid or gaseous bodies. A
closer scrutiny has shown, however, that the real infecting sub
stance, or contagium, is neither a fluid nor a vapour, but consists
in all cases of extremely minute solid particles. “ As regards the
physical characters of contagious liquids,” says Dr. Burdon Sander
son, “ the fundamental fact is that contagium is particulate.’'
This important fact was pointed out in 1865 by Dr. Chauveau,
Professor in the Veterinary School at Lyons, after a prolonged
inquiry into the virus of cow-pox and other contagious diseases.
When vaccine, or cow-pox lymph, is examined under the micro
scope, it is found to consist of three parts,—namely, first, of
corpuscles which are similar to ordinary pus globules, and are
sometimes few in number, or even entirely absent in good vaccine ;
Secondly of numerous particles, far more minute and not exceed
ing 2^00 of an inch in diameter : and thirdly, of a clear liquid in
which these bodies float. The larger corpuscles were separated by
Subsidence, and were found on inoculating them to be inert. The
Separation of the smaller particles could not be effected either by
subsidence or filtration, but was at last accomplished by what is
termed the method of diffusion ; that is, by bringing carefully a
little water into direct contact with the contagious liquid, when
the soluble and diffusible parts of the liquid mix with the water,
an<1 the insoluble ones are left behind. In this way the minute
particles were separated from the rest, and were found on inocula
tion to communicate cow-pox, whereas the fluid after being deprived
of them was found absolutely inactive. M. Chauveau investigated
in a similar manner the virus of small-pox, sheep-pox, and farcy
(a form of glanders), and with the same results. It thus appears
that when an infectious disease is communicated by means of a
fluid, or through the air, it is because the air or the fluid contains
little solid particles, invisible to the naked eye, which are the real
infecting substances ; and this fact is a strong additional argument
in favour of the view that the contagia are living beings.
Besides showing the physical characters of infectious liquids,
tecent investigations with the microscope have ascertained that in
some of them little vegetable organisms of peculiar shapes are
present ; and it is these organisms, and the inquiries to which they
have given rise, that most fully demonstrate the germ-theory.
“ The doctrine that microphytes have to do with the process of
contagion,” says Dr. Burdon Sanderson, “is based on two sorts of
observations, viz., those relating to the physical characters of con
tagious liquids, and those relating to the existence of organisms of
characteristic form in them.” “ There are four contagious diseases,”
he says also, in 1874, “in respect of which the presence in the
contagious liquids of forms of vegetation, differing from those met
with after death in the normal tissues or liquids of the body, or
during life in the products of primary or secondary inflammation,
�40
THE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
has been established. These are small-pox, sheep-pox, splenic
fever, and relapsing fever.” The first disease in which charac
teristic organisms were detected was splenic fever or anthrax—a
very deadly disorder of cattle, sheep, and horses, common in all
parts of the world, and inoculable on all kinds of animals, includ
ing men, in whom it produces the rapidly fatal affection called
malignant pustule. Dr. Davaine and Dr. Pollender, in 1855, or
even earlier, discovered in the blood of animals suffering from
splenic fever, a microscopic plant, to which the name of Bacillus
authracis has been given, and which consists of little rods or staffshaped bodies, endowed with the faculty of developing spores.
In relapsing fever also, an infectious disease peculiar to man.
Dr. Obermeier, in 1872, detected in the blood a little organism or
microbe, having the form of minute spiral threads or filaments,
and since called the Spirillum (Jbermeicri. The organisms which
have been discovered in the matter taken from small-pox pustules,
are of the kind called Micrococci, that is, little rounded bodies,
and exactly resemble the minute particles already described as
occurring in vaccine lymph.
Although these little bodies have been found by numerous
observers to be continually present in the above diseases, this fact
cannot in itself be regarded as sufficient evidence that the diseases
are due to them. The organisms might be the consequence rather
than the cause of the morbid state of the blood, and might be
simply carriers and not producers of the infecting virus. In order
to decide this point, therefore, it is evidently necessary to separate
the organisms and obtain them in a pure state, and then to try
whether by inoculation they are able to produce the disease , and
for this purpose a more perfect process of separation is needed
than that employed by M. Chauveau, which merely divided the
insoluble from the soluble and fluid portions of a contagious
liquid. We want to know the vital as well as the physical
characters of the organisms, and whether they are the real causes
of the disorders in which they occur. This object has been
attained by the very important purifying process called the method
of successive cultures, which is now generally used in these in
quiries, and may be briefly described as follows : A little drop of
the infectious liquid containing the microbes is introduced on the
point of a glass rod into a clear nutrient fluid, such as meat-juice,
which is kept nearly at blood-heat; the latter fluid having been
previously boiled, and the glass rod heated to redness to deprive
them of all other, organisms, and the neck of the vessel being
plugged with cotton wool so as to exclude any germs from the
atmosphere. In a few hours the nutrient fluid becomes turbid
from the growth of the microbes, which rapidly multiply and fill
the vessel. A little of the fluid from this vessel is then intro
duced in the same manner into another portion of nutrient fluid
in a second vessel, and when this becomes turbid, a drop from it is
transferred to a third vessel, and so on for ten, twenty, or any re
�THE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
41
quired number of times. In this way the little organisms are
freed from all extraneous matter, and obtained as far as possible in
a pure state ; and if at the end of this process they exhibit under
the microscope the same appearance and power of development,
tod are found on inoculation to communicate the disease with the
same intensity as the infectious liquid from which they were
originally derived, it seems evidently to follow that they are the true
cause of the disease. M. Pasteur regards this method of inquiry
as indispensable, and as affording conclusive evidence on the sub
Ject. “ In the present state of science,” he says, “ the proof that
a microscopic organism is by its development a cause of disease
tod death, can only become peremptory on condition that succes
sive cultures of this organism have been obtained, indefinitely
repeated in liquids inert of themselves, and that these liquid.?
always show the same development, the same appearance of life,
associated with the same virulence, the same power of inoculation,
of disease, and of death.” The disease in which the organisms
Kave been most carefully studied and most fully proved to be the
real cause of the symptoms is splenic fever. On this point Dr.
^William Roberts observes, in the address already referred to, “ That
this organism (the bacillus) is the true virus of splenic fever has
long been probable ; and the labours of Bollinger, Davaine, Tiegel,
Klebs, and most of all, of Koch, have removed the last doubts on
the subject. Koch found without exception,” he continues, “that
if the tested material produced threads and spores in the incubator,
it Ao produced splenic fever when inoculated into the mouse ; and
on the contrary, if no such growth and development took place in the
fafittbator, the tested material produced no effect when inoculated
into the mouse. Proof could go no farther ; the infection abso
lutely followed the specific organism ; it came with it, it went
With it.” There are several other infectious diseases in which little
JKrganisms have been discovered of late years, as, for example,
erysipelas, diphtheria, gonorrhoea, and glanders ; while in some
jirtttiers none have yet been found, and we can only infer their presence from the similarity of the phenomena, though they are
probably too minute to be visible even with the highest powers of
the microscope.
fe- These minute parasitic organisms, which “ lie at the root of all
Infectious diseases,” to use Dr. Liebermeister’s words, may be
divided into two classes, between which there is a most important
difference. Some of them are what are called genuine or habitual
parasites, that is to say, they can live only in the animal body, and
in many cases only in the particular species of animal which they
infest; while others are occasional parasites, that is, they live and
htved habitually in the outer world, and only enter from time to
time, and under peculiar circumstances, into the bodies of animals.
This division of the parasites corresponds to the two main groups
of infectious diseases already adverted to, namely, the specific and
the non-specific infectious diseases ; the former being characterised
�42
THE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
by the presence of genuine, and the latter by that of occasional,
parasites. The reason why certain infectious disorders are called
specific is because, like species, they always descend from other
diseases like themselves ; a fact which clearly shows that the little
organisms found in them are always transmitted from one animal
to another, and cannot multiply and develop themselves, though
they may live for a season, outside the animal body. The non
specific disorders, on the other hand, can arise not only from infec
tion, but from other sources, and this proves that the organisms
associated with them are sometimes derived by transmission from
other animals, and sometimes come in from the external world. It
is evidently only the genuine parasites and the specific infectious
diseases that we can hope to exterminate ; whereas the occasional
parasites, being able to live outside, cannot be exterminated, and
r we can only guard ourselves against them, and against the diseases
in which they are found, by attentively studying the circumstances
which permit them to enter the body.
We have already seen how, according to the germ theory, infec
tion is produced, namely, by the microscopic organisms passing
from one animal into another, and we may now briefly advert to
the mode in which the non-specific infectious diseases are generated
in those cases where they arise spontaneously or de novo, that is,
from any other cause than infection. The most important and
fatal disorders of this class are the septic affections, such as septi
caemia, pyaemia, and puerperal fever, and the part which the little
organisms take in producing or complicating them has been investi
gated by numerous observers. In the blood and inflammatory pro
ducts of infectious septicaemia microphytes are constantly found,
which M. Pasteur has carefully studied by the method of succes
sive cultures, and has shown to be the true cause of the disease.
Dr. Chauvel, after giving an account of these researches in his
article on Septicaemia (1880). in the ‘ • Dictionnaire Encyclopedique
des Sciences Medicales.” says : “ It would follow, therefore, from
the experiments of Pasteur, that virulent septicaemia is due to the
introduction and multiplication in the economy of a microbe living
without air and a ferment, the septic vibrio.” This little organism,
according to M. Pasteur, M. Davaine, Dr. Burdon Sanderson, and
other authorities, is nothing else than one of the common bacteria,
or living ferments, which produce putrefaction, and which live
habitually in the air and water around us. Mr. John Simon speaks
of it as “the common ferment of putrid infusions,” and says that
“ apparently those ‘ pyaemic ’ and ‘ septicaemic ’ diseases have their
common essential cause in one morbid poison or contagium, which,
so far as can yet be discerned, is a particulate ferment of ordinary
putrefaction.”
I may here mention that the bacteria, the tribe of infinitesimally
minute plants to which all the contagia yet discovered belong, have
been made the subject of a special study by the distinguished
botanist Professor Cohn of Breslau, uid are described in his work
�THE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
43
“ On Bacteria, the Smallest Living Beings ” (1872). The principal
forms of the bacteria are those already adverted to, micrococcus,
bacterium and bacillus, spirillum and vibrio, and they are so ex
cessively minute that the common rod-like bodies are only
of
an inch long, or one-third the width of an ordinary red blood
globule, while the micrococci do not exceed
of an inch in dia
meter. The bacteria live in the outer world, and are universally
diffused throughout the air, and especially in water, as they require
moisture to bring out their active properties. Tbeir part in the
economy of nature is a most important and indispensable one,
namely, to cause putrefaction and to break down and remove all
dead animal and vegetable substances ; and this power of destroy
ing the dead seems nearly related to the disastrous tendency which
they so often manifest to become parasitic and prey upon the living
animal body.
Since, then, the little organisms found in septicaemia have come
in from without, the question to be considered is, What are the cir
cumstances that enable them at first to enter the body, and render
them so virulent ? or, to express this in other words, how is septi
caemia produced when it arises de novo, and not by infection from
one animal to another ? At ordinary times the bacteria are per
fectly harmless, as may be seen from the fact that they are con
tinually entering our bodies by the lungs and alimentary canal, and
may be detected in some of the abdominal organs, such as the liver
and spleen. Into every little cut and wound of the skin also they
must constantly find their way, and yet the great majority of
wounds heal rapidly and without any ill effects. There are some
parts of the body, however, in which bacteria are never found,
namely, in healthy blood and muscle, as they are apparently at once
destroyed whenever they enter the circulating fluid. What is it,
then, that in septicaemia permits them to live and multiply in the
blood, and converts a microphyte, harmless and insignificant at
other times, into the most deadly of all known poisons? The
reason of this, as ascertained by the long-continued labours of in
quirers, is that, in the process of putrefaction, the bacteria produce
a chemical substance called the septic poison (just as, in fermenta
tion, the little yeast plant produces alcohol), and this poison, when
absorbed into the system from the surface of a wound, gives rise to
fever and inflammation, so as gradually to overcome the vital re
sistance of the blood and enable the bacteria to enter and breed in
it. The septic poison was first discovered in 1856 by Dr. Panum,
of Copenhagen, and was shown by him to be the immediate cause
of septicaemia. Like other chemical poisons, it is not multiplied in
the body, and its effects, unlike those of the contagia, are propor
tional to the dose. Hence an important distinction is now drawn
between two forms of septicaemia ; in the one, which is not infec
tious and is probably of common occurrence in ite slighter degrees,
the symptoms are due to the absorption of the septic poison from
a wound, and tie patient recovers, if the dose has not been too
�44
THE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
large; while the other is an infectious and most deadly disorder,
produced by the entrance and multiplication of the bacteria them
selves in the system. The properties of the bacteria are altered, so
that they become parasites on the living body, and their virulence,
as pointed out by M. Davaine, is enormously increased by trans
mission through the animal economy. Pyaemia also, a disease
closely allied, if not, as some think, identical with virulent septi
caemia in its nature and origin, is, like it, almost invariably fatal.
Dr. Burdon Sanderson has shown that the intensely contagious
products of pus and serum found in these diseases always contain
swarms of bacteria, and may thus be distinguished from ordinary
healthy pus, which is but slightly contagious.
One of the immense practical benefits already derived from the
germ theory is the antiseptic treatment of wounds, which was intro
duced a few years ago by the eminent surgeon Sir Joseph Lister, as
a means of guarding against the septic diseases, and was expressly
stated by him to be founded on M. Pasteur’s doctrine concerning
putrefaction. As Pasteur had shown that putrefaction is caused
by bacteria, the antiseptic treatment aims at preventing the hurtful
influence of these little organisms on a wound. For this purpose,
the wound is covered with several folds of gauze steeped in a solu
tion of carbolic acid, whose fumes either kill the bacteria or at least
prevent them from decomposing the discharges, and thus giving
rise to the septic poison. This method, along with other pre
cautions, has now been introduced in the large hospitals here and
abroad, with such admirable results in preventing pyaemia, hospital
gangrene, and other septic affections, that Dr. Sanderson lately
observed, in alluding to the experience of German surgeons : “We
can no longer wonder that it is common to hear the discovery of
Lister spoken of in Germany as the greatest improvement in the
art of medicine which has taken place in modern times.”
There is still another disease of the utmost gravity, which has
within the last few years apparently been proved to be contagious,
I mean the dreadful malady tuberculosis, called pulmonary con
sumption or phthisis when it occurs, as it usually does, in the
lungs. This is by far the most important and widely destructive
of all diseases, for statistics, it is asserted, show that one-seventh
of the whole population, and as much as one-third of the adult
population who die in the prime of life are carried off by it.
Until recently, tuberculosis was regarded as a disease which arises
chiefly from debility or hereditary predisposition, and as not at all
contagious ; but in 1864, Dr. Villemin, of Paris, published the
extremely important and startling discovery that it can be com
municated to the lower animals by inoculating them with tubercular
products. The truth of his conclusions was in some respects
questioned at the time, but they have since been fully confirmed.
Dr. Koch, of Berlin, the high authority already referred to, observes
that recent researches “ have established the communicability of
tuberculosis beyond all doubt, and in future a place must be assigned
�TIIE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIONS DISEASES.
45
to it among the infectious diseases.” Mr. John Simon says : “ The
broad results of modern discovery in regard to ordinary tubercular
disease tend to represent it as a chronic locally-originated zymotic
process, which, starting under certain conditions in one first spot
of the (predisposed) animal body, advances by successive steps in
definite anatomical lines to infect the entire system ; a process,
which by means of its characteristic products is inoculable from
piri to pirt, and from subject to subject.” It was presumed that
a microscopic parasite must exist in tuberculosis as in other com
municable diseases, and after a long, fruitless search by various
inquirers, it was at last discovered by Dr. Koch, whose observations
on the subject are contained in a most important paper read before
the Physiological Society at Berlin in 1882. The little parasite as
described by him is of a rod-like shape, and has hence been called
the bacillus tuberculosis. Dr. Koch says that he has found this
parasite to be constantly present in the tubercular products of
men and animals, and that moreover, by obtaining it in a pure
state with the aid of successive cultures, and then testing it by
inoculation, he has proved it to be the true cause of the disease.
(Debility and hereditary tendency have doubtless, he remarks, a most
powerful effect in the production of tuberculosis, but they act only as
predisposing influences, while the real essential cause is the bacillus.
At a meeting of the Pathological Society of London in December
last, Dr. Dawson Williams, who had repeated some experiments
on the subject at the request of Dr. Wilson Fox and of Dr. Burdon
Sanderson, observed that “ the evidence in favour of the specific
nature of tubercle was now, he thought, very strong, and it was
strong also in favour of the view that the bacillus tuberculosis was
a necessary part of the tubercular process ; further, the recently
published experiments of Baumgarten and Arndt seemed to pi-ove
jthat the lesions of tuberculosis depended directly on the growth of
the bacillus, and were in fact produced by it.”
With regard to the question whether the tubercle bacilli belong
to the class of genuine or of occasional parasites, Dr. Koch holds
that they are “ not occasional, but genuine parasites, and can pro
ceed only from the animal organism,” a fact which, he says, would
greatly facilitate their destruction. He grounds his opinion upon
the circumstance that in his cultures the bacilli would only grow
lit a temperature between 30° and 40° centigrade (that is, between
86° and 104° Fahrenheit), and such a temperature cannot be ob
tained continuously in our climates except in the animal body. He
holds, moreover, that they may be introduced into the system by
inhalation as well as by inoculation, and thinks it probable that
they often enter in the former way, judging from the fact that
phthisis usually commences in the lungs. The principal source
from which the bacilli are derived is, in his opinion, the expectora
tions of phthisical patients, which are known to be capable of
transmitting the disease to the lower animals by inoculation, and
whose particles, when dried, may be wafted about by the air.
�46
THE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
Another source, according to him, is the milk and flesh of cows
and other animals affected with tuberculosis. Dr. Koch believes
that a knowledge of these facts will be of the greatest benefit in
the prevention of consumptive disease. “In future,” he says, “in
the war against this frightful scourge of the human race, we shall
have to do no longer with an undefined something, but with an
intelligible parasite, whose life’s conditions are for the most part
known, and can be yet more fully investigated.” Efforts to destroy
the parasite should, in his view, be combined with the no less im
portant measures needed for enabling the human constitution to
resist its attacks. Strong people, who live a healthy life and are
much in the open air, never, or very rarely, get consumption, but
only the weakly and delicate, who live and work indoors, or those
hereditarily predisposed ; and if a strenuous endeavour were made
to raise greatly tne physical powers and bodily development of
the community, and at the same time, as Dr. Koch recommends,
if the expectorations of the phthisical were disinfected, and the
milk and flesh of tubercular animals forbidden to be sold, this
fearful disease could, he believes, to an immense extent, be pre
vented and rooted out from among us. Many high authorities,
however, differ widely from Dr. Koch in regard to several of these
views, and especially on the question whether or not phthisis is
often due to contagion. Thus Dr. Andrew, in one of his Lumleian
lectures on “ The ^Etiology of Phthisis ” (published in the Lancet
of May 10th, 1884), holds that the disease is undoubtedly trans
missible by inoculation to the lower animals, and also that its true
cause is the bacillus, while the other reputed causes act only as
predisposing influences ; but he infers, from a study of clinical
facts and from common medical experience as to the origin of
consumption, that the bacillus is an occasional, not a genuine
parasite, and in the great majority of cases comes in from the
outer world instead of being derived by transmission from another
person or animal. Hence he believes that contagion, though pos
sible, very rarely occurs in practice, and has very little really to
do with the production of phthisis. He contends that “ although
phthisis may be undoubtedly produced in many ways experi
mentally in animals, and also probably in man, there is not suf
ficient evidence to prove that its prevalence is materially affected
by direct contagion.” After summing up his views on the subject
he says : “ From these I may be allowed to make one short prac
tical deduction—namely, that the prevention of phthisis, like that
of ague, is to be attained by sanitary works, especially by improved
ventilation and drainage, and not by isolation.” How different
would human life be, if so afflicting and widely spread a malady
could be effectually controlled and prevented by a clear knowledge
of its cause 1 *
* Tlie treatment which holds out most hope of a cure in this very fatal disease
would seem to be a residence for a time in certain high or alpine districts, where
there is an immunity from consumption, or, in other words, where tuberculosis
�THE EXTINCTION OK INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
47
The germ theory not only explains, as I have endeavoured above
to describe, the existing facts of infection, but also enables us to
understand how the infectious disorders may probably at first have
arisen in past ages. If infectious diseases are always accompanied
never occurs either among the people who live there or in the lower animals. That
there are such districts appears to be fully established, and is a most remarkable and
important, fact. Sir Thomas Watson, in his “ Lectures on the Principle ■ and Practice
of Medicine ” (5th ed., 1871), quotes a passage from the Westminster Review, m which
it is st ted that Dr. Schleissner, who was sent srnne years ago by the Danish Govern
ment to investigate the sanitary condition of Iceland, ascertained that in Iceland
•‘scrofula and consumption are unknown.” “This statement,” says Sir Thomas
Watson, “ the accuracy of which had been called in question, has very recently been
confirmed by unimpeachable te.-timonv, zealously collected and made public by Dr.
Leared. In a letter written by him upon the subject, Dr. Ilja'teln, a distinguished
physician resi ing at Reykjavik, dec ares that, during a p *riod of fifteen years, he has
had more than thirty thousand patients, and has made nume ous autopsies, yet not a
single case of tubercle of the lungs or of indigenous consumption has he met with.
He adds the corroborative testimony of Dr. Skaptason, the oldest and most expe
rienced physician in Iceland, who says: ‘During my thirty-two years’practice in
this country, I have nor, seen a single case of phthisis tuberculosa. I have seen a great
many cases of other diseases of the lungs, but phthisis tuberculosa never. In all the
autopsies I have made, I have never observed the least trace of tubercle in the
lnogs.’” A similar immunity from consumption, according to several observers, is
found in certain elevated regions anions high mountain ranges, such as the Swiss
Alps; and it is asserted ihat in districts enjoying this immunity, not only are the
inhabitants free from tuberculosis, but the disease is often arrested, and even radi
cally cured in patients who resort thither for treatment. Professor G. See, in his
latel published work on “ Bacillary Ph hisis ” (“ La Phtisie Bacilloire,” Paris, 1884),
ascribes the beneficial effects of the air of lofty moon'ains to the fact that it kills
or checks the increase of the bacillus, which he regards as the true cause of con
sumption. * Like many other plants, the bacillus cannot live in an Alpine climate,
M. See holds ‘ that phthisis is uniform in its > attire, that it is parasitic, and that the
trea'ment by climate should have for its object either to destroy the bacillus oi u,
prevent the parasite from developing itself,” and multiplying in the tissues. He says
that, as sh wn by the researches of M. Pasteur and others, “ at a height above 800
mfetres (about 2,600 feet) micmphytic life is compromised. But the most formal
proofs of the incompatibility of these altitudes with the life of the mi"rone have
been furnished by Miguel and Freudenstein; at 1,800 metres (about. 5,900 feet), no
more pa'asites. How or why the microbe-- disappear matters, little ; it is a fact, and
it is to this incorruptible quality of the atmosphere that high climates owe their
anti-bacillary or prophylactic power.” Whether it be from the cold or the large
quantity of ozone contained in the air, “the tubercular microbe is unable to live
in these conditions,” and hence M. See concludes that “ mountain climates
must now enter into the warfare of man against the microphytes which en
danger our race.” The most surprising statements, on this subject, however,
are those lately made by Dr. Gauster, chief physician to the State Railways
Administration in Vienna, in a series of articles commencing April 8th, 1884, in
the Wiener Medizinische Zeitung, on “the Influence of a High Climate on Tuber
culosis.” Dr. Gauster affirms that among the Alps thereare districts, having a pecu
liar soil and a height not below 730 metres (about 2,40a feet), which confer a com
plete immun'ty from con-umption, the disease never occurring there either in men
or animals ; while in other districts, thoush at a much greater height, there is no
such immunity. “Immunity from tuberculosis” he says, “is only to be found in
regions where, at a height of more than 730 metres, the soil is composed of the oldest
rocks, as granite, gneiss, and crystalline schist formations, and the quantity of ozone
in the air is constantly high.” He says that the existence of immunity districts, and
their wonderfully beneficial effects on imported cases of consumption, especially in
the early stages of th- disease, have for many years been known. An experience of
fifteen years has convinced Dr. Gauster himself that, in patients who reside for some
months in these districts, changes occur in the diseased lungs by which the morbid
products are gradually eliminated from the body. “ The results of these processes,’
he says, “are, in all the slighter cases, and in most ca-es of medium degree, a cure ;
but in the majority of advanced cases, a hasrening of the fatal issue.” He maintains,
therefore, that “tuberculosis in certain stages is curable in the high climate.” Dr.
Gauster’s assertions are so startling, and so opposed to ordinary medical experience
�48
THE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
by parasitic organisms, which are either their producers or their
carriers, it is evident that the question how the diseases arose
depends mainly on tbe question as to the origin of the little parasites.
Whence are these little organisms derived, and how did they be
come parasitic on the animal body ? Their origin must obviously
have taken place in one of two ways. Either they arose by what
is called “ spontaneous generation ” from lifeless matter, or else
they descended in the usual way from other living organisms.
Now the former mode of origin is entirely denied by M. Pasteur,
Professor Tyndall, Dr. Burdon Sanderson, and others, who con
tend, not that spontaneous generation never occurs in nature, bi.t
that it never occurs in this class of living beings. Thus M. Pasteur
says, in a lecture delivered before the Chemical Society of Paris
in 1861 : “ You will observe I do not pretend to show that spon
taneous generation never exists. In subjects of this kind one
cannot prove a negative. But I do pretend to demonstrate
rigorously that in all the experiments where the existence of
spontaneous generation has been believed to be recognised among
those beings of the lowest class, to which the controversy is now-a*
days confined, the observer has been the victim of illusions or
causes of error which he has not perceived or has not known how
to avoid.” In a report made in 1871 on the origin and distribu
tion of microzymes (bacteria), Dr. Burdon Sanderson observes :
“I shall be able to prove in the most decisive manner that, as
regards the animal tissues and liquids, and the liquids which will
be used as tests for the presence of microzyme germs, no spon
taneous evolution of any organic form ever takes place ; but it
will be quite unnecessary either to deny or assert its possibility
under other and different circumstances.” Dr. William Roberts
regards the doctrine of spontaneous generation or “ abiogenesis ” as
in itself a perfectly legitimate supposition, but holds that the bac
teria, humble though they be, are far too highly organised for such
a mode of origin, which, moreover, could not be expected to occur
among plants subsisting on the products of putrefaction. “ As
suming,” he says, “ that the occurrence of abiogenesis at some
time in the past history of the globe is a necessary postulate in
science, I see nothing unscientific—looking to the law of continuity
in the operations of nature—in the supposition that it may be
occurring at the present day somewhere or other on the earth’s
surface, but certainly not in decomposing liquids.”
So far as we have reason to believe, therefore, the bacteria are
never generated spontaneously or de novo, but always descend,
like the higher plants and animals, from other living beings. _ We
have seen, however, that what is called £l spontaneous generation,”
as to the curability of consump ion, that they would need ample corroborative
evidence for their support; and M. See states that the medical college of Vienna
has appointed a commission to inquire into the subject. In any case, however, it
seems natural to expect that the influences which entirely prevent consumption
among the natives of certain districts must have a powerful effect in checking the
progress of the disease when brought into these localities.
�TIIE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
49
“a de novo origin,” not unfrequently takes place in some infec
tious diseases, and this shows that these expressions are ambiguous,
and are used in a different sense when applied to a minute living
organism and when applied to an infectious disease. In the former
case they mean that the organism is evolved out of lifeless matter ;
but when an infectious disease is said to be generated spon
taneously, or de novo, the meaning is that it does not arise by in
fection from another disease like itself—that it is due to some other
cause than infection. As regards the little organisms found in
the disease, the phrase means, not that they arose from lifeless
matter, but that they came in from the outer world, and were not
derived by transmission from one animal to another. A spon
taneous origin of this kind is not uncommon at present among
some infectious disorders, and must at one time have occurred in
all, for, as Dr. Murchison observes, “ in the first sufferer from a
contagious disease its origin must have been de novo.” In in
quiring into the origin of the contagia and of contagious diseases,
it is their spontaneous or de novo origin, in this sense of the terms,
that has to be considered. The view now generally entertained
on this subject by high authorities is that all the different contagia
have probably descended, at periods more or less remote, from the
bacteria, and have been gradually brought to their present type,
in the lapse of ages, by means of variation, inheritance, natural
selection, and the other laws of evolution so admirably explained
by Mr. Darwin in his account of the origin of species. The
bacteria are well known to be eminently modifiable, and may
undergo surprising changes in form and properties from their
physical environment, or by passing from one species of animal
into another. “ If contagia are organisms.” says Dr. William
Roberts, “ they must necessarily have the fundamental ten
dencies and attributes of all organised beings. Among the most
important of these attributes is the capacity for ‘ variation ’ or
‘ sporting.’ ” In like manner Dr. Wilks observes, in his Address
as President of the Pathological Section at the International
Medical Congress in 1881, that, if specific diseases be due to a
living contagium, “it must be subject to the same laws as other
organic matter ; and if the doctrine of evolution be true, it
must have numerous relations with families of its own kind, and
perhaps with others which are now obsolete.” Some of the con
tagia, such as those of small-pox and scarlet fever, are probably
derived from variations in the bacteria which took place only in
remote ages, so that now-a-days the diseases are never found to
arise spontaneously or de novo. Others, as those of erys’pelas and
pyaemia, are apparently due to variations occurring more or less
frequently at the present day, and hence a de novo origin is common
in these diseases ; while in some other affections, such as relapsing
fever, diphtheria, and (if Dr. Murchison’s view be correct) even
typhoid fever, the variations may perhaps occur at rare intervals,
and under unknown or obscure conditions, so that, as many believe,
or
�50
THE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEAS15.
these diseases may now and then arise de novo. It would follow
from this that the first class of little parasites might be totally
extirpated, and the last confined within narrow limits; and we
have seen how greatly Lister’s method has contributed to prevent
the entrance into the body and fatal effects of the minute or
ganisms that give rise to septic diseases.
Having examined the questions whether infectious diseases can
arise spontaneously, and whether the germ theory is the true ex
planation of the facts of infection, we now come to the practical
inquiry as to the means best adapted for preventing and eradi
cating these diseases. The immense importance of this subject
will be seen if we consider the fearful amount of death and
suffering which infectious disorders are causing year after year in
>ur midst. Mr. Simon, whose invaluable Reports as Medical Officer
of the Privy Council and Local Government Board, and therefore
at the head of the sanitary service, have done so much for the pre
vention of disease in England, says : “ Looking at the ravages
which are every day suffered from familiar diseases of the zymotic
class, such as typhoid fever, and typhus, and small-pox, and
scarlatina, and measles, and hooping-cough ; and adding to these
the less constant, but occasionally terrible, destructiveness of
diphtheria and of cholera ; adding further the consequences of
venereal diseases ; adding again those serious traumatic infections
which make the chief common danger of surgical operations and
injuries • everyone can see that the field of zymotic pathology is of
enormous extent and incalculable importance.” The number of
deaths produced by infectious diseases appears from the Reports
of the Registrar-General, which, since 1838, give a tabular state
ment of the causes of all the deaths occurring throughout the
country. Thus if we take the five years from 1876 to 1880 (the
last year for which the annual report has as yet been published) we
find that during the whole period there were in England and Wales
9,726 deaths from small-pox ; 48,294 deaths from measlesj 85,208
from scarlet fever; 66,112 from hooping-cough ; 4,458 from
typhus ; 34,651 from typhoid or enteric fever ; and 15,243 from
diphtheria. This would give as a yearly average of the deaths
from each of these seven diseases, about 2,000 deaths annually
from small-pox ; from measles, 9,500 ; from scarlet fever 17,000 ;
from hooping-cough, 13,000 ; from typhus, 1,000 ; from typhoid
fever, 7,000 ; and from diphtheria, 3,000 annual deaths. In addi
tion to the foregoing there were from the other contagious dis
orders included in the Registrar-General’s reports, 10,268 deaths
from erysipelas ; from puerperal fever, 7,728 ; from syphilis,
10,615 ; from hydrophobia, 246 ; and from glanders, 24 deaths.
That is to say, about 2,000 persons died on an average each year
from erysipelas ; 1,500 from puerperal fever ; 2,000 from syphilis ;
50 from hydrophobia ; and 5 from glanders. Taking the eleven
years from 1870 to 1880, it will be seen that the aggregate number
of deaths from the seven infectious fevers mentioned above,
�TIIE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
51
amounted to 639,289, or about 58,000 annually, which is rather
more than one-ninth of the total number of deaths from all causes
during the same period. Hooping-cough, measles, and scarletiever, though liable to occur at all ages, are mainly diseases of
&i fancy and childhood—hooping-cough, according to the eminent
authority on vital statistics, the late Dr. William Farr, being most
fatal in the first, measles in the second, and. scarlet-fever in the
third and fourth years. Diphtheria also is most common in
children, for one-half of those who die of it are under five years,
while in scarlet-fever two-thirds of the deaths are below that age.
Typhus and typhoid fever, on the other hand, are chiefly destruc
tive to adults. In Ireland, where typhus is far more prevalent
than in this country, no fewer than 222,029 persons, in the period
from 1841 to 1851, died of typhus and typhoid fever.
The number of cases or attacks is not accurately known, for
as yet, unfortunately, no provision has been made for registering
all cases of infectious disease ; but we can form some idea of their
amount by considering the average mortality of each disease, that
is, the proportion of deaths that usually occur in a given number
of cases. Small-pox, that hideous and disfiguring malady, is the
most fatal of the contagious fevers, the deaths being estimated by
Mr. Marson at about one-third, and by Dr. Seaton at rarely less
than 20 per cent., and often 30 and 40 per cent, of the attacks.
When the disease occurs in a person who has been vaccinated, it is
Usually, though not always, of a modified or milder form, a,nd Dr.
Seaton observes that the mortality of small-pox after vaccination
“ is rarely known to exceed 7 per cent., and is more frequently 3,
4 and 5 per cent.” In typhus and typhoid fever, according to Dr.
jBuchanan and Dr. Murchison, about one patient in ten dies, if all
®ges are taken together, but in adults as many as one in five.
Diphtheria (a contagious sore-throat deriving its name from a
whitish sloughing membrane or skin that forms in the throat and
©ften spreads to the windpipe) is fatal to one in seven, or even,
according to Dr. Aitken, to one third of those attacked by it ;
ftvhile the mortality of scarlet fever is the most variable of
all, ranging from ®ne in twenty or thirty in mild epidemics to one
in five or six in severe ones, and on an average it is reckoned at
about one in twelve. If we take these figures, we may perhaps
infer that there occur in England and Wales on an average of years
about 12,000 or 15,000 cases annually of small-pox ; 10,000 of
typhus ; 70,000 of typhoid or enteric fever ; 15,000 of diphtheria ;
tnd 200,000 cases of scarlet fever. Dr. Murchison, judging by the
deaths from scarlet fever, estimates that considerably less than
half the children born contract that disease (in 1880 the total
number of births registered was 881,643). Hooping-cough and
measles, though the rate of mortality in them is comparatively low,
are so extremely contagious that few children escape them, and
Bence more than half-a-million cases of hooping-cough, and as many
of measles, must annually occur on an average in this country.
D 2
�52
THE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
In spite of the dreadful ravages committed by infectious
diseases, there are no maladies for whose prevention so little has
yet been done. Indeed, till very recently, they were regarded
almost as necessary and unavoidable evils, and except in the case
of vaccination for small-pox and in some other instances, few
energetic steps were taken to combat any of the infections current
among us, or to prevent their diffusion. “ As to contagions already
current in the country,” says Mr. Simon in his Report to the Privy
Council for 1865, “ practically any diseased person scatters his in
fection broadcast almost where he will—typhus or scarlatina,
typhoid or small-pox, or diphtheria.” In another impressive pas
sage in his Report to the Local Government Board for 1874, Mr.
Simon says: “ Among the causes which injuriously affect the
Public Health of England, considered as a total, certain operate
only on particular districts ; while others, though no doubt in
widely different degrees, appear to be of general, perhaps nearly
universal operation. Foremost in the latter class, and constituting
therefore in my opinion objects which claim earliest attention in
the sanitary government of England, two gigantic evils stand con
spicuous first, the omission (whether through neglect or through
want of skill) to make due removal of ref use-matters, solid and liquid,
from inhabited places ; and secondly, the license which is permitted
to cases of dangerous infectious disease to scatter abroad the seeds of
their infection.” Much has been done of late years, especially in large
towns, for the better removal of refuse matters by improvements
in the sewerage and in the water supply, and the next great
sanitary effort will probably be for the prevention and extinction
of infectious diseases. There are many sanitary reforms which
can be carried out by the authorities with little aid, except of a
pecuniary kind, from the public ; but the abolition of infectious
disease can only be accomplished by the cordial and intelligent co
operation of the whole community ; and hence the urgent need for
an open discussion of the subject, so that all may understand it
and agree as to the means that should be adopted for the pur
pose.
As the contagious fevers have no other source than contagion,
the requirements or indications for their prevention can be readily
understood, and the only difficulty is to know by what practical
and feasible measures these requirements can best be fulfilled. We
have already seen that a contagious fever can be communicated in
three ways ; either by the patient himself, both during his illness
and convalescence, or by the persons or objects which have become
contaminated by being in his neighbourhood. The patient com
municates infection by means of little particles, invisible to the
naked eye, which are exhaled in vast quantities from his body, and
which according to the modern view are excessively minute living
organisms, or microbes ; the tainted objects act simply as carriers of
these particles ; while the tainted or suspected persons may either
act as carriers, or may, for aught we know, be really themselves
�THE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
53
patients, and already suffering from the disease in its latent or
incubative stage. For the purpose of prevention, therefore, all
that is needed is that no one who has not previously had the disease
should come near any patient or suspected person till the period of
danger is past, and that all tainted objects should be thoroughly
disinfected ; in other words, isolation and disinfection are the
essential requisites for the prevention of the infectious fevers.
“ The isolation of healthy persons from those affected with the
disease, and from those who have intercourse with such patients,”
says Dr. Aitken, in speaking of scarlet fever, “ is essential, and is
the only rule that promises any good results.” Mr. Simon also,
speaking of scarlet fever, observes that “ at present we have not
any other known power of dealing preventively with the disease
than such as consists in intercepting all contagious communication
between the infected and the non-infected parts of the population.
Thoroughly to isolate the sick from intercourse with susceptible
persons, and thoroughly to trap and exterminate all contagium
which the bodies of the sick evolve, are the preventive feats which
have to be accomplished.” A complete system of prevention for
the infectious fevers would thus include, in the first place, the
isolation of the patients during their illness and convalescence ;
secondly, the isolation (often called quarantine') of suspected
persons till the period of incubation is over, and it can be seen
whether or not they are infected with the disease ; and thirdly,
the disinfection of clothing, bedding, furniture, and other con
taminated articles. A fourth indispensable requisite is the imme
diate notification to the sanitary authorities of every case that
occurs, so that means may be taken as speedily as possible to aid
the sufferers in their difficulties, and to prevent the extension of
the disease.
These requirements for limiting the spread of infection are in
cluded by Sir James Simpson—who was the first, in his “ Proposal
to Stamp out Small-pox and other Contagious Diseases ” (1868), to
urge the adoption of measures, not merely for the partial preven
tion, but for the complete and speedy extinction of the contagious
fevers by a great social effort—in the following rules, which he calls
the “ Regulations for Stamping Out.” His remarks have special
reference to small-pox, but similar measures, as he afterwards
states, are applicable, and will, he believes, sooner or later be
adopted for the prevention and extinction of all the infectious fevers.
The regulations which he proposes are:—“ 1. The earliest pos
sible notification of the disease after it has once broken out upon
any individual or individuals. 2. The seclusion at home or in
hospital of those affected during the whole progress of th$ disease,
as well as during the convalescence from it, or until all power of
infecting others is past. 3. The surrounding of the sick with
nurses and attendants who are themselves non-conductors, or in
capable of being affected, inasmuch as they are known to be pro
tected against the disease by having already passed through cow
�54
THE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
pox or small-pox. 4. The due purification, during and after the
disease, by water, chlorine, carbolic acid, sulphurous acid, etc., of
the rooms, beds, clothes, etc., used by the sick and their attendants,
and the disinfection of their own persons.”
The late president of the College of Physicians, Sir Thomas
Watson, in his article in the Nineteenth Century on “ The Abolition
of Zymotic Disease” (1877) earnestly urges the same views, and
thus enumerates the measures which he regards as necessary for
prevention : 'l To this end,” He says, “ the requisites are, first, the
unfailing and immediate notification to the proper authorities of
the occurrence of every case. Second, the instant isolation of the
sick person. Third, the thorough disinfection of his body, clothes,
furniture, and place of isolation. Fourth, vigilant and effectual
measures to prevent the importation of his disease from abroad,
and to strangle it should it by mischance return.”
It will be observed that the above proposals omit one of the four
measures which have been already adverted to as needed to consti
tute a complete system of prevention against the infectious fevers,
namely, isolation of the patients, isolation of suspected persons,
disinfection, and notification. The measure omitted is the isolation
of suspected persons, or quarantine, as it is often called, a word
used to signify the seclusion of persons apparently healthy, but
who have had intercourse with patients, till the period of incubation
of the disease is past, and it can be known whether or not they are
infected. This has always been felt to be the most vexatious and
harassing of the preventive regulations, and therefore it may
be dispensed with wherever there is reason to believe, either that
the other means would without it be found sufficient, or that society
would not willingly consent to its adoption. Still, such a measu ’•e
is often of the utmost value, and is, indeed, indispensable to success
when the disease to be combated is of a particularly infectious cf
very fatal nature, so that the strongest means are required to sup
press it. All the fresh cases, we must bear in mind, arise among
the persons who have been exposed to contagion, and in this way,
by isolating the latter for a few days, we obtain an immense puwff
of preventing the disease. If, on the other hand, the suspected
persons are left at large, those of them who are incubating the dis
ease will sicken in the midst of other healthy people, to whom they
may probably communicate infection before there is time to isolate
them. For these reasons the isolation of suspected individuals, or
quarantine, has been very frequently resorted to, though hitherto
almost solely as a means of defence against foreign infectious dis
eases, such as the plague, yellow fever, and cholera. It is by strict
quarantine regulations, as well as improvements in hygiene, that the
plague has been expelled from Europe, and that New York and some
other American seaports have been long preserved from the inroads of
yellow fever ; and our exemption of late years and until recently from
that fearful scourge, Asiatic cholera, is largely owing to the system of
quarantine which has been established against it in the Red Sea and
�THE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
55
on the frontiers of Russia, the routes by which cholera entered in
its former visits. The isolation of persons who have been exposed
to contagion is commonly effected in one of two ways ; either by
their seclusion in separate buildings, for a number of days not
exceeding the usual period of incubation of the disease ; or else by
surrounding the infected places with what is called a sanitary
cordon, or a line which no one is allowed to pass without permission
of the authorities, and by which the sick and those having inter
course with them are kept apart from the rest of the community.
In several towns in the north of England the local authorities have
very recently applied for and received from Parliament powers to
erect shelter-houses, in which the healthy members of infected
families can be received while their homes are being disinfected,
and also to impose certain restrictions on the residents in houses in
which infectious disease has broken out; compensation being given
for any loss that may be sustained by compliance with the sanitary
regulations.
But by far the most important and essential of the preventive
measures is the isolation of the patients themselves, and the main
difficulty in the whole subject is to know in what manner this can
best be effected. Sir James Simpson, as we have seen, proposes
that the patient should be secluded “ at home or in hospital ;” but
he, and all others who have carefully considered the facts, point out
the utter impossibility of effectually isolating a contagious fever in
the homes of the poor, on account of the overcrowding and the
want of a separate room or of any adequate means for preventing
frequent intercourse between the patient and his friends both during
his illness and his convalescence. Mr. Simon says, with reference
to the overcrowding of labourers’ cottages : “ Again and again, in
phrases so uniform that they seem stereotyped, reporters on the
spread of epidemic disease in rural districts have insisted on the
extreme importance of that overcrowding as an influence which
renders it a quite hopeless task to attempt the limiting of any in
fection which is introduced.” Dr. Aitken observes also, in treating
of scailet fever: “When, however, we look abroad at the actual
condition of the people among whom the disease works its ravages,
we see at once that, with regard to very many of them, and espe
cially with regard to the very poor in towns, isolation and disinfec
tion are no more than idle words.” To avoid the risk of transmit
ting the disease, those who have any intercourse with the patient
should as rarely as possible, and only after disinfection, come in
contact with healthy susceptible persons ; but how totally this is
disregarded in numberless instances may be gathered from the fol
lowing account, quoted in Dr. Aitken’s work from a communication
by Professor Bell to the Lancet, of a case of severe scarlet fever
which was seen in a small crowded room. Upon inquiry Dr. Bell
found the following facts : “ The father had charge of an extensive
society’s bread-shop ; the mother was a washerwoman, taking
clothes to her home to wash ; the eldest girl attended, throughout
�56
THE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIGUS DISEASES.
the day, the children of a lady’s family, and came home to sleep at
night; the other children attended, some an infant-school, some a
large mixed school, where hundreds of other children met. The
youngest played with young children in a house on the other side of
the passage.” How can we hope, in such circumstances, to prevent
the spread of a dangerous infectious disease ?
Even in the houses of the rich, where all the advantages of a
separate room and trained nurse, with disinfectants and other neces
sary appliances, can be had, the isolation of an infectious fever is
by no means easy, and very frequently fails in spite of the most
conscientious efforts. There is a wide difference in the infectious
ness of different diseases, and some of them are much harder to
isolate than others. Thus Dr. J ones Glee observes, in his article on
Scarlet Fever in “ Reynolds’ System of Medicine,” “ In degree of
contagiousness scarlet fever takes its place between measles and
hooping-cough above, and typhus fever below, diphtheria being
very far below.” Measles and hooping-cough are so extremely con
tagious, and so difficult to isolate, that it seems needless for the
present to think of their extinction, and we should rather at first
confine our efforts to the other infectious diseases. Of these, small
pox and typhus are much less common in the rich than the poor ;
indeed, typhus, though very dangerous, and often fatal, to the
medical men and nurses who attend it, is usually found only among
the poorest classes of society ; while enteric or typhoid fever, as
previously remarked, is propagated mainly by the bowel discharges
of the sick, and needs, as its essential preventive, the thorough dis
infection or destruction of these discharges immediately on their
issue from the body. The diseases which most frequently require
to be isolated in the houses of the rich, therefore, if we omit
measles and hooping-cough, are scarlet fever and the much rarer
affection, diphtheria ; and to show how little reliance can be placed
on the usual preventive measures in so highly infectious a disease as
scarlet fever, I may again quote from Dr. Aitken’s work the fol
lowing remarks by Dr. Davies, the medical officer of health for
Bristol. In writing of an epidemic of scarlet fever at Bristol in
1875, Dr. Davies asks the question : “ Are we doing any good with
our present preventive means ?” and observes : “ I feel certain that
we increase the anxiety of the domestic and social troubles of the
public by our preventive measures ; and I feel doubtful of the
answer to the former question.” “ I have never,” he continues,
“ used disinfectants so extensively as during the present epidemic ;
and yet our failure is complete. The doubts I have expressed do
not in any way extend to typhus and enteric fever, small-pox, and
Asiatic cholera.” From the remarkable tenacity of the virus of
scarlet fever, disinfection is more difficult in this disease than in
measles or typhus, and the power to infect continues longer, lasting
altogether during illness and convalescence for two months or more ;
and it is evident that the long presence of a fever in an ordinary
dwelling-house, full of susceptible persons, not only gives great
�THE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES
57
facilities for contagious intercourse, but must so thoroughly load
the bedding, walls, and furniture with virulent particles as to render
much more difficult the process of disinfection.
The above facts show clearly that the real cause of the enormous
prevalence and fatality of the infectious fevers is that they are
treated az home, where they cannot, in the great majority of cases,
be properly isolated; and hence the best authorities have of late
years come more and more decidedly to the conviction that these
diseases ought not to be treated at home, but in hospitals set apart
for the purpose, and so arranged that each different kind of disease
may be isolated in a separate building or a separate ward. The
hospital treatment of the infectious fevers seems to me one of the
most immense improvements ever introduced in medicine, and the
means which, in combination with others, will lead in time to the
complete and final extinction of all these disorders. In an infec
tious disease the objects of medical treatment are not only to cure
the malady, but also to prevent its extension to other persons ; and
the latter aim can only be secured, in the case of the contagious
fevers, by treating them in hospitals where their extension can be
effectually prevented. A large number of infectious hospitals have
lately been provided by the local authorities in the towns and vil
lages throughout the country, partly by erecting new buildings, and
partly by adapting private houses and cottages for the purpose, at
the earnest instigation of the Local Government Board and their
medical staff. “For a long time past,” says the late Dr. Seaton, in
his report for 1876, “the Board have been strenuously urging on
local authorities the provision of such hospitals.” Another indis
pensable means of prevention consists in hospitals or homes in the
country air where convalescents from the contagious fevers can be
isolated till their power of infecting is past; and a few institutions
of the kind have recently been provided, in great part through the
admirable efforts of Miss Mary Wardell and Mrs. Gladstone,
though hitherto chiefly by voluntary contributions, and not by
public funds.
The immense utility of fever hospitals and convalescent homes
as a means for stamping out zymotic disease, will be seen if we
consider for a moment their advantages, not only to the public,
but also to the infected families and to the patients themselves.
To the public the treatment in hospital affords a complete pro
tection by at once removing the patient, the centre and source of
contagion, from the midst of susceptible people, and placing him
in circumstances where his disease cannot extend. In a wellregulated hospital, where the nurses and other attendants are care
fully chosen as having had the disease, and do not come in contact
with the public outside except on rare occasions and after disin
fection, there is little likelihood that any fresh case should arise ;
and even if it did, it would be promptly isolated, so that the
mischief would spread no further. Thus Dr. Broadbent, the senior
physician of the London Fever Hospital, observed lately, at a
�58
THE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
drawing-room meeting at Mrs. Gladstone’s, that “ from the moment
when a scarlet-fever patient was in an ambulance or in a con
valescent home, all danger to the public ceased.” In like manner
Dr. Buchanan, the present medical officer of the Local Government
Board, says: “In regard to some infections, notably those of
scarlatina and diphtheria, there are no means at all to be compared
with isolation in hospital for preventing the spread of a limited
number of cases into a formidable epidemic.” “ There are,” he
says again, “ four infectious diseases—small-pox, scarlatina, diph
theria, and continued fever—which more particularly require to be
treated in hospital, when they attack persons who cannot be pro
perly isolated in their own houses and he adds that “ small-pox,
as well as other infections, is capable of being wonderfully limited
by isolation in hospital.” Particular care should be taken in any
outbreak of disease to isolate as quickly and effectually as possible
the first cases; for a fever is in some respects like a fire, which at
first can be readily extinguished ; but afterwards, when it has had
time to spread and gather strength, becomes difficult if not im
possible to control. In a Memorandum issued a few years ago by
the Local Government Board, it is pointed out that the separation
of the sick from the healthy “ is comparatively easy, if means to
attain it are taken early, while cases of the disease are very few;
but any interval of delay allows the cases to multiply, and perhaps
at last to become so numerous that endeavours to isolate them
cannot succeed.” If all the existing cases of an infectious fever,
and especially the first cases, were promptly removed to hospital,
and the convalescents afterwards transferred to suitable homes,
epidemics could be arrested at their origin, and the number of
patients needing isolation would soon be surprisingly reduced.
The only other sources of contagion which would then remaiii to
be dealt with are the persons and objects contaminated by the
patients before their removal to hospital ; and if the suspected
persons were secluded for a few days during the term of incubation,
and the tainted objects thoroughly disinfected, it is not too much
to assert that the disease might in a short space of time be radically
and completely extinguished.
To show how rapidly a contagious fever can be extirpated when
adequate means are employed for the purpose, Sir James Simpson
points to the instructive example afforded by the cattle plaque, a
terrible disease of horned cattle, which has its home in Siberia,
and was imported into England from the Continent in 1865. This
is the most fatal and most highly infectious of all the spreading
disorders of the domestic animals, the mortality being estimated by
Professor Fleming at about 90 or 95 per cent, of the attacks, and
during the two years which elapsed before it was subdued in this
country it destroyed nearly half-a-million of cattle. At first the
disease was allowed to gain ground through division of opinions ;
but when a stringent law for its prevention was passed by Par
liament and put in force, it immediately began to decline, and was
�THE EXTIN Clio., OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
59
soon entirely stamped out. The measures adopted were of such
a nature as to deal effectually with all the sources of contagion,
and consisted in the compulsory slaughter, with compensation, of
the sick and also of the suspected animals, the burial of the diseased
bodies, and the disinfection of tainted objects ; due notification of
every case to the authorities being likewise made compulsory. These
are the means which have repeatedly been employed on the Con
tinent against inroads of the cattle plague, and invariably with
success. “ Whatever be the place into which it penetrates,” says
M. Leon Colin, “ the cattle plague can be arrested, for we have
always the same resource, a resource absolute and radical, for sup
pressing the contagion, by causing to disappear the sick, the animals
which they have contaminated, and the objects which they have
Soiled.” Now, Sir James Simpson holds that small-pox and other
infectious fevers in man might be just as successfully eradicated as
Cattle plague, since we possess in isolation strictly carried out, a
means no less powerful for preventing them. “We could, in my
Opinion,” he says, “ as surely and as swiftly stamp out small-pox
as rinderpest (cattle plague) has been stamped out.” After pro
posing his preventive regulations, he says : “ The measures which
I have suggested would probably, in my opinion, stamp out small
pox in Great Britain within six months or a year, provided they
were carried out as faithfully and universally as the Legislature
can command.” It seems to me that these views are in principle
undeniably true, and that if society would only consent to the
effectual isolation, or, in other words, to the isolation in hospital
of all cases of infectious fever, whether in rich or poor, these
dreadful disorders, which have lasted from time immemorial and
destroyed millions of human lives, could in a very few years be
coni pie telv rooted out and banished from among us.
The objection which has been so often urged against fever hos
pitals, that they separate a patient from his friends and relatives,
Seems to be really an objection not to hospitals merely, but to
^solation itself in any form. Even when the patient is treated at
home he must, if we would prevent infection, be kept entirely
apart from his friends and relatives. In both cases isolation is
equally essential, and is the real difficulty that has to be met and
surmounted before we can hope for success. Doubtless it is a
most painful necessity to have to separate from a beloved relative
-—from a child, or parent, or husband, or wife when they are
stricken down by an infectious fever ; but if the separation is
indispensably needed for the extinction of these dangerous ma
ladies, and for the good of the whole human race, ought we not
Willingly to consent to it ? It appears to me, moreover, that fever
hospitals are in reality an inestimable boon to the family and to
the patient, no less than to society at large. They prevent, in
numberless instances, the spread of disease to other members of a
household, and they save the family from all the troubles and
difficulties attendant on isolation at home, which are particularly
�60
THE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
harassing at such a time of anxiety and distress. There is another
danger connected with the home treatment of contagious fevers
which should be mentioned, and of which the public is not suf
ficiently aware ; namely, that if a woman who is pregnant or
recently delivered contracts one of these diseases, and especially
scarlet fever, it is almost sure to prove fatal. “ Fever during the
pregnancy,” says Dr. Aitken, “most certainly ends in abortion and
death. If the woman be recently delivered, the disease will be of
the most malignant type and almost always fatal.” “ If scarlet
fever can be prevented,” he says also, “ the number of puerperal
fever cases would be diminished one-half ; and every possible step
ought to be taken to remove the pregnant female alike from the
influence of scarlet fever and from erysipelas.” Besides these
great advantages of hospitals, they enable the patient in very
many cases to have better food, nursing, and other accommodations
than he could find at home, while the richer classes may, if they
please, be treated in private hospitals or in separate wards or
rooms to which admission is obtained by payment. Conveyance
to hospitals, it may also be remarked, can be readily effected by
means of ambulance carriages, provided with a moveable bed,
which is taken into the sick-room and into the ward, so as to
avoid, as far as possible, any risk or inconvenience to the patient.
The benefits which a patient derives from a convalescent home are
obvious, for unless he has access to an institution of the kind, he
cannot for some time after his recovery go anywhere to seek a
change of air, and to recruit his strength without endangering the
lives of others. Indeed, the Public Health Act of 1875 expressly
forbids any person suffering from a dangerous contagious disease
to expose himself “ without proper precautions against spreading
the disorder, in any street, public place, or conveyance,” so that’ it
is difficult to see how a convalescent patient who is still capable
of infecting others, can travel, change his residence, or even leave
the house without infringing the law and rendering himself liable
to a penalty.
A question of the utmost importance is, whether the isolation of
persons suffering from a contagious fever should be made compul
sory and enforced by the State, and both Sir James Simpson and
Sir Thomas Watson plead earnestly in favour of a measure for this
purpose. “ If,” says the former, “ by a law which no one thinks
harsh or severe, lunatics are prevented from destroying the lives of
their fellow-men, why should it be thought harsh or severe that
people affected with small-pox should be prevented from dealing
out destruction and death to all the susceptible with whom they
happen to come into contact ?” The force of this appeal will not
be disputed, and it seems to me that a law making obligatory the
isolation of all cases of infectious fever, whether in rich or poor,
if it had the cordial approval and co-operation of society, would
be incomparably the most effectual means that could be taken for
the prevention of these diseases. Such a law would be no real in
�THE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
61
fringement of liberty, for the principle of liberty, as Mr. Mill
points out, requires only that acts which do not injure others
should be left free. On the contrary, acts which injure others
may rightly be controlled by the State, and surely there are no acts
more highly inj urious to others or more likely to be followed by
disastrous consequences, than to communicate the seeds of a
dangerous infectious disease. To extirpate these maladies, more
over, a most vigilant and united action on the part of the public
and the local authorities is absolutely necessary, and this cannot be
obtained without the aid of the law ; indeed, without stringent
laws to prevent them, the extinction of infectious fevers either in
man or the domestic animals seems an utterly hopeless task.
Hence a large number of enactments have recently been made
by Parliament for the prevention of infectious disease, and one of
them deals expressly with the subject of isolating the patient. A
clause in the Public Health Act of 1875 directs as follows:
“ Where any suitable hospital or place for the reception of the
Sick is provided within the district of a local authority, or within
a convenient distance of such district, any person who is suffering
from any dangerous infectious disorder, and is without proper
lodging or accommodation, or lodged in a room occupied by more
than one family, or is on board any ship or vessel, may, on a
certificate signed by a legally qualified medical practitioner, and
with the consent of the superintending body of such hospital or
place, be removed, by order of any justice, to such hospital or
place "at the c'ost of the local authority ; and any person so suffer
ing, who is lodged in any common lodging-house, may, with the
like consent, and on a like certificate, be so removed by order of
the local authority.” That is to say, the law permits the com
pulsory removal to hospital of any fever patient whom the medical
practitioner may certify to be without proper lodging and accom
modation. But the radical defect and injustice of this enactment
seem to be, that it is a law for the poor only, and not for the rich ;
it permits the removal to hospital, and compulsory isolation, of the
poor, but lays no similar obligation on the rich, although the com
plete isolation of a fever patient is quite as necessary among the
latter, and is in very many cases inadequately carried out. To be
just, the law should enforce isolation equally in all classes • and if
this cannot practically be done in any other way than by treatment
in hospital, it seems in fairness to follow that such treatment
should be impartially enjoined in all. Another defect in the enact
ment, which, as pointed out by Mr. Murdoch in his “ Remarks on
the Necessity for further Suppression of Infectious Disorders,”
has greatly diminished its efficacy, is that it imposes on the medical
practitioner the difficult and unpleasant task of interpreting the
phrase “without proper lodging and accommodation,” and thus
makes him the agent in compuisorily sending patients to hospital.
The only law which, I venture to think, would be both just and
effectual, is one making obligatory the isolation in hospital of all
�62
THE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
cases of certain specified diseases, whether in ri fh or poor. The
diseases which should be included in the measure, and should
always, unless for some special and urgent reason, be treated in
hospital, are, I think, small-pox, typhus, scarlet fever, diphtheria,
and perhaps also, under certain circumstances, typhoid or enteric
fever ; although the prevention of the last-named disorder requires
rather that the discharges should be thoroughly disinfected, and
that complete security should be given for this being done, than
that the patient himself should be isolated. All cases of the
foreign infectious diseases, such as yellow fever or the dreaded
pestilence, Asiatic cholera, should also, as it seems to me, for the
public safety, be treated in hospital. With regard to measles and
hooping-cough, they are affections of a less dangerous nature, and
moreover they are so extremely prevalent, so highly contagious,
and so difficult to isolate, that it seems better to defer for a time
any attempt to extinguish them by means of legal enactments,
and they might continue, as at present, to be usually treated at
home.
But, besides the isolation of the patients, the other leading
measures of prevention should also, in the opinion of the highest
medical authorities, be made compulsory : namely, the disinfection
of tainted articles of clothing or furniture, the notification of all
cases of infectious disease, and, in certain instances, the isolation of
persons who have been exposed to contagion—or quarantine, as it
is commonly called. It is often thought that quarantine is chiefly
applicable to infected ships, or to a line of frontier between
neighbouring countries ; but one of its most important and
valuable forms is the quarantine of infected houses; for the house
on land is in many respects analogous to the ship at sea. Infection
spreads most readily to persons who are in the same house, and
especially in the same room, with the patient, and seems very
seldom to be propagated directly from one house to another, since
the virulent particles are quickly dispersed and rendered harmless
by mixing with the outer air. Thus Dr. Buchanan says, in speak
ing of infectious hospitals: “ As regards the distance which, on
medical grounds, it is right to secure between adjacent inhabited
houses and an infectious hospital, I know of no evidence as to
what proximity, if any, can be a danger to persons not actually
under the same roof ; but there is abundant evidence to show that
very short distances suffice to prevent direct infection.” This fact
shows the great benefits which may be derived from a quarantine
of infected houses ; for when a case of fever occurs in a dwelling
house, if the patient is removed to hospital, and if the other
members of the household are isolated for a few days either at
home or elsewhere, during the term of incubation and while the
premises are being disinfected, the disorder may very often be pre
vented from spreading any further. These means would, I think,
be specially valuable if applied to the first cases of disease appear
ing in a locality, when every possible care should be taken to
�THE EXTINCTION QF INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
63
guard against the sources of contagion, and at once to stamp out the
malady at its commencement. As previously remarked, compul
sory powers have lately been granted by Parliament to the local
authorities in several towns in the north of England enabling them
to order the quarantine of infected houses, which if combined
with the removal of the patient to hospital, seems to me the most
complete and effectual system that could be adopted for rapidly
stamping out zymotic disease.
With regard to the disinfection of houses, furniture, or other
articles, this should always, according to Mr. Simon, be done under
the direction of the sanitary authority, who would ensure its
proper performance, and at the same time relieve the public from
a troublesome and expensive task. It should, he says, “ be made a
legal obligation, that every health authority of the country should
have all disinfectant processes necessary for the protection of the
public health done under direction of a skilled officer, and, as far
as necessary, at a public establishment, and at the public cost.”
The means commonly employed for disinfecting purposes, it may
perhaps here be remarked, are heat, free ventilation, and also
certain chemical substances, such as carbolic acid or chloride of
lime. Of these the surest disinfectant is great heat, whether by
fire or boiling water, or by the hot air of an oven, as it at once kills
the virulent germs. The most generally useful agent, however, is
free ventilation and a copious supply of fresh air, which dilutes
and disperses the poisonous exhalations, so that they have no
longer the power to infect. As observed in a memorandum issued
by the Privy Council: “ The great natural disinfectant is fresh
air abundantly and uninterruptedly supplied.” In disinfecting a
room which has been occupied by a fever patient, the usual plan is
to fill it, all apertures being closed, with chlorine gas, or with the
fumes of burning sulphur, and after it has been thoroughly
fumigated, to throw open doors and windows, and allow the freest
ventilation for several days; then to whitewash the walls and
ceiling, and, at the end of a week, the room may again be safely
inhabited. In Asiatic cholera and typhoid fever the virus is con
tained chiefly in the bowel discharges of the sick, and these should
always be thoroughly disinfected immediately on their issue from
the body. Another precaution, which was introduced by Dr. Budd,
and has lately been recommended by Dr. Cameron as in his opinion
the best of all preventives against cholera, is to flood the drains
and closets frequently with disinfectants during the presence of
the disease in the country, so as to prevent the little germs, c r
microbes, from living and multiplying in the sewage. By careful
disinfection and isolation, we may hope that cholera, like plague
and other scourges, will be effectually combated, and may, in the
end, be entirely overcome.
To enable the sanitary authorities to ensure due isolation and
disinfection in cases of infectious disease, it is evidently necessary
that every such case should be notified or reported to them, and
�64
THE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
that this should be done as speedily as possible ; for the sooner
preventive means are taken the less time is allowed for the spread
of contagion, and the more easily can the outbreak be arrested.
The prevention of these disorders, it may be observed, has been
immensely facilitated by the new sanitary organization introduced
by the Act of .1872, according to which the whole country has been
divided into districts, governed in matters relating to public health
by sanitary authorities ; each of these bodies having its medical
officer of health, while all of them are under the superintendence
of the Local.Government Board, aided by its medical officer. Mr.
Simon describes “the new sanitary organization of the country”
as consisting of “ the Local Government Board, viewed as a Central
Board. of Health, and the more than fifteen hundred district
authorities which, each with its medical officer of health, locally
administer the health laws.” In the notification of infectious dis
eases, every case should at once be reported to the medical officer
of health for the district. This system of notifying disease has
lately been adopted with excellent results in upwards of thirty
towns, some of them among the largest of the United Kingdom,
and has there been made compulsory by special Acts of Parliament
obtained on the application of the local authorities themselves ;
and Mr. Hastings has more than once introduced into the House of
Commons a Bill for extending the same principle of compulsory
notification to the whole country.
Although the highest authorities agree in thinking that the
notification of infectious diseases is indispensably needed for their
prevention by the State, and should be made compulsory, there is
much difference of opinion in regard to the question, Who is to
notify ? In the infectious fevers, the duty of giving intimation
must be performed either by the occupier of the house where the
disease has broken out or by the medical attendant; and a strong
feeling exists among large numbers of the medical profession that
the legal obligation to notify, and the penalties for neglecting it,
ought not to be laid on them, but on the householder. Thus, in
an important debate on the subject which took place at the annual
meeting of the British Medical Association in 1882, a resolution
was carried to the effect, “ That this meeting earnestly desires
compulsory notification of infectious disease, but it wishes to
express its opinion that the compulsion to notify should be placed
upon the householder as bis duty as a citizen, and not upon the
doctor.” In the course of the discussion, the President, Dr. Alfred
Carpenter, observed that “ There could be no doubt that it was
the duty of the patient, or his legal guardian, to notify the exist
ence of any infectious disease to the local authority.” This seems
to me a truth of the utmost importance, which should be carefully
considered by the public. The real person on whom the duty of
notifying infectious disease naturally rests is, I think, the patieDt
himself, and in some diseases, which do not impair the faculties,
he may be legally called upon to fulfil it. But in the contagious
�The extinction
of infectious diseases.
65
fevers the proper person on whom the obligation should be laid
seems to be the householder, as he is the patient’s natural guardian,
and, moreover, it is he, and not the doctor, who has an early know
ledge of the existence of the disease. The assistance of the medical
taan will doubtless be needed in most cases to diagnose the affection, and he will also usually be the one to fill up the certificate,
■though the householder may afterwards forward it to the sanitary
eathority. But supposing that the householder, after being in
formed of the infectious nature of the disease, refuses to notify it,
from a fear of injuring his business, or other reasons, I cannot but
think that it would then become'the duty of the medical man, and
that he should be legally required, to make the notification himself ;
for he could not justifiably refrain from interfering, and see a
breach of law committed, which might lead to the most deplorable
and even fatal consequences to many persons. The Bill of Mr.
Hastings proposes, I believe, to make the obligation to notify
bhwling on both the householder and the doctor conjointly ; and
this, as it seems to me, would be the true principle, if it were made
clear that the duty really and in the first instance rests on the
householder, and only when he refuses to discharge it, is incumbent
on the medical practitioner.
* There is one of the contagious fevers in which, besides isolation
and disinfection, a third preventive measure of a totally different
nature, and which appears to me of immense value, has been very
extensively used ; I mean vaccination in small-pox. In disinfection
the object is to destroy the germs of a disease after they have left
the. body, while isolation deals with them at their source in the
patient himself ; but vaccination may be described as consisting in
.this, that after the virulence of the germs has been weakened by
pertain processes, such as their passage through a different species
IOf animal, inoculations are made with the weakened or attenuated
Virus, in order to protect the system against the action of the same
virus in its stronger form. It was shown by Dr. Edward Jenner,
in 1798, that inoculations with cow-pox matter have the power of
protecting the constitution against the virus of small-pox—a fact
which the late Mr. Marson, who for forty years had charge of the
■Dondon Small-pox Hospital, regards as “the greatest discovery in
relation to disease ever made by man for the preservation of human
life.” It was also thought probable by Jenner that cow-pox is
nothing else than small-pox modified or mitigated by passing
through the cow ; and Mr. Ceely, and Mr. Badcock afterwards,
Succeeded in producing cow-pox by inoculating heifers wita
matter taken from a small-pox pustule; but as this is an experiment which very frequently fails, doubts still continued to exist,
till in 1881 the truth of their opinion was completely established
by Dr. Voigt, the superintendent of the Vaccine Institute at
Hamburg. By inoculating a calf with small-pox matter he pro
duced cow-pox, the lymph from which, after being further*
weakened by transmission through several calves, has been habiE
�66
THE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
tually used at Hamburg in vaccination, for the last two years, with
the most satisfactory results. “Vaccinia and variola (cow-pox and
small-pox) are derived originally from the same contagium,” says
Dr. Voigt, “and give to those affected by them an immunity one
against the other.” Again, the eminent discoverer, M. Pasteur, by
a.n in.vabiable series of researches, has lately shown that vaccina
tion in small-pox is by no means a solitary fact, and that the virus
of many other infectious diseases can be weakened or mitigated
in a similar manner, so as to furnish a protective material, or
vaccine, as he terms it, against the diseases. The two methods by
which he has succeeded in diminishing the power of an infectious
virus and converting it into a vaccine are, either by transmitting
it through an animal of a different species, or by allowing an
interval of several weeks to elapse between two successive culture®
of the little organisms or germs that produce the disease, during
which period they are acted on by the oxygen of the air and
gradually lose their virulence. By these means M. Pasteur has
already obtained the vaccines of several infectious disorders, the
most important of which are rabies (hydrophobia) in the dog, and
anthrax, or the splenic fever of cattle. Of the second method for
weakening the power of a virus he says especially,' We may hope
to discover in this way the vaccine of all virulent diseases,” and
he holds that “ we have here a proof that we are in possession of
a general method for preparing virus vaccine based upon the action
of oxygen and the air.”
The close affinity between cow-pox and small-pox, which are
really the same disease in different species, explains why the one
protects from the other, and according to the best authorities the
power of vaccination during childhood, especially when followed
by re-vaccination later in life, to prevent small-pox, or render it
milder if it does occur, is most remarkable. “ One thoroughly
good primary vaccination to start with,” says Dr. Seaton, in his
article on Vaccination in “ Reynolds’ System of Medicine,” “ and
one careful revaccination at puberty, so conducted as to give
evidence that the lymph was absorbed, are all that is necessary for
the complete protection of the population against small-pox.”
The facts which seem to prove most clearly the great efficacy of
vaccination are that, as shown by Jenner, inoculations with small
pox matter (which used formerly to be practised, but were made
illegal in 1840) produce no effect on a person who has had cow
pox ■ that the nurses who attend upon small-pox patients, and are
constantly exposed to the effluvia, very seldom contract the disease
if they have been previously revaccinated, not one of the nurses in
the London Small-pox Hospital having become infected during Mr.
Marson’s long experience ; and that the death-rate from small-pox
has been enormously diminished in every country where vaccina
tion is in general use. “ The present average death-rate from
small-pox,” says Dr. Seaton, “is scarcely, in any European country,
one-tenth part, and in those countries in which vaccination has
�THE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
67
been most carefully carried out it is much less than one-tenth part
•what it -was at the end of last century.” In England and Wales
the total number of deaths from small-pox in 1879 and 1880 were
536 and 648 deaths respectively, which, according to the RegistrarGeneral, are the lowest rates yet recorded. These figures show
how vast has been the reduction in a disease formerly more dreaded
in Europe than even the plague itself. They show, too, the
immense assistance which may be derived from a vaccine in the
final extinction of an infectious disease ; and they inspire the hope
that by careful isolation and disinfection, aided by vaccination,
we may succeed before long in completely stamping out and
abolishing small-pox, which Sir Thomas Watson describes as “ the
most hideous, loathsome, disfiguring, and, hydrophobia excepted,
probably the most fatal also of the various diseases to which the
human body is liable.”
There still remain two classes of infectious disease, on whose
extinction I would like, before concluding, to say a very few words,
namely, first, those derived from the lower animals, the most im
portant of which is hydrophobia ; and secondly, the venereal
affections, and especially syphilis. With regard to the terrible
malady hydrophobia, besides the vaccine lately discovered against
it by M. Pasteur, it has been earnestly urged by Sir Thomas
Watson, in the Nineteenth Century Review, that a means for its
complete extinction could be found in subjecting all dogs to a
quarantine of six or seven months (which might perhaps be done
by muzzling them), as recommended by Mr. Youatt and Sir
James Bardsley, for in this period every case of the disease which
was in process of incubation would show itself, and the animal
might be destroyed. “ By destroying every dog in which the
disease should break out during strict quarantine,” says Sir James
Bardsley, “ not only would the propagation of the malady be
prevented, but the absolute source of the poison would be entirely
Suppressed.”
As regards the venereal affections, their extinction is a subject of
enormous importance, for there are very few diseases which give
rise to such a fearful amount of human misery. The Acts for
their suppression, commonly known as the Contagious Diseases
Acts, which were so deeply unjust to women, have been virtually
annulled by the resolution of the House of Commons, in 1883,
mndemning compulsory examinations, and a better system of preTOntion is most urgently needed. The high authority, M. Mauriac,
holds that of the three venereal affections, gonorrhoea, syphilis,
and simple contagious sore, the first cannot be extinguished, but
that the two others admit of complete extinction, though the last
of them, being a slighter and merely local affection, could be far
more easily eradicated than the formidable malady, syphilis. It
Seems to me that the true object to be aimed at in the prevention
of syphilis by the State, is to deter individuals from spreading the
disease by the fear of being detected and punished. This object
�68
THE EXTINCTION OB’ INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
could, I venture to think, be best attained, in the first place, by
making the communication of syphilis a punishable offence in both
sexes, as. is strongly recommended by Mr. Berkeley Hill, and other
distinguished writers ; and in the second place, by making com
pulsory the notification of every case of syphilis and of simple
contagious sore to the sanitary authority, or in other words to the
medical officer of health for the district; and also, in addition to
these two enactments, by instituting a most careful and searching
inquiry into the origin of every case of syphilis, so as to discover
who has been guilty of spreading it. Syphilis differs from the
contagious fevers m this most important point, that the patient in
a multitude of cases knows perfectly well by whom he or she has
been infected, and therefore the origin of the disease can very
often be traced. All these inquiries, as well as the notifications of
disease to the authorities, should be kept strictly private, so that
no names would ever be divulged except those of individuals who,
knowing themselves to be diseased, assist in the spread of infection.
Whether an individual had acted in ignorance or from culpable
negligence would often appear from the circumstance that his
disease had been notified and he had been warned of its con
tagious nature. With regard to notification, which seems to me in
syphilis, as in all other dangerous infectious disorders, of immense
importance for its prevention, the legal obligation to notify
should, I think, be laid upon the patient himself, and not upon
the medical attendant ; although the latter could voluntarily give
intimation in cases where he desired to do so, and would doubtless
very often perform the duty at the patient’s request. By notifica
tion the amount and distribution of syphilis in the country would
become known, its increase or diminution could be tested, and
the disease would be rescued from the fatal secrecy which, more
than any other cause, promotes its ravages. It appears to me that
these measures would be just to both sexes, and, though some
times attended with very painful disclosures, would be no real
burden on any but those who wilfully or recklessly communicated
disease to other persons ; and they would also, I venture to think,
be found in the end more effectual than the previous Acts in
stamping out syphilis, which has so long been the scourge and
terror of mankind in all parts of the globe.
�ELEMENTS OF SOCIAL SCIENCE; or, Physical,
r
Sexual, and Natural Religion. An Exposition of the
True Cause and only Cure of the Three Primary Social Evils—
Poverty, Prostitution, and Celibacy. By a Doctor of. Medi
cine. London : E. Truelove, 256, High Holborn. Upwards
of 600 pages. Twenty.fifth Edition.
Sixty-first Thousand.
Price 2s. 6d. Stiff Boards; 3s. Cloth Boards—either post free.
Post Office Orders payable at High Holborn.
J
Translations of this Work have been published in the following
languages, and may be had of E. Truelove :—
In French.—Elements de Science Sociale. Paris: Germer BailliEre,
Boulevard St. Germain, 108. Third Edition, 1879.
In German. — Die Grundzuge der Gesellschaftswissenschaft. Berlin :
Elwin Staude.
Sixth Edition, 1880.
In Dutch.—De Elementen der Sociale Wetenschap. Rotterdam: Nijgh
& Van Ditmar. Second Edition, 1877In Italian.—Elementi di Scienza Sociale. Milan: Gaetano Brigola,
Fourth Edition, 1881.
In Portuguese. — Elementos de Sciencia Social. Lisbon: Silva
Junior. 1876.
In Russian.—Haia-ia Copia.ibHon Hayim. Geneva—Bale—Lyons: H.
Georg. 1877.
In Swedish.—Samhallsldrans Grunddrag. Stockholm: AssociationsBoktryckeriet. Second Edition, 1880.
In Hungarian.— A Tarsadalom-Tudomdny Elemei.
Buda-Posth:
S. Zilahy. 1879.
In Danish.—Grundtrcek af Samfundsvldenskaben. Copenhagen. Th.
E. Thomsen, 1879.
In Polish.—Zasady Nauki Spolecznej Geneva. Imprimerie Polonaise,
1880.
OPINIONS OF THE PRESS.
* This is the only book, so far as we know, in which at a cheap price and with
honest and pure intent and purpose, all the questions affecting the sexes, and the
influence of their relations on society, are plainly dealt with. It has now been
issued in French as well as in English, and we bring the French edition to the
notice of our friends of the International Working Men’s Association, and of our
subscribers in France and Belgium, as essentially a poor man’s book.”—Aarfionai
Reformer, edited by Mr. Charles Bradlaugh.
“ The Elements of Social Science is a most remarkable work, written by a man
evidently with great knowledge of pathology and political economy. It will be
greatly liked or disliked, according to the ‘school’ of the reader; but no one can
fail to consider it as one of the most remarkable works of the day, on the subjects
of which it treats. We are told that it has been largely read in London by medical
men.”—Medicat Press and Ciicular, February 23rd, 1870.
“ A very valuable, though rather heterogeneous book . . . This is, we believe,
the only book that has fully, honestly, and in a scientific spirit recognised all the
elements m the problem—How are mankind to triumph over poverty, with its
train of attendant evils ?—and fearlessly endeavoured to find a practical
Solution.”—T/te Pxaminer, January 4th, 1»73.
“In some respects all books of this class are evils: but it would be weakness
and criminal prudery—a prudery as criminal as vice itself—not to say that such a
�book as the one Id question is not only a far lesser evil than the one that ft
combats, but in one sense a book which it is a mercy to issue and courage t®
Dublish.”—Reasoner, edited by Mr. G. J. Holyoake.
“We have never risen from the perusal of any work with a greater satisfaction
than this."—Investigator.
“That book must be read, that subject must be understood, before the
population can be raised from its present degraded, diseased, unnatural, and
immoral state. Wo really know not how to speak sufficiently highly of this
extraordinary work; we can only say, conscientiously and emphatically, it is a
blessing to the human race."—Peoples Paper. By Ernest Jones.
“Though quite out of the province of our journal, we cannot refrain from
stating that this work is unquestionably the most remarkable one, in many
respects, we have ever met with. Thougn we differ toto ccelo from the author in
his views of religion and morality, and hold some of his remedies to tend rather
to a dissolution than a reconstruction of society, yet we are bound to admit the
benevolence and philanthropy of his motives. The scope of the work is nothing
less than the whole field of political economy.”—The British Journal of Homoeopathy,
January, 1860.
“ It is because, after an impartial consideration of this book, we feel satisfied
that the author has no meretricious professional object to subserve, that we are
induced to use its publication as a text for the discussion of a vital and pressing
subject; and because it bears evidences of research, thorough although misapplied,
professional education, some pretensions to philosophy, and a certain earnestness
of misguided conviction of the truth of peculiar prevalent economical theories,
Which seems to have led him off his feet, and to have induced him to venture
upon any extravagance in their support. It is in vain to attempt to hide these
subjects out of sight. This one book of 600 closely printed pages is in its third large
edition, It is of no use to ignore the topic as either delicate or disgusting. It is
of universal interest. It concerns intimately every human being.”—From an
adverse review, occupying six columns in The Weekly Dispatch, January and
February, 1860.
,
Extract from an Article by Professor Mantegazza, of Florence, in the Journal
Medico di Casa, of \6th January, 1874.
“This work has had eleven English editions, two French, a German and a
Dutch one; and is about to be published in Italian and in Portuguese; and we who
have read and meditated on it, rejoice with the author at this success, auguring
for it new and increasing good fortune.
“He is convinced that in this lower world too many people are born, and hence
very many of them are condemned either to a premature death, or, what is worse,
to a wretched life, oppressed by hunger and suffering. He comes forward there
fore to propose what we ourselves have modestly urged in our ‘Elements of
Hygiene ’ since 1864, when we said * Love, but do not have offspring.’ A disciple
of Malthus and of Stuart Mill, he is well versed in modern philosophy and in
political economy, and studies the abstruse problem in all its aspects, setting out
from the most elementary domestic hygiene to raise himself gradually to the
lofty regions of human dignity and civil progress. A foe to all hypocrisy and
prejudice, the author of the ‘ Elements of Social Science ’ calls things by their
real names, and shrinks only from the excessive sufferings and privations to
which the poor children of Adam are condemned. He is firmly convinced that
to measure human fecundity in accordance with the economical production of
families and of nations is the most certain means of destroying pauperism and
all the forms of want; and in this perhaps he is in error, for the evils of modern
society have many sources, and with the drying up of one (perhaps even the most
fruitful), another and another would present themselves, which only the eombined
and constant labours of future generations will perhaps be able to overcome.
However this may be, the courage with which the author faces one of the most
formidable problems of human society is most praiseworthy.
“ Human morality is gradually changing its centre of gravity to rest upon a more
■olid and durable basis. In this new morality the doctrines of Malthus and those
of the author of the ‘ Elements of Social Science ’ must also have a large share.
�In the place of alma-giving which humiliates, in the place of charity which
caresses an evil that it does not know how to cure, there will be substituted^
preventive philanthropy, which by studying want and suffering in their most
hidden and deep-seated springs, will be able radically to remove them. Juris*
prudence, medicine, and morality follow the same movement, are aiming at tho
same end—to prevent rather than to cure.”
**
motto of the work: * The diseases of society can, no more than corporeal
maladies, be prevented or cured, without being spoken about in plain language99
(John Stuart Mill), and its dedication to the poor and suffering, are sufficient to
show the tendency of the author. He uses, indeed, a directness of expression, an
outspokenness, which is seldom met with in our times, and will probably in most
circles of so-called refined society be styled very shocking if not cynical, though in
reality it is not so. The author only calls by their names things which we medical
men also have to discuss openly among ourselves and with patients, but which
are treated by polite society according to the Parisian proverb, ‘cela se fait, maia
cela ne se dit pas.’ The author, as appears from the title and from his profes
sional knowledge, is a medical practitioner. He merits, therefore, the attention of
his colleagues, the more so because, in the first place, they would scarcely guess
from the title that this is a book for medical men-—and secondly, because his
medical colleagues alone possess the education which permits them to estimate
without prejudice the aims and efforts of the author, to try the truth of the facts
which he lays down as premises, and, after due consideration, either to accept or
reject, or to limit and amend, his conclusions and proposals. . . . The author’s
remarks on the social questions in general are among the best and most deeplyfelt we have ever read.”—Schmidt's Jahrbiicher der gesammten Medinin. Band 152,
This is one of those books of which little is spoken, but which nevertheless
are wont to produce a quiet lasting effect, while finding their readers at length in
this way that under the influence of peculiar circumstances one person confiden
tially tells another that in such and such a work there is something to be found,
• • •
au^*hor is, as a natural inquirer, what one must perhaps still call a
materialist and a Darwinian; as a political economist—and he is by no means an
insignificant political economist—he belongs to the left wing of the free trade
school, to which, in spite of some differences of opinion, he lends on the whole a
great impulse, anticipating with confidence its ultimate and complete ■victory
throughout the whole cultured world.”— Vierteljahrsschrift fur Volkswirthschaft
wid Culturgeschichte, edited by J. Fancher. XII. Jahrg.
*
must
accustom himself to the openness with which the author treat!
his themes; but the work is unquestionably most instructive and interesting, and
to written with great knowledge of the subject.”—Hessische Morgenzeitung, Dec.
24th, 18 71.
No one, who has turned his thoughts to the solution of the most burning of
tai questions of the day, the social question, and who wishes to devote to it his
mental and practical energies, will be able to leave unread this book, whose
anonymous author, basing himself on the Malthusian essay ‘ On the Principle of
Population,’ deduces from it with keen logic a peculiar and most striking theory
On the cure of the three primary social evils—poverty, prostitution, and celibacy
; • •, Whatever may be said against this fearless laying bare of the most
Intimate relations of social life and agaiust his whole theory, purely and
undisguisedly materalistic as it is—even the opponent of the daring socialist will
be unable to deny him the merit of scientific closeness of reasoning, and what is
quite as important, of warm and zealous philanthropy; he will rather honour the
moral courage and mental energy which the author must have had to work his
way out of the bewildering maze of hitherto unsolved problems and conflicts, to a
conviction so logically consistent, so luminous, and yet so opposed to established
institutions and to the moral sentiments in which men have been brought up.”—•
KOnigtbtrger Hartungsche Zeitung. December 4th, 1871.
‘ The author treats, in an open and unreserved manner, the diseases of the human
frame, as well as those of society, because he is convinced, with Stuart Mill, that'
. they can only in this way be prevented and cured. In truth we have learned]
�from many years* experience that such Is the ease. We bring therefore to the
notice of our readers, and recommend them to procure, this excellent book."
Sonntags-Blatt, Organ fiir die Freidenker Deutschland*, edited by Dr. Auer. SDech't
January 26th, 1873.
8 P
“Many of the author’s views are diametrically opposed to oar own, but we
cannot refrain from describing the book as in very truth an epoch-making one
whose perusal must interest in the highest degree, both thx professional man and
the educated general reader. Nothing is gained by a prudish avoidance of the
subjects treated in the work; they nvxst be discussed, and mankind might con
gratulate themselves if this were always done in so candid and disinterested a
manner as by the author of ‘The Elements of Social Science.’”—Jfanoversch*
Anzeigen und Morgenuiiung. November 14th, 1871.
“A very remarkable book. ... A regard to the nature of the subject*
treated of forbids us to enter further into its contents—an exposition of the inner
conditions of social life which, for obvious reasons, lie outside the sphere of the
daily press. Suffice it to say that we have here to do with a work which differs
widely from the common-place productions of the book market, and which will
very probably go through no fewer editions in philosophic Germany than in
England.”—Reform, Hamburg, 28th October ,1875.
“ There must come an end to the ignorance of the laws of physiology. Every
ene ought to know; and it must be left to his own requirements and his own
judgment what use he will make of his knowledge. We must cease to regard as
God’s will, as destiny, as the inevitable, what is not so. We must cease to look
upon that as a duty, which can be defended on no single ground of humanity or
social interest Herein lies the great merit of Owen, when he already, in 1830,
published in America his ‘ Moral Physiology; ’ of the anonymous author and the
translator of the ‘ Elements of Social Science,’ and I may add of the publishers,
Truelove, in London, and Nijgh & Van Ditmar, in Rotterdam.”—From an article
by Mr. Van Houten (member of the Dutch Parliament) in the Dutch Monthly
Review, Vragtn des IKjds, October, 1876.
“ This large book is written by a man of science and of feeling ; it is pervaded
with the life, strength, and earnestness of a deep conviction. Politico-economical
ind medical theories are set forth so popularly that a child could understand
them. The author lays down as the foundation of his work the doctrines of
Malthus and Ricardo. . . . The injunction to abstain from marriage roused
(gainst them all humane and liberal people, while the momentous truth at the
root of their teachings lay buried as it were, and was long trodden under foot
and covered with bitter ridicule; but scientific truth never dies, it rises again
unexpectedly arrayed in all its armour, and often at the very time when
whole councils of physicians are predicting its inevitable decease. The author
of the ‘ Elements of Social Science ’ examines Malthus’s work, rigorously verifies
its propositions, and comes to the conclusion that Malthus was unquestionably in
the right; he does not, however, rest satisfied with Malthus’s remedy, but pro
poses his own universal means of relief. . . . We have here, doubtless, merely
glanced at the views expressed by the author; this is a large work, requiring
attentive perusal, and we confidently recommend it to the enlightened Russian
public, since only through them can the ideas therein contained find their way to
the world of labourers; the book is a great intellectual acquisition ; it is admirable
not only for its strictly scientific, logical, comprehensive and liberal views, but for
its deep humanity and warmth of heart. The author stands on practical ground,
he advocates things possible and capable of introduction in every country at a
given moment; his ideas, without doubt, do not exclude a social revolution, but
in their clearness and definiteness they lie nearer to actual life.”—OOinee jlUO
(Russian Monthly Journal), September, 1877.
3
�
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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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State measures for the abolition of poverty, war, and pestilence
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Drysdale, George
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 68, [4] p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: By 'A doctor of medicine'. Author's name handwritten in pencil on title page. Publisher's advertisement for Drysdale's Elements of social science, and reviews, on unnumbered pages at the end. Three articles, the last two reprinted from the National Reformer. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
Contents: State remedies for poverty -- Can war be suppressed? -- The extinction of infectious diseases.
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E. Truelove
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1886
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N195
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Social problems
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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 (State measures for the abolition of poverty, war, and pestilence), 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
Communicable Diseases
NSS
Poverty
War
-
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Text
NS2^>
NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY
INDIVIDUAL, FAMILY
AND
NATIONAL POVERTY.
REASONS WHY IN EVERY FAMILY THE NUMBER SHOULD
BE REGULATED; THE METHODS THAT HAVE BEEN
PROPOSED, EXTENSIVELY ADOPTED, AND FOUND
TO ANSWER FOR DOING IT; TOGETHER
WITH A FEW VALUABLE HINTS
FOR THE YOUNG.
BY
JNO.
HY.
PALMER.
“ One would imagine that children were rained down upon married people, direct
from heaven, without their being art or part in the matter; that it was really, as the
common phrases have it, God's will, and not their own, which decided the numbers
of their offspring." “ No one would guess from the language of either (rich or poor)
that man had any voice or choice in the matter. So complete is the confusion of
ideas on the whole subject, owing in a great degree to the mystery in which it is
shrouded by a spurious delicacy, which prefers that right and wrong should be
mismeasured and confounded on one of tlie subjects most momentous to human
welfare, rather than that the subjects should be freely spoken of and discussed.
People are little aware of the cost to mankind of this scrupulosity of speech."
John Stuart Mill.
LONDON:
E. TRUELOVE, PUBLISHER, 256, HIGH HOLBORN.
1875.
PRICE TWOPENCE.
�After penning the following pamphlet it seemed to the writer, that
to ensure the complete success of his effort, some little preface wa3
needed to be addressed to those who from various circumstances
are unable to regulate families of their own. Although the subject
applies definitely to persons in the reproductive age of life, yet it
must not therefore be supposed that none others are interested in it.
By a careful consideration of the law and its precept endeavoured to
be set forth on pages 8 to 13, I think it will appear that the matter
is of immense importance to everyone. Many are of opinion that
apart from the practice here recommenced there is no effective
remedy for the wide spread poverty, and with it the vice, crime,
and misery that prevail. For strong language in support of this
I would refer the reader to Book II, chapter 13, of John Stuart Mill s
“Principles of Political Economy,’’..(People’s Edition) in which he
treats on the Remedies for Low Wages; also to “ Poverty, its only
Cause and only Cure,” in “Elements of Social Science.” These
authors especially desire the formation of a sound, healthy public
opinion in favour of small families. To assist the growth of that
opinion by stating some important reasons why it should everywhere
obtain, and how it may be complied with, has been the object of
the present writer.
On pages 14 to 17 will be found a little advice, which, had it been
known, and perseveringly followed by many persons when young,
would have saved them from a deal of expense, shame, and misery.
�REASONS WHY IN EVERY FAMILY THE
NUMBER SHOULD BE REGULATED.
As its title indicates, the object of this little pamphlet is to state as
briefly as possible some important reasons why the number in every
family should be regulated, to point out the various methods that
have been proposed, extensively adopted, and found to answer for
doing it. The ideas here put forth are not new, they are most of
them to be found fully developed and demonstrated in the books
mentioned in the preface, and from which they have been taken.
The present writer desires only to give such a condensation as he
thinks will be useful for general distribution by all, even the poorest
who should feel an interest in the subject. I say by the poorest, for
although the reasons apply with great force to all, yet they refer
especially to, and their importance will be seen the clearest by working
men, the toilers and the bread-winners, who with their wives and
children make up the vast majority of the nation.
By regulating the number in a family I mean that the parents,
having brought forih as many children as circumstances warrant
them in having, they shall thereupon cease to beget any more. If
people have this power, and I shall presently show that they have,
then it follows, that they also possess some control over the times
when such increase shall take place. The author of the “ Elements
of Social Science,” and Mr. R. D. Owen, in his “ Moral Physiology,”
deal only with the subject of controlling the number of children to be
born; Mr. Combe, in his book on the “ Constitution of Man,” treats
of the kind of children they will be I wish to urge that parents
should regulate with reference both to the number and the kind of
child)en they desire.
The first part of my task will be to demonstrate the existence and
illustrate the working of a great law in nature, a knowledge of which
is of the utmost importance; for unless it be understood there can be
no regulation in aiiy proper sense of the term. And the law is that
children’s characters are entirely the result of circumstances, which
circumstances are to be considered as to whether they were previous
to or after birth. Circumstances previous to birth may be called
constitutional; those after birth educational.
Taking first the constitutional circumstances, I need only direct
attention to the unvarying continuance of national peculiarities as a
sufficient proof that the qualities of children are determined first of
all by the stock from which they are born. Thus from white races
will be born white children, from black races black children, from
tall races tall children, from short races short children. Similarly
from brave races come brave children, from intelligent races come
�4
intelligent children, and vice versa. And as races are made up of
individuals it is further seen that children are as their parents
are, whether white or black, tall or short, strong or weak, healthy
or sickly, intelligent or otherwise. Mr. Geo. Combe states that
“Physiologists, in general, are agreed, that a vigorous and healthy
constitution of body in the parents, communicates existence in
the most perfect state to the offspring, and vice versa. The
transmission of various diseases from parent to children is a
matter of universal notoriety: thus consumption, gout, scrofula,
hydrocephalus, rheumatism, and insanity, are well known as maladies
which descend from generation to generation. “ Strictly speaking,
it is not disease which is transmitted, but organs of such imperfect
structure that they are unable to perform their functions properly,
and so weak as to be easily put into a morbid condition by causes
which sound organs are able to resist.” Not that this transmission
compels the offspring of consumptive parents to be consumptive too.
but it “renders them so weak as to be easily put into a morbid
condition.” If the rules of health are thoroughly known and rigidly
practised, the tendency may be diminished, or even effectually
warded off. Therefore I would solemnly warn all who are afflicted
with any hereditary disease, never, on any account to beget children
until they have thoroughly investigated the laws of health, and
determined to enforce them on themselves and their children. *
A clear and uudeniable proof of the transmission of qualities, and
also that the characters are derived from both parents, is to be
found in the progeny of marriages between moral and intelligent
Europeans and native Americans who are inferior. “All authors
agree,” says Mr. Combe, “ and report the circumstance as singularly
striking, that the children of such unions are decidedly superior iu
mental and moral qualities to the native, while they are still inferior
to the European parent.”
But there is a most important modification of the law, namely that
the qualities of a child are determined not only by the constitution of the
stock from which it is derived, but also by the faculties which are strongest
in power and activity in the parents at the particular time when the
organic existence of that child commences. In proof of this Mr. Combe
relates a case in which at the time of impregnation both parents were
utterly insensible through drinking, the result being the birth of an
idiot. Another case of a parent addicted to drinking who transmitted
the same tendency to several of his children, but children born to him
after he had formed more correct habits were not so inclined. When
two parties marry very young the eldest of their children is generally
less intelligent than those born to them in more mature age. So too
“ It is rare for the descendants of men far advanced in years to be
distinguished for high qualities of either body or mind.” Anything
* Hereditary Descent, it* Laws and Facts applied to Human Improvement, by
0. S. Fowler.
�which causes the mother to be frightened, excited, irritated, over
anxious, or depressed in spirits, has an injurious effect on the future
being, and should therefore be avoided. Persons desirous of becoming
parents ought well to consider these things ; if they can they should
obtain the books in which they are fully and distinctly expounded,
live up to the characters they would desire their children to possess,
and then select that period in their lives most favourable to the
production of strong, healthy, good-natured and intelligent children.
Having thus dealt with the constitutional circumstances, my next
duty is to point out that whatever may be the inborn qualities of a
child, yet as an adult its character will be very greatly influenced by
the circumstances atttending its early life. Its physical health will
depend upon its supply of food, clothing, lodging, personal cleanliness,
and exercise. A child with insufficient food or clothing cannot grow
up strong. Large and well ventilated bedrooms are as necessary to
health as plenty of food. Wide airy streets are better for health
than narrow close courts and lanes. Daily washing of the body, and a
frequent change of underclothing are also indispensable. And exercise
should not be such as to overtax the worker. For children to ripen
into strong and healthy men and women all these matters require
careful and constant attention. The Government inspection of food
in the market, “ Local Boards of Health,” “ Half Time Acts ” to prevent
children from being gradually killed by exhaustive labour, show to
what extent these principles are already recognized by the State.
So too the intellectual and moral welfare of children has been partly
taken in hand by the Government, compulsory attendance at school
for a number of years being already adopted by many of the School
Boards. But the parent who desires the wellbeing of his children
will not be content with the education enforced by the State, he will
endeavour to supply them with good books, and during their youth pay
for their admission to evening classes and lectures, or in other ways
provide them with instructors, and thus train out their intellectual
powers to the fullest extent. And children cannot be thus employed
in useful studies without being morally the better for it. Only
develop in them a taste for good and useful pursuits, and they will
of themselves avoid what is degrading. Then too with regard to a
start in life, it is not right that a parent should turn his boy or
girl out into the first place that offers the means of gaining a sixpence.
A good start in life is half the battle, and parents should endeavour
to give sut> to their children. This brings me direct to the point
of numbers, tor a man who has a family of six or eight children and
only a moderate income cannot help himself. The constant cry of
parents is that they do not know what to do with their children.
They cannot afford to keep them in idleness waiting for something
better to turn up. Nor have they the cash to apprentice them to
a trade, or to put them in the way of getting a little business of
their own. The children must therefore take the first chance of
employment th^t comes in their way, even though it give little or
�6
no prospect of rising to a higher position. Now suppose a man
has had two children born to him, and he and his wife are in good
health, such as would ensure che production of a strong and healthy
child, I urge that if he happen to desire another, he ought first to
consider seriously whether he is able to do for it all that its wellbeing
requires, and that too without injustice to the children already born,
without injustice to his wife, and without injury to himself. If he
cannot do this, then I say he should refrain himself. In other words
a man should beget no more children than he and his wife can bring
into the world strong and healthy; no more than they can perfectly
nourish with wholesome food, comfortably clothe, and healthily and
decently lodge in their homes; no more than the wife can properly
attend to without becoming a drudge, no more tlian the husband can
have well educated, well supplied with good books, and fairly started
in life; in short no more than he can do whole justice with. If a
man be in a high position, receiving a good income, and can comply
with these conditions, there is still one more,—while bringing up to
maturity and sending into the world a large family, can he at the
same time be doing justice to the children of his neighbour? This
last consideration is a national one, which is gradually receiving the
attention it deserves. I am myself of opinion that in the present
state of England no man should beget more than three children,
while the circumstances of many warrant them in having but one
or two. And the reasons for this I will endeavour to make plain by
showing how the four parties affected are severally interested in the
regulation of numbers, namely the children, the mother, the father,
and the nation
In reference to the children let me remind my reader that I urge for
regulation first as to the kind of children, that they may be strong,
healthy, good-natured, and intelligent, four qualifications of inestimable
value to their possessors ; and next that the parents should beget no
more children than they can bring up strong, healthy, good-natured,
and intelligent. If a man only possess these qualities we need have
little fear of his doing well. By enjoying a healthy constitution he is
free from bodily suffering, having strength he is able to perform with
comfort to himself the labour of life. A man of good nature may have
a few enemies, but will certainly get more friends; and if in addition to
this he possess a strong and active intelligence to guide him through
life happy is he. The same holds good in their early years; for
whether they be born of high family or low, of a prince or a peasant,
who so happy as strong, healthy, good-natured, intelligent children!
Contrast with such the puny, the delicate, and the dull children
often met with. One is weak in the lower limbs and cannot run,
another from consumptive parents is soon put out of breath when
playing, a third is sickly and bilious and often ill, a fourth has a
watery brain, a fifth, a cross irritable spiteful disposition, a sixth
being unintelligent is dull and lazy with his lessons, and stupid at
anything given him to do. When these maladies and a multitude
�of others are considered, and it is laoicn that fur the most part they
might have been avoided, I think it will be at once admitted that it
would be beneficial for the parents to regulate towards the health,
strength, good nature, and intelligence of their children. As to
numbers, need 1 say that children in small families can have more
comforts than those in large ones? A man with only two children
can do better for them than if he had with the same money to provide
for six others besides. He can give them better food, and in a possible
sickness a few dainties if needed, stronger and better clothes, including
plenty of underlinen, better ventilated and more comfortable bedrooms,
{deasanter living rooms, can lodge them in nicer streets, keep them
onger at school, buy a few books for them, and take more care of their
starting in life. Is it desirable that he should be able to do this?
Would it have the effect of sending into the world stronger, healthier,
wiser, and better men ? If sc then 1 hold that in the interest of his
children a man should regulate their number.
Next the mother’s reasons:—The late John Stuart Mill in his
“Principles of Political Economy” says, “It is seldom by the choice
of the wife that families are so numerous; on her devolves (along with
all the physical suffering, and at least a full share of the privations) the
whole of the intolerable drudgery resulting from excess. To be relieved,
of it w’ould be held as a blessing by multitudes of women who now never
venture to urge such a claim, but who would urge it if supported by
the moral feelings of the community.” I, as one of the community am
endeavouring to support the above remarks, and to urge her claim on
man’s consideration. First, think of the “physical suffering” a woman
has to undergo when bringing forth a child, even if she be herself strong
and healthy. When she is not strong the suffering is intensified, even
to the risk of her life. Many a mother is ruined in health and strength,
many more are lulled outright, by bearing children so quickly one after
another. Would she not be happier bv avoiding this suffering and risk
of life? If so then regulate the time of her childbearing. The mother
too has to endure her full share of the poverty resulting from a large
family, and the whole of the intolerable drudgery. She must have poor
clothes that the children may be supplied, and poor fare that they may
be fed, and that too sometimes when having two lives to sustain she
needs the most nourishment of all. As to her work it is never done ;
what with meals getting, house cleaning, washing, clothes making and
mending, a baby to tend, and it sometimes a poorly one, where is
her rest or peace of mind? Among the poorest her home too is so
■hoerless that her husband often will not stay7 in it, but goes away to
the publichouse, where, in the company of his mates, and with the
aid of drink, he strives to forget his poverty.
Oftentimes the husband dies w’hile the family is still very young,
and leaves nothing for the poor mother but increased slavery and the
permitted beggary of asking for parish relief. Think of the difference
if the wife had only one or two children, strong, healthy, good-natured,
and intelligent, and with them the assurance from her husband that
�8
she is to bear no more. How her toil is saved ! With what care sne
can nourish her children 1 How daintily tend the home ! How well
preserve her own health and beauty !
And think too _ how much better for the husband ! For in social
affairs whoever gives real happiness to another increases thereby his
own. Is it not bettei for the man to have two children well nourished
well dressed, well lodged, well educated, and well started in life, than
to have six or eight children so badly provided for that he is almost
ashamed to own them ? And what husband does not feel pleased when
his wife looks fresh and happy ? Who can take a pleasure in seeing the
lines of care come early on her face ? I say then that a man for his
own sake should regulate the number of his children. For, by taking
care of his wife, that she does not conceive while in delicate health,
that she be spared the pains of bearing a large family, and the slavery
of tending it afterwards, he will draw towards himself a double portion
of her love and kindly offices; when, returning from his day’s toil, a
welcome smile is ready for him, along with his well kept and comfortable
home. With a large family a father is never free from the harassing
care of providing the means of living, but with a small one he is relieved
of such trouble, and in its stead may lay by a little store for his
own and his wife’s old age. It is surely pleasant to feel that you have
something in the bank ready for a “rainy day,” that you will not
become a burden to your children. Let me, therefore, urge on my
readers the desirability of regulating in favour of strong, healthy,
good-natured, intelligent children, and for such a number as the parents
can do whole justice with, both to the children and to themselves.
And also such a number as by having them the parents do no
injustice to their neighbours. This may seem a new doctrine to my
readers, but it is by no means new to the thoughtful men of the a»e.
A doctrine that has been before the world for seventy-five years, and
accepted by the ablest of the political economists who have lived during
that time, cannot be called new. It may be unknown to the masses,
or ignored by those who should obey it, but that does not remove
the suffering caused by violating it. The precept is founded on what is
called the Law of Population, which was first discovered by the Rev.
Thomas Robert Malthus, and published by him in 1798. If the remarks
which I shall make on this subject are not convincing to my readers let
me earnestly request the perusal of the chapters on Poverty, its only
Cause and only Cure, page 331; the Law of Population, page 457 ;
the Laws of Exercise, Fecundity, and Agricultural Industry, page 485,’
and the Opinions of English and Foreign writers on the Law of
Population, in the “ Elements of Social Science.” See also a few
chapters in J. S. Mill’s “Principles of Political Economy,” namely
Bk. I, chapters 9, 12, 13 ; Bk. II, chapters 11, 12, 13 ; these and many
observations in other parts of his great work derive their force from
being based on the Law of Population.
Which law may be briefly stated thus :—1. It is not only possible
but natural for population to continue doubling itself every twenty-five
�9
years. 2. In old countries it is not possible for it in the same time,
and from the same soil, to continue doubling its supply of the necessaries
of life. 3. If therefore the births continue at such a rate as to double
the population in twenty-five years, then those that cannot maintain
themselves in their native place must either emigrate, be supplied with
food from other countries, or die a premature death from poverty.
4. If the population of any place is not doubling itself every twenty-five
years then it must be either from premature deaths, emigration, or
limitation of the number of births. 6. Wholly to avoid premature
deaths, and the necessity of emigration or importation of food, the
number of births must be limited to the number that can be nourished
in their native place. 6. Wherever poverty of resources and therefore
the necessity of emigration exists, there has been too great a number
of births. These rules apply to every village, town, county, or country
in the world.
To enforce the first statement I need only to quote from Mill’s
“Political Economy,” people’s edition, page 97, where, in treating of
man’s multiplying power he states, “ It never is exercised to the
utmost, and yet in the most favourable circumstances known to exist,
which are those of a fertile region colonized from an industrious and
civilized community, population has continued for several generations,
independently of fresh immigration, to double itself in not much more
than twenty years. That the capacity of multiplication in the human
species exceeds even this is evident if we consider how great is the
ordinary number of children to a family where the climate is good,
and early marriages usual; and how small a proportion of them die
before the age of maturity, in the present state of hygienic knowledge,
where the locality is healthy, and the family adequately provided with
the means of living.” In the “Elements of Social Science,” page 451,
quoting from M’Culloch, the eminent statistical authority, we find’
“It has been established beyond all question that the population of
some of the States of North America, after making d re allowance for
immigration has continued to double for a century past in so short
a period as twenty, or at most twenty-five years.” For the figures
and calculations see “Elements of Social Science,” page 277. If the
population of the British Isles could increase at the same rate, it
would in seventy-five years amount to no less than 240,000,000, or
nearly as many as the present population of all Europe. And by
continuing the process another fifty years the number of 960,000,000
would be reached, a number nearly equal to the estimated present
population of the whole world. On the second head Mr. Mill says,
“After a certain and not very advanced stage in the progress of
agriculture it is a law of production from land that in any given state
of agricultural skill and knowledge, by increasing the labour, the
produce is not increased in an equal degree ; doubling the labour’ does
not double the produce.” This law of agricultural industry is the
most important proposition in political economy. The produce may
be increased by whatever adds to the skill of the labour applied;
*
�12
e-
position in which people live the better are 11 icy able to secure
good positions for their children in their native country. And they
generally do it, leaving those of the poorer classes to shift for
themselves as best they may, either by emigration, the workhouse,
or semi-starvation, and death by the first severe illness that comes
upon them. We may see this illustrated every day in the middle
ranks. A head clerk in a firm or the foreman in a factory has the
first chance of places for his family of boys; the mechanics come
next in the order of their qualities, and so on to the lowest. Not
that the particular ones chosen will do more to increase the prosperity
of the business, but their fathers being in good positions are able
to provide for their sons in their native district. The same takes
place with business men in towns and villages; the best off are able
to secure occupations for their children, and leave to others to go
elsewhere. But with a family of two children a man thrusts no one
out. He merely brings into existence two beings to take the place of
himself and his wife when departed. To bring into existence and
keep in their native place such a number of beings as causes others to
be compelled to remain unmarried, to be half starved, or thrust out,
is an injustice. Let me, therefore, repeat and urge on my readers the
desirability of every couple regulating in favour of strong, healthy,
good-natured, and intelligent children, and for such a number as full
justice can be done with, justice to the children themselves, to their
mother, the father, and to their neighbours.
A thorough knowledge of this Law of Population is of immense
importance to every class in the country, except the highest. For
though there are possibilities in trade, yet every one is liable to be
pressed down by someone else above him who may be endeavouring to
provide for a larger number of children than is his due. So that a man
who has only a small family is better off than with a large one; but
if small families were the rule, his position would be improved still
more. With an industrious people, following to the full the course
here recommended, the workhouses will in time be closed for want
of paupers, the hospitals almost empty for want of patients, gaols
almost, if not quite, unused for want of criminals. Ignorance with
poverty are the most fruitful sources of crime. Remove then the
ignorance and the poverty. Moderate competition in trade is good
for all parties, but a grinding, harassing competition, a struggle to keep
head above water invariably brings a crop of frauds of all kinds. People
must live, and, whether by fair means or foul, the strongest in mind
and body maintain life the longest. For myself I like the old maxim,
“Prevention is better than cure.” Don’t have weak, unhealthy,
cross-natured, stupid children, don’t have more than can be well and
honestly nourished. Without this prevention, all schemes for social
improvement are valueless. Let the reader think of them, one and
all, and he will find none that can exist along with the crushing
influence of over-population, not one that, apart from limiting the
number of births, has had any permanent influence in increasing the
�13
happiness of mankind. Without this they can do no more than
change the misery from one form to another. See to it then, make
yourself thoroughly acquainted with the laws by which qualities are
transmitted from parent to children, the laws for rearing those children
into strong, healthy, honest, and intelligent men and women; and lastly
the great Law of Population as it is at present operating in your own
country. And having yourself gained the knowledge of these things,
you will further see that for your own individual good you ought to
do all in your power to make every one else to understand and obey
the precepts founded on them. One means of doing so would be by
distributing copies of this pamphlet. I can ask you to do this, as
I am interested in its getting well abroad just as much as you are,
and not more.
——♦——
THE METHODS THAT HAVE BEEN PROPOSED,
EXTENSIVELY ADOPTED, AND FOUND SUCCESS
FUL IN REGULATING
THE
NUMBER
IN A
FAMILY, TOGETHER WITH HINTS FOR THE
YOUNG.
Having thus dealt with the principal reasons why in every family the
number should be regulated, my remaining task is to state the methods
that have been proposed, extensively adopted, and always found success
ful in doing it, leaving my readers to choose which they please, or to
select any other that happens to come to their knowledge. And in their
selection they will be guided by the answers they give to the following
questions: Is the moderate exercise of the generative organs conducive
to health or to bodily and mental weakness ? If their moderate
exercise does not cause weakness, then the pleasure derived from their
instinctive use, independent of, and totally distinct from, its ultimate
object, the reproduction of our race, is it good, proper, worth securing
and enjoying ? Or in other words, is it desirable that the instinct
should never be gratified without an increase of population ? The
author of “ Elements of Social Science,” on pages 492 to 505 of his
important work, deals with the Law of Exercise, and endeavours to
show that a moderate indulgence of the sexual instinct is absolutely
necessary to long continued health. Two extracts will indicate the
position he takes : “ The Law of Exercise is that the health of the
reproductive organs and emotions depend on their having a sufficient
amount of normal exercise ; and that a want of this tends powerfully
to produce misery and disease in both man and woman.” “ It is stated
aB a law by Mr. Paget, Dr. Carpenter, and other eminent authorities,
that ‘each organ, by the very fact of nourishing itself acts as an
excretory organ to the rest of the body.’ That is, every organ selects
from the blood the proper materials for its own nutrition, and in so
�doing it renders the blood more fit to nourish the others. This ia
especially true of secreting organs, such as the ovaries and testicles,
which produce fluids that are intended to be cast out of the body, and
are more or less noxious if retained. Hence whenever any important
organs are not duly engaged in their own special function not only is
their own vigour impaired, but that of the others also. The ideal of
health indeed cannot be Btated otherwise than as consisting in the due
performance of all the bodily functions.” The author quotes from
numerous medical writers supporting this view, and describes the
various diseases which they say arise from repressing the sexual desire.
In the same chapter are also given the arguments on the opposite view,
that the. Law of Exercise, while applying to other organs, has nothing
to do with the organs of generation. I will just caution the reader
that the matter should be decided by facts alone. For an examination
of the second question, and an emphatic answer in the affirmative I
refer the reader to the little book entitled “ Moral Physiology,” by
Robert Dale Owen. * As a matter of fact all who while not desiring
an addition to their families yet continue to indulge in sexual embraces
show by their actions that they either think it necessary for health,
the pleasure good, proper, worth securing and enjoying, or that their
instinct gets the better of theii judgment. The same is the condition
with those who will not marry, 'yet risk the awful danger, and accept
the moral degradation, of a prostitute’s embraces. (On these last points
see “Elements of Social Science,” pages 112 to 156.) If after testing
these principles the reader is of opinion that the arguments for what
is called the Law of Exercise, are so much bosh, and that the pleasure
of the act is not good, not desirable, not worth having, then all he has
to do is to select the most favourable periods for conception to take
place, and perform the sexual functions so many times according to the
number of children circumstances warrant him in having. And if at
any other time he happens to feel a desire for sexual embraces he must
treat it as a disease in his system, and doctor himself accordingly.
For if he allows this or any other passion to get the better of°his
judgment, either he, his wife, his children, or his neighbour, and
perhaps all parties will assuredly suffer in consequence.
For myself I frankly confess that I believe in the Law of Exercise,
but do not think it desirable that a child should be the result of every
sexual embrace. I am of opinion that voluptuous, or as they are
sometimes termed, wet dreams are nature’s temporary substitute for
the sexual act, and, like it, when only seldom, say once or twice a
month, are not a source of mischief. But should they become frequent,
as they tend to do, the persons are made weak, and, if ignorant of their
cause, are generally in good condition to be fooled by the first crafty
doctor that finds them. To prevent their injurious effects let those
who have them be sparing in their diet, take no stimulants, never use
tobacco, sleep cool, rise early, bathe or wash the whole body daily,
Published by E. Truelove, 256. High Holborn, London.
�z
15
rubbing with a towel till in a glow, splash cold or almost cold water on
the parts, (ladies to use the vagina syringe) take plenty of exercise in
the open air, and avoid exciting the organs by rubbing. Whoever has
been guilty of this latter practice, and injured their health, let them
immediately stop it, follow the course here marked out, and keep
clear of advertising quack doctors.
To prevent conception let the husband so steadily manage the
sexual act as to give full enjoyment to his wife, and then immediately
before the emission of the semen, withdraw the penis completely.
For an account of the extensive use to which this plan has been
put in France, Germany, Italy, and Spain, I refer the reader to
R. D. Owen’s “ Moral Physiology,” two quotations from which I will
make. “It may be objected that the practice requires a mental effort,
and a partial sacrifice. But I reply that in France, where men consider
this (as it ought ever to be considered, when the interests of the
other sex requires it) a paint of honour, all young men learn to make
the necessary effort, and custom renders it easy and a matter of course.”
“A Frenchman belonging to the cultivated classes would as soon bear
to be called a coward as to be accused of causing the pregnancy of a
woman who did not desire it. Such an imputation, if substantiated,
would shut him out from all decent society ; and most properly
so. It is a perfect barbarity, and ought to be treated as such.”
Some will say that the practice is injurious, but the most extensive
experience proves to the contrary. It is simple, satisfying to the
passion, and perfectly harmless. The evil of sexual excess, or over
indulgence is another matter. For a clear statement of what in various
constitutions would be excess, see “ Elements of Social Science,” p. 84.
The second method is for the man during the embrace to wear over
the penis a baudruche, or French letter as it is sometimes termed.
Accidents in its use cause it to be somewhat unsafe, and it is in every
way inconvenient.
A third method has been thus described: “ If before sexual intercourse
the female introduces into her vagina a piece of fine sponge as large as
can be pleasantly introduced (perhaps from the size of a walnut to that
of an egg) having previously attached a bobbin, or a piece of narrow
ribbon to withdraw it, (or, without this it may be withdrawn with the
fingers) it will be found a preventive to conception, while it neither
lessens the pleasure of the female, nor injures her health. When
convenient the sponge should be dipped in cold water, or in warm water
rather than none. The practice is common with the females of the
more refined parts of the continent of Europe, and with those of the
aristocracy in England.” To make this method more certain it should
be followed by the immediate syringing of the vagina with cold or
tepid water.
A fourth method is that recommended by Dr. Knowlton, rwho in his
“ Fruits of Philosophy” gives a full account of the physiological reasons
on which it is based, together with other very useful and interesting
information. He advises that a lump of either sulphate of zinc or
�X
16
alum of the size of a cheenut be dissolved in a pint of water, making
the solution weaker or stronger as it may be borne without producing
any irritation of the parts to which it is applied. This solution, which
would not lose its virtue by age, should be injected into the vagina by
means of a female syringe immediately after connexion. Two or three
*
careful and thorough applications of the syringe should be made to
ensure safety. Even quite cold water would be sufficient if thoroughly
used. The doctor gives several weighty reasons in favour of this
method, one of them being that “ it is conducive to cleanliness, and
preserves the parts from relaxation and disease.” “ Those who have
tried it affirm that they would be at the trouble of using injections
merely for the purpose of health and cleanliness.” Its only drawback
is that it generally causes a feeling of sickness in the female.
A fifth method is founded on the fact that women are most likely to
conceive within two or three days before, and twelve or fourteen days
after the menstruating period. Therefore select the least likely period.
But, as Dr. Knowlton shows by a case in point, it is very unsafe, besides
being at such a time as women least enjoy their husbands’ embraces.
For myself I think every man should prefer the withdrawal, experience
having taught that it is the only certain, and therefore the best method.
If at any time the husband in the passion of the moment, loses his
self control, it is then in the power of the wife to use injections either
with or without alum. And should the husband often forget himself,
the sponge and injections following had better be adopted. But no
strong minded, affectionate, honourable husband would give needless
trouble to his wife. But let not the wife in the freedom which her
husband gives her, seek for too many of his embraces ; temperate
enjoyment and satisfaction of the instinct is all that nature allows.
Remember that less injury results from abstinence than from excess.
It should never be indulged in when either husband or wife is tired ;
never in the morning just before getting up, but always so as to have
several hours sleep after it. If the passion of either husband or wife
is greatly in excess, measures should be taken gently and calmly to
reduce it, such as those I have indicated for voluptuous dreams, wearing
W’et bandages over the parts, sleeping in separate beds, and engaging in
diverting studies. The same course will be found beneficial to the
unmarried who may happen to have strong amative inclinations. And
whether they have or not, no better book can be in their hands than
that by Mr. George Combe, on the “ Constitution of Man.” A careful
study of its pages will enable the reader to avoid many’ of the dangers
of life, and especially aid him or her in the choice of a fit partner in
marriage. Young man, learn well the precepts enjoined by Mr. Combe;
shun a prostitute as you would a beautiful but deadly serpent; marry’
as soon as your circumstances will admit, and then act up to the
guidance you have received. My young lady reader, remember the
old proverb, “Whatever is easily gained is lightly valued.” If your
*
embraces are so cheap as to be had for the asking, do not expect your
lover to pay any higher price. The only price worth your having is
�IT
the legal safety of a marriage certificate, coupled with at least a
moderately comfortable home in which to bring forth and rear such
children as may possibly come in spite of your endeavours to the contrary.
Tiie man who strives for your embraces at a lower cost than this
would make you a slave to his lust. If he cannot for the time of
courtship be content with what I have termed nature’s temporary
substitute for the sexual act, and refrain himself before marriage,
neither will he do it afterwards when it may be absolutely necessary.
On this part of my subject I would specially commend to your attention
the following note from Mr. Combe's book: “He who loves from
amativeness alone is sensual, faithless, negligent of the happiness of
its object. He who combines with love springing from this propensity,
benevolence, veneration, justice, and intellect, will disinterestedly
promote the real happiness of the object of his affection.” From
Mr. Combe learn how to distinguish such a man, and trust him
accordingly.
TUB END
�APPENDIX.
THE CONSTITUTION OF MAN, considered in Relation to
External objects. By George Combe. Price 2s.
Extracts from the preface.—“ The great object of the following Treatise is to
exhibit several of the most important natural laws, and their relations and consequences,
with a view to the improvement of education and the regulation of individual and
national conduct.” “ I have endeavoured to avoid religious controversy. ‘ The object
of Moral Philosophy,’ says Mr. Stewart, ‘is to ascertain the general rules of a wise
and virtuous conduct in life, in so far as these rules may be discovered by the unassisted
light of nature; that is, by an examination of the principles of the human constitution,
and of the circumstances in which man is placed.’ The present Treatise Is a humble
attempt to pursue the same plan. I confine my observations exclusively to Man as he
exists in the present world, and beg that, in perusing the subsequent pages, this
explanation may be constantly kept in view. In conseqence of forgetting it, my
language has occasionally beon misapprehended, and my objects misrepresented.
When I speak of man's highest interest, for example, I uniformly refer to man as be
exists in this world; but as the same God presides over both the temporal and eternal
Interests of the human race, it seems to me demonstrably certain, that what is
conducive to the one, will in no instance impede the other, but will in general be
favourable to it also.”
ELEMENTS OF SOCIAL SCIENCE ; or Physical, Sexual, and
Natural Religion. An Exposition of the True Cause and only
Cure of the Three Primary Social Evils:—Poverty, Prostitution,
and Celibacy. By A Doctor of Medicine. 600 pages, 2s. 6d.,
or in cloth 3s., post free.
“This book is the Bible of the Body. It is the founder of a great moral reform.
It is the pioneer of health, peace, and virtue. It should be a household Lar in every
home. Read it, study it, husbands and wives. Ilad you, had your parents read a
book like this, a diseased, dwarfed, deteriorated race would not now be wasting away
in our country. By reading this wonderful book every young man may preserve hi,
health and his virtue. Some will say the disclosures are exciting or indelicate—not
so; they are true, and the noblest guide to virtue and honour. That book must be
read, that subject must be understood, before the population can be raised from its
present degraded, diseased, unnatural, and immoral state. We really know not
how to speak sufficiently highly of this extraordinary work; we can only say,
conscientiously and emphatically, it is a blessing to the human race."—People's
Paper. By Ernest Jones, Barrister.
“ Though quite out of the province of our journal, we can.' -efrain from stating
that this work is unquestionably the most remarkable one in u._ .* respects we have
ever met with. The anonymous author is a physician, who has ..•ought his special
knowledge to bear on some of the most intricate problems of social life. He lays bare
to the public, and probes with an unsparing hand, the sores of society, caused by
anomalies in the relation of the sexes. Though we differ toto do from the author
in his views of religion and morality, and hold some of his remedies to tend rather
to a dissolution than a reconstruction of society, yet we are bound to admit tlie
benevolence and philanthropy of his motives. The scope of the work is nothing
lees than the whole field of political economy.”—The British Journal of Homoeopathy,
January, i860. (Published Quarterly. Price 5r.)
*
�MORAL PHYSIOLOGY; a Brief and Plain Treatise on the
Population Question, or how to regulate the numbers in a family.
By Robert Dale Owen, author of Footfalls on the Boundary
of another World. A new Edition, with Frontispiece. Price Gcf.
FRUITS OF PHILOSOPHY; or, the Private Companion of Young
Married People. By Dr. Knowlton. Price Gd.
THE LAWS AND CUSTOMS RELATING TO MARRIAGE.
A Paper read before the Dialectical Society. By Richard Harte.
With an Appendix. 94 pages. Price Is.
LOGIC AND UTILITY; the Tests of Truth and Falsehood, and
of Right and Wrong. 134 pages. Price GJ.
ANALYSIS OF THE INFLUENCE OF NATURAL RELIGION
on the Temporal Happiness of Mankind. By Philip Beauchamp
(a pseudonym adopted by G. Grote, the Historian of Greece).
123 pp., D. GJ., in cloth boards, 2s.
THE JESUS CHRIST OF J. S. MILL.
By Antichrist. 90 pp. Is
“ He is Antichrist, that denieth the Father and the Son, and confesseth not that
Jesus Christ is come in the flesh."—John, ii. 22, iv. 2, 3, and John, 7.
VOLTAIRE’S PHILOSOPHICAL TALES, ROMANCES, AND
SATIRES, containing:—Candide; or, the Optimist. Zadig; or, Fate.
The World as it Goes; or, the Vision of Babouc. Mieromegas, a
Comic Romance. The Huron; or, Pupil of Nature. Johnny; or,
the Sage and the Atheist. The Man of Forty Crowns. The
Princess of Babylon. Memnon, the Philosopher. The White Bull.
Plato’s Dream. Bababec. A Conversation with a Chinese. The
Black and the White.
The Ignorant Philosopher.
Indian
Adventure. Lord Chesterfield’s Ears. The Origin of Trades.
Price 2s. GJ., stiff boards, 31G pages, double columns.
NEW RELIGIOUS THOUGHTS. By Douglas Campbeit. Second
Edition, revised. 430 pp., cloth boards. This heretical work was
published by Williams and Norgate at 5s.; E. Truelove having
purchased a large remainder, offers it, neatly bound, for 2$. Gd.
REPORT OF THE PROCEEDINGS OF THE FESTIVAL IN
COMMEMORATION OF THE CENTENARY BIRTHDAY OF
ROBERT OWEN, the Philanthropist, at Freemasons’ Hall, May
16th, 1871; with a full report of the speeches of the Chairman,
W. Pare, Esq., F.S.S.; Lloyd Jones; Mrs. Ernestine Le Rose,
of New York; G. J. Ilolyoake; Henry Jeffrey; Dr. Travis;
Moncure D. Conway; James Watson; and J. B. Langley. LL.D.;
to which is added Robert Owen’s “Outline of the Rational
System of Society.” 40 pp. Gd,
�The Immortality of the Soul Philosophi
cally considered.
Seven Lectures by Robert Cooper.
Price Is.
The Laws and Customs relating to Mar
riage. A Paper read before the “ Dialectical Society.” By
Richard Harte. With an Appendix. 94 pages. Price Is.
Revealed Religion: its Claims on the
Intellect and on the Heart, impartially discussed in a series of
letters from a Father to his Son. By a Wrangler and ex-member
of the University of Cambridge. Price C>d.
False Divinities; or, Moses, Christ, and
Mahomet, and other Religious Deceptions.
logist. Price Is.
By a Foreign Theo-
Voltaire’s Philosophical Dictionary. The
edition in six, reprinted in two thick volumes.
a Memoir. Price 8s.
Two Portraits and
Thomas Paine’s Complete Theological
Works, including “ The Age of Reason.” Miscellaneous and
Poetical Works, Last Will and Testament, and a Portrait of the
Author. Price, in Wrapper, 2s.; Cloth, 3s.; “ Age of Reason,”
with Portrait, Is.
Mirabaud’s System of Nature. Price 2s.;
in Cloth, 2s. 6d.
The Elements of Social Science, or Physi
cal, Sexual, and Natural Religion. An Exposition of the True
Cause and only Cure of the Three Primary Social Evils—Poverty,
Prostitution, and Celibacy. By a Graduate of Medicine, 600
pages, 2s. 6d.; or in Cloth, 3s., post free.
“A very valuable book. This is, we believe, the only book that has fully,
honestly, and in a philosophical spirit recognised all the elements in the problem ;
—IIow are mankind to triumph over poverty, with its train of attendant evils?—
and featlessly endeavoured to find apractical solution.”—The Examiner, Jan., 1873.
An Edition of the “ Elements of Social Science ” may be had in
French, German, and Italian. 3s. each.
Orders to the amount of One Shilling or upwards sent Post Free.
E. TRUELOVE, BOOKSELLER, 256, HIGH HOLBORN, LONDON.
�256, HIGH HOLBORN,
('Nearly opposite Day <fc Martin's, and the Royal Amphitheatre.)
Instituted 1852, for the publication of Freethought in Politics and
Religion, New and Second-hand.
OLTAIRE’S PHILOSOPHICAL DICTIONARY. Reprinted verbatim
V from the Six vol. edition, sold at 50s. The work is embellished with
two Engravings, a Medallion Portrait, and a full length likeness of the cele
brated author, in elegant cloth binding. Two volumes, containing nearly
1,300 pages, price 8s., post free. May be had of all booksellers.
Opinion or the “ Dispatch.”
*
• Voltaire’s Philosophical Dictionary.—This is a translation, in two volumes, of that magnificent
work which must hand the name of Voltaire down to the latest posterity. We have compared it
with the French edition in three volumes, and find that the English version is a most faithful one,
fully preserving the spirit of the original, and in no way abridged. The work is, of course, a very
valuable one, and should have a place on the shelves of all persons who accumulate useful books.
It is printed in a clear, legible type, and in a manner to be easy of reference. The publisher has
done very wisely to compress the entire contents of this encyclopaedia into two volumes of con
venient size, inasmuch as he places an admirable work within the reach of those persons whose
means would not permit them to procure a larger and more expensive edition. It is impossible to
contemplate this ‘Dictionary’ without being struck by the Grandeur and comprehensiveness of
that intellect which, alone and unassisted, could produce a work embracing so many and such varied
subjects. Ingenious theories, exposures of historical or popular fallacies, philosophical essays,
physics, metaphysics, in a word, all branches of learning, science and art, are the topics which
evoked the brilliant wit, or tested the profound wisdom of France’s greatest philosopher. Although
much of the philosophy of that school to which Voltaire belonged has been since exploded;
although many of his theories have been displaced by others which have been supported by
arguments or proved by experiments of which he never dreamt; although, in fine, much ot his
reasoning on physics is now pointless, yet on the whole, and taken as a whole, the * Philosophical
Dictionary ’ is most valuable and most useful, not only as the recordof a great man’s opinions, but
also in those very many departments where his comments and observations do really apply to tho
affairs or circumstances of the present day. We are glad to find that an English publisher has
dared to do justice to a man who is much calumniated by our English saints and hypocrites, and
we cordially recommend this edition of the ‘ Philosophical Dictionary ’ to our readers.”
Paine’s Theological Works; including the “Age of Reason” and all
his miscellaneous pieces and poetical works ; his last will and tes
tament, and a Steel Portrait. To prevent disappointment, ask
for Truelove’s Edition. In Wrappers, 2s. Cloth Boards...........
The Age of Reason; complete, including ;.n essay on his Life and
Genius, with Portrait .................................................................................
A Large Portrait of Paine, 12 inches by 9. Sharp’s Line Engraving
from Romney. Post free.............................................................................
3
0
1
0
1
0
“ It is a very superior engraving, and the best likeness of the great politician extant.—Reasoner.
Paine’s Common Sense ......................................................................................
Paine’s Rights of Man. A reply to Burke on the French Revolution
Political Wives ; a satire, by a Fantastical Fellow. An argument for
Woman’s enfranchisement. Just published .....................................
0
1
3
0
0
4
John Stuart Mill on Liberty.................
-------------------------- On Representative Government ..........................
--------- :--------------- Principles of Political Economy...............
On the Subjection of Women .....................................
----------- -------------- On England and Ireland ................................................
Renan-’s Life of Jesus. Unabridged ......................................................
Renan on the Apostles. Just published ................................
Mirabaud’s System of Nature, 2s.; or in cloth boards........................
Valse Divinities: or Moses, Christ, and Mahomet. 84 p-'p., 8 vo
1 4
2 0
5... 0
5 0
2 0
1.... 6
7 6
2 6
1 0
�JUST PUBLISHED, Price 2s. 6d.,
A GERMAN translation of the elements of social science,
*
..
ENTITLED
DIE GllUNDZUGE DEE GESELLSCHAFTSWISSENSCIIAFT;
Oder, Physisclie, Gesclilcctliche und Natiirliehe Religion. By a
Doctor of Medicine. London: E. Truelove, 256, High Holborn.
Berlin : Elwin Staude, 23, Schumannstrasse.
OPINIONS OF THE PRESS.
“ The motto of the work: ‘ The diseases of society can, no more than corporeal
maladies, be prevented or cured, without being spoken about in plain language,’
(John Stuart Mill) and its dedication to the poor and the suffering are sufficient to
show the tendency of the author. He uses indeed, a directness of expression, an out
spokenness, which is seldom met with in our times, and will probably in most circles
of so-called refined society bo styled very shocking if not cynical, though in reality it
is not so. The author only calls by their names things which we medical men also
have to discuss openly among ourselves md with patients, but which are treated
by polite society according to the Parisian proverb, ‘ ca se fait, mais ca ne se dit
pas.’ The author, as appears from the title and from his professional knowledge,
is a medical practitioner. He merits therefore the attention of his colleagues, the
more so because, io the first place, they would scarcely guess from the title that this
is a book for medical men—and secondl', because his medical colleagues alone
possess the education which permits them to estimate without prejudice the aims
and efforts of the author, to try the truth of the facts which he lays down as pre
mises, and, after due consideration, cither to accept, or reject, or to limit, and amend
his conclusions and proposals. . . The author’s remarks on the social question s
in general, are among the best and most deeply-felt we have ever read.”
Medizinische Jalirbilcher,
Bd. 152, Hft. 1.
" One must first accustom himself to the openness with which the author treats
his themes ; but the work is unquestionably most instructive and interesting, and
is written with great knowledge of the subject.”
u
Hessischc Morgenzeitung.
Dec. 24th 1871.
“ No one, who has turned his thoughts to the solution of the most burning of all
questions of the day, the social question, and who wishes to devote to it his mental
and practical energies, will be able to leave unread this book, whose anonymous
author, basing himself on the Malthusian essay ‘ on the Principle of Population,’
deduces from it with keen logic a peculiar and most striking theory on the cure of
the three primary social evils—poverty, prostitution, and celibacy . . . Whatever maybe said against this fearless laying bare of the most intimate relations of
social life and against his whole theory, purely and undisguisedly materialistic as
it is—even the opponent of the daring socialist will be unable to deny him the merit
of scientific closeness of reasoning, and what is quite as important, of warm and
zealous philanthropy; he will rather honour the moral courage and mental
energy which the author must have had to work his way out of the bewildering
maze of hitherto unsolved problems and conflicts, to a conviction so logically con
sistent, so luminous, and yet so opposed to established institutions and to the moral
sentiments in which men have been brought up.”
Konigsberge Hartungsche Zeitung. Dec. 4th 1S71.
“Many of the author’s views are diametrically opposed to our own, but we cannot
refrain from describing the book as in very truth an epoch-making one, whose
perusal must interest in the highest degree, both the professional man and the
educated general reader. The questions treated by the author are infinitely import
ant and pressing, and the purest benevolence breathes in every line . . . No
thing is gained by a prudish avoidance of the subjects treated in the work ; they
must be discussed, and mankind might congratulate themselves if this were always
done in so candid and disinterested a manner as by the author of ‘ The Elements of
Social Science.’ ”
Hanoversche Anzeigen und Morgenzeitung,
Nov. 14tli 1871.
“ The work embraces the whole field of political economy, and any one who has
ever reflected on these subjects, nay, who has only gone out on the market of life
with open eyes, must admit that humanimisery exists to an immense extent, and that
the contrasts are so frightful and abrupt, that there must come a levelling or an
overthrow. The proposals of the author, who seems as well versed in the pathology
of the human body as in that of society generally—for the prevention of the evil,
are often in direct opposition to our own views of morality; but we must acknow
ledge that the most dangerous paths are indicated with pure intent, the most daring
proposals made in a benevolent spirit. . . . We confess that, in our opinion
too, the courage to give open instruction on the innermost questions is a require
ment of the time, for here it is not knowledge, but error, which is death."
Schlcsische Zeitung.
Dec. ~th 1871.
�A DISCOVERY
OF TUF.
ORIGIN, EVIDENCES, AND EARLY HISTORY
OF
OvtWamiiL
NEVER YET BEFORE OR ELSEWHERE SO FULLY AND
FAITHFULLY SET FORTH.
ev
THE Rev. R. TAYLOR, A.B. & M.R.C.S.
QiXurftav St rw p.iu xxrx (frvinv, u Sx/riXtv, tvcuvi xcu xtrrx^ou- rnv St
SioxXuruu iixtTMVTXv raeatrou.—■ Euphrates Ehilosopfi ad Vespasian. imp
qiK'd Apollonii Tvan<g Mi: acuta: citante Lardnera, Vol. IV'. p, 261.
THIRD EDITION.
LONDON?
PUBLISHED BY E. TRUELOVE,
�Price Fourpence.
THE
IGNORANT PHILOSOPHER,
LORD CHESTERFIELD’S EARS,
A TRUE STORY,
AND
OTHER HUMOUROUS
PIECES,
TRANSLATED FROM THE FRFNJH
OF
M. DE VOLTAIRE,
LONDON:
E.
TRUELOVE,
256,
HIGH
HOLBORN,
W.C.
�
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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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Individual, family and national poverty : reasons why in every family the number should be regulated; the methods that have been proposed, extensively adopted, and found to answer for doing it; together with a few valuable hints for the young
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Palmer, John Henry
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 17, [4] p. ; 19 cm.
Notes: Part of the NSS pamphlet collection. Publisher's advertisements on unnumbered pages at the end.
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E. Truelove
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1875
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N529
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Birth control
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English
Birth Control
NSS
Population Increase
Poverty-Great Britain
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>5
REFORMERS' LIBRARY, 256, HIGH HOLBORN.
(Nearly opposite Day & Martin's, and the Royal Amphitheatre. J
Instituted 1852, for the publication of Freethought in Politics and
Religion, New and Second-hand.
OLTAIRE’S PHILOSOPHICAL DICTIONARY. Reprinted verbatim
from the Six vol. edition, sold at 50s. The work is embellished with
two Engravings, a Medallion Portrait, and a full length likeness of the cele
brated author, in elegant cloth binding. Two volumes, containing nearly
1,300 pages, price 8s., post free. May be had of all booksellers.
V
Opinion op
thb
“ Dispatch.”
•• Voltaire’s Philosophical Dictionary.—This is a translation, in two volumes, of that magnificent
work which must hand the name of Voltaire down to the latest posterity. We have compared it
with the French edition in three volumes, and find that the English version is a most iaithiuJ one,
fully preserving the spirit of the original, and in no way abridged. The work is, of course, a very
valuable one, and should have a place on the shelves of all persons who accumulate useful books.
It is printed in a clear, legible type, and in a manner to be easy of reference. The publisher has
done very wisely to compress the entire contents of this encyclopaedia into two volumes oi con
venient size, inasmuch as he places an admirable work within the reach of those persons whose
means would not permit them to procure a larger and more expensive edition. It is impossible to
contemplate this ‘ Dictionary ’ without being struck by the Grandeur and comprehensiveness of
that intellect which, alone and unassisted, could produce a work embracing so many and such varied
subjects. Ingenious theories, exposures of historical or popular fallacies, philosophical essays,
physics, metaphysics, in a word, all branches of learning, science and art, are the topics which
evoked the brilliant wit, or tested the profound wisdom of France’s greatest philosopher. Although
much of the philosophy of that school to which Voltaire belonged has been since exploded;
although many of his theories have been displaced by others which have been supported by
fi.rgnmp.Dt-8 or proved by experiments of which he never dreamt; although, in fine, much of his
reasoning on physics is now pointless, yet on the whole, and taken as a whole, the * Philosophical
Dictionary ’ is most valuable and most useful, not only as the record of a great man s opinions, but
also in those very many departments where his comments and observations do really apply to the
affairs or uiruuiusuajiues 01 viie piesviiu
auaira or circumstances of the present day. We <uu glad to find that an English publisher has
u are
“TV £------ - dared to do justice to a man who is much calumniated by our English saints and hypocrites, and
T >1
.1 11 .• -J-X.’
_X» the * Philosophical Di
I Dictionary to nilT- VOQ fl Qra _
we cordially" recommend this edition of 1-1 ( null
our readers.
Paine’s Theological Works; including the “Age of Reason ” and all
his miscellaneous pieces and poetical works ; his last will and tes
tament, and a Steel Portrait. To prevent disappointment, ask
for Truelove’s Edition. In Wrappers, 2s. Cloth Boards.......... 3 0
The Age of Reason; complete, including <ji essay on his Life and
Genius, with Portrait ........................................... . ................. • • 1 ®
A Large Portrait of Paine, 12 inches by 9. Sharp’s Line Engraving
from Romney. Post free............................................................... 1
It is a very superior engraving, and the best likeness of the great politician extant.—-Reasoner,
Paine’s Commo" Sense .................................. • •• •............................ 0 3
Patne’s Rights of Man, with full Report of his Trial in 1792 ............... 1 0
Political Wives ; a satire, by a Fantastical Fellow. An argument for
Woman’s enfranchisement. Just published .............................. 0 4
John Stuart Mill on Liberty...........................................................
--------------------- On Representative Government ...........................
______________ Principles of Political Economy.............................
On the Subjection of Women ..............................
--------------------- On England and Ireland ......................................
Renan’s Life of Jesus. Unabridged ................................................
Renan on the Apostles. Just published .........................................
Mirabato’s System of Nature, 2s.; or in cloth boards...................
Valse Divinities: or Moses, Christ, aad Mahomet. 84 p.p., 8 vo....... .
Cft- Wt'V
1
4
5
5
0
0
0
6
6
6
2 0
2
1
7
2
1 0
�Now ready, price 2s. 6d., cloth boards, 316 pp., with Portrait '
he philosophical tales, romances, and satires of Vol
taire, containing :—Candide ; or, the Optimist. Zadig ; or, Fate. The World
T
as it Goes ; or, the Vision of Babouc. Micromegas, a Comic Romance. The Huron ;
or, Pupil of Nature. Johnny; or, the Sage and the Atheist. The Man of Forty
Crowns. The Princess of Babylon. Memnon, the Philosopher. The White Bull,
Plato’s Dream. Bababec. A Convention with a Chinese. The Black and the
White. The Ignorant Philosopher. iLidian Adventure. Lord Chesterfield’s Ears.
The Origin of Trades. These writings of the witty author have not been obtainable
in English for many years. The work is now stereotyped, and will always be in
print; and should any difficulty occur through so-called “respectable” booksellers
refusing to procure it, immediate application should be made to the Publisher,
E. Truelove, enclosing P. O. Order for 2s. 6d., payable at High Holborn.
From the “ Westminster Review.”
u Many of his philosophical sayings and dogmas, which were received in his own
day with reverent admiration, or with shouts of denunciation, are universally recog
nized now as the mere commoa places of truth, or as paradoxes whose extravagance
needs no refutation. But the satirical wit which he brought to the exposure of some
actual grievance or genuine folly remains immortal—keen and fresh as ever, although
the grievance and the folly have long passed away. One popular idea of Voltaire
is that of a mere scoffer at sacred things, a ribald reviler of the best human senti
ments. Another common notion of him is that of a cold sceptic, who subjected
everything to the test of a narrow reasoning process ; a man who cared nothing
personally either for good or evil ; who was all brain and no heart. If these romances
fairly reflect the real nature of Voltaire, they exhibit the character of a warm-hearted,
sensitive, undiscriminating man, who sickened over human suffering and human
persecution, and who employed, with an almost reckless prodigality, against the
enemies he hated most, the instinctive weapon of wit which served him best.
“ What shortens the average lives of Frenchmen ; what makes men poor, and keeps
them so ; what embitters domestic life ; what renders children blessings instead of
curses ; what stifles freethought; what turns philosophy to a sham ; these were the
questions with which his sympathies tormented Voltaire. He thought that the state
of society around him gave answers to many of them, which he determined to
interpret into intelligible language. These satirical Romances are valuable because
they contain Voltaire’s explanations of the condition of France in his day. War,
religion, hypocrisy, religious intolerance, court domination and court intrigue, super
ficial or quack philosophy, idlers, soldiers, and priests—these Voltaire looked upon
as the national evils of France ; therefore his romances are simply satires directed
unchangingly and perseveringly against all these enemies.
“Voltaire was particularly angry with some of those who invented consolation for
men’s misery. He flamed up especially against those who endeavoured to satisfy
unquiet minds with the shallow quibbles which passed for optimism, and whose whole
secret consisted in calling a disagreeable thing by a fine name.
“ The purpose which animates every one of the tales, and the wit which gives force
and brightness to every one of them, are the characteristics for which they merit to
be immortal. No cold sceptic, working with unimpassioned heart and bitter tongue,
is discernible to the reader who gives them an impartial study, but a sensitive and
impulsive man, whose earnest nature lent fire to his matchless wit. That weapon of
wit which in these satires \oltaire wielded honestly for the sake of his fellow men,
was surely tLe very keenest of its kind ever employed in such a cause. Some of
these romances preserve its finest achievements. Voltaire’s wit is not like Molibre’s,
for it never exuberates ; or Pascal’s, for it never acknowledges earnestness ; or Le
Sage’s, for it is never sprightly and careless ; or Goldsmith’s, for it is never childlike ;
or Swift s, for it is never savage ; or Sydney Smith’s, for it never plays upon words •
or Douglas Jerrold’s, for
never outwardly exhibits bitterness. . . . But Vol
taire’s wit is of a kind which owes nothing of its preservation to its subject. On ths
contrary, there could be no topic so ephemeral and trifling which, encased in the
umber of that incomparable satire, would not remain pi eserved for ever.”
EDWARD TRUELOVE, 256, HIGH HOLBORN.
�THE PROPHET OF NAZARETH;
OR,
A
CRITICAL INQUIRY INTO’ THE PROPHETICAL,
INTELLECTUAL, AND- MORAL CHARACTER OF
JESUS CHBIST,
AS EXEMPLIFIED IN HIS PREDICTIONS, HIS PRECEPTS, HIS ACTIONS, HIS DISCOURSES
AND HIS SOCIAL INTERCOURSE,
By EVAN POWELL MEREDITH,. F.A.S.L.
Demy 8vo.,. Cloth, Lettered, Reduced to 7s, 6d.
PUBLISHED BY E.
TRUELOVE, 256,. HIGH, HOLBORN.
NOTICES OF THE PRESS;
“This is a ‘Prize Essay,’ but unlike the majority of prize essays, it shows real
power and independent strength. But as the preface hints, the offering of a prize fbr
such a work only suggested to the author the writing of this book as an utterance ‘ on
theological matters,’ after having been silent for thirteen years, since his ‘quiet with
drawal from Christianity.’ As a Christian minister, he tells us he has well studied the
beliefs of Christendom and the grounds of them ; and now be assures us- he has ‘ almost
daily pursued his researches after the real origin of the Christian religion.’ The result
of his inquiries, on both sides, are here in the massive volume before us. Ostensibly
the work is an examination of the evidences for and against the prophecies of Christ,
especially those prophecies which relate to the supposed drawing nigh of the end of th'?
world ; but in reality, it is an elaborate review of the life, character, and teachings of
Christ. With regard to the prophecies relating to the end of the world, the arguments
on both sides are really well stated, with great fidelity and equal fulness. '1 he con
clusion he arrives at is that Christ predicted the end of the world and the day oi
judgment as events then just at hand, and that, in consequence, we ought to rigarffl
Christ as ‘neither a deity nor in supernatural communication with the deity.’
“Mr. Meredith is a shrewd, clear, and incisive writer, and says the sharpest and
most outright things possible on the subject in hand. He is evidently a man of con
siderable reading and great industry ; and, if only for the sake of his frequent notes,
which ane full of information, and particularly rich in quotation and illustration, hi
book deserves attention.
“The Christian reviewer here proceeds, at great length, to defend the character of
Jesus from the charges brought agaiust him by the author, and concludes his critique
by stating that he finds that ‘’the last chapter, which is a refutation of the doctrines
‘‘taught by modern divines ” contains passages of real power, and not a few of
great beauty and eloquence,’ and that ‘ the writer is quite capable of giving us some
thing that may live.’’’--The 1Iev. John Base Hopps, in the Trut/isccker.,
�E. TRUELOVE,
256, ITIGH HOLBORN.
The Prophet of Nazareth—Notices of the Press—continued.
“It is a very serious practical question—what ought to be the result, and what
must be the result, to the clergy, if the conclusions reached by some modern enquirers
touching the unhistorical character of a great part of the New Testament should prove
irrefutable. We refer to such works as Mr. Scott’s just completed English Life of
Jesus, and to the elaborate and comprehensive work, ‘The Prophet of Narazeth,’ by
E. P. Meredith. This last work would have been more popular, and would have
attracted more observation, if it had not been so voluminous. The book is one of
vast research and compass ; of great ability, earnestness, learning, and impartiality.
It is a hard study to master all its varied contents ; and the best and ablest among
the clergy might think it no disparagement to enter the lists with this formidable
Goliah. High priced as the work is, it is cheap in proportion to the amount and
variety of the contents.”—A. F. M. of the English Leader, in an able article—
41 Results of Biblical Criticism.”—Sept. 21st, 1867.
“Never did I feel more covetous of Dr. Johnson’s gift of tearing out the heart
of a book, than on sitting down to review the elaborate work now lying before me.
To the critics described by Theodore Hook, who confine themselves to cutting a page
or two, and then smelling the paper-knife, as a substitute for reading the book, ‘ The
Prophet ’ seems to say :—
‘ Proeul 0 I procul esto profani
Conclamat vates, totoque absistite luco.9
Nor is it wonderful that it has become an established principle with critics to lose
sffiht of the book they are professedly reviewing, and to launch out into matters and
things in general. Having conscientiously read The ‘ Prophet,’ I shall endeavour to
convey to the reader some idea of the work, and my own views thereon. In the
first place, I must express my astonishment, and, to say the truth my disappoint
ment, that this book—a Prize Essay, of closely printed demy 8vo. of 650 pages, price
12s. 6d. (which was published in 1864, and has already reached its second thousand) —
has called forth no orthodox expression of opinion from Lord Shaftesbury. Possibly
his Lordship finds it difficult to improve on his allocution respecting ‘ Ecce Homo ;
for if that book be ‘the worse book ever vomitted forth from the jaws of hell,’ (see
TV. A. Oct. 13th. 1867) what words in the orthodox vocabulary are sufficiently sul
phurous to define ‘The Prophet’? Mr. Francklin’s expressions—‘horrible and
blasphemous production,’ ‘pestilent doctrines,’ &c., are tame and feeble, when com
pared with the truly diabolical imagery of Lord Shaftesbury. It is frightful to think
what fearful figures of rhetoric may be fulminated against Mr. Meredith’s book. It
has been my pleasure and my pride to review this writer hitherto in the character of
a literary tirailleur, an unerring marksman, stalking a bishop, or firing a heavy charge
of swan shot into the retreating Lincolnshire Vicar, who, after commencing the fray
took the earliest opportunity of showing his back to the enemy. Mr. Meredith now
appears in a far grander capacity, as captain of a magnificent iron-clad man-of-war,
which w'ith true .British pluck, he steers right into the midst of the theological
squadron, laying his vessel alongside of the largest ships, and challenging a heavy
fire from all quarters. And tlie theological squadron seem in no haste to return the
raking broadside which he pours in. They appear inclined to sheer off and give
him a wide berth. They seem to argue—logically enough—if the rattle of bis
musketry has put to flight a bishop and a vicar, what will become of us when he
opens fire from bis heavy guns I And so, the word is passed to the orthodox captains
—(id esl, the editors of the religious papers)—‘Do not return the fire of that strange
vessel. Belay there my hearties;’ the powder monkeys (printer’s devils) are all ready
to hand up ammunition, and curses, not loud, but deep, are muttered on ‘the
Infidel.’ But the honible theological earnage is delayed, and ink, shed for a timev
ceases to flow. The smoke from Mr. Meredith’s guns clears away, and, as the
parsons behold the black hull and muzzles of the guns protruding from the open
port-holes, most devoutly do they hope that it will all end in smoke. Truly, it may
�E. TRUELOVE, 256, HIGH HOLBORN.
The Prophet of Nazareth—Notices of the Press—coirtmwed.
be said, ‘ the boldest hold their breath for a time.’ The pause is ominous, but it can
not last. The conflict between priestism and what priests call infidelity must go
on, and the theological policy of a ‘masterly inaction’ will be found as futile as it is
inglorious. To drop metaphor : the orthodox papers, the Guardian, Record, John
Bull, Christian World, et id genus omne, pursue the worldly-wise policy of ignoring
this book, which is a magnificent addition to the literature of Freethought, and a
poweiful effort to substitute terra firm in lieu of the pestiferous bogs of
superstition, and theological sloughs of despond. I have the more pleasure
in stating this, as it is not my intention to plaster the volume or its author
with unqualified praise ; but all candid persons, oithodvx or heterodox, will
admit that there cannot be two opinions as to the erudition, the patient
industry, and the great moral courage manifested by Mr. Meredith. The writer of
this elaborate work manifests great scholarship and great patience ; and Buffon has
said, ‘ Le Genie, c’est la Patience.' The judicial spirit of impartiality is also strikingly
manifested in the arguments for and against the orthodox view of the character of
Jesus. ‘The prefixed advertisement will show the conditions under which the work
was written, and will explain the cause that considerable portions of it are written
on the Christian side of the argument. The portions of the work devoted exclusively
to the advocacy of Christianity are from page 9 to 5), and from 245 to 253. Should
any Chiistian reader be so conscious of the weakness of his faith as to desire to know
only what can be said in favour of his religion, he is recommended to confine himself
exclusively to the perusal of these pages, and, when he has read them, to shut the
book, lest his prejudice be irritated, or his mind roused to critical inquiry.’ On first
reading the above, I was irresistibly reminded of the polished irony of Gibbon, as
displayed particularly in the 15th and 16th chapters of his immortal work. Indeed,
there is a good deal, both in the literary style and in the position of this brave
Meredith attacking superstition from his philosophic retreat in Monmouth, which
recalls those noble lines of Byron, where, after depicting the philosopher of Ferney,
he refers to the philosopher of Lausanne.............................. But on reading the
portions referred to, it will be found that our author has fully borne out this
statement in his preface. ‘ These portions which are strictly orthodox are enforced
with every possible fidelity and strength of reasoning that the writer could command
when he was a sincere believer in the truth of the Chiistian religion,’ &c. On
reading Mr. Baillie’s advertisement, the reader will see that the Prize Essay is
not a desultory discussion of Christianity, but a most pertinent and important
inquiry as to whether certain definite prophecies attributed to Jesus have or have
not been fulfilled. ‘Did Jesus Christ piedict the Last Day of Judgment and
Destruction of the World as events inevitable during the then existent generation of
men ?’ If this question can be answered in the affirmative, then the non-fulfilment
of such a clear and distinct prophecy effectually disposes of the divinity of Jesus.
‘For although to utter true prophecies is no proof that the Drophet is a deity, or
that he has any preternatural communication with deity, r'etto utter false prophecies
is, in the very nature of things, a positive proof that the prophet is not a deity, and
is not in any manner supernaturally influenced by the Supreme Being.’”—AuTONOMOS,
in the National Reformer of July 12th, 1868.
“ Germany has produced its celebrated ‘ Leben Jesu ’ by Strauss, and France its
‘ Vie de Jesus,’ by Renan ; but England has never until now produced any
distinguished or remarkable life of Christ. This has just been accomplished
by Mr. Evan Powell Meredith, whose elaborate work has the English characteristics
of solidity, thorough exhaustiveness, and great clearness of statement. The author
was educated for the Christian ministry ; but he subsequently, to use his own
explicit and courageous words, ‘ quietly withdrew from Christianity, whose
doctrines, after considerable examination and research, he had ceased to believe,
and therefore could no longer conscientiously preach.’ After being for thirteen
�E. TRUELOVE, 256, HIGH HOLBORN.
The Prophet of Nazareth—Notices of the Press—continued.
years from his secedure silent on theological matters, the offer of the Baillie Prizs
induced him to enter upon the oomposition of this volume, to which he has devoted
the labours of seven years. There are numerous authorities quoted in the work.
Mr. Meredith, acting upon the genuine intuition of literature, enters upon the
examination of his subject with the resources of a scholar, the spirit of a gentleman,
■and the courage of a critic, who knows that the purpose of criticism is the discovery
and estiinate of the truth, and that the duty of a critic is to express an honest,
uncompromising, and disciiminating opinion. The result is a very remarkable and
valuable book of 652 demy 8vo. pages, solid, of more than ordinary width and
length. The Christian reader will find in this volume more information than all the
Crndens, and Kings, and Kittos, and commentators have ever supplied touching the
true characteristics of these most interesting subjects—the predictions, precepts,
actions, discourses, and social intercourse of Jesus Christ; and that stateil in
language which is considerate without weakness, and bold without offence. As
perfect for reference as for leading, the ‘Prophet of Nazaieth’ is accompanied with
a most copious and complete index.”—The Reasoner.
“Believing that the Christian religion is like a goodly vineyard overgrown with
thistlesand weeds, the author sets himself resolutely to the task of destroying the
crowded undergrowth ; and he handles his spade and his scarifier with much skill
and noticeable pluck. . . . Now, whatever may be the merits of the modern
German critics, Bishop Colenso, the Essayists and Reviewers, and the other black
sheep of the Church, there can be no mistake respecting the plainness of Mr.
Meredith’s language or the boldness of his speculations...................................Those
who wish to continue the subject may purchase the volume for themselves. They
will find Mr. Meredith always in earnest, and always gentlemanly in tone.’’—The
Newcastle Daily Chronicle.
“ After reading this volume no one should be unacquainted with the real character
of Christ, and with the nature and tendency of his teachings. We never remember
reading a book with Uss pretension, and at the same time being more exhaustive.
The Christian’s view is fairly stated, and the Freethinker’s position is so well
defended that it forms a complete library ; and all other books on the two-fold
question here discussed may be featlessly dispensed with. As we hope to refer on
more than one occasion to ‘ The Prophet of Nazareth,’ we shall now content ourselves
with quoting,” &c.—The National Reformer.
“ Mr. Meredith appears to have withdrawn quietly from Christianity some years
ago, but to have employed himself with inquiries into its origin ; and in the present
work we have the result, distributed into arguments for and against the divine nature
of its Founder, the reality and accomplishment of his prophecies concerning the
destruction of Jerusalem, the end of the world, and his own resurrection, the
excellence or defects of his teaching, and the probable sources of his precepts.
Mr. Meredith has endeavoured not'to wound unnecessarily the feelings of believers.”
—The Westminster Review.
AMPHILOGIA; or, Correspondence on the Teaching of Jesus, between
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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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[Catalogue of publications]
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Place of publication: London
Collation: [6], 4 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: Date of publication added in pencil on front page by unknown hand. At head of front page: Reformers' Library, 256 High Holborn. Includes reviews of Evan Powell Meredith's work 'The Prophet of Nazareth ... Social Intercourse'. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
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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 ([Catalogue of publications]), 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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Free Thought-Bibliography
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