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Victorian Blogging
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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The Life of Richard Cobden
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Whitehurst, Edward Capel [1838-1923]
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Place of publication: [London]
Collation: p. 98-136 ; 22 cm.
Notes: Review by John Morley of "The Life of Richard Cobden" by John Morley published London: Chapman & Hall, 1881. Includes bibliographical references. From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. From Westminster Review 61 (January 1882).
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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 Life of Richard Cobden), 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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Book Reviews
Conway Tracts
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THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES.
BY
T. L. STRANGE.
PUBLISHED BY THOMAS SCOTT,
NO.
11,
THE TERRACE,
FARQUHAR ROAD,
UPPER NORWOOD, LONDON, S.E.
Price Sixpence.
�j-
h
i
I
�THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES.
N my article for this series on. “ The Portraiture ana
Mission of Jesus ” I dealt with Prebendary Row’s
book, issued at the instance of the Christian Evidence
Society, and designed to be a reply to the first portion
of the anonymous publication entitled, “ Supernatural
Religion,” which treats of the asserted Christian
miracles. I now take up the work of the Rev. W.
Sanday, also put forth in behalf of the said Society,
and offered to meet the latter portion of “ Supernatural
Religion,” which discusses the integrity of the received
gospels so far as this depends upon the supports of the
•early Christian writers.
The author of “ Supernatural Religion ” does not
advance beyond the school Fof German critics, who
make concessions in respect of the early history of
Christianity which I, for one, am not prepared to
subscribe to ; but he has done the cause of free thought
the inestimable service of putting forth his views in so
masterly and comprehensive a form as to have engaged
public attention, and thus has forced the advocates of
Christianity to leave their shelter of silence and come
forward to answer, as best they can, the representations
of an enlightened and modern adversary. Mr Sanday’s
volume is thus to be hailed by us with satisfaction,
and it occupies even a more important sphere con
nected with current pending questions, than does that
of Prebendary Row, which we have already welcomed.
Mr Sanday allows, as all must do, that there is ££ a
manifest gap between the reality and the story of”
I
�6
The Christian Evidences.
Christianity (8).* The matter to be solved, as nearly
as we can, is the extent of this gap. He also raises
the question “ What is Revelation ” ? but only to show
that this is still an unsettled term (9, 10). We have
consequently to follow him in a bare line of critical
examination, to ascertain, as far as we possibly may
at this date, of what value the Christian statements can
be held to be in the light of history, the acceptability
of Christianity turning mainly on this issue.
And here I am prepared to admit, what is not the
line taken by the author of “ Supernatural Religion,”
or the generality of adverse critics, that where any
early Christian writer may show a knowledge of the
facts and doctrines belonging to Christianity, that
circumstance serves to fill up the “gap” respecting
which our investigation is to be maintained, even when
it is not exactly apparent that such writer is making
use of the canonical scriptures. But it is obvious that
to be of value for the purpose in view, it is absolutely
necessary that the era of such writer should be satis
factorily ascertained. And just in respect of this
vital question, Mr Sanday leaves us without materials,
saving the martialling of sundry names current in
critical circles of those who can only be said to have
made guesses on this subject; whereby it becomes
apparent that tangible facts, on which we may be
permitted to exercise judgment for ourselves on these
points, cannot be readily put before us. He says, “ To
go at all thoroughly into all the questions that may
be raised as to the date and character of the Christian
writings, in the early part of the second century, would
need a series of somewhat elaborate monographs, and,
important as it is that the data should be fixed with
the utmost precision, the scaffolding thus raised would,
in a work like the present, be out of proportion to the
superstructure erected upon it. These are matters that
* Here, and elsewhere, when figures are thus introduced, they
refer to pages in Mr Sanday’s work.
�The Christian Evidences.
must be decided by the authority of those who have
made the provinces to which they belong a subject of
special study : all we can do will be to test the value
of the several authorities in passing ” (58).
Thus on two very serious considerations involved in
the discussion of Christianity, we are left by this
advocate, when meeting a formidable adversary, un
aided by information ; namely as to the precise times
of the earliest writers who show a knowledge of
Christianity, and the value of the accepted scriptures,
whenever it was that we got them, as being based
upon that divine authority which is currently alleged
for them.
Mr Sanday sets out with an appeal to certain of the
Pauline epistles as the “undoubted writings of St
Paul,” here making use of the unguarded and un
warrantable admission by the German critics of four of
these epistles, and from this source he naturally holds
that there is early “historical attestation” for the
Christian miracles, and especially for the great miracle
of the Resurrection, in respect of which “ external
evidence, in the legal sense,” he observes with satisfac
tion, that “ it is probably the best that can be produced,
and it has been entirely untouched so far” (11, 12).
But if it can be shown that there is no evidence for
the existence of Christianity during the first century,
or for far on in the second; that there has been no
such age as the asserted apostolic age; and that these
Pauline epistles have the characteristics of forgeries,
put together at some unknown times, by Gentile hands,
this source of support disappears, and we have to look
elsewhere for the first traces of Christianity.*
Before occupying ourselves with those who are com
monly considered to be the earliest Christian writers,
* See The. Twelve Apostles ; Our First Century ; Primitive Church
History; The Pauline Epistles; The Portraiture and Mission of
Jesus, all in this series; and The Sources and Development of
Christianity (Triibner & Co.).
�8
The Christian Evidences.
it will be well to examine the pretensions of those on
whom dependence is placed for the existence and
times of the supposed primitive writers.
The first who claims attention is necessarily the
ecclesiastical historian Eusebius. In his day, it is
apparent, Christianity was an established circumstance,
and our task, consequently, is to endeavour to discern
its earliest traces in the period anterior to him. Writ
ing about the year a.d. 315, Eusebius admits that in
prosecuting his investigations, he was “ the first ” who
had engaged in such an attempt, and that he had
entered upon his researches on “ a kind of trackless
and unbeaten path,” “ totally unable to find even the
bare vestiges of those who may have travelled the way
before him,” unless “ in certain partial narratives,” and
with a dubious light to guide him as that of “ torches
at a distance.” The result is, with these imperfect
means, he presents us with a volume, purporting to be
an exhibition of multitudinous facts, but at the same
time shows himself to be one not qualified to act as a
pioneer whom we may safely follow in the difficult
field before him.
The age he had to deal with, was one abounding in
literary forgeries, especially on the part of Christian
writers, who justified themselves, by supposing that
the importance of the cause they sought to promote,
warranted the means they took to advance it. Euse
bius has vouched for, and given currency to, such
forgeries, not having detected them; he was personally
credulous ; and he has been guilty of historical incon
sistencies and uncritical representations.* Dr Donald
son says of him, “ Like all the rest of his age, he was
utterly uncritical in his estimate of evidence, and
where he, as it were, translates the language of others
into his own, not giving their words but his own idea
of their meaning, he is almost invariably wrong.
Every statement therefore which he makes himself, is
* The Sources and Development of Christianity, pp. 2-16.
�The Christian Evidences.
9
to be received with caution”; and yet the learned
doctor, in endeavouring to place Christianity on an
historical basis, has to add, il my first, my best, and
almost my only authority is Eusebius. ... All
subsequent writers have simply repeated his statements,
sometimes indeed misrepresenting them, Eusebius
therefore stands as my first and almost only authority
(“ Hist, of Christ. Lit.” I. 13, 14). For whatever relates
to the first two centuries of the alleged Christian era,
in respect of its facts and dates, we have to look to this
writer, and no impartial mind can rest satisfied with
the statements of one circumstanced as he was, and
shown to be what he is, unless these may be found
reasonably supported with such corroborative materials
as should naturally belong to them.
The next name of importance to the Christian cause
is that of Irenaeus, an authority constantly cited by
Eusebius, and to whom is traceable the first notice we
have that the received gospels are four in number. In
treating of this supposed person, I am under d.eep
obligations to an article in this series entitled “ Primi
tive Church History,” and a forthcoming one by the
same learned writer on “ Irenaeus,” which I have been
privileged to see in the manuscript.
Beyond being frequently cited by Eusebius, Irenaeus
is mentioned by Tertullian, but no others of the
alleged early writers, not even Hippolytus who
is said to have been his pupil, show any knowledge of
him. There is a treatise “ Against Heresies ” bearing
his name of which some fragments in the original
Greek remain, and a version in barbarous Latin.
There is no certainty as to the date of his birth ; he is
said by some to have been of Greece, by others of
Smyrna or elsewhere in Asia Minor; Mr Sanday
speaks of “his well-known visit to Home in 178 a.d.”
(199), not however citing his authority, who is probably
Eusebius; Tertullian is reported to say that he was
made bishop of Gaul, it is supposed about a.d. 180 ;
�io
The Christian Evidences.
otherwise we have no particulars of his life. We hear
of his martyrdom in a.d. 202 from Eusebius, but
there being no other authority for the circumstance,
we may consider the date of his death to be as un
certain as that of his birth.
Mr Sanday holds that the treatise “ Against Heresies ”
must have been written between the years a.d. 180
and 190 (326). This production shows an acquaint
ance with the various branches of Gnostic heretics, and
the writer assumes an ascendancy over them as belong
ing to the orthodox party in the church, denouncing
all 44unauthorized meetings” as opposed to apostolic
traditions and the “ pre-eminent authority ” of “ the
very ancient ” church of Home. To have lived at a
time when orthodoxy had raised itself above surrounding
heresies, and when supremacy and a lengthened
measure of antiquity could be ascribed to the church at
Rome, necessarily places the writer at a period much
nearer the time of Eusebius than is supposed, unless,
indeed, his writings have been tampered with at a later
day. That he belongs to an era not so remote as is
assigned to him, appears also from other indications.
He speaks of “ good and ancient copies ” of the book
of Revelation (329), and of the existence of many
ancient copies of the “ Shepherd ” of Hermas (“ Against
Heresies” v., c. 30); moreover Saturninus, writing it is
thought in the beginning of the fourth century, says,
“ scattered churches of a few Christians arose in some
cities of Gaul in the 3rd century,” from which we
may judge that no bishopric could have been erected
there in the second century.
Tertullian is quite as questionable an authority as
Eusebius, and the collateral and internal evidence
certainly points to the time of the writer of the treatise
in question, being of a considerably later date than is
assigned to him. But we may even doubt whether
the name of Irenaeus, which figures so prominently
in the ecclesiastical history, attaches to a real person
�The Christian Evidences.
11
age. The word
va/og, as observed by Eusebius,
and dwelt upon by the learned writer I have before
referred to, signifies “peaceful,” and affixed to a
treatise designed to put down heresies and induce
concord of religious sentiment, it may very well
have been adopted by the writer as a designation
appropriate to the purpose of his work, so that we
may be entitled to end our examination with the
supposition that it is quite possible we have nothing
before us, under the heading of Irenaeus, but an
anonymous production, written when or by whom we
know not, saving that it came out at some time ante
cedent to Tertullian and Eusebius.
Tertullian is known of from Eusebius and the
writings he has left behind him. He is said to have
been of about the period of the supposed Irenaeus,
but we can only say that he preceded Eusebius.
He is described to have been a bishop of Carthage,
but we have no incidents of his life or death. He
wrote against Valentinus, Marcion, and other “heretics,”
which places him beyond the earliest times of Chris
tianity. He was of an age when the sacred text had
become extensively corrupted by various readings,
and had his part therein. Mr Sanday is engaged
with this subject in connection with Tertullian from
page 332 to 343. He says, “The phenomena that
have to be accounted for are not, be it remembered,
such as might be caused by the carelessness of a
single scribe. They are spread over whole groups of
MSS. together. We can trace the gradual accessions of
corruption at each step as we advance in the history
of the text. A certain false reading comes in at such
a point and spreads over all the manuscripts that
start from that; another comes in at a further
stage, and vitiates succeeding copies there ; until at
last a process of correction and revision sets in ; re
course is had to the best standard manuscripts, and a
purer text is recovered by comparison with these. It
�12
The Christian Evidences.
is precisely such a text that is presented by the Old
Latin Codex F. which we find accordingly shows a max
imum difference from Tertullian ! ” Then assuming
that we have the real time of Tertullian, he observes,
“ To bring the text into the state in which it is
found in the writings of Tertullian, a century is not
at all too long a period to allow. In fact I doubt
whether any subsequent century saw changes so
great, though we should naturally suppose that cor
ruption would proceed at an advancing rate for every
fresh copy that was made.”
Now it is apparent that the argument can be turned
quite another way. If nothing is known of the
appearance of the received scriptures till a late time,
say the latter part of the second century, as a large
class of critics maintain, then the condition of the
text and Tertullianus part in it, according to this
reasoning, would place him a century later, or far
on in the third century. The fact is, throughout
this investigation we are left to the operation of
the merest guesses. We know not when the text
came out, or when it was interfered with by Ter
tullian and others. The end is that of the actual
time of Tertullian we remain ignorant, but see that
there may be grounds for placing it considerably
nearer that of Eusebius than has been currently
asserted.
Whatever was the period filled by Tertullian, as an
authority to be appealed to he proves himself to be
utterly unreliable. In the first place he was very
credulous. He recognized in certain osseous remains
the bones of the giants. He believed in the agency of
good and evil angels, and that most people had a
demon attached to them, who could rule their des
tinies. He says, “ There is hardly a human being who
is unattended by a demon; and it is well known
to many that premature and violent deaths, which
men ascribe to accidents, are in fact brought about
�Ehe Christian Evidences.
13
by ’demons.” He makes use of the fable of the
Phoenix as an actuality illustrating the resurrection.
He says, as if coming within his personal knowledge.
“ I am acquainted, with the case of a woman, the
daughter of Christian parents, who in the very flower
of her age and. beauty slept peaceably (in Jesus), after
a singularly happy though brief married life. Before
they laid her in her grave, and when the priest began
the appointed office, at the first breath of his prayer
she withdrew her hands from her sides, placed them
in an attitude of devotion, and after the holy service
was concluded, restored them to their lateral position.
Then again, there is that well known story among
our own people, that a body voluntarily made way
in a certain cemetery, to afford room for another
body to be placed near it ” (“ On the Resurrection of
the Flesh,” c. xlii. ; “On the Soul,” c. xxxix., li.,
lvii.). . If we are reading Tertullian, and not introduced
monkish fables, the writer is shown to be positively
untruthful, as well as possessed of an inordinate love
of the marvellous.
That Tertullian in his aim to support the Chris
tian cause was little restrained by scruples in making
his statements, is very apparent. He is Eusebius’
warrant for the fact that Pontius Pilate transmitted
to the emperor Tiberius an account of the miracles
of Jesus, and of his resurrection from the dead, re
presenting that the mass of the people believed him
to be a god, on which Tiberius proposed to admit
Jesus into the Roman pantheon; so that knowledge
from Rome reaches Carthage, of a character to establish
the incidents of Christianity, after a lapse of say
nearly two centuries, which had escaped the notice of
all others occupying the intervening space and time.
In respect of the tale of the Thundering Legion, when
in a time of extremity the Christian soldiers in the
ranks of Marcus Aurelius are said to have called down
rain by their prayers, and so saved the army from
�14
The Christian Evidences.
perishing of thirst, Eusebius likewise received the state
ment Tertullian has had the assurance to make, that
there were letters by the emperor still extant recounting
the occurrence, Carthage again standing alone in supply
ing us with information from Rome. And in his tract
“Against the Jews,” he boasts, with little attention
to truth, of the vast spread of the Christian faith,
saying-—In whom but the Christ now come have all
nations believed ? For in whom do all other nations
(except the Jews) confide ? Parthians, Medes, Elamites,
and the dwellers in Mesopotamia, Armenia, Phrygia,
Cappadocia, and inhabitants of Pontus, and Asia,
and Pamphylia; the dwellers in Egypt, and inhabitants
of the region beyond Cyrene ; Romans and strangers ;
and in Jerusalem, both Jews and Proselytes; so
that the various tribes of the Getuli and the num
erous hordes of the' Moors, all the Spanish clans,
and the different nations of Gaul, and those regions
of the Britons inaccessible to the Romans, but sub
ject to Christ, and of the Sarmatians, and the
Dacians, and Germans, and Scythians, and many
unexplored nations and provinces, and islands un
known to us, and which we cannot enumerate: in
all which places the name of Christ, who has already
come, now reigns.” This wonderful observer was
not only able, in the behalf of Christianity, to draw
upon records in the archives of Rome unseen by
any other eye, but, as Mosheim points out, he can
give us intelligence of “ what was done in unex
plored regions and unknown islands and provinces ; ”
and, as observed upon by the author of “ Primitive
Church History,” from whom I have the passage,
he can people Jerusalem with Jews at a time when
under the ban of Hadrian not one of that race could
revisit the land without incurring death.
Clement of Alexandria and Hippolytus are the
next authorities relied on by Mr Sanday, as by Chris
tian advocates in general. They are mentioned by
�The Christian Evidences.
*5
Eusebius, and having left writings behind them, it
may be conceded that there were such persons, but
the notice of them by Eusebius is too meagre to afford
satisfaction. They are said to have been about the
time of Tertullian, but the end is that we know no
more of their true age than we do of his.
The last of those who are now in question as
authorities cited by Mr Sanday, is Origen. Eusebius
says that this writer suffered persecution in the reign
of Decius (a.d. 249-251). Niebuhr, while con
sidering the earlier alleged persecutions to have been
highly exaggerated, accepts that by Decius as the first
“ vehement ” one suffered by the Christians, because
mentioned by Pagan as well as Christian writers, the
Pagan authorities being the “ Historia Augusta ” and
Zosimus (“Prim. Ch. Hist.,” 67). We may thus with
apparent safety admit Origen as of the period attributed
to him, namely, as having lived somewhere towards the
middle of the third century.
We have now to consider the circumstances of the
earlier Christians, standing as it thought nearest to the
time alleged for Christianity, in view of judging what
testimony is to be had from this source. I take the
names in the order in which Mr Sanday has arranged them.
Clement of Rome (58-70). Mr Sanday says that
the learned place this individual at from a.d. 95-100,
but that some put him back to a.d. 70. The dates
depend upon purely ideal considerations. There are
many writings attributed to this Clement, the whole of
which are rejected by Eusebius and the modern crit
ics, with the exception of an epistle addressed to the
Corinthians. Mr Sanday cannot satisfy himself that
this epistle makes use of the canonical gospels which
is the point of his inquiries.
The state of the case is this. Eusebius considers
Clement to have been the third bishop of Rome on the
word of the doubtful Irenaeus, who says that “ the
blessed Apostles Peter and Paul ” founded this church
�16
The Christian Evidences.
and appointed Linus to be the first bishop, that after
him came Anencletus, and then Clement. According
to the epistle to the Romans, the church of Rome was
flourishing before Paul had visited it. He consequently,
pursuant to Christian authority, was not instrumental
in founding this church. Peter, according to the
epistle to the Galatians, was to confine his labours to
the Jews, and the Protestants universally disallow that
he set up the church at Rome. There is even room to
doubt that there were Christians in Rome, during the
so-called apostolic days, it appearing, notwithstanding
what is said of the world-wide fame of this church in the
epistle to the Romans, that when Paul is represented
to have gone to Rome, his inquiring Jewish brethren
there'knew nothing of the circumstances of the Christian
faith (Acts xxviii. 22). Josephus, moreover, who was at
Rome from a.d. 70 to 93, whenhe wrote his “Antiquities,”
makes no mention of Christianity prevailing there or
elsewhere. Wrong as to the foundations of this church,
the so-called Irenaeus may be equally wrong as to its
third successional bishop. Tertullian has it that
Clement was the first bishop of Rome, so that such
statements as have been made on the subject are con
tradictory. Of the epistle attributed to this Clement,
on which his existence may be considered to depend,
we have really no evidence. In 1628 the Patriarch of
Constantinople presented our Charles I. with an ancient
MS. as derived from Alexandria, and therefore styled
the Alexandrine Codex, but its further history is un
known. Attached thereto is an epistle to the Corin
thians, the writer of which is unnamed. Hence it be
comes a bold statement, after alleging with Eusebius, on
the very questionable grounds before him, that there
was a Clement bishop of Rome, to declare this epistle
to be his work.
Barnabas (71-76). The time of this person is given
as a.d. 130. For this conclusion Mr Sanday has nothing
to'offer, but that he has arrived at it by “arguing
AL
7
�The Christian Evidences.
17
entirely from authority.” He allows that there is no
certainty that the epistle attributed to this individual
has any citation from the received scriptures, though he
thinks it probable that such has been the case. All
therefore connected with this name rests upon the
merest surmise.
An epistle by Barnabas is first mentioned by Clement
of Alexandria. Eusebius knew of such a production
but considered it spurious. The Sinaitic Codex, itself
a document of doubtful origin, has an epistle appended
to it which it is supposed may be the work of this
Barnabas, but as it does not bear its author’s name, or
show to whom it is addressed, or from whence it was
written, it requires the utmost hardihood to accept such
a production as evidence for Barnabas.
Ignatius (76-82). To this person many spurious
writings have been attributed. Mr Sanday relies on the
criticisms of Dr Lightfoot for such of his ascribed works
as may be genuine. Dr Lightfoot does not appear to
acknowledge the seven epistles in the shorter Greek
recension as from the pen of Ignatius, but says they
may be “accepted as valid testimony at all events for
the middle of the second century,” the grounds for which
conclusion are not stated. The three Syriac epistles
Dr Lightfoot looks upon as “the work of the genuine
Ignatius,” while Mr Sanday cautiously observes that
they may “probably” be such. There are two dates
for the martrydom of Ignatius, namely a.d. 107 and
115, to one or other of which Mr Sanday supposes
these Syriac epistles may be attached, but as respects
any testimony to be derived therefrom, in support of
the canonical scriptures, he is unable to come to a
satisfactory conclusion.
Of fifteen epistles ascribed to Ignatius, eight, being
unmentioned by Eusebius and Jerome, are universally
disallowed. There are two Greek editions of the seven
others, a longer and a shorter one, but the learned have
been divided as to which to accept. The tendency has
B
�18
The Christian Evidences.
been to relinquish the longer edition, which Mr Sanday
has not deemed it necessary even to notice. Dr Cureton
has brought to light three epistles in Syriac to which
critics now preferably lean, thus abandoning the Greek
versions altogether. According to Eusebius Ignatius
wrote his alleged seven epistles when he was on his way
to suffer martyrdom, but as he describes himself as then
bound to ten men guarding him on the way, of such
ferocity as to be referred to as ££ wild beasts ” and
“ leopards,” opportunity for such effusions is not pro
perly conceivable. Not only the date but the place of
the asserted martyrdom is uncertain, some saying it
occurred at Rome, and some at Antioch. This Ignatius
is spoken of by the dubious Irenaeus, whose testimony
meets us at every turn, and by Polycarp whose person
ality is also most questionable. The statement offered
in the name of Polycarp is also weakened by its
acknowledging the whole of the fifteen epistles
attributed to Ignatius, when, according to Eusebius,
there were but seven.
Polycarp (82-87). We hear of him and his epistle
to the Philippians from Irenaeus, which, believing in
this name, Mr Sanday considers to be “ external
evidence ” of unanswerable weight. Polycarp is said
to have been martyred about a.d. 167 or 168, but Mr
Sanday prefers Mr Waddington’s surmise that it was
in a.d. 155 or 156. He considers it not clear that
Polycarp drew from the canonical scriptures.
The statement imputed to Irenaeus is that Polycarp
had held “familiar intercourse with John” and others
“ that had seen the Lord,” and had often recounted
their discourses in his hearing. Judging by the
ordinary limits of human life, these contemporaries of
the Lord may have survived to a.d. 80 or 90. If
Polycarp were martyred in A.D. 155, sixty-five or
seventy-five years had then passed away from their
time; if in a.d. 168, seventy-eight or eighty-eight
years had gone by. We may reasonably ask of what
�The Christian Evidences.
19
age Polycarp could have been when he listened to and
profited by the said discourses'? Assuming that he
lived to be ninety, he was possibly then from two to
twelve years of age, or from fifteen to twenty-five, but
the whole is a matter of uncertainty and depending
upon the seemingly fictitious Irenaeus.
Mr Sanday has not ventured to touch upon the
particulars associated with the martyrdom of Polycarp,
which are of a fabulous order. The saint, it is said,
was taken to the stadium there to be put an end to; a
voice from heaven greeted him ; he was bound to a
stake to be burnt alive, but the flames arched round his
sacred person and refused to invade it; then he was
stabbed to death, and the blood gushing out from his
body extinguished the flames. He was thus dealt with
simply because he was a Christian, and yet a body of
his fellow Christians were allowed to witness the
spectacle themselves unscathed. They are stated to
have written an account of what they had seen, and the
same has been transmitted to us through the neverfailing Irenaeus.
Mr Sanday sums up his examination of the writings
of the above parties with the supposition that they
either employed the accepted gospels, or some other
writings closely resembling them, so that they thereby
establish “ the essential unity and homogeneity of the
evangelical tradition,” a verdict which will ill satisfy
those who are looking for early traces of the inspired
record. And thus ends this little band of “ Apostolic
Fathers,” the imperceptible links to the undiscernible
Apostles.
Justin Martyr (88-137). “Ko one,” observes Mr
Sanday further back (59), “ doubts the Apologies and
the Dialogue with Tryphon” attributed to Justin
Martyr.
“Modern critics,” he says, “seem pretty
generally to place the two Apologies in the years
147-150 a.d. and the Dialogue against Tryphon a little
latter.” Following Mr Hort, Mr Sanday considers that
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these productions were put forth from a.d. 145-147,
and that in the next year Justin died. It appears that
Justin had a substantial knowledge of the Christian
narratives and doctrines, but what text he followed is
a matter of doubt. Mr Sanday’s conclusion is that
“either Justin used our Gospels, or else he used a
document later than our Gospels, and pre-supposing
them” (102). “If Justin did not use our Gospels in
their present shape, as they have come down to us, he
used them in a later shape, not in an earlier.” “ Our
Gospels form a secondary stage in the history of the
text, Justin’s quotations a tertiary.” “This however
does not exclude the possibility that Justin may at times
quote from uncanonical Gospels as well” (128, 129).
He followed a corrupted text, which Mr Sanday argues
“ is a proof of the antiquity of originals so corrupted ”
(13 6), an argument however not helping us to understand
when these Gospels were written and corrupted.
Justin and his works have hitherto been accepted
upon trust, while being clearly open to question. I am
thus more concerned in testing the authenticity of these
works than in judging of the acquaintance they exhibit
with the Christian scriptures.
“ The best part of the information which we have
with regard to Justin Martyr,” says Dr Donaldson, “is
derived from his own writings. The few particulars
which we gather from others relate almost exclusively
to his death.” He is spoken of as having been a
martyr by Irenaeus, Tertullian, Hippolytus, and
Eusebius, “ the circumstances of his death, however,
are involved in doubt.” “There is no clue to exact
dates in the history of Justin.” “The ‘Chronicon
Paschale’ places ” his martyrdom in a.d. 165, a probable
date; but there is no reason to suppose that it is any
thing more than a guess.” “ If we cannot trust
Eusebius, our only authority for placing Justin’s
martyrdom in the reign of Marcus Aurelius, we know
nothing in regard to the date of Justin’s death. The
�The Christian Evidences.
21
value of Eusebius’ opinion is not great, but it is infinitely
to be preferred to the utterly uncritical statements of
Epiphanius or Cedrenus,” who suggest that he died in
the reign of Hadrian, or onwards to the year a.d. 148
(“Hist, of Christ. Lit.” II. 62-74, 85). I think it is
apparent that whatever is to be known of Justin, must
be gathered from his imputed works, and should these
prove not genuine, that we shall have to part with this
long cherished name as that of an evidence for early
Christianity.
“ Probably,” says Mr Sanday, “ not one half of the
writings attributed to Justin Martyr are genuine” (59).
This should induce caution as to the remaining works
assigned to the same name. Of the two “ Apologies ”
ascribed to Justin, the second, if not incorporated in
the first, which is a matter of doubt, has been lost.
The “Apology” we possess is addressed to the Emperor
Antoninus Pius, his adopted sons Verissimus and
Lucius, the holy Senate, and the whole people of the
Romans, and its asserted object was to obtain for the
Christians a fair trial, to ascertain in what they might
have offended the laws of the state, in lieu of subjecting
them to death, simply because they were Christians.
On such a subject- an appeal to the Emperor as the
Chief Magistrate, responsible for the due administration
of the laws, would be all that would be required, and
it would be an indignity to him to make it appear that
his authority had to be supported by that of his sons,
the Senate, and the Roman nation at large. The one
referred tosby his familiar cognomen of Verissimus, who
was the heir to the empire, would assuredly in a public
document have been addressed by his proper designa
tion of Marcus JElius Aurelius Verus Caesar. The
other son, Lucius, was at the asserted time a child, and
could not have been thus appealed to. The so-called
“ Apology ” transgresses its required ends in entering
upon the tenets of Christian heretics, discussions which
could have been only irksome to Roman authorities
�22
The Christian Evidences.
It is also contentious and provocatory, in lieu of being
deferential and conciliatory, as such an appeal, if a
real instrument, would naturally be. The gods of the
Romans are described as sensual and false-hearted
demons who had imitated the circumstances associated
with Christ in the Jewish prophetic scriptures in order
to defeat the mission of Christ when he should come,
and the rulers addressed are adverted to as possibly no
better than robbers. And if Christians suffered death
in the time of Antoninus Pius, merely because known
as such, Justin exposed himself to that fate in openly
putting forth this “ Apology,” and is yet said to have
survived to address a second Apology to Marcus
Aurelius. Melito is represented to have offered an
Apology to this latter Emperor, in which, to urge his
case, he said, “ Eor now the race of the pious is perse
cuted, an event that never took place before” (Donald
son, “Hist, of Christ. Lit.” III. 230), a statement
giving the assurance that no persecution of Christians
occurred under Antoninus Pius, and thus putting an
end to the “ Apology ” of Justin.
The genuineness of the “Dialogue withTryphon” has
been questioned by some, and not without very sufficient
cause. It begins with an apparently fanciful representa
tion after the method of the fictitious dialogues in
Lucian and Plato—“While I was walking in the
morning in the walks of the Xystus, some one, accom
panied by others, met me with the words Hail, Philo
sopher!” and so induced the discussion. Justin
describes the course of his own studies. At first, in
pursuit of the “ knowledge of God,” he “ surrendered
himself to a certain Stoic.” Then, leaving him, he
“ betook himself to another, who was called a Peri
patetic.” After this he “ came to a Pythagorean, very
celebrated—a man who thought much of his own
wisdom,” but was dismissed by him because ignorant
of music, astronomy, and geometry. In his helplessness
“ it occurred to him to have a meeting with the Pla-
�The Christian Evidences.
23
tonists, for their fame was great,” and he fell in with
“ a sagacious man, holding a high position ” in this
school. Finally, when meditating in a “ certain field
not far from the sea,” he was followed by “ a certain
old man, by no means contemptible in appearance, ex
hibiting meek and venerable manners,” who made a
convert of him to Christianity. All is here vague and
unreal. We are not told who were these celebrities—
the Stoic, the Peripatetic, the Pythagorean, the
Platonist, and above all the venerable Christian
teacher who might have been an intimate of those of
the apostolic age. Tryphon, with whom the dialogue
is conducted, is unknown, as is Marcus Pompeius to
whom the production is dedicated. A Jew is
represented as courting discussion on religious subjects
with a Gentile philosopher, whose opinions to him
would be valueless, and with facile complaisance
habitually yields the victory to his opponent; and
every word that passed between them is reported over
a space covering in the translation above a hundred
and eighty pages of the Antenicene Christian Library.
The circumstances have only to be set forth to expose
the true character of this composition.
Hegisippus (138-145). Mr Sanday supposes this
author to have written in the time of the alleged
Irenaeus, or about a.d. 177. He thinks he must have
made use of the canonical Gospels, but this is only
problematical.
We hear of this person from Eusebius who says he
wrote an ecclesiastical history, no part of which is
extant. He is stated to have been of the period of
Hadrian (a.d. 117-138) and to have “lived during the
time of the first succession of the apostles.” Knowing
of him only from Eusebius we can have no assurance
of the age he belonged to, saving that he preceded
Eusebius.
Papias (145-160). This individual Mr Sanday
observes is reported to have suffered as a martyr about
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the same time that Polycarp was martyred. A com
mentary on the Oracles of the Lord is attributed to
him, from which Eusebius presents statements. After
discussing these extracts Mr Sanday says : “ Every
where we meet with difficulties and complexities.
The testimony of Papias remains an enigma that can only
be solved—if ever it is solved—by close and detailed
investigations.” He concludes that as far as he can
see “ the works to which Papias alludes cannot be our
present Gospels in their present form.” We derive
our knowledge of Papias from the so-called Irenaeus,
upon whom no dependence is to be placed.
The Clementine Homilies and Recognitions (161187). “ It is unfortunate,” says Mr Sanday, “ that
there are not sufficient materials for determining the
date of the Clementine Homilies.” “ Whether the
Recognitions or the Homilies came first in order of
time is a question much debated among critics, and the
even way in which the best opinions seem to be.
divided is a proof of the uncertainty of the data.”
These writings Mr Sanday believes draw upon the
Synoptic Gospels.
Clement of Rome purports to be the author of these
productions, but they are universally allowed to be
spurious. The editor of the Antenicene Christian
Library looks upon the “ Recognitions ” as “ a kind of
philosophical and theological romance.”
Basilides (188-196). This person was a Gnostic
who is said to have taught at Alexandria in the reign
of Hadrian (a.d. 117-137). He is spoken of by
Clement of Alexandria, Hippolytus, Origen and Euse
bius, as also by Epiphanius who is said to be of a.d.
367. There is a gospel attributed to him, hut what it
contained appears to be subject of doubt. Mr Sanday
thinks he or his followers may have served themselves
of the first and third accepted gospels.
The authorities cited are too far removed from the
time alleged for Basilides to be satisfactory as to his
�The .Christian Evidences.
date, nor does it appear that the facts or doctrines of
Christianity are properly traceable to him. “Practi
cally,” says Mr Sanday, “the statements in regard to
the Commentary of Basilides lead to nothing.”
Valentinus (196-203). Our knowledge of this
Gnostic teacher is derivable chiefly from the supposed
and ever-ready Irenaeus, but Mr Sanday allows that “ it
cannot be alleged positively that any of the quotations
or allusions,” ascribed to this person, “were really
made” by him, it being possible that they come
from his school.
The acceptance of the four
gospels in this quarter he observes, “ rests upon the
statement of Irenaeus as well as upon that of the less
scrupulous and accurate Tertullian.” A passage asso
ciated with the third gospel is given by Hippolytus,
but “it is not certain that the quotation is made from
the master and not from his scholars.” Mr Sanday
claims for this teacher and his followers a time spread
ing from A.D. 140 to 180, but the dates must be taken
as merely supposititious.
Marcion (204-237). Mr Sanday places this person
at about A.D. 139-142, but allows that in connection
with him “there is some confusion in the chronological
data.” “ The most important evidence is that of
Justin,” but who is to answer for Justin himself?
Mr Sanday also seeks to support himself with the
shadowy and never-failing Irenaeus, the untrustworthy
Tertullian, and Epiphanius, himself an ignorant un
critical man,* and standing too far removed from the
time spoken of to be an authority on that head. “A
certain Gospel ” is attributed to Marcion, but “ the ex
act contents and character of that Gospel are not quite
so clear.” In judging thereof, Mr Sanday points out,
that a critic of “ the nineteenth century should be able
to thread all the mazes in the mind of a Gnostic or an
Ebionite in the second.” The question is did Marcion
mutilate our third Gospel, “ or is it not possible that
* The Sources and Development of Christianity, p. 38.
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The Christian Evidences.
the converse may be true, and that Marcion’s Gospel
was the original and ours an interpolated version?”
At this date of time it is not possible to decide such a
question, though Mr Sanday and others have their
opinions on the subject.
Tatian (238-242). This individual is said to have
been converted to Christianity by Justin Martyr. “ The
death of Justin,” says Mr Sanday, “is clearly the pivot
on which his date will hinge.” “ An address to the
Greeks ” is attributed to Tatian, “ but it contains no
references,” as Mr Sanday allows, “ to the Synoptic
Gospels upon which stress canbelaid.” A “Diatessaron”
is traced to him which the ever-ready Irenaeus
describes as having been a harmony of the accepted
Gospels.
Justin’s era, and even identity or personal existence,
being matters of uncertainty, we are equally in the
dark as to what relates to his alleged disciple Tatian.
“We know nothing of the time of his birth, or of his
parents, or of his early training.” Irenaeus “speaks
as if he knew very little about him.” “Nothing is
known of his death ” (Donaldson, “ Hist, of Christ.
Lit.” III. 4, 8-10, 20).
Dionysius of Corinth (242, 243). The interest in
this person turns upon his use of the phrase “The
Scriptures of the Lord,” which, having “ Irenaeus in
his mind’s eye,” Mr Sanday thinks may probably refer
to the canonical Gospels. We know of him only from
Eusebius whose information relates almost exclusively
to his letters. To his date there seems to be no clue.
Meuto (244, 245). Mr Sanday says nothing as to
this person’s time, and observes that the fragments
imputed to him “ contain nothing especial on the
Gospels.”
He is said to have addressed an Apology to Marcus
Aurelius. “We know nothing of his life,” says Dr
Donaldson, “ except that he went, as he tells us himself,
to the East.” “ Our principal authority in regard to
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the works of Melito is Eusebius ” (“ Hist, of Christ.
Lit.” III. 221-223).
Apollinaris (246-248). He is said to. have
addressed an Apology to Marcus Aurelius, and is thus
placed by Mr Sanday at from a.d. 176-180. There is
a fragment attributed to him connected with the Paschal
controversy by a writer in the “ Paschal Chronicle, but
as this takes us to the seventh century, Mr Sanday does
not insist upon the reliability of the fragment. He
is mentioned by Eusebius who cites one Serapion, but
who he was no one knows.
Athenagoras (248-251). Though not noticed by
either Eusebius or Jerome, Mr Sanday looks upon this
person as “an author of a certain importance.” An
Apology addressed to Marcus Aurelius and Commodus,
and a treatise on the Resurrection, are ascribed to him.
The Apology, Mr Sanday considers may be dated about
a.d. 177. He cites a passage from this writer having
a close correspondence with one in the first Gospel, but
says that “he cannot, on the whole, be regarded as a very
powerful witness ” for the Synoptic Gospels..
The earliest to mention Athenagoras is Philip of Sida,
a Christian writer of the fifth century, removed by about
two centuries and a half from the alleged time of the
author spoken of, and concerning whom no one appears
to have had knowledge during this long interval. . Dr
Donaldson looks upon Philip of Sida as an unreliable
writer.
The Epistle of Vienne and Lyons (251-253). .The
persecution spoken of in this letter Mr Sanday considers
to have occurred in a.d. 177. He is satisfied that
there is a phrase in the letter taken from the third Gospel.
The extracts we have from this letter come from
Eusebius. In his history he says the persecution, in
question occurred in the seventeenth year of the reign
of Marcus Aurelius, which is the statement Mr Sanday
has followed, but in his “ Chronicon” it is alleged to have
happened ten years earlier. In the letter the allegation
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The Christian Evidences.
is that Christians, on the mere ground that they were
Christians, were fastened into iron chains and burnt to
death, ot thrown before wild beasts and torn to pieces,
acts said to have been sanctioned by the mild, philo
sophic, and law-respecting emperor we have in view.
Dr Donaldson appears to accept the letter as a genuine
production by some unknown writer of the period, but
says, “The style is loose. It abounds in antitheses
and strong expressions. It also mixes up incongruous
figures. Its statements are not, therefore, to be looked
on as cold historical accuracies ” (“ Hist, of Christ. Lit.”
III. 250-274). In treating of Irenaeus I have pointed
out that there is room to question the existence of
churches in Gaul during the second century, and it •will
be seen hereafter that these alleged early persecutions
cannot be said to rest upon any true historical basis.
Ptolemaeus and Heraclion (254-260). These are
Gnostic teachers who are spoken of by Irenaeus,
Clement of Alexandria, and Hippolytus. Mr Sanday
considers that Irenaeus wrote of Ptolemaeus in a.d. 182,
and may have met with him on his visit to Home in a.d.
178 when he had already formed a school. Clement of
Alexandria shows that Heraclion was acquainted with
the third Gospel, and Origen says he wrote a commentaryon the fourth. Epiphanius attributes to him an
epistle to one Flora containing references to the first
Gospel. Heraclion is always coupled with Ptolemaeus,
and is therefore supposed to be of the same standing.
We can derive no certainty of the times of these
Gnostic teachers from Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria,
and Hippolytus, whose own eras are so uncertain.
From the testimony of Origen we may admit their
existence at some period preceding the middle of the
third century.
Celsus (260-263). We know of this writer through
the pages of his opponent Origen, who considered him
to be an Epicurean of the time of Hadrian or later;
“ exact and certain knowledge, however, about Celsus,”
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29
Mr Sanday observes, “ Origen did not possess.”
Towards establishing his period the effort is made
to identify this Epicurean with one bearing the name of
Celsus who was a Neo-platonist, and a friend of Lucian,
whose time is known of, and this identity is maintained
by Keim, whom Mr Sanday considers it safe to follow;
and it is on these hypothetical grounds that Origen, who
wrote at some time during the first half of the third
century, is supposed to have been matching himself with
Celsus of about a.d. 178. Mr Sanday appears, however,
a little uncertain about the position, as he winds up by
saying, “ At whatever date Celsus wrote, it appears to
be sufficiently clear that he knew and used all the four
Canonical Gospels.”
The Canon of Muratori (263-268). A fragment
of this canon alone is extant, beginning with a reference
to the third and fourth Gospels, whence Mr Sanday
fairly enough concludes that in the wanting part of the
document the first and second Gospels were included.
Most of the other writings of the New Testament are
spoken of in the fragment in question. “ The Pastor” of
Hermas is alluded to as a then recent production put
forth in the time of Pius, the brother of the author,
who was bishop of Rome. Pius is said to have occupied
the episcopate from a.d. 142-157, on which grounds Mr
Sanday presumes that the Muratorian Fragment was
put forth from a.d. 170-180.
We have first of all to accept as reliable the statement
which would associate this canon with the asserted
Pius of Rome, and having done this we have to accept
his time ; but we are without any assurance that there
was such a bishop other than the appearance of that
name in the list of bishops of Rome given by Euse
bius for which he has adduced no authority.
Mr Sanday concludes with discussing the evidences
to the recognition of the fourth Gospel, and the
state of the canon in the latter part of the second
century, but as his dependence in respect of these
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matters is on the names we have already discussed, it is
not necessary to go over these grounds with him.
It has not fallen within the scope of Mr Sanday’s
work to introduce possible evidences for Christianity
in the early times from the circle of writers outside
the Christian field, but it is essential to the position
I have to maintain that this branch of the subject
should be understood. I state my conclusions on
this part of the inquiry, but must refer my readers
for the supports thereto to my work on the Sources
and Development of Christianity.
The Jewish writers of the period alleged for the
uprise of Christianity naturally first deserve our atten
tion. The earliest of these is Philo Judaeus, whose
works are fortunately extant, and untampered with.
He wrote upon the Old Testament and other associated
subjects of interest to his people, and being of Alex
andria and of the Neo-platonic school there prevailing,
he embarked in representations of the Logos, or per
sonified Word of God, corresponding closely to what
were afterwards attributed to Christ in the fourth
Gospel. He is seen to have visited the temple at
Jerusalem as every devout Jew was bound to do,
and he also went on a mission to Borne in a.d. 42. The
next to be noticed is Nicolaus of Damascus, a learned
and eloquent Jew, more than once the chosen advocate
of his people, and the friend and defender of Herod
and of his successor Archelaus before the court of
Borne. We hear of him through Josephus. The third
is Justus of Tiberias, that city on the border of the
lake of Gennesareth with which so much of the action
described in the Gospel histories is connected. He
was a contemporary of Josephus and opposed his
measures in Galilee. He was thus of the generation
succeeding that alleged for Christ, and wrote a his
tory of the Jews which is referred to by Josephus,
and has been described by Photius, a well-known
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31
Byzantine writer of the ninth century. The fourth
is Josephus who was born in a.d. 37, and wrote his
account of the Wars of the Jews in a.d. 75, and his
“Antiquities” in a.d. 93. He was of Jerusalem, was
deputed to put down a sedition in Gralilee, was cog
nizant of the circumstances of Antioch and Damas
cus, and lived at Rome from a.d. 70 to the close.of
the century. He was one occupied with Jewish in
terests, and familiar with all the alleged earliest centres
of Christianity in the generations when it is said that
the faith first prevailed and was promulgated.. The
last source to be considered is the Talmud. This vol
uminous collection of writings represents the phases of
Jewish thought, religious, scientific, literary, and his
torical, for about a thousand years calculated from the
return from the Babylonish captivity. The earliest
edition thereof certainly dates after the establish
ment of Christianity, but it is looked upon as a faith
ful record of the more ancient traditions. Now. if
Jesus was what he is declared in matured Christianity
to have been, a god on earth, filling the regions round
about him with the fame of his wondrous works, and
realizing the position of the Jewish Messiah, he must
have been heard of in the quarters occupied by the
writers described, and he himself, and the movement
he is said to have instituted, would have found a
place in their several historical and literary productions;
but not a notice of him or his followers appears there
in, from which silence, on such a subject, by the in
terested Jews, no other conclusion can be fairly drawn
than that the narratives we have of this personage are
not based upon actual occurrences, but are mere fanciful
representations composed in later times for the support
of an ideal and highly artificial faith. So clearly did
it appear to the early Christians that some allusion to
Christ and his people should have occurred in these
Jewish histories, that they have not hesitated to intro
duce in the pages of Josephus passages respecting Christ,
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John the Baptist, and James the just“ the brother of the
Lord,” which, when exposed as forgeries, serve to prove
the barrenness of a cause that has to be thus supported.
When we turn to Pagan sources for any genuine
record of the existence of early Christianity, the
same absolute dearth of evidence and unscrupulous
attempts to 'supply the need, meet us. The writings
of Pliny the younger, Tacitus, and Suetonius, have
been tampered with in a manner similar to that adopted
in the instance of Josephus, in order to make it appear
that Roman writers of note were cognizant of the move
ment ; but, as noticed by the author of “ Primitive
Church History,” the persons so guilty of endeavouring
to practise upon our credulity, in furnishing materials of
evidence for the -first century of the asserted Chris
tian era, have committed the mistake of overlooking
that to keep up the fictitious representation it was re
quisite that similar evidence should have flowed on in
the second century.
A fertile expedient for the exhibition of Chris
tianity in the early days asserted for its existence,
is the statement that Christians in those times
frequently suffered persecution because of the faith
they held. The emperors Nero, Domitian, Trajan,
Hadrian, Antoninus, Aurelius, Severus, and Maximin,
re J said so to have oppressed them at various times
from a.d. 64 to the early part of the third century,
leading to formal apologies, or explanations of the tenets
of Christianity, being presented to avert such per
secutions. Hadrian is stated thus to have been
addressed by Quadratus, and Aristides; Antoninus
Pius and Marcus Aurelius in succession by Justin
Martyr ; and the latter emperor furthermore by Melito,
Apollinarius, and Athenagoras ; and ostensibly to his
reign the epistle of the Churches of Vienne and Lyons
belongs. The persecution by Nero depends on passages
in Tacitus and Suetonius, and that by Trajan on the
alleged letter of Pliny the younger to that emperor,
�The Christian Evidences.
33
all of which may be shown to be fabrications ; * and
the testimony of Melito clears all preceding Marcus
Aurelius of the imputation in question.f The remain
ing Apologies, four in number, coupled with the letter
ascribed to the Churches in Gaul, are associated with the
pamp, of Aurelius. The selection made of this emperor
for the support of the Christian allegations is an
unfortunate one, his character being quite other than
would belong to an oppressor and destroyer of harmless
people. He was styled Verissimus because of his
sincerity and love of truth; when Cassius sought
to usurp his throne he mercifully forgave those con
cerned in the conspiracy; he devoted himself to
philosophy and literature; “in jurisprudence especially,
he laboured throughout life with great activity, and
his constitutions are believed to have filled many
volumes ; ” his “ education and pursuits ” “ exercised
the happiest influence upon a temper and disposition
naturally calm and benevolent.” “ He was firm without
being obstinate; he steadily maintained his own prin
ciples without manifesting any overweening contempt
for the opinion of those who differed from himself;
his justice was tempered with gentleness and mercy.”
“ In public life, he sought to demonstrate practically the
truth of the6Platonic maxim, ever on his lips, that those
states only could be truly happy which were governed
by philosophers, or in which the kings and rulers were
guided by the tenets of pure philosophy.” “No
monarch was ever more widely or more deeply be
loved. The people believed that he had been sent
down by the gods, for a time, to bless mankind, and
had now returned to the heaven from which he des
cended” (Smith’s “Diet, of Greek and Roman Bio
graphy”). This was certainly not the man to have in
itiated the violent and cruel persecutions with which the
Christians charge him.
* The Sources and Development of Christianity, pp. 32-36.
t See ante, p. 22.
C
�34
The Christian Evidences.
From such questionable and unsupported accusations
we may turn to something like reliable history.
“ After many years,” says Lactantius, who lived to a.d.
325, “that execrable animal appeared, Decius, who
persecuted the church.” “ Most of the Roman
emperors of this (second) century,” observes Mosheim,
“were of [a mild character.” “But when Decius
Trajan came to the imperial throne (a.d. 249), war, in
all its horrors, burst upon the Christians.” Decius,
says Niebuhr, “was the first who instituted a vehement
persecution of the Christians, for which he is cursed by
the ecclesiastical writers as much as he is praised by
the Pagan historians ” (the latter being the writers of
the “Historia Augusta” and Zosimus). “The
accounts,” Niebuhr continues, “ which we have of
earlier persecutions are highly exaggerated, as fHenry
Dodwell has justly pointed out. The persecution by
Decius, however, was really a very serious one ; it in
terrupted the peace which the Christian church had en
joyed for a long time” (“Prim. Ch. Hist.”, pp. 66,
67).
The learned author of “ Primitive Church History ”
takes his stand upon this event—the persecution of
the Christians by the emperor Decius—as affording the
first date connected with Christianity, historically
demonstratable, that can be put before us, and in this
conclusion I entirely concur. We are not to be in
fluenced by mere authority on such a subject. Credner, Volkmar, Hilgenfeld, Baur, Ewald, Keim, and a
host of others of the German school, and Westcott,
Scrivener, Lightfoot, Hort, and M'Clellan of the
English school, depended upon more or less by Mr
Sanday, are not more likely to see the unseen or dis
cover the non-existent than others. What we look for
are facts, and not surmises, however ingeniously arrived
at or learnedly sustained, and if there be a date, resting
on independent grounds, for any event or person con
nected with Christianity, antecedently to a.d. 249, we
4
�The Christian Evidences.
35
are persuaded that it has yet to be brought to light
and put before us.
It is apparent that there were Christians in existence
before the time of Decius, who, meeting with them,
sought to put them down by violent measures; but
it is not necessary to suppose that it occupied any
lengthened period to establish Christianity, even in its
matured form. The various phases of Christianity have
had their antecedent expression of doctrinal belief; the
Gnostics grew out of the Neo-platonists of Alexandria;
the Judaic Christians or Ebionites followed Judaism,
■especially as exhibited by the Essenes and Therapeuts ;
and the Pauline Christians, finally becoming the
orthodox party, are derivable from Grecian Paganism.*
We have seen how readily diversities of religious
persuasions can be built up on what has gone before,
and can suppose for Christianity a like facile origin.
Thus Mahommedanism flourished in the days of
Mahommed; Protestantism in those of Luther; the
Quakers became a considerable body in the time of their
founder George Fox; Wesleyanism was established
on broad foundations in that of John Wesley ; Irvingism in that of Edward Irving; Puseyism, leading on to
Eitualism, in that of Dr Pusey • Brethrenism in that of
John Darby; Mormonism in that of Joseph Smith ; and
New Forest Shakerism in that of Mrs Girling. A genera
tion or two therefore might have sufficed to produce
■the Christianity against which Decius Trajan set his face.
The positive evidence for Christianity in its asserted
•early times having failed us, we become entitled to
weigh the negative evidence affecting the question. The
time of Nicolaus of Damascus covers the period of the
.alleged divine nativity of Jesus and of the slaughter
by Herod of the infants of Bethlehem; that of Philo
Judseus embraces the whole period attributed to Jesus ;
those of Justus of Tiberias and Josephus represent
the generation following Jesus, the time of Josephus as
* The Pauline Epistles.
�36
The Christian Evidences.
an author extending to a.d. 93 ; the times of Pliny the
younger, Tacitus, and Suetonius occupy from a.d. 106
to 110; and the Talmudic traditions comprehend the
age ascribed to Jesus and several centuries preceding him.
These being sources from which evidence for Christian
ity might be reasonably looked for, and none appearing
therein but what has been fabricated, we may conclude
that to inquiring and interested minds of the earliest
periods nothing was known of Christ or his followers
through his asserted life-time and onwards to a.d. 110.
The Synoptic Gospels, in the guise of a prophecy,
show a demolition of the temple at Jerusalem so com
plete that not one stone was left upon another, and in
1 Thess. ii. 16 we hear that the “wrath” of God had
“ come upon ” the Jews “to the uttermost”; circum
stances true of the time of Hadrian rather than of that
of Titus, and advancing us to a.d. 135. The scripture
records containing these material statements we may
presume were not put together till after the year in
question when Hadrian devastated Judea. The Apolo
gists are represented to have lived and written of
persecutions occurring from the era of Hadrian to that
of Marcus Aurelius, or from a.d. 117 to 180; but when
it becomes apparent that these representations are
destitute of foundation, we may be satisfied that they
have been introduced to support Christianity with
proofs of its prevalence at times when there was no
real evidence of its existence to be offered. We arrive
thus at the conclusion that to the year a.d. 180, or for
five generations following the period assigned for the
death of Jesus, there was no such thing known of or
professed as Christianity.
There occur then about seventy years to the time of
Decius, during which we are to presume that Christian
ity had its rise, and prevailed sufficiently to have
attracted the opposition of this persecuting emperor.
The writer of the third Gospel shows us that “ many
had taken in hand ” to describe the life of Christ be-
�The Christian Evidences.
37
fdre the appearance of his effort. These were necessar
ily unauthorized or apocryphal scriptures, as Origen has
recognized to have been the fact, of which we know
that there were upwards of fifty such apocryphal
gospels, whereof seven are still extant. The earliest
Christian writers made use of these unauthorized
scriptures, as for example the reputed Clement of Rome,
Justin Martyr, Papias, and the author of the Clemen
tine Homilies. The heretics, who were a numerous
body, held to these and not to the accepted scriptures.
The so-called Irenaeus, while limiting the gospels to
four in number, cites the “Shepherd” of Hermas and
incidents still found in the gospel according to
Nicodemus as authoritative, and in disregard of
the statements in the canonical scriptures, maintains,
from some other source, that it was necessary that
Christ should pass through the different stages of
human existence, and thus did not end his days till he
was upwards of fifty years of age. Athenasius, in the
fourth century, followed the gospel of Nicodemus in
respect of the descent of Christ to Hades, an event
also indicated, we may assume from the same source,
in the accepted scriptures (Eph. iv. 9 ; 1. Pet. iii. 19 ;
iv. 6), and which has been presented as an object of
belief to the church in what is called the Apostle’s
Creed. At the same period Eusebius informs us that
the gospel according to the Hebrews maintained its
ground with some to his time (“ Ec. Hist.” III. 25).
There are other passages of the received scriptures, as
pointed out by the author of “ Primitive Church
History,” which would seem to be traceable to
apocryphal productions, such as occur in Matt, xxiii.
35; Acts xx. 35; Rom. xv. 19, 24; 1 Cor. xv. 6;
Jude 14.
Mr Sanday’s very candid treatment of the testimony
of Papias affords valuable material in dealing with the
subject now before us. He admits freely that the
Gospel of Mark to which Papias referred is not the one
�8
The Christian Evidences.
admitted into the canonical collection, this latter, accord
ing to the conclusion he is obliged to arrive at, not
being “original but based upon another document
previously existing” (149). “No doubt,” he continues
to observe, “this is an embarrassing result. The
question is easy to ask and difficult to answer—If our'
St Mark does not represent the original form, of the
document, what does represent it”? Papias had
described the Gospel of Mark he knew of as not written
in order, while Mr .Sanday finds that “the second
Gospel is written in order,” and therefore cannot be the
“original document” of which Papias has spoken (151).
The testimony affecting the canonical Gospel according
to Matthew is of an equally fatal nature. This Gospel,
as Papias has shown, should have appeared in Hebrew,
which was the form in which he was acquainted with
it, but ours is in Greek, and as Mr Sanday further
notices it uses the Septuagint and not the, Hebrew
Scriptures, and it has “ turns of language which have
the stamp of an original Greek idiom and could not
have come in through translation.” “ Can it have been,”
he asks, “ an original document at all”? To which his
reply is, “ The work to which Papias referred clearly
was such, but the very same investigation which shows
that our present St Mark was not original, tells with
increased force against St Matthew” (152).
We may next consider the condition in which these
writings have been transmitted to us, and no one could
-more faithfully and unreservedly describe this than has
done Mr Sanday.
The scheme of the New Testament is avowedly based
upon what appears in the Old Testament. Mr Sanday
says, “the whole subject of Old Testament quotations
is highly perplexing. Most of the quotations that we
meet with are taken from the LXX. version: and the
text of that version was at this particular time
especially uncertain and fluctuating” (16, 17). Mr
Sanday is here occupied with the quotations made b\
�The Christian Evidences.
39
the early Christian writers, but the time alleged for
them approaches that asserted for the Canonical Scrip
tures, and Mr Sanday’s observations embrace the latter
description of writings also. He says, for example,
that “in Eph. iv. 8 St Paul quotes Ps. lxxviii. 19, but
with a, marked variation from all the extant texts of the
LXX.” (17). Again he adds, “ Strange to say, in five
other passages which are quoted variantly by St Paul,
Justin also agrees with him” (18). “ In two places at
least Clement agrees, or nearly agrees, with St Paul,
where both differ from the LXX.” (19). “Another
disturbing influence, which will affect especially the
quotations in the Gospels, is the possibility, perhaps
even probability, that many of these are made, not'
directly from either Hebrew or LXX., but through the
Targums. This would seem to be the case especially
with the remarkable applications of prophecy in St
Matthew” (19). Mr Turpie is referred to for the
details he exhibits. Of 275 quotations from the Old
Testament in the New, 37 agree with the LXX., but
not with the Hebrew; 76 differ both from the Hebrew
and the LXX., where the two are together; 99 differ
from them where they diverge; and 3, “though in
troduced with marks of quotation, have no assignable
original in the Old Testament at all” (20, 21). “But
little regard—or what according to our modern habits
would be considered little regard—is paid to the sense
and original context of the passage quoted,” the in
stances given being Matt. viii. 17; xi. 10 ; 2 Cor. vi. 17;
and Heb. i. 7 (24). “ Sometimes the sense of the
original is so far departed from that a seemingly
opposite sense is substituted for it,” the instances
being Matt. ii. 6; Rom. xi. 26; and Eph. iv. 8 (24).
In Matt, xxvii. 9, 10, Jeremiah has been cited in lieu
of Zechariah; in Mark ii. 26, Abiathar has been
named in lieu of Abimelech; and “in Acts vii. 16
there seems to be a confusion between the purchase of
Machpelah near Hebron by Abraham and Jacob’s
�40
The Christian Evidences.
purchase of land from Hamor the father of Shechem”
(25). Matt. ii. 23; John vii. 38, 42; Eph. v. 14, and
the second of the citations in 1. Tim. v. 18, “can he
assigned to no Old Testament original ” (25).
The text of the scripture in the various versions
made thereof became corrupted, of which Origen and
Jerome have seriously complained. Mr Sanday cites
Dr Scrivener who observes, “ now it may be said with
out extravagance that no set of Scriptural records
affords a text less probable in itself, less sustained by
any rational principles of external evidence, than that
of Cod. D. of the latin Codices, and (so far as it accords
with them) of Cureton’s Syriac. Interpolations as
insipid in themselves as unsupported by other
evidence abound in them all .... It is no
less true to fact than paradoxical in sound, that the
worst corruptions to which the New Testament has ever
been subjected originated within a hundred years after
it was composed.” To which Mr Sanday adds, “This
is a point on which text critics of all schools are
substantially agreed. However much they may differ
in other respects, no one of them has ever thought of
taking the text of the Old Syriac and Old Latin tranlations as the basis of an edition. There is no question
that this text belongs to an advanced, though early,
stage of corruption” (135, 136).
“The first two
i chapters [of Matthew] clearly belong to a different stock
of materials from the rest of the Gospel.” “ If Luke had
had before him the first two chapters of Matthew, he
could not have written his own first two chapters as
he has done” (153). “For minor variations the text
of Irenaeus cannot be used satisfactorily, because it is
always doubtful whether the Latin version has correctly
reproduced the original.” The text of Tertullian hav
ing “ been edited in a very exact and careful form,” Mr
Sanday says, “I shall illustrate what has been said
respecting the corruptions introduced in the second
century chiefly from him” (332, 333). Mr Sanday
�The Christian Evidences.
4i
quotes from Dr Scrivener who states, “ Origen’s is the
highest name among the critics and expositors of the
early church; he is perpetually engaged in the discus
sion of various readings of the New Testament, and
employs language in describing the then state of the
text, which would be deemed strong if applied even to
its present condition with the changes which sixteen
more centuries must needs have produced ....
‘ But now,’ saith he, ‘ great in truth has become the
diversity of copies, be it from negligence of certain
scribes, or from the evil daring of some who correct
what is written, or from those who in correcting add or
take away what they think fit ’ ” (328).
In the Pauline epistles, the author constantly refers
to his having written them with his own hand (1 Cor.
xvi. 21; Gal. vi. 11; Col. iv. 18; Philemon 19),this being
“ the token in every epistle” (2 Thess. iii. 17), and when
another hand was employed, he was mentioned by name
(Rom. xvi. 22). The reason for the alleged caution
apparently is that the churches were disturbed by
spurious epistles as coming from the alleged Paul
(2 Thess. ii. 2). Peter is represented as using the like
precaution of naming his scribe (1 Pet. v. 12). If these
autographs were of importance to establish the auth
enticity of the text, it is clear that we should have had
the autographs as well as the text. Tertullian, to whom
it cost little to make an assertion, assured those he
addressed that there were such autographs (327), other
wise they have never been heard of. Speaking of
Origen, Dr Scrivener says, “respecting the sacred
autographs, their fate or their continued existence, he
seems to have had no information, and to have enter
tained no curiosity : they had simply passed by and
were out of his reach,” (328), or, it may be better
concluded, had never existed.
We may now judge of the tale of Christianity by its
proper historical foundations. A divinity is born on earth
�42
The Christian Evidences.
visibly moving among mankind; heavenly voices
announce his advent; when he opens his ministry the
spirit of God alights upon him in visible form, and the
Deity acknowledges his divine origin in audible tones ;
Satan appears in bodily form to subvert him with
temptations, but is defeated ; he turns water into wine
and creates cooked food out of nothing for the support
of thousands; he controls the elements, quelling a
storm and walking on water as on dry land; he heals
the sick with a word or a touch, restoring the lame, the
deaf, and the blind; the devils then infesting mankind
leave their victims and vanish at his command; the
dead rise to life obedient to his word ; the ancient
Hebrew worthies, Moses and Elijah, return to earth to
glorify him; angels come and minister to him; he is
publicly put to an ignominious death, but rises from,
the grave, visits and comforts his followers, and ascends
before them into heaven; from thence he sends forth
the Spirit of God to be for ever with his people, guiding
and instructing them in all things till he should
speedily return and take them to himself.
One would think that the revelation of such a being,
attended by demonstrations designed to attract attention
and fill all minds with wonder and awe, would not fall
dead upon the generation so visited, and that every
word and outward manifestation from the divine
personage so exhibiting himself for the benefit of man
kind, would have had its due and full effect, and have
left its impress upon the favoured witnesses of these
occurrences, and those who immediately succeeded
them. Equally should we expect that the mission of
the Holy Ghost would not be in vain, that the task
committed to him would be duly performed, and that
the divinely taught and guided people would stand out
in open relief as an exemplar to the darkened world
that was to be illuminated by their presence and
benefitted by their instructions. Nor could we antici
pate that the promise of the early return of the divine
�The Christian Evidences.
43
founder would remain, even at a distant day, unre
deemed, as a vain utterance, not to be realized. Such,
however, is the imaginary portraiture, and such the
reverse with which the stern progress of events
indubitably presents us.
The facts offered for acceptance are of a character to
contradict all experience, and involve a series. of
disturbances of the governing laws in nature which
operate around us in unvarying consistency; a fatal
interval of five generations occurs between the facts and
their known acceptance by any one, and we have to
depend for them, not on witnesses, but on records
suspiciously introduced at a later era j nor has the
integrity of these records, though said to have been
divinely inspired, been preserved. The first to avow
belief in the founder of the new faith are those who
are condemned as heretics, and the earliest representa
tions about him are in documents rejected as unauthor
ized and apocryphal. The Holy Ghost abstains from
action for five generations and upwards,. leaving the
field open to the enemy, who occupies it with false
professors and spurious narrations. At length a body
claiming to be orthodox make their appearance and
produce four accounts of the founder for which they
claim divine support. With the aid of a Christian
advocate we may assure ourselves that two of these are
not what they purport to be, but are substitutes for the
original writings which in some unaccountable manner
have disappeared. A third hangs upon these two and
necessarily falls with them. The fourth contradicts all
that has gone before it, is obviously framed for dogmatic
effect, and is so surrounded with difficulties as to its
authenticity as to have become a vehicle for disputations
never to be solved satisfactorily by those who would
uphold it. On the other hand improving knowledge
sets us above the condition of those who in ignorance
have accepted these more than questionable scriptures.
The proved antiquity of the human race makes us bid
�
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Victorian Blogging
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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The Christian evidences
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Strange, Thomas Lumisden
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An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 44 p. ; 18 p.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. The oval portrait on title page is a photo [of the author?] that has been cut out and pasted. A review of the Rev. W. Sanday's work: "The Gospels in the Second Century." Includes bibliographical references. Date of publication from KVK. Printed by Turnbull and Spears, Edinburgh.
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Thomas Scott
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[1877]
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Christianity
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Book Reviews
Conway Tracts
Gospels
-
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PDF Text
Text
1874]
899
FRAU RATH.1
HE relations between the in Dr. Bohmer, August Wilhelm
tellectual world and dis Schlegel, and Schelling, affection
ately known to the literary public
tinguished women in Germany are
quite exceptional, and if, on first con as simple ‘ Caroline,’ if she has left
sideration of them, the foreigner is work behind her at all, has left it
amused by a tinge of somewhat fan in writings which pass under
tastic sentimentality, in the end he Schlegel’s name.
But of all gifted women, creative
becomes very favourably impressed
with the earnestness, sincerity, and or only appreciative, none has ever
been more nationally beloved than
amiability which pervade them.
A female artist, be the art she the lady whose name is prefixed to
professes what it may, is pursued this paper—the mother of Goethe,
by the public interest into all the called in her lifetime Frau Aja,
circumstances of her private life and now freshly remembered as Frau
and through all the processes of her Rath. During the year 1871 there
individual culture, and certainly appeared at Leipsic a collection of
receives from the spiritually edu letters to and from Frau Rath,
cated section of the country at edited by Herr Robert Keil; and as
large ample compensation, in en this contained no less than thirtycouragement and affection, for the four new letters from Frau Rath,
domestic sacrifices or social isolation and fifty-three new ones to her, it
the pursuit of art may involve. may be conceived that the interest
Nor is the interest confined only to created by it was considerable. It
those who have succeeded in mani does not, however, appear to have
festing their inner conceptions of life attracted any general attention in
and the world by distinct works or this country; and for readers outside
representations ; others find a warm of that circle which keeps a close
place in the national heart who have eye on German literature a notice
only exhibited an appreciation of of it may contain some novelty.
Katharina Elizabeth Goethe was,
the higher culture, and whose direct
influence has been confined to the as is well known, the daughter of
circles to which their conversation the SchultheissTextor of Frankfurt,
or correspondence extended. The of whom Goethe has related many
memory of Meta (known to us, pleasing traits in the Diclitung uncl
indeed, by hei’ exchange of sen Wahrheit, and whose portrait he
timents with Richardson, the has so prettily sketched as he re
novelist) is chiefly cherished across membered him in the still garden
the Rhine because she so valued at the back of Friedberg Street—
Klopstock and was by him deemed wrapt in his loose dressing-gown
so worthy of love in return ; and the and with a folded velvet cap on
great issues said to be attributable his head, wandering slowly to
to Rahel Levin, wife of Varnhagen and fro, and ministering to the
von Ense, must have had their wants of his pinks, tulips, and
source in her celebrity as an accom hyacinths. Elizabeth (as she more
plished talker, and in the letters commonly called herself) was born
which, with an easy hand, she in 1731, and was therefore only 18
distributed amongst all classes of when the great poet was born. Heri’
society. The intellectual daughter Keil, in the interesting introduction
of the Free Theologian, Michaelis, to his book, has pointed out that in
who was successively the wife of three of his works Goethe has en-
T
1 Frau Rath. Briefwechsel von K. E. Goethe nach den Originalen mitgetheilt von
Robert Keil. Leipzig: Brockhaus, 1871.
�400
Frau Fath.
deavoured to depict his mother: in
Goetz von Berlichingen, in Wilhelm,
Meister, and in Hermann und Doro
thea. In looking over the extracts
he has adduced in proof, it strikes
one that the features, few as they are,
of Goetz’s wife, are by far the most
applicable to Frau Rath, as she has
drawn herself in the correspondence
under review. The cheerfulness, the
constancy, the shiftful household
habits, above all, the trust in God,
are each introduced; and, though the
strokes that bring out these traits
are slight, they are drawn with a
firm and masterly hand. How nobly
she shows in this little scene I—
4th Act.—Inn at Heilbronn.
Goetz.—What news, Elizabeth, of my
beloved adherents ?
Elizabeth.—Nothing certain. Some are
killed; some lie in the ToWer. No one can
or will give me closer particulars.
Goetz.—Is this the recompense of fide
lity— of childlike obedience? What be
comes of That it may be well with thee, and
thou mayst live long on the carthl
Elizabeth.—Bear husband! blame not our
heavenly Father. They have their reward:
it was born with them—an independent,
noble heart. In prison—they are free.
The allusion to his own mother,
in what Goethe says about the mo
ther of Wilhelm Meister and the
puppet-show, is very slight; but in
Hermann und Dorothea the love for
and pride in her son, as shown by
Lieschen—-her kind heart, thrift,
and humour—answer to qualities in
Frau Rath, and Herr Keil is con
vinced that the portrait is finished
from affectionate remembrances.
We are content to take his opinion;
but although fully recognising, as
we do, the similar traits, this charac
ter, as a whole, seems to owe some
of its attributes to other sources.
It appears that after the death of
Frau Rath, Goethe had contemplated
a direct poetical representation of
her, and even so late as the autumn
of 1831 he mentioned it to Riemer
as a work in posse and to be called
Aristeia. It was never, however,
accomplished, and Eckermann does
not appear to have even heard of
[September
the project. It is a curious thing
that, good critics as the Germans
are, it was a long time before the
literary imposture conceived by the
celebrated ‘child,’BettinaBrentano,
was fully unmasked ; and even then
the public seemed unwilling to dis
believe what they had once eagerly
accepted. Amongst the letters in
the book called Goethe's Correspond
ence with a Child are several pur
porting to have been written by the
Frau Rath to Bettina; but hardly
any of them answer in character,
tone, orthography, syntax, or any
thing else, to those in this collection.
Considering that Bettina was under
many obligations to Frau Rath, it
is hard to understand how she could
have brought herself to forge these
letters, which are so vapid and
colourless by the side of the genuine
ones ; and, what is worse, invent so
very malicious a scene as the sup
posed interview with Madame de
Stael at Bethmann-Schaaf. It can
not be called less than malicious,
because it was the outcome of a
deliberate attempt to turn the old
lady into ridicule, and to exhibit her
in a contemptible light. Now that
the narrative is known to be false,
it reads so like a caricature that
wonder arises at its long vitality
as a graphic anecdote. But it
would be presumptuous in any
one not German to say he should
have had suspicions from the first.
As it is now relegated to the
regions of ill-natured fiction, an
outline of it may be found curious,
and even instructive, as affording,
by a picture of what the original
was not, some idea of what she was.
Frau Hath (says Bettina) had adorned
herself in a wonderful way: certainly more
in accordance with German eccentricity
than French taste. Three waving feathers
floated from different sides of her head : a
red one, a white one, and a blue—the
French national colours—and had for a
groundwork a field of sunflowers! She
was painted with much art; her large
black eyes discharged flashes of artillery !
Round her neck was twisted the golden
ornament given her by the Queen of Prussia.
Old-fashioned lace of extraordinary richness
�1874]
Frau Rath,.
concealed her bosom. And thus she stood
with her white glace gloves, waving an
elegant fan in one hand, and with the other,
which was uncovered and be-ringed with
glittering stones,—taking an occasional
pinch from her gold snuff-box, on which
was a miniature of Goethe. At length
Madame de Stael arrived, conducted by
Benjamin Constant. As she stepped by
Frau Rath, whose astounding habiliments
were well calculated to disgust her, the
latter stretched out her dress with her left
hand and saluted with her fan, and whilst
thus continuously bowing with great con
descension, said in a loud, clear voice:
‘Je suis la Mere de Goethe.’ On which
the authoress replied, ‘Ah, je suis charmec; ’
and a dead silence fell on everybody.
Bettina professes to have wit
nessed this scene, but it is known
now that she was not in Frankfurt
when Madame de Stael visited that
city. Herr Keil is not disposed to
let Frau von Arnim go scot-free
after this imposture, and quotes
with great approval a satire of long
standing against her, in which the
contrarieties of her character are
depicted, at first with some point,
but afterwards with much tedious
ness. ‘ Half witch, half angel; half
priestess, half bayadere; half cat,
half dove ; half bird, half snake; half
lizard, half butterfly! ’ and so on
to lengths whither English faculties
of being entertained are unable to
follow.
Although the great interest which
Frau Rath created was mainly due,
of course, to her connection with
the national poet, yet, when people
had once made her acquaintance on
this account, they soon became
desirous of increasing it to a friend
ship with her for her own sake.
She was not literary; she had no
gifts of authorship. ‘ I have never,’
she says in a letter to her son,
‘ written even an A. B. C. book, and
my genius will in future guard me
against any possibility of the sort.’
In another place she repudiates,
with great vivacity, the idea of
writing a diary. ‘The good God
will not let me sink so low, that I
should reach the depth of keeping a
iournal. Forbid it, Heaven ! ’ Nor
401
does she seem to have read much;
but she was quite able to appreciate
anything that was put before her,
and could give sensible reasons
for admiring their works, both
to her son and Wieland who was
especially fond of her, and always
supplied her with the new number
of his h/L&rlmr. She delighted
also in the society of intellectual
people; was interested in drawings,
fond of music, and passionately
attached to the theatre. But the
traits in her character which
had such a charm for all who came
within her influence, were her love
of innocent pleasures, her cheer
fulness, her healthy philosophy in
clining always to the hopeful side of
things, and her dread of unrest
which led her to avoid all un
necessary emotions of a painful and
agitating sort, associating them in
her mind rather with, sins than with
the natural sorrows of life. Add to
this that she was, above all, the ‘ gute
Gattin und Deutsche Hausfrau: ’
great in her roasted venison and
fatted capons, and glorious in her
flagons of ‘ tyrants’ blood ’—a Rhine
wine which the Grand Duke, Karl
August, said pulled him through a
severe attack of illness.
In the early part of this collection
of letters, the old Herr Rath Goethe
himself is found, still moving about
that house his son has made so
familiar to everybody, but subdued
and silent, and greatly changed
from the meddlesome, but wellintentioned, father of the first books
of the Dichtung und Wahrheit. He
died in 1782, and for some years
after Frau Rath continued in the
family mansion ; but she sold it in
1795, and a^ a later period took up
her quarters in the Rossmarkt.
She was, of course, after his death
more free to shape her course in her
own fashion, and she has left more
than one charming vignette of her
daily life.
The following is from a letter to
the Grand Duchess Amalie (March
i783) :
�402
Frau Fath.
In the morning I attend to my little
housekeeping and other business matters,
and then my letters get themselves written.
No one ever had such a droll correspond
ence. Every month I clear my desk out,
and I never can do so without laughing.
Inside the scene is that of heaven—all
class distinctions done away with, and
high and low, saints, publicans, and sin
ners, in a heap together! A letter from
the pious Lavater lies, without animosity,
by the side of one from the actor, Gross
mann. In the afternoon my friends have
the right to visit me ; but they all have to
clear out by four o’clock, for then I dress
myself, and either go to the play or else
pay calls. At nine I am back again home.
On Saturdays she used to assemble
around her a party of girls (Samstagmiidel). Frau Rath was a rare
hand at games, and had an extraor
dinary gift for relating stories in
an effective way. In Goethe’s poet
ical account of the hereditary origin
of the different elements in his own
character and person, the lines
Von Miitterchen die Frohnatur,
Die Lust zu fabuliren—
From mother dear the frolic soul, ’
The love of spinning fiction—
is strictly true.
Another aptitude Frau RatlTpossessed—one which perhaps more
than aDy other tends to make a
genial companion—was her ready
talent for jumping with the humour
of any of her friends. The witty
hunchback, Fraulein von Gochliausen, who was lady in waiting to
the Duchess Dowager Amalie, and
whose astounding adventure with
her bedroom door is told with much
humour by Mr. Lewes in his Life of
Goetlie, had a fancy for writing
doggerel, or what is called in
Germany ‘ Kniittel-vers,’ and often
indited letters to Frau Rath, con
ceived in this form. Not to be
behindhand, Frau Rath always
answered in the same false gallop,
and acquitted herself at least as well
as the Fraulein; both, it must be
confessed, often trembling on. the
verge of gibberish. I our lines,
however, by Frau Rath, Herr Keil
lias prefixed to his book, for the
sake of the motherly pride and
[September
tenderness which, in their rough
way, they express :—
In Versemachen habe nicht viel gethan,
Das sieht man diesen wahrlich an,
Docli habe ich geboren ein Knabelein schon,
Das thut das alles gar trefflich verstehn.
No great things have I done in rhyme,
As you may judge, at any time ;
But I a handsome lad can claim
Who knows full well the tuneful game.
In selecting a few extracts from
different letters, the choice will be
guided chiefly by the light they
seem to throw on Frau Rath’s
character and circumstances; but,
before these are given, a letter to
her of Goethe himself seems to claim
to be translated, as illustrating a
point of great interest in his history.
It is new, we believe, to the general
English public, and puts strongly
and clearly the view he took of his
situation at Weimar, and how he
was convinced, notwithstanding the
fears of his friends lest the work of
the Artist should suffer from the
position of the Minister, that the
freedom from pettiness and con
striction, and the insight into the
world, his increased rank gave him,
were essential to his culture, and
would end in his complete develop
ment. Events showed he was
triumphantly right.
August ii, 1781.
The Devin du Village arrived yesterday
with Melchior’s work. I have up to this
had neither time nor quiet to answer your
last dear letter. And yet it was a great
joy to see expressed once more tho old
familiar sentiments, and to read them in
your own handwriting. I entreat you not
to be troubled on my account, nor to let
anything mislead you. My health is far
better than I could have expected or hoped
in former days ; and if it but last me for
at least the bulk of my work still remain
ing, I sHall by no means have reason to be
dissatisfied with it. As for my position
itself, notwithstanding considerable draw
backs, it has much that is most desirable
for me; and the best proof of this is. that
I cannot think of any other with which I
could at present manage at all. No one
can conceive that it would be becoming in
me to be wishing, out of mere hypochon
driacal uneasiness, to be otherwise situated
than I am. Merck and others judge my
position quite wrongly : they see only what
�Frau Fath.
1874]
403
I sacrifice, not what I gain ; and they can
not understand that I become daily richer,
whilst I daily give up so much. You re
member the last time I was with you,
before I accomplished the move here, and
the conditions then existing: had they
continued, I should certainly have come to
misfortune. The disproportion between
the narrow and slowly-moved citizen
circle and the breadth and activity of
my being would have driven me mad.
With all my lively imagining and fore
casts of human affairs I should have con
tinued unacquainted with the world, and in
a state of perpetual childhood, and this
state, through self-conceit and cognate
faults, would have grown unbearable to
itself and every one around. How much
more fortunate it was to find myself in
relations, for which indeed I was no match,
but where I had the opportunity, through
inany errors of misunderstanding and hasti
ness, of learning to know myself and others,
and where, left to fate and my own resources,
I had to go through many trials, not in the
least necessary for hundreds of men, but of
which, for the completion of my culture, I
was sorely in need! And now, to be in my
element, how can I wish for a happier posi
tion than one which has for me something
of infinity about it ? For not only do new
capacities develop themselves in me daily
■—my notions grow clearer, my power in
creases—my acquirements are extended—
my discernment corrected, and my mind
rendered more active—but I find daily
opportunity of directing my endowments—
it may be towards great objects, or it may
be towards small.
affectionate interest. It is very
pleasing to observe the way in
which she and, indeed, many other
correspondents introduce trifling
matters about Goethe, as if quite
casually, but purposely so intro
ducing them doubtless to delight
the mother’s heart. Goethe does
not seem to have written directly
to the Frau Rath very often, and
therefore these side views of him
were especially welcome. The
Duchess calls him all sorts of nick
names ; at one time Dr. Wolff, at
another friend Wolff; but perhaps
the choicest title is ‘ Hatschelhans,’
which may be translated by any
fond, nonsensical word; ‘ sweet
poppet ’ will do as well as another.
In replying, Frau Rath, at the be
ginnings and endings, makes use of
those profound expressions of respect
for rank which were then universal
in Germany in intercourse between
citizens and the nobility; but in the
body of the letter she lets loose her
high spirits, and is completely her
self. Amidst all her fun and satire
she seldom omits some aphorism of
her homely philosophy, and in times
of any trouble she expresses herself
as being entirely supported by it.
In the first gloom of her widow
Then, after dwelling on the folly hood she thus writes to the
it would be to throw up a post so Duchess:—
suited in many respects to him, the
All future joys must be sought for
writer adds:—
amongst strangers, and out of my own
Meanwhile believe me that a large
measure of the good heart with which
I endure and work, proceeds from the
thought that all my sacrifices are voluntary,
and that I have only to put the posthorses to, and to find with you again a
competency and a pleasant life in which
the repose would be absolute. And with
out this outlook, to regard myself, as in
hours of distress I cannot but do, as a
bondsman and day labourer to my own
necessities, would be a far more painful
task.
Fare thee well.
good old friends.
Weimar.
liemember me to my
house, for there—all is still and vacant as
in the churchyard. It was far otherwise
once!
But since, throughout nature,
nothing remains in its own place, but whirls
into the eternal rolling circle, how can I
suppose I am to be an exception ? Frau
Aja expects nothing so absurd. . Who
would distress himself because it is not
always full moon, or because the sun now
(October) is not so warm as in July ? If
the present is only well used, and. no
thoughts entertained of how things might
be otherwise, one gets fairly through the
world, and the getting through is—all said
and done—the main thing.
Frau Aja, she says, is determined
to keep her good temper and spirits,
The Dowager Duchess Amalie and to drive away the foul fiend as
figures frequently in this volume, he was driven away in the time of
and always writes in a strain of King Saul. Then she adds :—
VOL. X.—NO. LVII.
G-.
NEW SERIES.
F F
�404
Frau Rath.
Herr Tabor (your Highness will re
member the name at least) has provided
splendidly for our amusement. The whole
winter we are to have the play! Won’t
there just be fiddling and trumpeting!
Ha! I should like to. see the evil spirit
who dare trouble me with melancholy!
Just one Sir John Falstaff would put him
to the rout. We had such a gaudium with
the old dog.
This ‘ gaudium ’ is a very favourite
word with Frau Rath, and other
pet phrases are ‘ Summa summarum,’ ‘ per ssecula saeculorum,’
‘ lirum larum,’ &c. They quite
give the hall-mark to her letters,
and the absence of it from Bettina’s
imitations is a blemish—viewing
forgery as one of the mimetic arts.
We have glimpses of an interchange
of presents. Frau Rath, with many
apologies for the liberty, sends the
Duchess some biscuits, and the
Duchess works a pair of garters for
her dear old friend. The garter
letter is one of the new ones; but
Mr. Lewes had seen it at Weimar,
and mentions it in his biography.
There are fourteen letters from
Wieland to Frau Rath, but only
one reply; that however, though
not new, is characteristic. Merck
had been staying with her, and she
had found, after his departure, a
letter to Wieland, which he had
written but never posted. She sent
it on, and writes herself:—
Dear Son,—Merck was three days with
us. When he was gone, I searched in his
room and cleared it out, which in the case
of poets is a very necessary task, as you can
sufficiently judge by the letter which preceded
this. For that poor letter would have lain
where it was, and never have reached its place
and destination, had Frau Aja had less in
sight into the poet-nature. But, thank
God, she is not yet out of practice, though
for these three years Herr Wolfgang
Goethe has no longer gladdened her house,
but allowed the light of his countenance to
shine at Weimar.
Wieland appears in a very amiable
aspect. His genuine pride in and
affection for Goethe, his entire
freedom from literary self-compla
cency, his cheerfulness, openness,
and affection are all delightful at
tributes. He is very funny about
[September
his little son. He married late in
life; and when the baby came, of
course, as is usual in such cases,
there never was such a baby ! He
begs Frau Rath to kindly overlook
his own thin body and spindle legs,
as he belongs, he says, to an age
when it was usual for poets to
dispense as much as possible with
the physical, and concentrate their
powers in their heads. Taking
this into consideration, and re
membering also the amount of
Agathons, Idris, Amadis, Biri
binkers, Gerons, &c., he had already
produced, he must say he thinks
the baby in every way creditable
to him. We like to have Goethe
called by him ‘ Brother Merlin, the
magician.’ It is not always easy
to take the second place, after you
have held the first, even although
your good sense may tell you it is
your place; but Wieland does it
with infinite grace. To one of the
Fraulein von Gochhausen’s letters
he adds a postscript to his ‘ liebes
Miitterchen ’ to say they were all at
Ettersburg, and that a little pastoral
piece by brother Wolf (Goethe)
had made him twenty-five years
younger. He sends his best com
pliments ‘an den guten lieben Papa,’
which means the old Rath. There
is yet another postscript to this
same epistle by the old Duchess :
‘ Dear Mother, I and my donkey
are here too.—Amalie.’
Goethe had taken with him to
Weimar from his home at Frank
fort a man named Philipp Seidel,
who was employed both as secre
tary and servant. Frau Rath en
deavours to get side glimpses of
her son every now and then through
this intelligent domestic, and there
is a letter from him describing the
performance of the West Indian, in
which Goethe (or, as Philipp has it,
the Geheime Legations Rath) played
Belcour, dressed in a white coat,
with blue silk waistcoat and
breeches; and when painted and
surmounted by a white dress wig,
looked in Philipp’s eyes very hand-
�1874]
Frau Fath.
some. Indeed, one can well imagine
he looked so in everybody’s eyes.
All were amateurs except two. The
Duke took the part of O'Flaherty,
and Musaeus that of the Lawyer;
Eckhof, the actor of whom Lessing
had so high an opinion, was Stockwell, and Madame Wolf, a profes
sional singer, also played. As we
have mentioned Philipp, we must
introduce the name of Elizabeth
Hoch — ‘ Lieschen ’ — a favourite
maid-servant of Frau Rath. To
her Goethe was never anything
more than ‘our young master,’ but
she lived to see the statue put up
to him at Frankfurt. To so genial
a person as Frau Rath it came
natural to make the relations of
mistress and servant very pleasant,
so that Lieschen stayed with her to
the last; and marrying when the
old lady was gone, though then
nearly fifty years old, she lived on
to the spring of 1846.
In January, 1784, Frau Rath
opened communications with Fried
rich von Stein, the son of the Baron
ess von Stein, with whom Goethe
exchanged tender sentiments and
savoury sausages, in the droll fashion
of the day, and whose correspond
ence with the poet is so well known.
The boy was only eleven, but he
served admirably the purpose to
which Frau Rath was desirousof put
ting him—that of chronicling little
events in which Goethe took apart.
‘ Don’t you think, now, you might
manage to keep a little diary, and
just pop down things that happen
before you, and then send it to me
once a month ? A few words would
do : “ Goethe was at the play last
night;” “ to-day we had company;”
and so on.’ Such was the'purport of
her first letter, and the lad seems to
have caught at the idea, and writ
ten regularly, and to have felt an
extraordinary interest in telling all
particulars about Goethe, to whom
he was greatly attached. Some of
the letters of Frau Rath to this boy
are truly charming, and convey hn
idea of the peculiar fascination she
405
exercised over the young. In send
ing him two silhouettes of herself,
she writes:—
In person I am reasonably tall and
reasonably stout; have brown hair and
eyes, and could represent tolerably well
the mother of Prince Hamlet. Many per
sons—amongst them the Princess of Dessau
—declare there could be no mistake about
Goethe being my son. I do not find it so;
but there must be something in it, it has
been said so often.
In another letter she gives an
account of a fire at the theatre,
which caused great loss to the
director, Grossmann. A subsequent
curious scene is described, which
could scarcely have happened
out of Germany. They soon got
the theatre open again, and played
‘ Der Teutsche FLausvater,' in which
the manager took the part of
the painter; but before it began,
the curtain drew up and discovered
Grossmann in his half-burnt coat,
and with his head and hands tied
up in rags. He then came forward,
surrounded by his six children, all
weeping bitterly, and delivered a
speech. The audience wept sympa
thetically, and the manager with
drew amidst thunders of applause.
The young Stein paid Frau Rath
a visit in the autumn of 1785, and
Goethe, writing to Knebel, says
‘ Fritz is in Frankfurt, and will
most likely see Blanchard go up this
week.’ Blanchard was a French
man who earned a great reputation
by going up in fire balloons—an
excessively dangerous feat, to which
our modern ascents in gas balloons
are mere child’s play. Fritz, how
ever, did not see him, as the very
common occurrence of the balloon
being burnt took place. Room must
be found for an amusing remini
scence of his visit, which Frau
Rath calls up in answering a letter
that announced the boy’s safe
arrival at home. Everything, she
says, reminds her of him—the pears
he used to eat while she had her
tea, and then the fun they had
dressing up fine, and getting them
selves powdered and puffed.
�406
Frau Bath.
And then the vis-a-vis at table, and how
at two o’clock (I must admit, often very
rudely) I hunted my cherub into the
Fair; and how we met again at the play
house and came back home together, and,
lastly, the drama for two characters in the
hall, where fat Katherine attended to the
lighting, and Greineld and Marie repre
sented the audience—that was sport in
deed!
This Friedrich, in later life,
entered the Prussian political ser
vice, and died in 1844, holding a
high appointment at Breslau.
In August, 1797, Goethe took
Christiane Vulpius and his son
August to visit Frau Rath, who re
ceived them, most kindly. She
always alluded to Christiane as her
dear daughter, and sometimes wrote
to her in terms of sincere affection.
She lived to see Goethe married to
her. August had a great attach
ment to his grandmother, and ex
pressed himself very feelingly at
her death,
The only letters in this collection
which are disappointing are those
to the actor, Unzelmann. For
once, Frau Rath seems a little to
lose her simplicity and freshness;
there is an extravagance in the ex
pressions—the sentiment is pitched
too high, and a flavour of passion
ate affectation is perceptible to
which 4 beautiful souls ’ and other
fantastic beings were at that time
sadly addicted. Sometimes she
rallies and is her own healthy self
again, but the mere fact of writing
to Unzelmann seems sooner or later
to necessitate a bit of overstrained
writing.
As the book wears to its close the
reader becomes aware that Frau Rath
has changed with the cbangingyears,
and has lost some of the vivacity
so conspicuous in the earlier pages.
The jolly housewife who used to
sing hep son’s song of 4 The King
and his Flea,’ and call on the guests
for a chorus ; who poured out her
choice wine, and enjoyed nothing so
much as 4 ein lierzliches gaudium,’
and in her yearly feast could cater
nobly for forty friends, tones down
[September 1874
gradually to a calm and unexcitable
old lady, retaining, however, to the
last her easily-amused temperament,
and enjoying great peace of mind
from her belief that God could
safely be trusted. And so, with no
regrets for the past, and no feverish
curiosity about the future, her wellordered life drew to its end. She
had read the flower of Goethe’s com
positions, and had had the pride of
knowing that Germany recognised
him as its greatest man ; and with
this proud thought she might well
sing Nunc
Her death
seems at last to have been some
what sudden, as we gather from a
letter in which August announced
the event to his mother; but faith
ful Lieschen was with her, tenderly
caring for her. And she had inti
mation at least that her hour was
near, for, with characteristic calm
ness and foresight, she had made
every arrangement for the funeral,
descending so far into details as to
order wine and biscuits for the at
tendants. The date of death was
September 13, 1808 ; and on the
15th the remains were laid in the
old Frankfurt Friedhof, where, on
the right hand as you enter, a recent
gravestone now marks the spot.
Herr Keil has performed his task
as editor with much completeness.
He has selected from other pub
lished sources several interesting
letters, and has so pieced them in
with his original matter that shape
and proportion are given to the
volume as a whole. Those who are
conversant with German publica
tions—a largely increasing section
of the public—will know that the
days of botanical drying-paper and
half-impressed black letter have
passed away, and that Leipsic and,
perhaps still more, Berlin now vie
in beauty of typography and ele
gance of finish with Paris. Herr
Keil’s book is quite up to the
standard of the day in its clear
type and excellent paper, and is fur
nished, moreover, with convenient
indices.
J. W. Sherer.
�
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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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Frau Rath
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Sherer, J.W.
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: [s.l.]
Collation: p. 399-406 ; 22 cm.
Notes: Printed in double columns. Includes bibliographical references. A review of Frau Rath, Briefwechsel von K.E. Goethe nach den Originalen von Robert Keil. Lepizig: Brockhaus, 1871. From the library of Dr Moncure Conway.
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[s.n.]
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1874
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CT36
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Book reviews
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Frau Rath), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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English
Book Reviews
Conway Tracts
Katharina Elizabeth Goethe
Women
-
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aa3832a8f8a4c57c5bc254b5fa22ec6b
PDF Text
Text
FROM “THE ACADEMY,” OCTOBER 33st, 1874.
B The Sacred Anthology.”
A Book of Ethnical Scriptures, collected and edited by M-. D. Conway.
London : Triibner & Co., 18.74. 12s.
This book shows what may be achieved by enthusiasm and perseverance. Mr. Conway tells us that
he is not an Oriental scholar, but he has given us what no Oriental scholar has yet given to the world,
though for many years the world has been expecting and demanding something like a Sacred Anthology,
viz., Bcollection of the most important passages from the sacred writings of the East, translated into
■EnfLWh. As Oriental scholars shrank from the undertaking, Mr. Conway set to work, collecting all the
translations which he could find ready to hand, and extracting from them whatever seemed to him of real
valuqH
*
*
*
But Mr. Conway was not dismayed by these difficulties. He knew
what he could, and what he could not do, and by limiting the scope of his undertaking, and giving to his
collection a purely practical character, he has certainly succeeded in accomplishing a useful and important
task. 1 ®‘e believed,” as he tells us, “that it would be useful for moral and religious culture if the sympathy of religions could be more generally made known, and the converging testimonies of ages and races
to great principles more widely appreciated.” If we may judge by the rapid succession of editions, Mr.
Conway has certainly roused by his Sacred Anthology a wide interest in a subject hitherto strSigely
neglected, and he will have rendered an important service, if it were only by dispelling some prejudices
most detrimental to a true appreciation of the value of all religions.
Those who study the history of the human race in all its various phases, from the lowest savagery to
the highest civilisation, know that neither in the most perfect work of discursive thought, nor in the
grandest achievements of creative art, has the human mind put forth all its powers in greater force or
fulness than in religion. We are, from our very childhood, so familiar with the highest religious concep
tions, that it is difficult for us to appreciate the mental struggles by which they were conquered and
secured for us. We forget that the simplest conception of the Divine requires an almost superhuman
effort, and was therefore among most nations ascribed to a divine revelation. We forget that every name
.of the Deity was the reward of more than one sleepless night at Peniel, and that even in a prayer, such
,as the Gayatri, are hoarded up the scant earnings of the patient labours oi many generations. That
.tribes, even in the lowest scale of civilisation, should address a Being whom they have never seen, as their
Father, that they should never for one moment doubt his existence, should regulate their lives by what
they suppose to be his will, should actually offer to him what they value most on earth, may no longer
strike us as extraordinary, but in itself it is more marvellous than anything else in the whole of human
nature.
And what is more marvellous still, is the striking uniformity with which that power of religion has
manifested itself almost everywhere. There are differences, no”doubt, and profound differences between
.the religions of the world, but the similarities far outweigh these differences. Let readers open Mr.
Conway’s Anthology, without looking at the references, and they will find it by no means easy to say
whether any given extract comes from a Jewish, a Mohammedan, or a Hindu source. Mr. Conway has
arranged his extracts according to subjects. We find passages on Charity, Nature, Man, Humility,
Sorrow and Death placed together, and these passages are taken promiscuously from all the sacred books
of the world. No doubt we at once recognise the extracts from the Old and New Testaments, particularly
when they are given in the authorised version ; but even these, if translated more literally or more freely,
might often be supposed to be taken from the Buddhist Canon orfrom the Chinese King. The same
sentiments, sometimes in almost the same words, occur again .and again in all the sacred books of the
world. * * *
It is hardly surprising that a perusal of Mr. ConwaySacred Anthology should have left on many
.readers the impression of the great superiority of the Biblical extracts, if compared with the rest. The
fact is, that what we call the beauty or charm of any of the sacred books can be appreciated by those only
whose language has been fashioned, whose very thoughts have been nurtured by them. The words of our
own Bible cause innumerable strings of our hearts to vibrate till-they make a music of memories that
passes all description. The same inaudible music accompanies all sacred books, but it can never be
rendered in any translation. To the Arab there is nothing equal to the cadence of the Koran, to us even
the best translation of Mohammed’s visions sounds often dull and dreary. This cannot be helped, but it
is but fair that it should be borne in mind as a caution againsWeclaring too emphatically that nobody
else’s mother can ever be so fair and dear as our own.
One of the most eminent Oriental scholars expressed the following judgment as to the relative merits
of the Sacred Scriptures of the world :—
“ The collection of tracts, which we call from their excellence the Scriptures, contain, independently
■of a Divine origin, more true sublimity, more exquisite beauty, purer morality, more important historv,
and finer strains both of poetry and eloquence, than could be collected, within the same compass, from all
other books that were ever composed in any age, or in any idiom. The two parts of which Scriptures
consist are connected by a chain of compositions which bear no resemblance in form or style to any that
can be produced from the stores of Grecian, Indian, Persian, or even Arabian learning ; the antiquity of
those compositions no man doubts ; and the unstrained application of them to events long subsequent to
their publication, is a solid ground of belief that they were genuine compositions, and consequently
inspired.”
Would any Oriental scholar endorse this judgment now?
We have intentionally abstained from all critical remarks with regard to.the translation of single
passages. Such remarks might be addressed to the translators, but not to Mr. Conway. He deserves
our hearty thanks for the trouble he has taken in collecting these gems, and stringing them together for
the use of those who have no access to the originals, and we trust that his book will arouse a more general
interest in a long-neglected and even despised branch of literature, the Sacred Books of the East.
MAX MULLER.
Other works by the same Author.
“The Earthward Pilgrimage.” Chatto and Windus. 5s.
“Republican Superstitions.” H. S. King and Co. 2s. fid.
Mr. Conway’s works may be obtained by addressing “ The Librarian, South Place Chapel, Finsbury,
London,” where also may be obtained his Pamphlets on W. J. Fox (3d.); Strauss (3<l.); Mill (2d.) ■
Sterling and Maurice (2d.) ; and Mazzini (Id.).
�
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Title
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Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
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2018
Publisher
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
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Original Format
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Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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The Sacred Anthology
Creator
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Muller, F. Max (Friedrich Max)
Description
An account of the resource
Place of Publication: London
Collation: 1 leaf unnumbered ; 23 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. A review of Moncure Conway's work 'The Sacred Anthology' from 'The Academy', October 31, 1874
Publisher
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[s.n.]
Date
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[1874]
Identifier
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G5597
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (The Sacred Anthology), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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application/pdf
Type
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Text
Language
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English
Subject
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Book reviews
Book Reviews
Conway Tracts
Moncure Conway
Oriental Literature
Sacred Books
-
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a8c3c2032382569f0bdf2b32d94dd314
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Text
IV.
A FRIEND OF LORD BYRON *
Mr. Hodgson has written his father’s life upon a very unusual
plan, for which he makes apologies in his preface. The apologies,
however, were not strictly necessary, for the book is an interesting
one, more so, perhaps, than if it had been composed in the manner
usually followed in such cases. The late Archdeacon Hodgson
was a genial and accomplished scholar, a man of the world, and an
indefatigable versifier ; but he was not a brilliant writer, and our
loss is not great, in the fact that his letters have for the most part
not been preserved. His son and biographer lays before us, in de
fault of any specimens of his own share in his correspondence, a
selection from the letters that he received from his friends. These
were numerous, for Francis Hodgson had the good fortune to in
spire a great deal of affection and confidence. His chief claim to
the attention of posterity resides in the fact that he was an early
and much-trusted intimate of Lord Byron. A good many of By
ron’s letters to him were printed by Moore, to whom, however,
Hodgson surrendered but a portion of this correspondence. His
son here publishes a number of new letters, together with a great
many communications from Mrs. Leigh, the poet’s sister, and two
or three from Lady Byron. All this portion of these volumes is
extremely interesting, and constitutes, indeed, their principal value.
It throws a clearer, though by no means a perfectly clear, light
upon the much-discussed episode of the separation between Byron
and his wife, and upon the character of his devoted sister. The book
contains, besides, a series of letters from Hodgson’s Eton and Cam
bridge friends, and in its latter portion a variety of extracts from
* Memoir of the Rev. Francis Hodgson, B. D., with Numerous Letters from Lord
Byron and Others. By his Son, the Rev. T. P. Hodgson, M. A. London: Macmillan,
1879.
�A FRIEND OF LORD BYRON.
389
his correspondence with such people as Lord Denman (Chief Justice
of England, who presided at the trial of Queen Caroline, and in
curred the bitter animosity of George IV.), James Montgomery, the
late Herman Merivale, the late Duke of Devonshire, and the charm
ing Mrs. Robert Arkwright, who figures in the lately published
memoirs of Fanny Kemble. The picture of Hodgson’s youth and
early manhood, with his numerous friendships, his passion for lit
erature, his extraordinary and unparalleled fecundity in the produc
tion of poetical epistles, his good spirits, good sense, and great
industry, is an extremely pleasant one, and gives an agreeable idea
of the tone of serious young Englishmen, sixty or seventy years
ago, who were also good fellows. Hodgson’s first intention on
leaving Cambridge had been to study for the bar ; but after some
struggles the literary passion carried the day, and he became an
ardent “ reviewer.” He worked a great deal for the critical peri
odicals of the early years of the century, notably for the “ Edin
burgh Review,” and he produced (besides executing a translation
of Juvenal) a large amount of satirical or wTould - be satirical
verse. His biographer gives a great many examples of his poetical
powers, which, however, chiefly illustrate his passion for turning
couplets d propos of everything and of nothing. The facility of
these effusions is more noticeable than their point. In 1815 Hodg
son went into the Church, and in 1836, after having spent many
years at Bakewell, in Derbyshire, in a living which he held from
the Duke of Devonshire, he was appointed Archdeacon of Derby.
In 1840 he was made Provost of Eton College, a capacity in which
he instituted various salutary reforms (he abolished the old custom
of the “ Montem,” which had become a very demoralizing influence).
Archdeacon Hodgson died in 1852.
Mrs. Leigh wrote to him at the time of Byron’s marriage, in
which she felt great happiness, that her brother had “ said that in
all the years that he had been acquainted with you he never had
had a moment’s disagreement with you : ‘ I have quarreled with
Hobham, with everybody but Hodgson,’ were his own words.” By
ron’s letters and allusions to his friend quite bear out this dec
laration, and they present his irritable and passionate nature in the
most favorable light. He had a great esteem for Hodgson’s judg
ment, both in literature and in life, and he defers to it with a do
cility w'hich is touching in a spoiled young nobleman who, on occa
sion, can make a striking display of temper. Mr. Hodgson gives
no definite account of the origin of his father’s acquaintance with
�390
THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.
Byron—he simply says that their intimacy, which in 1808 had
become complete, had “ doubtless been formed previously, during
Hodgson’s visits to London and Cambridge and to the Drurys at
Harrow.” In 1808 Hodgson was appointed tutor in moral philoso
phy at King’s College, Cambridge, and in this year “ Byron came
to Cambridge for the purpose of availing himself of his privilege
as a nobleman, and taking his M. A. degree, although he had only
matriculated in 1805. . . . From this time until early in 1816 the
friends constantly met, and when absent as constantly correspond
ed.” Hodgson was completely under the charm of Byron’s richlyendowed nature ; but his affection, warm as it was (and its warmth
is attested by the numerous copies of verse which he addressed to
his noble friend, and which, though they exhibit little poetical in
spiration, show great tenderness of feeling), was of that pure kind
which leaves the judgment unbribed. Byron’s letters have always
a great charm, and those quoted by Mr. Hodgson, whether pub
lished for the first time, or anticipated by Moore, are full of youth
ful wit and spontaneity. In 1811, while the second canto of “ Childe
Harold ” (Hodgson was helping to revise it) was going through the
press, the poet’s affectionate Mentor had, by letter, a religious dis
cussion with him. Hodgson’s side of the controversy has disap
peared, but Byron’s skeptical rejoinders are full of wit, levity, and
a cynicism which (like his cynicism through life) was half natural
and half affected. “ As to your immortality, if people are to live,
why die ? And any carcasses, which are to rise again, are they worth
raising? I hope, if mine is, that I shall have a better pair of legs
than I have moved on these two-and-twenty years, as I shall be
sadly behind in the squeeze into paradise.” The letters which
throw light upon Byron’s unhappy marriage are all, as we have
said, of great interest. Hodgson’s correspondence with Mrs. Leigh,
which became an intimate one, began in 1814 and lasted for forty
years. Staying with Byron at Newstead in the autumn of that
year, she first writes to him as a substitute for her brother, who,
“ being very lazy,” has begged her to take his pen. It was at this
moment that he became engaged to Miss Milbanke, and one of the
few extracts from his father’s own letters, given by Mr. Hodgson,
is a very sympathetic account of a meeting with Byron in Cam
bridge while the latter was in the glow of just having completed
his arrangements for marrying “ one of the most divine beings on
earth.” There are several letters of Mrs. Leigh’s during 1815, after
the marriage had taken place, going on into the winter of 1816,
�A FRIEND OF LORD BYRON.
391
when they assume a highly dramatic interest. It is interesting, in
view of the extraordinary theory which in the later years of her
life Lady Byron was known to hold on the subject of the relations
between her husband and his sister, and which were given to the
world in so regrettable a manner not long after her death, to observe
that Mrs. Leigh’s letters afford the most striking intrinsic evidence
of the purely phantasmal character of the famous accusation, and
place the author’s character in a highly honorable and touching
light. This is the view taken, in the strongest manner, by the edi
tor of these volumes, who regards Mrs. Leigh as the most devoted
and disinterested of sisters—as the good genius, the better angel,
of the perverse and intractable poet. She appears to have been a
very sympathetic and conscientious woman, not very witty or very
clever, but addicted to writing rather expansive, confidential, lady
like letters, and much concerned about the moral tone and religious
views of her brother, whose genius and poetic fame inspire her with
a quite secondary interest. She appeals to Hodgson, as her brother’s
nearest and most trusted friend, to come up to town and intercede
with either party to prevent the separation. Hodgson obeyed her
summons, and did his best in the matter, but his efforts were una
vailing. His son quotes a remarkable letter which he wrote to Lady
Byron, urging her to the exercise of patience and forbearance ; and
he quotes as well Lady Byron’s reply, which on the whole does less
credit to her clemency than his appeal had done to his tact and wis
dom. There is an element of mystery in the whole matter of her
rupture with her husband which these letters still leave unsolved ;
but, putting this aside, they leave little doubt as to her ladyship’s
rigidity of nature.
“ I believe the nature of Lord B.’s mind to be most benevo
lent,” she says in answer to Hodgson’s appeal. “ But there may
have been circumstances (I would hope the consequences, not the
causes of mental disorder) which would render an original tender
ness of conscience the motive of desperation, even of guilt, when
self-esteem had been forfeited too far” And in reply to Hodg
son’s request, made on Byron’s behalf, that she would specify those
acts of his which she holds to have made a reconciliation impos
sible, she says, “ He does know, too well, what he affects to in
quire.” Mrs. Leigh says to Hodgson, in writing of her brother : “ If
I may give you mine [my opinion], it is that in his own mind there
were and are recollections fatal to his peace, and which would have
prevented his being happy with any woman whose excellence
�392
THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.
equaled or approached that of Lady B., from the. consciousness of
being unworthy of it. Nothing,” she adds, “ could or can remedy
this fatal cause but the consolation to be derived from religion, of
which, alas ! dear Mr. H., our beloved B. is, I fear, destitute.” In
such allusions as these some people will always read the evidence
of some dark and definite wrong-doing on the part of one who de
lighted in the appearance of criminality, and who, possibly, simply
by overacting his part, in the desire to mystify, rather viciously, a
woman of literal mind, in whom the sense of humor was not
strong, and the imagination was uncorrected by it, succeeded too
well and got caught in his own trap.
Even if the inference we speak of were valid, it would be very
profitless to inquire further as regards Byron’s unforgivable sin; we
are convinced that, if it were ascertained, it would be, to ingenuous
minds, a great disappointment. The reader of these volumes will
readily assent to Mr. Hodgson’s declaration that they offer a com
plete, virtual exoneration of Mrs. Leigh. The simple, touching,
pious letters addressed to her brother’s friend at the time of Byron’s
death and of the arrival of his remains in England, strongly contribute to this effect; as does also the tone in which she speaks
of Lady Byron’s estrangement from her, which took place very
suddemy some years after the separation. The tone is that of a
person a good deal mystified and even wounded.
IIeney James, Jr.
�
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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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Conway Hall Library & Archives
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Title
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A friend of Lord Byron
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James, Henry
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: [s.l.]
Collation: p. 388-392 ; 22 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. From North American Review 128 (April 1879). Review of "a memoir of the Rev. Francis Hodgson with numerous letters from Lord Byron and others. By his son, the Rev. T.F. Hodgson"..London: Macmillan, 1879.
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[s.n.]
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[n.d.]
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CT45
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Book Reviews
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (A friend of Lord Byron), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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English
Book Reviews
Conway Tracts
Francis Hodgson
George Gordon Byron
Lord Byron
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122
John Stuart Mill.
their interests are not fairly represented; that they are not
dealt with in a fair spirit of trust and forbearance; if they
be isolated and estranged by pride and neglect; or sought for
to be cajoled; or hardened by want of sympathy: then,
when . they awaken to the sense of their full power, they
may, in “bettering the example,” be “dangerous;”—but not
else !
Art.
V.—.John Stuart Mill.
Autobiography. By John Stuart Mill. London:
Longmans, Green, Reader, and Dyer. 1873.
rFHE present memoir which John Stuart Mill has bequeathed
J. to the world contains, not the narrative of a life, but the
growth of a mind. We find none of the smaller incidents and
details that make up the history of the individual, and which
readers commonly look for with a pardonable curiosity and
interest, greater or less in degree, according to the importance of
the place the author of the biography has filled in public estima
tion. It is not therefore surprising that those who had expected
a graphic picture of an entire career, intellectually remarkable,
should feel some disappointment, and conclude that the real
memoir has still to be written. Against any expectation of this
sort Mr. Mill in the first words of the autobiography has done
his utmost to guard. He wrote it, he tells us, not with any con
ception of self-importance, but because education is now a subject
of more profound study among us than at any former period of
our history, and the experiment, as it might well be called, of
which he is an example, may tend to economize the tasks of the
young, and save the many early years that are little better than
wasted; because it might interest and help those, who in an age
of transition are searchers for truth, to see how one engaged in
the same pursuit has profited by a readiness to learn and to un
learn in his forward course; and last, but not least, because he
desired to acknowledge the debt which he believed that in his
moral and intellectual development he owed to others.
. The absence of any minute record of passing events affecting
himself or the persons and objects immediately around him, can
not be regarded as a defect. It is obviously the very condition
under which the work is prepared. We see that the author
rigidly adheres to the purposes indicated. He does not permit
himself to be diverted by any matters, however interesting they
might have been to himself, but which he looks upon as valueless
�John Stuart Mill.
123
to the world. His evident design is, first to convey by the testi
mony of experience of no ordinary kind, a great lesson on the
extent of teaching or education that it is possible for the mature
mind to communicate to the immature; and again, on that neverceasing process of education which continues from youth to man
hood, and thence to the latest period of life, which it is the
business of every mind to gather for itself.
In order that this education should have its proper and benefi
cent influence on character, he shows that it must not simply
operate on the reasoning powers—that there is needed the culture
of the feelings as well as of the reason; that the work is moral
as well as intellectual. Having dwelt on the process for reaching
more perfectly that condition of mental equilibrium the best
suited for forming a right judgment of the result of conduct and
action, we learn the effect which his labour to attain, and his
progress toward that condition, had in confirming or modifying
his. earlier views of the great subjects affecting mankind,
sociological and economical principles, law, religion, and political
government.
Although it is difficult to assent to the judgment Mr. Mill
pronounces upon himself, that in powers of apprehension and
memory, and in activity and energy of character, he was rather
below than above par, yet it is impossible not to perceive from
the facts stated to what an incalculable degree he was indebted
to the early training of his father, which enabled him, as he says,
to start with the advantage of a quarter of a century over his
contemporaries.
James Mill must be regarded as one of the most remarkable
men of his own or any other age. Born without any of the
advantages of fortune, and educated by the aid of one of the
Barons of the Exchequer in Scotland, after whom he named
•his son, he went through the studies of the University of Edin
burgh, and was licensed for a preacher, but finding himself
unable to believe the Church doctrines, he left the profession.
Holding, and always fearlessly asserting, opinions both in politics
and religion more odious at that time to the influential and
wealthy of this country than they have been either before or
since, he maintained himself and his family by his work as a
tutor and an author. Amidst the perpetual interruptions of
settled labour, caused by this necessary struggle for existence,
added to the time employed in the education of his children, he
planned and in about ten years completed the “ History of India.”
In this work lie comments with great severity on many of the
acts of the East India Company in their government, and ex
presses unqualified hostility to their commercial privileges. A
book full of opinions and modes of judgment of a democratic
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John Stuart Mill.
radicalism, then regarded as extreme,—he might, as his son truly
observes, have expected it at some future period to win for him
reputation, but certainly not advancement. The Directors of the
East India Company, feeling a far deeper personal responsibility
in the exercise of their powers than perhaps can be expected from
the members of an executive government, whose attention is at
best divided between considerations of party exigency and
regard for the public good, perceived in the author of the History
the qualities of a public servant of inestimable value, and disre
garding his adverse criticisms, appointed him to an important
office in their establishment. It is an event rare in the dispen
sation of public patronage, and should be ever remembered to
their honour. The Autobiography contains very much relating
to the character and works of James Mill, which deserves
an attentive perusal, and there are few who will not agree in the
judgment, that his place w7as an eminent one in the literary and
political history of his country. He died in 1836. “ The
eighteenth century/’ Mr. Mill observes, “ was an age of strong
and brave men and he was a fit companion for its strongest and
bravest. The last of that century, as Brutus was called the last
of the Romans, he had continued its tone of thought and senti
ment into, without partaking of the reaction which was the
characteristic of, the first aste of the nineteenth.
It was the good fortune of Mr. Mill that his education from his
earliest years was conducted by such a teacher. The account of
the progress which he made is full of instruction for a people
now entering upon the work of National Education, and who are
almost everywhere treating the mere instruments of knowledge as
its substitute. While this Autobiography was in the press, an
address was delivered by one who has given as much
study to the subject of Education as any one living,
pointing out the utter insufficiency of an educational method which
assumes that the power to read will develop the love of reading—
the ability to understand and appreciate what is read, to choose
the worthy and reject the unworthy, elevate the taste, arm it
against temptation, and ennoble life !
* What is needed is the
training of the mind, “ to observe nature, animate and inanimate,
to watch and classify ordinary social arrangements, to. trace the rela
tion of cause and effect, to think of the consequences of different kinds
of actions, and to guide conduct accordingly; to forego immediate
enjoyment for the sake of greater good to oneself or others.” We
perceive in the Autobiography, how these, the true objects of
Education, were attained, the mechanical part being subordinated
* See “ Professor Hodgson’s Address as President of the Educational De
partment, Social Science Congress, Norwich,” (Transactions). 1873.
�John Stuart Mill.
125
and acquired almost unconsciously. Mr. Mill tells us that he had
no remembrance of the time when he began to learn Greek.
He had been told that it was when he was three years old. His
earliest recollection on the subject was that of committino- to
memory what his father termed vocables, being lists of common
Greek words, with their signification in English, which he wrote
out for him on cards. Of grammar, until some years later, he
learnt no more than the inflexions of the nouns and verbs, but
after a course of vocables, proceeded at once to translation :—
“ The only thing besides Greek, that I learnt as a lesson in this part
of my childhood was arithmetic : this also my father taught me ; it was
the task of the evenings, and I well remember its disagreeableness. But
the lessons were only a part of the daily instruction I received. Much
of it consisted in the books I read myself, and my father’s discourses
to me, chiefly during our walks. From 1810 to the end of 1813 we
were living in Newington Green, then an almost rustic neighbourhood.
My father’s health required considerable and constant exercise, and we
walked habitually before breakfast, generallv in the green lanes
towards Hornsey. In these walks I always accompanied him, and
with my earliest recollections of green fields and wild flowers is
mingled that of the account I gave him daily of what I had read ’the
day before. To the best of my remembrance this was a voluntary
rather than a prescribed exercise. I made notes on slips of paper while
reading, and from these in the morning walks, I told the story to him •
for the books were chiefly histories, of which I read in this manner a
great number : Robertson’s histories, Hume, Gibbon ; but my great
est delight, then, and for long afterwards, was Watson’s Philip the
Second and Third............ Next to Watson, my favourite histori
cal reading was ‘ Hooke’s History of Rome.’ Of Greece I had seen at
that time no regular history, except school abridgments and the last
two or three volumes of a translation of Rollin’s Ancient Historv,
beginning with Philip of Macedon. But I read with great delight
‘ Langhorne’s Translations of Plutarch.’ In English history, beyond
the time at which Hume leaves off, I remember reading ‘ Burnet’s
History of his Own Time,’ though I cared little for anything in it
except the wars and battles ; and the historical part of the ‘ Annual
Register,’ from the beginning to about 1788, where the volumes my
father borrowed for me from Mr. Bentham left off. I felt a lively in
terest in Frederick of Prussia during his difficulties, and in Paoli, the
Corsican patriot; but when I came to the American War, I took my
part, like a child as I was (until set right by my father) on the
wrong side, because it was called the English side. In these frequent
talks about the books I read, he used, as opportunity offered, to give
me explanations and ideas respecting civilization, governments
morality, mental cultivation, which he required me afterwards to re
state to him in my own words. He also made me read, and give him
a verbal account of many books which would not have interested me
sufficiently to induce me to read them of myself. Arnone others
‘ Millar’s Historical View of the English Government,’ a book of great
�126
John Stuart Mill.
merit for its time, and which he highly valued ; 1 Mosheim’s Ecclesias
tical History,’ ‘McCrie’s Life of John Knox,’ and even 1 Sewell and
Rutty’s Histories of the Quakers.’ . . . Two books which I never
wearied of reading were ‘Anson’s Voyages,’ so delightful to most
young persons, and a collection (Hawkesworth’s, I believe) of ‘ Voyages
round the World,’ in four volumes, beginning with Drake and ending
with Cooke and Bougainville. Of children’s books, any more than
playthings, I had scarcely any, except an occasional gift from a relation or
acquaintance ; among those I had, ‘ Robinson Crusoe’ was pre-eminent,
and continued to delight me through all my boyhood. ” It was no
part, however, of my father’s system to exclude books of amusement,
though he allowed them very sparingly.”
The Latin and Greek stories were carried on from his eighth
to his twelfth year. Among other authors he read much of
Cicero. His strongest predilection was for history, especially
ancient, and writing histories was throughout his boyhood a
voluntary exercise. A spontaneous attempt at a continuation
of Pope’s Iliad, led to a command of his father to continue
his attempts at English versification. Experimental Science,
especially Chemistry—not by actual experiment, but as treated
in scientific works—was also one of his greatest amusements. In
this course of instruction a method was adopted in which the
mind was actively employed without being overtaxed.
“ Most boys or youths who have had much knowledge drilled into
them have their mental capacities not strengthened, but overlaid by
it. They are crammed with mere facts, and with the opinions or
phrases of other people, and these are accepted as a substitute for the
power to form opinions of their own ; and thus the sons of eminent
fathers, who have spared no pains in their education, so often grow
up mere parroters of what they have learnt, incapable of using their
minds, except in the furrows traced for them. Mine, however, was
not an education of cram. My father never permitted anything which
I learnt to degenerate into a mere exercise of memory; he strove to
make the understanding not only go along with every step of the
teaching, but, if possible, precede it. Anything which could be found
out by thinking I never was told until I had exhausted my efforts to
find it out for myself.”
Once be had used the word idea, and his father instantly
asked what an idea was, and expressed displeasure at his in
effectual attempts to define the word. On another occasion, he
used an expression—still commonly repeated by not less than
nine out of ten of the so-called instructed classes—that some
thing was true in theory, but false in practice; provoking the
indignation of his father, who, after making him vainly strive to
define the word theory, explained its meaning, and showed him
the fallacy of the vulgar form of speech he had uttered. In and
after his twelfth year the objects of instruction were chiefly re-
�John Stuart Mill.
127
garded—not the aids and appliances of thought, but the thoughts
themselves. The reading of the scholastic logic, then begun, was
accompanied and followed by the numerous and searching ques
tions of his father in their daily walks.
“ It was his invariable practice, whatever studies he exacted from
me, to make me, as far as possible, understand and feel the utility of
them. ... I well remember how, and in what particular walk in
the neighbourhood of Bagshot Heath (where we were on a visit to
his old friend Mr. Wallace, then one of the mathematical professors
at Sandhurst), he first attempted, by questions, to make me think on
the subject, and frame some conception of what constituted the utility
of the syllogistic logic ; and when I had failed in this, to make me
understand it by explanation. The explanations did not make the
matter at all clear to me at the time; but they were not, therefore,
useless; they remained as a nucleus for my observations and reflec
tions to crystallize upon; the import of his general remarks being
interpreted to me, by the particular instances which came under my
notice afterwards. My own consciousness and experience ultimately
led me to appreciate, quite as highly as he did, the value of an early
practical familiarity with the school logic. I know of nothing, in my
education, to which I think myself more indebted for whatever
capacity of thinking I have attained. The first intellectual operation
in which I arrived at any proficiency was dissecting a bad argument,
and finding in what part the fallacy lay; and though whatever
capacity of this sort I attained, was due to the fact that it was
an intellectual exercise in which I was most perseveringly drilled by
my father; yet, it is also true, that the school logic and the mental
habits acquired in studying it, were among the principal instruments
of this drilling, I am persuaded that nothing, in modern education,
tends so much, when properly used, to form exact thinkers, who
attach a precise meaning to words and propositions, and are not im
posed on by vague, loose, or ambiguous terms. The boasted influence
of mathematical studies is nothing to it, for in mathematical processes
none of the real difficulties of correct ratiocination occur. It is also
a study peculiarly adapted to an early stage in the education of philo
sophical students, since it does not presuppose the slow process of
acquiring, by experience and reflection, valuable thoughts of their
own. They may become capable of disentangling the intricacies of
confused and self-contradictory thought, before their own thinking
faculties are much advanced; a power which, for want of some such,
discipline, many otherwise able men altogether lack; and when they
have to answer opponents, only endeavour, by such arguments as they
can command, to support the opposite conclusion, scarcely even at
tempting to confute the reasonings of their antagonists ; and, there
fore, at the utmost, leaving the question, as far as it depends on
argument, a balanced one.”
There was no author to whom James Mill had thought himself
more indebted for his own mental culture than Plato, or whom
�128
John Stuart Mill.
he more frequently recommended to young students ; and to
the value of this recommendation his pupil bears the like tes
timony. By the Socratic method, the man of vague generali
ties is constrained either to express his meaning to himself
in definite terms, or to confess that he does not know
what he is talking about.The perpetual testing of general
statements by particular instances, the siege in form laid
to abstract terms, the distinctions which limit and define
the thing sought, and separate it from the cognate objects,
Mr. Mill pronounces to be an education for precise thinking
which is inestimable, and one which, even at that early
age, took such hold of him as to become part of his own
mind.
High as the cultivation of the intellect stands, it is not that
alone that is needed for the creation of a better ideal of humanity.
In the parental intercourse there had been, if not a want of
tenderness, at least the absence of its display. His father,
Mr. Mill remarks, resembled most Englishmen in being ashamed
of the signs of feeling, and starving it by want of demonstration.
He found that intellectual culture required correction by joining
other kinds of cultivation with it. Poetry, art, music, to which
he had not before been unsusceptible, began at an early period
to fill a large place in his thoughts. In this part of his self
education he encountered, in his circle of friends, an opposite
theory. There were those who, if possessed of strong suscepti
bilities of temperament, yet found them more painful than
pleasurable—as standing rather in their way than the contrary ;
and who, therefore, regarded the pleasures to be derived from
the fine arts as impediments, rather than aids in the formation
of character.. Mr. Mill considered it too much a part of the
English habit, derived from social circumstances, to count the
sympathies for very little in the scheme of life,—to see little
good in cultivating the feelings, and none at all in doing so
through appeals to the imagination. He more than once adverts
to tnis side of English life—the absence of enlarged thoughts
and unselfish desires, the low and petty objects on which °the
faculties are, for the most part intent, and the habit of taking
for granted that they are always the motives of conduct; and
the effect of this, in lowering the tone of feeling, making people
less earnest, and causing them to look on the most elevated
objects as unpractical, or too remote from realization, to be more
than a vision or a theory.
Several incidents in the Autobiography are introduced to
show, the wholesome and vivifying power which the fancy and
imagination can exercise over the will. Between his eighth and
twelfth years he spent intervals of time at Ford Abbey, the occa-
�John Stuart Mill.
129
sional abode of Mr. Bentham, and he regarded these visits as
fruitful in his education. Elevation of sentiments in a people
are nourished by the large and free character of their habitations.
The mediaeval architecture and the spacious and lofty rooms of
Ford Abbey, so unlike the cramped externals of English middle
class life, gave the sentiment of a larger and freer existence. The
house and grounds in which it stood, secluded, umbrageous, and
full of the sound of falling’waters, were to him in themselves a
sort of poetic cultivation. Again, two or three years later, Sir
Samuel Bentham and his wife, whom he refers to as “u daughter
of Dr. Fordyce, and a woman of much knowledge and good
sense of the Edgeworth kind,” invited their brother’s young
friend and disciple to their residence in the South of France, at
the Chateau of Pompignan, on the heights overlooking the plain
of the Garonne between Montauban and Toulouse. He spent
nearly a year in this visit, accompanying his hosts in an excur
sion of some duration to the Pyrenees. This, his first introduc
tion to the highest order of mountain scenery, gave a colour to
his tastes through life. After adverting to the lectures on che
mistry, zoology, and logic which he attended in the winter at
Montpelier, he adds that the greatest, perhaps, of the many
advantages which he owed to this episode in his education was,
that of having breathed for a whole year the free and genial
atmosphere of continental life, though at that time he did not
estimate or consciously feel the advantage he was deriving It
was not until long afterwards that he learnt to appreciate the
general culture of the understanding, which results from the
habitual exercise of the feelings, and is thereby carried down
into the most uneducated classes of several countries on the Con
tinent in a degree rarely equalled in England.
The impulse and force given to the cultivation of new tastes
and sympathies, served to elevate the ideal of a noble and un
selfish life which his previous teaching had done much to form.
Of his earliest historic readings he says, “ the heroic defence of
the knights of Malta against the Turks, and of the revolted
provinces of the Netherlands against Spain, excited in me an
intense and lasting interest.” His father was fond of putting
into his hands books which exhibited men of energy and resource
in unusual circumstances, struggling against difficulties and over
coming them. The interest which in boyhood he had taken in
the wars and conquests of the Romans culminated in an engross
ing contemplation of the struggles between the patricians and
plebeians, and in his juvenile essays he vindicated the Agrarian
Laws, and upheld the Roman Democratic party. In his fifteenth
or sixteenth year, in 1821 or 1822, after bis visit to France, he
read the history of the French Revolution. Then, he says : —
[Vol. CI. No. CXCIX.l—New Seeies, Vol. XLV. No. I.
K
�130
John Stuart Mill.
“ I learnt with astonishment that the principles of democracy, then
apparently in so insignificant and hopeless a minority everywhere in
Europe, had borne all before them in France thirty years earlier, and
had been the creed of the nation. As may be supposed from this, I
had previously a very vague idea of that great commotion. I knew
only that the French had thrown off the absolute monarchy of Louis
XIV. and XV., had put the King and Queen to death, guillotined
many persons, one of whom was Lavoisier, and had ultimately fallen
under the despotism of Bonaparte. From this time, as was natural,
the subject took an immense hold of my feelings. It allied itself
with all my juvenile aspirations to the character of a democratic
champion. What had happened so lately, seemed as if it might easilv
happen again ; and the most transcendant glory I was capable of con
ceiving was that of figuring successful, or unsuccessful, as a Girondist
in an English Convention.”
This admiration of great and persistent effort in a worthy
cause, which with advancing years he came more and more to
regard as of incalculable value, in bringing the memory and
imagination to the aid of conduct, had been early rooted in his
mind.”
“ Long before I had enlarged in any considerable degree the basis
of my intellectual creed, I had obtained, in the natural course of my
mental progress, poetic culture of the most valuable kind, by means
of reverential admiration for the lives and • characters of heroic per
sons ; especially the heroes of philosophy: The same inspiring effect
which so many of the benefactors of mankind have left on record
that they had experienced from ‘Plutarch’s Lives,’ was produced on
me by ‘ Plato’s Picture of Socrates,’ and by some modern biographies,
above all by ‘ Condorcet’s Life of Turgot’—a book well calculated to
rouse the best sort of enthusiasm, since it contains one of the wisest
and noblest of lives, delineated by one of the wisest and noblest of
men. The heroic virtue of these glorious representatives of the
opinions with which I sympathized, deeply affected me, and I perpe
tually recurred to them as others do to a favourite poet, when needing
to be carried up into the more elevated regions of feelino- and
thought.”
"
°
It is interesting to trace the abiding influence of the remem
brance of great examples, and of the memories of an heroic
past, in the fact which Mr. Mill mentions, that upwards of thirty
years after the impressions, of which he speaks in the foregoing
extract, had taken root, the thought of completing and giving to
the world as a volume the “ Essay on Liberty,” first arose in
his mind, in mounting in 1865, the steps of the Capitol.
W e have described Mr. Mill in his youth, as a disciple of
Bentham, but this he does notappear thoroughly to have become
until, in 1821 or 1822, he read the Traite de Legislation, which
he terms an epoch in his life. The standard of “ the greatest
�John Stuart Mill.
131
happiness/’ the exposure of the fallacy contained in such
sounding expressions, as “ law of nature,” “ right reason,” and
“ moral sense,” burst upon him with all the force of novelty. The
classification of offences and punishment under the guidance of the
ethical principle, of pleasurable and painful consequences, seemed
to place the moralist and student of jurisprudence upon an
eminence, from which he could survey a mental domain of vast
extent, affording the most aspiring prospects of practical
improvement in human affairs. It opened to him a grand
conception of the changes to be effected in the condition of
mankind through that doctrine. Before this time the book
which had contributed most largely to his education in the best
sense of the word, was his father’s History of India. In this
he was not alone. There are others living who acknowledge, as
he does, their debt to this work, and to its disquisitions on society
and civilization, on institutions, and acts of government, for a
multitude of new ideas, and for a great impulse and stimulus as
well as guidance in their future studies.
After the Traitfi de Legislation followed the reading of most of
the other works of Bentham; of Locke’s Essay, an abstract
was made, and discussed, and the other principal English writers
on mental philosophy were also read. In 1822 he wrote his first
argumentative essay, on the aristocratic prejudice which is
supposed to attribute to the rich, moral qualities superior to those
of the poor, and in the winter of the same year he gathered
together and formed a small society of young men called the
Utilitarian Society.
*
In 1823 his father obtained for him
an appointment in the office of Examiner of India Correspondence
in the service of the Company.
The constant occupation in the India House had the necessary
effect of abridging his opportunities of gratification afforded by
a country life, and by travel. The latter was now restricted to the
short annual holiday.
“ I passed (he says) most Sundays throughout the year in the
country, taking long rural walks on that day even when residing in
London. The month’s holiday was, for a few years, passed at my
father’s house in the country: afterwards a part or the whole was
spent in tours, chiefly pedestrian, with some one or more of the young
men who were my chosen companions ■ and at a later period, in
longer journeys or excursions, alone, or with other friends. France,
Belgium, or Rhenish Germany were within easy reach of the annual
holiday : and two longer absences, one of three, the other of six months,
under medical advice, added Switzerland, the Tyrol, and Italy to my
list. Fortunately, also, both these journeys occurred rather early, so
* A title borrowed from Gait’s “ Annals of the Parish.”
K 2
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John Stuart Mill.
as to give the benefit and charm of the remembrance to a large
portion of my life.”
In a chapter entitled “Youthful Propagandism,” we are told
of the efforts which were made to propagate the main tenets of
Utilitarian Radicalism in the columns of the Globe and Traveller,
the Morning Chronicle, and finally in the Westminster Review.
His part in the first appearance of this Review, had been that
of reading through all the volumes of the Edinburgh Review,
and making notes of the articles which he thought his father
would like to examine for the purpose of his intended paper.
This article, of James Mill, treated the Edinburgh Review as
the political organ of one of the two aristocratic parties constantly
endeavouring, without any essential sacrifice of aristocratical
predominance, to supplant each other. The Quarterly Review
was the subject of an article, as a sequel to that of the
Edinburgh. Mr. Mill was one of the most active of the very
small number of young men who, drawn around his father, had
imbibed from him a greater or smaller portion of his opinions,
and were supposed to form the so-called Bentham school in
philosophy and politics. The chief characteristics of their creed
were in politics, an almost unbounded confidence in the efficacy
of two things ; representative government and complete freedom
of discussion; and in psychology the formation of all human
character by circumstances, through the universal principle of
association, and the consequent unlimited possibility of improv
ing the moral and intellectual condition of mankind by
education. It was in the spirit of what Mr. Mill terms youthful
fanaticism that these opinions were seized by the little knot of
young men of whom he was one. For himself, he conceives that
the epithet of “ reasoning machine” was not altogether untrue,
or may be said to be as applicable to him as it could well be to
any one, for two or three years of his life :—
“ Ambition and desire of distinction I had in abundance, and zeal for
what I thought the good of mankind was my strongest sentiment,
mixing with and colouring all others. But my zeal was little else, at
that period of my life, than zeal for speculative opinions. It had not
its root in genuine benevolence, or sympathy with mankind, though
these qualities held their due place in my ethical standard. Nor was
it connected with any high enthusiasm for ideal nobleness. Yet of this
feeling I was imaginatively very susceptible : but there was at that time
an intermission of its natural aliment, poetical culture, while there was
a superabundance of the discipline antagonistic to it, that of mere logic
and analysis. Add to this, as already mentioned, my father’s teaching
led to the under-valuing of feeling. It was not that he was himself
cold-hearted or insensible; I believe it was rather from the contrary
quality; he thought that feeling could take care of itself; that
�John Stuart Mill.
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there was sure to be enough of it if actions were properlv cared
about.” ....
“ From this neglect both in theory and in practice of the cultivation
of feeling, naturally resulted, among other things, an undervaluing
of poetry, and of imagination generally, as an element of human
nature.” . . . . “As regards me (and the same thing might be said
of my father), the correct statement would be, not that I disliked
poetry, but that I was theoretically indifferent to it. I disliked any
sentiments in poetry which I should have disliked in prose, and that
included a great deal. And I was wholly blind to its place in human
culture, as a means of educating the feelings; but I was always per
sonally very susceptible to some kinds of it. In the most sectarian
period of my Benthanism, I happened to look into Pope’s Essay on
Man, and though every opinion in it was contrary to mine, I well re
member how powerfully it acted on my imagination.”
A time came when something more was felt to be needed.
The attainment of a condition of physical comfort alone, in which
the pleasures of life would no longer be kept up by struggle, and in
the midst of privation, could afford no sufficient hope of human
happiness. What had been founded in a large degree on the
intellectual and abstract conception of aggregate results, had to be
converted into an exercise of genuine benevolence, and sympathy
with individual distress and suffering. For the mere rational
conviction that such and such things were good and evil, and the
proper objects of praise and blame, reward and punishment, higher
and deeper motives were substituted. At the same time in ex
ternal things, a sense of vague and general admiration of grandeur
and beauty was concentrated and intensified by examples brought
into immediate contact with the mind and eye. The experiences of
the time led him to adopt a theory of life which, while admitting
that all rules of conduct must be tried by their tending to pro
mote happiness as the end of life, yet that end could not be
reached by its direct and sole pursuit, or by making it the princi
pal object of desire.
This has given occasion to a singular
criticism. “ He found,” say the objectors, “ that it was not a safe or
successful course to pursue happiness as a direct end, therefore,”
they add, “ it follows, that it is not the proper end and aim of life,
and the utilitarian principle fails !” This is a confusion of two
things entirely distinct from each other, the particular and the
general happiness, and the diverse methods of their pursuit.
Nothing in the theory that the happiness of the individual should
not be the direct end of his existence, would forbid the direct
pursuit of ordinary pleasures. He may attend the performance
of a play of Shakspeare, or listen to a composition of Mendelssohn,
set out on a spring day for a woodland walk, or ascend an
Alpine hill, with a direct view to the enjoyment which such a
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use of his time will produce. But if one passes his life in seeking
nothing else but his own direct and personal enjoyment, if he
does not look beyond this to a higher and nobler purpose of
existence—a purpose into which the idea of its bearing upon his
individual happiness does not enter, except as a sense of the
performance of duty in the promotion of the good of others,
which is attended with an unsought pleasure—the narrow objects
he has pursued will ultimately fail him, and the time will come
of decaying natural powers, and of blunted capacities for the
accustomed enjoyment. Breadth of affection is an element in
its durability. “ When people who are tolerably fortunate in
their outward lot do not find in life sufficient enjoyment to make
it valuable to them, the cause generally is, caring for nobody but
themselves. To those who have neither public nor private
affections, the excitements of life are much curtailed, and in any
case dwindle in value as the time approaches when all selfish
interests must be terminated by death; while those who leave
after them objects of personal affection, and especially those who
have also cultivated a fellow-feeling with the collective interests
of mankind, retain as lively an interest in life on the eve of death
as in the vigour of youth and health.”* “ I do not,” he said, in
concluding his address to the University of St. Andrews,
“ attempt to instigate you by the prospect of direct rewards,
either earthly or heavenly: the less we think about being re
warded in either way, the better for us. But there is one reward
which will not fail you, and which may be called disinterested,
because it is not a consequence, but is inherent in the very fact of
deserving it; the deeper and more varied interest you will feel in
life, which will give it tenfold its value, and a value •which will
last to the end. All merely personal objects grow less valuable
as we advance in life ; this not only endures but increases.”
He was also now led to give its proper place to internal culture,
as among the prime necessities of human well-being. We have
seen how much of the pleasure lie had before enjoyed had been
derived from the love of rural objects and natural scenery. He
now found in the poetry of Wordsworth, the expression not alone
of outward beauty, but of “ states of feeling, and of thought
coloured by feeling, under the excitement of beauty.”
“ In. them I seemed to draw from a source of inward joy, of sym
pathetic and imaginary pleasure, which could be shared in by all
human beings; whicli had no connexion with struggle or imperfection,
but would be made richer by every improvement in the physical or
social condition of mankind. From them I seemed to learn what
would be the perennial sources of happiness, when all the greater evils
* Utilitarianism.
Its Meaning, p. 20.
�John Stuart Mill.
135
of life shall have been removed. And I felt myself at once better
and happier as I came under their influence.” . . . . “ I needed
to be made to feel that there was real, permanent happiness in tranquil
contemplation. Wordsworth taught me this, not only without turn
ing away from, but with a greatly increased interest in the common
feelings and common destiny of human beings.”
This part of the Autobiography introduces the acquaintance
with Frederick Maurice and John Sterling, the former a disciple
of Coleridge, and the latter of Coleridge and Maurice, and both
were of use in his development. Nothing is more interesting
than the account Mr. Mill gives us of his intimacy with
them :—
“ With Sterling I soon became very intimate, and was more
attached to him'than I have ever been to any other man. He was
indeed one of the most loveable of men. His frank, cordial, affec
tionate, and expansive character ; a love of truth, alike conspi
cuous in the highest things and humblest; a generous and ardent
nature, which threw itself with impetuosity into the opinions it
adopted, but was as eager to do justice to the doctrines and the men
it was opposed to, as to make war on what it thought their errors ;
and an equal devotion to the two cardinal points of Liberty and Duty,
formed a combination of qualities as attractive to me, as to all others
who knew him as well as 1 did. With his open mind and heart, he
found no difficulty in joining hands with me across the gulf which as
yet divided our opinions. He told me how he and others had looked
upon me (from hearsay information) as a made or ‘ manufactured’
man, having had a certain impress of opinions stamped on me, which
I could only reproduce; and what a change took place in his feelings
when he found, in the discussion on Wordsworth and Byron, that
Wordsworth, and all that that name implies, ‘ belonged’ to me as
much as to him and his friends.”
From a brief view of the sources and method of Mr. Mill’s
education, and the primary effect it had on his mind and cha
racter, we pass to the opinions of his mature years, and then
to some of the results of those opinions upon his labours in
moral and political science, as well as in practical politics.
And first, on the subject of religion, the Autobiography sup
plies us with a less perfect account of the opinions of Mr. Mill
than it is understood we may expect from some hitherto unpub
lished essays which will be soon before the world. What is to
be collected from the work before us cannot, however, properly
be passed over in silence. The views of James Mill are clearly
stated.
My father had been early led to reject not only the belief in
Revelation, but the foundations of what is commonly called natural
religion. I have heard him say that the turning-point of his mind
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Joitn Stuart Mill.
on the subject was reading Butler’s Analogy. That work, of which
he always continued to speak with respect, kept him, as he said, for
some considerable time, a believer in the divine authority of Chris
tianity ; by proving to him that whatever are the difficulties in
believing that the Old and New Testaments proceed from, or record
the acts of, a perfectly wise and good being, the same and still greater
difficulties stand in the way of the belief, that a being of such a
character can have been the Maker of the Universe. He considered
Butler’s argument as conclusive against the only opponents for whom
it was intended. Those who admit an omnipotent as well as perfectly
just and benevolent maker and ruler of such a world as this, can say
little against Christianity but what can, with at least equal force, be
retorted against themselves. Finding, therefore, no halting place in
Deism, he remained in a state of perplexity, until, doubtless, after
many struggles, he yielded to the conviction that, concerning the
origin of things, nothing whatever can be known. .... These
particulars are important, because they show that my father’s rejec
tion of all that is called religious belief, was not, as many might sup
pose, primarily a matter of logic and evidence ; the grounds of it were
moral still more than intellectual. He found it impossible to believe
that a world so full of evil was the work of an Author combining
infinite power with perfect goodness and righteousness.”
While he impressed upon his son from the first that the man
ner in which the world came into existence was a subject on
which nothing was known—
“ He at the same time, took care that I should be acquainted with
what had been thought by mankind on these impenetrable problems.
I have mentioned at how early an age he made me a reader of ecclesi
astical history ; and he taught me to take the strongest interest in the
Reformation, as the great and decisive contest against priestly tyranny
for liberty of thought.”
In this negative state of opinion on religion which one of the
critics of the Autobiography gravely attributes to the want, on
the part of both father and son of a comprehension of the higher
mathematics, Mr. Mill grew up.
“ I looked (he says) upon the modern exactly as I did upon the
ancient religion, as something which in no way concerned me. It did
not seem to me more strange that English people should believe what
I did not, than that the men I read of in Herodotus should have done
so. History had made the variety of opinions among mankind a fact
familiar to me, and this was but a prolongation of that fact.”
Of unbelievers (so called) as well as of believers, Mr. Mill
observes, there are many species, including almost every variety of
moral type, many of the best of the former being more generally
religious in the best sense of the word, than those who exclusively
arrogate to themselves the title. They repudiate all dogmatism,
and especially dogmatic atheism, which they regard as absurd;
�John Stuart Mill.
137
but they deny that beings endowed with reasoning faculties
are justified in permitting themselves to receive as true the
character and acts commonly attributed to an Omnipotent
Author of all things, who created the human race with the
infallible foreknowledge, and therefore with the intention that
the great majority of them were to be consigned to terrible and
everlasting torment.
“Though they may think the proof incomplete that the universe is
a work of design, and they assuredly disbelieve that it can have an
Author and Governor who is absolute in power as well as perfect in
goodness, they have that which contributes the principal worth of all
religions whatever, an ideal conception of a Perfect Being, to which
they habitually refer as the guide of their conscience ; and this ideal
of good is usually far nearer to perfection than the objective Deity of
those who think themselves obliged to find absolute goodness in [one
whom they are taught to believe is] the author of a world so crowded
with suffering and so deformed with injustice as ours.”
In this aspect, the argument, however orthodox believers
are disposed to repudiate it, ought to be regarded even by
them according to its manifest design, as an effort to vindi
cate the Divine Ideal. It is the belief of those who thus argue
that a low and imperfect conception of the Being which is
adored, radically vitiates the standard of morals, and causes
fictitious excellences to be set up and substituted for genuine
virtues. It is true that—
“ Christians do not in general undergo the demoralizing consequences
which seem inherent in such a creed, in the manner, or to the extent
which might have been expected from it. The same slovenliness of
thought, and subjection of the reason to fears, wishes, and affections,
which enable them to accept a theory involving a contradiction in terms,
prevents them from perceiving the logical consequences of the theory.”
Another cause through which such consequences areavoided may
be found in the great counteracting principles that are embodied
in the Christian doctrine, and which teach forbearance, love of
others, and self-sacrifice.
These, the fundamental teachings of
Christianity, apart from dogma, few would appreciate better than
Mr. Mill. He found in them the corroboration of the doctrine
he advocated. “In the golden rule,” he says, “of Jesus of
Nazareth we read the complete spirit of the ethics of utility. To
do as you would be done by, to love your neighbour as yourself,
constitute the ideal perfection of utilitarian morality.”
Mr. Mill attributes one bad consequence to this part of his
education. In giving him an opinion contrary to that of the
world, his father thought it necessary to give it as one which
could not be prudently avowed to the world. This lesson of
keeping his thoughts to himself at that early age was attended
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John Stuart Mill.
with some disadvantages, though his limited intercourse with
strangers, especially such as were likely to speak to him on
religion, prevented him from being placed in the alternative
of avowal or hypocrisy. Looking at the present advance in the
liberty of discussion since the time of which he was speaking,
he thinks that few men of his father’s intellect and public spirit,
with such intensity of moral conviction, would now withhold his
opinions from the world, unless in cases, becoming fewer every
day, in which frankness would risk the loss of subsistence, or be
an exclusion from a sphere of usefulness to which the individual
was particularly suited. On religion—
“ The time appears to have come, when it is the duty of all, who
being qualified in point of knowledge, have on mature consideration
satisfied themselves that the current opinions are not only false but
hurtful, to make their dissent known; at least, if they are among
those whose station or reputation, gives their opinion a chance of
being attended to. Such an avowal would put an end, at once
and for ever, to the vulgar prejudice, that what is called, very
improperly, unbelief, is connected with any bad qualities either of
heart or mind. The world would be astonished if it knew how great
a proportion of its brightest ornaments—of those most distinguished
even in popular estimation for wisdom and virtue—are complete
sceptics in religion; many of them refraining from avowal, less from
personal considerations, than from a conscientious, though now in my
opinion a most mistaken apprehension, lest by speaking out what
would tend to weaken existing beliefs, and by consequence (as they
suppose) existing restraints, they should do harm instead of good.”
As years have passed on, the evidences of the truth of this
view of the progress of thought have multiplied. Mr. Mill
mentions the well-remembered collision of his friend Frederick
Maurice with orthodox opinion, and the penalty to which he
submitted rather than recognise a doctrine utterly inconsistent
with a Divine benevolence. Between himself and Sterling the
distance in opinion we find was always diminishing. Still later
the author of “Literature and Dogma,’1 setting out from a
starting-point as distant as the poles, and pursuing an entirely
different route, has sought like him to raise an ideal conception
of a true Divine Guide. What is the object of that moral and
intellectual culture which Mr. Mill has laboured to prove the
most suitable for mankind, other than that ihev should be taught
to know, “the best that has been thought and said in the
world ?” In what does the Ideal of Perfection, to which
he refers as the best guide of the human conscience, differ
from that “ Enduring Power, not ourselves, which makes for
righteousness ?”
Turning to philosophy let us see what was the especial object
�John Stuart Mill.
139
which Mr. Mill had in view in his examination of that of Sir
William Hamilton. And here the first thing that strikes the
reader is, that even in his most abstract works, those apparently
of a nature purely speculative, and falling within the region of
metaphysics, he had chiefly, if not wholly, in view a great and
practical end. He did not seek merely to establish a barren
theory of remote application, but to assert a truth which to the
extent to which it was accepted and influenced conduct, might
have a practical result in the consideration of the conditions of
human existence. It was nothing less than this which led him
to attack the foundation of a system, that theoretically denies
the effect of the conditions of existence upon the moral as
well as the intellectual state of society, and thus goes far
to discourage and cripple real efforts for improvement.
“ The difference between these two schools of philosophy, that of
Intuition and that of Experience and Association, is not a mere
matter of abstract speculation; it is full of practical consequences,
and lies at the foundation of all the greatest differences of practical
opinion in an age of progress. The practical reformer has continually
to demand that changes be made in things which are supported by
powerful and widely-spread feelings, or to question the apparent
necessity and indefeasibleness of established facts ; and it is often an
indispensable part of his agreement to show, how those powerful
feelings had their origin, and how those facts came to seem necessary
and indefeasible. There is therefore a natural hostility between
him and a philosophy which discourages the explanation of feelings
and moral facts, by circumstances and associations, and prefers to treat
them as ultimate elements of human nature ; a philosophy which
is addicted to holding up favourite doctrines as intuitive truths, and
deems intuition to be the voice of Nature and of God, speaking with
an authority higher than that of reason. In particular, I have long
felt that the prevailing tendency to regard all the marked distinctions
of human character as innate, and in the main indelible, and to ignore
the irresistible proofs that by far the greater part of those differences,
whether between individuals, races, or sexes, are such as not only
might, but naturally could be produced by differences in circumstances,
is one of the chief hindrances to the rational treatment of great social
questions, and one of the greatest stumbling blocks to human
improvement. My father’s Analysis of the Mind, my own Logic,
and Professor Bain’s great Treatise, had attempted to re-introduce a
better mode of philosophizing, latterly with quite as much success as
could be expected; but I had for some time felt that the mere
contrast of the two philosophies was not enough, that there ought to
be a hand-to-hand fight between them, that controversial as well as
expository writings were needed, and that the time was come when
such controversy would be useful.”
The treatise on Liberty Mr. Mill regards as likely to sur
vive longer than anything else he has written, with the possible
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John Stuart Mill.
exception of the Logic. It stood pre-eminent in his estimation,
not only from its intrinsic importance, but as the last and most
elaborate result of the joint labours of himself and his wife, and
consecrated to her memory. None of his other writings was
either so carefully composed or sedulously corrected. “ After it
had been written as usual twice over, we kept it by us, bringing
it out from time to time, and going through it de novo, reading,
weighing, and criticising every sentence.”
The joint revision, which was to have been the work of the
winter of 1858-9, was frustrated by Mrs. Milks death. Its pub
lication was his first undertaking after that event. It is, he
says, the text-book of a single truth—the importance to man
and society of a large variety in types of character, and of giving
full freedom to human nature to expand itself in innumerable
and conflicting directions. A danger was that the growth of social
equality, and of a submission to public opinion, should impose
on mankind an oppressive yoke of uniformity in opinion and
practice. The doctrine of Individuality, the right and duty of
self-development, asserted by insulated thinkers from age to age,
worked out in the labours of Pestalozzi, and having among its
promulgators Wilhelm von Humboldt, Goethe, De Tocqueville,
and others less known but not less ardent in its cause, was with
modifications and differences of detail embodied in this work.
It was, moreover, in direct conflict with Positivism. Agreeing
with Comte that from the necessity of the case, the mass of man
kind, even including their rulers, must accept many of their
opinions on political and social matters, as they do on physical,
from the authority of those who have made those subjects their
especial study ; that Europe during the Middle Ages had greatly
profited by the distinct organization of the spiritual power, and
the moral and intellectual ascendancy once exercised by priests
would naturally pass into the hands of philosophers, he yet repu
diated with his utmost energy the conclusion that a corporate
hierarchy should be formed of the latter. He could not see in
such a body any bulwark against oppression, or security for good
government. The “Systeme de Politique Positive” he regarded
as the most complete system of spiritual and temporal despotism
which had ever emanated from the human brain, except possibly
that of Ignatius Loyola. “ The book stands a monumental
warning to thinkers on society and politics, of what happens
when once men lose sight in these speculations, of the value of
Liberty and Individuality.” The Essay on Liberty has recently
been the subject of an able and appreciative article by Mr. John
*
Morley, to which we may refer our readers.
* Fortnightly Review, August, 1873, pp. 234-256.
�John Stuart Mill.
Ill
On Political Economy, especially in the distinction between
the laws of the production and distribution of wealth, Mr. Mill’s
later views were a material modification of his earlier ones. The
capacity to learn and unlearn, which he regards as essential to
real progress, one of his reviewers describes as a constant state
of vacillation, and an absence of any firm standing ground. Mr.
Mill had no fear of such reproaches. In the days of his most
extreme Benthamism he tells us that he had seen little further
than the old school of political economists, into the possibilities
of fundamental improvement in social arrangements. He sub
sequently became less indulgent to ordinary social opinion, and
less willing to be content with secondary and more superficial
improvements. Any diminution of the evil involved in the fact
that while some are born to riches, the vast majority inherit
nothing but poverty—except such amelioration as might result
from a voluntary restraint on the numbers of the latter—had
before appeared chimerical. While still repudiating the tyranny
of the society over the individual which most Socialistic systems
involve, he came to look forward to a time when the division of
the produce of labour will depend less on the accident of birth,
and it will be more common for all to labour strenuously
to procure benefits that shall not be exclusively their own, but
shall be shared by the society of which they are members. The
capacity of all classes to learn by practice to combine and labour
for public and social purposes, and not solely for narrowly inte
rested ones, had always existed, and was not hindered by any
essential difficulty in the constitution of our nature. Why should
it be more difficult to persuade a man to dig or weave for his
country than to fight for it ? In the gradual formation of such
opinions, and their publication in the second and third editions
of the Principles of Political Economy, we must not pass over
the share which Mr. Mill attributes to his wife. No one who
knew him will feel surprise at the place which her memory fills
in the Autobiography. Few narratives appeal more powerfully
to every mind sensitive to human affections than the story of
their partnership of thought, of feeling, concurrent labour, and
entire existence ; and in truth there seem to have been qualities
existing in each which made their association with one another
eminently valuable. One happily possessed that which the other
needed. The chapter on Political Economy which Mr. Mill
believes has had the most influence on opinion,—that on “ The
Probable Future of the Labouring Classes,” he informs us is entirely
due to his wife. She pointed out the need of such a chapter,
and the imperfection of the book without it. It certainly
deals with that part of the subject in which the reflections of
an acute woman, conversant with the social necessities of the
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John Stuart Mill.
people around her, would be likely to be of great value. Tho
roughly sensible of the folly of premature attempts to dispense
with the inducements of private interest in social affairs, they
welcomed all experiments, such as co-operative societies, which
whether they succeeded or failed, would be an education for
those who took part in them, by cultivating their capacity for
acting upon motives pointing directly to a more general good.
Speaking of this work, he says :—
“ It was chiefly her influence that gave to the book that general tone
by which it is distinguished from all previous expositions of political
economy that had any pretensions to being scientific, and which has
made it so useful in conciliating scientific minds which those previous
expositions had repelled. This tone consisted chiefly in making the
proper distinction between the laws of the production of wealth, which
are real laws of nature, dependent on the properties of objects, and the
modes of its distribution, which, subject to certain conditions, depend
on human will. The common run of political economists confuse these
together, under the designation of economic laws, which they deem
incapable of being defeated or modified by human effort ■ ascribing the
same necessity to things dependent on the unchangeable conditions of
our earthly existence, and to those which, being but the necessary con
sequences of particulai' social arrangements, are merely co-extensive
with these: given certain institutions and customs, wages, profits, and
rent will be determined by certain causes ; but this class of political
economists drop the indispensable presupposition, and argue that these
causes must, by one inherent necessity, against which no human means
can avail, determine the shares which fall, in the division of the pro
duce, to labourers, capitalists, and landlords. The ‘ Principles of
Political Economy’ yielded to none of its predecessors in aiming at the
scientific appreciation of the action of these causes, under the conditions
which they presuppose; but it set the example of not treating those
conditions as final. The economic generalizations which depend, not on
necessities of nature, but on those combined with the existing arrange
ments of society, it deals with only as provisional, and as liable to be
much altered by the progress of social improvement.”
An observation is often made that Mr. Mill was not a practical
politician. Indeed, his more virulent detractors have not shrunk
from attributing to him an “ utter incapacity to grapple with
practical legislation or the real business of life.” The ground of
this conclusion is not very difficult to discover. It arises from a
radical difference in the sense of duty. To those who measure
the value of the business of life, and the practical character of those
who undertake it, by the immediate prospect of success, by the
probability of their acquiring some personal distinction or profit,
in fact, by the question whether the work is likely “ to pay,”
Mr. Mill’s labours will naturally appear mistaken and absurd.
We can fancy the supreme contempt with which such critics
�John Stuart Mill.
113
must have read in the Autobiography, “the idea, that the
use of my being in Parliament was to do work which others were
not able or not willing to do, made me think it my duty to come
to the front in defence of advanced Liberalism, on occasions when
the obloquy to be encountered was such as most of the advanced
Liberals in the House preferred not to incur.” Mr. Mill was one
of those who are dissatisfied with human life as it is, and whose
feelings are wholly identified with its radical amendment. With
such there are two main regions of thought, one that of ultimate
aims, the constituent elements of the highest realizable ideal of
human life; the other that of the immediately useful and
practically attainable. Some test of the value of these criticisms
may be found by selecting one or two of the principal subjects
within the domain of politics, to which a portion of the labours
of Mr. Mill have been directed. For this purpose let us take,
first, the general question of Government, in the aspect in which
it is presented to modern inquirers ; and secondly, the legislation
affecting the proprietorship or occupation of land.
First, on government, Mr. Mill thought that in his father's
“Essay on Government,” the premises were too narrow, and
included but few of the general truths on what, in politics, the
important consequences depend. He was dissatisfied with the
answer to the criticisms of Macaulay, and thought a better reply
would have been, “I was not writing a scientific treatise on
politics, but an argument for Parliamentary reform.” His pro
gress in logical analysis subsequently helped him to a different
conception of philosophical method as applicable to politics, of
the pedantry of adopting and promulgating asystematized political
creed. He acquired a conviction that the true system of political
philosophy was something much more complicated and manysided than he had previously had any idea of, and that its object
was to supply, not a set of model institutions, but principles from
which the institutions suitable to any given circumstances might
be deduced. This train of thought produced a clearer conception
than he had ever before had of the peculiarities of an era of
transition in opinion, and he ceased to mistake the moral and
intellectual characteristics of such an era for the normal attributes
of humanity. He looked forward to a period of unchecked
liberty of thought, and unbounded freedom of individual action
in all modes not hurtful to others, combining the best qualities
of the critical with the best qualities of the organic times.
A complete view of his most matured opinions on the subject
will be found in the Considerations on Representative Govern
ment. The problem stated is the combination of complete
popular control over public affairs, with the greatest attainable
perfection of skilled agency. James Mill, as well as his son,
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John Stuart Mill.
were in comparison with others who hold democratic opinions,
comparatively indifferent to monarchical or republican
forms; and, in this work, the existence of a constitutional
monarchy—with an hereditary king—is considered, as in many
cases, a favourable condition for the attainment of good govern
ment. He may, by his position, have an interest in raising
and improving the mass, under circumstances such as those
which make up a great part of the history of the English Par
liament. In other cases where none, or only some fraction of
the people feels a degree of interest in affairs of State necessary
to the formation of a public opinion, and the suffrage is only
used by the electors to serve their private interest, or that of
the locality, or of particular persons, of whom they are adhe
rents or dependents, the selfish and sordid factions of which
the assembly is likely to be composed, if struggling for the Pre
sidency or chief place in the Government, would, as in the case
of Spanish America, keep the country in a state of chronic revo
lution and civil war. A despotism of illegal violence would be
exercised by a succession of political adventurers, and represen
tation would have no effect but that of preventing that stability
of government by which some of the evils of a legal des
potism are mitigated. In such a case, the struggle for place—
under an hereditary king—would be far less mischievous. The
tranquillity of Brazil, as compared with that of the other parts
of the South American continent, is an illustration of this argu
ment. In our own government, Parliament virtually decides
who shall be Prime Minister, or who shall be the two or three
individuals from whom the Prime Minister shall be chosen,
without nominating him, but leaving the appointment of the
head of the administration to the Crown, in conformity with the
general inclinations which the Parliament has manifested. This
initiative method, in the formation of the executive government,
seemed to Mr. Mill to stand on as good a footing as possible. In
this conclusion he will have the sympathy of most of the English
people, who will not readily be persuaded that the periodical
election of a President would be an improvement in Govern
ment.
The evil effect produced on the mind of any holders of power,
whether an individual or an assembly, by the consciousness of
having only themselves to consult, was the consideration which
appeared to him of the greatest weight in favour of a second
chamber. Without it the majority in a single assembly, might
easily become overweening and despotic. It was this which
induced the Romans to have two Consuls. In every polity there
should be a centre of resistance to the predominant power. If
any people, possessing a democratic representation, are, from
�John Stuart Mill.
145
their historical antecedents, more willing to tolerate such a centre
of resistance in the form of a second Chamber or House of
Lords than in any other shape, this constitutes a strong reason
for so constructing it. It did not, however, appear to him
the best or most efficacious shape. Of such a body, the con
struction of the Roman Senate seemed to be the best example.
He suggests how a chamber of statesmen might be formed of
the heads of the Courts of Law ; those who had been Cabinet
Ministers ; the more distinguished chiefs in the Army and Navy ;
the diplomatic servants of long-standing; governors of colonies
and dependencies. In England it was highly improbable, from
its historical antecedents, that any second chamber could possibly
exist which is not built on the foundation of the House of
Lords; but there might be no insuperable difficulty in adding
the classes mentioned, to the existing body, in the character of
peers for life.
It is in the constitution of the Representative Assembly that
his hopes of good Government depend, and he devotes a chapter
to the consideration of its infirmities and dangers. The greatest
among these is the delivery over of the management of public
affairs to the representatives of a numerical majority alone, and the
placing of all the unrepresented classes at their mercy. It is as
possible, and as likely, for this numerical majority, being the
ruling power of a democracy, to be as much under the dominion
of sectional or class interests, or supposed interests, as any other
ruling power. The constituencies to which most of the highly
educated and public-spirited persons in the country belong—those
of the large towns—are in great part either unrepresented or mis
represented. This had been thought irremediable, and from
despairing of a cure, people had gone on for the most part to
deny the disease. An attempt to obtain a somewhat more true
representation, proposed by Earl Russell in one of the Reform
Bills, met with no support. The late Mr. Marshall subsequently
suggested the method of the cumulative vote, to rescue at least
some portion of a constituency from the tyranny of the numerical
majority. This system is now tolerably well understood from the
experience of the school board elections, and consists in enabling
the electors of every constituency, having more than one represen
tative, not only to give, as before, one vote to each person to be
chosen, but, instead of that, to give all their votes to one, or dis
tribute them as they please among the candidates. The effect of
this system may be made clearly intelligible in a few words, which
will show also its infirmities, as a vehicle for bringing into the
elected body any complete expression or representation of the
individual thought or study of the members of a large community.
Thus suppose 100 persons are about to elect a committee of 4 to
[Vol. CI. No. CXCIX.J—New Series, Vol. XLV. No. I.
L
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John Stuart Mill.
settle some business which concerns them, and that 21 out of the
100 place their confidence in A, while 51 prefer B, C, D, and
E, as those through whom their interests will be better secured.
Under the old system, the latter might have elected the whole
committee ; and not only the 21 desiring to be represented by A,
but as many as 28 others might have been excluded from any
voice in their deliberations.
With the cumulative system,
every voter may give his 4 votes to any one or more candidates,
and thus 21 persons may give their single candidate 84 votes;
the other 79 persons cannot altogether poll more than 316 votes,
one of their candidates at least must, therefore, be left with no
more than 79 votes, and the election of the candidate of the
united 21 is thus secured. It will be thus seen that though it is
a great improvement on the exclusive majority system, it yet re
quires that the holders of opinions differing from the majority
shall combine and adhere rigidly together in voting for the same
person in order that their success may be certain. If one or two
of the 21 had failed to poll for their candidate, the efforts of all
the rest of the 21 might be thrown away; or the 79, not
submitting to direction, may, if there were more candidates than
5, have less representatives than they are entitled to by their
numbers. Meetings, verbal and written communications, and the
guidance of party leaders are necessary ; and every sort of mani
pulation may thus be brought to bear. If the voter does not
approve of the candidates presented to his constituency, he is
helpless ; and if he does, he cannot, without placing himself in
the hands of the party leaders or agents, be certain that his
vote will have any effect.
The method of popular election, which has since been known
under the various appellations of the Minority, Personal, Propor
tional, and Preferential, system, had been put forward in a crude
form in 1857, and in its matured shape in 1859.t This
*
system effected the object that Mr. Mill had thought desir
able as an antidote to the exclusive representation, and there
fore exclusive rule of local majorities, and was at the same
time subject to none of the infirmities and inconveniences of the
cumulative system, inasmuch as it enabled every single elector,
while he exercised the most extensive choice practicable, to give
an independent vote, with the certainty that it will not be thrown
away. The scheme was made known to Mr. Mill in 1859, after
the publication of his “Thoughts on Parliamentary Reform,” and it
immediately obtained his assent and adoption. After a careful
* “ The Machinery of Representation.” Maxwell, 1857.
j- “A Treatise on the Election of Representatives, Parliamentary and
Municipal.” Longmans, 1859.
�John Stuart Mill.
147
examination of the proposed plan, in a letter suggesting an
*
alteration in a matter of detail, he said that it appeared to him
“ to have exactly, and for the first time, solved the difficulty of
popular representation, and by so doing to have raised up the
cloud of gloom and uncertainty that hung over the futurity of
representative government, and therefore of civilization?’ In a
conversation on the subject which took place a few weeks after
wards Mr. Mill expressed his belief and expectation that the idea
of such an improvement as was proposed would soon have a pro
minent place in the minds of statesmen and reformers ; and those
who were present have not forgotten that almost his first inquiry
was, whether the plan had been brought to the attention of
Mr. Gladstone. “ Had I met with the system,” Mr. Mill says,
in his Autobiography, “ before the publication of my pamphlet,
I should have given an account of it there. Not having done
so, I wrote an article in Fraser’s Magazine, reprinted in my
miscellaneous writings, principally for that purpose. In his
“ Considerations on Representative Government,” he devotes the
greater part of a chapter to this subject.t After explaining the
mode in which the votes would be given and counted, and re
ferring to Mr. Fawcett’s pamphlet on the system, he explains its
immediate result, that all parties sufficiently numerous to be en
titled to be represented would be sure of being so ; that the re
presentation would be real and not merely nominal, or what is
called “ virtualthat the tie between the elector and represen
tative would commonly have a strength, value, and permanence
now unknown ; that while localities would secure adequate atten
tion, general andnational interestswould be paramount; that every
person in the nation honourably distinguished among his country
men would have a fair chance of election, and with such
encouragement such persons might be expected to offer them
selves in numbers hitherto undreamt of; that when the electors
were no longer reduced to Hobson’s choice, the majorities would
be compelled to look out and put forward men of higher calibre,
and their leaders could no longer foist upon the people the
first person who presents himself with the catchword of the party
in his mouth, and three or four thousand pounds in his pocket;
that it would correct the tendency of representative government
towards collective mediocrity; that though the representatives of
the majorities would be the most in number, they must speak
and vote in the presence and subject to the criticism of their
opponents, and before the public.
* March 3, 1859.
f Chapter vii. “True and Talse Democracy i Representation of All, and
Representation of the Majority only.”
L2
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John Stuart Mill.
11 The multitude have often a true instinct for distinguishing an able
man when he has the means of displaying his ability in a fair field
before them. If such a man fails to obtain any portion whatever of his
just weight, it is through institutions or usages which keep him out of
sight. In the old democracies there were no means of keeping out of
sight any able man : the bema was open to him ; he needed nobody’s
consent to become a public adviser. It is not so in a representative
government; and the best friends of representative democracy can
hardly be without misgivings that the Themistocles or Demosthenes
whose counsels would have saved the nation, might be unable during
his whole life to obtain a seat. But if his presence in the represen
tative assembly can be insured, or even a few of the first minds in the
country, though the remainder consists only of average minds, the
influence of these leading spirits is sure to make itself sensibly felt in
the general deliberations, even though they be known to be in many
respects opposed to the tone of popular opinion and feeling.............
This portion of the assembly would also be the appropriate organ of a
great social function, for which there is no provision in any existing
democracy, but which in no government can remain permanently un
fulfilled without condemning that government to infallible degeneracy
and decay. This may be called the function of Antagonism. In every
government there is some power stronger than all the rest; and the
power which is strongest tends perpetually to become the sole power.
Partly by intention, and partly unconsciously, it is ever striving to
make all other things bend to itself, and is not content while there is
anything which makes permanent head against it, any influence not in
agreement with its spirit. Yet, if it succeeds in suppressing all rival
influences, and moulding everything after its own model, improvement
in that country is at an end, and decline commences. Human im
provement is a product of many factors, and no power ever yet consti
tuted among mankind includes them all; even the most beneficent
pow’er only contains in itself some of the requisites of good, and the
remainder, if progress is to continue, must be derived from some other
source. No community has ever long continued progressive, but while
a conflict was going on between the strongest power in the community
and some rival power: between the spiritual and temporal authorities;
the military or territorial and the industrious classes ; the king and the
people; the orthodox and religious reformers. When the victory on
either side was so complete as to put an end to the strife, and no other
conflict took its place, first stagnation followed, and then decay. The
ascendancy of the numerical majority is less unjust, and on the whole
less mischievous, than many others, but it is attended with the very
same kind of dangers, and even more certainly ; for when the govern
ment is in the hands of one or a few, the many are always existent as
a rival power, which may not be strong enough ever to control the
other, but whose opinion and sentiment are a moral, and even a social,
support to all who, either from conviction or contrariety of interest,
are opposed to any of the tendencies of the ruling authority. But
when the democracy is supreme, there is no one or few strong enough
for dissentient opinions and injured or menaced interests to lean upon.
�John Stuart Mill.
149
The great difficulty of democratic government has hitherto seemed to
be, how to provide in a democratic society what circumstances have
provided hitherto in all the societies which have maintained themselves
ahead of others—a social support, a point d’appui, for individual
resistance to the tendencies of the ruling power ; a protection, a rallying
point, for opinions and interests which the ascendant public opinion
views with disfavour. For want of such a point d'appui, the older
societies, and all but a few modern ones, either fell into dissolution or
became stationary (which means slow deterioration) through the exclu
sive predominance of a part only of the conditions of social and mental
well-being.
11 Now, this great want the system of personal representation is fitted
to supply, in the most perfect manner which the circumstances of
modern society admit of. ... . The representatives who would be
returned to Parliament by the aggregate of minorities, would afford that
organ in its greatest perfection. A separate organization of the instructed
classes would, if practicable, be invidious, and could only escape from being
offensive by being totally without influence. But if the elite of these
classes formed part of the Parliament, by the same title as any other of its
members—by representing the same numberof citizens,the same numeri
cal fraction of the national will—their presence could give umbrage to
nobody, while they would be in the position of highest vantage, both for
making their opinions and counsels heard on all important subjects,
and for taking an active part in public business. Their abilities would
probably draw to them more than their numerical share of the actual
administration of government; as the Athenians did not confide re
sponsible public functions to Cleon or Hyperbolus (the employment
of Cleon at Pylos and Amphipolis was purely exceptional), but Nicias,
and Theramenes, and Alcibiades, were in constant employment both
at home and abroad, though known to sympathize more with oligarchy
than with democracy. The instructed minority would, in the actual
voting, count only for their numbers, but as a moral power they would
count for much more, in virtue of their knowledge, and of the influence
it would give them over the rest. An arrangement better adapted
to keep popular opinion within reason and justice, and to guard it
from the various deteriorating influences which assail the weak side
of democracy, could scarcely by human ingenuity be devised. A de
mocratic people would in this way be provided with what in any
othei’ way it would almost certainly miss—leaders of a higher grade
of intellect and character than itself. Modern democracy would have
its occasional Pericles, and its habitual group of superior and guiding
minds.”*
Subsequently in Parliament, in moving, as an amendment to
Mr. Disraeli’s Reform Bill, the introduction of clauses for the
distribution of seats according to the proportional system, Mr.
Mill brought it forward in an expository and argumentative
* “ Considerations on Representative Government.”
3rd edit. p. 148-152.
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John Stuart Mill.
speech * The House was, however, as might be expected, un
prepared for its consideration. The debate is not, however,
uninteresting, as much perhaps for what was not, as for what
was, said. Mr. Mill, in his Autobiography, adds on this sub
ject : —
“ I was active in support of the very imperfect substitute for that
plan, which in a small number of constituencies, Parliament was
induced to adopt. This poor makeshift had scarcely any recommen
dation, except that it was a partial recognition of the evil which it
did so little to remedy. As such, however, it was attacked by the
same fallacies, and required to be defended on the same principles,
as a really good measure; and its adoption in a few parliamentary
elections, as well as the subsequent introduction of what is called the
Cumulative Vote in the elections for the London School Board, have
had the good effect of converting the equal claim of all electors to a
proportional share in the representation, from a subject of merely
speculative discussion, into a question of practical politics, much
sooner than would otherwise have been the case.”
The view which Mr. Mill took of the absolute need of this
change in the method of creating representative bodies, is in no
small degree justified by the attention which it has since received
in our ownf and in nearly every other country where free institu
tions exist.£ Its fundamental principle is, in fact, a corollary of
that oi Individuality. It puts forward in a practical shape the
necessity of freedom for individual action. It liberates every
voter from the condition of being an instrument of those around
him, and enables him to bring all he knows and feels,—his matures!
judgment, to his aid in the choice of the man in whose hands he
would place power. We know that there are many who are
ignorant or stupid, and to whom this discretion would be of little
use. It is enough to say that they would be no worse off than
they now are, and could do far less harm in corrupting and
degrading the constituency of which they are a part. On the
other hand, there are large numbers whose intelligence and
public spirit ought not to be wasted and lost to the nation. A
careful observer of the English mind and manners, and one who
certainly takes no optimist view of the present or future condi
tions of society, in his latest publication, remarks that “no nation
in the world possesses anything like so large a class of intelli* “Hansard’s Parliamentary Debates,” 30 May, 1867, vol. clxxxvii. pp.
1343-1362.
t See “ The Debate on Mr. Morrison’s Bill—Hansard’s Parliamentary De
bates,” vol. ccxii. pp. 890-926
+ “ The Election of Representatives, Parliamentary and Municipal.” A
Treatise. By Thomas Hare. 4th edit. Appendices A to 0, pp. 292-380.
See also on the Empirical Character of the Three-cornered Constituency
Clause, and the Cumulative Vote.—Ibid. pp. 16-19. Longmans, 1873.
�John Stuart Mill.
151
gent, independent, and vigorous-minded men in all ranks of life,
who seriously devote themselves to public affairs, and take the
deepest possible interest in the national success and well-being
while he truly adds that, “the character of our public men is
the sheet-anchor on which our institutions depend. So long as
political life is the chosen occupation of wise and honourable
men, who are above jobs and petty personal views, the defects
of Parliamentary Government may be endured ; but if the per
sonal character of English politicians should ever be seriously
lowered, it is difficult not to feel that the present state of the
constitution would give bad and unscrupulous men a power for
evil hardly equalled in any other part of the world.”* The
safeguard surely is to place it distinctly and certainly in the
power of every intelligent and vigorous-minded elector to give a
vote which shall secure the return of a wise and honourable man.
Secondly, on the Land Laws. A pamphlet, entitled “England
and Ireland,” published before the season of 1868, after an argu
ment to show the undesirableness, for Ireland as well as for
England, of separation, contained a proposal for settling the
land question by giving to the tenants a permanent tenure, at a
fixed rent, to be assessed after due inquiry by the State :—
“If no measure short of that which I proposed would do full jus
tice to Ireland, or afford a prospect of conciliating the mass of the
Irish people, the duty of proposing it was imperative; while if, on
the other hand, there was any intermediate course which had a claim
to a trial, I well knew that to propose something which would be
called extreme, was the true way not to impede, but to facilitate a
more moderate experiment. It is most improbable that a measure
conceding so much to the tenantry as Mr. Gladstone’s Irish Land
Bill, would have been proposed by a Government, or could have been
carried through Parliament, unless the British public had been led to
perceive that a case might be made, and perhaps a party formed, for
a measure considerably stronger. It is the character of the British
people, or at least of the higher and middle classes who pass muster
for the British people, that to induce them to approve of any change,
it is necessary they should look on it as a middle course : they think
every proposal extreme and violent unless they hear of some other
proposal going still further, upon which their antipathy to extreme
views may discharge itself. So it proved in the present instance;
my proposal was condemned, but any scheme for Irish Land Reform,
short of ruin, came to be thought moderate by comparison. I may
observe that the attacks made on my plan usually gave a very incor
rect idea of its nature. It was usually discussed as a proposal that
the State should buy up the land and become the universal landlord;
though, in fact, it only offered to each individual landlord this as an
* “ Parliamentary Government.” By James Eitzjames Stephen, Q.C. Con
temporary Review, Dec. 1873, p. 3.
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John Stuart Mill.
alternative, if he liked better to sell his estate than to retain it on
the new conditions ; and I fully anticipated that most landlords would
continue to prefer the position of landowners to that of Government
annuitants, and would retain their existing relation to their tenants,
often on more indulgent terms than the full rents on which the com
pensation to be given them by Government would have been based.”
With regard to the English land system, Mr. Mill says that
the criticisms of the St. Simonians had some effect in showing
the very limited and temporary value of the old political economy,
which assumes all the rules affecting private property and
inheritance as indefeasible facts, and the abolition of entails and
primogeniture—the freedom of production and exchange, as the
dernier mot of social improvement. The question here, as in
other subjects, was the way in which all practicable ameliorations
could be justly and wisely aided, by the promulgation of
sound principles and adopting the means best suited to lead
to their application. Asserting emphatically the value of
private property as the root of industry, the ultimate object
appeared to be that of uniting the greatest individual liberty
of action with a wide diffusion and accessibility of the owner
ship of land—the raw material of the globe. With this view
Mr. Mill took the chief part in framing the programme of the
Land Tenure Reform Association, to which he gave his name and
cordial support. We find in this programme the result of a
careful study both of what he thought desirable, and what he
deemed at once possible—the distant ideal, and the course to be
immediately taken towards its accomplishment, or to bring us
nearer to a better condition of things. It contains all that is
comprehended in the words “free land” as recently interpreted,
but it does not stop there. Concurring with those who believe
that merely opening the ownership of land to competition in the
money market, however valuable it may be in one of the aspects
of economical improvement, would do but very little towards
placing it under the control of the workman or giving him a
direct interest in it; he regarded it as an indispensable condition
that some part of the land of the kingdom should be placed
within the reach of the industrious labourer, so as to be attainable
in the shape of property of reasonable duration. The programme
of the Association consists of ten articles. The earlier clauses
contain the old tenets of the “free land” reformers. We will
take the clauses in their inverse order, the last seven being
especially the work of Mr. Mill. A prominent object, we find, is
the mental culture of the classes which have the least opportunity
for such improvement, by encouraging and fostering their tastes
for rural scenery, for history, and art. The things to which he
felt himself so greatly indebted—the love of nature and of
�John Stuart Mill.
153
beauty, and the cultivation of the power of recalling in the
imagination what is memorable and great in former ages, he
would bring home to all, as things not to be forgotten in the
daily struggles for material results. The programme (X.) claims
the preservation of all natural objects or artificial constructions
attached to the soil, of historical, scientific, or artistic interest;
that (IX.) the less fertile lands, and especially those within reach
of populous districts, should be retained in a state of wild
natural beauty, for the general enjoyment of the community, and
the encouragement in all classes of healthful rural tastes, and
of the higher order of pleasures. The next clauses deal with
land already belonging to the public, or dedicated to permanent
uses, not of a private character. They ask (VIII.) that land of
which Parliament alone can authorize the inclosure shall be
retained for national uses, compensation being made for manorial
and common rights; that (VII.) lands belonging to the crown,
to public bodies, or charitable and other endowments, be made
available to be let for co-operative agriculture, and to small
cultivators, as well as for the improvement of the dwellings
of the labouring classes; and no such lands to be suffered (unless
in pursuance of those ends, or for exceptional reasons) to pass
into private hands. To protect such lands from alienation to
private uses, which is rapidly taking place ; to obviate all legal
impediments to a voluntary dedication of land to public objects,
and to secure their prudent and productive administration under
skilled district agents of local appointment, exercising their
powers without partiality to any class, Mr. Mill approved the
action of the Association in the preparation and introduction
of the “Public Lands and Commons Bill/’ of 1872 His view of
*
endowments it is known differed materially from that of Turgot.
It forms the subject of the first article in his “Dissertations and
Discussions/
Notwithstanding, he observes, the reverence due
to that illustrious name, it is now allowable to regard his opinion
of that subject as the prejudice of the age. Mankind are
dependent for the removal of their ignorance and defect of
culture, mainly on the unremitting exertions of the more
instructed and cultivated, to awaken a consciousness of this
want, and to facilitate the means of supplying it. “ The
instruments for the work are not merely schools and col
leges, but every means by which the people can be reached,
either through their intellect or their sensibilities, from
* See “ Hansard’s Parliamentary Debates,” vol. ccxii. p. 583. (Erroneously
printed as “ Commons’ Protection, &c., Bill ”) 3 July, 1572.
t “The Kight and Wrong of Stale Interference with Corporation and
Church Property.” Published in The Jurist for May, 1833.
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John Stuart Mill.
preaching and popular writing, to national galleries, theatres,
and public games. Here is a wide field of usefulness open to
foundations.”
His article on this subject, first published in 1833, shadowed
forth the policy which has now, in spite of the opposition of
bodies and persons interested in retaining local patronage, and
influence arising from the power of dealing with estates, and
selecting beneficiaries, been partially adopted by the Govern
ment and Parliament. The only point as to which Mr. Mill’s
opinions had undergone a change was on the question of the
utility of endowments being held in the shape of land. In the
essay referred to, he spoke of the evils of allowing land to pass
into mortmain—adding that trustees ought to have no concern
with the money, except applying it to its purposes. Their time
and attention should not be divided between their proper busi
ness and the management of landed estates. He now felt that
the only objections to the application of the produce of land to
the uses of endowments would be obviated altogether by sepa
rating the management of the property from the administration
of its income. If the management were placed under competent
local agents, having charge of large districts, responsible alike to
the public and the several institutions, and always accessible to
the offers of cultivators and tenants of all classes, vast tracts of
land in the country, and extensive areas covered with houses in
cities and towns, would be opened to co-operative associations
and others, whom the prejudices of private owners, in favour of
fewer or more wealthy occupiers, might exclude. The Bill therefore
proposed to repeal the mortmain Act of George II., which pre
vents land only from being devoted to charitable uses, leaving
all other property to be so disposed of. It is not surprising that
the House ■was unprepared for such a measure. It is only
after repeated agitation that it is likely to succeed; but such
tentative proceedings are obviously the practical course. A
reform bill was introduced many successive years before it passed.
It will, some day, probably be thought wrnrth while to appoint a
committee or commission to examine the subject. It will be
found that nothing could be more moderate or just than the
proposed measure : it secured the interests of the objects of the
trust, and left the trustees unencumbered with alien duties, and
at liberty to employ their undivided attention exclusively to the
business of making the best use of the fund.
*
The great im* This subject is discussed in a Paper read at the Social Science Associa
tion, on the 27th Jan. 1873—“On Lands held by Corporations, and on the
Policy either of their Alienation or of Providing for their Management with
regard to the Public Utility.”
�John Stuart Mill.
155
pediment in the way of measures such as these, is the fact that
almost every constituency contains a few persons, forming a
compact body of much influence, whose importance in the loca
lity may be lessened by the withdrawal of public property from
their control. Mr. Fitzjames Stephen, in the article before
referred to, points out the power of a small knot of persons in a
constituency to turn the balance against any candidate who
has the courage to take an independent view differing from
*
them.
The two next articles of the Land Tenure Programme (V. VI.)
are for the encouragement of co-operative agriculture and the
tenancies of small cultivators. Of the remaining clause (IV.),
proceeding from Mr. Mill, the claim of the State to intercept
by taxation the unearned increase in the rent of land, it is un
necessary here to say much. It has, perhaps, been subjected to
more adverse criticism than any other part of the programme;
but it exhibits the elaborate care with which, in any great
change, he endeavoured to guard existing interests. All who
have read or heard the explanation which Mr. Mill has repeat
edly given of this suggestion know well that not the value of
one farthing, of any realized or existing property, would be taken
thereby from any proprietor. To characterize the proposal,
therefore—as has been done recently—as one involving the
virtual confiscation of the estates of the great landowners, and
whereby, as regards the present, most landed proprietors would
be reduced to ruin, is a gross misrepresentation.
So much space has been occupied in thus attempting to
convey a just idea of the vast field over which Mr. Mill’s labours
have extended, and upon which his autobiography, is full of
interest and instruction, that a multitude of subjects must still
remain untouched. Of his work on the Subjection of Women,
and in the cause of extending to them the political franchise,
we need not speak. They have been more or less discussed
in most houses and families.
In December, 1859, appeared “A Few Words on Non-Inter
vention,”! in which he pointed out the situation of Great Britain,
“ as an independent nation, apprehending no aggressive designs,
and entertaining none, seeking no benefits at the expense of
others, stipulating for no commercial advantages, and opening
its ports to all the world; yet, finding itself held up to obloquy
as. the type of egotism and selfishness, and as a nation which
thinks of nothing but outwitting and outgeneralling its neigh* Contemporary Review, December, 1873, pp. 6, 7.
f Fraser’s Magazine, vol. lx., p. 766.
�156
John Stuart Mill.
hours. This was the continental estimate of English policy.
What was the cause of this ? First, was it not our common
mode of argument for or against any interference in foreign
matters, that we do not interfere in this or that subject ‘ because
no English interest is involved ?’ Secondly, how is the impres
sion against us fostered by our acts ? Take the Suez Canal—a
project which, if realized, would give a facility to commerce, a
stimulus to production, an encouragement to intercourse, and
therefore to civilization, which would entitle it to high rank
among the industrial improvements of modern times. Assume
the hypothesis that the English nation saw in this great benefit
to the world a danger, a damage to some peculiar interest of
England—such as, for example, that shortening the road would
facilitate the access of foreign navies to its Oriental possessions,
that the success of the project would do more harm than good
to England—unreasonable as the supposition is. Is there any
morality, Christian or secular, which would bear out a nation in
keeping all the rest of mankind out of some great advantage,
because the consequence of their obtaining it may be, to itself,
in some imaginable contingency, a cause of inconvenience ? If
so, what ground of complaint has the nation who asserts this
claim, if in return the human race determines to be its enemies ?
In the conduct of our foreign affairs in this matter, England had
been made to appear as a nation which, when it thought its own
good and that of other nations incompatible, was willing to pre
vent others even from realizing' an advantage which we ourselves
are to share.” The subsequent history of the Suez Canal has
proved the errors of English diplomacy here pointed out. The
remainder of the article on the few and rare cases—if any—in
which interference in the domestic affairs of one nation by
another is permissible, has probably not been, and will not be,
without its influence in the subsequent and future history of the
world.
Mr. Mill’s sympathy with the downtrodden and oppressed,
whether as slaves, while there still existed a slave power in
America, or in the condition of their emancipated brethren in
Jamaica, is well known. He saw from the first, as many
clear-sighted persons in our country did—though perhaps they
formed a minority—that the Civil War in America “ was an
aggressive enterprise of the slave owners, under the combined
influences of pecuniary interest, domineering temper, and the
fanaticism of a class for its class privileges—to extend the terri
tory of slavery.” A passage in his article on “ The Contest in
America,”*
justifyingthe determined course taken by the North, is
* Fraser’s Magazine, Jan. 1862.
�John Stuart Mill.
157
worth quoting as an emphatic rejection of a misplaced feeling of
humanitarianism—a feeling which in a fitting case no one would
have respected more than he. He says : —“I cannot join with those
who cry Peace, Peace. I cannot wish it should be terminated
on any conditions but such as would retain the whole of the
territories as free soil. War in a good cause is not the greatest
evil which a nation can suffer. War is an ugly thing, but not
the ugliest of things; the decayed and degraded state of moral
and patriotic feeling which thinks nothing 'worth a war is
worse.”
There are some who say they find in this Autobiography evi
dence of self-sufficiency and self-glorification, and that it is
defaced by egotism ' Such charges appear amazing, not only to
those who remember Mr. Mill's entire freedom from self-asser
tion, and readiness to attribute to others even the merit of works
or suggestions proceeding from himself, but to the readers of the
Autobiography, who find throughout instances of the same selfabnegation. He is only bold and uncompromising in the asser
tion of what he deems right. Instead of egotism, he is, at other
times, charged with sentimentality and weakness in ascribing
such praise to others. One distinct proof of the absence of any
thought of self-sufficiency or egotism is found in a passage in the
Autobiography which hasprobably no parallel inanyother personal
memoir : “ Whoever,” he says, either now or hereafter, may
think of me, and of the work I have done, must never forget
that it is the product, not of one intellect and conscience, but of
three.” It is a painful example of the low pitch to which lite
rary criticism may at this day sink, to read a comment on it such
as this: “All touches of natural affection have been sedulously
kept under or suppressed ; his brothers and sisters are only men
tioned as annoyances or checks to progress.”* So far from
* The tone of complacent triumph with which the author of an Article in
Fraser’s Magazine, for Dec. 1873, acquaints his readers of the “rapid change
of the public mind concerning Mr. Mill,” and of the “ startling collapse of his
reputation which has happened,” since, as he says, Mr. Mill’s admirers met the
“mildest protest” against his fame with “clamour and abuse,” might provoke
a smile. He has probably reiterated this announcement so many times that at
length he fancies himself “the public,” as the three tailors in Tooley Street
styled themselves, “ We, the people of England.” It will, however, be a
somewhat curious chapter in the literary annals of the day, if he should inform
his readers in some future paper when and whence this “ mildest ” of protests
issued, and who were the “audacious” delinquents who tried, and how, to
put down discussion. Was it put down because the answer was so complete
that nothing was left to be said ? At present, however, those who listen to
every breath relating to the venerated object of their regard, have heard only
of one unjust attempt to cast reproach on a pure and honourable life, which,
when indignantly challenged, was found to be utterly unsupported by even the
pretence of evidence. It cannot, however, but be regretted that a periodical
�158
John Stuart Mill.
his brothers and sisters being mentioned as hindrances, Mr. Mill
tells us expressly that, from the discipline involved in teaching
them, which after his eighth year his father required, he derived
the great advantage of learning more thoroughly, and retaining
more lastingly, the things which he was set to teach. The
insinuation that natural feeling was wanting, leads us to borrow
a passage from the current number of the Workman’s Magazine
(p. 385): “ It was our good fortune,” says the writer, “ to know
Mr. Mill in early life. One of our class-fellows at University
College was James Bentham Mill, a younger brother of John,
and we (the younger ones) soon became very intimate friends.
Strong mutual sympathies led to interchanges of visits during
the long vacations and after we had left the college, so that we
had frequent opportunities of seeing and conversing with the
elder brother in his pretty cottage home at Mickleham, where
the whole family spent all the summer months for several years.
. . . John Stuart Mill was, of course, then unknown to fame,
but we well remember the impression he made on us by his
domestic qualities, the affectionate playfulness of his character
as a brother in the company of his sisters, and of the numerous
younger branches of the family.”
Without further noticing comments such as that which has led
us to introduce this reminiscence, it seems strange, as a corre
spondent of the Spectator touchingly remarks, “ to hear accused
of heartlessness and coldness in his affections the man over whose
grave a chorus of friends has just been pouring the strains of
sorrowing love and gratitude, to hear of the ‘ meagre nature,’
‘ the want of homely hopes,’ £ the monotonous joylessness ’ of him
whose delight in nature and in music, whose knowledge of flowers,
whose love of birds, whose hearty happiness in country walks,
with friends, whose long genial talks with those friends, have
been so variously and beautifully delineated.”
We are able to add to that chorus another strain issuing from
the voices of some who, a few years ago, visited him in his
southern home, and there learnt his genial powers of participa
tion and sympathy with various and dissimilar tastes. Mr. Mill’s
fondnessfor natural studies and appreciation of historic associations
had taken him much through Provence and Languedoc, parts
of which they visited with him. None failed to be struck
with the uncommon degree of affection and reverence with
which he and his step-daughter were met in their neighso high in character as Fraser's Magazine should have admitted into its columns
an Article that, first misrepresenting Mr. Mill, both as respects his words and
works, then proceeds to draw unfounded inferences from them, which nothing
but a prurient imagination could have suggested.
�John Stzuirt Mill.
159
bourhood, and journeying with them was made doubly plea
sant from their cordial and warm reception by those to whom
they were known. Mr. Mill’s conversation carried all vividly
back to the Roman and mediaeval days, of which the ruins in the
country round Avignon reminded him. Under his guidance
every spot became replete with interest: “ One day we traversed
the hills above Vaucluse'”—we copy from the journal of one to
whom Mr. Mill was before unknown—“over the mountains, among
the wildest stony paths, through gorges, over dwarf box, lavender,
thyme, cistus, rosemary, fragrant as it was crushed under our
feet, botanizing, talking, till finally we descended, as the day
closed, to Petrarch’s fountain. Whether visiting the flourishing
town of Carpentras, or ascending Mont Ventoux, he directed
attention to a multitude of interesting objects, taking himself
the most laborious part and exhibiting no symptom of fatigue/’
“ Apart from the charm of his converse,” writes another, “ there
was the unceasing kindness with which he pointed out to one the
rarer flowers, to another the geological formation, and again the
peculiar construction of the several ancient remains; and all saw
and felt his delight at having brought them to the summit of the
hill, on which stands the excavated and almost deserted town and
castle of Les Baux, at a moment ■when they could behold the
beauties of the lovely light of sunset shedding its glory over the
valley of the Rhone.”
“ The life of one,” says the writer we have quoted, “ who lives
and strives in opposition to the ideas of his age, will scarcely be
expected to be a very bright and cheerful one ; but it is noble in
stead, and many a one will feel that for such nobleness he would
exchange all that the world calls pleasant.” We have gathered
enough from Mr. Mill’s works, and the testimony of others, to
show that a career of unselfish devotion to the highest object on
which man can be employed—the welfare of his fellow creatures
—is consistent with every rational enjoyment of life, while it
incalculably increases the capacity to enjoy it.
�
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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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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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John Stuart Mill
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Hare, Thomas [1806-1891]
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An account of the resource
Place of publication: [London]
Collation: p. 122-159 ; 22 cm.
Notes: A review essay of Mill's Autobiography, London: Longman, Green, Reader, and Dyer. 1873. The attribution of reviewer and name of journal from Virginia Clark's catalogue. Includes bibliographical references. From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. From Westminster Review 45 (January 1874).
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CT28
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Book reviews
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English
Autobiographies
Book Reviews
Conway Tracts
John Stuart Mill
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Title
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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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Morayshire
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Grant Duff, Mountstuart Elphinstone [1829-1906]
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Place of publication: [London]
Collation: 66-96 p. ; 21 cm.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references. From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Review of The History of the Province of Moray. New ed. / Rev. L. Shaw. From Westminster Review 13 (January 1858). Attributions from The Wellesley Index to Victorian Periodicals, 1824-1900.
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16
THE INTOLERANCE OF HETERODOXY, AND THE
NARROWNESS OF LATITUDINARIANISM.
A recent article in this Magazine directed attention to the remarkable
mutilations to which many well-known Christian hymns had been subjected,
in order that they might find acceptance with the congregation worshipping
at Bedford Chapel, under the leadership of the Rev. Stopford Brooke.
It must have occasioned surprise and mortification in many quarters,
and especially in quarters where Mr. Brooke was known simply
as a competent critic and able literary man, to follow the pastor of
Bedford Chapel in his crusade of slaughter against the hymnology of
Christendom. We had a right to expect at least that the laws of good
taste would not be violated by a public teacher whose writings bear every
sign of a refined and cultivated mind. If certain hymns were unsuited to
the new requirements of the congregation worshipping at Bedford Chapel,
it surely would have been the fairer course frankly to pass them by in the
compilation of the new collection. Such a hymn-book might possibly have
formed a very thin volume, but it would have had an unity of its own.
The inevitable problem arising from such a circumstance is briefly this:
What can be the nature of that intellectual change whose first result, in
the mere sphere of literature, is that a master of criticism sins flagrantly
against the laws of criticism, and a teacher of the broadest tolerance
publishes a book of hymns which, from one point of view at least, may be
considered as masterly a specimen of intolerance as hymnology possesses?
The publication of a book of Christian Hymns, in which every trace of
Christ is carefully eliminated by a cultured and accomplished critic,
preacher, and biographer, would not however be sufficient in itself to justify
the title that stands at the head of this paper. The circumstance is simply
suggestive of a line of criticism which it may be profitable to follow out,
and the material for that criticism is found in two small volumes, which
bear the title of South-Place Discourses. South Place, Finsbury, is the
locale of the well-known Unitarian chapel with which the eloquent
W. J. Fox was for many years connected. His place is now filled by
Mr. Moncure D. Conway, who, however, does not call himself a Uni
tarian. Mr. Conway, too, is a man of fine literary taste; he is well
known in the literary circles of London; and his congregation, like Mr.
Brooke’s, is eclectic in the extreme. Mr. Brooke, however, is a new convert
to Unitarianism, while Mr. Conway, as becomes the traditions of SouthPlace Chapel, is in the van of the new beliefs, and his congregation is composed
of the Pharisees of the Pharisees in the ‘ advanced school ’ of religious
criticism. The order of service adopted at South Place is printed with the
sermons, and it presents a curious study. Occasionally passages from the
Scriptures are read by way of lesson, but oftener the reading is from
�The, Intolerance of Heterodoxy.
17
purely secular publications. Thus the readings for a single service, are as
follows :
‘Declaration of the Minimite Fathers concerning the motion of the
Earth.’
‘ Personal Experiences of George Coombe.’
‘ Professor Clifford on the Publication of Truth.’
In this instance the English Bible is entirely closed. The place of prayer
appears to be given up to what is styled a meditation on such subjects as
‘ Sociability,’ ‘ Little by Little,’ and ‘ Absolute Relativity.’ The service
of song includes such lines as
‘ I slept, and dreamed that life was Beauty,
I woke, and found that Life was Duty.’
'Longfellow’s Psalm of Life, and original hymns by A. T. Ellis, F.R.S.
etc., whose discourses are printed together with Mr. Conway’s, and of whose
genius for hymnology the following is a specimen :
‘ None has learned, and none can tell
When Death flits from each to all,
And Life fails upon our ball,
Where or whither it shall dwell.
L
‘ This the darkness I have past,
Darkness haunted still with dreams,
Dread surmises, doubting screams,
Souls staked madly on a cast.’
By, way of ‘ Dismissal,’ after the singing of this hymn, the congregation is
invited to enter upon a somewhat analytical explanation of its scope and
meaning: and we cannot doubt that it needs it. ‘ Doubting screams’ is in
itself a phrase so daring and original, that it alone might well absorb the
entire time devoted to explanation.
But the nature of this programme of worship provokes more than a
mere sensation of curiosity; we cannot but ask, Is this, after all, any intel
lectual advance upon the ordinary manner of worship among the orthodox?
We have a right to press the question, because the assumption which under
lies each of the five discourses by Mr. Ellis, and the ten by Mr. Conway, is
that of complete contempt for orthodox modes and manners. When we
are rebuked for our fanatical regard for the ancient customs of universal
Christendom; when the prayers of the Litany, for example, are held up
for scornful vivisection j when the intellectual blindness, stubbornness, and
prejudice of believers are made matter for repeated ironical compliment, it
is only natural that we should seek instruction from our critics, and
narrowly observe the methods of our adversaries. Mr. Conway tells us
that ‘ the Isle of England rises from the night, its awakened eye holding
.the Apocalypse of Man.’ He firmly believes that the party he leads is in
�18
The Intolerance of Heterodoxy, and the
the van of true progress, that already it has possessed itself of the ‘ shining
summits ’ of the future, and that the world, as it grows in enlightenment,
must needs follow. Is, then, the manner of service here described the best
that he can offer for the future worshippers ? Mr. Conway’s opinions on
the doctrine of inspiration may be widely divergent from ours, but surely, the
sublimest sacred Book the world possesses, is scarcely treated with common
fairness when, in three services out of five, it is not so much as opened. Interest
ing as the 1 Declaration of the Minimite Fathers concerning the Motion of the
Earth ’ may be, we cannot help thinking that the Sermon on the Mount,
or even certain passages of Old Testament poetry, might afford infinitely
higher intellectual, as well as moral, stimulus and comfort; and the 1 Ex
periences of George Coombe ’ must be poor reading as a substitute for the
experiences of the Apostle Paul. The Litany may be offensive to those
who are freed from the ‘ superstition ’ of prayer, for which ‘ Meditation ’ is
made not the incitement but the substitute; but what sort of substitute is
a quarter of an hour’s ‘ Meditation’ on A bsolute Relativity? The hymns
of Wesley, one of which is quoted by Mr. Conway in support of an even
more than usually unfair and distorted criticism, may have literary demerits
as well as literary merits which are sufficiently well established, and are
fairly open to criticism in common with all hymns; but what shall we say
of such a hymn as that already quoted, with its ‘ doubting screams ? ’
Can a more doleful caricature of the holy cheerfulness of a Christian
Sabbath-day’s service be painted, than the picture of a congregation rising
after a ‘ Meditation ’ on 1 Absolute Relativity,’ to sing such a verse as
this :
‘ None has learned, and none can tell,
How Life burst upon our ball,
Whence, diffused to each through all,
Thought upon the Wanderer fell ? ’
Even when a somewhat more cheerful lyric is announced, whose first
lines run :
‘ “ Go, my child,” thus saith the Highest,
“ Warning, cheering, day by day,” ’
we are carefully informed in a foot-note that ‘ the Highest ’ does not mean
the Most High God; but is meant to signify merely ‘ earthly being.
Humanity, speaking by the mouth, and loving with the heart of the wise
and good, at all times and in all places.’ What can be the reason of this
-evident uneasiness lest the name of God by any accident should slip into a
hymn meant for Divine worship! Is there any other solution of this
strange phenomenon, except the terrible hypothesis that the leaders of what
they choose to term ‘ Rational Religion ’ in South Place, do ‘ not like to retain
God in their knowledge’? Yet Mr. Conway is, avowedly, not an atheist; and
if we may judge of his creed by the ten sermons before us, he is still less a
Positivist. If God be worshipped at South Place, why is it necessary to
explain that one of the titles by which we know God really means nothing
�Narrowness of Latitudinarianism.
19
of the sort, but some vague abstraction of Humanity ? If the minister and
congregation of South Place are really inspired with the sublime belief
that they are in the ‘ foremost files of time; ’ that they are emancipated
from superstitions that hold half the world in night; that they are sure of
victorious recognition by the future generations for whom they are heroic
pioneers,—how is it such exalted sentiment finds expression in no more
hopeful hymnology than such doubtful hymns and anthems as we have
quoted, one of them carefully fenced and purged from all suspicion of
God, and another dreary enough to have been sung in the awful blackdraped cathedral of James Thomson’s ghastly dream, where the preacher
is an atheist, and the text is Suicide ? There is a certain brilliance of
rhetoric and paradox about the utterances of the South-Place pulpit:
but surely, after all, that creed must be cursed with intellectual and
spiritual sterility that has such scanty power of inspiration for sentiment
and emotion.
It is in this and similar matters that we see what we have ventured to
call the intolerance of heterodoxy. The process of heterodoxy is essentially
narrowing. It pretends to extreme 1 breadth; ’ in reality it is extreme
narrowness. The fascination that heterodoxy has for the unwary is that it
offers magnificent promises of emancipation from vulgar prejudices; it
assumes that orthodoxy must needs imply a fettered intellect ; that to live
in the light of the faith of Christendom is really to live in spiritual dark
ness j that, indeed, orthodoxy must needs riiean intellectual imbecility, or
intellectual prostitution: while heterodoxy is the proud stronghold of
gigantic minds who have achieved a great deliverance and entered ona glorious
liberty. All this is absurd assumption, but it serves its purpose. This
is one-half of the programme, and it effectually appeals to human vanity
and pride. The other half describes heterodoxy as the higher spirituality j
as the purer and loftier worship, freed from vain and polluting traditions.
And it is this portion of the programme that seduces some higher natures—
young men of more than common earnestness of thought, through their
very earnestness; devout natures, through their very devoutness; though
never even in these rare cases without some side-appeal to the intellectual
pride that loves to have its own way, even though it must emigrate to a
desert in order to secure it. But where is the breadth and charity of view
that heterodoxy promises ? It passes from its criticism of the Bible to its
degradation. In its effort to avoid the habits of worship sanctioned and
sanctified by centuries of devotion, it closes a Book which even Freethinkers have valued as a source of priceless instruction, or it varies the
words of the ‘ Fourth Gospel ’ with the ‘ Experiences of George Coombe.’
In its fear lest it should approach too nearly to the dangerous phraseology
of orthodox hymnology, it hastens to explain away its hymns, and to assure
us that though the Scripture term for God is used, yet nothing of the kind
is meant. Is this breadth or is it narrowness ? Does it not appear as if the
spirit of denial, once admitted into the temple, closes window after window
c2
�20
The Intolerance of Heterodoxy, and the
to the light, until but one outlook is left—the narrow aperture of solitary
dogmatism ? Stripped of the false romance that usually attaches itself to
intellectual adventure, what fascination is there in such a position of
isolated denial ? And whether is the more tolerable, the bondage of this
individual dogmatism which walks in fear of itself, or the wholesome
restraints which are no more than the landmarks of guidance which
experience has set up ?
This process of contraction and distortion in the intellectual outlook is
strikingly illustrated in some portions of the fifteen discourses that con
tain the views of Mr. Conway and Mr. Ellis, Mr. Conway in his fifth
discourse dwells very strikingly upon what he terms the ‘ morality of the
intellect.’ He says that there may be and is such a thing as intellectual
immorality: ‘ To believe a proposition aside from its truth, to believe it
merely because of some advantage, becomes intellectual prostitution. The
purity of the mind is bargained away.’ In this we heartily agree, and we
do not for a moment suppose that Mr. Conway and his followers have
fallen into the sin he so forcefully repudiates. But it seems to us that the
code of intellectual morality includes many things not covered by the
definition of Mr. Conway. It includes fairness of thought, and soberness
and perfect integrity of judgment. It commands that the balances be held
evenly, that judgment shall be in strict accordance with facts, and that the
verdict should be received and recorded, even though it be adverse to the
claim of the most favourite theory. And it seems to us, upon full and
honest examination, that the ‘higher culture’ of the advanced school has
only resulted in the flagrant violation of each of these laws; that its awards
are partial, its views one-sided, and its judgments of others chiefly distin
guished by wilful distortion and misapprehension. And this is all the more
remarkable because it is the work of trained thinkers, of scholars and
gentlemen, from whom we should at least expect that the intellect would be
free from warp, whatever the deranging bias of the creed.
But as mere matter of human experience, it must be noted that the creed
a man holds is really the lever of his actions, and a greater thinker than
Mr. Conway — Goethe — has remarked that ‘everything depends on
what principle a man embraces ; for both his theory and practice will be
found in accordance therewith.’ Probably the critics of South Place would
vehemently dispute this axiom, for the uselessness of creeds is a favourite
subject for derision, and Mr. Conway has announced that Theology—which
is the scientific statement of creed—‘ is the great enemy of Religion.’ But
so many things are disputed, and so wilfully, with so great a lack of intel
lectual conscientiousness, that this passes for a very small matter. Thus
the most striking discourse of Mr. Ellis—The Dyers Hand—contains a con
temptuous attack on Paley’s argument of design, on this ground,—that to
design is not to invent; that the maker of a watch invents nothing; he
discovers natural laws and properties, and in making his chronometer he is.
simply a designer.
�Narrowness of Latitudinarianism.
21
‘So then (says Mr. Ellis) all that man does with his materials is to put them together.
And we say that grand abstraction, “ Nature,” does the rest. Now if we apply this
to God, we see that some other god must have made the materials, and their laws, and
the laws of their connection, and that He merely puts them together. What a degrading
conception ! The great God, the expression of utter boundlessness, a piecer of other
, gods’ goods 1 Shame on man that he ever inculcated such a doctrine. Shame on
those natural theologians who would found our very reason for believing in the
existence of a God on such transparent fallacies, which can be knocked down like
nine-pins by the first bowl of a cunning atheist 1 ’
But we ask, who ever did inculcate such £ a degrading conception ’ ? Who
but Mr. Ellis ever conceived it ? Boes Mr. Ellis suppose that Paley repre
sents God as only £ the piecer of other gods’ goods ’; or does he really
imagine that this conception of the argument of design, upon which he wastes
so much indignation, is one of the stupid follies of orthodox belief ? It
needs no very £ cunning atheist ’ to bowl down such a conception; but any
candid atheist of average ability will see at a glance that the nine-pins he
knocks down so easily are set up by Mr. Ellis himself, and not by Dr.
Paley. We are well aware that one of the meanings of the Latin word
designo, and one of the meanings of the English word design, is : ‘ to mark
out, to trace out; ’ but who does not also know that the Latin word also
means £ to contrive ’; and that language is largely determined by usage, and
very frequently departs more or less in that process from what was originally
its most prominent meaning ? The average mind understands with perfect
clearness what Paley means by the term £ design,’ and the dictionary is clear
enough. The argument to which Mr. Ellis applies the term £ preposterous
nonsense/ is certainly not Paley’s, but Mr. Ellis’s own quibbling caricature
of Paley’s ; and Mr. Ellis’s whole position is occupied by taking an unworthy
advantage of the fact that one word has often more than one meaning, and
by arbitrarily fastening on that word a meaning far different from that
which the great reasoner obviously attached to it, in accordance with
common usage. Mr. Ellis is welcome to his conception; but it is disingenuous
to assume that ‘orthodox Christendom ’ can in any such manner misinterpret
the language of a standard English writer who is also a consummate
reasoner.
The very same strategy is employed by Mr. Conway in his last discourse
on The Ascension of the Criminal, in which Methodism is introduced, in the
garments of her hymnology, as a witness to the immoralities of orthodoxy.
It is a strategy which requires no genius for either its conception or its
execution; it creates a false assumption, accredits it to orthodoxy, and
then exposes orthodoxy to ridicule for what orthodoxy never said or
thought. If it can be made clear that orthodoxy does not hold what her
critics so confidently assume and assert that she does, the whole attack,
delivered with so much vehemence and passion, is merely a sham-fight
contrived for the entertainment of the South-Place congregation.
It is sufficient to quote from this single discourse to prove that the above
statement is fully borne out by the facts of the case. Thus Mr. Conway
�22
The Intolerance of Haterdoxy, and the
starts with the proposition that 1 religion and morality use totally different
weights and measures. The vilest scoundrel to one may be a saint to the
other.’ The religious instruction provided for the masses teaches them,
says he, ‘ that the supreme rewards of existence are attainable without
reference to life and character. The voice most authentic to the masses says
to them,—In the name of God we declare to you that your thefts, murders,
adulteries, cruelties, and general baseness, may be to man of vast import
ance ; but to God the one question is, Do you believe in His Son or not ? ’
Christianity finds its strongest motives of appeal in a judgment day and
an eternal hell. ‘ Now these,’ says Mr. Conway, £ would be very strong if
they were penalties for immorality; but Christianity ’ (sic, not orthodoxy
merely) ‘ repudiates the idea. Hell, it declares, is for those that forget God,
or do not believe in His Son. Consequently the criminal may snap his
fingers at the day of judgment. . . .Those sects that deal with the masses are
pervaded with a contempt for good works. The Wesleyans sing :
“ Let the world their virtue boast,
Their works of righteousness ;
I, a wretch undone and lost,
Am freely saved by grace;
Other title I disclaim ;
This, only this, is all my plea,
I the chief of sinners am,
But Jesus died for me.” ’
The charge culminates thus, that Christianity positively discourages ‘ the
formation of self-reliant and moral character ’; in the ‘ plan of salvation no
provision is made for morality. Not one item in it refers to morality.
Morality is not made a condition, nor immorality a disqualification for its
full enjoyment’; so that Christianity is a criminal system—‘ it assures the
criminal, converted after he can sin no more, that heaven has the same
place and rewards for the fife of crime and the life of virtue.’ Indeed,
the success of orthodox Christianity is represented as chiefly due to the
fact that it appeals powerfully to the criminal instincts of mankind, that is
to say, to the instincts of the criminal mind, whose creed is to secure all
the advantages of virtue with the weapons of vice.
We have purposely avoided the more offensive sentiments in this remark
able discourse, simply selecting the brief sentences that indicate the course
of thought pursued in it. We can only ask, with something like amaze
ment, Can Mr. Conway bring himself to sincerely believe that this loath
some monstrosity which he paraded before the congregations assembling at
South Place, and the Athenaeum, Camden-Road, on the 2nd of March,
1879, as orthodox Christianity, is the actual Christianity preached in
so many hundreds of pulpits on every side of him, and sung by so
many thousands of worshippers, from Sabbath to Sabbath ? From what
pulpit has he ever heard it announced that ‘ the supreme rewards of exist
ence are attainable without reference to life and character ’ ? Where has
he heard it proclaimed that ‘ the adulteries, cruelties and general baseness ’
�Narrowness of Latitudinarianism.
23
of mankind are of no importance to God, or that the dreadful penalties of
future judgment pass over the immoralities of men, and fall only upon
those who have departed from the faith of orthodoxy, and have denied the
Divine Sonship of the Saviour ? If a life of baseness and immorality bo
not 1 forgetting God,’ what is ? How is it that a man who is capable of
writing able and sympathetic criticism upon secular subjects, can allow
himself to be so unfair as to take a single hymn, which is the lyrical
expression of personal conviction, expressly designed and designated ‘ For
mourners convinced of sin,’ as a complete summary of orthodox belief,
and to infer from the omission of any mention of the deeds of a holy life
in a solitary verse of Wesleyan hymnology, that the Wesleyans have a
‘ contempt for good works.’
A similar process of criticism, confined to garbled utterances and founded
on omission, might be made to prove the grossest calumnies against the
greatest authors. And how can any man who has read the Gospels and
Epistles, and who knows that it is from the Divine ethics of Christianity
that a thousand pulpits are drawing their inspiration and instruction from
Sabbath to Sabbath, dare to stand up and affirm that Christianity is a
criminal system, and makes no provision for morality! If orthodox
Christianity is a criminal system, how is it that it has proved the most
powerful deterrent from vice ? And if Mr. Conway’s scheme of religion is so
much loftier, why is it that it exhibits itself mainly in false paradox and the
intellectual fireworks of an explosive and yet random criticism, instead of
weaving its mightier spell for the exorcising of the foul spirits that defile
and deform society, and which, according to his view of the case, Chris
tianity encourages, but cannot cast out ? We can only suppose, in charity,
that Mr. Conway knows next to nothing of the Christianity which he so
wantonly caricatures. And what can be a preacher’s notion of the Ethics of
Quotation who, having given one verse of a hymn, is careful to keep
back another verse which would at once refute his calumny:
‘ Jesus, Thou for me hast died,
And Thou in me shalt live,
I shall feel Thy death applied,
I shall Thy life receive?
And what a reckless and audacious contempt for recent history, as well as
for conspicuous and admitted contemporary facts, is betrayed by an able
* public teacher—fair-speaking on all other subjects but Christianity—
who can, within a few yards of Moorfields and City Road Chapel, coolly
tell his disciples that the Wesleyans have ‘ a contempt for good works.’
Who does not know that by the self-same tactics John Wesley and the
Wesleyans have been denounced as ‘ merit-mongers ’ and ‘ Pelagians,’ and
Papistical criers up of the desert and absolute necessity of ‘ good works,’ and
the attempt to sustain the charge has been made precisely on the same principle,
or with the same disregard of principle, as is exhibited by Mr. Conway. Only
�24
The Intolerance of Heterodoxy.
the slightest observation is sufficient to bid back again the spectral de
formity which he has conjured up and misnamed orthodox Christianity.
■The self-styled ‘rational religion’has a strange method of cultivating
and inculcating intellectual morality, when it can deliberately set forth from
both pulpit and press Charles Peace as a representative Christian saint, and
can make his last utterances the typical confession of orthodox piety, in order
to construct a sermon, under the title of The Ascension of the Criminal.
Nor does it shape well with the laws of intellectual morality that it should
be conveniently forgotten in such an attack upon Christianity and Chris
tians, that orthodox Christianity teaches that ‘ faith, if it hath not works, is
dead, being alone ’ (James ii. 17). And surely Mr. Conway’s revolt is not
so much from revelation as from common sense, when he can venture to
quote an obscure Indian myth concerning all animals being once imprisoned
in a monster, and owing their deliverance to co-operation—with the solemn
announcement that this ‘ is a much more moral and scientific genesis of
man than that in the Bible.’
Such, then, is the tolerance of1 heresy. The spirit of denial proves him
self to be no holy iconoclast, who moves onward through the wreck of
crumbling traditions to a larger inheritance of truth. It is simply a
mocking, railing spirit, unable or unheedful to discriminate between good
and evil. We are so often taunted with the bigotry of orthodoxy, the
galling fetters it imposes on the intellect, the fierce anathemas it thunders
forth to all who cast away its shibboleth, that it is time to look our accusers
in the face. It seems to us that the palm of intolerance belongs to hetero
doxy, and its bigotry is all its own. It professes to reject the tyranny of
any standard of faith; but it sets up its own crude standards of faith
nevertheless, in the arrogant egotism of its high priests. It weaves its
boasted ethics from negations; it affirms only to accuse. Of its charity
and tolerance let Mr. Conway’s own discourses bear witness. We are told
that our generation is stricken with the pestilence of doubt, though there
is good reason to believe that large exaggerations are mixed with its
statistics. The infected area is probably much smaller than some think.
However this may be, contemporary literature swarms with smart doubters,
with whom the lack of faith is no longer considered a calamity, but a badge
of intellectual distinction. They invite the novice to the larger air of lib
eral ideas, but the novice soon finds that ‘ free thought ’ has its Inquisition,
and that denial has its dogmas. He flees from orthodoxy because his new
instructors have branded it as narrow and intolerant, to find, when the
awakening comes, and natural revulsion follows fascination, that he has
fallen at the feet of an arrogant heterodoxy, immeasurably narrower and
more intolerant.
D. J. W.
�
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Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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The intolerance of heterodoxy and the narrowness of latitudinarianism
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Dawson, W.J. [Dawson]
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An account of the resource
Place of publication: [s.l.]
Collation: 16-24 p. ; 22 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. A review essay by Rev. W.J. Dawson of 'South Place Discourses' from Wesleyan Methodist Magazine, January 1883. The article is signed D.J.W. but is known to be the Rev. W.J. Dawson.
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[s.n.]
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[1883]
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G5608
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Book reviews
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<img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /><br /><span>This work (The intolerance of heterodoxy and the narrowness of latitudinarianism</span>), identified by <a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk">Human</a><span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk">ist Library and Archives</a></span><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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Book Reviews
Conway Tracts
Heterodoxy
Latitudinarianism
Moncure Conway
-
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Title
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Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Title
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[Necklace of Stories and other reviews]
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G5613
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An account of the resource
Collation: 1 leaf.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Extracts, handwritten, from reviews of Conway's works. 'Necklace of Stories' (Spectator, Athenaeum, Academy? 'Demonology and Devil-lore' (London World, March 19).
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Conway, Moncure Daniel, 1832-1907
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[1881]
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English
Book Reviews
Conway Tracts
Moncure Conway
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Conway’s Sacred Anthology.
191
attempts to reconcile the irreconcilable ; let him rather rest
at a point where faith supplements instead of conflicting
with reason; and with the reverence, more especially his own,
which forbids him to close his soul against the spiritual
influences he dimly but intensely feels around him, let him
combine that other form of reverence, born of the loyal
search for scientific truth, which equally forbids all prema
ture claim to have pushed back the boundaries of the
*
unknown.
Ernest Myers.
TIL—CONWAY’S SACRED ANTHOLOGY.
Col
lected and edited by Moncure Daniel Conway. London :
Triibner and Co. 1874.
The Sacred Anthology, a Book of Ethnical Scriptures.
When Demetrius Phalereus was forming the royal library
at Alexandria, he recommended Ptolemy Philometor to pro
cure from Jerusalem a copy of the laws of the Jews. Whe
ther or not we trust the plea of their divine origin with
which Josephus has credited him,-|- it seems clear that the
great confluence of religions in the third century B.C. at the
meeting-point between the East and West, was beginning to
attract considerable attention. How far Demetrius carried
his intention of “making a collection of all the books
throughout the world,” it is no longer within the power of
the historian to trace. Had the communities of Hindus and
Persians been sufficiently numerous, it is possible, as Ewald
* Since writing the above, 1 have been interested to find the following pas
sage in Mr. J. S. Mill’s Autobiography (p. 39). Speaking of his father, James
Mill, he says: “He found it impossible to believe that a world so full of evil
was the work of an Author combining infinite power with perfect goodness and
righteousness. His intellect spurned the subtleties by which men attempt
to blind themselves to this open contradiction. The Sabaean or Manichaean
theory of a Good and an Evil Principle, struggling against each other for the
government of the universe, he would not have equally condemned ; and I have
heard him express surprise that no one revived it in our time. He would have
regarded it as a mere hypothesis; but he would have ascribed to it no deprav
ing influence.”
+ Jos. Ant. xii. 4.
�192
Conway's Sacred Anthology.
has suggested * that the sacred writings of these races also
might have been gathered and translated at the same time.
The opportunity, however, slipped away, and no further
efforts seem to have been made in the study of comparative
religion. But the influence of the wide culture of the Alex
andrian schools was not wholly lost, and re-appears in the
first Apologists for Christianity. The doctrine of the “ Sper
matic Word” enabled them to look with genial eyes upon
every attempt to arrive at the knowledge of divine things :
they did not desire to claim for one race alone the exclusive
possession of the oracles of God; they eagerly welcomed
the testimonies to their own truths which had fallen from
the lips of the wise and good in other ages and in other lands ;
“whatever things,” affirmed Justin Martyr, “have been
rightly said among all men are the property of us Christians ;-fand Clement attributed inspiration to' Plato or Cleanthes
as readily as to Moses or Isaiah. £ The fall of Rome, the
Mohammedan conquests, the decay of Western learning, all
contributed to disperse completely what little interest had
ever been felt in the Oriental faiths ; and Protestantism in
its turn, founded on the finality of the Bible, reversed the
scepticism of the Pharisees of old, and was unwilling to
believe that any good thing could come from anywhere but
Nazareth. Only here and there some mind of rarer insight
and elevation, like Cudworth’s, detected the broken har
monies of a “symphony of religions” which it was reserved
for a later day to rescue from the confusion of tongues in
which it at first appeared wholly lost.
In India, indeed, the experiment had been already tried.
In the sixteenth century, the Emperor Akbar gathered round
him at his court at Delhi, Jews and Christians, Brahmans
and Zoroastrians. Week by week the learned of all deno
minations assembled at the palace to discuss the most intri
cate questions of theology. Nights and days alike were
spent in investigation, and the august student displayed a
spirit of inquiry which was in truth fundamentally opposed
to every Islamitic principle, and excited the gravest disap
proval of one of the contemporary historians of his feign.
The result of the imperial researches was in the highest
* History of Israel, Vol. V. p. 251.
+ Cohort, vi.
+ Second Apology, xiii.
�Conway’s Sacred Anthology.
193
degree disastrous in the eyes of this worthy Mohammedan.
“ There gradually grew, as the outline on a stone, the con
viction in his heart that there were sensible men in all reli
gions” ! Well indeed might the believer ask, “ If some true
knowledge were thus everywhere to be found, why should
truth be confined to one religion, or to a creed like the
Islam, which was comparatively new, and scarcely a thou
sand years old ? why should one sect assert what another
denies? and why should one claim a preference without
having superiority conferred on itself?”*
These questions have not yet wholly ceased to perplex
some minds nearer home. Vague and indefinite ideas about
revelation still obscure “ the true light which lighteth every
man that cometh into the world;” and it is probable that
no better contribution to liberal theology could be made at
the present day than a collection of the best utterances of
morality and faith produced by other races and creeds such
as Mr. Conway has aimed at compiling. In the East alone,
the labours inaugurated by Anquetil du Perron and Sir Wil
liam Jones a century ago, have already proved marvellously
fruitful; and the study of comparative philology has paved
the way for the no less important study of comparative
religion. The soundness of the scholarship of Sir William
Jones remains, we believe, unimpeached, and those who
have followed in his steps have simply extended, without
having to correct, his discoveries. Du Perron’s work, how
ever, has not stood equally well the test of subsequent ex
plorations in the same field. His unwearying energy and
splendid devotion brought the Zend Avesta to light; but
the progress which has since been made in the knowledge
of Zend has to some extent thrown doubt upon the trust
worthiness of his translation; and as Mr. Conway gives his
readers no precise marginal references, it is to be regretted
that he has nowhere stated how far he has availed himself
of it. But the Brahmanic and Zoroastrian religions are not
the only Oriental faiths which have established themselves
on sacred books. Within fifty years Buddhism has gene
rated a literature which threatens to rival its own canon in
voluminousness ; and the writings of Lao-tsze and Confucius
* Badaoni, quoted by Max Muller, Introduction to the Science of Religion,
p. 89.
�194
Conway's Sacred Anthology.
are yielding up their meaning to the indefatigable deter
mination of recent investigators. From Mr. Conway’s cata
logue of authorities, however, we miss some familiar names,
such as those of Eugene Burnouf and Stanislas Julien ; nor
can it be said that this miscellaneous list at the end of the
volume compensates for the want of exact indications of
the sources from which the separate passages have been
derived.
The materials which modern inquiry has placed at the
disposal of the compiler of a sacred anthology, are indeed
embarrassing from their extent and variety. But if they
are to throw any light on the inner relations of different
religions to one another, they ought to be carefully sifted and
methodically grouped. These requirements we cannot think
that Mr. Conway’s collection satisfactorily fulfils. It appears
deficient in principles both of choice and of arrangement.
A glance at the subjoined table will shew the range of
*
nationalities which have contributed to it. Mr. Conway has
wisely passed the limits which he seemed at first sight to
impose on himself by the use of the term “ Scriptures,” and
has for the most part drawn his “testimonies” from a much
wider area. But it is to be regretted that he has adhered
to the canonical restrictions in some cases and not in others.
The numerous Persian poets who supply so many charming
fancies and wise apothegms would no doubt be the first to
disclaim the faintest supposition of rivalry with the Pro
phet, yet here they meet on equal terms. Three millenniums
divide the Dabistan from the Zend Avesta, but in Mr. Con
way’s pages they stand side by side; the fables of Hito* The following table is a rough classification of the passages ascribed to each
religion or nationality :
3
Sabzean..................... ..............
Persian (Mohammedan) .. . 185
Tartar ..................... ..............
2
Hindu (Brahmanic).......... . 140
1
African..................... ..............
Hebrew, Old Test, in- ) 1 AK
1
Chaldzean................. ..............
eluding the Apocrypha )
English..................... ..............
1
Christian ........................... . 102
1
Japanese................... ..............
Buddhist ........................ . 49
Russian..................... ..............
1
Arabian (Mohammedan) .. . 44
Syrian ..................... ..............
1
. 40
Chinese...............................
Theurgists ............. ..............
Parsi .................................. . 30
1
Unknown ................. ..............
Talmud........... ................... . 12
1
—
Scandinavian .................. . 12
4
Total................. .............. 740
Egyptian ........................... .
Turkish ........................... .
4
�Conway's Sacred Anthology.
-
195
pades& take their place along with the hymns of the Rig
Veda and the laws of Manu ; and the chronicles of Ceylon
are on a par with the sermons of Buddha. The cordon, which
is relaxed for the Mohammedans and the Parsis, the Brah
mans and the Buddhists, is tightly drawn for the Christians,
whose literature is apparently regarded as complete with
the last book of the New Testament. Yet it may be doubted
whether, among ordinary readers, Augustine, Tauler, and
Pascal are so much better known than Sadi or V^mana, as
to justify their entire exclusion and if the Imitatio Christi
was too familiar, some of the old Latin hymns might have
represented a spirit of devotion unknown in the East. It
is probably the same fear of intruding upon his readers what
they were already acquainted with, which has led Mr. Con
way to ignore the poets and philosophers of Greece and Rome
altogether. Happily this dread did not compel the psalm
ists and apostles to be silent also ; but no other cause could
have kept out Homer and let in the Eddas
.
*
Yet Sophocles
is at least as well worth reading, and almost as little read,
as Hafiz; it is difficult to see why Marcus Aurelius should
be unheard while Vladimir II. is permitted to speak; the
extracts from the Gospels, under the head of the “ Ethics
of the Intellect,” might well have been supplemented with
passages from the Apology of Socrates ; Plutarch or Seneca
could have furnished maxims quite as good as those of
Turkey, Japan, or England; and in the section entitled
“ Sanctions,” we look in vain for one of Plato’s wonderful
myths, such as that of Er the son of Armenius. Nor can
we think that Mr. Conway does justice to the oldest civilis
ation in the world, in omitting all reference to the Egyptian
“ Book of the Dead.” It may be that the doctrine of im
mortality appears there in a form <too pronounced for his
taste ; but the remarkable conceptions of personal and social
duty implied in the confessions of the soul before the fortytwo assessors in the “Hall of the Two Truths” deserve
recognition in any work which is designed like this to secure
a wider appreciation for “the converging testimonies of ages
and races to great principles.” The mystic sayings of Hermes
Trismegistus”* are pallid and obscure by the side of the
vows and aspirations of the funeral ritual so touchingly
called the “ Book of the Manifestation to Light.”
CLVII.
VOL. XI.
P
�196
Conway's Sacred Anthology.
Of hardly less importance, however, than the selection of
the ethnical Scriptures is their classification. If the object
is to enable the reader to compare together different types
of religion, the quotations ought snrely to be arranged ac
cording to the faiths from which they spring; and extracts
taken from works separated by a long range of time should
be set as far as possible in chronological order, so as to
exhibit the phases of development through which any par
ticular religion has passed. Mr. Conway, however, has pre
ferred a division by subjects rather than by creeds; and has
gathered his materials under the somewhat Emersonian
titles of “ Laws,” “ Nature,” “ Character,” “ Conduct of Life,”
and the like. An arrangement of this kind might have been
advantageously combined with a classification according to
religions, if a few well-defined orders of thought had been
adopted. The opening section of “ Laws,” however, contains
precepts upon every variety of virtue, and deals largely
with “ Charity,” “ Love,” and “ Humility between “ Wis
dom” and “ Knowledge,” “ Religion,” “ Theism,” and “ Wor
ship,” it is somewhat difficult to draw any clear line ; and
these headings do not facilitate the inquirer in ascertaining
whether any given passage is included. This task is, indeed,
rendered harder by the absence of any table of sources. To
each extract a title is prefixed, and of these, it is true, a list
is supplied; but (to take instances only from the Christian
Scriptures) not every one would seek for the parable of the
owner of the vineyard and his two sons under the desig
*
nation, “ The Established Church,” nor would many divine
that “ Demand for a Cause” signified the story of the young
ruler who went away sorrowful, having made what Dante
called “ the great refusal.” To any one, therefore, who takes
up the volume for the first time, the index of titles is almost
useless; and the book is simply a mass of citations, many
of them of high moral and religious value, but unavailable
for critical comparison, and beyond the reach of verification.
Mr. Conway has apparently, however, desired to provide
his readers with some little apparatus which should help
their judgment, and has accordingly appended a series of
Chronological Notes on the various works which have sup
plied him with quotations. But the information imparted
* With the connected discourses, Matt. xxi. 23—32.
�Conway's Sacred Anthology.
197
must be said to be exceedingly meagre: to those who are
already acquainted with Oriental literature it is superfluous,
while to the uninitiated it is tantalisingly inadequate. The
Chinese books are dealt with first; but though Lao-tsze and
*
Confucius- were the founders of religions entirely distinct,
no hint is afforded us of their divergence. The list of Parsi
writings extends over a period of three thousand years, but
we look in vain for any estimate of the relations between
the Zend Avesta and the Dabistan at its two extremes. It
would be perhaps needless to discriminate the Sama Veda
and the Yagur Veda from the Pig Veda (the Atharva Veda
does not appear at all); but some indication of the epic
character of the Ramayana and the Mahabharata would
have been acceptable. But the obliteration of all distinc
tions between the authoritative books of an established
religion and works of poetry or history, ought not to have
caused any confusion between the literatures of rival faiths.
Among the Hindu writings, however, between the Vedas and
the laws of Manu, three works are enumerated which are not
Hindu at all, but Singhalese—not Brahmanic, but Buddhist.
The Mahavamsa, placed by Mr. Conway about B.C. 477—
459, is a kind of royal chronicle, different parts of which
bear different dates. The language in which it is written is
not the Sanskrit of the Vedas, but the Pali of the Buddhist
Scriptures. The author or compiler of the first thirty-seven
chapters was Mah&nama, the uncle of Dhatusena, king of
Ceylon from 459 to 477 A.D.; the next section, written by
a priest named Dharmakirti, carried down the history to
1267; and a third hand has concluded it at 1758. The
Raja-Waliya, which Mr. Conway ascribes to the fourth cen
tury B.C., is of uncertain age; but the oldest portion of it
is probably not so old as the corresponding part of the Mah&vamsa. The same date is affixed to the Raja-Ratnakara,
though the Singhalese in which it is written is of a more
modern form than that of the Raja-Waliya already named.
The author was a certain Abhaya-Raja, who lived about the
middle of the sixteenth century of our era I Even Upham’s
translation, included by Mr. Conway among his “ principal
authorities,” if not altogether trustworthy, would at least
* Mr. Conway separates them by an interval of a century and a quarter.
Max Muller, however, and other writers speak of them as at any rate during a
part of their lives contemporary.
P 2
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Conway’s Sacred Anthology.
have enabled him to assign these works to their proper
place among the Buddhist writings, subsequent to the col
lection of the “ Three Baskets.”*
The Hebrew and Christian Scriptures hardly meet with
more satisfactory treatment. Of the Pentateuch we are told
that “ the tendency of modern criticism is to the conclusion
that a large number of very ancient fragments, historical,
legendary and poetic, were sifted, fused, or to use Ewald’s
expression, compounded, into the books which we now have ;
and that they assumed their present shape in the eleventh
century B.C.” The primitive document which lies at the
foundation of the books of Genesis and Exodus may possibly
be ascribed to the period of Samuel, or placed a little later
than that of Solomon. But if Mr. Conway had taken the least
pains to acquaint himself with the views of Ewald, he could
hardly have overlooked the fact that that great historian, in
common with the vast majority of recent critics, postpones the
completion of the Pentateuch till after the composition of
the book of Deuteronomy, which he assigns to the seventh
century.-f- Nor have subsequent investigators contented
themselves with leaving the question there. Prof. Russell
Martineau, in accordance with the views of some of the
Dutch scholars, has shewn in the pages of this Review J that
there is good ground for believing that a large portion of the
Levitical legislation did not come into existence before the
return from the captivity. If the Pentateuch is thus brought
to the front too early, the book of Job seems not admitted
till too late. Its date is, it is true, somewhat difficult to
determine: Mr. Conway, however, adopts a view of its origin
* See “Le Bouddha et sa Religion,” by M. Barthelemy Saint-Hilaire, pp.
327, 328. We do not know exactly what use has been made by Mr. Conway
of Upham’s translation ; but its grave deficiencies might have been corrected by
the work of Tumour, which, though incomplete, is of far higher value. The
further dates assigned to such books asDhammapada (246 B.C.) and Kuddhaka
P&tha (250 B.C.) must likewise be received with some caution. The White
Lotus of the Good Law is also referred to the year 246 B.C.; it is not, like
Dhammapada and Kuddhaka P&tha, included in the “Three Baskets” acknow
ledged in Ceylon, which do not appear to have been reduced to writing till about
88 B.C ; it is in Sanskrit, not Pali; but it does not seem possible to fix the
year of its production with precision.—As I have been unable to resort to stan-'
dard works on this subject, I must express my obligations for the greater part
of my information to T. Rhys Davids, Esq., late of Ceylon.
+ History of Israel, I. p. 127, IV. p. 220, sqq.
J Theol. Rev. for Oct. 1872, p. 474, sqq.
�Conway's Sacred Anthology.
199
which prevents him from finding a place for it till after the
Jews had been brought in contact with some of the nations
of the East in the sixth century. In the margin of the
section “ Sorrow and Death,” where an abridgement of it
*
appears, he characterises it as “ Hebrew or Persian.” This
designation is explained in the Chronological Notes by the
statement that it is a version probably of a Persian form of
a Brahmanic story of similar character. As well might we
say that Hamlet was a “version” of a French form-f- of a
Danish tale. If there be any book in the Old Testament
which bears the stamp of strong individual genius, surely it
is the book of Job. It stands entirely outside of the limits
of pure Mosaism, but it is Semitic and not Aryan. Its
author was not shut up in the domestic politics or faith of
Israel; but it was from the wisdom of Teman and the civi
lisation of Egypt that he drew much of his argument and
his imagery. The Satan who presents himself among the
sons of God bears no resemblance to the Zoroastrian Ahri
man ; and the story of his ineffectual endeavours to prove
that Job did not “serve God for nought” may have been
the common property of the wide East as that of Othello
was of Europe, but it needed a Hebrew Shakspeare to weld
it into the earliest, and in some respects the greatest, tragic
drama of the world. With the same want of critical per
ception (as we must consider it), Mr. Conway cites the open
ing and the closing chapters of the book of Isaiah as if they
all alike came from the same pen ; and upon this principle
compiles into one passage verses from oracles against Philistia, against Moab, and against Babylon, separated by
nearly two centuries. The result is described as “The
Tyrant’s Fall/’J For this, perhaps, the wretched divisions
of our English Bible are in part responsible; but this plea
does not excuse a similar treatment of soma, of the Psalms.
Who would think it fair if some continental collector were
to put together stanzas from Milton, Wesley, and Faber, and
present the compound as a specimen of an English hymn ?
We may pass over Mr. Conway’s notices of the Septua* P. 393, sqq.
+ That of the novelist Belleforest.
J dcx. , made up apparently from Is. xiii. 2, 3, 11, 12, xiv. 7, 12, 16, 26,
30, and xvi. 5.
>
’
’
�200
Conway's Sacred Anthology.
gint and the Apocrypha, as they are of slight importance ;
*
but graver issues are raised by his views of the growth of
the New Testament. The Apocalypse, the book of Acts,
and the Epistles of Paul, are the only books which he saves
for the first century. The judgment which treats the book
of Revelation and the letters of Paul as the earliest Christian
documents which we possess, is no doubt a sound one ; but
its correctness seems almost fortuitous, for the next sentence
sweeps away the Epistles to the Ephesians, the Galatians,
the Colossians, and Timothy (together with that to the
Hebrews and those bearing the names of Peter, James, John
and Jude), as of uncertain date and apocryphal authorship.
Why the Epistle to the Galatians should be thus boldly
struck out, we are at a loss to conceive ; the hardiest critics
(with the exception of Bruno Bauer *-) have never ventured
f
to impugn its authenticity; and it is difficult to know on
what grounds it should be thrown overboard while the Epistle
to the Philippians is retained. A still stronger reversal of
accepted decisions is to be found in the priority assigned to
the book of Acts. If there is any point on which all schools
are agreed, it surely is that this book supplemented, instead
of preceding, the Gospel of Luke. Mr. Conway, however,
thinks otherwise. In virtue, perhaps, of the narrative of
the voyage of Paul to which the use of the first person lends
so fresh an air, he reserves a place for this work among the
earliest productions of the primitive church. The four Gos
pels are all relegated into the second century, that of Mat
thew being referred to its first quarter, that of Mark being
set down near its last, while intermediate positions are pro
vided for those of Luke and John. This theory, however,
brings down the composition of the Gospel of Mark hazard* Mr. Conway places the version of the Septuagint in the year 250 B.C. It
is, however, clear that the translation was not made all at once ; but the point
is of minor interest except as it helps us to fix the date of the book of Wisdom,
the author of which seems to have been acquainted with the Greek rendering
of the Pentateuch and Isaiah. The period assigned by Mr. Conway (B.C. 250
—300) would thus appear to be too early.—The “four books of Esdras, ranging
from B.C. 150—31,” are in reality only two. The Vatican MS. contains two
books of Esdras, the first being the book known by that name in our Apocrypha,
and the second being the canonical Ezra. In the Vulgate, however, the canon
ical Ezra stands first; Nehemiah is designated the second book of Esdras; what
we know as the first book of Esdras follows in the third place; and the so-called
second book, of which no Greek text exists, comes fourth and last.
f Davidson’s Introduction to the New Testament, I. p. 101.
J
-Sj'
'.f
3
�SECOND EDITION, NOW READY.
SACRED ANTHOLOGY
THE
j
i. 'ilif r.f ■!
a
BOOK OF ETHNICAL SCRIPTURE^
BY MONCURE DANIEL CONWAY.
Triibner & Co., Ludgate Hill.
The second edition of this work contains an Index of Authors,
in addition to the Index of Subjects, List of Authorities, &c.,
and the Chronological Notes
carefully revised.
The book contains 740 Readings from the Asiatic and Scan
dinavian Sacred Books and Cla^jfes, arranged according to
subjects in 480 pages royal 8vo, with marginal notes.
OPINIONS OF THE PRESS.
It is certainly instructive to see the essential agreement of so many
venerated religious writings, though for depth of meaning and classicality
of form none of them approaches the HebrewSfcmd Christian Scriptures.
The idea of the work is arj^cellentone, and Mr. Conway deserves great
credit for being the first to realise it.— We^^B^i^keview.
It remains for us to point out so^ of the remarkable coincidences
in the principles of morals and reli||on which Mr. Conway’s diligence
and tact have brought together. HillaMand Confucius enunciated the
safhe warning in almost the same words—“ WhaWou do not wish done
to yourself do not to others.” Beneath a tropic sky, the flamingoes and
green parrots suggest the same lessons as the ravens and lilies of the
■field upon the hills of Galilee. A few words sum up with unsurpassed
pathos the parable of the virgins—“ A poor man watched a thousand
years before the gate of Paradise ; then, while he snatched one little nap
it opened and shut.”— Theological Review.
�2
Few more valuable contributions have been made to the popular study
of comparative theology than Mr. Conway’s “ Sacred Anthology,” well
fitted to serve as a volume of devout reading to those who choose without
theological forethought or afterthought to apply it to that use. To the
more speculative student, it curiously illustrates at once the different
genius of the various nations of the world, and the identity of human
nature in its apprehension of the loftiest topics of faith and morals. Few
can read it without feeling their mental horizon enlarged, and without a
deeper sense of the common humanity that lies at the basis of the dif
ferences by which history, climate, and civilisation disguise men and
nations from each other.—Daily News.
The book may fairly be described as a bible of humanity, and as an
ethical text book it might well be adopted in all schools and families
where an attempt is made to instil the highest principles of morality
apart from religious dogma. He has produced a work which a great
number of people have long been desiring to possess, and which is likely
to mark a distinct epoch in the progress of ethical culture.—Examiner.
The result is most interesting. For the first time, an English reader
may judge for himself of the moral and religious merits of writings which
heretofore have been to him only venerable and shadowy abstractions.
We shall be much surprised if every reader does not lay it down in a
better mental frame than was his when he took it up. It teaches charity
and toleration, and makes men less spiritually arrogant. It is not with
out even greater lessons to those who have ears to hear.—The Echo.
The “ Sacred Anthology ” should find a place on every library shelf.
It is a bible free from bigotry, and were an Universal Church ever estab
lished, might fairly be a lesson book for that church. The labour ex
pended by Mr. Conway in editing, abridging, and selecting, can hardly
be fairly estimated. We can heartily recommend it to Freethought
Societies as a volume in which they may find readings otherwise inaccess
ible to them.—National Reformer.
The principal authorities for the beautiful thoughts and precepts so
skilfully collected by the editor, are given at the close of the volume, to
make his work as complete as possible. Mr. Conway also publishes
chronological notes, and it is scarcely necessary to say that his views
with regard to the dates of our sacred books differ considerably from those
adopted by orthodox divines.— The Pall Mall Gazette.
A very slight examination of the volume will show that it is indeed a
valuable anthology of the scriptures of all races. As complete and
entertaining a volume as one would wish to read.—The Bookseller.
It will be seen that all the sacred books of mankind have their prin
cipal features in common ; that the differences between them are not of
essential nature, but of degrees of manner and style, and that an inspired
spirit variously modified and expressed breathes through all. Mr. M. D.
�Conway has contributed a real service to an enlightened view of this
subject by his “ Sacred Anthology,” a book which we commend to the
attention of all who are accustomed to speak of the bible as the only
word of God.— The Inquirer.
Such of our readers as may have studied a remarkable book, India in
Greece, which appeared some twenty years ago, are well aware of the
extent to which Indian rites and customs after having been transported
to Greece, and thence re-exported to Italy, have become permanently
imbedded in the Romish system. Indeed, we believe there is scarce a
Popish notion, emblem, or ceremony that may not be distinctly traced
to 9. Pagan source. However, if the original have come from thence,
thence also may be derived an anecdote that may somewhat tend to
diminish its ill effects. For among the guse Hindoo aphorisms (as ren
dered in Mr. Moncure Conway’s recent book), we find the following,
which some amongst us might ponder with advantage at the present
time:—“Sdnyasis (?Hindu Rits) acquaint themselves with particular
words and vests; they wear a brick-red garb and shaven crowns; in
these they pride themselves ■ their heads look very pure, hut are their
hearts so ?” “ Religion which consists in postures of the limbs (mark
this ye clergy of St. Alban’s, Holborn) is just a little inferior to the
exercises of the wrestler.” “ In the absence of inward vision boast not
of oral divinity.” We are not sure that Vishnu’s philosophy would not
compare favourably with that of Pio Nono.—The Rock.
Many years ago, Philip Bailey, of “Festus,” announced as forthcoming
a book entitled “ Poetical Divinity,” th^object of which was to show by
quotations from the bards of all time, that they all held substantially the
same creed which we presume was held by Festus himself—Pantheism
plus Universal Restoration. This book never has appeared, but Mr
Conway’s is arranged on a somewhat similar plan, and is altogether a
volume of such a unique yet delightfully varied character that it must
commend itself to readers of every sort. We have seen already the eyes
of a rather strictly orthodox person glistening with eager delight over
many of the maxims and beautiful little moral fables with which it abounds.
—The Dundee Advertiser.
It would be impossible that such a book, even if it were compara
tively carelessly done, could be without interest ; but Mr. Conway’s task
has been most conscientiously performed, and it will be found of the
greatest possible value, for it casts a strong light upon many matters
which are frequently in discussion.—The Scotsman.
Mr. Conway has conferred a signal service on the literature of Theism by
publishing for the first time a comprehensive collection of some of the best
passages from the ancient scriptures of different nations. A few years ago
we, in the Brahmo-Somaj, made an humble effort in that direction, which
resulted in the issue of a small book of theistic texts now in use during
service in most of our churches. Mr. Conway’s excellent publication
is on a far grander scale, embraces a wider variety of subjects, and ex
tends its selection through a much larger range of scriptural^ writings
than we could command.—The Indian Mirror.
�4
There is, I suppose, no book inexistence quite like it, perhaps none on
the same plan and of equal scope. He who found no higher use for the
book would rejoice in it as a handbook for scriptural quotations not
otherwise readily accessible, as the number of volumes from which they
have been brought together sufficiently proves. There is nothing we
more need mentally than a tinge of Orientalism, something to give a new
bent and scope to minds fed perpetually on the somewhat narrow and
practical literature of the Western races. Mr. Conway, with his eager
poetic instincts, his warm feeling and wide sympathies, is a good guide
to those in search of what is most impressive to the imagination or
stimulating to the sensibilities.—“ G. W, S.,” in the New York Tribune.
A Significant Book.—Significant of what? Of interest in the
religious life of men who are outside the pale of Christianity, of that
“ sympathy of religions ” which has lately found in the missionary lecture
of Max Muller in Westminster Abbey an exhibition which might
well strike terror into High Church dignitaries, of a growing faith that
the attitude of Christianity towards the other great religions of the world
is not wholly that of a teacher, but may be that of a pupil; of this, at
least—we trust of much beside.—Rev. John W. Chadwick, in the
“ Liberal Christian” New York.
He then read a few sentences from a book called “ Sacred Anthology,”
which work, he said, was a compilation from the religious works of all
nations, some older than our bible : the book he should leave on the desk
as his bequest to the society.—Report of an Address by A. Bronson
Alcott, Esq.,at the opening of a new hall in Massachusetts.
“The Anthology ” may be obtained through any Bookseller, or
from the Librarian, the Chapel, 1I, South Place, Finsbury.
Price, ios. Postage, 9d.
■f
f J
�201
Conway's Sacred Anthology.
-ously late; nor are we aware of any strong grounds for
postponing it till after the appearance of the fourth Gospel.
Altogether it must be said that the value of the book
before us is needlessly impaired by these rash remarks.
For the general purposes of comparative religion, it is unne
cessary to enter into the “ results of modern criticism ” of
the Christian Scriptures. Their position in the history of
thought is sufficiently well known to enable their contents
to be correctly estimated by the side of the Vedas or the
Koran without any previous determination of the authorship
of Epistles or the order of the Gospel narratives. The in
version of a couple of books of the New Testament is of
light consequence compared with the transposition of writ
ings belonging to one language or religion into another a
millennium or so too soon ; but such critical lapses throw
an air of inexactness over the whole work, and somewhat
detract from our appreciation of the genial sympathy which
has evidently directed its preparation. It may be hoped
that in a future edition Mr. Conway will substitute for his
Chronological Notes an introduction such as he well knows
how to write, which may pass in rapid review the genius
of each great faith, assign to the various phases of its de
velopment the books respectively belonging to them, and
thus assist his readers in taking a general survey over the
wide field through which he is so admirably qualified, by
the range of his own reading and the delicacy of his per
ceptions, to be their guide.
It remains to point out as briefly as possible some of the
remarkable coincidences in the principles of morals and
religion which Mr. Conway’s diligence and tact have brought
together. Hillel and Confuciusd" enunciated the same
*
warning in almost the same words,
“ What you do not wish done to yourself^ do not to others
and the Arab sages supply a similar repetition^ of the more
pointed Hindu proverb,
“Do not force on thy neighbour a hat that hurts thine own
head.Ӥ
To return good for evil ceases to be a virtue peculiarly
enjoined on (would that we could also say practised by)
* XXVII.
+ X.
J XII.
§ XLI.
�202
Conway's Sacred Anthology.
Christians ; for the followers of Lao-tsze are hidden to “ re
compense injury with kindness;”* the Buddhist finds in
Dhammapada the command,
“ Let a man overcome anger by love; let him overcome evil
by good; let him overcome the greedy by liberality, and the liar
by truth+
and Mohammed assigns the deeper reason already revealed
by Jesus,
“For God loveth that you should cast into the depths of your
souls the roots of his perfections.’’^;
All class distinctions are abolished, and the foundations
of universal brotherhood are laid by the simple question of
Vemana,
“ Of what caste is He who speaks in the pariah
In this vast circle, however, particular duties are not to
be lost in general obligations, and Indian wisdom provides
in a breath for the aged and the young:
“ Educate thy children; then thou wilt know how much thou
owest thy father and mother
for servants—
“ What sort of master is that who does not honour his servants
while they discharge their duty 1 .... By taking up the whole
time of a servant, by increasing expectation, by denying reward,
the ill-disposed master is recognised. Favourable discourse to a
servant, presents that denote affection, even in blaming faults
taking notice of virtues, these are the manners of a kind master.
He who knows how to consider his servants, abounds in good
ones ;”5T
and for animals.
**
Beneath a tropic sky, the flamingoes
and green parrots++ suggest the same lessons as the ravens
and the lilies of the field upon the hills of Galilee ; and the
Persian poet discloses the same source of hidden wealth as
Christ:
“ Place your affections on the Creator of the universe : that
will suffice.” U
From this quarter, also, comes a tale of a treasure hid in
* DXCIX.
f
II COXXXIX.
HI C00LXI.
H DOLIV.
CCCOLXXXI.
I OCCXLI.
** CCCXXVIII.
§ OOCCXLIV.
++ CCCCLXVH.
�Conway*ts Sacred Anthology.
,203
•a field, which relates that the finder, unlike the buyer in
*
the gospel story, insisted on sharing his discovery with the
original owner, who in his turn refused to receive it; and
a few words sum up with unsurpassed pathos the parable
of the virgins:
“ A poor man watched a thousand years before the gate of
Paradise. Then, while he snatched one little nap—it opened,
and shut.”+
From the far North rings out a note of blended caution
and trust in human nature:
“No one is so good that no failing attends him, nor so bad as
to be good’for nothing
while a Chinese proverb compresses into one brief maxim
the art of living with others :
“ When alone, think of your own faults; when in company,
forget those of others.” §
In spite of this advice, however, divisions may be inevit
able here; but in the future, if Mohammed’s insight is
correct, they shall disappear:
“ All have a quarter of the heaven to which they turn them;
but wherever ye be, hasten emulously after good; God will one
day bring you all together.” ||
Should any hapless soul be left to struggle with an adverse
destiny, one spirit, at any rate, was ready to bear it com
pany even in its conflicts and its pains, for, in one of the
finest extracts of the book, Kwan-yin, a Fo (Chinese Budd
hist) prophetess, answers by implication the “ comfortable”
doctrine of the sovereign mercy of God in the torments of
the damned, and declares :
“ Never will I seek nor receive private individual salvation,
never enter into final peace alone ; but for ever and everywhere
will I strive for the universal redemption of every creature
throughout all worlds. Until all are delivered, never will I leave
the world of sin, sorrow, and struggle, but will remain where
I am.”T
But her self-imposed privations shall at length have an
* DLX.
+ CCCCLXXVIII.
X Saemund’s Edda, cccclxx.
§ CCCCLXXXIV.
|| LXXXIV.
U COOLIII.
�204
Conway's Sacred Anthology.
end, if the Arabian saying (relating, it is true, to a wholly
different order of conceptions) may be trusted:
“In the last day, when all things save paradise shall have
passed away, God will look upon hell, and in that instant its
flames shall be extinguished for ever.” *
It must be confessed, however, that we have here morality,
sometimes “ touched with emotion/’ and sometimes destitute
of it, rather than religion. And so far as Mr. Conway’s
extracts enable us to judge, it appears that religion, in the
sense of personal communion with God, finds more fervent
expression in the Semitic than in the Aryan mind. This
is observable even in the treatment of nature, which is but
the vesture of the unseen Will. The metaphysical phrases
of the hymns to Brahma "f and Vishnu J do not thrill us
*
like the joyousness of the hundred and fourth psalm ; and
it is to the Koran that we must go to strike another note in
the same chord of sympathy with universal life.
“ Hast thou not heard how all in the heavens and in the earth
uttereth the praise of God ? The very birds as they spread their
wings ? Every creature knoweth its prayer and its praise. Ӥ
The relations between Deity and his creatures are those
of reason rather than affection ; their quality is that of light,
not warmth. It is the Mohammedan traditions ||—even in
their Persian dress, for the genius of religion triumphs over
nationality—which exhibit with most beauty the deep sense
of the abiding presence of God, to which the habit of prayer,
in the bazaar, on the river-bank, or by the road-side, as
well as in the mosque, bears such touching witness. Spiri
tual religion is not, indeed, ignored. Hindu pilgrimages
gave birth to the pungent protest,
“Going to holy Benares will make no pig an elephant ;”1T
and the land of the fakirs further humiliates ritualism with
the quiet saying,
“ Religion which consists in postures of the limbs is just a
little inferior to the exercises of the wrestler.”**
But only here and there do we seem clearly to touch the
“ higher pantheism” which blends in one the spiritual forces
+ C.
* D00XV.
|| CLXVI., CLXVII.
’
H CLXIV.
I Oil.
** COXXVID.
§ Oil.
�Comvay's Sacred Anthology.
205
of the universe, without however destroying the individual
ity of the soul. Of this, the following passage of the Zend
Avesta may serve as an example:
. “ God appears in the best thought, the truth of speech and the
sincerity of action, giving through his pure spirit health, pros
perity, devotion and eternity to this universe. He is the Father
of all truth.”*
It is natural, therefore, that of the language of penitence,
of consciousness and confession of sin, there should be Httle
trace among the Aryan hymns. The Vedic prayer, “to be
united by devout meditation with the Spirit supremely blest
and intelligent,” f contains no provision for the wounded
and struggling conscience ; the passionate utterances of the
fifty-first psalm would be unintelligible to the mystics of
the far Fast; even in the midst of the sorrow and misery
by which he is surrounded, it is by his own strength that
man is to rise to higher things—it is by the path of intel
lectual enlightenment rather than by that of moral conflict
that his progress is to be made; and so the whole range of
Aryan literature does not appear capable of producing any
thing like the parable of the Prodigal Son.
The last section of Mr. Conway’s book is entitled “ Sanc
tions.” Its general purport is to illustrate the well-known
couplet,
“ Our acts our angels are, or good, or ill,
Our fatal shadows that walk by us still.”|
But how far this unseen attendance will follow us, is left
obscure. “ Let the motive be in the deed,” it is well said in
the Bhagavat Ghita ;§ and Rama truly declares that
“ Virtue is a service man owes himself: though there were no
heaven nor any God to rule the world, it were not the less the
binding law of life.” ||
The belief in immortality need not, however, be confounded
with “otherworldliness;” and we are surprised that the
intense moral conviction which formerly shaped itself into
* CXVII.
CLXX.
I See in particular the four vivid pictures from the book of Ardai Viraf the
Persian Dante (one of which, however, has strayed a long way from its compa
nions), DCXXXVII., DOCXXVII., DCOXXX., DOXXXII.
§ DCLXVI.
|| dlvi. ; the whole passage is of remarkable force and elevation.
F
�206
Report of the Committee of Council on Education.
the doctrines of heaven and hell, and now re-appears as the
striving after perfection, receives no fuller recognition as the
prophecy of an endless destiny. It is not at least for want
of testimonies. The oldest monuments of human thought
*
the ripest genius of human wisdom, the deepest insight of
human love, have all contributed their choicest fruits to
nurture the faith of an undying life. The noblest races, and
minds which seem to stand above race and belong to man
kind, have found in this hope the spring and the spur of all
aspiration, and the prospect of the solution of problems in
determinable here. The new philosophy may perhaps be
summed up in the words of Omar Kheyam (eleventh
century, A.D.), with which Mr. Conway closes his selection:
11 Resign thyself, then, to make what little paradise thou canst
here below; for as for that beyond, thou shalt arrive there, or
thou shalt not.”
But it must at any rate be remembered that on this great
theme the “ symphony of religions ” does not in reality thus
fade away in a doubt.
J. Estlin Carpenter.
TV.—THE REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE OF COUNCIL
ON EDUCATION FOR 1872-73.
There are not many subjects on which the press has been
more busy during the last few years than on all the various
topics which have arisen in connection with plans for Na
tional Education. Government returns of the most compre
hensive nature extending over many volumes, reports as
to educational methods adopted at home and abroad, the pub
lications of associations founded for the promotion of anta
gonistic principles, volumes published by earnest workers
in defence of their own plans and criticising the opinions
and proposals of others, pamphlets and leading articles
without number—all shew how deep an interest is felt in
* We have not space to multiply quotations from the Egyptian Book of the
Dead, the Hindu Vedas, or the Iranian Zend Avesta, to say nothing of Plato.
�
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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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Conway Hall Library & Archives
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Title
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Conway's Sacred Anthology
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Carpenter, J. Estlin (Joseph Estlin)
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: [s.l.]
Collation: 191-206 p. ; 23 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. A review by Joseph Estlin Carpenter of Moncure Conway's work 'The Sacred Anthology' from 'Theological Review' 11, April 1874. Includes bibliographical references.
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[s.n.]
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[1874]
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G5609
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Book reviews
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<img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /><br /><span>This work (Conway's Sacred Anthology), 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
Language
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English
Book Reviews
Conway Tracts
Moncure Conway
Sacred Books