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ENTERING SOCIETY:
A DISCOURSE
BY
MONCURE D. CONWAY, M.A.
DELIVERED AT
SUNDAY, 29th July, 1877.
frige twopence.
�LONDON :
PRINTED BY WATERLOW & SONS LIMITED
LONDON WALL.
I
�ENTERING SOCIETY.
Every physical law runs through the universe; ex
plains equally the rolling world and rolling pebble ;
harmonises flowers and constellations. In the moral
and social world there is a like self-similarity. A
certain unity may be discovered in the culture of a
child, a nation, or the human race. »
Constant is the unity of interests, feelings, thoughts,
making what we term society. There is an endless
variety in human nature, but its distinction from all
lower nature is that its varieties can be utilized to
form a society. In animal swarms and herds same
ness is their strength; feather flocks with-its feathei.
There is a strange tribe of American Indians who
have a tradition that mankind is descended from the
animal world. There was, they say, a mountainous
monster who devoured all manner of animals. He
swallowed them alive, and once, when he had taken
this various meal, a certain Little Wolf that had
�4
been swallowed, found the animals inside the monster
quarrelling with each other; and he persuaded them
that instead of quarrelling they should one and all
unite, and contribute their several powers of horn,
tooth, or other faculty to get out of the monster and
slay him. The animals co-operated; liberated them
selves ; slew the monster; and, in doing that, they
were changed to men, and the human race began.
It is a much more moral and scientific genesis of man
than that in the Bible. Intelligent co-operation of
different species imply humanity; and there are
facts enough to show that, on the other hand, pro
longed strife disintegrates society, and men may be
transformed back to animals.
All human beings are born members of society.
Some pietists and fanatics have tried to escape this
necessity, because society is what they call worldly ;
but, though they hide in nunneries, monasteries,
caves and deserts, they do not get out of society any
more than they get out of the world. If society were
to cease its work of coining, baking, weaving, trading,
then the hermit would get out of it in the one way
possible—death.
There is nothing more grotesque, were we not so
familiar with it, than where the abject language of her
mits who fled society,—and sometimes escaped from
it by the door of death,—and their anathemas on the
�5
world are repeated by Christians enjoying society and
ambitious of its rewards. Possibly they feel bound
for form’s sake to carry the skeleton of asceticism
round the banquet, but, as in the Egyptian custom,
the performance only seems to stimulate the more the
avidity with which the so-called pious utilise and enjoy
the kingdom of this world. The Church of England
merits the credit of having to a large extent abolished
the fiction of a world of sinners and an un-world (so to
say) of saints; and it might become a fairly good
church if it were to lay aside its pretence that the
world is morally an invalid in need of its holy medi
caments. The temptation is great where the deceived
patient is rich, for priests as well as for the doctors
who proffer bread-pills. (The “ Priest in Absolution
really believes in the deadly situation of human nature,
and goes on with the old practice of drugging, blister
ing and bleeding.)
The unpardonable sin of nearly every theology ■
the sin by which it must perish—is the separation it
has effected between two parts of man’s nature, the
antagonism instituted between his social and spiritual
activities, in whose harmony man’s well-being can
alone be found. That only a few eccentric priests
believe and act on that principle does not mitigate the
evil fact that all are taught it, and that the young and
simple have their consciences bruised and their lives
�6
misdirected by it. A result of this figment lias been
that the strongest moral agencies, which a true religion
would have cultivated, have been left to trail or climb
as they could; no sect being willing to acknowledge
that any good force belonged to human nature. Still,
without any aid from the churches, and mostly against
their opposition, Society has been partially able to
cultivate the motives, feelings, aims which constitute
the actual religion,—the guiding, moulding, animating
religion,-—of each civilised community, so far as it is
really guided, leaving the churches to become more
and more museums of antiquarian dogmatic remains.
What is the Social Religion ? Its motive is the
sentiment of honour, the sin it specially hates is
meanness : these two—love of the honourable, hatred
of the dishonourable—branch out from the individual
heart into endless adaptations. Out of the social
sentiment of honour emerge patriotism, justice, forti
tude, supporting states; and that loyalty in personal
relations, generating sympathy and friendliness, which,
when men make the most of them, will cement the
w'orld better than gunpowder. No state can ever be
perfectly civilised until it is held together by simple
force of friendliness.
There is a print often seen in shop-windows which
has been sent by thousands through the world. It is
inscribed—“Simplyto thy cross I cling,” and repre
�7
sents a young woman with the waves of a sea dashing
around her, clasping for safety a cross which rises
from the mid-ocean. It is a perfect mirror of Chris
tian idolatry: it is translatable into many systems of
superstition, where above the billows Faith clings now
to a lingam, next to a wheel, or it may be, to the
symbol of a serpent. But from what engulphing
waves will a stone cross, or any of the like idols, save
those who cling to them? From billows of sorrow,
loss of their friends, or from disease, pain, and death ?
By no means. It is truly written in the Bible that
one fate happens to all alike, whatever be their
prayers and sacrifices; and it almost broke the hearts
of the old prophets and psalmists that the pious got
no advantage at all over others in these things; in
fact, nature’s strict impartiality between the prayerful
and the prayerless was a main reason why priests fell
to abusing nature and building up a cloudy realm, in
which, being its sole creators, they could like other
romancers have things turn out as they liked—all the
“ pious ” happy, all the rest damned. In that world
where cause and effect are of no importance all
the stone crosses are in order. They are effective
enough to save clinging Faith from imaginary billows,
from storms that are not raging, floods non-existent,
' waves of delusive sin against a demonic majesty, and
fabulous furies of a phantasmal hell.
�But for all of these the real religion that grows
around us day by day -will substitute the definite
recognition of actual moral dangers, and the study of
■rational methods by which they may be escaped,
and the health of man and society be preserved.
Even now the finest hearts and minds in this
world are impressing upon us the real hells
beside which those of the sects appear petty and
ridiculous. While the “ lake of fire,” to an increasing
number, reads like something seen by Baron Mun
chausen on his travels, it is no dream that bright and
sweet children are growing up to people asylums and
prisons, to break hearts and desolate homes, and to
pass into degradations which sometimes make death .
seem a tardy joy. If a man has ever had the sorrow
of seeing one youth beginning with promise, throwing
away his life in debauchery and selfishness, much
more if he have seen the anguish of a home when all
its fairest promises are broken, he will hardly require
more to show him the absurdity of priest-made horrors
in the presence of these that are real.
I think it not too soon to maintain that somewhat
more gravity—even solemnity, if you please—should
be associated with what is called “entering society.”
That phrase usually denotes participation in festal
society—a realm of gaiety, beauty, mutual felicitation,
where persons are seen in picturesque tableau.
�9
There are some silly moralists who look upon all that
as vanity j all the beauty of raiment, each effort to
look the best, to be happy and make others happy, as
ministering to ostentation and selfishness, and as
injurious to modesty, humility, and simplicity.
Nothing of the kind. It will never harm the modesty
of youth to enjoy life’s springtide, as nature invites
with her blossom and melody. All that purity
requires is that their mirth and dance keep always in
the light, and that there be no blind ways such as
priests in absolution” provide, and other spiders
that weave their webs along the flower-fringed paths of
early life. There are hard, odious men (not many
.women I hope), who would turn this world into a coal
depot, or a grocer’s shop; but the social health is too
vigorous for them ; and it is a satisfaction to know
that there is a demand for roses as well as cabbages.
They who wear the roses, or other decoration, are
they vain? On the contrary they are conscious of
their need of the rose or the gem to supply that
wherein they fall short. Nor are they selfish; they
do not array themselves for self-admiration; they long
to contribute their part to the general happiness, to
make the social circle beautiful, tasteful, and worthy
of the enormous cost and toil by which it is sup
ported.
The only danger is that the young will believe some
�IO
evil whisper that their circle of social enjoyment is
quite apart from their round of religious interests and
moral duties. They may not indeed adopt the vulgar
cant that these are opposed to each other—one holy,
the other wicked. But even where that notion is not
found, some regard society as a worldly thing, a region
of persons not of principles. The merchant who regards
religion as a thing for Sunday and not Monday; who
conceives the commandments proper between lids of
the Bible, out of place between lids of the ledger ; the
preacher who on Sunday rehearses creeds declaring the
human race under a doom, and everybody moving
amid satanic snares, and then passes the rest of his
week as smilingly as if there were no danger;—these,
and others like them, are generally so unconscious of
the duplicity of their lives that we may see plainly
that the actual every-day world and the so-called
religious world are to those they represent as different
as two planets. But it is impossible that this tradition
can be suffered to go on much longer. That religious
world which has no relation to society, but only to an
anthropomorphic deity and another world, has already
received the verdict of human intelligence that it is
no real religion at all, but a morbid excrescence on
the body of Humanity. The verdict has been passed,
and the sentence can not long be delayed; for it is
impossible that the real interests of man can be
�preserved if his energies, his means, above all his
moral enthusiasm, are diverted from a society in need
to a deity not in need ; from actually existent men and
women to possibly existent angels; from the momen
tous day that is to that which is not.
The fundamental law of society is one with the
fundamental law of religion. It is a higher law than
the Hebrew golden rule (though not inharmonious
with it), for it teaches us that our self-love must not
equal our love of others. In every case the social
instinct requires our personal interest to be held
subordinate to the general good; and there is no other*
foundation of either morality or religion than just that:
self-denial, self-restraint, even self-sacrifice, for things
larger than self, are varied growths from the one germ
of our moral nature—the social self rising above the
personal self.
Unless the endless combinations of society be at
tended and supervised by the moral principle just
stated, increase of wealth and power is but increase
of things anti-social, selfish, unprogressive. An irre
ligious society is self-disintegrating; but how is society
to be kept in pure elevation when religion is off at
tending to mansions in heaven; and when the majority
of young people are taught such notions of religion
that they are only too glad to get rid of it during the
rational days of the week ? They are perfectly right;
�12
the introduction of cant and sanctimoniousness into
the drawing-room, or theatre, or club, or business,
would be like the new beetle amid grain ; for that is
vast selfishness disguised as religion. But there is such
a religion as charity and kindness, as self-control and
love and service to others ; the spirit that desires to
learn and be set right; the courtesy, the sympathy,
which alone can make the true gentleman or gentle
woman j and if this kind of religion does not beat as
pulse of the social heart to transfuse the social body
and all its members, the life of these will be coarse,
their end corruption.
Let us for example consider one of the great social
growths of modern times—the club system. To what
is called polite society the club is almost as important
a development as the railway system to trade. It re
sults from the application of the principle of co-opera
tion to secure personal intercourse under favourable
conditions, and all manner of comfort and culture
with utmost economy of means. That is the most
powerful principle in the world—combination and
though society is itself a product of it, it has hardly
imagined its farther results. But what are the social
effects of club life at present? It appears to me that
great as are their advantages they are fostering some
very serious evils, and it is to be feared, even vices.
Every respectable young man has the opportunity of
�13
entering one or another of the innumerable clubs, and
if he obtains a little means the club almost doubles
them. The average home cannot rival the average
club for comfort, luxury, or various society. The wife
may make herself a slave, but if great wealth be not
given her she cannot make her home compete with
the ample attractions of the club. And how little the
cost 1 A young man, for little more than half of
what it would cost him to marry and found a home of
moderate comfort, may live luxuriously, passing his free
hours in the finest library, with all the current litera
ture of the world, amid decorated rooms for use
or amusement, dining magnificently with clever com
pany ; and all by combining his small means with the
small means of other young men. All very good, and
rightly helpful to many a youth. But for that youth
duties are waiting, tasks presently clamour to be done
by him j and if he remains in his palace after ne has
heard their voice, it becomes to him tne Castle of In
dolence, and probably also the home of sensuality. It
is no narrow or ascetic judgment to say that large
numbers of young men of high tastes and talents are
sinking into lives of selfishness, dilettantism, and
worthlessness through the enticing luxuries of club
life. Nor is the evil much, if at all, diminished when
we consider how many homes after they are foimed
are robbed of their rights by this overpowering growth
of modern society.
�14
How are such evils to be met ? Is there any case
for a crusade against clubs ? If there were it would
be a quixotic crusade. But clubs are not an evil; they
supply great and necessary advantages. All we need
is that there shall be a social religion attending and
guarding these vast social formations. Our need is
that moral culture shall turn from star-gazing and face
moral facts, and a religion rise up to teach every man
from the cradle to the grave that his duty is not
to a dead Christ but to a living humanity, not to a
Virgin Mary but to womanhood around him, not to a
« Holy Ghost” but to a principle of honour,—aye, an
honour which, when it has a religious sanction, will not
be unarmed, but remand every idler in club or else
where to his task, will place every self-indulgent circle
under ban of intolerable shame, and get from each
his or her high duty, with every pure pleasure in its
train.
When there is a religion appealing to the highest
motives in every human heart, that leads each youth
of either sex who enters society to consider that every
advantage corresponds with a duty, then all develop
ments of power and wealth in any direction must be
diffused through every part of society as benefit. We
hear a great deal of social science ; there is one very
old piece of social science confirmed by ages of experi
ence_ that we are members one of another. Hand
�cannot be so well off if foot is lame ; all are weak if
one is weak. Great nations have learned at terrible
cost that when one class or interest advances very far
it is sure to be brought to a stop till other classes gain
their share. The white people in America found lately
that their own freedom could not last another year
unless the black people enjoyed the same. Europe is
learning a severe lesson of the same kind about some
long neglected Eastern tribes. But the law holds with
equal truth of any community, or any social circle in
it. If, for example, co-operation has exemplified its
power in the club, the club cannot monopolise it with
out danger; it must become the economy of homes
also ; both sexes must share it; working men and
working women must share it. And if there is any
society where wise principles are not thus diffused
those who belong to it will be themselves fragmentary
and inharmonious.
Every man or woman entering society should carry
a whole heart into it. Not one instinct or faculty
should be reserved, or left to take the veil. Each and
all, let them enter into life, love it, enjoy it, and not
fail to do their duty by it. The price is not fairly
paid unless you endeavour to diffuse what there is
acquired. You enter the hive to create the sweet as
well as to enjoy it. And in the human hive the
creation means the progressive purification, and per-
�i6
fection of it. In society you have found new thoughts
—higher truth—liberal views ; they all belong to the
hive. And in a high sense your debt to all is secured :
you can have no benefit genuinely unless by giving it.
If God himself were to offer you a private favour and
advantage of which nobody else could reap the least
good, far better decline it. That which is sweet to you
That which is pure and true to
is sweet to others.
you, would be so to others if they felt it as you do.
Then give others your very best. So shall you stimulate
them to diffuse their best; and all shall become
apostles of the sunshine.
�
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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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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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Entering society : a discourse delivered at South Place Chapel, Finsbury, Sunday 29th July 1877
Creator
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Conway, Moncure Daniel [1832-1907.]
Description
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Place of publication: [London]
Collation: 16 p. ; 15 cm.
Notes: Part of Morris Miscellaneous Tracts 1. Printed by Waterlow & Sons, London Wall.
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[South Place Chapel]
Date
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[1877]
Identifier
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G3336
Subject
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Religion
Society
Ethics
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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 (Entering society : a discourse delivered at South Place Chapel, Finsbury, Sunday 29th July 1877), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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application/pdf
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Text
Language
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English
Moncure Conway
Morris Tracts
Religion and Civil Society
Social Ethics
Social Justice
Society