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bJ6 6 O
NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY
CHRISTIANITY:
H’S NATURE & INFLUENCE ON CIVILISATION.
A LECTURE
By
Charles
Watts, Secretary of
Secular Society.
the
National
It requires no profound knowledge of the human mind, to
enable us to recognise the fact that some persons indulge
in certain delusions, until such delusions become to the
persons who indulge them, apparent realities. A striking
illustration of the truth of this statement is furnished in the
two great assumptions, which are entertained extensively
throughout Christendom at the present time. First, it is
supposed that what is termed Christianity, is sufficiently effi
cacious to remove all the evils of life ; and in the second place,
it is stated that England enjoys a high state of civilisation
in consequence of the adoption of Christian principles.
Hitherto, it has been the habit of Christian advocates, not
only to ignore all in society that is evil and defective
as belonging to their system, but Also to credit Chris
tianity with all improvements which have taken place in
modern times. It matters not whether it be a steam
engine, an electric telegraph, a printing press, the repeal of
the stamp and paper duties, the establishment of working
men’s clubs, an industrial exhibition, or the co-operative
companies ; all are attributed by Christians to the influence
of their faith. All such steps of progress are regarded by
them as the gift of God to his creature man. While inquiring
into these pretensions, and ascertaining how far such allega
tions are correct, the investigation shall be two-fold. We
will endeavour to discover, if possible, to what extent the
blots and blemishes which remain upon our civilisation are
to be attributed to Christianity, and also, whether the pro
gress that has been made, is the result of Christian influ
ence; or whether, on the contrary, it is not the natural con
�sequence of the adoption of principles antagonistic to New
Testament principles.
As a rule, man is supposed to know himself better than
anyone else knows him. But there are many important in
stances, where other people can estimate a person more cor
rectly than he can estimate himself. They will take a more
dispassionate view of his character. They will be in a better
position to compare him with others, and thus judge more
accurately of his relations and comparative place in the scale
of humanity. As with individuals, so it is with systems, and
with generations. An age is incapable in many respects
of properly knowing itself. It has only one test by which
to estimate its merits and demerits. It cannot compare
itself with future ages, which lie in the womb of the un
known. It can only judge of itself by times gone by. And
as every age, even the darkest and most lethargic, is, in
some instances, more advanced than its predecessor, a survey
of itself is extremely apt to assume the form of self-gratulation.
Various designations have been given to the different
phases of Christianity. We have had descriptions of “ He
retical Christianity,” “ Muscular Christianity,” “ Objection
able Christianity,” “ Secular Christianity,” and “ Super
natural Christianity.” Now it may be necessary here to in
timate that Ido not coincide with those who consider that
what is termed “ Secular Christianity” is identical with
Freethought principles. Christianity appears to me to be
objectionable under whatever name it may be presented to
us. Of course there are many things taught in the New
Testament which are admirable and worthy of acceptation, but
then such beauties do not belong exclusively to Christianity.
The practical portion of the Sermon on the Mount was in
existence long before the time when Christ is supposed to have
taught in Galilee. The phrase “ Christianity” cannot be
consistently used without conveying in some degree the idea
of supernaturalism. The inspiration that induced Christ to
say and do what is ascribed to him in the Four Gospels,
was considered to have emanated from above. The power
that moves and regulates the whole system of Christianity
is designated by its believers as supernatural. The term
“ Secular Christianity” is therefore a misnomer. Christ
never uttered one word, or performed one action purely from
Secular motives, but thinking he was doing the will of his
�3
“ Father in Heaven,” he did it all for the 11 Glory of God.’’
It is important that this fact should be remembered, because
we live in an age perhaps unsurpassed in the history of the
world for the promulgation of systems, having for their professedobject the advancement of mankind. It becomes thereforea duty that we should be judicious as to the terms we use,
as well as the mode we adopt to secure the triumph of prin
ciples which we believe are essential to the permanent wel
fare of society. Many valuable systems are frequently de
prived of much of their vitality, and some of the best efforts of
men rendered comparatively useless through the lack of the ob
servance of this very necessary precaution. The temporary
success of bad and erroneous principles is often to be attri
buted to the fact that the manner in which they are pre
sented to the world is the result of careful study, and wellmatured thought.
In studying the nature of Christianity, we recognise one
or two features which are identical in all its different phases.
Reliance on a supernatural power, faith in Christ, belief in
the efficacy of prayer, and the immortality of the soul, are
tenets professed, more or less, by most Christian sects. In
addition to this, the New Testament distinctly teaches that
poverty is a virtue, that submission is a duty, and that love to
man should be subordinate to love to God. Now these prin
ciples, however consoling they may be to some, from their
nature have checked and must check the progress of civilisa
tion. The extent of their retarding influence depends upon the
degree of veneration in which they are held by their profes
sors. With Tbeists and Unitarians these theological notions
are less dangerous, because such Christians are less dogmatic
and less orthodox. But with a Wesleyan or a Baptist the
profession of such notions frequently leads to conduct anta
gonistic to general improvement. With these latter Chris
tians, Christ is “ all in all.” In vain do we look to their
teachings forthose principles that are necessary to a progres
sive civilisation. On the contrary, experience has proved that
as a rule, they have been injurious, and in proportion to their
adoption has the Secular welfare of mankind been retarded.
And we cannot expect aught else. The object of Christ was to
teach his followers how to die, rather than to instruct them
how to live. If therefore we press the question, “ What is
Christianity?” the answers given by the Christian world will
be as varied as they will be numerous. The reply lrom a mem-
�ber of the Church of England, would differ widely from the
answer given by a Latter-day Saint. The fact is, according to
the education of the individual, and the intelligence of the
nation, so are the notions entertained as to what constitutes
Christianity. For instance, religion with Mazzini is very
different to the religion of Archbishop Manning. The faith
cherished by Garibaldi, is not precisely the same article of
belief as that indulged in by the present ruler of France.
The Christianity of Professor Huxley is as different to the
doctrines taught by Richard Weaver, as is the religion of a
Maurice to that of C. H. Spurgeon. The same diversity
exists in reference to nations. In Spain religion, is cruel
oppression, in Scotland it is a gloomy nightmare, in Rome
it is priestly dominion, while in England it is simply.emo
tional pastime. All these different phases of Christianity
indicate that theological opinions depend on surrounding
circumstances, and cannot therefore be the cause of the civi
lisation of the world.
.
To test the power of Christianity in organising a civilised
state of society, it is only necessary to suppose a company
of men and women going to some uninhabited island, and
there attempting to form a constitution to meet the require
ments of modern society based upon the teachings of the
New Testament. First they must seek, the kingdom of
Heaver, and love not the world or the things of the world.
This would at once put an end to all human effort, because
if a person is not to love the world, his interest will be at
once gone from things below, and directed to things above.
It is impossible to get persons long to work.for anything
which they hate. Under a system of despotism, a certain
amount of labour may be ground out of serfs or slaves, but
once give a nation its freedom, and the inhabitants will only
strive in a cause which they love. Secondly, they must take
no thought for their bodies nor even their lives. This would
prevent them studying the laws of health. Sanitary reform
or physiological science would be deemed unnecessary. Hos
pitals would be superseded by a rapid increase of “ God’s
Peculiar People.” The recent unfortunate case of the two
persons who were committed for manslaughter because they
practically carried out New Testament teaching, is a. potent
answer to the alleged efficacy of Christianity for civilising
purposes. The “ Peculiar People ” relied upon faith and
prayer, instead of science and medicine, and, as a reward for
�5
their Christian devotion, death and imprisonment were the
results. Then Christians in this island must take no
thought for the morrow. Economy and a desire for the
future of this world would thus be entirely ignored. It would
be a crime to establish post office savings’ banks, inasmuch
as laying up treasures on earth is strictly forbidden. The
thought of a divorce must not be entertained for a moment,
because “ whosoever God has joined together, let no man put
asunder.” Those who are fortunate to be rich, must get rid
of their riches, as they are pronounced in the New Testament
to be a curse. If an enemy is cruel enough to invade this *
Christian island, the inhabitants dare not interfere, because
Christ told them to “ resist not evil.” Should the invading
powers succeed and establish themselves as governors of the
island, then the inhabitants must quietly submit, as “ the
powers that be are ordained of God.” If they are smitten on
the one cheek, they must offer the other to be operated upon
in a similar manner. Now, I submit, that a people living
under a constitution framed by these Christian rulers would
not be very progressive ; neither would they be very happy.
Apart from the menial dependent subjection in which they
would be placed, they would have to listen to the comforting
assurance that at the last day they will have to give an ac
count for every idle word spoken through life. Need we
wonder any longer that Christians are such “miserable sin
ners,” believing as they do that their final doom may depend
upon words spoken in the jubilant and joyous moments of
life?
But modern professors of Christianity will ask, if their
system is so unprogressive in its nature, how is it that men
of intellect, of determination, and of scientific culture have
accepted it as their faith ? And they further inquire how it
is that under the influence of Christianity, civilisation in
England has progressed so rapidly ? As these questions are
considered by the religious world as very important, it may be
necessary hero hriefly to examine them. Now the whole fal
lacy in coni/<fc&ton with the first question lies in the interpre
tation given the words “ their faith.” Any one acquainted
with the early history of Christianity will know that the faith
of Jesus as he preached it, and the faith of the Christiana
in 1868, are two entirely different things. Even if we
accept the alleged dates of Christian chronology to be
historically correct, Christianity began to alter and modify
�itself immediately after the death of Christ. Paul preached
a system of a philosophical character compared with that of
Jesus. The Christianity of Paul was widely different from
that of his “ divine Master.” The character of Christ
was submissive and servile; Paul’s was defiant and pugna
cious. We could no more conceive Christ fighting with
wild beasts at Ephesus, than we could suppose Paul sub
mitting without protest or resistance to those insults and
indignities which are alleged to have been heaped upon
Christ. . Neither could we for one moment imagine Paul ad
vising his disciples when anyone smote them on one cheek,
to offer them the other. Christ was an illiterate peasant;
Paul, when compared with his master, was a polished
philosopher. Paul introduced by his personal character
a certain amount of boldness and energy into the Chris
tian propaganda, and by the character of his mind he
largely. modified the Christian system. In fact, each
successive age has left its mark and impress upon Chris
tianity. No system was ever less rigid and more plastic.
It has certainly come up to the injunction of St. Paul,
“ to be all things to all men.” Persons of the most con
trary dispositions and the most opposite natures have been
its great illustrators, expounders, and living representatives.
It has found room for all temperaments : the ascetic and the
luxurious enjoyer of life; the man of action and the man of
contemplation; the monk and the king; the philanthropist
and the destroyer of his race : the iconoclastic hater of all
ceremonies, and the superstitious devotee; Cromwell and
Cowper; Lyell and Wesley; St. Augustine and Dr. Pusey;
John Milton and C. H. Spurgeon. All these and many
other similar opposites have found refuge within the pale
of Christianity. But let it be distinctly understood that
this heterogeneous family is by no means the result of any
all-embracing comprehensiveness in the system of Christ,
but rather the effects of a Theology characterised alike by
its indefinite, incomplete, and undecisive principles. No
man of action can possibly be a true and consistent believer
in Christianity, for many of its teachings are the very incar
nation and inculcation of forbearance and suffering. They
clearly and emphatically teach submission to physical evil,
tyranny, and oppression. They inculcate an unprogres
sive and retarding spirit; they draw the energies and desires
of men from the duties of this life, fixing them on an un—
�7
certain and unknown future. Until, therefore, Christians
can prove to us that their principles are capable of pro
ducing uniformity of character ; until it is satisfactorily ex
plained that the precepts, as propounded by Christ, contain
the elements of that greatness which has invariably charac
terised the lives of eminent statesmen, philosophers, and
poets of all ages ; until it can be shown by an appeal to
authority and experience that the principles as taught in
the New Testament are compatible with progress and
human advancement; until the course pursued by Christ
when on earth is adopted by his professed followers of to-day
and made to harmonise with reason and humanity—I say,
until these things are accomplished, Christianity will be
incapable of furnishing a code of morals by which all suc
ceeding generations shall be governed, and to which the
great intellects of the world shall finally succumb.
The notion entertained by many that the present civilised
condition of England is the result of Christian influence is
decidedly fallacious. The progress of a nation cannot be
attributed to any one thing or any one age, but rather to a
combination of circumstances which have been in operation
during many ages. For instance, had it not been for the
scientific discoveries of a Watt, Dalton, and Black of the
last century, the application of these sciences with which
their names are associated, would not have been so easily
applied to the ends of' human utility in this present age; had
it not been for the great French Revolution the name of
liberty, for it is but little more, would not exist to-day in
France; and had it not been for many attempts at revolu
tion in this country, many concessions to liberty which we
now enjoy, would never have been extorted. The Reform.
Bill of last year, incomplete as it is, would never have passed
the House of Commons but for the meetings in Trafalgar
Square, and the demonstrations in Hyde Park, Birmingham,
Leeds, and other places. Disraeli boasted that he had edu
cated his party; far be it from me to attempt to rob the
Premier of the laurels he won in going through that painful
operation, but it seems to me that the best lesson the Tories
received in the reform educational course was from the Re
form League and their co-workers. It is equally true that
for the partial freedom from religious intolerance which we
now enjoy we are as much indebted to the Franklins and
Paines of the past, as to any of their representatives of the
�present. But waiving this point, I ask, is it true that we
have a high state of civilisation? Notwithstanding an “Open
Bible,” and “ general dissemination of Gospel truths,” which
we have had in this country for the last 300 years, can it be
denied that the major portion of our rural population are
sunk in the deepest ignorance and the most depraved
wretchedness ? Is it not a reproach upon Christian influ
ence that, after three centuries of the rule, discipline, teach
ing, and. example of 20,000 clergymen and a host of Dissent
ing ministers, that the very classes of society which have
been most under their direction and control, should be the
greatest stigma upon our social condition ? Can it be alleged
that anything like an approach even to a proper adjustment
ef the relations between capital and labour has been arrived
at? Those who pride themselves on the present state of
Christian civilisation should ask themselves the question,
does labour receive anything like a fair quota of the results
of the wealth towards the production of which it contributes
more than the “ lion’s share ?” Can an age or a country
be considered civilised in which so large an amount of abject,
and, to all appearance, hopeless poverty prevails ? Have
we not ignorance, sickness, and sorrow existing on every
hand ? Are there not thousands who wake every morning
tortured with anxiety as to how they are to obtain food for
the day, and when the hour for sleep again returns, they
know not where to lay their heads ? Parade the glories of
Christian civilisation to those unfortunate creatures who are
driven to misery, shame, and madness by the want of the
necessaries of life. In noticing the deplorable condition of
“ Christian ’’ England, the Morning Star recently asked—
“When shall starvation die out of the land? When shall
we cease to hear that in one part of the country a man lies
dead of a debauch on roast goose, while in another a woman
perishes of sheer hunger, with her teeth locked in the flesh
of her own arm ? Must we wait till East London sits down
to this sickening meal ? Can Government, Whig or Tory,
do nothing ? Within two years, more than a million of human
beings under its care have died of starvation alone.” Witness
the fate of many of England’s daughters who, amidst Chris
tian civilisation, have either to drag out a wretched existence
by continual slavery, as pictured in the “ Song of the Shirt,”
or else to sink into utter ruin and hopeless degradation. It
is an insult and mockery to tell such victims of a misruleu
�9
world that their position is the result of their own conduct.
One of the principal causes of such calamities is to be found
in promulgating doctrines which destroy man’s energy in
worldly pursuits, rendering him a dependent, povertycheiished suppliant.
The history of Christianity is a glocmy illustration of its
influence and tendency to maintain those conditions which are
unfavourable to individual progress and national greatness.
Among other requisites to a civilised condition of society it is
necessary to have national wealth, the cultivation of the
sciences, the acquirement of knowledge, and freedom of
inquiry. Without these agencies, civilisation as we under
stand the term cannot exist. How far then has Christianity
encouraged these agencies ? Now it is certain that the Reli
gion of the New Testament is opposed to material wealth.
While poverty is there magnified as a virtue, riches are de
nounced as a vice. If those who had wealth were to sell
that which they had, and give it to the poor, as Christ com
manded them, and at the same time omit to accumulate any
more, individual and national bankruptcy would be the
result. The influence of religion on scientific pursuits is
well known to students of history. The great impediment
to the progress of scientific truth in the past, has been reli
gious bigotry. First, such sciences as geology were alleged
to be untrue; every fact demonstrated by early writers
was regarded as an instance of the insanity of the writer,
and every fossil wonder disclosed, was referred to the
limited explanation of the Noachian deluge. Finding that
threats and intimidation failed to check the advance of truth,
persecution and imprisonment were the weapons used by
Christian hands towards those whose crime consisted in in
vestigating the laws of nature, and making those laws
known to their fellow-creatures. Dr. Ferguson in his
“ Penalties of Greatness,” acknowledges that theology, as
embodied in the Christian church, was the first to extinguish
the light of reason. But truth existed in spite of the deadly
agencies which surrounded it. Not only did the church
employ means to prevent the least difference of opinion on
religious subjects, by the invention of the most finished in
struments of torture, but science itself became the object
of burning jealousy and persecution, and men were made to
deny the very laws of nature. The same spirit pervades to
& certain extent a portion of the Christian world at the pre
�10
sent day. Every scientific discovery, opposed as it is to
popular theology, is suspected with pious horror by orthodox
Christians. The Morning Advertiser and other orthodox
papers have denounced such men as Huxley, Darwin, and
Sir Charles Lyell as enemies to the welfare of mankind.
“ Real knowledge,” says Buckle, “ the knowledge on which
all civilisation is based, solely consists in an acquaintance
with the relations which things and ideas bear to each other
and to themselves ; in other words, in an acquaintance with
physical and mental laws.” The history of the Christian
religion proves that the object and aim of its advocates have
been too frequently to discourage and prevent the acquisi
tion and dissemination of this scientific knowledge.
Not only has Christian influence affected the acquirement
of scientific knowledge, but it has also interfered with the
progress of general education. Fortunately at the present
time, many professed Christians are advocating a national
system of education, but this advanced policy is not the re
sult of their faith, but a proof that the Secular aspirations in
man are less fettered by theological restriction, than they
were in the palmy days of Christianity. It has taken the
Christian world nearly eighteen hundred years to arrive at
the conclusion that the people ought to have adequate means
of education at their command. As recently as fifty years
ago, pamphlets were written by clergymen warning the nation
against the horrid democratic consequences of giving to the
labouring classes education. In our time it is Freethought
which has extorted, not the Church which has granted, Natio
nal Education. Dr. Johnson, the great lay pillar of the Church
in the last century, had the honesty to state that he objected
to education for the poor, because it would teach them politics.
He might have added with equal truth, that it would teach
them to think for themselves, instead of allowing the Church
to do it for them. At last, the hour of victory, partial though
it was, arrived. The educational Reformers had their triumph.
The legislature decreed that to some extent education should
be national. £20,000 were voted for that purpose. Then
it was that the Church again exerted her influence. Find
ing she could not resist the progressive stream, she sought
io pollute it and destroy its refreshing power. Failing
to prevent, she endeavoured to contaminate. And what
is the result ? National education is but half accomplished.
Thousands are growing up as monuments of imperfect edu
�11
cation. Believing that the “ wisdom of this world is foolish
ness with God,” the Christian governments, in the words of
Buckle, “ Where they have not openly forbidden the free
dissemination of knowledge, they have done all they could
to check it. On all the implements of knowledge and on all
the means by which it is diffused, such as papers, books, poli
tical journals, and the like, they have imposed duties so
heavy that they could hardly have done worse if they had
been the sworn advocates of popular ignorance. Indeed,
looking at what they have actually accomplished, it may be
emphatically said that they have taxed the human mind.”
Fortunately many of these impediments have been removed,
not, however, with the free consent of the Christian world.
This victory was achieved by the dauntless efforts and heroic
sufferings of Freeihought martyrs in the face of Christian
opposition and Christian persecution. Domestic loss, pecu
niary ruin, and the horrors of imprisonment, were the prices
paid for the removal of those hindrances to the people’s
educational advancement.
Doubtless the power of Christianity has been great upon
the civilisation of the world. Nothing influences the human
mind either for good or for evil more than the Christian’s
notion of supernaturalism. If a person is induced to have
absolute faith in the fatherhood and sovereignty of God, he
deems it his first duty to carry out that which he considers
the will of that God. Hence it is, that during intellectual
periods men’s notions of Deity have been refined and culti
vated ; and, as a consequence, oppression and persecution
for scepticism have been more rare. While on the other
hand, when the multitude held rude ideas of divinity, the
pure and chaste were sickened at the scenes of cruelty
and bloodshed which were enacted in accordance with
what was supposed to be the “ will of God.” If any
doubt existed upon this point, it would only be necessary
to study carefully Buckle’s “History of Civilisation.” In
that work ample proof is given of the contracting influence
of religion. Nothing tends more to limit progress than the
attempt to prevent freedom of opinion, and the enforcement
of penalties for the exercise of this right. “During,” says
Buckle, ‘‘ almost 150 years Europe was afflicted by religious
wars, religious massacres, and religious persecutions; not
one of which would have arisen, if the great truth had been
recognised that the state had no concern with the opinions
�1*4
of men, and no right to interfere, even in the slightest
degree, with the form of worship which they may choose t<.
adopt.” The same writer goes on to show that the increase oi
perjury and hypocrisy has been the result of the policy oi
the Christian governments, arriving at the conclusion that
it is folly to ascribe the civilisation of a nation to any
creed.
Unfortunately Christianity appeared at a very inoppor
tune period of history, just when there was no indication
that the world would throw off supernaturalism. The old
Pagan creed which Christianity supplanted, was by far the
better of the two, because it contained most promise for the
world. The Roman religion sat but lightly upon the Romans.
It was just a body of mythological tales, which perhaps was
useful in the world’s infancy, but which was certainly not re
quired in.its more matured age. The grand feature of the old
Pagan faith was its true tolerant spirit. Death for religious
belief was unknown to the Romans. They allowed every one
to worship according to his or her own conscience. Per.
secution for non-belief was reserved for Christianity. As
soon as the disciples of Christ possessed the power, the^
commenced by persecuting those who did not accept then
faith, and endeavoured to crush all systems that were anta
gonistic to their own. Instead of Christians talking sc
foolishly of the depravity of the ancients, it would be far
better if they endeavoured to emulate Pagan Rome in their
love of toleration. Even from the New Testament we learn
the extreme reluctance with which the Roman Gfovernor of
Judea signed the death-warrant of Christ. The Romans
were so tolerant—in other words, they were so little religious,
and therefore, so ripe for becoming converts to Secularistie
truth—that whenever they conquered a new territory, they
at once added to their own number of Gods those whom they
found to be worshipped by the inhabitants of their new con
quest. Now, if Queen Victoria, by royal mandate, were to
order to be added to the objects of English worship, all the
gods worshipped by her coloured subjects, all over the world;
if, whenever we achieved a new conquest, it became the
duty of the Archbishops and Bishops, the Spurgeons and
Cummings, to add a new batch of deities to the objects of
worship, what would be the result? Why religion would
fall rapidly into contempt, and mankind would see at once
its utter folly and absurdity. This is precisely what was
■
�id
fast happening amongst the Romans and all through their
empire, when Christianity came upon the scene, stopped the
progressive spirit, and deferred the reign of human happiness.
If we take a historical glance at countries where Chris
tianity was professed, and at one time, to a large extent,
acted upon, we shall at once recognise the influence it pos
sessed on national progress. First, we may take Scotland,
[n the most comprehensive sense of the word, Scotland at
no very remote period was strictly a religious nation, and
what were the fruits cf that religion ? The most miserable
and unprogressive state it is possible for a civilised people to
live in. And let it be distinctly understood that Mr. Buckle
in his “History of Civilisation,” attributes this non-progressive spirit, this lack of happiness, entirely to the fatal in
fluence of religion. And can we expect aught else? Here is a
country acting, as far as a people can possibly act, upon the
principles of Christianity. And what do we find ? “An entire
absence of all true toleration ; an aversion even to innocent
gaiety; a desire to limit the enjoyment of others, and a spirit
of bigotry and persecution ; yet in the midst of all this,” as
Buckle properly observes, “ there existed a gloomy and
austere creed. The churches were as crowded as they
were in the middle ages, and were filled with ignorant wor
shippers, who flocked to listen to opinions of which the
middle ages alone were worthy.” What effect has such
reaching had upon the Scotch mind ? Has it imparted to
the people any progressive aspirations ? If we read th6
history of Scotland during the seventeenth and part
of the eighteenth century, we shall find that Buckle
stated the truth, when he said that “ Some of the noblest
feelings of which our nature is capable, the feelings of love
and of gratitude, were set aside, and were replaced by the
dictates of a servile and ignominious fear.” But the sad
effects of Christianity were not confined to Scotland. If we
take England during wnat is Known as the “ dark ages,”
the brightest era of Christianity, then she had no rival:
assisted by kingcraft she ruled the civilised world through a
thousand years, without one ray of light, without any addi
tion whatever to the arts and sciences, and then bequeathed
to mankind a heritage of cruelty, bloodshed, and persecution.
In the middle ages there was a. great impetus given towards
science and philosophy. Some of the most splendid intellects
that ever appeared in the world, and that might, under more
�favourable conditions, have adorned humanity, enlightened
society, and held on progress, appeared in those days. But
their intellects were stifled and rendered comparatively useless
by the influence of Christianity. Those were the times when
Christianity was paramount, unrestrained, and untrammelled,
when the blood, the genius, and the chivalry of Europe were
all wasted in the mad and useless crusades, when in one
expedition alone, instigated by fanatical priests, no less than
560,000 persons were sacrificed to the superstition of the
cross. Do we require a proof of the legitimate effects
of Christianity ? Behold the history of the seven cru
sades, which will for ever remain a lasting monument of a
Wood-stained faith. For nearly 200 years did the followers
of Christ lay desolate one of the finest and most romantic
portions of the known world, and laid prostrate thousands of
human beings. Do we wish to know the sad influence of
religion ? Bead the history of the Christian Emperor Con
stantine, who with the sword in one hand and the cross in
the other, pursued his slaughtering and relentless career.
Go to the streets of Paris, when in the fifteenth century they
flowed with the blood of defenceless Protestants, and when
10,000 innocent persons were massacred by the believers in
a meek and lowly Jesus. Visit the valleys of Piedmont,
which were the scene of a most inhuman butchery, when
women were suffocated by hundreds in cofined caves by
the bearers of the cross. Study the history of the Inquisi
tion, to whose power three millions of lives were sacrificed
in one century. Peruse the records of the actions of a King
Henry the E'ghth, a Queen Mary, and a Queen Elizabeth,
in whose Christian reigns hundreds were either condemned
to die at the stake, or to endure revolting cruelties in loath
some dungeons, because they differed from the prevailing
faith of those times. These were the effects of religion when
it had absolute power. When Christianity exercised her
legitimate influence, the maxim was ‘‘ Philosophy is the
handmaid of Theology,” every philosopher, therefore, who
did not so philosophise as to bring up new arguments to
support some one of the absurd tenets of Christianity, had
either to submit to a life of seclusion and persecution, or to
an immediate death. But Christianity not only interfered
with the high intellects of the earth, she also influenced
every relation of life. The sum of almost all history for,
centuries after Christ may be compressed in a few sentences.
�Avery rascality that tings and nobles wished to perpetrate
they got the bishops and priests to consecrate and make
holy. Had it not been for the strong Christian notions of
those sovereigns, James I. and Charles I., in all probability we
should not have found such an abominably unpatriotic period
succeeding the splendid era of Queen Elizabeth, And how
lamentable it is to think that the noble-hearted English
puritans, with men like Falkland, Cromwell, and John
Milton at their head, lost all their chance of reforming the
nation and establishing those ameliorations which certainly
were so very necessary, through their unfortunate slavery
to Christianity. Never did men exist whose minds by
nature were more magnificently tolerant and truly secularisiic than those of Milton and Cromwell, if the religious
element had been kept apart. But unfortunately it mastered
Cromwell, or perhaps to do him justice, it mastered bis
contemporaries, and they mastered him, and. then he sick
ened the very country he had saved, by forcing upon them
a religion they were weary of. The fate of Christianity was
sealed in England the day that Cromwell died. Some writers
have made it the great reproach of the reign of Charles II.
that it was “ Godless,” yes, but its godlessness was the one
redeeming trait of that “ Merry Monarch’s” reign. Reckless
as he was, during his reign reforms were accomplished, the
results of which cannot be too highly appreciated,. It was
during his reign that a law was passed which deprived the
Dishops of the power to burn those who differed from them in
theological opinion. It was during his re gn that the clergy
were deprived of the privilege of taxing themselves, and were
compelled to submit to the ordinary mode of assessment.
It was during his reign that a law was passed, forbidding
bishops to administer the oath by which the church had
hitherto compelled suspected persons to criminate them
selves. It was during his reign that it was settled, that the
taxation of the people should be decided by their own repre
sentatives, and it was during-his reign that certain restrictions
on the press were removed, whereby knowledge had a better
opportunity of being disseminated among the masses of the
people. Notwithstanding the calamities occasioned by the
great Plague, and the great Fire of London, greater improve
ments, says Buckle, were effected, and more progress made
during this reign than had been accomplished during the
twelve previous centuries of English history. The o-ha-
�19
racier of Charles II. as a whole was one not to be
emulated; but living amidst a profligate court, venal
ministers, and constant conspiracies, he was enabled to
recognise two great obstacles to the nation’s welfare ;
these obstacles . were the spiritual tyranny of the priests’
and the territorial oppression of the nobles. Having
but little regard for theological dogmas, he was determined
that such Christian evils should be swept away.
If Christianity contained any real remedy for existing evils,
it would have displayed itself ere now. It has had every ad
vantage in its favour; the influence of the priests, the patron
age of kings, the alliance of the great and powerful, the use of
untold wealth, the command of the armies, first place among
the councillors of nations, the willing subjection of the
populace, the command of their affections, and the dominancy of their fears. Science, art, education have humbled
and enlisted themselves in its train. The brightest intellects
of humanity have laid their treasures at its feet. The ties
of domestic affection, the bonds of the social compact, the
political relations of ruler and ruled, all have surrendered
themselves to its influence. It has been absolute.monarch
of the world. Yet with all these advantages it has proved
unable to keep pace with a progressive civilisation.
�
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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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Christianity : its nature & influence on civilisation; a lecture
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Watts, Charles [1836-1906]
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Collation: 16 p. ; 20 cm.
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[s.n.]
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[1868]
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Christianity
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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 (Christianity : its nature & influence on civilisation; a lecture), 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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Christianity
Civilisation
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Architecture and Place
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Humanist Library and Archives
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2016
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A collection of digitised items from the Humanist Library and Archives telling the story of buildings and spaces occupied by the Conway Hall Ethical Society (formerly the South Place Ethical Society). Also includes several born digital items.
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Conway Hall (London, England)
South Place Chapel, Finsbury
Mansford, Frederick Herbert (1871-1946)
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Draft architectural detail for an additional kitchen for Conway Hall
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Architectural plan showing draft detail for additional kitchen.
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Farrington Dennys Fisher (architects)
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1987
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© FDF Architecture. Digitised with their kind permission.
Conway Hall
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Text
NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY
THE
IMPOLICY
OF
CAPITAL PUNISHMENT
OOZblSTIXEIRzIEID;
DERIVED FROM OBSERVATIONS, SUPPLIED BY RECOLLECTION OK PUBLIC
EXECUTIONS; TO WHICH IS ADDED,
LETTERS ON CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE, .
BY THE AUTHORJ ALSO, A
RETURN OF THE NAMES OF THE CRIMINALS WHO
HAVE BEEN EXECUTED AT CHESTER
DURING THE LAST 300 YEARS,
SPECIFYING THE OFFENCES FOR WHICH THEY DIED; WITH MUCH
INTERESTING MATTER ON THE VARIED CAUSES OF CRIME.
BY GEORGE BAKEWELL.
MANCHESTER :
JOHN HEYWOOD, WHOLESALE PUBLISHER, 170, DEANSGATE.
CHESTER:
MR. THOMAS, “ RECORD OFFICE,” PEPPER STREET.
usual allowance to the trade.
��It is upwards of forty years since I was induced to'witness the execution of a
female who had been convicted, at the Stafford assizes, of the crime of murder,
and I must own, although very young at the time, that a more revolting scene
could not be laid open to human observation. All parts of the town, at an early
period of the morning, were crowded with anxious spectators, many of whom, I
am sorry to state, appeared to feel that they had quitted their homes in order to
survey some object of merriment or rejoicing. Indeed, for upwards of two hours '
previous to the frightful tragedy which afterwards happened, drunkenness had
been indulged in to an extent at once disgraceful to a Christian community. I
am happy, however, to state, that the disciples of that good man, the Rev. John
Wesley, attended in great numbers, in order to teach the vulgar masses that the
death of a sinner was not desired by the Almighty; and, moreover, that the agon
ising spectacle about to be enacted was by no means calculated to deter from the
commission of crime; in short, that it was more likely to convert the^sufferer into
an object of commisseration, rather than as one leaving the world amidst universal
indignation. Various addresses were delivered in order to render manifest the
above just and most righteous conclusions; but some portions of the drunken
mob, as was natural from their supreme ignorance, gave vent to their.feelings by
the most disgusting shouts of derision. As the hour of execution drew nigh, a
large number of farmers had assembled exactly in front of the scaffold, and they
appeared deeply impressed at the supreme folly of the Government allowing such
an assemblage to take place; in a word, whilst the depraved were revelling in
views and feelings, at which even savages would revolt, the pious and the wn.c
were all convinced that at no far distant day the hideous scaffold would totally
disappear from amongst us, and verily what followed must, had George III. been
present to have witnessed it, have induced him to resolve never more to put a
fellow creature to death.
At twelve o’clock the Rev, Thomas Whitby, of Creswell, made his.^appearance,
reading, in the deepest tones, the service for the dead. In another instant the
hangman had completed his frightful duties, and the drop had no sooner fallen
than its whole fabric followed, including the beam on which the wretched creature
was suspended in the agonies of deach. The yells and execrations that ensued
defies description: fully an Hour elapsed before the arrangements were completed
�4
to effect the final work of strangulation. Afterwards, large and influential public
meetings were held in order to convince not only the Government, but all persons
possessed of correct feeling, that the Punishment of Death was wholly unjustifiable.
The next execution I witnessed was at Derby, of four persons, named Brown,
•Jackson, Booth, and King-, who had been convicted, upon purely circumstantial
evidence, of setting fire to a corn stack, the property of a gentleman named
Colonel Wingfield Norton. The judge who presided at the trial had told the
jury, which was composed of farmers, that even on the assumption that all, or
one of the prisoners had been on the prosecutor’s premises on the night stated
in the indictment, it was by no means improbable that the fire might have been
occasioned by a tobacco pipe igniting the straw, in which event there ought to be
an acquittal. In those days, it is well known, juries were extremely illiterate, and
the result was, the four unfortunate men, all in the flower and pride of their
youth, were consigned to the scaffold, although great efforts had been made to
save them. When the day arrived which was to remove them from. life into an
unseen eternity, the sun had risen with more than usual splendour, the weather,
up to eleven o’clock, had been beautifully fine, scarcly a cloud was to be seen on
the celestial horizon. As usual, the morbid anxiety of man was brought into its
rull requisition : nearly the whole rural population came forth to witness the
disgusting scene; the voice of mirth had issued from most of the common ale
houses whilst the preparations of death were being completed. At length the
fatal moment was drawing nigh, which was to be the last of three beings, whom
God had created in nis cwn image. At length the sky became clouded, and
exactly at twelve o’clock a sudden darkness veiled the sun. “ The thunders rolled,
the lightnings flew.” At this awful juncture the condemned were brought on the
scaffold, the rain then poured down as if the floodgates of hehven had been
opened wide, and th? authorities took the poor creatures away. When the
storm had abated the barbarous work was finished. Three of the victims ap
peared to yield up their lives almost without the least apparent struggle, but the
sufferings of one was agonising in the extreme, his frame quivered for fully seven
minutes before
“ The breath of heaven
Would quit its tenement of elay.”
So far from the above exhibition proving of the slightest value, by way of example,
it is an absolute fact that the following assizes exhibited a calendar stained with
every species of offence that could possiby darken the statute book of an age. The
crimes of murder, highway robbery, stood out in bold relief; indeed, the Lord
C Jef Baron, in his charge to the grand jury, admitted that the execution of crimi
nals appeared to be without avail. And, with regard to the crime of arson, it was
quite clear that if the Government were not prepared to compel the different
parishes, throughout the whole kingdom, to afford food and shelter to the wandering
outcast, it was equally manifest the insurance offices must either be ruined, or
else make such provision themselves.
Howeve;, to return to the direct subject, hanging was still continued, as will
appear from a perusal of the annexed letters. But another execution took place
at Stafford, namely, that of Abel Hill, for the murder a young woman and her infant
child, which appeared to convince the Government that the scaffold must go down.
�When the jury had returned their verdict in the 'case just named, the criminal said
with an oath, “had I a cask of gunpowder I would blow you all to----- • and
whilst the late Mr. Justice Richards was addressing him, in the most feeling terms,
the monster made use of the most impious expressions, nor was his conduct on the
scaffold in the slightest degree altered, indeed, he was wholly unfit to die; but, in
point of all human probability, the heartrending scene which took place at the
execution of Sarah Harriet Thomas, at Bristol, a few years back, did more towards
shaking public opinion, with regard to Capital Punishment, than any preceding
circumstances of the kind. I happened to be at Gloucester, on business, the pre
vious day, and always being desirous, at the earliest convenient period, to render
my humble aid in accomplishing the object under consideration, I went to Bristol,
and witnessed what was nothing less than a judicial murder; the girl was believe d
to have been insane, to a greater or less extent. When brought out, her screams
were piteous, and she struggled hardfor life. Calcraft and four powerful turnkeys
*
however, dragged her to the fatal tree ; the poor creature saying, “ Do, n >w, let
me go; I want to go home.” At length all was still, and a portion of the vast
assemblage at once sang of the beautiful hymn—
“ And am 1 bora to die,
To lay this body down;
And must my trembling spirit fly
Unto a world unknown."
I do not, however, suppose that it will become essential for me to say more on
this part of the subject; and will, therefore, now furnish the letters, which I gave,
in the first instance, to the press gratuitously : —
LETTER I.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE ” CHESTER RECORD/’
Sir,—The alarming increase of the crime of wilful murder, during the compass
of the last few years, and the futile results of public executions on the minds of
the wicked, are events calculated to enlist serious consideration. Indeed, I much
question whether the subject is not one requiring from the Legislature a far more
urgent attention than any of the many amendments needed in our social and
political system, by an industrious and intelligent people. But, in making use of
this expresoion, I am, of course, not unmindful of the immense extent of savage
ferocity which exists in the midst of the religion and piety lately manifested in
almost every district of the empire. The recent meeting held in Chester, on the
subject of establishing homes for poor, destitute, neglected children, I regard as
another proof of the sincere desire of those who possess their good things in this
life, to assist by all judicious means, in sowing the seeds of virtue in the human
heart, so that when the season of youth shall be succeeded by that of riper years,
a strong hope may be entertained that England will be blest with a people on
whose hearts will be engraved the solid principles of brotherly love, so that the
�clouds of darkness, despair, and wickedness, and all its attendant horrors, will
have rapidly began to decline and wither away. However, the pressing questions
are, What is the cause of that awful state of things which, in after ages, will be
regarded as so great a stain ou this generation, inasmuch as it is scarcely possible
to take up a newspaper without reading the details of murders, and other outrages,
revolting to the feelings of that nature sown by the Creator in the breasts of all
when he formed the stupendous undertaking of creating the world, and man to
cultivate and enjoy it for a season, and afterwards to receive everlasting
life? Secondly—Is the punishment of death, inflicted by the law-makers of king
doms, authorised by the Almighty, or by any means calculated to accomplish the
great aim of all punishments inflicted by man, namely, the prevention of crime?
I feel that a temperate discussion of the above important questions may be
deemed interesting at the present period to a portion of your readers, and for this
reason. Notwithstanding all that has been published of late years on the expe
diency of abolishing Capital Punishment, little information has found its way
an 'mgstthe masses, who, since the abolition of the newspaper stamp, can afford
tc read such excellent productions as your own, which, although in its infancy, is
a credit to your ancient city. With these feelings, and also with the desire to
place before the higher classes some details supplied by a recollection of criminal
trials and executions, I will proceed to furnish my own views on the whole subject,
in all its important points, aud for this purpose must, of necessity, trouble you,
probably, upon a few other occasions. I do this, as experience tells me that long
communications, with whatever ability written, do not receive that general atten
tion to which, under other circumstances, they might be entitled.
1 am, of course, not insensible to the strong feeling entertained by a great
portion of society, that life is required for life ; and I am equally aware that many
persons, possessing not only strong religious sentiments, but extensive knowledge
on human affairs, regard the passage in Genesis wherein it is written, “ whoso
sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed,” as a positive command
from God that a murderer should die. Now if this were so, it is somewhat remark
able that the same authority was not given to inflict the like punishment upon
those convicted of the crime of forgery, and other offences, now visited with
imprisonment or transportation; and it is also remarkable that ages should have
rolled over without this important point being settled on the basis of sound
reason, which tells us, that if the Divine authority was needed to take away life for
one description of offence, it was also needed for every other. The plain truth,
however, to borrow the words of the late Sir Samuel Komilly, is, that man begins
to feel the conviction that he has been usurping the authority of God, who has
said, “ Vengeance is mine. To me vengeance belongeth. I will repay.” It does»
therefore, appeal1 strange if it was ordained in the manner suggested, that
murderers should be exterminated from the earth, that Cain was spared, inasmuch
s his crime was of the most atrocious description, and his conduct afterwards did,
not entitle him to the slightest leniency. The Almighty, in permitting him to ter
minate his existence as a vagabond and a wanderer, gave an unmistakeable exem
plification of his written word, that he takes “ no delight in the death of a sinner,
but, rather, that he should turn from his wickedness and live.”
Notwithstanding the above remarkable manifestation of the Divine Will, it is
�1
insisted by those in power that blood for blood is required. My own views are,
that the passage in Scripture to which I referred in the commencement, is open to
a very different interpretation to that generally put upon it. And, with regard to
the Mosaic Law, I must remark, although that truly pious person exhibited,
during the whole period of his lengthened existence, the most sincere desire to
carry out the will of his Divine Master, yet 1 completely dispute that his com
mands, promulgated on the eve of his departure from the people whom he
governed, and which breathed a spirit of philanthropy that seemed too bright to
die, were intended to be binding on all generations. Moses was only mortal; and
what might in his day have been exceedingly good laws, would not be adapted for
a period like the present. Indeed, the slightest consideration of the Edicts them
selves, which are very plainly written in the book of Josephus, must convince any
person of ordinary understanding of the correctness of my hypothesis. But as I
hope to resume tne subject next week, I will not omit to place a few extracts of
the Mosaic Law under the consideration of yOur readers, one clause of whieh
expressly prohibited females, on account of their great inquisitiveness, from giving
evidence in a court of justice.
.
I am, Sir, yours respectfully,
G. BAKEWELL.
I
Beeston, May 5, 1857.
.... '
--
-
o . .
'
'■
vi :•. i umq .
■
eforiw
LETTER II. '
. . Jum ..
-•/.». lite
/
A, ' J;J ’
TO THE EDITOR OF THE “CHESTER RECORD.
f
Sir,—in concluding my communication of last week, I expressed an intention
of furnishing some extracts from the code of laws promulgated by Moses, previous
to his departure from the world ; I feel, however, upon further consideration, that
if I carried out the intention, I might, in all likelihood, lay myself open to the
imputation of wishing to bring contempt upon a great and good man; on one who,
most admirably, completed his earthly mission, and then announced to his people
the precise period when he would be called to his Maker’s kingdom in heaven.
But I must, certainly, strongly urge on the consideration of those who contend
that the Mosaic Law, requiring that life should answer for life, forms but a very
small portion of the whole. The Punishment of Death was also enjoined for
various other offences; consequently, the question arises, why was it not carried
out My answer is, that succeeding governors to Moses discovered that the
execution of criminals for crimes mentioned was contrary to the intention of God,
consequently Moses must have been in error when he gave the law publication.
But upon one point there can be no kind of controversy, namely, that mankind,
in relaxing the punishment fixed for one portion of the offences, possess an equal
authority to adopt the same course with regard to the whole.
In proceeding to the further consideration of the important subject before me,
I feel exceeding anxious to impress on the minds of your’readers that in advo-
�$
eating the total abolition of Capital Punishments, I aru not actuated by the horrid
principles of what is termed Socialism, which amounts to nothing less than
absolute infidelity. In short, I iiave no sympathy with a murderer, who, I am
well aware, can carry into the midst of many a happy family the utmost extent of
affliction which it is possible for the human mind to endure; indeed, in the neigh
bourhood wherein I reside, the blood stained hand has recently occasioned such
results. I am induced to take up the subject for the reasons already suited, and
because I feel that the revolting spectacle afforded by public executions is utterly
useless by way of example, and, moreover, that convictions for the particular
offence to which I refer, can, in a very general way, only be secured by the
adoption of what lias been emphatically termed, circumstantial evidence; a
description of testimony which has frequently misled the ablest judges, and the
most enlightened juries. With these remarks I will proceed to furnish some
details relating to the immense sacrifice of human life which has taken place
during the compass of the last three centuries, by the hands of the common hang
man, which, when compared with the statistics of a period, when the population
has so vastly increased, must, of necessity, excite one common feeling of sorrow in
every reflecting mind.
Before the reign of Henry VIII. thoud&nds of persons had perished for witch
craft and political offences; and when that monarch came to the throne, Parlia
ment enacted that robbers, forgers, and cattle stealers should undergo the like
punishment; in this reign no fewer than 72,000 persons had been put to death,
and crime steadily increasing during the whole period. This state of things was
carried on for successive reigns, without the slightest remorse or relaxation; and
George III. had governed fifty years before he began seriously to feel the enor
mous weight of guilt which, undoubtedly, rested somewhere. At this period a
jubilee was held, and it became the duty of both Houses of Parliament to vote
addresses to the throne, which, of course, led to a reply from the King, wherein he
expressed the joy he felt in having been spared to rule so long over a happy, con
tented, and loyal people. Some little time afterwards, the subject of doing away
with Capital Punishment for all offences except the crime of wilful murder, was
mooted in the Lords, the indignation of all the refined classes In England, Irelan^,’
and Scotland having been most painfully excited some years previously, by the
execution of Dr. Dodd, and the two brothers, Perreux, for forgery. The then
Duke of Portland is reported to have made use of the following remarkable
words:—
** His Majesty, in bis gracious reply to this house, mentioned the contentment of the
people over whom be had been so long spared to rale. Now my feelings are, that a deep
discontent exists in the minds of all candid men who are convinced that the execution of
at least one of the Perreux, as well as that of Dr. Dodd, were judicial murders, inasmuch
os the last-named person never really intended to cheat Lord Chesterfield by signing his
name; but if he did, the offence was condoned by the acceptance of a security for the
money; and upon these, as well as various other grounds, J hope the punishment of the
scaffold may be mitigated so far as offences against property are concerned."
Little, however, was done towards accomplishing so desirable an object, until after
the accession of George IV., in 1821, as will appear from the following returns:—
In the year jast named, there were executed in England and Wales, for various
�9
offences, 114 persons. Strong efforts were then made to induce the Government
to amend the law, and many able appeals to accomplish that object in the House
of Commons were made. One of the speakers quoted the following lines, with a
view to show that the human race was entitled to pity, and, consequently, that
God should deal out his own measure of punishment to the more serious offender:
" Man, in his first estate, by ill advice,
Lost his Creator, and his Paradise.
Caused, in the place of llowers, rank weeds to gvow;
And peace departed at the sight of woe.
Since then the world in bitterness haB known,
The sigh, the tear, the lamentable groan.
Eternal day has fled—and awful night
Hongs over ea; th in horror and affright.
Man suceeeds man, and time gives way to time,
Change rolls on ohange—but yet, through all is crime.”
The result was, that transportation for life was substituted for various capital
crimes, which had the effect of reducing the number of executions in the seven
years between 1821 and 18’28, to the average of 59- Eventually, urther mitiga
tion was effected, by which means, in the next seven years, the number hanged
was re duced to 17; and in the succeeding ten years to six annually. I am sorry,
however, to state, that from the year 1810 to the year 1833, the period when
William IV. began to reign, no fewer than 56 persons had perished every year on
the scaffold. The above facts exhibit a painful retrospect, and naturally raises
the inquiry, whether the enlightened period in which we now live has not only
served to banish crime from the calendars of our sessions and assizes, but to do
away with the necessity of Death Punishment, provided mtn ever received a
power to exercise it.
With regard to the first point, the reader who has only recently been ac
customed to take his weekly newspaper, will be very sorry to receive an answer
in the negative. And what is, perhaps, a more startling announcement, there
never was a season, in the whole history of the kingdom, wherein there existed a
greater extent of depravity and remorseless wickedness than the present. In
short, the large towns and cities, nay, the rural districts, are infested with vaga
bonds of the vilest cast. Of course I may be asked to explain how, and in what
manner, such a terrible state of things has been produced? I answer—'one
portion of this class have been their own destroyers, by imbibing habits of intem
perance, which clouds the mind, so that the light of solid understanding cannot
penetrate within; and, moreover, the heart become hardened, and capable of
perpetrating offences at which the finer feelings of humanity stand aghast.
Another class are the offspring of vagrants, or persons who always prefer a
wandering and idle life to that of honest industry. But it is to be observed that
the laws relating to the relief of the poor, although apparently liberal, are, in
their operation, exceedingly cruel; so much so, as to induce those who would
gladly betake themselves to industry, if they had the power, to rush into a career
of crime from which they very seldom escape in following years.
With such an hideous mass of depravity — which has now reared its head
amongst us, like some anoient ruin—to deal with, the important questions arise ;«•
�10
Would it be safe to abolish the scaffold? If so, what punishment should be
substituted instead? What is to be done with our criminals, both in prison and
out of them ? What measures are to be adopted so as not only to destroy the
whole fabric of vice, but to prevent, so far as laws can prevent, similar results
from arising1 either in the present or in any future generation ? And, finally, on
the assumption that a majority of both Houses of Parliament should decide in
favour of the right of earthly rulers to destroy the breath of heaven, I feel fully
convinced that a large portion of my countrymen, whose conduct has been as
chaste as the icicle that is curdled by the frost from purest snow, wi’l naturally
demand to be told whether life is to be taken on doubtful evidence. I am well
aware that such men as Lord Sidmouth and Lord Ellenborough had always ready
answers to give to those who, in days now gone by, made appeals for mercy on
the grounds suggested. I can well remember reading of the dismay occasioned
to a sorrowing nation when the fate of poor Eliza Fenning was trembling in the
frail balance of life and death. Alas! the joy it would have given, had even a
short respite been granted her before the cruelty of the Government had cut her
off, and removed her far beyond the pale of human reparation, inasmuch as her
guilt was questioned by ninety-nine persons out of every hundred (the unfortunate
creature was executed for poisoning her master). Scarcely, however, had the
bloody work been done, before the real criminal, stung by all the agonies of
remorse and wild despair, gave himself up to justice, and afterwards suffered the
extreme penalty of the law. The general affliction occasioned by the death of
the victim was somewhat alleviated by the Christian spirit and fortitude she had
exhibited throughout the period of her tribulations. Even when the shadows of
death encompassed her, and in the face of her destroyers, her demeanour was
great, firm, and equal.
I hope, in succeeding letters, to be enabled, by furnishing the details of other
cases that have occurred within my own recollection, so to shake the whole fabric
of circumstantial evidence, as to induce those who have hitherto held with Capital
Punishment, to falter in their opinions, and to agree with me in believing that
when it becomes necessary for any one to be put to death, that such a work
belongs exclusively to the King of Kings. The Scripture says, “The Lord gave
and the Lord taketh away.” I am, nevertheless, aware that society would naturally
expect, when such an important change as the one contended for, was made, that
a punishment should be substituted, calculated to convince those who choose to
imbrue their hands in blood, that their sufferings will not be confined to a few
mortal pangs, but that a continued gloom, throughout the whole period of their
natural existence, is the certain result, awaiting them after conviction. Such a
law would also be the means of weakening the chances of escape for the guilty,
and what is of far greater moment a reparation could always be made to inno
cence when it was discovered.
I am, Sir, yours very respectfully,
BAKEWELL.
Beeston, May 12th, 1857,
�11
LETTER III.
TO TEE EDITOR OF THE "CHESTER RECORD.”
Sir,—With regard to the adoption of circumstantial evidence, and upon which
convictions for murder are generally founded, I readily admit that owing to the
fact of the criminal selecting for the completion of his purpose a time, a place,
and an opportunity, when he thinks no eye can see him, that no ear can hear him,
it would often be found impossible to secure the conviction of the guilty, if the
description of testimony to which I have adverted was to be excluded. If how
ever, as I contend, it is true that circumstantial evidence has again and again led
to the execution of the innocent, it forms in my judgment, apart from all other
considerations, the strongest possible ground for the total abolition of the scaffold.
In short, it is known also, beyond all question of controversy—not only to the
judges, but to every individual fully acquainted with the administration of justice
—that the secresy with which a murderer generally veils his guilt, frequently leads
to a verdict of acquittal. I know of numerous cases of the kind, in which the
juries would have felt no kind of hesitation in finding a verdict of guilty, but for
** The Punishment of Death.” I need only mention the case from Manchester,
tried at Liverpool, before Baron Platt—not many years ago—wherein a man and
his wife were tried for murder, and escaped all punishment whatever, simply
because the jury durst not, strong as the evidence was, consign the prisoners to a
doom from which they could never afterwards be extricated. I may also mention
—I trust without impropriety—the cases of Evans, for the murder of Mr. Price,
and that of Hodge, for the murder of Mrs.’Moore, of Winnington, as affording un
answerable arguments in favour of the correctness of my views. Away then, I
say, with the scaffold—and for ever. In short, I do not hesitate to assert that the
root, the stem, the bud, the flower, from which Death Punishments have so long
flourished, has been in all times and in all ages, a source of bitterness to the well
being of kingdoms, and a kind of cankerworm from which has emanated the very
worst results. I know these remarks may not be acceptable to one portion of
society, whose indignation at a murderer lead them frequently to forget the pas
sage in Scripture, wherein it is written, “ Shall not the Judge of all the Earth do
right.” Supposing, therefore, the malefactor was consigned to imprisonment for
life, as previously suggested, the Almighty, whose power is infinite, could add to
his pangs every punishment that was required. The great aim, however, of
earthly rulers ought to be in allaying the ferocity of human passions; inasmuch as
all experience has proved that education, timely counsels, and the certainty of
punishment, are the surest and strongest barriers against lawless violence.
Murder is a crime not confined to poverty, or ignorance; men of a superior educa
tion, and of even refined sentiments, have been known to imbrue their hands in
blood; but it has been generally discovered that they have done so after being
permitted to pursue a long career of profligacy. * aurence, Earl Ferrers, for
L
instance, in the opinion of all sensible men, ought to have been confined, as a
dangerous member to society, for years before he sent poor Mr. Johnson to the
grave. In plainer language, the offence of drunkenness—the origin of every
* This nobleman was executed at Tyburn, in the last year of the reign of George II.
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social evil—ought to be punished with the greatest severity, and by whosoever
committed; and, until the Government has done this, all the effoitsof philanthrophy will be incomplete. The operation of the Poor L'aw, to which I briefly
alluded in one of the preceding letters, I regard also as a most fertile source of
crime. From the very best information which has been gained on the subject, it
appears there are no fewer than three hundred thousand persons, spread oyer the
surface of the kingdom, who are nothing more than mere wanderers, or vagabonds,
living without, of course, any lawful means of existence; and when it is con
sidered that a portion of such a class are men who have been frequently convicted
of violating the laws, and now at large on tickets-of-leave, I do not see how
society can be considered as safe. Nevertheless, the recent amendment of the
law, with regard to the abolition of transportation, I am induced to believe will be
productive of much good. I trust, however, that further measures may be urged
on the consideration of Parliament, in order to make a suitable provision for all
cases of destitution. The present treatment of the poor, particularly those who
are called wayfarers, is cruel in the extreme. At many of the Unions the poor
creatures are bedded down like swine, and fed worse than the rich mans dogs;
whilst the allowance to the regular recipients of parochial relief, is a scandal to a
civilised nation. I mention these things as, in considering the question of doing
away with the scaffold, I feel how important it is that the absolute causes of crime
should be considered at the same time. When alluding to the immense number of
persons who are outcasts, I do not wish an inference to be drawn that the whole
are vicious members of the community. It is far otherwise, to a certain extent;
a portion of them have been persons formerly in good circumstances, but being
reduced by misfortune, or overtaken by age, refuse the Work house. They look
with scorn upon the law, as well as those who made it, and elect to travel from
place to place, in order to gain, by the enlivening scenes of nature, a temporary
relief from their tribulations, until God shall call them to that kingdom where the
weary and heavy laden find everlasting rest.
In thus advocating a provision for the poor,I wish to impress on the minds of the
young, that I believe all have a chance at one period or other to do well, provided it
is embraced ; and with regard to the working classes, I am convinced that nothing
would be more just than for the Government to get passed a National Poor-rate,
and, at one stroke, abolish the whole band of locusts, called Union Officers, who
absorb more than one-half of the rates. A plan of this kind would render an
ample allowance to all cases of destitution, a matter of mere insignificance ; whilst
the good effects to society would be beyond calculation. Indeed, there has been
more money expended during the last century, in the prosecution and transporta
tion of criminals, in making good losses from fire wilfully occasioned, in the
destruction of machinery, and in useless removals, than would have been needed
had the amount been invested for the support of the poor for time evermore. It
is true that lawless violence must be repressed, but it is much better to prevent
than cure.
In resuming the consideration of circumstantial evidence, which I regard as so
important a feature in the abolition of Capital Punishment, I need not ransack
such books as the Percy Anecdotes of the Newgate Calendar, in order to render
manifest its mischievous tendency. Cases, too numerous now to mention, have
�13
occurred within my own recollection, so as to afford a complete illustration on
this head. I will merely refer to those of Rush, for the murder at Stanfield Halt
and of Palmer, for the Rugeley poisonings, to show how near two of the greatest
criminals were of absolutely escaping punishment. In the former ease, it is
generally believed that if the criminal had employed counsel, the prosecution
would have failed ; and as it was, Mr. Baron Rolfe remarked, in passing sentence
with reference to Emily Sandford’s evidence“ Had you have kept your promise
to that young woman, by marrying her, in point of probability, the rule of law,
which seals the lips of a wife in all proceedings against her husband, would have
allowed your guilt to have gone unpunished.” Whilst with regard to that of
Palmer, all thinking men are convinced that his conviction, in consequence of the
conflicting nature of the medical testimony, was wholly unjustifiable ; and, more
over, that the summing up of Lord Campbell was partial and unfair. Such
opinions might not have been so strongly and generally entertained, had the issue
not been a matter of life or death, and until that punishment has been removed,
great offenders will always have awarded to them a sympathy.
I will now mention the following cases, and leave the reader to form his own
conclusions:—
At the Stafford assizes, held in March, 1824, Thomas Powell, a labouring man,
was indicted for the wilful murder of a female named Anne, the wife of Edward
Spencer, who resided at Gorst Cottage, near Willenhall, by striking her on the
head with a hatchet. He was further charged with stealing a quantity of wearing
apparel. The evidence, as usual, was purely circumstantial; the strongest point
was, that the prisoner had pledged at the shop of Mrs. Moore, a pawnbroker, a
portion of the stolen articles, on the day following the murder. But in his defence
he alleged that a man, dressed in a blue smock frock, had given him the bundle
to pledge, under a promise of paying for a quart of ale; and he asked the judge
if it was likely, had he committed the murder, that he should instantly have
exposed himself to the consequences of detection.
Mr. Justice Littledale summed up strongly in favour of an acquittal, but the
ury returned a verdict of guilty, and the unfortunate man received sentence of
death, and was executed within forty-eight hours. Connected with this case the
Staffordshire Advertiser remarked, “ Whilst the dying knell toll’d for the living
man, he solemnly denied all participation in the robbery or murderand, more
over, the late Mr. Brutton, who was the governor of Stafford Gaol, with whom I
was on terms of intimacy in youth, told me that he believed Powell to have been
entirely innocent. I may also mention, that a solicitor, now living at Uttoxeter’
who had to attend the judges lodgings, shortly after the trial, heard Mr. Justice
Littledale say, " Well Brother Garrow, I must confess that I should have been
better satisfied with a verdict of acquittal.” A few months afterwards, the man
dressed in the blue smock frock was himself transported for burglary, and he,
although making no admission of the murder for which Powell suffered, stated
that he had been wrongfully convicted.
Several years afterwards two men, named Paul Rigby and John Grimes, were
convicted at the Lancaster assizes, for an highway robbery, at Scotworth, near
Garstang. The prosecutor stated that his name was Stanley, and that he was by
trade a ’oiner, residing at Market Drayton, in Shropshire. That although the
�14
night was dark when the attack was made upon him, yet he was convinced the
prisoners were the men who ill-treated and robbed him. The constable who
had charge of the case, also gave evidence that the marks of Bigby’s shoe
exactly corresponded with various prints he discovered on the spot where the
robbery was alleged to have been committed. The prisoners nrotested their
innocence, but Mr. .Justice Park strongly summed up against them, and the jury,
without hesitation, returned a verdict of guilty, and sentence of death was
pronounced, with no hopes of mercy. Fortunately a chain of circumstances
was discovered, proving that the prosecutor was a gross impostor, and a reprieve
obtained just in time to stay the execution, the judge remarking, “ If these
men are innocent there is no reliance to be placed on circumstantial evidence
and I shall consider it a dangerous thing to take away life upon it hereafter.” It
is, perhaps, needless for me to add that the persons thus rescued at the eleventh
hour, in the dreary passage to the grave, were restored to their liberty, and to
those who were well nigh made fatherless children and widows. S;anley was soon
afterwards apprehended, and received sentence of transportation for the perjury
he had committed, but with regard to the circumstantial evidence in the case, it,
of course, merely shows its utter worthliness in all cases, and, consequently, how
careful juries should be in acting under its influence, particularly in business
capital. That, also, of the Ashcrofts, convicted of the murder at Pendleton, was
never very satisfactorily proved. The men suffered, denying their guilt with
their last breath, and many persons, now alive, are strongly convinced of their
innocence.
In conclusion, I fed that I ought not to omit alluding to the case of Mansell, at
Maidstone, who being kept in suspense for six months, and many times respited;
after, also being removed from the condemned cell, was publicly strangled, to the
utter abborance of a great portion of the nation.
I cannot avoid also mentioning the case of John Blagg, now lying under
sentence of death in Chester Castle, and whose conviction was founded on ex
ceedingly dubious evidence; the case altogether manifests the gross injustice of
the present game laws; and, until these laws are amended, it will be in vain to
expect the causes of murder will become diminished. Most persons to whom the
facts have become known, are convinced that B'a-g, even if he was the destroyer
of Ribbington, did not premiditate the act; but, that it was committed under
sudden passion. The deceased was the game-keeper to Mr. Corbett, of Tilstone
Lodge, and had repeatedly assaulted the prisoner, and upon one occasion broke
two of his ribs, still the verdict has been considered urjust, inasmuch as the
evidence of the foot-marks was far from being satisfactory; and, moreover, the
cutting observations of Mr. Justice Crowder to the grand jury, were highlycalculated to destroy all chances of a fair trial.
Such scenes, however, as those lately enacted in various parts of England can
be of mo long duration, provided towns like Manchester will only give full expres
sion to their opinions on the subject. Let this he done, and tire scaffold will be
removed, and the convicted murderer consigned to a punishment far more terrible
than death, namely,—one continued suffering so long as his life shall last.
G. BAKEWELL.
Beeston, near Tarporiey, Cheshire, August 1857.
�15
Since the preceding remarks were written, the author has been enabled to
procure the following returns of the number of criminals who have perished on
the scaffold at Chester, during the last 300 years; and also of the offences for
which they suffered. Iu point of all human probability, another victim will have
to be added to the list before this work shall meet the public eye, no respite
having been granted for the unfortunate Blagg up to the time of its going to
press:—
LIST OF PUBLIC EXECUTIONS IN CHESTER,
FROM THE lg-tH CENTURY.
1534.—George Marsh, burnt at Spital Boughton, for his attachment to the Pro
testant faith.
1588. —September 8: A woman burnt at Boughton, for poisoning her husband.
1589. —John Taylor, gaolor of the Castle, for the murder of Mr. Hockenhull, a
prisoner in his custody for recusancy.
1592.—William Geaton, servant to the Bishop of Chester, for the murder of James
Findlove, a Scotch pedlar; his body was hung in chains on Groppenhall
Heath.
1601. —A woman named Candey, executed for conspiring to murder her husband ;
her paramour, Boon, refusing to plead, was pressed to death in the Castle.
1602. —One Arnet, servant to a Mr. Manley, of Saltney Side, hung for murdering
his fellow servant.
1654.—Sir Timothy Fetherstonhaugb, shot in the corn market of Chester, by
order of the Parliament.
1750. Two Irishmen executed, and gibbetted on the Parkgate Road, near the
Two Mills, for a murder.
1768.—Three men hung for burglary; the rope of one of them broke, when,lifting
up his cap, he exclaimed in horrible agitation, “My God! what am I to
suffer?”
1776—May 1: Execution of James Knight, for a murder at Odd Rode.—Sept. 21:
Christopher Lawless, Isaac Hutchinson, Alexander Solomon, and Isaac
Josephs, executed for robbing the shop of Mr. Pemberton, jeweller. They
were buried behind the Roodee Cop, opposite Ovcrleigh.
1777.—April 10: S. Thorley, executed for the horrible murder of Ann Smith, a
ballad-singer, near Congleton. After cutting off her head, he severed her
legs and arms from her body, which he threw into a brook ! part, however,
he actually broiled aud ate! He was hung in chains on the Heath, near
Congleton.
�IB
1779.—April 16: William Ellis, for burglary, and William Loom, for discharging
a loaded pistol at Charles Warren, of Congleton, executed at Boughton.—
October 2: Sarah Jones, executed for stealing 28 yards of chintz, from the
shop of Mr. Meacock, Chester.
1783. —Resolution Heap, and Martha Brown ; the former for a burglary at Whaley;
and the latter for a similar offence at Over.
1784. —April 26: Elizabeth Wood, hung for poisoning James Sinister, at Bredbury.
—May 15: John Oakes, hung for coining.
1786.—April 24: Execution of Peter Steers, for the murder of his wife, by poison.
•—May 6 : Edward Holt, for a burglary at Knutsford.—October 1: Thomas
Buckley, aged 20, for a burglary at Chester.—October 7 : Thomas Hyde,
aged 35, for horse-stealing. —October 10: James Buckley, aged 22, for a bur
glary in Miss Lloyd’s house, in Newgate-street, Chester.
1789. —February 4: Thomas Mate, for the murder of John Parry, a constable, in
Handbridge. He was 64 years old, and when at the gallows, he charged his
wife, 70 years old, with infidelity.
1790. —John Dean, from Stockport, for the most brutal murder of his wife, who
was seven months advanced in her pregnancy. He was hung in chains on
Stockport Moor.
1791. —April 21: Execution of Lowndes, for robbing the Warrington mail. His
prosecution, it is said, cost ^02,000. He was hung in chains on Helsby Hill;
but the gibbet pole was in a short time after cut down by some people in the
neighbourhood, and was not again erected—October 8: Allen, Aston, and
Knox, for a burglary at Northern. Upon this occasion, the fatal tree was
removed from Gallows Hill to the opposite side of the road, where it continued
till 1801, when the place of execution was finally removed within the Walls of
the City.
1796.—April 30: Thomas Brown and James Price, for robbing the Warrington
mail. They were hung in chains on Trafford Green, and remained there till
1820, when the pole was taken down, the place having been previously inclosed.
In the skull of Price was found a robin’s nest.
1798.—John Thornhill, for the murder of his sweetheart, Sarah Malone, at Lyrnm •
—October 4: Peter Martin, alias Joseph Lowter, for firing at a boat’s crew
of the Actceon, in the Mersey, when employed in the impress service.
1800. —Thomas Bosworth, for forgery, and Alexander Morton, for felony.—
October 10: Mary Lloyd, for forgery, at Stockport.
1801. —May 9: Thompson, Morgan, and Clare, for burglaries. When near the
gallows, Clare made a spring from the cart, rushed through the crowd, which
made way for him, rolled down a gutter-way towards the Dee—a rapid
descent—and plunged into the river. He was drowned, having immediately
sunk, from the weight of the chains, but his body was found, and afterwards
hung up with the others, the other two malefactors being kept in the cart in
the interval. These were the last criminals hung at Boughton, which had
been the place of execution for some centuries.—October 3: Aaron Gee and
�17
Thomas Gibson, hung out of a temporary window way, in the attics, on the
south side of the old Northgate, a building not now in existence.—The unfor
tunate men were propelled from the window about five feet, and dropped near
40 inches, their bodies beating against the windows beneath, so s to break
the glass in them.
1809. —May 6: Execution of George Glover and William Proudlove, in front of
the House of Correction, for shooting at an officer of excise at Odd Rode.
When the drop (used for the first time) sunk, the ropes broke, and the poor
men fell to the platform, half strangled; new ropes were procured, and the
sentence was carried into effect about an hour after the accident.
1810. —May 2: Execution of John Done, for the murder of Betty Eckersley, a
woman of bad character, at Lyrnm. He denied the offence to his last moment.
—October 10: Execution of Smith and Clarke, for a burglary and felony in
the shop of Mr. Fletcher, watchmaker, Eastgate. The conduct of Smith on
the drop was exceedingly unbending and audacious, and the night before his
execution he played at cards with some of his companions. They were buried
in St. Martin's Church-yard.
1812. —June 12: Temple and Thompson for rioting. They were connected with
the Luddites.—August 24: Execution of John Lomas, for the murder of his
master, Mr. Morrey, of Hankelow.
1813. —Edith Morrey, executed for the murder of her husband. She was tried
with Lomas, and with him found guilty on the clearest testimony. Immediately
after conviction she pleaded pregnancy, and a jury of matrons being impannelled, she was pronounced quick with child, and her sentence, of course,
respited till after her delivery. It appeared that an illicit intercourse had
for some time existed between her and Lomas, which led to her exciting him
to destroy her husband, and the crime was perpetrated with circumstances
of peculiarly savage atrocity.—June 26: Execution of William Wilkinson,
James Yarwood, and William' Burgess, for a rape on Mary Porter, near
Weston Point. They were flatmen, and when Wilkinson (a fine stout man,
about six feet high,) mounted the scaffold, he exclaimed to his companions,
“Keep up your spirits; never mind, my lads—we are all murdered men; I’m
just as happy as if I was going to a play I” and when the halter was placed
round his neck, he added, “ My new handkerchief fits me nice and tight.”—
Simeon Betson, William Betson, and James Renshaw, for a burglary at
Henbury.
1814. —May 28: William Wilson, an old sailor, in his 70th year, executed for
arson, at Tiverton, near Tarporley. His exit was most extraordinary: on the
morning of his death he entertained a number of persons in the parlour of the
constable’s house, with an account of his naval exploits; and in his way' along
the streets to the City Gaol, he chewed bread in his mouth, and threw it at
the beadle, observing that he was like Peeping Tom of Coventry. On the
drop he said, “ What a many people are here to see an old man hung; here’s
as much fus'g as if there were a hundred to be hanged.”
181-5—April 22: Execution of Griffith and Wood, for a burglary in the house of
John Holme, near Stockport.
�18
1817. —May 10: Execution of Joseph Allen, for uttering Bank of England notes.
In a solemn declaration, made on the morning of execution, he denied his
guilt, alleging that he did not know the notes were bad ones.
1818. —May 9: Abraham Rostern and Isaac Moors, the former for a burglary at
Edgeley, the latter for a similar offence at Cheadle Bulkeley. Both of them
acknowledged their guilt.—September 26: John Moor, executed for a
burglary.
1819. —May 8: Joseph Walker, for robbing his former master on the highway
between Northwich and Manchester. He denied his guilt to the last.—
September 25: Samuel Hooley and John Johnson (a man of colour), for a
burglary at Bowden.
1820. —April 15: Jacob M'Ghinnes, for shooting Mr. Birch, at Stockport. He was
connected with the radical reformers, and his intention was to have shot Mr.
Lloyd, then solicitor of that town, and now prothonotary of the county court.
This unfortunate man had not only embraced the politics but the theology of
Tom Paine, but during his confinement, and before his execution, he was
brought to embrace the Christian system, and died with great composure.—
April 22: Thomas Miller, for a burglary at Bowden.—September 16: Execu
tion of Ralph Ellis, for a burglary at Elton, and William Ricklington, for
setting fire to a rectory house at Coddington.
1821. —May 5: Execution of Samuel Healey, for a highway robbery at Stockport.
1822. —May 4: William Tongue, for a rape on an infant, and George Groom, for a
■highway robbery on a man named Kennerley.—September 14: Thomas
Brierley, for a highway robbery near Congleton.
1823. —April 14: Execution of Samuel Fallows, for the murder of his sweetheart
. at. Disley. ■ Several galvanic experiments were made on his body previous to
dissection.—May 20 : Execution of John Kragon, for a rape on an infant, at
Stockport.—September 13: Execution of Edward Clarke, for a highway
robbery at Stockport.
1824. —April 21: Joseph Dale, for the murder of Mr. Wood, near Disley. He had
been convicted at the preceding assizes, but execution deferred, in order to
take the opinion of the judges on a point of law urged in his favour by Mr. D.
F. Jones, his counsel. He died with great composure.
1826 —April 26: Philip M'Gowan, for the robbery of an inoffensive man, near
Disley, and Abraham Stones, for the robbery of Mr. Marsden, a gentleman of
upwards of 70 years of age, near Cowlane Bridge, under circumstances of
great violence. On this melancholy occasion, the apparatus for executions
was removed from the east to the west end of the City Gaol, where these
melancholy spectacles have ever since been exhibited.—August 26: John
Green, for burglary.
1829. — May 9 : John Proudlove, for highway robbery, and John Leir, for burglary
in.the house of the Rev. Matthew Bloor, attended, with aggravated ciicum
stances of violence.—September 26: —Joseph Woodhouse, for a rape on his
�own daughter ; and Joseph Henshall, for firing at the keepers, while poaching
in the grounds of the Earl of Stamford and Warrington.
1832.—Samuel Cumberledge, for arson.
1834.—Samuel Thorley, for the murder of Mary Pemberton, at Northwich ; John
Carr, for felonious shooting; Thomas Riley, for felonious cutting; William
Naylor, for felonious shooting; James Mason, for attempting to procure
miscarriage
1841.—Bartholomew Murray, for the murder of Joseph and Mary Cooke, at Over
Peover.
1843. —James Ratcliffe, for murdering his wife at Stockport.
1844. —Mary Gallop, for poisoning her father, at Crewe.
1848.—William Bates, for murdering William Wyatt, at Adlington.
1856—December 20: William Jackson, for the murder of his two children, in
Handbridge, Chester.
'
THE EXECUTION OE BLAGG.
At eight o’clock on Friday morning, August 28th, the above unfortunate person
suffered the extreme penalty of the law with a degree of fortitude and composure,
never equalled since the execution of Lord Balmarino, on Tower Hill. John
Blagg, with whom the author had been well acquainted for many years, in conse
quence of their being close neighbours, denied his guilt to the last; and it is to be hoped
that his fate may be the means of inducing the parliament to pass, next session, a
short bill, depriving gamekeepers of the power of making a sudden arrest of
poachers.
Blagg died without the slightest struggle, in short, his body never moved after
the drop fell. About 1,500 persons were present. His poor widow has received
notice to quit her cottage from the agent of John Tollemache, Esq., M.P., of
Peckferton Castle.
, A. Ireland
On., Printers by Steam Power, Pall Mall, Manchester.
��
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The impolicy of capital punishment considered : derived from observations, supplied by recollection of public executions; to which is added Letters on circumstantial evidence by the Author; also, a return of the names of the criminals who have been executed at Chester during the last 300 years, specifying the offences for which they died; with much interesting matter on the varied causes of crime
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Bakewell, George
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Place of publication: Manchester; Chester
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Mr Thomas
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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 impolicy of capital punishment considered : derived from observations, supplied by recollection of public executions; to which is added Letters on circumstantial evidence by the Author; also, a return of the names of the criminals who have been executed at Chester during the last 300 years, specifying the offences for which they died; with much interesting matter on the varied causes of crime), 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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"AUGUSTE COMTE'S
RELIGION OF HUMANITY."
A DISCOURSE
DELIVERED AT
SOUTH PLACE CHAPEL,
SUNDAY, 31 OCTOBER, 1880,
BY
ALEXANDER J. ELLIS,
B.A., F.R.S., F.S.A., F.C.P.S., F.C.P.,
President {for the second time) of the Philological Society.
WITH AN APPENDIX OF NOTES,
Containingjustificatory citations from Comte's works, andfrom two
unpublished private letters of Comte to the Author,
with other matter.
LONDON :
SOUTH PLACE CHAPEL (LIBRARY),
AND
TRUBNER & CO., Ludgate Hill.
1880.
PRICE 4d.
�AUGUSTE COMTE’S RELIGION
OF HUMANITY.
Last May Mr. Conway delivered a discourse in
this chapel on the question “What is the Religion of
Humanity ? ” This discourse has been printed, and
is doubtless well known to all whom I address. He
commenced by saying that this phrase “has been
much and vaguely used,” and added that it came, he
believed, “from the mint of positivism.” (Note 27,
p. 66). But there is not one word in the whole of his
discourse which indicates either the sense in which
Auguste Comte, the founder of positivism, understood
the term Humanity, or in what manner he founded a
religion upon that conception. It occurred to me
therefore, when I was asked to supply the service on
one of the Sundays during Mr. Conway’s absence, that
I should be meeting the wishes of many members of
the congregation by giving an account of Comte’s
views, with which I have been acquainted almost ever
since they were first published.
The only short systematic account which Comte
�5
in French or English, may be procured of or through
Messrs. Reeves & Turner, 196, Strand.
Isidore Auguste Marie Francois Xavier Comte, who
subsequently retained only the name of Auguste
Comte,was born on 19 January, 1798? at Montpellier, in
the department of Herault, France. He was the son of
Auguste Louis Comte, cashier of the general receiver
ship of Herault, and Felicite-Rosalie Boyer, his wife.
He was at the College of Montpellier till he went to
the Ecole Polytechnique in 1814, but the whole of
that school was dismissed for what was considered an
act of insubordination (a protest against a repetiteur,
or assistant lecturer, signed first by Comte), and he
became a teacher of mathematics for bread. From
1818 to 1820, he was in friendly relations with the
celebrated Claude Henri, Comte de Saint Simon (born
1760, died 1825), whose pupil Comte styled himself
at the time, though he did not learn positivism from
him, and subsequently considered these relations most
unfavourable for the development of his conceptions.
It was in May, 1822, that, attached to a little privately
distributed pamphlet by Saint Simon, called du Contra!
Social, of which 100 copies were printed, Comte added
what he termed “ a plan of the scientific works required
for the reorganisation of society,” reprinted in an
edition of 1,000 copies in 1824, and then entitled
“ System of Positive Polity.” This wonderful work
of a young man of twenty-four, well justified its
�English translation much condensed, but approved by
Comte, was made by Miss Harriett Martineau.
During the execution of this great work, he had to
maintain himself by continuous labour as a teacher of
mathematics, in which capacity I first heard of him as
private tutor to a former Eton boy of my acquaintance
at Paris in 1834, and I then became possessed of the
first volumes of his Positive Philosophy. It was with
the greatest difficulty that Comte managed to scrape
together during this period some 10,000 francs or
^400 a year. He used to compose the whole of one
of his volumes on Positive Philosophy, in all its details,
in his head without even making a note, and then,
when he had leisure to write, he sat down and wrote
it off, never correcting, and keeping only a few sheets
in advance of the press. In 1842 Comte was separated
from his wife, with whom, however, he long maintained
an intimate correspondence. In 1844, Comte, who
had long held two subordinate offices in the Ecole
Polytechnique, lost them both through a series of mis
fortunes which I cannot even advert to. Three Eng
lishmen, Grote, Molesworth and Raikes Currie
gave him temporary assistance. In 1849 his friends
raised an annual subscription for him, the collection of
which he took into his own hands when the rupture
occurred between him and M. Littre, who had ori
ginated it, a rupture due to the different views which they
took of Napoleon III.’s coup d'etat. This subscription
�complete his Positive Polity in 1854, and then began
what he intended to be the complement of his
labours, the Positive Synthesis, of which only the first
volume appeared in 1856, containing Positive Logic,
which is in fact a history and criticism of the whole of
Mathematics as then known—much has been added
since that time. Two of the remaining volumes of
the Synthesis were destined to give an exposition of
Positive Morality, of which one was to be on theo
retical, and the other on practical morals. Of these,
nothing but the titles of the chapters is preserved.
■(Note 2, p. 47.) Of the fourth volume all we know is,
.that it was to be a system of Positive Industry. After
a painful illness, on the nature of which a difference
of opinion prevails, Comte died on Saturday, 5 Sep
tember, 1857. Since then his rooms at No. 10, Rue
Monsieur-le-Prince, Paris, have been kept exactly as
he left them, and the Positivist Society of Paris, under
the direction of M. Laffitte, appointed principal
-executor under Comte’s will, there holds its meetings,
and performs the rites of the Religion of Humanity.
The subsequent career of Positivism is detailed in a
periodical appearing every two months, called La
Revue Occidentale. For an English appreciation of
Comte’s two works, I must refer you to two articles
by John Stuart Mill, reprinted from the “Westminster
Review,” entitled Auguste Comte and Positivism
JTriibner, 1865). For French appreciations, reference
�II
materially alter their views most probably, if admitted,
but they are as much without it, as Christianity dispenses with the Olympic mythology of the Greeks.
No Christian would now attempt to give an elaborate
is proof of the non-existence of the Greek and Roman
Gods. He does not want them or care for them.
(Note 4, p. 49.) And so the positivist does not want or
care for the God of any description of Theists. But he
is not like the old Christians, iconoclastic.. He recog
u nises all religions, past and present, with sedulous
catholicity, and considers them all as transitional
forms heralding in his own, or rather his Master’s
The God of the Theist may or
U universal conception.
may not be demonstrable, but at any rate has not
The Supreme Being of the
3,t ' been demonstrated.
& . positivists, which is as far as possible from being a
rg God, is not only demonstrable, but demonstrated ; is
not only possible, but actual ■ is not a mere subjective
conception, but a real objective existence, and would
O so remain and be equally well fitted to command the
•a reverence and govern the actions of men, even if there
were a theistic God behind it. Such is the positivist
view.
This Supreme Being is called Humanity, by which
■s is not meant the bare abstraction of human nature, or
It is an
ifi organic as opposed to inorganic nature.
3| actual objective being, neither personal nor impersonal,
but rather com-personal; of a duration, relatively to a
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�13
of actual co-operation in maintaining the common
existence. ^1 am using Comte’s own words as far as
possible.) Although every man is by birth a child of
Humanity, every man is not fit to be one of her
servants (for Comte speaks of Humanity in the femi
nine, not merely from the accidental gender of the
French noun, but for other reasons which I shall not
have time to adduce). Many remain in a parasitic
condition, tolerable only during education. Anarchi
cal times, Comte adds, have made such sad burdens
on Humanity to abound, and too often to flourish.
And he quotes of them Dante’s lines referring to—
Those that have lived without or praise or blame—,
Speak not of them, but look and go thy way.
(Che visser senza infamia e senza lode—
Non ragionam di lor, ma guarda e passa.)
But while these vegetables must be rejected from
Humanity, Comte would include among her parts
those worthy animals which contribute voluntarily to
her existence. £c Many horses, dogs and cattle are
worthier than some men,” says he. (Note 5, p. 50.)
Now in regarding this compound being, we naturally
look first rather to the inter-connection of existing
men, than to the past and future. But the present
forms in fact a very small part of this being. Con
tinuity is very much more important; society at any
time depends very much more on the knowledge,
feelings and arrangements which have been handed
i
I
�i5
“ God doth not need
Either man’s work, or his own gifts.”
But Humanity is powerless without the action of living
men. Hence it becomes the business of each living cell of
the great organism of Humanity to act consciously as its
servant and coadjutor, using the liberal gifts which it has
received from the past and passing them on increased,
less and less as the receipts are more and more, but
never diminished, to the future. By this means each in
dividual has it within his power to become incorporated
in the great compersonal Being whom he worthily serves.
This conception, which I have imperfectly sketched,
has to become familiar before it becomes efficacious.
We must continually feel that we are an existing part
of Humanity, actuated by our dead predecessors and
working for our unborn followers. We must feel that
those whotrust totheirown action without the assistance
of the.dead are at best self-deceived, for every thought,
every action, every premiss is in the first place in
herited. If a great flood were to pass over the world,
as was once imagined, and destroy all man’s work,
but to leave man, and the mental inheritance of the
race were thus to remain, the result of the teachings
so preserved, would be that the work of restoration
would proceed infinitely more rapidly than the original
work of constitution. Again, the man who imagines
that he works for himself alone, because he looks to
his own gratification only as an end, is as much self-
�.
r-.
,4
17
of vessels at sea, and so forth. Granted, they assert,
that at some future time it may be possible to render
probable or certain that there is an intelligent power
beyond Humanity, yet even then our first duties, our
only really sensible and executable duties, will be
towards this especial tellurian providence, Humanity.
This, as I gather, is the real position of Comte’s fol
lowers towards modern theists. But of course there is a
difference between the reign of law and the reign of
special arbitrary supramundane providence, between
the acknowledgment of Humanity as the highest con
ceivable being, and the acceptance of a mystic un
defined personality, quite independent of Humanity,
in direct communion with each individual man. The
positivists say in the old words “ the non-apparent
must be regarded as non-existent ” (de non apparentibus et de non existentibus eadem est lex). The
theists rejoin that to them this higher being is ap
parent and hence existent, and that this even inter
feres with the possible acceptance of Humanity as
a secondary providence. This conclusion is, however,
shown by acts performed to be rather theoretical
than practical. As long as people revert to the
records of the wisdom of their ancestors (and all
bodies of laws and codes of religion belong to this
category, as well as all records of science), instead of
relying upon individual inspiration, whether as the
result of prayer or merely spontaneous, and as long
2
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�a are continually obscured by the variety of the con
is crete, can be satisfactorily traced or indeed traced at
El all. He established, then, as the foundation of his
research, a progressive scale of the sciences, or
ni hierarchy, as he terms it, beginning with the most
ril simple and hence most generally applicable, and ending
hi with the most complex and hence most limited in its
■J area. Comte was professionally a mathematician, as
II have already mentioned, and he begins his scale of
ill the sciences with mathematics or the science of numijj ber and space, as the very simplest and most universal
ai
x
is
u
9<
d
CU
d
of conceptions. How he finds in their treatment the
bases of all methods of reasoning, inductive as well
as deductive, I must refer you to his books to learn,
and especially to his treatise on algebraical geometry
(“ Traite elementaire de Geometrie analytique a deux
et a trois dimensions, contenant toutes les theories
generates de Geometrie accessibles a l’analyse ordin
aire,” 1843), which is indeed quite unfitted for an
examination cram book, but is full of contrivances for
leading to the discovery of general principles of
reasoning. To these he joined abstract mechanics,
or the science of motion and rest. In these three
branches, number, space, and motion, which have
been entirely neglected in most philosophies, he finds
the foundation of his own. He finds first the absolute
unconditionality and invariability of primary relations,
that uniformity of nature on which all our knowledge
�the real basis of induction, which is not sufficiently
brought out in its comparatively embryonic condition
in pure mathematics. How carefully he considered
the astronomy of observatories in this light must be
studied in his popular astronomy (“ Traite philosophique d’Astronomie populaire ou Exposition systematique de toutes les notions de philosophie astronomique, soit scientifiques, soit logiques, qui doivent
devenir universellement familieres,” 1844), containing
the systematic exposition of many courses of lectures
delivered by him, for which he had a great predilec
tion. As a step in religion, in all schemes of religion,
astronomic observation, aided by mathematics, has
played a very great part. The modern names of
Copernicus, Kepler and Galileo are sufficient to shew
this. But for philosophy the great merit of observa
tional astronomy was the discovery of uniformity in
the midst of variety; the reduction, for example, of
the strangely meandering, advancing and retrograding,
apparent paths of the planets among the fixed stars,
which earned them the Greek name of planets, that
is, wanderers, into the single system of revolution
about a central sun, one of the greatest intellectual
' efforts of Humanity, by which all its subsequent pro
gress has been in great measure conditioned. Comte,
however, also proceeds to mechanical astronomy, in
which for the first time a universal law, gravitation,
applying to every particle of matter tellurian or extra
�works. They investigate what are often called the
general properties of matter, because they belong to
all classes or numerous classes of matter, and not
only to particular bodies. Comte died before the
great theory of the conservation of energy had been
worked out, shewing, in fact, that all these general
laws were transmutable, and hence could only be
considered as parts of one great whole.
The next science, chemistry, deals (not with general
properties of all bodies, but) with particular properties
of individual bodies, and was, in Comte’s time, and
hence in his philosophy, divided into two great
branches, inorganic and organic, which recent re
search has tended to fuse, although the distinction is in
so far real, that inorganic chemistry treats of the
properties of many substances which are not known
to form part of living beings, and organic chemistry
of some of those only which are known to do so, and
principally of carbon and its compounds. The whole
conception of the science of chemistry has been so
entirely remodelled of very late years indeed, that it
is needless to give Comte’s conclusions, more especially
as he was not a chemist, but only a philosophical
student. The great point of chemistry, however, was,
that itself embracing all the other sciences named, it
bridged the gulf between inanimate and animate
nature, and by its numerous facts, and few general
laws (as that of definite proportions, now much more
�25
■drew his celebrated distinction between the statical
nature of society forming its order, and its dynamical
nature forming its progress. The latter he developes by
means of the historical method of logic, which, if he
■ did not invent, he at least carried out for the first time
on the widest scale. The following are the three laws
which he here endeavours to establish, by an historical
•survey of the world and especially of what he terms
the Western Republic, or the five principal European
powers, France, Italy, Spain, Germany and England,
with their Colonies, which he considers to have had
common interests and responsibilities since the days
of Charlemagne, (Note io, p. 52.)
“Each intellect passes through three states, fictitious,
abstract and positive (or theological, metaphysical and
positive, as he elsewhere calls them) as respects all
conceptions whatever, with a velocity depending on
.-the generality of the corresponding phenomena.
“ There is a similar progression for action, which is at
.first conquering, then defensive, and finally industrial.
“ Society follows a similar course, and is at first
•domestic, then civic, and finally universal.” (Note 11,
P- 52).
It need not be said that these laws have been widely
disputed and constantly limited, and that perhaps the
greatest follower in the path traced out by Comte, but
by no means a follower of his theories, Mr, Herbert
.Spencer, views the matter in a materially different
�■
I
27
,
recur at the proper seasons, the calendar was altered
by Julius Caesar, b.c. 45, and subsequently by Augustus,
a.d. 1. This alteration not proving ecclesiastically
sufficient for Christians, the calendar was again altered
by Pope Gregory XIII., in a.d. 1582, and this alter
:i ,
.
I
ation was adopted in England in 1752.
The French revolutionary calendar designedly
broke with every ecclesiastical association, beginning
the year with midnight of the day preceding the true
autumnal equinox, arranging the months in thirty days,
adding five or six supplementary days every year and
doing away with the week altogether. The Romans
reckoned from the building of Rome, a mythical era
the Christians from the supposed birth of Christ, an
equally mythical date ; the French revolutionists from,
in our reckoning, 22 September 1792, the day on
which Louis XVI. was deposed and the Republic
proclaimed, which was certainly a real era.
Comte in altering the calendar determined to make
it a record of the history of Humanity up to his time,
intending that it should be further changed after his
• form of religion had been established.
This he
;
sanguinely estimated would happen within fifty years,
j r He reckoned years from 1 January 1789, on the 14
i
July of which year the Bastille was destroyed (recently
proclaimed as the national fete day of France). The
present year 1880 is therefore 92 of Comte s era. But
this is a temporary era. The final and conclusive era is
�29
and the dogma thoroughly accepted and acted up
to. It was certainly a magnificent conception in the
true spirit of priesthood, and it has been wonderfully
well carried out in the spirit of a French philosopher
anxious to do justice to all whom he calls the types
and servants of Humanity, but at the same time as a
positivist inexorably blind to the merits of those whose
work he considered as purely negative, such as the
promoters of protestantism. I will rapidly explain the
basis of this great elaboration, recommending every
one who has an interest in the history of his race to
study the translation in Dr. Congreve’s Catechism.
' The first five months are dedicated to pre-Christian
times, the next two to the middle ages, and the last
six to the modern preparation. I give the names of
the persons from whom the months were named, with
Comte’s own reference to their representative charac
ter, forming the thirteen principal types of Humanity,
and after each name, I give those of the four worthies
to whom the seventh days in each week were respec
tively dedicated, forming the 52 secondary types.
The week days, containing nearly 500 names, I pass
over, from the mere pressure of time. You will
recognise many of the names recently inscribed on
the walls of this chapel.
Antiquity.
Five Months.
1. Moses (d. 1461 ?), or initial theocracy, with
�7. Charlemagne (d. 814), or feudal civilisation,
with Alfred the Great (d. 900), Godfrey of
Bouillon (d. 1100), Pope Innocent III. (d.
1216), and St. Louis (or Louis IX. of France,
d. 1270).
The Modern Preparation.
Six Months.
8. Dante (d. 1321), or modern epics, with
Ariosto (d. 1533), Raphael (Sanzio, d. 1520),
Tasso (Torquato, d. 1595), and Milton (d.
1674).
9. Gutenberg (d. about 1468), or modern
industry, with Columbus (d. 1506), Vaucanson
(d. 1782), Watt (James, d. 1781), and Mont
golfier (d. 1810). I may mention that the day
of Comte’s death, now observed by Positivists
in Paris with great solemnity, including a
meeting in Comte’s apartments and a pilgrim
age to Pere la Chaise, where he is buried, was
the Positivist Wednesday 24, Gutenberg 69,
on the day Comte had dedicated to Duhamel
du Monceau, a French botanist, agriculturist,
and physicist (who died in 1782), and in theweek
he had placed under the protection of Mont
golfier, the French papermaker, who made the
first balloon ascent in 1783, and died in 18io.
The other days in this week are dedicated—
�.■
r.i. -.-
•» »-* .
33
13. Bichat (d. 1802), or modern science, with
Galileo (d. 1642), Newton (d. 1727), Lavoisier
(d. 1794), and Gall (d. 1828).
Such was Comte’s “Humanity of the Western
Republic,” the captains of the mighty roll of the
dead, by whose help the living live. But the rank
and file of this great and increasing army are not only
partly celebrated by their sub-officers on the week
days, but the supplementary day is given up as the
universal festival of the dead, and the additional leapyear day (at first intended as a day of solemn repro
bation of the two principal retrogressionists, in Comte’s
1 opinion, the Emperor Julian, called the apostate, and
the French Emperor Napoleon I., with whom was at
one time associated Phillip II. of Spain, see Note
14, p. 53.) was finally dedicated (in the concrete as
in the abstract cult) to the festival of the Holy Women,
the two thus fitly leading on to the principal positivist
celebration, the Festival of Humanity on New Year’s
Day. (Note 15, p. 53.)
There can be no question, but that if such a cult as
is implied by this calendar, could be actually carried
out in practice, positivism would soon become a great
religion. And in view of the yearly increase in the
number of the great dead, who would be entitled to
celebration, Comte proposed hereafter to replace this
“ concrete cult ” as he termed it, by an “ abstract cult”
calling to mind all the principal social relations, both
�35
is used by French writers, and especially by
Comte, as synonymous with the so-called
labouring or working classes, or receivers of
wages.)
13. Industry, or practical power.
These four last relations are the basis of Comte’s
scheme of the society of the future. Taking as his
ground work that there are three classes of mental
action, emotional, contemplative and practical, he
divided the human family into three parts, women,
priests, and practicians, the last part being again di
vided into the proletary or governed and the patriciate
or governors. He laid down the rule that no priest
.should govern, and he has to my mind, illustrated the
wisdom of that maxim, by his own attempts as a
priest to govern the whole future of society. (See
Note 20, p. 5 7.) The women were not to engage in any
pursuit that was paid, they were to be home angels,
and to be supported by the males of their family, and
in default of the same by the state. Nothing could
■exceed Comte’s devotion to women in this respect,
nothing could have more exasperated him than the
present attempt to give women an independant social
position, and to make them competitors with men in
practical, and even contemplative life, instead of sub
siding into being man’s “guardian angels.” This was
his own term for them, and he gave it a very peculiar
significance. The cult of Humanity was to be public
�37
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her husband nursed him in his last illness. She now
sleeps with him and Madame de Vaux, in Pbre la
Chaise. In the dedication and final invocation to his
positive polity, Comte has left a record of the nature
of his prayers to Mdme. de Vaux, and M. Lonchampt
in an essay on prayer, has given specimens of prayer
for each day of the week. (Note 18, p. 56.) But it
would be too long to quote from them, as there is still
much to say.
Women were thus sentimentally at the head of the
world, the substratum consisted of the practical
workers and governors of the future republics, into
which the great western republic was to be hereafter
sub-divided. But these republics were to be absolutely
despotic oligarchies, or rather triumvirates, each go
verning body being appointed by its predecessor, and
none, under any circumstances, by the ignorant masses
who had to be governed.
Anything approaching to
-constitutionalism or parliamentary government was
rejected as simply nonsensical, as almost a contradiction in terms. The governors at any time must be men
-of experience, chosen by their predecessors, the
triumvirate being bankers especially, though how they
could both bank and govern, even when France was
divided into seventeen states, might be difficult to determine. (Note 1:9,p.57.) But between these emotional
and practical classes, was inserted the contemplative
class of priests. These had to think for the whole
�39
tination; 5. Marriage; 6. Maturity; 7. Retirement;
8. Transformation; and 9. Incorporation. They deal
with each individual man and woman, and every period
of life and death, and even after death, and all in
reference to the great doctrine of Humanity. 1. Pre
sentation, replaces baptism, and has its two sponsors,
and is accompanied by giving the child two names,
one theoretical and the other practical, which he com
pletes, after emancipation from wardship, by adding a
third of his own selection. 2. Initiation, replacing
confirmation, takes place at fourteen, when the child
passes from the education of the mother to that of the
priest, who directs all schools.
It is during this
period that he undergoes his special apprenticeship. At
twenty-one he is, 3. “admitted ” as a servant of Human
ity, decides on his profession, and receives the
sacrament of, 4. Destination, analogous to the present
ordination of priests. This sacrament is made renew
able, allowing of a change of profession. Then fol
lows 5. Marriage, at twenty-eight years of age and not
before, for a man. In the case of women, 3. Admission
and 4. Destination coincide, because the destination
of a woman is to marry, and her marriage takes place at
twenty-one. This .marriage is indissoluble even by
death, unless one of the contracting parties has com
mitted a crime involving deprivation of civil rights, as
was the case with the husband of Mdme. de Vaux.
Either surviving contracting party is in any other case
�unworthiness, “ the fatal burden is transported to the
desert of the reprobates, to lie with the executed, the
suicide and the duellist.”
The women, who seem to
be excluded from incorporation, are to be individually
included in that of the man with whom they are con
nected.
“ Around and sometimes,” says Comte,
“within each sacred tomb, the priest will have to unite
in the name of the Supreme Being, all the personali
ties which worthily contributed to the services which
Humanity rewards.”
I am obliged to pass over much which is beautiful
to believers in any creed, in the conceptions of the
moral action of man towards his fellows as a servant
of Humanity. But I must find time even now for
some of Comte’s great mottos, in which he endeavours
to condense his whole system of thought and life—a
system which certainly does not need all the wonder
ful amount of regulation that Comte, as high priest of
Humanity, thought out and formulated in his latter days,
of which what I have told you is but a meagre and
most incomplete outline. I must give them first in
French, for they cannot be properly Englished. The
first is intellectual and defines the object of knowledge :
Savoir ‘ ouf pr'euoir afin de pourvoir, “ know to fore
p
know, to be forearmed.” That is, make your know
ledge a means of foreseeing what will happen in order
that you may be prepared against contingencies, so
that /revision may lead to /revision.
Any know-
�must remain, and the world will be different from'
what it was by the mere fact of their enunciation.
Comte was a very great thinker, and he has set his
mark on mankind. His followers in England are all
men of intellect, mostly men who have earned a right to
think for themselves by thought in other fields. They
are, however, very few in number. I doubt whether
the positivists of all nations assembled together would
more than fill the room in which we are gathered.
The doctrine is so immense, so varied, so incapable
of being condensed into a few sentences which speak
home to a man at once (for even its mottos require
Considerable explanation), and so opposed to all
religious thought now existing, that its acceptance
must be very slow. And its acceptance must also be
very diverse.
The books written by Comte alone
far exceed the bible in extent, even the bible with a
long commentary. They are extremely difficult books,
to read and grasp. Probably ho two positivists really
agree in detail, any more than any two Christians. As
amatter of fact the small number of English positivists
is already divided into two camps, one of which is
affiliated to the French headship, and the other not.
Comte himself was of opinion that the conception of
Humanity must be put in the foreground and every
thing subordinated to that. But a complete grasp of
that conception is by no means easy. Nor is it
possible to make it popular, so far as I can see. In
�45
purposely said nothing (Note 24, p. 62). Comte boasts
that his system should be always discussible. His
regulations would make such discussions illusory.
His Philosophy seemed to open up the universe to
science. ITis Polity would confine the limits of in
quiry to only part of the facts known even when he
was alive. None of his followers, perhaps, since his
“ transformation,” to use their technical term, recog
nise in any follower, even the excellent M. Laffitte,
whom Comte himself designated, any power so to
limit the acquisition of knowledge. We all know
hour much Humanity suffered from the long mastery
of Aristotle, the greatest thinker that perhaps the
world has known. Let us avoid such a mistake for
the future, and treating Comte’s works and thoughts
as we should treat those of other men for whom we
feel a profound respect, while retaining the liberty of
differing from them in opinion, let us accept what is
accurate, what is orderly, and what is progressive in
Comte’s religion of Humanity (Note 25, p. 65).
Dismissal.
Let us take with us an echo of the hymn just
sung [see next page], the old knightly motto,
“ Do thy duty, tide what may I ”
�47
APPENDIX OF NOTES.
Note i, p.
Influence of Mme de Vaux.—Ks, the works of
Comte are not in every one’s hands, or even in many English
libraries, I think it will be agreeable to the readers of my discourse,
which has been printed at the request of the Committee of South
Place Chapel, if I cite the words of the original on some points of
importance. In this “ Invocation,” addressing Mme. Clotilde
de Vaux, on the24thJuly, 1854, as “Noble et tendre patronne,”
he says: “Mon ouvrage fondamental avait irrevocablement
devoile l’existence composee et continue qui domine de plus en
plus l’ensemble des affaires terrestres. Il avait meme proclame
graduellement la preponderance du coeur sur l’esprit, comme
unique source, spontanee ou systematique, de 1 harmonie humaine.
La nature et la destinee du Grand-Etre se trouvant ainsi revelees,
il suffisait, pour instituer la religion universelle, qu’une sainte
tendresse me rendit assez familier le principe fondamental ou
venait d’aboutir ma premiere vie. Voila comment le dogme de
l’Humanite surgit, a l’anniversaire initial de notre catastrophe,
dans le cours decisif d’ou derive tout ce traite,”—Politique
positive, iv. 546. See the end of note 24.
Note 2, p. 9.—Chapter Headings of Comte's Positive Morality.
These are printed at length in Dr. Robinet’s life of Comte, pp.
295-6, and are briefly as follows : Vol. I, Theoretical Morals or
Knowledge of Human Nature. Introduction on Primary and
Secondary Philosophy and Theoretical Morals. Chapters on the
Theories of: 1, the brain ; 2, the Great Being; 3, Unity; 4, Life ;
5, the Sentiments ; 6, the Intellect; 7, Activity ; Conclusion on
Synthesis, Sympathy and Religion. Vol. 2 : Practical Morals or
�faire directement remonter notre gratitude. Car, une telle discontinuite morale, outre son injustice evidente, deviendrait
aussitot contraire a la principale destination de notre culte, en
nous detournant de l’adoration immediate, seule pleinement
conforme a notre nature affective. Le regime provisoire qui
Unit de nos jours n’a que trop manifeste ce grave danger, puisque
la plupart des remerciments adresses a l’etre fictif y constituaient
autant d’actes d’ ingratitude envers l’Humanite,seul auteur reel des
bienfaits correspondants. En un mot, notre reconnaissance doit
considerer les produits, sans remonter aux materiaux, qui n’offrent
presque jamais un merite suffisant. Meme dans l’ordre reel,
il importe encore davantage aux coeur qu’a l’esprit de ne franchir
aucun intermediaire essentiel. A plus forte raison, nos affections
doivent-elles etre encore mieux preservees que nos pensees de
toute destination chimerique, quand leur veritable cours est devenu
possible. Si l’adoration des puissances Actives fut moralemen1
indispensable tant que le vrai Grand-Etrene pouvaitassez surgii,
elle ne tendrait desormais qu’a nous detoumer du seul cube qui
puisse nous ameliorer. Ceux done qui s’efforcent de la prolonger
aujourd’hui la toument, a leur insu, contre sa juste destination,
consistant a diriger l’essor provisoire de nos meilleurs sentiments,
sous la regence de Dieu, pendant la longue minorite de
l’Humanite.” Politique Positive'A, 57-8.
Note 4, p. 11. — The Religion of Humanity has no need to
disprove Theism.— “Les hypotheses indiscutables ne comportent
pas plus de negation que d'affirmation. On les admet et les ecarte,
suivant les besoins qu’elles permettent ou cessent de satisfaire,
sans les affirmer ni les nier. Voila tout ce que le positivisme peut
maintenant accorder a la croyance des purs deistes. Mais cette
apparente concession se trouve essentiellement anullee par son ex
tension necessaire, et mieux meritee, aux thelogismes vraiment organiques, quelqu’ils soient, monotheiques, chretiens, musulmans,
ou juifs, et polytheiques, greco-romains, indous, &c. Partout
�avec un degre d’importance proportionne a la dignite del’espece
et a l’efficacite de l’individu, Pour apprecier cet indispensable
complement, nous n’avons qu’a supposer qu’il nous manque.
On n’hesite point alors a regarder tels chevaux, chiens, boeufs,
•&c., commeplus estimables que certains hommes.” Catechisme
Positiviste, pp. 30-1.
Note 6, p. 14.—Rule of the Dead.—“ Ainsi, la vrai sociabilite
consiste davantage dans la continuity successive que dans la
solidarity actuelle. Les vivants sont toujours, et de plus en plus,
gouvernes necessairement par les morts : telle est la loi fondamentale de l’ordre humain.” Catechisme Positiviste, p. 32.
Note 7, p. 14. — Unconscious Subjective Existence.—This dis
tinction of the “ conscious ’ ’ and “ unconscious ” subj ective existences
is, so far as I can remember, not indicated by Comte, who confines
his definition to the “ conscious” part. I considered it, however,
important to note that every man is actually immortal in his
effects on the world, by the mere fact of his having once lived
•Objectively, and hence by communication or heredity having
swayed the future. Otherwise I follow the Catechisme Positiviste,
pp. 32-3, very closely.
Note 8, p. 14.-—God's independence of Man.—See Imitation,iv., 12, 3, “ Tu mei indiges, non ego tui indigeo,” which Comte
'quotes as the second line of Corneille’s paraphrase, in the
following stanza, referring to importunate prayer,
“Cette importunite n’est jamais incivile ;
Je te suis necessaire et tum’es inutile ;
Tu ne viens pas a moi pour me sanctifier,
Mais je m’abaisse a toi pour te justifier.”
Comte, of course, does not quote the line from Milton on his
own blindness, sonnet xix.
Note 9, p. 24.—Comte's indebtedness to de Plainville.—'11 Je
dois ici specifier directement que j’ai principalement choisi le
�mode plus complexe de l’esprit scientifique. Mais, sans attacher
a. cette observation personnelle une importance exageree, il
demeure incontestable que le sentiment du progres des sciences
a pu seul inspirer a Pascal [b. 1623, d. 1662] cet admirable
aphorisme, a jamais fondamental; ‘Toute la succession des
homines, pendant la longue suite des siecles, doit etre consideree
■comme un seul homme, qui subsiste toujours et qui apprend
continuellement. ’ ” Philosophic Positive, iv. 234.
Note 13.P.28.— TheCalendarvs described in the special work,
-quoted in note 10, 4th ed., 1852, and in the Pol. Pos., iv.
398-404, ed. 1854.
Positivist years are found by subtracting
1788 from the Christian date.
Note 14. p. 33.—-The Reprobates.—By a curious error when
this discourse was delivered, I substituted the name of Voltaire
for Napoleon. Comte has given up a day to Voltaire, (II
Shakspere) but only as a tragic poet. Thus he says {Cal. Pos.
4th ed. p. 17). “ Dans 1’elaboration d’un systeme destine surtout a faire irrevocablement prevaloir l’esprit organique sur
l’esprit critique, j’ai rigoureusement exclu tous ceux qui n’ont
reellement que detruit, sans rien construire. On n’y trouvera
done ni Luther, ni Calvin, ni Rousseau ; Voltaire n’y figure
qu’au titre de poete traigique. Malgre leur utilite passagere
■ces services negatifs exigent trop peu de valeur intellectuelle,
ct supposent trop de vicieuses dispositions morales pour admettre
une telle consecration personnelle.”
Philip II. disappeared
from the Reprobates in the third ed. of the Calendar, and in
Politique Positive iv. 404, the festival of Reprobation was al
together abolished with the words: “Apres une modification
decisive, suggeree par une reclamation feminine, (Miss Harriett
Martineau, I believe.) “ les dignes remonstrances d’un positiviste
britannique m’ont suscite des reflexions qui me determinent a
supprimer entierement l’institution projetee.
Note 15, p. 33.—Letter of Comte on the Lives of the Worthies
�55
daily supplied by M. Pierre Laffitte’s “Les Grands types de
1’Humanite, appreciation systematique des principaux agents
de revolution humaine,” 2 vol. 8vo., price io francs, and
in die Revue Occidentale, for 1st of May and 1st of September,
1880, M. Paul Foucart has given an appreciation of Sophie
Germain, who is made an adjunct of Hegel for 27 Descartes.
But both of these are too long for manuals. What is much
wanted for positivism is a little book of 150 pages, closely
printed, 20 being devoted to an introduction, and 10 to each
month, namely 2 to each monthly and 1 to each weekly type,
with 1 to the daily types of each whole week. Such a work
would have an interest far beyond positivism, and would tend to
give a concrete meaning to the term Religion of Humanity,
which is much wanted. It is only the other day that Dr. Fraser,
the bishop of Manchester, (roused to a knowledge of the exis
tence of Positivism, most probably by the fact that Positivist
services have recently been held at 175, Islington, Liverpool,) in
a sermon on Atheism, spoke of “ a certain new theory called the
Positivist School of Philosophy.” Such a method of speaking
Should not be possible. Besides such a manual, I had expressed
a wish for a more popular and less systematic treatise than the
Catechism. To this Comte replied in the letter just quoted :
“ Je pense comme vous sur l’utilite d’un manuel positiviste
plus populaire et moins systematique que notre catechisme,
mais il ne pent emaner que d’une femme.
Nous 1 aurions
cleja si je n’etais pas, depuis dix ans, objectivement piive de
l'angelique collegue qui regenera mon ceeur, et par suite com-
pleta Pessor.de mon esprit.”
Note 16. p. 36.—ComtdsDefinition of Prayer.— “ Prier, c’est
tout ensemble aimer et penser, si la priere reste purement mentale ; tantot aimer en pensant, et tantot penser en aimant,
suivant la disposition dominante. Mais si la priere devient
aussi orale, selon sa vraie nature, alors prier constitue a la fois
�3 Mercury, 4 Jupiter, 5 Venus, 6 Saturn, and 7 the Sun.
But after the advent of the abstract cult, apparently, he wished
to change the dedication, without changing their names, to 1
Homer, 2 Aristotle, 3 Caesar, 4 St. Paul, 5 Charlemagne,
6 Dante, and 7 Descartes, as being the principal organs which
effected the transition from theocracy to sociocracy. {Politique
Pos. iv. 135-6.)
Note 19, p. 37—Mill on Comte's Governors.— “ In each
state thus constituted, the powers of government are to be
vested in a triumvirate of the three principal bankers, who are
to take the foreign, home, and financial departments respectively.
How they are to conduct the government and remain bankers,
does not clearly appear; but it must be intended that they should
combine both offices, for they are to receive no pecuniary remu
neration for the political one.”—J. N. Mill, “ Auguste Comte
and Positivism,” 1865, p. 168.
Note 20, p. 38.—Attitude of Modern Positivists towards
Comte's Regulations for Social and Religious Organisation, and
Comte's letter on the Introduction of Shelley's name in the
Calendar.—A well known Positivist, who was present when
this discourse was delivered, thought I had much overstated the
peremptory nature of Comte's suggestions for social organisation.
He felt sure that Comte did not remotely claim to govern, and
I quite agree that Comte did not in so many words lay claim to
governing, or rather that as a priest he disclaimed so doing.
But it seems to me from my long acquaintance with Comte’s
' writings, that he considered it part of his office as High Priest,
to lay down the principles of practical government, and prescribe
the form that it should take, while in religious and educational
matters especially, he meant what he said, and that with life and
opportunity he would have had his injunctions strictly carried
■out. I think, moreover, that this view is borne out by certain
incidents in Comte’s relations to other thinkers, which I need
�the second canto of the Revolt of Islam, containing a kincl
of anticipation of subjective immortality in the words of Cythna
to Laon :
“ We part to meet again—but yon blue waste,
Yon desert wide and deep, holds no recess
Within whose happy silence, thus embraced
We might survive all ills in one caress :
Nor doth the grave—I fear ’tis passionless—
Nor yon cold vacant Heaven : we meet again
Within the minds of men, whose lips shall bless
Our memory, and whose hopes its light retain
When these dissevered bones are trodden in plain.”
On this Comte observed “Il faut maintenant vous temoigner
ma reconnaissance speciale pour votre communication des
deux extraits du malheureux Shelley, dont j’ai deja porte le
meme jugement que vous, quoique ses poesies me fussent
entierement inconnues jusqu’ici.
Cette precieuse lecture
m’a fait spontanement projeter d’accorder a cet infortunc
genie une commemoration secondaire quancl je reimprimerai le
Qalendrier positiviste. Quoique Byron y soit deja pourvu
d’un digne adjoint, il peut encore admettre celui-la, d apres
une exception motivee, dont la meme semaine [the week of
Milton in the month of Dante] fournit un premier exemple en
faveur de Bunyan, en adoptant une reclamation britannique.
Le couple exceptionnel serait spontanement harmonique, vu
l’analogie de malheur et de precocite, comme de genie, qui
rapproche Shelley de notre eminente Elisa Mercoeur, morte a
26 ans en 1835 [Shelley was drowned at 30 in 1822.] Ses
poesies ne me sont pareillement connues que d’apres les
extraits que j’en ai lus publiquement graves sur sa tombe,
toujours entouree encore cl’admirateurs des deux sexes. Je
n’ai pas eu besom, pour oser l’inscrire a notre calendrier, de
�each side is terraced with a gallery below the terrace 4 m. wide
and 6 m. high. The remaining 40 metres of length are cut off
forming an oblong at the end 160 m. long and 40 wide. In
thb are two squares of 40 m. at each end for the vicarage and
its garden, at the left side and the library and its garden at theyight side. Then two oblongs 40
hy 20 m. contain, next the
vicarage, the Philosophical Presbytery, and next the library the
Positivist School. The middle 40 m. contains the semicircular
apse of the temple and two courts. From the diameter
of the apse of the temple projects its great nave 80 m.
long and 40 m. wide, with a total height of 50 m. Theapse is divided from the nave by two walls which project
12 m. on each side. At the extreme end of the apse stands
the Statue of Humanity. This presumably would resemble theSymbol of Humanity on the Religious Standard—personified
by a woman of thirty, holding her child in her arms (“personnifiee par une femme de trente ans, tenant son fils entre sesbras,” Politique Positive ; i. 387), and hence greatly resembling
the usual figures of the Virgin Mary, but probably with a very
different expression in her face. In front of this, but within the
apse, there would be space for 1,000 women, in the midst of whom
the priest would officiate. On each side the nave a space of 5 m.
wide would be separated off, and divided into 7 chapels on either
side, in groups of 4 nearest the entrance, and 3 nearest the apse,
separated by an empty space of 5 m. These chapels are numbered from the entrance to the apse, Nos. 1 to 7 on the right
on entering, and 8 to 14 on the left. Each of the first thirteen
are dedicated to the patron of the corresponding month, and will
each contain his statue, with busts of his weekly adjuncts,
see above pp. 29-33. The 14th would be dedicated to the thirteen
female saints (names not given), or to Heloise (of Abelard memory)
to whom with Dante’s Beatrice is dedicated 19 St. Paul. The
central part Of the nave is to accommodate 5,000 men. An
�63
s’applique ensuite au Monde, et doit se completer en embrassant
le destin,” {Syn. Sub.?. 18.) The earth is therefore erected
into a Great Fetish, having energy and will, but not intelligence,
which is reserved for Humanity, and Fate is symbolised by space,
called the Great Medium, having sympathy only. “Une
inalterable trinite dirige nos conceptions et nos adorations,
.toujours relatives, d’abord au Grand-Etre, puis au Grand-Fetiche,
enfin au Grand-Milieu. Fondee sur la theorie de la nature
humaine, et sur la loi du classement universel, cette hierarchie
offre un decroissement continu du caractere propre a la synthese
subjective. On y venere au premier rang l’entiere plenitude du
type humain, ou l'intelligence assiste le sentiment pour dirigei
l’activite. Nos hommages y glorifient ensuite le siege actif et
bienveillant dont le concours, volontaiie quoique aveugle, eSL
toujours indispensable a la supreme existence. Il ne se borne
pas a la Terre, avee sa double enveloppe fluide, et comprend aussi
les astres vraiment lies a la planete humaine comme annexes
■objectives ou subjectives ; surtout leSoleil et la Lune que nous
devons specialement honorer (note 18, p. 5d)second culte
succede celui du theatre [that is, abstract space,] passif autant
qu’aveugle, mais toujours bienveillant oil nous rapportons tous
les attributs mate riels, dont sa souplesse sympathique facilite
l’appreciation abstraite a nos cceurs comme a nos esprits.
{Synthase Sub. p. 24.) All this was to have been developed in
the two next volumes. The only existing first volume of the
Synthase, giving a criticism of mathematics without a single
mathematical diagram or symbol, and full of historical references
without the mention of a single name of author or book, so that
it is extremely difficult to follow even for professed mathemati
cians, and written in a very peculiar style, the trick of which,when
explained {Synthese pp. 755'9), I find very disturbing to my own
study, as it was evidently straining to the author himself, is
probably seldom referred to by any Positivist, and its contents
�65
Note 25, p. 45.—Suggestions for the Popularisation of the
Religion of Humanity—Comte’s works already want re-editing
and condensing. A reconstruction of his Philosophy in a much
smaller compass even than Miss Martineau’s abridged trans
lation, and adapted to the advances that human knowledge
has since made, and hence not a mere abstract, is very desirable.*
And a complete re-writing of his Polity, with the excision of
. those parts which are now practically ignored (see notes 20 and
24), that is, of much of the preliminary discourse, and most of
the fourth volume, and a reduction of the remainder to one
volume, would be very desirable. The synthesis might be
entirely neglected. Such is what appears advisable ter me for
those to undertake, who have the interests of the Religion of
Humanity at heart. Christianity would never have existed if it
had had in the first place to be drawn from the Bible and
(Testament. The sects of Protestantism show us clearly the
effects of such study by those unqualified to pass a judgment,
including, perhaps, even the greater number of Christian priests.
Not one in a hundred thousand of those who might be led to
exercise the Religion of Humanity could possibly peruse Comte s
original works, either in French or any other language. Such
a book, therefore, should be written by qualified existing Posi
tivists as could “be understanded of the people.
Systematic
language, which when not thoroughly familiar, veils thought,
and which abounds in all Comte’s later writings, should be
avoided. Much must be laid down dogmatically as conclusions
arrived at by Positivists, and especial care should be taken to
avoid attributing them to the convenient abstraction, “ Posi
tivism.” In short, something clear and hearty should be laid
*’
* In the Revue Occidentale for the day after this discourse was delivered I
MW advertised “ La Philosophie Positive, par Auguste Comte, resumee par
M. Jules Rig, 2 vol., in 8vo.,” so that the same idea seems to have occurred in
part to positivists in Paris.
��j
��
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"Auguste Comte's religion of humanity". A discourse delivered at South Place Chapel, Sunday 31 October, 1880 ... with an appendix of notes.
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 66 p. ; 15 cm.
Notes: Part of Morris Miscellaneous Tracts 2. Contains Appendix of notes "containing justificatory citations from Comte's works - and from two unpublished private letters from Comte to the Author, with other matter". Contains Order of the Service of which the Discourse formed a part. Incomplete copy. Author cited as Alexander J. Ellis on title page. Printed by Frederick G. Hickson & Co. , High Holborn, London.
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1880
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Auguste Comte
Humanity
Morris Tracts
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Text
“CHRISTIAN SCIENCE” i
By THE REV. ROBERT HUGH BENSON, M.A
It is extremely easy to make fun of “ Christian Science.”
In fact, if we consider it as it is in itself, or rather as
it appears to present itself to the casual observer, it is
extremely difficult not to do so. It appears to solve
problems by denying that they exist; to remove the
toothache by assuring the sufferer that he is under
a complete misapprehension, for he has neither a tooth
nor an ache ; it claims to be an universal religion, and
at the same time its professors charge heavy fees for
instruction in its tenets ; its founder has written a
slender but expensive volume with the title Science
and Health with Key to the Scriptures, and causes this
to be bound up to resemble the Bible. In fact, the
complete absence of any sense of humour in the pre
sentation of this religion to the world arouses a corre
sponding counterpoise of laughter in ourselves.
But this is a shallow method of meeting the question.
If Christian Science were as ludicrous as it appears_
or, rather, if it were nothing more than ludicrous—we
should have to relinquish to a large extent our faith in
human nature ; for it is beyond a doubt that this system
is making almost unprecedented strides in the modern
1 A paper read at the Catholic Conference at Brighton, 1906.
�2
“ Christian Science
world. Statistics, especially when they come from
America, where nothing is ever done except on a
gigantic scale, are apt to be misleading, but we are
bound to pay some respect to them when they inform
us that the recently built “Temple” of the Scientists in
Boston cost .£400,000 ; that the organ cost ^8,000,
and thirty thousand of the denomination attended its
opening.
Neither are converts made only among the un
educated. It is true to a large extent, if we may trust
our own observation and the tone of the testimonies
put forth by its adherents, that Christian Science is
chiefly triumphant amongst the partly educated—
amongst those who have sufficient learning to be im
pressed by oracular paradoxes, but not enough to
detect their shallowness ; but it is also true that very
highly educated persons indeed are to be found
amongst its supporters, and those, not only educated
in irrelevant subjects, but qualified exponents of the
very sciences which it claims to supplant. Doctors as
well as classical scholars and mathematicians worship
at the shrine of Mrs. Mary Baker G. Eddy. Humourists,
philosophers, and Christians seem the only persons un
represented in this body. Lastly, unless we are pre
pared to doubt the word of obviously sincere persons,
and even, in the case of some of us, the evidence of our
own senses, we are bound to admit that the practical
claims of this religion are to a large extent justified ;
and that persons who have hitherto spent much money
on physicians without amendment of health have been
cured by the methods of this curious sect.
Briefly the history of Christian Science is as follows:
It was discovered by Mrs. Eddy in 1866, as a result
of her Scriptural researches ; she began her propaganda
in 1867 ; her Science and Health was published in
�“ Christian Science ”
3
1875, and by 1903, 270,000 copies had been sold. In
1879 she organized the “ Church of God Scientist in
Boston,” and in 1881 she was ordained to the ministry
and founded the Massachusetts Metaphysical College ;
in 1883 she founded The Christian Science Journal.
Since that date the denomination has gradually spread,
and in recent years has met with extraordinary success
in England as well as in America. There has been
more than one formidable secession ; but in this paper
I propose to deal rather with the original body from
which all sprang.
Its Tenets : Religious Aspect.
We must now proceed to an examination of its tenets,
and this (as admirably stated by Miss Margaret Benson
in a tract published by the Society for the Promotion of
Christian Knowledge) falls naturally under three heads :
the religious, the philosophical, and the physical.
First, then, its religious aspect, and in particular its
claim to be considered Christian. The famous essay
on “ Snakes in Iceland ” is irresistibly suggested to the
mind. There are no snakes in Iceland ; and Christian
Science is not Christian • and we shall see presently
that it is not scientific either.
It is not Christian, I mean, in the ordinary sense of
the word. It is not more Christian, for example, than
the religion of Mahomet. Mahomet wrote in the Koran
that Mary should “bear the Word proceeding from
God,” and that “ Christ Jesus, the Son of Mary,” was
“ one of those who approach near to the presence of
God” (chap. ii.). Such was his mistaken reverence for
our Blessed Lord that he stated that “the Jews slew
him not . . . but he was represented by one in his like
ness” and that “God took him up unto himself”
(chap, iv.), Mrs. Eddy, however (who, as we should
�4
“ Christian Science ”
expect, affixes no index to her works—there is none at
least in my copy of Science and Healtti), is as explicit as
her confused mind will allow her to be, that “Jesus
is the human man, and Christ the divine ideal”
(S. and H., 473), she implies by her silence that the
Person of Our Lord was human, not divine ; she
criticises His institution of the Holy Eucharist {ibid.
p. 34), calling it His “ritualism or concessions to
matter” (p. 33). Yet her connection with Christianity
is sufficiently strong to allow of her falling into several
heresies condemned and exploded many centuries ago.
“God never created matter ” (p. 335), we are informed.
That is all a mistake ; it came into its attenuated
shadow of existence through what she calls “ mortal
mind.” “ Temporal things,” she says, “are the thoughts
of mortals and are the unreal, being the opposite of the
real or spiritual and eternal” (p. 337). The conclusion
of such.logic, as Miss Benson points out, is irresistible.
East, which is real, has West for its opposite. There
fore West is unreal. Or, even better, my left ear is the
opposite of my right; but my right ear exists, therefore
my left cannot. I only think that it does. She is a
kind of elementary Gnostic, therefore, in her views of
matter, and a kind of Docetic in her views of the Incar
nate Son of God. She further denies the Atonement,
at least in any sense in which that word has ever been
understood by Christians. “ Does erudite theology,”
she sarcastically asks, “regard the crucifixion of Jesus
as chiefly providing a ready pardon for all sinners who
ask for it and are willing to be forgiven ? . . . Then we
must differ” (p. 24). “Its efficacy,” she continues,
“ lies in the practical affection and goodness it de
monstrated for mankind.”
One wonders, therefore, with all this, why she pays
such deference to the Holy Scriptures at all. But the
�“ Christian Science ”
5
difficulty is less great when we consider that, first, she
would get no hearing from the ill-educated Protestants
who form her sect if she did not; secondly, that her
early Congregational teaching is too strong for her • and,
thirdly and supremely, her method of exegesis. This
last point repays deep study. She makes the Scriptures
mean exactly what she likes. Contemplate if you
please the following passage. It is taken from the 29th
division of the tenth chapter of the work on Science
and Health, beginning at the first verse :—
“ The word Adam is from the Hebrew ‘ Adamah,’
signifying the ‘ red colour of the ground, dust, nothing
ness? Divide the name Adam into two syllables, and
it reads ‘ a dam ’ or obstruction.” (One can only be
thankful that it means nothing worse.) “ This,” proceeds
the oracle, “ suggests the thought of something fluid, of
mortal mind in solution : it further suggests the thought
of that ‘ Darkness . . . upon the face of the deep,’
when matter or dust was deemed the agent of Deity in
creating man—when mattei' stood opposed to Spirit as
that which is accursed. Here ‘ a dam ’ is not a mere
play upon words, for it means much. It illustrates the
separation of man from God, and the obstacle the
serpent, sin, would impose between man and his Creator.
The dissection and definition of words, aside from theii'
metaphysical meaning, is not scientific” (p. 338) . . .
and so and so on.
I beg to assure my hearers that this sublime pas
sage is as I have read it. You will observe that
Moses is also set aside in it as a blind guide to mortal
minds, and that Mrs. Eddy has penetrated mysteries
where the friend of God was at fault. Perhaps the
only point in the passage to which, one is able to give
one’s cordial consent is that the word Adam, as in
terpreted by the American prophetess, does indeed
�6
“ Christian Science ”
“ suggest the thought of darkness upon the face of
the deep.”
Or consider this comment upon the ninth verse of the
first chapter of Genesis—a verse which would, super
ficially considered, appear to offer at least some little
difficulty to a lady who denies God’s creation of matter,
the goodness and even the reality of matter itself, and
at the same time pledges herself to a belief in the
inspiration of the Scriptures. But Mrs. Eddy is
undaunted.
“ And God called the dryland Earth: and the gather
ing together of the waters called He seas ; and God
saw that it was good.” Here is the comment:—
“ Here the human concept and Divine idea seem
confused by the translator, but they are not so in the
scientifically Christian meaning of the text. Upon Adam
devolves the pleasureable task of finding names for all
material things ; but Adam has not yet appeared in the
narrative. In metaphor, the dry land illustrates the
absolute formations instituted by mind, while water
symbolizes its elements. Spirit duly feeds every object,
as it appears in the line of creation, so that it may
express the fatherhood and the motherhood of God.
Spirit names and blesses all. Without natures par
ticularly defined all things would be alike, and creation
full of nameless children, wanderers from the parent
mind, strangers in a tangled wilderness ” (p. 506).
This is the whole of the comment; and it, as well as
the preceding passage, is an admirable example of Mrs.
Eddy’s style and methods. Upon myself, who have
really attempted to understand what she means, I can
only say that the effect has been one resembling that of
incipient imbecility. They are certainly English words
arranged in tolerably grammatical order ; but they pro
duce to my poor intelligence rather less than no meaning
�“Christian Science"
7
at all. I feel indeed, in her own beautiful expression,
a “ wanderer from the parent mind, a stranger in a
tangled wilderness.”
After these examples we are not surprised to learn the
following facts.
The river Hiddekel means “ Divine Science, under
stood and acknowledged.” “ In ” (i-n) is “ a term obsolete
in Science, if used in reference to Spirit or Deity.”
“ Gad ” means “ Science ; spiritual being understood :
haste toward harmony.” “ Assher ” means “ Hope and
Faith ; spiritual compensation, the ills of the flesh
rebuked.” And lastly—and this is a piece of exegesis
that seems to me significant—Gihon (a river) means
“ The rights of woman acknowledged morally, civilly,
and socially ” (pp. 581-588).
Not
to be
Taken Seriously.
It would be possible to go on for ever quoting
passages of this kind, in illustration of Mrs. Eddy’s
religious position—I think it is the most confused and
intricate that I have ever come across. I picture her
seated at her desk with the Bible before her—with what
is called the Authorized Version—and a small heap of
second-rate Nonconformist commentaries upon the text.
(“ Adamah, red colour of the ground, dust, nothingness,”
irresistibly brings back the memory of the Scripture
lesson on Monday mornings at my private school.)
Seated at her desk, then, absolutely confident that she is
inspired from on high, yet dependent for mere techni
calities of the etymological meaning of words upon the
coarse erudition of dissenting divines, she proceeds to
find her system in the Bible. Gad must mean some
thing, therefore why should it not mean science,
spiritual being, understood, haste towards harmony ?
There is no reason why it should not, therefore it docs.
�8
“ Christian Science ”
There must be something about women’s rights ; Gihon
seems tolerably unoccupied, therefore Gihon means
women’s rights. Here is Moses saying that God made
mountains and seas and saw that they were good. But
God did nothing of the sort: Moses entirely misunder
stood the situation, or at any rate his translator did.
Therefore this must be set right. And so on.
Now, I sincerely intended when I began this paper to
take Mrs. Eddy seriously, but it is simply impossible.
In religious matters she resembles a bull—or shall we
rather say a well-intentioned cow ?—in a china shop.
She means ever so well; she has grasped the outline of
the idea that Scripture can be allegorically interpreted,
and that there is such a thing as symbolism ; so she
proceeds, as it were, to drink out of the spout of a coffee
pot and put a slop-basin upon the top of her head to
protect her from the sun. These clay objects, she
argues, occasionally resemble other things than those
for which they were designed ; a china apple may serve
as a pepper-pot; then why in the world should not a
slop-basin serve as a hat ?
Hence follows the scene of confusion and the sound
of trampling and breakage, of which I have given you
only the minutest glimpse.
Mrs. Eddy’s Philosophy.
When we turn to her philosophy, we are not in much
better plight • for the most charitable construction that
we can put upon her system is that she provided herself
with the smaller edition of a philosophical dictionary,
asked her friends the meaning of some words and
guessed at the rest.
Briefly stated, her philosophical system, so far as it is
coherent at all, is as follows :—
God is mind, and God alone has true existence in the
�“ Christian Science ”
9
highest sense. Man also is mind (she is not explicit
as to whether man is, therefore, Divine or not ; but we
will be charitable and assume that she is not a sheer
Pantheist, although this is a hard task when we read
that God is “ the only Ego
But we will allow that
man has a secondary kind of personality dependent
upon God. Very well, then. Since God—or shall we
say, “ The Divine ” ?—alone is real, all that is opposed
to the Divine must be unreal. But the Divine is Spirit,
and the opposite of spirit is matter. Therefore matter
is unreal. Again, God is good, therefore the opposite
of good is not God, therefore it is not real; therefore
evil has no existence.
Here, then, is the philosophy with which Mrs. Eddy
sets out to attack the problems of sin and suffering.
“ There is no sin or suffering ” is inscribed upon her
banner. She is quite explicit about this. “There is
but one primal cause,’' she says, “ therefore there can
be no effect from any other cause.” (One notes in
passing that she is apparently unaware of what are
-called secondary causes.) “. . . And there can be no
reality in aught which proceeds not from this great and
only cause.” And again, “ God does not cause man to
sin, to be sick or die.” And the conclusion is, as I
have said, that sin, sickness, and death have no real
existence.
But somehow the world persists in believing in these
things ; and this must be accounted for. This, then, is
her solution. The mind of man has somehow become
rather debased—she does not explain how this is
possible, if deterioration from the primal cause is an
impossibility—but—well, it is so. This debased percep
tion she calls by the name of “ mortal mind,” and sick
ness and death, though not real in themselves, have a
kind of phantom life when regarded by mortal mind.
�IO
“ Christian Science ”
The cure, then, is evident—man must refuse to yield to
the allurements of mortal mind ; he must stoutly deny
its veracity, and thus gradually the idea of sin and sick
ness will be eradicated, and with the eradication of the
idea such an attenuated existence as they possess will
also pass away.
Its Fallacies.
Now in this summary we have really the pith of Mrs.
Eddy’s system. First let us expose the fallacies.
Mrs. Eddy does not understand the meaning of
existence. She is right, in a hazy kind of way, when
she thinks that God alone has existence in the highest
sense ; but she is wrong when she thinks, if she does so
think, that there is no other kind of existence possible.
She ignores the possibility that creation, secondary
causes, and man’s free-will may be capable of modifying
the extension of God’s original idea. She is, that is to
say, an Idealist in such a sense that she denies any sort
of reality to anything except ideas. She does not seem
to be aware that matter may be a product of spirit and
of a different constitution from spirit without thereby
destroying the supremacy of spirit.
She contradicts herself also flatly, as I have already
hinted. If nothing can truly exist except that which is
in harmony with the creative Spirit, how is it, we ask,
that mortal mind exists ? She has no answer to this
except that of saying that it doesn’t. Yet she bases the
existence of the idea of sin and matter upon the fact
that it does, and that it is, moreover, extremely energetic.
Here again is another contradiction. There can be no
effect from any other cause except the Primal Cause,
she tells us : yet almost in the next paragraph she tells
us that sin and matter, so far as they exist, have come
into existence from mortal mind which is certainly any
thing but a Primal Cause.
�“ Christian Science”
11
It is really useless to go on—it is like arguing with a
fog. And her final retort, of course, silences us at once.
We ourselves are in a condition of mortal mind, she
informs us ; therefore, of course, we cannot understand
her. And indeed we cannot.
A True Principle amid Confusion.
But is there nothing in her ideas ? No, I think there
is a good deal in them. There is that truth in them
which the Christian religion has taught for nineteen
centuries ; namely that spirit is superior to matter, and
the original cause of it, and that under certain circum
stances spirit can control matter.
Here is the principle that is true under all her con
fusion. I say that the Christian religion has taught it
for nineteen centuries; I will go further and say that the
mind of man has grasped it since the creation of the
world. It is this that underlies every miracle that God
has overwrought; it is by this that the Saints have lived ;
and it is this that modern psychologists are at last begining to verify by scientific methods. It is the vast and all
dominating principle on which we resist temptation,
namely that spiritual interests are better worth securing
than carnal; it is on that principle that the madman can
perform feats impossible to the sane, and that the
hypnotist can banish a nervous headache, and can,
under certain circumstances, modify the ravages of
organic disease. But it does not therefore follow that
because the master is greater than the servant therefore
the servant is a phantom ; nor that there may not be
occasions when the weary master can deal with matters
better through his servant than himself, as when a
doctor gives a chemical drug instead of hypnotism.
“ All good things are ours,” says Browning, “ nor soul
helps flesh more now than flesh helps souls.”
�12
“ Christian Science ”
This, then, is our answer to Mrs. Eddy : You are
right, we say, when you declare that God is a Spirit ;
you are wrong when you deny that the Word was made
Flesh. You are right in proclaiming the superiority of
Mind, you are wrong when you deny the existence of
matter. You are right when you say with the Idealists
that the qualities of matter have no existence apart from
mind ; you are wrong when you deduce from that pro
position that if human minds ceased to perceive there is
no Divine Mind to save the situation. You are right,
then, with nearly every other heretic under the sun in
your affirmations ; you are absolutely wrong with ab
solutely every heretic in your negations.
The Practical System.
We will pass on to the practical system of Christian
Science. Now this is chiefly directed to the destruction
of such delusions as bodily suffering by a means other
than that of medical science. The success of this
religion is indeed largely due to its results in this direc
tion ; for there is no question at all that cures are
wrought by this extraordinary philosophy. The close,
indeed, of Mrs. Eddy’s remarkable book consists largely
of testimonies to this effect; and one or two recent trials
are evidences to the fact that, even if these cases were
a little unfortunate owing to the perversion of mortal
mind (which, as we have seen, can have no existence),
yet that there are persons of integrity sufficiently satisfied
as to Mrs. Eddy’s claims to risk and indeed to sacrifice
their lives in her cause.
I must confess that the extracts from rejoicing ex
patients, given in her book, seem to me a little uncon
vincing ; but I am perfectly willing to allow that they
are genuine, and that it is only my cold insular nature,
coupled with my “ mortal mind,” that makes me hesitate.
�“ Christian Science ”
13
“ I wish to say,” writes a lady, “ to those who think
the price of our literature is too high, that if I could not
get another copy, there is no price on earth that would
induce me to part with my Science and Health. Not
mentioning the money paid for doctor’s bills, I gave for
one medical book $3.50, for another, $6.75, and after
studying these I found I had more diseases than before
their purchase.”
(This reminds me of Mr. Jerome’s experience in
similar circumstances ; his was even more shocking, for,
perhaps you will remember that he discovered that he
had every disease enumerated in the book except house
maid’s knee.)
“ For the small sum of $3,” the lady continues, 11 I
purchased a copy of Science and Health, and through
reading it understandingly found I had no diseases. It
always brings a feeling of pity when I hear any one say
our text-book is too costly. Who would not give three
dollars to be freed from all diseases ? I seemed to have
all, or nearly all, the ills that flesh is heir to. I will not
try to enumerate them, but one that I was made free from
—one that had always been with me—was a pain on the
top of my head. . . . The doctors told me that I never
would be freed, as my brain was too large for the space
allotted to it, and that was what caused the pressure
and pain. Soon after reading Science and Health I
forgot that I had a brain that was too large, for all the
pain and pressure was gone. Oh 1 I can never tell
how free I felt, with no pain after so many years of
suffering (p. 613).—M. M. S. Clinton, Iowa.”
But this same lady seems to have been but an imperfect
disciple, for she informs us also that “from being a
shadow of ninety-five pounds, she reached one hundred
and sixty-five pounds” from a perusal of the book.
Surely she should rather have ceased to weigh any
�i4
“ Christian Science ”
pounds at all since matter is a delusion ! Yet we
cannot but rejoice at her liberation even to this extent,
for, previously to this, we learn that she was in the habit
of taking medicine every fifteen minutes throughout
the day.
And this is a tolerably characteristic example of Mrs.
Eddy’s followers. Honestly, I opened the book at
random, when I fell upon this precious passage. Per
haps I was guided to do so. But I do not say they are
all of this nature ; I am quite willing to allow that even
objective diseases may be cured by Mrs. Eddy’s system ;
for the power of self-suggestion is certainly a remarkable
fact; and I should hesitate from attempting to limit the
effect of a convinced mind acting upon the body. But
where I take exception to the system is in the fact that
bodily disease seems to be selected alone for treat
ment from all the manifestations of mortal mind. Food
also, according to the new gospel, ought to be a
delusion ; so is money, so are carriages and horses and
trains and steamboats and clothes—for they are all
manifestations of a thing which does not exist, since
God is Spirit and Spirit is all. Yet I am not aware that
Christian Scientists have less than three square meals a
day—in fact, I am acquainted with one family belonging
to this denomination which joyfully sits down to a late
supper of tinned lobster, exclaiming at the liberating
doctrine which tells them that there is no such thing as
indigestion. Mrs. Eddy herself wears, I believe, a black
silk dress ; she certainly charges three dollars fifty cents
for her miracle-working book, demanding prepayment,
and, I rather fancy, a sum of about twenty pounds
sterling for a course of higher study ; I happen to know
that her followers travel by train—and, in fact, lay
themselves open generally to the charge of not quite
believing what they say.
�“ Christian Science ”
15
Its Inconsistency.
Yet what do they say to this ? They say that at
present concession must be made to these fantastic
ideas, the mortal mind of the rest of the world is still
too strong for the elect, and that they must continue to
wear their chains a little longer. Mrs. Eddy goes even
further, and sadly laments the limiting power of vulgar
credulity. “ Until the advancing age/’ she writes,
“ admits the efficacy and supremacy of mind, it is better
to leave surgery, and the adjustment of broken bones
and dislocations to the fingers of a surgeon, while you
confine yourselves chiefly to mental reconstruction and
the prevention of inflammation.” Another irresistible
parallel suggests itself. When David Copperfield, you
remember, was giving his little supper, ending as it did
in such a lamentable manifestation of mortal mind,
under the delusive influence of non-existent alcohol,
one by one the preparation of the dishes was consigned
to the manipulation of the pastrycook round the corner,
thereby allowing Mrs. Cripps, his landlady, to “giveher
undivided attention to the potatoes ” and “ to serve up
the cheese and the celery as she would wish to see it
done.” But a good time is coming, says the prophetess :
“ The time approaches when mortal mind will forsake
its corporeal, structural, and material basis, when im
mortal mind and its formations will be apprehended in
science, and material beliefs will not interfere with
spiritual facts.”
Yet, until that time comes, we may surely be pardoned
if we continue to see a little inconsistency in all this, and
to explain what successes are attained by the system by
the principle of self-suggestion rather than by a philoso
phical fallacy. It might be otherwise if there was any
really startling evidence that Christian Scientists believed
�16
“ Christian Science"
what they said. When Mrs. Eddy -lscends a pillar like
St. Simon Stylites, or confines her diet to pulse and
water like the holy children—for even we do not ask
that she should subsist entirely on high and noble ideas
—when American professors of this creed cross the
Atlantic on millstones, or even without them, upborne by
their supreme consciousness of the superiority of mind
over matter—even, we might almost say, when the
preachers of this religion go out barefooted and brownfrocked—for we will grant them that concession to mortal
mind for the present—to proclaim the good news of the
kingdom to those who cannot afford three dollars fifty
cents as the price of their liberation—when we see all this,
I say—when we see even one-hundredth part of the self
denial of the meanest among the Christian saints, or the
very faintest sign that God is working among them in a
manner in which He does not work in hypnotic estab
lishments, perhaps then we shall be able to treat them
with more respect and less laughter, and be patient
enough to study their complicated books with something
resembling sympathy.
Neither Christian nor Scientific.
In conclusion, then, we have seen that Christian
Science cannot claim, in any acknowledged sense of
those words, to be either Christian or Scientific. It is a
digest of an emasculated Protestantism and a misunder
stood Idealism manifested in an inconsistent course of
life. Yet Mrs. Eddy has one true principle—namely,
that mind is master of matter ; and she has proclaimed
this principle to an undiscerning and credulous public
who had forgotten it, sunk in materialism, or, at the
very best, in an utterly conventional and de-spiritualised
form of Christianity, in language resembling that of a
Uould-be minor prophet confined in an American asylum
�“ Christian Science "
17
on the charge of thinking himself the Apostle John. To
such people as these, accustomed to regard matter as
supreme, and religion as a kind of pleasing emotion
largely dependent on the state of the liver, her message
has come as a revelation ; and for this, I think, we may
be thankful. Anything in the world—the creed of the
Hottentot or of the Red Indian—I had almost said
even spiritualism itself—is better than materialism. It
is better to be aware of the spiritual world, seeing it
through even Mrs. Eddy’s spectacles, than not to be
aware of it at all; and it is something to know that God
is Love, even if one forgets that He must also have some
attribute corresponding to common sense.
For this, then, we may be thankful, though it is hard
to preserve our gratitude when we consider the huge
superincumbent weight of dross that lies about the
gold ; still more, when we remember the thousands of
immortal souls whom God made for Himself, whom He
endowed with reason, and whom Mrs. Eddy has suc
ceeded in diverting from the path that leads to Him.
But if all roads lead to Rome, at least a great many may
lead to God, and it is impossible to say that many
Americans, and, indeed, English as well, are not better
as cheerful, healthy-bodied, though mind.-deluded,
“ Scientists ” than as narcotic, materialistic, hopeless
invalids. This is, I am afraid, faint praise, but it is all
that I have the heart to utter.
Recommendations.
You will forgive me, perhaps, if I end with two or
three recommendations to any who have to deal with
persons suffering from this distressing form of thought.
First, I am sure that we must keep our tempers ; and,
secondly, our sense of humour. If it is true that Protes
tantism rises in any degree from the absence of this
�18
“ Christian Science"
latter virtue, I am certain that Christian Science, its
latest development, rises almost entirely from it. I do
not say that no scientist possesses a grain of humour
but that such is bound to keep it in a locked cupboard
when he treats of his religion. Let us therefore bring
to bear this genial solvent of laughter and see whether
Christian Science is as impervious to it as to so many
other facts of the world in which we live.
But supremely let us remember that the sacramental
system is the one and only positive scheme which can
be advanced with any hope of success. It is from the
loss of this that this new heresy has had its rise. When
matter was no longer understood to be the divinelyappointed vehicle of spirit, it became its enemy. Let it
be our business, then, so to know our own faith that we
may state it intelligently to others ; that we may show
how fallen matter, evil indeed so far as it is abused, has
been caught up and purified by the divinely-inspired
Revelation of God ; how bread and wine brought forth
from the earth by the labour of man for bodily suste
nance are transformed by divine power into the Bread
that comes down from heaven and the Atoning Blood
of the Son of God ; how human words that in one
man’s mouth may deceive and ruin, in another’s may
convey the message of heavenly pardon ; how the water
that man defiles yet flows from the Paradise of God and
washes souls as well as bodies—how, in fact, the whole
range of matter that had become man’s enemy has
become again his friend—and how that which was an
occasion of falling has turned again to his wealth and
peace ; and how supremely, as the very keystone of the
glorious arch that God has built from earth to heaven,
hangs the doctrine of the Incarnation, by which the
Creator became linked ineffably to the creature, and
the spiritual to the material in bonds that are eternal;
�"Christian Science"
19
and how, finally, the truth that the Word was made
Flesh illustrates, underlies, and emphasizes in a fashion
of which man could never have dreamed, the further
truth of which it is the correlative, that God is a Spirit,
that they who worship Him must worship Him in spirit
and in truth ; that God is Light, and in Him is no
darkness at all.
�PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY
THE CATHOLIC TRUTH SOCIETY, LONDON.
U
�
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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 Ethical Society
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"Christian science"
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Benson, Robert Hugh
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 19 p. ; 19 cm.
Notes: "A paper read at the Catholic Conference at Brighton, 1906."
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Catholic Truth Society
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[1906?]
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RA1552
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Christianity
Science
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English
Christian Science-Doctrines
Health
Mary Baker Eddy
Science
-
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465699e9aa508aa3e8f275eda0986158
PDF Text
Text
“CHURCH PROSPECTS.”
R. LLEWELYN DAVIES, writing in the January
Contemporary
refers
Mstumbling block—on this subject, Creed. thus to that
the Athanasian
“ When a Rubrics Bill is before either House of Parlia
ment there is nothing to prevent the moving of an amend
ment to omit this Rubric, and to remove the Athanasian
Creed from its-present place in the Prayer-Book to the
neighbourhood of the Articles.”
We confess ourselves unable to see how such a move
would clear the ground cumbered by this objectionable
“confession of faith,” the result, as all the world knows, or
( should know, of a theological quarrel between Bishop
Alexander, of Alexandria, and a Presbyter named Arius. It
may not be amiss to refresh a little the memory regarding
this famous (or infamous) creed ; the feud between these
two learned men waxed fast and furious as to whether “the
Son is totally and essentially distinct from the Father, the
first and noblest of those created Beings formed out of
nothing, or whether he is, and was originally, of the same
essence as the Father, viz., God himself in another form.”
To settle this unseemly dispute (during which the Bishop
excommunicates the Presbyter,) the Emperor Constantine,
in 325, assembled the famous Council of the then entire
Christian Church (at Bythynia.)
This Council continued in force for two months, exchang
ing blows as well as words in the warmth of argument.
The Council finally decided, as was perhaps to be expected,
in favour of the Bishop, and condemned .Arius the Pres
byter to exile, compelling his adherents to subscribe to that
confession now called the Nicene Creed.
So far we see there is no appearance of Athanasius in
the matter, who at this time was Archdeacon of Alexandria,
and, as secretary to the Nicene Council, drew up the formu
laries of that creed. He supported his Bishop’s view, and
�2
t
it was out of compliment to him for his strenuous opposi
tion to Arius and his extreme advocacy of the Nicene
Creed that the later one bore his name.
Athanasius succeeded Bishop Alexander, and so impul
sive was the zeal of this good saint, that in the cause of
the Nicene Creed we hear of his flogging Bishops, burn
ing sacred books, breaking the jewelled chalice, overthrow
ing Communion tables, nay, that he razed to the ground
(for the glory of God) the churches of his contumacious
fellow-workers.
Doubt, however, exists as to the origin of this Athananasian Creed, which is said to have been composed by a
drunken monk of the middle ages, who was surely sober
enough to see the monstrous absurdity of the rival claims
of “God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy
Ghost.”
The proposition of Mr. Davies, firstly, to remove this
creed from its present place in the Rubric to the region of
the Articles (of which it already forms a part); and,
secondly, that the laity should resolve, with the Arch
bishops, to strike it, “not out of the Prayer-Book, but out
of the mouths of ordinary men and women, of the poor and
of children,” strikes us as nothing less than a cowardly
form of compromise, showing to the full the entire rotten
ness of a system redolent of pitfalls and snares for honest
men.
Mr. Davies, as a minister of the Church of England, has
signed the Thirty-nine Articles, has sworn his entire belief
“that this Athanasian Creed, with the others, is to be
thoroughly believed and received as truth, which truth
can be proved from Holy Scripture.” Nevertheless, he
speaks of himself “as one of those clergy in whose churches
this creed is not used;” so, while swearing to its truth,
provable from Holy Scripture, he refuses to read it to his
congregation, acknowledging the while that the Rubric
directing its use is unambiguous, that is, obligatory. But
surely the Articles, barring as they do the threshold of the
church, are equally obligatory, and, before dealing with the
Rubric question, Parliament had better take in hand the
more serious matter, and erase from the law of the land
the statute of 1562, a statute enforcing subscription in the
name of God and for his service, to beliefs in a series of
enigmatical propositions, containing absurdities, contradic
�3
tions, and irrational conclusions, summed up in the confes
sion of faith, that forbids us to say, “There be three Gods
or three Lords; compels us by the Christian verity to
acknowledge every person by himself to be God or Lord,
yet declares that, if we confound the Persons, or divide the
substance, the flames of an eternal Hell shall be our
portion.”
Mr. Davies evidently feels that he and his brother clergy
are in a dilemma; they must either offend their congre
gations or forego the use of this enlightened Christian
dogma. “To abstain from a custom more honoured in
the breach than the observance ” is certainly to his credit
as a rational, sensible creature, though by so doing he
breaks his ordination vows—nor, until removed from the
Rubric, could the refusal to read this creed legally better
the condition of himself or of those clergy who follow his
example.
A learned inquirer as to the dogma of the Deity of
Christ, says, “The Sun itself is not more visible in
the bright blue sky of a summer’s day than is the fact
evidenced by the religious history of the past 2,000
years, that the dogma of the Deity of Christ is the pro
duct of the speculations of ancient heathen philosophy
carried to insane lengths ; and is not as our clergy repre
sent it to be, and as the English people are taught to
regard it, a “ special revelation from God.”
Between this Scylla and Charybdis, this God the Son,
and God the Holy Ghost, what wonder if our barques
theological founder with all their freight dogmatic;
what wonder that not only human beliefs but human
intellects stagger blindly, and suffer shipwreck; what
wonder if noble minds “ all o’er wrought ” turn in disgust
and weariness from the contemplation of the impossible,
and seek within the source of those diviner impulses,
that stir the soul to love, pity, justice, and mercy.
Until the scales fall from eyes that should see clear ;
until, casting aside all fear in their search for truth, the
leaders and teachers of the people dare sift to its foundation,
this institution of 2,000 years, this Church, with its army
of apostles, martyrs, hierarchs, and alas ! humbugs, and.
prove its origin to have been a myth ; prove that the
teacher on whose traditional saying, “ Thou art Peter, and
on this rock I found my Church, against which the gates
�4
of Hell shall not prevail,” had no divine authority for
saying it; prove that the Church is equally ignorant of the
nature of its Christ as of the God in whose service it
claims to exist, then, and then only, may we consider our
selves in any way superior to the grand old heathen
“whose sublime speculations concerning the Great Un
known we have corrupted and dwarfed into a Church
dogma, and hardened into a frozen mass of stupidity
and blasphemy, embedded in such creeds as the Nicene,
Athanasian, and Apostolic.”
While reading articles like this on “Church Pros
pects,” from such men as Mr. Davies, seeing how per
sistently they ignore truths, they must know, though
may be dimly, we have scant hope that the scales will
fall in our generation ; less faith that the men who openly
advise that “ the Athanasian Creed shall not be struck out
from the Articles, but prohibited to ordinary men, women,
the poor, and children,” can ever be the pioneers out of
the dark, tangled wood of ignorance, superstition and
pagan barbarisms, pioneers to the presence of unsullied
truth, to that world of unfettered thought, where no
shams, no compromise, no worldly-expediency motives,
shall hide the face of knowledge, or bar to the soul her
search for, “ that power, in darkness whom we guess,” that
being we call God as he really is.
C. W. B.EYNELL, PEINTEB, LITTLE PULTENEY STBEET, HAYMAKKET.
�
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Title
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Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
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Original Format
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Pamphlet
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Title
A name given to the resource
"Church prospects"
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: [London?]
Collation: 4 p., 18 cm.
Notes: Comments on an article by John Llewelyn Davies in 'Contemporary Review' 25, January 1875 about the Athanasian Creed. Printed by C.W. Reynell, Little Pulteney Street, London. From the library of Dr Moncure Conway.
Publisher
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[Thomas Scott?]
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[1875]
Identifier
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G5532
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Christianity
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[Unknown]
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English
Athanasian Creed
Conway Tracts
John Llewelyn Davies
-
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1d8e38ccf0df928107151efd575141c4
PDF Text
Text
.Bare to be Wise
55
1
w.'
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■
A
-
■
AN ADDRESS
'jlivered before the “ Heretics ” Society in Cambridge,
on the 8th December, 1909
«■ ’
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si?
■£
BY
HN McTAGGART ELLIS MeTAGGART
,etor in Letters, Fellow and Lecturer of Trinity College in Cambridge,
Fellow of the British Academy.
■•',r
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a.
I®
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London:
WATTS & CO.,
JOHNSON’S COURT, FLEET STREET, E.C.
Price Threepence
�Works by
JOHN McTAGGART ELLIS McTAGGART
STUDIES IN THE HEGELIAN DIALECTIC.
Press. 8s.
Cambridge University
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The Rationalist Press Association, Ltd.
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�national secular society
“DARE TO BE WISE”
AN ADDRESS
Delivered before the “Heretics ” Society in Cambridge,
on the 8th December, 1909
BY
JOHN McTAGGART ELLIS McTAGGART
IR IN LETTERS, FELLOW AND LECTURER OF TRINITY COLLEGE IN CAMBRIDGE, FELLOW
OF THE BRITISH ACADEMY
[issued for the rationalist press association, limited]
London:
WATTS & CO.,
17, JOHNSON’S COURT, FLEET STREET, E.C.
1910
�II
�“DARE TO BE WISE
''
M
At the other end of the world is a University1 which
has adopted for its own the motto which best expresses
the nature of a University: Sapere Aude.
It is of the
duty laid on our Society to follow this injunction that I
wish to speak.
Our object is to promote discussion upon religion,
philosophy, and art.
And in discussing religion and
philosophy there is a special
■command, Dare to be wise.
significance
in
the
In seeking truth of all
sorts many virtues are
needed, industry,
humility, magnanimity.
And courage also is often
patience,
needed in the search, since the observer of nature must
often risk his life in his observations.
But there is
another need for courage when we approach religion
and philosophy.
And this need comes from the tremendous effect on
•our own welfare, and the welfare of our fellow beings,
of those aspects of reality with which religion and
philosophy are concerned.
This effect is, in the first
1 The University of New Zealand.
3
�DARE TO BE WISE
4
place, a characteristic of that reality, the problems about
which would usually be called religious.
But it spreads
to all philosophy, for there is, I think, no question in
philosophy—not even among those which border closest
on logic or on science—of which we can be sure before
hand that its solution will have no effect on the problems
of religion.
The profound importance to our welfare of the truth
on these questions involves that our beliefs about those
truths will also have a great importance for our welfare.
If our lives would gain enormously in value if a certain
doctrine were true, and would lose enormously in value
if it were false, then a belief that it is true will naturally
make us happy, and a belief that it is false make us
And happiness and misery have much to
miserable.
do with welfare.
The practical importance to our lives of these matters
has not always been sufficiently recognised of late years.
This error is due, I think, to excessive reaction from two
errors on the other side.
The first of these errors is the assertion that, if certain
views on religious matters were true, all morality would
lose its validity.
that all
From this, of course, it would follow
persons who believed those views and yet
accepted morality would
foolishly.
quite clear.
be
acting illogically and
That this view is erroneous seems to me
Our view£ on religious questions may affect
�DARE TO BE WISE
5
some of the details of morality—the observance of a
particular day of rest, or the use of wine or of beef, for
example.
But they are quite powerless either to
obliterate the difference between right and wrong, or to
change our views on much of the content of morality.
At least, I do not know of any view maintained by any
one on any religious question which would, if I held it,
alter my present belief that it is right to give water to a
thirsty dog, and wrong to commit piracy or to cheat at
cards.
Another form of this same error is the assertion that
certain beliefs on religious matters, though they might
not render morality absurd, would in practice prevent
those who accepted them from pursuing virtue per
sistently and enthusiastically.
This view seems refuted
by experience, which, I think, tells us that the zeal for
virtue shown by various men, while it varies much, and
for many causes, does not vary according to their views
on religious matters.
The men who believe,
for
example, in God, or immortality, or optimism, seem to
be neither better nor worse morally than those who
disbelieve in them.
The second error is the view that certain beliefs on
religious matters would destroy the value, for those who
accepted the beliefs, of many of those parts of expe
rience which would otherwise have the highest value.
Tennyson, for example, maintained that disbelief in
�DARE TO BE WISE
6
immortality would destroy the value of love, even while
life lasted :—
And love would answer with a sigh,
The sound of that forgetful shore
Will change my sweetness more and more,
Half-dead to know that I shall die.1
Here, again, it seems to me, there is certainly error.
Our views as to the ultimate nature and destiny of the
universe may affect our judgments as to the generality
of certain forms of good, or as to their duration, or as to
the possibility of their increase in intensity hereafter.
But I do not see how they can affect our judgment of the
goodness of these good things, as we find them here and
now.
Indeed, if we do not start with the certainty that
love for an hour on earth is unconditionally good, I do
not see what ground we should have for believing that
it would be good for an eternity in heaven.
These views, then, I admit to be errors, and those do
well who reject them as errors.
But the reaction from
them, as I said, goes sometimes too far, and leads to a
denial of the practical importance of the problems of
religion.
And this is, again, a great mistake.
What
ever may be the true answer to the problems of religion,
good will be different from bad, and right from wrong,
and much of what we do and feel in this present life
will be good, and much will be bad.
But if we ask how
much good exists in the universe and how much bad ;
' In Memo riant.
�DARE TO BE WISE
if we ask if the main current of the universe is for right,
or for wrong, or indifferent to both ; if we ask what is
the eventual destiny of the universe or of ourselves—all
these questions must be answered one way or the other
according to the solution we adopt of religious problems,
and of those problems of philosophy which bear on
religion.
Are there any questions which affect our
welfare more than these?
It is true that what primarily
affects our welfare is the truth on these matters, and not
But a belief that things are
our knowledge of the truth.
well with the world brings happiness, a belief that
things are ill with the world brings misery.
And this
involves the intense practical importance of our beliefs
on the problems of religion.
Let us consider what some of these problems are
which we call religious.
In the first place, there is the
general question of optimism or pessimism.
universe as a whole more good than bad?
Is the
It is, of
course, possible to maintain that it is impossible for us
to answer this question.
But some systems maintain
that it can be answered, and some of them answer that
the good prevails, and some of them hold that it is
outbalanced by the evil.
The practical importance of
the truth on this question does not require to be enforced.
For the goodness or badness of the universe is the whole
of which every other matter of practical importance is a
part.
�“DARE TO BE WISE”
8
Our belief on the subject, therefore, must have great
influence on our happiness.
So far, indeed, as I am
only concerned with my welfare in this life, or with that
of my friends, the more general question will have little
influence, for in these limited fields we have empirical
means of judging the present or inferring the immediate
future, which are more certain than inferences from the
general nature of the universe.
But few people limit
their interests entirely to those whom they know person
ally.
And then there is always the question whether my
own life, and those of my friends, may not, perhaps,
extend indefinitely further than that short period in our
present bodies which is all that we can now know by
observation.
And there is another question, equally important.
Does the universe become better or worse as time goes
on, and, if it becomes either, which does it become ?
This is of equal importance, because it is a disposition
of our nature—apparently a fundamental and inevitable
disposition—to regard good and evil in the future with
very different feelings from those with which we regard
good and evil in the past.
If the world were known to
be more evil than good on the whole, we should still
regard it cheerfully, if we believed that most of the evil
lay in the past, and that the future was predominantly
good.
And, though the world as a whole were known
to be more good than evil, that would afford us but little
�DARE TO BE WISE
9
comfort if that part of its course which still lay in the
future were more evil than good.
Then, to come to less general questions, there is the
question of immortality.
Our beliefs on this subject,
also, will profoundly affect our happiness.
Some desire
annihilation, some shrink from it, but very few are
indifferent.
And even of these, I suppose, none would
be indifferent as to the further question of what kind the
future life would be, if there were a future life at all.
Then there is the existence of God.
The importance
■of this question for our welfare has, no doubt, been
exaggerated,
through a failure to comprehend the
alternatives.
It has been supposed that the only
alternative to a belief in God is a belief in some Scepti
cism or Materialism which would be incompatible with
any hope that the universe as a whole was coherent,
■orderly, or good.
But this is a mistake.
There are
systems which hold the universe to be all this, although
they deny the existence of God.
And, on the other
hand, the existence of God would certainly not be by
itself a guarantee that the universe was good.
That
there is some evil in the universe is beyond doubt.
If
it is there because God did not object to it, how do we
know how much evil he may tolerate, or even welcome?
If it is there—as most reasonable Theists would say now
—because God could not help it, how do we know how
much evil it may be beyond his power to prevent?
�IO
“ DARE TO BE WISE
Theism may possibly form a link in a chain of argu
ment leading to Optimism, but it is far indeed from
being a complete proof of Optimism.
But in spite of all this it cannot be denied that to many
people the belief that there is or is not a God is most
intimately connected with their happiness.
And even
those who are indifferent on this point would certainly
not be indifferent on the question whether, if there is a
God, he is such as he was supposed to be by the early
Jews, or, again, by the Jesuits or the Calvinists of the
sixteenth century.
Our beliefs on religious questions, then, do profoundly
affect our happiness.
We can conceive—indeed, we
know in history, and in the thought of the present day—
beliefs the acceptance of which would make life almost
intolerably miserable to anyone whose interests reached
beyond the immediate present
environment.
and
his immediate
And here we find the need of courage.
For, if we are to think on these matters at all, we must
accept the belief for which we have evidence, and we
must reject the belief for which we have no evidence,
however much the first may repel or the second allure us.
And, sometimes, this is not easy.
When we deal with the knowledge of science, or
every-day life, we have no similar struggle.
In the first
place, it is here often very indifferent to us what the true
solution of a problem niay be, provided that, whatever it
�DARE TO BE WISE
is, we can know it.
11
It may be of great importance to us
to know what sort of building will best stand the shock
of an earthquake, but comparatively unimportant what
sort it is, since, whichever it may be, we can build in
that manner in earthquake districts.
It may be very
important to know which of two medicines will cure a
disease, but quite unimportant which it is, so long as we
know it and can use it.
If, indeed, we have to put the question, Is there any
medicine which can cure this disease? then, indeed, it
may matter very much to us what the answer is.
And
in such a case we may be tempted, for a short time, to
believe that a cure has been found, when in point of fact
it has not.
But the temptation does not last for long.
When the medicine is tried, and fails to cure, then
conviction comes to all except the weakest.
But there
is no corresponding help in religion and philosophy.
For, if there is ever to be any experimental verification
of our beliefs on such subjects, at least it will not be on
this side of death.
If through cowardice we depart
from the right path, we must not hope for experience
to take us back.
The strain is so hard that often and often in the history
of thought men have tried to justify their weakness by
asserting that we were entitled to believe a proposition
if its truth would be very good, or at any rate if its
falsity would be very bad.
Over and over, in different
�I2
DARE TO BE WISE"
forms, this demand meets us—not infrequently in the
work of the men of whom we should least expect it.
Bui, whenever we find it, we must, I maintain, reject it.
It may well be that the universe, if this or that belief were
false, would be very bad.
But how do we know that the
universe is not very bad?
There is no intrinsic a priori
connection between existence and goodness.
If we can
show that the nature of existence is such that it A good,
so much the better.
But then the question of the nature
of existence is the one which we are setting out to
determine, and we have no right to begin by assuming
that that nature is good.
Nor can we fall back on the argument, which is often
used, that our desires for the good—those desires the
thwarting of which produce the misery we are avoiding
—are as real as anything else in the universe, and form
as sound a basis for an argument as anything else.
Unquestionably they are real, and form a basis for an
argument; but the question remains, What argument
can be based on them?
If they were to be any good
here, the argument would have to be that, because they
really exist as desires in us, therefore the universe must
be such as will gratify them.
And this is invalid.
The
existence of a desire does not involve the existence of its
gratification.
Each of us has had many desires which
were not satisfied, and which can now never be satisfied.
We cannot argue, then, from the pain that a belief
�“ DARE TO RE WISE"
gives us to the falsity of that belief.
15
And, if we decide
to think freely on these subjects, we run the risk of
arriving, as others have arrived before us, at conclusions
the pain of which may be very great.
It is true that, so
far as I know, no person who has thought freely on these
subjects has arrived at conclusions so maddening as
those of some traditional theologies now fading into the
past.
The ideas of an endless hell, of an unjust God,
are fruits of ancient tradition, or of interpretation of
alleged revelations—never, I believe, of independent
reasoning.
But to find no more hope, no more purpose,
no more value in the universe than was found by
Hobbes, by Hume, or by Schopenhauer—the pain of
this, especially to one who has hoped for better results,
or, perhaps, has once held them gained—the pain of this
is sometimes not trifling.
Why should we not endeavour to escape it?
Why
should we not accept, without inquiry, some traditional’
faith?
There may be arguments for it, there may be
arguments against it.
But others have accepted it
without inquiry into these arguments.
Why should not
we?
Such a suggestion has greater attractions than it
would have had two generations ago.
In Europe, in
the present age, a man is not likely to accept any
religion in this way, except some form of Christianity.
And the Christianity of sixty years ago, while no doubt
�“DARE TO BE WISE
such that many men could honestly believe it to be true,
was such that no man could wish it to be true, unless he
was devoid either of imagination or of humanity.
Christianity of the present day is still of this type.
Much
But
it would be most absurd and unjust to deny that the
type of Christianity which becomes every year relatively
more powerful is very different.
Its view of the universe
is one which might well entitle us to call the universe
good.
Why should we not accept it without the risks
of inquiry? .
Or, if we cannot do that, why trouble about these
problems at all ?
Is not the world we see big enough
to occupy lives so short as ours?
Shall we not enjoy
the good, strive to increase it and to share it, and ask no
questions about what is behind, beyond, and—perhaps—
above?
Yet some follow after truth.
reward?
And what shall be their
May we answer, in words which were written
about Spinoza, and which are worthy to have been
written by him: “Even that which true and fearless
men have preached through all the generations to
unheeding ears.
Seek the truth, fear not and spare
not: this first, this for its own sake, this only ; and the
truth itself is your reward—a reward not measured by
length of days nor by any reckoning of men ”?x
1 Sir Frederick Pollock, Spinoza: His Life and Philosophy, chap. ix.
�DARE TO BE WISE
15
It is most beautiful and most true, but it is not the
whole truth.
For knowledge of the truth, though a
great good, is not the only good, nor perhaps the
highest good.
If my friend is in pain or estranged from
me, if the universe is worthless or worse than worthless,
it is no adequate consolation to know that at least I
see the evil clearly.
And then, is truth always the reward for seeking the
truth?
Always it cannot be, for if some have attained,
the others must have failed who disagreed with them.
The reward of the search—are we sure that it will be
anything but the search?
Can we give any other bidding than that which was
once given to a search yet more sacred ?
Come—pain ye shall have, and be blind to the ending !
Come—fear ye shall have, mid the sky’s overcasting !
Come—change ye shall have, for far are ye wending !
Come—no crown ye shall have for your thirst and your fasting,
But-----1
And here we must stop, before the promise that follows.
The crown of our thirst and our fasting may be the
opened heavens and the Beatific Vision.
It may be
nothing but the thirst and the fasting itself.
No great inducement, perhaps, all this?
inducement is needed.
And no
There are those who long for
truth with a longing as simple, as ultimate, as powerful
1 William Morris, Love is Enough.
�i6
DARE TO BE WISE
as the drunkard’s longing for his wine and the lover’s
longing for his beloved.
must.
They will search, because they
Our search has begun.
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Publisher
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Pamphlet
Dublin Core
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Title
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"Dare to be wise" : an address delivered before the "Heretics" Society in Cambridge, on the 8th December, 1909
Creator
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McTaggart, John McTaggart Ellis [1866-1925]
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 16 p. ; 22 cm.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references. Issued for the Rationalist Press Association, Limited. R.P.A. sixpenny reprints and extra series listed on back cover. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
Publisher
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Watts & Co.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1910
Identifier
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N462
Subject
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Religion
Rights
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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 ("Dare to be wise" : an address delivered before the "Heretics" Society in Cambridge, on the 8th December, 1909), 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
NSS
Religion
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PDF Text
Text
����������
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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"Enthusiasm of the market-place and of the study": a discourse delivered at the South Place Chapel, Finsbury, E.C., on Sunday, November 29th, 1885.
Creator
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Pearson, Karl [1857-1936]
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 15 p. ; 22 cm.
Series title: South Place Discourses
Series number: 5
Notes: Inserted in 'The Life of Annie Besant' by Geoffrey West donated by Duncan Birrell.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
E. W. Allen
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
[1885]
Identifier
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G4352
Subject
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Free thought
Rights
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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 ("Enthusiasm of the market-place and of the study": a discourse delivered at the South Place Chapel, Finsbury, E.C., on Sunday, November 29th, 1885.), 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>
Format
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application/pdf
Type
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Text
Language
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English
Conduct of life
Free Thought
-
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682d1577276342de03827c28cfe213a2
PDF Text
Text
| gg
NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY
English Land Restoration League.
No. 4.
(3d..per 100.
"FREE TRADE IN LAND.”
Would it Benefit the People?
/
“ The notion,” says Carlyle, ” of selling for certain bits of metal the ‘ Iliad of
Homer,’ how much more the land of the World Creator, is a ridiculous impossi/ bility.” Yet this ridiculous object is what the recently-constituted Free Land
League propose to themselves to attain. The “ Great Liberal Party ” is just now
badly off for a “ cry,” and Mr. John Bright and Mr. Arthur Arnold are chiefly
responsible for supplying it with one of the worst conceivable. They desire to
knock down the land of the World Creator to him who can bid for it the most bits
of metal. This news must of all men rejoice the soul of Mr. Winans. The
depopulator of the Highlands abounds in bits of metal, and when the Free Land
Millennium sets in he will be able to carry on his favourite business of supplanting
men by deer to his heart’s content. Free Trade in Land is an excellent trade for
those who have accumulated or stolen plenty of bits of metal; but for such as
have not—that is to say, for the vast majority of honest poor—it is simply a
mockery and a snare. Did the institution of” Slavery in the Southern States
benefit the “ Mean Whites ” with empty purses, who could not so much as invest
in a single Slave ? On the contrary, it degraded them far below the level of the
corresponding class in the Northern States. ' Now, Free Trade in Slaves and Free
Trade in Land are perfectly analogous institutions, and it is doubtful if the evil
effects of the latter are not even more far-reaching than those of the former. Both
are contrivances by which the few are enabled to rob the many of the fruits of
their industry. The private ownership of land clothes one man with the power
of depriving his fellows of shelter, food, and raiment. It invests the few with a
life and death control over the many.
Now, it is easy to see that Free Trade in Land is as false an application of
the Free Trade theory as was Free Trade in the bones and blood of factory
women and children. Free Trade in commodities that can practically be supplied
without limit has unquestionably been an immense boon to this country; but it
does not at all follow that Free Trade in an element which no human ingenuity can
augment by a single atom would be similarly beneficial. On the contrary, if the
soil of England, like its manufactures, is to be brought within the grasp of the
.great capitalists, undivided power will be delivered over to the already too
powerful upper middle class, and then woe betide the workers! The yoke of the
capitalist will be more complete, and assuredly it will be none the less heavy than
that of the feudalist. The.evil of ‘‘unearned increment” is as great in Broadway,
New York, or in Bourke Street, Melbourne, as it is in the City of London. Free
Trade in a natural monopoly like the land is simply a contradiction in terms—“ a
ridiculous impossibility.” Carlyle saw the absurdity at a glance; but then he was a
genius, whereas the Free Land Leaguers are at the best but a superior order of
bagmen. In its very essence land can neither be purchased nor mortgaged. It
is common property, and the community which parts with it to individuals
voluntarily is a. community of imbeciles, and the community which parts with it
involuntarily is a community of cowards.
But if our Free Land Leaguers have misapplied the Free Trade theory,
they have still more notoriously misinterpreted Free Trade in Land facts. They
go to the sparsely-populated United States and the Colonies for their
illustrations; whereas densely-peopled England can only be compared with
herself or some country similarly situated. In the United States there are
■still many, many millions of acres to homestead and pre-empt, and till they are
I
�all taken up the inherent evils of Free Trade in Land cannot be expected
to show themselves in anything like their natural proportions. Men do not
buy land which they can get for next to nothing. But even in the United States,
the farmers—the most splendid yeomanry that ever existed—are beginning todiscover to what Free Trade in Land inevitably leads. Very many American
farms are covered by mortgages on which interest is paid worthy of the expe
riences of the Egyptian fellaheen. Recently the New York Times—a perfectly
temperate authority—warned the American farmers of their fate. They were
destined to become like the rack-rented tenant farmers of England ! Nay, their
final condition will probably be worse. One had much better pay rent to a feudal
landlord, bound to his tenantry by many traditional ties, than be fleeced by a
remorseless money-lending Shylock, moved by considerations of filthy lucre
alone.
And there are other still more alarming symptoms. A phenomenon is appearing
in some of the Western States which is comparable only with that which heralded
the fall of ancient Rome. Rome conquered the world by the swords of her fouracre yeomanry. But Rome, like the United States, was a Free Trade in Land
State; and her yeomanry eventually either fell hopelessly into the grasp of theusurer, or succumbed to the expropriating capitalist. Then Italy was tilled, so
far as it was tilled, by immense gangs of homeless slaves, and the end was not far.
Now, an American Bonanza Farm is as like a Roman slave estate as can well b-jimagined. The Bonanza Farms of Minnesota, Dakota, Texas, Kansas, and Cali
fornia each contain thousands of acres owned by Presidents and Directors of
railways, by bankers in St. Paul, New York, London, and Frankfort-on-the-Main.
They are “ run" on purely capitalist principles. There is neither woman, child,
nor home. The men work thirteen hours daily. They receive from 8 dols. to
16 dols. per month, according to the season. In the neighbourhood of theseBonanzas the small farmers are hopelessly in debt. They have generally to pay50 per cent, more than the Bonanzas for the conveyance of their produce, and.
33 per cent, more for their farming implements. How Mr. Jesse Collings’s peasant
proprietors are to stand up against capitalist farming it is hard to see. In a veryinstructive article on “ Bonanza Farms ”in the Atlantic Monthly for January, 1880,
the concluding sentence is this :—“ We are taking immense strides in placing our
country in the position of Great Britain, and even worse.”
In Europe, as in America, the freeholder is victimised. In France, in Germany,
in Russia, the Land Mortgage Banks are already pressing on the peasantry with:
something like the vigour of the ancien regime. In India, the soucar, schroff,
bania, or mahajun drains the last drop of the poor ryot’s blood. He is virtually
a serf. In a word, wherever Free Trade in Land has fairly run its course it hasbeen a ghastly failure. It has at one end the money-lender, and at the latter the.Bonanza Farm.
Let us have neither. Let us pass direct from feudalism to municipalisation
vest the site of every town in its Town Council, and of every parish in its Parish
Council. The land is the birthright of the people. The Free Land Leaguers aver
trying to hand it over to the capitalists. If they succeed in gulling the electors,
the little finger of every new landlord will be thicker than his predecessor’s loins,
and a long era of suffering—the Capitalist era—as fatal as that inaugurated by the.Norman Conquest, will be the result.
Nota Bene.—The first man who, having enclosed a plot of ground, took uponhimself to say “This is mine!" and found people silly enough to believe him, was.
the real founder of Civil Society. How many crimes, how many wars, how many
murders, how much misery would have been spared the human race, if some one, .
tearing up the fence and filling in the ditch, had cried out to his fellows, “Give no
heed to this imposter; you are lost if you forget that the produce belongs to all,
the land to none."
J. Morrison Davidson.
All who are willing to aid in circulating this and similar leaflets on the Land Question,
are earnestly requested to communicate with Mr. FREDK. VERINDER, Secretary of theENGLISH LAND RESTORATION LEAGUE 8 Duke Street, Adelphi, London, W.C., from,
whom all information may be obtained.
Page & Pbatt, Limited, Printers, 5, 6 & 7 Ludgate Circus Buildings, London, E.C.
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
"Free trade in land" : would it benefit the people?
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Davidson, John Morrison [1843-1916]
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: [London]
Collation: [2] p. ; 21 cm.
Series title: English Land Restoration League [leaflets]
Series number: No. 4
Notes: Printed by Page & Pratt, London, E.C. Tentative date of publication from KVK. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
English Land Restoration League
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
[189-?]
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
N188
Subject
The topic of the resource
Land reform
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<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 ("Free trade in land" : would it benefit the people?), 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>
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
application/pdf
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Language
A language of the resource
English
Land Reform-Great Britain
NSS
-
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7289b000145eb681bdce1d88b58af2c6
PDF Text
Text
�or/6 9 -
Presented in Memory of
Dr. Moncure D. Conway
by his children, July
Nineteen hundred C? eight
�LIBRARY
South Place Ethical Society
Rec’d...... .19.0.3...............
Ack’d................................. .....
Source
R...QPN..tr.folf;
1970,.. in detail
Class
Cat.
�KEYNOTE S.”
BY
ARBOR LEIGH.
PUBLISHED BY THOMAS SCOTT,
II THE TERRACE, FARQUHAR ROAD, UPPER NORWOOD,
LONDON, S.E.
1876.
Price Sixpence.
�LONDON :
PRINTED BY C. "W. REYNELL, LITTLE RUMENS Y STREET,
H4SXARKET.
�“KEY
NOTES.”
UPWARD.
What is the tireless key
Of the unheard chorus of things ?
Of the ceaseless autumns and springs ?
Of the ebbing and flowing sea ?
Answer : that we may join in thy chorus, Eternity!
What shall we do to-day
To lessen the total strife ?
To forward the total life ?
To help the worlds on their way ?
To live by the last-learnt law is more than to praise
or to pray.
Why is the fit thing best ?
Why is the best thing fit ?
We work, and we cease from it;
Do we work for work or for rest ?
Daily the light comes up in the East to hide in the
West.
Never, never in sight,
The Perfect we long to see:
The Perfect we long to be :
The final, immutable Bight.
Nay : for the Perfect grottos, with growth that is
infinite.
Over the verges fair
Of the best we can feel and think,
Ever just over the brink
Of the best we can do and dare,
Till we ask—“ Are there ends at all, to Purposes
everywhere ? ”
�4
“ Key Notes. ”
From stars in the solemn sky,
From the tender flower at our feet,
Certain, and clear, and sweet,
Comes the same eternal reply :
“ Upward 1 upward, 0 man! for Progress can never
die I ”
UNTO THIS PRESENT.
i.
Free and yet fast: fast, and for ever free :
Led in the line of law to liberty :
Sweeping the spirals of invariant space:
On flees the little earth around her sun.
For ever tending to his fiery breast;
For ever tending to the outer cold;
So held, unfettered, ’twixt her two desires,
From either doom ; and of her impotence,
Driven, where hindrances are least, along
The curves of gentler possibility.
0 little planet! fated to be free,
And have thy leisure for an seon’s space
To bud, and bloom, and grow a teeming thing:
Cooling, yet lifewards ;—darkening unto sight
That wakes in many eyes of many lives;
And lights the living into wider light;—
0 little planet! Chariot of mankind,
Force-drifted from impalpability
Into thy rounded being, and the form
Thy children know thee by,—how sternly kind
Is Force, new-differenced as Life, as Love,
As Fitness for a freedom yet to be.
Free, and yet fast; fast, and for ever free!
Thy history is writ in parable :
Man’s tale is one with thine, 0 little world of
Man !
�“Key Notes.”
5
n.
I looked into the green sea yesterday,
And dreamt in outline of that sum of Cause
Which brought it there, and me to watch it curl
Its never-sleeping mystery to my feet.
Although so far agone as now appears
Like Never, yet I think there was an hour,
Down the dim reaches of a cosmic Past,
Ere the beginnings of the growth of things,
When Fact stayed, poised, and centred everywhere ;
And for one pregnant moment of suspense
The awful Infinite had nought to do :—
When universal forces nowhere clash’d,
And all thro’ Space hung equal formlessness :
When, wreck’d, some all-dissolved, older Past
Yielded its untired atoms for new work—
Or play—at System-churning; till there went
Slow, doubtful whirlings through Immensity,
And sameness grew new-focuss’d, here or there,
With glimmering, gassy nuclei. So, anon,
These, settling into fluid balls of fire,
Flung forth, all wildly spinning into space,
Planets; and these, all spinning, flung their moons,
Until, among an unguessed myriad more,
This little thing we live to call our world
Grew individual, and puny shone
Among the millions : thence, self-centred, roll’d,
An isle of gleaming chaos, thro’ the cycled years.
in.
The young world’s radiance ebb’d away to night,
And a slow-settling darkness veiled her curves,
As she, a vaporous mantle for awhile
Drew round her broodingly. And in that gloom
The mystery, Motion, learned a strange new art
In subtle particles. Change after change
Smaller and stiller grew, and more complex—
As Life began in darkness. For ’twas then,
�6
“Key Notes.”
Under a heaven all murky with the breath
Of young creation rising hot and thick,
Sprung that, which, lighted, had been loveliness.
Fem-forests, haply, at the steaming poles
Spread to the darkness beauty unbeheld;
And forms most gracious in the eye of Day
Were born unheralded, and died in night.
Nor so were wasted! What, though living eyes
That turn ethereal quiverings into light,
And use the light to find out loveliness—
Not yet were focuss’d from a vaguer Force :•—
Men, retrospective, in this later age,
Learn, by the trace of what they never saw,
A lesson worth the learning. Let it pass.
Dawn conquered e’en the long primeval night,
The blackness thinn’d, and wept itself away,
And let the light through from the parent sun,
And life began to know itself as life
In sentient things that joyed in some degree.
New inter-adaptation everywhere,
Among material bent on issuing
At last, in that supremest noblest thing,
Achieved by all that has been—Consciousness—
The being, who not only lived a life,
Loved, joyed, and suffered, slept and woke again,
But noted it, and recognised himself,
And found some words and said, “I am a man.”
rv.
In yon far distance, where the sea and sky
Make of two meeting edges one thin line,
A boundary seems where yet no boundary is.
Being persists : and, grandly gradual,
All aspects melt in one-ness as we move,
And, spite of all our severing, ill fit names—
Cause, as effect, retains its force unspent.
One fact grows smoothly on, through changing
lights,
�“ Key Notes.”
7
Stable alone in instability,
Unchangeable in constant changefulness.
In thine own piteous, piteous ignorance,
Break not the calm continuous tale of growth,
Told by the tacit truthfulness of things,
With theory of breach—0 petty man !
Pause with thy rounded story in mistrust
Of its full-blown completeness ! In the face—
The awful face—of deep, unfinished Life,
Cast they neat sketch of things aside awhile :
Forget thy need of headings to thy page,
Or final flourish hinting all is said.
Learn of thy planet home, man-dazzled man I
The life of man is mot the end of things.
For, not till earth hid all her fires away,
And gave but borrowed splendour to the night,
Knew she of greater glory than her own,
And, in her children’s vision, learnt to see the
stars.
?
v.
Strong, sanely conscious, sweet Philosophy I
I see her dealing with the fevered screams
Of angry over-certain ignorance ;
She measures men by what they tend to be,
Endures all honest lies right patiently,
Knows them for lies, but knows she knows them so,
By knowledge that would make the liar true
Could he lay hold of it. A day shall dawn,
When error, proved, shall be no longer held,
And battled for, as somehow, somewhat good
And beneficial, error though it be.
Grand, unrebellious, sane Philosophy !
Crowned and calm I see her sit aloft,
Upon the apex of things knowable ;
Her heart the stiller that it is so vast;
Her deed emergent from her gravest thought,
As it illumes and tempers to the Fact
�“ Key Notes”
The deepest of her feeling. And around—
Above her, spreads the measureless abyss :
Time both ways endless :—all ways endless,
Space.
0 strongly patient, fair Philosophy !
She reads the midmost truth betwixt extremes,
Dreams of the far point whither truths converge,
And with a question in her thoughtful smile
Ponders the poetry of paradox—
How highest knowledge waxes negative,
How he who soars the farthest in his thought,
Basks in a beatific ignorance,
Knows by his knowledge he can never know,
Sees by the light of sight that he is blind,
And loves the largeness of the total sum,
That lured him to be ignorant and wise.
0 just, harmonious Philosophy I
She links, and interlinks the sciences,
Finds the coherence of a Universe,
And one-ness in the varied wide-lived All;
Reads in a lump of dirt the very law,
That rules the being of Society,
Kinship between the atoms and the suns,
And reason for a Virtue foreshadowed in a clod.
VI.
There is a sense in which the Universe
Is pivoted upon a molecule ;
There is a sense in which Eternity
Hangs on each moment. Read that truth reversed,
The softest dimple on a baby’s smile,
Springs from the whole of past Eternity :
Tasked' all the sum of things to bring it there,
And so was only barely possible.
Yet ’twas so one and equal with its cause
’Twould need that whole of past Eternity,
Cancell’d and changed, and every motor force
And every atom through Infinitude,
�1
<f Key Notes.”
9
Set otherwise a-going to hinder it.
The Future lies potential in the Now :
The Necessary is the Possible,
The two are differing names for one stiff Fact,
That Fact—the Being of whatever is.
Is this dogmatic ? ’Tis the normal voice
Of soughing breezes, and of singing birds ;
It comes to me thwart distant silences
Of inter-stellar vacancy at night,
It comes to me from human influence
Drifted through centuries, half-unperceived ;
And in it is an all-embracing Code,—
And in it is an all-inspiring Creed,—
In what has been man learns the law of life,
And finds his Revelation writ as Genesis.
VII.
But now what says Philosophy of Self ?
What thinks her follower of the man he is ?
Can he, in presence of the symphony
That rolls around him, played by viewless Cause
On suns for instruments, with Life for Key
And the For Ever we can only name
As metronome to beat out rhythmic bars,
Great eeons long, in number infinite—
Can he revert to his small destiny,
As wjth a moment’s stopping of his ears,
While that sweet thundering of the huge “Not
Self,”
Challenges him to listen while he may ?
Aye, for his egotism is not killed,
But only stunn’d, by vastness : now forgot
In the strong consciousness of larger things,
But yet, anon, assertive ; full of rights ;
Measuring worth by “What is that to me ? ”
And so we look about us for a god,
Whom we may bind in trust to work our welfare
out.
fl
�IO
“ Key Notes.”
VIII.
The tacit flux of unexplaining fact
That deals one recompense to one offence
Whether we call the doer, “ fool,” or “ knave ; ”
The steady tendency that draws the child,
Playing too near a precipice, to death,
And holds in safety every wretched life
That fails of chancing on the way to die—
This tacit fact, this steady tendency
Breeds our experience, and makes us wise ;
Breathes on our wisdom then, and makes us good.
0 man! thou mad ! thou blind ! thou self
engross’d !
Let thy poor blindness be chastised to sight,
Grow acquiescent in the utmost ward
Of Nature’s fine impartiality :
Learn that what is must measure what thou dost,
That on thy knowledge hangs thy highest fate
And all thy virtue grows of the outer Cosmic
growth.
IX.
Daily we die, eternally to live,
Each in the measure of his deathlessness
In the undying life of that strong Thing,
That once was Chaos and that shall be God,
But now is Man, and needs the lives of men
To learn its Being,—weave its Future by.
Freedom is born of fetters. Joy of pain.
For he who feels the gain of greater things
In his own loss, makes of his loss a gain;
And masters so the stern Necessity
That so apportion’d. When thy will is one
With what must be, with or without thy will,
Thy will grows helpful, and thy will is free.
For mastery is service perfected,
And, being won, yields back obedience
To laws of larger life. ’Tis thus we grow
�“Key Notes.”
ii
And feel a world-pulse thrill our hopeful soul,
And feel our bark of life lift on the wave,
With progress, joyous, sure and palpable.
Free, and yet fast; fast, and for ever free !
Lured by a love-like law in lines of Liberty.
x.
Now'shall we worship ? Aye : but name no name.
A thousand G-ods, outgrown of growing man,
Strew with their martyr’d prophets, all the past.
Man’s spirit is the father of his God,
When, seeking in his misty ignorance
For sign of meaning in the drift of things—
For trace of purpose in his little life,
His hope,—his trust sends forth blind, yearning
cries,
Which echo back from the mysterious face
Of outer things, transfigured as Reply.
Is this so piteous ? Nay : but it is well!
Such dreams have brought man up the slippery
steep
Of half-learnt rectitude, and made him man.
But now we worship with our faces hid,
And name no name, since All we cannot name :
Our homage to the awfulness of Law
Lies in the meekness of the earnest act,
Which, with sweet constancy in its reward,
Deals with us well, and turns our awe to love.
The end lies hid in future victory,
Won by the faithfulness of man to man.
We know not of that end, and yet we wait,
And worship, acquiescent, for we feel it must be
great.
Amen.
�12
“ Key Notes.”
•SUMMER SONG.
i.
0 sun, that makes haste to be early to look on thy
self-kindled morn,
And to see the most beautiful brightness of dewdrop
fill’d daisies at dawn ;
0 tears of the gladness of greeting when earth
shakes her short sleep away,
And turns her to meet the long future of one more
intense summer day;
0 fullness of life in the flowers, of joy in the
fledgling’s new flight,
There is left no work for the heart at home, when the
earth is so full of delight.
ii.
I will hark to the innocent secret, in whisp’rings of
tall, flowr’d grass,
I will read the white lesson of daylight, in breezewreathed clouds as they pass,
And with fullest surrender of spirit to the free
efflorescence of things,
I will think not a thought that is duller than glint of
the dragon-fly’s wings.
My heart shall be tender and trustful, and hold not a
heavier care
Than a butterfly, flutt’ring ’mid roses at noon, might
carry, nor know it was there.
in.
There are harebells that, nodding and swaying, defy
the full sunshine to fade;
There are oaks, in their gnarled firmness, dividing the
noon from the shade ;
There are beetles that shimmer and vanish among
little stones by the bank ;
�“ Key Notes”
13
There are hummings of flight that is seeking, and
perfume of blossoms that thank.
Things seem all youthful and faithful, and life all
earnest and glad:
Who can believe ’tis the same old earth men say is so
sinful and sad ?
IV.
So busy the flowers are blowing, so busy and so
untired ;
So certain the bee is of finding the sweetness her life
has desired;
So steady the sky stands over, to bless all the
kindling and birth
Of a thousand new things in a minute, on the
teeming summer-day earth.
0 breezes, aglow with the sunbeams ! ye’d utter it all
if ye could—
The tending of things to be conscious of life: the
tending of life to be Good.
MORNING.
What’s the text to-day for reading,
Nature and its being by ?
There is effort all the morning
Through the windy sea and sky.
All, intent in earnest grapple,
That the All may let it be :
Force, in unity, at variance
With its own diversity.
Force, prevailing unto action :
Force, persistent to restrain:
In a two-fold, one-soul’d wrestle,
Forging Being’s freedom-chain.
�14
“ Key Notes."
Frolic! say you—when the billow
Tosses back a mane of spray ?
No; but haste of earnest effort;
Nature works in guise of play.
Till the balance shall be even
Swings the to and fro of strife ;
Till an awful equilibrium
Stills it, beats the Heart of Life.
What’s the text to-day for reading,
Nature and its being by ?
Effort, effort all the morning,
Through the sea and windy sky.
AFTERNOON.
Purple headland over yonder,
Fleecy, sun-extinguish’d moon,
I am here alone, and ponder
On the theme of Afternoon.
Past has made a groove for Present,
And what fits it is: no more.
Waves before the wind are weighty;
Strongest sea-beats shape the shore.
Just what is, is just what can be,
And the Possible is free :
’Tis by being, not by effort,
That the firm cliff juts to sea.
With an uncontentious calmness
Drifts the Fact before the “ Law,”
So we name the order’d sequence
We, remembering, foresaw.
�“ Key Notes.”
And a law is mere procession
Of the forcible and fit;
Calm of uncontested Being,
And our thought that comes of it.
In the mellow shining daylight,
Lies the Afternoon at ease,
Little willing ripples answer
To a drift of casual breeze.
Purple headland to the westward !
Ebbing tide and fleecy moon !
In the “line of least resistance,”
Flows the life of Afternoon.
TWILIGHT.
Grey the sky, and growing dimmer,
And the twilight lulls the sea.
Half in vagueness, half in glimmer,
Nature shrouds her mystery,
What have all the hours been spent for ?
Why the on and on of things ?
Why, eternity’s procession
Of the days and evenings ?
Hours of sunshine, hours of gloaming,
Wing their unexplaining flight,
With a measured punctuation
Of unconsciousness, at night.
Just at sunset was translucence
When the west was all aflame;
So I asked the sea a question,
And a kind of answer came.
*5
�16
fCKey Notes”
Is there nothing but Occurrence ?
Tho’ each detail seem an Act,
Is that whole we deem so pregnant,
But unemphasised Fact ?
Or, when dusk is in the hollows
Of the hillside and the wave,
Are things just so much in earnest
That they cannot but be grave ?
Nay, the lesson of the twilight
Is as simple as ’tis deep ;
Aquiescenceacquiescence:
And the coming on of sleep.
MIDNIGHT.
There are sea and sky about me,
And yet nothing sense can mark ;
For a mist fills all the midnight,
Adding blindness to its dark.
There is not the faintest echo
From the life of yesterday :
Not the vaguest stir foretelling
Of a morrow on the way.
’Tis negation’s hour of triumph,
In the absence of the sun,
’Tis the hour of endings, finished;
Of beginnings, unbegun.
Yet the voice of awful Silence,
Bids my waiting spirit hark ;
There is action in the stillness.
There is progress in the dark.
�“ Key Notes”
In the drift of things and forces,
Comes the better from the worse,
Swings the whole of nature upward,
Wakes, and thinks—a Universe.
There will be more life to-morrow,
And of life, more life that knows ;
Though the sum of Force be constant,
Yet the Living ever grows.
So we sing of Evolution,
And step strongly on our ways,
And we live thro’ nights in patience,
And we learn the worth of days.
In the silence of murk midnight
Is revealed to me this thing:
Nothing hihders, all ennobles
Nature’s vast awakening.
OCTOBER.
0 still, sweet mornings, silvery with frost!
0 holy early sunsets full of calm I
When the spent year has seen her utmost fruit,
And beautifully leans towards her doom.
I think if I could choose my hour to go
Into the unknown infinite, ’twould be
While earth is lying patiently bereft
During this yearning month—while summer holds
A failing hand across the narrowing days,
To meet the stern cold grip of winter : smiles
The last sweet effort of her life away,
And bids October mourn in gold and grey.
’Tis not quite hopefulness I gather there,
And yet methinks it is not quite despair,
But a resigning with a painless will,
Of what was lovely once, is lovely still,
17
�18
“ Key Notes”
And yet must go. 0 mystery of Death !
The formless blank that margins liveliest life!
We turn the weary face towards the wall,
We wish less vehemently hour by hour,
We let the thought-worn spirit ebb away
Into unconsciousness, and as we fail,
No more have energy to question God,
Or men, or things, but dimly think it strange,
That ever it had seemed to matter so.
Are there degrees of dying ? Or, when breath
Has ceased for ever are men all the same ?
Do varying intensities of Death
Mark of past lives which most deserved the name ?
When noble purpose, unfulfilled, subsides
With the out-ebbing of a human life,
With the slow-slacking beat of noble heart
That erewhile did conceive it, is no sign
Vouchsafed, to mark the lapse from death of such
As all his life long kept his soul asleep ?
Each did his nothing. One from lack of days,
Or lack of God’s-help—opportunity.
The other from the lack of purpose, or
Of force to wield it: now it seemsall one :
Each dies his death: the nothing that is done
Has less of satire for the self-wrapt fool,
Than for his loftier brother.
Earth’s fair things
Perish so unresistingly ; the while
They meet the autumn as they met the spring,
Lovely, and acquiescent: for the year
Seems never surer,—less indifferent
Than when the woods are withering and aglow,
And oaks in calmness let their acorns go,
To fare as they are able, in the dark.
Let the true aspirant endure to leave
His precious noblest thought. Aye ! bear to die,
Not seeing it prevail. Thou feeble man !
Meet the inevitable with strong trust
�“ Key Notes.”
’9
That waste is not, but fitness everywhere;
And though thy thought had seemed so very good,
Its worth might well have won thy fame for thee,
Mistrust that love of it as thine own thing,
In measure of its fitness, not as thine,
’Twill rule the life-blood of posterity,
And make of man meet master of his ways.
Good is too strong to need thy consciousness;
But, having blest thy vision, lets thee die.
0 prophet I live the flowering future through
In present days, however chill and few ;
Catch the vast measure of the march of man,
And read a cycle in an hour ; for he,
And only he, may live immortally,
Who lives, the while he lives, in tune with life
That lives for ever. Prophet! having lived
And quickened with thy word some further soul,
And sent a-ringing through eternity
The chord thy hand was formed to strike, and
leave,
Thou shalt October-wise, resign thy breath,
Glad with faint echoings from a future life,
Grown beautiful and great beyond thine hour of
death.
DECEMBER.
Winter; and loveliness of frosty hours :
Winter, and frost; and sorrow of the poor :
More than one-half of all the men alive,
Forced, by the struggle ’twixt the hurling power
Of orbit motion, and the strong, stiff pull
Of yon white sun,—to be immersed in cold.
Snow crystals! tiny, perfect, everywhere :
Man’s work and nature’s crisply fringed with hoar
That sends a gem-hued sparkle through the eye
Into the gladdened consciousness behind,
�20
“Key Notes.”
A.1X& helps the poet to sufficient theme
For kindling song where prose was yesterday.
What ? will he glibly, gaily dare extol
The levelling force of whiteness ; and the robe
Of Beauty, thrown alike o’er hut and hall,
And miss the lesson of it ?—Let him pause!
A ledge exists where snowflakes can be lodged;
There they are lodged, and there their beauty is,
And, being snow, their coldness, tho’ the shelf
Be shoulder of a baby, scarcely clad,
And dying of it, or the cosy eaves
That hold the flakes away from ruder lives,
Fitter to weather winter circumstance—
Admiring and not dying of the snow.
I do not trust the unreflective praise
That would appropriate the fair “ must be ”
As man’s especial, heaven-sent heritage.
For he who calls the glory of this world
His own, his right, his message from a God
Intent on beautifying life for man,
Will find his logic sadly overset,
And all his music stricken out of tune,
When he, perchance, shall find his own delight
Hangs on that fact that strikes a brother dead.
We skim the surface of the Actual,
Daub it with moral, wall it round with names,
Fit puny, arbitrary adjectives,
Where Fact is subtle, mergent, and itself,
Until we see no more the real drift
Of Being, nor coherence in the tale
Perpetually uttered everywhere.
Meanings are made and fastened by our moods:
Things only mean themselves : each fact proclaims,
By its existence, but that it exists :
What is, not what it stands for, is the theme
Of Nature’s teaching. Let us learn that first.
Grave lessons learnt of cosmic constancy
Work in us, patience. Thence more safely true
�li Key Notes y
21
Live we our lives, law-tempered, soberly,
But ever law-rewarded. And, unchill’d
By doubt of irony in sun or sky,
We learn to smile up in the face of Fact,
And praise its Fitness, fitly. Let us learn :
For, certainty attained, we acquiesce ;
And acquiescence wins the way to Happiness.
SONNET.
A little brook doth babble, and doth dance;
And in its eddies traps a sunny ray,
And toys with it, and splits it every way,
Till thousand seeming gems dazzle and glance,
The summer earth lies in a lovely trance; •
While a blithe song-bird on th’ o’erhanging spray,
Trills forth his mirth all thro’ the livelong day.
And some have said this world is ruled by Chance!
0 broad, blue lift I wherein the sun is set—
Whence the stars peep and sparkle all the night.
Why do things seem, so love-ruled, purpose-set,
If blind Chance gave them birth, and holds them
right ?
Most happy Chance ! such beauties chance to be :
I, too ; with ears thathear and eyes that see !
MARCH.
Wild winds of March I ruthless, and stern, and cold :
Wild flowers of March ! that tenderly unfold :
Wind—as a voice of sovereign fury wild,
Flower, only so, as is a peasant’s child.
Why come ye thus together, wind and flower,
Linked hand in hand, a weakness, and a power ?
One speaks in both; and doth the storm-wind hold
That it hurt not His primrose, and His smile,
�io.
“ Key Notes.”
’Mid blustering bleakness, helps the flower mean
while
With courage to be lovely in the cold.
For God is everywhere if anywhere,
Ruling the strong and weak with equal care :
In the wild days when Nature’s voice is harsh,
Weaving the rudest breath of bitter March ;
Yet guarding, that its fragrance may not fail,
The weakest bud that opens in the gale.
One law demands the twain. We are so blind 1
Spite of the legend God is in the wind,
As in the still small voice with which meanwhile
The meek, pale primrose wakes into a smile.
0 little flower ! teach me to be bold,
And Eke thyself keep courage in life’s bitter cold 1
APRIL.
0 sights, and scents, and sounds of this fair earth,
When Nature has her way unmarred by man I
From the arched beauty of the rainbow span
That sheds its lustre thro’ an April hour,
To yonder lark’s intensity of mirth,
Or the mysterious fragrance of a flower,
There is no.imperfection. It is strange
That man alone has power to disarrange,
And, when he will, can mar. Who would suspect
This creature, called a “ crowning work,” with handsDoing the meddling will of intellect.
The more can do the more he understands
To dim the face of Nature’s loveliness,
And make the sum of all her beauties less!
Sweet April morning ! by what wide mischance,
Is it that things more lovely are, in fact,
Where men are few and steeped in ignorance
Than where a crowd of thinkers plan and act?
Yet for all this is Beauty’s self a lie,
�11 Key Notes."
23
Because she shrinks away and seems to die,
When rude man in the hurry of his need
Tortures her into usefulness : when greed,
By twisting fair and good things into gold,
Makes “ progress ” one with wealth, and young men
old?
’Tis well there are some feats beyond our reach,
’Tis well we cannot climb the rainbow’s arc
With earthy tread, to make its glory dark ;
’Tis well no art of ours can ever teach
The wind and song-bird trammell’d, thought-bound
speech.
Or build sick cities on the mighty sea,
Or make one billow’s curve less wildly free.
And though on earth we crowd achievement so,
That little flowers have hardly room to grow,
Price-labell’d prose may reach not very high,
We cannot “civilise ” and spoil the sky 1
Yet stay 1 we weep this beauty that we soil,
And shrink from turning all our play to toil;
But this fair thought may shine athwart our tears,
And hope gleam, April-wise, on gloomy fears.
The reign of fitness is not over yet;
We never wholly lose what we regret.
If he be man who blots the sunny sky
With.breath of avarice and smoke of gain,
Yet man he is who feels relenting pain
For Beauty’s sickness : hates to see her die.
The poet in the bosom of the best
Shall never starve; because the law is just
By which it lives,—in which we put this trust,
That all fair things from final loss Love’s Strength
may wrest.
PRINTED BY C. W. REYNELL, LITTLE PHLTBNEY STREET, HAYMARKET.
�
Dublin Core
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Title
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Victorian Blogging
Description
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
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Pamphlet
Dublin Core
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Title
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"Key notes"
Creator
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Leigh, Arbor
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 23 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Arbor Leigh is the pseudonym of Louisa Sarah Bevington, English anarchist, essayist and poet. Printed by C.W. Reynell, Little Pulteney Street, London.
Publisher
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Thomas Scott
Date
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1876
Identifier
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CT168
Subject
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Poetry
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<img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /><br /><span>This work ("Key notes"), 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>
Format
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application/pdf
Type
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Text
Language
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English
Conway Tracts
English Poetry
Poetry in English