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" GEORGE smmmmm, _ . .- “ <1m‘EDWARD AVELI‘N’E‘r, p.50. tl‘dd‘V‘J'v‘ I *I/\'/\"//\/f_\lr~.ni'\/\v-\ ./‘-."¢:'-"\./-_» 4 \ I“ '4 ,- 'i-_r=@@NDQNe*>* ij TFiREEJTHOUGHT "PUBLISHING Cam-mg I ;‘ a ‘ I “j‘fi'l’w38f§'.-“__ ’ m Iv Plus-E , a. .-_‘ q _, 7.4 ~.‘ V S‘ w 7 V 1 ‘E I V I ‘ A V‘\'~-'\d“vW\_/v-vv\l‘a/iv~\ny\ flux.» ~__ -\_v_-"\;-. - p ' , wwmWetun ‘ The Freethinker’s Text-BookPart I.“ Sec!~ 1 _~ ' , ‘ tion I.—-“ The 'Storypof the-Origin of Man, as told by the‘v~ ’ Bible and Science.” ‘ Section II;_—,—“ VVhat'is Religion?” ‘ . “_‘How has ‘it ?”-“ ‘fGod and Soul.” Bound in . ‘ , cloth ' V 1 _..- 4 ~. 4",, ' 2 6 I _ Impeachment of the vHouse of Brunswick.i ' -,\ Ninthedition __ ‘; 1H0 _~ ‘ a ~_ Political Essays; Boundin cloth : ' J I l '2 of I " ’ 'Hints t0 Emigrants, containing important in." l. - ' formation on the United States, Canada, and New Zealand 11f - Y0 The True ‘Story of my Parliamentary " ' - _ Struggle. Containing a Verbatim Report ,of the pro- _' ' ceedings- before the Select Gommitteeof the House of Com- ’ *mons ;’ Mr. Bradlaugh’s Three Speeches at the Bar of the _ House, etc.,wetc. .L ' 1 . L Y ' . . Fourth Speech at the Bar of the House of‘ Commons. 30th , Y'I‘housa-nd 'g .. , .'._ ;.‘ ':May the House of Commonscommit Treason ? p , ‘Correspondence with ‘Sir St Northcote, MP. ' , _ . ' j I ». '._ J ohn' Churchill,‘ Duke of Marlborough: “Mob, Scum, and‘ ‘ Dregs”~ .. ' g, ' .. ~ .. ' A‘ Gardinal’s-BrokenOath . u _ , _ 4 ' Perpetual-Pensions. Fortieth Thousand .' . ' " 'vil- Lists andGrants to the Royal Family 1» Representation ‘of the People ‘ O 4 C3 IQ NlP‘Nl'F" 1 tter to‘ Albert Edward Prince of Wales, Freeniersonry ' ,1. Why do Men Starve? ' .. - '.'. i .. Tesus, Shelley, and Malthus : an Essay on the Population ‘EFLQh-(NWN ,r Question w .. g 7 Poverty ancl'its Effect upon the People ' Labor’s Prayer ‘. . -. ._ 4-. . _. ' " *TheLahd, the People, and the Coming’ Struggle -India,. Alecturev ' .'., V Five ‘Dead Men" -Who'i_n I Knew When‘ Living. Sketches of Robert Owen, Joseph‘ Mazzini, John Stuart’ Mill, Charles V Sumner, and Ledru Rollin 1.. r ' -_ . . ‘7 . l »> ' Gromwelland 1l?V'nshir1gton-: "a'Cont'rast- ' _ . .' ~ ' ' ~ ' ' Verbatim Re ort of the Trial The Queen , V against Brad augh and Btesant. " with Portraits and’ t _ Autographs of the two Defendants, Second Edition, with‘ Appendix, containing the J udgnients of Lords' Justices ‘ . Brainwell, Brett, and'Cottonl Cloth . ._ l - 5 0‘ Splendid large-sized Photograph of Charles Bradlaugh," mounted ' forframingfis. , ' > v - - _ 7' vJhromo-litho of "Charles V Bradlaugh; ‘Cabinet size, Id, In Lett's’, ’ protecting case, post free, 2d‘ Large size, 6d, 7 In Letts? pro- , {y case, post'free-,»7d._ . ‘ oo" Qobbc 'o'oocQQ'o oblop'; one HbDl—‘P-‘b'j IO '1'; FnEEIfionennI’UBmsnnte Conm'nr,63, _]3‘leetgStreet,"E,-O, ‘Eh: Atheist“ ifllatinvin. VII. 54 , 517/0 SOME I /“F7 OBJECTION S TO SOCIALISM. BY CHARLES BRADLAUGH. LONDON : FREE/THOUGHT PUBLISHING COMPANY, as FLEET STREET, no. 1884 .— PRIOE ORE PM‘ THE ATHEISTIC PLATFORM. Under this title is being issued a fortnightly publication, each number of which consists’ of a lecture delivered by a Well-known Freethought advo- cate. Any question may be selected, provided that it has formed the subject of, a lecture delivered from the platform by an Atheist. It is desired to show that the Atheistic platform is used for the service of humanity, and that Atheists war against tyranny of every kind, tyranny of king and god, political, social, and theo- logical. Each issue consists of sixteen pages, and is published at one penny. Each writerhis responsible only forahis or her own views. i. “What is the use of Prayer?” Second Edition. By ANNIE BESANT. ' II. “Mind Considered as a Bodily Function.” By ALICE BRADLAUGH. III. “The Gospel. of Evolution.” By EDWARD AVELING, D.Sc. IV. “ England’s Balance Sheet.” By CHARLES BRADLAUGH. V. “ The Story of the Soudan.” By ANNIE BESANT. VI. “ Nature and the Gods.” By A. B. MOSS. These six in wrapper, sixpence. Post free, seven- pence. or am. 1 [+425 2-?” 3.2. rm’ ‘f 31.11:“! SOME OBJECTIONS TO SOOIALISM. BY CHARLES BRADLAUGH. \ __+_____ ‘THE great evils connected with and resulting from poverty—evils which are so prominent and so terrible in old countries, and especially in populous cities— have, in our own land compelled the attention, and excited the sympathy, of persons in every rank of society. ,Many remedies have been suggested and at- tempted, and from time toptime, during the present century, there have been men who, believing that the abolition of individual private property would cure the misery abounding, have advocated Socialism. Some pure-hearted and well-meaning men and women, as Robert Owen, Abram Combe, and Frances Wright, have spent large fortunes, and devoted much of their lives in the essay to test their theories by experiments. As communities, none of these attempts have been permanently successful, though they have doubtless, by encouraging and suggesting co-operative effort in Eng- land, done something to modify the fierceness of the life struggle, in which too often the strongest and most unscrupulous succeeded by destroying his weaker "brother. Some Socialistic associations in the United ‘States,1 as the Shakers and the Oneida community, have been held together in limited numbers as reli- gious societies, but only even apparently successful, while the numbers of each community remained com- paratively few. Some communities have for many _ years bravely endured the burden of debt, penury, and discomfort. to be loyal to the memory of their founder, as in the case at Icaria of the followers of Cabet. But 1 Particulars of all existing Socialistic communities in the United ' States are given in the works of Mr. Hinds and Mr. Nordhofi. 100 THE Arnms'ric' PLATFORM. in none of these was the sense of private property entirely lost; the numbers were relatively so small that all increase of comfort was appreciable, and in nearly all the communities there was option of the withdrawal of the individual. and with him of a proportion of the property he had helped to create or increase. During the past generation, Socialistic theory has been specially urged in Germany, and the Socialist leaders there have acquired greater influence because of the poverty of the people, and because too of the cruel persecution to which Social Reformers, as well as Socialists, have been subjected by Prince Bismarck’s despotic government. ‘ A difliculty arising from the repressive measures resorted to in Germany has been that German emi- grants to the United States and to Great Britain, speak and write as if precisely the same wrongs had to be assailed in the lands of their adoption as in the land of their birth.. Very recently in England—and largely at the in~ stance of foreigners—there has been a revival of Socialist propaganda, though only on a small scale compared with fifty years ago, by persons claiming to be “Scientific Socialists,” who declare that such Socialists as Robert Owen and his friends were utopian in thinking that any communities could be successfully founded while ordinary society exists. These Scientific " Socialists—mostly middle-class men—declare their in- tense hatred of the bourgeoisie, and affirm that the Social State they desire to create can only be established on the ruins of the present society, by a revolution which they say must come in any event, but uhich they strive to accelerate. These Scientific Socialist-s deny that they ought to be required to propound any social scheme,and they contem ptuously refuse to discuss any of the details connected with the future of the new Social State, to make way for which the present is to be cleared away. Most of the points touched on in this lecture were raised in' the discussion on Socialism between myself and Mr. Hyndman recently held in St. James’s Hall. Others of the questions have been raised in my articles in Our Corner, and in the reply there by Mr. J oynes. SOME OBJEOTIONS .TO SOCIALISM. 101 The Socialists of the Democratic Federation say that “Socialism is an endeavor to substitute an organised co-operation for existence” for the present strife, but they refuse to be precise as to the method or character of the organisation, or the lines upon which it is to be carried out. Their'reason is, probably, that they have not even made the slightest effort .to frame any plan, but would be content to try first to destroy all existing government. I suggest that this want and avoidance of foresight is, in the honest, folly, and in the wise, criminality. They mix up some desirable objects which are not all Socialistic with others that are not necessarily Socialistic, and add to these declarations which are either so vague as to be meaningless, or else in the highest degree Socialistic and revolutionary. Whilst Mr. Hyndman, one of the prominent members of the Democratic Federation, thus speaks of Socialism as endeavoring “to substitute an organised co-opera- tion,” Mr. E. Belfort Bax, another prominent member and co-signatory of the manifesto, emphatically says, “ no ‘ scientific ’ socialist pretends to have any ‘ scheme ’ or detailed plan of organisation.” When organisation can be spoken of as possible without any scheme or detailed plan, it shows that words are used without regard to serious meaning. These Socialists declare that there must be “ organisa- tion of agricultural and industrial armies under State control,” and that the exchange of all production must be controlled by the workers; but they decline to explain how this control is to be exercised, and on what principles. We agree that there are often too many concerned in the distribution of the necessaries of life, and that the cost to the consumer is often out- rageously augmented; but we suggest that this may be reformed gradually and in detail by individual efiort through local societies, and that it ought not to be any- part of the work of the State. We point to the fact that there are now in Great Britain--all established during the present reign—nearly one. thousand distri- butive co-operative societies, with more than half a million members, with over seventeen and‘three-quarter millions of pounds of yearly sales, with two and a half 102 THE ATHEISTIC PLATFORM. millions of stock-in-trade, with five and a quarter millions of working capital, and dividing one and a half millions of annual profit ; and that these societies, each keeping its own property, still further co-operate with one another to reduce loss in exchange by having a wholesale co-operative society in England, with sales in 1882 exceeding three and a half millions sterling, and another similar wholesale society in Scotland, with transactions in the same year to nearly one million sterling. We say the way to render the cost of exchange of products less onerous to the laborer is by the extension and perfection of this organisation of co-operative distribution, and that this may be and is being done successfully and usefully, ameliorating gradually the condition and developing the self- reliance of the individual workers who take part in such co-operative stores, and thus inciting ‘and inducing other individuals to join the societies already founded, or to establish others, and so educating individual after individual to better habits of exchange. We say that this is more useful than to denounce as idlers and robbers “the shopkeepers and their hangers on,” as is done by the present teachers of Socialism. We object that the organisation of all industry under State control must paralyse industrial energy and discourage and neutralise individual effort. The Socialists claim that there shall be “ collective ownership of land, capital, machinery and credit by the complete ownership of the people,” and yet they object that they are misrepresented when told that they want to take the private economies of millions of in- dustrious wage-earners in this kingdom for the benefit of those who may have neither been thrifty nor industrious. The truth is that, if language is to have any meaning, the definitions must stand given by me and unchallenged by my opponent in the St. J ames’s Hall debate, viz. : (1) “ Socialism denies all individual private property, and affirms that society, organised as the state, should own all wealth, direct all labor, and compel the equal distribution of all produce.” (2) “ A Socialistic State would be a State in which everything would be held in common, in which the labor of each individual would be directed and controlled by the SOME OBJECT IONS TO SOCIALISM. 103 State, to which would belong all results of such labor.” The realisation of a Socialistic State in this country would, as I then urged, require (1) a physical force revolution, in which all the present property owners unwilling to surrender their private properties to the common fund would be forcibly dispossessed. This revolution would be in the highest degree difficult, if not impossible, for property holders are the enormous majority. Mr. J oynes, in an article published in Our Corner, does challenge my definition, and says that the immediate aim of Socialism “is not the abolition of private pro- perty, but its establishment by means of the emancipa- tion of labor on the only sound basis. It is private capital we attack, the power to hire laborers at starva- tion wages, and not the independent enjoyment of the fruits of labor by the individual who produces them.” And he refers me to a paragraph previously dealt with by me as an illustration of contradictory statement, in which he and his cosignatories write: “Do any say we attack private property? We deny it. We only attack that private property for a few thousand loiterers and slave-drivers, which renders all property in the fruits of their own labor impossible for millions. We challenge that private property which renders poverty at once a necessity and a crime.” But surely this flatly contradicts the declaration by Mr. Hyndman in the debate, of “the collective ownership of land, capital, machinery, and credit.” I am afraid that Mr. J oynes has in his mind some other unexplained meaning for the words “ capital” and “ property.” To me it seems impossible that if everything be owned collectively, anything can be owned individually, separately, and privately. Mr. J oynes, however, apparently concedes that it is true that the private property of “ a few thousand loiterers and slave-drivers ” is attacked. Though he does not in his reply explain who these “few thousand ” are, I find in “The Summary of the Prin- eiples of Socialism,” signed by Mr. J oynes, that they are “ the capitalist class, the factory owners, the farmers, the bankers, the brokers, the shopkeepers, and their hangers-on, the landlords.” But these make much 104‘ THE ATHEISTIC PLATFORM. A more than a “ few thousand.” The census returns for _ v England and Wales alone show under the headings professional classes, 647,075 ; commercial classes, 980,128 (and these do not include the ordinary shop- keepers) ; farmers and graziers, 249,907 ; and unoccu- pied males over twenty, 182,282. Add to these propor- tional figures for Scotland and Ireland, and it is at once seen how misleading it is to speak of these as a “few thousand.” Mr. Joynes disapproves of my “small army of statistics.” I object that he and his friends never examine or verify the figures on which they found their allegations. Mr. Joynes says that it is. not private property, the fruits of labor, that is attacked by the Socialists, but “ private capital, the power to hire laborers.” Does that mean that £30 saved by an artisan would not be attacked so long as he kept it useless, but that if he deposited it with a banker who used it in industrial enterprise, or if he invested it in railway shares, it would be forfeited ? If an artisan may, out of the fruits of his labor, buy for £3 and keep as his own a silver watch, why is the £3 to be confiscated when it gets into the hands of‘the Gheapside or Corn- hill watch dealer ? A property owner is not only a. Rothschild, a Baring, or an Overstone, he is that person who has anything what- ever beyond that which is necessary for actual existence at the moment. Thus, all savings however moderate ; all household furniture, books, indeed everything but the simplest clothing are property, and the property owners belong to all classes. The wage-earning classes, being largely property owners,viz., not only by their household goods, but by their investments, building societies, their small deposits in savings banks, their periodical payments to their trade societies and friendly societies, they would naturally and wisely defend these against confiscation. If the physical force revolution were possible, because of the desperate energy of those owning nothing, its success would be achieved with serious immediate crime, and would be attended with consequent social mischief and terrible demorali- \ sation extending over a long period. Mr. Hyndman has written that “ force, or fear of force, is, unfortunately, the only reasoning which can some OBJECTIONS TO socmmsm. lOS appeal to,a dominant estate, or will ever induce them to surrender any portion of their property.” I read these words to him in the debate, and he made no reply. to them. I object that a Socialistic State to be realised by force can only be so realised after a period of civil war shocking to contemplate, and one in which the wisest would go near madness. But a Socialistic State, even if achieved, could not be maintained without a second (mental) revolution, in which the present ideas and forms of expression con- cerning property would have to be eifaced, and the habit of life (resulting from long-continued teachings and long-enduring traditions) would have to be broken. The words “ my house,” “ my coat,” “ my horse,” “ my watch,” “ my book,” are all affirmations of private pro- perty which would have to be unlearned. ' The whole current of human thought would have to be changed. In a Socialistic State there would be no inducement to thrift, no encouragement to individual saving, no protection for individual accumulation, no check upon, no discouragement to waste. Nor, if such a Socialistic State be established, is it easy to conceive how free expression of individual opinion, either by press or platform, can be preserved and maintained. All means of publicity will belong to, and be controlled by, the State. But what will this mean ? Will a Socialistic government furnish halls to its adversaries, print books for its opponents, organise costly journals for those who are hostile to it ? If not, there must come utter stagnation of opinion. And what could the organisation and controlling of all labor by the State mean P In what could it end ? By whom, and in what manner, would the selection of each individual for the pursuit, profession, or handi- craft for which he was fittest be determined P I object that the Socialistic advocates exaggerate and distort real evils, and thus do mischief to those who are seeking to effect social reforms. For example, they declare that the whole of the land of the country is held by “a handful of marauders,” who ought to be _ dispossessed, and when told that there are 852,438 persons owning on an average less than one fifth of an acre each, holding probably in the neighborhood of 106 THE ATHEISTIC PLATFORM. towns, and that more than half a million of these \ persons are members of building societies, paying for their small properties out of their wage-earnings, they only say: “Do you suppose those who hold building allotments will be dispossessed ?” But if they are not dispossessed, if their private property is left to them,,then “collective ownership” must have a new meaning. Pressed with the fact that there are 205,358 owning on an average fifteen acres each, they make no other‘ answer. Yet this 1,037,896, representing with their families more than four millions of human beings, are clearly not a “handful,” nor‘ is there any evidence, offered that they are “marauders.” My complaint is that the possibility of early Land Law Reform is injured and retarded by such rashness. It is an un- doubted evil that in this crowded kingdom so few as‘ 2,238 persons should own 39,924,232 acres of land, and . that the enormous holdings should be inadequately taxed, but we need the influence of the one million small landowners to enable us legally to reform and modify those obnoxious land laws which have facili- tated the accumulation of such vast estates in so few hands. In the debate with myself, Mr. Hyndman ' spoke very contemptuously of the “ small ownerships ” and “paltry building allotments,” yet he ought to know that the holders of these houses are law-abiding, peace-promoting citizens, who are encouraged by these slight possessions, which give promise of comfort in life, to strive so that the comfort shall be extended and secured. - A sample of the wild and extraordinary exaggeration indulged in by the Democratic Federation may be found on p. 48 of the “ Summary of the Principles of‘ Socialism,” where it is gravely declared that the “ idlers who eat enormously and produce not at all form the majority of the population,” and this may be fairly contrasted with another statement by the same persons that the present conditions of labor have “ brought luxury for the few, misery and degradation for the many.” If the latter be accurate, the former must be- a perversion. ' The Socialists say that there are a few thousand per- ~sons who own the National Debt, and they recommend‘ SOME OBJECTIONS TO SOOIALISM. 107 its extinction ; usually leaving it in doubt as to whether this is to be by wholesale or by partial repu- diation. When reminded that there are an enormous number of small depositors (at least 4,500,000 accounts in one year) owning through the ordinary savings banks £45,403,569, and through the Post Ofiice Savings Bank, £36,194A95, they neither explain the allegation as to the few thousands, nor do they condescend to ofier the slightest explanation as to how any savings have been possible if all the wealth created by labor has been “ devoured only by the rich and their hangers- on.” Repudiation of the National Debt would ruin the whole of these. The Socialist leader says that the small ownership of land and these small savings do not really benefit the working classes, for that in times of depression the savings are soon used up. That may often be true, but if there were no savings,j_then it must be starvation, pauperism, or crime ; at least the saving mitigates the suffering. When told that there are 2,300,000 members of friendly societies, who must re- present at least 9,000,000 of the inhabitants of this country, and that these, amongst other investments, have £1,397,730 in the National Debt, we are answered that these are mere details. On this point I think Mr. Joynes a little fails in candor. He takes one set of my figures, and says “ the share of each individual is on the average a little more than £3 35s., and the divi— dend which annually accrues to each of these propertied persons is slightly over 2s. It does not require a very high standard of intelligence to enable a man to per- ceive that Socialists who intend to deprive him of these 28., and at the same time to secure him the full value of his work, are proposing not to diminish his income, . but to raise it in a very high degree.” Let me first say that the friendly society represents to each artisan investor, not the 2s. per year, but his possible sick money, gratuity on disablement, allowance whilst unemployed, etc.; next, that here Mr. J oynes does in this actually admit an attack on the private property of the laborer, and does propose to take away the accumulated “ fruits of labor ” from the independent enjoyment of the individual who earned it. And the working-man’s house P and his savings in the savings- 108 THE ATHEISTIC PLATFORM. bank, or in the co-operative store? Are these to be taken too P If not, why not ? and if yes, of how much of the fruits of his labor is the laborer to be left by the Socialists in “independentenjoyment”? When pressed that the confiscation of the railways “ without compen- sation,” would bankrupt every life assurance company, and thus destroy the provision made for hundreds of thousands of families, because in addition to about £5,262,000 in the Funds, and about £75,000,000 in- vested on mortgages of houses and land, the life insurance companies are extensive holders of railway securities—the advocates of Socialism only condescend to say: “ Who are the shareholders in the railways? Do they ever do any good in the world? They are simply using the labor of the dead in order to get the labor of the living.” But is this true? The share- holders originally found the means to plan, legalise, and construct the railway, to buy the land, to pay the laborer day by day his wage, whilst yet the railway could bring no profit, to buy the materials for the per- manent way, to purchase and maintain the rolling stock. Many hundreds of shareholders in unsuccess- ful lines have never received back one farthing of what they paid to the laborer. No laborer worked on those un~ successful lines without wage. Some railway shareholders have got too much, but there are thousands of com- paratively poor shareholders who are to be ruined by the seizure of their shares without compensation. It is not at all true that railway shareholders use “the labor of the dead in order to get the labor of the living.” On the contrary, during the last few years the tendency on lines like the Midland, has been to afford the widest facilities, and the greatest possible comfort consistent with cheapness, to working-folk travelling for need or-pleasure. That all railway managers are not equally far-seeing is true, that much more might be done in this direction is certain, that some managing directors are over-greedy is clear, but that the change has been for the better during the past twenty years none would deny who had any regard for truth. That railway porters, pointsmen, guards, fire- men, and drivers are, as Mr. J oynes well urges, often badly paid, and nearly always overworked, is true, but sons OBJECTIONS T0 SOCIALISM. 109 making the railways State property would not neces~ sarily improve this. The Post Office is controlled by the State for the State, and the letter-carriers and sorters are as a body disgracefully remunerated. Mr. J oynes complains that I have not met the ques- tion of the “ surplus value” of labor, which he says “ is the keystone of the Socialistic argument.” He does not explain upon what basis the alleged surplus value is calculated, but shelters himself behind a vague, and I submit incorrect, reference to a declaration by Mr. Hoyle, the well-known earnest temperance ad- vocate. Mr. J oynes says that in one and a~half hours the laborer earns enough for subsistence. Mr. Hoyle’s often-repeated declaration is in substance to the effect. that if the whole drink traffic of the country were abolished, and neither wines, beers, nor spirits drunk by any of the industrial classes, then that the working men could earn enough for comfort in very much less time than they now do. Mr. J oynes here entirely overlooks the substance of Mr. Hoyle’s declaration, which is, in efiect, that the working men do now re- ceive, and then snend wastefully, what would keep them. I have always contended that in nearly every department of industry labor has been insufficiently paid, in some cases horribly paid, and I have claimed for the laborer higher wages, and tried to help to teach him, through trades’ unions and otherwise, how to get these higher wages ; but if Mr. Joynes and his friends mean anything, wages are to disappear altogether, and the State is to apportion to each a sort of equal sub- sistence, without regard to the skill or industry of the individual laborer, so that the skilled engineer, the un- skilled hod-carrier, the street sweeper, the ploughman, and the physician, would each, in the Socialistic State, have neither less nor more than the other. _ The Socialists say “the laborers on the average re- place the value of their wages for the capitalist class in the first few hours ‘of their day’s work; the ex_ change value of the goods produced in the remaining hours of the day’s work constitutes so much embodied labor which is unpaid; and this unpaid labor so em- bodied in articles of utility, the capitalist class, the factory owners, the farmers, the bankers, the brokers, 110 THE A'PHEISTIG PLATFORM. the shopkeepers, and their hangers-on, the landlords, divide amongst themselves in the shape of profits, interests, discounts, commissions, rent, etc.” But with- out the capitalist where would be the workshop, the plant, or the raw material? It would be better if in co-operative production workmen would be their own capitalists, but surely the owner of capital is entitled to some reward ? If not how is he to be persuaded to put it into fixed capital as factory and plant? Why should he beforehand purchase raw material on which labor may be employed, subsist labor while so em- ployed, and take the risk of loss as well as profit in exchanging the article produced ? And why is not the farmer to be sustained by the laborers if that farmer grows the food the laborer requires ? Why should not the shopkeeper be rewarded for bringing ready to the laborer articles which would be otherwise in the highest degree difiicult to procure? If the laborer procured his own raw material, fashioned it into an exchangeable commodity, and then went and exchanged it, there are many to whom the raw material would be inaccessible, and more who would lose much of the profits of their labor in fruitless efforts to exchange. The vague declarations by the Socialist that production and exchange are to be organised are delusive without clear statement of the methods and principles of the organisation. Robert Owen is called “Utopian” by these Democratic Federation Socialists, but at least he did try to reduce to practice his theories of production and exchange. The Democratic Federation say that “surplus value” is produced by “labor applied to natural objects under the control of the capitalist class.” I object that but for capital, fixed and circu- lating, there are many natural objects which would be utterly inaccessible to labor ; many more which could only be reached and dealt with on a very limited scale. That but for capital the laborer would often be unable to exist until the object had exchangeable value, or until some one was found with an equivalent article ready to exchange, and I submit that the banker, the shopkeeper, the broker may and do facilitate_the pro- , gress of labor, and would and could not do so without the incentive of profit. _ ‘pm/M WW_ M's-WWW,“ W SOME OBJECTIONS TO SOCIALISM. 1.11 We agree that “wage” is often much too low, and we urge the workers in each trade to join the unions already existing, and to form new unions, so that the combined knowledge and protection of the general body of workers as to the demand for, and value of, the labor, may be at the service of the weakest and most ignorant. We would advocate the establishment of labor bureaux, as in Massachusetts, so that careful and reliable statistics of the value of labor and cost of life may be easily accessible. We would urge the more thorough experiment on, and establishment of, co- operative PI‘OL'IIClJlVG ‘societies in every branch of manufacture, so that the laborers furnishing their own capital and their own industry, may not only increase the profit result of labor to the laborer, but also afford at least a reasonable indication as to the possible profit realised by capitalists engaged in the same industries. We would increase wage (if not in amount, at any rate in its purchasing power), by diminishing the national and local expenditure, and thus also decreas- ing the cost of the necessaries of life. We would try to shift the pressing burden of taxation more on to land, and to the very large accumulation of wealth. We cont . th e or she who liveghynthesale of labor should, with the purchase money, be able to buy life, not only for the worker, but for those for whom that worker is fairly bread-winner. And life means not only healthy food, reasonable clothing, cleanly, healthy shelter, education for the children until they are so sufficiently grown that labor shall not mean the crippling of after life—but also leisure. Leisure for some enjoyment, leisure for some stroll in the green fields, leisure for some look into the galleries of paintings and sculpture, leisure for some listen- ing to the singer, the actor, the teacher; leisure that the sunshine of beauty may now and then gild the dull round of work-a—day life ; and we assert that in any country where the price of honest earnest in- dustry will not buy this, then that if there are any in that country who are very wealthy, there is social wrong to be reformed. But this is the distinction be- ‘ tween those with whom I stand and the Socialists. 112 THE ATHEISTIC PLATFORM. We want reform, gradual, sure, and helpful. They ask for revolution, and know not its morrow. Revolution may be the only remedy in a country where there is no free press, no free speech, no asso- ciation of workers, no representative institutions, and where the limits of despotic -outrage are only marked by the personal fear of the despot. But in a country like our own, where the political power is gradually passing into the hands of the whole people, where, if the press is not entirely free it is in advance of almost every European country, and every shade of opinion i may find its exponent, here revolution which required a physical force to effect it would be a blunder as well a as a crime. Here, where our workmen can or anise t. and eet ' n ' rms and win them. The wage-winners 0 1r am and N ort um and, under the guidance of able and earnest leaders, have won many ameliorations during the past twenty years. Each year the workers’ Parliament meets in Trades Union Congress, to discuss and plan more complete success, and to note the gains of the year. Every twelve months, in the (lo-operative Congresses. work- ing men and women delegates gather together to con- sult and advise. Each annual period shows some pro- gress, some advantage secured, and though there is much sore evil yet, much misery yet, much crime yet, much—far too much—poverty yet, to-day’s progress from yesterday shows day-gleam for the people’s morrow. v Printed by Axum BESANT and CHARLES BRADLAUGH, at 63, Fleet Street, London, Ell—1884. ‘tithe Qtheistic ‘filattnrm. VIII. IS DARWINISM ATHElSTlC? BY CHARLES GOGKBlLL GATTELL. A uuuuu or “A Season 1 r t in asr LONDON: FREETHOUGHT PUBLISHING COMPANY, 63, FLEET STREET no. 1 8 s 4. PRICE ONE PENNY. THE ATHEISTIG PLATFORM. i A \ w UNDER this title is being issued a fortnightly publi- cation, each number of which consists of a lecture delivered by a well-known Freethought advocate. Any question may be selected, provided that it has formed the subject of a lecture delivered from the platform by an Atheist. It is desired to show that the Atheistic platform is used for the service of humanity, and that Atheists war against tyranny of every kind, tyranny of king and god, political, social, and theological. “ Each issue consists of sixteen pages, and is published at one penny. Each writer is responsible only for his or her own views. ‘ l 1.——“ ‘WHAT IS THE USE or PRAYER ‘? ” By ANNIE BESANT. 2.—~“ Mnu) CONSIDERED AS ‘A BODILY FUNCTION. - By ALIcE BBAIDLAUGH. 3.--“ THE G-osrEL OF EVOLUTION.” By EDWARD AvELme, D550. 4.----“ ENeLARD’s BALANCE-SHEET.” By CHARLEs BRADLAUGH. 5.—“ THE STORY on THE SoUnAR.” By ANNIE BESANT. 6.-—“ NATURE AND THE Gons.” . By ARTHUR B. Moss. These Six, in ll'rappcr, Sixpence. 7.—-“ Sons ORIEcTIoxs To. SocLiLrsM.” By CHARLES BRAD.- AUGH. _ IS DARWIN ISM ATHEISTIG? IN the concluding words of the “Descent of Man,” “we are not here concerned with hopes or fears, only with the truth as far as our reason permits us to discover it” (p. 4319). It may be said that Darwinism is not Atheism any more than Theology is Astronomy, yet whether one ex- ‘.cludes the other is a question which the assertion leaves unanswered. The Theist looks on the earth and living things as a series of fixed and unchangeable forms of existence as unvarying as they were on the first day of their creation. The universe, according to his view, could not have existed, or the activities called life and volition, without an act of creation. The only proper answer he ‘can make to the question: “ Given the earth and all its myriad forms of animal and vegetal life, how came they?” is the one with which all civilised nations are familiar: “They exist by an act of creation by an Omnipotent God, above, outside, and apart from the existing universe.” To put the matter in the briefest form of words, the Theistic theory is that all physical and vital phzenomena ~>once did ‘not exist, but were produced by a cause external to them—and, according to orthodox teaching, generally accepted, at some recent period, a few thousand years ago. The Atheistic position is that all this is inconsistent with the unlimited existence in time and extent of physical ~existences animate and inanimate. I have referred to “the only proper answer” because there are others who assume a first cause for the production‘of living things. They assume the pre-existence of matter in indefinite time, .and reserve the creative act to account for plants, animals, 116 THE ATHEISTIC PLATFORM. and men only. Others again bring in a bill of divorce- ment for the severance of the universe from the creator, and introduce the law of nature to take the place of an active God. Hence in most popular works we meet with the first cause and secondary causes. By general agree- ment scientific men attribute all the present operations of‘ nature to second causes, and express their conclusions based on observation and experience in terms now popular: —-the laws of nature. Even George Oombe, a man of undoubted piety, penned the following sentence: “Science has banished the belief in the exercise by the Deity in our day of special acts of ‘supernatural power as a means of influencing human affairs.” Baden Powell went still further (Inductive Philosophy, p. 67) : “There is not, there never has been, any ‘ creation’ in the original and popular sense of the term,” which is now adopted as “ a mere term of convenience.” To this the appearance- of man is no exception, and in no way violates the essential unity and continuity of natural causes. Again, “by equally 1 regular laws in one case as in the other, must have been evolved all forms of inorganic and equally of organic existence.” Any single instance of 'birth or origin as an exception to physical laws ‘ ‘is an incongruity so prepos- terous that no inductive mind can for a moment entertain it. All is subject to fire-arranged laws, and the disruption of ‘one single link in nature’s chain of order would be the destruction of the whole.” All this was written before Darwin broached his theory, and I well remember the reply given more than thirty years ago. “ \Vhy then cry unto God? There is no God in nature, only an exhibition of his legislative power as evinced in his pre-arranged laws I ” This appears to me an answer. Under this head ‘may fittingly be placed Darwin’s predecessors, E. G. St. Hilaire, Lamarck, Erasmus Darwin, and Goethe, all of whom attribute changes and modifications to a process of‘ rater/re. A brief summary of their views may be read in Dr. Aveling’s “Darwinian Theory.” Strange as it may appear, Professor Mivart quotes Aquinas and Augustine as writing ,that “ in the first insti- tution of nature we do not look for miracles, but for the laws of nature,” and he himself says “that throughout the whole process of physical evolution—‘the first mani- festation of life included—supernatural action is not to be' ’ IS DARWINISM ATHEISTIO ? 117 looked for.” Mr. IMungo Ponton holds that no organism can be said to be created. “It is neither necessary nor reasonable to suppose the Creator himself to act directly in the organisation of any organism.” How such lan- guage must shock the pious writer who exclaimed: “ The hand that made me is divine.” The genial poet duly shuddered at Baden Powell, who .after all only repeated the words of the Saints of the Roman Church : “Take thine idol hence, Cold Physicist! ' Great Absentee I and left His Agent Law To work out all results. ‘ Nature, whose very name Implies her wants, while struggling into birth, Demands a Living and a Present God.” I fully enter into the spirit of these words, and in my first work of importance (1864) I urged that such a con- tception negatives all science. There can be no scientific fact established and reliable, if‘ ‘it is true that there is a ‘God ‘ “ Whose power o’er moving worlds presides. Whose voice created, and whose wisdom guides,” It appears manifest that there can be nothing certain in nature if God ever interferes. No prediction of the ap- pearance of a comet or any description of the motion of a planet is possible, if we allow the possibility of any un- known person interfering with the calculations on which the predictions are based. This is not a matter of opinion ~or belief—it is a self-evident truth. We understand that two added to two equal four, but the Theistic theory admits the possibility that they may, under divine control, be either ,more or less. If any say no, they admit the Atheistic position. A God who never interferes is no God .at all. Those who put Law in place of God explain nothing. Law can no more create, modify, or sustain nature than God can.‘ It is, in fact, only removing the Divine operator "one step back without any advantage. Such persons think, “they thus obviate certain objections to terrible calamities 118 THE ATHEISTIO PLATFORM. and sufferings by saying instead of “God did it,” “the Law didlit.” It matters not whether it be the landlord or his agent, if we are evicted without compensation, and starve on the highway. Mr. M. Ponton (“ Beginning: How and When‘? ” p. 357) may be quoted as a very good illustration of this view. He contends that God acts in the living organisms only “ mediately, through the instrumentality of the organiser. We might as well suppose every instinctive action of an organised being to be a direct act of the creator, as that every unconscious action contributing to the development, growth, maintenance, or reproduction of the organism is a direct act of Divine interference.” Certainly, that is so— but why not‘? If the development, growth, and repro- duction goes 011 without direct interference, there must be some reason for it, and here it is—-“ the imperfections and occasional monstrosities occurring in individual organisms forbid our supposing these to be the immediate products of unerring creative wisdom and power.” The blundering is shifted on to the “ organiser ”-—but whence the organiser who or which acts so monstrously? ' The parentage is clearly set forth by Mr. Ponton (p. 356) himself, who, in describing all existing organisms, says: “But the first in each series must have been, in the strict sense of the term, a creation—a being brought into existence by the mere will of the creator.” Now taking these two statements as an explanation of the mode of origin of living organisms, I contend that the same logic that forbids us to accept monster from “unerring wisdom ” equally forbids us attributing the origin of an agent capable of producing them to the same unerring cause. A good designer of a good organism is accepted—while all is plain and fair sailing; but immediately Mr. Ponton stumbles over an imperfect or monstrous one, he sends the unerring cause flying back into the unknown mist, to assist at the formation of things in their primeval inno- cence and purity. This is exploded theology over again, as taught in our dame schools. A similar idea is developed in religion. The brutal God "of the Jews is transformed into a humane God by the Christians—a God of love. . But if we assume one source of power, it follows that all efficient causes of good and evil are traceable to that one- / IS DAR'WINISM A'I‘IIEISTIOfJ 119 source, so that there is no advantage in a liberal and loving philosophy clothing the modern God with only a humane ‘and beneficent character. Many devout persons have written books to reconcile us to Theism by picturing the design in nature to produce the beautiful and beneficent. If we accept their theory, we are confronted by fact, at- tested before our eyes and recorded in the rocks up to the earliest time—that animals have been created and sent on the earth for the purpose of devouring each other. There .is no design or purpose plainer than this. ‘The world is one vast slaughterhouse—one half the animal kingdom lives in and on other animals. So long as the lion roams the forest and the tigers seek their prey. so long the doctrine of benevolent design in nature will have a living palpable refutation. A power outside nature that can prevent pain is one of the grossest impositions the ingenuity of man has ever attempted to prove the existence of, or by implication to infer, as evidenced by God “in his works which are fair.” The only answer that can be made is that it is a good thing to be devoured! I have heard naturalists describe the beautiful adaptations by which one creature can and does kill another! All this takes place by‘ the intention of a personal God who directs it, or his under unerring and beneficent laws of nature, according to whichever view is held. There was a time, not so distant, when the whole of nature was believed to be under the personal direction of God. Thunder, lightning, storms, eclipses of the sun and moon, and the motions of the heavenly bodies, all came under this description. Travellers assure us that savages usually look upon nature with similar eyes. All'attempts to remove a capricious will of God from the operations of nature have been denounced as Atheistic. 'All discoverers and announcers of new truth have been denounced as Atheists through all time. A Frenchman filled a whole dictionary with their names. All science is necessarily Atheistic in the original sense of the word—- .Atheist means without God. Of coiu‘se it is used in other ' senses by some—for instance the denial of God, against God, an active opposition to Theism, &c. The broad dis- tinction I wish to make is: by Theism we understand a. 120 THE ATHEISTIC PLATFORM. system based upon the Supernatural ; by Atheism, a system based upon the Natural. As regards the subject of the present enquiry, the only great difficulty all along has been the popular conception of the earth’s recent appearance and its transitory nature. Called into existence only yesterday and liable to vanish in smoke to-morrow, it afiorded no scope for the evolution of living things during myriads of ages, millions of years. So long as minds were occupied with the fall of man behind them and penal fires before them, and all nature in a state of possible instantaneous combustion, nothing cer~ tain could be expected, no science was possible. ' In the presence of a first cause and a last cause and secondary causes, only confusion could arise. When it became known that in science a first and last cause was equally unknown, that changes in nature being intermin- able, so likewise are causes and efiects—the names by which they are known, what we rightly call human know- ledge became possible. The first society started in Eng- land for the collection and difiusion of this sort of know- ledge was the Boyal Society for the special study of .Natural, in contradistinction to Supernatural, knowledge. As regards man, the study has been greatly facili- tated by the discovery of his high antiquity, but aid to the interpretation of nature in general comes from the chemist. To explain anything in the terms of science as a process of nature required the evidence afforded by quantitative chemistry. This assures us that, though all nature is con- stantly changing, nothing is lost—-hence the indestructi- bility of matter is an established fact. What bearing has this on our subject? To my mind it is clear that the in- destructible is a never-ending and never-beginning attri- bute. This being accepted as a logical inference from an indisputable fact, a beginning and a beginner are both dispensed with. All are agreed that there is a self- existent, eternal something~—a necessity of human thought; this appears to me to be the indestructible nature we know—by whatever name we call it. In illustration of this, I have often quoted a beautiful passage from Herschell (Nat. Phil.), who, after referring to the fact that one of the great powers, gravitation, the 1s DARWINISM ATHEISTIC? 121 main bond and support of the universe, has undergone no change from a high antiquity, says: “ So that, for aught we know to the contrary, the same identical atom may be concealed for thousands of centuries in a limestone rock; may at length be quarried, set free in the lime-kiln. mix with the air, be absorbed from it by plants, and, in succession, become a part of the frames of myriads of liv- ing beings, till some occurrence of events consigns it once more to a long repose, which, however, in no way unfits it for again assuming its former activity.” There are some who admit the indestructibility of matter and its illimitable existence in space and time, who nevertheless allow there may be something underlying or behind the nature we know. I see no advantage in mul_ tiplying assumptions, nor do I see where logically we can stop if we do. If I assume a self-existent, eternal universe, and there stop, no one else can do more than repeat the same proposition containing the same idea. I do not pro- fess to account for it—no one can account for it. Why anything exists without limit in space and time no man can tell. In support of this view, let me quote a passage from the voluminous writings of Herbert Spencer: “Those who cannot conceive a self-existent universe . . . . take for ‘granted that they can conceive a self-existent creator.” The mystery they see surrounding them on every side they transfer to an alleged source, “ and then suppose they have solved the mystery. But they delude themselves. . . . . 'XVhoever agrees that the Atheistic hypothesis is untenable because it involves the impossible idea of self-existence, must perforce admit that the Theistic hypothesis is unten- able if it contains the same impossible idea. . . . So that, in fact, impossible as it is to think of the actual universe as self-existing, we do but multiply impossibilities of thought by every attempt we make to explain its existence.” (“First Principles,”'p. 35.) Some who do not admit that nature is all in all, reject the notion I have described as a person creating and sus- taining all existing things—on the ground that it is an- thropomorphic. Be it so, the long name does not alter the fact. I hold that Paley was right and has never been answered, when he said that a designer and eontriver of nature must be a person. A ,Hm- God is the only rational 122 THE ATIIEISTIO PLATFORM. and intelligible conception the human intellect can; ‘form, and they who reject it are manifestly without Go(l—~ Atheist. Those who place Law where God used to be are in advance of Theism, my only difference with them being as to the meaning they attach to the word Law. I also- believe in the laws of nature, but only thereby express the invariable order manifested—the way nature acts. They use Law not to denote the fact that water seeks its own level, but as though they meant the law either pushed or pulled the water down the river. In all their writings they speak of nature, her laws, and the lawgiver. I only know nature and mode or method. ‘When I say nature’ works thus, I add nothing to the fact; they speak of law as something impressed on matter, something having a separate existence. \Vhere I speak of living matter, they speak of matter ondozoorl with life, endowed with intelligence, &c. This leads up to the particular question under discussion—does Dar- winism come under the latter view? A few phrases are frequently quoted to prove that it does. Darwin writes that "prooaoly all the organic beings which have’ ever‘ lived on this earth have descended from some one primor~' dial form, into which life was first breathed by the‘ Creator.” In another place he writes : “ TheiCreator ori-~ ginally breathed life into a few forms, perhaps four orfi-ro.” Here we have the word Creator, and the work ascribed to him, or it, is breathing life into one or )erhaps five organ- isms. Darwin’s mind was apparently unsettled with regard to theology all his life. If he had devoted as many years to that as he did to the observation of plants and animals, he would doubtless have uttered a more certain sound. But his use of popular modes of expression, theo- logical phrases, must be judged by his later utterances... Theists quote his words about breathing as though he was in accord with Moses. Surely his tracing man’s origin to the quadruped and aquatic animals is slightly at variance‘ with the words of Genesis! 'Again it is urged that the use of the word Creator implies creation, but he has placed that view beyond all dispute. The belief in God he traces to natural causes in “Descent of Man,” p. 93, and points out numerous races of men of past and present time, who have no idea of God IS DARWINISM Arnnisric? 123- and no word to express such an idea. with regard to the existence of a creator and ruler of the universe, he says : “This has been answered in the affirmative by some of the highest intellects,” but he does not answer it himself.1 He'- mentions a savage who with “justifiable pride, stoutly maintained there was no (Zea-[Z in his land.” ' With regard to organisms being the work of a creator, his later utterances in “Descent of Man,” p. 61, are very clear. He states that in writing “ Origin of Species” he had two objects in view, . “ firstly, to show that species had not been specially crmterl.” The concluding paragraph . runs: “I have at least, I hope, done good service in aiding to overt/wow the dogma of separate mrafz'ons.” On the- same page, I think, 'he gives ample explanation of his use of current theological phrases. “ I was not, however, able to amaze! the influence of my former belief; then almost universal, that each species had been purposely created.” He traces the objections to his theory to the “arrogance of our forefathers which made them declare that they were descended from demi-gods,” and says that before long it will be thought wonderful that naturalists should have believed in separate creations. The concluding words of the volume attest his freedom from dogmatism and his con- siderateness for the feelings of others. His words are: “The main conclusion arrived at in this work, namely, that man is descended from some lowly organised form, will, I regret to think, be highly distasteful to many.” In another place, he says, p. 618: “I am aware that the conclusion arrived at in this work will be denounced by some as highly irreligious.” ‘Vhatever may be said about it, Darwin says (p. 606) : “The grounds upon which this conclusion rests will never be shaken.” Viewed in the light of our knowledge of the whole organic world: “The great principle of evolution stands up clear and firm,” because it is founded on “facts which cannot be disputed.” Darwin’s anticipation of the judgment passed upon his views has been more than realised. The great objection to his .view is commonly expressed in the words—what it leads to. There can be no doubt that it leads to the‘ assumption of natural instead of supernatural causes. I 1 In, conversation reported by Dr. Aveling, he preferred to describe his view as “ Agnostic,” which means I don’t know. 124 rms ATHEISTIC PLATFORM. well remember the same objection was made to Oombe’s theory that the brain was the organ of mind—it would lead to materialism. Astronomy was objectionable because it was no longer possible to keep up the dignity of the earth and its inhabitants as occupying the central position in the universe, having all the heavenly host surrounding them as lights and ornaments. It was a manifest degra- dation to reduce the comparative size of the earth to a pin’s nob surrounded by specks two or three miles in diameter. A remarkable ‘illustration of this occurred recently. A gentleman of_ education and position opened my “First Man” at the page where I place the last glacial period at 100,000 years ago. He said: “I can read no ’ more, not a line.” “"Why?” “Because I see what it leads to———the giving up of all I have been taught to believe as the infallible word of God.” There can be no manner of doubt but that is the honest way to look at it. Either a man must have his mind open to new knowledge and new truth, or remain in ignorance and error. Those who do not wish to relinquish their notion of the supernatural producing, sustaining, and guiding the natural had better leave Darwin alone. Hugh Miller held that animals preceded each other, man being last, but not that one was produced by the modifi- cations of others. The present Duke of Argyll admits that changes in the forms of animal life have taken place frequently, but not in the course .of nature. Professor Owen argued that as all vertebrate animals had rudi- mentary bones found in the human skeleton they were types of man—the earliest created perhaps millions of years ago, being planned to undergo certain modifications resulting in the appearance of man long before such a creature as man was known. All these whimsical assump- tions are overthrown by Darwin’s theory, which accounts for the modification by natural processes, He justly lays claim to his theory as the only natural solution of the appearance of rudimentary organs. It is not at all to be wondered at that such a theory should be called Atheistic, and Darwin the Apostle of the Infidels—and that a bishop described him as burning in hell a few days after he was buried. The opposition of ministers of re- iigion of all denominations might reasonably be expected, since, as they say, he banishes the creator as an intruder Is nimwnvlsn ATHEISTIC? 125 in nature, and takes away the foundation on which the Christian religion is built. The difference between the clergy and Darwin is a gulf that can never be bridged over—they find man made in the image of God, whatever that may mean, while Darwin finds him made exactly in the image of the ape of the old world, now supposed to be extinct. The first Adam of Moses is an essential to the second Adam of Christianity—symbols of death and life in the human race. Besides ministers of religion. the Atheistical tendency of Darwinism has been pointed out by Agassiz and Brewster; the latter stating distinctly that his hypothesis has a tendency “to expel the Almighty from the universe.” Reviews, magazines, and many newspapers put it that Darwinism is practically Atheism; in which description I think they accurately represent the fact. Professor Dawson, who is recognised by all the re- ligious reviewers as a trustworthy exponent of their views, refers to this subject in his “Story of the Earth,” p. 321, 1880. In discussing whether man is the product of an in— telligent will or an evolution from lower organisms, he says: “It is true that many evolutionists, either imwilling to offend, or not perceiving the consequences of their own hypothesis, endeavor to steer a middle course, and to main- tain that the creator has proceeded by way of evolution- But the bare hard logic of Spencer, the greatest English authority, leaves no place for this compromise, and shows that that theory, carried out to its legitimate consequences, ex- eludes the knowledge of a creator and the possibility of his works.” Again, on page 348, speaking of absolute Atheists who follow Darwin: “They are more logical than those who seek to reconcile evolution with design 'I' . _. . The- evolutionist is in absolute antagonism to the idea of crea- tion, even when held with all due allowance for the varia- tion of all created things within certain limits.” It is evi- dent, therefore, from this orthodox authority, that Darwin- ism, is in the estimation of popular Theists, undoubtedly Atheistic. This might be explained away on the ground of bigotry, prejudice, or misrepresentation, if the facts ad— duced by Darwin could be quoted in support of the accusa- tion. But the inexorable logic of facts points in the direc- tion of Professor Dawson’ s inference, and, however obj ec- tionable the conclusion may be to him, it rests on a basis 126 THE ATHEISTIC PLATFORM. which can never be moved, on grounds that will never be .shaken. Still, Asa Gray and George St. Clair think it reconcilable with theology, the latter devoting a large volume to prove his case. Being an acquaintance, and a fellow townsman now, I read Mr. St. Clair three times, but with unsatis- factory result. It is a book which evinces great ability, and is full of information, but as regards the particular point in question, all that bears upon it is assumption and assertion. All theology consists of assumptions and assertions. Every book upon it we open may be described .as stating: There must have been a commencement, and that could not be without a causing or creating, and that 'could not be without a First Cause or Creator. Simple as this appears, it contains a contradiction, and refutes itself. To account for any existence by assuming .a cause before it, implies non-existence, and the trans- formation of one into the other. If we assume a self- existing, eternal anything, we at once dispose of “there must have been a commencement.” The evidence of design can only be applied to forms (even if there were any evi- dence that any existing animal or plant had been at any time designed), therefore the matter of which forms are built up, and which in its nature is unchangeable, cannot be referred to any cause limited to time. If the assumption, .as applied to forms of life, gave us any explanation, it might be tolerated; but, as it does not, it is worthless. To , justify the assumption of a commencement, it is necessary that we should have some evidence of destruction. We are triumphantly referred to the destruction going on in animal and plant life, but the facts connected with it form the foundation of a belief in the order of perpetual change, without which neither could exist at all on this earth. If any live, some must die. The air we breathe has been breathed before, the part- icles of our bodies are but the elements of the dead past, as are the luscious fruit we eat and the odorous flowers we ~smell—--even the blood that is the life itself is derived from the same source. Our finely-built towns, our marble halls, the very paths in which we walk, all are made of the rocks which are but the ashes that survive~—the tombs of myriads of living things. Composition, decomposition, and recom- position ‘is the order of nature. Times innumerable have IS DARWINISM Arnnrsrrc? 127 :all natural-forms passed through the process of corruption, decay, and death— “ Ever changing, ever new.” ‘The “ Bard of Avon” has been quoted, saying that “ The great globe itself, Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,” and it is true he does ; but the lines which follow should be read in conjunction :— ' “Bear with my weakness: my old brain is troubled.” Astronomy has been brought into the controversy, and the ossibility of Popc’s words being realised has not wanted believers, when he wrote :— “ Atoms or systems into ruin hurled, And now a bubble burst, and now a world.” ‘Some slight weight was given to this by the brilliant Frenchman, who accounted for the earth by a comet, which, having mistaken its way, knocked a piece off the sun. It is a consolation, however, to be told by Christian astronomers that‘ we do not find within itself the elements of destruction in our planetary system, that all is in motion .and change everywhere. After millions of years all the planets will return to their original places only to go round again, the great bell of their udgment day will never be sounded. Playfair says: “In the planetary motions, where geometry has carried the eye so far into the future .and the past, we discover no symptom either of a comnmwe- mentor termination of the present order . . . .” and as re- gards the latter “ we may safely conclude that this great vcatastrophe will not be brought about by any of the laws now existing; and that it is not indicated by anything which we perceive.” If the “ undevout astronomer is mad,” the devout one .surely is not. Name-calling in serious discussions of this kind is, in my judgment, not only ofi‘ensive, but inex- cusable. It is not uncommon to find in expensive works the main proposition of the Theist described as being so simple and familiar that any one who doubts it may be laughed at as a fool or be pitied as insane. To me such language betrays want of thought, ignorance, or vulgarity 128 ' ,THE ATHEISTIC PLATFORM. of speech. In every case, on whichever side, the writer who steadfastly avoids the use of such expressions isja: praiseworthy contributor to a refinement in the inter’ I change of thought so desirable in a civilised community. 1" Printed by ANNIE BESANT and CHARLES BnAnLAuetf, at 63, Fleet Street, London, Ell—1881. an; :Atheistic fllatiuvm. ‘ IX. THE MYTH OF THE HESURRECTION. BY ANNHE BESANT. LONDON! FREETHOUGHTfiPUBLISHING ()OMPANY, 63. FLEET STREET EU. 1 8 8 4 . PRICE ONE PENNY. THE ATHEISTIC PLATFORM. # ‘v UNDER this title is being issued a fortnightly publi- cation, each number of which consists of a lecture delivered by a well-known Freethought advocate. Any question may be selected, provided that it has formed the subject of a lecture delivered from the platform by an Atheist. It is desired to show that the Atheistic platform is used for the service of humanity,.and that Atheists war against tyranny of every kind, tyranny of king and god, political, social, and theological. ' Each issue consists of sixteen pages, and is published at one penny. Each writer is responsible only for his or her own views- l.——“ WHAT IS THE USE or PRAYER ‘2 ” By AnnIE BEsAnT. 2.——“ Mnvn CONSIDERED As A BODILY FuncTIoN. By ALIcE BBADLAUGH. 3.-—“ THE GosrEL or EvoLUTIon.” By EDWARD AvELme, D.Sc. 4.—-:“ EneLAnn’s BALAncE-SHEET.” By CHARLES BRAnLAUeH. 5.——-“ THE SToRY on THE SoUnAn.” By ANNIE BESANT. 6.—“ NATURE AND THE Gons.” By ARTHUR B. Moss. These Six, in Wrapper, Sixpence. 7.—-“ SoME OBJECTIONS To SociALisn.” By CHARLES BRAD- LAUGH. 1 ‘ ,8.-——“ Is DARwnusM ATHEIsTIc ‘i ” By CHARLES CocxEnzL CATTELL. THE MYTH OF THE REsURaEc'rIoN. 0 FRIENDS,—A_ll over the world the members of the Christian Churches celebrate, as each spring returns, the “feast of the Resurrection.” Yearly they weep over their dying God: yearly they rejoice over his resurrection from the dead. The belief in this resurrection is the very corner- ' stone of their creed. “ The central miracle of Christianity is the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead ”—so say: those who believe in the Christian religion. In these or in similar words, Christian preachers in every century have re-echoed the words of Paul: “ If Christ be not raised,’ your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins. Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished. If in‘ this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable” (1 Cor. xv., 17-19). And this resurrection is alleged to be no myth, no symbol, no allegory, but an absolute historical fact. On this very earth of ours a man was put to death, was buried, lay dead for a night and a day and part of a second night, and then' rose from the tomb which enclosed him, once more aliving; breathing man, with normal flesh and bones: “Handle me, and see,” the risen Jesus is reported to have said, “ for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have ”' (Luke xxiv., 39). Indeed, this revivified corpse had a‘ digestive apparatus, for “ they gave him a piece of a broiled fish, and of an honeycomb. And he took it, and did eat before them” (16M. 42, 43). The miracle is a sufficiently stupendous one—~nothing less than the raising to life of’ a 132 'rnn ATHEISTIG PLATFORM. man dead about thirty-six hours. “Death” is the word 3 which represents the sum of the changes in the tissuesbt/ the body which follow on the cessation of respiration and of circulation. Every muscle, during that thirty-six hours, would have changed in condition, optically, chemically, electrically, etc. Every nerve would have changed, in similar fashion. In short, every part of the body {would have passed through the earlier of that series of retro- grade changes through which the organic passes back into the inorganic. These changes are not, in their beginnings, visible to the naked eye, and therefore to an ignorant age they are non-existent. “ To raise from the dead,” before absolute and visible putrefaction had begun, seemed so easy a thing ere the microscope, the reagent, the galvano- meter, had revealed the important changes which precede visible decomposition: “Thou shalt not sufier thy Holy One to see corruption,” sang the Psalmist. “He, whom God had raised again, saw no corruption,” declared Paul. It would be unfair to demand from the half-barbarian Hebrew prophet, or from the scientifically ignorant Paul, a physiological knowledge unattainable in the ages in which they lived. They could not tell that it would be quite as easy to roll back the waves of organic change after corrup- tion had appeared, as after coagulation of the muscles had supervened. There are no stages in the miraculous; no ordinary experience can measure the supernatural. It is absolutely claimed then, as a dry matter of fact, that this extraordinary resuscitation of a man, dead for about thirty-six hours, really took place about the year 33 an. Nor is any sense shown of the extraordinary nature of the event. In the “ Scriptures ” in which it is related are the records of several other resurrections, so that the resurrection of Jesus is not even unique. Elisha stretched himself on a dead child till it “sneezed seven times,” and “ opened his eyes” (2 Kings v., 35). A dead man, touching Elisha’s bones, “revived, and stood up on his feet” (Ibz'd. 21). A dead man belonging to the city of Nain was hidden arise by Jesus, “ and he that was dead sat up and began to speak” (Luke 15). A girl’s “ came again” ([6221. viii. 55), at a similar summons. Lazarus had been dead four days, and had become evi- dently decomposed (see John xi. 39), yet at the call of Jesus “he that was dead came forth ” (find. 44), while THE MYTH or THE RESUBREC’TION. 13‘ contemporaneously with the rising of Jesus there was sort of small general resurrection, or rehearsal of the last day‘, and “the graves were opened; and many bodies of the‘ saints which slept, arose, and came out of the graves " (Mlatt. xxvii., 52, 53). Even Peter was able to raise the dead, and presented Tabitha alive (Acts ix., 41) after she had been dead for some little while. It must have been ‘a veryinteresting society, that of Judea between an. 30 and ‘85, with’so many revivified corpses in it, and it is a pity that so little advantage was taken of the exceptional cir- oumstances. We know no more of “the world beyond the grave ” than if all these dead folks had remained quietly in their shrouds. Now, it is a sound rule of criticism that the more un- usual an event, the stronger should be the evidence sup- porting it. A statement which contradicts the whole mass of human ordinary observation and experience must, if it is to be believed, be supported by indubitable testimony. If anyone tells us: “The sun rose this morning,” we do not challenge an assertion for which we are prepared by the antecedent universal testimony of the human race to the daily orderly rising of the sun. If anyone tells us: “In India there are serpents with legs,” we should re~ quire reiterated corroboration from trustworthy naturalists, because the assertion is contrary to the hitherto observed facts respecting serpents. If anyone tells us: “The cow jumped over the moon,” we decline to believe the state~ ment, because the muscles of no cow known to man have elasticity sufficient for the performance of such a leap, because the lungs of the cow are not adapted for breathing outside the terrestrial atmosphere, and, generally, because no previous bovine performance has prepared us for a manifestation of such enormous acrobatic agility. \Ve conclude that the speaker is either impudently endeavoring to deceive us, or that he is himself deceived. The latter explanation would be accepted, if we have had reason to‘ believe that he was an honest weak sort of man. In either case his assertion would be met with “the blankest seeps _ ticism.” In face of the miraculous, Hume’s argument always stands good: That it is far more likely that individuals should have been deceived than that an event has occurred which‘ contradicts all human experience. We are con- stantly meeting in the world bothcharlatans and simpleb 134 THE ATHEISTIO PLATFORM. tons. Either, or both, may start the story of a miracle, ‘and then it passes from mouth to mouth, growing as it travels, and, believed by a superstitious and ignorant ‘people, it gradually attains the rank of history, and some- times becomes the foundation of a religion. The truth is-—and on this it is well to be outspoken-:— that to the educated thinker the miraculous is the in- credible. While men are ignorant all that happens is the unforeseen and the non-understood, and there is nothing -more impossible in withering a fig tree with a curse than in the sprouting out of green leaves from an apparently .dead and dry branch. Until a regular sequence is observed and appreciated irregular interruptions have about them nothing strange. Therefore it is that miracles always occur among superstitious peoples, and not among en- lightened—among the ignorant, not among the educated. ~But once start a miracle among a superstitious population, and it will fly from house to house, from village to village, becoming more circumstantial with every new narrator, until the myth becomes a reality, and he is an infidel who \doubts or disbelieves. Among the great mass of English Christians now-a-days -a miracle must be old if it is believed. Brand new miracles find no acceptance among us. Also, they must be of Jewish manufacture. No Gentile can manage a good miracle. ‘The English Protestant turns up his nose at the Popish miracles at Lourdes and at Knock, although they are a *good deal better authenticated than those at Nain and at Bethany, and are much easier to investigate. He does not even condescend to verify them, but merely pushes them contemptuously on one side as incredible. Yet when I treat his miracles in exactly the same way he flies into a fury, and declares that Inshall be damned for not believing ' that miracles happened in Judeea, while the Papist will be ‘ damned for believing that they are happening in France. ' However, as so many people do believe in the miracle of the resurrection, it is worth while to examine the evidence ofiered in support of the story,‘ and to ‘see whether that - evidence is coherent, rational, and consistent. And, first, what evidence is there outside the sacred books of the Christians? The coming to life again of a ‘ dead man is not an event so ordinary as to pass without notice. Jerusalem was not a mere village, but was the 'rnn MYTH on THE ansimnncrron. '135 seat of a Roman governor, the capital city of a province. It had its learned men, its writers, its thoughtful citizens, and it had also within its walls a number of Roman soldiers likely to feel personally interested in the sudden return ~to life of a Jew crucified by their own hands as a. rebel claiming royal honors inconsistent with their own authority. What evidence of the resurrection has been left by any of these? Absolutely none. Not one solitary record has come to us from governor or centurion, from scribe or from pharisee. The Romans remained indifferent to the return of the crucified “ king of the Jews,” dangerous leader as such a risen corpse would have proved. The Jewish aristocracy of'intellect showed no sign of fear at the triumph over death of the detested agitator to whose preten- sions they had so completely and, as they imagined, finally, put an end. Is it credible that a man who had proved his stupendous power, , his absolute invincibility, by rising living from a tomb in which he had been deposited dead, . should have created no stir in the city which had seen crucifixion and his ensepulture‘? Either from love or from fear every knee in Jerusalem would have bent to him; no one would have been mad enough to dispute with the conqueror of death, the burster of the tomb; Pilate and " Herod, Caiaphas and Annas, would have been prostrate before the risen Christ; priest and soldier, pharisee and sadducee, would have fallen at the nail-pierced feet which had trodden into helplessness the last great enemy of man. If it be argued that Jesus, after his rising, hid himself from all Jerusalem save from a few selected disciples“ of his own, our answer is that if he did not face investi- gation then he cannot expect credence now. A hole-and- corTner resurrection, of which no evidence is forthcoming save from prejudiced parties, has no claim on our belief. We ask for impartial, fair, straight-forward evidence of the" rising of this man from the dead, and none is offered to us. There is not one scrap of evidence for the resur- rection outside the Christian records. Let us now turn to these, and see what sort of proof we can obtain from them. I pass over—for lack of time—the ' overwhelming mass of evidence against the authenticity and credibility of the books of the New Testament, remind-ing ‘ you only of the significant fact that none of _ the Gospels '- can be traced to within one hundred and thirty years, at 1&6 ,- {rms ATHEISTIG PLATFORM. ,least, of the supposed date of the resurrection, and that it is even then impossible to verify them individually. One hundred and thirty years for a miracle-story to grow! One hundred and thirty years for a report to pass from mouth to mouth! One hundred and thirty years of addi- tions, of exaggerations, of embellishments, of pious,‘ frauds! But I leave you to imagine how a myth might expand in one hundred and thirty years among an ignorant and super- stitious people, and I come to the records, such as they are, left by some Christian writers, of this “ central miracle of Christianity.” And first, it is a most remarkable fact connected with the - “witnesses ” of the resurrection, that'no one comes forward and says: “I saw the resurrection”; or, “I saw Jesus dead, and afterwards I saw him alive.” Tkere'z's no direct testimony. None who saw that dead man issue living from . the tomb, none who met him and conversed with him after he had left the grave, has told the world : “My eyes saw this great sight. My tongue spoke to this dead man who became alive again. My hands touched this body which was a corpse but which returned to life.” Search through the New Testament, and no one who writes says : “ I saw." The writers report what others say, but never once give their own experience (obviously because they have none to give). It is all hearsay, from beginning to end. No message has come down to us from those who watched by that sealed stone, that the “ Son of man,” with pierced hands and feet, came forth alive from the tomb in which he had been laid for dead. No word from any of the women, from his mother, from Mary Magdalene, from his brothers. When we come to the direct evidence of those who saw Jesus after his supposed death, we find it very weak; in Matthew we read: “Then the eleven disciples went away into Galilee, into a mountain where Jesus had appointed them. And when they saw him they worshipped him; . but some doubted." Of these eleven, Matthew was one, and the only testimony that this Matthew—the supposed writer of the gospel—gives, is that “ they worshipped him, but some doubted.” Was Matthew, the supposed writer, among the worshippers, or among the doubters? How is it that Matthew, one of the eleven, writing of the “central vmiracle ” of the Christian faith, does not indignantly pro- test against the doubters, and afiirm his own undoubtin‘g THE mm or 'rnr. BESURBEOTION. 137 faith’? “Some doubted.” The doubt has floated down i r the centuries, and if some of his own apostles, his closest ‘friends, doubted when “the risen Christ” stood face to face with them, are we to be blamed if, eighteen centuries afterwards, we decline to believe without proof that which ‘they believed not when the alleged proof was under their very eyes? Mark and Luke do not pretend to be eyewitnesses, so their testimony is admittedly hearsay. Luke distinctly says that his account of the “things which are most surely believed among us,” was only “ as they delivered them unto us, which from the beginning were eyewitnesses ” (Luke i., 1, 2). For the moment we will pass these, and come to John, “- the beloved disciple.” Here—by making the unwarrantable assumption that this John was the author of the fourth gospel-——we should arrive at the soli- tary unsupported testimony of an ignorant man, that he saw Jesus after his supposed death. We can scarcely believe so stupendous a miracle on the uncorroborated testimony of a single unknown fisherman, belonging to a grossly ignorant and superstitious race. Surely never did a miracle hang on a less trustworthy link. And when we remember that it is generally admitted that the fourth gos- pel is' of Alexandrian origin, and is confessedly at variance, on a large number of important points, with the three synoptics, we are better able to appreciate the utter worth- ‘ lessness of the “ evidence ” of “the apostle John.” Passing, however, over the deficiency of evidence at first hand, let us examine the hearsay evidence, on which we are driven to reply, famte de mz'e-ur. Is this, at least, con- sistent and coherent throughout, so as to leave on the mind an impression of careful accuracy and painstaking on the part of the writers ? How many accounts have we, leaving out more references to it scattered through the books of the New Testament ? ‘ ‘The value of the “ general Christian belief ” in it we will deal with later. We may take six ; those in the four gos- pels, the account of the actions of Jesus after the resurrec- tion, given in Acts i., and the brief summary in 1 Cor. xv. If these six accounts supported each other, they might be of some value, secondhand as they are ‘; but being utterly incompatible the one with the other, they ‘become utterly ' worthless as evidence. Only those who are determined to 138 ' THE ATHEISTIO PLATFORM. believe, with or without proof, can accept the resurrection myth on the contradictory and incoherent testimony of our six witnesses. But let us examine them one by one, and "then try to summarise the evidence. The writer of the first of the six stories bears the name of Matthew in the authorised version of the Bible. He, gives the following account of the Resurrection :— ‘ As the dawn was breaking of the first day of the week, two women, Mary Magdalene and “ the other Mary,” went to the sepulchre in which Jesus had been buried. On their arrival, an angel came down and rolled away the stone from the mouth of the tomb, and sat thereon, and speaking to the women, he told them that Jesus was risen, invited them to “see the place where the’ Lord lay,” and bade them go to the disciples quickly, and tell them that - they should see their risen Lord in Galilee. As they ran to carry their message Jesus met them, and they held him by the feet and worshipped him. Jesus repeated the com- mand that the disciples should goto Galilee, promising that they should see him there. “Then the eleven dis’ ciples went away into Galilee, into a mountain where Jesus had appointed them. And when they saw him they wor- shipped h1m: but some doubted.” Comparing this with the account given in Mark, we find one woman added to the company, by name Salome. The three, instead of the two, reach the sepulchre, and instead of seeing an angel descending and rolling away the stone, they find the stone already rolled away. As no angel is there to invite them to enter, they go into the sepulchre without an invitation, and they find inside a young man, sitting on the right side. He speaks to them in almost the same words as did the angel who rolled away the stone, according to Matthew, but the women, instead of running to bring the disciples word, fly trembling from the sepul- chre, “ neither said they anything to any man, for they were afraid.” They do not meet Jesus, nor is anything more recorded as, far as Mary and Salome are concerned. At this point a new account seems to commence ‘in Mark, for it begins again by saying: “Now when Jesus was risen early, the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene.” According to Matthew, Mary Mag- dalene and “the other Mary” were together, and they ‘ both met Jesus, and worshipped him. Mary Magdalene THE 'MYTH or THE .RESURRECTION. 139 ~tells the apostles that she has seen him, although two verses before she said nothing to any man. Then Jesus, instead of going into Galilee to meet his apostles, as related .in Matthew, meets two of them in the country, and ap- pears to the eleven as they are at meat. After a brief ~ conversation, in the words of the Evangelist, “then after the Lord had spoken unto them,” “he was received up into heaven,” the ascension apparently occurring on the very day of the resurrection. We turn to Luke :— The number of women has increased again: we have now Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Joanna—of whom we have not heard before—and “other a women that were with them.” They do not see the rolling away of the stone, nor the angel of Matthew, nor do they find sitting inside the sepulchre the young man of Mark. -~ But as they are puzzling themselves about the empty state of the sepulchre, two men stand by them, and make re- .marks very similar to those of Matthew’s angel and of Mark’s solitary young man. They leave the sepulchre, and tell “all these things to the eleven.” Peter then visits the sepulchre, and departs wondering. On “ that same - ~day ” Jesus appears to “ two of them,” and these return to the eleven with the story, and while they are speaking “Jesus appears. After a brief speech, he “led them out as 1 far as to Bethany,” and was “carried up into heaven ”— Luke, like Mark, apparently regarding the ascension as taking place on the day of the resurrection. We now turn to John :— In this account Mary Magdalene goes by herself, “early, - when it was yet dark.” She is alone, and her visit is not, ~ like that in Mark, made with the others “ at the rising of the sun.” The stone has been rolled away before she .reaches the sepulchre. She runs straight off to Peter and John, having seen no angel, no young man, no two men, and Peter and John run ofi at once to the sepulchre. They - both go in, but see only the linen clothes in which the 'dead body had been wrapped. (I have often wondered * what clothes Jesus wore after the resurrection, for his own ' clothes were taken by the soldiers, his body was wound in linen, and this he left in the sepulchre.) Peter and John - believe, although we are distinctly told that the account of ' - the resurrection seemed “as idle tales” to the apostles 140 THE ATHEISTIC PLATFORM. (Luke), among whom where Peter and John, and that Jesus upbraided the eleven (Mark), of 'whom Peter and ‘John were two, for their unbelief, “ because they believed not them which had seen him after he was risen.” In John no woman except Mary Magdalene goes near the sepulchre at all, but she remains there, and sees first two angels sitting inside—who speak to her—and then Jesus himself. At first she does not recognise him, but sup- posing him to be the gardener, she asks if he has taken Jesus away. The information given by the angel, or man, or men, to herself and the other women—according to Matthew, Mark, and Luke—is here omitted, and she knows nothing about the resurrection. Jesus says, “Mary,” and she recognises him, and is not allowed to touch him, al- though in Matthew she holds his feet. She then goes and 'tells the disciples that she has seen Jesus. On the same evening Jesus appears to the disciples, and instead of up. braiding them with their unbelief he greets them with “ Peace be unto you.” Eight days later he appears again, still in Jerusalem, afterwards he meets them casually at the sea of Tiberias, and works a miracle. John seems to know nothing about the ascension. In the “Acts of the Apostles” we learn that Jesus re- mained on earth forty days, instead of ascending on the the day of his resurrection, and that he gave “many infal- lible proofs” that he was alive. Unfortunately none of these have come down to us. ‘ In 1 Cor. xv. we hear nothing of the women, but are told that he was seen of Cephas (Peter)-—an interview not else- where recorded——“ then of the twelve; ” “ the twelve ” in- cluded Judas, and except in Corinthians we never hear that the betrayer remained in the company of his former \ comrades; on the contrary, we read in one account (Mat- thew) that “ he cast down the pieces of silver in the temple, and departed, and went and hanged himself,” while in a\ second (Acts) he uses the money to purchase a field, and falls headlong in it and bursts. \Vhichever of these con- tradictory accounts may be true, neither is compatible with his forming one of “the twelve ” and seeing J esus." “ After that he was seen of above five hundred brethren‘ at once; ” this is quite new, and is a little puzzling‘, for'we are told that after the ascension (Acts) the number of the disciples was “about an hundred and twenty.” 1“ After that he was rnn MYTH or- run nnsunnnc'rrorr. 141 seen of James, then of all the apostles.” James was one of “. the twelve,” and the apostles are identical with “the twelve.” On the whole, the account in Corinthians is rather mixed, and in no single respect agrees with that of the gospels; we are told emphatically by John that the meeting by the sea of Tiberias was “ the third time that Jesus showed himself to his disciples, after that he was risen from the dead.” But this coincides with none of the meetings recorded in Corinthians, and must be at least the- sixth' meeting if Corinthians is right. To sum up the contradictions, leaving Corinthians on the one side, as hopelessly erratic :— While it is yet dark, though the sun is rising, Mary Magdalene alone, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary, Mary Magdalene, Mary and Salome, Mary Magdalene, Mary, Joanna, and some “other women,” goes, or go, to the sepulchre. They find the stone closing the tomb; but - an angel comes down, rolls it away, sits on it, and talks to them. They also find the stone not closing the tomb, but rolled away, and see no angel sitting on it, but only a young man sitting inside. They see no angel, no young man sitting, but two men suddenly appear standing by them. They see no angel, no young man sitting, no two men standing, but two angels sitting. After this, they run away, and tell the disciples; but, at the same time, they say nothing unto any man. The apostles do not believe, but two of them do believe. The women meet Jesus, and do not meet him. Mary Magdalene holds him by the feet, but is not allowed to touch him. He meets his disciples for the first time in Galilee, in a mountain, but has seen them twice previously in Jerusalem, and a third time by the sea of Tiberias. And it is this incoherent, self-contradictory mass of state- ments which we are offered as proof of a most stupendous miracle ! Taking it at its highest, it is the hysterical and conflicting babble of an indefinite number of terrified and superstitious women, and is absolutely worthless as evidence.- It is often argued that the wide reception of a belief , is a proof of its truth, and therefore that the resurrection of Christ must be true. But if this be so, many utterly false statements ought to be accepted as reliable. The belief that the earth wasstationary, and that the sun moved round it, was at one time universal; ought we, therefore, 142 THE ATHEISTIC PLATFORM. to accept the universal error as an indubitable truth ? The ‘ belief that Jesus would return to judge the earth in AJ). 1000, was universal in Europe; the fields were left untilled, all work was suspended, yet the lie was given to the univer- sal belief by the non-appearance of the judge. Mahoinet’s teaching has been widely received, but is it therefore true ‘1’ If truth is to be measured, not by reason, but by the mul- titude of the believers, then Buddhism must be received in preference to Christianity, for four hundred millions of - Buddhists face one hundred and seventy millions of Chris‘ tians. But why, say the Christians, should the apostles and early disciples have faced danger and death in order to preach a falsehood? In the first place there is no proof that anyone who was personally acquainted with Jesus ever faced danger and death in support of the allegation that Jesus rose from the dead. The obscurity which surrounds the inception of the “New Testament,” and the lives of the earliest Christian teachers, effectually shrouds all evi-' dence on this head. There is no evidence outside the' utterly unreliable Christian records, until we come to some, doubtful martyrdoms towards the end of the second century. But martyrdom does not prove the truth of a belief; it proves only the sincerity with which it is held. There are martyrs of every creed; men have died as joyfully for Mahomet as for Christ, for Buddha as for Mary. Chris~~ tian, Hindu, Mahommedan, Pantheist, Atheist—all face loss and peril with equal willingness for the truths in which they severally believe. Martyrdom testifies to the grandeur of self-devotion in man to his ideal, not to the truth of his theories about God. Supposing that there is any truth at all- in the allegation that in the first century after the supposed date of the death of Christ a rumor was current that he had risen from the dead, it is very easy to understand how such a rumor may have been started. Before his death he talked vaguely about his return, about his disciples seeing him again; after his death some women have a “vision of angels which said that he was alive” (Luke xxiv., 23), and from these‘ the myth spreads. Two men walk with him,'but do not ’ recognise him, until in the dusk of evening “they knew him, and he vanished out of their sight ” (Ibz'd.,'31). Un- recognised in daylight while they can scrutinise him, he is w THE MYTH or THE ansonnscrron. 143 -' recognised when he disappears in the dusk! He comes through shut doors (J ohn xx., 19 and 26), and behaves generally in airy conjuring fashion; and these vague, childish, contradictory tales are to be the proofs, forsooth, of the resurrection of a dead man, proofs that cannot even. be traced to their supposed authors. As a matter of fact, the Myth of the Resurrection is far older than the first century, and has roots that strike far deeper than into the tomb of Joseph the Arimatheean. It has come down to us out of the twilight of history, one of the most venerable myths of the older world. The Resur- rection, the eternal Easter Day, is the ever-recurring spring equinox, in which, year after year, the Sun-God triumphs over the death of the winter-cold, and Nature rises from her ice-bound grave in the abounding life of her vernal. youth. Wherever the cycle of the seasons is found, there the resurrection is repeated with every spring. It is a natural truth, wide as the world, old as the history of man, Of this truth spoke the passover of the Jews, the pass-. over which became the Christian sacrifice of Calvary. For does not the sun pass over the equator in March, and thus mark the triumph over the past wintry months? Full of ;; significance, too, is the struggle between the calf of the “Egyptians and the lamb of the Israelites, for the Egyptians clung to the venerable sign of Taurus, the sign in which the sun had been for the vernal equinox, while the inno_ vating Israelites proclaimed the lamb, as the true passover offering, since the sun had passed into Aries for the supreme triumph. I ‘In the Jewish and the Christian scriptures the lamb is the sign of the sun in its spring resurrection. “ His head and his hairs were white like wool” (Rev. i., 14), says the writer of the great astrological allegory of the Bible; “in the midst of the throne . . . . stood a lamb ” (16111., v. 6), and the song of praise was: “Worthy is the lamb” (Ibz'al, 12)., Why this deification of a brute save for symbolical meaning? N ow-a-days the Christians commit an anachron-- ism in their Easter homage to the lamb, for thethe sun is in the sign of Pisces at the vernal equinox, and they should cry: “0 Fish of God!” Twenty-six thousand years ago Cannes, the fish, was God. Now his turn has come round again, and the lamb is a usurper in the Church. Note that the feast of the Resurrection is a moveable 144 run ATHEIBTIO PLATFORM. feast. It falls on the first Sunday after the full moon on or after March 21st in each year. Christ’s rising is cele- brated not on a definite date, like a historical event, but on a date which follows the full moon—that is, which depends on the relative positions of the Sun~god and the moon. In a word, it is the celebration of a natural alle- _gory, not of a past event. ' Every year has its real Easter. Every year the fair fresh beauty of Nature wakes from the winter sleep, and rises radiant from the bare furrows and the dried forest trees. The branches smile into leaves; the soil laughs into blossoms; breaths of wild roses make fragrant the ' breezes, and sighs of the nightingale make musical the dusk. Earth’s Easter-Day dawns for us in each spring- tide, and outshines the paleness of the Galilean star. And more glorious yet is the Easter-Day of the mind, when the brain rises from the death of ignorance and bursts forth from the tomb in which it has been buried - out of the sunshine of knowledge and of truth. Each human mind and heart have their own Easter-Day, save those on whose tomb the priests have rolled the stone of fear. ' But for these also an Easter-Day shall dawn, and the morning of the Resurrection shall break into day. Long has Humanity slumbered in the tomb in the rich man’s garden; long has she lain there with the corpse-clothes round her, and the priests have made her sepulture sure, sealing the stone and setting a watch. But my friends, my fellow-workers, believe me, she is not dead, but sleepeth. Yet shall the cry go out to her: “Humanity, arise!” And whenever you slay a lie or proclaim a truth, whenever you strike down a hoary superstition or cradle a new-born verity, you are as the mighty angel who rolled away the stone from the door of the sepulchre, and your work shall join in the mighty chorus which shall soon ring forth on earth: “ Humanity is not here; she is risen from the dead ;” and you yourselves are in very truth the ' first fruits of them that sleep. Printed by ANNIE BESANT and CHARLES BRADLAUGH, at 63, Fleet Street, London, ERG—1884,. éjlflw .‘Atlwistit ifllzaifuvm; X.‘ DOES ‘ROYALT Y ‘ PAY BY ‘ GEORGE STANDRING, EDITOR OF “THE REPUBLICAN.” ’ . LONDON: ,FREETHOUGHT PUBLISHING COMPANY, 63,, FLEET STREET, EC, 1884. ' P'BIOE ONE PENNY, THE ATHEISTIC PLATFORM. A‘ v UNDER this title is being issued a fortnightly ,publi- cation, each number of which consists of a lecture delivered by a well—known Freethought advocate. Any question may be selected, provided that it has formed the subject of a lecture delivered fiom the platform by an Atheist. It is desired to show that the Atheistic platform is used for the service of humanity, and that Atheists war against tyranny of every kind, tyranny of king and god, political, social, and theological. Each issue consists of sixteen pages, and is published at one penny. Each writer is responsible only for his or her own views. 1.-—-“ WHAT is THE USE or PRAYER ‘3 ” By Arum BESANT. 2.—-“ Mmn cousmnsnn AS A BODILY FUNCTION. By ALICE BRADLAUGH. 3.—“ THE GosPEL or EvoLurIoN.” By EDWARD Avnnme, D.Sc. 4.-—“ EueLAnn’s BALANCE-SHEET.” By CHARLES BRADLAUGH. 5.—-“ THE STORY or THE Somme” By Arum BESANT. 6.—~“ NATURE AND THE Gons.” By ARTHUR B. Moss. These Six, in Whopper, Sixpence. 7.——“ Some OBJEGTIONS TO Socmnism.” By CHARLES BRAD- LAUGH’. 8.—“ Is DABWINISM ATHEISTIC ‘? ” By CHARLES CocxBiLL GATTELL. _ 9.—--“ THE MYTH or THE Rnsusmicriou.” By Arum BESANT. DOES ROYALTY PAY? ,__.___+--- FRIENns,—Napoleon I. is said to have described the English as a “nation of shopkeepers,” that is, a people whose minds were “ oribb’d, cabin’d, and confin’d ” by the sordid considerations of commerce, and were unable to rise to the grandeur of the occasion when wars of conquest and schemes of European domination were in question. It is to you as shopkeepers or as commercial men that I now wish to propound this question: “Does Royalty Pay?” Is it a profitable investment to the nation? Is our servant paid too high a wage? Is it necessary, or even prudent, to retain his “services” any longer? No employer of labor would fail to ask himself such a question as regards the men in his employ. A large mill- owner, paying an overseer £1000 per annmn to superin- tend his business, would find it necessary to make some alteration in his arrangements if he were to find that, for several months during the year his servant’s coat, thrown over an empty chair, alone represented the individual whom he employed! Such a system of business surely . ‘would not “ pay.” The national balance-sheet in regard to royalty would stand thus : . EXPENDITURE. RECEIPTS. .£' ad. £ 8. d. ‘To Guelph 8: 00., one ' By services ren- year’s salaries and dered pe-r con— . expenses .. . . 1,000,000 0 0 tra .. .. .. 0 0 0 Surely this is a most unsatisfactory item in the accounts of the nation! Let us see in what fashion this expensive encumbrance of a useless monarchy has come down to us. ‘ 148 THE ATHEISTIC PLATFORM. By tracing the history of royalty in England through a few of its most important phases, we shall be able to arrive at a true estimate of its position and character in these latter‘, days. We shall see monarchy gradually dwindling from a position of absolute dominance to its present degraded and anomalous condition. Together with an oppressed and uncivilised people we find a powerful sovereign; with a free and enlightened nation monarchy exists but‘ as a mere costly sham. From this I think we may fairly infer that the system we are discussing is fit only for a" crude and barbarous stage of society; and that with the growth of popular intelligence and patriotism the old dominance- becomes less and less possible. When 'William the Bastard, Duke of Normandy, assisted by a select band of continental cut-throats, invaded Eng- land and vanquished the Saxons, he established the feudal system in its most rigorous form. The barons to whom he allotted the land were responsible to him, and to him alone, for their actions. The people were simply serfs or m'ZZez'ns, without rights or duties as citizens. They were mere chattels appertaining to the estates of their lords and owners, and politically were of no account whatever. Thus- the centralised power of the Crown was originally domi- nant; the nobles existed as dependents of the Crown, and the people, as a political power, were practically non— existent. Thus was the “State ” constituted towards the end of the eleventh century. It would be a most interesting study," but it is absolutely impossible to pursue it within the limits of a lecture, to trace the gradual development of popular liberty; to see- the quarrels between the Crown and the nobles ; to observe the first struggles of the populace in the direction of' freedom and independence. It will, however, be possible to glance at certain epochs of our history in which the gradual decay of the monarehical institution may be traced. First, then, let us turn to the period when the principle of “Divine Right ” was eliminated from English royalty. Charles 1. appears to have conscientiously held the view that the Almighty had selected' the Stuart family as “ fit and proper persons” to hold absolute and irresponsible sway over the British people. With the courage of his. convictions, he sought to enforce his views, even to the‘ DOES ROYALTY my? 149 desperate length of a resort to arms. God upon that occa- sion did not support his chosen one; and when the head of Charles fell upon the scaffold at Whitehall it may be said the doctrine of divine right fell with it, for it has never been seriously maintained, as a political principle, in Eng- land since that time. If we turn now to the end of the seventeenth century, we shall note a further advance in the direction of popular freedom. James II. had become so obnoxious to the country that he wisely fled and abandoned the throne. William, Prince of Orange, was therefore invited by the Lords and Commons to assume the Crown. An attempt was made, however, to limit William’ s authority, and to this the Dutch prince would not agree. He told the Eng- lish representatives that he was perfectly contented with his position in Holland; a crown was no great thing, and he had no wish for it; the English had sought him and not he the English; and if they wished for his services they must agree to his terms. Ultimately the Dutchman ascended the throne of Great Britain as ‘Villiam HI. upon a distinct contract with the [nominal] representatives of the people. “The Constitution,” says Hume, in his History of England, “had now assumed a new aspect. The maxim of hereditary indefeasible right was at length renounced by a free'Parliament. The power of the Crown was acknowledged to flow from no other fountain than that of a contract with the people. Allegiance and pro- tection were declared reciprocal ties depending upon each other. The representatives of the nation made a regular claim of rights on behalf of their constituents; and \Vil- liam HI. ascended the throne in consequence of an express capitulation with the people.” Here, then, is a great advance. The people and the Crown are the two parties .to a contract. Such a contract may be determined by either of the parties ; and the con- stitutional Republican agitation of today is a movement directed towards the lawful, peaceful termination of such contract, as being no longer useful or necessary. The object is a purely legal and justifiable obj ect; and when our opponents describe the Republican agitation as “ sedi- tious ” they merely expose their malice and ignorance. It would be at once interesting and instructive to trace the history of English monarchy from the commencement 150 THE ATHEISTIC PLATFORM. of the eighteenth century down to the present time. We should see how the importation of a disreputable German family brought the Crown into contempt—how the German mistresses of George I. and his successor had “ exploited” the British—and how the people had been estranged from their rulers. We should see the pious but stupid and pre- \ judiced George III. exercising his authority upon the side of privilege and oppression, and retarding, to the full ex- tent of his power, every movement in the direction of popular progress and freedom. The fees of liberty were the “ King’s friends,” and, necessarily, the friends of the people were the “King’s enemies.” The student of his- tory will be aware that the influence thus exercised by George III. was a very real and weighty factor in political affairs. That estimable monarch died sixty-four years ago; and it will be instructive to note the vast change in the- power and status of the Crown that this comparatively brief period has brought about. Queen Victoria ascended the throne of England seven- teen years after the death of George III. ; and in the year 1840 was married to Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg. This gentleman came from a small German court, and‘ the pro- spect of wielding a certain degree of influence over the affairs of a mighty nation was very attractive to his mind. His position in this country was somewhat anomalous ; the Queen took precedence of her Consort, and politically Albert was a fifth wheel in the coach. It was taken for' granted by the people that the Prince would not meddle in political business, and time after time he was publicly com- plimented on the supposed fact that, recognising his posi- tion in this country, he had abstained from interference in the national affairs. Albert, however, had been so ‘inter- fering in a secret and underhand fashion; and when the- fact became known, public indignation was aroused. The Queen and her Consort thereupon wrote to Baron Stock- mar, asking for his advice and assistance. Stockmar, it may" be explained, had been a long-life friend and counsellor of the Queen, and his direction would naturally have much weight with her. In reply to the Queen’s appeal, Stock- mar wrote a long and tedious letter (given at length in Sir Theodore Martin’s “Life of the Prince Consort”) from which one or two passages may be given. He pointed out tha , “in our time, since Reform . . . . and the growth DOES ROYALTY PAY ? 151 of those politicians . . . . who treat the existing Consti- tution merely as a bridge to a Republic, it is of extreme importance that this fiction should be ooimtenanood only pro- visionally, and that no opportunity should be let slip of oindioat~ .iiiy the legitimate position of the Crown.” Stockmar then discusses the imaginary situation of a stupid or unscrupu- lous Minister pursuing a foolish or mischievous policy, to the detriment of the public welfare. The only punishment that could be inflicted in such a case is “the removal or resignation ” of the offender. But the divine system of a properly-constituted monarchy would, Baron Stockmar alleged, provide an efiicient safeguard against such dis- astrous mismanagement. Who, he asks, “could have averted the danger, either wholly or in part? Assuredly he [the Sovereign], and he alone, who, being free from party passion, has listened to the voice of an independent judgment [i.o., his own]. To exercise this judgment is, both in a moral and constitutional point of view, a matter of right, nay, a positive duty. The Sovereign may even take a part in the initiation and the maturing of the Gov- ernment measures ; for it would be unreasonable to expect that a King, himself as able, as accomplished, as patriotic as the best of his Ministers, should be prevented from making use of these qualities at the deliberations of his Council.” Writing thus to a member of the House of Hanover, Stockmar must have been singularly ignorant or strangely oblivious of the history of that family. Where, since the Guelphs first landed upon our shores, shall we find the sovereign “ as able, as accomplished, as patriotic as the best of his ministers”? Can we so describe George I., ignorant of the English tongue, absolutely indifferent to the national welfare, contented to pass his time carousing with his fat German mistresses? Is it possible thus to re- gard his scarcely more estimable successor, George H.; the ignorant, bigoted, obstinate madman, George III. ; the profligate and unprincipled George IV.; or his successor, \Villiam IV., who, as Greville declared, would make a good king if he did not go mad? And, looking to the future, can we dare to anticipate that the Prince of Wales, if he ever ascend the throne, will display either ability 0 patriotism in a very eminent degree ? Baronv Stockmar urged the Queen to avail herself of every opportunity to 152 THE ATHEISTIC PLATFORM. vindicate the “legitimate position of the Crown.” This clear and decided advice, it must be remembered, was given by the Queen’s most trusted counsellor in response to a direct appeal for such aid; but can it be pretended that Her Majesty has ever followed it? Is it under the reign of Victoria that the dwindling prerogatives of the monarch have been strengthened and extended‘? On the contrary, the forty-seven years of the present reign have seen the almost absolute self-effacement of the sovereign as a politi- cal and social factor. Parliament is opened by “ commis- sion ” in the absence of the Queen; drawing-rooms are held by the Princess of Wales, in the absence of the Queen. Whilst the political machine is running, and the wheels of society are swiftly revolving in their appointed fashion, the nominal head alike of the State and of Society is buried in the remote fastnesses of Balmoral, the solemn glories of Windsor, or the sylvan glades of Osborne. Privacy of the most complete nature is all that is apparently sought. In short, Her Majesty is teaching the English how easily and comfortably they may exist without a Queen! Politically, the Sovereign now only operates as a machine for affixing the sign-manual. The responsibility for every measure, for every action, rests upon the oflicial advisers of the Crown. Without their aid there could be nothing to sign; but—~according to the glorious principles of our constitution—~the result of their labor and genius would be null and void, minus the signature of the Sovereign. The sole object, then, for which monarchy now exists, politi- cally, would be equally well served by an india-rubber stamp, an impression of which could be affixed to any document or measure that had received the sanction of both Houses of Parliament. And the cost of this need not exceed the moderate sum of one shilling. With reference to the functions of the Sovereign, I am, however, bound to admit that the view I have just endea- vored to state is not universally accepted as correct. There can be no possible doubt that the principle that “the Sove- reign reigns but does not govern” is the only one upon which the majority of Englishmen would tolerate the existence of royalty. The spirit of democracy has so deeply permeated English political life that the exercise of an irresponsible unrepresentative power in public affairs would not long be permitted to exist. Supposing, for instance, that a Fran~ DOES ROYALTY my? 153 chise Bill, after being passed by the Commons and Lords, should be vetoed by the Crown, such use of the royal pre- rogative—although legally perfectly justifiable—would be the death-warrant of the monarchy. But, judging from . certain statements that have been made public, and which have emanated from responsible sources, it seems probable that, in truth, the Queen does exercise a very real influence over public aflairs, but it is an influence of which the public offlcially knows nothing. Several years ago Mr. Dis- raeli stated in a public speech, at Hughenden, that the duties performed by the Queen were “ weighty,” “ unceasing,” and “laborious.” “There is not,” he said, “ a dispatch re- ceived from abroad, nor one sent from this country, which is not submitted to the. Queen. . . . Of our present Sove- reign it may be said that her signature has never been placed to any public document of which she did not know the purport, and of which she did not approve.” Now Mr. Disraeli was on many occasions extremely parsimonious of the truth; and it is quite possible that the startling statement there made was merely a vivid flash of the imagination. For what does it amount to? If the Queen signs no document of which “she does not approve,” then her influence in the State is paramount, and if any difference of opinion arise between the Sovereign and the Ministry it is the latter that must accommodate itself to the former before anything can be done. If all that Mr. Disraeli said at Hughenden on this subject be true, it is difficult to detect the essential difference between the “ constitu- tional rule ” of Victoria and the “autocratic sway” of Alexander III. of Russia! I for one cannot believe it. ' If the judgment of the Prime Minister and the Govern- ment is to be on occasion subjugated to the conflicting judgment of a doubtless honest and well-meaning, but very commonplace old lady, the sooner the people under- stand this the better for us all. But, I repeat, I cannot believe it. Shrewdness is a prominent trait in the Queen’s character; and I cannot conceive it possible that she should dare to follow the course of action indicated by the words of Mr. Disraeli.‘ Certain it is that the people officially know nothing of it; and, judging from the facts ' as they are displayed before us, we are justified in re- garding the monarchy as simply useless—not worse than useless.- 154 THE ATHEISTIC PLATFORM. At present our india-rubber stamp costs us at least a million sterling per annum. The Civil List of £385,000 represents but a portion of the outlay which the mainten- ance of royalty involves. The pensions and allowances to members of the Queen’s family; the cost of maintaining and repairing the numerous palaces required for their accommodation ; and innumerable indirect expenseswhich are carefully dispersed amongst various branches‘ of the public accounts, fully make up the enormous total given. Sir Charles Dilke, for instance, whilst investigating this matter some years ago, found that a certain number of men were continually employed in painting the ornamental fire-buckets on board one of the royal yachts. Year in and year out their sole duty was to paint these buckets. As soon as they were finished the work was begun over agaln. - What advantage does the nation derive from the exer- tions of its most expensive “servant”? The Daily Tele- graph and other pious and loyal journals sometimes urge that the Queen furnishes us with a noble example of a sovereign and mother. But how? Officially she has for- over twenty years almost entirely neglected the public duties, of her high position. And where is the nobility of her ex- ample as a mother? Many a poor widow toils incessantly in order to maintain her young family, denying herself proper rest and food, so that her children may be decently clothed, fed, and educated, and obtain a fair start in life. Such cases of devotion and self-denial are frequent amongst the poorest classes of society. Is not this a nobler example than that of a lady in possession of immense wealth, who is perfectly well able to support the whole of her numerous family, but who yet permits the burden of their mainten- ance to be thrown upon the nation? The private wealth of the royal family must be enormous, and abundantly adequate for their needs; and yet how many appeals for charitable grants have been made upon their behalf! Prince after prince, and princess after princess, have thus been quartered upon the nation as out-door paupers, re- cipients of a charity that is disgraceful, and would be de- grading to any family save the Guelphs. ' ' Let us glance at the long roll of pauper princes, and see what advantage the nation derives in return for their- generous allowances. The Prince of Wales receives an DOES ROYALTY PAY? 155 income of more than £150,000 a year, including his wife’s allowance, but not including the accumulations of the Duchy of Cornwall, or various sums that have been voted for, exceptional purposes. His Royal Highness is a Field- marshal of the British army, and honorary colonel of. several regiments. Now, what is the work that H.R.H. performs in return for his ample wage of £3,000 per week? Upon this point I will cite the evidence of the Daily News, ' a Liberal, pious, and respectable authority: “The Prince of Wales had a hard day’s work on Saturday. In the afternoon, besides holding a levée, he unveiled a statue of Sir Rowland Hill at Cornhill, and in the evening he dined with the Lord Mayor and the provincial mayors at the Mansion House, afterwards witnessing part of the per- formance of ‘ The Marriage of Figaro’ at the Covent Garden Theatre.” And this, 0 ye Gods! was a lzanl day’s work! Not one of the simple rounds of daily toil, but over-time into the bargain! Cannot such labor be per- formed at a cheaper rate? Cannot some patriotic indi- vidual be induced to expend his energies in the service of the State at a 'more reasonable rate of remuneration than £3,000 per week? Surely if the contract were submitted to public competition the Prince’s post could be filled, his arduous labors performed, more economically than is now the case. Take, again, the Prince’s oratory. He opens bazaars, lays foundation stones, and performs similar ornamental if not useful functions. At Norwich, opening the Agri- cultural Hall in that city, Albert Edward eloquently re- marked: “Mr. Birkbeck and Gentlemen,—I have the- greatest pleasure in declaring this hall to be now open. It is worthy of the County of Norfolk and the City of Norwich. (Loud cheers)” Is this the oratory of our £3,000 per week Demosthenes? 'Without any desire to‘ over-estimate my own ability, I could venture to under- take to make a much better speech than that at a mere fraction of the cost. As to the Prince’s military worth I am not in a position to offer any facts or opinion. His uniforms are covered with medals, and it therefore follows that the Prince must, during some portions of his career, have earned those decorations by many acts of bravery and devotion. I have- searched the pages of contemporary history for the records, 156 THE ATHEISTIC PLATFORM. of these deeds of heroism, but, alas! I have found them not. It is difficult to account for the remissness of histori- ans in this matter. In none of their works do we find a line or a sentence referring to the Prince’ s exploits on the battle-field, to the deeds of valor which bear their outward and visible signs in the Prince’s medals. I do not, how- ever, despair of obtaining the information some day‘. Take another Guelphic hero and warrior, the Duke of Connaught. This young man is a major-general in the British army, and in due course—if the monarchy survive long enough———will doubtless be appointed commander-in- chief when the Duke of Cambridge shall have passed away, and his umbrella alone shall remain as a memento of his glorious career. The Duke of Connaught has taken a more or less active part in the military service, and it is clearly to his ability alone that his rapid promotion is to be traced. Unlike the heir-apparent, our major-general can point to the records of history in proof of his achieve- ments. When the English troops were sent to Egypt to crush the national movement organised and directed in that country by Arabi, it was deemed advisable that a prince of the blood should accompany the expedition. The flagging popularity of the Crown needed a stimulant, and it was hoped that the participation of a member of the royal family in the noble work of suppressing Egyptian ‘ freedom would bring about this result. Statements were circulated to the effect that the Prince of Wales, inflamed with military ardor, desired to take part in the war, but that, “in deference to the highest authority,” he had decided to remain at home. His younger brother, how— ever, was nominated to an important command, and his departure from our shores was the signal for the most fulsome and ridiculous panegyrics from “loyal” journa- lists. The Daz'h/ Telegraph in bombastic and inflated language described the satisfaction that every Englishmen must feel at the sight of one of the princes placing himself at the head of British troops and leading them to glory on the battlefield. A special general was sent out to see that the duke got into no danger; a special doctor accompanied - him, and every precaution was taken for his comfort and safety. Soon after his arrival the battle of Kassassin was fought, and telegrams reached this country extolling the bravery of the duke during the combat. It subsequently noEs ROYALTY PAY ? became known that while the battle of Kassassin was taking place the Duke of Connaught was ten miles in the rear! It is not a diflicult matter to display the most reck- less heroism when one is ten miles from any danger. Artemus Ward escaped a fatal wound at Sebasto- pol by not being there, and our major-general owes his preservation to a similar piece of good fortune. I believe the only privation to which the Duke was sub- jected during the campaign was a temporary scarcity of soda and brandy. At the conclusion of the war many of the troops returned to England, and were enthusiasti- cally received by their countrymen. A certain number of picked men were summoned to Windsor, when the Queen affixed a medal to the breast of every soldier who had distinguished himself. And, as a grand climax, the Duke of Connaught came forward, his royal mother fastened aldecoration upon his already overloaded uniform, and affec- tionately imprinted a kiss upon his martial brow! Could any more ridiculous farce be imagined? The carpet warrior who had merely accompanied the expedition as an ornamental appendage, who was never in real danger—to ‘him was vouchsafed the same reward as to the men who had risked their lives in the discharge of their duty. However little we may admire the trade of the soldier, it is matter of credit to him when he bravely performs the duty imposed upon him, and the decoration earned by devotion and heroism is an honor to him. But as for the rows of medals and ribands that are so thickly strewn upon the uniforms of princely toy-soldiers, they might ust as well be fixed upon a German sausage for any relevance that they bear to the object upon which they appear. The sham heroes of English royalty are in perfect keep- ing with the system to which they belong. They form part of an institution that was once terrible and powerful, but which is now as weak as it is contemptible and ridicu- lous. The political aspect of monarchy has entirely dis- appeared; it is not merely useless, but an actual clog and nuisance in the work of the State. Its social duties are _ frivolous and unimportant, and its “services” could be dispensed with, not only without detriment, but with actual advantage to' the nation. We are sometimes ‘told that England is a wealthy country and can afford to bear the expense entailed by royalty. I deny the state- 158 THE ATHEISTIC PLATFORM. ~merit absolutely and in all earnestness. Whilst we find large numbers of people dying from starvation in our midst; whilst we see so many thousands of our country- men barely able, by the most arduous exertions, to keep the wolf at bay; whilst we find that misery and want are rife among the laboring classes of the community, I say that it is criminal extravagance to maintain in idleness and luxury a family that perform no service to the country,. and whose position is based upon a barbarous and obso- lete form of government. I should be performing but a portion of the task which I have undertaken, if I failed to point out one considera- tion that is too often overlooked. The huge sum of money appropriated to the maintenance of royalty does not go into the pockets of the royal family, and by far the greater portion of it is absolutely outside of their control. The institution of monarchy is in this country the means of supporting that huge crowd of lazy aristocrats who have been irreverently but not inaptly termed “Court Flun- keys.” If the British tax-payer were to take the trouble to enquire what is done with the money which he grum- bles so loudly at paying, he would find that it filters in many ways into the pockets of the Crown’s most devoted adherents. The royal‘ family are bound by the iron fetters of custom and precedent, and many huge establishments have to be supported, at enormous expense to the country, for their accommodation. A glance at the composition of the royal household would show “about one thousand unselected, vested-interest, hungry, hereditary bondsmen dancing round the Crown like Red Indians round a stake, and scrambling for £325,000 of the £385,000 that is thrown to them every year by a liberal and unenquiring country.” Royalty requires a whole army of attendants, and all of them have to “be highly ‘paid. Many of the superior oflicials do absolutely nothing. Their oflices are sinecures; and, in many cases, even when certain duties have to be performed, the country, while paying A. a handsome salary for occupying the office, obligingly pays B. to do the work. It would be instructive to repro- duce the mere list of oflicials and servants employed in the service of royalty. It comprises oflices that are obsolete, ~oflices that are ridiculous, and oflices that are unnecessary. WVe have an aristocratic Master of the Tennis Court, with DOES ROYALTY PAY‘? 159 a large salary but no Tennis Court; a barge-master with two men to help him, but no barge—only the salary; there are chamberlains of various kinds, chief clerks, ordi- nary clerks and assistant-clerks; lords in waiting, grooms in waiting; gentlemen ushers and ushers who presumably are not gentlemen; masters of the ceremonies, assistants, and people to assist the assistants; state pages, pages of the back-stairs, a page of the chambers, pages of the presence, and pages’ men to wait upon the pages, of whom ~—-reckoning all varieties—--there are sutficient to make a large volume ; several kinds of serj eants-at-arms, kings-of- arms, heralds, chaplains, dentists, painters, librarians; gold sticks, silver sticks, copper sticks and sugar sticks; secretaries to everybody and under-secretaries to the secre- taries; inspectors, equerries, footmen, “three necessary women,” priests, painters, organists, composers, etc., art infinitnm. These officials pass their lives comfortably and luxu- riously, subsisting upon the public money. If any one of them has any work to do it will be found that three or four others are provided and paid to help him; and their assistance is sometimes afiorded when there is actually nothing to be done. To these men and to their relations royalty is the best possible form of government, and they will defend to the last gasp the institution which enables them to live in idleness upon the fruits of honest industry. I should like to suggest a possible way in which many of these tax-eaters could be got rid of. A short Act might be passed ordaining that the salaries of “Court Flunkeys ” should in future be collected direct from the people by the holders of the offices in person. The “ bargemaster ” and his two “watermen,” who so efiiciently help him to do nothing, might possibly be able to gather in the £400 per annum that they receive for their valuable services; but I am rather doubtful whether, after deducting wear and tear of clothing (damaged in frequent kickings-out), ‘doctors’ bills, time, trouble, etc., they would find the pecuniary results to be worth consideration. There would be fair ground for hoping that in a very few years the greater part of these useless ofiices would fall into desuetude. We may venture to trust that, in time, the English 160 THE ATHEISTIG PLATFORM. people will open their eyes to the anomaly of their position, With a political system in which the Republican spirit is' the very breath of life, we foolishly continue the ex- ‘ pensive luxury of a" useless monarchy. The only terms upon which we consent to retain and maintain the men- archical element is, that it shall do nothing to logically- justify its existence. ‘The misfortune is that the ‘nation has not the courage of its convictions. The facts ibf our political existence are democratic; the fictions—and most expensive fictions—are monarchical. But the day is ‘not far distant when the scales of prejudice and ignorance will fall from the eyes of our people; when they will be aroused to the dignity and independence of their man-~ hood; when, being no longer children, they will put aside - childish things, dismiss the useless representatives of a bygone system, and transfer their allegiance from the Crown to the Commonwealth. London: Printed by ANNIE BESANT and CHARLES BRADLAUGU, 63, Fleet Street, l'l.C. , -' Elie itthaistic ifllaii'urm.‘ XL THE CURSE OF CAPITAL. BY EDWARD B. AVELING, D.Sc. LONDON: FREETHOUGHT PUBLISHING- COMPANY, ea FLEET STREET ELL 1884. PRICE ONE PENNY. THE ATHEISTIC PLATFORM. A; j UNDER this title is being issued a fortnightly publi- cation, each number of which consists of a lecture delivered by a well-known Freethought advocate. Any‘ question may be selected, provided that it has formed the subject of a lecture delivered from the platform by an Atheist. It is desired to show that the Atheistic platform is used for the service of humanity, and that Atheists war against tyranny of every kind, tyranny of king and god, political, social, and theological. Each issue consists of sixteen pages, and is published at . one penny. Each writer is responsible only for his or her own views. 1.—-“ WHAT IS THE UsE 0E PRAYER?” By ANNIE BESANT. 2.—-—“ MIND CONSIDERED As A BODILY FUueTioR. By- ALIcH BRADLAUGH. * 3.——“ THE GosrEL or EVOLUTION.” By EDWARD AVELING, D.Sc. _4.—“ ENeLARn’s BALAEcE-SHEET.” By CHARLEs BRAnLAUeH. 5.—“ THE STORY or THE SoUnAN.” By ANNIE BESANF. 6.——“ NATURE AND THE Goes.” By ARTHUR B. Moss. These Six, in T'Wagoper, Sixpence. 7.--“ SoME OBJEGTIONS To SoeIALIsM.” By CHARLES BRAD-- LAUGH. \ 8.~—“ Is DABWINISM ATHEISTIC “2 ” By CHARLES CocHRmL. CATTELL. 9.——“ THE MYTH on THE REsURREcTIoN.” By ANNIE BEsANT. 10.--“DOEs RoYALTY PAY‘? ” By GEo. STANDRING. THE CURSE OF CAPITAL. W FOR the first time in speaking in this hall, I feel to-night that I shall not have my audience thoroughly with me. I am so used to talking upon a subject upon which we are all quite agreed—that is, on the subject of religion—that I am conscious to-night—more conscious, perhaps, than anybody else here—that I am speaking to an audience which, on this particular topic with which I shall deal this evening, is not at one with me. We have been so used to discussing the position of Christianity and other creeds, and have come to the same conclusions with such a start- ling and noticeable unanimity, that I am conscious, and I doubt not many of you are conscious, of a certain amount of embarrassment in dealing with the subject before us. I know that I am in a minority, not quite of one, but at all events in a minority with this audience. But that very feeling prompts me to speak more openly to you, because I know that I shall get from you just as patient a hearing in respect to a subject on which you and I are antagonistic, as I should have if I spoke on a subject on which we were all thoroughly agreed. I am going to ask you to listen to me not only patiently, but even silently. I mean that I would rather speak to you on the subject to-night, and make my position as plain to you as I can, without any in- terruption even of the kindly order with which you gene- rally favor me. The subject is a difiicult one, an’ intricate one. It wants very carefully placing before you, and wants careful attention. Having said so much, I may at once plunge into the discussion of what I have called “The Curse of Capital.” I think that there are two great curses under .which the present society is laboring—the one is Christianity, and the other is Capital. Last Sunday night I discussed the for- mer ; to-night I will discuss the latter. These are, to my thinking, the two great curses of this modern civilisation of ours; and I have come to conclusions in respect to both of these that I put before you as the result of my studies as scientific student. Last week I told you I could not 1 64 THE ATHEISTIO PLATFORM. accept Christianity because I was a student of science. My hatred of the capitalistic system of to-day’is based on the same methods, the same employment of scientific study, as in the former case. I am an evolutionist, and as an evolu- tionist I have come to the conclusion that Christianity is a bane and not a blessing. Equally, as an evolutionist, I have come to the conclusion that the present system of pro- duction—the capitalistic system of production—is a bane and not a blessing to the world at large. It is only a blessing to a comparatively few~people. It is a distinct evil to anybody but that comparatively few. I am an Evolutionist, an Atheist, and a Socialist. Of these two curses I think capitalism is the greater curse and the greater danger to us. Christianity you and I hold to be bad alike for the society and for the individual—upon that‘ we are thoroughly agreed. Now, capitalism is clearly, to my thinking at least, bad for society, but, unfortunately, not bad for certain individuals. Everyone of you desires—righteously desires—to be a capitalist. In the present condition of society you are perfectly right to desire it. Everyone of you desires to be a capitalist. I should be very pleased to be a capitalist. Nothing would give me better pleasure than to‘ have a certain amount of capital at my disposal; but nothing would give me greater pain than to get it in the way that some people get it. The great dificulty is this. Here is a system 'we know to be distinctly bad for the race, and yet to get capital for the individual is a distinct pleasure to him and a distinct good. Christianity we hold to be alike bad for the race and for everybody who takes part in it; but the capitalistic system, though it is bad for the mass, is good for certain individuals. That makes the question complex, and people who cannot see beyond the limits of their own life cannot understand that a system out of which they themselves may get some benefit is a bad system intrinsically none the less. Thus we want you tosubscribe capital for this hall and this company, to find funds for an Atheistic hall, and we are j ustified under the present existing conditions in doing this. It is absolutely necessary. If any work is to be done there should be an individual capitalist or company, but that does not vouch for the goodness of the system nevertheless. Often we are reproached for being individually capitalists, though we are fighting against the system. I hope we are not inconsistent in this. It is a question ofself-preservation. THE CURSE or OAPITAL. 165 I look, then, upon Christianity as a minor curse to Capi- talism. I am aware that I am speaking to an audience that'is in the main a Radical audience. It is pleasant to think that in some respects we who difler as Socialists are at one as Radicals. To one or two points I will call atten- , tion where we are at one, and then I will deal with others where we are not at one. You are an advance upon Liberalism; as Liberalism is an advance upon Whiggism; Whiggism on Conservatism, Conservatism on Toryism. And as men progress from the lower to the higher, the next step from Radicalism is Socialism. The difference, however, between the position of Radicalism and that of Socialism is much greater than between either of the other classes. Not a Radical or Socialist would say “no ” to this state- ment: that the condition of the labor classes is at the present hour a disastrous one. There every thinker goes with me when I say that the condition of the labor classes is a most disastrous and unhappy one. In lives, in home, in every detail of life, the position of the labor classes is distinctly an injustice to them. I take it you will go further (and not f re worse) in another point. Not only is it that the laboah classes are in a most unhappy condi- tion, but further, the chief reason for this is that they are without power; They are without any social or political power. This is the cry of all political reformers—the labor classes have little or no social or political power. ‘Vhy ? Because all the means of production, with one exception, are not in their hands, are indeed out of their reach. You may say: “Well, but a man who is very thrifty and careful can by degrees lift himself out of his condition and make himself a small capitalist.” It is possible that a unit out of thousands may do it; but I am speaking of the average laboring man, and I urge upon you that the means of production are not and. never can be within reach of 999 out of every thousand of these men in existing conditions --we'th one exception. And mark what the exception is, be- cause it is that upon which one of our fundamental doc- trines rests. The exception is what we call labor-power. It is a truism to tell you that of all the means of produc- tion labor~power is the solitary essential one. It is the one essential beyond all others. Machinery is a means of production, but machinery without labor-power is perfectly useless. Natural objects are, in a sense, means of produc—' tion ;: but they cannot be turned into commodities without labor-power. In short, whatever means of production you / 166 THE vATHEIsTIc PLATFORM. take, all is of no avail without the one essential means- labor-power. What I am trying to urge upon you is this, —that the body of people in whom is resident the one essential, human labor-power, are the very body of people who have no other means of production at their disposal whatever. They are all out of their reach except this one, the most essential one. Upon that it seems that we are justified in charging a gross injustice upon our modern society. More than this. Other means of production, such as machinery, have been produced by this labor-power, and are now beyond the reach of the very class to whose labor they are due. We have seen that the poor of the laboring classes'are in an unhappy condition, and that the means of production are out of their reach. As a consequence, it is a familiar fact that every great discovery, whatever it may be, does not benefit the labor classes. Any great scientific discovery, any great advance—-say the telegraph or the application of electricity—whom does it benefit? the productive classes ? What are called the middle classes derive a considerable amount of benefit from it; but how many of the labor classes are in any sense better? How many working men or women’s lives are made sweeter or happier by any of these scientific discoveries? Put the question to yourselves, and I think that the answer will be that, on the whole, any great discovery is not for the world at large, but for a comparatively limited class, and not for the class that most needs these discoveries and their advantages. Another illustration: I take the illustration of our schools and universities. Our universities have, every one of them, been founded by the labor of the labor classes. Every detail of the finances of our universities is entirely due to the labor of the labor classes. The scholarships that keep men at Cambridge, the various exhibitions that can be obtained there, the ‘great endowments of “Chairs” of this science, and of that language, all these emoluments in your universities are the product of the labor classes. What benefit do they get from them? The answer is, evidently none! So also with your State schools. You will say they are supported by the rates, and that the rates come out of your pocket. You may speak feelingly; but ' economically every rate that you pay comes directly or in- directly out of the labor of the labor classes; and hence these schools are their property. You only are, as it were, trustees for them, and very badly you deal with your THE cunsn or CAPITAL. 167 trusteeship. Vl’hen they clamor for free education they are asking aright, and not a favor. Whenever there is acry for free schools they are simply asking for their own again. Another point of agreement: for any remedy of a drastic nature, for any great change that is ever to be brought about, Parliament, as at present constituted, is practically ‘useless. I know well enough my Radical friends with a sigh will repeat that after me, and will tell you that for any great change that is to be brought about with speed and completeness, Parliament, as at present constituted, .is practically of no avail. It is not necessary to remind you how the men are elected, and how they conduct their business, or no business, as the case may be ; but certain ' we are of the painful fact that Parliament is only a Board for the protection of vested interests. There is a word used by politicians that covers a multi- tude of sins: that is, “ government.” Even those who feel that Parliament is largely effete, still cling to that ~shibboleth-—“ government.” They say when you have such men as are now in the Cabinet, you have a Government of able and well-meaning benefactors to their species. I am not going to touch the question whether a Tory or a Liberal Goverment is the better; but I am going to remind you that every Government, like every Parliament, con- sists of a body of men who—at least nine out of ten—- are of that very class of landlord and capitalist against whom we, as Socialists, are waging warfare. Our govern- ments, whether in England, Germany, or America, are all governments of a small class, of the capitalist and landlord order; and they govern for the benefit of capitalists and landlords, and not for the benefit of the community at large. This is too true, no matter with what Government we deal. We know that never, in the history of the past, has there been an example of one class legislating fairly and honestly for any other class; and yet this is what you expect with your panacea of a Liberal Government. In .all these Government arrangements, you always have one {class legislating for another; and whenever you have that you will have little or no real legislation done. You middle class people refused to allow the “ upper class ” to legislate for you, though you left them a little figment in the shape of a House of Lords, to remind you how foolish you were to leave them anything at all. Yet you middle- class people think you can legislate for the working-classes. .It is impossible. There will never be honest and fair and 168 THE ATHEISTIO PLATFORM. complete legislation for the community at large until all classes are legislating for themselves; or until there is no “class” at all, and the legislation is of the community for the community. Some will say: “You Socialists are so unpractical. You are talking very finely to-night; but why can’t you be patient? Why can’t you help us when we try to get some measures passed—such as Municipal Bills or Fran»- chise Bills?” We do; and are willing to help you. I am not of that imaginary school of Socialists who say it is not of the slightest good helping in any of these little measures of Extension of the Franchise and so on. I believe I am the mouthpiece of a great number of people who are quite willing to help you in these; but it must be understood that these are merely transition remedies; that they do not heal the sore at all; they do not get near it. I want to see the Franchise extended and two million more electors added to the suffrage-list; I want to see women on the suffrage-list; and I am perfectly anxious to work with you at it. So is it, I believe, with every thinker among the Socialist party. But these are tran- sition remedies, and don’t touch the vital point. They are interesting, and move in the right direction, but they are only transition remedies, and as they are such, you must forgive us if we work also for something which goes further. And this is where the Radical politician and the Socialist are so much at issue. I may most fitly, here, before I turn to another point, speak for a moment of two schools of thought, ‘each of whom is working, I believe, honestly and thoroughly in the right direction, but each of whom, again, is not what we should call a Socialist. I mean the Positivist school and the Badi~ cal school. I am a Positivist, but something more ; and I am aRadical, but something much more. The Positivist aims at something, but does not go far enough. The Positivist says: “ Moralise your individual; make him a better and more moral man, and then your great results will follow.” The first part is excellent, but the second part contains, I think, a fallacy. By all means moralise your children; let them have as much intellectual training as possible; that is excellent. But when the Positivist says that all good results will follow, we do not go with him there. It is quite right to work from within outwards, but you must ‘also work from without inwards. You must change not only the nature of the individual, but change, too, his~ THE cunsn or CAPITAL. 169 environment. It is of greater importance to change the environment, and make‘ it a more moral environment. We say, work from within outwards, but work also from without inwards; and at length, the two labors meeting, you will obtain the desired effect. The Radical says: “Change the nature of government— let us have aRepublic.” Strange, how many Radicals seem to think that the moment a Republic comes then the political ' millennium will be to hand. Look at France and America, and .ask yourselves whether the condition of the community at large in those countries is in any degree better than it is in England. It needs no reading to know that under Republics the exploiting of the laboring classes is as bad as under monarchies, if not worse. Do not let us think that a Republic will change all the conditions. I think a monarchy is as evil a form of government as any you can have. But do not imagine that if you had a Republic to- morrow that you would have the community at large much happier. I cannot believe it; all evidence is against it. What is it, then, at which we aim? We want, with the Positivist, to change the morale of the individual; we want, with the Radical, to get a better form of nominal govern- ment; but we want to do something else—to change the environment of the individual. I told you at the outset that I had come to these conclusions by way of science. From science, especially from your Darwinian science, you can learn so much. You that are students of Darwin, and have learned something of his views and of his great truths, will know what I mean by this idea of changing the environment, the surroundings, as well as changing the individual. As result of that variation that is so infinite in nature, on which natural selection works, you get an infinite diversity of plants and animals, on which evolution _works. How is this variation brought about? Mainly by the changed conditions of the surrounding of the animal or plant. Why is it that a particular plant or animal varies? Largely because of the conditions in which it is placed. You who have learned the incalculable value of conditions on the individual, of the nature of the environ— ment, will see what our meaning is when we say it is no good working on the individual alone; you must alter the , condition of society as it is at the present time, and then you will get a reaction upon the individual. Upon some of the chief ,words in economics you as Radi- cal and I as Socialist part company. When I begin to 170 THE ATHEIsTIO PLATFORM. speak of labor, competition, thrift, wages, profit, we shall be to some extent at issue. You know that every one of those wants a lecture or a course of lectures; and as I am making a confession of faith to you, and trying to justify my position in this matter, you will bear with me if I say a word or two on each of these points. Labor. There is a phrase often used about labor that ' the Socialist abhors. That is, “ the dignity of labor.” We hear so much said about the “ dignity of labor,” but it does not come from those who are laboring. We do not , look upon labor—that is, upon human effort as devoted l to the production of commodities—as in itself a desirable thing—as, per se, a thing that is to be regarded as a glory and a dignity. It is excellent to use your muscles for the good of the community, but it is a great mistake to talk at large upon the subject of the “glory and dignity of labor.” We should try to reduce labor to a minimum. That can only - be done by making the enormous number who never labor at all take their fair share in the labor of the community. Then the word “competition.” 0 competition! “cause ' of England’s greatness.” People who have given up the idea that the Bible is the cause of England’s greatness have yet seriously come to the conclusion that competition ' is the great thing that has made England what it is. Com- ; petition is almost an unmitigated evil. For it always leads 5 to two things—first, combination; and, secondly, mono- ‘ poly. The whole history of the past and the history of to-day tells us that where we have unlimited competition you are sure to get, sooner or later, combination, and, as a result monopoly. I do not think that I need deal with the extraordinary statement that is often made, that all great discoveries are the outcome of the spirit of competition. I cannot understand how anybody can seriously make that statement. I am not about to traverse the history of dis- coveries. But I ask you to think of any discovery, and to reflect whether it has ever been the result of such compe- tition, or whether it has not invariably been made by some man who has no need to compete perhaps; and certainly has no intention of competing. How is it all your great scientific work has to be done by men of means or holding sinecures ?——your Darwins, your Huxleys—all these men who do all your best scientific work, but do it in no spirit of competition. We look forward to the time when not merely a few here and there will be able to give their at- tention to further discoveries, to the extension of know- I | 3 THE man or CAPITAL. 171 ledge, and when, by a more equitable division of work and play, there will be possibility for hundreds and thousands instead of units can give time and attention to work and dis- covery and the extension of human knowledge. We can- not understand that competition has brought about these great discoveries. It has brought about many great com- mercial successes—I do not deny that. But if you are going to measure the good of the‘ world by the commercial success of the world, I draw back from you. If you are going to tell me that it is due to competition that you have such magnificent fortunes and such successes in certain lives, you must be reminded that you are measuring the world by such a little thing; English people measure all good by the purely commercial test. They can hardly help it in the present condition of society. They measure almost all good on the commercial basis, and there, of course, competition has been an advantage to individuals. The word “wages” ought, of course, to be spoken of in lecture after lecture. All I dare hint at here are just two things. We, as Socialists, desire that wages to the workers should be a fixed and a fair proportion at least of the products. Nothing of that kind exists to-day. In all probability, if changes come gradually, there will be first some fixed proportion, and later on there will be a fair proportion, coming as wage to the laborer. At present he has neither the one nor the other. We cannot go into a dis- cussion as to what regulates wages, but clearly there is now nothing like a fixed, much less a fair, proportion of the produce going to labor. So far Radicals go with us'; but when we say you will never get this in all probability until the existing condition of things is revolutionised, until the present relation between capital and labor is alto- gether done away with—you, as Radicals, will draw back. At present the proportion of the produce that goes to the worker is distinctly unfair; but we as Socialists say you will never get that fair proportion until the relationship between labor and capital is completely revolutionised. Just another word, about profit. Production to-day is for three things. Production, that is, where by human power and the use of other means of production, natural objects are turned into commodities, is either for use directly, or for exchange, or for profit. It is that third kind of production to which we take exception. Produc- tion for use is excellent. Production for exchange is, also, a well-recognised form of production. But produc- 17 2 THE ATHEISTIO PLATFORM. tion for profit is that against which Socialists set their face. It is this that is the cause of what is called the profit-mongering condition of society; and it is because the present condition of society is essentially a profit- mongering one, because the nature and aim of every one is to get profit somehow, that we have most of the ills that at present exist. Production for profit we lookupon as an undesirable thing. There is another familiar phrase: “Has not a man a right to his own—to what he produces or makes?” The question frequently comes 'up, especially when we begin to study this question. If a man has produced so and so, and made a profit out of it, has not he a right to his own? It seems a strange and low form of morality that prompts one to such an enquiry. N 0, clearly not. There is something greater than the individual—that is, the community for which he works. A man has clearly no right to do as he pleases. That which a' man produces in his present condition he must keep, as much as he can, or he would not live. But in the condition of things to which we look forward we hope itwill be understood that a man produces not for himself but for the community. Take a case noticed in the papers recently. One man in a firm in Birmingham drew out of the firm £70,000 as one year’s income. You and I are equally agreed that that man had clearly no right to that £70,000. He will tell you he invested so much, and so much came back as interest. But even if he carried on the business himself, I should dispute that he had a right to the money, because it is clearly profit, and profit is always made by the exploiting of somebody somewhere. But I read that there was a child of ten in‘ that firm. He was also having laid up for him so many thousands per year. I hold that that child had distinctly no right to that money. You will say his father founded the business, and surely he has a right to leave it to the child. No ; he has no such right.‘ I know in the present state of society he must do it. But I say the society is wrong where such a thing is possible, where a child who has done nothing whatever for humanity should have an income of £10,000 or £20,000 a year. It is a crime. I now come to the one word upon which everything de- pends, and that is the word “capital.” It is upon the meaning of capital that the Socialistic and all other orders of thought are at daggers drawn. The one question is, what ‘ explanation do you ofier of capital? I have used the THE cUnsE or CAPITAL. 173 phrase “ The Curse of Capital,” I mean capital as it exists to-day.- Capital itself is not a curse; it is only a curse as it is at this hour. What is this capital‘? The economist says it is the result of saving; and you who have made a little capital echo that and say “yes.” I must ask you most carefully not to speak of capital only as an individual. Your own capital may be the result of saving. I want you to understand that I am not looking at these little cases, but I am thinking of great capitalistic fortunes. You must not rise in your place and tell me your little - experience of how you saved something from your wages, and commenced to have capital. \Ve must deal with the big questions of how the great capitals are formed. How ? Oh, says the political economist, by saving, by self-denial, by the thrift of the individual. Now, I ask you, what saving, what self-denial, what thrift has any one of the great capitalists of the present day shown? It is fair to ask, what thrift or self-denial does a great capi- talist show every year‘? The self-denial and thrift are shown by his workers. But they do not get the capital, they make it for him. Trace it wherever you will, and you will discover that capital is now scarcely ever ‘the result of the self-denial of the individual who gets it. Of what is it the result? I made a distinction between the great capitalists and the small. I want to get beyond the latter. You small men are only bubbles on the great stream, that show neither the direction nor the depth of the stream. The Socialist says, it is the result of saving. It is, on the part of the laborer. It is a result of thrift, but on the part of the laborer. All the capital, as it is to-day, is the result of the laborer not being paid for more than a fraction of the work he does. That is the central position of Socialism; and I want antagonists of Socialism to assail that position. You may say you want to know about details, and how you are going to publish newspapers, and how you are going to get your watches, and so on. I am not going to deal with these details to- night. I am now dealing with the central question, what is the meaning of capital? and I am contending that the meaning of capital is that it is the result of labor that has never been remunerated. Say we take a mill that starts working on Monday morning. Every man and woman works, let us suppose, ten hours a day. I wish the supposition were accurate. At the end of the week they are paid; and we contend 174 THE ATHEIsTIO PLATFORM. that the payment that they get is remuneration only really for some two or three or four hours out of every ten. The labor of the men receives a fraudulent payment. They had earned what they were paid early in the week, and. had worked days and days absolutely for nothing, as far as they themselves are concerned. I may here, if I have made the difficult question clear, just take one illustration from my own way of thinking. Did you not ask yourselves as a child where does all the wealth come from? I as a child did what I think some children of a larger growth do; and came to the conclu- sion that it all filtered down from the great millionaires at the top. I had only gone half way! I had not traced the wealth to the real source. I traced it up to the million- aires, these interest-mongers, and so forth; but I should have gone on. Then I should have found out that I had to retrace my steps, and that these men had exploited the class beneath them, and that class had exploited the men beneath them, and at last I come down to where there is the sound of hammers, of digging and delving. I should have come where I hear the sighs of the labor-class, and I should have heard that out of those sighs there grew the ring of gold; I should have seen these labor-men giving their lives night and day, year after year, and dying in the very act of handing on something to the class above them. Thus I might have traced the lessening exploitation up- wards until I got to these colossal fortunes of men who do nothing at all. What does Socialism propose? It says: You must nationalise the means of production and the land. Wealth shall only be enjoyed by the producers—by nobody else whatever. And to that end, first you must nationalise the land, and secondly you must nationalise something A more important, the means of production. You must attack the landlord and also the capitalist. Both must go down. And the signs of the times‘ show you the capital- istic forces are closing up with us against the landlord. Self-preservation is taking possession of them at‘ last. But these two must be attacked simultaneously. Land and capital must become the property of the nation. What will the State be? you will ask. The organised capacity of the workers. What is it today? To-day it is the organised tyranny of the idlers. We desire to replace this by an organised capacity of the workers. Nationalisation of the land and nationalisation of all the THE owns]: or CAPITAL. 175 means of production are to be brought about by a stead- fast education of the working classes and of the middle classes to a due understanding of the condition of things and of the wrong that is done the workers. If we could make every working man understand what I have tried to - make you understand to-night, a revolution would be brought about to-morrow morning. If once we could make them understand this key-note of Socialism the present system of things would end. This is to be brought about by education. That education is going on in other countries; but you English people have little conception of how Socialism is spreading. I believe there is no move- ment since the movement called Christianity that has any- thing like the hold upon the people that this Socialistic movement of to-day is gaining. In England you do not know that everyone of our schemes is based upon scien- tific reasoning of the keenest minds of years and centuries. You say our principles are fads and unsound ideas. You do not know that our Socialism is the outcome of the most patient investigation and study of the acutest minds upon past history and upon the signs of the coming future. In every country except England the movement is grow- ing immensely. It is growing in England, and I want you to take your part in a movement that is, without a doubt, the one movement of this century. This century will be known for the blowing away of most of the cobwebs of supernaturalism. But it will be known, without any doubt, by a name far greater, and that is, for the revolution of the relations between capital and labor. We have in England one paper, Jnstiee, devoted to Socialism, hardly read by you. On the continent there are numbers of journals entirely devoted to the Socialistic movement. In France, at the voting for the municipal elections at Paris in 1881, there were only 17,895 Socialist votes; three years later there were 38,729-—that is to say, that in three years some 17,000 odd had grown to 38,000 odd. Take, again, the numbers at Berlin. In 1871 there were 1,135 votes for the Socialist party; in 1874 16,549; three years later 17,000; and three years later 33,629; and in 1881, only one year between, 56,712. Do you intend to ignore a movement like that‘? You cannot ignore it. A movement that can spread so rapidly on the Continent cannot be ignored. It is an international question, it is a question of nations and‘ of the progress of all nations. 176 , THE ATHEISTIO PLATFORM. (‘7 You will’ ask: “Will you not have a frightful struggle, and will it not end in bloodshed?” Possibly. I do not know. “Is it not setting class against class?” Yes; and Socialists mean to devote their lives to setting class against class. We preach class warfare. We hope it may not be a‘warfare of bullets and of steel; but if it is class warfare , even this alas! is possible. It is a warfare of the labor class against the capitalist class. In the past there has been no such battle without bloodshed. I only hope that this freedom of the labor class, that has certainly to come, may be brought about by reason and argument. But it will have to be brought about. Shelley and Marx did not think it would be brought about without a tremendous struggle. Neither they nor we are blind to the possi- bilities that are before us. Marx tells us again and again: “Work on, you men. Get yourselveserepresented in Par- liament; get hold of the means of Government where you can, and increase your power, until you are sufficiently ~ strong to say: ‘Now we will see right done.’ And then the fighting will come. But it’will come from those who hold your right from you.” Such a cry will go up in time. I want your voice and mine to help to swell that great cry. It is growing in volume and intensity from all of the labor classes throughout the~world : “ Our Rights! Our Rights! Cur Rights! ” 8 Printed by ANNIE Bnsxnr and CHARLES Bnanmuen, at 63, Fleet Street, London, ELL—1884,. 615‘112 Qttbztattc @latfnrm. xii. WHY SHOULD ATHEISTS BE PERSECUTED? BY ANNIE BESANT. LONDON: FREETHOUGHT PUBLISHING COMPANY, 63, FLEET STREET, no. 1884. PRICE ONE PENNY- THE ' ATHEISTIC PLATFORM. A W UNDER this title is being issued a fortnightly publi- cation, each number of which consists of a lecture delivered by a well-known Freethought advocate. Any question may be selected, provided that it has formed the subject of a lecture delivered h'om the platform by an Atheist. It is desired to show that the Atheistic platform is used for the ‘service of humanity, and'that Atheists war against tyranny of every kind, tyranny of king and god, political, social, and theological. Each issue consists of sixteen pages, and is published at one penny. Each writer is responsible only for his or her own views. ' ‘- ~..\1.—“ \VHAT IS THE UsE OF PRAYER?” By ANNIE BEsANT. 22+“ MIND CONSIDERED As A BODILY FUNOTION.” By ALIOE BRADLAUGH. 3.—-“ THE GOsrEL or EvoLUTIoN.” By EDWARD AVELING, D.Sc. ‘ 4.—“ ENcLAND’s BALANcE-SHEET.” By CHARLES BRAD-. LAUGH. 5.-—“ THE STORY OF THE SOUDAN.” By ANNIE BEsANT. 6.—“ NATURE AND THE Gone.” By ARTHUR B. Moss. These Six, in Wrappcn'Sixpence. 7 .—-“ SOME ORJEcTIoNs To SocIALIsM.” By CHARLES BRAD- ' LAUGH. 8.-“ Is DARwINisH ATHEIsTIO ?” By CHARLEs COOHRILL CATTELL. 9.-—“ THE MYTH or THE REsURREcTIoN.” -By ANNIE BEsANT. 10.—-“ DoEs ROYALTY PAY? ” By GEORGE STANDRING. 11.-—“ THE CURsE or CArITAL.” ByEDwARD AvELINe, D.Sc. Part II. of the “ Atheistic Platform,” containing Lee;- tures 7—12 can be had in paper wrapper, Price Sixpence. Also Parts I. and II., bound in one, forming a book of 192 pages, can be had, price One Shilling. WHY SHOULD ATHEISTS BE PERSEOUTED? v FRIENDS,——III the old days, when Christianity was feeble and Paganism was strong, when Christians had to plead to Pagans for toleration as Atheists have to plead to Chris- tians now, Christians from time to time put forth an Apology for their faith. Thus Justin Martyr pleaded before the Emperor Antoninus, and other Apologies are to be found in the literature of the early Christian Church. The word Apology was not used in its modern sense of excuse, of submissive phrase; it was an Apologia, a defence of the faith believed in, a vindication of the principles held. To-day, I Atheist, in a Christian com- munity, stand as did the Christian in the second century in a Pagan society ; and I put forth an Apologia, a defence, a vindication of my faith. Faith, in the noblest sense of that much-abused word, for it is a belief based on reason, in~ tellectually satisfying, morally regulative, socially re- formatory. I will take it for granted, for the purposes of this lec- ture, that the majority of you present here—as of the wider public outside—belong to the religion known as Christian. It is to Christians that this vindication of Atheism is addressed, and my aim in this lecture is a well- defined one; I am not going to ask from you any agree- ment in my speculative views; I am not going to try to convince you that Atheism is speculatively accurate ; I am only going to propose to you, and to answer in the nega- tive, the following question: Granted an Atheist or a small number of Atheists, in a Christian community, is there any reason why he or they should be persecuted, for the intel- lectual, moral, or social doctrines held and published ‘? Is 180 THE ATHEISTIC PLATFORM. there anything in Atheism, in its intellectual speculations, in its moral teaching, in its social theories, which makes it dangerous to the prosperity, progress and well-being of the society in which it is professed? Such is the question I propose to you. I of course shall answer it in the negative, and shall try to show you that whether Atheistic speculations be true or false, the Athe- istic spirit is1 of vital importance to society. And at the very outset let me remind you of the remarkable testi~ mony borne to the social aspect of Atheism by the great philosopher Bacon: “Atheism leaves a man to sense, to philosophy, to natural piety, to laws, to reputation, all of which may be guides to an outward moral virtue, though religion were not; but superstition dismounts all these and erecteth an absolute monarchy in the mind of men; there'- fore Atheism never did perturb States, for it makes men wary of themselves, as looking no further ; and we see the times inclined to Atheism, as the times of Augustus Caesar, were civil times; but superstition has been the confusion of many States.” Yet though he thus wrote, Bacon was not an Atheist, for he said (I here quote from memory): “A little knowledge inclineth a man to Atheism, but deeper search brings him back to religion.” These are not, therefore, the words of the Atheist on his own behalf, "but the testimony of an opponent who has studied the his- tory of the past. Strange, indeed, it is to those who know that record of history to remark how Superstition is condoned to-day, while Atheism is condemned. The wildest vagaries of Superstition are excused, while the very word Atheism is held to connote immorality. Take the Salvation Army; it may shut up young lads and lasses for an “ all-night ser- vice,” in which they “creep for Jesus” in a hall with locked doors; when the natural result follows of gross immorality, excuses are made for the leaders tha “their motives are good.” - But let a man be known as an Atheist, . and though his life be spotless, his honor unstained, his integrity unsoiled, there is no slander too vile to be be- lieved of him, no libel too baseless or too foul to be credited about his character. Superstition has lighted stakes, built Inquisitions, turned the wheels of the rack, made red-hot the pincers to tear men’s flesh, has slaughtered, tormented, burned .and ravaged, till the pages of her history are WHY SHOULD ATHEISTS BE rEnsEcUTEn? 181 blotted with tears and drip with blood. Atheism has slain none, tortured none; yet men ‘welcome the cubs of the wolf that will prey on them, and hunt down the watch-dog that would protect. 1. Is there anything in Atheism in its intellectual aspect which should make it mischievous to society? To answer ~ this part of the question we must analyse the Atheistic type _'of mind and seek its chief and essential character- istic. If you do this you will, I think, find that the Atheistic mind is essentially of the challenging, the questioning, the investigating type. It is of that type which will not accept a thing because it is old, nor believe it because it is venerable. It demands to understand before it admits, to be convinced before it believes. Authority, gnd authority, it does not respect ; the authority must prove itself to be based on reason and on knowledge before cap may be defied to it or knee bent in homage. Nor is this questioning silenced by an answer that really leaves unresolved the problem. The Atheistic spirit remains un- satisfied until it has reached, to use an expressive Ameri- canism, “the bed-rock ” of the matter in hand. If an answer is not to be had, the Atheistic spirit can contentedly keep its opinion in suspense, but cannot believe. Now there is no doubt that this type of mind—which is in the psychical world like the explorer in the physical—is one which is very unpleasant to the mentally lazy, and unfortunately the majority, even in a civilised land, is composed of mentally lazy people. IVords are very loosely used by most folk, and they are apt to be angry when they ‘are forced, by questioning, to try and think what they really do mean by the phrases they employ as a matter of course. We all know how impatient foolish mothers and nurses grow with a child’s ceaseless questions. A bright, healthy, intelligent child is always asking questions, and if it is unlucky enough to live among careless, thoughtless people, it too often happens that, unable to answer fully, and too conceited to say “ I do not know,” the elder person will give it a slap, and tell it not to be so tiresome. The Atheist questioner meets with similar treatment ; society, too ig- norant, or too lazy to grapple with his enquiries, gives him a slap and puts him in the corner. None the less is this challenging, questioning type of the most priceless value to society. Without it, progress is 182 THE ATHErsTIc PLATFORM. impossible. Without it every childish superstition would be immortal, every mouldy tradition would reign for ever ever men. And the challenge is useful, whether addressed to truth or to falsehood. It injures no truth. A truth is vindicated by enquiry; those who hold a truth only become more certain of it when questioning forces them to. re- examine the grounds on which it rests. But a lie perishes under investigation as a moth shrivels in the flame. Progress can be made only by re-affirming truth known, by discovering truth hitherto unknown, and by destroying ancient falsehoods. Hence the value to society of the challenging Atheistic type, whether its speculations be right or wrong. Professor Tyndall has proclaimed in noble words his pre- ference for intellectual effort, rather than for intellectual sleep. In his celebrated Presidential Address at the meet- ing of the British Association at Belfast, he said, dealing with his own views, and in warning to his hearers: “As regards myself, they are not the growth of a day; and as regards you, I thought you ought to know the environment which, with or without your consent, is rapidly surrounding you, and in relation to which some adjustment on your part may be necessary. A hint of Hamlet's, however, teaches us all how the troubles of common life may be ended; and it is perfectly possible for you and me to p1u~chase intellectual peace at the price of intellectual death. The world is not without refugees of this description; nor is it wanting in persons who seek their shelter, and try to persuade others to do the same. The unstable and the weak have yielded, and will yield to this persuasion, and they to whom repose is sweeter than the truth. But I would exhort you to refuse the offered shelter and to scorn the base repose—to accept, if the choice be forced upon you, commotion before stag- nation, the leap of the torrent before the stillness of the swamp.” It is this leap of the torrent which the Atheist faces, feeling that he can better breast the rapids, even if drown- ing be the penalty, than float idly on down the lazy current of popular opinion. To “refuse the offered shelter and to scorn the base repose” is to show the martyr-spirit that welcomes death rather than dishonor, and the noblest faith in Truth that man can have is proved when he flings wnY SHOULD A-THEISTS nn Pnnsncurnn? 183 himself into the billows of fact, let them cast him up on what shore they may. Well was it said by a noble and earnest thinker that Atheism was oft-times “the truest trust in Truth.” A legend says that in a pagan land a God was worshipped, at whose shrine was sacrificed all that was most precious and most beloved. At last, revolt was made against the hideous deity, and one man, young and brave, stood forth to challenge the wrath of the mighty God. Round the statue of the deity stood thousands of his worshippers; amid dead silence walked forth the heroic youth, a javelin in his hand. Face to face he stood with the God, and poising his weapon, he cried aloud: “ God, if God thou be, answer with thy thunderbolt the spear I fling! ” And as he spoke, the strong right arm launched the javelin, and it struck full and fair, and quivered in the heart of the God. An awful silence fell on the crouching multitude, as they waited for the lightning which should flash out in‘ answer to the insult. But 10! there was none, nor any that regarded, and the silence brooded unbroken over the pierced statue, and the blasphemer who had defied the God. There was silence. Then, a long breath of relief; then, a cry of rapture; and the crowd who had knelt flung itself on the riven statue and only a heap of dust told where a God had been. Athe- ist was that hold challenger, that questioner of a long-held faith; and he freed his nation from the yoke of a spectre, and shivered one of the superstitions of his time. Atheist is each who challenges an ancient folly, and who, greatly ‘daring, sets his life as wager against a lie. This same questioning spirit, applied to the God-idea, has given Atheism its distinctive name. It finds the God— idea prevalent and it challenges it. It does not deny, but it “wants to know” before it accepts, it demands proof before it believes. The orthodox say : “ Do you believe in God?” The Atheist answers : “ ‘What is God‘? You must tell me what you believe in, ere I can answer your question.” And then arises the difficulty, for the word “ God” is used “rather to hide ignorance, than to express knowledge” (Bradlaugh), and the worshipper anathema- ,\ tises the Atheist because he does not adore that which he himself cannot explain or define. Sometimes the Atheist analyses the metaphysical defi- A nitions of God and finds them meaningless. One instancd .e » ,sW 184 , THE ATHEISTIC PLATFORM. will here serve aswell as a dozen. Take the phrase that “ God is Absolute Being.” But, says Dean Mansel, in his famous Bainpton lectures (2nd. Ed., pp. 44, 45, 49), “ by the Absolute is meant that which exists in, and by itself, having no necessary relation to any other being. . .. '. . That which is conceived as absolute and infinite, must be conceived as containing within itself the sum, not only of all actual, but of all possible modes of being. For if any actual mode can be denied of it, it is related to that mode, and limited by it; and if any possible mode can be denied of it, it is capable of becoming more than it now is, and such a capability is a limitation. . . . The absolute cannot be conceived as conscious, neither can it be conceived as unconscious; it cannot be con- ceived as complex, neither can it be conceived as simple; it cannot be conceived by difference, neither can it be conceived by the absence of difierence; it cannot. be identified with the universe, neither can it be distin- guished from it.” Such is the description of the Abso- lute, given by a great "Christian philosopher. If then by knowledge or by worship I enter into a relation with God, I at once destroy him as the Absolute. If he be Ab- solute Existence, he is for ever unknowable to man. Why should the Atheist be persecuted because he refuses either to affirm or to deny that which by the definition of the believer cannot be known or distinguished ‘P Pass from metaphysics, and take God as “the First Cause.” “Every effect must have a cause, and therefore the universe must have a creator.” Will you kindly tell me, ere I examine your argument, what you mean by the word “ efiect”? Only one definition can be given: some- ‘ thing that results from a cause. “Everything that results from a cause must have a cause.” Granted. “ Therefore the universe must have a creator.” Stop, not so fast. You must show that the universe 219 an effect, 71.0., that it results from a cause, before you can logically make this statement, and that is the very point you set out toprove. You are begging the very question in dispute. Besides if your argument were valid, it would go too far,,for then behind your creator of the universe, you would need a creator of the creator, and so on backwards ad z'nfin'zftum. The truth is that in speaking of causation we must keep within the realm of experience; we might as well try to- WHY SHOULD ATHEIS'I‘S BE PERSECU'I‘ED ? 'plumb the mid-Atlantic with a'five-fathom line, ‘as try to fathom the mystery of existence with our brief experi~ mental sounding lead. Christians believe where their knowledge ends; Atheists suspend their judgments and wait for light. “ God is the designer of the world, and it shows the marks of his handiwork.” Did he design the beast of prey, the carnivorous plant, the tape-worm, the tsetze ? did he design that life should be sustained by slaughter, and the awful struggle for existence ? did he design the pestilence and the famine, the earthquake and the volcanic eruption ? Is “Nature, red in tooth and claw with ravin,” the work of all-loving God? “God is all-good.” Then whence comes evil? As long as man has thought, he has wearied himself over the ‘problem of the existence of evil in the work of an all-good God. If evil be as eternal as good, then the Persian view of the co—equal powers of darkness and light as fashioners of the world is more rational than the Christian. If it be not eternal, if there were a time when only God existed and he was good, then evil can only have resulted from his creative will, and sustained approval. Man Friday’s question, “Why does not God kill the Devil? ” puts in a concrete form the problem that no Christian philosopher has ever solved. The scientific student recognises the nature and the reason for what we call evil; the Christian gazes with hopeless bewilderment at the marring of the work of his all good and almighty God. Further; from his examination of the many Gods of the world, the Atheist comes to the conclusion that they are man-made. The God of every nation is in the same stage of civilisation as is the nation itself. Such variety would be incredible if there were an entity behind the fancy. Compare the God of the savage and of the European philosopher; the savage worships a concrete being, brutal, bloody, ferocious as himself; the philoso- pher an abstract idea, a tendency “ not ourselves, which makes for righteousness.” Is there one reality which is ' worshipped by the King of Dahomey and by Matthew Arnold? In face of such varieties what can the Atheist think butthat “ God” is the reflexion of man, an image not an object ? The Atheist waits for proof of God. Till that proof 186 THE ATHEIsTIo PLATFORM. ‘ comes he remains, as his name implies, without God. His mind is open to every new truth, after it has passed the warder Reason at the gate. All his hope for a true theory of the world is fixed on Science, Science which has written for us the only trustworthy record of the past, and which ‘ is daily writing new pages of the book of knowledge‘. What is there in all this to make men persecute the Atheist? In this intellectual attitude there is surely no crime. Some people say that Atheists lack a sense possessed by others, in that they do not intuit God, as blind men lack the vision others enjoy. Suppose it be so, is that any reason for persecuting them? Do the people who can see try to hunt down those who are blind? I could understand their pitying us if they possess a oy we do not share, but I cannot understand their wanting to make us suffer be- cause we are bereft of a faculty enjoyed by them. And indeed I believe that the noblest and best Christians thus regard the matter, and regard Atheists with generous sorrow, not with hatred. But the vast majority have but little faith in God and little love to man. Our outspoken unbelief stirs the hidden doubts which lie in their own minds, and they fear lest we should wake them into activi- ty.' They want to believe, because belief is easy and un- belief hard, belief is profitable and unbelief dangerous, and so they hate and persecute those whose courage is a reproach to their cowardice. It is not Christian faith nor Christian truth that incites to modern persecution; it is Christian hypocrisy and Christian doubt. Turn from the intellectual to the moral aspect of Atheism" and it is on this that the bitterest attacks are made. Athe- ism bein'g'without God, it must seek in man the basis for its moral code, and being without immortality it must find its motives and its sanctions on this side the grave. Athe- - istic morality must be founded on man as a social being, and must be built up by observation and reflexion. Clearly, then, it must be Utilitarian; that is, it ‘must set before it Happiness as the object of life; all that, generally practised, tends to increase the general happiness is Right; all that, generally practised, tends to decrease the general happiness is Wrong. To this theory the objection is often raised that Virtue and not Happiness should be the end of life. But what .are virtues save those qualities which tend to produce 0 WHY SHOULD ATHEISTS nn. rnnsncurnn? 187 happiness, vices those which tend to produce misery and social disorganisation? If murder strengthened respect for human life; if falsehood increased confidence between man and man; if love and trust and purity shattered the society in which they flourished; in a word if virtue made society miserable while vice raised and ennobled it, do you think that vice would long be stamped with social disap- proval? Men are unconsciously Utilitarian, and what is called virtue is the means to the end, happiness. By the Law of Association the means and the end become joined in thought, and the longing for the end brings about love of the means. Let me illustrate what I mean by a case in which pre- judice is less felt than in that of virtue and happiness. ' Money is valuable as a means to all it can purchase; when a man earns and saves money, he earns and saves it not for itself but for all which he can procure with it. The little bits of gold and silver have no value in themselves ; they are valuable only for the comfort, the enjoyment, the leisure which they symbolise. Yet sometimes the means, money, takes the place of the end it is generally used to procure, and the miser, forgetting the end, sets his heart on the means for itself, and he loves the coins and gathers them together and heaps them up, and denies himself all money could buy for the sake of boarding the gold. In similar fashion have men learned to love virtue, first for the sake of the happiness it brought, and then by natural transition for itself. But, it is said, the renunciation of personal happiness is often right; how can Utilitarianism be consistent with the noblest of human virtues, self-sacrifice. ‘When is the renunciation of personal happiness right ? When the re- nunciation of happiness by one renders needless the renun- ciation of happiness by many; that is, when it tends to the general good. The man who sacrifices himself for nothing is a lunatic; he who sacrifices himself to save others from suffering is a hero. The individual suffers loss, but the general good is increased. , A curious oolte-faoe is often made by our antagonists. After declaring that Utilitarianism is low and selfish, they suddenly assert that the Utilitarian motive is too high to affect ordinary folk. The “ general good,” they say, is too' vague and abstract a thing to be used for moralising 188 THE ATHEISTIG PLATFORM. ' the populace. I deny it. If a man is exceptionally de- graded, you may find your only appeal must be to himself or to his immediate surroundings, but the great majority answer to a wider summons, as do plants to the sunlight. For your lowest type of man you must use selfish motives, ' but even-with him you may endeavor to at least touch him with family, if not with social claims, and so gradually train him to regard himself as a unit in a community rather than as an isolated existence. Penalty must educate the lowest types into recognition of social duty, but the» ma- jority of civilised mankind respond to a higher call. And that this is so we may prove by a mere appeal to ‘statistics. The Atheists, with no fear of hell nor hope of heaven, with only the general good as motive and social happiness as aim, contribute fewer, in proportion to their number, to the criminal classes, than does any Christian sect, with all the supposed advantages of Christianity. If Atheism be morally dangerous to Society, why should Atheism have a cleaner record than that of any Christian body? I ask again: \Vhat is there in our Atheistic Utilitarian code of morals that should justify our persecution? It tends to make us seek the happiness of Society in pre- ference to our own, and to put the‘ general before our individual good. Christians who look to be rewarded for their goodness may scoff at our disinterestedness, but at least it does not injure them, and they lose nothing because we seek not a crown on the other side the grave. To us “Virtue is its own reward ; ” we sing with Alfred Tenny- son, ere he sank into a Baron : - ~ “ Glory of warrior, glory of orator, glory of song, Paid with a voice flying by to be lost on an endless sea-— Glory of virtue to fight, to struggle, to right the wrong-— Nay, but she aimed not at glory, no lover of glory she; Give her the glory of going on, and still to be.” But is there anything in the social views of the Atheist which may, perchance, justify his ostracism? And here,- at last, we shall come to the arm: of our difficulty. The Atheist, being without God, cannot recognise as Divine the present order of Society; he claims. happiness for all, and he sees one portion of Society rioting in luxury while another is steeped in penury; at one end of the social scale he sees men so wealthy that they cannot even WHY SHOULD ATHEISTS BE rEasEcUTEn? 189 waste fast enough the riches they own, while at the other men are so poor that they cannot even feel sure whence shall come their next week’s food; he notes that the wealthiest are the idlest, while the poorest are the most laborious; that those who produce least consume most, while those who produce most consume least; and he demands social reconstruction. No one with a brain and a heart can contrast the dif- ferent conditions . into which the children of the rich and the poor are born, and remain satisfied with Society as it is. The rich man’s child is born into pure air, into healthy surroundings; its food is carefully suited to its delicate organs; its clothes vary with the changes of the weather; the most watchful care fosters and cherishes it; as its faculties expand it is guarded from every injurious influ- ence; it is coaxed along the right road; all good is made easy and attractive to it, all evil difficult and repulsive; the best education is given to the growing lad that money can buy; body and brain are alike tended and developed; in manhood, life’s prizes are open to him, andif he plunges into crime he does it from an inborn tendency that no purity of environment has been able to eradicate. Now contrast the case of the child born into some filthy overcrowded den in a thieves’ quarter. Its father is a burglar, its mother a harlot. It is born into squalor, and foul air, and. noisome surroundings; its mother’s milk is gin-polluted; its clothes are filthy rags ; its education con- sists of kicks and curses; foul language is its grammar, foul thoughts its mental fo‘od; crime is a necessity of its life; there is no possibility open to it save the reeking court and the gaol. The case of thechild of the honest but poor worker is far other than this, but it is not what it should be. The family is but too often overcrowded and underfed; the father is over-burdened with wage-winning; the mother over-sharpened with anxiety; education is rushed through; work comes too early in life; and while dauntless courage, unwearying patience and mighty brain power may raise the poor man’s son into prominence, he can only win by most exceptional endowment that which comes to the rich man’s son by chance of birth. Again I say, that looking at these tremendous inequalities, the Atheist must demand‘ social reconstruction. 190 THE ATHEisTio PLATFORM. And first, he declares that every adult member of society _should be a worker, that none should live who does not labor. There is a certain amount of work to be done, and if some shoulders bear none of the burden, others must A hear more than ought fairly to fall to their lot. If an idle class exists in a community, an over-worked class must exist to balance it. The Christian declares that labor is a curse ; the Atheist that labor is a good; neither brain nor muscle can be developed without exercise, and both mental and physical effort are necessary for the due growth of man. Even the idle classes recognise that physical exertion is necessary for physical strength, and there is no reason why the muscle developed by them in games, should not be developed equally well, and with equal physical enjoyment, in useful work. I do not want to see games abolished, but I do want to see them more equally distributed. All would be the better if the athletic “aristocrat ” spent some of his strength in labor, and the artisan some of his in sport. Further, the Atheist declares that each should have time- of leisure. Without leisure, no mental improvement is possible. If a man is wearied out physically, he is not fit to toil mentally, and only as all take their share of work can all enjoy their share of leisure. Those who make society’s wealth have but small share of leisure to-day ; and remember that leisure should include time for mental work and for complete relaxation. Healthy human life should be made up of physical effort, mental effort, play, food~time and sleep. Not one of these can be omitted from a healthy life. And see the gain in enjoyment brought about by the train- ing of mental faculty. Lately I went for a brief holiday into- a lonely part. of Scotland; there‘ was no “ society'” there, but there were hills and water and clouds; glorious light and shade and color; radiant glow of flowers and plash of‘ mountain rills. To me, the beauty, the stillness, the ripple of water, the glory of moor and wood, gave the most ex- quisite enjoyment. But imagine a woman taken from some filthy London court, and set down in the midst of‘ that solitude; ere a day was ever she would be wearying- for the revelry of the gin_palace, the excitement of the- fifth-rate music-hall. Why such difference between her and me? Because I am’educated and she is not. Because WHY SHOULD ATHEISTS BE PERSEGUTED? 191 my faculties have been drawn out, trained, and cultured. Hers have been dwarfed, withered and destroyed. I claim for all the joy that I have in life, in beauty, in nature and in art. Why should Society have bestowed so much on me, while it leaves my sister beggared ? But in order that the adult may be cultivated, the child must be educated. The school-life of the workers is too short. The children’s pennies are wanted to swell the wages of the family, whereas the father’s wage should be sufficient for all until the children grow into manhood and womanhood. And the children should have technical, as well as book ‘education. In Germany all children learn a trade, and the present Crown Prince is said to be a cabi- net-maker, some of his palace furniture having been made by his own hands. If all children were trained in brain and in fingers, then ability, not birth, would decide the path in-life. There is many a brain now lying fallow in workshop and behind the plough, which might have been of priceless service to England had it been set to its fit work; and there is many a brain, high in the council-chambers of the nation, scarce fit to direct the fingers in the most unskilled labor. A just system of national education would classify thinkers and manual laborers aright, and would draft the one for higher education, the other for rougher forms of toil, without regard to the superstition of birth, or to anything save the capacities given by Nature to each child. ' Moreover this education should be really “national.” All children, rich and poor together, should go to the National Schools. There should be no distinctions, no differences of rank permitted in the schools, save the distinctions of ability and of merit. Thus would class~distinctions be eradicated, and those who had sat side by side on the same schoolbench could never, in later life, dream they were of different clay. To such suggestion as this it is sometimes objected that the vulgar manners of the poor child would coarsen those of the rich. Friends, the Atheist seeks to destroy that vulgarity; it is the outcome of neglected education, of that absence of refinement of thought and of life, that results from the shutting up of the poor into one dreary round of ceaseless toil. The difficulty would only arise during the first generation of common school-life, and the teachers by careful supervision 192 THE ATHEISTIC PLATFORM. ‘t might easily prevent any real harm from arising. If any children were found to use coarse language, they could be separated off, until they understood that indecency would not be tolerated. As a rule, absolute coarseness of language and gesture would be found only in the children of the, criminal classes, and they should be taught in different schools. The Atheist looks forward to, and works towards, a Society in which class-distinctions shall have vanished, in which all shall be equal before the law, all shall be given equal opportunities, and shall share equal education in their youth. From that Society both crime and poverty shall have vanished; the workhouse and the gaol shall have passed away. Small wonder then that the Atheist should be persecuted; he is hated by the idle wealthy, by the aristocratic pauper who lives on other men’s toil; these set the fashion of social ostracism, and the fashion is followed by the thousands who ape and echo those above them in the social scale. None the less is the Atheist hope already shining above the horizon, and sunned in the warmth of that radiance he waits patiently for the coming noon. Printed by ANNIE BESAZNT and Canvas Bmnmuen, 63, Fleet Street, London EL‘. ‘on ‘.Laaats iaa'ia ‘a:»._ 'f , ‘raver-roe euinsriana mnenonztaaaa liroaxorl- ’ J ‘ ‘sacral {ennui-5 pun Kpre‘iicnrj {first ‘usrppqg in; sejszug *e'ie ‘senjdmfeoig ‘segroqg *esuesuou anon. aaatedns mag ear; ‘IIQJPHTIQ .10; “ .teua'oo ,, {speeds V *rfmroasi‘rrusdxrs prpugfidg _ 1." flag/‘'0,’ sq, i r’\//- , , .~ , ' o l‘, I ,,f-‘ as be tat-1 a? WW 1112"!” II r @1011 'uvnanor Ennaaxrs Kinmniom v nuns/2:5 sitting’ - lid-I (IEIIIEIEI ""“"""a'“”a'"n “'a'" o"" o‘ a no ' Eliminate “1'? with’; Theological‘ Essays and Debate - ' ‘ -' By ANNIE .REsANTQ ‘The Freethinker’s Text-Book. Part II‘. “On Christianity.” _7 Section I.-——“ Christianity: its‘ Evidences " Unreliable.” Section II.—--‘,‘ Its Origin Pagan.” Sec- tiOn.III.-—-“ Its vMorality Falliblefl Section IV.--“ Oon~ demned by its History.” _ Bound in cloth - ' MyPath to Atheism.‘ Collected Essays; Clot 'giltlettered. -- .. Y .- -' The Jesus of the Gospels and‘ the Influence * , of Christianity on the World. Two nights’ Debate " the Rev; A'. HATOHARD. . . .' . 0 9 Christian‘Progress. Third Thousand 4 ‘Fruits of Christianity. _ Fifth Thousand: v . _ - ' .. The Gospel of.‘ Christianity and the Gospel of Freethought 1 . Blasphemy .. _ .. .. .. ._ The Christian Creed ; or, What it is Blasphemy to Deny I . . God’s .Views on Marriage _ . . ' . . . . The Gospel of Atheism. Fifth Thousand ', . , Is the Bible Indictable? _' .. . The True Basis of Morality. A Plea for Utility‘ as the Standard of Morality. Seventh Thousand . . - -. .‘ ~ .. . The Ethics of Punishment; Third Thousand _ i .5. ' Auguste Comte. Biography of the great French Thinker, with‘ I Sketches of his Philosophy, his Religion, and his Sociolog '.' Being a short and convenient részmzé of Positivis'm for < the j j ' general reader. : Third Thousand . . ., .. . Giordano ‘Bruno, the Freethought Martyr of the ‘Sixteenth ' Century. His Life and Works. 1 Third Thousand ,_ ' . . , ‘Whatis the Use of Prayer? Tenth Thousand _. 1.. - The Myth of the Resurrection . . . . . ' _. .7 ‘ . q Why Should Atheists vbe Persecuted? . . j . . ' ' 4 . . ' a 0 0's 7 >- o - j‘ i ' o o I I e D. 2' . O 0 London :_ FREETHOUGHT'PUBLISHING COMPANY, 63, Fleet-Street,"E.C.