Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays

T >> Thomas H. Huxley >> Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23

I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
T. H. Huxley.

V

The "Times," December 24th, 1890--

Sir,--If I have any strong points, finance is certainly not one of
them. But the financial, or rather fiscal, operations of the General
of the Salvation Army, as they are set forth and exemplified in "The
New Papacy," possess that grand simplicity which is the mark of
genius; [270] and even I can comprehend them--or, to be more modest, I
can portray them in such a manner that every lineament, however harsh,
and every shade, however dark, can be verified by published evidence.

Suppose there is a thriving, expanding colonial town, and that,
scattered among its artisans and labourers, there is a sprinkling of
Methodists, or other such ultra-evangelical good people, doing their
best, in a quiet way, to "save souls." Clearly, this is an outpost
which it is desirable to capture. "We," therefore, take measures to
get up a Salvation "boom" of the ordinary pattern. Enthusiasm is
roused. A score or two of soldiers are enlisted into the ranks of the
Salvation Army. "We" select the man who promises to serve our purposes
best, make a "captain" of him, and put him in command of the "corps."
He is very pleased and grateful; and indeed he ought to be. All he has
done is that he has given up his trade; that he has promised to work
at least nine hours a day in our service (none of your eight-hour
nonsense for us) as collector, bookseller, general agent, and anything
else we may order him to be. "We," on the other hand, guarantee him
nothing whatever; to do so might weaken his faith and substitute
worldly for spiritual ties between us. Knowing that, if he exerts
himself in a right spirit, his labours will surely be blessed, we
content ourselves with telling him that if, after all [271] expenses
are paid and our demands are satisfied each week, 25s. remains, he may
take it. And, if nothing remains, he may take that, and stay his
stomach with what the faithful may give him. With a certain grim
playfulness, we add that the value of these contributions will be
reckoned as so much salary. So long as our "captain" is successful,
therefore, a beneficent spring of cash trickles unseen into our
treasury; when it begins to dry up we say, "God bless you, dear boy,"
turn him adrift (with or without 2s. 4d. in his pocket), and put some
other willing horse in the shafts.

The "General," I believe, proposes, among other things, to do away
with "sweating." May he not as well set a good example by beginning at
home? My little sketch, however, looks so like a monstrous caricature
that, after all, I must produce the original from the pages of my
Canadian authority. He says that a "captain" "has to pay 10 per cent.
of all collections and donations to the divisional fund for the
support of his divisional officer, who has also the privilege of
arranging for such special meetings as he shall think fit, the
proceeds of which he takes away for the general needs of the division.
Headquarters, too, has the right to hold such special meetings at the
corps and send around such special attractions as its wisdom sees fit,
and to take away the proceeds for the purposes it decides upon.

[272] He has to pay the rent of his building, either to headquarters or
a private individual; he has to send the whole collection of the
afternoon meeting of the first Sunday in the month to the 'Extension
Fund' at headquarters; he has to pay for the heating, lighting, and
cleaning of his hall, together with such necessary repairs as may be
needed; he has to provide the food, lodging, and clothing of his
cadet, if he has one; headquarters taxes him with so many copies of
the army papers each week, for which he has to pay, sold or unsold;
and when he has done this, he may take $6 (or $5, being a woman), or
such proportion of it as may be left, with which to clothe and feed
himself and to pay the rent and provide for the heating and lighting
of his quarters. If he has a lieutenant he has to pay him $6 per week,
or such proportion of it as he himself gets, and share the house
expenses with him. Now, it will be easily understood that at least 60
per cent. of the stations in Canada the officer gets no money at all,
and he has to beg specially amongst his people for his house-rent and
food. There are few places in the Dominion in which the soldiers do
not find their officers in all the food they need; but it must be
remembered that the value of the food so received has to be accounted
for at headquarters and entered upon the books of the corps as cash
received, the amount being deducted from any moneys that the officer
is able to take from the [273] week's collections. So that, no matter
how much may be specially given, the officer cannot receive more than
the value of $6 per week. The officer cannot collect any arrears of
salary, as each week has to pay its own expenses; and if there is any
surplus cash after all demands are met it must be sent to the 'war
chest' at headquarters."--"The New Papacy" (pp. 35, 36).

Evidently, Sir, "headquarters" has taken to heart the injunction about
casting your bread upon the waters. It casts the crumb of a day or
two's work of an emissary, and gets back any quantity of loaves of
cash, so long as "captains" present themselves to be used up and
replaced by new victims. What can be said of these devoted poor
fellows except, O sancta simplicitas!

But it would be a great mistake to suppose that the money-gathering
efficacy of Mr. Booth's fiscal agencies is exhausted by the foregoing
enumeration of their regular operations. Consider the following
edifying history of the "Rescue Home" in Toronto:--

"It is a fine building in the heart of the city; the lot cost $7,000,
and a building was put up at a cost of $7,000 more, and there is a
mortgage on it amounting to half the cost of the whole. The land
to-day would probably fetch double its original price, and every year
enhances its value....In the first five months of its [274] existence
this institution received from the public an income of $1,812 70c.;
out of this $600 was paid to headquarters for rent, $590 52c. was
spent upon the building in various ways, and the balance of $622 18c.
paid the salaries of the staff and supported the inmates" (pp. 24,
25).

Said I not truly that Mr. Booth's fisc bears the stamp of genius? Who
else could have got the public to buy him a "corner lot," put a
building upon it, pay all its working expenses: and then, not content
with paying him a heavy rent for the use of the handsome present they
had made him, they say not a word against his mortgaging it to half
its value? And, so far as any one knows, there is nothing to stop
headquarters from selling the whole estate tomorrow, and using the
money as the "General" may direct.

Once more listen to the author of "The New Papacy," who affirms that
"out of the funds given by the Dominion for the evangelization of the
people by means of the Salvation Army, one sixth had been spent in the
extension of the Kingdom of God, and the other five sixths had been
invested in valuable property, all handed over to Mr. Booth and his
heirs and assigns, as we have already stated" (p. 26).

And this brings me to the last point upon which I wish to touch. The
answer to all inquiries as to what has become of the enormous [275]
personal and real estate which has been given over to Mr. Booth is
that it is held "in trust." The supporters of Mr. Booth may feel
justified in taking that statement "on trust." I do not. Anyhow, the
more completely satisfactory this "trust" is, the less can any man who
asks the public to put blind faith in his integrity and his wisdom
object to acquaint them exactly with its provisions. Is the trust
drawn up in favour of the Salvation Army? But what is the legal status
of the Salvation Army? Have the soldiers any claim? Certainly not.
Have the officers any legal interest in the "trust"? Surely not. The
"General" has taken good care to insist on their renouncing all claims
as a condition of their appointment. Thus, to all appearance, the
army, as a legal person, is identical with Mr. Booth. And, in that
case, any "trust" ostensibly for the benefit of the army is--what
shall we say that is at once accurate and polite?

I conclude with these plain questions--Will Mr. Booth take counsel's
opinion as to whether there is anything in such legal arrangements as
he has at present made which prevents him from disposing of the wealth
he has accumulated at his own will and pleasure? Will anybody be in a
position to set either the civil or the criminal law in motion against
him or his successors if he or they choose to spend every farthing in
ways very different from those contemplated by the donors?

[276] I may add that a careful study of the terms of a "Declaration of
Trust by William Booth in favour of the Christian Mission," made in
1878, has not enabled persons of much greater competence than myself
to answer these questions satisfactorily.*

I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
T. H. Huxley.

* See Preface to this volume, pp. ix-xiii.

On December 24th a letter appeared in the "Times" signed "J. S.
Trotter," in which the following passages appear:--

"It seems a pity to put a damper on the spirits of those who agree
with Professor Huxley in his denunciation of General Booth and all his
works. May I give a few particulars as to the 'book' which was
published in Canada? I had the pleasure of an interview with the
author of a book written in Canada. The book was printed at Toronto,
and two copies only struck off by the printers; one of these copies
was stolen from the printer, and the quotation sent to you by
Professor Huxley was inserted in the book, and is consequently a
forgery. The book was published without the consent and against the
will of the author.

[277] "So the quotation is not only 'a bitter, overcharged anonymous
libel,' as Professor Huxley intimates, but a forgery as well. As to
Mr. Hodges, it seems to me to be simply trifling with your readers to
bring him in as an authority. He was turned out of the army, out of
kindness taken on again, and again dismissed. If this had happened to
one of your staff, would his opinion of the 'Times' as a newspaper be
taken for gospel?"

But in the "Times" of December 29th Mr. J. S. Trotter writes:--

"I find I was mistaken in saying, in my letter of Wednesday, to the
'Times' that Mr. Hodges was dismissed from the service of General
Booth, and regret any inconvenience the statement may have caused to
Mr. Hodges."

And on December 30th the "Times" published a letter from Mr. Hodges in
which he says that Mr. Trotter's statements as they regard himself
"are the very reverse of truth.--I was never turned out of the
Salvation Army. Nor, so far as I was made acquainted with General
Booth's motives, was I taken on again out of kindness. In order to
rejoin the Salvation Army, I resigned the position of manager in a
mill where I was in [278] receipt of a salary of [Pounds] 250 per
annum, with house-rent and one third of the profits. Instead of this
Mr. Booth allowed me [Pounds] 2 per week and house-rent."

VI

The "Times," December 26th, 1890

Sir,--I am much obliged to Mr. J. S. Trotter for the letter which you
published this morning. It furnishes evidence, which I much desired to
possess on the following points:--

1. The author of "The New Papacy" is a responsible, trustworthy
person; otherwise Mr. Trotter would not speak of having had "the
pleasure of an interview" with him.

2. After this responsible person had taken the trouble to write a
pamphlet of sixty-four closely printed pages, some influence was
brought to bear upon him, the effect of which was that he refused his
consent to its publication. Mr. Trotter's excellent information will
surely enable him to tell us what influence that was.

3. How does Mr. Trotter know that any passage I have quoted is an
interpolation? Does he possess that other copy of the "two" which
alone, as he affirms, were printed?

[279] 4. If so, he will be able to say which of the passages I have
cited is genuine and which is not; and whether the tenor of the whole
uninterpolated copy differs in any important respect from that of the
copy I have quoted.

It will be interesting to hear what Mr. J. S. Trotter has to say upon
these points. But the really important thing which he has done is that
he has testified, of his own knowledge, that the anonymous author of
"The New Papacy" is no mere irresponsible libeller, but a person of
whom even an ardent Salvationist has to speak with respect.

I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
T. H. Huxley.

[I may add that the unfortunate Mr. Trotter did me the further service
of eliciting the letter from Mr. Hodges referred to on p. 277--which
sufficiently establishes that gentleman's credit, and leads me to
attach full weight to his evidence about the third barrel.]

January, 1891.

[280]

VII

The "Times," December 27th, 1890

SIR,--In making use of the only evidence of the actual working of Mr.
Booth's autocratic government accessible to me, I was fully aware of
the slippery nature of the ground upon which I was treading. For, as I
pointed out in my first letter, "no personal habit more surely
degrades the conscience and the intellect than blind and unhesitating
obedience to unlimited authority." Now we have it, on Mr. Booth's own
showing that every officer of his has undertaken to "obey without
questioning or gainsaying the orders from headquarters." And the
possible relations of such orders to honour and veracity are
demonstrated not only by the judicial deliverance on Mr. Booth's
affidavit in the "Eagle" case, which I have already cited; not only by
Mr. Bramwell Booth's admission before Mr. Justice Lopes that he had
stated what was "not quite correct" because he had "promised Mr. Stead
not to divulge" the facts of the case (the "Times," November 4th,
1885); but by the following passage in Mr. Hodges's account of the
reasons of his withdrawal from the Salvation Army:--

"The general and Chief did not and could [281] not deny doing these
things; the only question was this, Was it right to practise this
deception? These points of difference were fully discussed between
myself and the Chief of the Staff on my withdrawal, especially the
Leamington incident, which was the one that finally drove me to
decision. I had come to the conclusion, from the first, that they had
acted as they supposed with a single eye to the good of God's cause,
and had persuaded myself that the things were, as against the devil,
right to be done, that as in battle one party captured and turned the
enemy's own guns upon them, so, as they were fighting against the
devil, it would be fair to use against him his weapons. And I wrote to
this effect to the "General" (p. 63)."

Now, I do not wish to say anything needlessly harsh, but I ask any
prudent man these questions. Could I, under these circumstances, trust
any uncorroborated statement emanating from headquarters, or made by
the General's order? Had I any reason to doubt the truth of Mr.
Hodges's naive confession of the corrupting influence of Mr. Booth's
system? And did it not behove me to pick my way carefully through the
mass of statements before me, many of them due to people whose moral
sense might, by possibility, have been as much blunted by the army
discipline in the [282] use of the weapons of the devil as Mr. Hodges
affirms that his was?

Therefore, in my third letter, I commenced my illustrations of the
practical working of Boothism with the evidence of Mr. Redstone,
fortified and supplemented by that of a non-Salvationist, Dr.
Cunningham Geikie. That testimony has not been challenged, and, until
it is, I shall assume that it cannot be. In my fourth letter, I cited
a definite statement by Mr. Hodges in evidence of the Jesuitical
principles of headquarters. What sort of answer is it to tell us that
Mr. Hodges was dismissed the army? A child might expect that some such
red herring would be drawn across the trail; and, in anticipation of
the stale trick, I added the strong prima facie evidence of the
trustworthiness of my witness, in this particular, which is afforded
by the "Eagle" case. It was not until I wrote my fourth letter to you,
Sir--until the exploitation of the "captains" and the Jesuitry of
headquarters could be proved up to the hilt--that I ventured to have
recourse to "The New Papacy." So far as the pamphlet itself goes, this
is an anonymous work; and, for sufficient reasons, I did not choose to
go beyond what was to be found between its covers. To any one
accustomed to deal with the facts of evolution, the Boothism of "The
New Papacy" was merely the natural and necessary development of the
Boothism of Mr. Redstone's case and of the [283] "Eagle" case.
Therefore, I felt fully justified in using it, at the same time
carefully warning my readers that it must be taken with due caution.

Mr. Trotter's useful letter admits that such a book was written by a
person with whom he had the "pleasure of an interview," and that a
version of it (interpolated, according to his assertion) was published
against the will of the author. Hence I am justified in believing that
there is a foundation of truth in certain statements, some of which
have long been in my possession, but which for lack of Mr. Trotter's
valuable corroboration I have refrained from using. The time is come
when I can set forth some of the heads of this information, with the
request that Mr. Trotter, who knows all about the business, will be so
good as to point out any error that there may be in them. I am bound
to suppose that his sole object, like mine, is the elucidation of the
truth, and to assume his willingness to help me therein to the best of
his ability.

1. "The author of 'The New Papacy' is a Mr. Sumner, a person of
perfect respectability, and greatly esteemed in Toronto, who held a
high position in the Army. When he left, a large public meeting,
presided over by a popular Methodist minister, passed a vote of
sympathy with him."

[284] Is this true or false?

2. "On Saturday last, about noon, Mr. Sumner, the author of the
book, and Mr. Fred Perry, the Salvation Army printer, accompanied by a
lawyer, went down to Messrs. Imrie and Graham's establishment, and
asked for all the manuscript, stereotype plates, &c., of the book. Mr.
Sumner explained that the book had been sold to the Army, and, on a
cheque for the amount due being given, the printing material was
delivered up."

Did these paragraphs appear in the "Toronto Telegram" of April 24th,
1889, or did they not? Are the statements they contain true or false?

3. "Public interest in the fate or probable outcome of that mysterious
book called 'The New Papacy; or, Behind the Scenes in the Salvation
Army,' continues unabated, though the line of proceedings by the
publisher and his solicitor, Mr. Smoke, of Watson, Thorne, Smoke, and
Masten, has not been altered since yesterday. The book, no doubt, will
be issued in some form. So far as known, only one complete copy
remains, and the whereabouts of this is a secret which will be
profoundly kept. It is safe to say that if the Commissioner kept on
guessing until the next anniversary, he would not strike the secluded
[285] location of the one volume among five thousand which escaped,
when he and his assistant, Mr. Fred Perry, believed they had cast
every vestige of the forbidden work into the fiery furnace. On Tuesday
last, when the discovery was made that a copy of 'The New Papacy' was
in existence, Publisher Britnell, of Yonge Street, was at once the
suspected holder, and in a short time his book-store was the resort of
army agents sent to reconnoitre" ("Toronto News," April 28th, 1889).

Is this a forgery, or is it not? Is it in substance true or false?

When Mr. Trotter has answered these inquiries categorically, we may
proceed to discuss the question of interpolations in Mr. Sumner's
book.

I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
T. H. Huxley.

[On the 26th of December a letter, signed J. T. Cunningham, late Fellow of
University College, Oxford, called forth the following commentary.]

[286]

VIII

The "Times," December 29th, 1890--

Sir,--If Mr. Cunningham doubts the efficacy of the struggle for
existence, as a factor in social conditions, he should find fault with
Mr. Booth and not with me.

"I am labouring under no delusion as to the possibility of inaugurating
the millennium by my social specific. In the struggle of life the
weakest will go to the wall, and there are so many weak. The fittest
in tooth and claw will survive. All that we can do is to soften the
lot of the unfit, and make their suffering less horrible than it is at
present" ("In Darkest England," p. 44).

That is what Mr. Cunningham would have found if he had read Mr. Booth's
book with attention. And, if he will bestow equal pains on my second
letter, he will discover that he has interpolated the word "wilfully"
in his statement of my "argument," which runs thus: "Shutting his eyes
to the necessary consequences of the struggle for life, the existence
of which he admits as fully as any Darwinian, Mr. Booth tells men
whose evil case is one of those consequences that envy is a
corner-stone of our competitive system." Mr. [287] Cunningham's
physiological studies will have informed him that the process of
"shutting the eyes," in the literal sense of the words, is not always
wilful; and I propose to illustrate, by the crucial instance his own
letter furnishes, that the "shutting of the eyes" of the mind to the
obvious consequences of accepted propositions may also be involuntary.
At least, I hope so.

1. "Sooner or later," says Mr. Cunningham, "the population problem
will block the way once more." What does this mean, except that
multiplication, excessive in relation to the contemporaneous means of
support, will create a severe competition for those means? And this
seems to me to be a pretty accurate "reflection of the conceptions of
Malthus" and the other poor benighted folks of a past generation at
whom Mr. Cunningham sneers.

2. By way of leaving no doubt upon this subject, Mr. Cunningham
further tells us, "The struggle for existence is always going on, of
course; let us thank Darwin for making us realize it." It is pleasant
to meet with a little gratitude to Darwin among the epigoni who are
squabbling over the heritage he conquered for them, but Mr.
Cunningham's personal expression of that feeling is hasty. For it is
obvious that he has not "realized" the significance of Darwin's
teaching--indeed, I fail to discover in Mr. Cunningham's letter any
sign that he has even "realized" what [288] he would be at. If the
"struggle for existence is always going on"; and if, as I suppose will
be granted, industrial competition is one phase of that struggle, I
fail to see how my conclusion that it is sheer wickedness to tell
ignorant men that "envy" is a corner-stone of competition can be
disputed.

Mr. Cunningham has followed the lead of that polished and instructed
person, Mr. Ben Tillett, in rebuking me for (as the associates say)
attacking Mr. Booth's personal character. Of course, when I was
writing, I did not doubt that this very handy, though not too clean,
weapon would be used by one or other of Mr. Booth's supporters. And my
action was finally decided by the following considerations: I happen
to be a member of one of the largest life insurance societies. There
is a vacancy in the directory at present, for which half a dozen
gentlemen are candidates. Now, I said to myself, supposing that one of
these gentlemen (whose pardon I humbly beg for starting the
hypothesis), say Mr. A., in his administrative capacity and as a man
of business, has been the subject of such observations as a Judge on
the Bench bestowed upon Mr. Booth, is he a person for whom I can
properly vote? And, if I find, when I go to the meeting of the
policy-holders, that most of them know nothing of this and other
evidences of what, by the mildest judgment, must be termed Mr. A.'s
unfitness for administrative [289] responsibilities, am I to let them
remain in their ignorance? I leave the answer and its application to
men of sense and integrity.

The mention of Mr. Cunningham's ally reminds me that I have omitted to
thank Mr. Tillett for his very useful and instructive letter; and I
hasten to repair a neglect which I assure Mr. Tillett was more
apparent than real. Mr. Tillett's letter is dated December 20th. On
the 21st the following pregnant (however unconscious) commentary upon
it appeared in "Reynolds's Newspaper":-

"I have always maintained that the Salvation Army is one of the
mightiest Socialistic agencies in the country; and now Professor
Huxley comes in to confirm that view. How could it be otherwise? The
fantastic religious side of Salvationism will disappear in the course
of time, and what will be left? A large number of men and women who
have been organized, disciplined, and taught to look for something
better than their present condition, and who have become public
speakers and not afraid of ridicule. There you have the raw materials
for a Socialist army."

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23