Annie Besant — 14 - THE KNOWLTON PAMPHLET part 2

And now, in August, 1893, we find the _Christian World,_ the representative organ of orthodox Christian Protestantism, proclaiming the right and the duty of voluntary limitation of the family.

In a leading article, after a number of letters had been inserted, it said:-- "The conditions are assuredly wrong which bring one member of the married partnership into a bondage so cruel.

It is no less evident that the cause of the bondage in such cases lies in the too rapid multiplication of the family.

There was a time when any idea of voluntary limitation was regarded by pious people as interfering with Providence.

We are beyond that now, and have become capable of recognising that Providence works through the common sense of individual brains.

We limit population just as much by deferring marriage from prudential motives as by any action that may be taken after it....

Apart from certain methods of limitation, the morality of which is gravely questioned by many, there are certain easily-understood physiological laws of the subject, the failure to know and to observe which is inexcusable on the part either of men or women in these circumstances.

It is worth noting in this connection that Dr. Billings, in his article in this month's _Forum_, on the diminishing birth-rate of the United States, gives as one of the reasons the greater diffusion of intelligence, by means of popular and school treatises on physiology, than formerly prevailed."

Thus has opinion changed in sixteen years, and all the obloquy poured on us is seen to have been the outcome of ignorance and bigotry.

As for the children, what was gained by their separation from me?

The moment they were old enough to free themselves, they came back to me, my little girl's too brief stay with me being ended by her happy marriage, and I fancy the fears expressed for her eternal future will prove as groundless as the fears for her temporal ruin have proved to be!

Not only so, but both are treading in my steps as regards their views of the nature and destiny of man, and have joined in their bright youth the Theosophical Society to which, after so many struggles, I won my way.

The struggle on the right to discuss the prudential restraint of population did not, however, conclude without a martyr.

Mr. Edward Truelove, alluded to above, was prosecuted for selling a treatise by Robert Dale Owen on "Moral Physiology," and a pamphlet entitled, "Individual, Family, and National Poverty."

He was tried on February 1, 1878, before the Lord Chief Justice in the Court of Queen's Bench, and was most ably defended by Professor W. A.

Hunter.

The jury spent two hours in considering their verdict, and returned into court and stated that they were unable to agree.

The majority of the jury were ready to convict, if they felt sure that Mr. Truelove would not be punished, but one of them boldly declared in court: "As to the book, it is written in plain language for plain people, and I think that many more persons ought to know what the contents of the book are."

The jury was discharged, in consequence of this one man's courage, but Mr. Truelove's persecutors--the Vice Society--were determined not to let their victim free.

They proceeded to trial a second time, and wisely endeavoured to secure a special jury, feeling that as prudential restraint would raise wages by limiting the supply of labour, they would be more likely to obtain a verdict from a jury of "gentlemen" than from one composed of workers.

This attempt was circumvented by Mr. Truelove's legal advisers, who let a _procedendo_ go which sent back the trial to the Old Bailey.

The second trial was held on May 16th at the Central Criminal Court before Baron Pollock and a common jury, Professor Hunter and Mr. J.

M.

Davidson appearing for the defence.

The jury convicted, and the brave old man, sixty-eight years of age, was condemned to four months' imprisonment and £50 fine for selling a pamphlet which had been sold unchallenged, during a period of forty-five years, by James Watson, George Jacob Holyoake, Austin Holyoake, and Charles Watts.

Mr. Grain, the counsel employed by the Vice Society, most unfairly used against Mr. Truelove my "Law of Population," a pamphlet which contained, Baron Pollock said, "the head and front of the offence in the other [the Knowlton] case."

I find an indignant protest against this odious unfairness in the _National Reformer_ for May 19th: "My 'Law of Population' was used against Mr. Truelove as an aggravation of his offence, passing over the utter meanness--worthy only of Collette--of using against a prisoner a book whose author has never been attacked for writing it--does Mr. Collette, or do the authorities, imagine that the severity shown to Mr. Truelove will in any fashion deter me from continuing the Malthusian propaganda?

Let me here assure them, one and all, that it will do nothing of the kind; I shall continue to sell the 'Law of Population' and to advocate scientific checks to population, just as though Mr. Collette and his Vice Society were all dead and buried.

In commonest justice they are bound to prosecute me, and if they get, and keep, a verdict against me, and succeed in sending me to prison, they will only make people more anxious to read my book, and make me more personally powerful as a teacher of the views which they attack."

A persistent attempt was made to obtain a writ of error in Mr. Truelove's case, but the Tory Attorney-General, Sir John Holker, refused it, although the ground on which it was asked was one of the grounds on which a similar writ had been granted to Mr. Bradlaugh and myself.

Mr. Truelove was therefore compelled to suffer his sentence, but memorials, signed by 11,000 persons, asking for his release, were sent to the Home Secretary from every part of the country, and a crowded meeting in St. James's Hall, London, demanded his liberation with only six dissentients.

The whole agitation did not shorten Mr. Truelove's sentence by a single day, and he was not released from Coldbath Fields Prison until September 5th.

On the 12th of the same month the Hall of Science was crowded with enthusiastic friends, who assembled to do him honour, and he was presented with a beautifully-illuminated address and a purse containing £177 (subsequent subscriptions raised the amount to £197 16s.

6d.

).

It is scarcely necessary to say that one of the results of the prosecution was a great agitation throughout the country, and a wide popularisation of Malthusian views.

Some huge demonstrations were held in favour of free discussion; on one occasion the Free Trade Hall, Manchester, was crowded to the doors; on another the Star Music Hall, Bradford, was crammed in every corner; on another the Town Hall, Birmingham, had not a seat or a bit of standing-room unoccupied.

Wherever we went, separately or together, it was the same story, and not only were Malthusian lectures eagerly attended, and Malthusian literature eagerly bought, but curiosity brought many to listen to our Radical and Freethought lectures, and thousands heard for the first time what Secularism really meant.

The Press, both London and provincial, agreed in branding the prosecution as foolish, and it was generally remarked that it resulted only in the wider circulation of the indicted book, and the increased popularity of those who had stood for the right of publication.

The furious attacks since made upon us have been made chiefly by those who differ from us in theological creed, and who have found a misrepresentation of our prosecution served them as a convenient weapon of attack.

During the last few years public opinion has been gradually coming round to our side, in consequence of the pressure of poverty resulting from widespread depression of trade, and during the sensation caused in 1884 by "The Bitter Cry of Outcast London," many writers in the _Daily News_--notably Mr. G.

R.

Sims--boldly alleged that the distress was to a great extent due to the large families of the poor, and mentioned that we had been prosecuted for giving the very knowledge which would bring salvation to the sufferers in our great cities.

Among the useful results of the prosecution was the establishment of the Malthusian League, "to agitate for the abolition of all penalties on the public discussion of the population question," and "to spread among the people, by all practicable means, a knowledge of the law of population, of its consequences, and of its bearing upon human conduct and morals."

The first general meeting of the League was held at the Hall of Science on July 26, 1877, and a council of twenty persons was elected, and this council on August 2nd elected Dr. C. R.

Drysdale, M. D.

, President; Mr. Swaagman, Treasurer; Mrs. Besant, Secretary; Mr. Shearer, Assistant-Secretary; and Mr. Hember, Financial Secretary.

Since 1877 the League, under the same indefatigable president, has worked hard to carry out its objects; it has issued a large number of leaflets and tracts; it supports a monthly journal, the _Malthusian;_ numerous lectures have been delivered under its auspices in all parts of the country; and it has now a medical branch, into which none but duly qualified medical men and women are admitted, with members in all European countries.

Another result of the prosecution was the accession of "D." to the staff of the _National Reformer_.

This able and thoughtful writer came forward and joined our ranks as soon as he heard of the attack on us, and he further volunteered to conduct the journal during our expected imprisonment.

From that time to this--a period of fifteen years--articles from his pen appeared in its columns week by week, and during all that time not one solitary difficulty arose between editors and contributor.

In public a trustworthy colleague, in private a warm and sincere friend, "D." proved an unmixed benefit bestowed upon us by the prosecution.

Nor was "D." the only friend brought to us by our foes.

I cannot ever think of that time without remembering that the prosecution brought me first into close intimacy with Mrs. Annie Parris--the wife of Mr. Touzeau Parris, the Secretary of the Defence Committee throughout all the fight--a lady who, during that long struggle, and during the, for me, far worse struggle that succeeded it, over the custody of my daughter, proved to me the most loving and sisterly of friends.

One or two other friendships which will, I hope, last my life, date from that same time of strife and anxiety.

The amount of money subscribed by the public during the Knowlton and succeeding prosecutions gives some idea of the interest felt in the struggle.

The Defence Fund Committee in March, 1878, presented a balance-sheet, showing subscriptions amounting to £1,292 5s.

4d.

, and total expenditure in the Queen v. Bradlaugh and Besant, the Queen v. Truelove, and the appeal against Mr. Vaughan's order (the last two up to date) of £1,274 10s.

This account was then closed and the balance of £17 15s.

4d.

passed on to a new fund for the defence of Mr. Truelove, the carrying on of the appeal against the destruction of the Knowlton pamphlet, and the bearing of the costs incident on the petition lodged against myself.

In July this new fund had reached £196 16s.

7d.

, and after paying the remainder of the costs in Mr. Truelove's case, a balance of £26 15s.

2d.

was carried on.

This again rose to £247 15s.

2-1/2d.

, and the fund bore the expenses of Mr. Bradlaugh's successful appeal on the Knowlton pamphlet, the petition and subsequent proceedings in which I was concerned in the Court of Chancery, and an appeal on Mr. Truelove's behalf, unfortunately unsuccessful, against an order for the destruction of the Dale Owen pamphlet.

This last decision was given on February 21, 1880, and on this the Defence Fund was closed.

On Mr. Truelove's release, as mentioned above, a testimonial to the amount of £197 16s.

6d.

was presented to him, and after the close of the struggle some anonymous friend sent to me personally £200 as "thanks for the courage and ability shown."

In addition to all this, the Malthusian League received no less than £455 11s.

9d.

during the first year of its life, and started on its second year with a balance in hand of £77 5s.

8d.

A somewhat similar prosecution in America, in which the bookseller, Mr. D. M.

Bennett, sold a book with which he did not agree, and was imprisoned, led to our giving him a warm welcome when, after his release, he visited England.

We entertained him at the Hall of Science at a crowded gathering, and I was deputed as spokesman to present him with a testimonial.

This I did in the following speech, quoted here in order to show the spirit then animating me:-- "Friends, Mr. Bradlaugh has spoken of the duty that calls us here to-night.

It is pleasant to think that in our work that duty is one to which we are not unaccustomed.

In our army there are more true soldiers than traitors, more that are faithful to the trust of keeping the truth than those who shrink when the hour of danger comes.

And I would ask Mr. Bennett to-night not to measure English feeling towards him by the mere number of those present.

They that are here are representatives of many thousands of our fellow-countrymen.

Glance down this middle table, and you will see that it is not without some right that we claim to welcome you in the name of multitudes of the citizens of England.

There are those who taunt us with want of loyalty, and with the name of infidels.

In what church will they find men and women more loyal to truth and conscience?

The name infidel is not for us so long as we are faithful to the truth we know.

If I speak, as I have done, of national representation in this hall this evening, tell me, you who know those who sit here, who have watched some of them for years, others of them but for a brief time, do I not speak truth?

Take them one by one.

Your President but a little while ago in circumstances similar to those wherein our guest himself was placed, with the true lover's keenness that recognises the mistress under all disguise, beholding his mistress Liberty in danger, under circumstances that would have blinded less sure eyes, leapt to her rescue.

He risked the ambition of his life rather than be disloyal to liberty.

And next is seated a woman, who, student of a noble profession, thought that liberty had greater claim upon her than even her work.

When we stood in worse peril than even loss of liberty, she risked her own good name for the truth's sake.

One also is here who, eminent in his own profession, came with the weight of his position and his right to speak, and gave a kindred testimony.

One step further, and you see one who, soldier to liberty, throughout a long and spotless life, when the task was far harder than it is to-day, when there were no greetings, no welcomes, when to serve was to peril name as well as liberty, never flinched from the first until now.

He is crowned with the glory of the jail, that was his for no crime but for claiming the right to publish that wherein the noblest thought is uttered in the bravest words.

And next to him is another who speaks for liberty, who has brought culture, university degree, position in men's sight, and many friends, and cast them all at her beloved feet.

Sir, not alone the past and the present greet you to-night.

The future also greets you with us.

We have here also those who are training themselves to walk in the footsteps of the one most dear to them, who shall carry on, when we have passed away, the work which we shall have dropped from our hands.

But he whom we delight to honour at this hour in truth honours us, in that he allows us to offer him the welcome that it is our glory and our pleasure to give.

He has fought bravely.

The Christian creed had in its beginning more traitors and less true hearts than the creed of to-day.

We are happy to-day not only in the thought of what manner of men we have for leaders, but in the thought of what manner of men we have as soldiers in our army.

Jesus had twelve apostles.

One betrayed Him for thirty pieces of silver; a second denied Him.

They all forsook Him and fled.

We can scarcely point to one who has thus deserted our sacred cause.

The traditions of our party tell us of many who went to jail because they claimed for all that right of free speech which is the heritage of all.

One of the most famous members of our body in England, Richard Carlile, turned bookseller to sell books that were prosecuted.

This man became Free-thinker, driven thereto by the bigotry and wickedness of the Churches.

He sold the books of Hone not because he agreed with them, but because Hone was prosecuted.

He saw that the book in whose prosecution freedom was attacked was the book for the freeman to sell;

and the story of our guest shows that in all this England and America are one.

Those who gave Milton to the world can yet bring forth men of the same stamp in continents leagues asunder.

Because our friend was loyal and true, prison had to him no dread.

It was far, far less of dishonour to wear the garb of the convict than to wear that of the hypocrite.

The society we represent, like his society in America, pleads for free thought, speaks for free speech, claims for every one, however antagonistic, the right to speak the thought he feels.

It is better that this should be, even though the thought be wrong, for thus the sooner will its error be discovered--better if the thought be right, for then the sooner does the gladness of a new truth find place in the heart of man.

As the mouthpiece, Sir, of our National Secular Society, and of its thousands of members, I speak to you now:-- "'ADDRESS.

"'_We seek for Truth_.'

"'To D. M.

Bennett.

"'In asking you to accept at the hands of the National Secular Society of England this symbol of cordial sympathy and brotherly welcome, we are but putting into act the motto of our Society.

"We seek for Truth" is our badge, and it is as Truthseeker that we do you homage to-night.

Without free speech no search for Truth is possible; without free speech no discovery of Truth is useful; without free speech progress is checked, and the nations no longer march forward towards the nobler life which the future holds for man.

Better a thousandfold abuse of free speech than denial of free speech.

The abuse dies in a day; the denial slays the life of the people and entombs the hope of the race.

"'In your own country you have pleaded for free speech, and when, under a wicked and an odious law, one of your fellow-citizens was imprisoned for the publication of his opinions, you, not sharing the opinions but faithful to liberty, sprang forward to defend in him the principle of free speech which you claimed for yourself, and sold his book while he lay in prison.

For this act you were in turn arrested and sent to jail, and the country which won its freedom by the aid of Paine in the eighteenth century disgraced itself in the nineteenth by the imprisonment of a heretic.

The Republic of the United States dishonoured herself, and not you, in Albany penitentiary.

Two hundred thousand of your countrymen pleaded for your release, but bigotry was too strong.

We sent you greeting in your captivity; we rejoiced when the time came for your release.

We offer you to-night our thanks and our hope--thanks for the heroism which never flinched in the hour of battle, hope for a more peaceful future, in which the memory of a past pain may be a sacred heritage and not a regret.

"'Charles Bradlaugh, _President_.'

"Soldier of liberty, we give you this.

Do in the future the same good service that you have done in the past, and your reward shall be in the love that true men shall bear to you."

That, however, which no force could compel me to do, which I refused to threats of fine and prison, to separation from my children, to social ostracism, and to insults and ignominy worse to bear than death, I surrendered freely when all the struggle was over, and a great part of society and of public opinion had adopted the view that cost Mr. Bradlaugh and myself so dear.

I may as well complete the story here, so as not to have to refer to it again.

I gave up Neo-Malthusianism in April, 1891, its renunciation being part of the outcome of two years' instruction from Mdme.

H.

P.

Blavatsky, who showed me that however justifiable Neo-Malthusianism might be while man was regarded only as the most perfect outcome of physical evolution, it was wholly incompatible with the view of man as a spiritual being, whose material form and environment were the results of his own mental activity.

Why and how I embraced Theosophy, and accepted H. P.

Blavatsky as teacher, will soon be told in its proper place.

Here I am concerned only with the why and how of my renunciation of the Neo-Malthusian teaching, for which I had fought so hard and suffered so much.

When I built my life on the basis of Materialism I judged all actions by their effect on human happiness in this world now and in future generations, regarding man as an organism that lived on earth and there perished, with activities confined to earth and limited by physical laws.

The object of life was the ultimate building-up of a physically, mentally, morally perfect man by the cumulative effects of heredity--mental and moral tendencies being regarded as the outcome of material conditions, to be slowly but surely evolved by rational selection and the transmission to offspring of qualities carefully acquired by, and developed in, parents.

The most characteristic note of this serious and lofty Materialism had been struck by Professor W. K.

Clifford in his noble article on the "Ethics of Belief."

Taking this view of human duty in regard to the rational co-operation with nature in the evolution of the human race, it became of the first importance to rescue the control of the generation of offspring from mere blind brute passion, and to transfer it to the reason and to the intelligence; to impress on parents the sacredness of the parental office, the tremendous responsibility of the exercise of the creative function.

And since, further, one of the most pressing problems for solution in the older countries is that of poverty, the horrible slums and dens into which are crowded and in which are festering families of eight and ten children, whose parents are earning an uncertain 10s.

, 12s.

, 15s.

, and 20s.

a week; since an immediate palliative is wanted, if popular risings impelled by starvation are to be avoided; since the lives of men and women of the poorer classes, and of the worst paid professional classes, are one long, heart-breaking struggle "to make both ends meet and keep respectable"; since in the middle class marriage is often avoided, or delayed till late in life, from the dread of the large family, and late marriage is followed by its shadow, the prevalence of vice and the moral and social ruin of thousands of women; for these, and many other reasons, the teaching of the duty of limiting the family within the means of subsistence is the logical outcome of Materialism linked with the scientific view of evolution, and with a knowledge of the physical law, by which evolution is accelerated or retarded.

Seeking to improve the physical type, scientific Materialism, it seemed to me, must forbid parentage to any but healthy married couples; it must restrict childbearing within the limits consistent with the thorough health and physical well-being of the mother; it must impose it as a duty never to bring children into the world unless the conditions for their fair nurture and development are present.

Regarding it as hopeless, as well as mischievous, to preach asceticism, and looking on the conjunction of nominal celibacy with widespread prostitution as inevitable, from the constitution of human nature, scientific Materialism--quite rationally and logically--advises deliberate restriction of the production of offspring, while sanctioning the exercise of the sexual instinct within the limits imposed by temperance, the highest physical and mental efficiency, the good order and dignity of society, and the self-respect of the individual.

In all this there is nothing which for one moment implies approval of licentiousness, profligacy, unbridled self-indulgence.

On the contrary, it is a well-considered and intellectually-defensible scheme of human evolution, regarding all natural instincts as matters for regulation, not for destruction, and seeking to develop the perfectly healthy and well-balanced physical body as the necessary basis for the healthy and well-balanced mind.

If the premises of Materialism be true, there is no answer to the Neo-Malthusian conclusions; for even those Socialists who have bitterly opposed the promulgation of Neo-Malthusianism--regarding it as a "red herring intended to draw the attention of the proletariat away from the real cause of poverty, the monopoly of land and capital by a class"--admit that when society is built on the foundation of common property in all that is necessary for the production of wealth, the time will come for the consideration of the population question.

Nor do I now see, any more than I saw then, how any Materialist can rationally avoid the Neo-Malthusian position.

For if man be the outcome of purely physical causes, it is with these that we must deal in guiding his future evolution.

If he be related but to terrestrial existence, he is but the loftiest organism of earth; and, failing to see his past and his future, how should my eyes not have been then blinded to the deep-lying causes of his present woe?

I brought a material cure to a disease which appeared to me to be of material origin; but how when the evil came from a subtler source, and its causes lay not on the material plane?

How if the remedy only set up new causes for a future evil, and, while immediately a palliative, strengthened the disease itself, and ensured its reappearance in the future?

This was the view of the problem set before me by H. P.

Blavatsky when she unrolled the story of man, told of his origin and his destiny, showed me the forces that went to the making of man, and the true relation between his past, his present, and his future.

For what is man in the light of Theosophy?

He is a spiritual intelligence, eternal and uncreate, treading a vast cycle of human experience, born and reborn on earth millennium after millennium, evolving slowly into the ideal man.

He is not the product of matter, but is encased in matter, and the forms of matter with which he clothes himself are of his own making.

For the intelligence and will of man are creative forces--not creative _ex nihilo_, but creative as is the brain of the painter--and these forces are exercised by man in every act of thought.

Thus he is ever creating round him thought-forms, moulding subtlest matter into shape by these energies, forms which persist as tangible realities when the body of the thinker has long gone back to earth and air and water.

When the time for rebirth into this earth-life comes for the soul these thought-forms, its own progeny, help to form the tenuous model into which the molecules of physical matter are builded for the making of the body, and matter is thus moulded for the new body in which the soul is to dwell, on the lines laid down by the intelligent and volitional life of the previous, or of many previous, incarnations.

So does each man create for himself in verity the form wherein he functions, and what he is in his present is the inevitable outcome of his own creative energies in his past.

Applying this to the Neo-Malthusian theory, we see in sexual love not only a passion which man has in common with the brute, and which forms, at the present stage of evolution, a necessary part of human nature, but an animal passion that may be trained and purified into a human emotion, which may be used as one of the levers in human progress, one of the factors in human growth.

But, instead of this, man in the past has made his intellect the servant of his passions; the abnormal development of the sexual instinct in man--in whom it is far greater and more continuous than in any brute--is due to the mingling with it of the intellectual element, all sexual thoughts, desires, and imaginations having created thought-forms, which have been wrought into the human race, giving rise to a continual demand, far beyond nature, and in marked contrast with the temperance of normal animal life.

Hence it has become one of the most fruitful sources of human misery and human degradation, and the satisfaction of its imperious cravings in civilised countries lies at the root of our worst social evils.

This excessive development has to be fought against, and the instinct reduced within natural limits, and this will certainly never be done by easy-going self-indulgence within the marital relation any more than by self-indulgence outside it.

By none other road than that of self-control and self-denial can men and women now set going the causes which will build for them brains and bodies of a higher type for their future return to earth-life.

They have to hold this instinct in complete control, to transmute it from passion into tender and self-denying affection, to develop the intellectual at the expense of the animal, and thus to raise the whole man to the human stage, in which every intellectual and physical capacity shall subserve the purposes of the soul.

From all this it follows that Theosophists should sound the note of self-restraint within marriage, and the gradual--for with the mass it cannot be sudden--restriction of the sexual relation to the perpetuation of the race.

Such was the bearing of Theosophical teaching on Neo-Malthusianism, as laid before me by H. P.

Blavatsky, and when I urged, out of my bitter knowledge of the miseries endured by the poor, that it surely might, for a time at least, be recommended as a palliative, as a defence in the hands of a woman against intolerable oppression and enforced suffering, she bade me look beyond the moment, and see how the suffering must come back and back with every generation, unless we sought to remove the roots of wrong.

"I do not judge a woman," she said, "who has resort to such means of defence in the midst of circumstances so evil, and whose ignorance of the real causes of all this misery is her excuse for snatching at any relief.

But it is not for you, an Occultist, to continue to teach a method which you now know must tend to the perpetuation of the sorrow."

I felt that she was right, and though I shrank from the decision--for my heart somewhat failed me at withdrawing from the knowledge of the poor, so far as I could, a temporary palliative of evils which too often wreck their lives and bring many to an early grave, worn old before even middle age has touched them--yet the decision was made.

I refused to reprint the "Law of Population," or to sell the copyright, giving pain, as I sadly knew, to all the brave and loyal friends who had so generously stood by me in that long and bitter struggle, and who saw the results of victory thrown away on grounds to them inadequate and mistaken!

Will it always be, I wonder, in man's climbing upward, that every step must be set on his own heart and on the hearts of those he loves?

CHAPTER X.