by Grant Allen
GRANT ALLEN.
The following letter, written to the Rector of Haslemere, falls into line with the foregoing, the occasion being the opposition of that cleric to Allen’s nomination as President of the Haslemere Natural History Society
July 4, ‘96.
Dear Sir, — May I venture to address you a few lines of purely personal explanation with regard to the question of the Haslemere Natural History Society? Let me begin by saying that I have not the slightest feeling of resentment towards you for the part which you thought it your duty to take with regard to my election as President. I fully understand that you were actuated by conscientious motives, and that you desired to avoid what seemed to you a scandal in the parish intrusted to you. I hope it is possible for us to differ profoundly in principle without on that account imputing to one another unworthy motives.
All I wish to say is this. I regard our existing system of family and parental arrangements ‘as a whole,’ comprising these various elements — marriage, prostitution, seduction, abortion, infanticide, desertion, illegitimacy, divorce, and unnatural crimes. I also regard it as being answerable for much husband-murder, wife-murder, suicide, and misery; as well as for many terrible diseases and premature deaths, besides inducing: (through the effects of prostitution) a great deal of hereditary consumption, cancer, and insanity. Regarding the whole existing system as thus closely bound up together, I feel constrained to call attention to it as far as I can, because I feel that many good women tolerate this ‘ régime ‘of vice and immorality simply because they do not recognise and realise its evils. Now I am, of course, aware that to you, who regard the institution of marriage as divinely ordained, any attempt to inquire into its validity must necessarily seem wrong; but perhaps you can understand that to me, who regard it merely as a human institution, which has grown up slowly like the House of Commons or the system of leaseholds, it is highly desirable that people should be roused to inquire into the working of an arrangement which has so many drawbacks. I have spent many years in a close study of marriage-systems and prostitution-systems, both in East and West; and having arrived at what I think solid conclusions as to the means by which prostitution, with its attendant diseases and evils, might be wholly avoided, and a perfectly pure system introduced, I cannot refrain from making my ideas public. I believe them to be capable of entirely getting rid of that terrible social evil, as well as of abortion, infanticide, and all the concomitant horrors; and though in this belief I may, of course, be wholly mistaken, you will, I think, recognise that it is my duty as a good citizen to ventilate ideas which seem to me fraught with so much good for the community. My feeling is that if this thing is not of God, it will come to naught; but if it is of God, the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. My sole object is to arouse inquiry and interest; whichever of us is right, surely only good can ultimately arise out of calling attention to this plague-spot in the midst of our civilisation.
Pray do not take the trouble to answer this letter. I merely write it in order to let you see more fully from what point of view and with what objects I approach this question. I understand that you cannot possibly agree with me; I only desire that you should not also misjudge me. Kindly excuse typewriting. I suffer from writer’s cramp, and can only use even this machine with my left hand, my right being almost useless.
In the hope that you will pardon me for having troubled you on the subject, and in the full belief that you, like myself, are acting throughout for what you believe to be the highest interests of humanity, I venture to subscribe myself yours very faithfully,
— GRANT ALLEN.
The temporary lull in the demand for Allen’s work had its recompense in giving him opportunity to put into shape some of the materials which he had been long collecting for his book on the Origin of Religions, and also to prepare for press the earlier volumes of his series of Historical Guides. ‘Paris’ and ‘Florence’ were published in 1897, and quickly followed by the ‘Cities of Belgium’ and ‘Venice’; the ‘European Tour,’ issued when he was on his deathbed, being the last completed volume. All of these contain some of his finest work, and are to be unreservedly commended. They were not written to supersede the ordinary guidebooks, but to supplement them, and the plan on which they are constructed shows Allen at his best as an exponent of historical evolution. First comes the inquiry, ‘Why a town ever gathered together at all in that particular spot? What induced the aggregation of human beings rather there than elsewhere?’ Next, ‘Why that town grew to social or political importance, and what were the stages by which it assumed its present shape?’ Next, ‘Why it gave rise to that higher form of handicraft which we know as Art, and towards what particular arts it specially gravitated?’ Finally, the books considered in detail the various strata of the growth or development of a town, ‘examining the buildings and works of art which they contain in historical order, and, as far as possible, tracing the courses which led to their evolution, stress being laid upon the origin and meaning of each structure as an organic whole, and upon the allusions or symbols which its fabric embodies.’
Allen’s endorsement of Mr. Herbert Spencer’s theory of ghost-worship — in other words, of the worship of ancestors, as the basis of religion, has been shown in the brief remarks on the ‘Attis,’ and this attitude was strengthened by further reflection and study, notably of the Bible, his familiarity with which little-read and much misunderstood book was unique. In acknowledging a copy of my Presidential Address to the Folklore Society on the opening of the session in 1896, he wrote
The Croft, Haslemere, May 7th.
My dear Clodd, — Thank you so much for your Address. I have read it both with profit and pleasure. Of course, as usual, we split on the rock of animism, but on that rock we will build our discussion when I am once more under the most hospitable roof of England at Aldeburgh. I am busy just now at my long-delayed big book on religion, which is swelling, I find, to the dimensions of Robertson Smith’s ‘ Religion of the Semites,’ or even longer. When it comes out, the rock of animism is going to be ground to powder, like the images of Baal. But of this more anon; a handless man cannot conduct controversy by correspondence. And, indeed, why controvert anything? — In haste, yours ever,
— GRANT ALLEN.
Some conversations between Allen and his friends upon the title of the book led to the receipt of this interesting letter from Mr. Spencer, whose wise suggestion was adopted
Brighton, 20th Feb. 1897.
My dear Allen, — I have ordered Williams & Norgate to send you a’ complete set of the ‘Descriptive Sociology.’ I am not quite sure whether two of the parts are not just now out of print; but if so, they shall be sent as soon as new editions are printed.
Let me beg of you not to use the proposed title for your new book, ‘The Evolution of God.’ It will be a fatal step.
I remember years ago your having told me that the book you wanted to write, expressive of advanced views, you ‘dare not’ write because of the disastrous effect which would result even supposing you could get a publisher. Well, the time came when you mustered courage and wrote ‘The Woman who Did.’ The book itself has had, I see, a great success in point of numbers of editions; for, doubts less, from what the reviews indicated, great numbers of people out of curiosity wished to see it, and great numbers among them being those who utterly disapproved. But having been widely distributed, there came the reaction.
You ascribe your recent absence of demand for your fiction to the circumstance that you are ‘crushed out’ by younger men. I take the fact to be, however, that the result you had originally anticipated from writing such a book has occurred, and that the true cause of this lack of demand for your fiction is the effect of ‘The Woman who Did.’
Just consider what a large number of fathers and mothers, in a family where the girls get books from the circulating library, would say when they saw a new novel of yours lying on the table, ‘What, another book by Grant Allen! Send it back; I won’t have any of his st
ories in the house.’ And the local librarian would act upon this result, if, indeed, he did not anticipate it; and, naturally, also editors would look askance at your proposals.
Now, if you adopt the title ‘The Evolution of God,’ you will produce a kindred effect, even more disastrous. The expression is sufficient to shock not only the orthodox, but no end of people who are extremely liberal in their theology and you would tend by using it still further to diminish your public.
Let me further point out to you that the title is illogical.
You rationally trace the evolution of something you believe in as a reality. But you do not believe in God’s reality, and therefore propose to trace the evolution of a thing which, according to you, does not exist. What you mean is ‘Evolution of the “Belief in God.’” This, though a startling title, is still not a necessarily hostile one, since you may trace the evolution of a true belief as of a false one. It would be quite sufficiently striking without necessarily bringing on you such ruinous results. — Truly yours,
HERBERT SPENCER.
P.S. — Perhaps the title Evolution of the “Idea” of God’ might be worth considering.
When the manuscript was ready for press, Allen sent it to Mr. Benjamin Kidd, author of ‘Social Evolution,’ who had evinced interest in the work, and offered to submit it to the consideration of Messrs. Macmillan. This he did, with the result named in the following letter: —
The Croft, Tuesday.
My dear Clodd, — Macmillans won’t have my religious book. I enclose a letter from Benjamin Kidd which explains their attitude.
Now... I have ventured, without asking your leave beforehand, to tell Macmillans to send it on to you. I am not going to ask you to ‘read’ it — Heaven forbid; there are hundreds of pages of it — but perhaps you might at some time manage to run your eye over the chapters and see what it is driving at. There is no hurry about it; the book has waited ten years already, and mankind will no doubt endure to wait ten years more for it. But I should like to know what you think I had better do about it. If you ‘could’ suggest any publisher likely to take it, I should be duly grateful. I am beginning to get a little disheartened at last.... Pardon my bothering you with it, but it is a big book, and has cost me much time and trouble, which I should be sorry to see go to waste for nothing.
Is it not a funny fate which pursues me, that whenever I do a piece of work I particularly like, I can’t get a publisher for it? or, if I do, it proves a dead failure....
Nellie joins in love, and I am ever yours very affectionately,
— GRANT ALLEN.
The book was ultimately published by Mr. Grant Richards, and an edition of seven hundred and fifty copies disposed of in a few weeks. As the price was twenty shillings net, this result was satisfactory. Mr. Herbert Spencer sent some encouraging words: ‘I congratulate you,’ he wrote, ‘on its achievement I had no idea you had been devoting such an immensity of labour and research to the subject The bringing together of the evidence in a coherent form and showing its bearing on the current creed can scarcely fail to have a great effect I hope it may succeed as well pecuniarily as it otherwise will.’
Mr. Stead gave ample space to an analysis of the book in the ‘Review of Reviews,’ receiving the following reply to his inquiry as to suitable illustrations
The Croft, Haslemere, Oct. 20, ‘97.
Dear Mr. Stead, — Many thanks for your kind letter. I am very glad to hear that my book has interested you. Of course, I understand how different is our point of view; but, on the other hand, I can see how much my facts and arguments, a little differently approached, tell in the directions that most interest you. And my evidence that Christianity in all its essentials is far older than the historical Christ (if any) falls in entirely with your own idea that the theological truths are permanent and immanent In humanity. Still, I am relieved to find that you can see this likeness in diversity, and am very much obliged to you for making the book so prominent in the ‘Review of Reviews.’
As to the photographs, I am afraid I can be of very little use. There is a woodcut of an Isis and Horus — not a good one — on p, xxii of Mrs. Jameson’s ‘Legends of the Madonna’ (1891 edition: Longmans) which may be compared with the Byzantine Madonna on p xxxiv of the same book. But in order to really ‘show’ the resemblance, one ought to have a late Graeco-Egyptian Isis and Horus, such as one sees at Ghizeh, and by its side an early Coptic Christian Madonna and Child from the same collection. I should think the people at the British Museum could help you in this matter; they are almost sure to have photographs or engravings of some such transitional figures. In this remote spot I have access to nothing but my own books, so I am powerless to help you.
With regard to the diagram, it ought to be drawn up with every caution to the reader that its dates are extremely shadowy. Premissing this, I would put the epoch of something worth calling Man upon earth at from one to three million years. Accept 1,500,000 as a moderate average, date of earliest human history in Egypt or Akkad, not more than ten thousand years ago. [Allen’s estimate of the date when man — as ‘homo sapiens’ — appeared may or may not be exaggerated, but recent excavations in Chaldæa warrant a much earlier date than ten thousand years for the presence of man, more or less civilised, in that region. For one result of the University of Pennsylvania’s Expedition has been the disinterment, on the site of Nippur, of written documents (i.e. cuneiform tablets) proving that the founding of the temple of Bel and the first settlement in Nippur are probably earlier than 7000 B.C.] Rude Stone Age (Palaeolithic) probably began two or three million years ago; polished Stone Age (Neolithic) about eighty or a hundred thousand years ago; Bronze Age, about twelve or fifteen thousand years ago; Iron Age, about four thousand years ago. Bat make it understood that all these dates are controversial, and that some authorities might even cut down the date of Man on earth to little more than two or three hundred thousand years.
As to Romanism being ‘true ‘ Christianity, I used the word (somewhat carelessly, perhaps) from the outsider’s point of view, just as you would describe the Turks or Affghans as ‘true’ Mussulmans, in contradistinction to the Persians or other sectaries. Just so I would distinguish the ‘true Kirk of Scotland’ from the Free Kirk or the U.P.s. By ‘true’ I here mean merely central or main; and, indeed, I was thinking of true Christians as opposed to those modern semi-Christian bodies which are rapidly verging towards a colourless Theism, flavoured by the ethics of the Gospel, and a certain vague respect for the Man Jesus.
Our two points of view are roughly these— ‘you’ think religion grew up thus by some divine fore-ordinance; ‘I’ think it grew up by false psychology; but we can both agree that from the beginning it contained the germs of the end, and that the heathen themselves led up to and anticipated Christianity. — Yours very sincerely,
GRANT ALLEN.
The book did not evoke the discussion which Allen expected. Apart from the indifference (far greater than he thought) about these high matters on the part of a public which in the degree that it cares at all, cares only for settled results, and for these only when prepared in peptonised form, the facts and inferences did not carry conviction to the upholders of the animistic theory of the Origin of Religions. Hence Allen appears to have abandoned the scheme of developing the argument in further volumes at which he hinted in the Preface. Moreover, he was busy in more remunerative fields. Editors were tempting him with better prices than of yore for stories; and to a generation which had forgotten his science-made-easy articles, it was easy work to recast these as ‘Moorland Idylls’ and ‘Flashlights from Nature.’
But fiction prevailed, because, as he says in a letter from Cookham in the autumn of 1897 to Mr. Charles Longman: —
I don’t find it quite so easy as I did to hunt up subjects for scientific articles. I have written about most subjects on which I have anything to say. If a subject occurs to me, I will let you have it; but I have been racking my brains for some weeks to no purpose. I am just going t
o take a fortnight’s holiday at Scarborough, however, and it is possible with rest (and bicycling, of which I am the latest victim) I may get a fresh fit — or rather, a fit of freshness — and excogitate something. — Y ours sincerely and penitently,