WCP6568

[1]¹

Old Orchard,

Broadstone,

Dorset.

April 26th. 1913

Dear Mr Marchant

Your question as to the main factors in the development of my ideas & beliefs in any historical or definite way is a puzzler but I think I see the reason or cause of their gradual but irregular growth. I am glad you refer to that passage in my "World of Life" pp.277-280. It seems out of place, & my son termed it "pa^dding" & wanted me to omit it. But it was one of those passages which I felt impelled to write, and am glad I wrote, though it is a digression. [2]

I will now give you my own ideas of my mind-development and its causes.

When I came home from the East in 1862 (age 39) I was an absolute sceptic, and had been so for about 25 years. I had then — as D^r W.B.Carpenter said — "no places in the fabric of my mind" into which the idea of a future life or a spirit world would fit in. When in that mental condition I wrote a review in Crookes "Quarterly Journal of Science" 1867² of the Duke of Argyll's "Reign of Law", in which my scepticism was strongly expressed. This brought me a letter from Charles Kingsley admiring the article book and chapter but regretting my point of view. To this I replied saying that I could no more see any need for a Creator of the forms [3] of life than I could in those ^{of the} myriads of sand-grains on the sea-shore, adding, that no one would say that each grain of sand owed its particular form, size, colour, weight &c to a Creator. In his reply he said, that that was just what he did believe and maintain. I am not sure that I have these letters. At the time I thought them a sign almost of madness, but now I see in what sense he meant the words, and I have come to hold the same or about the same belief.

At that very time I was beginning to investigate Spiritualistic phenomena but my scepticism was so deeply ingrained that it took years to get rid of it, and even now, that I have reached the other extreme, an occasional wave of scepticism comes near me! [4]

Three years later in 1870, I published my Contributions to Theory of Nat. Selection in the last Chapter of which I, for the first time developed my view, that there are physical characters in Man, that could not have been developed by Nat. Selection, because they cannot be conceived as having ever had survival value. I also showed that the same argument applied even more strongly to the origin of some of man's mental faculties, and especially of the moral sense. At this time I had been studying Spiritualistic phenomena for about 5 years, and have no doubt that my knowledge of these facts influenced me in adopting the views therein expressed.

But I did not then see as I did later, that the organisation of living beings required some directing mind-action in every cell, molecule, and atom. [5] [p. 5]

My Social views I trace to H. Spencer's "Social Statics" which I read, I think in 1853 soon after my return from the Amazon. The part on "The Right to use the Earth" especially interested me, But I was under the influence of Mill & Spencer himself, unable to see how to work it without too much Bureaucracy.

[sidebar:] I wrote an article in the "Contemporary Rev", showing this. See My Life.³

It was 27 years later that the idea suddenly came to me that this difficulty could be overcome by State tenancy of the bare land, but ownership by the Tenant of all added to the bare land, so that the State was only ground landlord, and need not interfere at all with the tenant who held a [6] perpetual lease ("My Life" II, 34.) In my book on Land Nationalisation, I had to review all its results, & in chapters on English, Irish, & Scotch Landlor[d]ism, I saw all the evils & cruelties of "Landlordism" — and the Social System dependent on it. But my objection to Socialism remained for about ten years later, from the inability to see how it could be done, till this was settled once for all by Bellamy's "Looking Backward", and I have been an absolutely convinced Socialist ever since.

My belief in the possibilities & certain success of Socialism was rendered more complete by H. Spencer's teaching that all classes of society were about equal morally and intellectually [7] combined with Weissman's proof of the non-heredity of results of Education &c.

Philosophy & Religion

My recent development on these subjects began with the writing of my "Man's Place in the Universe" the seed of which was my lecture at Davos in 1898 — and my "World of Life" the seed of which was my lecture at the Roy. Institution in 1910.

It was the act of collecting the evidence of these two books from all the best scientific sources I had access to, that forced upon me the wonderful combination of conditions necessary for the possible development of Life [8] and the still more marvellous and ever-present manifestations of foreseeing, directing and organising forces, resulting in a world of Life culminating in Man, and in every detail adapted for the development of man's highest mental & moral powers.

Thus a the completely materialistic mind of my youth & early manhood, has been slowly moulded into the socialistic, spiritualistic, and theistic mind I now exhibit — a mind which is — as my scientific friends think — so weak & credulous in its declining years, as to believe that fruit & flowers — domestic animals, glorious birds and insects, wool cotton, sugar and rubber, metals and gems were all foreseen & fore ordained for the education & enjoyment of man!

And now to Tea!

A.R.W.