MISS ADA CAMPBELL.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XIII, Issue 4519, 6 March 1886, Page 2

MISS ADA CAMPBELL.

♦ "EVIL IN THE LIGHT OF SCIENCE ■ ITS CAUSE AND CURE." A third lecture was given by Mias Campbell in McFarlane's Hall last night, upon the social evil and drink (Mr Townloy presiding). There was a very good attendance Miss Campbell said that evil had long bewildered us ; some said that it did not exist — that what was called evil was really good. There were effects that were termed evil, and therefore evil meant something. Fire was a great blessing until it broke out into a conflagration. Evil was not in the thing itself, but in the effects it produced. Mankind was very much divided as to what constituted good and evil. Inferences were given to prove this, as the opinions of Mahommedans and Christians on religion, Freethinkers on Christianity, or the ideas of the Northern and Southern States of America on the save trade. There were slaves in England and masters were not called to look after them. She held that slaves were a great blessing, and if she had been made a black barbarian all she would ask for would be a good master. What was good for one creature was not good for another. The flesh of the lamb might be good for the wolf, but the grass which that lamb ate would be distasteful to the wolf. The lecture3s gave a simple definition of the word evil as "pain." Bodily vices produced physical weakness and loss of mental powers, but by restraining the passions in early life virtue became a habit. One of the most pitiful teachings that had been countenanced by Christianity was celibacy, which was considered the highest virtue man or woman was capable of. A pall of gloom had been thrown over Christendom by embodying such ideas. It was a contradiction of terms to say evil was a violation of Nature's laws. We could no more violate a natural law than stop the earth revolving. The way nature impressed the effects of good and evil was by a process of torture. Men were endowed with feelingrj to distinguish pleasure and evil from good, and were there no pain there could be no pleasure. It was only by knowing evil v/e were conscious of good ; and the same with pain. By the effects which follow human action a knowledge of morality had been developed. Irritate the nervous system either painfully or pleasurably" and this would produce ideas in the mind which found expression as good and evil. When a certain boundary was crossed one passed into the other, as hatred and love, hope and despair. A supposition was taken of a being transferred to another world, who would find that he was being continually taught that change must ever be — that death was birth into now life, that sorrow was replaced by joy, and cruelty and hardness evoked sympathy and kindness. From a theological point of view the conflict in nature presented itself to the human mind as God and Devil, which was an ideal view. Life and knowledge could only come from warfare. War was the watchword of nature, and a continual battle was going on throughout tho universe. If the antagonism were to cease, it would mean decay. Nature's great force was a reproductive force. Every living organ must reproduce itself or suffer. Herbert Spencer told us it was by this force that man gained civilisation and everything he possessed. Nearly all our habits came to us from the animal world, but theology called us innocent and pure and said all the vices were taught by the enemy of mankind. In the animal kingdom we found all the hugest vices which •arise when the reproductive instinct took a rapid turn. It was the abuse which constituted the evil. Alcohol was a good turned into an evil, a blessing into a curse. There was no evil in the alcohol — it simply brings out the lower propensities of man. It was shown that the vice came through tho animal world. The speaker stated that a really sober man did not exist — not even Glever or Booth. We frequently hoard that drink was a necessity of civilisation — that man's wants were progressive. It was nothing of the sort. There had never been a race upon earth worthy of the name that had not had some narcotic, and every stimulant was a narcotic. Although alcohol was not discovered eight or nine centuries ago the ancients ware acquainted with the art of fermentation. Noah planted a vineyard and got drunk on his winy. It was a great mistake to suppose that alouliol gave strength : it merely diminished the nervous sensibility. Nature divided our strength into two parts — one for current necessities and the other is saved up as if for a rainy day. As an example of this, a delicate lady with a child in her arms was going through a paddock worn out with fatigue, when a mad bull chased her. Her weariness left her instantaneously, until she dashed through the fence out of the reach of the bull, and then she fell senseless to the ground. It was not the bull that had given her strength ; it was t-iken from the storehouse which Nature again closed as the lady fell. So it was with alcohol. (Applause.) As the Government received such a large revenue from drink, some provision ought to be made for inebriates. IL should be treated as a physical disease, as force was useless without medical treatment. It wa3 impossible to make people sober by Acts of Parliament. But prevention was better than cure, and this lay in parental form. If parents drank, the children would smell of the bottle. Parents owed a debt to their children bofore their birth. If young men fancied they could go smoking, drinking, etc , and feel no effects when settling down to married life they were mistaken — it was useless for them to think of being tho fathers of intelligent children. (Applause.) As to tho social evil it was a fire of lust from tho animal kingdom. To the pure all things were pure. Some people j thought the platform was not the place to discuss this. She answered, " Evil be to him who evil thinks." If good could be done a woman had as much right to do it if she wished as a man. She charged the churches with quarrelling among themselves instead of trying to remedy the social evil. The evil had not been put down, for want of knowledge of the laws which control human life. It was in vain to legislate. It really came under the law of demand and supply — a law of nature that whilst there was a demand there will always be a correlative. The evil did not lay in woman— it lay in man, and though church and State sometimes combined to denounce it, they were always silent as to the wherefore, because man ruled both Church and State, and would not say that it was his tyranny over women, and selfishness, that caused the evil. The creature was made an outcast by society, but not one word was said against the vileness of the man which demanded this degradation— he would be received with open arms. It was no use to try to save them by sympathy— the cause and not the effect must be aimed at. Just as many as are drawn from the ranks would bo replaced by others, which had been proved in Melbourno, where the number saved made no difference in proportion to the population. The world was full of blessings, but man refused to learn that harshness could not subdue nor sympathy save. If the evil was to be destroyed it must bo rooted out of men's nature, and then only would it cease to exist. Reform the men and then the women would be reformed. There were those who had come there just to hear what a young woman would have to say on this subject, without thinking of the high purposo which governed her. She had put asido delicacy of feeling to come and speak on this matter. A terrible form rose before her. It was that of a woman whose name it was shame for respectable people to utter — scorned and insulted not only by respectable women, but

by her guilty partners, — an eternal monument of man's weakness. She crio3 from the depths of her degradation, " Will this iniquity never cease ?" In history we saw what a torrible direction the evil takes occasionally. Love which should have produced only the holiest of emotions was turned into the most damning passion. But retribution came to the sensualist, and what at first may have been merely a dosire to appear a fast young man has led him into a degradation which language could not be found to paint. She advised young men to make servants of their passions. Women should not trust too much ito the devotion of man. Men who would not rob a shilling would not hesitate to rob a woman of her virtue. Tho lectureas strongly denounced the British ideas of justice, which allowed men to go uninterfered with, while their unfortunate partisans in guilt were fined and imprisoned. The social evil was a terrible cancer eating up what was noblest and best in our grand civilisation. These crimes were sanctioned by hoary-headed custom and would continue so until the tyranny of man over woman was removed. Women were driven to this by want and worship— dependence in the struggle for existence and a worship of man's power. The evil must be put down by putting men and women on equal terms in life. Following the American example she had come forward as the Australian lecturess (applause) and was trying to make things better for her sex aud for the males. Fathers should teach their sons how and what evil to avoid, and girls should bs taught to act and think scientifically and not that the sole aim was to get married. The evil must be bred out of the human constitution, for the time will come when love will always be sanctified by marriage. Woman should b.o more independent and understand her duties as a wife and a mother, and not till then would she be able to grapple with the social evil, for woman was tho ladder by which man climed to heaven or descended to hell. (Loud applause) Mr Somerville came forward, amid applause, and contended that Miss Campbell had started on a wrong premise in assuming man had come from the animal kingdom ; he argued that man was something more than an irresponsible creature. He denied that the pulpit was not assisting in the endeavor to remove the social evil. Miss Campbell quoted Bcripture, ridiculing the belief of everlasting fire. Mr Somerville said there was always two ways of using scripture and time would not then allow a" full reply. Miss Campbell announced that she would again lecture on Sunday, on Freethought v. Christianity, when she would challenge any clergyman, or representative, to como forward and meet her.