Communism and Christianism / Analyzed and Contrasted from the Marxian and Darwinian Points of View

by William Montgomery Brown

As rioters, there is this in common between Kaiser William and Thomas Mooney, that though moving in opposite directions, they are nevertheless carried by the same matter-force law which manifests itself in the same riotous system, capitalism—a system which, under one form or another, has ever produced international wars and class revolutions; and, so long as it is allowed to exist, never will cease the production of them.

Hence the interests of the world require not that these rioters, Kaiser William and Thomas Mooney, should be hung, but that the capitalist system, which by the operation of the law of self-preservation by animal competitions, produced both of the riots with which they are respectively credited, should be overthrown by the labor system, which, by the operation of the same law of self-preservation by human co-operation, will put an end to all bloody conflicts.

But taking the popular view concerning the responsibility for this commercial war and labor riot and assuming that they should be charged respectively to Kaiser William and Thomas Mooney, why should the promoter of the little riot die, or worse, suffer imprisonment during life, and the promoter of the big war live?

Yet, if the Kaiser were captured even by England there is no probability that he would be turned over to a court constituted of representatives of the allied nations, tried, found guilty and put to death. Why not? Because, like all wars, his war, no matter which side won the victory, has been upon the whole, or will be in the long run, in the interest of the capitalists of every nation on both sides, at least of the great ones.

If Kaiser William would not be sent to the gallows by such a court why should the court which tried Thomas Mooney be allowed to send him to it; and, especially why, since California is part of a republic, and the Kaiser's war was on behalf of imperialism and a small minority, while Mooney's riot was on behalf of republicanism and the overwhelming majority?

Just now the human part of the world is especially afflicted by unnecessary and therefore unjustifiable deaths. The Governor of California has the opportunity to prevent one such death. I say to him, do it. In the name of Justice and in the name of Humanity, I with millions of others solemnly call upon him to save Mooney, the revolutionist, as Pilate, the Governor of Judea, according to the verdict of all right-thinking men and women, should have saved Jesus, the revolutionist.

III.

You say in effect that we must postulate a divine consciousness to account for human consciousness; but, on your theory, how could human consciousness come out of a divine consciousness; and, anyhow, contrary to your implication, we know of no consciousness which has come, except by inheritance, from another consciousness, but only of consciousnesses which have come from unconsciousnesses.

Your contention, in this connection, is to the effect that nothing can come out of nothing, and this is the core of a book, "A Short Apology for Being a Christian in the Twentieth Century," by the learned ex-president of Trinity College, Hartford, Dr. Williamson Smith, with whom you have had, I think, some correspondence.

This Apology was written against a letter of mine to the House of Bishops, entitled, "A Natural Gospel for a Scientific Age," which has never seen the light, partly because the ex-President convinced me that if I must give up the orthodox conception of God, I could not hold to the one which I had worked out in the letter.