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T H E F I N A N C I N G O F J O H N W E S L E Y ’S
M E T H O D I S M c. 1 7 4 0– 1800
The Financing of John
Wesley’s Methodism
c.1740–1800

CL IVE M URRA Y NORRI S

1
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 8/12/2016, SPi

3
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 Preface

The dominant activities of the eighteenth–century Wesleyan Methodist

Connexion,1 in terms of expenditure, were the support of itinerant preaching,
and the construction and maintenance of preaching-houses.2 These were
supported primarily by income from members’ contributions, gifts from
supporters, various forms of debt finance, and profits from the Book Room.
Three other areas of action also had significant financial implications for the
movement: education, welfare, and missions. This book seeks to describe what
these activities cost, and how the money required was raised and managed.
Quotations from published primary and secondary sources are as printed,
but in the case of manuscript sources spelling, capitalization, and punctuation
have been silently modernized where that aids comprehension. I have expand-
ed most abbreviations and contractions. Words which are uncertain are in
square brackets.
Financial data quoted directly from archival sources are given in the pre-
decimal (£.s.d) format, but when analysed further the decimal form is used.
However, for small sums, I usually present ‘old pence’ rather than decimal
fractions—a pragmatic approach, driven by clarity of presentation rather than
consistency.
In 1899 Charles Hull, editor of William Petty’s economic writings, noted that:
Mathematical presentations of industrial facts, both symbolic and graphic, have
by their definiteness, encouraged many an investigator in the false conceit that he
now knew what he sought, whereas he had at most but a neat name for what he
sought to know.3
Again for presentational reasons, I have often used point estimates rather
than ranges, but to reduce the appearance of spurious accuracy, numbers are
typically rounded.
The passage of more than two centuries raises two specific problems with
the presentation of financial data and estimates. First, although the long-term

1
See Glossary.
2
‘Preaching-house’ was Wesley’s preferred term, partly to distinguish Wesleyan Methodist
buildings both from the churches of the established Church and the ‘meeting-houses’ of the
Dissenters. However, by the time of his death ‘chapel’ was in common use (see Works, Minutes,
‘Large Minutes 1780–9’, 921, [§44.1] point 5) and that is the term used in this book. On other key
Wesleyan Methodist terminology, see Glossary.
3
Hull, C. H. (ed.). (1899). The Economic Writings of Sir William Petty. Vol. 1, lxviii. Cited in
Feinstein, C. H. and S. Pollard (eds.). Studies in Capital Formation in the United Kingdom
1750–1920, 264.
vi Preface

average for price inflation in the later eighteenth century was some 2 per cent,4
in practice, periods of price stability were punctuated by occasional bursts of
inflation, notably in the war-dominated mid to late 1790s.5 However, it is
unclear what overall impact this had on the Wesleyan Methodist movement.
Allowances paid to preachers and their families, and the costs of constructing
chapels, both increased over time, but this probably reflected changes in the
level of provision—such as larger chapels—as much as price inflation.6 Wes-
leyan Methodist Book Room retail prices, in contrast, were stable.7 In this
book, data usually appear in cash terms, with no adjustments.8
The second issue is whether eighteenth-century Wesleyan financial num-
bers can be presented in terms which make sense to the modern reader. Again
the Bank of England provides data on which such calculations can be based,
but the significant changes in society and the economy over the last two
centuries and more limit the value of such comparisons.9
Many Wesleyan financial records relate to the Connexional financial year,
i.e. the twelve months between annual preachers’ Conferences, typically run-
ning from August in one calendar year to July in the next:10 often Connexional
rather than calendar years are used in tables. Though there were variations,
most accounts reviewed divided the year according to the standard English
Quarter Days as shown in Figure 0.01.

Quarter/date Focus Usual name Alternative Cross-Quarters

name (unusual)
1. 29 September Start of year Michaelmas – Lammas—1
August

2. 25 December – Christmas – Martinmas—1

November
3. 25 March – Ladyday Easter, Spring Candlemas—2
February

4. 24 June End of year Midsummer – Mayday—1

May

Figure 0.01 Wesleyan Methodist Quarter Days

4
Bank of England, http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/education/Pages/resources/inflation-
tools/calculator, accessed November 2014. A basket of goods costing £1 in 1750 cost an estimated
£2.64 in 1800, an average annual increase of 1.9 per cent.
5
Price inflation averaged 0.9 per cent over the 1750–90 period, but 6 per cent in 1790–1800.
6 7
See chapters two and four. See chapter seven.
8
See Hume, R. D. (2014). ‘The Value of Money in Eighteenth-Century England: incomes,
prices, buying power—and some problems in cultural economics’, Huntingdon Library Quar-
terly, 77 (4), 373–416. He suggests that, until the mid 1790s, a reasonable multiplier for
eighteenth-century prices of books and other cultural products would be 200–300.
9
A basket of goods costing £1 in 1750 would have cost an estimated £193.47 in 2013.
10
See chapter six.
 Preface vii

Given the gaps in the surviving Wesleyan records, substantial modelling has
been necessary in order to generate estimates of (for example) national
Connexional income and expenditure. However this was essentially a local
movement, and transactions within areas and regions greatly exceeded those
with the movement’s centre. The methodologies and assumptions of the key
models are explained in the annexes, and where possible the results are
triangulated with primary sources, but the risk of error remains. I take comfort
however in Elliott’s comment that:
Ultimately all historical exposition and analysis are essentially a search for the
greatest possible degree of plausibility in the exploration and interpretation of
the past.11
This book is my attempt to produce a plausible account of how John Wesley’s
Methodism was financed in its first decades.

11
Elliott, J. H. (2012). History in the Making, 195.
 OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 16/12/2016, SPi

Acknowledgements

My thanks are due in first place to my colleagues at the Oxford Centre for
Methodism and Church History, Oxford Brookes University, and specifically
to my PhD thesis supervisors, Professor William Gibson and Dr Peter
Forsaith.1 Their unending and often unexpected insights, unrivalled know-
ledge, and active practical support made this research possible.
I am grateful also to Dr Gareth Lloyd and Dr Peter Nockles and their staff at
the Methodist Archives and Research Centre, John Rylands University Li-
brary, University of Manchester; to Professor Randy Maddox and colleagues
at the Divinity School, Duke University; to Elizabeth Dunn and her team at the
David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Duke University;
and to Inez Lynn and the librarians of the London Library; all of whom offered
me sustained advice and support. I also received much appreciated help from
Professor Isabel Rivers and Dr John Lenton on the Book Room and Methodist
preachers respectively.
A number of the analyses in this study benefited greatly from my discus-
sions with participants in the annual meetings of the Charles Wesley Society in
2013 and 2015, in the Summer Wesley Seminar 2014 at Duke University,
and in successive Methodist Studies Seminars at Oxford and Manchester.
Archivists and support staff at many other libraries and archives contributed
their time and expertise. The generous financial aid which I received from
Duke University, the Economic History Society, and Oxford Brookes University,
was also invaluable. I would also like to record my warm appreciation of my
editors at Oxford University Press, especially for their patient and courteous
professionalism in supporting this first-time author.
Finally, I would like to acknowledge the support of my family, Jenny, Paul,
Robert, and Julia.
Clive Murray Norris
June 2016

1
Norris, C. M. (2015). ‘Prophets and Profits: the financing of Wesleyan Methodism
c.1740–1800’. PhD, Oxford Brookes University.
 OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 8/12/2016, SPi

Contents

List of Illustrations xiii

List of Tables xv
List of Abbreviations xvii
List of Annexes in Appendix xix

Introduction 1
1. Wesleyan Itinerant Preachers 13
2. Financing the Preaching Operation 35
3. The Preachers’ Fund 50
4. The Wesleyan Chapel Estate 66
5. The Connexional Financing of Wesleyan Chapels 102
6. Societies, Circuits, and the Connexion 120
7. The Wesleyan Methodist Book Room 156
8. Book Room Finances 177
9. Education, Welfare, and Missions 191
10. Conclusions 222

Appendix 245
Glossary: Some key terms relevant to early Methodist finance 261
Bibliography 263
Index 301
 List of Illustrations

0.01 Wesleyan Methodist Quarter Days vi

0.1 Typical format of parish accounts 10
6.1 Preachers’ expenses payable by Leeds Circuit, 1768 140
7.1 Examples of imprints from Book Room publications 161
7.2 Works potentially available to every Wesleyan household 171
8.1 1782 Book Room accounts 178
8.2 First entry in Conference Book Room accounts 188
 List of Tables

2.1 Estimated costs of Wesleyan Methodist itinerant preaching, 1750–1800 40

5.1 Estimated total costs of Wesleyan Methodist chapel construction and
acquisition, 1770–1800 117
8.1 Estimated Book Room sales, revenue, and profits, 1740–1800 180
8.2 Book Room profits, 1782–1800 181
8.3 Estimated Book Room sales and Wesleyan Methodist membership,
1740–1800 185
10.1 Central income and general expenditure, 1799–1800 227
10.2 Wesleyan Methodist members, preachers, and chapels, 1749–1800 228
10.3 Local income and expenditure, 1749–1800 229
10.4 Central income and expenditure, 1769–1800 231
 List of Abbreviations

AM The Arminian Magazine: consisting of extracts and original

treatises on universal redemption. (London, Printed by J. Fry
and Co., 1778–9, and thereafter by the Book Room; from
1798 The Methodist Magazine; from 1822 The Wesleyan-
Methodist Magazine)
Baker Catalogue Baker, F. A Union Catalogue of the Publications of John and
Charles Wesley. Second edition. (Stone Mountain, GA, 1991)
Duke I Duke University, David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and
Manuscript Library, Frank Baker Collection of Wesleyana
and British Methodism
Duke II Duke University, David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and
Manuscript Library, Frank Baker Papers 1641–2002 and
undated
ESTC British Library, online English Short Title Catalogue
Jackson I–VI Jackson, T. The Lives of Early Methodist Preachers, chiefly
written by themselves. Fourth edition. 6 vols. (London,
Wesleyan Conference Office, 1871)
MABI Methodist Archives Biographical Index, Manchester
University Library, University of Manchester
MARC Methodist Archives and Research Centre, John Rylands
University Library, University of Manchester
Minutes I Minutes of the Methodist Conferences, Vol. I: 1744–1798
(London, Wesleyan Conference Office, 1862)
Minutes II Minutes of the Methodist Conferences, Vol. II: 1799–1807
(London, Wesleyan Conference Office, 1863)
Myles Myles, W. A Chronological History of the People Called
Methodists. Fourth edition. (London, Methodist Conference
Office, 1813)
OCMCH Oxford Centre for Methodism and Church History, Oxford
Brookes University
PWHS Proceedings of the Wesley Historical Society (Burnley, printed
for the Society, 1898–)
Telford, Letters I–VIII Telford, J. (ed.). The Letters of the Rev. John Wesley, A.M. 8
vols. (London, Epworth Press, 1931)
xviii List of Abbreviations
Works: The Works of John Wesley
Works, Appeals Baker, F. (editor-in-chief). (1975). Oxford Edition of the
Works of John Wesley, Vol. 11: The Appeals to Men of Reason
and Religion and Certain Related Open Letters. Cragg,
G. R. (ed.). Oxford, Clarendon Press
Works, Journal I–VII Heitzenrater, R. P. (gen. ed.). (1988–2003). Bicentennial
Edition of the Works of John Wesley, Vols. 18–24: Journal and
Diaries, I–VII. Ward. W. R. and R. P. Heitzenrater (eds.).
Nashville, TN, Abingdon Press
Works, Letters I–II Baker, F. (editor-in-chief). (1980, 1982). Oxford Edition of
the Works of John Wesley, Vols. 25–26: Letters, I–II. Baker,
F. (ed.). Oxford, Clarendon Press
Works, Letters III Maddox, R. L. (gen. ed.). (2015). Bicentennial Edition of the
Works of John Wesley, Vol. 27: Letters, III. Campbell,
T. A. (ed.). Nashville, TN, Abingdon Press
Works, Minutes Heitzenrater, R. P. (gen. ed.). (2011). Bicentennial Edition of
the Works of John Wesley, Vol. 10: The Methodist Societies:
the minutes of Conference. Rack, H. D. (ed.). Nashville, TN,
Abingdon Press
Works, Sermons I–IV Baker, F. (editor-in-chief). (1984–7). Bicentennial Edition of
the Works of John Wesley, Vols. 1–4: Sermons, I–IV. Outler,
A. C. (ed.). Nashville, TN, Abingdon Press
Works, Societies Heitzenrater, R. P. (gen. ed.). (1989). Bicentennial Edition of
the Works of John Wesley, Vol. 9: The Methodist Societies:
history, nature and design. Davies, R. E. (ed.). Nashville, TN,
Abingdon Press
 OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 16/12/2016, SPi

List of Annexes in Appendix

A The Preachers’ Fund 245

B Chapel Costs 245
C Book Room Sales and Profits 246
D Who Financed Eighteenth-century Wesleyan Methodism? 248
 Introduction

THE BASIC QUESTION: HOW W AS THE

WORK OF THE HOLY S PIRIT FUNDED?

This is a study of the financing of Wesleyan Methodism in the British

Isles, from its origins to around 1800.1 It began in 1738 as a small group of
clergymen seeking to reform the Church of England, underpinned by informal
and local financial arrangements. By 1800, the Wesleyan Methodist Connex-
ion was an international religious movement which, in the British Isles alone,
employed hundreds of staff, occupied over a thousand chapels and other
buildings, operated a major publishing and book distribution business (the
Book Room), and ran foreign missions, schools, and other charitable activities.
How was this financed?
The question intrigued John Wesley’s contemporaries. In a hostile 1741
magazine article, ‘Richard Hooker, of the Temple, Esq.’ detailed the business
empire which Wesley had apparently already created in London (though his
critique was primarily theological). He claimed that Wesley engaged in continual
fundraising; that he made excessive profits from selling books; that he had set up
between twenty and forty spinning wheels at his Foundery headquarters; and
that he charged his followers for attending his meetings and preaching services:
So that by his Preaching, Bookselling, Workhouse, Wheedling, and Spunging,
and other Arts best known to himself, it is generally believed, that he gets £700 a
Year, and some say above £1000 . . . A religious Cheat is the worst of all.2
This book argues that in fact contemporary Wesleyan Methodism was charac-
terized by continual tension between on the one hand what were experienced as

1
There are obvious parallels with the Methodist experience in America, and on occasion
these are cited. On American Methodism see, for example, Wigger, J. H. (2001). Taking Heaven
by Storm; and Finke, R. and R. Stark (1992). The Churching of America, 1776–1990. See also
Evans, C. H. (2015). ‘Reflections on the Methodist Historical Pie: Re-engaging the Puzzle of
American Methodism’, Methodist Review, Vol. 7, 1–20.
2
Weekly Miscellany (1732), Issue CCCCXXXV, Saturday 25 April 1741. ‘Hooker’ was in
reality the clergyman William Webster.
2 The Financing of John Wesley’s Methodism c.1740–1800

the promptings of the Holy Spirit to spread the Gospel, through preaching,
chapel construction, the dissemination of publications, and various educa-
tional, welfare, and missionary activities; and on the other hand the recogni-
tion that, lacking any endowment, public funding, or large-scale private
patronage, the movement had to live within its means. Sometimes the finan-
cial pressures proved all but overwhelming, as in the late 1760s, when they led
to significant decentralization, and again in the 1790s, when they augmented
the centrifugal forces threatening the unity of Wesley’s Connexion after his
death. But ultimately the movement found ways to reconcile its often austere
personal spiritual discipline with the demands and opportunities of a vibrant
market economy.

T H E E I GH T E E N TH - C E N TURY B U S I N E S S C O N T E X T

The Wesleyan Methodist Connexion developed within the context of a British

economy which was dominated by agriculture and small-scale craft produc-
tion, though in some sectors such as iron, textiles, and the naval dockyards,
larger-scale units of employment were appearing.3 Most businesses were run
by their owners, either as sole proprietors or in partnership. They oversaw
production and were usually personally involved in sales and marketing. The
key source of recruits for management was nepotism, through family, friends,
co-religionists, or neighbours, though towards the end of the century a cadre
of management professionals was beginning to emerge.4
The financial markets were developing fast, largely in response to the
government’s increasing use of debt to finance successive wars.5 There was
however plentiful capital available to the government from investors, espe-
cially in London and the South East, as the economy was expanding, and other
opportunities for private investors were limited:6 the South Sea Bubble Act of
1720 had temporarily curbed the rise of joint-stock companies, and centuries-old
usury laws remained in place, capping interest rates at 5 per cent.7

3
For a general discussion of the business environment, see Wilson, J. F. (1995). British
Business History, 1720–1994.
4
Wilson, J. F. (1995), British Business History, 26–7.
5
It should be noted, however, that the focus of this book is on the internal finances of
Wesleyan Methodism, and not on the wider engagement of its members with financial markets.
6
Dickson, P. G. M. (1967). The Financial Revolution in England, especially 244–5, 301; Dick,
A. (2010). ‘New Work on Money, Finance and Thought in the Eighteenth Century’, Eighteenth-
Century Life, 34 (3), 105–13, at 105.
7
On joint stock companies see Lee, G. A. (1975). ‘The Concept of Profit in British Accounting,
1760–1900’, Business History Review, 49 (1), 6–36, at 12–13. On usury see Glossary; also Roseveare,
H. (1991). The Financial Revolution 1660–1760, 70; Temin, P. and H.-J. Voth (2013). Prometheus
Shackled, 74–5; and Geisst, C. R. (2013). Beggar Thy Neighbor. A higher rate—6 per cent—could be
 Introduction 3

From mid-century, growing foreign trade and industrialization drove

increases in provincial wealth too;8 in Ireland, for example, an ‘expanding
mercantile sector with investment capital’ led to a proliferation of denomin-
ational annuity societies.9 Fundamentally, however, the markets for industrial
capital and commercial credit remained regional.10
The City financed mercantile trading, but had less involvement in industry.
Significant sums were nonetheless mobilized, locally and regionally, for
major investments in both commercial and philanthropic projects, and on
an increasing scale. For example, total investment in civil engineering projects
in the British Isles has been estimated at £12,000 in the 1750s, rising to almost
£1.3 million in the 1770s and £8.8 million in the 1790s.11 There was a massive
increase in the demand for both housing and public buildings.12 In towns and
cities, wealthy local inhabitants invested in public amenities such as assembly
rooms and theatres: thus in Bristol, the 1754–5 construction of the Assembly
Rooms was funded by issuing 120 tontine shares of £30 each.13 Other philan-
thropic projects, notably hospitals, demanded less capital from individual
supporters and thus had a broader investor base, drawing in the urban middle
class: the typical requirement for a local hospital was that a ‘governor’ donated
£20 or subscribed two guineas a year.14
A flourishing trade in commercial bills provided working capital for busi-
ness, and a wide range of new financing techniques developed.15 But as Finn
has commented:
The theoretical promise of these instruments was often thwarted by the pragmatic
workings of the market itself. Shortages of specie, aversion to paper money,

paid in Ireland and the West Indies: see Campbell, S. (1933). ‘The economic and social effect of the
usury laws in the eighteenth century.’ Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, Fourth Series, XVI,
197–210, at 198.
8
Dickson, P. G. M. (1967). Financial Revolution, 484–5.
9
Kelly, Jennifer (2010). ‘Annuity societies in eighteenth-century Ireland’, chapter six in
Kelly, J. and M. J. Powell (eds.). Clubs and Societies in Eighteenth-Century Ireland, 126–37, at
126. On annuities see Glossary.
10
Hudson, P. (ed.). (1989). Regions and Industries, 16.
11
Mokyr, J. (2009). The Enlightened Economy, Table 5.1 ‘Civil engineering projects,
1700–1829’, 86.
12
Chalklin, C. W. (2001). The Rise of the English Town, 1650–1850, 31–45; Chalklin,
C. W. (1980). ‘Capital Expenditure on Building for Cultural Purposes in Provincial England,
1730–1830’. Business History, 22 (1), 51–70.
13
Wilson, K. (1990). ‘Urban Culture and Political Activism in Hanoverian England: the
example of voluntary hospitals’, in Hellmuth, E. (ed.) The Transformation of Political Culture,
165–84, at 171. On tontines see Glossary.
14
Wilson, K. (1995). The Sense of the People, 74. In London the typical contributions were
somewhat higher—see Owen, D. (1964). English Philanthropy 1660–1960, 46. On guineas see
Glossary.
15
For a Wesleyan example see Norris, C. M. (2013). ‘Untying the Knot: the afterlife of
Charles and Sally Wesley’s marriage settlement 1749–1800’, Proceedings of the Charles Wesley
Society, Vol. 17, 49–63.
4 The Financing of John Wesley’s Methodism c.1740–1800
delayed wage payments, pawning and gift-giving practices all fostered extended
credit relations in modern England.16
Owner-managers and other small businesses, in particular, tended to look
to people they knew both for short-term credit and long-term funds. As
Hudson notes:
Local finance found its way into productive investment via an array of conduits;
informal personal and social relationships being of undoubted importance in
directing flows of funds. Connections through family, church or chapel arise
again and again.17
There were significant weaknesses in the transport and communications
infrastructure. Many roads were impassable in the winter months. However,
by around 1750 there was a national network of turnpike roads linking at least
most major English towns. Its impact was profound, indeed Szostak has
accorded it a central role in eighteenth-century industrialization.18 Gerhold
agrees, while noting also the impact of factors such as improved coach springs
and better horses.19 Personal transport improved greatly in both scope and
speed; by the 1770s every provincial centre had a direct scheduled coach
service to and from London,20 and between 1754–5 and 1799–1800 average
coach speeds for journeys to and from London increased by some 27 per cent.21
Furthermore, by 1790 all major routes had daily postal deliveries by coach, and
by 1800 there were some 783 local post offices in England and Wales. Postal
rates were high, and charges for letters and parcels were to form a significant
component of Wesleyan Methodist expenditure, but evasion of the Post
Office monopoly was widespread, through the use of friends, carriers, and
MPs’ franks.22
While packhorses were still vitally important to trade in the 1790s, coastal
shipping and, from mid-century, the growing canal network were also crucial,
especially for moving bulk goods. Better transport and communications links
facilitated wider markets, supporting larger scale production; increased the
efficiency and reliability of distribution, which in turn, for example, enabled

16
Finn, M. C. (2003). The Character of Credit, 76.
17
Hudson, P. (1986). The Genesis of Industrial Capital, 265. See also Smail, J. (2005). ‘Credit,
Risk and Honor in Eighteenth-Century Commerce’, Journal of British Studies, 44 (3), 439–56, on
the importance of trust in the credit economy.
18
Szostak, R. (1991). The Role of Transportation in the Industrial Revolution.
19
Gerhold, D. (2014). ‘The Development of Stage Coaching and the Impact of Turnpike
Roads, 1653–1840’, Economic History Review, 67 (3), 818–45. See also Gerhold, D. (1996).
‘Productivity Change in Road Transport before and after Turnpiking, 1690–1840’, Economic
History Review, 49 (3) (August), 491–515.
20
Berg, M. (2005). Luxury and Pleasure in Eighteenth-Century Britain, 139–43.
21
Calculation by author based on data in Gerhold, D. (2014), ‘Stage Coaching’, Table 1.
Speeds and fares of stage coaches (excluding London to Ipswich and Norwich), 1653–1838, 821.
22
Whyman, S. E. (2009). The Pen and the People, Introduction and chapters one and two.
 Introduction 5

inventories to be reduced; and contributed to the development of a national

market, and a more integrated culture and politics.23
It was in the eighteenth century that nationwide and indeed international
consumer-led markets became widespread, notably in clothing, pottery, and
household goods.24 Josiah Wedgwood was but a prominent example of a new
breed of entrepreneur who used techniques such as royal and other endorse-
ments, attractive showrooms, national newspaper advertising campaigns, and
travelling sales forces, to secure national and international markets. For
example, in the 1720s the Sun Fire Office experimented with a ‘riding officer’
who travelled the country seeking new insurance customers.25 Though the
pace and scope of change should not be exaggerated—many consumers
remained reliant on traditional sources of goods and services, such as itinerant
pedlars, town markets, and street traders—the net result was that in Great
Britain:
The first of the world’s consumer societies had unmistakably emerged by 1800.26

HISTORIOGRAPHY

Wesley and his associates were acutely aware both of the challenges posed
by the numerical and geographical growth of his movement, and of the need
to make arrangements for leadership succession if it were to survive
Wesley’s death, and there is a substantial body of internal publications on
the movement’s ‘polity’, dating from Wesley’s first contributions in the early
1740s.27 They fall into three main types. Some are purely descriptive, such as
Grindrod’s 1842 comprehensive account of Connexional rules and regulations
or Pocock’s 1885 papers on Methodist finance.28 Others, including much
of Wesley’s own work, seek to root these in the beliefs and practices of the

23
Gerhold, D. (2014), ‘Stage Coaching’, 843.
24
McKendrick, N., J. Brewer and J. H. Plumb. (eds). (1982). The Birth of a Consumer Society.
25
Feather, J. (1985). The Provincial Book Trade in Eighteenth-Century England, 84.
26
McKendrick, N. et al. (1982), Consumer Society, 13. On the survival of traditional forms of
retailing see Mitchell, I. (2014). Tradition and Innovation in English Retailing, 1700 to 1850.
27
See, in particular, Wesley, J. (1743). The Nature, Design and General Rules of the United
Societies, in London, Bristol, King’s-Wood, and Newcastle upon Tyne, Baker Catalogue #43; the
definitive edition is in Works, Societies, 68–79. See also Wesley, J. (1743). An Earnest Appeal to
Men of Reason and Religion, Baker Catalogue #47; the definitive edition is in Works, Appeals,
43–94.
28
Grindrod, E. (1842). A Compendium of the Laws and Regulations of Wesleyan Methodism;
Pocock, W. W. (1885). ‘Early Methodist Finance. First paper.’ Wesleyan-Methodist Magazine,
760–7; Pocock, W. W. (1885). ‘Early Methodist Finance. Second paper.’ Wesleyan-Methodist
Magazine, 886–94. As another example, Methodist Union in 1932 was the occasion of the
publication of Sturdy, W. A. (1932). Methodist Finance.
6 The Financing of John Wesley’s Methodism c.1740–1800

Primitive Church.29 Finally, the controversies which rocked the movement

after his death generated a profusion of publications supporting or attacking
specific stances on Connexional governance, such as those triggered by Alex-
ander Kilham’s campaign for greater lay involvement in the mid 1790s.30
There was significant further debate about the state of Methodist finances in
the early nineteenth century.31
The analysis below draws on these, as on more recent work by Baker,
Hempton, Tyson, and others;32 but its main foundation is a close reading of
a selection of Wesleyan and related financial records from the mid to late
eighteenth century. Accounting historians have been criticized for focusing on
historical accountancy instruction manuals rather than extant financial rec-
ords, but this study is grounded in the latter: it examines what Wesleyan
Methodists did, as well as what they said.33
There have been studies of local sets of accounts,34 and overviews of the
national organization, but few attempts at an overall financial appraisal of
eighteenth century Wesleyanism in the British Isles. Batty’s 1990 article stands
almost alone as a modern study of Connexional finances, though it draws
predominantly on the published national accounts;35 Rogal’s 2002 book fo-
cuses on John Wesley’s personal situation;36 Shetler’s recent article is also
specific in its focus.37
There is a range of reasons why this gap should be filled. First, it is abundantly
clear that financial issues were a constant and substantial preoccupation for

29
An example is the 1888 A Handbook of Scriptural Church Principles and of Wesleyan-
Methodist Polity and History.
30
See, for example, Kilham, A. (1796). Free Enquiry, Mutual Deliberation, and Liberty of
Conscience. Alexander Kilham (1762–1798) became a Wesleyan preacher in 1785. After Wesley’s
death, he attacked the secretiveness of the Connexional leadership and advocated that the laity
should have a greater say. He was expelled by the Wesleyan Conference in 1796, and in 1797
founded the New Connexion, recruiting some 5,000 Wesleyans. Key sources: MABI, accessed
January 2015; and Blackwell, J. (1838). Life of the Rev. Alexander Kilham.
31
As in Duke I, D-3 Pam. #680: Ward, V. (1818). Free and Candid Strictures on Methodism.
32
Baker, F. (1965). ‘The people called Methodists—Polity’, in Davies, R. E. and E. G. Rupp
(eds.). A History of the Methodist Church in Great Britain, Vol. 1, 213–55; Hempton, D. ‘A tale of
preachers and beggars: Methodism and money in the great age of transatlantic expansion,
1780–1830’, in Noll, M. A. (2002). God and Mammon, 123–46; Tyson, J. R. (1997). ‘Why Did
John Wesley “Fail”? A reappraisal of Wesley’s evangelical economics’, Methodist History, 35 (3)
(April 1997), 176–87.
33
Fleischman, R. K. and T. N. Tyson. (1993). ‘Cost Accounting during the Industrial
Revolution: the present state of historical knowledge’, Economic History Review, New Series,
46 (3), 503–17, at 510.
34
An important example is Lloyd, G. (2002), ‘Eighteenth-century Methodism and the London
poor’, in Heitzenrater, R. P. (ed.). (2002). The Poor and the People Called Methodists, 121–30.
35
Batty, M. (1990). ‘John Wesley's struggle with Methodist finance’, Bulletin of the Wesley
Historical Society, North East Branch 53, 3–12; 54, 5–13.
36
Rogal, S. J. (2002). The Financial Aspects of John Wesley’s British Methodism.
37
Shetler, B. (2015). ‘Prophet and profit: John Wesley, publishing, and the Arminian Magazine’,
Methodist History, 53 (2) (January), 85–100.
 Introduction 7

contemporary Wesleyan Methodists, at every level. They were a major feature of

one of the earliest reported meetings of local societies, the 1748 Yorkshire gather-
ing recorded by John Bennet.38 Almost forty years later, a sympathetic non-
Methodist observed an 82-year-old Wesley visiting Bewdley in Worcestershire:
His apostolic visits are very short . . . Yet I find there is a good deal done in this
short space of time. For he gives them 2 prayers & a sermon then takes a friendly
repast with them: & settles accounts towards supporting their stated teachers,
who instruct them in his absence.39
In consequence, a history of Wesleyan Methodism which did not address its
financial underpinnings would simply be incomplete.
Second, our understanding of the spiritual and ecclesiological development
of Wesleyan Methodism can be enhanced through considering how it ac-
quired and deployed its money. Thus, for example, permanent chapels, though
largely absent in the movement’s first decade, came to form the centre of
gravity for local Wesleyan Methodist activity, providing a base for corporate
worship and collective social action, but also imposing new demands in terms
of capital finance and running costs, management time and tax liabilities.
Third, although there was a broad continuity in the language deployed by
Wesleyan Methodists, notably in rooting their polity in that of the Primitive
Church, their financial practice changed significantly over the period. This
reflected a number of developments, including the substantial growth in the
scale and geographical reach of the movement, its widening portfolio of
activities, and the ever-changing social, political, and economic context within
which it operated.
Fourth, the financial development of Wesleyan Methodism offers insights
into the relative success of the movement when compared to other offshoots of
the Evangelical Revival, such as the Countess of Huntingdon’s Connexion, and
to other more established religious groups, not least the Church of England.40
Neither the continued growth of John Wesley’s Connexion, nor the eclipse
of Lady Huntingdon’s, was inevitable: countless decisions by Wesley and his
leadership team, which often comprised their tacit acceptance of emerging
local practice rather than explicit strategic choices, contributed to the movement’s

38
See the letter of 22 October 1748 from John Bennet to John Wesley reporting on the
meeting, held on 18 October. Works, Letters II, 335–6.
39
Letter of 20 March 1786 from Samuel Kenrick to James Wodrow, Dr Williams’s Library,
Dr Williams’s Manuscripts Collection, The Wodrow-Kenrick Correspondence, MSS 24.157/113.
40
For other studies of the financing of religious movements see, for example, McCoog,
T. M. ‘ “Laid up treasure”: the finances of the English Jesuits in the seventeenth century’, and
McMillan, J. F., ‘The root of all evil? Money and the Scottish Catholic mission in the eighteenth
century’, both in Sheils, W. J. and D. Wood. (1987). The Church and Wealth, 257–66 and 267–82
respectively; and Arrington’s study of the development of Mormonism—Arrington, L. J. (1958).
Great Basin Kingdom.
8 The Financing of John Wesley’s Methodism c.1740–1800

resilience and durability. Specifically, it survived John Wesley’s demise. One of

his preachers expressed doubts about this in his journal:
March 2 1791. Mr. Wesley died at his house in London . . . I think I never felt such
distress of mind as I did on this occasion. I foresaw that as all power and authority
was vested in him there would certainly be an entire revolution. And whether
things might take a favourable or an unfavourable turn I could not say.41
Finally, the history of Wesleyan Methodist financial organization and practice
offers new perspectives on wider developments in eighteenth-century Britain.
The creation of a financially self-sufficient national voluntary association with
a mass membership drawn predominantly from working people—more than
half of them women—was in itself a striking achievement, with no obvious
parallels. Sometimes, as in the emergence of a popular print culture, the
Connexion was in the vanguard. Sometimes, as in the government’s efforts in
the 1790s to encourage voluntary welfare provision in order to restrain public
expenditure in wartime, it responded to external events. Similarly, the creation
of the framework of self-regulation which governed Wesleyan Methodism by
1800 paralleled developments found widely in contemporary society.42
For all of its continuing focus on its divine mission, the movement’s
engagement with the world was increasingly variegated and intense. The
early history of Wesleyan Methodism thus illuminates various aspects of the
current historiographical conversation about the period. As Corfield has
noted, the eighteenth century has been the subject of substantial recent
scholarly attention: she estimates that in the 1990s alone, more than 20,000
books and articles on the century were published by British historians.43
One of the principal debates concerns the extent to which the century can
be characterized primarily as one of continuity or change.44 This study
exemplifies how changes in daily practice and power relationships could and
did occur within the context of substantial continuity of public discourse and
formal organizational structures. It may thereby help to reduce the marginal-
ization of religion within eighteenth century historiography noted by Young;
and contribute to the ‘reunion of the religious and the secular . . . in the writing
of eighteenth-century history’ which he seeks.45

41
MARC, Methodist Diaries Collection, Box 15, MA1977/239, Journal of Samuel
Hodgson, 179.
42
Banks, S. (2014). Informal Justice in England and Wales 1760–1914, 53.
43
Corfield, P. (2011). ‘The Exploding Galaxy: historical studies of eighteenth-century Britain’,
Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies, 34 (4), 517–26, at 517.
44
The modern historiographical debate on this dates essentially from 1985—see Clark,
J. C. D. (1985). English Society, 1688–1832. Recent general histories which address the theme
include Black, J. (2001). Eighteenth-Century Britain 1688–1783; and Gibson, W. (2010). A Brief
History of Britain 1660–1851.
45
Young, B. W. (2000). ‘Religious history and the eighteenth-century historian’, The Historical
Journal, 43 (3), 849–68.
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
The Project Gutenberg eBook of The conquest of
cancer
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States
and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no
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you are located before using this eBook.

Title: The conquest of cancer

Author: H. W. S. Wright

Author of introduction, etc.: F. G. Crookshank

Release date: October 25, 2023 [eBook #71960]

Language: English

Original publication: London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co,

1925

Credits: Tim Lindell, Donald Cummings and the Online Distributed

Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was
produced from images made available by the HathiTrust
Digital Library.)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE

CONQUEST OF CANCER ***
THE CONQUEST OF CANCER
TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW
A List of the Contents of
this Series will be found
at the end of this volume
 THE
CONQUEST OF CANCER
BY

H. W. S. WRIGHT, M.S., F.R.C.S.

With an Introduction by

F. G. CROOKSHANK, M.D., F.R.C.P.

“Malum immedicabile cancer.” (Ovid, Met. x, 127)

London
KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRUBNER & CO., LTD.
New York: E. P. DUTTON & CO.
1925
 Printed in Great Britain by
F. Robinson & Co., at The Library Press, Lowestoft
 THE CONQUEST OF CANCER

INTRODUCTION
The phrase “Conquest of Cancer”, though perhaps emotive rather
than scientific, nevertheless implies the existence of a very real and
important problem. And this problem, it may be confidently affirmed,
is one that will never be solved, in action, by the efforts of the
medical profession alone. Whatever be the future, and as yet
reserved, revelations of Science, and whatever the further
developments of Art, cancer will not cease to exact its toll unless
medical science and art obtain the intelligent co-operation of an
instructed public. It is for this reason that it has been thought useful
to place before the public this little book, written by a practical
surgeon who has given special attention to the problems of the
laboratory. The book itself, which not only states in simple language
the essential points that should be comprehended by the public, but
puts forward a plan for concerted action, is based upon one of a
series of University Extension lectures given during the winter of
1922–23, at the Shantung Christian University, Tsinan, China, where
Mr Wright is actively engaged in the Surgical Department of the
School of Medicine.

The task of prefacing this essay by some words of introduction has

devolved upon the present writer, not because he either has, or
desires to present, any claim to speak with special authority
concerning Cancer, but by reason of a close personal and
professional friendship that has led him to appreciate very warmly
the knowledge, the sincerity, and the disinterestedness that
characterize Mr Wright’s thought and work. And he is confident that
we may accept what has been said about Cancer at Shantung as an
honest and candid attempt to instruct and to construct, in
detachment from the pribbles and prabbles that have sometimes
confused discussion nearer home.
Now, although the public has the undoubted right to demand
information on this subject, and although, as has been suggested,
without admission of the public to the arena of discussion little can
be done to diminish the present mortality from Cancer, yet is there
real difficulty in communicating knowledge, without engendering
unnecessary fear and alarm and sending the hypochondriac to those
quacks and charlatans who diagnose non-existent disease in order
that they may reap reward by announcing its cure.
Some weaker minds there will always be: so, whenever attention
is directed towards some public danger, there are those who adopt
the possible contingency as a peg on which to hang some ragged
vestment of distracted emotion or thought. Thirty years ago, the
insane feared the telephone: during the Boer War, many thought that
the “scouts were after them”; now-a-days lunatics babble of
persecution by wireless, by Bolsheviks, or even by psycho-analysts.
So, in Victorian times, the malades imaginaires who then thronged
consulting rooms spoke with bated breath of Bright’s disease: to-day,
the hysterical secretly hope to hear the blessed word “Colitis”, and
the hypochondriac as secretly dread the verdict of “Cancer”!
The task of the medical profession is to enlighten the laymen, that
their help may be enlisted, and yet to avoid alike exaggeration and
smooth sayings, false hopes and false fears. Macaulay, in a familiar
passage, once said that there is nothing more ridiculous than the
British public in one of its periodical fits of morality. At present, the
British Public is less concerned than formerly with questions of
morality, but is very much concerned with questions of health.
Perhaps it is not so much health that is sought and desired as
absence of pain and avoidance of death—which is not quite the
same thing. But, though there is nothing intrinsically ridiculous in
seeking the “advancement of morality” or the “conquest of disease”,
the one, no less than the other, may be pursued in a ridiculous and
dangerous manner.
 The adoption of ill-conceived measures, designed to improve
morals or to abolish disease, may, and often does entail
consequences that are even less desirable than the evils it is hoped
to combat. While the prohibition of the consumption or sale of
alcoholic drinks may diminish certain ills, it has yet to be shewn that
the casting out of devils in the name of Beelzebub may not be
followed by possession with others yet more violent. A few years ago
we were adjured to boil all milk, lest we became poisoned by certain
microbes: we are now told that, if all milk be boiled, we are as if
deprived of vitamines, and must suffer accordingly. Instances might
be multiplied; but it should be obvious that moral and physical health
must be considered, not as physical objects, but as relations, or
states of equilibrium. Like all states of adjustment or equilibrium, they
are the result of accommodation: of poise and counterpoise. They
are not always and everywhere to be secured by the throwing of a
certain weight into one or other scalepan, or by the cutting-off so
many inches from the table-leg that seems the longest. So much, at
least, should be recognised by a seriously disturbed public told by
the daily press that so many more people than formerly now die of
cancer; that science has not yet discovered the “cause of cancer”;
but that all may be well if only we live on Nebuchadnezzar food
washed down by paraffin.
Mr Wright’s essay, combining as it does a well-balanced and
sufficient statement of what is known, with the outline of a
constructive proposition that merits careful consideration, and at
least indicates to the public the kind of way in which relative safety
may be obtained under present conditions, seems one that is
eminently suitable for what may be called general reading. The
problem is fairly and lucidly presented: the resources of surgery are
quietly and reasonably demonstrated: and the advantages are
shown of exhibiting that kind of prudence which leads the business
man to seek auditing of his accounts and the sportsman to enquire
how his score stands. But some words may perhaps be added from
the standpoint of one who is a physician, and no surgeon.
 Cancer is a class name given to certain kinds of growths,
otherwise spoken of as tumours (or swellings) and ulcers, which are,
as we say, characterised by malignancy. A growth, tumour, or ulcer
which is not malignant is not called a cancer. By malignancy we
mean a tendency to spread, by local and direct extension (as
spreads a fire), or by convection, as when sparks fly from a
locomotive to a haystack. Malignant tumours or ulcers tend to recur
when removed, and, in the long run, to destroy life.
These general features are associated with certain microscopical
characters found in the tumours or ulcers, so that the nature of any
growth—whether malignant or otherwise—can be sometimes
determined by the surgeon or physician, and sometimes by the
pathologist or microscopist alone, but, as a rule, is most certainly
settled by the physician or surgeon acting in conjunction with the
microscopist. Yet, and this is important, not every cancer does
actually destroy life. Surgeons of the greatest experience, such as
the late Sir Alfred Pearce-Gould, have affirmed that undoubted
cancers do occasionally undergo spontaneous cure, or at least
arrest of growth, even in the absence of any treatment. Again, if
excision is practised early, and sufficiently extensively, recurrence
does not happen, in a certain proportion of cases. Finally, pain is no
necessary or inevitable concomitant of cancer. In many cases pain is
absent, or almost so; death may be due to mechanical
consequences entailed by the growth rather than to destruction of
any vital or sensitive part.
Now, medical men are in the habit of splitting up the group or class
of malignant growths (or “cancers”) into two subsidiary groups or
classes. One of these is named Sarcoma; the other Carcinoma.
Sarcoma is the name given to a group of malignant growths taking
origin in the structures and tissues developed from the “middle layer”
of the embryo: the growths themselves—sarcomata—partake the
nature of the tissues formed from this middle layer. The other group,
of carcinomata, consists of growths taking origin in, and partaking
the nature of one or other of the two remaining embryonic layers and
the structures developed from them.
These two layers form respectively:
 (1) The skin and related structures, and
(2) The lining of the tube passing through the body; its backwaters,
out-growths and appendages.
It is these two layers which, as Mr Wright so aptly remarks, are in
direct contact with the outer world. Now, while the carcinomata
(which constitute the class of cancers chiefly discussed in this book)
in general affect people who have passed the midpoint of life—those
for whom, as Rabelais says, it is midi passé—the sarcomata, which
are less common than the carcinomata, are rather more frequently,
yet not exclusively, found in young people; in those indeed, who
have not reached life’s apogee. It is important that these facts should
be borne in mind, for generalisations founded upon the study of
carcinomata alone cannot be necessarily true in respect of all
Cancer, unless the use of the term cancer be restricted to the class
technically known as carcinoma. To say that Cancer can be
prevented if constipation is avoided is clearly misleading, when we
remember that quite young children, nay, infants, may be the subject
of sarcoma; unless of course we define cancer, as some would do,
as the kind of growth that, ex hypothesi, is prevented when
constipation is avoided. It is confusion of this sort, bred by slovenly
expression out of loose thinking, that is in great part responsible for
the present bewilderment of the public.
Another fertile source of confusion is the obscurity that attends
both the popular and the professional use of the words “cause”,
“causation”, and the like. The public demands that “the” cause of
cancer be discovered, and is prepared to pay generously that this
discovery be made. Unfortunately neither the public, nor men of
science, care overmuch to discuss what they mean by cause and
causation. This is no place in which to trench upon a province
unsuccessfully explored by Locke, by Hume, and by Kant. Yet it is of
vital importance that all doctors, scientists, and laymen should
recognise two different uses of these words.
When we speak about “the” cause of a “disease”, in a generalised
or conceptual sense, as when we say that Koch’s bacillus is “the
cause of tuberculosis”, we are really defining our concept of the
disease in terms of one correlative. We are saying that tuberculosis
is a disease in which Koch’s bacillus is invariably present. A circulus
in definiendo is only just escaped because we happen to know that,
if Koch’s bacillus is injected into certain animals, the “disease” as we
say, develops. Koch’s bacillus is the one constant correlative found
in all cases of the kind that we agree to call tuberculous, by reason
of certain clinical and pathological signs that we find. Possibly even
this statement is not to be taken as absolutely true; though it
represents what we find it convenient to say. But, when we thus
declare Koch’s bacillus to be “the” cause of tuberculosis, we have by
no means exhausted the study of all the correlations that may be
called causal in respect of particular cases. Of ten cases of
tuberculosis, each one exhibiting Koch’s bacillus, we may say that
for each particular case “the” cause of the illness is different.
Thus:
A. is tuberculous because he was gassed in France;
B. is tuberculous because he was infected by his sick wife;
C. is tuberculous because he drank tuberculous milk;
D. is tuberculous because he worked in an ill-ventilated factory;
E. because he was exposed to wet and cold; and
F. because he drank and was dirty.
The difference between a medical cause in the generalised sense,
(where cause means a defining correlative for a concept), and a
medical cause in the particular sense (when we seek to find out or
state the antecedent without which this man would not be as he is
here and now) is one of enormous importance, and one that should
be constantly borne in mind when discussion is commenced. It is
true that it involves the oldest of logical and metaphysical problems
in respect of scientific thought—the question of universals and
particulars; but that does not make it any the more easily shirked. Its
relevance to the question of cancer is this: that the proof of the
production of cancer in men or in animals under one set of
circumstances does not warrant us in saying that that set of
circumstances as known to us involves all the factors without which
cancer cannot occur. And, even if research work demonstrated that,
in every case now called cancer, some parasite or growth-form,
some irritating factor that can be isolated, does actually obtain,
unless it could be shewn that this parasite or factor is never found
except where there is cancer as we now define it, we should have to
proceed to investigate why and how cancer does not always occur
when this factor is present. Just so are we at present seeking to
explain why and how, of so many persons exposed to infection by
Koch’s bacillus, only certain ones do become diseased. If we find
that only those persons who possess a character that we may call
“X” become infected, we shall then have to say that, not Koch’s
bacillus, but the character “X” is “the” cause of tuberculosis. It is thus
that science progresses: not by making the absolute and positive
discoveries that the public is taught to expect, but by arranging and
rearranging our experiential knowledge, as such grows, in terms of
so-called laws and generalisations, that are found progressively
convenient. But such laws and generalisations are not necessarily
the one more “true” than the other, except in relation to the
knowledge that they summarize. If such considerations as these
were more frequently borne in mind, there would be less
unconscious deception, less disappointment, and greater economy
in work and thought.
Explanations of the causation of cancer have been sought in many
directions; and three chief theories have been set out. The most
important, and the most interesting from the point of view of the
practising physician, is that which considers cancer as provoked by
long continued irritation under certain circumstances. This doctrine
seems more “true” in respect of the Carcinomata—the cancers of the
adult and the old, and of tissues in contact with the extra-personal
world—than it is in respect of the Sarcomata—the cancers of the
young, and of those inner parts not exposed to irritation by contact
with the world. Yet sarcomata in real life do often seem to follow
injury, and the tissues in which they form may be obnoxious to
injurious influences of which we know nothing.
Another view is that cancer may be due to a parasite of some kind
or another. Certainly, so far as some lower animals are concerned,
this is true, for certain rat and mice cancers are now known definitely
to be associated with parasites. But then we may say, and properly,
that in such cases the parasites are merely acting as do other
irritants, and are not “specific” causes of cancer.
The third doctrine, or set of doctrines, regards cancers as arising
when parts of the body (or rather, elements in the tissues of certain
parts) no longer act in due subordination to the needs of the whole
organism, but comport themselves “anti-socially”: developing
irregularly; propagating themselves illegitimately; and so becoming
parasitic to the commonwealth of the body. Those who hold this will
admit that, in many cases, this revolutionary tendency is one
provoked by irritation and the like: that sometimes it is a mere
manifestation of irregular decay; and that, when it occurs in young
subjects, it is because some islets of tissue have become misplaced,
tucked away, ill-formed, and hampered in development, and so liable
to provoke trouble later under stress of greater or less urgency. Such
a view has much plausibility; there are flaws in a steel girder; there
are tucked-in edges in even the best bound book, and there are
developmental errors in most of us.
Moreover, there is Dr Creighton’s doctrine of physiological
resistance. A part not put to its proper use is more apt than another
to become cancerous. Certainly, unmarried women are more liable
than are married to suffer cancer of the breast or ovary. Yet married
women are more apt than unmarried to suffer cancer of the womb.
Are we to say that in these latter there has been physiological
misuse, or irritation produced by unhealthy child-bearing? So far is
the problem removed from simplicity!
On the other hand, it is certainly as true as ever, that the gods still
cancel a sense misused, and, if we leave out of account for the
moment the cases in which cancer seems due to developmental
error—and who can say whether even then a child does not suffer
vicariously for some physiological transgression by its parents?—the
doctrine that cancer is due to irritation, whether produced by a clay
pipe, hot drinks, constipation, or crude paraffin, does not really tell us
much more than that. The difficulty is this: How to walk in the way of
physiological righteousness, and how to preach it, without falling into
a dogmatism as stupid as unbelief? Mr Wright tells us how, in
medieval times, the Church declared cancer of the tongue to be
sometimes a judgment on sinners for their blasphemy. Well, I for
one, am not prepared to limit the “misuse” that entails physical
disease and suffering to misuse in the material, or physiological
sense. Organs, through the nerves of the “sympathetic”, are directly
connected with the play of emotions and of feeling-states. I am not
sure that investigation would not shew a correlation—sometimes—
between certain persistent and voluntary mental states (morbid
mental states, that is) and the development of cancer in certain
organs. The “argument” that cancer is infrequent in lunatic asylums,
where the majority are mindless rather than wrongly thoughtful,
evades the question.
The quest for a single causal factor, whose “discovery” will lead us
to “abolish cancer”, is then, it would seem, just one more hunt for the
philosopher’s stone. Yet, to use the formula of “right living” does not
seem to be merely a verbal solution of the difficulty.
If we agree that to live rightly is the best insurance we can make
against cancer, we are probably stating, as compendiously as
possible, all we do and shall ever know, in respect of the causation
of cancer. It is then our duty to ascertain how to live rightly in every
sense of the word, and we may so come to realise that almost every
one of what we call the blessings of civilisation has been purchased
at the expense, in some respect, of right living. For this, heavy
interest has to be paid, and even the efforts of science to put matters
right seem too often not more than the borrowing of fresh capital to
pay off old debts. It is right to call attention to the fact that certain
“uncivilised” races, who live healthily and naturally in respect of food,
drink, and sexual activity, do not suffer from cancer. But it is wrong to
suggest that therefore we should adopt either their dietetic or their
sexual customs. What is one man’s meat is another man’s poison.
Adjustment to our surroundings, right living here and now is what we
need. Though Papuans and Sikhs may be very properly adjusted in
their contexts, it is not their adjustments that may best suit our
cases.
 This problem—that of right living—is the problem of prevention of
cancer put upon the broadest basis. But, until or unless we work this
out, we have to consider how best to avail ourselves of the
knowledge already in our possession. Herein is one merit of Mr
Wright’s plan. He tells people what, in his judgment, they can best
do, here and now. It is a plan to be discussed; but, let it be clearly
understood, it is one submitted by the author for individual
consideration and action. Supposing it to be found, on analysis and
trial, of real value, a cry might at once be raised for its putting into
execution by central or local provision of the necessary facilities: at
first for voluntary acceptance, then for compulsory adoption. Nothing
could be a greater error. In matters of health what is advantageous
for the individual is often not so, or even grossly disadvantageous,
for the State.
Let every member of the State have the opportunity to avail
himself or herself of what Science and Art can do for him: let none
who has the will suffer because he has not the means. But the too
easy provision of means for the avoidance of consequences of
neglect does, very seriously, put a premium on neglect and penalise
those who themselves make effort in the right direction. Again: hard
on individuals though it would seem, there is a very real racial
advantage in the elimination—natural and inevitable, unless we
interfere—of those who will not take advantage of opportunities
offered them. We are not automata: we exercise choice; when the
opportunity of choosing rightly is offered us, if then we choose
wrongly, we have no right to demand escape from the
consequences, at the expense of others.
At any rate, if the facts relating to Cancer are plainly stated, every
man has but himself to blame if he shrink from obtaining such
diagnosis and treatment, as is now available, at the earliest moment.
It were better still that he avoid from the beginning all what we know
to be predisposing causes of cancer: all the errors of omission and
commission in respect of the physiological and spiritual—or physical
and psychical—functions and relations of his Self.
It is the principle, the pursuit of the unattainable ideal, that really
counts. The simple injunction to eat greens and take paraffin is the
physiological counterpart of seeking to make people moral by act of
Parliament, religious by church-going, and intelligent by attendance
at evening lectures. But even if we make all possible effort, we
cannot all hope to escape, and the necessity for seeking early
diagnosis when things go not well is as imperative as is true the
maxim that “A stitch in time saves nine”.
There is perhaps one more question that may be touched upon:
that of the so-called increase of cancer. It is commonly stated that
cancer is increasing: it is as commonly asked if this is really so. As a
matter of fact, the question (which we are usually told can be only
answered by statisticians) is one that statisticians can only answer
when we have agreed what they are to understand by it. And that is
not so easy as may be at first thought.
It is certainly true that, in the British Isles, the number of deaths
certified each year as due to cancer of one form or another is
gradually and steadily increasing, both absolutely and relatively to
the population. But then we have in the first place, to consider
whether cancer is not diagnosed more frequently in ratio to the
cases seen than was formerly the case, and, in the second, to
remember that cancer is, on the whole, a disease suffered during the
second half of life. Now, our population is an older one than it was:
the birth-rate is falling: so many youths who would now be vigorous
men of thirty-five to forty lost their lives in the war; and lives are, on
the whole, longer than they were, owing to a diminishing liability to
suffer from certain ailments other than Cancer.
Supposing that children ceased to be born, at the same time that
the Ministry of Health succeeded in “abolishing” all diseases except
cancer, and the Home Office and Police reduced the probability of
death from accident, from homicide, and from suicide, to vanishing
point. Would we not then all die from either “old age” or from
“cancer”? If so; should we be justified in declaring that cancer had
“enormously increased” since the successful institution of control of
our own deaths and other peoples’ births?
We are, indeed, again confronted with the old problem of the one
and the many, under one of its numberless aspects. From the point