SPECTATOR COMPETITIONS—No. 7
Report by Dr.-C. K. Allen, K.C.
Excluding the Bible, state, with your reasons, in not more than 200 words, which three books you consider have, since the invention of printing, most influenced the thought and conduct of Western man.
Ever since I set this competition I have been fearing—only too rightly, as it turns out—the inadequacy of my own erudition to adjudicate on the learning of readers of the Spectator. One con- fident anticipation, however, has been fulfilled. An easy winner is Marx's Das Kapital. This seems to me so clearly right that I should not be disposed to consider for a first prize any list which omitted it. Next, and not far behind, is The Origin of Species. These lead the field by many lengths, and after them comes Rousseau's Contrat Social, with The Pilgrim's Progress, the works of Freud, Newton's Principia and Shakespeare closely following.
I had rather expected to be swamped by Mein Kampf, but it is mentioned only twice, and I conclude that most competitors con- sider (as I do) that a book so crude and hysterical can have had only an ephemeral influence. I am surprised that Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations is mentioned only twice. Though no economist, I should have supposed that this book marked a turning-point in international as well as national economics.
The other claimants range from Bacon to Descartes to Mrs. Beeton and the Atlas. Much though I esteem them, I cannot regard Sherlock Holmes, Oliver Twist, Wells's Short History of the World and Kip!Mg's poems as serious contestants. Philosophy has a good many adherents, law is rightly represented by Blackstone (Mr. Ellis Thorpe), and there is much to be said for Mr. R. B. Browning's selection of the Code Napoleon—unquestionably a work of world-wide influence, but difficult to regard as a " book " in the ordinary sense. Certainly literature makes strange bedfellows! Among the most unexpected, though by no means implausible, combinations are Marco Polo with Adam Smith and Uncle Tom (Miss S. Parke), and Hans Andersen with Shakespeare and the Atlas (Miss P. Willis).
The first duty of a competitor is to read the question, and I fear that not all have done so. Intending specially to exclude ancient philosophy and religious writings, I was careful to choose a period subsequent to the invention of printing, and consequently I must regard those competitors who have chosen works like Plato (and if Plato, why not Aristotle ?) or Justinian's Institutes as having disqualified themselves.
Again; I specified books which have influenced thought and conduct. Here, perhaps, I have placed myself in a difficulty, for it may well be argued that any book which greatly affects thought is bound also to affect conduct. That, no doubt, is the reason for the emphasis, from which I cannot dissent, laid on The Origin of Species and on Newton's Principia. Similarly, Mr. H. W. Armstrong and Mr. S. Tonkin give good reasons for selecting Descartes' Discourse on Method, and Mr. Armstrong very reason- ably adds Bacon's Novum Organum. Scientific works like Copernicus and Harvey's Circulation of the Blood (each mentioned once) w,ere also, no doubt, revolutionary. It is difficult to draw the line, and yet I think it is not unfair to say that some works of power and originality have had more obvious and immediate effects on the conduct of Western man than others which may be more remarkable in intellectual content ; and for that reason I am surprised that the Contrat Social has not found a higher place, for it is difficult to think of any book, except Marx's, which has had more effect on the practice as well as the theory of politics—and, be it remembered, on both sides of the Atlantic. Machiavelli has claims of a different kind, but was not ll Principe the offspring rather than the parent of contemporary political morality ? I doubt whether its creative influence was as great as Mr. Gordon Shoppee attributes to it. As for the works of pure imagination, like Shakespeare, I find it too difficult and uncertain to trace their effect upon conduct. Miss M. B. Fox, however, contributes an ingenious plea for the effect of Malory on European manners, and Miss Lilian F. Bridge makes out a good case for the influence of the Divina Commedia on religious life and thought.
I have not found the perfect trio, but I conceive my duty to be to reward a selection which is plausible in itself, and which gives its reasons in the most clear and concise terms. On that basis I award a first prize of £3 to Miss Rhoda Tuck Pook, though I deprecate the positiveness (which I cannot share) of her prefatory sentence. Miss Pook's first choice is a work which nobody else has thought of, and though a ponderous treatise in Latin could never be a " popular " book, there is no doubt that Grotius marked an epoch in international relations. A prize of £2 goes to Mr. H. G. Lyall, whose selection does not entirely convince me, but seems to me to be well and_succinctly presented.
FIRST PRIZE (Miss Rhoda Tuck Pook)
Six books in this category might have been impossible to choose. but there can scarcely be difference of opinion as to the most influential three. Grotius' De lure Belli ac Pacis was an historical inevitability. At the end of the mediaeval period when with the passing of the authority of Pope and Emperor, conditions of warfare had become intolerable, Grotius defined and founded international law by applying principles already acknowledged. Karl Marx's Das Kapital revalued man as a person and man in society, as well as the structure and conduct of the community itself. Of all the three books herein, its eventual consequences can least be fully measured. Darwin's Origin of Species did more than achieve its scientific purpose. Its danger to the conven- tional mind lay less in its theories than in its standing by the principle that thought must be logically followed through, even though the apparent foundations of religion and revelation be undermined in the process. If man owned a mind, le must pursue his findings to the ultimate, this being interpreted by Darwin's own generation as exchang- ing the Garden of Eden for the monkey-house.
SECOND PRIZE (Mr. H. G. Lyall)
The Pilgrim's Progress. Next to the Bible this is the book that has had the greatest spiritual influence. Whatever its place in the spiritual life of today, for past generations it was a powerful and sacred influence. Also, this, the greatest allegorical work of all time, has been a constant inspiration to subsequent writers. The Origin of Species. The impact of this epochal work is beyond'assessment. Not only did it give a new direction to the study of biology, but it shook the whole religious- philosophical structure that Western man had slowly built during a period of several thousand years. Das Kapital. Though in disagreement with Marx's philosophy and horrified by its influence, I realise that there can be few books—eligible for inclusion here—which have directly and indirectly influenced the thought and conduct of more people than has this one, and it is the indirect, as much as the direct, influence of these three books that I have considered.
Having made my selection I am shocked by its implications—the decline of man's belief in himself as the child of God to a belief in a harsh materialism as the be-all and end-all of life.
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