Patrick Edward Dove
Encyclopedia
Patrick Edward Dove was born at Lasswade
, near Edinburgh
in Scotland
. He is mainly remembered for his book The Theory of Human Progression of 1850 which sets out his philosophy
that land should be in common ownership, with the economic rent
on the land taking the place of other taxes, an idea generally known as Georgism
.
, near Peterborough
(son of Bishop Thomas Dove). His branch of the family had connections with the Royal Navy
going back to 1716 when they moved to Devon
shire where the family still live. His father, Lieutenant Henry Dove RN, retired from active service with the Navy at the end of the Napoleonic wars
in 1815, taking up an appointment at Deal, Kent
connected with the Cinque Ports
. Edward was educated in England and in France
, where he was expelled from the Academy for leading a rebellion against the master. He greatly desired a career in the navy, but his father would not allow this and in 1830 Edward was sent to Scotland to learn farming. Following this he spent time in Paris
, in Spain
and in London
, where he impressed a friend by his "enormous energy, both physical and mental".
In 1841 he took the Craig estate near Ballantrae
, Ayrshire
, and lived the quiet life of a country gentleman. He was a first-rate horseman, took up fly-fishing and sailing, was an excellent shot and showed mechanical abilities, contributing the article on gunmaking to the 8th edition of Encyclopaedia Britannica. As well as becoming an agricultural adviser to neighbouring farmers, during the potato famine he put his energies into providing work for his starving neighbours. Since he disapproved of the game laws, he had no gamekeeper
on his estate to stop poaching
.
An unfortunate investment led to him losing most of his fortune in 1848, then in 1849 he married Ann Forrester, daughter of an Edinburgh solicitor. They spent the next year in Darmstadt
, Germany
, where he continued his interest in philosophy
; studying, lecturing and writing.
The book was praised by Thomas Carlyle
as the voice of a new revolution in education and economics, and the philosopher Sir William Hamilton
spoke of it rallying mankind to great reforms. Charles Sumner
had copies made and circulated them in the United States
, subsequently persuading Dove to write an article opposing slavery titled The Elder and Younger Brother which appeared in the Boston Commonwealth on 21 September 1853. Despite such praise the book was not a popular success, however some scholarly interest continued. In 1884 Henry George
praised the book at a public meeting in Glasgow
, and Dove is now seen as a forerunner of the idea known as Georgism
.
which has lately been revived by an anti-evolution
movement. However Dove does not discuss biological evolution, though Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation
had brought ideas of transmutation of species
to public attention in 1844, and uses the term evolution to refer to the development of "a genuine natural theology
". He reasons that intuitive perception of a "primordial force" in the works of nature, if only matter is thought to be objective, leads to pantheism
, "the theological credence of a large portion of the scientific men on the continent". This appears to refer to the ideas of natural laws
put forward by writers such as Auguste Comte
which had influenced the inception of Darwin's theory, a theory which would not be made public until 1858. Dove contends that to achieve a "scientific exit" from pantheism the "primordial force" must be perceived as an intelligent agent, then notes that the adaption of matter for the achievement of ends has been called design, a reference to the natural theology of the day.
back to Edinburgh
, where he gave lectures at the Philosophical Institution, the subject in 1853 being Heroes of the Commonwealth. In succeeding years he lectured on The Wild Sports of Scotland and The Crusades. In April 1853 he became captain of the Midlothian Rifle Club, and in 1854 as well as editing the Witness during the illness of a friend, he published the second volume of his treatise, Elements of Political Science. This was followed by Romanism, Rationalism and Protestant in defence of Protestantism
. He then wrote the concluding third volume of his treatise which remained unpublished and has been lost.
He published The Logic of the Christian Faith, then in 1858 The Revolver which suggests ideas for rifle clubs and defence of the country as well as lamenting the Highland clearances
. That year he moved to Glasgow
and edited the Commonwealth newspaper as well as the Imperial Dictionary of Biography and jointly edited the Imperial Journal of the Arts and Sciences. He also wrote the Encyclopaedia Britannica article on Government and devised a rifled cannon with advantages in range and accuracy, but was unable to afford further testing which the ordnance committee requested. He took command of the 91st Lanarkshire rifle volunteers in 1859 and in the next year won several prizes at the first meeting of the National Rifle Association
at Wimbledon Common
, but then suffered a stroke causing paralysis. In May 1862 he went to convalesce in the Colony of Natal
, South Africa
, returning the following April, then died a year later. By this time slavery in the United States had been abolished.
Lasswade
Lasswade is a civil parish and village in Midlothian, Scotland, on the River North Esk, nine miles south of Edinburgh city centre, between Dalkeith and Loanhead...
, near Edinburgh
Edinburgh
Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland, the second largest city in Scotland, and the eighth most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council governs one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas. The council area includes urban Edinburgh and a rural area...
in Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
. He is mainly remembered for his book The Theory of Human Progression of 1850 which sets out his philosophy
Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
that land should be in common ownership, with the economic rent
Economic rent
Economic rent is typically defined by economists as payment for goods and services beyond the amount needed to bring the required factors of production into a production process and sustain supply. A recipient of economic rent is a rentier....
on the land taking the place of other taxes, an idea generally known as Georgism
Georgism
Georgism is an economic philosophy and ideology that holds that people own what they create, but that things found in nature, most importantly land, belong equally to all...
.
Early life
Patrick Dove came from a family of distinguished clergymen and landowners. He was descended from Sir William Dove of UptonUpton, Cambridgeshire
Upton is a civil parish in Peterborough, Cambridgeshire, England. For electoral purposes it forms part of Glinton and Wittering ward in North West Cambridgeshire constituency....
, near Peterborough
Peterborough
Peterborough is a cathedral city and unitary authority area in the East of England, with an estimated population of in June 2007. For ceremonial purposes it is in the county of Cambridgeshire. Situated north of London, the city stands on the River Nene which flows into the North Sea...
(son of Bishop Thomas Dove). His branch of the family had connections with the Royal Navy
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...
going back to 1716 when they moved to Devon
Devon
Devon is a large county in southwestern England. The county is sometimes referred to as Devonshire, although the term is rarely used inside the county itself as the county has never been officially "shired", it often indicates a traditional or historical context.The county shares borders with...
shire where the family still live. His father, Lieutenant Henry Dove RN, retired from active service with the Navy at the end of the Napoleonic wars
Napoleonic Wars
The Napoleonic Wars were a series of wars declared against Napoleon's French Empire by opposing coalitions that ran from 1803 to 1815. As a continuation of the wars sparked by the French Revolution of 1789, they revolutionised European armies and played out on an unprecedented scale, mainly due to...
in 1815, taking up an appointment at Deal, Kent
Deal, Kent
Deal is a town in Kent England. It lies on the English Channel eight miles north-east of Dover and eight miles south of Ramsgate. It is a former fishing, mining and garrison town...
connected with the Cinque Ports
Cinque Ports
The Confederation of Cinque Ports is a historic series of coastal towns in Kent and Sussex. It was originally formed for military and trade purposes, but is now entirely ceremonial. It lies at the eastern end of the English Channel, where the crossing to the continent is narrowest...
. Edward was educated in England and in France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, where he was expelled from the Academy for leading a rebellion against the master. He greatly desired a career in the navy, but his father would not allow this and in 1830 Edward was sent to Scotland to learn farming. Following this he spent time in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, in Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
and in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, where he impressed a friend by his "enormous energy, both physical and mental".
In 1841 he took the Craig estate near Ballantrae
Ballantrae
Ballantrae is a community in Carrick, South Ayrshire, Scotland. The name probably comes from the Scottish Gaelic Baile na Tràgha, meaning the "town by the beach"....
, Ayrshire
Ayrshire
Ayrshire is a registration county, and former administrative county in south-west Scotland, United Kingdom, located on the shores of the Firth of Clyde. Its principal towns include Ayr, Kilmarnock and Irvine. The town of Troon on the coast has hosted the British Open Golf Championship twice in the...
, and lived the quiet life of a country gentleman. He was a first-rate horseman, took up fly-fishing and sailing, was an excellent shot and showed mechanical abilities, contributing the article on gunmaking to the 8th edition of Encyclopaedia Britannica. As well as becoming an agricultural adviser to neighbouring farmers, during the potato famine he put his energies into providing work for his starving neighbours. Since he disapproved of the game laws, he had no gamekeeper
Gamekeeper
A gamekeeper is a person who manages an area of countryside to make sure there is enough game for shooting, or fish for angling, and who actively manages areas of woodland, moorland, waterway or farmland for the benefit of game birds, deer, fish and wildlife in general.Typically, a gamekeeper is...
on his estate to stop poaching
Poaching
Poaching is the illegal taking of wild plants or animals contrary to local and international conservation and wildlife management laws. Violations of hunting laws and regulations are normally punishable by law and, collectively, such violations are known as poaching.It may be illegal and in...
.
An unfortunate investment led to him losing most of his fortune in 1848, then in 1849 he married Ann Forrester, daughter of an Edinburgh solicitor. They spent the next year in Darmstadt
Darmstadt
Darmstadt is a city in the Bundesland of Hesse in Germany, located in the southern part of the Rhine Main Area.The sandy soils in the Darmstadt area, ill-suited for agriculture in times before industrial fertilisation, prevented any larger settlement from developing, until the city became the seat...
, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, where he continued his interest in philosophy
Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
; studying, lecturing and writing.
The Theory of Human Progression
While Dove was still in Darmstadt, his book The Theory of Human Progression, and Natural Probability of a Reign of Justice was published anonymously in 1850 as a limited edition, both in London and Edinburgh. This was to be the first part of a treatise on "a Science of politics", defining science as "nature seen by the reason, and not merely by the senses. Science exists in the mind, and in the mind alone." In it he set out his thesis that "the land produces, according to the law of the Creator, more than the value of the labor expended upon it, and on this account men are willing to pay a rent for the land", this rent being "the profit that God had graciously been pleased to accord to human industry employed in the cultivation of the soil". He saw the land as a gift of the Creator to all men, which should therefore be common rather than private property, but dividing the land into equal shares would be impractical, so the rent should be shared in common, effectively replacing all other taxes.The book was praised by Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle was a Scottish satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher during the Victorian era.He called economics "the dismal science", wrote articles for the Edinburgh Encyclopedia, and became a controversial social commentator.Coming from a strict Calvinist family, Carlyle was...
as the voice of a new revolution in education and economics, and the philosopher Sir William Hamilton
Sir William Hamilton, 9th Baronet
Sir William Hamilton, 9th Baronet was a Scottish metaphysician.-Early life:He was born in Glasgow. He was from an academic family, including Robert Hamilton, the economist...
spoke of it rallying mankind to great reforms. Charles Sumner
Charles Sumner
Charles Sumner was an American politician and senator from Massachusetts. An academic lawyer and a powerful orator, Sumner was the leader of the antislavery forces in Massachusetts and a leader of the Radical Republicans in the United States Senate during the American Civil War and Reconstruction,...
had copies made and circulated them in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, subsequently persuading Dove to write an article opposing slavery titled The Elder and Younger Brother which appeared in the Boston Commonwealth on 21 September 1853. Despite such praise the book was not a popular success, however some scholarly interest continued. In 1884 Henry George
Henry George
Henry George was an American writer, politician and political economist, who was the most influential proponent of the land value tax, also known as the "single tax" on land...
praised the book at a public meeting in Glasgow
Glasgow
Glasgow is the largest city in Scotland and third most populous in the United Kingdom. The city is situated on the River Clyde in the country's west central lowlands...
, and Dove is now seen as a forerunner of the idea known as Georgism
Georgism
Georgism is an economic philosophy and ideology that holds that people own what they create, but that things found in nature, most importantly land, belong equally to all...
.
Intelligent design
The index and heading to page 476 uses the words Intelligence – intelligent design, and this is now seen as one of the first uses of the term intelligent designIntelligent design
Intelligent design is the proposition that "certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection." It is a form of creationism and a contemporary adaptation of the traditional teleological argument for...
which has lately been revived by an anti-evolution
Evolution
Evolution is any change across successive generations in the heritable characteristics of biological populations. Evolutionary processes give rise to diversity at every level of biological organisation, including species, individual organisms and molecules such as DNA and proteins.Life on Earth...
movement. However Dove does not discuss biological evolution, though Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation
Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation
Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation is a unique work of speculative natural history published anonymously in England in 1844. It brought together various ideas of stellar evolution with the progressive transmutation of species in an accessible narrative which tied together numerous...
had brought ideas of transmutation of species
Transmutation of species
Transmutation of species was a term used by Jean Baptiste Lamarck in 1809 for his theory that described the altering of one species into another, and the term is often used to describe 19th century evolutionary ideas that preceded Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection...
to public attention in 1844, and uses the term evolution to refer to the development of "a genuine natural theology
Natural theology
Natural theology is a branch of theology based on reason and ordinary experience. Thus it is distinguished from revealed theology which is based on scripture and religious experiences of various kinds; and also from transcendental theology, theology from a priori reasoning.Marcus Terentius Varro ...
". He reasons that intuitive perception of a "primordial force" in the works of nature, if only matter is thought to be objective, leads to pantheism
Pantheism
Pantheism is the view that the Universe and God are identical. Pantheists thus do not believe in a personal, anthropomorphic or creator god. The word derives from the Greek meaning "all" and the Greek meaning "God". As such, Pantheism denotes the idea that "God" is best seen as a process of...
, "the theological credence of a large portion of the scientific men on the continent". This appears to refer to the ideas of natural laws
Physical law
A physical law or scientific law is "a theoretical principle deduced from particular facts, applicable to a defined group or class of phenomena, and expressible by the statement that a particular phenomenon always occurs if certain conditions be present." Physical laws are typically conclusions...
put forward by writers such as Auguste Comte
Auguste Comte
Isidore Auguste Marie François Xavier Comte , better known as Auguste Comte , was a French philosopher, a founder of the discipline of sociology and of the doctrine of positivism...
which had influenced the inception of Darwin's theory, a theory which would not be made public until 1858. Dove contends that to achieve a "scientific exit" from pantheism the "primordial force" must be perceived as an intelligent agent, then notes that the adaption of matter for the achievement of ends has been called design, a reference to the natural theology of the day.
Further work
Dove moved from GermanyGermany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
back to Edinburgh
Edinburgh
Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland, the second largest city in Scotland, and the eighth most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council governs one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas. The council area includes urban Edinburgh and a rural area...
, where he gave lectures at the Philosophical Institution, the subject in 1853 being Heroes of the Commonwealth. In succeeding years he lectured on The Wild Sports of Scotland and The Crusades. In April 1853 he became captain of the Midlothian Rifle Club, and in 1854 as well as editing the Witness during the illness of a friend, he published the second volume of his treatise, Elements of Political Science. This was followed by Romanism, Rationalism and Protestant in defence of Protestantism
Protestantism
Protestantism is one of the three major groupings within Christianity. It is a movement that began in Germany in the early 16th century as a reaction against medieval Roman Catholic doctrines and practices, especially in regards to salvation, justification, and ecclesiology.The doctrines of the...
. He then wrote the concluding third volume of his treatise which remained unpublished and has been lost.
He published The Logic of the Christian Faith, then in 1858 The Revolver which suggests ideas for rifle clubs and defence of the country as well as lamenting the Highland clearances
Highland Clearances
The Highland Clearances were forced displacements of the population of the Scottish Highlands during the 18th and 19th centuries. They led to mass emigration to the sea coast, the Scottish Lowlands, and the North American colonies...
. That year he moved to Glasgow
Glasgow
Glasgow is the largest city in Scotland and third most populous in the United Kingdom. The city is situated on the River Clyde in the country's west central lowlands...
and edited the Commonwealth newspaper as well as the Imperial Dictionary of Biography and jointly edited the Imperial Journal of the Arts and Sciences. He also wrote the Encyclopaedia Britannica article on Government and devised a rifled cannon with advantages in range and accuracy, but was unable to afford further testing which the ordnance committee requested. He took command of the 91st Lanarkshire rifle volunteers in 1859 and in the next year won several prizes at the first meeting of the National Rifle Association
National Rifle Association of the United Kingdom
The National Rifle Association of the United Kingdom is the governing body of full bore rifle and pistol shooting sports in the United Kingdom.- History :...
at Wimbledon Common
Wimbledon and Putney Commons
Wimbledon Common is a large open space in Wimbledon south-west London, totalling 460 hectares . There are three named areas: Wimbledon Common, Putney Heath, and Putney Lower Common which together are managed under the name Wimbledon and Putney Commons...
, but then suffered a stroke causing paralysis. In May 1862 he went to convalesce in the Colony of Natal
Colony of Natal
The Colony of Natal was a British colony in south-eastern Africa. It was proclaimed a British colony on May 4, 1843 after the British government had annexed the Boer Republic of Natalia, and on 31 May 1910 combined with three other colonies to form the Union of South Africa, as one of its...
, South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
, returning the following April, then died a year later. By this time slavery in the United States had been abolished.