Jonathan Dymond

Jonathan Dymond (1796–1828) was an English Quaker and an ethical philosopher who is known for his monograph An Enquiry into the Accordancy of War with the Principles of Christianity.

Life Jonathan Dymond was the son of a Quaker linen-draper of Exeter, England. Both his parents were 'Recorded Ministers' of the Society of Friends. He had little formal education but used his time off from working in his father's shop to read and to write essays on religious and moral problems, as well as composing poetry. He determined that he should devote his energies to 'the honour of advocating peace'. In his view war was "an evil before which, in my estimation, slavery sinks into insignificance". In 1825 he attended the annual meeting of the Peace Society in London and went on to help set up a branch of that society in Exeter. He soon had to withdraw from taking an active part due to his failing health.

Observations on the Applicability of the Pacifist Principles of the New Testament on the Conduct of States, and on the Limitations which those principles impose on the Rights of Self-defence. London Peace Society Tract No. VII, 1825 [British Library #001023074]

Essays on the Principles of Morality, and on the Private and Political Rights and Obligations of Mankind. In two volumes, Hamilton, Adams & Co, 1829 [British Library #001023056]

Memoir, letters and poems of Jonathan Dymond : with bibliographical supplements: Charles William Dymond: privately printed, Bristol, 1911 [British Library # 007585688]

Views

Dymond was a fervent antimilitarist. He saw armies as enemies of liberty and physical and moral subjection as a necessary condition of army life. The opinion he voiced prefigures some of the later objections to conscription made by Quakers and other conscientious objectors.