British novelist Burnet Mayfield.
The Moral Imperative was an 1893 novel by British novelist Burnet Mayfield. The novel concerns a missionary who travels to the Congo and leads the peoples of the region to Christianity and industrialization.
Although Sobel characterizes The Moral Imperative as badly written, the book found a wide readership in Britain, and an even more enthusiastic audience in the Confederation of North America. The novel gave rise to a social movement of the same name that was popular among Darwinian scientists, journalists, poets, and politicians, many of whom were in Great Britain's Tory Party, but whose counterparts could be found in every nation of Europe and the Americas. Members of the social movement believed that it was the "moral imperative" of their nation to bring the blessings of civilization to less fortunate peoples.