Weston may be a caricature of Cecil John Rhodes (1853-1902) an English South African businessman and imperialist politician. Like Rhodes, Weston, while supremely capable, is racist, amoral, and rapacious, and hates God and religion. In a passing comment in That Hideous Strength, it is said that Great Britain has produced both heroes and villains, that for every King Arthur, there is a traitor Mordred, for every Sydney (the Renaissance poet), there is a Cecil Rhodes. In "Perelandra", Weston mentions his liking of the book of which Rhodes said "it made me who I am”: Winwood Reade's The Martyrdom of Man, which expounded the ideology of secular humanism. Professor Weston may also stand for the scientific elitism that despises all other types of knowledge.