talk, who digest it with their lonely meal, and they have risen in a plain intelligible who chew the cud of it as they take their shape, against which no soft words, or sosalutary walks abroad, who seem to meet phistries will induce the English nation with authorities to support it in every vo- to close their eyes. They are the natural lume they open, who dream of nothing and necessary developments-Chartism else, and who can get no restful sleep at night till they have been safely delivered of it in the shape of a pamphlet.

ART. VI.-1. Speech of the Right Reverend the Lord Bishop of Exeter on So

cialism. London. 1840. 2. Weekly Tales and Tracts. Under the Sanction of the Lord Bishop of Ripon. Edited by the Rev. W. F. Hook, D.D., Vicar of Leeds. London. 1839-40.

of Whig principles, Socialism of Dissent. They are, in fact, nothing but Whiggism and Dissent pushed to their legitimate consequences. Of Chartism we do not intend to speak; but the Socialist system has been so recently brought before the legislature by the Bishop of Exeter, to whom the Church and the country are deeply indebted for his exposure of its enormities, assuredly not before it was required, that we cannot be charged with needlessly drawing public attention to a loathsome subject, if we make some observations upon it.

The following are the fundamental principles of this society: -

As no little complaint has been made of misrepresentation, it should be underWe do not think any man of a serious stood, purposely encouraged, by using temper can look back upon the course of more moderate language in one set of events in this country during the last ten publications, and leaving the same princiyears, without tracing, through all the ples, in their gross and violent form, to be gathering evils, with which it has been advocated by the missionaries of the socrowded, a mysterious providential hand, ciety as individuals,-it will be best to bewhich seems to be preparing good for us, gin with a brief abstract of the last manilittle as we have deserved it. For the fu- festo produced in answer to the Bishop of ture historian of England, it will afford Exeter's accusation :-and we shall, in indeed a melancholy page, full of corrupt limine, give the Section 'Principles' in principles, of weak concessions, of violent the very words of Mr. Owen. changes, and of convulsions, which threaten to end in bloodshed at home, and dismemberment of empire abroad. But yet there are consolatory features. A power, pound character: first, as he is organized at birth, That man is a being formed to have a comwhich we cannot see, has been reviving before he has received any direct impressions from at the same time a spirit to cope with, if external objects; and, second, as he is subsequent. not to avert, these coming ills-a spirit ly made to become, by the influence of external to recognise and reverence truth, to prac-action of experienced man or society on infant or objects upon his organization, especially by the tise and inculcate obedience, to breathe inexperienced man. a new life into our dead forms, and decayed belief. It has raised up, one by one, conjunctures and dangers, which have developed new truths, or rather have recalled the old. It has staved off, again and again, some of the most fatal blows aimed at the constitution of the Church; and has opened the eyes of men to the mistakes of modern self-guided reformers, as much as to the necessity of reform. But of all these providential circumstances to be humbly and gratefully acknowledged none appear, humanly speaking, so likely to do good, as the permission given to two new curses to rise up for a time among us, and to startle us into sober reflection-Socialism and Chartism. They created to be a responsible being, in the ordinary have been permitted to arise before their acceptation of the term. but that he is left to extime, while there are yet truths and hearts teach all in the best possible manner-through the perience the necessary effects of his conduct, which in the country capable of facing them-sensations of pain and pleasure-the means of in

That all man's feelings are formed for him, by its reaction. external objects acting upon his organization, and

That all his convictions are formed for him by the action of external objects upon his organization, and its reaction.

him by the convictions or feelings separately, or by That his will, or decision to act, is formed for the convictions and feelings unitedly, which have been formed for him by the action of external circumstances upon his organization.

That man is so organized as to act in accordmay be the strongest at the moment of action, or ance with his convictions or his feelings, whichever to act in obedience to these convictions and feelings when united, and which nature and society com

bined have caused him to receive.
lectual, and moral, is formed FOR him.
The whole character of man, physical, intel.

It is therefore evident that man has NOT been

creasing happiness; and through this knowledge, drilles for the solemnities of worshipadult man, or society, may effect the greatest im- the material world as their God-and provement in the character and condition of infant man, and of the human race. blasphemous threepenny tracts for prayer books and bibles.

A knowledge of the unerring and unchanging laws of nature, derived from accurate and extended observation of the works of the great creating

power of the Universe, and the PRACTICE of CHARITY for the feelings, convictions, and conduct of all men, consequent upon such knowledge, constitute the Rational Religion,

All members of this society shall have equal right to express their opinions respecting the Supreme Power of the Universe, and to worship it under any form, or in any manner, agreeable to their consciences, not interfering with equal rights in others."*

I. The holders of these 'principles' propose then, in the first place, as a novel invention, to found a Catholic Society, embracing men of all countries and colours-but with the addition of this real

novelty, that it is to include all men alike, good or bad-without professing to make, or allow, the slightest distinction between one and the other-thus carrying out fully the principles of toleration and non-distinction, under which we are now happily living.

II. They promise to make all men, without exception, good, happy, and richgood, without any temptation to exercise goodness-happy, without any pain or want, to give zest to enjoyment, and rich, without any poverty by which to measure riches.

V. They will found schools, so admirably managed, that the masters shall teach nothing but what is true; the children do only what they are bid; and where especially they will learn at once, intelligibly and distinctly, the grand truth, which the new government schools only obscurely intimate, that all religions are alike a farce.*

VI. And here is the great blot, which, we trust, they will find some means of correcting. This society will have taxes, loans, poor laws, hospitals, benefit clubs, a national, or rather social debt, with pensions, salaried officers, benevo. lor of the Exchequer, and, we have_no lences, as in the olden times-a Chanceldoubt, abundance of Mr. Humes. But as this part of the system is no new discovery, although the projectors, by the gravity of its announcement, seem to imagine that it is, we need not dwell on it at length.

VII. As they have also discovered that Manchester wares, and Sheffield cutlery, without something to eat, they propose and Birmingham dolls are of little use to cultivate the ground by means of farmers, who will raise corn in exchange

corn laws.

III. They intend to abolish from hence- for manufactures. A very brilliant forth all rods, gaols, gibbets, judges, turn- where we are writing has been practisturn-thought-but which in the country keys, soldiers, constables and policemen. where we are writing has been practisThey will make all men do, as they think ed for many centuries; and which also right, by talking, and talking only. And sounds strange from the abolitionists of as the present system of government is full of evil, they will reform it by establishing another, conducted on the same principle, namely, that the proper office of a government is to allow its subjects to govern themselves.

and

VIII. But their grandest discovery is all likings and dislikings, praise still to come. From this time forward be banished from this happy worldblame, punishments and rewards, are to IV. As this wonderful improvement likewise all words implying will, choice, will at first require agitation, but an agi- duty, liberty, virtue, vice, preference, detation after the most approved fashion of liberation, command, freedom, power, the nineteenth century, purely moral, activity and especially the pronouns I, without any mixture of the physical, they and thou, with the whole race of active contemplate establishing a church, with districts for dioceses-a congress for sy- * We are rejoiced to see the principle of religious nods--Mr. Owen for their pope-paid brought to its proper termination so soon, in a fact non-intervention in omnium gatherum schools missionaries at 30s. a-week for clergy-stated by Lord Teignmouth in the House of Commen-lectures at mechanics' institutes mons:- In the schools attached to the establishfor sermons-halls of science for churches ment of Mr. the children were found ready -tea-drinkings, masquerades, and qua- religion. An appeal being made to Mr. enough to answer questions on all subjects except -, he replied that there were children of Socialists in the school, and they objected to the introduction of the New Testament! Admirable Socialists! but more admirable schoolmaster! And still more admirable founder of such a school on such a plan!!Times Newspaper, March 6th, 1840.

*See Constitution and Laws of the Universal Community Society of Rational Religionists.' Cleave, London; Hobson, Leeds Heywood, Manchester; Guest, Birmingham

verbs all of which it is ascertained, [litical economists point as the great have been introduced into society by a source of our prosperity-to which po. fundamental mistake-and man has no litical reformers would delegate the primore right to use or receive them, than the cloth has, which the tailor cuts into a coat, or the tin, which the tinman moulds into the cover of a kettle.

vilege of government-and which, with the very confession in its mouth of utter incompetency to provide for itself, is now desirous to undertake the foundation IX. When this has been done, and it of a new moral world: and, what is has been agreed that no man has the more interesting to ourselves, the reslightest power to form his own charac- formation of this great empire. But men ter, or right to pronounce any opinion will attempt in despair, what they would as to the character of his neighbours, shudder at in their sober senses. It is still less to interfere with its formation, in despair that the Birmingham mechanwe are all to set ourselves diligently to ics are following Mr. Owen's delusions. work to cure every one around us of the They are starving. They have children horrible follies and evil propensities, in starving around them. They have either which they are now wallowing; and to no bread for to-day, or none for to-mormould their character-after a pattern of row, or nothing to hope for in any continuance of the present system; and therefore they clamour for another.

our own.

X. The rational religion consists in chemistry, botany, zoology, geology, &c., This wretched state has been brought and in loving all men alike, whether we about by three causes. First, by the relike them or not. This love, however, duction of wages, in many cases to the is not to imply any effort to do them minimum of subsistence. And this re. good, should we think our religion bet- duction itself has been effected, not mere. ter than their own; with the exception, ly by the natural competition of labour indeed, of the Committee, who will have in a superabundant population, where unlimited authority to proselytise. machinery and capital enable the master XI. There is to be nothing so gross as manufacturer to control the workmen ; unregulated marriage; only a power of but in this country, by the influx of Irish divorce without any limits specified. labourers, who, having been inured at Now, we have no intention of shriek- home to an existence of semi-starvation, ing,' as a modern writer terms it, over can sell their labour at a price far lower this singular specimen of the enlighten than the English workmen. In fact, by a ment of our manufacturing population, singular retribution, England at this moand of the nineteenth century. Society ment is gradually sliding, from this cause, has seldom been visited with those peri- into the same state with Ireland; and odical fits of lunacy, which break out in rebellions and murders, without previously betraying similar symptoms of disease. But as symptoms of disease-of a very deep seated disease-we do think these absurdities require to be seriously noticed; and therefore we shall ask our readers not to turn away at once in laughter, but to examine quietly into the history of this system, which would be ludicrous and harmless, if it did not embrace, and carry out to their natural issues, errors from which few minds in this day are wholly free.

Irish paupers are taking possession of the very vitals of our towns, to the degradation, and, ultimately, to the destruction of the English mechanics.

But besides the low rate of wages, there is also to be taken into account their fluctuation-a fluctuation produced necessarily by the unlimited competition of selfishness and avarice in a boundless free-trade market, which is perpetually shifting its field, and contracting or ex. tending its demands, without warning, on every change of dynasty, of political relations, of social habits, or of internal Its original root is a real practical evil. commercial speculations. This compeIt commences evidently with a keen per- tition, aided by the powers of machinery, ception of the misery and degradation, to and encouraged by the superior cheapwhich a large portion of the population ness of manufacturing on a large scale, of this country has been reduced by our necessarily causes continual overproducmanufacturing system. We pass over tion. Every glut of the market is followthe strange contradiction, that it is the ed by a paralysis-every paralysis by a same manufacturing population, thus return to excessive production. Add to sunk in distress by their own powerless- this the shifting nature of the manufacness, or ignorance, or folly, to which po- turing processes themselves - how a

single alteration of machinery, the spinning silk or hammering iron-who discovery of a new locality, even the has no right to interfere with their domesdiversion of a road or a canal, may dry tic habits, to take an interest in their up at once an old channel, and open new, comforts, because their homes are not leaving for a time the old population his property-who cannot visit or relieve lying like boulder-stones in the course them, crowded as they are densely in which a torrent has taken; or, like Tad- narrow lanes, and packed in floors of mor and Palmyra in the desert, to show houses-who can know nothing of their only where trade once passed-and we character, because he can see nothing can understand the utter impossibility of but their hands and feet-who cannot providing, by any fiscal regulations, afford to give them time either for inagainst a constant fluctuation in the struction or recreation, because every price of labour. We are supposing now minute has its price, and every farthing that the average is above-it may be far of price is an item in the necessary above the minimum of subsistence; and profit?

that prudent and economical habits might In this condition of affairs, when every regulate the rate of living accordingly. day, from the increase of competition and But we must know little or nothing of the state of the continent, the crises are human nature to suppose that prudent and becoming more frequent and the remedy economical habits can ever grow up in such more desperate, a man, not, perhaps, a state of things. Prudence is the result of without benevolence, but conceited and regularity of habit, and regularity of habit uninstructed (for this is the character a natural effect of regularity of circumstan- stamped on all Mr. Owen's writings), ces. When men are accustomed to see imagines a plan for breaking up the prethemselves suddenly provided for by cir- sent manufacturing system; in which cumstances, not at their command-to be object we most cordially concur with plunged from affluence into poverty at a him. For, with all its show and glitter, moment's warning-when no calculation and accumulation of capital in the hands will enable them to ensure a certain of the masters, it never can act without subsistence for the morrow-and yet generating more than an equivalent of want again and again, though all provision and vice in the persons of the workmen. has been neglected, the subsistence | He proposes that the workmen, instead comes of itself-scarcely any power upon of hiring out their labour, and enabling earth can prevent them from becoming the master to reap the profits, should wasteful in their abundance, and san- form themselves into a community, and guine in their poverty. These two habits work for themselves. are imprudence; and from imprudence Now this plan may be contemplated comes misery, and from misery impa- under two forms. If it is intended to form tience, profligacy, desperation, and crime. a joint-stock company, so that all the But we must go still farther. We said members should share in the dividends on that no human power could create habits of the capital, and thus improve upon the preregular prudence in such a state of things. sent system only by appropriating to themBut what if no power is exerted? What if selves the profits of the master, it is evident these unhappy men are left to themselves, that those profits, however large for a without any eye to watch, any hand to con- single individual, will be but a drop of trol them; the only authority which they water when divisible among such numrecognise being a taskmaster, whom they bers. As a joint-stock company, moreserve for his gain-who counts nothing but over, they will be exposed to the same the hours of their labour, and the yards of competition as individual manufacturers, cotton which they produce-whose exist- and with the same result of fluctuation, ence as a manufacturer depends on his so long as the present extent of market making the maximum of profit on the mi- continues, but without the same power nimum of wages, and even on their degrad- of improving opportunities, of speculated condition, without which he cannot ing boldly but cautiously-in one word, command them-who cannot afford to be of acquiring profit. We say nothing of the generous-who is bound to them by no difficulty of providing an adequate capital, local or hereditary relations-who can or of regulating wages. No change is cast them off in a moment, as a floating made, in fact, but that, which is no impopulation unattached to the soil-who provement, the substitution in the mancan have no religious association with ufacturing system of democracies for them, because religion cannot enter into monarchies; and therefore the whole the estimate of an animal machine for scheme must fall to the ground.

The

But Mr. Owen's plan seems to contem- mon labour and common capital, but with plate also something very different. He the principle of acquisitiveness, which proposes rather to destroy the principle Mr. Owen cannot touch, confined by the of acquisitiveness, to abandon all com- most solemn obligations; their habits mercial speculation, and only to form formed, not as he would form them, to communities, in which individuals should luxury, but to self-denial; their selfcontribute their various talents to make denial sanctioned and rendered honourup one perfect society, provided with all able by devotion; and, what is the necessaries for common wants, very much strangest omission in Mr. Owen's plan, a as Plato conceives the formation of his rigid, inflexible discipline maintained polity. The shoemaker is to make shoes, over them every hour, so that the slightthe cotton-spinner to make handkerchiefs, est act of appropriation was vigilantly the miller to grind corn, and from the watched and severely punished. whole combined is to arise a perfect man. very clothes of the monks were common. It is needless to say that the idea, in the. As Plato proposes for his Phylaces, they ory, is as old as the first speculation on not only took their meals together, but the nature of human society; and in prac- no one was allowed to fasten his door, or tice, whether regular or irregular, is co- to lock up any thing in his cell; even the eval with the creation of man. But this plucking an apple in the garden without plan, it is evident, cannot be effected so the leave of the superior was an act of long as individual covetousness is allowed disobedience. Men smile at such notions to exist. If individuals are permitted to now, but Mr. Owen, with his horror of accumulate, competition is necessarily property-his conviction that it forms one, introduced; with competition comes re- as he terms it, of the Trinity of human duction of wages, and with reduction of curses *—will admire the wisdom of the wages the original misery of the labourer. monks. He will allow that, if infringed Mr. Owen, therefore, proposes to exclude in one act, the whole principle of approcompetition altogether. Grand concep- priation would creep in, and, therefore, tion! The only difficulty is, to accom- that the most rigid superintendence was plish it. How will you eradicate from wise and necessary. And he might, perthe human mind the root of covetousness, the instinct of appropriation and desire? Mr. Owen is totally silent. He seems to think it possible; talks of a state when prudence and education will show its evils, and therefore abolish it: but beyond this he does not go. Strange that an infidel should have stumbled at the very threshold of his system on the same maxim with Christianity-that he should proclaim, in almost the very words of the Bible, that the love of money is the root of all evil;' and yet that he should have rejected the aid which Christianity promises in order to extirpate the evil, by a spiritual influence controlling the heart, as well as by a spiritual Society maintaining a high standard of morals! Strange also (were he not a very ignorant man) that he should overlook the fact, that the first irregularities of Christians were committed, if not under a clear perception of the same truths, as he in the nineteenth century has, for the first time, as he sup. poses, discovered, at least under a deep moral feeling, which pointed out truth, even where the head did not discern it. The monastic communities, with their vow of poverty, were, in their temporal relations, nothing but Mr. Owen's societies; supporting themselves by their com

haps, be prevailed on to acknowledge, that the Monks, with the Church to sup. port them, and something like historical testimony, however weak he may deem it, to authorise their expectation of some superhuman assistance in controlling the evil passions of men, had logically more grounds for their plan than the individual Mr. Owen, with no one but his starving mechanics to applaud his anticipations of a coming millennium, in which all property shall have vanished from the earth, and all poverty with it.

For this, perhaps, is one of his strangest hallucinations. To abolish property is

* I now declare to you, and to the world, that man up to this hour has been, in all parts of the earth, a slave to a Trinity, the most monstrous that could be combined, to inflict mental and physical evil upon his whole race. I refer to private or in. of religion-and marriage, founded on individual dividual property-absurd and irrational systems property-combined with some one of these irra. tional systems of religion. It is difficult to say which of these GRAND SOURCES OF ALL CRIME Ought interlinked and woven together by time that they to be placed first or last, for they are so intimately cannot be separated without being destroyed; each one is necessary to the support of the other two. This formidable Trinity, compounded of ignorance, Devil that ever has, or, most likely, ever will torsuperstition, and hypocrisy, is the only demon or ment the human race.'-Owen's Declaration of Mental Independence.