feasible. It has often been attempted, | diately or immediately from a superior and sometimes, for a season, succeeded. Divine authority, but to human enjoyment But to abolish property, and retain wealth to what they call happiness. On this -to prohibit covetousness, and yet en- principle, Mr. Owen has taken his stand; courage luxury-to make the multiplica- and he has followed it out-correctly, tion of the means of enjoyment a crime, we think, most correctly—with a courage while the multiplication of enjoyment it- and perseverance far superior to any of self is the very end of his system-and his predecessors, into its legitimate and to expect that this singular balance of necessary consequences. His concluopposite tendencies will be maintained, sions, indeed, are so accurate, that we not by the strong arm of superior power, must warn from any conflict with him— but by the voluntary agency of voluntary from any contempt or sarcasm, or any members of a joint-stock society, is real. attempt to convert him-every eudamoly too bold a theory, we should have sup.nist in the nation-every political econoposed, even for the unhappy and ignorant mist, who measures the prosperity of his mechanics for whom he is writing. And country by the amount of the excise and yet this is the fundamental axiom-the customs-every moralist who makes the corner stone of a system, which boasts exercise of the intellect, or the indul to overthrow all difficulties-to have no gence of the affections, or the pursuit of connection with any mysteries-to say an end, or the pleasures of the sense, nothing but what is intelligible to all or power, or honour, or any gratification men, and founded on habitual experience. whatever, in the body or in the mind, Unhappily, this absurd theory-melan- the supreme end and rule of man-and choly as it is to think on the sad state every religionist, also, who makes devoof the population among whom he ven- tion an enjoyment, and religion easy, and tures to broach it-is the only part of a future life the motive of piety, forgethis speculations on which it is possible ting the express declaration respecting to mention him, even in the comparative- a strait gate and a narrow way.' Not ly mild terms of an uninstructed enthu- one of these but must be foiled, if he siast; and it was this alone which Mr. engages in battle with the poor infidel, Southey, and Mr. Wilberforce, and other who has taken the same ground with men of high character, contemplated, themselves, but has understood it better. when they spoke, in former days, of his benevolence and respectability. He has seen, and, we hope, felt deeply for, an evil which is, and will be, a curse to this country; and he has imagined a silly scheme for its removal, which, however, is not more silly than the scheme of abolishing the corn laws, or increasing the suffrage, or giving vote by ballot, or many other projects of modern date, for remedying the same evil-an evil which never can be remedied, so long as our manufactories exist under a high pressure of covetous free-trade competition.

But the political economy of this scheme is coupled with certain ethical and religious speculations; and, like an ulcer in a body generally diseased, they deserve to be inspected--they indicate something far worse than either depravity or hallucination in the mind of one individual.

Mr. Owen is an Eudæmonist-that is, he belongs to a school, or, rather, we should say, to a generation, which, following the fashion of several generations before it, makes all goodness, all action, and all knowledge referable, not to a positive law emanating either me

6

For if our own happiness, that is, the happiness either of ourselves or of the spe cies, be the sole object and rule of man, he needs no other. If any other rule is to be referred to, to guide us in our pursuit, then this rule, and not our happiness, is our ultimate law; and this law could have no validity except as the dictate of a supreme authority over man; and that supreme authority is God: and thus, obedience to God, and not benevolence to man, either to ourselves or to others, is the criterion of our duty, and the essence of our perfection. But this would little suit the enlightened eudæmonist, who, by his first maxim, necessarily excludes the idea of a divine revelation. He, therefore, takes his stand with his own dim telescope to make a survey of human happiness, and his own poor hands and feet, without a guide, to carry him in the pursuit. And when he starts on his course, and tumbles into this ditch, and befouls himself in that quagmire, and now breaks his head against an unseen wall, and now is run over and trodden on by the more rapid pursuers in the same chase, and still more frequently knocks down and mutilates the parties,

for whose benefit he is racing-quiet | the weal of a nation to consist in its exspectators look on with amazement, and ports and imports-those exports and pity and praise him for his zeal, whatever imports being only so many indulgences be his blunders, as a benevolent and ami- for man's flesh and blood. able enthusiast, with a good heart, but rather heated head;- instead of calling him, as they ought, and as the Scriptures call him an infidel or a fool, for walking in the sight of his own eyes, when his Creator has expressly forbidden it.

a

Having arrived safely thus far, and fixed his end, he then claims an undoubted right (and all the expediency gentlemen, either moral or political, must receive him among them, whether they like it or not, just as fine ladies in muslin In this race Mr. Owen is supremely dresses would welcome a chimney-sweepenergetic. Few have been more so since er)-he claims an undoubted right to the days of the French Revolution. His form his own judgment as to the means only law being his own notion of his own necessary and proper for obtaining his happiness, and of the happiness of other end. In selecting them, indeed, he is people, of both which he naturally forms bold, and in prosecuting them vigorous, pretty much the same conception - he but not to any degree which is not logi asserts, with undoubted consistency, that cally defensible on the expediency prinhe has as much right to his own views of ciple. happiness, as any other man has to his; One of the first of these is not the a claim which no eudæmonist can dispute, abolition of marriage; no wise or moral without allowing an authority in man to man would dream of recommending dictate to his fellow man on his nearest promiscuous intercourse like beasts; but and dearest interests, and to dictate, as marriage is one of the trinity of cursesmere man, with common human frailties property and religion being the two and human fallibilities, without any divine others, which hang like a blight upon the assistance. world. What can be more miserable Mr. Owen, therefore, is fully at liberty than an ill-assorted union? What more to adopt his own views; and his own hard than the prohibition of consorting views will seem very sensible, and what as we choose--joining when we choose philosophers in the present day call sound-and separating as we choose? Milton and practical. There is not a taint of mysticism about them. He seems to think, as far as we can discover, that when a man has a good coat upon his shoulders, and a joint of meat upon his spit, and a good fire to warm him, and a good house to keep out the weather, and pretty sights to please his eye, and agreeable sounds to soothe his ear, and the wants of the touch and the nostrils properly provided for, like the other senses, then man is a happy animal, and may lie down in his sty content. And Mr. Owen has a large, a very large number of supporters in this ennobling theory, who yet would little like to be ranged under his banners. If enjoyment in any shape is the end of our life, and the rule of our conduct, why the pleasure of the body is more easily obtained than that of the mind, and is liable to fewer disappointments, and is assuredly more poignant; and if properly and prudently husbanded, mately connected. as Mr. Owen carnestly recommends, why But the permanence of the marriage it will last for a considerable time, and tie is not the only 'curse' in the present bring perhaps in this world few disagree- system of domestic life. Children are able results; and so Mr. Owen will carry generally troublesome. When persons with him not only the whole Epicurean are poor and starving they are peculiarly herd, but all the grave, respectable politi- so; and life is not a blessing either to cal economists, who make the wealth or themselves or to their parents. And Mr.

(oh, what a lesson it is to see the sophistries and follies of such men, clothed as they have hitherto been by the delusion of a name, now brought out and exposed to shame!)-Milton in this point was a socialist; and they reprint a number of his works. And they follow Milton's steps, perhaps with rather a greater plenitude of licence, but nothing which any logician can refuse, in petitioning for an unlimited power of separation-whether it is to be daily or hourly, they do not say; but, of course, no objection can be raised on the score of frequency. Whatever is necessary for man's happiness is right; and who can be happy if prevented from withdrawing, whenever he may wish, from a disagreeable companion?

We wish particularly that it should be observed, that these new ideas respecting marriage follow close upon the New Marriage Act. They are, indeed, very inti

Malthus has satisfactorily shown by besides property and marriage-it is recountless figures, omitting only one (the ligion; and we can well understand that power of a merciful Providence), that it should be so. Religion-true, genuine man multiplies and will multiply more religion-is of all things most opposed to rapidly than food, and therefore we must dreams of epicurism, expediency, and liput some stop to this growth of popula- cence. It sets up for the guide of man, tion. It is interesting to remark how not man himself, but law; stern, uncomevery foul sink of doctrine, which has promising law, for his reason as well as been opened of late years in this country, for his will. It speaks nothing of pleaall run together into this grand cloaca of sure at first, but of pain and self-denial; Owenism. The present is a sewer avow- that man must work before he rests; sufedly drained off from the lucubrations of fer before he is crowned; show, in the the Benthamites. Mr. Owen has not yet sight of heaven, that he can bear, and act, reached the acme of wisdom on this sub- and be a hero and a martyr,—not merely ject; but we are sure that a little reflec- that he can eat, and drink, and sleep, and tion will show him the mistake which he fatten like a pig in his sty. And Religion has made in stopping short of the plan has her truths-her fixed, indisputable which has been proposed and 'published truths-her message and commission for the instruction of the labourer, by one from heaven, countersigned and attested Marcus.' Charcoal vapour' (we quote from Mr. Carlyle, who had the book before him*) and other easy methods exist, by which all children of working people after the third, may be disposed of by painless extinction." And beautiful cemeteries,' adds Marcus, 'with walks and flower-pots, may be provided at the public expense, for the reception of superfluous infants, and as consolatory promenades for their afflicted parents."

We beg to assure the reader that the proposal is perfectly serious; and, more than this, we may assure them that it is almost innocence compared with what has been written and sanctioned by the man Owen himself, and his son, on this loathsome subject, and to which we dare not allude farther.

But one fact is curious: the infidel, to speak generally, has discovered two means, by which man may hope to escape from the catastrophe prophesied by political economists: they are, fasting and self-denial-a self-denial, however, which is not to exclude a gross sensuality. We thought that the Church long since-not looking to political economy, not afraid of perishing with famine under the eye of a merciful Creator, unless famine was sent on us for our sins, but obeying the law of the cross, and mortifying its earthly passions in order to fit itself for heaven--had anticipated, nineteen centuries ago, this modern discovery; had prescribed the same rules to her children, only leaving out the sensuality, and consecrating the marriage union with a mystery of purity and holiness. But we must proceed.

The man has discovered a third curse

Chartism, by T. Carlyle, p. 111.

and she cannot slur over errors, or think light of blasphemies, or bear that men should walk on in ignorance and folly, without raising her protest, drawing her lines of exclusion, censuring, warning, condemning, and punishing. It is the task laid on her by God. The very office of the Church is to hold up the light of truth in the world; to save it from being blown out by every wind of fancy; to bring it constantly and firmly before the eyes of all men, that those who will see, may see. If bad men have gone beyond this, and made religion the mask of cruelty, religion is as much to be censured for it, as justice would be, if a judge gave a corrupt judgment and declared it law.

But all this illiberality, this condemnation of others for not thinking as we do ourselves, is to be banished from the New World. Unhappily the author of the New World, like others of the same school, does not set so good an example as we might hope from his profession'Moral monsters,' 'robbers and murderers,' 'cruel and irrational creatures,' persons fit only for the cells of our terrestrial lunatic asylums,''the curses of mankind,' 'intellectual hypocrites,' which are the least uncomplimentary terms applied to all, who happen to differ from Mr. Owen's notions; surely these indicate something like the old leaven of illiberality. But then, Mr. Owen knows full well what liberality and toleration really mean. And he speaks the language of the day. It means, opening one's door, when a thief asks for admission; throwing down one's arms when a murderer is threatening an attack-giving without taking-submitting without resisting

and all this, when under a solemn injunc-| mony with Scripture itself, but testimony tion to give nothing, and yield nothing, a million times weaker. When the Bible because, what we are placed to guard is has been disposed of, the course is plain; not our own. But Mr. Owen is quite for not having as yet any system of Masafe. All the haters of positive doctrines, hometanism or Buddhism recognised by all the lax sentimental religionists, who Parliament, and supported by grants from have made charity, not truth, their wor- the Treasury, the unhappy beings who ship, and would sacrifice God himself for have been exposed to these attacks have peace and quietness, have spoken, as he no place of refuge from themselves but has spoken, for the last two hundred in the rational religion, of which Owen is years; and they will all fall into the pro- the apostle, and halls of science the cession of absurdities, with which he churches, and infanticide, in some shape hopes to be inducted into the throne of a or other, an article of its creed. New Moral World.

And now let us look back to Mr. Owen's Still there is a difficulty to be sur- allies-to those who, we are told, pave mounted. With all our laxity of princi. the way for him, and pave it smoothly. ples-hollow as the ground is, on which First and foremost, Conservatism; and by every branch of sectarians have been Conservatism we mean not loyalty and resting their belief-the great mass of attachment to our old and sound instituthe British nation still do call themselves tions, both in Church and State-God Christians still profess their faith in the forbid !-but the support of the Church different creeds, which they each make merely as an establishment, as a civil for themselves, and all declare to be functionary, not as an independent relifound, clearly and palpably written, in gious society founded by God himself. the pages of Scriptures. Till this preju- Secondly Dissent-dissent which attacks dice be overthrown, a system which denies Christianity, which denies all religion, must be liable to illiberal cen

sures.

*

The very judicious course taken in removing this difficulty cannot be pointed out better than in the words of a very eminent man, an eye-witness:—

In private,' he says, 'I find their course to be this. A socialist calls perhaps on a young man just leaving our Sunday school; he falls into conversation about the Church, admits that an Estab. lishment is useful for many purposes, but insinuates objections urged by dissenters; and so he leaves him. After calling again a few times, he brings his friend over to general Protestantism; against general Protestantism he brings the Romish objec tions; at last he insinuates the objections against Christianity altogether; and, speaking of the Bible, affirms that the Socialists have a great regard for the Bible-"that is, for the moral parts, excluding, of course, the immoral." These are the words often used, and then begins the attack on the Bible.'

the Church, but hopes to leave religion untouched; which calls for liberty of conscience, meaning by liberty of conscience the right of every individual to hold and to promulgate his own fancies, whether true or false, without check or rebuke. Thirdly, Popery,-Popery with its strong and irrefragable arguments against the principles of dissent, and attested at every turn by the miseries of our distractions, and the destruction which they have wrought in society and in truth. Then Ultra-Protestantism, or a blind indiscriminate hatred of all that mixed system which is well called Roman Catholic-Catholic in its truths, Roman in its falsehoods-a hatred which condemns practices and tenets, not because they are novel interpolations of the Divine word, but because they do not accord with our notions of what is right or wrong, useful or pernicious, true or false. Then morality-the moral system of the The attack on the Bible is carried on, day, which follows up the principle of as may be seen in their tracts, and in the Ultra-Protestantism, and makes it own republication of Volney, and Voltaire's, conscience the standard of truth, and and Payne's exploded blasphemies, by looks down calmly and contemptuously the aid of physical science-by geology, upon the combatants for theological chemistry, geometry, astronomy, and dogmas, as they are called, without deignother modern onomies and ologies brought ing to enter into 'questions of words, to bear on the historical facts of the and names, and of your law.' Then folScriptures, forgetting that those very lows Biblical criticism-the captious sciences rest on the same basis of testi

All the Mythology of the Ancients, and all the Religion of the Moderns, are mere fanciful notions of men.'-Owen's Book of the New Moral World, p. 46.

quibbling scepticism, coming in upon us from Germany like a flood; which, armed with the maxim of the Bible and the Bible alone,' strips it of all its defences, while nominally magnifying its authority,

again we warn them all against attempting to battle with him openly, until they have provided other principles, and a sounder creed than they profess at present. Theirs are the premises-his is the conclusion; and a conclusion, which cannot be evaded by any subtlety of logic, or any horror at its atrocity.

-which, instead of approaching it with a reverential and child-like spirit, and reading it as it lies open in the hands of the Church, under the guidance of her eye, and with the support of her testimony, snatches it from her, runs with it into a corner, doubts this point, disputes that, modifies another, is startled at a fourth, and tears out text after text, leaf after But such doctrines, it will be urged in leaf, until nothing is left but the empty the vain hope of escape, are contrary to cover, and the word of God has the law of the land. The Government vanished, as before from the mouth of has answered, No; the toleration system the Church, so now from the written answers, No. There was a time when page - vanished altogether from the the doctrines of the Church were the world. And, lastly Physical Science, in law of the land. Then-when Protestanevery age and country the great hand-maid tism was sufficient; for no one yet of infidelity. Not as if the works of God dreamed of a creed, which should go were not also His word, though written farther in modifying Catholic truths than in ciphers and hieroglyphics; or as if to the abjuration of Popery. Then came know His works were not man's privilege Christianity, anything which called itself and duty. But when men will study Christianity. But Christianity has had its God's works before they have learnt turn; and now comes Rational Religion, His nature-when they will bury them- avowing, as its boast, the principle of selves in the darkness of the brute mate- rationalism from which all the rest prorial world, till the very sun, as they turn ceeded. You cannot punish the blaspheto look up, becomes black to their daz- mies of Socialism without following it zled eye-when they will fix men's thoughts and hearts on what they taste. and see, and touch, and handle, so that all the world unseen becomes unreal and vi sionary--when they make their experience their teacher, instead of their assistant, distrust the power of the mind in generating truth, and call it a dead passive machine at the mercy of external impressions and when they have traced the motions and the laws of matter till But it is morally mischievous, destructhey can prophesy, and combine, and tive to the peace of society, not merely to the control them, worshipping it for its unity of religious belief! We had thought, power, and yet governing it as a slave- and every lax, easy religionist, who has then, indeed, physical science turns into ridiculed polemical controversies, has an open foe of Christianity. It becomes made the outcry also, that of all things idolatry. It raises up for man the same which destroy the peace of society, reliobject of worship in Nature-precisely gious dissension was the most formidable the same, as the person does, of whose the most to be repressed. But whatmore open blasphemies it is our pain to be now speaking.

up by the condemnation of Dissent. If you allow Dissent, receive it into your legislature, admit it to your homes, treat it as an erroneous opinion, but an opinion for which man is not responsible to man, you cannot shut your doors against only another species of dissent, though the dissent is from the name of Christianity, as well as from its fundamental axiom of One Apostolic Catholic Church.

ever be thought of this-moral or immoral-Socialism is safe from attack. Our These are the considerations which hands are tied. We have laid down the have induced us to notice him at present. principle, and acted on it for years, that By himself he would pass away like a blasphemy and sedition are not the proHome, a Carlisle, or a Thoms, or any per subjects of legal condemnation-that other wretched being, who has been per- to punish the circulation of them only promitted to disturb the peace of society. motes it; that we may trust to the good But he has friends and agents in every sense and wisdom of Englishmen to reclass of the community, from the highest pudiate such absurdities. Let things to the lowest-in our expediency politi- alone, and all will come right. May we cians, in our evangelical clergy, in our ask then, what is the use of a govern. pious dissenters, in our German scholars, ment? What need of laws, and courts of and literary and scientific societies-all unconsciously but zealously doing his work, and preparing the minds of the nation for imbibing his poisons. And

justice, if the grossest of crimes-treason against God and our country-are encouraged by the sight of punishment? If we are so sensible and so wise, what do