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614 &f)V ILtaitet. [Saturday,
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THE SAME. llernc Bay, Sept. 14, 1850. Si...
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THE SAME. September 10, 1859. Sin,—A wri...
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Robert Owen's First Principle. Eversley,...
That men are formed and compelled by circumstances , warped and stunted by them , is a f act which needs no further proof than a walk through St . Giles ' s . Whether man ought to be formed and compelled by them , is a very different question . The actual is not the ideal , to talk Germanism . In plain English , because a thing is , that is no reason that it ought to be . Horses have a strong tendency to break their knees , and some people a strong tendency to get drunk . Whether broken knees are the ** specific differentia " of the horse , or intoxication the proper condition of a man . the public will decide . The fact
is , that Mr . Owen arid his followers have fallen into the same root-error as the political economists whom they deride . Both have mistaken tendencies for laws . They see general phenomena , and fancy them parts of the very constitution of man and society . They see that population has a tendency to increase faster than production , that competition is the custom of selfish and unorganized mankind , and they take for granted that they are eternal necessities —just as Mr . Owen has done with the painful fact , that the masses are still the puppets of the circumstances roiind them . I , as a Christian priest , do not
deny the facts—for they stare me in the face . But , in the name of God I curse them , I declare them to be degrading , sinful , shameful ; to be not human , but inhuman and bestial ; I assert that , in proportion as they exist ; man is not man , but less than man , a beast , an dx , an ape , a tiger ; and , as a priest , I am bound to labour to exterminate those facts ; to say production ought to and shall increase faster than population . Brotherly help , not wolfish competition , is the ideal law , and shall be the actual state of men ! Men are not meant to be the puppets of circumstance , but the conquerors of their own animal tendencies , of the earth around them , and they shall be .
Arid this view does not in the least interfere with the physical fact which F . G . expresses by the words , " A man ' s intellectual and moral character depends on his physical organization . " Not that I believe it does . Those who choose may hold that the egg shell causes the chicken inside , that the portrait causes the living face , that the " organs " of a man ' s brain and nerves cause his character . Common sense and scientific fact would rather lead to
the notion that it caused them : as a fact , you may alter wonderfully the shape of man's head by educating him—you may make him do all manner of things , utterly contrary to the tendencies of his physical organization , b ) inspiring him with " a great idea , " as the slang is just now . Did F . G . ever hear of martyrdoms ? « ' Ah , but , " F . G . will answer , " education is circumstance . A great idea is a motive . " The last assertion I shall answer when F . G . has defined what ** a motive" means . For
the former—doubtless an integral part of a right education—is to put a man into favourable circumstances ; but , why ? In order to educe something which is already in him . If there be nothing in him , if he be the mere recipient of outward impressions , the word education means nothing . Thus much education , social reforms , and all other outward npplianccs , can do for a man ; they can prevent his character being warped , stunted , degraded ; they can give him " a clear stage and no favour" in which to unfold and use what manhood there is in him . It is
our sacred duty to provide them tor every citizen , because we have no right to pray God «• not to load us into temptation , " if we leave ourselves or our brothers in temptation . But that is not all . We must not only be kept from outward temptation , we must be delivered from evil—inward evil—from inward selfishness , pride , laziness , meanness , ferocity . Can mere outward circumstances do that ? Mr . Owen , good man , fancied , like Fourier , that they can ; that he had discovered a machine for grinding love and righteousness . He was not the first who lias made that mistake . The experiment was tried , for about a thousand years , in every nation in Christendom , on a far larger scale than it is likely , thank
God , to be over tried again . Millions of monks and nuns , the heralds , by-thc-bye , of Mr . Owen ' s associate labour , also believed Mr . Owen ' s circumstancedoctrine—invented ten thousand •? dodges " of devotion , ceremonial , habitation , dress , manner , rules , and laws without end , to make themselves good , merely by keeping themselves out of temptation . And how did they succeed ? Just as Mr . Owen has succeeded . The truth which tiny held with Mr . Owen , of the justice and power of community and cooperation , made them mighty instruments of good , as it has made , and will make , him . The lie which they held with Mr . Owen brought them to rottenness and ruin , as it will bring
in tune every merely Owenito community , lar inure quickly than it brought the Monastic orders . Far muio quickly , for these monks and nuns , with all their mistakes , were Christians ; they believed a book and creeds which taught them that a man had a will and spirit , as well as a ilesh , and that his ideal was , that his spirit should conquer his flesh , and make it hia instrument , his servant , and not his master ; ami that happy inconsistency kept them for several cvnturiea men and women , and prevented their rotting into hogs or savages , as history shows thut they did rot whenever they forgot that they
had spirits of their own and made an idol of the mere outward " rule" under which they lived . But the purely Owenite communities , having no such counteracting faith , will walk headlong into the snare . They may for a time keep out temptation , but they cannot keep out evil ; they may keep out poverty , but not the pride which causes poverty ; competition , but not the selfishness which produces it ; outward division , but not the spite which begets them . The primaeval lusts will develop themselves in new forrhs under new circumstances . We shall have a list of sins peculiar to Association , as we
had one of those peculiar to Monastieism ; true , we shall have this at all events , whether we be Christian or Owenite Socialists ; but we know something stronger than those sins , and Mr . Owen does not . Even granting his idea a temporary physical success , such as is , perhaps , possible on the fertile and boundless soil of America , the highest ideal to which one of his communities can attain , will be the merely material one which " Fourier , " with the fearless sincerity of insane genius , preached as the summum bonum—a universal cockaigne and paradise of fat hogs . Englishmen , I think , are meant for
better things than that . Mr . Owen was meant for better things ; he is better than that , nobler than his own doctrine . If it were true , if circumstances had formed his character , he would have been at this moment a portly country gentleman , floating down the current of custom and fashion in an old age of port wine and idleness , instead of fighting , as he has done for years , manfully and benevolently , though mistakenly , against the circumstances of his education , his class , his age . And is not this the history of every great man ? Were Paul or Augustine formed by circumstances ? Or St . Bennett , or St .
Francis , or any one of the great Reformers of the Monastic orders , or of anything else since the beginning of the world , or Luther , or Mahomet , Bacon , Newton , Ferguson , Arkwright , Brindley , FaTaday , Elizabeth Fry , Thomas Carlyle ? Why , the life of every one of these men , the life of every great man , right or wrong , has been , and ever will be , a continual protest against , and battle with , the passions which he finds within himself , the ways of the world , the stereotyped customs and dogmas , which
he finds around him . My dear F . G ., if your theory were true , how came you and I here at all , writing letters to be printed by steam ? Why are we not at this moment grubbing up pig-nuts in a state of primaeval breechlessness ? For those were the circumstances of our forefathers , which God taught them to conquer , as he will teach us to conquer ouis , and be what he intends us to be—the lords , and not the slaves , of the material universe , and time and space , and the temptations thereof .
F . G ., as I said before , has full means of judging whether or not I am a Socialist . He may , also , if he reads my writings , have full means of judging whether or not I am a bigot . But , whatever be his conclusion , I will protest as long as God gives me breath and reason , against a doctrine which is not a mere abstract question for philosophasters to palaver over ; but a practical falsehood , fraught with the most important and immediate Social results , and which , if it gain the minds of the many just now , will be the utter bane of Socialism , and bring it to speedy and inevitable discord and futility , ridicule , and ruin . Ciiaules Kingsley .
614 &F)V Iltaitet. [Saturday,
614 & f ) V ILtaitet . [ Saturday ,
The Same. Llernc Bay, Sept. 14, 1850. Si...
THE SAME . llernc Bay , Sept . 14 , 1850 . Sir , —It has always seemed to me a great defect in Mr . Owen ' s statement of the doctrine of " circumstances , " that he attributes too much influence to mere material agencies , —to mere mechanical arrangements , —as if by these means alone the desired regeneration of the human character could be produced . But it must be admitted by every one at all acquainted with human nature , that " the best possible circumstances or external arrangements will not make badly organized and badly trained individuals ( which are the characteristics of all mankind by Mr . Owen's theory ) Aviso and happy , just as putting ; a man of dirty habits into a clean house will not make him cleanly .
It seems not sufficiently considered by Mr . Owen , that the most powerful circumstance acting upon man is his fallow-man ; and that , consequently , unless you can command a sufficient number of wise and virtuous individuals to form a social influence , you want the most powerful agent for the reformation of character and the regeneration of mankind . But , pertinaciously insists Mr . Owen , ?• all mankind are insane . " How , then , I ask , can he make a sane society—a fane social influence—out of insane materials ?
Will a number oi foolish and vicious individuals , congregated together , ferment or rub themselves into the highest state of wisdom and happiness ? Will putting a number of rotten apples together into a box make thorn all sweet and wholesome ? But it will bo said , children will ho taken very young , and be well educated and well trained . But , firstly , these children , being the odVpring of the badly organized , will themselves be more or less badly organized , arid can never , I contend , be made otherwise by mere
totally unaffected by the prevailing evil influences ? What , then , becomes of the doctrine of the " overwhelming influence of circumstances " ? If Mr . Owen and others have become wise and virtuous in opposition to surrounding influences , why may not the rest of mankind become regenerated in the present state of society ? Why may not Education alone , without the proposed external arrangements , produce all the effects contemplated by Mr . Owen in his " Rational System" ?
education and training ; and , secondly , where are the highly wise and virtuous teachers ( for such preeminently must they be ) to be obtained , when all mankind are insane—are foolish and vicious ? If Mr . Owen and those who profess and teach his system are exceptions , —if they are preeminentl y wise and virtuous amongst the corrupt mass of folly and vice , —how came they to be so different from the generality of mankind?—how came they to be so
Again , Mr . Owen seems to me most inconsistently , as a Materialist , to attribute too much influence to a mere notion or idea . He insists that the notion—the belief that man forms his own character—is the origin of all the tremendous evils that afflict society . This is the error of the Idealists , who attribute everything to ideas , and little or nothing to organization and material influences . Believing , as I do ( as a Materialist ) , that character depends chiefly , if not entirely , upon organization or innate qualities , —irrespective of ideas , education , or circumstances , —and that organization cannot be materially altered by any
education or external influences , 1 have no faith whatever in the ** Rational System , " or any other " social system , " as a panacea for social evils . It has always seemed to me a very curious ** fact , " that Mr . Owen is always insisting that his " system " is founded on " facts , " on the " laws of Nature , " and yet it is notorious that all " facts " and all " Nature " are decidedly agaiiist his views ; for , hitherto , competition , and . not community , has been the
characteristic of mankind , and the ' * system of society " which he contemplates has never yet been realized . Where , then , is the testimony of ' * facts , " of " experience" of Nature , to the •« Rational System" ? Mr . Owen ' s faith ( for it is nothing more ) in a " universally happy state of human existence " seems , therefore , to me to have no more foundation from reason , experience , and nature , than the faith of the religionist in a resurrection to eternal felicity . F . B . Bautox .
The Same. September 10, 1859. Sin,—A Wri...
THE SAME . September 10 , 1859 . Sin , —A writer in your paper of the 14 th instant , who signs himself F . G ., adduces what he conceives , apparently , to be Jin irresistible chain of reasoning in support of the " Foundation stone of Mr . Robert Owen ' s Social Philosophy , " his principle that " man is not a free agent , and that his character is formed for him and not by him . " Now , as I am one of those persons who look upon this principle as false and " dangerous , " when stated in the unrestricted manner in which Mr . Owen and his disciples state it , I
wish to call F . G . ' s attention to what seems to me to be an error in his process of reasoning . F . G . endeavours to prove that man ' s will is not free , because it coxdd not be free if certain propositions -which he assumes as true be granted . Now , this is precisely the opposite process to that by which all the results of modern science have been attained . That science reposes upon the accurate examination of the individual phenomena to be explained . Its strength consists in this , that , instead of attempting , as so much of what is called metaphysical philosophy does , to lay down certain universal principles from which all phenomena may be deduced in the general , it confines itself to the establishment of propositions
from which the special phenomena observed may be deduced in the particular . Now , if we apply this passage to the present question , and , instead of attempting to demonstrate by general considerations respecting 'free will and necessity" what the human will must be , limit ourselves at first to observing what the human will is , I think we shall find that it is a power which , though necessarily modified in its operation by the circumstances under which it is exercised , nevcrthelesss docs exercise a faculty of modifying those circumstances derived ^ from itself , capable of being exerted or suspended in its operation , or diverted into another course of action , while these
circumstances remain unchanged , and which , therefore , cannot be classed in the same category with powers whose action is strictly necessary ; that is to say , is under the same circumstances , always the same , without a complete confusion of thought and langutve . I suspect that F . G . will reply to me—I admit your statement ; but this power of which you speak depends upon the " physical organization" of the individual , and nobody makes his own organization , & c . But I deny that this is any answer . It amounts only in simple language to saying the action of the will depends upon its nature ; -which I am not disposed to question . But we want to ascertain what this nature is ; and it appears to me , that , if we carefully attend to the operation of our own wills , it is impossible not to recognize in them a spontaneous-
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Sept. 21, 1850, page 14, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_21091850/page/14/
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