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Untitled Article
united , and towards the establishment of which , speculations the most inconsistent in other respects Jiave tended . It is now many years since Godwin set all England and much of France clapping and hissing at him , by insisting on the right of every social being to a certain portion of leisure . Many may still remain to whom leisure for improvement appears as little the right of a poor man
as a coach and six ; but the number is incalculably smaller than when Godwin first advanced his extraordinary proposition . Since that time , almost every sect in religion , philosophy , politics , and social economy , has had a glimpse of the grand principle , —that men are born with equal moral as well as physical rights . The
recognition of the principle may have been diversified in its modes by its connexion with the main views of the sect ; but after its own manner , each party has sanctioned it . It is the best point of the Oweoite system , and that which alone has secured it the permanent support of any really enlightened men . It forms the basis of the institutions of St . Simon and his followers . The
phrenologists consecrate to it the discoveries of their science ; and it serves as a rallying point for the efforts of individual philanthropists , who connect themselves with no party , and make ob jects for themselves instead of adopting them from others . The consideration of universal education occurs to all , in their different
departments of observation . The divine discerns the universality of the influences of Providence ; the philosopher the unrestricted character of the provisions of Nature ; the politician the final purposes , and the social economist the existing abuses , of social institutions ; the contemplative moralist ponders at home the means by which man may be made the being he is constituted to
become ; and the traveller beholds abroad the struggles perpetually renewed , after intervals of defeat , to gain what it profits no man to withhold , and what it will , ere long , be esteemed the first of privileges to assist in diffusing . All these methods of observation lead to the same result ;—that the whole of society was meant to be educated , and will be educated . Since no man , or
set of men , can . monopolize the materials of knowledge , or the faculties requisite tq obtain it , no man or set of men can for ever monopolize any kind of knowledge . The visible and tangible universe is open to all , and the facilities by which it is to be investigated are common to all . It may happen for a few years or ages , that a thousand men may know only that the sunshine is warm , that the stars change their places , that trees drop their
foliage in winter , and so on , while one understands somewhat of the influences of heat and the laws of vision , and the relations of number and quantity , and the causes of vegetation ; but since this philosophy and these facts are laid before all , and the only thing necessary is to open the intellectual eye to their perception , ^~ since the causes which have hitherto opened eyes are still at work , and as their operation proceeds with an accelerated
Untitled Article
690 National Education .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Oct. 2, 1832, page 690, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1822/page/40/
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