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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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Untitled Article
Society of Harmony in America are more or less founded on this principle : but though all the ancient churches paid homage to the Christian proscription of private property , it is to be feared that in the Reformed Churches a worldly ,
money-getting spirit is very much the characteristic of those who consider themselves as the godly . Among the causes that have prevented the general adoption of the primitive suggestion of a Community of Goods , may be reckoned the want of any practicable plan to carry it into effect , and of a sufficient extension and
preponderance of the genuine spirit of Christianity to make it lasting . This , however , need not excite our surpr ise , as it appears to have been the plan of Providence that Christianity should produce its effects gradually , and in co-operation with the efforts of human reason and the improvement of
knowledge ; leaving room for the exertions of mankind to carry into effect its divine suggestions . And for any successful attempt to rid society of the evils of the system of private property , we must look , not as some have done
to a return to a state of nature , but to a progress in refinement and civilization . The necessary arrangements can only take rise from increased knowledge of human nature and of the art of governing . The system of pr ivate
boor presents a scene of filth and discomfort . His house has neither tree , shrub , nor a blade of grass near it . —The interior in as slovenly as its exterior accompaniments . " ( A most forbidding description follows . ) " Yet this man is probably the owner of 6000 head of cattle and 5000 sheep . —He lords it over the
kraal of Hottentots with the power of a feudal chief . —He neither ploughs nor plants vineyards ; his habits are slovenly , and he neglects the decencies of life . —If he carries enough butter , soap , ostrich feathers , and skins , to purchase in return a little coffee , brandy , and gunpowder , the purpose of journey and his life is answered . "
Quarterl y Review , Vol . XXII . p . 227 . The late attempts of emigrants to settle in the deserts of America and the Cape appear to fail miserably from having been made on the system of individual property . A community is the only plan for speedily converting the wilderness into an abode of social happiness .
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property belongs rather to the savage * than the civilized state ; or is , at least , but the first step towards civilization . To appropriate to himself all that he can , is the instinct of the savage : to
prevent the contentions to which this propensity would give rise was the origin of laws , so that it may perhaps be more truly 9 aid that law is tne creature of property , than that property is the creature of law . No doubt the
institution of Private Property has been a great stimulus to improvements in the progress of man from a barbarous to a civilized state : but it by no means follows , that when a certain degree of civilization has been attained , he may not gradually lay aside this system ; the existing " stock of knowledge now enabling him to adopt a more perfect
one . see no reason to adopt the opinion of those who think that if Christianity were universal , and had its due influence on the minds of all men , it would wholly supersede the necessity of civil
government , and produce such a state of things that there would be no need either for laws or magistrates . As long as men , as social beings , are dependent on each other , and capable of deriving good or ill from mutual intercourse and assistance ; so long it would
seem necessary that some system should exist by which this intercourse may be regulated , and by its improvement made to produce the greatest sum of happiness within their reach . For , supposing that all the members
of a society were influenced by the most kind and Christian spirit , yet would they , for want of wisdom and experience , and a skilful system of polity , not only fail of effecting all that
might be done for the common weal , but perhaps fall into such mistakes and inconveniences as would produce a state of things destructive of those very principles and dispositions which it has been imagined might render civil government altogether unnecessary .
? Nee commune bonum poterant spectare , neque ullis Moribus inter se scibant nee legibus uti . Quod cuique obtulerat prsedse fortuna , ferebat , Sponte sua , sibi quisque valere et vivere doctus . —Lucret . Lib . v .
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96 The Nonconformist . No , XX .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Feb. 2, 1821, page 96, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2497/page/32/
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