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mutual advantage have , however , induced societies of men to unite for purposes which have this tendency : such are insurances , benefit societies , and all those institutions whose object it is to obviate the inequalities of
fortune , and to lessen the weight of calamity by sharing- it among a numerous association . The progress of knowledge and true civilization will tend to l
unite men in contriving the genera security and welfare by mutual cooperation , and in discovering such laws and regulations as will enable all the members of any society to partake as much as possible of its wealth .
We are all ready to allow that the superfluities of the rich , * for which men swinck and sweat incessantly , " give them no increase of enjoyment , while they in their waste consume the comforts of the majority : and yet we are blindly attached to a system
necessarily productive of a state of things , which the Jewish revelation has censured , which poets and philosophers have always deplored , and which Chris-( C tianity has fully condemned C . If the prayer be a proper one , Give me
neither poverty nor riches , * lest I be full and deny thee , and say , Who is the Lord ? or lest I be poor and steal , and take the name of my God in vain , ' * —then is that constitution of things the best which does not expose men to these hurtful extremes , to the evils
occasioned by the lubricity of fortune , and to the pernicious influence of avarice and selfish ambition , of which the poet has given us too true a picture : " Some thought to raise themselves to high degree By Riches and unrighteous reward ; Some by close should ' ring ; some by flatteree ; Others through friends ; others for base regard ;
* Aurea mediocntas . Hor . Carm . ii . 10 . * ' Molestissimus et occupatissiinus , et si profundius inspicias , vere miserrimus est divitum status : contra auteni dura quidem sed tutissima et expeditissima est paupertas . Mediocritas optima , et inter rarissima Dei dona hanc nobis contigisse gratulor . " Petrarchae Epist . Lib . Hi . 14 .
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And all by wrong waies for themselves prepard ; Those that were up themselves kept others low ; Those that were low themselves held others hard , Ne sufFred them to ryse or greater
grow ; But every one did strive his fellow downe to throw . Faerie Queene , b . ii . c . 7 . It may be unnecessary for me to add , that I consider both Wallace and Malthus * as admitting the advantages
of a community of goods , were it not for the danger of such an increase of mankind under the happy state which it would produce , that the world would not hold them , and that they must starve or eat one another ; to prevent which catastrophe ( according to the latter ) the Creator has no better resource
than to keep down their numbers by perpetuating vice and misery among * them : or , as the Attorney-General of Chester lately expressed it , " There could be no doubt that poverty was the doom of heaven for the great majority of mankind . " To such an
objection I think no regard need be paid . It vvas my intention to have considered the manifold ills which are alleged to have their source in the system of private property , and to take notice of
the plans which have been proposed , or put in practice for superseding it : I must , however , content myself with referring to the publications of that zealous and unwearied philanthropist Mr . Robert Owen of Lanark ; wherein , in addition to those plans of his own which it were much to be wished should undergo a careful trial , he
details those which have been proposed or carried into execution by several individuals and societies , f I shall * This es . say was written before Mr .
Godwin ' s clear and satisfactory refutation of the theory of Mr . Malthus had appeared ; but its entire incompatibility with the Divine goodness was enough to convince us that it would prove false .
f See iC A New View of Society , by Robert Owen , Esq ., of PsTew Lanark . " See also " Muratori's Account of the Government of the Jesuits in Paraguay ; " " Remarks on the Practicability of Mr . Owen ' s Plan to improve the Condition of the
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98 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 98, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2497/page/34/
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