On this page
-
Text (2)
-
Untitled Article
-
Untitled Article
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.
-
-
Transcript
-
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.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
Untitled Article
p hysical ; he sees in human nature a capacity for this improvement , and for the enjoyment of the happiness consequent thereon . Not having before his eyes the fear of an excessive population , * pressing on the subsistence fund /—deploring the present heavy lot of the labouring
classes , and comparing it with the increased and increasing facility of production , he thinks , like the Useful Knowledge Society , that ' the labourers being Tnany , they ought to be lightly tasked' 4 wielding and rejoicing in the perfected forces of nature ^ managed and controlled by that which distinguishes man from all other animals—his reason . *
These opinions our author has long declared . He has , at various times , given to the world his reflections ; and always , as at present , in the spirit of mild earnestness and overflowing kindliness . Convinced of the perfectibility of the human character , he thinks , naturally enough , that its advancement can be secured only by the prevalence of circumstances very different from those which at present prevail , —and his speculations turn directly to the system known as cooperative .
In this work , the united interests principle is blazoned forth in two handsome-looking octavo volumes , got up in a style of elegance , decorated with well-executed engravings , and fitted for a place either in the library or the drawing-room . It should be premised , that the Hampden of the nineteenth century has noc onnexion whatever with him of the seventeenth ; and , indeed , his pursuits , and his turn of mind , being eo totally dissimilar , we are at a loss to
divine the motive for choosing a name , which , at first sight , seems as if it meant something . The work consists of the sayings and doings of three friends , who , having made up their own minds as to the deformity of the existent systems , resolve to leave no stone unturned in order to promote similar convictions in the minds of others . They therefore , singly or in company , seek the presence , and claim the attention of the magnates of the land ; and the 4 colloquies' that ensue , form the staple
of the work—not the whole of it—for there is a Bort of rambling stoTy threaded through it , to which the various scenes are appended , so as to form a continuous , though not a very connected narrative . Such a plan gave great latitude to the author , and the successive incidents embrace conversations with Dr . Howley , then Bishpp of London , Dr . Chalmers , the Duke of Wellington , Lords Brougham and Eldon , sir "R . Peel , Messrs . M'Culloch , Malthus , Hume , and Attwood , cum rnvltis
aliis ; and the style of the intercommunications may often vie with that of Landor in his ' Imaginary Conversations / Each , chapter is devoted , with more or less of defined intention , to some branoh or division of ' the Errors and Improvement of Society . * With Dr . Howley the subject discussed is the increase of crime ; with Malthus , it is the theory of population ; with lord Brougham , it is national education ; with Southey , the subject is a defence of the system of united interests , in answer to some remarks which occur in the
Colloquies' of the laureate . A visit to Manchester elicits some harrowing descriptions of the factory-lab our of young children . The author of the Revolt of the Bees , ' too , feels himself obliged to imagine the existence of a community of equally-participating producers ; such a society is represented by an interesting character , —Vela , a Peruvian Results of Machinery , p . 194 .
Untitled Article
Critical Notices . 743
Untitled Article
3 G 2
-
-
Citation
-
Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Oct. 2, 1834, page 743, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2638/page/69/
-