11531 *"'»*^*4;'. CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY THIS BOOK IS ONE OF A COLLECTION MADE BY BENNO LOEWY 1854-1919 AND BEQUEATHED TO CORNELL UNIVERSITY Cornell University Library arV11531 The Social science of theiiConstiJuJio^ 3 1924 031 322 260 olin,anx Cornell University Library The original of tliis book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924031322260 THE SOCIAL SCIENCE COISTITTJTIOI OF SOCIETY CAUSE AND CURE niBSBaSTT E|-9"ILS. 'And ye shall know the Tmtli, and the Truth shall make you free/ — Jesus. John, chap. viii. t. 32. Living in truth individually and socially involves the anniMlation of War. Despotism, 'and Slavery in nations, and Violence, Dishonesty, and Deceit in individuals. It involves more — since it requires us to act as brethren of one family. LONDON: EFFINGHAM WILSON; ABEL HETWOOD, Makohestbb ; H. ROBINSON, Bdinbbboh ; abd WILLIAM LOTE, 40 St. Enoch Squabs, Olasoow. MDCOOLXII. J DEDICATION. To the people of Great Britain generally, and to those of both sexes in all countries who would willingly resign ambitious notions of personal wealth — being satisfied and pleased were a moderate enjoyment of Ufe's necessi- ties assured in return for a reasonable amount of labour — to them especially we would confide the judgment as to whether the following pages are worthy the great cause of human advancement in virtue and happiness, as they are intended, in however small degree, by THE AUTHOR. Missing Page THE SOCIAL SCIENCE or THE CONSTITUTM OF SOCIETY. CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTOKT. ' Nature is conquered by obeying her.' — Bacon. The German philosopher and poet, Goethe, tells us 'the end of life is life itself.' Assuming this affirmation to be correct, we are in duty bound to discriminate ■what in ' life itself ' is to be cherished and cultivated, and what is to be moittned over and rooted out. This is our aim in regard to society, and that in no small particulars, requiring delicate sentiments, but in broad, general prin- ciples, which aU may comprehend and judge for them- selves. Perhaps one of the broadest views of human naiture is that which discriminates those phases of activities we name contentment, pure morality, happiness — in short, whatever is good, sincere, and elevating — ^in contradis- tinction from the multitude of vices and errors which are so deplorably prevalent in society. These two extremes 2 THE CONSTITUTION OF SOCIETY. exist and have their connecting centre in ourselves, the same as heat and cold. We use science in regard to the latter, and may find a proper temperature for the body ; but the former, if we use science— which is education in its broad sense — we use it to little purpose, for vices in every grade of life are as common as the virtues, while the latter ought to be as near as possible universal. ' Europe (says George Combe) is at this moment only waking out of the slumbers of the dark ages; she is be- ginning to discover that she is ignorant, and to desire instruction. The sun of knowledge, however, is still below the horizon to vast multitudes of our British po- pulation; but they are startled by a bright effulgence darting from a radiant sky, and they now know that that light is the dawn of a glorious day, which will tend to terminate their troubled dreams of ignorance and folly. Help us to arouse them — let us lead them to pay their morning orisons in the great temple of universal truth. When they shall have entered into that temple, let us introduce them to nature and to nature's God, and let us hasten the hour when the whole human race shall join together, to celebrate His power, wisdom, and goodness, in strains which wiU never cease till creation pass away; for we know that the sun of knowledge (un- like the orb of day), when once risen, will never set, but win continue to emit brighter and brighter rays, till time shall be no more. In eternity alone can we con- ceive the wonders of creation to be completely unfolded and the miad of man to be satiated with the fulness of information.' INTRODUCTOKY. 3 There is room for hope here, yet we need not be greatly surprised that we have not already attained a comparatively perfect practice in regard to pure wisdom and morality. The bright side of the picture we are most interested to understand and develope, as it is the most legitimate and noble end of life itself; but the dark side cannot but present itself till the light has its destined supremacy and universaMty. Some self-evident proverb- ial truths ought to effect a powerful iniluence on our practice; for what is pure and worthy in human actions are virtues necessarily connected with happiness, and their opposite vices, with their necessarily following misery. These are founded on God's works, conse- quently must stand, and the universally desirable phases vdtimately triumph. This object is not only our duty, but interest prompts us to assist in their acceptance ; in our judgment or choice they are intimately wrought with our own, our friends' and neighbours', and our children's happiness in all future time, for we may presume no sane person would prefer that which would lead to misery rather than to happiness. Yet this leads us to the greatest difficulty of all — the difficulty we would pur- posely combat — that there exist many influences in civilized society which prove themselves on us to be far more powerful than precepts known and acknowledged to be true and good. But in the best, or in the worst influences, habits ought to be kept as pure as possible, allowing the judgment and superior sentiments to acquire the habit of governing all the other impulses. Each person's judgment must dictate a given conduct, in pre- 4 THE CONSTITUTION OF SOCIETY. f erence to another which -would involve personal disgrace and public censure. Education and general circumstances must favour this at an early period in individual lives, and then we may expect a healthy morality — a calm self- possession. The pernicious influences once withdrawn, the work of regeneration, or reformation of evU practice, wUl be as straight to the given goal as any work which is gone about in a scientific manner. Public opinion, as an item of happiness in every re- spect except where it is irrational, tends to multiply itself and strengthen all virtuous sentiment. It is of the highest origin, as it is also of the highest value to hu- manity. ' Oh, Happiness ! our being's end and aim ! Good, pleastire, eaae, content! whate'er thy name.' — Pope. Dr Frankhn understood the nature of our subject weU, and expresses himself thus — ' The desire of happiness in general is so natural to us, that all the world are in pursuit of it ; all have this one end in view, though they take such different methods to attain it, and are so much divided in their notions of it. EvU, as evil, can never be chosen ; and though evil is often the effect of our own choice, yet we never desire it, but under the appearance of an imagi- nary good. Many things we indulge ourselves in may be considered by us as evils, and yet be desirable ; but then they are only considered as evUs at present, and attended with immediate misery. There is no happiness, then, but in a virtuous and self-approving conduct ; unless our actions will bear the test of our sober judgment, and re- INTRODUCTORY. 5 flections upon thetn, they are not good actions, and con- sequently not the happiness of a rational being.' This happiness (or misery), though of no material existence in itself, is the blossom or the blessing which ought and naturally does co-exist along with all highly organised beings. When misery has any predominance, nature is not obeyed, and it is a foolhardy game to play contra, when it must be all loss and no gain. However transitory happiness may appear, it has to exist and then it hath served its purpose; and in truth it stubbornly stands there the greatest blessing connected with our natural lives, and as congenial to our bodies as food or light. Why should it remain as a thing generally known and heard of, but never even one hope of its realisation? Experience in common life speaks only of toO, and care, and chagrin ; most people bring their minds to them in time, if they do not succumb too soon, but how many heavy sighs and tears have to be endured ? Instinct re- pels this antagonistic life, and we must give more heed to her promptings in the future if we would study our own interest. Nothing more than truth and justice i^ wanted or required. The harmonious spirit which exists throughout all natural phenomena will be the great puri- fier of our thoughts and aspirations. Herein we will find our most sacred duties and our individual rights ; suffi- cient for us is the truth, and the truth will make us free, noble, and charitable. To live is to enjoy ; to breathe is to breathe forth our blessed dependence, if we could but realise the true spirit. 6 THE CONSTITUTION OF SOCIETY. Although we find the kernel of our subject within such narrow hmits, let us not be deceived as to its early posses- sion. The shell is to be got through which quite encloses the wished-for prize. And here again we find where the great amount of work is to be performed, not only in ourselves, but ia the prejudice and error of others, and in enhghtening the ignorant and unthinking. The majority of thinking people have their own notions of the baneful evils in society, and also of their cure ; however vague and erroneous, ihey cannot be expected to throw them aside at once. Habit naturally confirms long received notions as part of our second nature ; eradication is next to impossible. Paine, with his usual ability, says of this characteristic — ' Along habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defence of custom ; but the tumult soon subsides. Time makes more converts than reason J Then, we have first the reformation which is essentially individual, in conforming our thoughts and actions with divine truth — the noblest standard the mind can conceive ; and second, in regard to society, acquiring true knowledge in the place of error, and true social organisation in the place of peas-in-a-bushel unity, shams, straight-jacket positions, and the common strife in the fight of living. The former, namely self-culture, must become ours at whatever amount of perseverance ; ' the spirit must be wilHng however weak the flesh may prove.' The great work of human happiness would have the best half accomplished were people generally determined on this ; but to the latter we would refer more particularly. INTEODUCTOEY. 7 We said, thinking people have theories of the evils that afflict and the benefits we may expect, for society ; but the truth is ever absolute, and when they are so many, and frequently diametrically opposite, there must be more error than truth. There being no standard but fact and human judgment, we ought to respect all who are sincere, however much disposed to combat the theories advanced. It is well for people to form opinions for themselves, giving the judgment its legitimate function to perform. Chesterfield is not far wrong on this point when he said — ' Consult your reason betimes. I do not say it will always prove an unerring guide — ^for human reason is not infallible — ^but it will prove the least erring guide you can follow.' No single opinion in regard to the cause of the ills of life has gained so many respondents as that of Paul's, in ' The love of money being the root of all evil ;' yes, even by many comparatively enhghtened men of the present day. But it is for us to judge if it is not more than a tool, a material servant in the hands of man, and that for any purpose. Opinions are not to be discussed here, but simply stated, to indicate the nature of the subject to which attention will be directed in the follow- ing pages. Another, which had its day and made noise enough too, but has been put to bed and sleeps soundly now, was that of ' usury. ' Usury is an honourable trans- action now-a-days. To annihilate money, says one class, and usury says another, would mitigate greatly the evils which society holds incorporated in its constitution. How many stick to idleness and imprudence being the 8 THE CONSTITUTION OF SOCIETY. grand cause of evil? and, consequently, industry and economy the saving potion of diseased society. Drunk- enness, and extravagance in dress fall in for their share. ' It is ordinarily much easier to point out evils, and even to indicate their causes, than to suggest the reipedies. We are all agreed that there are evils, but public opinion is at present very much divided as regards both causes and remedies, and perhaps most parties err more from taking a partial or confined view than from that view being absolutely mistaken. Machinery is the cause, says one ; it is pver-production and over -trading, says another \ it is corn laws and the want of. free trade ; it is the cur- rency and joint-stock banks ; it is class legislation ; it is deficiency of education and religious instruction, and the improvident habits of the working classes, say others — and probably all are right.' Machinery is not unfre- quently named the civUiser and improver of the fortune of the poorer classes in particular ; Britain could not hold the wealth and position she does without her enormous mechanical appliances. Where they are most extensively in use wages are often comparatively high, and high wages are looked upon by some people as the remedy for society's ailings ; but would there be less social tyranny and cor- ruption were the wages up to the desired ideal ? — or are they who enjoy large wages satisfied, or all that could be desired morally ? The last to which we win at present make reference is that in regard to religion. The clergy have become famous, since the time of Galileo, to thrust objections against whatever had for its object hmnan advancement. INTRODUCTORY. g on religious grounds entirely. — This is no less futile than politically false. They tell us we are not to hope, by human endeavour, to radically ameliorate and per- fect the lot and character of man. This is supposed to be beyond our power, and to attempt it wiU. in the consequences not only faU but involve and deserve punish- ment. This great work is left for special interference from Deity, who alcme is conceived capable to undertake its accomplishment. It is almost superfluous to say we shall never subscribe to this stationary, blasphemous, and certainly derogatory doctrine. All our experience in the progress our race has undergone makes us the more certain that Deity requii'es us to work out all our own material welfare ; even as all our acquirements in science and art have been exclusively by the thought of our brain and the strength of our arm. No exception to these have existed in the past ; then why listen to the chronic waihngs or teachings of a barbaric age ? When Deity is made to play a part in essentially mundane and secular concerns, it indicates a degree of superstition which is anything but creditable to the citizen. The Deity requires not such lame and absurd attributes as are involved in such puny work — in fact, to admit it would destroy the infinite sublimity manifested throughout the whole of creation. Surely, when the nature of things is so perfect, we need not construe them with the artificial relationships of life, which gives man room for his activity, glory, and scope for his ingenuity. All God's works teach and necessarily require of us to learn the use of our powers, by way of perfecting ourselves in all that is noble and good, thus 10 THE CONSTITUTION OF SOCIETY. perfecting ourselves in a finite degree as followers in practice ought the Infinite and All-perfect. This is self- evident to thinking people, and perfectly satisfactory. Then our duty is clear— to follo-w truth to the utmost in our power, discarding the prejudices and tyranny which have grown up with our rage to its shame, reading us a lesson of the darkness dominant in bygone ages, when our own judgment enables us to be certain. The question of special providence and science is put thus by Dr A. Combe : — ' The question thus just comes to be, whether it is more humble and respectful in us to study what are really the decrees of the Divine will, and endeavour to act in accordance with them, as the surest way to obtain God's blessing on our efforts ; or to shut our eyes to the means by which He acts and manifests His wiU, and, while paying 1dm a weU-meant but bKnd homage, to disregard or even run counter to his instruc- tions, in the vain hope that, in compassion for our weak- ness, He will alter the order of nature in our favour?' Leaving these naftow causes and medicinal cures of afflicted society, with the assurance they fall far short of the organic disease and remedy, we may find some indi- cations of a more profound philosophy or science not un- known in present society, and that as briefly as possible. There is no question that the evils in society have their primary cause in the false, as it will be expected their cure will be found in absolute truth. We will present some of the indications of the evils — of what is, but what ought not to be, in the first instance ; and second, some hints of what society requires, and must ultimately possess. INTKODUCTOEY. U Individual experience speaks to the effect that the re- lative amount of happiness enjoyed is not quite sufficient for nature's demand; in fact, that misery, whether as chagrin or ennui, absorbs an unaccountable amount of our time. No doubt,, different natures find different de- grees of enjoyment in as nearly as possible the same circumstances or external conditions; but we must not needlessly question dispositions, for they are divine; the social and industrial constitution of society are in our power, and must be adapted to the variety, placing all so as to have one interest and one good. Peace, liberty of conscience, healthy employment, &c., &c., axe equally adapted for all the vaSriety of human natures. But the partitioning of the earth and aU necessaries of life into mine and thine, were it ever so equitably performed, could never suit the various dispositions — could never bring happiness — but could show the > weaknesses and foibles of our natures, according to the development of that principle. ■ If we come to a particular class of our population, what misery may be imagined from this alone? — ' Our paupers are one million and a-haJf,. and our criminals a million.'" It is to be hoped these positions sit lighter on their shoulders than they would, on many others. • Let us hear what the author of ' The Philosophy of Necessity' says of our present 'system of society : — ' It is evident that the error of our present system lies in its defective and false organization, and that the reform required is neither political nor administrative, but social. We be- come so accustomed to the form of society under which 12 THE CONSTITUTION OF SOCIETY. we live, that its institutions, laws, and customs are a second nature to us, and we never suspect that the evils that surround us, and against which we are struggling, are inherent in the very framework of our social system. This social system, which appears to us so natural, un- changeable, and perfect, is nevertheless built upon the predominance of individual self-interest, and is therefore totally out of harmony with the very laws of our being. Providence has so built «s, that we cannot be happy if our f eUow-creatures axe miserable ; and what we require is a skilful combination of all the powers we possess for the general good. A family should consist, not of a man's own household merely, but of as many as are necessary to produce and consume everything that the highest wants of the family require. The objects proposed by such an association are harmony of means, unity of pur- pose, and, what can never be acquired under the present system, justice in distribution. To production only have we liitherto attended, and we are now beginning to be aware that distribution is equally important.' The same author quotes from Thomas Carlyle'S ' Past and Present' : — ' All this mammon-gospel of supply and demand, competition, laissez-faire, and devil-take-the- hindmost, begins to be one of the shabbiest gospels ever preached on earth; or altogether the shabbiest.' Sidney Smith, in 'The Mother Country,' says: — 'It is no use that we prove progress in material wealth, if we also estabhsh an increase of real misery to a greater extent still. What are all our imports, and exports, and accu- mulations, if we do no more with them than swell the INTEODUCTORY, 13 number of bankrupts, paupeis, and criminals? This, in- deed, is the least consolatory view of our condition. We possjffis all the materials which are supposed to lead to <^jifoTrt, order, intelligence, and virtue, and are still y%at /times more the children of the devil than we were "Mfore." We might hope, if we were poor, to make a better use of our resources, and become rich ; but having riches, and being socially poor, is the saddest of spec- tacles. Our misery lies in this, that having the good things of this world we know not how to use them; we know the science of getting, not the more difBcult art of wisely spending.' We may take only one other autho- rity on another phase of the shady side of present society, the Kev. Dr W. Knox, who says : — ' Many who have arisen to high elevation of rank or fortune seem to think that their nature has undergone a real metamorphosis ; that they are refined by a kind of chemical process, sublimed by the sunshine of royal favour, and separated from the foeces, the dross, and the dregs of ordinary humanity — that humanity of which the mass of mankind partake, and which, imperfect as it is, God created. They seem to themselves raised to a pinnacle, from which they be- hold, with sentiments of indifference or contempt, all two-legged and unfeathered beings of inferior order, placed in the vale, as ministers of their pride and slaves to their luxury, or else burdens of the earth and superfluous sharers of existence.' Now we may have a few specimens of authorities, as indicating the remedy. Let no one deceive himself that it ig entirely an outward principle, for the truth is, the 14 THE CONSTITUTION OF SOCIETY. outward or available natural principle is depending upon the inward state of mens' minds, their intelligence, love to man, and sense of justice. For the primary mod^ to effect this we may quote from 'The Christian l%til°' sopher' : — ' In short, a devout contemplation of the ^ ^ks of nature tend to ennoble the human soul, and to purify and exalt the affections.' And again, in reference to man's relation to nature — ' All proclaim the benevolence of our Almighty Maker, and show that the communication of happiness is one grand object of all His arrangements.' Or take Theodore Parker: — -'Love to God was no ab- straction. It implied love of wisdom, justice, purity, goodness, holiness, charity. To love these, is to love God; to love them, is to Ziue them.' 'The other doc- trine. Love to Man, is love of all as yourself, not because they have no faults, but in spite thereof. To feel no enmity towards enemies ; to labour for them with love ; pray for them with pitying affection, remembering that the less they deserve the more they need ; this was the -doctrine of Love. It demands that the rich, the wise, the holy, help the poor, the foolish, the sinful ; that the strong bear the burdens of the weak, not bind them anew. It tells a man that his excellence and ability are not for himself alone, but for all mankind, of which he is but one, beginning first with the nearest of the needy. It makes the strong the guardians, not the tyrants of the weak.' So much for the internal part of the remedy ; now we may hear Thomas Carlyle in regard to the external : ' AH human interests, combined human endeavours, and INTRODUCTORY. 15 social growths in this world have, at a certain stage of their development, required organising ; and Work, the grandest of human interests, does now require it. The shadow on the dial advances henceforth without pausing. What government can do ? This that they call " Or- ganisation of Labour," is, if well understood, the problem of the whole future, for aU who would in future pretend to govern men.' In ' The Friend of the People ' for 1851, Louis Blanc, author of the ' Organization of Labour,' writes: — ' What is association? It is that principle by which men, in- stead, of isolating themselves, fighting for life and fortune as for some booty, and tearing each other to pieces, are led to harmonise their wiUs, to combine their talents, and work together at a common task, of which each would receive the fruits according to his wants, after having contributed to the production in proportion to his abilities. What are the results of association? Love, the harmony of the individual with the general interest, and, consequently, an honourable emulation; the intro- duction of science in the place of chance ; the unlimited increase of public wealth by a scientific combination of the various powers of nature, and its distribution accord- ing to the various wants of the individuals; in one word, the real practice of Christianity — Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity.' William Thomson, in his ' Appeal for Women,' says : — ' The scheme of association, or mutual co-operation, where all useful talents and efforts for the common good will be equally appreciated and rewarded, is the true 16 THE CONSTITUTION OF SOCIETY. haven for the happiness of both sexes, particularly ■women. All motives are here taken away from men to practise injustice — all motives are taken away from women to submit to injustice. The practice of it will not, therefore, be attempted. As long as the exclusive individual possession of wealth remains the moving-spring of human society, so long will your peculiar pains and privations be disregarded and unrequited, and man will avail himself of his natural advantages of strength and uninterrupted exertion to exact an indirect domination over woman in the secresy of domestic life, though laws and public opinion were opposed to such usurpation. It is not in human natme, possessed of power and the means of exercising it, and acting in everything by means of competition, to abstain on all occasions from the abuse of that power. By mutual co-operation of large numbers, the power and the means of exercising it are equally withdrawn. Women are here no more de- pendent on men, or on any individual man, than men are on women.' Allow the gifted Shelley to say a word here : — ' I will not insult common sense by insisting on the doctrine of the natural equality of man. The question is not con- cerning its desirableness, but its practicability ; so far as it is practicable, it is desirable.' And again: — 'The whole of human science is comprised in one question : How can the advantages of intelligence and civilisation be reconciled with the liberty and pure pleasures of a natural bfe?' Political Economy — Association is there any other INTRODUCTORY. 17 which these do not represent? If not, which shall we choose? We shall give audience to another — George Combe, in his ' Moral Philosophy :' — ' As the firmest be- lievers in man's capability of improvement are those per- sons who themselves possess a high moral development of brain, they are inspired in. this faith, not by a demon, but by Heaven, for the moral sentiments are the God- Uke element of nature ; and the very fact that these ennobling expectations are entertained by men possessing the best moral aifections, affords an indication that Pro- vidence intends they should be realised. In proportion, then, as a large development of the organs of the higher faculties become general, the conviction of the possibility of improvement, the desire for it, find the power of realising it, wUl increase.' In conclusion, perhaps, we might discourage the idea of here finding a finished picture, or more than a common etching; hence we could not say otherwise than with the Kev. Thomas Pearson, in his Essay on Infidelity — 'Divine truth is, from its very nature, imperishable ; whereas error, however mis- chievous in its influence for the time, is doomed to des- truction.' Or with the Rev. W. Knox 'On Despotism': — ' I endeavour in this book to plead the cause of man, firmly convinced that the cause of man is the cause of God.' 18 THE CONSTITUTION OF SOCIETY. CHAPTER n. PRESENT STATE OP SOCIETY. Ie there ever was anything good in the principle of Society, it belongs to the modern more than to that of the past. That the race have progressed in wealth, virtue, and happiness, cannot be called in c|_uestion. Since this is the fact, we will be taking very proper grounds in examining the constitution of society, as it at present exists, rather than that of any phase of the past. This, then, will be the immediate subject of discussion. There are certain preliminaries in all departments of learning, which are self-evident, or facts of individual cognizance in nature : such as letters in regard to language ; of knowledge, existence itself must be the evident standard of appeal and foundation ; of music, we wiU find it in simple sounds ; geometry has figures, and arithmetic has numerical figures: every department of science (and science embraces all real knowledge) has its preliminary assumptions, or foundations, and what are those of society? What is the first link which binds and forms the basis of people living in this state of pre- sent society ? Society has foundation in private or indi- vidual property. This is the primary assumption of modern and historic society. In any examination of the constitution of society, therefore, it is of vast importance PEESENT STATE OP SOCIETY. 19 to see clearly the truth at the basis. What is this pri- vate or personal property ? Every one knows this by every-day experience. It is the exclusive right to use or abuse whatever is held as proparty. Members of the human family have been and are stiU held as property : natural right must be entirely thrown aside here, for the slave may as justly hold the slaveholder as a chattel as the slave is at present held. It is certainly a great anomaly that man may be either the property or the proprietor of man. Both cannot be in accordance with nature. And if we might err in holding man as property, how much more readily may we err in holding anything else? The idea of property, then, may be purely questionable, and the investigation of its intrinsic truth is of &st import- ance, to see if it is justified by natural existence, and consequently whether it is, or is not, of Divine origin. This is not the place to enquire whether man must conceive nature or creation as eternal, or as the work of the Almighty God. Whichever of these it may be, its essential nature wiU be the same, and this is what we have to do with; for the great principles and facts in the universe are open, cognizant to all who are led to observe, and are our principal reliance, and generally least the subject of dispute. But truly these speculative opinions are not opposed to each other ; only they go different degrees into the deep subject. The first gives prominence only to what is popularly called ' ocular demonstration ' ; but this must include all mental percep- tions and deductions from outwardly observed facts — assuming substance and connected power or vitality, 20 THE CONSTITUTION OF SOCIETY. in its origin and present manifestation, eternal. The second sees all this the same, but requires by appa- rent necessity some Infinite Power superior to the material creation, and for the purpose of giving that infinite beauty manifested in the natural world. The first deifies nature ; the second makes nature the handiwork of adorable Deity ; so that in either case na- ture is divine— above human power and wisdom, and consequently perfectly suitable to form a standard of human notions. The stability of nature is unquestioned by either for the unchangeable condition of what is permanent, and the uniformity of natural vital forces or laws gives man a certainty and serenity pleasant to the recipient to conceive, and not less subservient in all works of utility. With this view of nature as an available, just standard of truth and error, we approach the question — Whether it justifies the idea and holding of individual property? We find in the Book ©f Psalms, that ' the earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof ' ; and the same idea is to be heard from the pulpit very frequently. This gives us to understand nothing can become the property of man ; things are neither mine nor thine, but belong to our Creator — the use of them is understood to be the normal condition. But who expects those who preach this unselfish doctrine, and those who listen to it, to carry it into daily practice — to repudiate absolute possession in property? In the American Slave States similar fine words may be eloquently held forth just as often as with OS. So, if we are to be men in our manhood, these child- PRESENT STATE OF SOCIETY. 21 ish characteristics must pass from us, and speak what we think and practise what we profess. As we may hear to no purpose property discussed from the pulpit, we return to nature to work out our problem, to inhale power to create the vital principle and practice which accords most with truth. One would think to hold anything as pro- perty there should be a natural connection between the two — a self-evident dependence of the property on the proprietor ; but nothing of the kind exists. The strong- est position, and nearest approach to truth in the idea of property we can conceive, is that in ourselves belonging to ourselves. If we have one particle of right to property, we have it in and over our own persons. But have we even this ? Does it not remiad us of blasphemy ? Are we not dependent creatures ? — dependent soul and body^ on nature or nature's God I Yes, and also on our fellow- beings. We are not even independent of man ; for surely to have an absolute right to assist or not assist our fellow- beings we must be independent of them ; but this belongs not to us. And if dependent, how can we rationally hold ourselves as our own exclusively — for ourselves alone? Dependence, by moral law, assumes duties in return ; and the moral principles of our nature prompt over and above those to virtuous duties whenever they can be rendered. And these moral sentiments imply social life for mutual kindnesses, at the same time that they repudiate any selfish release from moral duties. And what becomes of the idea of exclusive property of one's self ? It is simply usurpation, not only over ourselves in relation to others, but over the divine constitution of nature. We have 22 THE CONSTITUTION OF SOCIETY. no good aulhority for holding ourselves exclusively for ourselves, and much less for others holding us exclu- sively for themselves. What is true in regard to us is true in regard to all the human race. To render service is duty, but to command others to our service is pure and direct tyranny. It must be observed we are parts of the great work of God in Creation, and belong to that which is animate and rational ; indeed, the superior in it in a comparative degree — the very uppermost stone of this wondrously beautiful planet. From this view of the matter, man, in assuming property, assumes what there is not one par- ticle of authority to support him ; nature spurns such prac- tice, whether it be in a spirit of grasping ambition, sordid accumulation, or sUly weakness, they emanate from man, and are entirely on man's authority. Neither is there necessity in support of this idea of property, for while everything calls us to the exercise of our faculties in the production of the necessaries and luxuries of life, what could be more rational than the use and enjoy- ment of these productions in a state of union? We use the atmosphere in respiration ; but what presumption to call this portion mine, and that thine ? Such ridiculous and false ideas have no share in living well and happy ; to do our duties, and properly use the blessings of life, we require nothing' opposed to absolute truth and a gentle humOity. And it wOl be evident there is an assumption in the principle of property essentially different from the simple use of the innumerable blessings of life. ]n fact, the power to abuse, and the methods of abuse are PRESENT STATE OF SOCIETY. 23 thousands. The inebriated man is the ever-ready illus- tration; abuse of wine, spirits, or strong liquor; and he vainly thinks, that abuse of himself as well as the drink which was his own is simple matter for his own consi- deration and to nobody else. What plausibility there is in this is entirely due to the property principle, which gives us absolute mastery over self and property, while neither nature nor reason gives it; the latter rather leav- ing us in a dependence which is no burden, but pregnant with happiness. It must always remain a matter of pure conjecture, the enormous amount of waste time and wealth, which is perfectly unnecessary, but which is continually going on. Three months' strikes here and there of so many hundreds or thousands of people are calculated in pounds, shillings, and pence; yet this would be only a drop in the bucket of the many abuses for which present society's constitution is accountable. Also, the many wants among the great majority of people of things which exist in abundance — ^these not only ought to be supplied, but their enjoyment would greatly ele- vate the character of those who used them — such as scientific and all first-class books, all sorts of instruments for the prosecution of the arts, by way of self -culture. In present society this is impossible; every step demands money, and many young men hurt themselves by sup- plying elevating aspirations, and others by want of pro- per discretion in this particular never have much self- culture; but neither ought ever to have suffered. Others with less disposition for the arts suffer the wants they may possess to die, because the expense is impossible 24 THE CONSTITUTION OF SOCIETY. to be borne ; thus they all suffer, in a natural sense, for want of mental development — the one from the effects of ministering to his love of the arts, the other by his circumstances in life rendering the development of his love of arts of no avail. The characters of both are essentially injured — we have castles in the air without foundation in the one case, and in the other a repressed structure for want of material. We have somewhat digressed from the subject of the nature of property to its effects in society; and seeing this we will introduce an extract from John Locke on ' Civil Government,' which is to the point, and the author a well known authority : — ' Whether we consider natural reason, which tells us, that men, being once born, have a right to their preservation, and consequently to meat and drink, and such other things as nature affords for their subsistence ; or revelation, which gives us an account of those grants God made of the world to Adam, and to Noah and his sons, it is very clear, that God, as King David says, Psal. cxv. 16, " has given the earth to the children of men ;" given it to mankind in common. But this being supposed, it seems to some a very great difficulty how any should ever come to have a property in any thing. I wiU not content myself to answer that if it be difficult to inake out property, upon a supposition that God gave the world to' Adam and his posterity in common, it is impossible that any man, but one imiver- sal monarch, should have any property, upon a supposi- tion that God gave the world to Adam and his heirs in succession, exclusive of all the rest of his posterity. But PRESENT STATE OF SOCIETY. 25 I shall endeavour to show how men might come to have a property in several parts of that which Gtod gave to mankind in common, and that without any express com- pact of all the commoners.' This speaks for itself. The exclusive possession by heirship is given up, and the statement in the last period quoted is well carried out, but this object is giving the ' earth to the children of men* for personal property. Why take this for granted ? Why ! the earth is given to the children of men only for use. In establishing property, the follow- ing is one of the strongest arguments :— ' Though the earth and all inferior creatures be common to all men, yet every man has a property in his own person : this nobody has any right to but himself. The labour of his body, and the work of his hands, we may say, are pro- perly his. Whatsoever then he removes out of the state that nature hath provided and left it in, he has mixed his labour with, and joined to it something that is his own, and thereby makes it his property. It being by him removed from the common state nature hath placed it in, it hath by this labour something annexed to it that excludes the common right of other men : for this labour being the unquestionable property of the labourer, no man but he cam have a right to what that is once joined to, at least where there is enough and as good lefl^in common for others.' There is some force in this, and which might give a comparative right — a right which may be acknowledged without a properly constituted society : but the applicability had been questioned in his own mind since he added, ' at least where there is enough 26 THE CONSTITUTION OP SOCIETY. and as good left in common for others.' This will not suit us who are in society, and intend to remain in society, and would like to have a share of the blessings which naturally flow from the bounty of nature. It will be seen, first, that property is assumed in our own person ; second, labour bestowed on unclaimed nature is as- sumed to give basis to external property : these esta- blishing right of exclusive property. Can we serve two masters? We must choose the natural, with its duties, worth, and privileges; or we must choose the artificial, with its selfishness, corruption, and coercive laws. If our nature is a part and in accordance with the whole creation, and, in particular, bound up with the human race, there is not a shadow of evidence to support, nor justification to continue in the debasing meshes of selfishness. Self-appropriation is poison to benevolent and generous sentiments, violates the harmonies of our nature, and will continue to do so until we recognise the double dependence we are placed in — divine and human. We said a few words already on our person being not our own, and need not again repeat it. We cannot be our own when we are not independent, and, it not our own, our labour is not altogether ours either. After the na- tural and social duties are performed, then we may labour and establish comparative right ; but this must be a thing of leisure time, and not generally of first importance. Hence it is delusion to reason of labour estabhshing the basis of property, because it in the main ispre-occupied • it cannot in nature nor in reason withdraw itself from family and social duties and privileges. And if it could is it desirable ? PRESENT STATE OF SOCIETY. 27 Let us sketcli a sample character, duly influenced by the common Mammon principle, independent and selfish. Behold a child gifted with good capacities, mental and physical, fortunate in having dutiful, patient, and affec- tionate parents. The neighbours are friendly and kind, want is unknown, and the duties imposed are principally, if not altogether, for his own interest. Proper teachers for his education are enjoyed, and expense is not spared to thoroughly accomplish our sample character. Thus this happy ' child of circumstances ' is matured, and be- gins acting on his own account. He acquires pocket- money, and loves his accumulations ; soon totally forgets to be kind to others, as others have been to him. Looking about, he soon finds means to accelerate his accumulations by engaging others, whose necessities force them, and who are simple enough to slave for him for little more than the physical necessities of life and a few words of encourage- ment. He gains faster than ever, and is now richer than the class among whom he has been bred. The poor, the purseless, he is shocked with — reminding him of their wants and his power to reUeve them, which is not to be expected. He did not get his money that way, and attri- butes their misery and wretchedness to indolence and want of economy, although he can roughly guess they have been industrious, but the weekly earnings would not average the paltry sum necessary for decent comfort. It is not his business if they have had to assist their parents and other members of their family, and have had no pa- trimony that could be reserved. He likes people to take care of themselves; and if they wUl not, then they must 28 THE CONSTITUTION OF SOCIETY. just suffer the consequences. Duties of life become ab- sorbed into selfish independence ; obligations of money or debts are all fulfilled, or may be fulfilled ; consequently his is the freest of the free in regard to all personal duties to be performed. There are many noble and pure channels of emulation, according to nature, but these have all been turned into one narrow and deep enough — the pure influences of property, the artificial and corroding worship of Mammon. Did nature bestow high faculties for pure selfishness ? Did his parents deserve neglect in the sunset of their days — nearly contempt, for their means was just barely suflBcient, having used their income, spending it freely for their child, and other duties of life? And who can say that one heart has been lightened by his benignant smile and offering ? None, truly none. Property in his life is no dead institution, but its very mainspring. And who dare affirm himself free from its polluting power ? It forces itself on all, but in different degrees ; makes the noble nature simply good, the good by nature it turns out quite indifferent, and the indifferent into positive stains on the famUy of man. Let us, then, understand the intrinsic nature of property. Are we to assume God gives us life, and health, and power, and wisdom, for to claim rights purely selfish — leaving the nobler duties to take care of themselves? Are we to assume God enjoins us to establish this purely selfish principle into a funda- mental constitution for society, now and for ever? God forbids. Nature abhors. We must abjure this, and act humbly in our twofold dependence, if we would enjoy the blessings intended by our Infinite Parent. The idea PEESENT STATE OF SOCIETY. 29 of absolute property is false, and the practice of it proves it beyond question in the effects produced. A few words now and more particularly on the right to unclaimed substance, which has had labour added to it. It is true, if it is proper for man to assume property, that the person who expends labour on any given material has a more legiti- mate right to that thing than others who have on it bestowed no labour. But this admission gives no support to the false principle of property. Seeing, as we do, primary ideas to that of right by labour, which preclude us from assuming power or right to hold things as pro- perty, consequently it seems impossible to substantiate this by labour. Labour is simply action, useful action ; in a general sense, particularly for the production of the necessaries and luxuries of life. It cannot be amalga- mated into the material, but must remain only the thing directing or acting on it. We may fertilise land, sow com, and reap the harvest ; in all we have not added one atom, but simply directed the impulses of nature for our own purposes by action. Those who feE trees, cut them up, and form the timber into useful purposes, do stand identically in the same relation. To manufacture corn, milk, or eggs, sounds strange only to those unaccustomed to conceive of them in this light. But, in reality, the f eUer of wood, the sower and reaper of corn, and he who makes thread into cloth, are aU equally manufacturers, or labourers, if the term suit or appear preferable, but the idea intended is the same, that all work is simply intelligent, useful, and volxmtary action — ^the grand object of a3l being the production of the necessaries and 30 THE CONSTITUTION OF SOCIETY. luxuries of life. Animate beings may effect peculiar conditions on natural phenomena, but change nothing in the nature of things ; our action in nature is limited, neither the creation nor destruction of one single atom being within our power. 'We sow, but God giveth the increase.' Sowing here is illustrative of our power or action; God, of the substance and all vital action. Having seen this much, it must be evident ' proprietorship ' is no less presumptuous than unfounded. But supposing labour was sufficient to establish absolute property; also, suppose property was in the main estab- lished by labour, without violence, usurpation, confis- cations, or other maUcious injustice in the present and past, the question would instantly arise — Do we univer- sally or in the majority desire the establishment of the individual property system of society ? This question is fair and of first importance, and which ought to be taken up individually by all. Do we prefer individual interests to interests in common ? If our answer be in the affir- mative, we are as we desire and deserve to be : if in the negative, then organise and patiently wait. Ultimately nature's lesson must be read, that mutual help in labour, and mutual enjoyment of the products of labour, is the only true, and consequently the only right constitution of society. How do we find life in the present constitution of society ? Are we in a position to be satisfied either with the duties or the enjoyments ? These are the fruits by which to judge the tree, but we may also judge whether we sow wheat or tares. It need not be neglected that happiness is the grand mundane effect desired by all THE PRESENT STATE OF SOCIETY. 3 1 sensate beings, and the human race are no exception. This may be difficult to digest, looking only superficially to the experience of every day life or history ; but the criterion of nature supports the fact. Men, by ignor- ance, distorted beliefs, and base motives, may act what appears to others entirely opposed to this truism of hap- piness being the element and object of our race. But here man is the author of his own misery. Society's con- stitution cannot change the true into the false ; yet it alone not only darkens this principle of happiness which ought to be clear as any other essential truth, but mis- directs all individuals in making possession of property necessarily a primary condition to any continuance of rational enjoyment. Hence, in a great degree, the race of mankind, in their search for happiness, find it directed into a 'search for wealth' — the necessaries and luxuries of life. Few or none are entirely satisfied, not even those who worship the gold till the purse is both a burden and a feeble comfort — those, above aU, who have gained the prize their ambition was set on. We may take another view of the desirability of the individual property principle : from Plato's ' Republic' the following dialogue: — 'A state then, said I, takes its rise, methinks, because none of us individually happens to be self-sufficient, but stands in need of many things ; do you think there is any other origin of the settlement of a state ? None, said he. Thus, then, one assisting one person for the want of one thing, and another for the want of another, as we stand in need of many things, we collect into one dwelling many 32 THE CONSTITUTION OF SOCIETY. companions and assistants, and to this joint dwel- ling we give the name of a city ; do we not ? Cer- tainly.' Again, lie represents a husbandman, a builder, a weaver, a shoemaker, in the origin of his ' state ' illustration, and adds, 'What, then? must each of these contribute work for the whole in common? — as, for instance, must the husbandman, though only one, provide food for four, and spend fourfold time and labour in providing food and sharing it with the others ? or is he, without any care for them, to prepare for himself alone the fourth of this food in the fourth part of the time, while the other three parts of his time, he employs one in providing a house, another clothing, and the other shoes, and not trouble himself to share with others, but give his whole attention to his own affairs?' And Adi- mandus said — ' Ay, but perhaps the former way, Socrates, is easier than the latter. By Zeus (Jupiter), that is not amiss, said I — for while you are speaking, I am thinking that first of all we are born, not each other perfectly alike to each, but differing in disposition — one fitted for doing one thing, and another for another ; does it not seem so to you ? It does.' There was the ancient philosopher speculating three hundred and fifty years before our present era; it suits for a primitive state well, and in! principle is a simple illustration for the modern also. Work must be per- formed ; the produce must be distributed. WO we accept a certain just principle which is simple as it is effective ? or will we continue a hap-hazard, irresponsible principle as that of individual property ? Are we disposed to give PRESENT STATE OF SOCIETY. 33 all people an interest in performing necessary work and duties ? or wiU we distrust each other, and give wages to use or abuse, as the discretion or passions are predomi- nant ? Are we determined in making patriotic citizens of all ? or are we pleased with many degraded, time- serving drudges ? Make the question a family one, by supposing we were isolated from the rest of mankind, or the only inhabitants of an island country, and the earth surrounding us, are we individually to claim as private property or simply to cultivate according to our mutual wants? Will each able-bodied member isolate himself from the others within the boundary called his own, manufacture all for himself, and contribute part thereof to support those aged or otherwise unable to provide for themselves ? or would Ihey better live friendly together, each doing what he best could and was most necessary, for the whole, and the whole doing the same for him, the aged or disabled being supported along with the other members, without stain of honour or reproach? We hold the isolation mode to be selfish, defeating its own hopes and promises, and the principle false ; separate purses, equally with separate claims of the earth, divide what ought to be union and a power of strength. Man, the subject of innumerable gifts and blessings in his own nature, in the sociality of his neighbour, in the greatest men of the past, who have written the thoughts and feelings of animated and inanimated nature, all con- tributing to his joy — shall the subject of half these blessings be unwilling to assist and assure, and in return be assisted and assured, in the material comforts of life c 34 THE CONSTITUTION OP SOCIETY. with his fellow-beings? To affirm this there must errone- ously appear some peculiar charm in Selfish independence and isolation ; no doubt, in these conditions the poverty- stricken unfortunates can be denied the wherewithal to satisfy the cravings of hunger by those so disposed, but such conditions can only be supported by a miserable few who would be guilty of such conduct. Perhaps a much larger number hurt themselves by giving more charity than they can, with all debts paid, afford. Ex- tremes we can scarce avoid running into, for we are in practical conditions similar to him who answers a question which is definitely and properly unanswerable. Charity, or relief of the poor, is peculiarly and permanently con- nected with the selfish, independent principle of property — the one is the legitimate consequence of the establish- ment of the other. And the uncertainty as to how our fellow-creatures are supported must be a continual source of anxiety to benevolently disposed and comfortably con- ditioned individuals. Nor can any thought or action of an individual greatly mitigate or stem the unwholesome current. Give all that you have to the poor, and the poor are very immaterially altered. Why so ? For the conditions that give rise to that poverty are active as ever creating them faster than we possibly could put them on proper supplies. We refer, of course, to all who suffer from poverty, but publicly are never known. Every person hs,s a spark of nature originally in him, however much it may be darkened by the corrupt influences of society ; hence the common feeling to mitigate misery wherever it exists. What suffering is not endured before PEESENT STATE OF SOCIETY. 35 charity is asked? Who would not loathe the system of- charity if its necessity was not urgent ? Would one na- tion or employed workman take alms from another nation or workman? The utmost disdain would be experienced and expressed. Why should any of our race be necessi- tated into such unmanly conditions? Why is it possible? Not is the giver without taint, who makes a parade or takes merit in deeds of pecuniary beneficence. The sub- ject is fraught with the most mournful conditions pos- sible for God's creatures to be placed in by necessity; but that necessity is founded on our own ignorance, which truth will dispel, with its thouaand-and-one evils. We have showed, first, the intrinsic idea of property is essentially false, because, if any thing can be viewed as property, it must belong alone to God ; and, second, that labour cannot establish any system of property, be- cause it assumes more than any human action could jus - tify and support. Indeed, we have seen it was not de- sirable, if it could be established on one or other of these foundations. But the fact that property has been established — that it is the foundation of present society— not only justifies but necessitates us to endeavour an analysis. Nothing can be more rational than properly understanding the constitution of society of which we form a citizen, and with which we would interfere. We must also acknow- , ledge that any radical interference which would leave society worse than we found it would be absolute mad- ness; but it is clearly our duty to endeavour, and our ever-enlarging experience and intelUgenoe gives hope 36 THE CONSTITUTION OF SOCIETY. we may by our interference leave society greatly supe- rior. We cannot attempt to particularise society's char- acteristics — enough if we can point to some leading features, as they appear on the surface ; to this end our observations must be limited. There are a few phases which attract attention on the most superficial view of society; such as the universal pursuit after money, wealth, or property ; the competition we hear of and see continually in this pursuit ; the disappointment of the great majority of this number ; the irritation, or uncon- genial nature all, or nearly all, find their occupations or positions in life ; the extremes of affluence and poverty, and also of education and ignorance; the narrowness each person maintains, being limited to his own sphere in society — and the spheres or classes in society are innu- merable, while our natures are one, and tend to imity ; the common wants which are never realised, yet all that is required for that purpose is in abundance in society. Others, with superabundance of means, and time unoccu- pied, are like to die of ennui, wkQe work could be en- gaged in delightful and useful, but not imposed by necessity ; the aspiration to gentility with empty pockets ; fine large airy houses with only two or three occupants, and other old hovels of equal size with their fifty or an hundred inmates packed to suffocation ; and so take good- bye of this inexhaustible catalogue with our thousands of bachelors who cannot find sufficiently favourable cir- cumstances to make themselves and others happy by marrying the thousands of unmarried women. Are these unnaturaj conditions in society without meaning? Are PRESENT STATE OF SOCIETY. 37 they not fdt? Is their positiTe continuance not an unbearable evil? We may see how impossible it is for us to rise above comparative poverty : to be at the oar while strength remaineth, and after that in life's ebbing tide, is a gloomy mixture of hope and despair. In youth, let wants be few, and nature's seal on them; for things wanted for an hour, a day, or a month, cannot be commanded without entailing a burden on all after life. We must succumb to the drivelling spirit in good time, when we cannot hope to prudentiaUy be master in life's circumstances; for no greater tyrant exists than the individual-property principle. For the poor, whose lives are exhausted by toil to procure sufficient just to live, a month's salary could not be wanted. These are its slaves. It has its courtieis or flatterers too, among those who have risen, by foul means in particular, to selfish independence. How many rise even to this independence from personal labour of actual utility, and have enjoyed a moderate amount of common luxuries during the acqui- sition. THE CONSTITUTION OF SOCIETY. CHAPTER ni. PRESENT STATE OF SOCIETY. Monet has been used to such an extent by society as almost to have been amalgamated with it, and on that account we shall state what it is, and how necessary in its constitution. Money has been said to be the root of all evil : how far it has to do with this connection, per- haps, win be made clear. The simplest view of gold, silver, &c., probably is the most correct — namely, scarce metals which represent comparative quantities of labour, and used as a circulating medium in exchanging equal quantities of labour in the production of the necessaries and luxuries of life. Gold is the product of labour, the same as com or broadcloth; a sovereign's worth of either represents the same expense in labour or profit as the sovereign itself. Were it not used as a circulating medium, its relative value would scarcely be altered ; and the increasing requirements for it as that medium have been quite equal to the extraordinary production of it during the last twelve years. Although gold is not likely to decrease in value for many years to come, this is by no means impossible. Were it to be produced with the same amount of labour as sUrer, ' the rush ' would bring its value down of a necessity ; but small differences cannot act, since the demand is so extensive, and the THE PRESENT STATE OF SOCIETY". 39 establishment of it as a standard of value so common among the whole civilised race of man. The same article may at different times be exchanged for a more or less quantity of gold ; but the probability is, that the production of that article has been found to be of less or more quantity of labour at the different periods — hence the change of price. A good harvest of all agricultural products, and the prices wiU be compara- tively low, and scarce crops of one or more articles will render them high. Here we have the same article ex- changing for more or less gold ; but the cause is evident — the less or more labour, or other expenditure, to bring the article to the same labour or expenditure that the gold is assmned to be. Gtold is not only a representative of value, but real value ; and hence it is the first necessity in all trading or commercial transactions. Grold, as a medium, steps into the place of bartering or exchanging goods or commodities for goods ; instead of that we have now goods for gold, which facilitates exchanges by not incommoding the exchangers with goods they do not re- quire, and do not occupy a position to sell them again. Mercliants have their given articles of exchange ; these they find sufficient to command their whole attention, so that other sorts of goods thrown on their hands would iuit little better than if a manufacturer of cloth were to be paid for a quantity of that article with a handsome mansion at Land's-End. There are two at a bargain, and each who exchanges labour or merchandise requires gold to some extent, and most people to a very great, or the whole extent of the price ; and if exchanges take place, 40 THE CONSTITUTION OF SOCIETY. they are still in money, and the balance sent to whom it belongs. This is, no doubt, an unquestionable improve- ment on barter, which is not out of date yet, although almost so, in Britain. It is a common remark among traders that ' Every per- son is in want of money.' Therfe is more assiduity and labour generally applied in selling articles and collecting the money than in paying it, and the exchanges which lead to the collecting of it are done to an advantage — forming the income of those engaged. All retail dealers pay money away in comparatively large sums, and gene- rally collect it in smaU ones — always eager for gold in exchange for commodities ; and they find, m turn, whole- sale merchants eager for their gold again for reple nishin g stock, or perhaps by a tempting figure and rising market, and having the same interest in exchanging for gold as the retail merchant. Paper money has both advantages and disadvantages. L.IOOO in gold is expected to bring its interest per annum, even as a house valued at L.IOOO is expected to bring its rent, to the proprietor of either ; but if we put L.IOOO of paper money in its place, which it is admirably fitted for, simply as a cir- culatiog medium, the interest is pure gain to the nation, as the cost of its manufacture is next to nothing. This is the bright side of the circulating paper medium. The dark side is in the fictitious value of the paper ; people know its true value, and the bankruptcy of a bank di- rector, or many other incidental causes, makes a terrible panic and demand for the money of ijitrinsic value — gold. Banks with paper issues may be quite sound or rich, and PRESENT STATE OF SOCIETY. 41 yet unable to exchange gold for their own paper notes, simply because the gold is absorbed in property or trade, while the paper is doing duty for it as a medium. The great requisite in issues of paper money is gua- rantees in rich companies — shareholders of great wealth. Discretion in its use is absolutely necessary ; the laws which have put limits to its production help to moderate what over-ambition might seek to execute. Paper, and nothing but paper, is never thought of, except on some extraordinary conditions, such as the State holding the whole land, which some men expound. The history of the assignats of the first French revolution is well known, but no one can take this case unconditionally, because the French were in extraordinary circumstances, and madly interfered with by other nations. When we hold paper, whether of an individual, a company, or a nation, we have only other people's promise to pay on demand or as agreed ; when we hold gold we possess intrinsic value so long as society exists as at present. Of bourse the value of gold may or may not be equal to iron in a normal or unartificial state of society ; it would be then used inde- pendent cf an unnecessary circulating medium, that would determine their real value, for value would be reversed by being the more valued or in demand the less labour in their production. Having said this much on money, we may endeavour to understand present society's constitution by taking up a few of its chief characteristics, limiting ourselves to the following : — Ist. The present mode of the distribution of property; 2nd. Law and Government; 3rd. Competition; 42 THE CONSTITUTION OF SOCIETY. 4th. Machinery ; and 5th. General effects of the property principle in society. 1st. The present mode of the distribution of property. The original distribution of property, particularly that hen who always laid the golden eggs — land — we need not enter into; it would be equally foreign to our intention, and barren in producing an understanding of the present distribution of property. But, before leaving it, we may ask, if it be natural that the earth should be in possession of a few — a class ? Is it right in our conscience that this should be so ? Men need not wait on nature to undo human usurpation and practical blundering ? The effects in present society shew the blundering ; and it is clearly man's duty to harmonize his practice with nature, for if men's assertion aiid practical action in truth do not follow what is right, we may remain hopeless of right's ultimate triumph, for assuredly nothing else will. So we must take heart, think and act for ourselves. The distribution of property is in reference to the means by which we Jive in our greater or less share of human necessaries and luxuries. Were it possible, a line might be drawn between permanent and transitory pro- perty ; but the one class runs by degrees so into the other as to make the idea more and more confused. If you take your dinner from the table, and double or triple its weight of tar, mix them together tiU aU is one cobur, then tell us the portions thereof which are wholesome and nutritious ? This is a gad task, is it not ? Labour, per- haps the most noble occupation of our life — meaning common, useful, and intelligent labour — ^is besmeared to PRESENT STATE OF SOCIETY. 43 such a degree that it has but little favour in our eyes. It is very different with permanent productive property ; it makes our hearts happy only to think of it, for in it we see not only a source of luxurious living to the pos- sessor, but the more important one of its dissipation, supporting very large if not the entire number of people. This amounts to Grod-instituted labour — a curse, and man-instituted property — a blessing. In feudal times, it was easily seen, the barons or landed proprietors were the sole support of the whole ; through them they directly or indirectly were dependent for work, such as it was, and consequently sustenance. A httle foreign commerce would not alter the fact, only give it a broader foundation ; and the difference now is very great, but the principle and relationship are the very same. It is interest of capital and the rent of land, of those who have the fortune to poss^ them, which supports the general hvehhood of the whole nation. The richer a nation is in capital and rich land, and citizen individuals deriving annual payments of interest or rent from India, Australia, Canada, as well as at home, gives an additional compliment to support in better condition, or in greater numbers, the whole people. What of this income that is not expended annually, and not re-spent till it is absolutely used up, is accumulated and the nation in proportion the richer. When part of this annual income, or part of the accumulations of past years, is spent on something of productive power, such as machinery, houses, &c., the nation is permanently bene- fited by it, while the nation enjoys the prosperity occa- sioned by the expenditure of the money. Had it been 44 THE CONSTITUTION OF SOCIETY. expended on ordinary living and perisliable necessities and luxuries by both the first and secondary holders, it would have disappeared never to rise again. Let working men who would be reformers think of this — the money spent on tobacco, spirits, Sec, of a perishable nature, is gone for ever ; but money spent in furniture, cottages, &c., exists for years to serve ourselves or others. By all means let life have the necessaries and comforts of life ; but duty requires all to squander nothing. Let the two distinct kinds of income be kept in view, the direct from capital and rent, and the indirect depend- ing entirely upon the former by rendering all service and the production of all commodities for both classes. By this means the possessors of incomes from interest and rent find the necessaries and luxuries of lite in exchange for those incomes, which again are spent and respent by the classeswho havethem indirectly. The direct, or interest and rent, is the common vital principle by which society lives and moves — that supports the whole people in work, in the first place, and sustenance, as it is, as an exchange for their work. The people are thus the instrument and the performers, while the privileged orders are the parties for whom the former exist : if they exist not for that special purpose, they can have no mission or right on earth ; at any rate, they must participate in the favours flowing from that class, and if so, how can they without some labour in return ? And what becomes of the interest and rent when passing through the hands of the working orders ? It differs not from the first spending, which is in small portions in some articles and larger portions in PRESENT STATE OF SOCIETY. 45 others, absorbed in every exchange by interest and rent. Were' it not so, it would be in continual motion without any particular circuit; it is annually entirely absorbed to be again used for the same purpose. As was stated before, when the income, whether of a first or secondary order, was as largely as possible spent in articles of com- parative permanency, the nation was quite as prosperous at the time, and was actually much richer at the end of the year. It is this which gives us power to support an increase of inhabitants ; on the other hand, when popu- lation increases beyond the pgwer of the interest and rent to support, which any bad harvest might bring about, other conditions being of an average kiud, the result is well known in the conditions of life becoming so un- favourable as to check population. How much unheard of misery is implied in this state of things? — ^but, of course, it only affects those who are almost or entirely without any resource* from interest or rent. Interest and rent go much farther in the support of people than at first would be conceived. People do not all require so much money to support them as is found necessary for criminals. Our national income is over L.70,000,000 per annnTTi ; taking this sum, how many would it support at L.14 each ? It would support five millions of inhabi- tants, which is about a sixth of the whole inhabitants of Britain. And this sum only represents a fraction of the whole sum of interest and rent. The small holders of iuterest and rent who can just find a humble living from that source, nevertheless, support many in some small part of their pickings for sustenance. 46 THE CONSTITUTION OF SOCIETY. Those extraordinary times of public prosperity, when the hard workers are fully employed, and probably with somewhat higher remuneration, owe their existence to large amounts of accumulated property or forestalling ac- cumulations, which are exchanged for machinery, houses, ships — such as that memorable time of railway construct- ing, some fourteen years ago. The money may be retained for a longer or shorter period in the hands of the manual working class, but times ultimately change, and leave that class, as a class, where they were — living from band to mouth. The wise, when circumstances admit, leave this pitiful state at some distance ; but even with them the fluctuations of wealth are very great if they live as most people have to do, engaging in considerable specu- lations, and dependence on the honesty of others. It has been said, labour was paid with little remuneration in proportion to the utility of the employment. Thus the arduous duties of a British minister finds his annual salary to be in thousands of pounds, while the agricultural labourer finds it easily counted in single pounds. Present society makes both employments necessary; and there are those who think it requires no nice discrimination to distinguish which is unquestionably of the greatest utility. It is a most distressful affair for both extremes in wealth and influence to be thus mixed up into one class — servants, for assuredly, in the best offices for well paid clerkships is not to be found one who would view this alliance with disdain ; but another, from the manual workers, could be got to beg its dissolution with pride. Yet this alliance exists, because the system of society makes the one equally PRESENT STATE OP SOCIETY. 47 with the other necessary, and while that is the fact they mnst be equally honourable. Perhaps some knowing one would suggest that the one class were ' brain ' and the other ' muscle ' workers. Allowing this one particle of truth, ought not the latter, which has the greater tear and wear, to command the greater share of hf e's necessary supplies ? Education must command superior wealth — why so ? If the children of the poor go to work by ne- cessity for a livelihood, and the children of the rich to school tin almost manhood, the result is obvious ; but the question wiU present itself — Why not all children have equal rights to a good education ? Besides,.a forced edu- cation, which is quite common, is an imposition on society and on the individual: the fact is, education to any ex- treme degree ought to be its own reward, the same as all great proficiency in the arts and sciences not immediately connected with daily or necessary labour. But all art and science is made necessary labour in present society ! and consequently they must just go on reaping the greater reward, that is, to those families who can afford to give education to command it. StiU this does not invalidate the natural truth that men ought to have the means of hving equally within their reach ; it would only partially mitigate the evil of poverty did they all have a liberal salary. Some trades strive to have equal wages among themselves ; might they not extend theproposition to other trades and situations, aU who assisted in doing society's work? "We are aU of one race, having one stomach each ; an hour to the one is neither more nor less to the other, and 48 THE CONSTITUTION OF SOCIETY. a hundred other things and wants sufficiently identical to warrant equal remuneration. There can be no absolute justice in regard to work and the enjoyment of the pro- ducte. It is our duty and privilege to mutually assist and be assisted by each other ; the party who assists or 'gives' having the 'better' position of the two. And those trades have not got the credit which they were en- titled to for endeavouring to equalise wages, for it is not the indifferent workmen who want this arrangement; we understand they are uniformly the best workmen and best members of their class. Even with equal remuneration, a single man, has a superior position for saving or for selfishness than a man with a family ; in this each man has his period of bachelorhood at his command, and so- ciety leaves us the responsibility of our own actions in regard to marriage. However, it is not easy to avoid looking at the various class workers in society, that, na- turally, the necessary labour for the sustenance of human beings in the comforts of life is quite distinct from many of the clerkship occupations. The direct utility of the former gives it a preference over the latter, which is of questionable utility ; and whUe we would, in a general statement, assert physical labour to be the essential con- dition for the erection of aU valuable works, it would be superfluous to particularise when we are aU surrounded by them. Physical labour is thus not for ephemeral existence, but also for the daily useful works of art which may last for centuries, and all the works of the ornamental and monumental, all the arts which crown human labour with pure and true glory — although some PRESENT STATE OF SOCIETY. 49 of the latter works might be left for pastime employment, were that pastime allowed — are solely its production. Those above participating in these labours — the idle drones who would extract pleasure from all, and trouble themselves to give pleasure to none — woefully deceive themselves in their selfishness. Active employment in the physical has its pleasures as well as active mental work, and the one gives a zest in the appreciation of the other. But in regard to the distribution of property in society, physical labour is very subordinate in its influence and value. The money they acquire goes through them like a filter; of necessity, they reflect a borrowed hght, but inherent power to make times of plenty they have none. When manual labour is tied down to the neces- saries of life, how can it build and furnish a mansion to live in and encourage industry ? When life's sustenance is barely at its command, how can it command museums and botanical gardens on a small scale? Those who re- ceive rents of houses and lands, interest of moneys, &c., may have all these and more, but the poor slave who has simply his own person to sell and profit by cannot but use his weekly wage with celerity. Necessity is the mother of that fact, and hence extra expenditure of the rich among the poor for labour is not kept by the labourer, but goes on being spent again and re-spent ; each transaction bringing it out of the hands of the inferior orders into the constitutional reservoir, the whole must come to supply the superior orders with their annual interest and rent. These poor labour, but not for themselves ; they are bought with a price, or they 50 THE CONSTITUTION OP SOCIETY. labour for a livelihood, and the produce of their labour is for those who can sustain labour. Is this not a hopeless servitude ? And although labour is the first necessity of aU wealth, it does not setain the wealth it produces, Taut has only sustenance from the work, the permanent effects passLDg to those who are already possessors of interest or rent, extending their influence and power, and encourag- ing labour only by its annual expenditure. In illustration of the foregoing mode of distributing property, and its influence in society, take that extra- ordinary crisis in Australia when wages in certain trades were 25s per day ; the sailors, in being engaged, thought of requiring the character of the captain from his last crew — and the great change which has come about now, when we hear much of real distress and want of employ- ment. Australia was prospering as weU as any colony could be expected previous to the discovery, or rather general knowledge, that gold was to be had there in pro- fitable quantity and of the purest description. With it as a stimulus, emigration set agoing of no common kind, and with a prosperity which has never been equalled. Between 1853 and 1858 the progress made, either in the old or new world, in wealth and importance, was never before seen. What was the cause of this extraordinary run of great wages, great profits, and great rents ? Mr G. T. Train, Chairman of the Melbourne Chamber of Commerce, says : — ' L.34,000,000 sterling of property you (British) sent us in two years, for a population of less than 250,000.' But now. the picture has been con- siderably changed ; and Mr Clan, of Glasgow, said in PRESENT STATE OP SOCIETY. 51 1857—' We are receiving L.2O,000,000 sterling in gold annually from that colony.' Wfe give it for what it may be thought worth in the judgment of those who take an interest in the question, that the following was the cause of Australia's great prosperity : — The great amount of money for public expenditure on Government works ; the great amount of money sent out from us on per- sonal and property security, and in establishments of banking and other companies; and the great amount, although perhaps less than the others, of gold taken out with parties emigrating on their own account — ^the great wealth was flowing in and being spent, to the extra- ordinary prosperity of the country. Now the conditions are greatly altered, although they may stand, compara- tively speaking, very much better than what is experienced in Britain. The actual want of labour — perhaps the more felt since they had such a large demand and wage in the past — involves the usual attending circumstance, want of the wherewithal to live. The extraordinary expenditure is now withdrawn, and the colony is left to its own re- sources, which are very great. Not only so, but money expended must yield its interest, and property held in British hands must return its rent ; this interest and rent drain must now be a great drawback to the annual ex- penditure. Also, working men have been on the increase, machinery and improvements have been established, aU tending in one direction, and apparently given one of the most promising countries in the world an almost chronic complaint of superabundant labour. Ireland is another illustration of a negative kind that 52 THE CONSTITUTION OF SOCIETY. the expenditure of money from first sources is the main cause of prosperity. Absenteeism was for years, almost centuries, a well-known cause of poverty and wretched- ness. It has been like a bone with some flesh on it which was the subject contested for by a succession of buU-dogs ; of course there was legality or might, although there might be a want of right. Scotland has had less to complain of, and perhaps taken better policy in unwearied industry, and conse- quently conquered the drain England has made on her by the attraction of the metropolis of the world. We acknowledge there are those who hold absenteeism has not bad effects ; the money comes back again more or less indirectly in the extra demand created where the ab- sentees expend their income, say they ; but this gives the favoured centres and surrounding country the lion's share, and, if the Hon cannot digest the whole, the remains will be enjoyed by any other county or country. The West- ern Isles of Scotland or Hebrides is an excellent example, from its being on a small scale and thoroughly well carried out, to the deprivation of the patient natives. The people, naturally indiistrious, contented, and attached to the islands, have been kept, by the peculiar circumstances, deplorably ignorant, and poor to the verge of starvation, all to export the little good produce reaped on the islands in exchange for money to pay rents. Yet the general view taken of the distribution of property in society is as if manufacturers were the first source, and the continual beuef actors ; they are mere machines, the same as the employed, to supply the wants of those who live without PRESENT STATE OF SOCIETY. 53 labour. When it is otherwise, the truth will have made us free. What of life that is enjoyed among manual workers is from a higher source than any institution in society — taking exception to a comparative view with other nations. Trade can never stand still tUl monied men demand and get their money to secrete in the earth, and proprietors of land and houses require and get them to lie idle but for their own use. But so long as the re- presentatives of interest and rent prefer enjoying their incomes — and the more and richer they be the better for the poor — so long wiU the working bees be duly inquired after to labour and receive remuneration. As we have seen, the never-failing demand is from interest amd rent. Second-hand incomes find the great proportion of them spent for sustenance the time the service is rendered on which they depend, being again circulated, and every exchange sending so much to in- terest and rent, and a smaller sum to be re-spent, tiU absolutely absorbed. The writer of ' Commentaries on Ireland' tells us — ' The origin of trade is corporeal necessity, the want of food, habitation, and apparel.' Hiis is true enou^ in a natural SMise, and, of course, in present society it has important influence throughout the whole. But the same writer admits the Irish to be sadly in want of these * corporeal necessities,' and the contra proposition, the great want of trade. Who ever heard of poor persons with empty purses being ' the origin of trade ?' no matter how great ' the want of food, habita- tion, and apparel.'' If money is subscribed to supply these necessities, here is the fact, says an impulsive 54 THE CONSTITUTION OF SOCIETY. ' apparel' dealer. No ; the want was the cause of the charity, aad the money from the grand resources of pro- perty was the cause of the trade. Suppose the Irish absentees had twenty millions annually, and this sum was spent in, instead of out of, Ireland, there might be four pounds for every inhabitant, and for families of ten forty pounds annually ; the people would, as a matter of course, enrich themselves by it in many ways, even rise in the scale of rational beings. The Irish have suffered, according to Mis Hall, from a conceited prejudice against labour — labour unbecoming a man, and that man a poor one with a family ! But who are free of prejudice ? If rent is an aristocratic power, interest has had its rise as 3 democratic power ; and the latter has fairly out- matched the former. Lands and houses are largely mortgaged ; they are ostensibly rent, but the principal part goes for interest. Our national debt gives upwards of twenty-five millions interest ; and all trade is carried on by a floating capital which is expected to give extra interest. And we are not now living on home produce, yet other articles give little to rent, more to interest, and most to labour. It is this that makes interest and rent go so far in what is called our 'civilisation.' Were we to form in our mind the most perfect state society could arrive at in the present system, it would be that where many of its members were retired from business on an independence, and that number as many as would keep the labour market good, and where the hours of labour were so few as to allow ample time for life's enjoyment when in full employment. But we no sooner form such PEESBNT STATE OF SOCIETY. 55 an idea than in rush opposing ideas from the condition of things. Over-population, from the good conditions of life, would render the labour market indifferent, foreign trade at a stand, for exchanges would not be made at the prices the short-hour system made necessary ; the other nations would find the markets wholly shut from the competitive test of price — or might we hope to enlist other nations to our short-hour system. People cannot be forced nor expected, in many circumstances where a larger income is necessary, to refrainfrom working the utmost time possible, although in a general sense it would be desirable ; and are the people sufficiently culti- vated to use many leisure hours daily without getting into extravagances, especially with the cold sympathies of individualism, and the unnatural power it gives all, ever ready for evil or for good in the pocket? If these and such as these make hope in a tolerable enjoyment of life in the present system disappear, there is no alternative but searching for a system more consistent with life ; and every man and woman ought to endeavour to form a true judgment or opinion of the great and important social question of the day, for every person is certainly subject to be materially influenced by the kind of consti- tution of society existing. The fact of society being limited in the necessaries and comforts of life by the amount of interest and rent is unsatisfactory and must be amended. How much misery and starvation is the consequence of this single phase — limitation? Had we the liberty, that is, the practical conditions at our command, to produce wealth 56 THE CONSTITUTION OF SOCIETY. in proportion to our necessities and comforts, we might be partly pleased by knowing all had a sufficiency of these. But even then the fraternity which must come, the charity which is life's grandest embellishment — they are not here ; an assurance of the morals, sentiments, and intellect of the people being dereloped and elevated is an essential of any radical and beneficial change. Who can doubt we toil and struggle with the iron grasp encircling the social body ?— who can doubt that legislative power and united philanthrophy are unable to cope with the corrupting principle of selfishness and the weight of po- verty ? This is where the dead weight is found resting on humanity. Every person knows or may know the beautiful and beneficent theory of the alternate falling of water in the shape of rain, dew, &o., and its continual evaporation from the earth, especially that o£ the water surface ; how it supports vegetable and animal life, with the support of the sun's vivifying influence ; how man sows, reaps, and consumes under the blessed harmony of nature — the circle is complete and all-sufficient as well as all-favourable for man. But it is not so well known that the distribution of wealth goes through a circular theory of quite as tangible a nature, but very far from being all-sufficient and aU-favourable. The evaporation of wealth is continual — to interest and rent ; the rain and dew we have without money and price, but the simple necessaries of wealth are only vouchsafed to us by — slavery ; but still we acknowledge from this interest and rent we do receive these vivifying necessaries of life. DISTEIBUTION" OF PROPERTY. 57 CHAPTER IV. BISTEIBTJTION OF PROPEKTY. Who could believe for' one moment such artificial in- stitutions were from heaven? Who could not see the heavenly origin of sowing, reaping, and consuming? But introduce an artificial principle between nature and humanity, and the scene is changed. God's gifts are now man's gifts — ^from interest and rent. But, enough. As a source of wealth in no way connected with ordi- nary industry for wages or artificial stimulus, there is a natural one, although somewhat limited, capable of uni- versal adoption. This source of wealth is in serving and acting to the best advantage under whatever peculiar circumstances we may be placed ; by mutual enjoyments from virtuous habits and companionship, wise, prudent, and social behaviour. Dishonourable gains, whether by unpaid debts or sources discreditable and unjust, of course are held in disdain : the people are always honest by nature in the aggregate, and such gains have been the subject of reprobation by every nation of the globe. Conventional ideas of rights have fluctuated very much, but a truthful and honest spirit was always estimable and honourable ; on the other hand, miserly savings, where circumstances do not particularly call for them, are com- 58 THE CONSTITUTION OF SOCIETY. monly viewed in no better spirit than they deserve. They believe in the god Mammon, and purchase life's joys by accumulation ; the habit might almost lead people to doubt their sanity. The mind must be large enough to keep wealth or property in its subordinate place, and recognise the race of man in a fraternal spirit. Surrounded, as people gene- rally are, by poverty^ which may well make them look with suspicion on ^heir own savings, there is a necessity to be assured, with a due sympathy and support to cases peculiarly demanding them, the trifling wages received ; nay, the richest person in the land could never altogether alleviate the evils of poverty. To illustrate this source of wealth, not only in every one's power, but which it is every one's duty to practise, we shall suppose two workmen with equal wages, equal families to maintain, and, to outward appearance, in every way with equal f acOities for the en- joyment of life. The head of the one family is generally, in leisure hours, in the midst of his family, amusing, instructing, encouraging mutual good feeling, and not above assisting in a little boisterous fun and mirth on proper occasions. His wife, happy to find her endeavours to render things cotaf ortable appreciated by a kind word, if possible, doubles her efforts ; the good-nature and in- telligence which characterise the husband never fails in being infused into the whole family. To please him her ladyship is zealous ; mutual desires to serve each other make this lowly home necessarily one of the happiest in the land. The wages are carefully managed, and found on ordinary occasions rather more than absolutely requi- DISTRIBUTION OF PROPEETY. 59 site ; and the small savings are husbanded with the hope the parents may not require them, but that the children may be benefited. In the other family, its head is fond of some enjoyment, like all human nature, but he has a notion it is a thing purchased. He is good company, and knows good com- pany, but has not patience and capability to be steadily the first in the endeavour to create it. He and his wife have often quarrelled, and not unfrequently looked over mutual bitter words ; but the plant of charity, bearing and forbearing, much less determined generosity, never had a healthy stait, while the disrespectful or unloving feelings become too common. The wife having no plea- sure nor object in her household work, it soon appears anything but creditable; then the husband enters his home as he might a jail or hospital — for as short time as possible. His wages are dissipated weekly, with no sa- tisfactory happiness to himself or family. The former family used prudently the gifts at their command and reaped the reward ; the latter abused or could not c'om- mand the good conditions apparently, though not in reality, at their service. How many keep themselves voluntarily cribbed up in close houses, who are killing themselves for want of exercise in the open pure air, which is comparatively illimitable and at the service of all in common ? A young woman in a certain position in society gets mar- ried, and a servant to do her domestic labours ; the place in the house she assumes is gaffer or mistress. One overseer and one overseen ! If she did her own work, as 60 THE CONSTITUTION OF SOCIETY. most newly married wives do, she would or might be better served, wealthier, healthier, and happier ; but as it is, the burden of keeping a servant is just so much dead weight on the establishment — ^which is all well enough, as the world goes, if the means are permanent and suffi- cient, but otherwise a dangerous commencement in a new state of pecuhar responsibity. More than pointing out any given hne of conduct, we would rather show, if pos- sible, that the power that comes within our reach can be used or abused, can be made to supply our necessities only, or with comforts too, by wise and prudent conduct in the expending of income, and the acceptation of all possible natural blessings — ^without property value, yet of utmost natural value. An erroneous notion is common, that men are better members for society who expend their whole income, saviug no money or wealth. They encourage trade to the utmost ! Yes, they encourage trade where they spend their money. The fact is, did they save money, what good might they not hope to effect ? Money or property is a vital and tangible pewer, daUy experienced. Even were there little generosity in the party — no hope to assist sonie friend, no probabihty of pecuniary duties for in- firm parents, no sisters in positions of inability to com- mand the comforts of life — he may yet save and actually be a better member of society than if he spent his whole income in passing existence. The money may be spent on questionable characters, or exchanged for supper- parties, &c. ; but would it be less useful in the bank, lent out to commercial men who could not do without it ? and DISTEIBUTION OF PEOPERTY. 61 in due course, in its accumulation, it might be usefully spent in building houses — one to reside in and the rest to let, the party retiring on these rents. He leaves his situation to be filled up^-one good for labour ; the em- ployment of masons, carpenters, plumbers, and they in their turn all other trades-^second good arising for labour ; the annual expenditure of rent in his living — third good quality for labour ; he is a payer of poor-rates and other taxes, instead of possibly being a recipient — fourth good from saving at the proper time, in lighten- ing the burdens of labour. The other party, who spends his ■whole income regularly in the opposite balance, is he not like the sucked orange, when he has passed the prime of life and his income on the wane ? While society is as at present constituted, we must act accordingly, if not for the best and purest character our nature is susceptible of being made and the most happiness naturally possible, at least for those attain- able under present conditions. This wiU-be-poor class play the game for artificial or human power into the hands of the rich, for wealth or property is still the cri- terion acknowledged. Yet how hard to save, nay im- possible, thousands upon thousands must find it ; their circumstances necessitate toil, and more toil, with some forced idleness which is worse still and acutely felt, barely keeping debtors outside the door. Mournful unfortunate ! When Mammon has ceased to reign then attention to the dictates of Mammon will be censurable ; but at present it is the height of f oUy to assume or teach entire repudia- tion of his reigning Majesty. Workmen ought tio com- 62 THE CONSTITUTION OF SOCIETY. mand respect from persons well-to-do, as ■well as among themselTes, by striving at independence by being free of debt, foUy, and prejudice, and in some measure self-cul- tivated, morally, intellectually, and in aU possible leisure- time arts. It is easily known who the nobility are, in these elegant acquirements. There can be no compass to guide us in life directly emanating from our present social system ; the more, then, is it necessary to consult the natural world — which is God's world ; here we find guiding principles, founded upon uniform laws. Expe- diency is the watchword of present society— minding one's-self and not unf requently using hypocrisy, trampling on others' interests in the'fight of the distribution of pro- perty, along with the natural guiding impulses inherent in our nature. The present system of society forces all this, and those who are free of taint may cast the first stone of blame and condemnation. We will not dismiss the distribution of property by the foregoing general statement of its principle, but add something in illustration of it in particulav. It is weU known that if a working man, or one of the rich, can make the amount of his expenditure less than that of his income, he adds to his own wealth in the first place, and also the permanent and productive property of society. The highest benefit present society ckn bestow is that it enables us to live in every comfort without engaging in necessary labour. This, to a sick person, is good indeed, but the healthy are in the long majority, it is to be hoped — to them it is little better than an assurance of more of an article they are abundantly possessed of already, for DISTRIBUTION 0¥ PROPERTY. 63 with health labour is a necessary blessing. These con- ventional or artificial motives of action which present society makes predominant are purely evil, for it will not be questioned that the natural tendency of aU improve- ments knows no favourites, but are diffusive among the whde race. Yet the artificial tendency of aJl improve- ments is the same, as all that kind of action is common individual selfishness to reap the ever-flowing wealth. It is the same in labour as it is in capital and aU pro- perty — the labourer labours for his hire : we must rise above this, labour from duty, and further stiU, from higher duty and love, in our leisure time. But the pre- sent system is a legitimate descendant of that of the feudal lords, keeping us as dependants, sometimes employed, and always iu sustenance. They gradually adopted the plan of bargaining for their land first, and afterwards to command foreign luxuries ; gave over keeping idle ad- herents, retaining only domestic servants. The farmer pays his rent in produce or money, or both, and what surplus he may have is his own, to be used as he pleases ; the dismissed adherents are necessitated to seek suste- nance by working for wages, and become independent — to accumulate wealth, or to starve, if the work, and con- sequently wages, happen to fail. This is the labourer's privilege and responsibility. The descendants of the old chiefs use the — ^rents. How? By purchasing unheard-of luxuries, the produce of the descendants of the turned-off adherents, who have turned their hands to aU sorts of artistic mechanics. Thus we have seen wealth the support now as it was 64 THE CONSTITUTION OF SOCIETY. more directly in past feudal times. Labour may stand for the centrifugal power of society, and property acts as the centripetal or power of attraction ; while the natural would indicate human action as the one power, and the other directly that of beneficent nature. Why should property be a subject of glorification, when it depends on an accident of birth — or labour, necessary drudgery? These are repugnant to the feelings, and peculiarly de- pending on the constitution of society. But for the closer view of the distribution of property, we jnay take a com- mon article of consumption, and find out where the price of the article finds its destination. It will be found rent and interest one portion,''and labour under all its aspects the rest, such as profit, commission, per centage, &c. Confining our illustration to as few words as possible, we take the case of a four-pound loaf of bread at sixpence- halfpenny — The Eetailer, OAd Baker, Miller, Com Factor, Farmer, Landlord Id Oid OJd 2id 2d 64d We view each of these as forming one item in the income of each class of tradesmen ; every item, of course, would be representative of all whom they employ in pro- duction, and, consequently, the source from which aU personal and domestic expenditure is drawn. It is gained only to be necessarily expended in part, wholly, or fall- DISTRIBUTION OF PEOPERTY. 65 ing back on stock — some accumulation forming a circle in poverty, or losing one's property. Various articles differ in the proportion they yield to rent of land ; indeed, some have no direct yield at all ; but labour all articles must have, and the labourers must be consumers of bread, meat, &c. — the direct produce of land. All the trades' representatives — ^that is, the retailer, baker, miller, corn factor, and farmer — have various com- modities besides the particular one referred to by which they derive their whole income ; but they all require to spend them again from necessity, at least in a general sense, under one principle. One part goes towards rent of premises ; another part to interest of capital invested ; another to labour and power in the work ; another to taxes, repairs, bad debts, accidental expenses. If the premises and money are really the party's own — none of the straw man in him — ^then the advantage is obvious ; as all property gives advantage, he is to that extent a recipient of the vital influence or power in society. He may make his own labour go as far as pos- sible, which must give its worth to his income ; the taxes, &c., must be raised, and the labour employed must be remunerated. In large businesses where every part has to be paid for, the party living on, and in, credit, gene- rally requires but few years to expose the absolutely rotten state of matters. For appearance, he has to live as if the capital, &c., were all his own ; for an humble style of living would not be favourable to extraordinary confidence and credit, which is absolutely essential to maintain his position. We have just for one moment to E 66 THE CONSTITUTION OF SOCIETY. suppose manufa'cturers, or those we referred to, expend- iug their whole income from necessity in comfortable shelter, clothing, and food, to realise our true position. Then ask ourselves if the life we enjoy — are the cares and troubles not more, are the pleasures and iealthy conditions not less, than in nature we ought and have a right to expect ? The landlord's share we have not yet discussed. It differs from the others in having no labour connected, taking exception for the arduous duties of collection. But, in the consideration of this subject, let us be well assured neither envy, nor hatred, nor any unbecoming feeling, prejudices our mind against those who happen to slide into the position of landlords ; for it may be credited that those who fill such positions are of similar nature with those who fill the positions of tenants and labourers ; and the shifting of the one class for another, were it possible, would be most detrimental to the happi- ness of both. The retailer, &c., &c., have some amount of labour, and require capital and other products of labour to carry on their business, and which justifies whatever amount they respectively receive as their share of the price of the loaf ; but the landowner — supposing it hereditary from times of feudal arbitrary possession by the sword, in honour or dishonour — what claim can he establish to justify so large a share, or any share, of the price of the four pound loaf ? The farmer's house and other buildings — well, these are something, but very fractional in the whole rent. And it is well known that at the expiration of a lease, farms generally bring much DISTEIBUTION OF PEOPEETY. 67 larger rents from the improved condition the farm has been put in by the leaving farmer on his own account, but permanently to the benefit of the proprietor, the succeeding farmer further improving to the same effect ; and all along the twopence per loaf is secure as a con- stitutional tax, which renders no service in exchange. Is the ground we tread not direct from Almighty Grod, or sacred in the ever-existent existence? Then, why should it be lorded over by ephemeral productions, exist- ing to-day, and to-morrow no more ? This is too slender for long acquifficence, and too seK-evidently false for long gullibility. Just as vyell tax the sun's rays, or heaven's distillations, as the ground which produces the necessaries of life. Is the one less direct from superior existence than the other ? No ; then the right must or must not exist equally in either. And who would dare affirm the propriety of a twopence per day tax on every family in the kingdom for the sun's heat and light? That right by constituted society is no less contrary to nature, or rather interposing nature's beneficence, than inimical to human happiness. Wealth or property, the product of labour — such as houses, gold, machines, ships — are dif- ferent. If property had any foundation, nothing could be clearer than usury for them to be perfectly right ; but it is not natural — ^it is not right, for those to belong to a class, for the class who have no property has stiU as much of life's necessities to procure for sustenance as the more fortunate dass. So this poor class finds the rent of a house, or the interest of capital, to press equally upon them with the landlord's share of the loaf. They 68 THE CONSTITUTION OF SOCIETY. toil, and toil, and are still poor. Do they expect to become rich by humble drudgery ? Who ever did ? They are the producers of all wealth, and masters of none. This is a curious and melancholy, yet necessary efFect, quite easy to be understood. Until we can live from our own resources, and labour in production of our own stock in co-operation of some kind, there can be no real freedom. Can freedom be without this or in an ignoble condition ? Behold the serf on this hand, and on the other the sovereign lord — the slave, the slaveholder — the employed, the employers. This is not freedom, even although they may produce enough, and to spare, for aU. It has the stamp of evil on its forehead ; it is the effect of error, and has none of God's countenance — none of nature's truth, which renders us free indeed. The tradespeople's share of the price of the loaf is unobjectionable while the constitution of society remains ; but the landlords' share wears no analogy. Their claim would indicate a descent from the heathen gods, and they admitted to be the sovereign possessors, with power to make the earth heritable to one class, and on the poor class impose duties, duties, duties, but no rights which can be resisted. Who will believe that class superior beings ? Who wiU deny they are only human nature, and privileged drones, or, worse still, very great barriers to human happiness ? If any idea is true, this certainly is one, that the twopence in the sixpence-halfpenny loaf is a genuine usurpation tax. We all occupy false positions, from the labourer to the DISTRIBUTION OF PROPERTY. 69 landlord. But no pounds, shillings, and pence state- ment can at all disclose the human misery induced by the practical working of the system of property, and in which the usurpation of the land by individuals is con- spicuously the most gross. The system is, without doubt, the great primary evil, and which is accountable for the present distribution of property; hence we all are victim- ised, and have a perfect right to discuss and do with it what appears best. It makes work and food depend on external conditions of a purely accidental kind. We may or may not be provided with food, clothing, and shelter. Absolute certainty of these, and nothing less, is in ac- cordance with the distribution of property which ought to exist. And, on the other hand, we are able and will- ing to work, but we may or may not have work to per- form. Here, also, absolute certainty is requisite for every person able and willing. Dividing the earth or the world's wealth equally among all is preposterous non- sense; union in division of laboitt has perfectly scattered to the winds all idea of dividing in individualism ; hence the system is viewed as the monster evil, the nppropria- tion of the land as property but secondary. The usurpa- tion is unjust, but the class cannot be expected to be removed otherwise than by the downfall of the primary evil— the system. We might again divide the price of the loaf between labour on the one hand, and rent and interest on the other, since the latter is little better than an imposition to those who have no wealth; for has not the whole people an equal claim to the wealth of those who have 70 THE CONSTITUTION OF SOCIETY. preceded them ?. Did it descend to us and from us with any approximation to equality, or in common, the rent and interest share would entirely disappear by the whole people being benefited. But we will simply state that the larger half of the price of the loaf may be stated to be that of labour, although there might be very little difference. Yet, since labour itself is absorbed by interest and rent, having no vitality of its own, but depending entirely on them, or mixed up with them in the same person, the further analysis of this phasis of society may be unnecessary. The system of society makes labour an instrument for its purposes — ^not a part of itself. In concluding the distribution of property, we would be re- minded, whether we like philosophy or not, philosophy overrules all classes in society — by necessity. We can- not but do what we are caused to do ; and we cannot do what no causes have not made to come about. We can- not become a Greek scholar by wiU — ^no, we could not even make a hair grow on our body where it does not and wUl not grow, nor have a cultivated and gentle mind by wiU. What we are, we are by necessity. We are limited in power and action to cause and effect, and cause and effect is necessity. The best and wealthiest in the land are under this necessity — they are what they are from it; and so are professional thieves and prostitutes. Na- tural and artificial causes necessitate them; what is unsightly and degraded must be removed by the causes being changed. So, no class can reasonably assiune su- periority or inferiority in regard to another; but indivi- DISTRIBUTION OF PEOPERTY. 7] dual conduct has a duty connected, to aspire to what is noble, good, and pure; and this ought to be the object of all public a)id private education, as it is the most impor- tant feature of life, insuring happiness to the individual and all connected. If the innate inclinations and external conditions are favourable for the cultivation of the intellectual and moral duties, the result will be in the extreme limits of comparative virtuous character; but if the conditions are reversed — and these natural and artificial conditions are almost beyond individual influence — ^what wiU be the result? The other extreme of character, unfavourably viewed by all, even those who exemplify it. These ex- tremes, and all between them, axe the results of necessity, cause, and effect ; so, to be rational, people of every class must command our sympathy and love — varying in de- gree, it will be from that of the highest character and friendship to that felt for the known victims of error and falsehood.- We do not insult people's free opinion by saying to love all alike, or love most the most degraded; but we are in duty bound to assist those most who are most in need of assistance. Our duty will be done for them even should it be heavy ; yet our keenest sympathy and love must remain with those who have earned it by traits of character known to be good, true, pure, and innocent. The share one possesses of property is liable to similar uncontrollable circumstances with character, and equally the effect of necessity. And innate good sentiments often lead to poverty, and poverty, in time, with its accom- 72 THE CONSTITUTION OP SOCIETY. partying tyranny, misery, and temptations, to any given excess or crime. Our birthright of character cannot be usurped, although it maybe frustrated; but our birth- right of property is successfully usurped, and we are as innocent of the fact an some poor hen which has been pro- ducing eggs for a long time, yet finds her nest as poyerty- stricken as it was before she began. Yet the people are acquiring the greatest share of the property .of the nation very fast — yes, faster than the favourites of fortune are admitted to rank among the 'privileged class.' But, above aU, do not neglect the hard fate of the honest poor in the estimation formed of the distribution of property; the newspapers give us daily accounts of continued heartrending wretchedness. A paper before us, giving illustrations of ' A Merry Christmas' — the Illustrated Weekly News — supplies a case of the murder of a child by its mother. The mother, Mary Ann Hamilton, gives herself up to a policeman for the act. He asked her why she did it, and she said ' I could not see it want for food any longer.' On being cautioned, and charged with it, she replied, ' I am sorry ; it's too true,' and commenced crying. She seems to have had some consolation in a speedy death. And it is re- marked, the place where the prisoner lodged presented a scene of the most abject poverty and wretchedness ; and it was stated that her husband, who is a tailor, had no work, and that they had been receiving parish relief for some time. Where is the good and true of a system that could admit of a distribution of the necessaries of life when cases like this are of daily occurrence ? Ah ! ex- DISTRIBUTION OF PROPERTY. 73 pect wheat from tares ! — good to come out of that -which is false ! Take care of self-deception. Even in the fourteenth century there were laws against usury, which is ' interest,' and this interest now probably gives more vital health to society than the land itself. If such revolutions in opinions are effected, what may not be expected ? 74 THE CONSTITUTION OF SOCIETY. CHAPTER V. GOVERNMENT AND LAWS. These, as they generally exist, are simply creations of society. Government is principally in the executive or mastership of the collection and distribution of the nation's revenue and expenditure — the conducting of national business on the one hand, and the advisers of the nation and monarch on the other. Human society will probably never be able to do without rulers, but they may be engaged in such totally different conditions and work as would prevent any analogy between them. They who form the Government are for the present invested with national duties, and responsibility in their perform- ance ; this is properly the Government. However, many persons associate the national repre- sentatives as a body with them. No doubt they may have a direct influence oi# Government ; besides, the Government is expected to find many, or all its members, out of that body, according to the institutions of different nations. All this is so well known, we need not enter on any details. Laws are emanations of Governments, and partake of human error, and sometimes worse, when that of human passion, and prejudice, and hatred is cognisable. Law ! The term seems pure caricature of natural law. Many people deceive themselves with the idea that natural GOVEENMENT AKD LAWS. 75 law is insufficient, neither is it in our natural conditions, the same as opium-eaters and spirit-drinkers conceive common natural fare insufficient — and it is insufficient for them. Just necessary evil, say the many, never doubt- ing but that one particle of truth renders the whole dose good and for the best. But we have the term law in far humbler connections — ^we have mill and factory laws, mechanical and retaU laws, club laws, and — excuse us for or for not mentioning — Lynch law. Take a comparison between club and Government laws, to find which has the best right of existence. Government laws are some- times only the will of the Emperor, the King, or their councillors. Modem improvements have given the people the right to hold up their right hand, and a choice few of some peculiar position a vote to choose this one or that one, who can live and devote his time without payment to counsel and deliberate in law-making. The fortunate one sits and votes in Parliament, the routine business in the disbursements of money, &c. ; and if by chance a bill or two of any importance to the nation is forced into discussion, he may have a shadow of a chance to engage the attention of the House, but with a sure power to give his vote, but by that time for a purpose in reality gene- rally of very little consequence. Yet it has the name of being the very best club — we take it to be in its private more than its public life. It would take a stout heart to attack a really bad old law ; they are sacred, although not to be defended. Club laws you can face, and under- stand as genuine rules ; nay, you must subscribe to them. To be under them which are so attested seems far in ad- 76 THE CONSTITUTION OF SOCIETY. vance of the other, which neither you nor your repre- sentative ever had your eyes on. But they must both exist for the benefit of those under them, or in the one case they act the part of oppression and tyranny, and in the other they can be avoided altogether. Government laws, in the moat favourable view, have two immediate objects — the protection of our person, and second, the upholding of individual property possessions. The right, or justice, or benefit derived from this can never be taken as equal justice to all, because personal wrong may be endured from want of means to insure its triumph ; and it is an insult to all not born with a silver spoon in their mouths to tell them their property is guarded by statute law. Besides, being born and bred with this property constitution and these statute laws overour heads, natural rights in property are superseded. We have right emanating from this constitution, instead of from the one pure source — State sanction, not the divine, the true. And since all this has received the sanction of a few gene- rations, and is still in practice, there is nothing for it but to support it, even against our conviction, imtil another or the true constitution of society is so universally ac- knowledged as to peacefully and permanently occupy its place. Laws, or State regulations, in regard to the people, are almost exclusively engaged with the abuses arising out of the above system of property ; purely per- sonal affairs, having no regard to property, are compara- tively insignificant. The rarity of personal aggression, in comparison to that on property, makes this the fact, and it speaks strongly for the moral nature of humanity. GOVERNMENT AND LAWS. 77 while it points out the irritating sore in social life. Those who make a trade of thieving have not the slightest ill- feeling to those they would deprive of some property ; their whole motive of action being enveloped and de- veloped with the peculiar influence of the property prin- ciple. But by the innate love of justice in our nature, the system has acquired some approjdmation to just laws -, the order and security enjoyed is in a great measure the effect of these laws. Trade of every description requires order and security in the State. Without the power exerted through the laws, under present conditions, the vicious and indolent would possibly cease all industrial occupation, and not only live on the more honest and honourable, but, as has been so often witnessed before, take the best of every- thing, and have very little regard to the preservation of the remainder. Common education cannot counteract the degrading tendencies of private property ; hence we see often among the professions, education such as it is, exerted to dupe and rob on an immense scale. No one will deny that benefits are derived from education, especially when it includes the exemplary and industrial ; but its power can scarcely at all mitigate the evils throughout the whole of our social life, in our every day experience, and from the present instituted system of society. Education, in its proper and universal meaning, can accomplish all within the limit of possibility; yet, with the one condition unchanged — namely, society as at present established — education must be defective, if not pernicious, because its influence has a power permanent 78 THE CONSTITUTION OF SOCIETY. and vital, whereas defective education is transient, and consequently artificial. The good is liable to be nullified and overthrown by continual contact with the vitiated, followed by a more or less degraded course according to the external conditions and inherent power for prudence and virtue. The path of every person in civilisation is near and parallel to a precipice ; the laws would tend to save us from danger, but wUl never conduct us into a safe and natural path. To citizens of great prudence and honesty laws are little known, and possess less interest ; circumstances may occur which force even some of that class to act in accordance with them — in that case the lawyer is in requisition. When the system is understood that private property is to be respected and protected, our innate powers enable us so to shape our course through life that just laws cannot call in question our acts, the precise knowledge of the laws being generally or univer-i sally conceived superfluous. Even though this is the case, the necessity of the laws and also their administra- tion is not questioned, nor asserted to be of minor im- portance. It is quality, and not quantity, that is desirable, and the influence is diffused through the whole State, for good or for evil. The State that can bring a people to enjoy and not abuse the greatest amount of freedom, with confidence in their prudence and moderation, acts best for that people, and for that State or Government, for confidence and trust beget confidence and trust. It is desirable that all men should have some voice in the laws they act under, yet it may be more than questionable whether the majority of voices should have the whole re- GOVEENMENT AND LAWS. 79 presentatives at their disposal. It would probably ba much better to have three classes of representatives, to represent society under three classes, with popular elec- tion in each case, and to form one representative body. These elected individuals may remain so for one, two, or three years, but are only servants of the nation (why not paid?), existing to-day in honour, and to-morrow ar« simple citizens. We must have every existing institution developed, if it can be improved, and if not, the necessary change. Our own progress depends on this, and our na- tural right demands a share of the government. There is innate honour in all, but it is not cultivated. Why prop us up by laws we have no say in making, denying our natural virtues, while undermining them by artificial supports? The evasion of such laws is apt to be a sub- ject of glorification ; and those whose virtues are compa- ratively weak are content to shape their conduct by the law at first, but soon find that lawful punishment is by no means certain when they act with more self-interest than justice. Then follows more vicious policy ; but the divine powers of reflection and perception are more than sufficient to render that policy secret, keeping free from taint 'in the public eye — thus, like all practical error, taking its victim forward by imperceptible degrees to what is further and further from truth and all that is good. Taking our whole mental nature, each is naturally a law sufficient for himself or herself. If exceptions occur, they properly are assisted by magistrates or justices, who are chosen as such for their well-known ability to govern 80 THE CONSTITUTION OP SOCIETY. themselves, and consequently to assist their less fortunate fellow-beings. But what have we to do with natural truth here ? It is Government and Laws that form our text, and what number of persons will agree about either? Is it not narrow majorities, after many years' agitation, that give us one really important and beneficial law? This never-ending division of opinion in these matters shows they are not of the truth, and discreditable to the present age of intelligence and rationality. Honest men are not rendered such by being regulated by law — ^it does not make citizens good and happy. Even were tyrannical and unjust laws predominant for a time, and misery general, comparatively good laws may take off this load, but it can do no more. They are like the doctor of modern times, who pretends to do no more than assist nature when labouring in disease. Society is in a state of disease, and no probability of a change to the better ; yet health is not only possible, but the nor- mal state both of individuals and society. Artificial causes keep society in a state of irritation and hardships ; the mind knows not freedom from care, and what enjoy- ment is experienced is more from natural causes than artificial. It is no doubt the system that presses so heavily on us ; the Government and Laws are secondary. What have we to do with them ? We know little more about them than the power exerted to launch out taxes. They have not the intrinsic beauty of science to draw us to a knowledge of them, nor the enchantment of the arts to render us devotees ; no power to cultivate to what is noble and true, nor the heart to genuine taste and feeling. DISTRIBUTION OF PROPERTY. 81 It is all the reverse, and too much like American pohtics, long before the present disruption, which were said by some of themselves to be like pitch, not to be touched ■without being defiled. Our mental powers are beauti- fully in harmony for the great purposes of humanity, developed for guidance in opinion, judgment, feeling, and impulse — all personal, no reference to property. - Mine and thine is a usurpation ; it is a cloud put there by our own hands, to darken the glorious sun ; it unneces- sarily abstracts the intellect from its legitimate work, and gives it labour no less distasteful than miserable. The intellect is the helm to guide us rationally straight through life's ocean, but there are great artificial currents existing of man's creation ; the helm guides still — the beauty of the power is lost and sometimes questioned from the ships being necessarily driven from their proper course by the surrounding superfluous currents. To take up the subject in detail is unnecessary, since all Government and Law, as at present popular, are simply expediencies arising out of the constitution of so- ciety, which is property, and has been found false. But this conclusion can never reasonably deter any person from appreciating and strengthening those governments Mid laws which appear most productive of justice and the general benefit of the governed. This subject may pass with an extract from Locke on Government: — 'But though the golden age had more virtue, and consequently better governors, as well as less vicious subjects, and there was then no stretching prerogative on the one side to oppress the people, nor consequently on the other any 82 THE CONSTITUTION OP SOCIETY. dispute about privilege to lessen or restrain the power of the magistrate, and so no contest betwixt rulers and people about governors or government, yet, when ambi- tion and luxury in future ages would retain and increase the power without doing the business for which it was given, and, aided by flattery, taught princes to have distinct and separate interests from their people, men found it necessary to examine more carefully the origin and rights of goverrmient, and to find out ways to re- strain the exorbitance and prevent the abuses of that power, which, having entrusted in another's hands only for their own good, they found was made use of to hurt them. For there are no examples so frequent in history, both sacred and profane, as those of men withdrawing themselves and their obedience from the jurisdiction they were torn under, and the family or community they were bred up in, and setting up new governments in other places — whence sprang all that number of petty com- monwealths in the beginning of ages, and which al- ways multiplied, as long as there was room enough, tiU the stronger or more fortunate swallowed up the weaker, and those great ones, again breaking to pieces, dissolved into lesser dominions. It is plain, then, by the practice of governments themselves, as well as the law of right reason, that a child is born a subject of no country or government. He is under his father's tuition and autho- rity tOl he comes to the age of discretion, and then he is a freeman, at Kberty what government he will put him- self under, what body politic he will unite himself to.' COMPETITION, 83 CHAPTER VI. COMPETITION. Theke is another word frequently used of the same meaning as competition, and for a distinct understanding a distinction must be made — the word is emulation. The latter appears to be the proper word where trade is not concerned. Trade or exchange of property, labour for money or money for goods, is the exclusive sphere of competition. Hence we say, if two or more persons are in the market with their labom or commodities, they compete with each other for business or exchange. There is a permanent competition existing in the common and necessary means used to find ourselves subsistence, whe- ther in labour or exchange of produce. The introduc- tion of money or prizes in acts of simple emulation does not properly form competition, because they exist not of necessity, but are pure stimulants to emulation. Then, how define emulation? It wiU include aU similar action on purpose to excel.. It is quite natural in necessary labour, in the hewing of given blocks of stone to parti- cular and similar parts of an architectural design, or in playing a game of draughts or chess — call it for fame, glory, eminence, or money, or some such combination, it matters little if that combative spirit to excel others is not included for our position and interest in society. 84 THE CONSTITUTION OF SOCIETY. Both competition and emulation may be carried to excess. The former has the motiye power of want, or fear of want, keeping good our social position, or the making of money; and in the other, display of skill, ca- pacity, energy, physical powers, or other natural and commendable qualities. The love of emulation is strong in youth, in practice is a great source of pleasure, and ought to be taken advantage of for the cultivation of both mental and physical capacities. We test our powers with some champion of the many departments cultivated — our happiness is supreme if suc- cessful, and tmder common circumstances our own excel- lence is not underrated ; and if positively worsted, we find good consolation in a catalogue of names which come after our own in the list. Competition has none, or next to none, of the attractive attributes of emulation. It is of the number of ' necessary evils ' necessary to be engaged in, even if we find it a continual bore. The necessity, of course, is entirely dependent on the indivi- duaJ property-constitution of society. We could com- pete with others could we laugh in our triumph, but human nature has more heart than that. What makes our success and prosperity may be another's woe and ruin — our life, in a sense, is in one or other of the scales of a balance, and the vibrations are in many cases sicken- ing and disastrous. It is not only over-refined habits and enlightened minds who find competition repulsive, but simple common sense and a delicate self-respect cannot well brook the candidateship for a lucrative any more than a work-and-starve situation. ' What COMPETITION. 85 caunot now be cured must be endured,' so many people are enabled to set about work enveloped in competition, and find it pretty agreeable as the world goes ; but for the most successful you must lower morality to business- honesty, a hypocritical smile with smooth words, and no nice appreciation of honour. Competition is naturally painful in ' seeking work,' ' seeking custom,' ' seeking a situation that has had dozens of applicants before us,' and in being one of a hundred and fifty recommending apartments to let, in answer to an advertisement. Is aU this not peculiarly and positively beggarly? Yet there are those who take, and get others to take, up this work with apparent pleasure, making a profession of canvass- ing orders. Or witness the trades' or merchants' adver- tisements in any widely-circulated newspaper. Every^ one would have you try his wares^that is, every one would have you subscribe to his income; and the manoeu- vres to secure subscribers are very ingenious, and quite tempting. Cheapness is the grand bait, quality is fre- quently a better; but people have difEerent faiths even in these, and should a good bargain be given on one oc- casion, the probabflity is a double profit may be secured on the next, if the occasion is favourable. Where is the room for the comfortable, not to use stronger language, feeling of confidence and trust in others? Do such commercial or trading hypocrites know such conduct is subversive of all morality ? While the trading classes are subject to grave complaints in regard to morality, it cannot be ascribed to any particular stain on their character more than to any other class, for 86 THE CONSTITUTION OP SOCIETY. what class can pretend to be better than another? A few centuries ago, when trade was very limited, the luxuries and elegancies enjoyed less or more by all of the present were then totally unknown ; even an English, much less a scientific education, was the exception even among those who could have commanded something cre- ditable. Science and ait were inappreciable, while ad- ventures in robbery or fanaticism were predominant. They were not naturally inferior to us, but the conditions or external circumstances made all the difference in mode of life and mental developement. Rent and interest, the vital principle now, had scarce any footing then ; what of rent there was we find principally or totally to be of the produce of the land, supporting the proprietor and family, domestics and adherents . The number and equip- ment of those adherents gave the great or powerful their station in society. The life of aU was extremely rude ; physical force and violence or assumed power held the great body of the people in utter subjection, sometimes with mutual good-wiU and affection. The unscrupulous were ever plotting or attempting the invasion of the possessions of their neighbours ; war would rage in conse- quence, surely more fearful and disastrous than law pro- secutions of our day, and still less certain in the idtimate success of the greater right. Eevenge was engendered less or more on both sides, and the deadly feud remained for generations. Competition was as yet unknown as we understand it, the strife of man exhibiting itseU prin- cipally in the physical, the mental being in the keeping and at the command of the clergy. COMPETITION^. 87 The Magna Charta of the thirteenth century was a beginning of another spirit, the mental showing itself in advance of the manners and spirit of the age, and the poorer classes being very long indeed before their privi- leges and serfdom gave way to equahty and freedom. The arts of peace have been the grand power in the civi- lisation of modem society, and the corporations of the small and large towns were the focus of those arts of peace ; and with their rise we find simultaneous increasing demands for the luxuries and refinements of life, in place of a barbaric display. This gave that trade a stimulus which was the cradle of competition, although it was as yet monopoly and large profits ; but time developes all principles in operation, and the consequence is evident in the great increase of wealth, which is so grand to some parties' ideas as to be designated the glory of a nation. It would, in all probability, not be well without it, yet it canjiot be accounted satisfactory if tried by the divine standard of human feeling and aspiration. Parties get possessed of machinery or other productive capital — they cannot remain idle without great loss, and, in applying them, improvements are continually made, to give a greater profit; so they produce, and find it necessary to continue extending their connections to keep the produc- tion going on and render the trade more valuable. This is the competition we have realised, and it renders trade next to impossible except with smaE profits and a large turn-over, as has formerly not been the case in regard to common productions. So far it served a great purpose, in cheapening and extending exchanges to every available 88 THE CONSTITUTION OF SOCIETY. place ; it lias had its work as a civiliser, taking a principal part in the ' Arts of Peace.' But competition is often encumbered with much un- necessary labour, making things dearer than they other- wise might be, not to speak of the grumble at selling at small profits, with an exceptional transaction when it can be had on the side of a large profit. The will is for larger and larger profits of incomes ; competition neces- sitates moderation, and sometimes actual loss. This ten- dency is not more true among the employed than the employers, among flunkeys than paid courtiers. The rich dispute hypocritically about who shall have the loaves and fishes, but they are all old enough to agree about the price or value of the prize, thus excluding the economic and saving power of competition. The poor find their employers necessarily assist them to dispute with each other as to who will work most for least remuneration in dull trade. The reverse is remarkably slow in old countries in brisk trade ; hence the low prices of manu- factured goods. In buying them the common remark is — How can they be manufactured at the price ? but which might be known to be in a great degree from the merciless power of the screw — ^that is competition, and this is its peculiar glory ; but some improvement in manufacture or application of machinery may have assisted, which, in the first instance at least, is attended by larger remune- ration and not uncommonly more prejudicial to health. "We would aU take exception to a pressing competition, but for others a nearly useless sympathy is not overflowing, so a bargain has a charm to the great majority ; our in- COMPETITION. 89 terest is here, not in the manufacture. There is no mistake about the peaceful warfare, not only ciTil, but social. It preys into the heart of society, into the heart of all engaged — ^this competition does — and cannot be welcomed nor debarred admittance. We might refer to numerous trading transactions illus- trative of competition's waste of labour ; but very few must suffice. Butchers in the country are alive to the fact that they may go to a farmer to purchase an ox, but they cannot agree what the price shall be ; they meet in the cattle market of some distant town with the animal in question, and there agree. This additional expense involved falls on one of them or both. The public ought, and does, pay for all this, even as they do sometimes have the cheap article from the economising powers of com- petition. Bakers, grocers, and many other trades, are continually wasting labour by ' driving coals to Newcastle' — sending the largest part of their trade past the doors of other manufactvirers of the same article. Farmers in the neighbourhood of country flour mills will send grain to a market town, say eight miles distance, to be sold, and returned to the mill in the neighbourhood where the grain grew. One of the most perfect phases of competi- tion is in contracts, if you get sufficient number, for some specified axticle. This is the screw put on the contractors, and hence to be applied to the acce^ories ; nothing but the screw ensures the contract, and nothing less will save yourself. Try for a farm, the same principle is pre- dominant, often used with a blush, or perhaps prudence, to ensure a man of money, not straw j he would be 90 THE CONSTITUTION OF SOCIETY. dangerous but for a proTisiorL ' that the lowest offer may not be accepted.' The moral effects are a sad feature in the story. The parties themselTes who get their position and employment from a hard-driven bargaia can scarcely be expected to be faTouiably disposed to generous conduct towards those employed by them. Look to the starvation wages of many useful occupa- tions. We would have people perfectly honest, yet with- out the comforts of hfe, and in sight of others rolling in luxurious abundance. Ah ! many a gem ia human nature has lived and died unknown but to a very few. This is reaUy irretrievable loss ; these are Heaven's moral light — ^yes, and intellectual light too — under a bushel. There is less than no compensation in public exposure and punishment of the morally diseased. Competition is a demoralising power of no minor importance. Hate, lies, care, and chagrin are common effects on those who find themselves trying to supplant each other, and that too while leaving their victim without regard or Mvehhood. One objection would be taken by political economists re- specting our ideas of waste of labour, and consequently higher prices than natural. They tell us the principle of present society which makes the less remunerative labour or trade likely to become neglected ; the other better re- munerated departments of industry are naturally drawing them from the under-paid to the better paid trade — the influence of self-interest. This is, in a minor respect, perfectly correct. In the more important conditions of changing employments there is necessarily an incalculable amount of suffering, and the limits possible to the alleged COMPETITION. 91 fluctuations are extremely narrow ; and, accordingly, we find employments and trades which were but poorly remunerated half a century ago are still the same. And worse, where there is poor remuneration, and a possibility of working overtime, it is sure to be taken advantage of for an increased income — thus cutting our tether, which inevitably must be tied again, and then shorter by the length taken up by the knot. Working overtime is not justifiable but by necessity. The tone of health is lowered and endangered, and as- suredly the profession, trade, or employment is injured. Time does not, and will not, cure this evil ; the conditions of persons and things do and wO continue to maintain it so long as there is no radical change. Population not only increases, but there are numbers continually being set free from some department of industry by the im- provements and applications of steam-power. There is always a surplus of labourers. Were it a surplus of corn, or any useful commodity, we would rejoice over it with the economist ; but a surplus of labourers must be consum- ing the necessaries of life — and this we may take for granted, their wants are not supplied out of the morsel savings from the time employed. There is little or no room for us if we do not make room for ourselves. Morality says. Others before self ; Competition says. Self before others, no matter about morality. The social war cease ? Never with individual property. We must strive on, and, if possible, catch the bubble wealth ; the great majority must fail, only able to make a less or more successful resistance to the arch-enemy — want, and ac- 92 THE CONSTITUTION OF SOCIETY. counting it so far good if our honour has not greatly- suffered in the attempt. Many see competition in no unfavourable light — be- tween skilled and unskilled labourers, for example. There is a limited demand for them, and if their number exceeds that demand, or up to that demand if the wages are very- low, the remuneration must remain the most humble pos- sible — female spinning-mill workers, or at bleachflelds, or sewing, before and after the introduction of se-wing- maohines, and many others, -with only six shillings per week, and in proportion as they are miserably paid they are accounted fortunate in getting employment ; young hands -wUl not have so much by one half. In times of comparative activity in trade, over-time is sought by the employer (the law benevolently restricts females to ten hours labour per day) ; but it is impolitic of workmen to comply, for extra hands ought to be employed or a rise of wages ought to be the result, as it is -with commodities when demand exceeds supply. But there are two edges to this sword, and the spirit generated between employed and employers is apt to suffer ; yet there is no use to evade or shut our eyes to the fact that labour is valued in proportion to the demand and supply, the same as other marketable commodities. Thirty shillings is a common weekly wage for a skilled labourer, and others, perhaps as accomplished, but in more numbers in proportion to demand, will be the same time employed for two shillings per day. Altogether, there are very many good reasons to shorten hours of labour, even should competition con- tinue as now experienced ; but even this cannot be ex- COMPETITION. 93 pected to make a great harvest unless the leisure hours enjoyed are well spent, and accounted genuine remune- ration. The improvements in modem society make the amount of manual labour fractional comparative to what was necessary only half a century ago in the production of the common articles of use and consumption. Taking an assumptive average of manual labour in production of certain necessaries and luxuries of life at one half less, and if ten hours per day were then sufficient, then five hours ought now to be of equal sufficiency ; the workman having in both cases remuneration equal to common sus- tenance ; the physical conditions of the present worker are in many particulars superior, yet this should not greatly interfere with necessary hours of labour. It is an im- portant and curious fact, that society's most necessary, and useless, or even vicious work, is equally subject to compe- titive selfish consideration. The necessary work of direct utility has no preference over the useless or vicious, and in manyinstancestheuseful haslessremuneration. (Thieving, forging, and other vicious courses, are systemised trades, and said to bring great returns ; of course, dissipated as fast as acquired). Form an analogy : a lady's baU-dress, costing one hundred pounds — ^the dress serves only one night — and how much labour is dissipated on that occa- sion ? The very same as on an hundred pounds worth of corn. In the one case, the labourer may have been higher paid in some parts of the production than in the other, and in other parts lower ; still there is the same money value. The hundred poimds covdd have been exchanged for some hundred and fifty boUs of corn ; and, in regard 94 THE CONSTITUTION OF SOCIETY. to society, the lady might have used or abused the same on the night of the ball, only the departmeat of manu- facture would be changed from the soft goods to the agricultural. The competition — that is, society's desire to industrial produce — is blind to what are works of utility ; it would produce heathen images or gold-trimmed ap- parel, or working-men's houses, or public pleasure-grounds with buildings attached for a museum, billiard-table, reading-room, &o. — any giyen thing for war or for gift — only let the demand and money be forthcoming. We compete in folly or in works of necessity and use- fulness, according to the sanity of individual members of society. If you wanted a wooden horse to ride to the moon, only give the dimensions, and every particular wiU be duly attended to, if the price is sure and promptly paid when the article is finished and ready to be mounted. And the necessities of life fare no better in competition than other produce ; the probability of the demand limits the amount of their production — abundance is no motive, only the anticipated gain. To have a general great abund- ance is not the dehght of the farmer — ^is not his object • as great abundance as you please for each individually ; but if others have less than an average crop, his pocket would be very much prettier lined. Nor will we say the farmers have this sentiment— very far from it ; but the constitution of society gives this tendency, and, if they are not imbued so, we have to thank human nature, being so much superior to our conditions of life. Yet this explains how so many people are employed at next to useless labour, and the benefit to workpeople (if it will be held a benefit) of ten COMPETITION. 95 hours' work per day, even witli all our modern power in steam, machinery, and improvements. Dress, or other things wherein there is great value, are exactly what are wanted by those who have incomes exceeding what is necessary for life's sustenance, and consequently they ransack society for purely personal gratiflcation. The simple wants of nature would leave (as frequently happens) great accumulations of wealth. But the ma- jority love personal gratification above that of hoarding or strict philanthropy, and the consequence is better in every sense for the interest of the many. It not only distributes the money, but it admits of a healthy self- reliance and self-respect from the position occupied in the manufacture, when the money has been secured by industry. Competition may be termed the bloodless war of civilisation, although in the work it would be difficult to form an estimate of its victims. While competition seems blighting, degrading, and pernicious, it is enchant- ing to think that emulation is all the reverse, and in every respect fitted for the whole requirements or exigencies of society. Competition, at present, is a necessary evil ; emulation is a natural and healthy condition of life— of course, a blessing. 96 THE CONSTITUTION OF SOCIETY. CHAPTER VII. MACHINERY. Machineey is SO intimately connected with the la- bouring class that we purpose making it the subject of a few remarks. Division of labour naturally accompanies machinery ; iihey both go together to render labour lighter, less tedious and tiresome, and the time of necessary labour for any given result shorter. Political and popular writers in general represent machinery as the handmaid of the trades- men, and the latter frequently represent it as subversive of their work and sustenance. Both are equally narrow views, and perhaps in accordance with the different posi- tions occupied by each party. The fact is, division of labour may be looked on as the principle which nature makes es- sential to man for his own developement in society, and machinery one of the chief material means by which this is accomplished. Their mutual effects at present are not per- manently either good, bad, or indifEerent ; but each is ob- served from the different stand-points from which they are viewed. It would have been an anomaly to have found a fundamentally false constitution of society, acting with a true and good principle, and the result from these to belong only to the true andgood one. If the result desired must be altogether true and good, the acting principles must be MACHINERY. 97 all of the divine. But hear Dr Adam Smith, the father of political economists, in reference to this : — ' The great- est improvements in the productive powers of labour, and the greater part of the skill, dexterity, and judgment with ■which it i» anywhere directed or applied, seem to have been the effects of the division of labour.' All improve- ments have the same effect as machinery. And he says again : — ' The intention of the fixed capital is to increase the productive powers of labour, or to enable the same number of labourers to perform a much greater quantity of work.' 'The employment of machinery,' says J. K. M'CuUoch, Esq., ' and the increased facility of production consequent thereon, has also a tendency to raise the condition of the labourer, by bringing the powers of his mind more into action. Some of the most laborious operations of in- dustry — such, for instance, as the thrashing-out of corn — are now either wholly or principally performed by machinery, the task of the labourer being confined to its construction (in which he is usually assisted by other machines) and guidance. And the presumption is, that this substitution of the powers of nature for those of man will be carried to a much further extent, and that he will be progressively still more and more employed in making new applications of their exhaustless energies.' Is not this very beautiful?— the fortuneless members out of mind. When society itself, and all its appliances in science and art are made to serve the legitimate object for which they exist — namely, the indiscriminate benefits of our race — machinery wiU cease to extract encomiunis G 98 THE CONSTITUTION OF SOCIETY. from one class, or the indignant protest of another. It is quite clear that machinery which only doubles the power of production, bringing the price of manufactured articles down one half, is simple gain for the rich to the extent of fifty per cent, on their purchase. Hence the favour in which machinery is held by many of that class. Immediately the income is more than sufficient to pro- cure the necessaries of Ufe, the good or extra power to purchase more is most sensibly felt; and without being in a position to enjoy this advantage in some measure, we would be improved by the progress of society only in regard to the necessaries of life, and that state is not yet rendered certain, and generally fuU of cares and troubles. But the class referred to must not conclude, because improvements and machinery are so beneficial to them, they must be equally so to all others. Those who can only command a miserable sustenance, and perhaps save a remainder equally scanty from a sense of duty, with the purpose to avoid being paupers or in debt under iU health, or to secure in a small degree some independence of man — natural independence of position in regard to each other, not as industrial mem- bers of society--or some other infelicitous circumstances in which we are all liable to be enveloped beyond indivi- dual control — cannot receive much benefit from cheap productions which may never be, to any great extent, subjects of demand. There can be no question of the increased power of production in the necessaries of life • but there is much truth in the statement, that the great amount of machinery and improvements are almost , MACHINERY. 99 wholly confined to those who can command them with their superabundant wealth. Hence the benefit derived by the general public is comparatively smaJl, even on the fair side of the picture. The dark side is that where men have been brought up learning a trade, and find the demand for that learning and skill suddenly cease, in consequence of machinery doing the work at less cost. Incompetent to follow any other trade, they are forced to remain in idleness, or, in the endeavour to have a share in some other work, find the contest unequal, other ap- plicants, having more experience in the department, and consequently more profitable, leaving them no expecta- tion of success ; and while their slender savings are being dissipated ten times quicker than they were accumulated, time hangs heavy, as if on purpose for reflection on the unnatural and unenviable position occupied. This is misery of man's creation, and which must be remedied by Viim also — ^f or if working mens' saviugs are effected by countless sacrifices to natural and virtuous wants, their forced dissipation is a more cruel sacrifice still, being their last and only hope of possessing one share in the world's wealth. The acquisition was truly up-hill work, even under favourable circumstances, but their absorption in non-employment leaves the victim on an inclined plane, which can admit of no doubt of the iQtimate landing. The direct interest of all now is purely individual, or in the family, or if any are so happUy placed for it to extend to the circle of acquaintance who mutu- ally help each other. Another phase of direct interest we have in professions and trades from their occupying 100 THE CONSTITUTION OP SOCIETY. « the same relative position to society ; yet this limited common interest does not interfere with their individual interest, which clashes with all others in their immediate contact. A draper selling cloth for a coat, or an artisan bargaining for his labour, find their interest in a large profit or wage, and the buyer or employer in the reverse ; both the draper and artisan have a tacit understanding as to the profit or wage, but individual interest appears strongest to disregard this understanding, and they may be found underselling, and, if they can find an opportu- nity, overcharging. Machinery and improvements foster this departure from equal profits or wages, by multiplying producta and superseding manual labour ; there is a pres- sure to get trade or employment, and this pressure ap- peals directly to our interest by underselling. There has been many a hero immortalised for persistency, courage, and self-sacrifice, who has not been possessed of them to the degree displayed quite common both in trade and la- bour. It is melancholy to acknowledge what ought to be the beneficent power of division of labour, machinery, and all improvements, instead of setting us to a hateful com- bat for the poor necessaries of fife ; and this combat can- not be at its fuU developement for many years to come, supposing it not to be arrested. We produce to a glut in the market, by the aid of machinery, with ease ; the ma- chinery stops and suffers but little, but behold the workers who have found the weekly wages wholly necessary for the weekly sustenance-=-they now come to find sustenance still necessary, but no wage to meet the demand. Yet it is natural we should hold on by machinery, for it naturally MACHINERY. IQI is and ■will be undoubtedly man's servant, indeed, in some future time. The application of power by animal or machinery, when of a questionable saving over manual labour, might on moral grounds be deprecated ; and this, perhaps, is the fact, for we have seen strikes bring into practical opera- tion machinery which was to avoid the necessary em- ployment of those on strike ; and also where labour is high paid and scarce, machinery and improvements are the more common, as in the case of the once United States of America. But let those improvements and ma- chinery come into existence, they, by the mere interest the proprietors have in them, find the preference given to them in doing the work even were they and manual labour to stand equally in the balance of costs in produc- tion. The unemployed have no claim upon the proprietors of capital, but the machinery and improvements have, for if they lie unem,ployed it is money dead, but if em- ployed the probability is it secures the proprietor good interest on the outlay of money. Animal power renders this necessary in a still greater degree, because their keep is greater ; they have the preference, and the labourer is unemployed — left free, in glorious liberty ! We, of course, believe this is right ; but who can shut his eyes to all these powers taking precedence of, and acting in opposition to, poor industrial labourers. They are not Ms hand-maid, nor can they be made to serve him in his present position, except in a fractional degree in compa- rison to their real service. Society, by its constitution, seems to have annihilated his every right but one, and 102 THE CONSTITUTION OP SOCIETY. that one labour ; for when that one faik he is no more a citizen, but a pauper, a vagabond, or some other odious character. Could he but live ■without food, shelter, and clothing, he might remain a noble citizen, claiming and showing his equality of nature with any other ; but these necessities from nature or society's constitution, which deprive him of everything, have degraded him to the dust, cultivating his passions, and the superior sentiments are left to struggle for mastery, but too often in vain. Man is by far too noble a creature to submit to the position of becoming an inmate of a workhouse or poorhouse ; many may be degraded to such a degree, but human nature revolts at these expediencies. Yes, if we would view it in its proper light, by placing ourselves in their position, it would be greatly more revolting than has yet been pro- nounced. Would we force others to accept an ignoble position, which we would spurn for ourselves ! Human nature is too noble for that. Think of it — for a man or woman in the vigour of life, with a pride in duty duly performed, and a spirit of dependence only on One — not human. Oh! insult added to misfortune. Grim mes- senger of death, where art thou ? ' Anywhere, anywhere out of this world.' The class who have the fortune to be born to great wealth, with the addition of a few others who acquire riches through persevering industry or otherwise, are those from time immemorial who have had the power and influence of Government at their disposal. They are the representative class, enjoying abundance of the neces- saries and luxuries of life, and consequently, if otherwise MACHINERY. ]03 than permanently happy, it is not for want of the best and only circumstancea which present society holds out for that purpose. We repudiate anything like hostility or envy to that class, and believe there would be little or no difference to the better were they replaced by as many continual grumblers ; but we would cahnly consider the result, which we see in society, allowing comparatively small conjugal felicity, any more than really satisfactory happiness in general in that class, while they enjoy the lion's share in the distribution of property. They are society's pets, but apparently nature's outcasts ; we accept this without rejoicing, but as a pregnant lesson. The poor, in their difficulties, are frequently tempted to re- mark the disproportion or inequality in the distribution of wealth ; but the practice of holding persons of any class responsible for what is obviously the result of prin- ciple, is about exploded, even in those whose neglected education might have been some justification for the error. Nature seems to bring all classes to an approximation to community, or mutual dependence for happiness or misery on the whole race, and more immediately in nations and communities — one class cannot have ' perfect ■happiness,' and another of the same community be in a state of misery. This feature of society is influenced by machinery, for it is naturally diffusive, although our eyes cannot be shut to the fact that it enhances the wealth and power of the already wealthy and powerful, and renders the poor more dependent on those wealthy and powerful. It cheapens the raw material of many commodities ; it increases the product of the manufacture 104 THE CONSTITUTION OP SOCIETY. of all material; it admits of seryice being rendered in superior livery. The rich enjoy all these, and the conti- nual cheapening leaves overplus for further and further expenditure in works of elegance, arts, and fancy. If labour was paid equal in proportion to the production of past years, before modern improvements, the wages of many would be an hundred times more ; but the price being at that higher standard, the demand would be proportionably limited, like that of the past, so the wage would be the same, with the time of necessary labour shortened in proportion to the improvement — ten hours in every hundred days. The common fashion of keeping the hours of labour stationary gives the whole advantage to the rich, and forces the superfluous hands to find other work. They engage in superfluous arts, and find purchasers among those who have saved expenditure in the works which have been cheapened. From these remarks it is obvious that machinery diffuses benefits, and, as above noticed, the rich are the principal participators, because every reduction in price of life's necessaries, luxuries, and fijie- art productions, is gain, directly and indirectly, to them. If machinery could multiply farms, houses, and capital, • as it does manual labour, the benefits and competitions would extend equally to the rich and to the poor; but while money and property are made subjects of remune- ration for the possessors, the poor would always stand at a disadvantage, even if this impossible result from machinery did exist. Manual labour has its limits, but property-possessing extends to great bounds; hence, on MACHINBBY. 105 the standard of society's constituticai, it is in vain for the poor to cope with the rich. WhUe we conscien- tiously beUeve the poor have an impassable barrier to be on an equality with the rich, it must not be imputed a difficulty not to be overcome, for equality of individual possessions is not the means to be used in efEeoting the core of the common and unnecessarily wide-spread mi- sery. With this in mind, machinery may have bestowed greater benefits, and fewer permanent evils, to the work- ing classes than at first sight appears. The benefits are principally in its construction, in the power it gives of production, and consequently cheapening of articles of common use. But can this demand for more mechanical works go on increasing with the increase of products from machinery? for, in the path we have taken, to re- main stationary is slow starvation to the many. When other countries are as fuUy supphed with ma- chinery as ourselves — ^what then? Would not society have all the evils at present existing — nay, rather all of them greatly inttnsified? So long as railways, aU sorts of steam-engines, manufacturing machinery, and all ex- pensive works of productive utility, or of taste and ele- gance,, are on the increase, there wiU be considerable health in demand of labour. But we know at the best there is no satisfactory result j yet the keeping us em- ployed, and consequKitly in the necessaries of Hfe, of course is so far good, although the best in pjresent society is, in its nature and truth, very indifferent in comparison to what is desirable. Low prices of the necessaries of life is of first importance for a people, and whatever tends 106 THE CONSTITUTION OF SOCIETY. to this result is good ; but these prices are generally the effect of nature's bounty rather than society's prudential arrangements. We are here almost on the subject which previously passed before our notice, namely, the system by which society exists in its organised state. It appeared then — and there is no reason to change — that the annual ex- penditure of interest and rent effects what permanent vitality therei is to be found ; whether trade be brisk or languid, this is the trunk of the tree, on which the branches and every twig is supported. Persons there wiU be who see only the connection of the branches ; but a little closer attention, and the whole is obvious. We have brisk trade from liberal outlay of accumulated money, and especially when that outlay is on productive property. Languid trade arises from interest and rent being either not all spent, or spent only on necessaries and luxuries ; these two may frequently be found existing at one time. With this view, it wUl be per- ceived that the creation and general worlfing of machinery is really subservient to the universal, although not equal, diffusion of wealth in society. Therefore, when ma- chinery is working in competition with men — to their ruin in a pecuniary sense — it must be attributed to so- ciety's constitution, for machinery, like division of labour, extensive knowledge, persevering industry, and all im- provements in manufactures, are in their natural results purely beneficent — directly serviceable to those who take the advantage of their operations. That being the fact, those directly injured in pecuniary affairs must be ra- MACHINBBY. 107 tional and prudent enough, not to wait in such a position till ruin overtakes them, but endeavour to find another sphere or department of employment ; and as persevering industry, with prudence, generally commands success, the door of hope is not closed, although the cloud of mis- fortune for some time threaten the path of life. We must put up with inconveniences which are inci- dental to a vicious state of society (what cannot now be cured must be endured) until, at least, a majority of the people have come to view the conditions we live in to be degrading, and better conditions apparent ; then the demand for the latter will most assuredly arise in its place. 108 THE CONSTITUTION OF SOCIETY. CHAPTER Vlir. GENEKAL EFFECTS FROM THE PEOPEETY PRINCIPLE IN SOCIETY. We shaU now taie a glimpse of society under two aspects — the bright side and the dark side. First, the common idea of the bright or fair side of society natu- rally directs our eye to the well-to-do — those in inde- pendent circumstances. This does not suit us, as they are such a small miaority of the whole people. Besides, nature has produced us all, so in this we are equal, and view each other as brethren of one family; consequently, where the great majority are out of the pale of that class, they must expect to have no greater importance than their numerical strength would warrant. If the ex- tremes of poverty and riches are inimical to happiness, as is generally believed, they will be dispensed with without great injury to our remarks of either phase of society; and if the case cannot be made out quite clearly from the more fortunate and moderately-possessed members of society, it must fall to the ground, because the best at present existing is but very indifferent to what ought to be generally experienced. The male members, and a section of the females, have to begin the business of lite in some trade or profession, and to thoroughly succeed is to call forth congratulations PROPERTY PRINCIPLE IN SOCIETy. 109 of self and friends. In this success may have been many- favourable causes, or there may have been excellent ma- nagement; but the result is substantially the same — an accumulation of wealth, -which is the desired success. In the beginning of this course there may have been cares and fears, sometimes joy and bright hopes; for no hand- to-mouth -working and living, making the expenditure balance with the income, can for one moment be consi- dered satisfactory, but there must be enough of the luxuries to insure comfort, and a surplus sufficient to give the mind a sentiment of security for the future. The tide of success having evidently set in, the bright side of society enjoyed, and its evUs seem greatly medi- cated, the mind assumes a tone congenial to beneficent and happy associations. Among those are frequently found some -who naturally fall into a grand mistake by their blind acquisitiveness. This degrading -weakness is too exclusively developed, its strength increasing -with its -wealth and age. Even here their own peculiar joy is certain, but how circumscribed ! How unlike those beings who find all nature administer to their happiness! or those who make large circles of acquaintance, where mutual respect and esteem enhance life's whole voyage with genial sunshine! Some acquisitiveness is neces- sary, we might say to all, and especially successful busi- ness-people ; but the intellect is the supreme ruler of aU the impulses, acquisitiveness included, and disregard of its monitions is followed by punishment, in the curtail- ment of pleasure, even as in other natural laws with which we are ia immediate connection. 110 THE CONSTITUTION OF SOCIETY. Well, the resources having become of sufficient impor- tance for living in affluence, -what is the first thing thought of? A nice house, and grand domestic estab- lishment; two or more public rooms superbly furnished, and little used ; servants of both sexes to do all necessary work, while master and mistress eat, drink, dress, and move about doing next to nothing. This the beau-ideal of great success in the fight or race for riches. Is this a grand consummation after years of business activity? Many who could easily accomplish that prefer remaining in the harness; not so much for further accumulations as for active and useful occupation, which is as natural to us, while we are able, as any other refreshment to the mind and body. This selfish independence from useful activity may be viewed by many as desirable, but it is opposed to the spirit and letter of the doctrines of Jesus Christ, as well as the teachings of our own and external nature. Common habits and ideas in forming our second naturehave made the selfish property principle the ground- work of our every sentiment, and almost obliterated the natural impulses of duty to our neighbour and dignified respect in ourself . The morality of nature is reversed — self is first, duty afterwards. There is undisguised pleasure in becoming possessed of a fine mansion, and the congratulations of others in having ' come to your kingdom' ; at least, if anything mars the felicity of Ufe, it is not attributed to the elevation in the scale of wealth and material comfort. Every desirable luxury and comfort is either within the establishment, or money, with its well-known power, brings with speed PROPERTY" PRINCIPLE IN SOCIETY. m any amount of these desirables from without. There are dinner-parties and supper-parties, engravings, statues, and oil paintings in abundance ; the garden and vineries are of the first class ; clothes of the most expensive and most fashionable. An airing is necessary to assist di- gestion, but walking is not respectable ; a horse for the young, and a carriage for the matured. Silver plate is extensively necessary, and every other costly thing to accord. The master of the house is in a conventional straight-jacket — he dare not go and supply himself with some refreshment ; and the mistress is no better — she cannot be seen in the kitchen, and to take the tongs to lift a few pieces of coal from the scuttle to replenish the fire would endanger her friendships by losing caste, and the very idea might terribly shake gentle nerves. As there is no end nor any great object to be obtained in the company of these luxurious luminaries, who never dream their every action is selfish, we must drop them, and find another phase of the bright side of society. Wealth, property, riches— call it what you will — has less to do with the bright side of life than at first we are apt to believe ; for although wealth is made the bright side of lite in present society, it is opposed to nature — it is opposed to truth. Nature proclaims a common duty to diffuse elevated happiness — ^happiness which has no bitter reflections, but fuU of sweet reminiscences. What has this to do with selling at a great advantage, or taking twice or three times the wages in the manufacturing of some article? Yes, happiness has the stamp of the true, the divine, the bright side of human nature, in whatever 112 THE CONSTITUTION OF SOCIETY. state of moderation our financial affairs exist. And it is not to be believed that such happiness can exist out of the true, the divine, the right conduct of individuals. The idea of happiness from wealth alone, if held, is delu- sion. In such a life, the particles of happiness must be from particles of nature — of truth ; for be it remembered there only can be a mixture, and a very little of the false permanently blemishes a character — the good.and true must, and generally does predominate, whether or not opposed to society's favourite constitution of property. The happiest class in our nation or race must owe this largely to their superior balanced mental powers, with no weakness by which they might be stopped or turned aside from the rational resolutions of their happy in- stincts. The rational must naturally be the guiding star ; and popular Mammon-worship, and its opposite, extreme thoughtlessness, must be equally avoided by those who would drink deepest of the sacred water of life. It is a common remark, as it is a common occurrence, that children enjoy a flow of animal spirits, a light cheer- fulness of disposition, an earnestness and singleness of purpose that quite fascinates and endears them to every person who can appreciate the virtues of the human heart. They, as yet, have not been introduced to the wise institutions of man — they have not yet been mate- rially impressed by the education in store for them in our incoherent community ; the virtue inherent in human nature is yet uncorrupted, and, consequently, they are recipients of proportionally more happiness. These ex- ternal circumstances, subversive of all that is pure, inno- PEOPEETY PEINCIPLE IN SOCIETY. H3 cent, and true, when they evidently disagree with the rational instincts, must be viewed with suspicion, and allowed no more influence over us than they deserve and necessitate. It is when the conduct is thus preserved more pure by our vigilance over self that we reduce what little of our conduct which could in one de- gree be qestioned, and see what in the past we would have amended or bettered — ^the actions being kept up to our best light, rational to the extent of our judgment, the reflecting and conscious self enjoyes a tranquil repose, an elastic individuaJity of spirit, and the natural smile or tear of innocence. We are necessarily in a state of diffi- culties, and absolutely perfect conduct is purely impos- sible. But the resolve must be permanent to strike the target, and the bull's-eye is the mark — ^perfection. Our positions at present are truly mournful. How can we know when to refuse the beggar's or impostor's, or scoundrel's petition ? He may or may not be a worthy brother. He may or may not make a good use of the ahns. Can we see such without grief — not to particularise old persons and children ? Are we sure we do right by being generous^ ioi it is a seducing power, whUe we may not be absolutely just in having our own debts discharged ? Our possessions are legal ; but are they just ? Do they not encroach on others' just claims ? Or are our pos- sessions next to nothing but the ability to labour, and much of it for meagre necessities, with a resigned spirit, and not one particle of envy for the possessions of the rich ? Would we be indifferent that benefiia should go to a worthy neighbour and not to self? — but, above all, H 114 THE CONSTITUTION OP SOCIETY. that truth, and right — which is truth in practice— should reign now and ever among us mortal creatures ? Yes, our positions are f uU of difficulties, and nothing better have we to oyercome them than our rational faculties. It is our duty to cultivate and thoroughly develope these faculties, not only as individuals, but by means emanat- ing from the corporated body of society, that each might attain the utmost happiness possible — at the same time presenting to society our individuality under the most favourable conditions. Even in the most favourable view attainable of present society, there is a fair share of chagrin, ennui, want of sympathy, or other apparently trifling cause, to disturb the flow of the happy ; but those of higher sensibility find many more serious subjects of grief and unhappiness. It is not possible to shut our eyes to the amount of disease and death, from want of due nurishment and other com- forts — in one word, poverty ; and this poverty is as natural to property as darkness is to light. But human nature is shocked by it, and we instinctively know, as a nation or community, we are responsible for its existence ; and our duty is clearly to mitigate, and, if possible, have it extirpated. Oxn benevolent institutions exist for this purpose, and they are a bright feature of present society, although not to be compared with absolute prevention in as far as possible. They are reflected good — not the clear light of noon-day — ^by being upheld principally by con- tributions of money which little trouble the donor. Nor are the recipients always benefited morally ; but, like ftU charity, it degrades the natural sense of equality in PROPERTY PRINCIPLE IN SOCIETY. 115 man, except they also subscribe according to their means. These institutions, however, ought not to be requisite • they are expedient now, but they may cease to be ex- pedient, and this would be much more desirable. For instance, the most important are for the cure of disease, yet health is the normal state of life ; the workshop and home made habitable would be a greater boon than kill- ing people by small degrees, and giving them a chance to recover by a week or a month's proper treatment.. But poverty and its accompanying wretchedness is the great necessity which brings them all into existence; yet it is certain that equal and good conditions in life are the birthright of every member of society : equality of duties, and also at the feast, perfect equaility as children of one common parent, is the normal and only just posi- tion in life. Thus, in the brightest, features of present society, there is much to deplore — ^much .to grieve over. And what happiness there is, after some moderate amount of wealth, is not as society's constitution would lead us to expect in more, and more wealth, but rather in a pure conscience and a cathohc spirit from well-cultivated habits, with a sound rational understanding. If the barriers to the latter are great — so is the prize ; but it is mournful so many are , deluded into paths far removed from the proper course. . Truth is th& antidote for our wretched conditions of life, and it is no less common than efficacious ; but marvellous and melancholy as is the fact, truth is as yet literally, as weU as peculiarly, 116 THE CONSTITUTION OF SOCIETY. the open secret. Hence the brightest side of society is, unexceptionally, unsatisfactory. It will be inferred from the preceding remarks that our estimate of the dark side of society shall be unfortunately in the ascendant. It is true^-foi* the great majority of persons are so absorbed with their hardships, misfortunes, burdensome duties, &c., as to render it questionable if they have, in their maturity, experienced happiness. Fo* want of good conditions of life, and sound sense, they make a world for themselves of ' vexation of spirit,' or at most they rise not above ' aU is vanity.' No doubt society's constitution is responsible for all this, although it is denied to have anything to do vdth it. Since it usurps the place of that constitution which would have the responsibility and which would give the necessary better conditions of life and cultivated inteUeet, it must acknowledge the fruits of its own power. Private property is the founda^ tion of society's constitution, and imquestionably the master or monster evil. What evil temptations and influ- ences doth it not preseat to us aU as errors of conmnssioii ? and what good exercises and powers doth it not neglect for our weKare as errors of omission? The latter is negative, and consequently cannot be charged so directly ; but the former is positively of clear malign influence, from the most insinuating and apparently trifling cir- cumstances up to the most direct, barefaced dishonesty; Holding absolute possession of property to be false in every respect, what can such notions, engendered from our infancy, produce, but that of error, and consequently misery ? Errw is the mother of all evil, even as truth is PEOPBETY PEINCIPLE IN SOCIETY. in of all good. Exceptional error is easily remedied ; but error at the foundation or source pollutes or frustrates any possibilityof good of all thatfollow. The same with truth : it is essentially necessary to the healthy action of the mental and practical, even as pure food is to our bodies. Theoretical error might be overlooked were it confined to theory ; but it is woven into our lives — the evil is ren- dered necessary by the practice in priyate property. Although the evil eliminated stamps its error, its prac- tice gives it an artificial appearance of truth — unques- tionable truth ; but so much the worse must be the effects. Practice establishes the fact as to the practice, but it must have a higher test and more sure foundation to be just and true. How much practice, founded on error, has been and passed away ? Witness the cruel destruction of witches (the practice evidently pure error) of little more than a century ago, or the capital punishment for paltry thefts, or the holding of our fellow-creatures as chattel. If anything is certain in the past as well as the present of man, it is his liability to grievously err, both in belief and practice. People have been too much led ; they have been and do still forget their individnal sovereignty, wherein duty and responsibility are employed ; there is no privilege to a class to know what is right in belief and practice, but it is a common and universal duty and re- sponsibility on every person from the common superior source. The common sentiment of people who do not know what equality is advocated, say, 'that were the world's wealth divided to all equally to-morrow, in a 118 THE CONSTITrTION OF SOCIETY. short time the same distinctions from poyerty and richeS would be soon predominant as now.' In their sense this cannot be questioned, and few or none say it is desirable ; but as an answer to no individua,! property it is evasive and delusive, and they have been deceived or deceive themselves who accept it as a solution against the doc- trine of social equality. But this flimsy covering cannot long conceal the q^uestion of present society's impotence for anything good ; social reformers must, ere long, encounter the subject in its entirety, whether it may be accepted or rejected. The present fact which we have to do with is the inherent tendency of the private property principle and practice to create these artificial distinctions, which are totally evil. We need not refer particularly to the miser's mental corruption, or those of dominant pride, vanity, arrogance, tyranny, &c., &c. It might be objected that the innate powers or mental functions have a leaning to these vices, but far stronger reasons are in favour of giving our social state the credit for their cultivation. Besides, as a com- munity, what more important duty can exist than that of fulfilling nature's design for our own children or race, which is, that the rational judgment shall curb and en- courage the impulses to effect the ideal perfection to which human nature may attain. The social state fails in its legitimate duty when it fails in the training of the young shoot to be useful to society, and a blessing to itself as well as an honour and characteristic example of our divine nature. Have we not seen the budding of vice in a child receiving a small coin, exhibiting it to his playmates. PROPERTY PRINCIPLE IN SOCIETY, ] 19 •while the pride of power rose on his cheek, and dejection was depicted on the others ? Is this not in miniature an indication of society's developed vices ? Harmony, union, or association is rent asunder, to the triumph of isolation, incoherence, and selfishness. The weaithy wallow in luxuries, and the poor ape them as if this was the chief object in Ufe. The artificial power given by private property is often the first cause of all this, and always a necessary accomplice. And this forms a practical lesson for youth, which they may be as apt to learn as some more commendable pursuit. Custom dead- ens the iniquity, and a questionable standard of character is fostered which is no less disreputable to ourselves than to the country and State in which we live. But evUs more palpable, that come more home to our deadened moral feelings, are quite as common as those to which we have referred. Non-success in hfe is the grand accompaniment to the dark side of society ; nor must it be supposed that constant or steady employment runs the recipient clear of this non-success. It is far otherwise when only a small income, perfectly inadequate to the necessities of the family, is its reward. They are at misery's door if ill health or an accident overtake the head of the family ; if thoughtful, how can they be but ever in an anxious state of mind ? The employment is probably carried on under injurious conditions for health, and a long contact with these conditions brings premature iU health and death. A certain M.D. tells us: — 'The injuriousness of the 120 THE CONSTITUTION OF SOCIETY. worst occupations is not unaToidable ; certainly not un- counteractable. No occupation by -which man may honestly earn his bread need be, should be, per se, un- wholesome. Employments owe their malign influence to the unf arourable circumstances of the employed — to the wilful systematic violation of sanitary laws under which they are pursued. The cupidity of the employer, and the recklessness of the workmen, are the greatest dissemi- nators of disease.' And look at the time at work ! — as many hours daily as when fifty persons would have been required for the same amount of production as the single one now in many, if not an average, of aU depart- ments of industry. Is it not slavery riveting its own chains ; and, probably, at the same time rearing a family for a similar destiny? Who knows? or who would desire it ? The accumulation of wealth in a nation, and into com- paratively few hands, may be viewed with satisfaction as the world goes now ; but the instinct of our natures re- pudiates all this for mental and moral — intellectual and heart-felt — ^happiness, which we have not yet arrived at, but must be forthcoming. Listen to the gentle and feel- ing Shelley, in his ' Masque of Anarchy,' how the poor conditions of lowly life must have affected him : — ' What 13 Freedom ? Ye can tell That which Slavery is too well. For its very name has grown To an echo of your own. ' Tis to work and have such pay As just keep life from day to day ; PROPERTY PRINCIPLE IN SOCIETY. 121 In your limbs, as in a cell, For a tyrant's use to dwell. ' So that ye for them are made Loom and plough, and sword and spade ; With or without your own will, bent To their defence and nourishment. What is Slavery ? — ' ' Tis to be a slave in soul. And to hold no strong control Over your own wiQ, but be All that others make of ye. FinisMng — ' Rise like lions after slumber In unvanquishable number I Shake your chains to earth like dew ; Ye are many — ^they are few.' It is good that to think on this subject is to be un- comfortable; and also, that generally the poor toiling millions in past time have rarely been sensible of the lowly condition they have occupied. Yet the proper ap- preciation of that state must be the forerunner of a more intellectual and devated condition of life. If this opens up a possibility of more suffering, it also leaves open a glory and happiness in prospect surpassing everything in the past. The responsibility and misery must rest with the many ; not with knaves and intriguers of states, for they (we think them superior in this country), like maggots feeding on corruption, when it ends, are no more, ^e people have just to 'know the truth, and the truth shall make them free ;' then corruption ends indeed. 122 THE CONSTITUTION OP SOCIETY. What can we expect from a higher development of the present state of society? More ingenuous laws, and not less ingenuous perversion and invasion of them ; larger individual fortunes and more enlarged good, bad, and indifferent methods of using them ; stronger grasp-of poverty and want, weaker feelings of self-respect, fol- lowed by deeper degradation and despair ; more use of the narcotic tobacco, and in others more distaste of its ' use ; for one class, more stimulating liquors, and another seeks those natural and pure. Every virtue and vice will have its own development, with its particular devotees, not excepting that vice (perhaps as hurtful although more excusable then many of the others) of excess of fashion in clothing, instead of suitability, for purposes of comfort and taste. Money always is cheapest where it is most secure, and the rich, of course, will have the advantage over the poor ; the former borrow at three or four per cent., and the poor find it very much heavier if they have occasion to go to their bankers — Loan Societies and Pawnbrokers. The recent calling into existence of this latter business has been brought prominently forward as illustrative of the evils in society. The use and the abuse are very dif- ferent, whether in regard to bankers or pawnbrokers, and the destruction of either would be a poor mode of cure for abuse in either. It is deplorably common for one person to pawn another's article, and using the money on drink or otherwise ; but not less common, bv direct loans, do we find one person defrauding another, even to their ruin. In this respect parents often suffer by their PEOPEETY PRINCIPLE IN SOCIETY. 123 own children. The purse strings must be kept close and secure from friends and strangers ; individualism requires self -production. Thus we come to the outrageous con- dition of actual want, or the fear of it, in regard to the supply of necessaries and luxuries of life : this is not only the cause of much immediate misery, but it acts as a latent motive to an inexpressible amount. Persons exist who never knew what it was to want neces- saries and luxuries, or anything nearly approaching it, have had their whole lives directed, and cramped and chagrined to avoid the very idea. Vain hope! — they often suffer more than those who may have had its pressure more than once, in knowing a week's sustenance to be more than they could promise themselves. This is at once the com- mon condition and vital principle acting, which society's constitution makes necessary ; nothing of public im- portance is done without a reward, which is for the relief of our daily wants. Priests have their stipends, lawyers their fees, placemen their salaries, merchants their profits, and workmen their wages ; and what are each and all but means for an end — that end the securing the necessaries and comforts of each class and their dependants ? As we said before, it is the non-success in these that brings out specially the darker phases of society ; yet in no case is there exemption from much unnecessary trcSibles, cares, and anxieties. Take the common conduct of men entering the business of life : they require support during the time they are learning ; and, if liberally sup- plied with money-power, they are probably ruined ; if deficient, they fret ; and the feelings which ought to 124 THE CONSTITUTION OF SOCIETY. exist are less or more severed. Whether we look to the parents or the young men, there are unnecessary difficul- ties. A young man is somewhat impressible, easily led, and the temptations are all around him of the most questionable character. He acquires with pride the fashionable small virtues, follies, and vices so common in his position of life. They gradually acquire power over him ; and, to carry them out, he is in want of more and more money. These are critical moments ; but he at length becomes a salaried workman, and whether or not he requires support from his parents, he decidedly feels at liberty to spend money and acquire habits which are objectionable ; and his parents are happily fortunate if some remaining affection for them exists than what is largely composed of selfish utility or interest. We would rather see it otherwise ; but it is too seldom witnessed, that tender affection, so natural under the circumstances, which anticipates the wants and delights in serving and giving pleasure to the parents. These impressible young men like company and pleasure for themselves, which form habits requiring all the money they can command, and destroy the possibility of life being a success to themselves or whoever connect their lives with them. We do not think of blaming them, for they may have many virtuous characteristics, and have been ruined by miserable external conditions. All those who desire the continuance of these wretched external circumstances must bear the responsibility. On the other hand, the unimpressible son will have a course for himself when the outward influence is opposed to his PEOPEETY PRINCIPLE IN SOCIETY. 125 mind ; not that the world will not affect his character, but it will not have all its own way. He may go into its foibles and vices, but his resolutions wiU keep him from becoming their slave. He may be affectionate or not, acquisitive or not, com- paratively, for all mental functions are co-existing in degrees which form combinations the most varied ; but in all probability his life will be a success. Every one has the wish, but this class has the self-control which ultimately gains its point. However lowly that position may be, it will be really respectable in a wordly sense, because they have eminent self-respect and independence. But what object for all this perseverance and industry? they win most assuredly reflect. And who would say that any success in life was enough, if happiness was not predominant ? Tet this success is to many a sacrifice of self, and the fact never far from the thoughts — ^what a cramped, miserable life ! Keal contentment is little known, and is perhaps entirely impossible in the inhuman competition of steam-power and machinery ; or is it just the natural fruit of the tree we have planted of indivi- dual property? — ^for contentment and pure pleasure are wider spread than in the past. Labour is necessary, and not only unobjectionable in its performance, but can be rendered very pleasant ; yet the labour generally performed in society is repulsive under the guidance of the ever powerful principle of property, which subverts the natural combinations and conditions necessary to make it attractive. Generally, work is car- ried on at a vast sacrifice of economy, individualism forcing 126 THE CONSTITUTION OF SOCIETY. or making this necessary ; in another phase we have ca- pital instead of merit representing the management ; in another the production is looked well after, but the con- ditions the producers occupy in that production is too often overlooked ; even men working on their own ac- count cannot well help themselves. There is awant of atrueand common singleness of inter- est in aU industry — a union of purpose and of understand- ing between all engaged. Confidence or trust in persons is shattered to ribbons ; but let those persons be possessed of abundance of wealth, behold the change ! — our trust is not in the mosf; meritorious persons, buJ; the greatest wealth. We ourselves have done this work of desecration. Our god is wealth, and in our worship we have trampled under foot the representative living miracle, from superior power. The organisation of productive labour, where on an ex- tensive scale, although greatly deficient, is by no means one of the worst features of present society. Labour in its most humble aspect — that is where least remunerated — is generally connected with all that is liiost wretched (not wicked or criminal) in society. This is easily ac- counted for : people who will, or are forced from neces- sity, continue working where they cannot procure enough for their simple sustenance, in course of time are reduced to want, and want of credit also — for prudent merchants never neglect to find out quickly when persons are least able to support themselves. We need not refer to the duplicity practised by all classes to support more and more credit ; for honest people this door is not open. And what could be more melancholy than a human being PROPERTY PRINCIPLE IN SOCIETY. 127 "without the power, yet in want of that power to procure the first necessaries of life — without credit in consequence of poverty, but free of debt — ^without active sympathy, and in want of death ? How monstrous, yet natural ! Who dare deny the pandemonium character of present society ? It requires of us what is impossible, and kicks us for that fact alone. The earth is our mother ; and is society, then, our step-mother ? No, no ; she is a perfect imposition, not one drop of a mother in her veins ; the earth raised her not — ^but man hath, to his loss and sorrow. Individualism requires us all to manage our own mone- tary affairs, and it requires very little insight of character to see the great majority of people undertake this with compunction, and generally incapable of its performance with any great degree of wisdom. The position is con- trary to nature, and hence the utter inability many display. There is a complexity of duties involved which only some people can overtake, and of these many have unwillingly to engage in the grovelling but necessary work. Great prudence and a little training might bring one to it, but where confidence in others is so scarce, or insecure, it must in proportion lose the attraction which naturally belongs to work. Some persons despise the strictest economy, others go heart and soul for saving money ; if both are wrong, their different mental charac- teristics give that tendency, and they cannot be trans- formed nor formed to conventional necessities. If har- mony of action is to be ever existing, the duties imposed must be changed or withdrawn. Human nature can never subscribe to the necessities of 128 THE CONSTITUTION OF SOCIETY. the individual property system, such as abundance of wealth for one, and another -vrithout the amount to satisfy hunger — to the everlasting existence of temptation, to theft, and, through it, to an indefinite amount of crime ; to a principle and practice pregnant with innumerable bitter differences of opinion and duties in those connected in the inviolable relationship of domestic life, and which give aU an opposing interest to each other in buying and selling, which not only tends to neutralise the natural feelings of respect and esteem for others, but frequently raises false suspicions and unfounded prejudices'towards each other. To iUustrate present society, we are aware that statis- tical statements of corruption in high places, prostitution, criminals, jails, lunatics, bankruptcies, law pleas, brothels, pawnbrokers, workhouses, poorhouses, and pauperism would be very effective in demonstrating the existing evils ; but is this necessary, when every daUy and weekly newspaper sends forth a supply to satisfy the greatest sceptic ? Then there are personal cases, more telling on the feelings, and not less common. Law courts are where such cases become public (no person would desire private ones, however common), and one of the most wide blown has lately appeared in that of Yelverton. But let us look where there is less Ireed and guUt, and not leas suffering. We have known no public reports so replete with so- ciety's dark side as those in the Morning Chronicle of ' London Labour and the Poor.' Li these, many of the humble but necessary habitations of industry are visited PEOPEETY PEINCIPLE IN SOCIETY". 129 and found the scenes of the most heartrending miseries — immorality and crime resulting from necessity. The foun- dation of this necessity is individualism. In one house, a slop- worker says: — ' The doctor told me that if I did not ask the parish for relief, I should be guilty of murder (of his wife), but I could not so far degrade myseU.' What shall we say of young female workers confessing prostitution at times from necessity, to meet the expenses of a miserable subsistence? A coal-whipper's wife to the reporter said : — ' Poor people assist poor people ; you know that, sir.' This class are imprudent to a great de- gree — slaves to drink, which robs the family, and degrades them in return for the money ; but custom has gained the ascendant, and circvunstances peculiarly encourage its predominance. Every one has heard of the Spitalfield weavers, their interesting location, and now what they have come to. ' The average time for labour before 1824 was ten hours a day; now it is fourteen.' They then had fourteen shillings and sixpence a week ; now only four shillings and sixpence. In the mercantile marine we find: — ' When the master is ignorant, the crew see that very soon, and take advantage of it. There is no longer good discipline ; and, in case of danger, the men have httle confidence in the master, so that the difficulties increase.' Poverty and gentility are common conditions of great misery, even when accompanied with ' honesty, sobriety, activity, and virtue.' Just hear: — ' I hate it (prostitu- tion) with all the strength of my heart ; all my nature revolts against it. God alone knows how I struggled to 130 THE CONSTITUTION OF SOCIETY. escape it.' ' I made up my mind to commit suicide,' &c., &c. The person engaged in the inquiry says:— 'I had seen so much -want since I began my investigation, that my feelings were almost blunted to sights of ordi- nary misery ; but I was unprepared for the amount of suffering that I have lately witnessed. I could not have believed that there were human beings toiling so long, and gaining so httle, and starving so silently and heroi- cally, round about our own homes.' Ledru KoUin treats of this subject, and properly remarks: — ' After contem- plating these scenes, however, it would be blasphemy to God did we not acknowledge that the evil is less in na- ture than in the spirit of human institutions.' We might have referred to the reports of agricultural employments; they received attention, and were found to have a reverse side from ' rural felicity.' Their wages are on a par with their hovels of houses. One labourer says; — 'When we have no money to buy bread with, what does it matter to us whether it be dear or cheap?' The report, which weint the round of the newspapers showing the apartments occupied, with the number of occupants, testifies their condition to be worse than skilled artizans' generally are. But what are we to say for such excessive toil and wretchedness en the one hand, and on the other no necessary toil, and the utmost luxuri- ance of living? Which of the couple are the most un- natural? Is either desirable or justifiable? When we have answered these to our satisfaction, we may listen to an agricultural employer, no doubt an exception, on rural felicity: — 'A labourer, with a family of, five chil- PROPERTY PRINCIPLE IN SOCIETY. 131 dren, can. buy enough of bread with six shillings a- week, if he has the lowest quality; he generally pays his rent with his harvest money ; he gets his clothing somehow — sometimes it is given him ; and when he is without work, why, then we put him in the workhouse. Thus, you see, with six shillings per week he is amply provided for.' East India is one of the richest quarters of the world ; but these riches considerably faUed last year, and, of course, the rich, along with the institutions they uphold, made no proper endeavour to meet the exceptional de- mands of the poor people. ' We hear (Daily Tele- graph, April, 1861) as yet of no alleviation in the anguish endured by the poor throughout a vast extent of British India. The horrors of the famine still spread over an expanding circle, and the bodies of the dead and dying encumber the public roads. Our countrymen, roused by strenuous appeals, have already done more for the starving Hindoo and Mohammedan than the bloated native merchant-princes of Madras, Bombay, and Cal- cutta, whose princes in former epochs left the hunger- stricken to perish by tens of thousands, whUe their pa- lanquins jingled by with golden bells and bracelets on the arms of the bearers.' It is only the poor anywhere who know what famine is in reality; and, no doubt, the individualism of present society is the chief cause, in its comparatively small pro- duction of necessaries, in the first instance, and, again, in its not being duly supplied in time from other coun-- tries, for it pretends to no such duty and responsibility, so the dire calamity is experienced to the outrage of all 132 THE CONSTITUTION OP SOCIETY. human feeling. The poor are in the midst of hardships in this country, but in no other old country will you find that class so well. We do not pretend to include the excessively impru- dent, -who must, in the present state of society, bear the effects of their imprudence, or sacrifice the privilege of personal liberty, as semii-insane, for they are perfectly incapable in the circimistances. We are ahnost tempted to present a few sketches of the poor in other countries, but this was not agreed for, and certainly they do not generally call forth agreeable feelings. Beggary — beg- gary in spirit and in fact — is almost everywhere conspi- cuous. It is said, and probably with truth, that a human being might be starved to death and the body present no indications of disease; but this does not apply to the common condition of the low living of the poverty- stricken. Ever subsisting on coarse and indigestible food, neither quantity nor quality being suflScient, the body becomes enervated, liable to colds, rheumatisms, ulcers, &c., &c No doubt, too much quality and qimntity of food are as commonly injurious, and make more doctors' bills; but the one does not cure the other, and only makes two evUg, where none, by their mixture, ought to exist; and the latter is purely a case of imprudence, while the for- mer is necessity, requiring pubhc sympathy and help. The greater miseries of life are not connected with the supply of the necessaries of life; they are in our social and domestic organisation from necessity. We were to illustrate some of these by cases before us, but now hesi- PROPERTY PRINCIPLE IN SOCIETY. 133 tate. Every person of common observation and experi- ence can detect many from among those in his own neighbourhood. How poor their leisure-hour occupa- tions — how incompatible their society to each other — how much vexation and chagrin in over-toil — how unnatural and reprehensible duties devolve on children — how im- possible to give the young anything like good treatment — they are legion, and all from necessity beyond personal control, but not beyond our united control. Our happi- ness for life is hinged on many of the commonest acci- dents or occurrences of life. We are told ' The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.' There is need of being assured of the same in regard to individualism. They are made and exist for man. If useful, well and good ; if their day of service has absolutely gone, they are properly superseded. They are altogether within human authority ; but if we add a characteristic of any institution for multiplying misery, degrading human nature, and absolutely erro- neous, why should we linger in the exercise of our legiti- mate authority ? This is not the time to advocate impossi- bilities ; but who shall deny the desirabUity of superseding this individualism, or defend its malign nature? Just imagine the old principle and practice of hand-spinning held to be inviolable ; yet it would be difficult to find out one principle and practice of a more useful nature than this institution at one time was, although now extinct (in our part of the world at least). Nor is the attack on human nature better founded which throws censure and evil effects entirely on individual responsibility. 134 THE CONSTITUTION OF SOCIETY. We cannot question having the innate impulses of our being from superior power, and the cultivation and train- ing of those impulses is left to society. It is both unwil- ling and unable to undertake the duty, but being the chief power existing for that particular duty, it cannot avoid the responsibility of effecting what is existing. It sets us in opposition to each other ; instead of treating and training us with gentleness and forbearance, it treats us as beasts of burden, and sneers at our degradation instead of encircling us with the spirit of kindness and affection ; it leaves its citizens to perish with hunger and cold, or in breaking one's soul and heart in begging charity. Yet , how bhnd people are ! In their simplicity, they will believe the evils of society are from individual remissness of duty — anything but the principle emanating out of property, which sends its influence throughout the whole ramifica- tions of society and on the face of it, is evil. We are frightened at its gigantic stature, and so accustomed to its tyrannical sway, that opposition, or even questioning its authority, is never dreamed of. But consider our power when united, and its utter falsity and banefulness the prompting cause for our united action, then it will succumb as any other inanimate power or matter. Persons of genius, of fine feelings and intellect, strong impulses from nature, which no artificial conventionalism can turn aside — ^they are particularly interesting. Many will be born in poverty, but rise to eminence and perhaps wealth ; others wiU never make head-way in accumula- tion, however favourable the circumstances, but rather run through a moderate fortune in a short time. These PEOPEBTY PRINCIPLE IN SOCIETY, ] 35 cases might illustrate the vicious principle and practice overruling us. Allow us to remind you of Burns. The story of Burns' family is fuU of the subject in hand. He had excellent parents, full of sound sense. His mother, besides the many domestic virtues of her sex, had a large store of old songs and ballads, which she Kberally taught to her family. His father was exemplary in his steady and in- telligent character, as well as praiseworthy for the care and tuition he bestowed on his family ; but they were poor. The young famUy were no sooner able to run than the over-toiled and necessitous parents required their assistance to provide the necessaries of hfe. The poor man's god — toil, for independence of man — the father was unable to satisfy, and death kindly stept in in time to save him from a common jail. The eldest son and poet's life is, or ought to be, well known. He had stifling, withering, jovial — a moment bright, and again unfortunate and more unwholesome — conditions of life. Nature may be sending others simi- lar in characteristics and wretchedness in poverty; at any rate, the chances are hfe here may be found not greatly bettered. Allan Cunningham wUl speak of him : ' I have, in the life of the poet, asserted that he was in great poverty before he died, and that sometimes, in the course of the spring of 1796, his family were all but wanting bread. Those who say he had good friends around him seem not to know that he had a soul too proud to solicit help, and to forget that ther« are hearts in the world ready to burst before they beg.' Hear another (Motherwell) on the same :— ' We attach blame 136 THE CONSTITUTION 01" SOCIETY. to no one and to no party ; but we cannot conceal from ourselves the mournful fact, knowing, as we almost fancy we do, the writhings and workings of such a mind as Burns was endowed with, that he literally died of a broken heart.' What must we say of this necessary poverty ? Is it a consolation ? It is no crime ! The continuance of it is a perfect disgrace to every nation. The deluded and trampled down poverty-stricken creatures think their condition no crime ! If it is no crime, why should cer- tain cases be treated worse then criminals ? ' Who knows not that poverty (says Louis Blanc) is night to the human mind, and confines education within the most disgraceful limits ? Poverty incessantly counsels the sacrifice of personal dignity ; nay, almost always enforces it. Poverty renders dependent characters in- dependent by nature — thus converting a virture into a new source of torment, and turning the native generosity of blood to bitterest gall. If poverty engenders suffer- ing, it also engenders crime. If poverty leads to the hospital, it leads to the hulks also. Poverty makes slaves, and, for the most part, thieves, assassins, and prostitues.' — (Organisation of Labour.) It is not possible, and still less desirable, to recast human nature, especially the nobler specimens, to suit a pernicious system of society ; so we must, if harmony and happiness are ever to exist for our race, recast and adapt that human system of society to our nature. We found in what the bright side society presented, it drew principally and almost exclusively of human and PROPERTY PRINCIPLE IN SOCIETY. 137 external nature ; it is here we find the rich and poor have an everlasting source of comfort and enjoyment, as lasting as it is pure, and varied to the varied capacities of all. The dark side we find entirely founded on human error and action — not human nature — ^but that offspring or production of our race for which we are responsible, and in which we are voluntary agents. This is our chief consolation and hope, because we may yet change our course, draw better institutions and conduct from the pure fountaia of truth — ^Nature itself. END OF PART FIRST. PAET SECOND. J^ATURAL SOCIETY. CHAPTER I. FOUNDATION OF NATURAL SOCIETY. We have no right to suppose otherwise than that a na- tural or perfectly truthful constitution of society is possible, wherein all the virtues are called forth and de- veloped, the tendencies to vice repressed, and the general result happiness. To suppose this impossible seems to cast unworthy reflections on the source of all that is per- fect in ourselves, the world in which we live, and the relation between them. We are perfectly aware that the present common cus- tom is to patch up, add to^, or take from, what is appa- rently most faulty in .human institutions, because such is felt most necessary in the common suffering, without interfering with any fundamental principle. This mode we reject, for experience hM proved its general worth- lessness, and in its stead we seek only for what is true, and Stdopt it, as the only rehable ground, either for belief or practice. This subject evidently divides itself into three branches FOUNDATION OF NATURAL SOCIETY. 139 — first, true ideas of ourselves ; second, our true relation to each other; and, third, truth in general, in this world or the universe. The third embraces all physical truths not mixed up with man, or man's relation to society, and which we may discard, as not intimately connected with the object in hand. The importance of true ideas of ourselves has been readily acknowledged in all ages ; but not tin the present century has knowledge been attained of sufficient data to justify the appellation of science, both in regard to our physical and functional constitution. In the past it was subtle and sublime philosophy ; now simple matter-of-fact science, subject to experimental verification. That is, the physical is the substance or material of which we are composed ; the f anctional is the powers and impulses depending on or emanating from the various parts of the physical. From the prominent organs, with their functions in the muscles, heart, lungs, &c., to the great collections of more intricate and interesting ones in the head — by their functional terms, seeing, hearing, reflection, benevolence, combativeness, &c., &c. — ^variation is the rule; and the minute and delicate nature of the one, or the strong and powerful nature of the other, interferes not with the absolute certainty of every organ having its functions to perform, and no power or function without an organ. They are not only essentially connected, but they are unknown to be apart from each other, and. are of equal rank, being all, direct from the source, superior to all that is human; influenced and affected by voluntary ac- tions, yet remaining in their nature superior. We know 140 NATURAL SOCIETY. many conditions which render the lungs diseased, and we also know many conditions which render the brain dis- eased; and either of these organs being diseased, the functional duties not being properly performed arrests our attention, evidently with the purpose to modify the con- ditions, to effect an action in harmony with the destiny of the organ ; this done, the organ again performs its legitimate function. For those who cannot well conceive man, in his natural organisation, to be of an infinitely superior kind, we wUl reduce it to a syllogism — God's works are perfect ; Mankind are works of God ; Therefore mankind are perfect. This alludes wholly to man as a natural organism or being ; the truth or falsehood he may have acquired, the noble or ignoble he may have recorded, are not to be connected with his being, physical and functional, simply for this reason — ^the difference between our nature and our thought or action is infinite ; the 'one is derived from superior power, the other is the action of limited power. Our nature is essentially divine, both physical and func- tional, but our acquired knowledge and our physical action, although grafted on, or rather emanating out of nature, are so much the work of voluntary power within us, that this voluntary power, which we may rationally glory in, must be in its artificial nature pure, generous, and ingenuous, while we, on the other hand, as rightly confess with shame all actions which are dastardly, im- pure, and criminal. Here we have the responsibility of man, that which redounds to his glory or shame, and FOUNDATION OF NATURAL SOCIETY. 141 which is essentially of an artificial nature, as all human power, or that of other created beings, must necessarily be limited both in kind and degree. Who has not been charmed with harmonious music ? or heard of, it not seen, the Pyramids of Egypt? The one is transient as the shadow, the other is emblematic of the most permanent human power — ^the two extremes of the kind of artificial or human power. The degrees of this same power are in knowledge, beginning with ourselves and surroundings iu the concrete, extending to a great length, yet limited, and beyond where we stop is the infinite to us. This limit and infinite may be innate in ourselves or other things, or in the stupendous material earth or heavens. So physical action and functional power must be viewed as essentially limited, and by their nature artificial, per- fectly different from works bearing the stamp of divinity, and impossible to be amalgamated. Just imagine a poor, degraded, slaved human being, mentally and physically, fuU of error and the author of many criminal actions — and give Deity the responsibility of the whole ! The thing is blasphemous in the extreme. Man must be accountable for the truth or error, the good or bad habits contracted, and, when this is done, the being is the work of Deity. Let those who cannot ensure the destined education of truth and good actions in the developement of human beings put their hands on their mouths on this subject, and rule themselves in their best light. The work must be done, and the sooner the inau- guration is the better. Old means cannot effect this, or they would have done so long ago ; the intention and en- 142 NATURAL SOCIETY. deavour have always been to this end, but continual non- success proves the means used to be utterly worthless. ' Bad passions !' some person might call out, little think- ing that no such things exist. They are a power, hke money at present, for good or bad purposes; but our duty is to turn them to the good purposes — and which perhaps can also be done with money — when rendered useless to single individuals. Is love of children not one of the strongest passions ? We have seen a child display great pride and selfishness ; and in a year or two more scarcely less intense in her devotion to children's will and pleasure. Every instinct or innate impulse is a passion. It is inexpressibly beautiful that they are so, rubbing each other into brightness and harmony in their natural struggle to development or self-preservation. If there are no bad passions, none but God-created im- pulses, are we expected to forego secularly all praise and blame— all rewards and punishments? Not entirely, but in a comparatively hmited measm-e ; for reason teaches us all actions are necessary, while they indicate the predominance of a certain one or more characteristic impulses. When they chime with our own, no doubt we wiU enjoy and communicate the community of feeling ; or, if they jar with our sense, we will feel offended, and are too apt, perhaps, to communicate that also. They must be in moderation, for no action is without a cause or motive, and we are all too apt to judge has- tily of a supposed bad character, and condemn, as if there was no one good impulse ; and even so an assumed good character is elevated into a hero and lionised. (See Wilkes in America.) FOUNDATION OF NATURAL SOCIETY". 143 Good actions are principally their own reward, and this phase is the most pure. Bad actions naturally carry their own punishment with them, and indifferent or trifling ones must be left to find correction by friends or neighbours ; but really serious bad ones may be suffi- ciently important to recLuire interference, either to effect something better, if possible, or, in a possibly extreme case, to treat them as we do the insane — ^with restraint, but the utmost kindness. It is the moral sentiments that praise and blame moral actions ; but there is a managing department, which is named intellect, to re- strain or give generous effect to them by the employment of the most powerfully-physical powers. The intellect only weighs these etherial matters as in a balance ; the others are blind impulses without the intellect ; but, give thanks, no sane person — no conmion production — is found without the two or the whole always co-existing. We are all instruments of equal compass (say of six; octaves), varying in power as a whole, or in different parts — some brilliant in the treble, others in the bass, and commonly some redeeming beauty in some part of all ; but none more or none less compass, however much distance there exists between them from unfavourable or favourable conditions, and consequently development. No one can suppose that he could have surmounted any bad conditions — any amount of poverty, misery, and icrnorance — or acted unselfishly with abundance. No one brought up in good conditions — ^plenty of necessaries, com- forts, education, and affection or love — could experience in reality the character produced by the worst conditions. 144 JJATTJEAL SOCIETY. We are in a world of strict cause and effect; and if you take into account the internal and external causes, you have the key to the whole character produced. The in- ternal includes all fancies and natural impulses, and the external everything that materially affects you ; in this sense we are, as the late Robert Owen told us, ' the crea- tures of circumstances.' No screw is loose, but all absolute certainty in the natural ; but in the artificial there is something far wrong, although it alters not in one iota the action of the natural — hence the misery. You cannot stand still long at the sea shore of a rising tide without being wet, forced to retire, or drowned. Even so, if we will act irrationally, we will reap misery ; our errors come on our own head, and we are grateful for the uniformity, for in it the future destiny is certaia and glorious. We are thus assured by Nature that by obedience all, humanity is capable of being rendered good and happy. When this is not fact or experience, we must suspect ourselves, individually and collectively alone; we are referred to the causes in external circumstances— in human institutions. Nevertheless, we are still believing in artificial punishment, as if human institutions were divine, and the divine human ; and it is hard to know what to do with the many matured offenders of the property principle ; yet we know punishment only hardens, while duty requires us to use the means of reformation instead of punishment. Punishment, like quack medicine, pre- sumes an immediate cure ; but the true medicine effects its cure radically, and in course of time — its name is Truth. Let us not forget, however, that although reason I-OUNDATION OF NATURAL SOCIETY". 145 does not encourage much praise or blame, much less re- wards and punishments, our feelings do ; and however strong our convictions may be in the necessity of mode- ration, our sentiments will always ensure approbation of good, and censure of bad, actions. Such is the Providence overruling us all, and on which we may calculate, in proportion to the truth of our ideas, with the certainty of uniform natural law. And if we will clearly apprehend our equality as children of superior power, why not live equally children of one family ? — for Uving in equality is the only practice consistent with the beUef of a common nature ; and this does not involve nor necessitate that there should be no systematic arrange- ment of the labour and business of society. Every per- son's interest, because common, lies in having the very best organisation ; then why should it not be formed ? We will methodise our remarks by a few divisions : — THE PEINCIPLE GOTEENING NATURAL SOCIETY. This principle is simply living in a state of common- wealth and common duties. All have the necessaries and comforts of life in abundance, and are expected to contribute equally to the commonwealth by whatever amount of labour is requisite. To contribute equally is meant by an equal number of hours, in whatever way employed, for the interests of the commonwealth, excep- tion always understood for persons under disease, ina- bility, insanity, &c., &c. This goes on data so radically different from present society, that just inferences are next to impossible for a considerable time after first considera- 146 NATUEAL SOCIETY. tion. We know the objections appearing at first are many in number ; the most common one is, that we are not sufficiently inolinecl to virtue, duty, and justice, as must be required by that state of society. This objection has its foundation in present experience; but this experience is on a totally different data — on the private-property principle. However, this objection wiU occur very fre- quently; it is grounded in us from infancy, becomes a habit in our education, and will continue such till it is mastered by repeated conceptions of the absolutely true. We would recommend another syllogism : — God's works are perfect ; Jtlan's relation to man and external nature is the work of God; Therefore, man's relation to man and external nature is perfect. This is the rook of ages on which we stand for human brotherhood, or equal duties and equal rewards, common labour and common enjoyments; and let those who would misrepresent the meaning, and encourage the spirit of persecution against those who hold ' for the truth that will make us free,' not forget that Dick, one of the greatest ornaments of Protestant Christianity, makes community an understood principle in the happy king- dom of the expected future Mfe. His words are : — ' And in those worlds where property is common, and the ■ bounties of the Creator are equally enjoyed by all, there will be no necessity for a law corresponding to the Eighth Commandment.' It must be kept in mind that the pre- sent artificial relations in society are not in nature, but rOCTNDATION OP NATURAL SOCIETY. 147 ia opposition to its dictates. Human institutions may- exert themselves for a time, but the misery they entail and the lesson they disregard must ensure them of a transitory dominion only ; they are not only not perfect, as they might and ought to be, but it is purely pre- sumption and ignorance that retain them in existence. This might be illustrated by Pope's ' Whatever is, is right.' Tyranny and injustice, misery and degradation, are right in the natural fact of legitimate effects from human causes, yet human nature repudiates them as right — so does natural truth in the assertion of human nature; then why do they exist? Just from human error, presumption, and ignorance. This is probably one of the highest lessons in the school of nature, the most difficult to become master of, yet always open to instruc- tion had we but inclined our ears. In a particular case it would be more plain : the skin of our body is cut and no attention given it, for soon festering with uncleanness, the pain involved is right ; it is a lesson, and the mastering of that lesson enables us to save much pain and trouble by proper management of the wound. What is the tri- umph of the arts of life but the same ? To deny that the pain or the tyranny and misery are right, as necessary effects, is asserting that the works of superior power or Deity are faulty, or wrong and imperfect. This would be simply audacious ignorance. It is far more becoming us to accept without doubt, and obey with a strong convic- tion that the works of Deity are perfect beyond know- ledge, and consequently are beautifully adapted for the greatest and most lasting happiness within human 148 NATURAL SOCIETY. power by their practical application, study, and con- templation. To simplify tlie subject of Natural Society, it might be divided into two parts: first, Social Organisation; and, second, Executive Organisation. We would make the latter to be dependent on or emanating out of the former ; so we will explain the arrangements of Social Organisation first. The general principle of it is, the pro- duction of every comfort of life — forming the whole industry of a community or a nation — wiU be organised into trades, or departments of labour, no matter whether for the male or female sex, or for both, as the cases may warrant. It is impossible to say without some experience the numbers most convenient for the formation of a com- munity. One may represent a small village and a large extent of landward inhabitants; or, if the town was large, it might be divided into two or more. The propor- tion of land attached is of slight importance, for, if the inhabitants are not engaged on land, they will on other manufactures, which wiU be readily exchanged with others wherever that is necessary — in the country or na- tion, or with other nations. We will refer by and bye to the value of these ex- changes being calculated by hours of labour in their manufacture, but at present go on with the Social Or- ganisation. Every branch or department of industry shall elect and retain its own managers by popular elec- tion — or the majority of votes by ballot — among them- selves alone for a limited time, subject to re-election, and also subject to dismissal by the same authority and same FOUNDATION OF NATURAL SOCIETY. 149 means. There is great economy in large operations ; and, where they are large, one manager would, perhaps, be insufficient, so a sub-manager could always be kept for present help and promotion when thought proper. Their duties are the management of the trade, and also keeping the books, what is taken in, given out, and the labour on every article produced. These managers have all liberty, either for more supervision, or for taking part in the necessary labour going f oward, j ust as circumstances seem to them to require ; but their time must be included in the value of the production. They may hear and judge in disputes of those under them, subject to appeal, and will be expected to keep the books also in the leisure hours. These will not be difficult, and will form the material hold they have on the public for some extra consideration and honour. To produce abundance is of first importance, and to procure the reduction of hours for necessary labour is of next importance. But the natural working of this system will settle that question ; somewhat over production wUl be followed by more leisure hours, and scarcity by the increase of necessary labour. All productions will be approximately known, and the probable demand the same — ^both public. There may be variations, but any great famine or waste is most unlikely. These remarks extend to all branches of industry — ^female ones as well as those of the male sex — ^in the distribution as well as produc- tion of wealth ; the same organisation, although different duties, may be observed. Every member of a community must be employed, and many shall learn more than one 150 NATURAL SOCIETY. business, on purpose to take to the one while the other is not requisite or over-supplied ; and there need be no re- straint for industrial members being retained under any- particular manager or department. We know change both to be good for the individual and the emulation of production, so the utmost liberty is accorded to all so long as their conduct is not assimilated to the insane, or the more exceptional — the fiendish. So much for the principle of the Social Organisation ; now for the Executive : — 1. Industrial Workers and Managers. 2. Common Council of Managers — choosing the Justices. 3. National Assembly— forming honorary Managers of Na- tional Works, and the Directors of what shall be executed, 4. The reigning Queen or King, with a House of Councillors. — These will represent our national hospitality to foreign Princes, Emperors, Kings, and Queens. 1. The industrial members form the basis of aU commu- nity and consequently national power, and the more who take part in its exercise the broader must be the founda- tion. We are not favourable to mob law or' rowdyism, nor slave or serf law ; they are from egotism in ignorance and despotism, and the more powerful and outrageous from the stimulating influences of the property principle, where alone they can flourish. Very different it is where no selfish interest can form a motive of action — no paid disturbers of the peace, and no hope of personal aggran- disement nor nepotism. Well, we allow every person able and willing to vote, above twenty years of age, the privilege of balloting for their immediate executive ser- vants, whom we call managers. FOUNDATION OF NATURAL SOCIETY, ] 51 2, The whole managers of a commimity — say thirty-six — ^form the Common Council, and these choose three from among themselves as Justices, one every year, and another retiring, while always subject to be re-elected, and their election rescinded, if either seemed desirable. The meet- ing of the whole Managers may be frequent as occasion requires, called by either of the Justices, forming commit- tees for special objects, and the majority ruling in every important step. Those appointed as Justices may require Assistant- Justices to free them of too many calls on their leisure time, and the Common Council will confirm or not their choice. The special duties of Justices include aU. the business belonging to the community as a whole — hearing and acting as arbitrators in any dispute appealed from the judgment of any of the Managers, and subject to appeal to the whole Common Council ; and also in all cases not connected with industrial occupation — keeping books of trading, production, and the results of Managers' calculations and employees, also the registering of births, deaths, and marriages — everything connected to the community as a community ; and every one is entirely independent, or more properly its one sovereignty, the same as individuals enjoy in the personal. Internal affairs cannot be interfered with from without ; but an expedient, if not absolutely necessary, connection in the formation of national union may be formed for national purposes. This must be necessary tiU nations also agree to become one Power ; then defence wiU be iinnecessary, abuse of power unknown. 3. The National Assembly wLU be chosen from among 152 NATURAL SOCIETY. the Justices, and one shall be sent from every six com- munities, of say four thousand each ; one of the eighteen Justices -will be chosen by themselves, and by balloting, of course, for the national service. We need fear no corruption, because selfish interests are totally repressed in the foundation of the community principle. Their duties are to agree together as to what national works shall be carried on ; what national movements shall be carried forward ; and also as honorary managers of these works and movements, assisting or overseeing as they think fit and find time. None are admitted to idleness entirely ; if there is no important head-work to be per- formed in the labour hours, they are expected to engage in some common labour. Their election is subject to be rescinded, its duration for three years, and re-election possible. The employments for national work will besimilar to common industrial associations, with the Assembly to manage and direct the whole. 4. One other National Assembly, with its head made necessary by circumstances, and our digest of a possible constitution in Natural Society will be finished. The Koyal Assembly shall have the reigning sovereign as its heal, and the members chosen by the same. The duties will be light, and principally for national correspondence with the sovereign heads of other nations. They may see fit to organise the Assembly to many good purposes, and they wiU be most welcome. They will receive and treat with hospitality the Princes, Emperors, Kings, and Queens of other nations who come into this kingdom. Such is simply the principle of community ; for, after FOUNDATION OF NATURAL SOCIETY. 153 all, it is this principle of co-operation or associating interests which carries within itself the unspeakable good it would assure us all. Community ensures every person of an ample share of natural wealth, and also of wealth produced by the labour of man ; this is the founda- tion of all artificial wants. The rent and interest of present society are secondary, but yet of great import- ance, and are made in Natural Society common, and are permanent good for all. It equalises all burdens — in supporting the sick, infirm old, and children. It renders the great probability of every person being honest and true, for it establishes the necessity for these qualities, and destroys the tendencies to their subversion as existing in present society. The unpleasant position of creditor and bankrupt are impossible ; and, in their place, we are associated in reality by social position as well as by nature — ^brethren of one family. It is the perfect type of economy by association and co-operation or division of labour — ^that principle which has effected so much for us in Britain, and evidently extending itself of late to poor persons as well as the rich. It is a power which we may appreciate by experience. Great undertakings are rare from individual efforts alone ; but too many of these have but one object in view — wealth, for selfish purposes alone. Its power for happiness has yet to come, and it will prove itself grander than we could have expected ; at present this power can but affect our happiness indirectly, and directly — misery. This principle of community has its whole support in our own human nature— not on man's works, but on his 154 NATUEAL SOCIETY. nature ; and we know human nature to be divine. We are required to trust in God ; its manifestation must be in the visible — in reliance on divine works, and the human stand at their head. Love in the same manner : those who love their brother whom they have seen, may love God ; but talk not of love to the Infinite while your breast is fuU. of indifference or hatred to one of your race. Keason, the highest function in our nature, advo- cates for community ; reason is a part of our nature, hence community is of the divine. Happiness, the grand- est result in our nature, has its hopes founded in, and its fervent prayer for, community ; happiness is also nature, and divine. Man's greatest power and honour is in doing what nature requires of him — ^it is in obedience ; and this also is his greatest joy and happiness. Just imagine what the community principle would effect in regard to chattel slavery and barbarian ignorance in the great ma- jority of the earth. The slaves' chains would fall to the ground, and we could take either the slave or the ignorant by the hand in love to teach them for their own advantage. No longer seeking the greatest amount of wealth out of them, while disregarding their degradation, for such interests are annihilated ; but, like Penn and his band of Quakers, although from less power of virtue, treat the wild and unsophisticated brethren with generosity and consideration. This would be a life worth living — very different from selfish accumulation. Community insures no inanimate life ; it is desired by none, although not imcommon at present. Had we ourselves conquered to the truth, there are other nations to be enlightened FOUNDATION OF NATUEAL SOCIETY. 155 and benefited. We at present go to the heathen, and they point with scorn to our failings and vices: qui material power is the principal superiority. We now enter on a few particulars, to exhibit, were it possible, the two systems together for comparison. For this purpose, some of the most important features in human institutions will be introduced. They are : — 1. Constitution and Law. 2. Labour. 3. Conmion Necessaries and Comforts. 4. Happiness, Health, and Good- will. 5. Education. 6. Marriage. 7. Death. I. — CONSTITUTION AND LAW. We will dispose of Law first, although it restsprinoipally on the constitution. There are such a mass of Laws in present society, totally unnecessary in natural society, that our first impulse is to repudiate the whole — in their place relying on education and morality, pubhc opinion, and the absence of external influences for evil, to prevent any gross misconduct. We will better have a clean sheet of paper and transcribe any laws at present existing, which may be viewed as in some degree assisting the judgment of Justices. But the grand idea of Law in Natural Society is found in human nature itself un- trammelled by enactments. The judge can weigh all the circumstances and provocations in a case, whatever they may be ; but statute law is like a balance to weigh matter, when we may want to weigh motives and actions, atmos- pheric air, and even gases. When the Judge tells us in 156 NATURAL SOCIETY. a case that he knows between the claimants which is right, but which is, according to law, doubtful, we see the superiority of the living law over the dead — rational judgment over statute. This subject would require us to bring forward the monstrous iniquities done under the sanction of law — ^just as bad as have been done under military or ecclesiastical force. Now, from these we have improved, so let them rest; but barriers, in the name of laws and forced respect for them, stiU deceive us in their utility ; but we are not to canonise this state of things. If laws are really unnecessary in greatly altered circumstances of life, experience must guide men in Natural Society; and any attempt to forestall the natural developement would be worse than useless. A sensible and intelligent father, in the midst of his family, stands in the position a judge would in Natural Society in regard to the public disputes and misdonduct. Does the father require statute law to guide him ? Is he, without statute law, incapable of giving judgment ? The fact is, we know the power now exercised, and which makes us suspicious to part company with statute law — better now than in the past. We dread any returning to corrupt judges, and more unjust law ; but going back is impossible with free, enlightened England. Were we to suspect this, our soul must remain for further develop- ment and the consolation of the present constitution. But we have embarked in progress, and progress we must ; so silly fears shall not turn the great movement. Besides, do not lose sight of the fact, that Natural Society has, first, no necessity for any laws which ex- FOtJNDATION OF NATURAL SOCIETY. 157 clusively relate to property, whether in regard to pro- perty itself, thrift, inheritance, forgery, swindling, or had debts ; and, second, those of an administrative nature for the collection or distribution of the national revenue. All these curtailed -would considerably simplify the maze in law. Neither would we have laws or rules put forth to regulate moral conduct, for the good reason that moral conduct is not made to rule, but from training in good conditions ; so, if moral cultivation is requisite, let us to the work ! But do not put people in a straight- jacket, for the very curtailment of hberty will make them burst it open. Give them kindness and forgiveness to the utmost ; if it proves the patient is unfit for liberty, then let the kindness continue, but without the liberty. If we wiQ have laws, let them be short and easily under- stood, and, in point of number, those of questionable utility carefully avoided. But the ultimate and most perfect state will be without law — that is, human law ; the sinking of the human must be accompanied with the rising of divine law, which we all know, or may know, if we could only carry it more fully out. Yet there is no reason of despairing of this, if natural society was once on foot, and its principles in active operation. Never, never wUl these divine laws be generally practised under the present system ; and when they do exist, what human law is necessary ? There is another view we might take, in common or unwritten law. Here the judges have established, by the use of the senses, and without statute law, a code of their own common sense. They have existed from time imme- 158 NATUEAL SOCIETY. morial, and legislative power has surprisingly avoided interfering, we suppose from feelings of inability to su- persede them with anything equally good and effective. This appears to us preferable to written law for natural society, although it exclusively could never do for the practical operation of the property principle. It is for this statute law is absolutely necessary ; the grasping for property, the ingenious and mahcious devices called forth could never be cured by such a mUd regimen. Consistent with common law is that of individual rights, which would be respected in natural society. All the articles which we find have individual claim- ants in a family, wearing apparel, ornaments, &c., if not absolute right of property, are absolute right of exclusive use. It is puerUity to suppose this right can lead to general bargaining — the property principle again. Each has a limited supply, and that supply for consumption or use. If the miser's craving for property in present society is weakness, the same conduct might in natural society be put down as insanity. Collections of natural objects might be prevalent, but innocent are their mutual ex- changes, with an entirely different object to the hoarding of wealth. A lady in natural society gets a stamped coUar for the asking, and also thread ; she works a beau- tiful collar — it is hers exclusively by right. A gentleman gets a piece of wood and wire for the asking ; he makes a fancy and elegant bird-cage — it is his, for he has the greatest comparative right to it. And so on ; but this right does not involve the probability that these orna- mental works of art should become exclusively used in FOUNDATION OF NATURAL SOCIETY. 159 private, for the common and nobler ambition is to put our works to the greatest possible utility, which can only be done by getting the public to take them for public service or even exhibition. Just imagine a grand picture, which has cost a year's assiduous leisure- time labour in production, hung up in the private apartment of the artist! Cases like that might occur, and neither individuals nor society have any right to interfere; but, if the work was of the highest class, the artist wiU not be possessed of the highest morals to retain it merely for himself. Society would have collections of paintings — every community one at least — and good works of art would be valuable acquisitions to the public. As a gift, it would call forth gratitude and consideration to the donor; while the work will be continually teaching lessons at a glance, and with pleasure, which might otherwise have escaped our attention. The highest education and employments are made pos- sible by simply applying oneself, without the probability of ruin, as in present society, by such noble pastime pursuits. The idea of trading in such productions is presuming too much on the narrow acquisitiveness en- gendered by present circumstances in our nature. In Natural Society, there is every likelihood individual trading would be spurned as a corrupt thing of the semi-barbaric past. Mutual gifts and kindnesses might be extremely numerous, but the mercenary spirit condemned to eternal oblivion. The constitution is to the social working of society 160 NATUEAL SOCIETY. what science is to the steam-engine, or theory is to the practice in any art. The constitution we would recom- mend is necessarily as yet only theory or science ; but the leading principle has been in various degrees reduced to practice, and testifies the latent power for good it carries within itself. It suits not the lover of riches, the selfishly-avaricious, petty tyranny, or the pride of rank ; therefore it has been least appreciated where those vicious characteristics are most common ; and it has been condemned unheard by professed teachers of the people, too narrow-minded to confess their ignorance, and too dogmatic to see their own prejudice. We propose to take a few of the modem (comparatively, for they extend beyond the historic period) practical and also theoretic illustrations. The Karens, in Burmah, Hindostan, are thus described : — ' A Karen village con- tains from thirty to eighty families, and consists almost invariably (in the hiUy districts) of one large barrack, built of bamboos, in the form of three sides of a square. The inhabitants are a community among themselves ; they weave their own cloth, and are sufficiently skilful blacksmiths to construct all their own tools and imple- ments ; they keep vast herds of cattle, and cultivate their flelds^ — no one is allowed to be idle ; in fact, a Karen vil- lage is a model Phalanstery (a village and land for asso- ciation of industry according to the ideas of Charles Fourier). Their government is patriarchal, each village having its own chief. They acknowledge no general head, but all the communities are federalised for mutual pro- tection, and in case of war, if a leader is required, he is FOUNDATION Or NATURAL SOCIETY. 161 selected for the occasion. Their manners are remarkably simple ; the chastity of their women, and the honour in which that sex is held, remind one of the accotmt of the ancient Germans given by Tacitus. They are peaceable and gentle, though they have shown themselves capable of heroism on occasion, and the word of a Karen may generally be trusted.' — Leader. The reader desirous of many particulars on this subject is recommended to ' Social Systems and Communities,' by the noble and much lamented Mary HenneU, and from whom we purpose culling a few quotations. From the ' Philosophy of History ' we find — ' Every conquest of the Germans proceeded on the principle of common pro- perty. The nation was as one man ; to it every acqui- sition belonged by the barbarous right of war, and was to be divided amongst its members, that all should still remain a common possession.' The division was every year, and the present German constitution is only a mo- dification of the original one, which was far from being good ; although they held that the earth is common pro- perty, association, division of labour, or co-operation for any good piKpose was unknown. Robertson, in his ac- count of the North American Indians, remarks that ' they are in a great measure strangers to the idea of property. The forest or hunting-grounds are deemed the property of the tribe, from which it has a title to exclude every rival nation; but no individual arrogates a right to these in preference to his fellow-citizens. They belong alike to all; and thither, as to a general and un- divided store, all repair in quest of sustenance. The L 162 NATURAL SOCIETY. same principles by which they regulate their chief occu- pation extend to that which is subordinate. Even agri- culture has not introduced among them a complete idea of property. As the men hunt, the women labour to- gether, and, after they have shared the toils of the seed- time, they enjoy the harvest in common. Among some tribes the increase of their cultivated lands is deposited in a public granary, and divided among them at stated times, according to their wants. Among others, though they lay itp separate stores, they do not require such an exclusive right of property that they can enjoy super- fluity while those around them suffer want. Thus the distinctions arising from the inequality of possessions are unknown. The terms rich and poor enter not into their language, and, being strangers to property, they are unacquainted with what is the great object of laws and policy, as well as,' the historian adds, ' the motive which induced mankind to establish the various arrange- ments of regular government.' ' People in this state retain a high sense of equality and independence. Wherever the idea of property is not established, there can be no distinction among men but from what arises from personal qualities.' ' There is little political imion among them — no visible form of government. Every one seems to enjoy his natural in- dependence entire.' ' But, feeble as is the political tie which binds them, their attachment to the community of which they are members is most powerful.' ' Unac- customed to any restraint upon his will or actions, he beholds with amazement the inequality of ranks of FOUNDATION OP NATURAL SOCIETY. 163 civilised life, and considers the voluntary submission of one man to another as a renunciation, no less base than unaccountable, of the first distinction of humanity, whilst he regards his own tribe as best entitled, and most perfectly qualified, to enjoy real happiness.' We must pass over those of Peru, Mexico, Carribees, and Paraguay. The latter was established in 1580 by the Jesuits, and numbered 800,000 families; and Miss Hennell quotes the Co-operative Magazine for Novem- ber, 1827, which finishes thus: — 'It is lamentable to think that the progress of a state of things so promising of social happiness should have been arrested. The in- tegrity of the Paraguayan commonwealth was destroyed by the cession of a part of the territory to Portugal, and the system introduced by the Jesuits in it has entirely disappeared.' It lasted nearly two hundred years. The Moravian Society of New England is an interest- ing illustration, and resembles the primitive monastic life. There are about a dozen societies continually prov- ing the utility of the commimity principle in America, as the Shakers, Dunkers, Bappites, &c. Miss Martineau is quoted by Miss Hennell, the former having personally visited them, and her experience will be found in her ' Society in America.' She tells us : — ' The wealth of the Shakers is not to be attributed to their celibacy. They are receiving a perpetual accession to their numbers from among the " world's people," and these accessions are usually of the most unprofitable kind. Widows with large families of young children are perpetually joining the community, with the view of obtaining a plentiful subsistence with very moderate labour.' 164 NATURAL SOCIETY.- Robert Qwen, perhaps, was one of the most illustrioug theoretical communists of our own day ; not that he had not practical and successful operations, but that he lived and advocated most conspicuously and beautifully all he professed. The number of theoretical communists of talent, position, and education, we could not think of en- deavouring to enumerate. The question must stand on its own merits ; and it is to be hoped neither authorities nor partial illustrations wiU mislead us. 'Experiments of community, where the proper conditions cannot be se- cured, as in every attempt with individual interests in the members, can only have a very limited success, too limited to be appreciated by those who would oppose all systems of community. If it is to have a fair trial, let the indi- vidual property principle be sunk entirely and for ever. Think for a moment of a small community making a commencement: every pennyworth is registered, from the land and houses to the moveable furniture, and all ex- pected or necessitated to be only a moderate success, to give a return of say five per cent. ; at the same time fur- nishes everything superior to practical members little adapted and entirely untrained for that purpose. New establishments in common life are often up-hill work. This is just another on a largescale, without giving corresponding duties, nor suffering the self-sacrifice to the manual workers. You see the drain of the per cent- age pulling it down on the one side, and on the other a superior position is assured without corresponding value from amount of labour. This is at least one half the burdens under which we find ourselves, and expect all FOUNDATION OF NATURAL SOCIETY. 165 the beaefits without the burdens. If it is only co-opera- tive societies for individual interests we want to succeed, they must look only or entirely on the worldly point of view — give no place to anything superior than self-in- terest ; that is, in getting cheaper and better articles for our money, and krger interests than common on the capital. This involves great and sure turn-over of money, and the servants to work rather over than under common hours of labour,* and incessantly hard. But if it is real social reformation that is considered desirable, we must go to the root of the matter, and that is in social equality and organisation of industry. Both of these are uniformly the ultimate aim of all those reforms which have more than mere political or partial ends in view. Mr Owen, Uke the great majority of them, shrank from advocating social equaUty now, excepting on experiment, and which can scarcely exist, as we have observed, with powerful influences to coun- teract its success. Hence Government is so frequently called to assist and carry out the system which individual wealth is unable for. On the experience of a life de- voted to the subject, Mr Owen hesitates not to say ' That the members of any community may by degrees be trained to live without idleness, without poverty, without crime, and without punishment. It is beyond all calculation the interest of every Government to provide that training and that employment; and to provide bothis easilypraoticable.' ' It is of little avail to give precept upon precept, and line upon line, unless the means shall also be prepared to train them in good practical habits' (says Miss HenneU). 166 NATURAL SOCIETY. It would be easy to give more to the same purpose, and much valuable infonnation on human nature from Mr Owen's works, but we must defer. Neither are we to expect any help or even encouragement from Govern- ments constituted on the present system of society ; they have had more than enough of time for that, were it to occur, but just as soon expect slaveholders to teach their slaves to read and write. Is all reform not from pressure without, and much of the best parts nibbled away in the passing? Learn by experience, and, if you will hope, hope in self-help or seK-reliance in truth carried out by yourselves, and the gradual absorption of the entire people will follow in time. ' Claude Henri, Count de St Simon, was bom at Paris in 1760, of an illustrious house, which claimed descent from Charlemagne,' says Miss HenneU ; and a character- istic sentiment in ' Re-organisation of European Society ' is this — ' The golden age is not behind but before us ; it consists in the perfection of social order : our fathers have not seen it — our children will realise it ; we must smooth the road for them. AU wealth is the wealth of the church ; each profession is a religious function— a grade in the social hierarchy. To each according to Ms capacity .■ to each according to its works.'' Charles Fourier was one of those rare characters whose life approximated to perfection. His system is somewhat complicated. Here is one specimen: — 'Natureiswiserthan man ; she does not produce characters in one monotonous mould, such as custom and fashion would dictate ; but she produces such varieties as will form, when united, one FOUND ATION" OP NATURAL SOCIETY, ]67 harmonious whole. As with wonderful precision she adjusts the proportion of the sexes, so she adjusts the characters of the individual to the wants of the social regime.' Attractive Industry— Harmonic Action of tie Passions — is the grand problem with Fourier. We will apply to an American follower (Brisbane) for another sample: — ' There can exist but two methods in the exer- cise of Industry ; to wit — the incoherent order or culti- vation carried on by isolated families, as we now see it ; or the combined order — cultivation by large assemblages — with fixed laws as respects an equitable distribution of profits to each individual, according to the three follow- ing qualifications — Labour, Capital, Talent. Which of these two methods is the one designed by the Creator ? Is it the incoherent or the combined?' Perhaps no theoretical statement on the subject in hand has been more complete than that by Sir Thomas More, Lord Chancellor of England under Henry VIII., en- titled ' Utopia, or the Happy Republic,' a philosophical romance, in two books. It was written in 1516 in Latin ; translated into English by Gilbert Burnet, Bishop of Sarum. ' Plato's Eepublic ' with it is not to be com- pared ; and these, with many more, must be overlooked till a more convenient and appropriate time. We have said our say on property in the abstract, or our absolute right over it, and feel no inclination to change ; therefore, our use of the word property is for want of a better, and modified in accordance with our views. In this nut-sheU of property is the whole question of natural or artificial society. If it is to be Natural 168 NATURAL SOCIETY. Society, then property to or for individuals is sunk, and the commonwealth is viewed as a part of natural crea- tion, somewhat under our control, and for our living in comfort ; if it is to be in artificial organised society, then individual property remains properly as it now exists. Organisation succeeds either, and is false or true according to the first or original start. Unity is the natural effect of the true, disunity or discordance that of the false : happiness and truth are sister and brother ; the false and the miserable go together. Shall we choose social peace, or war in ourselves and with our neighbours ? n. — LABOUA. The greatest institution in Natural Society must be the organisation of labour. This arises from its primary ne- cessity and universality. It will connect all into a brotherhood ; it will be the advanced educational estab- lishment for character, calling forth the latent virtues, and repressing the tendency to folly. The censorial power is everywhere, and every person has both duty and interest to help all others to develop and improve themselves. They in return reflect the more light and beauty on all around. Excessive and low-paid labour is a stamp of degradation now ; it makes labour repulsive, and has a powerful tendency to domesticated brutalisa- tion. If we are in darkness, our hope is in the light ; if in degradation, let us press to some elevation ; it in social chains, let us hope to be free — for all is possible. Even if the body is retained, the mind may rise above the FOUNDATION OF NATURAL SOCIETY. 169 long-prevailing ignorance and error, and a world of beautiful realisations be created for our successors, if not for ourselves. To be a non-producer — a drone^is now, by some people, looked upon as the only respectable position occupied in society. This would be reversed were labour on its natural and true footing. An able-bodied and healthy man doing nothing to produce wealth, but much to dissipate and consume it, would not in character bear comparison with a common producer of wealth and otherwise similar character. Our whole individual wealth must go for nothing, and our whole individual demands be insured now and for ever. With God's truth to regulate its amount, kind, and productiveness. Labour is one of the most beneficent blessings necessary for man. It may be a healthful exer- cise, a pleasant occupation, a duty done most heartily and with a noble pride — a practical action illustrating our love for our neighbours as ourselves. How many noble men have spoken in high terms of Labour ? Bemoaners of Labour ! Have a care of them, for the fox or the ass make but worthless instructors. Who does not know, as Greorge Combe teDs us, 'Wealth can be produced only by labour'? Again, ' In a thoroughly moral and enlightened community, no useful office will be degrad- ing ; nor will any be incompatible with the due exercise of the highest faculties of man.' Carlyle has a high appreciation of Labour : — ' Work is of a religious nature ; work is of a brave nature, which it is the aim of all religion to be. All work of man is aa the swimmer's : a vast ocean threatens to 170 NATURAL SOCIETY. devour him ; if he front it not bravely, it ■wUl keep its ■word. By incessant wise defiance of it, lusty rebuke, and buffet of it, behold how it royally supports him — bears liim as its conqueror along.' ' All true work is sacred ; in all true work, were it but true hand-labour, there is something of divineness. Labour, wide as the earth, has its summit in Heaven, Sweat of the birow, and up from that sweat of the brain, sweat of the heart, which includes all Kepler's calculations, Newton's medi- tations, all sciences, all spoken epics, all acted heroisms, martyrdoms — up to that "agony of bloody sweat," which all men have called divine ! O brother, if this is not " worship," then I say, the more pity for worship ; for this is the noblest thing yet discovered under God's sky.' Take a sample of the more matter-of-fact Barker, when in America : — ' Labour sufficiently hard to wet the brow with sweat is necessary to the health and strength of the body. It is necessary to the health and vigour of the mind. It is necessary to the pleasure of life gene- rally. Those who never work can never be healthy, sane, nor happy. And it is plain that God from the beginning meant mnn to labour, and to labour hard at times.' Labour, then, we may rest assured, is a normal condition in hf e, and its devolving on us all as a common duty is quite sufficient to cause us to make it as pleasant and healthy as possible, and accept it, if other condi- tions permit, as a noble prerogative. And now we may enter into some details of the ' Organisation of Labour' in Natural Society; in artificial society it is unworthy FOUNDATION OF NATURAL SOCIETY. 17 1 the name of organisation, for it is capital and not man that organises, and it is also capitalists and not the men ■who labour that reap the permanent products. Yet these permanent products must be made equally subservient to the labourer. They must be common benefits when there exists truth in the organisation of labour. In Natural Society the organisation of industry is very simple, because there is but one interest throughout the whole, and that can with every confidence be left to those engaged, each in his own department. The whole necessary work of society will naturally be done to the best advantage, in the greatest quantity of the best products possible, at the least expenditure of human toU. To make every employment of a healthy character would be one of the first things seen to, because the health and life of man is of much more importance than a few hours, months, or weeks' labour, to render the unwholesome conditions many trades are carried on in fit for healthy existence. With common interests, it is easily seen overproduc- tion can only be counteracted 'by deducting from the hours of labour, and under-production by their increase, our necessities and comforts regulating our hours of ne- cessary labour. Two hours each day are not uncommonly named as sufficient, with the enormous productive powers now at our command, if ef ery one able and will- ing was to engage in that necessary labour— the larger part of the day falling under the head of leisure time, perhaps with an hour or two excepted, by being devoted to some accepted public service; and this large amount 172 NATURAL SOCIETY. of leisure time is one of the many conditions necessary in the elevation of all in character and intelligence. The richest collections of natural objects from the animated and inanimated. kingdoms may now be within owe reach ; but of what worth are they to one who has been accustomed, and is yet necessitated, to toil ten, twelve, or fourteen hours each day? But give him twelve lei- sure hours daily, and these accessory conditions will be duly taken advantage of to the accomplishment of the desired effect. We do not now propose any number of hours' labour daily — that may be done yet; at the pre- sent time, it is enough to see how the hours of labour shall be in accordance with our intrinsic demands, and, as a general condition, everything in utmost abundance. We have a manager or managers at the head of every workshop, factory, or division of industry. These must emptoy considerable numbers, for this accelerates pro- duction, and renders work light and agreeable; and if necessity should require small establishments, they can be arranged by the necessities of the cases, if not amal- gamated to some other tranch with which they have the nearest business connection. It was said before that the managers kept the books, each of his own department ; and not only the articles taken in, manufactured, and sent out, but their value at both times is kept, and that value must be in labour bestowed on the articles. Thus, one hundred quarters of wheat have required three thou- sand seven hundred and forty-four hours' labom:; were it made into flour, a given addition is added, and in all exchanges the labour bestowed is the value in every in- FOUNDATION OP NATURAL SOCIETY. 173 stance. The raw material so much, the manufacture so much, the waste of machinery so much, and the trans- mission so much; total, the value of the manufactured article where it is desired and necessary. Things are not exchanged at an advantage or profit, but at the nearest possible calculation of their real value. Thus an inland district shall give the product of a thou- sand hours labour in grain for an equal amount of time- value of town manufactures, or fish, or foreign produce anything that is required and can conveniently be ex- chajiged. Time of labour in exchange for time of labour always, for this only can properly be a subject of ex- change among brethren in equality; every district, and if possible the whole country, to have one uniform amount of time for toil per day. Poor crops in rural districts would thus have the effect thrown equally on all by giving the produce the greater value ; and abun- dant harvests the reverse, by giving little value to any given amount of produce, so that town and country wiU equally enjoy nature's blessings. Another leading principle of Natural Society will be emulation. It is natural to us under all circumstances, but in Natural Society it wiU he prominent, for workers wiU zealously engage to surpass each other in quantity and quality of work, and managers wiU do the same in comparing with other managers in the same productions, in the cost of the amount of labour in articles manufac- tured — the best and largest quantity of any given com- , modity produced at the most pleasant and smallest ex- pense of time or toil. If one of the managers of the 174 NATUEAL SOCIETY. building trades can put a house up at the value of twelve thousand hours' labour, equal in every respect to that of another manager who finds the value to be eighteen thousand hours, in the former you will see that activity and capacity wUl have its proper regard, and the latter will bestir himself, by force of emulation, to renewed endeavours, or resign to some more competent person. In every department the same principle wiU be in ac- tivity, every worker taking an interest in the activity and capacity of the whole party in immediate connection, so that the right person, as manager, will be inevitably found. The Justices may decide to what extent any par- ticular branch of work shall be extended or decreased, but if anything of paramount importance is projected, the whole Common Council may take a vote on the question ; thus they wUl take the responsibihty off the shoulders of the Justices. It is with this Council, and the Justices in particular, the knowledge and duty rests of regulating the supply to the demand ; they give the orders, and the managers, with their assistants, take the responsibility of their execution. We all know how inefficiently and clumsily supply and demand are regulated at present, and the past was still worse ; but in Natural Society they wUl be known almost exactly, and regulated to the common interest. We must have no such thing as being idle when able to work, nor forced to work when unable from sickness or old age ; but were demand to slacken in one branch, the Justices must be aware of some other department to employ them, for if this is not to be had readily, the conclusion is ob- FOUNDATION OF NATURAL SOCIETY. 175 vious — the hours of labour will stand farther reduction. We at present lament want of labour because it brings poverty and distress ; in Natural Society we rejoice in this, because it brings more leisure time ! Yet everything is reversed at present, so we need not take notice of this particularly. Is there some pressing work on hand — the harvest, additional buildings, or other manufacture — the supply of hands are short, then an extra hour for toil or labour, if other hands, where they could be spared, could not overtake the pressure. We must mention — ^for overlooking is next to impos- sible — ^the necessity in Natural Society of organisation of labour among the female sex of our community. Pre- sent society cannot well command division of labour here in domestic concerns ; but Natural Society makes the path smooth for as perfect an application of this prin- ciple as any other department of industry. In washing, for instance, they shall have an appropriate establish- ment ; everything on a large and commodious scale ; a drying-house attached, where artificial heat could be ap- plied when necessary by the common unfavourable weather in this chmate; the hours of labour the same as all other industrial workers; and one party could re- lieve another, when the establishments were few, and the hands many in proportion. The other departments of female domestic labour must come under the same principle, and the females themselves must be the best judges of what shall form their peculiar industrial de- partments. The changing occasionally from one branch to another 176 NATUEAL SOCIETY. is no less agreeaHe to some individuals than necessary to the common interest. There will be a vast economy and surplus of labour among the females, and no less vast a change from bondage to freedom for them in the adoption of Natural Society. One woman preparing only her own and another's dinner, or washing her own and another's washing, gives no scope for division of labour ; indeed, forces the employment to be of a kind the most rude and unpleasant. The employment of machinery, or improve- ments on such a trifling scale, is out of the question, and the work can neither be satisfactory nor economical. We all like to see great results from our individual efforts, whether united with others or single ; but here there is a world of care and toil, and for what ? It is a common remark that those females brought up to one de- partment of industry — in a factory, a spinning mill, a railway station office, a dressmaking estabMshment — any but that of housekeeping — make bad wives; yet every improvement in society tends in this same direc- tion — ^to make young women whose parents are unable to support them in something next to idleness to take to some division of labour for a livelihood, and which deprives them of the experience and habits desirable for wives. In Natural Society this is changed, for the wife, when able to work, may do so even as her husband ; but it is desirable, and cannot be overlooked, that her edu- cation when in her youth should be in a great degree in the direction her ultimately changed circumstances will require. The Gru-gru-bush institution of Africa has some com- FOTJNBATION OP NATURAL SOCIETY". 177 mendable features about it, as well as many characteristic of their lowly condition. But no particular institution for female education will be necessary in Natural Society, since the work best adapted for sex and age wiU, in all probability, be that engaged in, and the education in these conditions cannot be otherwise than superior. So we -would expect females to be mostly engaged in domestic wori^ — work in the dweUings of the community, rather than in the workshops. To give direction to our ideas here, we may state in general terms what might be called a sample of a com- munity. It is composed of two distinct parts-^the workshops and factories forming the one, and the other for residences and domestic purposesi The latter have three classes and purposes assigned them, namely — the one extremity exclusively for the unmarried females, and the other extremity exclusively for the unmarried males ; the centre for the married, and the apartments of larger construction, for the accommodation of extra numbers. The whole labour of this establishment would probably devolve on the female sex, and, if they were too nume- rous for it, volunteers for other work would be common and plentiful. There is no over-fastidious delicacy in the separation of the sexes for the purposes of rest, personal cleanliness, dressing and undressing, and private meditations. Pre- sent society cannot admit of this luxury, more from the want of common interests than from mere poverty. Why not condemn customs and habits which bring together under the same roof young and matured women, young M 178 KATT7RAL SOCIETY. and old men — ^blood relations they may be or not— living and lodging in private ? It is extremely indecent. In these cases there cannot be privacy, nor absolute confi- dence in respectful treatment for the weaker sex, and Oie temptations are perhaps equally degrading and corrupting for both sexes. The cases of peculiar degradation resulting from this proximity are legion ; besides, it isolates us to such a de- gree that life loses half its relish on the one hand, and increases the temptations in proportion on the other. We have no objection that both sexes of married and un- married should have the utmost liberty to associate to- gether in the face of day for work, innocent amusement, and wanters for courtship ; but duty asks us to prevent — ^to annihilate if possible — temptations which are evi- dently conditions tending to contamination or dishonour. Who that hath seen only a quarter of a century passed could not point to many cases of pitiful, blasted prospects ? The devil, the serpent, or a combination of both, is here sometimes embodied, were we to judge by the effects. This could be aU prevented by the change whieh must in time become necessary, in the establishment of united interests ; and, with these united interests, the degrada- tion of domestic servitude would be superseded by regular work and hours of labour, the samfi as the other members of the community. Whatever be the necessary hours of labour, a great surplus of workers will be from this source, not only oc- casioned by the little work done now, but of its being uncalled for in the new circumstances. It is grievous FOUNDATION OF NATURAL SOCIETY. 179 even to eee men in an everlasting toil, worse than beasts of burden ; but it is more grievous to see young men and women, who have so much to learn, and such animal spirits for enjoyment, never to be out of the harness. Women in particular, without the silver spoon, are xmiei these unfavourable conditions, and women are allowed to have more influence than men over the young, for their physical and mental development. We need not stop to point out thefoUy and injusticeof this ; but take thecaseof a young married woman. She has had one child, and both are quite well and healthy — the husband has work and good wages, although not able to keep a servant — with little more to do than what belongs to herself. The wife has no time to herself, and may not be at liberty to go a marketing, or cooking, or cleaning, when these duties ought to be gone about ; the house is a permanent nur- sery, and it would be wonderful did either of the parents relish these -conditions — ^but it must be patiently endured ; and if the wife was to get one day, or even evening or night free from this care, she might be expected to re- member it for years. We may detest the ignorance of the mother who is pleased with the sight of her child one minute or two each day, but we cordially sympathise for those chained to the c