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of the right of property, and by way of compensation produces a certain torpid patience and insensibility under the evils thus arising, in those who are the victims.

Now, if this great and urgent work of improving the dwellings of the labouring class, which is evidently far too great for the efforts of voluntary philanthropy, and which is not likely to be done for a long time to come, through private enterprise, should appear to be capable of great acceleration through the agency of the State; and if it should further appear that such agency might be employed without positive pecuniary loss, the practical inference will follow, that the credit of the Government could not possibly be made use of for a better purpose. That it could be done without loss, or without serious loss, may be disputed, and this question, of course, could only be settled by minute investigation. All that is here contended for is, that if the prospect can be fairly shown to be such as to promise repayment of the low interest of a Government loan, then the case is one for Government interference, through the medium of the various municipal corporations; because every year that passes over our heads in our present condition brings with it vast evils, which no time should be lost in removing.

CHAPTER VII.

WORKING PARTNERSHIPS.

"Venturæque hyemis memores, æstate laborem
Experiuntur, et in medium quæsita reponunt.
Namque aliæ victu invigilant, et fœdere pacto
Exercentur agris: pars intra septa domorum
Narcissi lacrymam, et lentum de cortice gluten,
Prima favis ponunt fundaminia: deinde tenaces
Suspendunt ceras: aliæ, spem gentis, adultos
Educunt fœtus: aliæ purissima mella
Stipant, et liquido distendunt nectare cellas.
Sunt, quibus ad portas cecidit custodia sorti;
Inque vicem speculantur aquas et nubila cœli,

Aut onera accipiunt venientûm, aut agmine facto

Ignavum, fucos, pecus a præsepibus arcent.

Fervet opus, redolentque thymo fragrantia mella."-VIRG. GEORG.

Socialism.-Doctrine of Fourier.

SOCIALISM is a delusion. It is necessary to oppose it, but it is folly to despise it. It is a delusion, because it proceeds either upon a mistaken view of human nature, or upon the expectation that some sudden change would take place, at the beginning of a Socialist experiment, in the governing motives of mankind, without any miraculous means being shown for bringing that change about. The mistaken view of human nature is most conspicuous in the singularly curious, but not popular, system of Fourier'. Indeed, it is far too ingenious and

His work on the passions, which shows the basis of his system, has been translated into English by the Rev. J. R. Morell; but his industrial scheme must be sought in the "Théorie des Quatre Mouvements," his first, shortest, and most characteristic work, and the "Théorie de l'Unité Universelle."

too nicely elaborated, not merely for actual working, but for common comprehension. Fourier was a man of much originality, but crotchety and dogmatic in the extreme, and full of the most profound contempt for all other thinkers, from the sages of Greece to the journalists of his own time. His chief disciple, Victor Considérant, has reproduced the best part of Fourier's ideas, in a clear and eloquent form, in the “Destinée Sociale," and no reader can fail to admire the noble spirit of humanity which pervades that work; but it leaves the chasm between the system and the actual life of man as impassable as before.

According to Fourier, there is nothing at all amiss in human nature. Owen always wanted a change of circumstances in order to change character, but Fourier wants no change of character. All our troubles and miseries are the consequences of bad arrangements. Every man will not only work, but work with all his heart and soul, at something, if you only give him to do what he likes best. The social problem, therefore, is so to divide a community into groups and sections, or series, as that each man shall follow his own impulses, and yet the result of the whole be a harmonious and immensely increased production of all desirable commodities. Fourier was convinced that this could be done, and that he had found out the secret of doing it. It was to be accomplished, in a great measure, by letting each individual have a great variety of employments, and by observing the general rule of sticking to no one thing for more than a couple of hours at a time. Whatsoever other good it might have produced, it is tolerably clear that neither the Crystal Palace, nor the Britannia Bridge, nor Mr. Mill's Logic, would ever have come to light under such a dispensation. Fourier, however, had a boundless faith in the invigorating effect upon industry of numerous and abrupt transitions-from the study to the garden, and from the corn-fields to the workshops. He rejected the equal division. of the produce which the communists would have, and would have rewarded, in separate proportions, the possessors of la

bour, capital, and talent, or capacity. The result of the whole system was to be, to make every kind of labour intensely attractive. All were to be as busy and as happy as the insect swarms that Paley was so fond of, or as Virgil's bees, with this additional perfection, that there was to be no provision, and no want of a provision, for driving away drones. Fourier could not understand the meaning of an evil passion. Self-denial was the humbug of the priests and the philosophers. All passion was good because it was power,-so much invaluable steam going to waste for want of proper machinery which it might propel. In the mechanism of the phalanx every impulse was to have full play, and, with a universal liberty of action, Fourier believed the distribution of tastes amongst mankind to be so harmonious, that even the disagreeable duties of the scavenger and the nightman would find groups and sections. to take them up with passionate enthusiasm.

Christian Socialism.

The other forms of Socialism usually recognise as real evils the tendencies which men show to laziness, fraud, and selfindulgence, but concur in expecting that, with social arrangements once properly placed on a brotherly footing, men would act habitually from brotherly feelings. This is the fallacy of the most respectable of all the Socialist writers—namely, the very able, humane, and courageous men who advocate what is called Christian Socialism in England'. In theory they begin with Christianity as the foundation, and if they could do this in fact, that is to say, if they could find a body of workmen thoroughly imbued with the Christian spirit, a brotherly organization of industry would be easy enough. Even with a very imperfect religious sentiment, when strong enough to over

The most acute and brilliant of the French Socialist writers, Prudhon, cannot be siad to have a system. He is negative and critical, not creative; but he would be a formidable adversary for the old dogmatic economists to fence with, if they were always sensitive enough to know when his weapon runs them through the body.

come the ordinary passions of human nature, co-operative industry has been practicable amongst the monks of the middle ages and amongst the Moravians and Shakers of later times; but without the moral preliminary the mechanism will not revolve. Nothing is easier than, like Gonzalo in the "Tempest," in the idleness of the imagination, to frame plans of perfect commonwealths-nothing harder than to give birth to a new enthusiasm. The Christian Socialists find themselves compelled to think of the plan first, and to hope for the enthusiasm as a result. But the laws of moral causation will not be evaded, and those laws condemn all such schemes to inevitable failure. Upon this subject Mr. Carlyle saw and spoke the whole deep truth--first in 1829, and again with increased force, at the very time when England was in a whirl of excitement about the Reform Bill-that no changes of the social mechanism will accomplish a moral regeneration. Life, wherever it exists, assumes appropriate organization. But no organization, if such a thing can be thought of separately, can ever produce life. The Christian Socialists, however, would deserve forgiveness even for more serious errors, which are only theoretical, in consideration of the practical energy and sagacity with which they have urged a really valuable reform, of which I shall presently speak, and in consideration, also, of the important service which they have rendered to society, by causing a numerous body of intelligent working men to feel that amongst the educated and aristocratic classes are many of their firmest and most zealous friends.

Socialism on the Continent.

Socialism, then, in every form in which it has appeared, is, in my view, a delusion; and a calm and clear thinker can scarcely fail to see where the error of each system lies; but from working men in distress, or suffering under any stinging grievance, real or imaginary, calm and clear thought is hardly to be expected. On the Continent, where Socialism has been

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