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nesday, 20th October, 1830, at the London Tavern.

I have read it somewhere, that if you attack a man in his character, principles, or conduct, yet if you do not name him, the attack is impersonal. This, I confess, I cannot see; nor can I see either sin or impropriety in naming a person when you assail his opinions; nay, I am convinced it is a duty which we owe to the individual and to the public, to weigh before we admit his lofty pretensions to be received and hailed as the illuminator and liberator of a benighted, enthralled universe. Does Mr. Owen surpass every man in every age and country in common sense, in reach and force of understanding, in information and research, in zeal and benevolence, in honesty and mental independence, in love of truth and in love of his kind, in knowledge of literature and science, in natural endowments and liberal acquirements? Unless this be the case, he may be wrong, and some other man who does not think with him may be right; he may, as all his predecessors in the work of philanthropy, be wrong; be a blind guide: he may have mistaken his own vain imaginations for the truth;-he may be as far from the right way as any man that ever lived. What evidence has the public, that Mr. Owen is right, infallibly right, and that all who are not of his opinion are wrong? They have Mr. Owen's testimony, to be sure; and that is a thing of no ordinary kind. He has told the public that he is right, and that all who think differently are wrong. His pretensions, moreover, have been weighed in the scales of cockneyism, and have been ascertained to be full weight; of which the cockneys, the best informed animals, and the best judges of truth in the universe, express, at all Mr. Owen's meetings, their unfeigned assent and consent, by rapping, clapping, smiling, laughing, shouting, and vociferation, to cheer him on his way towards the emanci

pation and regeneration of the world, and by bawling and noise to prevent men of different views from expressing their sentiments, and unmasking the sophistry and pretensions of their idol.

Let us look at this matter in another light. It is a doctrine taught by Mr. Owen, which was also brought forward at the meeting, that man is not accountable for his belief; that his belief is the result of his opinions; and that his opinions are the result of physical organization. All the opinions of men on every subject are, according to this theory, the result of physical organization. Now who gave man his physical organization; was it not the author of his being? If a man's opinions on any subject are wrong, it is no fault of his; the fault lies with the author of his nature. If the qualities of moral good or evil do not belong to a man's belief, they do not belong to a man's thoughts; they cannot belong to a man's organization without involving in all the blame the former of this organization; for if the machine does not go accurately, it is the fault of the maker; and if there is no evil in thought, there can be no evil in bodily action, of which thoughts are the index, the expression, and the cause. Whatever Mr. Owen's thoughts are, or the illumination of his mind, it is all the result of physical organization. He is the only perfect machine that ever has been constructed since the beginning of the world. Why the author of nature has not seen it proper to present to the world such a machine before, must, I imagine, be classed among the inscrutable arcana or mysteries into which mortals are not permitted to look. As all thoughts are the result of organization, and as all the errors and delusions in the world are thoughts, and have had their origin in thought, therefore physical organization is the fountain of all errors and delusions; and how this evil can be remedied without chang

ing the organization, I leave to the astounding intellect of Mr. Owen to explain. It appears to me, that if Mr. Owen would do his work efficiently, he should begin with correcting the evil at the fountain head; he should begin with the physical organization, and instruct the author of nature in the construction of perfect machines; for if the organization is not changed, the thoughts cannot be changed, the belief cannot be changed, the actions of man cannot be changed. Whether Mr. Owen means to set about the re-construction of the physical organization of man, I do not know; though I think he hinted at something of this kind when he spoke of making man in his thoughts, feelings, propensities, and desires, transparent as crystal. One thing is certain in Mr. Owen's theory; while the organization continues the same, no improvement can be made till it is re-constructed and adapted to a new and perfect order of things, such as Mr. Owen is anxious to realize; the world must go on as hitherto, a depraved organization being the only impediment, and one that is invincible to universal illumination and perfect happiness. Mr. Owen lays the blame of all moral and physical evils to the charge of religion, but then religion resolves itself into thought, and thought resolves itself into organization, and organization into the contrivance and design of the great first cause. Does Mr. Owen think he could instruct Him that is infinite in wisdom, or that he could have made man better than the Creator of all things?-If organization be the measure of what the faculties of man can give out, it must also be the measure of what they can take in; so that by education a man can be neither better nor worse. His thoughts will always be as his organization. What is education, but the thoughts of some one reduced to practice? It must, therefore, be the result of physical organization; and if the

thoughts of one man be disordered for a time by the thoughts of another, they must recover again naturally and involuntarily their former standing, according to the original organization. If all thought originate in organization, then every mode of religion must have its origin in the same source, and this source is divine, as God is the author of organization. Therefore religion, by the theory of Mr. Owen, in all its forms, must be divine in its origin. Both these things cannot stand: that religion is the source of all evil, and that organization is the source, fount, and type of all thought, unless religion itself is resolved into organization. I have hitherto reasoned on this subject, on the assumption of Mr. Owen as to the omnipotence of organization over thought, and of thought over belief. I now call in question that assumption, and maintain, that man is accountable for his thoughts and his belief, as it is in the power of man to conform his thoughts to the truth by inquiry, research, and examination. It is as much in the power of man to alter his thoughts on religion as on any other subject, and by the very same process-a careful examination of facts. Is not religion founded on facts? and are not these facts as susceptible of inquiry as any fact in nature? May not a jury err criminally in their opinion of the guilt or innocence of a defendant? May not an accountant err criminally in his calculations? May not a servant err criminally in his conceptions of his master's orders? And where does the criminality in these cases lie, but in indolence, carelessness, inattention, apathy, or contempt? If a man's thoughts on religion are not conformed to the truth, and if this want of conformity be owing to his not examining the truth, to his disregard of truth, to his aversion to the truth, to his enmity to the truth, to his life not being in accordance with the truth, or to self-sufficiency or self-conceit, then is the discon

formity of his thoughts to the truth culpable, censurable, and punish

able.

Mr. Owen says there is no merit in believing, or demerit in disbelieving. This is true on his theory of organization, but untrue if a man's thoughts may be approximated to the truth by inquiry; and that thought is susceptible of change by inquiry, is a fact unquestionable. Even on Mr. Owen's theory, there is as much criminality or innocence, merit or demerit, in belief or disbelief, as in any act whatever. If all be the result of organization, there is neither good nor evil, virtue nor vice, in the world; inasmuch as whatever is the result of organization is chargeable on the Creator. Such are the legitimate consequences of this absurd and irrational theory. One should hardly have conceived it possible for the great illuminator to fall into such notorious errors. All religion, said Mr. Owen, is opposed to sense, that is, the senses of man. Religion is not only different from but contrary to what meets the senses; as if religion required men to believe that the same things were altogether opposite to what they appeared to the senses; as much so as if he must believe that what was tangible were intangible, or what is visible were invisible, or what is hard were soft, or that what appears to the eye as a wafer, and tastes as dough, were a real man. I undertake the defence of no religion but what is revealed in the Word of God, which religion teaches nothing opposed to the senses. Let Mr. Owen, if he can, lay his hand on one fact in the Bible which is contradicted by the senses. Christianity, as taught in the Bible, is built on facts addressed to the senses-of which any man could form an accurate opinion by his senses. Is not revealed religion bottomed on two things, miracles and prophecy? Miracles, it has been said, are opposed to the senses, But to whose senses are they opposed? Were they opposed to the

senses of those who have witnessed them? or are they opposed to the senses of those who did not exist till ages after they were performed? Did those in whose presence miracles are recorded to have been wrought, not see these miracles? Did they not see the dead raised, the eyes of the blind opened, the lame leap as a hart, and hear the tongue of the dumb sing for joy? If they saw these things, then they were not opposed to their senses. But it may be said, we do not see them. Does it then follow, that nothing ever has existed but what we have seen? Are our senses the measure of all possible existences?

-But miracles are opposed to the laws of nature. To which I answer, if nothing could happen but according to, or as the result of, some law of nature, then there could be no miracles. But what is a law of nature, but a mode in which the Deity acts? Now, if he acts in one mode, does it follow that he cannot act in an opposite mode, or that he can act only in one mode? If, by one law of nature, iron sinks in water, what is there to hinder the same Being, who made the law of gravity, to suspend that law, or to cause the iron to swim? Are these two modes of action contradictory? Are they such as could not be performed by the same power? And are they not both compatible with the moral attributes of the Deity? Suppose a person, who had never seen the application of steam to machinery, were to say, "I cannot believe in it, it is contrary to my senses." Contrary to your senses it is not, It is something which you have not seen, but it is uncontradicted by any fact that ever fell under your observation. In like manner, were a person to deny that iron could, by miracle, be made to swim :-He might say, "I have never seen it, Any time that I have seen it unsupported in water, it has sunk." True, it has; but that has been by the operation of the law of gravity. But when we say that iron was

made to swim, we do not say it was by the law of gravity, or by the ordinary or common laws of nature; but by the suspension of the law of gravity. It would, indeed, be contrary to sense to say that iron was made to swim by the law of gravity; but not contrary to sense to say it was made to swim by a suspension of that law.

Another class of facts, on which revealed religion is based, are those which have been, and still are, the subjects of prophecy. Many of these facts are already matters of history; and some of them are matters of observation and every-day experience-such as the dispersion of the Jews, and their continuing a separate people, dwelling alone, and not reckoned with the nations; becoming a curse, a bye-word, and a reproach, in all countries to which they have been driven. Even the religion of nature, of which Mr. Owen is the minister and interproter, is not opposed to the truths of divine revelation. Bishop Butler Bishop Butler has shown, in his "Analogy between Natural and Revealed Religion," a beautiful and striking coincidence and harmony between the laws of nature and the doctrines of revealed religion; the one illustrating and corroborating the other, without the slightest jarring, inconsistency, or incongruity-indicating a common origin and author.

To religion Mr. Owen referred all the ills of human existence. Now, a religion must produce evilthat is, vice, ignorance, misery, poverty, destitution, and crime through the operation of its principles, precepts, and the examples which it holds up to imitation. What, then, is the principle, precept, or example, recorded for imitation in the Holy Scriptures, to which evil, either moral or physical, can be traced? Let Mr. Owen, if he can, mention one principle, or one precept, or one model of virtuous conduct, in the Scriptures, to which evil can be traced. He holds revealed religion to be a discipline of

impurity, vice, and crime; let him deduce his conclusions logically and consistently from the principles of revealed truth, instead of dealing in declamation, general assertions, vulgar invective, and scurrilous abuse. The principle of love to God and man runs through the whole of divine revelation; and all the virtues, all the dispositions and actions which it inculcates, are but so many forms of this great principle. Can Mr. Owen point to any injunction in scripture incompatible with this principle? He had even the audacity to assert that religion inculcated vice. What, then, is the vice taught in the Bible? Men, he said, were taught to hate one another. Where is that taught? Does not the word of God teach us to love our enemies, to do good to them that hate us, to pray for them that despitefully use us and persecute us? Are we not taught to ask forgiveness of God as we forgive others? and to return to no man evil for evil, but, on the contrary, blessing? If any teach persecution and hatred, neither persecution nor hatred are taught in the Bible. The religion which it teaches is one of universal charity. We are not, indeed, taught to regard virtue and vice with the same feelings; to hold them as of equal value, and worthy of the same esteem. Neither are we taught to entertain the same respect for the vicious and the virtuous. We owe the worthless not esteem, but compassion; not approbation, but pity; and we owe to vice, in every form, abhorrence and aversion.

Mr. Owen ridiculed the idea of man being either virtuous or vi cious for his belief or disbelief, as if the one and the other had no con nexion with the state of the heart or the character of a man's actions. If a man reject the truth, because the truth condemns his conduct; because it demands the abandonment of immoral practices; then disbelief cannot be regarded but as odious and detestable; while the unbeliever must appear in the eyes

of the virtuous anything but an object of esteem. And, on the contrary, if belief be inseparable from virtuous thought, feeling, and action, and if it be actually the source, the spring, and principle, of universal charity, of love to God and man, then it must be an object of the highest esteem, in which esteem the faithful have a right to participate.

A community of goods, in which there will be no private property, Mr. Owen informed the company, was to be a feature of his new system.-A natural consequence of a community of goods, as men are now constituted, would be a relaxation of the springs of human exertion; the fear of want, a desire of improving our condition, and security for the exclusive disposal of our labor, being the chief incentives to industry. Who would labor if he might have his wants supplied without any care or exertion on his part ? Who would think of surpassing others in skill, invention, and application, if the fruit of all his toil was to be divided equally among all the indolent, vicious, and abandoned? or were no increase of happiness, comfort, or respectability, to accrue from the zealous discharge of his duty, from enterprise, perseverance, and successful exertion? These objections to a community of goods, Mr. Owen meets with a declaration, that, under the new order of things which he is to introduce, all men will be perfect in virtue, each straining, apart from all selfish views, his powers and faculties for the weal of the whole community of man. This perfection of virtue is to result from stripping man of all religion as it has hitherto been taught, and teaching him, under Mr. Owen's direction, the religion of nature.

His religion, in all its parts, Mr. Owen is to reveal to the world in his next public exhibition. The religion of nature, if consisting, as is generally understood, in the explication and application of the laws of

the universe, might, one should have thought, have been discovered by the researches of the sages of ancient and modern times. But all sages, philosophers, statesmen, divines, and legislators, are perfect fools compared with Mr. Owen. His head, of all the heads that have ever been formed, is perfect in its organization: hence he is such a prodigy of intelligence. As he is acquainted with his new religion, and must be supposed to be under its complete influence, he is no doubt as perfect in virtue as he is in intellect-a nonpareil, to which there is not on earth anything par aut simile, equal or similar. I had almost said there is not any who has a spark of intelligence, or a single grain of understanding or common sense, but himself; but in this I am checked by Mr. Owen's own statement, that all intelligent men had adopted his views; that all who had read, heard, and inwardly digested his doctrines, were wise and enlightened; but that all were fools besides! Such a statement is certainly highly creditable to the wisest, the best, and the most enlightened man that ever appeared on the stage of human life.

In conclusion, I may just notice that Mr. Owen informed the company that in his new world, or new order of things, they should neither marry nor be given in marriage. The company naturally concluded there was to be a promiscuous in tercourse-a community of women as well as a community of goods. But Mr. Owen immediately set them right in this matter, by telling them that the union of the sexes would be in all cases the union of the purest affection. Affection, he said, constituted the only true and natural marriage; and that when affection ceased, marriage ceased. Of course men should leave their wives when they cease to be objects of affection. Mr. Owen, with his characteristic candor and discernment, assured the company that marriages without affection were in

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