tal, and exhibiting the contrast of Dives and Lazarus upon an ever increasing scale.

Such extremes do not exist in this country, nor are they likely to appear so long as our system of popular education, laws of inheritance, and free industry remain. In fact, they can never exist here without the utter wreck of our government, for no force at the command of the magistracy could sustain the laws and protect property when the wretched become a large minority, not to say majority. American Socialists affirm very strongly that the tide is setting with us as in Europe, and the small properties are fast being swallowed up by the great fortunes. We are by no means ready to believe in any such fatal doom to our great middle class. However the case may be in the great cities, it is more than probable that in the nation the number of landholders is every year increasing, and that immigration, which so swells the ranks of the poor in our cities, is adding greatly to the number of land-owners in the country at large. Their number has been estimated as high as four fifths of all thevoters of the nation, and there can be no doubt that it exceeds considerably

one half that amount.

It is not then the prevalence of poverty or the prospect of any speedy civil commotions that has given socialist questions such interest in this country. But other causes in a measure peculiar to our condition have prompted the discussion. The very fact that we have a new country, not cursed by centuries of feudal oppression, encourages generous minds to consider what must be done to shun the miseries that have sprung from the European system, and which may under new forms appear among us. Among ardent speculative thinkers there has always been something of that disposition to shape out a new future in America which led Southey and Coleridge in their enthusiastic days to look westward for their Utopia, and plan their Pantisocracy on the Susquehanna banks. our people at large, even among those in comfortable circumstances, there is a singular sensitiveness to social distinctions, which makes them impatient under inferiority, and shows itself in much of the reform spirit of our country. The fact, moreover, that every man has here a vote, gives a certain practical importance to the discussion of leading questions, and prompts classes of persons to consider our social and political system who might otherwise plod on in the beaten path as if precedent were fate. The large number who go from our free schools into the mechanical trades are giving a peculiar character to the discussions of American workmen,

In

and enlisting no small share of knowledge and talent in defense of the rights and interests of labor. In fine, whatever occupies any considerable portion of the people soon finds its way into the political arena, and the time is not far distant, if it has not already come, when socialist questions enter into party politics.

It is not much more than ten years since Socialism, in the full sense of the word, was presented to the people of this country. Before that time indeed Owen and Frances Wright had tried to plant their follies on our shores, and had refuted themselves by provoking the common sense and common religion of our nation. In some measure perhaps under their influence a workingmen's party was formed, which claimed for manual labor the honor of producing all wealth and the right to rule the land. We remember well how adroitly and efficiently the presumption of this party was rebuked by Edward Everett, in his noted lecture to workingmen on the harmony of all labor and the power of the sciences in the practical arts. Never was a bird of prey more keenly pierced by a shaft winged from its own feathers, than was this preposterous faction by this accomplished orator. Since that time it has not been common to disparage intellectual labor, and the movements among the American workmen now openly recognize the value of all work, whether of head or hand.

The Socialism of France, especially of the school of Fourier, was introduced to American readers, we believe, for the first time by Mr. Albert Brisbane, and afterwards expounded in the Harbinger, an able weekly journal conducted by members of the Brook Farm Association at West Roxbury. For some years these writers set forth the principles of Fourier as the only cure for existing social evils, and various attempts were made to give a practical illustration and proof of the system. These attempts were, we believe, uniformly unsuccessful, both from the inadequate means employed, as their authors say, and also, as we think, from the visionary nature of the plan. Yet it would be unfair not to allow that even these failures developed new and encouraging aspects of social life; glimpses of a better co-operative order, hints of truer relations of man to nature, as well as presumptuous dreams and mortifying disappointments. We know enough surely of the Brook Farm Association to honor the energy and selfsacrifice of its leaders, and to ascribe its financial failure quite as much to the inefficiency of their avowed supporters as to the visionary nature of their plan. Why they should be as

sailed by a storm of indignation for the attempt to establish a joint stock association, which should combine education with agriculture and the useful arts, we were puzzled to understand. The result of the enterprise might perhaps have been very different, had it been confined to the original plan, and not identified with the doctrines of Fourier, as it afterwards was to a great extent in its avowed organ, and wholly so in the view of the public.

The result of the experiments in the Old World and with us, in connection with a better knowledge of Fourier's system, has made the more sober Socialists wary of being confounded with him. There are probably a much less number of Fourierites in this country now than three years ago. The Frenchman's pantheism is utterly offensive to our practical views of religion, and his doctrine of passional attraction wholly at war with our ideas of moral agency and individual responsibility. In the work of Mr. James, indeed, we have an able exhibition of Fourierism in its most paradoxical and repugnant features. Not content with presenting the advantages of co-operative labor in bettering the circumstances and favoring the mental and moral culture of man, Mr. James claims everything for the associative system, and denies the very possibility of religion except as the result of a true external social order, and the possibility of irreligion except as the result of external social disorder. Human will as a determining power is thus nothing, and man becomes a god at once, as soon as circumstances are so arranged that the divine life can flow into him, like the waters of a sacred river into a well adjusted series of conduits. The old-fashioned virtue of self-denial is laid utterly on the shelf as an antiquated folly, and the fact that a man breaks human and divine laws to satisfy his passions only proves that society is out of joint and does not provide the transgressor with what he desires. Give every man what he wants, says virtually this new Antinomian, and there will be no trouble. Let the passions have their way, and they will take the course marked out for them by the Creator; no longer burning with unhallowed fires, they will glow with healthy warmth and be ministers of the divine life. The plain inference actually made in set terms by Mr. James is, that crime is misfortune only, and that society, instead of punishing the thief or murderer, ought to beg pardon of him for obliging him to resort to such inconvenient methods of satisfying his desires. Only give him what he wants, and he will not break into houses or waylay travellers. Such doctrines, we need not say, find few open advocates, and we trust few

followers, in this country. They have been very ably refuted by the more Christian portion of American Socialists, and it would not be fair to exhibit them as the creed of the party. They have been treated very fully by William Henry Channing, and shown to be entirely inconsistent with the first truths of religion and the essential principles of social order. They have been uniformly opposed by Mr. Greeley, and by the general policy of the powerful journal conducted by him. We say here, what we have said before, that we have never read a more pernicious book than that called "Moralism and Christianity." Its well chosen language and alleged spirituality of purpose are more dangerous than open. licentiousness, for they preach the law of self-indulgence in the attractive garb of a sublimated spiritual philosophy. The author indeed is far from favoring what are called vicious indulgences, and expressly condemns them as hurtful. But not one word does he say to fix upon the transgressor's conscience the sense of guilt, or to quicken his sense of personal responsibility. In fact, Epicurus himself is a stoic, nay, an ascetic, in comparison with this apostle of the passions and pleasures. Very differently would the lives of the saints and sages of our race have been passed and written, if at the parting of the ways they had listened to such a counsellor instead of HIM who glorified self-denial by his cross.

Professor Stein thought, two years ago, that speculative Socialism had gone through all its phases in Europe, and that for some time nothing had been contributed to its stores. The chief interest of the subject he expects to find in the attempts to carry out its principles. In this country, now, there seems to be less regard for the abstract philosophy of the Socialists, and an increasing disposition to insist upon certain practical measures that are deemed essential for the protection of labor. The most ambitious theorists appear inclined to fall in with this practical tendency, and we believe that the only surviving organ of the philosophical party expired last winter. Horace Greeley may be regarded as practically the head of American Socialists, and his volume of Essays, in connection with The Tribune, represents the present aspect of the movement.

Of Mr. Greeley we cannot speak in any terms but of respect. Occupying a position which identifies him as a politician with the wealth and conservatism of the country, he has said more plain and unwelcome truths in the face of this party than any radical reformer in the country. Editor of a newspaper probably on the whole more widely read and influential than

any other, he has made it from the beginning the organ of the interests of the great working class. Some opponents indeed accuse him of such perfect cunning as to balance one set of opinions by another, and to aim to curry favor with capitalists by his Tariff doctrines sufficiently to atone in their view for his Socialism. We can only say, from a pretty long acquaintance with his course, and for some time a daily perusal of his paper, that we must regard him as an inde pendent and consistent friend of the industrial classes, and that we are all indebted to him for knowledge of the condition of the laboring class, and for suggestions towards practical reforms that must tell upon the future of our nation. It would be very easy to find fault with him, and begin an interminable catalogue of extravagances out of the products of his prolific pen. This task, however, has been so zealously performed by his rivals in the editorial line, that no further attempt is necessary. The volume bearing his name, "Hints toward Reforms," gives a fair idea of the result of his socialist studies, and of the present aspect of the movement in this country. The author, whilst accepting Fourier's cardinal principles of Associate Industry, carefully avoids identifying himself with his theological speculations and ethical laxities. We find little in the reform measures recommended in this volume which can offend any Christian creed, or which might not find acceptance with classes of thinkers of every denomination. It is very certain that the paper against capital punishment would be more apt to excite theological opposition than any of the schemes proposed for the emancipation of labor. Christianity is presented throughout as the standard of character, and if it is here regarded rather as a spirit of general humanity than as a peculiar faith and piety based upon a special revelation of the Divine will, Christians of the most evangelical stamp will not deny that the prevalent forms of worldliness are often rebuked with a severity that would not shame the sternest moralist of the pulpit. We indeed look in vain through these pages for those pungent views of Christian truth and human perversity that are vital to personal regeneration, but it should in justice be remembered that most of the topics bear upon the external evils of society, and that many of the gravest theologians, many clerical economists, have treated such social concerns with far less Christian elevation of sentiment than the author.

We will speak now of the three leading branches of social reform in respect to Labor, Land, and Capital. We begin with Labor Reform. We are not able to give full statistics of