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nominates "divine, immutable, and eternal laws," and uses, as his armor offensive and defensive, whatever may be the subject or the occasion of the controversy in which he is engaged. His adversary may prove, to demonstration, the accomplishment of prophecy and the truth of miracles; he may expatiate, with equal force, on the purity, sublimity, simplicity, fidelity, and wisdom, of the word of God; he may show how the advancing lights of science have scattered the objections of its enemies; or dwell on its heavenly triumphs, whenever cordially received, over human depravity and woe; but he might as well belabor a rhinoceros, or any other "thick-skinned monster of the ooze and mire," with his syllogisms, as Mr. Robert Owen; who, having never troubled his head with the examination of history, or argument upon the subject, is far too wise to open his lips upon such questions; especially as he finds, in the following "facts and laws," a power, not only sufficient to subvert Christianity, to annihilate the old and to establish the New Moral World upon its ruins; but "to accomplish results far more extraordinary than any miracles which the wild fancy of superstition has yet imagined." The following is his own statement of these "facts and laws."

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THE FIVE FUNDAMENTAL FACTS.

1. Man is a compound being, whose character is formed of his constitution or organization at birth, and of the effects of external circumstances acting upon that organization, which effects continue to operate upon, and to influence him from birth to death.

2. Man is compelled, by his original constitution, to receive his feelings and his convictions, independently of his will.

3. His feelings or convictions, or both of them united, create the motive to action called the will, which stimulates him to act, and decides his actions.

4. The organization of no two human beings is ever precisely similar at birth; nor can art subsequently form any two individuals, from infancy to maturity, to be the same.

5. Nevertheless, the constitution of every infant, except in case of organic disease, is capable of being formed or matured either into a very inferior or a very superior being, according to the qualities of the external circumstances allowed to influence that constitution from birth.

< TWENTY FACTS AND LAWS OF HUMAN NATURE ON WHICH THE RATIONAL SYSTEM IS FOUNDED.

1. Human nature in the aggregate is a compound, consisting of animal propensities, intellectual faculties, and moral qualities.

2. These propensities, faculties, and qualities, are united in different proportions in each individual.

3. The different proportions of the same general propensities, &c. constitute the sole difference by which one individual is distinguished

from another.

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4. This difference in each is made by a power unknown to the individual, without his knowledge or consent.

5. Each individual comes into existence within certain external circumstances, which, acting upon his peculiar organization during the early period of life, impress their general character upon him; and thus the local and national character is formed unknown to the individual.

6. The influence of external circumstances is modified in a particular manner by the particular organization of each individual; and the distinguishing character of each individual is thus formed, continued, and maintained through life.

7. No infant has the power of deciding at what period of time, or in what part of the world, he shall come into existence; of what parents he shall be born, what particular religion he shall be trained to believe, or by what other external circumstances he shall be surrounded from birth to death.

'8. Each individual is so organized that, when young, he may be made to receive either true ideas derived from a knowledge of facts, or false notions, derived from the imagination, and in opposition to facts. 9. Each individual is so organized that he must necessarily become irrational, when he is made from infancy to receive, as truths, false notions; and can only become rational, when he shall be made from infancy to receive true ideas, without any admixture of error. 10. Each individual is so organized that, when young, he may be trained to acquire injurious habits only, or beneficial habits only, or a mixture of both.

'11. Each individual is so organized that he must believe according to the strongest conviction that is made upon the mind; which conviction cannot be given to him by his will, nor be withheld by it. 12. Each individual is so organized, that he must like that which is pleasant to him, or which, in other words, produces agreeable sensations in him; and dislike that which is unpleasant to him, or produces in him disagreeable sensations; and he cannot know, previous to experience, what particular sensations new objects will produce on any of his senses.

13. Each individual is so organized, that his feelings and convictions are formed for him by the impressions which circumstances produce upon his individual organization.

14. Each individual is so organized that his will is formed for him by his feelings or convictions, or both; and thus his whole character, physical, mental, and moral, is formed independently of himself. 15. Each individual is so organized, that impressions which, at their commencement and for a limited time, produce agreeable sensations, will, if continued, without intermission, beyond a certain period, become indifferent, disagreeable, and ultimately painful.

16. Each individual is so organized, that when, beyond a certain degree of rapidity, impressions succeed each other, they dissipate, weaken, and otherwise injure his physical, mental, or moral powers, and diminish his enjoyment.

17. Each individual is so organized, that his highest health, his

greatest progressive improvement, and his permanent happiness, depend upon the due cultivation of all his physical, intellectual, and moral faculties, or elements of his nature; upon their being called into action at a proper period of life; and being afterwards temperately exercised according to strength or capacity.

18. Each individual is so organized, that he is made to receive what is commonly called a bad character, when he has been created with what is now termed an unfavourable proportion of the elements of his nature, and has been placed from birth amidst the most unfavourable circumstances.

19. Each individual is so organized, that he is made to receive a medium character, when he has been created with what is now termed a favourable proportion of the elements of his nature, and has been placed from birth amidst unfavourable circumstances. Or when he has been created with what is now called an unfavourable proportion of these elements, and when the external circumstances in which he is placed, are of a character to impress him with favourable impressions only. Or when he has been created with what is now called a favourable proportion of some of these elements, and an unfavourable proportion of others, and has been placed, through life, in varied external circumstances, producing some good and some evil sensations. This compound has hitherto been the general lot of mankind. 20. Each individual is so organized, that he is made to receive a superior character, when his original constitution contains the best proportion of the elements of human nature, and when the circumstances which surround him from birth, and through life, are of a character to produce superior sensations only; or, in other words, when the laws, institutions, and customs under which he lives, are all in unison with the laws of his nature.' Book of New Moral World, pp. 1-4.

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Such, then, are these 'Five fundamental Facts, and Twenty other Facts and Laws of Human Nature,' which, after crossing so many lines of latitude and longitude,' after visiting the principal capitals of the old and new worlds, after expending a 'hundred thousand pounds,' together with hard study and many experiments for more than fifty years, Mr. Owen has succeeded in bringing together into a system; which, infinitely more potent than Fortunatus's cap, or Aladdin's lamp, is to produce results that shall surpass any miracle which the wild fancy of superstition has yet imagined.' How many of these facts are alike, how many contradictory, how many absurd, how many unintelligible, how many false, or how many, though true, impertinent to Mr. Owen's object, we shall not stop to inquire. Our readers, no doubt, will assign them their proper place among articles rare and curious,' and regard many of them as well worthy of their author and their alleged origin. But, be this as it may, they serve Mr. Owen just as well as any thing else, for premises to the following, amongst other infallible conclusions;

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as Macbeth's witches manage, from a rather unpromising hodgepodge, to draw forth oracles and predictions.

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Man is the creature of circumstances.

The whole man, physical, mental, and moral, is formed independently of any original will and choice of the individual; and is consequently irresponsible for what he is formed to be and made to do;' he is, therefore, irresponsible for the character formed for him whatever it may be.

Courts of justice have no other real object, than that the few may rule over and plunder the many, that error and injustice may be perpetuated, under the plausible terms of law and religion.

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There is no fixed standard in any part of the world, of a good or bad man.' Those who are called bad are not really such, but only persons that have been ill-treated by nature and society;' and to punish them is to inflict injustice' on persons already injured.' The offices of emperors, kings, princes, legislators, professors of divinity, law, medicine, arms, manufacturers,' merchants,' and 'tradesmen,' together with all the laws and rights of private property,' should be abolished.

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Celibacy, after the age plainly indicated by nature, is a great crime,' and men, like other animals, should in this matter be left to nature; there being no more occasion for laws to guide them in this respect than for the regulation of food and sleep.' Marriage is anaccursed thing,' the source of endless and multiplied miseries and crimes. It is an impure and false shame' that leads men or women to esteem any 'one portion of the human frame more secret or sacred than another; and single families are dens of selfishness, discord, and deceit.'

'Man is irresponsible for his belief, and his feelings and convictions within him are to him the truth while they continue.'

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Though there is a First cause,' there is no Personal Deity,' 'no Devil,' no future state,' no Heaven, no Hell ;' and all religions founded under the name of Jewish, Budha, Jehovah, God, or Christ Mahomet, or any other, amount to three absurdities, three sitions upon mankind.'

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'The sooner the order of the priesthood shall be made to cease over the world the sooner will the human race become prosperous and rational, or moral and happy.'

All public worship is irrational,' and it is impossible to train men to become rational in their feelings, thoughts, and actions, until all such forms shall cease.'

The earth should be divided into 'parallelograms;' and men and women should live, not in single families, but in communities of about two thousand each.

'The internal affairs of these communities should be managed by all the men, between the ages of thirty and forty, and their foreign affairs by all those from forty to sixty years of age.

All the children, though allowed to be visited by their parents, shall from the birth be under the special care of the community, and

trained together as one family,' and taught nothing but the laws of nature.'

And, finally, this system will greatly improve the human organization,' and prove a complete antidote to ill health and sickness; in short, that men will very soon find themselves in the midst of a paradise; where, by means of a little gentle exercise of two hours a day,' under the name of work, they will procure superior habitations, surrounded by gardens, pleasure-grounds, and scenery far better designed and executed than any yet possessed by the most powerful, wealthy, and extended empires.'-Vide Book of New Moral World; Marriage System of New Moral World; Outline of Rational System, &c.

For that shameless disclosure of the lewdness of his system, of which only a bare hint is given in the foregoing remarks and citations, but with which Mr. Owen has entirely filled one of the pamphlets referred to, it appears that many of his followers were not prepared. With quite enough light to become atheists, he has found them unprepared for that perfection of virtue which requires them to become brutes. Even the New Moral World, Mr. Owen's own periodical, allows that the most rational man on earth has used strong language;' and Mr. Owen himself has, lately, felt it necessary to stultify all that he had previously uttered on the subject, by the following announcement in what is called a ‘ma'nifesto,' forsooth! Robert Owen's manifesto! What next!

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Since the publication of my views upon the old system of marriage by the priesthood, the form of marriage, by the New Marriage Act, has been made exactly to meet my ideas and wishes, and all that I now desire is, to see another law enacted, by which divorce, under wise arrangements, and on principles of common sense, may be obtained equally for rich and poor...... And this change in the law of divorce is all that is now required to enable me legally and immediately to introduce to the world the most splendid practical arrangements, for the emancipation of man from ignorance, poverty, division, and crime, that has ever yet been conceived even in the most fervid imaginations of poets, philosophers, and reformers, of past ages or the present.'

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What is meant by the wise arrangements' and 'common sense principles,' which are to regulate divorce, the reader will learn from the following exposition given by Mr. Owen at a public meeting.

'If two young persons intimate an affection for each other, they are first required to continue single for three months; when, should their pur pose remain unchanged, they are united together for a twelvemonth. If, however, at the end of that time, they express a wish to be sepa

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