CHAMBERS'S INFORMATION FOR THE PEOPLE. 



and the persevering become wealthy ; vast num- 

 bers, either from lack of capacity or opportunity, 

 sink into a state of extreme indigence ; and a 

 number become criminals, and prey on the rest 

 There is truth in this severe statement of facts ; 

 for in every nation there are rich and poor, good 

 and bad. Nevertheless, such a mingled tissue is 

 an inevitable consequence, not of the structure ol 

 society, but of human nature, on which society is 

 founded. We must seek a remedy in the improve- 

 ment of man's moral and intellectual constitution, 

 not in subverting the whole organisation of society, 

 and attempting to reunite it on fantastic principles 

 at variance with nature. Nor should any alarm 

 be entertained respecting the lamentable evils 

 which seem to be inseparable from society as it at 

 present exists. These evils, and they are great, 

 will never utterly disappear, because human per- 

 fection is unattainable, but they will in time be 

 much modified. In every region, society goes 

 through a period of barbarism, during which many 

 cruelties are perpetrated and privations endured ; 

 after this, as men become enlightened, the worst 

 kind of evils gradually disappear, and others of 

 lesser severity remain. At present, society in 

 Great Britain and most civilised nations is in a 

 transition state from barbarism to enlightenment. 

 Within even the recollection of men now living, 

 the steps in advance have been considerable, and 

 every year adds to the number of both physical 

 and social meliorations. Whatever may be the 

 fate of individuals or nations who, from sensuality, 

 vanity, and other forms of selfishness, neglect 

 their duties to others and to themselves, there can 

 be no reasonable doubt that society, as an institu- 

 tion of God and nature, will continue to improve, 

 and that much that is now matter for regret and 

 reproach will be amended or removed. 



UTOPIAN COMMUNITIES. 



Ingenious men have at different times conceived 

 to themselves the idea of a state of society, or 

 republic, in which vice, sorrow, indolence, poverty, 

 and other evils shall either be unknown, or at 

 least reduced to a scarcely perceptible amount. 

 None of these theories has gained so much 

 celebrity as that announced by Sir Thomas More, 

 under the name of Utopia (from a Greek word 

 signifying no place). The author was Chancellor 

 of England in the reign of Henry VIII. and was 

 a man of the highest and most honourable char- 

 acter. His work was written in Latin, and the 

 elegance with which he propounded his appar- 

 ently benevolent but really satirical scheme, has 

 made the name of his imaginary republic to be 

 adopted in our language as a current expression 

 to denote any plan of social economy which is 

 founded on views of human nature too favourable 

 to be practicable. 



The work was written not long after the dis- 

 covery of America, near which continent, south 

 of the line, the island of Utopia is supposed to lie. 

 The story of discovering this island is represented 

 as being told by a venerable traveller, whom the 

 author met at Antwerp. 



The Utopia of Sir Thomas More was suggested 

 to him, no doubt, by the reading of Plato's 

 Republic, which has been the parent of all such 

 proposals. Tn later times, schemes not very dis- 

 similar have been seriously proposed by be- 



nevolent speculators, and partly carried into prac- 

 tice, though with no prospect of permanent con- 

 tinuance. At the head of this class of projectors 

 may be mentioned Robert Owen and Fourier, the 

 latter a religious enthusiast in France. Gener- 

 ally stated, these plans consist in causing fifty or 

 a hundred families, as the case may be, to live 

 in one community, in which all are to labour for 

 the general behoof, and all to be supported on 

 equal terms out of the common stock. Individual 

 property is to be unknown ; all personal feelings 

 are to be sunk in that of the community. How it 

 is proposed to meet differences as to the education 

 of children, religious belief, and other important 

 matters how evil passions are to be extinguished, 

 or what is to be the consequence of the idle preying 

 on the industrious, has never been satisfactorily 

 explained. According to Fourier, we believe, 

 members seriously transgressing the rules are to 

 be expelled the community ; which amounts to a 

 giving up of the whole principle. If the com- 

 munity cannot reclaim and retain its evil-dis- 

 posed members, the scheme is confessedly worth- 

 less. Defective as ordinary society is allowed 

 to be, it does not eject the most vicious or the 

 most improvident of its members for the crim- 

 inal it finds prisons and penitentiaries, and to the 

 poor and starving it offers workhouses ; even the 

 most dissolute can pick up an alms. The funda- 

 mental error of all such schemes consists in the 

 notion that society is the result of human inge- 

 nuity, and admits of being reconstructed and 

 remodelled at will ; whereas it rests upon natural 

 laws, and results from individual characteristics, 

 which are as unchangeable in their action as those 

 which govern growth and decay in the vegetable 

 world. It is no more possible to make all men 

 equally good, and wise, and happy, than to make all 

 trees grow equally straight or equally tall. And out 

 of the natural inequalities and diversities of gifts and 

 endowments, spring the inequalities of means, and 

 the diversities of position in a word, the whole 

 organic structure of society as it exists, and, with 

 such improvements as advancing civilisation may 

 bring along with it, always must exist. By ob- 

 serving its laws, we may improve the condition 

 of its individual members, as we may improve the 

 plants in our gardens by observing the character 

 of the soil, and the effect of the means which we 

 employ to enrich it. But we can no more change 

 their individual characteristics, or obviate the 

 consequences and relations which naturally result 

 from their peculiarities, than we can convert 

 onions into apples, or make plants grow with 

 their roots in the air. 



PATRIARCHAL SOCIETY CLANSHIP. 



The patriarchal condition of society has pre- 

 vailed in Arabia and other eastern countries from 

 the most remote periods of history. It is the 

 most simple kind of social union. A patriarch, so 

 called from a word signifying father or head of a 

 iamily, is the head or governor of a tribe, who obey 

 iis orders, and depend in a great measure on his 

 judgment. Generally, the office of patriarch is 

 hereditary, but it is also sometimes elective, 

 though very generally in the same family. The 

 most distinguished of the ancient patriarchs was 

 Abraham, the great progenitor of the Hebrew 

 nation, who was originally a dweller in Arabia. 





