Human Physiology. 427 



principle. There is individual poverty, or the renunciation of 

 private property, and perfect obedience to the rule of the order, 

 and the superiors who administer the rule. In the Middle Ages 

 most of the Religious Orders had an industrial character, as a 

 few still have. The monks felled forests, drained marshes, 

 made roads, built bridges, founded schools, colleges, and 

 universities, built churches and cathedrals, and were the van- 

 guard of civilisation. Religious orders are still among the 

 foremost in many countries in works of education and charity. 



And it is a curious fact, which the social reformer will do 

 well to consider, that the experiments of our own time in social 

 organisation which have had most success, have been governed 

 by the religious element. For example, the Shaker societies in 

 America have been perfectly successful as industrial associa- 

 tions. They are all rich, moral, industrious, and religious in 

 their own strange fashion; with well-cultivated domains, plain 

 comfortable dwellings, flocks and herds, and admirable manu- 

 factures. They live in celibacy, adopt children, taking them 

 by scores from workhouses, and live in a simple communism,, 

 without the natural enjoyments of marriage and paternity, and 

 with a pious renunciation of the pleasures of taste, art, and all 

 amusements, except the singing and dancing which enter into 

 their religious exercises. 



The Rappites in America are also religious communists, but 

 married, and having families. They have large villages, and 

 great farms, with all property in common, and form prosperous 

 communities, with every appearance of material success. 



The Mormons have grown, during the lifetime of many of 

 them, to a population of 100,000; in spite of, perhaps in con- 

 sequence of, violent persecutions, by which they were driven 

 from Ohio, Missouri, and Illinois, and finally across the Ameri 

 can continent to the great valley of Utah, where they founded 

 a city, government, and religion, and have become a large and 

 prosperous community. The Shakers prosper, and even increase. 



