vi] LONDON WORKERS, SECULARISTS, ETC 89 



that the only true and wholly beneficial religion was that 

 which inculcated the service of humanity, and whose only 

 dogma was the brotherhood of man. Thus was laid the 

 foundation of my religious scepticism. 



Similarly, my introduction to advanced political views, 

 founded on the philosophy of human nature, was due to the 

 writings and teachings of Robert Owen and some of his 

 disciples. His great fundamental principle, on which all his 

 teaching and all his practice were founded was that thecharacter 

 of every individual is formed for and not by himself, first by 

 heredity, which gives him his natural disposition with all its 

 powers and tendencies, its good and bad qualities ; and, 

 secondly, by environment, including education and surround- 

 ings from earliest infancy, which always modifies the original 

 character for better or for worse. Of course, this was a theory 

 of pure determinism, and was wholly opposed to the ordinary 

 views, both of religious teachers and of governments, that, 

 whatever the natural character, whatever the environment 

 during childhood and youth, whatever the direct teaching, all 

 men could be good if they liked, all could act virtuously, all 

 could obey the laws, and if they wilfully transgressed any of 

 these laws or customs of their rulers and teachers, the only 

 way to deal with them was to punish them, again and again, 

 under the idea that they could thus be deterred from future 

 transgression. The utter failure of this doctrine, which has 

 been followed in practice during the whole period of human 

 history, seems to have produced hardly any effect on our 

 systems of criminal law or of general education ; and though 

 other writers have exposed the error, and are still exposing 

 it, yet no one saw so clearly as Owen did how to put his 

 views into practice ; no one, perhaps, in private life has ever 

 had such opportunities of carrying out his principles ; no one 

 has ever shown so much ingenuity, so much insight into 

 character, so much organizing power ; and no one has ever 

 produced such striking results in the face of enormous diffi- 

 culties as he produced during the twenty-six years of his 

 management of New Lanark. 



