go MY LIFE 



of vice and crime. The reply to this is that, acting on the 

 principle of absolute free-will, every government has alike 

 failed to abolish, or even to any considerable degree to di- 

 minish, discontent, misery, disease, vice, and crime; and that, 

 on the other hand, Owen did, by acting on the principle of 

 the formation of character enunciated by him, transform a dis- 

 contented, unhealthy, vicious, and wholly antagonistic popula- 

 tion of 2500 persons to an enthusiastically favourable, con- 

 tented, happy, healthy, and comparatively moral community, 

 without ever having recourse to any legal punishment what- 

 ever, and without, so far as appears, discharging any individ- 

 ual for robbery, idleness, or neglect of duty; and all this was 

 effected while increasing the efficiency of the whole manufac- 

 turing establishment, paying a liberal interest on the capital 

 invested, and even producing a large annual surplus of profits 

 which, in the four years 1809-13, averaged £40,000 a year, and 

 only in the succeeding period, when the new shareholders 

 agreed to limit their interest to 5 per cent, per annum, was this 

 surplus devoted to education and the general well-being of 

 the community. 



In view of such an astounding success as this, what is the 

 use of quibbling about the exact amount of free-will human 

 beings possess? Owen contended, and proved by a grand 

 experiment, that environment greatly modifies character, that 

 no character is so bad that it may not be greatly improved 

 by a really good environment acting upon it from early in- 

 fancy, and that society has the power of creating such an en- 

 vironment. Now, the will is undoubtedly a function of the 

 character of which it is the active and outward expression ; 

 and if the character is enormously improved, the will, result- 

 ing in actions whether mental or physical, is necessarily im- 

 proved with it. To urge that the will is, and remains through 

 life, absolutely uninfluenced by character, environment, or edu- 

 cation; or to claim, on the other hand, that it is wholly and 

 absolutely determined by them — seem to me to be propositions 

 which are alike essentially unthinkable and also entirely op- 

 posed to experience. To my mind both factors necessarily 

 enter into the determination of conduct as well as into the 



