corporations to the Phalanx. A certain pleasure will be felt, in the general service of the Phalanx, in attending more particularly to the wants of those whom we esteem and love. Numbers will engage in the groups and series of domestic service through aptitude and vocation, through zeal for the common good, through attachment for individuals.

"The groups and series are so interwoven, that almost all the members of the Phalanx participate in some of the labours of domesticity, &c.; and where spontaneous attraction is deficient, the sacred legion of boys and girls, the devoted corporation, will set all to rights with ardour and alacrity. There is, therefore, reciprocity of services. Domestic cares in this order of things will become the most powerful links of affection, and esteem, and gratitude. Every one is served with zeal, ardour, and devotedness; there is no occasion to command-all desires are foreseen; those who serve are apt and zealous friends, who will be served on another occasion with equal zeal and aptitude. It is the realization of the evangelical command-that society should form but one family, and that all men should be brothers."

We once knew a fellow-collegian who declared he would not marry until steam servants were invented: poor fellow, if he sees this extract, his hesitation is gone. Fourier beats the high pressure footman by many a mile.

The change to be wrought on religion is wondrous; as the world changes under the system of attraction, it is to become a scene of happiness, rejoicing, and perpetual activity. Truth and innocent simplicity are to reign in every heart, and God is to be adored in love; whilst religion is first, we presume, to be made a "mockery of truth, a cloud of fear and darkness, overshadowing men's mind, and shutting out the soul from the pure light of heaven," in order that Phalansterianism, when perfected, may no longer permit her to be that mockery of truth, that cloud of fear and thick darkness, that obstruction to the pure light of heaven, as she is denominated by our new philosophers, whose errors the Curate of Horbling, alas! not alone among our brethren, dares not only to cherish in his own bosom, but to advocate in the temple of God.

We have now arrived at what is styled at once the basis and apex of the system of Fourier, unitary education, which is at once to do away with all the present obstacles to education, and to be so simple a thing in harmony, that children cannot help being "brought up well without constraint, and educated by the natural development of their respective faculties in choirs and corporations of attractive industry, art, and science, under the incessant influence of moral and religious discipline and joyous freedom of vocation." So far as morality can be taught apart from doctrine, we do not mean to deny that moral education is one part of the scheme of phalansterianism-the syncretism of the modern system of education; of what nature the religious discipline must be intended to be, we have already had some glimpses as we passed on in our discoveries: doubtless we shall discover more as we progress through the chapter on Education.

After every kind of education now in being has been duly exposed and cried down, our philosopher's new system is set out at length. No one can accuse him of not beginning early enough—from the

cradle the new scheme is to commence. First, a great nursery in three departments for the infants of the entire phalanstery-rather noisy at times. We beg pardon, the children are in harmony; this is the true singing for the million. No swaddling-clothes and furs, but rooms of even temperature, hot water stoves, and spontaneous nurses. And now comes the grand invention,-the pivot of infantine harmony: "the cradles are moved by machinery, twenty at a time." Ohe jam satis, Madame Gammon-a mere slip of the pen. We have not time to alter it now. But let the lady give her own view of this education scheme.

"To vary the positions of the child, a cradle alone would not be sufficient; elastic mats will be employed. They are placed breast high; their supports form cavities, where each infant can lodge without incommoding its neighbours. Nets of cord and silk, placed from distance to distance, will guard the infant, without depriving it of motion, or preventing it from seeing and approaching the neighbouring infant, separated only by a net. Other arrangements are provided, so that they may all occupy themselves, amuse themselves, play, and at the same time extend, develop and exercise their limbs, and try their strength.

"Each of the chambers is served day and night by several groups of nurses of all ages; for the care of children pleases women at all periods of life. The greater part of the young girls, women, and matrons of the Phalanx, will voluntarily enrol themselves in the groups of nurses; the infants, who will be classed in the different rooms as their dispositions, more or less mild or clamorous, mischievous or violent, require nurses of different characters. The nurses will choose the groups for which they feel an aptitude. The more patient and easy-tempered will enrol themselves in the group of service for noisy and impatient children; the less patient will enrol themselves in the group of little angels. Each group will be again divided into smaller groups, forming a new choice for the nurses: one division is appointed to give nourishment; another attends to cleanliness; another watches constantly.

"The wet-nurses will form distinct groups; these are the mothers, who come at appointed hours, each to nourish her own infant. If one of the mothers is unwell, or deficient in milk, another who has a superabundance will assist her; it is a duty she performs towards the Phalanx, charged with the care of all the infants; it is a mark of affection she gives to the mother; it is a bond of unity among the sex.

"If a mother falls ill, all the series of nurses will offer to replace her immediately. Each mother who wishes to prolong the cares given to her own infant, will enrol herself in the series of nurses, and will choose the groups which suit her she gives her suckling particular attention, according to her own good pleasure. The infant belongs to the mother first, and to the Phalanx next. She joins the general group only because she sees she cannot give her infant near such constant and assiduous cares as it would find in the nursery, where groups of nurses, ardently attached to the children, relieve each other, day and night, without interruption. The mothers who wish to suckle their infants, without attending to the common duties of the nursery, will not enrol themselves in any group of the nursery corporation but the one, and be free to attend to other labours of their choice. The young mother, thus disposed, may content herself with seeing and embracing her infant, and witness the cares bestowed on it by others; nor is she required to participate in its maintenance. The Phalanx ensures to all its members, from the day of their birth, the minimum of subsistence, care, nd comfort.

"As soon as the children have some gleams of intelligence, and are

capable of some address, from three to four years of age, new corporations, devoted to the guardianship and guidance of children, have the care of conducting them in the different workshops of the Phalanstery, and in the gardens, orchards, fields, kitchen-gardens, stables, cow-houses, and poultryyards, where they have constantly under their eyes the labours of organized groups and series. The superintendents will consist chiefly of old men and matrons, for old age sympathizes most with childhood. The various aptitudes and talents of these young children will be allowed freely to dawn, grow, and develop themselves: their instinct of imitation is such, that to attract them to industry, it would be sufficient to allow them the use of miniature tools of gardening and general industry; they will immediately make use of them ardently and passionately, as they are instructed. They will not seek to break and destroy; but, stimulated by the example of children a little older than themselves, already useful workers, who enjoy certain privileges, such as larger and more substantial instruments, agreeable uniforms, a regular organization in groups and series, the little children will strive to put all the address of which they are susceptible into their miniature labours. A certain pride innate in children will likewise be taken advantage of, a feeling which makes them aspire to participate in the labours of those a little older, to render themselves useful, to be of importance; this will be turned to account from the earliest infancy upwards. In the gardens they will grub up noxious weeds; in the kitchen they will turn little spits, shell peas, wash the vegetables, sort the fruit, wash the plates, &c. From the moment that they become useful, they will be formed into choirs and corporations, groups and series, regularly disciplined in all their studies and their occupations. In each group are established different degrees of capacity, which is a means of emulation contained within the group itself, without reckoning the rivalries between contiguous groups. A means still more powerful, is the successive passage of childhood in different phases, corresponding to different ages. In proportion as he acquires vigour and intelligence, the child passes successively through different choirs and companies of youth, all of which enjoy the prerogatives and privileges conformable to their employments, which are successively more difficult and more elevated, so that each child has before him a group more advanced in strength and skill, into which he cannot enter, without perfecting himself, and passing the examinations necessary to prepare him for the labours and the studies of the group above."

Plenty of provision this for the social and material education, excepting in one very material point! How is it to be ensured that all these young Phalansterian angels may not with genuine perverseness become attached to one occupation-perhaps to that of doing nothing? As for their religious education, in that as well as the social and material, independence seems the foundation, the principlepick it up where and as you can. They are to see God in his works; to feel him in themselves; to recognise his presence in the social harmony of the Phalanx. Of course creeds are quite out of the question; it is these that have brought fear and darkness over man's soul, and shut him out from heaven. As for setting apart a body of men as teachers of religion-cannot be dreamt of-monstrous-contrary to attraction. What! when a man is allowed to be painter, servant, professor of music, ditcher, and cook, consecutively, shall one man be bound to be a teacher of religion for more than two hours? Fit it in between the cooking and the dancing lesson; take a two hours' turn at it in the barn, the cellar, the cow-house, the garden,

with Unitarians and Mormonites; that the "theological education given by the clergy is no doubt very much calculated to make bigots of the children, if they do not altogether cast it off and become atheists in mature life;" or, as they express it," bigots of a negative sort ;" and that in their eyes, Mr. Publicola Williams was not wrong in applying the word "humbug" to Church education, though the application of irreverent language to the teaching of theology or religion in the absolute, without distinguishing between a catholic or universal theology (Phalansterianism) and a particular sectarian creed, (the Church,) showed not only great ignorance on the part of Publicola, but a certain lowness of mind, which could not rise higher in its standard of educational excellence than the knowledge of isolated facts, such as Jack Cade's history, or the meaning of latitude and longitude. And lastly, mark how, with truly Satanical subtlety, they press the words of Scripture into the service of violence and robbery, and justify the poor thief, under the plea of David's abstraction of the shewbread. The following passage contains the Phalansterian creed as to crime, as represented by the omnipotent Hugh Doherty, in his translation of Abel Transom's Analysis of their master's Theory of Attractive Industry and the Moral Harmony of the Passions.

"It is often very difficult for poor people to find perfectly just modes of satisfying their natural wants; and the degree of crime in committing injustice depends upon the degree of facility with which the culpable person might have avoided it. So that, when it is impossible to find a just and moral mode of satisfying a natural desire, there is no absolute crime in having recourse to a subversive mode of satisfaction (i. e. robbery.) Christ has expressed himself to this effect, in the 12th chapter of St Matthew. When the Pharisees reproached him for permitting the disciples to break the sabbath, he replied thus:- Have ye not heard what David did, when he was hungred, and they that were with him; how he entered into the house of God, and did eat the shewbread, which was not lawful for him to eat, neither for them that were with him, but only for the priests?"-p. 49.*

Such, it is certain, are some few of the doctrines and opinions entertained and advocated by Fourier and his followers. Of their moral, religious, and political tendency it is needless to speak: they tell their own story far too plainly to need a commentary. For even in the advocacy of doctrines on which the stamp of falsehood has been placed by universal consent, the fair and open spirit of our nation is shown. That which among our neighbours is clothed in a flowing robe of fair speaking words, apt to deceive the unwary, or to mystify the uneducated, among us comes forth in all its nakedness and deformity, despite the careful following in the steps of their wary It is all very well for the Curate of Horbling to talk about

master.

* Can the trifling differences in the above quotation to that in our translation of the Bible arise from the translator making use of some other copy than that authorized by our Church? A straw will show which way the wind blows.

association upon Christian principles as the only remedy for our social evils, and to call upon us to construct a mighty and substantial edifice on these principles, as a shelter from the storms of antagonism and the wants of distress. It is all very well to preach submission to the poor; but when at the same time he recommends the theory of Fourier, and refers, and recommends his friends to refer, to the very books from which our extracts have been taken, he makes himself answerable for their contents, and can only be taken as holding the opinions therein advocated to the utmost, or as having recommended a theory before he was acquainted with its principles, or had perused the works of its advocates.

But to return to Madame Gatti de Gamond. Her work opens with a chapter on "the various systems concerning human destiny." The pagan religion is glanced at; the philosophical sects are condemned, except a slight modicum of praise to Lycurgus, "as apparently the legislator who best understood the human mind;" and Christianity is represented as teaching two doctrines alone,-universal charity and the immortality of the soul. Those doctrines, we are told, men have distorted; no one has taught them aright until Fourier arose. Side by side, Paganism, Lycurgism, Christianity, Benthamism, Republicanism, St. Simonianism, and Owenism, stand in this chapter. True it is, a divine character is allowed to Christianity, in that it taught universal charity; in no other respect does it seem to be taken out of the class of system with which it is here coupled. The St. Simonians, although not quite right, yet were "more advanced" than any previous sect "in social doctrines, and had understood that man should not despise any gifts of Providence, and that it was the duty of society to distribute them to all. Owenism, too, was partly right. The world has charged the Phalansterians with Owenism: read their own account of that arch deceiver, and then judge how far the world was wrong.

"Owen is one of those generous men, who, although among the number of the privileged, sympathise with the poor, sigh over the public misery, and before condemning the culpable, examine what could have impelled him to crime. Owen, seeing under his eyes, on the one side, wealth, and knowledge, and refinement; on the other, misery, ignorance, mendicity, too often accompanied by idleness, drunkenness, and theft, thought that vice was not the result of the nature of man, but of education, and of the circumstances that act on man, in the midst of which he finds himself from his birth, through life, until he leaves this world. He thought that by assuring labour to the poor, and giving them a suitable education, all the errors that now afflict their class might be eradicated, and that the reign of equality might be insensibly established. Enjoying the confidence of his countrymen, and possessing a large fortune, he, in some measure, attained the realization of his principles, which, truly, yielded astonishing results. He brought together, under his paternal management at New Lanark, beggars, drunkards, men come from prison, and succeeded in accustoming them to labour, and changing all this corrupted class into honest, expert, laborious workmen. The partisans of the doctrine of Babœuf might think that Owen was going completely to realise their system of equality and of community; but the experiment at New Lanark was incomplete, and Mr. Owen has extended his views to a higher order of community, embracing agricultural as well as