community, yet he coincides with the views of modern communists in this, that even the most absolute inforcement of equality in the performance of labour does not prohibit one man to do the work of another, be it from motives of charity, friendship, gratitude, or any other consideration.

Robert Owen condemns celibacy as an evil to be suppressed for moral and physiological reasɔns. He says:-"Celibacy, in either sex, beyond the period designed by nature, is not a virtue, but, on the contrary, a crime against nature, causing other unnatural crimes." And again :-"Marriage will be encouraged, and celibacy discouraged as a cause leading to disease the body and mind, and to unnatural thoughts, feelings, and conduct." Both voluntary and forced celibacy are most hurtful, when, at the time of the age of puberty, nature makes her most violent demands for the satisfaction of the sexual instinct. Involuntary seminal emissions have a tendency to become chronic, and are in many instances the secret steps to self-abuse, ending in the bodily and mental prostration and moral ruin of the unfortunate youths, the innocent victims of a state of society in which the opportunities to marry at the right time do not exist for them.

CHAPTER XXXVI.-OVER-POPULATION.

THAT THAT a universal facility of marriage and subsequent increase in the number of people is not to be dreaded, Robert Owen argues in this manner :-" The vast increase of productive power from the abolition of useless professions and destructive luxury, will so augment the riches of the world that no providential considerations will be necessary to restrain the production of children." And also:-" The earth is yet a wilderness for want of people to drain its marshes, and to cultivate its soil,* nor does it yet produce one-thousandth part of the excellence and enjoyment which it is capable of bringing forth."

* Mr. Cobden used frequently to say that the valley of the Mississipi, when once brought under proper cultivation, would alone suffice to feed the whole of Europe.

Since Robert Owen first propagated these views, the means of conveyance by railroads and ocean steamers have increased to such an extent that cereals, breadstuff, ham, bacon, cheese, preserved meats, and even live cattle can be brought from the most distant transatlantic countries without any perceptible deterioration.

This facilitated intercourse of all countries of the world will finally bring about the realization of Owen's idea, that the immense increase of production in manufactured articles can be exchanged for an equivalent amount of food. If to this facilitated interchange between agricultural and industrial produce we add, as new means of subsistence, the extension of the fisheries of all countries having any seacoast; the new discovery of the fish and oyster culture; the continually increasing number of new alimentary substances, and the application of scientific treatment to the art of cookery, we need not be alarmed by the prediction of a great and calamitous human inundation, against which the Malthusians propose to erect a new Tower of Babel by a system of checks, which are not only opposed to human nature, but must be discarded as superfluous remedies for an evil that does not and never will exist.

Malthus and his disciples are also wrong in asserting that the great amount of pauperism actually existing in all civilized countries is the sad result of over-population. Malthus himself may be excused for taking this erroneous view, for at his time, emigration from populous countries had scarcely yet begun; but his disciples, especially the author of "Physical, Sexual, and Natural Religion," cannot have been ignorant of the fact that Ireland, whose population has been reduced by nearly one half, is still encumbered with a most luxuriant crop of roaming and stationary pauperism.

Let us pass by the Malthusian alarmists, and listen once more to the refreshing and hopeful thoughts of Robert Owen: "The increased power of industry by mechanical and scientific appliances will saturate the world with wealth."

And from this fructifying process of human labour, including both agriculture and manufacture, such an abundance of every consumable and useful article will be created, that it never can be overtaken by population; for industrial progress does not

advance in a graduated potential proportion, but strides forward in immeasurable bounds and starts; which, combined with the inexhaustible alimentary resources of the earth, rivers, and oceans, and with the tribute of the feathered tribes and other animals (of which some, like chickens and rabbits, can be bred in Multhusian progressions), will surely provide a never failing supply of human food, however large and rapid the increase of future generations of the human family may become.

So elated was Robert Owen with this hopeful prospect, that he exclaimed:"Great Britian can support an incalculable increase of population; and that so far from fearing a too rapid augmentation, we should be unable sufficiently to stimu late its progress."

The discouragement addressed by Malthus to all social reformers who advocate the suppression of prostitution and the extinction of pauperism and advise the extension of marriage or free sexual intercourse to all single men and women, cannot deter them from their advocacy; for besides their trust in the unlimited resources of the alimentary produce of the earth and the sea, they can moreover rely on two other great facts, which will powerfully contribute to limit the increase of population. It is well known to all naturalists that animals as well as plants are least procreative or fruit-bearing when they grow most luxuriantly, and that on the contrary they are most prolific when hindered in their growth. Thus we find that a dwarf pear tree which had its branches cut, twisted, and bent in all directions, will be loaded with fruit, whilst a pear tree planted in the same soil but left to its natural growth, will present a most luxuriant foliage and great height, but with only a very few pears,' hanging on its branches. Likewise, a small little woman will generally bear more children than a tall and stout one. fact that the poor have a great many more children than the rich must be explained from a similar cause. It is also the reason why consumptive persons have their sexual desire excited to a greater degree than healthy individuals.

The

Free sexual intercourse will also to some extent check overpopulation; for between the periods of forming new connections, a considerable time will be spent in preliminary courtship. Some objectors to free sexual intercourse have even insinuated

that if women were free to marry they would choose celibacy, in order to avoid the inconvenience of pregnancy and the pains of childbirth. It must certainly be admitted that innocent maidenhood has a natural dread of the conjugal union with man, but this will be easily overcome by the meeting of the sexes in the first flush of the passions, and this period of legitimate union being deferred until the full development of puberty, and highly favoured by festivals, games, dancing, public and private meetings of the parties, no woman will escape into celibacy, and the state will give its virgins away just in the same decent manner as fathers do now with their daughters.

IN

CHAPTER XXXVII.-GOVERNMENT.

N all civilized countries of the world the tendency of political progress has in this century aimed at the extension of the franchise. The clamouring of the people for participation in the government of the country has resulted, amongst some of the greatest nations, in the acquisition of universal suffrage, or in a large extension of the right of choosing persons to legislate and govern for the people. In Switzerland the people exercise even a final vote on every law proposed by their representatives legislatures.

Cabet says that "in Icaria the National Assembly directs, but in all important matters the whole mass of the people decides definitively."

Considering that the Icarian institutions were elaborated by Cabet long before similar laws were adopted by Switzerland, one cannot help thinking of the marvellous spread of democratic ideas through the works of advanced writers.

Cabet greatly regrets that legislative power and action cannot be directly exercised by the people themselves, saying:-" If the whole people of Icaria could be assembled on one spot, no representative government would be needed, for they could, directly, instantly, and collectively, exercise their power of government."

Had Cabet but had the slightest idea of the marvellous results of the electric telegraph, and of its possible application as an

admirable contrivance to collect and transmit to one central point the will and decision of the whole people, in the shortest and surest way, we may presume that he would not have conceived the representive government adopted by the Icarians.

The institutions of Icaria claim, however, our serious attention, not only on account of the thorough democratic spirit they breathe, but also on account of their influence on recent political movements, which, as France and Spain, tended towards the establishment of federalism, or the government by small corporate bodies, towns, communes, districts, circles, or provinces.

Of the representative government, as instituted in Icaria, Cabet says:

There is a national representation in Icaria, emanating directly from the power of the people.

There are a thousand sectional assemblies in Icaria, forming the popular government of the country, and those, voting sometimes by Ayes and Noes, on one and the same subject, express the wish of the whole nation.

"There are sectional popular assemblies in every town and locality where a sufficient number of people can be brought together by being convoked three times a month, or at other times, either by a magistrate or by a certain number of the people themselves.

"Every citizen has the right to bring before the popular assembly any project of law or reform, and to open a discussion on any subject relating to the national administration, or to ask any questions on public matters.

"Even the presidents of the national assemblies in Icaria are working men. The actual president is a stonemason. "There is no House of Lords in Icaria, for all citizens possess equal political power; their popular assemblies are their high courts of parliament."

The Democratic Charter of the Future annexed to this book as an appendix contains similar proposals, not as radical reforms, but as means of transition to a final communistic organization of society.

* "Let us have electrical conversazione offices, communicating with each other all over the kingdom.”—FRANCIS RONALD, first projector of the electric telegraph.