Brook Farm

extreme views of many of the founders. Changes had taken place in the Individuals composing it; some had departed. Six of the original stockholders remained. The number had increased t

was to be developed next among all the things desirable? Was it to push the school still further in progress

could at once agree as to what next steps were necessary to take, or to what definite end the Community should be s

hen they became acquainted with his ideas, especially his ideas of industry made attractive by organized labor, and its relation to the higher standard of work and liberal belief they had adopted and maintained thus far, their enthusiasm was awakened for them and they resolved to graft some of his formul

such internal evidences of harmony with human nature and with God's providence and laws that they carried conviction to the great and sympathetic minds of Brook Farm. Fourier argued that there was a sublime destiny for mankind on this eart

al, barbarian and civilized. Under these general heads may be classed the various social forms through which man has progressed up to the present day. If four have exi

asoning, for he will assert with equal confidence that necessity and want are necessary stimulants to industry. The barbarian is as ignorant of

he have supposed our weak reason would succeed in a task in which he himself doubted of success? If he has not wished, how can our legislators hope to organize a society which would lea

; in this case why create in us the want of it, without having the means of satisfying that want which he satisfi

tor to be the persecutor of mankind, creating in us wants which it is impossibl

ich case the Creator becomes a malignant being, know

he is incapable of governing us, knowing and wishing the good

own how; and we must attribute to him

, and he must have provided a mode for its revelation-for of what use w

e excusable for founding some hope of social good upon human science, upon the legislation of man; but long experience has proved t

ngenuity could invent has been applied to regulate their action; but all in vain-they have remained unchanged, and in the eyes of the moralist as perverse as ever. If, however, the latter be true-that is, if the social mechanism be false-then there is

him; the society fitted to the man; the one the counterpart of the other. Albert Brisbane, Parke Godwin and Horace Greeley, with the Tribune, were arousing the thinkers in New York; Gerritt Smith was agitating the land question and giving away to actual settlers vast tracts of land owned by him. The works of the communist Owen and others were read. Antislavery, anti-war and non-resistance societi

t, but first of all Mr. Ripley's wishes must be consulted: the key to the situation was in his hands. What would he do? Would he, and should they, take among them men and women endowed only with practical, everyday talents, able to be honest and make shoes and sew garments; to strike with a sledge and

told them that in every soul was a divine fire that aspired to the right no matter how deeply it had been covered from sight or buried

upremely blest with health, strength, education, talent, friends, companionship with the great and his cup filled full of the sweet and sublime accords of the Ch

tion, above all others of the Transcendental School, who hovered around, and wished to claim him as a bright example of a man separated from the common herd of humanity, as a leader of a select g

by a multitude of friends, new and old, and many secretly admiring his intrepid spirit, they could only vent their disfavor in sly sneers and hints that Mr. Ripley, and, of course, his followers with him, had fallen from their high estate. Yes, they who sat near by on the fences and crowed refo

s pause a few moments to give a slight sketch of the growth of human society from its primitive formation to the present time, trusting that the time

irly begun. It was the very dawn of the childhood of our race. To those who recognize the fact that the primitive man was a weak, unskilled, uncultivated savage, the conclusion must come that the first social life

ions of friendship, love and ambition implanted in their souls by their Creator shone out at times, at ot

dily produced from seed, the primitive race or races began to plant, and finding also that they had slain so many of the wild animals that they could keep herds of cattle without great danger of their destruction by

s to find water, sometimes to find pasture for their horses and cattle, and at harvest time they returned to their fields to harvest the

afterwards cities, sprang up, where the artisans resided; and being often liable to marauders, especially when the outside population or tribes were wandering away from them, they enclosed them with walls. By industry some wealth was acquired; some luxury and comparative splendor were intro

. Invention was stimulated, and means of dissemination of knowledge, such as the printing press and the university, came to light. Kings and princes reign by law, which is fully established, and commerce and trade flourish. These

ges, emancipated himself from physical surroundings until he stands forth free and independent, but without, however, any positive relation or duty binding him to maintain the independence of all the human brotherhood. His independence is for himself a

its final dissolution, and within it also the germs of a future and higher life, so civilized society carries in it the germs of its decay and dissolution, society being a natural product, as fruit is, of God's providence. Free competition is the destructive agent, or one of the mo

early civilization to the present time. This wealth, this capital comes from the reserved products of labor; "dried labor," it has been called, for labor is its only source of production. This wealth belongs to the community that has earned it, saved it an

oving power of civilization; but in the growth of civilization vast amounts of it have accumulated, and being unevenly distributed, there are those who are constantly see

of it; more is paid for the use of it than its real worth, so that wealth, even in this democratic country, is piling up in colossal fortunes by being drawn from the great body of s

ecomes so he is engaged in the same crusade. He is no better nor worse than the one whom we called capitalist yesterday. It is the unnatural position or relation of capital and labor that makes him what he is. To change this relation to a more just one was among the grandest ideas of the Brook Farmers, and the only wa

to sway a tribe or people; then passes into the hierarchy of the church, that rules by swaying mental terrors; next into the hierarchy of the state, that rules by both mental and physical terrors; and, in our present civilization, has passed or i

f this civilization will spring-is springing-a higher order. It is an order that the teacher Fourier called "guaranteeism." It is an order in which the governing power passes from the moneyed aristocracy into the hands of organized bodies. It is an order in which the spiritual and material truths are incorporated into organic societies and gover

unsparingly laid to the charge of the Deity as discipline for us, but which are the results of our own ignorance. The "harmonic order" is associated life of a high type, and includes association of families, economy of means, unity of interests, labor made attractive, equitable distribution of profits,

ers came into the field with their evolutionary theories, and it is at least a theoretic base for social scientists to build their hopes of present and future progress on. To the Brook Farm leaders

eed for their members. It was not compatible with the greater ideas of freedom held at Brook Farm. It was not a free life and it could not be a true life, for they

zation;-that is, the value of it-but by mutual consent might be retained, invested and added to the laborer's stock. Theoretically the result would show that the person who was the most capable, active and indu

age and youth, care in sickness-a certain "minimum" of rights according to the prosperity or wealth of the institution-and that an "integral education" was a duty of the Association-an education not of the mind alone, but of the hands, heart and affections-coincided exa

e some Herculean or disagreeable labor of the body, or it might be some enthusiasm imparted from some brilliant soul, that would win the honor; but it could be given to none except those who had won it

assist in accomplishing-"attractions are proportionate to destinies," as it is translated. Certainly it was simple and easy to grasp and believe, when explained so well as it had been by Fourier, and by Brisbane and Godwin, his American translators. And lastly

the human brotherhood, from religious convictions of duty, and in the belief that they would increase in love to one another, and draw to themselves by their example the good and wise; believing also tha

l life had been discovered? Were they immutable as the laws of earthly bodies-of the sun, the stars and the universe? And did they actually agree with the laws of music, color and mathematics? It seemed so. They could but try them

als along the line of social reform-it was not entirely palatable to all who had looked on the little Community as their pet property, their ideal home; for the sainted individualists, for cultivated book-worms, for theorists who could read Latin and Greek but whose ideas of

rtant, if not the one thing needful. Many good men stood at the outer gates waiting for entrance. The members of the "Direction" were firm, and brave. They felt that the experience of the first two

h all differences, whether of religion, or politics, or philosophy, are reconciled, and the dearest and most private hope of every man has the promise of fulfilment. Herein, let it be understood, we would remove nothing that is truly beautiful or venerable; we reverence the religious sentiment in all its forms, th

the worth of the whole past, and of every doctrine and institution it has bequeathed us; thus also we perceive that the present has its own high mission, and we shall only say what is beginning to be seen by all sincere thinkers, when we declare

is great work. And whatever may be the result of any special efforts, we can never doubt that the object we have in view will be finally attained; that human life sha

s.] GEORGE RIPLEY. MINO

Mass., Jan

e the first one, but varied from

primary series, to wit: Agricultural, Mechanical and Domestic Industry. The chief of each group to be elected weekly, a

ers must first reside on the pl

m may become candidates, and remain in this new relation

by the Direction of Finance when it shall

ventory of all the furniture and implements which they may retain as pri

om time to time for the prosecution of

of October to the first of April at least eight hours daily, and from the first of April to the fir

d in behalf of the Associat

es shall be charged at cost as near

into three stages: Infancy to six years, Pupilage from six to sixteen years, and Probation from

or amusement shall be protract

*

dy lamp at early eve, after the light toil of the day had ceased, and discussed the intellectual problems of the German philosophers who had giv

dustrial period began, he had more than his hands full, and he laid his books on the shelf. They were his tools-they were the ladders on which he had mounted to his high estate. Why should he worship them? They had taught him, as had the Hebrew writers, faith in the Creator; faith in His best