establishments to be broken up, and even the ruin of some few individuals, who, although their capital was but small, yet having thrown it all into the common stock, when the community failed, found themselves in a state of complete destitution.  These persons, then, forgetting the “doctrine of circumstances,” and everything but the result, and the promises of Mr. Owen, censured him in no measured language, and cannot be convinced of the purity of his intentions in that affair.  Indeed, they have always at hand such a multiplicity of facts to prove that Mr. Owen himself mainly contributed to the failure, that one must be blinded by that partiality which so known a philanthropist necessarily inspires, not to be convinced that, however competent he may be to preach the doctrines of co-operation, he is totally incompetent to carry them into effect.

But Mr. Owen has also declared in public that “the New Harmony experiment succeeded beyond his most sanguine expectations.”  Now what may be his peculiar notions of success, the public are totally ignorant, as he did not think fit to furnish any explanation; but this the public do know, that between the former and the latter statement there is a slight discrepancy.

Some of Mr. Owen’s friends in London say, that every thing went on well at Harmony until he gave up the management—­that is, that he governed the community for the first few weeks, the short period of its prosperity, and that it declined only from the time of his ceding the dictatorship.  Now Mr. Owen himself says, that he only interfered when he observed they were going wrong; implying that he did not interfere in the commencement, but did so subsequently.  These are contradictions which would require a good deal of mystification to reconcile in appearance.  All the communicants whom I met in America, although they differed on almost every other point, yet agreed on this,—­that Mr. Owen interfered from first to last during his stay at Harmony, and that at the time when he first quitted it nothing but discord prevailed.

Very little experience of a residence in the backwoods convinced Mr. Owen that he was not in the situation most consonant with his feelings.  He had been, when in Europe, surrounded by people who regarded him as an oracle, and received his ipse dixit as a sufficient solution for every difficulty.  His situation at Harmony was very different; for most of the persons who came there had been accustomed to exercise their judgment in matters of practice, and this Mr. Owen is said not to have been able to endure.  He would either evade, or refuse, answering direct questions, which naturally made men so accustomed to independence as the Americans are, indignant.  The usual answer he gave to any presuming disciple who ventured to request an explanation, was, that “his young friend” was in a total state of ignorance, and that he should therefore attend the lectures more constantly for the future.  There is this peculiarity respecting the philosophy propounded by Mr. Owen, which is, that after a pupil has been attending his lectures for eighteen months, he (Mr. Owen) declares that the said pupil knows nothing at all about his system.  This certainly argues a defect either in matter or manner.