In his opinion, one of the injurious results of our competitive system, having its roots, however, in the valuable “guilds” of a past epoch, was the almost universal restriction of our workers to only one kind of labour.  The result was a dreadful monotony in almost all spheres of work, the extreme unhealthiness of many, and a much larger amount of unemployment than if each man or woman were regularly trained in two or more occupations.  In addition to two of what are commonly called trades, every youth should be trained for one day a week or one week in a month, according to the demand for labour, in some of the various operations of farming or gardening.  Not only would this improve the general health of the workers, but it would also add much to the interest and enjoyment of their lives.

“There is one point,” he wrote, “in connection with this problem which I do not think has ever been much considered or discussed.  It is the undoubted benefit to all the members of a society of the greatest possible diversity of character, as a means both towards the greatest enjoyment and interest of association, and to the highest ultimate development of the race.  If we are to suppose that man might have been created or developed with none of those extremes of character which now often result in what we call wickedness, vice, or crime, there would certainly have been a greater monotony in human nature, which would, perhaps, have led to less beneficial results than the variety which actually exists may lead to.  We are more and more getting to see that very much, perhaps all, the vice, crime, and misery that exists in the world is the result, not of the wickedness of individuals, but of the entire absence of sympathetic training from infancy onwards.  So far as I have heard, the only example of the effects of such a training on a large scale was that initiated by Robert Owen at New Lanark, which, with most unpromising materials, produced such marvellous results on the character and conduct of the children as to seem almost incredible to the numerous persons who came to see and often critically to examine them.  There must have been all kinds of characters in his schools, yet none were found to be incorrigible, none beyond control, none who did not respond to the love and sympathetic instruction of their teachers.  It is therefore quite possible that all the evil in the world is directly due to man, not to God, and that when we once realise this to its full extent we shall be able, not only to eliminate almost completely what we now term evil, but shall then clearly perceive that all those propensities and passions that under bad conditions of society inevitably led to it, will under good conditions add to the variety and the capacities of human nature, the enjoyment of life by all, and at the same time greatly increase the possibilities of development of the whole race.  I myself feel confident that this is really the case, and that such considerations, when followed out to their ultimate issues, afford a complete solution of the great problem of the ages—­the origin of evil."[51]