Search -
A new view of society: Or, Essays on the formation of the human character, preparatory to the development of a plan for gradually ameliorating the condition of mankind (Reprints of economic classics)
A new view of society Or Essays on the formation of the human character preparatory to the development of a plan for gradually ameliorating the condition of mankind - Reprints of economic classics Author:Robert Owen From Introduction: "In contemplating, the public characters of the day, no one among them appears to have more nearly adopted in practice the principles which this Essay develops than yourself. In all the most important questions which have come before the senate since you became a legislator, you have not allowed the mistaken considerations... more » of sect or party to influence your decisions; so far as an unbiased judgement can be formed of them, they appear generally to have been dictated by comprehensive views of human nature, and impartiality to your fellow creatures. The dedication, therefore, of this Essay to you, I consider not as a mere compliment of the day, but rather as a duty which your benevolent exertions and disinterested conduct demand. Yet permit me to say that I have a peculiar personal satisfaction in fulfilling this duty. My experience of human nature as it is now trained, does not, however, lead me to expect that even your mind, without personal inspection, can instantaneously give credit to the full extent of the practical advantages which are to be derived from an undeviating adherence to the principles displayed in the following pages. And far less is such an effect to be anticipated from the first ebullition of public opinion. The proposer of a practice so new and strange must be content for a time to be ranked among the good kind of people, the speculatists and visionaries of the day, for such it is probable will be the ready exclamations of those who merely skim the surface of all subjects; exclamations, however, in direct contradiction to the fact, that he has not brought the practice into public notice until he patiently for twenty years proved it upon an extensive scale, even to the conviction of inspecting incredulity itself."« less