rence, it must be admitted, is an awkward one in any
ethical system. It represents, probably, Owen's most serious objection
to the religions of the world. The ultimate aim of the priest is to
save men's souls; and sin means conduct which leads to supernatural
punishment. Owen, on the contrary, held that immorality was simply a
disease to be cured, and that wrath with the sinner was as much out of
place as wrath with a patient. In this sense Owen's view, as I at
least should hold, defines the correct starting-point of any social
reformer. He has to consider a scientific problem, not to be an agent
of a supernatural legislator. He should try to alter the general
conditions from which social evils spring, not to deal in pardons or
punishment. Owen was acting with thoroughly good sense in his early
applications of this principle. The care, for example, which he
bestowed upon infant education recognised the fact that social reform
implied a thorough training of the individual from his earliest years.
Owen's greatest error corresponds to the transformation which this
belief underwent in his mind. Since circumstances form character, he
seems to have argued, it is only necessary to change the circumstances
of a grown-up man to alter his whole disposition. His ambitious scheme
in America seemed to suppose that it was enough to bring together a
miscellaneous collection of the poor and discontented people, and to
invite them all to behave with perfect unselfishness. At present I
need only remark that in this respect there was a close coincidence
between Owen and the Utilitarians. Both of them really aimed at an
improvement of social conditions on a scientific method; and both
justified their hopes by the characteristic belief in the indefinite
modifiability of human nature by external circumstances.

I turn to a man who was in some ways the most complete antithesis to
Owen. William Cobbett (1762-1835), unlike Owen, took a passionate and
conspicuous part in the political struggles of the day. Cobbett,
declares the _Edinburgh Review_ in July 1807, has more influence than
all the other journalists put together. He had won it, as the reviewer
thought, by his force of character, although he had changed his
politics completely 'within the last six months.' The fact was more
significant than was then apparent. Cobbett, son of a labourer who
had risen to be a small farmer, had in spite of all obstacles learned
to read and write and become