._ than Owen's plans] could
be more complete for the poor and working classes, but what will become
of us?"[38] Scattered throughout Owen's writings and speeches are
numerous evidences that he at times recognized the class antagonisms in
industrial society as the heart of the industrial problem,[39] but to
him, also, the germ of an important truth meant practically nothing. He
saw only the facts in their isolation, and made no attempt to discover
their meaning or to relate them to his teaching.

Each of the three men regarded himself as the discoverer of the truth
which would redeem the world; each devoted himself with magnificent
faith and heroic courage to his task; each failed to realize his hopes;
and each left behind him faithful disciples and followers, confident
that the day must come at last when the suffering and disinherited of
earth will be able to say, in Owen's dying words, "Relief has come."
Perhaps no better estimate of the value of the visions of these great
Utopists has ever been penned than that by Emerson in the following
tribute to Owen:[40]--

"Robert Owen of New Lanark came hither from England in 1845 to read
lectures or hold conversations wherever he could find listeners--the
most amiable, sanguine, and candid of men. He had not the least doubt
that he had hit on the plan of right and perfect Socialism, or that
mankind would adopt it. He was then seventy years old, and being asked,
'Well, Mr. Owen, who is your disciple? how many men are there possessed
of your views who will remain after you are gone to put them in
practice?' 'Not one,' was the reply. Robert Owen knew Fourier in his old
age. He said that Fourier learned of him all the truth that he had. The
rest of his system was imagination, and the imagination of a visionary.
Owen made the best impression by his rare benevolence. His love of men
made us forget his 'three errors.' His charitable construction of men
and their actions was invariable. He was the better Christian in his
controversies with Christians.

"And truly I honor the generous ideas of the Socialists, the
magnificence of their theories, and the enthusiasm with which they have
been urged. They appeared inspired men of their time. Mr. Owen preached
his doctrine of labor and reward with the fidelity and devotion of a
saint in the slow ears of his generation.

"One feels that these philosophers have skipped no fact but one, namely,
life. They treat man as a plastic thing, or so