The life of Robert Owen: PREFACE

The greatest discovery that man has made for the universal happiness of his race through all future time is the knowledge of the facts for practice, "That the made receives all its qualities from its maker, and that the created receives all its qualities and powers from its Creator." It is the greatest discovery, because man to this day, in opposition to the myriads of facts existing around him through all past generations to the present, has been taught to think that the made and created make their own qualities and powers. Such, in fact, has been the teaching of the superstitions, governments, laws, and institutions of men, through all past generations; such is their teaching at this day; and this teaching deranges the rational faculties of all so taught, and perverts their judgment to so great an extent as in most cases to make it worse than useless on all subjects of the highest importance to the individual and to our race. - It is the greatest discovery, because it thus discloses the origin of evil among men, and the means by which to remove the evil for ever. - It is the greatest discovery, because it discloses the cause why men have never yet been made to become good, wise, united, and happy; and why so large a mass of the population of the world has always been kept in a state of gross ignorance and degradation, and has been afflicted with so much mental misery and physical suffering. - It is the greatest discovery, because it opens the broad, plain, and easy path, for the authorities of the world to adopt decisive practical measures to make all to become good, wise, united, healthy, abounding in wealth, and always physically and mentally happy. - It is the greatest discovery, because the knowledge of our nature which it discloses will induce all to endeavour to promote the happiness of all, by the great unceasing pleasure which each will derive from the practice. It is the greatest discovery, because it will terminate all anger, ill-will, contests, and wars, among men and nations, and will make the art of war to be no longer taught, and to cease for ever. - It is the greatest discovery, because it discloses the means by which the human race, through futurity, may with ease and pleasure be made to become full-formed superior men and women, with all their physical and mental faculties, powers, and propensities, cultivated to be each exercised to the point of temperance. - It is the greatest discovery, because it discloses the incalculable importance of superior surroundings in which to place humanity; surroundings all superior, to the exclusion of those which are inferior. - It is the greatest discovery, because it opens a new book of life to man, and will enable him to perceive more clearly what manner of being he is; that he is formed by a double creation: the one, previous to birth, a mysterious and divine organization of wonderful powers, yet more wondrously combined, physically and mentally; the other a secondary or new creation, superadded, to bring the first to its earthly maturity, and chiefly through the agency of matured humanity, to which is given the greatest interest that this secondary creation should be in accordance with the first, and without which, man will be misformed, and will not attain the happiness for which he is evidently intended by the perfection of his first or divine creation. - It is the greatest discovery, because it will enable man to know himself, and by knowing himself to know humanity generally; and through this knowledge to be made to acquire universal love and charity for his race, high excellence in knowledge of the surroundings which are in accordance with his divine nature, and how to apply them most advantageously to practice, and thus to discover the necessity to abandon all cities, towns, and isolated residences, as now constructed and in use over the world, all forming compounds of inferior and most injurious surroundings. - It is the greatest discovery, in short, because it will elevate man from an irrational, inconsistent, fighting, and contending animal, to a new existence, in which he will become a peaceful, consistent, rational, intellectual, and happy being, occupied in promoting the happiness of all that has life, to the extent practicable, and will thus attain the highest permanent enjoyment of which humanity is capable. The following pages contain the history, step by step, of the progress of the mission to prepare the population of the world for this great and glorious change, which, when accomplished, will yet more demonstrate the knowledge, wisdom, and goodness of the Eternal Creating Power of the Universe, and that the best has been and ever will be done for all created existences, that the eternal elements of the universe will admit, through the processes by which all created things attain maturity. In other words, and to simplify the subject, the mission of my life appears to be, to prepare the population of the world to understand the vast importance of the second creation of humanity, from the birth of each individual, through the agency of man, by creating entirely new surroundings in which to place all through life, and by which a new human nature would appear to arise from the new surroundings. In taking a calm retrospect of my life from the earliest remembered period of it to the present hour, there appears to me to have been a succession of extraordinary or out-of-the-usual-way events, forming connected links of a chain, to compel me to proceed onward to complete a mission, of which I have been an impelled agent, without merit or demerit of any kind on my part. That mission has been to point out to humanity the way to remove from it the cause of sin and misery, and how in place thereof to attain for all of our race in perpetuity a new existence of universal goodness, wisdom, and happiness, and to withdraw from man all unkindness to man and even to animal life over the earth, so far as may be consistent with his own happy progress while upon it. This great and self-evident truth "that the Creating Power gives all the qualities to the forms created", is the knowledge required in man to harmonise the earth and its varied products, and especially to harmonise man to nature by consistent obedience to all her laws; and thus to unite mankind through future ages as one man, with one language, feeling, interest, and object, as is the evident ultimate destiny of our race. By withdrawing all responsibility from the created, and of course all praise, blame, reward, and punishment, and by acquiring a knowledge of the science of the influence of surroundings upon humanity, and how to combine them in order and with wisdom, man may now be made a terrestrial angel of goodness and wisdom, and to inhabit a terrestrial paradise. The means to effect this change already amply exist, and to their increase there can be no assignable limits. These means have increased enormously since the last century, and they are advancing in a continually increasing ratio, without cause to fear that they ever again cease to progress. The means for universal human happiness are inexhaustible, and therefore all fear of overtasking them, or that they will wear out, may be abandoned. Consequently, by setting aside all ideas of making the created responsible for the qualities given to it by the power or powers creating it, and by teaching humanity the science of the influence of surroundings in principle and practice, the earth will gradually be made a fit abode for superior men and women, under a New Dispensation, which will make the earth a paradise and its inhabitants angels. How easily now could this change be made, by a truly holy alliance of the leading governments and church authorities! Or by the people, if they knew how to unite to be governed by the laws of God and nature, instead of sub-mitting to the ever-changing, wicked, and abiourd artificial laws of men, made to endeavour to oppose those divine laws. ROBERT OWEN SEVENOAKS PARK, SEVENOAKS, September 1857

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This html version is presented by Massimo Portolani after the 1857-1858 edition