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THE UTOPISTS: OWEN, SAINT SIMON, AND FOURIER
It is now necessary for us to turn for a while from the political progress of Socialism, to note the school of thinkers who preceded the birth of modern scientific or revolutionary Socialism. These men thought it possible to regenerate Society by laying before it its shortcomings, follies, and injustice, and by teaching through precept and example certain schemes of reconstruction built up from the aspirations and insight of the teachers themselves. They had not learned to recognise the sequence of events that forces social changes on mankind whether they are conscious of its force 207 or not, but believed that their schemes would win their way to general adoption by men’s perception of their inherent reasonableness. They hoped to convert people to Socialism, to accepting it consciously and formally, by showing them the contrast between the confusion and misery of civilisation, and the order and happiness of the world which they foresaw.
From the elaborate and detailed schemes of future Society which they built up they have been called the Utopists. The representatives of the different phases of this school are three most remarkable men, born within a few years of each other, whose aspirations and insight did, in their day, a very great deal to further the progress of Socialism, in spite of the incompleteness of their views.
Robert Owen was born at Newtown, Montgomeryshire, in 1771, of a lower middle-class family. He became a successful manufacturer through