APPENDIX. The theory of the Social System is the result entirely of observation and reflection The Orbiston Co-operative Establishment - Quotation from A Word of Advice to its projectors Observations upon the character of the late Mr Abram Combe- A memoir of him quotedOrigin of The North British Advertiser, a weekly newspaper, published in Scotland, containing only advertisements-Plan of Mr Robert Owen of New Lanark― Conclusion of the appendix, and of the work. SINCE the foregoing work was entirely ready for the press, I have resolved to add an appendix to it, for the purpose of bestowing a few words upon the co-operative establishment, recently erected, and razed to the ground, at Orbiston, in Lanarkshire; as also upon the co-operative plan of Mr Robert Owen, of New Lanark. To perform this task, however, in such a manner as to do justice to myself, involves the necessity of entering at some length upon a personal narrative, which, on account of subsequent events, with which the public of Edinburgh are sufficiently acquainted, I would rather have avoided. A suspicion, however, may not improbably enter the minds of some, that the Social System, as here developed, is only a new edition of some old and exploded theory; or that the Y ideas have, in substance at least, been gathered from the works of other writers. I feel the less hesitation in asserting at once, that, neither in whole nor in part, have I gathered these opinions from any man, because there are persons residing in Edinburgh, no friends of mine either, who are able to detect and to expose the smallest inaccuracy, if there be any, in the following statement. After spending five years at Repton school, in Derbyshire, where, with every opportunity of becoming a good Latin and Greek scholar, had I ever attended to my studies, I learned little else than to catch fish, to play at marbles, and to climb trees, I entered, at the age of fourteen, upon the performance of such duties as boys, who have nothing but their own industry to depend upon, have usually prescribed to them in a large manufacturing and wholesale house in the city of London; the duties themselves being, in general, but little suited to the taste of those who are over fastidious in their choice of employment—a fault of which it has never hitherto been my lot to be accused. I left school, I well remember, with the written character of "possessing "abilities, rising barely to mediocrity." During the five years aforesaid, I never read through half a dozen English books, and within six months after I left school, I had forgotten nearly all that I had ever learned of Latin: on the study of Greek I never entered. Plunged at once, at the expiration of this period, into the very centre of the ocean of business, Cheapside, I found myself in a school of a very different character from that which I had left on the banks of the Trent. My fishing-rod was now laid by, and my industry was entirely devoted to the performance of my very humble duties, which were, I believe, at all times performed to the entire satisfaction of those by whom I was employed. Having read almost nothing up to this period, I had acquired no materials for reflection, but in their absence I found in London an abundance of food for observation. Ever disposed, almost, as I have been told, from my cradle, to ask "what is the reason of" whatever excited my curiosity, I may say that to ask, and to endeavour to answer, this question, has been the chief recreative employment and pleasure of my life. I never was, and I trust never shall be, satisfied by those vague and inconclusive explanations with which, to save the trouble of thinking, many persons are apt to content themselves; and, being quite unable to penetrate the unfathomable mystery with which every thing seemed to be invested, I looked, for a number of years, upon London and its myriads, as an intricate problem, that however much I might wish, I could hardly venture to hope eyer to be able to solve. But London soon lost for me all its imposing grandeur: my occupations led me, almost weekly, to every corner of it, and such as it is, I soon knew it as well as most men. I saw, however, nothing to satisfy, every thing to puzzle me. Something is wrong, some enormous error exists among this moving mass of flesh and blood, was an opinion which soon formed itself in my mind, never, as I am now convinced, to be removed from it; and an indefinite suspicion, that the commercial proceedings of mankind were at variance with the whole system of nature, and that God could never have intended his creatures to be the mere stumblingblocks of each other, as I saw them to be at every step I trode, reduced my mind to a gloomy, thoughtful, and half superstitious condition. My circumstances, being, at length, somewhat changed for the better, my attention came by degrees to be fixed, with great earnestness, upon an inquiry into the theory of buying and selling, with the practice of both I was now abundantly acquainted; and without the aid of any author-for I had not read one line upon the subject of political economy-I arrived at the conclusion which forms. the theory of this book: I saw clearly that goods of every description are made either because they are ordered, or |