Page:A biographical dictionary of modern rationalists.djvu/323

 OWEN

PAALZOW

thinkers at Manchester had developed his humanitarian creed. At New Lanark he put it into practice, and he transformed a low industrial community of about 2,500 souls into a model village which attracted reformers from all parts of the world. He released the younger children from work and built wonderful schools for them (including the first infant-school in Britain) ; and he changed the entire character of the adults, discarding all clerical or religious assistance. Owen then appealed to manu facturers and the Government to apply his scheme generally, but he was challenged on the subject of religion, and when he described &quot; all religions &quot; as false (at the City of London Tavern, Aug. 21, 1817) the clergy began to oppose him. He expounded his views in Essays on the Principle of the Formation of Human Char acter (1816), and spent half his fortune in propagating them. In 1821 he founded the Economist for the purpose of his propa ganda ; and he was the pioneer of factory reform, which was later taken over by Shaftesbury and others. Owen turned to the workers, founded The British Co- operator (1830), and inspired Labour Exchanges and early forms of Co-operative Societies. In 1834 he established The New Moral World, and founded a kind of ethical movement, which he called Eational Eeligion,&quot; with &quot; Halls of Science &quot; and ten &quot; missionaries.&quot; He had at one time 100,000 followers, and through the Trade Unions, of which he was one of the stoutest champions, a deep influence on more than a million workers. His attempt to create a model community at New Harmony in America (1825-28) failed, costing him 40,000 of his own money. His entire fortune was spent in the service of his fellows, and until the close of his life he struggled, by pen and lecture, to better the world. There was hardly a reform which he did not initiate or embrace (industrial, educational, penal, feminist, etc.). He was the father of British reformers, and one of the highest-minded men Britain ever produced. Owen was 573

nominally a Theist, though really an Agnostic, saying : &quot; When we use the term Lord, God, or Deity we use a term without annexing to it any definite idea &quot; (Debate on the Evidences of Christianity, 1829, p. 104). It was only in 1854, his eighty-fourth year, that he was &quot;converted&quot; by fraudulent mediums to Spiritualism. F. Podmore s Eobert Owen (2 vols., 1906) is far from adequate in recognizing Owen s greatness. D. Nov. 17, 1858.

OWEN, Robert Dale, son of Eobert Owen, American reformer. B. Nov. 9, 1801. Ed. Fellenberg s School at Hofwyl (Switzerland). He was born at New Lanark, and added his mother s family name (Dale) to that of his father. In 1825 he accompanied his father to New Har mony, and at the failure of the scheme he remained in America and was naturalized. He edited the New Harmomj Gazette (which was a drastically Eationalist periodical), and worked with Mme. Darusmont [SEE] in all the reforms of the time. In 1835 he was elected to the legislature of the State of Indiana, and in 1843 to the House of Eepresentatives. From 1853 to 1858 he was American Minister at Naples. Owen, with less ability, carried his father s lofty idealism into American politics, and he assisted in every reform. He was one of the chief organizers of the Smithsonian Institution, a strong Abolitionist, Pacifist, and Socialist, and a conspicuous worker in the Malthusian and Feminist movements. He was seduced by the early wave of Spiritualism in America, and his death was eventually hastened, and his mind clouded, by the discovery that his favourite medium was a shameless impostor. He never accepted Christianity. D. June 17, 1877.

PAALZOW, Christian Ludwig, German writer. B. Nov. 26, 1753. Paalzow, who was a distinguished lawyer, translated into German Voltaire s commentary on Montes quieu s Esprit des Lois and other French Deistic works. He wrote a History of 574