Utopian dreams of the visionary-may not, in a few years, with the rapid progress of events in these modern times, be translated into fact? And who can affirm positively that the discovery may not be made hereafter that the last grand hindrance and obstacle to the realization of that noble ideal of human destiny was the superstitious sanctification in the popular mind of marriage and the family institution, which refused to permit them to be examined and amended, or abolished, according to the dictates of sound reason and the exigencies of the case, in the same manner as the like veneration for ecclesiastical establishments and royalty have hindered the race, at earlier stages, in the same onward and upward progression?

Observe, I am not dogmatizing in anything that I say here. I am not even affirming that any one of these suppositions is likely to come true. I am simply establishing the fact that the righteousness and permanency of marriage and the family institution are fair subjects, like any other, for thought, for questioning, for investigation. I am entering my calmly-stated but really indignant protest against the assumption that there is any possible subject, in this age and nation, with our antecedents and pretensions, too sacred to be discussed. I am adding my testimony to the truth of the position assumed by the despotist and the slaveholder that the same evils which exist under the institutions of despotisms and slavery exist likewise under the institution of marriage and the family, and that the same principles of right which men seek to apply in this day to the former will not leave the latter unquestioned or unscathed. I am giving to the lazy public some intimation that there are more things in heaven and earth than have yet been dreamed of in their philosophy. I am breaking into ripples the glassy surface of that dead sea of conservatism which reflects Socialism as a bugbear to frighten children with. I am giving to the world a sample of the ideas, and trains of reasoning, facts, and principles which the New York "Tribune," professedly the organ of new thought, refuses to permit to be communicated to its readers, as matter too bad to be published. And finally, and specially, I am making an historical note of the fact, for future reference, that such ideas as these were too far in advance of public sentiment, at the middle of this century, at the metropolis of the most progressive country in the world, to find utterance anywhere through the public press, the "Tribune" being, after all, the most liberal journal we have yet established among us.

What I am able to say in this brochure is, of course, a mere fragment of the social theories which I wished to propound. What I needed was a continuous year of discussion, through such a medium as the "Tribune," in conflict with the first minds in the country,-philosophers, politicians, and theologians, invited or provoked into the fray,- at the end of which time the public would have begun to discover that their current social dogmas must give way before the sublime principles of a new and profoundly important science, which determines exactly the true

basis of all social relations. I wanted especially to propound a few questions to the Rev. Dr. Bethune, to test the good faith of his broad statement of the doctrine of religious freedom, made in his assault upon Bishop IIughes at the Madiai meeting at Metropolitan Hall. Does he include the Mormons and the Turks, with their polygamy, and the Perfectionists, with their free love, in his toleration, or would he, with Mr. Greeley, make his exceptions when it came to the pinch, and go with Mr. Greeley for re-lighting on American soil the fires of religious persecution, and thrust those whose conscience differs from his upon certain points into prison, or burn them at the stake?

The question is rapidly becoming a practical one in this country, when a whole territory is already in the possession of a sect of religionists who openly profess and are ready to die for the doctrine of a plurality of wives. Honor to General Cass, the patriarch of the senate, who has recently stated the true and the truly American principle, -virtually the Sovereignty of the Individual. He speaks as follows:

Independent of its connection with the human destiny hereafter, I believe the fate of republican governments is indissolubly bound up with that of the Christian religion, and that people who reject its holy faith will find themselves the slaves of evil passions and of arbitrary power, and I am free to acknowledge that I do not see altogether without anxiety some of the signs which, shadowed forth around us by weak imaginations with some, and irregulated passion with others, are producing founders and followers of strange doctrines, whose tendencies it is easier to perceive than it is to account for their origin and progress; but they will find their remedy, not in legislation, but in a sound religious opinion, whether they inculcate an appeal to God by means of stocks, and stones, and rappings (the latest and most ridiculous experiment upon human credulity), or whether they seek to pervert the Scriptures to the purposes of their libidinous passions, by destroying that safeguard of religion and social order, the institution of marriage, and by leading lives of unrestrained intercourse, thus making proselytes to a miserable imposture, unworthy of our nature, by the temptations of unbridled lust. This same trial was made in Germany some three centuries ago, in a period of strange abominations, and failed. It will fail here. Where the Word of God is free to all, no such vile doctrine can permanently establish itself.

This is a genuine though indirect recognition of individual sovereignty; and, while marred by a few ungentlemanly flings at what the speaker obviously does not understand, it is as much above the puny and miserable suppression doctrines of Mr. Greeley-the sickly relics of the dark ages-as the nineteenth century is in advance of the twelfth.

By my reference to Dr. Bethune, it is but justice to say that I have no reason to doubt that he, too, is honest in his statement of the doctrine of religious freedom, and that he would, in practice, recognize my right to live with three women, if my conscience approved, as readily and heartily as he would contend for the right to read the Protestant Bible at Florence. If not, I hope he will take an opportunity to restate his position. I needed a lengthened discussion, as I said, not only to ex

press my own ideas, but also to find where others actually stand upon this most vital question,—the legitimate limit of human freedom. But such discussions, carried on with the dauntless intrepidity of truth-seeking, are not for the columns of the "Tribune." The readers of that journal must be kept in the dark. I submit, and await the establishment of another organ. Meantime, those who may chance to become interested in a more thorough exhibit of principles stated or adverted to in these pages are referred to "Equitable Commerce" and "Practical Details in Equitable Commerce," by JOSIAH WARREN, and "The Science of Society," by myself, published by Fowlers & Wells, New York,* and John Chapman, London, which I take this opportunity thus publicly to advertise, since the newspaper press generally declines to notice them, and to such other works as may be hereafter announced on the subject.

NEW YORK, APRIL, 1853.

STEPHEN PEARL ANDREWS.

*"The Science of Society" is now published by Sarah E. Holmes, Box 3366, Boston, Mass.

DISCUSSION.

I.

MR. JAMES'S REPLY TO THE NEW YORK OBSERVER.

To the Editor of the New York Tribune:

Please allow me the hospitality of your paper to right myself with the New York "Observer," and so add to the many obligations I already owe you.

NOVEMBER 15.

Yours truly,

H. JAMES.

New York, Saturday, Nov. 13, 1852.

To the Editor of the New York Observer: An article in your paper of today does me so much injustice that I cannot afford to let it pass unnoticed.

The drift of your assault is to charge me with hostility to the marriage institution. This charge is so far from being true that I have invariably aimed to advance the honor of marriage by seeking to free it from certain purely arbitrary and conventional obstructions in reference to divorce. For example, I have always argued against Mr. Greeley that it was not essential to the honor of marriage that two persons should be compelled to live together when they held the reciprocal relation of dog and cat, and that in that state of things divorce might profitably intervene, provided the parties guaranteed the State against the charge of their offspring. I have very earnestly, and, as it appears to me, very unanswerably, contended for a greater freedom of divorce on these grounds, in the columns of the "Tribune," some years since; but I had no idea that I was thus weakening the respect of marriage. I seemed to myself to be plainly strengthening it, by removing purely arbitrary and damaging obstructions. The existing difficulty of divorce is one of those obstructions. You will not pretend to say that the legislative sanction of divorce now existing discharges the marriage rite of respect? How, then, shall any enlargement of that sanction which I propose avail to do so? Is it possible that a person exposed to the civilizing influences of a large city like this so long as you have been should see no other security for the faithful union of hus

band and wife than that which dates from the police office? I can not believe it. You must know many married partners, if you have been even ordinarily fortunate in your company, who, if the marriage institution were formally abolished tomorrow, would instantly annul that legal abolition again by the unswerving constancy of their hearts and lives.

No man has a more cordial, nor, as I conceive, a more enlightened respect for marriage than I have, whether it be regarded, 1st, as a beautiful and very perfect symbol of religious or metaphysic truth, or, 2d, as an independent social institution. I have fully shown its claim for respect on both these grounds in a number of the "Tribune" which you quoted at the time, but which it serves your dishonest instincts now to overlook. You probably are indifferent to the subject in its higher and primary point of view, but your present article proves that you have some regard for it in its social aspects. If you regard marriage, then, as a social institution, you will, of course, allow that its value depends altogether upon the uses it promotes. If these uses are salutary, the institution is honorable. If, on the contrary, they are mischievous, the institution is deplorable. Now, no one charges that the legitimate uses of the marriage institution are otherwise than good. But a social institution, whose uses are intrinsically good, may be very badly administered, and so produce mischief. This, I allege, is the case with the marriage institution. It is not administered livingly, or with reference to the present need of society, but only traditionally, or with reference to some wholly past state of society. In a disorderly condition of society, like that from which we have for the last two centuries been slowly emerging, men of wealth and power, men of violence and intrigue, would have laughed at the sacredest affections, and rendered the family security nugatory, had not society fortified marriage by the most stringent safeguards. The still glaring inequality of the sexes, moreover, would have led kings and nobles into the most unrebuked licentiousness, and consequently into the most brutal contempt for woman, had not the politico-ecclesiastical régime almost utterly inhibited divorce. The elevation of woman in Christendom has thus been owing exclusively to a very rigid administration of the marriage institution in the earlier periods of our social history. But what man of wealth and power, what man of violence and intrigue, is there now to take away a man's wife from him? No doubt there is a very enormous clandestine violation of the marriage bond at the present time; careful observers do not hesitate to say an almost unequalled violation of it; but that is an evil which no positive legislation can prevent, because it is manifestly based upon a popular contempt for the present indolent and vicious administration of the law.. The only possible chance for correcting it depends, as I have uniformly insisted, upon a change in that administration, that is to say, upon freely legitimating divorce, within the limits of a complete guarantee to society against the support of offspring; because in that case you place the inducement to mutual fidelity no longer in the base legal bondage of the