THE HUMANITARIANS AND ROBERT OWEN 751 
of this trade or that, and had prophesied ultimate and serious A-D- 1776 
loss’. It seems as if it would have been impossible for the 
humanitarians, even with the sympathy of some of the landed 
gentry and the approval of unrepresented artisans, to make 
any impression on the phalanx opposed to them, if it had not 
been for the results obtained by Robert Owen. In his mills Robert 
at New Lanark he realised the ideals of the humanitarians of on had 
the day. His system attracted very general attention, and A 
though it was not destined to last, it sufficed to demonstrate %ceess 
that extraordinary improvement, in conditions of work and 
habits of life, was not by any means necessarily incompatible 
with commercial success. From the first he made the 
condition of the living machinery the main object of his 
consideration; and what he accomplished was wonderful. 
In the sphere which came within his own control, he an- 
ticipated most of the reforms which were carried through 
subsequently by legislation. But the principles by which he 
accounted for his own success, and on which he based his 
advocacy, were not generally acceptable, so that compara- 
tively few of those who admired him were able and willing 
to work with him, His enthusiasm and personal character 
commended him to a wide and influential body of the public, 
but his economic principles? roused the scorn of the experts®, 
and his attitude towards Christianity alienated the sympathy 
of some of his supporters. 
Robert Owen had already acquired considerable experience 4 Netz 
in the cotton trade in Manchester before 1797, when an 
opportunity occurred for him to take over the management 
of mills at New Lanark, The situation was excellent, as 
there was abundance of water-power, and labour had been 
1 It was in no small degree the work of John Stuart Mill that this opposition 
has 80 greatly ceased; and that economists have so largely devoted themselves to 
the conscious and reasoned pursuit of philanthropic objects. It was in connection 
with the abolition of slavery that the forebodings of the economists were most 
nearly fulfilled ; Cairnes, the most brilliant of the followers of Mill, in his Slave 
Power demonstrated the economic weakness of the system which the philan- 
thropists condemned on moral grounds. 
2 He was opposed to the doctrines of Malthus, he advocated the limitation of 
machinery, and cherished some curious notions about the currency. Life of 
BR. Owen, written by himself. Supplementary Appendix, 266. 
8 Compare the criticism in the Edinburgh Review (Oct. 1819), xxx1x, 467.