Note 23 — Chapter XXI · FREETHOUGHT IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

5. Holyoake had been a missionary and martyr in the movement of Socialism set up by Robert Owen, whose teaching, essentially scientific on its psychological or philosophical side, was the first effort to give systematic effect to democratic ideals by organizing industry. It was in the discussions of the “Association of all Classes of all Nations,” formed by Owen in 1835, that the word “Socialism” first became current.23 Owen was a freethinker in all things;24 and his whole movement was so penetrated by an anti-theological spirit that the clergy as a rule became its bitter enemies, though such publicists as Macaulay and John Mill also combined with them in scouting it on political and economic grounds.25 Up till the middle of 1817 he had on his side a large body of “respectable” and highly-placed philanthropists, his notable success in his own social and commercial undertakings being his main recommendation. His early Essays on the Formation of Character, indeed, were sufficient to reveal his heterodoxy; but not until, at his memorable public meeting on August 21, 1817, he began to expatiate on “the gross errors that have been combined with the fundamental notions of every religion that has hitherto been taught to men”26 did he rank as an aggressive freethinker. It was in his own view the turning-point of his life. He was not prosecuted; though Brougham declared that if any politician had said half as much he would have been “burned alive”; but the alienation of “moderate” opinion at once began; and Owen, always more fervid than prudent, never recovered his influence among the upper classes. Nonetheless, “his secularistic teaching gained such influence among the working classes as to give occasion for the statement in the Westminster Review (1839) that his principles were the actual creed of a great portion of them.”27