The problem for the future is, How can the family, the state, property, be so organized as to permit man to develope himself in constant progress without oppression?

All the evils which the human race has suffered come from castes. As soon as into your ideal of society and politics you admit the entire human race, these will cease. The true law of humanity is, that the individual tends, by means of the family, the nation, and property, to a complete communion, either direct or indirect, with his fellow beings and the universe, and that by restraining and limiting this communion there results imperfection and injury. The family is a good; but family caste is an evil. The nation is a good; but national caste is an evil. Property is a good; but the caste of property is an evil.

THE STATE AGRICULTURAL FAIR.

BY THE EDITOR.

This great gathering has afforded some really instructive and other quite amusing illustrations of the change now passing over men's estimates of the dignity of labor. Hard working yeomen it may naturally be supposed, chuckled behind the scenes at the praises of agriculture interlarded with mutual puffs, which were spread so profusely before them by these politico-farmers, fresh from the White House, State Department and Governor's chair. Bribery of voters by soft words to be sure is not punishable by statute. But there is no escaping the penalty of ridicule; and certainly a few droll thoughts are suggested by the glaring contrasts between notorious facts and the eloquent professions of these retired country gentlemen. How pleasing to fancy the pictures of pastoral life. The farmer of Marshfield renews the dreams of boyhood over the plough and the sickle; the farmer of Lindenwold has blandly inhaled the sweetness of his own clover fields. We seem to see the robes of office so heavy and galling, the coat of the lawyer so tight and stiff, fly off in disgraceful banishment; and these disenthralled slaves of the public in straw hats and shirtsleeves whistle as they whet the scythe and swing the flail with songs. Is the country sufficiently aware of the self-sacrifice of these descendants of Cincinnatus? Will it repay their long toil in the service of the nation by demanding of them once again to leave beloved shades? Oh! the ingratitude of republics. But it is tedious to be sure, to dwell many moments on this demagoguism to which even our first men allow themselves to stoop. The veil is too thin to make withdrawal necessary.

This fawning on the laboring classes does, however, significantly show the tremendous revolution already achieved in modern society. The feudal noble when he would muster his retainers, donned his armor, flung himself in the saddle, gave his standard to the breeze and ordered a trumpet call. The political aristocrat of our day, hat in hand, with slang words of familiarity, and the most hail fellow well met look imaginable, nodding to every one, smiling to the mothers, and patting the children on the head, draws his serfs around him by the invisible meshes of cunning. One more turn of the wheel of this noiseless revolution, and the producing classes will take these obsequious servants of theirs, who ride on their shoulders, at their word, and answer, Why bless your hearts! if you

love labor so much we are willing to try you as hands on our farms or in our shops." That is the consummation plainly before us. The time is nigh when all men must in some part of life at least, and in some way or other prove, that they are not afraid of soiling their hands by useful and hard work on this good teeming mother earth of ours. Already the democratic gentry of our land find health and pleasure among their fruits and flowers, and gain reputation for the quality and quantity of their crops. The muddy shoe, the blouse and jacket, the knife and saw of the gardener are not to them badges of disgrace. Presently we shall see the Broadway dandy not ashamed to show brown hands and say, "I can turn a straight furrow with any man." The wonderful processes of vegetation, the daily miracles wrought by the sun and soil, the exquisite adaptation of natures harmonies, the ministries of winds and rains, dignify the farmers life with the thoughts they inspire of Him who guides the seasons and fills the land and sea and air with countless germs of life. The labor of man directed to the multiplication of earths products seems glorified by being so manifestly a co-operation with the providence of God.

And this high estimate of labor will not confine itself to agricultural employments. It must make, is rapidly making the circuit of the mechanic trades; and we begin to recognize the dignity of every useful art. Doubtless the smell of new tanned hides, of leather parings, waxends and blacking is not agreeable, and many an honest fellow now grows pale squatting from twelve to sixteen hours a day on his low bench, in close air, by feeble light finishing French boots for idlers. But even in palaces delicate fingered ladies can embroider the slipper. The moment all men see, that either they must perform themselves disagreeable occupations, or else so arrange them as to be no longer offensive to sense or hurtful to health, we shall find that it is a perfectly easy thing to have such covering for the feet as will call forth the taste and skill of the most refined. And so of all the trades. The day is fast coming when all our absurd feelings of contempt and repugnance for these most indispensable operations, without which we could be neither housed nor clothed nor fed nor warmed nor made sensibly happy in any way, will give place to grateful respect. We make a distinction between the useful arts and the beautiful arts. But what is useful is always beautiful. The painter or sculptor is chambered in the houses of nobles, fed at kings tables, greeted with acclamation in public meetings. Will there never be a time when he who can deck the living form in garbs which symbolise character and calling, will be also honored as an artist?

The stimulus we now apply to improvements in the common modes of beautifying life, is the rivalry of gain. A higher stimulus will be a love of the perfect in the minutest thing. And then we shall see removed the drudgery of these petty routines of the handicrafts. Dresses, habitations, vehicles, food, illuminations, all the common circumstances of existence indeed are meant to be a kind of hieroglyphic and pantomimic representation. A man's individuality should be expressed in all. We have lost in our dull repetitions of fashion the poetry which the savage still connects with his dress and tent, his furniture and carriage, and which the bards of elder ages always attributed even to their heroes. An Indian girl working with quills her bridal robe of doe skin, puts into the hues and figures the whole secret of her heart. When we give up our present lazy and effeminate ways, copied from foreign courts, and feel how honorable it is

to adorn the lowliest details of life, we shall make our homes and public places brighter with varied splendor than was ever figured in the spectacles of the theatre. It is this badge of servitude branded by earlier tyrannies on toil, that keeps our present habits and manners so squalid, tame and unmeaning. The ancient Greek imaged his gods as laboring to rear the walls of cities, and guiding the wise to sow the useful grains. The Infinite Artizan, by whose pervading power of beauty the edges of the leaf are fringed, the plumage of the bird inlaid with various colors, the veins of marble run in pictured landscapes, the evanescent frost work reared in palaces and forests, does not despise, but honors and blesses man's imitative skill. It is no visionary dream to say that the day will come when every act will be acknowledged as a form of worship. Even now great processions have no such eloquent emblems as those which symbolize the various trades. There is a substantial meaning in them, even when used for mere display or to express political bias. What magnificent and deeply significant popular assemblages will society witness when industry is reinstated in its high place, as the representation in human forms of God's creative power. Moses was led up into the mount to see the divine type of every curtain and vessel of the tabernacle. Society at large when the greatness of man's earthly destiny is felt, will see opened in a loftier sense the vision of that temple of beauty, which God ordains for future ages, in a perfected earth covered with man's designs of art.

SIGNS OF THE TIMES.

THE PHALANX. •

A hearty welcome to the first number of this long wished for and most timely publication. Every one who desires to form a thorough acquaintance with the doctrine of " Association" will of course subscribe for it. Mr. Brisbane, who was personally a scholar of Fourier, and who for many years has devoted himself with untiring zeal and faithfulness to the study and propagation of the social science taught by this profound and humane philosopher, is the very man best fitted to edit such a periodical. And its pages will be enriched by ample translations. We trust, too, that there will be room for criticisms, objections, and interrogatories. At the first pouring in of a fresh stream of thought upon the stagnant pool of error there is a scum of prejudice to be swept away; and the stream must run itself clear of its own sediment. Respect for public opinion and for the rights of free inquiry, make appropriate such discussion. However high our estimate of Fourier, it is still very plain that he must in many things have been fallible. A science of "Universal Unity," is not for this generation. While granting some principles and admitting some conclusions, it will of course be found that others require modification or even rejection. And it is highly probable that examination and experience will disclose many deficiencies to be supplied. Meanwhile let us ponder the important text of the Phalanx, "Our evils are social, not political, and only a social reform can eradicate them." We can all rally at the watchwords "United Interests" and "Attractive Industry." This first number contains an able and lucid summary of Fourier's views applied to the illustration of existing politics, industry and religion.

COMMUNITY CONVENTION.

Another movement, aiming at Universal Social Reform, and promising to be a very wide and strong one, has also commenced. Its leading prin ciple is that of Community, as will be seen by the following call. Though dissenting from this view, and believing confidently, that Property in a system of "United Interests" will be found a source and means of kindness and not of selfishness, and that it is an indispensable condition for the preservation of individuality, I yet sincerely wish the originators of this humane enterprise success, and assure them of the respect and sympa. thy of those who differ from them. Let the social reformers of our day of the extreme right, extreme left and centre, march in one unbroken line; though each wing may have a different banner, the central oriflamme is Love.

To the friends of a Re-Organization of the SOCIAL SYSTEM, by a Community of Property and Interest throughout the Country.

BELOVED FRIENDS:-We have been urgently requested to issue a call for a General Convention, to be holden this fall, in some central part of the country, to devise ways and means, and to mature plans for giving efficiency and success to the Community enterprise.

The undersigned, therefore, would earnestly and affectionately invite you to meet on the Farm secured for the Community, in Skaneateles, Onondaga county, New York, on Saturday and Sunday, October 14th and 15th, commencing at 10 o'clock, A. M. Affectionately, yours,

J. A. COLLINS.

N. H. WHITING.
JOHN ORVIS.

JOHN O. WATTLES.

COMMUNITY PLACE, Skaneateles, September 18, 1843.

CONSOCIATION, OR THE FAMILY LIFE.

WITHIN the month we have had a visit in New York from the gardeners of "Fruitlands"-A. B. Alcott and Charles Lane,-the Essenes of New England, if they will allow me so to call them. Indeed their plan of renewing men by physical purification and submission to the spirit, amidst simple habits and holy domestic life, corresponds remarkably, making allowance for change of land and age, to that of the more cheerful class of Therapeuts, (or Healers.) And be it remembered, that John the Baptist, and probably Jesus of Nazareth passed their youth among those Syrian Essenes. There is something affecting in the hope with which these men are inspired of becoming the pliant instruments of God. There is the deepest truth in this hope. But I am willing to own for one, that I have little confidence in a mysticism, which does not steadfastly exercise the function of conscious rational volition, as the appointed means of receiving divine communications in the soul; and neither have I a wish to imitate any who would undervalue the body and sensible enjoyments as a condition of health of the spirit. The experiment has too often failed. A life of action among the men, even if imperfect, of our own era and country, the discipline of judgment and conscience by communion with variety of characters and circumstances, the reception of the most magnificent beauties of nature and art though cultivated senses, is a far healthier atmosphere to breathe, than solitude in asceticism with a few of our own mode of feeling and thinking. The Family is not enough; we

need the State; we need Humanity. And we starve ourselves, if confi dent in finding a table of ambrosia spread in the private nook of our own minds, we spurn the manna which heaven day by day showers on the tribes of our age, our nation. The desire of these apostles of purity is however one that must awaken our most respectful sympathy. The only point upon which we can differ from them, is as to their philosophy of the true means by which to reach the results they aim at. I had hoped to have enriched the pages of this number with their contributions; and shall welcome their frankest rebuke against whatever they deem errors.

THE DEMOCRATIC REVIEW AND O. A BROWNSON

Mr. Brownson has never occupied so interesting a position as he now does, standing alone, as it were, amidst battling controvertists, religious and political-advocating progress with the Unitarian, and obedience to the moral authority of the Church with the Catholic-asserting the duty of loyalty to constitutional government with the Conservative, and the right of equal chances to equal capacities, and equal rewards to equal works with the working man-maintaining his positions with an acute logic and a sweep of thought which severely tasks the reflective powers of even scholars, and yet employing a style of expression as simple as clear. The series of his articles which have appeared in the Democratic Review are abler by far than any others which have been offered to the considera. tion of the country within the year. They contain, even for those who do not admit his conclusions, a most valuable amount of instruction and suggestion. And the great truth of the Divine Right of Government which in the last few essays he has in a most singular manner illustrated, deserves the profoundest study. Unquestionably he has there spoken the timely word, for this nation to hear and receive; though in the haste of composition he has interlaid the solid marble blocks with not a little untempered mortar. Men charge Mr. B. with inconsistency, because they do not take his life as a whole, and trace the changing phases of what is plainly a wide orbit. And yet he is partially answerable himself for this accusation, by his general unwillingness to grant, though sometimes frankly confessing it, that he has outgrown many errors and exchanged partial glimpses for broad views. But why, because a man feels that his feet stand now on a rock, should he deny that he has waded in the quagmires, whose clay still spots his garments. In an age like this, superficial and perplexed, and yet rapidly learning as it is its own ignorance at least, and it may be hoped some substantial science also, a man must be akin to a seraph or a stock, not to change. The only consistency one would now desire to keep, is the consistency of progress, and this Mr. Brownson may proudly claim. He has volumes yet to write upon philosophy, society, religion. It is heard with uncommon pleasure, that there is a prospect of renewing the Boston Quarterly. Take it all in all, it was the best journal this country has ever produced, at once the most American, practical and awakening; the more so because its editor was a learner and shared his studies with his readers. With suitable exertions it could command a circulation of a thousand and more copies. There are many who will joyfully greet a new series of it; especially just now in the present state of the public mind should we look with interest for a full exhibition of Mr. Brownson's views of Communities. The problems opened by these new movements need the co-operating aid of all leading minds to solve them.