uo SOCIALISM ticism of the middle ages are more or less com- munistic. Societies of women were formed for the relief of the sick and poor in the llth century, possessing at first nothing of the later conventual type. They had clusters of houses and gardens, whose inmates supported them- selves by their own labor, grouped round a hospital and similar institutions. In time the dormitories, refectories, and work rooms were also occupied in common. Such was the ori- gin of the beguinages of -the Netherlands. Later, various ascetic communistic societies arose, as the "Brethren and Clerks of the Common Life," founded by Gerard Groot about 1378 in the Netherlands, whose mem- bers, chiefly priests, supported themselves by manual labor and by teaching and preaching. Along with these existed communities whose members indulged in the wildest license, and were finally extirpated by the authorities; such were the Adamites, who walked about naked and had a community of wives. At the reformation a communistic tendency was wide-spread in Germany, and it led to a re- volt of the serfs against their lords, a move- ment of social reform avowedly based upon the doctrines of the New Testament. (See PEASANTS' WAR.) Some of the Anabaptists, the movements begun by Storch and Miinzer (see MUNZER), the familists, the levellers, and numerous other fanatical sects of this period, all show more or less of the same spirit of hos- tility to the rich, of a desire for a better distri- bution of property, and a struggle to realize an ideal social state. In the same period appeared the first works which, depicting a more or less fanciful or ideal community, may be consid- ered the precursors of the more recent scien- tific socialistic schemes. The first edition 'of Sir Thomas Mo re's " Utopia," an account of an imaginary commonwealth, where there are only good and happy citizens and the govern- ment is perfectly paternal, was printed in Lat- in at Louvain in 1516, and it was soon trans- lated into English, French, Dutch, and Italian. Another Utopia was depicted by Campanella in his Civitas Soli* (1623). A vast hierarchy of officials assign and direct the duties of the people ; four hours a day are devoted to labor, the women performing the lighter tasks ; the rest of the day the people are trained in phi- losophy and the sciences. Similar schemes were sketched by Hall in his Mundus Alter Fenelon, Morelly, Defoe in his "Essay on Projects," and Bacon in the " New Atlantis." In 1656 Harrington published his "Oceana," of which Hume said that it was the most val- uable model of a commonwealth hitherto of- fered. The first complete plan of an industrial community intended for immediate adoption was John Beller's scheme of a " College of Industry" (1696). The shareholders were to divide among themselves the profits of the college, but the laborers were to be guaran- teed nil things necessary in case of sickness for the education of their children, for the maintenance of their widows, and the like. In France there have been at various times small communities in which work was divided according to the capacity of the members, who received equal shares of the profits, and elect- ed a master of the community, vested with full power of command, and constituting their legal representative. In the United States there are about 70 communistic societies, all based on a religious belief of some form. The Shakers were established in the northern states about 1780, and in the west about 30 years later ; the Rappists were established in 1805, the Zoarites in 1817, the Eben-Ezer or Amana communists in 1844, the Bethel community in 1844, the Oneida Perfectionists in 1848, the Icarians in 1849, and the Aurora commune in 1852. Though the Icarians reject Christian- ity, yet they raise to the position of a creed their doctrine of brotherly love, or their com- munistic idea. In the Bethel and Aurora com- munes unselfishness takes the place of a reli- gious system. Community of women is prac- tised only by the Perfectionists (see NOTES, JOHN HUMPHREY) ; the Shakers and Rappists are celibates ; and at Icaria, Amana, Aurora, Bethel, and Zoar the family relation is held in honor. Only the Perfectionists are of strict- ly American origin ; the principles of the Shakers, though first established here, origina- ted in England ; the Icarians are French, and the others are German. The Shakers are the most numerous. After the reign of terror in France, Babeuf and his friends formed a con- spiracy to overthrow the state. They taught that all men had equal rights in all property and in the enjoyment of it ; every exclusive appropriation of the soil or of a branch of in- dustry was a crime ; all persons should receive the same kind and degree of education ; the functions of the government should be to su- perintend the division of labor, the collecting of the produce in public stores, and the dis- tribution of it to communities and individuals. The marriage relations and religious subjects were not specially discussed by them. Ba- beuf perished on the scaffold, and his doctrine seemed to have perished with him ; but in 1834 Buonarotti revived it, and by means of pamphlets and the Moniteur Republicain, the Homme Libre, and other journals, it was again propagated. After some vain attempts at in- stituting social equality by insurrectionary means, the Babeuvists were content to con- tinue as secret organizations, many of them developing the original doctrine, and the tra- vailleurs egalitaires going to the extent of ab- rogating marriage as being a species of per- sonal property, of wishing all towns destroyed as the natural hotbeds of tyranny, &c. In op- position to the travailleurs egalitaires Cabet (1788-1856) wrote his Voyage en Icarie, advo- cating a comparatively innocent communism, a small model of which he established in this country. Saint- Simon (1760-1825) gathered about him men of science, and travelled in or.
