COMMUNISM, OLD AND NEW.
IN Mr. Nordhoff's interesting work on " The Communistic 1. Societies of the United States," recently published, or repub- lished, by Mr. Murray, and which raises so large a number of important social questions, one misses the absence of that standard of comparison which would have been afforded by some parallel examination of Communism in the oldest form in which it is to be. met with within the Christian world (since Buddhism affords instances of a still earlier type), that of Romish monachism in both sexes. The renouncement of private wealth, it must be remembered, has been characteristic of ccenobitic monachism, from the days of the Egyptian Laurin. At the present day, if we are not mistaken, there are in the United States, besides the purely educational communities which, chiefly under the shape of con- vents for women, attract to themselves as pupils a large propor- tion of the girls of the better classes in the towns, especially on the coast, not a few Roman Catholic communities, chiefly in the west, of a more or less agricultural character ; and it would have been interesting to ascertain to what extent their social results resemble those of communities composed of quite different re- ligious elements, since it is clear that only by comparing com- munity of property as conjoined with every form of creed or no-creed, can we distinguish what, in its effects, belongs to itself, and what to the creeds which are mixed up with it. And it is the more curious that Mr. Nordhoff should, so far as appears, have overlooked the value of such a comparison, since the prac- tice of celibacy among the Shakers and Economists assimilates them closely to coenobitic monachism.
In default of parallels from the Roman Catholic Church in America, it may be interesting to notice in what points Mr. Nordhoff's accounts tally with the general facts of monastic his- tory. When, in his " comparative view " of the American com- munes generally, he starts by saying that " they live quiet and peaceful lives, and do not like to admit strangers to their privacy," he indicates at once a feature which generally characterises the monastery or convent. " The simplicity of dress usual among communists" forms another common feature. When Mr. Nord- hoff says that " the Shakers' neatness is proverbial," that " at Economy everything looks as though it had been cleaned up for a Sunday examination," when he speaks of the "regularity and easy work" of the communities, he might be describing the ordi- nary run of Romish monastic establishments. Neatness and regularity are probably, indeed, the qualities by which a convent education more especially recommends itself to parents.
Again, one of the bases of the monastic life is obedience, which, with poverty and chastity, forms the subject of the three solemn vows. Individual poverty is of course implied in the renunciation or assignment to the chiefs of the community of all private property, which is generally imposed as a condition of admission in the societies observed by Mr. Nordhoff. • Chastity, as before observed, is enforced by two of them. But, moreover, since "the fundamental principle of communal life is the subor- dination of the individual's will to the general interest or the general will, practically, this takes the shape of unquestioning obedience by the members toward the leaders, elders, or chiefs of the society." In some cases, such obedience is erected into a rule. In the Amana community, the first of twenty-one "rules for daily life " is,—" To obey, without reasoning, God, and through God, our superiors." " Ready and cheerful obedience " forms one of the Articles of Association of the Economists. The Separatists "bind themselves to labour, obey, and execute all the orders of the trustees and their successors." Among the Shakers, the discipline is strict to minuteness.
Another striking characteristic of monachism, which Mr. Nordhoff has noted in almost every community, is the low average of intellect in the mass of the members, contrasted with the ease with which intellect asserts itself in the leaders. The members of the Amana community are " quiet, a little stolid, and very well satisfied with their life. Here, as in other communistic societies, the brains seem to come easily to the top." The Zoar communists, who belong to the peasant class of South Germany, are " unintellectual ;" have " not risen in culture beyond their original condition ; " have a " dull and lethargic appearance." The Shakers are " not a reading people," some of their societies have no libraries, or it is noted that " the average of culture is low." Yet in the portrait of Elder Frederick W. Evans it is impossible not to recognise a head of singular power, though the mind which it betokens is one of more height than breadth. The members of the Aurora community "lack even the most common and moderate literary culture, as- piring to nothing further than the ability to read, write, and cypher ; from the president down, it is absolutely without intellectual life." Even of the Perfectionists, who seem to aim at a higher standard of culture, the " predomin- ant impression" made upon Mr. Nordhoff was that they were "a common-place company." But it is impossible to deny that Mr. Noyes must be possessed of abilities quite beyond the common to have been able to keep his society together for twenty-two years on principles which do violence to the dearest instincts of humanity. And the question is, therefore, whether that narrowing of intel- lect which, with a few signal exceptions here and there, becomes always perceptible among the mass in Romish monachism, and which is often attributed to creed, is not rather mainly the result of practice,—of the type of life which successful Communism generally evokes, combining with perfect order and system, and a strict and often implicit obedience, "security against want and misfortune," and a "sure provision for old age and inability," so that the mind, freed from all temporal anxieties, is at the same time, if not one of a decidedly high order, emptied of stimulus to exertion.
Again, the monastery was generally founded originally on the strict basis of manual labour. On this basis it could almost in- variably convert the desert into a garden. It became by degrees collectively rich ; easier labours were substituted for harder ones, lay brethren, or lay sisters, were introduced to do the rough work, the monastery or convent became a large landowner, receiving rent or other dues from many tenants, till at last the hard-working monk or nun of earlier days became the lazy, self-indulgent one of later popular satire in every Christian country. So that in the history of Romish monachism we find a tendency constantly at work which transforms bodies based on the straitest obligations of poverty and labour into homes of luxury and idleness, and which is only checked from time to time by the most trenchant reforms, often constituting the leading epochs in the life of the Order. Thus, to take the Benedictine Order as an example, five great reforms are enumerated before the close of the eleventh century, beginning with that of Benedict of Aniane, and ending with that of St. Bernard. The communities exhibited to us by Mr. Nordhoff are too young as yet to have developed this chain of consequences, since the oldest one had only lasted eighty years at the time he inspected it, and several of them are still under their founders' guidance, but there are indications of the same tendency. All, except the Icarians, if not wealthy already, are rapidly becoming so. Although Mr. Nordhoff says in one place that "in a com- munity men are more apt to over-work than to be idle," it is clear that in so speaking he means to refer to the struggles of first establishment, and that when these are once over, communism leads to a considerable relaxation of ordinary labour. "The communists," he says expressly, "do not toil severely They labour industriously, but not exhaustively, all the day, and in such ways as to make their toil comfortable and pleasant. Two hired workmen would do as much as three of our people,' said a Shaker to me ; and at Amana they told me that three hired men would do the work of five or even six of their members The workshops are atally very comfortably arranged, thoroughly warmed and ventilated The com- munist's life is full of devices for personal ease and comfort." The very employment of hired labour would seem repugnant to the notions of communistic equality, and yet it appears probable that the practice of doing so, especially for all the rougher forms of toil, grows with the commune's wealth. Of all the communities mentioned, Bethel is the only one which
is not stated to employ hired labourers. The 1,450 Inspirationis's at Amana "employ about 200 hired hands, mostly in agricultural labours ;" the Economists of Harmony, who are only 110, hire nearly an equal number of labourers,—" about 100 ;" in addition to which, "they are pecuniarily interested in coal-mines, in saw- mills, and oil-wells ; and they control manufactories at Beaver Falls, notably a cutlery shop, the largest in the United States, and one of the largest in the world, where, of late, they have begun to employ 200 Chinese." The Separatists at Zoar, who are about 300, "employ constantly about 50 persons not members of the community, besides renters,' who manage some of their farms on shares." The two Perfectionist communes at Oneida and Wallingford employ constantly, besides occasional hands, according to the season, nearly as many hired workers as they are themselves,—in the former case, 201 to 238 members ; in the latter, 39 (it would seem) to 45. The ,65 struggling Icarians themselves " employ two or three hired men to chop wood and labour on the farm." In the oldest communistic body indeed, that of the Shakers, the danger of the practice is already felt. Elder Frederick Evans "thought it a mistake in his people to own farms outside of their family limits, as now they often do. This necessitates the employment of per- sons not members, and this he thought impolitic." The propor- tion of hired labour to membership appears, indeed, to be lower among the Shakers, than in almost any other body ; but there is -scarcely one of the Shaker societies specifically mentioned by Mr. IsTordh off which does not, by his account, hire labour to some .extent, and one " family " of the New Gloucester society in Maine, oonsisting of about 50 members, employs " from 15 to 20 labourers." The dying-out of industry in other cases is very per- ceptible. The Pleasant Hill Shakers, of Kentucky, formerly had a hatter's shop, "kept a carding and filling mill, a linseed-oil mill, as well as factories of cooper's ware, brooms, shoes, dry- measures, &c.," besides working in all their shops for the public, instead of, as now, only for their own use. At present, their wealth makes it unnecessary "to carry on manufactures ; but they let a good deal of their land, the renters paying half the orop ; and they employ besides 15 or 20 hired hands, who are mostly negroes."
Even the branches of industry which the American communi- ties take up constantly remind one of monachism. The site of a convent in our own country is often marked by the existence in the neighbourhood of an old nursery garden, or of some peculiarly :good type of fruit ; and accordingly we find frequent mention of the orchards of the communes, especially those of the Aurora community in Oregon. The patent medicines of the Shakers at Enfield, New Hampshire, or at Union Village, Ohio, the medicinal herbs which many Shaker societies grow and prepare, recall the medicines for which many a convent has been famous. In other cases the women " make fancy articles for sale," as the nuns of Brazil or Madeira their feather-flowers, and those of many a con- -vent their lace. In many other instances we find the women pre- paring "canned fruits," or making preserves and jellies, and in one case " bread, pies, and other provisions " for sale. On the Continent you may often almost track convents or dissolved con- vents by their sweetmeats or pastry.
The analogies above pointed out (and which might be carried much further) tend to show, on the one hand, how many of the attractions and advantages of monachism are due simply to the • communistic principle, and can be realised without the former ; on the other hand, how many of its dangers are involved hi that principle itself, and must be faced whenever it is sought to put the latter into practice outside of any professed monastic rule.
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