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no such espionage.
They will not have even the holiest religion crammed down their throats against their will.
They will be free: “They worship only God, nor even Him except in their own way.”
Spies may be a necessity of war, but in time of peace all men unite to make war on spies.
The death of George Ripley, in July, 1880, one of a group of early friends and co-laborers, who had become estranged from
Dana because of the independent and aggressive course pursued by the
Sun in denouncing political corruption, afforded a suitable occasion for an illuminating article on socialism.
As it was evidently written by
Dana, and exhibits rare tolerance of another sort, and gives his matured views on the
Brook Farm experiment and social democracy, I quote as follows:
... The social philosophy of this eminent thinker sprang from two sources: from his deep, inner faith in Democracy as taught by Jefferson, and from his conception of humanity as taught by Herder.
Of these vital ideas his socialism was the logical consequence; and the community at Brook Farm was the fruit at once of his democratic convictions and of his weariness with the unsatisfactory, unprofitable routine of conventional society as he found it forty years ago existing around him in Boston.
He had very few intimate friends then or at any other time, yet three men were especially near to him, influencing his mind by their conversation and writings.
These men were George Bancroft, Orestes A. Brownson, and Theodore Parker.
The fundamental democratic doctrine of liberty, equality, and fraternity, and the doctrine of humanity as a living unity, they shared with him; his conclusions concerning the embodiment of democracy in new social forms they respected, but did not share.
His experiment they observed with interest and sympathy, but in its pecuniary and personal risks they took no part.
Indeed, no individual of distinction
