OWENITES. The followers of Robert Owen (1771 1858), who was a contemporary of St. Simon (1760-1825; see SIMONIANISM, ST.). After being assistant in a draper's shop at Stamford in Northamptonshire, Owen went to Manchester, where in course of time he became manager of a large cotton mill. In 1799 he purchased for a Company the cotton-mills of David Dale (see DALEITES) at New Lanark, and married his daughter. He devoted himself zealously to philanthropic work, and opened schools for infants and others. In 1813 he pro duced a publication " A New View of Society, or Essays on the Principle of the Formation of the Human Character," which embodied a new social and religious creed. In 1817 he explained a scheme of " villages of unity and co-operation." From co-operation he advanced to Socialism and Communism, and wished to found a " New Moral World." The religion of the new system comprised eight articles or principles. 1. That all facts yet known to man indicate that there is an external or internal cause of all existences by the fact of their exist ence; that this all-pervading cause of motion and change in the universe is the power which the nations of the world have called God, Jehovah, Lord, etc.; but the facts are yet unknown to man which define what that power is. 2. That all ceremonial worship by man of this cause, whose qualities are yet so little known, proceeds from ignorance of his own nature, and can be of no real utility in practice; and that it is impossible to train men to become rational in their feelings, thoughts, and actions, until all such forms shall cease. 8. That it is man's highest duty to himself and his fellowmen to acquire an accurate knowledge of those circumstances which produce evil to the human race, and of those which produce good; to exert all his powers to remove the former from society, and to create around it the latter only. 4. That this
invaluable practical knowledge can be acquired solely through an extensive search after truth, by an accurate. patient, and unprejudiced inquiry into facts, as developed by Nature. 5. That man can never attain to a spate of superior and permanent happiness, until he shall be sur rounded by those external circumstances which will train him, from birth, to feel pure charity and sincere affection towards the whole of his species; to speak the truth only on all occasions, and to regard with a merciful disposi tion all that has life. 6. That such superior principles and feelings can never be given to man under those institutions of society which have been formed on the mistaken supposition that man forms his feelings and convictions by his will, and therefore is responsible for them. 7. That under institutions formed in accordance with the Rational System of Society, these superior principles and dispositions may be given to the whole of the human race, without chance of failure except in the case of organic disease, and influenced only by the natural consequences of our actions. 8. The religion of P. God P is a designation used by anthropologists for a deity depicted in the MSS. of the Mayan Indians of Central America. In the Codex Tro-cortesianus he is provided with a blue background representing water, and himself has the fins of a frog. Schellhas therefore describes him as " The Frog God." He seems to be a god of agriculture.