We may perhaps throw light on this difficulty by suggesting that the _social_ trend from 1825-70 cannot be compressed into a single word. Individualism may suffice to define the dominant _legal_ trend, but it conceals the influence exerted on the legislature from without and from below by the action of voluntary associations. The period of voluntary association coincides with and overlaps the period of individualism.
2. What Bentham was to individualism, Robert Owen was to voluntary association. Bentham himself was an admirer of Owen and supported his philanthropy, but, as expressions of a social attitude, Benthamism and Owenism were poles asunder. The contrast between the two is admirably displayed in the evidence given before the Factory Committee of 1816 by two representatives of the employing class, Josiah Wedgwood of pottery fame and Robert Owen himself.
'In the state of society,' said Wedgwood, 'in which there is evidently a progressive movement, it is much better to leave things as they are than to attempt to amend the general state of things in detail. The only safe way of securing the comfort of any people is to leave them at liberty to make the best use of their time, and to allow them to appropriate their earnings in such way as they think fit.'[65]
Robert Owen thought otherwise. In a couple of answers he exposed the fallacy of enlightened self-interest. They seem obvious enough to-day, but in 1816 they were the voice of one crying in the wilderness. He was asked whether he believed that 'there is that want of affection and feeling on the part of parents, that would induce them to exact from their children more labour than they could perform without injury to their health;' and he replied:
'I do not imagine that there is the smallest difference between the general affection of the lower order of the people, except with regard to that which may be produced by the different circumstances in which they are placed.'[66]
Another question was: 'Do you conceive that it is not injurious to the manufacturer to hazard, by overwork, the health of the people so employed?' He replied:
'If those persons were purchased by the manufacturers I should say decisively, yes; but as they are not purchased by the manufacturer and the country must bear all the loss of their strength and their energy{ ;} it does not appear, at first sight, to be the interest of the manufacturer to do so.'[67]