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KNOWLEDGE AND UNION ARE POWER:
POWER, DIRECTED BY KNOWLEDGE, IS HAPPINESS:
HAPPINESS IS THE END OF CREATION.
No. 7] NOVEMBER 1, 1828. [1d.
9. Such is the state of things which Co-operation holds out. Every man, on entering such a Society, immediately becomes surrounded by a host of friends. All the abilities and labour of all those friends are pledged to him, to protect him against the common evils of life, and to ensure to him its comforts and enjoyments. While he presents the Society with the labour, skill, and knowledge of one single individual, the Society presents him with those of many. He gives little: he receives much. In himself, he is subject to all the uncertainties, the ups and downs of life, to anxiety and care, to laborjous days, and sleepless nights: but in the Society, he has insured himself against all these things: he cannot be ruined unless the Society be so too: and the ruin of a Society of labourers is an impossibility. Because, as every labourer produces about four times as much as be consumes, a society of one hundred labourers must produce four hundred times more than they consume—which is amply sufficient to provide against all the chances and accidents of life.
10. Suppose a workman, a member of such a Society, to form a friendship for another member, how delightful would it be for them to live under the same roof, to work at the same employment, to eat at the same table, to spend the hours of rest and recreation in mutual conversation or improvement. They would never be separated by change of masters, want of work, or sickness, or old age. One would never look down upon the other because he was rising more in the world, nor feel contempt for him as belonging to a different trade. They would continually be striving to oblige each other, by little acts of kindness and attention. They would lighten each other’s' labour as opportunity offered, and they would unite in this labour with the greatest cordiality and zeal, in order to insure a common independence.
11. Another pleasing occupation of such friendship would be, to assist in explaining and enforcing the great principles of the Society: to instruct the ignorant: to encourage the timid: to help the weak: to be patterns to the other members: to be foremost in exertion, in zeal, in activity: to be always ready to meet difficulties, and to bear the heat and burthen of the day. Such objects would be worthy of the warmest friendship, and the highest energies; and would be a fit employment for those exalted faculties which God has given to man.
12. We do not mean to assert that each member of a society or community would possess that high degree of feeling, which is called friendship, towards every other member. We only argue upon the general truth, that friendship, in some degree, is common and necessary to all men—that the circumstances of ordinary life are very unfavorable to it—and that those of a Co-operative community are essentially favorable : and when such friendship does exist, between two or more members, their circumstances will enable them to reap from it the highest possible enjoyment.
