This sketch of the progress of the human race may seem trite to many readers. It may have a familiar sound, but it is necessary to our narrative. It was promulgated many years before our modern writers came into the field with their evolutionary theories, and it is at least a theoretic base for social scientists to build their hopes of present and future progress on. To the Brook Farm leaders it was new; it was sensible; it was reasonable. Communism they did not favor, for their motto was, "Community of property is the grave of individual liberty." Instinctively they rebelled against it. The organized communities held everything in common--houses, lands, moneys and goods; even prescribing what garments should be worn, and also electing a religious creed for their members. It was not compatible with the greater ideas of freedom held at Brook Farm. It was not a free life and it could not be a true life, for they all believed in the motto, "The _truth_ shall make you _free_," and instead of freedom, the "Communities" used mental constraint and tyranny to hold themselves together. The Brook Farmers believed that the laborer owned the value of his labor; if it was used, it was credited to him, and a part of the increased value of the domain belonged to him. It never belonged to the organization;--that is, the value of it--but by mutual consent might be retained, invested and added to the laborer's stock. Theoretically the result would show that the person who was the most capable, active and industrious would in time own the most accrued capital. This the Brook Farmers claimed was right and according to nature, and, combined with _yearly diminishing interest_, could not be destructive, as capital is now. They had fallen unwittingly, it may be said, on ideas that coincided with those of Charles Fourier. There was an agreement between them, unknown at the start. Their idea that certain mutual guarantees were to be in the constitution, such as immunity from labor in extreme age and youth, care in sickness--a certain "minimum" of rights according to the prosperity or wealth of the institution--and that an "integral education" was a duty of the Association--an education not of the mind alone, but of the hands, heart and affections--coincided exactly with Fourier, and it was easy to adopt his motto of "_coöperative labor_," for they had already adopted the principle; also "_association of families_," for that had been agreed on. It was easy to adopt his formula of "_honors according to usefulness_"; they believed in it.