But to do complete justice we must go a step further. While we say that the Rappites, the Zoarites, the Ebenezers, the Owenites, and even the Fourierites are all echoes of the Shakers, we must also acknowledge that the Shakers are the far-off echoes of the PRIMITIVE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. CHAPTER XVII. FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIALISM. The main idea on which Owen and Fourier worked was the same. Both proposed to reconstruct society by gathering large numbers into unitary dwellings. Owen had as clear sense of the compound economies of Association as Fourier had, and discoursed as eloquently, if not as scientifically, on the beauties and blessings of combined industry. Both elaborated plans for vast buildings, which they proposed to substitute for ordinary family dwellings. Owen's communal edifice was to be a great hollow square, somewhat like a city block. Fourier's phalanstery, on the other hand, was to be a central palace with two wings. In like manner their plans of reconstructing society differed in details, but the main idea of combination in large households was the same. What they undertook to do may be illustrated by the history of bee-keeping. The usual way in this business is to provide hives that will hold only a few quarts of bees each, and so compel new generations to swarm and find new homes. But it has always been a problem among ingenious apiarians, how to construct compound hives, that will prevent the necessity of swarming, and either allow a single swarm to increase indefinitely, or induce many swarms to live together in contiguous apartments. We remember there was an invention of this kind that had quite a run about the time of the Fourier excitement. It was not very successful; and yet the idea seems not altogether chimerical; for it is known that wild bees, in certain situations, as in large hollow trees and in cavities among rocks, do actually accumulate their numbers and honey from generation to generation. Owen and Fourier, like the apiarian inventors (who are proverbially unpractical), undertook to construct, each in his own way, great compound hives for human beings; and they had the example of the Shakers (who may be considered the wild bees in the illustration) to countenance their schemes. The difference of their methods was this: Owen's plan was based on _Communism_; Fourier's plan was based on the _Joint-stock_ principle. Both of these modes of combination exist abundantly in common society. Every family is a little example of Communism; and every working partnership is an example of Joint-stockism. Communism creates homes; Joint-stockism manages business. Perhaps national idiosyncracies had something to do with the choice of principles in these two cases. _Home_ is an English word for an English idea. It is said there is no equivalent word in the French language. Owen, the Englishman, chose the home principle. Fourier, the Frenchman, chose the business principle.