American Socialisms, as we have defined them and grouped their experiments, may be called _non-religious_ Socialisms. Several religious Communities flourished in this country before Owen's attempts, and have continued to flourish here since the collapse of Fourierism. But they were originally colonies of foreigners, and never were directly connected with movements that could be called national. Owen was the first Socialist that stirred the enthusiasm of the whole American people; and he was the first, so far as we know, who tried the experiment of a non-religious Community. And the whole series of experiments belonging to the two great groups of the Owen and Fourier epochs, followed in his footsteps. The exclusion of theology was their distinction and their boast. Our programme, limited as it is by its title to these national Socialisms, does not strictly include the religious Communities. Yet those Communities have played indirectly a very important part in the drama of American Socialisms, and will require considerable incidental attention as we proceed. In attempting to make out from Macdonald's collection an outline of Owen's great experiment at New Harmony (which was the prototype of all the Owen and Fourier experiments), we find ourselves at the outset quite unexpectedly dealing with a striking example of the relation between the religious and non-religious Communities. Owen did not build the village of New Harmony, nor create the improvements which prepared his 30,000 acres for his family of nine hundred. He bought them outright from a previous religious Community; and it is doubtful whether he would have ever gathered his nine hundred and made his experiment, if he had not found a place prepared for him by a sect of Christian Communists. Macdonald was an admirer, we might almost say a worshiper, of Owen. He gloats over New Harmony as the very Mecca of his devotion. There he spent his first eighteen months in this country. The finest picture in his collection is an elaborate India-ink drawing of the village. But he scarcely mentions the Rappites who built it. No separate account of them, such as he gives of the Shakers and Moravians, can be found in his manuscripts. This is an unaccountable neglect; for their pre-occupation of New Harmony and their transactions with Owen, must have thrust them upon his notice; and their history is intrinsically as interesting, to say the least, as that of any of the religious Communities. A glance at the history of the Rappites is in many ways indispensable, as an introduction to an account of Owen's New Harmony. We must therefore address ourselves to the task which Macdonald neglected. THE HARMONISTS.