The Laws of Human Progress and Modern Reforms

The Laws of Human Progress and Modern Reforms is a work by Orville Dewey (1794-1882), the American Unitarian minister who served as pastor of the Church of the Messiah in New York City and as one of the prominent voices of mid-nineteenth century American Unitarianism alongside William Ellery Channing.

Dewey was a graduate of Williams College and Andover Theological Seminary who moved into Unitarianism in the 1820s and produced substantial writing on religious, social, and reform questions across his long career. His position was generally moderate liberal Protestant in the broader tradition that included Channing, James Freeman Clarke, and the various other leading American Unitarian voices of the period.

The Laws of Human Progress addresses the broader questions about how social and moral progress actually occurs in human societies, drawing on the substantial mid-nineteenth century American interest in reform movements including abolitionism, temperance, education reform, prison reform, and various other social improvement efforts that characterized the period.