mean to employ the term Socialism, will not, I am aware, commend itself to those who call themselves Socialists. I do not ask or expect any Socialist who may read this and the following chapter to assent to the view or definition of Socialism which I have here given. I ask and expect him merely to note in what sense I purpose using the word, namely, to denote only social doctrines, or proposals which I think I may safely undertake to prove require such a sacrifice of the individual to society as society is not entitled to exact. I claim the right to define Socialism frankly and avowedly from my own point of view-the non-socialistic.

But I fully admit that there is a duty corresponding to the right. It is the duty of not attempting to reason from my definition as if it were an absolute truth, or as if it were one to which Socialists assent. Such a definition is merely an affirmation which the opponent of Socialism must undertake to show holds good of any system which he condemns as Socialism, and which an advocate of Socialism must undertake to show does not hold good of the system which he himself recommends.

Any one not a Socialist must, as I have said, define Socialism in a way which will imply that it necessarily involves injustice to individuals. The Socialist will be apt to say that in doing so one starts with the assumption that Socialism is false and wrong, in order, by means of the assumption, to condemn it as such. And the charge will be justified if one really judges of the character of any so-called socialistic system by his definition of Socialism.

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But this is what no reasonable and fair-minded man will do. Such a man will examine any system on its own merits, and decide by an unbiassed examination of it as it is in itself whether or not it does justice to individuals; and all that he will do with his definition will be to determine whether, when compared with it, the system in question is to be called socialistic or not. There is nothing unfair or unreasonable in this. It is not judging of Socialism by an unfavourable definition of it; but only deciding, after an investigation which may be, and should be, uninfluenced by the definition, whether the definition be applicable or not.

What has been said as to the nature of Socialism may, however, indicate what ought to be the answer to a question which has been much debated, namely -Is it a merely temporary phase of historical development, or its inevitable issue? Is it a troublesome dream which must soon pass away; or a fatal disease the germs of which the social constitution bears in it from the first and under which it must at last succumb; or the glorious goal to which humanity is gradually moving? On the view of its nature here adopted, it is not exactly any of these things. It is neither merely accidental nor purely essential. It arises from principles inherent in the life and necessary to the welfare of society; but it does not spring from them inevitably, and is the one-sided exaggeration of them. Inasmuch, however, as truth underlies and originates it, and the exaggeration of that truth is always easy, and sometimes most difficult to avoid, without being

strictly necessary it is extremely natural; and society can never be sure that it will ever on earth get free of it, while it may be certain that it will have to pass through crises and conjunctures in which it will find Socialism a very grave matter to deal with. Society has always the Scylla and Charybdis of Socialism and Individualism on its right hand and its left, and it is never without danger from the one or the other. It is sometimes, of course, in much more danger from the one than from the other.

SUPPLEMENTARY NOTE.

It may not be without use to lay before the reader a few more definitions of Socialism. It is very desirable that we should realise how vague and ambiguous the term is, and how indispensable it is to ascertain on all occasions what those who use it mean by it.

When Proudhon, on examination before a magistrate after the days of June in 1848, was asked, What is Socialism? he replied, "Every aspiration towards the amelioration of society." "In that case," said the magistrate, we are all Socialists." "That is precisely what I think," said Proudhon. It is to be regretted that he was not further asked, What, then, was the use of the definition?

Mr. Kaufman's definition reminds us of Proudhon's. After making the entirely erroneous statement that "the very name " of Socialism means nothing else but "the betterment of society," he tells us that he himself includes under it " Communism, Collectivism, and every systematic effort under whatever name, to improve society according to some theory more explicitly defined." See "Subjects of the Day," No. 2, p. 1.

or less

Littré, in a discussion on Socialism contained in his "Paroles de Philosophie Positive," somewhat similarly says, "Socialism is a tendency to modify the present state, under the impulse of an idea of economic amelioration, and by the discussion and intervention of the labouring classes," p. 394. He had already, in

another discussion to be found in the same volume, given a far more extraordinary definition: "Socialism is a word felicitously devised (heureusement trouvé) to designate a whole of sentiments, without implying any doctrine," p. 376.

I have not been able to find that Karl Marx has given * any formal definition of Socialism. Mr. Holyoake states that he defines the "Socialistic ideal as nothing else than the material world reflected by the human mind, and translated into powers of thought," and remarks that "it would require an insurrection to get the idea into the heads of any considerable number of persons" ("Subjects of the Day," No. 2, p. 96). This is a very curious mistake. The words of Marx are: "With me the ideal is nothing else than the material world reflected by the human mind and translated into forms of thought." See pref. to 2nd ed. of "Capital."

Bebel's definition is very pretentious and unreasonable : "Socialism is science applied with clear consciousness and full knowledge to every sphere of human activity" ("Die Frau," p. 376, 13th ed., 1892).

According to Adolf Held, "We can only call Socialism every tendency which demands any kind of subordination of the individual will to the community" ("Sozialismus, Sozialdemokratie, und Sozialpolitik,” p. 29). Were this so, all but thorough Anarchists-Anarchists more thorough than any who have yet appeared-would be Socialists.

Dr. Barry, in his admirable "Lectures on Christianity and Socialism," while professedly admitting Held's definition to be satisfactory, gives as its equivalent what is really a much better one: "Socialism must, I take it, properly mean the emphasising and cultivating to a predominant power all the socialising forces -all the forces, that is, which represent man's social nature and assert the sovereignty of human society; just as Individualism is the similar emphasis and cultivation of the energy, the freedom, the rights of each man as individual" (p. 22). What, however, do these words precisely imply? If a theory of society do justice alike to the claims of the individual and of the community, or if a man sacrifice neither the individualising energies of his nature to its socialising forces, nor the latter to the former, but duly cultivate both, there is no more reason, even

according to the definitions given, for describing that man or that theory as socialistic than as individualistic, or as individualistic than as socialistic, and if you either describe them as both, or apply the terms to them indiscriminately, the words Socialism and Individualism cease to have any distinctive meaning. It is only when in theory or in life the emphasising of the social forces is carried to excess relatively to the individual energies, or vice versâ, that either Socialism or Individualism emerges. But if so, Dr. Barry should define them just as I do, and recognise as of the very essence of both a départure from truth, a disregard of order and proportion.

Bishop Westcott, in a paper read at the Church Congress, Hull, Oct. 1st, 1890,* treated of Socialism in a way which justly attracted much attention. He identified Socialism with an ideal of life very elevated and true, and recommended that ideal in words of great power and beauty. I can cordially admire his noble pleading for a grand ideal. I am only unable to perceive that the term Socialism should be identified with that ideal. He says: "The term Socialism has been discredited by its connection with many extravagant and revolutionary schemes, but it is a term which needs to be claimed for nobler uses. It has no necessary affinity with any forms of violence, or confiscation, or class selfishness, or financial arrangement. I shall therefore venture to employ it apart from its historical associations as describing a theory of life, and not only a theory of economics. In this sense Socialism is the opposite of Individualism, and it is by contrast with Individualism that the true character of Socialism can best be discerned. Individualism and Socialism correspond with opposite views of humanity. Individualism regards humanity as made up of disconnected or warring atoms; Socialism regards it as an organic whole, a vital unity formed by the combination of contributory members mutually inter-dependent. It follows that Socialism differs from Individualism both in method and in aim. The method of Socialism is co-operation, the method of Individualism is competition. The one regards man as working with man for a common end, the other regards man as working

Now republished in the volume entitled "The Incarnation and Common Life."