its motto is "each for himself," and so far as persons adopt this maxim as the solution of social problems, so far are they influenced by pure individualism. Leaving then the modified Individualist-the Individualist with saving clauses-let us revert to the consideration of this purer and more consistent and logical School.

Notwithstanding the Individualist's extreme objection to social claims and consequent State Interference, it is true he upholds for purposes of such mutual protection as is absolutely necessary to bare existence, a certain low maximum of coercive law, which he generally maintains, partly from a lurking and illogical recognition of the value of his neighbour, and partly and professedly because of the convenience or "utility" which the majority of citizens-he, of course, being of that majority-find in being so protected. But, notwithstanding this concession to necessity, his teaching is "each for himself," each for his own self-development, each to secure to himself the conditions necessary for his own completion. He is indifferent as to whether others have actually succeeded, each fighting singlehanded, in becoming able to obtain even the minimum of liberty and opportunity-that lowest quota of independence in which self-development and selfrealisation can normally take place, and free-will and conscience have their full meaning.

He has, further, no faith in the moral right of the State to control marriage; and, furthermore, regards the legal or civic Nation merely as a convenient nucleus for the protection from outside aggression of private property and such personal freedom as he may enjoy. That is to say, if it appeared that Private Property and

individual freedom would be equally secured, or actually enhanced, by annexation to some menacing Power;or if it appeared that to resist the encroachments of such Power would cost too much liberty and too much property, he could not logically resent such annexation, or resist such encroachment. It happens, however, that while the Socialist-temperamentally anti-social as he is, and devoting himself habitually to appealing to individual interests-objects strongly to the maintenance of Nations, and all that that maintenance involves, the pure Individualist, notwithstanding the claims of logic, is in this connection still comparatively rare. But notwithstanding this, the individualistic and purely self-regarding view of the Family and the Nation is gaining ground surely and steadily. So that in this respect also pure Individualism is seen to be allied to Socialism.

The bottom of the whole matter is that both the Individualist and the Socialist ultimately repudiate the transcendental doctrine of Personality, and in consequence all that conduces thereto-Family, Nation, Religion. A brief glance at the fundamental individualistic position may serve to convince of the inevitableness of this conclusion.

It is impossible to believe fully in the idea involved in the term Person, and at the same time to maintain that each Person's responsibility begins and ends with himself. It is extremely important to realise that the belief in a Personal Man (as opposed to an automaton, social unit, or member of an organism) is essentially a religious belief. The person is what he is, in virtue of his relation with the Supreme Being. It is to this relation he owes it that he is not wholly determined by

his physical and social environment, but is possessed of conditional free-will and of moral responsibility. This moral responsibility attaches not only to the use he makes of those things which make for his own development, but to all things in any direction whatsoever which he does or leaves undone. Indeed, apart from his recognition of claims on the part of his neighbour, the expression "his own development" can have no reference to other than purely physical and intellectual culture. For how shall Justice, Mercy, Truth, and the other moral qualities have existence, meaning or application, except in our spiritual relations with our fellowmen, and the conviction that we are bound to them by a surpassing mystical union, necessitating that we consider and enforce their proper interests equally with our

own.

Persons are not a quantity of separate units, united by common interest as the Individualistic and Socialistic creeds really imply, but each being a spirit is related to others not only by the ties of a physical and mysterious spiritual heredity, but by the fact that the spiritual powers of each have one common origin in the Supreme or Absolute Being. It is only in relation or correspondence with this Being that the transcendental powers of the Person can have existence or meaning. Without this his significance becomes exhausted in his relation to the Social "organism," and no appeal that he could make to the Rights and Liberties essential to Personality, could avail anything to promote, to stay or to influence the physical force of the State. The Supreme Divine Person therefore is the source of all Personality, and is its Maintenance—that is to say, there is a common Life and a common Environment

and that Life and that Environment is no other than the Absolute Being Himself.

It is in virtue of this common Divine Immanence, that each Person is compelled to regard all Persons, himself included-from an Absolute point of view, or from the point of view of the Absolute Mind. He is in consequence compelled to regard all Persons as of equal importance with himself, and in all that he does or leaves undone he must consider their development equally with his own. In so far as he does not do this, but makes himself his own centre, so far he ceases to believe in the Personality of others and therefore also of himself, and so far on both counts-he dissolves that relation and correspondence with the Absolute which is the origin of the moral, ultra-physical or Personal qnalities in himself and all other Persons.

The doctrine therefore of " each for himself," however legally safe-guarded, involves the repudiation of the Personal nature of Man; and those who hold this doctrine, and in so far as they hold it, are anti-social in tendency, whether their interest or caprice causes them to range themselves on the side of the Individualists or the Socialists. Both parties taken at their best base their claims and their methods on Utility" or the Good of the Majority, modified by an illogical doctrine of Equality of Consideration; and both equally deprive the individual of the "duty" of seeking the Good of the Majority, and of the “right” to be "equally considered" or indeed considered at all.

Before leaving the subject of the pure Individualist, it may be well to glance briefly at the position of the Anarchist.

Evolved from the Socialist, he like them began by

denying the transcendental character and consequent a priori "rights" of the Individual. To proceed from this to denying the rights of the "majority" of individuals, was on his part a very natural and logical act. He was aware that you might multiply "nought" indefinitely and still always arrive at "nought."

But in addition to this logical position, the Anarchist had other and more human reasons for his aversion to what is usually implied in the idea of Government. It has been said of him by Socialists that his only offence consisted in his being egregiously in advance of his times. That he was an idealist, and that his dreams would come true, and that some day we should have and need no laws. This may all be true enough. But the Anarchist's real objection to coercive law lay, not in this ideal atmosphere at all, but in his characteristic and temperamental dislike to those things for which coercive law is most necessary, and for which it is most commonly employed-to wit, the defence of the Family and the Nation, and the protection of private property and other Rights.

It may be observed that his objection to these three institutions is in reality as arbitrary and capricious as is the defence of them by the Individualist, and the attack on them by the Socialist. Sentimentality, prejudice, envy, class, and self-interest are the real source of all the differences between the three parties.

In concluding this briefest possible review of the fundamental position of the Individualists, the Socialists -and incidentally of the Anarchists, there is a reflection arising from their substantive relationship, which in the universality of its application is not wholly without interest.