socialist deity, and its decrees must be reverently received and implicitly obeyed. This is the socialistic form of the cultus of the majority. In every form, however, any such cultus is obviously incompatible with a true view of the nature and claims of morality.

CHAPTER XI.

SOCIALISM AND RELIGION.

How is Socialism related to Religion? To this question different and conflicting answers have been given.

1. Some have held that there is no essential relation, no natural or necessary connection, between them. It cannot be denied that they may act, and really do act, on each other; but it may be denied that they ever so act otherwise than casually, or, in other words, owing to the influence of circumstances, the conjuncture of contingencies. And this denial has been made. Socialism, according to those to whom I refer, is occupied only with economic interests, and has properly nothing to do with religious concerns, while Religion is a “private affair," one intrinsically spiritual and individual. A Socialist may be of any religion or of no religion. In discussing Socialism it is irrelevant to refer to Religion. To attach any importance to imputations of materialism, infidelity, and atheism against Socialists is "bad form "; it is to have recourse to an unfair and happily almost obsolete style of controversy. We have found by the. experience of centuries that these weapons are the most readily turned against the best and wisest

men, and we no longer employ them in our political and economic warfare."*

There must be admitted to be some truth in this view. The economic and the religious questions in Socialism are not only separable but ought to be so far separated. Socialists are fully entitled to expect that their economic hypotheses will be judged of, in the first place at least, on economic grounds, apart from religious and all other noneconomic considerations. The critic of Socialism may be justified in confining his attention to its economic doctrine. No person is bound to treat of any subject exhaustively. That there are religious as well as non-religious Socialists is undeniable; and to impute falsely materialism, infidelity, or atheism to any man, wise or foolish, good or bad, is obviously unjustifiable. The experience of centuries has undoubtedly shown it to be grievous error to drag Religion irrelevantly into any discussion, or so to make use of it as to embitter and degrade any discussion.

Still the view in question is, in the main, erroneous. There is not enough of truth in it to have gained it much acceptance. Of all views on the relation of Religion to Socialism, it is the one which fewest people have been found to adopt. And Socialists have as generally and decidedly rejected it as non-Socialists. The religious among them are almost unanimous in holding that

*Mr. Bosanquet in the Preface to his translation of Schäffle's "Impossibility of Social Democracy."

Religion, as they conceive of it, is necessary to the completeness and efficiency of their Socialism. The non-religious among them, with rare exceptions, look on Religion as naturally antagonistic to the growth and triumph of all genuine Socialism.

It would have been strange if it had been otherwise. Socialism is not pure science, not mere theory; it is a doctrine or scheme of social organisation. Can any such doctrine or scheme ignore or exclude consideration of Religion, and yet not be seriously defective? Surely not. Social organisation is not merely economic organisation; it implies the harmonising of all the factors, institutions, and interests of society, political, moral, and religious, as well as economic. Economic organisation, indeed, can no more be successfully effected if dissevered from religion than if dissociated from morality or political action. The life of a society, like the life of an individual, is a whole, and all the elements, organs, and functions which such life implies are so intimately interconnected that each one influences and is influenced by all the others. They cannot be separated without injury or destruction to themselves and the entire organism. Dissection is only practicable on the dead. All attempts at mere economic organisation must necessarily be unsuccessful; and so far from its being irrelevant in discussing Socialism to refer to Religion any examination of Socialism which does not extend to its religious bearings must be incomplete. The experience of centuries should indeed warn us to be on our guard against recklessly

charging economic or political systems with atheism, but it should no less warn us against fancying that such systems may ally themselves with atheism or irreligion without loss of social virtue or value.

2. Another view of the relation between Socialism and Religion is that it is one of identity; that they are substantially the same thing; that Socialism in its perfection is Religion at its best.

This is a view which has been widely entertained. The Socialism which appeared in France in the early part of the present century, although it originated in the irreligious materialism and revolutionary radicalism of the latter part of the preceding century, came gradually after the Restoration to assume an anti-revolutionary and comparatively religious character and tone. SaintSimon closed his career with presenting his social doctrine as a New Christianity, the result and goal of the entire past religious development of humanity; and on this New Christianity Enfantin and his adherents sought to raise the New Church of the future. Fourier, Considérant, Cabet, and Leroux all felt that society could not be held together, reinvigorated, and reorganised by mere reasoning and science, but required also the force and life which faith and religion can alone impart. At the same time, like Saint-Simon, they regarded historical Christianity as effete and sought to discover substitutes for it capable of satisfying both the natural and the spiritual wants of man. The great aim of Auguste Comte from 1847 until his death in 1857 was so to transform his philosophy