be no more national wars; no more exploitation of labour; no more tyrannies; real liberty, equality, fraternity would for the first time, be possible, and peace would be over the world. Such is the final prospect; but to get to it, war, they allow, will be necessary, for Governments must be first subverted, and to effect this force will be necessary.

These last are the Anarchists, and, according to the definition before adopted, should not be regarded as Socialists, because, far from desiring the aid of the State to bring in their schemes, their one attitude to the State is that of ceaseless hostility, and their one hope is to overthrow it. Nevertheless, so far as they aim in the end at social equality, as they do, they may be regarded as a species of Socialists-" the extreme left" of the Socialists' camp. It is a question of terminology whether we are to regard them as Socialists. or not. If State intervention is the essence of Socialism, then Anarchists are not Socialists, but if the aim at equality is the essential thing, then Anarchists are Socialists, and extreme ones. Growing usage favours the former sense. But it should not be forgotten that it is a question of words, nor that the Anarchists' final aim would be described as socialistic. Moreover, when the work of destruction. is done, this final idea somewhat resembles that of Fourier, who is usually classed amongst the Socialists, in fact, sharing, with St. Simon, the honour of being one of the founders of Socialism. Fourier likewise proposed to dispense with the aid of the State in trying. his experiments. He also regarded the commune as the true ultimate political whole; only he differs from. the Anarchist in not believing the subversion of the

State the necessary first preliminary to trying his scheme.

Such, then, are the chief forms of modern Socialism. But we shall never understand Socialism fully, nor know either its strength or weakness, without some knowledge of its past history. Without knowing its past, we shall not understand its present forms: nor the absolute necessity of its presence. As Sociologists like Comte and Herbert Spencer, in agreement with the modern Historical School, inform us, we cannot understand the present irrespective of the past; without a knowledge of causes which lie in the past, there can be no right interpretation of the existing effects; nor, it may be added, without this knowledge can we make any safe prediction as to the future, whether of Society or of Socialism, because such prediction can only consist in the calculation of the probable effect of existing tendencies and forces as gathered from a study of the past and present. Happily, some general power of prediction, without foreseeing the details, we may have from the knowledge of the past and present, rightly interpreted. We can gather the large and growing tendencies and forces, industrial, social, moral and political, and from these forces, together with existing general facts (statical laws) we may hazard some broad predictions that will probably be realized in future. Especially may we make such. rough forecast as to what may be in the more specific economic sphere, in which the tendencies are more pronounced and clear, as well as in general more durable and massive, and less subject to modification from human volitions, or the existence of counter tendencies, than those in the spheres of morals or politics.

CHAPTER II.

SOCIALISM BEFORE THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.

I.

SOCIALISM in its essence is not a new thing. The word is new; the Socialists' argument that all wealth is due to the labour of the working classes is new; and the principal forms which the socialistic spirit now assumes, owing to the changed conditions of modern industry and the production of wealth, are new; but the general thing, the substantial thing, is old, and its general aims are old, and always the same—a more even distribution of wealth, of money or money's worth, as the main material means of happiness. It is even a necessary thing, deducible from the principles of human nature although not at all times in active operation. Although in a given society the spirit may be sluggish or slumbering, though it may be cowed or conquered for a time, it always exists awaiting favouring conditions to manifest itself again.1 Socialism, in the form of a struggle

1 Roscher specifies the general conditions under which communistic and socialistic ideas appear as follows: (1) a well-defined confrontation of rich and poor without a strong intervening middle class; (2) a high degree of the division of labour (3) revolutions which perplex opinion as to right, and in which

of the lower classes to raise their condition, is as old as History, in which it forms some of the most important, though hitherto neglected, chapters. Socialism, in the sense of a struggle for greater equality, is as old as civil society, old as the separation of men into classes, old as the distinction of rich and poor. Further, the spirit of Socialism, in the shape of a set of principles aiming at the establishment and perpetuation of reasonable equality, presided at the foundation of more than one famous historical state. Moses (or whoever wrote or compiled the books of Leviticus. and Deuteronomy) was so far a Socialist that we can clearly see his endeavour, by judicious institutions, to prevent great inequality amongst the Jews, while Private Property and Inheritance are nevertheless sanctioned. We find in Leviticus a system of land-holding intended to secure reasonable equality, and a very remarkable institution, the Jubilee, designed to prevent the Jewish people from being permanently divorced from the land. We have unusual clemency shown to the honest debtor by which the purpose of a good Bankruptcy Law was effected; and a special provision for the poor, if any such should appear under a general socialistic polity expressly designed to prevent extreme poverty. The usurer as an evil possibility is foreseen by Moses, and is warned from exercising his function, or practising his methods, at the cost of his brethren in their necessi

the multitude have learned their power; (4) a Democratic constitution of the State; (5) a general decay of religion and morals and the spread of an atheistic and materialistic spirit. ("Political Economy," vol. i.)

ties. We find equality aimed at, and fraternity everywhere inculcated as the surest moral guarantee of equality. But all this is of the essence of Socialism. Moreover, it is State Socialism, or Socialism embodied in fundamental institutions, and under the consecration and guardianship of Law; and it had the further consecration of Religion, which was in the beginning inseparably connected with Law. It is Socialism; only it differs from modern Socialism in the important particular that it was Socialism established, and for a long time successfully worked in practice, whereas modern Socialism exists as yet mainly in aim and endeavour. It was Socialism embodied in institutions, customs, and laws, whereas ours is a spirit that seeks incarnation. It was in a word accomplished and successful Socialism, whilst ours is still in the militant state; and has still to demonstrate its practicability and advantages.

In time the Jewish Socialism failed. Individualism and gross inequality of condition came; but the Law of Moses acted as a drag to make the process of change to individualism slow, and the Jewish Prophets appeared who denounced the mighty and the despoiler and oppressor of his brethren. The prophets were Socialists: Isaiah the greatest of Socialists. Whoever doubts the essential similarity of social phenomena at different times and in different societies, provided they have reached similar stages of social evolution, or whoever thinks that the recurrence of similar social effects from similar social causes does not take place, should read Isaiah's denunciations of those who "grind the faces of the