either theory or movement, unless they are studied together.

Since Socialism is at bottom a philosophy, it has no programme, properly speaking. Some socialistic groups have a programme, and in the past socialists have quite generally put forward programmes which we shall subject in turn to critical examination in the course of our study. But there has been a great change within a generation intelligent socialists no longer profess a programme. They have no faith in the possibility of establishing Socialism to-morrow or next week. It is true they have a goal: a social state in which every person shall contribute to the common good in proportion to his ability, and in return shall be guaranteed an equitable share in what is produced. But this goal socialists now expect to reach by a gradual process, not by any sudden and violent overturning of existing institutions, or even as the immediate result of legislation. It is evolution rather than revolution that is their reliance.

But the socialist holds, too, that evolution may be hastened by intelligent action. Because existing social institutions are the result of age-long process of development, of which men have been hitherto mainly unconscious, it by no means follows that man is the mere sport of economic forces and may do nothing to determine his own destiny. Neither determinism nor fatalism is a necessary part of Socialism. Man has always done something, he may henceforth do much more, to direct the line of his development and the evolution of social institutions. We may steer, and not simply drift, toward the ideal social order. Accordingly Kautsky, one of the ablest of German socialist leaders, warns laborers that

they have something to do besides "sit down with open mouths and wait for the roast pigeons to fly in." Just as Burbank, by careful selection of seeds and plants, and skilful cross-breeding, is able to hasten the processes of nature and produce in a few months what ordinary evolution would require years, perhaps centuries, to bring forth, so the socialist believes that if we can gain a clear conception of the goal to be reached, and arouse in men desire to reach it, the end may be greatly hastened. Socialism is concerned to-day, therefore, not with Utopias, but with realities. It is a purposeful attempt to assist evolution, not a vain striving to shape society after an ideal pattern.

Socialism might be more scientifically named collectivism. The key to all its theories and parties is, coöperative production and equitable distribution. It is the opposite system on the one hand to individualism, and on the other to competition. It is but carrying one stage further a process of social reorganization that has been transforming the world ever since the decay of the feudal system.

We have thus seen what Socialism is; let us still further define it by seeing what Socialism is not.

Socialism is not communism, though the two are frequently confounded, even in the encyclical of Pope Leo XIII, who misstated the essential principle of Socialism by confusing it with Communism. Of what value is infallibility to a pontiff who lacks common sense, or common knowledge? It must, however, be admitted that socialists themselves are in large part responsible for this confusion of ideas. There was a time in the movement when the name "socialist" did not have its present

precision of meaning, but was used to describe persons and movements that differed widely, and sometimes were in sharp conflict with each other. To distinguish their proposals from these ill-defined schemes, when Karl Marx and Frederic Engels issued their famous declaration in 1847, well named "the birth-cry of modern Socialism," they called it "The Communist Manifesto." Their ideas were quite distinct from communism, and therefore the choice of that name was most unfortunate, since it naturally tended to prolong misunderstanding and confusion. The two systems are easily distinguishable. Communism would distribute all wealth equally; Socialism would secure to every man as nearly as possible the full product of his own labor. Communism aims at the abolition of all private property; Socialism does not object to private property, except ownership of the means of producing wealth; these, it holds, should be owned by the whole community, and not by individuals or small groups. But wealth once produced and equitably distributed, Socialism recognizes the right of each person to his own portion; he may consume it, or he may accumulate a surplus, or he may give part of it to others. Socialism offers greater personal freedom than communism, therefore, and better opportunity for the maintenance of family life. The best examples of actual communism are furnished us in some of the religious orders of the Roman Catholic Church, in which the individual does not own even the clothes that he wears, but everything belongs to the community.

Socialism is not anarchy, but its antipodes.1 Anarchy

1 "Socialism is not Anarchism, but order; not Communism, but justice; it does not propose to abolish competition, but to regulate it; nor to

is the extreme of individualism, the negation of all social organization. It professes as its goal that men shall live together without government and without law. There are both evolutionary and revolutionary groups of anarchists, both individualists and communists among them. They do not oppose collectivism in production, but hold that it should be voluntary, like everything else. But while anarchy would thus entirely free men from law, Socialism would greatly extend the scope of law. So much is this the characteristic of Socialism that Herbert Spencer called it "the new slavery." Anarchy is a centrifugal force, Socialism is a centripetal. Under anarchy a man might work or not, as he pleased; under Socialism every man must be an active producer, and means must be found to persuade the unwilling and coerce the lazy. No two systems could be more thoroughly unlike than Socialism and anarchy, and there is no good reason why they should be so continually confounded. The confusion is not always honest; the words are promiscuously applied as epithets of opprobrium, with so

abolish property, but to consecrate it; nor to abolish the home, but to make the home possible; nor to curtail liberty, but to enlarge it." Edmond Kelly, p. 7. "Nor to abolish religion," he might have added, "but to make it practical."

1 The Republican platform for 1908 contained these words: "Socialism would destroy wealth; Republicanism would prevent its abuse. Socialism would give each an equal right to take; Republicanism would give to each an equal right to earn. Socialism would offer an equality of possessions which would soon leave no one anything to possess; Republicanism would give equality of opportunity which would assure to each his share of a constantly increasing sum of possessions." The object of statements so notoriously false can, of course, be nothing else than to create political prejudice and influence voters against Socialism. We have come to expect this in political platforms, but it is not seldom found in what purports to be the serious literature of the subject.

much indifference and lack of discrimination as to indicate either gross ignorance or moral obliquity in those who bandy the names about so freely.

Socialism should not be confounded, as it often is, with the private and personal vagaries of some socialists. People of widely differing opinions about art, science, philosophy, and religion have agreed in approving collectivism as the most equitable principle to govern the production and distribution of wealth. Some have been atheists, but collectivism has no necessary or inherent connection with either atheism or theism. The Erfurt Congress (1891) declared explicitly that religion is a private concern of the individual, with which Socialism as such has nothing to do. Some socialists have advocated the abolition of marriage and the family, but collectivism has no essential affinity for such a theory of social reorganization. And while some socialists would substitute the ethics of the barnyard for the ethics of Jesus, that is conspicuously not true of all socialists. Since they are disagreed on this point, yet are equally socialists, the only fair deduction is that of a recent socialistic writer, "There is no such thing as a socialistic view of marriage, any more than there is a Republican or Democratic view of marriage; or any more than there is a socialist view of vaccination, vivisection, vegetarianism, or homeopathy." 1 Among the advocates of So

1 Spargo, "Socialism," p. 293. In spite of numerous disclaimers of this kind from recognized authorities, the London Municipal Society in its book called "The Case Against Socialism” makes a deliberate attempt to discredit Socialism by arguing that all socialists are violent revolutionists (in the teeth of protests by leading socialists that they neither seek nor desire revolution); and that Socialism is the necessary and determined foe of marriage and the family, as well as of all religion, espe