ground for even a plausible conjecture as to the possibility of any fundamental social change in the future. The Socialists will of course say that the five centuries of English history from which they argue do show us an example of this very thing-that is to say, a fundamental social change in the past. The answer to this brings us to the root of the matter. The answer is, that if we look below the surface, and regard the history of these centuries as a history of human nature, they reveal to us no fundamental social change at all. They show us many superficial changes, many changes of form, but no change in those underlying human forces by which all the changes in form and circumstance are produced. This will be at once apparent if we summarize the historical argument of the Socialists in terms of its real meaning. Its real meaning is this. In the Middle Ages the many were controlled by the few, according to a certain elaborate and peculiar system. In the course of time this system changed so completely that the old controllers of the many lost the whole of their original power. Power of that kind, in fact, ceased to belong to anybody. A new kind of power, resting on a new basis, was developed, and centred itself in a different class of persons; and the many, emancipated from the government of one minority, became subject to the government of another. Similarly, so the Socialists argue, by a new process of change, the many emancipating themselves from this second minority as from the first, will cease to be under the government of any minority at all.

As soon as their case is thus stated, the flaw in the argument becomes apparent; for we see that the logic of it really amounts to this. Because the many were formerly under the rule of a minority of one kind, and are now under the rule of a minority of another kind, we may therefore conclude that presently they will be under the rule of no minority at all. But the palpable absurdity of this reasoning is no mere defect in formal logic. It is the result and the sign of that superficial view of history which fails to see what, at bottom, the subject-matter of history is, and the limitation of view to which I

alluded is the direct consequence of this. For the moment we realize that all the events of history are but so many manifestations of the force of human nature, and the moment we describe the transition from the Feudal to the Capitalistic systems so as to show what is at once its most general and its most essential character, so as to exhibit it as a change in the relations between the many and the few, we at once see that it was no isolated occurrence, but that it has had its counterpart in every age and country; and that the rudest or the earliest civilizations, however unlike ours on the surface, really offer to our study precisely parallel cases. Whenever human beings have risen from the most abject savagery, and in proportion as they have risen from it, we find presented to us a fact which is everywhere essentially identical-namely, the fact of the many being under the control of the few. The form of the control varies; but the fact of it never varies. Its basis is sometimes military, sometimes religious, sometimes economic; sometimes it is of all three kinds together; but there the control is. In the early pastoral ages we have patriarchs with flocks, and herds, and servants. In ancient Egypt and Babylonia, in ancient Greece and Rome, through countless differences there appears this same phenomenon. Groups of men have been cast on distant countries, compelled to build up their social life from the foundations. They have been cast among new circumstances and opportunities that have been the same. for all. But whatever their history may have been, it has been the history of this one thing-the evolution of a governing minority, and its relation to the governed. And what makes this fact all the more striking, is the parallel fact, that generally-though not universally-the many have constantly been rebelling against the few, attempting to make some change in the social structure; and that in every case the end has been just the same-they may have sometimes changed masters, but they never have got rid of them. is this true of the old world only. Among the most startling and instructive of all the facts of recorded history, are the conditions of civilization which

Nor

the first discoverers of America found existing among the most advanced native races. Certain writers have cited the empire of the Incas as affording an example of vast and successful Communism; and so far as the majority of the people were concerned there is some justification for this view of the matter. But such writers forget how this Communism was maintained. They forget to mention that the majority were under the rule of a king and a double aristocracy, as powerful and exclusive as any that could have been found in Europe; that equality among the people was an equality of the most rigid poverty, though not of want; and that all the wealth and luxury produced in the entire empire was produced for the king and the priesthood and the noble classes only.

Had the Socialistic theorists realized the above great and universal fact, they would have seen that their attempt to understand the nature and causes of Capitalism by a mere study of one isolated fragment of human history, was about as rational as an attempt to explain man's mortality by examining the accident or the illness which caused the death of a particular individual. This might be small-pox, or it might be a donkey's kick; and if we reasoned about life as the Socialists reason about economic history, we shall inevitably come to the conclusion that human beings would be immortal if they were all vaccinated, or if there were no donkeys to kick them. And, indeed, if we had only the case of one man to study, such a conclusion would be by no means irrational. It is shown to be irrational only because we see that, as a matter of fact, all men die, however various their circumstances; and that in each special case, accident, debility or disease is the proximate cause of a death, but is not the cause of Death. In the same way, the circumstances which led in this country to the change from Feudalism to Capitalism were merely the proximate causes of the transfer of power from one minority to another. They were not the causes of that great universal fact that power, under all circumstances, is in the hands of a minority always; nor do they offer the smallest

indication that in this respect things will ever change in the future.

It

The real change underlying the great industrial transition, on which the Socialists build what they take to be their scientific theory, was simply a gradual change in the kind of personal superiority required by the age in pursuit of its changing ideals and its ambitions. During the Middle Ages the required superiority was mainly military. was of more importance to defend industry than to organize it. As time went on the situation slowly reversed itself, and it became more important to organize industry than to defend it. In the medieval world valor employed industry; in the modern world industry employs valor. And now let us look below the surface a little deeper, and we shall see that the great mental event, of which these outer changes were the expression, was the gradual withdrawal from war of the strongest intellects and characters, and their concentration on the business of production, supplemented by the development of faculties of many new kinds, which now found uses never before open to them, and which placed their possessors among the potentates of the new era. In a word, the military ability of the minority has gradually turned into, or has given place to, the industrial ability of the minority. And this, again, is but the expression of another fact that is deeper and wider still-the fact that no matter what the special faculties may be which under any given circumstances are most useful to a community, these faculties, in their highest degree and their most serviceable forms, are found to exist only among comparatively few persons; and by an inevitable and natural process these few persons become the rulers, and Democratic forms of government may conceal this fact, or modify certain of its results, but they never fundamentally alter it.

The events then which the Socialists have mistaken for an evolution of the economic rule of the many out of the economic rule of the minority, has really been nothing but the evolution of a new minority out of the old; and the evolution of a minority whose special faculties and functions not only as

regard to wine or beer, a Socialistic water-supply would be a very different matter. Whatever element of Socialism there may be in their enterprise, it is made possible and successful only by their exceptional simplicity; and could the principle of competition be conveniently introduced into them, it is impossible to doubt that in each case the results would be far better. Oddly enough, one of the Fabian essayists admits that this would be the case even with the postal service in towns; though he says that it would not be so if we take the country as a whole. In saying this he is right; and if we consider the reason why, we shall see in all these. enterprises another peculiarity, which, in a far more important way, accounts for the Socialistic element in them. They are all enterprises in which the benefits of competition would, owing to physical circumstances, be more than neutralized by its inconveniences. It is impossible to imagine a number of competing postal services; or houses invaded by the pipes of competing water companies; nor could we tolerate that our streets should be continually rendered impassable by the laying of new gas mains for supplying some improved gas. All the enterprises which a State can advantageously undertake, are characterized by one or other of two features, or by both of them-firstly, their exceptional simplicity; and secondly, the fact that from their very nature it is exceptionally desirable that they should be monopolies. And now, bearing this in mind, let us look back at the civilization of the past. We shall find that State enterprise of this limited kind is no new thing. We shall find, on the contrary, that it is as old as civilization itself, and its natural and necessary accompaniment. We shall find We shall find that it existed in the ancient world of slavery, and that there was more of it in Imperial Rome than in modern London or Manchester. In order to make the truth of this more evident I will cite another example, to which I have often alluded elsewhere namely, street. If a public hall, as Mr. Sidney Webb seems to think, is an example of Socialism, so is a street also. Both are constructed and maintained by the public authorities; and the money for con

a

structing and maintaining them is extracted from the pockets of the community. But unless the existence of streets in London and Manchester is altogether a new sign of the times, portending the evolution of a new Social order, there is no such sign to be found in public halls and municipal gas-works. I began my previous paper in this Review with observing that the word Socialism was used loosely and in various senses; and that in one of them only did it stand for any opinion or principle which essentially differentiates Socialists from men of any other party. But it is not only the general public which is confused by the ambiguity of the term. The Socialists themselves, and the Fabian essayists in especial, are confused by it also; and while they fancy themselves to be arguing for the principle which separates them from their opponents, they are often unconsciously defending and advocating views which all the world holds as strongly and intelligently as they do. I shall now be able to make intelligible to the reader what these various and confusing meanings attached to the word Socialism are. They are, broadly speaking, three; and, while still retaining the word, the three different things meant may be classified and distinguished thus-as Incidental Socialism, Supplementary Socialism and Fundamental Socialism. A street is an example of the first; the income tax is an example of the second; and the doctrine that men will exert themselves to produce income when they know that the State is virtually an organized conspiracy to rob them of it, is not only an example, but also the substance of the third. If the word Socialism has any distinctive meaning, and if Socialists in any way are a distinct and peculiar party, what Socialism means is this third thing-Fundamental Socialism. It is to the examination of this that, in these papers, I have thus far addressed myself; and I have aimed at showing the reader-or rather showing him how to show himself-that it is nothing more than a foolish dream and delusion, repugnant alike to the teaching of common sense and of history, and important only because it is at once plausible and dangerous-not dangerous because

it could ever be realized, but because incalculable harm might be done by vain attempts to realize it.

But it is not my only aim to enforce this negative conclusion, nor is it ny chief aim. I have emphasized the dangers and the fallacies of Fundamental Socialism, mainly with a view to separating from it Incidental and Supplementary Socialism; and have thus urged all Conservatives to be on their guard against the former, mainly with a view to showing them that they need not be afraid of the latter. In the social and political gospel preached by the Socialists, and preached by the Fabian essayists with more than ordinary ability, there is a mixture of profound and wholesome truth, with the most puerile falsehood. My aim is to show that the truth may be appropriated by all of us, while we leave the falsehood behind, as the sole shibboleth of a mischievous and misguided sect. In order to explain this, let me explain the names I have given to these two forms of so-called Socialism, of which no Individualist need be afraid.

I have called institutions, such as a street or a public building, or, we may add, the fortifications of a town, examples of Incidental Socialism, because institutions of this kind are incidental to all civilized life. And I have referred to them because they afford us the simplest and most self-evident proof that the fact of great institutions being maintained by the State for society, is no sign that society is Socialistic, or on its way to Socialism. I have spoken of the income tax as an example of Supplementary Socialism, because the kind of institutions it represents are not nec essarily incidental to civilization. They are, indeed, in its earlier stages impossible, and came into being, and can come into being, only as the crowning result of wealth, when it is increased beyond a certain point by the intensified operation of ability. This Supplementary Socialism includes not only the income tax, but any appropriation by means of rates or otherwise from private income, and the use of it for public purposes, such as the providing of free libraries, free education, or free ferryboats. On the surface, no doubt, this

looks like Fundamental Socialism-like the Socialism of the Fabian essayists; and for that reason many people are afraid of it. It is in reality the very negative of that Socialism, being, as I have said before, rendered possible only by the existence of wealth increased and maintained by the forces of Individualism; and so long as this fact is steadily borne in mind, though the principle of Supplemental Socialism is capable of foolish application, there is in the principle itself nothing that Conservatism need fear. On the contrary, Conservatives may recognize it as capable of indefinite, though not indiscriminate, extension. There is no reason, so far as the fundamental principles go, that the most rigid economic Conservative should not outbid the Socialists in their endeavors to secure for the masses supplementary benefits from the State. He might advocate the provision for them of free theatres so long as he remembered that these would ultimately have to be paid for out of the income produced by individual ability, and that if too much is taken from it this year, there may next year be none to take.

Here we see the truth of the observation of one of the Fabian essayists, which I have already quoted. though Socialism involves State control, State control does not involve Socialism. It is not so much the thing the State does, as to the end for which the State does it, that we must look, before we can decide whether it is a Socialistic State or not ;" and no policy is Socialistic, he proceeds to tell us, "which would prolong the life of private capital a single hour." Nothing can be more true than this. Here is the one point-the one essential point, as to which economic Conservatism joins issue with Socialism. Let me express by a simple figure the character of their opposition. The larger part of our annual national wealth is, as has been said already, the product not of the labor of the many but of the ability of the few. The few, with the scarce brains," produce the only part of our wealth that grows, therefore the continued exertion of the few is recognized as a necessity by both parties. But the motive of the few in producing has been