738 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



civilized state in which the food required for supporting great 

 numbers can be got only by continuous labor. The nature re- 

 quired for this last mode of life is widely different from the nature 

 required for the first ; and long-continued pains have to be passed 

 through in remolding the one into the other. Misery has neces- 

 sarily to be borne by a constitution out of harmony with its con- 

 ditions ; and a constitution inherited from primitive men is out 

 of harmony with the conditions imposed on existing men. Hence 

 it is impossible to establish forthwith a satisfactory social state. 

 No such nature as that which has filled Europe with millions of 

 armed men, here eager for conquest and there for revenge no 

 such nature as that which prompts the nations called Christian to 

 vie with one another in filibustering expeditions all over the 

 world, regardless of the claims of aborigines, while their tens of 

 thousands of priests of the religion of love look on approvingly 

 no such nature as that which, in dealing with weaker races, goes 

 beyond the primitive rule of life for life, and for one life takes 

 many lives no such nature, I say, can, by any device, be framed 

 into a harmonious community. The root of all well-ordered social 

 action is a sentiment of justice, which at once insists on personal 

 freedom and is solicitous for the like freedom of others ; and there 

 at present exists but a very inadequate amount of this sentiment. 



Hence the need for further long continuance of a social dis- 

 cipline which requires each man to carry on his activities with 

 due regard to the like claims of others to carry on their activities ; 

 and which, while it insists that he shall have all the benefits his 

 conduct naturally brings, insists also that he shall not saddle on 

 others the evils his conduct naturally brings : unless they freely 

 undertake to bear them. And hence the belief that endeavors to 

 elude this discipline will not only fail, but will bring worse evils 

 than those to be escaped. 



It is not, then, chiefly in the interests of the employing classes 

 that socialism is to be resisted, but much more in the interests of 

 the employed classes. In one way or other production must be 

 regulated ; and the regulators, in the nature of things, must al- 

 ways be a small class as compared with the actual producers. Un- 

 der voluntary co-operation as at present carried on, the regulators, 

 pursuing their personal interests, take as large a share of the 

 produce as they can get ; but, as we are daily shown by Trades- 

 Union successes, are restrained in the selfish pursuit of their ends. 

 Under that compulsory co-operation which socialism would neces- 

 sitate, the regulators, pursuing their personal interests with no 

 less selfishness, could not be met by the combined resistance of 

 free workers ; and their power, unchecked as now by refusals to 

 work save on prescribed terms, would grow and ramify and con- 

 solidate till it became irresistible. The ultimate result, as I have 



