210 WHAT IS LIFE ? 



-creatures born without hope in the whirligig of 

 life. 1 



the means of production, transforming them into public property, 

 mid socialistic production becomes henceforward possible." ( Social 

 Evolution," Benjamin Kidd, 1895, p. 226.) 



1 '* By the combination of the capitalist classes into rings, trusts, 

 .syndicates, and like associations for the universal control of produc- 

 tion and the artificial keeping up of prices, the community finds the 

 general welfare threatened by a complication which the reformers of 

 the past can scarcely be said to have counted upon. We have also 

 great organisations and combinations of labour against these capitalist 

 classes Avhereby the life of the community is disturbed and dis- 

 organised to a serious extent, and to which it seems to be increasingly 

 difficult to apply the old doctrine of the restricted nature of the duty 

 of the state. It is evident, moreover, that in these recurring 

 struggles the combatants, if left to themselves, are often unequally 

 matched ; for the weapon on one side is merely the power to reduce 

 profits, while on the other it is the right to impose actual want 

 and hunger on large numbers of our fellow-creatures. We have, 

 therefore, public opinion tending more and more to side with the 

 inherently weaker cause, and, under the stimulus of the altruistic 

 feelings, coming to propose measures that leave the laissez-faire 

 doctrine of the past far behind." (" Social Evolution,' 1 Benjamin 

 Kidd, 1895, p. 216.) 



li Another feature of the times which we may notice is that, under 

 the outward appearance of action, the great political party which has 

 carried progress so far in England stands in reality doubting and 

 confused in mind. It moves, it is time, but rather because it is 

 thrust forward ; the enthusiasm, the robust faith, the clearly defined 

 conviction that marked its advance through the early and middle 

 decades of the nineteenth century seem to be wanting. The ranks 

 move ; but irresolutely. They still appear to wait for the vibrant 

 call of a leader upon whom a larger faith has descended.'' (Idem, 

 p. 217.) 



" We have come to believe that the feudal system is defunct. But 

 the real fact, as Marx realised more clearly than the older economists, 

 is, that the dead hand of feudalism still presses with crushing weight 

 upon the people through almost all the forms and institutions of 

 present-day society. A large part of the existing unregulated and 



