THE WORKING FAITH OF THE SOCIAL 

 REFORMER 



IV 



THE COMING OF SOCIALISM 



THE concrete idea of Spirit applied to social questions, and first 

 to the idea of private property. Ownership in material things 

 and in "things of the mind" distinguished. The assumption 

 that private property may be a purely material fact at the 

 basis of the controversy of individualism and socialism. The 

 assumption examined and the controversy defined. That 

 private property implies spiritual elements : the idea of pos- 

 session by right, in an object which has utility and is there- 

 fore relative to personality, and comes by social institution and 

 as the result of self-renunciation on the part of the State. 

 Private property is, therefore, a sphere of social activities, and 

 is at once essential to the individual and to the State. 



Socialism as the extension of communal activity. Socialism 

 in this sense not only coming, but has already come. But 

 does the extension of State and civic enterprise involve what 

 the socialist wants or the individualist fears ? Or is it possible 

 that the function of the State and that of the individual may 

 grow together ? Private ownership in State undertakings : 

 Mine on the part of the State implies more than Not Thine on 

 the part of its members. Legitimate State and civic enter- 

 prises imply not elimination but organization of private wills, 

 and deprives the citizen not of his freedom, but of his caprice. 

 How many of the enterprises now conducted by the State or 

 municipality would by consent of the citizens be committed 

 back to private companies ? 



Every proposed increase of corporate enterprise should be 

 carefully scrutinized. The rights of the individual absolute, 

 but only because of their identification with the wider good 

 of society. The essence of society is moraLand the supreme 

 duty of tlie informer i^ to moralise the social relations as they 

 stand. 



