THE COMING OF SOCIALISM 91 



between spirit and nature. Physical nature is always self- 

 resistant ; its parts are held together as a whole by the 

 mechanical strain of mutual exclusion, and by the depend- 

 ence which is necessity. But spirit can have no genuine 

 " other." It must be universal, un-divided or individual, 

 penetrate its object, and therefore be itself in its opposite. 



Hence, if self-exclusion, the mutual repulsion of parts 

 and elements, be the last word about material things, and 

 if property be purely a material thing, then the assertion 

 of one economic will against another, the ' ' struggle for 

 existence," the brute force of competition, in which the 

 individual not only strengthens himself but weakens his 

 neighbour, are ultimate facts of social life. The individual 

 will, so far as it asserts itself in material property, must 

 therefore be expelled, if social ends are to be harmoniously 

 sought. 



But Idealism, in asserting the relation of the object to 

 the subject, has denied the utter or complete materiality of 

 any object whatsoever. And it is precisely this assumption 

 that "property" is atjinx time, or in any object, a. 

 merely jnateriaHact which I desire to question. I must 

 question it the more closely because it is the source of 

 some of the most stubborn obstacles to practical progress 

 in social matters and of some of the most difficult social 

 problems. I refer, in particular, to such problems as the 

 extension and limits of communal or State enterprise in 

 manufacturing and trading, the rights of the State to pro- 

 hibit or regulate trusts, combinations and unions, and, in 

 general, the apparent antagonism of socialistic and indi- 

 vidualistic ends, of private and social rights. 



Let us first make the assumption clear. If we take 

 public opinion as it stands to-day, we shall find it well-nigh 



