no THE COMING OF SOCIALISM 



the ownership of utilities 7 the exclusion of others becomes 

 a_ secondary matter^. It is quite true that common 

 ownership and common enterprises turn us into limited 

 proprietors ; but they make us limited proprietors of 

 indefinitely large utilities. Through the common use of 

 public means to meet individual wants, the real possessions 

 and power of every one are enlarged. Break up the 

 common use, and the use for each by himself will be less. 

 Take the individual out of the organised state, disentangle 

 his life from that of his neighbours, give him " the 

 freedom of the wild ass," make him king of an empire 

 of savages, and he will be as naked and poor and powerless 

 as the lowest of his subjects except, perhaps, for some 

 extra plumes and shells. 



Thus we return once more to our main principle ; in 

 the mechanical sphere equilibrium implies exclusion and 

 resistance ; in the sphere of life, and especially of rational 

 life, mutual exclusion gives way to mutual inclusion. 

 State and citizen live and develop only in and through 



each other. It is the unmoralised community and the un- 



socialised individual which follow methods of resistance 



and mutual exclusion. As they grow in strength that 



is, in the power to conceive wider ends and to carry them 

 out State and citizen enter more deeply the one into the 

 other. If the State owns the citizen the citizen also owns 

 the State ; each finds in the other the means of its power 

 and the defence of its rights. So that the Individualist 

 might well desire more ' ' State interference " and the 

 socialist more "private rights"; for the best means of 

 producing strong men is a highly organised State, and the. 

 only_way of producing a strong State is to make the 

 citizens own so much, care for so much, be responsible 



