n 4 THE COMING OF SOCIALISM 



universal, more concrete, and the source of higher impera- 

 tives than either. And this means that he can resist the 

 State only for the good of the State, and never merely 

 for his own profit. The content of the authoritative will 

 must always be the common good, and the common good 

 must always assume a personal form. 



In a word, the essence of society is moral. It is only 

 on moral grounds that we can determine the nature and 



limits of its functions. And the social reformer who com- 



prehends this fact, so far from either welcoming or resisting 

 the increase of social enterprises as a matter of course, 

 will seek for only one supreme innovation, namely, that 

 ofmoralisins: our social relations as they stand. And the 



need for this is paramount. We have been teaching 

 rights : henceforth we have by practice and precept to 



and of all these duties, most of all the duty 



of sanctifying our daily sphere of ordinary labour. We 



have beenteaching Charity ; but charity must become 



justice yet notin the way of partitioning goods, but of 



rightly appraising services. To both master and man the 



social reformer must teach that every industry in the land 



is meant to be a school of virtue. 



We must come back to ourselves, or rather reach for- 

 ward to ourselves ; for we ourselves are the roots of all 

 ourpr^lems, andinourselves alone is their solution to 

 be found. We must moralise our social relations as they 



stand, and every other reform will come as a thing of 

 course. 



