LATER GERMAN PHILOSOPHY 137 



great Commune, but numbers of little communes, 

 to suit the convenience of individual preference. 

 There is to be universal "equality," and women — 

 a redeeming stroke of justice — are to share in all 

 the vocations, offices, emoluments (and the few 

 burdens) of society, equally with men. Instead of 

 compulsory wedlock, there is to come voluntary 

 union from love, the bond to cease when the passion 

 ceases. 



We are now certainly at a long remove from the 

 hostility to self-interest that erewhile would prohibit 

 unrestricted competition, and revolted at the selfish- 

 ness of free-trade. Education is to be reorganised 

 in behalf of these conceptions, which are further 

 supported by an appropriate Philosophy of History. 

 History is simply a continuation of the drama of 

 Nature ; it tends to life, the variation of life, and 

 the enhancement of its charm. The test of historic 

 progress is the heightening of self-consciousness ; 

 but this Diihring seems to take as the greater and 

 greater accentuation of the individual's sense of 

 his validity just as he stands at each instant. The 

 career of history has, accordingly, three periods : 

 that of the ancien regime, that of the transitional 

 present, and that of the free and exhilarating 

 future. This future, however, is to be conducted by 

 tolerably dry logic ; much sentiment and refinement 

 are "aristocratic." 



