The Socialistic Method. 297 



power which inspires tlie universe has so signally failed, 

 with a jocund hilarity which shows their entire assurance 

 that however it may have been with the one that preceded 

 them, thei/ are quite equal to the occasion. 



Whatever may have been my feeling at the outset, and 

 I am free to say that, like most persons at this day Avho 

 have a keen interest in social questions, a keen sense of the 

 inequalities in human life, the appalling, the crushing 

 weight of circumstances upon the individual ; who have an 

 enthusiastic desire for the elevation of all, I approached 

 the study of the question in a hopeful spirit, I must 

 confess that, as the result of careful study, I am driven to 

 protest against the Socialistic proposition with every fibre 

 of my being. I cannot imagine any movement more in- 

 jurious to the interests of the race. It is the very an- 

 tithesis of equitable profit-sharing, the increasing tendency 

 and the most hopeful sign of the times, or the volun- 

 tary co-operation of intelligent individuals which is the 

 essence of republican representative government, that 

 co-operation which consists in common action for the 

 common good, founded upon a scrupulous recognition of the 

 supreme importance of the maintenance of the most ab- 

 solute liberty of each which is compatible with the good 

 of the whole. 



It is held that there are practically but two alternatives 

 Individualism, which means "every man for himself and 

 the devil take the hindmost"; and Collectivism, or every 

 man the slave of those who can obtain the power. There 

 is, I think, a course quite different from these, a course 

 which is not properly to be classified as an ism at all but 

 if yovi must have a name with that termination you may if 

 you please call it Opjiortunism. 



This is the course which the history of the past every- 

 where reveals to us, and if we are to judge of the future by 

 the past it is the course which the future must follow. It 

 means in fact, that political and social action are not the 

 result of doctrinal rules arbitrarily worked oiit, but the out- 

 come of temporary conditions which by a complication of 

 forces produce a compound or approximate result. The de- 

 velopment of society follows the rule of the development 

 of organic life : there are lines of least resistance which it 

 must folloAv. The thoughtful statesman or social reformer 

 examines carefully the history of the past; he discovers 

 that in certain directions there has been progress, and that 

 in those directions ju'ogress has resulted in ameliorating the 



