RATIONALISM AND SCIENCE 85 



discordant views and purposes are covered by 

 that convenient term. The Marxian school of 

 socialists on the Continent have as their avowed 

 object the improvement of the economic condition 

 of the manual workers, the securing for them of a 

 greater share in the world's produce by means of 

 a kind of social war. In England this is regarded 

 as the main function of the trades unions; and 

 with us the term socialism covers a much wider 

 variety of views, from the desire of simpler and 

 less ostentatious living to dislike of all existing 

 institutions. And everyone who chooses to call 

 himself a socialist thinks that he may dogmatize 

 as to what socialism really is. One theorist will 

 tell us that it implies the expropriation of all the 

 owners of material resources. Another will say 

 that it is not compatible with the present organiza- 

 tion of the family. A third will regard it as 

 bound up with secularity, and incompatible with 

 the Christian religion. And so forth. But I 

 would venture to submit, that socialistic theories 

 and experiments have been going on in the 

 civilized world from the very beginning of his- 

 tory. Plato opened an aera of speculation on 

 the subject in his immortal Republic; and in the 

 days of Plato there existed a community, that of 

 the Spartans, in which socialist ideas had more 

 full course in practical life than they have had 

 in any commonwealth since. So the study of 

 history must claim its right before we can venture 

 to say that we know much about socialism. And 



