190 SOCIAL DISEASES AND v 



the opinions expressed in an address to the members 

 of the Midland Institute, delivered seventeen years 

 earlier, and still more fully developed in several 

 essays published in the " Nineteenth Century " in 

 1889, which I hope, before long, to republish. 1 



The fundamental proposition which runs 

 through the writings, which thus extend over a 

 period of twenty years, is, that the common 

 a priori doctrines and methods of reasoning about 

 political and social questions are essentially 

 vicious ; and that argumentation on this basis 

 leads, with equal logical force, to two contradictory 

 and extremely mischievous systems, the one that 

 of Anarchic Individualism, the other that of 

 despotic or Regimental Socialism. Whether I 

 am right or wrong, I am at least consistent in 

 opposing both to the best of my ability. Mr. 

 Booth's system appears to me, and, as I have 

 shown, is regarded by Socialists themselves, to be 

 mere autocratic Socialism, masked by its theo- 

 logical exterior. That the " fantastic " religious 

 skin will wear away, and the Socialistic reality it 

 covers will show its real nature, is the expressed 

 hope of one candid Socialist, and may be fairly 

 conceived to be the unexpressed belief of the 

 despotic leader of the new Trades Union, who 

 has shown his zeal, if not his discretion, in cham- 

 pioning Mr, Booth's projects. [See Letter VIII.] 



1 See Collected Essays, vol. i. p. 290 to end ; and this volume, 

 p. 147, 



