TOO FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD PART n 



mocked at the very idea of ice had a wide experience 

 of the fluidity of water ; and it is perfectly true that 

 H 2 O tends strongly to the liquid state, being a liquid 

 " at ordinary temperatures and pressures " ; yet solid 

 water is a fact of some importance to Arctic and 

 Atlantic voyagers, whom it brings into danger ; not 

 to mention British outdoor labourers whom the frost 

 robs of work, or plumbers to whom it is better than a 

 mine of gold. Ice then is a fact, though to some it 

 may be a novel fact. And socialism might be a 

 practicable policy even though it be a new development 

 of strict social organisation. It is not disproved by 

 calling it bad names. Neither socialism itself, nor 

 the modern political changes stigmatised by their 

 opponents as socialistic, are in the least degree 

 animated by any conscious breath of the military 

 spirit. They do not mean to serve it ; and, whether 

 they turn out good or evil, we cannot be sure that 

 they will turn out to be in the line of militarism. 

 There is no promise or potency of a coup d'ttat in the 

 Government purchase of telegraphs or even of rail- 

 ways. When Mr. Spencer insists upon treating every 

 civil servant as a disguised soldier and secret con- 

 spirator, he does not carry our convictions with him ; 

 he only proves to us that the new science is very like 

 the old obscurantism, and that you may find a perfect 

 sample of the High Priori temper in a mind wedded 

 to familiar facts, and inaccessible to unfamiliar ones. * 



Mr. Spencer then has given us three ideals ; and 

 they hardly seem to agree with each other. One is 

 an ideal of progress, two of fixity ; one praises com- 

 plexity, another tells us that the best government is 

 the minimum of government, but that means simplic- 



