with all things in common. In the case of a few, refinement would easily pass into moralization. Such arrangements would probably suit a section of society better than the whole, and so those projectors seem to have thought who legislated for one section only of their ideal state.

It is questioned again whether the intellectual or expansive parts of man's nature would find sufficient room and liberty in any modern communistic scheme. This question involves too many great issues for us to discuss it now. But it must be confessed that individual personality and freedom of action would be in some danger in schemes aiming chiefly at animal comfort and happiness. Here, however, we know we are laying ourselves open to the attack of the first communist who, consistently pushing back towards first principles, shall ask us why we should demand more than the animal comfort of the body; why crave intellectual expansion, and so on.

"Who is to do the dirty work?" is the practical question with which practical men (as they call themselves) are fond of meeting the projects. with which we are now concerned. The question is a grave one. The work must be done, but who is to be told off to do it? Why one man more than another? If all men be equal, and the use of no egotistical stimulus, no selfish motive, be allowed, who will condescend to rough material drudgery, or to mere routine work? This difficulty is shelved, where (as in many ancient plans) only one, and that the highest section of society is legislated for. We can only get over it by postulating such a development of the social at the expense of the selfish feelings as shall make all beg emulously to be allowed to do that work, however dirty, which is most useful and necessary to humanity. The public spirit, a kind of "enthusiasm of humanity," would of course be our only stimulus to industry; and this might, by careful training, be nursed up to the requisite point, but it is doubtful. The sense of responsibility would incur danger of being frittered away by becoming so widely spread. "Where responsibility is divided, conscience is always subdivided." We cannot, however, lay any great stress on this without begging the question against the communists, and for our own part we do believe to some great extent in the possibility of such growth of the public feeling as these projects demand.

Here we come naturally to a very old, and very shallow, argument against Communism. It does not seem to present any adequate security against anarchy or despotism; yet one or other is not unlikely to result. For, we must either arm some one (!) with power to force all to work, and then we risk a despotism; or, we must let the idle do nothing, and then the industrious must work double, and anarchy will follow. This is more subtle than sound, more specious than convincing. It reads like an "Example of a Dilemma" out of some elementary work on logic; and, viewing it as a logical puzzle, we believe our readers can solve it for themselves by this time.

It must be observed that the majority of communistic and socialistic schemes are at the present day irreligious as well as revolutionary, the work of philosophic atheists:

"The priests are scattered like chaff, and the rulers broken like reeds." They postulate as a condition of the peace, the quiet, the very existence, of their happy and reformed society, that its members shall, practically, reject any and every form of theological belief as unnecessary and indeed mischievous. The standard of duty, based on the love and brotherhood of man, must be utilitarian, and another standard derived from any form of religion would act as an influence of a perpetually disintegrating tendency. In fact, the merits of a Communist must be All Works and No Faith.

II.

PASS we now to the Socialist schemes of the present century. They, too, aim at a conquest over poverty and distress, but in a somewhat different way. Instead of destroying accumulated capital and forcing men to be equal, they are content to attempt escape from the tyranny of that capital, by re-organizing the conditions of labour, eliminating competition, forcing all to work, and improving at the very outset the condition of the old labouring classes. They are dissatisfied with that existing state of society which so thoroughly arms the few against the many, and they wish to substitute another. In so doing, their plans have often come near to Communism, especially in property; but they have not cared to carry this out fully, and rarely at all in family. They are in fact opposed to the equal distribution of property, for the simple reason that talent and industry are not equally distributed; it is rather labour and its daily reward that they wish to be in common and equally divided. They interfere with labour by abolishing competition and fixed wages; they substitute cooperation on a large or rather a universal scale, leaving men to work under the influence of public spirit or (Fourrier) "a passionate attraction of labour," and they make a division of the produce on what they consider to be principles fair and equal in the long run. Details differ with different projectors.

The great names connected with the subject are those of Robert Owen, Saint Simon, Fourrier, Louis Blanc, and Proudhon. Though we cannot describe in detail all these schemes, we may observe that these worthies look upon each other, and upon each other's plans, with profound contempt. In fact they have not much in common beyond disinterested aspirations after the good of their fellows.

The system of Robert Owen, the English propagator of Socialism, comes particularly near to Communism. That of Saint Simon, the French founder of these doctrines, will deserve a somewhat longer notice. Saint Simon

himself, a man of noble descent and of great general experience and knowledge of the world, lived through the French Revolution with all possible vicissitudes of fortune. He tried to become encyclopædic in knowledge, and, with the view of gaining experience, seems to have really and literally made himself at one time dissipated upon principle. He gathered a school of followers, proposed many partial remedies for evils he observed-reorganization of industry, co-operation, and others but left behind him not definite dogmatic work, no co-ordinated body of doctrine. This does not,

however, seem to have interfered at all with the influential character of his teaching, and his general views are well known through the medium of his pupils and contemporaries. His immediate successors were MM. Enfantin and Bazard. Among his other pupils it is interesting to observe Auguste Thierry and Auguste Comte.

Saint Simon was quite the reverse of an equalitarian or communist. He wanted men not to be made equal, but to find their own level, that level being undisturbed by privilege or by capital. The cardinal maxim of his system was that nature had made men unequal in capacities, and that the right constitution of society was that of a hierarchy of ranks, graduated according to capacity, and not according to any artificial method. To each man a vocation according to his capacity, and to each capacity a recompense according to its works. The spiritual (!) power to be in the hands of the savants, the temporal power to be lodged with the men of property. The great object of what he called his hierarchy and his religion was the most rapid amelioration, physical and moral, of the most poor and numerous class. We are unable to conceive any system which should have a better object than this, yet the French Government subjected its author to a prosecution for publishing it. Perhaps we shall do best to epitomise the Saint Simonian teaching from the works of a rival theorist. Louis Blanc (author of certain famous "Letters on England") thus sums it up :-That industry should be regulated in obedience to an authority self-constituted, and the judge of its own legitimacy; that production should be concentrated to excess, and the advantages portioned out in the ratio of merit; that the transmission of property should be abolished, as well as that of offices; that the empire of society should be substituted for that of the family. We suppose that the last clause means that, among other good things, the affections of man are to be extended beyond the narrow limits of his own home. "Moses," Saint Simon was fond of saying, "Moses has promised to man universal fraternity; Jesus Christ has prepared it; but Saint Simon has realized it."

M. Bazard, like his master, proposed to carry out the re-organization of industry by denial of the right to inherit property, hereby preventing its accumulation, and giving to society wealth to use for the necessary im

a We have only omitted from the above synopsis the clause which contains Saint Simon's vigorous attack upon marriage as an institution.

provement of the masses. Enfantin went further; he had much to say upon the emancipation of women, which he probably meant as a disguised form of family Communism. Here Bazard quarrelled with him: we hear that there was a Mme. and a Mlle. Bazard. Père Enfantin, too, was violently suppressed by the French Government of his day.

Then comes Fourrier, perhaps the greatest apostle of Socialism. It is said (we know not with what truth) that his writings have a magic charm of language, and fascinate strangely those who read them, pointing out, with a force beyond all others, the vast difference between the is and the might be of the universal life here. Perhaps nothing but the want of a cheap and easily accessible edition of Fourrier's works has hitherto limited their influence. His speciality was Phalansteries. He wished to regenerate society by throwing labour into the form of small co-operations of 400 families, living together under the name of Phalansteries. As actuating motive to work, he would not hear of any theory of duty, but affirmed that men properly educated would find positive enjoyment in labour, while the arrangements of each Phalanstery would allow the work itself to be recompensed by an exuberance of sensual and intellectual joys. Louis Blanc, whom we have already cited, is a Socialist who has enjoyed the rare good fortune of being able to see his theories in actual operation. We do not, however, know how far the failure of the national workshops, in the Revolution of 1848, has modified his opinions. It was about the same time that Proudhon attained a certain celebrity by publishing very amazing plans of a Socialist nature. Here, however, we need only mention his famous definition :- 66 Qu'est que c'est que la propriété ? La propriété c'est le vol."

We have, then, in a certain way, traced communist feeling down to its last great public expression. We have seen its general tendencies, and noted the threats it holds out against the present constitution of things. A communist teacher, who believed in the ultimate success of his doctrines, could hardly choose a fitter motto than the lines,—

"The heart of the rulers is sick, and the high-priest covers his head:

For this is the song of the quick that is heard in the ears of the dead ;"

for never was there an enemy from whom king and priest had more to fear. Since 1848, all manifestation of such views has been strictly suppressed, on the continent; but they are supposed to be working secretly, and undermining a good deal of society. Probably we have not heard the last of either of their great developments. Our trades' unions perhaps present a great deal of material on which imported Socialism may one day work. At present, however, the working classes of England at least are not actively in possession of these views. Some alarm on the subject was indeed felt here in 1840. Robert Owen was converting a good many people at that time. Two or three sittings of Parliament were occupied with the

discussion of his views, and the so-called "Rational Religion;" the late Bishop of Exeter thought it worth while to enquire from his place in the House of Lords whether Government did not intend to take measures to check the ominous spread of the "Communists;" and he presented a petition of 40,000 signatures from the town of Birmingham alone, praying for such measures. The Government wisely declined to take any steps. The bishop had spoken with an intolerance that was quite clerical, and excited something like a reaction; no less a person than Lord Brougham presented a counter petition from the Owenite side; but, there being no interference, the excitement died a natural death. Even the Chartist agitation of 1848 called forth no Communist agitation here. The press, free to discuss or advocate such doctrines, does neither; and we can feel that even if a large section of our population is possibly ripe for the impression, the propaganda has not yet begun. The continental governments, having acted differently, cannot and visibly do not share our security b.

Lilian.

WHY, Lilian, murmur that no Indic mine
Yields up for thee its wealth, no Indic sea?
Why, Lilian, murmur that no pearls for thee
Nor emeralds shine?

Canst thou adorn the sun-god's golden throne,
Or paint the purple blush of dying days?
Canst add a beauty to night's silver maze,
Or red rose blown ?

Strive not to deck what nature made most fair:

For others gems were fashioned-never dream
That such for thee were meant; in thee there beam
Beauties more rare.

Nay, free from jewelled chains those tresses leave
To ripple on thy brow in raven grace,

Like dusky clouds of night that crown the face
Of roseate eve.

Or in a garland only be they bound—

Only with fair and virgin lilies dress,
O thou of lily name and loveliness,
Thy locks around.

F. T. R.

A. M. G.

b The writer of the above wishes to guard against the chance of being supposed personally to favour any one of the views upon which he has dwelt. Knowing how all such views are run down in England, he has simply wished to give them a somewhat fairer chance of shewing whether they do or do not contain the whole, or any portion, of the truth on social arrangements.

• Translated from an original Greek Sapphic poem, published in "College Rhymes," No. xxvi.