imaginative possibility that cannot be supported by actual experience, and he can insist still further that the motives he trusts and the assumptions he makes are those which in actual tendencies now are growing and not decaying. The construction of Socialism is a development of tendencies already in operation. The Socialist scheme of Society is not a dream fabric spun from a belief in "the good man" or "the divinity of human nature," but the completion in idea of social patterns whose outlines are already appearing in Society. If the Socialist believes in a scheme in which "the good man" has an essential part assigned to him, he does so simply because he sees the scheme growing up under his very eyes, and because he knows that if such evolution is not to be perverted by the interests that rule is not to be strangled as the young and innocent heir of a fortune which the guardians covet for themselves— reason and organization must protect it, clear encumbrances from its way, and make men's minds hospitable to it. When considering the practicality of Socialism the thought in critical minds should not be, therefore, "Can the nature of man bear such a change?" but, "Is the change in its completeness being foreshadowed and announced by what is happening now?" I believe that I have shown that it is, and that constructive Socialism is not a remaking but a fulfilling. That is the reply of the first kind. The reply of the second kind is that if a system like that of Socialism is not adopted, Capitalism will be found to give no peace and no security, and the failure of communal organization will result in continued social discord and moral deterioration.

When we have visions of a Society, organized

for its own comfort, so consciously felt by the individual that his life is part of it, an inter-relation of co-operating services devised and kept going by human intelligence, we indulge in no Utopian dreams. In such a Society, there may be ignorance, there may be poverty, there may be crime, there may be unsocial conduct, there may be a mass of unhelpful acquiescing indifference, but they will have a different significance from what they now have, for the organization of things will invite the co-operation of minds, and the activities of the State in all its forms will draw out the social instincts. To begin with, the atmosphere and the bent of education will nourish and direct the child's mind in citizenship. Youth will go out into the world with some notions of duty and conduct, and will take its place in an organization of service in which it will set its ambitions as naturally as it now sets its ambitions in Capitalism. Muscle, head and imagination will co-operate knowing that each is necessary, and unimpeded by differences in education and culture in making friends with each other. Living conditions will be more equalized by the abolition of sordidness at the bottom, and of vulgar wealthiness at the top. The middle will expand and all that makes class distinction will disappear because it does not belong to the nature, but to the circumstances and the training, of man. Public service is as easy as private service, and far more inspiring once the mind is turned in that direction and taught to make its assumptions in relation to the changed system. The confusion on this point to-day arises solely from the fact that what is called "public service" is not public service at all. It is only employment under the State; it is not co-operation with the community; it is done in a capitalist atmos

phere of self-interest; from it, the moral consequences of co-operative effort cannot arise. So long as men working in a society of economic inequality and social class are asked to concentrate their minds upon tasks they do but stinted work; when in a state of more economic equality both as to possession and class, they will give service for their share in the common wealth. Even now in many of our municipalities where the employees are well treated, and where Labour dominates the Councils, better service is given than where the old-fashioned relation between employer and employed is maintained, and the experience of the Building Guilds supports the same conclusion. Therefore, one one is perfectly justified in claiming that a Socialist Society, completed by stages, is a Society based upon human motive and conduct as we now experience it and upon economic and industrial change as we see it in process of evolution at this moment. True, our Socialist plan is conceived by an effort of the intelligence, but of the intelligence not searching the clouds but scrutinizing the life movements in Society to discover their meaning and direction. What other way of safety and wisdom is there? The complaining voice of the sluggard who would soon allow his roses to return to briars and his cultivation to run to thistles, will not prevent such scrutinizings; the marshalled opposition of mass habit or of class interest will not imprison the mind of men on a pilgrimage for justice and reason; the risks of the unknown will never discourage exploration and final settlement. The minority will always be there and with the minority is life. However substantially man may build the houses where he shelters his body, his mind like a Bedouin will dwell only in tents which it strikes

with the morning light. All we can strive to do is to see to it that we enter upon no journey onwards without a rational plan and purpose, and without practical intelligence for our guide. The Socialist can claim that he has taken that precaution.