constantly to grow larger and capital to be concentra in fewer hands.

The reader acquainted with Socialist literature v at once recognise familiar texts, from which M preached in 'Das Kapital' nearly fifty years later, usual without acknowledgment. The main differen are that when Sismondi wrote, his account of the sit tion was true, whereas it had substantially chang when Das Kapital' appeared; that he did not assume Marx did, the inevitable advance of the same tendend to a catastrophic conclusion; that he recognised benefits of the existing order but questioned some of effects, particularly on the security and independence individuals; that he urged remedial action by regulati not by abolition of the system.

My main object, however, in quoting him is to sh how the then existing conditions struck a compete and judicially-minded contemporary observer, who w also an economist, and so to throw light on the gene reaction, of which Socialism was a particular manifest tion. His account is the clearest and most convinci ever written, and his observations covered precisely t period with which I am dealing. The first edition his book appeared in 1819, the second in 1826; and in t preface to the latter he wrote:

'Seven years have passed, and facts appear to have foug victoriously for me. They have proved much better th I could have done, that the wise men from whom I ha separated myself (the "classical" economists) were in pursu of a false prosperity; that their theories, wherever the were put in practice, served well enough to increase materi wealth, but that they diminished the mass of enjoyme laid up for each individual; that if they tended to make t rich more rich, they also made the poor man more poor, mo dependent, more destitute. . . . The study of England h confirmed me in my "New Principles." In this astonishin country, which seems to be submitted to a great experime for the instruction of the rest of the world, I have seen pr duction increasing whilst enjoyments were diminishing. T mass of the nation here, no less than philosophers, seem forget that the increase of wealth is not the end of politic economy, but its instrument in procuring the happiness all. I sought for this happiness in every class, and I cou

where find it. . . . Has not England, forgetting men for ngs, sacrificed the end to the means?'

So much for the state of things in which Socialism as born a hundred years ago. But two influences which aped it remain to be mentioned. One was the ferment t by the French Revolution, which disposed men verywhere to hope for or to fear large changes. In rance Socialism was regarded as the sequel and cometion of the Revolution. The other was the economic octrine that labour' produces all wealth. This was no means new, but it had recently received fresh nd impressive confirmation at the hands of Ricardo, hose famous treatise of Political Economy had been ublished in 1817. Labour' originally meant work of ll kinds, and in that sense the doctrine is sound, proided that the assistance of nature is kept in mind; but hrough confusion in the popular use of the word it was understood by Socialists to mean manual labour only, and the natural inference drawn was that since manual labour, otherwise the wage-earners, produced all wealth, they ought to possess and enjoy it. This rgument played a great part in Socialist theory in England, while the influence of the French Revolution vas naturally greater in France; but both helped to ring Socialism to birth. It was distinguished from he contemporary movement for social reform, which ismondi represented among others, by aiming not at he removal of abuses and improvement of conditions, ut at a complete change of the existing order, a horough reorganisation of society.

What sort of change? To answer this question we vill return to the first appearance of the word and ee what was meant by it. But in doing so it is ecessary in strict accuracy to distinguish between the words 'Socialist' and 'Socialism,' which most writers ave neglected to do. In the introduction to his 'History f Socialism' Kirkup says that the word Socialism was oined in England in 1835, that it was 'soon afterwards orrowed from England, as he himself tells us, by a disinguished French writer, Reybaud, in his well-known work, the "Réformateurs Modernes," and that through Reybaud it soon gained wide currency on the Continent.

9

This account of the origin of the word has been genera accepted as authoritative and repeated without quest by many writers, but it consists of a series of errone statements. The word ' Socialism' was not coined England, nor was the date 1835; Reybaud did not borr it from England, nor does he say that he did, nor is title of his book Réformateurs Modernes.' The word borrowed was not 'Socialism,' the origin of which I discuss later, but 'Socialist'; and he probably did get from England, though he does not say so. What he sa is this:

'It is now nearly fourteen years since at the commen ment of these studies I had the unhappy honour of int ducing the word "Socialists" into our language.'

This was written in 1849 in the introduction to t second volume of his 'Études sur les Réformateurs Socialistes Modernes.' The first volume had been pu lished in 1840 under the title Études sur les Réform teurs Contemporains,' and had gained the Monty prize of the French Academy in 1841. It created a co siderable stir, and went through several editions befo the appearance of the second volume. The success w deserved, for it is a brilliant study, though not fr from mistakes. The title appears to have been chang to the one given above containing the words 'Socialist Modernes,' when the two volumes were published t gether; but parts of the work were written earlier separate studies-the earliest in 1835, which accoun for the fourteen years mentioned above, and for the da named by Kirkup. I say that Reybaud got the ter from England in his studies of Owenite literature, becau he writes of the Owenite school as the sect of Socialis (it is the name they give themselves),' and the word ha in fact, been in use among them for some years. occurs in the 'Crisis' and the 'Poor Man's Guardian two Owenite papers in 1833, as I pointed out a goo many years ago in this Review. I had found the passag when studying the literature of that period in the Briti Museum; but believing that the word had been used sti earlier, I asked Mr Max Beer when he was preparing th English edition of his History of British Socialism,' an going over the same ground, to keep an eye open

f

.

And sure enough he found it in the Co-operative agazine' for November 1827. What was the meaning tached to it? I will quote him:

'In a footnote to a communication of the Brighton coerators, the editor of the "Co-operative Magazine" observes at the value of a commodity consisted both of present and st labour (capital or stock), and the main question was, Whether it is more beneficial that this capital should be dividual or common." Those who argued that it should e in the hands of individual employers were the modern olitical economists of the type of James Mill and Malthus, hile those who thought it should be common were the ommunionists and Socialists' ('History of British Socialm,' 1, p. 187).

The word 'Communionists,' here coupled with Socialists,' was French. It was one of several terms dopted by different groups in France at this period; thers were Communitarians, Communists, Communiutists, Equalitarians, Fraternitarians, Mutualists, Uniarians. They are chiefly interesting as showing the confusion of thought and tendency to division already prevailing. Socialist' appears to have been an English quivalent adopted by the London Co-operative Society, founded in 1824. It would be used in speech before appearing in print, and Mr Beer is no doubt right in Conjecturing that it was coined in the discussions of the society. The surprising thing about it is the very clear meaning attached to it in the passage quoted, which is ruly remarkable. Here we have in the very earliest use of the term yet discovered a precise definition, which identical with the conception that has finally emerged out of all the subsequent discussions, and differences and rrelevancies, and dominates the field to-day. Socialists re described as those who hold that capital (not property) should be owned in common instead of by private persons. This is the core and centre of the whole thing to-day, the one point on which all the schools and sects are greed; it is the ultimate essence, so to speak, distilled from all the speculation and argument that have been expended on the subject, the final outcome of all the changes the doctrine has undergone in a hundred years of change. All the rest is subsidiary or irrelevant to the

central question of public v. private ownership of ind trial and commercial capital.

If this conception had been clearly grasped and firm held from the first what a huge mass of verbiage, n understanding, obscurity, and confusion, what floods vain controversy, might have been spared! I do mean that there would have been no controversy differences of opinion. Far from it. The best means effecting the change, the extent to which it should carried, and the form of the new order still leave ro for endless differences, which do in fact split Sociali up into numerous groups. But such differences & secondary to the one common object, which is defini intelligible, and practical, whether desirable and feasil or not. It presents Socialism as an essentially econon movement, primarily concerned with economic conditio and aiming at a particular economic change. Wh that is realised a mass of associated ideas involvi political, ethical, and juristic principles fall into the place as subsidiary or irrelevant, and the actual proble stands out clear.

But the formula was no sooner uttered than it sa out of sight again in the mists of loose thinking, advent tious ideas, and verbal strife. Already, in 1833, we get the Poor Man's Guardian,' another publication emana ing from the same school, a totally different descriptio of a Socialist' as one who preaches of community goods, abolition of crime, of punishment, of magistrat and marriage.' If the public acquired erroneous an confused ideas about Socialism the fault lay with th Socialists, whose own confusion of mind misled th world, They obscured the one distinctive feature the movement, which marked it off from other aspir tions, by mixing up and emphasising many differe things, either not peculiar to it or having no connexio with it. What have the abolition of crime and punis ment, of magistrates and marriage, to do with the owne ship of capital? Robert Owen himself, from whos school the formula of 1827 emanated, was always in state of hopeless confusion. His great idea was that a new moral world, based on the abnegation of religio and on the ancient philosophy of determinism, whic he resuscitated as a discovery of his own. Econom