viduality, family, country, and religion. More or less, one or other of these vices taints every scheme of Communism.

Communism would have no private property because men have abused the right of property. Have they not also misused their arms? Would you therefore cut them off, denying that they can be used legitimately? The wrong of private appropriation is when one takes that which ought to belong to another. To take from the robber does not benefit the robbed. This objection to property is but a violent reaction excited by the tyranny of capital, by the excesses of competition. It is the violence which (like Jack in the Tale of a Tub) cannot stay to reform, but destroys. It cannot untie the Gordian knot; so thinks it is enough to cut it.

The denial of individualism is consistent with the denial of property. When you deprive a man of all right to the result of his own active life, you make him to all intents and purposes the slave of the State. It matters not whether you would establish Communism by force or by universal consent. The only difference is that in the one case you kill the man, in the other he kills himself. For slavery is the death of the soul. From the assertion that the man's life,-or work, which is the fruit of his life,-belongs absolutely to the State arises naturally the necessity of the State directing that work. The State is taskmaster as well as pay-master. It is no longer a question of human growth, each as he will rendering of his first fruits, as a duty, to Humanity. It is the forced growth of the plant in a hot-house, the forced labour of the beast in the field; well-trained, and well-fed, it may be; but beast-like, machine-like, slavish, nevertheless.

And if the man is but the machine of the State, women and children of course are but the same. What meaning can there be in all those mysterious affinities and sympathies, through which the parents lay the groundwork of the education of the child? The State wants machines: that is all. It is easier, perhaps, to classify them in communal stalls, or cells, as number one, number two, number three, etc. If, in spite of the very natural reluctance, even abhorrence, of communists themselves, such a system should end in abolishing marriage, it would not be surprising, nor inconsistent. If the State is absolute master, may regulate life, labour, and reward; why not the beginnings of life also, for the better service of the State-appointing this man to that woman as may occasionally seem best to the direction?

The prejudice of Country follows. The Community is all. Patriotism being too narrow for us, we shut ourselves up in communal barracks, and in our cosmopolitan indifference forget the very existence of Humanity as a whole. little Utopia is the known world.

Our

And religion. The slave has none. In place of duty we have interest, in place of God and his law of growth we have the Communist Patriarch or Patriarchs and the dictation of an unnatural and intolerable formalism. Thank God that the Patriarch has not yet dethroned Him, that His law of growth is strong enough to burst the most inveterate form of Communism, if by any chance it could be established.

Communism is the negation, explicit or implied, of individualism and its

attributes: that is to say, it is Tyranny. It matters not that men consent to it. My submission does not make me less a slave, nor my master less a tyrant. Nay more, a majority, where the Communists would elect their government (which is not always the case), is no less tyrannous than a single Patriarch. I ean not abdicate my right to controul my own life, I can not consent to suicide, to make myself the slave even of a majority, albeit I may have the chance tomorrow of being tyrant in my turn.

Communism is the destruction of anything like real cooperation; for, it is simply the ordering of galley slaves, instead of the combined efforts of free men. Socialism is in this respect different from Communism, that it does not necessarily attack individuality. The willing partnership of a number of individuals agreeing to arrange together their work, with certain stipulations for returns, does not necessarily imply the destruction or abdication of individuality. The partnership may be dissolved at pleasure. But when a nation becomes Socialist, when the Government, no matter how constituted, even though elected by a majority, dictates the labour and its reward, how shall the objecting partner escape? He has no choice but between slavery and exile, possibly not that. This is tyranny; and make it as advantageous as you can, it will be tyranny. Babœuf's Communism was Tyranny, to be established by force. Owen and Cabet would establish the same tyranny by persuasion. The Saint-Simonian, who is not a Communist, would also tyrannize. Louis Blanc would do so. The private experiments of a few religious enthusiasts, or the commercial partnerships of men associating simply for the sake of personal gain, have but little opportunity of exemplifying the principle. Fourierism certainly is not tyranny.

But there is another evil principle running through all these schools, of which Fourierism is even the most notable example: it is the error of basing all their reforms upon utility, upon interest, upon selfishness. Self-love is not the ground of human action: and there every school of Socialism or Communism is at fault. It is true that Saint Simonians, and some others whom we have named, appeal to some vague religious sentiment; but they do so only as a help; they dare not depend on it. The real inducement held out is personal gain. A home in a happy village, a cell in some comfortable bee-hive, a promise of every possible gratification, even of the lowest appetites, though there may be difference in the kind of reward held out, it is reward; it is still in all their systems the appeal to the selfishness of man. What difference is there between this and the

'old immoral world' system?

The difference, it will be said, is that very wide one between coöperation and competition. But there is coöperation now. There is coöperation so far as man's selfishness thinks it advisable. Your whole social reform resolves itself then into a question of how best to minister to the selfishness of men. It involves no alteration in the principle of the present system; it is only an extension of the system, or an improved method. Then we must needs give the preference to Fourier, who does not affect a jargon of duty, sacrifice, and religion, but boldly offers to be pander to all and any of the lusts of man.

His Socialism alone is consistent. He attempts no compromise between love of God, which is duty to Humanity, and selfish enjoyment of all that one

can attract to oneself; he repulses the communistic sophistry of enslaving oneself for one's own advantage. He preaches boldly-Eat, drink, and enjoy thyself; God is not, thy brothers are but so many ministers to thy pleasures; duty is a pious fraud, invented to prevent thy happiness; sacrifice and martyrdom are but eccentric modes of enjoyment, the pranks of fools. This at all events is honest. We can understand at least the logic of such socialism as this.

Is this all? Is this stying of the human animal in the most elegant of phalansteries the be-all and the end-all of our life? We appeal to the Socialists themselves, to those, and they not few, among them, who in contradiction of their own theories nobly suffer for their brethren. In the name of what? Is your martyr-course indeed only a sham? is it that you like to be persecuted'? What difference then between you and the worst of Tyrants, who also consults his liking, only he likes to persecute? Is not choice free under your defence of selfishness? But again we appeal to those who do really suffer to redeem the world :—In the name of what are ye martyrs, if God's law is but happinessself-interest, what you call utility?

But you will answer-We do not think this. We acknowledge the nobleness of duty, we would not degrade human longings to the level of the beasts; but we believe that man cannot be ennobled, cannot rise into true human dignity, while he continues to be the slave of his material wants.

And we republicans can believe that with you; but we believe also that appealing to his selfishness will not raise him out of the slough; for he needs even health and purity of will more than strength of body. And though you acknowledge with us the necessity of clevating the moral nature, as we recognize with you the need of immediate material amelioration, we still must cavil at your means. Do what you can to remedy the material evils, but do not mislead mankind by telling them that through that process they shall ascend to the improvement of their souls. They may be rendered comfortable, and yet remain slaves, irreligious, and beasts. But seek first the reign of righteousness, and all other things will be added unto you.

When the first christians became communists, their guiding motive was self-sacrifice for the sake of the brethren. How miserable is your modern parody. The most degraded of our population need moral even more than physical regeneration. There is brute strength even now in our wretchedest holes and cellars to shake to pieces in a day the whole monarchical framework of society. But there is no moral power. What hinders the progress of your own partial experiments for what is your fastest' progress, considering the relative numbers of the populations among which you preach? What is it, but your want of any high principles round which to gather your hearers. Raise up the banner of a Charter which should be only as a key to future reform, and two millions of men could follow it. In one night the French Monarchy is overthrown by the very name of the Republic. And that charmed word Country, how men gave their blood for it in Hungary and Italy. Who follows to your shabby cry of personal gain?

You think to regenerate the world bit by bit, while the very system which has caused our need of regeneration remains dominant and almost unassailed. You

expect that Power will remain a passive spectator of your attempts to sap it. It does so, in silent contempt of those who would overthrow a selfish tyranny by a newer adaptation of selfishness; knowing well too that could you succeed there would be nothing changed, except the form.

Yet continue your experiments. Every wretchedness that you remove shall be carried to the account of your good works. We too dare not hesitate to help your endeavours in that direction. But we will neither preach to men that the material redemption is the one thing needful, nor remit our efforts to inspire that higher spirit of patriotism, of religion, and of devout sacrifice, through which alone a People can be regenerated, and rendered worthy of enjoyment. Work on, preaching to slaves in the language which slaves only can understand! Who shall forbid your sympathy? But for us we will rather follow in the track of the Apostles and Martyrs of Humanity, summoning the spirit of manhood that lives even in the lowest, rekindling the sacred fire even in the slave's heart, till forgetting all except that deepest wrong of slavery itself, he shall rise! ay crippled as he is, and overthrow Injustice, and build upon the morrow of his victory, with unshackled hands, not a palace for his own appetites, but a temple in which he may be healed, wherein he may serve God, the True, the Beautiful, the Eternal.

PHYSICAL FORCE.

ADDRESSED то REASONABLE

PEACE-MEN.

A GREAT deal of nonsense has been talked about physical force: some for it, it may be; but certainly very much against it. Without any clear apprehension of the meaning of the term, many men declaim against physical force as a crime, as an immorality, the opposite of moral force.

It is not necessarily the opposite of moral force. It may be the servant of the moral, and by such service become moral and justifiable. But how many hands will be held up in horror against such a sentiment! how many voices will exclaim -'Never! physical force can never be moral!' Gently, good people!

If you see a man struggling against drowning, and you leap into the water and save him, do you not employ physical force?

If you see two foolish men fighting, and, unable to convince them of their folly, you, never so quietly, step in between them and receive the blows from both, is not that very stepping between them an act of physical force?

But that is beside your meaning. You do not employ the term in such a sense.' Whose fault is it that you attach an arbitrary sense to common words? But, to come within your limits.

My little girl is asleep beside me. A wolf rushes toward her. As he is about to seize her, I snatch up the first weapon in my way (not nicely considering), and

Is my act immoral ?

'No! but

dash out his brains. This is physical force. there is a difference between men and beasts.' My two children are playing together. I see approaching them an armed madman of whose ungovernable ferocity I am well aware. He is deaf; but I hasten forward to restrain him. Before I can overtake him, he has struck down one child; his axe is raised over the head of the second. My rifle is in my hand. Shall I not fire?

'But all men are not madmen.' True! some are Cossacks; some Croats; some Frenchmen; some 'intelligent' statesmen and bombarders. The Tyranny of Wrong has many sorts of tools. How shall I proceed against them?

First, what is my justification for the use of physical force against the wild beast or the madman? Clearly that, only by such means I could prevent a mischief which it was my duty to prevent. There lies the whole questionbetween the never-to-be-abandoned duty of warring against Wrong, and the choice of the best weapon.

If I could have tamed the wolf, his death would have been a wanton or at least unnecessary cruelty; if I could have tamed the madman, was he not a man even as myself, made in the same likeness? But it was my duty to protect the innocent; and no other means could be made available. I was guiltless of choosing ill. The duty was clear before me.

Nay! have I not the right to defend myself against either wild beast or madman? May I not fire into the ravenous wolves that beset me in the forest; or draw my sword against a band of assassins, of whatever country or calling? Is the instinct of self-preservation altogether false, then, and suicide a virtue? Shall the mother doubt her heart, and lay down her babe at the murderer's feet, and refuse to defend it ? Or is the generous impulse at fault that makes the blood to boil, and the cheek to glow, at the very mention of wrong done to another?

Shall I defend my own life; shall I defend my child; and shall I stand by unheeding, or content myself with a cowardly, cold-blooded, egotistical 'sympathy' when my neighbour is injured? Have I no duty toward him?

Shall I save one neighbour from drowning, from the wild-beast, or the assassin; and shall I hold back, and advise my countrymen to hold back, when many are in danger?

If one has the right of self-defence, have not many? If one may defend the injured, though it be only by dint of physical force, may not the many? If I was right in saving my child from the assassin, will not my countrymen be right in saving the children of Rome, or Hungary, or Poland, from assassins; even though at the cost of as violent means, even though the assassins be not what is called mad, though they be less excusable ?

Was the French invasion of Rome less villainous than the act of the madman? Are the enemies of Hungary-the violators of women, the murderers of children, the bombarders and massacrers-less cruel than wolves?

Shall I save my child, and then be told that war for a nation's existence is impious and unjustifiable?

War would be unjustifiable if there were other means. But if there are not?