Pre-Socratic philosophy

“ Our people have not been seeking the influence of the world, nor the power of government, but they have obtained both; whilst you, with your philosophy independent of God, have been seeking to build up a system of communism and a government which is, according to your own accounts, the way to introduce the millennial reign. ”

“ But transfer this philosophy to any political community, and consider in what position it placed the individual with regard to the civil government. Human society is considered as supreme: but his own state represents to him that society, and as all things end with this life, no part of man remains withdrawn from that despotism [pg 476] which requires the sacrifice of the part for the good of the whole. ”

“ In gathering up the threads of history in the last century, and weaving its facts and philosophy together, one can trace the liberal social ideas, growing out of the political and religious revolutions in France, Germany, Italy, and America; and their tendency to substitute for the divine right of kings, priests, and orders of nobility, the higher and broader one of individual conscience and judgment in all matters pertaining to this life and that which is to come. ”

“ The form of government which will yield us this ideal union of individualism with nationalism, I confess, lies still uninvented or undiscovered. Autocracies have failed, and democracies have been merely uncompleted experiments. The republics of the past have served mainly as stepping-stones to firmer autocracies or oligarchies. Socialism as a state of mind, as a rule of conduct, as an expression of pity for the disinherited of the earth—Socialism as the embodiment of the humane idea, is wholly admirable. ”

“ The effect on the thought life of the world will be even greater—vastly greater—than that of the French Revolution. The twentieth century will differ from the nineteenth more than that did from the eighteenth. The effect on the relations of different social groups throughout the world will be so far-reaching that possibly the democracy and socialism of the nineteenth century may look like remote historic phenomena, such as the Athenian tribal system or mediaeval feudalism. ”

“ We did great things together when we saved the Republic from the peril of Cæsarism, when we emancipated civil society from the wrecks of theocracy; but now, this grand task accomplished, now that the hour is come for all of us to give, if not all our effort, at least our principal effort, to that which we term, one and all, the social reform, it is necessary, after the socialists have stated their doctrine and their method, that you should tell us how it is that you conceive the social evolution. ”

“ It is true that they have not yet learned to apply the knowledge fully, but they are learning. See how Democracy has ripened over the earth, overthrowing tyranny and opening the door of opportunity for all mankind—how the principles of Socialism have spread within the last generation, in Germany, in England, now in America and Russia. ”

“ The stoic philosophy penetrated legislation, introducing the idea of the rights of man, of civil equality, of uniformity in the provincial administration. The privileges of the Roman aristocracy were disappearing day by day. The leaders of society believed in progress and toiled in its cause. They were philosophers, philanthropists wishing without utopianism to bring the freest possible application of reason into human affairs. ”

“ I do not hesitate to declare it, in spite of the vehement denials of men still unaccountably blinded to facts: the real scope of the socialist idea when pursued to 400its logical conclusion is the radical transformation or the utter uprooting of these stable and ancient institutions, as old as human society itself—property, family, and religion—and thereby the fall of our whole social system, as of a building on its shattered foundations and its broken supports. ”

“ Let beliefs fade fast and frequently, if you wish institutions to remain the same. The more the life of the mind is unhinged, the more the machinery of matter will be left to itself. The net result of all our political suggestions, Collectivism, Tolstoyanism, Neo-Feudalism, Communism, Anarchy, Scientific Bureaucracy--the plain fruit of all of them is that the Monarchy and the House of Lords will remain. ”

“ The socialists of the present day have discarded all belief in the possibility of effecting any social regeneration except by means of political authority, and the first object of their endeavours is therefore the conquest of the powers of the State. ”

“ The psychologists, moralists, deists, and sociologists were revolutionists—all striking directly or indirectly at absolute political sovereignty, against the theoretical dogmatism and the ceremonious morality in which the Renaissance was complacent. The revolution began in the realm of the intellect and spread to political society. It was natural that the beginnings should be made in the apparently harmless theoretical examination of the grounds of knowledge and the principles of morality ”

“ From this belief there was only one step to the further conclusion, that in a republic, and only in a republic, all evils of the social body could be cured, and the solution of all the political problems would be possible. The idealism which saw in the republican citizen the highest embodiment of human dignity we had imbibed from the study of classic antiquity; and the history of the French Revolution satisfied us that a republic could be created in Germany and could maintain its existence in the European system of states. ”

“ The dissolution of theology into anthropology in the field of thought is the dissolution of monarchy into republic in the field of politics. Dualism, separation is the essence of theology; dualism, separation is the essence of monarchy. There we have the antithesis of God and world; here we have the antithesis of State and people." This dualism must be abolished. The State must be humanized—must be made an instrument in the hands of all for the welfare of all ”

“ Why is the sinister rôle of the upper classes not universally grasped? Because the ideas and teachings of former generations still survive, however much contradicted by present developments. At the time of the American and French Revolutions and for nearly a century afterwards, when political democracy was first securing a world-wide acceptance as an ideal, it was looked upon as a creed which had only to be mentally accepted in order to be forthwith applied to life. ”

“ You are mistaken in believing, for a moment, that I am neglecting the socialist in favor of the political movement. No; it is only from a purely socialistic point of view I am pursuing the revolutionary work; but you must thoroughly know we can do nothing in the direction of social reform if the old political system be not annihilated. Let us not forget that at this moment the Empire exists merely in name, and that government consists in party abuse. ”

“ But the safe and sane philosophy by no means stops with the convenient and compendious identification of socialists of all kinds, anarchists, pacificists and internationalists, as belonging to one threatening group united in a like-minded attempt to overthrow society as we now know it. ”

“ I stick to the old word “Socialism.” It can be understood and does not require any knowledge of Greek to make out its meaning. If I was to seek in the Greek language for a word to express where I stand, I would call myself an Anticrat, opposed to any kind of crazy notions, democracy as well as aristocracy. I am for individual responsibility and social action. I am for liberty, but within society, not above it, and, first of all, I am for equality of conditions. I want organization first, revolution second, social economy reorganization third, and abolition of governmental action last of all. ”

“ Socialism, therein lies the future, the new instrument of government; and the kings tottering on their thrones, the middle-class presidents of anxious republics, the ambitious plotters who dream of power, all dabble in socialism! ”

“ The second theoretical and political error of the Socialists consists in the fact that they do not- understand that forms of democracy have undergone inevitable changes in the course of thousands of years, beginning with their germs in antiquity and the succession of one ruling class upon another. In the republics of ancient Greece, in the city-states of the Middle Ages, in advanced capitalistic states, democracy has had a variety of forms and varying degrees of inclusiveness. ”

“ He would urge us onward in our merely intellectual career, unmindful of the lesson, which the pages of history logically teach, which the principles we have pointed out unerringly confirm, that intellectual development, religious liberty, civil freedom, social equality, unbalanced and unregulated by the centralization, consolidation, moral force, religious responsibility, and the tendencies which belong to the principle of unity, push irresistibly toward disintegration, and end inevitably in political revolution, national disruption, and social anarchy. ”

“ By such cautious procedure we sacrifice indeed the fascinating ambition to exhibit, by impressive dialectic pageant of deduction from first principles, the foundation of formal Socialism in the Idea that informs the universe. ”

“ Are the eldest sons of a few families peculiarly fitted by nature to be governors of the State? Look at history, and wake up to common sense. Of the divine right of kings I shall not speak, for the adherents of the doctrine are in our day relegated to museums of antiquities. And have the members of aristocracies been carefully bred with a view to their intellectual and moral superiority, as we breed fine varieties of horses and dogs? Have those who have had their share in oligarchies been peculiarly wise and peculiarly devoted to the common good? The communist makes two fatal mistakes. ”

“ Our vast body of laboring men do not yet feel the force of such a theory of human society. But, if that political system, which has openly been making such prodigious strides for the last fifty years, and effecting, secretly, a yet greater change in men's ideas of society and government, shall gain complete ascendancy, they, in their turn, and in due time will know and see the difference between a Republican Democracy and a Republican Aristocracy? ”

“ Bearing in mind that the watchword of Socialism is Evolution, not Revolution, and that its battlefield is Parliament, its immediate programme becomes of the utmost importance. In this programme, as in the Socialist theory itself, there are to be found some interesting survivals of a historic past. ”

“ It is, of course, possible, as Sir Henry Maine and others have suggested, that the whole experience of the century is a mistake, and that political power will once more swing back into the hands of a monarch or an aristocratic oligarchy. It is, indeed, want of faith in Democracy which holds back most educated sympathisers with Socialism from frankly accepting its principles. ”

“ Society, living and perfectible, which develops over time, to the opposite of God, who immovably exists for eternity, necessarily has two poles, one that looks to the past, the other looking to the future. In society, where ideas and opinions are divided and classed according to temperaments and interests, so there are also two principal parties: the absolutist party, which strives to conserve and reconstruct the past; and the socialist party, which incessantly tends to bring out and produce the future. ”

“ The coming of democracy in government incalculably stimulated the influence of this social hope, for with the old static forms of absolute autocracy now broken up, with power in the hands of the people to seek as they would "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," who could put limits to the possibilities? The medieval age was gone; the modern age had come, and its distinctive note was progress, with new inventions, new discoveries, new knowledge and new social hope. ”

“ The belief in a divine regulation of political affairs, in a mystery in the existence of the State, is of religious origin: if religion disappears, the State will inevitably lose its old veil of Isis, and will no longer arouse veneration. The sovereignty of the people, looked at closely, serves also to dispel the final fascination and superstition in the realm of these sentiments; modern democracy is the historical form of the decay of the State. 1, 342
Socialism is the fantastic younger brother of almost decrepit despotism, which it wants to succeed ”

“ After a vain attempt at re-establishing, in the old Greek and Roman republics, the original communistic democracy and republic, despotism remained victorious, and after the conquest of the Roman Empire through German and Mongol barbarians, their communism was blended with the Roman physical and mental despotism in the feudalism of the Middle Age. ”

“ It was a great problem to be resolved how society should exist at all, and history gives us the solution of it. Despotism in politics and authority in religion was the grand, primal, leading, and executive idea of it. What learning and culture existed was confined to the guild of the ecclesiastics, and they, for the most part, ruled the rulers as well as the people, by virtue of their intelligence. ”

“ The revolutionary character of this period, then, pertains principally to the rapid movement of public opinion, and its action upon and through the Government. It finds its parallel in nearly every revolutionary event of modern times. A dominant power, the slaveholding aristocracy, long submitted to, attempts a glaring encroachment upon the rights of the most active and progressive element of society. The popular mind gradually rises to a clear perception and appreciation of the true nature of the conflict. ”