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segment is supported by one much larger which remains submerged. Now this subconscious self is the portion of our nature that is most closely related to the organs and functions of our physical body. It is this self which sees that the commands of the will are carried out. It sets in motion all that complicated machinery in the body involved, for example, in moving a limb, of which we know nothing or next to nothing. This portion of the soul lies deeper than the ordinary, waking consciousness. It is nearer the underlying laws of Nature. The fret and fume of daily life disturb it not at all. It contains within itself those healing, recuperative processes that take place in silence and darkness, usually in sleep. Through hypnotism it has been learned that this "subliminal self," to use Mr. F. W. H. Myers's phrase, is not usually affected by the ordinary means of receiving knowledge,-reading, writing, conversation, etc. It can be influenced by suggestion; but to do this otherwise than through a hypnotic trance it is necessary for one to brood more or less over a few simple ideas, to let these sink into the mind by silent meditation or frequent repetition, or by visual impression. There they are matured by a process of "unconscious incubation," and create knowledge, faith, and dynamic energy for use in the conscious region.

Of course the principle of suggestion is available only within certain limits. It is not a panacea or cure-all. The extravagant and pretentious misstateThe Spectator.

ment of the suggestive principle lies at the root of many of the absurd cults that to-day defy the reason of the world. As a matter of fact, its genuine successes have been achieved only in the treatment of functional nervous disorders, of hypochondria, insomnia, dyspepsia, neurasthenia, the drug-habit, hysteria, and the like. In spite of the assertions of Christian Scientists, mindcurists, metaphysical healers, esoteric vibrationists, et id genus omne, there is no evidence worthy of the name that where an organic change has taken place in the body any benefit can come through suggestion whether in hypnotic sleep or waking state. A cancer, for example, is not amenable to suggestive treatment. The surgeon's knife is at present the only fit remedy for such a disorder.

Within the region, however, of the functional as distinguished from the organic, it is impossible to set any limit to the potency of suggestive therapeutics. Mind is the true magician. Through contact with a healthy, wellpoised personality the children of melancholy may learn to gain self-control, to banish fear, anxiety, and the sensations of the passing hour; above all, to exorcise the demon of egotism by ideals of goodness and unselfishness. And as they do so, so thaumaturgle is the soul that the nerves which a little before were harassed and jarred by suffering will experience an unaccustomed calm, as though a heavy load had been lifted from the heart, and life once more seemed worth living.

THE PARTING OF THE WAYS.

The democracy of Great Britain is at a point where it has to make its choice between a form of Socialism, scientific or unscientific, thorough or partial, and continuance under the quasi

Individualistic conditions which have hitherto prevailed in the land. As it is not the habit of the British, and especially the English, people to face changes of social creed or ideal in the

form of an accepted statement of principles or corpus of doctrine, or in any abstract shape whatever, it is possible that they may pass into practical Socialism sans le savoir, by a series of lapses, just as it is possible that they may maintain an Individualistic system without recognition of that fact or its consequences.

The drift has for some time tended towards Socialism: that is, to minor measures of empirical Socialism which commend themselves to sentiment or to the sense of expediency. For instance, there has been a strong inclination to relieve the poorer parents in the community of a part of the burden of their duty to their children, and to help the more indigent class generally to avoid the full results of their economic disadvantages. This, being done by a common effort of the other members of the State, is a step within the bounds of Socialism.

Here one comes at once upon a criticism which applies to the arguments of convinced Individualists, at least as to their practical bearing, and when their practical bearing is disregarded they have only an academic value. To ask people to permit the unrestricted results of Individualist methods to operate among the poorest is to ask them to repudiate all the dictates of compassion, and to deny the fundamental principles of the religion which most of them profess. It is absurd to teach a student on one day of the week in a lecture-room that Free Competition, unhampered and unmitigated, is the essential condition of the progress of the race and the nation, and to teach him on another day of the week, in a church or chapel, that he should love his neighbor as himself and do to his neighbor as he would that his neighbor should do to him.

And this leads to another criticism which strengthens the hands of those who seek to promote Socialism. Indi

vidualists, as a school, are not prepared to offer any humane system as an alternative to it. Many do little more than denounce the creed of Marx and his successors with equal vehemence and honesty; but mere denunciation, in the end, strengthens a plausible case by arousing interest in it and some sympathy for it, and invective is a weapon which grows weaker the oftener it is used against the same opponent. What is wanted, at least for people who prefer to hold their opinions in a logical form, is a system for the amelioration of social conditions which will satisfy the human conscience as it exists in Western lands to-day without destroying the sound foundations of society in accordance with socialistic incitements; in a word, construction instead of destruction, or healthy evolution instead of a revolution prompted by visionaries and carried out in despair.

It is well to admit that the Individualist pur sang has failed as a social philosopher and will fail, precisely because he ignores the human conscience and fails to realize that sympathy is as natural and inherent a force in human nature as selfishness itself; indeed, it is one of the basal laws of life, long antecedent to the appearance of man upon the earth, and one of the primary factors of the individual. And, in face of this fact, in order to criticise Socialism effectively, it is expedient to give due recognition to some of its strongest positions and not to advance against the whole line without making due allowance for them.

It is often urged that all progress in evolution from the protozoa to man has been accomplished by the aid of unrestricted competition in the struggle for life. And if this be granted, the Individualist says, "How will you ensure further progress if this mainspring of evolution be taken away?" But the argument is fallacious. Considering the matter from the biological point of

view, it is plain that unrestricted competition among the creatures lower than man evolved at length a power, thought, which overthrew the previous conditions and dominated the world of brute force and blind contest for survival. This force has its own way of dealing with things, and the more completely that is followed the greater is the success of those who follow it. No human beings approach so nearly to the kind of competition that prevails among beasts as the lowest races of mankind, who are rightly called the most backward. The proposal to eliminate the results of thought in order that we may revert to that condition of affairs over which thought has triumphed, and the belief that further progress can only be attained by returning to the form of competition which at last produced thought as its mastering term, are illusory; in fact the suggestion is that we should decapitate progress, so to speak, in order that advance may continue. Nor is the protective power of organized "social" life, as distinct from the free struggle of individuals, without example even outside humanity. The development of instinct gives examples of it. "The phases of social life exhibited by animals other than man," said Huxley, "sometimes curiously foreshadow human policy." Instances in the insect world are well known, and for one example among many in the case of the higher animals it is interesting to refer to the account given from personal observation by Mansfield Parkyns of the organization of baboons in their forays on the cornfields.

1

Nor, indeed, is a return to the Free Competition, the unrestricted struggle for existence, as it flourishes outside humanity, practicable; but this is what the Individualist system postulates if it is logical in its doctrine of progress.

"The Anatomy of Invertebrated Animals." "Life in Abyssinia."

Law, from the point of view of the strict Individualists, is Socialism; at least, one of its most important functions is the use of the power of the community to protect those who are not strong enough to enforce their own rights. If it were the solemn duty of humanity to adopt consistent and thorough Individualism, law should be abolished; he only should preserve his property, or even his life, who could do so by his own hand or cunning; widows and orphans should be a prey to those strong enough to seize them. The decalogue should be deleted. Then we should indeed have reverted to the kind of competition which prevails in the ocean and the forest. But it would hardly mean progress.

M

As compared with a doctrine which, pushed to its logical extreme, involves the disappearance of morality, the creed of Socialism appears, in the abstract, a most beneficent gospel. It proposes to use the individual for the best advantage of the State and to organize the State for the best advantage of the individual. And if practice could be made to conform to theory, Socialism would have a claim upon humanity that could not rightly be repudiated.

A principle enunciated in a few lines in the late Professor W. Wallace's "Prolegomena to the Study of Hegel's Philosophy" may be cited:

The apprehension of a thing from one side or aspect-the apprehension of one thing apart from its connections-the retention of a term or formula apart from its context-is what Hegel terms "abstract" . . . To abstract is a necessary stage in the process of knowledge. But it is equally necessary to insist on the danger of clinging, as to an ultimate truth, to the pseudo-simplicity of abstraction, which forgets altogether what it is in certain situations desirable for a time to overlook.

In this sense, Socialism is a system full of the error of "abstraction." It

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S." one can almost ed reader exclaim. glo-Saxon snobbishDu art, and how invallest!" One can Sighing; but that is have forogtten to Dan babies. Behold Jess summer evening, g fathers and these others paying homIt 'perambulators. nd, perceiving it, one this little moment, the City and the sothe tea-table have otten; that even the y have faded into a ificance. For in realall atoms of plump > the lords dominant last court of appeal, spring of all its striv te it is a comforting ss them!

H. H. Bashford.

view, it is plain that unrestricted competition among the creatures lower than man evolved at length a power, thought, which overthrew the previous conditions and dominated the world of brute force and blind contest for survival. This force has its own way of dealing with things, and the more completely that is followed the greater is the success of those who follow it. No human beings approach so nearly to the kind of competition that prevails among beasts as the lowest races of mankind, who are rightly called the most backward. The proposal to eliminate the results of thought in order that we may revert to that condition of affairs over which thought has triumphed, and the belief that further progress can only be attained by returning to the form of competition which at last produced thought as its mastering term, are illusory; in fact the suggestion is that we should decapitate progress, so to speak, in order that advance may continue. Nor is the protective power of organized "social" life, as distinct from the free struggle of individuals, without example even outside humanity. The development of instinct gives examples of it. "The phases of social life exhibited by animals other than man," said Huxley, "sometimes curiously foreshadow human policy." stances in the insect world are well known, and for one example among many in the case of the higher animals it is interesting to refer to the account given from personal observation by Mansfield Parkyns of the organization of baboons in their forays on the cornfields."

In

Nor, indeed, is a return to the Free Competition, the unrestricted struggle for existence, as it flourishes outside humanity, practicable; but this is what the Individualist system postulates if it is logical in its doctrine of progress.

1"The Anatomy of Invertebrated Animals." "Life in Abyssinia."

Law, from the point of view of the strict Individualists, is Socialism; at least, one of its most important functions is the use of the power of the community to protect those who are not strong enough to enforce their own rights. If it were the solemn duty of humanity to adopt consistent and thorough Individualism, law should be abolished; he only should preserve his property, or even his life, who could do so by his own hand or cunning; widows and orphans should be a prey to those strong enough to seize them. The decalogue should be deleted. Then we should indeed have reverted to the kind of competition which prevails in the ocean and the forest. But it would hardly mean progress.

As compared with a doctrine which, pushed to its logical extreme, involves the disappearance of morality, the creed of Socialism appears, in the abstract, a most beneficent gospel. It proposes to use the individual for the best advantage of the State and to organize the State for the best advantage of the individual. And if practice could be made to conform to theory, Socialism would have a claim upon humanity that could not rightly be repudiated.

A principle enunciated in a few lines in the late Professor W. Wallace's "Prolegomena to the Study of Hegel's Philosophy" may be cited:

The apprehension of a thing from one side or aspect-the apprehension of one thing apart from its connections-the retention of a term or formula apart from its context-is what Hegel terms "abstract" . . . To abstract is a necessary stage in the process of knowledge. But it is equally necessary to insist on the danger of clinging, as to an ultimate truth, to the pseudo-simplicity of abstraction, which forgets altogether what it is in certain situations desirable for a time to overlook.

In this sense, Socialism is a system full of the error of "abstraction." It

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