sympathetic personalities that he seems most to care about; Pontano, with his large, healthy sensuality, his tremulous tenderness for sorrow and childhood in the seventeenth century; Whitman, with his vast tolerance, his audacity in the presence of all things natural and human, in the nineteenth. What Mr. Symonds tells us more explicitly of his philosophy of life harmonises with this bias. The motto of the "Studies of the Greek Poets" is Goethe's famous saying:

"Im Ganzen, Guten, Schönen

Resolut zu leben.

And in the suggestive and characteristic essay at the end of the first series-"The Genius of Greek Art "—he declares that there is but one way to make the Hellenic tradition vital to be natural. Science, he adds, will place the future man on a higher pinnacle than even the Greek; for it has given us the final discovery that there is no antagonism, but rather a most intimate connection between the elements of our being. It is largely because Mr. Symonds is so resolute to live in this conception of the whole, that his work is so sound and so stimulating, and that he represents to-day whatever is best in English criticism.

It is doubtful whether Mr. Symonds possesses the dangerous gift of a keen intuition. A piercing and apparently instantaneous insight into the heart of his subject, sometimes uncertain, as in Coleridge, sometimes certain, as in Heine, frequently marks the discursive and catholic critic. Carlyle had a faculty as uncertain as Coleridge's, as keen as Heine's, for cutting into the core of a thing. It is possible that one of his main claims to remembrance will be found to lie in the portraits he has given us of his contemporaries. From this point of view the "Reminiscences" are peculiarly valuable. Carlyle was Aristophanic, it may be, and his portraits have sometimes even a faint gleam of the Greek's lyric loveliness on them; but for criticism of the piercing, heliocentric sort there is often nothing to be compared to them, although, wherever prejudice or partiality comes in, it is always liable to go hopelessly astray. În criticism of this kind Swinburne is now, without any rival, the chief English representative. More purely literary than Carlyle, his intuitions are also, on the whole, accompanied and held in check by a more exact knowledge. At the best they are keen, vital, audacious, springing from a free and genuine insight. But Swinburne also is not reliable where his sympathies or antipathies are too strongly called forth. He is better worth listening to when he speaks of Ford and the Elizabethan dramatists generally, than when he speaks of Hugo or De Musset. For all that is keen and intense his perception is vivid; he criticises admirably what is great in the Bröntes; his failure to appreciate George Eliot is almost complete. Swinburne has also another difficulty to contend with. Sometimes his prose style is a very flame of power and splendour.

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At other times it is singularly awkward, and clanks behind him in an altogether hopeless and helpless fashion. What way of describing things can be more stale, flat, and unprofitable than this discovered without much search-" the great company of witnesses, by right of articulate genius, and might of intelligent appeal, against all tenets and all theories of sophists, and of saints which tend directly or indirectly to pamper or to stimulate, to fortify or to excuse, the tyrannous instinct or appetite," etc.? One scarcely recognises there the swift hand of the poet.

If a brief review of English criticism in its higher aspects reveals the fact that our critics are but a feeble folk,-with exceptions, indeed, that are brilliant, though, even then, for the most part, erratic, it is still worth while to make that review. It is well to call them before us, and, for our own private guidance, try to define to ourselves what it is and what it is not that they have to give us; where we may follow them, and where we should forbear. Criticism is a complex development of psychological science, and if it is to reach any large and strong growth, it must be apprehended seriously in all its manifestations.

HAVELOCK ELLIS.

"ETHICAL SOCIALISM." *

A REPLY.

BY H. G. RAWSON.

For

WE chanced to be present a few months ago at a meeting of a well-known Socialist club, when the following thesis was under discussion: "Is Socialism in accordance with Evolution?" some time we listened, in the hope of learning what form of Socialism had its character at stake, but in vain; the speakers all seemed to assume a general consensus as to the meaning of the term. Now if there is one thing more than another of which our experience of Socialists has convinced us, it is that no two of them can agree on a prograinme, much less on the means of realising it; and of the correctness of this generalisation “A. Fabian's article affords remarkable confirmation.

It is not without reluctance, being Socialist at heart in our sense of the word, that we join issue with "A. Fabian;" for his article bears indubitable evidence of conviction, and of genuine sympathy with the lower classes; but if, as we sincerely believe, the advocacy of such views as his does positive harm to our common cause, we are bound to point out in what respects his argument appears to be fallacious and unpractical.

As a typical instance of both failings, let us cite from "Ethical Socialism a passage in which the writer sets forth the characteristics of the "Anarchists'" creed-a creed which he assures us "has been carefully thought out by some of the ablest men of the day." "Anarchists," he says, "are the radicals of Socialism. They dislike and distrust all government, for they deny that even a majority has a right to coerce a dissentient minority. They would place the means of production in the hands of the workers by abolishing altogether the right of private property. All things would be held in common; † all men would work or be idle as they pleased, subject only to the authority of public opinion. There could be but little crime, because most crimes "Time," July 1885.

Since writing the above, our attention has been directed to a most instructive pamphlet by Mr. Samuel Smith, M.P. for Liverpool, entitled "Fallacies of Socialism exposed" (Kegan Paul, Trench, & Co.). There we find Mr. George Gilbertson, the Christian Socialist, stating categorically in a letter to Mr. Smith, "Communism is not Socialism." This is scarcely consistent with the passage just quoted from "A. Fabian,' and strikingly confirms our opening statement.

are against property, or are due to brutish ignorance, which would be quickly stamped out in a Socialist state. Some form of penal law would no doubt be necessary, especially at first; but in a highly-civilised community violence of any sort is very rare, and the force of public opinion is exceedingly strong. Every one would recognise the necessity for work, and since a moderate amount of work is natural and pleasant to man, the productive activities of the community would not be interfered with, but every one would be free to do what he pleased, and as much as he pleased." This may be "a perfect ideal," as "A. Fabian" claims, but we consider that we have just cause of complaint if the efforts of those who are labouring to raise the lower classes are thwarted and neutralised by the promulgation of a gospel so utterly visionary and fantastic-one that has not even the merit of self-consistency. Take, for instance, the contradiction involved in the first two sentences of the creed. The Anarchists deny the right of a majority to coerce the minority. How, then, do they propose to abolish the property rights of the minority? If they expect the latter to come to be killed, like the ducks of the nursery rhyme, they must wait for the millennium, or, at any rate, for a new dispensation, about the details of which it is waste of time to speculate at present. Another contradiction is due to the writer overlooking the fact that in a society where all things are held in common it is a theft to be idle; for a man thus diminishes the common stock without contributing anything to it; and this would promptly be recognised by the associated members, who would enforce a certain amount of labour by penalties or by expulsion. Again, it is an assumption to suppose that because things are owned in common, every man is at liberty to consume "as much as he pleases;" and this would, in effect, be one of the "crimes against property" in such a state.

But it is sufficient to accept "A. Fabian's" own opinion of this ideal. It does "seem rather far away," and those who are studying the urgent social problem before them will deem it more important to learn what he considers the probable line of society's development. He thinks that the present system will be replaced by Collectivism, and that again by Anarchy. This, to say the least, is a serious blow to the Collectivists, for it amounts to a tacit admission that the ideal Socialism is the absolute negation and condemnation of their essential and guiding principle. Can it, then, be argued that we ought to countenance the evil of State domination, in order that one part, and one part only, of the ideal scheme may be realised, that is to say, the abolition of private property; for this is evidently the only function of Collectivism that possesses any merit in the eyes of the Anarchists? No, with "A. Fabian" we certainly decline to accept anything short of the best possible, nor will we suffer evil that good may come.

And here is an instance of the dangers arising out of the multiplicity of Socialist doctrines. Though "A Fabian" recognises as clearly as we do the "objectionable features" of Collectivism, though he must realise to the full the horrors of a social revolution, yet he allows himself to tolerate the possibility of both, if indeed he is not conscious that the path to his ideal must lead through them, because as a Socialist he is convinced that the competitive system is radically unjust. It is in the proof of this fundamental premise of their position that Socialists, in our opinion, fail so utterly. They have, it is true, no difficulty in pointing to instances of the unjust operation of the present system; but we, who deprecate the too hasty destruction of the social edifice until at least the plans of a new structure are complete, may well ask for something more than a bare assertion that the existing evils are its necessary and inseparable results.

The Anarchists, we believe, are mostly in favour of violent means for hastening the attainment of their ideal; and perhaps this is not to be wondered at; for they may well despair of convincing the world by moral force. There is, however, a third alternative which "A. Fabian" seems inclined to advocate-legal force; and as this is, in our opinion, the only way, and not an improbable one, by which an attempt may be made within the next generation to introduce some form of Socialism, it appears worth while to devote some space to its consideration.

The favourite, and indeed the strongest, argument of the Socialists in favour of legislative interference with existing rights of property, is that the principle has already been accepted, and there remains now only a question of degree; and they quote as typical instances the taxation of the propertied classes, and the compulsory taking of land for the benefit of the community. But is this view correct? Look first at taxation. Is it, in truth, as some Socialists contend, a confiscation or resumption by the State of the property of some of its members for the good of the rest? If so, no doubt the State-i.e., the majority-is the only judge of what shall be the limit of confiscation; and abundant means are at hand, by graduated income-tax or otherwise, to divert into the Exchequer the whole profits of a man's property beyond a fixed amount. We venture, however, to think that a very different explanation can be given of the principle on which taxation is based. In our view, taxation is a voluntary contribution by the propertied classes, to carry out certain purposes of State which they admit to be necessary, though perhaps not actually beneficial to themselves. For instance, though a landowner may not feel himself so directly benefited by the maintenance of the workhouse as he is by that of the highway, yet he pays the poor-rate without a murmur, because he recognises that a refuge for the destitute poor is necessary and desirable. But here comes the important point