deduction but all but certain theory, is confirmed when we remember the amount of genius that has burst upwards in spite of lack of culture and a forbidden tree of knowledge. It is difficult, indeed, to keep the highest order of genius back in certain provinces, such as the fine arts or the inventive arts, especially where, as in the former, to do so has always dimly been felt as a crime against humanity, or as in the latter where it is obviously useful, and consequently in the fine arts especially, a Burns, a Beethoven, supreme and original geniuses, will mostly find some expression for their genius. But how miserable even their conditions have mostly been, how incomplete their utterance generally, and how many only less than they have not spoken! How many have even been wholly repressed, who might have excelled in science, philosophy, scholarship, literature (other than poetry), where full development of faculty postulates a certain degree of previous culture. It is of the successful few of such as these that Heine speaks when instancing the case of Lessing; he says, "The greater portion of their life was spent in poverty and misery-a curse which rests on almost all the great minds of Germany, and which probably will only be overcome by the political emancipation." And most certainly under such a revolution as Socialism, many more of such superior spirits would find an opportunity. We have spoken chiefly of art, invention, and literature in the widest sense, including the use of words by speakers as well as writers; it has been in these that the geniuses of the people have hitherto had any opportunity; in arms, politics or administra

tion they had no opportunity of proving superior capacity till after the French Revolution. Since that time great statesmen and soldiers have sprung from the Fourth Estate and the lower middle class, both in France and in America; and there is every reason to believe that there is much ability of this as of the other order latent in the body of the people in every country on all of which reflective Socialists propose to draw.

Doubts have, however, been frequently expressed whether culture would not be in danger under Socialism-culture as distinct from originality and genius, which are the fountains that increase it and minister to its enjoyment. Would the mass of the people in a democratic society, it is urged, appreciate a thing they had not got, and did not know? Would they recognize the necessity of setting apart funds for its support and encouragement? According to Professor Sidgwick, the development of culture has been hitherto due to the existence of a rich and leisured class. "It is only in a society of comparatively rich and leisured persons that these capacities (for culture)—and still more, the faculties of producing excellent works in literature and art-are likely to be developed and transmitted in any high degree;" from which it is inferred that in the absence of a rich and leisured class the growth of cu'ture would be in danger of being checked. But although this objection would probably apply to full communism and thorough-going equality, it does not apply to Socialism where some inequality of wealth is allowed, 2 Pol. Econ., Book III. ch. vii. § 2.

and where considerable leisure, though more diffused, would exist; it would not apply to a Socialism gradually led up to, under which a better education would be given to all, and in which a certain amount of leisure would naturally attach to certain dignities and positions, as now. At present the rich and leisured (more or less) are perhaps the chief patrons of literature and art; books and pictures are addressed to them, but even now they do not furnish the highest instances of culture, and are not ideal patrons of the persons who are its ministers, of those who arouse its capacities, increase its range, or purvey nutriment to it. As to the inference based on past experience that it is only in a society of comparatively rich and leisured persons that the "faculties of producing excellent works in literature and art are likely to be developed and transmitted in any high degree," I would merely say that it would not apply to a Socialism under which there would be some inequality of income and some leisure, with education wider in subject, and deeper as well as more diffused than at present; while if the proposition implies that the rich and leisured, or their children, are more likely, not merely to be the patrons of literature and art, but themselves to produce excellent literary or artistic works, I am inclined, for the reasons already given, to think it the reverse of the truth.

How far art and literature which minister to culture would, under Socialism, be likely to be encouraged in the sense that artists and literary men would be paid from the public resources, are different questions which will be more conveniently considered when

we come to treat of unproductive labour; our chief object in this chapter being to consider the main objections to Socialism in general. But this much may, however, here be said; that neither art nor literature admit of much co-operative effort, nor can the means of production, which consist of the artist's or author's special genius, be collectively owned as land or capital can be; they must remain connected with individuals, from which it would seem to follow that payment by fixed salary would not be the best mode of assigning to them their remuneration; so that though both might probably enough flourish under a certain kind of Socialism, they would not easily lend themselves to the kind called Collectivism, with a system of fixed salaries. Especially would this apply in the case of art where the artist cannot be made to work his best to order, and where, though he would probably work for little if in the vein, his art being pleasurable in itself, he would also, as at present constituted, like good material wages, which would be better given him by the purchaser of his picture, whether the State, the Municipality, or the State official in receipt of a liberal salary, assuming that such would still continue to be.

CHAPTER VI.

IN THE SOCIALIST STATE (continued).

THE DISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH.

I.

AND now as regards the great question of Distribution, what is to be the rule or principle under the new Socialism? Can it lay down a juster principle than determines the division of produce to-day, that will be at once practicable and that will not result ulteriorly in having less to divide. This is the capital question on which the future of Collectivism depends.

As regards the production of wealth things go on very well at present. Labour, as a matter of fact, is already in general collectively or co-operatively organized so as to produce the greatest result, wherever it is most economical to have it so organized. The production, as a matter of fact, is very great and sufficient to give necessaries to all, comforts and decencies to multitudes, luxurious commodities to many. The only thing wrong as regards production, even according to the Socialists, is that expensive luxuries are produced for a few, necessitating much labour, which would cease under Socialism; but apart from this they have little improvements to suggest as regards production. Not so as regards distribution. The exist