the eminent physician or advocate, the State could not with the maximum of advantage retain such in its exclusive service. It could not offer sufficiently high pay, and it is much better to let them be paid by the individuals profiting by the exceptional services. The best ability will only be drawn out-such is the imperfection of human nature and human virtue-by permitting its possessor to reap extra pecuniary reward from it, at least in the field of the "bread and butter sciences." This is the general rule; though no doubt the State or the public might secure, as now, the best services in the great hospitals of the most eminent in the medical profession for moderate remuneration, provided such were allowed to devote most of their time to private practice with its special fees in addition; partly because the profession has always practised an honourable species of Socialism by graduating their fees to the different circumstances of the rich and poor, and partly also because connection with the great hospitals is a mark of distinction and success, which is of use in further extending practice.

Every one, in whatever sphere, productive or unproductive, who has a monopoly of a gift or talent, the exercise of which is either desired by the public or of great general utility, can, if it pleases its possessor, exact high material or money returns, with the alternative, if he does not get such, that he can refuse to exercise the gift, or can exercise it imperfectly. Even where the monopoly is only partial-in the cases where a few possess the ability-the like holds in lesser degree. It lies in the nature of things. It is indeed possible that the artist (painter or sculptor) might be

willing to work, and work well, for a fixed salary paid by the State, the exercise of his art being in itself a pleasure, and fame and the sense of spiritual power, an important part of his reward. Still, for a long time to come, so long as the slowly-dying Adam of egoism, which has been much fostered under the present system, exists in the artist, he would do more work, and would throw his energy and soul more into it, if he were paid by the picture-paid by piecework, in fact-and under Socialism there would be nothing to prevent the State, the municipality, or even the private patron, competing for the exercise of his skill. No doubt under this system there would be fewer portraits of private gentlemen or of aldermen and mayors painted, unless for presentation by the municipality or their admirers, and it might thence result that the chief orders to a great artist would come from the State, or from the great municipalities emulous for good picture galleries.

The whole teaching service, like the civil service, would fit into Collectivism without any great change, provided that the hierarchical principle were duly observed. It is already largely organized on Socialistic lines. In the higher and more important posts, the professors of the sciences, the humanities, or philosophy, and the lecturers in the different practical faculties, might be paid fixed salaries, or better, partly fixed and partly depending on their fees as at present. There might be competition amongst the different universities or university colleges to obtain the professor who had a great reputation, but it would be desirable, in the interest of learning as well as in that of the students, that his wages should not be stinted.

R

II.

DOUBTLESS the vague thing called literature, and some at least of the mixed multitude called literary men, would exist under Socialism as under every possible social system; nor does the consideration of the class or its wages raise any very special difficulty. The side of human nature that literature addresses will exist in future as in the past, and according to all analogy and the normal law of evolution, unless civilization retrogrades or there be something in Socialism antagonistic, it will expand. In any case, poetry and the relish for beauty and truth will exist, tragedy and comedy will attract, the ever-varied, but still the same, human story will be re-told. New ideas will demand new expression; the power and province of "the word " will increase, however its priests and purveyors be paid. As to the latter, as before mentioned, it cannot be said that the remuneration or the mode in which it is given is satisfactory at present, though there has been improvement. Great as is the service which men of letters may confer on mankind, great as is the power they wield over the soul, over the social order, society has not known hitherto how to treat them in the matter of wages, nor even comprehended their true function and significance under our present civilization. Fortunately, money is not what poets, philosophers, or true men of letters in general most want, nor can money ever be any measure of the value of their work. They want the exercise of their function, the influence that naturally belongs

to it, liberty and a competence. According to Shelley, the poet, wants "love and fame," and fame he gets if he has so far raised his generation as to feel his special gift. But the better part of his wages comes not from without, whether from fame or money; it comes from himself and the exercise of his art, from "the great poetic heart worth more than all poetic fame," from the vision of beauty, the divination of truth, and the effort that is itself pleasure to shape them forth as an artistic whole.

To find money wages for the true poet who has not been born with a competence, has always been a problem, and it would probably continue so under Socialism, especially as the poet in general both "man and boy has been an idler in the land," and still more as the greatest poets sometimes only impress the world after their death.

It is more important for society to know how to deal with the second great class of literary men, more properly called philosophers, because, let it treat them as it will, it cannot prevent them from having the final controlling word in the great spheres of religion, morals, and politics. To re-state the true and the just in these spheres is in fact their function. The class has existed under all civilizations. With the Jews they were called prophets, and had commanding influence. Under the Greek civilization, when they first appeared in their modern character as searchers for truth, they also enjoyed great consideration, so much so that kings consulted them. At that time, and long after, they lived by lecturing and teaching, for which their pupils paid them, as is

still the case with some of their modern representatives. But in modern times they influence the world chiefly by writing books, by which, however, they cannot live. It is a question what is the proper function of such in a renovated modern society, and how they should be paid. Plato, in his Republic, makes them rulers, as does St. Simon, while Comte assigns to them, under the name of "positive philosophers," the spiritual power, reserving the temporal for the capitalist class, this separation of functions being supposed to be his great discovery in political science; the real fact being that the philosophic class cannot be prevented from exercising in large measure both spiritual and temporal power, if not at the time and in appearance, yet finally and in substance. As a class they exercise it, though not to the exclusion of the clergy or politicians. As matter of fact, philosophy, and philosophical criticism, seconded by scientific discoveries, have profoundly affected religious belief during the past hundred years; as a matter of fact, all fruitful political wisdom for the last three centuries has emanated from the class in question, which has furnished all intelligible theories of Government and the State; the principles of legislation and taxa. tion; of production, distribution, and trade; of International Law. As a matter of fact, men of the type of Hobbes, Grotius, Locke, Montesquieu, Adam Smith, Burke, Bentham, Mill, have exerted great political influence through their books by impressing their views on practical politicians and statesmen; as a matter of fact, that great thing begun in 1789, and still proceeding, called the Revolution, was set agoing