Its practical
importance accordingly depends upon two things--firstly, on its
possessing a form sufficiently definite to unite what would otherwise be
a mass of heterogeneous units, by developing in all of them a common
temper and purpose; and, secondly, on the number of those who can be
taught to adopt and welcome it. The theory of socialism is, therefore,
as a practical force, primarily that form of it which is operative among
the mass of socialists; and when once we realise this, we shall have no
further difficulty in discovering what the doctrines are with which, at
all events, we must begin our examination. We are guided to our
starting-point by the broad facts of history.
The rights of the many as opposed to the actual position of the few--a
society in which all should be equal, not only in political status, but
also in social circumstances; ideas such as these are as old as the days
of Plato, and they have, from time to time in the ancient and the modern
world, resulted in isolated and abortive attempts to realise them. In
Europe such ideas were rife during the sixty or seventy years which
followed the great political revolution in France.
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