stablished;[52] yet we see that a later stage of
civilization, reversing this process, has destroyed ownership of man by
man. Similarly, at a stage still more advanced, it may be that _private
ownership of land will disappear_."[53]

Moreover, this process of the socialization of property, though a
partial and subordinate process, is nevertheless so evident and
continuous that to deny its existence would be to maintain that the
economic and consequently the juridical tendency of the organization of
property is not in the direction of a greater and greater magnification
of the interests and rights of the collectivity over those of the
individual. This, which is only a preponderance to-day, will become by
an inevitable evolution a complete substitution as regards property in
land and the means of production.

The fundamental thesis of Socialism is then, to repeat it again, in
perfect harmony with that sociological law of apparent retrogression,
the natural reasons for which have been so admirably analyzed by M.
Loria, thus: the thought and the life of primitive mankind are moulded
and directed by the natural environment along the simplest and most
fundamental lines; then the progress of intelligence and the complexity
of life increasing by a law of evolution give us an analytical
development of the principal elements contained in the first genus of
each institution; this analytical development is often, when once
finished, detrimental to each one of its elements; humanity itself,
arrived at a certain stage of evolution, reconstructs and combines in a
final synthesis these different elements, and thus returns to its
primitive starting-point.[54]

This reversion to primitive forms is not, however, a pure and simple
repetition. Therefore it is called the law of _apparent_ retrogression,
and this removes all force from the objection that socialism would be a
"return to primitive _barbarism_." It is not a pure and simple
repetition, but it is the concluding phase of a cycle, of a grand
rhythm, as M. Asturaro recently put it, which infallibly and inevitably
preserves in their integrity the achievements and conquests of the long
preceding evolution, in so far as they are vital and fruitful; and the
final outcome is far superior, objectively and subjectively, to the
primitive social embryo.

The track of the social evolution is not represented by a closed circle,
which, like the serpent in the old symbol, cuts off all hope of