ago it was heard and acted on; and, in
the lapse of centuries, its reverberations have but swelled in volume.
Again and again, the altruist has arisen in politics, has bidden us
share with others the product of our toil, and has proclaimed the
communistic dogma as the panacea for our social ills. So today, amid the
buried hopes and buried projects of the past, the doctrine of communism
still lives in the minds of men. Under stress of misfortune, or in dread
of tyranny, it is still preached in modern times as Plato preached it in
the world of the Greeks.

Yet it is indeed doubtful whether, in the history of mankind, a doctrine
was ever taught more impracticable or more false to the principles
it professes than this very doctrine of communism. In a world where
self-interest is avowedly the ruling motive, it seeks to establish at
once an all-reaching and all-controlling altruism. In a world where
every man is pushing and fighting to outstrip his fellows, it would make
him toil with like vigor for their common welfare. In a world where a
man's activity is measured by the nearness of reward, it would hold up
a prospective recompense as an equal stimulant to labor. "The more
bitterly we feel," writes George Eliot, "the more bitterly we feel the
folly, ignorance, neglect, or self-seeking of those who at different
times have wielded power, the stronger is the obligation we lay on
ourselves to beware lest we also, by a too hasty wresting of measures
which seem to promise immediate relief, make a worse time of it for our
own generation, and leave a bad inheritance for our children." In
the future, when the remoteness of his reward shall have weakened the
laborer's zeal, we shall be able to judge more fairly of the blessings
that the communist offers. Instead of the present world, where some at
least are well-to-do and happy, the communist holds before us a world
where all alike are poor. For the activity, the push, the vigor of our
modern life, his substitute is a life aimless and unbroken. And so we
have to say to communists what George Eliot might have said: Be not
blinded by the passions of the moment, but when you prate about your own
wrongs and the sufferings of your offspring, take heed lest in the long
run you make a worse time of it for your own generation, and leave a bad
inheritance for your children.

Little thought has been taken by these altruistic reformers for the
application of the doctrines they uphold. To the