otion of common property may or might have sunk
as deep into the heart of a race, and have become as fixed to them, as
private property is to ourselves. He knows that this latter institution
is not more than four or five thousand years old: may not the end revert
to the beginning? In our own age even Utopias affect the spirit of
legislation, and an abstract idea may exercise a great influence on
practical politics.

The objections that would be generally urged against Plato's community
of property, are the old ones of Aristotle, that motives for exertion
would be taken away, and that disputes would arise when each was
dependent upon all. Every man would produce as little and consume as
much as he liked. The experience of civilized nations has hitherto been
adverse to Socialism. The effort is too great for human nature; men try
to live in common, but the personal feeling is always breaking in. On
the other hand it may be doubted whether our present notions of property
are not conventional, for they differ in different countries and in
different states of society. We boast of an individualism which is not
freedom, but rather an artificial result of the industrial state
of modern Europe. The individual is nominally free, but he is also
powerless in a world bound hand and foot in the chains of economic
necessity. Even if we cannot expect the mass of mankind to become
disinterested, at any rate we observe in them a power of organization
which fifty years ago would never have been suspected. The same forces
which have revolutionized the political system of Europe, may effect a
similar change in the social and industrial relations of mankind. And if
we suppose the influence of some good as well as neutral motives working
in the community, there will be no absurdity in expecting that the
mass of mankind having power, and becoming enlightened about the higher
possibilities of human life, when they learn how much more is attainable
for all than is at present the possession of a favoured few, may pursue
the common interest with an intelligence and persistency which mankind
have hitherto never seen.

Now that the world has once been set in motion, and is no longer held
fast under the tyranny of custom and ignorance; now that criticism has
pierced the veil of tradition and the past no longer overpowers the
present,--the progress of civilization may be expected to be far greater
and swifter than heretofore. Even at our present rate