of
"human nature," and of the social and political institutions that best
harmonise with this nature.

Their method was also that of the Socialists. A man of the 18th century,
Morelly, "to anticipate a mass of empty objections that would be
endless," lays down as an incontrovertible principle "that in morals
nature is one, constant, invariable ... that its laws never change;" and
that "everything that may be advanced as to the variety in the morals of
savage and civilised peoples, by no means proves that nature varies;"
that at the outside it only shows "that from certain accidental causes
which are foreign to it, some nations have fallen away from the laws of
nature; others have remained submissive to them, in some respects from
mere habit; finally, others are subjected to them by certain
reasoned-out laws that are not always in contradiction with nature;" in
a word, "man may abandon the True, but the True can never be
annihilated!"[1] Fourier relies upon the analysis of the human passions;
Robert Owen starts from certain considerations on the formation of human
character; Saint Simon, despite his deep comprehension of the historical
evolution of humanity, constantly returns to "human nature" in order to
explain the laws of this evolution; the Saint-Simonians declared their
philosophy was "based upon a new conception of human nature." The
Socialists of the various schools may quarrel as to the cause of their
different conceptions of human nature; all, without a single exception,
are convinced that social science has not and cannot have, any other
basis than an adequate concept of this nature. In this they in no wise
differ from the Materialists of the 18th century. Human nature is the
one criterion they invariably apply in their criticism of existing
society, and in their search after a social organisation as it should
be, after a "perfect" legislation.

Morelly, Fourier, Saint Simon, Owen--we look upon all of them to-day as
Utopian Socialists. Since we know the general point of view that is
common to them all, we can determine exactly what the Utopian point of
view is. This will be the more useful, seeing that the opponents of
Socialism use the word "Utopian" without attaching to it any, even
approximately, definite meaning.

The _Utopian is one who, starting from an abstract principle, seeks for
a perfect social organisation_.

The abstract principle which served as starting point of the Utopians
was that of hu