been a more logical contrast with "utopian." Marx and his followers
likewise had a contempt for the communistic experiments, or
settlements and colonies, which by the scores had been started and had
failed, bringing discredit upon all communistic proposals. The beauty
of "scientific" socialism was that it never could be tried on a small
scale--or tried at all until a whole nation adopted it.

The old time "scientific" socialist had a lofty scorn for any less
dogmatic philosophy than his own or for any less sweeping social
change than that he expected. Moderate social reform to him was but
temporizing; indeed, it was evil, inasmuch as it helped to postpone
the inevitable, but in the end, beneficent catastrophe of the
social revolution. A step-by-step movement toward socialism, state
socialism,[19] even of a pretty sweeping character, was, to the
old-time Marxians, not really socialism at all. A valid reason for
this attitude was found in the extremely limited manhood suffrage
and in the aristocratic class government of most European countries,
especially of Germany; so that, as the party socialists saw it,
multiplying state enterprises but increased the power of the ruling,
and eventually of the militarist, class. The social-democratic leaders
felt that until they themselves were in power, the growth of "state
socialism" would be a calamity for the nation. The events of 1914 may
make our judgment tolerant toward their feeling.

Sec. 19. #Its unreal and negative character.# The so-called "scientific"
socialism had, therefore, a peculiarly unscientific spirit; for, in a
modern sense, science implies a patient search for truth, not a
sudden revelation; a constant testing of opinions by observation
and experiment, not a dogmatic conviction that refuses the test of
reality. "Scientific" socialists talked much (and still talk much) of
the "evolution" of social institutions; but they refused to admit the
essential condition for institutional evolution, the competitive trial
on a small scale, of a new form of economic organization to prove its
fitness to survive. Indeed, it had been tried on a small scale many
times, and had always failed in a brief time.

Lincoln said that a man's legs ought to be long enough to reach to the
ground; but "scientific" socialism was not built on that plan. To be
sure it contained many elements of truth, but these were so distorted
that the result was a caricature of history, of philosophy, of
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