so
explained to you what Socialism is when considered as a system of
economy. I could sum up both very briefly by saying that Socialism is
a philosophy of social evolution which teaches that the great force
which has impelled the race onward, determining the rate and direction
of social progress, has come from man's tools and the mode of
production in general: that we are now living in a period of
transition, from capitalism to Socialism, motived by the economic
forces of our time. Socialism is a system of economics, also. Its
substance may be summed up in a sentence as follows: Labor applied to
natural resources is the source of the wealth of capitalistic society,
but the greatest part of the wealth produced goes to non-producers,
the producers getting only a part, in the form of wages--hence the
paradox of wealthy non-producers and penurious producers.

I have explained to you also that Socialism is not a scheme. There
remains still to be explained, however, another aspect of Socialism,
of more immediate interest and importance and interest. I must try to
explain Socialism as an ideal, as a forecast of the future. You want
to know, having traced the evolution of society to a point where
everything seems to be in transition, where a change seems imminent,
just what the nature of that change will be.

I must leave that for another letter, friend Jonathan, for this is
over-long already. I shall not try to paint a picture of the future
for you, to tell you in detail what that future will be like. I do not
know: no man can know. He who pretends to know is either a fool or a
knave, my friend. But there are some things which, I believe, we may
premise with reasonable certainty These things I want to discuss in my
next letter. Meantime, there are lots of things in this letter to
think about.

_And I want you to think, Jonathan Edwards!_

IX

WHAT SOCIALISM IS AND WHAT IT IS NOT

(_Continued_)

And the wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall
lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the
fattling together; and a little child shall lead them. And the
cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down
together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. And the
suckling child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the
weaned child shall put his hand on the basilisk's den. They
shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain: for the
ea