tion.

But the drawbacks are becoming more and more evident as socialism
approaches nearer to power and responsibility. The feeling that man is a
creature and not a creator is disastrous as a personal creed when you
come to act. If you insist upon being "determined by conditions" you do
hesitate about saying "I shall." You are likely to wait for something to
determine you. Personal initiative and individual genius are poorly
regarded: many socialists are suspicious of originality. This philosophy,
so useful in propaganda, is becoming a burden in action. That is another
way of saying that the instrument has turned into an idol.

For while it is illuminating to see how environment moulds men, it is
absolutely essential that men regard themselves as moulders of their
environment. A new philosophical basis is becoming increasingly necessary
to socialism--one that may not be "truer" than the old materialism but
that shall simply be more useful. Having learned for a long time what is
done to us, we are now faced with the task of doing. With this changed
purpose goes a change of instruments. All over the world socialists are
breaking away from the stultifying influence of the outworn determinism.
For the time is at hand when they must cease to look upon socialism as
inevitable in order to make it so.

Nor will the philosophy of class warfare serve this new need. That can be
effective only so long as the working-class is without sovereignty. But
no sooner has it achieved power than a new outlook is needed in order to
know what to do with it. The tactics of the battlefield are of no use
when the battle is won.

I picture this philosophy as one of deliberate choices. The underlying
tone of it is that society is made by man for man's uses, that reforms
are inventions to be applied when by experiment they show their
civilizing value. Emphasis is placed upon the devising, adapting,
constructing faculties. There is no reason to believe that this view is
any colder than that of the war of class against class. It will generate
no less energy. Men to-day can feel almost as much zest in the building
of the Panama Canal as they did in a military victory. Their domineering
impulses find satisfaction in conquering things, in subjecting brute
forces to human purposes. This sense of mastery in a winning battle
against the conditions of our life is, I believe, the social myth that
will inspire our reconstructions. We shall feel free to choo