policy of
the Government. On the other hand two other members of the Executive
Committee, Mr. H.J. Gillespie and Mr. C.M. Lloyd, have, since the
beginning of the war, resigned their seats in order to take commissions
in the Army. Another member, the General Secretary, after months of
vigorous service as one of the Labour Party delegates to Lord Derby's
Recruiting Committee, accepted a commission in the Army in November,
1915, in order to devote his whole time to this work, and has been
granted leave of absence for the period of the war, whilst I have
undertaken my old work in his place. Many members of the Society joined
the Army in the early months of the war, and already a number, amongst
whom may be named Rupert Brooke, have given their lives for their
country.

[Illustration: EDWARD R. PEASE, IN 1913]

FOOTNOTES:

[40] The editors of the Oxford English Dictionary kindly inform me that
the earliest quotation they have yet found is dated December, 1894. I
cannot discover it in any Fabian publication before Tract No. 65, which
was published in July, 1895.

[41] Manifesto on Fabian Policy issued by the Fabian Reform Committee, 4
pp., 4to, November 28th, 1911.

[42] "Fabian News," November, 1912.

Chapter XII

The Lessons of Thirty Years

Breaking the spell of Marxism--A French verdict--Origin of
Revisionism in Germany--The British School of Socialism--Mr. Ernest
Barker's summary--Mill _versus_ Marx--The Fabian Method--Making
Socialists or making Socialism--The life of propagandist
societies--The prospects of Socialist Unity--The future of Fabian
ideas--The test of Fabian success.

The Fabian Society was founded for the purpose of reconstructing Society
in accordance with the highest moral possibilities. This is still the
most accurate and compendious description of its object and the nature
of its work. But the stage of idealism at which more than a very modest
instalment of this cosmic process seemed possible within the lifetime of
a single institution had passed before the chief Essayists became
members, and indeed I cannot recollect that the founders themselves ever
imagined that it lay within their own power to reconstruct Society; none
of them was really so sanguine or so self-confident as to anticipate so
great a result from their efforts, and it will be remembered that the
original phrase was altered by the insertion of the words "to help on"
when the constitution was actua