ay of Socialism.

I have spoken of Socialists whose underlying object is opportunistic--to
obtain immediate results in legislation no matter how unrelated they may
be to Socialism. Others are impelled either by an inactive idealism, or
by attachment to abstract dogma for its own sake. Their custom is in the
one instance to make the doctrine so rigid that it has no immediate
application, and in the other to "elevate the ideal" so high, to remove
it so far into the future, that it is scarcely visible for the
present-day purposes, and then to declare that present-day activity,
even if theoretically subject to an ideal or a doctrine, must be guided
also by quite other and "practical" principles, which are never clearly
defined and sometimes are scarcely mentioned. Mr. Edmond Kelly, for
instance, puts his "Collectivism Proper," or Socialism, so far into the
future that he is forced to confess that it will be attained only
"ultimately," or perhaps not at all, while "Partial Collectivism may
prove to be the last stage consistent with human imperfection."[100] He
acknowledges that this Partial Collectivism ("State Socialism") is not
the ideal, and it is evident that his ideal is too far ahead or too
rigid or theoretical, to have any connection with the ideals of the
Socialist movement, which arise exclusively out of actual life.

This opportunism defends itself by an appeal to the "evolutionary"
argument, that progress must necessarily be extremely slow. Progress in
this view, like Darwin's variations, takes place a step at a time, and
its steps are infinitesimally small. _The Worker_ of Brisbane,
Australia, says: "The complicated complaint from which society suffers
can only be cured by the administration of _homeopathic_ doses....
Inculcate Socialism? Yes, but grab all you can to be going on with.
Preach revolutionary thoughts? Yes, but rely on the ameliorative
method.... The minds of men are of slow development, and we must be
content, we fear, to accomplish our revolution piecemeal, bit by bit,
till a point is come to when, by accumulative process, a series of small
changes amounts to the Great Change. The most important revolutions are
those that happen quietly without anything particularly noticeable
seeming to occur."

What is a Great Change depends _entirely_, in the revolutionist's view,
on how rapidly it is brought about, and "revolutionary thoughts" are
empty abstractions unless accompanied by revolutionary methods