ideals of to-morrow in the environment
of to-day, are misunderstood and disliked by the majority, and
understood and appreciated only by the few who, like themselves, have
rejected the current code and adopted the criteria of to-morrow. But
those of us who call Sudermann the first of living dramatists, do so on
account of the extreme nobility of his heroines' conduct judged by the
criteria of the future.

While there will be no morality in Socialist society; while in the
perfect solidarity of a classless society there can be no conflict of
individual with social interests; there will nevertheless be certain
actions exceptionally fitted to increase the welfare and augment the
happiness of the community, and the men and women who perform these acts
will undoubtedly be rewarded by the plaudits and the love of their
comrades. Indeed, we with our debased standards are incapable of
conceiving how dear to them this reward will be. It is because I believe
that this love of one's fellows under Socialism will be a joy far
exceeding in intensity any pleasure known to us, that I look for
dramatic art to reach under Socialism a perfection and influence to-day
inconceivable.

The most striking phenomenon in the field of ethics to-day is the rapid
growth of the new proletarian morality; and one of the principal
functions of the Socialist agitator and propagandist is to facilitate
and further this growth. He is the teacher of a new morality and, if one
accepted Matthew Arnold's definition of religion as "morality touched
with emotion," he might be called the preacher of a new religion. Let
who will call this sentimentalism, it is none the less hard fact. For,
after all, this new proletarian ethic is nothing else than
class-consciousness under a new name. And what Socialist will deny that
the chief function of the militant Socialist is to develop
class-consciousness in the workers? The one hope of the world to-day is
in the victory of the proletariat--aye, it is more than a hope, it is a
certainty; but this victory can only be won by a proletariat permeated
with the sense of solidarity; and the workingman imbued with this sense
of proletarian solidarity will be a living incarnation of the new
morality.

And what is this class-consciousness which it is our business to preach
in season and out of season? There is probably no term in the whole
technical vocabulary of Socialism which grates so unpleasantly on the
ear of the _petit bourg