was not
supposed to have, the authority of science at the back of it.

Such being the situation, as the socialists accurately describe it, an
eminent thinker arose who at last supplied what was wanting. He provided
the unorganised aspirations, which by this time were known as socialism,
with a formula which was at once definite, intelligible, and
comprehensive, and had all the air of being rigidly scientific also. By
this means thoughts and feelings, previously vague and fluid, like salts
held in solution, were crystallised into a clear-cut theory which was
absolutely the same for all; which all who accepted it could accept with
the same intellectual confidence; and which thus became a moral and
mental nucleus around which the efforts and hopes of a coherent party
could group themselves.

Such was the feat accomplished by Karl Marx, through his celebrated
treatise on Capital, which was published between fifty and sixty years
ago, and which has, since then, throughout all Europe and America, been
acclaimed as the Magna Charta, or the Bible, of "scientific socialism."

Whatever may be the change which, as a theory, socialism has
subsequently undergone--and changes there have been which will presently
occupy our attention--it is with the theory of Marx, and the temper of
mind resulting from it, that socialism, regarded as a practical force,
begins; and among the majority of socialists this theory is predominant
still. In view, therefore, of the requirements of logic, of history, and
of contemporary facts, our own examination must begin with the theory of
Marx likewise.

CHAPTER II

THE THEORY OF MARX AND THE EARLIER SOCIALISTS SUMMARISED

All radical revolutions which are advocated in the interests of the
people are commended to the people, and the people are invited to
accomplish them, on the ground that majorities are, if they would only
realise it, capable of moulding society in any manner they please. As
applied to matters of legislation and government, this theory is
sufficiently familiar to everybody. It has been elaborated in endless
detail, and has expressed itself in the constitutions of all modern
democracies. What Karl Marx did, and did for the first time, was to
invest this theory of the all-efficiency of the majority with a
definiteness, in respect of distribution of wealth, similar to that with
which it had been invested already in respect of the making of laws and
the dictation of national pol