maintained. The selfishness of men is all the time prompting them to utilise the society for their own benefit in disregard of the rights of others. Men not doing the right will no longer know or teach the right, and the power of the centrifugal forces will increase against the centipetal.

These disadvantages inherent in co-operation are greater in the ratio that the members of the society are larger and its sphere of action more extended. The more individuals there are, the more independent centres of action there will be, and the greater the likelihood of both discordant opinions and wills. And the more general and far-reaching the aims, the worse it is for cohesion, since there is greater opportunity for doubt as to the utility of means, and with this more room for selfishness to covertly insinuate itself in forming sentiments to determine action—in making the worse appear the better reason. The natural tendency of the homogeneous to lapse into heterogeneity all the time works against the organic unity.

Now in every organisation these influences make themselves speedily felt, and those who are chiefly interested in the society have impressed upon them the necessity of doing something to counteract these tendencies. Very often, indeed, the society is organised with a view to their counteraction. If they are not met, the society will come to ruin.

The only way in which they can be defeated is by an enforced unanimity and uniformity. This means the concentration of power in the hands of a few, the repression of opposition, and perhaps of dissent. It involves the restriction of the spontaneity and liberty of the many, and places their interests for both determination and promotion in the control of a small number of persons. We are thus brought around to the question of individualism and authority, which we discussed in the last part, and have the same problems and perplexities before us; for to carry out the co-operative idea, where there is no real consentience and concurrence of volition, the power of authority must be brought to bear.

It is thus evident that any co-operative organisation must be a microcosm of the general social life, and subject to the same conditions. It has the same disadvantages, the same sources of weakness, the same inherent difficulties in the way of accomplishing its ends; and all this simply and plainly because its elements, its material, are the same individual components that make up all human society. For the purposes of this discussion, it may be

assumed that all developments of the co-operative idea occur in the midst of an existing social order. We need not suppose a state of barbarism or anarchy for present considerations. Having given a social order, co-operation is justified only in the view of bettering that order, and to this end its efforts are directed.

one,

I have remarked that one phase of the co-operative idea presents as its immediate aim the securing the powers of the state for the purpose of gathering into state control the sources of happiness, manufacturing it and distributing to each man his equal portion. Less than this comprehensive scheme are many forms of political co-operation for specific ends. The ordinary political party exhibits where many unite upon a common platform for the sake of securing reforms in government, more or less radical. In industrial life there are combinations of capital against labour, and of labour against capital, associations for mutual protection and for aggressive action in great variety. Nor are examples of co-operation for philanthropic and educational purposes wanting. Besides the church, there are institutions of all sorts for benevolent work. The school is itself a co-operative organisation, as are still more manifestly the innumerable educational associations. In all these co-operative societies from the highest to the lowest, from the most comprehensive to the least inclusive, the difficulties in the way of efficiency which I have suggested are to some degree felt. And where these are overcome in the ways also mentioned, we have the evil of individual domination, which is just one of the things which co-operation starts out to prevent. And this brings on another very serious trouble. To promote efficiency and to maintain the integrity of the organisation, loyalty to the powers that be is a sine qua non. Thus the sentiment comes to be created that the society itself is superior to that for which it is an end. It begins to have that inherent sacredness' of which we spoke in the former chapters. The belief is encouraged that only through the particular society can the ends of the society be wrought. The maintenance of the society, and often of the status quo in the society, is deemed to be of transcendent importance. We have hence in the domination of the few and the repression of the many, both with respect to criticism and action, together with the commands of authority to fall down and worship, a strong barrier raised in the way of all progressive development. Now, if by any chance the few in power should be themselves either inefficient, mistaken in their ideas, or corrupt, the society becomes a power for evil, great in proportion

to its accumulated strength. The same set of circumstances may make it as valueless also for its own ends as if it lacked cohesiveness. It is liable to be diverted from its original purposes and to become a machine for the injury rather than for the benefit of mankind, however beneficent its foundation objects may have been.

From these considerations it must be evident that the cooperative idea does not furnish a universal or a perfect cure for the woes of human social life, because it only proposes to relieve society by creating societies which themselves are infected with all the diseases which they propose to heal and prevent. And the wider the proposed scope of the co-operative effort, the truer is this remark. So that if we formed a co-operative union for the purpose of overturning the present order, and providing a better government, and succeeded in getting enough people into it to prevail, in the substitution we should have only a new order, subject to all the imperfections of the former, so far as essential constitution is concerned, and whose superiority or inferiority to that displaced would depend, not upon any enforced co-operation, but upon the good or evil dispositions of the individuals composing the organic whole. This last factor we never can get rid of by co-operation, unless perhaps by exceptionally intelligent co-operation to make people better; and it is the prime factor in all super-organic life.

That mere co-operation cannot produce the altruistic character is clear from the fact that altruism is itself necessary to the success of the co-operative idea. Without the altruistic disposition there is no coherence, or, if there be, it is a coherence which defeats its own ends. This is necessary to organic growth, wherein each part is at once means and end of all the rest. With this, co-operation takes place spontaneously and inevitably; without it real cooperation is impossible, and the seeming co-operation is egoistic domination and egoistic subserviency. To be sure, united effort and subordination to a given end may have a reflective effect in promoting altruism, but only when the effort has its source in altruism. At best it is an indirect means, save, as already said, where the direct purpose of the co-operation is to develop or practise altruism as in philanthropy and education.

Our general observations have gone far enough to indicate that, valuable as may be co-operative organisation for specific purposes and at particular times, the co-operative idea alone, howsoever far

it may be carried out, will not work the elimination of evil; and that in some of its assumptions and tendencies it is likely to prove a decided obstacle in the way of securing the maximum of happiness for all mankind. I will now invite the reader to an examination of some of the more particular forms in which this idea is prevalent.

CHAPTER XXI.

SOCIALISM.

6

THE Co-operative idea finds its most complete development in what is usually termed Socialism, whose principles tend to a greater extension of the state authority than is involved in that theory which makes the sole office of the state to maintain security. The socialists declare that this latter theory results not in securing freedom for the individual but only equality of right to freedom. 'If all men were equal in fact, this might answer well enough, but, since they are not, the result is simply to place the weak at the mercy of the powerful.' The socialists further claim that the protection of an equality of right to freedom is an insufficient aim for the state in a morally-ordered community. It ought to be supplemented by the securing of solidarity of interests and community and reciprocity of development. History all along is an incessant struggle with nature, a victory over misery, ignorance, poverty, powerlessness-i.e. oyer unfreedom, thraldom, restrictions of all kinds. The perpetual conquest over these restrictions is the development of freedom, is the growth of culture. Now this is never effected by each man for himself. It is the function of the state to do it. The state is the union of individuals into a moral whole, which multiplies a millionfold the aggregate of the powers of each. The end and function of the state is not merely to guard freedom, but to develop it; to put the individuals who compose it in a position to attain and maintain such objects, such levels of existence, such stages of culture, power, and freedom as they would have been incapable of reaching by their own individual efforts alone. The state is the great agency for guiding and training the human race to positive and progressive development; in other words, for bringing human destiny (i.e. the culture of which man as man is susceptible) to real shape and form in actual existence. Not freedom but development is now the keynote. The state must take a positive part, proportioned to its immense capacity, in the great work