GENERAL INDEX TO THE QUARTERLY REV A new Index, forming Volume CCXXII, prising the volumes from CCII. to CCXXI the QUARTERLY REVIEW, has been published, a obtainable through any bookseller (Price 6/ The QUARTERLY REVIEW is published on or about the 15th Printed in Great Britain by WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, Limited, London and Beccles. rt. 1.-SOCIALISM-ITS ORIGIN AND MEANING. ow that we have a Socialist Ministry in being, and ocialism has become the dominant political question of he day, it is time for intelligent people to form a asoned judgment about it, for which knowledge and But these cannot be aderstanding are necessary. quired without an effort which partisans on both sides aldom care to make. The subject is very complicated, ifficult to master, and enveloped in confusion beyond all thers of a similar character. That is shown by the innuerable definitions of Socialism that have been offered by oth advocates and opponents, without satisfying either; or fresh ones are continually being suggested. It is shown so by the interminable differences of opinion that have ivided Socialists from the first. Seventy-five years ago, efore Marx came on the scene, a leading French Socialist I that day called Socialism a hydra. He said that there as no more identity between the Socialist parties than tween the political parties, that Socialism was not a finite doctrine, a thing that could be grasped, but a llection of different doctrines, and he enumerated veral kinds of Socialism (1) simple, (2) compulsory, voluntary, (4) negative, (5) affirmative. Since then many more heads have sprouted from the me trunk. Marxism, which was set to play the part Aaron's rod and swallow the others, has not only led to do so but has itself given birth to new speciens. Hence a bewildering diversity. When we see ach incongruous bed-fellows as Plato and the member r Silvertown, St Paul and Trotsky, St Ambrose and Vol. 242.-No. 480. H. G. Wells, Sir Thomas Moore and Tom Mann, J Mill and John Ruskin, Charles Kingsley and Karl Ma Jack Straw and Sidney Webb-to name a few-all tuc up under the same blanket, labelled Socialism, it is re something of a puzzle to define such a capacious elastic coverlet. The term is so loosely used that can never be sure what is meant by it. Sometimes i one thing and sometimes another; the same men g it different and inconsistent meanings at different tin It is both abstract and concrete, theoretical and practi idealist and materialist, very old and entirely mode it ranges from a mere sentiment to a precise program of action; different advocates present it as a philosop of life, a sort of religion, an ethical code, an econo system, a historical category, a juridical principle; it a popular movement and a scientific analysis, an int pretation of the past and a vision of the future, a v cry and the negation of war, a violent revolution an gentle evolution, a gospel of love and altruism, & a campaign of hate and greed, the hope of mank and the end of civilisation, the dawn of the millenni and a frightful catastrophe. All these diverse aspects the same thing, with endless sub-varieties and modifi tions, are prescribed for our instruction. Never w anything paraded in so many guises. How is a pla man to find his way through the maze? He needs clue; and the best plan in my opinion is to take t thing at its origin, observe the circumstances that ga it birth, note the meaning attached to it, and trace evolution. In this way it is possible to separate t essential and distinctive elements, which make it what is, from the wrappings-the kernel from the shell-a to differentiate it from other things that have somethi in common but are yet quite distinct, such as Christiani and State action. With such a clue in hand the intel gent student can detect side-openings and false issu and get to the centre of the labyrinth, whence its win ings can be clearly seen. What, then, was the origin of Socialism? The ti is roughly fixed by the appearance of the word. Wh a new movement, cause, or doctrine becomes fair established it acquires a name; and conversely when new term of this kind comes into use, it signifies |