At all periods of history the State has reserved to itself the right to interpose in the arrangements of property—sometimes in favour of the poor, as in the case of the English poor law, which may thus be regarded as a socialistic measure. Moreover, all through history revolts in favour of the rearrangement of property have been very frequent. From the beginning there have existed misery and discontent, the contemplation of which has called forth schemes of an ideal society in the noblest and most sympathetic minds. Of these are the Utopias of Plato and Thomas More, advocating a systematic communism. And in the societies of the Catholic Church we have a permanent example of common property and a common enjoyment of it. How are we to distinguish the socialism of the nineteenth century from these old-world phenomena, and especially from the communism which has played so great a part in history? To this query it is not difficult to give a clear and precise answer from the socialist point of view. Socialism is a stage in the evolution of society which could not arrive till the conditions necessary to it had been established. Of these, one most essential condition was the development of the great industrialism which, after a long period of preparation and gradual growth, began to reach its culminating point with the inventions and technical improvements, with the application of steam and the rise of the factory system, in England towards the end of the eighteenth century. Under this system industry was organised into a vast social operation, and was thus already so far socialised; but it was a system that was exploited by the individual owner of the capital at his own pleasure and for his own behoof. Under the pressure of the competition of the large industry, the small capitalist is gradually crushed out, and the working producers become wage-labourers organised and drilled in immense factories and workshops. The development of this system still continues, and is enveloping the whole world. Such is the industrial revolution. Parallel with this a revolution in the world of ideas, equally great and equally necessary to the rise of socialism, has taken place. This change of thought, which made its world-historic announcement in the French Revolution, made reason the supreme judge, and had freedom for its great practical watchword. It was represented in the economic sphere by the school of Adam Smith. Socialism was an outcome of it too, and first of all in Saint-Simon and his school professed to give the positive and constructive corrective to a negative movement which did not see that it was merely negative and therefore temporary. In other words, Saint-Simon may be said to aim at nothing less than the completion of the work of Voltaire, Rousseau, and Adam Smith.