The simple expression of the socialistic theory will, no doubt, in the course of propaganda and discussion, long continue to be overlaid and obscured by a mass of detail, sometimes utopian, sometimes all too abstract and systematic. It will be well, therefore, to keep the simplicity of the type in view, but a few explanations may be necessary more fully to elucidate it. The true meaning of socialism, when rationally understood, is given in the dominating tendencies of social evolution. On the one hand, the effect of the industrial revolution has been to concentrate the means both of production and distribution in immense masses. Capital can now be moved and controlled only on a large scale. The day for the small capital, and the successful control of it by individuals, has passed away. It may continue under exceptional circumstances, but it can no longer expect to be the normal or prevalent form of industry. On the other hand, the body of the people, represented by the modern democracy, can legitimately claim that they shall no longer be excluded from the control of their own economic and social interests. It is a rational and equitable demand that the prevalent divorce of the workers from land and capital should cease. This divorce can be terminated, and the mass of the people can be restored to a participation in the ownership and control of land and capital, only through the principle of association. This is the basis of socialism as given in the normal and dominant forces of the social evolution of our time. As we said in the introduction, socialism is the child of two great revolutions—the industrial revolution, and the vast social and political change embodied in the modern democracy. Socialism, rationally interpreted, is therefore simply a movement for uniting labour and capital through the principle of association. It seeks to combine labour and capital in the same industrial and social groups. In such a group the present distinction between labourers and capitalists would cease, and the workers become producers, equitably disposing of the entire produce. Such an industrial association would be self-governing. Socialism is an attempt to establish a free self-governing type of industry, and would therefore seek to realise in the social-economic sphere the principles already recognised in the political. It is a free self-governing form of industry, corresponding in the economic sphere to the democratic system in politics; industry of the people, by the people, for the people. But while a rational socialism seeks to establish industrial freedom, it aims also at promoting and securing industrial peace by terminating the struggle between labour and capital, for, as we have seen, its aim is to unite them in the same group.