The year 1884 also saw the beginning of a Socialist Society of a nature different from the above. This was the Fabian Society, whose members were mostly young men, clever, full of initiative, and little disposed to bow before accepted authority. They are socialists whose aim has been first to educate themselves in the economic, social, and political questions of the time, and then to educate the English people in their views, or, to use their own language, to “permeate” English Society with progressive socialist ideas. _The Fabian Essays on Socialism_, by seven of its leading members, published in 1890, a work which has been the chief literary product of the Society, have had a great success. By its popular lectures and discussions, by its tracts and its articles in the monthly reviews, as well as by its activity in the press, the Fabian Society has undoubtedly done much toward the permeation of public opinion with a progressive evolutionary socialism. The tracts, of which there is now a large number, have been always able, generally well informed, and often brilliant. A tract by one of its members on the Workmen’s Compensation Act, issued in 1898, had a circulation of 120,000 the first year of its publication. Important works on a large scale have been _The History of Trade Unionism_ and _Industrial Democracy_ by Mr. and Mrs. Sidney Webb. The writings of Mr. G. B. Shaw and of Mr. H. G. Wells have done much to startle men’s minds out of the old way of thinking. In 1908 the membership of the Fabian Society had increased to 2500 in the London society, and 500 more in local societies. We give its Basis in the Appendix. The Independent Labour Party, formed in 1893, was an organisation of socialists with a view to political action. It was to a large extent an offshoot from Fabianism in the provinces, and many of its leading members are Fabians. It has kept itself in close touch with trade unions.