In thus maintaining that society should assume the management of industry and secure an equitable distribution of its fruits, socialists are agreed; but on the most important points of detail they differ very greatly. They differ as to the form society will take in carrying out the socialist programme, as to the relation of local bodies to the central government, and whether there is to be any central government, or any government at all in the ordinary sense of the word; as to the influence of the national idea in the society of the future, etc. They differ also as to what should be regarded as an ‘equitable’ system of distribution. The school of Saint-Simon advocated a social hierarchy, in which every man should be placed according to his capacity and rewarded according to his works. In the communities of Fourier the minimum of subsistence was to be guaranteed to each out of the common gain, the remainder to be divided between labour, capital, and talent—five-twelfths going to the first, four-twelfths to the second and three-twelfths to the third. At the revolution of 1848 Louis Blanc proposed that remuneration should be equal for all members of his _social workshops_. In the programme drawn up by the united Social Democrats of Germany (Gotha, 1875) it was provided that all shall enjoy the results of labour according to their reasonable wants, all of course being bound to work. It is needless to say also that the theories of socialism have been held in connection with the most varying opinions in philosophy and religion. A great deal of the historic socialism has been regarded as a necessary implicate of idealism. The prevailing socialism of the day is in large part based on the frankest and most outspoken revolutionary materialism. On the other hand, many socialists hold that their system is a necessary outcome of Christianity, that socialism and Christianity are essential the one to the other; and it should be said that the ethics of socialism are closely akin to the ethics of Christianity, if not identical with them. Still, it should be insisted that the basis of socialism is economic, involving a fundamental change in the relation of labour to land and capital—a change which will largely affect production, and will entirely revolutionise the existing system of distribution. But, while its basis is economic, socialism implies and carries with it a change in the political, ethical, technical, and artistic arrangements and institutions of society, which would constitute a revolution greater than has ever taken place in human history, greater than the transition from the ancient to the mediæval world, or from the latter to the existing order of society.