The nearest approach to Communism in practical operation on a large scale is that of the village communities of Russia and parts of India, which certainly show no signs of being progressive types destined to gain ground. On the contrary, they fail to fulfil what is the first condition of an agricultural community, that of obtaining a fair average produce from the soil, and the more enterprising and intelligent moujiks or ryots invariably seek to obtain something which they can call their own and are not obliged to share with the idle and improvident. A conclusive objection to all schemes of Socialism or Communism is, that they not only crush out all individual initiative and enterprise in material life, but that they also destroy all incentives to individual charity and benevolence. Why make sacrifices to help others, if they are already helped at your expense by the State? This is no theoretical objection, but has been proved practically by the history of the poor laws. What scope for individual charity was there in a parish like that in Buckinghamshire, where under the old poor law the rate had risen to twenty shillings in the pound, and the cultivation of the soil was abandoned? Or even in less extreme cases, any one who is acquainted with remote rural parishes inhabited by cotters and small farmers must be aware that the poor law operates strongly to destroy the feeling of manly independence and family affection which induced the poor to support their own aged and infirm relatives. In many parts of Scotland with which I am personally acquainted men who a generation ago would have thought it a disgrace to ask for help to support an aged father or mother, now think it only fair play, after having contributed for years to the poor rate, to try and get something out of it in return. Altruism, as Herbert Spencer well puts it, if carried to excess, defeats itself, for in annihilating egoistic vices it annihilates egoistic virtues, and the result is zero—a result which, as ‘nature abhors a vacuum,’ can happily never be attained, and the precepts of the Sermon on the Mount must always remain maxims of private morality, rather than of State regulation. It is of little use, however, to deal with such generalities; as long as we confine ourselves to extreme instances on either side, it is as easy as it is idle to refute them. Profitable discussion only begins when we enter on the wide intermediate space which lies between the extreme frontier provinces, and, instead of arguing for absolute conclusions, endeavour to discover the happy mean in doubtful cases, where there really are limitations of time and circumstance, and a good deal which may be reasonably said on each side of the question.