accordingly, socialism and individualism are merely two contrary general principles, ideals, or methods, which may be employed to regulate the constitution of economic society, and he declares himself a socialist because he believes that society suffers at present from an excessive application of the individualistic principle, and can only be cured by an extensive employment of the socialistic one. This is all clear enough, but it is simply giving to the word socialism another new meaning, and creating a fresh source of ambiguity. That term has already contracted definite associations which it is impossible to dispel by mere word of mouth, and which constitute a refracting medium through which the principles of the Socialists of the Chair cannot fail to be presented in a very misleading form. These writers assume a special position in two relations--first, as theoretical economists; and, second, as practical politicians or social reformers; and in both respects alike the term socialism is peculiarly inappropriate to describe their views. In regard to the first point, by adopting that name they have done what they could to "Nicodemus" themselves into a sect, whereas they might have claimed, if they chose, to be better exponents of the catholic tradition of the science than those who found fault with them. This is a claim, however, which they would be shocked indeed to think of presenting. With a natural partiality for their own opinions, they exaggerated immensely the extent and also the value of their divergence from the traditional or, as it is sometimes called, the classical economics. In the energy of their recoil from the dogmatism which had for a generation usurped an excessive sway over economic science, they were carried too far in the opposite direction, but they had in their own minds the sensation that they were carried a great deal farther than they really were. They liked to think of their historical method as constituting a new epoch, and effecting a complete revolution in political economy, but, as will subsequently appear, that method, when reduced to its real worth, amounts to no more than an application, with somewhat distincter purpose and wider reach, of the method which Smith himself followed. Of this they are in some degree conscious. Brentano, who belongs to the extreme right of the school, says that Smith would have been a Socialist of the Chair to-day if he were alive; and Samter, who belongs to the extreme left, though he is doubtful regarding Smith, has no hesitation in claiming Mill, whom he looks upon as standing more outside than inside the school of Smith. Their position is, therefore, not the new departure which many of them would fain represent it to be. They are really as natural and as legitimate a line of descent from Adam Smith as their adversaries the German Manchester Party who claimed the authority of his name. Perhaps they are even more so, for in science the true succession lies with those who carry the