them moving everywhere towards equality, they feel themselves helpless to resist the movement, and they are sure they shall waken one morning in a social revolution. Stahl, for example, thought democracy necessarily conducted to socialism, and that wherever democracy entered, socialism was already at the door. A few words will therefore be still necessary towards explaining, first, the historical origin of modern socialism; second, the relations of socialism to democracy, and, finally, the extent and character of the spread of the present movement. Respecting the first of these three points, modern socialism was generated out of the notions about property and the State which appeared towards the close of last century in the course of the speculations then in vogue on the origin and objects of civil society, and which were proclaimed about the same time by many different writers--by Brissot, by Mably, by Morelly, and above all by Rousseau. Their great idea was to restore what they called the state of nature, when primitive equality still reigned, and the earth belonged to none, and the fruits to all. They taught that there was no foundation for property but need. He who needed a thing had a right to it, and he who had more than he needed was a thief. Rousseau said every man had naturally a right to whatever he needed; and Brissot, anticipating the famous words of Proudhon, declared that in a state of nature "exclusive property was theft." It was so in a state of nature, but it was so also in a state of society, for society was built on a social contract, "the clauses of which reduce themselves to one, viz., the total transfer of each associate, with all his rights, to the community." The individual is thus nothing; the State is all in all. Property is only so much of the national estate conditionally conceded to the individual. He has the right to use it, because the State permits him, while the State permits him, and how the State permits him. So with every other right; he is to think, speak, train his children, or even beget them, as the State directs and allows, in the interest of the common good.