Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 26, May, 1873Various
Science
Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 26, May, 1873
Various
Literature, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals; Science -- Periodicals
Oxford days over, and after a three-years' spell of private tutoring--a
not uncommon temporary resort of English graduates while they are making
up their minds as to what profession or business to take up for life--we
find George Hughes settled in London, reading law in Doctors' Commons.
By this time his biographer, who has been close by his side, and
following his lead in work and play, through all the years of school and
college life, is at work in London too, and the two brothers are again
together under one roof. The similarity, one may almost say
identicality, of the circumstances of their bringing up might, but that
such things, luckily, don't always go by rule, have led one to expect to
find in them, now full-grown and thoughtful men, something like a
coincidence of sympathies and opinions. Nothing of the sort. George is
by temperament and conviction a Tory of the kindly, old-fashioned
school: his younger brother has become an advanced Liberal, an
enthusiastic promoter of workingmen's associations, and a leading
spirit among the so-called Christian Socialists. Needless to add that,
though never for one moment sundered one from the other in heart or
affection by differences of opinion, the two could not work together in
this field. Downright, practical George has his objections, and states
them. Listen: "'You don't want to divide other people's property?' 'No.'
'Then why call yourselves Socialists?' 'But we couldn't help ourselves:
other people called us so first.' 'Yes, but you needn't have accepted
the name. Why acknowledge that the cap fitted?' 'Well, it would have
been cowardly to back out. We borrow the ideas of these Frenchmen, of
association as opposed to competition, as the true law of industry and
of organizing labor--of securing the laborer's position by organizing
production and consumption--and it would be cowardly to shirk the name.
It is only fools who know nothing about the matter, or people interested
in the competitive system of trade, who believe or say that a desire to
divide other people's property is of the essence of Socialism.' 'That
may be very true, but nine-tenths of mankind, or, at any rate, of
Englishmen, come under one or the other of these categories. If you are
called Socialists, you will never persuade the British public that this
is not your object. There was no need to take the name. You have weight
enough to carry already, without putting that on your shoulders.... The
long and short of it is, I hate upsetting things, which seems to be your
main object. You say that you like to see people discontented with
society as it is, and are ready to help to make them so, because it is
full of injustice and abuses of all kinds, and will never be better till
men are thoroughly discontented. I don't see these evils so strongly as
you do, don't believe in heroic remedies, and would sooner see people
contented, and making the best of society as they find it. In fact, I
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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