Still, it is natural and inevitable that earnest Socialists and students of Socialism should seek something more tangible by way of a description of the future state than the bald statement that it will be free from the struggle between exploiting and exploited classes. The question is, can we go further in our attempt to scan the future without entering the realms of Utopian speculation? If Socialism is, objectively considered, a state of society which is being developed in the womb of the present, are there any signs by which its peculiar form and spirit, as distinguished from the form and spirit of the present, may be visualized? Within certain limits, an affirmative answer seems possible to each of these questions. There are certain fundamental principles which may be said to be essential to the existence of Socialist society. Without them, the Socialist state cannot exist. Regardless of the fact that Karl Marx never attempted to describe his ideal, to give such a description of his concept of the next epoch in evolution as would enable us to compare it with the present and to measure the difference, it is probable that every Socialist makes, privately at least, his own forecast of the manner in which the new society must shape itself. There is nothing Utopian or fantastic in trying to ascertain the tendencies of economic development; nothing unscientific in trying to read out of the pages of social evolution such lessons as may be contained therein. So long as we bear in mind that our forecasts must not take the form of plans for the arbitrary shaping of the future, specifications of the Cooeperative Commonwealth, but that they must, on the contrary, be based upon the facts of life--not abstract principles born in the heart's desire--and attempt to discern the tendencies of social and economic evolution, we are upon safe ground. Such forecasts may indeed be helpful, not only in so far as they provide us with a more or less concrete picture of the ideal to be aimed at, but also, and even more important, in that they at once enable us to gauge from time to time the progress made by society toward the realization of the ideal, and to formulate our policies most effectively. Especially as there are certain fundamental principles essential to the existence of a Socialist state, we may take these and correlate them, and these principles, together with our estimate of economic tendencies, drawn from the facts of the present, may provide us with a suggestive and approximate outline of the Socialist society of the future. So far we may proceed with full scientific sanction; beyond are the realms of fancy and dream, the Elysian Fields of Utopia.[180] We must not set about our task with the mental attitude so well displayed by the yearning of Omar-- "Ah Love! could you and I with Him conspire To grasp this sorry Scheme of Things entire, Would not we shatter it to bits--and then Remold it nearer to the Heart's Desire!"