It must be allowed that a certain contradiction will remain in any full understanding of the evolution idea in a social movement. We cannot avoid the fact that the sceptical pessimist stands by the side of the light-hearted optimist; that there will always be some who hope for a speedy entrance into the promised land, while others are of the opinion that the march thereto lies through the wilderness and will last long. Hence the differences of position that men take regarding what we call practical reforms. Men who believe that we are about to move into a new building will not be willing to try to improve the old structure; but those who think that the new edifice may be long in rising will be contented to live for a while longer as comfortably as possible in the old structure. This contradiction is in the nature of man. It will continue ineradicable. It is enough for a man to be conscious of its existence. What we have learned to recognise thus far of antithesis rests upon essentially different conceptions of the essence of social development or upon different interpretations of one of these conceptions--the evolutionary. Let me now, in a few words, speak of a matter which rests upon the different interpretations--at least when they arise to consciousness--which men place upon the progress and the direction of social development. This contradiction rests upon a variation of ideal, and consequently of programme; and it may be expressed in the antithesis _democratic or socialistic_. In order to understand properly this most important contradiction, which to-day stands as the central point of discussion and which finds its acutest expression in the exciting "agrarian question," I must remind you of something said heretofore--at that hour when I spoke to you concerning the necessary limitation of the proletarian-socialistic ideal. You remember that there I specified as a necessary condition for the development of socialism as the object of the modern social movement, the previous development of capitalism and with it the impoverishment of the masses. There must be a thorough proletarian condition.