The most striking phenomenon in the field of ethics to-day is the rapid growth of the new proletarian morality; and one of the principal functions of the Socialist agitator and propagandist is to facilitate and further this growth. He is the teacher of a new morality and, if one accepted Matthew Arnold's definition of religion as "morality touched with emotion," he might be called the preacher of a new religion. Let who will call this sentimentalism, it is none the less hard fact. For, after all, this new proletarian ethic is nothing else than class-consciousness under a new name. And what Socialist will deny that the chief function of the militant Socialist is to develop class-consciousness in the workers? The one hope of the world to-day is in the victory of the proletariat--aye, it is more than a hope, it is a certainty; but this victory can only be won by a proletariat permeated with the sense of solidarity; and the workingman imbued with this sense of proletarian solidarity will be a living incarnation of the new morality. And what is this class-consciousness which it is our business to preach in season and out of season? There is probably no term in the whole technical vocabulary of Socialism which grates so unpleasantly on the ear of the _petit bourgeois_ who "is coming our way" as this one of "class-consciousness." To say class-consciousness is not to say class hatred; though class-consciousness ofttimes develops into class hatred and does not thereby become the less effective. The Socialist recognizes in the words of Edmund Burke that "Man acts not from metaphysical considerations, but from motives relative to his interests," and hence, he regards it as his first duty to show his fellow-workers that their economic interests are in direct conflict with those of the master-class. He does not create this conflict by pointing it out; he merely shows the working class "where they are at."