They are the advocates of a principle of death, or putting it more mildly, at least of a movement hostile to life, and they do not know it and never have known it. Their banners are sewn with false and meaningless devices calculated to delude only the ignorant [p120] and the thoughtless, and they are not even frank about the necessary logical conclusions of their own first principles. If they really wish to put an end to violence in human society, they would sew on their foremost banner the device: “Down with procreation.” This might prove unpopular, it might even sound less alluring than “Down with the bourgeoisie!” but at least it would be honest and might help them to achieve their real aim. The present writer does not suggest that the mass of the people of England or France understand the real errors in the Socialist and Communist’s position. He does not even believe that when once these errors have been made known to them they will be able to grasp or understand them; but certainly the capacity which very large numbers of them are showing for resisting the seductive appeal of these so-called “class-war” doctrines, points to a certain instinctive insight on their part which does them credit, and may possibly be a sign that they are moved by a vague, but none the less powerful, suspicion that all is not as golden as it glitters in the Socialistic creed, and therefore that there is still a chance for those who would win them back to a wisely controlled capitalism, and to a future in which reform rather than revolution is the general programme. * * * * * * * * Is the case against Socialism as strong as this? Is there really nothing to be said for the position that the Socialist and Communist assume?--Certainly there is nothing to be said for it. Then what gives it its seductive plausibility? What is it that makes three-quarters [p121] of those who have interested reasons for opposing it, suspect in their heart of hearts that Socialism and Communism may be right after all? Those among the possessing classes who, while opposing active Socialist propaganda, yet believe in their heart of hearts that Socialism is right, are usually as confused as the Socialists and Communists themselves, and as incapable of tracing political propositions back to first principles. They make the same mistakes as the Socialists, and confound life and nature’s injustices with the remediable injustices which are the outcome of human legislation, and after adding the two together charge the whole sum to the account of society or civilisation. They belong to the class of thoughtless people who are in the habit of saying in the face of every impending reform good or bad, “The thing must come”; and their attitude of forestalled acquiescence offers so little opposition, that as a rule the thing to which they refer _does_ come.