My business will not be to enter into the discussion between these two types of modern thinkers, but to point out to each and to both that that which the one favours and the other would fly is upon them. I shall prove my thesis in particular from the case of the industrial society of Great Britain, including that small, alien, and exceptional corner of Ireland, which suffers or enjoys industrial conditions to-day. I shall divide the matter thus:-- (1) I shall lay down certain definitions. (2) Next, I shall describe the institution of slavery and /The Servile State/ of which it is the basis, as these were in the ancient world. I shall then: (3) Sketch very briefly the process whereby that age-long institution of slavery was slowly dissolved during the Christian centuries, and whereby the resulting medieval system, based upon highly divided property in the means of production, was (4) wrecked in certain areas of Europe as it approached completion, and had substituted for it, in practice though not in legal theory, a society based upon /Capitalism/. (5) Next, I shall show how Capitalism was of its nature unstable, because its social realities were in conflict with all existing or possible systems of law, and because its effects in denying _sufficiency_ and _security_ were intolerable to men; how being thus _unstable_, it consequently presented a _problem_ which demanded a solution: to wit, the establishment of some stable form of society whose law and social practice should correspond, and whose economic results, by providing _sufficiency_ and _security_, should be tolerable to human nature. (6) I shall next present the only three possible solutions:-- (_a_) Collectivism, or the placing of the means of production in the hands of the political officers of the community. (_b_) Property, or the re-establishment of a Distributive State in which the mass of citizens should severally own the means of production. (_c_) Slavery, or a Servile State in which those who do not own the means of production shall be legally compelled to work for those who do, and shall receive in exchange a security of livelihood. Now, seeing the distaste which the remains of our long Christian tradition has bred in us for directly advocating the third solution and boldly supporting the re-establishment of slavery, the first two alone are open to reformers: (1) a reaction towards a condition of well-divided property or the _Distributive State_; (2) an attempt to achieve the ideal _Collectivist State_. It can easily be shown that this second solution appeals most naturally and easily to a society already Capitalist on account of the difficulty which such a society has to discover the energy, the will, and the vision requisite for the first solution.