The second course is the one that would more probably be followed by the Social Democrats; viz. the completion of their programme by identifying the standard of normal working-time with the astronomical individual working-time, _i.e._ by assigning a uniform value to all hours of astronomical time. But in this event Social Democracy would alienate the very pick of its present following; for this identification would involve that the more industrious would have to work for the less industrious, and the latter would gain the advantage. It can hardly in any case come to a practical attempt to enforce this view; but even theoretically the strongest optimism will not be able, I believe, to explain away the probability, approaching to a certainty, that such an attempt, implying the grossest injustice to the more diligent and skilful workers, would literally kill the labour of the most capable, and would therefore lead to an incalculable fall in the product of national work, and consequently also in wages. But it would be extremely difficult to convince the masses, among whom the Socialist agitation is mostly carried on, of the truth of this contention. They would undoubtedly demand in the name of equality that the astronomical hour should be treated as the normal working-hour, and this has already shown itself in the demand for a general minimum wage per hour. It would be no great step from this to the third and most extreme alternative. This would be that there is, forsooth, no need for any normalisation, or for any normal working-day! It should no longer be: "to each according to his work, through the intervention of the State!" but rather, "to each one as much work as he can do, and as much enjoyment as he pleases!" Even that craze for equality, which would make a normal time-measure of the astronomical hour of the maximum working-day, would be superseded, and the identification of the maximum and normal working-days would be set aside by such a view as this. Practically, we need not fear that matters will go to this extreme. But it is interesting to note (and since the expiration of the German Socialist Laws in 1890), it is no longer treading on forbidden ground to point out that this cheap and easy agitation in the direction of pure communism which went on for years even under the Socialist Laws and before the very eyes of the police, has to-day already taken a very wide hold by means of fugitive literature and pamphlets.