HE term Socialism, as all the world knows, was coined in England. In the year 1835 a society was formed under the auspices of Robert Owen -the father of English Socialism-with the grandiloquent name of the "Association of all Classes of all Nations," and the words Socialists and Socialism, as far as we know, were first used in the discussions which arose in connection with it.

The term travelled to the Continent, and Reybaud, the great French writer, in his well-known work, the "Reformateurs Modernes," in which he discussed the theories of Saint Simon, Fourier, and Owen, gave it Continental currency. And it is now the world-historic name of one of the most remarkable, and maybe the most eventful, economic movements the world has ever seen.

The term Socialism, however, by no means bears the same meaning or covers the same facts or ideas in different countries, or even by different groups of men in the same country. The most rational theories are set over against the most irrational, and all are dubbed with the common name. Much misunderstanding and prejudice and worse are due to this fact. Owenites at the start applied the word Socialism to Owen's theory of reconstruction operating from co-operative effort. But with the spread of these ideas and their adoption and modification by different men in different countries, the term has been made to cover countless theories of economic

reform and other reforms. Indeed it is almost bewildering to collect the definitions of responsible authorities. Every man has "cleaned his slate," and then written thereon according to his wont.

When you get behind the writing and ask these men what they are writing about; what their mission is; what they are busying themselves with; for what, in their judgment, Socialism stands, Babel is revived.

Socialism," says Roscher, the great German economist, "stands for those tendencies which demand a greater regard for the common weal than consists with human nature." "Socialism," asserts Adolf Held, "means the tendencies which demand the subordination of the individual will to the community." Janet is more precise. "We call Socialism," he says, "every doctrine which teaches that the State has the right to correct the inequalities of wealth which exist among men, and to legally establish the balance by taking from those who have too much in order to give to those who have not enough, and that in a permanent manner, and not in such and such a particular case-a famine, for instance." Laveleye explains it thus: "In the first place, every Socialistic doctrine aims at introducing greater equality in social conditions, and in the second place, at realizing those reforms by the law of the State." And Von Scheel, revealing the under feeling of finest Socialism, says: Socialism is the economic philosophy of the suffering classes."

These definitions, as far as they are definitions, reflect the general looseness and strength of Socialistic writers

and speakers.

They are too vague.

They leave so much mist. They arouse more questions than they settle. They go too far, or they do not go far enough. Socialism needs, perhaps, more than anything, a great prophet who shall also be a logician and a statesman greater than all who have been or are, and who will once and for all put into permanent speech Socialism's definition. But this is asking too much. That man will rise when the times are ready; they are not ready yet. The movement is young-as movements count time. With them, a thousand years is a day. Evolution is the law of movements, and evolution seems careless of time. The wings, as well as the mills, of God move slowly. The seers of Socialism have seen this. Rodbertus represents them in calling Socialism-" a theory of Social evolution." The emphasis is on the last word. It is a social reconstruction to be evolved through a long period of time. It is the third stage of economic life, and may take as long to evolve as either of the two which preceded. Slavery had a long day; men were serfs for centuries. The William Langlands and the John Balls had hard tasks. They were called "mad priests," and generation after generation waited. for the shackles to fall and labor to be free. Then came the second stage. Capitalism superseded feudalism, and for two centuries or more Capitalism has made its way, and gained the throne of industry. Huge fortunes have been made. Men have been divided according to what they possessed, or into the shearers and the shorn. The divorce between the land and the laborer has been decreed and effected, and until Socialism began its work, Capitalism dictated to labor, and labor, for the sake of poor life, cringed at its feet.

But Socialism, whatever else concerning it is true or false, has cer

tainly inaugurated the third economic theory of the ages, and when the theory is wrought out, labor will be as completely emancipated from the tyranny of capital as it was previously emancipated from the tyranny of slavery and feudalism.

So that Socialism seems to be a providential evolution, and that it is incoherent when explained by its exponents is not strange. Every other great movement has experienced the like. Men are but men. God works through the best agents available, and the best are often poor. Every movement is distinct from its exponents, and just as Christianity is not to be judged by everv human specimen, so Socialism must be judged, not by what its poorest exponents say of it, but by what it actually is.

And what is it? When you get below to the throbbing heart of the movement you get to three great ideas

Justice, Equality, Brotherhood. Justice, though the heavens, or, what is much more likely, though the earth, fall. Socialism believes that at the present labor does not receive its full share of reward; that it is not reasonable for two-thirds of the wealth of the nation to be owned by one-third of the population; and that it is equally unjust for two per cent. of the people of America to own 70 per cent. of the wealth of that great continent. Socialism stands by the economic fact that the workman at present does not, as a rule, receive the just share of the profit, and it proposes to so readjust the industrial machine that this shall be remedied.

Next, Socialism stands for Equality. Not, of course, as some men foolishly proclaim, a levelling down or up to an unnatural and undesirable uniformity. Even Edward Bellamy, in Equality," does not advocate this. All who say responsible Socialists advocate it are either ignorant of facts,

or liars. What Socialism does aim at is to secure equality of opportunity in labor; the organization of society on a basis of labor, instead of as at present on a basis of private property. Socialism aims at abolishing all drones, above and beneath. This equality involves equality of opportunity in education; so that the child of the poorest man may have an equal chance with the child of the rich, and so the whole intellectual strength of the nation becomes developed for the nation's good.

And then comes the claim for brotherhood. Brotherhood, instead of the slavery of the past, or the cutthroat competition of the present. There is no real brotherhood in a system of business where one man's success means another man's failure; where an employer grows fabulously rich while the emplovee merely exists; where you have the palace at the one end, and, because you have it, you have the poorhouse at the other. Socialism seeks to replace hatred and rivalry by love and service, and to substitute the only competition permissible between brothers, the competition which seeks to serve society best, and not each other the worst.

Taking this as the Socialistic Utopia, Tom Hood's question comes, "Utopia's a fine place, but how are we to get there?"

Well, by way of answer, to begin with, Socialism seeks to correct an idea upon which Capitalism has gone mad. The idea abroad is that the welfare of a nation depends upon the amount of its wealth. "Money answereth everything." And the way to national wealth is for every man to obtain command of the means of production, land, capital, air, machinery. The persons who procure these and use them are considered benefactors. This idea has turned the industrial world into a gladiatorial

arena, in which the weakest go to the wall.

The new idea is that national wellbeing does not depend upon wealth, but upon health-mental, physical, moral. That self-interest is not the moving power in human life, but love; that society must not sacrifice for the individual, but the individual must sacrifice for society. The greatest good must be secured for the greatest number. Society is a family. And it is only the savage who kills his parents when they are old, or ill, or lets the little child die of want or neglect, and society must be so reconstituted that its parents and children and weak will be provided for. This is the aim, to substitute a Christian for a pagan idea, or, in the Socialistic terminology, it is the substitution of collectivism for individualism.

But when you have got thus far in your vision you see that Socialism means the State ownership of all the means of production and distribution. The State is to own all works, business and property, just as it now owns the post office, the arsenals at Woolwich, and the clothing works at Enfield, and in some countries owns railways, land, and what not.

This ownership is to be procured, not by revolution-Socialists are not Anarchists in their methods but by evolution. The process is going on before our eyes. All businesses are being absorbed into companies. Small companies are being absorbed into large companies. Witness the tobacco

war.

Shortly, a few companies will own all the match works, all the ships, all the railways, and the idea is that in time it will be the simplest thing for the Government to buy out these few companies, and so actually inaugurate the reign of Socialism.

This is the vision, and it makes the Socialist's heart rejoice. But can it come to pass? Is it possible? Will

it ever be possible? That something ought to be done in the interests of justice and brotherhood goes without arguing; that the Socialist has called attention to this, and thereby done great good already, is also admitted; but that is not meeting and overcoming the difficulties in the way of State Socialism. Karl Marx, the most powerful and most philosophic of Socialists, aimed at superseding the existing Governments by a vast international combination of the workers of all nations, without distinction of creed, color, or nationality.

Would

that mean the sacrifice of the worker's individual liberty? And could such a combination be made workable? Under Socialism every one is to be compelled to labor, just as, under the present system, with few exceptions, every one capable of it does labor; the difference is that neither the task nor the wages will be a matter of choice or stipulation.

It is hard to distinguish this from forced labor, and hard to distinguish forced labor from slavery. Is it likely that men will grasp at that? The same idea applies to liberty in many directions. Liberty is as essential to the reason as to the spirit and life of mankind. Every revolution in science, every radical invention in mechanical appliances has, in the past, been opposed by some form of authority, if it be only that most deceptive, but most oppressive of all-public opinion.

The progress of the past century,

whether in science or industry, could never have been achieved but for the obstinate persistence of individuals against received and popular opinions. The introduction of railways assailed as fiercely as later on the Darwinian theory. Under the new social régime, how would the man be regarded by the authorities-for you cannot have the singular without the plural-who showed that the labor of skilled workers might be dispensed with by some radical invention? Are these laborers alone to be benefited? And if not, how is the fair share of the relief to be distributed throughout the nation? The truth is that authority must work by routine, and if you upset the routine you upset the authority.

Socialism has other difficulties. They cannot be named here. Its trust in the regenerating power of environment; its seeming satisfaction with material comforts; its views on the drink traffic, not to name its economic difficulties, are all food for thought. But we must not despair. Perhaps on all these matters the years will bring solutions. Knowledge grows from more to more. The Radicalism of one age is the Conservatism of the next. The children do what the fathers dream impossible; and who knows but men and conditions may arise which will save Socialism from its faults and fears, and, in ways as yet unforeseen, realize all its finest dreams?-Primitive Methodist Maga

zine.

-Emery Pottle.

INCE Plutarch wrote his famous "Lives," no biography has achieved such high and lasting place in literature. as Boswell's "Life of Johnson." It has been well said that it is probably more imperishable than any of the Doctor's own writings.

A conceited toady, Boswell was, notwithstanding, the very prince of biographers. His pages possess an undying charm. From the time that he first met Dr. Johnson, he made it his principal business to note down his sayings and doings. As a result we have "the most interesting and instructive specimen of biography ever given to the world."

The Edinburgh Review said of Boswell: "Homer is not more decidedly the first of heroic poets; Shakespeare is not more decidedly the first of dramatists; Demosthenes is not. more decidedly the first of orators, than Boswell is the first of biographers."

The Quarterly Review pronounced his "Life of Johnson" the richest dictionary of wit and wisdom any language can boast."

Samuel Johnson was born at Lichfield, Staffordshire, September 18th, 1709, being just six years older than John Wesley. His father was a bookseller and stationer. He had no sisters, and only one brother, Nathaniel, who died in his twenty-fifth year. From his father Dr. Johnson inherited "a vile melancholy," which cast a shade over his whole existence, making him "mad all his life, at least not sober."

The elder Johnson was a good Latin scholar, a zealous high-churchman and royalist, and for the greater part of his life well-to-do. As might have been expected Dr. Johnson's mother was a woman of ardent piety and good understanding. Of course there are the usual apocryphal stories of the precocious things the young Samuel said and did. One singular fact recorded is, that being afflicted with the scrofula, or king's evil, his mother actually carried him up to London, according to a superstition then widely prevalent, and had him. touched by Queen Anne.

His first teacher was a widow, one Dame Oliver, who taught him to read, and when a young man he was leaving for Oxford, in the kindness and simplicity of her heart brought him a piece of gingerbread.

His next instructor was a master, Thomas Brown, a queer character, who published a spelling book and dedicated it to the Universe.

was one

Another singular character to whoin Johnson went to school Hunter. Hunter would flog the boys unmercifully, saying as he did so, "All this I do to save you from the gallows."

When nineteen years of age, on the 31st of October, 1728, Johnson was entered a commoner of Pembroke College, Oxford. While still a very young man the dreadful affliction of his life, melancholy and hypochondria, came upon him with great force, and from it he was never perfectly relieved. A dread of loss of reason and insanity overshadowed his whole life.

Johnson spent three years at Oxford and left without taking a degree, his father not being able to assist him