INTRODUCTION. 
THE PROGRESS OF SOCIALISM. 
W HEN Louis Reybaud, in 1853, wrote the article in the 
Dictionnaire de 1 Économie Politiqueos “Socialism” 
a term to which he first gave currency—he believed that we 
had heard the last of the disordered hallucinations of Socialists. 
“ Socialism is dead,” he exclaimed ; “ to speak of it is to pro 
nounce its funeral oration.” This was, in fact, the general 
opinion some years ago. Systems of Socialism were then 
studied only as curious examples of the aberrations of the 
*^0 human mind. 
To-day we have fallen into the opposite extreme : we see 
Socialism everywhere. The red spectre haunts our imagina 
tions, and we fancy ourselves on the eve of a social cataclysm. 
What is certain is, that Socialism has recently spread, under 
various forms, to an extraordinaiy extent In its violent form, 
it is taking possession of the minds of almost all mining and 
manufacturing operatives, and at this very moment it is 
beginning to invade the rural districts. The agrarian move 
ment which lately agitated Ireland, which has just been 
suppressed in Andalusia, and which is brewing in other places, 
IS plainly inspired by socialistic ideas. In scientific garb. 
Socialism is transforming political economy and is occupying 
the greater number of professorial chairs in Germany and 
Italy. Under the form of State Socialism, it sits in the 
council-chamber of sovereigns ; and finally, under a Christian 
lorm, It IS making its influence felt in the hearts of the Catholic 
clergy, and still more in the hearts of the ministers of the 
different Protestant denominations. 
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