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THE  SOCIALISM  OF  TO-DAY.

man  and  denounces  the  rich  idler.  There  is,  therefore,  no  more
solid  foundation  for  the  demand  of  reforms  on  behalf  of  the
disinherited  classes.
And  yet  Social  Democracy  repudiates  it,  and  tries  to  crush
it,  because,  by  opening  up  the  prospect  of  a  future  life,  it  tends
to  make  men  resigned  to  the  ills  of  the  present  one.  No
doctrine  is  more  calculated  than  atheistic  materialism,  to  inflame ­
  the  hearts  of  working  men  with  rage  and  hatred  against
the  system  of  society  which  determines  their  present  condition, ­
  and  therefore  it  is  that  the  apostles  of  anarchical
revolution  adopt  and  propagate  it  as  their  gospel.  Accordingly, ­
  in  Russia,  we  see  that  Atheism  gives  birth  to  Nihilism,
which  arms  itself  with  the  dagger,  and  avails  itself  of  incendiarism, ­
  and  all  those  perfected  means  of  destruction  that
science  invents.
So  long  as  his  object  is  merely  to  show  the  beneficent  influence ­
  which  the  application  of  Christian  principles  to  social
problems  would  effect,  the  Bishop  of  Mayence  writes  pages  of
eloquence  and  pathos.  But  as  soon  as  he  is  obliged  to  come
down  to  the  lower  regions  of  Political  Economy,  and  point  out
the  practical  means  of  improving  the  condition  of  the  working
men,  he  becomes  involved  in  difficulties.  He  even  has  to
borrow  from  Lassalle  the  idea  of  productive  co-operative  associations, ­
  by  means  of  which  that  Socialist  agitator  promised  to
effect  a  complete  transformation  of  the  social  organism.
The  danger  of  the  actual  situation  comes  from  the  antagonism ­
  between  capital  and  labour.  But  if  the  same  individual
is  at  once  capitalist  and  labourer,  harmony  is  established.  If
the  present  wage-earner  could  but  own  a  part  of  the  mill,  the
farm,  the  railway,  or  the  mine,  where  he  is  employed,  he  would
receive  a  share  of  the  profits,  over  and  above  his  wages.  The
war  between  classes  would  cease,  because  there  would  be  only
one  class,  every  capitalist  working,  and  every  working  man
possessing  capital.  The  ultimate  object,  therefore,  is  to  collect
all  the  instruments  of  production  in  the  hands  of  co-operative
societies,  in  order  to  establish,  in  the  great  industries  of  modern
times,  organization  of  labour,  similar  to  that  of  the  trade-guilds
of  the  Middle  Ages.  To  attain  this  object,  the  Bishop  of