INTRODUCTION.
let  them  go  on  as  they  are  doing.)  In  free  competition  the
most  able  succeed,  and  this  should  be  our  desire.  Nothing
could  be  more  absurd  than  to  endeavour,  by  misdirec  e
charity,  to  preserve  those  whom  nature  has  condemned  to
disappear,  and  thus  place  obstacles  in  the  way  of  progress.
Yield  place  to  the  strong,  for  might  makes  right.
Christianity  and  Socialism  hold  quite  another  language.
They  declare  war  against  the  strong,  that  is  to  say,  the  rich,
and  aspire  to  raise  up  the  poor  and  the  down-trodden,  d  rey
subordinate  these  so-called  natural  laws  to  the  law  of  Justice.
Let  there  be  full  liberty,  but  only  under  the  guidance  of  right.
In  the  words  of  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  “  Blessed  are  they
which  do  hunger  and  thirst  after  righteousness,  for  they  shall
be  filled.”  It  is  impossible  to  understand  by  what  strange
blindness  Socialists  adopt  Darwinian  theories,  which  condemn
their  claims  of  equality,  while  at  the  same  time  they  reject
Christianity,  whence  those  claims  have  issued  and  whence
their  justification  may  be  found.  At  all  events,  we  may
conclude  that  the  religion  which  has  shaped  us  all,  advocates
as  well  as  adversaries,  has  formulated  in  the  clearest  terms  the
principles  of  Socialism,  and  that  it  is  precisely  in  Christian
countries  that  socialistic  doctrines  have  taken  deepest  root
Let  us  now  consider  the  way  in  which  religious  Socialism
has  become  the  political  Socialism  of  our  day.  When  the
Declaration  of  Independence  in  the  United  States,  and  t  e
French  Revolution,  proclaimed  the  sovereignty  of  the  people,
and  inscribed  the  equality  of  men  among  the  articles  of  the
constitution,  the  principle  of  the  brotherhood  of  man  descended
from  the  heights  of  the  ideal  and  from  the  dreams  of  Utopia
to  become  thenceforth  the  watchword  of  the  radical  party  in
every  country  to  which  the  ideas  that  triumphed  in  America
and  Paris  have  spread.  Equality  of  political  rights  leads
inevitably  to  the  demand  for  equality  of  conditions,  that
is  to  say,  the  apportionment  of  well-being  according  to  work
accomplished.  Universal  suffrage  demands  as  its  complement
universal  well-being  ;  for  it  is  a  paradox  that  the  people  should
be  at  once  wretched  and  sovereign.  As  Aristotle  and  Montesquieu ­
  so  continually  insist,  democratic  institutions  presuppose