THE  SOCIALISM  OF  TO-DAY.

2/8
read  at  the  meetings  are  prepared  may  serve  as  an  example
for  scientific  institutions  of  a  similar  kind.  The  questions  to  be
treated  are  selected  beforehand,  and  those  who  have  specially
studied  them  are  chosen  to  make  reports  upon  them.  Each
question  gives  rise  to  a  report  and  a  counter-report,  which  form
complete  works  on  the  subject  The  association  has,  in  this
way,  been  able  to  publish  twenty-two  monographs,  which  have
enriched  economic  literature  with  studies  of  a  permanent  value,
to  say  nothing  of  the  oral  discussion  and  polemics  to  which
they  afterwards  gave  rise.
The  partisans  of  the  classical  doctrines  did  not  treat  the
innovators  tenderly.  They  reproached  them  with  not  appreciating ­
  the  pure  truth  of  the  science  which  they  were  called  to
profess,  and  with  separating  themselves  from  radical  Socialism
only  by  reservations  which  their  principles  did  not  justify.
Political  Economy,  by  deducing  its  propositions  from  certain
axioms,  and  maintaining  that  order  results  spontaneously  from
the  free  action  of  natural  laws,  enabled  a  very  clear  and  simple
science  to  be  formed  without  any  great  effort,  and  one  which
solved  all  difficulties  by  the  uniform  receipt  of  laissez  faire.
The  new  school,  on  the  other  hand,  admitting  only  relative
solutions,  and  such  as  are  justified  by  the  study  of  history  and
statistics,  required  wide  research.  It  is  easy  to  understand
that  the  orthodox,  disturbed  in  the  peaceful  possession  of  what
they  had  asserted  to  be  absolute  truths,  would  be  very  much
irritated  with  the  heretics.  The  conflict  still  continues  ;  but  it
may  safely  be  said  that,  except  in  France,  the  Socialism  of  the
Chair  is  almost  everywhere  predominant  to-day.
The  doctrines  of  the  new  school  have  lately  been  expounded
in  a  masterly  work,  published  under  the  direction  of  Herr
Gustav  Schönberg,  and  entitled  Handbuch  der  politischen
Œconomie  {^^M.a.nvi3i\  of  Political  Economy”).  It  is  a  collective
work,  in  which  each  of  the  different  subjects  is  treated  by  some
Economist  of  repute  who  has  made  it  his  special  study.  In
order  to  properly  understand  the  ideas  of  the  heretics,  it  is
necessary  to  read  also  a  pamphlet  *  by  Professor  Schmoller,
*  Ueber  einige  Grufidfragen  des  Rechts  und  der  Volkswirthschaft  (“  On
Certain  Fundamental  Questions  of  Law  and  Political  Economy  ”).