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INTRODUCTION.
established among men ; but social transformations are not to
be accomplished by violence. Attempts at assassination and
insurrections can have but one result : that of provoking a
desperate repression, and restoring despotism. What an
amount of harm have the German regicides, Hcedel and
Nobiling, not done to the cause of which they professed them
selves the champions ! If Socialists would set forth their ideas
persistently but moderately, using those powerful arguments
which economic science has placed in their hands, as was done
by J. S. Mill, and the former Austrian minister, Albert
Schæffle, the governing classes would listen to them, for they
cannot divest themselves of the sentiments of even-handed
justice planted in their hearts by the Gospel. The Irish Land
Laws wrested by Mr. Gladstone even from the House of Lords,
show what decisive victories Socialism may obtain by peaceable
means. It is probable that it may be gradually introduced
into our laws by the increasing influence of what we call State
Socialism. Its weakness results from the fact that, being chiefly
confined to the labouring classes, it seldom finds exponents
among enlightened men such as Lassalle and Marx undoubtedly
were. If, as formerly in Israel, there should arise prophets
burning with a righteous thirst for justice, Christian Socialism,
taking possession of men’s minds, may bring about profound
changes in the economic world. But the enduring triumph of
a violent Socialist revolution is impossible. Nevertheless, as
Nihilism, like burning lava, seethes throughout the underground
strata of society, and there keeps up a sort of diabolic destroy
ing rage, it is possible that in some crisis, when authority is
powerless and repressive force paralyzed, the predictions of
the poet Hegesippe Moreau and M. Maxime du Camp may
be realized, and we may see our capitals ravaged by dynamite
and petroleum in a more ruthless and a more systematic manner
than even that which Paris experienced at the hands of the
Commune.
