freedom, for every exemption from physical labour gives more time for the artistic and scientific pursuits of man, and adds to the legitimate enjoyment derived therefrom.

As individual liberty consists in the free use of a person's faculties, it presupposes their development by education, instruction, and practice. Plato already says:-" Had it from the beginning been stated by you all that injustice is the greatest of all evils, and justice the greatest good, had you so persuaded us from our youth, we should not need to guard against injustice from our fellows." Louis Blanc advocates the development of the faculties used in the exercise of individual liberty, by liberal instruction and education, and claims the organization of labour for the already educated and grown-up persons, saying:-" Liberty consists not only in the rights accorded, but in the power given to men to exercise and develop their faculties under the empire of justice and the safeguard of the law. This is no vain distinction; for so soon as it is admitted that a man to be free requires the power to exercise and develop his faculties, it results that society owes to each of its members-firstly, instruction, without which the mind cannot expand; secondly, the means of labour, without which the activity of man cannot make itself a career." Stuart Mill mentions an important advantage accruing to society from the use of individual liberty, saying:-"The only unfailing and permanent source of improvement is liberty, since by it there are as many possible independent centres of improvement as there are individuals." In opposition to this, Mr. Stephen quotes from an article in Fraser's Magazine for August, 1872 ("Social Macadamization," by L. S.), the following propositions, and considers them to be unanswerable :-" The growth of liberty, in the sense of democracy, tends to diminish, not to increase, individual originality. Make all men equal so far as laws can make them equal; and what does that mean but that each unit is to be rendered hopelessly feeble in presence of an overwhelming majority?" In other words, give to every adult person the suffrage, and each elector will only possess an infinitesimal fraction of political power or individual liberty; restrict the franchise, and political power will increase for every privileged elector. By a graduated diminution of the number of electors, autocracy may finally be reached.

Mr. Stephen might well have put the question to himself: Which is better for me, to be a political nought in an autocratic state, or a political fraction of a democratic power?

CHAPTER X.-FREEDOM OF PUBLIC OPINION.

THE importance of the action of public opinion, not only in political matters, but also in the domain of morality, is universally acknowledged. Mr. Stephen says:-"The influence of public opinion upon virtue and vice is incalculably great." He thinks "that the free expression of public opinion is highly favourable to the maintenance of a high moral standard by the admiration and honour it pays to virtue, and by the condemnation it passes on vice; and that by this agency a standard morality, or what is called, in a school or regiment, a good moral tone, is created and maintained, which becomes the great condition of virtue. In explanation of this truth Mr. Stephen gives the following well-chosen illustration:-"When soldiers speak of an army which is thoroughly frightened as 'demoralized,' they use an expression which by its significance atones for its politeness."

Mr. Mill intended to confine the expression of censure by public opinion to such cases in which the fault, vice, or misconduct of a person had done harm to others. This limitation is rightly opposed by Mr. Stephens, who says:-" If people neither formed nor expressed any opinions on their neighbours' conduct except in so far as that conduct affected them personally, one of the principal motives to do well and one of the principal restraints from doing ill would be withdrawn from the world."

In giving to public opinion free scope of expression, individual liberty becomes guaranteed to the great mass of the people, and it may safely be predicted that in the communistic state the expression of public opinion will act more powerfully and beneficially than is the case in the present state of social isolation, antagonism of interest, and class distinctions, which have given rise to the laconic saying, "Every one for himself, and God for us all."

CHAPTER XI-FREEDOM IN THE CHOICE OF OCCUPATIONS.

HOW

OW this important branch of civil liberty is exercised in the communistic state has been shown in various chapters, and it will suffice to remind the reader that although physical labour is obligatory to all, there is yet a great range of choice possible in each class of dangerous, unhealthy, and repulsive work. In sciences, the fine arts, and in the liberal professions, the choice is, however, unlimited; for they are not only thrown open to all, but the communistic state is bound to furnish to all those entering upon the pursuits of life the necessary training and means of instruction.

THE

CHAPTER XII.-POLITICAL FREEDOM.

THE highest expression of political liberty is the exercise of sovereign rights by the people themselves without representation. But even this sublime ideal of political freedom has its drawback in the so-called tyranny of the majority, which is the more galling the larger the defeated minority is. In order to obviate this defect of the action of absolute political freedom, various democratic governments— amongst them that of the United States of America-have determined that certain important laws can only be passed by a two-thirds majority of the national representatives. This indicates the direction in which political progress has to advance. From a two-third majority, that of a three-fourth, four-fifth, etc., may finally be reached.

The communistic state will, moreover, be distinguished by great quietude in political strife and warfare, for its superior social organization having realized the utmost happiness to all, the political arena will become comparatively deserted.

THIS

CHAPTER XIII.-RELIGIOUS LIBERTY.

HIS kind of liberty can be granted and guaranteed to any extent so long as it does not infringe upon other branches of liberty and upon the natural rights of man.

That communistic states protect free worship to all religions we see from Cabet's account of the Icarians, who says of them that "they respect all creeds, whatever their doctrines may be; and whenever there is a sufficient number of adherents to a particular belief, they build temples for them."

It has been suggested in a previous chapter that in all such cases it would be better to permit any new religionists to build their churches, chapels, or temples by their own voluntary labour.

THA

CHAPTER XIV.-LIBERTY OF CONSCIENCE.

THAT the mind of man is, even in this enlightened age, cruelly enslaved, is lamented by all deep-thinking writers. Robert Owen says: "There is also a mental bondage to be thrown off." Stuart Mill says: "All of us are enslaved by custom."

Mental darkness will, however, become ultimately dispelled by the never-ceasing onward march of enlightenment, and illiberal customs will be abandoned as soon as a clear appreciation of true liberty becomes spread through society.

AN OBJECTION.

Mr. Stephen maintains that equality and fraternity exclude liberty, saying: "Assume that every man has a right to be on an equality with every other man because all are so closely connected together that the results of their labour should be thrown into a common stock, out of which they are all to be maintained, and you certainly give a very distinct sense of equality and fraternity, but you must absolutely exclude liberty. Experience has proved that this is not merely a theoretical but also a practical difficulty. It is the standing and insuperable obstacle to all socialistic schemes, and it explains their failure."

That equality and fraternity are antagonistic to liberty is a gratuitous theoretical assumption which becomes untenable when the many arrangements are considered by which the

communistic state favours, promotes, and protects liberty in all its multifarious ramifications.

The failures of communistic experiments hitherto tried, assert nothing in favour of Mr. Stephen's theory; for if there was failure in some cases, there was also signal success in others. Had Mr. Stephen had an opportunity of reading Mr. Nordhoff's interesting work on "The Communistic Societies of the United States " (a publication some years younger than Mr. Stephen's "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity "), he would have been compelled to retract his sweeping assertion that all socialistic schemes have failed.

Mr. Nordhoff gives the following survey of the various communistic systems now in existence :—

:

"The societies which may be properly used as illustrations of successful communism in this country are the Shakers, established in the Eastern States in 1794, and in the West about 1808; the Rappists, established in 1805; the Bäumelers, or Zoarites, established in 1817; the Ebenezers, or Amana Communists, established in 1844; the Bethel Commune, established in 1844; the Oneida Perfectionists, established in 1848; the Icarians, who date from 1849; and the Aurora Commune from 1852. Though in name there are thus but eight societies, these consists, in fact, of not less than seventy-two communes; the Shakers having fifty-eight of these, the Amana Society seven, and the Perfectionists two. The remaining societies consist of but a single commune for each. It will be seen that the oldest of these communes have existed for eightytwo years. Of all, only two societies remain under the guidance of their founders; though it may be said that the Amana Communes have still the advantage of the presence among them of some of the original leading members. The common assertion that a commune must break up on the death of its founder would thus appear to be erroneous. These seventytwo communes make but little noise in the world; they live quiet and peaceful lives, and do not like to admit strangers to their privacy. They numbered in 1874 about five thousand persons, including children, and were then scattered through thirteen States, in which they own over 150,000 acres of land -probably nearer 180,000, for the more prosperous frequently own farms at a distance, and the exact amount of their hold