in the investigation as to man's origin except by those who understand what man is now. The comprehension of this, and especially of the true nature of human language, will, we confidently believe, amply suffice to make plain the existence of at least one necessary and inevitable limit to evolution.

SOCIALISM.

OCIALISM, in its technical sense, may be defined as that ethical theory which aims at the amelioration of man's social condition through community of goods, and co-operation in labor. It traces nearly all the ills of society to individual ownership, and to isolated individual effort, in the production and the distribution of the fruit of man's toil, and seeks to remedy them, by the removal of these two, as it declares, prolific sources of human misery. It has, thus, a twofold bearing, the one, theoretical, which finds its expression in Communism; the other, practical, which is called Co-operation.

Communism denies the right of private ownership, and places the dominion of external goods exclusively in the community, or in the government, as the representative of the community. A distinguished modern communist has declared ownership-individual ownership-to be theft, theft from the State. Thus, under this system, people might use external goods, but not own them, except in the sense in which a citizen of the United States is said to own the National Park, or the White House, a light-house, a revenue cutter, or a government ambulance. Some communists, from Plato to the Oneida Perfectionists, have extended this community of goods even to wives and children, whom they have regarded as property. The transfer of private property to the State, advanced communists think, should be effected by revolution. The more moderate advocate its purchase by the State, or, its gradual absorption by legislation. Others, recognizing the impracticability of these methods, would vest it in voluntary associations, based on community of goods, and of labor, till the whole property and industrial energy of the nation would be absorbed by them.

Communism is not a thing of recent date. It was defended in theory, and reduced to practice, long before the Christian era. It was advocated by Plato in his Republic, and incorporated by Lycurgus into his system of laws. In The Republic it is provided that children be taken away from their parents, and nurtured under the supervision of the State, lest their tender minds be biased by "the blasphemous nonsense with which mothers fool the manhood out of them." Education, marriage, the number of births, the occupations of the citizens, were, according to this philosopher, to be controlled by the State. The most perfect equality of conditions and careers was to be preserved. Women were to have similar training with the men. The inequalities and rivalries between rich and poor were to cease, for all were to be provided for by the State. (Book iv., p. 249, Joweth's translation.)

The Essenes, a Jewish sect that lasted from the second century before Christ, till the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans, were practical communists, and we can trace a communistic tradition from the Manicheans of the third century, through different sects, to the Cathari, in the thirteenth, and the Anabaptists, in the sixteenth. Doctrinal errors, false theories of asceticism, the love of plunder, the oppression of the poor by the rich, combined in each succeeding age to make it more or less popular, and, sometimes, dangerous. "Brethren," said Muntzer, the prophet and leader of the Anabaptists, "we are all children of Adam; God is our father. And see what the great have done! They have, the wretches, remade the work of God, and created titles, privileges, and distinctions. They eat white bread, we have rough labor; they have fine clothing, we have rags. Does not the earth belong to all? is it not our common inheritance? And they have taken it from us! When did we renounce the inheritance of our Father? Let them show us the deed of resignation. It does not exist. You rich ones of the time, who keep us in bondage, who have pillaged, oppressed, and mutilated us, restore to us our freedom, give us back our bread. It is not as men only that we now demand back what you have stolen from us, but as Christians. In the infancy of the Gospel, the Apostles divided with their brethren in Jesus Christ the money which was laid at their feet; give us back the Apostles' means, which you unjustly detain. Unhappy flock of Christ, how long will you groan in oppression, under the rod of government?" (Audin's Luther, vol. i., p. 417.) On another occasion he told his hearers: "Under God's heaven, every creature ought to be free, all property common,-air and water, fish and fowl, herbs and rocks." (Ibid., vol. ii., p. 137.)

During the two years in which he sought to enforce these doctrines by the sword, a hundred thousand men fell in battle, seven

cities were dismantled, a thousand religious houses razed to the ground, three hundred churches burnt, and immense treasures of paintings, sculpture, stained glass, and engravings destroyed. (Ibid.) But, every one knows how that war ended; how the unhappy peasants were slaughtered like sheep by the allied nobles. of Germany, at Frankenhausen, and their leader beheaded. Luther, who had encouraged them to revolt, abandoned them, called on the nobles to crush them, and boasted of having done so. "For it is I," said he, "who have shed it (their blood) by God's commands, and whoever has fallen in this war, has lost body and soul, and is the prey of Satan." "I have done right," he adds, in another place," in recommending against such caitiffs ruin, extermination, and death." "At the day of judgment," says Cochlous, "Muntzer and his peasants will cry before God and his angels, 'Vengeance on Luther!'"

About the middle of the last century, J. J. Rousseau, whilst living as a Sybarite, bewailed the miseries the division of the soil had entailed on humanity. During the Revolution, Babeuf and others taught, that all men had equal rights in all property, and in the enjoyment of it; that every exclusive appropriation of, the soil, or of a branch of industry, was a crime; that all persons should receive the same kind and degree of education; that the functions of the government should be, to superintend the division of labor, the collecting of the produce in public stores, and the distribution of it to communities and individuals. (Cyclop. Amer.) Babeuf's later followers abrogated marriage, and wished all towns destroyed as the natural hot-beds of tyranny. Fourier, Louis Blanc, Proudhon, and other recent socialistic writers, have but elaborated most of these theses, with, however, some important modifications.

There are, at present, in the United States, eight communistic societies, divided into seventy-two separate communities, with about 5000 members, including children. The Shakers, established here in 1780, have fifty-eight of these communities. The Oneida Perfectionists, established in 1848, are the only society of strictly American origin. The others are English, French, or German.

The fundamental error of socialism, and the chief reason why it has been condemned by the Church, is, its denial of private dominion, or ownership. One would suppose that the belief and practice of all ages and nations would have made this right clear to all men. But we live in a time when the most obvious truths have lost their hold on the minds of thousands, not only among the ignorant, but even among those who are called educated. And this must be our excuse for undertaking to prove, before proceeding farther, that our farms, our houses, our furniture, our money,

our securities, and even the clothes we wear, belong to us individually, and not to the States of our Federal Union, nor to the government of the United States.

Dominion is generally defined, "the right to have, and to hold, and dispose of a thing as one's own, in any way not forbidden by law, or compact."

Now, how did individuals acquire this right in regard to external goods? Did they get it from the State? Certainly not. They had it before any State was formed. Was it derived from the compacts made between individuals, families, and classes of men, before civil society was organized? No, for these compacts suppose this right in those who made them. The very first man knew and felt that he had a right to live, and, therefore, a right to the means of living. His innate desire, too, of happiness, made him see and feel that he had a right, not only to the absolute necessaries of life, but to its rational enjoyments, also. But, how could he have enjoyed, or even supported life, without the right to own external goods? This, indeed, proves, directly, his right to the use only of these goods, but, indirectly, it proves his exclusive right to them, when he thinks this necessary to insure their proper use. He had the right to own a home, and the movable goods that belong to it, and a portion of the soil, if he deemed its occupation necessary, to secure for himself and his family the necessaries, or the comforts of life, and this, not only because "his right there was none to dispute," but because having occupied these things for the reasons and with the purpose just mentioned no one could have disputed it, even had there been any one to attempt to do so. Thus, he would have occupied and improved the soil, at the expense of his time and his labor, without interfering with the right of others to do as he had done, and reason dictates that a man has a right to the fruit of his own toil. Whether our first parent actually occupied a farm or not, is uncertain, though it may be safely presumed that he did, since we read in Genesis that "the Lord God sent him out of the paradise of pleasure, to till the earth from which he was taken."

For a long time, men's possessions were limited chiefly to flocks and herds and movable goods generally. To hold them in the peace and security necessary, to insure their proper use, certain compacts were entered into by the owners, similar to those existing between the ranchmen on our western plains. Abraham and Lot, though just men, could not dwell together in peace. "Abraham, therefore, said to Lot: Let there be no quarrel, I beseech thee, between me and thee, and between my herdsmen and thy herdsmen ; for we are brethren. Behold, the whole land is before thee; depart from me, I pray thee; if thou wilt go to the left hand, I will take the VOL. VIII.-15

right; if thou choose the right hand, I will pass to the left." (Gen. 13:8-9.) But as families multiplied, and as particular districts became more thickly settled, farms succeeded to ranges; villages, towns and cities sprang up; mining, manufacturing, and commercial centres were created; different kinds of proprietorship were established, and, pari passu, local, municipal, and state governments were organized, and laws enacted to protect and foster them, and the conditions determined under which property could be held, conveyed, and bequeathed. The people did not transfer to those governments their individual possessions. On the contrary, the governments were organized chiefly to protect and regulate private property by the authority and sanction of civil laws, or, in other words, the power of the communities was invoked to protect each individual member in what he had justly acquired. Individual ownership was thus established in accordance with reason and the law of nature, and it has been sanctioned, regulated and protected by the civil law of every nation, down to the present time.

The divine law, too, everywhere recognizes it. Cain was a husbandman, and Abel a shepherd, and the latter offered to the Lord "of the firstlings of his flock, and of their fat. And the Lord had respect to Abel, and to his offering." Would this offering have been acceptable, if ownership were theft? The Patriarchs, and many other eminent personages mentioned in the Old Testament, were distinguished for their wealth as well as for their piety. Abraham paid Ephron four hundred sicles of silver for the field in which he buried Tara (Gen. 23). Joseph, too, we read, bought all the land of Egypt, every man selling his possessions. The Decalogue forbade men to steal, or even covet their neighbors' goods. These prohibitions were reiterated and emphasized under the new dispensation. Salvation came to the house of Zacheus, though he did not renounce his wealth. "But Zacheus standing said to the Lord: Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor; and, if I have wronged any man of anything, I restore him fourfold." Jesus. said to him, "This day is salvation come to this house." (Luke 19, v. 8-9.)

God, it is true, did not make the division of goods, such as has existed from the beginning, imperative on the human family. "The earth he hath given unto the children of men," but he did not say how it was to be held or enjoyed by them, whether individually, or in common. This he left to their own reason to determine. And they did determine it, in the manner already described.

When society was organized, it had nothing to determine respecting this matter. It had been already settled. All society, or governments, could do, was to recognize what individuals or individual families had done; to regulate, protect, and develop it. This,