wastefully and doing it badly. Freedom, on the other hand, is man's highest privilege, and would, if it could get a chance, be his surest guidance. Force, which is the sole instrument of the State, has only one right application. It has a right to resist force, to suppress violence. The State is, when it keeps to its own sphere, sijnply the big policeman, 'a terror to evil-doers,' and also, in so far as it kindly lets them alone, 'a praise to them that do well.' With less hesitation regarding conse- quences, this individualism reasserts J. S. Mill's principle, ' that the sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively, in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number, is self-protection.' Finally, there is the indi- vidualism of Count Tolstoi, the basis of which he finds in the Gospels themselves. ' Judge not, that ye be not judged,' applies as much to a man in his official capacity as in his private, and ' Resist not evil ' is required from the community as much as from the individual. No man is ever so much wiser and better than his fellows that he can have the right in any capacity to take over the regulation of their lives, and the very goal of history is to teach the folly and wickedness of any body of men trying to bear rule over others,— a philosophy of history somewhat akin to St. Paul's conception of the dispensation of the Law as meant to shut all up unto disobedience (Ro 1132).
The kindliness of the Socialists towards Tolstoi seems at first sight inexplicable, for nothing could be more opposed to their method than this rejection of all visible authorities. The Socialist, moreover, has the same sympathy with Christ's teaching. Take, e.g., Headlam's Fabian Tract, No. 42. The teaching of Jesus, he affirms, had hardly anything to do with a life after death, but a great deal to do vrith a Kingdom of God, which is a righteous society to be established upon earth. Christ's works were secular, socialistic works. Whatever may be said of His miracles of raising the dead, they show that the death of a young person was a monstrous, disorderly thing to
nen would live in a ratii ' . , , .
brotherhood, they would be clothed His denunciations were for those who oppressed the poor ; and the man whom He spoke of as in hell, was the man who calmly accepted the difference between the rich and the poor ; while the persons who were on the right hand at the Judgment, were those who had taken pains to know that people were properly clothed and fed. The Christian society was meant to do on a large scale the social work which Jesus had done on a small. Jesus ordained Baptism to receive every human child as equal into His Church, and the Eucharist to be a sacrament of equal brotherhood ; and He made the first word in His prayer
the 1
of
describes Him
equality of brethren. The SoTig ( putting down the mighty from tlieir seats and sending the rich empty away, and His Apostles insist on every man labouring, and on the labourer, not the capitalist, liein;^' first partaker of the fruits. If, therefore, ' you want to be a good Christian, you must be something very much like a good Socialist.' The Church, we are told, is fettered, and ineffective for carrying out this task, but much ' may be done by those Churchmen who remem- ber that the State is a sacred organization as well as the Church,' and who are willing to help to seize it for the good of the people. Their first task, strangely, will be to free the Church from the fetters of the State, for one would rather have imagined that the logical conclusion should have been Rothe's position, that it is the business of the Church so to labour that ultimately it may be absorbed in the Christian State.
This exposition clearly shows the reason for sympathy wHh Tolstoi. It is a case of extremes meeting. Extreme Individ- uahsm and extreme Socialism are both alike conscious of the present distress. Individualism is as little satisfied as Socialism with twelve millionaires dining at one end of London and find- ing the cultivated globe too small to please their palates, and at the other a million and a half of their fellow-creatures not know- ing whether they will have any dirmer at all. Than this, both are a great deal nearer the position of HItu who said, ' Sell that ye have, and give alms' (Lk 1233), ' Woe unto you who are rich' (62^), who denounced the robbery of the widow and the orphan, and no doubt included every form of ruthless competition whereby the strong get advantage of the weak. Competition has become a sacred word in these days, but it never has been a Christian word, and if some higher law does not rule above it, the fittest that wiU survive by it will not be the best but only the most rapacious.
Extreme Socialism and extreme Individualism, moreover, have this in common, that both carry on their propaganda in the interests of the individual and in the hope of arriving at a better state of society. The Individualist thinks a better society can be formed only out of better individuals, and regards force as the great obstacle ; whereas the Socialist thinks the individual will never have a chance in the present kind of social conditions. That Christ aimed both at creating a better individual and a better society needs no proof, and it must further be recognized that the society He Himself created, con- sidered a voluntary community of goods at least in agreement with the spirit of His teaching (see art. Wealtu). The em- phasis which the leaders put on this voluntary aspect of com- munism distinguishes Christianity clearly from Socialism, but still the experiment indicates that, in a more Christian society, the Socialist ideal might be accomplislied in anotlier way. \V ith our present concentration on material well-being, the end of competition would be almost the end of individuality : but if our real Ufe were less lived by bread alone, if our true individuality were dependent on higher concerns, we might come to cultivate together the soil of the earth and enjoy togethe duces as much in common as we