Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 2.djvu/664

 648 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

quotations from Maurice will serve to illustrate the teachings of this group of men. " Monarchy with me is the starting point. I look upon socialism as historically developed out of it, not absorbing it into itself. A king given and an aristocracy given and I can see my way clearly to call upon them to do the work which God has laid upon them ; to repent of their sins, to labor that the whole manhood of the country may have a voice, that every member of Christ's body may be indeed a free man."

" Competition is put forth as the law of the universe. That is a lie. The time is come for us to declare that it is a lie, by word and deed. I see no way but associating for work instead of for strikes." Christian socialism has never died. Today the influ- ence of Maurice is only one among many others sustaining it, and that influence is largely an emotional one, yet so long as inspiration is needed for social regeneration, whether in the state or the individual, it is hard to overestimate teachings like his. 1

The place of honor in this period undoubtedly belongs to Thomas Carlyle. While his teachings have had to be made positive, expanded, almost transformed by his followers, before they could contribute to the collectivist ideal, they undoubtedly aided indirectly every progressive social movement by weakening the faith in the existing order. If Carlyle was not a socialist he was the most powerful anti-individualist of the century. He shares with Coleridge and Comte the credit of having introduced a crude conception of the organic nature of society, being influ- enced as was the former by German philosophy, but he stands alone in the vigor of his destructive criticisms. Carlyle's writ- ings must be read not merely as literature, but as prophecy. One example will suffice. Its counterparts are legion :

1 References. Life and Letters of F. D. Maurice, by J. F. MAURICE, 2 vols., Lon- don, 1884. Life and Letters of fCingsley, by his wife. MAURICE, On the Reformation of Society, Southampton, 1851 ; Social Morality, London, 1869; The Workman and the Franchise, New York, 1866; Christian Socialism, Church Social Union, Boston, 1896; Tracts on Christian Socialism, London, 1850; The Christian Socialist, 2 vols., London, 1851. SCHULZE-GAEVERNITZ, Znm socialen Frieden, I, 295-306. KAUFMANN, M., Christian Socialism, London, 1888.