Page:James Ramsay MacDonald - The Socialist Movement.pdf/118

 114 the only tangible reward, that its amplitude is the public sign of success, and that men are taught to pursue it primarily. Further, we know that as the standard of ability is raised all round, the rent of ability will fall, just as the rent of land falls when the monopoly of land is broken. We are also justified in assuming that as the struggle for the necessities of life is ended, the motives for energy will become more moral and spiritual. That is about all we know. Therefore, when we have approached nearer to Socialism than we are now, different combinations of motives from those with which we have to deal will animate men, and so proposals regarding pay and reward which would be laughed at now as utopian may in the course of time become severely practical.

This also is the answer to such objections as that Socialism is impossible till human nature changes. Human nature is always changing, not in the sense of becoming new as when one puts off one suit of clothes and puts on another, but in the sense that the complex instincts, habits, opinions and motives of which it is composed, change their relative importance and produce different resultants in consequence. The Socialist method is that of moving out step by step and of walking by sight and by faith at the same time.

The scientific method employs the processes of both induction and deduction. It groups