Page:James Ramsay MacDonald - The Socialist Movement.pdf/14

x forth several babes at the same time. For instance, the earlier advocates of Socialism were found in the more extreme camps of liberal thought in their day. They heralded with unqualified enthusiasm the conquests of science on the field of faith. It was their nature to give no lukewarm welcome to anything that seemed to be a gleam of light on the horizon. Religion in their day was the creed of the rich; churches were built to keep the people quiet; an English reactionary majority in Parliament voted money to the Church to help it to stem the rising tide of Radical democracy. The Socialist pioneer went out boldly and challenged all this. He grouped all his enemies in one crowd, all their creeds and professions in one bundle, and he condemned them in the bulk. This happened in other directions, with the result that to-day the opponents of Socialism try to make Socialism itself responsible for every extravagance, every private opinion, every enthusiasm of every one of its advocates. The logic is this: Mr. Smith writes that the family is only a passing form of organisation; Mr. Smith is a Socialist; therefore all Socialists think that the family is only a passing form of organisation. This method of controversy may offer for itself a shamefaced justification when it is resorted to for the purpose of a raging and tearing political fight in which the aim of the rivals is not to arrive at truth but to catch votes, but it cannot be defended on any other or higher ground, and it requires only the slightest knowledge of the history