Page:James Ramsay MacDonald - The Socialist Movement.pdf/201

 Rh the transformation, they chose the word Communist as their title, and, in the famous Communist Manifesto, attacked the Socialism of their predecessors. One of the amusing tricks which the whirligig of time has brought, is a complete inversion of the application of these terms.

The French Revolution not only stirred up into confidence all the optimistic expectation of human nature but taught it to speak, to educate, to agitate. It was springtime on the earth. The people had not experienced themselves; their friends had not been disillusioned. Years afterwards Owen, so typical of his age, could serenely argue that simple reason would convert kings and that a worthy homily addressed to the angel at the gate of Paradise would induce her to lower her sword. This enthusiastic naïveté was also the soul of Saint-Simon who was the first to draw to himself a company that can be called Socialist. These pioneers were queer folk. They were children to the day of their death. The strange being, Saint-Simon, with his valet solemnly wakening him every morning with the salutation: "Remember, monsieur le comte, that you have great things to do," is separated from us by worlds of feeling. And yet his lack of humour and his crystalline sincerity which