Page:James Ramsay MacDonald - The Socialist Movement.pdf/21

Rh determines that the bee must pack its cells as octahedrons and not as cubes.

The conception of individual right comes to play a part in history only after social solidarity has been secured. Visions of the existence of such a right flash like comets across history long before they enter a system of practical politics. From these visions have come, in our own history, Lollardy, John Ball and the peasant rising, the extreme wings of the Independent schisms during Cromwell's time, the early Socialist agitation; but they were only the dreams of its coming perfection which troubled Society, and they but led to the shedding of blood or to the visitation of vengeance by the powers that were. They were not to be understood even, until many generations after their leaders had died, had been lampooned, and had been put, like many another precious thing, on the dust heaps and in the lumber rooms. Social organisation arises to protect the whole, but it is first of all captured by the strong and exploited by them. This double thread of exploitation and revolt against exploitation runs right through history.

The explanation that these revolts of the oppressed were only the antagonism of a subject and exploited class to a ruling and