Page:James Ramsay MacDonald - The Socialist Movement.pdf/251

 Rh The long drawn-out tale of human progress is shadowed. by error and catastrophe, by wearisome journeys in the wilderness, by Canaans which, when yet lands beyond Jordan, were overflowing with milk and honey, but which, when conquered, were almost barren; and chapter after chapter which opens like a litany closes like a dirge. But amidst the confusion, the conflicts, the defeats, a survey of the whole pageant reveals some order, and shows the guiding purpose of an underlying idea. The realm of justice extends, the essential equality of man creates and modifies institutions, government becomes more and more a matter of consent, and the consenters become more and more active participants in it. That is what a general sweep of the pageant reveals. A closer examination also shows law and order in details. A struggle can be detected between individual freedom and social discipline, between liberty and authority, between the interests which for the time being can use social organisation for their own benefit and those victimised and exploited by such a use. This conflict is not carried on in a straight line by a steady series of advances, but rather by a rythmic pulsing, putting now one interest and now the other in the ascendancy.

The state to-day is anarchistic. We have gone well through our epoch of exploitation by individuals and classes, and the diastole and systole of history goes on. Or, to use a more familiar simile, the pendulum swings backwards—but not along the path of its