Page:Jean Jaurès socialist and humanitarian 1917.djvu/47

 Most of his gifts and his drawbacks alike arose from this, that his nature compelled him to want keenly to see others adopt and work out in practice the great ideas which some men seem to wish only to share with a few, and to hold forever enshrined in a sort of theoretical sacredness.

It was therefore some modification of the older methods of socialistic activity that he was bound to desire. But though Jaurès' methods were those of the reformer, though he was ready to build brick by brick, his vision of the future, his desire and intention for the future were revolutionary in the strongest sense, nothing less than that new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness and joy, that has been the aim of the prophets in all ages. Jaurès was not then an opportunist, but a man with a creative mind. He was an artist craftsman in social matters, he wanted to build the new Jerusalem, not to talk of it for ever. His practical point of view merely served to heighten the reality of the ideal to him. It was not only a vision, but one that must be, that would be realized.

M. Levy-Bruhl says of him: "Jaurès lived for an ideal of social justice and Humanity set free. He did not accept as an immutable fact, as a natural necessity, that the condition of the greater part of mankind should remain what it is now. He believed that it would be from now onwards ameliorated, and with time transformed. It is this ideal that he had before his eyes when