Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 8.djvu/108

 94 CRITICAL NOTICES : that the time for such a revolutionary step has not yet come, and need never come if our conceptions of property are modified to suit the developing exigencies of social life. He even considers that private property may be made to exercise a moralising effect on the community. This would no doubt be the case if the ethical standards of the holders of private property were sufficiently high ; and it is a part of Dr. Stein's scheme of the social future that the holders of property shall be so effectively socialised as to realise all the social obligations which the possession of property entails. In society as it exists at present the principle on which the owner of property usually acts is to give as little and to take as much as he can, and the man who is most successful at this sort of thing is the man who generally acquires great possessions, and along with them a vast amount of power over his fellows. It is certainly undesirable that this type of person should exercise the dominating influence which is now his. The abolition of private property would put an end to this undesirable social type ; but it would be possible to suppress it and also many of the other evils connected with private property if we had what Dr. Stein describes as the Socialisation of Law. According to Stein it is in the direction of the Socialisation of Law (Eechtssocialismus) that we must move if we mean to establish a higher order of social justice and social well-being. In the past law has in too many instances been developed in the interests of powerful individuals and powerful classes, and it still retains the stamp of its origin. The immediate task of the future is to adjust law to social needs and social interests till it becomes the codified expression of the modern conception of justice. One of the most potent causes of unrest at the present time is the con- flict in the existing order of society between the opposing principles of liberty and equality. The principle of liberty aims at securing and upholding the interests of the individual. The principle of equality aims at holding the individual in check, and compelling him to subordinate his purely personal interests to the interests of society as a whole. It is unbridled industrial liberty with inequality on a stupendous scale as its inevitable accompaniment which is mainly responsible for the present social crisis. This crisis will continue and tend to become more acute until the conflicting de- mands of liberty and equality have been adjusted. The only way in which the process of adjustment can be proceeded with is by the Socialisation of Law. State socialism cannot harmonise liberty and equality. In fact State socialism has had its day. Its principles and methods have been shattered by criticism. Its prestige is rapidly on the wane in Germany its place of birth. For the last generation or so the State socialists have had it all their own way. But they have been unable to formulate any definite and coherent system. It is on other principles and by other methods than these that the social question must be ap- proached. According to Dr. Stein, the social problem in so far as