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 CHAPTER VII

SCIENCE AND ART UNDER SOCIALISM

has been advocated by most of its champions chiefly as a means of increasing the welfare of the wage-earning classes, and more particularly their material welfare. It has seemed accordingly, to some men whose aims are not material, as if it has nothing to offer towards the general advancement of civilization in the way of art and thought. Some of its advocates, moreover—and among these Marx must be included—have written, no doubt not deliberately, as if with the Socialist revolution the Millennium would have arrived, and there would be no need of further progress for the human race. I do not know whether our age is more restless than that which preceded it, or whether it has merely become more impregnated with the idea of evolution; but, for whatever reason, we have grown incapable of believing in a state of static perfection, and we demand, of any social system which is to have our approval, that it shall contain within itself a stimulus and opportunity for progress towards something still better. The doubts thus raised by Socialist writers make it necessary to inquire whether Socialism would in fact be hostile to art and science, and whether it 168