Page:Socialism, Its Growth and Outcome - William Morris and Ernest Belfort Bax (1909).djvu/22

 8 side of the modern conventional family, as it works in the middle classes. In the lower classes, where the family of blood-relationship might afford some real protection and help to its members, it is completely broken up by the action of the factory system, under which father, mother, brothers, sisters, husband, and wife, compete against each other in the labour market, the end of which is to provide a profit for the capitalist employer; and this "family," which as now constituted exists for middle-class needs, being useless to the working-classes, they have nothing to turn to to supply the lack of a true social unit.

To most men it will be more obvious that similar charges may be brought against the religion of modern society: most intelligent persons will allow that it means nothing more than mere sets of names and formulas, to one or other of which every reputable man is supposed to be attached; in one or other of which he will be sure to find a conventional solution of the great problem of the universe, including our life and its aspirations. If he fails in his duty to society in this