Page:Studies in socialism 1906.djvu/142

92 "Without the human side, the economic aim would lack moral consecration.

"The two are indissolubly united.

"There have always been dreamers who have glowed with enthusiasm for the happiness of the human race. But theirs were idle dreams or useless devices, because the material physical means of realising them were lacking. On the contrary, the orderly regulation of economic conditions which Socialism wishes to introduce, and which will insure both an increase in the volume of production and a juster distribution, creates the economic foundation for a human existence in the best sense of the term, the harmonious development of the individual.

"Even the advantages of a common ownership of property and co-operative labour were understood in the past, and the very principles of the Community of Communism were put into practice, but the human ideal that characterises Socialism was lacking and historic Communism is rightly judged to have been on a lower grade of civilisation than our present bourgeois society.

"Socialism presupposes our modern civilisation. It does not go counter to it in any way. Far from being the enemy of civilisation. Socialism wishes to extend it to all humanity, whereas now it is the monopoly of a privileged minority.

"Since Socialism includes in its domain all the life, all the feelings and thoughts of man, it cannot become narrow or exclusive; and this gives it