will speak of reform and not revolution. As, however, we Socialists
do not at all mean by our word revolution what these worthy people
mean by their word reform, I can't help thinking that it would be a
mistake to use it, whatever projects we might conceal beneath its
harmless envelope. So we will stick to our word, which means a
change of the basis of society; it may frighten people, but it will
at least warn them that there is something to be frightened about,
which will be no less dangerous for being ignored; and also it may
encourage some people, and will mean to them at least not a fear, but
a hope.

Fear and Hope--those are the names of the two great passions which
rule the race of man, and with which revolutionists have to deal; to
give hope to the many oppressed and fear to the few oppressors, that
is our business; if we do the first and give hope to the many, the
few MUST be frightened by their hope; otherwise we do not want to
frighten them; it is not revenge we want for poor people, but
happiness; indeed, what revenge can be taken for all the thousands of
years of the sufferings of the poor?

However, many of the oppressors of the poor, most of them, we will
say, are not conscious of their being oppressors (we shall see why
presently); they live in an orderly, quiet way themselves, as far as
possible removed from the feelings of a Roman slave-owner or a
Legree; they know that the poor exist, but their sufferings do not
present themselves to them in a trenchant and dramatic way; they
themselves have troubles to bear, and they think doubtless that to
bear trouble is the lot of humanity, nor have they any means of
comparing the troubles of their lives with those of people lower in
the social scale; and if ever the thought of those heavier troubles