VIII.THE WORLD AS IT COULD BE MADE


INTRODUCTION


THE attempt to conceive imaginatively a better
ordering of human society than the destructive and
cruel chaos in which mankind has hitherto existed
is by no means modern: it is at least as old as Plato,
whose ``Republic'' set the model for the Utopias of
subsequent philosophers. Whoever contemplates the
world in the light of an ideal--whether what he seeks
be intellect, or art, or love, or simple happiness, or
all together--must feel a great sorrow in the evils
that men needlessly allow to continue, and--if he be
a man of force and vital energy--an urgent desire to
lead men to the realization of the good which inspires
his creative vision. It is this desire which has been
the primary force moving the pioneers of Socialism
and Anarchism, as it moved the inventors of ideal
commonwealths in the past. In this there is nothing
new. What is new in Socialism and Anarchism, is
that close relation of the ideal to the present
sufferings of men, which has enabled powerful political
movements to grow out of the hopes of solitary thinkers.
It is this that makes Socialism and Anarchism
important, and it is this that makes them dangerous
to those who batten, consciously or unconsciously
upon the evils of our present order of society.