and again, the altruist has arisen in politics, has bidden us
share with others the product of our toil, and has proclaimed the
communistic dogma as the panacea for our social ills. So today,
amid the buried hopes and buried projects of the past, the
doctrine of communism still lives in the minds of men. Under
stress of misfortune, or in dread of tyranny, it is still
preached in modern times as Plato preached it in the world of the
Greeks.

Yet it is indeed doubtful whether, in the history of mankind, a
doctrine was ever taught more impracticable or more false to the
principles it professes than this very doctrine of communism. In
a world where self-interest is avowedly the ruling motive, it
seeks to establish at once an all-reaching and all-controlling
altruism. In a world where every man is pushing and fighting to
outstrip his fellows, it would make him toil with like vigor for
their common welfare. In a world where a man's activity is
measured by the nearness of reward, it would hold up a
prospective recompense as an equal stimulant to labor. "The more
bitterly we feel," writes George Eliot, "the more bitterly we
feel the folly, ignorance, neglect, or self-seeking of those who
at different times have wielded power, the stronger is the
obligation we lay on ourselves to beware lest we also, by a too
hasty wresting of measures which seem to promise immediate
relief, make a worse time of it for our own generation, and leave
a bad inheritance for our children." In the future, when the
remoteness of his reward shall have weakened the laborer's zeal,
we shall be able to judge more fairly of the blessings that the
communist offers. Instead of the present world, where some at
least are well-to-do and happy, the communist holds before us a