sympathetic review of the "Historic Basis of Socialism." In April, 1885,
appears a long and full report of a lecture by Bernard Shaw to the
Liberal and Social Union. The greater part of the paper is filled with
Land Nationalisation, Irish affairs--the land agitation in Ireland was
then at its height--and the propaganda of Henry George: whilst much
space is devoted to the religious aspect of the social problem. Sydney
Olivier, before he joined the Fabian Society, was one of the managing
group, and amongst others concerned in it were the Rev. C.L. Marson and
the Rev. W.E. Moll. At a later period a Christian Socialist Society was
formed; but our concern here is with the factors which contributed to
the Fabian Society at its start, and it is not necessary to touch on
other periods of the movement.

Thomas Davidson[6] was the occasion rather than the cause of the
founding of the Fabian Society. His socialism was ethical and individual
rather than economic and political. He was spiritually a descendant of
the Utopians of Brook Farm and the Phalanstery, and what he yearned for
was something in the nature of a community of superior people withdrawn
from the world because of its wickedness, and showing by example how a
higher life might be led. Probably his Scotch common sense recoiled from
definitely taking the plunge: I am not aware that he ever actually
proposed that his disciples should form a self-contained community. In a
lecture to the New York Fellowship of the New Life, he said, "I shall
set out with two assumptions, first, that human life does not consist in
material possession; and second, that it does consist in free spiritual
activity, of which in this life at least material possession is an
essential condition." There is nothing new in this: it is the common
basis of all religions and ethical systems. But it needs to be
re-stated for each generation, and so stated as to suit each
environment. At the time that I am describing Davidson's re-statement