continued to prosper for many years after the death of their original
leaders. Some are celibate; but others inculcate, or at least permit
marriage. Some gather their members into a common or "unitary" dwelling;
but others, with no less success, maintain the family relation and the
separate household.

It seemed to me that the conditions of success vary sufficiently among
these societies to make their histories at least interesting, and
perhaps important. I was curious, too, to ascertain if their success
depended upon obscure conditions, not generally attainable, as
extraordinary ability in a leader; or undesirable, as religious
fanaticism or an unnatural relation of the sexes; or whether it might
not appear that the conditions absolutely necessary to success were only
such as any company of carefully selected and reasonably determined men
and women might hope to command.

I desired also to discover how the successful Communists had met and
overcome the difficulties of idleness, selfishness, and unthrift in
individuals, which are commonly believed to make Communism impossible,
and which are well summed up in the following passage in Mr. Mill's
chapter on Communism:

"The objection ordinarily made to a system of community of property and
equal distribution of the produce, that each person would be incessantly
occupied in evading his fair share of the work, points, undoubtedly, to
a real difficulty. But those who urge this objection forget to how great
an extent the same difficulty exists under the system on which nine
tenths of the business of society is now conducted. The objection
supposes that honest and efficient labor is only to be had from those
who are themselves individually to reap the benefit of their own