Modern science is the system by which private property is increased and the uses of it made more complicated. Modern "truth" is the system of traditional opinion by which the illusion of private property is established as "responsible" thinking, and "serious" thinking, and "ethical" thinking.
Modern art is the system by which what is most gross and vulgar in the popular taste is pandered to in the interests of private property.
The creative energy in modern life is therefore restricted and opposed at almost every point by the evil instinct to possess. Of every new idea the question is asked, "does it conflict with private property?"
Of every new aesthetic judgment the question is asked, "does it conflict with private property?"
Of every new moral valuation the question is asked, "does it conflict with private property?" And the instinct which puts these questions to every new movement of the creative energy is the instinct of inert malice. The object of life can be regarded as nothing less than the realization of the vision of the Immortals; and it is only under a communistic state that the vision of the Immortals can be realized; because only in such a state is that petrified illusion of inert malice which we name "private property" thoroughly got rid of and destroyed.
CONCLUSION
No attempted articulation of the mystery, life, can be worthy of being named a "philosophy" unless it has a definite bearing upon what, in the midst of that confused "manifold" through which we move, we call the problem of conduct.
The mass of complicated impression, which from our first dawn of consciousness presses upon us, falls into two main divisions—the portion of it which comes under the power of our will and the portion of it which is supplied by destiny or circumstance, and over which our will is impotent.
Superficially speaking what we call conduct only applies to action; but in a deeper sense it applies to that whole division of our sensations, emotions, ideas, and energies, whether it take the form of action or not, which comes in any measure under the power of the will. Such acts of the mind therefore, as are purely intellectual or emotional—as for instance what we call "acts of faith"—are as much to be considered forms of conduct as those outer visible material gestures which manifest themselves in action.