Bernard first bared his venerable feet
To run behind him, after so great peace,
And in his running felt himself too slow:
O unknown riches! O thou good most true!
After the spouse whose bride enchanteth so
Egidius bares his feet, Silvester too.
THE SOCIALIST IDEA.[[89]]
A moderate degree of attention bestowed on the signs of the times apparent in society, and a consideration of the social convulsions which among ourselves seem only to end that they may begin again, will make it impossible not to perceive, within the bosom of this society, some permanent, chronic evil, seated at its very core, and ready to bring to the surface the seething elements from below by a series of eruptions recurring at shorter and shorter intervals. This social evil, which for nearly a century has subjected us to periodical revolutions, as certain diseases subject a patient to periodical fits or crises; this evil, whose many roots reach back to causes more or less remote and more or less appreciable; this evil, which marches through the world of to-day like the hurricane that sweeps over cities and plains, and which we see uprooting principles in its passage, corrupting morals, and undermining society—for society is directly and particularly threatened by its stormy progress; this social evil—I give it the name it gives itself—is socialism: socialism—that is, a body of doctrines, passions, and plots that attack and would fain uproot the actual social system, or, if you prefer this definition, armed, passionate, and doctrinal aggression against society; socialism, which forty years ago the mass of earnest thinkers scarcely thought it worth while to take into account, so hidden was it then in the depths of mere theorizing, and so dimly perceived by a few thoughtful men, who saw it half covered by the veil of utopianism; socialism, which practical men of that time, in their Olympic repose, deemed too self-condemned by its obvious extravagance to be capable of doing harm; socialism, which even now still finds a few self-styled conservatives so blinded as to join hands and conspire politically with it for the furtherance of their own plans; socialism, which, emancipated from the region of dreams and speculations, and realized for a moment on the burning stage of contemporary history, has shown us its hideous form by the light of incendiary fires, and still points out to us, by the light of a threatening present, the possibility of a frightful future.
Let us begin at the beginning, and ask ourselves the question, What is Socialism? I hasten, at the outset of a subject which touches on such delicate ground, to state that I intend taking my stand above politics or party spirit. I fight only under two flags, that of society and that of Christianity. Even in the harshest strictures I may make I shall attack things, not men—things which we are bound to oppose, not men, whom we are bound to love.
To come to a full understanding of contemporary socialism it is necessary to look at it under a triple aspect—as an idea, as a passion, and as an action; as an idea which gains ground, a passion which kindles itself, an action which organizes itself more and more under our eyes; as an idea which gains ground by every channel controlled by the contemporary press; as a passion which is enkindled by every phase of contemporary realities; as an action which organizes itself and conspires by every lever known to contemporary revolutionism—that is, in three words, the socialist idea, the socialist passion, the socialist action. It is these that we must fathom and examine, if we would understand what socialism is and means. I shall be satisfied if I succeed in developing this time what is socialism as an idea, and what is the scope of this idea; in what does the socialist idea consist, and what are its immediate consequences.