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THE chief advantage that would result from the establishment of Socialism is, undoubtedly, the fact that Socialism would relieve us from that sordid necessity ofliving for others which, in the present condition of things, presses so hardly uponalmost everybody. In fact, scarcely anyone at all escapes.Now and then, in the course of the century, a great man of science, like Darwin; agreat poet, like Keats; a fine critical spirit, like M. Renan; a supreme artist, likeFlaubert, has been able to isolate himself, to keep himself out of reach of theclamorous claims of others, to stand 'under the shelter of the wall, ' as Plato puts it, and so to realise the perfection of what was in him, to his own incomparable gain, andto the incomparable and lasting gain of the whole world. These, however, areexceptions. The majority of people spoil their lives by an unhealthy and exaggeratedaltruism-are forced, indeed, so to spoil them. They find themselves surrounded byhideous poverty, by hideous ugliness, by hideous starvation. It is inevitable that theyshould be strongly moved by all this. The emotions of man are stirred more quicklythan man's intelligence; and, as I pointed out some time ago in an article on thefunction of criticism, it is much more easy to have sympathy with suffering than it isto have sympathy with thought. Accordingly, with admirable, though misdirectedintentions, they very seriously and very sentimentally set themselves to the task ofremedying the evils that they see. But their remedies do not cure the disease: theymerely prolong it. Indeed, their remedies are part of the disease.They try to solve the problem of poverty, for instance, by keeping the poor alive; or, in the case of a very advanced school, by amusing the p

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