SECOND EDITION, REVISED AND ENLARGED New York CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 1891...

In the present edition the original work has not only been carefully revised, but very considerably enlarged. The chapters on "The Progress and Present Position of Socialism" and "Russian Nihilism" contain a few sentences retained from the first edition, but otherwise they are entirely new—the former necessarily so on account of the nature of its subject, and the latter on account of the importance of the fresh materials that have been recently given to the world. A new chapter has been added on

It was a common topic of congratulation at the Exhibition of 1862 that the political atmosphere of Europe was then entirely free from the revolutionary alarms which overclouded the first Exhibition in 1851; but in that very year the old clouds began to gather once more at different quarters of the horizon. It was in 1862 that Lassalle delivered to a club of working men in Berlin his address on "The Present Epoch of the World, and the Idea of the Working Class," which was published shortly afterw

Socialism being now revolutionary social democracy, we should expect to find it most widely and most acutely developed in those countries where, 1st, the social condition of the lower classes is most precarious, or, in other words, where property and comfort are ill distributed; 2nd, where political democracy is already a matter of popular agitation; and, 3rd, where previous revolutions have left behind them an unquiet and revolutionary spirit—a "valetudinary habit," as Burke calls it, "of makin

German socialism is—it is hardly too much to say—the creation of Ferdinand Lassalle. Of course there were socialists in Germany before Lassalle. There are socialists everywhere. A certain rudimentary socialism is always in latent circulation in what may be called the "natural heart" of society. The secret clubs of China—"the fraternal leagues of heaven and earth"—who argue that the world is iniquitously arranged, that the rich are too rich, and the poor too poor, and that the wealth of the great

In opening the present chapter in the previous edition of this book, I said it was not a little remarkable that the works of Karl Marx, which had then excited considerable commotion in other European countries, were still absolutely unknown in England, though England was the country where they were written, and to whose circumstances they were, in their author's judgment, pre-eminently applicable. His principal work, "Das Kapital," is a criticism of modern industrial development as explained by

Marlo and Rodbertus are sometimes spoken of as the precursors of German socialism. This, however, is a mistake. The socialism which now exists appeared in Germany among the Young Hegelians forty years ago, before the writings of either of these economists were published, and their writings have had very little influence on the present movement. Rodbertus, it is true, communicated a decided impulse to Lassalle, both by his published letter to Von Kirchmann in 1853, and by personal correspondence

The Socialists of the Chair have done themselves injustice and sown their course with embarrassing misconceptions by adopting too hastily an infelicitous name. It is more descriptive than most political nicknames, and therefore more liable to mislead. It was first used in 1872 in a pamphlet by Oppenheim, then one of the leaders of the National Liberals, to ridicule a group of young professors of political economy who had begun to show a certain undefined sympathy with the socialist agitations of

Haxthausen pronounced a confident opinion in 1847, when most of the continental nations were agitated with rumours of revolution, that Russia at any rate was safe from the danger, inasmuch as she enjoyed an absolute protection against all such revolutionary agitation in her communistic rural institutions. There was no proletariat in Russia, every man in the country being born to a share in the land of the township he belonged to; and without a proletariat, concluded the learned professor, there

Mr. George sent his "Progress and Poverty" into the world with the remarkable prediction that it would find not only readers but apostles. "Whatever be its fate," he says, "it will be read by some who in their heart of hearts have taken the cross of a new crusade.... The truth I have tried to make clear will not find easy acceptance. If that could be, it would have been accepted long ago. If that could be, it would never have been obscured. But it will find friends—those who will toil for it, su

"A work of commanding ability and great practical value. It deserves to be studied by everybody who wishes to understand a series of questions which are just now attracting a large share of attention.... Admirably adapted to dissipate erroneous impressions on the subject."— Scotsman. "The reader will find much to interest him in Mr. Rae's volume. His introductory chapter is well worth studying, as are also his sketches of Lassalle, Karl Marx, and Professor Winkelblech."— Times. "Mr. Rae has made