ABSTRACT
Religious teaching and popular wisdom have always distinguished several personalities in each human being. The preparation of characters for all the situations in which men may find themselves is one function of a moral education. A socialist state will not be able to dispense with education, morality, or liberal science, though on strict materialistic grounds the communal ownership of properties ought to make them superfluous. The socialist theory of human nature is, like the hedonistic calculus, an example of false determinism. A man's various economie contacts limit or enlarge the range of his opinions. But which of the contacts, in what guise, on what theory, the materialistic conception of politics cannot predict. The theory assumes that men are capable of adopting only one version of their interest, and that having adopted it, they move fatally to realize it. The ordinary doctrine of self-interest usually omits altogether the cognitive function.
