ABSTRACT
The argument of this fourth instalment of Socialist criticism may be provisionally described as an attempt to justify Socialist ideals by the appeal to canons of moral judgment accepted generally and supported by the results of positive ethical science. Temperance, Christian morality, industry, and economy are of considerable social utility; but for the members of a propertied class they are necessitated by the conditions of its existence, and consequently in such classes are neither observed nor commonly made the subject of moral criticism. The class moralities of societies whose orders have been based immediately on status or caste have formed the subject of an extensive literature. Socialism appears as the offspring of Individualism, as the outcome of individualist struggle, and as the necessary condition for the approach to the Individualist ideal. The foregoing illustrations have been treated, for the present purpose, with reference only to the effect of the behavior of the individual upon society.
