relation to that cause. Thus we have seen during the past century the magnets round which men's minds have centred change again and again and human interests change with them. Political enfranchisement, scientific discovery, the accumulation of wealth, religion have dominated thought, and have created philosophies, outlooks, systems of criticism, motives. Fluctuations in the Socialist movement and a varying emphasis placed upon aspects of the Socialist creed, have marked these changes as the tides mark the varying course of the moon.
1. Saint-Simon and Fourier.
Long before there was what can be called a Socialist movement, there were men groping after the Socialist plan, examining society with lanterns lit from the lamp of Socialism, making demands which were partial discoveries of Socialism itself, in the same way that many pioneers set foot on America before America itself was explored.
The word Socialism itself appears to have been first used in this country in 1835 to describe Owen and his work. It was adopted by the Frenchman Reybaud and applied by him to the theories of Saint-Simon and Fourier. At that time it was used to indicate theories of social reconstruction in which the state had no part—moral and idealistic movements of Utopists; and when Marx and Engels opened a new chapter in the history of the movement by insisting upon the political character of
