realisation of an ideal conception of a complete society which has been previously thought out, but the, result of a fluctuating process of development, a result which in no way excludes or renders unnecessary further development, but which forms merely the starting point of a new order of social development.
The endeavour can and should be made to-day to visualise the picture of the coming Socialist mode of production, but it must also be remembered that the reality will be far different from any mental picture, and that the moist thorough investigations at the present time will never succeed in revealing all of the agents that will enter into the development of the future, and in estimating how great a significance every one of these agents will assume. The better we are able to investigate the present, the deeper will be our insight into the future. But the forms of the future society will always be more manifold than is possible for us to foresee, and new momenta will constantly arise which are inconceivable to us to-day. We may expect great surprises before ins in this sphere.
Nevertheless the Socialist goal has a great significance for us. Champions of the Labour cause will the more readily avoid the contradictions and waste of strength in their daily political and economic policies, and effect the improvement and liberation of the working people the more speedily, the more they estimate how far each one of their demands and measures will subserve or prejudice the ultimate objective.
As we have already observed, the development of the productivity of labour is closely connected with the objective of the transformation of the property basis of the means of production and with the establishment of the widest self-government and freedom of expression and organisation of the labouring masses.
From the standpoint of this conception, the task of Socialists in relation to Socialism assumes a shape very different from the standpoint of pre-Marxian Social-
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