ism states this in some more or less complete form,
however divergent the remedial methods suggested
by the different schools. And next every school of
socialism accepts the concentration of management
and property as necessary, and declines to con-
template what is the typical Conservator remedy,
its re-fragmentation. Accordingly it sets up not
only against the large private owner, but against
owners generally, the idea of a public proprietor,
the State, which shall hold in the collective interest.
But where the earlier socialisms stopped short and
where to this day socialism is vague, divided, and
unprepared, is upon the psychological problems
involved in that new and largely unprecedented
form of proprietorship, and upon the still more
subtle problems of its attainment. These are vast,
and profoundly, widely, and multitudinously diffi-
cult problems, and it was natural and inevitable
that the earlier socialists in the first enthusiasm of
their idea should minimise these difficulties, pre-
tend in the fulness of their faith that partial answers
to objections were complete answers, and display
the common weaknesses of honest propaganda the
whole world over. Socialism is now old enough to
know better. Pew modern socialists present their
faith as a complete panacea, and most are now
setting to work in earnest upon these long-shirked
preliminary problems of human interaction through
which the vital problem of a collective head and
brain can alone be approached. This present vol-
