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SOCIALISM: POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE

by

ROBERT RIVES LA MONTE







     "I will make a man more precious than fine gold;
     even a man than the golden wedge of Ophir."
                            --_Isaiah xiii, 12._


Chicago
Charles H. Kerr & Company
1907

Copyright 1907
by Charles H. Kerr & Company


[Illustration: logo]

Press of
John F. Higgins
Chicago




TO

M. E. M. AND L. H. M.




PREFACE


Of the papers in this little volume two have appeared in print before:
"Science and Socialism" in the International Socialist Review for
September, 1900, and "Marxism and Ethics" in Wilshire's Magazine for
November, 1905. My thanks are due to the publishers of those periodicals
for their kind permission to re-print those articles here. The other
papers appear here for the first time.

There is an obvious inconsistency between the treatment of Materialism
in "Science and Socialism" and its treatment in "The Nihilism of
Socialism." I would point out that seven years elapsed between the
composition of the former and that of the latter essay. Whether the
inconsistency be a sign of mental growth or deterioration my readers
must judge for themselves. I will merely say here that the man or woman,
whose views remain absolutely fixed and stereotyped for seven years, is
cheating the undertaker. What I conceive the true significance of this
particular change in opinions to be is set forth in the essay on "The
Biogenetic Law."

Some Socialists will deprecate what may seem to them the unwise
frankness of the paper on "The Nihilism of Socialism." To them I can
only say that to me Socialism has always been essentially a
revolutionary