in common language, or in words having a definite content. To a certain extent this of course is true. Thus Kaufmann, himself a Christian socialist, says: "To some extent the apparent incompleteness, especially in matters of detail, must be attributed to the vagueness of utterances of the Christian socialists themselves in this respect. This is only what we must expect in all theorizers. According to a natural division of labor, social philosophers propound theories without entering into minute details, which are left for practical politicians to deal with in their endeavor to give effect to the theories as far as circumstances will permit."[1] Another representative of an "applied Christianity," unique enough to be copyrighted, apologizes for his own oracular vagueness as follows: "But in order to be honest with you to whom I speak, I am obliged to say that I do not mean by this expression what most of you would think me to mean, or would yourselves mean, if I did not explain myself." And one of his defenders further remarks, "Yet the language of old Canaan is too good to lose, is the heritage of the line of promise, must therefore be used and misunderstood till illustration and sympathetic hearing can redeem it to intelligibility."[2]
How a social reformer can hope to reform by using language that is purposely unintelligible is indeed a question. But there are two distinct advantages thus gained for an unpopular innovation. Without charging duplicity we must observe first, that this form of doctrine always holds in mental reserve an alternative construction or a modifying opinion with which to condone each revolutionary utterance; and second, by this very vagueness the movement escapes many of the criticisms to which various social movements, especially socialism, are liable. A concrete ideal, especially of status, formulated in terms of the goods of today is certain to provoke objections.
This vagueness is even more characteristic of the fundamental conceptions which these doctrines tacitly assume. This is seen in definitions purporting to tell definitely what Christian
