increased if a person is allowed to devise his property by will; for a man who has already a great deal of property of his own, may have left to him the property possessed by four or five other wealthy individuals.
Socialistic schemes seek to avoid this inequality. Benevolent men, deeply impressed with the widespread poverty which prevails even in the most wealthy countries, have rightly perceived that such great inequalities of wealth must always exist if the privileges of private property are freely permitted; consequently, philanthropists have been frequently prompted to advocate schemes of social life in which private property shall not exist, but all the wealth of the community shall be enjoyed in common. This is the fundamental idea which has suggested socialism or, as it is often termed, communism. No philanthropists have ever been more unpopular than the socialists; but much of this antipathy is no doubt due to the popular error that they are anxious to limit the rights of private property by means of wholesale confiscation. Such a charge, however, is extremely unjust. When socialism has been attempted, the property upon which the experiment has been made has been fairly and legitimately obtained. The socialists may have been mistaken theorists, but let us not deal harshly with them. They have often made noble sacrifices in order to battle against great defects in the state of society; they have sometimes effected great practical good, and the experiments they made, even when they have been unsuccessful, are always worthy of attentive reflection.
Schemes proposed by St. Simon, Owen and Fourier. Socialism, as propounded by St. Simon, Owen and Fourier, proposed that a society living together should share all the wealth that was produced. A number of families would, according to this scheme, live together on the same terms as the individual members of a single family. When a family settles in the backwoods of Canada, each member of the family labours on that work to which he or she may be best suited. In such a case the labour of each renders some assistance to all the rest, and then the results of the labour of the whole family are shared in common. Such a society, however, can only be kept together by the strong ties of family affection; and it is manifestly impracticable, in the