defence. How much more would it then exploit labour under the pretext of organising it? It would indeed be well if government were to organise labour, but to do that it must be disinterested, saintly. But where are they, these saints ?
It is true that individualism, as they call it, meaning by this the ideal of individual welfare for each separate man, is a most pernicious principle ; but the principle of the welfare of many people together is equally pernicious. Only its perniciousness is not at once evident.
The attainment of that co-operation—social communism,—in place of individualism, will not result from organisation. We shall never guess what will be the organisation of the future; we will discover it only by everyone following the unperverted impulse of heart, conscience, reason, faith; the law of life, call it what you will.
Bees and ants live socially, not because they know what organisation is most advantageous for them and follow it,—they have no idea of expediency, harmony, the wisdom of the hive or ant hill, as they appear to us, but because they give themselves up to what we call the instinct inherent in them, they submit, not philosophising cunningly, but straightforwardly to their law of life. I can imagine that if bees, in addition to their instinct, as we call it, in addition to the consciousness of their law, were able to invent the best organisation of their social life, they
