want people to do just as they please; I want them to consider and act for the good of their fellowsfor the commonweal in fact. Now what constitutes the commonweal, or common notion of what is for the common good, will and always must be expressed in the form of laws of some kind—either political laws, instituted by the citizens in public assembly, as of old by folk-moot, or if you will by real councils or parliaments of the people, or by social customs growing up from the experience of Society. The fact that at present many or the majority of laws and customs are bad, does not mean that we can do without good laws or good customs. When I think of my own work and duties as a citizen, a neighbour or friend, a workman or an artist, I simply cannot think of myself as behaving or doing right if I shut out from my mind the knowledge I possess of social customs or decrees concerning what is right-doing or wrong-doing. I am not going to quibble over the question as to the difference between laws and customs. I don't want either laws or customs to be too rigid, and certainly not oppressive at all. Whenever they so become, then I become a rebel against them, as I am against many of the laws and customs to-day. But I don't think a Socialist community will require many governmental laws; though each citizen will require to conform as far as possible to the general understanding of how we are to live and work harmoniously together. But, frankly and flatly, I reckon customs, if they are bad customs, to be always more oppressive and difficult to get rid of than political laws. If you violate political laws you have the policeman and the soldiers, maybe, against you, but when you violate social customs you have the whole of the community against you. In the one case you may be regarded as a criminal and fined, imprisoned, or even put to death, any of which contingencies is bad enough no doubt; but in the other case you are regarded as a churl, a kill-joy, a bigot, a humbug, and unless you are a thick-skinned wretch, or are sustained by a powerful sense of conscience
