INTRODUCTION
THE attempt to conceive imaginatively a better ordering of human
society than the destructive and cruel chaos in which mankind has hitherto
existed is by no means modern: it is at least as old as Plato, whose
``Republic\'\' set the model for the Utopias of subsequent philosophers.
Whoever contemplates the world in the light of an ideal--whether what he
seeks be intellect, or art, or love, or simple happiness, or all together--must
feel a great sorrow in the evils that men needlessly allow to continue, and-
-if he be a man of force and vital energy--an urgent desire to lead men to
the realization of the good which inspires his creative vision. It is this
desire which has been the primary force moving the pioneers of Socialism
and Anarchism, as it moved the inventors of ideal commonwealths in the
past. In this there is nothing new. What is new in Socialism and Anarchism,
is that close relation of the ideal to the present sufferings of men, which
has enabled powerful political movements to grow out of the hopes of
solitary thinkers. It is this that makes Socialism and Anarchism important,
and it is this that makes them dangerous to those who batten, consciously
or unconsciously upon the evils of our present order of society.