people ask what the state would look like rather than what are the ethical requirements of law. By thus reversing the concepts one confuses the ethics of Socialism with the poesy of the Utopias. But ethics are not poetry and the idea has truth without image. Its image is the reality which is only to arise according to its prototype. The socialist idealism can to-day be looked upon as a general truth of public consciousness, though as one which is still, nevertheless, an open secret. Onlythe egoism implicit in ideals of naked covetousness,which is the true materialism, denies it a faith.???26 The man who wrote and thought thus was widely praised as the greatest and most daring German [18] thinker of his time, and even opponents of his teaching respected him as an intellect. Just for that reason it is necessary to stress that Cohen not only accepts without criticism or reserve the demands of Socialism and acknowledges the prohibition against attempts to examine conditions in the socialist community, but that he represents as a morally inferior being anyone who tries to embarrhi ???party-Socialism??? with a demand for light upon the problems of socialist economies. That the daring of a thinker whose criticismotherwise spares nothing should stop short before a mighty idol of his time is aphenomenon which may be observed often enough in the history of thought???even Cohen???s great exemplar, Kant, is accused of this.27 But that a philosopher should charge with ill-will, defective disposition, and naked covetousness not merely all those of a different opinion but all who even touch on a problem

dangerous to those in authority???this, fortunately, is something of which the history of thought can show few examples. Anyone who failed to comply unconditionally with this coercion was proscribed and outlawed. In this way Socialism was able from year to year to win more and more ground without anyone being moved to make a fundamental investigation of how it would work. Thus, when one day Marxian socialism hiumed the reins of power, and sought to put its complete programme into practice, it had to recognize that it had no distinct idea of what, for decades, it had been trying to achieve.

A discussion of the problems of the socialist community is therefore of the greatest importance, and not only for understanding the contrast between liberal and socialist policy. Withoutsuch a discussion it is not possible to understand the situations whichhave developed since the movement towards nationalization and municipalization commenced. Until now economics???with a comprehensible but regrettable onesidedness???has investigated exclusively the mechanism of a society based on private ownership of the means of production. The gap thus created must be filled.

The question whether society ought to be built up on the basis of private ownership of the means of production or on the basis of public ownership of the means of production is political. Science cannot decide it; Science cannot pronounce a judgment on the relative values of the forms of social organization. But Science alone, by examining the effects of institutions, can lay the foundations for an understanding of society. Though the man of action, the politician, may sometimes hi no attention to the results of this examination, the man of thought will never cease to inquire into all things accessible to human intelligence. And in the long run thought must determine action. 3: Alternative Modes of Approach to the Analysis of Socialism?