Thus the difference between the earlier and the later socialists is as follows: The earlier socialists started with a theory of justice which is in harmony with common-sense and the general instincts of mankind; and this theory was pressed into the service of socialism only by being associated with a false theory of production.

The later socialists start with a truer theory of production; and they reconcile this with their own practical programme, only by associating it with a false moral psychology.

In each case a fallacy is the basis of the socialistic conclusion; and without a fallacy somewhere--a fallacy which is pushed about, like a mouse under a table-cloth--no socialistic conclusion even tends to develop itself from the premises.
And what is true of the main arguments of the later, as of the earlier socialists, is equally true of their subsidiary arguments also, from those which refer to the generalisations of the sociologists of the nineteenth century, and base themselves on the confusion between speculative truth and practical, down to those which are drawn from the absurd psychological supposition that all motives are interchangeable, and that those which actuate the artist, the anchorite, and the soldier can be made to replace by means of a vote or a sermon those which at present actuate the masters of industrial enterprise.

On whatever argumentative point the socialists, as socialists, lay stress, there, under one form or another, their root-fallacy reappears.

In short, their arguments are illusionary in proportion as they themselves value them.
And in this there is nothing wonderful.