Faith is not so bounteous a commodity in this world that we can afford to treat even its unfamiliar manifestations with contempt.

And when a movement is hot with life, when it stirs common men to their depths, look out! look out! Up to that time I had never known much of the practical workings of Socialism; and the main contention of its philosophy has never accorded wholly with my experience in life.
But the Socialism of to-day is no mere abstraction--as it was, perhaps, in the days of Brook Farm.

It is a mode of action.

Men whose view of life is perfectly balanced rarely soil themselves with the dust of battle.

The heat necessary to produce social conflict (and social progress--who knows ?) is generated by a supreme faith that certain principles are universal in their application when in reality they are only local or temporary.
Thus while one may not accept the philosophy of Socialism as a final explanation of human life, he may yet look upon Socialism in action as a powerful method of stimulating human progress.