Socialism in its extreme form might easily become a new kind of tyranny. By the establishment of collectivism, by making the state the sole owner of all wealth, the sole employer of labour, and the controller of science and art, as well as of education and religion, there is a danger of crushing the spiritual side of man, and giving to all life and endeavour a merely naturalistic character and content.
5. It was inevitable that an exaggerated insistence upon the importance of society should provoke an equally one-sided emphasis upon the worth of the individual, and that as a protest against the demands of Socialism there should arise a form of subjectivism which aims at complete self-affirmation.
(1) This tendency has received the name of _aesthetic-individualism_. As a conception of life it may be regarded as intermediate between naturalism and idealism. While rooted in a materialistic view of life, it is moulded in the hands of its best advocates by spiritual aspirations. Its standpoint may be characterised as a theory of existence which seeks the highest value of life in the realm of the beautiful, and which therefore endeavours to promote the supreme good of the individual through devotion to art. Not only does the cultivation of art tend in itself to elevate life by concentrating the soul upon all that is fairest and noblest in the world, but the best means of enriching and ennobling life is to regard life itself as a work of art. This view of existence, it is claimed, widens the scope of experience, and leads us into ampler worlds of interest and enjoyment. It aims at giving to personality a rounded completeness, and bringing the manifold powers and passions of man into harmonious unity. As a theory of life it is not new. Already Plato, and still more Aristotle, maintained that a true man must seek his highest satisfaction not in the possession of external things, but in the most complete manifestation of his faculties. Individual aestheticism largely animated the Romantic movement of Germany at the beginning of last century. But probably the best illustration of it is to be found in Goethe and Schiller; while in our country Matthew Arnold has given it a powerful and persuasive exposition. It was the aim of Goethe to mould his life into a work of art, and all his activities and poetic aspirations were subordinated to this end. The beautiful harmonious life is the true life, the well-rounded whole from which must be banished everything narrow, vulgar, and distasteful, and in which { 108} everything fair and noble must find expression. 'Each individual,' says Schiller, 'is at once fitted and destined for a pure ideal manhood.' And the attainment of this ideal requires from us the most zealous self-culture and a concentration of effort upon our own peculiar gifts.[11]