The History of the Fabian Society | Page 7

the Fabian Society. His socialism was ethical and
individual rather than economic and political. He was spiritually a
descendant of the Utopians of Brook Farm and the Phalanstery, and
what he yearned for was something in the nature of a community of
superior people withdrawn from the world because of its wickedness,
and showing by example how a higher life might be led. Probably his
Scotch common sense recoiled from definitely taking the plunge: I am
not aware that he ever actually proposed that his disciples should form
a self-contained community. In a lecture to the New York Fellowship
of the New Life, he said, "I shall set out with two assumptions, first,
that human life does not consist in material possession; and second, that
it does consist in free spiritual activity, of which in this life at least
material possession is an essential condition." There is nothing new in
this: it is the common basis of all religions and ethical systems. But it
needs to be re-stated for each generation, and so stated as to suit each
environment. At the time that I am describing Davidson's re-statement
appealed to the small circle of his adherents, though the movement

which he started had results that he neither expected nor approved.
I have now indicated the currents of thought which contributed to the
formation of the Fabian Society, so far as I can recover them from
memory and a survey of the periodical literature of the period. I have
not included the writings of Ruskin, Socialist in outlook as some of
them undoubtedly are, because I think that the value of his social
teachings was concealed from most of us at that time by reaction
against his religious mediævalism, and indifference to his gospel of art.
Books so eminently adapted for young ladies at mid-Victorian schools
did not appeal to modernists educated by Comte and Spencer.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] The words Communism and Socialism were interchangeable at that
period, e.g. the "Manifesto of the Communist Party," by Karl Marx and
Frederick Engels, 1848.
[2] "Political Economy," Book II, Chap. i, Sec. 3.
[3] William Morris attributed to Mill his conversion to Socialism. See
J.W. Mackail's "Life," Vol. II, p. 79.
[4] No. 1, June, 1883, monthly, 1d.; continued until 1891.
[5] Born 1847. Founded the Guild of St. Matthew 1877 and edited its
organ, the "Church Reformer," till 1895. Member of the English Land
Restoration League, originally the Land Reform Union, from 1883.
Member of the London School Board 1888-1904; of the London
County Council since 1907.
[6] See "Memorials of Thomas Davidson: the wandering scholar."
Edited by William Knight. London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1907. Thomas
Davidson was born in Aberdeenshire in 1840 of a peasant family; after
a brilliant career at Aberdeen University he settled in America, but
travelled much in Europe. His magnetic personality inspired attachment
and admiration in all he came across. He lectured and wrote incessantly,
founded Ethical Societies and Schools, and published several volumes

on philosophical subjects, but his achievements were scarcely
commensurate with his abilities. He died in 1900.

Chapter II
The Foundations of the Society: 1883-4
Frank Podmore and Ghost-hunting--Thomas Davidson and his
circle--The preliminary meetings--The Fellowship of the New
Life--Formation of the Society--The career of the New Fellowship.
In the autumn of 1883 Thomas Davidson paid a short visit to London
and held several little meetings of young people, to whom he
expounded his ideas of a Vita Nuova, a Fellowship of the New Life. I
attended the last of these meetings held in a bare room somewhere in
Chelsea, on the invitation of Frank Podmore,[7] whose acquaintance I
had made a short time previously. We had become friends through a
common interest first in Spiritualism and subsequently in Psychical
Research, and it was whilst vainly watching for a ghost in a haunted
house at Notting Hill--the house was unoccupied: we had obtained the
key from the agent, left the door unlatched, and returned late at night in
the foolish hope that we might perceive something abnormal--that he
first discussed with me the teachings of Henry George in "Progress and
Poverty," and we found a common interest in social as well as
psychical progress.
[Illustration: _From a copyright photograph by Fredk. Hollyer, W_.
FRANK PODMORE, ABOUT 1895]
The English organiser or secretary of the still unformed Davidsonian
Fellowship was Percival Chubb, then a young clerk in the Local
Government Board, and subsequently a lecturer and head of an Ethical
Church in New York and St. Louis. Thomas Davidson was about to
leave London; and the company he had gathered round him, desirous of
further discussing his suggestions, decided to hold another meeting at

my rooms. I was at that time a member of the Stock Exchange and
lived in lodgings furnished by myself.
Here then on