EXCURSUS AND AUTOBIOGRAPHY 2g

and fear." Happily, as the years go by, the hope enlarges
and the feais depart.

I do not expect to see Utopia in Russia. I do not expect
to see Utopia anywhere. A Utopian world to me would
be a dead and static world. What I do see emerging,
however, is a new stage in the history of human pi ogress,
and this book is wnttcn to dcsciibe what I see and explain
why I welcome it. And as an aid to the reader, who can
always estimate better the value of an appreciation or
a criticism if he sees it against the personal background of
the critic or admiicr, and against the pioblcms with which
hfe has confiontcd them, I shall make no apology for
beginning, as I stated in the Preface, with a chapter of
personal biography

(i) Bourgeois Boyhood

I WAS barn in 1874, in Kersal, then a fashionable suburb
two milt/a from the centre of Manchester, where Bishop and

My ramdij .uK>tt, of tta

lived

Dean had their residences and " caniage folk"
within easy reach of warehouses and city olliccs.

My family were of the prosperous middle class, my
paternal ancestors coming from Oundle, where their
pleasantly carved Georgian tombstones still stand against