EN
The most relentless attack on socialism in Britain in the late nineteenth century was made by W. H. Mallock. He was one of the few Conservatives to take socialism seriously enough to subject it to a rigorous criticism and thus he did more than probably anyone else to convince Conservatives that socialism, and not liberalism, was their real enemy. Mallock was dissatisfied with evolutionary sociology, but neither could he rely - in constructing his defence of the man of ability - on the concepts of traditional conservatism. Consequently, he tried to elaborate a new theoretical framework to prove his main thesis, i.e. the connexion between the inequalities in human capacity and the inequality of wealth. He insisted that any changes that tend to abolish inequalities would tend also to destroy civilization. This conviction led him, however, to an exaggerated defence of individualism, neglecting the corporate needs of society.