pinion. It attracted "those for whom democratic Socialism is not a creed already worked out in full . . . but rather a developing and highly adaptable corpus of social doctrine that needs to be continually thought out afresh as situations change" and theories are tested in practice (G. D. H. Cole, quoted in Cole 319).
Another prominent characteristic of the Fabians has been their optimism. As G. D. H. Cole remarked, the advance of socialism was seen "in terms mainly not of power alone, but of power animated by rational conviction, and inspired by the ethical impulse to achieve social justice" (quoted in Cole 33). This belief in the inevitability of socialism meant that the Fabians lacked some of the sense of urgency that motivated many other socialist groups. Thus, a final characteristic of the Fabians was their gradualism. They rejected the notion of incipient proletarian revolution and held that, as Sidney Webb put it, their democratic ideals meant that their ideas were "prepared for in the minds of all" and that, because it was to arrive gra
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