THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES THE ECONOMIC INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY THE ECONOMIC INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY BY EDWIN R. A. SELIGMAN SECOND EDITION, REVISED COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS NEW YORK: MORNINGSIDE HEIGHTS COPYRIGHT 1902 COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS FIRST EDITION 1902 SECOND EDITION 1907 First printing 1907 Second printing IQI2 Third printing /p/7 fourth printing 1922 Fifth printing 1924 Sixth printing 1934 Seventh printing 1949 PUBLISHED IN GREAT BRITAIN, CANADA, AND INDIA BY GEOFFREY CUMBERLEGE, OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS, LONDON, TORONTO, AND BOMBAY PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA Bus. Ad nun. Library PREFATORY NOTE THE present work is substantially a reproduction, with some alterations, additions and rearrangements, of the articles that appeared in Volumes XVI and XVII of the Political Science Quarterly. The re- quests for reprints were so numerous that it seemed best to meet the demand by giving to the essays a more permanent form. May the treatment of the subject in the following pages lead to the fuller discussion which so important a topic deserves at the hands of economists, historians and philosophers alike. COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY. NEW YORK, May, 1902. 1224875 CONTENTS INTRODUCTION PACK STATEMENT OF THE THESIS i PART I HISTORY OF THE THEORY OF ECONOMIC INTERPRE TA TION CHAPTER I THE EARLY PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY 7 The eighteenth century Lessing, Herder, Ferguson, Kant The idealistic, the religious, the political interpretation The physical interpretation Vico, Montesquieu, Buckle. CHAPTER II PHILOSOPHICAL ANTECEDENTS OF THE THEORY 16 Hegel The dialectical method and the system The Young-Hegelians Feuerbach, Griin and Hess. CHAPTER III GENESIS AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE THEORY .... 25 Karl Marx as a political reformer The Rhcinische Zei- tung The Deutsch-FranzSsische Jahrbucher Marx and Ruge Engels The Holy Family I'roudhon The Misery of Philosophy Marx as an economist The Mani- festo of the Communist Party The American journals The Criticism of Political Economy Capital. viii CONTENTS CHAPTER IV PAGE THE ORIGINALITY OF THE THEORY 50 The seventeenth century Harrington The eighteenth century Dalrymple, Moser, Gamier The nineteenth cen- tury The French socialists Fourier, St. Simon, Proudhon and Blanc The Germans Stein, Rodbertus, Lassalle. CHAPTER V THE ELABORATION OF THE THEORY 57 Technique in social life Economic and physical factors Physical and psychical actions and reactions. CHAPTER VI RECENT APPLICATIONS OF THE THEORY 68 Marx Morgan Engels Kovalevsky Grosse Hildebrand Dargun Cunovv Nieboer Loria Cic- cotti Francotte Pohlmann Des Marez Lamprecht. PART II CHAPTER I FREEDOM AND NECESSITY The doctrine of determinism The theory of social environ- ment The great man theory Moral fatalism. CHAPTER II HISTORICAL LAW AND SOCIALISM What is a scientific law ? The laws of social science Historical laws Economic interpretation independent of socialism The general theory and its special applications. CONTENTS ix CHAFFER III PAGE THE SPIRITUAL FACTORS IN HISTORY 112 Ethics as a social product Sin, crime and tort Indi- vidual and social morality The categorical imperative Idealism and materialism The relation of moral to eco- nomic forces. CHAPTER IV EXAGGERATIONS OF THE THEORY 135 Loria Economics and religion Economics and phi- losophy Other exaggerations Patten and Adams Dis- avowal by Engels. CHAPTER V TRUTH OR FALSITY OF THE THEORY 146 The facts of mentality Economic life as antecedent to the mental life Social phenomena as a reflex of economic phenomena Economic interpretation in its proper formu- lation. CHAPTER VI FINAL ESTIMATE OF THE THEORY 159 The monistic explanation untenable The importance of economic interpretation to economics and history alike The historical school in economics The economic school in history Conclusion. INTRODUCTION STATEMENT OF THE THESIS To the student of the social sciences it is interesting to observe the process by which, in one respect at least, we are drifting back to the position of bygone ages. Although Aristotle pointed out the essential interrelation of poli- tics, ethics and economics, modern thought has successfully vindicated the claims of these disci- plines, as well as of others, such as jurispru- dence and the various divisions of public law, to be considered separate sciences. For a long time, however, to the common detriment of all, the independence of each was so emphasized and exaggerated as to create the serious danger of forgetting that they are only constituent parts of a larger whole. The tendency of recent thought has been to accentuate the rela- tions rather than the differences, and to explain the social institutions which form the bases of the separate sciences in the light rather of a synthesis than of an analysis. This method 2 ECONOMIC INTERPRETATION has been applied to the record of the past, as well as to the facts of the present; the con- ception of history has been broadened until it is now well recognized that political history is only one phase of that wider activity which includes all the phenomena of social life. If the term " politics " is used in the common but narrow sense of constitutional and diplomatic relations, then to repeat the familiar dictum, " History is past politics," is to utter a half- truth, in lamentable disregard of these newer ideas. While, however, it is now conceded that the history of mankind is the history of man in society, and therefore social history in its broadest sense, the question has arisen as to the fundamental causes of this social develop- ment the reason of these great changes in human thought and human life which form the conditions of progress. No more profound and far-reaching question can occupy our attention ; for upon the correct answer depends our whole attitude toward life itself. It is the supreme problem not only to the scientist, but to the practical man as well. Of this problem one solution has been offered which during the past few decades has been engaging the lively atten- INTRODUCTION 3 tion of thinkers not alone in Germany, where the theory originated, but in Italy, Russia and, to some extent, in England and France. The echoes of the controversy have scarcely reached our shores; but a movement of thought at once so bold and so profound cannot fail to spread to the uttermost limits of scientific thought and to evoke a discussion adequate to the nature of the problem and the character of the solution. We may state the thesis succinctly as follows: The existence of man depends upon his ability to sustain himself; the economic life is therefore the fundamental condition of all life. Since human life, however, is the life of man in society, individual existence moves within the framework of the social structure and is modified by it. What the conditions of maintenance are to the individual, the similar relations of production and consumption are to the community. To economic causes, there- fore, must be traced in last instance those transformations in the structure of society which themselves condition the relations of social classes and the various manifestations of social life. This doctrine is often called " historical ma- terialism," or the " materialistic interpretation 4 ECONOMIC INTERPRETATION of history." Such terms are, however, lacking in precision. If by materialism is meant the tracing of all changes to material causes, the biological view of history is also materialistic. Again, the theory which ascribes all changes in society to the influence of climate or to the character of the fauna and flora is materialistic, and yet has little in common with the doctrine here discussed. The doctrine we have to deal with is not only materialistic, but also economic in character; and the better phrase is not the "materialistic interpretation," but the "economic interpretation " of history. In France it has become the fashion to call the theory " economic determinism " ; but this is still more objection- able for the reason that it begs the question as to whether there is anything really "determi- nistic " or fatalistic about the doctrine. This point will be fully discussed hereafter. 1 In the following pages an attempt will be made to explain the genesis and development of the doctrine, to study some of the applica- tions made by recent thinkers, to examine the objections that may be advanced and, finally, to estimate the true import and value of the theory for modern science. 1 See part ii, chapter i. PART I HISTORY OF THE THEORY OF ECONOMIC INTERPRETATION CHAPTER I THE EARLY PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY FEW of the leading writers of the eighteenth or the first half of the nineteenth century devoted much attention to the problem of his- torical causation. The historians were for the most part content to describe the facts of political and diplomatic history ; and, when they sought for anything more than the most obvious explanation of the facts, they generally took recourse to the " great man " theory or to the vague doctrine of the " genius of the age." Even the Nestor of modern historical writing, Ranke, attempted scarcely more than to unravel the tangled skein of international complications by showing the influence of foreign politics upon national growth. While most of the historians gave evidence of only a slight philosophical equipment, the philosophers presented a " philosophy of his- tory " which sometimes showed scarcely more familiarity with history. That Rousseau was 7 8 ECONOMIC INTERPRETATION not a profound historical scholar, is to put it mildly. Others, like Lessing in his Education of Humanity 1 and Herder in his Ideas on the Philosophy of History? were too much under the domination of the theistic conception to give much impetus to a newer movement of thought, even though Herder in Germany, like Ferguson 3 in Scotland, may be called in some respects a forerunner of modern anthropological investigations. Huxley, as well as many of the German writers, 4 has pointed out that Kant in his Idea of a Universal History^ anticipated some of the modern doctrines as to the evolu- tion of society ; but even Kant was not suf- ficiently emancipated from the theology of the age to take a strictly scientific view of the subject. With Hegel's Philosophy of History we reach the high-water mark of the " idealistic " interpretation ; but the Hegelian conception of the " spirit of history " has shown itself at once too subtle and too jejune for general acceptance. A second but less comprehensive attempt to 1 Die Erziehung des Menschengeschlechts. 2 Ideen zur Philosophic der Geschichte der Menschheit. 8 Essay on the History of Civil Society (1767). 4 Woltmann, Der Historische Materialismus (1900), pp. 17-21. 6 Idee zu einer Allgemeinen Geschichte in WeUburgerlichet Absicht (1784). EARLY PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY 9 interpret historical growth in terms of thought and feeling was made by those who maintained that religion is the keynote of progress. That each of the five great religions has exerted a profound influence on human development is indubitable Judaism typifying the idea of duty; Confucianism, of order ; Mohammedanism, of justice ; Buddhism, of patience ; and Christian- ity, of love. But, entirely apart from the fact that this explanation overlooks the possibility of regarding religion as a product rather than a cause, no light is thrown on the question why the retention of the same religion is often compatible with the most radical changes in the character and condition of its devotees. The religious interpretation of history, even in the modified form of Mr. Benjamin Kidd's theory, has found but few adherents. A third explanation, which can be traced to Aristotle and which has met with some favor among publicists, might be called the political interpretation of history. It holds, substan- tially, that throughout all history there can be discerned a definite movement from monarchy to aristocracy, from aristocracy to democracy, and that there is a constant progress from abso- lutism to freedom, both in idea and in institu- io ECONOMIC INTERPRETATION tion. But very many philosophers, including Aristotle himself, have pointed out that democ- racy might lead to tyranny ; and modern an- thropology has tended to discredit the existence of the first alleged step. Above all, it has been repeatedly shown that political change is not a primary, but a secondary, phenomenon ; and that to erect into a universal cause what is itself a result is to put the cart before the horse. With the failure of all these attempts of a more or less idealistic nature, the way was pre- pared for an interpretation of history which would look to physical, rather than to psychical, forces ; or rather, which \vould explain how the psychical forces, into which all social movement may be analyzed, are themselves conditioned by the physical environment. The name with which this doctrine is associated is that of Buckle. The theory of the predominant influence of the external world on human affairs can be traced to many writers of the eighteenth cen- tury, of whom Vico 1 and Montesquieu 2 are 1 In his Principii di una Scienza Nuova d' intorno alia Comune Natura delle Nazioni (1725). As to Vico, see Huth, Life of Buckle, I, pp. 233 et seq. Buckle says of Vico that, "though his Scienza Nuova contains the most profound views on ancient history, they are glimpses of truth rather than a systematic investigation of any one period." 2 In his Esprit des Lois, EARLY PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY 11 easily the most famous. 1 Buckle himself had no small opinion of Montesquieu's merits. He tells us 2 that Montesquieu " knew what no his- torian before him had even suspected, that in the great march of human affairs, individual peculiarities count for nothing. . . . He effected a complete separation between biography and history, and taught historians to study, not the peculiarities of individual character, but the general aspect of the society in which the pecu- liarities appeared." Furthermore, we are told, Montesquieu "was the first who, in an inquiry into the relations between the social condition of a country and its jurisprudence, called in the aid of physical knowledge in order to ascertain how the character of any given civilization is modified by the action of the external world." What Montesquieu, however, stated aphor- istically and on the basis of the imperfect physical science of the day, Buckle first worked out philosophically and with such wealth of illustration that he is properly regarded as the 1 In a complete catalogue of writers who in some way in- fluenced Buckle there ought to be included not only Holbach, Helvetius and Cabanis, but for the early period Bodin, with his theory of climates, and still farther back even Aristotle. 2 History of Civilization in England, 1857, pt. ii, ch. vi (pp. 316-317 of edition of 1873). 12 ECONOMIC INTERPRETATION real creator of the doctrine. In his celebrated second chapter, entitled " The Influence of Physical Laws," Buckle analyzed the effects of climate, food and soil upon social improvement and its basis, the accumulation of wealth. Buckle, it is true, as we have been lately re- minded, 1 does not claim that all history is to be interpreted in the light of external causes alone. He does, indeed, tell us that in early society the history of wealth depends entirely on soil and climate ; but he is careful to add that in a more advanced state of society there are other circumstances which possess an equal, and sometimes a superior, influence. 2 In fact, in a later chapter he maintains that " the advance of European civilization is characterized by a diminishing influence of physical laws and an increasing influence of mental laws"; and he concludes that if, as he has shown, " the meas- ure of civilization is the triumph of the mind over external agents, it becomes clear that of the two classes of laws which regulate the pro- gress of mankind, the mental class is more important than the physical." 3 At the end of 1 By Robertson, Buckle and his Critics (1895). 2 History of Civilization, I, p. 44. #., pp. 156, 157. EARLY PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY 13 his general analysis he even goes so far as to maintain that " we have found reason to believe that the growth of European civilization is solely due to the progress of knowledge, and that the progress of knowledge depends on the number of truths which the human intellect discovers, and on the extent to which they are diffused." ] While it is clear, therefore, that Buckle was by no means so extreme as some of his critics would have us believe, it is none the less proba- ble that his name will remain associated with the doctrine of physical environment. For it w r as he, after all, who most forcibly and elo- quently called attention to the importance of the physical factors and to the influence that they have exerted in moulding national character and social life. Since his time much more has been done, not only in studying, as Buckle himself did, the immediate influence of climate and soil,'' but also in explaining the allied field of the effect of the fauna and the flora on social development. The subject of the domestica- tion of animals, for instance, and its profound 1 History of Civilization, I, p. 288. - One of the best known, but most uncritical, representatives of this school is Grant Allen, especially in his article " Nation Making" in the Gentleman's Magazine, 1873, reprinted in the Popular Science Monthly of the same year. 14 ECONOMIC INTERPRETATION effect on human progress has not only been investigated by a number of recent students, 1 but has been made the very basis of the ex- planation of early American civilization by one of the most brilliant and most learned of recent historians. 2 A Russian scholar 3 has shown in detail the connection between the great rivers and the progress of humanity, and the whole modern study of economic geography is but an expansion on broader lines of the same idea. Buckle, however, devoted most of his atten- tion to the influence of physical forces on the production of the food supply. With the diffi- culties of the problem of distribution, which he confesses are of greater importance, he declares himself unable to grapple. An exception, in- deed, is to be made in the case of " a very early stage of society," where Buckle thinks he can prove that " the distribution of wealth is, like its creation, governed entirely by physical laws." 4 1 Especially E. Hahn, Die Hausthiere und ihre Beziehung zur Wirtschaft des Menschen ( 1 896) . 2 Payne, History of the New World called America ; especially vol. i, bk. ii. All this was, however, substantially pointed out by Morgan twenty years earlier in his Ancient Society, p. 24. For Morgan, see chapter vi, below. 3 Metchnikoff, La Civilisation et les Grandes Fleuves Histo- riques. Prdface d'Elise'e Reclus. Paris, 1889. 4 Civilization in England, I, p. 52. EARLY PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY 15 His suggestive, but not very successful, attempt to prove this point, which rests upon an accept- ance of the one fundamental error of the classi- cal economists the wages-fund doctrine can here only be mentioned. 1 It is, however, important to emphasize the fact that, with this one exception, Buckle makes no endeavor to throw any light on the connection between physical environment and the distribution of wealth ; for distribution, he tells us, depends on "circumstances of great complexity, which it is not necessary here to examine," and of which, as he adds in a note, " many are still unknown." 2 1 Briefly put, the argument is as follows : The two great con- stituents of food are carbon and oxygen ; the colder the country, the more highly carbonized must be the food ; nitrogenous foods are less costly than carbonaceous ones. Wages depend on popu- lation, population on the food supply ; hence the tendency for wages in hot countries is to be low, in cold countries to be high. Finally, wages and profits vary in inverse proportions ; or, as he puts it elsewhere, if rent and interest are high, wages are low. Hence the great differentiation of rural classes in hot countries. 2 Civilization in England, I, p. 5 1 . It is amusing to note that the only law which Buckle himself accepts " the great law of the ratio between the cost of labor and the profits of stock " is precisely the one which, in its original form, has been discredited by modern economic research. Notwithstanding this fact, Mr. Robertson is so loyal to his hero that he calls it ''one of those generalisations by which Buckle really illuminates history." Robertson, Buckle and his Critics, p. 49. CHAPTER II PHILOSOPHICAL ANTECEDENTS OF THE THEORY THE explanation which Buckle made no attempt to give had been advanced more than a decade before by another writer who was des- tined to become far more famous and influen- tial. Karl Marx enjoyed some qualifications for the task which were denied to Buckle. Buckle was, indeed, well abreast of the foreign, as well as the English, literature on history and natural science ; but his economic views were almost entirely in accord with those of the prevalent English school. These principles so completely lacked the evolutionary point of view as to preclude any historical treatment of society. Karl Marx, on the other hand, not only possessed the philosophical and scientific equipment of a German university graduate, but found himself in direct and unqualified opposi- tion to the teachings of the professional econo- mists. While Buckle contented himself with pointing out how physical forces affect the pro- 16 ANTECEDENTS OF THE THEORY 17 duction of wealth, Marx addressed himself to the larger task of showing how the whole struc- ture of society is modified by the relations of social classes, and how these relations are themselves dependent on antecedent economic changes. In Buckle it was primarily the physi- cist that created a certain materialistic interpre- tation of history; in Marx it was the socialist that brought about a very different and specifi- cally economic interpretation of history. In order to understand the genesis of the economic interpretation of history it will be necessary to say a few words about the philosophical ante- cedents of Marx. Like most of the young Germans of the thir- ties, Marx was a firm believer in Hegel. The Hegelian philosophy, however, really contained two separate parts, the dialectical method and the system. The fundamental conception of the Hegelian dialectic is that of process, or devel- opment by the union of opposites a method that advances from notion to notion through negation. In all logic we begin with a half truth ; we proceed to its opposite, which is equally false ; and we then combine them into a third, which shows that they are equally true, when considered as necessary constituents of i8 ECONOMIC INTERPRETATION the whole. 1 This idea of process, or develop- ment, Hegel applied to his celebrated state- ment : " All that is real is reasonable ; all that is reasonable is real." Interpreted in one way, this would mean fatalism, or optimistic conserv- atism. But according to Hegel everything that exists is by no means real. Only that is real which in the course of its development shows itself to be necessary. When it is no longer necessary, it loses its reality. As some of his followers pointed out, the French government had become so unnecessary by 1 789 that not it, but the Revolution, was real. Hence the origi- nal statement turns into the opposite : All that is real becomes in the course of time unreason- able, and is thus from the very outset unreal ; all that is reasonable in idea is destined to be realized, even though it may for the moment be utterly unreal. The original statements of the reasonableness of what is real, and of the reality of what is reasonable, blend into the higher statement that all that exists is destined some day to pass out of existence. 2 1 Bonar, Philosophy and Political Economy, p. 300 ; and Schwegler, History of Philosophy, translated by Stirling (5th ed., 1875), P- 324- 2 F. Engels, Ludwig Feuerbach und der Ausgang der Klassi~ schen Deutschen Philosophic^ 1888 (2d ed., 1895), p. 3. ANTECEDENTS OF THE THEORY 19 The importance of this dialectical method lay in the idea of process in the realization of the fact that the conclusions of human thought and action are not final. Translated into social and political language, it formed the basis of the aspirations of the liberal and progressive elements in the community. On the other hand, Hegel himself never drew these radical conclusions from his theory because, although in his logic he made it clear that the truth is nothing but the dialectical process it- self, he nevertheless posited, as a result of his whole philosophy, the conception of the "abso- lute idea." Into the mysteries of this absolute idea we are not called upon to penetrate ; it is sufficient to point out that, as applied to the do- main of social politics, it results in a moderate conservatism. It is in the then existing Ger- man state that, according to Hegel, universal- ity and individuality, law and liberty the highest stage of the universal spirit find their reconciliation ! The antagonism between the dialectical and the absolute system of Hegel was not at first perceived. Just as both individualists and so- cialists to-day claim Adam Smith as the foun- tain head of their doctrines, so for a time both 20 ECONOMIC INTERPRETATION radicals and conservatives in Germany harked back to Hegel. Toward the end of the thirties the schism became apparent. The Young- Hegelians swore by the dialectical method and landed in radicalism ; the orthodox followers re- mained true to the "absolute idea" and became reactionaries. At first, however, politics was a dangerous field to enter, and the discussion turned on religion. As either Catholicism or Evangelical Protestantism was the state reli- gion in each of the German states, the attack on religion was indirectly political in character, and was recognized as such. Strauss had set the ball rolling in 1835 by his Life of Jesus. His assertion of the mythical character of the evangelist accounts led to a famous dispute with Bruno Bauer, who went one step farther and maintained that they were not even myths, but pure fabrications. In this reac- tion against the foundations of the state religion the Young- Hegelians were practically forced back to the philosophical materialism of England and France in the eighteenth century. But they now recognized the antagonism between their new views and the doctrine of Hegel. While the philosophical materialists had posited nature as the only reality, Hegel regarded the absolute ANTECEDENTS OF THE THEORY 21 idea that is, the intellect and its logical pro- cess as the fundamental conception, and na- ture as only the derivative or the reflex of the absolute idea. The uncertainty continued until the early forties, when Feuerbach published his Essence of Christianity? in which he sought to demol- ish the idealistic or transcendental basis of all theology. In this work Feuerbach claimed that nature exists independently of philosophy, that there is in reality nothing but nature and man, and that our religious conceptions are a product of ourselves, who again are nothing but a product of nature. Who has not heard of Feuerbach's famous phrase : Dcr Mensch ist was er isst "Man is what he eats " ? Feuer- bach at once showed the Young- Hegelians that, important as the Hegelian dialectics may have been, the "absolute idea" was not the basis, but the product. Feuerbach exerted a profound influence on the thinkers of the clay. Curiously enough, however, he also, in the domain of social poli- tics, gave rise to two antagonistic schools. Although in his philosophy a materialist, or rather a " naturalist," there was a decidedly 1 Das \Vesen dts Christenthums. 22 ECONOMIC INTERPRETATION idealistic strain in his ethical doctrine. With him religion is what the etymology of the word implies, the really important thing that binds men together. Of his attempt to erect an idealistic religion on a naturalistic basis, this is not the place to speak. 1 But it is important to point out that his doctrine of love as the basis of all religion led to the so-called " true " or " philosophical " socialism of the forties in Germany. The early socialists had accepted the views of the French reformers, St. Simon and Fourier. Now they asserted that all that was necessary was to apply Feuerbach's " hu- manism " to social relations, in order to pro- claim the speedy regeneration of mankind. The leaders of the " philosophical " socialists, Karl Grim and Moses Hess, 2 for a time domi- nated the social movement in Germany. While the superimposed idealism of Feuer- bach led to the "philosophical socialism" of the forties, his original and basic naturalism helped to produce in Karl Marx the founder of " scien- tific socialism." Marx was educated in Hegel- 1 Cf. Lange, Gcschichte des Materialismus, vol. ii (3d ed., i877), PP- 73-8i. 2 For their views in detail, see George Adler, Die Geschichte der ersten Sozial-polilischen Arbeiterbeivegung in Deutschland, pp. 83-85. ANTECEDENTS OF THE THEORY 23 ianism, and to the end of his days loved to coquet with the Hegelian dialectic. He had become a Young- Hegelian and was deeply influenced by the appearance of Feuerbach's book. This set him thinking. The materi- alistic idea he accepted as beyond dispute, but he recognized some of its weaknesses. The materialism of the eighteenth century was es- sentially mechanical and unhistorical. It had developed before science had assumed its mod- ern garb. The watchword of modern science is that of evolution through natural selection. Although this had not yet been proclaimed even by the natural scientists, or at all events had certainly not been applied by any one to social conceptions, the idea was in the air; and, although Marx was not at first specially well versed in natural science, the naturalism of Feuerbach, combined with the conception of process in the dialectic of Hegel, led him finally to the theory that all social institutions are the result of a growth, and that the causes of this growth are to be sought not in any idea, but in the conditions of material exist- ence. In other words, it led him to the eco- nomic interpretation of history. He then broke at once with the philosophical or sen- 24 ECONOMIC INTERPRETATION timental socialists, and devoted all his time henceforth to the deeper study of economic conditions. That Marx's analysis of economic conditions led him to scientific socialism is a thing by itself, with which we have here no concern ; for that is an economic theory, based upon his doctrines of surplus value and profits, which have been engaging the attention of econo- mists throughout the world. We need to lay stress on Marx's philosophy, rather than on his economics ; and his philosophy, as we now know, resulted in his economic interpretation of history. It chanced that he also became a socialist ; but his socialism and his philosophy of history are, as we shall see later, really independent. One can be an " economic materialist " and yet remain an extreme indi- vidualist. The fact that Marx's economics may be defective has no bearing on the truth or falsity of his philosophy of history. CHAPTER III GENESIS AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE THEORY LET us now proceed to illustrate the develop- ment of the new doctrine from the writings of Marx himself. It will be advisable to quote freely, because these earlier works of Marx are little known even in Germany, and are almost unknown outside of Germany. 1 Yet they are of the utmost importance in showing the gen- esis of an idea which is now one of the storm centres not only of economic and social, but also of philosophical, discussion. In his earliest essays we see only the radical political reformer. As a young man of twenty- four, he was called in 1842 to the editorship of the Rheinische Zeitung, a daily paper started 1 Just as these lines go to the printer, an announcement is made of the impending publication, in three volumes, of the more important of Marx's essays between 1841 and 1850, under the title : AHS dent Literarischen Nachlass von Karl Marx, Friedrich En gels und Ferdinand Lassalle. Herausgegeben i>on Franz Mehring. Gesammelte Schriften von Karl Marx itnd Friedrich Engels, 2841 bis 1850. Erster Band : Von Ma'rz, 1841, bis Ma'rz, 1844. Stuttgart, Dietz, 1901-1902. 25 26 ECONOMIC INTERPRETATION in Cologne by some of the Young-Hegelians who belonged to the radical party. While bat- tling for political reforms Marx had his atten- tion called for the first time to economic questions. He severely criticised the historical school of jurisconsults, because they regarded all existing legal institutions as the necessary, and therefore the wise, result of a long evolu- tion. To their optimistic conservatism Marx opposed the Hegelian idea of liberty. It was not, however, until after the Rheinische Zeitung had been suspended by the government in 1843 that Marx went to Paris 1 and became a socialist influenced largely by St. Simon and Proudhon, and possibly by the celebrated book of Lorenz Stein, which appeared the year be- fore, on the socialistic and communistic move- ment in France. 2 At Paris, Marx started in 1844, in conjunction with another leader of the 1 In the mean time he published anonymously a violem article on the Prussian censorship, in the Anekdota zur Neuesten Deutschen Philosophie lend Publttistik, von Bruno Bauer, Luchvig Feuerbach, Friedrich Koppen, Karl Nauwerk, Arnold Ruge und einigen Ungenannten, 1843. One of these " Ungenannten " was Karl Marx, who wrote under the title of a " Rhinelander." The article may be found in vol. i, pp. 56-88. 2 It is more than probable, however, that Marx was convertec to socialism wholly by the French writers vvnc tnaoiseives axerted so great an influence or Stein Cf the correspondence of Arnold Ruge, vol. i. DEVELOPMENT OF THE THEORY 27 Young-Hegelians, Arnold Ruge, the Deutsch- Framb'sische Jahrbucher. Here the beginning of the opposition to the French communists is perceptible ; for in the introductory editorial we are told that what has saved Germany from " the metaphysical and fantastical ideas of Lamennais, Proudhon, St. Simon and Fourier " is the Hegelian logic. 1 Yet Marx showed the influence of Feuerbach by writing an article in criticism of Hegel's Philosophy of Law. in which he sought to prove how theological criti- cism was now necessarily being replaced by political criticism. Marx, indeed, went a step farther, and empha- sized the necessity of a revolution of the fourth estate, the proletariat. He was beginning to formulate his ideas on economic questions. " The relation of industry and of the world of wealth in general to the political world is the chief problem of modern times.'" 2 In another place he tells us that "revolutions 1 Deutsch-FranzosischeJahrbftcher. Herausgegeben i-on Arnold und Karl Mar.r. Erste und Zwcite Liefcrung, 1844. p. 8. Cf. also : " Uns Deutsche hat . . . von der Willklir und Phan- tastik das Hcgelsche System befreit." -"Das Vcrhaltniss dcr Industrie, iiberhaupt dcr Welt des Reichthums zu dcr politischcn Welt ist ein Hauptproblem der inodernen Zeit." Ibid., p. 75. 28 ECONOMIC INTERPRETATION need a passive element, a material basis." 1 In a later essay in the same periodical on the " Jewish Question," in which he opposed the views of Bruno Bauer, Marx claims that " we must emancipate ourselves before we can emancipate others." 2 He seeks to show that the importance of the French Revolution con- sisted in freeing not only the political forces of society, but also the economic basis on which the political superstructure rested. 3 The politi- cal change was in a certain sense idealism ; but it marked at the same time the materialism of society. 4 The double number of the Deutsch-Fran- zosische Jahrbucher was the only one that ap- peared. Ruge and Marx could not agree in their attitude toward the question of commu- nism. While in Paris, however, Marx formed 1 " Die Revolutionen bediirfen namlich eines passiven Ele- mentes, einer materiellen Grundlage. . . . Die Theorie wird in einem Volke immer nur so weit verwircklicht als sie die Ver- wircklichung seiner Bedlirfnisse 1st." Deutsch-Franzosische Jahrbiicher, p. 80. 2 Ibid., p. 184. 8 " Die politische Emancipation ist zugleich die Auflb'sung der alten Gesellschaft, auf welcher das dem Volk entfremdete Staats- wesen, die Herrschermacht, ruht. Die politische Revolution ist die Revolution der biirgerlichen Gesellschaft." Ibid.) p. 204. 4 " Allein die Vollendung des Idealismus des Staats war zu- gleich die Vollendung des Materialismusder biirgerlichen Gesell- schaft." Ibid., p. 205. DEVELOPMENT OF THE THEORY 29 an intimacy with his lifelong friend, Frederick Engels, whose acquaintance he had originally made while both were working on the editorial staff of the Rheinische Zeitung? They now decided to write in common a work against Bruno Bauer, who represented the more specu- lative wing of the Young-Hegelians. This appeared in 1845 under the title of The Holy Family? In this book, written almost entirely by Marx, he shows the strong influence of Feuer- bach. 3 As he was at that time, however, more interested in opposing the transcendental notions of the other Young- Hegelians in gen- eral than in emphasizing the differences be- tween himself and the "sentimental " socialists, it will not surprise us to find him defending Proudhon. 4 Yet even here Marx shows the 1 Some correspondence of this early period is preserved in "Aus den Briefen von Engels an Marx" in Die Neue Zeit, XIX (1901), ii, pp. 505 et scq. ' 2 Die Heilige Fatnilie oder Kritik der Kritischen Kritik. Gegen Bruno Bauer und Consorten. Von Friedrich Engels und Karl Marx. Frankfurt a. M., 1845. 8 Cf. the enthusiastic description of Feuerbach on p. 139 and the disdainful attitude toward Hegel on p. 126. 4 " Proudhon's Schrift ' Qifcst-ce quela Propriete" ' hat dieselbe Bedeutung fur die moderne Nationalbkonomie, welche Say's [evidently a misprint for Sieycs'] Schrift ' Qu'est-ce que le tiers Etat ' fur die moderne Politik hat." Ibid., p. 36. 30 ECONOMIC INTERPRETATION essentially mechanical nature of the older French materialism, and points out how the philosophic materialism of Helvetius and Hoi- bach led to the socialism of Babceuf and Fou- rier. 1 Incidentally, Marx calls attention to the economic basis of the French Revolution, and points out that the individual of the French Revolution differed from the individual of clas- sic antiquity because his economic and indus- trial relations were different. 2 Finally, in another passage he asks outright : " Do these gentlemen think that they can understand the first word of history as long as they exclude the relations of man to nature, natural science and industry ? Do they believe that they can actually comprehend any epoch without grasping the industry of the period, the immediate methods of production in actual 1 " Fourier geht unmittelbar von der Lehre der franzosischen Materialisten aus. Die Babouvisten vvaren rohe uncivilisSrte Materialisten, aber auch der entwickelte Communismus datirt direkt von dem franzosischen Materialismus." Op. cit., p. 207, and the quotations on pp. 209-211. As the volume is extremely scarce, it may be noted that a part of this chapter was reprinted in Die Neue Zeit, III (1885), pp. 385-395. 2 In speaking of a placard containing the Declaration of Rights, Marx says : " Eben diese Tabelle proklamirte das Recht eines Menschen, der nicht der Mensch des antiken Gemeinwesens sein kann, so wenig als seine nationalokonomischen und in- dustriellen Verhaltnisse die antiken sind." Ibid., p. 192. DEVELOPMENT OF THE THEORY 31 life ? . . . Just as they separate the soul from the body, and themselves from the world, so they separate history from natural science and industry, so they find the birthplace of history not in the gross material production on earth, but in the misty cloud formation of heaven." ! Although we find in Marx's early works only these incidental allusions to the doctrine of economic interpretation, we are told by Engels, the literary executor of Marx, that Marx had worked out his theory by 1845.- That Engels 1 " Oder glaubt die kritische Kritik in der Erkenntniss der geschichtlichen Wirklichkeit auch nur zum Anfang gekommen zu sein, so lange sie das theoretische und praktische Verhaltniss des Menschen zur Natur, die Naturwissenschaft und die Industrie, aus der geschichtlichen Bewegung ausschliesst? Oder meint sie irgend eine Periode in der That schon erkannt zu haben, ohne z. B. die Industrie dieser Periode, die unmittelbare Produktions- weise des Lebens selbst, erkannt zu haben? . . . Wie sie das Denken von dem Sinnen, die Seele vom Leibe. sich selbst von der Welt trennt, so trennt sie die Geschichte von der Natur- wissenschaft und Industrie, so sieht sie nicht in der grob- materiellcn Produktion auf der Erde, sondern in der dunstigen Wolkenbildung am Himmel die Geburtstatte der Geschichte." 1 - Die Heiligc Familie, p. 238. 2 ' The 'manifesto 1 being our joint production, I consider myself bound to state that the fundamental proposition which forms its nucleus belongs to Marx. That proposition is : that in every historical epoch the prevailing mode of economic produc- tion and exchange, and the social organization necessarily follow- ing from it, form the basis upon which it is built up, and from which alone can be explained the political and intellectual his- tory of that epoch ; that, consequently, etc. etc. . . . "This proposition, which in my opinion is destined to do fof 32 ECONOMIC INTERPRETATION is quite correct in this is shown not only by the quotations just mentioned, but also by the annotations which Marx made to Feuerbach in I845/ 1 Marx here objects to the old mechanical materialistic doctrine that men are simply the results of their environment, because it forgets that this environment can itself be changed by man. 2 He also takes exception to Feuerbach's whole view of religion, on the ground that Feuerbach fails to perceive that man is the product of his social relations and that religion itself is a social outgrowth. 3 A fuller statement history what Darwin's theory has done for biology, we both had been rapidly approaching for some years before 1845. But when I again met Marx ... in spring, 1845, ne had it already worked out, and put it before me in terms almost as clear as those in which I have stated it here." Manifesto of the Communist Party, by Marx and Engels. Authorized English translation, edited and annotated by Frederick Engels, 1888, preface, pp. 5, 6. This preface was written in English by Engels, and appeared in German only in subsequent editions. 1 Published as an appendix to Ludivig Feuerbach und der Ausgang der Klassischen Deutschen Philosophic, Von Friedrich Engels. Mit Anhang, Karl Marx liber Feuerbach, vom Jahre 1845 (1888). 2 " Die materialistische Lehre, dass die Menschen Produkte der Umstande und der Erziehung sind, vergisst, class die Um- stande eben von den Menschen verandert werden und dass der Erzieher selbst erzogen werden muss." Op. at., p. 80. 3 " Feuerbach lost das religiose Wesen in das menschliche Wesen auf. Aber das menschliche Wesen ist kein . . . Abstrak- tum. In seiner Wirklichkeit, ist es das Ensemble der gesell- schaftlichen Verhaltnisse. . . . Feuerbach sieht nicht, dass das DEVELOPMENT OF THE THEORY 33 of his new 1 position, however, is found in some recently discovered essays which were written at about that time.' 2 These articles, published anonymously in the Westfaliscker Damp/boot* are of cardinal importance because Marx now for the first time emphasized his disagreement with the "sentimental socialists." In the first series of articles, Marx criticises a German communistic sheet published in New York, which was devoting much attention to the Anti-Rent Riots. 4 Marx discusses the agrarian movement in the United States and tries to show from his new point of view the connection be- ' religiose Gemlith ' selbst ein gesellschaftliches Produkt ist." Lmhvig Feuerbach, p. 81. 1 Peter von Struve claims that this new position was not occupied by Marx until 1846. Cf. his articles, " Zur Entwick- lungsgeschichte des wissenschaftlichen So/.ialismus," 1 in Die Neue Zeit, XV (1897), i, p. 68, and ii, pp. 228, 269. Struve, however, seems to lay too little stress on the points emphasized above. Cf. also the article of Kampffmeyer, Die okonomischen Grundlagen des deutschen Sozialismus," in Die Neue Zeit, V ( 1 887), especially p. 536, where attention is called to Marx's historical interpretation of history in his letters to Ruge in 1843. 2 The substance of these essays has been printed by Struve in Die NeueZeit, XIV (1896), 41-48. under the title of " Zwei bisher unbekannte Aufsatze von Karl Marx aus den vierziger Jahren. Ein Beitrag zur Entstehungsgeschichte des wissenschaftlichen Sozialismus.'" 8 A monthly review edited by Otto Liining, which lived from 1845 to 1848. 4 Der Volkstribun, edited by H. Kriege in 1846. D 34 ECONOMIC INTERPRETATION tween economic and political phenomena. In a second series of articles 1 he joins issue with Grlin and Hess, the chief advocates of philosophical socialism, and ridicules their failure to perceive that an alteration in methods of production brings about changes in the whole social life. 2 By i847 3 Marx had made a somewhat deeper study of economic history. He was now so convinced of the truth of his new theory that he proceeded to make a furious onslaught on 1 " F arl Grim, die soziale Bewegung in Frankreich und Bdjr'en oder die Geschichtsschreibung des wahren Sozialismus. 1 ' This appeared early in 1847. The whole of this essay has now been printed, with an introduction by . Bernstein, in Die Neue Zeit, XVIII (1900), op. 4, 37, 132, 164. 2 " Herr Grriin vergisst, dass Brot heutzutage durch Dampf- miihlen, fruher durch Wind und Wassermiihlen, noch fruher durch Handmuhlen produzirt wurde, dass diese verschieclenen Produktionsweisen vom blossen Brotessen ganzlich unabhangig sind. . . . Dass mit diesen verschiedenen Stufen der Produk- tion auch verschiedene Verhaltnisse der Produktion zur Consum- tion, verschiedene Widerspriiche beider gegeben sind, dass diese Widerspriiche zu verstehen sind nur aus einer Betrachtung, zu Ib'sen rur durch eine praktische Veranderung, der jedesmeligen Produktionsweise und des gan en darauf basirenden gesellschaft- 'ichen Zustandes : das ahnt Herr Griin merit. 1 ' {Die Neue Zeit, XIV, ii, j. 51.) That the difference between Marx and the " true socialists " na^, otten been exaggerated is claimed by Mehring in Die Neut Zeit, XIV, ii, p. 401. 8 In this year Marx also published an article in the Deutsche Briisseler Zeitung entitled " Die moralisierende Kritik und die kritisierende Moral, ein Beitrag zur deutschen Kulturgeschichte." It was directed against Karl Heinzen and was of very much the same character as his attack on Griin. DEVELOPMENT OF THE THEORY 35 the older socialists in the person of their chief representative Proudhon. In reply to Prou- dhon's Philosophy of Misery Marx wrote his Misery of Philosophy. Here he elaborates the theory that economic institutions are historical categories and that history itself must be inter- preted in the light of economic development. We read in French, it is true, for Marx wrote equally well in German, English and French - that the conception of private property changes in each historical epoch, in a series of entirely different social relations. 1 In a more general way Marx contends that all social relations are intimately connected with the productive forces of society. He tells us that '* in changing the modes of production, mankind changes all its social relations. The hand mill creates a society with the feudal lord ; the steam mill a society with the industrial capitalist. The J " A chaque dpoque historique, ia proprie'te' s'est developpe'e diffe'remment et dans une sdrie de rapports sociaux enticement diffdrents Ainsi ddfinir la propri^te" bourg;eo'se n'esi autre chose que faire rexpose" de tous te= rapports sociaux de la production bourgeoise Voulou donner une definition de la proprie'te' comme d'un rapport inde*pendant, d'unc categoric a part, d'une idde abstraite et dternelle, cela ne pent ctre qu'une illusion de mdtaphysique ou de jurisprudence." Afish'c de la Diihsophie. Rtponse & la Philosophic de la Mistrc de .'/. rrotidlwn. Par Karl Marx, 1847, p. 153. 36 ECONOMIC INTERPRETATION same men who establish social relations in con- formity with their material production also create principles, ideas and categories in con- formity with their social relations. . . . All such ideas and categories are therefore histori- cal and transitory products." * In another place he maintains that " the rela- tions in which the productive forces of society manifest themselves, far from being eternal laws, correspond to definite changes in man and in his productive forces." 2 Marx applies this general law in many ways. Thus, in an 1 " Les rapports sociaux sont intimement lies aux forces pro- ductives. En acquirant de nouvelles forces productives les hommes changent leur mode de production, et en changeant leur mode de production, la maniere de gagner leur vie, ils changent tous leurs rapports sociaux. Le moulin a bras vous donnera la socie'te' avec le suzerain ; le moulin a vapeur, la societe" avec le capitaliste industriel. . . . Les memes hommes qui e'tablissent les rapports sociaux conforme'ment a leur productivity materielle produisent aussi les principes, les idees, les categories, conforme'- ment a leurs rapports sociaux. . . . Ainsi ces ide"es, ces catego- ries, sont aussi peu eternelles que les relations qu'elles expriment. Elles sont des produits historiques et transitoires." Misere de la Philosophic, pp. 99, 100. 2 " N'est-ce pas dire assez que le mode de production, les rap- ports dans lesquels les forces productives se deVeloppent, ne sont rien moins que des lois e'ternelles, mais qu'ils correspondent a un de'veloppement determine des hommes et de leurs forces produc- tives, et qu'un changement survenu dans les forces productives des hommes amene ndcessairement un changement dans les rapports de production." Ibid., p. 115 ; cf. pp. 152, 177. DEVELOPMENT OF THE THEORY 37 acute study of the doctrine of rent, he points out that rent in the Ricardian sense is nothing but "patriarchal agriculture transformed into commercial industry " ; 1 and, after explaining the historical growth of modern agricultural conditions, he concludes by objecting to the whole classical school, because it fails to see that economic institutions can be understood only as historical categories. 2 In another pas- sage he contends that money itself is not a thing, but a social relation, and that this rela- tion corresponds to a definite form of produc- tion in precisely the same way as exchanges between individuals. 8 Finally, in analyzing the essence of machinery and the historical impor- tance of the principle of division of labor, Marx 1 u La rente, dans le sens de Ricardo, c'est Tagriculture patri- arcale transformed en Industrie commerciale, le capital industriel applique* a la terre, la bourgeoisie des villes transplanted dans les campagnes." 1 Miser e de la Philosophic, p. 159. 2 " Ricardo apre*s avoir suppose" la production bourgeoise comme ne"cessaire pour determiner la rente, 1'applique ne*anmoins a la propridtd fonciere de toutes les epoques et de tous les pays. Ce sont la les errements de tous les e*conomistes qui re*presentent les rapports de la production bourgeoise comme des categories e"ternelles." /">/ P- 355- does not refer to the general problem of determinism, as Masaryk (Grundlagen des Mar. \isinus, p. 232) seems to think, but to freedom in the sense of liberation from the necessity of working all day in the factory and having no time for self- ; mprove merit. ioo ECONOMIC INTERPRETATION vation that men will choose a course of action in harmony with what they conceive to be their welfare, and on the further observation that the very idea of an organized community implies that a majority will be found to enter- tain common ideas of what is their welfare. If the conditions change, the common ideas will change with them. The conditions, so far as they are social in character, are indeed created by men and may be altered by men, so that in last resort there is nothing fatalistic about progress. 1 But it is after all the conditions which, because of their direct action or reac- tion on individuals, are at any given moment responsible for the general current of social thought. To the extent, then, that the theory of eco- nomic interpretation is simply a part of the general doctrine of social environment, the con- tention that it necessarily leads to an unreason- 1 It is impossible to speak in any but respectful terms of Professor James. The limits of our toleration, however, are well- nigh reached when we find such an extreme statement as this : " I cannot but consider the talk of the contemporary sociological school about averages and general causes the most pernicious and immoral of fatalisms." See the chapter on " The Impor- tance of Individuals," in The Will to Believe, p. 262. This appar- ently shows an egregious misconception of the very nature of social law. FREEDOM AND NECESSITY 101 ing fatalism is baseless. Men are the product of history, but history is made by men. 1 1 Those interested in the discussion of this point by the socialists may be referred to the articles of Kautsky, Bernstein and Mehring in Die Neue Zeit, XVII (1899), 2, pp. 4, 150, 268 and 845. Engels has also touched upon it several times, in his Anti-Duhring. in his Lndivig Feuerbach (2d ed., 1895), p. 44, and more fully in his letter of 1894 published in Der Sozialistische Akademiker (1895), p. 373, and reprinted in Woltmann, Der Historische Materialismus, p. 250. CHAPTER II HISTORICAL LAW AND SOCIALISM THE second objection to the theory under discussion is closely related to the first The economic interpretation of history presupposes that there are historical laws. Yet this is de- murred to by some. Those, however, who deny the existence of historical laws are evidently laboring under a misapprehension. What they obviously mean is that the statement of some particular histori- cal law is false, or that the causes of some definite historical occurrence are so complex and so obscure that it is well-nigh impossible to frame a general explanation. But they can- not mean that historical laws do not exist. The mere fact that we have not discovered a law does not prove that there is none. For what is meant by a scientific law ? A law is an explanatory statement of the actual re- lations between facts. The processes of human thought enable us to classify the likenesses and 102 HISTORICAL LAW AND SOCIALISM 103 differences in the myriad phenomena of life, and to subsume the unity underlying these differences. This unity makes itself known to us under the guise of a causal relation of one phenomenon to another. When we have suc- ceeded in ascertaining the relation of cause and effect we are able to frame the law. But our inability to discover the law does not invalidate the fact of its existence. The relations between the stars existed from the beginning of time ; the discovery of the law which enables us to explain these relations is a result of scientific progress. 1 What is true of the exact sciences is equally true of the social sciences, with the difference that the social sciences are immeasurably more complex because of the greater difficulty in iso- lating the phenomena to be investigated, and in repeating the experiments. But to deny the existence of social laws, for instance, simply be- 1 This does not, of course, imply that the law possesses an objective existence apart from our apperceptions. A considera- tion of this problem belongs to the science of epistemology. The questions of the " Ding an sich '' and of the necessary limits of human thought have no place in this discussion ; nor have they any bearing upon the particular objection here alluded to. For the contention in question is not that historical laws have no objective existence, but that there is no possibility of our framing an adequate explanation of causal relations. 104 ECONOMIC INTERPRETATION cause some particular alleged laws may be convicted of unreality would be to repeat the errors formerly committed by some of the ex- tremists among the historical economists and not yet so infrequent as they ought to be. Obedience to law does not mean that the law causes the phenomenon to happen, for that is absurd, but simply that the law affords an explanation of the occurrence. History, however, is the record of the actions of men in society. It is not alone past politics, as Freeman said, but past economics, and past ethics, and past jurisprudence, and past every other kind of social activity. But if each phase of social activity constitutes the material for a separate science, with its array of scientific laws, the whole of social activity, which in its cease- less transformation forms the warp and woof of history, must equally be subject to law. All social activity may be regarded from the point of view of coexistence of phenomena or from that of sequence of phenomena. In the one case we arrive at the static laws, in the other at the dynamic laws. The laws of history are the dynamic laws of the social sciences or of the social science par excellence. To deny the existence of historical laws is to maintain that HISTORICAL LAW AND SOCIALISM 105 there is to be found in human life no such thing as cause and effect. The third objection to the doctrine is its alleged socialistic character. To this it may be replied that, if the theory is true, it is utterly immaterial to what conclusion it leads. To refuse to accept a scientific law because some of its corollaries are distasteful to us is to be- tray a lamentable incapacity to grasp the ele- mentary conditions of scientific progress. If the law is true, we must make our views con- form to the law, not attempt to mould the law to our views. Fortunately, however, we are not reduced to any such alternative. For, notwithstanding the ordinary opinion to the contrary, there is noth- ing in common between the economic interpre- tation of history and the doctrine of socialism, except the accidental fact that the originator of both theories happened to be the same man. Karl Marx founded " scientific socialism," if by that curious phrase we mean his theory of sur- plus value and the conclusions therefrom. Karl Marx also originated the economic inter- pretation of history and thought that his own version of this interpretation would prove to io6 ECONOMIC INTERPRETATION be a bulwark of his socialistic theory. And most of his followers have thought likewise. Thus, Mehring tells us that " historical idealism in its various theological, rationalistic and materialistic manifestations is the conception of history of the bourgeois class, as historical materialism is that of the laboring class." : It is plain, however, that the two things have nothing to do with each other. We might agree that economic factors primarily influence progress ; we might conclude that social forces, rather than individual whim, at bottom make history; we might perhaps even accept the existence of class struggles ; but none of these admissions would necessarily lead to any sem- blance of socialism. Scientific socialism teaches that private property in capital is doomed to disappear; the economic interpretation of his- tory calls attention, among other things, to the influence which private capital has exerted on progress. The vast majority of economic thinkers to-day believe, as a result of this historical study, that the principle of private property is a logical and salutary result of human development, however much they may be disposed to emphasize the need of social con- 1 Die Lessing-Legende, p. 500. HISTORICAL LAW AND SOCIALISM 107 trol. The Neo- Marxists themselves such as Bernstein, for instance disagree with Marx's view as to the immediate future of the class struggle, and consider that his doctrine of the "impending cataclysm of capitalistic society" has been disproved by the facts of the half cen- tury which has intervened since the theory was propounded. Yet Bernstein would not for a moment abandon his belief in the economic interpretation of history as we have described it. 1 In fact, the socialistic application of the economic interpretation of history is exceed- ingly nai've. If history teaches anything at all, it is that the economic changes transform society by slow and gradual steps. It took centuries for feudal society to develop ; it took centuries for private capital to convert feudal- ism into modern industrial society. The char- acteristic mark of the modern factory system, still in its infancy, is the predominance of the individual or corporate entrepreneur on a huge scale, as we see it typified in the present trust 1 In his most recent book Bernstein speaks of the " realistische Geschichtsbetrachtung die in ihren Hauptziigen umviderlegt geblieben ist." 1 Zur Gcschichte mid Thcorie des (2d ed., 1901), p. 285. io8 ECONOMIC INTERPRETATION movement in America. To suppose that pri- vate property and private initiative, which are the very secrets of the whole modern move- ment, will at once give way to the collective ownership which forms the ideal of the social- ists, is to shut one's eyes to the significance of actual facts and to the teachings of history itself. 1 Roclbertus was at least more logical than Marx when he asserted that the triumph of socialism would be a matter of the dim future. Socialism is a theory of what ought to be; historical materialism is a theory of what has been. The one is teleological, the other is descriptive. The one is a speculative ideal, 2 the other is a canon of interpretation. It is impossible to see any necessary connection between such divergent conceptions. Even if every one of Marx's economic theories was entirely false, this fact alone would not in any degree invalidate the general doctrine of eco- nomic interpretation. It is perfectly possible 1 Marx, indeed, in one passage predicts the formation of trusts. But he, as well as his followers, overlooks the fact that concentrated capital, like separated capital, can do its best work only under the lash of individual initiative and personal responsibility. 2 The " scientific socialists " deny this, but in vain. HISTORICAL LAW AND SOCIALISM 109 to be the stanchest individualist and at the same time an ardent advocate of the doctrine of eco- nomic interpretation. In fact, the writers who are to-day making the most successful applica- tion of economic interpretation are not socialists at all. We might agree with the general doc- trine and yet refuse to accept the somewhat fanciful ideals of the non-socialist Loria; we might agree with the general doctrine and yet refuse to accept the equally fanciful ideals of the socialist Marx. Socialism and "historical ma- terialism " are at bottom entirely independent conceptions. Furthermore, we must distinguish between the principle of economic interpretation in gen- eral, and some particular application of the principle. When the phrase " historical mate- rialism " is mentioned in Germany, or in so- cialistic circles abroad, every one at once thinks of Karl Marx, because he has been virtually the only writer in Germany to attempt a con- sistent explanation of history on economic lines. " Historical materialism " and Marxism have thus come to be considered synonymous. In other countries, however, we find many dif- ferent versions of the theory. To speak only of America, Gunton, Patten and Brooks Adams, I io ECONOMIC INTERPRETATION who are by no means in thorough accord with each other, agree in ascribing the chief impor- tance to economic factors. Yet each one of these writers would utterly refuse to be put in the same category as Marx. We are not here concerned with the validity of some particular explanation of historical facts on economic lines. We are endeavoring to ascertain how far the theory of economic interpretation in general is tenable as a prin- ciple. To make the general principle stand or fall with some particular application would be narrow in the extreme. The problem of the truth of economic interpretation is not necessarily bound up with the Marxian ver- sion of such interpretation. Just as the Marx- ian economics must not be confused with economics in general, so the Marxian interpre- tation of history is by no means synonymous with economic interpretation in general. But while socialism and " historical mate- rialism " are thus in no way necessarily con- nected, it does not follow that they may not both be equally erroneous. All that we have attempted to prove here is that the falsity of socialism does not, of and in itself, connote the falsity of economic interpretation. The fact HISTORICAL LAW AND SOCIALISM in that one argument is bad does not imply that other arguments are good. The validity of the economic interpretation of history is still open to question and cannot be decided until after a study of other and far more important con- siderations. NOTE TO SECOND EDITION. Perhaps the ablest writer of the " revisionist " school of Socialists, Dr. Michael Tugan- Baranowsky, has abandoned one after another all of the claims of " scientific socialism." A large part of his recent book on Theoretische Grundlagcn des Marxisntus, 1905, is devoted to the economic interpretation of history. To the extent that Marx's " materialistic version of history " implies the existence of the class-struggle as the sole explanation of progress, Tugan-Baranowsky characterizes it as a fatal error {grassier Irrtitni). He recognizes the fact, however, that this second doctrine (that of class-struggle) is not in any way a logical conclusion from the first doctrine (that the material economic factors are the determining elements in history). In other words, he confesses, what has been con- tended in the above pages, that the Marxist socialistic ver- sion of the economic interpretation of history is neither inevitable nor defensible. Tugan-Baranowsky then takes up in turn the labor theory of value, the doctrine of surplus- value, the impoverishment theory, and the doctrine of the cataclysm of society, showing that each one of these is no longer tenable in the face of the criticisms urged by the economists. What then, we may ask, is left of scientific socialism ? CHAPTER III THE SPIRITUAL FACTORS IN HISTORY THUS far we have set forth the theory of the economic interpretation of history and have studied some of the objections that are com- monly advanced. There still remain among the criticisms most frequently encountered two points which seem to be somewhat more for- midable. Of these perhaps the more important is the one that figured fourth in our original list, 1 the objection, namely, that the theory of economic interpretation neglects the ethical and spiritual forces in history. It must be confessed, indeed, that the attempts thus far made by the " historical materialists " to meet the objection have not been attended with much success. 2 On closer inspection, neverthe- 1 Supra, p. 90. 9 - Cf. especially the controversy carried on between the Eng- lishman Bax and the German Kautsky in Die Neue Zeit. For Bax, see vol. xv, pp. 175, 685 ; for Kautsky, see vol. xiv, p. 652, and vol. xv, pp. 231, 260. Cf. also Mehring, Die Lessing- Legende, p. 463 ; and the essay by Bernstein in Die Neue Zeit, 112 SPIRITUAL FACTORS IN HISTORY 113 less, this criticism also turns out to be in some respects less weighty than has often been sup- posed. For what, after all, is the realm of ethical or spiritual forces ? To answer this question it is necessary to distinguish between the existence of the moral law and its genesis. The fail- ure to draw this distinction is largely responsi- ble for the confusion of thought which still prevails. From the historical point of view it no longer admits of reasonable doubt that all individual ethics is the outgrowth of social forces. Moral actions are of two kinds, those which directly affect other individuals, and those which pri- marily affect only one's self. In the first class, comprising to-day the great mass of activities to which we apply the term "ethical," the sanc- tion was originally social in character. The con- ception of sin or immorality is not the primary conception. Historically we first find crimes and torts, that is, offences against society as a whole or against the individuals comprising vol. xi, p. 782. Bernstein has also treated tlie subject in his more recent books. As to the French socialists, see Labriola, Essais sur la Con- ception Matlrialiste de 1'Histoire (1897); Lafargue, Idlalisme et MatlrialisHie (1895) ; and Deville, Principes Socialises (1896). ii4 ECONOMIC INTERPRETATION society ; it is only at a much later period that the idea emerges of an offence against God or against the moral law as reflected in one's con- science. When the conception of sin was once reached, it was indeed gradually broadened so as to include the other offences, until to-day the commission of either crime or tort involves a sin. But historically sins were not recog- nized as such before torts and crimes. Among brutes there is in all probability no such thing as morality, no conception of good or evil. 1 The female may protect her young through instinct ; but to maintain that this is a moral action is, to say the least, premature. It no doubt conduces to the perpetuation of the species, and thus is a powerful factor in natural selection ; but there is nothing moral about the action unless we are willing to apply the term "moral" to every act whether instinc- 1 The reason why it is not safe categorically to deny the exist- ence of morality among animals is that the older contention of an essential psychical difference between man and animals has broken down before the flood of recent investigation. Compara- tive biology has proved that psychological phenomena begin far down in animal life. Some writers even profess to find them among the very lowest classes of beings so low, indeed, that it is even doubtful whether they belong to the animal or the vege- table kingdom. For a popular presentation see Binet, The Psychic Life of Micro-Organisms (1894). Binefs views, however, are not shared by the more conservative biologists. SPIRITUAL FACTORS IN HISTORY 115 tive or volitional that makes for the perma- nence of the species. Morality in its origin indeed implies utility ; but utility does not necessarily connote morality. Even if we predi- cate morality of animals, however, future inves- tigators will no doubt explain its origin on very much the same lines as that of human morality. For with the institution of human society we are on safer ground and can trace the glimmer- ings of a moral development. In the primitive peoples that still exist in almost the lowest stages of savagery, the only offences that are recognized are even to-day offences against the horde or clan, that is, what we should call public offences or crimes. Treason, incest and witchcraft are the three great original crimes that are almost universally found. They are offences against the community, because they imperil, in the estimation of the people, the very existence of society. At first there is no idea of sin apart from these offences. The words "good " or " bad " are in- variably applied only to actions affecting the social group. The very conception of wrong is a social conception. Certain actions come to be considered wrong because they are so- ii6 ECONOMIC INTERPRETATION cially injurious. They are punished by society as a whole, and the cause of their punishment is to be found in the consciousness of society that they are infractions of the fundamental social customs which have been so laboriously developed. For these customs are the " teach- ings of mother nature drilled into countless generations of savage ancestors. They are lessons in social necessity, in social selection, where failure to learn or refusal to obey means the inevitable destruction of the social group means social death." l What has been said of crimes applies also to torts. The earliest offence of the aboriginal savage against his comrade carried with it no more moral implication than does to-day the killing of one animal by another. Passionate action and retaliation were originally with men, as they are still with brutes, the form assumed by the desire for physical mastery. The animal struggle for existence is neither moral nor im- moral it is unmoral. As soon, however, as the offence of man against man w r as taken notice of by society, as soon as the retaliation was regulated by social custom or law, the 1 Hall, Crime in its Relation to Social Progress. Columbia University Studies in History, Economics and Public Law, XV (1902), p. 55 SPIRITUAL FACTORS IN HISTORY 117 punishment was invested with a social sane- tion, and the act began to be regarded as reprehensible. When human beings came to see that certain actions directed against their fellows were followed by social reprobation or by individual vengeance resting on social approval, it did not take long to learn that if they valued their existence in society they must refrain from such actions. In the con- test of man with man each individual always has a chance of victory; he therefore feels no certainty that a given act will be followed by any baneful consequences to him. But against a social group, the individual is pow- erless, and his opportunity for escape from punishment is slight. In the course of ages social customs grow so rigid that any deviation from the habitual usage comes to be regarded not only as peculiar but as positively harmful, and therefore reprehensi- ble. The fear of social disapproval and the hope of social approval become the forces which lead to the original ideas of evil or good as applied to the social actions of the individual. Whether the conception of tort or that of crime is the earlier historically, need not be discussed here. Most writers assume that Ii8 ECONOMIC INTERPRETATION torts precede crimes ; and it is undoubtedly true that many torts are gradually transformed into crimes. On the other hand, it is almost equally certain that some crimes have pre- ceded torts. Adultery was a crime as incest before it was a tort ; deception was a crime as treason before it was a tort. However that may be, the point of importance for us is that both torts and crimes are offences with a social sanction, and that before this social sanction existed there was no such idea as that of sin or immorality applicable to the actions of man to man. The teachings of language itself afford a clear indication of the social origin of the con- ception of morality. The word "ethical" is de- rived from ^#09, which means social custom or usage ; just as " moral," which Cicero tells us * he coined in imitation of the Greek, is derived from mos, denoting precisely the same as 77#o5. So also the German term for moral, sittlich, is derived from Sitte, or social usage. It is society which has set the original imprint on the very conception of morality. Not only is the idea of morality an historical product, but the content of morality changes 1 Cicero, Dt Fato, cap. li. SPIRITUAL FACTORS IN HISTORY 119 with the state of civilization or with the social class. Homicide was at one time as little im- moral as the killing of one animal by another is at present ; it was simply unmoral. Even to-day it is not immoral if committed by a soldier in warfare ; it becomes murder and sinful only when the same individual acts in some other capacity than that of a member of the army. Again, with reference to some acts it is not quite clear whether they are right or wrong. For instance, the deception practised by General Funston to entrap Aguinaldo is declared by some to be not wholly wrong because it scarcely, if at all, violated the social usages of civilized nations in warfare pro- vided, that is, that we are willing to confess that there is a difference between civilized and uncivilized warfare. On the other hand, the looting by some of the allies of the treas- ures in Pekin and Tien-tsin is conceded by almost every one to be wrong, because it has recently become a custom reprobated by the social conscience of the most civilized peoples. Competition is still the rule in business life : economists call it neither moral nor immoral. But competition between members of the smaller social group known as the family is no 120 ECONOMIC INTERPRETATION longer deemed defensible, because it has long since been recognized by society at large that social welfare would, on the whole, be furthered by the practice of family cooperation. The taking of private property without compensa- tion is ordinarily considered wrong; but when a man's house is blown up to check a con- flagration, the action is neither morally nor legally wrong, because of the overmastering social considerations. Thus the conception of right or wrong does not attach invariably to any particular action, because the same action may, under different circumstances and as applied to varying social stages, be both right and wrong. Since social considerations make the social actions of the individual right or wrong, the idea of good or evil itself is a social product. What we have thus far said is true primarily of the social actions of individuals of the acts of man to man. The principle, however, is equally applicable to the second class of moral actions referred to above those, namely, which seem at first to affect the individual only. An individual, for instance, may be guilty of some particular practice upon himself, which we popularly declare to be not SPIRITUAL FACTORS IN HISTORY 121 good for him, or a vice. Properly speaking, however, all that was originally meant was that it was not conducive to his physical or material welfare. Whiskey is not good for an ordinary child ; whiskey is good for an invalid. In the original conception of good there is no idea of morality of right or wrong. If an animal gorges itself to repletion, we do not ascribe any moral quality to the action. When the isolated savage first mutilated himself there was no thought of anything right or wrong, but only of what might be the physical or material con- sequences, irrespective of the fact whether these consequences might be brought out by natural forces or by the interposition of some super- natural spirit or demon. Just as an individual called those things good which promoted his material welfare, so society called those things good which contributed to its continued existence. As soon as the idea of social advantage, however, forces itself through, we reach the conception of morality. An ac- tion is now reprobated or admired according as it conduces to the social welfare; and long- continued custom makes the individual conform his actions and ideas to this social standard, i.e.. creates in him the feeling of right or wrong. 122 ECONOMIC INTERPRETATION Thus what is good physically for the indi- vidual becomes good morally only when the social test has been applied. Since this ethical connotation is the result of social forces, it is clear that acts which had originally only a physical significance for the individual gradu- ally acquired an ethical significance because of the assumption that they would lead to certain social consequences. A member of modern society who will continually gorge himself will acquire certain characteristics that will make him distasteful to his fellow-men, or that will serve as a bad example to others. In either case it is the social considerations that attach an ethical significance to what is at bottom a mere individual physical act. It is only when men have learned to live in society, and when they have come to fear that some individual practice will react upon their ideas or their actions in relation to other indi- viduals, that they learn to attribute a moral quality even to acts which at first blush seem to bear no relation to any one else. The same is true of the actions of men toward animals. The killing of an animal as such is in itself neither good nor bad; but cruelty to animals is reprobated because of the probable effects SPIRITUAL FACTORS IN HISTORY 123 on the character of the human being who com- mits the act. Thus all acts of the individual, whether they seem to affect himself alone or others, become good or bad only as the result of social considerations. All individual morality is the outcome and the reflex of social morality. 1 Conscience itself, 1 The theory of the social origin of morality has been brill- iantly worked out by von Ihering in the second volume of his masterpiece Der Zweck im Recht, 1883 (2d ed., 1886). Von Ihering made no attempt to apply the theory to the general doctrine here under consideration. In English literature the earliest treatment of the subject is found in Darwin's Descent of Afati, ch. iv. For an interesting adumbration of the theory of the social origin of morality, cf. the brilliant but very incom- plete passages of VV. K. Clifford in his articles ' On the Scientific Basis of Morals " and " Right and Wrong," published originally in 1875 and reprinted in his Lectures and Essays II (1879), esp. pp. in, 112, 114, 119-123. 169, 172-173. The admirable work of Alexander Sutherland, The Origin and Growth of the Moral Instinct (1898), bases the development of morality on the growth of sympathy through the family. Thus he tells us that ' from the usages that grew up within the family sprung morality ; from those that sprung up between the families grew law," II, p. 138 ; or again "true morality grows up within the family," II, p. 146 ; or again " moral rules as to bloodshed, honesty, truth, chastity are all, by birth, of family growth.' 1 II, p. 151. Sutherland forgets, however, that in early society it was not the family in the modern sense, but the horde, the clan and the tribe that formed the unitary social groups. Sutherland's book, neverthe- less, is the first one in English clearly to point out that the (social) utilitarian theory of ethics has nothing Mow" 1 or "sordid" about it, but is really compatible with the most ideal- istic view of the universe. For the earlier and cruder opposition on the part of the intuitionists, see Miss Cobbe's 4> Darwinism in Morals," Theological Review, April, 1872, pp. 188-191. 124 ECONOMIC INTERPRETATION or the ability to distinguish between good and bad, is the historical product of social forces, We must therefore agree with Sutherland when he defines the moral instinct as "that unconscious bias which is growing up in human minds in favor of those among our emotions that are conducive to social happiness." 1 We must equally subscribe to his statement that " there is no foundation of any sort for the view maintained by Kant and Green and Sidg- wick, with so many others, that this inward sense (conscience) is innate a supernatural, mysterious and unfailing judge of conduct. On the contrary, what society praises, the indi- vidual will in general learn to praise, arid what he praises in others he will commend in himself." 2 Whatever truth there may be in the intui- tive or transcendental theory of ethics as a part of the cosmic scheme, there is no doubt that morality as applied to human beings is the result of a slow unfolding, in which social forces have played the chief role. Such is the origin of the moral sense, whose existence and activity are undoubted facts of human life. It exerts a profound influence on 1 Op. cit., II, p. 306. a Ibid., II, p. 72. SPIRITUAL FACTORS IN HISTORY 125 the individual because it is the crystallization of centuries of social influences. So slow, how- ever, has been the accumulating force of these influences that the individual is utterly oblivi- ous of its social origin and importance. But, although conscience exists as a separate cate- gory, it does not lead an entirely independent life. It is like instinct with animals, ages of dearly bought experience have served to put an almost indelible imprint on animal habits, until a certain course of action is followed instinc- tively. 1 The imprint, however, is not quite in- delible. Just as the instinct is in its origin an historical product, it will inevitably be slowly moulded by future experiences. The instinct to preserve life remains ; but the particular method, which is instinctively followed, changes from time to time. The instinct persists, but its form is modified. So the fact of moral con- 1 This is not the place to discuss the various theories of instinct. A popular discussion may be found in Alfred Russell Wallace's Darwinism, p. 441, and a more technical one in Weissmann's Essays on Heredity and in C. L. Morgan's Habit and Instinct. It will suffice here to quote from Romanes : "There is ample evidence to show that instincts may arise either by natural selection fixing on purposeless habits which chance to be profitable, so converting these habits into instincts without intelligence being ever concerned in the process ; or by habits, originally intelligent, becoming by repetition automatic.' 1 Mental Evolution in Animals, p. 267. T26 ECONOMIC INTERPRETATION sciousness in man and the existence of the ethical and spiritual life in civilized society are undoubted ; but the content of this moral con- sciousness changes with the same forces that originally gave it birth. It would, therefore, be absurd to deny that individual men, like masses of men, are moved by ethical considerations. On the contrary, all progress consists in the attempt to realize the unattainable, the ideal, the morally perfect. History is full of examples where nations, like individuals, have acted unselfishly and have fol- lowed the generous promptings of the higher life. The ethical and the religious teachers have not worked in vain. To trace the influ- ence of the spiritual life in individual and social development would be as easy as it is unneces- sary. What is generally forgotten, however, and what it is needful to emphasize again and again, is not only that the content of the con- ception of morality is a social product, but also that amid the complex social influences that cooperated to produce it, the economic factors have often been of chief significance that pure ethical or religious idealism has made itself felt only within the limitations of existing economic conditions. SPIRITUAL FACTORS IN HISTORY 127 The material, as we have seen, has almost always preceded the ethical. Individual ac- tions, like social actions, possessed a material significance long before they acquired an ethi- cal meaning. Etymology helps us here as it did in the discussion of the meaning of morality itself. A thing was originally a good in the material sense in which we still speak of "goods and commodities"; the ethical sense of good as opposed to bad came much later. In popular parlance we still speak of a broken nail as " no good " without desiring to pass any moral judg- ment on it. The original meaning of "dear" was not ethical, but economic ; a commodity may still be " dear," even if we do not love it. To-day we esteem somebody ; originally we put a money value on him (tfstimare from as, money). In modern times we appreciate a quality ; originally we set a price on it (adpre- tiunt). Everywhere the physical, material sub- stratum was recognized long before the ethical connotation was reached. Since the material precedes the ethical, it will not surprise us to learn that the material condi- tions of society that is, in the widest sense, the economic conditions continually modify the content of the ethical conception. Let us take 128 ECONOMIC INTERPRETATION a few illustrations at random. Slavery, for in- stance, was not considered wrong by the great Greek moralists, whose ethical views on many other topics were at least on a plane with those of modern times. In the same way the English colonists, who at home would have scouted the very idea of slavery, soon became in the southern states of America the most ardent and sincere advocates of the system ; even the clergymen of the South honestly refused to consider slavery a sin. Had the northern and western states been subjected to the same climatic and eco- nomic conditions, there is little doubt that, so far at least as they could keep themselves shut off from contact with the more advanced indus- trial civilization of Europe, they would have com- pletely shared the moral views of their southern brethren. Men are what conditions make them, and ethical ideals are not exempt from the same inexorable law of environment. To the ethical teachers of the middle ages feudal rights did not seem to be wrongs. The hardy pioneers of New England needed a dif- ferent set of virtues from those which their successors in a softer age have acquired ; the attempt to subdue the Indian by love, charity and non-resistance would have meant not so SPIRITUAL FACTORS IN HISTORY 129 much the disappearance of evil as the disap- pearance of the colonists. The moral ideal of a frontier society is as legitimate from the point of view of their needs as the very differ- ent ideal of a later stage of society. The virtue of hospitality is far more important in the pas- toral stage than in the industrial. The ethical relation of master to workmen under the factory system is not the same as under the guild system. The idea of honor and of the neces- sity of duelling as a satisfaction for its violation is peculiar to an aristocratic or military class; with the change of economic conditions which make for democracy and industrialism, the con- tent of the conception changes. We hear much of the growth of international law and of the application of ethical principles to international relations. We forget that such principles can come into existence only when the conditions are ripe. Universal peace can exist only when one country is so powerful that it dominates all the others, as in the case of imperial Rome, or when the chief nations have grown to be on such a footing of equality that none dares to offend its neighbor, and the minor O countries are protected by the mutual jealousies of the great powers. 130 ECONOMIC INTERPRETATION Political ethics are here precisely like private ethics. Individual vengeance does not dis- appear until all the citizens are subjected to the power of the strong tyrant, or until the people are willing to abide by the decision of the court, because of the conviction that before the law they are all equal. International law began when economic forces in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries made the first step toward equality by converting the heteroge- neous petty principalities into great nations ; international justice and universal peace will come only when the economic changes now proceeding apace shall have converted the struggling nations of the present day into a few vast empires, dividing among themselves, and gradually civilizing, the outlying colonial possessions, thus attaining a condition of com- parative economic equality. Economic equality among individuals creates the democratic vir- tues ; economic equality among nations can alone prepare the way for international peace and justice. Thus the economic interpretation of history, correctly understood, does not in the least seek to deny or to minimize the importance of ethical and spiritual forces in history. It only SPIRITUAL FACTORS IN HISTORY 131 emphasizes the domain within which the ethi- cal forces can at any particular time act with success. To sound the praises of mercy and love to a band of marauding savages would be futile ; but when the old conditions of warfare are no longer really needed for self-defence, the moral teacher can do a great work in introducing more civilized practices, which shall be in harmony with the real needs of the new society. It is always on the border line of the transition from the old social neces- sity to the new social convenience that the ethical reformer makes his influence felt. With the perpetual change in human conditions there is always some kind of a border line, and thus always the need of the moral teacher, to point out the higher ideal and the path of progress. Unless the social conditions, how- ever, are ripe for the change, the demand of the ethical reformer will be fruitless. Only if the conditions are ripe will the reform be effected. The moral ideals are thus continually in the forefront of the contest for progress. The ethical teacher is the scout and the vanguard of society ; but he will be followed only if he envoys the confidence of the people, and the 132 ECONOMIC INTERPRETATION real battle will be fought by the main body of social forces, amid which the economic condi- tions are in last resort so often decisive. There is a moral growth in society, as well as in the individual. The more civilized the society, the more ethical its mode of life. But to become more civilized, to permit the moral ideals to percolate through continually lower strata of the population, we must have an economic basis to render it possible. With every improve- ment in the material condition of the great mass of the population there will be an oppor- tunity for the unfolding of a higher moral life ; but not until the economic conditions of society become far more ideal will the ethical develop- ment of the individual have a free field for limitless progress. Only then will it be pos- sible to neglect the economic factor, which may thenceforward be considered as a constant ; only then will the economic interpretation of history become a matter for archaeologists rather than for historians. Moral forces are, indeed, no less influential in human society than the legal and political forces. But just as the legal system, like the political system, conforms at bottom to the economic conditions, so the particular ethical SPIRITUAL FACTORS IN HISTORY 133 system or code of morality has been at any given period very largely an outgrowth of the social, and especially of the economic, life. If by materialism we mean a negation of the power of spiritual forces in humanity, the eco- nomic interpretation of history is really not materialistic. But if by economic interpreta- tion we mean what alone we should mean that the ethical forces themselves are essen- tially social in their origin and largely condi- tioned in their actual sphere of operation by the economic relations of society, there is no real antagonism between the economic and the ethical life. The economic interpretation of history, in the reasonable and moderate sense of the term, does not for a moment subordinate the ethical life to the economic life; it does not even maintain that in any single indi- vidual there is a necessary connection between his moral impulses and his economic wel- fare; above all it does not deny an inter- penetration of economic institutions by ethical or religious influences. It endeavors only tc show that in the records of the past the moral uplift of humanity has been closely connected with its social and economic progress, and 134 ECONOMIC INTERPRETATION that the ethical ideals of the community, which can alone bring about any lasting advance in civilization, have been erected on, and rendered possible by, the solid foundation of material prosperity. In short, the economic conception of history, properly interpreted, does not neg- lect the spiritual forces in history ; it seeks only to point out the terms on which the spiritual life has hitherto been able to find its fullest fruition. CHAPTER IV EXAGGERATIONS OF THE THEORY WE come now to the last count in the indict- ment that has usually been found against the theory of economic interpretation. It consists of the objection that the theory involves us in absurd exaggerations. In the way that it is commonly put, however, this objection, even if true, would be beside the mark. It is indeed a fact that some of the enthusi- astic advocates of economic interpretation have claimed too much, or have advanced explana- tions which are, for the present at least, not susceptible of proof. Thus the most brilliant of the Italian economists Achille Loria has published a number of books ' in which he 1 One of these has been translated by Professor Keasbey under the title : The Economic Foundation of Society ( 1 899) . The origi- nal Italian was published in 1885. and a third edition appeared in 1902 under the title Le I>asi Economiche delta Costituzione Sociale. His other important works bearing on the same general subject are Analisi delta Propricta Capitalista (1889), and his more recent works, La Sociologia, it Suo Coinpito (1901), and IlCapita- lismo e la Sciema (1901). '35 136 ECONOMIC INTERPRETATION has attempted to interpret a vast mass of his- torical phenomena from the economic point of view. Many of his statements are correct, and have been successfully defended against the attacks of his critics ; but some of his explana- tions are obviously unsatisfactory. Above all he has laid too much stress upon the influence of land in modern society and has thus, in some cases, injured rather than aided the general theory of economic interpretation, of which only the particular application even if an admirably suggestive one is original with him. 1 Other less brilliant writers have been guilty of even more extreme statements. Thus some have sought to make religion itself depend on economic forces. In this contention there is indeed a modicum of truth. We know that the religion of a pastoral people is necessarily different from that of an agricultural commu- O nity. Marx himself pointed out that " the neces- 1 It is a singular testimony to the neglect of Marx's writings outside of Germany that so many critics in England, France and Italy should have hailed Loria as the originator of the doctrine of economic interpretation. Even Professor Keasbey is not entirely free from this error. See the Translator's Preface (p. ix) to the English edition. Loria himself, however, has made no such claim. See his recent book, Marx e la sua Dottrina (1902), esp. cap. 31 " Intorno ad alcune Critiche dell 1 Engels." EXAGGERATIONS OF THE THEORY 13; sity for predicting the rise and fall of the Nile created Egyptian astronomy and with it the dominion of the priests as directors of agricul- ture." A Russian scholar, starting from much the same conception, has shown that somewhat analogous conditions were responsible for the theocracies of the other Oriental nations. 2 Hence it may be granted that there is an undoubted economic element in the religions of the past, as well as in those of the present. 3 Perhaps the most striking attempt, however, to carry the theory beyond its legitimate bounds is that which has sought the explanation of Christianity itself in economic facts alone. 4 It 1 Capital (English Translation), p. 523, note i. - Metschnikoff, La Civilisation et les Granites Plenties His- toriqites, 1889. Marx, who forestalled Metschnikoff in this re- spect, had said twenty years before : " One of the material bases of the power of the state over the small disconnected producing organisms in India was the regulation of the water supply." Capital, p. 523, note 2. Kautsky was led by this passage to study the conditions of the other Asiatic theocracies, and came to the same conclusion without knowing anything of Metschnikoff, whose book had appeared in the interval. See Die Neue Zeit, IX (1899), p. 447, note. 3 Some of the social and economic aspects of modern religious movements have been emphasized by Thomas C. Hall, The Social Cleaning of the Modern Religions Movement in England (1900). 4 The economic interpretation of Christianity was first ad- vanced by Kautsky in ''Die Entstehung des Christenthums," Die Neue Zeit, III (1885), pp. 481 and 529, and by Engels in his 138 ECONOMIC INTERPRETATION is indeed an accepted fact nowadays that much of the opposition to Jesus was due to his radical social programme and his alleged communistic views ; it is equally certain that the economic conditions of the Roman Empire favored the reception of these new ideas. To contend, however, that Christianity was primarily an economic movement is to ignore the function of the spiritual forces which we have just been discussing. 1 The theory of economic interpretation has been applied not only to religion but even to philosophy. The whole movement of thought, for instance, which we associate with the words Greek philosophy, has been explained in a pon- derous volume as a phenomenon referable to essentially economic causes. 2 Eleutheropou- essay on " Bruno Bauer und das Urchristenthum " in the Ztlricher Sozialdemokrat (1882), nos. 19, 20. It was developed by Engels in a subsequent article in Die Neue Zeit, in 1894, by E. H. Schmitt, also in Die Neue Zeit, XV (1897), i, p. 412, and by Kautsky in the chapter on "Der urchristliche Kommunismus" in the first volume of Die Geschichte des Sozialismus (1895). 1 Some of the objections have been urged by Hermann, Sozialistische Irrlehreii von der Entsteliung des Christentums, 1899. Kohler, however, goes entirely too far in the other direction. ' 2 This view was first advanced by Dr. Stillich in an article in Die Neue Zeit, XVI, i, p. 580. This turned out, however, to be a plagiarism from the lectures of a Greek Privat-Docent, at Zurich, mentioned in the next note. See Die Neue Zeit, XVI, 2, p. 154. EXAGGERATIONS OF THE THEORY 139 los, 1 it is true, denies that he is attempting to prove the validity of historical materialism; for he claims to be a " philosopher " rather than a historical materialist, and he calls his theory the "Grecian theory of development." 5 On closer inspection, however, the difference be- tween the two doctrines is scarcely discernible; for the author tells us that the " materialistic conception of history furnishes the key to the phenomenon of how the general character of philosophy as a Weltanschauung displays itself in different forms and shadings." He states indeed that more than this it cannot do, and that philosophy is also the product of the philosopher as an individual. " The theory of the economic relations of society as the cause of becoming can therefore be true only in the sense of the formal cause of development."' Yet in almost every section he attempts to trace the connection between the particular philosophic theory and the economic condi- tions. It is needless to say that the attempt is 1 Wirthschaft tind Philosophic, odcr die Philosophic mid die Lebens-Auffassung der jeu'tih Bestchendcn Geseltschaft. Erste Abtheilung: Die Philosophic nnd die Lcbcns- An/as sung dcs Griechcntums aiif Grand der Gesellschaftlichen Zustiinde. Von Abr. Eleutheropoulos, 1898 (2d ed., 1900). 2 Prefage to second edition, * Op- cit., p. 16. 140 ECONOMIC INTERPRETATION far from successful. The social philosophy of the Greeks is indeed an outcome of the social conditions, as is to be expected ; but the search for the ultimate principles of life and thought, as we find it in the greatest of the Greek think- ers, has no conceivable relation with the act- ual economic conditions. The explanations of Eleutheropoulos are almost always far-fetched. The economic interpretation of philosophy has not been confined to the Greek period. Another writer, presumably a socialist, has fur- nished an economic explanation of von Hart- mann's philosophy, on the ground that the German bourgeoisie is giving up its class consciousness. 1 It is obviously not worth while to discuss this seriously. Other more or less extreme applications of the theory are familiar to all. Among older writers that flourished before the theory itself was formulated, it will suffice to mention Alison, who ascribed the downfall of the Roman Empire to the monetary difficulties of the period, and those Spanish historians who made the decay of Spain turn upon the exten- sion of the alcavala the general tax on sales. To come to more recent authors, we need but 1 Quoted in Masaryk, Die Grundlagen dex Marxismus, p. 146 EXAGGERATIONS OF THE THEORY 141 mention Mr. Brooks Adams ! and Professor Pat- ten, 2 who, amid much that is suggestive, have centred their attention upon particular economic conditions in the history of Rome and England respectively, and have ascribed to these an in- fluence on general national development out of all proportion to their real significance. Such invalid applications of the theory, how- ever, do not necessarily invalidate the doctrine itself. We must distinguish here, as in every other domain of human inquiry, between the use and the abuse of a principle. The difference between the scientist and the fanatic is that the one sees the limitations of a principle, where the other recognizes none. To make any science or any theory responsible for all the vagaries of its over-enthusiastic advocates would soon result in a discrediting of science itself. Wise men do not judge a race by its least fortunate mem- bers; fair-minded critics do not estimate the value of a doctrine by its excrescences. It is, however, important to remember that the originators of the theory have themselves called attention to the danger of exaggeration. Toward the close of his career Engels, infiu- 1 The Law of Civilisation and Decay. 2 The DevelopmetU of English Thought. 142 ECONOMIC INTERPRETATION enced no doubt by the weight of adverse criti- cism, pointed out that too much had sometimes been claimed for the doctrine. " Marx and I," he writes to a student in 1890, "are partly re- sponsible for the fact that the younger men have sometimes laid more stress on the eco- nomic side than it deserves. In meeting the attacks of our opponents it was necessary for us to emphasize the dominant principle, denied by them ; and we did not always have the time, place or opportunity to let the other factors, which were concerned in the mutual action and reaction, get their deserts." * In another letter Engels explains his meaning more clearly : " According to the materialistic view of his- tory the factor which is in last instance decisive in history is the production and reproduction of actual life. More than this neither Marx nor I have ever asserted. But when any one distorts this so as to read that the economic factor is the sole element, he converts the state- ment into a meaningless, abstract, absurd phrase. The economic condition is the basis, but the 1 This letter is printed in Der Sozialistische Akademiker, October i, 1895, and is quoted by Greulich, Ueber die Materi- alislische Geschichts-Auffassung(\'&