The acute and courteous remarks on the theory of value, published lately in an article in the _Journal des Economistes_ by an able French Marxian, Sorel, indicate a movement in the same direction. In these remarks he acknowledges that there is no way of pa.s.sing from Marx's theory to actual phenomena of economic life, and that, although it may offer elucidation, in a somewhat limited sense, it does not appear further that it could ever _explain_, in the scientific meaning of the word.[18]

And now too Professor Labriola, in a hasty glance at the same subject, referring clearly to Sombart, and partly agreeing and partly criticising, writes: 'the theory of value does not denote an empirical _factum_ nor does it express a merely _logical proposition_, as some have imagined; but it is the _typical premise_ without which all the rest would be unthinkable.'[19]

Labriola's phrase appears to me, in fact, somewhat more accurate than Sombart's; who, moreover, shows himself dissatisfied with his own term, like someone who has not yet a quite definite concept in view, and hence cannot find a satisfactory phrase. '_Conceptual fact_,'

'_logical fact_' expresses much too little since it is evident that all sciences are interwoven from logical facts, that is from concepts.

Marx's labour-value is not only a logical generalisation, it is also _a fact conceived and postulated as typical_, _i.e._ something more than a mere logical concept. Indeed it has not the inertia of the abstract but the force of a concrete fact,[20] which has in regard to capitalist society, in Marx's investigation, the function of a term of comparison, of a standard, of a _type_.[21]

This standard or type being postulated, the investigation, for Marx, takes the following form. Granted that value is equal to the labour socially necessary, it is required to show _with what divergencies from this standard_ the prices of commodities are fixed in capitalist society, and how labour-power itself acquires a price and becomes a commodity. To speak plainly, Marx stated the problem in unappropriate language; he represented this typical value itself, postulated by him as a standard, as being the _law_ governing the economic phenomena of capitalist society. And it is the law, if he likes, but in the _sphere of his conceptions_, not _in economic reality_. We may conceive the divergencies from a standard as the revolt of reality when confronted by this standard which we have endowed with the dignity of law.

From a formal point of view there is nothing absurd about the investigation undertaken by Marx. It is a usual method of scientific a.n.a.lysis to regard a phenomenon not only as it exists, but also as it would be if one of its factors were altered, and, in comparing the hypothetical with the real phenomenon, to conceive the first as diverging from the second, which is postulated as fundamental, or the second as diverging from the first, which is postulated in the same manner. If I build up by deductive reasoning the moral rules which develop in two social groups which are at war one against another, and if I show how they differ from the moral rules which develop in a state of peace, I should be making something _a.n.a.logous_ to the comparison worked out by Marx. Nor would there be great harm (although the expression would be neither fortunate nor accurate) in saying, in a figurative sense, that the _law_ of the moral rules in time of war is the same as that of the rules in time of peace, modified to the new conditions, and altered in a way which seems, ultimately, inconsistent with itself. As long as he confines himself to the limits of his hypothesis Marx proceeds quite correctly. Error could come in only when he or others confuse the hypothetical with the real, and the manner of conceiving and of judging with that of existing. As long as this mistake is avoided, the method is una.s.sailable.

But the formal justification is insufficient: we need another. With a formally correct method results may be obtained which are meaningless and unimportant, or mere mental tricks may be performed. To set up an arbitrary standard of comparison, to compare, and deduce, and to end by establishing a series of divergencies from this standard; to what will this lead? It is then, the _standard itself_ which needs justification: _i.e._ we need to decide what meaning and importance it may have for us.

This question too, although not stated exactly in this way, has occurred to Marx's critics; and an answer to it has been already given some time ago and by many, by saying that the equivalence of value and labour is an ideal of social ethics, a _moral ideal_. But nothing could be imagined more mistaken in itself and farther from Marx's thought than this interpretation. What moral inference can ever be drawn from the premiss that value is equal to the labour socially necessary? It we reflect a little, _absolutely none_. The establishment of this fact tells us nothing about the needs of the society, which needs will make necessary one or another ethical-legal system of property and of methods of distribution. Value may certainly equal labour, nevertheless special historical conditions will make necessary society organised in castes or in cla.s.ses, divided into governing and governed, rulers and ruled; with a resulting unequal distribution of the products of labour. Value may certainly equal labour; but even supposing that fresh historical conditions ever make possible the disappearance of society organised in cla.s.ses and the advent of a communistic society, and even supposing that in this society distribution could take place according to the quant.i.ty of labour contributed by each person, this distribution would still not be a deduction from the established equivalence between value and labour, but a standard adopted for special reasons of social convenience.[22] Nor can it be said that such an equivalence supplies in itself an idea of perfect justice (even though unrealisable), since the criterion of justice has no relation to the difference often due to purely natural causes, in the ability to do more or less social labour and to produce a greater or smaller value. Thus neither a rule of abstract justice nor one of convenience and social utility can be derived from the equivalence between value and labour. Rules of either kind can only be based on consideration of a quite different grade from that of a simple economic equation.

Sombart, avoiding this vulgar confusion, has been better advised in looking for the meaning of the standard set up by Marx in the nature of society itself, and apart from our moral judgments. Thus he says that labour is _the economic fact of greater objective importance_, and that value, in Marx's view, is nothing 'if not the economic expression of the fact of the socially productive power of labour, as the basis of economic existence.'

But this investigation appears to me to be merely begun and not yet worked out to a conclusion; and if I might suggest wherein it needs completion, I should remark that it is necessary to attempt to give clearness and precision to this word _objective_, which is either ambiguous or metaphorical. What is meant by an economically objective fact? Do not these words suggest rather a mere _presentiment of a concept_ instead of the distinct vision of this concept itself?

I will add, merely tentatively, that the word _objective_ (whose correlative term is _subjective_) does not seem to be in place here.

Let us, instead, take account, in a society, only of what is properly economic life, _i.e._ out of the whole society, only of _economic society_. Let us abstract from this latter all goods which cannot be increased by labour. Let us abstract further all cla.s.s distinctions, which may be regarded as accidental in reference to the general concept of economic society. Let us leave out of account all modes of distributing the wealth produced, which, as we have said, can only be determined on grounds of convenience or perhaps of justice, but in anycase upon considerations belonging to society as a whole, and never from considerations belonging exclusively to economic society. What is left after these successive abstractions have been made? Nothing but _economic society in so far as it is a working society_.[23] And in this society without cla.s.s distinctions, _i.e._ in an economic society as such and whose only commodities are the products of labour, what can value be? Obviously the sum of the efforts, _i.e._ the quant.i.ty of labour, which the production of the various kinds of commodities demands. And, since we are here speaking of the economic social organism, and not of the individual persons living in it, it follows that this labour cannot be reckoned except by averages, and hence as labour _socially_ (it is with society, I repeat, that we are here dealing) _necessary_.

Thus labour-value would appear as that determination of value peculiar to economic society as such, when regarded only in so far as it produces commodities capable of being increased by labour.

From this definition the following corollary may be drawn: the determination of labour value _will have a positive conformity with facts as long as a society exists, which produces goods by means of labour_. It is evident that in the imaginary county of Cocaigne this determination would have no conformity with facts, since all goods would exist in quant.i.ties exceeding the demand; similarly it is also evident that the same determination could not take effect in a society in which goods were inadequate to the demand, but could not be increased by labour.

But hitherto history has shown us only societies which, in addition to the enjoyment of goods not increasable by labour, have satisfied their needs by labour. Hence this equivalence between value and labour has. .h.i.therto had and will continue for an indefinite time to have, a conformity with facts; but, of what kind is this conformity? Having ruled out (1) that it is a question of a moral ideal, and (2) that it is a question of scientific law; and having nevertheless concluded that this equivalence is a _fact_ (which Marx uses as a type), we are obliged to say, as the only alternative, that _it is a fact, but a fact which exists in the midst of other facts; i.e. a fact that appears to us empirically as opposed, limited, distorted by other facts_, almost like a force amongst other forces, which produces a resultant different from what it would produce if the other forces ceased to act. _It is not a completely dominant fact but neither is it non-existent and merely imaginary._[24]

It is still necessary to remark that in the course of history this _fact_ has undergone various alterations, _i.e._, has been more or less obscured; and here it is proper to do justice to Engels' remark in reference to Sombart; that as regards the way in which the latter defines the law of value 'he does not bring out the full importance which this law possesses during the stages of economic development in which it is supreme.' Engels makes a digression into the field of economic history to show that Marx's law of value, _i.e._ the equivalence between value and the labour socially necessary, has been supreme for several thousand years.[25] Supreme is too strong a term; but it is true that the opposed influences of other facts to this law have been fewer in number and less intense under primitive communism and under mediaeval and domestic economic conditions, whilst they have reached a maximum in the society based on privately owned capital and more or less free universal compet.i.tion, _i.e._ in the society which produces almost exclusively _commodities_.[26]

Marx, then, in postulating as _typical_ the equivalence between value and labour and in applying it to capitalist society, was, as it were, making a comparison between capitalist society and a part of itself, isolated and raised up to an independent existence: _i.e._ a comparison between capitalist society and economic society as such (but only in so far as it is a working society). In other words, he was studying the social problem of labour and was showing by the test implicitly established by him, _the special way in which this problem is solved in capitalist society_. This is the justification, no longer _formal_ but _real_, of his method.

It was in virtue of this method, and by the light thrown by the type which he postulated, that Marx was able to discover and define the social origin of _profit_, _i.e._ of _surplus value_. Surplus value in pure economics is a meaningless word, as is evident from the term itself; since a _surplus value_ is an _extra value_, and thus falls outside the sphere of pure economics. But it rightly has meaning and is no absurdity, as a _concept of difference_, in comparing one economic society with another, one fact with another, or two hypotheses with one another.

It is also in virtue of the same premise that he was able to arrive at the proposition: that the products of labour in a capitalist society do not sell, unless by exception, for their value, but usually for more or less, and sometimes with great deviations from their value; which is to say, to put it shortly, _value_ does not coincide with _price_. Suppose, by hypothesis the organisation of production were suddenly changed from a capitalist to a communistic system, we should see at once, not only that alteration in the fortunes of men which appeals so much to popular imagination, but also a more remarkable change: a change in the fortunes of things. A scale of valuation of goods would then fashion itself, very different for the most part, from that which now exists. The way in which Marx proves this proposition, by an a.n.a.lysis of the different components of the capital employed in different industries, _i.e._ of the proportion of fixed capital (machines, etc.) and of floating capital (wages), need not be explained here in detail.

And, in the same way, _i.e._ by proving that fixed capital increases continually in comparison with floating capital, Marx tries to establish another law of capitalist society, the law of the _tendency of the rate of profits to fall_. Technical improvement, which in an abstract economic society would show itself in the decreased labour required to produce the same wealth, shows itself in capitalist society in a gradual decline in the rate of profits.[27] But this section of Volume III of _Das Kapital_ is one of the least developed in this little worked-out posthumous book; and it seems to me to be worth a special critical essay, which I hope to write at another time, not wishing to treat the subject here incidentally.[28]

II

MARX'S PROBLEM AND PURE ECONOMICS (GENERAL ECONOMIC SCIENCE)

_Marxian economics not general economic science and labour-value not a general concept of value: Engel's rejection of general economic law: abstract concepts used by Marx are concepts of pure economics: relation of economic psychology to pure economics: pure economics does not destroy history or progress._

Marxian economics is thus a study of abstract working society showing the variations which this undergoes in the different social economic organisations. This investigation Marx carried out only in reference to one of these organisations, _i.e._ the capitalist; contenting himself with mere hints in regard to the slave and serf organisations, primitive communism, the domestic system and to savage conditions.[29]

In this sense he and Engels declared that economics (the economics studied by them), was an historical science.[30] But here, too, their definition has been less happy than the investigation itself; we know that Marx's researches are not historical, but hypothetical and abstract, _i.e._ theoretical.[31] They might better be called researches into _sociological economics_, if the word _sociological_ were not one which is employed most variously and arbitrarily.

If Marx's investigation is thus limited, if the law of value postulated by him is the special law of an abstract working society, which only partially takes effect in economic society as given in history, and in other hypothetical or possible economic societies, the following results seem to follow evidently and readily: (1) That Marxian economics _is not general economic science_; (2) that labour-value _is not a general concept of value_. Alongside, then, of the Marxian investigation, there can, or rather must, exist and flourish a general economic science, which may determine a concept of value, deducing it from quite different and more comprehensive principles than the special ones of Marx. And, if the pure economists, confined to their own special province, have been wrong to show an ungenerous intellectual dislike for Marx's investigations, his followers, in their turn, have been wrong to regard ungratefully a branch of research which was alien to them, calling it now useless, and now frankly absurd.

Such is, in effect, my opinion, and I freely acknowledge that I have never been able to discover other ant.i.thesis or enmity between these two branches of research except the purely accidental one of the mutual antipathy to and mental ignorance of each other, of two groups of students. Some have resorted to a political explanation; but, with no wish to deny that political prepossessions are often the causes of theoretical errors, I do not consider an explanation as adequate and appropriate, which resolves itself into accusing a large number of students of allowing themselves blindly and foolishly to be overcome by pa.s.sions alien to science; or, what is worse, of knowingly falsifying their thought and constructing a whole economic system from motives of practical opportunism.

Indeed Marx himself had not the time or means to adopt an att.i.tude, so to speak, towards the _purists_, or the _hedonists_, or the _utilitarians_, or the _deductive_ or _Austrian_ school, or whatever else they may call themselves. But he had the greatest contempt for the _oeconomia vulgaris_, under which term he was wont to include also the researches of general economics, which explain what needs no explanation and is intuitively evident, and leave unexplained what is more difficult and of genuine interest. Nor has Engels discussed the subject; but an indication of his opinion may be found in his attack on Duhring. Duhring was struggling to find a general law of value, which should govern all possible types of economic organisation; and Engels refuted him: 'Anyone who wishes to bring under the same law the political economy of Terra del Fuoco and that of modern England, can produce nothing but the vulgarest commonplaces.' He scorns the truth of ultimate instance, the eternal laws of value, the tautologous and empty axioms which Herr Duhring would have produced by his method.[32]

Fixed and eternal laws are non-existent: there is then no possibility of constructing a general science of economics, valid for all times and in all places. If Engels had meant to refer to those who affirm the eternity and inevitability of the laws characteristic of capitalist society, he would have been justified; and would have been aiming his blows at a prejudice which history alone suffices to refute, by showing as it does, how capitalism has appeared at different times, replacing other types of economic organisation, and has also disappeared, replaced by other types. But in Duhring's case the criticism was much beside the mark; since Duhring did not indeed mean to set up the laws of capitalist society as fixed and eternal; but to determine _a general concept of value_, which is quite another matter: or, in other words, to show how, _from a purely economic point of view_, capitalist society is explained by the same general concepts as explain the other types of organisation. No effort, not even that of Engels, will suffice to stop such a problem from being stated and solved; unless it were possible to destroy the human intellect, which, in addition to particular facts, recognises universal concepts.

It would be instructive to examine the references which there are in Marx's _Das Kapital_ to unfinished a.n.a.lyses, extraneous to his special method; for in this dependence on a.n.a.lysis the researches of pure economics have their origin. What is, for instance, _abstract human labour_ (_abstrakt menschliche Arbeit_), a concept which Marx uses like a postulate? By what _method_ is that reduction of _complex_ to _simple_ labour accomplished, to which he refers as to an obvious and ordinary matter? And if, in Marx's hypothesis, _commodities_ appear as _congealed labour_, or _crystalised labour_, why by another hypothesis, should not all economic goods and not only commodities, appear as _congealed methods of satisfying needs_ or as _crystalised needs_? I read at one point in _Das Kapital_: 'Things which in themselves are not commodities, _e.g._ knowledge, honour, etc., may be sold by their owners; and thus, by means of their price, acquire the form of commodities. A thing may formally have a price without having a value. The expression of the price here becomes _imaginary_ like certain quant.i.ties in mathematics.'[33] Here is yet another difficulty, indicated but not overcome. Where are these _formal_ or _imaginary_ prices to be found? And what are they? By what laws are they governed? Or are they perhaps like the Greek words in Latin prosody, which according to the school rule, _per Ausoniae fines sine lege vagantur_?--Questions of this kind are answered by the researches of pure economics.

The philosopher Lange also, who rejected Marx's law of value, which he regarded as an _extravagant production_, _a child of sorrow_, thinking it unsuitable--and in this he was justified, as a general law of value, arrived at the solutions which have since been given of the latter, a long time before the researches of the purists came into blossom. 'Some years ago,' he wrote in his book on labour problems, 'I too worked at a new theory of value, _which should be of such a character as to show the most extreme cases of variation in value as special cases of the same formula_.' And, whilst adding that he had not completed it, he intimated that the course which he attempted was the same as that hastily glanced at by Jevons in his _Theory of political economy_, published in 1871.[34]

To any of the more cautious and moderate Marxians it is plainly evident that the researches of the Hedonists are not merely to be rejected as erroneous or unfounded; and hence an attempt has been made to vindicate them in reference to the Marxian doctrine as an _economic psychology_, having its place alongside of true economics itself. But this definition contains a curious equivocation. Pure economics is quite apart from psychology. Indeed, to begin with, it is hard to fix the meaning of the words _economic psychology_. The science of psychology is divided into _formal_ and _descriptive_. In formal psychology there is no place either for economic fact nor for any other fact which may represent a particular content. In descriptive psychology, it is true, are included representations, sentiments and desires of an economic content, but included as they appear in reality, mixed with the other psychical phenomena of different content, and inseparable from them. Thus _descriptive economic psychology_ can be, at most, an approximate limitation, by which we take as a subject of special description the way in which men (at a given time and place, or even in the ma.s.s as. .h.i.therto they have appeared in history) think, feel and desire in respect to a certain cla.s.s of goods which are usually called material or economic, and which, however, stand in need of specification and definition.

Subject-matter, in truth, better suited to history than to science, which regards such matters only as empty and unimportant generalisations. This may be seen in the long discussion of the matter by that most weighty of pedants, Wagner, in his manual, which, of all that has been written on the question, I think the most worthy of notice, and which is yet, in itself, a thing very little worthy of notice or conclusive.[35] An enumeration and description of the various tendencies which exist in men as they appear in ordinary life: egoistical and altruistic tendencies, love of self-advantage and fear of disadvantage, fear of punishment and hope of reward, sense of honour and fear of disgrace and public contempt, love of activity and dislike of idleness, feeling of reverence for the moral code, etc., this is what Wagner calls _economic psychology_; and which might better be called: _various observations in descriptive psychology, to be kept in mind whilst studying the practical questions of economics_.[36]

But what, pray, has pure economics in common with psychology? The purists start from the hedonistic postulate, _i.e._ from the economic nature itself of man, and deduce from it the concepts of _utility_ (_economic_ utility which Pareto has proposed to call by a special name, _ofelimita_, from the Greek ?f?????) of _value_, and directly, all the other special laws in accordance with which man behaves in so far as he is an abstract _h.o.m.o oeconomicus_. They do exactly what the science of ethics does with the moral nature; and the science of logic with the logical nature; and so on. At this rate then would ethics be a _psychology of ethics_ and logic a _psychology of logic_? And, since all that we know pa.s.ses through the human mind, ontology would be a _psychology of existence_, mathematics a _psychology of mathematics_, and we should thus have confused the most diverse things, ending in a disorder the aim of which would be no longer comprehensible. Hence we conclude, that with care and the exercise of a little thought, it will necessarily be agreed that pure economics is not a psychology, but is the true and essential _general science of economic facts_.

Professor Labriola, too, shows a certain ill-humour which does not seem to me entirely justified, towards the pure economists, 'who', he says, 'translate into _psychological conceptualism_ the influence of _risk_ and other a.n.a.logous considerations of ordinary commercial practice! And they do well--I answer--because the mind desires to give an account even of the influences of risk and of commercial practice, and to explain their mechanism and character. And then, _psychological conceptualism_; is not this an unfortunate connection between what your intellect shows you that pure economics really is (science which takes as its starting point an irreducible concept), and that hazardous definition of _psychology_ which has been criticised above?

Are not the noun and adjective in opposition to one another? And further, Labriola speaks contemptuously of the '_abstract atomism_' of the hedonists, in which, 'one no longer knows what history is, and progress is reduced to mere appearance.'[37] Here too, it does not seem to me that his contempt is justified; for Labriola is well aware that in all abstract sciences, concrete and individual things disappear and that their _elements_ alone remain as objects to be considered: hence this cannot be made a ground for special complaint against economic science. But _history_ and _progress_, even if they are alien to the study of abstract economics, do not therefore cease to exist and to form the subject of other studies of the human mind; and this is what matters.

For my part I hold firmly to the economic notion of the hedonistic guide, to utility-ophelimity, to final utility, and even to the explanation (economic) of interest on capital as arising from the different degrees of utility possessed by present and future goods.

But this does not satisfy the desire for a _sociological_, so to speak, elucidation of interest on capital; and this elucidation, with others of the same kind, can only be obtained from the comparative considerations put before us by Marx.[38]

III

CONCERNING THE LIMITATION OF THE MATERIALISTIC THEORY OF HISTORY

_Historical materialism a canon of historical interpretation: Canon does not imply antic.i.p.ation of results: Question as to how Marx and Engels understood it: Difficulty of ascertaining correctly and method of doing so: How Marxians understand it: Their metaphysical tendency: Instances of confusion of concepts in their writings: Historical materialism has not a special philosophy immanent within it._

Historical materialism if it is to express something critically acceptable, can, as I have had occasion to state elsewhere,[39] be neither a new _a priori_ notion of the philosophy of history, nor a new method of historical thought; it must be simply a _canon_ of historical interpretation. This canon recommends that attention be directed to the so-called economic basis of society, in order that the forms and mutations of the latter may be better understood.

The concept canon ought not to raise difficulty, especially when it is remembered that _it implies no antic.i.p.ation of results_, but only an aid in seeking for them; and is entirely of empirical origin. When the critic of the text of Dante's _Comedia_ uses Witte's well-known canon, which runs: '_the difficult reading is to be preferred to the easy one_,' he is quite aware that he possesses a mere instrument, which may be useful to him in many cases, useless in others, and whose correct and advantageous employment depends entirely on his caution.

In like manner and with like meaning it must be said that historical materialism is a mere _canon_; although it be in truth a canon _most rich in suggestion_.

But was it in this way that Marx and Engels understood it? and is it in this way that Marx's followers usually understand it?

Let us begin with the first question. Truly a difficult one, and offering a multiplicity of difficulties. The first of these arises so to speak, from the _nature of the sources_. The doctrine of historical materialism is not embodied in a cla.s.sical and definite book by those authors, with whom it is as it were identified; so that, to discuss that book and to discuss the doctrine might seem all one thing. On the contrary it is scattered through a series of writings, composed in the course of half a century, at long intervals, where only the most casual mention is made of it, and where it is sometimes merely understood or implied. Anyone who desired to reconcile all the forms with which Marx's and Engels have endowed it, would stumble upon contradictory expressions, which would make it impossible for the careful and methodical interpreter to decide what, on the whole, historical materialism meant for them.

Another difficulty arises in regard to the weight to be attached to their expressions. I do not think that there has yet been a study of what might be called Marx's _forma mentis_; with which Engels had something in common, partly owing to congeniality, partly owing to imitation or influence. Marx, as has been already remarked, had a kind of abhorrence for researches of purely scholastic interest. Eager for knowledge of _things_ (I say, of concrete and individual things) he attached little weight to discussions of _concepts_ and the _forms of concepts_; this sometimes degenerated into an exaggeration in his own concepts. Thus we find in him a curious opposition between statements which, interpreted strictly, are erroneous; and yet appear to us, and indeed are, loaded and pregnant with truth. Marx was addicted, in short, to a kind of _concrete logic_.[40] Is it best then to interpret his expressions literally, running the risk of giving them a meaning different from what they actually bore in the writer's inmost thoughts? Or is it best to interpret them broadly, running the opposite risk of giving them a meaning, theoretically perhaps more acceptable, but historically less true?

The same difficulty certainly occurs in regard to the writings of numerous thinkers; but it is especially great in regard to those of Marx. And the interpreter must proceed with caution: he must do his work bit by bit, book by book, statement by statement, connecting indeed these various indications one with another, but taking account of differences of time, of actual circ.u.mstances, of fleeting impressions, of mental and literary habits; and he must submit to acknowledge ambiguities and incompleteness where either exists, resisting the temptation to confirm and complete by his own judgment.

It may be allowed for instance, as it appears to me for various reasons, that the way in which historical materialism is stated above is the same as that in which Marx and Engels understood it in their inmost thoughts; or at least that which they would have agreed to as correct if they had had more time available for such labours of scientific elaboration, and if criticism had reached them less tardily. And all this is of importance up to a certain point, for the interpreter and historian of ideas; since for the history of science, Marx and Engels are neither more nor less than they appear in their books and works; real, and not hypothetical or possible persons.[41]

But even for science itself, apart from the history of it, the hypothetical or possible Marx and Engels have their value. What concerns us theoretically is to understand the various possible ways of interpreting the problems proposed and the solutions thought out by Marx and Engels, and to select from the latter by criticism those which appear theoretically true and welcome. What was Marx's intellectual standpoint with reference to the Hegelian philosophy of history? In what consisted the criticism which he gave of it? Is the purport of this criticism always the same for instance in the article published in the _Deutsch-franzosische Jahrbucher_, for 1844, in the _Heilige Familie_ of 1845, in the _Misere de la philosophie_ of 1847, in the appendix to _Das Komnunistische Manifest_ of 1848, in the preface to the _Zur Kritik_ of 1859, and in the preface to the 2nd edition of _Das Kapital_ of 1873? Is it again in Engels' works in the _Antiduhring_, in the article on _Feuerbach_, etc.? Did Marx ever really think of subst.i.tuting, as some have believed, _Matter_ or material fact for the Hegelian _Idea_? And what connection was there in his mind between the concepts _material_ and _economic_? Again, can the explanation given by him, of his position with regard to Hegel: 'the ideas determined by facts and not the facts by the ideas,' be called an inversion of Hegel's view, or is it not rather the inversion of that of the ideologists and doctrinaires?[42] These are some of the questions pertaining to the _history of ideas_, which will be answered some time or other: perhaps at present the time has not yet arrived to write the history of ideas which are still in the process of development.[43]

But, putting aside this historical curiosity, it concerns us now to work at these ideas in order to advance in theoretical knowledge. How can historical materialism justify itself scientifically? This is the question I have proposed to myself, and to which the answer is given by the critical researches referred to at the beginning of this paragraph. Without returning to them I will give other examples, taken from the same source, that of the Marxian literature. How ought we to understand scientifically Marx's _neodialectic_? The final opinion expressed by Engels on the subject seems to be this: the dialect is the rhythm of the development of things, _i.e._ the inner law of things in their development. This rhythm is not determined _a priori_, and by metaphysical deduction, but is rather observed and gathered _a posteriori_, and only through the repeated observations and verifications that are made of it in various fields of reality, can it be presupposed that all facts develop through negations, and negations of negations.[44] Thus the dialect would be the discovery of a great natural law, less empty and formal than the so-called _law of evolution_ and it would have nothing in common with the old Hegelian dialect except the name, which would preserve for us an historical record of the way in which Marx arrived at it. But does this natural rhythm of development exist? This could only be stated from observation, to which indeed, Engels appealed in order to a.s.sert its existence. And what kind of a law is one which is revealed to us by observation? Can it ever be a law which governs things absolutely, or is it not one of those which are now called tendencies, or rather is it not merely a simple and limited generalisation? And this recognition of rhythm through negations of negations, it is not some rag of the old metaphysics, from which it may be well to free ourselves.[45] This is the investigation needed for the progress of science. In like manner should other statements of Marx and Engels be criticised. What for example shall we think of Engels' controversy with Duhring concerning the basis of history: whether this is _political force_ or _economic fact_? Will it not seem to us that this controversy can perhaps retain any value in face of Duhring's a.s.sertion that political fact is that _which is essential historically_, but in itself has not that general importance which it is proposed to ascribe to it? We may reflect for a moment that Engels'

thesis: 'force protects (_schutzt_) but does not cause (_verursacht_) usurpation,' might be directly inverted into another that: 'force _causes_ usurpation, but economic interest _protects_ it,' and this by the well known principle of the inter-dependence and compet.i.tion of the social factors.

And the cla.s.s war? In what sense is the general statement true that _history is a cla.s.s war_? I should be inclined to say that history is a cla.s.s war (1) when there are cla.s.ses, (2) when they have antagonistic interests, (3) when they are aware of this antagonism, which would give us, in the main, the humourous equivalence that history is a cla.s.s war only when it is a cla.s.s war. In fact sometimes cla.s.ses have not had antagonistic interests, and very often they are not conscious of them; of which the socialists are well aware when they endeavour, by efforts not always crowned with success (with the peasantry, for example, they have not yet succeeded), to arouse this consciousness in the modern proletariat. As to the possibility of the non-existence of cla.s.ses, the socialists who prophesy this non-existence for the society of the future, must at least admit that it is not a matter intrinsically necessary to historical development, since in the future, and without cla.s.ses, history, it may well be hoped will continue. In short even the particular statement that 'history is a cla.s.s war,' has that limited value of a canon and of a point of view, which we have allowed in general to the materialist conception.[46]