Henceforth—­disregarding the hysterical or unreasoning attempts to revert from bourgeois scepticism to mysticism as a safeguard against the moral and material crisis of the present time, attempts which make us think of those lascivious women who become pious bigots on growing old[86]—­henceforth both partisans and adversaries of socialism are forced to recognize the fact that, like Christianity at the dissolution of the Roman world, Socialism constitutes the only force which restores the hope of a better future to the old and disintegrating human society—­a hope no longer begotten by a faith inspired by the unreasoning transports of sentiment, but born of rational confidence in the inductions of modern experimental science.

THE END.

FOOTNOTES: 

[78] J. E. TH.  ROGERS, The Economic Interpretation of History, London, 1888.

[79] LORIA, Les Bases economiques de la constitution sociale, 2nd edition, Paris, 1894. (This work is available in English under the title:  “The Economic Foundations of Society.”  Swan Sonnenschein, London.—­Tr.)

To the general idea of Karl Marx, Loria adds a theory about “the occupation of free land,” which is the fundamental cause of the technical explanation of the different econo-micro-social organizations, a theory which he has amply demonstrated in his Analisi della proprieta capitalistica, Turin, 1892.

[80] It is seen what our judgment must be regarding the thesis maintained by Ziegler, in his book:  La question sociale est une question morale (The social question is a moral question).  French trans., Paris, 1894.  Just as psychology is an effect of physiology, so the moral phenomena are effects of the economic facts.  Such books are only intended, more or less consciously, to divert attention from the vital point of the question, which is that formulated by Karl Marx.

See on our side, DE GREEF, l’Empirieme, l’utopie et le socialisme scientifique, Revue Socialiste, Aug., 1886, p. 688.

[81] As proof of that conspiracy of silence about the theories of Karl Marx, it suffices for me to point out that the historians of socialism generally mention only the technical theory of surplus-labor, and ignore the two other laws:  (1) the determination of social phenomena and institutions by economic conditions, and (2) the Class Struggle.

[82] The votes on measures imposing taxes in the legislative bodies of all countries afford obvious illustrations of this principle. (The alignment of forces in the struggle for the income tax under the late administration of President Cleveland, is a very striking instance.—­Tr.)

[83] If uncompromisingness was an English word, it would express the thought more clearly and strongly.—­Tr.

[84] Parties related by affinity of object, tactics, or, more especially, of immediate demands.—­Tr.