/t cS SOME OF THE PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS ON Socialism and Science, Religion, Ethics, Critique-of-Reason and the World-at-large. BY JOSEPH DIETZGEN. TRANSLATED BY M. BEER AND TH. ROTHSTEIN WITH A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH AND SOME- INTRODUCTORY REMARKS BY EUGENE DIETZGEN : TRANSLATED BY ERNEST UNTERMANN. EDITED BY EUGENE DIETZGEN AND JOSEPH DIETZGEN, JR. CHICAGO CHARLES H. KERR & COMPANY 1912 copybight 1906 By Eugene Dietzgen ocjaiyfbWz TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE Joseph Dietzgen : a Sketch of His Life by Eugene Dietzgen 7 An Illustration of the Proletarian Method of Research and Conception of the World : Max Stirner and Joseph Dietzgen. By Eugene Dietzgen 35 Scientific Socialism 79 The Religion of Social-Democracy 90 Ethics of Social-Democracy 155 Social-Democratic Philosophy 173 The Limits of Cognition 224 Our Professors on the Limits of Cognition 236 The Inconceivable : a Special Chapter in Social-Demo- cratic Philosophy 254 Excursions of a Socialist into the Domain of Epistemology Preface 263 I. " The Innermost of Nature No Created Mind Can Enter " 266 II. The Absolute Truth and Its Natural Manifestations 278 III. Materialism versus Materialism 291 IV. Darwin and H?gel 314 V. The Light of Cognition 342 JOSEPH DIETZGEN A SKETCH OF HIS LIFE BY EUGENE DIETZGEN x My father, Joseph Dietzgen, was born in Blankenberg, near Cologne, Germany, on December 9, 1828. The place is a former stronghold of a robber baron, ro- mantically situated. A part of the walls and four massive ruins of towers of the old stronghold still lend a pic- turesque character to the landscape, the effect being heightened by the location of Blankenberg high upon a mountain covered with woods and vineyards, at the foot of which the Sieg, a charming tributary of the Rhine, winds its way. My grandfather, who was a well-to-do master tanner and a genuine little bourgeois, transferred his tannery, about the year 1835, to the nearby village of Uckerath, a place of about four hundred inhabitants. It owed its relatively busy life to the fact that it was a relay station on the postal route between Francfort and Cologne, which was then much frequented. My father was the eldest of three brothers and two sisters and resembled more than any of them his mother, a woman of high endowment, who at the age of 74 still attracted attention by her beautiful and stalwart ap- pearance. The Dietzgen's were one of the oldest fam- ilies in the valley of the Sieg, and the chronicle of the county seat Siegburg mentions some Dietzgen's in the 1 A revised and completed reproduction of an article in " Die Neuc Zeit," 1894-95. Vol. IT. 7 8 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS capacity of civil councillors and master tradesmen as far back as 1674. My father went to the public school in Uckerath, and later on for a short time to the high school in Cologne. He is described as being, up to his fifteenth year, an exceptionally bright boy, always up to some pranks and giving much trouble by his high spirits to the pastor, the mayor, and other prominent citizens of Uckerath and its neighborhood. For this reason, my grandfather sent him for a short while away from Uckerath to the Latin school of a very strict disciplinarian pastor in the village of Oberpleis. However, his years of adolescence and the awakening of love's longing made a thoughtful young man of him, who in the hours of recreation from tanning in grand- father's shop assiduously studied literature, political economy, and philosophy. He derived some inspiration irom the companionship of a playmate of his childhood who attended the university at Bonn. In those days, 1 845-1 849, in the shop, where a book was generally found open by the side of his work, he also learned to read French fluently without a teacher and to speak it so well that in 1871, when French prison- ers of war were quartered in the town of Siegburg where we lived at that time, he was able to converse with them, while to my surprise the teachers of French in the preparatory college could not do so. A small number of poems of my father, dating from his period of adoles- cence, 1 847-1 85 1, were found among the papers left by him. I reproduce two of them herewith: THE PROLETARIAN. By chains of poverty my life is bound, And superstition's mists obscure my brain. LIFE OF JOSEPH DIETZGEN The curse of toil, the never-ending strain, Oppresses me and weighs me to the ground. Made in a mould divine, yet I was found Amid the filthy garbage of a drain, The offspring of the outcast and profane, Doomed to the level of a soulless hound. A vagabond ! Sufficient for my kind The beggar's meal, doled out from day to day With drops of hollow faith to ease my mind. Bear I my cross until this mortal clay Shall totter to its grave? Where will you fin^ My soul? Where Satan holds eternal sway J HARD TIMES. Little woman, little song, . Oh, I love you, love you long. — Fr. v. Schleget In my good young days of gladness, When I felt my nature thrilling With creation's sweetest madness, Maidens fair were always willing, And there was no room for sadness. In my happy exultation, And 'mid kisses, songs, and dances, I defied with animation Care's and worry's darkest glances. Woe is me! The tide has turned! Times have changed. Now frank devotion. Tender glances, sweet embraces, Conjure up the marriage notion, Altar, wedding-ring, and laces, And a family commotion. Sadly do I face the question : Why is love abomination, Why a shame the sex suggestion, 10 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS Unless bless'd by rank and station? Woe is me! The tide has turned! ^ Pretty maiden, bright and bonnie, Winsome, charming, blithe and rosy! If I only had the money For a homestead snug and cosy, You would be my bride, my honey! But, alas ! though Cupid's craving Is as wild and strong as ever, Yet in vain is all my raving. Never shall I hold you, never! Woe is me! The tide has turned! At an early stage of his development, my father felt attracted toward Socialism — aside from the lessons taught by the times and conditions in which he lived — by the study of the French economists ; the Communist Manifesto of Marx and Engels made a class-conscious socialist out of him in 1848. He tried his hand at the trade of a " preacher of dis- content " in the " mad " year 1848, by addressing the peasants from a chair standing in the main street of the village. In June, 1849, the reaction drove him to America, at the age of 21. There he worked for two years as journeyman tanner, painter and teacher, but only at intervals, spending most of his time as a so-called tramp without means, and walking, or riding on canal boats, over a large part of the United States, from Wisconsin in the North to the Gulf of Mexico in the South, and from the Hudson in the East to the Mississippi in the West. Apart from acquiring the English language, he regarded as the best result of these travels, as he wrote to me to New York in 1882, " the feeling of having be- come acquainted with a land and with conditions, where LIFE OF JOSEPH DIETZGEN II one can make light of the pressing care for the daily bread which weighs upon one so hard in Germany." In December, 1851, we again find him at work in grandfather's shop at Uckerath, and two years later he married a devoutly religious orphan from the little country town of Drolshagen in Westphalia. Her goodness of heart and love of life cheered him, until her death in 1877 made him a widower. In spite of their utterly different mental propensities — my mother having the prejudiced bourgeois mind and being a devout Catholic, while my father was a thorough- going naturalist and proud of his proletarian convictions — they lived in rare harmony. It is significant for the relations of my parents that even after twenty-one years of union with my father, my mother urged me on the occasion of my first com- munion, which seemed to her an especially opportune moment, to send the fervent prayer to God that he might convert my father and lead him back into the embrace of the alone-saving church. Although this prayer re- mained unfulfilled, my father nevertheless occupied the place next to God in the devotion of my mother through- out all her life. Shortly after his marriage, my father opened a grocery store, a bakery, and a tannery combined in the nearby Winterscheid, much after the manner of the enterprising Americans. He was so successful in his business that he soon opened a branch store in the village of Ruppichte- roth. But as was his custom in Uckerath, so also in Winterscheid and in his later enterprises my father de- voted only half of the day to material gain, while the rest of his time was spent in diligent study, from pure thirst of knowledge and without other incentive. In order to secure economic independence for himself 12 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS and to be enabled to devote himself entirely to science at an earlier date than would have been possible by the help of his country store, he again emigrated in 1859 to the United States, where he tried to establish a larger busi- ness in the South. But the Civil War breaking out soon after that, his business in Montgomery, Alabama, came to an end. One morning he found some of his friends strung up in front of their houses, because their sympathy for the North had become inconvenient to their neighbors. He left Alabama in 1861 and returned to the Rhine, where he took charge of grandfather's tannery which he operated, as the grandfather had done, with the occa- sional help of a day laborer. It happened one day that his eldest sister called his attention to an advertisement in the " Kolnische Zeitung," in which a man familiar with advanced methods of tan- ning was wanted for a large government tannery in St. Petersburg, Russia. My father applied for this position, and in the spring of 1864 the Russian counsellor of state, Goureaux, visited him in Uckerath and engaged him at a high salary. In a few years, my father succeeded in increasing the productivity of the establishment fivefold, by the introduction of improved machinery and methods. But in 1869 he was back once more in the Rhineland, this time at Siegburg, where he had inherited a tannery from one of his uncles. It was this inheritance, together with his desire for greater independence, and the political conditions of Russia, that induced him to leave St. Peters- burg. The administration regretted his departure and promised to continue his salary, if he would inspect the factory for a few months every year. My father visited St. Petersburg several times for this purpose, but later the administration decided to dispense with his costly services. LIFE OF JOSEPH DIETZGEN 1 3 During his sojourn in Russia, my father wrote his first work : The Nature of Human Brain Work, dis- cussed by a workingman. A renewed critique of pure and practical reason. This critique of reason first ap- peared in 1869, published by Otto Meissner in Hamburg. It contains for the careful reader, among other things, an epistemological confirmation and explanation of the con- sistency of the materialist conception of history, on the basis of the monist-naturalist theory of understanding; furthermore, the beginning of a dialectics developed be- yond Hegel and his successors, Feuerbach, Marx and Engels. However, Joseph Dietzgen formulated his discovery of a dialectics expanded into a cosmic-monistic philosophy more clearly and usefully in his " Positive Outcome of Philosophy " which appeared in 1894. In this work his dialectics is more definitely and perfectly elaborated, not only as the " science of the general movement and de- velopment of nature, of human society, and of thought " (Engels), not only as the science of the eternally change- able diffusion of things, the individual connections of which must be studied, but also as the science of the infinitely constant and monistic interrelation of all things in the universe. It was only by means of this perfection that dialectics could grow into a consistent monism, a uniform world philosophy. From this moment dates the discovery of a cosmic-dialectic method of thought which guarantees a strictly systematic and "logical uniformity in the theory of all studies, no matter how wide and irrecon- cilable may seem the contradiction of the questions treated. This is the only method of research which ex- terminates dualism and superstition in all fields of studies, and clears the road for every science to its very last conclusions where each science merges into the universal 14 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS interrelation of nature. These words may here suffice to indicate the principal accomplishment of Joseph Dietzgen. In St. Petersburg, he also wrote his articles on " Cap- ital," by Karl Marx, which appeared in the " Demo- kratische Wochenblatt," at Leipzig, in 1868, which paper was the precursor of the " Volksstaat " and the present Berlin " Vowarts." Karl Marx makes a highly commendatory reference to the economic understanding of my father in the preface of the second edition of the first volume of " Capital." He also visited my father in Siegburg. At this point I must remember another friend of my father's, who deeply influenced his mental development. This is Ludwig Feuerbach, with whom my father enter- tained a correspondence. When in 1871 the news of the poverty and death of this philosopher reached my father, I remember seeing him cry for the first time. His small tannery in Siegburg permitted him to study with little interruption, since he did not care to accumu- late material wealth, his Siegburg heirloom guaranteeing in a modest way the necessities of life for himself and family, so long as it was kept together. That he did not succeed in keeping this heirloom intact, was a cause of much subsequent trouble to my father. There were al- ways a great number of friends who needed assistance that injured him. Irr one case he went to Denmark in order to assist a comrade financially in his tanning busi- ness. But the attempt failed, with great loss to himself. At the same time, his leather store and tannery in Sieg- burg were less and less able to compete with the growing great capitalist industries and to yield profits. Finally his last customers were almost wholly lost when he was taken into custody for three months, pending his trial LIFE OF JOSEPH DIETZGEN 15 in Cologne, in 1878. This arrest was made under the influence of the momentary excitement which had seized the German authorities after the attempt of Hodel and Nobiling, in 1878, to kill the German emperor. The di- rect cause of his arrest was a speech on " The Future of the Social-Democracy " which he had delivered in Co- logne. This speech appeared in print in Cologne in 1878 and many new editions of it are being used up to the present for propaganda. During his stay in Siegburg from 1869 to 1884, m y father wrote a large number of articles on economic and philosophical questions for the " Volksstaat," Leipzig, 1870-1876;, " Vor warts," Leipzic, 1877; " Sozialdemo- krat," Zurich, 1880-1888 ; " Neue Gesellschaft," Zurich ; " Neue Zeit," Stuttgart ; " New Yorker Volkszeitung," New York, and a number of pamphlets. I am familiar with the following : " The Religion of Social-Democ- racy " (five sermons, Leipzic), "Bourgeois Society," Leipzic ; " Thoughts on Political Economy," Leipzic ; " An Open Letter to Heinrich von Sybel," Leipzic ; " The Faith of the Faithless," Solingen. At the international congress at The Hague, in 1872, to which my father was a delegate, Karl Marx introduced him to the assembled delegates with the words : " Here is our philosopher." In spite of his reluctance, due to his lack of training and, perhaps, also to lack of talent for parliamentary func- tions, he was induced in 1881 to accept a nomination for the Reichstag in the county of Leipzic. However, he was beaten by a coalition of the parties of " law and order." In 1880, when his Siegburg business had been undermined and his means reduced by half by unfortunate relatives and friends, he suggested to me, his eldest son, after completing my studies at the Siegburg " gymnasium," to l6 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS emigrate to the United States and to become the path- finder for the existence of our family. After luck had favored me in this respect, my father was enabled to devote himself in peace to his life's work, which unfor- tunately was cut short prematurely when he had just completed his " Positive Outcome of Philosophy." How seriously he took his task, may be inferred from statements made before his death and from the following letter to me, written October 16, 1880: " An essential part of myself, the existence of which you may have suspected intuitively, but which you cannot really know, because we have never spoken of it, since you were too young, shall now be revealed to you. It will enable us to understand one another still better. To come to the point: I have been haunted since the days of my youth by a logical problem, viz., that of the ' last questions of all knowledge.' It presses on my brain like a stone. Whenever in the course of past years the cares of providing for the necessities of life were urgent, I might forget about it for a few years. But as soon as matters would go along more smoothly, it would al- ways return, ever stronger and clearer, until finally of recent years I have come to the conclusion that this is the work of my life. My peace of mind as well as my moral duty demand that I should devote myself to it and accomplish it. If I had been aware of this in St. Petersburg as I am now, we might still be there. This is the reason why I have been continuously striving to find an associate who would help me to carry the eco- nomic burden. Hence we have had that experience in Denmark and Solingen (he had made an unlucky venture in leather also in Solingen), and for the same reason I cannot carry on my little business here without help. My efforts are always directed toward the end of keeping LIFE OF JOSEPH DIETZGEN 17 my brain disengaged from business, so that I may occupy myself with my problem. For the last years I have had a hard time of it, for this problem rises with me and goes to bed with me, and the material cares do not per- mit me to pay much attention, to it. Let this be enough for the present. I cannot say much about the subject itself, until you have become more mature. J. H. von Kirchmann, the publisher of the ' Philosophische Biblio- thek,' names as the first requisite for the pursuit of philosophy a life rich in experience and events, a life that has seen much, tasted every happiness and every pain, and done and suffered right and wrong. " Now I want to impress you with the desirability of genuine culture. Above all, do not forget, while in America, that one should do business for the sake of life, not live for the sake of business. Never be harsh in your judgment of others, but make allowance for their environment. In order to be able to act courteously, you must think courteously. Virtue and faults are always combined. Even the rascal is a good fellow, and ' the just sins seven times per day.' Now enjoy life and work bravely." The private letters which my father used to write me regularly every week or two from the time of my emi- gration in May 1880 up to his third landing in America in June 1884, I have collected in one volume. They may interest a wider circle, not only on account of the deep insight which they afford of the soul-life and char- acter of my father, but also on account of the wisdom of life and invaluable guides for the development of young and inexperienced people contained in them. My father wrote two series of letters on logic during the period 1880-1883. But only that dealing with a critique of the theory of understanding was published l8 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS by Dietz in Stuttgart in 1895, together with the " Posi- tive Outcome of Philosophy." Of the series dealing with economics, only the first seven letters appeared in print, in the " Sozialdemokrat " (Zurich, 1883-84). In reference to these letters, he wrote me on November 7, 1883: "... Sorge will be more interested in these last three letters of the economic series than in the first series which is philosophical. For my part, I think more of the logical than the economic element, since what I have to say on the art of thinking is, so to speak, my own work and discovery, while I received my understanding of economics ready made from Marx." In the beginning of the eighties, my father was fre- quently visited by a number of students of the university in Bonn, among them Dr. Bruno Wille, who published, in the April number, 1896, of " Der Sozialistische Aka- demiker " (Berlin) his impressions in these words: " When I inquired in pleasant Siegburg for the home of Dietzgen, I was shown a little house covered with vines and situated in the middle of a garden on the bank of a creek. Skins soaking in water and the smell of oak bark indicated the presence of a tannery. A pretty girl of tall stature showed me into the parlor and called her father. The cozy room bore evidences of the literary inclinations of its owner, being filled with books which were plainly more than mere articles of decoration. There was also a portrait of Beranger. " Dietzgen entered and saluted me cordially. He was a man of giant stature, whose strength and animation did not betray his 54 years, although his luxuriant beard was grey. The first glance at his noble features convinced me that here was a man of genius. His large fiery eyes recalled the well-known potraits of Goethe. His beauti- LIFE OF JOSEPH DIETZGEN 19 ful forehead bore the imprint of the placid serenity of the antique philosophers. His manliness was combined with a loving and tender mind. His cordial sociability and the endearing melodiousness of his speech announced the best type of the Rhinelander. His voice sounded metallic, with a little nasal twang. Dietzgen came direct from his work in the shop, and he was not in the least embarrassed by meeting his visitor in his shirt sleeves. Thus he was an ideal illustration of the title of his first work, ' The Nature of Human Brain Work, by a working man.' " Dietzgen made ready for a walk with me. He abandoned his tannery without any ado. He carried it on only so far as it was required to maintain his modest household. This philosopher did not feel inclined to be a slave of work for gain. I discovered by his very first sentences that he was perfectly at home in the regions of higher mental life. Not a trace of the dust of the shop was on his soul. No professor could rise from his desk more spiritualized than this tanner did from his manual labor. In a few minutes, we were deeply engaged in a discussion of philosophical books and problems. I was surprised at Dietzgen's expert knowledge and general education, which was calculated to put to shame those conceited intellectuals who look down with disdain on the man without a university training. This philosoph- ical working man had even occupied himself with antique literature, and with better success than is generally shown by a graduate of a college, in spite of the fact that he was not familiar with Greek and only a beginner in Latin. When on a later occasion I visited him with a student who excelled in history, Dietzgen proved himself qualified to discuss with the greatest understanding a rather obscure special question of history. Such evi- 20 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS dences of knowledge and mental superiority were given with extreme naturalness and simplicity, in which there was not an atom of that boastfulness which I have not unfrequently observed in self-educated men. Dietzgen was far too objective and wise to pose. " While I was in Bonn, my pilgrimages to Siegburg were one of my favorite pastimes. As a rule I brought with me some books from the library of the university for Dietzgen. Sometimes I Was accompanied by my student friends. And I learned to love the workingman phi- losopher more and more. The versatility, strength and freshness of his talents were as inspiring as the oak tree distinguished by the luxuriance of its trunk, branches and foliage. Dietzgen was not a one-sidedly abstract and sober nature. His finely and sharply chiseled mental life was imbued with a certain poetic quality. His eye spark- led when resting on the beauties of nature during our walks. He was fond of poetry, especially of lyrics, which are generally neglected by inartistic minds. Once he recited for me a translation of a poem by Burns which he had clad in well-rounded German verse. If I am not mistaken, he then told me that he had paraphrazed sev- eral poems by Burns and Beranger. His mind had re- mained young in spite of his years. With joyful humor, fraternizing and freely conversing without restraint, he would sit among us young and frivolous folk drinking beer or punch. But he always held aloof from the trivial and maintained a mental level which compelled the re- spect of even the most forward. Otherwise, as a citizen of Siegburg, he led a rather lonely, almost hermit-like, existence. The bourgeois were not to his liking. More- over, they had a certain distrust of Socialism, especially the officials. He had little intercourse with comrades of the party, though there were quite a number of them in LIFE OF JOSEPH DIETZGEN 21 nearby Cologne. He seemed to feel no attraction for party life. He told me that he had given a few lectures in party meetings, and, if I am not mistaken, that he had been nominated for the Reichstag, but declared that he was no speaker and no politician. In his pleasant way, he related his experience with the authorities. Shortly after Hodel's attack on the emperor, he accepted an invitation of comrades of the party and gave a lecture on ' The Future of the Social-Democracy ' in Cologne. His man- uscript was published in pamphlet form under the same title. In his own words : ' In the meantime the second attack, that of Nobiling, had occurred, whereupon the uniformed, decorated, titled and official world of Ger- many leaped up as if bitten by a tarantula. They con- fiscated my pamphlet, handcuffed me to another vagabond, and delivered both of us on the eve of Pentecost to the prison of Cologne. After keeping me there for two months, they dragged me, together with the editor of the " Neue Freie Presse " and my Friend Kroger, who had committed the dangerous crime of acting as agent for my pamphlet — I don't know what — incited class against class, desecrated religion, endangered the public peace, etc., etc. After the court had dismissed us without any penalty and costs, I was again handcuffed by the gensd'armes and led to my cell. The public prosecutor had appealed the case. And when the second trial once more ended in my acquittal, the obstinate prosecutor appealed again, this time to the court of cassation in Berlin, where the author and his pamphlet were at last set free. A few days after that the anti-socialist laws put a radical end to all freedom, and the authorities gave me the documentary assurance that the future of the Social-Democracy was forbidden. Did not Xerxes whip the sea when it was rough? Now let the Prussians go -- PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS ahead with their whipping. The Social-Democracy will attend to its own future/ " For the third time, my father emigrated to the United States in June, 1884. Soon after his arrival he accepted the editorship of the newly founded party organ in New York. ** Der Socialist,** which he retained until he moved to Chicago, in 1886, at my solicitation, with my two sisters and one brother. One of his daughters, who had married in Russia was the only one of the family remaining in Europe. In Chicago, my father wrote in 18S6 a work of 60 pages, entitled ** Excursions of a Socialist into the Do- main of Epistemology.** which was published in 1887 by : : 7-. - - - ■-..:: H:"ir.j:er.-Znridi In 1887, be wrote " The Positive Outcome of Philosophy.** When in 1886 the editors of the " Chicagoer Arbeit er- za&aag" wen arr e ste d :: be condemned :: ieaffa 2 year later in the well-known anarchist trial, my father tempo- rarily assumed the post of chief editor and remained a contributor to this paper up to the time of his death. At this point, I should like to insert a few statements about my father which F. A. Sorge. the intimate friend of Marx and Engels. and the Xestor of the American socialist movement, published in the Pioneer Calendar of the " New- Yorker YoBcszeitung.** in 1902 : " When he ^.~e to America for the third time, he rented, in a remote part of North Xew-Jersey. an old, dated, bouse which was barely habitable, and mere he feh mite ?it:if.ri. ~":h-ugb visitors trod •rith misgri ::: ; ja the fteps of the rickety stairs vbich led : his rooms. In 1884. he wrote to a friend in regard to "the Manx:!-. ; :i:emerjt . . . that econorr. lual on which me : ire reared. Our world - : 3 live, to LIFE OF JOSEPH DfETZGEX 23 eat and drink in a dviEzed style, even though ft be bar- barian inside. But for my part, I can be at ease in bar- barian surroundings, provided my private economy is arranged so that I can devote myself without care to die ^i-i- - _-.- ^ ---•:-: :- ,- - .'jaw be sa] s in i letter of November 27, 1887: "I snail travel in the e:~ti^ :!_:■: 1 ~i7 7; ::•:: -:: ~L-:t ^r rr.-.-t; his :: ;-,-—. • '---•:: ;vt- -.-.-ft : :~t; ..t::rt j-.t -;e: i.- tT.trr. It- Tr I fet! TT-irt 1: h.~t :r. i. ::~;^ r..t than on the high horse." His sunplkity of living made him by no means morose ." :T.i:~trtT_: : : "."■: -._-.:Ti"f _; :_-_t ". _'-. t* ~ :t. 1 . m" r.t enjoyed life and work is clearly shown by the following ".tr.tr :•: i ::.::.: ::' r r ;.-;-_--_>_. r; It: :t_ - - V:*-: . . . I bare re. _ - " :' rrj childhood, on the baa is ~ m tan -e the ;• ns :: \~ 1 people .: >::."• :: nar *: expi e ad. tbe wish attracted by lie base recollecbcc. and tbe Asneric^r. : fa qobk wsrifc jorar better r.^: and ... - ... corrr; t, t™ -.'.•-.-. z~ ::" trt r.zrrjar- ~i_:t .-.-_-.. r: raaen 1:::-: ag ' Karl Yogt i? descended £r:rr- —•::•:■ ; : : ~j y-Z'rrr. •_ - -. : ; ! . been bora f! has been bapewd w [ - A ReittTrt : preface is agned tS JOB. Another c ieatl : -sr-aci •»- 24 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS you is a visit which was paid to me about fourteen days ago by our venerated hero, Karl Marx. He stayed a few days in Sieburg with his charming daughter. Joseph Dietzgen. Personally, Joseph Dietzgen was a tall and handsome man, who strikingly resembled the oft-described figure of Goethe, symmetrically built and of noble and unaffected bearing, with a frank and open eye full of intelligence and goodness. His whole being inspired respect and veneration. He went almost too far in his modesty and unselfishness, especially in his relations with the pub- lishers of the " Sozialist " in New York, the National Executive of the Socialist Labor Party, who made life very unpleasant for him while he acted as editor of their paper. But with all his modesty and unassuming bear- ing, he still showed manliness and true courage. While the National Committer, after the throwing of the bomb at the Haymarket in Chicago, thought only of repudiating all connection with the anarchists, and with anarchism, Dietzgen, in the very midst of lawlessness of the heroes of " law and order," went to the persecuted and reviled and offered them his help and comfort in the hour of their need. It required real courage and strength of character to do so at that time. It was a purely humane and manly act on his part, for which the Chicago police rewarded him by searching his house and scaring his children. One of the contributors to the " Chicagoer Arbeiter- zeitung " of that period described Joseph Dietzgen's actions and bearing in those times as follows : " When in May, 1886, the waves of the labor movement began to rise, when the Haymarket bomb had exploded and the reaction followed with a police rule similar to that of Russia, when cautious and soberminded men cor^iderc* 1 LIFE OF JOSEPH DIETZGEN 25 it well to deny any connection with the arrest of editors of the " Arbeiterzeitung," an old gentleman intro- duced himself, on May 6, to those of the publishers who had not preferred to take to the woods. He offered them his services, because he considered it his duty to jump into the breach and fill the place of those comrades who had been torn out of the ranks of the fighters, and because he considered it necessary that the Chicago workers should not be without an organ in those trying times. This old gentleman, of giant stature, with the bearing of a patriarch, such as we see in good old pictures, was Joseph Dietzgen, who had shortly before joined his chil- dren in the young metropolis, in order to pass the re- mainder of his days in the circle of his adoring family. It was the same Dietzgen who had often been reviled and ridiculed in this Chicago paper by Spies and his com- panions, in a spiteful controversy, which, starting from a principle, had been directed by them against the un- known personality and sometimes old-fashioned and orna- mental style of Dietzgen. That this offer of Dietzgen's, who asked no pay for his services, and did not expect any, was brave and unselfish, was not only admitted by those to whom he had made it, but was also admired and appreciated by all who learned of it then and later. His offer was accepted, and when two weeks later the administrative board of the Socialist Publishing Society convened, they elected Dietzgen unanimously to the position of chief editor of the three papers published by this society, " Arbeiterzeitung," " Fackel," and " Vorbote." When the new editor in chief assumed control, he made the following little address to the employees which is typical of the whole man : " Gentlemen : I have been elected chief editor of your papers. If this position re- 26 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS quires the duties of an overseer or driver, then I am not fit for it. I shall confine myself to the writing of my articles. It is said that there is no harmony in this office. Well, if you can have confidence in me, I shall be pleased to have you present your differences of opinion to me. I shall then try to act as arbitrator and to establish peace." Well, the dissension was not so very great, but the editorial staff learned to have confidence in their chief and to venerate him like a father. This relationship re- mained undisturbed, although Dietzgen did not stay in his position very long, but resigned his title and was satisfied to contribute articles up to the time of his death in April, 1888. Being almost too modest and avoiding publicity with excessive bashfulness, he became very little known personally in Chicago. But all who were fortunate enough to become acquainted with him, loved the man and respected his character." And Sorge continues : " Dietzgen was assailed by friend and foe for his stand in defending the prisoners and taking editorial charge of the ' Chicagoer Arbeiter- zeitung,' during the prosecution of Spies and his com- rades. He tried to lessen the differences between social- ists and anarchists * by emphazing that which was common to both, in accordance with the requirements of a cultivated use of the intellect which teaches that ' there are only differences of degree, not radical differences, not absolute differences between things. Contradictions are 1 Wherever we mention anarchists, it should be remembered that we refer to the Chicago anarchists, so-called " communist anarchists," who were no individualists, but sincere, though very radical and theoretically- unclear proletarian revolutionaries. It was these men whom my father tried to win back for the socialist labor movement, not individualist anarchists, as was thought by comrades in New York and Europe. LIFE OF JOSEPH DIETZGEN 27 solved by reasonable distinctions,' he says in his ' Positive Outcome of Philosophy.' " To a friend in the East of the United States he wrote on April 20, 1886: " For my part, I lay little stress on the distinction, whether a man is an anarchist or a socialist/because it seems to me that too much weight is attributed to this difference. While the anarchists may have mad and brainless individualists in their ranks, the socialists have an abundance of cowards. For this reason I care as much for the one as the other. The majority in both camps are still in great need of education, and this will bring about a reconciliation in good time." On May 17, 1886, he wrote : " I was of the opinion that the difference between socialists and anarchists should not be exaggerated, and when the bomb exploded and the staff of the ' Arbeiterzeitung ' was imprisoned, I at once offered my services, which were accepted." He wished to be only collaborator, not editor, and said further : " Anarchism would not have disturbed me so very much, only Mostism, which makes a system of violent assaults and private vengeance, could never have been congenial to me. I do not believe that this or that row hurts the party as much as the oversensitive are try- ing to make out. On the contrary, a nation should also be taught to assert itself." When Dietzgen went to Chicago, he had been asked by the National Executive Committee of the Socialist Labor Party to write articles on the situation in Chicago. But when he sent his report on the Haymarket riot, it was rejected, because " it was diametrically opposed to the views of the Committee." Dietzgen then made sharp attacks on the " Sozialist " and the National Executive Committee by various articles in the " Chicagoer Arbeiter- ziitvng," -and he wrote to a friend about this on June 9, 28 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS 1886: . . "I call myself an anarchist in this quotation, and the passage left out explains what I mean by anarchism. I define it in a more congenial sense than is usually done. According to me, — and I am at one in this with all the' better and best comrades, — we shall not arrive at the new society without serious troubles. I even think that we shall not get along without wild disturb- ances, without ' anarchy.' I believe that ' anarchy ' will be the stage of transition. Dyed-in-the-wool anarch- ists pretend that anarchism is the final stage of society. To that extent they are rattle brains who think they are the most radical people. But we are the real radicals who work for the communist order above and beyond anarch- ism. The final aim is socialist order, not anarchist dis- order. If the Chicago comrades would now avail them- selves of the state of affairs in their city, I could help them considerably. The anarchists would then join our ranks and would form, together with the best socialists of all countries, a united and active troop, before which such weaklings as Stiebeling, Fabian, Vogt, Viereck, and others would be dispersed and forced to crawl under cover. For this reason, I think, the terms anarchist, socialist, communist, should be mixed together so that no muddle head could tell which is which. Language serves not only the purpose of distinguishing things, but also of uniting them, for it is dialectic. The words, and the intellect which gives meaning to language, cannot do anything else but give us a picture of things. Hence man may use them freely, so long as he accomplishes his purpose." . The dispute was carried along for some time, and when finally his friend in the East rebuked him also, Dietzgen wrote on April 9, 1888, a few days before his death : " I am still well satisfied with my approach to the anarchists LIFE OF JOSEPH DIETZGEN 20, and am convinced that I have accomplished some good by it." Dietzgen was full of humor, always inclined to tease his friends and members of his family, and was m no way a Philistine. When some acquaintance reminded him of a promise, he replied : " Never take my word for anything, but consider it to be like mercury." And to a female friend of the family, he wrote : " If the children or one of them should complain about my making more promises than I. keep, I wish you would not think evil of me. It is the fault of the credulous thildren whom I have taught from their youth that they must not believe everything I promise, but they are in- curable in this respect." Another time he announces that he still has an income of two marks per day in Germany and continues : " I shall try next summer, and anticipate great pleasure from so doing, to live on this sum in some German village like some cavalier in reduced circumstances." In a letter of July 18, 1887, he sounds a ribald note: " I have read Diintzer's ' Life of Goethe ' of late. This noble poet was a great Don Juan ! How well he could love and jilt! His many loves have inspired me with a strong desire to imitate him, only I fear that I should have more trouble in being faithless. On the whole, the man is an admirable character." In November, 1887, he announces that he has received money for some literary work and adds : " Now I am a rich man, and as soon as my engagement with the paper here has expired, I shall return to Germany and try the pleasure of a hermit life in my native village. That is my ideal. Then, if I could find some old sweetheart of my youth in that place, I challenge my century." On February 2, 1888, he wrote: " . . . There is 30 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS still another thing which occupies me a great deal and which I can mention to you only quite confidentially. I am engaged in deepening an old friendship of my youth into love. If I knew that you were in a better mood to listen, I should tell you a little more about the foolishness of the aged ; but now I shall wait for a better time ..." While Dietzgen accomplished remarkable work in philosophy, and especially in dialectics, he was not less at home in political economy, in the study of the industrial development of society. With his sharp foresight, he soon recognized the trend of modern modes of capitalist production and their reaction on the political conditions of the various countries. As early as 1881, he wrote from Germany: "The United States will in my opinion remain the land of the future in bourgeois society. By means of the competition of the New World, the oppressive atmosphere of Europe will be cleared. Agriculture is visibly on the decline in Germany. The land is becoming more and more an ap- pendage of the cities and is turned into hunting grounds, parks, and country homes. And if our nation does not rally soon and overthrow its exploiters, the whole of Europe will soon become a sporting place of Americans. Our working men emigrate to America, and the fatted bourgeois immigrate from over there. Then they will have their factories in America, and their residences in Europe." And a few years later, in the first letter on logic written to his son, he declares that democratic and proletarian in- terests are identical and continues : "If this is not yet well recognized in the United States, it is due more to the fortunate natural resources of that country than to the scientific insight of its democracy. The spreading LIFE OF JOSEPH DIETZGEN 3 1 primeval forests and prairies offered innumerable home- steads to the poor and glossed the antagonism between capitalists and laborers, between capitalist and proletarian democracy. But you still lack the knowledge of prole- tarian economics which would enable you to recognize without a doubt that precisely on the republican ground of America, capitalism is making giant strides and re- vealing ever more clearly its twofold task of first enslav- ing the people for the purpose of freeing them in due time." This is not the place to dwell on the main works of Dietzgen, " The Nature of Human Brain Work " and " The Positive Outcome of Philosophy." But it may be said that Monism, the science of the unity of all being, did not find a more eloquent, convinced and convincing champion than Joseph Dietzgen in the second half of the XlXth century. He handled his dialectics, the midwife of his philosophical productions, in a wonderfully refreshing and original manner. In that very interesting work " Feuerbach, The Roots of the Socialist Philosophy," Frederick Engels explains the nature of dialectics and says : " And this materialistic dialectics, which for years has been our best tool and our sharpest weapon, was discovered, not by us alone, but by a German work- man, Joseph Dietzgen, in a remarkable manner and utterly independent of us and even of Hegel." Here I leave the data furnished by Sorge. Those who had become acquainted with my father's impressive and high-spirited style, were surprised at his mildness and modest reserve, when they made his per- sonal acquaintance. But behind these qualities, there stood the just pride of his true convictions. We children had the utmost liberty in our intercourse with him, but when we tried to abuse this freedom or to be too smart, 2,2 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS then he quickly shamed us by a few words or by a mean- ing glance. A happier man than my father would have been hard to find, and none who was more loyal in all his relations. Death was to him, as to Feuerbach, not an evil. But he dreaded long suffering and admitted that he was afraid of it, while he bore short attacks of illness with resignation and even with good humor. Death finally proved a friend to him, for it left him only a few seconds of time to feel the shortness of breath and consternation which I read in his face when he fell into my arms, breathing his last. Paralysis of the heart killed him within two minutes. It was on a pleasant Sunday, April 15, 1888. In the morn- ing, after a walk in springclad Lincoln Park, we had emptied a bottle of wine between the two of us and had come home to dinner in the best of spirits. My father enjoyed his meal with his customary hearty appetite. When coffee was served immediately after dinner, one of my acquaintances happened to drop in. This was the cause of my father's lighting a cigar (instead of taking a half hour's nap as usual) and taking part in our con- versation on the social question. My acquaintance had not even a superficial knowledge of the subject, which did not prevent him, however, from making offhand state- ments. In spite of my remonstrance against such ignorance, my father became more vivacious and excited than I had ever seen him. With a seriousness and emphasis which I shall never forget, he related that he had foreseen the modern labor-movement forty years before this date, and proceeded to explain his views on the imminent collapse of capitalist production, when suddenly he stopped in the middle of a sentence, with his hand uplifted, and died in the manner described above. He was not quite sixty years old. LIFE OF JOSEPH DIETZGEN 33 Simply and without any show, in harmony with the character of my father, we buried him by the side of the murdered anarchists in Forest Home Cemetery near Chi- cago, on April 17, 1888. (Translated by Ernest Untermann.) AN ILLUSTRATION OF THE PROLETARIAN METHOD OF RESEARCH AND CON- CEPTION OF THE WORLD. MAX STIRNER AND JOSEPH DIETZGEN. BY EUGENE DIETZGEN. Locarno, March, 1905. Stirner's work " The Individual and His Property '* (Der Einzige und sein Eigentum), by its fundamental conception and frank advocacy of the principle of self- centered individualism, reminds one of Macchiavelli's work, " The Book of Princes." Stirner is the most con- sistent modern champion of the individualist-anarchist, or bourgeois, manner of thought, which is represented in literature by such stars as Schopenhauer, Hartmann, Nietzsche, Hauptmann, Ibsen, Lombroso, D'Annunzio, Tolstoi, Maeterlinck, or men like Chamberlain and Brooks Adams. For this reason, we shall employ " The Indi- vidual and his Property " for the purpose of illustrating the proletarian monist method of research and world-con- ception, elaborated for the first time on the basis of a theory of understanding by Joseph Dietzgen, by com- paring this theory with the dualist bourgeois conception of the mind and of the world. Stirner is unique, stimulating, and brilliant in his negative criticism of the supernatural belief in the cre- ative power of the absolute, or " pure." spirit. But he fails completely, and becomes himself sterile and be- 35 36 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS witched, as soon as a positive criticism of his subject is demanded. On this field, he has long been outdone by the historical materialism of Marx and Engels and the theory of understanding of Dietzgen. Stirner declared war against all spooks and their sup- porters, because Christianity, liberalism, and Utopian com- munism, instead of seeing through the hallucinations of the socalled pure spirit and its catchwords of god, liberty, morality, law, state, society, authority, etc., welcomed it and its creatures as allies for the degradation and enslave- ment of the individual. However, while Stirner flattered himself with having discovered an impregnable method of combat, he did not follow the example of Marx and Engels, who confronted the aprioristic hallucinations with the sober demonstration of the historical fact, that they were but necessary phenomena and companions of ten- dencies, which are conditioned on particular processes of social life and cannot, therefore, disappear until these do. Nor did it occur to him to forge a mighty weapon against obsolete conceptions after the manner of Dietzgen, who, inspired by historical materialism, deepened and elabo- rated it into a conception of the world by means of his analysis of the force of thought and understanding which revealed the dependence of the human mind on social conditions as well as its interrelation with nature and the universe. We shall show in the following lines, that Dietzgen's theory of understanding was the first to thus completely demonstrate the fantastic nature of all purely deductive abstractions and of the " pure " spirit. Stirner does not do anything of the kind, but contents himself with pointing out the injuriousness of pure catchwords for the trusting individual, without suspecting the social and cosmic origin and basis of those catchwords. Conse- quently he necessarily remains in the same circle of mental THE PROLETARIAN METHOD 37 hallucinations as his bourgeois opponents. And accord- ingly he recommends as a panacea — the same as all anarchists after him — that the consciously egoistic self, that is to say the individual with his psycho-physical power, who considers himself above society, be seated upon the world-throne as an individual and independent power, enjoying in his capacity of autocrat and hyper- man only individual rights, without regard to society and nature and without any duties. Stirner's ideas are not completely intelligible, unless one takes into consideration the most advanced intellectual tendencies preceding the March revolution, under whose influence he wrote his work. In this category belong especially the speculative communism of Babeuf, Proud- hon, and Weitling, the first attempts of critical com- munism made by Marx and Engels in the " Deutsch- Franzoesischen Jahrbuecher " (German-French Annals), in March, 1844, which Stirner understood merely in an ideological way, furthermore Hegel's dialectic, and finally Feuerbach's realistic humanitarianism (The Essence of Christianity) and Bauer's idealistic humanitarianism (in the " Allgemeine Literaturzeitung "). In this storm and stress period, Stirner deserves men- tion as one of the most brilliant minds of liberal intel- lectualism, excelling by his quaint natural wit and his artistic imagination. In his vain struggle with the ideological method of speculation and its spook of a pure spirit, he has many a flash of bright thought, which strikes one like that of some modern thinker, making a passionate appeal to one's selfreliance and independent thought, selfdependence and selfemancipation, as opposed to the servile degradation of one's personality by religious, philosophical, liberal, and social spooks. It is this spirited appeal to selfrespect, 38 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS which constitutes the important merit of Stirner's work, for by means of it he creates at least strong doubts as to the authority of any and all spooks, which are the creations of the aprioristic conceptions of the clerically divine, liberally moral, and socially humanitarian ideolo- gies. Stirner also takes occasion to say words full of warmth and strength about the proletariat, without, however, realizing the definite historical role of this class and economic category of society. The entire work of Stirner is pervaded as much by his strong side, the negative ridicule of the catchwords of speculative idealism, as by his weak side, the fantastic and idealistic deification of pure egoism. The reader will look in vain for some positive point of vantage in this hymn of egoism. It has neither bot- tom nor boundaries. Stirner is not content to use egoism as an indispensable and sound weapon against the hypo- critical, sentimental, and servile selfdenial, which is being preached by the priesthood of all creeds. Instead, he has such an exaggerated and fantastic conception of egoism, that it loses all definite outlines and becomes quite as much of a spook as the clerical and liberal liberty, law, humanity, authority, etc. With equal lack of insight into the natural differentia- tion and at the same time natural unity of all things and phenomena Christianity worships the spirit of god, liberalism the spirit of the individual, Hegel the absolute ideal, Feuerbach human love. And so Stirner worships self-love. In his egoism, the immediate, more remote, and most remote personal interests all merge without dis- tinction into one, so that love, selfsacrifice, selfdenial, and even selfdestruction have an indiscriminate place in it. It is this peculiar antidialectic conception of abstract THE PROLETARIAN METHOD 39 ideas, which gives to Stirner such a confused notion of egoism, and of the importance and power of the individual separated from society, and by this means he places his followers, the anarchists of every shade and the supermen of the Nietzsche stamp, on strained terms with all sober logic. Experience teaches, that a man becomes possessed as soon as he falls so completely into thraldom to catchwords, that he only believes in them and makes no conscious effort to analyze them and bring them into accord with the array of facts which can be tested empirically. With naive faith, superstition and fantasy simultaneously begin their confusing play. Then the intellectuals among the liberal and confessional preachers know how to inaugurate their partly brilliant, partly artistic, scintillation of words, which enables the shrewdest of them to hoodwink the gullible. It is a perplexing music which the leading preachers make for their faithful lambs in order to fish in troubled waters, either consciously or unconsciously. Among others, apart from Stirner, it is by the way, especially Nietzsche, who is such an unconscious fisher- man, and who even excels his master in his confusion of abstract ideas. In spite of the perfect form of such works as " Thus Spake Zarathustra," it will be hard to find any reader, who would be able to cull from this tinkling of words a single clear and new thought, which would stand the test of scientific analysis. Because morality, order, law, the state, etc., have so long been employed as bogies, therefore Stirner opines that this whole plunder should be thrown away. He derives the right of sterile negation from his extravagant lack of discernment. But for this very reason, Stirner cannot detach himself from faith and arrive at science. For him, in true bourgeois fashion, 40 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS the dependent nature of the individual on the universe and society has remained as much of a riddle as the equally dependent nature cf those abstract ideas. And thus he struggles helplessly in his own snares. Because the individual is abused by those catchwords, which neither the liberals nor himself could digest, therefore they have no right to existence at all in the opinion of Stirner and are supposed to fall at the mere command of his self, his individuality. And such a harebrained men- tality is taken seriously by the anarchists, by Nietzsche, and his disciples ! The work of Stirner naturally ends in making a saint of the pure ego. This is the insane idea of the " Indi- vidual " and his unenviable " Property," as we shall now try to demonstrate more clearly. We certainly agree with Stirner in opposing the priestly and illadvised use of catchwords, but we do not spill the child with the bathing water. If Stirner had not him- self remained entrapped in priestly conceptions, he would have made short work of the absolute sacredness of those great catchwords, by analyzing them and demonstrating that they were relatively sacred, that is to say wholesome, according to time and place. It is no wonder, that the fundamentally Utopian state- ments of Babeuf , Proudhon, and Weitling did not lead the most typical apostle of anarchism into a new road. The same is also true of the romantic articles of Bruno Bauer. But at least Hegel's dialectics and Feuerbach's theses should have stimulated Stirner to more fertile thoughts than a mere negative critique, granted that such a critique on his part was in some respects justified, if he had only possessed a little more aptitude for historical interde- pendence and the theory of understanding. For want of study of the laws of thought and society, THE PROLETARIAN METHOD 41 Stirner's struggles for a positive conception of the world did not yield any clear result concerning the relation of the individual toward society and nature. This is the final reason that prevents him from culling the sound kernel from the catchwords which he criticizes. It is therefore but a consistent act of helpless desperation and a bowing to the undefeated spooks, that he always hides behind the armor of a knight of pure egoism. He sees, indeed, the interaction of mind and body and that of these two in society and nature, so that their mutual interdependence is revealed. But he does not arrive at a clear understanding of the degree and im- portance of the dependent role of the individual factors in this interrelation, because the actual mutuality and oppo- sition of phenomena obscures for him their equally real social and cosmic unity. But it is this total interre- lation of all phenomena, which compels man to distinguish the individual relations, according to their importance, by genera, species, classes, families, etc., in order to orient himself in the universe. Stirner lacks appreciation for the dialectics and interrelation of things and thoughts. Hence the understanding does not come to him, that the human individual, being a product of nature in body and soul, is so inseparably and universally connected with nature, that his growing individuality and power is con- ditioned on the increasing understanding and utilization of this natural, and socially ever-increasing, dependence. He ignores furthermore the fact, that such an under- standing and utilization is not due to the individual personality as such, but to its capacity as a member of society and nature, because the individual can exist only in this capacity, and develop, gain power and exercise it by this means. And finally he remains ignorant of the fact, that a society and its egos are mainly determined, so 42 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS far as the historical peculiarity of their existence is con- cerned, by the particular degree of development of the social forces of production of their time. This under- standing came to Engels by a study of the English, to Marx by that of the French revolution, and it came to both of them at the time of Stirner. While Feuerbach had demonstrated, that men and human existence were not created by god (spirit, consciousness), but that man had created god after his own image, Marx, having studied also social science, taught furthermore : " It is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but their social existence which determines their conscious- ness." Mehring has shown in volume II of the " Posthumous Writings of Marx, Engels, and Lassalle," that Marx had found the enlightening sentences almost literally in the works of the oldest French socialists : " If man is formed by external circumstances, then circumstances must be modeled to suit man. If man is by nature social, then he can develop his true nature only in society, and the power of his nature must not be judged by the power of the single individual, but by that of his social surround- ings." In the further development of this thought, Marx wrote in the " German-French Annals " : " Not until the real, individual man discards the abstract citizen of the state and realizes that he, as an individual, in his actual life, his individual work, his individual relations, is a generic being, not until man has organized his indi- vidual powers into social powers and ceased to separate his social powers from his political powers, will human eman- cipation be accomplished." (See Mehring, " Posthumous Writings, etc.," volume I, page 352, German edition.) The Marxian term " generic being," which is plainly defined at this place as an individual conscious of his social THE PROLETARIAN METHOD 43 power, is ridiculed by Stirner as an empty abstraction, be- cause he did not know what to do with it from mere ideological narrowmindedness. Stirner also passed with- out understanding by the other attempts at critical com- munism, which Engels published in the same periodical in his " Outlines For A Critique Of Political Economy." "I have built my affairs on nothing (but myself)." With this pert statement, Stirner begins and concludes his book. It is not nature, the creator of the human individual, nor society, the supporter of his life, which are the determining powers, according to Stirner, but the single individual, who acknowledges them only so far as they serve him. But if they refuse to do him this favor, the individual places himself above nature and society and be- comes — a superman. " Why do you hesitate to take courage and constitute yourselves into the center and main factor of things ? Why do you pine for liberty as you do for your dreams? Are you your own dream? Do not stop to inquire of your dreams, your imaginations, your thoughts, for all that is but a ' hollow theory.' Inquire of yourselves and care for yourselves — that is practical, and you love to be ' practical ' — Therefore turn rather to yourselves and be your own gods or idols. Bring forth that which is in you, show it in the light, reveal your own selves." Thus speaks Stirner. And how does he propose to realize this ? Very simple 1 " I secure for myself liberty against the world to the extent that I make the world my own, that I conquer and take possession of it, be this done by any force whatever, by persuasion, request, a categorical demand, or even hypocrisy, fraud, etc. ; for the means which I use for this purpose depend on what I am." And again, " My free- dom does not become perfect, until it is my power ; and 44 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS by this means I cease being- merely a free man and I become a self possessed free man. Whv is the freedom of nations an ' empty word ' ? Because the nations have no power. With one breath of the living ego I blow down whole nations, whether it be the breath of a Nero, a Chinese emperor, or a poor writer." These words remind one of " Uncle Braesig," who thought he had explained poverty, when he called it " pauvrete." Without power no liberty ; but how do I get power ? All that Stirner has to say in reply is that power dwells in myself, in the individual, who becomes a self- possessed free man, when he brings forth power out of himself. The " free " will of the individual is supposed to suffice for this purpose ! Leaving aside the fact that Stirner himself has nothing but words to show in sub- stantiation of his claim; — for we learn from his biog- rapher that he ended in poverty and misery in spite of his mighty Ego — where are there in authenticated history any individuals endowed with such mighty wills and power by their own unaided personality? The super- humanly powerful role ascribed by historical fables to chiefs of savage hords, those " selfpossessed free men " by virtue of their physical strength and ability, has been re- duced to its modest and dependent measure, and no one has accomplished this more thoroughly than Lewis H. Morgan in his " Ancient Society." We need not, there- fore, pause for any further consideration of the exag- gerated power of such " strong men." The " self- possessed " power of the individuality is merely that spleen, of which Stirner cannot rid himself. This is his misfortune and that of all liberals, who have this in common with the anarchists and the autocrats, in short with the entire bourgeoisie, that they believe, in perfect harmony with their system of " free " competition, in the THE PROLETARIAN METHOD 45 spook of the selfpossessed free individual. It is the merit of Marx, Engels, and Dietzgen, to have demon- strated, that the fundamental explanation for this dogma, which deserves a place by the side of the infallibility of the pope, is found in definite conditions of production and existence giving rise to the dualistic method of thought of a bourgeoisie operating with absolute contradictions. Marx and Engels have shown more clearly than their predecessors the role of the individual as a social power, while Dietzgen fortified and extended this proof, which is of such great consequence for the study of society and history, by showing in his theory of understanding that the human faculty of thought is no more and no less than an ordinary cosmic force and phenomenon, and that it is in its activity absolutely dependent upon the connection with other natural phenomena. In this way Dietzgen cleared the road for a scientific conception of the world. On the other hand, whether we believe with the wor- shippers of a god in a supernatural being, or with the liberals in a supernatural human spirit and will, we believe in the same dualism and agree in the last analysis with the anarchist confusion concerning the position of the per- sonality in society and nature. Religious dualism: God and nature; liberal dualism: intangible spirit and tangible matter; anarchist dualism: individual and society — nature. The dualistic relationship between the believers in a god, free thinkers, and anarchists is palpable. For the believers in a god, the rule of the individual over man- kind is a divine dogma ; for the liberals, it is a spiritual dogma ; and for the anarchists, it is a demand of the " free " personality. For all three of them, this dualism obstructs their grasp of the monistic interrelation of in- 46 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS dividuals, society, and nature, thus preventing their radi- cal rupture with all spooks. Stirner ridicules the universal abstract liberty, but clings to an equally abstract power of the "self-pos- sessed " individual. However, he does not take the least trouble trying to expose this power and its anything but individual origin. In opposition to him, Engels, standing on the shoulders of Hegel, drew the veil from the verbose individuality and will-power of Stirner with the following words, to be found in his " Anti-Diihring " : " Hegel was the first to correctly represent the relation of freedom and necessity. For him, freedom consisted in the understanding of necessity. Necessity is " blind " only to the extent tltat it is not understood. Freedom is not found in the fancied independence from laws of nature, but in the un- derstanding of these laws and the resulting possibility to make them produce definite effects according to our plans. This applies equally to the laws of nature outside of so- ciety and to those which regulate the physical and in- tellectual well-being of man inside of it, for these two classes of laws, while they may be separated in thought, cannot be held apart in reality. Freedom of will means, therefore, simply the faculty of making decisions based on understanding. The more a man's judgment con- cerning a certain question is free, the greater will be the necessity by which the substance of this judgment is determined. On the other hand, ignorance engenders a vaccillation, which chooses between various opposing possibilities with apparent arbitrariness, but proves by this very fact its lack of freedom, its subjection to the very thing, which it ought to dominate. Freedom there- fore consists of our control over ourselves and nature based on an understanding of natural necessities. Hence THE PROLETARIAN METHOD 47 it is as a matter of course a product of historical devel- opment." We observe, then, that Engels understands the art of combining freedom and necessity dialectically, by declar- ing that freedom results as a historical product from a study of necessity and its social and natural interre- lations, in such a way that any one may make the test himself and thus arrive at a scientific understanding. In the same way, Marx shows that the power of the indi- vidual is from natural necessity a social power, and that the past great struggles of mankind were fundamentally social and class struggles. We thereby secured prac- tical illustrations of the fertility of the critical and in- ductive method taking its departure consciously from facts and classifying them into laws, or rules. Both Marx and Engels were enabled by this method to secure quite as exact results on the field of historical, economic and political science, as natural science, strictly speaking, in its own field. On the other hand, the purely deduc- tive method, resting on the irreconciled antagonism of a supernatural mind and natural matter, which made it dualistic, has demonstrated its scientific impotence, be- cause it pretended to derive understanding in an a priori fashion, that is, independently of an analysis of the gen- eral laws of experienced facts, by means of " pure " spirit. So far as the past is concerned, we are obliged to recognize that the fantasies generated by the purely de- ductive method had a certain merit, because they v/ere a necessary social product of their time, which made fur- ther progress possible. But in our day, these fanciful imaginations have become injurious and reactionary on account of changed social conditions, and even Stirner's example proves this. The substantiation of the critical and inductive method 48 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS by means of the analysis and synthesis of understanding and nature, and the demonstration of its fertile and con- sistently monistic applicability to all social and cosmic phenomena, was the particular work of Joseph Dietzgen. It accompanied the rise of the proletariat, which assisted Marx and Engels in realizing the nature of social move- ments and interrelations. Their studies enabled Dietzgen to make another step forward by founding the monistic conception of the world on his theory of understanding. Seeing that the consistently dialectic and monistic, or critically inductive, method of thought with its cosmic crowning was a necessary concomitant of the rise of the proletariat as a social-economic class and had for its premise the existence of such a class, we are justified in calling it the proletarian method. This term is further- more fitting for the reason that all other social classes, owing to their economic interests, are necessarily advo- cates of the dualistic, or purely deductive method of thought, in all fields of abstraction, such as those of the state, society, morality, freedom, etc. If we comprise all ruling classes on account of the identity of their interests as opposed to those of the proletariat as one bourgeois class, then we find Jhat this economic antagonism ex- presses itself also as an antagonism of the bourgeois and proletarian method of thought. On one side we have the bourgeois, dualistic, or purely deductive method, on the other the proletarian, dialectically monistic, or critically inductive method. This applies even to the most ad- vanced bourgeois natural scientists in every case, where they pass from their specialties to the fields of the so- called science of the intellect. How is it, now, that a proletarian arrives more easily at a consistently monistic method of thought, and at a clearer understanding of social and cosmic interrelations ? THE PROLETARIAN METHOD 49 Is it, perhaps, because proletarians are individuals of deeper insight and better than men of other classes? By no means. So far as personality is concerned, a prole- tarian is equipped no better than a bourgeois. That which distinguishes him to his advantage from a bour- geois is not due to him as an individual, but as a member of a definite economic class. Being a member of the wage-working class, of the proletariat, he is left by virtue of his economic condition with no other inalienable prop- erty but his intellectual and physical labor-power. This state of things carries with it the growing understanding of the fact that his might and power are not due to his own unaided individuality, but to his connection with the labor-power of his class. The proletarian is thus taught by his economic condition, that he must use his power as a social one. By this means he becomes class- conscious, conscious of the importance and power of his class in society. It is not difficult to understand, that the socialist aim of the socialization of the means of pro- duction must necessarily follow from this class-conscious- ness. The bourgeois, on the contrary, being an advo- cate of the private ownership of the means of production, favors the opposite individualistic representation of his interests. If a bourgeois unites with the members of his class, he does so merely under the pressure of competition or of the proletarian organization, but always with the reservation of Stirner to the effect that the " freedom " of his organization shall permit him at any moment to sell his shares and leave his club as soon as it inter- feres with his individualist principles. He is enabled, by virtue of the above-named property, to avail himself of the " freedom " of his association, of course at the expense of others. Not so the proletarian. His econo- mic condition necessarily prescribes to him a permanent 50 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS association with equals, who shall use the means of production co-operatively for their common interest, in order to secure for each member the greatest possible happiness in the freest development of his or her physical and intellectual faculties. Owing to the fact, that no society, not even one without privileges, can exist without definite regulations, and that among equals two are more powerful than one, the majority determines the rules of common work and life for all. This is resented by the individualism of the liberals and anarchists, because they want to be more than equals, that is to say, supermen. Unfortunately for them, necessity enforces its decrees against all pious wishes. And this necessity consists of the fatal law compelling everybody's dependence on so- cially useful labor, without which even the greatest genius cannot live. The liberal-anarchist dream of the individual and his absolute property, free from the bonds of society, could not be realized, even if nature were to grant freely and lavishly the most excessive demands for food, clothing dnd shelter. For even in that case, we should still be bound to respect definite laws regulating the association of men in such a way that the development and care of all would be promoted, including minors and sick, children and aged. In order to be able to use the proletarian, consistently monistic, conception and its critically inductive method with assurance, we must first become aware of the per- versity of the liberal-anarchist, self-centered, dualist mode of thought, and overcome its allegedly aprioristic and de- ductive method. An isolated man in his natural state is helpless against the forces of nature, which include other men and wild animals. He must rely for protection and sustenance on the assistance of his fellowmen. Therefore he associates THE PROLETARIAN METHOD 51 with them from necessity. But the overpowering forces of nature, such as fire, wind, water, disease, inspire him with fear, because he does not understand and know how to control them. He feels that they threaten his exis- tence. Therefore he tries to meet these mysterious forces by equally mysterious measures. The first result of the feeling of helpless dependence on nature was the rise of religious cults. These cults remained natural religions, so long as man had not learned to understand the natural character of elementary forces and to make them tributary to himself. Later on, the dual nature of individual power, which is at the same time individual and socially cosmic, tormented man with religious pains. Natural religion then became spiritual religion, trans- forming the idolization of nature and of the present world into an idolization of the spirit and the next world. His- tory teaches us in accord with the theory of understand- ing, that this transformation took place in the course of thousands of years as a corollary of the transition from communist property in means of production to private property. So long as men lived in primitive communities and applied their individual powers directly as social ones, natural religion prevailed. Exchange of products with neighboring communes, in other words, the removal of products outside of the producing commune, did not arise, until the individual communes had raised their pro- ductive power, to the point where they could produce more than they needed, for their own consumption. For a time, the commune remained the owner of the articles of exchange in the interest of its members. But no sooner did the products find a market outside of the commune, than the wedge of dissolution was driven into primitive communism. As a rule those individuals, who had the function of placating the idols, or who had some 52 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS other prominent social position, succeeded by means of their authority in managing the exchange of products for their own benefit and transforming themselves from servants into masters of the commune, by securing con- trol of the means of production. The institution of such private ownership was naturally the end of commun- ism. The way was cleared for the development of the production of commodities, leading toward modern capi- talism. The assumption of superiority on the part of an individual over society, as a permanent feature, was made possible only by private ownership, which on its part owed its rise to a definite point of development of the productive forces of the commune. Thanks to private property, the power of the individual seemed to be due less to social labor and to the further interrelation with nature, than to his own individuality. The articles of exchange of such independent individuals necessarily assumed the character of commodities, owing to the lowly developed state of the productive forces. By this means, the plain social nature of individual labor in the commune assumed the mysterious character of products of indi- vidual labor, of commodities. Individualism triumphed over communism. The gods of nature of consciously social men gave way to the supernatural gods of indi- viduals misapprehending their own social and cosmic in- terrelations. Individual property led to the condensation of polytheism into monotheism. Finally the " pure " spirit of the individual became the god of " enlightened " capitalism. Just as the virgin Mary of the catholics gave birth to Christ without having become pregnant, so pure reason begets thought without being impregnated by the objects of sense perception. Thus results the un- conditional and aprioristic " science," which is still being taught quite generally by the modern universities. The THE PROLETARIAN METHOD 53 characteristic mark of this science is that it takes its de- parture from the principle of pure spirit. Hence it re- mains theological and theosophical. We propose to con- front it later with proletarian science, which takes its departure consciously from verifiable and matter of fact premises. The indissoluble interrelation of the individual with society rests, according to us, on his helplessness, if left with no other resource for his maintenance and defense but his own labor-power. Man is, therefore, compelled to seek the assistance of other men. This dependence explains the inevitable social nature of individual labor- power. Marx calls the understanding of this nature of individual labor-power the essential point which is re- quired for an intelligent discussion of political economy. It is the great merit of Marx and Engels to have substan- tiated and propagated this knowledge. This is the basis of the analyses in Marx's " Capital ", this reveals the dual nature of private property, this furnishes the key for an understanding of the nature of commodities, value, money, capital, and of the entire social science. It also lays bare the kernel of such terms as morality, right, state, authority, etc. It was the misfortune of Stirner to regard these terms as arbitrary catchwords, while the Marxian Dietzgen knows how to show up the sober social nature of these spooks. With regard to morality, he says in his " Nature of Human Brain Work " : " Morality is the aggregate of the most contradictory ethical laws which serve the common purpose of regulating the conduct of man toward himself and others in such a way that the futv*re is considered as well as the present, the one as weH as the other, the individual as well as the genus. The individual man finds himself lacking, inade- 54 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS quate, limited, in many ways. He requires for his com- plement other people, society, and must, therefore, live and let live. The mutual concessions which arise out of these relative needs are called morality." " The inadequacy of the single individual, the need of association, is the basis and cause of man's considera- tion for his neighbors, of morality. Now, since the one who feels this need, man, is necessarily an individual, it follows that his need must likewise be individual and more or less intensive. And since my neighbors are necessarily different from me, it requires different con- siderations to meet their needs. Concrete man needs a concrete morality. Just as abstract and meaningless as the concept of mankind in general is that of absolute morality, and the ethical laws, derived from this vague idea are quite as unpractical and unsuccessful. Man is a living personality, whose welfare and purpose is embod- ied within himself, who has between himself and the world nothing but his needs as a mediator, who owes no allegiance to any law whatever from the moment that ft contravenes his needs. The moral duty of an individual never exceeds his interests. The only thing which ex- ceeds those interests is the material power of the gener- ality over the individuality." " If we regard it as the function of reason to ascertain that which is morally right, a uniform scientific result may be produced, if we agree at the outset on the persons, conditions, or limits within which the universal moral right is to be determined ; in other words, we may ac- complish something practical, if we drop the idea of abso- lute right and search for definite rights applicable to well-defined purposes by clearly marking the boundaries of our problem. The contradiction in the various standards of morality, and the many opposing solutions THE PROLETARIAN METHOD 55 of this contradiction, are due to a misunderstanding of the problem. To look for right without a given quantity of sense perceptions, without some definite working ma- terial, is an act of speculative reason, which pretends to explore nature without the use of senses. The attempt to arrive at a positive determination of morality by pure perception and pure reason is a manifestation of the philosophical faith in understanding a priori." And with regard to right, Dietzgen writes in the same work : " Reason cannot discover within itself any posi- tive rights or absolutely moral codes any more than any other speculative truth. It cannot estimate how essential or unessential a thing is, or classify the quantity of its concrete and general characters, until it has some per- ceptible material to work upon. The understanding of the right, or of the moral, like all understanding, strives to single out the general characteristics of its object. But the general is only possible within certain definite limits, it exists only as the general qualities of some con- crete and perceptible object. And if any one tries to rep- resent some maxim, some law, some right, in the light of an absolute maxim, law, or right, he forgets this necessary limitation. Absolute right is merely a meaningless con- cept, and it does not assume even a vague meaning, until it is understood to stand for the right of mankind in general. But morality, or the determination of that which is right, has a practical purpose. Yet, if we accept the general and unconditional right of mankind as a moral right, we necessarily miss our practical aim. An act, or a line of action, which is universally or everywhere right, requires no law for its enforcement, for it will recommend itself. It is only the determined and limited law, adapted to certain persons, classes, nations, times, or circumstances, which has any practical value, and it is 56 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS so much more practical, the more defined, exact, precise and the less general it is." What signifies, furthermore, the state which Stirner denies offhand and which individuals are supposed to be able to blow over by sheer will-power ? It is well known to be nothing else but the executive committee of the ruling minority, who can impose their rule, thanks to the private ownership in means required for the production of the material necessities of life, so long as this rule and this private ownership are necessary for the development of the productive forces to a climax where the develop- ment of personality becomes possible for all. With the advent of this climax, and after the victorious struggle of the proletariat, driven forward by its material require- ments, minority rule, or the state, disappears and gives way to universal suffrage and rule. Where all rule, no- body serves, and vice versa, where all serve, nobody rules. We refer the reader, who would inform himself or herself further about this point, to Kautsky's " Erfurt Program " or to Marx's " Capital." These works will throw a bright light on some more catchwords of Stirner. The elaboration and demonstration of the following axioms : The human individual is a social laborer, and : Human labor is a social organism, which determines the nature of the interior world of the individual member, that is, his consciousness and mental activity in all lines of thought such as religion, ethics, law, politics, science and art, by producing changes in the economic nature of the society and the world surrounding him, — are the fundament of Marxism in a strict sense. They furnish the key for an understanding of critical communism as a science of society and a conception of history. Social labor produces the requirements for the exist- ence of individuals. The organization of the productive THE PROLETARIAN METHOD 57 process is determined by the available forces of produc- tion, that is to say, by the means and methods of produc- tion. The degree of development of tfiese determines the character of a society and its members. It explains the introduction of private property, slavery, feudalism, and capitalism. It justifies on the ground of historical necessity the rule of minorities as well as the abolition of class-rule by the proletariat. We are indebted for this knowledge to Marxism in the strict sense. However, this scientific theory, known as Historical Materialism, which is substantiated by a critical investiga- tion of any period where sufficient economic facts were so far available and looked into, does not satisfactorily reply to the question, why mental activity is to such a determinating degree influenced by economics. Is our mind not free to think as it pleases? Such, at least, is the belief of most people and even of many socialists who, therefore, consider Marxism rather as one-sided and dog- matic. Thanks to the epistemological researches of Joseph Dietzgen, Marxism was here again confirmed and, be- sides, expanded. It now culminates in these additional proofs : The force of thought operates only by means of an inseparable interrelation with material furnished by sense perceptions. This material exists not only in thought, but also in an objective and perceptible form as a part of the cosmos, that universal organism which is the premise of all others. Hence all phenomena, including the force of thought and the human individual endowed with it, are organic members of the cosmos, and this nat- ural, infinite, and organic interrelation is the long-sought final and unitary explanation for all phenomena. By substantiating these theses with his critique of under- standing, Dietzgen has furnished the reply to the ques- 58 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS tion, why it is that within the universal interrelation economics has a predominating influence over mental activity. In this way Dietzgen deepened and perfected the Marxian conception of social evolution and elaborated it into a scientific conception of the world. Herein lies the significance of Dietzgen's life's work. Dietzgen left no bulky volumes behind him. He was not a professional writer, and the struggle for existence granted him no leisure, save for occasional writings. So much the more valuable is the little that he wrote. The fact that his importance for Marxism has not been duly recognized so far is partly attributable to Dietzgen's great bashfulness and reserve, and to his excessive con- fidence in the perspicacity of his readers. Thus, in all his works, more particularly in his " Excursions of a Socialist into the Domain of the Theory of Understand- ing " and in " The Outcome of Philosophy," he gives any reader not familiar with the positive work of classic philosophers the impression that he is discussing them rather than presenting his own researches. Neverthe- less, the soberly scientific and cosmic theory of thought and conception of the universe presented in these works of his are the original achievement of Dietzgen, for which his predecessors have naturally built the steps, without, however, climbing to the height of this thinker. In order that Dietzgen's cosmic and monistic dialectics and its particular method of thought and enlightment may be used in the service of the proletariat more than heretofore, it seems to us appropriate to emphasize at this point, that they are a valuable perfection, supplement, and therefore development, of Marxism. This is not the place for a complete demonstration of our claim. Here we simply desire to make use of the outlines of Dietzgen's con- sistent monism for an explanation of such terms as re- THE PROLETARIAN METHOD 59 Hgion, conscience, infinity, and conception of the world, for which Stirner and the bourgeoisie vainly sought a clear and scientific understanding. Whoever wishes to get a clear understanding of the world and its phenomena, must first grasp the relation of the human individual to nature. To this end, again, it is indispensable that we should have a clear perception of the force, by means of which we seek understanding. This is the force of understanding and thought, the human mind. An analysis of this force shows, that we cannot think without any material furnished either in the present or the past by sense-perceptions. Thinking signifies, there- fore, to operate the force of thought by means of mate- rial furnished by present sense-perceptions or by means of material of past sense-perceptions stored away in memory. This material is an indispensable premise of thought. This fact may be substantiated by every one who will test himself and see whether he or she can formulate any thought, which did not originally arise in some way out of the contact of the mind with some material perception. If any one should present to us any term, which we can- not trace to some perceptible fact, then we cannot get any meaning out of it aside from the fact that we hear or read the mere word and later on repeat it in a similar connection without regard to other sense-perception and without formulating any clear idea, until we have experi- enced the perceptible mate of the mere term in some form. Our thought becomes so much clearer and more scientific, the more consciously it takes its departure from the crit- ique of experienced facts, and vice versa it becomes so much more confused, the less we stick to experience and yield to imagination, that is to say, the more rein we give Ofc PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS to inexperienced and therefore inexact reasoning without any conscious touch of reality. For this reason thoughts which are suggested to children, such as morality, lib- erty, justice, god, and devil, have such powerful influence over their minds, the same as fairy tales, because children are especially apt to assimilate ideas without criticism, on account of their untrained faculty of thought and their limited experience. What is true in this respect of children, applies also to nations in their childhood — fan- tastic thought appeals to them more strongly than a sci- entific reference to verifiable facts. Though Neo-Kantians and garret-philosophers claim that the world is merely a matter of consciousness, we know now that this is but a half-truth, for the world of phenomena exists not only in our consciousness, but also outside of it in perceptible reality, otherwise it would not exist for us at all. Consciousness does not register any- thing that has not been supplied by sense-perceptions. Indeed, the universal being, or the universe, consisting of intellectually and sensually perceivable phenomena, is the primary fact. It is not, in the last analysis, a product of man, but on the contrary, man is the product of the universe and to this extent the secondary fact. We know this to be true as positively as we can know anything. In the first place, it is evident, that we human beings must first exist, before we can perceive any phe- nomenon. We cannot entertain the idea to attempt, without the premise of human existence, an analysis of the way in which the world of phenomena affects us, and to find out whether it exists merely in us as the content of our consciousness, or also outside of us as the thing which determines our consciousness in the last analysis. Otherwise we should not be trying to solve a problem, but suffer from insanity. The existence of man is, there- ' THE PROLETARIAN METHOD &1 fore, the first premise of human thought and research. How do we prove, then, that, aside from the existence of man, the other premise of the psycho-physical interre- lation, or of the inseparable connection of mind and senses characteristic of all thought, is the existence of mater al furnished by sense perceptions? That this ma- terial does not exist merely in human consciousness, but also has its own objective existence and is even the 1 primary fact which produces men and their consciousness as secondary phenomena? We answer: Our proof is given in no other way than all proofs are, namely, by reference to facts which are universally verifiable by experience. Such facts would not exist, and there could be neither any possibility of understanding nor any science in that case, unless there were phenomena outside of us which exist independently of individual man, although they can not exist for mankind independently of human consciousness. It is due only to this obvious fact that one man can con- vince another of the reality of som** objective phenomenon and of its existence independently of himself, by making another perceive and experience the same phenomenon through his senses and intellect. We know and prove furthermore, that this same phenomenon still remains and continues to exist outside of our mind, even if we, as concrete individuals, do not remember and perceive it any more with our senses. Owing to the fact that man has the intellectual faculty of dispensing later on with the objective form of some phenomenon previously experienced at a certain time and place, and of studying its relations, especially as regards its origin and end, without further actual contact with it, and seeing that individual phenomena are relative and perishable as compared to the absolute universe, philoso- 62 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS phers have hitherto attempted to disregard also the prem- ise of this universe and to penetrate with their studies even beyond it. When they did not succeed in this, they did not overcome their traditional theological bias in order to arrive at the plain understanding that the absolute uni- verse is the fundamental premise of their individual ex- istence and their force of thought as well as the premise of the concrete existence and life of every individual phenomenon. On the contrary, their failure induced them to return to the mere faith in the supernatural existence of a god and finally to the faith in a super- natural pure spirit. Particularly since the time of Des- cartes (Cartesius) the pure spirit was elevated to the position of the only and actual being, while all other beings, things or phenomena were reduced to products of thought. The senses then appeared in the role of non- essential tools of the spirit, transmitting nothing but imaginary realities which had no existence, save in thought. This is the theological or dualist conception, for since it contradicts the experienced mind and all veri- fiable facts, and is, therefore, opposed to all science, it necessarily had to seek refuge in a divine spirit, or trans- form the human mind into an object of supernatural faith. By this means absolute dualism, or the contradic- tion between thinking and being, was established. Dietz- gen finally solved this unreconciled contradiction, by pointing out the universally verifiable fact, that every individual phenomenon, including man and his force of thought, is not of itself whatever it is, but exists only in and derives its particularity from the connection with all other phenomena of nature, so that this natural and uni- versal interrelation, this universal being, is recognized as the absolute and uniform premise for every concrete phenomenon. Just as in a mathematical problem the THE PROLETARIAN METHOD 63 solution is contained in the given magnitudes, without which the problem could not be solved at all, so the ex- istence of the universal being, known as Cosmos, Uni- verse or Nature, is the premise for the solution of every problem encountered by human beings. The possibility of understanding must be contained in the germ in human consciousness, for otherwise a more developed conscious- ness could never have arrived at it. Man cannot attempt to ask himself questions about the nature of conscious- ness, until this consciousness has developed. Not until man realized after many researches that he would have to make a special study of consciousness, did he perceive, that the process of thinking takes its departure from some given phenomenon furnished by sense-perceptions in such a way, that it exists objectively for us as well as for all others whose attention is called to it. And if man further analyzes a given phenomenon, he finds that, on the one hand, it does not enter into his thoughts in all its details without leaving anything unknown about it, but rather retains its separate existence and can be fur- ther perceived by us and others, and, on the other hand, that every individual phenomenon does not exist in itself alone, but is always a link in that chain of existence which we call the universe. It is this chain of existence against which the individualist-anarchist bourgeois phi- losophers, whose starting point is the free will and inde- pendent mind, are rebelling. They do not like to aban- don their self-centered aprioristic sailing of the clouds, nor trace their steps down to the universal being. In such fashion they come by their supernatural aim, the faith in some spook by which their own imagination deceives them. We, on the other hand, can lead them tasily ad absurd urn, for we have but to remember that thinking is the consciousness of being, an inseparable 64 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS connection with some object outside of thought, the ex- istence of which may be verified by sense-perceptions. Both this phenomenon and our faculty of thought must be given, before we can think. But if we have recognized that the universal existence outside of our force of thought is the absolute premise for our thought, then it is simply inane to attempt to go with our mind beyond this universal being to where there are neither phenomena nor thought. In order not to become inane, we must, therefore, make our peace with the universal existence and rest content with it. We know, then, that this exist- ence is the absolute truth ; we no longer search for ab- stract truth in general, but rather for the relative truth of given phenomena by extracting the general unity from the manifold contradictions, by separating the rule from the exceptions. And these scientific truths we find ex- clusively by a conscious reference to such verifiable parts of the universe as become the object of our study. We leave pure speculation and faith to the philosophers and theologians, and prefer to study and work by means of mind and senses. The theological conscience is seen to be nothing else but a vague and unconscious memory of conceptions that were originally gained in a psycho- physical manner. Therefore it belongs in the same class with faith and fantasy, and is called conscience as dis- tinguished from science. The fact that the human mind is compelled to connect itself with definite parts of the universe and take its de- parture from them in the quest after the general, the truth, the rule, or the law, implies that we construct the concept of a universe ourselves, recognizing that it con- sists of parts which are organically arranged in time and space as well side by side as one following the other, limiting and supplementing one another. We understand, THE PROLETARIAN METHOD 65 then, that the universe is the all-combining and all-em- bracing organic being, and that the mind, or conscious- ness, is one of its parts endowed with the peculiar power of serving as an instrument of orientation in the general interrelation. The universal existence is therefore recog- nized as the fundamental and absolute premise of our mind, and of all other phenomena, substances, or forces. We can affirm this in such a positive manner, because we found by the above test of the force of understanding that it can operate only by means of given natural origins and facts, and that these origins and facts are members, together with the subjective mind, of the infinite inter- relations of nature, as any one may ascertain for himself. Now we are at last done with speculations about abso- lute truth. For we have found it to be the absolute uni- verse, the aggregate relations of all phenomena per- ceptible to psycho-physical man. Whatever does not partake of the psycho-physical nature of the universe, cannot exist for us. All spooks disband and stand re- vealed as products of fantasy, that is to say, as uncon- scious connections of the mind with objective sense- perceptions, present or past, provided we test them by a conscious combination of the mind with the senses. The absolute and sober truth of the universe is recog- nized as the absolute eternity, the infinite, all-embracing, and all-combining, the thing independent of space and time, the beginning and end of all phenomena. The uni- verse has all the attributes of divinity without its dualism, without that faith which would believe in a supernatural mind and a supernatural world apart from the natural mind and the natural world. Whoever looks about with open eyes, sees that every phenomenon of nature is connected organically with innumerable others. Every one of them has countless 66 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS N causes, but only one general cause, the universe. In the universe we possess at last the reliable, monistic, and, therefore, logical beginning and end of a consistent con- ception of the world, which harmonizes with all the re- sults of science. What, then, does our thinking, understanding, ex- plaining, etc., accomplish? Evidently nothing else than that it explains the cosmic phenomena in their direct and indirect interrelations, classifies them and arranges them for our orientation and use. The mind operates always post factum, that is to say, after having been furnished with material by ob- jective sense-perceptions. Even prophesying has any meaning only when it is a conclusion from definite premises. Thinking, understanding, explaining, realiz- ing, are so many terms for a formal classification and description of the interrelations of given phenomena. We think and understand truly when we know how to distinguish the essential or general from the unessential or exceptional of any given object. And since objective reality is the final test, any one can verify whether he has been thinking truly, as soon as he compares his thought with the available material of the studied object. When- ever we can do this, we are independent of any and all authority. We declare that the universe is an organism, because we find it to be a universal fact that every phenomenon is that which it is not of itself, but by grace of its inter- relation with the universe. A phenomenon is so much better understood the more we know about its interrela- tions. These change continually in time and space, hence a phenomenon does likewise. On account of this eternal movement, we are compelled to detach any phenomenon, which we desire to study, from out the flow of interrela- THE PROLETARIAN METHOD 67 tions, to fix it in time and space. By this means we ascertain its direct relations and secure, as it were, a flashlight-picture of it as a reference specimen for fur- ther studies. In this way we obtain terms for concepts and boundaries, or distinctions, in the infinite universe. It is the cosmic and organic interrelation of simultaneous and successive, eternally changing phenomena, which ex- plains the operations of the force of thought, showing that this force does not only create distinctions, but is also a unifying force aside from its discriminating nature. Being a part of the cosmos, the human mind is cosmic, partakes of the eternal and infinite nature of the cosmos, the same as every substance and force. This universal miraculousness is natural for the entire cosmos. How- ever, as a cosmic member associated with other cosmic members, and compared to the cosmos as a whole, the mind is limited in space and time and perishable. Only the cosmos as a whole remains unalterable and stable in spite of the eternal transformation of its parts. The in- destructibility of matter and the conservation of energy are explained by the constancy of the cosmos. This is a demand of reason due to critical experience. The inductive critique of the force of thought leads us to a cosmic dialectics, to an organic interrelation and in- terpenetration of all phenomena. It teaches us to con- ceive of every phenomenon as an organic part of the cosmos, and to make this our point of departure and of return as the given absolute truth and the uniform basis. The cosmos does not assume the aspect of an aprioristic fantasy, because it is the all-embracing and sober reality verifiable by every and all experience. The concept of the cosmic organism, being consciously constructed out of this reality, furnishes us with a basis for a consistent monism. It leaves no room for anv other but the one 68 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS and natural cosmos, which is the arch-premise and im- passable boundary of our mind. To attempt to go be- yond this ultimate boundary of existence is as foolish as the idea of ascertaining the nature of consciousness with- out any existence. Only he who attempts the one can attempt the other, in order to find in the fantasies of pure faith a fool's consolation. One who thinks like that is nearer to unconsciousness than to consciousness, and this is no compliment for his intellectual force. " And then, above all other things, Give metaphysics due concern. Then strive to grasp by deep reflection What is beyond the mind's conception." These words characterize the essence of the purely deductive and unconditional " science." Or, to use an- other variation: " I tell you this : A man who speculates Is like a beast upon some arid heath, Led in a circle by some evil sprite, While round about is pasture fresh and green." The human mind can form abstract concepts only by combining impressions derived from concrete objects and ascertaining in what respect they are generally identical. Hence we do not fully understand abstract concepts, until we have had practical intercourse with the concrete phe- nomena which are their premise. All concepts are more or less abstract and flexible. Because the parts of the universe, and our experiences relating to them, are in a process of continuous development, our concepts of them likewise remain fluid and flexible. The green pasture of the concrete phenomena turns into the arid heath of ab- stract concepts as soon as we forget the interrelation of THE PROLETARIAN METHOD 69 the latter with the former. The fact that this interrelation has been overlooked in the first place, is due to the cir- cumstance that man, overawed by the supreme power of nature arid the wealth of its phenomena, and feeling his dependence upon them, mistook the way of fantasy and faith for the only one which would lead to the blessed- ness of an explanation of the world satisfactory to the mind and heart. The faculty of memory, which per- mitted him to retain and collect past impressions, forsook him when it would have been proper for him to recollect the objective and perceptible origin of all impressions, especially after such great abstracta as god, morality, lib- erty, immortality, etc., had been instilled in his mind with- out criticism for generations in the shape of dogmas or eternal truths. It was not until he had reached a high stage of development, when an understanding of social and natural interrelations had convinced him more and more of the passing nature and relative truth of all dog- mas, that he restored consciously this psycho-physical connection on one field of research after another. Many sciences had far advanced before the theory of under- standing became scientific. An epoch-making advance in this direction is due to Kant, who ascertained that ex- perience, that is to say, the interrelation of mind with sense-perceptions, is the indispensable premise of all sci- ence. But Kant left to faith the task of replying to so- called final questions concerning the origin and end of the universe and man, because he did not acquire a clear understanding of the relation of man to the cosmos. Owing to historical conditions, he was still so envel- oped by traditional faith, particularly the faith in eternal moral law, that he did not even attempt to employ the only scientific method, namely, that of consciously con- necting the mind with sense-perceptions, for the study 70 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS of metaphysical riddles. What Kant failed to accom- plish was carried further by Dietzgen, thanks to the higher social stage on which he stood. Dietzgen's " The Nature of Human Brain Work " is devoted to the analy- sis of the scientific method of thought. In this little work he ascertains that the inductive or empirical method of thought is the one peculiar to the force of thought, that we cannot in reality think in any other way, but merely imagine we are doing so, because meditation is nothing else but associative elaboration, by means of mem- ory, of the mental material obtained originally from ob- jective sense-perceptions. But apart from many allu- sions, Dietzgen did not go very far beyond the stand- point of historical materialism in applying his method in this work, that is to say, he did not explicitly pass from the social to the cosmic interrelations. This is done, however, in his " Excursions " and in his " Outcome of Philosophy." Here he develops the dialectics of Marx and Engels, which is a theory of development through antagonisms to a higher stage, by perfecting it and point- ing out that the universe is the last and highest organic unit, which combines monistically all other syntheses. By means of this understanding, the dialectics became a theory of the cosmic and organic interrelation and inter- penetration of all phenomena. While in " The Nature of Human Brain Work " it was ascertained that phenomena exist outside and independently of individual man, in the " Excursions " and the " Outcome of Philosophy " the world of phenomena, the universe, or cosmos, were shown so to exist. Dialectics in its restricted sense found its culminating point in the cosmic interpretation. Antagonisms are henceforth recognized as merely rel- ative, and the task of the mind is seen to consist in analyz- ing this relative nature. In the cosmic basis, we find the THE PROLETARIAN METHOD Jl explanation of the fact that all antagonisms do not only exclude one another, but are also conditioned on one another. The point of view of an organic cosmos shows that all interrelations are parts of the absolute and come into opposition to each other as individual phenomena only because they mutually limit one another in time and space, being either contemporaneous or succeeding one another, in ceaseless flow. While Engels in his " Anti- Diihring " endeavors to show by many illustrations that the dialectic process is universal, not alone in society, but also in nature, Dietzgen reveals by means of his theory of understanding, by one stroke, as it were, that the dialectic movement is natural to all phenomena, seeing that they are all organic parts of the universe. All discoveries of natural and social science furnish daily further proofs for the correctness of this revelation by Dietzgen. Now let us supplement Stirner's negative criticism of religion and world-conception positively by means of the positive critique of verifiable facts. The theory of under- standing elaborated by Dietzgen is our pilot. Religion arose from the feeling of human dependence on nature. Later this feeling was intensified by the equally inevitable feeling of infinity and the need for some unifying principle. Driven by his need to search for a final explanation of the world's phenomena, but as yet unable to see through the interrelations of society and nature, man misconstrued the natural final cause into a supernatural one. In this way, he created the metaphys- ical mode of thought, the absolute distinction between the natural and supernatural, which found its modern expression in the antagonism between physical matter and metaphysical spirit. This dualism is to blame for the habit of man to see only the differences, but not the interrelations and identities, in making distinctions. Man 72 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS reasoned metaphysically, not dialectically. Stirner felt that the former method was wrong, but he did not suc- ceed in escaping from metaphysics into physics. For we read in his work that he elevated the ego, the psycho- physical individual, to the position of the supreme and most powerful being. Now, if we mean by the term supreme being the most developed member of the cosmic organism, then the human individual is doubtless the highest being known to us. But inasmuch as every fellow-man is an equally supreme being, it follows that two men are more supreme and powerful than one. This relation of power is the basis of the rule of the majority among equals. A society of equals is evidently more powerful than any individual member, and the cosmos, finally, is more powerful than human society and any other phenomenon. Therefore, it is not the individual, who in the last analysis determines the world of phenom- ena, but it is the cosmos which determines the nature of body and soul of the individual. An egoist, who ignores the interrelation and interdependence of the individual on nature and society, injures himself and the community, and is possessed like Stirner. On the other hand, a man understanding these relations is useful to himself and society, he is a " free " egoist. Stirner is a dogmatist of the priestly order, inasmuch as the priestly point of view is characterized by the habit of alleging that some concrete phenomenon, in this case an individual, is the phenomenon in general. Thus we are entangled in the meaningless dualism of the concrete and the general, while the theory of understanding demonstrates beyond peradventure that the general arose out of the concrete, that the absolute is composed of the relative, the eternal of the temporal, the infinite of finite phenomena. Since every part of the universe partakes of its infinite THE PROLETARIAN METHOD 73 nature, a finite infinity might appear as an absurd contra- diction. But this contradiction is solved as soon as we consider any concrete phenomenon in relation to the uni- verse, in which the former is relative as compared to the absolute cosmos. We arrive at the concept of the infinite only by means of finite phenomena, in such a way that the force of thought is compelled to draw always certain lines of distinction, which on closer scrutiny appear as merely formal ones. For we may positively range one phenomenon after another in line, either downward in the dissection of the atom, or upward in the agglomera- tion of the universe, without ever coming to a beginning or an end. In the same way we arrive at the concept of eternity by means of incessant additions of time. The concept of an organic universe has at least the same im- portance for a scientific conception of the world that the changeability of magnitudes to the infinitely small or in- finitely great has for higher mathematics, or that the scientific role of the atom is playing in chemistry, or the molecule in physics. The statement of the fact that our mind can take its departure only from objective sense- perceptions in order to arrive at general concepts, the revelation of this peculiarity of the force of thought, fur- nishes us with the basic method for all scientific work, namely, the critically inductive method. We have but to apply this method consistently in order to find that it leads to the dissolution of religion and of all theological, purely deductive and dualistic, philosophies. Religion is then replaced by the organic conception of the world, which satisfies sentimental fantasy as well as sober rea- son. The religious feeling of infinity and need of a uni- fying principle are satisfied by the understanding of the organic universe. Speculative philosophy renounces its seat in favor of the science of understanding. The breast 74 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS of man is delivered from the nightmare of all spooks, because at last he may exult freely and acknowledge with modest pride that he is a conscious member of society and of the universe. Dietzgen's theory of understanding completes the victory of Marxism over all priests, philos- ophers, anarchists and champions of the dualistic method of thought, by supplementing and perfecting the unitary and organic conception of society typical of historical materialism by the monistic conception of the universe. It proves far more thoroughly than the many well- founded references to the results of natural science, espe- cially of biology, quoted by Haeckel, that the social deter- minism of typical Marxism for the human individual is substantiated by the determinism of cosmic interrelations. The monism of Haeckel suffers in the first place from the fact that he fancies he can discover the peculiar na- ture of the force of thought by biological analyses. Haeckel does not understand that his biological researches will, indeed, supply us with proofs of the intert elation of mind and body, but can give but scant information as to the peculiar nature of the force of thought. Ue over- looks the fact that the force of thought as such can be studied only by an analysis of its expressions an'ji func- tions, so that it is the critique of the faculty in action which alone can give us any clues. Apart from the fact that Haeckel has taken little heed of the study of social interrelations and their laws, so that he imagines that he can abolish social evils after the manner of the liberals by first educating the masses intellectually, instead of realiz- ing that intellectual training can produce such results only upon the basis of definite economic conditions, his monism is infected by dualistic spooks especially for the reason that he has not settled his account fully with the crowning result of philosophy, the theory of understand- THE PROLETARIAN METHOD 75 ing. This becomes particularly plain by his 19th thesis for the " organization of Monism," Frankfort on Main, 1904, where he says : " For our modern science, the concept of a god is tenable only on the condition that we mean by ' god ' the last unknowable cause of all things, the inscrutable hypothetical ' arch-cause of substance.' " There we have once again that sad half-heartedness of the so-called free-religious, but at bottom still theological " ignorabimus " of Dubois-Reymond, after the tune of: " Religion, that is to say, bondage to supernatural ideas, must be preserved for the people." The reader sees, then, that Haeckel belongs to those biased thinkers, who have not become conscious of the absolute premise of thought, the existing natural and ob- jective reality of the universe. We, on the other hand, know, thanks to our understanding of the interrelations of the mind, that the law of causality is necessary to the hu- man mind merely as one of its forms of explanation, and applies indeed to all concrete phenomena of the universe, but not to the universe itself, because the latter is its own cause and effect, without beginning and end, in short the absolute. We agree to the natural unknowableness of the known final cause of all things. But this natural miraculous- ness does not apply to the cosmic final cause alone, but also to every one of its phenomena, which are likewise inexhaustible. However, it must be emphasized that this is merely a trivial and natural miraculousness, which is founded in the nature of our force of understanding, for this phenomenon of the universe cannot get beyond the universe, it cannot exhaustively perceive the nature of things either in general or in concrete, and dissolve, as it were, the objective reality of any phenomenon by pure reason. It is because Haeckel does not explain this point ?6 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS from the standpoint of a consistent theory of understand- ing, that his monism retains a last refuge for the mystic faith in a supernatural force of understanding, or a mys- tic final cause. But Dietzgen's critique of the force of understanding demonstrates, that a supernatural force or cause is an absurdity, as every one may verify for him- self. Haeckel is one of the most advanced and frank liberal thinkers. A proletarian conscious of his position in society and the universe is grateful to this prominent scientist for his painstaking research on the field of bi- ology, which furnishes valuable proofs for the world-con- ception of critical communism. But Haeckel's monistic half-heartedness in matters of the " final unknowable cause of all things " is supplemented on the part of the enlightened proletariat by Dietzgen's monistic theory of understanding. This theory, coupled to historical ma- terialism, offers a reconciliation also to the socalled com- munist-anarchist, who is interested in the freest possible development of everybody's personality. The proletarian conception of the world overcomes among other contradictions also the antagonism between egoism and altruism, for it is critical communism which makes the harmonious development of all the indispen- sable condition for the development of the individual. Individual powers will reach their highest development only when critical communism will have triumphed. Then the individual will make all others happy, and vice versa. It will be a society of all and of the individual on the solid basis of consciously socialized means of pro- duction, which were created by the proletariat and organ- ized by capitalism. Then begins the era of godless freedom, which pro- claims that evolutionary revolution will endure for ever. The egoistic altruists scatter the clerical, liberal, and so- THE PROLETARIAN METHOD JJ cial priesthood. The cosmic dialectics takes root in the heart and brains of men. Objective reality sits victor- iously enthroned, and stamps its ruling seal at last, with the conscious knowledge of mankind, upon all terms, con- ceptions, and actions, which seek favor in the eyes of the majority. Dialectically organized society secures the freest expression to science and art by abolishing the cares for the daily bread. The proletariat is the bearer of this greatest of all social movements ever recorded. The individual who consciously takes part in it, avows to himself: I entrust my affairs to the understanding of the laws of society and of the universe, to which I owe the knowledge that I must develop my personality, not in a struggle against, but in alliance with those social and cosmic interrelations, whose proudly modest member I am. {Translated by Ernest (Jntermann.) PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS SCIENTIFIC SOCIALISM (VOLKSSTAAT, 1 873) A considerable number of readers of the Volksstaat are opposed to elaborate and searching essays in these columns. I doubted therefore whether the following would be suitable for publication. Let the editor decide. Yet I beg to consider whether it is not as valuable to engage the more advanced minds and to gain qualified thoroughgoing comrades as to strive for great numbers by publishing popular articles. Both these aims, I think, should be kept in view. If the party is really of opin- ion that the emancipation from misery cannot be accom- plished by mending particular evils but by a fundamental revolution of society, it necessarily follows that an agita- tion on the surface is inadequate and that it is moreover our duty to undertake an enquiry into the very basis of social life. Let us now proceed : Contemporary socialism is communistic. Socialism and communism are now so near each other that there is hardly any difference between them. In the past they differed from each other as does liberalism from de- mocracy, the latter being in both cases the consistent and radical application of the former.. From all other po- litical theories communistic socialism is distinguished by its principle that the people can only be free when they free themselves from poverty, when their struggle for 79 80 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS freedom is fought out on the social, i. e., on the economic, field. There is this difference between the modern and the older socialistic and communistic theories : in the past it was the feeling, the unconscious rebellion, against the unjust distribution of wealth, which constituted the basis of socialism; to-day it is based on knowledge, on the clear recognition of our historic development. In the past socialists and communists were able only to find out the deficiencies and evils of existing society. Their schemes for social reconstruction were fantastic. Their views were evolved not from the world of realities, not from the concrete conditions surrounding them, but from their mental speculations, and were therefore whim- sical and sentimental. Modern socialism, on the other hand, is scientific. Just as scientists arrive at their gen- eralizations not by mere speculation, but by observing the phenomena of the material world, so are the socialistic and communistic theories not idle schemes, but generali- zations drawn from economic facts. We see for instance that the communistic mode of work is being more and more organized by the bourgeoisie itself. Only the dis- tribution still proceeds on the old lines and the product is withheld from the people. The small production is disappearing while production on a large scale takes its place. Those are facts resulting from the economic develop- ment of history and not from any conspiracy of com- munistic socialists. If we define work as an industrial undertaking whose products the worker uses for his own consumption, and an industrial undertaking as the work whose products go to the market, then it is not difficult to perceive how the development of industry must finally result in an organization of productive work. On the SCIENTIFIC SOCIALISM 8l material organization of society scientific socialism is based. Scientific socialists apply the inductive method. They stick to facts. They live in the real world and not in the spiritualist regions of scholasticism. The society we are striving for differs from the present but by formal modifications. Indeed, the society of the future is con- tained in the present society as the young bird is in the egg. Modern socialism is as yet more of a scientific doc- trine than of a political party creed, though we are also rapidly approaching this stage. And strange to say, the International is of purely national descent : it proceeds from the German philosophy. If there be a grain of truth in the prating of " German " science, then the scien- tific German can only be found in his philosophic spec- ulation. This speculation is on the whole an adventurous journey, yet at the same time a voyage of discovery. As the clumsy musket of our forefathers represents a neces- sary stage to the Prussian needle gun of the present time, so the metaphysical speculations of a Leibnitz, Kant, Fichte, Hegel are the inevitable paths leading up to the scientific proposition, that the idea, the conception, the logic or the thinking are not the premise, but the result of material phenomena. The interminable discussions between idealism and materialism, between nominalists and spiritualists on the one hand, and the realists or sensualists on the other hand, as to whether the idea was produced by the world or the world by the idea, and which of the two was the cause or the effect — this dis- cussion, I say, forms the essence of philosophy. Its mis- sion was to solve the antithesis between thought and be- ing, between the ideal and the material. A proof of this view I find in the fortnightly review Unsere Zeit for the second half of January, 1873, in an essay on intoxicating 82 Philosophical essays articles of consumption, as wine, tobacco, coffee, brandy, opium, etc. The author, after having stated that the use of intoxicants was to be found among all nations, at all times and under all conditions of human society, proceeds to declare that the cause of that fact must be looked for there, " where the cause of all religion and philosophy lies, in the antithesis of our being, in the partly divine, partly animal nature of man." This antagonism between divinity and animality in human nature is in other words the antithesis between the ideal and the material. Re- ligion and philosophy work towards a reconciliation of those conflicting principles. Philosophy proceeded from religion and began to rebel against its conception of life. In religion the idea is the primary element which creates and regulates matter. Philosophy, the daughter of re- ligion, naturally inherited a good deal of her mother's blood. She needed ages of growth to generate the anti- religious, scientific result, the apodictically safe proposi- tion, that the world is not the attribute of spirit, but, on the contrary, that spirit, thought, idea is only one of the attributes of matter. Hegel, it is true, did not carry science to that height, yet so near was he to it that two of his followers, Feuerbach and Marx, scaled the sum- mit. The clearing up of speculation helped Feuerbach to give us his wonderful analysis of religion, and en- abled Marx to penetrate the deepest recesses of law, pol- itics and history. When we see, however, Herbart, Schopenhauer, Hartman, etc., still going on speculating and philosophizing, we cannot regard them as more than stragglers, lost in the phantastic depth of their own thoughts, lagging behind in the back-woods and not knowing that the speculative fire has been overcome in the front. On the other hand, Marx, the leader of scien- tific socialism, is achieving splendid success by apply- SCIENTIFIC SOCIALISM 83 ing inductive logic to branches of knowledge which have hitherto been maltreated by speculation. As far back as the year 1620 Francis Bacon declared in his " Novum Organon " the inductive method as the savior from un- fruitful scholasticism and as the rock on which modern science was to be built. Indeed, where we have to deal with concrete phenom- ena, or, as it were, with palpable things, the method of materialism has long since reigned supremely. Yet, it needed more than practical success : it needed the the- oretical working-out in all its details in order to com- pletely rout its enemy, the scholastic speculation or deduction. In his famous " History of Civilization in England " Thomas Buckle speaks at great length of the difference between the deductive and inductive mind, without, as it seems, having grasped the essence of the matter ; he but proves what he admits himself in the intro- duction to his work that, though having made German philosophy a serious study, he did not fully penetrate it. If this happens to ripe and ingenious scholarship, what shall become of immature and superficial general knowl- edge which deals not with specialties but with the general results of science? In order to indicate clearly the scien- tific basis of socialism, I venture to enter more fully into the general result of philosophy, into the solution of the antithesis between the deductive and inductive method. But I fear lest the result of metaphysics, so ostenta- tiously announced, may appear to the reader as some- what insignificant and commonplace. I beg, there- fore, to remind you of Columbus who by means of an egg once for all furnished the proof that great discoveries resolve themselves into an ingenious, yet simple, idea. When we retire to the solitude of our cell to search there in deep contemplation, or, as it were, in the inner- 84 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS most of our brains, for the right way we want to follow the next morning, we must remember that our mental effort can be successful only because of our previous, if involuntary, experiences and adventures which we, by help of our memory, have taken along into our cell. That tells the whole story of philosophic speculation or deduction. These philosophers imagine they have drawn their theories, not from concrete material, but from the innermost of their brains, while, as a matter of fact, they have but performed an unconscious induction, a process of thought, of argument not without material, but with indefinite and therefore, confused material. Con- versely, the inductive method is distinguished only by this that its deduction is done consciously. Scientific " laws " are deductions drawn by human thinking from empiric material. The spiritist needs material just as the materialist needs spirit. This thesis, when brought out with mathematical precision, is the result of philosophic speculation. That may appear simple enough, yet even a cursory ex- amination of any of our reviews will teach us how little familiar that truth is not only to our journalists and writers but also to our historians and statesmen who are untiring in their attempts to evolve views and theses not from the existing conditions but from their heads, hearts, consciences, categorical imperatives or from some other unreal, mystical and spiritual corner. The con- crete questions of the day are, as a rule, solved by, or with the help of, given material. But in the discussion with Bismarck whether might goes before right or con- versely ; in the squabbles of theology whether the gods are made by the world or the world by the gods ; whether catechisms or natural sciences enlighten the mind ; whether history moves upward to a higher stage or goes SCIENTIFIC SOCIALISM 85 down to its Day of Judgment; in political and economic questions : whether capital or labor creates value, whether aristocracy or democracy is the right form of government, whether we have to work on conservative, liberal or rev- olutionary lines ; in short, in abstract categories, in mat- ters of philosophy, religion, politics and social life, our leaders of science find themselves in the most unscientific confusion. They test human institutions by such prin- ciples or ideas as the idea of justice, of liberty, of truth, etc. " We," says Frederick Engels, " describe things as they are. Proudhon, on the other hand, wants our pres- ent society to arrange itself, not according to the laws of its economic development, but in conformity with the precepts of justice." Proudhon is in this respect the prototype of all unscientific doctrinairism. A far superior guide in all such questions is modern socialism. Owing to its philosophical foundation it stands out prominently as a unanimous, firm and compact, method amidst the endless and shifting dissensions of its political opponents of every shade and opinion. What the dogma is to the religious belief, material facts are to the science of inductive socialism, while the views of liber- alism are as whimsical and elusive as the ideal concep- tions, as the ideas of eternal justice or liberty on which the liberals believe to be safely based. The fundamental proposition of inductive socialism may be thus formulated : there is no eternal principle or an a priori idea of the divine, just and free; there is no revelation or a chosen people, but there are material fac tors which govern human society. Far from bewailing that fact, we acknowledge it as ab- solutely necessary and reasonable, as something which may be denied by power of imagination, but which can- not be altered, nor, indeed, ought it to be altered. By 86 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS granting that society is dominated by material interests we do not deny the power of the ideals of the heart, mind, science and art. For we have no more to deal with the absolute antithesis between idealism and ma- terialism, but with their higher synthesis which has been found in the knowledge that the ideal depends on the ma- terial, that divine justice and liberty depend on the production and distribution of earthly goods. In the wide range of human needs the bodily ones are the most indispensable; our physical needs must first be sat- isfied before we are able even to think of our mental ones and those of our heart, eye and ear. The same holds good in the life of nations and parties. Their abstract conceptions depend on the way they make their living. Tribes living by warfare and booty have not the same heaven, the same sense of justice or of liberty as our patriarchs are supposed to have had who, as is well known, were living on cattle-breeding. Knights and monks had notions of righteousness, of virtue and honour which were decidedly illiberal and anti-bourgeois, because their means of life were not supplied by factory labor and financial transactions. Of course, the defenders of Christianity strongly ob- ject to those views. In order to prove the independence of spirit from matter and of philosophy from economics they make the assertion that the same Christian truth is invariably taught to all sorts and conditions of men, and under all climes. They forget, however, how they trimmed the sails to the wind. They forget likewise that the love preached by the apostles and churchfathers — the love which gave away the second coat is no more the many-coated love under the overcoat which strips the poor to the skin — of course, rightfully. To the diverse modes of property and trade correspond diverse Chris- SCIENTIFIC SOCIALISM 87 tianities. The institution of slavery in U. S. A. was Christian, and Christianity was slave-holding there. The religious reformation of the sixteenth century was not the cause, but the effect, of the social reformation that followed upon the shifting of the economic center from the manor to the city. And that was preceded by the rise of navigation and the discovery of the New World and new trade-routes, which indicate the rise of manufacture. Industrial life having no use for ascetic bodies introduced the protestant doctrine of grace that abolished religious exercises in favor of stern industrial work. That the materialist conception of history is scientific induction and not idle speculation manifests itself even more clearly when we apply it to political party prob- lems. With its help the tangled mass of party strug- gles can be easily unravelled into a clear, running thread. The squire is enthusiastic over the absolute monarchy because the absolute monarchy cared for the squirearchy. Manufacturers, merchants, bankers, in short, capitalists are liberal or constitutional, for constitutionalism is the political expression of capitalism, which liberalizes trade and commerce, supplies the factories with free labor, promotes banking and financial transactions, and, in gen- eral, takes care of the interests of industrial life. Phil- istines, shopkeepers, small tradesmen and peasants join alternately one party or the other according to the prom- ises made with regard to the promotion of their well- being and to the relief from the effects of competition with big capital. The familiar accusation of political hypocrisy which the Parliamentary parties throw at each other was sug- gested to Bismarck by one of the renegades of our camp whom he likes to employ. That accusation is based on the recognition that the aristocratic and middle class con- 88 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS sciousness was formed by the material requirements of the landed and manufacturing and trading classes, and that behind their idealistic watchwords of religion, pa- triotism, freedom and progress lurks the concrete in- terest as the motor power. I cannot deny that many of their followers are not conscious of their real motives, and that they sincerely believe their political work to be purely idealistic. But I should like to remark that it is with recognitions as with epidemics, they are in the air and people feel them somehow. Indeed, the political hy- pocrisy of our time is half conscious, half unconscious. There are many people who take the ideological phrases as gospel truth, but also the artful are by no means rare who want them to be taken as such. The matter can be easily explained. Different classes, distinguished by their different material conditions, succeed each other to political power. The interests of the ruling class are always for a certain time in harmony with the interests of the community, that is with the progressive forces of civilization. And it is that harmony which justifies the ruling class in regarding itself as the spring of social welfare. However, the onward march of history changes everything, also the justification for ruling power. When the economic interests of the ruling class cease to be in harmony with the general welfare, when the ruling class loses its functions and falls into decay, then its leaders can only save their predominant posi- tion by hypocrisy ; their phraseology has been emptied of all reality. It is no doubt true that some individuals rise above class interests and join the new social power which represents the interest of the community. So did Abbe Sieyes and Count de Mirabeau in the French Revolution, who, though belonging to the ruling classes, became the advocates of the third Estate. Still, these are excep- SCIENTIFIC SOCIALISM 89 tions proving only the inductive rule that, in social as in natural science, the material precedes the ideal. It may appear rather contradictory to make the Heg- elian system of philosophy with its pronounced idealism the starting point of the materialist conception of his- tory. Yet, the Hegelian " Idea " is striving for real- ization ; it is indeed a materialism in disguise. Con- versely, the Hegelian reality appears in the mask of the " Idea," or of the logical conception. In one of the latest issues of Blatter fiir Unterhaltung Herr J. Volkelt makes the following remark : " Our modern thinkers have to submit to the crucial test of empiricism. The Hegelian principle has no reason to be afraid of such a test. Consistently followed up it means that the spirit of history can only be conceived through the existing ma- terial." Gleams of truth like these we can find now here and there in the periodical literature, but for a con- sistent and systematic application of the theory we must go to scientific socialism. The inductive method draws its mental conclusion from concrete facts. Scientific socialism considers our views dependent upon our ma- terial needs, and our political standpoint dependent upon the economic position of the class we belong to. More- over, this conception corresponds with the aspirations of the masses whose needs are in the first place material, while the ruling class must necessarily base itself on the deductive principle, on the preconceived unscientific no- tion that the spiritual salvation and the mental training of the masses are to precede the solution of the social question. THE RELIGION OF SOCIAL-DEMOCRACY* SIX SERMONS (VOLKSSTAAT, 187O to 1875) I. Friends and Fellow-Citizens: The teachings of Social- ism contain the material for a new religion which, un- like any other religion, appeals not merely to the heart and emotions, but at the same time to the brain, the organ of knowledge. From all other earthly knowledge socialism is distinguished by its religious form, by its fervid appeal to the heart and soul of man. Generally speaking the object of religion is to save the suffering soul from the gloom and misery of earthly life. This object it has thus far realized only in an unreal and fan- tastic manner, by referring us to an invisible God and to a Kingdom inhabited by ghosts. The gospel of to-day promises to save us from misery in a real and palpable way. God, that is the Good, the Beautiful and the Holy, is to be made man, and is to descend from heaven unto the earth, not as in the days of old in the flame of religion and in the spell of wonder, but in reason and reality. We want our saviour, our Word, to become flesh, and to be materialized not in one individual only. All of us de- sire, the people want to become sons of God. * Used here and later on in the wider sense of the word as the most prominent representation of militant Socialism. The reader may, therefore, safely change " The Religion, Ethics and Philosophy of Social Democracy " into: Socialism and Religion, Ethics, Philosophy. — Editor. 90 THE RELIGION OF SOCIAL DEMOCRACY 91 Religion was until now a matter for the dispossessed. Now, however, the matter of the dispossessed is becom- ing religion, that is something which takes hold of the whole heart and soul of those who believe. The new faith, the faith of the proletariat, revolutionizes every thing, and transforms after the manner of science, the old faiths. In opposition to the olden times we say, Sun, stand thou still, and Earth, move and transform ! In the old religion man served the gospel, in the new relig- ion the gospel is to serve man. In order to emancipate humanity from religion not only vaguely but distinctly and really, it is necessary to overcome religion by analyz- ing and fully comprehending it. The new gospel asks for a thorough revision of the whole system of our thought. According to the old revelation the law was the primary, the supreme and the eternal, and man the secondary element. According to the new revelation man is the primary, the supreme and the eternal, and the law the secondary, temporary and transitory element. We do not live for the sake of the law, but, on the contrary, the law exists for our sake, to serve us, and to be modified according to our needs. The old gospel required of us patience and submissiveness ; the new gos- pel requires of us energy and activity. In the place of grace it puts conscious work. The old bible was named authority and faith ; the new has for its title revolution- ary science. Faith and science, my dear friends, form the contradic- tion which separates the old from the new gospel. Those who have clearly grasped this distinction arc incipient socialists, even if they have not penetrated to the political or social consequences springing from it. This distinction between faith and science contains the germ of revolu- 92 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS tionary development. Both pursue the same end, the salvation of mankind, yet their ways are as poles as- sunder. Faith refers us to fancy and imagination, science to reason and reality. Our opponents, the scribes and pharisees of the old gospel, stand and fall with the dogmas of their faith; they are past redemption. Those, however, who stand on the ground of science, submit their judgment to the crucible of facts ; they are the followers of the new gos- pel. The struggle between faith and science, the antag- onism between the old and the new gospel, dates by no means from the days of socialism. It goes back to the ancient world, to the beginnings of scientific research, then it revives with the renaissance and grows more and more with the approach of the present era where it finds its embodiment in our leaders of scientific thought, though it reaches its full development only in the modern labor movement. All great movements of the past were but the fore- runners, the preliminaries of the general movement, of the coming great revolution whose birth we are wit- nessing. Greek civilization and Christianity, the Ref- ormation, the French revolution of 1789, philosophy and modern science are mere instruments, but industry is the great architect, and socialism the lofty structure which the nations of our time are rearing. The history of the past has diligently collected the necessary materials, and now, friends, the time has come to dig up the soil and to lay the foundations. Valuable as the labors of the past may be, they are but fanciful ornaments in comparison with the funda- mental work the future has to carry out. " Man is free, even were he born in chains." This say- ing of Schiller needs correction. For man is born in THE RELIGION OF SOCIAL DEMOCRACY 93 chains and must struggle for freedom. The heaviest chains, the strongest fetters were put on him by Nature. Against her tyranny he struggles from the beginning of his days. Sustenance and apparel he must wrest from her. The whip of dire necessity in her hand she stands over him, and on her whims and frowns his existence depends. It was the tyranny of Nature which gave re- ligion that predominant influence over the soul of man. Religion promised him relief from the heavy hand of Nature. How long and anxiously did Judaism wait for the Kingdom of the Messiah ! " Consider the ravens : for they neither sow nor reap ; which neither have store- house nor barn ; and God feedeth them ; how much are ye better than the fowls ? " Praying and fasting are the means recommended by Christianity against the inborn helplessness of man. Through the whole of the mid- dle ages that advice was faithfully acted upon, until its futility became manifest. With the appearance of Lu- ther religious thought changes. He proclaimed that Christ had performed for us in heavenly grace our re- ligious salvation, thus relegating sacred exercises to Sundays chiefly and giving free the week-days for sober work. His challenge to the medieval Church heralds the era of industrial activity. Even though his followers afterwards misrepresented his teachings and though Lu- ther himself left his work but half finished, it is neverthe- less true that with the Eeformation man starts out on a new earthly practice, the salvation through Labor without exactly giving up his theories about heaven. He works, accumulates wealth, and with the accumulated wealth he rises to the height of a new conception, to the gospel of social salvation. Religion has since time immemorial been so much cared for and hallowed, that even those minds who have 94 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS given up the belief in a personal God, in a supreme pro- tector of mankind, still adhere to some sort of religion. Let us for the sake of those conservatives use the old word for the new thing. This is not only a concession made to prejudice in order the more easily to overcome it, but is also justified by the thing itself. Indeed, re- ligions differ not more nor less from each other than all of them from the anti-religious social-democracy. All religions have this in common, that they strive for the salvation of suffering humanity, and to lead it up to the good, the beautiful, the righteous and the divine. Well, social-democracy is all the more the true religion as it strives for the very same end, not in a fantastic way, not by praying and fasting, wishing and sighing, but in a manner positive and active, real and true, by the social organization of manual and mental work. Work is the name of the new Redeemer. Christ made a great number of proselytes long be- fore the church was established, so did in many cen- turies the new redeemer, Work, before he could in our present age think to ascend the throne and to take the sceptre into his hand. Now he is endowed with the at- tributes of the Godhead, with power and knowledge. He did not come to his glory in an immaculate and miraculous way. He is born in pains, and grown up in struggle and affliction and sorrow. Although it is he who civilizes man and cares for him, and comes with the promise to fully release him from the bonds of slav- ery, and actually shows him the longed-for new land from afar, yet the crown of thorns is on his brow and the cross of contempt on his shoulders. However, let us drop parables and allegories, and do away with metaphorical language. The thing is much too great and too prominent to need mystical drapery, THE RELIGION OF SOCIAL DEMOCRACY 95 We deal here with the salvation of mankind in the truest sense of the word. If there be anything holy, here we stand before the holy of holiest. It is neither a fetish nor an ark of the covenant, neither a tabernacle nor a monstrance. It is the real, positive salvation of the whole civilized humanity. This salvation was neither invented nor revealed, it has grown out of the accumu- lated labor of history. It consists in the wealth of to- day which arose glorious and dazzling in the light of science, out of the darkness of barbarism, out of the op- pression, superstition and misery of the people, out of human flesh and blood, to save humanity. This wealth, in all its palpable reality, is the solid foundation of the hope of social-democracy. The wealth of to-day does not consist in the superb mansions, inhabited by the privileged of society, nor does it consist in their costly apparel, or in the gold and the precious stones of their jewelry, or in the heaps of goods peeping through the show windows of our great cities. All that as well as the coin and bullion in the trunks and safes form but an appendix or, so to speak, the tassels and tufts, behind which the wealth is con- cealed — the rock on which our hope is built. What authorizes the people to believe in the salvation from the long ages of torture — nay, not only to believe in, but to see it, and actively to strive for, is the fairy- like productive power, the prodigious fertility of human labor. In the secrets which we have wrung from Na- ture; in the magic formulas by which we force her to do our wishes and to yield her bounties almost without any painful work on our part; in the constantly increasing improvement of the methods of production — in this I say, consists the wealth which can accomplish what no redeemer ever could. 96 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS All exertion and struggle in human history, all aspira> tions and researches of science find their common aim in freedom of man, in the subjection of Nature under the sway of his mind. What is freedom? Is it a phantom of which the German poet Schenkendorf sings, " Freedom as I un- derstand it/' and of which, strictly speaking, only the name is known; after which the revolutionists of 1848 were hankering, like a boarding-school miss after some chivalrous knight? And verily, also those have but a philistine conception of its sublime character, who but see in it freedom from police interference or freedom of competition, of conscience, of speech, of organization and of public meetings. All that is but the fringe of free- dom. Our Liberals and Progressives, who only fight for that tinsel, have long ago deprived the people of all real- ity of freedom which they consider as their exclusive privilege. What we want and what the Liberals largely possess in superabundance is freedom from the bonds of slave-labor, freedom from poverty, misery and sorrow, freedom from starvation and ignorance, freedom from the curse of being the beast of burden to the " higher classes " — this freedom for the masses of toil- ing humanity is the sacred aim which modern society could attain to by the infinite productivity of human labor. Man, to be sure, is still dependent on Nature. Her tribulations are not as yet all overcome. Culture has yet a good deal to do; aye, its work is endless. But we have so far mastered the dragon, that we finally suc- ceeded in forging the weapon with which it can be sub- dued ; we know now the way to tame the beast into a use- ful domestic animal. From praying and fasting we have turned to thinking and working. The result of the THE RELIGION OF SOCIAL DEMOCRACY 97 change of method is plainly visible in the conquests of modern industry, whose soul is the productivity of our labor. The hardships of mankind were perhaps until now inevitable, considering that there was no power to mitigate them. It certainly required thousands of years of de- velopment to bring forth that power. As long as the labor of the people was not fruitful enough to satisfy the needs of the masses, certain classes could usurp the privilege of governing the land. I am even inclined to go further and to admit that the task of developing our labor power to that degree of prodigious fertility which we see to-day, has necessitated a privileged governing class as well as the exploitation of the masses. I am thus ready to acquiesce patiently in the misery of the past, and bear it no grudge or malice. But all the more I am now justified in pressing forward the claims of social-de- mocracy. The people are striving for real salvation, be- cause the conditions are ready for it. Poverty, starva- tion and misery in the past were quite often the inevitable results of the deficiency of production. Now, or to be more accurate, since the second decade of the nineteenth century the case is quite the reverse: it is the superfluity of v.ealth, as manifested in the recurring periods of com- mercial and industrial depression, which interferes with production. However full the granaries and ware- houses may be with goods of all kind, the people starve and freeze, because the possessing classes, satiated with wealth, do not require their labor power. The world is over-populated (hear! hear!), say our professors and pol- iticians. Yes, the world is over-populated, because the means of sustenance can be so easily gotten. Human history had until now the task to organize production, to unfold labor power, to economize, and to produce wealth. 98 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS To achieve that purpose, civilization used man ruth- lessly as a tool. As far as that task can be fulfilled by means of oppression, it has been fulfilled. Civilization was until now the aim, and man the means of history. The time has now come to revert the case and to make man the end, and civilization the means. The prime ne- cessity to an advance in civilization is freedom of the people to participate in consumption. Only occasionally and exceptionally there is suffering from a lack of sup- ply, but generally and as a rule we witness misery caused by an abundance of goods in quest of consumers. Owing to free competition this abundance, called na- tional wealth, has been the means to reduce prices and thus to stimulate advanced methods of production by the introduction of labor and cost-saving machinery. How- ever, in consequnce thereof those who were unable to compete went to the wall and the purchasing power of society decreased. So it came about that wealth, once the stimulator of progress, is now turning into a factor of historical stagnation. Some of you, dear friends, may think that I see some- thing which is not warranted by fact. However great wealth might be, it was by no means so abundant as to stifle production and to deprive the laborer of his em- ployment. To be sure, new factories are being built and the old ones prosper ; new railways, shipping lines and canals are being opened, and the land does not go out of cultiva- tion. Yet all this is but the appearance, and not the reality of things, because truth is veiled by seeming con- tradictions. He who has eyes to see, sees the general tendency, despite the particular contradiction he sees the superfluity and the retrenchment of industry, despite the fact that the chimneys continue to pour forth smoke. THE RELIGION OF SOCIAL DEMOCRACY 99 What does not move as rhythmically as its nature re- quires, is lame. And who could deny that there is both the need and the power to expand production to many times its present dimensions? No matter how great or small the present improvements of agriculture or of ma- chinery may be, on the whole it must be admitted that the growth of production is kept in check by the question of consumption. The salvation of humanity is involved in this question. It is so great and sublime, that all other problems which time may bear in its folds must wait in silence. The whole of old Europe is waiting with bated breath for the fulfilling of things which are coming. The political events are but the surface, but a rip- ple of what is raging in the depths of history, at the bottom of social life. He who has eyes to see, sees how every rising tide of freedom has in the last decades been thrown back by an ebb twice as strong. In all leading countries of Europe every political step forward is followed by a forcible reaction. The tri-colored free- dom alternates with Caesarism, Republics with Empires, lively enthusiasm with flabby apathy, each new era of lib- eralism is followed by a Bismarck. The English Parlia- ment disestablishes the Irish Church and carries Crimes Acts which exceed in severity Prussian martial law. France, in the person of M. Ollivier, 1 shows a strange at- titude. Standing fast on one leg, she moves the other forward and backward, as if working the spinning- wheel of time. The wheel is diligently kept in motion, but no yarn comes out of it. Neither in Paris, nor in London, neither in Madrid nor in Naples, neither in Ber- lin nor in Vienna. O, ye short-sighted and narrow- minded, who cannot give up the fad of the moderate organic progress ! Don't you perceive that all your great 1 This was written before the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War, 1870. 100 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS liberal passions sink to the level of mere trifling, because the great question of social salvation is on the order of the day? Don't you perceive that struggle and de- struction must precede peace and construction, and that chaotic accumulation of material is the necessary condi- tion of systematic organization just as the calm precedes the tempest and the latter the general purification of the air? Neither the emancipation of nationalities nor that of women, neither the reorganization of school nor that of education in general, neither the reduction of standing armies nor that of taxation — neither of those demands can be satisfactorily taken in hand before the working class is freed from the fetters which keep them riveted to starvation, sorrow and misery. History stands still, be- cause she gathers force for a great catastrophe. Social-democracy believes in the conquering power of truth, hopes for the salvation from material and mental slavery, and deeply desires justice for all. The practical and the successful, the pharisees and the scribes, the selfish and the hypocrites think us there- fore hopelessly fantastic. They argue that there have always been lucky and unlucky, rich and poor, master and servants, and they illogically conclude that this state of things will endure forever and ever. They don't con- ceive the possibility of salvation, because they don't un- derstand the people. The people are not a mass of pleas- ure-seeking loafers. They despise the finery of your pseudo-culture. They desire a systematic organization of our economic life which shall make impossible the gluttony of the few and the privations of the many, but which shall secure plenty of the necessaries for all. Our kingdom differs toto coelo from yours. And your kingdom, the social order of to-day, have you con- structed it consciously, or is it not true that you have THE RELIGION OF SOCIAL DEMOCRACY IOI organized it instinctively, experimentally, in the course of centuries? Consider the frugal needs of our people and at the same time the modern fertility of labor, and ask yourselves if the instinct alone would not be sufficient to teach us how to supply adequately our needs with the help of the existing means of production? However, social- democracy does not rely on instinctive feeling only. In contradistinction to the present system of production which works without clear purpose and measure, social- democracy is based on a clear comprehension of the scope and the tendencies and the aims of modern economic life according to which it consciously attempts to reconstruct human society. Conscious, systematic organisation of social labor is the redeemer of modern times. II. Before we proceed with our thesis let us, dear friends, sum up in a few words the essence of our first sermon. In the social-democratic movement we have found a new form of religion, inasmuch as both are striving for the same end : the salvation of man from poverty with which he helplessly began his struggle for existence in the midst of a world of adversities. Even the most superstitious soul cannot claim for religion more than the success of spiritual salvation. The pagan gods have scarcely any share in that spiritual world, while the Tri-personal God of Christianity could only mitigate the misery of the peo- ple by making it a virtue. I shall not deny that this doctrine was beneficial for a time. As long as man had neither the capacity nor the means to throw off his cross, resignation was not only a divine balm, but also an effective discipline which trained him for the rigorous 102 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS mental work civilization requires. Mind was cultivated by religion. But what purpose could such a culture serve if it didn't enable us to cultivate the real world and to improve material conditions with the help of the mind? I am quite aware, my friends, that Christianity disowns this only earthly reason of its existence; I am quite aware, that Christianity claims its Kingdom not to be of this world, and that its only mission was the sal- vation of our immortal soul. We know, however, that we do not always achieve what we intend to achieve, and that we don't really always do what we mean to do. We distinguish intentions from realizations. And the materialistic social-democrat has made it his special duty, to judge people not by their flashes of thought, but by their palpable actions. Indeed, the aim of leligion can only be attained by material culture, by a cultivation of the material. Work we called the redeemer of humanity. Science and mechanical arts, mental and manual labor, are, like God-father and Son, two different forms of one and the same being. This truth I should like to call the cardinal dogma of the social-democratic church, if so- cial-democracy could be called a church, and reasonable knowledge a dogma. Science has been an idle speculation as long as it didn't reach the truth that thinking, perceiv- ing and learning required external objects and sense-im- pressions. The combination of the activity of the brains and the senses distinguishes natural science from all an- cient speculative sciences. The science of the ancients was largely speculation, that is, they believed it possible to evolve truth by mental activity alone, without the help of external objects and experience. But the result thus ob- tained was no science. No wonder, that the contents of many a library of folio-volumes with their wooden and pigskin bindings have now chiefly an antiquarian value. THE RELIGION OF SOCIAL DEMOCRACY IO3 On the other hand, the craftsmen of the past did not sever manual from mental labor, and though their hand- work has largely been consumed or damaged, yet the science of those practical investigators has been carefully guarded by tradition and handed down, nearly unim- paired, from generation to generation. There are among us a good many people who, instead of regarding science as a handmaid to civilization, idolize and worship it with boundless and servile admiration as something preternat- ural. They are like the barbarians who turned the nat- ural and social law into a divinity and thus deprived them- selves of the power to control that law and to use it for the benefit of mankind. It is incumbent upon so- cial-democracy to destroy both the religious and the scientific superstition. Man shall not look up to science, but shall draw it down to earthly purposes. The mental shall be the tool of manual labor. With this we by no means disparage the just claims of science. The manifest futility of mere speculative brooding, the demonstrated barrenness of pure reason, may be a lesson for the learned profession, that there can be no science without the action of our senses upon ma- terial objects. Conversely, let the craftsmen learn from the wonderful results of modern industry that labor needs the co-operation of science. The mutual permeation going on for centuries of those two forms of activity helped humanity to reach that point where the foundation-stone to the temple of social-de- mocracy can be laid. It consists in the power of our material production, in the productivity of modern in- dustry. But let us take care not to think in this con- nection of mental power only ! The labor, which has been accumulated in the course of ages, does not con- sist of mental or scientific achievements only, but to a 104 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS much higher degree in the material wealth existing around us, insofar as it constitutes a necessary instru- ment of modern labor. Although this instrument or wealth is at present under the control of private individ- uals, yet the social-democrat must learn to conceive that it could not be the creation of private efforts. All our material wealth as well as our scientific and literary achievements can only be due to the collective work of many and various generations, countries and races, and is therefore, despite the private control under which it is at present, the collective product of all. Great inventions and discoveries, which are bound up with certain names, are but nominally the property of those famous individuals. They are in fact, like the material achievements, the result of collective labor, the product of society. And it is but a survival of the bar- barian past to regard great historic names not only as brilliant leaders, but also as demigods, though such opinions are still prevalent among many learned as well as ignorant men. To be sure, had not Columbus made use of the accumulated means, ideas and aspirations to un- dertake the discovery of America, some other sailor would have done it ; the talent and courage requisite for such a voyage are by no means rare among sailors generally. Or as Thomas Buckle says of James Watt, the inventor of the steam-engine : " He would have surely not achieved what he has, without his predecessors." This may be applied to all men who distinguished themselves and achieved great successes as well as to common peo- ple. It is, dear friends, the supreme duty of science to re- duce the extraordinary, i. e., which appears to the general superstition as extraordinary, to the level of the ordi- THE RELIGION OF SOCIAL DEMOCRACY I05 nary, the usual, the natural or normal. The saints and the sanctuaries, the religious and the worldly ones, must disappear in order that the only eternal and true sanctu- ary : humanity or mankind, may live. To make brother- hood a reality ; to make it impossible to despise any one, it is necessary to cease to humbly look up to any one. The social-democrat should not stare at the chief of a republic as the peasant does at the priest ; he should not regard him as a biped God, as the chosen supreme master. We are all born chiefs, while the elected chief is simply the temporary administrator of the ordinary state of affairs, the business manager the like of whom there are hundreds among the people. The tribe of David should intermingle with the tribe of Melchizedek and form one tribe of citizens with equal rights. Let us now return to the doctrine of our social-demo- cratic church, the foundation-stone of which is the ac- cumulated material and mental wealth, and which teaches us to believe that that heavy stone had been hewn and brought to light neither entirely without nor altogether by the effort of certain select individuals and noble fam- ilies, but by the exceedingly hard labor, material and mental, of the whole society. Only knaves and fools call this a system of crude levelling-up. Those, however, who have studied our church-fathers know that our social hierarchy, the difference between the great and the small, the virtuous and the wicked, the noble and the common, the learned and the untaught, have only been established in order to endow the few with privileges and to keep the masses in servitude. No, fellow-citizens ! the equal- ity of social-democracy is by no means a fantastic equal- ity. It does not exclude diversity. Nature has given us the same desire to satisfy our hunger, to clothe our body and to develop our capacities. Men have always 106 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS and everywhere the same imperious instinct of self-pres- ervation and the same desire to live in enjoyable activity, without misery or servitude. The equality in the desire does not interfere with the natural diversity, with the peculiar talents and proclivities given to each of us. Just as in nature as a matter of fact equality and diver- sity intermingle and form one united whole, so will the social order of the future make all men equal in rank and value, by giving them the equal right to the enjoyment of their individual life, without obliterating the diversity which requires of every one to act according to his gifts. A new era has dawned upon mankind. It bids us ap- proach its message in the light of new ideas and a new understanding. The first and foremost thing in this respect is to revise our present notion of the supreme being and our idea of perfection. Until now we have been taught to regard and to revere the sublime, the supreme, the divine and the perfect as a single thing or being. Here the bar- barians found it in a tree, there in a golden calf, then in the thunder and lightning as the fierce justice, finally the Christians deified the spirit of love. Why was the spirit of love so imperfect? Because he lacked the antithesis, the flesh and bone. We shall give him reality when we search for the perfect, the great and sublime not in one single thing, nor in one single quality, nor in one particu- lar personality, but in the communion and intimate con- nection of all men and things. Various peoples and various ages idolized the most diverse things as the su- preme perfection. Here it was bodily strength and mar- tial prowess, there it was Samaritan pity and spiritual power. But none of these single things has stood the test of time. The deified qualities have proved to be as transient as the gods themselves, and as the peoples who THE RELIGION OF SOCIAL DEMOCRACY IO7 have for a long time been looking for the true God, until the truth has forced itself to the front that men as well as things are all equally sublime, equally perfect and divine. I hear already the shrill voice of the heretics, i. e., of the adversaries of our gospel, charging us with iniquitous blasphemy. Our respectable citizens cannot perceive a state of things without masters and servants, without nobles and commoners, without virtuous and wicked. They think it quite strange to ascribe the same value to the crooked as to the straight, to the donkey as to the miller. Verily, I tell you, the more reasonable the miller the more will he value his donkey. Both of them are irl this point equal, that they serve each other, and that either of them is, in the right time and the right place, a valuable part of a united whole. Only that and no more "is the meaning of the social-democratic doctrine of equality. The privileged divinity of the individual must be abolished if the general deviltry should once for all be done away with. Nothing shall be rejected as im- pure, everything shall be worthy of a place in the taber- nacle, that it may be able, in its time and station, to serve for the best of all. Humanity, knowing how to live in mutual service and to supplement one another with the things of this world, is the bodily representation of the supreme being and of divine perfection. The social-democratic equality, my friends, is there- fore something quite different from the insipid political equality to which the liberal parties want to treat the people. They want political equality, that we may help them to establish a state of things in which they could use us unreservedly for the preservation and augmenta- tion of their wealth, while the aim and end of our equal- ity is to restore the wealth to those who in the course of centuries created it by hard, ceaseless toil, namely, to the 108 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS people. The wealth of to-day is the instrument of future labor. In the present it serves private ends, in the future it shall serve social ends. The restoration of that in- strument to the people shall not take the form of a divi- sion. It shall not be divided up in the manner which obtains to-day, where some get more than their due, while some get nothing at all and are consequently forced into the servitude of the rich; nor shall it be divided up in equal but petty shares so that each individ- ual is to start out on his own hook on a life of drudgery, or is to run the risk of being cheated out of his heritage by the jugglery of the cunning. No, that instrument shall not be subjected to any partition, but it shall be handled with organized skill by co-operative labor; the product only shall be divided and consumed. That is the communism of social-democracy. While Nature ruled with the overpowering force of fate or of a god, and cowed humanity into poverty, it might have been useful to entrust certain individuals or certain classes with the power of government that they might serve as guides for the people. The ancient, the feudal and to-day's bourgeois order of slavery are pro- gressive steps to the organization of labor. Now, how- ever, the time is approaching which calls upon us to take a much farther step than the liberal and democratic parties are dreaming of. By the productivity of labor the people have arrived at the point where they want that all class-domination shall cease. They feel themselves competent to continue the economic development without the help of privileged leaders. The liberty, with which the bourgoisie goads the people into a struggle against the landed interests or against bureaucracy; the equality and fraternity, which priestcraft promises us with the purpose of binding us to it with ropes of superstition, THE RELIGION OF SOCIAL DEMOCRACY IOO, turns into the real liberty, equality and fraternity of so- cial-democracy. If religion consists in the belief in supernatural beings and forces, in the belief in gods and spirits, then social- democracy is without religion. In its place we put the consciousness of the insufficiency of the individual, who needs therefore to his completion and perfection the co- operation of the whole, and consequently acknowledges his submission to the whole. Civilized human society is the supreme being in which we believe ; on its trans- formation to socialism we build our hope. Such a hu- manity will make love a reality, of which the religious enthusiasts have only been dreaming. The deluded and the obdurate, who cannot believe in the social-democratic development of society, may feel the necessity of trans- ferring their hope from this earth to a Hereafter. Not so the social-democrat. In order to really participate in the consolation which the believer finds in the idea of a heavenly father who protects and defends his children, we are striving for a society which shall assist the help- less individual in all his needs. We call upon society — and by virtue of its accumulated wealth we are entitled to call upon society — that it shall vouchsafe to each of its members not only work, but also daily bread, and that it shall feed the hungry, clothe the naked, care for the sick, in short, it shall carry out the work of love and mercy. We appeal to society, not only to call itself hu- man but to be human. In the place of religion, social- democracy puts humanity, which shall no more rest on the basis of an ethical commandment, but on the recog- nition that its savior can only be found in co-operative, brotherly work : in economic communism. The original sin, from which mankind has been suffering, is selfish- ness. Moses and the prophets, all religious founders IIO PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS and legislators together have been unable to extirpate it. " The sin dwelleth in the flesh as the nail in the wall." No preaching or teaching and commanding could eradi- cate it, for the whole constitution of our present society hinges upon that nail. Bourgeois society rests on the selfish distinction of mine and thine, rests on social war, on competition, on the cunning devices of getting the best of each other. In conclusion let me point out the moral : it demands — and its whole being depends on this demand — that we reconcile the antithesis between love and selfishness; that we constitute our society on this reconciliation ; that men shall join hands and with united strength and labor force Nature to yield us our daily bread in plenty. III. Friends: Before we proceed to deal with the meaning of the moral, drawn from our previous remarks, I should like to call your attention to the essential characteristics, to the great and general outlines of religion. I shall not speak of any special denomination : neither of the Chris- tian, Jewish, Mohammedan or pagan beliefs, but of idol- atry in general. We have found that religion and social-democracy have this in common, that they both strive for salvation. Yet, social-democracy is in this respect more advanced that it does not look for salvation in the realm of spirit, but in the world of material realities, taking human spirit only as its guide. The need for salvation, the misery of the primitive man is the psychological germ out of which religion evolved. This perplexity and helplessness in the midst of a world of adversities causes man to look for omnipotence and perfection in some other quarters, THE RELIGION OF SOCIAL DEMOCRACY III and suggested to him the worship of animals, stars, trees, lightning, winds, certain heroic personalities, etc. But eventually in the long run experience inevitably taught him that those things are themselves powerless. Man took a step further and looked for the supreme being no more in near-by and tangible things, but in a spirit reign- ing in the clouds. Removed from experience as the new godhead was, it became more difficult to get some reliable information about it. Yet modern science, which suc- ceeded in fathoming many a mystery, penetrated also to the bottom of the secret of religion. The " wealthy and cultured," whose care for science extends but so far as it helps them to accumulate treasure and to preserve their privileges, are in fact the mean materialists to whom nothing is of more serious concern than the selfish cultivation of the body. It is these peo- ple who are fain to declare that we must not discuss re- ligion, as nothing could be known about it. Against all such assertions I may assure you, friends, that religion, despite its obscurity and lofty mysteriousness, did not escape the piercing eye of science, which penetrated into its most remote and darkest corners. Just as we know as a certainty that two and two equals four, or that there are no two mountains without a valley, on earth or in heaven or anywhere else, so do we know what and who religion and God are, where they begin and end, where they come from and how they dissolve. The ruling classes and their conscious or unconscious flunkeys have an interest to contend against the austerity of religion, as it interferes with their worldly enjoyments. For those who really believe and trust in an eternal treasure which is eaten neither by rust nor by moths, lose their appetite for the evanescent joys of the world. Indeed, religious as well as political liberalism is closely 112 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS connected with property and with the mode of business prevailing to-day. The aristocratic families of the past were the friends and followers of the monks, for both had their kitchen and cellar supplied by socage and tithes. The great houses of the present, which " earn " their sumptuous living by profit-making off the labor of others, and this on so liberal, i. e., plentiful, a scale, are more than alienated from the orthodox preacher of Christian discipline and sobriety ; their attitude towards him is full of antipathy. Yet it would be a mistake to assume that liberalism is serious in its unbelief. They can't be seri- ous. Their privileged social position condemns the " wealthy and cultured " to that nauseous luke-warmness, to that indifferentism which is neither cold nor warm. Their religious freemasonry, their protests against super- stition — by the way, all belief is superstition — cannot be serious, for the religious discipline is one of the main- stays of class-rule. Though they have lost all belief in God they never tire of reminding us of his command- ments : " Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's . . . Be subject to principalities and powers, obey magistrates . . . Pray and work . . . Bear the cross in all humility and patience . . ." While they are fiercely striving to climb up the ladder of might and wealth they actually delude us, and perhaps also them- selves, into believing that they trust in God, who is sup- posed to humble the proud and to exalt the humble. The liberal bunglers are easily to be recognized as religious hypocrites. The great captains of industry, with their liveried and titled flunkeys as professors, justices, law- yers, etc., are passionately devoted to freedom of trade and competition as well as to freedom of religion. Every man shall be free to believe as his conscience dic- tates. But woe to those who try to live up to such THE RELIGION OF SOCIAL DEMOCRACY II3 maxims and free themselves of all religion! You may belong' to a nonconformist congregation or to an unde- nominational school. But to have no religion at all, or to belong to a secular school — why, that's positively disgraceful ! That's past all bearing ! Such things must be put a stop to! If the people do no more believe in anything, who will sanctify our property and supply the dear fatherland with food for guns or cannon? The small craftsman who feels and sees that the indus- trial revolution is undoing him, does not know and does not want to know of the inventions and discoveries of science. This is quite the case with our " wealthy and cultured " in matters of religion. They are used to say : If there is no positive proof for the truths of religion, there is still less any proof against religion. Because their interests are endangered by such knowledge, they refuse to admit that more than half a century ago Feuer- bach particularly had brought the conclusive and irre- futable proof that all religion is simply a substitute for human ignorance. The human race has this peculiar distinction, that at different times and places it values different things and qualities as the highest beyond all measure ; — that, unlike the apes which but imitate what was shown them, hu- manity revolutionizes its highest standards, in short, it makes history. Of course, not that history as taught in our schools, which is simply a miserable index of the births and deaths of princes ; an enumeration of wars, battles and treaties, while its real import consists in the great and solemn evidence that mankind, its generations and peoples, constitutes a living and continually develop- ing organism, each part of which serves the whole. The aim or postulate of this development is to subdue all existing matter and forces to human needs, to cultivate 114 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS nature, and to bring system into the world with the help of our mind. This process is going on slowly, by fits and starts. Those who by the study of nature and by the insight into its boundless possibilities attained to a wise humility, recognize without hesitation that the his- toric progress, though its aim is to make human con- sciousness the lord of the world, is still far from being a matter of consciousness. It is much more the instinct, the nature of matter, which impels its continual develop- ment, through the various geological periods to the for- mation of life, which began with the most primitive life- cells and developed to higher forms with plants and animals by variation and natural selection, until its high- est product, man gifted with reason, was brought forth. The end and aim of the evolutionary process is to com- prehend the manifold phenomena of nature and history in order to enable man to consider and to use the human race, its ethnological and political organizations and all existing mental and material' energies as an organic whole. In the course of his development man passion- ately idolized anything that happened to range high in his estimation, be it an animal, a plant, a star, a human being or a law. God - - the essence of religion — ap- pears thus as a changeable and temporary, and not as a permanent and eternal, character. The divine has changed so often that its evanescence became manifest to the scientific mind. Science has therefore formulated the proposition : That which religion values beyond measure is in historic reality but temporarily and locally valuable. Religious people are wont to assert that all races, savage or civilized, have some sort of religion and believe in God. From which they infer that religion is inherent in man and needs, therefore, no further demonstration. That assertion is, however, only in so far true as oeople THE RELIGION OF SOCIAL DEMOCRACY 115 without experience are credulous, and aH the more so, the less experience and culture they possess. Nowadays it is but peasants and women that are the true believers. Those who have eyes to see perceive that there is not one, but many religions, and not one God, but many Gods. As man attains to the understanding of the world only by degrees, he idolizes many things, to-day the sun, to- morrow the moon, one time the dog, as the Persians, at another time the cat, as the Egyptians, until he finally gains the social-democratic truth that nothing and every- thing is divine, nothing and everything does invaluable services. What the heathen valued in their gods, in Bac- chus — wine, in Venus — love, etc. ; what the Israelites valued in Jahve — the punishing, reproving and law- making; what the Christians worship in their God — the incarnation, suffering and dying for others, boundless love and mercy, contempt for worldly matters, abstemi- ousness, celibacy, etc. — all this, my friends, is to be val- ued temporarily and locally, but never to be idolized. Not the objects of religion are reprehensible, but the essence of religion, which is boundless and inordinate in its veneration. The essence of religion consists in this, that certain phenomena of nature and history, which, according to time and circumstances, acquired an unusual importance, have been personified and put on so high a pinnacle that they appear to be independent of time and space. The religious truth is but a natural truth standing on its head. Not God created man, but always and every- where man created God in his own image. If some out- of-the-way people, possessed of wisdom, happen to get the sacred books of our churches, they will learn nothing about God and heaven, but a good deal about the civiliza- tion of men who wrote and esteemed those things. How Il6 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS near our time is to giving up all religion, is evident from the vague and confused ideas now circulating about God and his attributes. While man comes to the knowledge of the existence of all other things because he had known before how and what they are, he wants to be convinced of the existence of God before knowing anything in par- ticular about his nature, whether he is of human or in- human form, small or large, black- or blue-eyed, male or female. The theologians, being themselves in the dark, label such questions materialistic and improper. But the more advanced thinkers know already that the very few things their colleagues assume to know about God when they qualify him as just, good, wise, almighty, etc. — that all those qualities are not religious, but pro- fane and earthly qualities, which we may find here on earth without taking the trouble of going up to heaven. Such qualifications are called by the scholars " anthropo- morphistic," that is, where man over-estimates justice, he describes a just God, and where he has a liking for human flesh, he treats his God therewith. The advanced theologians are well aware of that and decline to give any description of their objects of worship. But is it not senseless to assert the existence of something and at the same time to confess complete ignorance of how, where and what its nature is? The more the idea of God re- cedes into the past the more palpable it is ; in olden times man knew everything about his God ; the more modern the form of religion has become, the more confused and hazy are our religious ideas. The truth is that the his- toric development of religion tends to its gradual disso- lution. A little while ago I characterized religion as the sub- stitute of human ignorance, that is, it fills up the gaps of knowledge. Where the gaps are wide, there the scope THE RELIGION OF SOCIAL DEMOCRACY 117 of religion is wide. The whole life of barbarian tribes, their work and their rest, their social customs and laws are under the strict control of God. The God of Abra- ham, Isaac and Jacob cares about the most insignificant details ; he supervises the cleanliness of his people ; he prescribes how to hitch their animals to the carriage, in short, there is nothing left to a true Israelite which is not regulated by divine command. The same may be said of all Asiatic religions. On the other hand, the civilized nations of to-day leave to God those things only whose laws have not yet been discovered, as the making of the weather, the healing of malignant diseases, etc. To an enlightened liberal the blessed name of the Lord is in reality no more than the A, the beginning of the alphabet of his conception of the world. Once he passes beyond the beginning, he allows the world to take its natural course. To this un-Christian Christian everything in the world is natural except the beginning, which is unnatural and divine. It is this consideration which stands in the way of his giving up the belief in the existence of God, which has also the advantage of keeping the lower orders, the " illiterate," in check. The only link which connects this sham-religion of the Progressive-Liberal with the Catechism is the so-called " moral world." But inasmuch as he begins dimly to perceive that morality, too, has a worldly basis, his association of ideas becomes dim and shadowy. As soon as we are conscious of the fact that the ethical had not its roots in the divine will, but, on the contrary, that which, for social reasons, had become eth- ical receives subsequently divine sanction ; — as soon as we recognize that ethics was antecedent to the " Eternal," the Church loses the ground from under its feet. If we compare the wide scope of religious life of the pagan past, when the trees and bushes, the hills and waters Il8 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS teemed with gods and goddesses; — if we compare the intense faith of early Christianity with its manifold saints and miracles ; — if we compare all that with the position of to-day, when religion is pushed into the background by so many other considerations, then, I think, no im- partial observer will be able to disagree with our propo- sition, that the progress or development of religion con- sists in its gradual dissolution. No doubt, this is the usual course of things in the world. With the first day of his life the new-born begins his pilgrimage towards the grave. And stronger words than those I could not conscientiously utter against religion. It is not an eter- nal or heavenly affair, but an earthly and temporal one. The last and strongest religious argument, brought forward by rather unprejudiced minds, is the undeniable fitness of things in nature or in the universe. Who could deny the wonderful order of the universe, its har- mony, organization and system? Apart from the num- berless illustrations usually brought in favor of that argu- ment, apart from the green, blue and speckled cuckoo's eggs, which, according to color and volume, always fit in with the bird's eggs to which they are added, we find in every step the proofs of a universal intelligence which uses everything that is living and existing as a part, as a suitable organic part of the whole. To recognize the evolution or the gradual organization, not only of nature but also of human society, is the special task of social-dem- ocrats. Their superior understanding consists just in this, that they regard all phenomena of nature and human history as being parts of the whole that are involved in the process of evolution, and even such things as religion, morality and property, which are usually looked upon as constant and eternal ; there is no sacred exception to this rule. And how could they fail to recognize that THE RELIGION OF SOCIAL DEMOCRACY IIO, there is in this whole something of a higher life to which the individual parts are subordinated? But when recog- nizing this, there is no necessity of going back to religion and mysticism. Experience has so much sharpened our wits that we spotted the rocks on which human reason, in its efforts to get at the truth, has hitherto often suf- fered shipwreck. The learned marked them with the ponderous name : anthropomorphism. It is the manner of the unsophisticated, which is so difficult to get rid of, to measure and to interpret the external world by the gauge of their own individual life. Because man pur- sues his aims deliberately and consciously he substitutes a being in his own image, gifted with deliberative power and consciousness, as the architect of the system of na- ture. And even among intelligent people whose sense of criticism is so far developed as to shake all belief in a personal God, we find that they cannot do away with all philosophic mysticism ; they take refuge either in a phi- losophy of the unconscious, which attributes will and con- ception to unconscious things, or to spiritualism and theosophy. It cannot however be denied that there is in dead mat- ter a living impluse towards a higher form of organiza- tion, and that, consequently, the material world is not dead, but living. Yet, it is necessary to keep in mind that we can only speak of its will and purpose in a rel- ative and comparative sense. For the manifestation of the universal intelligence is but gradual. The higher the organization of matter the clearer the manifestation of the intelligence. We see it in the animal instinct in a limited degree of clearness and it attains to a pure ex- pression in the cerebral function of man. i. e.. in our consciousness. To attribute purpose, will and conception to low-organized matter is therefore as wrong as to call 120 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS twilight day because of the limited degree of light the former possesses. And if I ventured a little while ago to make use of those terms it was but with the intention to discredit them and to show their relative meaning. To be sure, there is reason in the natural things. But for this it was possible for the homo sapiens to appear without divine assistance on the stage of history. Those who recognize reason, the source of all system and of all fitness of things, as a product of nature, cannot fail to admit the suitability inherent in nature. Yet, the spirit of man is the only spirit. This name cannot be given to the reason which we find in the orderly revolutions of the solar systems, or in the cuckoo's eggs, or in the construc- tion of the bee's cell, or in the working of the ants, or in the head of apes, but solely to its highest manifestation, to the consciousness, to the cerebral function of man. Our spirit is the highest spiritual being. But, my pious friends, that is, my attentive friends, we must not put it on the high pinnacle of a religious godhead. High and low means in our materialistic philosophy as much as more or less organized. The less autonomous the parts of a thing are, the more they function as organs, the more interdependent and closely connected they are, the •' more numerous and varied their natural communications and services, the higher is the thing in the hierarchy of nature. Our consciousness is the universal center, the universal means of communication. But it does not ex- ist by itself, isolated in aristocratic aloofness like our Lord God, but it is in its good democratic way only a point of contact, a connection with all other things. Even before natural science mastered the art of differ- entiation and unification, the logic or the science of mind had discovered that there is but one species, namely, worldly things, while everything else is but a variety. THE RELIGION OF SOCIAL DEMOCRACY 121 The conscious and unconscious, the plants and animals, the good and bad, all diversity, all antagonisms of the world must be considered as diverse forms of one and the same being, which gradually merge into each other, carrying on a perpetual struggle for existence, and re- newing and perfecting themselves through natural selec- tion. Out of chaos arose cosmos, which gradually evolved reason-gifted man, whose pleasant duty it is to further the progress of our world, to remove its imper- fections. His task can be best effected by studying and organizing its forces. Indeed, man has always been working at his task, but until now in an unconscious manner : when his intellectual and civilizing efforts had sufficiently accumulated to form a great generalization and a new social stage he rested for a time; those were epoch-making instances which found their visible ex- pression in a new religious conception: the animal-wor- ship of oriental nations, the Law of Israel, the Humanity of Christ, etc. But where man becomes conscious of his task, where he recognizes in himself the absolute organ- izer, there the place of the religious conception is taken by the anti-religious social-democracy. IV.— i. It is in reality a priestly nuisance to address my com- rades from the height of the pulpit. Pulpit, Christianity and religion have often been made to serve so many crooked purposes that it is very unpleasant for an up- right man to come in close touch with them. Yet, we must approach them closely in order to do away with those things altogether. If you want to put a brawler out of the temple you must first embrace him, — that's one of the sensible contradictions of life. 122 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS It is not an unusual phenomenon in history to see how one thing is being transformed into another thing with the name remaining the same. To the inexperienced the changed new thing is easily represented as the familiar old one. Such is the case with pulpit, Christianity and re- ligion. This is a conservative trick which causes much confusion in the minds of the people. Even among our comrades there are some who are thus caught. They say : Christ was the first socialist. Yet, Socialism and Christianity differ from each other as the day does from the night. To be sure, there are points of resemblance be- tween them. But show me the thing to which no analogy could be found ! What does totally differ ? Day and night have this in common, that they are both portions of time. The devil and the archangel are both of the same nature, though one be black- and the other white-skinned, inas- much as both of them do claim some kind of a skin. It is the fundamental faculty of our mind to bring all di- versity under one general heading. Though Christianity and Socialism may have some points in common, it is none the less true that whoever mistakes Christ for a socialist is surely a dangerous muddlehead. In fact, our knowledge is one-sided when based only on what phe- nomena have in common. We must look also for their differentiation. Not what the Socialist has in common with the Christian, but what distinguishes and differ- entiates him from the Christian shall be the subject of our consideration. Christianity was recently qualified as the religion of servility. This seems to me a very apt qualification. Indeed, all religion is servile, but Christianity is the most servile of the servile. Let us take the next best Christian saying we meet with on the road. On my way there stands a cross with inscription : " Mercy, gra- THE RELIGION OF SOCIAL DEMOCRACY 123 cious Jesus! Holy Maria, pray for us." Here we have the inordinate humility of Christianity in all its wretched- ness. For those who build all their hope on mercy are wretched creatures, indeed. Those who start out in life with the belief in an Almighty God, and prostrate them- selves before the destinies and forces of nature, and in their piteous feeling of impotency moan for mercy, are anything but efficient members of modern society. When we see that modern Christians act differently, that they brave the storm and courageously face danger, that they actively strive to remove calamity, it is only because of their defection from Christianity. Though they continue to keep their name, their song-books and their anxieties, they are in their doings and dealings perfect anti-Christs. We non-religious social-democrats must be fully con- scious of this position. We want to be consciously and deliberately, in theory and practice, the energetic oppo- nents of that sheepish and godly humility. Rooted in the flesh like an old Adam is that disastrous human disposition to perpetuate a thing which was only meant to serve certain conditions. Inertia and selfish- ness are joined together to hush up, to deny or to con- ciliate the contradiction between Christian contempt of worldly life and the joyful, strenuous activity which dis- tinguishes the present generation. Christianity wants resignation, while modern life wants us to work with all our might for the satisfaction of our material needs. Confidence in God is the foremost Christian virtue, while self-confidence, the exact opposite, is necessary to achieve success. Those who dare to put into the mouth of Chris- tianity the maxim : " Trust in God, but thou shalt not hide thy talents," by which they mean to convey that work was not an un-Christian thing, but, on the contrary, a Christian command, are preposterous sophists. W« k 124 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS in the Christian sense differs wholly from modern and real work. The Christian works for Heaven, crucifies his flesh and subdues his passion. And when he works for his daily bread, then it must only be for such an unkeep as to prolong his tribulations in this valley of tears in order to be worthy of true eternal life. " He that loveth his life shall lose it ; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal " (St. John, 12, 25). Heavenly eternity is the aim of the Christian; the earthly world is the aim of sensible men. Herr Daniel Schenkel, D.D., of Heidelberg, is indig- nant at the assertion that the essence of Christianity is the negation of this world. " Is it true," he exclaims, " that Christianity does not regard this world as a worthy place, nay, not even as a possible place for religion — this world of which the Gospel says : So did God love His world that He sent His only begotten Son unto it. Did the primitive Christians renounce the world? Didn't they rather expect Christ to appear again on earth and to substitute a new order of things for the old, rotten one?" Thus speaks a sophistical reasoner who cares very little for consistent reasoning, but a good deal for a compromise between his half-hearted rationalism and the Christian religion. Or does he feel the need of de- luding others, if not himself, too? Does he not know that Christianity has two worlds like the Prussians, one that is white and the other black? The beautiful world of reality the Christian has painted black. Its glories are but temptations of the devil ; its labor a curse ; its love a sinful lust; the flesh a weariness to the spirit; the body a wretched carcass. As the enchanted prince dwells in a wild beast so does the white world of Chris- tian imagination live in this black reality. To save us from this world God has sent His Son, who leads us into THE RELIGION OF SOCIAL DEMOCRACY 125 the heavenly world of Christianity. It consists of spirit- ual matter, which is just as possible as iron wood-blocks. Its men and women are sexless ; its bodies have no grav- ity ; its work is painless. To be sure, the primitive Chris- tians did have the desire to renounce the world. They expected the reappearance of Jesus at any moment ; they expected the destruction of the world and the crack of doom. " My kingdom is not of this world." However, the fantastic salvation of Christianity, which aims at removing the toils of the world, not by energetic work, but by believing and trusting, could not possibly suppress forever the sensible desire for the enjoyment of material life. The heretics, reformers, Protestants, old-Catholics, Unitarians and high critics have all of them contributed to the victory of the black- ened and libelled truth over the whitewashed lie of re- ligious imagination. Insofar we Socialists are at one with the Progressives. But we protest against this cow- ardice in clinging to the old name and in trying to pass off their defection from faith for a restoration of true Christianity. It is necessary to discredit the name in order to do away with the thing itself. The religion of the Capitalists is as equivocal and con- tradictory as their political economy, liberty, equality and fraternity. The farce of the renunciation of the world, played by the fat monk, is being continued by the well- fed bourgeois. And the most ludicrous part of it is that the Progressive falls a long way behind the monk, who at least was conscious of the austere character of religion. The lukewarm and insipid Christianity of the modern humbugs claims to be the only genuine article. The old leaders of Christianity, the Saints of the Calendar, man- ifested a real contempt for the world and its pleasures ; they loved the life of a hermit, wore the hair shirt, morti- 126 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS fied their body and fed themselves on roots and herbs. Their life bore evidence of their doctrine : " God is a spirit." Our modern crusaders turn to another page where it is written : " He was made flesh and dwelled among us." No doubt, the germ of equivocation and senseless contradiction lay from the beginning in the Christian doctrines. The apostles and church fathers made sometimes concessions to the public. They taught how to drive out lust by marriage, and Satan by Beelze- bub. From some passages it might appear that praying and fasting were the highest Christian duties, while from other passages the opposite conclusion might be drawn, that the Lord finds no pleasure in sacrifice. Christianity, not being above nature, cannot dispense with the joy of life altogether, and must end by compromising and trim- ming. The clear-sighted social-democrat will not be de- tained by the trees from recognizing the forest. The essence of Christianity is abstemiousness in this world and sweet peas in Heaven. A doctrine which swayed nations and continents for centuries has surely its historic significance. But this granted, we must reject its claim to eternal domination. The good which Christianity contains, as, for instance, mortifying the flesh as a means against non-married lust, or brotherhood of man against national jealousies, is readily accepted by social-democracy. We condemn all jingoism which, however, the Christian church as a rule fosters. Yet we cannot regard that truth as divine and holy. With that difference between religious and secular truth we arrive at the point which essentially distin- guishes the Socialist from the Christian. To its elucida- tion I should like to ask you, my friends, to give me your special attention for a while. THE RELIGION OF SOCIAL DEMOCRACY 127 Truth is truth, undoubtedly ! But in its religious form it is one-sided, insensate and intolerant. Take for in- stance the principle of brotherhood of man. It is an eternal truth, i. e., it is a human need that men shall live together. Sociability is in their nature, they must love one another; and where they fail to recognize it they suffer in their own well-being and happiness. Where, however, the religious believer has taken up that prin- ciple, where the Christian commands : Love thy neighbor as thyself, there he goes at it with such a fierceness that he knocks all rime and reason out of it. When he be smitten on the right cheek he is to offer the left one, too. When he preaches love he excludes hatred. On the other hand, Socialism does not only preach love of humanity, but is based on it. The anti-religious, reasonable love of humanity knows how to limit itself; it does hot over- shoot the mark or exclude its antithesis : the hatred, but includes it as a holy because necessary means for tem- porary use. We, too, desire to love the enemy and to do good to him who hates us — but not ere we have effected his unconditional surrender. Meanwhile we sing with Herwegh : Die Liebe kann erlosen nicht, Die Liebe nicht erretten, Halt du, O Hass, dein jungst Gericht, Brich du, O Hass, die Ketten. Bis unsre Hand in Asche stiebt, Soil sie vom Schwert nicht lassen, Wir haben lang genug geliebt Und wollen endlich hassen. (Love cannot save, Love cannot redeem, Arise thou, O Hate, and break our chains. Until our hand withers we shall not relinquish the sword, We've loved long enough, let us now hate.) 128 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS IV.— 2. The question we are dealing with concerns the differ- ence between religious and profane truth. That the Jew shall not run about unwashed, Moses prescribed cleanli- ness as a law. Cleanliness is a necessary requirement; it is a truism. In its religious form however it is of a solemn immobility, fixed to time, place and number ; it prescribes when, in what manner and how often one must wash. The religious truth is a binding prescription; secular science and the free use of water cleanses more thoroughly than that prescription. In science the atom is as worthy an object as the starry sky. There is no fixed gulf in science between worthy and unworthy ob- jects, and none in scientific ethics between good and evil. All things and qualities are useful and suitable ; clean and unclean, love and hate, enjoyment and renun- ciation — all is relative, more or less, according to time and conditions. Scientific freedom, subordinating all things and qualities to human ends, is thoroughly anti- religious. Religious truth consists just in this, that it lifts natural qualities above nature, that it separates them from the living stream of human progress and confines them in a stagnant pool. In qualifying the common and profane truth as " scien- tific," I should like to remind you, friends and comrades, that the scientific truth is called profane and common. It is necessary to bear that in mind, seeing that a scien- tific priesthood has arisen which is aiding and abetting religious priestcraft. To destroy palpable superstition would be an easy matter if dualistic confusion were not on the lookout for the gaps of science in order to lay there its eggs. Such gaps are to be found especially in the field concerning epistemology, the theory of the THE RELIGION OF SOCIAL DEMOCRACY 129 method of cognition. As the Laplander or Firelander is terrorized by mighty natural phenomena, so is the pro- fessor by the wondrous working of the human mind. Enlightened freethinkers, who easily dispense with Chris- tianity and religion in general, are still caught in the snares and pitfalls of superstition as long as they don't clearly distinguish between religious and profane truth, and as long as they are not clear about the organ of truth or the faculty of knowledge. Having materialized everything spiritual, there remained nothing for the pro- fessors but to spiritualize their own profession, science. They assume academic knowledge to be of a different stuff from, say, the knowledge of the peasant, of the dyer or of the smith. Scientific agriculture is, however, only insofar ahead of usual farming that its rules or its knowledge of the so-called natural laws are generaliza- tions of a more comprehensive kind. They but differ from each other in degree and not in essence, as for in- stance a quart of legumes from a quart of peas. There must be no groping in the dark about the insipid differ- ence between noble science and common understanding, if we want to overcome the claims of the aristocracy of in- tellect. Our opponents may indignantly protest against such crude notions of the democratic levellers who even refuse to recognize intellectual distinction. Yet, quite as the old struggle against aristocracy was not meant to disparage their glorious ancestors, so our shafts are not directed against the intellect of the intellectuals. We object only to the material privileges which the knightly highwaymen and academic scribblers lay claim to. Since it is no more possible to brutally coerce the people to the production of wealth, the learned satellites of our rulers cheat them with the miracles of intellectual labor. The distinguished and lucrative position of the professor I30 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS as well as the profits of the employer are defended under the false pretences that intellectual labor stands far higher and is ten times more productive than manual labor. Because we social-democrats are treating such presumptions with contempt, we are nicknamed " blas- phemers of art and science." We have the deepest con- tempt for the stilted phraseology of " culture and sci- ence " and for the talk of the graduated flunkeys who, like the pagan priests with their rudimentary knowledge of nature, use their sham idealism to keep the people in ignorance. The modern dualistic belief in the world of a scientific and of an ethical spirit, which is supposed to be superior to the common world and is therefore to control it, is nothing more than the rehashed superstition of an earthly and heavenly life. Professors who need the support of religion transform the Kingdom of God to a kingdom of scientific spirit. As Lord God finds his antipode in the devil so has the pious professor his antag- onist in the materialist. The materialistic conception of the world is just as old as the religious disbelief. And both have been worked up in the nineteenth century from their crude form to scientific precision. But our learned academicians fail to understand that, because they feel their social position endangered by the democratic tendencies inherent in ma- terialism. Feuerbach says : " It is the characteristic fea- ture of a professor of philosophy not to be a philosopher, and conversely, it is the characteristic feature of a philos- opher not to be a professor of philosophy." To-day we are a step farther. Not only philosophy but science in general has left its official mouthpieces behind. Even where there are materialistic professors in the profes- sional chair, there adheres to them some unscientific re- ligious nuisance in the form of an idealistic remnant as THE RELIGION OF SOCIAL DEMOCRACY I3I pieces of egg-shell to the unfledged bird. Furthermore, one swallow makes no summer, and the really scientific conception of a professor cannot take off the blot which sullies his whole class. As long as the middle classes and their leaders had to fulfill a civilizing mission, their academies were nurseries of learning. Since then, how- ever, history has moved forward, and the struggle for a higher civilization has been devolved on the working class, the nethermost stratum of human society. Despite this historic change the old decaying rulers are making great efforts to preserve their power and are looking to the academic dignitaries for support, thus turning the " free scientists " into well-paid attorneys to defend a dying cause. The socialist demand for a more equitable and popular distribution of economic goods can be realized by a de- mocracy only, by a government of the people who do not tolerate the rule of a clique which, under the pretence of intellectual superiority, seeks to appropriate the lion's share of the social wealth. In order to keep that pre- sumptuous selfishness within reasonable bounds it is nec- essary to understand clearly the relation between mind and matter. Philosophy is therefore a subject which closely concerns the working class. This, of course, does by no means imply that every working man should try to become acquainted with philosophy and study the relation between idea and matter. From the fact that we all eat bread does not follow that we must understand milling and baking. But just as we need millers and bakers so does the working class stand in need of keen scholars who can follow up the tortuous ways of the false priests and lay bare the inanity of their tricks. Manual laborers do not sufficiently appreciate the real value of mental labor. Their healthy distrust against the leading scrib- 132 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS biers of bourgeois society leads them too far. They see how much wrong-doing is going on under the cloak of intellectual work and are therefore inclined to undervalue mental labor and to overestimate manual labor. This brutal materialism must be counteracted. Physical vigor, bodily superiority was always the prerogative of the working classes. But in default of mental training they have so far been outwitted. The emancipation of the working classes requires that they should lay hold on the science of the century. The mere sentiment of indig- nation against the unjust conditions under which we suffer does not meet the case of freeing the working class, superior in numbers and physique as they may be. They must have recourse to the armory of intellect. Of all its weapons the theory of cognition or the theory of science, that is, the understanding of the scientific method of thinking, is the universal weapon against religious be- lief, driving it out of its last hidden recess. The belief in Gods and demi-Gods, in Moses and the Prophets, the belief in the Pope, in the Bible, in the Kaiser, in his Bismarck and his government, in short, all belief in authorities, finds its definite and final reply in the science of mind. As long as we have not discovered how and where wisdom arises we are easily exposed to the danger of being bamboozled. The clear knowledge of how thoughts are being produced puts us on a coign of vantage which makes us independent of God, books and men. In dissolving the dualism of mind and matter, the theory of the scientific method of thinking destroys the last pillar which supports a society divided into rulers and ruled, into oppressors and oppressed. I don't think here is the proper place to enter more fully into the discussion of the theory of mind. I shall confine myself to the statement of some of its most evi- THE RELIGION OF SOCIAL DEMOCRACY 1 33 dent and irrefutable propositions, in order to be able to oppose the presumption of the ruling classes which, by pleading intellectual work, endeavor to extenuate the charge of their exploitation of the people. The socialist attack on their economic, or class, position fills them with fanatic fury. They are therefore unable to bring the nec- essary impartiality to bear upon the study of subjects which may produce social changes. Mental and social science can hardly meet with the sympathy of an audi- ence which, through their privileged and propertied posi- tion, are interested in clogging the wheel of civilization. Such a science appeals all the more to the judicious atti- tude of the have-nots, of the disinherited and oppressed. Ad rem! Spirit is neither a ghost nor the breath of God. Idealists and materialists agree that spirit belongs to the category of " worldly things," dwells in human brains, and is nothing else than an abstract expression, a collective noun expressive of thoughts which exist simultaneously and follow each other in organic order. If spirit is understood to be no more than another word for our force of thinking, who could then deny the some- what paradoxical, yet empirical, proposition that mental work is a bodily effort? With this I venture to intro- duce you to the rather difficult chapter of contradictions. As line and point are but mathematical conceptions, so are contradictions no real things, but logical niceties, and have only a relative and comparative value. Relatively the great is small and the small great. In this sense we may say matter and mind, like all opposites. are logically but not really in opposition to each other, since all oppo- sites are such only in way of comparison. Our body is so closely connected with our spirit, that physical labor is absolutely impossible without spiritual collaboration. Even the simplest work of an unskilled laborer requires 134 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS the co-operation of mind. Conversely, the belief in metaphysics or in disembodied spiritual labor is an ab- surdity. Even the purest mental exercise is undoubtedly an effort of the body. All human work is both mental and physical. From my preceding lectures at least as much is evident, that thoughts not only originate from the brains and therefore proceed subjectively from mat- ter, but that they always and everywhere have some palpable thing as their object. Cerebral matter is the subject of thought, the infinite material of the world is its object. The mind as well as the body is eager to produce, to bring forth fruit. Therefore intellectual work must be- come materialized and bodily work spiritualized. An analysis of the product of labor will never indicate how much the mind has contributed to it and how much the body, for they operate together in close companionship, and not in isolation from each other. A certain work may be characterized, either as mental or physical, the product however, is made both by mind and body. Their contribution to the whole cannot be separated. Who * could indicate in a kitchen-garden what parts of the plants are due to the spade, the arm of the gardener, the soil, the rain and the manure? It has always seemed to me an idle and poor endeavor to divide up the products of labor according to the factors which contributed to them. It is a perverse bourgeois idea which cannot be consummated and leads, moreover, in practice to just the opposite result. This idea appears to be the out- come of that cardinal perversion which wants to turn man into an independent producer who, freed from all social trammels, should compete with his fellow individ- uals and thus realize the fantastic ideals of personal liberty. But you, my friends, know full well, that all THE RELIGION OF SOCIAL DEMOCRACY 1 35 work in the capitalist world is in reality performed in common. The intellect of the journalist works for the manufacturers, and the manufacturers produce linen for the journalists, police agents, shoe-polishers, etc. One for all. Nobody looks for his ultimate object in his own product, everybody aims at the products of all which are supplied by the world's market and find their reali- zation in the"form of money. If we judge the perform- ance of each member of our society according to the money he receives, then the stockholders must have con- tributed an enormous amount of social labor. The work of the individual and that of the family, the work of the factory and that of the whole society, is an organism, each part of which contributes to the whole. The contribution of each organ cannot be me- chanically weighed or measured. The Socialist is quite aware that the workers are organs of the work process. He has completely given up the insipid idea of individ- ualizing and dividing up a communistic product, and paying to each according to his deserts. Present society, with its misunderstood principle of sunm cuiqiie (each unto his own) and its grotesque justice, acts as unreason- ably as the man who gives his eye an overweening care while utterly neglecting his leg. As the engineer is more careful about his smallest screws than about his big wheel, so do we desire that the product of social labor shall be divided according to the social needs, so that the strong and the weak, the swift and the clumsy, the mental and the physical labor, insofar as they are hu- man, shall work and enjoy in human community. That object, my comrades, is opposed by religion. And not only by the formal, the common religion of priestcraft, but also by the most purified and sub- lime professional religion of hazy idealists. Since the I36 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS publication of the first part of my sermon, I have been taken to task by several people that I was carried away too far by my criticism. Our friend Schafer of Franc- fort thinks that I was condemning Jesus for the mis- understanding of his followers. They had made of His teachings what the Master had never intended ; we should therefore discriminate between the ideal true Christianity and the degenerated one. My criticism against the in- ordinate Christian humility was not well-founded, for the Lord Himself was courageous enough to chase the money-lenders out of the temple. To that I should like to reply : Christianity aims at the divine control of the world. What a vain endeavor! Christianity itself is being controlled against its will and desire by the nature of things. " Therefore it is so full of compromises," therefore the apostle, with all his de- sire for celibacy, must allow marriage, and therefore Christian non-resistance, which commands to tender the left cheek when the right one was smitten, is swept away by the indignation of the smitten. But, you see, it is not the consistency, it is, indeed, the inconsistency of Christianity, for it lays special stress on the neces- sity of absolute resignation, on the patience of the lamb carried to the shambles. Such humility has surely its limits, but that a revolutionary upheaval was a part of the divine mission is beyond doubt quite foreign to the spirit of Christianity, though we might find here and there an insignificant instance from which the contrary might be inferred. Whether Christ really meant or wanted such a humbleness, I cannot say. After all, why should such a question have any interest for us? Pro- fane and true truth is not based upon personalities. It is based on external objects ; it is objective. It does not lay claim to validity because it originates from a great THE RELIGION OF SOCIAL DEMOCRACY 137 master. The utmost we can say is that the master took hold of it because it was valid. And just in this lies the mistake and the superstition, of which our friend Schafer is guilty and which makes me indignantly knock at the pulpit that people are full of hero-worship and cannot give up their belief in authority and their idolatry of the great spirit. , Great men, who carry forward the beacon of knowl- edge, surely deserve all honor, but only insofar and as long as their teaching^ is founded on realities. V. Love for the preceptorial office and for the promi- nence of the pulpit as well as the approval of a friendly and indulgent audience induce me to continue my ser- mons. It is, however, but fair to mention that there are a good many among you who blame me for being too " scholarly " or not " popular " enough. To that I re- ply that only trite sayings and truisms are easily com- prehensible. The so-called popular things always move in the old ruts, while social-democracy has a new doc- trine, based on principles which are generally misunder- stood and require a total transformation of our mode of thinking, and therefore cannot be comprehended without a certain mental effort. Eeligion, my comrades, is primitive philosophy. On the other hand, Social-democracy is a still growing product of the whole historic past. We are, therefore, justified in substituting historically developed, worldly, Science for Religion and do not deviate from our subject by dwelling on worldly, non-religious, matter in these hours of devotion. I called religion philosophy because it claims not only to redeem us, with the help of Gcds, I38 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS and by praying and whining, from the earthly miseries, but also to lend a systematic frame to our thinking. The universal significance of religion for uncultured tribes is founded on the universal need for a systematic knowledge of the world. Just as we generally have a practical need for the dominion over the things of the world, so do we generally have a theoretical need for a systematic view of life. We require to see the begin- ning and the end of everything. The insipid clamor about the universality, eternity and inevitability of relig- ion is not without some justification. To flatly deny it would be Russian nihilism which was justly expelled from the " International." * We are far from senseless nega- tion. We scorn the " Kulturkampfer," in order to fight for real culture. We acknowledge that the need for a systematic view of the world is inherent in man who always requires a canon for his thoughts and deeds. The things which engage his attention, as for instance mind and body, the transient and the lasting, time and eternity, reality and appearance, ethics, state and society, he wants to see in a certain order and logical sequence. Man requires to have a reasonable connection of his ideas, so that he may bring a reasonable system into practical life. We, too, we social-democrats and defend- ers of revolutionary movements, feel the same want. Servile trimmers and bunglers may perhaps on that < round think us religious. We reject that qualification. Xot because we refuse to admit that religious and so- cial-democratic philosophy have something in common, but because we want to emphasize the difference be- tween them and to break away not only internally, but 1 An allusion to the expulsion of Bakounin from the " International " in 1872. — Editor. THE RELIGION OF SOCIAL DEMOCRACY 139 externally also, in name and deed, in short completely from everything which smacks of priestcraft. Yet, it is not sufficient to dethrone the fantastic and religious system of life; it is necessary to put a new system, a rational one, in its stead. And that, my friends, only the socialists can accomplish. Or, if the doctors of philosophy think this language too presump- tuous, I will put it differently, though the meaning re- mains the same: our social-democracy is the necessary outcome of a non-religious and sober way of thinking. It is the outcome of philosophic science. Philosophers wrestled with the priests in order to replace a non-civ- ilized mode of thinking by a civilized one, to replace faith by science. The object is achieved, the victory is won. Cannibal religion of primitive ages was softened by Christianity, philosophy continued in its civilizing mission, and after many untenable and transient sys- tems produced the imperishable system of science, the system of democratic (dialectic) materialism. The Prussian professor Treitschke thinks the self- confidence of social-democracy to be a clever trick used with the purpose of imposing upon the people. Of course, he looks for us behind that hedge where he is sheltering himself. The professional sycophants, the prostitutes of the pen, having long ago sold their honor, are quite unable to grasp either the convincing power of truth or the self-confidence inspired by a consistent and systematic view of the world. The socialist phil- osophy, with which we are dealing, is a closely serried and well-knit system. A thorough treatment of it could only be carried out from a professional chair specially appointed for that purpose. My task is a different one. In the first place I want to interest you in the new phil- osophy and to stimulate you to further investigation and I4O PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS thinking for yourselves. I am to-day more of a raconteur who does not begin with the beginning nor finish with the end, but by a rambling method wants to excite the curiosity of his audience. I am giving you the outlines and the salient points only, which you should fill up and further develop by your own work. We call ourselves materialists. Just as religion is a generic term for various beliefs, so is materialism a general name for various scientific conceptions. Re- viewing the world from the lofty standpoint of the re^ ligious heaven, everything — even the purest ether — > appears to be common matter, dirt and clay. All phil- osophy, even idealist Platonism, all scientific investiga- tion, all positive knowledge is in the distorted eyes of religion no more than material aspiration. Indeed, all philosophers are materialists in disguise, for all of them want real knowledge, knowledge of real truth. Mater- ialists in the contemptible sense of the word, who find the whole object of life in eating, drinking and in the satisfaction of physical wants — simple philistines have no room in science, they form no particular school and do no theorizing whatever. Philosophic materialists, on the other hand, are those thinkers who put the real world at the beginning, at the head of their investigation, and the idea or spirit as the sequel and outcome, as the product, while their opponents follow the opposite method : they decree, after the religious method, the rise of reality from the logos (God spake and it was), the material world from the idea. No doubt, materialism suffered heretofore from the lack of sound logical evi- dence. But now we social-democrats accept the name, with which our opponents think to abuse us, because we know that " the stone which the builders refused is become the head stone of the corner." We would be THE RELIGION OF SOCIAL DEMOCRACY I4I equally justified to call ourselves idealists, inasmuch as our system is based on the final results of philosophy, on the scientific investigation of ideas, on the clear insight won into the nature of mind. How little our opponents are capable of understanding us is shown by the con- tradictory names given us. One time we are called crude materialists whose only desire is to lay hold of the wealth of the rich, and another time, when dealing with our communistic ideals, we are called inveterate idealists. As a matter of fact we are both materialists and idealists at the same time. Palpable, true reality is our ideal, the ideal of social-democracy is material. The " Alphabet of Knowledge for the Thinking," pub- lished lately in the V.olksstaat, designated the inductive method as the " impregnable basis of all science, which builds on facts." The application of this method to all problems of the world, that is the systematic applica- tion of induction shapes the socialist conception of the world into a system. Its categorical imperative is as fol- lows : " Thou shalt not begin to speculate without ma- terial ; thou shalt base thy deductions, rules and axioms on facts only, on palpable realities. Thinking must be- gin with data." We begin to speculate, but we don't speculate about the beginning. We know once for all, that all thinking must begin with some fragment of a real phenomenon, with a given beginning ; the inquiry into the beginning of the beginning is therefore a non- sense, contradictory to the general law of logic. Those who speak of the beginning of the world imply that time was antecedent to the world. " Nothing was " are two words which preclude each other. That something was which was not, can only be asserted by a shrewd idiot who draws square circles. Nothing can only mean : not this nor that. Our philosophic system begins with the 142 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS knowledge that beginning and end are, if I may say so, subjective modes, or categories, of the human mind. And as logical as the beginning is our sequence. The whole metaphysics, which Kant sums up as the question after God, free will and immortality, finds its final solution in our system, through our knowledge that un- derstanding and reason is an absolutely inductive fac- ulty. That is, our comprehension of the world is perfect when we arrange and divide the empirical things accord- ing to their general qualities in species, classes, concep- tions, etc. This is quite a truism which would hardly be worth discussing but for the superstitious and ideolo- gues who are never tired of jabbering about deduction. They assert that our intellect possesses still a second method in ascertaining the truth, though simple, pal- pable truth is inductive. But they claim that in math- ematics for instance, the deductive method is supreme and independent of experience. Knowing that two and two equals four we also KNOW that the same result would be obtained in heaven and on earth and always and everywhere. Insofar we also know of times and dimensions which no human eye ever perceived and no human ear ever heard. That a camel has two humps was a simple experience, but that two and two equal four, or that the part is smaller than the whole is claimed to be a transcendental, metaphysical truth, a deduction from pure reason. They believe, so to speak, in an inner light which revealed them the mysteries of mathematics, ethics, the existence of God, the immortality of the soul, freedom of will and other transcendental moonshine. Thanks to the idealistic studies of a Descartes, Spinoza, Leibnitz, Kant, Fichte, Hegel we were able to advance to our materialistic philosophy, to reveal the deductive ghost of the transcendentalists. The celebrities of phil- THE RELIGION OF SOCIAL DEMOCRACY I43 osophy have one after another so far promoted and strengthened the cause of truth that we social-democrats, standing on their shoulders, are able to understand com- pletely the mechanical nature of all knowledge of the religions, the speculative as well as the mathematical. It may sound strange that that knowledge is due to our party standpoint, considering that a scientific result is a human affair. Yet, our assertion is easily comprehen- sible, for social-democracy does not represent a party, but humanity. The party of the disinherited is the party of the disinterested, is the party of impartial truth. We social-democrats have the easiest access to philosophy, for our mind is not dimmed by narrow selfishness. The transcendental certainty, the deduction which is to be found in the proposition that two and two equal four, is, like any other deduction, a mere subterfuge; four and two times two are but different terms for one and the same thing. Everything has a certain sub- stance. Smaller parts form the substance of the whole ; handle and blade form the substance of a knife; two mountains have a dale between, and in the number four is contained two times two. Thus, because the sub- stance is quite mechanically given in a thing, we are apodictically certain and transcendentally convinced that two times two equal four, the part is smaller than the whole, the knife is not without a handle and a blade, and two mountains are not without a valley. Where only the wet is called water, there we don't need any special transcendental faculty to know categorically that water must be wet. No special light is necessary to attain to the understanding that deduction, like any other profane knowledge, is based in the last resort on em- pirical facts. Yet, after all inquiries into facts, and after 144 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS all understanding of their bearing, they are not a whit less miraculous than before. So, for instance, we know that grape- juice turns almost overnight into an intox- icating liquor. How is that to be comprehended? The chemist will tell you : " It is fermentation. Grape-sugar, exposed to the influence of heat and air, turns into al- cohol." Thus the incomprehensible is explained, the production of wine is a chemical process belonging to the general class. of fermentation. Facts are comprehended by ranging and classifying them into a certain system, and not by dissolving them into logical alcohol. Philo- sophic mysticism is an undigested remnant of the theo- logical period. In order to dispose of both of them in a radical manner it is necessary to be imbued with the knowledge that facts do not rest on logical grounds, but conversely that the fundamental basis of all logic is ever the fact, the being, the external reality. I must apologize, my friends, for troubling you with such hair-splitting dissertations. I am quite aware that there are but few among us who care for such discus- sions, but the few are just sufficient for our purpose. It is necessary that some of us should be able to face official philosophy. We must lay bare the foundation of our theory in order that the sight of its granitic rock shall demonstrate in a striking manner to the impartial observer how shifty the sands are on which the braggarts of the existing order have piled up their contradictions. They reason without any system, without any logic or consistency. They have advanced the proposition that everything must have a cause, a beginning and an end. But how do they demonstrate it? They demonstrate it with the belief in a God who has no beginning, and in a life which has no end. The same lack of consistency is to be found in the politics of the existing order. One THE RELIGION OF SOCIAL DEMOCRACY I45 of its organic laws promises freedom of public meeting and speech ; but where the people make use of that freedom and come together to express their sentiments and thoughts, there the policeman is set on them. Is this system, logic or consistency ? O, yes ! It is the system of infamy. All the deeds and thoughts of our rulers are concentrated in the logical idea : We are at the top and we mean to stay there for good. VI. Our last considerations were devoted to the traditional saying : " Man needs religion," which we ventured to translate .into reasonable language by declaring : " Man needs system." It is his intellectual need to gain a safe standpoint from which he could survey the world. In order not to go astray in the midst of the bewilder- ing multitude of phenomena, man divides the heavens into constellations of stais, the cosmos into regions, and likewise our earth into classes, species, families and in- dividuals. In short, he gives diversity diversified names. To have system implies the ability of finding one's way and of classifying things. That an animal is the subject of zoology, and a plant the subject of botany is easily grasped, but it is by no means so easy to tell the branch of knowledge where such notions as truth, free- dom, justice, etc., belong to. No system is perfect un- less it has found a place for every phenomenon, has classified everything and has made provisions for every- thing. Founders of religion as well as philosophers at- tempted to make such systems, but none has stood the test. The stream of time has brought and is still bring- ing to light new phenomena, new experiences, new things for which no provision was made. They don't fit into the prevailing system, and therefore a new one I46 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS was necessary, until social-democracy was wise enough to construct a system of thought sufficiently comprehen- sive for all present and future phenomena. This is apparently an overweening assertion. In order to justify it I must somewhat retrace the steps we have taken until now. As the theologians look for a God who unites in his personality the omnipotence of the world, so the philosophers have been searching for a sys- tem which concentrates all knowledge in a single knot, so as to swallow all science in one bite. We know, how- ever, that a color cannot be green and blue and yellow and black at the same time ; that is, that the whole species cannot be incorporated in one individual. All science cannot be concentrated in a single human being and still less in a single conception. Yet, I ventured to assert that we possess such a concentration. Or does not the conception of matter contain all materials of the world ? So, too, has all science one general form in common, namely the inductive method. That the induction is the only general form of science, and that induction can be applied to all problems, to all objects — this conviction lends to social-democracy its systematic steadiness, its mental superiority, which astonish our opponents. We do not know everything, but we know the general form of all science and use it as a touchstone to find out all the tricks played against the people by the henchmen of our rulers. In natural science the inductive method is well- known, but that there is in it a systematic philosophy which is destined to put an end to all religious, philo- sophical and political humbug, this is a social-democratic novelty and acquisition. Our opponents, the rulers and the rich, the progressives, liberals and free-masons are also advocates of induction THE RELIGION OF SOCIAL DEMOCRACY I47 — but only insofar as it suits their purpose. They di- vide everything: the people into masters and servants; life into an earthly and heavenly one ; the person into body and soul ; and science into induction and deduction. Now, dividing and classifying cannot be objected to, provided that there is system, that the divided parts are kept under one heading, and that the diversity is known to be but a gradual one. It is not unreasonable to divide life into an earthly and a spiritual one, but when so doing we must be conscious that both are forms of the self- same life, and that both are of equal value. Social-dem- ocrats, too, have a body and a soul. Our body is the sum total of our corporeal qualities, and our soul is the sum total of our mental qualities. Yet, we must always remember that the empirical phenomenon comprises all matters uniformly, and that it is the common term for flesh and soul, for body and spirit. Soul or spirit is in our opinion an attribute of the world and not, as the priest asserts to the contrary, the world the attribute or the handiwork of the spirit. Darwin teaches the descent of man from animal. He, too, differentiates man from animal, but only as two products of the same material, as two varieties of the same species, as two sequences in the same system. A systematic and consistent classi- fication of this kind, as well as the cosmic unity is un- known to our opponents. In this respect the good old religious life must be commended. It had at least a certain system. Earthly and heavenly life, lordship and slavery, faith and knowledge, were all under the united and centralized government of Him who said : " I am the Lord, thy God." I know quite well, that the believers, too, have a dual- ism and are guilty of a relative lack of system. I am quite aware that they are fluttering between heaven and I48 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS earth. However, before the liberal wedge of doubt had entered the religious flesh, when religion was a more serious affair, it was also less dualistic. The devil was but a tool, the earthly life but a transitional term of probation for the eternal life. One was subordinated to the other. There was a center of gravity and a system. In comparison with modern half-heartedness and free- masonry, religion did encompass the whole in a mon- istic manner. This consistent encompassing of the whole, my dear friends, is a difficult problem with which the human mind has grappled since it began working. The nine- teenth century has solved the problem and given phil- osophy a system. If in spite of all the light and leading of our thinkers and scientists, people are still groping in the dark, it must be due to political reasons. Re- actionary ill-will has scented the revolutionary conse- quences of the inductive method. Hegel himself was already cautious enough to put his light under the bushel. And his more courageous followers could not make headway at a time when conservative vileness governed supreme. Even to this day the privileged classes are do- ing their utmost to keep the smouldering embers well under the ashes. Comrades, let us fan them into flames. When they are aglow all the children of the night will disappear. The stomach can't go on without food and drink, nor the head without a system, that is, without a connected view of life, a " final cause " from which everything pro- ceeds. This final cause is rather a ticklish thing. According to the religious systems God is the final cause. Liberal ideologues believe it possible to base everything on reason. Prejudiced materialists find in hidden atoms the final cause of the universe, while social- THE RELIGION OF SOCIAL DEMOCRACY I49 democrats demonstrate everything by induction. We hold to induction on principle, that is we know that knowledge cannot be got by deduction, by drawing from pure reason, but that it is gained through the instrumen- tality of reason from experience. That logical method is already known to other peo- ple, but they lack the systematic knowledge of it, they lack consistency. The philosophy of the anti-socialists is not homogeneous ; it is rather a mixture of induction and deduction. They know how to induce, but they don't know the system of induction. They are well ac- quainted with details, but they utterly fail when dealing with the general aspect of the world. They can readily find the beginning and end of a certain thing, they can tell in concrete cases which is sham and which reality. But when confronted with the question of the general beginning or of the general relation of truth, justice, energy, matter, unity and multiplicity, cause and effect — they are at their wits' end and the rearing of the Tower of Babel begins. Some quote the Revelation, others take refuge in Kant or in some other venerable classic, still others forsake theology and philosophy al- together and apply themselves to scientific experiments and expect the solution of the problem from natural science. In the face of such a helpless muddle international social-democracy is proud to know the " final cause " on which everything rests, and to possess a scientific basis for everything, and a systematic philosophy. Our de- cided superiority of principle is clearly manifested by the unanimity of our aspirations and demands, while our op- ponents are hopelessly divided on all questions of religion and politics. To be sure, there are differences of opinion in our ranks too, yet the anti-socialists have no reason 150 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS whatsoever to rail at the dissensions among the social- democrats. We quarrel about detail, about forms of or- ganizations, about practical and tactical questions, but in general principles and in matters of theory we stand as a solid and united phalanx, shoulder to shoulder, for we have what the Old- and New-Catholics, Protestants and Freethinkers would like to have: we have system. The beginning and end of all philosophy is clear to us. Of course, comrades, this does not mean that every social-democrat possesses a full knowledge of the sys- tem. Not all of us have received a systematic training, else there would be no need for my preaching. What I ventured to assert is that your social-democratic aspira- tions proceed from systematic science. I assert that the inductive demonstration of a thing is the only, true, scientific demonstration, and that a consistent application of induction yields very remarkable anti-religious and revolutionary results. I should very much like to enter into details illustrating my assertion, but I must for the present abstain from that in order to first consolidate the foundation of our philosophy. I repeat, and as a preacher who is anxious to drive home his teaching I am entitled to repeat : In the place of religion social-democracy puts a systematic conception of the universe. This philosophy finds its " final cause " in the real conditions. The philosophy of the Liberals acts in the same way in natural science and in business only, while in matters of human society it looks for the final cause in the revelations of reason, instead of religion. They want their notions of justice, truth and liberty to be the models for an equitable, true and free society. The fact that feudal as well as liberal and clerical ideals of justice, freedom, political truth and wisdom have been moulded THE RELIGION OF SOCIAL DEMOCRACY 151 after the material interests of those respective parties, could not fail to teach us that ideals do not spring from the human head, but are formed by the human head from empirical materials. Therefore we are able to mould consciously and with systematic consistency our notions of justice and liberty after our material needs, that is the needs of the pro- letariat, of the masses. The real bodily need and the present possibility of a " life worth living " is the " final cause " from which spring the equity, truth and ration- ality of the social-democratic demands. In the system of induction the body precedes the spirit and the fact the notion. The frequent use of one and the same word having a soporific effect on the mind, I shall for a change call our system " The System of Experimental Truth." The dawdlers of the bourgeois parties talk a good deal of divine, moral, logical, etc., truths. We, however, know of no divine truth, we but know the empirical truth. We may divide it into parts and give them special names, but its general character will remain. Truths, no matter how we call them, are based on physical, corporeal, ma- terial experience. As such they are but parts or classes of the experimental system. We cut only from one, from one whole. We demonstrate our propositions em- pirically and really, and our procedure is systematic and logical. Could there be, my friends, anything more evi- dent than such evidence? Having laid bare the foundation we proceed to look at the structure of our universal system from the most elevated point of vantage. We see the infinite diversity of things to consist of the same homogeneous, empirical material. All diverse qualities possess one general qual- ity. How different they may be, big or small, ponderable 152 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS or imponderable, spiritual or physical, all things of the world have this in common, that they arc empirical ob- jects of our intellect. From the standpoint of the in- ductive system the world and all it contains forms but one homogeneous object. All its details are but modal- ities of the absolute unity. Physical phenomena or em- pirical materials are the universal species in relation to which all other classes are but subdivisions. It is the only substance and truth, everything else is but a quality and a relative manifestation. Solid and liquid, wood and metal, are quite correctly summed up under the notion " matter." Why should we not be justified in summing up all things under the term " empirical truth " or " em- pirical phenomenon ? " Nothing can prevent us then from dividing it into organic and inorganic, into physical and moral, into good and bad, etc. Through the common origin all antagonisms are conciliated and bridged over. Diversity is but a form ; in their essence all things are alike. The final cause of all things is the empirical phenomenon. The empirical material is the general ele- mentary substance. It is absolute, eternal and omnipres- ent. Where it ends, all reasoning is at an end. The inductive system may as well be called the dialectic or evolutionary system. Here we find what is more and more being proved by natural science, that seemingly essential differences are but differences in de- gree. However strict we may be in determining the specific characteristics which differentiate the organic from the inorganic or the plants from the animals, Na- ture shows that the lines of demarcation disappear and the differences and antagonisms coalesce. The cause ef- fects and the effect causes. The truth appears and th^ appearance is true. As heat and cold differ but in de- gree, so do good and bad — they are all relative manifes- THE RELIGION OF SOCIAL DEMOCRACY 1 53 tations of the same substance, and forms or classes of physical experience. I see in the audience some new guests to whom the monism which I preach appears to be so strange and unheard of that they are very anxious to hurl against me the most insipid objections. They would like to ask how it was possible to prove that empirical material is the primary component part of all objects of science? And are there no such things as God, pure reason and moral world? By such questions you may see, my friends, how deeply rooted irrationality is in man. God, pure reason, moral world and many other things do not consist of empirical material ; they are not forms of the physical phenomenon and we deny therefore their existence. Yet, the ideas, with which this kind of reasoning operates, have appeared physically and have a real existence and can be made the subject-matter of our inductive exam- ination. The terms physical, empirical, etc., are gen- erally understood in their narrower sense. I supple- ment them therefore with the adjective " experimental." The denominational systems of the religious, and the rational systems of the freethinkers put up different claims. The system of empirical truth, to which social- democracy adheres, can only be based on induction ; it recognizes only those notions, doctrines and theories which are consciously taken from empirical material. From the height of that system we discover the bridge which unites philosophy with natural science. The bridge is constructed from one rock, the rock of all wis- dom which consists of the knowledge that the human in- tellect is an inductive instrument. All specific disciplines are but applications of this general truth and science. The intellect is the commander-in-chief of all knowledge. 154 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS The specialties of science are his subordinates. The systems of astronomy or chemistry, botany or optics are departments of the general system. Those of my audience, who despite having carefully followed my dissertations, have not grasped yet the full bearing of socialist philosophy, I beg to consider how impossible it is to do full justice to a subject of that magnitude within the compass of a half an hour. And if I wanted to work it out more completely, I should fear to tire my audience. However, many an opportunity will present itself in the course of our lectures to take up the matter again. For the present it must suffice to have laid bare the foundation and to have strengthened and solidified out party-consciousness by turning the attention of the com- rades to the first principles of socialism. ETHICS OF SOCIAL-DEMOCRACY TWO SERMONS (VOLKSSTAAT, 1 875) Comrades and Friends: It is the desire of our party to realize that which the enlightened minds of all ages and nations wanted to realize: truth and justice. We do not want the truth and justice of the clergy. Ours is the material, empirical truth of applied science which we want first to know and then to practice. Impelled by the necessity of realizing a life worth living, we are interested in various kinds of truth, and especially also in that which is true justice, or in the " moral world." The world cannot exist without morality and order, not because, as the parson has it, they came from heaven, or that they were, according to professorial wisdom, prescribed by some eternal code of laws, but because they are a universal, palpable need. In one of my last sermons I have already discussed the matter how we international social-democrats are trying to systematically demonstrate all our thoughts by real or experimental facts. Let us in our present disquisition of morality apply " our system " and see how it works. Also the ethical law cannot lay claim to more consideration and validity than is warranted by its material basis. The animals, apes or rabbits, have neither shame nor 155 I56 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS morality, neither fidelity nor faith. At least, their moral degree equals naught. The Caffirs have but little of it, our bourgeois class slightly more, and it is left to the socialists to teach them what is really just. In other words : morality is the result of the historic development, it is a product of evolution. It has its origin in the social instincts of the human race, in the material neces- sity of social life. Seeing that the ideals of social de- mocracy are one and all directed towards a higher order of social life, they must necessarily be moral ideals. As long as mankind has been grouped in clans, hordes, tribes, nations and states, some kind of order and laws have been necessary. But we cannot tell beforehand what those laws and institutions contain, or in other words, what conduct is to be regarded as just and equit- able, for that depends on the conditions in which de- terminate social organization lives. The most import- ant conditions are those of production of material goods. They decide, in the last resort, what is to be regarded as just and equitable. But inasmuch as they are not unchangeable and abiding, the laws of morality cannot be eternal. Indeed, they change with the changes in political economy. The morality and laws of hunters, shepherds, knights and bourgeois differ greatly from each other. As far as political economy is based on small private means of production, the old saying holds good: " Remember hell and you are bless'd. What's not your own let smartly rest." To-day private economy has reached its climax; the administrators of the national wealth are ardent individ- ualists. Private property is the highest ideal ; its whole mechanism, administrative and legal, constitutes the ETHICS OF SOCIAL DEMOCRACY 157 " moral world." What has until now been considered as moral and just is rapidly fading away. Honesty, up- rightness, integrity, family discipline, diligence and thrift are virtues of the lower middle class, of respectable peasants, artisans, tradespeople, who are trying to get some legacy and to perserve it, or to carry on their little business in the way their forefathers did. Modern capital with its new instruments of production is slowly crowd- ing out all those classes and their moral conceptions. People who get rich in one night, or who carry on ma- chine bakeries, have a different moral standard from those who earn an honest dollar or two a day, or who knead the dough in the sweat of the'ir brow. We don't know to-day whether five, five and twenty, or five hun- dred per cent, are " honest earnings " or not. Our pillars of society just manage to escape penal servitude and our state attorneys are getting corrupt. The capitalist econ- omy has a disintegrating effect upon morality and prop- erty. Our higher classes, like the Turks, buy themselves as many women as their income permits. Polygamy and the keeping of mistresses have become the custom, the ethos, and are an ethical fact. Indeed, free love is not a whit less moral than Christian monogamy. But the reason why we object to polygamy does not lie in the great variety of one's love-making, but in the venality of the women, in the degradation of the human being and in the disgraceful rule of Mammon. Morality in human evolution is similar to matter in natural evolution : the essence is abiding, the forms are fleeting. " A great part of our lower classes," writes Treitschke, " have become in matters of dress and in several other external things, more like the middle classes, but in their sense of duty and honor they are I58 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS farther than ever from the educated classes." But that " great part of the lower classes " are not only aiming at widening the ethical gulf between themselves and the other classes, they are also at work to acquire different philosophical conceptions. The religious conception of knaves and fools is selfish enough to mistake its own in- terests for those of the community. The ruling classes have always and everywhere shown the disposition to consider their own selfish morality as the general ethical law and have tried to impose it as such upon the people. Socialists are not likely to be caught by such priestly snares. As far back as 1848 our " Communist Mani- festo " declared : " The ruling ideas of each age have ever been the ideas of its ruling class." Now Social- democracy rebels against all class-rule and against all rul- ing conceptions of duty, honor and culture. We quite ad- mit that, despite all historical changes, there have always been officers and privates. " And so will it be forever," say the officers. But the privates have their own views about that ; they cannot fail to notice that in the period which has passed since the warrior chiefs, the patriarchs, Caesars and knights, to the present captains of industry, the people have become more and more self-conscious and independent; they find that there is such a thing as progressive development of history and arrive quite nat- urally at the reasonable conclusion to cut the rope which Treitschke, Sybel, etc., have laid down as the " founda- tion of society." The professors are undoubtedly right in saying that domination was heretofore a necessary evil or a fact justified by reason. But also human progress towards freedom is an undeniable fact. To our rulers, however, the lesson of history does not consist in free- dom, but in dominion. They are only concerned with the question whether the officers will remain forever or ETHICS OF SOCIAL DEMOCRACY 1 59 whether they will have to go. We social-democrats boldly assert that they will have to go overboard in order that morality may prevail. We assert, furthermore, that the revolution of the present " moral world " is a necessary act of true morality. Thus our views of morality differ greatly from those of the ethical braggarts. And now I should like to explain to you, dear com- rades, in words as concise as possible in what the real essence of morality consists. Guided by our dialectic- materialist conception and method, we look first, as usual in all our researches, for the material, also in this case for the ethical material, making use hereby of the term- inology of every-day language. True peaches are all those which people usually call peaches. There are many kinds of them, as of morality. There it is a moral law to slaughter the enemy, to fry and eat him ; here, on the contrary, the moral law commands to love the enemy and do good to him. Be a crafty rascal, says the Spartan law ; sanctify property, pay the debts, commands the bourgeois. In view of such contradictions how are we to pull the sparks of truth out of the fire ? Evidently by extracting the general out of the diversity, by find- ing what it is that has constituted the moral and just under all conditions. It cannot consist in something particular, but in the general in the abstraction of the whole moral material. To find such a rule it is there- fore necessary to inquire into a sufficient quantity of moral facts ; in other words, we must use the inductive method. By means of this method we find that the moral world generally consists of the considerations dic- tated by the social need of a given human organization. Then we find the undeniable fact that that social neces- sity develops with the progress of productive forces called civilization, that the social instinct of man grows, l6o PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS that human association becomes broader and deeper, and that morality becomes more moral. Even Christian morality demands that the limited brotherly feeling of the clan, horde, nation and state shall expand into in- ternational brotherhood. But its inordinate religious spirit, its admixture of hypocrisy and foolery, prevented the ideal from being realized. It is economic materialism only, it is but the communistic re-construction of society on the basis of material work, which will bring about the true association of men. Only from the abolition of class-rule, from the transformation of the selfish capital- istic organizations into co-operative instruments of pro- duction will issue the true brotherhood of man, the true morality and justice. No divine oracle, no inner voice or pure deduction from the brain shall teach us moral truth or any other truth. That ideological way leads only to an insipid hankering aftef a supernatural, unchanging and un- changeable truth. A clear scientific result can only be won by induction ; it is always based on experimental and verifiable facts ; in our present case, on the es- tablished fact, that men need and serve each other. That what is right to one person is equitable to another one is as certain as that men need one another. With the growth of the necessity for mutual service among men, their association becomes more extensive and intensive, their intercourse more considerate, and their morality at- tains to a higher and truer standard. Social-democracy is thus quite aware that man is limited by the nature of things. But having recognized the general, or the so- called true essence of morality, we refuse to be mystified by those who want to palm off a particular phenomenon or form for the general essence of morality. Whether people marry or live in free-love, whether private prop- ETHICS OF SOCIAL DEMOCRACY l6l erty is sacred or wicked, whether revenge is permitted or prohibited, are customs which may be qualified as moral or immoral in the same measure as they promote or hinder human progress. And with social-democrats, hu- man evolution is no mere ideological drivel or spiritual perfection for which there is no material test and which is therefore exposed to the wildest interpretations. With us, human progress means, as often stated, the growing control of man over nature to serve his needs. In view of that great purpose, religion, art, science and morality are simply helpmates. I repeat : the narrower or wider, the looser or closer state of social aggregation changes the law of morality. The higher or lower grade of mor- ality is measured by the degree of social interdependence. Yet, the mere knowledge of the moral law is not suf- ficient to be able to make use of it in practice ; the general conditions must be ripe for it. Theoretically we may easily grasp the highest degree of morality ; in prac- tice, however, things go through their historical stages. The customs of the barbarians must pass before we at- tain to higher ones. Where people live by hunting and fishing, there the sense of brotherhood of man cannot be as developed as where the proletarians of all countries are striving for unity. That " all men are brothers " and that '* thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself," was well known before Christ. That thy neighbor meant any human being who most urgently needed help was likewise recognized several thousand years ago, it was turned into a dogma and hedged round with divine blessings and cursings. But that does not prevent our educated believers from main- taining in commerce and on the pulpit the diametrically opposed proposition : " Every man for himself." Religious +.ruth i* h fantastic ideology. According to 102 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS it love of humanity is based on the belief in God and on freedom of will. And what is the result ot it? The war of classes and of nations. We want to follow the opposite way and to establish eternal peace on a brotherly organization of economics. As in family life, where the man tills the soil, the woman cooks its produce and the children gather firewood, domestic harmony is based on domestic economy, and spiritual peace on material co- operation, so will love of humanity only be realized when the production of material goods will be socialized. Na- ture has undoubtedy implanted in our hearts a yearning for brotherhood. But the heart is a very unreliable com- pass, and even will and knowledge, as all ideological factors in general, are not to be trusted as guides if they are without any material basis. Else it would be quite incomprehensible why there is so little love of humanity among the ruling classes. If they have their pockets full of dollars they will surely help their destitute brother with a few cents. But can we call that loving kindness? However, it is not love nor help which is the guiding rule of our time, but hammer or anvil. In reality it is thus : who does not want to be a servant must try to become a master. Under such conditions it is idle to hope that people will sacrifice realities for ideal precepts. We are not sentimental enough to expect such things. Though we use moral arguments in our struggle against the bourgeois, we do all we can to stimulate our class ronsciousness. We preach eternal peace and stimulate the class struggle. We want to abolish all domination by establishing our own domination. These contradictions appear to our scholars and professors too scholarly. But already my grandmother knew that those who make every day Sunday have no Sunday, that is, where all govern nobody governs. When a handful of people now ETHICS OF SOCIAL DEMOCRACY 163 control all the means of production, then their rule is a curse to humanity. When however the working class overcomes their oppressors, wrests from them their power and takes over the administration of the commonwealth, then all class rule ceases and democratic rule begins. The working class is but nominally a class, in reality they are the people whose rule is no domination but a morally, that is, socially justified regime. The bourgeois class are fantastic in theory, but in practice they are quite sober and provident moralists without any exaggerated notion of benevolence. Their practical morality is adapted to circumstances. That is as it ought to be, and we shall follow their example. But we reject their queer theories according to which morality is an idea which they believe to have received from some lofty regions. In their opinion this wicked world ought to be shaped after that idea. Here our ways separate. We conceive the real world with its human history as the living material, out of which we consciously produce the abstract idea of morality, the ideal morality. At the same time social-democracy is at work to realize the ideal of brotherhood by a social re- construction of political economy. Ideas, we again repeat that cornerstone of our phil- osophy, must be consciously based on experimental ma- terial, they must be won by induction if we desire to be clear about their meaning and import. And that ap- plies to moral and political ideas no less than to scien- tific ideas. From the religious standpoint, the world is a machine which must have its mechanic. Here things are to be conceived as having their origin in the idea, as having sprung from the divine idea. The ideas are ac- cording to that a kind of transcendental matrix. Nowa- days, however, sensible men are quite aware that the 164 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS ideas of the vegetable and animal kingdom were not the models after which those objects were made, but, on the contrary, that the ideas are mental abstractions of those objects. Quite in the same manner we have to rid the ethical idea of its transcendentalism. Ideas are notions. Notions may arbitrarily be conceived in a nar- rower or wider sense. The notion of nature embraces the whole cosmos ; the notion of organic embraces but a part of nature; the notion of plant or animal a part of organic, etc. With our ideas we embrace arbitrarily a smaller or larger part of the world wide sphere of ex- perience. It is the nature of the idea to be arbitrarily conceived in a narrower or wider sense. The idea of an- imal kingdom may include animals which may be re- garded as plants and, on the other hand, also men who may, perhaps, object to such a classification. The truth is that ideas cannot be strictly enclosed within their seeming boundaries. And so it is with moral ideas, their limits cannot be clearly marked. There are actions which are of less concern to society than to the person who performs them, yet we cannot deny them a certain moral value, as for instance cleanliness, temperance, etc. An eminently moral activity is the labor of the scholar, that drives him over ocean and deserts to face danger and privation, and to suffer and die in search of truth. Yet we call all these actions virtue and morality, because they have a collective or social value, which proves the cor- rectness of our definition of morality. In conclusion, I should like to reply to one objection: If morality has no divine origin, but is a bodily instinct, why should those be responsible who are deficient in that instinct and therefore commit crimes against the social order? Pray, remember, my friends, that the social sense is also a product of evolution; it may be ETHICS OF SOCIAL DEMOCRACY l6$ missing or stunted in the ignorant and uneducated, who must therefore be taught by humanized disciplinary means. In the eyes of our opponents we socialists are " ma- terialists " — that is, people without enthusiasm for ideals who are dull-witted and only like to hear about eating and drinking — or who care only about matters which can be weighed and measured. In order to abuse us they give to materialism a narrow and disreputable definition. To such an artful idealism we oppose moral truth, that is, an idea or ideal which has either be- come flesh or is on the point of becoming flesh. Where in heaven or on earth or anywhere else is there an ideal which is as truly reasonable, as moral and sublime as the idea of international social-democracy? Here the word of Christian love is going to be materialized. The lamentable brothers in Christo shall become brothers in- deed, and in the struggle for transforming the religious vale of tears into a real state of the people. Amen. II Dear Comrades and Friends: Before we proceed with our discussion on morality I should like to sum up in a few words the essence of the foregoing chapter. We have found that different stages of human evolution have different moral laws, and even so contradictory ones that virtue is in one place what is vice in another. The ethical doctrines disagree as much as the religious denominations. Each of them claims to be the only true and genuine one. And in order to arrive at an undisputed view on a much dis- puted subject we followed the same course by which natural science arrives at its valid conclusions. We ac- l66 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS cepted as moral everything which is generally regarded as such and searched as Humboldt advises, in the variety of facts for mental unity. We have found that the var- ious ethical codes are all at one in calling that moral which is conducive to a harmonious social conduct. Now, everybody knows, that people do not stand still like mountains, but meet each other and move ahead with one another. They also progress in their social re- lations. Society grows by degrees in volume and in- terdependence. The power and development of men grows in the same degree as their social relations be- come more intimate, as their sense of solidarity gains in strength and the more they consciously advance their personal well-being by furthering that of the whole community. The principle of morality is the principle of human association, and the principle of human as- sociation is progress. Social-democracy is nothing else, and desires nothing else, but social and co-operative progress, and that is the true moral perfection. One cannot too often repeat the fact, and you, com- rades, are quite aware of it, how shamefully certain words are abused, especially " morality " and " progress." The so-called progressives, who are crafty and cowardly enough to dabble all their life in politics and to ignore all social evils, have long been regarded by us as part and parcel of the " reactionary mass." Progress of that kind is just the opposite to morality. By calling ret- rogression " progress," and anti-social selfishness " morality," they corrupt the language and notions of the people. And they don't do it unconsciously either. It is a part of a deep scheme laid with deliberation by wicked immorality. Whenever morality demands free- dom, freedom of expression, freedom of press, etc., or whenever human evolution demands any other con- ETHICS OF SOCIAL DEMOCRACY 167 cession, you will soon find certain people busy with castrating these ideals and pawning such gags, under the name of freedom, off on the public. Democracy wants universal suffrage, but some Napoleon or Bismarck, if he finds it necessary to accede to the democratic request, takes the sting out of it and presents a harmless toy to the masses. Such have always and everywhere been the ways by which the nations are misled. It is therefore necessary for social -democracy to know that words are but names for ideas and that ideas have a flexible mean- ing (in proportion to the scope, interrelation, time and place of the things they are based upon. Editor). The usual misunderstandings of this logical chapter are taken advantage of by our oppressors to juggle with words, ideas and things and to delude the people. Else it would be quite incomprehensible how such a natural thing as morality can be presented by our academic quacks as a metaphysical wonder ! In order to get a clear conception of morality let us compare it with a tool. The tool is as eternal and yet as changeable as morality. Can a knife of the stone period be regarded to-day as a knife? It is surely an antiquated knife, but no more a knife in the modern sense ; a knife of to-day must be from steel, and of modern finish. But just as a knife consists generally of a handle and blade, so is morality in general the subordination of personal desires to the local, national and, finally, international welfare. Thou shalt subor- dinate thy immediate passions to general health and life, thy personal needs to the need of society — that is moral, reasonable and necessary. Whatever social wel- fare temporarily requires, is stipulated by some law. The ethical theory of social-democracy is in accord with the real state of things. We see in the political admin- l68 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS istration of the nation the guardian of morality, but we regard it also as our duty to be vigilant and to pre- vent the government turning a changeable and transient institution like the state into an eternal and holy idol, or promoting immoral reaction instead of moral progress, and selfish vice instead of communistic morality. By subordinating private interests to the commonwealth, » social-democracy manifests the sense of true and genuine morality. " The words," says Schopenhauer, " are no more mas- terless, and to lend them a different meaning from that they had until now, is simply an abuse." In colloquial use the word morality stands for an empirical and live fact, for a real, palpable need whose cry is : " To live and let live." Morality belongs to the same category with all other profane things. It is a natural quality inherent in man. Human beings without any moral sense are rare exceptions, which, when met with, are to be contemplated with the same judicious mental at- titude as some other anthropological or physiological ab- normities. According to recent researches in the domain of natural science " the image of God " is a product which with its hair, with its body and soul, with its religion and morality, descended from the animal king- dom. " As far as I am concerned," says Darwin, " I am as willing to derive my descent from that heroic little ape which defies its dangerous foe in order to save the life of its guardian, or from that old baboon which, coming down from the hills, victoriously takes away its young comrades from the amazed dogs — as from a savage who finds pleasure in torturing his enemies, offers up sanguin- ary sacrifices, commits child murder without any com- punction, treats his wives as slaves, knows no decency 1 Of course in conscious furtherance of the personal interests. — Editor, ETHICS OF SOCIAL DEMOCRACY 169 and is controlled by the grossest superstition." And in- deed, my friends, it is more praiseworthy to work oneself up from brutality to the social-democratic ideal than to sink from a heaven-born Adam to the Christian worm, who, conscious of his sinful nonentity, creeps in the dust of humility. Progress is moral, and morality is progressive. As all other things in the world, morality is in constant evolution. It begins its existence with the animal, but does not win the name until it has grown in man. Fit- ness and efficiency, that is morality and virtue in the life of our species must, as everything else, struggle for ex- istence against arrant reaction. Worthless survivals are known in biology as rudiments, they are reactions of a past generation upon their posterity. We came to know the same reactionary element as the vicious enemy of historic evolution. Just as there are men who move their scalp monkey-like or their ears mule-like, so are there brutal progressives with an atavistic morality. It is well known that one progressive reform .super- sedes the other : true progress is therefore the radical, the farthest-reaching progress. Truly moral is only the most intimate and altruistic social organization. That the big is small in relation to the bigger, the small is big in relation to the smaller ; that what is a heavy burden to man is an easy thing to the ass — the relativity of qual- ities big, small, heavy, etc., is generally acknowledged. None the less I think it necessary to draw special at- tention to the relativity of the moral adjective. It hap- pens with moral laws as with tools. In the course of time the cunningly contrived tools come to be regarded as ridiculously clumsy ; and what was once moral becomes in the course of evolution immoral. Compared with socialistic morality, bourgeois morality is an immoral 170 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS disgrace. Morality thus demands radical progress or an unbroken series of revolutions. With the final triumph of social-democracy, human culture will start on its road of conscious and endless progress. Until now mankind advanced in a more or less unconscious manner. It is only we social-demo- crats who deliberately put the principle of progress to the front. Until now all progressive parties had de- fined limits which, when once reached, checked their movement and turned action into reaction. The greatest heroes of civilization and thought finished by clogging the wheel of progress which they had once accelerated. Moses, Aristotle, Christ, Luther, Kant and Hegel had a most beneficial effect on the course of history until they became saints. Then all their celebrated systems turned into as many stumbling blocks. Of course, our wiseacres have a ready answer to that. They assert that those men of light and leading have been misunder- stood by humanity which corrupted their teachings. But as true progressives we know better. Those heroes could not have a permanent influence, because they had not penetrated to the true principle of morality. They mistook the particular for the general, and morals for morality. All ethical prescriptions are good, but in a lim- ited sense. Only the limitless progress is always good and absolutely moral. To lay down regulations for all times and conditions, as our system makers claimed to have done, is in the highest degree immoral. We have seen that morality is based upon the general need for social co-operation. With the growth of that need, morality and civilization grow. The continued de- velopment of morality is as necessary to the welfare of our race as food for the body. Any moral prescription which claims to be more than a local or temporary ex- ETHICS OF SOCIAL DEMOCRACY 171 pediency turns necessarily into an immoral limitation, just as a prescribed bill of fare turns finally into an unbear- able diet. As bread is a general food, so is truth a general virtue. But remember, my friends, that that fact is by no means a metaphysical prescription with a claim to eternal validity, but an empirical rule which admits of exceptions. An absolute right is, like an absolute truth, theological or metaphysical moonshine. The moral world has but one commandment : permanent social progress, limitless social evolution. Christian irrationality, which separates the soul from the body, separates also the moral from the physical progress. It removes morality from the sphere of life and action into the narrow closet of feeling, into the secret chamber of the heart. No doubt, a good heart is one of the conditions of sociability, but that is formed in human intercourse, in society, and not in a monastery. Although nobody goes now into the solitude of the forest to live on roots and herbs in order to get a moral educa- tion, yet the monastic principle of morality is still prev- alent. Where the universe is believed to have sprung from God's head, and the truth from pure reason, or kindness and justice from the inner voice of the heart, there the wrong path of ideological deduction is still trodden. The undue separation of the moral from the corporeal and of mental culture from material well-being is a theory which appears to be especially made for the benefit of the exploiters of the people. The bitter toil of the people is to be sweetened by moral sugar. The ruling classes, while praising misery, sorrow and pain as a moral crucible, are giving themselves the immoral pleasure of the separated progress of their body. We social-democrats, though distinguishing things and con- ditions by names and conceptions, are quite aware that 172 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS in practice all things merge into one another, especially the physical and the moral. Spiritualistic as the language of the monks was, serf- dom, tithes and charity were the material support of their moral twaddle. The same tune, though with some varia- tion, is played by our capitalists. They know the hard- ships in the life of Robinson Crusoe, but refuse to know how their private wealth has been got out of social labor. Their interest prevents their seeing how deeply immoral or unsocial an economic system is which pays the " neighbor " a disproportionate small share of the product he created by an excessive amount of dire work. Exact, inductive science teaches the social-democrat that the moral world or the brotherly progress is still a socialist scheme, though at the same time a categorical imperative which impels him to work on unswervingly and with all the moral earnestness at his command for a radical transformation of political economy. No par- son and no professor shall talk us out of that. SOCIAL-DEMOCRATIC PHILOSOPHY SEVEN CHAPTERS (VOLKSSTAAT, 1876) I. It is with pride and joy that our comrades look upon the successes achieved in a comparatively short time in the cause of Socialism. The numerous adherents, the large concourse we owe, I think, to the sense of degrada- tion and misery which burns in the hearts of the people. But the splendid discipline, the never-failing tact and the harmonious working of the rank and file we must ascribe to the clear grasp and the systematic comprehension of our theory. Without that the socialist would be to-day what he was heretofore: tender-hearted, but muddle- headed. The first English and French socialists whose thoughts flashed through the horizon of the end of the eighteenth century, were not slow in recognizing the exploiting and antagonistic character of our champions of " free property." They saw the negative element, the taint of the deadly disease, within the heart of the factory system. They foretold with ingenious lucidity the decay of the middle-class, the slow, but inevitable divorce of the peasantry and the artisans from their means of pro- duction, the transformation of the small producers into wage-slaves, finally the rapid increase of misery and of the number of the proletarian class. Rut they failed 173 174 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYR to recognize that the elements of the positive remedy are to be found in the laws underlying economic de- velopments, and that human history in its evolution does not only bring forth problems, but organically contains their solution. In their purely ideological conception of the world they believed it ought to be possible to invent some scheme for the building up of a true and just society. This error of judgment could not but lead to day-dreaming. Every one of these amiable dreamers looked for proselytes and went with them to America or Icaria. One built up a Harmony, the other a New Jerusalem. There were as many sects as ingenious minds to found them. They exhausted themselves in dis- cussing Republic and Monarchy, dictatorial or constitu- tional government, limited or universal suffrage, and all the intermediate forms of government. They brandished all manner of flags, two- and three-colored, blue and red ones. However, for logical sequence, scientific con- sistency and harmonious action, one searched in vain. Amidst this chaotic state of social and political specu- lation appeared Marx and Engels who, besides their warm devotion to the cause of the people and to social- ism, possessed the necessary philosophic knowledge to clear social science of vague guessings and imaginings and to give it a body of positive doctrines. Philosophy revealed to them the basic principle that, in *he last resort, the world is not governed by Ideas, but, on the con- trary, the Ideas by the material world. They agreed that the proper forms of government and social institu- tions are not to be looked for in the inner recesses of the mind, but must be found through the investigation into the material conditions of a given period. The material? for socialist investigations are supplied by the ex'^tinp capitalist society with its political economy as ^" v-.J SOCIAL-DEMOCRATIC PHILOSOPHY 1 75 pable body whch consumes and produces concrete com- modities. In his " Capital," Marx dissected that body and ex- posed clearly how our social misery is the necessary result of an economic system whose plentiful produc- tion by social labor stands in glaring contradiction to its mode of private usurpation. The small number of em- ployers and their set receive as. interest, rent, dividend, etc., the whole profit, while the workmen receive a wage, a kind of lubricant to keep the social machinery going. Marx was the first to recognize that, on the whole, human welfare does not depend on the enlightened statesman, but on the productivity of social labor. He recognized that the productive forces and the efficiency of society are by the nature of things impelled to ex- pand, that this expansion led us from barbarism to civilization, that the progress of economic productivity must necessarily lead us out of the glaring contradic- tions of civilization to the socialist state, to communist liberty, equality and fraternity. He recognized — and this recognition is the bed-rock of social science — that human salvation depends on material work and not on spiritualist moonshine. Henceforward we look for sal- vation not to religious, political and judicial enlighten- ment, but we see it organically growing out of the de- velopment of social economy. Science or education can- not bring it; productive labor must do it, which, through science and education, can be made more productive. To which does the primacy belong; to mechanical work, or to mental speculation ? That's the question. At the first sight it might appear to be a scholastic conun- drum ; yet, for the purpose of gaining a clear mental vision, it is of vital importance to solve it. The question is, indeed, an old one ; who is right, the idealist or the I76 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS materialist ; but now the question has been so far cleared up that there can be no doubt as to the answer. We, of course, are materialists and thus acknowledge the material factors to have the primacy. Our opponents brand us, therefore, as enemies of culture. In reality we are only opponents of those dreamers who divorce scientific training from material work, making out of the former something supernatural which transcends all laws of mechanics. Science and education are in our eyes very valuable means, but means only, while the productivity of labor is the higher end. It is in the first instance the necessity for an ever increasing product- ivity of labor which forms the real impulse of scientific investigation and progress. In the second instance, of course, science reacts most beneficially on the method of labor. Yet the question as to where the primacy belongs has a more comprehensive meaning. It involves the cardinal problem, is the world " created " by some mon- strous, transcendental schemer, or is our scheming, though no doubt of considerable importance to us, quite a secondary attribute of the monstrous every-day world; we want to know which takes the precedence : thought or being, speculative theology or inductive science. Men are, and have a right to be, proud of their intellect, but it is puerile to give to a thing, which appears to them of primary importance, the primacy of the world. Idealists we call those who exaggerate, idolize the worth of human understanding, turning it into a religious or metaphysical hanky-panky. This school is on the decrease, its last sur- vivals are those who have long ago given up all religious superstitions, but somehow stick to the " belief " that conceptions of freedom, justice, beauty, etc., are shaping human destiny. To be sure, there is a certain truth in SOCIAL-DEMOCRATIC PHILOSOPHY 177 that ; but in the first instance it is the material world which forms the substance of our conceptions, which de- termines what is meant by freedom, justice, etc. It is, as we have said before, of vital importance that we should be clear about that, for on it depends the method of giving our conceptions the proper meaning. Indeed, the question as to which is primary, mind or matter, con- tains also the problem as to the right way to justice and truth. Impelled by material necessity, Socialists look for the salvation of humanity. Philosophic thought based on facts has given us the guide. We find salvation not in idealistic shuffling, but in the material production. If the nature of things demands that we should get the maximum of result in the minimum of time, then we must work as bourgeois society does : with colossal ma- chinery and for a large public. The small workshop and the small holding must go. The great capitals shall flourish. That's the work of our liberals, and they have done it so well, that our Empire, our " free " institutions, our parliamentary talking shop, our party discussions about free trade and protection, our no-popery-struggles and other Bismarckian tricks are no more able to mas- ter it. The productivity of labor has become sd prodigious that all the legal and economic forms have become inade- quate. The result is a series of crises with its usual symptoms : financial panics, bank failures, shutting up of factories, and unemployment in the ranks of the work- ing class. Why? Because the productive forces have outgrown the miserable relation between capital and labor. Under such conditions the minority are able to live in luxury, while the majority are deprived of the necessaries of life. But the number of spendthrifts are 178 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS too small and the stock is so embarrassingly great that capital cannot be profitably employed. Business is at a standstill, and there is no demand for goods. The only way out of this calamity is participation of the masses in the consumption ; the wages must be increased and labor time reduced. But the well-fed capitalist, though in danger of suffocating in his own fat, is too narrow- minded to pay the producer of his wealth, the worker, well and to keep him in steady employment. Our Lib- erals refuse even a liberal lubricant for human labor- power. However, circumstances are stronger than the selfish will of the bourgeois. The stock is gradually sold, busi- ness revives, the old cycle of fraudulent booming begins again and the wages go up. What a strange, paradoxical thing this bourgeois world is : the more plentiful the supply the greater the misery. One should think men live on bread. But no. Let the soil yield thrice as much, as long as you don't work an overlong day, you will starve. Should the goblins of the fairy tale return and do all our work during the night, nine-tenths of the nation would have either to starve or to make a revolution. In the past the lack of capital made thrift a virtue. The increase of the wealth of the nation increased also the means of employment and thereby the sources of life of the people. For, as it was said before, the people have not in the first instance been living on bread, but on labor. But now with the increased capital the productiv- ity has reached such a degree that there is not sufficient employment. Then the superfluity engenders misery. Not only Social-democracy, but the national economics demand a larger consumption, a wider market for its products. Even an increase of wages and a reduction of the labor time are no more than palliatives. As the SOCIAL-DEMOCRATIC PHILOSOPHY I79 productive forces in the past needed for their fuller de- velopment the abolition of serfdom and of restraint of trade, in short, demanded the liberal bourgeois policy, so do they demand to-day the abolition of the capitalist mode of wage-labor and its substitution by the Socialist organization of communistic labor. The subjective creed breaks up into different denomi- nations — and the various parsons are at loggerheads. Objective science is unanimous; engineers don't quarrel about principles of mechanics. The theoretical unanim- ity of Social-democracy, which we mentioned before, pro- ceeds from the fact that we don't look for salvation in subjective schemes, but we see it growing as a sort of organic product out of the inevitable course of actual development. All we have to do is to facilitate its birth. The irresistible evolutionary process, which formed the planets, and hardened molten matter into crystals, and brought forth in succession plants, ani- mals and men, is also tending irresistibly towards a ra- tional application of labor and towards an uninterrupted development of the productive forces. It is imperative that production be rationally managed under all cir- cumstances. In all periods of civilization, no matter how greatly they differed from one another, it was essential — and such is the logic of things — to achieve the maxi- mum of results with the minimum of effort. This instinct produced by our physical constitution and need, is the universal, the primary cause and the foundation of all so- called higher, spiritual developments and progressive movements. The unfolding of the productive forces is the point of departure, the formative factor which builds up states, determines forms of governments, creates par- ties, and clears up and perfects the notions of liberty and justice. The productive forces, having been impeded in l8o PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS their development by guild regulations, broke those medieval fetters, and created the capitalist system which, in its turn, is rapidly becoming a hindrance to the further development of production. Therefore it is necessary to allow the people to take their historically-due part in the consumption and to extend the demand for goods. The old system must go in order to bring morality, liberty, equality and fraternity to a more perfect state. Forward! is our watchword, whether we like it or not. The hope of Social-Democracy is based on the organic necessity of progress. We do not depend on the good will of any man. Our principle is organic, our philoso- phy materialistic, but our materialism is richer in es- sence and more positive than any of its predecessors. It absorbed the Idea, the antagonism of matter, it mastered the domain of Reason, and overcame the antagonism be- tween the mechanical and spiritual view of life. The spirit of negation is with us at the same time positive, our element is dialectical. " Once my work on Economics finished," wrote Marx to me privately, " I shall write a Dialectics. The laws of Dialectics have been formulated by Hegel, though in mystical form. What we have to do is to strip it of that form." Being afraid it might be long before Marx could undertake such a work, and hav- ing since my youth independently thought a good deal on that subject, I shall try to throw some light on dia- lectical philosophy. It is in my opinion the central sun from whom light goes forth to illuminate not only Political Economy, but the whole course of human devel- opment, and it will finally, I expect, penetrate to the " final cause " of all science. The comrades know that I am not an academician, but a simple tanner who learned Philosophy by himself. To its exposition I can but devote my hours of leisure. I SOCIAL-DEMOCRATIC PHILOSOPHY l8l shall therefore publish my articles at shorter or longer intervals, whereby it will be my endeavor rather to make each article readable for itself than to write a book with chapters depending upon each other. And not at- taching much importance to the learned phraseology, it will be easier for me to avoid unessential matter and unnecessary flourishes which only tend to obscure the subject. On the other hand, I must ask the reader to bear in mind that the art of popular and easy exposition has its limits. To be sure, what one thinks out clearly, one can express clearly. But that truth is relative. With- out some preliminary knowledge of a subject it is im- possible to talk about it. The peasant is made fun of on the sea ; he knows nothing of hawsers, square-rigs and sails, and the sailor cannot speak of his business to him. Neither could I enter into a philosophic discussion without taking some preliminaries as granted, else I could not help falling into platitudes which would neither serve my purpose nor satisfy my taste. Any reader who, in the course of my articles, might complain about obscure writ- ing, would therefore do well to search first for light within himself. II. Like my sermons, which were preached with the inten- tion of desecrating the pulpit, my exposition of Philos- ophy has the intention of degrading that high mistress which, as Ludwig Feuerbach stated, is the devotee and sister of Theology. Social-democracy will get those old spinsters out of the way. As far back as 1844 Frederick Engels spoke in the preface to his " Condition of the Working Class in England " of the end Feuerbach put to all philosophy. But Feuerbach was so intensely occu- pied with the theological devotee that he had very little l82 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS time and mental energy left to join issue with the other sister, the philosophical one. His final solution of phil- osophy is more implicit than explicit. Yet this disciple of Hegel proves indirectly the truth of Marx's word: " The true laws of Dialectics are to be found in Hegel, though only in a mystical form." Feuerbach and Marx, both Hegelians, arrived at the same result by the same method which Feuerbach made use of in his analysis of religion, and Marx in his analysis of social economy. This historic course proves that our social-democratic anti-philosophy is the legitimate descendant of Philoso- phy. Owing to this descent we may place it right next to that of our academicians and overtopping them by one length, we may ask them: What do you still want? And when it comes to the subject-matter itself and its proofs, we are so sure of our case that we safely may look from up high down on these learned gentlemen. For us there is no need to appeal to Aristotle or Kant, because we deal with a living thing which is patent to all unprejudiced and unbiased minds. Just as the proof of scientific laws is to be found in the experiment, so are our arguments in conformity with fact which is the basis of our anti-philosophic philosophy. Therefore, it is superfluous to corroborate our arguments by extracts from Greek, Latin or other learned authors. It may be somewhat puzzling to the uninitiated to find that, while professing the intention of disparaging philos- ophy, we are proud of our philosophic descent. Yet the contradiction is easily explained : As the alchemistic errors generated modern chemistry, so have the errors of Philosophy generated a Universal Doctrine of Knowledge and Science. An old man who desires to be able to start his life again, does not mean to repeat it, but to improve it. He recognizes the ways he has walked as wrong ones, SOCIAL-DEMOCRATIC PHILOSOPHY 1 83 yet he cannot withhold the seemingly contradictory ac- knowledgment that they brought him wisdom. The crit- ical attitude taken up by the old man towards his past is just the attitude of social-democracy towards philosophy. It was necessary to struggle through the wrong path in order to attain to the knowledge of the right one. Now, in order to be able to follow up the right way without being misled by any religious or philosophical maze, it is necessary to study the most mistaken of all mistaken ways, namely Philosophy. Those who take this advice literally will surely think it absurd. For, how could the wrong path lead to truth ? But the reader would do well not to stick to the letter but to seek the sense of it. The famous dictum : " My religion is no-religion " illustrates for instance that not always is a a, but that a turns into b. It is the peculiar character of the things of this world that they are not crystallized or fossilized, but they are in an eternal flux, ever changing, ever in a process of transformation, of rising and decaying. All reality undergoes constant changes, and so limitless is the movement of the world that every thing at every moment is not the same thing that it was. The language therefore is not able to do otherwise than to give one name to various forms or things. Also philosophy could not escape the universal law of movement and mutability, and it has undergone such changes that it is a great question whether, like modern Christianity, the new thing should retain its old name for reasons of expediency, or should get a new name to match. Social-democracy has decided against " religion," and I am now pleading that \vc decide against philosophy too. Only for the period of transition do we use the expression " Social-democratic philosophy." In 184 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS the future we shall probably speak of dialectics or of the general doctrine of knowledge. Who are we, where do we come from, and where do we go to? Are men the lords and masters, the " crown of creation," or are they helpless creatures, sub- jected to wind and weather, and to trouble and toil? What is, what should be, our relation to the things and men about us? That is the great question of philosophy and religion. In the language of the former, the younger sister, that question is expressed in a more rational way. She does not expect the reply from supernatural, divine spirits, nor from ecstasy, but puts it before the sober intellect which exists empirically in the brain. It is the characteristic of philosophy that it snatched away this " great question " from religious sentiment and placed it before the organ of science, the faculty of knowledge, to find the solution. Less than of our intestines can we know, without special^ study, of that mysterious thing which as force of thinking dwells in our head. Primitive wisdom used it as people use their stomach, without scientifically inquiring into its construction. Having, however, reached the point when men consciously set before the intellect the great question about existence, they gradually began to inquire into the intellect itself, and the critique of reason or the theory of cognition became the great question. It is well known that the object of the medieval school- men was to support the religious dogmas by rational ar- guments. They did something that they didn't intend to do : they put reason above religion ; they practically made reason the supreme being. Something like it oc- curred to Philosophy. She proposed to solve the great question of general existence scientifically, but not know- ing how to take it in hand, she turned it upside down, SOCIAL-DEMOCRATIC PHILOSOPHY 1 85 and the scientific solution of the process of thinking, the theory of cognition, became to her the real and funda- mental question. The most remarkable philosophical works, especially the most recent, prove, though uncon- scious to their authors, that change of procedure. Even the title of the principal works, from Bacon's " Organon " to Hegel's " Logic " and Schopenhauer's " Quadruple Root of the Proposition of the Adequate Reason " indi- cate at once the situation. The past great philosophers, as well as their present small successors, could not help but acquire more or less of a presentiment of the fact that all the so-called mother of sciences brings home from her excursions really consists in no more than the special theory of cognition. Quotations by the yard could be brought to- gether to prove that statement, but also to prove that that presentiment did not arrive at clear nor consistent consciousness, and that the professors and lecturers of philosophy are quite confused with regard to the prob- lem, the object and the significance of philosophy. None of them has been able to clear his mind of the remnants of superstitions, of phantastic mysticism which dims their vision. Irrefutable evidence for this was given lately by Herr von Kirchmann, who in a " Philosophical lecture in popular language " said, according to the Volkszeitung of January 13, 1876, that philosophy was neither more nor less than the science of the highest conception of being and knowing. . . . With the special sciences she has in common the subject of their inquiry and con- templation, the Universe with all that is in it, and she uses the same means . . . those of the speculative thought which is striving for a higher unity. The main difference between the special sciences and Philosophy consists particularly in the method, for the latter proceeds l86 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS from no given premises whatsoever, but from a purely spirit-born principle as a starting point. Of her useful- ness Kirchmann didn't wish to speak, but of her sig- nificance for the great spiritual domains of life, of humanity in particular, for religion, state, family, ethics; for neither the courts of justice nor the police, but Philosophy alone was able to protect those great insti- tutions which were attacked with as much boldness as cynicism. There you have the old devotee made young. Her name is " Science of all the highest conceptions of Being and Knowing." That is her name in common par- lance. But I should like to see that common sense that could make sense out of that common parlance. " The highest conception of Being " deals perhaps with the conception of the highest fixed stars, or is there still anywhere a higher "Being" left? But I take things too materially ; we must remember we are not talking astronomy, but Philosophy, or " Science of the highest conceptions of Knowing." How can that be materialized ; what positive sense can we derive from that phrase? Philosophy " has in common with the special sciences the object of their inquiry: the Universe with all that is in it, and uses the same means to her work, namely the thought." But in what does the difference, the dis- tinction of Philosophy, consist? Kirchmann says, in the method. Granted that Philosophy and natural science have the same object of inquiry and the same instrument, but a different way of handling. Now, what is the result of that difference? The results of natural science are known. But what has Philosophy to show ? Kirchmann tells us the secret : She protects religion, state, family and morality. Philosophy is not a science, but a safe^ guard against Social-democracy. Then there is no won* SOCIAL-DEMOCRATIC PHILOSOPHY 187 der that Social-democrats have got their own Philosophy. One must not think that Kirchmann was an excep- tion, and was no real philosopher. On the contrary, he is a man of great reputation and speaks quite in harmony with the Faculty. Especially the dictum about " pro- ceeding from no given premises whatsoever," bears the hall-mark of the official Philosophy. The " special sciences," as well as common sense, get their knowledge through the intellect, from the material world. They make their researches with open eyes and ears, and what can be seen and heard the Philosophy calls " given prem- ises." In her extravagant conceit which seeks the " eter- nal treasure," she looks upon the " appearances " of the world as upon rust-corrupted and moth-eaten things. It is true that it is generally asserted that she is based on all accessible results of the different sciences, but this is only a concession which she is compelled to make — an inconsistency quite in keeping with the general philo- sophic confusion. She speaks thus with the left corner of the mouth, while with the right one she speaks of " the purely spirit-born or deductive principle to start from," of no materially preconceived notion whatsoever, which she is running after without ever catching up with it. The whole clap-trap comes really to this : Philosophy is no science but the radically false way used by the mind. Its result is to be found in our inference that by mind alone no truth and no principle can be attained, and no life problem can be solved, but that the human faculty of cognition is an inductive or matter of fact dependent in- strument which always and everywhere presupposes ex- perimental material. This is the lesson that classical Philosophy teaches us. Its successors and cpigoni are, for reasons easily under- wood, not able to grasp it. They are called upon to l88 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS defend religion, state, family and morality. As soon as they renounce such calling they cease to be philosophers and become Social-democrats. All those who call them- selves philosophers, professors, university lecturers, have, despite their free-thought pretensions, not yet freed themselves from superstitition and mysticism ; they are all of the same kidney and must be regarded, in the main, from the above social-democratic point of view, as a compact mass of uneducated reactionaries. III. Whence do we come, whence the world, and where are both going to? What is the meaning of existence, of our sentiments and of the natural phenomena? Thus asks man, and man is a great questioner — that is, a great fool. As the proverb has it, one fool can ask more questions than ten wise men can answer. Yet that question is the cardinal question which has been and will be put by all men at all times. Foolish is only the form in which the question was put first by religion and then by the progressists, also called philosophers. They ques- tioned in a hazy, general way and — " only the fool waits for reply." A reply, a clear, rational and positive reply, can only be expected when we specialize after the manner of the " separate " sciences. We can only get at the whole by means of its parts ; the Universe can only be understood by climbing up, as it were, its particular forms ; we can only reach the general through the special. One must first ask, where do I personally come from? Whence my father and grandfather? What is the eye? What is the ear? What function have the liver or the kidneys to perform? To such questions science replies in a definite SOCIAL-DEMOCRATIC PHILOSOPHY 189 and exhaustive manner. Botany deals with trees, shrubs and herbs. Astronomy with stars. The " great ques- tion " thus split up, specialized and reasonably formu- lated can be reasonably and scientifically answered. If, however, such reply does not satisfy the inquisitive stu- dent, if there still remains something obscure and unex- plained, we have none the less this advantage over re- ligion and philosophy, that we know the method by which we may proceed with our questioning and searching for a reply, and we need not foolishly wait, believe, hope and speculate. Thus, the " method " is pointed out to us to be the distinguishing mark between Philosophy and the special branches of science. Now, the speculative method of Philosophy is nothing but a stupid questioning and grop- ing in hazy generalities. The philosopher, having no ma- terial to work upon, tries to evolve his speculative wis- dom from his head like the spider its web from its hind- parts ! Nay, the philosopher goes even farther than that, he refuses all material and given premises. His philo- sophic fabrics have thus less of a real connection than the cobwebs of the spider. We greatly underestimate the bad effects of this abuse of method if we assume that it does no harm to practical life because it is locked up in those learned works which only few people care for. Those learned books are but the most palpable collection of a wide-spread poison with which humanity has been infected from the beginning, and from which it is still suffering. An instructive ex- ample was given lately by the learned Professor Bieder- mann in Leipsic in his controversy with the workingmen. He wanted the Socialists " to give him, instead of vague and indefinite suggestions, a clear picture of how the future society must be organized and according to their I90 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS demands shall be built up; especially as to its practical consequences." Before giving Biedermann a rational answer it would be, before all, necessary to teach him how to put a ques- tion rationally. He is not acquainted with the theory or the science of cognition. Therefore he fails completely to recognize our ways. We are not idealists who dream about the conditions of a future society " as they must be and ought to be." When we are trying to think about the future society we first proceed from the materials at hand. We think as materialists. God Almighty had the Universe in his head before he made it ; his ideas- were sovereign and had no need to take notice of realities. This superstition of the sovereignty of the Idea is still rooted in the heads of the philosophers ; from it proceeds that demand that we should first project an elaborate pic- ture in all its details of the future society, before attack- ing and " destroying " the present. The old Socialists, Fourier, Cabet, etc., committed that mistake and we are therefore told to take an example from them. Herr Biedermann fails to understand us, and our ways and our cause. We don't deal with the future in the way the speculative philosophers do ; we deal with it as prac- tical men. We don't build castles in the air and don't count the chickens before they are hatched. It is surely foolish to go into business without any forethought and plan, but it is still more foolish and quite after the man- ner of the fantastic enthusiasts not to reserve to one- self liberty of action with regard to the special condi- tions as soon as they are at hand — it is like a person who intends to deal in cotton prints and is quite in a hurry to project its stellular and flowery figures which might please the customers while he knows neither his customers nor their taste. We have surely a general con- SOCIAL-DEMOCRATIC PHILOSOPHY I9I ception of the constitution of future society, but we leave its details to the times and circumstances when that con- ception will have to be realized. Our opponents are undoubtedly entitled to demand from us a clear state- ment of principle, but they cannot reasonably demand the particulars beforehand. These must be reserved to the Socialist legislators who in their time will have to frame bills for the legislative bodies. And history bears out this statement: What leader of the bourgeoisie, when fight- ing against feudalism, would have been able to describe all those different and multifarious institutions of bour- geois" society, as lawyers, notaries, mortgages, bills of ex- change, shares, police and a hundred other things which capitalism has brought in its train? The leaders of the bourgeois movement of freedom of trade and commerce, didn't trouble themselves prematurely with particular projects; they simply demanded from their aristocratic oppressors " the Rights of Man," and they left meanwhile the question concerning particulars unanswered. They reserved to themselves liberty of action to meet events as circumstances required. Take care of the principles and the details will take care of themselves ; time and circumstances will bring them out with unfailing certainty. Thus acted the lead- ers of the bourgeoisie. They refused to weave without material thread. And what all practical men of the past have done instinctively, we Social-democrats are doing with a clear consciousness given to us by the scien- tific method of cognition. We, too, demand the restoration of our human rights, and demand our socially due portion of the products of labor. This wish and will of ours is no idle speculation, but the natural outcome of present material wants. And so is the communist economy quite in harmony with the 192 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS nature of the present social system ; it must come ; its materials are being produced and multiplied daily. The capitalists are the real silk-worms. As soon as their silk in the shape of accumulated productive means is spun by the wageworkers, we shall know how to take it in hand and weave it. The premature question about the future When, Where and How need not trouble us, it is indeed an idle " philosophic " speculation. Our platform demands from society, by means of the general duty to work, the satisfaction of all reasonable human needs. Our opponents want us to elaborate clearly the " practical consequences " of that idea. They don't like our negative and critical attitude. We should build up and show " how it could be done " — of course, not in a serious, not in a palpable and practical way, but on paper, by means of harmless theories and ideal de- scriptions. They fail to recognize that our method is not purely ideological. In our real work we use our brains after the manner of science, and not of idle speculators. Who wants to build must lay the axe unto the roots of the existing trees, and, before all, bring down the tallest and mightiest. But this radical cutting work we must not do. We should construct the future society in spirit only, in theory. And yet they want us to do this theoret- ical work in an exact and scientific way. Well, let us first critically assort the material on hand. However, the " negation " of the unfit is inseparably connected with the construction of the better. Criticism of the present is the indispensable condition of " improvement." That work on a small scale is not profitable and that private property on a large scale exploits the workmen, is an empirical fact ; it is won experimentally by induc- tion and did not fall into our heads from the nebulous region of hazy generalities. From that fact we deduce, SOCIAL-DEMOCRATIC PHILOSOPHY 193 as a " practical conclusion," the demand for co-operative work on a rational and communal scale. Since Adam Smith, and even earlier, it is acknowledged that labor, when applied to nature which is obviously nobody's property, is the creator of all capital and rent and profit. That labor is not carried out in a private way, but that it is divided among the members of so- ciety, is as much a truism as the phrase of the " division of labor." That the division of labor as practiced to-day, is not carried out in a systematic manner, but that it is more a matter of chance which produces a glut in some articles and scarcity in other articles of the market, more- over, that the division of the produce defies all justice and humanity, are bare facts which do not admit of any doubt. From all that we draw the " practical conclu- sion," that it is in the interest of the community to abolish private property of the soil, and to transfer all the means of production, created by labor, into the possession of the community, which will share out the duties and the rights, the labor and the produce of labor, in an equitable and democratic way among all its members, according to social needs and irrespective of individual whims. The special question as to the time, means and method of the transformation, whether it should be done by means of a secret treaty with Bismarck, or by a petition to Parliament, or by a barricade fight in Paris, or by fe- male suffrage in England — all such considerations are ex- travagant, untimely and foolish. We bide our time and the material which must be submitted to our understand- ing before we can rationally think the matter out. Our cause is getting clearer every day, and the people are daily becoming more enlightened. Constant propaganda, the removal of prejudices of the public, untiring criticism, will effect much more than all 194 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS speculation about the future state of society. Its gen- eral outline is given in an unmistakable manner by the present actual nature of things. The determination of its special forms and details must be left to the enquiries of future times. The earth is wide, the sun warm, the soil fertile and the arms of the people are now strong enough to satisfy all reasonable needs of the masses, be they three times as numerous as at present. But men like Biedermann are in doubt if we have enough brains to be able to divide fairly the plentiful products of labor. He is especially anxious to know " whether all members will have the same claim to a share in the produce," that is, whether all workingmen will have only rye bread for breakfast, or whether professional work will be rewarded with an extra roll of white flour. I am not used to think much of my personal dignity, but such question I think unworthy of a Social-democratic philosopher, because its solution rests with the social needs of the future community. Biedermann speaks of " all partners of a labor product." But rightly conceived, there is only one part- ner, the working people ; and only one product, the work- ing people's product. Only from this social point of view is it possible to conceive of a just distribution, while the conception of different partners with different rights and privileges to their different products leads only to confusion and serves only those who want to fish in troubled waters. It is not good for man to be alone, says the Bible. It is likewise not good that he should work alone. The individual as well as the small societies should join the whole. Looked at from the standpoint of the whole the solution of the problem of the future so- ciety is clear enough, and from this general principle the " practical consequences " will follow in the right time SOCIAL-DEMOCRATIC PHILOSOPHY 195 and with the help of inductive enquiry quite rationally. But what about forced labor — " the limitation of one's liberty does not agree with the ideal state." Well, should we evolve the conceptions of liberty and ideal in a fan- tastic-speculative way out of the pure reason as the German professors do, then, of course, they would not agree with one another. We, however, do not seek in metaphysics for freedom, neither do we look for it in the salvation of the soul from the prison of the body, but in the adequate satisfaction of our material and intellectual needs which are all of them perceptible and bodily felt. Compulsion to labor is, properly speaking, a law of Nature and is only experienced as a limitation of our personal freedom as long as there are masters over us, who de- prive us of the produce of our labor. Does the well- paid official consider his prescribed service as a " limita- tion of his personal freedom ? " No doubt, the adequate satisfaction of all rational needs through society, that is, the social-democratic or- ganization of economics, is a big problem. Such prob- lems are not solved by any individual personality, but by history, by social evolution. And it is puerile to set them before any person, no matter how ingenious, for solu- tion. We go to work in a practical manner, and the first thing is to organize the workingmen, teach them how to defend their own interests and to overcome their powerful and numerous opponents, at first symbolically, by logical arguments ; and if they prove themselves im- pervious to all logic and persist in their actions against all morality that is born and bound by the facts of social necessity, and the analogous order of things, then with the mailed fist. Yet, we need not fear that it will come to that. We gain daily in numbers, we gain in power and in prestige. I96 * PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS As soon as the demoralized rulers will see the signs of the time and come to know our power they will court us and make friends. Those people are not the barbarians they would like to appear. And now I must apologize to my readers for having occupied their time more with Biedermann than with Philosophy ; they belong, however, insofar to the same category as they are both to be informed that we must not speculate in hazy generalities, but that we must inquire in a definite, precise and special manner into the material at hand in order to arrive at truth. IV. In the foregoing chapters we have represented Philoso- phy as the descendant of Religion and like it, though somewhat more respectable, as a fantastic speculator. To "solve the riddle of existence" — is the subject- matter of those two madcaps. The philosophers give their subject-matter various pompous titles. We have already seen that Herr von Kirchmann calls it " the science of the highest concep- tions of existence and knowledge." The famous Kant defines it as " God, Freedom and Immortality." In more recent times Duhring defined it as " the development of the highest form of consciousness of the world and life " (Kursus der Philosophic von Dr. E. Duhring, Leipzig, 1875, p. 2). "Highest form of consciousness" is scien- tific knowledge, and the " evolution " thereof is performed by researches. According to that we ought to define Philosophy as the scientific exploration of the world and life. But if one speaks in such a common-sense way the faculty of Philosophy loses its halo, moreover it becomes SOCIAL-DEMOCRATIC PHILOSOPHY I97 quite superfluous, for such an investigation is carried on successfully by the special branches of science. It seems that Diihring felt the uselessness of his philosophic guild, for he ascribes to it also the function of " practical activ- ity." Philosophy has thus not only the task to conceive world and life in a scientific manner; but to demonstrate that conception through the character and actions of its adherents. That way leads to Social-Democracy. Hav- ing advanced so far, the philosopher may, perhaps, get a deeper insight into things and do away with Philosophy altogether. To be sure no man can do without some conception of world and life, but that of Philosophy is of a kind which is utterly useless. Its wisdom is an inter- mediate stage between religion and science. The crea- tion story of the Holy Books is too childish for the philosopher, and the airy, fact-removed and purely mind- born philosophical sommersaults are too fantastic for science. We said before the method is the distinguishing feature between religion, philosophy and science. All three look for wisdom. The method of religion is to look for wisdom on the Mount Sinai behind clouds or among ghosts. Philosophy applies itself to the human mind, but as long as the mind itself is befogged by religious mists, it asks and functions in a perverted manner, that is, with- out real premises, in a speculative way or in hazy gen- eralities. The method of exact science operates with the material of the perceptible world of phenomena. As soon as we learn to know that method as the only rational one of the intellect, all fantasms are at an end. If this disquisition happens to come under the eye of a professional philosopher he will surely sneer at it, and if he condescends to reply to it he will try to explain that the men of the special sciences are uncritical materialists who accept the perceptible world of experience without I98 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS further examination into its truth. Ancl as to his operat- ing without any real premises he will refer you to the many pranks and delusions of the senses which lead us often into errors. Therefore he asks : What is truth and how do we arrive at it? Right he is. Truth is a great question. It is, especially for Social-Democrats, an interesting question. In the domain of natural science all ghost-seeing has been re- moved by a rational method. But in social life, where we have to deal with masters and servants, with labor and its produce, with right, duty, law, morality and order, there the parson and the professor of Philosophy are still regarded as authorities and each of them has his special method to mask truth. Religion and Philosophy, once harmless errors, have now been turned into crafty tricks to bamboozle the people and to serve the interests of reaction. From the lesson given in the preceeding article by Professor Biedermann we have learned that it is futile to put any question in an indefinite and hazy manner. In this respect Philosophy has put itself in opposition to sound common sense. For it does not seek, like the special branches of science, for definite empirical truths, but it seeks, like religion, for an extraordinary sort of truth, for an absolute, unreal and exaggerated one. What everybody thinks to be true, what we see, hear, feel, taste and smell, in short, our bodily sensations, do not com- mend themselves to Philosophy as sufficiently true. Nat- ural phenomena are in its eyes only appearances or sem- blances, and she refuses to have anything to do with them. That Philosophy treats Nature with disdain, it dare not admit, because natural science has gained in the last hundred years a reputation which cannot be gain- said. It is none the less certain that Philosophy seeks SOCIAL-DEMOCRATIC PHILOSOPHY 199 for a truth which is not to be found in Nature. Philo- sophic truth that can nowhere be traced must surely have an aroma of its own, and belong to a species totally dif- ferent from the natural. It is just that the philosopher labors under religious delusions and wants to go beyond all natural phenomena and looks behind this world of phenomena for another world of truth by which the first could be explained — because of all that, I say, he has taken refuge in a method without any really given premises, which tries to weave thoughts into definite materials, or, in other words, blunders about in hazy gen- eralities. Descartes is supposed to have discovered a tiny bit of that transcendental truth ; it is at least that bit on which Philosophy has been living ever since. The par- son's truth, the passive belief, which was then current, did not satisfy the philosopher. He began to make en- quiries with the doubt which he exercised to such a de- gree that he doubted everything which is visible and audible. But he noticed that one thing was certain to him, viz., the bodily sensation of his own doubt. He, therefore, put forward the proposition : Cogito, ergo sum (I am thinking, therefore do I exist). Since then it has been impossible for his successors to rid themselves of their exaggerated doubtfulness and of their quests after exaggerated truth. Far be it from me to refuse to recognize the historic importance and the keenness of mind of that famous scep- tic. He was right ; the bodily sensation of existence, my consciousness, my thinking, feeling, in short, " my soul " is, as the parson says, beyond doubt. Yet I must add, that I am ascribing to Descartes much more than he really achieved. It is like this, the philosopher had two souls, a traditionally religious and a scientific one. His philoso- phy has a mixture of both. Religion deluded him into 200 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS believing that the perceptible world was unreal, whilst his scientific cross-current tried to imbue him with the conviction that the opposite was true. With the unreal- ity, with the doubt he started out and with the state- ment of his bodily sensation of existence he proved the opposite. Yet the scientific cross-current did not succeed in gaining a full and final victory. It is only the impar- tial enquirer who, when repeating the experiment of Descartes, finds out that it is the bodily sensation which gives us certainty of the existence of the process of thought when ideas and doubts are moving about in the head. The philosopher turned the thing upside down, he wanted to prove the bodily existence of the abstract thought — he assumed to be able to prove scientifically the exaggerated truth of a religious or philosophic soul, while in reality he has only confirmed the common truth that bodily sensation exists. The sensation of profane existence Descartes mistook for a proof of the existence of a higher being. His misfortune is the general mis- fortune of all philosophy: to be purely idealistic and spellbound. I am introducing the readers of the Volksstaat to a subject-matter which they might consider too subtle. But we must make proselytes also among the scholars. So we must prove that we are well informed about " the last causes " of all things, and that our cause has its foundations laid in the deepest depths. We must make short work also of the philosophic bombast. Pure ideal- ists ! A clear-headed workingman, when coming to know them, will hardly think it possible that there are such foolish fellows. Idealists in the proper sense of the word are all aspiring men. All the more so the Social-Democrats. Our aim is a grand ideal. But the idealists in the philosophic sense are an irresponsible lot. SOCIAL-DEMOCRATIC PHILOSOPHY 201 They assert that everything we see, hear, feel, etc., that the whole world around us does not exist, but are simply flashes of our mind. They assert that our intellect is the only truth, everything else is an idea, a phantasma- gory, a mirage, an appearance in the purely ideological sense of the word. Everything which we perceive of the external world, they say, is not an objective truth, not a real thing, but only a subjective drift of our intellect. And when common sense refuses to accept such an as- sumption they will in a plausible manner demonstrate and tell you that although you see every day the sun rising in the East and setting in the West, yet science teaches quite differently and you must have recourse to science in order that you may be able to use your senses intelligently. Also a blind hen, says the proverb, finds sometimes a good grain. Such a blind hen is philosophic idealism. That the things which we see, hear or feel are not objects pure and simple, is its good grain. Also scientific physiology comes more and more to the conclusion that the various-colored objects which our eyes see, are sen- sations of our optic nerve, that all the' crude, fine and heavy which we feel, are sensations of heavy, fine and crude. Between our subjective sensations and the ob- jective things no absolute line can be drawn. The world is our perceptible world, that is, as perceived by our senses. Without eyes the objects would have no aspect whatsoever, and without a nose they would have nothing of an odor. " There is no noise without ears to hear it, and no heat and cold without a skin to feel it," said Professor W. Preyer in Jena in one of his latest articles on the " Limits of sense perception." The things of the world do not exist " in themselves," but they possess their properties only by their relation to each other. It is in 202 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS relation with sunlight and our optic nerve that the forest appears green. With another light and with a different optic nerve they might appear blue or red. Water is only liquid in relation to a certain temperature, in a low tem- perature water becomes hard and solid, in a high temper- ature it turns into gas ; it generally runs downhill, but when in touch with a loaf of sugar it runs upwards. It has no properties or existence in itself, but gets them by relation to other things. As with the water so it is with all other things. Everything is but the quality or predi- cate of Nature which is nowhere to be found in a tran- scendental objectivity or Truth, but is always round us in fleeting and form-changing appearances. The questions as to how the world would look if there were no eyes, no sun, no space, no temperature or intel- lect or sensation, are idle, and fools may investigate them. No doubt, in science as well as in life we are allowed to differentiate, to distinguish and to classify ad infinitum, but in doing that we must never forget that all things form a single unity and a connected whole. The world is a world of senses, and our senses and our intellect are worldly. This is by no means a " limitation " to man, but to those distracted ideologists who want to go beyond Nature. When we demonstrate that the im- mortal soul of the parson or the undoubted intellect of the philosopher are of the same common Nature as are all the other phenomena of the world, then we have proved that the other phenomena are as real and true as the undoubted intellect of Descartes. We not only be- lieve, assume, think that our sensation has existence, but we feel it truly and really. And conversely : The whole truth and reality is based on feeling, on bodily sensa- tion. Soul and body, or subject and object as the old SOCIAL-DEMOCRATIC PHILOSOPHY 203 joke is called by its modern name, are of the same earthly, perceptible, empirical stuff. " Life is a dream," said the ancients. Now the philoso- phers come with the latest : " The world is our Idea." Yes, but this Idea is not an absolute or transcendental Truth. It is quite sufficient when we distinguish the great, general and true dream in daylight from the more or less unconscious dreaming over night and in the dark, since in so doing we finish with pure Idealism which is the weakest and most shortcoming part of Philosophy. To base truth not on the word of God and not on tra- ditional principles, but our principles on bodily sensations — that is the cardinal point of social-democratic philosophy. V. " God formed the human body out of a clod of clay and breathed into it an immortal soul." Since that time we have the dualism or the two-world theory. The one, the bodily, the material world is dirt, and the other, the spiritual or mental ghost-world is God's breath. That little story has been secularized by Philosophy, that is, adapted to the Zeitgeist. The visible, audible and tangi- ble, the bodily reality is still regarded as dirty clay, while to the thinking mind is given the kingdom of a tran- scendental Truth, Beauty and Freedom. Just as the world has a bad name in the Bible, so also in Philosophy. Among all phenomena or objects which Nature offers, Philosophy finds only one object worthy of attention, namely, the mind, the old breath of God ; and that only because it appears to those queer heads as a transcen- dental, unnatural, metaphysical thing. It is surely per- mitted to the inquirer to limit himself to one object, but he must not deify it, nor tear it from its interconnection, 204 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS nor worship it in an exaggerated manner. The philos