Principles of western civilisation

Iv WESTERN LIBERALISM 127

subordinated to the ends of a process of which the controlling meaning is infinite in the future. The world, as has been said, has been hitherto occupied for the most part with economic criticisms of the manifestoes of Marxian social Democracy. Nothing, however, can exhibit in a more striking light the deficiency in the existing science of society. All such criticism is in reality beside the question. For the full criticism of the Marxian position cannot be put into any merely economic formulas.? A condition of social Democracy, founded on the

1 Marx considered religion destined to finally vanish when social relations became reasonable according to his view. Although the sixth clause of the demands of the social democratic party of Germany in the programme of the Congress of Erfurt (189) contains a declaration that religion is a private affair, we must regard this as no more than evidence that the previously avowed stand-point of the party in this matter was felt to bea tactical mistake in practical politics. No close student of Marx, and of the existing movement, can fail to see that not simply is the condition of dissociation implied, but that the principle of direct antagonism is necessarily involved. As Mr. Russell, speaking of the history of the social democratic movement in Germany, points out, ‘At the annual congress of 1872 a resolution was passed desiring all members of the party to withdraw from religious organisations, and, from this time on, the attitude of the party has been avowedly hostile to all existing religions. It is sufficiently evident that the materialistic theory of history leaves no room for religion, since it regards all dogmas as the product of economic conditions” (German Social Democracy).

® The present writer has shown at length elsewhere (Soctal Evolution, chap. viii.) that the factor in modern life which has enabled Marx to anticipate the growing power of the workers, and to picture a stage at which they will proceed to seize and socialise the means of production, is entirely independent of the economic situation. The real factor is that the exploited classes, as the result of the ethical development associated with our civilisation, are being slowly admitted to the exercise of political power on a footing which tends more and more to be one of actual equality with those who have hitherto held them in subjection. The materialistic evolution of Marx depends, in short, for its motive power on a movement of which Marx would cut off the springs by the materialistic theory of history. Mr. Russell, who has since dealt with this aspect of the Marxian movement, puts the position quite clearly, “A great confusion thus arises between Marx’s wholly unmoral fatalism, and the purely moral demand for justice and equality on the part of his followers. This confusion could not fail to arise, for Marx’s fatalism is based on the moral ideals of the proletariat and their necessary victory ; proletariat disciples of