[66] See in Antidühring, p. 303, the historical justification of class divisions.
[67] From among the many passages which support this interpretation, cf. Antidühring, pp. 152-3, 206 and especially pp. 61-2, and the preface to the German translation of Misère de la Philosophie, 2nd ed. Stuttgart, 1892 pp. ix-x, cf. also Labriola, o.c. Lett. VIII.
[68] See Labriola, o.c. l. cit., the remarks on the difficulty with which the theory of historical materialism meets owing to mental dispositions, and amongst those who wish to moralise socialism.
One instance, in some respects analogous to this which arises from the discussions on Marx's ethics, is the traditional criticism of Machiavelli's ethics: which was refuted by De Sanctis (in the remarkable chapter devoted to Machiavelli, in his Storia della letteratura), but which continually recurs and is inserted even in Professor Villari's book, who finds this defect in Machiavelli: that he did not consider the moral question.
I have always asked myself for what reason, by what obligation, by what agreement, Machiavelli was bound to discuss all kinds of questions, even those for which he had neither preparation nor sympathy. Can it be said, by way of example, to some one who is researching in chemistry:—Your weak and erroneous spot is that you have not gone back from your detailed investigations to the general metaphysical enquiries into the principles of reality?—Machiavelli starts from the establishment of a fact: the condition of war in which society found itself; and gives rules suited to this state of affairs. Why should he, who was not cut out for a moral philosopher, discuss the ethics of war? He goes straight to practical conclusions. Men are wicked—he says—and to the wicked it is needful to behave wickedly. You will deceive him who would certainly deceive you. You will do violence to him who would do violence to you. These maxims are neither moral nor immoral, neither beneficial nor harmful; they become one of the two according to the subjective aims and the objective effects of the action, i.e. according to the intentions and the results. What is evident is that a morality which desired to introduce into war the maxims of peace would be a morality for lambs fit for the slaughter, not for men who wish to repel injustice and to maintain their rights. 'And if men were all good, this precept would not be good, etc., etc.' says Machiavelli himself. (Principe, ch. xviii). Villari is also troubled by the old formula concerning the 'end which justifies the means' and the 'moral end' and the 'immoral means'. It is however sufficient to consider that the means, just because they are means, cannot be divided into moral and immoral, but merely into suitable and unsuitable. Immoral means, unless as an expression in current speech, is a contradiction in terms. The qualification moral or immoral can only belong to the end. And, in the examples usually given, an analysis made with a little accuracy shows at once, that it is never a question of immoral means but of immoral ends. The height of the confusion is reached by those who introduce into the question the absurd distinction of private and public morality.
I may be pardoned the digression; but, as I said, questions which are really analogous re-appear now in connection with the ethical maxims of Marxism.
[69] And it would be to the point to draw a comparison between the peasants' rebellions, with which modern Italy has supplied us with another example in recent years, and the political struggles of the German workmen, or the economic struggles of the Trade Unions in England.
[70] See in particular P.I. ch. ix., Moral und Recht, Ewige Wahrheiten.
[71] See, in particular, Marx's ideas: Ueber Feuerbach, in 1845, in the appendix to Engels' book, Ludwig Feuerbach und der Ausgang der Klassischen deutschen Philosophie, 2nd ed. Stuttgart, 1895, pp. 59-62; and cf. Andler in Revue de metaphysique, 1897, Labriola, o.c. passim and Gentile, l.c., p. 319. From this point of view (i.e. limiting the statement to the theory of knowledge) we might speak like Labriola of historical materialism as a philosophy of practice, i.e. as a particular way of conceiving and solving, or rather of over-coming, the problem of thought and of existence. The philosophy of practice has now been designedly studied by Gentile in the volume referred to.
[72] Some interpretations would be merely verbal explanations. To some it will appear a very hard statement that socialism aims at abolishing the State. Yet it suffices to consider that the State, among socialists, is synonymous with difference of classes and the existence of governing classes, to understand that as in such a case, we can speak of the origin of the State, so we can speak of its end; which does not mean the end of organised society (cf. Antidühring, p. 302). The conception of the way in which capitalist society will come to an end demands no little critical working out; on this point the thought of Marx and Engels is not without obscurities and inconsistencies (cf. Antidühring, pp. 287 et seq. and p. 297).