Feuerbach

by Friedrich Engels

Enrico Ferri, the famous Italian member of the Chamber of Deputies and criminologist, appears to be at one with Bax in this matter. He says, quoting from a recent translation of his "Socialism and Modern Science": "It is perfectly true that every phenomenon as well as every institution—moral, juridicial or political—is simply the result of the economic phenomena and the conditions of the transitory, physical and historical environments. But as a consequence of that law of natural causality which tells us that every effect is always the resultant of numerous concurrent causes, and not of one cause alone, and that every effect becomes in its turn a cause of other phenomena, it is necessary to amend and complete the too rigid form that has been given to this true idea.

"Just as all psychical manifestations of the individual are the result of the organic conditions (temperament) and of the environment in which he lives, in the same way, all the social manifestations of a people are the resultant of their organic conditions (race) and of the environment, as these are the determining causes of the given economic organization which is the physical basis of life."

These may be said to be fairly representative of the views of the opposition to the extreme of economic determinism.

The whole controversy has spread over a tremendous amount of ground and involves much reading. Some of the chief results have lately been summarized by Professor Seligman in his "Economic Interpretation of History." (Macmillan, 1902.) His written views show a closer approximation to and understanding of the teachings of the socialist philosophy on this subject than we have been accustomed to receive at the hands of official savants, so that it would seem as if the value of Marx's work was at last beginning to be appreciated even in the foggy studies of the professors. Two extracts from the writings of Engels are quoted by Professor Seligman. These extracts apparently go to prove that Engels by no means contemplated the extreme construction which has been placed upon the doctrine, and that he would find such a construction inconsistent with his general views.

These extracts are quoted here for the purpose of further elucidating the views of Engels and as further explanatory of the position assumed by him in the last part of the work under consideration.

They form part of a series of articles written for the "Sozialistische Akademiker" in 1890, and are as follows:

"Marx and I are partly responsible for the fact that the younger men have sometimes laid more stress on the economic side than it deserves. In meeting the attacks of our opponents it was necessary for us to emphasize the dominant principle denied by them, and we did not always have the time, place, or opportunity to let the other factors which were concerned in the mutual action and reaction get their deserts."

And in another letter to the same magazine he says: "According to the materialistic view of history, the factor which is, in last instance, decisive in history is the production and reproduction of actual life. More than this neither Marx nor I have ever asserted. But when anyone distorts this so as to read that the economic factor is the sole element he converts the statement into a meaningless, abstract, absurd phrase. The economic condition is the basis, but the various elements of the superstructure—the political forms of the class-contests, and their results, the constitutions—the legal forms and also all the reflexes of these actual contests in the brains of the participants, the political, legal, philosophical theories, the religions views—all these exert an influence on the development of the historical struggles, and in many instances determine their form."

Here we may leave this much disputed matter for the present, as any involved discussion of controversial questions would be out of place here. The question in its ultimate form is merely scholastic, for not even the most extreme determinist would hold that only the economic argument must be relied upon by the orators and the press of the proletarian movement. Any one, however, who wishes to pursue the subject farther can find abundant material in the already great and growing amount of literature in connection with it.