Communism and Christianism / Analyzed and Contrasted from the Marxian and Darwinian Points of View

by William Montgomery Brown

Civilization is salvation. The civilization which is salvation depends on leisure and it on slavery, but so long as leisure is dependent upon the slavery of man, civilization must be limited to a diminishing few.

Marxian socialism is a movement towards the equalization and universalization of leisure by doing away with the master and slave classes, through transference of slavery from man to machine.

If there is any truth in my naturalistic representation about the dependence of morality upon a system for the production of the necessities of life, there is none in the supernaturalistic one, which makes it dependent on any among the gods; and, what is true of the realm of morality is equally so of the realm of history, and this whether it be the history of the universe in general or man in particular.

Lavoisier and Mayer showed that no god (Jesus, Jehovah, Allah, Buddha) created the universe out of nothing, for the matter and force which enter into its constitution are eternalities and universalities.

Kant and Laplace showed that the earth and the heavenly bodies were not created by any god at all, but evolved from gaseous nebulae.

Kepler and Newton showed that these bodies were not governed in their motions by a god but by the law of gravitation.

Darwin and Wallace showed that the species of animal and vegetable life were not created by any among the gods, but evolved from a common protoplasm.

Marx and Engels showed that man's career has not been determined by any among the gods, but by his systems for producing and distributing the necessities of life.

These ten men are the greatest teachers the world has had, and this is the sum of all their great teachings: The universe is self-existing, self-sustaining and self-governing, having all the potentialities of its own life within itself, and what is true of it in general is equally so of all the phenomena which enter into its constitution, including man; who, though he is the highest among them, is only a phenomenon, on a level with all the rest, not excepting the lowest. A microbe and a man are on the same footing, both as to their origin and destiny, and as to their having within themselves all power which is available for making the most of their respective lives.

"We are part Of every rock and bird and beast and hill, One with the things that prey on us, And one with what we kill."